Wikipedia:Featured article review/archive/January 2007

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed 19:42, 19 January 2007.

[edit] Diego Velázquez

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at DanielNuyu, Bio and Spain. Sandy (Talk) 01:03, 14 December 2006 (UTC) Also Visual arts. Chick Bowen 02:37, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

My major problem is the lack of citations. Zero! Not even one!! Only some references with printed sources and sites, but no indication about the way they were used. Some further minor problems:

• The lead is a bit problematic. For example:"His two visits to Italy while part of the Spanish court are well documented." Is this a proper phrase for the lead? The phrase could say that "Velázquez visited twice the Italy in the X and the Y year", but the documentation of the visit is an issue of analysis for the main article and not the lead.
• "Selected works" is tagged, and this is an important issue for a FA. Personally, I believe that the section in question is incomplete.--Yannismarou 19:21, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment The headings don't conform to WP:MOS, but probably an easy fix. Jay32183 22:58, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
• Move to FARC - uncited. Sandy (Talk) 01:29, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are citations (1c), LEAD (2a), and comprehensiveness (1b). Marskell 07:37, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

• Remove, unless my concerns are addressed.--Yannismarou 18:55, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
• Remove—Seriously under-referenced and poorly written. 1a, 2a and 1c. Tony 08:46, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
• Remove per above. LuciferMorgan 10:11, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed 22:24, 21 January 2007.

[edit] Cladistics

[edit] Review commentary

Promoted as "brilliant prose". Message left at Evolutionary biology. Gzkn 07:29, 14 December 2006 (UTC) Additional messages at Amphibians and Reptiles, Gastropods, Molecular and Cellular Biology, Aranae, Opabinia regalis, and Samsara. Sandy (Talk) 23:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I believe this article does not meet 1(c), 2(a), 2(c) and 4 sections of FA requirements.--Crzycheetah 06:18, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment To Make Things Easier, these are the specific points:

• 1(c) "Factually accurate" means that claims are verifiable against reliable sources and accurately present the related body of published knowledge. Claims are supported with specific evidence and external citations (see verifiability and reliable sources); this involves the provision of a "References" section in which sources are set out and, where appropriate, complemented by inline citations. See citing sources for information on when and how extensively references are provided and for suggestions on formatting references; for articles with footnotes or endnotes, the meta:cite format is recommended.
• 2(a) a concise lead section that summarizes the entire topic and prepares the reader for the higher level of detail in the subsequent sections;
• 2(c) a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents (see section help).
• 4 is of appropriate length, staying focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style).

--Cody.Pope 17:10, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. The article needs to be cited. With the effort of knowledgeable editors, this one should be salvageable. Sandy (Talk) 23:12, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• Here are some suggestions to improve the article:

1. I think the distinction between cladistics and phenetics should be addressed a second time once plesiomorphic and apomorphic terms are introduced. Cladistics is interested in synapomorphies. Phenetics does not distinguish between the two. An example of how the two could come up with a different tree would also help.
2. I'm a bit unhappy with the discussion of what it means to be basal. I completely agree that usage of the term primarily refers to a taxon-poor clade that branches off early. I also think that the term gets used in reference to the ingroup, the taxon sampling, and the question being asked. For example, gibbons will commonly be said to be basal among the hominoids, yet there are 13 species of gibbons in four genera and only 7 species of great apes (also 4 genera). In this case, the research question usually being posed is really about a focus organism (us) and relationships among the gibbons is less important in that particular discussion. Bats and insectivorans are basal to the rest of the Laurasiatheria in spite of the fact that over 50% of described laurasiatherian species are bats and 20% are insectivorans. The research question is how are bats, insectivorans, carnivorans, pangolins, perissodactyls, and cetartiodactyls. From that perspective, bats and insectivorans to qualify as basal to the cetferungulates. Being "primitive" shouldn't qualify a group as basal (although it probably is used that way in some instances). Bats fly, echolocate, and look nothing like the ancestor of the Laurasiatheria.
3. The distinction between synapomorphy and autapomorphy should be clarified.
4. The second paragraph of the section titled "Cladistic methods" is confusing. Plesiomorphies were present in the last common ancestor of group discussed. Apomorphies arose subsequent to the last common ancestor of the group discussed. To say that an apomorphy was present in the last common ancestor of the ingroup is false. A synapomorphy was present in the last common ancestor of the clade it characterizes (and may have arisen anywhere along the branch leading to that clade). Autapomorphies are also a type of apomorphy and they weren't present in the last common ancestor of any two taxa in the analysis.
5. Eliminate the use of "we" in the 4th paragraph of the same section.
6. I think at least 50% of the field would consider maximum likelihood and Bayesian methods to be both Hennigian and cladistic. They are still constructed on the basis of synapomorphies, they just incorporate information about how characters evolve and attempt to incorporate the potential for additional evolution hidden in a final parsimony analysis. They are definitely not phenetic methods. I'm also amazed that there still isn't an article on maximum likelihood in phylogenetics.
7. The total evidence approach advocated in the 6th paragraph isn't universally accepted. I think it's safe to say that >50% of the field would agree, but there are those who argue that a little bit of quality data is better than a lot of noisy data or even a little bit of quality data + some noisy data. Most (but not all) do agree that data where homology is questionable should be excluded. That should be addressed in the paragraph as well and I'm not all that comfortable with the behavior example (without expansion and clarification) for that reason. That statement that molecular, morphological, etc. not are all equal is definitely an opinion and is definitely disputed. Homoplasy is more common in morphological data? Are we sure about that?
8. Paragraph 7. A small point, but cladistics does assume that evolution is bifurcating as opposed to hybridizing, reticulate, or having lateral transfer.
9. In my opinion, the "Cladistic classification" section can reasonably stay, but seesm to ramble on as if it was written by several editors who had differing opinions and tried to jump back and forth in such a way as to make it sum up to NPOV. I'm not happy with the notion that about half of the text of a featured article on cladistics is spent discussing the PhyloCode and Linnean hierarchy.
10. There is a subtle, but important philosophical difference between cladistics and parsimony. This article should address that clearly.
11. The "see also" is an odd list. It should have links to phenetics, parsimony, maximum likelihood (phylogenetics), maybe Bayesian (phylogenetics), as well as some of what's already there.

--Aranae 02:27, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

To address your last point only, all those terms are already linked in the body of the article, which is probably why they are not repeated. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:52, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Copied these suggestions to the talk page for easy reference. I hope someone besides me has an interest in working on this, because I know nothing about the morphological side of things. Opabinia regalis 03:24, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to see this article rescued, but the chances of me doing any substantive work on it before the holidays are approaching zero - I haven't had the time to gather sources together and won't have any relevant books with me while I'm out of town next week. I don't really deal with FAR much - if this review period can be extended until early January, that would be great; if not, maybe it'll get a new star eventually. Opabinia regalis 06:17, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Status: able to do any work now Opabinia? Marskell 07:40, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

See this thread - after waffling a bit on this, I've concluded that my efforts alone would not be enough. The article as it stands has serious oversimplification problems and is not comprehensive, and cladistics is far enough outside my field that I don't have the necessary familiarity with the relevant literature to write a balanced and up-to-date article. (Also, I admit I don't like the subject very much :) I did leave a message for User:Felsenst, who is an expert on the subject and has previously expressed an interest in the article, but any work that might be done may not be in time for this FAR. As I said on my talk page, I'll try to make this article not suck, but that's not the same as bring to FA standard. Opabinia regalis 03:06, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I have replied on User talk:Felsenst with a rant on what's wrong with the article. But what's right about the article is that, although quite muddled, it thus fairly reflects the field! My own views are highly controversial to most people who identify themselves as cladists, and are regarded as borderline-crackpot and dismissable. So I am not a good person to edit this article. Thanks for thinking of me, but ... Felsenst 13:29, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are factual accuracy (1a), citations (1c), LEAD (2a), TOC (2c), and focus (4). Marskell 09:35, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

• Remove, no improvement whatsoever. --Crzycheetah 19:41, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
• Remove Needs inline citations still. LuciferMorgan 12:46, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
• Remove. Per above.--Yannismarou 18:12, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
• Tim, factual accuracy is Criterion 1c, I think (could be beautifully written rubbish!) Remove as per previous reviewers; really needs an expert or two. Tony 23:45, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed 14:50, 18 January 2007.

[edit] Octopus card

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left on related noticeboards of WP:CHINA, WP:HK and at Juntung -- Chez ^{(Discuss / Email)} 00:42, 11 December 2006 (UTC) Additional messages at Nurismatics. Sandy (Talk) 01:02, 11 December 2006 (UTC) and WT:HKWNB WP 11:08, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

This article was featured way back in Feb 2005. It has been almost two years now, and while I was going through it, I thought, it needs a review and significant improvements based on current standards. I'll list some of which I feel, may be needed.

• Individual paragraphs are very small. A decent copy editing will help.
• Inline external links be removed and cite.php be used.
• Although the article has a lot of valuable data and information, they have to be organised in a much better way.
• There are a lot of stuff unnecessarily in parenthesis, which needs to be cleaned up.

Please feel free to add more comments if you've got any, to improve the article. -- Chez ^{(Discuss / Email)} 00:42, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comments (Yikes, that's a long sig line). Inadequate citation, external jumps, sections headings don't conform to WP:MOS, mixed reference style, references are blue links which should be expanded, doesn't follow WP:LAYOUT, prose needs attention. Sandy (Talk) 01:08, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment, lacks of inline citations and sections are rather long. Suggest moving to FARC since I don't see much improvement. Terence Ong 08:49, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• Move to FARC, unaddressed. Sandy (Talk) 01:28, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are stub paragraphs, organization, and focus (2), citation sufficiency and format (1c). Marskell 17:36, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove—Flabby writing. Here are a few examples from the top.
  • "widely-used"—No hyphens after 'ly words.
  • " not only for virtually all public transport in Hong Kong, but also for"—"not only ... but also" is such a tired expression, and an unnecessary marker here.
  • "In addition,"—Every sentence is in addition; remove.
  • "Some charities even accept Octopus cards to receive donations."—Replace "to receive" with "for".
  • "Making a payment involves placing the card in close proximity to an Octopus card reader and a tone from the reader will confirm the merchant has received funds." Clumsy: "and" is awkward as a joiner here; "will" is doubtful; "that" required before "the merchant".
  • "with approximate 14 million Octopus cards"—sloppy.
  • "and other transport providers in Hong Kong such as KCR, KMB, and Citybus." The "such as" means there are some you're not telling us about. Is that the case?
  • Seriously under-referenced.

Fast train to demotion. Tony 05:51, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

• Remove per long list of unaddressed problems. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:17, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

• Remove per above. LuciferMorgan 10:06, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed 06:27, 29 January 2007.

[edit] LSD

[edit] Review commentary

LSD was a "brilliant prose" promotion - no original author. Message left at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Psychedelics, Dissociatives and Deliriants. Sandy (Talk) 20:51, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

LSD needs review for many reasons.

• It has a massive external link farm that needs pruning (see WP:EL and WP:NOT); See also needs pruning as well, with relevant entries incorporated into the text, and articles that are already in the text deleted from See also.
• Many of the References (Footnotes) are not properly formatted, some are missing completely, some are missing basic info, some are missing last access date, and journal-published articles should have PMIDs. There are numerous citation needed tags, and many more that could be added - the article has many facts which are not cited.
• The article is replete with uncited text and weasle words (example: Debate continues over the nature and causes of chronic flashbacks. Some say HPPD is a manifestation of post-traumatic stress disorder, not related to the direct action of LSD on brain chemistry, and vary according to the susceptibility of the individual to the disorder. Many emotionally intense experiences can lead to flashbacks when a person is reminded acutely of the original experience. However, not all published case reports of chronic flashbacks appear to describe an anxious hyper-vigilant state reminiscent of post-traumatic stress disorder.) Sandy (Talk) 20:49, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Agreed. Move to FARC. KazakhPol 18:28, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

    KazahkPol, we have at least a two-week review period before we move to FARC - hopefully problems will be addressed in that time. Then we have at least another two weeks in FARC, when people can vote to Keep or Remove, and improvements can still happen. Sandy (Talk) 18:50, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

• I was, coincidentally, about to nominate this very article for review. My main reason was that references are skimpy: many statements of fact are made without one. --Oldak Quill 12:07, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

• Move to FARC, many edits, little improvement since nom (diff). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:11, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns citations (1c), formatting (2), POV (1d). Marskell 11:44, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

• Remove per Sandy's concerns. LuciferMorgan 02:39, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
• Remove I cleaned up what I can in the article structure, but the article remains massively undercited and weasly, with no one apparently willing to work on it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:52, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
• Remove I did some checks of the references and it was hit and miss... the one for the other names LSD is known as didn't confirm many of the ones our article claims. Chunks of US government text are used but not attributed, that's possibly plagiarism. Also many paragraphs full of non-trivial claims are not cited at all. Article really isn't that bad but it needs some TLC to meet modern FA standards. --W.marsh 21:05, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
• Remove per Sandy. Pity—it's quite well written. Tony 14:16, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed 20:34, 24 January 2007.

[edit] Central processing unit

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Wackymacs, Video games, Computing, Computer science, and Arcade games. Sandy (Talk) 23:28, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Fails criteria 1c. Practically nothing in this article is referenced; how are we to know that anything it claims is correct? The refs situation should be improved. -- mattb @ 2006-12-14T21:15Z

A very brief look at the article makes it seem that much of the article consists of summaries of the relevant articles. I don't think summary style requires the references be re-cited in the summary. -- SilverStar★ 23:44, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

There is no need to relist all the of the references, but any statement that would otherwise require an inline citation should still have one. Jay32183 01:27, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Anyway, the daughter articles aren't referenced either. Sandy (Talk) 06:00, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

It requires inline citations if it wants to keep its FA status. LuciferMorgan 01:51, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Unless someone here wants to take up that task, it won't happen. I wrote this article and have little intention of adding an inline reference to every third sentence. I feel that the current dogmatic interpretation of WP:V as far as FA standards are concerned is, frankly, ridiculous. I just wanted to nominate this for de-listing myself before someone else got around to it. -- mattb @ 2006-12-15T03:25Z

You probably could have taken it to WP:ARD. Those guys are pretty good at getting inline citations. Jay32183 03:28, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

• Needs more citations to support statements and facts throughout the article in all sections. At its current status, this article doesn't live up to current FA standards being met by many other featured articles. — Wackymacs 08:50, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern is lack of citations (1c). Marskell 07:41, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

• Remove Insufficient citations. LuciferMorgan 02:28, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

• Problem with external links, see also, references, and referencing - is anyone working on this? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:58, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  • See above. -- mattb @ 2007-01-23T23:16Z

Nobody is working on the article - the FAR nominator and original FA nominator are one and the same. LuciferMorgan 00:00, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed 16:09, 15 January 2007.

[edit] Carlsbad Caverns National Park

[edit] Review commentary

"Brilliant prose" promotion. Messages left at Geography and Protected areas. Sandy (Talk) 22:15, 9 December 2006 (UTC) Message has also been left at Bevo. Sandy (Talk) 01:45, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Much of the "Geology" and "Bats" sections, and some of the "History" section, is copied off of [1], which is copyrighted. Needless to say, the referencing is poor and the "Rooms" section is not very comprehensive. --Schzmo 16:16, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Needs inline cites, and the copyvio info removed. Once left with the rest, there's a lot of work to be done in order to retain FA status. LuciferMorgan 22:23, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment How do you know this article is the copyvio violator and not the external site? Maybe both use the same PD work. --mav 00:57, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
  • The only indication of copyvio is an exact copy-paste from non-PD external site and the external site is not a fork from wikipedia. I'm not an author/editor of this article, so I ran google search test. There's not exactly copy-paste material, except from [2] for the Bats section. I'm going to run several tests again later. — Indon (reply) — 01:29, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
    • (Edit conflict) I checked the Internet Archive of http://www.carlsbad.caverns.national-park.com/info.htm and it looks like the Bats section was written way back in 1998 (the other sections were added a few years later). Did some digging around in the history of this WP article, and it looks like the earliest version of it was a direct copy/paste job from the outside page. Unfortunately, no one ever bothered to reword some of the text :(. Yikes. Not good. Gzkn 01:32, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
    • (Edit conflict too) Wait a minute... I checked again the site [3], and it turns out that there are some exact sentences from this site appear in this article. And I don't think that site is a fork from Wikipedia. Yes, it's not good. — Indon (reply) — 01:33, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

    Damn! I didn't read it carefully the nomination text that it has pointed the original site: http://www.carlsbad.caverns.national-park.com/info.htm. So no need to run google search, it's a copyvio. :"> — Indon (reply) — 01:38, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

    And some still wonder why we insist upon citing older FAs. Sandy (Talk) 01:40, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

    At the bottom of the page, there's this note: "The initial content for this article was provided by the National Park Service Carlsbad Caverns Information Page." Unfortunately, whoever wrote that erroneously thought that the Carlsbad Caverns Information Page was in any way affiliated with the NPS. Gzkn 01:48, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

    OK, I searched phrases from each section and I found out that the Geology section is not copyvio, as the text from that website was copied from this NPS web page, which is in the public domain. However, I could not find anything else for the other sections, so they may still be copyvio. --Schzmo 02:38, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

    Hmmm, well that's reassuring. Maybe http://www.carlsbad.caverns.national-park.com/info.htm got all of its information from the public domain...I'll do some more research... Gzkn 02:46, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

    This seems to suggest that the National Park Service website actually copied its information from there too, as the former appeared much earlier than the latter. Gzkn 03:25, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

    • Cough - There were many things published before the Internet came along. :) --mav

Heh, true. Perhaps the best way to resolve this is to contact the NPS or that guy who owns www.carlsbad.caverns.national-park.com and wrote it? Gzkn 03:05, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I had thought that some had not bothered reading anything until it appeared on a CRT screen: A tendency still present.

On the copyright/borrowed issue. At the least, public domain or not, the sections taken from another site must be cited. This is a separate issue than is that of the original source questions (something from the public domain can still be plagiarized--as can be something publicly reprinted with private approval of the original author).

Given the significant age of the original as well as sea-changes in our common sensitivity to, and sense of outrage about, the commercial destructive exploitation of public treasures (I'm thinking I heard something about protests against the continued in-cavern vendors and new evidence that this commercial presence was deteriorating the caves--but I have been wrong already several times today!) perhaps the best route would be to delete the offending parts and invite a "from scratch" contribution. Does this make sense to anyone? Roy 01:14, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I have to ask if there is any real reason to have a "Rooms" section in this article. Granted, some of the most important rooms should be described, but in articles on buildings we don't describe every room, so why should we describe them in a cave?

I would encourage keeping the rooms distinction. This flows from the historic categorization of caverns. That is, unlike rooms of a building, the different caverns are subjected to sometimes subtle differences which over time, result in strikingly different (or similar) appearances. While the trained geologist may inwardly snicker these caverns should be featured here because of their impact on, and influence of, the public. Poets have often invoked metaphors in an attempt to do justice to the unexpected beauty or drama.

Perhaps it would be best for us to retain both of these perspectives: The academic geologic and the popular rhapsodic? This is not to suggest that geologists are not so mechanical as to be immune from a gasp at an unexpected scene, or that the public is not fully interested in the geologic details. Perhaps both of these perspectives should be honored. Perhaps through some new or renewed structural mechanism in the article's organization?

Oh, and somewhere in the wikipedia entry covering the residence of the President might in fact mention "the White House", and even "the oval office" and "Lincoln's bedroom. . ." Roy 01:14, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• • The geology sections should be broken off into an article along the lines of Geology of the Grand Canyon area.
  • The section on bats should be expanded to include other fauna (and may be even flora if there is any) in the cave.

Just a few suggestions of things I can see. *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 17:57, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

• • • Geology of the Grand Canyon area (which I wrote) was never split off from the Grand Canyon article. It is a full article about the geology. The geology section at Grand Canyon (which I also wrote) is a several paragraph summary that should really be a wee bit longer. The geology section in this article is starting to get a bit long, but not long enough yet to warrant splitting and summarizing since the summary left here would need to be well over half the size of the full separate daughter article. Thus little point would be served by a split at this time. --mav 05:37, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

• Move to FARC - unimproved. Sandy (Talk) 01:26, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are possible copyvio (1c) and comprehensiveness (1b). Marskell 15:46, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove, copyvio (even if it didn come for the Parks Service, cut and pastes from the PD are not FA material), referencing, tone, other comprehensiveness issues when compared with more recent US parks FAs (like Glacier National Park (US)). --Peta 02:08, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
• Remove, except for Gzkn's work on the copyvio, nobody's working on the article deficiencies, no one seems to care, no progress. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:18, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

• Remove—1a and 1c.
  • "Carlsbad was first designated a National Monument on 25 October 1923. Congress upgraded the monument to a national park on 14 May 1930. Carlsbad Caverns was also designated a World Heritage Site on 6 December 1995." What's "also" doing here? Do a search and destroy for this word throughout. Oh, there it is in the very next sentence, too.
  • "Visitation" is something angels do.
  • "helping to ensure no future changes will be made to the habitat"—"Future"? Isn't it already in the future tense?
  • "The story of the creation of Carlsbad Cavern begins 250 million years ago with the creation of ..." Repetition.
  • "The exposed reef became part of the Guadalupe Mountains and the underground chambers became the wonder of Carlsbad Cavern." POV? Reference?
  • "Some of the more unusual formations to occur in Carlsbad Cavern are helictites, which grow seemingly without regard to gravity, their twisting shapes governed by crystal shapes"—"to occur" is redundant; shapes x 2.

I won't read further until major copy-editing has been done. Tony 05:59, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

• Remove due to lack of inline citations. LuciferMorgan 21:06, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed 06:27, 29 January 2007.

