Wikipedia talk:Featured article review/archive 3

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Domestic power plugs

What do people think of this one? We've said that a lack of inline citations will override keeps, and this only has a 11 plus the comment "The original content for this article came from http://users.pandora.be/worldstandards/electricity.htm." But then, there is a large number of different links, so the info can be easily checked. Marskell 04:10, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm uneasy about the use of a single source, and in any case would prefer to have specific references sprinkled through the key parts of the article. I wonder how much of the article is directly quoted without the use of attributive quotation marks. Tony 08:10, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm very uneasy about it, but not knowing the territory well, I'm just not sure if better sourcing is needed or if some of it is "common sense" or "common knowledge". I'm inclined towards Remove unless someone can convince me the sourcing is OK. Sandy 14:41, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

War elephant - big problem

Problem with war elephant (sorry, I was traveling when it came up). I just checked the diff, and was very surprised to find such little progress. The original FAR was never posted on the article talk page. The nominator incorrectly listed it at peer review instead of here, so there was never talk page notification. What next ? Sandy 15:50, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

And, it appears that even the peer review link was incorrect; I think it linked to the old peer review. Sandy 15:51, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm reviewing all the current FARs: Joshua A. Norton wasn't placed at the top of the page; an old template was used at Homo floresiensis (I don't know what that's about or if it matters); something really should be done about some of the talk page templates, which are massive in size and make talk pages hard to negotiate. Look at Talk:Link (Legend of Zelda). There really should be a size limitation on some of those boxes (Biography comes to mind here). I wonder if anyone read the FAR message on Link-Zelda: I moved it to the top. Sandy 16:04, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Reviewing the FARs (not FARCs): Tuberculosis, Louis XIV of France, and Ackermann function were not at the top of the page; Definition of planet was at the bottom, after several other templates. All fixed, everything else OK. Sandy 16:15, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

On the hobbit review link, Peta placed the old one and I changed it the first day (at least I think I did). I suppose this is just going to have to be one more thing to check when something arrives on the page, though it's annoying as there's already so many little bureaucratic tasks to take care of already. Marskell 18:28, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit conflict] Right. I used to have occasion to check them all, when I went to the talk page to see who the original author was; now that I have that in a spreadsheet, I no longer routinely check talk pages, so we'll have to do that. Should we extend War elephant? Sandy 18:45, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Damn, that's annoying on War Elephant. It went almost the full month without the tag. It will have to be given an extra week, I suppose. Marskell 18:43, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

How about two more weeks? The Plugs have gotten that much extra time, so the elephants surely deserve it :-) Sandy 18:46, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

As our repromoted FA page suggests, elephants can crush you to death with a few furious stomps. We'll give them all the time they need. Marskell 18:55, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

I see no harm in giving it two full weeks. Joelito (talk) 19:06, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Citing sources

There's a move over at WP:CITE to lower the requirements for inline citations; Plange and Kirill are trying to inject reason at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources. Sandy 02:32, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:1 featured article per quarter

For those watching the back door of FAs, here is a new little idea for increasing things coming in the front. The idea is a list of people willing to bring articles to standard and a timeline to do so. I'm going to spam everywhere I can think of, so hopefully it will snowball a little bit (or perhaps fall flat, as new additions to Wiki space sometimes do). Marskell 15:14, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Limit?

Did we ever decide if we have a limit on nominations at one time? I've got three currently running, and I can handle one a week. Like Milgram experiment, which I worked on to the extent I could and then nominated last night because it is simply awful, there are too many truly bad FAs on the lacking citations list: is it OK to nominate one per week? Sandy 17:14, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

For example, my next mortifying FA is Sylvia (ballet). Some of these articles are just embarrassing. And autism is still pending, no movement in spite of alerting the medical folks months ago. Sandy 17:17, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd like one per week in total ;). If you are working on them and you can handle it, I think you should have as many running as you want. I'd like to see a one a week limit for anybody who dumps and runs though. Yomangani ^talk 17:19, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I'd prefer a tighter limit on those :-) I'm very troubled that one current FAR author just nominated a FAC: sure wish he'd fix his FAR before working on a FAC :-) Sandy 17:21, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with the substance of what you're saying but I don't particularly want to try and police rules in this regard. "Thou shalt not nominate" was the running sore that (in part) instigated the new process. We'll likely get "I'll nominate what I please" thrown back at us. We may just have to live with a few dump and runs, while gently suggesting against it where it's obvious (I've done that a couple of times where people have nommed twice in a day).

As for a nominator willing to work, such as yourself Sandy, by all means nominate one per week. Marskell 20:34, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

It's the cost of doing business; egregious examples might be met with individual responses, but blanket rules are going to be hard to enforce. Might consider adding strong advice to the instructions, that's all. Tony 03:46, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I haven't worked on the articles I've nominated - is there a rule saying I should? I thought it was up the people who have the time to save them to improve them. LuciferMorgan 21:56, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm a little surprised at that too. (The reference might even have been about me, since I nominated an FAR and have an FAC ongoing). As I see it, if I find a really substandard FA it's my duty to list it here, just as it's my duty to list questionable articles at AFD. I don't feel any obligation to act beyond that. If the folks with an interest in the subject matter want to save an FA listed here that's wonderful, but I don't see it as the nominator's job to try and save it. --kingboyk 22:31, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

King, if we extrapolated that logic we might just nom the 450-odd left on the citations problem list and have done with it. Maybe we should, but this process was designed specifically to allow for improving articles and giving each due diligence. A month was intended for more than janitorial work. Last month, 40-odd% of those nommed from the list went keep. That ratio can only be sustained if we don't overload this list. If we had ten times as many editors working we could nom ten times as many. But we don't. No hard rules needed--just be commonsensical. Marskell 22:55, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

If you're actively working through that list, perhaps there should be a note on the attached page asking "casual" editors not to nominate anything from it? That would help control the workload. (Personally I think no substandard article should be an FA and everything on that list should be removed immediately, but that ain't gonna happen :)) --kingboyk 10:59, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

It is encouraged that nominators work on the articles but it is not a requirement. Joelito (talk) 21:59, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Some substandard FAs though need hours of work. I feel the original nominators, or the Wikiprojects in question, should give more of a lending hand. Some Wikipedians, like myself, ain't got the time to do substantial Wiki work beyond light editing. Encouraging people is ok though none the less. LuciferMorgan 23:21, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh yes, it would be nice if the projects engaged more. It's become sort of a broken record here. I don't think the full burden should fall on the nominators but only that nominators shouldn't think of it as a nom and nothing else. Marskell 23:37, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

It's frustrating that the original editors and WikiProjects generally don't care, and there is only a handful of editors working to save FAs. We can only do what we can do, but we still have to try our best. I'd like to spread the work out by topic as much as we can: I sure didn't count on Tuberculosis coming up on the heels of my noms of psychosis and Milgram experiment. Had I considered another medical article might come up, I wouldn't have nom'd Milgram, which shouldn't be that hard for the Psychology project to fix, but they don't bother. Sandy 23:41, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

In my experience most wikiprojects are actually pretty inactive (except for all that talk page tagging); even in the fairly active projects like medicine its usually a single person that works an article up to FA status. If that person is not prepared to keep the article up to scratch then it's probably not going to be fixed. To be totally honest I don't think anyone on FAR is required to fix articles that no longer fit the criteria; our sole responsibility is making sure FA standards are maintained, if no one is prepared to fix a FA then its demotion is a good thing.--Peta 00:08, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

The FA list is only as good as its worst member. I agree with that firmly. If we want to take a shotgun to the bad ones, arguments can be mustered—chief among them, saving between one-and-a-half and two years work (in my informal estimation) with the citation problems list. And a contrary argument can be presented: this drawn out process has allowed us to "save" numerous articles because the pace has allowed for individual article attention; that can only happen if people don't nominate too many at once. Marskell 00:21, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

And, a lot of those that lose the star still emerged greatly improved. Sandy 00:26, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Sandy, that's what I've felt all along, even if contributors find it hard to look on the good side. Tim, I have no problem in deploying both of those models (shot-gun and slow improvement), depending on the state of the nomination, the reviews, and the amount of improvement activity. I think a balance between these factors is emerging slowly. Tony 01:02, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

WikiProjects will probably sit up and notice when their FAs stars start disappearing in abundance, as is happening to WP:BEATLES. I think from recent talk page and article activity the message about citations in particular is beginning to get through, very belatedly but better late than never. I've also offered a pint of beer to the first member who stewards an article through FAC :), so, you never know, we might yet bounce back. --kingboyk 13:24, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Overlong quarterly report

The new process has been in place for four months, and thus three months of archives have been created (Sex Pistols', which I'll tentatively assume as a keep, is the only leftover from August). Per my bonkers FAR obsession, I have done some mild number crunching in looking at the archives.

