Wikipedia:Featured article review/archive/December 2010

Kept status

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

The article was kept by Dana boomer 17:54, 14 December 2010 [1].

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Castle

Notified: WikiProject Military History, WikiProject: Japanese military history task force, WikiProject Japan, WikiProject Architecture

I am nominating this featured article for review for several reasons:

• The article is heavily BIASED toward European castles, to the point where it actively excludes the possibility of castles being built by non-European cultures.
• This point has been brought up by several contributors in the Discussion page, and no constructive resolution has been reached.
  • The catalytic point of contention revolves around the issue, If a Japanese castle meets all the criteria of a "castle", as described in the article, can it be considered a "true" castle?
• At least one reference has been used out of context to support the Europe-only bias (specifically, #15 (Turnbull 2003)).
• The article is therefore in violation of several points of the criteria for "Featured Articles":
  • 1.(b) It fails to be 'comprehensive'.
  • 1.(c) Claims are based on misinformation or based on a narrow set of sources.
  • 1.(d) It is therefore NOT NEUTRAL.
  • 1.(e) Because of prodigious commentary and on-going disagreement over content, the subject is therefore NOT STABLE.

Boneyard90 (talk) 14:58, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

• Comment I don't believe FAR is to be used to settle content disputes. If you believe the article should include additional geographic or cultural areas, you should follow the dispute resolution process. I don't see any evidence of even an RFC, just rehashing the same discussions on the Talk page (most recently July) and failure to establish consensus that the scope of the article should be changed. I also note that you have not followed the FAR instructions and notified the primary contributor to the article. Recommend removing this nomination. --Andy Walsh (talk) 16:30, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
• Keep (ec) This definitional issue was addressed at great length in the FAC, which was not that long ago, & the consensus to promote demonstrated that the nominator's position that this was how most academic sources treated the Western tradition of the "castle" was accepted. Why it is always the very clearly distinctive Japanese tradition that is brought up I don't know - Indian forts are at least as strong an argument. All this is really just arguing for a rename to Castle (Western) or something, but I don't think such a move is justified. Johnbod (talk) 16:31, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
• Comment. This vexatious nomination is simply the latest attempt by the nominator to impose his own pov on this article. And to claim that there is "prodigious commentary and on-going disagreement" resulting in the article's instability is quite simply a fantasy. This nomination should be closed and the content/renaming dispute dealt with elsewhere. Malleus Fatuorum 16:38, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
• Comment. I have been frustrated by other means of dispute resolution. I have brought this article to this forum because I believed the points were valid and wish to see the article improved, and I thought it should be brought to the attention of a larger group of editors. The point about "Indian fort" is valid, but I don't have expertise on that topic. There has been prodigious commentary on the topic of European bias, in the Talk:Castle (some of which has been moved to an archived section, I believe), and alot of discussion revolved around this bias when it was up for Featured Article. I don't believe it was fully resolved there either, but somehow it passed. I feel the point about the references is pretty solid.Boneyard90 (talk) 16:56, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

The matter has been resolved because a consensus was established, which doesn't mean that everyone agrees or is happy. You'd better spell out what your references point is, but it will hardly justify an FAR. Johnbod (talk) 17:02, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

The passage I refer in the article reads: "...there were analogous structures in Japan built in the 16th and 17th centuries that evolved independently from European influence and which, according to military historian Stephen Turnbull, had 'a completely different developmental history, were built in a completely different way and were designed to withstand attacks of a completely different nature'.[15]". The quote was taken from a book titled Japanese castles 1540–1640, so obviously was not meant to refute its own title and topic. Boneyard90 (talk) 17:18, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

It seems very clear that whatever the title of Turnbull's book he is stating that Japanese castles were analagous structures, not that they were castles in the way we would use the word in English. They "had 'a completely different developmental history, were built in a completely different way and were designed to withstand attacks of a completely different nature'". Japanese castles obviously are so dissimilar in history, form, and function from European castles that they need to be dealt with in a separate article, as indeed they are. Malleus Fatuorum 17:25, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Points acknowledged. However, they still contained the same features and served the same functions, as stipulated in the Castle article, and therefore fit the definition. In Discussion, I cite several sources on architecture and history that either acknowledge that castles were built in other countries (such as Japan), or are completely neutral with respect to geography. Therefore, the article should be modified, and made more inclusive in some of its wording. Boneyard90 (talk) 17:36, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Comment When was I going to be notified about this? I only stumbled across this because I was idly reading over the article on Raby Caslte and happened to click on the link to the castle article by mistake. In short Johnbod says what I was thinking, although I'll try to summarise what I have said on the article's talk page. Nev1 (talk) 20:10, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

That might be my fault. I read that the "Featured Article" nominator was supposed to be notified, but once I was in this process, I couldn't find that specific information. If that is indeed you, (Nev-1), I figured it would pop up in your Watchlist. Boneyard90 (talk) 20:18, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm sure it did, but my watchlist has nearly 8,000 items. My signature was on the talk page and includes a link to my talk, and my name is all over the article history, also with links. Nev1 (talk) 20:24, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

• Comment As stability is the most straightforward issue, I'll deal with that first. Since this was last discussed in June and July, the article has had 128 edits which for the most part consisted of the usual back and forth of vandalism fighting (it probably wouldn't have hurt for the article to be semi-protected) you'll find on any high-profile article with the occasional tweak here and there. To claim that it's unstable simply doesn't stand up to scrutiny. When this discussion was brought up in June there were nine edits to the article and plenty of discussion on the talk page.

  Criteria 1(b) to (d) are all inter-related and depend on the representation of the sources. The sources used in the article are major publications on the subject, written by some of the most authoritative authors in the field of castellology. R. Allen Brown for instance was one of the founders of Château Gaillard, a multi-lingual journal for the publication of articles relating to castle studies. Broadly castle studies can be divided into work up to the 1990s, where the military interpretation dominated, and from the 1990s onwards when there was a shift towards looking at castles in their social context. Allen Brown and Cathcart King are two of the most influential of the first period, while Liddiard, Creighton, and especially Coulson are the three biggest names of the latter. The definition of castle the article uses is sourced to Allen Brown, quoted below.

  The references Boneyard has provided on the article's talk page would under most circumstances satisfy WP:RS, but in this instance asserting that they take precedent over publications specifically about castles is to give primacy to lower quality sources. As I previously demonstrated, they are less than ideal and make errors that people specialising in castle studies would not make. For instance, while the work of architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner is rightly highly regarded, he is not a specialist in castles and it shows when he defines "castle" in his Penguin Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture: "Castle. A fortified habitation. The planning and building of castles is primarily directed by the necessities of defence". This reflects an old school of thought regarding castles, despite being published in 1999, and has been refuted but later studies (particularly from the 1990s onwards) which show that in many case aspects such as display were also important.