[edit] History of Central Asia

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at SimonP, Central Asia, and History. Sandy (Talk) 23:33, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

This is in need of a major update, as this does not appear to take into account the last seven years of Central Asian history, other than a brief mention of the color revolutions. Notable facts not mentioned in this article: Karimov is on the verge of launching Uzbekistan into a war with all his neighbors over land, Niyazov died, Kazakhstan is almost, and may already be, a majority Christian nation, the EITR terrorist organization is fighting for independence and the Islamicization of Turkestan, Kazakhstan has not done nuclear testing for years and no longer has nuclear weapons, the 2001 War in Afghanistan, India has gotten a military base - its first - in Tajikistan, construction of the BTC pipeline, discovery of petroleum fields in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, and the AIDS accident that led to Dosayev's dismissal and is still claiming victims. KazakhPol 01:56, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

You have to be careful about adding too many recent events to articles like this. This page has to cover several millenia of history, and already more than 10% is on just the last fifteen years. The ideal solution would be to create some sub-articles, such as has been done with most national history articles. A History of Central Asia since 1991 page would be able to cover the events you listed in proper detail. - SimonP 03:11, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

What an incredibly huge topic for a single article! However, regarding solely the reason for this proposed FAR, can't this information just be added in a section on the past 7 years? As it's an article about history, that it hasn't been updated with events of the past 7 years is only a current and remediable omission, not a failing of the entire article. Is there anything else wrong with the article, that should cause it to be reviewed as a FA? If this is not the case, how about a post, instead, on the WikiProject Central Asia board requesting this update, and on the talk page requesting this update? Or have you tried that? And ditto, SimonP's comments. The topic is just immense! The last 7 years are merely a blip. KP Botany 03:13, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with KazakhPol, the period since independence is the most densely packed with history of a regional and perhaps global scale since Chinggis Han, it's no longer a Soviet backwater or merely a pawn in the new Great Game, and deserves an update. Chris 03:27, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Fails 1c, largely uncited, mixed reference styles, footnotes that are provided aren't formatted correctly. Sandy (Talk) 10:31, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. "Since 1991" is tragic!!! It completely fails to grasp the current momentum of events! It generalizes and fails to give the appropriate infos. Terrible! What about the internal tensions in all these countries? The challenges these totalitarian regimes faced? The role of Russia and its antagonism with USA? The efforts of Russia to control the natural sources (petroleum and natural gas) in this area, which is the true essence of a hypogeous energy war? Anyway ... I think this article treats a very interesting topic. It actually looks like a challenge to try and save it. I might give it a shot but I promise nothing. First, I'll do some search to see what I can do with citing and then we'll see. In case I undertake the task to save this article, I definitely need somebody to copy-edit.--Yannismarou 18:29, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

• Would not pass 1a or 1c in the FAC room. Here are random examples of why this needs a thorough copye-edit throughout.
  • Opening: "The history of Central Asia has been determined primarily by the area's climate and geography. The aridity of the region makes agriculture difficult, and its distance from the sea cut it off from much trade." Great concepts, but clash of tenses ("has been determined" vs simple past "cut").
  • "Turkic expansion begain in the 6th century, and following the Göktürk emipre,..." Typo, and do you mean "following the fall of the G empire"? That would be more nutural.
  • Audit the whole thing for commas; one is definitely missing here: "One of those powers, the Parthian Empire was of Central Asian origin, but adopted Persian cultural traditions." And here: "With no cities and little wealth other than the herds they brought with them the nomads had nothing ...".
  • Overlinked. Why "16th century", "firearms", genetics, and "chariots"? Please don't distract the readers with unfocused links. (Yet "wheat" is quite focused as a link, unusually.) Needs to ration the blue speckling.
  • Seriously under-referenced. Tony 05:09, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
• Move to FARC, no edits since Tony's review. Yannis has done some work on the article, but refs are still incorrectly formatted, mixed referencing styles, and undercited. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:06, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
• Move to FARC per SandyGeorgia. KazakhPol 02:26, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern is non-up-to-date coverage. Marskell 11:42, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment and remove. I don't think I have the time to work from scratch on the article. I'm sorry, but as it is now it is under FA status. Maybe we'll be able to re-nominate it in FAc within the next months.--Yannismarou 21:08, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
• Remove KazakhPol 21:16, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
• Remove Insufficient citations. LuciferMorgan 02:38, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed 19:13, 7 January 2007.

[edit] First Amendment to the United States Constitution

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Lord Emsworth, United States, Law, Politics, and U.S. Supreme Court cases. Sandy (Talk) 17:18, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Ancient, short, unsourced, bad lead, etc. Punctured Bicycle 12:14, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

• This is far short of FA standards. Let's look at just the writing. At the opening, we're treated to:
  • "Textually, it prohibits the federal legislature from making laws that ..." Textually? The subsequent list is framed as a single sentence, yet each item starts with an upper-case letter.
  • "The First Amendment only explicitly disallows any of the rights from being abridged by laws made by Congress ..." Hard to understand the meaning, and there are redundancies.
  • "Additionally, in the 20th century the Supreme Court has held that ..." Remove the first word. Can it be a little more exact chronologically?

The rest is poorly written too. Tony 13:11, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I've been watching this article for awhile now, and I have to agree with your assessment. I would add, though, that while the article incorporates summary style for some subsections, the "freedom of speech" subsection is not abbreviated at all, and the "main article" (Freedom of speech in the United States) is pretty bad, thus the entire subsection needs to be moved to the "main article" and summarized in the First Amendment article. However, I tried to get talk page consensus on the issue months ago to no avail. I'm not sure why this one subsection seems to be exempt from the summary style that is used in the rest of the article, but that shouldn't happen in featured articles. · j e r s y k o talk · 14:49, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Needs inline cites. LuciferMorgan 20:36, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
• Move to FARC, no improvement. Sandy (Talk) 18:40, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are prose (1a), comprehensiveness (1b), LEAD (2a). Marskell 16:35, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove for now. Lack of inline citations, stubby sections and prose problems people more qualified than me have underscored.--Yannismarou 21:36, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per all of the above. · j e r s y k o talk · 21:41, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove, no inline citations, fails to meet current FA standards. Terence Ong 08:46, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per above. LuciferMorgan 01:20, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
• Remove as above. Tony 06:00, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed 11:56, 26 January 2007.

[edit] English poetry

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Filiocht, Seglea and Poetry. Sandy (Talk) 22:10, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm listing this article for review because I don't believe it satisfies the following criteria of WP:WIAFA:

• 1a. The prose is too choppy and listy to be considered as "compelling" or "brilliant". Short paragraphs ruin flow.
• 1c. There are no inline citations and only one book is referenced; English poetry must be the single easiest topic to reference in the world.

Seegoon 21:43, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment.The article should use summary style for many of the sections. It starts off doing that with its first section and then it's not used again. Much more can be written on many of these sections such as the Metaphysical poets. *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 01:31, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Help! - I've started making some changes, and while there is much good here, and I think the stylistic issues will not be too difficult to solve, this isn't my area of expertise and some help would be appreciated. Sam 00:46, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Status? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:34, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I have done some edits, but honestly think less of this article the more I work on it. It's not bad, but not something I would push for FA in its current state. Many of the later sections have very little substance, other than to cite to various schools active in a period and list many of the poets from the time. A number of places display rather strong POV as to the relative merit of different poets, without giving sufficient insight into why the favored poets are important (the POV likely is not far from the prevailing POV generally, but it is still POV). I plan to keep chugging away, little by little, to improve it, but will not be committing sufficient time of my own to salvage it's FA status over the next couple of weeks. Sam 02:55, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are writing (1a) and citations (1c). Marskell 21:12, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

• Remove; in addition to those concerns cited above, it's also extremely vague, and the rapid-fire approach to literary history is both stylistically unsatisfying and results in lack of accuracy (Shepheardes Calender the first English pastoral? no, but to adequately explain the status of the genre in the 16th century would take, oh, its own article). It is of course almost impossible to write a decent article on a subject this broad; poetry was removed from FA for similar reasons a while back. This should probably be a summary-style article with {{main}}-article links, modeled on history of science. Chick Bowen 03:44, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

• Remove Insufficient inline citations. LuciferMorgan 02:32, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

• Remove per Chick Bowen, Seegoon and Ganymead - unfortunately, no one is working on correcting the deficiencies. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:54, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed 07:41, 23 January 2007.

[edit] Regular polytope

[edit] Review commentary

I have notified Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics / Fred-Chess 22:58, 21 December 2006 (UTC) Message left at Mike40033. Sandy (Talk) 23:30, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

This article has the same problem as some other older Math FA:s -- they do not contain any inline references. I hereby make a test to see whether Wikipedia's increased demands for FA apply to those articles. I understand that articles on Math are often not perceived as requiring inline citations to such a great extent, but this article contains large sections of history that I think would need inline citations in any other article. Even Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines now recomends inline references, even if they appear to be of a different kind than for other articles. / Fred-Chess 22:49, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

The structure of this article (Layout, MOS, External links, See also, etc.) looks very clean relative to some of the older FAs that come through, and the article looks to be in good shape. The References could benefit from having ISBNs added to the books, and the online reference (Haeckel) should be fully expanded and include a last access date. There are some external jumps (imbedded links) which should be fixed. It looks like adequate reference sources are given so that citing the article shouldn't be too difficult, and there are some inline, Harvard style refs already in place. This article should be salvageable, but I'd sure hate to the one who had to work on it over the holidays :-) Sandy (Talk) 23:39, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Seems to have a fair number of Harvard style inline cites, I count 17 in the text. --Salix alba (talk) 23:41, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, *embarrassed* , I notice that it used the Harvard referencing. I withdraw my objections. / Fred-Chess 23:51, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't need to be withdrawn: with a minimum amount of work, it could be a nice Save/Keep. There were Harvard citations, but not thorough or complete (I've now converted them to cite.php .) The external jumps and inline URLs need to be dealt with, and there are still some statements that do need to be cited. If anyone is willing to work on it, I can add cite tags. Also, some of the inlines that were there aren't specific (page nos). There are also some minor prose issues which should be cleared up (example: "Cayley gave them English names which have become accepted. They are: (Kepler's) the small stellated dodecahedron and great stellated dodecahedron, and (Poinsot's) the great icosahedron and great dodecahedron.") If someone could comb through it, it could be closed as a successful FAR. Sandy (Talk) 03:21, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I converted most of the external jumps to notes, and cleaned up See also, which contained articles already linked in the text. I saw a lot of copyediting needs in the article - unencylopedic commentary and sentence fragments - in addition to the statements needing citation. I hope someone else will comb through it - it's not in bad shape, but if we could complete the work, it can be taken off of the list of articles with citation needs. Sandy (Talk) 04:05, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

You've been reverted.--Rmky87 20:53, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

They can use whatever style they want, but the article is still undercited, some of the references are incomplete, there are prose issues, and there are imbedded links to external websites (which should be either wikified or converted to a reference). And, since all of my work was reverted, the article now needs attention to wikilinking, consistency in capitalization of platonic, and See also cleanup (for articles already linked in the text). If someone reverted, the good news is that the article is not abandoned like most older FAs, and maybe the necessary cleanup, polishing and referencing will happen. Sandy (Talk) 06:06, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

List (entirely random - there's much more - these are samples only):

• Fix blue link on Haeckel reference, and provide last access date.
• It would be nice if the references had ISBNs
• Platonic solids - sometimes capitalized, sometimes not, linked throughout the article, but then listed again in See also. (In other words, all Wikilinking should be reviewed.)
• H. S. M. Coxeter and List of regular polytopes linked in article, yet re-listed in See also (I had corrected items like this, my changes were reverted).
• History is largely uncited. The introduction to history could use some variety in the choice of words (wide and gradual): "The history of discovery of the regular polytopes can be characterised by a gradual broadening of widespread understanding of the term. Gradually, the term "regular polytope" has been given successively wider meaning, allowing more different geometric objects to be so labeled. With each widening, new geometric figures are uncovered — these new figures usually being completely unknown to previous generations."
• (A sample of uncited, weasle words, as well as poor prose style, sending Wiki readers "elsewhere in the article") It may be argued, however, that the construction of this form was inspired by the pyritohedron (mentioned elsewhere in this article), as pyrite minerals are relatively abundant in that part of the world.
• The entire next paragraph, beginning with "Preceding even the Etruscans" is uncited, contains an imbedded link to a room in a museum, and a throw-away sentence ("It is impossible to know why these objects were made, or how the sculptor gained the inspiration for them.")
• (The next sentence in history is unreferenced, and weasly) There is no existing evidence that the Etruscans or ancient Scots had a mathematical understanding of the regular solids — nor is there any proof that they did not. The discovery of the three-dimensional polytopes, particularly of the simpler ones, is probably impossible to trace.
• (This section is referenced, but a snake for the chopping.) Some authors (Sanford, 1930) credit Pythagoras (550 BC) with being familiar with the Platonic solids, whereas others indicate that he may only have been familiar with the tetrahedron, cube, and dodecahedron, crediting the discovery of the other two to Theaetetus (an Athenian), who in any case gave a mathematical description of all five (Van der Waerden, 1954), (Euclid, book XIII). H.S.M. Coxeter (Coxeter, 1948, Section 1.9) credits Plato (400 BC) with having made models of them, and mentions that one of the earlier Pythagoreans, Timaeus of Locri used all five in a correspondence between the polyhedra and the nature of the universe as it was then perceived - this correspondence is recorded in Plato's dialogue Timaeus.
• (Moving further down in history, another throw-away, filler sentence.) More have been discovered since, and the story is not yet ended.
• (Still in history, whose opinion is this?) The latter reference is probably the most comprehensive printed treatment of Schläfli's and similar results to date.
• (Still in history - spot the redundancy) This concept may be easier for the reader to grasp if one considers the relationship of the cube and the hemicube.
• (Moving out of history - interesting prose): (One could ask the same question about the polygons, of course.) ... The English word "construct" has the connotation of systematically building the thing constructed.
• (Samples of unencylopedic, weasly prose, linking to external website): Some interesting fold-out nets of the cube, octahedron, dodecahedron and icosahedron are available here. ... In theory, almost any material may be used to construct regular polyhedra. Instructions for building origami models may be found here, for example. They may be carved out of wood, modeled out of wire, formed from stained glass. The imagination is the limit.

In short, Fred has no need to be embarrassed for nominating this article for review: references and prose need work throughout - these are samples only. Sandy (Talk) 06:57, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with all of Sandy's comments about the lack of citations and vague prose. I have a few additional comments.

• Whenever the article claims that regular polytopes had a particular definition at some moment in time it should provide a reference to a source who uses or describes that definition. I doubt that the Greeks had any definition for the phrase regular polytope; the article implies that they did. What seems to be true is that the regular polytopes include the polygons and polyhedra known to the Greeks.
• If this is a math article, it should be edited to meet the spirit of the scientific citation guidelines. In particular, the article does not explicitly point out a general reference, and many sources are omitted.
• The references section should be edited to agree with the examples at WP:HARVARD.

CMummert 13:40, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

• Move to FARC, no significant change, little activity. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:56, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria is lack of citations (1c). Marskell 19:07, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep I agree that the handful of historic speculations should be removed; in fact, I'll go remove them; but they are marginal to the article anyway. As for Coxeter's book: it is the standard work on the entire subject, and anything else which is uncited is almost certainly sourced there; this is therefore unlikely to be challenged by anyone who has actually looked at the listed sources: I would be surprized if most of them, taken at random, do not support this characterization. I see no other flaws that amount to lack of clear citation for challengeable assertions. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:36, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I removed some speculation. Both the discoveries in Tuscany and in Scotland are sourced; I left an assertion that the purpose or intent of non-functional prehistoric artifacts is unknowable, as both obvious and a useful reminder to our more non-conventional readers.Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:43, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
    • I suggest a thorough read of the article, and the list of issues discussed on review, most of which have not been addressed in any significant way. Your edit to one paragraph addressed a miniscule part of the list of issues. (And please don't tell me to do the work - I started on it, and my work was reverted.)
    • It shouldn't be too hard to clean up the See also, fix the wikilinking, and decide whether you all want to capitalize things like platonic solids or not - I already did that sort of work once, and my corrections were reverted - it's not really rocket science, but someone needs to do the work.
    • I'm wondering if the Math Project considers these to be samples of brilliant and compelling prose and good referencing worthy of FA status? I suggest that editors complaining about other areas of Wikipedia that count cites should at least read an article before defending it.
      • Brilliant and compelling - I don't believe Britannica or textbooks routinely send their readers to [1] to read up on topics. Also, 1b would indicate we shouldn't be sending our readers to external jumps anyway; for an article to be considered comprehensive, we should write the text ourselves and reference or link to it:
        • For example, the fold out nets mentioned in the previous section have higher-dimensional equivalents. Some of these may be viewed at [7].
      • Choppy, compelling and brilliant external jumps :
        • Such a tessellation forms an example of an infinite abstract regular polytope. An example may be seen at this page.
        • Other examples may be found on the web (see for example [8]).
      • Here are my two favorite examples of this article's encyclopedic, brilliant and compelling prose:
        • For a given polyhedron there may be many fold-out nets. For example, there are 11 for the cube, and over 900000 for the dodecahedron. Some interesting fold-out nets of the cube, octahedron, dodecahedron and icosahedron are available here. (Reminder to check WP:MOS for usage of commas in 900000.)
        • In theory, almost any material may be used to construct regular polyhedra. Instructions for building origami models may be found here, for example. They may be carved out of wood, modeled out of wire, formed from stained glass. The imagination is the limit.
      • Does this add to the wealth of encyclopedic knowledge on the topic (is it an advert?) Such models are occasionally found in science museums or mathematics departments of universities (such as that of the Université Libre de Bruxelles).
      • Encyclopedic tone? In this way, we can see (if not fully grasp) the full four-dimensional structure of the four-dimensional regular polytopes, via such cutaway cross sections. and One might even imagine building a model of this fold-out net, as one draws a polyhedron's fold-out net on a piece of paper. Sadly, we could never do the necessary folding of the 3-dimensional structure to obtain the 4-dimensional polytope, because of the constraints of the physical universe.
      • Choppy prose The outer protein shells of many viruses form regular polyhedra. For example, HIV is enclosed in a regular icosahedron.
      • Hypothesized sounds weasly, should say by whom Although C60, the most easily produced fullerene, looks more or less spherical, some of the larger varieties (such as C240, C480 and C960) are hypothesised to take on the form of slightly rounded icosahedra, a few nanometres across.
      • "As an aside"? (Entire paragraph uncited as well.) As an aside: In ancient times the Pythagoreans believed that there was a harmony between the regular polyhedra and the orbits of the planets.
      • Compelling, and truly encyclopedic prose: Kepler's work, and the discovery since that time of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, have thrown the Pythagorean idea well and truly into the dustbins of scientific history.
      • More compelling brilliant prose - the world of minerals? In the world of minerals, crystals often have faces which are triangular, square or hexagonal.
      • "Fascinating" is encyclopedic prose? Another fascinating example of regular polygons occurring as a result of geological processes may be seen at the Giant's Causeway in Ireland, or at the Devil's Postpile in California, where the cooling of lava has formed areas of tightly packed hexagonal columns of basalt.
      • Honeycomb is "famous"? The most famous hexagons in nature are ...
      • Passive voice, missing punctuation, then a snake, followed by choppy prose. There also exist animals who themselves take the approximate form of regular polygons (or at least have the same symmetry) for example starfish and sometimes other echinoderms (such as sea urchins) display the symmetry of a pentagon or sometimes other polygons (such as the heptagon). In fact, echinoderms do not display exact radial symmetry. However, Jellyfish and Comb jellies do, usually fourfold (like the square) or eightfold.
      • More brilliant prose, a type, and choppy parenthetical writing: Moving off earth into space, early mathematicians doing calculations using Newton's law of gravitation discovered that if two bodies (such as the sun and the earth) are orbiting one another, there exist certain points in space where a smaller body (such as an asteroid or a space station)will remain in a stable orbit, following (for example) the earth but never catching up or falling behind.
      • Choppy, disjointed prose. These points are called Lagrangian points. The sun-earth system has five Lagrangian points. The two most stable are exactly 60 degrees ahead and behind the earth in its orbit. That is, joining the centre of the sun and the earth and one of these stable Lagrangian points forms an equilateral triangle. Astronomers have already found asteroids at these points.
      • Brilliant. Cite needed on weasle, and an exclamation point to round out the encyclopedic tone. It is still debated whether it is practical to keep a space station at the Lagrangian point — although it would never need course corrections, it would have to frequently dodge the asteroids that are already present there! (Already there are satellites and space observatories at the less stable Lagrangian points, which do not form the point of an equilateral triangle with the earth and the sun.)
      • Of course - I encounter "of course" all the time in encyclopedias and textbooks. Of course reasonably accurate approximations can be constructed by a range of methods; while theoretically possible constructions may be impractical.
        • Sandy may or may not; but I read mathematical scholarship, and I do. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:37, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
    • That's only a few sections at the bottom. Rather than continue, I'll skip back to the top to see if it has improved yet.
      • I see we still have this piece of gradual-broad-wide-gradual-wide-wide brilliance: The history of discovery of the regular polytopes can be characterised by a gradual broadening of widespread understanding of the term. Gradually, the term "regular polytope" has been given successively wider meaning, allowing more different geometric objects to be so labeled. With each widening, new geometric figures are uncovered — these new figures usually being completely unknown to previous generations.
    • I'll stop there. Please fix the prose, finish referencing, correct the wikilinking and ce issues, and remove the external jumps. Per 1b, please wikify text, and link to it internally or via references. Is this really work the Math Project is proud of and wants to display as an example of Wikipedia's best work in Math? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:49, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
      • I am tempted to conclude from this that the complaint of lack of citation is withdrawn, since no examples are specified. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:39, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
        • Several examples were given during the review: I haven't yet re-checked to see if those are resolved or if there are others - was waiting for some progress on the article before rechecking everything. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:23, 9 January 2007 (UTC) PS - And, I gave two more examples in this list. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:39, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment -- the concerns presented above seem to me to have varying degrees of validity, as far as the featured status of the article goes. I've corrected some issues and will try to undertake some more; however, some of Sandy's complaints I don't quite see the thrust of (honeycombs aren't famous?; what's wrong with fascinating; etc.) And the external jumps, though I haven't checked them all, appear to be useful and quite valuable. Although we may have to agree to disagree on that. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:17, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
  • External jumps discussed at Wikipedia:Featured article review/Monty Hall problem (Curiously silent section). It's not that the info in the jumps isn't useful or shouldn't be included: if it should be included, and it's not Wikified, that argues against 1b. We can either Wikify the content (per 1b), or discuss the content, linking to the external site as a reference (WP:NOT and WP:EL), or if we simply must include an external jump in text (e.g.; copyright reasons, and we truly can't write it ourselves), at least the text should conform to 1a, good prose. "Fascinating" is editorializing, not encyclopedic prose, and I can't really add more to the honeycombs as "famous" issue. :-) It would be helpful if the Math Project would get a topnotch copyeditor on board, because neither of these two articles on review are difficult mathmatically; yet, the prose is making the topics appear difficult. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:15, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
    • None of the material that is linked to should be included in this article, as far as I can tell; however it is information that may be helpful to someone who is interested in further examination of the particular topic being discussed. If someone wants to create a new article on Wikipedia about the topic, that would be great, and we could link to that article instead. Until that happens, the external link is the best choice; either way, whether or not that other article has been written shouldn't impact whether this article is featured. If you feel that the text surrounding those links is not good prose, please suggest an alternative. It seems fine to me. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:30, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Went back to check only on External jumps (haven't yet checked to see if the extensive list of other problems has been addressed):

