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Wikipedia:Featured article review/archive/January 2010

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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 by YellowAssessmentMonkey 23:37, 31 January 2010 [1].

Arsenal F.C.

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Review commentary

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Notified: Qwghlm, Mattythewhite, Ed g2s, WikiProject Football

This is the oldest unreviewed sports FA, a fact which caused me to take a look at this article. What I found showed a few issues that, while not overwhelming, would be best resolved by the FAR process.

Referencing is the main concern for me. Giants2008 (17–14) 02:41, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Image problems

What's happening with the two unsourced paras in history? YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles Featured topic drive:one left) 04:08, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is also one unsourced para each in Colours and Stadiums. Hopefully these can all be taken care of quickly. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 16:07, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Have done these as best I can... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 10:25, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • This looks to be close to keeping without FARC, but there are dead links in the citations (The Times), unformatted citations (http://www.arsenal.com/usa/sh/news/news-archive/kroenke-increases-stake-in-arsenal-holdings), WP:MOSCAPS in the citations, and the image captions need to have a punctuation review per WP:MOS#Images (sentence fragments should not have final punctuation). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:17, 5 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Fixed unformatted cite and MOSCAPS, also added missing publication dates and moved publishers to "publisher" parameter where needed
    • Fixed image captions
    • Can't find a dead link. Unless you meant ref#35 "Suspension of the Plumstead Ground", which doesn't come from an online source.
    • One thing I was confused by, your edit summary which said websites shouldn't be italicised. This article uses the cite templates for formatting. The documentation at {{cite web}} says where online items are part of a larger "work", such as a book, periodical or website (my italics), that name should be supplied at the "work" parameter, and the publisher if any should go in the "publisher" parameter. This is illustrated in the examples, and results in the website name being italicised. Is the objection to italicisation something specific to FAC, of which I have little experience? Or are you saying that the output generated by the cite templates doesn't comply with the MOS? and if so, shouldn't someone mention it at the relevant talk page. Or have I just misunderstood something as usual :-) cheers, Struway2 (talk) 11:45, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Much better. Whatever the dead link was, I can't find it now, but it was when I clicked on a link from The Times. Yes, there is a long-standing contradiction between WP:ITALICS and cite web: I will raise this at MOS, and you are the first to have noticed and pointed this out! The "Managers" section has problems; it has a citation needed tag, and we can't cite another Wiki article (Wiki is not a reliable source). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:01, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sourced Wenger's long service and being first foreign manager. Removed best & worst manager by win percentage: it's an arbitrary choice of how to order managerial success, no idea how to briefly source it, and detailed figures are available at the main manager list. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 15:06, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I left some more sample edits of items that should be reviewed, but I'm satisfied and probably won't revisit. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:17, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Been through again per sample edits. Also added couple of refs for unsourced bit of history section. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 15:45, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Just had another look at the article, and I'm quite happy with what has been done. I would have no objections if this was closed without moving to FARC. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 01:08, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments—I think this is quite well written. Could do with a few fixes throughout, but not a long job. I'd like to see this work on and kept, if possible. Overlinking is a major problem.

  • I've upsized a few of the tiny images.
  • "Holloway, North London"—can we pipe so that "North London" isn't blue? If the reader hits "Holloway", they get a direct link to the broader geographical entity, don't they? Let's not dilute the valuable links at the top with "chain links".
  • Some of the pipes are a little vague: "Southern" ... ah, that means "South of England". Unless the boundary is important, why not bin the link and just write "first club in southern England"? Simpler for the readers?
  • "in this time"—better "during ..."
  • "which have evolved through history" sounds a little precious ... a bit long-term. Ah, you mean its history; can you add?
  • "drastic"—readers are unprepared for that. "dramatic"? Since I don't know the geography of London suburbs, I can't make out why it's less extreme. A mystery to me.
  • "Arsenal have a large fanbase, who hold a string of long-standing rivalries with several other clubs"—hold a string of awards/prizes, I was expecting. Perhaps simpler, like this: "which has long-standing ...".
  • BrEng ... I'd hyphenate "third-richest".
  • The link to "British culture" seems far too vague. I can cope without the link, provided it's more specific further down (where more specific section- or daughter-article-links to Br cult could be provided).
  • Do we still need to bold synonyms, other names, way down in the first section? I thought that practice was only for the lead. It looks messy.
  • Chain link: Royal_Arsenal has a link to "Woolwich" in your face when you go there. The blue can thus be reduced in this article: try to direct readers more specifically and judiciously to link-targets, and they'll be more likely to hit on them.
  • pneumonia: doesn't need linking.
  • The year-in-English-football "hidden" links, which readers will ignore, thinking they're plain year-links—I'm putting them in the "See also" section (unpiped), which is much more effective. Or ... see what I've done with the first one, which is now an explicit gateway to all of them. The rest could be unlinked to control the blue disease. There are an awful lot of blue years cluttering. Tony (talk) 15:54, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Have given it a copyedit with emphasis on overlinking. In the prose sections, left in those season and cup-final links which seemed particularly relevant to Arsenal, and added (see Seasons in English football) in the history section. The blue season links remain in the Honours section, but have ensured they link to specific articles e.g. cup or shield finals; in this non-prose section, readers would expect year-links to be present and to go somewhere relevant. Struway2 (talk) 10:50, 19 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • All files should be on Commons

FARC commentary

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Suggested featured article criterion concerns are MOS and prose. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 02:33, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a little concerned about the History section. One paragraph on the first 33 years, two paragraphs covering 34 years from 1945-1979. It's not really recentism (Chapman's era also gets close attention, with a paragraph on 5 years in the 30s), and it's not entirely without basis, focussing on periods of success, but I do think it could be smoothed a little. Also, not sure the Emirates info is in the right place in the History. --Dweller (talk) 15:24, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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

The article was kept by YellowAssessmentMonkey 23:37, 31 January 2010 [2].

Ann Arbor, Michigan

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Review commentary

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Notified: TonyTheTiger, Pentawing, Taxman, Gsgeorge, Avenue, Jay32183, WikiProject Cities, and WikiProject Michigan.

This is a 2005 FA that underwent FAR in 2007. Since then, it's undergone the classic Wikipedia rot. Unsupported information has been added, links have gone dead, and the MOS has progressed.

With the number of University of Michigan alumni and students on Wikipedia, I'm sure there's enough interest to save this article ... it just has to manifest itself. JKBrooks85 (talk) 23:42, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Does it make sense to nominate it during the summer, while the students are away? Can I please suggest withdrawing the nomination and renominating it a month from now? Classes begin September 8. Eubulides (talk) 06:57, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I imagine that there's more free time in the summer, when classes aren't going on. You don't have to be on campus to access Wikipedia. :) In any event, I think there's enough alumni and local users that the timing shouldn't matter. JKBrooks85 (talk) 12:02, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I concur with JKBrooks85's thinking; as a student, I know the general rule is that the start of school is much worse a time to begin a major Wikipedia project, compared to during the summer. Otumba (talk) 22:08, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Actually the Wikimedia traffic data always shows a major lull during Northern Hemishphere summers and it picks back up about the time school starts again. Summer is a major detraction from a lot of editing—either from students not being at school or vacations. Also, who studies much when school first starts? The weather is nice and there's too much else to do. :) I did go add a couple citations and I'll try to get some more. Overall though the article isn't in terrible shape, it could do with someone going through and detailing any more concerns besides what have been tagged as being needed already. Those can be searched for easily. - Taxman Talk 15:06, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have gone through the article and corrected as many problems as I can for one night. However, I intend to look over the article again to make sure every issue has been dealt with. PentawingTalk 04:17, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I believe that I have gone through the entire article and have dealt with the issues raised. Though if issues still exists, can someone please point them out exactly? PentawingTalk 01:55, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Changes look pretty good, Pentawing. I'm going to do a more detailed combing of the article, so let me know if you think I'm going down the wrong track with some of these changes. JKBrooks85 (talk) 10:23, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How's this going? YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 03:16, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • I have addressed the issues that have been brought up, and so far it appears that no one has brought up any other problems. If no one brings up any further problems, I believe that this FAR should be closed. PentawingTalk 04:33, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

lat=42.27083&lon=-83.72639&datum=nad27&zoom=8

Otherwise, sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:15, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I pinged Pentawing for a look at this last comment. Marskell (talk) 15:58, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I looked at several of the sources, and hopefully will take care of them fully in the article soon. PentawingTalk 05:06, 27 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have replaced several of the above citations. However, several of the non-replaced citations (e.g. Topoquest and Airnav) use data that are explicitly labeled as being from a reputable source (US Geological Survey and the FAA respectively). City-data has a publisher, which is now listed. The vt100.net site has a listed author (which is listed in the citation listings), and Emporis (from what I have read) utilizes a rigorous process in ensuring accurate information. PentawingTalk 04:06, 2 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fixes still needed:

If these and sourcing concerns are cleared up, not in bad shape. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:57, 8 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Has there been an image review? If not, one of the image reviewers should be pinged to have a look, since this appears to be close to a keep. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:21, 13 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What is with teh undue weight in history. A big chunk on 1960-70 and a blackout on the preceding century YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles Featured topic drive:one left) 04:21, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, undue weight. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. FAQ? YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles Featured topic drive:one left) 23:21, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • This kind of delist, the minute an article moves to FARC and when editors have been working on the article, concern me. What "unsourced bits"? LEAD too short is a not a good enough reason to delist. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:30, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If there is ongoing work, of course we can wait a bit more. :) Cheers, Cirt (talk) 01:04, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with SandyGeorgia that unless specific problems are pointed out (as opposed to generalities), the above comment by Cirt to delist should be disregarded for now. PentawingTalk 05:48, 5 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep; Comments - I don't think that this article is ready to be kept as a FA as it is. My concerns include:
    • Per YellowMonkey in the FAR section, the history section needs some work. There are almost two full paragraphs devoted to two decades (the 1960s and 70s), while there is nothing said about the time period between 1851 and the 1960s. This appears to me as undue weight. Also, the last paragraph is out of chronological order. This is one of my major concerns.
    • There are a couple of citation needed tags that need to be fixed
    • The lead needs expansion. For an article of this length three to four paragraphs would be appropriate. Also, generally, leads don't have references because the information is referenced in the body. However, this is an author preference thing.
    • Also, a check needs to be done to make sure that the lead matches the information and nuances presented in the article. For example, in the lead it presents the idea that the city was named after the founders' spouses and the local trees as a fact, while in the history section this is presented as one of several theories. Also, the lead should not include information not presented in the body. For example, the fact that the University of Michigan moved to Ann Arbor from Detroit.
    • The prose needs a thorough check. Statements such as "On the other hand," are unencyclopedic, while statements such as "a charismatic inter-denominational movement" could be regarded as POV, and are definitely a bit bombastic. Also, why is information such as the nicknames of the local Arboretum "(and known locally as "The Arboretum" or simply "The Arb")" relevant in a summary article about the entire city?
    • "High technology" should be linked in the lead. Also, throughout the article, it jumps back and forth between high tech and high-tech (with and without the dash). Please make consistent.
    • In the Climate section, the table is correct per the Weatherbase reference, but if you look at the Yahoo reference (number 34), it gives different averages. This should be addressed in some way - or perhaps find a source that is more authoritative than both Yahoo and Weatherbase and cite to that?
    • Demographics section, "the city has one of the highest foreign-born population percentages in the state sitting at 16.6%." "sitting at" is not really encyclopedic, plus the statement reads awkwardly overall.
    • In the second paragraph of the Economy section, you start out with the present, then jump to a company in the 1980s, then jump back to the present. This needs to be fixed, as the bit about the 1980s company feels oddly placed - sort of dropped into the middle of a discussion about the economy today - over 20 years later.
    • Economy section, "Borders Books, originally a two-room shop upstairs above 211 South State, was opened in 1969 with a stock of used books by brothers Tom and Louis Borders." I would reword this to "Borders Books, started in Ann Arbor, was opened by brothers Tom and Louis Borders in 1969 with a stock of used books." This removed unnecessarily specific information (it's exact location) and makes it slightly more clear (the original sounds like the books were written by the Borders brothers, rather than the shop being opened by them).
    • Culture section, "and natural history and sciences (see Museums at the University of Michigan)". This see also-type link feels awkward and out of place. Perhaps it would be better in a see also template at the beginning of the section, or perhaps linked through the word "museums" earlier in the sentence.
    • Culture section, "in 2008 a new branch building replaced the branch located in Plymouth Mall. This new branch is called the Traverwood Branch, and opened on June 30, 2008." The double mention of 2008 is repetitive, and I'm not really sure that you need to go into this much detail with regards to the library in general.
    • Media section. The first sentence is a run-on, which should be split into at least two sentences.
    • Media section. You say "Other established publications in the city" and then you say "and Ann Arbor Paper, a free monthly that has ceased production." A paper that has ceased publication is by definition not established...
    • Higher education section, "Opened near northeastern Ann Arbor". Why "near"?
    • Primary and secondary schools, "which enrolls 16,974 students (2005–2006 September head count)" Has there been an updated count in the past three years? Also, should this subsection be renamed "primary and secondary education" to fit with the other section/subsection headings?
    • Publication dates of websites need to be standardized. Currently, some of them are YYYY-MM-DD, while others are Month Day, Year.
  • Once these concerns are taken care of, I will conduct a full prose review. The article is in much better shape than it was when first brought here to FAR, but still needs some work before it is of FA status again. Dana boomer (talk) 01:23, 5 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thank you for fixing my initial comments so quickly. I have struck the finished comments, but added a few more that I found on a more thorough reading of the article.
  • Comment (voting towards Keep) - I have addressed the issues concerning the "citation needed" tags and access dates on web-based citations. The lead has now been expanded to three paragraphs and more information of the city during the 1800s to 1900s have been added (though I might add that there does not appear to be much information that, in my mind, sticks out. Much of Ann Arbor's reputation occurred during the 1960s and 1970s, and hence the perceived weight during that time period). I have addressed other problems that have been brought up by Dana Boomer (see above for each point that is addressed). PentawingTalk 05:48, 5 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Significant improvement. Excellent work. Would be nice if someone could go ahead and create Old West Side Historic District. Cirt (talk) 13:52, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note, I haven't taken a new look, but this didn't have big issues the last time I looked at it, and Pentawing has been at work. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:31, 19 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Note - I have gone through the article and have taken care of the listed issues (including several unlisted issues relating to formatting and prose), but at the moment I am out of ideas of what else is needed. Are there any more suggestions? PentawingTalk 02:47, 19 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - I read most of the article, skimmed the rest and looked at the references. All looks pretty good. --mav (Urgent FACs/FARs) 23:10, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept by YellowAssessmentMonkey 01:11, 25 January 2010 [3].

Technetium

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Notified: User talk:Aarchiba, User talk:Mav, User talk:Jan van Male, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elements.

Review commentary

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FA from 2005, a few minor 1c issues, otherwise there is some copyediting that could be done: a few very short subsections that could possibly be merged, and one-sentence paragraphs and other short paragraphs. 9 images used in the article: File:Tc-TableImage.png - "other versions" appears like it needs fixing, File:Tc,43.jpg - could use formatting for source/author info, the rest of the images could use formatting with commons:template:information, including: File:Дмитрий Иванович Менделеев 4.gif, File:UraniumUSGOV.jpg, File:Basedow-vor-nach-RIT.jpg, File:Technetiumhydrid.png, File:Technetiumcluster.png, File:Technetiumcarbonyl.png, File:Technetiumkomplex.png. Shouldn't be too hard to bring the article up to speed. Cirt (talk) 23:16, 21 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This article already received a major overhaul in May from Materialscientist... I guess we might as well make things official and fix the images, table and other minor issues. Will take a look this weekend. --mav (talk) 00:25, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds great! :) Cirt (talk) 01:11, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've contacted two people who should know the source of File:Tc,43.jpg, but couldn't get information on the source (one doesn't know, other doesn't reply), thus replaced the image with a sourced one. Materialscientist (talk) 09:05, 2 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Commons info template now on each image. HTML table replaced File:Tc-TableImage.png when the new Elementbox was implemented for this article. --mav (talk) 01:26, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I always try to help out whenever a an element is brought to FAR, so I'm on board too. I'll try to take a look in the next couple of days. Perhaps I'll do a line-by-line prose review to help improve the writing. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 01:17, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Some of the literature is also flawed. The atomic number was first propsed in 1911 so something must be wrong with when Jonge (1996) doi:10.1007/BF00837634 states: Various workers claimed to have discovered an element with Z = 43 in naturally occurring ores and proposed such names as polinium (1828), ilmenium (1846), davyum (1877), lucium (1896) and nipponium (1908). He quotes Kenna BT. The search for technetium in nature. J Chem Educ 1962; 39: 436-442. for that fact. So how you can sarch for something which you do not know that it is missing or search for Z = 43 when Z is unknown to you. Further problems is that ilmenium and pelopium are niobium an tantalum similar while polinium lucium and polonium are iron group metals similar to platinum, so they are not ment to be element 43.--Stone (talk) 13:53, 22 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You have really good knowledge of history of elements. It would be great if you could take initiative and fix that section in the article. Materialscientist (talk) 11:42, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The history section is not that bad and I have the literature used as source, so I can improve it. --Stone (talk) 15:31, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Do we want the history part which is not related to technetium except that the discovers quote a mass of around 100?--Stone (talk) 15:31, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I would briefly mention that too and then see how the article stands. If it doesn't swell too much, my vote is to keep expanded history as this information is mostly lost on the internet. Materialscientist (talk) 10:44, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Some lines of prose that I don't really understand: Cryptic C62 · Talk 17:10, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Pure metallic single-crystal technetium becomes a type II superconductor at 7.46 K; irregular crystals and trace impurities raise this temperature to 11.2 K for 99.9% pure technetium powder" This sentence says that technetium becomes a superconductor at these temperatures, but the sentence that follows it discusses superconductor effects below these temperatures. Which is it?
      Regarding your first question: superconductivity is a low-temperature phenomenon. When someone says that a material becomes superconductive "at 7.46 K", it implicitly means that it is superconductive at temperatures lower than 7.46 K, with 7.46 being the critical temperature. This could be made more explicit, though. --Itub (talk) 17:21, 25 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think the information about Tc-99m should be removed from the new Toxicity section, as the information is already discussed at great length in other sections of the article. Also, it doesn't really make sense to elaborate on this here because it isn't toxic to the human body. Perhaps Tc-99m could be referenced in passing in order to contrast it with other more toxic isotopes: "Unlike Tc-99m, which is used in medical applications, blah blah blah..."
      Article changed a bit. I would keep the radiation protection (former "toxicity") part. Some people really need that information. Materialscientist (talk) 10:44, 27 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Cryptic are moved to talk:technetium for further work. Materialscientist (talk) 08:00, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Much great work has been done by several people. Getting close. --mav (talk) 01:31, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I just finished an extensive copyedit, added some missing inline cites and removed or commented out material that really isn't needed but is still uncited. What else, if anything, is needed? --mav (talk) 02:12, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Much much better. I added one {{fact}} tag. Some images are still missing info, such as date, or author info. Cirt (talk) 04:20, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Added cite to the fact. Checked date/author info for images, added one author. IMO, date/author info is reasonably complete. Materialscientist (talk) 04:58, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I still see multiple images with empty fields. Really now, this should not be too hard to fix. Cirt (talk) 05:03, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Could you please point to an example (image and empty field)? Materialscientist (talk) 05:30, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
File:Дмитрий Иванович Менделеев 4.gif = this one is an easy fix. :) Cirt (talk) 05:44, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Replaced the image instead ;-) - actually long wanted to, as the new one is much more realistic. Materialscientist (talk) 06:04, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Great! :) There are still some minor issues with the other images, as noted above. Cirt (talk) 06:30, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Info template, description, source and author info is on all images. --mav (talk) 17:43, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