  Much of Boneyard's argument rests not on sources but assertions that Japanese shiro share many features which are comparable with castles. He gives Stalley Early Medieval Architecture in support of this as it does not explicitly exclude structures outside Europe and the Middle East from its definition of what is a castle, however ignores that Stalley himself says "The rise of the castle, which has traditionally been defined as the fortified residence of an independent lord, was a direct consequence of feudalism, the social structure which emerged in Europe following the disintegration of the Carolingian Empire." This supports the current content of the article. As is already referenced, castles originated in Europe and were spread to the Middle East by Crusaders. Castles in this sphere – not exclusively European – are treated as separate entities in the sources to Japanese castles, which are analogous structures with differing backgrounds to those that originated in Europe.

  Moffett, Fazio & Wodehouse's A World History of Architecture further demonstrates the problem of general sources rather than those specifically about castles. They claim that one of the features of masonry castles in Europe was a promontory position; this is a popular misconception as castles were more often sited at centres of population or along important communication routes (such as roads) than hilltops which would have provided a natural defence. That's not to say castles weren't sited on promontories (eg: Beeston Castle), but it wasn't as common as most people assume. The source goes on to say that what set Japanese castles apart from other fortifications was "reliance on timber as the primary structural material". This simply is not the case; the earliest castles were timber, most notably Hen Domen, on which there has been a highly regarded study and it is considered an important example of timber castle. Higham and Barker have a volume called Timber Castle in which they trace the story of timber castles in Europe and examine their significance. My point is that works specifically on castles should naturally be favoured over those that are not; an author of a general works is expected to be a jack of all trades.

  Sorry about the wall of text, but while I of course understand FAR is not dispute resolution, I would like to put this to rest rather than deal with these attrition tactics. Nev1 (talk) 22:35, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

• Comment Seems to me as though Japanese Castles have as much relevance to this article as Mayan temples do to Egyptian Pyramids. They may share certain similarities, but otherwise are entirely unrelated. I don't see anything important enough in this discussion to warrant FARC. Parrot of Doom 23:10, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

• Comment: Nev-1 makes some good points, but as this is an encyclopedia, I think it is appropriate to take from some general sources, or at least let the reader know that there is a broader interpretation available, and "specialists" are themselves biased. It would be difficult to be an authority on the same type of structure in different geographic regions. At least we can agree that the construction materials are largely irrelevant, as both European and Japanese castles used timber.

The latest comment by Parrot of Doom makes a good point. If you check the Wikipedia page Pyramid, you will indeed see that Egyptian pyramids and Mayan temples, along with a host of other pyramidal structures are all included and given equal attention. Boneyard90 (talk) 23:23, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

That wasn't the point I was making. Mayan temples and Egyptian Pyramids share certain structural similarities, but that's it. Their designs are based purely on the only way to build tall structures from stone. The Mayans didn't take photographs of Egyptian Pyramids and then sail back across the Atlantic to build their own. Besides which, Pyramid is a rubbish article. Castle is not. Parrot of Doom 00:10, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

• Comment I'm one of those who commented on the talk page about apparent Western bias. My feeling is that if we are going to write about European castles under the title "Castle" rather than something more specific, that article should at least deal briefly with the reason it doesn't cover non-European castle-like buildings. It does that now, but not entirely to my satisfaction.

However, I am not an expert on castles, nor have I spend months digging through the literature on the subject. User:Nev1 has. As someone who spends months digging through literature on a completely different subject, I'm sympathetic to his problem with people who know less about the subject but think they know more. I believe his position is that castellologists simply don't deal with the European/non-European distinction adequately. If that is the case, there's not much Wikipedia can do about it. User:Boneyard90 proposed adding text to the article (option number three in his comment here) that I think would satisfy the definition problems—if it were reliably sourced. Nev1 argued that the text was original research and couldn't be added. As I haven't read the sources either of them are reading, I can't say whether that is the case, but if it is, I don't think this flaw—the only major flaw in an excellent article—can be resolved.

Short version: While I sympathize with Boneyard90's complaint, I'm also inclined to believe Nev1 when he says that the problem can't be resolved with the available sources. If Nev1 is right, this is a failing of the scholarly community rather than the article, and therefore a failing we cannot resolve anytime soon. If articles can get their FA status revoked for that, maybe the status of Castle should be taken away. But if they can't, it certainly shouldn't. A. Parrot (talk) 00:32, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't see it like that. I see no reason why European castellologists should cover Japanese castles except as an interesting contrast from a wholly different and unconnected tradition - parallel evolution in military architecture. I rather doubt books in Japanese on their castles devote much space to European ones, nor should they. The argument here seems to be that either the articles are pretty much combined, or we redirect the plain term straight to Castle (disambiguation), which doesn't seem necessary. There is a clear early link to the Japanese article, and in English the Western castle is the clear primary meaning. I think a few more sentences on Japanese ones might be justified, but any more and there are plenty of other kinds of "castle" that will be demanding space, until you end up with a classic WP list of junky sections like pyramid. Johnbod (talk) 04:09, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Ok, a "few more sentences". A.Parrot linked to another long comment I made, but here was my proposed compromise paragraph he mentioned:

"The word "castle" is also applied to fortified structures in other parts of the world, that may have developed independantly, but nonetheless meet the same criteria, contain the same features, and served in the same functions as castles in Europe. Among the more notable are the [Japanese castles|o-shiro] of Japan, which are popularly referred to as "castles". While there are texts written by professors of history and architecture that do not include geography as a defining characteristic of a "castle", some of which specifically use the terms "Japanese castle" in comparison to "European castles" (reference Fleming et al., Gwilt, Moffett et al, and Turnbull - or another history source), there remains some dispute over the scholarly application of the word "castle", in regard to whether a fortified structure that originated outside of the European sphere of influence in history can be regarded as a true castle (reference something that specifies Europe only)" Boneyard90 (talk) 04:20, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Well that isn't what I had in mind myself at all, though perhaps something like it could be added at Japanese castle, which currently doesn't even mention the Western tradition or the use of the term. How would you reference "popularly"? I suspect it means mostly "by Japanese translating into English" or "in tourist information". I was thinking of a very brief summary of the period they were built & how they differed and compared to Western ones, not going on about the word. I couldn't do it myself as all I know about them comes from watching Kurosawa films. But I think I supported that way back & Nev wasn't keen. You need to get away from the word, and start thinking about the concept or subject for the article. Is there one thing or two? I say the latter. Johnbod (talk) 07:15, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

"You need to get away from the word, and start thinking about the concept or subject for the article." That's it in a nutshell. Malleus Fatuorum 13:59, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Concept. The concept of a type of building, separated from its label. Are we talking about, say...