• Examples of these stones are on display in the John Evans room of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford University. It is impossible to know why these objects were made, or how the sculptor gained the inspiration for them.
  • This text adds nothing to the topic. The second throw-away sentence is still there. Since the link is dead, I'm wondering what value you find in the external jump? I looked it up in the internet archive, and even if the link were live, it adds nothing to the topic. [9] The second sentence is a throw-away sentence. I can see no justification for this jump.
    • The link is dead. Obviously it should be removed. Christopher Parham (talk) 07:26, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
• Euclid's elements (see for example Euclid's Elements) gave what amount to ruler-and-compass constructions for the five Platonic solids.
  • Euclid's elements followed by see Euclid's elements is not good prose. The page demonstrates nothing; it's a collection of links. Editors should write whatever it is they're intending to convey with that link, and use it as a reference. Fails 1a and 1b.
    • The page is the index for directions, accompanied by vector graphics, of the construction of each of the five solids. Obviously these instructions should not be included in the article, but I think they may well be of interest to the reader. I've clarified the prose to indicate what sort of examples are indicated. Christopher Parham (talk) 07:26, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
• In theory, almost any material may be used to construct regular polyhedra. Instructions for building origami models may be found here, for example. They may be carved out of wood, modeled out of wire, formed from stained glass. The imagination is the limit.
  • Again, throw-away, speculative sentence still here, no progress apparent in this article. Instructions for building origami models should be found in an origami article - there is no need for an external jump here, and the prose is not unencyclopedic. Would you expect to find "may be found here" when reading the article in hard print? We put external jumps in External links for a reason.
    • Obviously there are many things here that I would not expect to find in a print encyclopedia; in print the link would have to be expanded to include the full URL. Putting this link at the end of the article wouldn't make much sense given that it applies to this sentence in particular. Christopher Parham (talk) 07:26, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
• Other examples may be found on the web (see for example [10]).
  • Not defensible. See [4] isn't good prose; we don't need to link out for examples - we can do that in External links or a Wiki article on orthorgraphic projections.
• Coxeter's famous book on polytopes (Coxeter, 1948) has some examples of such orthographic projections. Other examples may be found on the web (see for example [11]). Note that immersing the 4-dimensional objects directly into two dimensions is quite confusing.
  • Please don't tell readers what to note. "Famous" is unencylopedic. Some is redundant. Other examples can be included in External links. See [2] fails 1a. Quite is redundant. Again, the math here isn't the issue: it's the tortured prose and the insistence on the use of external jumps and convoluted referencing that makes the math appear harder than need be. Write plain text, reference it to coxeter and the external site, add the external site to the refs section.
    • This link is a good candidate to be moved to the external links section, since it has general relevance. As far as your comments on the prose go, I don't see what's unencyclopedic about "famous" (the book is indeed famous). Christopher Parham (talk) 07:26, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
• The mathematics department at UIUC has a number of pictures of what one would see if embedded in a tessellation of hyperbolic space with dodecahedra. Such a tessellation forms an example of an infinite abstract regular polytope. An example may be seen at this page.
  • What is this section doing (or trying to do); it adds nothing but an advert for Champaign-Urbana. Why does the reader care about the Math dept at UIUC? Write the text without referring to the math department, say it simply, reference the site inline with a link in refs.
• I could go on - but I can see that nothing has yet been done to bring the article to standard. It fails 1a, and probably still 1b and 1c as well. The problem here is not only the lack of citations (of which there is still plenty in this article); it's the poor prose making the math appear harder than need be, made even more difficult by too much of the prose being about the source, rather than using the source only to reference facts. It's time to stop waving arms about citations and assuming others don't understand the math: this article is simply poorly written. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:07, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Generally, links like these need to be evaluated on an individual basis. But certainly I think your standards for inclusion are unreasonably narrow. As far as the article needing a copyedit, I don't disagree; if I get a chance to do it to my satisfaction, I will. Christopher Parham (talk) 07:26, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

• Remove Insufficient inline citations. LuciferMorgan 02:31, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
• Remove as per Lucifer. And it's not well written at all. When the citations issue is addressed, consider asking the LoC.
  • "because they do not have plane faces"—Just "lack". It's a complicated topic for non-experts, so attention to clear, plain expression is essential.
  • Please don't use "indeed" in an encyclopedic register. What does it mean?
  • "Overall, however, the history of the study of regular polytopes has been one where the definition has been steadily generalised, allowing more and more objects to be considered among their number." At first glance, elegant. A few seconds later, you realise that it's flabby. Be straight, plain and concise for us poor dummies. Remove the thematic equative "the history [equals] one where ...". "Among their number" is redundant, as is "of the study". Try: "Since Euclid, the definition of regular polytopes has been gradually expanded to include more objects." How simple is that, now?

These examples from the top indicate that the whole text requires careful attention by fresh eyes.Tony 00:00, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

• Strong Remove. Long list of unaddressed problems, including 1a - prose, 1b - comprehensive, 1c - citations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SandyGeorgia (talk • contribs)
• Remove - Citation problems remain unaddressed. Jeffpw 15:32, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

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The article was removed 16:42, 27 January 2007.

[edit] WGA screenwriting credit system

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Filmmaking and PedanticallySpeaking. Gzkn 07:20, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

No inline citations at all, even though there are many direct quotes. Lead is probably inadequate (three sentences). However, there is a list of References, so hopefully this one can be saved. Gzkn 07:20, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. I agree with Gzkn. No inline citations, the "examples" section should probably be prosified (and even then there might be too many examples), the picture lacks a fair use rationale (I'm not even sure if its use in the article counts as fair use), and the points that Gzkn raised. If the references are revisited by someone who has access to them and converted to inline cites, then that would be a big step forward. Green451 02:33, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

• Move to FARC, two edits since nom, no progress. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:33, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are citations (1c) and LEAD (2a). Marskell 21:13, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

• Remove Needs inline citations. LuciferMorgan 02:34, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
• Remove seriously undercited. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:03, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

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The article was removed 19:13, 7 January 2007.

[edit] Saxophone

[edit] Review commentary

Talk messages left at Music. Sandy (Talk) 03:00, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Saxophone is an older, "brilliant prose" promotion. The lead is short and does not summarize the article. The article is largely uncited, using mixed referenced styles. It has external jumps, which are spam/advertish. External links are marked for cleanup, and some of the See also could be incorporated into the article. There are several one-sentence paragraphs Sandy (Talk) 03:00, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

• I agree with Sandy. And the prose needs an audit. I started reading it and found—
  • "and played with a single-reed mouthpiece like the clarinet."—Should avoid the sense of "played like the clarinet", which it is not.
  • "He drew up plans for 14 different types of saxophones, but they were not all realized." How many were?
  • "here is good evidence that fitting a clarinet mouthpiece to an ophicleide is the most likely origin"—Where's the reference? The article is seriously under-referenced. Tony 13:15, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

• Move to FARC, issued not addressed. Sandy (Talk) 18:34, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

• Per above. LuciferMorgan 19:00, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

• I agree with most of what has been said. FARC definitely. --HisSpaceResearch 04:17, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are prose, LEDA, citations, and formatting. Joelito (talk) 17:20, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove – The lead is too short, mixed citation style and the article is full of ext. spam links, either in the external links section and also in the main article as embedded links. — Indon (reply) — 12:59, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per Indon. CG 21:05, 25 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove. I cleaned up External link farm, and fixed sections to agree with WP:LAYOUT. Overlinked, undercited, mixed reference styles, inadequate lead, prose problems, external jumps to commercial websites. An embarrassment to FA - no improvement - I added a cleanup tag. Sandy (Talk) 01:02, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per above. LuciferMorgan 18:27, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
• Remove per above.--Yannismarou 19:06, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
• Remove per above. Tony 06:01, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

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The article was removed 14:11, 15 January 2007.

[edit] Libertarianism

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Harry491 and Politics. Sandy (Talk) 01:15, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

This article needs a cleanup/review of External links and See also. It also has an extensive list of References; it's not clear if all of these sources are used as references for the article, or if some should be Further reading and/or pruned. The article is undercited, with seven footnotes and a mixed reference style, in spite of the lengthy Reference list. The article is full of weasle words and uncited claims. There are external jumps, and a cleanup tag. Sandy (Talk) 01:15, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

• Per above. LuciferMorgan 03:52, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

• Move to FARC - unimproved. Sandy (Talk) 01:14, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns citation sufficiency and format (1c), weasel words (1d), general cleanup issues (2). Marskell 15:43, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove per Sandy's criteria concerns. LuciferMorgan 22:52, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
• Remove. Per Sandy's remarks and Lucifer. I also see a section tagged for clean-up.--Yannismarou 18:53, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
• Remove. Pity; seems to be well written, but Sandy's concerns are the clincher. Tony 07:28, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
• Remove Yes, too few citations for an article this size. Structure is another problem.UberCryxic 23:58, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

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The article was removed 19:42, 19 January 2007.

[edit] Tynwald Day

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Emsworth and Politics. Sandy (Talk) 01:09, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Good article, but lacking any inline citations. Also, a bit short, those who are interested might want to see if this topic can be expanded at all. Just a suggestion. Judgesurreal777 22:07, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

• "a bit short"? What is missing? -- ALoan (Talk) 22:47, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Not a lot. I'll look at adding citations if nobody picks it up (the references section looks fairly comprehensive and I think Lord Emsworth is busy with the rotten boroughs) Yomangani^talk 02:05, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm speaking from a position of ignorance, largely. As such (and this might place me in the majority of Wikipedia readers) the article leaves me with a sense of a tourist brochure. By this I mean that it describes what is going on, what is seen, but doesn't bother with "why."

Here are a few "for examples."

• Why is it that this is the only ceremony at this site? If it is such an important cite packed with such meaning, why not conduct all of the business here?
• Is everyone entirely united in their admiration of the ceremony and the historical appeals? Is there any dissent at all on the happy Isle, and does this dissent ever influence what happens on Tynwald Day? (And if there is such uniform happiness, why are the Manx so entirely different from every other people within a thousand miles!?!)
• Has the ceremony been a rallying point for or against any significant event? Was it fought over? Why or why not?
• Is it significant that the current Royal Family seem to show up more frequently than ever before? Does it seem like an honor for the good people of Man when the Royalty drop by, or is it more of a bother? If this is so important to this part of the Empire, why is it that royalty are not always presiding in person?
• Do the people seem to respond to one historical era or another in an especially notable way? That is, from which eras are the ceremonies taken? Is all of the tradition, dress and speech as it would be at the time of the establishment of the Isle of Man? from the beginning of the Stuarts? or from a hodge podge of eras? Would a freeman from 1800 feel at home visiting the ceremony today?
• This article seemed even more unfinished to me in that I had just been to the New York Times presentation which contained a moving and deep explanation of the curious custom of US Marines celebrating the "birthday of the corps." (http://www.nytimes.com/packages/khtml/2006/12/06/world/20061207_MEDIC_FEATURE.html)

The reason I mention it, and would encourage the editors of this article to visit, is that it does a good job of tying the ceremony into the present. It could, I suppose, just show the various quaint little traditions and rituals, but if it only did that it would be trivializing much of what is at the heart of a US marine. I'm a pacifist and believe we glorify war way too much, but was struck, and informed, with insight I had not before experienced.

Isn't this exactly what a great encyclopedia should do?

I guess I am expecting that this Tynwald Day celebration can function as a window into the culture, history and people of the Isle of Man. Yet the article as it now stands makes this event sound a bit like a tourist play--the archaic language and funny clothes make for a bit of drama in an otherwise mundane day.

I do sense there is something else there, that this Tynwald Day is not a fun piece of theatre put on for the tourists, that in order to truly understand the Manx, you must understand Tynwald Day. Is this the case? How could you explain that relevance to those of us who do not already know.

I'm not sure that a lot of additional "facts" are needed. To the contrary, many bits of information given (such as the history of the Gregorian calendar change and the possibility of including guests of honor) may be fruitfully left out, unless they contribute to our understanding of the Day.

I believe I am missing the reason for the facts that are given. This might be thought of as the difference between and encyclopedia and an almanac. The former explains, the latter lists.

I do hope this helps. Roy 04:06, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• Move to FARC - not a single edit since nominated. Sandy (Talk) 01:32, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are citations (1c), and insufficient length (1b). Marskell 07:38, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

• Remove Lack of inline citations. LuciferMorgan 21:09, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
• Remove as per Lucifer. I've done my bit by alerting eight former contributors. But it's still a ghost town. Pity. Tony 08:49, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
• Remove issues not addressed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:52, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
• Remove. No citations.--Yannismarou 18:10, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

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The article was removed 12:11, 13 January 2007.

[edit] Names of God in Judaism

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Zappaz, Judaism, Religion and Orthodox Judaism. Sandy (Talk) 22:11, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

This article definitely needs some inline citations. Also has some deprecated image tags. Judgesurreal777 19:15, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Needs inline citations. LuciferMorgan 19:23, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
• Move to FARC, no improvement. Sandy (Talk) 18:50, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern is citations (1c) and images (3). Marskell 19:43, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: I don't see any specific issues raised here. "Needs inline citations" is insufficient: please indicate what points in the article may be disputed and thus need inline citations. Ditto for images: please name those with deprecated tags. In addition, please consider raising concerns first on the article talk page instead of going straight to FAR. Beit Or 22:47, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep based on Beit Or's comment. 6SJ7 20:38, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
• Remove Zero inline citations. LuciferMorgan 22:51, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
• Remove. Even the existing citations do not have the proper format. Additionally, there are structure problems: Some sections consist of just half sentence!--Yannismarou 18:50, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
• Remove. WP:MSH confusion, and undercited (one random weasly uncited example: Many Jews do not actually ever write God's name on paper or say it, this is to sanctify his name and not to come to desecrate God’s name.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:04, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
• Remove as per reviewers above. Tony 06:14, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

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The article was removed 14:50, 18 January 2007.

[edit] Shakers

[edit] Review commentary

Talk messages left at Kingturtle, Religion, and Christianity. Sandy (Talk) 18:51, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

This article seems to suffer from many of the same problems that a lot of the older featured articles have: its quality. It doesn't seem to cite many of its sources at all. This alone should merit its featured status being removed.--HisSpaceResearch 05:47, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment -- I've identified some problem images as well. Jkelly 19:28, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Insufficient inline citations. LuciferMorgan 07:14, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• Move to FARC - still uncited, little improvement in article. Sandy (Talk) 01:26, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

• I agree that the article is short on citations, but I disagree strongly with Rjensen's approach to that, which has been to delete entire sections that I'm pretty certain are completely accurate, and that I think provide useful background to understand where the Shakers fit into the history of dissenting Protestantism. - Jmabel | Talk 01:02, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are sources (1c), and images (3). Marskell 17:42, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove. Fails 1a and 2a.
  • "The Shakers, a Protestant religious denomination, originated in Manchester, England in 1772 under the leadership of Mother Ann Lee, who moved the 9-person group to the United States in 1774, where they built 19 communal settlements that attracted over the next century some 200,000 converts." It's a bit of a winding track to open with. "9-person group", then "four". Spell out single-digit numbers unless there's a good reason not to. Relocate "over the next century".
  • "Strict believers in celibacy, Shakers maintained their numbers through conversion and adoption of orphans." Add "the" before "orphans".
  • "Turnover was very high; the group reached maximum size of about 6,000 full members in 1850, and now has four members left." "Turnover", as opposed to "recruitment", means the coming and going of members. Is that what you mean? It's rather sudden to stick the bit about only four members left into the same sentence, unexplained.
  • This stubby second para is unnecessary, since there's a disambiguation note at the top: "The Shakers of New England should not be confused with the religion of the Indian Shakers of the Pacific Northwest of North America." It's an order, too, to our readers.
  • The lead is quite inadequate.

Further down, I see at random:

• • "where a unique communal life began to develop and thrive"—can't "began to" be removed?
  • "so that men and women did everything separately"—Presumably they mated together, though. Inelegant and exaggerated statement.

I won't go further. Needs significant work. Tony 05:33, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

• Remove writing is sloppy and needs to be fact checked and cited; work does not seem to be happening. --Peta 22:45, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
• Remove as it is now. Uncited.--Yannismarou 08:11, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

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The article was removed 14:39, 20 January 2007.

[edit] Olympic Games

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Jeronimo and Sports Olympics. Sandy (Talk) 04:16, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

The main reason I am nominating this article for FAR is not by far because I would like it delisted. I am an avid Olympics page editor, and I think that this page may be falling behind, and I would hate to lose it as a FA, as the Summer Olympics page did. I am looking to see what specifically could be changed, both content-wise and aesthetically, because I think that would help the page. I just saw that this page had never been listed as one of "Today's Featured Articles" and I was shocked, and that's what initiated this request. I hope to see some very helpful feedback that editors can look back on for guidance! → JARED ^(t)  21:13, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. The article is well detailed, but needs lots more references. The article currently only has five, and only four inline citations which are "notes" (really references). Image:Larisa Latynina.jpg requires a fair use rationale. I only did a quick scan of the article, but at the moment, the above problems I noted are enough to get this article demoted from featured status (failing criteria 1c and 3). You probably could have also taken this to peer review as well and gotten quite a few responses, but I'm pretty sure listing it here is okay. Green451 21:33, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. The article's problems are obvious from the lead. Three stubby paragraphs! The article is informative, but has no inline citations and some sections are too short and under-analyzed. I did not read it in full detail, but judging from the lead, I have the impression that the article may well need an overall copy-editing.--Yannismarou 19:29, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
• Move to FARC - nothing happening. Sandy (Talk) 01:22, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Now, wait a second, if you read my first comment above, you'd have known well that I just wished to gain some comments on how to fix up this page. I am unfamiliar with WP:FAR, so I had no idea that I had to be editing this page continuously before it was nominated for deletion. It was definitely on one of my things to do in this coming week; I was just waiting for this to close, but I guess it doesn't work that way. Anyway, for this reason, I request another week during which I will fix up the page before it is nominated again; I appologize for now knowing the happenings of this page. → JARED ^(t)  14:41, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Glad to hear there is an involved, concerned editor - please let us know if you need more detail on items to address, besides the obvious lack of citations and possible fair use on the images. Sometimes moving an article to FARC is the only thing that brings concerned editors out of the woodwork :-) Sandy (Talk) 22:45, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
      • Thank you for your understanding! I'll get on that ASAP! → JARED ^(t)  23:18, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
        • • Further remarks while JP continues his rewrting. I think the 4 pars in the lead are stubby. The problem with the stubby paragraphs is bigger in "Doping".--Yannismarou 17:01, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are references (1c), LEAD (2a), and stub paragraphs (2). Marskell 07:36, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment: This has also received some work. Moving down as it's been up a while. Marskell 07:36, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose. Keep. It is not necessary to remove this page from FA. It does require some work, which is being handled slowly but surely. Give it some time, and if no more work is made to fix it, without a doubt nominate it for removal. → JARED ^(t)  22:17, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Well, the reviewers can wait. Are you actually working on the article? How much time do you need?--Yannismarou 18:33, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
    • I don't think it's a matter of time. I think it's a matter of my doing it. And I'm doing it, but I'm only one person with other responsibilities. Here's what I suggest: this FARC should be removed from the page, which would take the pressure off of me for finishing the job. If you notice that the page still isn't up to par in a reasonable amount of time, bring this back here for removal. I just feel that pressure if being put on me personally because I am being sort of hounded to finish the job and I can't operate that way. I would appreciate your understanding! → JARED ^(t)  20:16, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
      • Just letting you know, the usual window during FARC is two weeks. There's no pressure (yet). Also, the FARC process can be extended if there is progress being made on the article. Gzkn 10:37, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
        • I don't think the FARC can be removed now, but it can be extended per Gzkn. I think that people here show the adequate patience, when they see a user working on an article.--Yannismarou 08:09, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
          • OK, thank you both. → JARED ^(t)  11:42, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
            • Also, the lingo here is to Keep or Remove the featured status - you entered oppose on FARC (it's already in FARC), but I think you mean Keep - you might want to strike and change. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:24, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
              • Thanks, I should have known that.... → JARED ^(t)  21:18, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Remove—1a and 2a. The lead is scrappy, and its prose exemplifies a generally poor standard of writing throughout.

• • First sentence: "comprised of"—what a blooper; it's "comprising" or "consisting of", which each carry slightly different meanings.
  • "these ancient Games"—used generically, probably small g.
  • Paragraphing in the lead is askew: 1896, then cross to next para for 1896.
  • "Tremendously"—weasely.
  • "World wild"—one word.
  • "are constantly gaining more supporters"—Spot the redundant word.
  • "the two sports of baseball and softball have been removed from the schedule of the following games"—Remove the first four words, since they're redundant. "Following" is unclear.
  • Is the point about London really important enough to include in this small lead? Tony 08:44, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

• Remove Insufficient citations. LuciferMorgan 20:59, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Status. I've asked Jared if he has anymore to add to this. We'll wait a couple of days. Marskell 15:08, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Marskell and others, I would love to continue to work on this, and will continue doing so often, but other responsibilities, namely upcoming exams, will impede me from making the changes that are requested by this FARC. In the beginning I was only looking for suggestions, and it seems that I have gotten some. I recognize that the page is in an "on-the-fence" state right now, and so if the consensus here is to remove for the time being, I have no other option than to allow this article's delisting. I am certain that with time, this page will be back on the featured status list. I appreciate everyone's patience while I attempted to fix up the article! While I still urge for a keep, I realize that the page still needs some work. Thanks. → JARED ^(t)  22:07, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

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The article was removed 22:24, 21 January 2007.

[edit] Ryanair

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at CGorman, Ireland and Airlines. Sandy (Talk) 02:22, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Ryanair has deteriorated since its promotion. It contains external jumps (embedded links), mixed referencing styles (some inline links, some cite.php), uncompleted footnotes (URL links only), several cite tags (many more needed), and weasle words ("He is said to have a pugnacious and aggressive management style, using a flat management hierarchy.^{[citation needed]} The largest section of the article is Criticism, raising POV concerns. The article needs to be thoroughly cited, cleaned up, and reviewed for balance. Sandy (Talk) 02:22, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Sandy's nomination is a good summary of what's wrong in the article. LuciferMorgan 02:36, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment As concerns balance, it needs sources in Ryanair's favour, but good luck in that endeavour. Ryanair has come under fire from tons of critics, while the only sources in their favour have usually been the airline themselves. The article aside, Ryanair's poor reputation is justified. LuciferMorgan 14:20, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Further comment I addressed some of the external jumps, which I hope has helped, if only a little. LuciferMorgan 17:13, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. Wow! "Disguising fares as surcharges" is one of the worst sections I've ever seen! This article needs rewriting and restructuring. Major effort needed here. And the lack of an active main editor is obvious.--Yannismarou 21:32, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

The reference to a "duopoly" on London-Ireland in 1985 is not correct. Dan-Air London flew regular scheduled services between London-Gatwick and Cork throughout the mid-eighties.

• Move to FARC, almost no progress. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:35, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are format and sufficiency of citations (1c), POV (1d). Marskell 09:36, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

• Remove Insufficient citations. LuciferMorgan 20:55, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
• Remove as per Lucifer. It needs a copy-edit, too. For example, in the first paragraph:
  • "However" in the second sentence is a false contrast.
  • "It"—spell out the referent here.
  • "Over the years"—Not my favourite chronologically precise item. Not encyclopedic.
  • "running at remarkable margins by passing its costs directly to its customers."—"Remarkable" is a problem in terms of precision and POV. I'm unsure of the justification provided; ultimately, customers almost always directly pay the costs.
  • "praised and criticised in equal measure"—What, exactly equal? Measured how? This is weasley, whereas we need to be taken seriously as a source of solid information. Tony 23:51, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed 15:19, 25 January 2007.

