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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Wikipedia/1

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Nominating with the presumption that this is not suitable for the Main Page. Two peer reviews which drew only a few comments: January 2005, March 2005. I think there are likely valid objections that have not been raised by peer review, but that the article is close enough that they can be resolved now. Self-nomination. 119 08:17, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • Oppose. History section is inadequate, references section is really a notes section, and lead is too long. --mav 15:20, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • The lead and History sections have been reworked. The References section lists works cited in an format which allows verifiability (and is commonly used); this objection is thus a style issue, and I do not think it is valid when neither Wikipedia nor FA criteria specifies a style. 119 20:24, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
      • The history section is still too a bit too small. I also don't feel any of us are objective enough on this topic to judge whether or not the article that covers it is FA quality. It also seems a bit unseemly to make this an FA. --mav
        • While acknowledging there may be conflict of interest for some users, I don't think everyone is incapable of judging the article nor that it is unseemly to ensure the article on Wikipedia is of featured quality. Can you please comment on references, above? In what areas do you think the history section is lacking? 119 04:22, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose for now. Comments follow. -- Jmabel | Talk 17:36, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)
    1. The transition from the rather abstract statements by Andrea Ciffolilli and Larry Sanger to the concrete fact that "Tech author Jon Udell created a movie..." is a bit jarring, someone should find a different way to put this or different placement for that last sentence.
      Reworked. 119 20:24, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    2. The section titled "authors" talks more about administrative matters than authorship. Also, it gives no discussion at all of the demographics of the authors (e.g. what evidence is there that any are expert), nor does it discuss what percentage of edits are made by, say, the 200 most active people (not that that fact in particular is needed, but some indication of the degree to which a core group exists.
      Demographics are not available. Statistics on what percentage of edits are done by users are not available so far as I know. For the English Wikipedia only, statistics could perhaps come from top contributors lists, I will look further. That there are "very active" Wikipedians is now mentioned. 119 20:24, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
      • I'm sure we can do better here. There should be academic studies of Wikipedia we can cite on some of this. Also, issues of authorship and of administration should certainly be separate sections. Admins and bureaucrats have no special privileges as authors. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:36, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)
        • Authors and Administration are now two sections. There are no studies on Wikipedia's demographics that I am aware of; I have looked through the Wikipedia in... pages and asked on the Reference Desk. I have made this omission explicit, and noted a statistic on anon views. Lack of formal qualifications has been expanded on a bit in the heading above Authors, and more in Evaluations. 119 08:30, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
          • I did some further cleanup on this: bots are clearly authoring rather than admin; so is the issue of IPs for anons. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:48, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)
    3. "...Wikipedians use "talk" pages to discuss changes to articles rather than the articles themselves": unclear wording.
      Reworked. 119 20:24, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    4. I think the policy against original research deserves more than a sentence. The borders around what constitutes original research vary with the subject matter domain.
      Clarified. 119 20:24, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
      • I think it's still unclear. This gives little indication of what latitude is allowed. Both this and the discussion of NPOV could benefit from examples. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:00, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)
        • I think examples would be more "how-to" than encyclopedia, especially when considering the long view. No original research has been expanded. 119 08:30, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
          • Plenty of our articles give examples in areas that may be unfamiliar to the reader. I still think it would be useful to discuss what is meant by "original research": even a lot of our editors have trouble with the concept. Still, I'll withdraw the objection. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:48, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)
    5. "...after most participants of the Spanish Wikipedia were dissatisfied with Wikipedia" deserves to be fleshed out to indicate the nature of the dispute. Not a lengthy discussion, just a sentence or so.
      I have not been able to find references. 119 20:24, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
      • I don't have references, but it should be possible to find someone who does. I think it was concern at one time about the possibility of Wikipedia commercializing itself. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:00, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)
    6. The chart on "language editions" has a legend that is way to small to read. There is no good reason for that, there is plenty of space at its upper left.
      The image was created by Wikipedia's statistics application. I think the objection is extremely minor (the text is fine to me--obviously it would not be visible as a thumbnail, if you mean that) and it is not worth trying to make the image "perfect", whatever that is, when it is "good enough". 119 20:24, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