<indent>Using the same tactics, I changed the uranium ore picture to a referenced one (much easier than to find back the 2005 sources). Other images are self produced, thus author/dates are specified and to be taken from the individual image versions. Materialscientist (talk) 07:21, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  1. File:Tcfoil.jpg = no way this has to be fair use, a free use image could definitely be used instead.
  2. File:Technetiumhydrid.png = missing date field, should be an easy fix.
  3. File:Technetiumcluster.png = missing date field, should be an easy fix.
  4. File:Technetiumcarbonyl.png = missing date field, should be an easy fix.
  5. File:Technetiumkomplex.png = missing date field, should be an easy fix.
  6. File:Basedow-vor-nach-RIT.jpg = missing date field, should be an easy fix.

Cirt (talk) 17:48, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

All have dates now. Still trying to tie-down the source info for the original image. A valid fair use rationale for Tc image may be possible depending on how constrained access to the element is. --mav (talk) 18:34, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks very much! Keep us posted. :) Cirt (talk) 18:35, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A note on "rationale" issue: search of techentium on images.google.com would return a few results, none being referenced, except for File:Tcfoil.jpg - that was the reason for using it. Just 6 October, I've got an email on the source of File:Tc,43.jpg and put into the description file. I have no access to that source, but the email person has, and offered to provide more details if needed. Materialscientist (talk) 04:51, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Can't File:Tc,43.jpg be used, and the fair use one deleted? Yes, info on the author-field for File:Tc,43.jpg would be good. Cirt (talk) 05:00, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Author added (unknown). The trick here is I have to trust the email of that person on that image (that it is pure Tc and US government work - fine with me, but other opinions are welcome. Anyone has access to that book ?). That is why I keep the foil image in the infobox. Materialscientist (talk) 05:11, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Given that, and the fact that versions of this image are so widely used on the Internet, I say we put Tc,43.jpg back. It has a cite, we know the cited book exists but can't find a copy. I think we have done our due diligence. Let's get rid of the fair use image. --mav (talk) 03:19, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Done. In terms of photographic and scientific quality, Tcfoil.jpg is better by all counts, but if fair use is an issue .. Materialscientist (talk) 03:30, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks very much, excellent work all around. :) Cirt (talk) 04:24, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Cool. Are we done with the FAR now? --mav (talk) 06:56, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Looks good to me, would like to hear what others think though. Cirt (talk) 06:58, 23 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Can we close this now? I think we are done and the article is now clearly up to current standards. --mav (talk) 21:47, 31 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My voice may be disregarded, as I am a contributor, but I also think the article is up to the standards. We are polishing it further with Cryptic (many thanks to him!), but I believe this goes beyond FAR. Materialscientist (talk) 00:10, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As a member of WikiProject Elements, I am obviously biased towards keeping this as a Featured Article. Regardless, throughout my review I have yet to see any red flags which suggest that it should be demoted. I will continue to work on the article with Materialscientist regardless of how the FAR turns out. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 00:40, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Can we close this FAR now? This nom was mostly about marginal issues to begin with and the nominator has stated that the article is now up to par. I'd really like to move on to other things and stop worrying about this article. --mav (talk) 15:14, 15 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reading the discussion on Wikipedia talk:Featured article review#Concerns i get the feeling that a lot of articles fail FAR and a lot of people are not happy with it. When I compare my work for FAR Helium and FAR Technetium know that something chaged, the process is less interactive and the coments come in at a point when most of the people improving the article think that the work is done. The workload done for FAR Helium compared to that with FAR Technetium has also increased without changes in the FA criteria. I hope we are done with FAR.--Stone (talk) 17:04, 15 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. Helium had some serious issues when it went to FAR and fixing those seemed easier and the FAR process seemed to go more smoothly. --mav (talk) 20:39, 15 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
With FAC and FAR getting very hard, I understand that some people or whole projects come to the conclusion that it is not worth to give that much work for the bronze star, when other article suffer from lack of work.--Stone (talk) 22:30, 15 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not there yet. There are still significant inconsistencies in the citation style ... I picked out the following examples on a quick flyover, indicating work is needed on reviewing all citations for a consistent style.
  • Undefined or unlinked jargon ... The coordination number 9 in this complex is the highest for a technetium complex.
  • Missing NBSPs (I found three on a quick glance)

I stopped there ... more work needed still. Please try to locate a non-Chemist person to go through and do a jargon and linking check. I also disagree with some of the statements above: the article would not pass FAC in this shape. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:32, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just finished a MOS/Chem and readability copyedit to lede and ==Characteristics==. Dealing with jargon is difficult since explanations of it often include yet more jargon... Links and some explainers in the form of expanded jargon that hopefully conveys the meaning in context added. More later. --mav (talk) 16:01, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Move to FARC for further review; the linking is still off (see example, beta decay, used before it is later linked), and the technical jargon is still thick, requiring the reader to click on links to understand the article. Incorrect punctuation in the second sentence of the lead gives concern for copyedit issues (Technetium occurs in nature only in minute amounts; as a spontaneous fission product in uranium ore or by neutron capture in molybdenum ores.) This article still needs review and copyedit by a non-chemist person. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:29, 5 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Anything else needed? --mav 23:01, 13 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This FAR has been up for more than three months; why not advance it to FARC to get feedback and declarations? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:25, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There has already been plenty of feedback above and all issues have been acted on. The original nominator has also stated that the issues he had have been resolved. If nobody can think of other issues to raise, then I think this should be closed without a FARC. --mav (please help review urgent FAC and FARs) 22:38, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Feedback on this article was asked everywhere possible, and obtained. With many thanks to the comments, they have all been addressed. Surely, no article is ever perfect, but there should be a reasonable limit. Without slight to anyone, the recent edits are nitpicking, and could be spent on bringing another elements article to the FA level or on FAC reviewing. Materialscientist (talk) 22:44, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested featured article criterion concerns are MOS and prose. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 02:34, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept by YellowAssessmentMonkey 02:03, 5 January 2010 [4].

Sound film

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Review commentary

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Notified: DCGeist, Wikipedia:WikiProject Films

Since reviewing more than one FA isn't allowed, I am nominating this particular featured article for review because of the follwing things...

  • Un-referenced material.
  • Lots of unnessessary images. There's images in the "Reference" section (WTF)?
  • And I think that there's a prose problem as well.
So give me your thoughts on this article. GamerPro64 (talk) 02:02, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for doing the alt text; it is a first-class job. Eubulides (talk) 16:55, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments The article seems to fail the FA criteria for sourcing. Despite having 113 inline citations, it still has quite a bit that is not clearly reference or is unreferenced at all. The article does have formatting issues, and I agree that the number of images is overkill, as are the number of external links. Two screens worth of links?? And while the images are non-free, most are being used purely for decorative and superfluous manner. Many could be trimmed and replaced with a simple link to the Commons where they are all housed. Looking at some of the citations, I'm also a little concerned that there may be some SYNTH going on, as some of the references, like 88 and 90 seem to be pulling from a few sources to reach a final conclusion and uses non-neutral language in referring to some sources. I also can now see how such a short lead, compared to the article, is properly summarizing the article as a whole. There also appear to have been some legitimate raised concerns on the talk page over its ending at 1930, and seeming to have little contemporary history of the form, but nothing appears to have been done to address it. That would seem to indicate the article, lengthy though it is, is not comprehensive. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 02:31, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment it does not meet WP:LIST; the lists under History and Aesthetic quality should be converted into prose. Additionally, its structure is lacking; section names like The transition: Europe separate those periods in the history of the topic from the earlier history, putting it out of context. Technology should be its own level two heading. Images don't belong in the reference section, and there are way too many external links. Mm40 (talk) 12:59, 29 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, MOS. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. FAQ? YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles Featured topic drive:one left) 23:24, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • What referencing concerns? DCGeist has begun working on the article, the FARC period lasts at least two weeks, and entering a vague "Delist" the minute a FAR moves to FARC without more specifics gives him little to work with. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:36, 1 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Per the concerns laid out in this subsection above, by YellowMonkey (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 00:08, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
WHICH concerns? Which are the sources you dispute? What are better sources that are lacking? What needs citation or is wrong with the citations given? Please remember that the default at FAR, in the absence of identifiable specific deficiencies, is a Keep. Since DCGeist is working on the article, he should at least know what to work on. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:14, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No need for CAPS. Cirt (talk) 00:40, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Status report: I appreciate the opportunity to fine-tune the article this review brings. Addressing the distinct points that have been raised:

  • Alt text: Added to all images.
  • Images in Notes section: Eliminated.
  • Inline citations: I've added 19 to to the previous total of 113. I've also expanded and/or significantly revised 20 or so of the already existing citations. If I have missed any passages that call for inline citations according to our relevant policy, please specify them.
  • External links: I believe all of these are high-quality links, and each fully abides by the letter and spirit of our relevant policy. While their sum is not "minimal", they have each been carefully selected to pass the standards of "meritable" and "directly relevant to the article". The result is a consequence of two facts: there are an unusually large number of directly relevant high-quality resources online and they are relatively widely dispersed. That said, external links are hardly worth getting into a knotty debate about. If anyone wants to carefully pare the list, I will not challenge that effort. I would ask only one thing—for each link you eliminate, please offer a brief rationale here, so we have a clear new basis for future inclusion and exclusion.
  • Decorative images: The reviewer who raised this issue seems to have missed an important fact: decoration is good. That is why it exists. In the context of Wikipedia, decoration—which more neutrally we might call "illustration"—attracts readers, involves them, and helps retain their attention. Now, our relevant policy demands that fair use images serve a more transcendent purpose. There now remain only three fair use images in the article: each illustrates a film whose unique, historic importance is clearly explicated in the article; each is irreplaceable by free content; and each supports extensive critical commentary.
  • SYNTH. The reviewer who raised this issue seems not to have fully grasped the concept, as the content tied to the two specified notes evidences no arguable synth. Each pertinent main text passage presents data cited to a single source in the notes. Those notes proceed to gloss other, well-known sources for the benefit of those few interested in drilling deeper into the data. I have edited the notes in order to mitigate the impression of "non-neutral lnaguage". I have also elsewhere eliminated a couple phrases from the main text that might have constituted synthy conclusions.
  • Lead length: I admit I favor a relatively terse lede. Anyone else have a strong opinion here?
  • Comprehensiveness: This issue was indeed raised on the article's Talk page, but nothing close to a consensus was reached that a problem exists here. In fact, I believe this is currently the most comprehensive appraisal in any medium of the development, emergence, and immediate consequences of sound film on a global basis. Those who have said they want more have actually asked for an up-to-the-minute technological/industrial article which would logically be film sound—such an article, which Wikipedia is currently lacking, would indeed be quite worthwhile, but its content would diverge vastly from this historical article.
  • Image of Broadway Melody ad/poster: Replaced.
  • LIST: Two of the three arguable "lists" have been eliminated. The remaining narrative presented in bullet-point style concerns the pros and cons of discrete technological and commercial factors of sound-on-disc vs. sound-on-film. I believe the bullet-point style is the most effective and efficient mode for presenting this information, and the result in no way reflects the sort of inappropriate list that our relevant style guideline argues against.
  • Structure: Our standards for structure have hardly changed in the last three years, and I believe the existing structure remains the clearest and most effective. Did the reviewer really consider an alternative structure in which the reader bounces from the U.S. to Japan to the U.S. to England to the U.S. to India to England to...? And how exactly would a precisely chronological structure be structured, when we have precise months of release for the U.S. and England and some Western European nations, but not for much of the rest of the world? If the reviewer can sincerely visualize a preferable structure, please sandbox so we can vet it—in the absence of a well-articulated alternative, I see no way of addressing this concern. The proposal that "Technology should be its own level two heading" is even more obviously ill-considered. It would disrupt, for no appreciable gain, the existing, coherent structure built around the Consequences of sound film's emergence. Furthermore, no philosophical case has been made for this change. No reason has been spelled out to convince us that Technology is uniquely worthy of a level two heading, rather than Commerce or Cinematic form, each of which is just as fundamental an aspect of sound film's history. In sum, the current structure is coherent; the proposal is not.
  • Source quality: I have endeavored throughout, both during the central phase of the article's composition and the editing consequent to this review, to make sure that all sources supporting main text content are of the highest quality available. If anyone has any concerns in this regard, please specify them, and I'll address them immediately.—DCGeist (talk) 08:29, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delist stricken for now. Cirt (talk) 09:49, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I left a few sample edits of items that may need review throughout, and the External link farm could warrant some pruning. I see a lot of unsourced paragraphs, but haven't reviewed the content there yet; are subsequent citations (in later paragraphs) meant to source those paragraphs? If so, can named refs be added? This is a bad link and should be a full citation:

  • See the January 25, 1930, New York Times review for a description.

Also, please review the dabs and dead links in the toolbox at the top of this FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:04, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Update: Per Sandy's observations here and in article edit summary:

  • MOSDATE/p. vs. pp./specified link/dabs/dead (and redirecting) links: All addressed.
  • External links: Cut one identified as amateur. Could really use help in establishing objective basis for further pruning, if necessary.
  • Unsourced paragraphs: I've added 16 more inline citations to address these.—DCGeist (talk) 09:26, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Looking better, ready for review now from others. On the external links, see WP:EL; in theory, because FAs are comprehensive, there should be little need for anything in external links, the idea being that everything important should be covered in the text already. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:49, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Looks in excellent shape overall. I'd certainly be opposed to any restructuring of what is a very clear and comprehensive history of the origins and emergence of sound film. I note that the two people who said on the article's Talk page that it should be entirely transformed to incorporate all sorts of information up to the present-day have not done a lick of work on behalf of their desires: no evident research, no sandboxing, no creation of a new article for a potential merger, nothing. The fact is, we have articles on cinematography and on film editing, and we do need a parallel article on the major craft field of film sound whose title would naturally be, yes, "film sound". But that would be a very different article from this. I have made a standing offer on the article's Talk page to collaborate with anyone who is ready to put in some work and develop a film sound article. As for the present article, I have four observations:

  • Note 17 (on circumstances of first Phonofilm screening): Needs to name the sources that provide the correct info. Unless a major work has gotten it wrong (Crafton, perhaps?), I think all that business can be cut.
  • Note 79 (first Japanese sound film and Burch errors): So Burch is a major source, and his errors are worth correcting in the note. But we need to name the sources that provide the correct info.
  • In "Transition: Asia": The line characterizing the Madhuri short as India's "mini–Dream Street", though helpful, sounds rather like a personal interpretation/observation. There's nothing like it in the cited source, and ithould probably be cut.
  • In "Aesthetic quality": This assertion--"Most latter-day film historians and aficionados agree that silent film had reached an aesthetic peak by the late 1920s and that the early years of sound cinema delivered little that was comparable to the best of the silents"--represents published opinion. Though the following example of the Time Out poll is very useful for elucidating it, it still requires direct citation. DocKino (talk) 20:48, 12 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Looks good. And speaking of those external links, I'm ready to take up the challenge. I may have 9 or 10 cuts for you. First off, I think the "Historical writings" and "Historical recordings" sections are strong--it's unusual for a historical topic to have so much high-quality historical material online. It is all really valuable to someone researching the topic, and is a worthwhile, common-sense exception to the "minimal" standard. That said, there are two pretty obvious cuts here:
  • "A Statement"--cited as a source.
  • Dickson Experimental Sound Film--video deleted at site (also, item itself is blue-linked in article and carries its own ELs, yes?).
Now the lead list of ELs really should be pared to focus on the really strong, helpful, pertinent ones. Here are my suggested cuts. First are three that are accessible via the Film Sound History EL and, just like it, are hosted on filmsound.org:
  • "Documentary and the Coming of Sound".
  • "Moving Pictures That Talk".
  • "100 Years of Cinema Loudspeakers".
And now here are four more proposed cuts, with explanations:
  • Arthur C. Keller Oral History--goes way beyond the scope of this article, and offers most useful info on later technological matters.
  • Edison: The Marriage of Sight and Sound--more appropriate for Kinetoscope article; if the above item's too broad, this one's too narrow.
  • "Hollywood Learns to Sing"--redundant; all of the important material here is very well covered in our article, with much better sourcing.
  • "'You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet, Folks—Listen to This!': The Sound that Shook Hollywood"--amateurish-looking reprint of 1977 New York Times article; we can lose this without great loss, right?
And my possible number 10:
  • "Let's Hear It for Sound"--it strikes me that this article could be a good source for a couple of things that would fit well into "Consequences/Technology": the effect of sound on (1) projection practices and (2) the required quality of film stock (and thus improved visuals).
I'll be interested to hear what you think. DocKino (talk) 05:27, 13 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That all seems reasonable. I've made each of those ten cuts (using "Let's Hear It for Sound" as a source), plus two more, as well--one adopted as a source; the other (a book chapter) already linked in Sources.—DCGeist (talk) 19:06, 13 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And two more external link cuts: the Kinetophone voice auditions, which have no visual component and which are already linked in the Kinetoscope article.—DCGeist (talk) 19:30, 13 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Update: In addition to the adjustments detailed immediately above, I've recently expanded the lede a bit and added several more refs. Of note: Since, the beginning of the FAR, 52 inline citations (including 5 multiples) have been added to the previous total of 113. At this point, pending any specific issues, I believe the article fully meets our current FA standards.—DCGeist (talk) 01:14, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep All concerns addressed. Good to see this brought up to date. An excellent article, now even better. DocKino (talk) 20:52, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Keep This article improved dramatically when reviewed it and I think it really does maintain FA requirements. GamerPro64 (talk) 04:51, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • "they helped secure Hollywood's position as one of the world's most powerful cultural/commercial systems (see Cinema of the United States)"—this is better than a deceptive pipe to Hollywood, surely? Then the readers suspect that the following hidden links actually go somewhere analogous. Link to "film" via a deceptive pipe I didn't think was useful, especially given the link that follows end of that sentence.
  • Doesn't MoS say you don't have to use square brackets to show you've changed the initial case when winding a quote into the grammar of a sentence? Good thing, too, for our sanity: "[I]t ...".
  • The prose looks excellent, as you'd expect from Dan Geist. Tony (talk) 16:03, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Tony. Yes, making the first national cinema link transparent does help suggest the aim of the succeeding links. As for bracketing initial case changes in quotes, no, it appears that the MoS does not address this—because there can't be more than a couple of us fuddy-duddies who do it. It's time to defuddy! I've eliminated the three instances of such bracketing, and feel as fresh as if I'd just loofahed.—DCGeist (talk) 20:59, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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

The article was kept by YellowAssessmentMonkey 02:45, 18 January 2010 [5].

George III of the United Kingdom

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Notified: Ian Rose, DrKiernan, WikiProject British Royalty,WikiProject England

I had thought that all of the Emsworth articles had been reviewed until noticing this hasn't been done. It was originally listed as having no citations but has seen substantial organic improvement. I bring it here just for a look over. I will try to go through the prose myself. Marskell (talk) 17:09, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Image check OK but alt text required. I'll have a go at writing some. In my opinion, this article meets the criteria for comprehensiveness and accuracy. DrKiernan (talk) 09:59, 27 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yep, this is an article which fortunately has stayed on people's watchlists since attaining FA status, so it should be in good shape and just need a few updates from a MOS perspective, e.g. for alt text, as DK points out. I'll go though it from top to bottom as well. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:27, 27 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Actually it looks pretty good as far as MOS goes, though the gold guinea image under William Pitt cuts into the left-hand side of the following section on my screen. Perhaps this image would be better placed in the legacy section. Apart from that, I think we need a bit of work to tighten up the referencing, mainly ensuring each para has at least one citation and/or that we finish every para with a citation:
  • Under Marriage, the last bit of the first para should be cited (it may be just a matter of moving the previous citation to the end, or repeating the first citation of the next para).
  • Ditto first para of American Revolutionary War.
  • Ditto second para of William Pitt.
  • Ditto second para of French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and sentence The possibility of invasion was extinguished after Admiral Lord Nelson's famous naval victory at the Battle of Trafalgar.
  • Ditto second, third and fourth paras of Later Life.
  • Ditto first para of Legacy.
  • Ditto second and third paras under Arms.
Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:49, 27 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Marriage, Nelson, Arms, and one paragraph of Later life done. Pitt merged with follow-on sentence. The remaining paragraphs in the Later life and Legacy sections are just standard facts.
That only leaves the concerns over the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars sections. These are very general statements that surely represent a fair summary? DrKiernan (talk) 11:22, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Exceedingly minor formatting question: is it usual to include the definite article in the dabs of titles? I had started removing them (the Duke of Saxe-Gotha --> the Duke of Saxe-Gotha) but realized it's done throughout. I don't want to introduce an inconsistency.

I think any prose work needed will be very slight. Marskell (talk) 12:56, 28 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"His humane and understanding treatment of two insane assailants, Margaret Nicolson in 1786 and John Frith in 1790, contributed to his popularity." Without a blue link, this sentence leaves me curious for more. Would a short section on assassination attempts be warranted? There seem to have been enough of them.
I really can't find much to complain about in the prose. Napolean's plans to invade are perhaps given too much play relative to the other military history. Conversely, things seem to end rather abruptly at 1809. Did George not have any public role or comment during the later Napoleonic Wars or the War of 1812? The War of 1812 doesn't even get mentioned. One or two more sentences on the etiology of porphyria (as well as any criticism of the theory) might also be in order.
Other than that, I think the coverage is excellent. Marskell (talk) 17:51, 31 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Link to Margaret Nicholson and John Frith (assailant) added; coverage of invasion scare reduced. With regard to his years of darkness, his last public appearance was in October 1810, and most of his powers were transferred in February 1811, with the remainder following a year later. His biographers skate over the last decade of his life as there's really nothing much to say about him personally other than he was ill. DrKiernan (talk) 09:58, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Once DrKiernan and Ian Rose are satisfied here, so am I; I probably won't revisit this FAR unless someone pings me for input. Minor issues: the article mixes citation styles, citation and cite templates (see WP:CITE, and some instances of p. have spaces after them, others don't, in the citations-- please make consistent. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:49, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Citation formatting done. DrKiernan (talk) 09:12, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Close without FARC. After a thorough read through, everything looks great to me, definitely FA quality. A very nice article, which does not need to be taken through the FARC process. Dana boomer (talk) 02:36, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept by YellowAssessmentMonkey 02:45, 18 January 2010 [6].

Final Fantasy VIII

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Review commentary

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Notified: Deckiller, Hibana, Axem Titanium, WikiProject Video games, WikiProject Square Enix

I am nominating this featured article for review because the article fails 1(b) - it fails to mention any Development or Reception content regarding the Windows version release. Also the Merchandise section has only one Reference, the rest of the three paragraphed section is unsourced. — Blue。 01:50, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. There's a ref in the lead, which should be removed as the content's already in the body of the article. There are also a few unreliable sources: FLAREgamer, ffshrine.org, members.tripod.org, Empire arcadiA, and fs.finalfantasytr.com. Also, RPGamer is frowned upon as a source in FAs, but I'm not gonna complain as I use RPGFan as a source myself. :P And isn't TopTenReviews unnecessary; I think GameRankings and Metacritic are sufficient. I also think the prose in the reception section is kinda confusing to read, with all the direct quotations; it seems like overkill. This is a good example on the matter. The Prince (talk) 10:04, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • "ffshrine.org, members.tripod.org" are both used only in linking to translations, with the actual magazine issue in question already linked to. As for the rest I'm looking through them now. RPGamer however should be fine (they are referenced in a few books from a quick Google Books search, and do fall back on Crave Online as a host).--Kung Fu Man (talk) 11:19, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Kung Fu Man has already fixed the PC Reception and citation problems, dude is fast... The merchandise section still needs refs, as noted by Blue. I don't think we need more than a sentence or two about the PC development- they just ported the game, there wasn't much "development" as it had already been created. --PresN 15:46, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm concerned about the following items: Fifelfoo (talk) 10:00, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Citation of corporate authors (Companies, Staff, etc.) needs to be regularised. Square isn't an editor, its a corporate author. Website staff can simply be identified as [Staff] for a news source, or the Company for an official site.
Otherwise I'm quite glad at 2c, there's a recognition that IGN is a news-service but Gamespy is simply a website.
For 1c, though, I'm rather concerned about the use of PRIMARY sources (the game itself)
Similarly at 1c, SELF published material. Square publishing about Square is not particularly reliable.
I'm kind of concerned about the quotes in the references, but I realise they're location information for a difficult medium to identify the location of a proof.
Surely there are some appreciations or critical receptions by now? Yahtzee or more academic?
also this cite needs work, the square brackets: "^ a b c "Final Fantasy VIII". Electronic Gaming Monthly]] (123): 188. January 1999."
While I want to tackle the other points you brought up, this one really stood out:
"Citation of corporate authors (Companies, Staff, etc.) needs to be regularised. Website staff can simply be identified as [Staff] for a news source."
Since *when*, exactly? More often than not you end up stuck with an article unattributed to a particular staff member, but written by the staff. Marking the end result as staff has always been previously acceptable for such items that I've seen before, since it shows the reader clearly it wasn't just a fan submitted piece of material.
This source is authored, not edited
Square Electronic Arts, ed (1999). Final Fantasy VIII North American instruction manual. Square Electronic Arts. pp. 20, 24, 36. SLUS-00892GH.
This source is correctly cited as an author
Square Co.. Final Fantasy VIII. (Square EA). PlayStation. (1999-09-09)
The IGN is slightly redundant, as its obvious from the publisher / work
IGN Staff (1999).
As for other points:
"For 1c, though, I'm rather concerned about the use of PRIMARY sources (the game itself)"
Again, since when has this been a problem for FACs for material related directly to the game? You don't need a website to reitterate what's stated in the game's text before you can cite it after all.
The use of primary sources in general is the invitation to OR and synthesis. This is a challenge to prompt a response indicating the editorial care displayed by the article editors. Fifelfoo (talk)
I'm sorry but that's not the way that works. In this case any secondary source is going to be an interpretation of the primary, which is why heavy care is emphasized by Wikipedia. That is a baffling and, well, ridiculous statement.
I don't know you, or any of the editors, who made their interpretive appreciations of final fantasy 8 in writing the article. This is why direct use of primaries are bad. There is no simple way to interpret a primary source, which is why I'm asking below for more scholarly appreciations of the source. This is the same reason why we don't accept original interpretations of poetry, plays, novels for those wikipedia articles--its original research which should be done by critics, not by a random editor. There is no veracity in your personal interpretation, or any personal interpretation, if it isn't backed up by being published in a Reliable Source. The lack of high quality scholarly reliable sources in video game review at the moment, or a concept of canonicity in video games, means you can get off lightly and rely more heavily on lower quality RS; but the interpretation of primary sources is the job of professionals and scholars publishing in reliable secondary sources, not wikipedia. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:35, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"Surely there are some appreciations or critical receptions by now? Yahtzee or more academic?"
It's being worked on, but at some point sources more or less start repeating themselves. There's only so many times you can cite "we do/don't like this" for the same items. For the record I don't think the VG project finds Yahtzee the most reliable of sources, nor have I seen it fly in many FACs unless cited very carefully. It's like trying to cite the Nostalgia Critic: there's his actual opinion, then there's his gimmick, which might be two very different things.
True. But until we get the Journal of Humanities Video Game Studies... we get it where we can. Fifelfoo (talk)
No, we get it from reliable sources.
"Similarly at 1c, SELF published material. Square publishing about Square is not particularly reliable."
I'm not sure where you mean here. You mean for development information? If so that's perfectly acceptable for FAs: they're the guys behind the bloody thing, why *wouldn't* you cite them directly?
The same reason why I wouldn't cite a government about its own intentions and purposes; or a political party on the value of its ideology. Reluctantly, with care, where no other sources exist. Reasons to distort the actual development process include: creative differences, marketing, unexpected success, unexpected failure, minimizing problems. This is a challenge to prompt a response indicating the editorial care displayed by the article editors. Fifelfoo (talk)
Forgive me but I really can't take that article seriously. One way or another the information behind a game's development comes from the people behind it, whether it be a book by the people behind the item or an interview. You're effectively arguing that because you feel the horse's mouth might be lying, we should get the information from people citing the very same source?
Yes, that's precisely the point. Wikipedia is not a forum for the analysis of texts. Wikipedia is a tertiary work written out of secondary works.
"also this cite needs work, the square brackets: "^ a b c "Final Fantasy VIII". Electronic Gaming Monthly]] (123): 188. January 1999."
It's being worked on.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 11:37, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Other than those, the 2c / 1c looks good. Fifelfoo (talk) 11:54, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've left responses, but in all honesty to seem to be new to the handling of the FAC process on the whole when it comes to video games (and possibly literature items). I would suggest checking FACs around the website as your notions on primary sources in this regard are well in left field.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 12:39, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If other articles play in traffic... Fifelfoo (talk) 22:35, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My concerns with the article are that the article is written to an unnecessary degree from primary and self, leading necessarily due to the nature of interpretation in the humanities (see: hermeneutics) to original research and mis weighting. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:35, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

@Fifelfoo: there is absolutely nothing wrong with using the work itself as a source for plot summary and such. As far as I can tell, all the primary-source refs are in the Story section. Unless you can provide examples of references to primary sources for things other than in-game elements, I see nothing actionable in your concerns. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 10:37, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Primary sources are not inappropriate for using as reference to the game's plot. If there were scholarly articles about the plot, as I'd expect for something like Shakespeare's plays or the like, I'd expect more use of secondary sources, but this is a JRPG; one may be lucky that secondary sources even go farther than the first few hours of gameplay (in a 40+hr game). The problem with primary sources is aleved by the inclusion of quotes in the references so that one can verify the summation (not interpretation) of the work. --MASEM (t) 14:37, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I think I've added every bit of valid reception I can...there's a lot more out there of course, but it's either just repeating what everyone else is saying, or more related to other aspects (such as an analysis of Squall, or why Quistis is boinkable. That stuff belongs in the character list anyway). Merchandising still needs some attention, and there's really not much at all for the PC version (there's one ref I need to check).--Kung Fu Man (talk) 13:53, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Alt text done; thanks. Alt text is present (thanks) but it has some problems. Some phrases in the alt text generally do not add to the description of the visual aspects, and are not verifiable by a non-expert who sees only the images. These names need to be moved to the caption and/or removed as per WP:ALT#Verifiability. The problematic phrases are "North American version", "Squall, Rinoa, and Seifer" (please describe the characters briefly, rather than naming them), "the" (in "shot of the party"), "Balamb Garden", "Selphie, Squall, and Zell", "early boss called "X-ATM092"", "Zell is preparing to summon the Guardian Force Shiva to do ice damage to the enemy". That last phrase has an additional problem in that it repeats the caption; please see WP:ALT#Repetition. Eubulides (talk) 18:48, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fixed? I will never understand why we try to make ALT text describe the way the image looks the most while describing what is actually in the image the least. Surely this is counterproductive, given that a textual description of visual stimuli to blind people is useless. And why does it matter if it's "not verifiable by a non-expert who sees only the images"? That's why it's in the article that is trying to inform the reader/viewer of these facts, n'est pas? --PresN 23:05, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Most visually impaired people are not completely blind; and most blind people (as well as most visually impaired people) were formerly sighted and can interpret text that contains imagery (they're impaired because of cataracts, macular degeneration, glaucoma, etc.). The point of WP:ALT#Verifiability is that alt text should describe only what you can see in the image, and shouldn't contain other details: either those other details are covered in the caption or other adjacent text (in which case repeating them in the alt text would hurt the visually impaired), or the other details are present only in the alt text (in which case the sighted wouldn't be told the details, which would hurt the sighted). Anyway, thanks for improving the alt text. Eubulides (talk) 23:55, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, comprehensiveness, quality of citations. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles finally at Featured topic candidates) 22:39, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm. Seems like the only thing that is really left to do is that Merchandise section- PC reception has been added and the weaker sources replaced. Fifelfoo disagrees with the use of quotations as refs in the plot section, but he's the only one; they are commonly used in VG FAs. --PresN 17:23, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, I went and fixed up the merchandise section. I think everything listed above has been fixed, so-
Keep. --PresN 15:35, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. — Blue。 16:05, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Sjones23 (talk - contributions) 03:45, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. No worries, Cirt (talk) 03:37, 6 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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Removed 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 by YellowAssessmentMonkey 23:33, 31 January 2010 [7].

Phil Collins

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Review commentary

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Notified: Accurizer, McMarmite, Thisisbossi, AreJay, Ataricodfish, WP Progressive Rock, WP London, WP Rock music, WP Musicians

This is a 2006 promotion with citation needed tags, unformatted citations, uncited text, dead links, and the usual smattering of MOS issues. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:48, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I just returned an issue of Mojo to the local university library featuring an article that dealt with Collins' career with Genesis. Unfortunately I can't check it back out, for I had to have a friend check it out for me in the first place (stupid borrowing rules denying alumni lending privileges for periodicals . . .) WesleyDodds (talk) 12:07, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Featured article criterion concerns are referencing, MOS. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 03:02, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed by YellowAssessmentMonkey 23:33, 31 January 2010 [8].

