Wikipedia:Featured article review

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Reviewing featured articles
Shortcuts:
WP:FAR
WP:FARC

This page is for the review and improvement of featured articles that may no longer meet the featured article criteria. FAs are held to the current standards regardless of when they were promoted.

There are two stages in the process, to which all users are welcome to contribute.

Featured article review (FAR)

  • In this step, possible improvements are discussed without declarations of "keep" or "remove". The aim is to improve articles rather than to demote them. Nominators must specify the featured article criteria that are at issue and should propose remedies. The ideal review would address the issues raised and close with no change in status.
  • Reviews can improve articles in various ways: Articles may need updating, formatting, and general copyediting. More complex issues, such as a failure to meet current standards of prose, comprehensiveness, factual accuracy, and neutrality, may also be addressed.
  • The featured article director, Raul654, or his delegates Marskell and Joelr31, determine either that there is consensus to close during this first stage, or that there is insufficient consensus to do so and, thus, that the nomination should be moved to the second stage.

Featured article removal candidate (FARC)

  • An article is never listed as a removal candidate without first undergoing a review. In this second stage, participants may declare "keep" or "remove", supported by substantive comments, and further time is provided to overcome deficiencies.
  • Reviewers who declare "remove" should be prepared to return towards the end of the process to strike out their objections if they have been addressed.
  • The featured article director or his delegates determine whether there is consensus for a change in the status of a nomination, and close the listing accordingly.

Each stage typically lasts two to three weeks, or longer where changes are ongoing and it seems useful to continue the process. Nominations are moved from the review period to the removal list, unless it is very clear that editors feel the article is within criteria. Given that extensions are always granted on request, as long as the article is receiving attention, editors should not be alarmed by an article moving from review to the removal candidates' list.

Older reviews are stored in the archive. A bot will update the article talk page after the review is closed and moved to archives.

Purge the cache to refresh this page

Featured content:

Featured article tools:

Toolbox

Nominating an article for FAR

Nominators typically assist in the process of improvement; they may post only one nomination at a time, should not nominate articles that are featured on the main page (or have been featured there in the previous three days), and should avoid segmenting review pages. Three to six months is regarded as the minimum time between promotion and nomination here, unless there are extenuating circumstances such as a radical change in article content.

  1. Place {{FAR}} at the top of the talk page of the nominated article. Write "FAR listing" in the edit summary box. Click on "Save page".
    Note: if an article has already been through the FAR/C process, use the Move button to rename the previous nomination to an archive. For example, Wikipedia:Featured article review/Television → Wikipedia:Featured article review/Television/archive1
  2. From there, click on the "add a comment" link.
  3. Place ===[[name of nominated article]]=== at the top of the subpage.
  4. Below this title, write your reason(s) for nominating the article, specifying the FA criterion/criteria that are at issue, then click on "Save page".
  5. Click here, and place your nomination at the top of the list of nominated articles, {{Wikipedia:Featured article review/name of nominated article}}, filling in the exact name of the nominated article. Click on "Save page".
  6. Notify relevant parties by adding {{subst:FARMessage|Articlename}} to relevant talk pages (insert article name). Relevant parties include main contributors to the article (identifiable through article stats script), the editor who originally nominated the article for Featured Article status (identifiable through the Featured Article Candidate link in the Article Milestones), and any relevant WikiProjects (identifiable through the talk page banners, but there may be other Projects that should be notified). Leave a message at the top of the FAR indicating who you have notified and that notifications have been completed.

Contents


[edit] Featured article reviews

[edit] Trigonometric functions

Notified: User talk:Stevenj, User talk:Jagged 85, User talk:Michael Hardy, User talk:Ricardo sandoval, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics. --Ioannes Pragensis (talk) 12:44, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

An old FA, needs to be updated to the current standards:

  • 1a / 2b - better structured, no short paragraphs
  • 1b - more about the early history of the subject, more about applications
  • 1c - more inline references (history, proofs of mathematical properties)
  • 3 - partly duplicite images in the lead, more images in the body of text
  • some minor WP:MOS issues (formatting, white spaces in the article due to badly placed images etc.)

I hope that it will help to make the article better.--Ioannes Pragensis (talk) 12:30, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Comment: I like the article, but it seems to need some work to remain FA. Some thoughts:

  • There is very little material on applications. I guess some example formulae where they show up would be good. The content of uses of trigonometry should be summarized here, too.
  • The preceding comment is actually an instance of a more general wish: I wish the article has more of a motivational section or flavor. What are sin, cos, cosec etc. good for?
  • "The set of zeroes of sine (i.e., the values of x for which sinx = 0) is {nπ, ...}" - this shows up in the "Right triangle definitions" part. It is not clear whether this is to be read as a definition of π Is it? If so, make this more clear. If not, this way of defining pi should be somewhere in this article, I think. In the same section, it should be mentioned somehow that tan is not defined (or defined to be infinity) if cos = 0. This may not be clear to a lay reader otherwise.
  • The fact, that every periodic function can be expressed by sin and cos deserves a more elaborate mention here, I feel. (This could go in an "Applications" section)
  • There are very little specific references. I'm convinced that every argument in the article is somewhere in the refs. But, historical claims should be backed up by a precise ref. Also things like "From a theorem in complex analysis, there is a unique analytic extension of this real function to the complex numbers." should be given a precise reference to a book (so that the reader can look up, which theorem it is).
  • The table "Trigonometric functions in the complex plane" needs a caption!
  • From a quick scan of the ref list, I see that there seems to be no "standard" math textbook covering the themes of complex series and so on. Please give on or two standard analysis books. References should be formatted with citation templates. Some of them are more external links than academic refs(?).
  • The "other useful properties" section contains only one property. Perhaps this should be merged somehow with the preceding sections. Jakob.scholbach (talk) 13:14, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Comment: The pictures "Trigonometric functions in the complex plane" are not properly explained (where are the axes, what is the meaning of colors).--Ioannes Pragensis (talk) 16:54, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 1896 Summer Olympics

Notified: WP:OLY, WP:GREECE, User:Jonel, User:Jeronimo, User:Andrwsc, User:Nipsonanomhmata

This article, promoted more than three years ago, now fails a few criterion in my view:

  • 1a: The writing isn't bad but needs improvements. I count at least five one-sentence paragraphs, including the second paragraph of the lead. The prose could use a fresh copy-edit.
  • 1c: This is the big one. There are only seven citations in the article, and many sections are uncited. Statistics should always be referenced, and as a sports article this is full of them. There are also several uncited quotes. The referencing is just not up to current standards. Hopefully someone will have the listed reference books and cite statements with them; unfortunately I don't.
  • 1d: A few scattered concerns. For example, Fencing describes competitors as "masters".
  • 3: The infobox image's tag states "If the work is not a U.S. work, the file must have an additional copyright tag indicating the copyright status in the source country." No such tag is present. Other pictures may be missing information, but I am not a photo expert, so I'll let others comment on them.

Overall, although I hope it stays featured, it will need quite a bit of work to do so. Giants2008 (talk) 20:44, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Notifications request Please complete the nomination by following the instructions at the top of WP:FAR to notify significant contributors and relevant WikiProjects, and post the notifications back to the top of this FAR. Thank you. --Regents Park (roll amongst the roses) 20:53, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

See above. Giants2008 (talk) 21:12, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
  • I haven't gone through the article yet, but I do just want to note that "master" is somewhat of a term of art in fencing, and refers in this context to those who teach fencing for payment. This makes them professionals rather than amateurs, which in all of the other sports would have disqualified them from Olympic competition. In 1896 and 1900, separate events were held for masters and amateurs. It is a technical term; does this need to be clarified? As for citations, much of the information does come from the Lampros report, which is available online for any helpful people who have some time to go through it to find the specific references. -- Jonel (Speak to me) 21:51, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Caesar cipher

This remains a well written, stable and (likely) accurate article, however it lacks a good lead, is too short and has a critical lack of citations, both inline and not.

The nominating user Matt Crypto, WP version 0.5 and Wikiproject Cryptography have each been notified of this discussion. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 17:23, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

  • I agree that the citations are not up to modern standards, but I would quibble with your assertion that it's too short. According to the FA criteria, a featured article merely needs to be comprehensive, that is, "it neglects no major facts or details". You might know of some gaps, but the topic of the Caesar cipher is not a large one, and I would argue that it is covered comprehensively here. Also, what problems do you see with the lead section -- it appears to be roughly the right size for an article of this length, if that's what you meant, as per the guidelines of Wikipedia:LEAD#Length. — Matt Crypto 18:22, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Yea, I'll withdraw the remark about length and the lead. It needs to have its references flushed out and it should be fine. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 06:08, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Holkham Hall

This article, actually with FA status, is not worthy of have the brown star. I think this because the following motivations:

  • Bad referenced: a lon bibliography and some external links, but where are the notes? The second note needs a reference -_- ;
  • Bad article organization: there isn't a paragraph for the history, because all is mixed in the various paragraphs (example: in "Interior" there is some history);
  • There aren't the links to the dates and to the years.

This isn't a good example for new users that are searching an example for FA. Mojska all you want 10:27, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Notifications request Request Please complete the nomination by following the instructions at the top of WP:FAR to notify significant contributors and relevant WikiProjects, and post the notifications back to the top of this FAR. Thank you. --Regents Park (roll amongst the roses) 12:22, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

  • "Bad referenced": what does "a lon bibliography" refer too? The article contains a reference section, listing 11 books.
  • "Bad article organization ": for my money, to follow the fates of the house—re-building, additions, etc— from the early 18th century up to today is the only reasonable structure for this type of subject, and makes for a vigorous, enjoyable reading experience. How else would you organize it?
  • "There aren't the links to the dates and to the years ": no, there aren't, and there aren't supposed to be. "Links to date elements that do not contain both a day number and a month are not required; for example, solitary months, solitary days of the week, solitary years, decades, centuries, and month and year combinations. Such links must not be used unless the reader needs to follow the link to understand the topic; see WP:CONTEXT."[1]
  • "This isn't a good example for new users that are searching an example for FA." Yes, it is. Bishonen | talk 14:17, 11 June 2008 (UTC).
  • Footnotes are fundamental for a FA, and this article has only 2 notes !! The article may be more tidy: History --> Architecture [subparagraphs] --> Modern history. What of these books do you get for say that "The cost of the construction of Holkham is thought to have been in the region of £90,000 (allowing for inflation, approximately £8m in 2006)" or "building was to continue for thirty years until in 1764 the great house was completed". I want to translate this article in Italian, but there aren't many references (for references I say footnotes). Can you save it? Thanks. Mojska all you want 17:03, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
As it happens, the main author (who you're asked to notify, please see Regents Park's post above) is himself Italian, User:Giano II, see the FAC nomination and discussion. I suggest you contact him at his user talk. That might be simpler than listing it on this board. (And perhaps more likely to meet with success than opening with telling him how bad you think it is.) Just a suggestion. Bishonen | talk 19:30, 11 June 2008 (UTC).
  • I agree that this article is not up to FA status. The criteria for wikipedia is verifiability and the way it is written, none of this can be verified. It doesn't have any in-line references, merely a list of sources. As there is no indication of what text comes from which sources it is impossible to tell who made the rather sweeping statements, and which of them (if any) are the personal interpretation of the contributor. For instance:

"Holkham Hall is one of England's finest examples of the Palladian revival style of architecture, the severity of the design being closer to Palladio's ideals than many of the other numerous Palladian style houses of the period." Who says so?

"It is thought he first met Burlington, the aristocratic architect at the forefront of the Palladian revival movement in England, and William Kent in Italy in 1715; it is possible that there in the original home of Palladianism, the idea of a new mansion at Holkham was conceived" It is thought by whom? These are just weasel words if they are not attributed to someone.

"The external appearance of Holkham can best be described as a huge Roman palace. However, as with most architectural designs, it is never quite that simple. Holkham is a Palladian house, and yet even by Palladian standards the external appearance of Holkham is austere and devoid of ornament (see illustration)." Who says it can be best described as a Roman Palace? The rest of it sounds very POV to me. "See Illustration" sounds like "it's obvious- just take a look"

"The Palladian style was beloved by Whigs such as Thomas Coke, who liked to identify themselves with the Romans of antiquity" Did they - who says so?

"Above the windows of the piano nobile, where on a true Palladian structure the windows of a mezzanine would be, there is nothing. The reason for this is the double height of the state rooms on the piano nobile; however, not even a blind window is permitted to alleviate the severity of the facade" Who says that's the reason?

"This vast cost nearly ruined the heirs of the 1st Earl, but had the result that they were financially unable to alter the house to suit the whims of taste. Thus, the house has remained almost untouched since its completion in 1764. Today, this perfect, if severe, example of Palladianism…………etc." These sort of assertions need to be verifiable and at the moment they aren't"

The section on "The estate, park & gardens" had developed into an awful mess until I tidied it up a week or so ago, so I do get the impression that nobody is really keeping an eye on the article to ensure it keeps its FA status. However, having said that, there do seem to be some wp:ownership issues here. Someone flagged up the problem with references with a "nofootnotes" tag and User:Giano II removed it and left the following comment in the edit summary " it is quite clear to me! If you hava a problem do some research." Well if he wrote the article then it would be clear to him wouldn't it? Richerman (talk) 11:55, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Since I avoid working on articles with FA status, I hope that someone will notify me when this one is de-listed, so I can begin footnoting the obvious assertions and mainstream observations. --Wetman (talk) 00:33, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Excel Saga

Notified: WP:Anime, WP:COMEDY, User:Monocrat, User:Grm wnr

On March 28th, I posted this note to the talk page noting that the article no longer met the FA criteria: "This article really needs a work over to bring it inline with the MOS and with WP:LEAD. It was promoted to FA almost 2 years ago, but if it were back up for FA, it would fail miserably. Anyone willing to tackle the needed MOS and lead fixes?" The note went unanswered until May 15th, when the original primary contributer who put it in the current format only argued that his format was better. No substantive work was done to bring it inline, nor any discussion on other issues. As I feel more than enough time has been given to do anything at all, I'm now bringing here for formal review. I feel the article fails the following criteria:

  • 1a: It is not well written, with tone and prose issues throughout
  • 1b: It is missing some of the very basic information required for anime/manga articles, like the manga serialization and publication information, and anime airing and release information (some of this appears to have been shoved off to List of Excel Saga media, which is an inappropriate per project consensus
  • 1c: It has some unsourced statements, including interpretative statements; some of the "refs" are not references at all, including 1, 2, 4, 10-15, 24, 27, 28, 30, 43; many of those are personal notes that are also unreferenced. Ref 21 is an IMDB trivia page. Ref 41 is a dead link to a retail site. Several other references are non-reliable, including Anime Boredum and Digitally Obsessed.
  • 2a: fails WP:LEAD and doesn't follow the general construction of anime/manga series leads
  • 2b: badly fails this; does not follow WP:MOS-AM at all; structure is jumbled and confusing, jumping from place to place, with the plot badly mixed with interpretative statements. I attempted to fix the MoS issues but couldn't because of the odd sections and mixed up content within each.
  • 2c: Not all refs properly formatted, and ref 31 combines 8 refs in one
  • 3: at times it fails this, current discussion on going over excessive non-free images; also disagreement on whether infobox image is appropriate, or if it should be using the first volume instead of the selected volume preferred by the uploading editor "for aesthetic reasons"
  • 4: Seems to have excessive plot summary

-- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 00:45, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

  • 1a. I'll copy-edit as time permits. Two years have passed, so I should be less close to the text.
  • 1b. Fair point about the serialization data. I'm just not sure where to find it, which of course is not your problem. :)
  • 1c. Specific thoughts to follow at a later time. It would be immediately helpful in focusing efforts, though, if citation-needed tags were applied as desired. Also, the worst offending notes will be removed, although I think the Anime Boredom and Digitally Obsessed survive WP:V#Self, though I suppose that's for this room to decide. Is the "best there is" still relevant precedent?
  • 2a. I'll look into this once the body is taken care of.
  • 2b. The only real difference between this and the structure suggested by WP:MOS-AM is that what would normally be two separate sections are merged under one H2 tag. I'm inclined to agree that it needs condensing; perhaps even transferring to the section's introduction a few details from each of the first three subsections and deleting what remains of them.
  • 2c. Will look into this generally. On the specific point of note 31, I'm not sure how to "improve" it. Wouldn't eight separate footnote-call-outs in one sentence would be a bit excessive, especially when the underlying point is not under dispute? Still, advice is solicited and welcome.
  • 4. If anything, there's too much character material. See response to 2b.
--Monocrat (talk) 02:36, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
In another recent conversation, I think a PR in prep for FLC, it was agreed that Anime Bordom did not meet RS. And I don't think "the best there is" would work for what those items reference. Excel Saga should have plenty of coverage in reliable sources that should negate need to use those less reliable ones. For the serialization data, however, Anime News Network is a WP:RS, so it can be used if nothing else is available. Actually, now that I think about it, I did say I was going to clean up the media list and properly split it into an episode and chapter list. The leads for those include the serialization data, so if you want to concentrate on fixing the other issues, I'll work on those two which will provide the info that can be dropped into the appropriate manga and anime media sections (when they exist) :)
Also, the article does not follow WP:MOS-AM in other ways than just the two sections merged into one. It has no media section at all. The Plot section isn't a plot section at all, with the odd sectioning, and characters should be separate. Its lacking a production section, with the information instead spattered throughout the article. Its something I originally intended to try and fix, but I just couldn't sort out the contents in the individual sections well enough to do it.
For ref 31, I'd make the sentence more specific (I believe "several" is a general no no in prose), and then ref each instance individually. This is what was done in some others that have topped the charts. Google Books bring up a few possible hits, and it does appear in the Anime Encyclopedia (possibly other anime/manga books as well). -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 02:57, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
"Several" is gone from that sentence, but I'm unconvinced about separate notes. Could we table that for now? You're right about the media section. Sorry for not noting that; I was focusing on your specific mention of the character/plot situation. We will have to iron out our differences about the plot section over the coming days, though my goal is to render it moot. While I'd appreciate a link to that discussion about Anime Boredom, I'd rather let this room make the final call on which of the sources are acceptable. And "should have plenty of coverage in reliable sources" and "has plenty of coverage in reliable sources" are two separate things. :-) I would gladly be proved wrong, though! --Monocrat (talk) 03:25, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Here ya go, took me a bit to remember where it was LOL Wikipedia:Peer review/List of Naruto characters/archive1. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 03:32, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks! I've looked into Anime Boredom, and they seem to have scored about thirty interviews with industry types (exclusively anglophone industry-types, as far as I can tell, though); they've been operating for about four years, and three of the main reviewers Joseph (Joe) Woods, David Rasmussen, John Huxley have put out quite reviews that seems roughly comparable to ANN's. (Rasmussen alone has about 27 interviews to his name.) I can't tell how selective they are in letting people write reviews, although they seem to let people have pen-names, which costs them a bit in my book. Not sure how much this buys in terms of WP:RS, but there it is.--Monocrat (talk) 04:16, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
That's more than enough; the site meets the guidelines requirements. In the link provided by Collectonian there was no actual argument against the site: Collectonian didn't know it, and Sephiroth BCR just said "cut the site". In any case, the site doesn't need to be "notable"; it needs to reliable. This is important because having some notability, that is to be cite or quoted in other sites or sources, doesn't mean the site is reliable. Kazu-kun (talk) 04:45, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Comments The main criteria, which current FACs judge sources on, is the editorial process of the site/media concerned. Hence certain factors would help in establishing reliability of a site, such as:
  • professional (i.e. paid) staff
  • page stating the process of screening and checking articles
  • bigwig corporate support (large media firms tend to have editorial processes in place for their acquisitions)
  • the authors are acknowledged (by reliable sources) as industry experts, or have shown their expertise
Anime Boredom qualifies in none of these areas. That said, here is a list of sites that should qualify as RS for their information on Excel Saga.
You might wish to contact Ealdgyth to find out if a certain site might be judged reliable. She is usually the one the FACs turn to on evaluating reliable sources. Jappalang (talk) 05:29, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
The DVDTalk and the Read About Comics are new to me. Thanks for them and for the clarification, Jappalang!--Monocrat (talk) 05:37, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Wait, Anime Boredom does state in their help page they do the required process of screening and checking articles before publishing them. So the site does meet the fact-checking asked by the policy. Kazu-kun (talk) 06:19, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
The simple answer is no, it does not. The text in the page you mentioned is under "Why haven't you posted my review/article?" and states that they are proofed for grammar and tone, not factuality. ("However, not all reviews and articles will be accepted if they don't meet with certain criteria. Please make sure your work is over 400 words (preferably much more) with minimal spelling and grammatical errors. Reviews and articles that belittle other authors work will be ignored...save your criticism for the forum!")[7] In general in accordance with WP:RS and WP:V, community (fan) sites are frowned upon due to the premise that their information presented is unreliable in the sense that anyone regardless of their expertise can submit their opinion and have it published. To be plainly honest here, common users submitting reviews have no standing equal to writers acknowledged to be experts in the anime industry. Jappalang (talk) 06:42, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
But acknowledgement as an expert is the requirement for self-published sources, which is not the case here. In this case it's not about the writer, but whether the review has been checked on or not. If there's an editorial process, then the site is not a fan site, and meets the criteria for this particular kind of source. Kazu-kun (talk) 07:00, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
Nope. Who writes the article matters as well ("This means that we only publish the opinions of reliable authors"). Furthermore, having a lite editorial process does not mean a site is not a fan site; checking for grammar and tone does not make the submitter a reliable author (nor the site reliable). Jappalang (talk) 07:22, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
I expect you know that "nope" has a noticeable condescending tone. Anyway, a reliable author is not the same as an expert. We're talking about people who have interviewed representatives from anime/manga companies such as Seven Seas Entertainment, Tokyopop, ADV, etc; these companies don't give interviews to fan sites, which is proof of two things: they're recognized by the anime/manga industry as part of the industry itself (and therefore they're competence on the subject), and they're trusted (that they would not alter the content of a interview, for example). Besides the reviews are indeed checked upon by an editorial department. Overall, I still think the site meets the criteria.
Also, I was thinking we should continue this discussion elsewhere. It's starting to get a bit disruptive here. Kazu-kun (talk) 18:53, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
I have been told by certain people that a single "no" is curt (rude), but nothing about the informal "nope", so your point is? Reporting interviews does not give sites reliability. Anyone can accost someone involved in the industry at a convention and request for an interview. Chances are they will get it for PR reasons and goodwill. Several interviews reported on sites are in fact based on group interviews where the interviewee sits down with several gathered people and is fired with questions from anyone. Certain sites "leeched" questions asked by others and posted them as their own. Who guarantees that the posted interview was not altered or made up in any way? As for editorial processes, simple grammar and tone checks do not fulfill the "stringent" aspect requested for reliable sources. Furthermore as already stated, the fundamental concern is the author's reliability. Hence, user submissions, with an unknown submitter's background, are out. If you can find recent FACs or wide discussions on RS that approve of such submissions, please let us know. For now, Anime Boredom is unlikely to get approved as a source in an FAC. Jappalang (talk) 23:17, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
The following should be excellent additions to the article.
As printed sources, they counter systematic bias towards online sources and are more likely to fare better at being reliable sources in FACs. Jappalang (talk) 01:28, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks again, Jappalang! The Telotte text should be particularly useful.--Monocrat (talk) 01:56, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Have notified User:Lord Emsworth the main editor and nominator and wp:Version 0.5. Notifications completed.

