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Wikipedia:Featured article review/archive/June 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 15:03, 30 June 2008 [1].

San Francisco, California

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I do not believe this article meet the current Featured Article criteria. The prose is generally good but could use some polishing (eg. "The gay rights contributions and leadership the city has shown since the 1970s has resulted in the powerful presence gays and lesbians have in civic life."; explanation of what the NFL is and/or what sport the 49ers play). Much of the article is unreferenced (including almost all of the Transportation section). As far as style guidelines, I believe the lead should capture more of the article and the images should not be placed under level 2 headings--"Do not place left-aligned images directly below second-level (===) headings, as this disconnects the heading from the text it precedes. Instead, either right-align the image, remove it, or move it to another relevant location."--in addition, several could use better captions, and now that I'm looking at it, there is an image of a rainbow flag, but the significance of the flag is not mentioned in the article). Several references lack essential information, and consistent reference formatting is needed. GaryColemanFan (talk) 15:37, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you don't like that one sentence (I don't either) please fix it.
The NFL is linked. If you don't know what NFL is, following the link will tell you. If articles defined all potentially unfamiliar terms, they would be 3x as long, extremely tedious, and no one would read them.
On the contrary, very little of the article is unreferenced. It has 107 footnotes, cited 114 times. There are 7072 words in the article, for a ratio of one cite for every 62 words. The policy of WP:Verifiability states that attribution is required for direct quotes and for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged. Please be more specific about unreferenced statements in the article that are direct quotes or material which is likely to be challenged.
Please be more specific about references that "lack essential information" or which are inconsistently formatted.
The Rainbow Flag is linked. See my comment above about NFL.
Standards for featured article are:
1) well-written, comprehensive, factually accurate, neutral, stable. (CHECK)
2a) it has a concise lead summarizing the topic (CHECK)
2b) it has a structure of hierarchical headings (CHECK)
2c) it has consistent citations (CHECK) (please give specifics where you don't believe this is true)
3) it has images where appropriate with succinct captions (CHECK) (note use of "succinct")
4) it stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail (CHECK) (c.f. NFL and Rainbow Flag)
I think your concerns about the Featured Article status of San Francisco article, fall under the "if you can update or improve it, please do" policy rather than raising any substantive WP:FACR issues. --Paul (talk) 19:39, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to be taking my comments as a personal attack, which is not how they were intended. I do believe, however, that the aricle does not meet the current standards for a Featured Article. In response to your comments:

  1. The sentence was given as an example of prose that could use some work. A Featured Article should be well-written, and a sentence like that indicates that copyediting may be necessary.
  2. As for the NFL, all that needs to be fixed is adding the full title: "...National Football League (NFL)..." Telling people to click on wikilinks if they want to understand the article is not Wikipedia policy, as articles should be clear to all readers.
    Fixed. --Sfmammamia (talk) 18:29, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  3. As for the references, the article simply isn't up to standards. Entire sections are unreferenced. The number of references isn't important; what matters is whether or not all of the information is backed up with a source. At present, it's not close.
  4. I'm not going to list all references that need more information or better formatting, but I recommend checking out Wikipedia:Citing sources for the {{cite web}} template. All web references need at least a title, publisher, url, and accessdate. If a date of publication or author name is available, this information should be included as well. Reference 32 is an example of a reference without a publisher. I urge you also to take a look at how the access dates are listed for references 36-38. 36 uses "Accessed on", 37 uses "Accessed", and 38 uses "Retrieved on". 36 also uses a formatted date (2006-12-03), while 37 uses a long form (September 5, 2006).
    Access dates have been made consistent. --Sfmammamia (talk) 18:29, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  5. I agree that "rainbow flag" is linked, but it doesn't illustrate anything from the article, as the article doesn not mention rainbow flags.
  6. Image captions are too "succinct" in some places. "Chinatown" is insufficient as a caption, as it says nothing about the image or why it is included. Likewise for "Baker Beach". The caption for Alcatraz is a good example of what a caption should look like: "Alcatraz receives 1.5 million visitors per year" says something about the image, in contrast to "A map from 1888", which doesn't even clarify what the image shows.
    The specific captions mentioned above have been fixed.--Sfmammamia (talk) 19:02, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  7. Not a reply to anything you said, but looking back, why is it important to mention that prospectors had "sourdough bread in tow"? This is not made clear in the article. I understand that you want to avoid unnecessary detail, but giving pieces of information with no indication of why they are relevant to the article makes for a lot of confusion.
Agreed. I deleted the phrase. --Sfmammamia (talk) 19:27, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sourdough bread is an iconic San Francisco artifact. It has been a part of SF since 1849 and probably before. It's use in this sentence is to provide a link to sourdough bread and to document the historical connection between sourdough becoming a SF icon, and the 49er prospectors. I've added a reference tying the bread to the prospectors.--Paul (talk) 00:19, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You do a great job of explaining the link here. It would help readers of the article if a phrase was inserted in that sentence like "which later became an iconic San Francisco artifact. GaryColemanFan (talk) 01:35, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't take my comments personally. I would love to see this keep its Featured Article status. Please note that I waited 8 days to initiate this process after mentioning my concerns to the relevant WikiProjects. I feel, however, that substantial work needs to be done, and I hope that the relevant projects will help get this article back to FA quality. GaryColemanFan (talk) 20:28, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Response "The number of references isn't important; what matters is whether or not all of the information is backed up with a source. At present, it's not close." This isn't what the policy requires. Policy requires that "attribution is required for direct quotes and for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged." For example, do you think these sentences need a citation? "Public transit solely within the city of San Francisco is provided predominantly by the San Francisco Municipal Railway (Muni). The city-owned system operates both a combined light rail/subway system (the Muni Metro) and a bus network that includes trolleybuses, standard diesel motorcoaches and diesel hybrid buses."--Paul (talk) 00:17, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I have over 1,000 edits on the San Francisco article. You have none. Unfortunately, I no longer have the time nor the interest to work on this article. The article has not changed substantially since its promotion in September 2006. If you think it needs some work, I think you should work on it.--Paul (talk) 23:22, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Reply I am aware that you have over 1,000 edits on this article. That is the reason that I notified you directly about the Featured Article review. Please note that Featured Article standards have changed substantially since 2006. Unfortunately, this article has not kept up with these changes and does not currently meet the standards. One of my current projects on Wikipedia is to ensure that Featured Articles meet the criteria. In cases like Wayne Gretzky, it is sometimes necessary to initiate a Featured Article review to get the changes made. I am not picking on you personally or on this article, as this is not the first review I have initiated (after giving the relevant projects ample time to start making the required changes), and it will not be the last. I am certainly willing to do some work toward fixing the article, but only if the relevant projects (those with knowledge of the subject matter and the guidelines of their projects) are willing to help. I can certainly understand that you might not have time or interest to work on the article, and I hope you don't take any of my comments to mean that I expect you (or any other specific editor) to help. With that said, the most important matter is improving the article. As this conversation is accomplishing nothing toward that goal, I will no longer engage in such a debate. I am quite willing to offer opinions and/or answer questions about the concerns I have identified, as it is my sincere hope that the outcome is to keep this as a Featured Article. Best wishes, GaryColemanFan (talk) 23:57, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Request 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 (roll amongst the roses) 20:23, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My apologies. I notified them right away, but I wasn't aware that I had to list them here. I'll get that done right away. GaryColemanFan (talk) 20:28, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Done. GaryColemanFan (talk) 20:35, 7 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments Unfortunately, I concur with GaryColemanFan that this is not up to FA standards, at least as they exist today. As Paul suggested, minor fixes should just be make on the spot, but I think this article needs substantial work. Issues per FA criteria:
    • 1c (sources): There are many unsourced sections. Inline citations are needed to so we at least have a general idea what sources the material is based on.
    • 2a (lead): The lead is quite weak for a broad article of this depth. It does not accurately represent the article per WP:LEAD. Someone familiar with the subject matter needs to work on it.
    • 3 (images): The article is an image farm and, as GCF pointed out, the captions are weak. Someone needs to trim them up, fix the captions, and then visit MOS:IMAGES and get them arranged properly. There are all manner of placement problems. --Laser brain (talk) 04:15, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding the images. I have moved several images from the left margin to the right margin to keep them from disturbing the text layout at the beginning of sections and subsections. However, I would like to point out that WP:FACR does not even mention MOS:IMAGES. It lists only three requirements:

3. Images. It has images and other media where they are appropriate, with succinct captions and acceptable copyright status. Non-free images or media must satisfy the criteria for the inclusion of non-free content and be labeled accordingly.

Thus, any concern about the layout of images is more properly the subject of a TALK page discussion or a few minutes time of judicious editing, not a basis for an FAR.
As for the article being an "image farm," that is a bit of an exaggeration. The editors of this article have deleted scores of vanity images. All of the images left in the article appropriately illustrate accompanying text. However, there are two images added in the last year which might be argued border on excess: the night cityscape panorama, and the satellite image of the San Francisco peninsula.--Paul (talk) 00:19, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's safe to say that Manual of Style compliance is assumed to be part of the Featured Article criteria. GaryColemanFan (talk) 01:35, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Response I've moved pictures around at the beginning of sections. I have also reviewed MOS:IMAGES and don't see anything else that is out of compliance. If editors disagree with this assessment, please point out specific instances (like the very helpful one above about pictures and topic headings).--Paul (talk) 18:10, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The images are vastly improved, thank you. --Laser brain (talk) 19:26, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
While more citations are preferable, it would be quite strange to say that mere descriptions of fact that are unchallenged will need citations, if I may point out the public transportation section as an example. Of course, some images are unneeded, and they will be weeded out momentarily. However, I do have two questions:
  1. First and foremost, can you elaborate on your concerns a bit? It's hard to improve an article, let alone trying to understand abstractions and guess what you are talking about.
  2. Why was this issue not taken up to the talk page first? Perhaps via informal channels this problem would have been solved, and we won't have to go through this process. It might catch people's eyes, but it's still quite rude to the main authors of this article for this to suddenly come up (which may partly explain Paul's response).
Until then, I will try to improve the article to the best of my ability. —Kurykh 05:25, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
About the rainbow flag, I think it's the Castro (which the rainbow flag is representing) that is being emphasized, and not the rainbow flag itself. —Kurykh 05:31, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure how to elaborate any more than I already have. The biggest problem is with the citations. The article is insufficiently referenced, and the citations are not properly formatted. Currently, much of the article appears to be original research. To verify that the information has come from a reliable source, citations are needed. If that could be fixed, the majority of the work would be complete. As for your question about the talk page, you are correct. That would have been a good idea. I wasn't trying to spring this out of nowhere, though, and I notified all of the relevant Wikiprojects (Cities, San Francisco Bay Area, and California) and then waited eight days before starting the review. I will make sure to mention it on the talk page as well next time, though. Thanks for the advice, GaryColemanFan (talk) 05:54, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Response Here's a suggestion on how you can "elaborate" further. WP:FAR states "Nominators typically assist in the process of improvement." If you would go through the article and tag facts that you thing need citing, that would be extremely helpful. As you pointed out, the number of citations does not matter (whether there are many or few for a given section). What matters is that statements of fact that could reasonably be challenged (that is the policy) are correctly cited. If concerned editors would add {{fact}} tags where they have concerns, other editors could fix those problems, or explain why it is not a problem. Thanks.--Paul (talk) 18:26, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Response to response Indeed, I'm sure nominators typically help. Your constant attacks do nothing to make me feel like helping, though. I have tried my best to remain civil. If my offer of help is going to be thrown back in my face, though, I'm much more inclined to let you do it yourself. GaryColemanFan (talk) 22:24, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Response to response to response I'm surprised you regard my note as a personal attack. It certainly wasn't intended that way. On line communication is so difficult some times. I only intended to point out how much better specific concerns and recommendations are, and was hoping for a little help. My apologies for any perceived slight.--Paul (talk) 00:00, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Likewise, I thought I did a pretty good job outlining issues. There are no quick fixes here to delineate. Also, I'm a little annoyed that someone following the established procedure to review an article to see if it still meets featured article criteria is called rude. --Laser brain (talk) 07:13, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I apologize if I inadvertently attacked anyone as rude (my intention was to highlight the perception of the action); however, I thought it was common knowledge that informal processes (talk page discussion) are often initiated before established procedures (this). —Kurykh 19:27, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Given that we need to rework the article a bit is it possible that we fix the article to conform to WP:USCITY guidelines, or is this article an exception because it became a featured article before the guideline was even drawn up? —Kurykh 19:38, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The article already substantially follows the guidelines which can be seen by comparing the two index structures. Given that WP:USCITY states: The order of sections is also completely optional, and sections may be moved around to a different order based on the needs of their city.... While it is just a guideline and there are no requirements to follow it in editing.... I'd say it is not necessary to change the existing structure of the article. Also, WP:USCITY unfortunately "suggests" trivia sections for "Notable natives and residents" as well as "Sister cities" both of which were removed during the FAC process.