• the difference between a church and a mosque?
• Or a skyscraper in New York versus a skyscraper in Taiwan?
• Or the use of the word "temple" to denote either Buddhist or Jewish places of worship (not to mention the neutral connotation, as in "the body is a temple")?

I will continue to think on this. I can also look into editing the Japanese castle page. If we can agree that the Castle page needs some minor modification, I would be willing to cooperate so editors are satisfied and readers aren't misled in any way. Boneyard90 (talk) 15:37, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Additional closing note: The majority of editors commenting here appear to think that a FAR is not warranted for this article at this point. I would suggest that the nominator take into consideration the comments that have been made here, and seek to work this dispute out with the primary editor and others in a civil fashion on the talk page or another dispute resolution venue. Dana boomer (talk) 17:56, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.

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

The article was kept by Dana boomer 17:54, 14 December 2010 [2].

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Pulaski Skyway

Review commentary

Notified: WikiProject New Jersey State and County Routes

I am nominating this featured article for review because the article was promoted to FA-class well over 5 years ago, and standards have changed since then, especially in the Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads. Examples sections needed to be brought up to present standards include the route description, the image gallery, and the overall article coverage in general. Sections of the article are also outdated, with no recent news about the highway listed (including current construction, maintainence projects, etc). Also seems to be missing a decent amount of general history content. –Dream out loud (talk) 02:56, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Comments

• Reference formatting
  • Date formatting in the references is not consistent.
  • Overlinking. The New York Times need only be linked in the first footnote that uses it.
  • Some footnotes use The New York Times and others are just New York Times. Pick one and stick to it, and make sure that it is always italicized.
  • This is more of a query, but if someone can verify that the NYT articles don't have credited bylines for the reporters that wrote them. If they have bylines, the names should be added to the citations.
  • It would be nice to have a location for the the Hart book. The short references to it should have terminal periods on the page numbers.
  • Ref 7 lists the author there as "First Last", not "Last, First". If Condit is being quoted by Hart, why can't we dig up that source and quote Condit directly?
  • Can we either replace ref 10, or reformat the citation better?
  • Ref 1012 is from a WP:SPS. If it's really to a citation to a piece of legislation, there should be a better source that lists the actual text of the law, and with a complete citation. (One has to assume now that it was a law written and passed by New Jersey's legislature, but the citation given in the article doesn't specify.
  • Refs 21 and 22 should be reformatted to match the formatting of the other citations better.
  • In Ref 51, the location should be added to The Record since a location is not in the name of the paper. Additionally, the article title should be rendered in Title Case, not Sentence case, following the capitalization rules for Title Case.
• There are some junction list consistency issues.
  • The Hackensack River entry probably shouldn't span both the county and location columns. Normally rivers only span both columns when they form the boundary. I would move that river entry to just the location column and let Hudson County span the 5 rows are are properly inside the county. (I'm assuming that the Passaic River is the boundary here, so it should span both columns.
  • Both bridge entries probably should have their mileage given as a range and not a point. Points are great for the center of an interchange, but ranges are better for bigger interchanges or bridges. In this case, the two values for each bridge should be the two ends, unless they're so short
  • The list should probably be moved to its own section, which is the project-level guidance from WP:USRD and WP:HWY.
• Honestly, this article is a bit of a hybrid here. It's not really a pure highway article, but it's not a pure bridge article.
• I'm wondering if we can't prune the photos a bit, particularly the gallery in the middle. Maybe remove a few to the Commons gallery and enlarge the remainder from that gallery
• The hatnote probably needs to be updated. If I'm not mistaken, the other Pulaski Skyway in Boston was demolished as a part of the Big Dig.
• The infobox has metric measurements listed first, but the article text has Imperial measurements first. That should be fixed.
• Highway names are given in full in the lead, but abbreviated elsewhere, without the abbreviations specified anywhere.

Just some thoughts for now. Imzadi 1979 → 10:43, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

There is no mention of Sigvald Johannesson as the designer of the bridge. I found several references which give hime credit. ([3]) The paragraph about the type of the bridge is very confusing and is likely innacurate. The shorter spans of the viaduct are said the current version to be "deck truss cantilever bridges." I doubt this is the case. Short spans like that are not typically cantilever construction. The two river crossings are cantilever construction, and there are numerous references which document that, including the HAER (see the external links). The language about the span lengths is confusing. I am an engineer and I don't get it. Reliable engineering references should be used for this information. - ¢Spender1983 (talk) 01:44, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

There doesn't seem to have been any changes made to the paragraph on the design of the bridge. My engineering intuition says that the river crossings are cantilever trusses and the rest of the bridge is simple spans. The current text is confusing and poorly sourced as to what bridge types are used on the skyway. - ¢Spender1983 (talk) 04:13, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not an engineer, so any assistance you can provide in updating that section would be appreciated. Imzadi 1979 → 00:30, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

• Comments:

1. The lead does not provide an adequate summary of the article.
2. There are a few unreferenced statements throughout the article such as "Longtime local residents believe it is the Pulaski Skyway that is referenced in Woody Guthrie's famous anthem This Land Is Your Land, in the line "I saw above me that endless Skyway."", "but tolls were never added.", and "US 1/9 was moved from the old Lincoln Highway (which soon became US 1/9 Truck) to the skyway when it was completed."
3. A separate bibliography section is needed for "The Last Three Miles" book reference.
4. The photo gallery in the article needs to be removed per WP:IG.
5. The sentence "The exits (and corresponding entrances) are:" needs to be completed.
6. Several references need to be properly formatted. Dough4872 01:09, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Featured article criterion of concern are referencing, comprehensiveness, updatedness, lead, formatting YellowMonkey (new photo poll) 06:38, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

• Delist for FA criteria concerns, cited by Dream out loud and YellowMonkey. JJ98 (Talk) 01:18, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

*Hold I'am seeing the article is progressing. There's ongoing dispute on this article. JJ98 (Talk) 02:00, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