  • 1(c) Needs more in-line citations for quotations and opinions. Tom (talk) 02:09, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

9 references total in a 47 kb article. Definitely doesn't fill the criteria. Noble Story (talk • contributions) 11:20, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I would lose that graph in the middle of the article. Buc (talk) 20:27, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Comment - Terrible article. Only 10 refs, poor prose, poor layout and a short lead (see WP:LEAD). The graph in the middle is cramped and difficult to read. A large amount of work is required to bring this up to 2008 FA standards. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 12:25, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] San Francisco, California

I do not believe this article meet the current Featured Article criteria. The prose is generally good but could use some polishing (eg. "The gay rights contributions and leadership the city has shown since the 1970s has resulted in the powerful presence gays and lesbians have in civic life."; explanation of what the NFL is and/or what sport the 49ers play). Much of the article is unreferenced (including almost all of the Transportation section). As far as style guidelines, I believe the lead should capture more of the article and the images should not be placed under level 2 headings--"Do not place left-aligned images directly below second-level (===) headings, as this disconnects the heading from the text it precedes. Instead, either right-align the image, remove it, or move it to another relevant location."--in addition, several could use better captions, and now that I'm looking at it, there is an image of a rainbow flag, but the significance of the flag is not mentioned in the article). Several references lack essential information, and consistent reference formatting is needed. GaryColemanFan (talk) 15:37, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

If you don't like that one sentence (I don't either) please fix it.
The NFL is linked. If you don't know what NFL is, following the link will tell you. If articles defined all potentially unfamiliar terms, they would be 3x as long, extremely tedious, and no one would read them.
On the contrary, very little of the article is unreferenced. It has 107 footnotes, cited 114 times. There are 7072 words in the article, for a ratio of one cite for every 62 words. The policy of WP:Verifiability states that attribution is required for direct quotes and for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged. Please be more specific about unreferenced statements in the article that are direct quotes or material which is likely to be challenged.
Please be more specific about references that "lack essential information" or which are inconsistently formatted.
The Rainbow Flag is linked. See my comment above about NFL.
Standards for featured article are:
1) well-written, comprehensive, factually accurate, neutral, stable. (CHECK)
2a) it has a concise lead summarizing the topic (CHECK)
2b) it has a structure of hierarchical headings (CHECK)
2c) it has consistent citations (CHECK) (please give specifics where you don't believe this is true)
3) it has images where appropriate with succinct captions (CHECK) (note use of "succinct")
4) it stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail (CHECK) (c.f. NFL and Rainbow Flag)
I think your concerns about the Featured Article status of San Francisco article, fall under the "if you can update or improve it, please do" policy rather than raising any substantive WP:FACR issues. --Paul (talk) 19:39, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

You seem to be taking my comments as a personal attack, which is not how they were intended. I do believe, however, that the aricle does not meet the current standards for a Featured Article. In response to your comments:

  1. The sentence was given as an example of prose that could use some work. A Featured Article should be well-written, and a sentence like that indicates that copyediting may be necessary.
  2. As for the NFL, all that needs to be fixed is adding the full title: "...National Football League (NFL)..." Telling people to click on wikilinks if they want to understand the article is not Wikipedia policy, as articles should be clear to all readers.
    Fixed. --Sfmammamia (talk) 18:29, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
  3. As for the references, the article simply isn't up to standards. Entire sections are unreferenced. The number of references isn't important; what matters is whether or not all of the information is backed up with a source. At present, it's not close.
  4. I'm not going to list all references that need more information or better formatting, but I recommend checking out Wikipedia:Citing sources for the {{cite web}} template. All web references need at least a title, publisher, url, and accessdate. If a date of publication or author name is available, this information should be included as well. Reference 32 is an example of a reference without a publisher. I urge you also to take a look at how the access dates are listed for references 36-38. 36 uses "Accessed on", 37 uses "Accessed", and 38 uses "Retrieved on". 36 also uses a formatted date (2006-12-03), while 37 uses a long form (September 5, 2006).
    Access dates have been made consistent. --Sfmammamia (talk) 18:29, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
  5. I agree that "rainbow flag" is linked, but it doesn't illustrate anything from the article, as the article doesn not mention rainbow flags.
  6. Image captions are too "succinct" in some places. "Chinatown" is insufficient as a caption, as it says nothing about the image or why it is included. Likewise for "Baker Beach". The caption for Alcatraz is a good example of what a caption should look like: "Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year" says something about the image, in contrast to "A map from 1888", which doesn't even clarify what the image shows.
    The specific captions mentioned above have been fixed.--Sfmammamia (talk) 19:02, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
  7. Not a reply to anything you said, but looking back, why is it important to mention that prospectors had "sourdough bread in tow"? This is not made clear in the article. I understand that you want to avoid unnecessary detail, but giving pieces of information with no indication of why they are relevant to the article makes for a lot of confusion.
Agreed. I deleted the phrase. --Sfmammamia (talk) 19:27, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
Sourdough bread is an iconic San Francisco artifact. It has been a part of SF since 1849 and probably before. It's use in this sentence is to provide a link to sourdough bread and to document the historical connection between sourdough becoming a SF icon, and the 49er prospectors. I've added a reference tying the bread to the prospectors.--Paul (talk) 00:19, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
You do a great job of explaining the link here. It would help readers of the article if a phrase was inserted in that sentence like "which later became an iconic San Francisco artifact. GaryColemanFan (talk) 01:35, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Please don't take my comments personally. I would love to see this keep its Featured Article status. Please note that I waited 8 days to initiate this process after mentioning my concerns to the relevant WikiProjects. I feel, however, that substantial work needs to be done, and I hope that the relevant projects will help get this article back to FA quality. GaryColemanFan (talk) 20:28, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Response "The number of references isn't important; what matters is whether or not all of the information is backed up with a source. At present, it's not close." This isn't what the policy requires. Policy requires that "attribution is required for direct quotes and for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged." For example, do you think these sentences need a citation? "Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail/subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses."--Paul (talk) 00:17, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
Comment I have over 1,000 edits on the San Francisco article. You have none. Unfortunately, I no longer have the time nor the interest to work on this article. The article has not changed substantially since its promotion in September 2006. If you think it needs some work, I think you should work on it.--Paul (talk) 23:22, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
Reply I am aware that you have over 1,000 edits on this article. That is the reason that I notified you directly about the Featured Article review. Please note that Featured Article standards have changed substantially since 2006. Unfortunately, this article has not kept up with these changes and does not currently meet the standards. One of my current projects on Wikipedia is to ensure that Featured Articles meet the criteria. In cases like Wayne Gretzky, it is sometimes necessary to initiate a Featured Article review to get the changes made. I am not picking on you personally or on this article, as this is not the first review I have initiated (after giving the relevant projects ample time to start making the required changes), and it will not be the last. I am certainly willing to do some work toward fixing the article, but only if the relevant projects (those with knowledge of the subject matter and the guidelines of their projects) are willing to help. I can certainly understand that you might not have time or interest to work on the article, and I hope you don't take any of my comments to mean that I expect you (or any other specific editor) to help. With that said, the most important matter is improving the article. As this conversation is accomplishing nothing toward that goal, I will no longer engage in such a debate. I am quite willing to offer opinions and/or answer questions about the concerns I have identified, as it is my sincere hope that the outcome is to keep this as a Featured Article. Best wishes, GaryColemanFan (talk) 23:57, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Request Please complete the nomination by following the instructions at the top of WP:FAR to notify significant contributors and relevant WikiProjects, and post the notifications back to the top of this FAR. Thank you. --Regents Park (roll amongst the roses) 20:23, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

My apologies. I notified them right away, but I wasn't aware that I had to list them here. I'll get that done right away. GaryColemanFan (talk) 20:28, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
Done. GaryColemanFan (talk) 20:35, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Comments Unfortunately, I concur with GaryColemanFan that this is not up to FA standards, at least as they exist today. As Paul suggested, minor fixes should just be make on the spot, but I think this article needs substantial work. Issues per FA criteria:
    • 1c (sources): There are many unsourced sections. Inline citations are needed to so we at least have a general idea what sources the material is based on.
    • 2a (lead): The lead is quite weak for a broad article of this depth. It does not accurately represent the article per WP:LEAD. Someone familiar with the subject matter needs to work on it.
    • 3 (images): The article is an image farm and, as GCF pointed out, the captions are weak. Someone needs to trim them up, fix the captions, and then visit MOS:IMAGES and get them arranged properly. There are all manner of placement problems. --Laser brain (talk) 04:15, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
Regarding the images. I have moved several images from the left margin to the right margin to keep them from disturbing the text layout at the beginning of sections and subsections. However, I would like to point out that WP:FACR does not even mention MOS:IMAGES. It lists only three requirements:

3. Images. It has images and other media where they are appropriate, with succinct captions and acceptable copyright status. Non-free images or media must satisfy the criteria for the inclusion of non-free content and be labeled accordingly.

Thus, any concern about the layout of images is more properly the subject of a TALK page discussion or a few minutes time of judicious editing, not a basis for an FAR.
As for the article being an "image farm," that is a bit of an exaggeration. The editors of this article have deleted scores of vanity images. All of the images left in the article appropriately illustrate accompanying text. However, there are two images added in the last year which might be argued border on excess: the night cityscape panorama, and the satellite image of the San Francisco peninsula.--Paul (talk) 00:19, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
I think it's safe to say that Manual of Style compliance is assumed to be part of the Featured Article criteria. GaryColemanFan (talk) 01:35, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
Response I've moved pictures around at the beginning of sections. I have also reviewed MOS:IMAGES and don't see anything else that is out of compliance. If editors disagree with this assessment, please point out specific instances (like the very helpful one above about pictures and topic headings).--Paul (talk) 18:10, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
The images are vastly improved, thank you. --Laser brain (talk) 19:26, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
While more citations are preferable, it would be quite strange to say that mere descriptions of fact that are unchallenged will need citations, if I may point out the public transportation section as an example. Of course, some images are unneeded, and they will be weeded out momentarily. However, I do have two questions:
  1. First and foremost, can you elaborate on your concerns a bit? It's hard to improve an article, let alone trying to understand abstractions and guess what you are talking about.
  2. Why was this issue not taken up to the talk page first? Perhaps via informal channels this problem would have been solved, and we won't have to go through this process. It might catch people's eyes, but it's still quite rude to the main authors of this article for this to suddenly come up (which may partly explain Paul's response).
Until then, I will try to improve the article to the best of my ability. —Kurykh 05:25, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
About the rainbow flag, I think it's the Castro (which the rainbow flag is representing) that is being emphasized, and not the rainbow flag itself. —Kurykh 05:31, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure how to elaborate any more than I already have. The biggest problem is with the citations. The article is insufficiently referenced, and the citations are not properly formatted. Currently, much of the article appears to be original research. To verify that the information has come from a reliable source, citations are needed. If that could be fixed, the majority of the work would be complete. As for your question about the talk page, you are correct. That would have been a good idea. I wasn't trying to spring this out of nowhere, though, and I notified all of the relevant Wikiprojects (Cities, San Francisco Bay Area, and California) and then waited eight days before starting the review. I will make sure to mention it on the talk page as well next time, though. Thanks for the advice, GaryColemanFan (talk) 05:54, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
Response Here's a suggestion on how you can "elaborate" further. WP:FAR states "Nominators typically assist in the process of improvement." If you would go through the article and tag facts that you thing need citing, that would be extremely helpful. As you pointed out, the number of citations does not matter (whether there are many or few for a given section). What matters is that statements of fact that could reasonably be challenged (that is the policy) are correctly cited. If concerned editors would add {{fact}} tags where they have concerns, other editors could fix those problems, or explain why it is not a problem. Thanks.--Paul (talk) 18:26, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Response to response Indeed, I'm sure nominators typically help. Your constant attacks do nothing to make me feel like helping, though. I have tried my best to remain civil. If my offer of help is going to be thrown back in my face, though, I'm much more inclined to let you do it yourself. GaryColemanFan (talk) 22:24, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
Response to response to response I'm surprised you regard my note as a personal attack. It certainly wasn't intended that way. On line communication is so difficult some times. I only intended to point out how much better specific concerns and recommendations are, and was hoping for a little help. My apologies for any perceived slight.--Paul (talk) 00:00, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Likewise, I thought I did a pretty good job outlining issues. There are no quick fixes here to delineate. Also, I'm a little annoyed that someone following the established procedure to review an article to see if it still meets featured article criteria is called rude. --Laser brain (talk) 07:13, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
I apologize if I inadvertently attacked anyone as rude (my intention was to highlight the perception of the action); however, I thought it was common knowledge that informal processes (talk page discussion) are often initiated before established procedures (this). —Kurykh 19:27, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Given that we need to rework the article a bit is it possible that we fix the article to conform to WP:USCITY guidelines, or is this article an exception because it became a featured article before the guideline was even drawn up? —Kurykh 19:38, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

The article already substantially follows the guidelines which can be seen by comparing the two index structures. Given that WP:USCITY states: The order of sections is also completely optional, and sections may be moved around to a different order based on the needs of their city.... While it is just a guideline and there are no requirements to follow it in editing.... I'd say it is not necessary to change the existing structure of the article. Also, WP:USCITY unfortunately "suggests" trivia sections for "Notable natives and residents" as well as "Sister cities" both of which were removed during the FAC process.--Paul (talk) 20:33, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
I was a significant contributor to those guidelines but I think that individual city articles should tailor the layout and content according to each city's unique characteristics and sources. --maclean 01:50, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Work needed. I participated in the peer review, but wasn't around when this passed FAC; there is a bit of work needed. See WP:GTL, portals belong in See also. See WP:GTL regarding See also: really needs pruning. All of those links should be worked into the article so See also can be minimized. Citations need work: there are missing publishers and some dates are wikilinked, others not. This is the English Wiki; English doesn't need to be specified in citations. There are also incomplete citations: for example, this has an author and publication date which aren't listed. Some stubby sections (two sentences on bicyling warrant an entire section)? Review of WP:DASH and WP:HYPHEN needed, east to west is an endash: Major east-west thoroughfares ... Informal prose needs review: baking & pastry arts, and hospitality & restaurant management (should that be "and"). WP:WTA, claim: and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution. Do we doubt that claim? WP:AWW, weasleness, believed by whom? The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants ... Another WP:DASH issue, no unspaced emdashes please: ... installations — the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Point — a legacy ... Incorrect endashes: The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007-2008 ... Uncited assertions of fact: San Francisco is a consolidated city-county, a status it has had since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. More uncited assertions: San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of Silicon Valley to the south, sharing a need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. WP:NBSP attention needed. These matters are all fairly trivial, and the article is in much better shape than many geography articles that come through here; I don't see why it can't be kept after a bit of elbow grease to clean up these items and the others identified by the nominator. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:50, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Re: See also I've trimmed that down to four from twenty-six using the auto wiki browser diff. Everything that was removed is already present in the article in line, as a {{main}} link, or are part of the navigation boxes at the bottom. -Optigan13 (talk) 06:35, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Response I moved the SF portal to See Also (BTW WP:GTL does not mention portal placement). The citation called out for not having an author and publication date has been fixed. References have been added for consolidated city-county status and SF's reliance on the area tech sector and highly skilled labor. Thanks to Sandy for having specific examples that can be fixed.--Paul (talk) 17:59, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Butter

Notified: User:Bunchofgrapes, Wikiproject Food and Drink, Agriculture, Culture

Criteria concerns:1a, 1c

  • Shapes, History, Production and storage-cooking have increasingly unsourced content.
  • Needs an infobox, categories, and two or more image need diminishing.

Shouldn't be tough. Ultra! 18:51, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

  • Infoboxes are not required by WP:WIAFA; since you brought the FAR, can you just add the categories and reduce the images? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:58, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Done, and notified. Ultra! 19:12, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
  • What a rancid FAR. Amazing that anybody bothers to take their work through FAC any more. Bishonen | talk 04:00, 6 June 2008 (UTC).
So time to give the article a good 'churn' then (chuckle)....Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:31, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
  • I agree the article needs more sources or at least more inline citations so it is obvious where the information is coming from (the production section has none and throughout the article there are several other paragraphs with no apparent sourcing must prominently in the storage and cooking section). How much is taken from the publications listed in the reference section, if everything in the article is covered by them could the individual sections/paragraphs/statements be better attributed by someone who has knowledge of them? Guest9999 (talk) 04:49, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Seriously, the material in lead needs to be in the body of the text, o needs an etymology section. Prose is somewhat repetitive and I have started trimming. More to come. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:38, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
  • There are some inconsistencies with units throughout the piece, generally metric is used first followed by imperial but there are instances where American units are used first and one instance where for some reason grains appear to be used instead of ounces. Guest9999 (talk) 14:34, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
OK, here's the thing Guest9999. I am glad you have pointed this out. Now, as at least the order of units should be pretty straightforward to fix, it would be great if you could get stuck in and help fix these too. I didn't write this article - at FAR, many of the original contributors are no longer active or may not be able or willing to keep the article at FA status, so hence no-one will (likely) take responsibility for making sure this one survives FAR. If you could chip in it would be extremely helpful. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:29, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
I will try and brush up on the relevant guidelines for units. Whilst you say it will be straight forward there are many quite trivial issues involved such as the order, whether to abbreviate or not, what units to use, what abbreviations to use that I am currently not familiar with. I mentioned it hoping that someone with the pre-existing knowledge to deal with the issue would notice; as it was I was just as likely to change to a different - if more consistent - incorrect presentation of the units as to "fix" the problem. Guest9999 (talk) 00:05, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
Well I've given it a go. Guest9999 (talk) 00:29, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
That's great. I have rather stupidly overcommitted, with Ant at FAC and other things. FA and GA food articles are thin on the ground and it'd be a shame to lose one. My mother has a library of cookbooks that I will try to get some refs from. Now tehre are teh online references..Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:02, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Isaac Brock

Notified: WikiProject Canada; WikiProject Military history: British military history task force, Napoleonic era task force, Canadian military history task force; WikiProject Biography: Military work group, Politics and government work group Ultra! 19:29, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I have notified the only significant editor (137 edits at the time of writing), and FA nominator, of the article, Scimitar. I have also notified Military history WikiProject, WikiProject Biography, and WikiProject Canada.

I do believe that this article no longer meets the criteria for an FA-class article. I believe that the article has broken, specifically, 1c and 1d.

In support for my assertion that the article has broken 1c, I would like to provide the following evidence:

  • "best remembered as a brilliant leader and strategist for his actions while stationed in the Canadian colonies." This is a quote of a sentence in the introduction of the article. This opinion is not cited.
  • "He earned a reputation during his early education as an assiduous student, as well as an exceptional swimmer and boxer." This is also not cited.
  • "He kept a reputation as a physically commanding man throughout his life, and is said to have stood between 6 ft 2 in (1.9 m) and 6 ft 4 in (1.88 and 1.93 m) in height. he was amazingly strong and bright, he also excelled in the arts." Again, no citation.
  • "quick rise through the ranks which many commented on at the time." No citation.
  • "His nephew and biographer (Ferdinand Brock Tupper) asserts that shortly after joining the regiment, a professional dueler forced a match on him. As the one being challenged, Brock had his choice of terms, and so he insisted that they fight with pistols. His friends were shocked, as Brock was considered only a moderately good shot, while this man was an expert. Brock, however, refused to change his mind. When the duelist arrived at the field, he asked Brock to decide how many paces they would take. Brock subsequently insisted that the duel would take place, not at the usual range, but at handkerchief distance. The duelist declined and subsequently was forced to leave the regiment. This contributed to Brock's popularity and reputation among his fellow officers, as this duellist had a formidable reputation, and thus bullied other officers without fear of reprisal. During his time with this regiment, Brock served in the Caribbean. At some point during his service there, Brock fell ill with fever and nearly died; only recovering once he had returned to England." No citations presented.

