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Wikipedia:Featured article review/archive/January 2007

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Remove status

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

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

Diego Velázquez

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Review commentary

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

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

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

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are citations (1c), LEAD (2a), and comprehensiveness (1b). Marskell 07:37, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

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

Cladistics

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Review commentary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To address your last point only, all those terms are already linked in the body of the article, which is probably why they are not repeated. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:52, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Copied these suggestions to the talk page for easy reference. I hope someone besides me has an interest in working on this, because I know nothing about the morphological side of things. Opabinia regalis 03:24, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to see this article rescued, but the chances of me doing any substantive work on it before the holidays are approaching zero - I haven't had the time to gather sources together and won't have any relevant books with me while I'm out of town next week. I don't really deal with FAR much - if this review period can be extended until early January, that would be great; if not, maybe it'll get a new star eventually. Opabinia regalis 06:17, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Status: able to do any work now Opabinia? Marskell 07:40, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
See this thread - after waffling a bit on this, I've concluded that my efforts alone would not be enough. The article as it stands has serious oversimplification problems and is not comprehensive, and cladistics is far enough outside my field that I don't have the necessary familiarity with the relevant literature to write a balanced and up-to-date article. (Also, I admit I don't like the subject very much :) I did leave a message for User:Felsenst, who is an expert on the subject and has previously expressed an interest in the article, but any work that might be done may not be in time for this FAR. As I said on my talk page, I'll try to make this article not suck, but that's not the same as bring to FA standard. Opabinia regalis 03:06, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have replied on User talk:Felsenst with a rant on what's wrong with the article. But what's right about the article is that, although quite muddled, it thus fairly reflects the field! My own views are highly controversial to most people who identify themselves as cladists, and are regarded as borderline-crackpot and dismissable. So I am not a good person to edit this article. Thanks for thinking of me, but ... Felsenst 13:29, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are factual accuracy (1a), citations (1c), LEAD (2a), TOC (2c), and focus (4). Marskell 09:35, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

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

Octopus card

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Review commentary

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

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

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

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

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are stub paragraphs, organization, and focus (2), citation sufficiency and format (1c). Marskell 17:36, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove—Flabby writing. Here are a few examples from the top.
    • "widely-used"—No hyphens after 'ly words.
    • " not only for virtually all public transport in Hong Kong, but also for"—"not only ... but also" is such a tired expression, and an unnecessary marker here.
    • "In addition,"—Every sentence is in addition; remove.
    • "Some charities even accept Octopus cards to receive donations."—Replace "to receive" with "for".
    • "Making a payment involves placing the card in close proximity to an Octopus card reader and a tone from the reader will confirm the merchant has received funds." Clumsy: "and" is awkward as a joiner here; "will" is doubtful; "that" required before "the merchant".
    • "with approximate 14 million Octopus cards"—sloppy.
    • "and other transport providers in Hong Kong such as KCR, KMB, and Citybus." The "such as" means there are some you're not telling us about. Is that the case?
    • Seriously under-referenced.

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


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

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

LSD

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Review commentary

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

LSD needs review for many reasons.

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

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns citations (1c), formatting (2), POV (1d). Marskell 11:44, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

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

Central processing unit

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Review commentary

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

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

A very brief look at the article makes it seem that much of the article consists of summaries of the relevant articles. I don't think summary style requires the references be re-cited in the summary. -- SilverStar★ 23:44, 14 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There is no need to relist all the of the references, but any statement that would otherwise require an inline citation should still have one. Jay32183 01:27, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Anyway, the daughter articles aren't referenced either. Sandy (Talk) 06:00, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It requires inline citations if it wants to keep its FA status. LuciferMorgan 01:51, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Unless someone here wants to take up that task, it won't happen. I wrote this article and have little intention of adding an inline reference to every third sentence. I feel that the current dogmatic interpretation of WP:V as far as FA standards are concerned is, frankly, ridiculous. I just wanted to nominate this for de-listing myself before someone else got around to it. -- mattb @ 2006-12-15T03:25Z
You probably could have taken it to WP:ARD. Those guys are pretty good at getting inline citations. Jay32183 03:28, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Needs more citations to support statements and facts throughout the article in all sections. At its current status, this article doesn't live up to current FA standards being met by many other featured articles. — Wackymacs 08:50, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concern is lack of citations (1c). Marskell 07:41, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Nobody is working on the article - the FAR nominator and original FA nominator are one and the same. LuciferMorgan 00:00, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

Spyware

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Review commentary

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Message left at Fubar Obfusco. Daniel Case 05:32, 13 November 2006 (UTC) Additional messages at Malware and Computing. Sandy (Talk) 21:15, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, after putting this here too soon after an embarassing turn on the Main Page, I followed the advice I was given and actually, I think, made some improvements to the article. I took advantage of the holiday to do a full copyedit which streamlined the prose and (at the time, at least), made the article 5K shorter. I found citations for most everything that was missing (the fact that I did this with simple Google searches makes me wonder why the original editors couldn't have tried harder). I think I cleaned up the POV issues with the Sony section.

However... there are still three things needing sourcing, and I think the article could use more illustrations. I am less sure it is no longer FA-quality now, but I'm only one pair of eyes. I think this deserves review as a matter of course. Daniel Case 16:22, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Some additional comments of my own. Due to its subject, the article is obviously prone to spam, which does create problems re stability. That can be contained, but just today an anon added two unsourced grafs which might be worth including. I don't have the time and I don't have the knowledge. If this is to stay featured, someone knowledgeable needs to stay on top of it.
I added a long comment at the head of the article just as a further warning to any spammers. Daniel Case 01:26, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have also proposed that the programs mentioned in the "fake anti-spyware" programs be spun off into a separate list (with all entries citing sources) to cut the length down a bit. Daniel Case 21:09, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments Mixed reference styles (please consistently use cite.php, which is the main method on the article), Section heading 4.1 Advertisements does not show in the TOC on my browser (I've encountered this issue on one article before, it was caused by some non-printable character), external jumps, potential external link farm, and lots of cite tags. Sandy (Talk) 21:36, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The list of notable programs needs to be prosified or removed. I suggest placing them in a history section of sorts, like "Adaware was first, then such and such followed." Lead paragraph screams for a citation. Hbdragon88 05:14, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concern is citations (1c). Marskell 00:06, 14 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Remove. Just too many concerns still remaining. Unless someone (not me) makes this article their personal responsibility and keeps it at a reasonable level, it cannot remain a featured article. Daniel Case 04:37, 14 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment—Looks good to me, so why can't one of the contributors fix the referencing? Tony 03:55, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

Carlsbad Caverns National Park

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Review commentary

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

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

Heh, true. Perhaps the best way to resolve this is to contact the NPS or that guy who owns www.carlsbad.caverns.national-park.com and wrote it? Gzkn 03:05, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I had thought that some had not bothered reading anything until it appeared on a CRT screen: A tendency still present.
On the copyright/borrowed issue. At the least, public domain or not, the sections taken from another site must be cited. This is a separate issue than is that of the original source questions (something from the public domain can still be plagiarized--as can be something publicly reprinted with private approval of the original author).
Given the significant age of the original as well as sea-changes in our common sensitivity to, and sense of outrage about, the commercial destructive exploitation of public treasures (I'm thinking I heard something about protests against the continued in-cavern vendors and new evidence that this commercial presence was deteriorating the caves--but I have been wrong already several times today!) perhaps the best route would be to delete the offending parts and invite a "from scratch" contribution. Does this make sense to anyone? Roy 01:14, 14 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have to ask if there is any real reason to have a "Rooms" section in this article. Granted, some of the most important rooms should be described, but in articles on buildings we don't describe every room, so why should we describe them in a cave?
I would encourage keeping the rooms distinction. This flows from the historic categorization of caverns. That is, unlike rooms of a building, the different caverns are subjected to sometimes subtle differences which over time, result in strikingly different (or similar) appearances. While the trained geologist may inwardly snicker these caverns should be featured here because of their impact on, and influence of, the public. Poets have often invoked metaphors in an attempt to do justice to the unexpected beauty or drama.
Perhaps it would be best for us to retain both of these perspectives: The academic geologic and the popular rhapsodic? This is not to suggest that geologists are not so mechanical as to be immune from a gasp at an unexpected scene, or that the public is not fully interested in the geologic details. Perhaps both of these perspectives should be honored. Perhaps through some new or renewed structural mechanism in the article's organization?
Oh, and somewhere in the wikipedia entry covering the residence of the President might in fact mention "the White House", and even "the oval office" and "Lincoln's bedroom. . ." Roy 01:14, 14 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • The geology sections should be broken off into an article along the lines of Geology of the Grand Canyon area.
    • The section on bats should be expanded to include other fauna (and may be even flora if there is any) in the cave.
Just a few suggestions of things I can see. *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 17:57, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Geology of the Grand Canyon area (which I wrote) was never split off from the Grand Canyon article. It is a full article about the geology. The geology section at Grand Canyon (which I also wrote) is a several paragraph summary that should really be a wee bit longer. The geology section in this article is starting to get a bit long, but not long enough yet to warrant splitting and summarizing since the summary left here would need to be well over half the size of the full separate daughter article. Thus little point would be served by a split at this time. --mav 05:37, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are possible copyvio (1c) and comprehensiveness (1b). Marskell 15:46, 28 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove—1a and 1c.
    • "Carlsbad was first designated a National Monument on 25 October 1923. Congress upgraded the monument to a national park on 14 May 1930. Carlsbad Caverns was also designated a World Heritage Site on 6 December 1995." What's "also" doing here? Do a search and destroy for this word throughout. Oh, there it is in the very next sentence, too.
    • "Visitation" is something angels do.
    • "helping to ensure no future changes will be made to the habitat"—"Future"? Isn't it already in the future tense?
    • "The story of the creation of Carlsbad Cavern begins 250 million years ago with the creation of ..." Repetition.
    • "The exposed reef became part of the Guadalupe Mountains and the underground chambers became the wonder of Carlsbad Cavern." POV? Reference?
    • "Some of the more unusual formations to occur in Carlsbad Cavern are helictites, which grow seemingly without regard to gravity, their twisting shapes governed by crystal shapes"—"to occur" is redundant; shapes x 2.

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

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

Eureka Stockade

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Review commentary

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Left messages at Denni, Prester John, Manning Bartlett Samsara (talk • contribs) 17:04, 29 November 2006 (UTC) Additional messages at Australia and MilHist. Sandy (Talk) 21:10, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Neutrality disputed, carries several {{cite needed}}, and has no inline references. Also, colour of flag is different from colour of same flag here - which is correct? Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:57, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. Citations needed, Wikilinking seems to need attention, References seems to contain External links and need to be written in consistent bibliographic style, short lead, NPOV tag not well explained, and image tags need attention. I converted mixed referencing styles and corrected section headings to WP:MOS. Sandy (Talk) 21:47, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Content is a problem in several places. For example, "The Australian colony of Victoria, a sparsely populated region of farmers and graziers, was declared separate from New South Wales on 1 July 1851. This tranquility was irrevocably disrupted that same year with the discovery of substantial gold fields all across the colony." To describe the colony of Victoria as "a sparsely populated region of farmers and graziers" is at best simplistic; how did all of those oppressed working class "criminals" from England become farmers and graziers just a decade, was it, after the abolition of transportation? Why should the readers assume that farmers and graziers and/or sparse population was tranquil? Australia didn't exist then, so let's not trot it out again—it's already in the opening sentence of the article.
  • The writing is clumsy in places, for example: "and was payable whether or not any gold had actually been found."
  • Seriously under-referenced.

Major rewrite needed, or it's heading for the dungeon. Tony 13:40, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As I understand it, most people in Victoria in 1851 were not and had never been convicts. Most were free settlers. The first settlements in what is now Victoria seem to have been made in 1834 and 1836, but I'm not sure if there were any other people in north-eastern vic at that time. Both those settlements were on the south coast. Perhaps the article could have more about population numbers or when certain towns were established and how quickly they were growing just before and just after the gold rush started.SpookyMulder 11:16, 7 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment: The article achieved featured status on 31 January 2006. Changes since are highlighted here - there have been 337 edits since. I note no citations seem to have been removed, there had been a references section. Has the standard changed over the year? I don't think the claim of seriously under referenced is deserved. I appreciate that not much use has been made of in-line citations, but the references at the end are quite adequate. Eureka, John Molony, ISBN 0-522-84962-8 [5] is by a noted Australian historian for example (even if doesn't yet have wikipedia article - see NLA manuscript collection info for potted biog ). The neutrality dispute has been resolved.--Golden Wattle talk 09:13, 26 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are citations (1c) and neutrality (1d). Marskell 00:07, 14 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Birthplace of Australian democracy
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I am one of those people who subscribe to the point of view that the Eureka Stockade was not the birthplace of Australian democracy.

It makes me so angry when I hear someone say it was and all I can think about doing is hurting that person.

That's how DEEP and BITTER my opposition is!!!!!!! And yes I typed all those out one by one!

It's really disturbing to find someone filled with so much hate aint it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.187.150.76 (talk • contribs) \



  • Remove, writing is not up to FA standard in addition some sections don't fit - like Peter Lalor and the film section which increase the feelings of disorganisation; MOS issues including quotes in italics, sloppy use of bullet points, over linking of date elements and no useful wikilinks in other long blocks of text; insufficient referencing. --Peta 02:01, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

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

History of Central Asia

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Review commentary

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

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

You have to be careful about adding too many recent events to articles like this. This page has to cover several millenia of history, and already more than 10% is on just the last fifteen years. The ideal solution would be to create some sub-articles, such as has been done with most national history articles. A History of Central Asia since 1991 page would be able to cover the events you listed in proper detail. - SimonP 03:11, 27 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What an incredibly huge topic for a single article! However, regarding solely the reason for this proposed FAR, can't this information just be added in a section on the past 7 years? As it's an article about history, that it hasn't been updated with events of the past 7 years is only a current and remediable omission, not a failing of the entire article. Is there anything else wrong with the article, that should cause it to be reviewed as a FA? If this is not the case, how about a post, instead, on the WikiProject Central Asia board requesting this update, and on the talk page requesting this update? Or have you tried that? And ditto, SimonP's comments. The topic is just immense! The last 7 years are merely a blip. KP Botany 03:13, 27 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with KazakhPol, the period since independence is the most densely packed with history of a regional and perhaps global scale since Chinggis Han, it's no longer a Soviet backwater or merely a pawn in the new Great Game, and deserves an update. Chris 03:27, 27 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Fails 1c, largely uncited, mixed reference styles, footnotes that are provided aren't formatted correctly. Sandy (Talk) 10:31, 27 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. "Since 1991" is tragic!!! It completely fails to grasp the current momentum of events! It generalizes and fails to give the appropriate infos. Terrible! What about the internal tensions in all these countries? The challenges these totalitarian regimes faced? The role of Russia and its antagonism with USA? The efforts of Russia to control the natural sources (petroleum and natural gas) in this area, which is the true essence of a hypogeous energy war? Anyway ... I think this article treats a very interesting topic. It actually looks like a challenge to try and save it. I might give it a shot but I promise nothing. First, I'll do some search to see what I can do with citing and then we'll see. In case I undertake the task to save this article, I definitely need somebody to copy-edit.--Yannismarou 18:29, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Would not pass 1a or 1c in the FAC room. Here are random examples of why this needs a thorough copye-edit throughout.
    • Opening: "The history of Central Asia has been determined primarily by the area's climate and geography. The aridity of the region makes agriculture difficult, and its distance from the sea cut it off from much trade." Great concepts, but clash of tenses ("has been determined" vs simple past "cut").
    • "Turkic expansion begain in the 6th century, and following the Göktürk emipre,..." Typo, and do you mean "following the fall of the G empire"? That would be more nutural.
    • Audit the whole thing for commas; one is definitely missing here: "One of those powers, the Parthian Empire was of Central Asian origin, but adopted Persian cultural traditions." And here: "With no cities and little wealth other than the herds they brought with them the nomads had nothing ...".
    • Overlinked. Why "16th century", "firearms", genetics, and "chariots"? Please don't distract the readers with unfocused links. (Yet "wheat" is quite focused as a link, unusually.) Needs to ration the blue speckling.
    • Seriously under-referenced. Tony 05:09, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to FARC, no edits since Tony's review. Yannis has done some work on the article, but refs are still incorrectly formatted, mixed referencing styles, and undercited. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:06, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to FARC per SandyGeorgia. KazakhPol 02:26, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concern is non-up-to-date coverage. Marskell 11:42, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

Sydney Riot of 1879

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Review commentary

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Messages left at Jguk, Moondyne and Cricket. --RelHistBuff 15:25, 22 November 2006 (UTC) Additional message at Australia. Sandy (Talk) 22:18, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nominating due to non-conformance of criterion 1c (only four inline refs). The inclusion of the letters was an issue in the vote for FA. Although they were accepted to be included, at least the sources of the letters should be cited. --RelHistBuff 13:24, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm puzzled by the comment about the sources of the letters not being included as the text makes it clear that they are from April 1879 editions of the UK Daily Telegraph and the following Wisden Cricketers Almanack. Isn't the text considered "inline", or am I missing something? jguk 07:30, 23 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I was going by WP:CITE under the subsection "Say where you got it". The original source is the Daily Telegraph, but I assumed that the text was really from an intermediate source (such as one of the references in the list under "References"). So to improve credibility, the reference should be cited. As it is a long quote, the quotation template could be used. The citing of intermediates sources can be applied to the footnote to the 1879 Sydney Morning Herald as well as other quotes throughout the text. --RelHistBuff 09:19, 23 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I got the text from an anthology that included extracts from different years Wisden Cricketers Almanack, including the 1880 version. As Wisden Cricketers Almanack is cited in full in the text, is still available to read, and is probably, given online resources, easier to find then the Benny Green Wisden anthology I copied it from, I think the requirement to provide the source is adequately met. jguk 09:41, 23 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Our citation standards are under WP:CITE#How_to_cite_sources. FA candidates these days are being failed for not reaching these standards. Could you use one of those three styles? --RelHistBuff 09:51, 23 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So basically you want a footnote? --bainer (talk) 10:39, 23 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Either footnote (cite.php) or Harvard referencing. I assume many of the published sources are not available online so that excludes embedded HTML. This should be applied for the quotes as well other cases where cites are needed. --RelHistBuff 10:58, 23 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm just wondering why you started a featured article review when all you want is a certain style of referencing to be used. You couldn't have just asked on the talk page? --bainer (talk) 11:36, 24 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think Wikipedia:Citing sources#How to cite sources is rather more prescriptive about one of the three mentioned citation systems having to be used than I understand the consensus to be. As far as I am aware, there are various suggested styles for citation, but it is not a mandatory requirement to use one of them.
In this article, there is a very full description of the source of the first extensive quotation in the text - fuller, indeed, than a footnote or Harvard would require:
On 11 February 1879, one day after the conclusion of the match and three days after the riot, [Lord] Harris wrote a letter to one of his friends about the disturbance. It was clear that he intended that the letter would be printed in the press, and, indeed, the letter appeared in full in The Daily Telegraph, a London newspaper on 1 April, and in other London newspapers, where it caused a furore. Wisden's Cricketers Almanack considered the incident of such significance that it found space for the whole correspondence too. The letter, which gives a detailed contemporary account of what Lord Harris thought about the riot, read as follows:
I can't see what a footnote would add to that, although it would be helpful to add the date of the original Almanack for the first (1880, presumably?) and that it is included in the Anthology.
(insert response) Not really pushing for *extra* information, just wanted to know where the letter came from. As jguk said, he copied it from Benny Green's anthology. So it is simply a matter of putting <ref>s on Wisden Anthology - 1864-1900 with page number. The quote should state the source. --RelHistBuff 16:28, 23 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The introductions to the second and third are much shorter:
The New South Wales Cricket Association were outraged by Lord Harris's letter and got their honorary secretary, a Mr JM Gibson, to write to the Daily Telegraph in reply:
and
Fred Spofforth, Australia's Demon bowler, did comment on it years later in an 1891 cricket magazine interview, but with a different slant on the cause. His view was that the English team were unfortunate victims of intercolonial rivalry:
Perhaps it would be helpful for these to give a bit more detail (what was the date of the Telegraph in which the letter was published? which magazine was Spofforth quoted in?).
I'm sure some other citations could be added, though. The other quotations in the rest of the text (such as the one from the Sydney Morning Herald and from Lord Harris's autobiography) ought really to have specific inline citations. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:50, 23 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've added some more inline citations, as indeed have others. Is the review complete now? jguk 13:05, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This "unreferenced text" is largely a distillation of the various accounts that are all listed below as references, which all take slightly different perspectives. I'm not really sure how useful it would be to link in every single fact to such a wide range of references. I'd be interested in your recommendations. jguk 18:19, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for adding the cites to the letters. As ALoan mentioned, the other quotes ought to have inline citations as well. I list only some of them below with the primary source as mentioned in the text. The secondary source should be cited and page numbers should be included if the secondary source is a book. The latter point has been raised as an important issue for current FACs for better verifiability.

  • had written "The decision... " – issue of the Sydney Morning Herald
  • his diary that "It was a most disgraceful affair…" – Vernon Royle’s diary
  • The Australasian asked, "What will they say... " – issue of The Australasian
  • the two men "expressed regret" – issue of the Sydney Morning Herald
  • Lord Harris wrote, "They asked... " – Lord Harris’s autobiography

--RelHistBuff 11:49, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Status? Is work progressing? I noticed that bluelinks in notes and references need to be expanded (including last access dates), there is still unreferenced text (per RelHistBuff), and some of the TOC headings could be more compact. Sandy (Talk) 16:06, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, work is progressing. I dug out my copy of A History of Australian Cricket over the weekend, which is probably enough to deal with the rest.
It would be more helpful, if you are concerned about "last access dates" that you checked the links worked and then added the day's date. Especially as I do not recognise that as a concern anyone has raised before.
I would also note that RelHistBuff has not pointed out that there is unreferenced text. All five points are referenced - namely to the SMH, Vernon Royle's diary (for which the ISBN has been provided), The Australasian and Lord Harris's autobiography (which in a larger library, you should be able to find). I will, however, add references to pages in A History of Australian Cricket, where they refer to SMH and The Australasian extracts included, in the next week or so.
I have no idea what you mean by "bluelinks in notes and references need to be expanded" (other than in relation to access dates) so am unable to address the point. jguk 13:42, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I completed one ref as an example of the work still needed.
Publisher, pub date, location? Wisden Anthology - 1864-1900 edited by Benny Green ISBN 0-356-10732-9
Publisher, pub date, location? The Cricket Captains of England by Alan Gibson ISBN 1-85145-395-4
Expand ref, as example. Cricinfo page on George Coulthard
Expand. Australian Journal of Public Administration
etc.
Similar work is needed in footnotes:
Publisher, date, other biblio info so reader can locate source. Also, this uses last name first, while refs don't - consistency. ^ Cashman, Richard. The "Demon" Spofforth. ISBN 0-86840-004-1.
This isn't a reference - it's a link to the Wiki article on the Herald: The Sydney Morning Herald - 10 February 1879
A consistent biblio style would be helpful, for example, last name, first name ... page number last, etcetera. p35 Lord Harris's Team in Australia 1878-79, The Diary of Vernon Royle by Vernon Royle, edited by JW McKenzie ISBN 0-947821-10-4
etc. Sandy (Talk) 17:55, 7 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry. I still don't follow.

The example reference you changed [6] was to change the accurate heading "Cricinfo tour index" to "England in Australia : Jan 1879 (1 TEST).] ind.cricinfo.com Accessed 7 December 2006".

However, that's less accurate. First "Cricinfo England 1878-79 tour index" would be much more accurate than the confusing "England in Australia : Jan 1879 (1 TEST)". As you can see, the tour index contains scorecards of five different matches played between January and March 1879, including the game in question here, not just one Test . Second "ind.cricinfo.com" is just an Indian server of cricinfo.com. The "ind" bit can readily be replaced with "aus" or "usa" or anywhere else where they have a server. So it's not useful.

That's the website given, and when you access that webpage, that's the page title. The idea is to make it easy for future readers to find the page if the links go dead. I'll try to tackle some of these this weekend, and see if there are stable versions in the Internet archive. Sandy (Talk) 19:44, 7 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In terms of a standard way of presenting book references, all books, except the Cashman book on Spofforth are cited as Title, Author, ISBN. That really should be sufficient for anyone who wants to locate the book to find it. Is it just a case of tweaking the Cashman reference, or more?

Publisher and pub date are needed. If you have the books, you can provide them - otherwise, someone else has to go digging around (maybe in amazon or B&N) for that info. Sandy (Talk) 19:44, 7 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I can follow the "Accessed 7 December 2006" bit.

With respect to the reference to the Sydney Morning Herald of 10 February 1879, is it just a case of removing the bluelinks? Or are you looking for something else. jguk 18:15, 7 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We need a ref to the actual article - info like title, date, author, etc. I'll try to look at these in more detail this weekend, but my time is tight, so anything you all can do will help. Sandy (Talk) 19:44, 7 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to try to work on this today: does anyone have publisher and publication date on the books? I can't find them. Sandy (Talk) 15:48, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, ALoan. Sandy (Talk) 16:53, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think I know where the Australasian quote came from but will need 24 hours to get the details. Bear with me. —Moondyne 16:44, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks - I think this article is close, and we should avoid FARC. Additional questions:
Can anyone fill out the missing info on the Sydney Morning Herald article?
Can anyone give us page numbers on the two Green, Benny letter references, and the Cashman ref?
Can anyone straighten out Jguk's concern (above) about the reference,
England in Australia : Jan 1879 (1 TEST). cricinfo.com Retrieved 7 December 2006.
I just listed what was given, so I'm not sure how he wants that changed.
I'll go through next and see if any more cites are needed. Sandy (Talk) 16:53, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure what to do - there are still a lot of quotes from various press sources, that are probably the same sources already cited, but I'm not sure. Can someone verify if they are the same, and if so, we can use named refs to point at them. Sandy (Talk) 17:08, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My bit:

  • Added a page# for the Cashman quote
  • Removed the Australasian quote as I cannot 100% confirm the source or give details. I'm almost certain that it came from another Cashman book: "Violence in Sports" but cannot get my hands on it. The article can live without it.

I can't find any more. —Moondyne 06:11, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The references to newspaper articles, other than the Australasian come from A History of Australian Cricket. jguk 12:28, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concern is citations (1c). Marskell 18:36, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I can't understand this. (1c) says that FAs must be:

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

The article cites all its sources, and cites them in a way that allows anyone wishing to check what is said in the article to find them. I know SandyGeorgia wishes to present some of the citations in a slightly different way, and that is happening - indeed, much of that is already happening. But that's a far cry from saying that 1c is not met.

Marskell has neither commented on the talk page, edited the article, nor commented above on the discussion on references. I'm not even convinced he has even read the article.

I remain very disappointed that minor, technical issues that could (and in my view should) have been addressed on the talk page, instead appear to lead to the automatic defeaturing of an excellent article. jguk 12:19, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is no move towards automatic defeaturing: Joel was allowing extra time in FAR, Marskell allows extra time in FARC, both work towards the same goal - saving articles when work is progressing. It would be unusual for anyone to vote to Remove the article while work is progressing. (In the Bodyline case, there was no response for several weeks from editors working on the article.) Sandy (Talk) 18:39, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There are still quotes that require citations. I still have no idea what is the secondary source where the quote from Lord Harris's autobiography came from. Also, as Sandy mentioned, there are still the missing secondary source citations for the Sydney Herald quotes. Finally, there is the need for the page numbers for the Royle, Green, and Cashman cites. If these are addressed, then I would vote Keep. --RelHistBuff 12:53, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've now just added the Sydney Morning Herald citation detail. —Moondyne 13:00, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
RelHistBuff, there is no need to give a secondary source for everything. I believe you are misunderstanding the requirements there. Anyone who has the Green book would be able to find the right passage within 30 seconds, so there is already sufficient information there to meet the requirements. I will, however, add in the page references anon. jguk 13:21, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've added details of Lord Harris's autobiography, A Few Short Runs. jguk 17:18, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If someone will please just tell us the source of the Herald article, I think we'll be just about there:

^ Author name ???. Article title ???. The Sydney Morning Herald, 10 February 1879.

Sandy (Talk) 18:39, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Why is there no explanatory text for what this process is and when it will end? --Dweller 10:03, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The instructions are at the top of the main page here, WP:FAR. Sandy (Talk) 11:54, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
They should be here too. And there's no date there for this particular process. --Dweller 12:14, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The article was moved to FARC on 9 December: add 14 days for the minimum period it will be at FARC - that period is extended if FAR is notified and work is clearly progressing. Sandy (Talk) 20:25, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment The FA standards are very high now. One can see this by scanning through current FACs. I have personally seen one FAC that had over 50 inline citations, but it almost did not make FA simply because page numbers were not provided in the citations. The argument made for this requirement was the verifiability policy. I, myself, would not have been so picky and I do not "count" citations, but I do point out where they may be needed. A quote such as the one below would need a cite (the ref is only an example).