• I'm no longer editing much, so don't count on me to fix all the nitpicks above (amid a few reasonable points). The article actually had a complete rewrite in 2007, if I remember correctly: Wikipedia:Peer review/Pulaski Skyway/archive1. The edit war over the extent is bloody stupid; it clearly goes from Raymond to Tonnele and does not include the Route 139 "covered roadway" that predates it. But if it's going to have blatant BS I say delist. --NE2 09:34, 29 September 2010 (UTC)
• Delist for FA criteria concerns. JJ98 (Talk) 07:01, 8 October 2010 (UTC)
• Comment—prose is ordinary, but OK. I fixed some overlinking and the "today" glitch in the lead. I see that prose isn't at issue, though. Tony (talk) 05:15, 11 October 2010 (UTC)
• Comment Article is better. Much better than before. But it's still not FA-grade material. The trivia section of the article needs to be cited properly and converted to prose. The lead section needs to be organized better—it seems like just a bunch of facts "mushed" together. The "Labor issues" section should be subsection of "Design and construction" because the labor issues were only related to the construction of the skyway, and have not been relevant since its completion. The very last paragraph of the article needs to be expanded a bit more, and shown that its a bit more up-to-date. There are no years referenced in the paragraph (except for the year of the I-35W bridge collapse), so it needs to be clear that the information is recent, as in 2010. –Dream out loud (talk) 00:45, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
  • I'm disagreeing with a few of the above comments. The "popular culture" section was easily converted into prose, but I don't think that "This Land Is My Land" needs a citation... the song is the source and that source is already mentioned. Otherwise its a footnote for the sake of a footnote. The "Labor issues" section is of substantial length and doesn't been to be subordinated to "Design and construction". Each covers a complete topic. (It's a personal preference, but I don't like a subsection "X.1" without a "X.2".) As for specifically adding years to that last paragraph, that's not always great writing either. You can set up a maintenance issue where the article looks out of date, even though there's no newer information to incorporate in the article. If events have happened in unspecified timeframes, that's one thing, but don't sprinkle years in there just to make it look "current". I've added some more from one article in the NYT from 2009. Since the news articles are all dated, the references section alone is a good indicator of how recent the information is. Imzadi 1979 → 04:09, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
• Provisional Keep, there are still some minor updates that can be made, but nothing so large that they should prevent the article from staying listed. Ideally all it should need it some finetuning in the lead and it's good to go. Imzadi 1979 → 04:09, 15 October 2010 (UTC)
  • Provisional Keep. At this stage of the game, Delist for FA criteria concerns is a non-statement if those concerns are not expressed specifically and clearly. At seen above listed issues have been worked through. In keeping with the timeless aspect of Wikipedia, the fact that NJDOT has identified the bridge as a priority and begun work is current info (a blow-by-blow is not needed only a couple of years into the project). If there are sytlistic issues qua prose BE BOLD and see where it goes. This article is should keep it FA statusDjflem (talk) 18:13, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
• Keep on the condition that the lead gets cleaned up. Dough4872 19:32, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
• Keep per Imzadi1979, Djflem and Dough4872. JJ98 (Talk) 20:29, 18 October 2010 (UTC)
• Note - I think we're just waiting for the lead to be cleaned up/expanded before this can be kept. Also, the last two references are not formatted correctly. Dana boomer (talk) 21:07, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
  • I've fixed the formatting on the last two references, with the last one replaced with a better source than what was there previously. Imzadi 1979 → 00:47, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
    • Thanks, Imzadi. I was asked on my talk page to expand on my comment regarding the lead, but wanted to answer here. The lead should be expanded - WP:LEAD recommends 3-4 good sized paragraphs and the current ones are rather short. I would specifically suggest expanding the areas on labor disputes and safety issues by a few sentences each, as both of these are good sized sections that receive only a sentence (or less) of exposure in the lead. The lead should be a summary of the entire article, without including new information. Dana boomer (talk) 17:20, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
      • Does anyone plan to work on fixing the lead? I think that's all we're waiting for before the review can be closed. Thanks! Dana boomer (talk) 20:19, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
        • I made some fixes to the lead to make it flow better. Dough4872 06:19, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
          • Thank you for your edits, Dough, but they still don't address my comments on length and coverage. Sandy's comments below also need to be addressed. Is there any update on when this may happen? Dana boomer (talk) 02:10, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
            • I have expanded the lead more and have also addressed Sandy's concerns below. Dough4872 03:13, 12 December 2010 (UTC)
• MOS review needed (see my edit summaries). Also, I'm unsure about this paragraph:

• Every defendant was found not guilty ... In addition to this murder, ...

Is it OK to call it a "murder" if there was no conviction? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:36, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.

Removed status

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

The article was removed by Dana boomer 13:31, 27 December 2010 [4].

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Restoration literature

Review commentary

Notified: Geogre, WikiProject Literature

I am nominating this featured article for review because I stumbled across it and was amazed to see how lacking it is in inline citations. There are a total of thirteen inline cites. Editors were advised of the issue nearly two years ago. Thus, the article badly fails criterion 2c. Adabow (talk · contribs) 09:23, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Kudos to the editor who pointed it out! Good work, that. Reading the FAR from four years ago, almost, leads me to believe two things: Standards are higher, and if some of the people involved said the same things today, they'd be laughed off the island.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:05, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Was this the one where I was told that I was unqualified to review articles unless I worked on an article of this "caliber" (deemed an "unlikely event")? Actually, I think that incident occurred later that year. WRT the article, it definitely needs citations per Wikipedia's fundamental style. It's quite comprehensive and reasonably well written; lack of citations is the big obstacle here. —Deckiller (t-c-l) 04:09, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Edit: nope, it was that one. Let's hope everyone remains civilized this time around. —Deckiller (t-c-l) 04:14, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

FARC commentary

The main featured article criteria of concern brought up in the review section was referencing. Dana boomer (talk) 01:59, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

• Delist: Per the comments made above. GamerPro64 (talk) 02:40, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.

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

The article was removed by Dana boomer 02:03, 12 December 2010 [5].

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Our Gang

Review commentary

Notified: FuriousFreddy, WikiProject Film, WikiProject Comedy, WikiProject Television, WikiProject Comics

I am nominating this featured article for review because this article fails Featured article criteria 1c, as some sections (EX: The sound era and The Little Rascals television package) are unreferenced. GamerPro64 (talk) 17:51, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

• Some of the unsourced statements like "comprising shorts (both silent and sound) which have fallen into the public domain." in the section MGM releases are unreferenced.
• Several images, including fair use images like File:Thefirstroundup01.jpg, has no rationale and are not low resolution. Fails WP:NFCC. JJ98 (Talk) 18:39, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

• Is TVShowsOnDVD a reliable source? Overall, I feel the sources are way too thin; most are the same couple books, and the rest are IMDb (which should definitely be replaced if possible) and Snopes (which is fine). Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Otters want attention)} 03:15, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Featured article criteria of concern brought up in the review section focused mainly on referencing. Dana boomer (talk) 14:08, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

• Delist - Per my comments. GamerPro64 (talk) 16:48, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
• Delist per GamerPro64 (talk · contribs). Concerns not addressed. JJ98 (Talk) 21:40, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
• Delist – Too much unreferenced content and an excessive number of non-free images. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 03:06, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
• Delist per my concerns over sources. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Otters want attention)} 03:43, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.

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

The article was removed by Dana boomer 02:03, 12 December 2010 [6].