Boy Scouts of America membership controversies

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Review commentary

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Notified: Gadget850, JGHowes, Erp, 99.151.168.32, HiLo48, Alecmconroy, Jagz, Kintetsubuffalo, Haiduc, and WikiProject Scouting, ...

I am nominating this featured article for review because it's been highly unstable and a constant target of people bickering over its format, content, and people pushing their POV--and that includes users on both sides of the fence (pro and anti-Boy Scouts of America, basically). It does not meet modern FA standards, has several tags for cites missing, refs that do not support claims made, and an OR tag. Hopefully users can come together and get it to modern FA standards. FA criterion 1d and 2c especially apply. — Rlevse • Talk • 15:01, 30 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Needs major repair and FA Status has been a detriment to that

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This has significant problems and needs significant repair. Many of the problems give the article itself a POV rather than just covering a POV. Those who prefer to keep it that way cite FA status as a way to discourage significant needed repairs.

This is essentially a "criticism of" category article, one who's subject is itself POV. Such is proper if were handled within Wikipedian standards.

One pervasive problem is that has gone outside of the scope for such articles is two significant areas. One is positioning to both cover and claim exclusive right to cover the OBJECT of the criticism rather than just the criticism.

It also has substantial sections which, instead of covering the POV, seek to make the case for the covered POV, most commonly by covering specially selected material/ examples (e.g. other Scouting organizations) not within the scope of this article for "comparison" purposes, to bolster the POV rather than covering it.

It also rife with reference "bluffs", where the provided reference does not support the statement which cited it as a reference, and, in some cases the provided reference even refutes the statement which cited it.

It has numerous examples of obvious implying of cause and effect with no basis, and followed by a half-hearted disclaimer of such. As if one said: "the number of child molestations rose when John Smith was elected president. However, the is no proof that his election is the cause of the rise"

It also cites references which are at the extreme end of the POV spectrum (such as the "BSADiscrimination.org" website, the most heavily used reference in this article) for FACTUAL material on the OBJECT of the controversy. But it would be proper to cite that website as an example of the criticism/controversy, or for information about the criticism / controversy itself.

There is a much good content in the article, and many sections that do not have the above problems. In particular, the sections that cover the POV itself rather that making the case for the POV or trying to cover the object of the POV do so largely within Wikipedian standards. But it needs significant repair. It does not meet FA standards, and FA status has been quoted and used to prevent the much needed repairs. 75.24.138.102 (talk) 23:21, 14 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn't the Featured Article Review notice be in the article?

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(copied from the article's discussion page)

It seems that major notices about an article are generally put in the article. In this case this notice is only in the discussion section, which most people who read the article never see. North8000 (talk) 11:21, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No. FAR is just a review. Issues such as OR that triggered the review are in the article. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) talk 11:33, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Somebody commented that the FAR wasn't receiving much comment. I'm going to have to tell them that such is not very indicative because FAR notices are only put in places (the discussion section) where most article readers never see them.
I'm going to copy this to the FAR page for this article and suggest that anything further on the thread be put there.....
North8000 (talk) 14:38, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

North8000 (talk) 14:38, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That is not how it's done. The FAR discussion goes here, with the tag notifying of it at the top of the article's talk page. — Rlevse • Talk • 16:37, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the info and clarification.
It was an experienced editor that made that comment about the small amounts of posts on the FAR being indicative of something, and it appears that even they did not understand which led me to misunderstand. Notably, that FAR procedures are such that a lack of a flurry of comments is normal rather than indicative of anything. North8000 (talk) 16:56, 15 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Featured article criterion concerns are POV, original research (content being classified as controversial without a cite saying so), citations. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 03:04, 18 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist - Unsourced information (including quotes) and possible original research are two major concerns. However, another major concern is the issue of recentism and undue weight in the article. The majority of the article (all but a tiny, unsourced paragraph at the end) focus on the issues of homosexuality, athiests and agnostics, all relatively recent issues. Information on the BSAs controversies with regards to race and gender are not explored at all, which they should be in an article that thoroughly covers the controversies of the membership of the organization. Other, more minor issues, include missing alt text, dead links, improperly formatted references. The Bush image has a free-use tag, but the original upload log specifically states "Either fair use screenshot or else not covered under copyright as US govt work." Also, there are a ton of real free-use images on WP, why is only one non-free-use shot used? Dana boomer (talk) 01:08, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist -per Dana. — Rlevse • Talk • 02:50, 28 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
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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 by YellowAssessmentMonkey 01:00, 25 January 2010 [9].

Jonathan Wild

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Review commentary

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Notified: User talk:Geogre, ... Wikipedia talk:WikiProject England, ...

Promoted in October 2004, its a worthy and interesting subject but has fallen way behind current FA standards.

  1. Severe lack of citations, some sections are barely cited at all.
  2. Prose is ok, but not the standard that you'd expect at FA - for instance "By 1724, London political life was experiencing a crisis of public confidence", and "There are a few treatments of Wild that attempt to dramatize his life, but there remains only one full length non-fiction biography on Wild" - British article, and US spelling also.
  3. Two images lack sufficient source data. Parrot of Doom 19:03, 24 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Please add alt text to images; see WP:ALT. Eubulides (talk) 09:44, 26 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested featured article criterion concerns are citations, prose and copyright YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 05:34, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed by YellowAssessmentMonkey 01:00, 25 January 2010 [10].

V for Vendetta (film)

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Review commentary

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Notified: Mailer diablo, Bdj, P-Chan, Cvene64, Oscarthecat, WikiProject Films, WikiProject LGBT studies, WikiProject Comics, WikiProject London, WikiProject Politics,

I am nominating this featured article for review because I feel it no longer meets the featured article criteria. I just tagged it with clean up and ref improve tags. The article contains vast amounts of unsourced content in the article, particularly in "Tie-ins" (unsourced), "Music" (unsourced), and "Differences between the film and graphic novel" (almost entirely unsourced, making it pure WP:OR). It is also using unreliable sources, including IMDB, some personal websites and self-published blogs, etc. The citation formatting is not consistent, with some having bare references, others using templates, and many missing basic details like author, date, etc. This fails criteria 1c and 2c. The article does not follow WP:MOSFILM well, and the sectioning is a little excessive. Themes should be below plot, development and production really should just be a single section. "Publicity and release" should likely be added there as well, or publicity moved to production and release made a single section with home media merged in. It has several badly done quote breakouts (which should only be used for those 4 lines or longer). The music section should be part of production or under home media as a subsection; home media also gets overly detailed on the DVD releases. The lead does not meet WP:LEAD as it is not properly summarizing the article. This relates to criteria 2 and 4. I also am concerned that it has too many non-free images, with neither of the two appearing in the body seeming to be necessary nor sourced to their claims. This relates to criteria 3. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 20:31, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Remove. I think Collectionian did a good job in listing the faults. The lack of MOSFILM really sticks out. --Mike Allen 23:18, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I've re-organized all the sections, improved the infobox, and unbolded the cast, to meet the WP:MOSFILM guidelines. --Mike Allen 01:27, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Most of the issues outside of the sourcing (lack of, and selection of) should be fixable with some elbow grease (some has been done, noted above). I'm not seeing a problem with the 3 non-frees - movie poster is acceptable, and the two in-film shots show scenes of imagary/symbolism discussed in the text. The "Differences" section needs more quotes from the comic book to support the last paragraph (eg, stating that the comic took place at location A while the film at location B is a fair difference that can be sourced to the primary work itself) - the second-to-last para of this section, however, is going to likely need some secondary sources to establish a differentiation in character between works. I think this can avoid FAR, but it needs someone to dig in and fix the MOS and sourcing issues very soon. --MASEM (t) 15:15, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: The article uses no print sources as references, which is indicative of a lack of comprehensiveness. (Online sources are usually brief and lack in-depth coverage found in periodicals.) Here is a list of sources that can be used:
  • Keller, James R. (2008). V For Vendetta As Cultural Pastiche: A Critical Study of the Graphic Novel and Film. McFarland. ISBN 0786434678.
  • Reynolds, James (September 2009). "'KILL ME SENTIMENT': V For Vendetta and comic-to-film adaptation". Journal of Adaptation in Film & Performance. 2 (2): 121–136. doi:10.1386/jafp.2.2.121_1. ISSN 1753-6421.
  • Williams, Tony (November 2006). "Assessing V For Vendetta". CineAction (70): 16–23. ISSN 0826-9866. "Looks at V FOR VENDETTA in the current political climate."
  • Shay, Estelle (July 2006). "Overview: Dan Glass on V for Vendetta". Cinefex (106): 15–20. ISSN 0198-1056. "An overview of visual effects supervisor Dan Glass' and Cine -site's work on V FOR VENDETTA."
  • Winterton, Ian (April 2006). "Fear Me". Empire (202): 89, 91–95. ISSN 0957-4948. "Cast and crew discuss the making of and the themes in the film V FOR VENDETTA."
  • Wolff, Michael (February 2006). "R for Revolution". Vanity Fair (546): 44, 46–47. ISSN 0733-8899. "Article considering V FOR VENDETTA as a reflection of the post-9/11 world, and placing it in the tradition of 'cultural sabotage' embodied by films such as IF.... and A CLOCKWORK ORANGE."
  • "The V for Vendetta". Film Review (664): 80–81. December 2005. ISSN 0957-1809. "Co-creator Dez Skin and original artist David Lloyd discuss the genesis and controversy surrounding the release delay of V FOR VENDETTA."
The above resources are from just one index and show that this article is hardly comprehensive enough to be a Featured Article. Other thoughts: The "Differences" section needs to be trimmed clean of indiscriminate comparisons (discoverable with lack of authoritative sourcing). "Books" subsection should be put in a "Further reading" section at the end of the article. "V" daggers screenshot is not necessary and can be replaced with descriptive text. Erik (talk) 16:05, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested featured article criterion concerns are citations, original research and comprehensiveness YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 05:33, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist while some of the MoS issues have been fixed, most of the major issues, including the inconsistent citation formatting, unsourced content and seeming OR, and the lack of comprehensiveness and use of some pretty major sources have not been addressed. It seems unlikely they will be in the remaining time of this FAR, as there has been little activity on the article at all since the initial clean ups done on the 21st. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 05:42, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've updated the infobox MoS again, going by things I've learn from the 21st to now. Also the referencing date formats are inconsistent. Well, the MoS is the least of this articles' worries.. but that's what stands out to me, as I haven't really read the article's content, because... well the film itself doesn't interest me. :P I hope I've been some help. —Mike Allen 06:03, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist due to the article not being comprehensive enough. It is in okay shape for a Good Article, but the research for the article does not go deep enough. Erik (talk) 18:54, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist, agree with this assessment as provided above by Erik (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 22:29, 11 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist. The main issue is the lack of references and the use of low-quality (although in many cases technically reliable) sources rather than high quality book and journal sources, such as those listed in the article's Further reading section and the list provided by Erik in the FAR section above. Other concerns include lack of alt text and improperly formatted references. Dana boomer (talk) 01:23, 23 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed by YellowAssessmentMonkey 01:00, 25 January 2010 [11].

Serial Experiments Lain

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Review commentary

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Notified: $yD!, WikiProject Anime and manga

I am nominating this featured article for review because there are some issues need to be resolved before this article meets the current FA status which I will list below.

  • Done.
  • All the pictures in the article need alternate text.
  • Anime on DVD reference has not been changed to their current Mania ones. (ref 36)
  • The |publisher= field needs to be filled in for all references.
  • The episode refs (eg. 11 and 12) are possibly not needed as the plot does not need refs? Not really sure about this.Extremepro (talk) 13:05, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment These all seem like fairly small issues that could be fixed pretty quickly. Not sure a FAR is really needed but will work on some of these. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 14:57, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Plot issues fixed. Delinked the episodes, though the references still need to be fixed to add their missing basic information. My biggest issue with the article is the media all being shoved off to a media list, which goes against current standards for anime/manga articles and seems to have been purely to remove non-FA level content from the article. Having a standalone episode list I could understand, but the single video game and the few art books and soundtracks could and should be covered in the main in prose properly, IMHO. Looking closer, the character section is lacking in references for many elements, which is required as it is not pure plot summary. So striking above. Also looking closer at some references, they are non-RS. Attempting to address them now. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 15:08, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Breakdown of questionable sources:
    1. Movie Gazette (#2, 5, 18) - appears to be a self-published personal site - is Tim Marchant, the site's editor/author a noted expert in films?
    2. Anime-revolution (#8) - dead link
    3. http://www.cjas.org/~leng/ (#9, 20) - some university student's personal website
    4. CorneredAngel (#10) - itself not a reliable source, reprinting a university student's essay with no details on what make it reliable[12]
    5. TV Tropes (#15) - already long rejected as being non-RS - user editable
    6. Anime Lyrics (#28) - distributions illegal materials; complete violation of WP:COPYRIGHT
    7. BeatJapan (#34) - dead link of archive of dead link....
    8. Sci Fi Weekly (#35) - dead link since it went to SyFy and they seemed to have dumped most old content
    9. DVD Net Review (#39) - the author Tony Lai is not listed as one of the site's staff[13] and what makes the site reliable?

There are also some episode cites being used to cite interpretations rather than plot, which would fall under WP:OR -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 15:34, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • I'll try to have a look at the sources in the coming week. What would be the guidelines to include all media in the article? They were removed during FAC because that was the norm back then. --SidiLemine 15:42, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
See Tokyo Mew Mew for a current FA with a media section, and WP:MOS-AM for the general guidelines. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 16:08, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Collectonian, I'd point out that Leng is not 'some university student'. He earned his doctorate studying anime & otaku, for starters, and has more than a few publications, lectures, panels, etc., and has covered first-hand the industry for something like 2 decades now; his writings report many invaluable events, such as Toshio Okada's residence & talks at MIT, to mention just one. If he is not an expert we can quote, then no American (such as Carl Horn or Susan Napier) is. --Gwern (contribs) 15:59 11 December 2009 (GMT)
That is not evidenced by the site itself. What he earned his doctorate in is irrelevant, but the publications what what not are. As I said, they were questionable, and not an outright rejection of all (though most). Struck that one. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 16:08, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment There is no RS to assert both Japanese & English voice actors casts. While the Anime Jump! interview reference is ok, i don't see why weight was given to Anime Jump! review in the reception section. Thanks. updated --KrebMarkt 21:19, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested featured article criterion concerns are original research, reliable sources, copyright. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 02:28, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed by YellowAssessmentMonkey 02:45, 18 January 2010 [14].

Anabolic steroid

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Review commentary

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Notified: All six Wikiprojects involved [15][16][17][18][19][20] Wikidudeman [21] Xasodfuih[22]

I am nominating this featured article for review because if is not that well organized, some of it is confusing, and it is still limited in scope.

  1. Does not discuss trend in usage.
  2. Starts by says they are "a class of steroid hormones" yet on the steroid hormones page are not listed as one of the five classes
    done
  3. "related to the hormone testosterone" does that include testosterone? And a couple others should be listed in the lead
    done
  4. "stimulate bone growth" is mentioned in the lead however this is no longer done due to growth hormone and the article should reflect this
  5. medical uses section is a list. Should be presented as prose. Some uses are unreferenced. How effective for all these indications should be mentioned. A number of conditions are historical, some are in research stages, and others listed were found to be not effective.
  6. Mechanism of action and Pharmacodynamics are listed under side effects?
    done
  7. Improvement tags are present
  8. Nothing on there veterinary use?
  9. Indications should come after history
    done
  10. I do not like this wording as fairly low is vague. "It is difficult to determine what percent of the population in general have actually used anabolic steroids, but the number seems to be fairly low" This ref says it is widespread [23]
  11. Too much primary research is cited rather than reviews. These review for example seems to contradict the above [24][25] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:32, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Please notify significant contributors, and link the Project notifications at the top of this page so they can be verified. (See WP:FAR instructions.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:05, 12 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Image review

Comment. Please see WP:ALT for advice about the alt text that the images all need. Eubulides (talk) 07:15, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested featured article criterion concerns are comprehensiveness, prose structure, referencing. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 02:31, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist, unsourced parts and concerns about comprehensiveness. Cirt (talk) 03:49, 6 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist as due to the unaddressed issues above.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 10:47, 7 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist. Per DocJames' comments (the largest issue, IMO, especially the primary research issue), plus: Major expansion banner, plus multiple (valid) citation needed tags in place, some since 2008. Improperly formatted citations, including not-widely-known abbreviations, missing publishers, access dates, and titles in web refs. Why are the works in the Further reading section not used? If they are out of date (i.e. possibly the 1997 work), should they be removed (this is a question for the medref people, I'm not completely sure)? Images still lack alt text, although this is a secondary issue. Dana boomer (talk) 20:04, 17 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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The article was removed by YellowAssessmentMonkey 23:49, 12 January 2010 [26].

Military brat (U.S. subculture)

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Review commentary

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Notified: User:Balloonman, User:Awiseman, WP:MILHIST

I have nominated this article because I feel it has significant structural weaknesses and does not meet certain criteria of WP:WIAFA. I noticed that there was a prior FAR, however I do not feel that it touched upon any of the critical weaknesses of the text. So here I am.

The main issues as I see them are 1c and 1d. There appears to be a heavy "pro-military" view pervasive through the text. Most strikingly, it shows in the choice of images—US armed forces pics of smiling families and happy kids complete with inane captions reads like a US Army brochure. The references do not appear to meet the "high quality" requirements: I could find little in the way of evidence that Aletheia Publications, for example, meets the criteria, and a great deal of references (Ender, Cottrell, Eakin, Jordan, Price, Tyler, Smith, Williams) are from one or more Aletheia publications. They do not appear to have a web presence, but they are definitely a small press and [27] suggests they are relatively recent and only have five employees.