Under the new process:

Aug. 11 k - 19 r
Jul. 7 k 23 r
Jun. 11 k - 18 r

Total keep % = 32.6

Under the old FARC process:

May 8 k - 10 r (a large number here were called invald)
Apr. 5 k - 15 r
Mar. 8 k - 19 r (exluding 5 delisted as invalid by Tax, which might have gone either way)
Feb. 6 k - 13 r
Jan. 6 k - 10 r
Dec. 3 k - 7 r (excluding one invalid)

Total keep % = 32.7

Some observations:

While the nine months as whole saw a steady up-tick in nominations (with a spike in March), the new process created a jump that has been sustained. We've been very consistent, processing 30 per month.
The present cohort of reviewers is almost certainly harder on articles than the previous. For instance, this version of Art competitions at the Olympic Games was kept in Feb/Mar, while a similar (in fact, slightly improved) version was readily demoted in Aug/Sept. Until well into this year, people were passing those with what would now be considered insufficient inline citations (numerous examples can be found) and being particularly forgiving with older FAs.
The remarkably similar keep percentages must be judged in the above light: we're passing the same amount despite being much more stringent with articles. There is no evidence that articles currently being nommed are in better shape to begin with (most have come from the citations problem list) and thus it would appear we are "saving" more (i.e., actually bringing them to standard, rather than forgiving them).
As a general observation, older nominations show a greater number of single sentence kp/rm comments and a larger number of individuals stopping by. Fewer people are actually "voting" now, but given the fact that we've actively discouraged such in the first period (and even, to some extent, early in the second) this is predictable. The lack of reviewers remains, of course, a concern.
Another general observation: long-winded arguments over the validity of nominations have effectively ceased. There's been a couple of debates over closure (Anarcho-capitalism and Eigenvalue, eigenvector and eigenspace) but we are not wasting time on the review page arguing about procedure.

Yes, I have too much time on my hands. Marskell 14:38, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

With regard to the lack of reviewers: when Peer Review was grinding to a halt last month, I found posting a request on the community portal worked quite well in attracting them. It may have just been coincidence, but it is worth a try (although my notices are still up there at the moment, so for maximum exposure, maybe wait until they are pulled) Yomangani ^talk 15:15, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

How about if we instead continue to encourage some of the serious reviewers encountered at FAC and PR to come over here, so we don't revert back to the older ways of people simply voting keep/remove without serious involvement with the articles and the process? I think our promotions/delistings have been exceptional because it is no longer a "vote", rather a process that really sorts out the issues and results in better articles, when there's an effort. I'd hate to see a community posting result in a lot of drive-by voting. Sandy 17:08, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for providing these data, Tim: essentail stuff. I'm sorry that I can't spend time on the process at the moment. In a week or so, I'll have more time. Tony 23:33, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I hadn't noticed I closed both debatable FARCs. Anyways thanks for the info and sorry for always messing the archives. :-) Joelito (talk) 23:37, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Both of your closures were sound and I'm only picky about the archives because I'm a maniac ;). Marskell 23:40, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

As for your observation that the new system seems harder on articles than the old system, bear in mind that that could be because the FA standards themselves are increasing. Borisblue 04:00, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Speaking of the number of noms...

FAC has 36 reviews on-going at this moment, and FAR has hit 40 for the first time ever. Just an observation. Marskell 20:50, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Two will be closed tomorrow :-) Joelito (talk) 20:52, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Ya, there's a few on the block. I made a vote-like-comment on War Elephant, incidentally. Marskell 20:55, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I noticed this, and felt bad about my two recent noms - but then again I'm real happy because people are working on each, and if people are still working on them by the end of the two week limit, I hope we can give them extra time. LuciferMorgan 21:31, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

If the number of noms gets any larger, should we have a temporary lockdown to prevent further noms for a short period? LuciferMorgan 22:11, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

No, we should continue to let this be organic, IMO. The backlog tag can be applied, but disallowing new noms is not a good idea. Bear in mind, that the above is only one side of a teeter-totter. We do want pace (consistent noms, day-by-day), just not a pace that can't be absorbed. As it stands, we can live with forty. Let's all pick one to work one! Marskell 22:46, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah I can see your point. It's just although people FAR nominate here, they seem to just drop it here and whizz off instead of reviewing other articles. Right now, which is the first time for me, I'm trying to clean up Iron Maiden. This article probably has too many issues for me to save it from FA removal, but even when/if it gets removed I'll still keep working on the article - that's my pledge. Many people here are worried about many articles being de-featured, but to be honest I'm not at all. The FA star should be something to aspire to, but if FAs vary in quality this'll bring down its reputation. I feel many on Wikipedia feel once an article reaches FA, then thats it and not much else can be done to it - which is a wrong impression. An FA which doesn't reach criteria, and which is then de-featured, shows to others the article can be improved. I don't feel keeping FA stars is what we're trying to encourage, but article improvisation. LuciferMorgan 10:40, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Colditz castle

Can other reviewers please have a look at the confusing situation on this review - I'm concerned about where to put the FAR notification. Sandy (Talk) 19:15, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

This move was very poorly done. I am contemplating reverting the whole thing. Joelito (talk) 19:23, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

FA and inline citations

Someone mentioned here that "inline cite requirement is not applied to FAs that passed before that requirement took hold." What do you know about that? -- Stbalbach 15:45, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

The link you gave is to an old Featured Article Review (FAR) from May 2006, though Mary I of England has been renominated for FAR, and rightly so. I notice Johnleemk's name there - ask him why the articles She Loves You, A Day in the Life and A Hard Day's Night (song) have all been defeatured (because they don't have sufficient inline cites). Articles are regularly being defeatured after a month's period if their lack of inline cites aren't addressed - if they weren't required then the articles wouldn't be defeatured. LuciferMorgan 15:53, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Is there a written policy about this or is just evolution and what people are doing? It makes no sense to de-feature articles for lack of inline citations when the article is otherwise in good shape. -- Stbalbach 15:55, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Criterion 1. c. states an article should use inline citations "where appropriate", and actually it makes perfect sense to defeature articles without inline citations. Numerous FAs have been found to hold incorrect info, a common charge held by Wikipedia's detractors. Inline citations make sure an article has the correct information and is neutral, rather than the NPOV tripe in a lot of old FAs. LuciferMorgan 16:13, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

It makes no sense to de-feature older featured articles, made before inline was required, unless there is evidence that the article has incorrect information and "NPOV tripe." Do you have any idea what the quality of these articles are? Even if it was in-lined, would you recognize if the sources are good sources? Your basically second-guessing the many eyes that have looked at it already who know about the subject - both during the FA process, and anon users who have read it and not left disparaging messages on the talk page. There is a level of good faith. -- Stbalbach 17:04, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Feel free to raise this issue you have at the FAR talk page. It's irrelevant what editors know what, this is an encyclopaedia and will be read by people unfamiliar with the subject. I'm moving this talk to the FAR talk page... LuciferMorgan 17:09, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Stbalbach has also raised the question at the talk page of WP:WIAFA, where Raul will likely set him straight. Since I've already answered three times, I won't try again :-) It would be helpful if all the FARs weren't hit with the same, old, outdated commentary, as all current FAs do need to be cited. Sandy (Talk) 17:15, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

As expected, Raul provided a speedy answer at WIAFA. Sandy (Talk) 17:33, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you totally Sandy. If all FAs weren't measured to the same criteria then the star would be meaningless. Also, Stbalbach seems unopen to discussion, and indeed we all at FAR know the quality of these articles as we're constantly reviewing FAs so have honed these specific skills. I wish he would familiarise himself with 'What is a featured article?'. LuciferMorgan 17:21, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

You mean, we're not just winging it and "whistlin' Dixie" over here at FAR? :-)) Noting that the commentary Stbalback cites is a five-month old statement from Tony, who is active here ;-) On the other hand ... I'll take this opportunity to point out that the list of articles with citation problems reveals numerous FAs that were promoted during the brilliant prose phase, or for whom no editor or original author was/is responsible, some of those articles have seen significant deterioration, and it might be a good time to focus on some of those :-)) Sandy (Talk) 17:26, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, this has been discussed many, many times before. The answer we slowly came to was that yes, we hold the articles up to the same standard. Raul654 17:32, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Hopefully sense will now prevail. LuciferMorgan 17:39, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Sandy, Raul654 did not "set me straight" (last I checked, I'm already straight) - I see a few general commentaries in a few threads by a small group that is not specifically about older articles. As I just replied to Raul in the other thread, there are some serious downsides and implications of this ridged standard being applied to older articles. As well, there are others who think the way I do - look at the commentaries in some of the articles - you guys have set a de facto standard without documenting anywhere how to handle older FA's - this is obviously a contentious issue. -- Stbalbach 18:00, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

We should certainly hold old FAs to modern standards, those - including inlince citations - should be clearly described at the FAR/FARC page, and FAC. Adding inline cits is not easy - I spend hours doing this to one of my old FAs (Max Weber), but it has to be done - and I say this as a person who will have to add inline cits to 10 or so of his own FAs... :> --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 18:09, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

How to handle older FA's is obvious, and we've been telling you how to do so until we are blue in the face (only you ain't listening)