  • In his autobiography Lord Harris wrote, "They ...".<ref>Lord Harris (1921). A Few Short Runs as quoted in Green, Benny (1992) pp. 1-2</ref> This plus the Sydney Morning Herald cite would be enough for me to vote keep. --RelHistBuff 15:24, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I think I can't go better than neutral on this one as the full inclusion of the letters totally throws off proportion. I won't go remove, however, if a few more cites are provided.
  • All direct quotes.
  • "That Coulthard was a Victorian no doubt added to the emotions, and there were unfounded rumours that Coulthard had placed a large bet on an English victory." The first clause strikes me as a POV aside and should probably be dropped. The second is especially problematic without a cite: not only does it repeat the rumours, it declares them unfounded. According to whom?
  • "Independent witnesses said Coulthard's decision was close but fair." This absolutely requires a cite, as I think should be obvious.
Earlier jguk noted "I'm not even convinced he has even read the article" re my moving it to FARC. Nope, I hadn't. I moved it down just like everything else on FAR that doesn't have a definite consensus after the first period. But there's no "automatic defeaturing" here; just the opposite. Marskell 17:19, 16 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove but conditionally: I am voting now only because I have been told if one does not clearly make a statement, then my comments would be construed tacitly as being neutral. If my citation requests as well as Marskell's concerns above are addressed, then I will change my vote. --RelHistBuff 12:24, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove have tried in vain to get sources for letters, upon which text relies heavily, as well as direct quotes. Reluctantly must vote to remove, as source for important parts of article aren't given. Sandy (Talk) 01:04, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per ALoan. The referencing of the article is satisfactory to demonstrate factual accuracy. A handful of fact tags were added in the past couple weeks and it would perhaps be worthwhile to provide specific sources for them. Christopher Parham (talk) 06:22, 25 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove unless serious citations are addressed; the requests have been up for ten days. Jguk does not appear to be editing—hopefully that's just a holiday thing and he can get back to it. I must say I'm absolutely astonished people find the referencing satisfactory here. Marskell 19:52, 25 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Among other things, 10 days is nowhere near the usual amount of time given for citation tags on uncontroversial information to be filled in. Christopher Parham (talk) 01:28, 26 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Citations were requested over a month ago - that was the reason for the FAR - *tags* were up for ten days (according to Marskell). We try not to tag articles. Sandy (Talk) 14:37, 26 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • As far as I can tell, the main sources that were requested in the original FAR have been provided. The only remaining place where a citation clearly would be helpful is a specific issue date for the quotes from the Sydney Morning Herald. However, this is not a sufficiently urgent issue to warrant removing featured status. Christopher Parham (talk) 17:04, 26 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • "Independent witnesses said Coulthard's decision was close but fair" is not "uncontroversial"—it's a critical piece of info on which the whole story turns.
          • I'm not suggesting closing this incidentally; at the very least we should wait for further comment from jguk. Marskell 22:44, 27 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove, until [citation needed]s are fixed and the article gets properly cited. Comment: Are these looong letters necessary?--Yannismarou 19:02, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

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

First Amendment to the United States Constitution

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Review commentary

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

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

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

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

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

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are prose (1a), comprehensiveness (1b), LEAD (2a). Marskell 16:35, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

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

English poetry

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Review commentary

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

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

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

Seegoon 21:43, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

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

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are writing (1a) and citations (1c). Marskell 21:12, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove; in addition to those concerns cited above, it's also extremely vague, and the rapid-fire approach to literary history is both stylistically unsatisfying and results in lack of accuracy (Shepheardes Calender the first English pastoral? no, but to adequately explain the status of the genre in the 16th century would take, oh, its own article). It is of course almost impossible to write a decent article on a subject this broad; poetry was removed from FA for similar reasons a while back. This should probably be a summary-style article with {{main}}-article links, modeled on history of science. Chick Bowen 03:44, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

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

Regular polytope

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Review commentary

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

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

The structure of this article (Layout, MOS, External links, See also, etc.) looks very clean relative to some of the older FAs that come through, and the article looks to be in good shape. The References could benefit from having ISBNs added to the books, and the online reference (Haeckel) should be fully expanded and include a last access date. There are some external jumps (imbedded links) which should be fixed. It looks like adequate reference sources are given so that citing the article shouldn't be too difficult, and there are some inline, Harvard style refs already in place. This article should be salvageable, but I'd sure hate to the one who had to work on it over the holidays :-) Sandy (Talk) 23:39, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Seems to have a fair number of Harvard style inline cites, I count 17 in the text. --Salix alba (talk) 23:41, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, *embarrassed* , I notice that it used the Harvard referencing. I withdraw my objections. / Fred-Chess 23:51, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't need to be withdrawn: with a minimum amount of work, it could be a nice Save/Keep. There were Harvard citations, but not thorough or complete (I've now converted them to cite.php .) The external jumps and inline URLs need to be dealt with, and there are still some statements that do need to be cited. If anyone is willing to work on it, I can add cite tags. Also, some of the inlines that were there aren't specific (page nos). There are also some minor prose issues which should be cleared up (example: "Cayley gave them English names which have become accepted. They are: (Kepler's) the small stellated dodecahedron and great stellated dodecahedron, and (Poinsot's) the great icosahedron and great dodecahedron.") If someone could comb through it, it could be closed as a successful FAR. Sandy (Talk) 03:21, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I converted most of the external jumps to notes, and cleaned up See also, which contained articles already linked in the text. I saw a lot of copyediting needs in the article - unencylopedic commentary and sentence fragments - in addition to the statements needing citation. I hope someone else will comb through it - it's not in bad shape, but if we could complete the work, it can be taken off of the list of articles with citation needs. Sandy (Talk) 04:05, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You've been reverted.--Rmky87 20:53, 24 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
They can use whatever style they want, but the article is still undercited, some of the references are incomplete, there are prose issues, and there are imbedded links to external websites (which should be either wikified or converted to a reference). And, since all of my work was reverted, the article now needs attention to wikilinking, consistency in capitalization of platonic, and See also cleanup (for articles already linked in the text). If someone reverted, the good news is that the article is not abandoned like most older FAs, and maybe the necessary cleanup, polishing and referencing will happen. Sandy (Talk) 06:06, 25 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

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

I agree with all of Sandy's comments about the lack of citations and vague prose. I have a few additional comments.
  • Whenever the article claims that regular polytopes had a particular definition at some moment in time it should provide a reference to a source who uses or describes that definition. I doubt that the Greeks had any definition for the phrase regular polytope; the article implies that they did. What seems to be true is that the regular polytopes include the polygons and polyhedra known to the Greeks.
  • If this is a math article, it should be edited to meet the spirit of the scientific citation guidelines. In particular, the article does not explicitly point out a general reference, and many sources are omitted.
  • The references section should be edited to agree with the examples at WP:HARVARD.
CMummert 13:40, 27 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria is lack of citations (1c). Marskell 19:07, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I agree that the handful of historic speculations should be removed; in fact, I'll go remove them; but they are marginal to the article anyway. As for Coxeter's book: it is the standard work on the entire subject, and anything else which is uncited is almost certainly sourced there; this is therefore unlikely to be challenged by anyone who has actually looked at the listed sources: I would be surprized if most of them, taken at random, do not support this characterization. I see no other flaws that amount to lack of clear citation for challengeable assertions. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:36, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I removed some speculation. Both the discoveries in Tuscany and in Scotland are sourced; I left an assertion that the purpose or intent of non-functional prehistoric artifacts is unknowable, as both obvious and a useful reminder to our more non-conventional readers.Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:43, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • I suggest a thorough read of the article, and the list of issues discussed on review, most of which have not been addressed in any significant way. Your edit to one paragraph addressed a miniscule part of the list of issues. (And please don't tell me to do the work - I started on it, and my work was reverted.)
      • It shouldn't be too hard to clean up the See also, fix the wikilinking, and decide whether you all want to capitalize things like platonic solids or not - I already did that sort of work once, and my corrections were reverted - it's not really rocket science, but someone needs to do the work.
      • I'm wondering if the Math Project considers these to be samples of brilliant and compelling prose and good referencing worthy of FA status? I suggest that editors complaining about other areas of Wikipedia that count cites should at least read an article before defending it.
        • Brilliant and compelling - I don't believe Britannica or textbooks routinely send their readers to [1] to read up on topics. Also, 1b would indicate we shouldn't be sending our readers to external jumps anyway; for an article to be considered comprehensive, we should write the text ourselves and reference or link to it:
          • For example, the fold out nets mentioned in the previous section have higher-dimensional equivalents. Some of these may be viewed at [7].
        • Choppy, compelling and brilliant external jumps :
          • Such a tessellation forms an example of an infinite abstract regular polytope. An example may be seen at this page.
          • Other examples may be found on the web (see for example [8]).
        • Here are my two favorite examples of this article's encyclopedic, brilliant and compelling prose:
          • For a given polyhedron there may be many fold-out nets. For example, there are 11 for the cube, and over 900000 for the dodecahedron. Some interesting fold-out nets of the cube, octahedron, dodecahedron and icosahedron are available here. (Reminder to check WP:MOS for usage of commas in 900000.)
          • In theory, almost any material may be used to construct regular polyhedra. Instructions for building origami models may be found here, for example. They may be carved out of wood, modeled out of wire, formed from stained glass. The imagination is the limit.
        • Does this add to the wealth of encyclopedic knowledge on the topic (is it an advert?) Such models are occasionally found in science museums or mathematics departments of universities (such as that of the Université Libre de Bruxelles).
        • Encyclopedic tone? In this way, we can see (if not fully grasp) the full four-dimensional structure of the four-dimensional regular polytopes, via such cutaway cross sections. and One might even imagine building a model of this fold-out net, as one draws a polyhedron's fold-out net on a piece of paper. Sadly, we could never do the necessary folding of the 3-dimensional structure to obtain the 4-dimensional polytope, because of the constraints of the physical universe.
        • Choppy prose The outer protein shells of many viruses form regular polyhedra. For example, HIV is enclosed in a regular icosahedron.
        • Hypothesized sounds weasly, should say by whom Although C60, the most easily produced fullerene, looks more or less spherical, some of the larger varieties (such as C240, C480 and C960) are hypothesised to take on the form of slightly rounded icosahedra, a few nanometres across.
        • "As an aside"? (Entire paragraph uncited as well.) As an aside: In ancient times the Pythagoreans believed that there was a harmony between the regular polyhedra and the orbits of the planets.
        • Compelling, and truly encyclopedic prose: Kepler's work, and the discovery since that time of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, have thrown the Pythagorean idea well and truly into the dustbins of scientific history.
        • More compelling brilliant prose - the world of minerals? In the world of minerals, crystals often have faces which are triangular, square or hexagonal.
        • "Fascinating" is encyclopedic prose? Another fascinating example of regular polygons occurring as a result of geological processes may be seen at the Giant's Causeway in Ireland, or at the Devil's Postpile in California, where the cooling of lava has formed areas of tightly packed hexagonal columns of basalt.
        • Honeycomb is "famous"? The most famous hexagons in nature are ...
        • Passive voice, missing punctuation, then a snake, followed by choppy prose. There also exist animals who themselves take the approximate form of regular polygons (or at least have the same symmetry) for example starfish and sometimes other echinoderms (such as sea urchins) display the symmetry of a pentagon or sometimes other polygons (such as the heptagon). In fact, echinoderms do not display exact radial symmetry. However, Jellyfish and Comb jellies do, usually fourfold (like the square) or eightfold.
        • More brilliant prose, a type, and choppy parenthetical writing: Moving off earth into space, early mathematicians doing calculations using Newton's law of gravitation discovered that if two bodies (such as the sun and the earth) are orbiting one another, there exist certain points in space where a smaller body (such as an asteroid or a space station)will remain in a stable orbit, following (for example) the earth but never catching up or falling behind.
        • Choppy, disjointed prose. These points are called Lagrangian points. The sun-earth system has five Lagrangian points. The two most stable are exactly 60 degrees ahead and behind the earth in its orbit. That is, joining the centre of the sun and the earth and one of these stable Lagrangian points forms an equilateral triangle. Astronomers have already found asteroids at these points.
        • Brilliant. Cite needed on weasle, and an exclamation point to round out the encyclopedic tone. It is still debated whether it is practical to keep a space station at the Lagrangian point — although it would never need course corrections, it would have to frequently dodge the asteroids that are already present there! (Already there are satellites and space observatories at the less stable Lagrangian points, which do not form the point of an equilateral triangle with the earth and the sun.)
        • Of course - I encounter "of course" all the time in encyclopedias and textbooks. Of course reasonably accurate approximations can be constructed by a range of methods; while theoretically possible constructions may be impractical.
      • That's only a few sections at the bottom. Rather than continue, I'll skip back to the top to see if it has improved yet.
        • I see we still have this piece of gradual-broad-wide-gradual-wide-wide brilliance: The history of discovery of the regular polytopes can be characterised by a gradual broadening of widespread understanding of the term. Gradually, the term "regular polytope" has been given successively wider meaning, allowing more different geometric objects to be so labeled. With each widening, new geometric figures are uncovered — these new figures usually being completely unknown to previous generations.
      • I'll stop there. Please fix the prose, finish referencing, correct the wikilinking and ce issues, and remove the external jumps. Per 1b, please wikify text, and link to it internally or via references. Is this really work the Math Project is proud of and wants to display as an example of Wikipedia's best work in Math? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:49, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment -- the concerns presented above seem to me to have varying degrees of validity, as far as the featured status of the article goes. I've corrected some issues and will try to undertake some more; however, some of Sandy's complaints I don't quite see the thrust of (honeycombs aren't famous?; what's wrong with fascinating; etc.) And the external jumps, though I haven't checked them all, appear to be useful and quite valuable. Although we may have to agree to disagree on that. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:17, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • External jumps discussed at Wikipedia:Featured article review/Monty Hall problem (Curiously silent section). It's not that the info in the jumps isn't useful or shouldn't be included: if it should be included, and it's not Wikified, that argues against 1b. We can either Wikify the content (per 1b), or discuss the content, linking to the external site as a reference (WP:NOT and WP:EL), or if we simply must include an external jump in text (e.g.; copyright reasons, and we truly can't write it ourselves), at least the text should conform to 1a, good prose. "Fascinating" is editorializing, not encyclopedic prose, and I can't really add more to the honeycombs as "famous" issue. :-) It would be helpful if the Math Project would get a topnotch copyeditor on board, because neither of these two articles on review are difficult mathmatically; yet, the prose is making the topics appear difficult. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:15, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • None of the material that is linked to should be included in this article, as far as I can tell; however it is information that may be helpful to someone who is interested in further examination of the particular topic being discussed. If someone wants to create a new article on Wikipedia about the topic, that would be great, and we could link to that article instead. Until that happens, the external link is the best choice; either way, whether or not that other article has been written shouldn't impact whether this article is featured. If you feel that the text surrounding those links is not good prose, please suggest an alternative. It seems fine to me. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:30, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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

  • Examples of these stones are on display in the John Evans room of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford University. It is impossible to know why these objects were made, or how the sculptor gained the inspiration for them.
    • This text adds nothing to the topic. The second throw-away sentence is still there. Since the link is dead, I'm wondering what value you find in the external jump? I looked it up in the internet archive, and even if the link were live, it adds nothing to the topic. [9] The second sentence is a throw-away sentence. I can see no justification for this jump.
  • Euclid's elements (see for example Euclid's Elements) gave what amount to ruler-and-compass constructions for the five Platonic solids.
    • Euclid's elements followed by see Euclid's elements is not good prose. The page demonstrates nothing; it's a collection of links. Editors should write whatever it is they're intending to convey with that link, and use it as a reference. Fails 1a and 1b.
      • The page is the index for directions, accompanied by vector graphics, of the construction of each of the five solids. Obviously these instructions should not be included in the article, but I think they may well be of interest to the reader. I've clarified the prose to indicate what sort of examples are indicated. Christopher Parham (talk) 07:26, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • In theory, almost any material may be used to construct regular polyhedra. Instructions for building origami models may be found here, for example. They may be carved out of wood, modeled out of wire, formed from stained glass. The imagination is the limit.
    • Again, throw-away, speculative sentence still here, no progress apparent in this article. Instructions for building origami models should be found in an origami article - there is no need for an external jump here, and the prose is not unencyclopedic. Would you expect to find "may be found here" when reading the article in hard print? We put external jumps in External links for a reason.
      • Obviously there are many things here that I would not expect to find in a print encyclopedia; in print the link would have to be expanded to include the full URL. Putting this link at the end of the article wouldn't make much sense given that it applies to this sentence in particular. Christopher Parham (talk) 07:26, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Other examples may be found on the web (see for example [10]).
    • Not defensible. See [4] isn't good prose; we don't need to link out for examples - we can do that in External links or a Wiki article on orthorgraphic projections.
  • Coxeter's famous book on polytopes (Coxeter, 1948) has some examples of such orthographic projections. Other examples may be found on the web (see for example [11]). Note that immersing the 4-dimensional objects directly into two dimensions is quite confusing.
    • Please don't tell readers what to note. "Famous" is unencylopedic. Some is redundant. Other examples can be included in External links. See [2] fails 1a. Quite is redundant. Again, the math here isn't the issue: it's the tortured prose and the insistence on the use of external jumps and convoluted referencing that makes the math appear harder than need be. Write plain text, reference it to coxeter and the external site, add the external site to the refs section.
      • This link is a good candidate to be moved to the external links section, since it has general relevance. As far as your comments on the prose go, I don't see what's unencyclopedic about "famous" (the book is indeed famous). Christopher Parham (talk) 07:26, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The mathematics department at UIUC has a number of pictures of what one would see if embedded in a tessellation of hyperbolic space with dodecahedra. Such a tessellation forms an example of an infinite abstract regular polytope. An example may be seen at this page.
    • What is this section doing (or trying to do); it adds nothing but an advert for Champaign-Urbana. Why does the reader care about the Math dept at UIUC? Write the text without referring to the math department, say it simply, reference the site inline with a link in refs.
  • I could go on - but I can see that nothing has yet been done to bring the article to standard. It fails 1a, and probably still 1b and 1c as well. The problem here is not only the lack of citations (of which there is still plenty in this article); it's the poor prose making the math appear harder than need be, made even more difficult by too much of the prose being about the source, rather than using the source only to reference facts. It's time to stop waving arms about citations and assuming others don't understand the math: this article is simply poorly written. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:07, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Generally, links like these need to be evaluated on an individual basis. But certainly I think your standards for inclusion are unreasonably narrow. As far as the article needing a copyedit, I don't disagree; if I get a chance to do it to my satisfaction, I will. Christopher Parham (talk) 07:26, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove Insufficient inline citations. LuciferMorgan 02:31, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove as per Lucifer. And it's not well written at all. When the citations issue is addressed, consider asking the LoC.
    • "because they do not have plane faces"—Just "lack". It's a complicated topic for non-experts, so attention to clear, plain expression is essential.
    • Please don't use "indeed" in an encyclopedic register. What does it mean?
    • "Overall, however, the history of the study of regular polytopes has been one where the definition has been steadily generalised, allowing more and more objects to be considered among their number." At first glance, elegant. A few seconds later, you realise that it's flabby. Be straight, plain and concise for us poor dummies. Remove the thematic equative "the history [equals] one where ...". "Among their number" is redundant, as is "of the study". Try: "Since Euclid, the definition of regular polytopes has been gradually expanded to include more objects." How simple is that, now?

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

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

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

WGA screenwriting credit system

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Review commentary

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

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

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

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are citations (1c) and LEAD (2a). Marskell 21:13, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

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

Saxophone

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Review commentary

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

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

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

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are prose, LEDA, citations, and formatting. Joelito (talk) 17:20, 17 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

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

Libertarianism

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Review commentary

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

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

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns citation sufficiency and format (1c), weasel words (1d), general cleanup issues (2). Marskell 15:43, 28 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

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

Tynwald Day

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Review commentary

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

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

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

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

Here are a few "for examples."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are citations (1c), and insufficient length (1b). Marskell 07:38, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

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

Names of God in Judaism

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Review commentary

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

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

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concern is citations (1c) and images (3). Marskell 19:43, 25 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

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

Shakers

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Review commentary

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

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

Comment -- I've identified some problem images as well. Jkelly 19:28, 13 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree that the article is short on citations, but I disagree strongly with Rjensen's approach to that, which has been to delete entire sections that I'm pretty certain are completely accurate, and that I think provide useful background to understand where the Shakers fit into the history of dissenting Protestantism. - Jmabel | Talk 01:02, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are sources (1c), and images (3). Marskell 17:42, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove. Fails 1a and 2a.
    • "The Shakers, a Protestant religious denomination, originated in Manchester, England in 1772 under the leadership of Mother Ann Lee, who moved the 9-person group to the United States in 1774, where they built 19 communal settlements that attracted over the next century some 200,000 converts." It's a bit of a winding track to open with. "9-person group", then "four". Spell out single-digit numbers unless there's a good reason not to. Relocate "over the next century".
    • "Strict believers in celibacy, Shakers maintained their numbers through conversion and adoption of orphans." Add "the" before "orphans".
    • "Turnover was very high; the group reached maximum size of about 6,000 full members in 1850, and now has four members left." "Turnover", as opposed to "recruitment", means the coming and going of members. Is that what you mean? It's rather sudden to stick the bit about only four members left into the same sentence, unexplained.
    • This stubby second para is unnecessary, since there's a disambiguation note at the top: "The Shakers of New England should not be confused with the religion of the Indian Shakers of the Pacific Northwest of North America." It's an order, too, to our readers.
    • The lead is quite inadequate.

Further down, I see at random:

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

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

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

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

Olympic Games

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Review commentary

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

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

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

FARC commentary

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

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

  • Oppose. Keep. It is not necessary to remove this page from FA. It does require some work, which is being handled slowly but surely. Give it some time, and if no more work is made to fix it, without a doubt nominate it for removal. → JARED (t)  22:17, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Well, the reviewers can wait. Are you actually working on the article? How much time do you need?--Yannismarou 18:33, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • I don't think it's a matter of time. I think it's a matter of my doing it. And I'm doing it, but I'm only one person with other responsibilities. Here's what I suggest: this FARC should be removed from the page, which would take the pressure off of me for finishing the job. If you notice that the page still isn't up to par in a reasonable amount of time, bring this back here for removal. I just feel that pressure if being put on me personally because I am being sort of hounded to finish the job and I can't operate that way. I would appreciate your understanding! → JARED (t)  20:16, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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

    • First sentence: "comprised of"—what a blooper; it's "comprising" or "consisting of", which each carry slightly different meanings.
    • "these ancient Games"—used generically, probably small g.
    • Paragraphing in the lead is askew: 1896, then cross to next para for 1896.
    • "Tremendously"—weasely.
    • "World wild"—one word.
    • "are constantly gaining more supporters"—Spot the redundant word.
    • "the two sports of baseball and softball have been removed from the schedule of the following games"—Remove the first four words, since they're redundant. "Following" is unclear.
    • Is the point about London really important enough to include in this small lead? Tony 08:44, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Status. I've asked Jared if he has anymore to add to this. We'll wait a couple of days. Marskell 15:08, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Marskell and others, I would love to continue to work on this, and will continue doing so often, but other responsibilities, namely upcoming exams, will impede me from making the changes that are requested by this FARC. In the beginning I was only looking for suggestions, and it seems that I have gotten some. I recognize that the page is in an "on-the-fence" state right now, and so if the consensus here is to remove for the time being, I have no other option than to allow this article's delisting. I am certain that with time, this page will be back on the featured status list. I appreciate everyone's patience while I attempted to fix up the article! While I still urge for a keep, I realize that the page still needs some work. Thanks. → JARED (t)  22:07, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

London Underground

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Review commentary

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Messages left at Stewartadcock, UK notice board, London, Trains, Rapid transit, and Underground. Sandy (Talk) 02:07, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This article has several major problems. There are many stubby subsections, the "History" section has no text in the main section, the citation style is inconstant, the books cited aren't using footnotes, and there's a {{fact}} after one of the statements. -- Selmo (talk) 01:58, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments. Numerous short, stubby sections and one or two-sentence paragraphs, See also need attention (some could be linked in to article), undercited and References are blue links that need to be converted to a bibliographic style, external jumps, possible External link farm, and several different means of referring to See also/Further within text that should use templates. The article appears to have grown piecemeal, without organization; rewrite needed. Sandy (Talk) 02:16, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Looking more closely at it, sections such as "Terrorism" are far from comprehensive. It doesn't mention 7/7, or other specific attacks that have occored on the system. I would love to fix it myself, but my LUL knowledge is quite weak. -- Selmo (talk) 02:18, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Prose is faulty throughout. Here are random examples.
    • "an all electric railway system that covers much of the conurbation of Greater London and some neighbouring areas." "All eclectric" must be hyphenated. Remove "the conurbation of". Instead of "some", can it be more explicit?
    • "The Underground currently serves 274 stations and runs over 408 km (253 miles) of lines.[1] There are also a number of former stations and tunnels that are now closed." I think the second sentence is clumsy. Can it be reduced and merged with the first?
    • "In 2004–2005, total passenger journeys reached a record level of 976 million, an average of 2.67 million per day." Why not remove the redundant wording and simplify? "In 2004–05, passenger journeys reached a record of 976 million, an average of 2.67 million a day."
    • "... by 1880 the expanded 'Met' was carrying 40 million passengers a year. Other lines swiftly followed,..." Trains are swift, but the construction of railway lines is less appropriate for that epithet.
    • The title "Into the 20th century" doesn't go well before "The 1930s and 40s".

I haven't read the rest, but can tell that this needs an overhaul, like a train engine. Would be great to keep as a FA.

Tony 13:24, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's a good thing you wrote that essay. -- Selmo (talk) 00:43, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I have issues with the references section. They should all be converted to something other than a bunch of hyperlinks - author name, title of the page, etc. Hbdragon88 05:09, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I cleaned up the Main and See also templates, and started cleaning up the footnotes and references so that editors working on the article would understand work needed on refs. I also removed external jumps. Sandy (Talk) 22:56, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are stub sections (2a), consistency of citations (1c). Marskell 15:49, 16 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

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

Ryanair

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Review commentary

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

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

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

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are format and sufficiency of citations (1c), POV (1d). Marskell 09:36, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove Insufficient citations. LuciferMorgan 20:55, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove as per Lucifer. It needs a copy-edit, too. For example, in the first paragraph:
    • "However" in the second sentence is a false contrast.
    • "It"—spell out the referent here.
    • "Over the years"—Not my favourite chronologically precise item. Not encyclopedic.
    • "running at remarkable margins by passing its costs directly to its customers."—"Remarkable" is a problem in terms of precision and POV. I'm unsure of the justification provided; ultimately, customers almost always directly pay the costs.
    • "praised and criticised in equal measure"—What, exactly equal? Measured how? This is weasley, whereas we need to be taken seriously as a source of solid information. Tony 23:51, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

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

Battle of Leyte Gulf

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Review commentary

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

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

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concern is lack of citations (1c) and general clean-up (2). Marskell 21:10, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

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

Convair B-36

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Review commmentary

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

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

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are writing (1a), bloating (4), and citations (1c). Marskell 17:40, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove. Precious little has been done to improve this article. 1a and 2a are problems.
    • "mass-produced"—US editors wouldn't hyphenate unless a double attributive.
    • "Although there have been larger military aircraft, they have all been transports."—The last word seems informal, jargonistic or vague.
    • "Prior to"—Why Latin, when "before" is perfectly good?
    • Metric equivalents for 96% of the world's population?
    • Stubby paragraphs.
  • It could be fixed, but where are the contributors? Tony 05:43, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove FA status per Marskell. Lacks citations (and the vast majority are other websites of various quality and verifiability), bloated, a lot of fluffy language. I went through and dropped {{fact}} tags. - Emt147 Burninate! 07:58, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove After comparing the article now to its state when it got FA status, I had to change my mind. The article now is bloated and not as well written. It would take a lot of work to fix it I think.Patrick Berry 16:16, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

Kept status

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

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

Monty Hall problem

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

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

  • On inline citations: First of all, this is not true. The following extracts from the text are all inline citations; they merely don't happen to be footnotes.
  • Craig F. Whitaker of Columbia, Maryland in a letter to Marilyn vos Savant's September 9, 1990, column in Parade Magazine (as quoted by Bohl, Liberatore, and Nydick). [BLN is duly explicated in the References]
  • In 1975, Steve Selvin wrote a pair of letters to the American Statistician (February and April issues) regarding the Monty Hall problem.
  • As Monty Hall wrote to Selvin:

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

I doubt I've listed all of them. Please read the article; don't just count footnotes. The genuine question is: is there any claim which is challenged, or likely to be challenged and which is not clearly sourced?
As for the bit about contractions: That section of MOS is an invitation to bad writing, and should be removed. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:38, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • You're right...I was on the lookout for Harvard referencing/footnotes instead. In any case the inconsistent referencing (mix of external jumps, in-text references, and footnotes) still needs to be cleaned up. Gzkn 00:51, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • In other words, this has now become a complaint that the solitary footnote has not been worked into the text, like the others. Please look at it. The content of the footnote is a long and cumbersome reference, which would be clumsy in text. This is what footnotes are for - to move references like that out of running text. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:15, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • You misunderstand me. I'm just saying the referencing should be consistent. If that would be clumsy in text, how are the other in text references not clumsy? The column of the footnote is already listed in the references. Why duplicate it? Gzkn 05:29, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Because they do fit reasonably smoothly in text, and this won't. I came back here after looking at it. As for the referencing needing to be "consistent", for heaven's name, why? as long as it is clear and presentable? Wikipedia is inconsistent. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:12, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • "Because they do fit reasonably smoothly in text, and this won't" I would argue that stuff like A widely known statement of the problem is from Craig F. Whitaker of Columbia, Maryland in a letter to Marilyn vos Savant's September 9, 1990 column in Parade Magazine (as quoted by Bohl, Liberatore, and Nydick (1995)). (in the lead no less!) rebuts that argument. Gzkn 01:44, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Regarding the example held up of "weasel statements", this appears to be supported by the Mueser and Granberg paper, which lists the perception of Monty as a "knowledgeable adversary", and any information given by Monty as information that he may be providing in an effort to deceive, as one of the "cues" that shape individuals' analyses of the problem and frequently lead them to incorrect assessments. This appears to be borne out in practice, as Cecil Adams discusses his initial analysis of the problem in terms of Monty trying to "bluff the contestants, then counterbluff them". In short, it's not well-cited and not specific enough but calling it a "weasel statement" appears uncalled for. -- Antaeus Feldspar 00:40, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I was just going by WP:WEASEL (see the Examples section)...please don't take it personally. "It has been speculated..." is a common beginning to a weasel statement. Again this could be corrected by just citing a source. Gzkn 00:51, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, it could definitely be vastly improved by citing the source and phrasing with more specificity (I made an attempt at doing this, actually, but found my editing skills not up to it while in the midst of a minor headache). I just think that "weasel statement" is a pretty strong term, and should really be reserved for those statements which could not be substantiated if they were phrased with more specificity. Which are only a subset of "statements that could really benefit from more specificity." -- Antaeus Feldspar 01:37, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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

I think they might be a bit cryptic without a caption. I wish you wouldn't be so hostile though ("more careless objections")...no need for that. Gzkn 05:29, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps I have been over-touchy. But I've just been through a long session with people who do simply count footnotes as their judgment on an article at Good Article Review. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:10, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No, they are not perfectly clear; if you find them perfectly clear, I suggest a fresh set of eyes needs to copyedit the entire article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:20, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I still find them clear; and I do have a fresh set of eyes. I do not remember editing this article at all before this discussion; and I certainly have nothing to do with these diagrams. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:13, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think a caption would make them clearer...for instance, the appropriate caption of the first picture would be the second sentence of the attached paragraph. I don't think that repeating this information would be very valuable. Christopher Parham (talk) 00:47, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • May I speak bluntly? I view this review with hostility and irritation, as the issues raised are either wrong or trivial. There is exactly one (1) use of the fancy new php footnote mechanism, introduced on 2006-11-27 by someone (Antaeus Feldspar) who obviously wasn't trying to be consistent with the perfectly valid style of referencing already used in the article. It is this new reference style that is the mistake, along with what I consider a review nomination based on not seeing a vast list of such "approved" references. Now we see an attempt to back away from the nomination reason, but the history is clear. This is a thinly disguised attack by the discredited inline citation squad. Nor is there a single other issue raised on this page that rises to the level of requiring a Good Article Review. Use the article talk page. End this absurdity now. --KSmrqT 06:45, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wow...I've never heard of this "inline citation squad" you speak of...I find it interesting that you hold me in so much contempt. Do I know you? I don't believe I've ever interacted with you before. "Thinly disguised attack"? Good Lord. What's with all this hostility? How is this helpful at all? Gzkn 06:56, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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

What do I expect?
  • Reviewers who have actually read the article with attention; counting footnotes is not enough. (If the present reviewers meet this, so much the better.)
  • Comments about citations which recognize that different forms of citations are useful for different purposes, even within the same article.
  • Complaints about lack of inline citation which cite instances of points which are both genuinely uncited and which are challenged or likely to be challenged. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 07:02, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'll be happy to read the article and provide a detailed list - as I did on Regular polytope - once the hostility subsides and you all decide if anyone is going to actually work on the article. In the meantime, four different referencing styles, the External link farm, the trivia, and jumps to external websites should be addressed: it's not our concern which referencing style you use, or how many citations you count - this is not GAC. It is our concern that the article is consistently referenced, and that text that needs to be cited, is cited. Please contain your hostility towards Gzkn, who made a good faith nomination of an article that merits review, and leave your GA baggage where you found it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:15, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Gzkn began with a complaint which is, as he admits, factually false. That it was about inline citations raised more hackles; the stereotype of reviewers who insist on footnotes at every semicolon is less unfounded than it should be. This produced a certain level of hostility right off. Most of the rest of his complaints are either trivial, or blemishes which he perceives and others do not.
  • Sandy's complaints about Regular polytope are largely about a handful of speculative sentences, linking sourced archaeological finds. I spent a few minutes adjusting them, as she could have done herself; but I can see why she was ignored.
  • Incorrect on several counts. Most of the deficiencies there have not been addressed, you made a very minor edit to an article with a long list of problems, I hope regular polytope is not an example of what the Math Project considers compelling and brilliant, and I did start the work myself, but was reverted. That's no problem (often FAs with so many issues have been abandoned, so we try to help out, but I'm happy to leave the work to others), but the editors who reverted should complete the work - there is a long list of work remaining on the article, including a thorough copyedit. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:04, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Pericles does not cite different things in completely different ways, but the same things in two different ways. First, the entire reference is cited in the References section (i.e., # Kagan, Donald (1996). “Athenian Strategy in the Peloponnesian War”, The Making of Strategy: Rules, States and Wars by Williamson Murray, Alvin Bernstein, MacGregor Knox. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-56627-4.). The tiny part of this reference is then shoved between two ref tags and inserted next to the fact being cited (i.e., D. Kagan, Athenian Strategy in the Peloponnesial War, 54). The notes section, as you may or may not have noticed, is for footnotes, which are in turn given inline citations (i.e., "Pericles' date of birth is uncertain; he could not have been born later than 492-1 and been of age to present the Persae in 472. He is not recorded as having taken part in the Persian Wars of 480-479; some historians argue from this that he was unlikely to have been born before 498, but this argument ex silentio has also been dismissed.[142] [18]"). It's true that some sources contain external links and some do not, but that's generally because those sources are primary sources and are available on Wikisource, which has formatted things like this such that one can link to individual lines, saving people the time it takes to page down, risking paging down over it out of sheer impatience/boredom. It is cited using {{Ref_label}} because sticking footnotes in a section intended for references looks really stupid.--Rmky87 05:19, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • That would be an issue for WP:V; the issues with the math articles currently at FAR include but go beyond citation. This is not GAC, FAs are held to higher standard and more stringent, comprehensive review than the subjective GA process, and we don't just count citations on FAs. Once you all have decided if you want to work on the article, I will thoroughly review it and provide a list if needed - but not eager to do that work if no one plans to address the problems, as has occurred at regular polytope. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:04, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • For the record, "uniformity" of citation appears nowhere in WP:WIAFA - or, as far as I can tell, anywhere else. Let us cut directly to what WP:CITE actually requires: "the most important thing is to provide all the information one would need to identify and find the source"; it would not be useful to invent requirements. Regular polytope could use a note to the effect that Coxeter's book contains all the non-controversial facts listed and not otherwise cited; but I see no corresponding difficulty here. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:46, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Many of the external jumps are valuable links and probably shouldn't be removed, so it would be wise to be careful about this. Christopher Parham (talk) 00:47, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Removing external jumps doesn't necessarily imply removing the content. There are several ways to deal with external jumps.
  1. Sometimes they're really intended as references, and can be converted to text with the external website as the citation.
  2. Sometimes they are better listed as External links
  3. It is never good prose to say, "For more information, see [1]"; that fails 1a. And, if it's just "for more information" that argues that the external jump belongs in External links. If the content is important to the article's comprehensiveness, that argues against 1b.
  4. Sometimes they indicate an article failing 1b, comprehensiveness. If an article links out to important information, it's not comprehensive - the subject of the external site could become a Wiki article, with a wikilink to the current article, or the text can be written in the current article, with the website used as a ref.
External jumps often indicate a lack of comprehensiveness or a failure to cite sources correctly. They often also get into the territory of WP:NOT; Wiki is not a webpage or a blog, with multiple links to external sites. FAs should write their own content to the extent possible. Once you all are finished massaging the article prose, its mixed referencing styles, and the external jumps, we can re-evaluate. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:14, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"For more information, see [1]" fails 1a? I don't quite see why so. What phrasing would be better? I agree that an external jump might indicate a lack of comprehensiveness; that concern has to be weighed in each individual case (inlcuding here). But certainly an article can be comprehensive in the sense demanded by the FA criteria without providing all extant information on a subject. Finally, there is an argument that external links that elaborate on a specific segment of the article should be moved to the general EL section. IMO this does nothing but decrease the usefulness of the article. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:22, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Add 1a to the list of deficiencies, which like regular polytope, may be more significant than the other problems with 1b, and 1c. I had a glance at several sections to check the prose; it's not even necessary for Tony to have a look. The article needs a serious prose check and thorough copy edit for things like basic grammar, tone, and typos. If some of the math editors could move the article further along on the basics, a more thorough list and analysis might then be helpful. I am curious that so many editors are defending these articles without seeming to have read them (fallout from the GAC baggage?), and I wonder if the Math Project has a good copyeditor on board? While I understand some of the math editors feel poked by GAC (I don't really understand why anyone even covets a subjective rating based on one editor's review anyway), FAs are held to higher standards, and there is work to be done on these articles. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:44, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • It could use a copy-edit. I've seen recent FA's that were far worse, but I will do one. I shall not, however, be converting it into fake Edwardian; this is an encyclopedia, not an exercise in anachronism. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:46, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Copy-edited about the first half; I do not claim to have caught everything even there. I found nothing positively ungrammatical; I hope this was not a reference to the split infinitives, which I retained: moving either always in the lead would produce the sort of journalese which Fowler condemns. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:29, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. The "History of the problem" section has an incomplete sentence. The "Combining doors" section should have "rather than" rather than "instead of", and I can't tell what "it" refers to. Actually, I'm not sure what this paragraph adds to the article, so maybe it could just be cut. The article seems a bit repetitive in other aspects and maybe could be shortened, but I don't really understand the complaints about the referencing. Gimmetrow 02:04, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • The article is repetitive, and has grown considerably since promotion. For reference, it was promoted July 7, 2005; the last version before promotion may be found here. Most of the "Variants" sections are new. The "Increasing the number of doors" section has prose issues now, but was only one paragraph in the original promoted version. Gimmetrow 03:37, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I am of the opinion that the article could be cut in half, and its quality would dramatically improve. I am aware that not everyone shares this opinion. But in its current state, I find it overwhelming, directionless, and confusing. - Abscissa 02:49, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Abscissa has a point. The article contains several explanations of the same result, and many of them could be struck. I suspect, however, that one will make sense to one reader, and another to another reader, so I'm not sure which ones, if any, to remove. This should be taken to the article talk page. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:07, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