--Paul (talk) 20:33, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I was a significant contributor to those guidelines but I think that individual city articles should tailor the layout and content according to each city's unique characteristics and sources. --maclean 01:50, 9 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Work needed. I participated in the peer review, but wasn't around when this passed FAC; there is a bit of work needed. See WP:GTL, portals belong in See also. See WP:GTL regarding See also: really needs pruning. All of those links should be worked into the article so See also can be minimized. Citations need work: there are missing publishers and some dates are wikilinked, others not. This is the English Wiki; English doesn't need to be specified in citations. There are also incomplete citations: for example, this has an author and publication date which aren't listed. Some stubby sections (two sentences on bicyling warrant an entire section)? Review of WP:DASH and WP:HYPHEN needed, east to west is an endash: Major east-west thoroughfares ... Informal prose needs review: baking & pastry arts, and hospitality & restaurant management (should that be "and"). WP:WTA, claim: and claims more judges on the state bench than any other institution. Do we doubt that claim? WP:AWW, weasleness, believed by whom? The city is believed to have the highest number of homeless inhabitants ... Another WP:DASH issue, no unspaced emdashes please: ... installations — the Presidio, Treasure Island, and Hunters Point — a legacy ... Incorrect endashes: The municipal budget for fiscal year 2007-2008 ... Uncited assertions of fact: San Francisco is a consolidated city-county, a status it has had since 1856. It is the only such consolidation in California. More uncited assertions: San Francisco's economy has increasingly become tied to that of Silicon Valley to the south, sharing a need for highly educated workers with specialized skills. WP:NBSP attention needed. These matters are all fairly trivial, and the article is in much better shape than many geography articles that come through here; I don't see why it can't be kept after a bit of elbow grease to clean up these items and the others identified by the nominator. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:50, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Re: See also I've trimmed that down to four from twenty-six using the auto wiki browser diff. Everything that was removed is already present in the article in line, as a {{main}} link, or are part of the navigation boxes at the bottom. -Optigan13 (talk) 06:35, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Response I moved the SF portal to See Also (BTW WP:GTL does not mention portal placement). The citation called out for not having an author and publication date has been fixed. References have been added for consolidated city-county status and SF's reliance on the area tech sector and highly skilled labor. Thanks to Sandy for having specific examples that can be fixed.--Paul (talk) 17:59, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I removed two more links from the pagediff for the Archdiocese which was in text under schools and the famous San Franciscans which is in the {{San Francisco}} as a Notable People link. I was looking at possibly removing the two remaining links if possible, either through integration of the links into the text, or to templates, or outright removal of the see also section. Am I correct in thinking that See also sections have fallen out of favor as they can serve as cruft attractors like external links sections, which is why they are optional? -Optigan13 (talk) 06:31, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The deletion of the portals info from WP:GTL was a recent, undiscussed edit; now sorted and restored. See also sections is different in articles under development and in FAs. See also serves as a repository for info that should later be worked into the article; FAs are supposed to be mostly complete, so that info should already be worked into the article. I struck a few, will be back to check more later. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:09, 15 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I spent an hour or so cleaning up some basic MoS issue tonight (much more to do still); I'd rather not type it all up, and hope other editors will look at my edit summaries and complete the citation cleanup still needed.[2] I found WP:MOSNUM, WP:MOSDATE, MOS:CAPS#All caps, missing info on citations, inconsistent date linking and formatting in citations, publishers listed as authors in citations, inconsistent page numbers (note that different cite templates handle page numbers differently, including plurals), % vs. percent should be consistent, WP:HYPHEN errors, etc. The only section I got to read was Economy, where I added two inlines on clarification needed. (Also, we're later told that UCSF is the number two employer; who is number one?) I'll continue reading the article later, but citation work needs to be finished, particularly date formatting and linking. The article looks to be in pretty good shape, although elbow grease is still needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:42, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • "(Also, we're later told that UCSF is the number two employer; who is number one?)" The city & county is the largest employer, which makes UCSF the largest private employer. I've made the change to the text.--Paul (talk) 15:04, 17 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Problem with that logic, UCSF is also a public, not a private, employer. I will work on clarifying this in the text. Most, if not all, of the citation formatting issues have been fixed, I think (I hope). --Sfmammamia (talk) 18:40, 17 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I will continue reading, checking for comprehensiveness and citations, and reviewing MoS issues over the next few days, but this looks to be on track for a Keep without FARC. Can someone ping GaryColeman and Laser brain to get updates from them, so we can stay on track? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:34, 17 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I find that several sections are still completely Original Research. The "Neighborhoods" section, for example, has no sources. Where is the information coming from? There has definitely been some improvement, but the citations just aren't there. I added some "citation needed" tags, but I didn't get through the whole article. I can try to finish later, but I was really surprised at the amount of Original Research. Some sections, like "Climate" are really well done. Others just aren't sourced at all. Don't get me wrong...I think the article is definitely close, but the lack of references really stands out to me. GaryColemanFan (talk) 19:25, 17 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Response Thank you for the {{fact}} tags. They make verifiablitiy concerns concrete and make it much easier to respond. I've started to add a few of the requested references. However, I think some of the requests are a bit overboard. My understanding of the verifiability requirements are that citations are required for quotations and for any material that is challenged or is likely to be challenged.
One example: the following statement was tagged:

Just southwest of Mission Bay is the Potrero Hill neighborhood featuring sweeping views of downtown San Francisco.[citation needed]

What is being questioned here? The fact that Potrero Hill is a neighborhood? That it lies southwest of Mission Bay? Or that it features sweeping views of downtown? All of these "facts" seem to be pretty trivial things and unlikely to be challenged as to their veracity. If the article on Mount Everest said that it's summit afforded sweeping views of the surrounding geography, should that be cited?
Another example:

City Hall rose once again in splendorous Beaux Arts style, and the city celebrated its rebirth at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in 1915.[citation needed]

What's the issue here? That (the linked) City Hall was rebuilt? That it is in the Beaux Arts style? That the (linked) Panama-Pacific International Exposition was in 1915? Or, that the city hosted the exposition partially to celebrate the quick rebuilding of the city? What is the point of providing wiki-links, if everything that you may learn in the linked article also has to appear in a footnote in the linking article?
I don't think either of my examples need a citation. It's common sense that you get a view from a hill. The city was leveled by an earthquake in 1906; it's also common sense that city leaders and residents wanted to show off the rebuilding eight years later. This is called prose. The Wikipedia verifiability requirement exists to insure that living persons aren't libeled, and to guard against spreading mis-information. It's not there as a requirement that articles need to look like they were written by a blind Martian with a big library. If such were the case, articles would sport a forest of footnotes but there wouldn't be any brilliant prose. Nor could you find anyone to write an article. There should be balance.--Paul (talk) 21:30, 17 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I will go through these later (and may remove some fact tags). I am not one of the article's authors, but I know SF quite well, and didn't see a glaring need for citation when I went through a few days ago; there were not many facts that were surprising or challenging that were uncited (I did see a few). On the other hand, from the examples given above, I can see that a problem is not the facts rather the "adjectives" used (sweeping, splenderous), which introduce a tour-guide, POV quality to the article. I'm likely to remove some adjectives along with some fact tags. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:45, 17 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If you see any places in need of {{fact}} tags, please add them.--Paul (talk) 00:27, 18 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed, my concern was the tourist brochure-like adjectives in those cases. GaryColemanFan (talk) 02:06, 18 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Analysis of {{fact}} tags:

  • Agree citation needed, not common knowledge. Silver discoveries, including the Comstock Lode in 1859, further drove rapid population growth.[citation needed]
  • Adjectives are the issue here, and arts scene is not common knowledge. By the turn of the century, San Francisco was a major city known for its flamboyant style, stately hotels, ostentatious mansions on Nob Hill, and a thriving arts scene.[citation needed]
  • Why does this need citation? The UN Charter creating the United Nations was drafted and signed in San Francisco in 1945 and, in 1951, the Treaty of San Francisco officially ended the war with Japan.[citation needed]
  • This is somewhat common knowledge, but it also includes some opinion, and shouldn't be hard to source. During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, startup companies invigorated the economy. Large numbers of entrepreneurs and computer application developers moved into the city, followed by marketing and sales professionals that changed the social landscape as once poorer neighborhoods became gentrified. When the bubble burst in 2001, many of these companies folded and their employees left, although high technology and entrepreneurship continued to be mainstays of the San Francisco economy.[citation needed]
  • Common knowledge, don't think any of this needs to be cited, but wording could be beefed up and cited (aren't building codes in SF some of the strictest in the world?). The San Andreas and Hayward Faults are responsible for much earthquake activity, even though neither passes through the city itself. It was the San Andreas Fault which slipped and caused the earthquakes in 1906 and 1989. Minor earthquakes occur on a regular basis. The threat of major earthquakes plays a large role in the city's infrastructure development. New buildings must meet high structural standards, and older buildings and bridges must be retrofitted to comply with new building codes.[citation needed]
Looking but still not quite there. I've found "Although California's seismic safety practices for building and land use are among the best in the world,..."(Chronicle, 1995), "The San Francisco codebook is more strict than California's code because of quake precautions"(Chronicle, 2002), and "Although some corporations, such as PG&E, have brought their buildings up to the new seismic codes, many have not done the hugely expensive work. It's not required unless they apply for permits to do major renovations or additions, and the new code kicks in."(Chronicle, 1999) This was looking through the sfgate archives using "building code earthquake". If someone else wants to try flipping through the remaining searches or try using something along the lines of "unreinforced masonry buildings" it might work. -Optigan13 (talk) 06:21, 19 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've modified the sentence to what is easily supported -- that San Francisco has repeatedly upgraded its building codes and requires retrofits, but that thousands of buildings still remain vulnerable. --Sfmammamia (talk) 07:17, 30 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hard data needs citation. Bayview-Hunter's Point in the southeast section of the city is one of the poorest neighborhoods and suffers from a high rate of crime, though the area has been the focus of plans for urban renewal. The other southern neighborhoods of the city are ethnically diverse and populated primarily with students and working-class San Franciscans.[citation needed]

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:28, 18 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 kept by User:Marskell 12:12, 27 June 2008 [3].

Holkham Hall

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This article, actually with FA status, is not worthy of have the brown star. I think this because the following motivations:

  • Bad referenced: a lon bibliography and some external links, but where are the notes? The second note needs a reference -_- ;
  • Bad article organization: there isn't a paragraph for the history, because all is mixed in the various paragraphs (example: in "Interior" there is some history);
  • There aren't the links to the dates and to the years.

