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Wikipedia:Featured article review/archive/July 2008

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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 User:Marskell 07:31, 31 July 2008 [1].

Ronald Reagan

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This article has problems on 1b and 1d (not neutral and comprehensive). Jimmuldrow (talk) 13:04, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The main editor reverts any facts with references that aren't hero-worship. Some time after the article achieved featured article status, editors kept insisting on a historically wrong comparison of Reagan and Thomas Jefferson (Jefferson spent very little money as President on anything, including the military), which was eventually removed because of me. Other issues kept out at first or allowed only after several reverts include any mention of thousands of people denied Social Security Medical benefits by the Reagan administration, and Reagan's policy on drastically cutting EPA funding.Jimmuldrow (talk) 19:26, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Did you notify the main contributor(s)? And what criterion does this not meet? « Milk's Favorite Cøøkie 19:33, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Close FAR, FAR is not dispute resolution, there is not a single post from the nominator at Talk:Ronald Reagan, there is nothing to see here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:40, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I only did this a minute ago. I'll notify the main contributors. I thought
it was clear that neutrality was my concern.Jimmuldrow (talk) 19:45, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
After seven FACs, it is doubtful that the neutrality concerns that you haven't raised anywhere on the talk page are sufficient for FAR; FAR is not dispute resolution. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:46, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Your recent revert indicates that you might not be unbiased. You're one of the editors
who wants no mention at all, however brief, of Reagan's well-known environmental policies.
And I did include a reference.Jimmuldrow (talk) 19:52, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And your lack of use of the article talk page shows that you might not understand Wiki policies and procedures or the appropriate use of FAR. I suppose I was equally biased the two times that I advocated that Barack Obama FARs be closed? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:54, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe you can explain whether you have a bias. You said that Reagan's EPA policies were
only "marginally related" to Reagan's Presidency, even though what you reverted (and the
reference for it) make it clear that more than half of the federal regulations targeted
for an early review by the Reagan administration's regulatory reform team were EPA
rules.Jimmuldrow (talk) 20:00, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe a big arrow will help you find Talk:Ronald Reagan. (Are New Jersey taxpayers paying for your Wiki editing time, btw?) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:10, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the big arrow. I responded on the talk page for this one concern, but the FAR is for an ongoing series of the same kind of thing in what, in theory, is supposed to be a Featured Article. See above for details. Jimmuldrow (talk) 20:18, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To recap a series of reverts that, over time, point to persistently biased editors:

Multiple editors kept reverting any attempt to correct a comparison of Reagan and Jefferson that was very wrong on the facts according to the book "Jefferson: American Sphinx", which was a History Book Club selection. Not that bad a reference. As to what the problem was, here's a hint: Jefferson and Reagan went opposite directions on the issue of deficit spending and military spending. That multiple editors of what is supposed to be a Featured Article wouldn't know this doesn't say much for the article.

Multiple reverts were made on any attempt to mention any details of Reagan's very well-known policy of deregulation, especially with regard to environmental protection (major) and also administration attempts to purge tens of thousands of people from Social Security Medical Disability roles (certainly not minor). There were good references for each. The reasons given were that they weren't relevant to the Presidency section of the Ronald Reagan article, which is very questionable.Jimmuldrow (talk) 20:38, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Close FAR By "main editor" I presume he means me. It's always me :) As I said on the talk page, Jim, there is no bias, discrediting of certain viewpoints, etc. This article adheres to WP:SS, with multiple sub-articles. The presidency section is a summary of what is covered elsewhere, namely Presidency of Ronald Reagan, Domestic policy of the Reagan administration, and Foreign policy of the Reagan administration. As I stated in my edit summary, the paragraph you inserted relating to the environmental policies is not completely NPOV and lacks necessary context. Without explaining Reagan's environmental policies, we immediately get how one aide resigned relating to the Superfunds. As I also said, please feel free to add information related to this in Domestic policy of the Reagan administration, where this can be covered in more depth. FYI, Reagan's stance on the environment is also covered in Political positions of Ronald Reagan. There is no cover up, or anything like that, and I think the FAR is, frankly, silly.
As for the Reagan-Jefferson thing, I have no idea what you are referring to. If I'm missing something, please let me know.
With all due respect, you are dead wrong on the Social Security mentions. I did not object to it being in the article at all. What I did was move it from the general "Presidency" section to the more specific "Reaganomics and the economy" section and placed it in proper context (see diff). Later, I realized that when I moved the phrase, I did not remove the first one, so I took that out (which was not controversial - see diff).
You also seem to be upset that work is reverted or undone in this article. Well, that is the process of editing. Not everything one editor enters is suitable for the article, and we have to adhere to guidelines (such as WP:SS, WP:RS, and WP:SIZE) to decide what to include and exclude. I've done some work over at John McCain, where they even have an FAQ at the talk page listing certain things that should be excluded and included for the good of the article. So if something is reverted, don't take it personally or jump to rash conclusions about bias and unfair portrayal; it just means that another editor disagreed with what you wrote for some reason. And usually, the issue is hammered out at the talk page. I try to always do that.
As I said above, I see no need for this FAR. The article is, IMHO, one of the most neutral on Wikipedia. Happyme22 (talk) 21:58, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Whether the FAR is closed should be decided by those who are not directly involved with the article. The main article should mention at least a short, concise summary of the important issues, although I'm sure they're mentioned in more depth elsewhere. Deregulation is certainly one of the things Reagan was most known for. If the article is about Reagan and not environmental deregulation then the Cold War shouldn't be mentioned because the Soviet Union and Gorbachev aren't Reagan, and so on.

And yes, every edit I mentioned above was reverted multiple times and no, it was not all about you, Happy. Other editors acted the same way. Hero worship would explain what otherwise doesn't add up, imo.

Jimmuldrow (talk) 02:31, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I never said that this article cannot mention anything about Reagan's deregulation. I said that if you want to add lengthy paragraphs, please do so in sub-articles because of WP:SS and WP:SIZE, among others. I don't mind mentioning environmental deregulation, Social Security, etc. but all mentions need to be fair and have balance (see WP:NPOV). As I also said, the eight years of Reagan's presidency are given more weight than some other periods of his life because they are so significant. The Cold War and Reagan's direct negotiations with Mikhail Gorbachev are indeed related to and about Ronald Reagan. I would be happy to discuss on the talk page with you how we can incorporate a mention of the environmental deregulation into this article. Happyme22 (talk) 02:55, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]


The "lengthy" addition in question was three or four sentences, depending on which revert you're talking about. As for balance, if facts needed to be added you would have mentioned them by now.

Also, Reagan's EPA and Social Security appointees were specifically chosen because they shared Reagan's values with regard to deregulation. They were specifically chosen to implement Reagan's policies. Jimmuldrow (talk) 03:21, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Jimmuldrow, if "other editors acted the same way", that should tell you something about the quality of your edits. Once again, you have a content dispute over one paragraph which you never even attempted to resolve on the talk page or via consensus or via normal channels. FAR is not dispute resolution. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:15, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The length was indeed four sentences, which can be perceived as long or short depending on where the sentences are and how much WP:WEIGHT you give the subject (these particular sentences were also placed in their own section). I have mentioned that a context is needed: Why did Reagan support deregulation? Because of his small-government and free market views. That should be mentioned, or else readers may wonder "why did Reagan deregulate?" His general attitude toward the environment would also need to be touched on, which is summed up at Political positions of Ronald Reagan#Environment. The Superfunds are mentioned in Domestic policy of the Reagan administration#Environment. Again, I would be happy to work something out with you on the article's talk page. Happyme22 (talk) 04:28, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]


As to the quality of the edits, let some outside party judge. They were factual, had references, were as relevant to Reagan as the Cold War and, as mentioned before, several editors defended a completely wrong comparison of Reagan to Jefferson more than once. Let someone less directly involved also judge the quality of your responses.Jimmuldrow (talk) 11:25, 31 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Didn't you see that this nomination was removed by Marskell? Why was this reinstated? Once again, remove nomination.--Yannismarou (talk) 15:41, 31 July 2008 (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 User:Marskell 07:31, 31 July 2008 [2].

Roman–Persian Wars

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Notified Wikiprojects Greece, Iran, Classical, MilHist, and Middle Ages, and User:Yannismarou.

My own fault, really; this should have been a strong do not promote. If I had done more than glance at the points about which I was specifically consulted during the FA nomination, I would have objected then; but as it is, the second paragraph of the lead manages to violate 1a, b, c, d, and e. The present text (and I must say present, hence 1e) runs:

Occupation of enemy territory was usually local or brief and almost always reversed by force or negotiation. Durable cessions of territory in the border zone were made in Mesopotamia in 299 and 363 AD and in the Transcaucasus in 591 AD, but these were not the result of land being seized by force. Rather, each was the product of negotiations in which a ruler's negotiating position was severely weakened by his personal circumstances. The only lasting conquest by force was Septimius Severus' annexation of northern Mesopotamia in 195–198 AD. The last of these wars seemed to end the territorial inertia when Khosrau II's Sassanid forces occupied huge swathes of Roman territory for many years and brought the Roman Empire close to destruction. However, a counter-offensive led by Heraclius enabled the Romans to regain their lost territory in a final peace settlement.

  • 1a: The last of these wars seemed to end the territorial inertia when. The last war mentioned is from 195 AD; the occasion now mentioned is from 591 AD. Bad writing; not that territorial inertia is a clear metaphor to begin with.
  • 1b: This omits all Roman successes except Septimius, including Trajan's conquest of Mesopoptamia, which was voluntarily abandoned by Hadrian
  • 1c: The final peace settlement here lasted eight years before the Sassanian empire ceased to exist; other settlements has lasted for a century.

It would be nice if this could be resolved - this edit by Yannismarou would be acceptable; but I have made lengthy efforts to do so, in vain. If we must have a bad article because of group pressure, can we at least keep it off the main page? But it would be preferable to fix it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:53, 29 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My first and final comment on this issue. Seeing this article being here just one week after its promotion is for me a bad joke. It is obviously another Sept's attempt to create wiki-drama, but I have no intention to follow his path. Therefore, I'll comment once and then I'll remain silent. Some things about the background of Sept's full of rage reaction:
  • On June 28, Sept commented "I deplore the frontier remained remarkably stable as a half-truth", (see here), and although he received a well-grounded and analytic response by both me and Zburh he temporarily kept his silence and decided to reinstate his arguments (without actually answering to me and Zburh) on July 8 (see here). After a brief response of mine, he added this draft, extending the lead, changing its structure, and inserting a series of historical inaccuracies, which were pointed out by both me and Zburh here. Zburh proposed a compromise version, insisting on territorial changes (this one close to the current version), and restoring historical accuracy Sept's draft had compromised. This is important because later Zburh faced the accusation of "Iranian nationalism". You can compare Sept's draft and argumentation, and then Zburh's draft and supporting argumentation, in order to make your own judgment. I want to emphasize on two things: 1) Sept stated during this discussion "Added a draft. If you disagree with the specifics, feel free to tweak again. If you dispute largely (he meant the particular word, which was thus in italics) we have a problem." This statement of his contradicts most of his arguments in the current FARC, which focus on "the specifics". 2) After Zburh introduced his compromise draft, Sept remained silent for twenty days! He did not respond to Zburh's arguments (maybe because he couldn't; see again here in fine), and did not comment on the draft. In the law school they told us that such a long silence entails acceptance, but this is no law school, and I'll let the reviewers again to make their own judgments here. One thing you should also check is Zburh's civility and politeness during all this time. This is important for the next episodes of our story!
  • Sept does not express any objection again about the lead; he waits; he does not say anything during FAC; he keeps silent, and suddenly on July 27 he introduces unilaterally and after no discussion this confusing and historical inaccurate change. On July 28 I revert him back, trying to be polite, and asking him to discuss the issue in the talk page (see my edit summary). And then we have the beginning of wrath! His "mature" response was to start tagging the article (the same version he hadn't tagged for 20 days, and although he had said that his main problem was "largely" and not "the specifics"), and to address threats towards all directions (I have gathered them at the end of this intervention). His vengiful tactic of tagging the article has been repeatedly criticized by third-party editors and subsequently reverted by third-party editors. The ensuing discussion is deploring but if you have the patience read it till the end. I do not have the appetite to repeat all the details here; the point is that Sept suddenly realized that now all the details are important to him, and if he is not satisfied:
  • He will ask for an RfC for the article.
  • He will initiate an RfC against particular users who do not agree with him.
  • He will report almost everybody to AIV.
  • He will initiate a FARC (oups! He already did it! He is a man of his word!)
  • He will keep tagging the article till the end of the world.
  • He will regard all of us as Iranian nationalists (although I kindly asked him to label me as Greek, therefore Byzantine nationalist, which I may deserve!).