List of random problems

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  • Still contractions sprinkled around.
  • pronoun referring to the player changes randomly between "he" and "they" and "s/he"
  • Bold is used liberally for emphasis instead of italics
  • These terms need wikilinks for those unfamiliar with mathematics: algorithm, decision tree
  • "The Monty Hall problem is a puzzle involving probability loosely based on the American game show Let's Make a Deal." involving probability loosely is quite awkward; ambiguous "loosely" comma duly inserted in first line. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:24, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Mueser and Granberg improved the phrasing;" Who? First time encountering these two names in the text...needs explication.
  • "The problem would be different if the game host were permitted to make the offer to switch more often (or only) depending on knowledge of the player's original choice or if the host does not know what is behind each door." Awkward and confusing
  • "To drive the point home, one only has to imagine..." "To drive the point home" is hardly encyclopedic prose.
  • "The player can then more easily appreciate the randomness of his first choice and the large amount of information he has gained since he made that choice and then see the wisdom in switching." winding snake
  • "...if we increase the number of doors, why does this explanation assume the host would open 98 doors to make the problem similar to the original?" Why is first person being used in an encyclopedia?
  • "It is correct to assume the host would open 98 doors in this alternate game; because in the 3 door game the player has only one switching option — and the player in the 100 door game must also be presented with a single switching option." Not exactly the correct use of the semicolon and mdash.
  • Something needs to be done about the "Venn diagram" images. It's not clear upfront which image corresponds to which paragraph. Either refer to the image in text or use captions. Referenced in text. I hope it works for all computers. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:26, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • "There is a simple way for people to convince themselves that a switching strategy really does win two out of three times on the average, and that is to simulate the game with playing cards, playing Monty's role." Compelling prose?
  • "...he discards, should bring the point home" Compelling prose?
  • "Consider various possible host behaviors, in which his decision to switch may be based upon the accuracy of the contestant's initial guess:" Confusing way to have readers look at the table to the right. Just explicitly say so, instead of having a colon.
  • "With several minutes remaining in the game, the game host chose two players for the "Big Deal". Behind one of three doors was the grand prize. Each player was allowed to choose a door (not the same one)." Why the past tense all of a sudden? "remaining in the game"-->What game? What is the "Big Deal"?
  • "In this scenario, a variant of Selvin's problem can be stated." Who? First encounter needs explication.
  • "The game host eliminates a player with a goat behind his door..." ambiguous "his"
  • "How likely is that? 1/3." Compelling prose?
  • "The two player game, from the final player's point of view, resembles like the single player game:"
  • "Actually, the two player game is exactly the same as the one player game, except in reverse."
  • n doors section is full of second person. Not exactly encyclopedic.
  • "which begins with 26 boxes (typically — it depends on the version of the show)" Compelling prose?
  • "the player's keeper is equally likely to be the winner" Player's keeper??
  • "Another explanation is available at http://www.acbl-district13.org/artic003.htm". Why are we resorting to blog style here?
  • "A similar problem appeared in Joseph Bertrand's Calcul des probabilités (1889), known as Bertrand's Box Paradox, which is the . In this you have three boxes, each with two drawers on opposite sides. Each drawer contains a coin; one has a gold coin on both sides, one a silver coin on both sides, and the third gold on one side and silver on the other. You open a drawer and find a gold coin; what is the chance of the other side being silver?" Something went wrong here. And why is second person being used now?
  • "you can't have picked the silver/silver box" Second person/contraction...compelling prose?
  • "It went on to give examples..." compelling prose?
  • "Over 40 papers have been published about this problem in academic journals and the popular press." Citation? Where is this statistic from? Gzkn 02:18, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    I have three remarks for Gzkn:
    1. If you are unfamiliar with the inline citation war, I apologize for casting you as a participant.
    2. I still feel that all the issues I have seen here belong on the article talk page, and do not rise to the level of a review.
    3. Thank you very much for your detailed critique of the writing. This level of attention and awareness is uncommon. Usually when I have that much to improve I find it easier to just edit the article! (Or, complain briefly and leave it.) Therefore, I will try to reward your attention with some of my own, as edits.
    Many readers have strong, and often wrong, responses to this puzzle. I'm not sure why; this is not, say, "abortion". As you may be aware, whenever this happens the editing gets more challenging — both in fending off misguided alterations and in clearly and effectively addressing a diverse audience. For ordinary mathematics, we work hard to write prose that is clear, correct, and compelling; for extraordinary topics like this, we work twice as hard. And while I feel that most mathematicians write poor English, I also feel that most English majors write even worse mathematics.
    Mathematics is inherently so formal that it drives many readers away; therefore good mathematics writers present the formal content in a more informal style. This is the opposite of the humanities, where personal opinions are often clothed in formal attire to lend them greater credibility. Guess which I prefer. --KSmrqT 07:08, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Curiously silent

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

Since nominating this article for FA, I and others have watched the page to keep it mathematically correct. Many of the criticisms are more or less well founded, although as user:KSmrq notes above there is a difficult balance in mathematics articles in general, and this article in particular, between formal correctness and general understandability. I will spend some time over the next few days addressing the #List of random problems above. -- Rick Block (talk) 20:15, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I believe everything in the list has been taken care of. Good work! I still believe that the "In popular culture" is basically trivia that either can be worked into the text (the Erdos anecdote --> History) or is unnecessary and can be deleted (the NUMBERS episode). Are all the links in the External links section necessary? Some of the descriptions could probably be reworded too ("A Simulator that you can run in your web browser"). SandyGeorgia explained my view on the external jumps/referencing much more eloquently than I could have. Gzkn 01:44, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from SandyGeorgia

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

OK. I believe I've unstruck all those that I struck, and I'll request Gzkn to rereview. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:39, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Glad to see you so hard at work on it: please let us know when you've had time to get through Gzkn's list, as I'm still concerned about the way external jumps are employed, and how they contribute to 1a, 1b problems - I haven't read the entire article yet, and I haven't wanted to drop my list on you until I know you've had a chance to go through the article and finish your cleanup. Also wondering why I see Venn diagram in the TOC, but no Venn diagrams in the article? Also, I believe WP:MOS (or somewhere else) specifically deals with not using contractions - is that being addressed ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:07, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I know, everything Gzkn has brought up has been addressed. I don't understand the external jump issue - can you explain? The diagrams in the Venn diagram section show the universe of doors, divided into chosen and not chosen sets, with the probability of each door indicated. These aren't quite traditional circular Venn diagrams, but they do show the probability relationship between the doors in the sets of "chosen" and "not chosen". -- Rick Block (talk) 20:48, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Forgot to mention - I don't think there are any more contractions. -- Rick Block (talk) 21:09, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

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

Second look from SG

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

  • Math notation problem: in the Bayes' theorem section, the math notation wraps off of my screen (I checked 3 different screens), and on printout, the longer formulations and text following formulas are chopped off. Is there a way to decrease the size on the math formulas?
    • The longest one is now fixed, are the others problematic as well? -- Rick Block (talk) 03:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • The text under "subject to where the car is, i.e. conditioned on a proposition . Specifically, it is" is now wrapping correctly. There's still a problem with the formulas under "The denominator can be evaluated by expanding it using the definitions ..." and under "This can be proven using Bayes' theorem and the previous results:" (On this computer - I can check laptop, larger screen, and a printout later.) Is it possible to cut the formulas at a plus sign and manually wrap them to the next line? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:20, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Bertrand, Joseph (1889). Calcul des probabilites is listed in References - what is this, where do we find it? Book, journal, paper? More biblio info is needed.
    • I think this can be removed entirely. As far as I'm aware, it was there entirely because of the mention of Bertrand's Box Paradox, which was stated in an earlier version of the article to be the earliest known version of a Monty-Hall-like problem. However, upon closer examination, Bertrand's Box Paradox turned out not to really be a Monty-Hall-like problem, despite some external similarities (such as the "intuitive" answer being 1/2 and the actual answer being 2/3.) -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:07, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Deleted. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I still see one place where a reference needn't be taking up "prose" space: in the Sequential doors section, rather than stating who proved what when as a separate sentence, we can remove that from the prose, and use it as a ref (also removing the colon and better prosifying the conclusion):
    • The best strategy is to stick with the first choice all the way through but then switch at the very end. With this strategy, the probability of winning is (n−1)/n (Bapeswara Rao and Rao, 1992).
    • Done. --Rick Block (talk) 03:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Bridge principle section: a one sentence section ?? Also, wording is weasly. This section needs to be somehow better incorporated into the whole.
  • WP:MSH specifically addresses the word "The" in section headings: "The", "a" and "an" should be omitted from the beginning of heading titles. Thus "Mammals", not "The mammals".
  • In the section labeled, "The general case", the first paragraph sounds weasly. "One common criticism" is unfortunate wording, as it invites a citation; criticism usually requires an "according to whom". The second paragraph begins with the words, "In general", which also sounds weasly, and the generality isn't clarified. There's also still some redundancy there - the entire section could be cleared up with tighter attention to the prose - also, the second paragraph is not at all clear.
    • One common criticism of the Monty Hall problem is that the host's behavior is not fully specified, such as the version published in Parade in 1990. In that instance, it was not specifically stated that the host would always open another door, or always offer a choice to switch, or even that the host must open a door containing a goat. The criticism is that without specifying these rules, the player does not have enough information to conclude switching is the best option.
    • In general, the best course of action depends on the behavior of the host and switching may not be successful two-thirds of the time. The table shows possible host behaviors and the impact on the success of switching.
  • A suggestion (perhaps not the best suggestion - just an idea):
    • In the version of the Monty Hall problem published in Parade in 1990, the host's behavior is not fully specified; in that instance, it was not specifically stated that the host would always open another door, or always offer a choice to switch, or even that the host must open a door containing a goat. Without specifying these rules, the player does not have enough information to conclude switching is the best option. The best course of action depends on the behavior of the host; if the host's behavior varies from the version on the Monte Hall show, switching may not be successful two-thirds of the time. The table shows possible host behaviors and the impact on the success of switching.
    • Reworded. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Now, to the bigger problem of the lead. If you go to the first section (The problem), you see that the problem is not introduced in the text, rather the lead. The text of the article dives in to the middle of the problem. The problem should not be introduced in the lead - it should be included in the text, with the lead summarizing the entire article. A summary need not include the solution or the spoiler; I believe if you'll restructure the first part of the article - so that the problem is introduced in the text - then a more general, summarizing lead can be written, without the necessity of getting into problem/solution detail in the lead. For an article this size, a shorter lead would be acceptable, discussing the problem in general terms.
  • And, finally, to the touchier subject of citations :-) I understand and have read numerous times the objections against citing math/science articles, and the comparisons made to medical articles such as the ones I usually edit. I've seen the argument that standard mathmatical knowledge/info need not be cited, as it can be found in any textbook, and I agree that the math here is fairly standard to a math major. On the other hand, I can also give dozens of examples of statements in Tourette syndrome that are common medical knowledge to a neurologist and that can be cited to dozens of different textbooks or journal articles: so, I pick one. A reputable one. Doesn't matter which one, as long as I know it's an acknowledged, reputable source, to assure Wiki readers I'm not just making it up. The fact that it is common knowledge, available in any textbook, doesn't mean I can't/shouldn't cite it. I may accept the common knowledge math here, but not everyone is a student of math. I can see that each step in the math formulations need not be cited, but I can equally see that there are numerous references and external links (already provided) which could be used to cite sections of the article, so that an interested party can refer to a source if they want to follow up or verify. I don't see a reason not to put a general reference for each different mathmatical formulation - for example, any textbook or website where a reader can go to follow up on the Bayes' theorem formulation. We simply can't present an entire formulation without somehow demonstrating that it's not original research. Or, where can a reader find the Decision tree formulation (pls, no Ronald A. Howard - <yawner>). These can be any textbook, or any number of the external links, references given at the bottom of the article. It should be possible - with such common knowledge and such an oft-discussed problem - to give one general ref for each math formulation/section.

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

Comments from ChuckHG

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

  • The paragraph The problem would be different... does not belong in the Solution section. It has nothing to do with the solution presented and should either be deleted or moved elsewhere, perhaps to The general case section.
    Changed to "The solution would be different". This section is presenting the solution to what is generally meant by the "Monty Hall problem". Qualifying that other solutions are possible given other host behaviors seems fair to me. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:26, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • There seems to be a somewhat laissez-faire use and interchangeability of the words probability, chance, and odds. In particular, probability and odds have a specific and different mathematical meaning/defintion; for example, a 2/3 probablility is 2:1 odds, and a 1/3 probability is 1:2 odds. Chance is generally a loosely defined concept, probably most often taken to mean the same as probability (as in 1 out of 3 chance of winning).
    Where it meant probability I've replaced "odds" with "probability". -- Rick Block (talk) 02:26, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • That the popular Parade statement of the problem is itself subject to misunderstanding through unstated assumptions (and is a significant contributing factor in the widespread disbelief in its solution) is omitted from the lead, in spite of the fact that a major part of the article is given over to addressing these issues. -- Chuck 17:09, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    I've added a sentence about this to the lead. -- Rick Block (talk) 02:26, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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

Concerns of Gzkn

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

  • I'm not too wild about the tone of the recent expansion of the "Bayes' theorem" section (informal "we" used throughout). If the other explanatory sections can do without the first person plural, this one can too. Also, some of the longer math notation scrolls off the screen for any monitor resolution smaller than 1024x768.
I, too, have reservations about the Bayes theorem section. There is a similar, less well written but mathematically more cogent, treatment of the Monty Hall problem on the Bayes's theorem (sic) page. Chuck 15:26, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am sorry to disagree with the above statement. That treatment is very verbose, and while I can see its usefulness in showing the role that different choices of priors play in the inference, it's really too contrived to count as a proof of the Monty Hall winning solution - unless we regard a "proof by making up lots of examples" as acceptable. In the ususal statement of the Monty Hall problem the solver has no freedom of choice of either priors or conditionals.
I agree that the informal "we" can be removed, but - given the limitations on math notation in Wikipedia, am a bit at loss on how to address the criticism on the length of the equations. The longest equations (the expansion of the normalization constant at the denominator of the Bayes expression) are aligned so that their three terms maintain the same position and meaning throughout. I think it makes it much easier to understand.The Glopk 18:35, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The approach I'm exploring is using a table for the definition of the conditional probability of the Hij proposition using one table line per case and plain text for the description (rather than a "math" case expression and "math" generated text). This looks similar but doesn't end up forcing horizontal scrolling - although it doesn't preserve the meaning inside the "math" expression. -- Rick Block (talk) 20:01, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've eliminated the informal "we" from this description and am working on reducing the length ot the math notations. I'm not sure what the sense of Chuck's comment is - are you suggesting adding the bit about varying the probabilities of the door the host picks, as in Bayes's theorem? -- Rick Block (talk) 18:23, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps we can address Chuck's concern by adding at the end of the section a sentence or two to explain in qualitative terms the outcome of that Bayesian machinery. For example, something like: "Notice how the host's actions have no bearing on the probability of the door first picked by the user since its posterior probability remains equal to its prior value of 1/3. The effect of the host's opening of Door 3, on the other hand, is clearly shown by the last two equations: it is to cause the probability of that door to collapse from its prior value of 1/3 to 0, thus doubling the probability of the only remaining door.". Would that be acceptable? The Glopk 20:00, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Status

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

Well, if there are still concerns we can't do option b and just close. Let's leave it here two or three more days and then move it to FARC to keep the page moving; it can always be closed if there are rapid keeps from the people involved. Marskell 14:39, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Close without FARC - my concerns have been satisfied. (Gzkn is on a wikibreak, unfortunately, but by my read, his concerns have been met as well.) The lead is much cleaner (short, but adequate), referencing has been attended to, and prose has been tightened up; I still get a wrap of the math formulas on one screen, but that could be my problem. Hopefully the Math Project will find a way over time to reduce the size on math notation. Nice work! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:33, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

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

Gerald Ford

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

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

  • Sumoeagle179 (talk · contribs) and I ran through the article structure and references on December 31, and left them in good shape, but I see there have been almost 500 edits since then. It shouldn't be too hard to whip this back into shape after its time on the main page, but it will need someone's sustained attention. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:23, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question? Are we reviewing this article too soon after its time on the main page? The main page is very hard on articles, and we usually allow time for edits to settle down. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:01, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • This review should be postponed for at least a month; it's been through a lot of editing. Ral315 (talk) 00:38, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think de-featuring this article at the moment would be improper. Surely the death of someone so significant would lead to considerable changes in the article, but allow editors some time to absorb all the new edits. I second User:Ral315's suggestion that this be postponed a month to allow the article to achieve a sense of stability again, and then an honest assessment of it's FA merits can be made. Thethinredline 13:09, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've raised the question on the talk page here; I'm not certain if we've established a minimum lag between time on talk page and review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:40, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • If you look at the current editing, its already slowed down considerbly. I thought now was a good time. Most of the new edits, in my estimation, have been absorbed fairly well. The only sections in question are the Longevity section, which was there when the article achieved FA, and the new Death section. Concerning the death section, the question on what to delete and add to the seperated funeral and death article needs to be addressed. I see no reason why this article shouldn't maintain its featured status, or why we need to wait. Funerals start and end abruptly, as seen in the editing. Veracious Rey talk • contribs • review 16:07, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Status: Does this actually need to go through FARC or are people happy? Marskell 20:29, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
References are in very good shape, article structure is good, and Sumoeagle179 is watching the article - it should not need to go to FARC. However, prose size is at 45KB, which is approaching too long - if something can be moved to a daughter article, I support closing without FARC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:48, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Message left on article talk page regarding size. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:58, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I knocked off one of those K myself and I feel this has been saved too. Wait for any last comment from nominator. Marskell 15:11, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

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

Common scold

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

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

  • Comment Of course it needs FARC. It's ridiculous to have this as a Featured Article. It does not abide by Criteria 1a (well written), 1c (factually accurate-verifiability), 2a (proper lead). Also 1b (comprehensive) can be doubted. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 16:43, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Article fails 1. c. mainly, and 2. a. also (haven't looked at the article long enough to assess how well written it is, and as regards being uncomprehensive, I'm unfamiliar with the subject matter). LuciferMorgan 21:03, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - By the standards of two years ago, this was a well referenced article. It still is, in my opinion: the sources are named, quoted, and given in text, rather than being assigned to footnotes. There are a few in-text external links that could be converted into a separate reference section if need be. As to its comprehensiveness, it attempts to answer the questions raised on the talk page. On the other hand, much of the original tone has been edited out of the article's prose in the name of NPOV. - Smerdis of Tlön 07:25, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I've done a little work on it. It still needs some work on the lead and referencing for historical cases, but I agree with Smerdis of Tlön that we don't need footnotes when the sources are fully-referenced as part of the body of the article (and in some cases have their own articles). Yomanganitalk 10:50, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

While I still don't think this is FA quality (if it were nominated today, it would have a tough time getting through), I don't mind if if it is kept or removed. Wwwhhh 02:20, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Closing: While this may not seem to have the meat of an ordinary FA, no criteria issues remain outstanding in the above comments. LEAD is improved, refs sufficient and properly formatted, no comprehensiveness issues were specifically raised, and length alone is not a criterion. We even a new pic. So a keep. Marskell 15:05, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

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

Barack Obama

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Here is the FAC, listed correctly on the article talk page. I looked into this article a few months ago, requesting that it be cited (which it was), and it was in very good shape. When the article passed FA, it wasn't cited - it has since been cited, so the older version wouldn't be entirely relevant. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:28, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've been watching the article for almost a year now, I suppose, though mainly to keep POV and vandalism out. User:HailFire has done a tremendous amount of work on the article to get it referenced, among other things. My main concern at this time, however, is that the article has not been particularly stable lately, and I suspect it will get even more volatile in the next few months and years (regardless of whether Obama runs in '08 or not, but obviously moreso if he does). I would be on the fence for now if it were listed at FARC; I'd really like to see if it becomes more or less unstable soon. · j e r s y k o talk · 19:43, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think the majority of the problems arise from "recentism" (except the lead, which does need expanding). It's obviously well-cited, and a lot of editors have been doing great work keeping the vandals/POV pushers at bay. However, at the moment, it's kind of a hodgepodge of facts...I'd definitely be willing to roll up my sleeves and help rework it. There's no reason why a run for the presidency would make it unstable though. We just have to be on guard for more "recentism", as I would imagine random folks will want to keep adding the latest minute detail they caught on CNN or read online. Gzkn 00:42, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think any well-referenced article is worth saving, and would hesitate to de-feature an article only on (temporary) stability issues, since there are other ways of dealing with that. If you're willing to work on it, I think it's worth it. The lead definitely needs improvement, but referencing is generally good - I can spruce up the ref formatting once you're done. (Sheesh, the things we do in the name of NPOV bipartisanship.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:59, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The referencing is the only reason the article is worth saving. I wish I could help more, but I need to be inspired by the subject, and Obama doesn't really move me to work on the article extensively. I'll do what I can though in terms of copyediting. —ExplorerCDT 01:07, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • (edit conflict)OK. Just a note that User:HailFire, one of the major contributors to the article, is on a Wikibreak (userpage doesn't seem to indicate when s/he will return...hopefully it's short!), so we'll be working down a man/woman. I'll get started on the lead. Gzkn 01:10, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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

  • RE:refs: Yeah, Obama article watchers are pretty quick to remove unsourced and dubious info. I've expanded the lead; how does it look now? Gzkn 03:00, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Everything I've seen in the article looks to be in better shape than most of what comes through (and passes) FAC these days. I should enlist HailFire to help review refs. Let's get Tony to look at the prose. I'm done with the refs - I found a few very minor date errors, and added last access dates on web soruces and some obscure news sources, and corrected a couple of wayward titles - I wish most FACs would have referencing in such good shape - one dead link, all reliable sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:02, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've read the first third: it's well written indeed, except ... why not merge some of the stubby paragraphs? Tony 04:40, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yep -I'm going to start working on that. Reworked early life and career a bit. Tvoz | talk 22:48, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Status? I'm going to be traveling and might not get back to this article, so unless someone comes up with a new problem, I'm OK with closing this without FARC - I don't see anything that warrants defeaturing or further review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:38, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Exploding whale

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

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

OK, here's your FA criterim: Number 4: "It is of appropriate length, staying focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail". IMHO, this is too short. --Montchav 17:46, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Rubbish. It's quite long enough, and more than comprehensive. --Ta bu shi da yu 16:58, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There is plenty wrong with this article, but the argument above isn't it. Where is the unnecessary detail? Too short is not an objection: uncomprehensive is. But the article has other problems, anyway - focus on those, and whether it is comprehensive. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:53, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - don't see a problem with the length (too long if anything). Prose is lumpy, structure is poor (listy sections and strange divisions), citations missing for some statements. Yomanganitalk 17:56, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment "Other incidents" and "In fiction" needs conversion from its listy format into prose. LuciferMorgan 21:07, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • A number of necessary improvements have been made:
    • Delisted pop culture section
    • Renamed pop culture section to focus on fiction (bear in mind most of the article is about pop culture!)
    • fixed prose of other incidents and organised paragraphs to be each about Sth Africa and Iceland
    • added a section lead to "Incidents", also no idea who called it "incidences", don't think that is quite right!
    • removed one uncited fact, wikilinked to show Drawn together
  • Hope that does the trick! --Ta bu shi da yu 17:58, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Closure: "Too short" is not, as noted, a remove criterion. This seems within criterian otherwise, so I'll close. Marskell 20:53, 17 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

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

Palladian architecture

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Review commentary

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

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

  • Comment. Thanks for the message. Looks OK to me. If someone can see a mistake they ought to fix it. If not delete it Giano 07:32, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Cuivienen, if you have any specific concerns that some detail may not be factually verifiable, please let us know. I looked through the article and I have not seen any dubitable assertions. If you were able to spot something questionable, please go ahead and add an inline citation where needed, rather than wasting everybody's time. Thanks, Ghirla -трёп- 08:04, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Looks very handsome. Thanks for the message, but it's not a subject I have a grasp of, few people do. I'm not in a position to say if any facts in it are less than generally agreed on. The references look complete as far as I understand it, and the experts commenting above seem to think them sufficient. But if inline references for all mentioned facts are a sine qua non for FA, it's probably as well to defeature it. Bishonen | talk 11:33, 5 December 2006 (UTC).[reply]
  • Comment. I thought the purpose of inline citation was to provide them for "Material that is, or is likely to be, challenged" (WP:CITE). What specific aspects are contentious here, it all seems quite straightforward to me. --Mcginnly | Natter 12:00, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I agree to some extent, but inline citations have become a requirement for FA promotion these days. I wouldn't necessarily argue to defeature this because of a lack of inline citations, but I do think it should be brought up here (which might encourage inline citations to be added). —Cuiviénen 14:49, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If it is not good enough then de-list it or delete it. Giano 14:52, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • To avoid a protracted discussion like we had on James Joyce, can we please get a *sample* (only) list from someone knowledgeable about the topic, the nominator, and others of statements that need to be cited? I don't know architecture. Sandy (Talk) 18:42, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments I see the single section has been fixed: can someone knowledgeable pls review the external links vis-a-vis WP:RS, WP:NOT and WP:EL? Sandy (Talk) 18:47, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Someone knowledgeable about the topic, the nominator, and others"... oh, I see, the nominator was me? Sandy, it wasn't part of the FAC culture at the time (long time back) that nominators necessarily had to be specialists in the subject of articles they nominated. Heck, ALoan was always getting in there first and nomming texts I had written, I don't think he would claim specialist knowledge of them. Being the nominator was more an expression of trust in the writers. Anyway, considering I already stated above that I don't know the subject, it's not a lot of use for you to call on me again. I believe the wikipedians who do know it have already commented. Bishonen | talk 19:25, 5 December 2006 (UTC).[reply]
  • Comment. I have added Robert Tavernor, James Ackermann and Rudolf Wittkower to the References. Generally speaking, I'm sorry to see in-line citations used as a stick to beat people with: not in this case, needless to say. The argument from ignorance— "I've never heard that Palladio was the most influential 16th-century architect" etc.— is a weak one, though it is universal at Wikipedia and is considered definitive, apparently. There is not a phrase in the present article I would consider out of the mainstream of literate architectural discourse, though I could pick through it and "tweak" wording. The question is: is this an example of Wikipedia at its best? Of course it is. --Wetman 20:32, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • The purpose of Wikipedia, and any encyclopedia, is, first and foremost, to be an accessible source of information to those unfamiliar with the subject. To you, and to any specialist in architecture or indeed anyone who has ever taken an architecture lesson (myself included), it may seem obvious that Palladio was an extraordinarily important and influential architect. That is not in question. However, for those who do not know such facts, and for those who might wish to dispute them (it is, after all, still little more than opinion, even if nearly universally held), we have an obligation to provide source material. Would you leave a scientific article uncited because there is little debate on the subject in the scientific community? No! Absolutely not! The same goes for architecture. —Cuiviénen 00:48, 6 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Hence the references at the end. There are several articles like this where they're simply not presenting breaking information. If I explain that the first usage of the word "parody" to refer to prose is in A Tale of a Tub, I need citations, as that's new stuff. If I say that A Tale of a Tub is Swift's first major satire, I don't. If I say that it is a chaotic and difficult satire ("opinion"), I again do not, because no one who has ever written on it has suggested that it is either easy or predictable. A list of references at the end will give the reader several other overview works to consult. We should cite, but we need to keep this impulse to cite from making our articles look less like articles than undergraduate research papers. Geogre 02:37, 6 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Per Wetman, the problem is that an omnibus encyclopedia article like this is a synthesis of universally agreed upon facts. In other words, one cannot find a single source that doubts or refutes or gainsays these facts. Every source one can find agrees, and therefore none of these are suspect statements that needs a specific reference. Instead, it needs a summary of the particular sources, which it has in the references. One can find sites and accounts ignorant of the facts, but none with different facts. Geogre 23:38, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Here we go again. A common knowledge of someone does not always the case for someone else. I am not an architect nor have taken an architecture lesson. If I'd like to know about Palladian, then sorry to say that i cannot trust this article. There is no way to avoid the fact that this article was completely written out of the head from the editors, because all WP editors are anonymous. One way to avoid it is to supply this article with inline citations, where the fact comes from, from which page of a book, is the source reliable?, etc. By telling "here is the reference list given at the bottom" is no good either. For instances, these facts are taken randomly from the article:
    • Buildings by Palladio himself are all in Venice and the Veneto. → is that true that only these 2 cities contains buildings by Palladio himself?
    • During the 17th century, many architects studying in Italy learned of Palladio's work. → how many? I only see one from the article, Inigo Jones.
    • One of these students was the English architect Inigo Jones, who is directly responsible for importing the Palladian influence to England. → was he ordered to influence England with Palladian? by whom?
    • The baroque style, popular in continental Europe, was never truly to the English taste. → again this fact needs an inline citation, why was baroque stye never truly to the English taste? All right, you might say that it is out of the scope of this article, but what if a reader wants to know more. Where should (s)he find out the source of this fact?
… and many more. I don't want to put {{fact}} tags in the article, as some might say that it is WP:POINT. — Indon (reply) — 16:26, 6 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • That facts are "common knowledge" or "widely accepted" does not mean that everyone knows them automatically, nor that they are "made up out of the editor's head". It simply means that the facts are uncontroversial and included in pretty much any reference - just pick one from the cited sources.
  • You cannot trust any Wikipedia article, with or without references - nor indeed can you trust implictly any encyclopedia or any other source. However, you should at least be able to verify a Wikipedia article that has cited sources.
  • The Veneto is not a city - just follow the link. But yes, that is where they all are (or in some cases were). Please let us know if you find one somewhere else.
  • Actually, the phrase "buildings by Palladio himself" could be clearer, I think--here it means as opposed to random stuff he worked on like the interiors at Duino, not as opposed to buildings by his "workshop" or some such. I tweaked it. Chick Bowen 09:57, 7 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • How many 17th century architects learned of Palladio's work? I don't know, although Inigo Jones is certainly a notable one. How many 20th century architects learned of the works of Frank Lloyd Wright? Quite a few, no doubt; some more notable than others. I doubt anyone could make a list.
  • Inigo Jones imported Palladianism into England by going to Italy, studying the works of Palladio there, bringing his knowledge back to England, and designing the first Palladian building in England. As the text makes clear.
  • If you want to learn about Baroque, try Baroque. The article does not express a view on why it was not that popular in England.
  • Adding {{fact}} templates to particular points that are thought to need specific citation is helpful. Carpet-bombing an article with them is not. -- ALoan (Talk) 18:39, 6 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Maybe samples that were taken above are not good examples here. Thus, I read again the article, and I came up with two {{fact}} requests. To avoid of being called "carpet-bombing", below I put the reasons why I want specific inline citations:
    1. Whatever the name or the origin, this form of window has probably become one of the most enduring features of Palladio's work seen in the later architectural styles, evolved from Palladianism. → it looks opinion to me if there is no inline citation.
    2. One of these students was the English architect Inigo Jones, who is directly responsible for importing the Palladian influence to England → the same as above. The text did not tell me why it is said that Jones is responsible for importing Palladium to England. Please just supply it with an inline citation where the directly responsible comes from.
— Indon (reply) — 11:13, 7 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concern is lack of citations (1c). Marskell 01:54, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Inline citations are needed if the sources are not otherwise clear. That is not a problem here, since this is a broad introduction and does not make specific interpretive statements that would need to be tied to particular architectural historians--the claims here are backed up collectively by the references section. Chick Bowen 00:33, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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