Bring older FA's up to modern FA standards.
How to handle older FA's is documented at What is a featured article.
Also the only people whining are those losing their precious FAs.
On a final note, there's no downsides to defeaturing articles. In fact, you've failed to establish an argument and haven't listened to anyone telling you - that's the reason people have become tired of replying to your rehashed tirades. FA standards constantly evolve, thus bringing the star into a higher status - are you actually going to use those things called eardrums this time? LuciferMorgan 18:32, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Dear LuciferMorgan. First of all, please respect WP:CIV and WP:NPA, if you don't, you may get blocked for violation of WP policies. Second, your complains about me not listening or whining and you 'telling [me] how to do so until we are blue in the face' are not only offensive, but completly wrong, as the post above was my first post on this page in at least a few months. Third, as I support inline citations and defeaturing articles that don't meet modern criteria your attack against me is directly at the wrong person. So please, cool down, drink some WP:TEA, consider whether to WP:REFACTOR your post or simply apologize, and rethink what and to whom you are saying. PS. In case your post was not addressed to me, please be more careful to whom you reply, and my comment 1) about civility still applies.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 19:36, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think Lucifer was responding to you, Piotrus. Sandy (Talk) 19:40, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I was replying to Stbalbach, and in fact I agreed with the comments you made about cites (all the comments). In fact, you make sound comments at FAR. Having said that, I refuse to apologise to Stbalbach under any circumstances because I keep saying the same thing over and over, yet he doesn't get the message. LuciferMorgan 21:28, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

When and where this decision was reached? (it had to have been sometime in the past 5 months, because 5 months ago people were saying FA's were exempt from in-line). No one has been able to come up with anything solid - it appears to be de facto - it's not documented anywhere (or show me where - specifically). I am not the only one concerned about this, as evidenced by the FARC page discussions. -- Stbalbach 01:12, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

This position has evolved over about 18 months to 2 years, ever since the wording about inline citations being added "where appropriate" was added to the featured article criteria at WP:WIAFA. I do not remember a "decision" being taken to change approach to FA demotions, just the consensus moving on. You will need to read the archives at WP:FAC, WP:WIAFA, WP:FARC and WP:FAR.

As I remember it, to begin with, it was obvious that old FAs would not meet new criteria added to WP:WIAFA without extra work being done, and there was initially a strong consensus against demoting old articles for that reason only, mainly because it would mean demoting about half or 2/3 (IIRC) of our featured articles. Over time, much work has been done to bring many older articles up to the current standard, and others have been demoted for other reasons, and absence of appropriate inline citations has become an acceptable reason for demoting a FA. Sorry, but that is just the way it is now. I regret losing our older FA (most of User:Lord Emsworth's will be for the chop eventually, for instance, as no-one seems interested in maintaining them in his absence) but, for my part, I think enough time has passed for us to apply the revised criteria consistently. -- ALoan (Talk) 10:56, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Minor point:18 months to 2 years? Are you sure? I thought they became a requirement relativly recently - less than 12 months ago...--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk} 14:03, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Just a note, ALoan, not to overlook Yomangani when you say "no-one seems interested": he's done a lot of work on a lot of abandoned and neglected FAs, including Emsworth's. Sandy (Talk) 14:35, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Oh, please don't take my comments as any sort of criticism of the good work that is done by many peopleto improve struggling featured articles (I have done some myself) but it seems to me that many of Emsworth's articles are risk of fading with the light.

Anyway, I have had a poke in the archives, and the main changes to the referencing criteria were made about here, in January 2005, but it is worth checking a few revisions either way to see how things moved on from the end of August 2004 (no criterion demanding references), to User:Maveric149 adding "Include references when and where appropriate either by extensive use of inline references or by using a ==References== section" in September 2004, then "when and where appropriate" was deleted by User:Taxman in January 2005, before a compromise settled on "enhanced by the appropriate use of inline citations" in February 2006. There are large chunks of debate in:

Wikipedia talk:What is a featured article?/Archive 1 (from the end of 2004/beginning of 2005)
Wikipedia talk:What is a featured article?/Archive 3 (particularly this thread from May 2005, which I start off by saying that we will end up requiring "any featured articles to look like an academic treatise, not an encyclopedia article")
Wikipedia talk:Featured article removal candidates/archive1 (particularly this thread from late 2004)

so 2 years to 18 months is not far off. At that time, the main question was setting proper criteria for new FAs, with it being accepted that it was not then possible to require old FAs to meet those criteria (User:Taxman found 191 out of 455 articles had referencing problems - and that was not just finnicky details like inline citations, but an adequate basic references section - some had none at all). Over time, as the number of "badly referenced" featured article decreased, the resistance to application of the revised criteria to articles promoted under the old criteria was eroded. Similar points came up when "inline citations" became the demand. As I said, I think we are now well past the point where absence of adequate inline citations is grounds for demoting an article from its featured status. -- ALoan (Talk) 15:27, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Right. So now we have a large percentage of older FA's that are coming down the pipeline with no citations - but which otherwise (may/are) good articles, but whose original authors are no longer around. Has anyone looked at how widespread this problem is? I think it's bigger than anyone suspects, and we'll end up having a large net reduction in FA's. What bothers me most is that, having no in-line citations and a References section is considered good practice by many serious academic publications. It is only the most stringent and serious expert-level works that require inline - I am unware of any Encyclopedia in print that requires in-line citations for its articles. That is not to say going forward it can't be required, why not, but de-commissioning older works on those grounds alone is IMO destructive and a step backwards with no good rationale (the circular argument that the rationale is because the rules say its so is pretty silly - we make the rules). If the in-line requirement happened sometime in the past 5 months (which I suspect is true) than these articles need more time to develop and be upgraded - time on the scale that it takes editors to come and go to Wikipedia - a year or two. Not these 1-month shots out of the blue, in particular when everyone knows the author is not around. It's downright sadistic. -- Stbalbach 15:08, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Has anyone looked at how widespread this problem is? Yes, Stbalback, that's what we do here; we look at it all the time. Currently we are at just under 40% of FAs are not well cited. Quite often, we find that when an article is not well cited, and abandoned or neglected by its original author (or promoted without an original author, under "brilliant prose"), the problems are much greater than just the lack of citations. When the only or main problem is a lack of citations, some editors active here are willing to take on the article and cite it. At any rate, it is to be expected that abandoned articles that are not being watched over by anyone would not likely represent Wiki's best work. No other "encyclopedia in print" can be edited by anyone, so that comparison isn't valid. Wikipedia's reputation depends on adequate sourcing. These are not "1-month shots out of the blue": it has been known for a VERY long time that older FAs need to be brought to standard, so the notion that they only had a month to comply isn't accurate. If you are involved in any WikiProjects, we encourage you to review and maintain your FAs. Also, please remember this is not just a FA issue: all articles on Wikipedia should conform to WP:V, and FAs should exemplify our best work. Sandy (Talk) 15:30, 29 October 2006 (UTC) PS And no, we have NOT had a large reduction in FAs -we have had a large improvement in FAs: have you actually read this talk page? The stats are given a few lines up. Sandy (Talk) 15:33, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

This is helpful info. Let me say, the insular attitude is not helpful ("that's what we do here") - This should be documented so when the issues come up so "we" are all on the same page. Do you have any suggestions on how to document the handling and policy of older FA's? it has been known for a VERY long time that older FAs need to be brought to standard - known by whom? I don't see anything documented (discussions on talk pages is not documentation). No one even knows when it came about - 2 years ago? 12 months ago? 5 months ago? I'd like to see you (or someone) try to document the policy on older FA's - in the process you would have to answer some tough questions that are not at all clear and are being brought up as we speak across various individual FARC nominations. -- Stbalbach 16:43, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Those questions could be best addressed by someone who has been involved longer than I have: I got involved at FAR about the same time the new system (specifically architected to allow more time for these articles to comply) was put in place. An alternate way to look at your question would be, why would we exempt our best work from policies and guidelines which are in place Wiki-wide? And why should we defend abandoned articles, which are likely subject to deterioration over time with no one watching them? I'm sorry for the "insular attitude" - you added comments to about four or five (?) different pages, which take a lot of time to address. Keeping the discussion in one place will be helpful to all. There is a lot of good work being done here by some helpful and committed editors, who sometimes receive little recognition of how hard it is to retro-reference someone else's work, and the goal is to salvage anything worth saving. Sandy (Talk) 16:55, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't know where to address it, but people need to know about it. I am speaking as someone who is normally not involved with FAR but who is concerned about the end-results. In particular I belong to the Middle Ages project and we keep a list of articles that have been featured over the years - many of which don't have footnotes, but I know for a fact are of high quality. Is someone going to go back and fix those? My experience has been that people come into and out of Wikipedia when they have time in their lives and it's taken years to build up those articles from many different people. They are not "abandoned" (I think that is an inappropriate term as its suggests otherwise they are "occupied" which doesn't make sense in a community project, there are different levels of watching the article) but the people who wrote them might not be around in October of 2006 to spend the 10 hours of focused time to fix it (but, they might in Easter of 2007 ect..). This is what I mean, there needs to be a better process and procedure for dealing with this then what is currently being done. -- Stbalbach 19:04, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

We have discussed in the past whether it would be helpful to notify each Project of the articles which we know may be lacking citations, but doing that might generate a whole 'nother kind of panic, as if there were plans to immediately defeature them all, or something. The idea has been to proceed slowly enough to allow for articles to be brought to standard. If the Middles Ages wants to review the list, it is linked at the top of this page, and can be found here. Any work you can do on those articles in the coming months would be helpful. Sandy (Talk) 19:10, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

(after conflict) Speaking as someone who is regularly involved in FAR, we are wasting breath here. Everyone who has posted to Stb is concerned about the end-results as well, and has engaged articles trying to keep status. WP:WIAFA says what it says; we don't need a post-script—1c does not apply to articles prior to March, 2005.