I do not have much to say about the FA criteria. Just read the article and see for yourself! It is thoroughly researched, properly cited, copy-edited by Dank55, Ceoil, Casliber, and Finetooth (last copy-editing after Tony's comments in FAC). The only person who regards it as POV is Sept. The only person causing edit-wars is again Sept (and it is hillarious to use his own edit-wars for evoking violation of criterion 1e!) What else can I say?! Oh, yes, some brief answers to Sept's aforementioned arguments:

  • "The last of these wars seemed to end the territorial inertia when Khosrau II's Sassanid". If you think the prose is not perfect, tweak it (by the way, your prose skllls as presented in all the drafts you proposed are much inferior, and all your versions worse than the current one!), but how can you say that the reader may not understand that we speak about Heraclius' war, when there is the "when ... " part of the sentence, and since "the last of these wars" refers to the Roman-Persian Wars as a whole. The solution here, in case you want to introduce an improvement, is a minor tweak like a better paragraph-splitting I just did; not all this fuss you caused.
  • Really? And 591 or 195-198 were done by whom? Not the Romans?! And, after all, the paragraph speaks about "durable sessions". All the ones mentioned: two Romans (195-198 and 591) and two Persians (299 and 363) were "durable", and one of them, the one achieved in 195-198 was "permanent". Trajan's was neither durable nor permanent. As the article accurately says: "Trajan died in 117, before he was able to reorganize the effort to consolidate Roman control over the Parthian provinces." Now, where is the POV or the historical inaccuracy again? And, by the way, in your own edit of July 27 (the ideal one for you!), which I initially reverted, I see no Trajan. So, on July 27 Trajan's omission did not violate 1b, but on July 30 it does violate it!
  • "in a final peace settlement". As far as the Persian-Wars are concerned, it was permanent. We had no other! Yes, we could have had, if the Arab "tsunami" wouldn't occur. But the statement is not inaccurate. This was the last peace settlement in a series of wars lasting approximately 700 years. Nevertheless, if this is a problem, personally I have no problem to remove this particular thread, and leave the sentence like that: "However, a counter-offensive led by Heraclius enabled the Romans to regain their lost territory".
  • Ok, no comment! Howard-Johnston (among others) is PEACOCK and Iranian nationalist! The Empire was on the verge of destruction and this is a fact! By the way, I and Zburh could also accuse you of true Iranian nationalism, when you argued that Shapur "held" Roman East, which never happened! And whatever you say you are not convincing at all, arguing that Shapur's and Khosrau's threats were of the same or similar importance.
Maybe redundant, but in order to have a broader prespective of the whole issue and Sept's tactics, I thought I should collect and expose here all the threats he managed to articulate within some hours:
  • For a start, as far as the article itself is concerned, if we do not agree with his drafts FARC and dispure resolutions are the only solutions.
  • Concerning personal comments, Sept declares that some users are in general dishonest.
  • Zburh in particular is "semi-literate" and an "Iranian nationalist". I honestly believe and I have to voice my opinion loudly here, that this was the worst of all comments. The person who has worked that much in this article, has attempted to promote compromises, the person who never offended anybody, and was always civil, the person with the profoundest knowledge of the topic among all of us, this person to be called "semi-literate", and "Iranian nationalist"?
  • Here another "offending" editor is threatened by the (later temporarily banned for edit-warring) Sept with an RfC, because he removed one of the two repetitive threads Trajan was mentioned!
  • And here everybody not agreeing with him is reported to AIV for vandalism of course!
I close this long comment, apologizing for its lentgh and for obliging you to read it (whoever of you managed to do that deserves my humble admiration!), but I thought I had to give a comprehensive presentation of the events, at least in the way I see them. In order to be fair, I have also to say that all this story is not just Sept's fault; CreazySuit and Larno Man wanted honestly to help but sometimes they achieved the opposite result. But I also have to recognize that at the same time they were provoked by Sept's bitter comments (see above).
Oh, and something else: Obviously all the reviewers here are passing a test of Sept, in order to see whether FA is worth anything at all. So, be careful; if you don't agree with him FA is worth of nothing. Thank you again for your patience!--Yannismarou (talk) 08:40, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • This article was promoted nine days ago. Per WP:FAR instructions, Three to six months is regarded as the minimum time between promotion and nomination here, unless there are extenuating circumstances such as a radical change in article content.. FAR is not dispute resolution. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:09, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I know that I should have opposed this article during FAC - if I had seen the problem, I would have done so; I have been trying to fix it since, only to have been completely reverted by a couple of editors with severe ownership problems; they have even reverted Yannismarou's tag acknowledging that the article is in dispute. It should not have been promoted with this text; it should be demoted now. (Nor do I insist on my own text; I am perfectly happy with the edit by Yannismarou linked to here, and many other alternatives are possible. Merely not this confusing, biased, and inaccurate text.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:50, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove - Bad faith nomination made way too soon to be seriously considered. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 17:06, 30 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove nom Per Judgesurreal. ( Ceoil sláinte 23:18, 30 July 2008 (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 User:Marskell 12:34, 23 July 2008 [3].

Shrine of Remembrance

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Notified: Gsl, CJ, Figaro, Rebecca, MacGyverMagic, Fifelfoo, Chuq and WikiProject Australia

Featured article (promoted in 2004, hasn't been reviewed since) with a Template:morefootnotes is not a good sign. Looking at the article it is obvious that it doesn't fall under Featured article criteria - 1.(c) and 2.(c) as it has only one in-text citation and only two offline references.--Avala (talk) 21:52, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but unfortunately I have never seen the Melbourne Shrine of Remembrance, so I do not feel qualified to make a comment or assumption about the article's criteria as a Wikipedia featured article - either for or against. Figaro (talk) 04:12, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Bilby is working on this; see WP:AWNB#FAR - Shrine of Remembrance and the article's history. —Giggy 04:16, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The article still has "citation needed" tags.--Avala (talk) 14:51, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hi - we've been adding them as we go along, mostly to make it clear to us what parts have been properly sourced and what could still do with one. They should be gone in a day or so - mostly they refer to information which is inferred by the sources, but that seems insufficient for a featured article. Thus they'll either be properly sourced, reworded to match reliable sources, or the text will be removed. - Bilby (talk) 15:23, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It looks a lot better now. Just one question, is there any photo to cover the section "Redevelopment: 2002–2003" of the new visitor centre?--Avala (talk) 13:22, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I still think it could do with some work, but I'm glad it is heading in the right direction. :) I've added a photo from commons which I believe shows one of the new entrances to the shrine post-redevelopment. That section needs to be expanded a bit, though. I have some good sources, as it was well covered in the media, but I'll have to track down a couple of missing references first. - Bilby (talk) 14:51, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think we've taken care of the referencing problem now: all significant claims should be referenced with reliable sources. I've also rewritten the lead to meet current MoS, and we've restructured the article as a whole. There may well be other problems that need to be fixed as part of this review - just let me know and I'll do what I can. :) It was interesting to see how much requirements for featured articles have changed in the last four years, and it certainly was in desperate need of referencing. - Bilby (talk) 12:06, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Looks good. I see only one issue now - quite unimportant image for the article of Keith Murdoch takes too much space while the physical look of the opponent journalist doesn't tell us much about the shrine itself so I would remove it. Other than that it looks fine to me.--Avala (talk) 13:20, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • The image is in a subsection titled "Oppostion and response". The key figure of the opposition was Murdoch and the key figure of the response was Monash, so I think that pictures of these two main protaganists is apt for this section. Melburnian (talk) 00:11, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • Given that both figures were certainly important (they get a fair bit of coverage in all the histories I've dug up, much more than any other individuals), I've tried resizing the two photos and putting them together - sort of a "for" and "against" shot. I'm not sure that it helps, but it was worth a try. :) - Bilby (talk) 02:05, 22 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There was no MoS review; post-closing cleanup and comments on talk. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:38, 23 July 2008 (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 User:Marskell 17:28, 22 July 2008 [4].

Structural history of the Roman military

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Review commentary

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Notified Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history

It fails 1(c), the section on the Manipular legion is innacurate — there were at least two reforms during this period, and two different ypes of legions with varying tactics and equipment, the refs don't seem to be reliable in that respect. The Non-citizen recruitment (49 BC – 27 BC) section could be expanded too, and it should really be a subsection of the Marian legion, and also, rather than being reffered to as "Manipular legion", "Imperial legion" etc, thy are normally named after somebody, like the Marian legion — the manipular legion was orignially a Camillan legion, but after some reforms became the Polybian legion, and the Imperial legion should be the Augustan legion.

{{Cite book}} and similar templates aren't used at all in the article, instead the refs are handmade, and the lead section lacks references (Okay, it is just a summary of the article but it should have the same refs as in the section is summarises, shouldn't it?)--Serviam (talk) 13:08, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Without getting into the accuracy issue—I'm not really qualified to comment on that—neither citation templates nor citation in the lead section are required by any policy or guideline, and, with an article this heavily cited, simply collecting citations for the lead by gathering those from the relevant sections would make it unreadable in any case. Kirill (prof) 13:21, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Just sorta echoing Kirill here: footnotes in the lead section are a mistake rather than a requirement, last time I checked (which has been awhile). And there's really no need to use {{Cite book}} ever. But this particular article does use a weird {{bibliobox}} template, which is an odd and ungainly innovation that has no precedent in the published world, as far as I know. This is the only article that uses it—and the creator no longer edits Wikipedia—so anyone should feel free to reformat the "Bibliography" section to one of the standard Wikipedia formats. Having a separate "footnotes" and "citations" section is another unneeded oddity, but not unheard of on Wikipedia. Combining the two would be an easy improvement.
As for the inaccuracies, it might have been more productive to raise those issues on the talk page of the article first, rather than here, unless the nominator feels the article is too inaccurate to easily salvage. Reviewers here typically won't know enough about a given topic to judge if the nominator is more knowledgeable than those who wrote the featured article. —Kevin Myers 14:34, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please complete the nomination by following the instructions at the top of WP:FAR to notify significant contributors and relevant WikiProjects, and post the notifications back to the top of this FAR. Thank you. --Regents Park (moult with my mallards) 16:08, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well the guy who did most of the work on it, and most Roman articles, stopped editing sometime last year (PocklingtonDan). I'll put a not eon the military history project talk page then. It may be possible to salvage it, though it would take a good bit of work, and I'm not prepared to do it at the moment, though someone else might.--Serviam (talk) 17:00, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have removed the Template:Bibliobox from the references. May I say that I don't think has any citation issues of any form. It seems to be one of the most well-cited articles I have seen. From an accuracy standpoint, it follows the sources; if you question those sources then you need to provide your own that contradict them.
If I am reading your concerns correctly, you think the Manipular region section should be renamed? I disagree, that section header adequately explains the content of the section, and as such it does its job. To add it to the "Marian legion (107 BC – 49 BC)" section would destroy the chronology. Woody (talk) 17:28, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't say to add it there, I meant that it should be split it into two sections; Camillan legion and Polybian legion, that's the main innacuracy, because half way through that section there was a large military reform which has been completely ommited, so I suppose it's more 1(b) than 1(c). It also doesn't mention Leves, light javelin armed infantry, predessesors of the velites, which don't seem to have received any coverage on wikipedia at all...--Serviam (talk) 17:44, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Also, the "Non-citizen recruitment (49 BC – 27 BC)" section should really be a subsection of "Marian legion (107 BC – 49 BC)", which actually lasted untill 27 BC, when Augustus came to power. "Introduction of vexillationes (76 AD – 117 AD)" should be a subsection of "Imperial legions and reformation of the auxilia (27 BC – 75 AD)", which should really be called "Augustan legion", and lasted up untill 117 AD, a bit of 2(b) there . The seperate citations and footnotes sections are also a little strange--Serviam (talk) 17:49, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As for my sources, [5], [6], [7], [8], [9] are all reliable, particularly the second link, that gives an in-depth history of the roman legions.--Serviam (talk) 17:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It is not that strange to have separate footnotes and citations, it is becoming more and more common on FACs as it is clearer to the reader. With regards to the subsections, I can't really comment yet as I haven't looked into it enough. Regards. Woody (talk) 18:08, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Okay thanks for your comments anyway.--Serviam (talk) 18:41, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
How are those sources reliable. They all look like they come from fairly unreliable websites, except maybe the second link which is an excerpt from a book from 1875 - not exactly the newest research. Surely the multiple book sources used now are more reliable? --Peter Andersen (talk) 11:34, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
They are reliable in that they seem to agree with the stuff I know about the Romans, so I assume they are reliable. and regardless of refs, there is a good bit of stuff left out. Those books that are already in the article mention it, probably the author of the wikipedia article didn't think them significant (As they still faught in maniples, but had different equipment and weapons and some kinds of troops had disappeared)--Serviam (talk) 19:33, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
See WP:RS regarding sources. Web sources must be written either by a noted historian or noted organisation or clearly and transparently demonstrate their sources. Otherwise anyone could have written them without any academic legitimacy. These sources do not (at least at first glance) fulfill either of these requirements and as the person suggesting them, the onus is on you to prove their reliability. I think this issue is one that would be better raised on the talk page rather than here. To add, citations should not be used in the lead, the lead is an introduction and anything mentioned there should be cited elsewhere in the article.--Jackyd101 (talk) 13:37, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Read what I said, please, the books used in the article do mention this, but they have been left out in the article for some strange reason.--Serviam (talk) 13:53, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So use the books not the websites. Requesting expansion doesn't require new sources if the old ones have the info needed. Jay32183 (talk) 18:47, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What are you talking about? I was asked for other sources, and I found them...--Serviam (talk) 21:21, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think there is some confusion here. Basically, if the books contain the information required then you (or someone else with the books) should use the information in them to deal with the comprehensiveness issues you raise and use the books to source this expansion. The websites you provided cannot be used to source an FA because (per WP:RS) they have no obvious indication that what they state has any academic legitimacy.--Jackyd101 (talk) 22:33, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My first and second links can be used, they meet WP:RS, the last three I just got off google. As I explained above, I'm not prepared to add in the additional information, though someone else might want to.--Serviam (talk) 20:37, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is there any particular reason that the footnotes are alpha, delta, beta, lambda, eta, xi? I'd have expected alpha, beta, gamma, delta, epsilon, zeta. It's a minor concern, but since we're here, I'd thought I'd ask. Jay32183 (talk) 20:50, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fixes needed. Incorrect use of WP:ITALICS throughout on direct quotes. Some clauses are double and triple cited; there seems to be some overciting, but a content expert would need to evaluate. I found missing named refs and there are like more (I can put them in a spreadsheet later to check unless someone else gets to it first). Wikilinking is going to need attention (I linked one word, and noticed Bronze Age unlinked, as samples). That's all I had time for, but maybe someone will get to some of this before I do. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:36, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On second thoughts I've got through my other article work suprisingly fast, and at thsi rate I can start fixing the small factual errors early next week. Unless anyone else thinks it shouldn;t be, I say just leave it featured.--Serviam (talk) 23:06, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We can leave it featured after you fixed the errors. (That has a priority over fixing triarii) Wandalstouring (talk) 07:33, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are references and their formatting (1c and 2c). Marskell (talk) 20:04, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: The article's referencing level looks to me fine (although I do not have the time to proof-read them, I admit). And it is a great article! Which should keep its star. The prose is good, but I cannot say if it deserves to be called "professional". I think we'll need Tony's or Ceoil's opinion on that. As far as I am concerned, I'll work on the formatting of the citations, and on the MoS issues my eye will catch.--Yannismarou (talk) 12:49, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Density of citations is not a problem AFAICS. Well written, and overall grand. ( Ceoil sláinte 20:26, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I was hoping for more comments, but I think this is in keep territory and will move it out now. Marskell (talk) 17:13, 22 July 2008 (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 User:Marskell 17:40, 19 July 2008 [10].

Caesar cipher

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Review commentary

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This remains a well written, stable and (likely) accurate article, however it lacks a good lead, is too short and has a critical lack of citations, both inline and not.