Examples of in-text POV language or issues with tone:

  • "...In researching her book, Wertsch identified common themes from interviews of over 80 offspring of military households. While this book does not purport to be a scientific study, subsequent research has validated many of her findings..." There is no citation for this; the next citation comes for a blockquote and is a dead link.
  • Weasel phrasings: "While some may not like the origins of the term, most are comfortable with it", sourced to [28], which shows that the citations to Wertsch may not be the most neutral either.

Among the more minor issues are dead links (as mentioned above) and [citation needed] tags in the body. I'm concerned the external links section might need auditing as well. I'm a bit pressed for time, so I haven't fully checked the images; at the very least lots of them need cleanup, which will help in checking that they are all actually legitimate free use images. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 22:21, 19 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments I agree with the 1(c) and 1(d) concerns discussed above. My comments are:
    • While the article states that the term 'military brat' is applied to the children of service personnel in several English-speaking countries, the article contains no comparisons of the experiences of American children with those from other countries. This means that the article isn't comprehensive and criterion 1(b) isn't met.
    • Some of the referencing seems a bit dubious; for instance, the statement that "But most assimilate quickly and well as they have to do so with each move" is referenced to something which, according to the text in the footnote, states that a very high proportion of these kids feel isolated, and the statement that "In 1991, Mary Edwards Wertsch "launched the movement for military brat cultural identity"" is referenced to an Amazon.com product page and the two paras devoted to her book feel a bit spammy and aren't properly referenced to independent sources (the second para is a direct quote from the book's introduction praising it!).
    • Some text isn't referenced at all
    • The article strongly implies that all military families live on base and that there are no significant non-military or non-school influences on the children. I doubt that this is correct for the US military.
    • I agree that the photos are sentimental and detract from the article's credibility Nick-D (talk) 10:27, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • The reason why this is on the (US Subculture) is because there has been no research done on brats from other countries. The only "research" was for Grace Clifton to take US research and speculate whether or not it would be true for British brats as well.---Balloonman NO! I'm Spartacus! 21:48, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Image review

Comment. Please add alt text to the images; see WP:ALT. Eubulides (talk) 23:47, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment: I notice the ref for the use of Brat in the UK seems to imply a different usage of the term Brat (ie. British Regiment Attached Traveller, as oppose to a buzzword for child). I'd like to see a few more refs for the line "The term is used in several English-speaking countries, especially Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom" in the lede. I grew up in a military environment with all the postings abroad and fatherly absences that accompany it, and I'm afraid to say I've never heard the term used in the UK. Ranger Steve (talk) 00:23, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Actually, the British Regiment Attached Traveller is one of the many explanations as to the use of term Brat being tied to military children and is used to reference military Children. Grace Clifton, the only person whom I found to do any research on British brats (and his research was only hypothetical at the time) uses that acronym explicitly for military brats. One of the more reputable Brat organizations takes it for fact that British Regimented Attached Traveller is the origin for the term, but based upon my research, I think that is highly unlikely.[29]---Balloonman NO! I'm Spartacus! 21:45, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment re ref other militaries esp UK. the OED has this to say on the meaning "military brat n. N. Amer. colloq. a child with a parent, or parents, in the armed forces; esp. one who exhibits behavioural problems associated with the unsettled and itinerant nature of military life. " I personally think if there is a British term for the same thing it is unlikely to have the word "brat" which is uncommon in British use except as "spoiled brat". GraemeLeggett (talk) 16:55, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I've never heard of it being applied to the children of Australian military personnel either. Nick-D (talk) 21:21, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Looking through the history of this article I notice there have been numerous debates and effort on its title and world view before, so I'm sorry to tread old ground. I'm obviously going to be a little guided by the fact I've not experienced this term before, but it seems to me that there are very few refs to back up its use outside of the US (or at least its use in some other countries). Would it not be more appropriate therefore, to just make that very clear from the outset? A year ago I deleted an extremely annoying opening sentence on an article, but it seems to me that it might be an appropriate opener here. If all the research has been done in the US and none outside of it, then we have to go with what the sources tell us. Personally, unless some other sources can be found, I'd be tempted to delete (US subculture) in the title as well, and just explain that it's a US phenomena in the first sentence.
At the moment, by trying to claim some sort of usage in other countries, I agree that it fails criterion 1(b) and 1(c). It might also fail 1(d), purely because it is trying to present a worldy topic where there may not be one. I'd also say it fails 2(b). Where is the section on the history of the term? I would also very much like to see the opening sentence referenced, as I can't see a ref for it in the main text.
I'm also concerned by the spin off effect this article will have in its current form. If this is a US centric ideal then it seems wrong to apply it to other countries so easily, as this article does. Backdating a term that (as far as this article makes out) has only existed since the 60's, to apply to people in other nations another 40 years before that seems dubious and maybe WP:SYNTH to me. There is no indication in the list as to whether or not their parents being in the military had any bearing on their development, or that the term Military Brat has ever been used to describe these people (Yep, I'm thinking of people like Christopher Lee specifically). Ranger Steve (talk) 11:17, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The term is most definitely used in those countries, just because you may not have heard it does not negate the fact that it is used for self identification among non-American brats. Here are just a few sources. Note, some of these may not be "reliable" in the sense of [{WP:RS]], but they do show self identification. Americans do seem to have embraced the term more than other countries, but that does not negate the fact that it is used elsewhere.
As for the term being coined in the 1960's. That is simply not accurate. Morton Ender, the main researcher on the subject, indicated he has traced the use of the term "brat" to define a child of a military person dates back to the US Civil War. While he admits to not knowing the origins of the term, the origin story he believes to be the most compelling is that the term came about from the camp followers. Soldier A: "Whose that kid?" Soldier B: "Oh he's my brat." At that time it probably didn't have the same positive connotations, but this is the origin story I find most compelling. Debbie Adams, an author for the magazine Military Brat, mentions two of the origin stories. One from the Civil War and the other from it originating in Britian during the 18th century.[48]
While it may be true that the specific term "military brat" is probably more recent than the civil war, that is more likely the result of linguistic reclamation of the older term "brat." As for applying it to people who predate the term? Was Malcolm X really an "African American?" How about any of these List of African-American abolitionists? The term African American was not used back then, but has evolved to be the term used to describe Blacks/Negroes/Colored People/etc. I personally called myself an "Army brat" (and cringed) all my life despite my dad being in the Air Force. The specific term "Military brat" only became widespread after I graduated from High School. My dad who graduated from HS in the early 60's grew up his whole life knowing that he too was a "brat".---Balloonman NO! I'm Spartacus! 23:19, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the info Ballonman, must say I find it interesting that this is used by people in the UK at all, but as this link you provided states, it seems to the influence of the web that is seeing it used in more countries. Don’t worry, I don't mean to imply that just because I haven’t heard of the term means that it doesn’t exist, only that that’s why I’m commenting on the issue.
I must admit though, I ’m having trouble with this article. I realise that there are very few studies on “Military Brats” in countries other than the US, but I would frankly be absolutely astounded if there wasn’t any research into the social effects of growing up in a military family in Britain. I can say this with confidence because I remember covering it to a minor extent in my Sociology GCSE, and I know people whose job it is to help military families with many of the issues described in this article. The thing is, we just don’t refer to children as Military Brats. Yes, some may self identify themselves as brats, but there is a difference between self identification and a recognised term to identify a group. I’ve heard plenty of phrases – service families, forces families, forces kids, etc… but not Military Brats. Saying that there has been no research done on brats from other countries is not something I can believe I’m afraid. It just goes under a different name.
So, is the problem here that the article is about a social phenomenon but limited to one country’s name for it (and thus limited in the research it can make use of)? Perhaps this article should be renamed Military Brat, and just say something like “In the US, Military Brat is a term used to describe Children of Armed Forces personnel…. Slim the rest of it down and transfer the rest to the new article and then expand that with international coverage. Just a thought.
On the subject of this article as it stands now, as I’ve said, you’re dealing with someone who has no familiarity with the term here (despite apparently being a Military Brat myself, although it is not something I would label myself as), so I can only go with what this article tells me. As I’ve said above it would benefit from a history section especially given that, at the moment, there is no mention of any use of the term pre 1970’s (guess I should have said 1970 instead of 1960 above). This is why we’re here of course, as I would personally expect more information on the history of the term from a featured article.
As for extending the name to other nationalities, while the term African American might be relatively new, it is a widely recognised term internationally. It is also considered respectful. Military Brat, as discussed, is a US centric term to describe a socio factor, and may well be considered derogatory in other countries. Listing a number of British (and other nationalities) people who just happen to have had a parent in the armed forces as ‘Military Brats” is like listing President Ulysses S. Grant as a Victorian man. Besides which I’m sure it won’t be difficult to find a reference saying “Malcom X was an African American….”, but I’m still waiting to see one for any of the people in the list saying they are “Military Brats”. I’m sorry but I find the comparison a bit tenuous. As you say yourself below: “any cross cultural exploration would be original research”. Regards Ranger Steve (talk) 00:37, 5 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have little doubt that the use in other countries has increased due to the use in US, but it is used and when the article goes without the US Subculture it gets tagged repeatedly with Globalization and US Centric, and all sorts of other tags.
As for research, I can't respond to your personal experience. I can only respond to what researchers have stated. Morton Ender, the premier authority on the subject, has stated in several of his publications that he laments the fact that no significant research on the children of military personell have been conducted outside of the US. Clifton, a Brit, similarly regrets the fact that there hasn't been actual research into the subject. His reserch provided the only research into non-US brats that I could find, but his research is mere speculation on how British Brats would compare to the research performed by Ender/Wertsch. His reseach is not supported by actual studies, but rather lays the foundation for which such research might be conducted. He blatantly states that there is "no significant literature" on British Brats. My guess is that what you've read would be insignificant speculation or extrapolation, not true research on Brats. Ann Cotrell, who is an authority on Third Culture Kids, has also mentioend the lack of research on non-US brats. When she talks about Military Brats she has gone out of her way to indicate that what she says about Military Brats is true only for US Brats because of this dearth in research elsewhere. She has explicitly stated that brats in other countries do not fit the same criteria as US brats because most countries do not relocate families (particularly overseas) to the same degree as the US military and that the role of the US military is different from that in many countries. When she talks about other types of Third Culture Kids, she will talk about the similarities/differences between nations, but goes out of her way to indicate that there is no research on non-US brats to make these comparisons.
The use of African American was just one of many that could have been made. When new demographic populations are identified, it is not uncommon to look through history to see if certain demographic themes can be identfied. The fact is that "Military Brat" is a term used by sociologist to describe the segment of community that are children of military personell and it contains no inherent bias/negative connotations. (Even Clifton uses the term Military Brat in his British sociological research to describe the segment of the population that has military parentage.)
I would not be opposed to a history section, if we had something other than original research on the history. Like I said, my dad grew up pre-1965 with the term "brat" and I grew up as an "army brat" (despite my dad being in the air force) I personally never heard the term military brat as a child---but I was firmly aware that I was a brat. According to Ender, the term, "Brat", has been traced back to be used in conjunction with military children back to the civil war. Also, note the book "Psychiatry and the Army Brat" which was published in 1970. Unless that book was coining a new term, I think it is safe to say that the term was in common use back then. Mary Wersch's book may have been published in 1991, but it dealt primarily with baby boomer era brats and before---who proudly referred to themselves as brats. Some of the interviews discussed how/when people became aware of the term and how the might not have liked it at first, but came to embrace it... again we are talking about kids who grew up in the 40s/50s/60s.
As for your notion of moving the article and trimming it, please review the extensive discussions on the subject. That is a very bad idea which I firmly oppose. Trying to "trim" it to fit what works for brats of other countries would be 100% original research. The subject has been discussed, but there are very few things that you can state universally about military brats. I also oppose "trimming" for the sake of making it "global" or less US specific, you don't get rid of information because of a lack of information elsewhere. That makes no sense whatsoever.---Balloonman NO! I'm Spartacus! 23:50, 7 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As I said above I'm afraid I just can't believe that there has been no research into the children of forces families in any country other than the US. I wonder if the researchers you mention above are perhaps too fixated with the brat tag. Here are some articles from a very quick google search using just one alternative name for a child with parents in the services:
BBC - Forces children face 'time bomb' Recent report into military children, doesn't use brat at all.
The Independant Please notice in this one that Military Brat is mentioned, but is considered derogatory.
Children and Young People Daily Bulletin This looks like it may be reporting the same paper as above, but doesn't use brat at all.
BBC Report from three years ago.
BBC Report from ten years ago.
Forces Childrens Trust A quick scan doesn't reveal brat here.
The Armed Forces Childrens Education Fund This one's interesting, its an American charity that doesn't use brat.
News of the World Not the best paper, but they don't use brat either.
I also think that some organisations might dispute the researchers claims of no study of the phenomena of forces kids outside the US:
The Royal Navy and Royal Marine Children's Fund
Sailors Families Society
SSAFA
The Army Welfare Service
It strikes me that this article is all about the social and psychological effects of growing up in a forces family. Whatever name is used, that is a global phenomena, but this article is tied to one country's name for it. Thus it fails to provide a worldly view, even though I imagine there is loads of research into the subject. As for the lists of famous brats, "Military Brat' is, as you have identified yourself, a term used almost exclusively by American sociologists to talk about a name that has only been seriously studied in the US. Although Clifton uses the term, he would appear to be using it with a different meaning. A more recent study has now considered it derogatory in the UK, so it clearly does contain negative connotations. Once again, there are no references to suggest that the other nationalities in the list have ever self identified themselves as brats, or been called brats. It seems to me to be original research to take one country's cultural identities and apply them to another without any references. You agree with this position below, the same applies here. Ranger Steve (talk) 10:00, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
PS. I think you may have misunderstood my suggestion for moving the article. I wouldn't trim it at all. First I would move it, in its entirety, to something like Children of Armed Forces personnel. Then I'd expand that article to make use of research from other countries that doesn't use the term Military Brat (such as above) to provide a more worldly view of the cultural phenomena of growing up in a military family. The article Military brat (US subculture) would exist as a redirect, and the article Military brat could take a condensed version of the research currently contained here, with a similar opening to the one it has at the moment. There's no question of trimming it, just moving it to a more appropriate title and expanding it. This is a global phenomena, and the references to expand it do exist. Regards Ranger Steve (talk) 10:54, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Please provide some sources. I've provided three sources, who have explicitly stated that research on non-US brats is non-existent. I do believe that Ender (the premier expert on Military Brats) and Cotrell (one of the leading researchers on Third Culture Kids) are smart enough to know to look for research using other terms than just military brat. These are highly respected individuals within their fields. (I don't include Clifton not because Clifton isn't qualified/respected, but rather because I am not as familiar with him. Both Cotrell and Ender are routinely cited as authorities by others.) EDIT: The source that I just noticed above is just within the past month... so it is new and might be worth incorporating into the article.
As for providing a more "worldly view of the cultural phenomena of growing up in a military family." Can you define it? How often do military families move? In the US quite frequently, in other countries not that often. How about moving to foreign countries? Unless engaged in a military action most militaries do not have bases in foreign countries, but the US (and formerly USSR) it is quite common. Do families accompany military personell, in the US generally yes, in other countries not that often (especially overseas). What about the risk of war? Some countries the military is more of a police force where in seeing action is unlikely, in other countries you are essentially guaranteed to see combat regardless of your job. Is the military voluntary or is mandatory service required? Experiences in an all volunteer force are different from ones where everybody has to serve a term. To what degree do families live on military bases? This differs from country to country. How about the role of women? Are woment allowed in the military? How about combat roles? What about (country specific) racial minorities? What is a "wordly view of the cultural phenomena of growing up in a military family?" Can you provide ANY sources to substantiate your position? The answer will be no. When I researched the subject, the authors of various studies routinely indicated that their research was on U.S. brats, not on children from other countries. In short, I would oppose the creation of any a generic article that used the sources I've read. Heck, I'd cite Clifton to support that opposition!
As for Clifton using the term Brat in a different meaning, bullshit. That tells me that you didn't look up the source. The article is explicitly a summarization of Ender and Wertsch's research and how Clifton thinks military brats from England would compare to the American version. The article summarizes findings from Ender/Wertsch as they apply to US brats, then Clifton explains why he thinks the finding would apply to brats from England. Clifton attributes the acronymn "British Regimented Attached Traveller" as the origins of the term Brat, but he is definitely talking about children of military personell.
As for your "study" please provide the reference that show that brat, when used in the military brat context. I have no doubt that the word 'brat' by itself is considered derogatory. It is considered derogatory in the US as well, unless used in this context. I've provided sources above that show that the term is used to self identify military brats from other countries (such as England) and that when it is so used it is not derogatory.
As for Children of Armed Forces personnel please provide sources to support that name change. The article shows sociologist and academics who use the term "Military Brat" in academic research/studies. The term "Military Brat" is the appropriate term, changing it as you suggest would amount to original research and personal bias.---Balloonman NO! I'm Spartacus! 15:39, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Just took a closer look at the sources you provided:
  1. The research study that is not yet available, but reported on in November 2009 looks like it probably has some interesting things to say that could possibly be added to the article. I am interested in seeing what it says, because it appears to be a piece of significant literature to which didn't exist prior to last month. The fact that there are negative stereotypes to the term military brat does not negate the fact that it is A) used and B) accepted. The fact that the authors use it supports the notion that it is used in England in this context. The fact that it has negative stereotypes does not mean that it isn't accepted. The authors may view them as negatives, but part of the reason why Military Brats use it is because it becomes a badge of honor. There is a Disney movie, Tiger Cubs, where the lead character is adamant that she is not a "Military Brat." She is extremely vocal about that fact because she isn't a brat, by the end of the movie she has come to grips with the term and embraces it herself. In other words, I am extremely interested in the full report not just a sound byte. But of course, this article is about the US subculture, not British brats. This source MIGHT make the foundation for changing the name of the "List of"s but it does not affect this article, I am also a little concerned about the scholarship of that "study." (see below.)
  2. The BBC articles are not significant pieces, but rather fluff pieces that really don't say much if anything.
  3. The fact that articles don't use the term does not mean the term is not used or accepted. Do non-military families have trouble using the term? Yes. One of the researchers, and I believe she is cited in the article, actually said that she was uncomfortable using it, but it was the term the studied community used and embraced. It is part of linguistic reclamation.
  4. You provided four organizations with the note, 'I also think that some organisations might dispute the researchers claims of no study of the phenomena of forces kids outside the US.' Only one of those organizations actually has a link to a study, the one released LAST month. In the US, research didn't really begin until the 1990's on brats. There were a few published pieces, but not much. Most of what was used prior to the 1990's, was conjecture and opinion pieces based upon individual experiences. With the exception of the new report that was announced a month ago, none of the links you provided had any mention of any research or studies performed on children of British military. At least I couldn't find any.---Balloonman NO! I'm Spartacus! 16:44, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