Faulting this process for an absence of original nominators is totally faulty: people go out of their way to make contact with relevant users and projects. A month (it goes longer if there is work going-on) is as lengthy as any content improvement process on the Wiki. "Hold off, he might be back in Easter of 2007" is not something we can reasonably act on. We are doing what we can and have done well to this point, AFAICS. Marskell 19:25, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Sandy, thanks for the list. Is there any reason a schedule can not be created and a date provided on when those article will come up for review, and the authors notified ahead of time? This would solve a lot of problems. It would give people time to prepare, and it would control the pipeline speed to give everyone a fair shot. Set a goal of 12 months (or 6 months or whatever) and split it evenly across the list. -- Stbalbach 19:36, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I've responded several times, but you're not hearing me. Well-intentioned, hard-working editors are retroactively citing these articles, as their time allows. No one is attempting to rapidly defeature a lot of excellent articles. The best way to assure the success of the process, and that these articles will keep their status, is to 1) get to work on them, and 2) not alienate editors who are hard at work on saving them. Setting deadlines won't work when volunteers here are generously giving of their time. I hope you understand, Regards, Sandy (Talk) 19:59, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

That would call for a bot, wouldn't it? It's a fine idea in theory, but how do ensure an engaged nominator on October 29, 2007? And does stretching it out actually aid content improvement? "Time to prepare"—six months or a year? Finally, it would require telling people "you are not allowed to nominate this article". This will not sit well. Marskell 19:47, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Why would it call for a bot? Sounds to me like there are some helpful people working together on FAR on a regular basis. As for giving people advanced notice and time to prepare, yes, that would be a lot better. Also there is no reason to stop people from nominating, but it could be suggested they wait if the only concern is in-line citations. -- Stbalbach 19:54, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Stbalbach, I've responsed to your statement here; there is really no need to alarm people, and there is no "drive" to "remove status". Sandy (Talk) 19:55, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Maybe not by you, but I am alarmed that some other users seem to be targeting old FA's. You have no control over that because you have no documented position statement or procedure on how to deal with older FA's, except not to treat them any differently. -- Stbalbach 20:16, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Stbalbach, just a suggestion (which of course, you're free to ignore) ... these articles will be in review for a month, there is no emergency, and no urgency, and time dedicated to this discussion is time taken away from the very people who work to restore the articles. How about slowing down a bit, seeing how things here work, becoming more familiar with how many people are tying to restore articles, understanding a bit more about WP:FAC, and holding off on the alarm a bit? A month is a very long time in Wiki-land. Sandy (Talk) 20:20, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Random line break to save from scrolling way back up

We don't need to spend weeks discussing a convoluted procedure for something that can be dealt with by a couple of people having a rational discussion when the problem arises. I asked people to slow down nominating Emsworth's articles and I haven't seen anybody jumping up and down and refusing to consider it because we don't have a policy.

Taking a wider view of the whole process: if nobody has done any work on a featured article to bring it in line with current standards and if that article is listed when the original contributor isn't around and if nobody else works on it during the month of review then at worst an article gets delisted until somebody can work on it. Then if inline citations are all that are missing it should be the work of a couple of days to re-cite it, renominate at FAC, sail through and have everything rosy again. Can't see the problem. Yomangani ^talk 20:27, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Which (pointing out for stb's benefit) Yomangani has already done on articles no one got to during FAR (see Platypus :-) Sandy (Talk) 20:31, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, indeed Yomangani is a valuable Wiki member. Once the Beatles articles have all been FAR'd, I'm considering coming down on the Miltiary History Wikiproject with a hatched - take a look at the WW1 article, and not one inline cite (this is appalling). LuciferMorgan 20:59, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Position statement on old FAs and in-line problem

Currently there is no position statement or guidelines regarding older FA's with the in-line citation problem. This causes a problem with editors unfamilar with FAR and how FAR operates to try and figure out whats going on from old talk page threads. I would like to suggest that at a minimum a position statement be created visable from the main WP:FAR page.

Currently WP:FAR reads:

Older FAs are held to the current standards. Articles that were recently promoted should not be listed here (three months is typically regarded as the minimum interval between promotion and listing here, unless there are extenuating circumstances).

Proposal: straw poll

Here is a revised proposal. This is being RfC'd.

The additional proposed text is in italics.

Older FA's are held to the current standards. A significant change since 2005 is the requirement for inline citations, for a screening list and further information see Wikipedia:Featured articles with citation problems. Articles that were recently promoted should not be listed here (three months is typically regarded as the minimum interval between promotion and listing here, unless there are extenuating circumstances).

Support or Object

Support. A clarification of the single largest issue facing older Featured Articles is a help, as is mentioning the approximate date this went into effect, as is a link to the Wikipedia:Featured articles with citation problems which contains additional information for those who want to learn more (otherwise this page is not linked to anywhere from WP:FAR, in fact it's not linked to from anywhere accept other talk pages.) -- Stbalbach 01:35, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Support or Similar, Wikipedia:Featured articles with citation problems and any other wikiprojects in the same line should be explicitly mentioned on the page as being complimentary projects. As of the last count on that project, 454 'Featured Articles' have no In-line citations. Once the articles flagged have all been addressed, then a reference to the project can be removed. I generally support linking to projects intended to bring formerly FAC compliant articles up to the current standard. It seems to me that one of these projects should have been created every time that a change to WP:FAC was made. This may well have reduced the problem of the large amount of 'Featured Articles' that would not even pass the 'Good Article' requirements today. I also explicitly do not believe this is instruction creep, review of articles lacking in-line references does need to occur, and obscuring essential activity by omission is not a reduction of "instruction creep". It will lead to duplication of effort, and actually increase bureaucracy by making things more disjointed and complicated. --Barberio 10:53, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Disclaimer: This is a straw poll to help gage and organize consensus and does not determine the outcome.

Resources and results

How many editors are involved in improving articles on FAR/FARC? There are current 40 articles nominated (including four of Lord Emsworth's). This is way more that were ever on FARC at any one time. Yes, the process has been extended, and, yes, I am sure most of them need improvement, but nominating them all at once is no way to achieve it, and any editor would struggle to deal with four at once. With over 1,000 FAs, I am sure there are lots that could do with improvement, but there are just not enough hours in the day for FAR to look at all of them at once.

A related question: how many articles are demoted after passing through FAR, and how many are "saved"? I get the impression that the majority of articles start at the top and gradually work their way down and out to demotion with little being done.

I also see that one editor has been nominating articles at FAR at a pace of one every three or four days (31, 28, 24, 20, 9, 8 October). While I admire the zeal in holding old FAs up to the new standards, this is no way to achieve improvements. It would be nice to see some of that zeal redirected into improving the articles, rather than just taking pot shots at them. -- ALoan (Talk) 10:48, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

There are some stats back up the page. Yomangani ^talk 12:11, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you - I had not spotted that. Those figures go up to August. There seems to have been another upswing in nominations, judging by the number of articles currently nominated. I see, for example, that 19 articles because Wikipedia:Former featured articles in October (asuming no more are demoted today). I still think there is a risk of overloading our thin resources. -- ALoan (Talk) 14:44, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

We have more people nominating and participating in reviews now (maybe as a result of months of notifications) - the upswing is to be expected, given the notifications, and with more people involved, the process is working. Sandy (Talk) 14:47, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm quite happy that two-thirds are demoted. In my view, there are too many FAs: too many FACs are promoted despite substandard prose, too many FAs are degraded after promotion, and too many FAR/C nominations fail to attract sufficient interest to result in sufficient improvement. The inline citations issue, to me, provides a good opportunity to audit FAs for compliance with all of the criteria. If that leads to a high rate of demotions, so be it. Nothing wrong with a bit of "churning"—it's healthier as a dynamic system that provides motivation for ongoing improvements and modifications.

I sense that some WPians, perhaps including the director (although I'm not sure about that), feel that increasing the number of FAs is desirable, since it can be equated with a general improvement in standards across WP. I don't agree. To me, improving the standards of FAs and making them harder to achieve in the first place is the optimal use of this two-tiered system that has developed.

So, me, I'd be trigger-happy with the demote button. Maybe that's why I don't touch it. But, you know, we reviewers try to drum up support, do our best, with thinly spread resources. That absolves me of any remorse. Tony 13:54, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Too many FAs? How many would be the right number?

Your standards for prose are clear and I respect them, Tony, but I hope you would accept that others may have different standards, which may be none the less stringent, just not the same as yours. Yes, there is always room for improvement, but we should not expect encyclopedia articles to read as if written by a Shakespeare, or a Hardy, or a Wilde (and I suspect that you would object to the prose style even if they were).

As for degradation of FAs after promotion: the edit history is there; it is always possible to revert to an earlier version (it happens to the Main Page featured article all the time). And adding more and more articles to FAR will not generate "sufficient interest to result in sufficient improvement" - quite the reverse. For an example, just look how poor WP:PR has become, with many of its hundred+ articles receiving hardly a comment.