The nominating user Matt Crypto, WP version 0.5 and Wikiproject Cryptography have each been notified of this discussion. Cumulus Clouds (talk) 17:23, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • I agree that the citations are not up to modern standards, but I would quibble with your assertion that it's too short. According to the FA criteria, a featured article merely needs to be comprehensive, that is, "it neglects no major facts or details". You might know of some gaps, but the topic of the Caesar cipher is not a large one, and I would argue that it is covered comprehensively here. Also, what problems do you see with the lead section -- it appears to be roughly the right size for an article of this length, if that's what you meant, as per the guidelines of Wikipedia:LEAD#Length. — Matt Crypto 18:22, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've added five more inline citations, I can find a few more if you give me a few days. The external links section could do with cleanup - we only need one online implementation, not eleven. Hut 8.5 20:49, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good work, Hut. Do you feel that it is fully referenced (i.e., that each ref covers everything behind it until the preceeding ref)? And no, there is no length criterion; the question is whether it is comprehensive, regardless of length. Is Cumulus still around? Perhaps we can close this without FARC. Marskell (talk) 15:16, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Apart from the paragraph at the end concerning multiple decryptions, yes. Hut 8.5 16:45, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments:

  • How do we know: "..other substitution ciphers are known to have been used earlier", if Caesar's was the first recorded?
  • Placing "used earlier" alongside Augustus could mislead a naive reader into thinking Augustus used the cipher before Caesar.
  • Is "it is likely to have been reasonably secure, etc." all from Singh?
  • Please expand on the Mezuzah use. I wanted to know why it's used there and when the practice started.
  • In the paragraph summarising use of the Vigenère cipher I would add that "Complete Victory" was used by the Confederacy, to place it in an historical context (and mention anyone else who used it).
  • Are there any more historical uses of the cipher which could be used to illustrate the article? DrKiernan (talk) 16:10, 4 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for the late reply, I forgot to watchlist this page.
  • Caesar's is the first recorded use of a substitution cipher which is a simple shift of the alphabet. Other types of substitution cipher were used earlier (there are examples from Ancient Greece, the Old Testament, the Kama Sutra and even some Ancient Egyptian tombs).
  • Changed.
  • No, only "Assuming that an attacker could read the message" etc was. I've added another reference for the first part.
  • I've added a mention of the Confederacy, though a list of everyone who has used the Vigenère cipher would be very long for a brief summary - better just to link to the article.
  • I've expanded it a little.
  • I don't know of any more examples. After the Dark Ages anyone who did use the cipher would have to be completely ignorant of cryptography as it's so insecure. Hut 8.5 16:45, 16 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns is referencing (1c). Marskell (talk) 14:03, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. It remains a tidy little article. Great work from Hut. Marskell (talk) 17:05, 19 July 2008 (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 User:Marskell 13:59, 18 July 2008 [12].

Surtsey

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Review commentary

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Husond and Roadrunnerz45 have been notified as have the Iceland and the Volcanoes WikiProject

I have found that this seems to neglect 1.(c), 2.(c), and 4. It is quite short, and is not of comparable length to current FA's. It is very under-referenced, and some of them aren't in the {{cite web}} proper format at all, just in <ref> tags, with no other relevant information like publisher info. I do not believe that this fits the FA criteria any longer. Dreamafter (talk) 21:14, 20 May 2008 (UTC) *Support demotion. This article once fulfilled the FA criteria, but just not anymore. Húsönd 21:23, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please complete the nomination by following the instructions at the top of WP:FAR to notify significant contributors and relevant WikiProjects, and post the notifications back to the top of this FAR. I see that you've notified two users, but please also notify relevant projects. Thank you. --Regents Park (Feed my swans) 21:57, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  Done Dreamafter (talk) 22:43, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are references and their formatting (1c and 2c) and focus (4). Marskell (talk) 09:58, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There are now plenty of well formatted references. I see no elaboration on how the article is either not comprehensive, or lacks focus, and so I do not see how criterion 4 is relevant here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.70.34.175 (talk) 20:02, 15 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove unless a lot happens soon. Missing conversions, WP:NBSPs, inconsistent date formatting throughout, uncited hard data throughout (see Birds and Marine life), See also needs pruning, inconsistent formatting of citations. Lots of work is this is to be kept. If MoS issues are cleaned up, I suspect wikilinking will need attention, but haven't looked closely. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:11, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In "Early days" what is the uncited trivia about journalists staying 15 minutes?
"Birds", three years, eight species, uncited; also, gulls since 1986 and puffins
"Marine life", 70 seals, grey seals common, uncited

Unformatted citations still, and incorrectly formatted dates in the citations. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:07, 3 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Had another look, issues not addressed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:26, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

    • I don't see any missing conversions.
    • I can't see where the nbsp need to be.
    • The dates in the text are day-first, those in the refs are xxxx-xx-xx format. I consider this consistent.
    • I think "See also" is OK.
    • Citations are consistently formatted.
    • The journalists' visit is cited.
    • Gulls since 1986 is in Friðriksson & Magnússon, but I have changed this to 1984 based on the new reference added: Petersen, which also details the three years and puffins.
    • The seals data can be found in the paper by Erlingur Hauksson of the Icelandic Fisheries Laboratory, Reykjavik, which is now added to the article. DrKiernan (talk) 12:29, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I do hope this can be saved: it's fascinating. Yannismarou appears to have done a lot since Sandy's comments, although I haven't looked closely enough to determine whether all have been addressed. TONY (talk) 12:06, 17 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was going to say that date formatting is inconsistent but I notice that it uses the rare Template:Citation. This produces formatting different than Cite web. I can't hold our templature against and I think it's keepable otherwise. Marskell (talk) 13:58, 18 July 2008 (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 User:Marskell 13:34, 18 July 2008 [13].

Bill Russell

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Review commentary

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I've notified WikiProject National Basketball Association, Myasuda, Onomatopoeia, Quadzilla99, Zodiiak, Chensiyuan, and Warhol13. Zagalejo^^^ 06:51, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This article was promoted in 2007, and I was one of the people who voted in support. Admittedly, I hadn't read the entire article very closely, and I believe it falls short of satisfying 1a and 1d.

My concerns:

  • Some phrases are taken almost verbatim from the sources. In the "personal life" section, we have two sentences which are very similar to those in this article. ("His would-be neighbors filed a petition trying to block the move, and when that failed, other neighbors banded together to try to purchase the home that Russell wanted to buy. . . Furthermore, once in Marion, Indiana, he had been given the key to the city only to be refused service that evening in his hotel's dining room. Russell went to the mayor's home, woke him up, and returned the key.") User:Xeriphas1994 pointed this out on the talk page in November 2007. Unfotunately, I hadn't noticed that message until now (and I guess no one else did, either.) It might be wise to check everything in the article, to make sure it's free of plagiarism.
  • The article often sounds more like a sportswriter's column than an encylopedia article. It has a lot of sports jargon ("This was the first time in seven years that he failed to average 23 boards"), and the language is not always neutral ("Russell grabbed an incredible 40 rebounds in Game 2"; "They finished with a lackluster 48–34 record"; "Russell completed another fine year"; "Russell himself put up decent numbers of 9.9 points per game", etc.)
  • The "Accomplishments and legacy" section is a real chore to read, especially the second paragraph, which is just a flood of statistical information, with repetitive transitions ("Russell also... Russell also...") That information might be better in list form.
I don't mean to be persnickety, but I think it's fair to ask that we make this the best article it can be. I'm committed to helping out with what I can, but I can't do it myself. Zagalejo^^^ 06:41, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're not being persnickety. Plagarism is as serious an issue as we can face. I'm going to do a full source check for you, and will post if I find any hint of copying text. I don't have any of the books, so you're out of luck there. Giants2008 (talk) 20:41, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've gone through the first 10 references, and I have a couple questions. Nothing major, but I might as well mention them now.
  • Article: "which was later called an important bonding experience for the group." Ref 3: "The result is what we might refer to today as a "bonding" experience." No plagarism, but should "bonding" be placed in quotation marks in the article?
  • Ref 7: Alex Hannum being the only coach to beat the Celtics in the playoffs during their dynasty is not referenced by this. At least I can't find it. This also appears tacked on, and not very relevant to Russell.
I haven't found anything to match the plagarism examples given, but have been making changes to items that are close to the source text.