At this point, I believe I have shown the article breaks 1c. It should be noted that the article only has 10 citations. This leaves a lot of the article unsourced.

In support for my assertion that the article has broken 1d, I would like to provide the following evidence:

  • "he had the privilege of serving alongside Tecumseh". I think this comment speaks for itself.

There is more evidence that can be provided, but I do not wish to clog this request with a large amount of evidence. I hope that a quick visual examination of the article by editors will result in the realisation that this article is unworthy of FA-status in its current state.

Thank you in advance for reading, and for getting involved on this issue.EasyPeasy21 (talk) 15:44, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Comment There are undoubtedly some rather POV sentences, and not much inline citing. However, there are a number of online sources listed in References, and External links which can probably be used to provide inline cites. I've also just quickly skimmed his ODNB article, which certainly backs up some of the specific things you pick out above, so I'm not sure it's beyond redemption. David Underdown (talk) 16:11, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Keep (sorry, unfamiliar with process) The sentences, admittedly, are POV in some instances, although it would not take much to correct them. All of the uncited references are backed up by the references at the bottom of the page; I didn't realize that inline citation was needed so extensively when I wrote the article. All that said, I can't say as I'm terribly invested in what happens to the article given that I've since pretty much abandoned Wikipedia as an editor.--Scimitar parley 18:07, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
I've just cited a bunch of the opinions, thanks to Tupper's book (available at project Gutenberg, if anyone doubts my veracity). My wording is actually quite restrained compared to the praise heaped upon Brock by virtually every commentator in the field. I dare say that these citations (which took about 5 minutes) would have been done if it had been brought up during the FA process, and also that the editor who nominated this article for removal might have been able to do them himself from the provided references in less time than it took to nominate the article! --Scimitar parley 18:21, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Additionally, looking at the FAC for this article, I'm reminded of the fact that at that time nobdy seemed to feel that massive inline citation was a big deal, the article text is not controversial and is adequately backed up by the references at the bottom of the page. It's been quite a while since I was a serious editor here, so this is an honest question- when did inline citation become a requirement for non-controversial featured articles that are heavily referenced otherwise?--Scimitar parley 18:58, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

"the editor who nominated this article for removal" Scimitar, I nominated this article for a review, as opposed for it to be removed.

I believe that Scimitar has made good progress in getting the article back up to current FA standards. However, the article still needs much more work, imho. For example, it is stated "The invasion was quickly halted, and Hull withdrew, but this gave Brock the excuse he needed to abandon Prevost's orders." Whilst I am sure this is correct, it does sound like something that needs to be verified. Listing what sources of information were employed in the writing of the article at the bottom of the page, is not sufficient for an FA-class article.

Other examples of sentences that do sound like they need to be verified include:

  • "Detroit was a major victory for Brock because it wounded American morale, and eliminated the main American force in the area as a threat, while at the same time boosting morale among his own forces."
  • "Finally, it secured the support of Tecumseh and the other American Indian chiefs, who took it as both a sign of competency and a willingness to take action.
  • "However, Brock had gauged Hull as a timid man, and particularly as being afraid of Tecumseh's natives."
  • "He was hampered in these efforts by the thrusts of Governor General George Prevost (Prevost replaced Craig in late 1811), who favoured a cautious approach to the war."
  • "This hostility came from three sources: grievances at British violations of American sovereignty, restriction of American trade by Britain, and an American desire to gain territory by invading and annexing the poorly-defended British North American colonies." Some people will consider this statement controverisal, as some people argue that the American desire to conquer Canada did not exist to a great enough degree for it to be a reason for the War of 1812 occuring.

Scimitar, I do not know how the criteria for FA articles has changed exactly since 2005, but it is clear that they have changed. More is required of an article in 2008 for it to become FA-class, then it did in 2005. As one editor said regarding the FA review of an article called Brain Close, "Holy cow. It illustrates how much FA standards have risen in just a few years." EasyPeasy21 (talk) 14:46, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The Supremes

The article hasnt been reviewed in close to three years. Im guessing standards have improved somewhat. The article needs a good copy edit, the language and grammer are not up to FA standard. The article is hardly sourced and some sources are unreliable such as youtube. --— Realist2 (Come Speak To Me) 15:17, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Notifications

Yeah I feel the article has been inaccurate to some degree. FuriousFreddy worked his butt off to make that a great article. I hate that some people chose to link YouTube videos to the article. BUT for the majority of the article, it did seem "featured" since a featured article star icon is still on it. BrothaTimothy (talk · contribs) 16:01, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Please complete the nomination by following the instructions at the top of WP:FAR to notify significant contributors and relevant WikiProjects, and post the notifications back to the top of this FAR. Thank you. --Regents Park (roll amongst the roses) 16:45, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I did notify people, I was unaware they needed to be added here too, ill get right to it. --— Realist2 (Come Speak To Me) 16:57, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Comments That entire discography section needs to be replaced by just a list of studio albums. (See: R.E.M., Radiohead) Pretty much all those album covers do not satisfy our fair-use criteria, and the sound samples (max 3-4) need to discussed in the prose. Of course, this is the easy part. indopug (talk) 14:27, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

DONE - Comments by Indopug appear to be done, the samples have been removed it appears. — Realist2 (Come Speak To Me) 15:04, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Structural history of the Roman military

Notified Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history

It fails 1(c), the section on the Manipular legion is innacurate — there were at least two reforms during this period, and two different ypes of legions with varying tactics and equipment, the refs don't seem to be reliable in that respect. The Non-citizen recruitment (49 BC – 27 BC) section could be expanded too, and it should really be a subsection of the Marian legion, and also, rather than being reffered to as "Manipular legion", "Imperial legion" etc, thy are normally named after somebody, like the Marian legion — the manipular legion was orignially a Camillan legion, but after some reforms became the Polybian legion, and the Imperial legion should be the Augustan legion.

{{Cite book}} and similar templates aren't used at all in the article, instead the refs are handmade, and the lead section lacks references (Okay, it is just a summary of the article but it should have the same refs as in the section is summarises, shouldn't it?)--Serviam (talk) 13:08, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Without getting into the accuracy issue—I'm not really qualified to comment on that—neither citation templates nor citation in the lead section are required by any policy or guideline, and, with an article this heavily cited, simply collecting citations for the lead by gathering those from the relevant sections would make it unreadable in any case. Kirill (prof) 13:21, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Just sorta echoing Kirill here: footnotes in the lead section are a mistake rather than a requirement, last time I checked (which has been awhile). And there's really no need to use {{Cite book}} ever. But this particular article does use a weird {{bibliobox}} template, which is an odd and ungainly innovation that has no precedent in the published world, as far as I know. This is the only article that uses it—and the creator no longer edits Wikipedia—so anyone should feel free to reformat the "Bibliography" section to one of the standard Wikipedia formats. Having a separate "footnotes" and "citations" section is another unneeded oddity, but not unheard of on Wikipedia. Combining the two would be an easy improvement.
As for the inaccuracies, it might have been more productive to raise those issues on the talk page of the article first, rather than here, unless the nominator feels the article is too inaccurate to easily salvage. Reviewers here typically won't know enough about a given topic to judge if the nominator is more knowledgeable than those who wrote the featured article. —Kevin Myers 14:34, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Please complete the nomination by following the instructions at the top of WP:FAR to notify significant contributors and relevant WikiProjects, and post the notifications back to the top of this FAR. Thank you. --Regents Park (moult with my mallards) 16:08, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Well the guy who did most of the work on it, and most Roman articles, stopped editing sometime last year (PocklingtonDan). I'll put a not eon the military history project talk page then. It may be possible to salvage it, though it would take a good bit of work, and I'm not prepared to do it at the moment, though someone else might.--Serviam (talk) 17:00, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
I have removed the Template:Bibliobox from the references. May I say that I don't think has any citation issues of any form. It seems to be one of the most well-cited articles I have seen. From an accuracy standpoint, it follows the sources; if you question those sources then you need to provide your own that contradict them.
If I am reading your concerns correctly, you think the Manipular region section should be renamed? I disagree, that section header adequately explains the content of the section, and as such it does its job. To add it to the "Marian legion (107 BC – 49 BC)" section would destroy the chronology. Woody (talk) 17:28, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
I didn't say to add it there, I meant that it should be split it into two sections; Camillan legion and Polybian legion, that's the main innacuracy, because half way through that section there was a large military reform which has been completely ommited, so I suppose it's more 1(b) than 1(c). It also doesn't mention Leves, light javelin armed infantry, predessesors of the velites, which don't seem to have received any coverage on wikipedia at all...--Serviam (talk) 17:44, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Also, the "Non-citizen recruitment (49 BC – 27 BC)" section should really be a subsection of "Marian legion (107 BC – 49 BC)", which actually lasted untill 27 BC, when Augustus came to power. "Introduction of vexillationes (76 AD – 117 AD)" should be a subsection of "Imperial legions and reformation of the auxilia (27 BC – 75 AD)", which should really be called "Augustan legion", and lasted up untill 117 AD, a bit of 2(b) there . The seperate citations and footnotes sections are also a little strange--Serviam (talk) 17:49, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
As for my sources, [8], [9], [10], [11], [12] are all reliable, particularly the second link, that gives an in-depth history of the roman legions.--Serviam (talk) 17:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
It is not that strange to have separate footnotes and citations, it is becoming more and more common on FACs as it is clearer to the reader. With regards to the subsections, I can't really comment yet as I haven't looked into it enough. Regards. Woody (talk) 18:08, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Okay thanks for your comments anyway.--Serviam (talk) 18:41, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
How are those sources reliable. They all look like they come from fairly unreliable websites, except maybe the second link which is an excerpt from a book from 1875 - not exactly the newest research. Surely the multiple book sources used now are more reliable? --Peter Andersen (talk) 11:34, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
They are reliable in that they seem to agree with the stuff I know about the Romans, so I assume they are reliable. and regardless of refs, there is a good bit of stuff left out. Those books that are already in the article mention it, probably the author of the wikipedia article didn't think them significant (As they still faught in maniples, but had different equipment and weapons and some kinds of troops had disappeared)--Serviam (talk) 19:33, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
See WP:RS regarding sources. Web sources must be written either by a noted historian or noted organisation or clearly and transparently demonstrate their sources. Otherwise anyone could have written them without any academic legitimacy. These sources do not (at least at first glance) fulfill either of these requirements and as the person suggesting them, the onus is on you to prove their reliability. I think this issue is one that would be better raised on the talk page rather than here. To add, citations should not be used in the lead, the lead is an introduction and anything mentioned there should be cited elsewhere in the article.--Jackyd101 (talk) 13:37, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Read what I said, please, the books used in the article do mention this, but they have been left out in the article for some strange reason.--Serviam (talk) 13:53, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
So use the books not the websites. Requesting expansion doesn't require new sources if the old ones have the info needed. Jay32183 (talk) 18:47, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
What are you talking about? I was asked for other sources, and I found them...--Serviam (talk) 21:21, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
I think there is some confusion here. Basically, if the books contain the information required then you (or someone else with the books) should use the information in them to deal with the comprehensiveness issues you raise and use the books to source this expansion. The websites you provided cannot be used to source an FA because (per WP:RS) they have no obvious indication that what they state has any academic legitimacy.--Jackyd101 (talk) 22:33, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
My first and second links can be used, they meet WP:RS, the last three I just got off google. As I explained above, I'm not prepared to add in the additional information, though someone else might want to.--Serviam (talk) 20:37, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Is there any particular reason that the footnotes are alpha, delta, beta, lambda, eta, xi? I'd have expected alpha, beta, gamma, delta, epsilon, zeta. It's a minor concern, but since we're here, I'd thought I'd ask. Jay32183 (talk) 20:50, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bengali language

Notified WikiProject Bangladesh, WikiProject Languages, WikiProject Bengal, WikiProject India, Shmitra, Ragib, SameerKhan, and Zaheen

This article fails the FA criteria on multiple levels. First, it does not meet criterion 2c. Many paragraphs in "Writing system" remain unreferenced (including the entire "Spelling-to-pronunciation inconsistencies" section. A paragraph in "Consonant clusters" is unreferenced, as is the "Verbs" section. The "Vocabulary" section only contains three references, backing up a total of two sentences. Furthermore, the article has an inconsistent referencing style. In some references, Harvard style referencing is used, while in others, {{cite book}} is used. The article also fails 1c because some unreliable sources are used in the article (e.g. http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/translation/articles/bengali-language.html and http://web.archive.org/web/20070212100431/http://www.sanskrit-sanscrito.com.ar/english/sanskrit/sanskrit3.html).

Second, this article does not meet criterion 2a. The lead does not sufficiently serve its purpose. The lead is supposed to summarize the topic and "prepare the reader for greater detail in subsequent sections". The lead does not cover the Bengali writing system, vocabulary or grammar. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 03:12, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

{{cite book}} is not used in the article at all. It only uses citation templates for web sites and newspaper article. Whether one or the other is preferable, I don't know, but either way it has no impact on readability, which is their primary purpose. If a standard should be followed, I recommend removing citation templates altogether since they add virtually nothing for the average reader but inject excessive amount of code, making it much more difficult to edit articles. Standardizing the small amount of information displayed in footnotes can easily be done without clunky templates.
I completely agree with the comment about the lead, though. There should be at least a minimal summary of the basic features of the language in the lead. Compare with Nahuatl, Swedish language and Turkish language.
Peter Isotalo 06:48, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

About citations "backing up" sentences: How does one decide which sentences need to be backed up and which ones don't? --Zaheen (talk) 10:05, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

There is no standard, only differing (and often hotly debated) interpretations ov WP:V. Not all statements require detailed citations, but it's generally agreed that all direct quotes need to be cited in great detail. One generally needs to weigh readability (a jungle of footnote makes reading difficult) against how controversial or obscure the facts are ("Moscow is the capital of Russia" should not require a footnote). A paragraph can contain one reference or a dozen. What matters is that all the facts can be backed up by what ever is cited, no matter if the reference is to entire books or individual pages.
As far as I see it if there is a citation which is reasonably comprehensive and accurate in relation to what it's supposed to back up, it's up to whoever asks for more citations to explain why the existing references aren't sufficient.
Peter Isotalo 11:36, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
A citation at the end of a paragraph is perfectly acceptable, as long it backs up all the information in the paragraph. The references in those article don't do that; they are only used to source one or two sentences at most. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 14:12, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
"Any statements likely to be challenged", that is, any statements which you think yourself somebody might question. And if you see a sentence without a ref, even if it is completely obvious, you can challenge it and it has to get a ref, though I wouldn't reccomend that because it would seriously damage your reputation...--Serviam (talk) 13:12, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Nishkid, please point out the sentences that you think are in need of citations. The article contains fairly standard, descriptive, unambiguous statements about the Bengali language, and there's a lot of them in there. One would have to cite the same sources, those mentioned in the bibliography, over and over again, if one is determined to insert a citation after every such sentence or even after every paragraph. AFAIK, this is not standard in Linguistics literature. The linguists just describe the language, insert citations for very esoteric features, and finally provide a bibliography for further studies. I am not sure if this is standard for general encyclopedic articles either; neither Britannica nor Encarta follows such strict norms. --Zaheen (talk) 16:15, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

We're going by standards of Wikipedia articles. There are entire sections in this article that do not contain any citations. This is unacceptable for a featured article, even if the subject is a language. If you want me to add {{cn}} templates, I'll be glad to do so. Note that I already highlighted the unreferenced areas in my initial argument. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 16:29, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
About the "Spelling-to-pronounciation inconsistencies" section - most (if not all) of the information there can be found in the book Teach Yourself Bengali. I'm (sort of) willing to cite that book, but how should I cite it? That is, should I say, "This information can be found on this page, this other information can be found on that page," etc.? Or should I just put one citation for the book somewhere in that section (and, if so, where in the section)? --Kuaichik (talk) 18:02, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Any chance we could use sources of a slightly higher academic standard than a language course for beginners?
Peter Isotalo 18:36, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, we probably could. The article on Bengali by Bhattacharya (http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~uclyara/bong_us.pdf), cited under the "References" section (along with Teach Yourself Bengali), has at least some of this information, too :) --Kuaichik (talk) 23:31, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Nishkid, you merely said there are "many paragraphs" here or "one paragraph" there in the article that are unreferenced and you want references for them. There's a problem with this approach. The information in the article (or at least the sections you are referring to) is not structured in a way so that a paragraph neatly corresponds to some information source. How can one cite a source for a particular paragraph in that case? These are basic, observable facts that can be found in any decent linguistic description of the language. And most of them are listed in the References section at the bottom. --Zaheen (talk) 18:34, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Inline citations (or an author-date style) are mandatory for featured articles. I didn't request you have one generic source that covers all the information in a particular paragraph. Add citations for controversial text and factual matters as you see fit, and you should be fine. Instead of arguing about sourcing (when it's quite obvious to any FA regular that some sections of this article are seriously lacking in attribution), I suggest you just add references where appropriate. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 20:50, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
But I don't see any need to add inline citations. There's no controversial text in there. It's fairly standard, generic stuff about Bengali. It is not obvious to me exactly what you want. Please be more precise. --Zaheen (talk) 00:12, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
I would also like to add that it seems to me, at least in this case, that providing citation is more of a stylistic issue than anything else. If I can resort to an analogy: the information presented here is as obvious as statements like "A water molecule is made up of one Oxygen and two Hydrogen atoms. Under normal atmospheric pressure, water boils at 100 degrees Celsius, etc." Now there is a good deal of this sort of statements that one can write on water that may go on for more than one paragraph in an article on water. But does one really have to include inline citations for such obvious stuff? --Zaheen (talk) 00:21, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
But it's not just controversial statements that are sourced in Wikipedia, right? For example, the first sentence on the actual article Water begins with a very well-known fact, but it is still sourced.
Also, at least in the case of this article, we have to realize that readers are not necessarily going to be familiar with what we are talking about and that "obvious" is relative. Imagine for a moment you knew very little about Bengali, nowhere near as much as you actually do. You happen to be reading this article (for whatever reason), and you notice a sentence like "The [inherent] vowel can be phonetically realized as [ɔ] or [o] depending on the word, and its omission is seldom indicated, as in the final consonant in কম [kɔm] 'less'."
Even something this simple could seem quite odd. Bengali does have a way of writing IPA [o] (as in the word shoNar "golden"), so why should the "inherent vowel" be pronounced like that? How do you know somebody didn't just make this up? How do you know it's reliable information? After all, anybody can edit Wikipedia, and maybe this is an error no one spotted.
The reader wouldn't know that this kind of information is sourced unless we provided a source. Maybe this isn't a good argument, but basically, I think: If we need sources to maintain this as an FA article, let's put in the sources instead of arguing about whether they are needed in the first place. It should be easy enough to do. --Kuaichik (talk) 01:12, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Zaheen, citations aren't used just for controversial text. I made that clear in my previous statement. I asked you guys to add citations to factual statements, even if they may seem obvious (they might not be obvious to outsiders). I'll add {{cn}} templates if you still don't understand my point. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 02:11, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
@Kuaichik, I don't think yours is a particularly convincing argument. Virtually any sentence on Wikipedia can be made up. But that doesn't mean we have to provide a citation for each and every sentence. As I said, the sources are already provided in the References section. One can nitpick till the end of time until every sentence has been verified with a citation. That's just silly. That's not how encyclopedia articles are written, as far as I know. Or are we creating entirely new standards of writing general reference encyclopedic articles here?
Take an example from the article on Water you just mentioned. Yes, I can see that the first sentence "Water is a common chemical substance that is essential for the survival of all known forms of life" is actually sourced to some journal article published in 1997 (as if we needed any confirmation on that; I find this hilarious). But there are dozens of statements in the same lead section that contain similar obvious facts about water, yet they are not sourced at all. What is the standard here?
As for your example of inherent vowel (I think you were just playing the devil's advocate there), it's counter-intuitive to ask questions like why the inherent vowel is pronounced like that. It just is. It's an objective description of one of the features of the language. There may be yet to be discovered historical linguistic reasons behind why the inherent vowel can assume the pronunciation of [o], but that is beyond the scope of this article.
It seems to me that visual style plays a big part in the inclusion of references in a featured article. The main argument seems to be that if a section doesn't have any sources, it somehow looks bad and there must be something wrong with the information. --Zaheen (talk) 02:26, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I was afraid that argument would be ineffective. I confess I don't really know myself :-/ Oh, well. Sorry about that. --Kuaichik (talk) 03:11, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
@Nishkid, you seem to be quite assured of yourself in this area. I understand your point, but I also think it's hardly that obvious. --Zaheen (talk) 02:26, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm quite sure of myself because I've successfully nominated multiple articles to FAR before and I am an FA writer. Zaheen, these are standards that current featured articles need to meet. See WP:FACR, which states that the article must have "consistently formatted inline citations using either footnotes or Harvard referencing". Given that there is clearly an inconsistent use of inline citations, it is up to you and your fellow editors to add references where appropriate. I don't doubt that the article is inaccurate, but for the readers' sake, I would recommend you include a citation every few lines. If more inline citations aren't added to the article in appropriate locations (like in the unreferenced sections described above), then the article will be defeatured. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 03:44, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Nishkid, I don't doubt for a moment you are the ultimate maestro of FA writers and the glorious torch-bearer of the FA standard. :-) But I think you are misinterpreting the FA standard here. The part of the standard you just quoted say that the citations themselves must be consistently formatted. It doesn't say anything about inconsistent/consistent use of inline citations in the article, and I am not sure whether that has even been defined anywhere.