[edit] Battle of Leyte Gulf

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Gdr, Raul654, MilHist and Japan. Sandy (Talk) 22:03, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

An older FA, has no inline citations and has a cleanup tag on top, needs alot of work Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 19:13, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Needs inline citations. LuciferMorgan 13:10, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - Expand the lead section, and adjust it to a more encyclopedic tone. Incline citation is a must! AQu01rius (User • Talk) 05:31, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• Move to FARC. Mostly uncited, cleanup tag, and citation needed tags. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:30, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
• Move to FARC. Per reasons given by SandyGeorgia. Buckshot06 21:18, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern is lack of citations (1c) and general clean-up (2). Marskell 21:10, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

• Remove Needs in-line citations.UberCryxic 23:56, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
• Remove per my nomination Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 01:22, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
• Remove. Per Jaranda.--Yannismarou 21:09, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
• Remove per above. LuciferMorgan 02:33, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed 14:50, 18 January 2007.

[edit] Convair B-36

[edit] Review commmentary

Messages left at aircraft, Military aviation task force, and MilHist Gzkn 11:49, 12 December 2006 (UTC) Additional message at Ingoolemo. Sandy (Talk) 04:11, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

This article needs quite a bit of reworking to continue to be considered Featured. It is bloated, somewhat poorly written, and not particularly well referenced. The time has come to either rewrite it or revoke the status. Karl Dickman ^talk 11:32, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Lacks inline citations, none in the history section. The website references are not formatted properly, use {{cite web}} or similar. The lead is too short to adequately summarize the article. Jay32183 20:27, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
• Move to FARC short lead, mostly uncited, incorrectly formatted references, unaddressed. Sandy (Talk) 01:31, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are writing (1a), bloating (4), and citations (1c). Marskell 17:40, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove. Precious little has been done to improve this article. 1a and 2a are problems.
  • "mass-produced"—US editors wouldn't hyphenate unless a double attributive.
  • "Although there have been larger military aircraft, they have all been transports."—The last word seems informal, jargonistic or vague.
  • "Prior to"—Why Latin, when "before" is perfectly good?
  • Metric equivalents for 96% of the world's population?
  • Stubby paragraphs.
• It could be fixed, but where are the contributors? Tony 05:43, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

• Remove FA status per Marskell. Lacks citations (and the vast majority are other websites of various quality and verifiability), bloated, a lot of fluffy language. I went through and dropped {{fact}} tags. - Emt147 ^Burninate! 07:58, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

• Remove After comparing the article now to its state when it got FA status, I had to change my mind. The article now is bloated and not as well written. It would take a lot of work to fix it I think.Patrick Berry 16:16, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

• Remove per above. LuciferMorgan 10:09, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept 06:14, 29 January 2007.

[edit] Monty Hall problem

Messages left at Antaeus Feldspar, Rick Block, and Mathematics. Gzkn 11:00, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Has one inline citation. Mixed referencing style. Contains a trivia section disguised as Anecdotes. External links need pruning. Venn diagram images need captions. Weasel statements (for example: "It has been speculated that one reason the Monty Hall problem is so counterintuitive is that we expect deceit in situations like this.") Use of contractions, which should be avoided, and which leads to informality. Gzkn 10:52, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

• On inline citations: First of all, this is not true. The following extracts from the text are all inline citations; they merely don't happen to be footnotes.

• Craig F. Whitaker of Columbia, Maryland in a letter to Marilyn vos Savant's September 9, 1990, column in Parade Magazine (as quoted by Bohl, Liberatore, and Nydick). [BLN is duly explicated in the References]
• In 1975, Steve Selvin wrote a pair of letters to the American Statistician (February and April issues) regarding the Monty Hall problem.
• As Monty Hall wrote to Selvin:

And if you ever get on my show, the rules hold fast for you — no trading boxes after the selection.
—From the Let's Make a Deal website

• In the May-June, 1989 issue of Bridge Today magazine, Phillip Martin wrote an article entitled "The Monty Hall Trap."
• including a front page story in the New York Times (July 21, 1991)

I doubt I've listed all of them. Please read the article; don't just count footnotes. The genuine question is: is there any claim which is challenged, or likely to be challenged and which is not clearly sourced?

As for the bit about contractions: That section of MOS is an invitation to bad writing, and should be removed. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:38, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

• You're right...I was on the lookout for Harvard referencing/footnotes instead. In any case the inconsistent referencing (mix of external jumps, in-text references, and footnotes) still needs to be cleaned up. Gzkn 00:51, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
  • In other words, this has now become a complaint that the solitary footnote has not been worked into the text, like the others. Please look at it. The content of the footnote is a long and cumbersome reference, which would be clumsy in text. This is what footnotes are for - to move references like that out of running text. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:15, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

• You misunderstand me. I'm just saying the referencing should be consistent. If that would be clumsy in text, how are the other in text references not clumsy? The column of the footnote is already listed in the references. Why duplicate it? Gzkn 05:29, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Because they do fit reasonably smoothly in text, and this won't. I came back here after looking at it. As for the referencing needing to be "consistent", for heaven's name, why? as long as it is clear and presentable? Wikipedia is inconsistent. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:12, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
    • "Because they do fit reasonably smoothly in text, and this won't" I would argue that stuff like A widely known statement of the problem is from Craig F. Whitaker of Columbia, Maryland in a letter to Marilyn vos Savant's September 9, 1990 column in Parade Magazine (as quoted by Bohl, Liberatore, and Nydick (1995)). (in the lead no less!) rebuts that argument. Gzkn 01:44, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

• • By "external jumps", do you mean "external links"? This would be a valid objection if the external link read [1] as many do; but it reads Let's make a Deal. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:15, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

• There are plenty more external jumps than the Let's make a Deal one. And yes, there is even one that reads [1]: "The first appearance of the same general class of problem was probably the one presented in Joseph Bertrand's Calcul des probabilités (1889), known as Bertrand's Box Paradox [1]." And that link is now broken, so there's no source to back up the claim presented. Gzkn 05:29, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
  • That, at last, is a real problem, and I will see what I can do. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:10, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Done. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:13, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

• Regarding the example held up of "weasel statements", this appears to be supported by the Mueser and Granberg paper, which lists the perception of Monty as a "knowledgeable adversary", and any information given by Monty as information that he may be providing in an effort to deceive, as one of the "cues" that shape individuals' analyses of the problem and frequently lead them to incorrect assessments. This appears to be borne out in practice, as Cecil Adams discusses his initial analysis of the problem in terms of Monty trying to "bluff the contestants, then counterbluff them". In short, it's not well-cited and not specific enough but calling it a "weasel statement" appears uncalled for. -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:40, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

• I was just going by WP:WEASEL (see the Examples section)...please don't take it personally. "It has been speculated..." is a common beginning to a weasel statement. Again this could be corrected by just citing a source. Gzkn 00:51, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree, it could definitely be vastly improved by citing the source and phrasing with more specificity (I made an attempt at doing this, actually, but found my editing skills not up to it while in the midst of a minor headache). I just think that "weasel statement" is a pretty strong term, and should really be reserved for those statements which could not be substantiated if they were phrased with more specificity. Which are only a subset of "statements that could really benefit from more specificity." -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:37, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

The "Venn diagrams" are perfectly clear; they are explained by the paragraphs in which they sit. Making these into normal captions, with boxes, would make them worse. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:15, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I think they might be a bit cryptic without a caption. I wish you wouldn't be so hostile though ("more careless objections")...no need for that. Gzkn 05:29, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps I have been over-touchy. But I've just been through a long session with people who do simply count footnotes as their judgment on an article at Good Article Review. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:10, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

No, they are not perfectly clear; if you find them perfectly clear, I suggest a fresh set of eyes needs to copyedit the entire article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:20, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I still find them clear; and I do have a fresh set of eyes. I do not remember editing this article at all before this discussion; and I certainly have nothing to do with these diagrams. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:13, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think a caption would make them clearer...for instance, the appropriate caption of the first picture would be the second sentence of the attached paragraph. I don't think that repeating this information would be very valuable. Christopher Parham (talk) 00:47, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

• May I speak bluntly? I view this review with hostility and irritation, as the issues raised are either wrong or trivial. There is exactly one (1) use of the fancy new php footnote mechanism, introduced on 2006-11-27 by someone (Antaeus Feldspar) who obviously wasn't trying to be consistent with the perfectly valid style of referencing already used in the article. It is this new reference style that is the mistake, along with what I consider a review nomination based on not seeing a vast list of such "approved" references. Now we see an attempt to back away from the nomination reason, but the history is clear. This is a thinly disguised attack by the discredited inline citation squad. Nor is there a single other issue raised on this page that rises to the level of requiring a Good Article Review. Use the article talk page. End this absurdity now. --KSmrq^T 06:45, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

• Wow...I've never heard of this "inline citation squad" you speak of...I find it interesting that you hold me in so much contempt. Do I know you? I don't believe I've ever interacted with you before. "Thinly disguised attack"? Good Lord. What's with all this hostility? How is this helpful at all? Gzkn 06:56, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
  • You have trampled on a very sore corn among many editors, I'm afraid. See the talk page to WP:WIAGA for some of the history. But I must go. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 07:04, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict; mishandled by system, resulting in accidental removal): At any rate: the article has four different referencing styles, a problem which needs to be addressed, as well as the problem with trivia/anecdote and an External link farm. In terms of referencing, there is one cite.php footnote, some imbedded URL citations, some Harvard style inline refs, and numerous external jumps which should be either wikified or converted to refs. Any style is OK (once the external jumps are eliminated), but the article needs to pick one and stick with it. I'm not really keen on going through the article and looking at what still needs to be cited until the main editors decide which style they are going to use, and convert the imbedded links and external jumps so we can see where it stands. Last time I helped convert a math article, my work was reverted, so the rest of us can't help unless the editors decide which way they want to go. Is anyone going to work on it; if so, when do you expect to complete the first pass, so we can take a look at whether citation is lacking? There's no point in editors here trying to help - as we did at Wikipedia:Featured article review/Regular polytope - if the bottom line is that no work is going to be done on the article anyway (as has occurred so far at Regular polytope). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:37, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

What do I expect?

• Reviewers who have actually read the article with attention; counting footnotes is not enough. (If the present reviewers meet this, so much the better.)
• Comments about citations which recognize that different forms of citations are useful for different purposes, even within the same article.
• Complaints about lack of inline citation which cite instances of points which are both genuinely uncited and which are challenged or likely to be challenged. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 07:02, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

• I'll be happy to read the article and provide a detailed list - as I did on Regular polytope - once the hostility subsides and you all decide if anyone is going to actually work on the article. In the meantime, four different referencing styles, the External link farm, the trivia, and jumps to external websites should be addressed: it's not our concern which referencing style you use, or how many citations you count - this is not GAC. It is our concern that the article is consistently referenced, and that text that needs to be cited, is cited. Please contain your hostility towards Gzkn, who made a good faith nomination of an article that merits review, and leave your GA baggage where you found it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:15, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

• Gzkn began with a complaint which is, as he admits, factually false. That it was about inline citations raised more hackles; the stereotype of reviewers who insist on footnotes at every semicolon is less unfounded than it should be. This produced a certain level of hostility right off. Most of the rest of his complaints are either trivial, or blemishes which he perceives and others do not.

• Heated rhetoric like "factually false" isn't necessary; the article needed review. Rather than dragging GAC baggage over here, let's focus on the work at hand. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:04, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

• Sandy's complaints about Regular polytope are largely about a handful of speculative sentences, linking sourced archaeological finds. I spent a few minutes adjusting them, as she could have done herself; but I can see why she was ignored.

• Incorrect on several counts. Most of the deficiencies there have not been addressed, you made a very minor edit to an article with a long list of problems, I hope regular polytope is not an example of what the Math Project considers compelling and brilliant, and I did start the work myself, but was reverted. That's no problem (often FAs with so many issues have been abandoned, so we try to help out, but I'm happy to leave the work to others), but the editors who reverted should complete the work - there is a long list of work remaining on the article, including a thorough copyedit. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:04, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

• There is a wider issue here, which should be addressed at WT:WIAFA: are citations a toolkit, or a shibboleth? If they are a toolkit, multiple forms of citation may be expected in a single article, as they are at Pericles; different tools serve different purposes. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:59, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Pericles does not cite different things in completely different ways, but the same things in two different ways. First, the entire reference is cited in the References section (i.e., # Kagan, Donald (1996). “Athenian Strategy in the Peloponnesian War”, The Making of Strategy: Rules, States and Wars by Williamson Murray, Alvin Bernstein, MacGregor Knox. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-56627-4.). The tiny part of this reference is then shoved between two ref tags and inserted next to the fact being cited (i.e., D. Kagan, Athenian Strategy in the Peloponnesial War, 54). The notes section, as you may or may not have noticed, is for footnotes, which are in turn given inline citations (i.e., "Pericles' date of birth is uncertain; he could not have been born later than 492-1 and been of age to present the Persae in 472. He is not recorded as having taken part in the Persian Wars of 480-479; some historians argue from this that he was unlikely to have been born before 498, but this argument ex silentio has also been dismissed.[142] [18]"). It's true that some sources contain external links and some do not, but that's generally because those sources are primary sources and are available on Wikisource, which has formatted things like this such that one can link to individual lines, saving people the time it takes to page down, risking paging down over it out of sheer impatience/boredom. It is cited using {{Ref_label}} because sticking footnotes in a section intended for references looks really stupid.--Rmky87 05:19, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

• That would be an issue for WP:V; the issues with the math articles currently at FAR include but go beyond citation. This is not GAC, FAs are held to higher standard and more stringent, comprehensive review than the subjective GA process, and we don't just count citations on FAs. Once you all have decided if you want to work on the article, I will thoroughly review it and provide a list if needed - but not eager to do that work if no one plans to address the problems, as has occurred at regular polytope. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:04, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

• • For the record, "uniformity" of citation appears nowhere in WP:WIAFA - or, as far as I can tell, anywhere else. Let us cut directly to what WP:CITE actually requires: "the most important thing is to provide all the information one would need to identify and find the source"; it would not be useful to invent requirements. Regular polytope could use a note to the effect that Coxeter's book contains all the non-controversial facts listed and not otherwise cited; but I see no corresponding difficulty here. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:46, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Many of the external jumps are valuable links and probably shouldn't be removed, so it would be wise to be careful about this. Christopher Parham (talk) 00:47, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Removing external jumps doesn't necessarily imply removing the content. There are several ways to deal with external jumps.

1. Sometimes they're really intended as references, and can be converted to text with the external website as the citation.
2. Sometimes they are better listed as External links
3. It is never good prose to say, "For more information, see [1]"; that fails 1a. And, if it's just "for more information" that argues that the external jump belongs in External links. If the content is important to the article's comprehensiveness, that argues against 1b.
4. Sometimes they indicate an article failing 1b, comprehensiveness. If an article links out to important information, it's not comprehensive - the subject of the external site could become a Wiki article, with a wikilink to the current article, or the text can be written in the current article, with the website used as a ref.

External jumps often indicate a lack of comprehensiveness or a failure to cite sources correctly. They often also get into the territory of WP:NOT; Wiki is not a webpage or a blog, with multiple links to external sites. FAs should write their own content to the extent possible. Once you all are finished massaging the article prose, its mixed referencing styles, and the external jumps, we can re-evaluate. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:14, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

"For more information, see [1]" fails 1a? I don't quite see why so. What phrasing would be better? I agree that an external jump might indicate a lack of comprehensiveness; that concern has to be weighed in each individual case (inlcuding here). But certainly an article can be comprehensive in the sense demanded by the FA criteria without providing all extant information on a subject. Finally, there is an argument that external links that elaborate on a specific segment of the article should be moved to the general EL section. IMO this does nothing but decrease the usefulness of the article. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:22, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Add 1a to the list of deficiencies, which like regular polytope, may be more significant than the other problems with 1b, and 1c. I had a glance at several sections to check the prose; it's not even necessary for Tony to have a look. The article needs a serious prose check and thorough copy edit for things like basic grammar, tone, and typos. If some of the math editors could move the article further along on the basics, a more thorough list and analysis might then be helpful. I am curious that so many editors are defending these articles without seeming to have read them (fallout from the GAC baggage?), and I wonder if the Math Project has a good copyeditor on board? While I understand some of the math editors feel poked by GAC (I don't really understand why anyone even covets a subjective rating based on one editor's review anyway), FAs are held to higher standards, and there is work to be done on these articles. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:44, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
  • It could use a copy-edit. I've seen recent FA's that were far worse, but I will do one. I shall not, however, be converting it into fake Edwardian; this is an encyclopedia, not an exercise in anachronism. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:46, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Copy-edited about the first half; I do not claim to have caught everything even there. I found nothing positively ungrammatical; I hope this was not a reference to the split infinitives, which I retained: moving either always in the lead would produce the sort of journalese which Fowler condemns. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:29, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment. The "History of the problem" section has an incomplete sentence. The "Combining doors" section should have "rather than" rather than "instead of", and I can't tell what "it" refers to. Actually, I'm not sure what this paragraph adds to the article, so maybe it could just be cut. The article seems a bit repetitive in other aspects and maybe could be shortened, but I don't really understand the complaints about the referencing. Gimmetrow 02:04, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
  • The article is repetitive, and has grown considerably since promotion. For reference, it was promoted July 7, 2005; the last version before promotion may be found here. Most of the "Variants" sections are new. The "Increasing the number of doors" section has prose issues now, but was only one paragraph in the original promoted version. Gimmetrow 03:37, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment: I am of the opinion that the article could be cut in half, and its quality would dramatically improve. I am aware that not everyone shares this opinion. But in its current state, I find it overwhelming, directionless, and confusing. - Abscissa 02:49, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Abscissa has a point. The article contains several explanations of the same result, and many of them could be struck. I suspect, however, that one will make sense to one reader, and another to another reader, so I'm not sure which ones, if any, to remove. This should be taken to the article talk page. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:07, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List of random problems

• Still contractions sprinkled around.
  • As is modern standard idiom. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:24, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Fixed. --PresN 15:16, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
• pronoun referring to the player changes randomly between "he" and "they" and "s/he"
  • Fixed. The gender is now never specified. -- Rick Block (talk) 23:58, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
• Bold is used liberally for emphasis instead of italics
  • Fixed. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:03, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
• These terms need wikilinks for those unfamiliar with mathematics: algorithm, decision tree
• "The Monty Hall problem is a puzzle involving probability loosely based on the American game show Let's Make a Deal." involving probability loosely is quite awkward; ambiguous "loosely" comma duly inserted in first line. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:24, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
• "Mueser and Granberg improved the phrasing;" Who? First time encountering these two names in the text...needs explication.
  • Clearly a reference. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:32, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Well, it's clear to me as a regular Wikipedia editor that I should look down in the references section to find out who they are. Casual readers, though, will have no idea. Expanding a bit (University of Missouri-Columbia professors...) would be helpful. Gzkn 01:44, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
• "The problem would be different if the game host were permitted to make the offer to switch more often (or only) depending on knowledge of the player's original choice or if the host does not know what is behind each door." Awkward and confusing
  • Changed to "more often (or only) if the player original chooses the car". -- Rick Block (talk) 00:32, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
• "To drive the point home, one only has to imagine..." "To drive the point home" is hardly encyclopedic prose.
  • Fixed. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:51, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
• "The player can then more easily appreciate the randomness of his first choice and the large amount of information he has gained since he made that choice and then see the wisdom in switching." winding snake
  • Deleted. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:51, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
• "...if we increase the number of doors, why does this explanation assume the host would open 98 doors to make the problem similar to the original?" Why is first person being used in an encyclopedia?
  • Fixed. -- Rick Block (talk) 00:51, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
• "It is correct to assume the host would open 98 doors in this alternate game; because in the 3 door game the player has only one switching option — and the player in the 100 door game must also be presented with a single switching option." Not exactly the correct use of the semicolon and mdash.
  • Reworded. -- Rick Block (talk) 01:43, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
• Something needs to be done about the "Venn diagram" images. It's not clear upfront which image corresponds to which paragraph. Either refer to the image in text or use captions. Referenced in text. I hope it works for all computers. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:26, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
  • And now the Venn diagrams are centered, with text above clearly indicating diagram below. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:50, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
• "There is a simple way for people to convince themselves that a switching strategy really does win two out of three times on the average, and that is to simulate the game with playing cards, playing Monty's role." Compelling prose?
  • Reworded. -- Rick Block (talk) 06:20, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
• "...he discards, should bring the point home" Compelling prose?
  • Reworded. -- Rick Block (talk) 06:20, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
• "Consider various possible host behaviors, in which his decision to switch may be based upon the accuracy of the contestant's initial guess:" Confusing way to have readers look at the table to the right. Just explicitly say so, instead of having a colon.
  • Fixed. -- Rick Block (talk) 06:20, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
• "With several minutes remaining in the game, the game host chose two players for the "Big Deal". Behind one of three doors was the grand prize. Each player was allowed to choose a door (not the same one)." Why the past tense all of a sudden? "remaining in the game"-->What game? What is the "Big Deal"?
  • Reworded. -- Rick Block (talk) 06:20, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
• "In this scenario, a variant of Selvin's problem can be stated." Who? First encounter needs explication.
  • Deleted. -- Rick Block (talk) 06:20, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
• "The game host eliminates a player with a goat behind his door..." ambiguous "his"
  • Reworded. -- Rick Block (talk) 06:20, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
• "How likely is that? 1/3." Compelling prose?
  • Reworded. -- Rick Block (talk) 06:20, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
• "The two player game, from the final player's point of view, resembles like the single player game:"
  • Reworded. -- Rick Block (talk) 06:20, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
• "Actually, the two player game is exactly the same as the one player game, except in reverse."
  • Reworded. -- Rick Block (talk) 06:20, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
• n doors section is full of second person. Not exactly encyclopedic.
  • Fixed. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:50, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
• "which begins with 26 boxes (typically — it depends on the version of the show)" Compelling prose?
  • Changed to "which begins with a number of boxes (typically 26)". -- Rick Block (talk) 18:50, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
• "the player's keeper is equally likely to be the winner" Player's keeper??
  • Reworded entire paragraph. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:50, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
• "Another explanation is available at http://www.acbl-district13.org/artic003.htm". Why are we resorting to blog style here?
  • Deleted this sentence. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:50, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
• "A similar problem appeared in Joseph Bertrand's Calcul des probabilités (1889), known as Bertrand's Box Paradox, which is the . In this you have three boxes, each with two drawers on opposite sides. Each drawer contains a coin; one has a gold coin on both sides, one a silver coin on both sides, and the third gold on one side and silver on the other. You open a drawer and find a gold coin; what is the chance of the other side being silver?" Something went wrong here. And why is second person being used now?
• "you can't have picked the silver/silver box" Second person/contraction...compelling prose?
  • Compared to "the player cannot have chosen the silver/silver box"? Definitely. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:24, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Both now moot; Bertand's box paradox is a separate article. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:26, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
• "It went on to give examples..." compelling prose?
  • Changed to "Martin then gives examples ..." -- Rick Block (talk) 18:50, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
• "Over 40 papers have been published about this problem in academic journals and the popular press." Citation? Where is this statistic from? Gzkn 02:18, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
  • It is from the Mueser and Granberg paper; I've added the citation. -- Antaeus Feldspar 05:10, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

  I have three remarks for Gzkn:

  1. If you are unfamiliar with the inline citation war, I apologize for casting you as a participant.
  2. I still feel that all the issues I have seen here belong on the article talk page, and do not rise to the level of a review.
  3. Thank you very much for your detailed critique of the writing. This level of attention and awareness is uncommon. Usually when I have that much to improve I find it easier to just edit the article! (Or, complain briefly and leave it.) Therefore, I will try to reward your attention with some of my own, as edits.