If it's close, why take chances? Feel free to revert if you don't like the adjustments, and I'll be back for more tomorrow. Giants2008 (talk) 23:46, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your hard work. I'll look through a batch of references later tonight. Zagalejo^^^ 23:55, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've covered everything up to "1956-59". I haven't found any other whole sentences that have been copied from the sources, but I changed a few phrases that I thought were a little too close for comfort. People can look through the edit history to see. I also did a little bit of general copyediting, but nothing too extensive. I'll check more of the sources later. Zagalejo^^^ 04:48, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
With Zagalejo's help, I've made it through 35 sources so far. My worst discovery so far was a factual error, stating that Russell had a 30-point, 40-rebound performance in Game 7 of the 1963 NBA Finals, when he actually did so in 1962. The game also went one overtime, not two as the article previously said. This is now fixed. Let me throw out my one concern so far.
  • Article: "In one particular instance, Russell's father was denied service at a gasoline station until the staff had taken care of all the white customers. When his father attempted to leave and find a different station, the attendant stuck a shotgun in his face, threatening to kill him unless he stayed and waited his turn. In another instance, Russell's mother was walking down the street in a fancy dress when the local sheriff accosted her."
  • Ref 1 (The Current): "In one instance, his father was denied service at a gasoline station until all the other white customers were taken care of. To add insult to injury, when his father calmly drove away toward another station, the attendant shoved a shotgun in his face and threatened to kill him unless he came back and waited.
In another instance, Bill's mother was walking down the street wearing a beautiful dress when the sheriff stopped her...". Is this too close to the source text? I didn't think so yesterday when I checked it, but it's starting to bother me now. If anyone wants to comment on this, please do. Giants2008 (talk) 18:36, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I tried to reword those a little bit more. I'm not sure if I'm satistfied. Zagalejo^^^ 21:56, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've made it to ref 46, (Counter Punch) and I have bad news. There are several other statements sourced to this site that look almost identical in the article. The whole paragraph probably needs to be re-written. Giants2008 (talk) 20:50, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm done with my source check, and refs 47 (ZMag) and 51 (Foundation for Sarcoidosis Research) are also repeated closely in the article. The Personal life section seems to be where the real problem is. Giants2008 (talk) 21:05, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks so much for doing that. That personal life section is problematic for other reasons. I remember reading that few NBA teams ever approached a sellout in the 1960s, so it may not be wise to use the attendance figures as an example of racism toward Russell. I'm just going to pull those sentences out for the time being. Hopefully, some of the main article writers will drop by sometime to chime in. Zagalejo^^^ 21:25, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm now attempting to weed out the many POV statements in the article. There are quite a few of them, and I notice them most when talking about Russell's season performances and "famous" moments in the NBA. Describing what happened is enough for me. I won't guarantee that I got everything, but it is better now. I removed the first instance of his streak of averaging 23 rebounds a game from when it started, because I didn't think it flowed well there. I also worked on some other things, but feel free to change them back if you want. I'm through 1964–65 as I call it a night, and I will finish this tomorrow. Giants2008 (talk) 04:17, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your continued hard work. Zagalejo^^^ 06:38, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I just finished my POV run-through. I don't claim perfection, but I do claim improvement. Giants2008 (talk) 22:57, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, it defintely looks better, as far as POV language is concerned.
  • OK, I think my first two comments above have been addressed, thanks to the work of Giants2008. I'd still like to do something with that "Accomplishments and legacy" section, though. Also, I noticed that many paragraphs throughout the article begin with the phrase "In the [year] season...," like "In the 1967-68 NBA season..." Should that be "During the 1967-68 season"? Zagalejo^^^ 01:46, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My idea for Accomplishments and Legacy is to move the single-game feats into the season recaps. This will reduce some of the clutter, and the games would fit better in their respective seasons. After this is done, the rest of the second paragraph can be moved into a list. What do you think? Giants2008 (talk) 01:25, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, that sounds like it would work. Zagalejo^^^ 03:09, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment As a main contributor to the original FA version, I applaud all of the improvements. After my long wikibreak, I will be infusing info from books and magazines, moving the article away from listing pure stats and giving a more holistic view, both in professional and personal sense. Any help (esp. copyedit) is appreciated. —Onomatopoeia (talk) 12:50, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll look at the writing as well. The Accomplishments and legacy section still needs work, since I got a little lazy with this. Also take a look at the pictures, especially the infobox photo; I'm concerned about fair-use with a living person. Giants2008 (talk) 15:09, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I am finished now with the new input, page is now 80k instead of 60k. Copyediting is appreciated: My eyes are not fresh anymore, I could not see errors even if I wanted to... —Onomatopoeia (talk) 21:18, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • New comments I'll add to this list as I work my way through the article.
  • However, Russell frequently battled with racism and was notorious for his contempt of fans and journalists.
I'm a little uneasy about the word "notorious" here. I think the sentence should make it clearer that Russell's attitude towards fans and the media was largely the result of his experiences with racism.
Copy that. But also mention that he took out his resentment on the people who actually made him big, namely the fans and also the staff (see his hit-and-run retirement) of the Celtics.—Onomatopoeia (talk) 21:38, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • As a sophomore at McClymonds High School, he was a teammate of future Baseball Hall-of-Famer Frank Robinson, but Russell would have been almost cut again.
I'm not sure what Frank Robinson has to do with Russell almost being cut. Zagalejo^^^ 02:20, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, that is awkward. —Onomatopoeia (talk) 21:38, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • In his USF years, Russell used his relative lack of bulk to develop an uncanny style of defense: instead of purely guarding the opposing center, he used his quickness and speed to play help defense against opposing forwards and aggressively challenge their shots.
A couple of comments: 1)"uncanny" is POV; 2)Do we have an article that discusses the concept of help defense? Zagalejo^^^ 02:28, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the book says that Russell pretty much invented the concept of a mobile defensive center who played help D. Maybe "unique"? Help defense IMHO is uncovered by WP. —Onomatopoeia (talk) 21:38, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I think unique would be better. Zagalejo^^^ 21:48, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Russell's first Celtics game came on December 22, 1956 against the St. Louis Hawks, led by star forward Bob Pettit, who held several all-time scoring records.
Did Pettit hold those records in 1956? Zagalejo^^^ 02:28, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Pettit at least held the record of 1,849 points in a season (25.7 ppg), which he set in that 1955-56 season. Of course, he peaked at 29.2 ppg years later. —Onomatopoeia (talk) 16:07, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, Okay.Zagalejo^^^ 18:40, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think the third paragraph of "1956-59" needs some restructuring. At one point, we say, "With his teammates, Russell had a cordial relationship, with the notable exception of fellow rookie and old rival Tom Heinsohn." At the end of the paragraph, however, we learn that Heinsohn was not the only exception, since Russell was also cold towards Cousy. Zagalejo^^^ 03:21, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I worded it badly. Russell-Heinsohn was tense, Russell-Cousy was actually quite ok, it was more like politely-minding-each-others-business. Russell and Cousy simply did not have any common interests, but they did not dislike each other. —Onomatopoeia (talk) 16:07, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The discussion about racism in the sixth paragraph of "1956-59" seems like it's just shoehorned into the text. It doesn't really fit within the flow of the prose. Is that really the best place to put it? Zagalejo^^^ 03:50, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The "Negro" quote is based on Russell's experience with racist Southern hotel owners in Dallas, when the NBA All-Stars toured the U.S. in the postseason of --indeed-- 1958. IIRC the Go Up For Glory book and the citation appeared 1980. Suggestions? —Onomatopoeia (talk) 16:07, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I think that section could still use some reorganization. It's weird to go from "This attitude contributed to his legendary bad rapport with fans and journalists." to "The Celtics won 49 games and easily made the first berth in the 1958 NBA Playoffs, and made the 1958 NBA Finals against their familiar rivals, the St. Louis Hawks." We at least need a transition of some sort between those two sentences. Zagalejo^^^ 18:40, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • 'Russell had the daunting task of defending against Baylor with little frontline help, as the latter had already fouled out the three best Celtics forwards: Loscutoff, Heinsohn and Tom Sanders.
Is "fouled out" usually used as a transitive verb? Zagalejo^^^ 18:50, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • His time as a coach was lackluster; although he led the struggling SuperSonics into the playoffs for the first time in franchise history, Russell’s defensive, team-oriented Celtics mindset did not mesh well with the team.
Some more details would be useful here (eg, his record with the Sonics). It's not clear why he was so "lackluster". Zagalejo^^^ 04:04, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • More attracted to his mother Katie than to his father...
I'd use a different word than "attracted". Makes it sound like he had an Oedipal complex. :P Zagalejo^^^ 04:09, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Russell's thinking became increasingly militant, so far that he was quoted in a 1963 Sports Illustrated interview with the words: "I dislike most white people because they are people... I like most blacks because I am black", expressing that "human" was a negative trait and "black" was a positive trait which were mutually exclusive.
This needs some work. I'm unsure about the colon usage, and I don't even understand what all of it means. How is "human" a negative trait? Zagalejo^^^ 04:23, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Source concerns - I have a few questions about whether sources are reliable. I'm concerned about refs 12 (HickokSports.com), 13 {a school website) and 61 (nndb.com). Ref 45 has a formatting error as well. Also, please don't forget my note above Zagalejo's round of comments. Giants2008 (talk) 02:07, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Status. Do people want to keep this up in the FAR section as work goes on? I was going to move it down to FARC. Marskell (talk) 17:22, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Since a lot of work has occured recently, I don't see any harm in giving it another day or two. Giants2008 (talk) 17:42, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I guess a couple of days wouldn't hurt anyone, but the more I look at the article, the more problems I see. In addition to the things I listed above, there are lots of subtle problems with the prose that are hard for me to explain, and hard for me to fix myself without having access to all the sources. Zagalejo^^^ 18:50, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I just weeded out the wacky refs and corrected several errors. Still, I also think that the prose could do better. —Onomatopoeia (talk) 22:44, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are sources (1c) and content. Joelito (talk) 18:20, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment 1c (the most pressing FAR need) should be satisfied by now, I incorporated many parts of the IMHO most comprehensive WP:RS-worthy book on Bill Russell available ("The Rivalry: Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain and The Golden Age of Basketball" by John Taylor) and we weeded out several unreliable refs. —Onomatopoeia (talk) 09:51, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah. I think now, the main problems are 1a problems. The prose and organization of certain sections still need some tinkering. Zagalejo^^^ 18:05, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I still see some problems. Some unresolved issues I mentioned above:
  • 'Russell had the daunting task of defending against Baylor with little frontline help, as the latter had already fouled out the three best Celtics forwards: Loscutoff, Heinsohn and Tom Sanders.
Is "fouled out" usually used as a transitive verb? Zagalejo^^^ 18:50, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • His time as a coach was lackluster; although he led the struggling SuperSonics into the playoffs for the first time in franchise history, Russell’s defensive, team-oriented Celtics mindset did not mesh well with the team.
Some more details would be useful here (eg, his record with the Sonics). It's not clear why he was so "lackluster". Zagalejo^^^ 04:04, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Russell's thinking became increasingly militant, so far that he was quoted in a 1963 Sports Illustrated interview with the words: "I dislike most white people because they are people... I like most blacks because I am black", expressing that "human" was a negative trait and "black" was a positive trait which were mutually exclusive.
This needs some work. I'm unsure about the colon usage, and I don't even understand what all of it means. How is "human" a negative trait? Zagalejo^^^ 04:23, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • And I'd still like to see some changes with the second paragraph of "Accomplishments and legacy". That sort of information is easier to digest as a list than as a paragraph. Zagalejo^^^ 19:09, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Besides prose concerns, I'm still finding a few statements that are factually iffy. Take this:
After spending several years living as a recluse on Mercer Island in Seattle,[52] Russell rose to prominence again in January 2006, when he convinced Miami Heat superstar center Shaquille O'Neal to bury the hatchet with fellow NBA superstar and former Los Angeles Lakers teammate Kobe Bryant, with whom O'Neal had a bitter public feud.'
I'm not sure if "recluse" is the right word. A Google search will find plenty of interviews with Russell from the late 1990s or early 2000s, so it's not like he was in hiding before 2006. Zagalejo^^^ 22:49, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Also: It came as so surprising that even Red Auerbach was blindsided, and as a consequence, he made the "mistake" of drafting guard Jo Jo White instead of a center.[48] Although White became a standout Celtics player, the Celtics lacked a center, went just 34–48 in the next season and failed to make the playoffs for the first time since 1950.
There really weren't any high-profile centers available at the Celtics' draft position (see 1969 NBA Draft), so it's unfair to associate the Jo Jo White pick with the Celtics' fall from grace. (And the Celtics did have a center [14] - several in fact. What you really mean is that they didn't have an All-Star caliber center.) Zagalejo^^^ 23:18, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

*Fixes needed You need to sort out the main image. The small one from the Library of Congress is fine, as it is "in the public domain per the instrument of gift"[15], as are these from the look of them [16][17] [18] but the main image does not have a fair use rationale, and does not seem to me to be very much better than the public domain images available. DrKiernan (talk) 13:48, 7 July 2008 (UTC) [reply]

There's no need to repeat all the ref information on every Taylor footnote—put the book in a References section and the page numbers in a Notes section. But no biggie. I'll keep this now. Marskell (talk) 13:31, 18 July 2008 (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 User:Joelr31 16:06, 12 July 2008 [19].

Brown Dog affair

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The article is subject to a constant, months-long edit war regarding inclusion of external links. Therefore, the article fails criterion 1e) Stability and should be delisted as a featured article. Sceptre (talk) 12:16, 12 July 2008 (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 User:Marskell 14:22, 11 July 2008 [20].

Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event

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I propose this article be stripped of its featured status. I was translating the article into my own language in which I got it reviewed. Under the impression that the huge amount of sources would make it acurate I just copied the sources into my translation. However, later I discovered a reference that was wrong-cited, and another user discovered two more errors, I will list the three cases below. The errors were, according to the article, supported by scientific literature. So I went to the library and checked it out. The mentioned sources, however, did NOT confirm these statements.

I can remove the passages from the article, but the article has a total of 77 references. This means 74 are not yet verified and since the three that I tried to verify appeared to be based on loose sand, I do not trust the other content to be well-referenced either. The best would be to check and verify all refs in the entire article and find new ones when they cite the source incorrectly. Meanwhile, the article should be stripped of its star.

List of bad citings found so far:

  1. Here I mentioned the first wrong-cited ref I discovered, I already removed it from the article. The text read : Identified in 1990 based on the work of Glen Penfield done in 1978, this crater is oval, with an average diameter of about 180 kilometers (112 mi), about the size calculated by the Alvarez team. The source did confirm that Alvarez had done this calculation, but the whole point of the paper was to disprove Alvarez' hypothesis. That was not the right source to cite here.
  2. A few orders of mammals did diversify right at the K-T boundary, including Chiroptera (bats) and Cetartiodactyla (whales and dolphins and Even-toed ungulates), as a result of the reduced competition in those niches. -> Gives Springer et al (2007) as source. Springer and coworkers do not mention whales or bats in that way. In fact, bats and whales are commonly supposed to have originated in respectively the Eocene and Paleocene, later in geologic time. (See for example Sutera (2002) on the origin of whales)
  3. The Northern hemisphere marsupial families became extinct, but those in Australia and South America survived. Gives as source Dodson (1996). I could not find the book in my library yet, but if it confirms this it contradicts other literature. For example McKenna & Bell (ref below) write that oppossums lived in North America continuously from the Cretaceous to the Miocene.

Listed literature that is not in the ref-list of the article:

  • McKenna, M.C. & Bell, S.K. 1997. Classification of mammals: above the species level. New York: Columbia University Press, 631 pp. ISBN 978-0-231-11013-6
  • Sutera, R. 2002. The Origin of Whales and the Power of Independent Evidence. Reports of the National Center for Science Education 20(5), p. 33-41.

Best regards, Woodwalker (talk) 18:39, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please follow the instructions at the top of WP:FAR to complete the notifications of relevant Projects and involved editors, and post the notifications back to this FAR as on other FARs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:04, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm kind of offended by these comments. I guess me and a few dozen editors who did review each reference were idiots? I don't know what to say. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 01:17, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Looks like a fine article to me (a few patches of choppy paragraphing/sectioning might be attended to around the middle). The density of citations looks good, but I guess a quick check of the claims above might be conducted. I look forward to reading through it properly. TONY (talk) 03:28, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Responding to point 2 above, the article is freely available. It says "Within orders, subsequent basal splits are approximately at the K-T boundary for Afrosoricida, Chiroptera, and Cetartiodactyla." The text quoted in point 2 then lists the types of mammals in Cetartiodactyla as we know the clade now, presumably as a courtesy to the reader. However this might be misleading and could be corrected by saying "predecessors of..." or such. In any case, the referenced article supports the substance of point 2. Isolation booth (talk) 04:30, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, I reviewed some of the references, and it appears that the reference supports the statement. And the article is a key review reference for mammalian speciation after the K-T event. I'm not sure I can find a better one. The book that Woodwalker references is 6 years older than the published reference. Sometimes I despise the democracy of Wikipedia. One editor gets all upset, and there we go. And if I hadn't noticed that SG had made an edit to the article, I wouldn't even known that this existed. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 05:15, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have Dodson (1996), and although it did not verify the material in point #2, OM has removed that reference. The remaining Dodson reference [57], is correct. Firsfron of Ronchester 06:36, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Point 2: yes, I read the article. The point here is that a basal split is not the same as an origin of a species or even a higher group. The Chiroptera for example are regarded as having their origin in the Eocene. Further, the paper is a molecular clock-studies. Such things are not undisputed and not regarded as 100% evidence (as appears from the article). What the paper says is then: based on the not uncontroversial method of molecular clocking/phylogenetics it is found that the split between ancestors of the whales and bats occurred most probably around 80 Ma. It has nothing to do with modern orders! The ref is therefore misleading (it does not support the point in the article!) and should be removed, or the text has to change in a way the information in the article reflects that in the paper.
Orangemarlin: I'm sorry. If you reviewed these refs in this article, you did not read well or did not have the nessesary background to understand what is really meant. That's the only conclusion I can make from what I found by delving through the article. When confronted with a score of 3 out of 4 refs that are wrong or misleading I don't feel comfortable the rest is to be trusted. Woodwalker (talk) 10:28, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Question: were these random references that you were checking? Your comment above indicates they were, and that of four references you checked, three were incorrect...? Is that the case, or were these all the problems you found with the article? As far as necessary backgrounds go, nearly every paper comes with an abstract at the beginning which should be understandable to the lay reader, and most of the papers used as references in this article aren't overly technical anyway, to my mind. I don't feel it's fair to pull out three examples of possible errors (in a 67k long article!) and tell someone "you did not read well" or lack the "necessary" background. What background is necessary here to write an encyclopedia article? Firsfron of Ronchester 14:03, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
@Firsfron: Not totally random. The user that asked me about the errors in the text is an expert on mammals. At the wiki in my own language we don't have many users that are specialists. For example, we do not have a real stratigrapher, or a real expert on amphibians. Therefore two of the cases above are on mammals. Since that section of the article is rather small a good portion of the refs in that particular section are wrong. What does that say about the rest of the article? I have no idea, except that I found that the only other ref I read entirely (my first point above) was not to the right paper. I am myself not an expert on amphibians (for example) and am not really 100% sure if the refs in the amphibian section are correct.
For me this uncertainty if the content is true is a big problem with any featured article. The article does not really have to have references in every sentence, as long as it mentions a few reliable, well-cited sources that confirm the main points in every section. A featured article should in the first place contain no errors or mistakes. I think that if a ref is not well cited, it should be removed. The amount of content or the level of the content is -for my sake- definitely not what is at stake here. On these points the article meets the criteria for featured status, I think.
Someone (I don't know if it was Orangemarlin) has, you said, checked the references for their credibility. If I find that 3 in 4 references are not well cited, yes, then I conclude that the particular editor that checked these three refs did not read well or has not enough background on the subject, I am sorry to say. Scientific literature is not easy to read for people without experience on the covered subject. Not only does one have to know the jargon, in many cases, authors make claims that aren't supported by most of their colleagues or are based on uncertainties or controversial experiments/methods. One has to know the whole scientific community to know what the consensus is. That does not say the reviewers of this article have tried to do their uttermost best, it can be they misunderstood the meaning of the cited texts because they did not know the ins and outs of the literature on a specific subject. Woodwalker (talk) 15:48, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
To continue on Woodwalker's points: The cited Springer et al. article does not support the text in the article ("A few orders of mammals did diversify right at the K-T boundary, including Chiroptera (bats) and Cetartiodactyla (whales and dolphins and Even-toed ungulates), as a result of the reduced competition in those niches."). It is original research to deduce this from the cited article, which only says that the basal splits are at the K-T event. Also, the article cited for the previous sentence (Nature 446:507–512), actually gives much older times of basal diversification for both orders (74 and 75 Mya), and it is more recent and comprehensive.
Also, the article still contains the wrong assertion that Northern Hemisphere marsupial families went extinct. In fact, the North American Stagodontidae did go extinct, but, as Woodwalker said, marsupials remained there until the Miocene.
I also reviewed the citations given for the reasons why mammals survived K-T. One of these, Geodiversitas 23:369–379, can be found at [21]. It is a quite interesting article, but it does not contain any information on the fact it is cited for. The other citation given, GSA Bulletin 116(5–6):760–768 [22], actually is about the correct topic, but its assertions are different in details from those given in this article. The Wikipedia article mentions a body size below 1 kg, the cited article does not say this. The Wikipedia article mentions "shelter in a number of different environments", the cited article says all mammals must have sheltered underground, in soil, or in water. The Wikipedia article says "many early monotremes and marsupials were semiaquatic or burrowing", the cited article reasons that several lineages of living monotremes, marsupials, and placentals contain semiaquatic or burrowing groups, so that it would be reasonable to assume that some end-Cretaceous mammals were also semiaquatic or burrowing (or were, at least, able to find shelter by moving into the water or the soil).
In conclusion, the mammal section of this article partly contradicts its sources, partly is wrong, and partly does not follow from the sources cited. I do not know if the same situation exists in other sections, but a check may be appropriate. Ucucha 14:23, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to be rude here, because it annoys me. But instead of coming here and bitching about the article, written by me (a physician, businessman, and knowledgeable about mammalian evolution from a course in mammalogy in college about 30 years ago) and a few other individuals, none of whom, as best as I know, are mammalogists either, why don't you rewrite the section? Isn't the purpose of Wikipedia to contribute? The point of the article is not spend paragraphs discussing every insignificant order of mammals, it's to give a general idea of what happened to mammals. They key point is that mammals (and I suppose birds) radiated into environmental niches previously encumbered by dinosaurs. Come on everyone. Help make the article better at the article's talk section, not here. This is ridiculous.OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 18:53, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
First, I am sorry if my comments were offensive to you. I am not familiar with this process (and generally not with English Wikipedia customs). However, I would have thought it would have been considered reasonable to review a section of an article at a process that is called Featured Article Review. If this is wrong, I am sorry.
That said, I do actually wish the article to improve, but I preferred to first identify the problems with the mammal section and to hear what the original authors had to say about it. As I now understand, I should actually improve the article myself. I will do this, but not now, as I am quite busy in real life now (in fact, I should be learning for an exam). It is, of course, easier to find a contradiction between an article's text and its references than to improve it with other references. There are several interesting points that could be added to the article, though, including the apparent extinction of some "archaic" mammalian lineages, and hopefully I will be able to add something of that the day after tomorrow. Ucucha 19:26, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I do archosaurs and other prehistoric reptiles, and can interpret the other stuff. Show me what else ya got! :) J. Spencer (talk) 00:55, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry I didn't notice this earlier. I'm going with Orange here and keeping this. I don't see much the talk page can't handle. Marskell (talk) 14:19, 11 July 2008 (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 User:Marskell 14:34, 11 July 2008 [23].