And furthermore, since it was you who brought up this issue, it is up to you to indicate which lines need to be referenced and why. And you have been quite vague about this from the very beginning of this discussion. Like I said, it is not that obvious at all. Surely we could all pretend that it is obvious and just put in some references here and there. But that would be, imo, shoddy scholarship. --Zaheen (talk) 04:37, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

If anyone asks for more footnotes and the primary author asks for a specification of the demands, the requester should be prepared to discuss the merit of citing specific statements on an individual basis. Citing policy and engaging in vague discussions about referencing generally leads nowhere. Basic facts that are easily referenced in the literature already provided does not generally require specific citations.
Peter Isotalo 06:44, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
I told Zaheen I would add {{cn}} templates, but he never told me to do so. Pardon me for citing the wrong part of WP:FACR earlier. I meant to point at criterion 1c, not 2c (2c is part of the stylistic criteria). 1c states, "claims are verifiable against reliable sources, accurately represent the relevant body of published knowledge, and are supported with specific evidence and external citations; this involves the provision of a "References" section in which sources are listed, complemented by inline citations where appropriate". Wikipedia:When to cite should clarify my point. As I stated before, I requested citations for controversial statements and some factual statements (which as the page states might be counterintuitive). I suggest you take a look at Tamil language: from a quick glance, inline citations are used to back up some pretty specific facts about the language (e.g. "Tamil is a diglossic language", "In India, the ‘standard’ koṭuntamiḻ is based on ‘educated non-brahmin speech’, rather than on any one dialect", "Similar to other Dravidian languages, Tamil is an agglutinative language.", etc. I will add {{cn}} templates to statements that are controversial or highly subject-specific (in which case, even people familiar with the subject may not know a certain fact). Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 14:47, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Furthermore, note that referencing isn't my only concern here. The lead and the referencing style, as described above, don't meet the FA criteria. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 14:48, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't think you quite understand the issue here, Nishkid. There is no easily defined standard for what should or shouldn't be cited. For every rather footnote-heavy FA there is always an example which isn't as pedantic in referencing. Just because one article author decided that basic facts easily found in the references has to have a separate footnote doesn't mean that everyone else has to follow suit to maintain FA standards. There's a balance between good referencing and proper style that should be respected, and Tamil language does not manage that balance particularly well.
I noticed that you added fact-tags to the article, but I see no motivation for any of those tags. I think it would be better for everyone if you tried to motivate your concerns more precisely instead of just adding random, anonymous fact tags. Pointing at seemingly random fact statements and claiming they need a citation (without an explanation) is a very unilateral method of deciding how an article should be written.
Peter Isotalo 19:08, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
I understand that there is no easily defined standard for citing here. But explain to me how this article has around 45 inline citations, while similar language articles have two or three times as many? What's the cause for such a discrepancy? Why does Tamil language (an article of similar length, with 84 inline citations) have a poor balance between good referencing and proper style? What do you think of other articles which include 100-200 references for a 50-75KB article? What's the problem there? Also, my tag-adding is not random. I added tags to statements for controversial statements, stats/data, and some subject-specific facts. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 19:20, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Furthermore, could someone explain what the standard for citing is in this particular article? Some inline citations have been added to reference seemingly indiscriminate facts (e.g. "The Bengali abugida is a cursive script with eleven graphemes or signs denoting the independent form of nine vowels and two diphthongs, and thirty-nine signs denoting the consonants with the so called "inherent" vowels", "The script has been adopted for writing the Sylheti language as well, replacing the use of the old Sylheti Nagori script.", "Bengali is the national and official language of Bangladesh and one of the 23 official languages recognised by the Republic of India.", "Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, a British grammarian, wrote a modern Bengali grammar(A Grammar of the Bengal Language (1778)) that used Bengali types in print for the first time."). Why were these particular sentences referenced? Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 19:31, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
And look what happened here. My "random" tag-adding resulted in the discovery of an inaccurate statement in the article. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 19:36, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
"Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, a British grammarian, wrote a modern Bengali grammar(A Grammar of the Bengal Language (1778)) that used Bengali types in print for the first time." - I remember why the citation was added to this sentence, because it is the first time Bengali types in print was used.
Coming to Nishkid's adding citation needed tags, while some tags were very well placed (like the tagging of official language status in Andaman), some were, IMO, not needed. For example, Tagore was the author of the national anthems of both India and Bangladesh. Another is, "Bengali exhibits diglossia between the written and spoken forms of the language" (because the whole section then describes the diglossia itself, with refrences. It was just a introductory sorta sentence).
Anyway, I am not taking part in this balancing debate. Trying to add some references, as demanded. But it would be great if your demand is somewhat less :)--Dwaipayan (talk) 20:10, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Regarding Halhed, I only brought that up because it just seems like an ordinary fact. From my understanding, it appears Peter believes that this ordinary fact wouldn't need a citation. I apologize for adding the fact tag to diglossia; it was only after that I realized the subsequent statements explained why the language was diglossic. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 20:14, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Brian Close

Notified Wikiproject Biography and users Peanut4, Mattinbgn, Asenine, Crickettragic, Chanheigeorge, GrahamHardy, Fieldgoalunit, NinetyCharacters

  • This agreeable article has only two in-text citations in over 5,000 words of text. Its sources look meagre, given the material available. Brianboulton (talk) 08:36, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I agree with Brian. The citations need help, and fast. There is no way that this should be a featured article at it's present stage.  Asenine  09:31, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment I apologize, but there is no way in my opinion that this article should have ever been featured with its lack of citations. I wouldn't have personally even raised it beyond B class, certainly not GA. This is about the revision that was promoted to FA class, and it certainly is not up to scratch in my opinion. I will gut the article full of citation needed tags to identify where citations are required, that will be a start. SGGH speak! 10:13, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
    • There are also fansite tone issues in places, weasel terms ("many consider him" etc.) areas where attribution is needed, and a number of external links that need to be made into footnotes. SGGH speak! 10:19, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Oh, and no images. I think it had some at the time of FAC, but no longer. Eeeek, it is in dire shape! SGGH speak! 10:24, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment I'm not sure this is salvageable without a complete rewrite. There is a good base to work with but the lack of in-line citations combined with prose issues will make this a protracted task. The fact that this was promoted is a demonstration of the improving standards at WP:FA, standards this article surely fails to meet at present. -- Mattinbgn\talk 11:09, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comments - Holy cow. It illustrates how much FA standards have risen in just a few years. When I took a first look at the article, I counted 55 citation tags and a weasel word tag. As for the external jumps, I counted 20 of those. I'll format the jumps at some point, but since I'm not a cricket fan, I'm not the editor who is going to save this one (and it needs saving). Giants2008 (talk) 15:26, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
    • I added those when I came to this FAR, but the issues were all there at the time of FAC SGGH speak! 08:47, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
      • All the external links in the text are now citations. One link was dead, and the website looked unreliable, so I replaced it with another cite tag. Giants2008 (talk) 01:35, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

The article is overlong in my view and contains to much that is known but not exactly verified. Close is a character who generates 'tales'. For such a long article it is rather lumpy and in my view does not really give a rounded view. However it could be edited into shape. Close is a major figure.Fieldgoalunit (talk) 16:30, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Additional comment: I mentioned the meagre nature of the sources. Any attempt to resurrect the article should be based on much better source material. Close was indeed a major figure, in international and in county cricket, and I would expect a featured article to have much more authoritative sources, e.g. Wisden's Almanack for the appropriate years, English test cricket histories, county histories for Yorkshire CCC and Somerset CCC, etc. The autobiography mentioned is a self-justifying account, which I would not accept as a reliable source. Brianboulton (talk) 17:19, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
    • I am gradually working through, trying to get the text up to standard, increasing links, etc. I have grave doubts about the Australian Tour section, however, which reads like it is based entirely on Close's own account. Citations for this material must come from other sources. Brianboulton (talk) 23:12, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
      • Been all through, now, got rid or more of the "lumpy" prose. I've added more links, but more citation tags, too. It will need a real cricket lover to bail this one out.Brianboulton (talk) 20:57, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Please complete the nomination by following the instructions at the top of WP:FAR to notify significant contributors and relevant WikiProjects, and post the notifications back to the top of this FAR. Thank you. --Regents Park (moult with my mallards) 18:40, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] War of the Spanish Succession

Notified Wikiproject Spain, Germany, Military History, and User:DrKiernan

This article, one of the last unreviewed Emsworth classics, desperately needs inline citations as it has very few. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 01:15, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Comment. Whoah. When you said "desperately needs inline citations", you weren't kidding. Although the prose of the article is generally excellent, the total lack of inline citations is a bit disturbing. I'd suggest contacting the primary contributors, to see if anything can be done about it. Cheers! Cam (Chat) 22:35, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Unfortunately, the original author is long since retired. Kirill (prof) 13:23, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bill Russell

I've notified WikiProject National Basketball Association, Myasuda, Onomatopoeia, Quadzilla99, Zodiiak, Chensiyuan, and Warhol13. Zagalejo^^^ 06:51, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

This article was promoted in 2007, and I was one of the people who voted in support. Admittedly, I hadn't read the entire article very closely, and I believe it falls short of satisfying 1a and 1d.

My concerns:

  • Some phrases are taken almost verbatim from the sources. In the "personal life" section, we have two sentences which are very similar to those in this article. ("His would-be neighbors filed a petition trying to block the move, and when that failed, other neighbors banded together to try to purchase the home that Russell wanted to buy. . . Furthermore, once in Marion, Indiana, he had been given the key to the city only to be refused service that evening in his hotel's dining room. Russell went to the mayor's home, woke him up, and returned the key.") User:Xeriphas1994 pointed this out on the talk page in November 2007. Unfotunately, I hadn't noticed that message until now (and I guess no one else did, either.) It might be wise to check everything in the article, to make sure it's free of plagiarism.
    • I've reworded the two sentences above, but I'm still worried that there may be similar problems elsewhere in the article. Zagalejo^^^ 17:16, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
  • The article often sounds more like a sportswriter's column than an encylopedia article. It has a lot of sports jargon ("This was the first time in seven years that he failed to average 23 boards"), and the language is not always neutral ("Russell grabbed an incredible 40 rebounds in Game 2"; "They finished with a lackluster 48–34 record"; "Russell completed another fine year"; "Russell himself put up decent numbers of 9.9 points per game", etc.)
  • The "Accomplishments and legacy" section is a real chore to read, especially the second paragraph, which is just a flood of statistical information, with repetitive transitions ("Russell also... Russell also...") That information might be better in list form.
I don't mean to be persnickety, but I think it's fair to ask that we make this the best article it can be. I'm committed to helping out with what I can, but I can't do it myself. Zagalejo^^^ 06:41, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

You're not being persnickety. Plagarism is as serious an issue as we can face. I'm going to do a full source check for you, and will post if I find any hint of copying text. I don't have any of the books, so you're out of luck there. Giants2008 (talk) 20:41, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

I've gone through the first 10 references, and I have a couple questions. Nothing major, but I might as well mention them now.
  • Article: "which was later called an important bonding experience for the group." Ref 3: "The result is what we might refer to today as a "bonding" experience." No plagarism, but should "bonding" be placed in quotation marks in the article?
  • Ref 7: Alex Hannum being the only coach to beat the Celtics in the playoffs during their dynasty is not referenced by this. At least I can't find it. This also appears tacked on, and not very relevant to Russell.
I haven't found anything to match the plagarism examples given, but have been making changes to items that are close to the source text.

If it's close, why take chances? Feel free to revert if you don't like the adjustments, and I'll be back for more tomorrow. Giants2008 (talk) 23:46, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your hard work. I'll look through a batch of references later tonight. Zagalejo^^^ 23:55, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
I've covered everything up to "1956-59". I haven't found any other whole sentences that have been copied from the sources, but I changed a few phrases that I thought were a little too close for comfort. People can look through the edit history to see. I also did a little bit of general copyediting, but nothing too extensive. I'll check more of the sources later. Zagalejo^^^ 04:48, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
With Zagalejo's help, I've made it through 35 sources so far. My worst discovery so far was a factual error, stating that Russell had a 30-point, 40-rebound performance in Game 7 of the 1963 NBA Finals, when he actually did so in 1962. The game also went one overtime, not two as the article previously said. This is now fixed. Let me throw out my one concern so far.
  • Article: "In one particular instance, Russell's father was denied service at a gasoline station until the staff had taken care of all the white customers. When his father attempted to leave and find a different station, the attendant stuck a shotgun in his face, threatening to kill him unless he stayed and waited his turn. In another instance, Russell's mother was walking down the street in a fancy dress when the local sheriff accosted her."
  • Ref 1 (The Current): "In one instance, his father was denied service at a gasoline station until all the other white customers were taken care of. To add insult to injury, when his father calmly drove away toward another station, the attendant shoved a shotgun in his face and threatened to kill him unless he came back and waited.
In another instance, Bill's mother was walking down the street wearing a beautiful dress when the sheriff stopped her...". Is this too close to the source text? I didn't think so yesterday when I checked it, but it's starting to bother me now. If anyone wants to comment on this, please do. Giants2008 (talk) 18:36, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
I tried to reword those a little bit more. I'm not sure if I'm satistfied. Zagalejo^^^ 21:56, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
I've made it to ref 46, (Counter Punch) and I have bad news. There are several other statements sourced to this site that look almost identical in the article. The whole paragraph probably needs to be re-written. Giants2008 (talk) 20:50, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm done with my source check, and refs 47 (ZMag) and 51 (Foundation for Sarcoidosis Research) are also repeated closely in the article. The Personal life section seems to be where the real problem is. Giants2008 (talk) 21:05, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks so much for doing that. That personal life section is problematic for other reasons. I remember reading that few NBA teams ever approached a sellout in the 1960s, so it may not be wise to use the attendance figures as an example of racism toward Russell. I'm just going to pull those sentences out for the time being. Hopefully, some of the main article writers will drop by sometime to chime in. Zagalejo^^^ 21:25, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm now attempting to weed out the many POV statements in the article. There are quite a few of them, and I notice them most when talking about Russell's season performances and "famous" moments in the NBA. Describing what happened is enough for me. I won't guarantee that I got everything, but it is better now. I removed the first instance of his streak of averaging 23 rebounds a game from when it started, because I didn't think it flowed well there. I also worked on some other things, but feel free to change them back if you want. I'm through 1964–65 as I call it a night, and I will finish this tomorrow. Giants2008 (talk) 04:17, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your continued hard work. Zagalejo^^^ 06:38, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
I just finished my POV run-through. I don't claim perfection, but I do claim improvement. Giants2008 (talk) 22:57, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, it defintely looks better, as far as POV language is concerned.
  • OK, I think my first two comments above have been addressed, thanks to the work of Giants2008. I'd still like to do something with that "Accomplishments and legacy" section, though. Also, I noticed that many paragraphs throughout the article begin with the phrase "In the [year] season...," like "In the 1967-68 NBA season..." Should that be "During the 1967-68 season"? Zagalejo^^^ 01:46, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

My idea for Accomplishments and Legacy is to move the single-game feats into the season recaps. This will reduce some of the clutter, and the games would fit better in their respective seasons. After this is done, the rest of the second paragraph can be moved into a list. What do you think? Giants2008 (talk) 01:25, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that sounds like it would work. Zagalejo^^^ 03:09, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Comment As a main contributor to the original FA version, I applaud all of the improvements. After my long wikibreak, I will be infusing info from books and magazines, moving the article away from listing pure stats and giving a more holistic view, both in professional and personal sense. Any help (esp. copyedit) is appreciated. —Onomatopoeia (talk) 12:50, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

  • Great! Leave a note when you think you're done, and I'll comb through the prose. Zagalejo^^^ 06:12, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
I'll look at the writing as well. The Accomplishments and legacy section still needs work, since I got a little lazy with this. Also take a look at the pictures, especially the infobox photo; I'm concerned about fair-use with a living person. Giants2008 (talk) 15:09, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
I am finished now with the new input, page is now 80k instead of 60k. Copyediting is appreciated: My eyes are not fresh anymore, I could not see errors even if I wanted to... —Onomatopoeia (talk) 21:18, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
  • New comments I'll add to this list as I work my way through the article.
  • However, Russell frequently battled with racism and was notorious for his contempt of fans and journalists.
I'm a little uneasy about the word "notorious" here. I think the sentence should make it clearer that Russell's attitude towards fans and the media was largely the result of his experiences with racism.
Copy that. But also mention that he took out his resentment on the people who actually made him big, namely the fans and also the staff (see his hit-and-run retirement) of the Celtics.—Onomatopoeia (talk) 21:38, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
  • As a sophomore at McClymonds High School, he was a teammate of future Baseball Hall-of-Famer Frank Robinson, but Russell would have been almost cut again.
I'm not sure what Frank Robinson has to do with Russell almost being cut. Zagalejo^^^ 02:20, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, that is awkward. —Onomatopoeia (talk) 21:38, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
  • In his USF years, Russell used his relative lack of bulk to develop an uncanny style of defense: instead of purely guarding the opposing center, he used his quickness and speed to play help defense against opposing forwards and aggressively challenge their shots.
A couple of comments: 1)"uncanny" is POV; 2)Do we have an article that discusses the concept of help defense? Zagalejo^^^ 02:28, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Well, the book says that Russell pretty much invented the concept of a mobile defensive center who played help D. Maybe "unique"? Help defense IMHO is uncovered by WP. —Onomatopoeia (talk) 21:38, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I think unique would be better. Zagalejo^^^ 21:48, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Russell's first Celtics game came on December 22, 1956 against the St. Louis Hawks, led by star forward Bob Pettit, who held several all-time scoring records.
Did Pettit hold those records in 1956? Zagalejo^^^ 02:28, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
Pettit at least held the record of 1,849 points in a season (25.7 ppg), which he set in that 1955-56 season. Of course, he peaked at 29.2 ppg years later. —Onomatopoeia (talk) 16:07, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
Ah, Okay.Zagalejo^^^ 18:40, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
  • I think the third paragraph of "1956-59" needs some restructuring. At one point, we say, "With his teammates, Russell had a cordial relationship, with the notable exception of fellow rookie and old rival Tom Heinsohn." At the end of the paragraph, however, we learn that Heinsohn was not the only exception, since Russell was also cold towards Cousy. Zagalejo^^^ 03:21, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
I worded it badly. Russell-Heinsohn was tense, Russell-Cousy was actually quite ok, it was more like politely-minding-each-others-business. Russell and Cousy simply did not have any common interests, but they did not dislike each other. —Onomatopoeia (talk) 16:07, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
  • The discussion about racism in the sixth paragraph of "1956-59" seems like it's just shoehorned into the text. It doesn't really fit within the flow of the prose. Is that really the best place to put it? Zagalejo^^^ 03:50, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
The "Negro" quote is based on Russell's experience with racist Southern hotel owners in Dallas, when the NBA All-Stars toured the U.S. in the postseason of --indeed-- 1958. IIRC the Go Up For Glory book and the citation appeared 1980. Suggestions? —Onomatopoeia (talk) 16:07, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
Well, I think that section could still use some reorganization. It's weird to go from "This attitude contributed to his legendary bad rapport with fans and journalists." to "The Celtics won 49 games and easily made the first berth in the 1958 NBA Playoffs, and made the 1958 NBA Finals against their familiar rivals, the St. Louis Hawks." We at least need a transition of some sort between those two sentences. Zagalejo^^^ 18:40, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
  • 'Russell had the daunting task of defending against Baylor with little frontline help, as the latter had already fouled out the three best Celtics forwards: Loscutoff, Heinsohn and Tom Sanders.
Is "fouled out" usually used as a transitive verb? Zagalejo^^^ 18:50, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Source concerns - I have a few questions about whether sources are reliable. I'm concerned about refs 12 (HickokSports.com), 13 {a school website) and 61 (nndb.com). Ref 45 has a formatting error as well. Also, please don't forget my note above Zagalejo's round of comments. Giants2008 (talk) 02:07, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Status. Do people want to keep this up in the FAR section as work goes on? I was going to move it down to FARC. Marskell (talk) 17:22, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Since a lot of work has occured recently, I don't see any harm in giving it another day or two. Giants2008 (talk) 17:42, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
I guess a couple of days wouldn't hurt anyone, but the more I look at the article, the more problems I see. In addition to the things I listed above, there are lots of subtle problems with the prose that are hard for me to explain, and hard for me to fix myself without having access to all the sources. Zagalejo^^^ 18:50, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
I just weeded out the wacky refs and corrected several errors. Still, I also think that the prose could do better. —Onomatopoeia (talk) 22:44, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Featured article removal candidates

Place the most recent review at the top. If the nomination is just beginning, place under Featured Article Review, not here.

[edit] Libya

[edit] Review commentary

Notified projects/users: WikiProject Libya, Jaw101ie, Xyzzy n and FayssalF

I have conserns about 1b, and some minor conserns about 1c. Major facts and details that should have been included, is i.e.

  • the conflict between Libya and Chad, and Gadaffis attempt to make a libyan-chadish union.
  • The armed forces/defense of Libya
  • Divisions/Subdivisions; the municipalities used is outdated.
  • Economy: The article doesn't tell anything about unemployness, and is spare when it comes to information about business activities in Libya, and also about export/import.
  • Economy: "an extensive and impressive level of social security" is somewhat unclear, when it does not tell what the social security is.
  • Demography: The age of the population, and birth mortality.
  • The culture section is spare, not mentioning important issues like sport in Libya, or food.
  • Under religion: The time for the oldest jewish settlement is wrong compared to the given source.