  • I can do math articles, medical articles, etc., but not architecture; all I know in that area is someone should shoot my ex-architect, or at least take away his license. I have to rely on the architectural reviewers here, and we haven't heard enough from them. It would sure be nice if they'd add citations where/if needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:50, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: Not this argument again? First, repeating your view won't help, LM. Second, the interpretive elements here are very, very, very much not things requiring footnotes. If I cite that a bridge went up in 1740, then that it had traffic of 30,000 drays a day by 1750, and then I say, with no citation, that the bridge was vital for the city's growth, it's just a syllogism. There is no citation needed for the third statement. It can be disagreed with but it cannot be called unfounded. It has the limitation of conclusions from presented data, but not of being "some dude's opinion." This is the distinction between encyclopedia writing where a thesis is coherently and cogently argued and a nervous drudge's regurgitation of the library stacks. Geogre 19:30, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: Review is always welcome, however, there seems to be some 'sledgehammer to crack a nut' arguments being presented here for inline citations - they should be provided for "All material that is challenged or likely to be challenged". Most of the qualified architecture editors have stated the material is unlikely to be challenged - certainly by any authoritive source. No one seems to be able to say what is likely to be challenged. It seems the proposers have taken a quick look at the article, seen the simple fact it has no inline citations and plonked it on FARC with a knee jerk despite the extensive references section. Joe bloggs may verify the article himself by obtaining the books and reading them. I can find very few parts of the article that might represent anything offering an opinion; I was well into the article before....
"Palladio deeply considered the dual purpose of his villas as both farmhouses and palatial weekend retreats for wealthy merchant owners. ......... They were, however, in no way intended to be part of the main house, ......"
Statements of intent by Palladio might need a citation, but it's fairly obvious stuff apparent to all those in possession of mark 1 eyeballs and reference to the excellent images contained in the article. The following sentence - "and it is in the design and use of these wings that Palladio's followers in the 18th century adapted to become an integral part of the building" certainly doesn't need citations. --Mcginnly | Natter 01:24, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I don't think the article would spoil from having a few extra footnotes, but if several highly respected wikipedians vouch for the verifiability and accuracy of the article, and the article provides a list of sources, I believe it to be enough to consider the article FA-material. I mean, this is exactly what good encyclopedia editors are supposed to do; sift out well-worded bits of information from extensive source materials for everyone's reading pleasure without necessarily engaging in gratuitous footnote sprinkling. Adding a footnote for every other sentence, fact or figure is assuming that ordinary people can't possibly read books without being guided to specific pages. This smacks of a fetish for citation format and a very obvious form of instruction creep, and to me this seems to encourage institutionalized cherry-picking instead of constructive and enlightened review of content. / Peter Isotalo 13:02, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No actually. Utter rubbish - this smacks of actually reading the FA criteria, and criterion 1. c. is there in black and white. Go and read it. Highly respected Wikipedians? By who? The largely unaware public who click on the pages who don't even edit? Once again, rubbish. LuciferMorgan 01:38, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Don't push interpretations on others, Lucifer. 1. c is as far as I know intended to be flexible and the hard line "everything Joe Blow doesn't immediately recognize needs a footnote"-interpretation is quite clearly something which does not enjoy universal support. Just because many recent reviewers have set almost arbitrary and clearly exaggerated standards for the amount, not so much the actually quality of, citations and verifiability, I don't see why this interpretation should be seen as an absolute standard. And most importantly, it's very inappropriate squabbling about a topic of which you seem to little or no in-depth knowledge. I can't see how Wikipedia is improved by this type of debacle. / Peter Isotalo 07:56, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Are claims "verifiable against reliable sources" and do they "accurately present the related body of published knowledge"? Yes. Are claims "supported with specific evidence and external citations ... where appropriate, complemented by inline citations"? Yes, they are. Some more inline notes or footnotes would be nice to have, but we should not throw the baby out with the bathwater. -- ALoan (Talk) 13:44, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Must have = yes. Whether you like it or not ALoan (which you don't, whatever you try to say to the contrary), criterion 1. c. is there and here to stay. LuciferMorgan 01:38, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Do you have any previous knowledge about any of these statements? Do you have reason to doubt that they are false other than you suspect that they're wrong? Have you perchance read any of the sources?
Peter Isotalo 07:56, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment (update: no "vote" implied). What a fascinating FARC. Clearly the duelling views of what a Featured Article should be are coming to a head, and interpersonal dynamics are, by my observation, affecting the proceedings considerably. Completely in spite of myself, I find myself leaning toward Remove—in doing so, I am choosing to apply the current Featured Article standard, rather than subverting the standard to the very good editors involved, or trying to make other points about FA criteria. (And the points of Geogre and others seem more valid than their inverse, to me.) In other circumstances, we'd have prose- and verifiability-oriented editors pointing out sentences like:
    • "The Palladianism of the White House is interesting as it is almost an early form of neoclassicism, especially the South facade, which closely resembles James Wyatt's design for Castle Coole of 1790, also in Ireland. Ironically, the North facade lacks one of the floors from Leinster House, while the Southern facade gains a floor extra than Castle Coole, and has an external staircase more in the Palladian manner."—"Ironically" is editorializing; "a floor extra than" is awkward.
    • "In Palladio's architectural treatises, as well as the buildings he designed and built,"—the dreaded "as well as".
    • "If on a hill, such as Villa Capra, all facades were often designed to be of equal value so that occupants could have fine views in all directions."—"all" and "often" don't work together.
    • "They were no longer villas but 'power houses' in Sir John Summerson's term, the symbolic centres of power of the Whig "squirearchy" that ruled Britain."—awkward, making the reader wonder if this is a run-on sentence. Summerson's term is not referenced. Again, current FA standards.
    • "Castle Coole is, in the words of the architectural commentator Gervase Jackson-Stops, "A culmination of the Palladian traditions, yet strictly neoclassical in its chaste ornament and noble austerity"." The current FA standard requires page attribution for a quote.
  • Summerson's term is in his essay "The Classical Country House in 18th-Century England", and all through his major work Architecture in Britain 1530-1830 (1993), a book that doubtless informs all the discussion here— but of course it is employed by writers like Mark Girouard too. Tacitly it informs all discussion of architecture as an expression of social standing in Britain, doesn't it. Summerson is also the source of the expression "prodigy houses" to describe those grand Jacobean piles so familiar to all of you. Some time last month I removed this discussion from my Watchlist: nec dilectare volunt nec prodesse, or so it appears, and I require both. I would never subject any article to this process myself. --Wetman 09:18, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • So am I saying the writing is poor? Hardly, but stuff like this is used as a basis for objection in many other candidacy discussions. At the same time, I say to the article's creators—because the accomplishment achieved in a given article and the article's FA status are becoming less and less correlated—very nice work. If the FAR system is going to function consistently—whether for the better or worse—then this article should no longer be an FA because it no longer meets (FA) expectations for verifiability. –Outriggr § 07:16, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I am striking my "remove". What I wished to communicate can be said without it. Many times I've seen the reviews of older featured articles fail because they do not meet the current standard for referencing. Heated discussion ensues, asking whether there isn't a grandfathering for older articles, and so on. The answer comes back negative. Unless a new precedent is desired, I think the review process should be applied consistently. –Outriggr § 08:28, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reading LuciferMorgan's list of need-inline-citation items and what the editors reponses are, I am leaning toward remove. I am not questioning the editors' credibility, but it's a nature of Wikipedia that all editors are anonimous. The burden of whether statements are true or false is not on the readers'. Okay, readers can go to find books listed in the article, but what's the point of writing bla..bla..bla in the article where there is no pointer to which book and page I should read more? We have FA standards and we have three pillars of Wikipedia. Obviously, this article does not satisfy one of them: verifiable. Should I borrow all the books and browse all the pages to verify a single statement that I'm doubting at? Unbelieveable. — Indon (reply) — 08:44, 12 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. With experience I've found the table of contents and index invaluable though. --Mcginnly | Natter 01:21, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
With your experience then, why don't you simply put inline citations in the article to help inexperience reader who is really new about this subject (including me)? — Indon (reply) — 00:13, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've added citations to those aspects that have been challenged - for further help Indon [inexperience reader who is really new about this subject] I can only suggest reading this. --Mcginnly | Natter 20:59, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am not a native English person, who still have troubles with English grammar. Is there something wrong with my English grammar? Being stupid in English, what are you suggesting to me to read the Grammar article? Please explain. — Indon (reply) — 21:19, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sarcasm towards Indon's good faith effort isn't helpful; his points have merit. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:38, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies, no offence intended Indon you're not stupid in English, but your grammar's a bit 'non-standard'. --Mcginnly | Natter 01:48, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I see citations, I strike my vote, I am out of this FAR process, I am sick of editors responses and I apology for this non-standard grammar sentence.— Indon (reply) — 09:33, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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

  • Several editors have now taken time to review and make suggestions: their requests don't seem excessive or burdensome; they will support verifiability, and they make sense to me. An article this well written shouldn't leave any area for future editors to FAR it again for the same reasons. And where is the nominator (Cuiviénen), who wanted these citations? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:00, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I went about trying to find some sources that I could add as inline citations to this article. Of course, I don't have access to the current references. What I found—and I admit that throwing around quotes in matters of aesthetics may not prove much—are a couple of points that are counter to the effect of the article.
    • "Palladio's drawing in the Four Books presents the [ Villa Rotunda ] as an object that could be placed anywhere, with no regard for the site" (Learning from Palladio). The article says "Palladio always designed his villas with reference to their setting."
    • "American expressions, few in number and more modest in scale, have not attracted either the scholarly or popular attention of their European counterparts. Architectural history has defined the whole of American Palladianism by a small number of eighteenth-century public buildings and private dwellings." (Palladian architecture and social change in postrevolutionary Virginia. PhD dissertation.) Compare this to the overall effect of the section Palladianism#North American Palladianism. On the other hand, excerpt from Palladio's Architecture and Its Influence: A Photographic Guide supports the section much more.
  • I have no POINT here. My intention was to add some cites to the article. In context, I don't put much stock in the above contrasting references (it looks like the dissertation intro is probably further from the truth than WP's article, and the other issue is quoted from a book that likely has a "re-interpretive" thesis)—but since I put the work in, I thought I'd write this up. –Outriggr § 01:23, 16 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Within 24 hours of the above comment, I left a message here, clarifying that "I didn't know the FARC was closed when I made the Jan 16 comment". That message has mysteriously disappeared (in history, as well), so I am adding this again. –Outriggr § 01:17, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

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

Punk rock

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Review commentary

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

I'm nominating this for FAR because;

  1. It needs further inline citations.
  2. The lead needs expansion, and needs to be an adequate summary of the article. LuciferMorgan 00:44, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm unsure of trying to trace punk's roots back to the US. Punk began in the UK as far as most critics are concerned. LuciferMorgan 22:03, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Lucifer, this is a can of worms. Punk was defined by the '76 UK bands, but they crystallised the lead of the Ramones and New York Dolls, as well as The Stooges and the earlier US garage bands. See the talk archives for an extended, and heated, discussion on this. + Ceoil 22:09, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough, but more cites are needed. LuciferMorgan 22:18, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Whichever way, I'm not voting Keep yet, and people don't vote until FARC.

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

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

  • Fair point, I'll find something on that one. I'd appreciate a few 'cite needed' tags else where, if needed, to focus the mind, like ;) + Ceoil 22:23, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Add the most urgent first though, its a heavily edited article, carpet bombing might draw some reverts. If you see a lot of gaps, maybe add them in a few manageable phases, and I'll do what I can. Thanks. + Ceoil 22:28, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'd love to add the tags, but I've been accused in the past of going overboard (see the Operation Downfall FAR). The main problem is that when you've cited something, I'll most likely scour the article for other areas that need cites. LuciferMorgan 22:30, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you approch, knock your self out here. + Ceoil 22:35, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Will do. Fill whatever cites you want, and if there's some you disagree with then feel free not to fill them. LuciferMorgan 22:42, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Lucifer, I'll need a few days though. + Ceoil 22:56, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ceoil, just a note to let you know, we don't vote Keep or Remove during FAR; if concerns aren't addressed in more or less two weeks, the article moves to FARC for another two weeks, and that's when you enter Keep or Remove. Sandy (Talk) 04:56, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ooops + Ceoil 23:59, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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

"...and placed emphasis on music that was fast, short in duration, and simple, often accompanied by a political or social outlook."[citation needed]
"The punk rock movement also encompasses a punk subculture, involving youthful aggression, specific clothing styles, ideologies, and a DIY (do it yourself) attitude."[citation needed] (In spite of its self-evidence to one editor.)
"...but its popularity was more sporadic elsewhere."[citation needed]
"Over the course of the 1980s, various forms of punk rock emerged in small scenes around the world, often outright rejecting commercial success or association with mainstream culture."[citation needed]
"By the end of the 20th century, punk rock's legacy had resulted in the formation of the alternative rock movement, while new punk bands popularized the genre decades after its initial heyday."[citation needed]

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

KP, agree that 'self-evident' not good enough, and thought the reversal of you cite requests was plain rude. I kind of warned LuciferMorgan above about fact tags being rv'd by others, and have sandboxed the article so that tags can be added and dealt with in peace during the FAR. Please feel free to place more requests there, as you say there is an abundance of sources to choose from.
One thing though, I think I remember reading somewhere that you don't need to cite statments in the lead if they are ref'd further down in the main body of the article. I've searched around but can't find it again. Does any one know if this is actually true or not? + Ceoil 21:27, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
True. The lead is meant to be a summary of the article, so all info there should be in the article body also. LuciferMorgan 23:27, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Status? I noticed that publication dates are missing on news sources - perhaps cite web was used rather than cite news? Does this article need more time? Sandy (Talk) 18:43, 17 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I did some ref cleanup, and fixed most of the missing dates on news sources, but this ref is wrong: "Punk Music in Britain". BBC.co.uk (2002). Sandy (Talk) 04:21, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Thanks for tidying up, & url for 'Punk Music in Britain' now fixed. Ideally, I'd like to extend this by a few days if possible, still need to track down sources for a number of statments highlighed by LuciferMorgan. + Ceoil 07:45, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • As you get further along, I'm hoping the lead will improve. There are a lot of references in the lead. Since the lead should summarize the article anyway, perhaps some of that text could be expanded in the article, with the references provided in the body of the article rather than in the lead. Sandy (Talk) 16:41, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
List has been trimmed. + Ceoil 01:19, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • That ref was ok when I checked it out; in that it pointed to a website, but not a very good one. I need to validate the sources created before this FAR, and also attend to POV issues noted by KP Botany. Realisticlly, this will take a week, at least. I'd prefer not to go to FARC; any objections to putting this out until the 31st? I picked up a few source books while x-mass shopping; as soon as my father tires of reading "Punk Dairy: The Ultimate Trainspotters Guide to Undergounf Rock 1970-1982" and other books like it, will incorporate ;) My openion is that the article is adequately cited for an FA, but the text needs work + Ceoil 00:44, 24 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think it needs a lot of work, but as far as I am concerned, if you're willing to do it, we should wait. I think Wikipedians can be impatient about what it takes in time and commitment to make an article something useful. Allowing extra time should, imo, always be a given. KP Botany 01:03, 24 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No problem. Marskell 19:41, 25 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm kind of a stickler about readability. Consider making the paragraphs a bit smaller, and more even.
  • I love all the music in there - you got all the good ones right on the money. Consider moving some pictures to the right underneath the "music" boxes so the text isn't so squeezed.
  • Inline citations are fabulous for other folks. Personally, they make things hard to read as the formatting stands now. Hopefully, that will change, but multiple inline citations for non-controversial points I feel are unnecessary.
  • Lets diversify. Don't forget Bikini Kill, Le Tigre, Hole, etc. as well.
    • Two bands were particularly influential @ 1981 to span punk and new wave, though lesser known (currently). They're Pearl Harbor and the Explosions and Romeo Void. I'd particularly love to see Romeo Void in there, because it was headed by the largest Samoan woman you ever saw. If you can find references for them, I'd love to see them in there. This is not OR, they were both on the charts.
    • There's also the Waitresses; this band was a chart-topper back in the day.
    • PJ Harvey was a HUGE influence, particularly "Sheela-Na-Gig"; don't forget her.
    • Ani DiFranco - punk/folk, most notable for "fucking the system" and starting her own label and doing her own distribution before she ever released anything.
    • Pansy Division - have been around for 15 years.
    • Was Bad Brains "different"? How?
  • I'm not farting in the wind here. I want to see some of these people in this article:).Nina Odell 14:02, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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

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

Almost there, just checking back over a few old refs. Will let you know later this evening when I'm done. Thanks for the patience. + Ceoil 13:55, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Article has undergone an extensive restructure and copy edit. Hopefully it is also more balanced that it was, and that concerns re citations have been met. + Ceoil 23:39, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Have moved the "See also" links into categories, where they belong. + Ceoil 22:42, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

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

Thats why I'm asking for more time, I haven't worked on the copy yet. + Ceoil 05:26, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
At some stage soon, the reviewers may be happier with some idea of a timeline. Tony 05:36, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's taking much longer than I expected, but I can work towards finishing up for next friday. + Ceoil 20:21, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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

The cites in the lead are discussed earlier in the review; a rewrite is in progress (it's often easiest to rewrite the lead last, once the text is complete), and most reviewers here would disagree with your interpretation on whether those facts should be cited. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:37, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I see. I caught the colloquy about the lead on Dec. 12 above. I didn't notice that you'd already followed up on the 18th. At any rate, I'm prepared to help out Ceoil with a general copyedit of the article to bring the language closer to FA quality. In light of that, I want to be clear on your position (let's encourage "most reviewers here" to speak for themselves):
I gather you agree that locating punk's emergence in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia does not call for citation in the lead; I gather you also agree that identifying the Ramones and the Sex Pistols as exemplifying the seminal wave of punk does not call for citation in the lead. I'm sure we agree that, if the latter claim is made in the lead, it needs to be supported by discussion in the main text, appropriately referenced per Wikipedia standards to the best available sources. What I remain unclear on is how you would want the broad geographical observation to be cited. The observation is supported by discussion of the many significant bands from each locale; what, if anything, would you want to see cited specifically in the main text on this point?—DCGeist 19:41, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not really interested in secondguessing Ceoil's ongoing efforts; I like to re-check articles that show ongoing progress once the main editors have finished their work. I'm confident Ceoil will work it out just fine, depending on what text is kept where once the rewrite is done, and I doubt that cited text will suddenly go uncited. I'm also confident that reviewers here will come to a consensus as to whether the article is well cited when the work is completed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:22, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I assume then you won't be interested in secondguessing my work either. Tony has suggested finding copyeditors who are interested in this field. I'm a copyeditor interested in this field. My aim is to assist Ceoil, as I clearly expressed, in improving the article's language and presentation. I asked you to weigh in on specific content and its appropriate citation. You've chosen not to weigh in. Fair enough. And once again you've spoken on behalf of "reviewers here." Interesting. I'm still waiting for one of those reviewers to step forward in support of your claim that "most" of them would say that a broad statement about the central role of British, U.S., and Australian bands in the emergence of punk rock should be specifically cited.—DCGeist 22:55, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
DC, Sandy is right in that I'm leaving the lead for last. And for the record, he did a lot of work fixing poor citation templates when the article was first nominated for FAC. However, help from you on the copy would be much appreciated - I've mostly been concentrating on a rewrite and restructure, and a copy edit is still needed. Following a skirmish this morning, I've had to sandbox the article tonight to further tweak the structure, meaning some of the sections will be significantly rewritten by tomorrow evening. But if you could help clean up the "Characteristics" & "Legacy" sections, that would be great. And BTY, you should add your star to B movie! + Ceoil 23:26, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Update: I'm more or less there in terms of content, hoping for a white knight re copy. DCGeist helped out tonight, have also left a note at WP:LoCE. + Ceoil 01:18, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the update: I had a look, and saw some backwards progress on the refs, which will take some time to untangle and explain <sigh> ... will get to it as soon as I can. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:46, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I can take care of the untangling and fixing if you let me know the problem. + Ceoil 20:21, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Still working on it - got distracted elsewhere. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:02, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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

  • It looks like some "Main" templates are now being used incorrectly. The Main template is used when this article contains a summary of another Main article (think of is a min-lead of that article): that doesn't appear to be the case in all uses here - templates usage could be reviewed. Some of the templates could be switched to either See, See also or Further (can't remember which is which, someone should check), depending on the situation. For example, is the Pop section of Punk rock a summary of the Pop rock article, or is that further information ?
  • Even on a large screen, text is being scrunched between images and music samples. (When I go to another computer with a smaller screen, they look fine, since the text is forced to below the image and sample). Perhaps images or samples can be moved up or down to avoid this problem.
  • Tony1 is up on the legalities of Music samples: has he looked at these? If not, can you ping him? It's Greek to me: I just know there was a problem recently.
  • Some statements may need cites, example (I always work from the bottom of the article first): Some punk rockers complained that by signing to major labels and appearing on MTV, ... Maybe make another pass, looking for any vague-ish statements without attribution.
Paragraph in question heavily revised, fully cited.—DCGeist 07:45, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Minor prose issues, example (working from the bottom): Many groups such as Screeching Weasel that fused punk rock with pop melodies would follow in their wake. Trying to eliminate the redundant "many", maybe something like: Groups that fused punk rock with pop melodies—such as Screeching Weasel—followed in their wake. I see you've got a request in at LoCE.
Done.—DCGeist 03:06, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ceoil, do you have most of the reference books? Some of the extensive editing may have taken the text away from what is supported by the refs, so pls let us know that you can verify a lot of the ce changes. I see combined refs which I didn't see before, so checked to see what's up there, example:
      • The first issue of Punk was published in December 1975, and tied together earlier influences such as Lou Reed, the Stooges, and the New York Dolls, with an array of new bands centering around the CBGB and Max's Kansas City venues: the Ramones, Television, Talking Heads, The Heartbreakers, Blondie, and others. (Fowler, Damian. "Legendary punk club CBGB closes". BBC News, October 16, 2006. Retrieved on December 11, 2006; Sabin, p. 155; Walsh, p. 15, 24)
    • Yikes, disentangling this: I've seen the notion on several FACs that refs must always come at the end of a sentence, which is a misread of WP:FN. If specific facts, phrases, or words are referenced within a sentence, the refs can be mid-sentence. Combining these refs has munged verifiability, in some text that wasn't clearly sourced to begin with. Before the refs were combined, the text was:
    • so each piece of the sentence was separately sourced, and is now run together. But, the first (BBC) source doesn't appear to verify the text it is sourcing; by combining all of the refs into one, an individual piece that doesn't seem to be sourced is obfuscated, and we now have to look at three sources to find the text. Do you know where the text supporting the first part of the sentence is? I saw several examples like this in the text, so we need to doublecheck a few refs, and perhaps move them back to individual facts they were sourcing. The changes came from here; the original BBC text needs to be figured out, and the refs should probably go back to verifying each piece of text separately.
Sentence split. Specific source given for initial publication date. Sourcing improved.—DCGeist 02:47, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Here are some other edits which warrant checking, where refs look to be lost or combined: [15]. Refs were combined here, also adding new text, the latter taking its name from a Minor Threat song - does that come from Sabin?
Sourcing changed to best available on topic.—DCGeist 02:21, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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

  • Looks ORish, sounds like opinion, needs a cite: In its noisy, fun-loving way, pop punk bridged the divide. Perhaps this is supported by Reynolds, p. xvii; can you check?
Quote substituted, cited.—DCGeist 02:21, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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

Whew. Over 60s edits since I had last looked at the page!
Sandy, thanks for taking the time on this. I have hard copies of most of the books (and two are from an online library); and judging from his work this morning, so does DCGeist. The article has improved greatly since I left it last night, but I need to give a run back over some of the older refs, read up on "Main" templates", and check on the acceptability of the sound files. This I can do tonight and tomorrow night. + Ceoil 11:36, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Also, have another look at the concerns I raised above as to running though one more time on the prose and cites needed - the two examples I gave were only samples from the bottom of the article - entire article should be checked for similar. If we can get Tony to look at the music sample issue, we should be able to wrap this up. I'll add this to the urgents list, to get others to look. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:24, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Also, the rearrangement of image/sound files in the New York section is better on both of my screen sizes: would it be possible to do similar in other sections? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:57, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Another question: not being familiar with the lingo, why is New Wave capitalized, while other similar terms (Punk rock, Pop rock etc.) aren't? Wondering about WP:MSH and section headings, but saw New Wave capitalized throughout - pls educate me? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:00, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Good question, it's almost always capitalized, while punk rock sometimes is, and sometimes isn't. Anyone know? KP Botany 17:27, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
My guess is that because its origionally an art phrase, and art movements tend to be capitalised in general (Art Nouveau, Magic Realism, Color Field etc). Also, strictly speaking its 'the New Wave', rather than 'New Wave'; if that makes any sense.
I accept Sandy's point that the issue noted above are examples only; have printed the article, ticking each one off individally. However, most of the inserted text that led to the refs being undermined was valid, and greatly added to the quality of the article; just need to go back to the sources and back it up. + Ceoil 19:58, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, darn, I came over to see if I could add a Keep yet, and found a new problem. A new Reynolds source was just added to the References section [16], without adjusting all the footnotes to account for there now being two Reynolds sources. (Lesson learned; always use year on sources, even if there's only one.) Now every Reynolds footnote needs to be sorted out as Reynolds (1999), p. no. or Reynolds (2005), p. no. I am going to be traveling soon: if I'm not able to get back to this article, pls consider me a Keep once all of these recent changes to refs are sorted out - someone now needs to check and edit every Reynolds source. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:25, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Not to worry. All book refs will be styled to best Wikipedia standards.—DCGeist 21:46, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

Dalek

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Review commentary

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Messages left at Joewithajay and Doctor Who. Sandy (Talk) 15:51, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm nominating this article for FAR as it fails criterion 1. c. Lacks sufficient cites. LuciferMorgan 00:10, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure I understand you here. What are external jumps? --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 16:20, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Look (for example) in the Computer games section at the end: there are external jumps to off-Wiki websites. The content should be wikified, or the external jumps should be converted to references, or the links should be included in External links. The main Wiki article should be Wiki content, with external content given in References or External links. A lot of it may also be commercial or spam or advertisement. Sandy (Talk) 16:59, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've fixed these, but having looked at the games I share Sandy's concern about whether they really merit mention in the article. We can talk that out on the article's talk page. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:42, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment No FAC would achieve the star with 7 cites, and this article is no different. It doesn't meet criterion 1. c. at all. LuciferMorgan 23:32, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is inaccurate. The article has much more than 7 cites, all taken from direct on-screen information and all cited parenthetically instead of by footnotes. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 00:00, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is wholly accurate - it has 7 inline cites. Inline citations are needed, and this "parenthetically" business is pure nonsense in the vein of the Operation Downfall FAR. I would suggest converting them to inline cites. LuciferMorgan 00:08, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Prehaps the {{cite episode}} template can help. Jay32183 00:56, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, Lucifer didn't say there are only 7 inline cites; he said 7 cites, which is definitely not true. Cites are still cites - it would be more accurate to say that the cites are not in a proper format. To say the references/cites are not there at all is completely blinkered and that is nonsensical. That being said, converting those cites to inline is a relatively inconsequential and technical exercise. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 03:16, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You mentioned parenthetical inline citations in the article, but almost all of the parentheticals are just years. Only listing the year is not sufficient in terms of varifiability. Also cite.php is being used and the inline citation method needs to be consistant, especially in a Featured Article. Please understand that this is a review, you don't need to argue to keep or remove now. Some one has brought up an issue. Acknowleging that there could be an improvement but refusing to act on it because it is "inconsequential" doesn't really make sense in this case. Jay32183 03:35, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The citations are to the specific stories/episodes, and the years they were broadcast. In addition, where did I refuse to act on it? I said it was a technical issue rather than a substantive one, not that I didn't want to, or wouldn't fix it. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 03:43, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clarify: is it being said that a sentence like this:

Once the mutant is removed, the casing itself can be entered and operated by humanoids, as seen in The Daleks, The Space Museum (1965) and Planet of the Daleks (1973).

should be changed to this:

Once the mutant is removed, the casing itself can be entered and operated by humanoids, as seen in The Daleks[4], The Space Museum[5] and Planet of the Daleks[6].
==References==
  1. ^ Fowler, Damian. "Legendary punk club CBGB closes". BBC News, October 16, 2006. Retrieved on December 11, 2006,
  2. ^ Sabin, p.155
  3. ^ Walsh, p. 15, 24
  4. ^ Writer Terry Nation, Director Christopher Barry, Producer Verity Lambert (1964-01-04). "The Escape". Doctor Who. London. BBC. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
  5. ^ Writer Glyn Jones, Director Mervyn Pinfield, Producer Verity Lambert (1965-05-01). "The Dimensions of Time". Doctor Who. London. BBC. BBC One. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
  6. ^ Writer Terry Nation, Director David Maloney, Producer Barry Letts (1973-05-05). "Planet of the Daleks, Episode Five". Doctor Who. London. BBC. BBC One. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)