This isn't a good example for new users that are searching an example for FA. Mojska all you want 10:27, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Notifications request Request 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 (roll amongst the roses) 12:22, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • "Bad referenced": what does "a lon bibliography" refer too? The article contains a reference section, listing 11 books.
  • "Bad article organization ": for my money, to follow the fates of the house—re-building, additions, etc— from the early 18th century up to today is the only reasonable structure for this type of subject, and makes for a vigorous, enjoyable reading experience. How else would you organize it?
  • "There aren't the links to the dates and to the years ": no, there aren't, and there aren't supposed to be. "Links to date elements that do not contain both a day number and a month are not required; for example, solitary months, solitary days of the week, solitary years, decades, centuries, and month and year combinations. Such links must not be used unless the reader needs to follow the link to understand the topic; see WP:CONTEXT."[4]
  • "This isn't a good example for new users that are searching an example for FA." Yes, it is. Bishonen | talk 14:17, 11 June 2008 (UTC).[reply]
  • Footnotes are fundamental for a FA, and this article has only 2 notes !! The article may be more tidy: History --> Architecture [subparagraphs] --> Modern history. What of these books do you get for say that "The cost of the construction of Holkham is thought to have been in the region of £90,000 (allowing for inflation, approximately £8m in 2006)" or "building was to continue for thirty years until in 1764 the great house was completed". I want to translate this article in Italian, but there aren't many references (for references I say footnotes). Can you save it? Thanks. Mojska all you want 17:03, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As it happens, the main author (who you're asked to notify, please see Regents Park's post above) is himself Italian, User:Giano II, see the FAC nomination and discussion. I suggest you contact him at his user talk. That might be simpler than listing it on this board. (And perhaps more likely to meet with success than opening with telling him how bad you think it is.) Just a suggestion. Bishonen | talk 19:30, 11 June 2008 (UTC).[reply]
  • I agree that this article is not up to FA status. The criteria for wikipedia is verifiability and the way it is written, none of this can be verified. It doesn't have any in-line references, merely a list of sources. As there is no indication of what text comes from which sources it is impossible to tell who made the rather sweeping statements, and which of them (if any) are the personal interpretation of the contributor. For instance:

"Holkham Hall is one of England's finest examples of the Palladian revival style of architecture, the severity of the design being closer to Palladio's ideals than many of the other numerous Palladian style houses of the period." Who says so?

"It is thought he first met Burlington, the aristocratic architect at the forefront of the Palladian revival movement in England, and William Kent in Italy in 1715; it is possible that there in the original home of Palladianism, the idea of a new mansion at Holkham was conceived" It is thought by whom? These are just weasel words if they are not attributed to someone.

"The external appearance of Holkham can best be described as a huge Roman palace. However, as with most architectural designs, it is never quite that simple. Holkham is a Palladian house, and yet even by Palladian standards the external appearance of Holkham is austere and devoid of ornament (see illustration)." Who says it can be best described as a Roman Palace? The rest of it sounds very POV to me. "See Illustration" sounds like "it's obvious- just take a look"

"The Palladian style was beloved by Whigs such as Thomas Coke, who liked to identify themselves with the Romans of antiquity" Did they - who says so?

"Above the windows of the piano nobile, where on a true Palladian structure the windows of a mezzanine would be, there is nothing. The reason for this is the double height of the state rooms on the piano nobile; however, not even a blind window is permitted to alleviate the severity of the facade" Who says that's the reason?

"This vast cost nearly ruined the heirs of the 1st Earl, but had the result that they were financially unable to alter the house to suit the whims of taste. Thus, the house has remained almost untouched since its completion in 1764. Today, this perfect, if severe, example of Palladianism…………etc." These sort of assertions need to be verifiable and at the moment they aren't"