  Many readers have strong, and often wrong, responses to this puzzle. I'm not sure why; this is not, say, "abortion". As you may be aware, whenever this happens the editing gets more challenging — both in fending off misguided alterations and in clearly and effectively addressing a diverse audience. For ordinary mathematics, we work hard to write prose that is clear, correct, and compelling; for extraordinary topics like this, we work twice as hard. And while I feel that most mathematicians write poor English, I also feel that most English majors write even worse mathematics.

  Mathematics is inherently so formal that it drives many readers away; therefore good mathematics writers present the formal content in a more informal style. This is the opposite of the humanities, where personal opinions are often clothed in formal attire to lend them greater credibility. Guess which I prefer. --KSmrq^T 07:08, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Curiously silent

I apologize for not having participated in the discussion so far - I've been abroad on business for the past week. I'll read through all of the above and comment within the next few days (I am rather jet lagged at the moment). -- Rick Block (talk) 04:37, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Since nominating this article for FA, I and others have watched the page to keep it mathematically correct. Many of the criticisms are more or less well founded, although as user:KSmrq notes above there is a difficult balance in mathematics articles in general, and this article in particular, between formal correctness and general understandability. I will spend some time over the next few days addressing the #List of random problems above. -- Rick Block (talk) 20:15, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I believe everything in the list has been taken care of. Good work! I still believe that the "In popular culture" is basically trivia that either can be worked into the text (the Erdos anecdote --> History) or is unnecessary and can be deleted (the NUMBERS episode). Are all the links in the External links section necessary? Some of the descriptions could probably be reworded too ("A Simulator that you can run in your web browser"). SandyGeorgia explained my view on the external jumps/referencing much more eloquently than I could have. Gzkn 01:44, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comments from SandyGeorgia

Note Please don't strike commentary from other reviewers: Gzkn provided his list (in addition to the commentary above it), but other editors are striking the items as if completed to Gzkn's satisfaction. Please request the original reviewer to strike if/when satisfied the concern has been addressed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:04, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

OK. I believe I've unstruck all those that I struck, and I'll request Gzkn to rereview. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:39, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Glad to see you so hard at work on it: please let us know when you've had time to get through Gzkn's list, as I'm still concerned about the way external jumps are employed, and how they contribute to 1a, 1b problems - I haven't read the entire article yet, and I haven't wanted to drop my list on you until I know you've had a chance to go through the article and finish your cleanup. Also wondering why I see Venn diagram in the TOC, but no Venn diagrams in the article? Also, I believe WP:MOS (or somewhere else) specifically deals with not using contractions - is that being addressed ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:07, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

As far as I know, everything Gzkn has brought up has been addressed. I don't understand the external jump issue - can you explain? The diagrams in the Venn diagram section show the universe of doors, divided into chosen and not chosen sets, with the probability of each door indicated. These aren't quite traditional circular Venn diagrams, but they do show the probability relationship between the doors in the sets of "chosen" and "not chosen". -- Rick Block (talk) 20:48, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Forgot to mention - I don't think there are any more contractions. -- Rick Block (talk) 21:09, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

OK, if you're caught up with Gzkn, I'll give you a quick list of my concerns (I don't usually use Harvard inlines, so some of my suggestions may need to be adjusted to the correct formatting).

• I'd like to see some adjustment to the lead if possible; the spoiler in the midst of it is distracting, and citations aren't usually provided in the lead (with some exceptions). Would it be possible to summarize the article, per WP:LEAD, without using the direct quotes, the citations, and the spoiler? The lead should be a stand-alone summary of the entire article, without getting into too much detail in any one area. There should be no text in the lead which isn't expanded in the article. Rather than summarizing the article, the lead seems to be introducing the problem (with text that is not included elsewhere in the article).
• Also, in some places I encounter too much text about the references which interferes with reading the article - example - this (followed by the quote) seems to be overburdening the lead with referenced detail - can the references and quotes be moved to the body, using the lead to summarize the article without getting into this level of detail?
  • A widely known statement of the problem is from Craig F. Whitaker of Columbia, Maryland in a letter to Marilyn vos Savant's September 9, 1990 column in Parade Magazine (as quoted by Bohl, Liberatore, and Nydick (1995)).
• Whether this segment goes in the body or the lead, the prose seems to be more about the reference than about the problem. Does the reader really need to know the exact date, location, and author of the letter, for example, or can that be found in the Reference section for the reader who is interested in following up? Is the date, location, and author of the letter central enough to the article to 1) be included in the text at all, and 2) be included in the lead? Can you try something which introduces the quote, then simply provides an inline ref to the source, without the distraction of the extra detail? The specifics on the source are already given in the References section, so it seems this could be reduced to one set of parentheses, pointing the reader to the ref.
  • This now reads "A widely known statement of the problem appeared in a letter to Marilyn vos Savant's Ask Marilyn column in Parade Magazine (Bohl et al. 1995)." Good enough? -- Rick Block (talk) 19:50, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
• Can the section heading, "The problem, with all constraints explicit" be shortened to just "The problem"?
  • Done. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:50, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
• Prose - there is some prose redundancy which seems to make it harder for the non-mathmetician to read rather than easier -some examples:
  • The version of the problem popularized by Parade unfortunately leaves room for possible misunderstandings ...
  • The reasoning of the solution is, at length: The chance of winning the car is doubled when the player switches from the original door to another door rather than sticking with the original choice.
  • The reason for this is that To win the car by sticking with the original choice, the player must choose ...
  • At the point wWhen the player is asked whether to switch, ...
  • By referring to "the problem as stated above", another chance to lose the mathmatically-challenged reader is introduced - maybe which statement can be somehow be clarified:
    • In the problem as stated above, it is because the host must reveal a goat and must make the offer to switch that the player has a ⅔ chance of winning by switching.
  • The most common objection to the solution is that, for various reasons, the past can be ignored when assessing the probability; thus ignoring the first choice of door, and the host's choice of which door to open.
    • These are all done. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:50, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
• Those are just some samples from the top of the article of how prose might be tightened up to reduce redundancy and improve clarity - I didn't continue, but I doubt that the current prose is going to get past Tony: he is very good at re-working technical prose, and I'd consider begging him to help improve the clarity in some of these areas, considering there is still ample time left on review.
  • I've asked Tony1 for help. So far he's a done very light copyedit. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:50, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
• Skipping now to the issues of the External jumps:
  • These kinds of external jumps raise several problems (see WP:NOT, WP:EL):
    • However, if the show host has not randomized the position of the prize in a fully quantum mechanical way, the player can do even better, and can sometimes even win the prize with certainty. There is an article explaining it and an applet demonstrating the effects.
  • If we have to jump to an external website to demonstate something, that argues against comprehensiveness (1b) of this article. External links almost never have a place in the text of the article (I've seen valid exceptions, but not to deviate from the topic - usually Geography articles that need to link to maps or daily weather - things we can't wikify). And, this kind of prose is just not encyclopedic: you wouldn't see it in Britannica, for example (argues against 1a). Consider the reader reading this in hard print - does it make sense? Is it comprehensive? There are several general ways to resolve external jumps:
    • Write the Wiki article about the content of the External site, and link to the Wiki article.
    • Explain the content of the site, and reference it inline to the external site.
    • Or, if for coyright reasons, we really absolutely cannot write it or demonstrate it ourselves - via Wikified content or referenced content - then at least we should do an excellent job of prosifying the External jump. "There is an article" isn't excellent prose.
  • Sending our readers to an alternate site for an explanation - I can't see anything in the referenced site that we shouldn't be able to write ourselves, sourcing it to the original author. I don't see a rationale for the external jump; this argues against both 1a and 1b.
  • This external jump can easily be converted to an inline reference to the external website, which can be listed under References - the External jump is actually a reference - we shouldn't be sending Wiki readers outside of Wiki, unless absolutely necessary. External jumps almost always belong in External links or References (in this case, Refs):
    • It's now a reference. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:50, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
    • And if you ever get on my show, the rules hold fast for you — no trading boxes after the selection.
      —From the Let's Make a Deal website
      • Also now a reference. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:50, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Same situation here - what we have in this case is an entire sentence that is distracting from the text, and is actually an external jump which should be an inline reference:
    • In the May–June, 1989 issue of Bridge Today magazine, Phillip Martin wrote an article entitled "The Monty Hall Trap." The article presented Selvin's problem, with the correct solution, as an example of how one can fall into the trap of treating non-random information as if it were random.
  • Could become:
    • An example of how one can fall into ... is ... end of sentence(Martin, Phillip).
  • Then include Martin in the References section. By writing about the reference, the text becomes overburdened - the text need not be about the Reference - it can simply be inlined as a reference, avoiding sending Wiki readers jumping about the internet to external sites - we should internalize content as much as possible.
    • Also now a reference. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:50, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Here is another example of an External jump that can be eliminated by prosifying the text, referencing it inline, and including the external jump in References:
    • The syndicated NPR program, Car Talk, featured this as one of their weekly "Puzzlers," and the answer they featured was quite clearly explained as the correct one. Transcript here. Also available in their book, Haircut in Horse Town (Magliozzi & Magliozzi, 1998).
      • The syndicated NPR program, Car Talk featured the Monty Hall problem as a weekly "Puzzler", giving the correct answer (inline ref here pointing at the transcript and the book, which are included in References).
        • Now a reference. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:50, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
• In some places, the article refers to Parade Magazine; others, vos Savant - by sticking to consistent references, the article will be easier for the non-mathmatical reader.
  • I think this is consistent now (refers to Parade). -- Rick Block (talk) 19:50, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
• Eliminate parentheticals wherever possible - they are distracting and at times indicative of inattention to prose:
  • Consider various possible host behaviors, in which his decision to switch may be based upon the accuracy of the contestant's initial guess. (See table.)
    • The table shows various possible host behaviors, in which the decision to switch ...
      • All parentheticals are now gone, except in the Bayes Theorem section which is being actively edited. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:00, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
• I don't speak Harvard inline, but this doesn't seem consistent:
  • The Parade column and its response received considerable attention in the press, including a front page story in the New York Times (July 21, 1991) in which Monty Hall himself was interviewed.
• If the reader wants to find the ref, what do they look for alphabetically in the References section? I think it's under Tierney, John (1991), so shouldn't that be the inline? Again, the text is more about the reference, rather than text with a reference that doesn't interfere with the flow of the text.
  • Now a reference. -- Rick Block (talk) 19:50, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

That's a quick start - I still haven't thoroughly read the entire article, so these are just some directions of work. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:54, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

• Had a quick look, saw much improvement, but due to travel, request the review stay open until I can re-read the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:27, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

  Except for the comment about the lead, I believe all the specific concerns you've raised have been addressed. I've started a discussion about the lead on the article's talk page. Please join the discussion there. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:23, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Second look from SG

Read the article last night; the improvements are significant, many of my concerns have been addressed, and I'd like to see us get this closed without moving to FARC. The prose flows better with the removal of the external jumps and extensive commentary about the references (as opposed to using the references), and prose redundancies have been reduced. I see a few minor issues remaining, but am still very concerned about the WP:LEAD.

• Math notation problem: in the Bayes' theorem section, the math notation wraps off of my screen (I checked 3 different screens), and on printout, the longer formulations and text following formulas are chopped off. Is there a way to decrease the size on the math formulas?
  • The longest one is now fixed, are the others problematic as well? -- Rick Block (talk) 03:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
    • The text under "subject to where the car is, i.e. conditioned on a proposition . Specifically, it is" is now wrapping correctly. There's still a problem with the formulas under "The denominator can be evaluated by expanding it using the definitions ..." and under "This can be proven using Bayes' theorem and the previous results:" (On this computer - I can check laptop, larger screen, and a printout later.) Is it possible to cut the formulas at a plus sign and manually wrap them to the next line? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:20, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
      • Yes. Done. -- Rick Block (talk) 05:34, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
• Bertrand, Joseph (1889). Calcul des probabilites is listed in References - what is this, where do we find it? Book, journal, paper? More biblio info is needed.
  • I think this can be removed entirely. As far as I'm aware, it was there entirely because of the mention of Bertrand's Box Paradox, which was stated in an earlier version of the article to be the earliest known version of a Monty-Hall-like problem. However, upon closer examination, Bertrand's Box Paradox turned out not to really be a Monty-Hall-like problem, despite some external similarities (such as the "intuitive" answer being 1/2 and the actual answer being 2/3.) -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:07, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Deleted. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• I still see one place where a reference needn't be taking up "prose" space: in the Sequential doors section, rather than stating who proved what when as a separate sentence, we can remove that from the prose, and use it as a ref (also removing the colon and better prosifying the conclusion):
  • The best strategy is to stick with the first choice all the way through but then switch at the very end. With this strategy, the probability of winning is (n−1)/n (Bapeswara Rao and Rao, 1992).
  • Done. --Rick Block (talk) 03:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• Bridge principle section: a one sentence section ?? Also, wording is weasly. This section needs to be somehow better incorporated into the whole.
  • Section deleted (there's a mention of related bridge problems in the History section). -- Rick Block (talk) 03:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• WP:MSH specifically addresses the word "The" in section headings: "The", "a" and "an" should be omitted from the beginning of heading titles. Thus "Mammals", not "The mammals".
  • Headings have been reworded so none start with "The". -- Rick Block (talk) 03:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• In the section labeled, "The general case", the first paragraph sounds weasly. "One common criticism" is unfortunate wording, as it invites a citation; criticism usually requires an "according to whom". The second paragraph begins with the words, "In general", which also sounds weasly, and the generality isn't clarified. There's also still some redundancy there - the entire section could be cleared up with tighter attention to the prose - also, the second paragraph is not at all clear.
  • One common criticism of the Monty Hall problem is that the host's behavior is not fully specified, such as the version published in Parade in 1990. In that instance, it was not specifically stated that the host would always open another door, or always offer a choice to switch, or even that the host must open a door containing a goat. The criticism is that without specifying these rules, the player does not have enough information to conclude switching is the best option.
  • In general, the best course of action depends on the behavior of the host and switching may not be successful two-thirds of the time. The table shows possible host behaviors and the impact on the success of switching.
• A suggestion (perhaps not the best suggestion - just an idea):
  • In the version of the Monty Hall problem published in Parade in 1990, the host's behavior is not fully specified; in that instance, it was not specifically stated that the host would always open another door, or always offer a choice to switch, or even that the host must open a door containing a goat. Without specifying these rules, the player does not have enough information to conclude switching is the best option. The best course of action depends on the behavior of the host; if the host's behavior varies from the version on the Monte Hall show, switching may not be successful two-thirds of the time. The table shows possible host behaviors and the impact on the success of switching.
  • Reworded. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• Now, to the bigger problem of the lead. If you go to the first section (The problem), you see that the problem is not introduced in the text, rather the lead. The text of the article dives in to the middle of the problem. The problem should not be introduced in the lead - it should be included in the text, with the lead summarizing the entire article. A summary need not include the solution or the spoiler; I believe if you'll restructure the first part of the article - so that the problem is introduced in the text - then a more general, summarizing lead can be written, without the necessity of getting into problem/solution detail in the lead. For an article this size, a shorter lead would be acceptable, discussing the problem in general terms.
  • Change proposed at talk:Monty Hall problem. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• And, finally, to the touchier subject of citations :-) I understand and have read numerous times the objections against citing math/science articles, and the comparisons made to medical articles such as the ones I usually edit. I've seen the argument that standard mathmatical knowledge/info need not be cited, as it can be found in any textbook, and I agree that the math here is fairly standard to a math major. On the other hand, I can also give dozens of examples of statements in Tourette syndrome that are common medical knowledge to a neurologist and that can be cited to dozens of different textbooks or journal articles: so, I pick one. A reputable one. Doesn't matter which one, as long as I know it's an acknowledged, reputable source, to assure Wiki readers I'm not just making it up. The fact that it is common knowledge, available in any textbook, doesn't mean I can't/shouldn't cite it. I may accept the common knowledge math here, but not everyone is a student of math. I can see that each step in the math formulations need not be cited, but I can equally see that there are numerous references and external links (already provided) which could be used to cite sections of the article, so that an interested party can refer to a source if they want to follow up or verify. I don't see a reason not to put a general reference for each different mathmatical formulation - for example, any textbook or website where a reader can go to follow up on the Bayes' theorem formulation. We simply can't present an entire formulation without somehow demonstrating that it's not original research. Or, where can a reader find the Decision tree formulation (pls, no Ronald A. Howard - <yawner>). These can be any textbook, or any number of the external links, references given at the bottom of the article. It should be possible - with such common knowledge and such an oft-discussed problem - to give one general ref for each math formulation/section.
  • Added a reference for the Bayes Theorem formulation (Gill 2002).The Glopk 07:00, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I am very close to Keep on this article, and hope the lead can be reworked, some general cites can be given for each formulation, and we can get this closed without FARC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:55, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Comments from ChuckHG

As a mathematician who has used the Monty Hall Problem in his probability classes, I offer these comments:

• The paragraph The problem would be different... does not belong in the Solution section. It has nothing to do with the solution presented and should either be deleted or moved elsewhere, perhaps to The general case section.

  Changed to "The solution would be different". This section is presenting the solution to what is generally meant by the "Monty Hall problem". Qualifying that other solutions are possible given other host behaviors seems fair to me. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:26, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

• There seems to be a somewhat laissez-faire use and interchangeability of the words probability, chance, and odds. In particular, probability and odds have a specific and different mathematical meaning/defintion; for example, a 2/3 probablility is 2:1 odds, and a 1/3 probability is 1:2 odds. Chance is generally a loosely defined concept, probably most often taken to mean the same as probability (as in 1 out of 3 chance of winning).

  Where it meant probability I've replaced "odds" with "probability". -- Rick Block (talk) 02:26, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

• That the popular Parade statement of the problem is itself subject to misunderstanding through unstated assumptions (and is a significant contributing factor in the widespread disbelief in its solution) is omitted from the lead, in spite of the fact that a major part of the article is given over to addressing these issues. -- Chuck 17:09, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

  I've added a sentence about this to the lead. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:26, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Status: Anyone think we can close this? I've asked the nominator to look again. Marskell 21:07, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

• No. I have a LONG list of outstanding concerns above. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:31, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Gzkn's page indicates he's on a Wikibreak for personal reasons :-( SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:27, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Concerns of Gzkn

Good work. I'm fairly confident we can avoid FARC once Sandy's and my concerns are addressed. Here are things I feel still need work:

• I'm not too wild about the tone of the recent expansion of the "Bayes' theorem" section (informal "we" used throughout). If the other explanatory sections can do without the first person plural, this one can too. Also, some of the longer math notation scrolls off the screen for any monitor resolution smaller than 1024x768.

I, too, have reservations about the Bayes theorem section. There is a similar, less well written but mathematically more cogent, treatment of the Monty Hall problem on the Bayes's theorem (sic) page. Chuck 15:26, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry to disagree with the above statement. That treatment is very verbose, and while I can see its usefulness in showing the role that different choices of priors play in the inference, it's really too contrived to count as a proof of the Monty Hall winning solution - unless we regard a "proof by making up lots of examples" as acceptable. In the ususal statement of the Monty Hall problem the solver has no freedom of choice of either priors or conditionals.

I agree that the informal "we" can be removed, but - given the limitations on math notation in Wikipedia, am a bit at loss on how to address the criticism on the length of the equations. The longest equations (the expansion of the normalization constant at the denominator of the Bayes expression) are aligned so that their three terms maintain the same position and meaning throughout. I think it makes it much easier to understand.The Glopk 18:35, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

The approach I'm exploring is using a table for the definition of the conditional probability of the Hij proposition using one table line per case and plain text for the description (rather than a "math" case expression and "math" generated text). This looks similar but doesn't end up forcing horizontal scrolling - although it doesn't preserve the meaning inside the "math" expression. -- Rick Block (talk) 20:01, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I've eliminated the informal "we" from this description and am working on reducing the length ot the math notations. I'm not sure what the sense of Chuck's comment is - are you suggesting adding the bit about varying the probabilities of the door the host picks, as in Bayes's theorem? -- Rick Block (talk) 18:23, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps we can address Chuck's concern by adding at the end of the section a sentence or two to explain in qualitative terms the outcome of that Bayesian machinery. For example, something like: "Notice how the host's actions have no bearing on the probability of the door first picked by the user since its posterior probability remains equal to its prior value of 1/3. The effect of the host's opening of Door 3, on the other hand, is clearly shown by the last two equations: it is to cause the probability of that door to collapse from its prior value of 1/3 to 0, thus doubling the probability of the only remaining door.". Would that be acceptable? The Glopk 20:00, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

• There's still the "In popular culture" which smacks to me of trivia. Is it truly necessary? Can the notable ones can be integrated into the History section? Gzkn 01:13, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
  • The pop culture references are now a paragraph in the History section. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:55, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Status

There are good faith efforts underway to address the concerns that have been raised (including the most recent batch from SandyGeorgia posted at 19:55, 24 January 2007 (UTC) and Gzkn's immediately above). I suggest either the FAR be extended or the concerns be taken to the article's talk page and the FAR closed. -- Rick Block (talk) 20:10, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, if there are still concerns we can't do option b and just close. Let's leave it here two or three more days and then move it to FARC to keep the page moving; it can always be closed if there are rapid keeps from the people involved. Marskell 14:39, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

• Close without FARC - my concerns have been satisfied. (Gzkn is on a wikibreak, unfortunately, but by my read, his concerns have been met as well.) The lead is much cleaner (short, but adequate), referencing has been attended to, and prose has been tightened up; I still get a wrap of the math formulas on one screen, but that could be my problem. Hopefully the Math Project will find a way over time to reduce the size on math notation. Nice work! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:33, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept 19:49, 25 January 2007.