Because if that's really considered a significant improvement, I can do that. (Incidentally, it will significantly increase the article's size.) —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:02, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Refs go after the punctuation, see WP:FN. Sandy (Talk) 13:55, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's what I was suggesting with the cite episode template, and it should help satisfy the nominator's request for inline citations. I wouldn't worry about the article length too much. I believe the standard for featured articles is to only consider readable prose when determining the article's size. I did not mean to imply anyone here was unwilling to work, I was just hoping to avoid an argument that happens from time to time. Jay32183 04:08, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
OK. Personally, I think that having that many footnotes is less aesthetically pleasing than simply linking to the Wikipedia page for the individual serial, which contains all the information, but if there's a consensus that this form of citation is preferred I'll go with the consensus. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:16, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Inline citations are required as part of verifiability. LuciferMorgan 10:55, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, they are required - where appropriate. And inline citation is not syonymous with dinky footnotes. Having said that, the suggested footnotes above are excellent, and if the authors are prepared to add them for people who like to count them, then I'm sure we will all be content. -- ALoan (Talk) 14:57, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - article is perfectly fine to me.....endnotes are somewhat archaic, so I respect the progressive thinking of the authors of this article. — Deckiller 08:26, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Now you tell me, after I did this! ;-) —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 09:04, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • XD it's all good, I was just paraphrasing what my English professor said about endnotes :). Great article BTW, as per the norm from WPWHO. — Deckiller 09:10, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Comment Whole paragraphs still remain uncited. So no it isn't excellent or perfectly fine. Still needs a lot more work - just splashing a few inline cites here and there doesn't make an article meet 1. c. Also, if the authors are that progressive, why didn't they keep this article up to FA standards? Why is this at FAR? Exactly, because it doesn't meet FA standards. LuciferMorgan 20:40, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • Comment I fully intend to finish the citations: the diff I posted above was only the beginning of the work. As for the article being at FA standard, clearly it was considered up to FA standard at one point. Now, perhaps standards have been raised since then, which is fine — but that doesn't mean that the authors don't care about maintaining FA standard. I'm going away this weekend, but will continue the citation work when I return. This stuff takes time. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 03:33, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
            • You should have plenty of time. The FAR process is two weeks, and the FARC process is two weeks but it won't close if good faith efforts to improve the article are being made at a reasonable pace, which you seem to be willing to do. Jay32183 05:54, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment The lead section is meant to be a summary of the article. All info there should also be in the body of the article and inline cited there, not in the lead section. LuciferMorgan 21:24, 2 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Just a query regarding the section on the major appearances by daleks in novels. Is the 'Novels' section intended to only list original stories? The novels which are listed appear to be relatively recent original novels, rather than, for example, the 1970s novels which were based upon the television episodes like The Dalek Invasion of Earth, Day of the Daleks etc. If so, it may help to clarify this in the heading or with a line of explanatory text. Also, for consistency, it would help to include the year of publication for the novels and the audioplays, to give the reader an idea of how they fit into the Dr Who chronology. Jazriel 10:33, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. This article is greatly improved, but I still see some referencing needs - one example:
    • When the new series was announced, many fans hoped the Daleks would return once more to the programme. After much negotiation between the BBC and the Nation estate (which at one point appeared to completely break down), an agreement was reached. According to media reports, the initial disagreement was due to the Nation estate demanding levels of creative control over the Daleks' appearances and scripts that were unacceptable to the BBC. However, talks between Tim Hancock and the BBC progressed more productively than had been expected, and in August 2004 an agreement was reached for the Daleks' appearance in the 2005 series.
  • Sandy (Talk) 18:17, 13 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have now added two BBC News Online cites to the paragraph quoted above. I hope that's better? Angmering 07:52, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Better, but that was only an example. The History section has a lot of historical information that isn't cited. Sandy (Talk) 13:27, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Status: How about this one? I see citations now in areas people were concerned about. Marskell 15:48, 16 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Not all areas though. LuciferMorgan 16:05, 16 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
History (which contains a lot of referencable fact) is still largely uncited - move to FARC to give editors more time to finish work. Sandy (Talk) 16:09, 16 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It would be helpful if {{citation needed}} were added to the statements that are of particular concern. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 23:27, 17 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Last time I did that, I was reprimanded. LuciferMorgan 01:33, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'll add tags, since they've been requested. Sandy (Talk) 01:41, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I added cite tags to the History section only, which was undercited. I found several instances of WP:WTA while there, and suggest that the article is going to need an independent copy edit once more thorough referencing is done. Here's a prose sample from the section I just tagged:
However, despite this adoration, the Daleks were forever associated with Doctor Who. Nation, who jointly owned the intellectual property rights to them with the BBC, therefore had the problem of owning a money-making concept that proved nearly impossible to sell to anyone else and was dependent on the BBC wanting to produce stories featuring the creatures.[citation needed]
I think every section is undercited, only the History section is the most undercited. It's nice people are working on the article though. LuciferMorgan 02:38, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
During this FAR process, the article has gone from 7 footnotes to 67 (as of this edit), and you still think it's undercited? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:06, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I do, as I just stated. There isn't many cites considering the article's size, though there have been improvements to editor's credits. LuciferMorgan 08:56, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria is insufficient citations (1c). Marskell 06:36, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Tell you what - I'll remove my "keep" vote if you remove your "remove" vote. After all, if you're saying that the Wikiproject editors have a conflict of interest, since you nominated this for review, so do you. How about that? --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 17:32, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Tell you what - how about instead of making BS "keeps" without adequate reasons for them, whereas my remove is based on inline citations, how about you give us good reasons for your keep as opposed to "fantastic"? Better still - how about you cite the sections that remain totally uncited? Have your vote, I don't deny anyone a vote. LuciferMorgan 17:41, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My keep is based on the same reasons as Josiah's, which is based on the number of inline citations, and far more cited than many other FAs out there, including some which have recently been passed. Nowhere do I use the adjective "fantastic" - you can take that up with Superlex. --khaosworks (talk • contribs) 18:10, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • List - Remove unless fixed:
    • External link farm, including commercial links. Pls cleanup per WP:EL and WP:NOT
    • ISBN please on Terry Nation book in References
    • (Fancrufty - inadequate reference - ref is to a Wiki article - *who* says they have a poetic quality, and where - exact ref please - in fact, many of the footnotes are to other Wiki articles - Wiki is not a reliable source) Some of the more elaborate Dalek battlecries have an almost poetic quality about them (for example, "Advance and Attack! Attack and Destroy! Destroy and Rejoice!" from the televised story The Chase).[65]
    • Book references for specific statements need page numbers - for example - ^ Bentham, Jeremy (May 1986). Doctor Who — The Early Years. England: W.H. Allen. ISBN 0-491-03612-4.
    • There are massive uncited sections from Parodies onward, including a statement about someone posing nude that certainly should be cited.
    • Prose problems and redundancies throughout - article needs a thorough copy edit - one random sample: The reason for the multiple titles is that in the show's early years each individual episode had a different name and overall story titles were used only by the production office. Subsequently, several different overall story titles were circulated by fandom without access to the correct records.[46] See: Doctor Who story title controversy.
  • There's still time to bring this to standard if someone gets out a big red pen. Sandy (Talk) 01:20, 26 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Sandy, many of the references that appear to be to Wikipedia articles are referring to specific television episodes, and use {{cite episode}} because that was recommended above. The citations are not using the Wikipedia article as reference, but the television episodes about which those articles are written. It's the same as using {{cite book}} for a book which also has a Wikipedia page: you're referencing the book, not the Wikipedia article about it.
I've removed several extraneous links (thanks for pointing the commercial ones out, as I hadn't noticed that those had been added), and I'll remove the "Dalek humour" ones if people think it's necessary (I think it's a rather nice addition, but I understand if people feel that it's inappropriate). I've provided the ISBN for Terry Nation's Dalek Special and a citation for Katy Manning posing nude with a Dalek. I've also tweaked the specific sentence you mention, and will try to get around to a full copyedit in the next few days. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 11:12, 27 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I guess I don't understand cite episode, so I'm striking that and the other items you've completed (still needs to know who considers that dialogue as "poetic"). Sandy (Talk) 00:13, 28 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed the "almost poetic quality" sentence (although I'm sure I've seen that referenced in print, after several days of searching I can't find it). I've also added a few more references in the last few days. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:10, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Regardless of cite episode, there's still a lot of original research in the article. LuciferMorgan 18:29, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Could you please give a few examples? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:10, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah ok will do - thanks for kindly requesting, which goes a long way.

1. "The non-humanoid shape of the Dalek, unlike anything that had been seen on television before, did much to enhance the creatures' sense of menace. With no familiar points of reference, it was a far cry from the traditional "bug-eyed monster" of science fiction that Doctor Who series creator Sydney Newman wanted the show to avoid. The unsettling form of the Daleks, coupled with their alien voices, also made many believe for a while that the props were wholly mechanical and operated by remote control."

"Sense of menace"? Says whom? Are we interpreting the reaction of the TV audience? It's wholly possible many found their shape rather ludicrous. "Unsettling form"? This could be original research also - maybe perhaps there are TV critics that can lend weight and authority to the above points of view? LuciferMorgan 22:35, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the example. That paragraph has a citation from Doctor Who: The Television Companion by David J. Howe. (Howe is a professional historian of television in general and Doctor Who in particular; citing him on the subject of Doctor Who is roughly akin to citing David McCullough on the subject of Harry S. Truman or John Adams.)
Here are some relevant excerpts from that work: I'll let you decide if they're sufficient to justify the paragraph or not. If they're not, I'll either reword the paragraph or find more sources.

The Daleks are undoubtedly the highlight of the story. Nothing even remotely like them had ever been seen before, either on television or in the cinema, and they dominate every scene in which they appear. Their sedate, gliding movements and harsh, electronic voices make for an unforgettable combination. The fact that they are constantly in motion, their three stick-like 'limbs' twitching with alien life even when they are otherwise stationary, creates a very creepy effect. ...

The arrival of the Daleks has often been cited, with some justification, as the development that sealed Doctor Who's popular success. Certainly the creatures' appeal was immediately noted by journalists, as is apparent from the following review by Peter Quince that appeared in the Huddersfield Daily Examiner dated 11 January 1964: 'As for spine chillery... well, I take back what I said a few weeks ago about Doctor Who having gotten off to such a bad start it could never recover. It has recovered, and, though it still has its daft moments, it also produces some first class sensations — as, for example, last Saturday, when the Dalek "intelligence" had been lifted unseen from its robot and placed in a blanket on the floor, the episode closed with something very horrible indeed just beginning to crawl from underneath the blanket. So horrible was it, that I very much doubt whether I shall have the courage this evening to switch on to see what it was. Lovely stuff!"....

The Daleks are one of those science-fiction ideas that, in retrospect, seem so ridiculously simple that it is hard to understand why no-one had done anything similar before. There had been many different robotic monsters previously created for films and television shows, but these had always turned out looking like a man in a suit. Terry Nation must have realised this and, in his scripted description of the Daleks, specified that the creatures should have no visible legs and should glide along on a base .... [a description of the Daleks' design follows, which I won't bother to transcribe].... The resultant prop was both unsettling and unique. The simple 'pepperpot' shape with its three emerging appendages — eye-stalk, sucker-stick and gun-arm — was memorable, as was the strange gliding motion. The illusion of an alien creature was completed by the harsh electronic voice that grated instructions and barked out orders.

To viewers, the Daleks seemed truly alien beings — indeed, fooled by their relatively small stature, many initially believed that they were operated by remote control rather than by actors inside them. This was the intended effect, and the Daleks were a huge success. ....

Personally, I think that justifies the paragraph in question, but perhaps my judgment is skewed by my closeness to the subject matter. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:40, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak remove. "Merchandising" is undercited (only two citations in its subsections), and IMO "Popular culture" needs another look: I see some stubby paragraphs, and, in general, the prose in this particular sections does not look "brilliant" to me (after the first paragraph the particular section gets almost like a "trivia" section).--Yannismarou 18:44, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove. Not written to the required "professional" standard. Here are examples.
    • Second sentence: "The mutated descendants of the Kaled people (referred to in the first Dalek serial as "Dals")[1] of the planet Skaro, they are integrated with tank-like mechanical casings; a ruthless race bent on universal conquest and domination." It's a snake that needs chopping up; the semicolon is grammatically wrong.
    • Third sentence: "They are pitiless, without compassion or remorse. They are also, collectively, the greatest alien adversaries of the Time Lord known as the Doctor." Flabby. Why not "Without compassion or remorse, they are the greatest adversaries of the Time Lord known as "the Doctor"."? Minus six words.
  • "and were first introduced"—Spot the redundant word.
  • "in the second Doctor Who serial"—Do you mean "series", or perhaps "episode"?
  • "with the viewing audience"—"with viewers"?
  • "They have become synonymous with Doctor Who and their behaviour and catchphrases are part of British popular culture"—With two "ands", what's wrong with a comma after the first?
  • "The Daleks have appeared with every incarnation of the Doctor, with the possible exception of the Eighth Doctor in the 1996 television movie (where only their voices were briefly heard)." The last bit: what, you saw them being silent for a lengthy period? No, you need: "(where only their voices were heard, briefly).", or something like that.

That's the lead alone—well, there are other things there I haven't listed. This needs to be confined to the dustbins of Skaro. Tony 01:06, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: While this is the least of your expressed concerns, "serial" is the correct word: classic Doctor Who was broadcast as serials of (usually) 4 to 7 episodes. In the programme's first few years, the serials did not have on-screen names, which has led to some confusion about what to call each story. For the serial which introduced the Daleks, there are several alternative titles, which is why the article uses that circumlocution.
That said, your other concerns about the writing are legitimate ones, and I'll see what I can do (time permitting). —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 01:33, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Update: I have amended the offending sentences. I'm sure there are other prose problems which can be addressed if anyone has the time to point them out. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 01:46, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, comma before, not after "and", as you probably realised. Now, fixing just these examples is beside the point. I was demonstrating that the whole text his this density of problems. At this stage, I'd be going cap in hand to the Wikipedia:WikiProject_League_of_Copyeditors, asking for an urgent job. Tony 03:54, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
IMO, the LoCE can be most effective on an article that meets all the other criteria - best used when only the prose needs attention. This article has over 40KB of prose (needs trimming), and still has a lot of uncited text - not sure it's ready for a copy edit, as that could be misused effort if the text is later pruned or found to be uncited, original research. The lead is also rambling and choppy, not yet a well-organized summary of the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:10, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
True; sorry, I should have accounted for that. Tony 07:35, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Back for another look: still not able to strike my remove.

  • A random check of the references looks good, but there are still a few questions:
    • I'm unable to find information on their website about this source - it looks like a personal webpage (not sure), and doesn't seem to be a reliable source. ^ THE DALEK CHRONICLES (2004-04-28). Retrieved on 2006-11-28.
    • Based on one letter to the editor, I wonder how the word "many" is justified in the text this letter is citing? ^ Michael Anthony Basil (2003-10-06). Science Fiction Weekly - Letters to the Editor. Retrieved on 2006-12-18. If I'm reading it correctly, it looks like one letter from one fan is the basis for the statement about many fans. When the new series was announced, many fans hoped the Daleks would return once more to the programme.
    • Jessesword.com seems to give more info about the reliability of this source, which could be included in the ref: Science Fiction Citations for OED - Dalek (2005-06-21). Retrieved on 2006-12-01.
  • There are still cite tags throughout the text - I counted at least eight.
  • I didn't look at the prose, as Tony has done that. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:44, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
They've been met in part; cite requests down to two, for instance, since Sandy's last comment. I've contacted Josiah again. Marskell 12:27, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi — sorry for my tardy reply. Since Marskell's note, Jeffpw has posted to Talk:Dalek saying that the article has passed FAR [17]. Is this accurate? There are still a couple of citations that I haven't been able to supply (yet), and Tony's prose concerns haven't really been addressed. On the other hand, the original issue of concern (insufficient cites) is certainly no longer an issue, with 85 distinct footnotes. Obviously, I've put a lot of work into the article during the FAR period, and I'm happy if it has passed muster, but I'm a bit confused. Can someone clarify the situation? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 19:42, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify. I only completed the administrative tasks that another user Diez2, initiated but did not follow through on. I have contacted several people about this, as he has now delisted 4 articles from FARC this evening, none of which were carried out appropriately. I do not feel procedure and protocols have been followed in this matter, and am very concerned about it. Please see my talk page and his for more details. Thanks, Jeffpw 20:21, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Marskell, I said Tony's and Sandy's concerns should be met in full. I welcome any efforts in addressing this, but if they've only been partly filled this one should be removed. LuciferMorgan 23:22, 18 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, this has been reopened for the time-being; hope this doesn't throw too much of monkey wrench into things. As Josiah is posting within the last 24, we can wait to give him time. If Sandy can be moved to strike her remove re the references, maybe I'll just try to ce it myself and then we can (properly) close the thing. Marskell 19:12, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sandy can only strike her remove when her concerns are addressed, and as concerns copyedit it would have to meet Tony's concerns. Good luck though. LuciferMorgan 20:44, 19 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
We're down to one {{cn}}, which I'm actively working on. Sandy seemed to think that it wasn't appropriate to ask for copyediting help until the citation requests were finished — do we have time to do this? I know that the two weeks are up, but much of the review period was over Christmas/New Year's, when many editors were away. I'm happy to continue to work to improve specific sentences and elements, but I'm at a bit of a loss when the concerns are so vague ("prose not brilliant" and the like). —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:15, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well once Sandy's ref concerns have been met, message Tony about the prose. LuciferMorgan 02:25, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've commented out the last {{cn}}, which I couldn't find a source for after several days of hunting. Sandy's talk page says she's travelling till the 23rd, so I went ahead and asked for help at the League of Copyeditors. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 04:28, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
My apologies for the delay: I'm struggling to catch up, but will read now and strike my objections as appropriate. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:53, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Further comment—Still not well-enough written. My eyes went straight down to the opening of "Physical characteristics" for a random sample.
    • "Man-sized"—can we find a gender-neutral term? "Kill a man"—Why not "person"? Are you sure that no woman has ever been killed? And there are other examples of guys being everything, too. This is unacceptable in the 21st century.
      • "Kill a man" is a reference to one specific incident in which a Dalek used its "plunger" to crush a man's skull — it's only happened once, and yes, it was a man. That said, "man-sized" is fair comment, and I'll try to weed out any other sexist language I can find. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 01:07, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Metric equivalents, please (no, give us the metric, and if you must, bracket the US equivalent).
    • "but various episodes have shown Daleks whose arms end in a tray"—"Various"? I'd have thought that the notion that each episode offers something different would be too obvious to need pointing out.
    • Redundant "alsos". Tony 23:32, 20 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • I've asked the League of Copyeditors for assistance, but will continue to do what I can until they show up. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 01:07, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • Great. By the way, they don't "show up"; they decide on the merits of your article whether it's worthy of their excellent input. Tony 02:07, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • Thanks — good to know. It's my first encounter with the League. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 03:22, 21 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • Comment It's been suggested this article has come under undue criticism from FAR/C commentators as its a sci-fi FA on several talk pages. I would like it to be noted that every article at FARC comes under fair, objective and thorough scrutiny, regardless of whether it's a sci-fi FA. Furthermore, I personally happen to like the Daleks. Also, my fave band of all time is Marilyn Manson, and if you scroll above, you'll see I've nominated that article for FAR. My apologies if you and other Wikiproject Doctor Who members have obtained a flawed opinion of us people at the FAR/C process. LuciferMorgan 22:19, 22 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Section break
edit

Back for another look. External jumps and the external link farm appear corrected; referencing is much improved. I still have the following list:

  • Their most infamous catchphrase is "EX-TER-MIN-ATE!", with each syllable individually screeched in a frantic electronic voice ... Why is it ex-ter-min-ate rather than the correct ex-ter-mi-nate? Is that the way it's syllabicized according to the reliable sources, or is that a Wiki-mistake?
  • Regarding the question above about one source - this is an example only, all should be checked: Science Fiction Citations for OED - Dalek (2005-06-21). Retrieved on 2006-12-01. This reference gives no publisher. Clicking on it reveals jessesword.com - warranting further investigation (is it a personal website, is it a reliable source?) http://www.jessesword.com/ gives an author and information which seem to rise to the level of WP:RS. This kind of information (author, website publisher) should be included in the references. Pls doublecheck that all websources identify the publisher and author (when available). (UPdate: corrected that one myself - am now going through the rest.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:55, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is some inconsistency in book footnotes - some have p. or pp., while most have just a number, and some are still missing page numbers. Pls have a second look, with an eye towards consistency.
  • I still see weasle words - examples: This belief is thought to be the reason why Daleks ... and This is probably not an innate ability, ...
  • The culture section has a lot of unreferenced assertions which, without citation, appear as original research or opinion - we need to know according to whom.
  • There are still significant copyedit needs. I started reading at the Culture section, and encountered this: Due to their frequent defeats by the Doctor, he has become a sort of bogeyman in Dalek culture, and the mention of his name often gives them pause.

A copyedit is needed: Tony already gave examples. I do think the article has come far enough that it would be productive to get LoCE involved. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:15, 23 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for giving this another look, Sandy, and for contacting the League again. I fear that the copyediting needs may exceed my meagre skills. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 05:17, 24 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Anything a matter of opinion always needs citations. Congratulations on your efforts thus far though.LuciferMorgan 00:46, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Still working on this. LuciferMorgan added a few citation requests a day or two ago, which I've taken care of, but that's slowed down the more difficult tasks of finding citations for the "Culture" section and copyediting. (Still no word from the LoCE.) —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 23:22, 25 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In CE'ing a bit of the first part, I found the writing was good. It does fall down in Culture, however. To many unneeded emphasizers and not enough cites.
All in all I think this is close. Marskell 09:27, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've decided it would be quicker and easier to fix the references myself: can someone pls tell us what this is and what makes it a reliable source? I can't find anything to indicate it's anything other than someone's personal AOL members website.
    • Balcombe, Chris. Daleks and the Kit Kat advert. personal website of the Dalek operator. Retrieved on 2007-01-19. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:54, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Hmm... yes, it is someone's AOL website, but it's the AOL website of someone who was involved in the production of that particular advertisement. I had thought that might qualify as "a well-known, professional researcher in a relevant field", but I can see that it's a bit borderline. I'll try to find a better source. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:27, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • Well, I've found a YouTube clip of the advertisement in question here, but we probably can't use that because it's a copyright violation. I can't find any reference to the ad in print, either. Should we delete the sentence, or is there some way to use the references, which are problematic in themselves but indicate clearly that the ad in question did exist? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:44, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • If the original website is a reliable source, it works - I just couldn't find anywhere on the website that indicated who the author was or what makes him reliable - can you locate it on the site? Youtube is rarely a reliable source. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:39, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
            • The author (Chris Balcombe) is indicated here, on the front page of his website (scroll down). I suppose that technically identifying him as one of the operators is slightly OR-ish — I deduced it from the photograph showing him in the Dalek on the Kit Kat page [18] and the one showing him (named as Chris Balcombe in the caption) with Sylvester McCoy on the main page. (I think it's safe to say that this and this are the same person.) As I said, it's borderline whether this qualifies as a reliable source or not. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 00:52, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The article lists this under the same ISBN as both 1998 and 2003, but the ISBN finder lists it as 2004 - which is correct and which edition is used? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:27, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The ISBN for the first edition (which I have) was incorrect. A different editor added the citations from the second edition (which I don't have a copy of). Should I find the reference in the first edition and change it, for consistency's sake? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:27, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Usenet is not a reliable source - since you have two sources on the statement, this ref should go:
    • Dippold, Ron (1992-02-06). Federal Department of Transportation Bulletin #92-132 (USENET post). alt.fan.warlord. Google Groups. Retrieved on 2007-01-15. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:08, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • That was meant to indicate that the joke was of long standing. The USENET citation isn't to verify any particular assertion, just to indicate "this joke existed at least as far back as 1992". I understand that USENET wouldn't be reliable for an assertion of fact, but why isn't it reliable for "this was being said at this point"?
  • What is this reference? It only points to a Wiki article. Is it supposed to be a cite episode?
  • "Destiny of the Daleks" is listed once as Episode Two, once as Episode 4, and once with no episode: does the one with no Episode need a number ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:12, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Early Doctor Who serials had titles for each episode. For example, the six episodes of The Dalek Invasion of Earth were individually titled "World's End", "The Daleks", "Day Of Reckoning", "The End Of Tomorrow", "The Waking Ally" and "Flashpoint". (See The Dalek Invasion of Earth#Production.) "Day of Reckoning" is episode 3 of The Dalek Invasion of Earth; "The Dimensions of Time" is episode 2 of The Space Museum. The individual naming of episodes was dropped around 1966. (Incidentally, this is why Doctor Who stories appear to go against the standard MoS style for television episodes: individual episodes are placed in quotation marks, but serials are in italics.) —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:27, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • If these items can be addressed, references will be complete; a ce still needs to be done. In case anyone is wondering, the reason I've spent hours in this article is that Doctor Who missing episodes still needs to come up for review for citations lacking, so it seems worth the time for Project members to understand how to cite. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:22, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Size check By the way, the article is at 41KB prose, which is approaching a limit on too long - you'll all have to watch that the article doesn't grow (see WP:LENGTH). Note that by changing the way the books are cited, I shaved 4KB off the overall size. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:55, 26 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
So, two months today. I'm plodding through a ce, but I'd suggest that this is already within 1a. Everything I'm noticing is very minor—perhaps greater minds can find other problems. There is a bit of purpleness in the prose: three adjectives or nouns ("conquest, domination, and complete conformity") where two will do.
I read that "The naming of early Doctor Who stories is complex and sometimes controversial." Is this the reason for Sandy's link concern? Will it be solved with an initial note explaining how you have settled upon titles? Marskell 08:52, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sorta, kinda, ish. We actually have a Wikipedia article on the matter, Doctor Who story title controversy. Basically, in the original series of Doctor Who, a given story was a multi-episode serial; however, for the first few years of the programme, the only titles that were used publicly were names of individual episodes. (So, for the first Doctor Who serial, the episode titles were "An Unearthly Child", "The Cave of Skulls", "The Forest of Fear" and "The Firemaker".) The production team used titles for the serials in-house, but these sometimes changed during production and weren't widely known until years later. This led to some confusion: for two early examples, see here and here.
The Doctor Who WikiProject has decided that for the purpose of article titling, we will use the titles used by the BBC in marketing DVDs and on their Doctor Who website (e.g. here). However, even this decision took some negotiation: see here for a sample of the debate.
Sandy's link concern was a slightly different matter, albeit one with the same origin. The first link in the article uses the title "The Survivors" instead of "The Daleks episode 2", because that was the title under which that episode was broadcast; however, the Wikipedia article on that episode is at The Daleks, so I piped the link. If a reader clicks on "The Survivors" and arrives at The Daleks, he can read down to The Daleks#Production and discover that

The seven episodes of the serial had individual titles: "The Dead Planet", "The Survivors", "The Escape", "The Ambush", "The Expedition", "The Ordeal" and "The Rescue".

(Perhaps we should consider moving episode titles up to an earlier point in the serial articles, but that's another matter.)
Now, I don't think we should have to explain all that to readers of Dalek. I had hoped that the link to Doctor Who story title controversy and the footnote to the Andrew Pixley essay would suffice, but if you think we need to give further explanation I can try to wordsmith something. It'll be tough to avoid self-reference though. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 09:29, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
What else remains? Marskell 08:52, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm striking my remove, since my concerns have been addressed - if you're fine with the prose, so am I. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:30, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, what I'll do is finish going through it, so that all the prose has been checked. The link concern sounds like one of those complicated pup cult "canon" things; I don't think it a remove basis and I trust Josiah's suggestion that readers will find the target they're looking for. Marskell 19:21, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Inches away. A little work remaining for "Other appearances". I have left a note on the talk. Marskell 18:44, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Taken care of, and thanks. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 06:11, 30 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Note on closing: Sandy has struck the referencing remove and the prose has been gone over. I'm not entirely happy with "Other appearances" and "Merchandise", as I think some of it remains trivial (I removed what I thought was the obvious stuff), but "taking a flamethrower to the place" can often cause more problems than it solves, and I don't think what remains rises to remove. In sum, this has been extensively looked over, the referencing is robust, and the prose is much better. So a keep (finally!). Marskell 19:16, 30 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

Tamil people

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Review commentary

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

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

  • Comment. I did some ref cleanup work (there were three ref styles in use): there are some Harvard style refs, which could be converted to cite.php if page numbers were provided. Two sections have the same heading; need to address section headings per WP:MOS. Sandy (Talk) 16:42, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I know I sound repetitive, but yes, the whole article could do with a copy-edit. Here are examples from the lead:
  • "There are also a number of Tamil emigrant communities scattered around the world, especially in central Sri Lanka, Malaysia, South Africa and Singapore, with more recent emigrants also found in Australia, Canada, the United States, and parts of Europe." This thrid sentence has two alsos; the second one could go. Remove ", parts of"
  • "was only politically united for a brief period between"—Move "only" to later in the sentence.
  • "Tamil identity is primarily linguistic, with Tamils being those whose first language was Tamil." "Was"? So they're dead now? The sentence is circular anyway. Why is "linguistic" linked; the link is irrelevant to the flow.
    • "has been broadened to include also emigrants of Tamil descent who maintain Tamil cultural traditions, even when they no longer speak the language." Ouch: "include also"? And I'd be happier with "regularly" before "speak": no one forgets the essence of their native language.
    • "There are an estimated 74 million Tamils around the world." Why is this stuck at the end of the lead, rather than connected with the third sentence? Tony 13:33, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have made some copyedits and I'm about half way through. I will also be adding some inline citations, although I'm not the original author. Please give me a couple of days. Thanks Parthi talk/contribs 09:03, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment-->Hi. I took a look at this article. While this article is quite well written, there are some aspects that are either totally missing or are very sketchy. These can be explained in a few lines at least. They are
  • Influence of foreign rulers on Tamil architectural styles (especially Vijayanagar mantapa and Yali columns used extensively by Nayakas of Madurai and Tanjore) and the influence of Tamil dravida architecture in Vijayanagara temples(George Mitchell et al)
  • There is no mention of Hoysala, Chalukya, Rashtrakuta and Vijayanagar rule over Tamil Country and their contribution to culture (at least a few lines).
  • Mention could be made of influence of Sri Vaishnavism from TN on South Karnataka culture.
  • Impact of Tamil Language on Telugu by way of Chalukya-Chola rule (K.A.N. Sastri)
  • Impact of Sanskrit on Tamil Literature and a paragraph on Tamil secular works (sciences, mathematics, drama, prose, lexicons, encyclopedia etc) and if any of these influence went to other places or came from other locals outside Tamil country.
  • Tamil language dialects and their origin/growth/influences. Tamil-Kannada mix languages in the border Nilgiri areas, Sanketi language.
  • Tamil attire over ages and changes over time
  • Influence of Kannada grammar on Tamil grammar in mid-later classical era (Mahadevan)
  • Tamil Cuisine, influences from outside (dosa) and its influence outside Tamil country.

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

Can I please get some clarification from the reviewers? This FAR has been initiated to address the valid concern on the lack of adequate inline citations, which I'm trying to address. While Dinesh's suggestions are valuable and valid even, are they within the scope of an FAR? Thanks Parthi talk/contribs 03:58, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hi! Is Dinesh questioning the comprehensiveness of the article? He should state that clearly, because that may be a more valid point in FAR. However, my point of view is that, in Tamil people, there is no need of putting more info on architecture, literature, language, grammer etc. The article already contains adequate info on these aspects in summary style. Further information should come under the scope of respective daughter article/see also articles, like Tamil literature, Tamil language etc. In fact, this article already seems to contain much detailed "history" section than needed. This could be more summarised, and appropriately linked to History of Tamil Nadu. Rather, I think what the article lacks is some info on Tamil society, which is more relevant to the scope of the article. Tribes and castes (eg Mukkulathor, Iluvar), cuisines, attires could be mentioned. A rather interesting aspect can be presented if some info on the genetics of Tamil people can be obtained.
However, these are all suggestions. Main concern in FAR is lack of citations, and need of copyedit (as pointed out by Tony). None has questioned the comprehensiveness so far. I would suggest (and not demand!) that besides providing citations, just add a few senences on attire, cuisine, and society (that should not be much problem, as lot of articles on these topics already exists). Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 04:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ok. I have gone through and copyedited the article for style and consistency. I have removed a couple of claims for which I couldn't find any supporting citations. I will trim the History section as there is already a comprehensive History of Tamil Nadu and then I will add some info on cuisine, society, etc. Can I requst other editors to jump in and add any information they can? Thanks in advance. Parthi talk/contribs 09:11, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment-->I was only trying to emphasise that some information regarding interaction of Tamil people/culture with other people/cultures should also be included, as this undoubtedly has enriched both ends.ThanksDineshkannambadi 13:39, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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

I have made further copyedits and added citations. I have also added a paragraph on Tamil dialects. Can you please take another look? Thanks Parthi talk/contribs 03:53, 6 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Great work going on in this article. IMO, the lead should be slightly expanded so as to summarise the scope of the article. The lead lacks a mention of the Tamil culture which occupies a good part of the body of the article. I will go through the article some time later. On a gross look, it seems that the main concern in the FAR (lack of inline citations) has been addressed. The other concern (need of copyedit) - don't have any idea yet. The culture portion may still be shortened. Anyway, I'll comment more later on. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 12:20, 6 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
comment-->The dialects section looks better. The Irulu tribe of TN are unique (Hope I spelt it right) in that thay are traditional snake catchers who have changed their life styles significantly. Nowadays they actually help in preparation of anti-venom by supplying snake poison to various clinics that prepare anti-venom.Just a thoughtDineshkannambadi 15:11, 6 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've now address all of Dwaipayan and Dines's comments. I have expanded the lead with a paragraph on the art and culture and even included a sentence on the Irulas. - Parthi talk/contribs 23:04, 6 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Reply - I have changed the headings according to WP:MOS and there are no duplicated headings now. I have also updated the inline citations according the sources I have. As I'm not the original author, I had to use the sources I had instead of the original references. - Parthi talk/contribs 23:03, 7 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Reply: All the images used in this article have appropriate licenses. If you have specific concerns on any image, please follow the procedures detailed in WP:COPY. Parthi talk/contribs 03:52, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This is also relevant to the above comment by Srkris. - Parthi talk/contribs 04:01, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Just see the history of all those image pages. I have even indicated where they have been lifted from and why most of them violate copyrights or provide no source information. It cant be clearer than that. ­ Kris (talk) 23:42, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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

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

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

V for Vendetta (film)

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Review commentary

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Messages left at Mailer diablo and Films. Sandy (Talk) 22:06, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As there's been a rather heated war over the "Letter V and the Number 5" section, this needs a review since it appears consensus is to keep the section in. The problem? The section is entire original research, and does not cite any reliable sources to back up the claims. No featured article should have original research in it, period. If the section doesn't stay out, it shouldn't be featured. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:27, 5 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

NOTE: This was originally removed from FAR because it was on the main page the same day. As continued talk page discussion has not resulted in a fix, I'm putting the listing back up. Featured articles should not have original research. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:01, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The letter V and the number 5
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Heck, I'll go through some of them and see.