Grrahnbahr (talk) 21:44, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are comprehensiveness (1b) and citatons (1c). Marskell (talk) 17:24, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Alliterative verse

[edit] Review commentary

Ihcoyc and Io notified.

It seems to be missing citations. Actually, there are no citations. (Criteria 2c) « Milk's Favorite Cøøkie ( talk / contribs) 21:14, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

I definitely agree to that one. But then it was promoted way back in 2003, so it's not surprising. But I don't know what in the world the FA criteria was like back then, because even then it had no citations. Noble Story (talk) 10:21, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Back in 2003, I think featured articles were still "brilliant prose", and an article was better referenced than most if it had a bibliography. My understanding is that FAs from before the promulgation of the citation standards - which are mostly the product of the last three years - are grandfathered. I could try to add them, but the article has been substantially revised since I started it back then. It still reads quite well, IMO. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 14:11, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure where you got that understanding. Please see the first paragraph of the instructions at WP:FAR: "This page is for the review and improvement of featured articles that may no longer meet the featured article criteria. FAs are held to the current standards regardless of when they were promoted." SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:37, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
Back in 2003!!! How time flies. Anyway, I am fond of this article, so I am happy it's been nominated, but because of time constraints, I cannot participate further for the time being. But thank you, Milk's Favorite Cøøkie, for notifying me. Cheers Io (talk) 17:42, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern is referencing (1c). Marskell (talk) 17:14, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Surtsey

[edit] Review commentary

Husond and Roadrunnerz45 have been notified as have the Iceland and the Volcanoes WikiProject

I have found that this seems to neglect 1.(c), 2.(c), and 4. It is quite short, and is not of comparable length to current FA's. It is very under-referenced, and some of them aren't in the {{cite web}} proper format at all, just in <ref> tags, with no other relevant information like publisher info. I do not believe that this fits the FA criteria any longer. Dreamafter (talk) 21:14, 20 May 2008 (UTC) *Support demotion. This article once fulfilled the FA criteria, but just not anymore. Húsönd 21:23, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Comment The level of referencing in the first half of the article is substandard. However, articles are judged on comprehensiveness, not length, and it is comparable to other short FAs, such as John Day (printer). Are there major topics that the article fails to address? Also, while some of the citations are not properly formatted, there is no requirement that citation templates be used. Use of solely <ref> tags is perfectly acceptable as long as the references are properly formatted. BuddingJournalist 21:26, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
    Reply I just mean on that note, there is no publisher information, so no idea as to weather they are still or ever reliable. Dreamafter (talk) 21:28, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
    Yes, but I was addressing your comment that "some of them aren't in the {{cite web}} form at all, just in <ref> tags". BuddingJournalist 21:33, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
    I have fixed my wording. Dreamafter (talk) 22:43, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
Please complete the nomination by following the instructions at the top of WP:FAR to notify significant contributors and relevant WikiProjects, and post the notifications back to the top of this FAR. I see that you've notified two users, but please also notify relevant projects. Thank you. --Regents Park (Feed my swans) 21:57, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
Y Done Dreamafter (talk) 22:43, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are references and their formatting (1c and 2c) and focus (4). Marskell (talk) 09:58, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 3D Monster Maze

[edit] Review commentary

BACbKA and Frodet have been notified, although the former seems inactive, and also left a message at at WikiProject Video games. Stephen 02:06, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Has two sections that lack a single reference. Promoted in early 2006, not sure this is up to the current standards. --Stephen 01:54, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

  • Yeah, this article is in strong need of proper in-text citations. I added a tag. Randomran (talk) 02:23, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I see only one section without a reference. That said, I believe part of that issue is that the references do not use <ref> and a dedicated {{cite}} template. Those should be cleaned up. --Izno (talk) 02:56, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
You are correct. I misread Edge 2006 as a type of assembler. --Stephen 03:06, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
  • The image page for Image:Malcolm-Evans-NGS98.jpeg claims modification and commercial use are allowed, but the included email does not support that. I brought this up to BACbKA about a year ago at User talk:BACbKA but it never got resolved. Other non-free images are lacking rationale. The backlink from the footnote works for me in Firefox, but the link from the Harvard ref to the note does not. The section header "Critical acclaim" seems a little POV to me—"Reception" or something similar would be better. The lead should be expanded. Pagrashtak 12:59, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

I have updated the FUR for the images. Image:Malcolm-Evans-NGS98.jpeg is form commons and I'll give BACbKA some time to update the descirption - it appears that some mail communication has transpired earlier. As for the footnotes, Harvard style, they work both ways for me in Opera. I'll take a look at the lead and citations next. --Frodet (talk) 21:32, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that. The footnote link problem was discussed at Template talk:Ref#Help—it's related to popups. I'd personally rather use the cite.php system, but I know that BACbKA is strongly for Harvard. Does Image:3D-monster-maze-roll-up-roll-up.png satisfy Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria? Why could it not be replaced by text? Pagrashtak 23:43, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are references and their formatting (1c and 2c). Marskell (talk) 09:55, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Delist (1c) Blnguyen (bananabucket) 04:03, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment There is nothing wrong with the references and their formatting as far as I can see. From comments above, this seems to boil down to various plugins for various browsers. --Frodet (talk) 06:54, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Delist per 1c, hasn't markedly improved; there is still a section without a single reference, and multiple unreferenced assertions. --Stephen 10:08, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
    • Comment I'm reading the article with biased eyes, so could someone please add some {{cn}} where you think it's needed? --Frodet (talk) 11:26, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
      • There's a whole section, but I've added tags to some unreferenced assertions. --Stephen 01:32, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] City status in the United Kingdom

[edit] Review commentary

Notified Lozleader, GSTQ, Morwen, DWaterson, WikiProject Urban studies and planning, WikiProject Cities, WikiProject Architecture, and WikiProject UK geography

The article fails the featured article criterion in several ways. Several sections have no inline citations (1c), the lead is too short (2a), the notes in the List of officially designated cities section are a mess, there are external jumps, the article is somewhat listy and some footnotes are not formatted correct. --Peter Andersen (talk) 16:33, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree entirely. Writing problems and it's too much of a LIST! TONY (talk) 14:58, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
It is a sad truth that the page is more like a hybrid between an article and a list; I remind my colleagues that Featured Lists did not exist when this article was featured (2004). Therefore, I have a radical solution to propose: take the "List of officially designated cities", which looks like an intrusion right in the middle of the article, and all its footnotes, and move them to a separate page (preferably titled List of cities in the United Kingdom, which is currently a redirect to the page here examined). An entire range of formatting and layout options would then open for the list, and with some work it could even make it to FL. This article, meanwhile, would be easier to work with, leaving us mostly with the lead and citations to worry about. Waltham, The Duke of 02:54, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

So if we remove the list, what do we do with the section on cathedral towns? It seems counterintuitive to have a list of cathedral towns in the article, without also including a list of cities. Perhaps a summary list of cities should be retained, whilst the table can be moved to its own article?GSTQ (talk) 01:30, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

It has crossed my mind as well, and I agree that we should keep a list of cities; it would not make for an informative article if it omitted the crucial part of which communities have city status. No information other than the city names and each one's constituent nation should be given, however. The cathedral-towns list would not have to change at all this way, and everyone would be happy. Waltham, The Duke of 02:49, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, I think we've fixed the leader and the listiness (as best as it can be fixed in such an article; personally I didn't see a problem with it as it was), and removing the table has alleviated some of the citation problems. I'm not sure about 1(c) though. I'm sure something could be gleaned from the footnotes from the table in List of cities in the United Kingdom, if anybody were in a mind to do so.GSTQ (talk) 05:52, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

On another note, I did not understand Mr Andersen's comment about external jumps. Apart from that, a good improvement to the article might be to add another image. The question is, however, "what is there to add?" Waltham, The Duke of 16:43, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
External jumps are links to external websites in the middle of the text.--Peter Andersen (talk) 17:09, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
I think there are only two of these, both referring to "Key Statistics for Urban Areas", and each tiem the surrounding wording rather repeats the same info too. Shouldnt' be too hard to re-word (maybe link to Census in the United Kingdom), and use the link as a (named) footnote instead. David Underdown (talk) 09:30, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are referencing (1c), LEAD (2a), prose (1a), and focus (4). Marskell (talk) 19:21, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Remove Much of modern practises of giving status in unsourced. Ultra! 19:34, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment – Actually, from the issues listed above, only referencing seems to be a valid concern now. The lead has been expanded, the prose improved, and the list removed along with all its footnotes. I say give it some time, and the star could be saved. Waltham, The Duke of 01:44, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Theodore Roosevelt

[edit] Review commentary

Notifications:

All five editors with over 50 edits: SimonATL, Rjensen, Johnleemk, Shanes, & Gdo01
All projects on talk page: WP:Columbia, WP:MILHIST, WP:USPREZ, WP:WPBIO, WP:NY, WP:HSCH, & WP:FM

This article is a tremendous resource on WP. However, I was looking for a place to add an image and saw three {{cn}} tags withing a very short space.

  • The article has at least a half dozen of them and many completely unsourced paragraphs. Thus, the article fails 1 (c).
  • It fails 2(a) with a five paragraph WP:LEAD.
  • It may fail 4 as the second longest article for an American Politician at WP:FA based on research I did a week ago for Wikipedia:Peer review/Jack Kemp/archive1.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 02:18, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Additionally, the article refers to him as Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. in the lead and then mentions his son, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. later.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 02:19, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
  • N.B. The article survived a FAR two years ago.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 02:21, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
    You're right. The article is full of unsourced statements (quotations, no less) and is way too long. It seems to have more than doubled in size since the last nomination. Bit of a shame given that it's about Teddy. --RegentsPark (talk) 03:02, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
    Have you thought of trolling for some less active editors with more recent histories as well (three of the top five seem to be dormant). Zsero looks like a likely candidate. --RegentsPark (talk) 03:10, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I think it's probably time for a top-down review. While I'm a TR fan myself, some of TR's political mistakes, particularly after his departure from the White House are not adequately covered. I've spent almost a year reading every critical book on TR I could find including Pringle and Blum and we ought to consider these as well as the laudatory stuff. Sure TR was a great guy, but consider this - before he finished his last year, Congress was literally ignoring Presidential messages that they would usually read from the House Floor - "O Yes, O Yes, a message from the President to the House..." i.e. instead of reading, they were FILING them. What accounts for his almost "miserable" relations with Congress which can only be partially accounted by his lame duck status (I won't run a again) status. SimonATL (talk) 18:10, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are referencing (1c), LEAD (2a), and focus (4). Marskell (talk) 19:18, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

[edit] Review commentary

Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games, Wikipedia:WikiProject Nintendo, Wikipedia:WikiProject The Legend of Zelda series and User:Cuivienen notified

I don't think this passes 1c with no refs in the Gameplay section and a total of two in the Plot section. The Reception section also looks a bit sort. Buc (talk) 21:08, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

  • The Gameplay section could use some more sources, but most of it is based on the game itself and its manual. Some video game articles include several footnotes to the game's manual, but I don't believe that to be necessary. The reception section could use some expansion but shows the general trend of criticism well enough. In conclusion, some things could be improved, but I think the article still meets FA-standards. It certainly meets all video games guidelines. User:Krator (t c) 22:00, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Make the manual the ref then. Buc (talk) 19:57, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
  • It also has excessive use of fair use images per WP:NFCC. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 22:40, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Well, shoot. I did a lot of work on this article during its FAC, enough that I sort of consider it one of "my" FAs even though I wasn't the nominator. (I don't assume to own it, of course.) I know it needs work—I'm willing to put in the effort to keep this featured, but I'm going to be stretched thin between this and the FAC for another Zelda game that's really putting me through the wringer at the moment. Pagrashtak 00:32, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
Please complete the nomination by following the instructions at the top of WP:FAR to notify significant contributors and relevant WikiProjects, and post the notifications back to the top of this FAR. Perhaps the following users: User:Axem Titanium seems to have a significant number of recent edits. (I see that User:Pagrashtak has been notified.) Thanks!--RegentsPark (talk) 01:50, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Pagrashtak; give me a yell (on my talk) if you need any specific help with the article. dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 08:27, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are citations (1c) and images (3). Marskell (talk) 16:52, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment - The image issue is settled I think, five images at least were removed and rationales added. More references are still needed. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 23:43, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] George Fox

[edit] Review commentary

Wikipedia:WikiProject Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and User talk:69.108.205.8 notified

This was featured in 2004 and appears to be abandoned (original nominator and contributor are no longer active). Minor problems include an insufficient lead. But more importantly, old unreliable sources are used (19th century) in the Harvard references. As for citations, only primary sources (i.e., his autobiography and his journal) are cited which would tend to produce a biased result. This should be written based on scholarly secondary sources like Ingle, mentioned as a useful source, but does not appear to be used at all. I think I can help bring this up to standard (got to check out if I can get some books), but I hope others can help here. --RelHistBuff (talk) 15:25, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Please complete the nomination by following the instructions at the top of WP:FAR to notify significant contributors and relevant WikiProjects, and post the notifications back to the top of this FAR. Thanks! --RegentsPark (talk) 15:45, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
I notified the WikiProject. I could post to the nominator, Quadell, and contributor, AlexG, but I assume that would be as useful as notifying Emworth. The top 10 contributors are IP addresses. --RelHistBuff (talk) 15:51, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
I see that. Perhaps a note on the IP address discussion pages for 86.158.6.105 would help (assuming that their edits were not trivial). Though I see that when you say 'abandoned' you mean it! (Perhaps adding an invitation to the article talk page - in addition to the notification - would also be useful.) --RegentsPark (talk) 16:00, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I did some cleaning up and in the process I should point out a correction. It turns out that his autobiography and journal are the same. It also appears that an early edition (Jones 1908) was used rather than the more reliable modern edition (Nickalls 1952). So basically the sources for this article are Fox's Journal (1694, Jones edition), Marsh (1847), and Schaff (1914, tertiary source). This means 1c is not satisfied in that it does not use "reliable sources and accurately represent the relevant body of published knowledge." --RelHistBuff (talk) 08:14, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Here's one thing I'm not too clear on: "His education was based around the faith and practice of the Church of England, of which his parents were members; this parish was strongly puritan, in this case Presbyterian." What exactly is being said here? "He was brought up Anglican, but his neighbours were Presbyterian", or "He was brought up as a puritan within the broad umbrella of the Church of England"? DrKiernan (talk) 07:15, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Not clear at all. It sounds contradictory. I took a look in the Journal and Schaff-Herzog and there is nothing about his education being based around either the Church of England or a Presbyterian church. It probably came from a secondary source somewhere. A question before working too heavily on the article. Would you be able to get one of the secondary sources, i.e., Ingle or Wildes? If so, then I will try looking for one of those in the library and then we could try to get the article in shape jointly. If I try to do this by myself, I know that it will take me a few months which is too slow to save it from being FARCed. We could conceivably cover different sections of the article and work simultaneously. --RelHistBuff (talk) 15:00, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I have access to the Jones, Penney and Nickalls versions of the Journal, Ingle's ODNB article (which I've used extensively so far), and Hodgkin's much earlier biography from 1896. I don't have access to either Ingle's book or Wildes. I could get access to other George Fox-specific material as I'm within driving distance of Atherstone and Hinckley local studies libraries but to be blunt I don't want to put myself out! I think splitting the work is a good idea. We could try to use different sources. Again, to be blunt, I don't fancy reading more than one book. We could also try working on it at different times, say me this week, you next week, so we don't bump into each other's edits. Whatever you want really, this is much more your field than mine. DrKiernan (talk) 08:08, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
OK, I will hunt for the books on my next trip to the central library. This will take me a couple of weeks as I don't go into town very often. As I don't have access to the ODNB, you could go ahead. If I can get the books, I will add to what you've done. --RelHistBuff (talk) 09:27, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

This article is worth improvement. I thought I'd invest five minutes in the first section, and set off to edit it. I was surprised to see a number of hidden comments, variations on <!--Fox in Nickalls, p.3-->. I'd guess that this means "Fox on p.3 of Nickalls' edition" and I'd be inclined either to convert it into a note or to add it to the adjacent note. But I do neither and instead hit the browser's back button, , because I don't know what motives the person had who either wrote it as a comment or commented it out. What has been going on here? Morenoodles (talk) 09:46, 26 May 2008 (UTC) Struck out by Morenoodles (talk) 07:21, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

I am still working on integrating references from Nickalls into the article. DrKiernan (talk) 17:17, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Good job! Morenoodles (talk) 07:21, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are LEAD (2a) and citations (1c). Marskell (talk) 16:51, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I see there's been some work. Keep us informed. Marskell (talk) 16:51, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

See above. DrKiernan (talk) 17:17, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

I managed to get to the library yesterday and I am really sorry to say that the books are unavailable. They do not have Wildes. According to their catalogue, they have Ingle, but they cannot find the book (they have put a search for it). However, in my opinion, with the excellent work done by DrKiernan, this one should be a keep. Normally, it isn't ideal that Fox's autobiography is used as the main source, but I'd rather overlook this as it looks like in good shape right now and perhaps someone from the Quaker Wikiproject will finish the job afterwards. --RelHistBuff (talk) 15:37, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hong Kong

[edit] Review commentary

Notified: User:HongQiGong, User:Mcy jerry, User:Kelw, User:Instantnood, User:PZFUN (original FA nominator), User:154.20.71.14, User:Mintchocicecream‎, User:SchmuckyTheCat, User:UCLARodent, User:24.176.138.81, User:Olivier, User:Jiang, User:Alfeewusy, User:Leungli, User:Alanmak, User:Chrishomingtang, User:Winhunter, User:Luckyluke, User:Benjwong, User:Badagnani, WikiProject Hong Kong, WikiProject China, WikiProject Cities, Wikiproject Countries

This article achieved FA status in 2005 and as you can imagine has changed significantly since then. The following issues are identified:

  • Criterion 1c - many statements are unsourced and in two cases entire sections.
  • There is ongoing/stale discussion about the use of either a "country" or a "settlement" infobox, and furthermore whether the article should style itself on other city or country FAs, something with could affect criterion 1d, other than that it is generally quite neutral.
  • Criterion 1e - it has been the subject of edit warring (official languages) and move-vandalism.
  • Criterion 2a - the lead section is concise but could be longer as per WP:LEAD.
  • Criterion 2b - There has been some debate about sections, some seem poorly organised.
  • Criterion 2c - inline citations are used extensively in some sections but missed completely in others. Literary references are given but not cited.
  • Criterion 4 - article is too long and some sections do not keep to summary style.

Hopefully this article doesn't need too much work but the magnitude of the change since 2005 and the tightening of FA criteria since then justifies a review. --Joowwww (talk) 11:38, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Please follow the nominating instructions at the top of the WP:FAR page to notify significant editors and relevant WikiProjects, and post the notifications to the top of this FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:20, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, missed that bit, done now. --Joowwww (talk) 11:18, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

We can work on all these criteria, but other than requesting article protection and semi-protection, ultimately we can't stop editors from edit-warring and vandalising an FA article (Criterion 1e). Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 15:20, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism can't be stopped, but edit-warring can be an indication of problems that need resolving. The other matters can be addressed, as you say.
In regards to length, I would suggest trimming the longer paragraphs, such as the last in "Economy". John Smith's (talk) 10:25, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Someone seriously messed up the page. I don't know how to fix it! Protodude1337 (talk) 23:13, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are citations (1c), stability (1e), organization (2), and focus (4). Marskell (talk) 19:19, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

CommentI don't see huge problems here; needs a ce and a few more refs is all really. Can this be left open for a week or two. Ceoil (talk) 14:20, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] AK-47

[edit] Review commentary

Notified: WikiProject Russia, WikiProject Military history, WikiProject Firearms, various other users.

The main problems here are 1b and 1c. I'll start with the former. This article is sourced by some 25 notes, with a few extra "further readings" below. Several sections (Illicit trade, Derivatives, Production outside of the Soviet Union/Russia, first paragraph of Variants, Ballistics) have no references at all, while others (Operating cycle, Design background, Design concept, Disassembly, Cultural influence) have only one or two references. In fact, the only section that would really pass for adequate, reference wise, would be Receiver development history.

1c (or a lack thereof) is mainly reflected in a few stubby sections (Ballistics, Legal status), as well as Design concept and Licensing, both of which I am sure could be expanded to be a great deal more comprehensive.

The subject of the article is not abstract; I am sure that through collaboration this article can rise again to meet current standards. I myself will be very willing to partake in the advancing of the quality of the article, in regards to the two criteria identified. -- Anonymous DissidentTalk 03:52, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. The featured version shows us that while the prose has increased in size, organization is deteriorating and the list of references has shrunk by nearly 25%.
Here's a comparision:
Featured version: "During World War II, Germany was the first nation to develop weapons that embodied the characteristics of the modern assault rifle. The impetus for the adoption of the assault rifle as the primary individual infantry weapon was the knowledge that, in modern warfare, dismounted troops typically exchange small arms fire at ranges of fewer than 300 meters; in most firefights, combatants are within 100 meters of each other."
Current version: "During World War II, the Germans developed the assault rifle concept, based upon research that showed that most firefights happen at close range, within 300 meters."
Seems to me that a improvements need to be made. Teh Rote (talk) 17:44, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Good points above. Lose the silly little flag as well; it adds nothing and is specifically deprecated in WP:MILMOS#FLAGS. --John (talk) 01:54, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
  • There's also the one-sentence paragraph "Legal Status". Eklipse (talk) 07:20, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are comprehensiveness (1b) and referencing (1c). Marskell (talk) 20:12, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Remove >6 unsourced paras; legal status needs to expand. Ultra! 15:53, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Kazi Nazrul Islam

[edit] Review commentary

Wikiprojects listed on the talk page have been notified.