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

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Review commentary

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Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games, Wikipedia:WikiProject Nintendo, Wikipedia:WikiProject The Legend of Zelda series and User:Cuivienen notified

I don't think this passes 1c with no refs in the Gameplay section and a total of two in the Plot section. The Reception section also looks a bit sort. Buc (talk) 21:08, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • The Gameplay section could use some more sources, but most of it is based on the game itself and its manual. Some video game articles include several footnotes to the game's manual, but I don't believe that to be necessary. The reception section could use some expansion but shows the general trend of criticism well enough. In conclusion, some things could be improved, but I think the article still meets FA-standards. It certainly meets all video games guidelines. User:Krator (t c) 22:00, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • It also has excessive use of fair use images per WP:NFCC. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 22:40, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, shoot. I did a lot of work on this article during its FAC, enough that I sort of consider it one of "my" FAs even though I wasn't the nominator. (I don't assume to own it, of course.) I know it needs work—I'm willing to put in the effort to keep this featured, but I'm going to be stretched thin between this and the FAC for another Zelda game that's really putting me through the wringer at the moment. Pagrashtak 00:32, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please complete the nomination by following the instructions at the top of WP:FAR to notify significant contributors and relevant WikiProjects, and post the notifications back to the top of this FAR. Perhaps the following users: User:Axem Titanium seems to have a significant number of recent edits. (I see that User:Pagrashtak has been notified.) Thanks!--RegentsPark (talk) 01:50, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Pagrashtak; give me a yell (on my talk) if you need any specific help with the article. dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 08:27, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are citations (1c) and images (3). Marskell (talk) 16:52, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like we're good to go here. Nice work everyone. Marskell (talk) 14:26, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

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 User:Marskell 12:55, 26 July 2008 [24].

Polish-Muscovite War (1605–1618)

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Review commentary

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0 in-text citations. Passed FA candidacy in 2005 and would not pass a FA today.--Berkunt (talk) 04:02, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Notified Nominator.--Berkunt (talk) 04:10, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Berkunt, please complete all the notifications per the instructions at the top of WP:FAR and post a list of the notifications back to the FAR, as in the sample at Wikipedia:Featured article review/Trigonometric functions. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:43, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Berkunt, thank you for bringing this article to our attention. The article's near complete lack (there is 1) of in-line citations means that this article is unworthy of GA or even B-class status in its current state, in my honest opinion. Fortunately, the person who nominated the article to become FA-class is still active, so he may be able to improve the quality of the article sufficiently.EasyPeasy21 (talk) 01:03, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Irrecoverable. Multiple accuracy, POV and citation problems, not to mention other annoying issues like the map partially in Polish (en wiki here!) ... undoubtedly there to allow Polish nationalists to live in a nationalist historical fantasy! 77.28.26.116 (talk) 12:51, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment "undoubtedly there to allow Polish nationalists to live in a nationalist historical fantasy!" This is a conclusion which I believe is unfounded, and inappropriate as a result. I agree with 77.28.26.116 regarding the citation problem. The problem is a drawback that needs to be addressed. EasyPeasy21 (talk) 09:40, 4 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Placing private raids of Mhiszek, Lisovsky and other robber barons under the 'Polish-' header, was wrong from the start. This title should have been reserved only for the period of Polish Crown actions. NVO (talk) 09:44, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are referencing (1c) and prose (1a). Marskell (talk) 14:17, 11 July 2008 (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 User:Marskell 12:55, 26 July 2008 [25].

Excel Saga

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Review commentary

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Notified: WP:Anime, WP:COMEDY, User:Monocrat, User:Grm wnr

On March 28th, I posted this note to the talk page noting that the article no longer met the FA criteria: "This article really needs a work over to bring it inline with the MOS and with WP:LEAD. It was promoted to FA almost 2 years ago, but if it were back up for FA, it would fail miserably. Anyone willing to tackle the needed MOS and lead fixes?" The note went unanswered until May 15th, when the original primary contributer who put it in the current format only argued that his format was better. No substantive work was done to bring it inline, nor any discussion on other issues. As I feel more than enough time has been given to do anything at all, I'm now bringing here for formal review. I feel the article fails the following criteria:

  • 1a: It is not well written, with tone and prose issues throughout
  • 1b: It is missing some of the very basic information required for anime/manga articles, like the manga serialization and publication information, and anime airing and release information (some of this appears to have been shoved off to List of Excel Saga media, which is an inappropriate per project consensus
  • 1c: It has some unsourced statements, including interpretative statements; some of the "refs" are not references at all, including 1, 2, 4, 10-15, 24, 27, 28, 30, 43; many of those are personal notes that are also unreferenced. Ref 21 is an IMDB trivia page. Ref 41 is a dead link to a retail site. Several other references are non-reliable, including Anime Boredum and Digitally Obsessed.
  • 2a: fails WP:LEAD and doesn't follow the general construction of anime/manga series leads
  • 2b: badly fails this; does not follow WP:MOS-AM at all; structure is jumbled and confusing, jumping from place to place, with the plot badly mixed with interpretative statements. I attempted to fix the MoS issues but couldn't because of the odd sections and mixed up content within each.
  • 2c: Not all refs properly formatted, and ref 31 combines 8 refs in one
  • 3: at times it fails this, current discussion on going over excessive non-free images; also disagreement on whether infobox image is appropriate, or if it should be using the first volume instead of the selected volume preferred by the uploading editor "for aesthetic reasons"
  • 4: Seems to have excessive plot summary

-- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 00:45, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • 1a. I'll copy-edit as time permits. Two years have passed, so I should be less close to the text.
  • 1b. Fair point about the serialization data. I'm just not sure where to find it, which of course is not your problem. :)
  • 1c. Specific thoughts to follow at a later time. It would be immediately helpful in focusing efforts, though, if citation-needed tags were applied as desired. Also, the worst offending notes will be removed, although I think the Anime Boredom and Digitally Obsessed survive WP:V#Self, though I suppose that's for this room to decide. Is the "best there is" still relevant precedent?
  • 2a. I'll look into this once the body is taken care of.
  • 2b. The only real difference between this and the structure suggested by WP:MOS-AM is that what would normally be two separate sections are merged under one H2 tag. I'm inclined to agree that it needs condensing; perhaps even transferring to the section's introduction a few details from each of the first three subsections and deleting what remains of them.
  • 2c. Will look into this generally. On the specific point of note 31, I'm not sure how to "improve" it. Wouldn't eight separate footnote-call-outs in one sentence would be a bit excessive, especially when the underlying point is not under dispute? Still, advice is solicited and welcome.
  • 4. If anything, there's too much character material. See response to 2b.
--Monocrat (talk) 02:36, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In another recent conversation, I think a PR in prep for FLC, it was agreed that Anime Bordom did not meet RS. And I don't think "the best there is" would work for what those items reference. Excel Saga should have plenty of coverage in reliable sources that should negate need to use those less reliable ones. For the serialization data, however, Anime News Network is a WP:RS, so it can be used if nothing else is available. Actually, now that I think about it, I did say I was going to clean up the media list and properly split it into an episode and chapter list. The leads for those include the serialization data, so if you want to concentrate on fixing the other issues, I'll work on those two which will provide the info that can be dropped into the appropriate manga and anime media sections (when they exist) :)
Also, the article does not follow WP:MOS-AM in other ways than just the two sections merged into one. It has no media section at all. The Plot section isn't a plot section at all, with the odd sectioning, and characters should be separate. Its lacking a production section, with the information instead spattered throughout the article. Its something I originally intended to try and fix, but I just couldn't sort out the contents in the individual sections well enough to do it.
For ref 31, I'd make the sentence more specific (I believe "several" is a general no no in prose), and then ref each instance individually. This is what was done in some others that have topped the charts. Google Books bring up a few possible hits, and it does appear in the Anime Encyclopedia (possibly other anime/manga books as well). -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 02:57, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"Several" is gone from that sentence, but I'm unconvinced about separate notes. Could we table that for now? You're right about the media section. Sorry for not noting that; I was focusing on your specific mention of the character/plot situation. We will have to iron out our differences about the plot section over the coming days, though my goal is to render it moot. While I'd appreciate a link to that discussion about Anime Boredom, I'd rather let this room make the final call on which of the sources are acceptable. And "should have plenty of coverage in reliable sources" and "has plenty of coverage in reliable sources" are two separate things. :-) I would gladly be proved wrong, though! --Monocrat (talk) 03:25, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Here ya go, took me a bit to remember where it was LOL Wikipedia:Peer review/List of Naruto characters/archive1. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 03:32, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! I've looked into Anime Boredom, and they seem to have scored about thirty interviews with industry types (exclusively anglophone industry-types, as far as I can tell, though); they've been operating for about four years, and three of the main reviewers Joseph (Joe) Woods, David Rasmussen, John Huxley have put out quite reviews that seems roughly comparable to ANN's. (Rasmussen alone has about 27 interviews to his name.) I can't tell how selective they are in letting people write reviews, although they seem to let people have pen-names, which costs them a bit in my book. Not sure how much this buys in terms of WP:RS, but there it is.--Monocrat (talk) 04:16, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That's more than enough; the site meets the guidelines requirements. In the link provided by AnmaFinotera there was no actual argument against the site: AnmaFinotera didn't know it, and Sephiroth BCR just said "cut the site". In any case, the site doesn't need to be "notable"; it needs to reliable. This is important because having some notability, that is to be cite or quoted in other sites or sources, doesn't mean the site is reliable. Kazu-kun (talk) 04:45, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments The main criteria, which current FACs judge sources on, is the editorial process of the site/media concerned. Hence certain factors would help in establishing reliability of a site, such as:
  • professional (i.e. paid) staff
  • page stating the process of screening and checking articles
  • bigwig corporate support (large media firms tend to have editorial processes in place for their acquisitions)
  • the authors are acknowledged (by reliable sources) as industry experts, or have shown their expertise
Anime Boredom qualifies in none of these areas. That said, here is a list of sites that should qualify as RS for their information on Excel Saga.
You might wish to contact Ealdgyth to find out if a certain site might be judged reliable. She is usually the one the FACs turn to on evaluating reliable sources. Jappalang (talk) 05:29, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The DVDTalk and the Read About Comics are new to me. Thanks for them and for the clarification, Jappalang!--Monocrat (talk) 05:37, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Wait, Anime Boredom does state in their help page they do the required process of screening and checking articles before publishing them. So the site does meet the fact-checking asked by the policy. Kazu-kun (talk) 06:19, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The simple answer is no, it does not. The text in the page you mentioned is under "Why haven't you posted my review/article?" and states that they are proofed for grammar and tone, not factuality. ("However, not all reviews and articles will be accepted if they don't meet with certain criteria. Please make sure your work is over 400 words (preferably much more) with minimal spelling and grammatical errors. Reviews and articles that belittle other authors work will be ignored...save your criticism for the forum!")[30] In general in accordance with WP:RS and WP:V, community (fan) sites are frowned upon due to the premise that their information presented is unreliable in the sense that anyone regardless of their expertise can submit their opinion and have it published. To be plainly honest here, common users submitting reviews have no standing equal to writers acknowledged to be experts in the anime industry. Jappalang (talk) 06:42, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
But acknowledgement as an expert is the requirement for self-published sources, which is not the case here. In this case it's not about the writer, but whether the review has been checked on or not. If there's an editorial process, then the site is not a fan site, and meets the criteria for this particular kind of source. Kazu-kun (talk) 07:00, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Nope. Who writes the article matters as well ("This means that we only publish the opinions of reliable authors"). Furthermore, having a lite editorial process does not mean a site is not a fan site; checking for grammar and tone does not make the submitter a reliable author (nor the site reliable). Jappalang (talk) 07:22, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I expect you know that "nope" has a noticeable condescending tone. Anyway, a reliable author is not the same as an expert. We're talking about people who have interviewed representatives from anime/manga companies such as Seven Seas Entertainment, Tokyopop, ADV, etc; these companies don't give interviews to fan sites, which is proof of two things: they're recognized by the anime/manga industry as part of the industry itself (and therefore they're competence on the subject), and they're trusted (that they would not alter the content of a interview, for example). Besides the reviews are indeed checked upon by an editorial department. Overall, I still think the site meets the criteria.
Also, I was thinking we should continue this discussion elsewhere. It's starting to get a bit disruptive here. Kazu-kun (talk) 18:53, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have been told by certain people that a single "no" is curt (rude), but nothing about the informal "nope", so your point is? Reporting interviews does not give sites reliability. Anyone can accost someone involved in the industry at a convention and request for an interview. Chances are they will get it for PR reasons and goodwill. Several interviews reported on sites are in fact based on group interviews where the interviewee sits down with several gathered people and is fired with questions from anyone. Certain sites "leeched" questions asked by others and posted them as their own. Who guarantees that the posted interview was not altered or made up in any way? As for editorial processes, simple grammar and tone checks do not fulfill the "stringent" aspect requested for reliable sources. Furthermore as already stated, the fundamental concern is the author's reliability. Hence, user submissions, with an unknown submitter's background, are out. If you can find recent FACs or wide discussions on RS that approve of such submissions, please let us know. For now, Anime Boredom is unlikely to get approved as a source in an FAC. Jappalang (talk) 23:17, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The following should be excellent additions to the article.
As printed sources, they counter systematic bias towards online sources and are more likely to fare better at being reliable sources in FACs. Jappalang (talk) 01:28, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks again, Jappalang! The Telotte text should be particularly useful.--Monocrat (talk) 01:56, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are prose (1a), comprehensiveness (1b), referencing (1c) and just about everything else.