The constant gradual increase in FA standards seem a bit pointless to me. FAs are not "perfect" - no article is, and there is no point in aspiring to make FAs into pinnacles of near-perfection when another 1 million articles wallow in the quagmire. Shouldn't we aspire to making all of our articles of FA-standard? Shouldn't we set standards that are "good enough", and be happy when as many articles as possible meet those standard? -- ALoan (Talk) 14:44, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, the PR system has been a problem for some time, and I'm not sure that it will ever work well. Many of the projects are moribund or defunct, as well. These are difficult, but different issues, from the encouragement of high standards of writing for FAs. I don't expect perfection, but I go along with the requirement for a "professional" standard of writing. Am I being too sensitive about WP's authority on the Internet, and what I suspect is the powerful influence of the quality of its prose on that authority (in addition, of course, to its factual accuracy)? I don't think so. I'm surprised that you're taking this stance, since your own FAs are among our best written. Tony 15:16, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

it is always possible to revert to an earlier version - Much easier said than done. Often, the older version isn't up to snuff either, and making it current can involve more work than rewriting what's there. Also, involved editors who have added new content might resist the revert. We have looked at the possibility of reverting quite a few deteriorated articles here, and I can't recall that we've found yet a candidate article where that would actually solve the problems. What's the right number? Look at a few of the FARs at the top of the list (Propaganda comes to mind): some of them shouldn't even be GAs, and shouldn't be held up as our best work. Sandy (Talk) 14:53, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Tony, I strongly disagree with you. Setting the standard higher and higher just to flatter (or not) someone's ego is counterproductive.

The main problem (with older FAs mainly) is the insufficient number of inline citations. Notice that I said "the insufficient number", as in non-controversial articles (some maths stuff comes to mind), there is absolutely no need to reference every fact with an inline citations. This run for inline bothers me, not by its intention, which is kinda good, but by the way it is realized.

More generally, since someone finally decided to talk about the stuff, I'm under the impression that some people are indeed trigger happy, with a behaviour that reminds me of a schoolboy that loves to smash up things other people build, with (of course) no remorse but most important, with no rational reason behind it.

"Substandard prose"? Come on, the world does not revolve around the USA (or the UK for that matter). A lot of people here speak English as a foreign language and would simply be unable to notice the so-called "polishing" of the prose. So, doing things only 1% of the readers will be able to notice and appreciate in an adequate way is kinda stupid, because there are numerous other articles to attend to. A reasonable level, more or less free of mistakes, is just sufficient. Your hunt for redundancies is completely unreasonable (yes, I prefer to write "in order to" rather than "to", because it was written like that before).

And I absolutely agree with Raul: more FAs are needed, once a reasonable set of standards is reached. I believe it is more or less the case now, and there is no need to gun down older articles, except for serious referencing and/or NPOV problems. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 15:02, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I disagree with most of what you write, in particular your assumption that improving the standard of writing will benefit "1% of the readers", and that it represents some kind of native-speaker elitist agenda. Sorry, you've got it completely wrong. My stand is against mediocrity, and I see far too much of it in the prose of FAs. And please don't presume to waste our readers' time with your apparent support of flabby, redundant writing in WP text. Tony 15:07, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I would be suprised if you would agree, actually, so no problem there heh...

However, you seem to forget that the main problem of WP is not much the prose, but rather the (lack of) accuracy of the facts. In this respect, an FA label is some kind of assurance that the information displayed in the article is not completely false (plus-or-minus some temporary vandalism, but most FAs are on someone's watchlist). WP is not a spelling bee. In accounting you have the "substance over form" principle, well in WP, you should have more or less the same thing - an FA should first and foremost be accurate. Between an FA stuffed with POV but having a brilliant prose and another accurate but with a bit less brilliant prose, the choice is pretty much clear.

If you read a lot of scientific publications (especially written by non-native speakers), the English might not always be top-notch, but is sufficient to communicate the idea and allow an exchange on the subject. Same goes for business stuff. Same should go for WP. -- Grafikm ^(AutoGRAF) 15:21, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

most FAs are on someone's watchlist - Not often true (or, not true often enough). For example, no one seems to be watching Emsworth's article (except the Judge), and no one seems to be watching a lot of the "Brilliant prose" promotions. Sandy (Talk) 15:25, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

By the way, when an FA is being watched over by an active editor, my choice is to first list on the article talk page the WP:WIAFA items that are no longer in compliance, give the editor time to deal with them, and only bring them to FAR if issues aren't addressed. (Yes, I too have a list of those, which I will get to as I have time, and don't see any problem with Judge keeping a list.) I wouldn't list at FAR an article being watched over by an active editor. I FAR abandoned articles in the hope someone else will help take them on: in that sense, I support FAR of Emsworth's article, and encourage the Projects to begin to watch over their FAs. Sandy (Talk) 16:04, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I may be unpopular here, but I also think that many FACs are getting promoted. And it is not only the prose issues. Citating issues and a definition of "consensus" are still open. At least this is my impression. I know this is not the right place for this discussion, but seeing Tony's intervention I felt the need to comment!--Yannismarou 18:43, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

A quick note to ALoan: the stats above are roughly to the end of September, not August (they are archived based on nomination, not closure, date). The overall keep percentage is still around 30% and has not declined with the new process. This month will come in around 28%. Marskell 18:50, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Fine, grumble over. I will get back in my box. -- ALoan (Talk) 19:28, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

No, no. Keep out of your box and looking at the page! Marskell 19:30, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

FAR or Dispute resolution ?

I didn't do the notifications on Wikipedia:Featured article review/1996 United States campaign finance controversy, pending input from others as to whether this is a situation for FAR, or would be better placed as a Request for Comment or some part of dispute resolution - talk message left for Joelr31. Sandy (Talk) 14:53, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

(copied from FAR page) I have been asked to weigh in on this review and the situation it presents. I agree with Jayzel that FAR can be used when an editor feels that the article does not adhere to NPOV or is subject to OR.

It is my opinion, however, that Jayzel is using the FAR process to assert control and ownership over the content of the article. Primarily, that his views/opinions are backed by community consensus. I may be wrong but this is the impression that I am getting especially since one of the arguments is that the article passed through FAC and was approved by community consensus.

FAR is not a substitute for dispute resolution. Nominators are expected to specify the FA criteria that they believe is lacking from the article. Stating that another user feels that the article is NPOV is an inacceptable reason for submitting a FAR. Finally, editors are expected to solve disputes through consensus and conversation.

I believe that Jayzel is acting on good intentions on wishes for the article to be NPOV. I therefore encourage him to use dispute resolution in this particular case. Joelito (talk) 21:28, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Unless anyone disagrees, I move that we remove this FAR nom, per the above. Sandy (Talk) 23:02, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Lakitu

May I ask why Lakitu was removed? Not a single person asked for it to be removed; there were just a bunch of comments. I addressed many of these, and I'd asked for clarifications on others, mostly with no further information from the original commentator. I was currently in the process of copy editing per Tony's comment, and would have posted the completed draft sometime today if not for the premature demotion. Inline citations are there (in the form of "In this game, this happens"), and the alleged OR doesn't seem like OR to me. If the demotion stays in effect, there should be some Pokémon articles brought to this page very soon. — BrianSmithson 22:34, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I was expecting this. Here are my reasons for removing.

FAR is not a vote. Unaddressed comments or concerns are just as valid as remove "votes". This is the most important reason.
No work was done in the last 6 days.
Zero in-line citations.
Comprehensiveness. No Concept and creation section.
Inclusion of secondary sources. Joelito (talk) 23:05, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I endorse Removal: after Tony's comment that it was in capable hands, I kept waiting for improvements and for an indication that work was finished, which never came, nor was there a note to hang on or that work would be done. Sandy (Talk) 00:07, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm a busy person, and my main focus at the moment is on getting other articles up to FA status. That doesn't mean I had abandoned Lakitu; like I said, I was prepared to post a copy-edited version sometime today. -- 210.239.12.96 03:05, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

You can re-make it an FA if you work on it, but it has to re-pass WP:FAC again though, the main problem was the in-line citations. 00:19, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Again, inline citations are there. They are in the lines of text themselves. Many people seem to confuse "inline citation" with "footnote", but they are not synonymous. As for there being no concept and creation section, this does not jive with FAC's notion that the article must simply use the best sources available. This one does. I could add secondary sources using fansites and GameFAQs walkthroughs and the like (like the Pokemon FAs do), but is this really an improvement?