[edit] Gerald Ford

Messages left at Jtmichcock, Michigan, Congress, bio (bio template page is not being updated), Politics, U.S. Presidents, and U.S. Politicians. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:01, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

This featured article has undergone numerous daily editing since President Gerald Ford's death. Entire sections have been created, revised, and reworded. Many citations have been added, along with new links and pictures. I'm requesting this article be reviewed to see if it still maintains featured article status after such an important current event as Ford's demise. I believe the article should remain featured, but my opinion is of course not enough. I care about this article, so I wish to hear what my fellow Wikipedians think. Veracious Rey talk • contribs • review 01:32, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

• Sumoeagle179 (talk · contribs) and I ran through the article structure and references on December 31, and left them in good shape, but I see there have been almost 500 edits since then. It shouldn't be too hard to whip this back into shape after its time on the main page, but it will need someone's sustained attention. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:23, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment I'd like to see inline citations, but the most noticeable weakness in the article is the "Longevity" section - reads very trivial and listy. LuciferMorgan 08:41, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
• Question? Are we reviewing this article too soon after its time on the main page? The main page is very hard on articles, and we usually allow time for edits to settle down. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:01, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
• This review should be postponed for at least a month; it's been through a lot of editing. Ral315 (talk) 00:38, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
• I think de-featuring this article at the moment would be improper. Surely the death of someone so significant would lead to considerable changes in the article, but allow editors some time to absorb all the new edits. I second User:Ral315's suggestion that this be postponed a month to allow the article to achieve a sense of stability again, and then an honest assessment of it's FA merits can be made. Thethinredline 13:09, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I've raised the question on the talk page here; I'm not certain if we've established a minimum lag between time on talk page and review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:40, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
  • If you look at the current editing, its already slowed down considerbly. I thought now was a good time. Most of the new edits, in my estimation, have been absorbed fairly well. The only sections in question are the Longevity section, which was there when the article achieved FA, and the new Death section. Concerning the death section, the question on what to delete and add to the seperated funeral and death article needs to be addressed. I see no reason why this article shouldn't maintain its featured status, or why we need to wait. Funerals start and end abruptly, as seen in the editing. Veracious Rey talk • contribs • review 16:07, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
    • FAR talk page consensus is to go ahead with the review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:07, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Status: Does this actually need to go through FARC or are people happy? Marskell 20:29, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

References are in very good shape, article structure is good, and Sumoeagle179 is watching the article - it should not need to go to FARC. However, prose size is at 45KB, which is approaching too long - if something can be moved to a daughter article, I support closing without FARC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:48, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Message left on article talk page regarding size. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:58, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep FA, no FARC I feel this has been saved. Vote for no daughter articles too.Sumoeagle179 23:37, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

I knocked off one of those K myself and I feel this has been saved too. Wait for any last comment from nominator. Marskell 15:11, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm satisfied with the process, and agree the article should remain FA. Thanks for everyone's input. Veracious Rey t • c • r 19:05, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept 15:08, 25 January 2007.

[edit] Common scold

Messages left at Ihcoyc and UK notice board. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:06, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

This article definitely needs FARC. I suspect it was promoted before FA guidelines were really established. No references (1c) is only its most obvious fault. Wwwhhh 09:11, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Of course it needs FARC. It's ridiculous to have this as a Featured Article. It does not abide by Criteria 1a (well written), 1c (factually accurate-verifiability), 2a (proper lead). Also 1b (comprehensive) can be doubted. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 16:43, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Article fails 1. c. mainly, and 2. a. also (haven't looked at the article long enough to assess how well written it is, and as regards being uncomprehensive, I'm unfamiliar with the subject matter). LuciferMorgan 21:03, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - By the standards of two years ago, this was a well referenced article. It still is, in my opinion: the sources are named, quoted, and given in text, rather than being assigned to footnotes. There are a few in-text external links that could be converted into a separate reference section if need be. As to its comprehensiveness, it attempts to answer the questions raised on the talk page. On the other hand, much of the original tone has been edited out of the article's prose in the name of NPOV. - Smerdis of Tlön 07:25, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment - I've done a little work on it. It still needs some work on the lead and referencing for historical cases, but I agree with Smerdis of Tlön that we don't need footnotes when the sources are fully-referenced as part of the body of the article (and in some cases have their own articles). Yomangani^talk 10:50, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I've hopefully fixed the outstanding issues as well now (had more time than I thought). Yomangani^talk 11:50, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Status: Are people happy with Yomangani's changes? Is the nominator still around with a comment to provide? Marskell 07:36, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

• Satisfied with Yomangani's work, but all websources need full info (e.g.; last retrieval date). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:05, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Minor blip - fixed now. Yomangani^talk 22:57, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Status: I've asked the nominator if s/he has any more comments. Marskell 21:06, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

While I still don't think this is FA quality (if it were nominated today, it would have a tough time getting through), I don't mind if if it is kept or removed. Wwwhhh 02:20, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Closing: While this may not seem to have the meat of an ordinary FA, no criteria issues remain outstanding in the above comments. LEAD is improved, refs sufficient and properly formatted, no comprehensiveness issues were specifically raised, and length alone is not a criterion. We even a new pic. So a keep. Marskell 15:05, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept 09:53, 23 January 2007.

[edit] Barack Obama

I don't know how to correct this problem myself so I am posting it here in the hopes that someone else can fix it. When I searched for "Barack Obama" on the main page, it brought me to the "Antichrist" page - aparently someone's idea of a joke. I couldn't actually get to the page until I searched for him in French and redirected the page to the English site.

Messages left at HailFire, Politics and government, and Hawaii. Gzkn 00:45, 9 January 2007 (UTC) Additional messages at Politics, Congress, and Meelar. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:06, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I am recommending this article for Featured Article review because I feel that:

• This is not a well-written article per criteria 1(a). The prose it neither compelling nor brilliant. In fact, it's far from it. It's incredibly dry and dull. The writers pair up dry and dull short sentences in an uneven fasion with sentences sporting convoluted structures that in many instances are potentially confusing to readers with a low grasp of English because of the addition of tangental information (esp. through excess prepositional clauses).
• The lead is terrible, does not completely summarize the article, and doesn't conform to WP:LEAD per criterion 2(a).
• Way too many sections and paragraphs with only one or two sentences...bad form, and also a sign that this article does not comply with 1(b). Can't comprehensively treat a subject with one or two lines.
• Criterion 1(e) no longer is the case. This article is no longer stable, and is subject to POV edit wars, most likely due to the rise in Obama's prospects for the White House. I think that the article being locked temporarily remedies this, but, is antithetical to the Wikipedia spirit.

The only thing this article has going for it, in my opinion, is that it is well-referenced.

Also, I have not been able to locate a log for this article's FA candidacy in order to compare the current version with the version that was raised to FA status and to see what issues were raised then (if there isn't much difference). Would someone please direct me (and future reviewers) to a log of this article's previous FAC discussion?

For the above reasons which render this article to its current, pitiful state, I oppose this article's continued inclusion among the Featured Articles, and unless these issues are remedied, I will support its removal from FA status.—ExplorerCDT 18:45, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

• Here is the FAC, listed correctly on the article talk page. I looked into this article a few months ago, requesting that it be cited (which it was), and it was in very good shape. When the article passed FA, it wasn't cited - it has since been cited, so the older version wouldn't be entirely relevant. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:28, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

• I've been watching the article for almost a year now, I suppose, though mainly to keep POV and vandalism out. User:HailFire has done a tremendous amount of work on the article to get it referenced, among other things. My main concern at this time, however, is that the article has not been particularly stable lately, and I suspect it will get even more volatile in the next few months and years (regardless of whether Obama runs in '08 or not, but obviously moreso if he does). I would be on the fence for now if it were listed at FARC; I'd really like to see if it becomes more or less unstable soon. · j e r s y k o talk · 19:43, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

• I think the majority of the problems arise from "recentism" (except the lead, which does need expanding). It's obviously well-cited, and a lot of editors have been doing great work keeping the vandals/POV pushers at bay. However, at the moment, it's kind of a hodgepodge of facts...I'd definitely be willing to roll up my sleeves and help rework it. There's no reason why a run for the presidency would make it unstable though. We just have to be on guard for more "recentism", as I would imagine random folks will want to keep adding the latest minute detail they caught on CNN or read online. Gzkn 00:42, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

• I think any well-referenced article is worth saving, and would hesitate to de-feature an article only on (temporary) stability issues, since there are other ways of dealing with that. If you're willing to work on it, I think it's worth it. The lead definitely needs improvement, but referencing is generally good - I can spruce up the ref formatting once you're done. (Sheesh, the things we do in the name of NPOV bipartisanship.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:59, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

• The referencing is the only reason the article is worth saving. I wish I could help more, but I need to be inspired by the subject, and Obama doesn't really move me to work on the article extensively. I'll do what I can though in terms of copyediting. —ExplorerCDT 01:07, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

• (edit conflict)OK. Just a note that User:HailFire, one of the major contributors to the article, is on a Wikibreak (userpage doesn't seem to indicate when s/he will return...hopefully it's short!), so we'll be working down a man/woman. I'll get started on the lead. Gzkn 01:10, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

• Ignore any ref problems, and I'll spruce them up when you're farther along. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:15, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm almost halfway through checking refs, and this is sick - not a single marginal source yet, very reliable sources, very good referencing. This is better referencing than 75% of what comes through WP:FAC these days. I'm mostly adding last access dates, wikifying the dates, and checking the sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:25, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

• RE:refs: Yeah, Obama article watchers are pretty quick to remove unsourced and dubious info. I've expanded the lead; how does it look now? Gzkn 03:00, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Everything I've seen in the article looks to be in better shape than most of what comes through (and passes) FAC these days. I should enlist HailFire to help review refs. Let's get Tony to look at the prose. I'm done with the refs - I found a few very minor date errors, and added last access dates on web soruces and some obscure news sources, and corrected a couple of wayward titles - I wish most FACs would have referencing in such good shape - one dead link, all reliable sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:02, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
• I've read the first third: it's well written indeed, except ... why not merge some of the stubby paragraphs? Tony 04:40, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Yep -I'm going to start working on that. Reworked early life and career a bit. Tvoz | talk 22:48, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

• Status? I'm going to be traveling and might not get back to this article, so unless someone comes up with a new problem, I'm OK with closing this without FARC - I don't see anything that warrants defeaturing or further review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:38, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

-- a note on his memoirs in which he admits smoking marijuana is very important especially if he has goals of being President of the United states of America see: http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/01/obama.html UNSIGNED comment entered by 71.242.7.217

Did you read the article before posting your observation? The marijuana reference has been there for a long time. Also, if you have comments about the content of the article, they more properly belong in Barack Obama - this is a more technical discussion of the piece in terms of its FA ststus. And please sign your comments with ~~~~ Thank you. Tvoz | talk 01:19, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

I feel that my objections have been remedied or assuaged, and thus withdraw them and I especially like how the one/two sentence subsections have been reworked in the "Senate Career" section. Bravo. I think we can close off this FAR as a success. Thank you to you all...you have done work that has done Wikipedia proud. —ExplorerCDT 01:44, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

• WEll, the lead could be improved upon certainly, but I have no other problems with the article, so I'd vote to keep it featured. I assum this is not a vote though.--Wizardman 17:15, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I move for closure of the FAR, citing this reference version. The article lives and breathes, but it has a community of tireless people behind it who are dedicated to keeping it FA quality and have repeatedly proven so over the last hours, days, and weeks. Do I hear a second? --HailFire 00:15, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

• Second. —ExplorerCDT 09:51, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
• No FARC was ever opened on this article, so there's no reason to close, really. This FAR will be archived with time, I believe, and the article seems to have passed FAR with commendations. Well done, all involved. · j e r s y k o talk · 19:02, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept 20:55, 17 January 2007.

[edit] Exploding whale

Messages left at Ta bu shi da yu, Cetaceans and Internet culture. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:14, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what Featured Article criterium this doesn't fill, but it seems far shorter than the other FAs. Maybe this in an unpopular choice, as it seems that exploding whale is one of the Wikipedians favourite articles. But still, maybe from the time this was granted FA status to the present day, things have changed. --Montchav 17:39, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

OK, here's your FA criterim: Number 4: "It is of appropriate length, staying focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail". IMHO, this is too short. --Montchav 17:46, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Rubbish. It's quite long enough, and more than comprehensive. --Ta bu shi da yu 16:58, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

There is plenty wrong with this article, but the argument above isn't it. Where is the unnecessary detail? Too short is not an objection: uncomprehensive is. But the article has other problems, anyway - focus on those, and whether it is comprehensive. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:53, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment - don't see a problem with the length (too long if anything). Prose is lumpy, structure is poor (listy sections and strange divisions), citations missing for some statements. Yomangani^talk 17:56, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Agree that the pop culture needs to be turned into prose; not sure whqt the problem is with structure. As for lumpy prose, what bits are the problem? --Ta bu shi da yu 16:58, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I think it fails comprehensiveness in terms of updating the article to reflect other incidents (check out the refs - there are many), and discuss other "exploding animals" (see the Category). And, all of the bottom sections should be reworked into the article - they contain worthy content. Yomangani, I'm thinking you can work wonders on this one - kinda like an elephant :-) I think the info is there to bring it up to FA standards with a rework. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:46, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Would a discussion of other exploding animals be particularly germane to the topic? Christopher Parham (talk) 08:02, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
      • I was just thinking of providing additional context; that is, most other accounts of "exploding" animals are apparently myth - that could be covered as a contrast. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:07, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
      • No, I strongly disagree. This article is about exploding whales', not exploding animals. No more than a passing mention is necessary. As for other incidents of exploding whaes, which ones are you referring to? --Ta bu shi da yu 16:54, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
        • If the research material is there, I don't think a sentence saying that most other "exploding animals" incidents are myth would be out of place. Now that I've gone through, cleaned up, and alphabeticized all the refs, I think the only one now missing in the story is something mentioned in the Scotland reference. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:08, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
          • Great job Sandy! Which Scotland reference are you referring to though? Whqt sort of thing should we say about other exploding animals, and where should we put it? --Ta bu shi da yu 22:25, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
            • This one [12] - not sure if it's in there yet, don't think so, or if there is followup on this story. As to the other animals, I'd have to read all the articles and see if they have reliable sources. If so, I guess another paragraph at the top of incidents, for context. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:33, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
            • Exploding animal does have some refs and context that might be summarized into one paragraph somewhere? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:43, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
              • I've added a sentence. --Ta bu shi da yu 22:39, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment "Other incidents" and "In fiction" needs conversion from its listy format into prose. LuciferMorgan 21:07, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
• A number of necessary improvements have been made:
  • Delisted pop culture section
  • Renamed pop culture section to focus on fiction (bear in mind most of the article is about pop culture!)
  • fixed prose of other incidents and organised paragraphs to be each about Sth Africa and Iceland
  • added a section lead to "Incidents", also no idea who called it "incidences", don't think that is quite right!
  • removed one uncited fact, wikilinked to show Drawn together
• Hope that does the trick! --Ta bu shi da yu 17:58, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment I worked on making the reference style more consistent - besides a light copy edit, not sure what else can be done here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:06, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

• Status? I'm happy closing it without FARC - it's not a stellar FA, but with the rewrite, it seems to meet criteria, so I don't see cause for taking it to FARC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:01, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Closure: "Too short" is not, as noted, a remove criterion. This seems within criterian otherwise, so I'll close. Marskell 20:53, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept 16:09, 15 January 2007.

[edit] Palladian architecture

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Giano, Bishonen, and Architecture. Sandy (Talk) 01:00, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Lacks inline citatons. One entire section contains only a name, though it is clear that more should be present. —Cuiviénen 00:08, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. Thanks for the message. Looks OK to me. If someone can see a mistake they ought to fix it. If not delete it Giano 07:32, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. Cuivienen, if you have any specific concerns that some detail may not be factually verifiable, please let us know. I looked through the article and I have not seen any dubitable assertions. If you were able to spot something questionable, please go ahead and add an inline citation where needed, rather than wasting everybody's time. Thanks, Ghirla ^-трёп- 08:04, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. Looks very handsome. Thanks for the message, but it's not a subject I have a grasp of, few people do. I'm not in a position to say if any facts in it are less than generally agreed on. The references look complete as far as I understand it, and the experts commenting above seem to think them sufficient. But if inline references for all mentioned facts are a sine qua non for FA, it's probably as well to defeature it. Bishonen | talk 11:33, 5 December 2006 (UTC).
• Comment. I thought the purpose of inline citation was to provide them for "Material that is, or is likely to be, challenged" (WP:CITE). What specific aspects are contentious here, it all seems quite straightforward to me. --Mcginnly | Natter 12:00, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I agree to some extent, but inline citations have become a requirement for FA promotion these days. I wouldn't necessarily argue to defeature this because of a lack of inline citations, but I do think it should be brought up here (which might encourage inline citations to be added). —Cuiviénen 14:49, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

If it is not good enough then de-list it or delete it. Giano 14:52, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

• To avoid a protracted discussion like we had on James Joyce, can we please get a *sample* (only) list from someone knowledgeable about the topic, the nominator, and others of statements that need to be cited? I don't know architecture. Sandy (Talk) 18:42, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comments I see the single section has been fixed: can someone knowledgeable pls review the external links vis-a-vis WP:RS, WP:NOT and WP:EL? Sandy (Talk) 18:47, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
  • "Someone knowledgeable about the topic, the nominator, and others"... oh, I see, the nominator was me? Sandy, it wasn't part of the FAC culture at the time (long time back) that nominators necessarily had to be specialists in the subject of articles they nominated. Heck, ALoan was always getting in there first and nomming texts I had written, I don't think he would claim specialist knowledge of them. Being the nominator was more an expression of trust in the writers. Anyway, considering I already stated above that I don't know the subject, it's not a lot of use for you to call on me again. I believe the wikipedians who do know it have already commented. Bishonen | talk 19:25, 5 December 2006 (UTC).
    • No, Cuiviénen is the nominator here. Sandy (Talk) 20:58, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
      • I had a look at the links - most are quite expansive and authoritative regarding palladianism - I removed Banqueting house, Holkham hall and Woburn abbey - if there's historical information on those sites its either scant or too deeply buried for me to find. --Mcginnly | Natter 00:22, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment. I have added Robert Tavernor, James Ackermann and Rudolf Wittkower to the References. Generally speaking, I'm sorry to see in-line citations used as a stick to beat people with: not in this case, needless to say. The argument from ignorance— "I've never heard that Palladio was the most influential 16th-century architect" etc.— is a weak one, though it is universal at Wikipedia and is considered definitive, apparently. There is not a phrase in the present article I would consider out of the mainstream of literate architectural discourse, though I could pick through it and "tweak" wording. The question is: is this an example of Wikipedia at its best? Of course it is. --Wetman 20:32, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
  • The purpose of Wikipedia, and any encyclopedia, is, first and foremost, to be an accessible source of information to those unfamiliar with the subject. To you, and to any specialist in architecture or indeed anyone who has ever taken an architecture lesson (myself included), it may seem obvious that Palladio was an extraordinarily important and influential architect. That is not in question. However, for those who do not know such facts, and for those who might wish to dispute them (it is, after all, still little more than opinion, even if nearly universally held), we have an obligation to provide source material. Would you leave a scientific article uncited because there is little debate on the subject in the scientific community? No! Absolutely not! The same goes for architecture. —Cuiviénen 00:48, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Hence the references at the end. There are several articles like this where they're simply not presenting breaking information. If I explain that the first usage of the word "parody" to refer to prose is in A Tale of a Tub, I need citations, as that's new stuff. If I say that A Tale of a Tub is Swift's first major satire, I don't. If I say that it is a chaotic and difficult satire ("opinion"), I again do not, because no one who has ever written on it has suggested that it is either easy or predictable. A list of references at the end will give the reader several other overview works to consult. We should cite, but we need to keep this impulse to cite from making our articles look less like articles than undergraduate research papers. Geogre 02:37, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment: Per Wetman, the problem is that an omnibus encyclopedia article like this is a synthesis of universally agreed upon facts. In other words, one cannot find a single source that doubts or refutes or gainsays these facts. Every source one can find agrees, and therefore none of these are suspect statements that needs a specific reference. Instead, it needs a summary of the particular sources, which it has in the references. One can find sites and accounts ignorant of the facts, but none with different facts. Geogre 23:38, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment: Here we go again. A common knowledge of someone does not always the case for someone else. I am not an architect nor have taken an architecture lesson. If I'd like to know about Palladian, then sorry to say that i cannot trust this article. There is no way to avoid the fact that this article was completely written out of the head from the editors, because all WP editors are anonymous. One way to avoid it is to supply this article with inline citations, where the fact comes from, from which page of a book, is the source reliable?, etc. By telling "here is the reference list given at the bottom" is no good either. For instances, these facts are taken randomly from the article:
  • Buildings by Palladio himself are all in Venice and the Veneto. → is that true that only these 2 cities contains buildings by Palladio himself?
  • During the 17th century, many architects studying in Italy learned of Palladio's work. → how many? I only see one from the article, Inigo Jones.
  • One of these students was the English architect Inigo Jones, who is directly responsible for importing the Palladian influence to England. → was he ordered to influence England with Palladian? by whom?
  • The baroque style, popular in continental Europe, was never truly to the English taste. → again this fact needs an inline citation, why was baroque stye never truly to the English taste? All right, you might say that it is out of the scope of this article, but what if a reader wants to know more. Where should (s)he find out the source of this fact?

… and many more. I don't want to put {{fact}} tags in the article, as some might say that it is WP:POINT. — Indon (reply) — 16:26, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• That facts are "common knowledge" or "widely accepted" does not mean that everyone knows them automatically, nor that they are "made up out of the editor's head". It simply means that the facts are uncontroversial and included in pretty much any reference - just pick one from the cited sources.
• You cannot trust any Wikipedia article, with or without references - nor indeed can you trust implictly any encyclopedia or any other source. However, you should at least be able to verify a Wikipedia article that has cited sources.
• The Veneto is not a city - just follow the link. But yes, that is where they all are (or in some cases were). Please let us know if you find one somewhere else.

• Actually, the phrase "buildings by Palladio himself" could be clearer, I think--here it means as opposed to random stuff he worked on like the interiors at Duino, not as opposed to buildings by his "workshop" or some such. I tweaked it. Chick Bowen 09:57, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

• How many 17th century architects learned of Palladio's work? I don't know, although Inigo Jones is certainly a notable one. How many 20th century architects learned of the works of Frank Lloyd Wright? Quite a few, no doubt; some more notable than others. I doubt anyone could make a list.
• Inigo Jones imported Palladianism into England by going to Italy, studying the works of Palladio there, bringing his knowledge back to England, and designing the first Palladian building in England. As the text makes clear.
• If you want to learn about Baroque, try Baroque. The article does not express a view on why it was not that popular in England.
• Adding {{fact}} templates to particular points that are thought to need specific citation is helpful. Carpet-bombing an article with them is not. -- ALoan (Talk) 18:39, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Reply: Please put inline citations to the sentences/paragraph that I took above! I want to know where it comes from, if you insist that it didn't come from the top of your head. Yes, I cannot trust any Wikipedia article, but I trust more featured article than ordinary one, because it is verifiable based on reliable sources. This is FAR and we review FA article based on WP:WIAFA. If there is no 1.c criterion about factually accurate sources, then I will not complain about inline citations. — Indon (reply) — 10:31, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

• Maybe samples that were taken above are not good examples here. Thus, I read again the article, and I came up with two {{fact}} requests. To avoid of being called "carpet-bombing", below I put the reasons why I want specific inline citations:
  1. Whatever the name or the origin, this form of window has probably become one of the most enduring features of Palladio's work seen in the later architectural styles, evolved from Palladianism. → it looks opinion to me if there is no inline citation.
  2. One of these students was the English architect Inigo Jones, who is directly responsible for importing the Palladian influence to England → the same as above. The text did not tell me why it is said that Jones is responsible for importing Palladium to England. Please just supply it with an inline citation where the directly responsible comes from.