Lots of early comments. Not sure what the status is now. Marskell (talk) 15:11, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It pretty much has remained untouched since the 11th, except for a category change and adding one channel aired. None of the comments above were implemented, nor any other major work done to address any of the issues. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 16:33, 30 June 2008 (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 User:Marskell 17:40, 19 July 2008 [31].

Trigonometric functions

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Review commentary

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Notified: User talk:Stevenj, User talk:Jagged 85, User talk:Michael Hardy, User talk:Ricardo sandoval, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics. --Ioannes Pragensis (talk) 12:44, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

An old FA, needs to be updated to the current standards:

  • 1a / 2b - better structured, no short paragraphs
  • 1b - more about the early history of the subject, more about applications
  • 1c - more inline references (history, proofs of mathematical properties)
  • 3 - partly duplicite images in the lead, more images in the body of text
  • some minor WP:MOS issues (formatting, white spaces in the article due to badly placed images etc.)

I hope that it will help to make the article better.--Ioannes Pragensis (talk) 12:30, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I like the article, but it seems to need some work to remain FA. Some thoughts:

  • There is very little material on applications. I guess some example formulae where they show up would be good. The content of uses of trigonometry should be summarized here, too.
  • The preceding comment is actually an instance of a more general wish: I wish the article has more of a motivational section or flavor. What are sin, cos, cosec etc. good for?
  • "The set of zeroes of sine (i.e., the values of x for which sinx = 0) is {nπ, ...}" - this shows up in the "Right triangle definitions" part. It is not clear whether this is to be read as a definition of π Is it? If so, make this more clear. If not, this way of defining pi should be somewhere in this article, I think. In the same section, it should be mentioned somehow that tan is not defined (or defined to be infinity) if cos = 0. This may not be clear to a lay reader otherwise.
  • The fact, that every periodic function can be expressed by sin and cos deserves a more elaborate mention here, I feel. (This could go in an "Applications" section)
  • There are very little specific references. I'm convinced that every argument in the article is somewhere in the refs. But, historical claims should be backed up by a precise ref. Also things like "From a theorem in complex analysis, there is a unique analytic extension of this real function to the complex numbers." should be given a precise reference to a book (so that the reader can look up, which theorem it is).
  • The table "Trigonometric functions in the complex plane" needs a caption!
  • From a quick scan of the ref list, I see that there seems to be no "standard" math textbook covering the themes of complex series and so on. Please give on or two standard analysis books. References should be formatted with citation templates. Some of them are more external links than academic refs(?).
  • The "other useful properties" section contains only one property. Perhaps this should be merged somehow with the preceding sections. Jakob.scholbach (talk) 13:14, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: The pictures "Trigonometric functions in the complex plane" are not properly explained (where are the axes, what is the meaning of colors).--Ioannes Pragensis (talk) 16:54, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Two out of four graphs of the sine, cosine, and tangent functions make no sense geometrically. The reason is that the scale is not right. If the variable is measured in radians, then the slope of sine and tangent at the origin should be 1. This is clearly not so in these drawings. Therefore it makes no sense to label the x-axis with fractions of pi, it could just as well have been degrees. The radian measure is defined in such a way as to make derivative at the origin 1. If it is not 1, these are not radians. Katzmik (talk) 08:08, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Response to Katzmik The algebraic slope of these graphs (dy/dx) where they cross the x-axis is 1. The visible slope will only be 1 if the horizontal and vertical scales are equal. In these examples, the horizontal and vertical scales are not equal. This has no connection with the labelling of the axes. Most of the presentation in the article up to this point measures angles in radians, so it makes sense to label the x-axis on these graphs in radians too, for consistency. If you wish to re-draw the graphs so that they have equal horizontal and vertical scales, you will also have to re-arrange the layout of the whole section, as the aspect ratios of the graph images will change considerably. Gandalf61 (talk) 10:40, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In my opinion, the scale should be the same in order for a first-time reader actually to derive benefit from the drawings. Katzmik (talk) 09:01, 15 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]


FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are prose (1a), referencing (1c), structure (2), and images (3). Marskell (talk) 09:22, 4 July 2008 (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 User:Marskell 13:34, 18 July 2008 [32].

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

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Review commentary

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Have notified User:Lord Emsworth the main editor and nominator and wp:Version 0.5. Notifications completed.

9 references total in a 47 kb article. Definitely doesn't fill the criteria. Noble Story (talk • contributions) 11:20, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would lose that graph in the middle of the article. Buc (talk) 20:27, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Terrible article. Only 10 refs, poor prose, poor layout and a short lead (see WP:LEAD). The graph in the middle is cramped and difficult to read. A large amount of work is required to bring this up to 2008 FA standards. — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 12:25, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - The article fails WP:FACR:

  • 1(a) It has too many grammatical errors and uses poor style. The second sentence is what made me stop reading further. It has 60 words, and should be broken up into around 3 sentences. Stylistic choices are poor as well--the frequent use of "he or she" and the alternate "she or he" drives me nuts. (I know that Wikipedia supports gender-neutral language, but cases like this are absurd.) The article should be copy-edited.
  • 1(c) It lacks adequate citation references (There are 10 references, and only two of them are even close to scholarly. Most are news articles or youtube videos.) Find many additional references, including scholarly and primary sources.
  • 2(a) It has a verbose and poor lead

This article needs a lot of work on both language and verifiable content. Lwnf360 (talk) 10:36, 14 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Pity if this informative article can't be saved. But yes, it needs renovation. Oh, the lack of citations! The prose is mostly OK, but needs an audit (choppiness of paragraphing in a few places reveals WP's former stylistic bete noir). TONY (talk) 03:40, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are referencing (1c) and prose (1a). Marskell (talk) 15:05, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove Verifiability, prose. As an example of both: "There are numerous categorical testimonies deep into the 19th century decrying the notion of a First or Prime Minister, credibly declaring the concept as alien to the Constitution, and the term actually emerges as a creature of historians, not lawyers or Parliament — indeed the contrary is best documented." Also, this can serve as an example of lack of comprehensiveness and neutrality: the Prime Minister's opponents may have decried the notion of a Prime Minister but what did the Prime Ministers say? DrKay (talk) 13:19, 5 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove. Far from featured even with the old standards. Nobody seems to work on it.--Yannismarou (talk) 09:06, 11 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove. Lacks sufficient references and citations as required by today's criteria. --maclean 00:05, 12 July 2008 (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 User:Marskell 14:34, 11 July 2008 [33].

Bengali language

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Review commentary

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Notified WikiProject Bangladesh, WikiProject Languages, WikiProject Bengal, WikiProject India, Shmitra, Ragib, SameerKhan, and Zaheen

This article fails the FA criteria on multiple levels. First, it does not meet criterion 2c. Many paragraphs in "Writing system" remain unreferenced (including the entire "Spelling-to-pronunciation inconsistencies" section. A paragraph in "Consonant clusters" is unreferenced, as is the "Verbs" section. The "Vocabulary" section only contains three references, backing up a total of two sentences. Furthermore, the article has an inconsistent referencing style. In some references, Harvard style referencing is used, while in others, {{cite book}} is used. The article also fails 1c because some unreliable sources are used in the article (e.g. http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/translation/articles/bengali-language.html and http://web.archive.org/web/20070212100431/http://www.sanskrit-sanscrito.com.ar/english/sanskrit/sanskrit3.html).

Second, this article does not meet criterion 2a. The lead does not sufficiently serve its purpose. The lead is supposed to summarize the topic and "prepare the reader for greater detail in subsequent sections". The lead does not cover the Bengali writing system, vocabulary or grammar. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 03:12, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

{{cite book}} is not used in the article at all. It only uses citation templates for web sites and newspaper article. Whether one or the other is preferable, I don't know, but either way it has no impact on readability, which is their primary purpose. If a standard should be followed, I recommend removing citation templates altogether since they add virtually nothing for the average reader but inject excessive amount of code, making it much more difficult to edit articles. Standardizing the small amount of information displayed in footnotes can easily be done without clunky templates.
I completely agree with the comment about the lead, though. There should be at least a minimal summary of the basic features of the language in the lead. Compare with Nahuatl, Swedish language and Turkish language.
Peter Isotalo 06:48, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