<Outdent> On a slightly different topic, I have to question the report that was released on November 4 2009. If you look at the footnotes supporting the statistics used, the footnotes indicate that the survey was conducted from October 30 to November 4, 2009. This is a huge red flag regarding the reliability and objectivity of the report. Now it may be a misprint, but if they just finished the survey, how can they provide results to said survey the same day? Like I said, I am interested in seeing the report and have no doubt that this will be an oft cited report, but this makes me question the reports scholarship. (It is definitely self published.) Also, about the research, note that one of the principle reasons behind the report is a cry to do more research on this community. I am also curious as to how they used the US research. Did they use US research in lieu of actually studying British Brats or did they use it as a jumping off point to do valid comparisons? Based on what little I've learned over the years about how the British army works, I suspect the former and not the later. There are several things that *I* associate more with US military experiences than with British military experiences. For example, it is my understanding that British Military families are not nearly as mobile as their US counterparts, but this article cites that as a defining characteristic. This is contrary to what (little) I know about the British military. If that is the case, then I have serious problems with this "study" as most of the research done in the US is exclusive to US brats. Most researchers want there to be research performed on British brats, not extrapolating US research onto the experiences of others.---Balloonman NO! I'm Spartacus! 17:04, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Wow. Just wow. Ignoring the insults and aggressive attitude, you have clearly misjudged what this FAR and my comments above are about. I have just demonstrated that research into military forces children exists in countries other than the US. And not just research, but organisations tasked to work with these kids as well. So what if they haven’t published a paper in an academic journal? Does the fact they are working to alleviate the problems suffered by some forces children not prove that this phenomena exists outside of the US? The 2 BBC articles aren’t good enough for you? Please read them more carefully. The British government has been studying the effects of this for at least the last ten years. I don’t think that that’s insignificant speculation or extrapolation. Please understand the point I’m making here. I’m going to lay it out really carefully so that it is clear, because you don’t seem to have understood it from what I’ve said above.
The concept of a Military Brat is not limited to the US alone. It exists anywhere where children have parents who work in the forces. However, in different countries these children are referred to differently.
That this is an international phenomenon keeps getting brought up here, but also that the name is not recognised outside of the US. Yes, some people may self identify as brats, but there is no official use of the term outside of the US. In other countries it can be considered derogatory, as I have shown. Here’s the quote from the Independent link above:
"Some face bullying at school, dismissed as "military brats" once it is known they have a parent in the forces. "One of the main problems of being labelled a 'military brat' is the stereotypical image of a child from a military background – one of authoritative parenting, buzz haircuts, withdrawn emotions and relocating frequently," the authors say."
And the OED:
"military brat n. N. Amer. colloq. a child with a parent, or parents, in the armed forces; esp. one who exhibits behavioural problems associated with the unsettled and itinerant nature of military life."
These are hardly positive references to the term are they? Anyway, as it has been shown that the cultural phenomenon exists in other countries, isn’t it worth expanding the article to incorporate this? Yes. Is it appropriate to use the title Military brat (US subculture) in such an article? No.
Consider this idea: So far there isn’t a catchy name for forces kids in Britain or other western countries, but lets just assume that there was. Lets call it Forces Kids for the sake of argument. If an article were written on it, would that be a good idea? Or would it be worth merging it with articles on exactly the same phenomena in different countries? There is no reference for Children of Armed Forces personnel, it’s a generic name to describe an international cultural phenomena. Much the same as Military use of children.
This is Wikipedia, not a research institute. All of the refs I provided show evidence of the phenomena, and could easily be incorporated into this article (note article – not a research paper). Speaking strictly personally here, one problem I find with this article is that it reads too much like a research paper into the psychological and sociological effects of being a ‘brat’ and not much else. It isn’t about the term Military brat at all (if it was I doubt we’d be here). If it was, there would be a history section, there might be a section on attempts to deal with the issue (which is where all four of those organisations would come in, Think of something like: In Britain several charities and organisations have been set up that work to deal with the issues faced by military families and children… On several occasions in the past the British government has studied the effects of growing up in a military family on a child’s education …etc…etc…) At the very very least there would be a section about the concept outside of the US. But hey, that’s just my opinion.
As for your second paragraph above, Britain still has a lot of bases around the empire you know. Besides which, the differences between military forces and their effect on children is exactly what Wikipedia should be tackling (WIAFA 1b). Admittedly we can’t describe the effect of growing up in a military family in Iceland lets say, because there is no research and no other Reliable Sources to use, but as we already have one country that does, we can start. And what about historically? I’m sure there’s plenty of RSs about the huge number of children who grew up without a dad because they went to fight in two world wars. Is that not relevant? As for Clifton, quite right I didn’t pay to download the article. Perhaps you can enlighten us as to exactly how he defines that “The term is used in several English-speaking countries, especially Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom”, the line it is referencing. From what you say, he merely compares the effects from two countries. Or is it perhaps a throwaway line he uses in the paper’s introduction to set the scene but without providing any data? Regardless, I’ve already demonstrated that the same phenomenon exists in this country, whatever it’s called, so it doesn’t matter.
Anyway, I’ve had enough of this. I’m well aware of the troubles of communicating in text, how it can be difficult to work out the tone and slant being used in a reply and so on. You’ve clearly misjudged my attitude, but don’t worry, you own has been made perfectly clear. I strongly recommend you have a coffee or something and sit back and read what I’ve written above again, but try to imagine it more softly, perhaps like Morgan Freeman or something. Perhaps then you’ll realise that I’ve been politely making suggestions to help improve the article by solving some of the issues that it clearly suffers from (otherwise we wouldn’t be here, would we?) Heck, I’ve got so interested in it I might have even helped. But I think I’ve wasted enough time here now, so lets just summarise:
I support taking this article to FARC, as it fails several WIAFA requirements. Namely 1a, 1b, 1c, 1d and 2a. I’m also dismayed to note that despite your interest in the article, you have so far made no edits to incorporate the concerns raised here. With no hope of improvements soon, I strongly support FARC.
Good day Ranger Steve (talk) 20:24, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have zero problem with expanding the "Military Brat". In fact, I fully encourage it and would love to see the effects of growing up in other countries expanded upon. Especially if reliable sources can be found. Nor would I have a problem changing that article name to something else with a discussion of the term "Military Brat" therein.
What I do have a problem with is the notion that we have to gut an FA which is comprehensive for the subject being discussed. The phenomena of military brats is different for every country/culture. One of the problems that has repeatedly come up in the past is that there is very little that can be said about military brats that is universal for all countries... and that research has been dearth in other countries. Clifton/Ender/Cottrell all support the notion that research has been lacking in other countries. The study you provided, I'm sure will get a fair amount of air time, but I suspect it is questionable for the reasons I cited above.
As for the OED, dictionaries (even the OED) are not perfect. I suspect that the person who wrote the entry did not understand the term or its current usage. The article cites numerous authorities on the use of the term and nowhere have any of them had negative connotations to the term. The quote from the person who authored the survey you addressed above is the first one which raises any question on the use of the term---and does make a case for renaming the parent article on "Military Brats". (I should point out that there are almost 7000 people on the British Military Brat facebook page would would probably agree that the OED is wrong.) But that is a different topic than this one.
This article is not about non-US brats, it is about US brats, and thus is comprehensive for that subgroup. What you are proposing is tantamount to taking an article on the American Bald Eagle saying, no we don't need this article lets generalize it to discuss the concept of "Eagles." Frankly, that's a bad idea---the better idea is to expand the article on Eagles. We can have both, we are not constrained by size or pages. If we have a good article that focuses on the US Subculture, why get rid of it?
As for Clifton, no she doesn't cite any studies/research. Her essay is basically a compilation of research into US military brats, where in she basically speculates on how/why the research done in America would or would not apply to their English counterparts. Clifton, who was apparently a graduate student at the time (her PhD was written in 2007) basically presents the findings of Morton Ender/Wertsch and says, "I think this applies/does not apply to British kids because...." She then explicitly states that there is no "significant literature" on the subject. It does appear as if she has done more research on the subject since then and I would be interested in knowing if she was involved with the study you linked to above.
As for bases around the Kingdom, I can only go on what I've been told here and elsewhere. What I'd been told previously (when somebody was arguing that the article didn't apply to British brats) was that in England families tended to stay in one place. That they didn't move around and rarely accompanied the military member overseas. Again, I do not know if that is true or not, and based upon your comments above, I suspect it isn't.---Balloonman NO! I'm Spartacus! 21:20, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Stepping in to this for a moment, it was I who objected to the internationalisation of the article, based on the fact that the term is pretty unique to the US and there was a dearth of available sources. On reflection I'm also unconvinced that what is available adequately captures the extent of the topic. Previously the debate has been around the term Military Brat rather than the sociological phenomenon around the families of servicemen. If we're discussing extending the article to be around something like that then it may be possible, although I have a feeling that the topic becomes a lot more complex. As an article describing the US term then there are weaknesses, as identified. The article is lacking in certain aspects of discussion of the term and is dominated by the sociological elements.
If there is a change in focus then I think there are clear weaknesses in what can be said. I'm unconvinced that there is one single social profile, given the very different cultures in the US services.
I have a few friends in the Welfare and Families services so will try to find out what there is. They're generally all trained social workers so have exposure to the research. Whether much of it meets the needs of WP:V might be an issue.
fwiw I'm a little uncomfortable with your representation of what was said about British military culture, in my experience there is a lot less wholesale family mobility in the Royal Marines, Royal Navy, Royal Air Farce and some elements of the Army. That varies according to rank range, with Officers much more likely to have home location stability and specialisation or branch, with Inf more likely to move around as a formed unit. What we're seeing is a lot of the Corps now having SNCOs and Officers living in the vicinity of the Depot and weekending when posted away, that brings it's own tensions that are different from uprooting every two years.
My main objection is that by trying to infer UK behaviour from US research there was a significant risk of portraying UK military family culture as similar to US military family culture. It's a very different thing.
Essentially we get down to making a decision about the purpose of the article, is it about the term or the social phenomenon?
ALR (talk) 16:57, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think you've described the issue quite well ALR, at the moment the article reads too much like an investigation into the social phenomena. But if it's about the social side, then it needs to be balanced with research from other sources (even if outside the States) to meet comprehensiveness requirements. I'm concerned that at the moment by not doing that, it already tends to infer UK (and other countries) behaviour based on primarily US research (see my comments below). I think an article can cover both country's aspects if it uses all the available literature. Yes they will be different, but that's what the article should be explaining. It might not be extensive enough to meet a FA, but that's life for a wikipedian! Ranger Steve (talk) 19:19, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The focus on "this" ariticle is pretty clear, it is about the social phenomenon in the US (eg the dab.) Frankly, I don't care if it remains an FA or not... I'm not involved enough anymore with WP to put the effort into it. But I do care about diluting a perfectly good article to try to "internationalize" it. Which is what would have to happen if we tried to make this a generic article about military brats (or children of military personel) as a whole. The experiences of US/British/Australian/Canadian/etc militaries is entirely different, I appreciate ALR's discussion on some of those differences from a first hand perspective.
As for inferring behavior to UK brats and other countries, I have to disagree. The article is fairly clear that this is about the US phenomenon. The title itself indicates that it is about US brats and there are several places where the article explicitly reiterates that: They've been researched as "third culture kids" but they are almost exclusively from the U.S or the U.S. Armed Forces sponsored research on the long-term impact of growing up as a military dependent or but a studied segment of U.S. culture. It talks about the US Pledge of Allegiance, God Bless America, The US Code of Military Justice, Directive 5120.36 , Executive Order 9981, DoDDS or DDESS, the terms U.S./America/United States are used over 30 times. The only references to non-US brats are explicit statements that the research is not about non-US brats. For example, Outside of the U.S. there is no significant literature on the effects of growing up as a military dependent and it is in the United States in particular that this term is ascribed to a collectively identifiable demographic. Between the title, the repeated use of U.S./America/United States, and explicit statements that this is about the phenomenon in the US, I don't know what else we could do state this is about the US subculture. None of the images or quotes are from or about British children. Right now, I could see a short paragraph or sentence being added based upon the November study, but I honestly don't see what else could be done to indicate that this is about the US phenomenon. Can you provide specific reasons why you think the article makes those inferences?---Balloonman NO! I'm Spartacus! 21:41, 15 December 2009 (UTC)EDIT: I did make two changes based upon your comments below (where the article mentioned For example, in the United States and primarily from America... I made them more explicitly about US brats.)---Balloonman NO! I'm Spartacus! 21:55, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don’t want to appear condescending by pointing out prose issues, but that’s what lets it down. As I’ve said below I don’t feel it distinguishes between the term (used in various countries apparently) and the demographic (in the US) sufficiently. The lead explains that the term is used in various countries and in the US is applied to a demographic, but doesn’t state that the focus of this article is on that demographic enough. It needs to be clearer to avoid misunderstandings. The next paragraph opens with the term again. Are we talking about the term or the demographic? It isn’t instantly clear. Although US identifiers are used in the article, only once is “US” or “American” used before “Military Brat” to distinguish that that’s the demographic group being described in following sentences rather than people just collectively identified by the term (and that’s the change you made yesterday). There are 16 headers or sub headers in this article, but in only 4 instances is the term US or American used in the opening paragraph for that header. Another 4 use a phrase that implies American origins (Truman or DoDDS etc…). But that’s only half of the headings, and most lead paragraphs should be an opening into the contents and themes of that section. The whole section on Military Culture for instance takes some time to clarify that it is talking about US military; even then it could be argued it doesn’t really even clarify that.
Surely you must be able to accept that there’s something wrong given the number of people who have commented on this issue in the past? There have been various comments, with a real mix of opinions drawn from reading the article. Some feel that it’s condescending and derogatory to US culture, some feel that it’s too self-worshipping. Some get annoyed that this paints too many countries with the same brush, while others say it is too US centric. This is because the article is too ambiguous. It is very hard to clarify exactly what group is being described here. Using US more in the right places will help. Don’t underestimate the power of opening the article with “In the U.S. a military brat is …” either, which makes it clear from the very start (I don’t feel the title does that fwiw).
On a related note, briefly commenting on the comments in the archive that echo vandalism like this, I suspect it’s because the article comes across as too authoritative. There are too few terms like “Research has suggested…” or “It has been shown that some…” to put this research into perspective. There are a few “may”s and “can”s but that’s insufficient. Studying several hundred participants cannot allow inferences to be made about a demographic of millions so strongly. They only suggest possibilities. Statements like “The military family knows that the service person may be killed in the line of duty, but may accept that risk because they are taught that the military mission is worth dying for. The mission is one in which the brat shares by extension through his military parent” is referenced but still extremely strongly opinionated. It should open more like “In his 2002 paper, Williams suggested….”
Again this is all linked to the prose and structure of the article. I’m sorry to have to say it so bluntly, but there are a lot of people who don’t think this is a “perfectly good article”. I’ve tried my best to rationalise the various issues as I see them (and which are echoed by other comments over the last 2 years) and suggest ways to restructure or make the article more comprehensive. But seeing as no-one seems interested in improving the article that seems to have been a waste of time. Ranger Steve (talk) 21:56, 16 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Comments:

  • There are no works concerning this topic in Germany while these children face similar problems. The same may be tru for other countries leading to the focus of the article.
  • Alatheia seems to be a small company, but size is no guarantee for quality.
  • The photo captions do point out the stress placed on these children while missing one of their parents and the joy of reunion. That's typical for them, crying children are a bit hard to photograph and it isn't obvious that this is something typical for children of soldiers. Wandalstouring (talk) 10:44, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Er, that is why this is (US Subculture) and not just the generic term. There has been no research performed on German brats, which has been lamented by US researchers, so any cross cultural exploration would be original research. But this goes back to the original discussion concerning the name. There has been a fair amount research on the US brats, thus the focus on this article.