Article lacks appropriate sourcing. A large part of the "mass music" and "religion" section came from obscure and not-so-reliable sources. One was an unpublished and informal talk by a professor and another was an essay by a undergraduate student. So two subjective sections about scholarly analysis are from non-reliable or non-mainstream or non-notable analyses and violate undue. The other part is the general sourcing; most of the article just linked to the front page of a website without citing any pages. Other parts were sourced to blogs and other self-published articles. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:07, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I would like the folowing sentences to be altered as they use peacock terms:

  • Nazrul won admiration of India's literary classes by his description of the rebel whose impact is fierce and ruthless even as its spirit is deep:
  • While hailed by many as a pioneer and epoch-making poet by progressives, who took inspiration from his works that attacked
  • Nazrul is considered to have been one of the most brilliant exponents of Shaktism

KnowledgeHegemonyPart2 (talk) 06:20, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I just checked the version right before it was taken FAR and the version that was protected to feature on the main page. This is what I found. The article has degraded much, and one good way to deal with the degradation is a quick removal of all the POV copy and unreferenced information put in "after" it was assessed as an FA through community consensus. This looks like a much better solution to keep quality intact, more so than the painstaking rewriting and citing much of the new stuff would require. Any gem that lies hidden in the dirt can be shoveled back later. If someone wants bits of it back already, the article still would remain surely open to that. Aditya(talk • contribs) 10:56, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the two sources I was talking about were there from the start. But it doesn't matter now because they have been removed. Although I think the rewrite has increased the amount of peacock terms and caused a 1a issue. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:58, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Sggested FA criteria concern is referencing (1c). Marskell (talk) 20:09, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Remove Lots of facts challenged. Ultra! 15:49, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Don't remove speaking in context of the overall article. Its a subject on which there doesn't seem to be as many sources available. As a solution, I don't see why we can't just remove the sentences/facts without due citations - none of them seem critical or vital to the article. It won't diminish, as it doesn't seem people here can find any better literature. And is it worth risking the status of the overall article over those non-essential sentences? I don't think so. Vishnava talk 12:26, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Don't remove It is always more prudent to remove the parts that hurt, fixing the bits that has degenerated, than to remove the article from featured status. That is one of the reasons why we have this article history thingy. Aditya(talk • contribs) 03:04, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Hold, since some are working on it or else Remove:Obvious sourcing and prose problems. - KnowledgeHegemonyPart2 (talk) 05:39, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Update a majority of the statements without citations have been removed and work is underway to provide citations for the remaining few. Vishnava talk 23:47, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep: The FAR helped improve the article significantly. The citation concerns have now been addressed. Thanks to diligent contribution from Anwarul Islam, Vishnava and others. If there are any other concerns, that should be raised here, otherwise I don't see any reason to remove. Arman (Talk) 06:15, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes. The citations repeat the whole book details over and over, some of the refs are still not formatted consistently and – needs to be used for book range. Apart from that one new paragraph has been inserted without references, and some things have been bolded for no apparent reason. US and UK English have been mixed. Some literature names are italic, others are not, while others are in brackets. A lot of POV/commentary has been added, without attributing it to a pundit but in Wikipedia's voice "The forces that opposed him suffered defeat, and like all great poets, he succeeded in creating his own audience" and "astounding and far-reaching success". "Both traditional and non-traditional women were portrayed by him with utmost sincerity" (needs to be stated as a consensus/opinion not raw fact" and "It is the message of love, beauty and truth that he pronounced all his life". Footnotes need to be placed immediately after punctuation....The rewrite has also unfortunately introduced a lot of grammar errors such as "He was born in a Muslim family who is second of three sons and a daughter, Nazrul's father was the imam and caretaker of the local mosque and mausoleum" and so the article doesn't pass 1a anymore. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 06:29, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

It can't be retained without serious work.

  • MOS breaches start with the unspaced en dash in the dates at the top. I see curly quotes, proscribed by MOS, and ellipsis-dot-spacing problems. And more.
  • Prose problems such as "Working at the literary society, Nazrul grew close to a rising generation of Muslim writers", although it could easily be saved on that front (concerned about reviewers' points above, though).
  • "Nazrul catapulted to fame with the publication of "Bidrohi" in 1922, which remains his most famous work."
  • US/Br spelling dissonances. TONY (talk) 16:17, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Remove Large groups of text remain unreferenced, inconsistent ref formatting, MoS errors. I'm not comfortable with using Banglapedia as a source in this article, given that this supposedly neutral encyclopedia uses terms like "martyr" and "freedom fighter" to describe certain individuals in Bangladeshi history. Remember the saying, "one man's freedom fighter and another man's terrorist". I know Kazi Nazrul Islam is a poet, but given Banglapedia's issues with neutrality, I wouldn't consider this an entirely reliable source. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 03:34, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
I am afraid you are confusing between WP:VER and WP:NPOV. NPOV is a policy for Wikipedia, but this policy does not say that all it's sources must also adhere to this policy. As long as the sources have reputation of fact checking and proper attribution all sources, irrespective of their POV, are considered reliable. Arman (Talk) 03:59, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Extremely biased (which I consider Banglapedia to be) sources are almost always unreliable. Furthermore, I made this point to demonstrate that even if Banglapedia is a reliable source, its issues with neutrality should be taken into account when selectively citing parts of the text. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 04:13, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
Banglapedia is a scholarly work produced by Asiatic Society, one of the most respected scholarly organizations in South Asia. Your claim about unreliability of Banglapedia is unfortunate. If your objections are to the use of the word "Freedom fighter", here is an example from Britannica online, which shows Britannica itself uses the term. So, your claim of POV is also unfounded. Banglapedia is a print encyclopedia, and the print version has full citations/references for all of the articles. --Ragib (talk) 15:55, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Another problem is that 60+% of the article is now sourced to the Nazrul Institute. Although the people who wrote it are scholars, the mission statement of Nazrul Institute is quite hagiographic towards KNI, using extremely emotional language. The problem is that a lot of the new subjective content is now sourced to an organisation that is dedicated towards promoting Nazrul's work - and refers to KNI as "our" in its front page. This skews the pundit analysis heavily towards the promoters and admirers of KNI. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 04:19, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Remove - needs a fair bit of work on numerous criteria; MOS, reference formatting, (un)reliable sources (oft cited example), and the like. If this is all done satisfactorily I'm happy to take another look. dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 11:07, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment (about Banglapedia): Virtually ALL sources (academic and popular) in Bangladesh refer to the fighters for independence of Bangladesh as Freedom Fighter and those who died in the war fighting for Bangladesh as Martyr. In fact, if any source published in Bangladesh fails to identify them as such, the source and author is likely to be harshly criticized. You may call this a national point-of-view. Now, if we start to say that all sources that use the words freedom fighter and martyr are unreliable, then we have to cut out all sources from Bangladesh - all newspapers, almost all books and all scholarly works on the history of the country - which is absurd.
Banglapedia is a publication by the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, a 50+ year old research organization with solid reputation of research work. Some of the most reputed academicians from Bangladesh were involved with this organization. The Chief editor of Banglapedia is Professor Sirajul Islam, one of the most respected academicians in the country, a corresponding fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a former Senior Commonwealth Staff Fellow at the University of London (1978-79), a Senior Fulbright Scholar at Urbana Champaign (1990-91), and a British Academy Visiting Professor (2004). Please take some time to check out the page about him on Columbia University's International Directory of South Asia Scholars. The other contributors of Banglapedia are also known scholars in their respective field of expertise. The book can be found in all the leading libraries in the USA including libraries of almost all the ivy league schools. In Bangladesh Banglapedia enjoys far more credibility than wikipedia itself. Search on Google Scholar generates 170 hits.
Are there problems in the article on Kazi Nazrul Islam? Yes, there probably are; but citing from Banglapedia is not one of them. Arman (Talk) 02:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Can't agree with those claiming Banglapedia to be an improper source. I think Armanaziz has given enough reasons to explain why. Wouldn't it be like, you can't use the BBC as a reliable source 'coz its UK government-run and UK-centric in its activities? There are perceptions of bias with BBC, not proven bias. If it bothers you, its your right not to watch BBC but you can't dismiss it as a reliable source. Its not like the whole article relies only on Banglapedia. And Banglapedia is a sister to Wikipedia, helping considerably to expand its scope. Vishnava talk 21:57, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
    • The analogy to the BBC is not even valid. The BBC doesn't push some POV regarding British figures. Banglapedia does, by including fluff writing to push a glorified POV of the subject. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 17:37, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
With respect, I feel you are dragging in an irrelevant perspective - "BBC does not push some POV regarding British figures" - first of all, as I said, there are perceptions, not established facts. The same goes for Banglapedia - perceptions, yes, but established bias, no. Individual criticism cannot affect the reputable status of Banglapedia. You are confidently asserting that BBC doesn't push some POV, and I feel the same about Banglapedia. But even as you criticize Banglapedia, there are many who see a liberal bias in BBC. My point is, you cannot flatly reject Banglapedia as not a RS without due evaluation and evidence. Vishnava talk 01:23, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Also, the Nazrul Institute sponsors research, publishes books and research papers, etc. I don't know why any book published by the institute is disqualified. The reliability of the source requires more analysis than that. Vishnava talk 22:37, 28 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delist - In only a couple of glances, I could spot atleast 3 or 4 gross violations of PEACOCK and NPOV. For example, when did Calcutta become the "cultural capital of india"? It is at once, a vio of both PEACOCK and POV. "Nazrul's poetry is regarded as rugged but unique in comparison to Tagore's sophisticated style." doesnt convey anything at all! What is "rugged" and what does "unique in comparison to Tagore's" even mean? Also, some of the images (atleast the one in the infobox) lack source information. It has just been released into public domain on the claim that it was published for the first time over 60 years ago. But there is no evidence to back that claim. Same with other images too. One of the images, infact seems to be up for deletion on eo.wikipedia. Also, what makes nazrul.org and ethikana.com WP:EL-worthy? What makes nazrulsena.com RS? The article fails the basics. Sarvagnya 01:25, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Calcutta's "cultural capital" bit is cited, I believe. Also, comparison of Nazrul and Tagore, if properly cited, is in fact a good addition, giving the reader an idea of the scholarly analysis and views of their respective poetry; now you can't blame someone for using "rugged" and "unique" to describe their analysis. To me personally, the implication is obvious - Tagore's use of Bengali is more classical, especially in view of his sophisticated education and expertise; Nazrul is more colloquial, his background being that of a son of the soil, representing Bengali spoken by common people across the region. The image is clearly more than 60 years old, given Nazrul's birth/death dates and age data. Vishnava talk 02:11, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Nazrul Sena: The Nazrul Sena website has ONLY been used as a source for the statement, "Bangladesh Nazrul Sena is a large public organization working for the education of children throughout the country", which is clearly verifiable from the website of the organization. Since there is nothing exceptional in this claim, I don't see why we have to question this source. Arman (Talk) 03:40, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
External Links: WP:EL says: "Wikipedia articles may include links to Web pages outside Wikipedia. Such pages could contain further research that is accurate and on-topic; information that could not be added to the article for reasons such as copyright or amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks); or other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article for reasons unrelated to their reliability (such as reviews and interviews)." The links of nazrul.org and ethikana.com have audio records of recitation from Nazrul's poetry and Musics composed by Nazrul. These are relevant materials for Nazrul researchers but these items cannot be directly used in Wikipedia both because they provide too much details and have copyright issues. I hope this explains what makes them WP:EL-worthy. Arman (Talk) 03:50, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Remove, unless more neutral sources are used. For example, this was cited in the article, and the same website includes sentences such as "By the magic touch of his wonderful talent" and "with a view to preserving his immortial achievements" ([13]). Hopefully this and others are replaced with more nonpartisan sources. If the text in the article becomes more neutral, I will reconsider my decision as well. Khoikhoi 04:35, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Could someone help me understand what the problem is with using the words "Magic" or "Immortal" in the context of Kazi Nazrul Islam? He is the national poet of Bangladesh. Isn't it enough justification to call him immortal? It is quite common to use emotional language in critical commentry on artistic / literary subjects. It can be shown that even Harvard Gazette uses such terms (See Immortal, Magic etc.) So, next time we should have to avoid all Harvard publications as well, shouldn't we? Arman (Talk) 06:55, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Not wanting to act as a double act, but Armanaziz is right (again) and I can't understand this type of objection either. Naturally I'll try to address the concerns once I get an idea how to. Almost all WP:RS-complying types of books, papers and sources contain some subjective statements and assessments and provide/promote one POV or another. I know the guy (don't remember his name) who wrote "Jinnah of Pakistan" also added a tribute to Jinnah as being a founder of a nation, changing the world, etc. So is his biographical work, which is reputed and widely read and cited, a bad source? Have you ever read a bio of Mahatma Gandhi, John F. Kennedy or Mother Teresa that doesn't include praise and tribute? A reputed organization like the Carnegie Endowment will have something nice to say about Andrew Carnegie. Albert Einstein is hailed by almost every scientific institution. Vishnava talk 07:13, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, there have been quite a few books that have slated JFK and Gandhi and Mother Teresa also have their critics. Your point about Carnegie is the problem though. The Carnegie Endowment, obviously because it is an associated organisation of Carnegie, has a predisposition towards him. Likewise, the Nazrul Institute was formed with the intent of promoting Nazrul's work and "spreading the gospel" so to speak, and says as much in its mission statement, aside from the emotive language in it mission statement, it has already stated its predisposition towards Nazrul. As such, its publications have a pre-defined slant. Sourcing 60% of an FA to a body with an institutional COI is not good. Likewise, having 60% of a war article written by the official scholars of one of the warring parties is a big COI. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 09:01, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
HeLa cells (the subject of the first Harvard Gazette story) are immortal cells. Also, the word "immortalized" is used as an eye-catching title. The second Gazette link actually deals with "magic", or rather the medieval concept of magic. And, isn't the Harvard Gazette a student publication? Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 17:32, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, that specific example of the use of word "magic" may refer to medieval concept of magic, but how about this or this? Also, with due respect, you are incorrect about Harvard Gazette being a student publication. Harvard’s Office of News and Public Affairs, which is the liaison between the University and the news media and the general public, manages the University’s Web site as well as the production of the Harvard University Gazette (Reference). Arman (Talk) 06:30, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
I was only asking if Harvard Gazette was a student publication (hence the question mark). Besides, it looks like the Harvard Gazette is only used to publicize university-related matters. I wouldn't consider it a reliable source just based on who's publishing it; I would have to do some investigating before making such an assessment. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 19:20, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
So, when Harvard's public affairs office publicizes its works or uses words like "magic" or "immortalize" to describe art and literature works, that's something to be evaluated separately from Harvard's research publications. On the other hand, when Nazrul Institute's website says their mission is to immortalize Nazrul's magical work in a sheer bid to publicize their work, it automatically makes all their research publications biased and unreliable? To me it seems like a double standard.
The bottom line is, Nazrul Institute is a research institution established by the Government of Bangladesh to conduct and promote study on the works of the national poet of the country. As such, the institute finances and coordinates majority of the research of Nazrul scholars in Bangladesh. The publications of Nazrul Institute are almost universally considered to be the most authoritative source about Nazrul in Bangladesh. The fact that they use emotional words in their website about Nazrul is not a valid argument to discredit all their works. If this is not evident to someone not familiar with the culture and academic arena of Bangladesh - it must be, if not anything worse, a big misunderstanding. Arman (Talk) 02:10, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Note I would like to request more time to address the issues raised here. It is very important to note that some clear-cut responses citing applicable Wikipedia policies have been provided as answers to the "remove" votes, so its not like there is a consensus or anything, nor can we argue that the objection arguments are settled. Considerable progress has been made in (a) addressing the prose problems (not finished though) and (2) providing sources to facts that required citations - the article doesn't have any holes. The continuing argument seems to be about a few sources contested under WP:RS. Vishnava talk 07:16, 29 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delist because 60% of the sources are from an institute with the explicitly stated aim of promoting the legacy and work of the subject. As such, there is a very heavy weight on an organisation/printing house with a declaration predisposition and a COI, as their mission statement has already declared the subject to be "immortal" and "incomparable" etc, and places a strong emphasis on declared supporters of Nazrul. This would be similar to having a religion FA where the sources are from a body sponsored by a missionary organisation related to the said religion. Or a memorial institute to some politician publishing books about the said politician. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 09:01, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Correction - Nazrul Institute facilitates the publication. You cannot insinuate that the works of the authors are necessarily biased because the Institute published it - each book has to be evaluated on its own merit. Otherwise, it won't be worth trusting books from Simon and Schuster, which is linked with CBS News. Vishnava talk 14:41, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Well, CBS and Simon and Schuster are RS, although not for talking about themselves because that is a self-source and it isn't 3rd party. BBC is reliable, but it is not reliable for saying that the UK government is politically interfering into its journalistic freedom. The organisation is not a third-party organisation because of its mission statement of promoting KNI's work. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:58, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
One distinct point to answer - have any bias from these sources permeated into the article? If we remove them and leave just the facts as cited, does it not work to maintain WP:NPOV? In this context, the research credentials of Banglapedia and Nazrul Institute are fairly good. If we leave out any possible opinons, etc., using them just as reliable verification of facts, then would there be a problem? Also, and I may be mistaken in my interpretation, but there are a few points in policy that are pertinent to this debate: (1) Wikipedia:RS#Reliability_in_specific_contexts - The claim that all or most scientists, scholars, or ministers hold a certain view requires a reliable source. If you claim that the authors of books published by the Nazrul Institute or Banglapedia carry the bias of the Institute or of a pro-Nazrul entity, you must prove it with a reliable source. Like the Simon and Schuster example, the mere note of publisher cannot stain the work itself. Vishnava talk 14:57, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Well, if the exact same things are in independent sources, then it is better to just use an independent source anyway, since it would be more professional. Even if George Bush's website says the same basic data as a historian for some things, if we put his website there instead of a historian, the reader may just assume that it is self-serving propaganda or a joke. Many FACs have required people to substitute 3rd party references for COI references. Many military FACs have forced the removal of refs by official army historians/publishers. In the case of the Nazrul Institute, many of the references are for non-black/white things about his stylishness, personal character etc and the Nazrul Institute's mission statement has already declared him to be the best etc. This was already done before the institute was founded, so they have already reached their conclusion before they started researching and publishing their papers. Also, your quotation from RS is referring to the use of subjective statements in article. As above, SS/CBS being used to talk about news is OK, but not to talk about itself or its associates. Using an organisation with a mission statement of promoting a certain thing in a WP article about a certain thing is problematic. It's the same as using a Petroleum Institute sponsored book for talking about global warming. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:58, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
I still think there is something wrong in your argument: (1) Banglapedia is a third party reference, b'coz it is not tied with the subject of the article, Nazrul. It is like the Encyclopedia of Islam and similar subject-specific encyclopedias. It is a national, accredited encyclopedia. (2) The citations are from individual works authored by Bangladeshi scholars; Nazrul Institute is the publisher, who may have its own mission statement, but it is not the author of the works, merely the publisher. Does any book published by Simon and Schuster necessarily carry the same issues of bias with S&S/CBS? No. Your reasoning would only apply if the article was about the Nazrul Institute, Banglapedia or the authors of the books in question. (3) I don't think the article imports any actual POVs from these sources. (4) Any source or work has elements of POV, as we've talked of bios of Gandhi, JFK, etc. In no way does it mean that the source/work is not properly researched. (5)


I think its wiser to ask others to chip into this specific debate, for the 4 of us (Nishkid64, Blnguyen, Armanaziz and myself) can keep emphatically arguing with each other and do this review no good. I am perfectly prepared to accept your arguments if I can see some of my specific questions answered. Vishnava talk 15:04, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Hold Placing a request to hold this FAR open for a bit - am working fast on getting more sources and seeking other opinions on the Banglapedia/Nazrul Institute issue. It will take several days - hope everybody is fine with that. Vishnava talk 16:01, 8 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Delist per Blnguyen, proper referencing to neutral sources is paramaunt for Wikipedia articles especialy on FAC level Alex Bakharev (talk) 01:39, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Hold Please hold the article, as there are considerable works going on to address the issues.--Dwaipayan (talk) 04:37, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Hold as the issues raised in the article are being fixed. --Ragib (talk) 05:50, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