---

Grace Sherwood

Review commentary

Notified: Risker, Virginia WikiProject, Occult WikiProject,

I am nominating this featured article for review because see the talk page of this article and Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Plagiarism and copyright concerns on the main page, original nominator retired because of this unfortunate incident. Fails unstability as this mess is being sorted out. Secret ^account 03:25, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Recent changes in FAR rules regarding pre-discussion (Off topic)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
FAR recently changed its rules regarding pre-discussion of article issues on article talk pages before listing here: "1. Prior to nomination, raise issues at talk page of the article. Attempt to directly resolve issues with the existing community of article editors, and to informally improve the article. Articles in this step are not listed on this page." I have no strong opinion in relation to this article, but other editors may wish to consider this. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:43, 1 November 2010 (UTC) Also, as a procedural note, this was a TFA yesterday (for a shorter time than usual, but still) and was promoted to FA less than 3 months ago - circumstances which would normally preclude its eligibility for FAR. Given the circumstances, I can see an argument for IAR, but I'll leave that to the delegates to decide. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:45, 1 November 2010 (UTC) That part of the procedure (relating to TFA) is long-standing, but Raul, Dana and YM may want to waive it in this case. It is as yet unclear how the article can be fixed, but because of the copyvio issue, it doesn't look good. See here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:49, 1 November 2010 (UTC) Yea I knew about the rule about TFA, but this is a special case that should be waived, three sections of the article with copyright concerns? That's clearly worriesome, even though I don't think the article writer did it on purpose, because he is experienced and knew a copyright violation wouldn't go past FAC. Secret account 04:00, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Back on topic: having a FAR page open may allow for a place to consolidate the work needed and get feedback from the copyvio people on how to proceed, and either 1) assure that we end up with a still-FA quality article if it can be salvaged, or 2) delist it if not. We have FA quality material with a copyvio problem: we need guidance on how to fix it, and time to do that. This could be the place. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:22, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

• I'll be willing to rewrite the article as long as I have guidance from the copyright experts, I don't think every source was checked so that also needs to be done. Secret ^account 04:34, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

• I have proposed a general solution for situations like this here which may be applicable in this case. Realistically, I think that we could probably find a copyvio in the history of a good 80% of FAs, so finding another path rather than considering all versions subsequent to a copyvio contaminated is probably essential to the continuation of the FA program. Most FACs have hundreds, if not thousands, of edits. Risker (talk) 04:51, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

• The copyvio people wish you wouldn't ask that kind of question. Okey if you really want to do the right thing you have a couple of options. You can start with deleting back to the pre copyvio content. You can then rebuild the article from the non copyvio content. However you need to credit the authors of that content. There are two ways of doing this.
• 1)A strict reading of the terms of use would allow you to forget about crediting the authors in any meaningful manner simply by including the article's own URL in an edit summery. I don't like this any more than you do and I will not be impressed if anyone actualy tries this.
• 2)A prefered option would be to copy and past the authors of all the deleted edits to a sub page of the talk page and link to that in an edit summery.
  • It seems to me that some separation of attribution from article history, perhaps along those lines, ought to be implemented and automated anyway, saving all of this navel gazing about copyvios in the article history, which could then easily be deleted as necessary in cases like this. Malleus Fatuorum 22:53, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

• Alturnativly you can remove the copyvio content and anything derrived from it then delete everything between the adition of the content and the removal then follow the crediting instructions above.
• has to be said in an awful lot of cases we just remove the copyvio content from the current revision and try not to think about it.©Geni 05:14, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
• Rlevse‎ gave me the offline sources of the article, let me see if I could work something out. Secret ^account 22:37, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
  • I removed the section that had the copyvio notice on it. [7] SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 22:46, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
  • I'll research the removed section soon, and read the sources Rlevse gave me. I'm already started to trim some of the copyvio parts, and excess sources, looking at some of the sources. Secret ^account 22:57, 1 November 2010 (UTC)
• Remember: Everything in this edit that came from USA Today or the Old Donation Episcopal Church, and everything in this edit, however they may have been copyedited, adjusted, or moved around since, has to go. My estimation, more of the details of which are on User talk:Moonriddengirl, was that there are at least three sections of the article that are going to be subject to large scale removal of content. And Hans Adler, Moonriddengirl, and I only checked two of the sources. There may be yet more edits introducing non-free content that we're not allowed to copy, let alone modify and republish. To be strict and safe about this, you really should be starting from here, per our standard guidelines for this sort of thing, with all of these edits subject to revision deletion. Yes, I know. It's enough to make one weep. Uncle G (talk) 02:42, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
• There may be issues besides copyright violations. A lot of the article seems to be sourced to the Associated Press article in USA Today. [8] The AP source (and the source of a few of the other newspapers cited in the article) is a local woman, Belinda Nash, who engages in reenactments and fund raisers. It's not clear how much of what Belinda Nash says is historically accurate, and the single primary source I've found so far is scant on details (see George Lincoln Burr, p. 242ff; search for "whereas Grace Sherwood being suspected of witchcraft ...). Does anyone know of primary sources or scholarly secondary sources that offer the details Nash offers? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 03:54, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
  • I told you so. I even told you that the society's journal was a better place to look. And indeed in you'll find an article there:
    • Davis, Richard Beale (April 1957). "The Devil in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century". The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography. 65 (2). Virginia Historical Society: 131–149. JSTOR 4246295. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • Other scholarly sources, unused by the problem article, include this one by a history professor:
    • Sobel, Mechal (1989). "Black and White visions in and of America". The World They Made Together: Black and White Values in Eighteenth–Century Virginia. Princeton University Press. pp. 80–82, 266–267. ISBN 9780691006086. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • The "ancient and knowing women" part, also originally taken from USA Today, but which is now cross-linked to something else, is actually better attributed to the court records themselves. James is apparently one source for those. Another is Burr 1914, pp. 442. It is a lightly edited collection of court records, with an introduction that discusses James, that is in fact cited by Davis 1957, pp. 142:
    • Burr, George Lincoln (1914). "The Case of Grace Sherwood". Narratives of the witchcraft cases. Original Narratives of early American history. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. pp. 435–442. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • That phrase doesn't occur in earlier collections of court records:
    • J.P. Cushing, ed. (1833). "Record of the trial of Grace Sherwood in 1705 Princess Anne County for Witchcraft". Collections of the Virginia Historical and Philosophical Society. Vol. 95. Virginia Historical and Philosophical Society. pp. 73–78. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • For the folklore surrounding Sherwood, see the journal of the North Carolina Folklore Society:
    • Oliver, Betty (July 1962). "Grace Sherwood of Princess Anne: She Was a Witch, They Said". North Carolina Folklore. 10: 36–39, 45. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • There's a condensed, Readers' Digest, version of James in Chitwood 1905, pp. 87 that, being so, is an ideal source for an introduction section or a stub:
    • Chitwood, Oliver Perry (1905). Justice in Colonial Virginia. Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science. Vol. 23 (reprinted by READ BOOKS, 2010 ed.). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. ISBN 9781445578231. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
  • But the basic problem here is that you really cannot start from what you have now, in repairing this. See User:Uncle G/Grace Sherwood for a restart from the last known good version, which you are welcome to have at to your hearts' contents. Uncle G (talk) 14:28, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
    • Uncle G, the theory you are putting forward is that the article, from the point of that edit, is "fruit from a poisoned tree" and thus everything subsequent to it must be deleted. Well, if that is your point of view, the same can be said of hundreds of thousands, if not over a million, of the articles on this project, and we need to go back and rewrite the entire encyclopedia from scratch, ensuring that every phrase and fact is sourced. I disagree with this point of view; I do not see the difference between unattributed non-free text additions and non-free images. We do not automatically delete unattributed non-free images immediately; we provide for a period for them to be attributed, and only after there is no attribution do we consider deleting them. There should be no difference in the way that we treat non-free text. Once it is attributed, the situation is resolved. Seriously though....either delete the whole article or permit proper attribution of the concerning text. The article may well not include all the information that one expects of an FA, but that has nothing to do with the way that we manage unattributed text. Risker (talk) 15:14, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
      • I am not a lawyer and have never been anywhere near California, but I think according to current risk assessment there is probably no legal risk involved in starting with a copyvio, turning that into a text that mostly plagiarises the choice of ideas but uses completely different words and sentence structure and somewhat different order of presentation, and then removing the copyvio from the page history. (Even without the last step there is only little risk.) But this assessment may change in the future, as new case law comes out and lawyers invent new ways of making money from nuisance suits. If that happens, it is quite likely that copyvios that we didn't notice are much less of a problem than those which we were aware of, but addressed inadequately according to the latest legal theory that hasn't been shot down by a sufficiently high court yet. Apart from that I think it's a good general principle to deal with copyvios as Uncle G proposes. Otherwise those who introduce them can continue to think of the copyvios as positive content contributions of a type for which there is basically no alternative. But we need an environment in which competent editing is encouraged, even if it means we lose some incompetent editors who can do hardly more than copy and paste.