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, NPOV, comprehensiveness/breadth. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles Featured topic drive:one left) 00:20, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Mary Wertsch is considered to be the original push for study into the subject, most of the academic research that I saw was to validate/contradict her initial research. Morton Ender has emerged as the primal authority on the subject of Military Brats from an academic perspective. His book, which collects academic research, is definitely a high quality source, as are many of the journals. Alatheia, as Wandalstouring mentions may be a small company, but that doesn't discredit the company and using its sources might be a bigger concern if the article relied upon it. Comprehensivenees/breadth seem to focus on the fact that this article on the US Subculture of Military Brats doesn't include discusion on non-US brats, which is a different subject.---Balloonman NO! I'm Spartacus! 15:42, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • I don't like relying on the promotional fluff on a dust jacket for evidence of a sources' authoritativeness. As for Alatheia, yes, size doesn't disqualify them... the fact that they don't have much of a reputation, however, does concern me. The fact that I can't verify how long they've even been in existence does bother me, as does my suspicion that their editorial staff may be just one person. Show me that these authors are reliable and experts. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 01:03, 5 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The company is small and I beyond this book, *I* am not familiar with the editor (which doesn't mean she isn't respected or good.) The authors, however, (namely Eakin and Ender who are used in the article) who contributed to the book are definitely reliable and experts. Ender is the premier researcher on Military Brats, after Wertsch Ender is probably the biggest name in MB research. The other source that uses Eakin was "ACCORDING TO MY PASSPORT, I'M COMING HOME" (PDF). (666 KiB), which is a document of the US State Department. Eakin is more known for works dealing with Third Culture Kids.---Balloonman NO! I'm Spartacus! 16:04, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The fact that they are widely cited by the government doesn't exactly inspire the confidence I'm looking for. Do you have a reliable source for Wertsch's "pioneer" status? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 19:26, 8 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I recommend delisting this article. I am not confident most of the Alatheia publications meet high-quality source requirements. Issues with weasel wording, unreliable citations and original research not addressed. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 16:10, 11 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I’ve just noticed that this article has in fact passed into FARC (dunno how I missed that!), so with that in mind I’ll elaborate on my concerns further here, comparing them to the main criteria of WP:WIAFA. I currently recommend delisting the article, based on my reasons below.
  • 1a. Well Written.
I find that some of the text is disjointed and not necessarily related to other statements in the same section. In sub section “Values and patriotism” for example, the fourth paragraph is an isolated sentence that seems awkwardly placed amongst the other ‘rituals’ being described. A similar issue can be seen in “Reunited and reaching out” - the first sentence is totally isolated and may leave the reader thinking “… so what?” The second paragraph only answers the question “why?”
The prose is not always engaging or brilliant. Consider the first line of “War in the 21st century”. There are several ways to rewrite that without repeating the same words. In the second sentence, despite the fact this is now a comparison, no reference is made to past figures. The first paragraph of “Growing up military” also contains awkward sentence structure and confusing grammar. Had the children lived in another country and then come home? It should be “His study revealed that 97% had lived in at least one foreign country”
There are numerous other grammatical errors (eg. the entire last paragraph of “War in the 21st Century” is full of them, and I note several others as I read through sections).
These are minor quibbles, but most of them are things that would hold up a GAN. I believe the article needs a thorough copy edit to rectify the issues; most of the text is okay, but I’m afraid that personally, I find very few examples of brilliant or professional standard prose.
  • 1b. Comprehensive and 1d. Neutral
This is the big issue I suppose, that concerns all of my issues raised above and the use of this term outside of the US. First I think it is important to consider what this article is about. An early assumption might be that it is about the term “Military brat”. But there is no section on the (interesting) history of the term, it’s use outside of the US, or its criticisms. The section on “Linguistic reclamation” is the only part that deals with the words themselves. The rest of the article is about the sociological and psychological effects of being a military kid, and the life at home and at school for such children. Lamentably it lacks a section dealing with attempts to integrate and work with this demographic, something I believe it would benefit from.
Although the title specifies that this is a US subculture, the article frequently implies a more worldly perspective. In the lead we have the statement “The term is used in several English-speaking countries, especially Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom; but it is in the United States in particular that this term is ascribed to a collectively identifiable demographic (with extensive psychological research done on the group by U.S. Defense Department).” This is referenced to a single study that, it would appear, does not cite any research to back up the assertion and regardless, is only making comparisons between the US and the UK. Added to which the researcher was apparently a graduate student, so I’m really not sure his/her opinion is a high enough class of resource. This assertion in the lead is then totally ignored in the body of the text, where one would expect it to be expanded upon.
Although the claim is made that the article is US centric, the big problem is that the prose and tone of the main text fails to make that distinction. By implying that the term “Military Brat” is used in several English speaking countries, any subsequent uses of the phrase in the article appear to be describing the phenomena in all of those countries as well. This is compounded by specific references to the US in some cases. For example, in “Values and Patriotism” 2nd paragraph: “It has been claimed by Samuel Britten on the basis of anecdotal evidence that life on military bases is associated with comparatively greater patriotic sentiments. For example, in the United States…”, or the 3rd paragraph of “School life”: “Military brats, primarily from the United States, are the most mobile of the Third Culture Kids, moving on average every three years.” I imagine this is why the article gets so much negative feedback and vandalism decrying its (seemingly) opinionated stance on other country’s military forces. I realise it doesn’t intend to, but the prose lets it down here.
The issue is then compounded by the fact that further study in other countries does exist, and references to the fact can be found in several reliable sources. The biggest problem is that in these examples the term Military brat is not used, although the demographic being studied is the same. This is a very serious oversight, as it clearly demonstrates that the assertion in the lede is questionable. Although there may be a claim that some UK residents self identify themselves as brats, the demographic’s name is not the same. It also demonstrates that there is a cultural comparison to be made with several aspects of the text in this article - particularly the “School life” section. There is also scope for making more comparisons in the whole “Modern brats” section. I believe these comparisons would be necessary to meet criterion 1b.
As ALR suggests above, the focus of this article needs to be decided. At the moment it appears to be focussed on the sociological aspects rather than the term itself. But the sociological aspects are studied in different countries, so that should be incorporated. If it focuses on the name then it needs to be more detailed on the history etc… So either way it currently fails comprehensiveness.
  • 1c. Well researched
I’m concerned that the article places too much emphasis on research papers and not enough on other reliable sources. For instance, a search of the footnotes reveals only one link to the popular press (in this case USA today - it is perhaps interesting that this article does not make use of the term Military brat at all, but extensively describes the demographic). If this is a common phrase in the US, then I would expect to see evidence of it’s use.
Perhaps something on the popularisation of the term by films etc… would help as well. The Great Santini was nominated for 2 Oscars after all.
  • 2a. A Lead
As mentioned, elements in the lead aren’t in the main body and vica versa. In fact the current lead could be used as an intro section, and a new lead written.
  • 2b. Appropriate Structure
As I’ve explained I feel it’s too much like a research paper. Added to which, headings like “reunited and reaching out” are hardly encyclopaedic.
Cheers, Ranger Steve (talk) 19:03, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed by YellowAssessmentMonkey 23:49, 12 January 2010 [49].

Soviet invasion of Poland

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Review commentary

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Notified: Qp10qp, Piotrus, WP Poland, WP Mil Hist, WP Soviet Union, WP Russia

I noticed that a number of individuals involved in the current Eastern European mailing list Arbcom were also involved in the of the FAC for Soviet invasion of Poland.

1. (a) Lots of passive text, additive terms (“also”) and word to avoid (“many”, “some”, “several”, “despite”. “actually”, …). There is an overuse of blockquote text, no shortage of double wiki-linking and a generally improper use of brackets. and text placed in quotes for emphasis not quotation. A heavy copy-edit is needed.

  • I did a heavy copy edit to address all this. Most of it survived the back and forth of reversions. As far as the block quotes go, some superfluous ones had been added on after the FAC and I removed them, but please restore the Subtelny block quote that you have removed. That is a crucial quote because it expresses the Belarusian and Ukrainian experience, which is needed in the article. I've no idea if you have a point of view yourself, but in order for the POV to be balanced that block quote must remain. By the way, block quotes are within policy and are not removable for the purposes of a Featured Article Review just because they are block quotes. qp10qp (talk) 23:24, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Copy-editing is still needed. --Labattblueboy (talk) 05:39, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

1. (b) There is little to no information on the opposing forces and their composition. Expansion of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and German Invasion of Poland would be helpful.--Labattblueboy (talk) 05:39, 7 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

1. (d) POV issues.

  • Ex: ”despite their change of overlord, Ukrainian nationalists continued to aim for an independent, undivided Ukrainian state”
How is that POV? It's a statement of fact. qp10qp (talk) 23:28, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

2. (a) Lead in need of general copy-edit.

Done. And shortened. qp10qp (talk) 23:30, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I believe I have addressed all the grammatical issues in the lead. Please see if my edits have been detrimental to the content.
There are still citation issues in the lead.
  • Note 6 has a couple of citation tags. There are a number of places where citations could be added and I will see about trying to do that myself.
  • Dom wydawniczy Wojska Polskiego citation needs to have pages numbers added, placed into template and moved to bibliography.
  • Polish and Russian language resources require similar work. I can't do it myself because I don't speak the languages --Labattblueboy (talk) 17:34, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

2. (b) The Aftermath section is disproportionately long, compared to the remainder of the article.

It's in three sections, though, isn't it? I can't see a problem. The aftermath of the invasion is an important aspect of it. qp10qp (talk)

2. (c) Citations structure is inconsistent. Citation of a number of primary documents (WP:PSTS). Likewise, I question whether the employment of a number of non-English sources is appropriate or necessary given there appears to be no shortage of English sources.

Again, I think you are overlooking how many of the non-English sources are doubled up with English sources. Sometimes there is another reference tag alongside. But sources may overlap in the sense that what references one sentence may also reference some that follow or went before in the passage, or even a whole paragraph. For example, the cite to Sanford on the Fourth Partition of Poland is tagged to that term but applies to the rest of the information about it. So the information does not depend on the Polish source given at the end of the sentence before. There is no stylish way to umbilically reference every word of an article. As for foreign language sources, they should not be favoured over English language ones but they are permissible, and most of the sources for the article are in English. I think if you read the English language sources cited you will find little that they do not cover. qp10qp (talk) 23:51, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

3. Too many images and most contain descriptions that are far too long. No alt text. Sections are led with left justified images.

Removed some images due to bunching. I'm not sure if the choice of images is what the principle editors are looking for, so please review. Basic alt text added. No more left justification section starts.--Labattblueboy (talk) 17:54, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Labattblueboy (talk) 15:31, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A number of other issues may be valid, but the POV issue is being over-considered. The example given is completely accurate; we should not censor or tone down historical fact. The only change needed in the example given might be to 'despite the change of regime' or 'government'. Buckshot06(prof) 15:59, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I removed some WTA and the overlord issue; I am not a native speaker (and the text went through several native speakers copyedits prior to becoming FA). More of course are always welcome.
What's wrong with lead?
I count three uses of (reliable) primary sources; PSTS allows the use of primary sources (it only discourages them). I think they are used correctly here; although if they can be improved by adding secondary sources to them that of course should be done. Same holds for non-English sources: they are acceptable, but if somebody can improve them by adding English sources, please do. Do note that some facts, sometimes, are simply not mentioned in English sources and one has to reply on non-English historiography or other scholarly literature.
Aftermath is about as long as the military campaign section and slightly longer than background. The invasion had very important consequences; I don't see the lenght of the aftermath as an issue.
I never could figure out the FA image rules. I hope somebody can take few minutes and fix the image issues. I don't recall a rule about caption's lenght, though...?
PS. What does the arbcom case has to do with that article? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 16:14, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Here are some of the refs. of concern:
  • (Russian) Pravda, 30 November 1939.
  • (Polish) Represje 1939-41 Aresztowani na Kresach Wschodnich (Repressions 1939–41. Arrested on the Eastern Borderlands.) Ośrodek Karta. Retrieved 15 November 2006.
  • (Polish) Śledztwo w sprawie zabójstwa w dniu 22 września 1939 r. w okolicach miejscowości Sopoćkinie generała brygady Wojska Polskiego Józefa Olszyny-Wilczyńskiego i jego adiutanta kapitana Mieczysława Strzemskiego przez żołnierzy b. Związku Radzieckiego. (S 6/02/Zk) - dead link reliable?
  • (Polish) Szack. Encyklopedia Interia. Retrieved 28 November 2006.
  • (Russian) Отчёт Украинского и Белорусского фронтов Красной Армии Мельтюхов, с. 367. Retrieved 17 July 2007 - dead link
  • (Polish) Artur Leinwand (1991). "Obrona Lwowa we wrześniu 1939 roku". Instytut Lwowski. http://www.lwow.com.pl/rocznik/obrona39.html. Retrieved 16 July 2007. - self published
  • (Polish) obozy jenieckie żołnierzy polskich (Prison camps for Polish soldiers). Encyklopedia PWN. Retrieved 28 November 2006.
  • (Polish) Edukacja Humanistyczna w wojsku. 1/2005. Dom wydawniczy Wojska Polskiego. (Humanist Education in the Army.) 1/2005. Publishing House of the Polish Army). Retrieved 28 November 2006. - dead link
The online encyclopedia entries (ex: Encyklopedia Interia), are short on substance. I'm not sure 3 line entries are appropriate as sources, but that's just my view.--Labattblueboy (talk) 05:33, 30 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Can you number these so it's easy to refer to them? (Quickly, what's wrong with Encyclopedia PWN?)radek (talk) 05:39, 30 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Why a foreign language ref and not an english one? Both the Olszyna-Wilczyński Józef Konstanty and obozy jenieckie żołnierzy polskich PWN refs are rather slim on material but are used in broader form citations.--Labattblueboy (talk) 07:23, 30 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Also, the Olszyna source is not a dead link [50].radek (talk) 05:52, 30 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Furthermore the Leinwald source does not appear to be self-published.radek (talk) 05:52, 30 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The material appears to be on a personal website.--Labattblueboy (talk) 07:23, 30 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I shortened some of the captions and removed the most obvious double wiki links. The rest of the wiki links that may appear as "doubles" are not - for example there is a difference between Ukraine, Western Ukraine, Ukrainian SSR and Ukrainians. So having each of these linked separately to different articles is not an instance of double wikilinks.
Can you point to any other POV problems? Gave it a quick read over and don't see any.
Also, I re read the lead couple of times and did a slight copy edit. I don't see what else is wrong with it.
Last FAC review was two years ago - before any ArbComs case and completely unrelated to them.radek (talk) 16:18, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
On words to avoid:
"Despite" occurs once in the article where I believe it is used correctly: Despite a tactical Polish victory on 28 September at the Battle of Szack, the outcome of the larger conflict was never in doubt
"Several" is not one of the words to avoid [51]
"Actually" doesn't appear in the article
"Some" is not one of the words to avoid, and in fact, the guideline itself uses "some" quite frequently [52]
Ditto for "many".radek (talk) 16:26, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I've looked through the FAC criteria and image policy and I see nothing about how many images are "too many". In fact, compared to some other FAs this article does not appear to have that many images at all.radek (talk) 17:03, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]


*2. (a) Lead in need of general copy-edit. I've given it a copy edit and removed material that unduly elaborated on the basic gist of it. It's now an appropriate length again, I think. qp10qp (talk) 19:27, 27 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to the wonderful world of attempting to edit any article which in any way covers Polish history!Varsovian (talk) 21:19, 27 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Qp10qp I have reverted you because unfortunately you have also changed the meaning of some parts article. Such changes should be discussed first. Loosmark (talk) 21:28, 27 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Some of the meanings need changing to remove accumulations of POV since the FAC. That's part of the point of the exercise. In the process of reverting you have also restored all the unwieldiness, re-lengthened, re-added block quotes, restored bad grammar and wordiness, and reinstated POV. For example you have changed back the section title "Byelorussia and Ukraine" to "Territories of Second Polish Republic annexed by Soviet Union", which is both more POV and bad English. qp10qp (talk) 21:34, 27 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • References
  • The reference relating to Dom wydawniczy Wojska Polskiege need to be improved. There are multiple sections in the pdf report composed by different authors. The page numbers and relevant author of each reference should be inputted rather than only referencing the document as a whole. I can't do it myself because I do not speak Polish--Labattblueboy (talk) 19:45, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have some concern with the number of times the Sanford reference is used. The spread of pp. 20-24 is used over 20 times, I suspect that greater focus is possible here.--Labattblueboy (talk) 19:45, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What do you mean by "greater focus"? Sanford is the best source. qp10qp (talk) 22:51, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have a hard time believing that each citation covers the 20-24 page spread. If some only utilize for instance 21 than that should be the page cited. --Labattblueboy (talk) 22:56, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm afraid I disagree, because these pages need to be read as a whole. I'm not aware of a policy that says a range of four pages is too large. The point of citations is for readers to check information: to do so in context they need to read more than one page, and I suspect this is what people do, to save them repeatedly checking the same reference as they read through an article. By the way, on eight occasions that citation is reinforced by another one from a different source.qp10qp (talk) 23:01, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Once again still have a hard time believing that the spread is necessary for context on 20 citations. I'll leave it at that.--Labattblueboy (talk) 23:21, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As it stands, Wikipedia already requires more minute referencing of information than in academia. To expect us to go even further and break up a four-page range into separate single page citations strikes me as actually unhelpful. The way academics check a source is to go to the page number and read several pages or more around it to get the whole picture. This actually saves time, because they don't have to then look everything up anew as they come to re-uses of the same source. The distribution of references around the article, most of which I decided myself when helping prepare the article for its FAC, is, I hope, reasonably sophisticated. Although the article is densely referenced, and everything is sourced, there's no attempt to place tags every few words in the article out of pedantry. It's assumed that when reading a source a reader will see what it covers in a whole passage. Single-page citation is of course used for specific figures, quotations, terms, etc. qp10qp (talk) 00:39, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
While I believe that referencing a single page is better than five, I think page ranges are perfectly acceptable - both in academia and on Wikipedia. Further refinements are welcome, but I think they are above and beyond even FA requirements. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 23:11, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I take no issue with concepts but figures are another story, They should be page specific. If someone is willing to send me a pdf scan of the four pages I am even willing to do it myself, but it needs to be done--Labattblueboy (talk) 12:21, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
*The Orlik-Rückemann footnotes have no relating bibliography equivalent.--Labattblueboy (talk) 22:46, 4 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Restored. qp10qp (talk)
* Ryziński reference (Obrona Lwowa w roku 1939) is missing publisher and location information. --Labattblueboy (talk) 00:29, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Publisher is Instytut Lwowski, location is Warszawa. Don't know if this has already been added.radek (talk) 23:27, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
thank you for that. --Labattblueboy (talk) 12:15, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It was there. I've just moved it down one. qp10qp (talk) 02:08, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
missed it my bad. --Labattblueboy (talk) 03:06, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Labattblueboy, you are starting to add more things. You've put a load of citation requests on the article today. Could you give some idea when you are going to stop, because it's dispiriting to address your concerns, have no acknowlegement of it, only to find a whole lot more (hours) of work requested. qp10qp (talk) 02:08, 5 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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FA criteria concerns are prose, refernencing, undue weight, POV. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA requiring "high-quality" sources YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles Featured topic drive:one left) 16:45, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Has anyone noticed the empty section? YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles Featured topic drive:one left) 18:16, 26 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd also like to point out that qp10qp addressed a lot of issues soon after this FAR was listed. For the record, while I accept there may be a small part of the article that got POVed due to some POV pushing since FAing I've missed (and if this is the case, please be specific which part is it), I think the article uses very good sources (again, thanks to some very careful proofreading and verifying by qp10qp back when). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 00:23, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • qp10qp made progress but there is still a lot left to do, and a large number of outstanding issues. I have attempted to do some of the work myself, but I am unable to do any of the foreign language sourcing and verification because I do not speak Russian, German or Polish. The level of support to return the article to FA doesn't seem to be there.--Labattblueboy (talk) 05:14, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • 1(a) Lots of work remaining in a a number of sections, including WTA, passive text and other general grammar issues. 1(b) There is no information regarding the opposing troops. Not their manpower and equipment dispositions, defensive/offensive plans. The military campaign section appears to be a bit short in my view. 1(c) Outstanding citation tags, lots of primary sources, foreign language citation issues (ex: citations for Dom wydawniczy Wojska Polskiego contain no page numbers), Sanford citation for p. 20-24, is overused and could be more specific, particularly regarding figures. 3 alt text not present on all images, Jeńcy1.jpg sourcing remains unresolved. --Labattblueboy (talk) 06:22, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Dom Wydawniczy is a 156 page report that has been converted into a pdf. IMO each citation requires page #s, how else does one verify the sourcing? I also noticed the Roberts citations require page #s. The 3 Avalon project citations, the Telegram: His Majesty's Ambassador in Berlin - Dept of State 8/25/39, the Soviet Note of April 25, 1943, È.Â. Ñòàëèí 30 íîÿáðÿ 1939 ãîäà Òîì 14, ñòð. 343-345, Report On The Foreign Policy Of The Government are all primary - I think that qualifies as numerous.--Labattblueboy (talk) 14:00, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Extreme Polish nationalist POV being put forward in this article