[edit] Review commentary

Wikipedia:WikiProject Films Wikipedia:WikiProject Star Wars, Wikipedia:WikiProject Science Fiction notified.
  • Article is incomplete; same problem with Episode 2. Lots of books are available about literary criticism and cinematic style of Star Wars but this article contains nothing from them. Film scholars and historians have much info about the film that is missing from the article I found some in a two-minute book search:
    • Visions of the Apocalypse: Spectacles of Destruction in American Cinema by Wheeler Winston Dixon
    • Star Wars and Philosophy: More Powerful Than You Can Possibly Imagine by Kevin S. Decker, Jason T. Eberl
    • Alternative scriptwriting: successfully breaking the rules by Ken Dancyger, Jeff Rush
    • Special Effects: An Introduction to Movie Magic by Ron Miller
    • Sound Design and Science Fiction by William Whittington
    • The Gospel According to Hollywood by Greg Garrett
    • Genre Studies in Mass Media: A Handbook by Art Silverblatt
    • Building Sci-Fi Moviescapes: The Science Behind the Fiction by Matt Hanson
    • Creating the Worlds of Star Wars: 365 Days by John Knoll
    • Culture, Crisis and America's War on Terror by Stuart Croft
    • The Myth of Media Violence: A Critical Introduction by David Trend
  • Intro is stubby.
  • Plot too detailed and confusing for a lay reader.
  • Later parts of cast are challenged claims but remaing unsourced.
  • Box office, DVD just half sourced.
  • Awards, music and video game unsourced.
  • "References to the original trilogy" sections contains a lot of fancruft.
  • Uses IMDb, MovieWeb, bigfanboy.com and The Movie Blog which fail RS.
  • overwhelming ext. links, some linked twice, US flag, etc. Ultra! 18:36, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment - It is not "overwhelmingly linked" in the external links section, nor is the introduction stubby. THe other issues can be dealt with. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 19:14, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Emphasis on Soundtrack, Novelization and Video game can be lessened. I also have to agree with the comments above about referencing; is there no book or other textual resources that can be used? FWiW Bzuk (talk) 06:15, 30 April 2008 (UTC).
  • It might not be a good idea to have two Star Wars articles on review at the same time, as the pool of people able to respond to the concerns are probably close to identical. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:51, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
    • I agree, and nominating more than one article at a time is against the instructions at WP:FAR. If editors need more time, it will likely be granted, but Ultra should refrain from doing this again. Ultra, please complete the notification instructions at the top of WP:FAR by notifying significant article contributors and relevant WikiProjects and posting notifications back to this FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:26, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I formatted the references. Gary King (talk) 20:13, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment I haven't read all of this thing, but I've read enough to see that it needs a lot of attention. Here's my first take on just one section ("Awards and nominations"): I'd like to think that it's not quite so bad as it was before I tackled it, but the confused second paragraph still doesn't seem to know what it's about (the small number of anti-awards? Christensen?), and I'm left puzzled by the significance of a "pre-planned" award, and also by descriptions of awards that aren't linked. A brief look at one other section: "Box office performance" has a single explicit mention of "worldwide gross" but the rest seems to be about North America (which I suspect means the US and Canada) and/or America (which I suppose means the US) -- what is pretty clear is that this needs retitling at the least. Morenoodles (talk) 10:36, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are comprehensiveness (1b), lead (1a), and prose (1a). Marskell (talk) 19:55, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment I don't think that IMDB uis reliable, especially for serious things like leaks and court cases. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 04:46, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment - Additional sources which may be useful for critical reception include:
Slavoj Zizek, The Parallax View, p. 101-103
Jonathan L. Bowen, Revenge: The Real Life Story of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Greg Garrett, The Gospel According to Hollywood, p. 56-57
An Orson Scott Card critical essay
Camille Paglia makes some observations
more here
www.sagajournal.com - this site essentially is a peer-reviewed academic journal focusing on the series, and at the very least has a lot of other good references contained within. Any case, between Google Scholar, MRQE, and more, there should be strong references to be found. To whomever is reading this, I wish you good luck and look forward to seeing how the article improves! :) Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 22:01, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment on comment: First, if Žižek said anything coherent about this film, then it's out of character for him. Secondly, let's look more closely at "peer-reviewed academic journal". "Peer reviewed" essentially means "reviewed by people in the same position as the writer", and this "Saga Journal" you're advocating seems to be written up by fans who just happen to be at university and thus know how to footnote. I chanced on this paper as an example. The author may be an adjunct prof of history somewhere, but his paper is sophomoric. It doesn't even have an introduction that states what it is that he's setting out to demonstrate; instead, there's an airy assertion about unspecified "concepts", which he then seems to forget about. Clearly he's on some holistic (or similar) medicine trip, writing Many medical experts are limited to what is earthly [sic] visible. [...] The medical establishment in the real world and the Star Wars universe is overly mechanized. They see a client as someone to be altered, not listened to, just as Vader's medical droids put him back together without consideration for his pain. As is his right, but this kind of disparagement of "the medical establishment in the real world" again seems odd in academia. (If I had cancer, I'd be uninterested in what was marsly [?] but not earthly [?] visible, and a lot keener to be "altered" than to be "listened to", but perhaps that's just me.) He calls the Star Wars stuff The saga we all love, which doesn't square with my idea of a dispassionately academic approach; but then, just like a religion or quack therapy, the "journal" even has a page of personal testimonies. I say all this not (well, not primarily) in order to knock the "journal", but rather to point out that what claims to be academic and has some of the trappings of academia isn't necessarily intellectually rigorous or worth careful consideration by anyone, let alone the harried editors of a Wikipedia article. Morenoodles (talk) 06:42, 1 June 2008 (UTC) revised a bit 04:28, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment The prose isn't up to it. As far as I could be bothered to read it, it's pitched at about the right level and avoids the truly awful, but it's flabby or dull or something. I worked on one short section and commented earlier/above on having done so, but this doesn't seem to have inspired anybody else to do much more of the same. Here's just one example of what I'm referring to: In 1973, Lucas claimed to have written the Star Wars saga's fundamental story in the form of a basic plot outline. He would later profess that at the time of the saga's conception, he had not fully realized the details — only major plot points throughout the series. (i) I first took this to mean that his claim was in 1973, but what follows suggests that the claim was about 1973. (It's sourced to material published in 2005, not 1973.) (ii) Are "basic" and "fundamental" different here; if so, how, and if not, why the repetition? (iii) "Profess" sounds strange; what's meant? (Chilling suspicion: a fancy would-be synonym for "confess"?) (iv) Since the claim was about having written something basic, fundamental or both, and as an outline, it's pretty obvious that details weren't included; so why add that details weren't included? Now, I wouldn't go on about these two sentences if they were an isolated or obscure example -- but they're neither, they're at the very start of a section near the top of the article, and there's a lot more like them. Morenoodles (talk) 05:17, 1 June 2008 (UTC) revised a bit 04:28, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] History of Buddhism

[edit] Review commentary

Notified User:PHG and WikiProject Buddhism.

An FA from '04 that has serious structural issues. Lead is clearly inadequate, numerous one sentence paragraphs, stub sections (including one that's empty) and poorly rationalized ToC. Obviously inadequately referenced and the references provided are not properly formatted. I don't mind working on prose and organization if there's someone else available for sourcing. Marskell (talk) 12:10, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi Marskell. This is an ancient FA, which clearly doesn't have many of the attributes of more recent ones. I personnally won't have much time to devote to its rework, but it may be time for the WikiProject Buddhism community to make a full revamp of it. Best regards. PHG (talk) 17:08, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
As I already noted on the talk page of the article itself, there are few citations, & many of the statements in the article are theories, legends or just plain wrong. I support demotion until this is remedied. Peter jackson (talk) 10:53, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
There's also under weight on the Greeks. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 07:37, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
There are two sections, fuller than most of the sections here. They include both Greco-Buddhist art and King Menander. If this is a typo for undue weight, I could see it; but "under weight"? What is omitted? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:36, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes undue weight. Very much so. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 02:44, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
I hate to take accurate, and largely sourced, detail out of an article. Is there a sub-article? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:01, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I can't see this neeting modern FA standards without a lot of work. There is hardly anything on the last 1,000 years, and no section on, and very few mentions of, Tibet, the only culture where Mahayana Buddhism remains dominant. Few mentions of the integration of Buddhism with other religions in China, Japan, Tibet and elsewhere. It might be better to draw a line at some date like 1,000, or 1,200 and just call this the early history. Johnbod (talk) 16:50, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I regretfully agree that this should be demoted. To add another example to those cited above, the role of Gandharan Buddhism in the development of early Buddhist iconography is essentially absent; a major lacuna. That said, this still offers a good structure around which to improve the treatment. Topic is important and it would be a shame to demote it without a plan for its revival. Eusebeus (talk) 13:12, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are LEAD (2a), structure (4), and citations (1c). Marskell (talk) 19:50, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Remove per above - uneven coverage, short lead, not enough on important stuff and vice versa. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 04:43, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Remove. I nommed so Joel can close. Nothing happening, unfortunately. Marskell (talk) 18:54, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Avatar: The Last Airbender

[edit] Review commentary

Notified Wikipedia:Wikiproject Television, User:Raul654, User:HeirToPendragon, User:Fyre2387, User:The Placebo Effect, User:Dylan0513, User:Parent5446, User:Herald Alberich, User:Rau J, User:Y BCZ, User:Redsparta

Since its passing in January 2007, the article has become filled with a lot of non-reliable sources, particularly from two Avatar fansites: musogato.com and avatarspirit.com. It also has several unreferenced sections now, which appear to be original research or fan theories. All of this badly violates criteria 1c for featured articles. It also had links to copyvio material. I've removed the most blatant (MP3 downloads), but may still have links to unofficial episode transcripts. There are so many links to these two fansites, in particular, that I do not think it can quickly be fixed or replaced with more valid sources, so sending here. Collectonian (talk) 22:18, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I added a couple of {{fact}} tags to the influences section. One paragraph in particular, which dealt with the focusing of qi during element bending, was sourced with the name of an avatar episode. I removed the source and placed a tag on it because it did not even come close to supporting the very specific statement. However, an editor replaced the source stating the specific statement was a direct quote from avatar (see here). However, it was never put into quotations, nor was it noted (in the actual article) which character spoke the line. This amounts to plagiarism. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 22:49, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
I do not know whether I was just looking at one part of the article, but the prose seems to be a little on the confusing side. There seems to be some number of redundant phrases. Even if I'm wrong, I'm sure the article could use a good copy-edit. — Parent5446 (t n c k e l) 00:55, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
We have removed the links to episode transcripts from the reference template, but I will go now and remove them from old references. I will also directly quote the qi part, which was spoken by King bumi in The Return to Omashu, an episode in the shows second season. Rau's Speak Page 01:52, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Actually, when I looked back, the article has no links to episode transcripts. And many of the links to AvatarSpirit are for interviews, which I do not see how a site could be unreliable on that unless it is made up. And that site always cites a sources, so I doubt that they made it up. The links that aren't transcripts are news reports, such as Convention information and information directly from Nickelodeon. And for Musogato, I do not see how translations and article scans of interviews are a bad thing. Rau's Speak Page 02:03, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
If AvatarSpirit is citing its sources, go to the sources to get the original version. Article scans of interviews is not the same as the original (can be manipulated, and possibly a copyright issue as they are not a journal service with permission to republish the articles online). If they are all giving their sources, again, go to the sources, get the original, and cite it rather than a fansite that does not meet WP:RS. Collectonian (talk) 02:41, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Okay, thinking about it, nine out of ten times AvatarSpirit does not provide a source other than "Nick said it". So yea, I drop that from my argument. One of the Musogato interviews were from Nickmag, how do we get the original for that? Rau's Speak Page 03:33, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Which interview? Collectonian (talk) 03:40, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
The same interview is cited from that site twice: [14]. Rau's Speak Page 03:44, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Does he give the publication information anywhere? Like which issue, date, etc? If you can have that, enough places that aren't reliable sources mention the article that you can relatively safely presume it was published and cite the magazine itself. Collectonian (talk) 03:49, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Okay, I'll look into it. I never actually thought of that..... Rau's Speak Page 04:08, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Just for comaprison, here is a diff between the current version and the version that was promoted to FA: [15] — Parent5446 (t n c k e l) 11:58, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

This discussion seems to have died out. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 18:07, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't see the point of letting us see the old version of the article, the point of wikipedia is the improvement of the article. A revert of that scale would diminish the articles quality. And a lot of discussions on this project seem to die. Rau's Speak Page 18:51, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, BTW, the Aang article has a direct reference to the original magazine article. So if you want to copy that reference you can. I believe it is ref sixteen. — Parent5446 (t n c k e l) 01:01, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

May I ask, what is still wrong with this FA? I have noticed the orignal nominator hasn't said anything recenty.The Placebo Effect (talk) How's my editing? Please contribute to my editor review. 01:20, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

None of the issues have been addressed. Collectonian (talk) 01:27, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
What do you mean none of the issues have been addressed? We basically shot down the fansite one and I personally just removed unsourced material and sourced other material. I do not see how that is not addressing the issues. Rau's Speak Page 01:41, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
He asked what was still wrong. I was just giving him a short answer. The issues have not been completely addressed yet, so all of the problems are still issues that have not been resolved. Collectonian (talk) 01:44, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Then what is still wrong? Looks pretty good to me. The information is sourced and references are accurate. Rau's Speak Page 01:49, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Avatarspirit is still in use — non-RS fansite. Still has unsourced content, some tagged as needing sources, some that have dead link sources. It also has excessive non-free images per WP:NONFREE. Collectonian (talk) 01:52, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
AvatarSpirit is being used for interviews. What policy does that violate? Show me where the unsourced content is and I will source or remove it. Also don't say some, there is only one. And all of the links in the sources are good, I checked them. Rau's Speak Page 01:58, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
I just noticed the fighting styles, I am sourcing that now. Rau's Speak Page 01:59, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
AvatarSpirit is a fansite, and violates WP:RS (and parts of violate WP:COPYVIO making it a bad link to begin with). It can't be used for anything.Collectonian (talk) 02:18, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Its being used for an interview with the staff. I do not see how referencing their interviews violates any of that. Rau's Speak Page 02:31, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
You really are one stubborn user, Collectionian. I think you should take a visit to WP:RS when you site it. There is ABSOLUTELY NO MENTION WHATSOEVER of fansites in that guideline (emphasis on GUIDELINE; sorry to have to use CAPS). Avatar Spirit does not just decide to make up interviews from thin air. That is preposterous. In addition, how exactly are the interviews a copyvio. I am very interested to find out. — Parent5446 (t n c k e l) 02:33, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Watch the attitude already. WP:CIVILITY is a policy. I didn't say the interviews violate copyright, the site itself does with its transcription section. Those are not authorized and they are copyright violations. You have no idea if the interviews are real or not because the site does not meet the qualifications for being a reliable source, and being a fansite it never will. And FYI, RS is "just a guideline" but one that supports the verifiability policy, so it is not just a guideline you can ignore. If it isn't a reliable source, it doesn't meet V and doesn't belong, period. Collectonian (talk) 02:37, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Its an interview. And because of that I do not see why any of the others matter. Rau's Speak Page 02:52, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Because it isn't a reliable source, and linking to it can be seen as a copyright violation due to the illegal transcripts, illegal MP3s, etc. As they aren't a news source, peer reviewed, etc, there is nothing to say the interview is a good one, conducted properly, and is factual. Since as it doesn't seem to be sourcing anything not already sourced elsewhere, why even keep it at all? Collectonian (talk) 03:01, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
One, nice find, I forgot all about that. Two, we aren't linking to any copyrighted material I do not see how that applies. And if the only excuse for it not being reliable is that they are a fan site, then you need to do one better. WP:VERIFY states that "the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses" and "Academic and peer-reviewed publications are highly valued". Those are the only mention of peer reviews in the entire policy. After that, we drop to the guideline WP:RS, which has no mention of fan sites at all. Rau's Speak Page 03:19, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Rau J, consensus there has supported that fansites are not reliable sources, multiple times, and that linking to a site that deliberately violates copyrights is not appropriate at all. That was agree in recent discussions over some anime sites that included links to fansub downloads, Ani-DB. All links to it were removed and its templates deleted as it was agreed that linking to it even for the info pages was a violation of WP:COPYVIO. Collectonian (talk) 03:23, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, unfortunately while it shows all, it isn't clear enough to meet the other image use requirements. Also, keep in mind that a character image isn't necessary here. As pointed out in non-free, the individual pages already have images. Collectonian (talk) 03:23, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
How does it violate WP:COPYVIO, I just read the entire page and there was no mention of link to sites that have copyright violating material. And where is the consensus that states that it does? Rau's Speak Page 03:32, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, wrong short cut. See Wikipedia:Copyrights, particularly the second paragraph of the Linking to copyrighted works section. If you want, we can start yet another discussion on why you feel we should link to a site that violates US law and go against that policy, but why not just find better sources.Collectonian (talk) 03:41, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Fine. I will personally remove all links to information on Avatarspirit, and any information that becomes unsourced as a result of it. Rau's Speak Page 03:45, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Could we link here, considering its an archive? [16] — Parent5446 (t n c k e l) 12:58, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
No, because its an archive of the same site, which still would have the same problems. Collectonian (talk) 14:24, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

(ding) May i ask why hosting some copyrighted material invalidates the interviews they did themselves to which everyone else will point back to them for that info? The Placebo Effect (talk) How's my editing? Please contribute to my editor review. 14:40, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Because it violates WP:Copyright. It doesn't matter if they did the interview themselves, they still deliberately violate the copyrights of the property owners. They also aren't really a WP:RS so the value of the interview is questionable. Collectonian (talk) 14:42, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
SO just beacuse they hosted some copyrighted material, every piece of info on there site can't be used? Even if it isn't copyrighted material? That seems a little off to me.... The Placebo Effect (talk) How's my editing? Please contribute to my editor review. 14:45, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
I strongly disagree with that policy. In the court trial that the policy cites, the defendant had actually posted information that was copyrighted, they did not link to an illegal site or anything like that. There is no proof or examples that says linking to a site that posts illegal content is against US law. Furthermore, the policy specifically states "It is currently acceptable to link to Internet archives such as the Wayback Machine." Therefore, it would be acceptable to use that link I provided a couple of lines up. — Parent5446 (t n c k e l) 15:01, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Oh, and personally I kind of like that image. We definitely need some sort of image in the characters section. — Parent5446 (t n c k e l) 15:08, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Whether you disagree with the policy is, frankly, irrelevant. The Wikimedia Foundation chose to have stronger copyright policies than US law, as is within their right. It is their website and we are bound by their rules, same as with non-free. And no, an image is not "needed" and many series FAs and GAs do not have them.Collectonian (talk) 15:16, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
It is not irrelevant Mr. I-cite-policies-and-guidelines. Wikipedia:Ignore all rules says "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it." So, yea, If we deem that not using ASN reduces the quality of the article, then we ignore it. Rau's Speak Page 18:31, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
A — its Miss, B - WP:CIVIL, C-ignore all rules doesn't apply here. It doesn't prevent anything. The site adds no real value to the article. And, some policies can not be ignored, no matter what. I'd suggest you read Wikipedia:What "Ignore all rules" means to actually understand what IAR really means. It does not mean you get to ignore copyright policies, and it does not mean you get to ignore the consensus of community. IAR is not a "do whatever I want because I don't like your policies" card. You may also want to look at WP:POINT, which is what your last edit was an inappropriate form of. Get over it. Find a valid, non-copyright violating source, or leave it out. Collectonian (talk) 18:38, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Sorry for the "mr.", and I was civil. And I read what it means before I cited it. I genuinely feel that not using ASN reduces the quality of the article. And IAR means "Ignore All Rules", that means everything; policy, guidelines, consensus; everything. And my WP:POINT has no bearing on my last edit. Rau's Speak Page 18:53, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
IAR does not mean everything. If consensus agrees that IAR doesn't apply, it doesn't apply. If one could just invoke IAR to do whatever they wanted, we wouldn't have policies, guidelines, and people wouldn't get blocked for vandalizing articles. Articles wouldn't be deleted for containing copyrighted info because one could just claim "its better than nothing" and links to copyright violations would not be something that gets you a single warning before blocking (which it does). If the content from ASN were geniuinely valuable and would improve the quality of the article, the plain and simple truth is that it would exist elsewhere in other, more reliable, non-law breaking places. That no other sources are available for the information brings into question whether it is even factual, must less valuable to the article. Collectonian (talk) 19:05, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
And what consensus declared that IAR didn't apply? I know of another source for the information but that site (though an official news source) has links to copyrighted material as well. Giving examples of the musical score. Is that site not allowed either? Rau's Speak Page 19:25, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Multiple discussions at WP:Copyright that such links don't belong, period. What's the new source/link? If it is an official news source, they are likely to have permission to actually include examples (allowable use), versus ASN which has no permission. Collectonian (talk) 19:33, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
How do you know that ASN doesn't have permission. Considering that they receive high quality trailers from Nickelodeon themselves, I think that if Nick had a problem with them having copyrighted material it would have been taken down. (This interview has a lot of the same information, and then some.) Rau's Speak Page 19:38, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Because if they had it, they would state so. They don't, and do not give any note that the transcripts are official or otherwise. Where as that article gives a proper disclaimer, notes the tracks were provided to them, and are only providing short samples (20-30 seconds) for review purposes. That site could be used as a WP:RS. Collectonian (talk) 19:44, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Fine. Later tonight I will organize a new comprehensive section with information from that site. I know of no other sites that have information, nor do I intend to look. If someone else finds a site, they can add the information. Rau's Speak Page 19:51, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
This is an exact example of something I believe Raul654 said. It went along the lines of "The more time that passes, the less plastic Wikipedia's policies are, and the harder they are to change." Unfortunately, that is the sad truth. Does anybody realize the value of what is being lost here. There are at least ten interview on ASN that have tons of valuable information, all of which have been used in multiple Avatar articles, not to mention that these sources have been reviewed many times and let by (ASN was cited during this article's FA, during Aang's GA, and during many PRs). I do not see what consensus you are pointing to, because I have had tons of editors say "ASN is not reliable", and after I said "the sources are interviews", they were always OK with it. The only thing that is coming in the way of this article and ASN is a policy. Oh, and just so you know, WP:IAR does apply here. It even says in WP:WIARM that IAR can be used if there is an actual explanation that can justify the stray from policy. And there is an explanation. This site has a lot of information. If RauJ does not come back with a lot of information from his new site, I am not going to care what that policy says, because this article is suffering and I will not allow the suffering to continue. — Parent5446 (t n c k e l) 20:00, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Amen. And the indents are getting ridiculous. Rau's Speak Page 20:18, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Hey, you want to use it, use it, but it is valid grounds for the article losing its FA status. Up to you. You don't want it to be FA, then IAR and use unreliable, inappropriate sites as reference. If you want it to remain FA, quit complaining and actually do the work necessary to fix the article back to FA quality, including using proper, reliable sources and removing anything that can't be sourced from a proper source. This whole thing is getting utterly ridiculous. Collectonian (talk) 20:23, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Please move this RFC to the talk page; FAR is not dispute resolution. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:27, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Collectonian: I still have no idea what you are talking about. Nowhere in WP:FA? does it say that an article's sources must comply with every guideline in the book. Nor does it say that WP:IAR cannot be used in a FA. Furthermore, as we've said before, these sources are clearly reliable. The only thing you seem to have against them is the fact they have "illegal" episodes transcripts (and maybe soundtracks) and the fact that it is a fansite. But not every fansite is unreliable. In fact, you'd be surprised how reliable some fansites can be if you analyze them closely. Keep in mind it is in fact the fansite's goal to put reliable, true information about the show on its site. Besides, it is not like we are citing a forum or something, we are citing an interview. As for the supposed "illegal" links, only Collectonian, me, and Rau J have been commenting, and all of our opinions are biased. So I suggest we wait for somebody to respond to the RFC before making a call on that one. — Parent5446 (t n c k e l) 20:32, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Parent, that is a horrific signature length to edit around; would you consider shortening it? Concerns about reliability of sources should directly engage WP:V wording; anything else is hot air. Please justify sources specifically per WP:V policy. Further, the last time I read WP:COPYRIGHT (and WP:EL) they were very clear: we don't knowingly link to sites with copyright violations. Period. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:45, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Which is why I called WP:IAR, not using the site is disregarding a very large amount of information that was acquired through interviews. I find that wrong and degrading of the quality of the article. Rau's Speak Page 20:53, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
We don't jeopardize all of Wiki for one article to violate a copyright. That is an absurd stretch of IAR. Have you read WP:COPYRIGHT and WP:EL on the reasons why we don't link to copyvios? If these interviews were so important and notable, why can't you find the originals or find them in some usable form without violating copyright? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:55, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
And amid all this childish hollering and arm waving, can someone please put up the exact URL we're talking about, and the text it is being used to cite? It would be helpful to be able to make an informed opinion. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:58, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Avatarspirit conducted the interview themselves. These are the originals. Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. We were using them for information on the musical score of the show. And is anyone else starting to feel like a douche for forgetting why we are here? Rau's Speak Page 21:10, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Please try to provide some clear information that others can follow. If they conducted the interviews themselves, where is this copyvio? And what is the text being cited to these interviews? Who owns the interviews, are they hosted on a reliable source, and where is the copyvio everyone is talking about? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:12, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict)Sandy, based on this comment by Collectonian,[17] it isn't that a link to material that is a copyright violation is being used to cite text. Collectonian seems to be under the impression that because the website has copyrighted material on it that nothing on the website can be used. The links from the fansite that are being used to support text are not copyright violations, but are rather interview conducted by the website itself. --Bobblehead (rants) 21:13, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Thank you, Bobblhead :-) So the RFC question is, when the website hosts other pages that contain copyright vios, is it OK to link to any pages on that website... is that correct? If that is the question, my understanding is no, but I honestly don't know if that specific question has been explored. I do recall reading somewhere that the very fact that a website would host a copyvio renders it, by definition, a non-reliable source. Don't know on which Wiki page I saw that, but that is my understanding of why the source would be disqualified as reliable. Still want to see what kind of text is being sourced (and still want to remind the article editors that there are other deficiencies that need attention). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:20, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
This edit[18] seems to cover the text that is being supported by links to AvatarSpirit.Net. --Bobblehead (rants) 21:33, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Text cited to alleged copyvio site (no one has yet shown us the copyvio, this is like pulling teeth)