In all honesty, I'm just playing devil's advocate here. I would vote against this article on FAC due to lack of reliable secondary sources. But every time I vote on that basis on FAC, I'm ignored. FAC and FAR need to get on the same page about this issue. (But I do whole-heartedly disgree that the article needs footnotes; it has citations in the prose itself.) -- 210.239.12.96 03:05, 21 November 2006 (UTC) (User:BrianSmithson; forgot to login)

I'd like to know why the above person keeps saying inline cites are there? They clearly are not. LuciferMorgan 02:19, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Please call me by name, if you don't mind. My point is that if you say "In Super Mario Bros. (1985), Mario can shoot fireballs," you don't need to add a little footnote that says <ref>''Super Mario Bros.'', 1985.</ref> The citation is part of the prose. — BrianSmithson 04:19, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

FAR Removal

Is the featured article director allowed to remove an FAR listing when the FA listed is his own? He's suggested doing this to Operation Downfall if you check the FAR, which I 110% disagree with. Surely this isn't allowed? LuciferMorgan 16:15, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Not on my watch, since the review appears to make some valid points which have been supported by other editors. :-) Joelito (talk) 16:23, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Regardless of the merits of the FAR, it wouldn't serve anyone's best interests for Raul to remove it, as that would not set a good precedent for future FARs: if he removes his, other editors might start removing theirs, too. Sandy (Talk) 21:43, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

IMV, he shouldn't be removing any without first raising the issue here. Tony 22:45, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

To be clear - in that particular case, it's pretty evident the nominator made - at best - only the most cursory examination of the article. It's rather difficult to miss over 20 inline citations. Raul654 23:48, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

It is pretty good, but, with respect, I think there are some issues that should be discussed. -- ALoan (Talk) 14:29, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Raul654 would be correct in saying that the FAR nominator made a cursory examination, but still the FAR reviewers have made a thorough examination of the article and highlighted criteria concerns. LuciferMorgan 11:49, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Featured list instructions

I just moved a featured list review to WP:FLRC - the nominator suggests that we add a line to the instructions here reminding nominators that lists belong elsewhere. (I wonder who reviews at Featured Lists - there was nothing else there.) Sandy (Talk) 23:36, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

The FL regulars watch it, I think. Very few FLs get nominated at FLRC, and even fewer demoted. -- ALoan (Talk) 14:35, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, ALoan - the original nominator said, "Oops I didn't realize list had a different process. Maybe something can be added to the header of the page." I was wondering of others think it necessary to add a sentence to our instructions: this is the first time I've encountered a list listed here, so I was thinking not. Sandy (Talk) 15:39, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I think not too. There is a clear link at the top of WP:FL and WP:FLC. -- ALoan (Talk) 16:07, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

FARC section must be advertised

I've noticed a new trend of combining FARCs with FARs. I don't think this is a good idea -- but I also think there's an issue with a FARC discussion being started without being separately announced on the article page. (See Talk:Super Mario 64 for the specific example that I'm referring to.) It seems to me that we have things like {{farc}} for a reason, and they must be used for a FARC to be valid. I would question many of the recent removals. Andre (talk) 20:02, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Andrevan, please refrain from reverting Joelr31's updates to all of the FA pages until you have reviewed the decision. The FAR was posted on the Super Mario 64 talk page for over a month. Thanks, Sandy (Talk) 20:27, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

{{farc}} is not used at all any more - it has been replaced by {{FAR}}. It was on only one article talk page, Talk:Virtuti Militari (see Wikipedia:Featured article removal candidates/Virtuti Militari, which seems to be a comment triggered by it appearing on the Main Page). Perhaps we should just turn it into a redirect to {{FAR}}. -- ALoan (Talk) 21:24, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Move to FARC?

~~Greek Mythology,~~ James Joyce and Operation Downfall need reviewer input as to whether they can avoid FARC. I don't want to add them to the urgent template, as that is articles in FARC. Sandy (Talk) 14:29, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Question about instructions

~~Jguk~~ Dweller (talk · contribs) raised a question about the FAR instruction on Wikipedia:Featured article review/Bodyline. He points out that the instructions about FARs removing to FARC, and when to vote, are not mentioned on an individual FAR, although they are at the top of the WP:FAR page. He suggests the instructions should be included on each individual (article) FAR. I note that WP:FAR is set up the same as WP:FAC, with the overall instructions on the overall FAC page, not on each FAC; not sure if we need to make a change. Sandy (Talk) 14:36, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmm...Better not to bloat every FAR with instructions. Joelito (talk) 21:15, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I also noticed that the instructions are on the FAR template, which is placed at the top of each article talk page. Sandy (Talk) 21:17, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

The instructions at the top of the FAR page are totally fine to me. I could understand them perfectly. LuciferMorgan 01:24, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

The issue is that not everyone sees those instructions: some come to the individual article FAR page directly via the link on the article talk page, and may never see the overall page or the instructions at the top of the page. That's why I mentioned that the FAR template on the article talk page also has the info. Sandy (Talk) 01:26, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, so wouldn't it be very easy to add a link to the instructins on the template? Tony 13:35, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, it already has one (although it isn't obvious it is to the instructions). What about adding a single line to the FAR and FARC headings along the lines of "Please comment on the standard of the article. See instructions at the top of this page." (FAC) and "Please comment on whether you believe the article should keep or lose its FA status, or if you are working on it please comment on the progress." (FARC). We could put it in a template if the wording can be agreed, so it wouldn't be any more work for either the nominators or the admins, and it wouldn't bloat out the FAR/Cs to any great extent. Yomangani ^talk 14:14, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I think (?) there are basically three routes to the article FAR page: via WP:FAR, via the FAR template on the article talk page, and via the notifications we post to user talk pages and projects. If we add something to the actual FAR template, that covers people who come via the article talk page, but not those who come via the notifications. If we change the FAR template, I could add a similar line to the notifications (or change the notifications to go to the overall WP:FAR page, rather than direct to the article FAR page). I do think we should do something, rather than assume everyone sees the instructions, but I'm not in favor of adding something to each individual FAR, as moving them down and closing them is already a labor-intensive process. If we add a line to the template and a line to the notification (or have the notification link to the overall page), no extra work is created. Sandy (Talk) 15:15, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

It was User:Dweller, not User:Jguk. It is interesting that the regulars at FAR are entirely happy with the process, whereas a first-time user is not.

Given the amount of work that has been going on at Bodyline over the past few weeks - even continuing in the few days before closure - I think the closure was precipitate. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:27, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

And today, incidentally - see the recent edits by User:Dmmaus at Bodyline (he was one of its original authors, but did not know it was being reviewed, it would seem). Is there any reason why we should not just reinstate Bodyline on FARC and await developments? -- ALoan (Talk) 14:36, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I've had only a cursory look at the issue, but it does seem that there's a case for reinstatement to FARC. Tony 14:46, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm not weighing in one way or the other whether it should be reinstated, as it does appear to have been closed properly, so I defer to Joelr31. But, I did want to correct the info above: the FAR was noticed to the Cricket project on 31 October, Dmmaus acknowledged on 4 November, and his talk page was also noticed on 31 October. [1][2] Dmmaus did know about the review. That isn't to say the instructions might not need work. Sandy (Talk) 15:32, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, my mistake then - I was judging by his comment "I didn't realise this discussion was going on" yesterday in Wikipedia:Featured article review/Bodyline. It just seems a bit legalistic to me to insist that the article returns to FAC if it is OK the day after the FARC was closed (and, as I say, improvements were continuing to be made in the week before the FARC was closed). -- ALoan (Talk) 15:57, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Understood - no problem :-) I read it as he didn't realize the vote was going on, because of the issue about the instructions - just wanted to clarify. Not sure where there was a suggestion it go back to FAC, but I just checked the article and see that it is now cited. What a shame someone didn't ask for more time, and two weeks elapsed with no comment from editors on the FAR. I defer to Joel and others as to how to handle this one. Sandy (Talk) 16:15, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Comments on FAR

I am probably (possibly) just naive, but please see my comments at Wikipedia:Featured article review/Bodyline. This has been my first ever experience of FAR and have found it elitist, exclusive, impenetrable, exceedingly subjective (NPOV?) and lacking in process and transparency. I hope that's enough criticism to stir someone or someones into action. I guess that even if I've missed something because I'm still relatively wet behind the ears, if I've missed that much, something is seriously wrong. --Dweller 13:15, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

The relevant diffs are ([3]) and ([4]) --Dweller 13:21, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Do you think it would be useful to have a closing template (like xFDs)? I've noted several times that people continue to contribute to the review after it is closed because if you don't come from the main FAR page there is no way of telling the review is closed. It would be a little more work for the closers but I think it would be beneficial. Yomangani ^talk 13:29, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

That would, at least, successfully deal with one of the more minor issues! (sorry if that seems ungrateful/rude) --Dweller 13:31, 4 December 2006 (UTC

I've knocked up {{FAR top}} and {{FAR bottom}} if anybody wants to try them out (we can alias them to {{FT}} and {{FB}} if they are OK). I have to say that my first encounter with the FAR process didn't bring up any of the problems you mention - granted the FAR/FARC distinction and etiquette isn't immediately obvious, and would probably benefit from a little explanation, but I didn't find it any more difficult/elitist/impenetrable than FAC (don't know whether that is a defense of FAR or an attack on FAC though). Yomangani ^talk 13:55, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't able to locate those templates - not sure what I did wrong? I'm hoping we'll get opinions from Marskell and Joelr31 before implementing any changes. I've always thought we needed to add a line to the FAR to indicate when it was closed, but hope we can find a way to do it that isn't really labor intensive. On a related issue, I spent about an hour (maybe more? - check my contribs) yesterday closing (on article talk pages) all the failed FACs from almost a month, as that was not done when FACs were promoted, so it seems we aren't the only ones with issues resulting from how labor intensive these processes are. Sandy (Talk) 15:22, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Template:FAR top and Template:FAR bottom (don't get excited - they are only copies of the AfD templates with different wording). We could make "keep" and "remove" specific ones too that would remove the need to type the result or sign, and if we use these it would mean there is a standard piece of code at the top and bottom, so we can request a bot to archive them off and add the remove or keep notice to the talk page which should make things easier. Yomangani ^talk 16:24, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Ah, that is a good idea. I think the xFD-style closing template would be a good idea too for FAC. Sometimes I don't know whether a FAC has been closed if I didn't check Raul's edit in the article's Talk page. I would suggest also some 1-2 lines of explanation from the closer to state why an FA article is decided to be kept/removed or an FA is granted/denied in FAC. — Indon (reply) — 16:28, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