        We used to have a deficit in terms of verifiability. Now the pendulum is on the other side. Truþ has become a four-letter word and is routinely used that way when an editor audaciously proposes to base our editorial judgement on something that is unanimously agreed to be true but for which there is no reliable source. (Note I am not talking about saying something explicitly without source.) Editors who distil all applicable reliable sources into an original encyclopedic article risk being accused of improper synthesis if any of the sentences properly combines information from two different sources. And I have seen plenty of tendentious editors get away with demanding categorically, with appeal to verifiability, that a specific formulation be used just because it happens to occur in a reliable source, or avoided because a reliable source avoids it. (E.g. calling Northern Ireland a country, or not calling the Genesis creation story a creation myth.) Thorough removal of copyvios and treatment of it to the point that all traces even of plagiarism are removed may not be strictly necessary, but I see it as a way to swing the pendulum back towards the middle. Hans Adler 16:02, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

      • Yes, and you're wrong (and plucking statistics from thin air, by the way). It's very simple:
        • this edit and this edit are someone else's text, that isn't free content. There are probably more such edits. Those are just the two that we found.
        • We aren't permitted to copy, let alone to modify and republish, such things. They are subject to copyright and not licensed for such copying and modification.
        • This is where, however, we modified and republished that content. It got shuffled around a bit, copy edited, and interspersed with other content. But much of it is still there even now, in both modified and original forms, now spread across three (one blanked) sections of the article. The other, interspersed, content may itself be a problem, too. We haven't really looked at it.
      • We have a derived work, containing other people's stuff, copied, modified, and republished in a way that we're not allowed to do. We cannot compound the error by building on it further. Wikipedia editors lack the expertise to deal with the problem by carefully excising the problematic prose, checking whence everything originated and how it has been modified since. It's a hard thing to do and get right.

        We know that there's this lack of expertise and ability. It's why our standard instructions are to re-start from the last non-infringing version, and have been for the better part of a decade. Picking apart a derived work to retain the non-infringing bits is a job for an expert. In this case, we haven't even determined the extents of the non-infringing bits. It's unlikely that it's just those two instances.

        You don't correctly understand why we don't automatically delete non-free images, either. Part of that is because we accept a very limited and heavily circumscribed set of non-free images. But our primary purpose here is the generation of free content that we can give to the world. It's not the copying of multiple sentences of USA Today and then passing it off as free content because "it's attributed". Our mandate is the making of a free content encyclopaedia. The non-free stuff is constrained to be the part that simply cannot be regenerated as free. It doesn't extend to ordinary article prose giving the story of a historical figure. We can make free content prose to do that.

        No amount of "But we can just attribute it!" overcomes the basics. This was stuff that wasn't available to be copied, modified, and republished. It has been copied, modified, and republished.

        This argument that it's all alright, and copyright concerns go away, if we just attribute stuff that is copied when it's not permitted to copy it, is entirely bogus.

        You're in numerous (but not good) company in your belief of this copyright myth. A lot of people believe it. Wikipedia suffers so much from that belief that we had MediaWiki:copyrightwarning and now have MediaWiki:Wikimedia-copyrightwarning. But it's a myth nonetheless. I'm relieved of my duty to now go and write Project:Copyright guide for Arbitrators by the fact that Oregon State University debunks this myth, attorney Kathy Biehl debunks this myth, and Norbert F. Kugele (of Warner Norcross & Judd) debunks this myth and I can point to them (and a fair number of others) instead. ☺ Please learn that this myth is bunkum.