About citations "backing up" sentences: How does one decide which sentences need to be backed up and which ones don't? --Zaheen (talk) 10:05, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is no standard, only differing (and often hotly debated) interpretations ov WP:V. Not all statements require detailed citations, but it's generally agreed that all direct quotes need to be cited in great detail. One generally needs to weigh readability (a jungle of footnote makes reading difficult) against how controversial or obscure the facts are ("Moscow is the capital of Russia" should not require a footnote). A paragraph can contain one reference or a dozen. What matters is that all the facts can be backed up by what ever is cited, no matter if the reference is to entire books or individual pages.
As far as I see it if there is a citation which is reasonably comprehensive and accurate in relation to what it's supposed to back up, it's up to whoever asks for more citations to explain why the existing references aren't sufficient.
Peter Isotalo 11:36, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A citation at the end of a paragraph is perfectly acceptable, as long it backs up all the information in the paragraph. The references in those article don't do that; they are only used to source one or two sentences at most. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 14:12, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"Any statements likely to be challenged", that is, any statements which you think yourself somebody might question. And if you see a sentence without a ref, even if it is completely obvious, you can challenge it and it has to get a ref, though I wouldn't reccomend that because it would seriously damage your reputation...--Serviam (talk) 13:12, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nishkid, please point out the sentences that you think are in need of citations. The article contains fairly standard, descriptive, unambiguous statements about the Bengali language, and there's a lot of them in there. One would have to cite the same sources, those mentioned in the bibliography, over and over again, if one is determined to insert a citation after every such sentence or even after every paragraph. AFAIK, this is not standard in Linguistics literature. The linguists just describe the language, insert citations for very esoteric features, and finally provide a bibliography for further studies. I am not sure if this is standard for general encyclopedic articles either; neither Britannica nor Encarta follows such strict norms. --Zaheen (talk) 16:15, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We're going by standards of Wikipedia articles. There are entire sections in this article that do not contain any citations. This is unacceptable for a featured article, even if the subject is a language. If you want me to add {{cn}} templates, I'll be glad to do so. Note that I already highlighted the unreferenced areas in my initial argument. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 16:29, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
About the "Spelling-to-pronounciation inconsistencies" section - most (if not all) of the information there can be found in the book Teach Yourself Bengali. I'm (sort of) willing to cite that book, but how should I cite it? That is, should I say, "This information can be found on this page, this other information can be found on that page," etc.? Or should I just put one citation for the book somewhere in that section (and, if so, where in the section)? --Kuaichik (talk) 18:02, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Any chance we could use sources of a slightly higher academic standard than a language course for beginners?
Peter Isotalo 18:36, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, we probably could. The article on Bengali by Bhattacharya (http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~uclyara/bong_us.pdf), cited under the "References" section (along with Teach Yourself Bengali), has at least some of this information, too :) --Kuaichik (talk) 23:31, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nishkid, you merely said there are "many paragraphs" here or "one paragraph" there in the article that are unreferenced and you want references for them. There's a problem with this approach. The information in the article (or at least the sections you are referring to) is not structured in a way so that a paragraph neatly corresponds to some information source. How can one cite a source for a particular paragraph in that case? These are basic, observable facts that can be found in any decent linguistic description of the language. And most of them are listed in the References section at the bottom. --Zaheen (talk) 18:34, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Inline citations (or an author-date style) are mandatory for featured articles. I didn't request you have one generic source that covers all the information in a particular paragraph. Add citations for controversial text and factual matters as you see fit, and you should be fine. Instead of arguing about sourcing (when it's quite obvious to any FA regular that some sections of this article are seriously lacking in attribution), I suggest you just add references where appropriate. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 20:50, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
But I don't see any need to add inline citations. There's no controversial text in there. It's fairly standard, generic stuff about Bengali. It is not obvious to me exactly what you want. Please be more precise. --Zaheen (talk) 00:12, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I would also like to add that it seems to me, at least in this case, that providing citation is more of a stylistic issue than anything else. If I can resort to an analogy: the information presented here is as obvious as statements like "A water molecule is made up of one Oxygen and two Hydrogen atoms. Under normal atmospheric pressure, water boils at 100 degrees Celsius, etc." Now there is a good deal of this sort of statements that one can write on water that may go on for more than one paragraph in an article on water. But does one really have to include inline citations for such obvious stuff? --Zaheen (talk) 00:21, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
But it's not just controversial statements that are sourced in Wikipedia, right? For example, the first sentence on the actual article Water begins with a very well-known fact, but it is still sourced.
Also, at least in the case of this article, we have to realize that readers are not necessarily going to be familiar with what we are talking about and that "obvious" is relative. Imagine for a moment you knew very little about Bengali, nowhere near as much as you actually do. You happen to be reading this article (for whatever reason), and you notice a sentence like "The [inherent] vowel can be phonetically realized as [ɔ] or [o] depending on the word, and its omission is seldom indicated, as in the final consonant in কম [kɔm] 'less'."
Even something this simple could seem quite odd. Bengali does have a way of writing IPA [o] (as in the word shoNar "golden"), so why should the "inherent vowel" be pronounced like that? How do you know somebody didn't just make this up? How do you know it's reliable information? After all, anybody can edit Wikipedia, and maybe this is an error no one spotted.
The reader wouldn't know that this kind of information is sourced unless we provided a source. Maybe this isn't a good argument, but basically, I think: If we need sources to maintain this as an FA article, let's put in the sources instead of arguing about whether they are needed in the first place. It should be easy enough to do. --Kuaichik (talk) 01:12, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Zaheen, citations aren't used just for controversial text. I made that clear in my previous statement. I asked you guys to add citations to factual statements, even if they may seem obvious (they might not be obvious to outsiders). I'll add {{cn}} templates if you still don't understand my point. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 02:11, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
@Kuaichik, I don't think yours is a particularly convincing argument. Virtually any sentence on Wikipedia can be made up. But that doesn't mean we have to provide a citation for each and every sentence. As I said, the sources are already provided in the References section. One can nitpick till the end of time until every sentence has been verified with a citation. That's just silly. That's not how encyclopedia articles are written, as far as I know. Or are we creating entirely new standards of writing general reference encyclopedic articles here?
Take an example from the article on Water you just mentioned. Yes, I can see that the first sentence "Water is a common chemical substance that is essential for the survival of all known forms of life" is actually sourced to some journal article published in 1997 (as if we needed any confirmation on that; I find this hilarious). But there are dozens of statements in the same lead section that contain similar obvious facts about water, yet they are not sourced at all. What is the standard here?
As for your example of inherent vowel (I think you were just playing the devil's advocate there), it's counter-intuitive to ask questions like why the inherent vowel is pronounced like that. It just is. It's an objective description of one of the features of the language. There may be yet to be discovered historical linguistic reasons behind why the inherent vowel can assume the pronunciation of [o], but that is beyond the scope of this article.
It seems to me that visual style plays a big part in the inclusion of references in a featured article. The main argument seems to be that if a section doesn't have any sources, it somehow looks bad and there must be something wrong with the information. --Zaheen (talk) 02:26, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I was afraid that argument would be ineffective. I confess I don't really know myself :-/ Oh, well. Sorry about that. --Kuaichik (talk) 03:11, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
@Nishkid, you seem to be quite assured of yourself in this area. I understand your point, but I also think it's hardly that obvious. --Zaheen (talk) 02:26, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm quite sure of myself because I've successfully nominated multiple articles to FAR before and I am an FA writer. Zaheen, these are standards that current featured articles need to meet. See WP:FACR, which states that the article must have "consistently formatted inline citations using either footnotes or Harvard referencing". Given that there is clearly an inconsistent use of inline citations, it is up to you and your fellow editors to add references where appropriate. I don't doubt that the article is inaccurate, but for the readers' sake, I would recommend you include a citation every few lines. If more inline citations aren't added to the article in appropriate locations (like in the unreferenced sections described above), then the article will be defeatured. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 03:44, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nishkid, I don't doubt for a moment you are the ultimate maestro of FA writers and the glorious torch-bearer of the FA standard. :-) But I think you are misinterpreting the FA standard here. The part of the standard you just quoted say that the citations themselves must be consistently formatted. It doesn't say anything about inconsistent/consistent use of inline citations in the article, and I am not sure whether that has even been defined anywhere.

And furthermore, since it was you who brought up this issue, it is up to you to indicate which lines need to be referenced and why. And you have been quite vague about this from the very beginning of this discussion. Like I said, it is not that obvious at all. Surely we could all pretend that it is obvious and just put in some references here and there. But that would be, imo, shoddy scholarship. --Zaheen (talk) 04:37, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If anyone asks for more footnotes and the primary author asks for a specification of the demands, the requester should be prepared to discuss the merit of citing specific statements on an individual basis. Citing policy and engaging in vague discussions about referencing generally leads nowhere. Basic facts that are easily referenced in the literature already provided does not generally require specific citations.
Peter Isotalo 06:44, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I told Zaheen I would add {{cn}} templates, but he never told me to do so. Pardon me for citing the wrong part of WP:FACR earlier. I meant to point at criterion 1c, not 2c (2c is part of the stylistic criteria). 1c states, "claims are verifiable against reliable sources, accurately represent the relevant body of published knowledge, and are supported with specific evidence and external citations; this involves the provision of a "References" section in which sources are listed, complemented by inline citations where appropriate". Wikipedia:When to cite should clarify my point. As I stated before, I requested citations for controversial statements and some factual statements (which as the page states might be counterintuitive). I suggest you take a look at Tamil language: from a quick glance, inline citations are used to back up some pretty specific facts about the language (e.g. "Tamil is a diglossic language", "In India, the ‘standard’ koṭuntamiḻ is based on ‘educated non-brahmin speech’, rather than on any one dialect", "Similar to other Dravidian languages, Tamil is an agglutinative language.", etc. I will add {{cn}} templates to statements that are controversial or highly subject-specific (in which case, even people familiar with the subject may not know a certain fact). Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 14:47, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Furthermore, note that referencing isn't my only concern here. The lead and the referencing style, as described above, don't meet the FA criteria. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 14:48, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think you quite understand the issue here, Nishkid. There is no easily defined standard for what should or shouldn't be cited. For every rather footnote-heavy FA there is always an example which isn't as pedantic in referencing. Just because one article author decided that basic facts easily found in the references has to have a separate footnote doesn't mean that everyone else has to follow suit to maintain FA standards. There's a balance between good referencing and proper style that should be respected, and Tamil language does not manage that balance particularly well.
I noticed that you added fact-tags to the article, but I see no motivation for any of those tags. I think it would be better for everyone if you tried to motivate your concerns more precisely instead of just adding random, anonymous fact tags. Pointing at seemingly random fact statements and claiming they need a citation (without an explanation) is a very unilateral method of deciding how an article should be written.
Peter Isotalo 19:08, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I understand that there is no easily defined standard for citing here. But explain to me how this article has around 45 inline citations, while similar language articles have two or three times as many? What's the cause for such a discrepancy? Why does Tamil language (an article of similar length, with 84 inline citations) have a poor balance between good referencing and proper style? What do you think of other articles which include 100-200 references for a 50-75KB article? What's the problem there? Also, my tag-adding is not random. I added tags to statements for controversial statements, stats/data, and some subject-specific facts. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 19:20, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Furthermore, could someone explain what the standard for citing is in this particular article? Some inline citations have been added to reference seemingly indiscriminate facts (e.g. "The Bengali abugida is a cursive script with eleven graphemes or signs denoting the independent form of nine vowels and two diphthongs, and thirty-nine signs denoting the consonants with the so called "inherent" vowels", "The script has been adopted for writing the Sylheti language as well, replacing the use of the old Sylheti Nagori script.", "Bengali is the national and official language of Bangladesh and one of the 23 official languages recognised by the Republic of India.", "Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, a British grammarian, wrote a modern Bengali grammar(A Grammar of the Bengal Language (1778)) that used Bengali types in print for the first time."). Why were these particular sentences referenced? Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 19:31, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And look what happened here. My "random" tag-adding resulted in the discovery of an inaccurate statement in the article. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 19:36, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, a British grammarian, wrote a modern Bengali grammar(A Grammar of the Bengal Language (1778)) that used Bengali types in print for the first time." - I remember why the citation was added to this sentence, because it is the first time Bengali types in print was used.
Coming to Nishkid's adding citation needed tags, while some tags were very well placed (like the tagging of official language status in Andaman), some were, IMO, not needed. For example, Tagore was the author of the national anthems of both India and Bangladesh. Another is, "Bengali exhibits diglossia between the written and spoken forms of the language" (because the whole section then describes the diglossia itself, with refrences. It was just a introductory sorta sentence).
Anyway, I am not taking part in this balancing debate. Trying to add some references, as demanded. But it would be great if your demand is somewhat less :)--Dwaipayan (talk) 20:10, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding Halhed, I only brought that up because it just seems like an ordinary fact. From my understanding, it appears Peter believes that this ordinary fact wouldn't need a citation. I apologize for adding the fact tag to diglossia; it was only after that I realized the subsequent statements explained why the language was diglossic. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 20:14, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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'Suggested FA criteria concerns are referencing (1c) and lead (2a). Marskell (talk) 20:01, 24 June 2008 (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 User:Joelr31 23:02, 7 July 2008 [34].

Brian Close

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Review commentary

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Notified Wikiproject Biography and users Peanut4, Mattinbgn, Asenine, Crickettragic, Chanheigeorge, GrahamHardy, Fieldgoalunit, NinetyCharacters

  • This agreeable article has only two in-text citations in over 5,000 words of text. Its sources look meagre, given the material available. Brianboulton (talk) 08:36, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree with Brian. The citations need help, and fast. There is no way that this should be a featured article at it's present stage.  Asenine  09:31, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment I apologize, but there is no way in my opinion that this article should have ever been featured with its lack of citations. I wouldn't have personally even raised it beyond B class, certainly not GA. This is about the revision that was promoted to FA class, and it certainly is not up to scratch in my opinion. I will gut the article full of citation needed tags to identify where citations are required, that will be a start. SGGH speak! 10:13, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I'm not sure this is salvageable without a complete rewrite. There is a good base to work with but the lack of in-line citations combined with prose issues will make this a protracted task. The fact that this was promoted is a demonstration of the improving standards at WP:FA, standards this article surely fails to meet at present. -- Mattinbgn\talk 11:09, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments - Holy cow. It illustrates how much FA standards have risen in just a few years. When I took a first look at the article, I counted 55 citation tags and a weasel word tag. As for the external jumps, I counted 20 of those. I'll format the jumps at some point, but since I'm not a cricket fan, I'm not the editor who is going to save this one (and it needs saving). Giants2008 (talk) 15:26, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The article is overlong in my view and contains to much that is known but not exactly verified. Close is a character who generates 'tales'. For such a long article it is rather lumpy and in my view does not really give a rounded view. However it could be edited into shape. Close is a major figure.Fieldgoalunit (talk) 16:30, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Additional comment: I mentioned the meagre nature of the sources. Any attempt to resurrect the article should be based on much better source material. Close was indeed a major figure, in international and in county cricket, and I would expect a featured article to have much more authoritative sources, e.g. Wisden's Almanack for the appropriate years, English test cricket histories, county histories for Yorkshire CCC and Somerset CCC, etc. The autobiography mentioned is a self-justifying account, which I would not accept as a reliable source. Brianboulton (talk) 17:19, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I am gradually working through, trying to get the text up to standard, increasing links, etc. I have grave doubts about the Australian Tour section, however, which reads like it is based entirely on Close's own account. Citations for this material must come from other sources. Brianboulton (talk) 23:12, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please complete the nomination by following the instructions at the top of WP:FAR to notify significant contributors and relevant WikiProjects, and post the notifications back to the top of this FAR. Thank you. --Regents Park (moult with my mallards) 18:40, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are citations (1c) Joelito (talk) 18:21, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Remove: On three grounds:-

  • Lack of citations
  • Poor choice of sources
  • Prose of substandard quality

Brianboulton (talk) 11:55, 25 June 2008 (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 User:Marskell 13:31, 7 July 2008 [35].

Hong Kong

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Review commentary

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Notified: User:HongQiGong, User:Mcy jerry, User:Kelw, User:Instantnood, User:PZFUN (original FA nominator), User:154.20.71.14, User:Mintchocicecream‎, User:SchmuckyTheCat, User:UCLARodent, User:24.176.138.81, User:Olivier, User:Jiang, User:Alfeewusy, User:Leungli, User:Alanmak, User:Chrishomingtang, User:Winhunter, User:Luckyluke, User:Benjwong, User:Badagnani, WikiProject Hong Kong, WikiProject China, WikiProject Cities, Wikiproject Countries

This article achieved FA status in 2006 and as you can imagine has changed significantly since then. The following issues are identified:

  • Criterion 1c - many statements are unsourced and in two cases entire sections.
  • There is ongoing/stale discussion about the use of either a "country" or a "settlement" infobox, and furthermore whether the article should style itself on other city or country FAs, something with could affect criterion 1d, other than that it is generally quite neutral.
  • Criterion 1e - it has been the subject of edit warring (official languages) and move-vandalism.
  • Criterion 2a - the lead section is concise but could be longer as per WP:LEAD.
  • Criterion 2b - There has been some debate about sections, some seem poorly organised.
  • Criterion 2c - inline citations are used extensively in some sections but missed completely in others. Literary references are given but not cited.
  • Criterion 4 - article is too long and some sections do not keep to summary style.