(another edit conflict) ah, so I did find them, just thought they were for AfD :-) Still concerned about how labor intensive these processes are — but you know more about BOTs than I do :-) Indon, don't want to add more instructions needed from closing reviewer, as that should be clear on review, and the process is already labor intensive. Sandy (Talk) 16:31, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

All right then, but the closing template has been a nice improvement so a reviewer knows that it has been closed. — Indon (reply) — 16:33, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Dreadful? Sorry but when an article is not listed on the FAR page and the talk page template clearly says it is a former feature article then I can't reach the same conclusion as you. I do not mind having the {{FAR top}} but I am lazy in adding it. Hope I remember it. Joelito (talk) 22:46, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Notification text

Here is the text I'm currently using:

[article name] is up for a featured article review. Detailed concerns may be found [direct link to article FAR|here]. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality.

Is this better?

[article name] is up for a [direct link to WP:FAR|featured article review.] Detailed concerns may be found [direct link to article FAR|here]. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved to Featured Article Removal Candidates, where editors may vote to Keep or Remove the featured status. Sandy (Talk) 16:42, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Maybe move the direct link to the last sentence. I know I'm always tempted to skip straight to the meat as soon as I get the chance, so having the instructions before the link to the detailed concerns might help. Yomangani ^talk 16:46, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

OK:

[article name] is up for a [direct link to WP:FAR|featured article review.] Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us address and maintain this article's featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved to Featured Article Removal Candidates for an additional two-week period, where editors may vote to Keep or Remove the featured status. Detailed concerns may be found [direct link to article FAR|here]. Sandy (Talk) 16:50, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Good; may I tweak the wording a little?

[article name] has been nominated for a [direct link to WP:FAR|featured article review.] Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" from featured status. The instructions for the FAR process are here. Reviewers' concerns are [direct link to article FAR|here]. Tony 00:38, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Tony - I'm worried about the specific mention of two-weeks, as that's not hard and fast. Sandy (Talk) 00:42, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Sandy, do you mean the first instance of "two weeks" too? I've removed the second. Tony 00:50, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Looks good now. Thanks so much, Sandy (Talk) 00:51, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Just wondering, is this a template somewhere? Gzkn 01:17, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I created a template for this at User:Gzkn/FARMessage. You can see it in action at User:Gzkn/Sandbox. It currently takes two parameters: the article name and the specific FAR subpage for the article. Gzkn 02:34, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, and feel free to edit the message! Gzkn 02:39, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

The only thing I'd add is "the article" before "from featured status" at the end. Just feel a little uncomfortable about the stubby grammar there. I wondered about my "onto" vs "into" the list. Guess "onto" is OK. Thanks. Tony 02:41, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Gzkn - Tony's the grammarian. How do I use it? Sandy (Talk) 02:52, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I've moved it to Template:FARMessage. To use it, just type

For example,

{{subst:FARMessage|Superman|Wikipedia:Featured article review/Superman}}

gives

Superman has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.

Gzkn 03:03, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Also, a quick question: should "nominated for a featured article review" link to WP:FAR or the actual article FAR subpage (Wikipedia:Featured article review/Superman)? Gzkn 03:06, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Great ! I like it just as you've got it. Sandy (Talk) 03:07, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I put "(Template:FARMessage may be useful)" in the instructions...I hope that's an OK spot for it... Gzkn 03:36, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I've simplified the template a little so in most cases it is only necessary to use:

Since the FAR subpage is nearly always Wikipedia:Featured article review/NAME OF ARTICLE it seemed a bit of a hassle to have to type that out. If the name of the subpage is different for any reason you can still add the second parameter but there is no need to add Wikipedia:Featured article review/ at the beginning. For example if the review for Superman was at Wikipedia:Featured article review/Superman2 you could use:

Revert if you don't like it, but I think it should be easier. Yomangani ^talk 11:44, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Oooh...I like! Thanks! Gzkn 11:59, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Goodbye

I'm not contributing to FAR at all no more because I've had enough of the FA director. I added cite tags as requested by wwoods, and also Raul said I couldn't be bothered to be specific.

Also, on my page he's threatened to block me for being disruptive when I added the requested tags. But I forgot didn't I? Oh yes I remember, it was him who nominated it for FA originally, and I'm just a humble editor with no power whatsoever.

This is clearly an abuse of power, and since I'm a mere editor and not an administrator or anything else it's very clearly Raul has the full intention of using his belligerent, pathetic attitude to block me by any means necessary - ie. I have no chance of getting my point across so won't even try to. Goodbye. LuciferMorgan 20:58, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

oh, my. Without even looking at whether the fact tags were called for, Raul should have asked an impartial admin to look into this. <sigh> We really need to try to respect and retain the integrity of the FA process. Sandy (Talk) 21:02, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

The full extent of his "contributions" in this case have been making vague, mostly false assertions (I can't say they were all false because he refused to be specific) about the article; and, when asked by Wwoods and myself to be more specific, adding {{fact}} tags to literally every uncited sentence of an article (as well as adding cite tags to some sentences which were already cited, but to which he simply wasn't paying carefully attention to in his zeal to disrupt the article).

Morever, this is not the first time LuciferMorgan's behavior has caused problems on FAR. He was previously reverted on this page for adding 20-or-so FAR nominations at once (in other words, he has previous experience disrupting Wikipedia to prove a point) and others have previously warned him about his gross incivility Raul654 21:20, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Very interesting Raul. The person who warned me about civility was told numerous times that former FAs are held to the current standards by many editors, and editors even stopped replying to the person because he kept asking the same thing. Also, I've never added 20 or so FAR nominations - where has this inaccuracy arisen from? LuciferMorgan 21:30, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Adding that many {{fact}} templates looked awfully like making a WP:POINT to me. See the discussion in the relevant FAR. -- ALoan (Talk) 21:44, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

You've clearly made your choice as to whom you feel is right, which I'm unbothered by - your objections as to inline cites were made clear when some of Lord Emsworth's FAs were FARed by JudgeSurreal. And twice for the record, Raul is a liar - I never made 20 FAR nominations at once, not that anybody feels compelled to say anything about this slander. LuciferMorgan 22:02, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I do not object to inline citation. Far from it. But I do think they should be only required "where appropriate". If someone wants to go to the trouble of adding a mass of footnote, well, good for them; but in my view it is certainly not "appropriate" to require every sentence, every clause, every fact in an article to have a footnote. (Compare, for example, Dürer's Rhinoceros, an article of which I am rather proud - it has a number of footnotes, but not for every fact or sentence.)

For what it is worth, I still think most of Emsworth's articles are fine (as indeed is Palladian architecture) - they say little that is controversial, and almost invariably provide suitable sources in a references section. They become even better if someone spends the time adding footnotes, although I would still question the utilty of adding specific page numbers when facts are common knowledge or generally accepted. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:16, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that I read Palladian architecture and don't know anything about the subject - so the info isn't common knowledge and/or generally accepted. Also, articles need inline cites for verifiability purposes, especially if making opinions. The utility of adding specific page numbers gives others the opportunity to look up the source themselves and read it for themselves should they wish to. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by LuciferMorgan (talk • contribs) 12:39, 6 December 2006 (UTC).

Look, just because you don't know anything about a subject does not mean that facts are not common knowledge or generally accepted. You might not know that Tallinn is the capital of Estonia: do you insist on a citation? Several people with architectural backgrounds have said that there is nothing controversial there that could not be gleaned from a textbook on the subject. Just pull out one of the references and look in the index. -- ALoan (Talk) 15:36, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

About the 20 noms - if memory serves, somebody did this several months ago (and, again IIRC, was reverted by either Peta or Sandy). I thought it was Lucifer, but I can't find it in the page history, so I apologize for that particular comment. However, the rest of my comment stands. Lucifer's edits have been a textbook case of disruptive editing, and his article commentary utterly useless. Raul654 22:15, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Can we all have a cappuccino, frappuccino, or glass of wine now ? For the record, I don't recall such an incident with Lucifer - there have been other instances where I've asked other editors to remove FARs when they nommed a lot of them at once (to the point of overwhelming certain projects, authors, or our ability to work on the articles), but I don't recall as many as 20, and I don't recall Lucifer ever doing that. At my age, I could be wrong, though :-) Sandy (Talk) 22:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, impartiality and conflict of interest are matters that Raul doesn't seem to be aware of. His reactions here look like overkill to me. Like all admins, he should be focusing on calming situations rather than inflaming them. If it came to a toss between Lucifer and Raul, sorry, I'd get rid of Raul. Tony 01:00, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

And perhaps that was a little intemperate of me. Now, I'd express the same thoughts more subtlely, and add that Lucifer should refrain from calling a fellow WPian "a liar". Tony 02:05, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I was accused of something I didn't do, so I stand by calling him "a liar" - Raul is a liar, and a slanderer who needs to check the facts before accusing me in future. He undermines the FAR process in general, and it's rather sickening. Ever since the article was nominated he has undermined the nomination, even considering using his "authority" to close the FAR himself on one occasion, and every time someone has highlighted flaws he just comes back with some answer, as opposed to actually improving the article. When he asks me what I feel needs citing, he threatens to block me. Frankly it's a pathetic joke, and how he was nominated FA director I'll never know - quicker he's ridden of the better.