Avatar features an extensive original musical score, written by composers Benjamin Wynn and Jeremy Zuckerman, founders of the Track Team.[1] According to an interview with Jeremy Zuckerman, the team had been hired by the creators due to a roommate story.[1] Benjamin Wynn had been roommates with Bryan Konietzko while he and DiMartino were creating Avatar. The creators decided to hire Wynn and Zuckerman to do the score, having complete faith in their ability.[1] Because the instruments are chosen based on timbre, and not culture, the music in the show is composed of both Western and Eastern instruments.[2] Chosen for its intimacy and gentle sounds, the Kalimba is used in the more serene moments.[2] The sound of the sunghi horn, a fictional instrument that first appeared on the show in the episode "The Waterbending Scroll", is also used in the musical score of the show. It is described as having a sound like an instrument that is part reed and part brass.[3]

  1. ^ a b c Acastus (2006-07-23). Music Interview with the Track Team 1 of 3. Interview. Avatar Spirit.Net. Retrieved on 2008-04-08.
  2. ^ a b Acastus (2006-08-05). Music Interview with the Track Team 2 of 3. Interview. Avatar Spirit.Net. Retrieved on 2008-04-08.
  3. ^ Acastus (2006-08-12). Music Interview with the Track Team 3 of 3. Interview. Avatar Spirit.Net. Retrieved on 2008-04-08.
So, besides the sourcing question, help me understand why this prose is engaging, compelling or brilliant? Why don't you all stop fighting over one site for a few days, focus instead on bringing this article to standard, don't put up half-baked RfCs that waste community time, and see how this issue works out once you've cleaned up the rest of the article? Doesn't it trouble any of you that you're basing everything about the music score on one source ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:55, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
It does now, I never thought of it. But we do have a second source that I had every intention to use to rewrite the musical score section before this was reignited. Rau's Speak Page 22:09, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, I'll see what I can do. BTW, if I find the time to copyedit the whole article, the revisions will be posted tomorrow. I cannot guarantee the inclusion of any edits between now and then, but I will try. (For my own reference, this is the revision I am working from.) — Parent5446 (t n c k e l) 02:41, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
Just one last thing: I don't understand how linking to ASN is a copyvio. Could somebody please explain? — Parent5446 (t n c k e l) 21:17, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
The point here is that in the past, a US court has said it is illegal to link to sights that contain copyrighted material, an dwe need to avoid any law suits at all. Unless we email AvatarSpirit about this asking about it. But i don't know exactly what we could ask them. If they can remove the copyrighted material so we can use them a source on wikipedia and provide proof they had the interviews( I think some are in mp3 form actually)? The Placebo Effect (talk) How's my editing? Please contribute to my editor review. 02:56, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
That's what I'm not getting. There is nothing in copyright law that says linking to sites with copyrighted material is illegal. There is a law that says linking to copyrighted material itself is illegal (like if we linked directly to the mp3 files or transcripts, which he have done before, but they were removed). So what is the problem? — Parent5446 (t n c k e l) 03:02, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm also seeing a lot of MoS deficiencies and unformatted and incorrectly formatted citations, so you all might want to stop arguing and start bringing the article to standard. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:04, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry Sandy, but that was mentioned in the original post, so we didn't know that was a problem. We will get right on it. The Placebo Effect (talk) How's my editing? Please contribute to my editor review. 12:42, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I copyedited up to the Influences section. Is it at least a little bit better? — Parent5446 (t n c k e l) 23:52, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern is reference quality (1c). Marskell (talk) 19:48, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Remove - still has referencing issues, including large amounts of unsourced content and some non-WP:RS sources. Article also badly fails to follow the TV MoS and no exceptional reason given/demonstrated for not following it. The non-free image issues have been fixed, and article has improved during this FAR, but I do not feel it is back to being FA quality yet. Collectonian (talk) 20:52, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] History of computing hardware

[edit] Review commentary

User:Ancheta Wis and Wikipedia:WikiProject Computing notified.

I'm going to make this short: This has 5 footnotes, and it's featured. From what I can see, more than 90% of this article is unreferenced. Needs huge improvement. I would say this doesn't even come close to WP:GA standards. — Wackymacs (talk) 16:56, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

  • Remove: Inline citations, in my view, are of particular importance in an article that covers such a broad subject (thereby leaving that much more room for interpretation.) I agree, this is not close to current standards for FA. -Pete (talk) 23:45, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
FYI, this is the review phase, where we just clean it up or identify issues that need to be addressed. Only when it gets moved to the Removal section below do we vote. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 05:35, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
With this being such a huge article that basically needs rewriting in many places, it is most likely this is going to get removed first. I would start work on it, but I have other projects on wiki to complete first.— Wackymacs (talk) 06:51, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I just came across this article and I was about to list it here myself. It's a long way short of FA standard, and I agree with Wackymacs, it wouldn't even make GA as it stands. The obvious problem is with inline citations, or rather the lack of inline citations, but chunks of it aren't well written either, particularly later in the article. Text is squeezed between graphics, one of which partially obscures the text behind it, far too many short paragraphs ... there's a lot of work needed. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 14:22, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
    I have asked Wikipedia:WikiProject Computing to help out with the footnotes, and have access to Bell and Newell's book. In particular, I was asked to contribute some references for the article, as is currently shown, several years ago. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 07:08, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
    We are now up to 43 footnotes. I have asked the WikiProject Computing for contributions, and have given some explicit examples of how to add citations to the FA on its talk page. User:Ragesoss has also notified the History of Science wikiproject of this ongoing effort. Let's see who else will contribute. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 14:57, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I will leave this up in the review phase given active work. Keep us informed. Marskell (talk) 19:15, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

  • WP:LEAD is inadequate, and it's hard to understand why the article title can't be worked into the first sentence. The {{main}} template is incorrectly used (most of those should probably use seealso or further), and most of the citations are incomplete or incorrectly formatted (see WP:CITE/ES). External links needs to be pruned per WP:EL, WP:NOT. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:31, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
    Thank you for your comment. One of the problems is that hardware and software are jargon; for example software can also mean clothing, as I learned in the New Orleans airport once. Not everyone knows the jargon, and jargon needs an explanatory sentence in the first place!
    I will use the see template per your explanation.
    Others will have to deal with the external links; contributions by others are welcomed, unless we want to see this article lose its star. When we worked on this article 4 years ago, there were multiple contributors. Might it be that they have lost incentive? I certainly have other things to do with my time. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 10:47, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
    I see that Wikipedia:Citing sources/example style is disputed. Which part of this are we supposed to be working with in order to demonstrate responsiveness to the FAR? --Ancheta Wis (talk) 01:59, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
    Again, what part of Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not are the remediators supposed to be working in order to demonstrate responsiveness to the FAR? Are we supposed to post to individual reviewers in order to get guidance? --Ancheta Wis (talk) 02:02, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
    2nd para. added to lede. Invited the members of Wikiproject Computing to contribute. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 02:27, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
    I have just noticed that History of Russia was defeatured, even in the face of contributions by 5+ active editors and 120 footnotes. Am I wasting my time and energy? --Ancheta Wis (talk) 11:09, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
    No time is wasted, but this article is in very bad shape and is going to need a huge effort; are you the only person working on it? The image layout is not good, the WP:LEAD is going to need to be rewritten, there is weasly uncited text (example: Some claim she is the world's first computer programmer, however this claim and the value of her other contributions are disputed by many.), WP:OVERLINKing, WP:MOS#Captions punctuation errors, WP:DASH errors, citation errors ... I could go on ... to give you a frank assessment, this article is in much worse shape than what usually comes through FAR, so I hope others are helping you. It's doable, but will take a big effort. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:18, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
    The prose is also going to take a large effort, and an engaged copyeditor. Here's the last paragraph in the article:
    • An indication of the rapidity of development of this field can be inferred by the seminal article,[1] (by Burks, Goldstein, and von Neumann, which was documented in the Datamation September-October 1962 issue. This was written, as a preliminary version 15 years earlier). (See the references below.) By the time that anyone had time to write anything down, it was obsolete.
    Ouch. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:21, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
    I agree, it is indeed doable if a reviewer and a copyeditor can work in tandem. For example, I just reworked the closing sentences per your statement. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 10:10, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
    If other editors can work on image placement, in cooperation with a reviewer, that would be good. I have been concentrating on footnotes, and propose continuing to do so.
    If other editors can work on the prose, in tandem with a reviewer, that also might work as a division of labor. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 10:49, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Sidenote: History of Russia was removed because some of the people directly active on the article said it wasn't good enough. So no, you're not wasting your time, Ancheta. Marskell (talk) 18:11, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are citations (1c) and prose (1a). Marskell (talk) 19:45, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Comments in the review have died so moving down. Marskell (talk) 19:45, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

This diff shows 27119 net bytes (a 33% increase) have been added to the article since 29 April 2008. I have attempted to address the concerns of Wackymacs (1c) and SandyGeorgia (1a) in the meantime. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 10:35, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
I am continuing to work on the prose, now that the citations follow Wackymacs' suggestions. Specifically, SandyGeorgia's concern about overlinking in the prose. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 22:21, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] League of Nations

[edit] Review commentary

Notified at User talk:Formeruser-81, User talk:UW, User talk:ALoan, User talk:Sam Korn, User talk:MisfitToys, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Human rights and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject International relations

An article on an important topic that has been a featured article for over 3 years and has not been reviewed formally in that time. It seems to be in pretty good shape, although there are few references and citations by modern FA standards (although there is a "Bibliography").

For instance, the lists of presidents and secretaries general are a bit distracting and would perhaps be better split off. -- Testing times (talk) 00:23, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Keep & Comment. Yet another fine, long-standing article on a topic of truly encyclopedic importance, about to be defeatured due to lack of notezorz. But that's ok, it will be replaced by ridiculously over-cited articles on game or Poke cruft. And that's ok because any topic can be featured so long as it is blandly written and chock full- o -inlines. For here in Wikiland, quality=verifiability=quantity of inlines. Surely there is someway out of this mediocracy madhouse, someway to grandfather in articles such as this one, which have been long featured and whose quality has not drastically declined. But I doubt the blind pedantics will find one.--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) (talk) 20:05, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
I think you'll find people will be more inclined to read your arguments with an open mind if you use "Move to close" rather than "Keep". It's much the same as "Keep" but it doesn't garner the same sort of hostility. DrKiernan (talk) 09:11, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
That's the problem; most here don't have open minds...at least not anymore. They see a lack of inline notzorz and they knee-jerk vote remove. Just see the bureaucratic-sounding comments below. Which begs the questions-With articles such as this defeatured and great contributors such as Aloan leaving in frustration and disgust, what makes Wikipedia NOT suck?--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) (talk) 09:58, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
There's certainly a lack of references. I've add a couple and plan to add some more over the next few days. The list of Presidents and Secretary Generals might be better split off especially if some commentary is added about their periods in office. --Kaly99 (talk) 12:50, 19 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Lots of work needed. Fundamentally, the the basic lack of citations, but also MoS issues. Incorrect WP:DASHes everywhere, some of the section headings are very long (and those appear to be lists that could be moved out of the article), the WP:LEAD doesn't appear to be an adequate and compelling summary, WP:GTL (portals belong in See also), WP:MOS#Ellipses, WP:MOSBOLD, I stopped there. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:14, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Sorry - if you can translate this alphabet soup into plain English for me, I could begin to help some of this "lots of work". I can't work out what WP:DASHes or WP:MOS#Ellipses - or indeed WP:MOSBOLD - are saying is wrong with this article. Presumably a simple cut-and-paste could fix the "portals belong in See also" problem, no? -- Testing times (talk) 22:43, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

--U.S.A.... The United States never took part in the league of nations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexdow93 (talk • contribs) 23:13, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are referencing (1c) and formatting (2). Marskell (talk) 12:00, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Here's an update of work that I've done on the article:

  • Removed obvious dashes, I still need to check which of the other shouldn't be there
  • The longest section headings have been removed (along with the lists)
  • Cleaned up the See also and External links sections (including portal) and removed bolding from the main text.
  • Tried to sort out the quotes in the mandate section but I need to re-read the guide lines on these as I'm not sure I've formatted them correctly. Once I have I'll sort out the rest of the article's quotes.
  • Added references, but it's a slow process to verify and correct the text and there are still a lot that need adding.

I'm sure there are other MoS issues as I'm not an expert on the guide lines. If I manage to reference the rest of the article in time I plan to sort out the lead and carefully go through the MoS and check it against the article. --Kaly99 (talk) 11:49, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Kaly99 - that is the sort of thing I was suggesting above I could do, but I first wanted someone to explain clearly what would be necessary to resolve the various issues. I'm still prepared to help, if someone can tell me what is required. -- Testing times (talk) 21:47, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
The main problem is referencing as there's still a lot of the article that's missing references. Alternatively, you could have a look at the section of the Manual of Style (MoS) on quotations and format the quotes in the article to comply with it. Also you could check through the rest of the Manual of Style and make any changes to the article needed to comply with it. --Kaly99 (talk) 22:02, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Fixes still needed. The main issue is lack of citation, but I'll list the minor MoS issues again in case anyone wants to work on them. Incorrect use of WP:HYPHENs instead of endashes in citations, example: Glover Forster, The Esperanto Movement, pp. 171-176 Inconsistent date formatting and date linking in citations, see WP:MOSDATE, examples: Origins and history, International Labour organization, Retrieved on 25 April 2008 vs. "League of Nations Ends, Gives Way to New U.N.", Syracuse Herald-American, April 20, 1946, p12 (the dates need to be wikilinked). Incorrect use of named refs on repeat refs, see WP:FN, example, 47 and 48 are the same ref and should use a named ref: 47. ^ "League of Nations Ends, Gives Way to New U.N.", Syracuse Herald-American, April 20, 1946, p12 and 48. ^ "League of Nations Ends, Gives Way to New U.N.", Syracuse Herald-American, April 20, 1946, p12. Inconsistent page numbering convention in citations, some examples of p12, and some examples of p. 12. No consistent style. Incomplete references, example missing publisher at League of Nations chronology, Retrieved January 21, 2006. (And notice that one does have a wikilinked date, while remaining citations don't, no consistent style.) Inconsistent date linking in the article (see WP:MOSDATE), incorrect use of WP:HYPHENs instead of endashes in the article, and missing WP:NBSPs throughout; here's a couple of sentences with a sample of each: unlinked date, 33-0 should be 33–0, and a missing nbsp between 5:43 and pm. The final meeting of the League of Nations was held in Geneva on April 18, 1946. Delegates from 34 nations attended, and a motion was made to close the session, with the resolution that "The League of Nations shall cease to exist except for the purpose of the liquidation of its assets." The vote was 33-0 in favor, with Egypt abstaining. At 5:43 pm Geneva time, Secretary Carl J. Hambro of Norway stated, ... Incorrect use of {{main}}, where {{seealso}} or {{further}} would be more correct. Incorrect spacing on ellipses, see WP:MOS#Ellipses, example: might call military sanctions... Incorrect logical punctuation on quotes, example: "Generally it appears to me that any such scheme is dangerous to us, because it will create a sense of security which is wholly fictitious". Incorrect use of italics on quotes, see for example "General weaknesses" section, and WP:ITALICS and WP:MOS#Quotations. WP:ITALICS, why is Firestone in italics in "of forced labor on the massive Firestone rubber plantation in that country ... " ? WP:MOSNUM, don't start sentences with numbers, example: 90.3% of votes cast ... More incorrect WP:DASHes on date ranges, example: Chaco War, 1932-1935. That's scraping the surface for a start. In other words, the MoS cleanup needs here are substantial, but I'll be glad to help if this article moves into Keep territory, which it won't until it's cited. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:03, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Still wondering if anyone is working on this, because I can help with the MoS issues if it looks like it's warranted. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:18, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
I seem to be the only one working on it but I won't be able to do any work on the article until after next Wednesday. I am still planning to finish adding references (and rewriting where necessary). Any help would be great, but as the areas with the main MOS issues seem to be the ones that are going to need the most rewriting it might not be worth going ahead with some MOS corrections until after this has happened. --Kaly99 (talk) 12:37, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
OK, I'll check in later, or ping me if my help is needed once everything else is set: I'll be glad to do MoS cleanup when all else is set. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:54, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
I did some of his, Jbmurray did some, I struck some, but I'm not sure everything has been done. Also, the {{main}} template is used when summary style is employed; I think some of the main templates need to be changed to {{further}} or {{seealso}}. The entire article needs to be checked for MoS issues when done. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:13, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Delist. I'd add that there are also plenty of 1(a) (prose) issues: awkward phrasing, grammar problems including comma splices, repetitious wording, short paragraphs and sections, and so on. I'm surprised by the comment at review commentary that suggests this is a well-written article ("brilliant prose," as the terminology used to have it) that simply no longer accords with current referencing demands. It's not a particularly well-written article at all. I'm going to do some copy-editing (which should indicate some of the problems, so I don't have to list examples here), but don't have all that much time right now; in any case, it would need the concerted efforts of a whole number of editors. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 03:09, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Holding. Much recent work in the history. Marskell (talk) 20:29, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Comment. Yes, Kaly99 is doing some excellent work there. I've helped out a bit with copy-editing and restructuring, but I'm sure that s/he would appreciate any other assistance anyone could provide. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 23:08, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
It does need a serious ce. I'll give it a go. Marskell (talk) 17:32, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Hold. Continued hold recommended, as Kaly99 continues the (rather solitary) work of improvement. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:15, 9 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment Concur on holding. I was going to try some copy-editing this afternoon but I was edit conflicting with Kaly99. Will try again later. --Laser brain (talk) 22:44, 9 June 2008 (UTC)