  • There is repeated reference to the letter “V”, as both letter and number, throughout the film.
    General introduction summary statement, doesn't need sources, is justified by further statements that should be or are soured.
    This would be fine if the rest of it was sourced. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:01, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • For example, V’s introductory monologue to Evey (above) begins and ends with “V”, has five sentences, and contains 49 words that begin with “V”.
    Trivial statement, can be deduced from counting the monologue's letters and sentences.
    Perhaps.
  • Similar references are made through V's background, choice of words and action.
    General introduction summary statement, doesn't need sources, is justified by further statements that should be or are soured.
    Agreed, but a lack of sourcing...
    The whole point of the section is about this statement and items are shown below listing these instances. Do you want the script?
    If the script is a source for it, then yes, sourcing the material is a good start. But it may cause problems...
    Fixed enough.
  • V is held in Larkhill cell number “V”.
    Sourced.
    Not sourced. Also, there's no indication that this is in fact relevant to the section - it may look obvious, but is it?
    Its sourced directly for the movie no OR about this statement! It is relevant because he was known as prisoner 5 his identity was lost even to himself (all facts from the movie) He took the latin 5 that was on the door (ie V) as his name, again all from the movie.
    I see no source in the article for it. Am I missing something?
    Fact from the comic book, script & movie. Is this disputed somehow? How many references to the script are needed? The reference to the script below should be fine :-)
    Fixed enough.
  • It is revealed that his favorite phrase is “By the power of truth, I, a living man, have conquered the universe”, which is a translation of the 5 "V"ed Latin phrase: “Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici.”
    Needs a source, but is not original research. Should be written as "it is revealed in the film" or whatever to imply that it was indeed revealed in the movie.
    It is original research, as it's a translation, and I don't know Latin so cannot vouch for the accuracy of the translation, nor can I be sure of its relevance to the section.
    Not quite
    Asside from all of this it is directly quoted from the movie, both the latin and its english translation.
    EVEY: (She turns back to the carving) I was reading the inscription. What is it?
    V: A Latin quotation. A motto. "Vi veri veniversum vivus vici." "By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe."
    EVEY: (She nods) Yes, I suppose you have. This place is the only universe I have right now. Undated Early draft
    Because it is a direct quote from the movie I see no reason why this is questioned as OR!
    First, Wikipedia cannot be a source for itself. Second, the article does not state that it's the film's translation, merely that the words translate and we're supposed to take the article's word for it. Third, this could be fixed by saying that the character translates it as such, or that the translation is indeed this, but it needs a source.
    Script as source added
    Thanks. Please change the statement in the article, however, that the translation comes from the script.
  • In a dance with Evey, the song V chooses is number five on his jukebox.
    Trivial information that can be sourced from the movie itself.
    Fair enough, maybe.
  • When V confronts Creedy in his home, he plays Beethoven's "Fifth" Symphony, whose opening notes have a rhythmic pattern that resembles the letter “V” in Morse code (···–).
    The first part is a trivial fact, and the second part is well-known information that should be very easy to source.
    Second part, if the second part is well-known (and I was a music minor in college and never noted the morse code similarity), it should be easy to source.
    The last point is the best but here is everything I have found from just inside wikipedia
    • Go to Symphony No. 5 (Beethoven) and hear the 1st 4 notes   or you can listen to this (listenⓘ). in the article it even has this section It is commonly asserted that the opening four-note rhythmic motif (short-short-short-long; see above) is repeated throughout the symphony, unifying it. Here are examples taken from the Web: "it is a rhythmic pattern (dit-dit-dit-dot*)... Then you follow the internal link provided and you will see that it has a rhythmic pattern resembling the letter “V” in Morse code (···–)
    • That's fine. Where's the source for this article that says it resmebles it? Hell, where's the source there? Furthermore, where's the evidence that this was intentional? Source for that?
    • That's fine as well. There's still no source for that. I know it, you know it, does random user who isn't educated in music history or British history going to?
    • And we still assert this without a source. If we want to attach that to the graphic novel, we have to be clear about it.
    • The best reference is the human ear please (listenⓘ) to the 1st 4 notes. You will also see above in my previous notes that they are rythmically (dit-dit-dit-dot). If you check morse code you will see that ***- is the letter "v".
    • The human ear is most certainly not a reliable source.
    But things which are common knowledge or self evident do not require sources - to me, that Beethovens fifth is the letter V in morse is well known (and a mnemomic for students of morse) here's a source should you insist. [19] --Mcginnly | Natter 14:12, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • BBC News "Next came the realization that the three short notes and one long at the start of Beethoven's Fifth echoed the Morse code for "victory". The V sound on drums immediately became the call sign of all the BBC's European services."
    • Okay, and whenever you want to add that to the article...
    • Added
    • At the moment, the source is still a random website. The following line w/the BBC is fine, but before that is not.
    • now its both.
  • The Symphony’s opening was used as a call-sign in the European broadcasts of the BBC during World War II in reference to Winston Churchill’s “V for Victory”.
    Should be very easy to cite.
    And yet, months later, it still isn't.
    Look above
    Yeah, it's still not there.
    now it is
  • The film’s title itself, is also a reference to “V for Victory”.
    Might be OR. This sentence is on shaky ground.
    Yup.
    Philip Coppens an investigative journalist, author and founder of Frontier Magazine; He was nice enough to do a review.
    On a self-published website, from the looks of it. Probably not a reliable source unless we attributed the information to him.
    now cited
    Okay, but needs attribution in the text.
    done
  • In the battle with Creedy and his men at Victoria station, V forms a “V” with his daggers just before he throws them (shown in picture above).
    Trivial fact, sourced using a picture.
    Relevance?
  • After the battle, when V is mortally wounded, he leaves a “V” signature in his own blood.
    Trivial fact as above.
    Fair, although it's an assumption that doesn't belong here.
  • The destruction of Parliament results in a display of fireworks which form the letter “V”, which is also an inverted red-on-black “A” symbol for anarchy.
    Cited.
    No it isn't.
    Sure it is. It has an internal wikipedia reference. It also used to have an external reference to A for Anarchy, E for Execution for some reason it was removed. Not only that, the v is seen in the trailer on youtube or as an image of the v dominoes here.
    Okay, but still, not cited.
    was internally now also externally... again
    Thanks.
  • Like the Old Bailey and Larkhill, Parliament was destroyed on the fifth of November.
    Trivial, by definition.
    Not to an American.
    In real life Old Bailey and Parliament never have been blown up so I don't know why this would only be known to a Brit! It is a part of the movie and their destructions have been mentioned many times in the article.
    So think about how someone unfamiliar with the film or with British history is going to interpret this. That was my point here. At best, it's an in-universe statement without context, at worst it's an amazingly inaccurate statement in a featured article.
    I don't think that in the 1996 movie independence day they would have to reference to the script saying that only a model was blown up and not the actual White House ¯\(°_°)/¯
    Does it present it as such?
    does now
  • Finally, when Evey first tells V her name, he remarks that it is ironic, since her name (pronounced "eevee") is "vee" said backwards and forwards put together.
    Trivial fact from the script itself.
    Complete original research, and the relevance is questionable because there's nothing to indicate it's intentional.
    This sentence is silly but it is sourced from the script so again it is not OR.
    It's still OR.
    Only OR if it is made up from the author not if taken from the script, movie or comic.
    So which is it?
    In all three actually, but its not in the section any more. if someone want to add it just ref it to the script.
I can see only one sentence here that should be removed. — Dark Shikari talk/contribs 18:28, 5 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I see a number of unsourced, poorly sourced, or entirely useless and trivial information that doesn't belong. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:01, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hope I helped :-) -- UKPhoenix79 11:59, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, not really. A start would be to add sources, really. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:46, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
maybe this time? -- UKPhoenix79 09:36, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've struck the parts that are all set, there are still issues that need to be addressed. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:18, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Looks all finished :-) -- UKPhoenix79 11:53, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comments
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  • Why mention all of this, though? It just seems like trivia. Has anyone but Wikipedia cared enough to write about the importance of all of these references? --W.marsh 18:35, 5 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I second Shikari completely. Of course it's all trivia when taken individually. (how many times did he say "trivial", after all?) But taken together, it becomes a notable theme in the movie. A good list of some of the very subtle (and not-so-subtle) examples, then, just serves to illustrate how carefully the film was put together. (And I have no doubt that someone somewhere has certainly compiled a similar if not much-more-extensive list.) At the same time, if it's all obvious trivia which can be found simply by paying attention, it can hardly be OR. --Arvedui 09:39, 11 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It is not mentioned in any reliable sources because it's so obvious. I think they only need one reference that talks about that mentions the subtle V references, and the rest of the entries they can just leave as they are. Since they've already done that, the section is fine.--Dark Kubrick 00:56, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with some of your comment Jeff and appreciate the time you are taking to troubleshoot this article. However, I don't think you're taking the time to properly evaluate the situation or the evidence that is being provided. If you read the Shadowgalaxy article you will notice that it mentions that the Beethoven reference is actually from the original graphic novel itself. So instead of simply saying that the refernce is no good, a more constructive criticism would have been to tell us to reference the graphic novel instead of Shadowgalaxy. (With that said, I'm hoping this review will at least, last a few weeks, as it may be hard for me to respond to you promptly.) But in any case, I encourage you to examine more carefully the arguments being presented and make sure you go into more detail when describing your concerns. (Keep up what you are doing though.) --P-Chan 04:38, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So why not source the novel? I can't stress this enough - little is sourced in the section, and the few sources there are are not currently reliable. If there were reliable sources and proper attribution, I wouldn't be beating this drum. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:46, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Reference the novel directly? That's a great suggestion. What I'm getting at here is that I don't think you are thinking critically about the evidence or situation, because throughout the entire discussion you've repeatedly forgotten about the progress we've made. This won't happen anymore, because from now on you and I will keep a very accurate record of what's been accomplished. For example, we've come to an agreement that the Beethoven statmenet is fine, as long as it references the novel. (I will now start a new section below.)--P-Chan 04:43, 24 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If there has been process made, I'm not seeing it. Being told to use my ear or told that it's obvious when it's not isn't really progress. And no, we haven't come to agreement with the Beethoven statement, really, unless it's worded very differently. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:21, 24 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Think about what I wrote. It's not your hearing I'm commenting on!--P-Chan 07:13, 16 December 2006 (UTC) --P-Chan 07:13, 16 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Again how can this be OR when the BBC itself says that is the reason it was used? BBC News "Next came the realization that the three short notes and one long at the start of Beethoven's Fifth echoed the Morse code for "victory". The V sound on drums immediately became the call sign of all the BBC's European services." This is a proven fact now, pure and simple, end of story! -- UKPhoenix79 09:06, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the nominator that the section violates WP:NOR, and note that there are stability concerns with the article. Jkelly 21:50, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Step-by-step approach
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This is going to be an interesting process. If I'm not mistaken, we have already determined that there is a "V theme" in V for Vendetta. What we have to do now is decide what is in the V/5 theme and what is not. Is this not correct?--P-Chan 04:47, 24 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well since the section is cited now I suggest that we close this review. -- UKPhoenix79 05:08, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've been busy with other things, I still have questions. Check back in a couple hours. --badlydrawnjeff talk 11:37, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
well this is now referenced so lets close this -- UKPhoenix79 11:53, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Status?
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Have concerns of all reviewers been addressed ? Sandy (Talk) 14:13, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I feel there are more important concerns now, at closer look. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:52, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

So I've relooked at this again per request, and the biggest problem areas are dealt with in terms of my original complaint about sourcing. A few new notes as I give it a second closer look over.

  • I still don't think we should be referencing shadowgalaxy.net as a source on anything per current standards at WP:V/WP:RS.
  • I'd prefer if the things sources to the novel were actually cited as such, but I'm confident it will be dealt with.
  • Are all of these relevant to the theme? Are we confident that we've indeed touched on them all? I'm reviewing some of the cites now, and I'm noticing something disturbing: Boudreaux's annotations do not, in fact, source the statement that "Similar to the graphic novel, there is repeated reference to the letter “V” and the number five throughout the film." The source, in fact, does not even mention the film, which was - at best - in development at the time of the most recent cited update. Perhaps some of these notes would be good in the graphic novel section, but I'm a) not at all convinced that these are relevant to here, and, more importantly, b) the notes don't back the entire assertion of the section up! It definitely puts the relevance of the section in question, and makes me question the rest of the sources.

More later. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:34, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment - I think the reference to Boudreaux sources the part of the statement that there is repeated reference to the letter V in the graphic novel - it doesn't necessarily have to provide a source for the exact phrasing here, otherwise we'd be left with "The graphic novel repeatedly references the letter 'V'.[ref] So does the film." The case for the film also containing references to "V" needs to be made by the cited examples that follow, so I don't see that as a particular problem. I do notice that some of those examples still aren't cited - some of which might be regarded as obvious, but some which are distinctly dodgy: "fifth of November, the only month containing the letter V" - hardly likely to have choosen 10th June, when 5th November is Guy Fawke's night (or if he had would there be a case for saying "in Roman times June was spelt JVNE, the U later replaced the symbolic V and 10 is twice five"?). There are more than enough examples without this uncited stuff, you don't need to list every occurence to make the point. Yomanganitalk 15:22, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I'm going to reply to badlydrawnjeffs comments.
    • That is a minor gripe that in no way should affect its Featured Article status
    • Sounds good
    • The whole section is cited and sourced giving support and credence to the sections topic and theme. So like you said earlier "This would be fine if the rest of it was sourced." I am also surprised that you now bring up this extremely helpful website now! This page has everything that I have now managed to find sources for and in fact supports the "V & 5" theme by referencing even more v themes then shown in this section.
  • I again move for this nomination to be removed! The nominating factors have now been dealt with. -- UKPhoenix79 08:20, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I only really noticed the complete irrelevance of the lead-in source then, that's why I broguth it up. The entire section is built up upon a source that doesn't even mention the film, thus causing problems with the relevance and the basis of the section. --badlydrawnjeff talk 11:41, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are OR and referencing (1c). Marskell 14:11, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I see there is work going on right now, but there is no consensus to close. Moving to keep it on track. Marskell 14:11, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: The rest of the article looks good, but having a major section that's based on a source that doesn't once reference the subject combined with other sourcing and relevance issues worries me. My concerns evaporate with either a) a worthwhile, reliable source for the basis of the section, or b) the removal of the section entirely. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:17, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Again, I don't see a problem with that source, as it establishes that "V" is used symbolically throughout the novel. The sources that follow need to establish that it is also used in the same way in the film. Where the film follows the book and the symbolism is indicated in the book, then I think it is fair to say that the film is duplicating the symbolism (even unintentionally). I really have a problem with the strained "fifth of November" link though as any thematic use of "V" there is clearly secondary to the symbolism of the destruction of the Houses of Parliament on Guy Fawkes Night. Yomanganitalk 14:42, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • The source is for the novel, not the film. Given the complete difference in tone (the novel was inspired in part by Thatcher, the film having more of a connection to current events), it's entirely reasonable to request a bit more in regards to the theme in this case as well. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:47, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yes, but the source establishes the repetitive use of V in the novel as stated in that sentence, the later sources establish more specific uses in the film. Also, while the tone may differ, I think there is enough of a connection that if a use of V is established as symbolic in the book and it is used identically in the film then we can take it as a symbolic use in the film without demanding a separate film specific citation. What requires citing are uses in the film that don't appear in the book, or uses where nobody has credibly established the intentional symbolic use in the book. Yomanganitalk 16:34, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • But at the same time, a closer look at the initial source may in fact map out a pattern in the book, but it's not a pattern that is directly replicated in the film that I know of, nor does our article assert as much. Much of the source has to do with the types of books V has on the shelf, things like that, something the film article doesn't touch. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • The symbolism goes deeper in the book, but unless you suppose that all uses of V in the film which duplicate the use in the book are coincidental I can't see your point. We don't claim the film isn't adapted from the book because Alan Moore had his name taken off - whether he admits it or not the book is clearly the source material - so it's not a leap to use a source based on the book for themes that are obviously drawn from it. For example, we wouldn't demand different citations for an analysis of Hamlet's psyche if we were writing about a film production rather than the play (unless the film introduced an new aspect that was not in the play and then only for that particular aspect). We shouldn't demand that level of precision here either. Yomanganitalk 17:20, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The references need to be cleaned up, exanded, and to follow a consistent style. Cite web (rather than cite news) was used for news sources, so the news information is obscured (information like author, title, publication date). This occurs on a large number of magazine and news footnotes. Readers need to be able to locate the news articles should the weblinks go dead. There are some footnotes which are just URLs - the information should be completed in a bibliographic style. Last access date should be given on all web sources. Please use a consistent footnote style: some entries have last name, first name on author, while others have first name last name. Sandy (Talk) 04:02, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That's good actionable advice there. We'll get to that in the future for sure.--P-Chan 04:55, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Closure
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This has dragged on far far too long, almost to the point of silliness. Let’s end this soon. There are far more critical areas in this article (AND ELSEWHERE IN LIFE) that deserve our time and attention.  :) In fact, I find it quite strange that the two other sections in Themes have not undergone the same level of scrutiny that this one has, even though they contain information that is more controversial. If you want to help me troubleshoot those areas, please do, but let's close this FARC so we can all go home.

As Yomangani has quite insightfully pointed out, the graphic novel reference establishes that there is a V theme in the novel, and since several of the V references in the film have been directly pulled from the novel, I think we can comfortably include those references in the film's V theme. Even if the novel were disregarded, you must admit that there are all sorts of personal signatures from V that are clearly intended to be based on a V theme. Fireworks, signatures, monologues and messages on mirrors... these are no brainers, and to say that all of these happen to be coincidences, certainly would be a stretch credibility.

You're not going to get a 100% level of assurance Jeff, but what you will get is a very robust argument for the V symbolism in the film.--P-Chan 07:10, 16 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Your points as usual are right on the mark. Close -- UKPhoenix79 08:15, 16 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I still think that's ORish in nature, and I think we should be more careful about that. I also recognize that i'm in the minority here, but whatever the closing party decides, I won't complain about much more. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:25, 16 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well if there is anything specific you want to suggest or want clarified feel free to mention them (and I'm going to emphasize the word specific here). Notice how Sandy just wrote a list of specific, actionable comments for us to address. We're working at a very micro-level right now, so clear and actionable communication is key.--P-Chan 16:59, 16 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
With all due respect, I think I've been very clear and actionable regarding my specific complaint - the section is OR and the source that justifies it does not back up the claims made in the section. --badlydrawnjeff talk 17:08, 16 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
(reply after edit conflict) Thanks for the inquiry on my talk page about closing this FARC: Marskell and Joelr31 sometimes close FARCs early if there is clear keep consensus. There's only a weak/tentative keep consensus here, and an outstanding referencing issue of the music section, raised by Lucifer. For example,
  • (Is this referenced, or is it opinion/editorializing?) Many of the tracks from the original score evince notes with a discordant, metallic, or fleeting theme, contributing to the generally dystopic atmosphere of the story.
That's a good point. This statement must have been just dropped in by someone after frontpage day. This will be removed, as it is inappropriate.--P-Chan 17:26, 16 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I also mentioned that the references need to be cleaned up, which hasn't been done yet. I just fixed the last URL, but still see examples of problems. For example
  • (This is not a Warner Bros. reference - it's IMDB, which I believe some consider to be a less than reliable source. Your references should accurately indicate the sources.) Warner Bros. (2006) V for Vendetta Unmasked [TV-Special]. United States: Warner Bros.
  • (This reference is missing the author - Utichi, Joe. ) Exclusive Interview with Stephen Fry - V for Vendetta. filmfocus.com. Retrieved on 19 April 2006.
  • (This reference has an incorrect title). Exclusive Interview with Stephen Fry - V for Vendetta. filmfocus.com. Retrieved on 19 April 2006.
  • (This reference is missing the author and the publication date - if you use cite news on all the news sources you're less likely to miss information.) V for Vendetta. Christianitytoday.com. Retrieved on 29 April 2006.
Please check that all your references are complete and accurate, since almost every one I happened to click on wasn't correct: FAs represent our best work, and readers need to be able to locate the sources if the links go dead in the future. If you have the wrong titles on web references, it will be hard to find the info on a search. IF you don't include author and pub date on news sources, it will be harder to find those sources in hard print.)
(Is this referenced, or is it Original research, editorializing, or opinion?) The story retains some anarchist themes from the original story, using them as a means of examining terrorism and state control in a modern context. V for Vendetta sets the Gunpowder Plot as V’s historical inspiration, contributing to his choice of timing, language and appearance. (For example, V adopts the identity of a dead man called Rookwood, named for Ambrose Rokewood; colleagues of this "Rookwood" mentioned in the film are called Percy and Keyes, also the names of Gunpowder Plotters). Revenge is a central motivation for V, the film stressing explicit thematic connections to The Count of Monte Cristo. The film also incorporates the idea of V as the embodiment of an idea rather than an individual, minimizing V's past, and giving the viewer no glimpse of a humanizing face.
I also saw a cite needed tag.
I've never understood badlydrawnjeff's commentary on the article, but then, I haven't seen the movie. The only way I can verify that the article isn't extensive original research/opinion/editorializing is by checking sources in a thoroughly and correctly referenced article. I'll be glad to have another look when the referencing work is completed. If the OR concerns aren't addressed by thorough referencing, I'll be a Remove. Sandy (Talk) 14:45, 16 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
More: where does the statement about the first four notes of Beethoven's fifth signifying the letter V come from?
Please check section again for given refs and striked conversations above for this. -- UKPhoenix79 11:50, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. This has been addressed numerous times in the review.--P-Chan 18:51, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ref needed on "seems to allude to contemporary 9/11 conspiracy theories" - according to whom?
That statement keeps popping up in the article every few months. I agree. That statement has got to go.--P-Chan 19:03, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
How do we know the V on Big Ben's clock face was intentional? Is there a source for that, or is that Wiki original research/opinion?
Week statement that I have given up on removing since it keeps on being re-inserted. -- UKPhoenix79 11:50, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It has been removed.--P-Chan 23:06, 24 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ref needed on Prothero evoking image of Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, etc. According to whom?
Each time I peek into this article, I find more of what looks like original research, essay, and opinion - please comb through it and thoroughly reference everything; I'll be a Remove next time I check in if everything that looks like someone's opinion isn't referenced and attributed. Sandy (Talk) 00:50, 23 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sandy. You're one of the few who are looking at this article critically and pointing out specific issues that we can address. If all you're doing is peeking, then I totally encourage you to do it more, as it provides us with an independent set of eyes. Your feedback is very much appreciated, because it leads to better things. Thanks.--P-Chan 00:52, 25 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Why, thanks, P-Chan - I'm starting to wonder if *everyone else* took all of December off, as I seem to be the only person responding on quite a few FARs :-) On the other hand, considering the volume at the top of this article's FAR, I'm not surprised others aren't looking - I sure didn't when I saw all that verbiage. If I have to read that much back and forth to found out why the Beethoven bit isn't referenced, that's a good reason for referencing Beethoven - it's either OR, or it's not, and a long discussion shouldn't be needed. Sandy (Talk) 06:16, 25 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well that's a misrepresentation. I'm not arguing that we shouldn't reference Beethoven. I'm saying that Beethoven is already referenced. In fact, there are two references on that sentence and both of those references are very robust. Therefore, we should not have to address that topic again, because we've addressed it so many times and have resolved it. In any case, Merry Christmas Sandy. --P-Chan 16:49, 25 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ooops! Actually, it just occurred to me that you may have been referring to the Beethoven line in the Music Section. If that were the case, then yes, you're right. It wasn't referenced and should have been and is now. Sorry about that... and Merry Christmas still.--P-Chan 21:21, 25 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove. Another look - the WP:WIAFA deficiencies in this article continue to astound me, and I don't understand how it got by FAC (it had 3 Supports and one Oppose - thin).
Comment: Many of the problems you’ve mentioned have been addressed through new changes and through reverting parts of the article back to its original FA state. I stand firmly behind the FA quality of the article at the time of its promotion. That said, the comments mentioned here have improved the article beyond its original state. (Standards seem to constantly be on the increase at Wikipedia, and as those standards increase, so will this article.)

Again, starting from the bottom (and hoping the top is better):

  • Look at the section on DVD release - how is an ad for retail outlets considered of encyclopedic notability ????
      • Best Buy, Circuit City and Target each offered exclusive collectibles with their two-disc special edition copies of V For Vendetta. Best Buy offered an all-out collector's set, which contained four limited-edition art prints, a half scale (1:2) replica of V's mask, and a display box. Circuit City and Target both offered a limited-edition slip sleeve with a lenticular cover and a 64-page excerpt of the graphic novel.
    • The entire section has limited encyclopedic content, borders on advertisement, and could be deleted.
Addressed: The materials concerning the retail outlets has been removed. This section should stay but should be modified to include a description of the actual contents of the DVDs. --P-Chan 05:21, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • (Repetitious, redundant prose:) Even though the film is based on the graphic novel, there are several key differences between the two that make them fundamentally different from one another.
Addressed: --P-Chan 05:25, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • (Redundant prose:) made it the target of both criticism and praise from different sociopolitical groups.
Addressed: --P-Chan 05:25, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • (POV, many? and missing punctuation) Many libertarians, especially at the Mises Institute's LewRockwell.com see the film as a positive depiction
Addressed:--P-Chan 05:33, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • (Direct quotes need citation:) Justin Raimondo, the libertarian editor of Antiwar.com, praised the film for its sociopolitical self-awareness and saw the film’s success as "helping to fight the cultural rot that the War Party feeds on".
Addressed: For some unknown reason, several of the references to Justin Raimondo and his article were removed after the original FA. --P-Chan 05:33, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • (Redundant prose:) taking in an estimated total of $25,642,340.
Addressed:--P-Chan 05:33, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • (Awkward prose:) Despite the film taking place in the UK, the film did not reach number one at the UK box office on opening weekend; ("it" did not reach?)
Addressed: --P-Chan 06:03, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • (WP:WTA and snake - sentence too long - and, and, and, and:) However, the BBC's Jonathan Ross, a keen fan of the graphic novel, blasted the film, calling it a "woeful, depressing failure" and stating that the "cast of notable and familiar talents such as John Hurt and Stephen Rea stand little chance amid the wreckage of the Wachowski siblings' dismal script and its particularly poor dialogue", and David Denby of the New Yorker described it as "a dunderheaded pop fantasia".
Addressed: Reverted section back to original FA. --P-Chan 06:03, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • (What is the "moreover" connection?) Moreover, one of the most negative reviews came from Michael Medved, who called the film "V for vile, vicious, vacuous, venal, verminous and vomitaceous." Medved also said that the audience will lose interest about halfway through the film and that it has a confusing ending.
Addressed: Reverted section back to original FA. --P-Chan 06:03, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Confused - trying to check on some changes. I questioned the word "Moreover", but a significant criticism by a well-known movie reviewer is now gone? I didn't object to the sentence, which was well sourced - just wondered why it was preceded by "moreover" (which seemed like a WP:WTA) - deleting criticism from a well-known critic doesn't make sense to me.  ??? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:09, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That's an excellent question Sandy. It's always good to ask questions.
The removal of the Michael Medved comment was no accident. Why he was removed, has been discussed a few times in the V for Vendetta (talk), and has been brought up by multiple users. You're probably new to a lot of it, so I'll give you the lowdown.
1) The person: Michael Medved is not a pure film critic. The other critics in the reception section are known primarily for their role as film critics, whereas Michael Medved is seem as a conservative pundit as well. This is the same reason why Ted Baehr is not listed in the reception section, but the political commentary section instead: because there can be a perceived conflict of interest.
2) The review: Michael Medved’s film review is simply not a detailed as the reviews of other critics (or conservative commentators). Plus, there is a very strong political flavor to what he has written.
3) The Balance: Ted Baehr and Don Feder are already listed as social conservative pundits in the political section. Placing Mr. Medved in that section, I think overlaps too much.
However, that last point of course, is just my opinion. I’m open to your opinions on this Sandy. We should have some open dialogue on this. I would like to hear what you have to say.--P-Chan 04:40, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't want to get too much into the politics of Wikipedia (that's usually A Bad Place To Go and Not Good For Blood Pressure), but I was surprised that a blogger of something as biased as a site called antiwar.com was there, and Medved (well known commentator) wasn't - seems unbalanced, and whether these people are known mostly for being film critics doesn't seem relevant, considering the article makes unattributed political commentary (one blogger or writer compares a character to O'Reilly and that makes it into the article - really should be attributed as one writer's opinion, rather than stated as fact). I do consider Medved a film/TV critic - he has branched out from his early days, but I believe he began as a TV critic, concerned about the effects television was having on the pop culture. I was more concerned that I'd have to now re-read the entire article, since there were big changes. I'll do that after Indon is satisfied, but I do see a lot of "political" statements that need better attribution as someone's opinion. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:33, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • (Awkward sentence, single-sentence paragraph) As of December 2006, V for Vendetta was listed in the top 250 films as voted on by IMDb users, occupying the 116th position.
Addressed: --P-Chan 06:03, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • (Prose redundancy) With the intention of making the story relevant to today’s audience, the filmmakers included many modern day references as well. ("audiences"? Is modern-day hyphenated? Not sure - ask Tony. Today - that word will become outdated.)
Addressed: --P-Chan 06:14, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • (uncited, choppy paragraphs)
    • The film's fictional fascist government deliberately used a biological agent against its own people to attain power, paralleling the burning of the Reichstag.
Addressed: Removed through a revert to the original FA. --P-Chan 06:14, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Several times during the film, such as Valerie's note, characters make referrences to "America's war" expanding beyond control, presumably an outsized War on Terror. Terrorism and protesting over the course of action to take grew to high levels, resulting in Norsefire developing their ploy to seize power by deploying a biological weapon against Britain itself.
Addressed: Removed through a revert to the original FA. --P-Chan 06:14, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Modern fears of totalitarianism" has too many unattributed statements - even though they are cited, they are someone's opinion, and need to say who is the holder of the opinion, unless it's a statement of the filmmaker. Too much POV here. For example, the last paragraph of that section does refer to the filmmaker's statements - the others don't say.
Will address: This will be addressed in the future and will take some time.--P-Chan 06:14, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Themes starts with an entire paragraph that looks like someone's opinion, but only one sentence is cited.
Will address: This will be addressed in the future and will take some time.--P-Chan 06:14, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Addressed: It has been addressed.--P-Chan 23:45, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • (uncited) Major theatres decorated the exterior of their buildings with Norsefire flags.
Addressed: This has been removed. --P-Chan 06:14, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's as far up as I read - doesn't meet WP:WIAFA. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:00, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I encourage you to keep reading and adding your comments. This is probably one of the most effective ways of maintaining the quality of this article (through a very critical evaluation).--P-Chan 06:30, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
P-Chan, I'm glad you're still so hard at work on improvements. I seem to be the only one reviewing: maybe you can urge others to have another look now? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:11, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
My primary concern right now is satisfying your concerns with this article. I'm sure you can understand from my perspective that when you get to two months into a FARC your main focus becomes compliance with policy. That said, I think I'm keeping an objective eye as to what comments are helpful and appropriate and what comments are not.
I really respect your comments and think you have a good eye as to what constitutes an FAC. Keep up the good work.--P-Chan 17:59, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, P-Chan; I'll look in on it again soon. In our defense (with respect to the two months), the first nom was removed (too close to main page date), and later restarted - but it has been a long one :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:06, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good. Look forward to it.--P-Chan 23:43, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Section break
edit
  • Fresh review: as of [21] (Note: please don't response my comments in the middle, because it looks awful, hard to follow and breaks-up my full comments. Please add your responses after my signature.)
  1. The license for Image:V for Vendetta Portman.jpg is not correct from the source. I updated the license which in turns CSD-ed. Please remove it. (ah it has been deleted before I finish this review :-)
  2. The Image:VforVendettaNorsefire.jpg was taken not from the official source, but rather from 3rd party website. Information from that website gives the following terms: All information and images are (unless otherwise noted) © Warner Bros. No other uses are permitted without the prior written consent of owner. Use of the material in violation of the foregoing may result in civil and/or criminal penalties. Credits are not final and dates are subject to change. For more information, please visit their official site. I believe that this has violated its copyright and particularly it fails criterion #8 of the WP:FAIR that the image serves only as a decorative purpose. I have asked the image for a review. Please remove the image from this article.
  3. Image:Vforvendettamov.jpg has a tag for reducing its size, per WP:FAIR. Please reduce the size.
  4. For this source: (Moore, Alan: "V for Vendetta", Chapter 8: The Valley, pg 4, 1998). What is this? A book? paper? Who is the publisher? What's its ISBN id?
  5. In this fact: "The film’s title itself is a reference to "V for Victory".". Why did you take from the following source: (Brice, Jason. "Drugs, Blow Jobs, And Howard", Silverbulletcomicbooks. Retrieved on 4 January 2007.)? Isn't it strange (look the title of the citation)? Shouldn't it be taken from the official website? BTW, I've tride to look the source, but it keeps loading.
  6. The source (A for Anarchy deleted scenes. aforanarchy.com. Retrieved on 8 April 2006.) is a personal website (unauthorized). Therefore, unless the source is replaced by reliable sources, then the following fact:
An anarchist group in New York City has used the film's release to gain publicity for anarchism as a political philosophy. However, the group felt that the film waters down the anarchist message from the original story in order to satisfy mass Hollywood audiences, and instead focuses on destruction without proposing any alternatives.
is an element of original research.
  1. b In this text "..., placing the book firmly in the top sales at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com.", you must give information about the time. The novel is not always at the top right? When and how long?
  2. b A quibble formatting issue. Why is there an italic and unitalic version of the "V for Vendetta" term in the article? What's the difference between them?
There are also some of my concerns regarding the citations. Some citations do not mention their publisher. There is also a strange used of a source only to put a citation for some terms of "V for ..." in the text. For example, the "V for victory" used this source: Newswatch 1940s. news.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved on 21 Nov 2006., but the source is talking about BBC's history during the WWII. There is no any relation with the subject (the movie). For the moment, I vote for remove. — Indon (reply) — 17:47, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Let's roll.