As concerns what needs citing, specific numbers need citing and opinions, of which this article has a lot. All in all, I refuse to calm down when someone's using the fact I'm just a general editor to push me around with their extra powers of being able to block people etc. It's about time someone said straight that the FA director's Wikipedia attitude in general isn't funny, and rather detrimental. LuciferMorgan 12:34, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Your comments in this case, as in previous cases, has been grossly incivil. You have yet to make a single useful observation about the article, and has not edited it, except to troll by carpet bombing it with fact tags to cited and uncited sentences - sometimes 4 or 5 in a single sentence(!). Frankly, if this is the way you participate on Wikipedia in general, the sooner we can add you to wikipedia:Missing Wikipedians, the better. Raul654 22:09, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Looking at the FAR, Raul's authoritarian attitude doesn't seem particularly constructive, but your comments certainly didn't help calm the waters ("complaining like a baby", "feel free to whine afterwards"). I think Sandy has the right idea - have a glass of wine and forget about it for a while. I think a wider issue is whether it is acceptable to pepper an article with {{fact}} tags during a FAR - some people seem to find it useful, others look on it as akin to vandalism. Although it is lot easier than copying vast swathes of the article into the FAR and then adding "Please provide a citation" at the end, the practice is obviously ruffling feathers. Perhaps reviewers should seek permission from the editors involved in the FAR before adding large numbers of them. Yomangani ^talk 14:13, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Wow, it reminds me a few months back when physicists editors refused to have inline citations in the GA process and having a lengthy discussion when an editor put {{fact}} tags. Putting {{fact}} tags is not inappropriate and I believe Lucifer did it in a good faith. I agree with Yomangani and Sandy. Both parties should remain calm. — Indon (reply) — 14:21, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

As I said in Wikipedia:Featured article review/Operation Downfall, it is easier to respond specific criticism, and adding {{fact}} templates does help to identify specific points that are thought to need citations. But carpet-bombing an article, like this does not help. I find it difficult to believe that we are really asking for every single fact and clause in an article to have a footnote. -- ALoan (Talk) 15:36, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

As I said, wwoods requested for me to be specific. I'll agree my comments didn't help, but I was stating my opinion, however curt. LuciferMorgan 16:22, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

It pains me to see the talented WPians we are lucky to have as regulars here, arguing like this, and to realise that my own contribution above probably worsened the general tone. To keep this room running well, we all need to be calm and respect each other. Please ....? Tony 00:08, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I respect a lot of WPians, especially you Tony. Indeed, usually if you give an article a 1. a. thumbs up, then I don't feel someone needs to worry about that criteria. There's a few others too that hang around FAR a lot and some others such as at the Beatles Wikiproject etc., but I won't respect Raul at all. He doesn't deserve my respect, and frankly I'm surprised he's actually got the respect of others considering his belligerent attitude - he had no interest whatsoever in improving Downfall and couldn't care less, making numerous excuses. Long as he leaves me alone and stops using his admin powers to throw his weight around the FAR room like he's some hot shot, then I'm unbothered - if he steps out of line though, I'll be the first to complain via the proper channels, and I don't care if he threatens to block me with pseudo-accusations. LuciferMorgan 01:18, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

To be honest I'm fed up with the influx of new editors here, who seem to take things the wrong way. FAR is much different to when I first got involved, and I don't find the new editors very nice at all - I asked for clarification on the Moxilla Firefox FAR and get lambasted. Also, I'm rather sick of people redirecting me like chapter and verse to WP:CIVIL when these new editors aren't exactly wonderful (hypocrites in other words). I'm not gonna participate much anymore. LuciferMorgan 22:51, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Template:FA number

Per the consensus at Talk:Main Page#Number of FAs mentioned as well as total number of articles, please!, I have created {{FA number}} to allow an FA counter on the Main Page. Please update this template for one-stop updating when featured status is removed from articles. Thanks, Banyan Tree 21:39, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

BanyanTree, for those of us who work at WP:FAR, can you please explain further? What do we do when removing FAs? It looks like the number is now kept on the template, rather than on the page - what is the purpose? We now have yet another page to update? Sandy (Talk) 21:41, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

It is a normal template requiring manual updating. The brief explanation is that ideas to place an FA counter, either in replacement of or next to the article counter, have been gaining some momentum on Talk:Main Page for a bit. Much of it is related to the quality v quantity discussion that is occurring more generally, with what appears to be an increasing number of editors wanting to showcase the FAs. During the most recent proposal, someone suggested putting the counter within the FA box, as opposed to at the top of the page. This gained clear support. After waiting a bit and checking to see if Raul654 had any objections (he was not entirely happy about the idea of a separate page but didn't shoot it down outright), I put it into practice. As I mentioned to Raul, the only other way that a Main Page FA ticker would work is if admins watching the number at WP:FA then echoed the number at {{TFAfooter}}, which is clearly duplicative effort and requires more moving parts. The editors adding and removing articles at WP:FA should thus modify the template, rather than the two numbers at the top of the page. In good news, the occurrences at WP:FA are now automatically updated and the template allows the number to be transcluded to the other FA pages or elsewhere. I hope that I've given adequate context. Thanks, Banyan Tree 22:11, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

More discussion on WP:FA. I don't like this at all - it creates another page to edit when adding or deleting FAs, and it's already a labor-intensive process. I don't get it - just another page to keep track of. Sandy (Talk) 22:43, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Doing something about the ridiculous date autoformatting/linking mess

Dear colleagues—you may be interested in putting your name to, or at least commenting on this new push to get the developers to create a parallel syntax that separates autoformatting and linking functions. IMV, it would go a long way towards fixing the untidy blueing of trivial chronological items, and would probably calm the nastiness between the anti- and pro-linking factions in the project. The proposal is to retain the existing function, to reduce the risk of objection from pro-linkers. Tony 04:46, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Real Love (The Beatles song)

Can a few editors please lend their critical reviews, and this FARC brought to a close? It's been there for too long now, and I have no intention of getting into a long discussion with Johnleemk - check "She Loves You" old FAR page for my reason why. LuciferMorgan 21:07, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Icon for FAs under review

On FR, Featured articles under review do not keep their gold star at the upper right-hand corner of the page. Rather, they get a smaller version of this image: . I think that such a procedure is a very minor but nice step towards improving the overall quality of wikipedia. When a FA is under serious review (consensus that there are problems with it) while it's awaiting either improvement or removal, I think it might be a good idea to put the article on probation, as it were. Comments? --Zantastik talk 19:58, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

(Just to beat on the dead horse a bit) I've never been a fan of the star at the top of the articles, and I'd be happy to do away with them entirely. This seems like more of the same. Raul654 22:24, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I like it (though I'm quite sure it will be shot down). Two comments though: there's no Web 2.0 gradient on the regular FA star (but there should be!), and I'd like to see this icon have hover text that mentions the review, and/or link to the FAR discussion. –Outriggr § 00:33, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't like it, because I don't want to have to keep track of yet another item on FAR processing, which is already labor intensive. Since articles are under review for about a month, I don't see the extra work of keeping track of, adding and deleting another template, as being worth it. Sandy (Talk) 00:37, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I have a nauseous feeling when I look at the bright orange and green here. Please don't. I like the small, bronze-coloured star top-right of FAs: it's so sublte you have to look for it. Tony 00:47, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Indeed - one simple, subtle marker for featured content is good; proliferation of fancy icons is bad. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:26, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I rather like it too, but I think Sandy's point about increasing the workload is decisive... Unless we can get a bot to handle it, that is. Mikker ^(...) 21:57, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

What I'd really like to see is a bot start writing featured articles... Marskell 03:46, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

ROFL... indeed, but I'd settle for GAs... good stubs even. Mikker ^(...) 03:53, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

You have heard of RamBot, right? (But, more seriously, surely a bot could scrape articles from an online version of 1911 EB and other public domain encyclopedias? I guess the encyclopedic coverage projects are mostly done by now, but I bet there is content we could use out there somewhere.) -- ALoan (Talk) 12:11, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I hate Rambot's articles... And, yeah, I'm sure there is. But, honestly, I doubt very much what we need most is more articles. Mikker ^(...) 20:33, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

A very astute comment Mikker - we need to improve the quality of the articles already available. LuciferMorgan 08:58, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject League of Copyeditors

The project now has a special section for FAR articles in need of a copyedit. Perhaps we can advertise this in cases where prose seems to be the only major obstacle to retaining FA status. Gzkn 03:03, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Well done Gzkn! Tony 04:09, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

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