        Uncle G (talk) 16:34, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

        • Uncle G, I agree with you, but I also think that one of Risker's points was valid: If derivative work is correct and I am reading the article correctly, then the status of a text as a derivative work depends only on a comparison with the original, not on the process in which it was produced, even if that process was public and it went through stages that were derivative works. The problem is, it may not be fun to defend this theory against an expensive lawyer. Hans Adler 17:03, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
          • You can't copyright the facts. Every single article on Wikipedia is a derivative work, based on many sources. We extract the relevant facts and present them in an original way. Now, in this case, the final output may not be original enough (although Talk:Grace_Sherwood#content_copied doesn't exactly show a lot), but that doesn't mean the method is any different from every other single article on Wikipedia. We start from point A and derive point B, the mistake made was to do this in on live Wikipedia, and not doing it offline - but that doesn't make point B a copyright violation. Point A may be a copyright violation, and is still being presented in our archives as free use, which is an issue, but there is no need to rewrite the article entirely. - hahnchen 22:08, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
            • Coincidentally, there was a recent case in which 8 sentences was ruled fair use. Our policies on attributing text were not followed, but the "copyvio - nuke from orbit" view is way out of proportion. - hahnchen 22:17, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
              • Of course, that is, as you say, coincidental. We can't extrapolate an "8 sentences is okay" generalization, since each case is decided individually on its own merits. As Stim noted, "[a]n infringement may be found based on several paraphrased passages of a few hundred words each, or just 20 words copied verbatim."(Stim, Richard (2007). Patent, Copyright & Trademark: An Intellectual Property Desk Reference (9 ed.). Nolo. p. 220. ISBN 1413306462.) Since we cannot predict what a court of law will find, we really can't afford to push any envelopes. Eight sentences constitutes a "copyright problem" in that non-free content has not been handled according to policies, and our copyright policy is clear on this: "Never use materials that infringe the copyrights of others. This could create legal liabilities and seriously hurt Wikipedia. If in doubt, write the content yourself, thereby creating a new copyrighted work which can be included in Wikipedia without trouble." (And, of course, attribution does not efface infringement: "Acknowledging the source of the copyrighted material does not substitute for obtaining permission."[9])
                
                That said, the question is what to do when content has been placed without authorization but subsequently modified into a form that would have been acceptable, had it only appeared that way to begin with. Technically, this could get us into trouble, if the original use of material is found to infringe. As Uncle G notes, we are creating a derivative work (by revising, annotating, elaborating or modifying the content). Ideally, we should rewrite such problem content from scratch. That said, many former copyright problems on Wikipedia are treated in exactly this way. IOW, I recognize the question, but I don't have the answer. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 16:00, 3 November 2010 (UTC)
• I can't see any way round deleting most of the article. The copyvio was introduced during its five-fold expansion for DYK. Now we're intelligent mammals with opposable thumbs and all that, we could just take the chunk of text that was introduced here, work with it on a private text editor and repost was remains once the infringing material has been removed. Except we can't, because that would infringe the copyright of the original editor: only he can make that sort of an adjustment to put back some of what must be removed. So it's an all or nothing situation, sorry. Physchim62 (talk) 16:24, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Is the copyright issue not a bit of a red herring now? Key parts of the article are based on an Associated Press article that was referenced 29 times, and it based its article on a local woman who was trying to raise money. Shouldn't we use Uncle G's academic sources to rewrite it, for reasons unrelated to copyright? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 17:10, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

• I agree there. Secret ^account 17:59, 2 November 2010 (UTC)
• I just emailed Old Donation Episcopal Church for permission to use their content, if they say yes I would place a OTRS ticket on it, if they say no delete the article and start from scratch. Secret ^account 16:36, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

For what it's worth, what I've gotten from the historians for User:Uncle G/Grace Sherwood is subtly different to what is in Grace Sherwood. She wasn't tried three times. She was tried once. The other two (actually four — another difference) actions involving the Sherwoods were where they brought suit against someone else. She wasn't forgotten until Louisa Venable Kyle wrote a children's book about her, but in fact was remembered in folklore for three centuries. Her "good name" wasn't "restored" because she didn't have a bad one, even in the first place. At least one historian concludes that Virginians of the time didn't actually widely condemn witchcraft, or Sherwood in particular. And all of this "Before the day be through" stuff appears, since I've yet to find it anywhere else, to come from the re-enactors. Uncle G (talk) 11:37, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

WOW. Hans Adler 11:54, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Note

I have restored the section Grace Sherwood#Cultural background – after removing the alleged plagiarism and claimed copyright violations. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 21:11, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for working on it, Petri, but it's still problematic. For example, the sentence: "Unlike Massachusetts, made infamous by the Salem witch trials of 1692–1693, Virginia never experienced a "witch craze"" is sourced to four separate sources, none of them really appropriate:

• 2006 Associated Press story in USA Today, which does say it, but they are not historians: "Virginia never had a witch craze like that in Massachusetts, where 19 colonists were hanged for witchcraft in Salem Town in 1692."
• 1934 Richmond Times Dispatch story, not online.
• Something from the cellar by Ivor Noël Hume, Colonial Williamsburg, 2005, pp. 86–89, and I can't see where it says that.
• Someone's MA thesis, no page number, so it's hard to check; and is an MA thesis a reliable source?

The MA thesis is actually a source for the next sentence, rather than the source that's there, and it uses identical wording without in-text attribution:

• MA thesis: "To protect the social fragility of their colony, Virginia’s political and religious leaders consciously chose to prosecute offenses that they felt threatened the social cohesion of the colony, such as fornication, gossip, and slander, and dismissed those, such as witchcraft, that threatened to tear it apart."

• Wikipedia: "Virginia’s political and religious leaders consciously chose to prosecute offenses that they felt threatened the social cohesion of the colony, such as fornication, gossip, and slander, and dismissed those, such as witchcraft, that threatened to tear it apart."

The latter is sourced not to the MA thesis, but to Bond, Edward (2000). Damned Souls in a Tobacco Colony: Religion in Seventeenth-Century Virginia. Mercer University Press, pp. 53, 91, 125 (but which page?).

SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 22:35, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

The original claim was that it was plagiarism or copyvio of USA Today, I have worked on that only. The two statement that still are sourced to the article are, I believe, proper use of sources. I take no position on the unfree-by-origin thesis, nor on any of the other sourcing problems brought forward in this discussion.

You are right about the misplaced reference. It was misplaced already in the version I started working on – which incidentally also had the USA Today reference placed before the statement it was used to source. I have corrected the placement. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 16:39, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Checking Bond 2000, he says nothing like "To protect the social fragility of their colony, Virginia’s political and religious leaders consciously chose to prosecute offenses that they felt threatened the social cohesion ..." etc on pages 53, 91, or 125. Petri, I think it would be better to remove that section for now, until it's clearer who said what. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 23:36, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

I moved the article half an hour ago into the FARC stage of the discussion, but Nikkimaria has informed me that only FAR delegates should do that, so I apologize for jumping ahead, and I've reverted myself. This was the edit I made. I do think it would be helpful to move quickly to a delisting, given the multiple issues, but I'll wait to hear from the delegates. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 23:21, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

• Some other material from the MA thesis:

• MA thesis, p. 48: "[Sherwood] had a longstanding reputation in the community for malefic behavior and ill will. Her trial demonstrates how members of seventeenth-century society considered untrustworthy could quickly become scapegoats for social and economic tensions."

• Wikipedia: "Sherwood had a longstanding reputation for malefic behavior and ill will. Her trial demonstrates how those considered to be untrustworthy could quickly become scapegoats for social and economic tensions ..."