1) You're going to have to go into detail over this point. What is CSD-ed? And what was wrong with the copyright on the picture? Also, why was the picture deleted without any warning?

2) That is one of the most robust pictures in the article. It's certainly not a decoration and why it is not a decoration, is clearly stated in the fair-use description.

3) I can't find the specific passage relating to size. Could you elaborate? What size do you feel comfortable with?

4) Addressed

5) You're going to have to elaborate here as to what level of assurance you're expecting on such a statement. I'm questioning whether this reference needs to be referenced at all.

6) Yes, it's the website of the Anarchist group that said the statement. If Anne Coulter or Cindy Sheehan said a political statement, then I would link to their personal sites as well. What is your opinion?

Addressed: This has now been addressed through the addition of new sources.--P-Chan 05:35, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

1b) Addressed: I've a robust reference to address that point, which contains the Best Sellers date. However, I believe it may be very difficult to find information regarding when the Best Sellers status finished. (If you have any ideas as to how to obtain this info, I'd like to hear them). In any case, I'm going to assume that people know that best seller status is not permanent thing. (Not being sarcastic or anything, but just pointing out the robustness of it's current state)!

2b) Addressed: Those were typos. Feel free to copy-edit any spelling mistakes or typos you see in the article.

3b) In regards to the missing publishers, you can a) flag them so I or someone else can fix them b) be bold and fix them yourself. All the information should be available to you and it would save us both time in the long run. I've went through all of the references recently, but could have certainly missed some info.

4b) In regards to the BBC reference, take a look at the reference again and think about what it's referencing. Despite it not mentioning the film, it's key to the points that it is referencing. (Mind you, I consider that reference a high-level assurance one, as I believe that it may not even be necessary).

--P-Chan 20:32, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your nice response. I understand that this has gone through a long FAR time, but I believe everybody here wants the best work for FAs. I am going to address responses to your comments/questions first, before going to specific issues related to the current article, as of [22] (Note: now I'm going to use numbers, so you don't have to edit my comments.)
  1. Regarding your comments about "feel-free to edit", "be bold", "flag them so someone else can fix them", etc., I believe, you have mistaken the meaning of FAR here. I have flagged them here by raising questions, so that you (or someone else) can fix them. Got it? And the burden of giving full citations, including publishers, is not on the readers' shoulder for FA-level articles, but on the editors.
  2. Re 1), the deleted image falls into category of speedy deletion, because according to the source, the image is licensed with unfree Creative Commons license. Any images/articles that falls into CSD are subjected to be deleted without prior notice.
  3. Re 2), I have asked fair use image review, so please discuss about the image in the image's talk page.
  4. Re 3), please go to the image page and you will read the template.
  5. Re 5), you said "I'm questioning whether this reference needs to be referenced at all." (???) Honestly, I don't understand this recursive statement. Anyway, I read the source for this statement: The film’s title itself is a reference to "V for Victory".[34]. If you read it clearly, then it is not the original source, but rather a citing from Dez Skinn's reply on the Comics International eGroup. Throughout his reply, he did not tell the story that the film refers to "V for Victory", but rather the first story of the original comic creation, when he thought of naming the comic as "V for Victory", but then was decided to be "V for Vendetta". The "V for Victory" was only inside Dez Skinn's head and has never been implemented in the comic. So, there we have a factual error in the article.
  6. Re 6), you have replaced the source, so I'm not going to response your question.
  7. Re 1b), you said, "In any case, I'm going to assume that people know that best seller status is not permanent thing." That's why I asked when and how long? Okay, I've seen the time there, although the prose becomes awkwardly long now with "#" signs.
  8. Regarding BBC's history that they used "V for Victory". Yes you refers for that statement, but there is no relationship between BBC's action of "V for Victory" with the "V for Vendetta" film.
As a conclusion, there are improvements, but there is still WP:OR element. I'm still on remove. — Indon (reply) — 15:29, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am well aware of the role of the reviewer in the FARC/FAR/FA process, as I have evaluated several FA and GA articles myself. At its heart, the role is to objectively review, measure and apply FA criteria and Wikipedia principles to the article to evaluate if it still meets FA standards. It is not to simply order, nor is the role of the editor to simply comply. (To me, the “got it?” statement and tone was mildly offensive). It is to my opinion, that both parties (the evaluators and subject matter experts) are equal partners in addressing these issues, are bound by the same principles, and work toward the same goals.
In retrospect, I believe my 3b) was worded poorly, as I should have simply requested a clarification. That said, if you and I are truly running under the same principles in the FARC, then I would expect you to specifically identify a mistake if you see it and not force a treasure hunt, and if possible, provide actionable recommendations and solutions.
This isn't cold compliance process, nor is it some “gotcha” audit. It’s collaborative, it’s iterative, it’s Wikipedia, so we’re working towards the same goals here.
That’s my 3 cents.--P-Chan 05:20, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Re 5) Actually that was vandalism and a rather rude one at that. It has been reverted back now.
The BBC reference was a direct response to another users concerns saying that there was no proof that Beethoven's "Fifth" Symphony's 1st 4 notes resemble the letter “V” in Morse code(···–). Even though it is a logical conclusion known by listing to those notes, the user wanted us to include a citation. This conversation is striked out higher in the page. It is not OR when citations prove each statement logically and clearly :-) -- UKPhoenix79 10:45, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, and that's good that it's sourced, but we don't do "logical conclusions" here, that's why the section is still an OR mess. You've done a great job sourcing the individual statements, but your entire reason for including the paragraph (the opening line and source) do not mention the film at all. It's still OR. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:55, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
How can it be Original Research if the research is not done by Wikipedia users but is actually cited and sourced material? Isn't that opposite to what original research means? I managed to cite your objections and show that it was not OR... I think were having a communication problem using the same words but using a different definition for them... -- UKPhoenix79 03:40, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, no, you didn't. Check the source that allegedly references the first sentence of the "Letter V and Number 5" section, and you'll see that it's talking about the graphic novel. Not the movie. Is the section itself better sourced than when I started protesting this two months ago? Yes. Is it still original research based on people's assumptions as to what references what in the movie? Yes. I'm working off of the Wikipedian terminology of original research, I'd hope we're working off of the same definition. --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:46, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
(unindent) I am okay now with the sources' reliability. Actually the source V for Vendetta review. philipcoppens.com. Retrieved on 21 Nov 2006. is a good one (I've read it), and should be used more in the section, instead of the other two (BBC's history and Allan's comics). So, I'm in the weak oppose now. The section in question ("Letter V and Number 5") needs to have a small citing re-adjustment:
  1. One direct quote below the headline needs a citation.
  2. Similar to the graphic novel, there is repeated reference to the letter “V” and the number five throughout the film.[33] → please replace the source, because the source does not says something about the movie. You can use the philipcoppens or lewrockwell source. Then the following facts, for instance, V was held in cell number "V", V's Zorro-like signature, etc., as long as they are written in the same source, you don't have to put a citation.
— Indon (reply) — 11:16, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Inchon. I think we've fixed and addressed all of your comments in the FARC. Is there anything outstanding or anything further to add? If there is, please feel free to express it, so it can be addressed. Thanks.--P-Chan 21:47, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely no Philip Coppens
edit

In response to UKPhoenix's comments regarding rude vandalism, I'd just like to say that I was the one who added that reference. [23]. And despite the "rude" title and the mention of rumours, it is still light-years better than the Philip Coppens article it replaced, which quite frankly is one of the worst cases of plagiarism that I’ve ever seen. If you’ve actually read the article, you should have noticed that it copies straight out of the Wikipedia article, in some cases verbatim. For example:

  • "In the original story, Fate was a Big-Brother-like computer which served as Norsefire's eyes and ears and also helped explain how V could see and hear the things he did."
  • “As November 5 nears, V's various schemes cause chaos and the population grows more and more intolerant and subversive towards the regime.”
  • “Playing Chancellor Sutler was also a complete role reversal for John Hurt, as he played the part of Winston Smith, a victim of the state in the film adaptation of 1984.”
  • “On a nearby rooftop, Evey and chief inspector Finch watch the scene together and hope for a better tomorrow.”
  • “Ted Baehr, chairman of the Christian Film and Television Commission, called V for Vendetta "a vile, pro-terrorist piece of neo-Marxist, left-wing propaganda filled with radical sexual politics and nasty attacks on religion and Christianity". Don Feder, a conservative columnist from Frontpage Magazine has called V for Vendetta "the most explicitly anti-Christian movie to date."

There’s much more, see for yourself: [24] And just so you know, this is no coincidence, as I remember writing many of those statements myself. In fact, there is so much material lifted from current or past V for Vendetta (film) articles that people are going to start thinking we’re copying from Philip Coppens. (Which is just wrong)! Again, this is the absolute worst reference that you could possibly have and I think its addition will harm the credibility and integrity of the article far more than a “rude” word in the references. If this is kept, I don’t see how I can support the article anymore, and I’ll have to vote “remove”. (I’m not kidding about this, there is also my own personal integrity at stake here)!

P.S: Indon, Ukphoneix79 and BadlydrawnJeff, I’m absolutely shocked that none of you caught this, as each of you said that you read that article. Let’s have some dialog on this.--P-Chan 06:39, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wow where did this hostility come from? For one thing I never said I read that I reverted the link since I was the one who added Philip Coppens to begin with. So when BadlydrawnJeff gave the citation for that statement and said that it was referenced from "Drugs, Blow Jobs, And Howard" I knew that was not what I had added and reverted it believing that someone changed the citation to something nonsensical. Look I have always been on your side and backed you up, so why are you attacking me? If I thought you had added this I would have followed the link instead of ignoring it. -- UKPhoenix79 06:53, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yikes!! Sorry about that dude. I didn't mean to attack you nor did I mean it to sound personally threatening. :( If it's any consolation, it was a global comment and not directed against you.
Again, I'm honestly very sorry about that UK. --P-Chan 07:21, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
No prob man I now your character and that was not typical of it. Your a very cool cat. I was more concerned since I knew that was not like you. -- UKPhoenix79 07:34, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If you really wrote that statements yourself without source and then Philip Coppens took it from here (though his biography is really something), then I vote absolutely for strong remove, because the article is clearly WP:OR. I'm not questioning your integrity here, but it's a nature of Wikipedia that all editors cannot be trusted; we are all anonimous editors. — Indon (reply) — 08:30, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
(Statement or statements?) Which one are you referring to here? In any case, I don't understand your point. Just because someone writes a statement(s) without source, doesn't mean that it is original research. It just means that it needs to be sourced, (either that or it was part of the plot, lead, etc). Not sure what you're referring to, but I'm going to assume that you are not questioning my trust as an anonimous editor. If you are, then I'd like to hear why. I'm very very open to what you have to say.--P-Chan 08:47, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I believe we are talking about "The letter V and the number 5" section, right? Now based on P.Chan's argument that Philips Coppens took your statements from this article, then the whole section does not have reliable sources to support repeated reference to the letter “V” and the number five throughout the film. — Indon (reply) — 09:32, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Wow you want to delete an article about a movie because someone plagiarized information on this cite? Do you think that the "Wizard of Oz" or "Gone with the Wind" should be removed if someone plagiarizes their wikipedia article? I don't think thats a logical move... (Sorry if that sounded sarcastic just making a point) There are many statements one can make about a movie and not need a source. If one was to try to source the plot the article would become too unwieldy to read. I do think that sources serve a great purpose and keep information honest. But there has to be limits to that... just for practicality sakes. Ok I just realized you meant strong remove of the FA and not a delete... sorry about the confusion. Even so P-Chan has given us a link to another article sourcing those statements. -- UKPhoenix79 09:09, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That’s correct UKphoenix! These are the two references here, both of them from primary to almost primary sources.
-Moore, Alan; David Lloyd (November 2005). V for Vendetta. DC Comics. ISBN 1401207928, (inside cover).-
In this graphic novel, Alan Moore explicitly links both of the statements in his introduction by stating:
“Good Night Home and V for Victory”
“Hello the Voice of Fate and V for Vendetta”
(So obviously, he’s playing with the quote and the title).
The second reference is from the original editor of the Warrior comics - Dez Skinn. Mr. Skinn did have some input in the creation of the comic, so if he says on his site that V for Vendetta was a twist on V for Vendetta, then it should at least have some weight.
I quote Dezz Skin: “Given the cost of Warrior, after years of small option fees it will be nice to get the part royalty for coming up with the name (as a twist on Churchill's V for Victory thus providing the author with a root for the whole V structure) plus commissioning Lloyd and Moore to produce it and editing/publishing the story in the first place!”
[25]
There may be a third reference in existence that directly quotes Alan Moore explicitly saying that Dez Skinn was the originator of the statement. (I will investigate this).
In any case, each of these statements are much more robust than most other sources you’ll see because they are (or are very close to) primary sources. Hope this helps.--P-Chan 09:35, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Now, this is what is wrong of citing sources. The Moore, Alan; David Lloyd (November 2005). V for Vendetta. DC Comics. ISBN 1401207928 talks about the comics, not the movie. And also for Dezz Skin's comments, it is about a story when the comics was created, not the movie. Correct me if I'm wrong. — Indon (reply) — 09:39, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You're absolutely right Inchon. They are both referring to the graphic novel. However, the graphic novel is the source material for the film. Both of the mediums share many of the same references: (The titles, the zoro-signs, the room numbers, etc). So unless you assume, each of the repetitions are just coincidences, you should be able to flat out accept that both of the mediums have the same V theme. Yomangani said it best with the analogy that we basically wouldn't expect Wikipedia to demand a new analysis of film on Hamlet, that is seperate from the original play. Again, hope that helps.--P-Chan 09:50, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) I do think you are wrong. The film is based on the book, so if a reference to a theme is true for the book it can be assumed will be true for the film unless it is specifically excluded. For example, the Des Skin reference establishes that the title of the book was derived in part from "V for Victory", so unless we assume that although the movie is based on the book, the title itself is original, and just happens to be identical to the title of the book (doesn't sound too likely does it?), then we can quite safely use that reference for the title of the film. The same goes for the use of themes established in the novel - where they are used identically in the movie, demanding separate references that specify "in the film" is not necessary. This isn't original research, it is applying references with some intelligence rather than requiring a verbatim quote for every statement. Yomanganitalk 10:06, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict) Huh? So according to that logic the Book titles of the Lord of the Rings "The Fellowship of the Ring" "The Two Towers" and "The Return of the King" have nothing to do with the movies with the same name? If a movie is based off a book and the title of both are the same wouldn't logic dictate that the reasons for the novel having its name would be the same for the movie? Conversely if they were different there would be a different reason. -- UKPhoenix79 10:10, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Wohoo, calm down, I have three simultaneous replies here. All right, if you can assume that, then it's fine (this is a review from the person who has never read the book nor seen the movie). I was pointing how the sources are used in the context and during writing the article. When I read the section and then looked into the references, only one source goes to a movie review (excluding Philips Coppens). Even one source talks about BBC's history during WWII. That's the only thing that raises my question. — Indon (reply) — 10:48, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The film version of V is different in tone and intent than the comic version of V, I think we all agree with that. That point alone makes using an analogy to the comic as a source for the film to be less than useful. I have no problem with the BBC thing sourcing V = 5 or whatever, but it's the entire section that still asserts something that isn't verifiably true about the film. --badlydrawnjeff talk 11:57, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That point alone makes an analogy to the comic for the film less than useful where they differ, not where ideas are taken wholesale from the book. To take a reference that establishes a motif in the novel on which the film is based, and to disallow the application of that reference when the motif appears in an identical manner in the film is, frankly, silly. This leads us to a point were we can not combine information from more than one source, because, although the connection is clear and logical, we are conducting "original research". Yomanganitalk 12:48, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Tone and intent? To build on Yomangani's point, that would only be relevent to much more sujective topics or ones altered between the two mediums. This is not in reference to that, and is referring to instead, V saying 49 V-words in a row and then carving a giant V on the wall. (No subtlty there.)
And with that said... BadlydrawnJeff, if you take a look at our FARC history/Article Talk so far, you'll notice that we've gone through this several times already. In fact, this exact discussion happend a month ago. (Please refer to the following timestamps on this page):
badlydrawnjeff talk 16:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Yomanganitalk 17:20, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
In that instance there was no resolution because you simply didn't respond back (either that or we didn't request a response). In any case, this time, I think we owe it to ourselves to come to a consensus or else we're going to be doing this all over again. Therefore, I'm going to ask you directly: have your V/5 concerns been addressed? And what is your response? And if we have not addressed your concerns, please explain in a clear and exacting way, why they have not been addressed.
Cheers.
PS: Not trying to trap you here, I'm just trying to end this line of agrument so we can address other things in the article.--P-Chan 07:12, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps this is what you were referring to? No, my concerns haven't been addressed - a massive OR section continues to exist on a featured article, with its main source being something that does not even mention the film. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:36, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The character listing makes a number of comments that are opinion or original research - connection between Stephen Fry's homosexuality and that of his character, Stephen Rea's marriage to an IRA terrorist, John Hurt's role reversal, the use of stuntmen in the role of V (it's hardly unusual to have stuntmen on a film).
  • The the section on differences between the film and novel is almost entirely unreferenced.
  • The section on themes (not the section on V and the number 5!) is light on references too - for the Count of Monte Cristo and Nazism
If those can be fixed up, I'll be a keep (although it might be good to drag it out a little longer to make sure this is the longest FARC of all time). Yomanganitalk 13:42, 10 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's competing with Superman for longest running; depending on the ultimate outcomes, we may learn from something from this about the usefulness of extending these reviews indefinitely. <frustrated> SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:37, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Proposal for Closure
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Based on past experience and from the notice on Badlydrawnjeff’s userpage, there is good chance that Badlyrawnjeff won’t be returning to the FARC process. As I’m looking forward to closure on his issue, I think this unfortunate. However, I also think that this will allow for the process to end more quickly. I would like to propose a solution for closing the FARC process in a timely manner, (for the sake of the FARC process and ourselves.) It’s in three parts.

1. When badlydrawnjeff does come back and if he still has concerns, he can go through some other wiki-arbitration process, if he so chooses. I don’t see how we can move the ball any further than it already has here.

2. Minor issues that have been brought up by Yomangani, Sandy and Indon will be addressed within the remaining timespan of the FARC. (Hopefully, these can be addressed quickly).

3. Issues such as how to reference the “differences between the graphic novel and film”, can be partially dealt with here. However, I imagine that issue will take a while as it sounds much more involving than the other issues. So instead of coming to a complete closure in that area during the FARC, perhaps we could set a clause where I would guarantee to resolve that issue in a satisfactory way… say in the next 2 months or so.

That's my 2 cents. How does that sound?--P-Chan 07:27, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Close This has gone on far enough and I don't think that the 3rd step is even needed since you have been very good at resolving everything that has come up. I hope you don't mind that I put this at the bottom of the page since I couldn't find what you wrote originally. -- UKPhoenix79 08:05, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm still here, don't worry. My main issue still hasn't been addressed, regardless, over two months after first raising it. I don't know what you mean by "past experience," either. If "close" means "we leave it as is," that's unacceptable - the section is still problematic. If close means "we take what's above and remove based on the criteria," perhaps that's best to do, given that no one seems to actually want to repair the issue. Perhaps some clarity on this would be helpful. --badlydrawnjeff talk 13:34, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Jeff, I agree that that section is largely trivial, but I wouldn't defeature on that basis; I'm not sure I agree if it's OR at this point (which would of course be a serious concern). I don't want to rehash what's been said, but what specifically do you feel is insufficiently sourced? Simply observing, for instance, that 49 words begin with V in a scene, is basically an extension of the plot summary and with plot summaries some leeway must be allowed to describe them as primary sources, while avoiding OR "synthesis". I don't see synthesis here. Marskell 17:45, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It has nothing to do with it being "trivial," and everything to do with the entire basis for the section lacking a source. The section claims a link without anything to back it up. --badlydrawnjeff talk 23:54, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We have (I think - the thing is so long, it's hard to count) four reviewers voting Remove based on OR, and now I'm concerned about POV as well, since the Medved review was not reinstated (per my earlier question). I think we've beaten this to death and given it our best shot in probably the longest review ever. The article structure and referencing is in good shape; it should be delisted, and if the editors/authors feel OR/POV has been addressed, the article should have no problem passing the broader scrutiny of a new FA candidacy. We've done all we can here - delist it and expose it to broader review at FAC. I didn't read the book, didn't see the movie, and think a fresh review from a broader base would sort these issues out. And I pledge not to vote on a new FA candidacy, since structural items that I usually check have been addressed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:05, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sandy. I have addressed your Medved concerns already. Yes, the Medved statement was not reinstated, and I explained to you in 3 points as to why (timestamp P-Chan 04:40, 6 January 2007 (UTC)). 1)He has a clear political orientation and thus his comments should be in the Political Comments section. 2)However, there are quite a few comments of his orientation already in that section. (If you don't think there is enough representation in that area, please don't hesitate to flag it, as there are plenty of comments from conservative pundits that can be added.) 3)Also Medved's review is actually much less detailed than the reviews by other film reviewers.
In regards, to your comments of why Antiwar.com is used in the article, when Medved wasn't... For each statement on O'Reily referenced by Anti-war.com, there is also a reference from Debbie Schlussel, a person from the a very different political orientation. This was done intentionally to show that the right-wing pundit connection was made, not simply by individuals on one end of the political spectrum, but by very different pundits with very different views. If one were to remove the Antiwar.com references and just leave the Debbie Schlussel references, it would look unbalanced.
Have I addressed your concerns regarding the Medved reference and Anti-war.com?
It should be noted that there were no POV concerns in the last FA nomination (in May 2006) and you are the only reviewer that has mentioned POV as a concern in this FARC. I think I've addressed them very well here. To delist an article simply because (quoting Sandy) "the editors/authors feel that the OR/POV has been addressed", is a very bad reason. (That's like arresting someone without changes, and saying that "if you feel you're innocent, you should have no problem going to court.") There should be actionable objections, backed by evidence that can be addressed by the editors, and if they aren't addressed, the the delisting should go forward. However, if there aren't any actionable objections, there aren't any actionable objections. That's my 2 cents.--P-Chan 22:27, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
My worries about this article is that editors, which I assume are very familiar of reading the comic and watching the movie, wrote their experiences into textual forms and then tried to fill in the inline citation requirement by searching in the internet of terms they'd wrote; rather than did a research, collecting sources and then combined them into a well-referenced article. I feel that how sources are used is a bit odd. The article still has many OR elements, that is why I'm keeping my remove voice (though it is not strong anymore), and my fresh review above also revelead image problems that should be seen first during FAC. I did some quick reading again, here I state one OR element because it was written not based on a source (this is just a sample):
Norsefire in the film is largely based on present-day fears of an ultra-conservative police state, whereas Norsefire in the original story is based on a fascist regime closer to that of the Nazis. In both stories Norsefire actively participates in the systematic elimination of racial minorities, homosexuals, and political dissidents from society. But whereas the ultra-conservative regime of tomorrow also targets Muslims, the fascist regime of yesterday is explicitly focused on the protection of racial purity. Despite playing down racial elements of the regime, the film retains the Aryan superhero Storm Saxon.
The above paragraph is completely unsourced and has POV statements. I put a statement in boldface that I don't understand how that statement can be an encyclopaedic one. It looks like reading someone's opinion in a blog. — Indon (reply) — 23:52, 13 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In regards to your first method… of course editors do that! That’s what happens in tons of articles. (It’s absolutely impossible not to have some bias.) In reviewing the FA and GA’s that I have, I can safely say that references usually pop-up last. (Hit random article, and tell me how many well-sourced articles come up). It would be totally dishonest to deny this.
That said, it would be equally dishonest to say that editors don’t research from the bottom-up, don’t seek out other people’s opinions and don’t challenge their own opinions. That’s what I do and if anyone wants to make a decent article, that’s what they have to do as well. FA 1c/1d are all about that.
Now, with that said, the whole collaborative process is designed to filter out any editor specific bias. This article has gone through 2 peer reviews, a GA and a FA… and now we’re going through a FARC. Anyways, in regards to your Differences quote, I think you’re correct. The section has been heavily modified. You may recall that I mentioned the need learn more about the "#3/Differences section", before moving on. That’s because I think it’s impossible to simply rely on secondary resources for a section like that, and wanted to get some clarification on what the principles for primary source use would be.--P-Chan 05:34, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I'm not saying that the first method is not allowed, but the latter method is better, because by writing first then trying to find matching references, some assertions are left unsourced. Anyway, I've been watching the article transformation lately and I'm pleased with your work. You used reliable sources and POV statements have been removed. I like the difference between novel and film section now. However, I found an inline image linking in the main article, so I'd removed this assertion. Please use the usual Image and caption format. Only then these statements: "There is even a brief scene (during the Valerie flashback) that contains real-life footage of an anti-Iraq war demonstration, with mention of President George W. Bush. Finally, the film contains reference's to "America's war" and "the war America started" as well as real footage from the Iraq War." are still unsourced, but I am striking my remove vote and happy now the article can be KEPT as FA. You can find a source for that statement above. — Indon (reply) — 16:17, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand do you want references to the book for the 1st part and the holocaust for the second part? Nazis exterminated people based on their race & religion, Norsefire did the same... Is this OR especially when there are so many references in the entire article stating this? Does every sentence need a reference? Also SandyGeorgia why would this page loose its FA status? Baring the last statement the objections have been resolved every objection had had a source brought up & Parts that have been called OR have been resolved one way or another... Unless specific actionable objections are listed this page should not be desisted but have the FAR removed and be allowed to continue as the FA it is! -- UKPhoenix79 03:51, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This is not true. Every objection has not been resolved. --badlydrawnjeff talk 03:58, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Jeff, let me rephrase my question. RS states "Wikipedia articles may use primary sources, so long as they have been published by a reliable source, but only to make descriptive points about the topic." Taking the movie itself as a primary source (on this basis, plot summaries are passable in general IMO) editors are allowed to describe scenes. So, again: what in the section is synthetic or interpretive? Surely that the letter "V" is repeatedly use is not "challenged or likely to be challenged." Is the number 5 the kicker? Can we remove it? Marskell 06:43, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well your leaving me in suspense. What has been missed... Please be specific since, and I am sincere that no sarcasm is meant by this, I cannot read your mind... Please think of this as a court of law and show us specific reasons that you think this article is not Featured Article Worthy. One cannot defend oneself when one does not know the crime one is accused of! -- UKPhoenix79 06:56, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
What's been missed is that we have an enitre section that asserts something that has nothing to back it up for the subject of the film. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:06, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm assuming that was a further exhortation to Jeff and not me, correct? One thing I would say is that the Beethoven bit strikes me as synthetic analysis and should probably go. Marskell 07:11, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well yes it was sorry for the confusion. Actually the Beethoven bit is a well known fact and is cited as such to the BBC's own website, no conjecture on that part. Hope that helped. -- UKPhoenix79 09:13, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The idea that it was chosen to reinforce a theme is a supposition. Marskell 10:02, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Let me add/rephrase: the "V" bit is arguably not a theme at all so much as an asthetic that saturates the film. A "theme", classically, unifies and provides (or thoughtfully obscures) meaning. Is there some implicit larger meaning to 49 uses of "V" in the first appearance? No, beyond showing that the writer has a (rather tedious) talent for alliteration. You might call the "V"/5 a motif, but even motifs ought to "speak to something" and this doesn't speak to anything. So what is the point with Beethoven? Are we supposed to be reminded of Churchill or WWII? I don't think so, and even if you do think so it would be OR to assert as much.
This being the case, might we radically shorten this section and insert it as a smaller reference somewhere else? Again, I see this section more as trivial than truly OR and wouldn't remove on the basis of it, but Jeff is concerned and I'd badly like a compromise so I can close this. Marskell 10:27, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know if we can "shorten" it without it continuing to be OR. The assertion lacking any sort of sourcing to back it up is still a problem, albeit not as big as it is now. My only issue with this right now is that we have a section of a featured article that is OR. The OR goes away, and so do my issues, and I no longer care to see this delisted. --badlydrawnjeff talk 14:06, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
To beat the other side of the drum again: Jeff, are you suggesting that the idea that the letter "V" is repeatedly used in the film is OR? "The assertion lacking..." What assertion? Please...just so we know what we're debating. Marskell 15:24, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm saying that it being a thematic element is. Read the section. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:37, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
My head is a little swimmy after two days of looking at the review, so I understand if you are frustrated repeating yourself. But there is no need to be patronizing. I have read the section—three or four times at this point. You have not properly explained your OR concern in terms of what is actually said in the section. "Thematic element"—I have agreed that "theme" is the wrong descriptor. Let's move it out of theme, drop the Winston Churchill allusion (which is implicit OR) and finish. There is nothing OR about observing that the letter "V" occurs regularly in the film. As noted, this in within bounds in treating it as a primary source. Marskell 19:24, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Think about how I feel after 2 months. I'm not at all comfortable with the switch that happened recently to say that "oh, the number 5 comes up a lot," but I guess that problem is gone now. I see where the triviality comes into play now, but I suppose that's not a reason to oppose it anymore. --badlydrawnjeff talk 19:38, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I removed the Churchill bit myself and moved the section to its own level two. Reading again, it is just a random string of examples where one or two would do. But no, I don't think it an oppose basis at this point. Marskell 19:57, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am going to be traveling soon, and can no longer keep up with this lengthy FARC. If/when Indon and Yomangani are satisfied, I can be considered a Keep. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:50, 14 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep - there are still two points that I'm unhappy about, but I don't think either of these is enough to strip it of its status:
    • Actor Stephen Rea is also Irish and was once married to Dolours Price, a former member of the IRA, imprisoned for bombing the Old Bailey - unless you can provide a reference from somebody stating that this informed his performance it is irrelevant. It might be OK to feature in an article on Stephen Rea, but not here.
    • Revenge is a central motivation for V and the film makes explicit connections to similar themes in the Count of Monte Cristo. - needs a reference. Yomanganitalk 09:15, 15 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The talk page says that this is closed..... Can someone officially close this now? -- UKPhoenix79 12:07, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

USS Wisconsin (BB-64)