— Indon (reply) — 11:13, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

• A direct quote was just added to the article: I tagged it because a page number should be provided for a direct quote from a book. Sandy (Talk) 16:36, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Status? I see 3 inline citations added: leaving talk message for nominator. Sandy (Talk) 18:44, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I'd rather see more, but this doesn't need to go to FARC. The two-week period isn't quite up, yet, though. —Cuiviénen 18:59, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Needs more inline cites, move to FARC. LuciferMorgan 02:42, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern is lack of citations (1c). Marskell 01:54, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

• Keep. Inline citations are needed if the sources are not otherwise clear. That is not a problem here, since this is a broad introduction and does not make specific interpretive statements that would need to be tied to particular architectural historians--the claims here are backed up collectively by the references section. Chick Bowen 00:33, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

• Remove Clear lack of inline citations, a violation of criterion 1. c. LuciferMorgan 00:24, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, meets requirement of appropriate use of inline citations. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:25, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Doesn't meet the requirement in any shape or form. It's ludicrous to even suggest it does. This article wouldn't even meet GA at the moment. LuciferMorgan 14:00, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I'll refrain from describing your comment as "ludicrous." But obviously there is disagreement about the accuracy of your statement. The important thing to remember is that no number of inline citations is required for a featured article. Christopher Parham (talk) 14:53, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

*I think it's a great pity that this looks like being demoted—so nicely written and a great topic. I suppose it will have to go if no one will help it to satisfy 1c; none of the regular reviewers is qualified to do so, I think, so we're stuck. <grumbles> Tony 14:17, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

• I can do math articles, medical articles, etc., but not architecture; all I know in that area is someone should shoot my ex-architect, or at least take away his license. I have to rely on the architectural reviewers here, and we haven't heard enough from them. It would sure be nice if they'd add citations where/if needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:50, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

• Further comment The article makes a lot of comments and opinions., and they need citations. Whole paragraphs remain uncited - articles which satisfy (not fully may I add) 1c a lot more than this article are demoted, so this one should be no different. LuciferMorgan 17:11, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep. Per my comments above, and those of C Parham and Chick Bowen. Giano 17:17, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep: Not this argument again? First, repeating your view won't help, LM. Second, the interpretive elements here are very, very, very much not things requiring footnotes. If I cite that a bridge went up in 1740, then that it had traffic of 30,000 drays a day by 1750, and then I say, with no citation, that the bridge was vital for the city's growth, it's just a syllogism. There is no citation needed for the third statement. It can be disagreed with but it cannot be called unfounded. It has the limitation of conclusions from presented data, but not of being "some dude's opinion." This is the distinction between encyclopedia writing where a thesis is coherently and cogently argued and a nervous drudge's regurgitation of the library stacks. Geogre 19:30, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep: Review is always welcome, however, there seems to be some 'sledgehammer to crack a nut' arguments being presented here for inline citations - they should be provided for "All material that is challenged or likely to be challenged". Most of the qualified architecture editors have stated the material is unlikely to be challenged - certainly by any authoritive source. No one seems to be able to say what is likely to be challenged. It seems the proposers have taken a quick look at the article, seen the simple fact it has no inline citations and plonked it on FARC with a knee jerk despite the extensive references section. Joe bloggs may verify the article himself by obtaining the books and reading them. I can find very few parts of the article that might represent anything offering an opinion; I was well into the article before....

"Palladio deeply considered the dual purpose of his villas as both farmhouses and palatial weekend retreats for wealthy merchant owners. ......... They were, however, in no way intended to be part of the main house, ......"

Statements of intent by Palladio might need a citation, but it's fairly obvious stuff apparent to all those in possession of mark 1 eyeballs and reference to the excellent images contained in the article. The following sentence - "and it is in the design and use of these wings that Palladio's followers in the 18th century adapted to become an integral part of the building" certainly doesn't need citations. --Mcginnly | Natter 01:24, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. I don't think the article would spoil from having a few extra footnotes, but if several highly respected wikipedians vouch for the verifiability and accuracy of the article, and the article provides a list of sources, I believe it to be enough to consider the article FA-material. I mean, this is exactly what good encyclopedia editors are supposed to do; sift out well-worded bits of information from extensive source materials for everyone's reading pleasure without necessarily engaging in gratuitous footnote sprinkling. Adding a footnote for every other sentence, fact or figure is assuming that ordinary people can't possibly read books without being guided to specific pages. This smacks of a fetish for citation format and a very obvious form of instruction creep, and to me this seems to encourage institutionalized cherry-picking instead of constructive and enlightened review of content. / Peter ^Isotalo 13:02, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

No actually. Utter rubbish - this smacks of actually reading the FA criteria, and criterion 1. c. is there in black and white. Go and read it. Highly respected Wikipedians? By who? The largely unaware public who click on the pages who don't even edit? Once again, rubbish. LuciferMorgan 01:38, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Don't push interpretations on others, Lucifer. 1. c is as far as I know intended to be flexible and the hard line "everything Joe Blow doesn't immediately recognize needs a footnote"-interpretation is quite clearly something which does not enjoy universal support. Just because many recent reviewers have set almost arbitrary and clearly exaggerated standards for the amount, not so much the actually quality of, citations and verifiability, I don't see why this interpretation should be seen as an absolute standard. And most importantly, it's very inappropriate squabbling about a topic of which you seem to little or no in-depth knowledge. I can't see how Wikipedia is improved by this type of debacle. / Peter ^Isotalo 07:56, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep. Are claims "verifiable against reliable sources" and do they "accurately present the related body of published knowledge"? Yes. Are claims "supported with specific evidence and external citations ... where appropriate, complemented by inline citations"? Yes, they are. Some more inline notes or footnotes would be nice to have, but we should not throw the baby out with the bathwater. -- ALoan (Talk) 13:44, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

• I see a lot of reviewers above saying the article could benefit from more cites: I wish someone who knows the subject area would just do it, so we won't see this back on review a year from now. It's been a month. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:34, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

  "could benefit from" = "nice to have", yes; must have, no. -- ALoan (Talk) 16:08, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Must have = yes. Whether you like it or not ALoan (which you don't, whatever you try to say to the contrary), criterion 1. c. is there and here to stay. LuciferMorgan 01:38, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

LM, you seem to have missed my point, so let me quote 1(c) in full, rather than just the relevant phrases, as I did above:

(c) "Factually accurate" means that claims are verifiable against reliable sources and accurately present the related body of published knowledge. Claims are supported with specific evidence and external citations (see verifiability and reliable sources); this involves the provision of a "References" section in which sources are set out and, where appropriate, complemented by inline citations. See citing sources for information on when and how extensively references are provided and for suggestions on formatting references; for articles with footnotes or endnotes, the meta:cite format is recommended.

• Is it factually accurate? Yes.
• Are its claims verifiable against reliable sources? Yes.
• Does it accurately present the related body of published knowledge? Yes.
• Are claims are supported with specific evidence? Yes.
• Are claims supported by external citations? Yes.
• Is there a "References" section? Yes.
• Is the References section "where appropriate, complemented by inline citations"? Yes.

Which of the above statements do you disagree with and why? -- ALoan (Talk) 11:43, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

• I shall not be doing it, because it does not need them, and I have better things to do with time Giano 16:03, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

It DOES need them actually. LuciferMorgan 01:38, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

• • Comment Repeating my views is due to the fact that if this article is kept, it would make an utter mockery of Featured Article Review. There are lots of opinions attributed and the article, and opinions need inline citations. It's as simple as that. LuciferMorgan 01:38, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

"In 1570 Palladio published his book I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura, inspiring architects across Europe." Inspired who? According to what researcher? Needs citation, otherwise is original research. LuciferMorgan 01:44, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

• "I Quattro Libri dell'Architettura" Is one one of the worlds greatest, most famous, and important architectural works, I have no intention of referencing such an accepted and well known fact - it would be akin to refencing the current Queen of England is called Elizabeth. Giano 08:19, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

"Palladio deeply considered the dual purpose of his villas as both farmhouses and palatial weekend retreats for wealthy merchant owners." What? We're actually assuming what he thought now? Needs inline citation. LuciferMorgan 01:46, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

• The fact is so obvious, if one has a grand house with farmbuildings stuck on the side all built at the same time by the same man it is quite apparent that he "considered the dual purpose of his villas as both farmhouses" Giano 08:19, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

"They were, however, in no way intended to be part of the main house, and it is in the design and use of these wings that Palladio's followers in the 18th century adapted to become an integral part of the building." In no way intended? Did he say that? If so, where to? Needs citing. LuciferMorgan 01:48, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

• In what was would you immagine Palladio considered a cow shed to be part of the main house? Regarding your second point look at the pictures read the captions and open your eyes! Giano 08:19, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

A quick glance this is from, so I'd dread to think about all the other possible original research in the article. LuciferMorgan 01:48, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

• I'm not going to bother to comment on the remark above. Giano 08:19, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Do you have any previous knowledge about any of these statements? Do you have reason to doubt that they are false other than you suspect that they're wrong? Have you perchance read any of the sources?

Peter ^Isotalo 07:56, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment (update: no "vote" implied). What a fascinating FARC. Clearly the duelling views of what a Featured Article should be are coming to a head, and interpersonal dynamics are, by my observation, affecting the proceedings considerably. Completely in spite of myself, I find myself leaning toward Remove—in doing so, I am choosing to apply the current Featured Article standard, rather than subverting the standard to the very good editors involved, or trying to make other points about FA criteria. (And the points of Geogre and others seem more valid than their inverse, to me.) In other circumstances, we'd have prose- and verifiability-oriented editors pointing out sentences like:
  • "The Palladianism of the White House is interesting as it is almost an early form of neoclassicism, especially the South facade, which closely resembles James Wyatt's design for Castle Coole of 1790, also in Ireland. Ironically, the North facade lacks one of the floors from Leinster House, while the Southern facade gains a floor extra than Castle Coole, and has an external staircase more in the Palladian manner."—"Ironically" is editorializing; "a floor extra than" is awkward.

• Reworded Giano 08:09, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

• • "In Palladio's architectural treatises, as well as the buildings he designed and built,"—the dreaded "as well as".

• Reworded Giano 08:09, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

• • "If on a hill, such as Villa Capra, all facades were often designed to be of equal value so that occupants could have fine views in all directions."—"all" and "often" don't work together.
  • "They were no longer villas but 'power houses' in Sir John Summerson's term, the symbolic centres of power of the Whig "squirearchy" that ruled Britain."—awkward, making the reader wonder if this is a run-on sentence. Summerson's term is not referenced. Again, current FA standards.

• I don't what is wrong here could you re-word|edit yourself? Giano 08:09, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

• • "Castle Coole is, in the words of the architectural commentator Gervase Jackson-Stops, "A culmination of the Palladian traditions, yet strictly neoclassical in its chaste ornament and noble austerity"." The current FA standard requires page attribution for a quote.

• I have reffed Jackson Stops quote and left a request on Wetman's page for Summerson quote ref. Giano 08:09, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

• Summerson's term is in his essay "The Classical Country House in 18th-Century England", and all through his major work Architecture in Britain 1530-1830 (1993), a book that doubtless informs all the discussion here— but of course it is employed by writers like Mark Girouard too. Tacitly it informs all discussion of architecture as an expression of social standing in Britain, doesn't it. Summerson is also the source of the expression "prodigy houses" to describe those grand Jacobean piles so familiar to all of you. Some time last month I removed this discussion from my Watchlist: nec dilectare volunt nec prodesse, or so it appears, and I require both. I would never subject any article to this process myself. --Wetman 09:18, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

• So am I saying the writing is poor? Hardly, but stuff like this is used as a basis for objection in many other candidacy discussions. At the same time, I say to the article's creators—because the accomplishment achieved in a given article and the article's FA status are becoming less and less correlated—very nice work. If the FAR system is going to function consistently—whether for the better or worse—then this article should no longer be an FA because it no longer meets (FA) expectations for verifiability. –Outriggr § 07:16, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

• I have addressed the points you make, please feel free to edit any awkword phrasing (or indeed anything else on the page) yourself. Giano 08:09, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. I am striking my "remove". What I wished to communicate can be said without it. Many times I've seen the reviews of older featured articles fail because they do not meet the current standard for referencing. Heated discussion ensues, asking whether there isn't a grandfathering for older articles, and so on. The answer comes back negative. Unless a new precedent is desired, I think the review process should be applied consistently. –Outriggr § 08:28, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

• Reading LuciferMorgan's list of need-inline-citation items and what the editors reponses are, I am leaning toward remove. I am not questioning the editors' credibility, but it's a nature of Wikipedia that all editors are anonimous. The burden of whether statements are true or false is not on the readers'. Okay, readers can go to find books listed in the article, but what's the point of writing bla..bla..bla in the article where there is no pointer to which book and page I should read more? We have FA standards and we have three pillars of Wikipedia. Obviously, this article does not satisfy one of them: verifiable. Should I borrow all the books and browse all the pages to verify a single statement that I'm doubting at? Unbelieveable. — Indon (reply) — 08:44, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes. With experience I've found the table of contents and index invaluable though. --Mcginnly | Natter 01:21, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

With your experience then, why don't you simply put inline citations in the article to help inexperience reader who is really new about this subject (including me)? — Indon (reply) — 00:13, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I've added citations to those aspects that have been challenged - for further help Indon [inexperience reader who is really new about this subject] I can only suggest reading this. --Mcginnly | Natter 20:59, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I am not a native English person, who still have troubles with English grammar. Is there something wrong with my English grammar? Being stupid in English, what are you suggesting to me to read the Grammar article? Please explain. — Indon (reply) — 21:19, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Sarcasm towards Indon's good faith effort isn't helpful; his points have merit. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:38, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Apologies, no offence intended Indon you're not stupid in English, but your grammar's a bit 'non-standard'. --Mcginnly | Natter 01:48, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I see citations, I strike my vote, I am out of this FAR process, I am sick of editors responses and I apology for this non-standard grammar sentence.— Indon (reply) — 09:33, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

**I'm leaning towards Keep, although I'd really like to see more referencing.Tony 15:19, 12 January 2007 (UTC) Withdrawing from this one: conflict of interest. Tony 03:39, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

• Several editors have now taken time to review and make suggestions: their requests don't seem excessive or burdensome; they will support verifiability, and they make sense to me. An article this well written shouldn't leave any area for future editors to FAR it again for the same reasons. And where is the nominator (Cuiviénen), who wanted these citations? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:00, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
  • He stated above that he didn't feel a need to proceed to FARC, unless I am misreading. So perhaps he has stopped watching this page. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:34, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks for adding more citations, Mcginnly; they should help avoid seeing this article back on FAR sometime down the road. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:36, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

• I went about trying to find some sources that I could add as inline citations to this article. Of course, I don't have access to the current references. What I found—and I admit that throwing around quotes in matters of aesthetics may not prove much—are a couple of points that are counter to the effect of the article.
  • "Palladio's drawing in the Four Books presents the [ Villa Rotunda ] as an object that could be placed anywhere, with no regard for the site" (Learning from Palladio). The article says "Palladio always designed his villas with reference to their setting."
  • "American expressions, few in number and more modest in scale, have not attracted either the scholarly or popular attention of their European counterparts. Architectural history has defined the whole of American Palladianism by a small number of eighteenth-century public buildings and private dwellings." (Palladian architecture and social change in postrevolutionary Virginia. PhD dissertation.) Compare this to the overall effect of the section Palladianism#North American Palladianism. On the other hand, excerpt from Palladio's Architecture and Its Influence: A Photographic Guide supports the section much more.
• I have no POINT here. My intention was to add some cites to the article. In context, I don't put much stock in the above contrasting references (it looks like the dissertation intro is probably further from the truth than WP's article, and the other issue is quoted from a book that likely has a "re-interpretive" thesis)—but since I put the work in, I thought I'd write this up. –Outriggr § 01:23, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Within 24 hours of the above comment, I left a message here, clarifying that "I didn't know the FARC was closed when I made the Jan 16 comment". That message has mysteriously disappeared (in history, as well), so I am adding this again. –Outriggr § 01:17, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept 14:50, 18 January 2007.

[edit] Punk rock

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Punk music and Music genres. LuciferMorgan 00:50, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm nominating this for FAR because;

1. It needs further inline citations.
2. The lead needs expansion, and needs to be an adequate summary of the article. LuciferMorgan 00:44, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. A lot of inline citations have been added since this article was listed as lacking citations, and it is close to finished. With a bit more work, this article should be able to retain its FA status. Expanding the lead, a copy edit review, and finishing up the citations are in order. Sandy (Talk) 00:54, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment I agree. With one or two editors working on this, it should be wrapped up soon. LuciferMorgan 01:51, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Article has improved over last few days. The lead now covers most of the main content, and cites continue to be added. - Coil00 22:45, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Glad to see the improvement! Be sure to keep a consistent bibliographic style in the footnotes - they're kinda bouncin' around, but that can be fixed when you're closer to finished. Sandy (Talk) 17:17, 8 December 2006 (UTC) Reference format fixed. Sandy (Talk) 20:05, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. Is comprensive, balanced and sourced. Lead has been expanded as mentioned above. + Ceoil 20:09, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm unsure of trying to trace punk's roots back to the US. Punk began in the UK as far as most critics are concerned. LuciferMorgan 22:03, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Lucifer, this is a can of worms. Punk was defined by the '76 UK bands, but they crystallised the lead of the Ramones and New York Dolls, as well as The Stooges and the earlier US garage bands. See the talk archives for an extended, and heated, discussion on this. + Ceoil 22:09, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough, but more cites are needed. LuciferMorgan 22:18, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

• Whichever way, I'm not voting Keep yet, and people don't vote until FARC.

"Punk rock may have been influenced by the snotty attitude, on- and off-stage violence, aggressive instrumentation, overt sexuality and political confrontation of artists such as The Who, the Rolling Stones, Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, The Velvet Underground, Alice Cooper, The Stooges, the MC5, The Deviants, and the New York Dolls. Other likely influences include the English pub rock scene, and British glam rock and art rock acts of the early 1970s, including David Bowie, Gary Glitter and Roxy Music. Early punk rock also displays influences from other musical genres, including ska, funk, and rockabilly."

May have? Says who? Which music critics? And which music critics disagree? I'd like to see citations in this specific paragraph, and also the "Characteristics" section needs more citations. Keep up the good work though. LuciferMorgan 22:18, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

• Fair point, I'll find something on that one. I'd appreciate a few 'cite needed' tags else where, if needed, to focus the mind, like ;) + Ceoil 22:23, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Add the most urgent first though, its a heavily edited article, carpet bombing might draw some reverts. If you see a lot of gaps, maybe add them in a few manageable phases, and I'll do what I can. Thanks. + Ceoil 22:28, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd love to add the tags, but I've been accused in the past of going overboard (see the Operation Downfall FAR). The main problem is that when you've cited something, I'll most likely scour the article for other areas that need cites. LuciferMorgan 22:30, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you approch, knock your self out here. + Ceoil 22:35, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Will do. Fill whatever cites you want, and if there's some you disagree with then feel free not to fill them. LuciferMorgan 22:42, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Lucifer, I'll need a few days though. + Ceoil 22:56, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Ceoil, just a note to let you know, we don't vote Keep or Remove during FAR; if concerns aren't addressed in more or less two weeks, the article moves to FARC for another two weeks, and that's when you enter Keep or Remove. Sandy (Talk) 04:56, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Ooops + Ceoil 23:59, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment I see some problems with this article right off. For one thing, the editors don't seem to understand the need to keep original research (WP:NOR out of the article, even in the lead paragraph.[13] & [14] A lead paragraph that is full of what could not be more "self-evident" is not part of an encyclopedia--encyclopedias are not insiders clubs. Punk Rock has been around for ages, there is tons of research on it, some from the late 70s even. I would like to see this article approached as if it were a serious subject, culturally relevant, and important enough to be included in an encyclopedia, not just an editors evidence of himself as if Wikipedia were a blog. Self-evidence is not part of a FA that I can see. And if a FAR is telling the editors that more citations are needed, editors should consider whether a citation is needed or not, rather than saying, no, bollocks, this could not be more self-evident."

"...and placed emphasis on music that was fast, short in duration, and simple, often accompanied by a political or social outlook."^{[citation needed]}

"The punk rock movement also encompasses a punk subculture, involving youthful aggression, specific clothing styles, ideologies, and a DIY (do it yourself) attitude."^{[citation needed]} (In spite of its self-evidence to one editor.)

"...but its popularity was more sporadic elsewhere."^{[citation needed]}

"Over the course of the 1980s, various forms of punk rock emerged in small scenes around the world, often outright rejecting commercial success or association with mainstream culture."^{[citation needed]}

"By the end of the 20th century, punk rock's legacy had resulted in the formation of the alternative rock movement, while new punk bands popularized the genre decades after its initial heyday."^{[citation needed]}

I had intended to go into the article and see how these other statements are supported, but learning that the first is supported by "self-evidence" showed me it would be a waste of time. This article desperately needs citations, citations that are readily available. KP Botany 15:05, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

KP, agree that 'self-evident' not good enough, and thought the reversal of you cite requests was plain rude. I kind of warned LuciferMorgan above about fact tags being rv'd by others, and have sandboxed the article so that tags can be added and dealt with in peace during the FAR. Please feel free to place more requests there, as you say there is an abundance of sources to choose from.