The sentence cites the thesis in footnote 16. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 00:38, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

• Image. There's also a problem with the lead image, File:GraceSherwoodCloseB.jpg, for which we claim fair use. It names no source other than Rlevse. If he really is the source in the sense of author, then it should be released. If he's not the author, we need a source, and without that we can't claim fair use. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 01:18, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Even if the photograph is freely-licensed, the sculpture itself is still copyrighted, if I understand correctly, and that may be why it has to be used as a fair use exemption. The first of the license tags on the image page covers it.   Will Beback  talk  01:32, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thanks, that makes sense. We should probably check that Rlevse is the author, and make that clear on the image page. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 02:17, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I think that rather than mucking about with unblanking parts of Grace Sherwood and finding yet more problems with text that matches the sources, you would be better off looking at whether Secret, who volunteered for rewriting duty above, is able to take User:Uncle G/Grace Sherwood and run with it. (I can give a few pointers as to what more is needed. It's mainly on the folkloric Sherwood. I've concentrated on the historic.)

There's an artist's impression of Sherwood's court appearance in a source somewhere, by the way. So there's possibly more than just that statue to be had (dependent from who the artist is). I haven't really been thinking about illustrations, and I've lost track of where I saw it. I do think, however, that it's possibly a bit misleading to use images of the Salem trials in an article whose subject the experts say wasn't quite the same. Uncle G (talk) 04:22, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

• Images Having three fair use images of essentially the same thing is a bit much, and it probably breaks FU policy. A maximum of two, I think, is acceptable, but preferably one. I don't know if there are any other images of something connected to Sherwood we could replace them with, but I'll have a look around. wackywace 08:40, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

This is pretty much a de facto de-listing at this point, as observed a while back. The article itself no-longer has the little star, for starters. Uncle G (talk) 14:43, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

• I've restored the template; any article listed at WP:FA by the FA director or FAC delegates is an FA until/unless it is removed by the FA director or a FAR delegate. The article has been at FAR for ten days now; at 14 days, FAR delegates will evaluate whether it should move to the FARC phase for "Remove" or "Keep" declarations. I'll also note that "process" to be observed at FAR was established during and after the Intelligent Design FAR, the FARC phase also lasts two weeks, only the FAR delegates or Raul654 move FARs to FARC or close FARs and delist articles, and should the delegates choose to IAR in a case like this, I suggest asking for Raul's view ASAP, since he has announced travel plans from the 13th until after Thanksgiving. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:03, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
  • You mean that you've added the template afresh. It was never actually in this edit history in the first place. I should thank you for marking this as featured article worthy, but it really isn't, you know. ☺ It's just a good stub, for Secret et al. to work on. Uncle G (talk) 15:16, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
    • Whether the article has or not the {{featured article}} template isn't what determines its FA status (those things go missing all the time, even in "normal" cases); being listed at WP:FA is what determines its FA status. I know it's a stub :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:19, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
      • I 'spose I should make it clear why I'm concerned about "process" in this case. This is a precedent-setting FAR. It has been stated elsewhere (no idea if that's accurate) that 80% of Wiki articles contain copyvios. Let's suppose the ZOMG hypothetical scenario that 80% of Wiki's FAs also contain copyvios. If that were found to be true, we would need a carefully deliberative process to deal with that scenario, based upon consensus, and I would not think it helpful for an IAR precedent to be set in the absence of Raul's feedback considering he has announced travel plans. In fact, I'm going to ping him now, because ... I don't want this to land in my lap, or the other delegates laps :) [10] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:26, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

• Move to FARC, it is not apparent that enough work has been done to retain FA status. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:58, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
• Move to FARC, agree with this comment by SandyGeorgia (talk · contribs). -- Cirt (talk) 15:49, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
• Move to FARC. UncleG has done a tremendous job on this, but given that it's a very different article now, the best thing is to renominate it as an FAC. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 16:01, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

• I see most of the article work is being done by Slim and Uncle G, and both of them opine that it can't be salvaged. For the FAR delegates to be able to decide whether to move this to FARC a wee bit sooner than the usual 14 days, it would be helpful to know if anyone reasonably thinks they can salvage FA status here or need more time. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:22, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Featured article criteria of concern noted in the review commentary include copyright violations, plagiarism, sourcing and images. This is being moved slightly early due to the discussion above, with the agreement of Raul as Featured Article Director. Dana boomer (talk) 13:46, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

I reviewed the article tonight, and although there were some minor MOS issues, what is there looks to be in good shape. Are the remaining concerns that a survey of the relevant literature and high quality sources need to be incorporated, that is, the sources now listed in Further reading? Before editors opine whether the article should be Kept or Delisted, is anyone willing and able to do that work? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:59, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

• My remaining concerns are as above, on Talk:Grace Sherwood, and elsewhere. Whilst I have addressed the historic Sherwood in depth, and haven't found anything major to add from — say — Bruce1910, and don't expect much extra to be in Laulainen-Schein2006; I haven't concentrated as much on the folkloric Sherwood. That's where the completeness of the coverage, at least as far as I am aware, is lacking. I suspect that there's material in Tucker1969 that extends this some way. But I don't know because I don't have access to it. The same for Betty1962. Turner1984 is on the face of it about the historic Sherwood, but I suspect (but again without access) that it might cover the folkloric as well. Summary: I think that there's more to be said of the folkloric Sherwood. Logically there should be. But I don't know that.

  And whilst Yarsinske2002 is based upon Syer1959, I'd like to know whether Syer1959 is based upon what everyone else turns out, directly or indirectly, to be based upon, namely the transcripts of the court records. If so, I don't expect Syer1959 to have much that is not already covered.

  I actually rather liked SlimVirgin's demotion of the external links section. ☺ I'm of the school that holds that if an external link is pointing to a WWW page with further reading material on it, then it's really further reading and should be properly listed (and cited) as such. (The two now there were both already there when I started. The first external link was originally a cited source for now removed content. I didn't even look at the second.) Uncle G (talk) 09:15, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

• That's part of why I asked-- my impression there is that the "Further reading" comprises sources that should be consulted for the article to be comprehensive, while External links are not (and that's why I prefer the typical layout). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:41, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

• Hey ya'll, are there any more thoughts here? There was a lot of heat/light at the beginning of this review, as well as a push to get it moved to FARC early, and then it just died... As it is at the two week mark for FARC and no comments have been made here since the day it was moved some updates would be helpful. Dana boomer (talk) 00:57, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Hi Dana, you asked me to comment here. I feel the same as I did when I first suggested on November 6 that it be delisted. My view is that it has changed so much it should be prepared and nominated for FAC, assuming anyone wants to do that, and reviewed in the normal way. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 19:10, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

• I feel the same way as SlimVirgin, Remove Secret ^account 20:07, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

• Per lack of additional work and UncleG's comments above, looks like a Delist. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:52, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.