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Review commentary

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Messages left at MilHist and Ships. Sandy (Talk) 14:21, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This article falls within the scope of the Military history Wikiproject, but was sidelined from the start for having "citation problems": there were a total of 14 inline citations for roughly 40 kilobytes of info. Today I had a chance to dig into the article to add sources for the information, the article now has 90 kilobytes of information and over 300 inline ciations (before I reduced the number by using the <ref name=""> tabs to bring the number down). I feel the ciation issue has been adressed, now I am looking for any other complaints that other may have with the article’s FA status. Note that I am in school at the moment, so if I appear slow to respond be patient; its likely school work has me tied up. TomStar81 (Talk) 07:06, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment I hope the MilHist group will weigh in on the quality of the citations. Although four books are listed in references, the article is almost entirely cited to one website, which is unofficial. Further problems with the current references;
    • Cite 1 - Wiki is not a source
    • Cite 2 is the same as 5 and 7
    • Cite 3 is the same as 8 (it looks like named refs weren't used correctly throughout)
    • Cites 4 and 14 aren't refs, rather notes that seem to require refs themself.
    • Many of the citations need to be expanded to bibliographic style: 16, 17 and 18 at least.
  • The bibliographic style on the footnotes needs attention. Has the article been run by MilHist for a peer review on the referencing? Sandy (Talk) 14:27, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Those appear to be split so there won't be so many refs on one line. Do we want to fix this? I can make them all point to one DANFS link? That would put about several dozen refs all on 1 line. --Dual Freq 16:17, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I thought an FA Review required that "a nominator must specify these criteria" that the article fails. This nomination seems to be looking for someone else to find failing criteria. Is this a proper nomination? What is the criteria this article fails? I've never edited the article before today, but I'm trying to understand the FAR process. Since no issues were brought up on the talk page about delisting, I'm not sure I understand why this article was nominated. --Dual Freq 18:29, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I had the same problem with this review, which is why I asked if it had a MilHist peer review (which seems to me to be a more efficient means of accomplishing the goal), but the FAR instructions do say, "FARs are intended to facilitate a range of improvements to FAs, from updating and relatively light editing—including the checking of references and their formatting ..." Not sure. Those notes are the ugliest I've ever seen, with such a reliance on one source, and they do need to be expanded to a biblio style still. Sandy (Talk) 19:32, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Kirill Lokshin, our lead cooridinator, has several FA class articles that he wants put through the FAR process because they have "citation problems", and this article happened to be in that category. While citations were the primary reason behind the FAR request I would be open to additional criticism, although from my stand point all other criteria remain sufficently satisified that there should be no large scale problems. TomStar81 (Talk) 19:56, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oh my gosh. Has Kirill taken a close look at the citations here? I took a closer look at what was going on with the references, and strongly suggest that this article should be removed from FAR and run through a MilHist peer review. The referencing isn't done correctly. The problems are:
    • Named refs aren't used correctly: every single named reference is completely repeated, chunking up the size of the article. Please use the slash at the end of the ref for repeat refs - see the examples I did at the top of the article.
    • Within one paragraph, multiple sentences are each cited to the same source, when the source could be listed once at the end of the paragraph. This would remove about 2/3 of the overdone footnotes.
    • A massive number of statements have two references - the same ones - wouldn't one source suffice for some of those?
  • This referencing situation is elementary stuff, that could be cleaned up via a MilHist peer review - FAR might not be the best place for addressing basic referencing. Sandy (Talk) 19:58, 26 November 2006 (UTC) Per feedback from Kirill, striking my comment that FAR not the best place for review. Sandy (Talk) 20:14, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • The reason everything is so heavily (exhaustively?) cited is that our citation guidelines recommend such thoroughly citing sources, and "when in doubt, cite" has always been a rule I try and follow. I am sorry if this has created a headache for you or anyone else involved in this FAR, as that was never my intention. TomStar81 (Talk) 20:28, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Completely agree and thoroughly endorse that rule, but 1) does every sentence need two cites, and 2) if all the sentences in one paragraph are from one source, you can cite once, not every sentence. There is still the problem that the article overly relies on one source, and doesn't use any of the book references. Sandy (Talk) 20:57, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • 1) Every sentence was cited was cited because I really got into it. In reality the only sentences that absolutely need to be cited are the ones that have information on combat action — shots fired, hits taken, missiles launched, etc. I cited each sentence because a specific date (day, month, and year) was given for the action, which I felt nessicitated an inline citation. Something I want to add about the two primary sources: DANFS and the wisconsin.org cite do not always agree with each other on dates and battle engagements; DANFS omits some material and has virtually nothing on Wisconsin in the Gulf War, which was the driving force behind the two-sources-per-sentence citations: if two sources were cited it meant that both sources agreed on an action, if only one is source is cited it usually means the other source ommitted or glossed over the material. 2) I tried citing one source for an entire paragraph before (not in this article though) and people came along and added 'citation needed' tags to parts in the paragraph they thought were not cited. I wanted to avoid that this time around, so I cited everything. TomStar81 (Talk) 21:28, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Status? Tom, were you planning to finish the ref cleanup work here, or did you need help? Sandy (Talk) 20:50, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • I intend to, I just need another day; I got roped into an emergency typing session. Aparently I incorrectly tyrped my professors email adress when I sent two essays to her;she never got them and I do not have copies of the essay because of space issues on my hard drive. Grades are do at the end of the week, so its type or die for the passing grade. Trust me, I am getting back to the article, but I do not want fail the class; I been there before, its not fun :( TomStar81 (Talk) 00:16, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ok Sandy, I think I got all the inline citations that needed fixed. I also rearranged the citations so they appear at the bottom of the paragraph unless their is a really good reason for them to be in the main body itself. I fixed a few links and made a few gramatical corrections as well. Sorry that took longer than expected, I caught a cold and the light from my computer moniter is bugging my eyes. (What is it with my luck anyway? Sheesh...) TomStar81 (Talk) 03:17, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please delink all of the dates that aren't full Month-day-year dates, and review all of your wikilinking for consistency (link only important terms, link the first occurrence of each term, etc.). You moved *all* of the references to the ends of paragraphs, and combined them all at the end of the paragraph? You might want to doublecheck that some of those references weren't intended to cite a very specific fact from one source, that would be better placed at the end of the sentence, rather than the end of the paragraph. What I was referring to earlier is that (for example) a paragraph of five sentences - all from the same source - didn't need to have that source repeated on each sentence. If the entire paragraph comes from one source, you can cite the paragraph once. On the other hand, if you have a paragraph cited to 3 different sources, it's better to specify which sentence comes from which source, rather than grouping them all at the end. Hope you're feeling better ! Sandy (Talk) 19:04, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Status: does this need to go down or are people pleased? Marskell 20:04, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I wish other reviewers would take a look: we haven't really examined the article, because it was stalled with faulty citing, and I seem to have been the only editor commenting. Sandy (Talk) 20:15, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Month-Day dates are subject to user date prefences (e.g. 1 March versus March 1), and still need to be linked appropriately; removing the formatting from the article was a bad idea. Kirill Lokshin 02:22, 14 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My mistake - I'll go put them back :-) Sandy (Talk) 17:04, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Commment Ref 1 is a note with web links that should be refs themselves. Ref 7's "found here" is a link to an IMAGE, not a reference, and the web refs are not in conistent format (ex, they don't all have retrieval dates. Would like to see more different refs that 15 (some of which are notes). Rlevse 13:07, 16 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Finding more refernces is somewhat difficult because the article is almost entirely the story of Wisconsins history. I will look into the prospect of finding other refernces that have new information, but I do not hold out much hope for that possibility. Ref 7, the image as you put it, was created to help people find the new missile magazines and phalanx mounts after a question was raised on Wisconsins talk page as to why there were none showing. I can remove that if you want, but I thought it would be easier to find added weapons systems if visitors had a visual aid. I will look into adressing the other complaints forthwith. TomStar81 (Talk) 20:45, 16 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As for ref 7, you can't use wiki as ref for a wiki article anyway. On top of that, the writing is so small on that image (even blown up), that you can't read it. The ref in the article says "a complete guide"; a pic with some caption isn't a complete guide.Rlevse 21:21, 16 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I will post my detailed comments on this article on its talk page. I have to do a little research in a few areas, though (namely call the handiest US Marine I can find to pump for information). Overall it's still a pretty good article, nothing too substantive that needs changed, other than a discussion of the armaments at the beginning of the article, and not just in the box. KP Botany 02:51, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment It's a bit hard to believe there aren't more sources on this ship, though, her mention in all the battles, memoirs of the officers of the TFs, etc., etc. I haven't been following the sourcing controversy, I like to do the edits. KP Botany 23:16, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are citation sufficiency and format (1c). Marskell 00:03, 14 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Moving down as it was not definite to close. Marskell 00:03, 14 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep Big improvements have been made to the article over the last three weeks, I feel the citation issue has been adequately addressed. Note that I am the one who originally brought the article up ta FA standards low these many monthes ago, so my opinion is somewhat bias :) TomStar81 (Talk) 02:10, 14 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Are there any other comments on this one? Marskell 08:27, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove. I find the referencing inadequate. For example, it's most unsatisfactory to have [3] occurring paragraph after paragraph, as though a tongue in cheek response to reviewers' requests for a professional approach to verification. Although the reference appears to be affiliated with the US Navy, it is totally unreferenced itself and has no explicit authorship. I wouldn't be so concerned if there wasn't such a heavy reliance on a single website. I've removed the female pronouns standing for the ship at the top, which I, and no doubt many other readers, find offensive. Tony 12:22, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Further, those cites to that one source are what's left after I helped Tom remove about three times as many that were initially there - I would like to see a better method of referencing this article, and wish MilHist reviewers would jump in here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:13, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. It hugely depends on one source. Whole sections have no other source! I agree with Tony. If this is not fixed, I'm afraid I'll be a remove voter.--Yannismarou 19:05, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • How else then do you propose I/we/Wikipedia cite the article? This is a historical text about one ship, not about the class, not about battleships in general, just Wisconsin. The primary source for US ship articles here has always been the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (DANFS) so far as I know, other sources on the web cite DANFS when discussing this battleships history. There will likely be no other Military History members commenting here, for some reason project members either do not care about what happens to the page or believe that since the page has been reinstated on our own FA showcase section it will likely clear FARC without there two cents. Short of leaving messages on every members talkpage, it will likely just be me commenting and improving. As for the use of "she": if you check out the talk page for the battleship USS Missouri (BB-63) you would see a large section devoted to the use of "she" versus the use of "it". Raul654 and others who commented there agreed that either one was ok, so long as the article used the same elected word (she or it) for the entire length. TomStar81 (Talk) 21:02, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well, I am also a member of the military project as you can easily find out. Now ... I definitely disagree with Kirill's position that in order to criticize a certain article's referencing, I must be able to propose alternative sources. As a reviewer I notice a problem and I refer it; this is my role! And for me the heavy reliance of 3-4 sections of the article on a single source is a huge problem for me as far as FA status is concerned. I believe that FA quality demands a better research and variety of sources, even though the location of these sources may be difficult. Therefore, the current level of referencing impedes me from being a keep voter and still brings me closer to a remove vote. Thanks!--Yannismarou 18:30, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • But the point being made is that it's not (necessarily) a problem! There are any number of good reasons for having a limited number of sources; the chief ones are (1) that there simply aren't any other (useful) sources or (2) that the sources already used are the canonical works on the topic, and that any others are merely derivatitive or redundant. It's perfectly fine to criticize the sourcing if you actually have some concrete reason to believe that some significant source has not been adequately consulted; but it's silly to insist that an article must have some arbitrary number X of sources without actually knowing whether there are X useful sources for this topic. Kirill Lokshin 19:53, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • If, Kirill, more sources are not available, then I understand the difficulty, but do not ask me to accept such an article as a FA! Silly or not, this is my opinion, and I strongly insist on it! I believe that a strong reliance of 3-4 sections on a single source, parts of which have been copy-pasted, impedes an article from being FA. The editor cannot find a solution to this inherent problem of the article? Then, I'm sorry, but this is not my problem! Not all articles can become FA. As it is now the article, the huge reliance on a single copy-pasted source is a huge flaw.--Yannismarou 08:46, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. The level of citation—that is, the direct connections made from the text to the sources—is now quite adequate. As far as the sources themselves are concerned, I'd argue that if you wish to take issue with an article's referencing, it's expected that you be able, at the very least, to name other significant sources which the editors have failed to consult. As far as I know, the reliability of the DANFS is not a controversial matter; the work happens to be the canonical source for the histories of individual USN ships, so it is entirely unsurprising to see it cited as often as it is. Kirill Lokshin 21:11, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, per Kirill. If there are important sources that have not been consulted, please point them out. Otherwise, the level of citation seems adequate. Carom 21:57, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question, I'm concerned that three books are listed in Further reading,References so there are other sources, but they aren't used. I'd like to hear from MilHist on this. Would those books add anything new, give alternate viewpoints, etc? In general, I would object to overreliance on one source when others are available, so pls educate me. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:48, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Maybe I'm just completely daft, but I don't see a "Further reading" section here. What might you be referring to? Kirill Lokshin 19:54, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Sorry, References <darn memory>. So, question becomes even stronger - they're listed as Refs, should they be used, or switched to Further reading? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:59, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • Well, if they're listed as references, they presumably were consulted. The fact that there are no citations from them isn't really indicative of anything, in my opinion; given how densely cited the article is already, they would likely be redundant, at best (particularly as they appear to be quite general works, and so are likely sources more for the general sense of the narrative than for highly specific details). Kirill Lokshin 20:46, 4 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • Consulted?! And what proves that they were actually consulted? How were they used in the article? Per Sandy. And let me ask you another thing: We have a hot debate about whether the reliance on a single source is a problem or not. Then, excuse me, but if the editor has indeed consulted these sources, why hasn't he used them as inline citations to face the above problem. If this section is really "References", then these books should be used as such; otherwise, it is "further reading". I think it is time to vote: weak remove as it is now the article per all my above comments. If the single-sourcing problem is not resolved, I'm afraid I can go as far as neutral.--Yannismarou 09:02, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Status. There obviously isn't consensus to close, and I'd like to make a couple of points on the above debates.
  • There are sixteen sources, not one; for a subject this specific, I'm actually surprised to see so many. I also worry that reviewers maybe focused on a nose count re sources, ahead of taking the article as an individual piece. Per WP:V, is there any material "challenged or likely to be challenged"? Yes, there are an enormous number of notes for the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, but it's a .mil site and I will certainly trust Kirill in suggesting it's canonical.
  • I'd guess those general books listed under References were placed there when the article was still young and other sources hadn't yet been provided. We can't assume they were consulted for specific info, so I'd suggest changing it to Further Reading. I don't see this as decisive. Marskell 10:33, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sixteen sources covering specific parts of the article. I still believe the research is not adequate, but I respect the majority here. The "references" or "further reading" thing is not decisive, but it must be clarified. Since most people here believe that the citing of the article is adequate, and, if the "References" or "further reading" thing is clarified, regard my vote as neutral.--Yannismarou 14:40, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I only asked about the other books because I want to know if they may present anything new or alternate viewpoints to the .mil sources. I guess what I really mean is I need to know if military sources have a pov that might be addressed by anything in those books. If the answer is no, then I'm happy with the article, but I'm not sure I've gotten answer yet. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:38, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I can not testify as to what information is present in "The Floating Drydock", as that was not one of mine. The other two are; the information drawn from "The Battleships" and "The Navy" is small since both books deal with the their topics in an "forest" view, looking at the big picture in stead of the trees. "The Battleships" presents a little information on the Iowa’s during there WWII service, and notes that they have all become muesem pieces, while "The Navy" presents a limited amount of information on the role of the four Iowa’s in the "600-ship Navy" plan outlined in the 1980s. Nothing specific was taken out of those two books for Wisconsin since the information they presented could be better cited to other sources. For example, in "The Navy" it notes that all four Iowas were modernized, recieving new gun and missile mounts, while the Federation of American Scientists website provides an armorment chart showing that the battleships recieved tomahawk missiles, harpoon missiles, and Phalanx CIWS mounts. Given a choice between the two, the latter source provides more information of value. Under the circumstances, I would assume that "The Floating Drydock" would also be a "forest" type book and would endorse the recommendation to rename the secion with the books "Further Reading". TomStar81 (Talk) 20:43, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Gotcha. In lew of the newly posted suggestions on Wisconsin’s talk page I think I will take a copy of the current version and place it in my sandbox to do some rebuilding to adress the excelent points raised here and there. I will try to rush the new additions so as not to keep everyone waiting in suspense, but this may take a while since finding printed material in a book is harder than finding it online, not to mention all that double citing I now have to do :) TomStar81 (Talk) 04:45, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Now that you know how to used named refs, it shouldn't be as hard - remember to cite page nos on books. Also, if you can strongly cite something from a book, maybe you can remove some of that long list cited to DANFS, to shorten the list? Let me know if you need any help on citation formatting or anything. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:22, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ok, I took a stab at adding what I could from the books to the article. I mamaged to eek out 3 citations from "The Battleships" and one from "The Navy"; I would have done better but the books are just to broad to cite specifics. I also played with the introduction and construction some based on suggestions left on Wisconsin's talk page. Note that "The Battleships" has to seperate inline citation points because the page numbers are different for the cited info. TomStar81 (Talk) 23:59, 6 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep with some work if the references check out. I've noticed that with few exceptions (although I stopped looking) articles on Wikipedia get all of their main information from 1-3 primary sources, then only get subsidiary information from the other 3 dozen sources listed (in this article, find the name of the hurricane, subsidiary source). The article is fine in general, needs a lot of attention to detail, the primary editor appears to be willing to do this. I will also discuss it with the various experts in my family as I get the chance. KP Botany 23:11, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Titanium

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Review commentary

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Messages left at Mav, Chemistry and Elements. Sandy (Talk) 14:49, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Has some general formatting issues, especially the long bulleted list in the middle. Almost no inline sources, there are many references listed at the bottom but only one of them is attached to a point in the article. On a side note, this became featured several years ago with only 2 votes. Vicarious 04:04, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • I would recommend the translation from the French for the label of the World Producers table. Also the table's source should give publisher's data. There are also several statements with {{fact}} tags that ought to be rectified. Not as serious, but still notable in a FA, is that there is a mix of all three citation styles. It would be best that it settles on one. --RelHistBuff 10:02, 23 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed table label and cite. --RelHistBuff 14:34, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria are citations. Joelito (talk) 23:31, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Ref. #14 is a link to an image (it's not a source).
  2. Ref. #13 is not reliable because it links to a commercial titanium ring website.
  3. Ref. #12 is also link to a commercial jewelry website and it is unnecessary inline citation at the image caption. The source of the Image:Ti-color-strip.jpg is given at the image description. Furthermore, the image is inappropriate, though it is claimed uploaded by the owner of the commerical website. It looks to me of an external spam link to promote the site: ext. link in the article and also in the image description. (smell a bit fishy)
For the moment, I still stick on remove vote. — Indon (reply) — 09:27, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The are still a couple external jumps in the body of the text. Jay32183 21:35, 16 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • That's because a whole chunk of new, commercial, and mostly uncited text was just added to the article. (I deleted the most commercial parts.) I'll be a Remove if this article isn't finished up by the end of the FARC period, as it doesn't appear anyone is tending the article, and there is still much too much uncited text. Sandy (Talk) 00:19, 17 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

From my talk page, from Pzzp (talk · contribs). Sandy (Talk) 18:35, 18 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

TITANIUM ARTICLE - removing "commercial" references.

Good Day SandyGeorgia,

I am not convinced that the mention of names of companies engaged in the production of titanium sponge and melting of ingot is not useful in the article. IMHO the inclusion of the list does not constitute advertising or commercial activity, not least due to the interesting fact that the list is EXHAUSTIVE (source was cited); moreover, the club of players in this market has barely changed since the beginnings of titanium manufacture. In fact the economics of titanium metal (and several other exotics like tantalum and zirconium) are influenced by the fact that so few firms are involved in its processing and manufacture. I think that in order to have a well rounded understanding of these metals, their sources and applications, the reader is well served by being made aware of the economics of the thing. For anyone working in the metals industries (as I do), knowing who processes the materials, where they are located and how they're doing is as important as who uses them. If you're going to be religious about policy, then mention should also be deleted of Airbus, Titanium Metals Corporation, Boeing and Tiomin, all companies mentioned in other areas of the article. Note also that we're not talking consumer goods here; these kinds of companies don't advertise since they sell business-to-business only, and don't need to.

I'd like to solicit other opinions on this issue.

Manufacture and fabrication: I will add citations when I have time.

pzzp DEC 18, 2006

  • Remove. Mav indicated he'd be working on the refs, but seven days have passed, the work isn't proceeding, new unreferenced text was added, and the article is still largely uncited. Sandy (Talk) 13:27, 19 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Not so fast. :) Notice that we are having a fundraiser right now? I helped to set it up. But now I have some free time and will restart work on the article. --mav 02:40, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Fine, but would you please keep us posted? Checking the article and the FARC every day for progress is tedious; FARCs are extended when editors keep us posted and progress is apparent - that wasn't the case here, and the process isn't indefinite. Striking my Remove for now. (And can you make that fundraising bar at the top of my page disappear - I hate telemarketing, mass marketing, mail marketing and all forms of marketing solicitation - I sit down to write my year-end charity checks based on those orgs that *didn't* market to me :-)) Sandy (Talk) 16:04, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I've added citations in the manufactur and fabrication section, I trust they're satisfactory. The Applications section is still all over the map. Although I've added to it I think it needs a re-work to classify applications into, firstly, metal and non-metal subcategories, then further into subcategories of metal: aerospace, industrial, recreation (incl jewelry and body jewelry), emerging, etc., and further non-metal into say, pigments, coatings, etc.Pzzp 16:52, 20 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've just removed a commercial link to a jpg which was given as a reference. This text now has external jumps (imbedded links) that need to be corrected and the text referenced:
Fewer than 10 grades are readily available commercially; most are melted upon demand. The grades covered by ASTM and other alloys are also produced to meet Aerospace and Military specifications (SAE-AMS, MIL-T), ISO standards, country-specific specifications (e.g.:JIS: Japan, DIN: Germany, BS: England), as well as per proprietary end-user specifications for aerospace, military, medical and industrial applications. Some of these alloys are patented and not available on the open market.
I'm adding cite tags to the article. We need to get this done, or de-feature the article per the vote above. Sandy (Talk) 10:59, 21 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I spent some more time on this article tonight; more this weekend. A general reorg will likely be in order after I've exhausted my sources. --mav 03:45, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Spent some more time. Pretty much just needs a bit of clean-up now. None of things mentioned in the original nomination are still issues, IMO. -- mav 05:43, 26 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I removed the external jumps to websites about standards - we don't need external links to websites discussing military standards, we need a citation supporting the statements (see passage quoted above). Refs need cleanup - maybe someone will get to it before I do. Sandy (Talk) 14:33, 26 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It would be more correct to say, that the article has been brought to current FA standards. Even before this FAR, this article had significantly improved over the original FA version of 2004. So it never degraded below FA standards (those standards simply became much more stringent since the time of promotion). My vote is weak keep until I have time to do a final pass with my last ref (lead needs to be expanded a bit as well). --mav 14:38, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Mav, please keep it on your watchlist and keep a close eye on it - it really seems to get hit with the commercial links. Sandy (Talk) 15:52, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Frustrated. I'll admit to being thoroughly disgusted by the sloppiness in this article. I went to the trouble to ask reviewers who had voted Oppose to double check their votes, and having just spent a ridiculous amount of time in the article, I now found that the references were so screwed up that their re-votes are now invalidated. In fact, the commercial links were not removed - an entire patch of the text was obscured by a referencing error which took me *forever* to find. I *think* I've now fixed the referencing errors, and that caused missing text to re-appear - invalidating the Keep votes above. If the editors of this article want those Keep votes, they can get in touch with all the editors again - this article is too high-maintenance for me, and has tried my patience. If someone isn't paying closer attention to FAs, they shouldn't keep their stars - they need to be tended, and references need to be correct. Sandy (Talk) 16:31, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, I also found the final reference completely hanging in the air (obscured, since the final part of the article didn't show due to an earlier ref error), so I stuck it onto the preceding paragraph - someone pls check if this is correct. <grrrr> Sorry for the vent, but every single FAC I checked yesterday had faulty, deceptive, misleading, and incorrect referencing, and WP:V is policy - people should take it seriously. Sandy (Talk) 16:35, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • REMOVE until referencing is fixed. For those who had re-voted to Keep because the commercial links were gone, they were simply obscured by an incorrect ref tag, which caused a chunk of the article to go missing, along with missing references. They're still there:
  • Exotica Jewelry (2006). Titanium Wedding Ring Catalog. Retrieved on 2006-12-10.
  • "Information on Titanium used for Body Piercing, body-piercing-jewellery.com (accessed 26 December 2006)
  • Cascadia Design Studio (2006). Anodized Titanium Ring Colors. Retrieved on 2006-12-10.

Sandy (Talk) 16:41, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also, once you decide what to do with the commercial references, this image caption needs copyediting:
selected colors achievable through anodization of titanium.[28]
Sandy (Talk) 16:55, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
COMMENT - Er, almost everything you are fixing was screwed up earlier today. Why not just revert? --mav
Because (as someone who does a lot of it) I appreciate the hard work that goes into correct referencing, and I'd rather find the error than revert someone else's referencing work. Besides, what has me so frustrated is that other reviewers checked an incomplete article, with obscured text, and the commercial links still need to be addressed. Besides, the references are now fixed - the commercial links still have to be dealt with, and then reviewers asked to check yet again. Sandy (Talk) 18:36, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Commercial refs replaced and image removed. --mav
Striking my remove again, refs look better now. Since I still had to catch a minor ce problem, I'm not going to be a Keep on this article - I suspect it will be back at FAR soon, and I'm concerned about its stability. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:38, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Here's a nice prose error in the previously hidden text - we need to get a copyeditor on this: It does, however, has a tendency to bio-accumulate in tissues that contain silica. Sandy (Talk) 18:54, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I didn't check until the end and found out that some unreliable sources are still used, per my first comment on top. Again, I stroke my vote and now with remove until the following ref. problems are resolved:
    1. Commission on Engineering and Technical Systems (1983). Titanium: Past, Present, and Future. Retrieved on 10 December 2006. → the link is dead
    2. France, Colin (2006). Extraction of Metals. Retrieved on 19 December 2006. → unauthorized website
    3. Exotica Jewelry (2006). Titanium Wedding Ring Catalog. Retrieved on 10 December 2006. → why do we promote a catalog here?
    4. Information on Titanium used for Body Piercing. Retrieved on 26 December 2006. → body piercing??
    5. Cascadia Design Studio (2006). Anodized Titanium Ring Colors. Retrieved on 10 December 2006. → commercial site
    — Indon (reply) — 17:16, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Link was live just a few weeks ago and the website looked well-maintained. Likely down for the holidays and should be back up in early to mid January.
  2. Unauthroized website? What does that mean and why is that bad?
  3. Deleted ref, image and statement.
  4. Yes, titanium is used in body piercing. Commercial ref replaced with an edu one.
  5. Commercial ref replaced with an edu one.
-- mav 18:49, 30 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  1. The link is still broken, but I believe you.
  2. Please read the external link of the source here: [28] and go to the main index. Please tell me if this site is reliable as a source. The author does not attached to an academic institution, only gives paid home private tutorials. Per WP:V and WP:RS, I consider the webpage is dubious unreliable source. Isn't there any reliable academic source for the corresponding citation?
— Indon (reply) — 18:56, 1 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough. Better cite added. --mav 00:15, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: I changed my vote as a lot of work has been done compared to the original FAR version. It seems it went through a hiccup with the links to commercial sites, but with mav's corrections, it seems fine now. --RelHistBuff 05:56, 31 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Looking good!Pzzp 22:31, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Real Love (The Beatles song)

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Review commentary

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Messages left at Johnleemk, Beatles and Songs. Sandy (Talk) 18:52, 15 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm nominating this article for FAR as it fails criterion 1. c. This is because;

  1. All direct quotations need inline citations.
  2. All the information needs verification from reliable sources.
  3. All opinions attributed to other people and critical comments made upon situations / lyrics / music etc. need inline citations. LuciferMorgan 20:06, 6 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria are citations and sources. Joelito (talk) 21:51, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"Real Love" is a song originally written and performed as a demo by John Lennon, later re-worked by the three remaining members of The Beatles (Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr) in late 1995. The song was released as a Beatles' single in 1996 in the United Kingdom, United States and many other countries; and it was also the opening track on The Beatles' Anthology 2 album. It is the last "new" credited Beatles song to date to originate and be included on an album.
  • Insert "and" before "later". Remove hyphen from "re-worked". Remove apostrophe from Beatles'. Remove "and" after the semicolon. Remove "also". Remove "to date".

I don't see quite so many problems in subsequent text, but a check of the way ideas are integrated into sentences, and of redundant wording, would not go astray. Tony 02:51, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment The article appears to have had a number of citations added, and the writing seems mostly OK. Lucifer, can you identify areas that still need citation or other work? Sandy (Talk) 20:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The original FA nominator removed three places where I asked for citations, where original research is clearly an issue. This is in the "Lyrics and melody" section, where comments are made upon lyrics. Unless such comments come from notable critics, then lyrical comments shouldn't be there. I'd put the tags back, but then again I might be accused of trolling - check the edit history to see where my citation requests were removed. LuciferMorgan 21:36, 8 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
May I add this as another reason I'm not returning - FA nominators are a law unto themselves. Johnleemk is clearly annoyed most of his Beatles FAs were defeatured due to my nominations, so removed the cite tags. So my vote stands at Remove due to the blatant original research which comments upon the lyrics. LuciferMorgan 02:09, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I see (I saw). The tags seemed well placed to me, and on the first, the text is not in the cite. Don't go. Sandy (Talk) 02:10, 9 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ahem. I made a comment on the article's talk about my removal of {{fact}}. To date, I can't find any response there. And please cut the bullshit about "FA nominators (being) a law unto themselves". If you wanted the tags put back, you could've told me, or gone ahead and done it. It doesn't make a difference to me; I generally ignore Beatles song articles nowadays for a reason. In my view, there is a major difference between critical commentary ("this song is good" or "this song is bad" or "this aspect of the song is noteworthy", etc.) and an objective description of the song. The three sentences in dispute are merely paraphrasing the song's lyrics, so it's really ludicrous for them to require a citation. All the real critical commentary has been sourced. Johnleemk | Talk 20:36, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Cut the bullshit? There's no bullshit about it - why don't you cut the bullshit about inline cites? I had this pointless discussion with you months ago regarding inline cites, and you didn't get the message - you just banging on about the References section. As for putting the tags back, I didn't as I've been accused by Raul of trolling - check Operation Downfall's FAR. The lyrics need citation as they're saying what they're about - a music critic now are you? No, I thought not, so it's original research. All the Beatles articles defeatured so far had the same problem and this is no different. Your FAR commentary is the only ludicrous thing going on here, or "bullshit" to be more frank. LuciferMorgan 21:04, 10 December 2006 (UTC)][reply]
If you honestly can't see the difference between now and then, we might as well stop talking. I never disputed that the content we talked about then ought to be cited. This, on the other hand, is paraphrasing the song lyrics. It is not analysis or commentary - it's summarising the song's lyrics. It's not even drawing any inferences from the lyrics. Johnleemk | Talk 12:32, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: All chart ratings and sales statistics ought to be cited. In "Lyrics and melody" the first paragraph appears like WP:OR. It is better to take someone else's subjective commentary as a quote and then cite the source as is done in the second paragraph (which is only one-line, not good practise and should be merged with the first paragraph). If these are fixed, I would vote Keep, otherwise I would vote Remove. --RelHistBuff 10:57, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The charts and sales stats are cited; the only problem is that my source (an online website run by a Beatles biographer) has since apparently gone down. (That's the reason WP:CITE asks us to include the date we originally retrieved the webpages - so it can be determined what revision of the site we got the info from, and it can be looked up in the Wayback Machine.) I've been hunting around for decent reviews which paraphrase the song's lyrics so we can stop beating around the bush here, but most of them seem to assume (for understandable reasons) that if you wanted to know the song's theme, you could just listen to the song or read its lyrics instead of reading a review. Johnleemk | Talk 12:32, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, after going through a dozen pages of Google results and a few more on Google Books, I dug up a review which briefly touches on the song's message (most others focused on either the song's structure or history). It's not entirely satisfactory IMHO, but it'll do, I think. Johnleemk | Talk 12:53, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
OK, great. What about the second paragraph in "The release" section? The first sentence states that it entered at #4 of the British charts and eventually reached #1 in both US and UK charts. This is not cited. Actually, there must be something I don't understand as the parenthetical element contradicts the image caption where it says it reached #4 and not just entered at #4. Or does the #1 position refer to the album? If so, this sentence should be rewritten and if the #1 position does refer to the album, a cite is needed. --RelHistBuff 13:17, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
That was poor writing on my part - Anthology 2 topped the charts, but the single itself did not. I've made some organisational changes which hopefully clarify matters, and added citations. Johnleemk | Talk 16:00, 11 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for adding citations. The only concern I have is regarding John Lennon putting the song on the backburner; was he working on it prior to his murder for the next album, or had he shelved it? If a citation could be found for this, then that'd be cool. Thanks once again. LuciferMorgan 13:39, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As I said on Talk:Real Love (The Beatles song), putting on the backburner = shelved. As the preceding paragraphs in the section state, he worked on the song informally in the late 70s, and then abandoned it. We don't know of what plans he had for the song, if he had any plans at all. Johnleemk | Talk 14:08, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I believe LuciferMorgan is wondering where you got the assertion that he shelved it. If no one knew his plans or if he had plans, then it is best not to make that assertion. How about just saying, "The song reappeared in 1988, when ..."? Anyway this is good enough for a Keep for me. Good job. --RelHistBuff 16:19, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'll note a keep here as well; good work despite some gnashing of teeth. Regarding the last concern, it seems an observation of an absence. Perhaps "Lennon does not appear to have worked..." rather than "Lennon shelved..." Marskell 20:18, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's exactly what I meant. I've reworded the sentence. Johnleemk | Talk 10:28, 13 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Mine isn't a keep, as these days most song article's have a section properly dealing with critical reaction from music critics. I hope I don't come across as being annoying, but if anyone agrees with my stance then hopefully time can be extended on this one? If not, then consensus is consensus I suppose. LuciferMorgan 21:59, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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