I oppose to the nomination of this article as featured, because this article is written comletely from Polish nationalist POV.

  • 1) Nowhere in this article background is given for the occupation of Western Belarus by Poland in 1921. In 1921 according to Riga treaty made between (sic!!!!) Poland and Soviet Russia, without Belarus participating, Poland annexed the territory of Western Belarus "in compensation" for Soviet Polish War.
  • 2) Nowhere in this article information is given about Polonization, colonization of native Belarusian population by Poland. Namely about eradication of Belarusian language, about closure of Belarusian schools, newspapers, about arrests of Belarusian senators in Polish Sejm, about establishment of concentration camps in Belarus by Poles, about Jewish pogroms by Poles in Belarus, about falsifications of population census and denial of ciizenship to non-Poles.
  • 3) I haven't found in this article any information about which side (Polish, Soviet) was supported by local population.
  • 4) Belarusian POV, as well as Lithuanian and Ukrainian POV's would be reunification of their territories with what was occupied by Poland in 1921.
  • 5) In background no information is given about prior participation of Poland together with Nazi Germany in occupation of Czechoslovakia and making of non-agreession agreement with Germany, proposing help to Nazi in war with Russia, and not making non-agression agreement with Soviet Union.

Suggestions: This nomination should be notified to Ukrinian, Lithuanian, Belarusian, Russian noticeboards for wide discussion. Vlad fedorov (talk) 10:51, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

IMO, none of this is applicable. It might be for the article on the Polish–Soviet War, but not in this case. To be honest, I think the article provides a rather good backgrounder on the subject, but as I said that's just my opinion. --Labattblueboy (talk) 14:00, 4 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delist (but hold off any action until at least 2009-12-25 as editorial response promised): Quality of research (Primaries, Tertiaries, Unverifiable material due to lack of essential bibliographic data, Citation from inappropriately low quality sources when HQRS are available and listed in the references). Some awkward language. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:45, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Could you be specific? What is unverifiable? What sources are low quality? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 04:56, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Tertiary:
  1. ^ a b c "Kampania wrześniowa 1939 [September Campaign 1939]" (in Polish). PWN Encyklopedia. Retrieved 16 July 2007.
  2. Plus title capitalisation: ^ "bozy jenieckie żołnierzy polskich [Prison camps for Polish soldiers]" (in Polish). Encyklopedia PWN. Retrieved 28 November 2006.
  3. ^ a b "Szack". Encyklopedia Interia. Retrieved 28 November 2006.
  4. Osmańczyk, Edmund Jan (2003). Mango, Anthony. ed. Encyclopedia of the United Nations and international agreements. 1 (3rd ed.). New York: Routledge. ISBN 0415939216.
I don't consider the usage of tertiary sources a major issue; at least compared to others; same goes for primary sources, per my comments above. That said, if we could eventually replace them, I am all for it. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Primary:
  1. ^ "The German Ambassador in the Soviet Union, (Schulenburg) to the German Foreign Office No. 317". Avalon project. Lillian Goldman Law Library. Retrieved 2009-06-11.
  2. ^ "The German Ambassador in the Soviet Union, (Schulenburg) to the German Foreign Office No. 371". Avalon project. Lillian Goldman Law Library. Retrieved 2009-06-11.
  3. ^ "The German Ambassador in the Soviet Union, (Schulenburg) to the German Foreign Office No. 372". Avalon project. Lillian Goldman Law Library. Retrieved 2009-06-11.
  4. ^ "Telegram: His Majesty's Ambassador in Berlin - Dept of State 8/25/39". Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. Retrieved 2009-06-11.
  5. ^ "Soviet Note of April 25, 1943". 25 April 1943. Retrieved 19 December 2005.
  6. ^ Kaczmarski, Jacek. "Ballada wrześniowa [September's tale]" (in Polish). Retrieved 2006-11-15.
  7. Degras, Jane Tabrisky (1953). Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy. Volume I: 1917–1941. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  8. Henderson (1939). Documents concerning German-Polish relations and the outbreak of hostilities between Great Britain and Germany on September 3, 1939. Great Britain Foreign Office.
  9. House, Edward; Seymour, Charles (1921). What Really Happened at Paris. Scribner.
  10. Osmańczyk, Edmund Jan (2003). Mango, Anthony. ed. Encyclopedia of the United Nations and international agreements. 1 (3rd ed.). New York: Routledge. ISBN 0415939216.
Bad Name Formatting, title not Ital, no publisher, no publication location: ^ M.I.Mel'tyuhov. Stalin's lost chance. The Soviet Union and the struggle for Europe 1939–1941, p.132. Мельтюхов М.И. Упущенный шанс Сталина. Советский Союз и борьба за Европу: 1939–1941 (Документы, факты, суждения). — М.: Вече, 2000.
Removed, wasn't needed anyway. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Inconsistent translation of non-English titles. Some translated, others given without translation.
No place given in text (ie: page number or section)
  1. ^ Kushner
Page number added. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
So poorly cited that text is unverifiable, no place given in text (ie: page number or section)
  1. ^ a b c d "The Katyn Controversy: Stalin's Killing Field work=Studies in Intelligence". Winter 1999–2000. Retrieved 16 July 2007.
Journal; page numbers not needed. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  1. ^ "Rozstrzelany Szpital [Executed Hospital]" (in polish) (pdf). Tygodnik Zamojski. 15 September 2004. Retrieved 28 November 2006.
Newspaper article; page numbers not needed. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Goldstein. Missing.
Could you leave a note about this to User:Qp10qp? I am pretty sure he was the one that added this ref. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Stanley. Missing.
As above. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Inappropriate, not HQRS:
  1. ^ Artur Leinwand (1991). "Obrona Lwowa we wrześniu 1939 roku". Instytut Lwowski. Retrieved 16 July 2007.
Why not HQRS? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  1. "Represje 1939-41 Aresztowani na Kresach Wschodnich" (in Polish). Ośrodek Karta. Retrieved 15 November 2006.
Why not HQRS? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Dunnigan, James F. (2004). The World War II Bookshelf: Fifty Must-Read Books. New York: Citadel Press. ISBN 0806526092.
Double ref, and the author seems actually notable: [53]. Yes, the title is eyebrow raising, but I wouldn't consider replacing this work a high priority (it is cited only once). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  1. In this context a low grade work: Kenéz, Peter (2006). A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End (2nd ed. ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-052186437-4.
Why? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Kitchen, Martin (1990). A World in Flames: A Short History of the Second World War. Longman. ISBN 0582034086.
Why? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Non academic publisher: Levin, Dov (1995). The lesser of two evils: Eastern European Jewry under Soviet rule, 1939-1941. Jewish Publication Society. ISBN 9780827605183.
Does it make it non reliable? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Illustrated history??? Seriously??? Taylor, A. J. P. (1975). The Second World War: An Illustrated History. London: Putnam. ISBN 0399114122.
But by AJP Taylor. And presumably it has more than just pictures :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Why are generalist histories being relied upon? Weinberg, Gerhard (1994). A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521443172.
Why not? If a fact is in them... --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Inappropriate: Newspapers are not sufficiently high quality for history:
  1. ^ "Polish experts lower nation's WWII death toll". AFP/Expatica. 30 July 2009. Retrieved 4 November 2009.
Well, it is a report on new historical research. Personally, I find Wikipedia's being more up to data on such issues then most academic sources quite positive. Anyway, the source given is reliable (Institute of National Rememberance, and its president Janusz Kurtyka), but I cannot at this point find an official press release or a more academic statement for this (a lot of Polish news articles quoting him...). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Publication locations given in some but not all
Inappropriate: Outside of Specialty => Not HQRS
  1. Gelven, Michael (1994). War and Existence: A Philosophical Inquiry. Pennsylvania: Penn State University Press. ISBN 0271010541.
Why? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Dubious, potential exile publication, L. Hill as publisher?
  1. Gronowicz, Antoni (1976). Polish Profiles: The Land, the People, and Their History. Westport, CT: L. Hill. ISBN 0882080601.
Not sure about the publisher, but it is cited by at least few dozen printed sources.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Capitalisation of title?
  1. Kutrzeba, S (1950). "The Struggle for the Frontiers, 1919-1923". in Reddaway, William Fiddian. The Cambridge history of Poland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 512–543.
?? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Series title incorrectly given in work title:
  1. Mendelsohn (2009). Jews and the Sporting Life: Studies in Contemporary Jewry XXIII. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195382914.
?? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Out of your style for a chapter in a work?
  1. Orlik-Rückemann, Wilhelm (1985). Jerzewski, Leopold. ed (in Polish). Kampania wrześniowa na Polesiu i Wołyniu: 17.IX.1939–1.X.1939. Warsaw: Głos.
Is this one actually from the Instytut press, or is it, again, a departmental or individual publication (ala the website above?)
Not sure what you asking; but the source is cited: [54] by others. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Ryziński, Kazimierz; Dalecki, Ryszard (1990) (in Polish). Obrona Lwowa w roku 1939. Warszawa: Instytut Lwowski. ISBN 9788303033567.
What about this one? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Some valid points; some I disagree with. I'll try to address them over the coming week or two. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 05:28, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I replied in more detail now. I may not have time to reply more for a few days; if I can I will try to catch up next week. Please feel encouraged to report those issues to WP:PWNB; others may be able to help. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder if Piotrus and a group of Polish editors being punted off by ARBCOM will change the balance of power here YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 23:45, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete unless an independent copy-edit is conducted. I've done the opening paragraphs. The images are all too small; the maps are ridiculously so. How on earth are they readable at that size? Tony (talk) 09:27, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I assume Tony means Delist. Dabomb87 (talk) 14:29, 9 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed by YellowAssessmentMonkey 02:03, 5 January 2010 [55].

Liberal Democrats leadership election, 2006

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Review commentary

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Notified: Whouk, Bondegezou, WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom.

I am nominating this featured article for review because I believe it is far from meeting citation standards expected for a featured article today. Whole sections have a sparse number of citations, including "From close of nominations to end of voting", and "Opening of the campaign" (the longest prose section of the main body) has no citations at all. The other parts of the featured article criteria seem, to me, to still be met. HonouraryMix (talk) 14:10, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, alt text. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles finally at Featured topic candidates) 22:47, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed by YellowAssessmentMonkey 02:03, 5 January 2010 [56].

Hurricane Floyd

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Review commentary

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Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tropical Cyclones

This was promoted in early 2006, when it did meet the FA criteria. For such a difficult storm, it is still a very good article to this day—but it is lacking in some areas. More specifically:

  • The Meteorological history section is far too brief, and it makes use of basically only one source. There are dozens of advisories from the National Hurricane Center on the storm that could be incorporated.
  • The Preparations largely ignores North Carolina, which is where the storm made landfall. Also, there are two paragraphs missing citations.
  • Although the Impact section is acceptable in some areas, it contains several unsourced statements and is not in any way complete. For example, it gives only one sentence of information to the storm's effects in New York.
  • There is little if any information on the aftermath of the storm. Ideally, the article should cover post-storm assistance, rebuilding efforts, cleanup, etc.
  • Major MoS issues throughout.
  • Very few references to reports and documents on the hurricane.

For these reasons I don't think this article meets the criteria, unfortunately. –Juliancolton | Talk 02:28, 2 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, MOS, comprehensiveness. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles finally at Featured topic candidates) 22:44, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed by YellowAssessmentMonkey 02:03, 5 January 2010 [58].

Liberal Party of Canada leadership convention, 1968

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Review commentary

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Notified: User talk:SimonP - main contributor and nominator, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Canada, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ottawa

I am nominating this featured article for review because it currently lacks inline citations - featured article criteria 1(c) Tom B (talk) 14:54, 28 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Images
  • Ordinarily, no, they don't. The first image of Trudeau and Sharp is just two men talking to each other, and Trudeau on the podium doesn't show anymore than any moment in any political rally. However, in this instance the sources clearly state that there are no restrictions on use or reproduction, e.g. [59], and we have fulfilled LAC's requirements for reproduction of their material anyway [60]. DrKiernan (talk) 12:10, 5 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Steve has only been able to make a small expansion and citing, so I moved this YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles finally at Featured topic candidates) 22:43, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, image copyrights. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles finally at Featured topic candidates) 22:43, 15 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed by YellowAssessmentMonkey 02:03, 5 January 2010 [61].

Cystic fibrosis

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Review commentary

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Notified: ImGz, InvictaHOG, Kyoko, WP MED.

This medical article is a 2006 promotion with unsourced statements, unformatted and inconsistent citations, doesn't conform with WP:LEAD, dead links and MOS errors, in addition to an overreliance on primary sources that don't conform to WP:MEDRS. Prognosis section is incomplete, epidemiology is poorly cited, and several sections are lacking appropriate sources. The article needs to be re-worked to conform to WP:MEDRS and the use of high-quality, peer-reviewed, secondary sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:00, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Image review
  • File:CFTR.jpg: it would be nice to have the issue and page number of the journal
  • File:Mucoviscidose.PNG: Missing information. I guess this is generated by the uploader using the Ensembl data? I don't know enough about the program/database to figure out how it is used, or who the author, etc is.
  • File:CFtreatmentvest2.JPG: no source or author
  • File:Dorothy Hansine Andersen.jpg: possibly not public domain. The National Library of Medicine says "Transmission or reproduction of protected items beyond that allowed by fair use as defined in the copyright laws requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Specific NLM Web sites containing protected information provide additional notification of conditions associated with its use."[62] If you look at the credit line, at [63], you can see that the photograph is credited to "Archives and Special Collections, Columbia University Health Sciences Division". (It is the other image at the NLM webpage[64] [the one at the bottom] that is credited to the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.[65])
  • Other images OK. DrKiernan (talk) 23:27, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:Aspergillus fumigatus 01.jpg: This image is captioned in a misleading way for this article, and it is a poorly chosen image for illustrating the problems of cystic fibrosis patients--Aspergillus spores are so common it would be unusual not to find them in a human lung. So, why not show the hyphae or a pathological lung instead? Aspergillosis tissue pathology is evidenced, usually, by the presence of hyphae, not specifically of conidia. I admit it is a nice conidiophore. Including this image, poorly captioned, will cause confusion for the reader with slight knowledge and misinformation for the reader with little knowledge. I'm not an expert so I don't know if the expert will get a chuckle from it, though. The image should be removed. I am unwilling to be "bold" having a prior attempt to remove a bad image from a featured article met with instantaneous reversion. --69.226.100.7 (talk) 22:02, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is definitely in need of some work, particularly due to uncited content and reliance on primary sources. I'd be happy to help with wordsmithing, MOS cleanup, ref formatting etc. if we can get something happening on the content and sources end. Maralia (talk) 19:42, 5 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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FA criteria concerns are sourcing, copyright, MOS, lead. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles finally at Featured topic candidates) 05:31, 6 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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