      • I believe I've dealt with this one successfully myself. Unfortunately, a caching problem is preventing me from seeing the result of my own work! Let me know what you think. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:06, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)
        • Okay with me. 119 08:30, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    7. Number of articles in each language edition should have an "as of".
      Dated. 119 20:24, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    8. Perhaps mention that most major language editions do have an established way to request translations of articles from other languages?
      Do most of the "major language editions" have translation pages? This would require substantiation. What would we consider a major language edition? 119 20:24, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
      I'm not certain about "most". The interwikis from Wikipedia:Translation into English list:
      de:Wikipedia:Übersetzungen
      el:Βικιπαίδεια:Μεταφράσεις
      fr:Wikipédia:Traductions_en_cours
      is:Wikipedia:Þýðingar
      it:Wikipedia:Traduzioni
      ja:Wikipedia:翻訳依頼
      ro:Wikipedia:Articole de tradus
      zh:Wikipedia:待翻译文章
      That certainly covers a lot of the biggies. Oddly, Spanish, Dutch, Polish, and Swedish are not listed. Not sure if they may have such pages and just not link them there. So it's at least half of the really major ones. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:47, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)
    9. Because the status of Wikipedia as an accepted reference may be in flux, the Philip Bradley and Ted Pappas quotes should probably indicate a date. Not that Pappas is likely ever to say differently, but Bradley might. Also (same paragraph) "Boyd": why no first name?
      Dated. Dana Boyd. 119 20:24, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    10. Perhaps mention (or crib from) Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia, which, besides discussing the usual criticisms of Wikipedia for serious research, mentions some unusual strengths (e.g., ability to query authors, ask for additional citations). Also perhaps the related IRC channels and the Reference Desk deserve mention? Partly dealt with, partly superseded by the one below beginning "Sorry to add one belatedly..."
      I don't think the IRC channels are notable. Reference Desk is English-centric/non-notable unless an equivalent can be shown to exist on many other languages. Researching's points now noted. 119 20:24, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
      • Reference Desk exists at least in Spanish, Hindi, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, all interwiki-linked from English. Polish is also linked, but the page seems to be gone. I wouldn't be surprised if there are others that no one has linked, but these easily add up to the majority of the world's literate population (not that Hebrew makes a big contribution to that number). -- Jmabel | Talk 04:42, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)
        • Reference desks noted. 119 08:30, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    11. History section is, indeed, meagre. -- Jmabel | Talk 17:36, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)
      Expanded. 119 20:24, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)
      • I still see this as a weak point. I think the history should extend past Wikipedia proper. I'd want to see some indication of how this fits in the history of encyclopedism, when came the key decisions that resulted in the shape it has (notability, no dicdefs), etc. I know I'm asking for a lot here, but I think that to be a featured article, this is appropriate. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:00, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)
        • Generally expanded, its fit in history noted, NPOV's implementation is noted. I don't think criteria of notability or the exclusion of dictionary definitions are sufficiently notable for the summary on Wikipedia, as they are not core principles. 119 09:39, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
          • This is improving, but it still gives no clue why Wikipedia was started: what particular void in the world was intended to be filled, what were the initial expectations, how has reality compared (so far) to those expectations, why did these particular people want to start something like this. It's now to the point that I no longer have an active objection on this front, but I certainly won't support until this is stronger. -- Jmabel | Talk 17:33, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)
    12. Sorry to add one belatedly, but shouldn't there be some discussion of the extent to which Wikipedia has been cited in the press, in academic papers, etc.? -- Jmabel | Talk 21:12, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)
      • Have you seen the last paragraph under Free content? 119 21:29, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
        • OK. I think I probably saw that when I looked at it a few days ago, but missed it on my recent re-skim. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:32, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)

Is this worth continuing? While I think the article has improved during this process, and my specific objections have largely been met, it still seems not to have garnered any actual support to be a featured article. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:24, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)

I'm still confident any actionable objections can be met, so I think it's unfortunate this has received such little attention over five days. 119 04:29, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • support as not normally suitable for front page (10th anniversary?) well enough written / reasonably comprehensive / well referenced / makes resonable effort in NPOV direction. Mozzerati 17:08, 2005 Apr 3 (UTC)
  • Support this good collaborative effort. Sfahey 03:01, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
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