One thing though, I think I remember reading somewhere that you don't need to cite statments in the lead if they are ref'd further down in the main body of the article. I've searched around but can't find it again. Does any one know if this is actually true or not? + Ceoil 21:27, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

True. The lead is meant to be a summary of the article, so all info there should be in the article body also. LuciferMorgan 23:27, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

• Status? I noticed that publication dates are missing on news sources - perhaps cite web was used rather than cite news? Does this article need more time? Sandy (Talk) 18:43, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I did some ref cleanup, and fixed most of the missing dates on news sources, but this ref is wrong: "Punk Music in Britain". BBC.co.uk (2002). Sandy (Talk) 04:21, 18 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Thanks for tidying up, & url for 'Punk Music in Britain' now fixed. Ideally, I'd like to extend this by a few days if possible, still need to track down sources for a number of statments highlighed by LuciferMorgan. + Ceoil 07:45, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

• As you get further along, I'm hoping the lead will improve. There are a lot of references in the lead. Since the lead should summarize the article anyway, perhaps some of that text could be expanded in the article, with the references provided in the body of the article rather than in the lead. Sandy (Talk) 16:41, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

• See also is quite long: can some of those be linked into the text and eliminated from See also? Sandy (Talk) 01:11, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

List has been trimmed. + Ceoil 01:19, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

• Ref 31 was lost: I'm having Wiki-technological problems, and can't track it down - someone needs to find it in the history. Sandy (Talk) 16:04, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

• That ref was ok when I checked it out; in that it pointed to a website, but not a very good one. I need to validate the sources created before this FAR, and also attend to POV issues noted by KP Botany. Realisticlly, this will take a week, at least. I'd prefer not to go to FARC; any objections to putting this out until the 31st? I picked up a few source books while x-mass shopping; as soon as my father tires of reading "Punk Dairy: The Ultimate Trainspotters Guide to Undergounf Rock 1970-1982" and other books like it, will incorporate ;) My openion is that the article is adequately cited for an FA, but the text needs work + Ceoil 00:44, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

I think it needs a lot of work, but as far as I am concerned, if you're willing to do it, we should wait. I think Wikipedians can be impatient about what it takes in time and commitment to make an article something useful. Allowing extra time should, imo, always be a given. KP Botany 01:03, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

No problem. Marskell 19:41, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

• I'm kind of a stickler about readability. Consider making the paragraphs a bit smaller, and more even.
• I love all the music in there - you got all the good ones right on the money. Consider moving some pictures to the right underneath the "music" boxes so the text isn't so squeezed.
• Inline citations are fabulous for other folks. Personally, they make things hard to read as the formatting stands now. Hopefully, that will change, but multiple inline citations for non-controversial points I feel are unnecessary.
• Lets diversify. Don't forget Bikini Kill, Le Tigre, Hole, etc. as well.
  • Two bands were particularly influential @ 1981 to span punk and new wave, though lesser known (currently). They're Pearl Harbor and the Explosions and Romeo Void. I'd particularly love to see Romeo Void in there, because it was headed by the largest Samoan woman you ever saw. If you can find references for them, I'd love to see them in there. This is not OR, they were both on the charts.
  • There's also the Waitresses; this band was a chart-topper back in the day.
  • PJ Harvey was a HUGE influence, particularly "Sheela-Na-Gig"; don't forget her.
  • Ani DiFranco - punk/folk, most notable for "fucking the system" and starting her own label and doing her own distribution before she ever released anything.
  • Pansy Division - have been around for 15 years.
  • Was Bad Brains "different"? How?
• I'm not farting in the wind here. I want to see some of these people in this article:).Nina Odell 14:02, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are inline citations (1c) and LEAD (2a). Marskell 07:29, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment: This was given extra time but I don't see any notes suggesting all the issues have been cleared up. History shows work is on-going. Marskell 07:29, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Almost there, just checking back over a few old refs. Will let you know later this evening when I'm done. Thanks for the patience. + Ceoil 13:55, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Done. Article has undergone an extensive restructure and copy edit. Hopefully it is also more balanced that it was, and that concerns re citations have been met. + Ceoil 23:39, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep, although I don't like the "See also" section.--Yannismarou 18:35, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Have moved the "See also" links into categories, where they belong. + Ceoil 22:42, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Requesting that this be held. First phase was to take care of obvious weaknesses, but the article would benifit from an overall polish. + Ceoil 01:03, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

• Despite the changes since nomination, I find this not well enough written to satisfy 1a. Take, for example, the lead:
  • "a number of artists that emerged"—Are they people or robots?
  • Remove the redundnat "as" in the first para.
  • "and placed emphasis on music that"—Why not "emphasised music that"?
  • "fast, short in duration, and simple"—What does "simple" mean in this context? Musical simplicity comes in so many forms.
  • "accompanied by a political or social outlook"—You mean in the lyrics?
  • What's a "do it yourself" attitude in this context? If I don't understand it, many people won't, I guess. Engage with those who aren't experts in this field.
  • Do we really need to link United Kingdom, United States and Australia? They're so obscure, aren't they. And why is "UK" (wrongly) dotted in a title?
  • "often outright rejecting commercial success"—clumsy.
  • "punk rock's legacy"—nicer as "the legacy of punk rock"; it's a major statement, too, so the informality of the inanimate apostrophe is even less appropriate.

We expect better writing throughout starred articles. Please fix the whole thing by finding copy-editors who are interested in this field. Tony 05:21, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Thats why I'm asking for more time, I haven't worked on the copy yet. + Ceoil 05:26, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

At some stage soon, the reviewers may be happier with some idea of a timeline. Tony 05:36, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

It's taking much longer than I expected, but I can work towards finishing up for next friday. + Ceoil 20:21, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment: What are these five inline citations doing in the first paragraph of the lead? They're attached to perfectly straightforward information that wouldn't even need to be cited in the main body of the text, let alone up front as they are. The lead should, in general, summarize the entire article and should, again in general, be free of citations. As long as everything stated in the lead that needs a citation is cited in the text of the article, there's no need to cite up top. And, as noted, these are facts that don't even need citation in the main text. Remember the cite guideline: "Attribution is required for direct quotes and for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged." It's also desirable to cite (a) uniquely sourced and (b) often misreported info, but the five citations in question don't come anywhere near those realms. And packed in the first graf of the lead, to boot. This is hardly FA-level presentation. I would go in and simply remove them, as is proper, myself, but I see two are uniquely cited from there (to support the claims that the United States and the Sex Pistols were important to punk...ye gods!). Proposed remedy: (A) Determine if those two sources are needed for citations elsewhere; (B) Cite them there, if called for by Wikipedia citation standards; and then (C) Eliminate all five of these superfluous, distracting, and non-FA-worthy cites in the lead.—DCGeist 11:33, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

The cites in the lead are discussed earlier in the review; a rewrite is in progress (it's often easiest to rewrite the lead last, once the text is complete), and most reviewers here would disagree with your interpretation on whether those facts should be cited. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:37, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I see. I caught the colloquy about the lead on Dec. 12 above. I didn't notice that you'd already followed up on the 18th. At any rate, I'm prepared to help out Ceoil with a general copyedit of the article to bring the language closer to FA quality. In light of that, I want to be clear on your position (let's encourage "most reviewers here" to speak for themselves):

I gather you agree that locating punk's emergence in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia does not call for citation in the lead; I gather you also agree that identifying the Ramones and the Sex Pistols as exemplifying the seminal wave of punk does not call for citation in the lead. I'm sure we agree that, if the latter claim is made in the lead, it needs to be supported by discussion in the main text, appropriately referenced per Wikipedia standards to the best available sources. What I remain unclear on is how you would want the broad geographical observation to be cited. The observation is supported by discussion of the many significant bands from each locale; what, if anything, would you want to see cited specifically in the main text on this point?—DCGeist 19:41, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not really interested in secondguessing Ceoil's ongoing efforts; I like to re-check articles that show ongoing progress once the main editors have finished their work. I'm confident Ceoil will work it out just fine, depending on what text is kept where once the rewrite is done, and I doubt that cited text will suddenly go uncited. I'm also confident that reviewers here will come to a consensus as to whether the article is well cited when the work is completed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:22, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I assume then you won't be interested in secondguessing my work either. Tony has suggested finding copyeditors who are interested in this field. I'm a copyeditor interested in this field. My aim is to assist Ceoil, as I clearly expressed, in improving the article's language and presentation. I asked you to weigh in on specific content and its appropriate citation. You've chosen not to weigh in. Fair enough. And once again you've spoken on behalf of "reviewers here." Interesting. I'm still waiting for one of those reviewers to step forward in support of your claim that "most" of them would say that a broad statement about the central role of British, U.S., and Australian bands in the emergence of punk rock should be specifically cited.—DCGeist 22:55, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

DC, Sandy is right in that I'm leaving the lead for last. And for the record, he did a lot of work fixing poor citation templates when the article was first nominated for FAC. However, help from you on the copy would be much appreciated - I've mostly been concentrating on a rewrite and restructure, and a copy edit is still needed. Following a skirmish this morning, I've had to sandbox the article tonight to further tweak the structure, meaning some of the sections will be significantly rewritten by tomorrow evening. But if you could help clean up the "Characteristics" & "Legacy" sections, that would be great. And BTY, you should add your star to B movie! + Ceoil 23:26, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Update: I'm more or less there in terms of content, hoping for a white knight re copy. DCGeist helped out tonight, have also left a note at WP:LoCE. + Ceoil 01:18, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the update: I had a look, and saw some backwards progress on the refs, which will take some time to untangle and explain <sigh> ... will get to it as soon as I can. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:46, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

I can take care of the untangling and fixing if you let me know the problem. + Ceoil 20:21, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Still working on it - got distracted elsewhere. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:02, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Good work here, lots of progress, much improvement, but some small steps backward since I last checked. (Noting that you've taken what was a very old brilliant prose promotion - with no original editor/author - and brought it very far. Great effort so far.)

• It looks like some "Main" templates are now being used incorrectly. The Main template is used when this article contains a summary of another Main article (think of is a min-lead of that article): that doesn't appear to be the case in all uses here - templates usage could be reviewed. Some of the templates could be switched to either See, See also or Further (can't remember which is which, someone should check), depending on the situation. For example, is the Pop section of Punk rock a summary of the Pop rock article, or is that further information ?
• Even on a large screen, text is being scrunched between images and music samples. (When I go to another computer with a smaller screen, they look fine, since the text is forced to below the image and sample). Perhaps images or samples can be moved up or down to avoid this problem.
• Tony1 is up on the legalities of Music samples: has he looked at these? If not, can you ping him? It's Greek to me: I just know there was a problem recently.
• Some statements may need cites, example (I always work from the bottom of the article first): Some punk rockers complained that by signing to major labels and appearing on MTV, ... Maybe make another pass, looking for any vague-ish statements without attribution.

Paragraph in question heavily revised, fully cited.—DCGeist 07:45, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

• Minor prose issues, example (working from the bottom): Many groups such as Screeching Weasel that fused punk rock with pop melodies would follow in their wake. Trying to eliminate the redundant "many", maybe something like: Groups that fused punk rock with pop melodies—such as Screeching Weasel—followed in their wake. I see you've got a request in at LoCE.

Done.—DCGeist 03:06, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

• Ceoil, do you have most of the reference books? Some of the extensive editing may have taken the text away from what is supported by the refs, so pls let us know that you can verify a lot of the ce changes. I see combined refs which I didn't see before, so checked to see what's up there, example:
  • • The first issue of Punk was published in December 1975, and tied together earlier influences such as Lou Reed, the Stooges, and the New York Dolls, with an array of new bands centering around the CBGB and Max's Kansas City venues: the Ramones, Television, Talking Heads, The Heartbreakers, Blondie, and others. (Fowler, Damian. "Legendary punk club CBGB closes". BBC News, October 16, 2006. Retrieved on December 11, 2006; Sabin, p. 155; Walsh, p. 15, 24)
  • Yikes, disentangling this: I've seen the notion on several FACs that refs must always come at the end of a sentence, which is a misread of WP:FN. If specific facts, phrases, or words are referenced within a sentence, the refs can be mid-sentence. Combining these refs has munged verifiability, in some text that wasn't clearly sourced to begin with. Before the refs were combined, the text was:
    • The first issue of Punk was published in December 1975, and immediately tied together earlier influences such as Lou Reed, the Stooges, and the New York Dolls, with an array of new bands centering around the CBGB^[1] and Max's Kansas city^[2] venues: the Ramones, Television, Talking Heads, The Heartbreakers, Blondie, and others.^[3] ...
  • so each piece of the sentence was separately sourced, and is now run together. But, the first (BBC) source doesn't appear to verify the text it is sourcing; by combining all of the refs into one, an individual piece that doesn't seem to be sourced is obfuscated, and we now have to look at three sources to find the text. Do you know where the text supporting the first part of the sentence is? I saw several examples like this in the text, so we need to doublecheck a few refs, and perhaps move them back to individual facts they were sourcing. The changes came from here; the original BBC text needs to be figured out, and the refs should probably go back to verifying each piece of text separately.

Sentence split. Specific source given for initial publication date. Sourcing improved.—DCGeist 02:47, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

• Here are some other edits which warrant checking, where refs look to be lost or combined: [15]. Refs were combined here, also adding new text, the latter taking its name from a Minor Threat song - does that come from Sabin?

Sourcing changed to best available on topic.—DCGeist 02:21, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Does Savage 440 say hardcore developed on both sides of the country (the ref was moved to the end of the sentence, so it looks like it is now citing text it wasn't citing before)? Similar here; refs were moved, so it's not clear if text was incorrectly cited before, or is incorrectly sourced now - can you verify vs. refs ??

• Looks ORish, sounds like opinion, needs a cite: In its noisy, fun-loving way, pop punk bridged the divide. Perhaps this is supported by Reynolds, p. xvii; can you check?

Quote substituted, cited.—DCGeist 02:21, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm close to a Keep - if you have the books, perhaps just a quick perusal of the refs that got moved around will suffice. In general, since a lot of text was rewritten and sources were moved and combined, a run-through of the article making sure that refs are still sourcing the text they are attached to is in order before passing this one. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:49, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Whew. Over 60s edits since I had last looked at the page!

Sandy, thanks for taking the time on this. I have hard copies of most of the books (and two are from an online library); and judging from his work this morning, so does DCGeist. The article has improved greatly since I left it last night, but I need to give a run back over some of the older refs, read up on "Main" templates", and check on the acceptability of the sound files. This I can do tonight and tomorrow night. + Ceoil 11:36, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Also, have another look at the concerns I raised above as to running though one more time on the prose and cites needed - the two examples I gave were only samples from the bottom of the article - entire article should be checked for similar. If we can get Tony to look at the music sample issue, we should be able to wrap this up. I'll add this to the urgents list, to get others to look. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:24, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Also, the rearrangement of image/sound files in the New York section is better on both of my screen sizes: would it be possible to do similar in other sections? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:57, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Another question: not being familiar with the lingo, why is New Wave capitalized, while other similar terms (Punk rock, Pop rock etc.) aren't? Wondering about WP:MSH and section headings, but saw New Wave capitalized throughout - pls educate me? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:00, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Good question, it's almost always capitalized, while punk rock sometimes is, and sometimes isn't. Anyone know? KP Botany 17:27, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

My guess is that because its origionally an art phrase, and art movements tend to be capitalised in general (Art Nouveau, Magic Realism, Color Field etc). Also, strictly speaking its 'the New Wave', rather than 'New Wave'; if that makes any sense.

I accept Sandy's point that the issue noted above are examples only; have printed the article, ticking each one off individally. However, most of the inserted text that led to the refs being undermined was valid, and greatly added to the quality of the article; just need to go back to the sources and back it up. + Ceoil 19:58, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

• Well, darn, I came over to see if I could add a Keep yet, and found a new problem. A new Reynolds source was just added to the References section [16], without adjusting all the footnotes to account for there now being two Reynolds sources. (Lesson learned; always use year on sources, even if there's only one.) Now every Reynolds footnote needs to be sorted out as Reynolds (1999), p. no. or Reynolds (2005), p. no. I am going to be traveling soon: if I'm not able to get back to this article, pls consider me a Keep once all of these recent changes to refs are sorted out - someone now needs to check and edit every Reynolds source. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:25, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Not to worry. All book refs will be styled to best Wikipedia standards.—DCGeist 21:46, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep, All concerns have been met. + Ceoil 19:45, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, excellent job Ceoil - you've taken a "brilliant prose" promotion and turned it into an FA that can be held up as an example to others. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:29, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept 19:13, 7 January 2007.

[edit] Tamil people

[edit] Review commentary

Messages left at Sundar, Subramanian, Ganeshk, India noticeboard, Tamil Nadu, and Ethnic groups.

The major concern is the article does not abide by WP:WIAFA criterion 1c. Inline citations are absolutely lacking.--Dwaipayan (talk) 15:35, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. I did some ref cleanup work (there were three ref styles in use): there are some Harvard style refs, which could be converted to cite.php if page numbers were provided. Two sections have the same heading; need to address section headings per WP:MOS. Sandy (Talk) 16:42, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

• I know I sound repetitive, but yes, the whole article could do with a copy-edit. Here are examples from the lead:
• "There are also a number of Tamil emigrant communities scattered around the world, especially in central Sri Lanka, Malaysia, South Africa and Singapore, with more recent emigrants also found in Australia, Canada, the United States, and parts of Europe." This thrid sentence has two alsos; the second one could go. Remove ", parts of"
• "was only politically united for a brief period between"—Move "only" to later in the sentence.
• "Tamil identity is primarily linguistic, with Tamils being those whose first language was Tamil." "Was"? So they're dead now? The sentence is circular anyway. Why is "linguistic" linked; the link is irrelevant to the flow.
  • "has been broadened to include also emigrants of Tamil descent who maintain Tamil cultural traditions, even when they no longer speak the language." Ouch: "include also"? And I'd be happier with "regularly" before "speak": no one forgets the essence of their native language.
  • "There are an estimated 74 million Tamils around the world." Why is this stuck at the end of the lead, rather than connected with the third sentence? Tony 13:33, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I have made some copyedits and I'm about half way through. I will also be adding some inline citations, although I'm not the original author. Please give me a couple of days. Thanks Parthi ^{talk/contribs} 09:03, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment-->Hi. I took a look at this article. While this article is quite well written, there are some aspects that are either totally missing or are very sketchy. These can be explained in a few lines at least. They are

• Influence of foreign rulers on Tamil architectural styles (especially Vijayanagar mantapa and Yali columns used extensively by Nayakas of Madurai and Tanjore) and the influence of Tamil dravida architecture in Vijayanagara temples(George Mitchell et al)
• There is no mention of Hoysala, Chalukya, Rashtrakuta and Vijayanagar rule over Tamil Country and their contribution to culture (at least a few lines).
• Mention could be made of influence of Sri Vaishnavism from TN on South Karnataka culture.
• Impact of Tamil Language on Telugu by way of Chalukya-Chola rule (K.A.N. Sastri)
• Impact of Sanskrit on Tamil Literature and a paragraph on Tamil secular works (sciences, mathematics, drama, prose, lexicons, encyclopedia etc) and if any of these influence went to other places or came from other locals outside Tamil country.
• Tamil language dialects and their origin/growth/influences. Tamil-Kannada mix languages in the border Nilgiri areas, Sanketi language.
• Tamil attire over ages and changes over time
• Influence of Kannada grammar on Tamil grammar in mid-later classical era (Mahadevan)
• Tamil Cuisine, influences from outside (dosa) and its influence outside Tamil country.

The topic is vast and vibrant and has great potential.Dineshkannambadi 16:46, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Can I please get some clarification from the reviewers? This FAR has been initiated to address the valid concern on the lack of adequate inline citations, which I'm trying to address. While Dinesh's suggestions are valuable and valid even, are they within the scope of an FAR? Thanks Parthi ^{talk/contribs} 03:58, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Hi! Is Dinesh questioning the comprehensiveness of the article? He should state that clearly, because that may be a more valid point in FAR. However, my point of view is that, in Tamil people, there is no need of putting more info on architecture, literature, language, grammer etc. The article already contains adequate info on these aspects in summary style. Further information should come under the scope of respective daughter article/see also articles, like Tamil literature, Tamil language etc. In fact, this article already seems to contain much detailed "history" section than needed. This could be more summarised, and appropriately linked to History of Tamil Nadu. Rather, I think what the article lacks is some info on Tamil society, which is more relevant to the scope of the article. Tribes and castes (eg Mukkulathor, Iluvar), cuisines, attires could be mentioned. A rather interesting aspect can be presented if some info on the genetics of Tamil people can be obtained.

However, these are all suggestions. Main concern in FAR is lack of citations, and need of copyedit (as pointed out by Tony). None has questioned the comprehensiveness so far. I would suggest (and not demand!) that besides providing citations, just add a few senences on attire, cuisine, and society (that should not be much problem, as lot of articles on these topics already exists). Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 04:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok. I have gone through and copyedited the article for style and consistency. I have removed a couple of claims for which I couldn't find any supporting citations. I will trim the History section as there is already a comprehensive History of Tamil Nadu and then I will add some info on cuisine, society, etc. Can I requst other editors to jump in and add any information they can? Thanks in advance. Parthi ^{talk/contribs} 09:11, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment-->I was only trying to emphasise that some information regarding interaction of Tamil people/culture with other people/cultures should also be included, as this undoubtedly has enriched both ends.ThanksDineshkannambadi 13:39, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Reply--> Fair enough. In fact the point I made about mixed languages implied tribal langages of the "Soligas" etc.Dineshkannambadi 18:13, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I have made further copyedits and added citations. I have also added a paragraph on Tamil dialects. Can you please take another look? Thanks Parthi ^{talk/contribs} 03:53, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Great work going on in this article. IMO, the lead should be slightly expanded so as to summarise the scope of the article. The lead lacks a mention of the Tamil culture which occupies a good part of the body of the article. I will go through the article some time later. On a gross look, it seems that the main concern in the FAR (lack of inline citations) has been addressed. The other concern (need of copyedit) - don't have any idea yet. The culture portion may still be shortened. Anyway, I'll comment more later on. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 12:20, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

comment-->The dialects section looks better. The Irulu tribe of TN are unique (Hope I spelt it right) in that thay are traditional snake catchers who have changed their life styles significantly. Nowadays they actually help in preparation of anti-venom by supplying snake poison to various clinics that prepare anti-venom.Just a thoughtDineshkannambadi 15:11, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I've now address all of Dwaipayan and Dines's comments. I have expanded the lead with a paragraph on the art and culture and even included a sentence on the Irulas. - Parthi ^{talk/contribs} 23:04, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Many of the footnotes still need page numbers, and there are still two sections with the same heading. Someone needs to run through the entire article. Sandy (Talk) 10:10, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Reply - I have changed the headings according to WP:MOS and there are no duplicated headings now. I have also updated the inline citations according the sources I have. As I'm not the original author, I had to use the sources I had instead of the original references. - Parthi ^{talk/contribs} 23:03, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

• Status? Improved, leaving talk page notes asking Tony1 (talk · contribs), Dwaipayanc (talk · contribs), and Dineshkannambadi (talk · contribs) if concerns are addressed. Sandy (Talk) 18:28, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Reply All my questions and concerns have been answered.Thanks.Dineshkannambadi 03:23, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment Editors worked hard during the FAR. The main concern of this FAR was lack of inline citations. Now the article has a number of inline citations providing verifiability of many facts. During the FAR, some citation needed tags were placed which were promptly attended. So, IMO, WP:WIAFA criterion 1c has been met in this article. However, another user raised question on WP:WIAFA 1a (well-written), and pointed out need of copy-editing. I'd like to request him about his opinion now. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 05:08, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Most of the images on the article have questionable licensing, and one particular user keeps reverting copyvio tags that I pointed out. See Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Archive68#User_reverting_image_copyvio.2Fno-source_tags. First the images issue needs to be addressed, the FAC removal issue can then be considered. ­ Kris (talk) 01:51, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Reply: All the images used in this article have appropriate licenses. If you have specific concerns on any image, please follow the procedures detailed in WP:COPY. Parthi ^{talk/contribs} 03:52, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

This is also relevant to the above comment by Srkris. - Parthi ^{talk/contribs} 04:01, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Just see the history of all those image pages. I have even indicated where they have been lifted from and why most of them violate copyrights or provide no source information. It cant be clearer than that. ­ Kris (talk) 23:42, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are lack of citations and prose. Marskell 06:39, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment. Not 100% to close this early. This can move off quickly if people are happy with it. Marskell 06:39, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:WikiProject League of Copyeditors has begun a copyedit. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:11, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

• Keep, has now been cited and copyedited; appreciate the help from the LoCE. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:02, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep--Dwaipayan (talk) 15:22, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
• Keep For the most part, the prose looked fine while I was copy-editing. Gzkn 08:22, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.