Hopefully this article doesn't need too much work but the magnitude of the change since 2005 and the tightening of FA criteria since then justifies a review. --Joowwww (talk) 11:38, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please follow the nominating instructions at the top of the WP:FAR page to notify significant editors and relevant WikiProjects, and post the notifications to the top of this FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:20, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, missed that bit, done now. --Joowwww (talk) 11:18, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We can work on all these criteria, but other than requesting article protection and semi-protection, ultimately we can't stop editors from edit-warring and vandalising an FA article (Criterion 1e). Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 15:20, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Vandalism can't be stopped, but edit-warring can be an indication of problems that need resolving. The other matters can be addressed, as you say.
In regards to length, I would suggest trimming the longer paragraphs, such as the last in "Economy". John Smith's (talk) 10:25, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Someone seriously messed up the page. I don't know how to fix it! Protodude1337 (talk) 23:13, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are citations (1c), stability (1e), organization (2), and focus (4). Marskell (talk) 19:19, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

CommentI don't see huge problems here; needs a ce and a few more refs is all really. Can this be left open for a week or two. Ceoil (talk) 14:20, 7 June 2008 (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 User:Marskell 13:31, 7 July 2008 [36].

History of computing hardware

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Review commentary

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User:Ancheta Wis and Wikipedia:WikiProject Computing notified.

I'm going to make this short: This has 5 footnotes, and it's featured. From what I can see, more than 90% of this article is unreferenced. Needs huge improvement. I would say this doesn't even come close to WP:GA standards. — Wackymacs (talk) 16:56, 16 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Remove: Inline citations, in my view, are of particular importance in an article that covers such a broad subject (thereby leaving that much more room for interpretation.) I agree, this is not close to current standards for FA. -Pete (talk) 23:45, 16 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
FYI, this is the review phase, where we just clean it up or identify issues that need to be addressed. Only when it gets moved to the Removal section below do we vote. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 05:35, 17 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
With this being such a huge article that basically needs rewriting in many places, it is most likely this is going to get removed first. I would start work on it, but I have other projects on wiki to complete first.— Wackymacs (talk) 06:51, 17 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I just came across this article and I was about to list it here myself. It's a long way short of FA standard, and I agree with Wackymacs, it wouldn't even make GA as it stands. The obvious problem is with inline citations, or rather the lack of inline citations, but chunks of it aren't well written either, particularly later in the article. Text is squeezed between graphics, one of which partially obscures the text behind it, far too many short paragraphs ... there's a lot of work needed. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 14:22, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I have asked Wikipedia:WikiProject Computing to help out with the footnotes, and have access to Bell and Newell's book. In particular, I was asked to contribute some references for the article, as is currently shown, several years ago. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 07:08, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    We are now up to 43 footnotes. I have asked the WikiProject Computing for contributions, and have given some explicit examples of how to add citations to the FA on its talk page. User:Ragesoss has also notified the History of Science wikiproject of this ongoing effort. Let's see who else will contribute. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 14:57, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I will leave this up in the review phase given active work. Keep us informed. Marskell (talk) 19:15, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • WP:LEAD is inadequate, and it's hard to understand why the article title can't be worked into the first sentence. The {{main}} template is incorrectly used (most of those should probably use seealso or further), and most of the citations are incomplete or incorrectly formatted (see WP:CITE/ES). External links needs to be pruned per WP:EL, WP:NOT. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:31, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you for your comment. One of the problems is that hardware and software are jargon; for example software can also mean clothing, as I learned in the New Orleans airport once. Not everyone knows the jargon, and jargon needs an explanatory sentence in the first place!
    I will use the see template per your explanation.
    Others will have to deal with the external links; contributions by others are welcomed, unless we want to see this article lose its star. When we worked on this article 4 years ago, there were multiple contributors. Might it be that they have lost incentive? I certainly have other things to do with my time. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 10:47, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I see that Wikipedia:Citing sources/example style is disputed. Which part of this are we supposed to be working with in order to demonstrate responsiveness to the FAR? --Ancheta Wis (talk) 01:59, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    Again, what part of Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not are the remediators supposed to be working in order to demonstrate responsiveness to the FAR? Are we supposed to post to individual reviewers in order to get guidance? --Ancheta Wis (talk) 02:02, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    2nd para. added to lede. Invited the members of Wikiproject Computing to contribute. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 02:27, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I have just noticed that History of Russia was defeatured, even in the face of contributions by 5+ active editors and 120 footnotes. Am I wasting my time and energy? --Ancheta Wis (talk) 11:09, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    No time is wasted, but this article is in very bad shape and is going to need a huge effort; are you the only person working on it? The image layout is not good, the WP:LEAD is going to need to be rewritten, there is weasly uncited text (example: Some claim she is the world's first computer programmer, however this claim and the value of her other contributions are disputed by many.), WP:OVERLINKing, WP:MOS#Captions punctuation errors, WP:DASH errors, citation errors ... I could go on ... to give you a frank assessment, this article is in much worse shape than what usually comes through FAR, so I hope others are helping you. It's doable, but will take a big effort. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:18, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    The prose is also going to take a large effort, and an engaged copyeditor. Here's the last paragraph in the article:
    • An indication of the rapidity of development of this field can be inferred by the seminal article,[1] (by Burks, Goldstein, and von Neumann, which was documented in the Datamation September-October 1962 issue. This was written, as a preliminary version 15 years earlier). (See the references below.) By the time that anyone had time to write anything down, it was obsolete.
    Ouch. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:21, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree, it is indeed doable if a reviewer and a copyeditor can work in tandem. For example, I just reworked the closing sentences per your statement. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 10:10, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    If other editors can work on image placement, in cooperation with a reviewer, that would be good. I have been concentrating on footnotes, and propose continuing to do so.
    If other editors can work on the prose, in tandem with a reviewer, that also might work as a division of labor. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 10:49, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sidenote: History of Russia was removed because some of the people directly active on the article said it wasn't good enough. So no, you're not wasting your time, Ancheta. Marskell (talk) 18:11, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are citations (1c) and prose (1a). Marskell (talk) 19:45, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments in the review have died so moving down. Marskell (talk) 19:45, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This diff shows 27119 net bytes (a 33% increase) have been added to the article since 29 April 2008. I have attempted to address the concerns of Wackymacs (1c) and SandyGeorgia (1a) in the meantime. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 10:35, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I am continuing to work on the prose, now that the citations follow Wackymacs' suggestions. Specifically, SandyGeorgia's concern about overlinking in the prose. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 22:21, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ancheta continues to work away. With no comments I'm tempted to default keep. I will try to give it a read over beforehand. Marskell (talk) 11:56, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Remove, not enough progress, too many issues. Just read the lead to see how far the article has to go, then go to the bottom of the article to see layout issues. Unfortunately, this article appears abandoned.

  • The major elements of computing hardware are input,[2] output,[3], memory[4], and processor (control[5] and datapath
  • A sentence which says ... I don't know what it says:
  • Eventually the voltages or currents were standardized and digital computers were developed over a period of evolution dating back centuries.
  • Poor prose in the first paragraph of the lead:
  • See the history of computing article for methods intended for pen and paper, with or without the aid of tables. For a detailed timeline of events, see the computing timeline article.

An enormous effort would be needed to clean up the citations. A lot of uncited hard data and fundamental copyedit errors; sorry, this isn't going to make it. Another sample:

  • In 1956, IBM sold its first magnetic disk system, RAMAC (Random Access Method of Accounting and Control). It used 50 24-inch (610 mm) metal disks, with 100 tracks per side. It could store 5 megabytes of data and cost $10,000 per megabyte. (As of 2008, magnetic storage, in the form of hard disks, costs less than one 50th of a cent per megabyte).

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:01, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

SandyGeorgia, thank you for your responses. This was not 'my' article. This is 'our' article and I appreciate your concern and care for the standards of the encyclopedia. I worked on history of computing hardware simply because I was called. Please convey my thanks to those who participate in the FAR; I have learned more, which I count as a positive.
The prose you refer to in the first paragraph of the lead has sources all the way back to the beginnings of the article four years ago. For example, some of it came directly from Michael Hardy, the mathematician and editor who structured the article in the beginning. I respect him and kept the prose partly for that reason. If a more-or-less continuous effort from April 19 to June 29 comprises abandonment, then I see that my efforts have failed to persuade you that we ought keep the star. From my POV, the chief problem is the 81K message which suggests that the article be split. I am currently removing prose when I add more.
I use italics for emphasis of von Neumann's 'organs' of a computer. Apparently this needs more text for explanation. So it appears that I ought to remove more text to leave room for explanation.
The data you refer to reads well to me, but that is probably because I read it from the POV of someone who mentally compares it to specifications of other systems. In my mind's eye, I see someone lifting a removable disk from a drive and placing the cake cover on it before setting it in a shelf.
The voltages and currents you refer to deserve a small article themselves. Again, there has been a history of behind them, which the 81K limit ill serves. There was a time when frog's legs were the finest voltage reference available, several centuries ago.
I was just invited to join the Computing Wikiproject. Perhaps I/we might persuade some of the participants to join the fun. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 10:20, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ancheta Wis, I'm sorry you didn't get more guidance for all your hard work. Wackymacs nominated the article at FAR and could have helped; have you pinged Wackymacs at any point? You've been working under some self-imposed constraints that aren't accurate. There is no problem with the article size; it is currently at 42 kB (6643 words) of readable prose as measured by Dr pda's article size script, which is within WP:SIZE guidelines of 50KB readable prose. I'm not saying the article needs more text; it needs a copyedit. There's also a problem throughout with the use of italics (please read WP:ITALICS), and I can fix the footnote placement. What is most needed is a copyedit, and it appears you've been laboring alone. You don't need to preserve the original author's writing whe the article is at FAR and the original author and Project have apparently abandoned the article. Perhaps Wackymacs will help? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:42, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've cleaned up the faulty layout (see WP:GTL), fixed the footnote placement (see WP:FN) and will ask User:Brighterorange to run his script to fix the page and date range dashes (see WP:DASH) and will start removing WP:ITALICS. Are all of those References really used as citations? If not, those that aren't used should be separated to Further reading (according to WP:LAYOUT). Can you work on that? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:51, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The article needs major surgery; if you can get some collaborators to help, I'll peek in. All of the citations need cleanup, the article needs to be copyedited, and the WP:LEAD needs to be rewritten. The good news is that the hard work of citing the article is well along. Why are there periods after every citation? Why are publishers listed in the last parameter of citations? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:11, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In Wikipedia:Citation templates, each Citation template example is ended with a period. But for the cite template, a period is part of the template, making the period unnecessary for cite, but apparently a part of the protocol for the Citation template, per the example.
It is my understanding that in a tag-oriented template, the order of the tags is immaterial, thus the 'year' tag could be the last parameter in a template, for example.
I copyedited the lead and will invite the WP Computing participants to join in. Thank you for your guidance and examples. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 07:43, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Bell and Newell is my source, but I have not cited it. It is so important that I included it in the references. Raul Rojas is not my source, so I never cited it, but it was in the article previously and in the table of CPUs. The other references, sure, I used them. In particular, Mead and Conway explained the benefits of CMOS very clearly but I do not have a page number for them right now, although it is in my basement somewhere. I have a much longer citation for CMOS current draw, which I did not put in because I was laboring under the 81k message constraint before this. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 08:17, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
SandyGeorgia or Wackymacs, the harvnb templates still need last|year, but I notice that the 'last=' was missing from the Intel and IEEE Citation templates. I restored the Citation|last=IEEE and then noticed that the Citation|last=Intel was changed as well. How is the Harvard-style referencing method going to work, in this case? I will also direct this question to Jbmurray. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 01:40, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Since Jbmurray is away til mid-July, I directed my question to the Citations people. Here is their reponse to my question: "For the featured article rework on history of computing hardware, I use the harvnb and Citation templates to save on the byte count. My observation has been that I need to use {{harvnb|xxx|2007|pp=x-y}} with a corresponding {Citation|last=xxx|first=yyy|year=2007|title=ttt|publisher=ppp|date=1st day of the waning moon, year 78 of the Saka era|etc}}. But if there is no last name, for example when the citation is from an organization like IEEE or Intel, what should the harvnb contain? --Ancheta Wis (talk) 02:48, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
You could set |last=IEEE or |last=Intel? Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 09:55, 2 July 2008 (UTC) ". What do you think? --Ancheta Wis (talk) 12:32, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Despite what Sandy has said, I have helped (not on this page, but at the article's Talk page) and I encouraged Ancheta to use the Harvard citation templates, which has worked out well. I would have helped even more, but I do have my own projects going on. As it stands, this article does not currently meet the 2008 FA criteria. There are still plenty of problems with the prose and citations. I think this article would benefit greatly if this was delisted, and then renominated at FAC later on. It needs thorough reviews to ensure it meets the criteria. At the moment, some page numbers are in the References section, but some are in the Footnotes (where they should be). There are also missing access dates, publishers and incorrect ISBNs. There's also 3 dead links. A lot of the prose is choppy, and there are still "facts" which are uncited (and indeed, paragraphs which are uncited). — Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 08:42, 6 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
With that said, I think I will remove this. Ancheta, you have put in a vast amount of work and the article has improved. Another FAC is always a possibility. Marskell (talk) 13:25, 7 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
  1. ^ Arthur W. Burks, Herman Goldstine, and John von Neumann, "Preliminary discussion of the Logical Design of an Electronic Computing Instrument," Datamation, September-October 1962.
  2. ^ Historically, the media for input have been sequences of events: punch card and paper tape hole punch, keyboard keystroke, or mouse click.
  3. ^ Historically, the media for output have been sequences of states: punch card and paper tape hole punch, print mark, or light bulb.
  4. ^ Memory is US usage; Storage is UK usage; the terms are not completely equivalent: Memory has the connotation of rapid access; Storage has the connotation of large capacity. (The use of the term Storage dates back to Ada Lovelace in the nineteenth century.) Magnetic core memory was much faster than disk; which was cheaper, with higher capacity. There is a hierarchy of storage, which trades capacity for speed of access. To this day, semiconductor memory is more expensive than disk or tape.
  5. ^ Historically, control has been implemented by processes, which have been sequences of manual interventions (the earliest versions), switch settings (nineteenth century), patch panel connections (twentieth century), and then stored programs, perhaps in microcode.
  6. ^ Wilkes 1986, pp. 115–126
  7. ^ Horowitz & Hill 1989, p. 743
  8. ^ Patterson & Hennessy 1998, p. 424: note that when IBM was preparing its transition from the 700/7000 series to S/360, they emulated the software of the older systems in microcode, so as to be able to run older programs on the new IBM 360.
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