The section on "The estate, park & gardens" had developed into an awful mess until I tidied it up a week or so ago, so I do get the impression that nobody is really keeping an eye on the article to ensure it keeps its FA status. However, having said that, there do seem to be some wp:ownership issues here. Someone flagged up the problem with references with a "nofootnotes" tag and User:Giano II removed it and left the following comment in the edit summary " it is quite clear to me! If you hava a problem do some research." Well if he wrote the article then it would be clear to him wouldn't it? Richerman (talk) 11:55, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    • Comment to Richerman: Yes, absolutely. The author is not watching out for his FA, and he has ownership issues with it. Only the evil Giano could manage that combination! We're fortunate that he seems to be phasing himself out[5] and discontinuing that pesty FA production. Bishonen | talk 17:36, 12 June 2008 (UTC).[reply]
    • Reply from the evil Richerman Ok, lets not get silly. Maybe I could have phrased it a little better, but what I was trying to say is that if you produce an article that's well-rated and you want it to stay that way, keep an eye on other additions and keep them in order. However it's no good having a fit of pique when somone puts on a tag flagging up a problem. The thing to do is sort out the problem and then remove the tag. This article was rated as FA some years ago and things have moved on since then as wikipedia has often been criticised for being unreliable. Because of that, good referencing has now become very important and an FA article is supposed to be an example of the best that wikipedia can produce. We all want to see this article improved rather than demoted but unfortunately, short of completely rewriting it, the only person that can fix the references is the one who wrote it in the first place as only he knows which bits came from which book. I've spent quite a lot of time tidying up some of the later additions to make them read better as it looked like a a section designed by a committee and yes, some of my edits weren't quite right and that's been fixed by someone else. That's fine, that's the way wikipedia is supposed to work. Were all here to try to improve articles, not to fall out with each other. If any of my comments were seen as insulting I apologise unreservedely. And what is that link to Giano II's contribution page supposed to tell me?Richerman (talk) 10:26, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Article is certainly FA standard except that it wholly lacks inline citations to the very comprehensive list of references. There will be no difficulty sourcing the statements above if those are available. I had to re-tidy a couple of Richerman's alterations above. I don't see any merit to the nominator's comments on the organisation. Johnbod (talk) 12:53, 12 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Since I avoid working on articles with FA status, I hope that someone will notify me when this one is de-listed, so I can begin footnoting the obvious assertions and mainstream observations. --Wetman (talk) 00:33, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why not just do it now and avoid delisting? Do you have access to the references? Nousernamesleftcopper, not wood 17:50, 13 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't want to delist the article, but I ask to the writer of add footnotes to the article. If you've got that books, you can say where you get that information. Mojska all you want 12:27, 14 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is nothing in the page that is not academically accepted and perfectly obvious. I have no intention of referencing the obvious. Is the sky blue? If you don't think so then delist it - or remove all the information that disturbs you so. I'm sure that will improve Wikipedia considerably. Giano (talk) 19:47, 14 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
To quote from wp:verifiability "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true. Editors should provide a reliable source for quotations and for any material that is challenged or is likely to be challenged, or the material may be removed." Richerman (talk) 22:15, 14 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Then please just get on and remove the material you find so offensive, just stop bleating about it, failing that get hold of the references, read them, and add a thousand footnotes yourself. I have better things to do with my time than reference accepted facts. I have never read such rubbish as is written above in all my life. I suggest you remember it is better to be thought a fool than open one's mouth and prove it. Giano (talk) 22:22, 14 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with your last statement entirely - discussion ended. Richerman (talk) 22:30, 14 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't quite see what this harping on the verifiability policy is all about. The article is verifiable - there is a full raft of references at the bottom. Indeed, the information contained in the article is verifiable for any reader who opens any of the reference books. There is no evidence whatsoever that WP:V has been breached. There are not, however, any inline citations. The original author of the article, Giano, does not feel there is anything sufficiently controversial as to require an inline cite. We're talking about a building, after all, not a living person. And yet, we have two editors concerned that the article is not verifiable. What is it that Richerman and Mojska feel is controversial enough to require an inline cite? There is no requirement in WP:WIAFA or Wikipedia:When to cite to include inline citations just for the sake of having inline citations. Nobody appears to be challenging statements in the article; therefore, Giano has nothing to respond to at this point.

It's a little concerning that, on an encyclopedic project that prides itself on its collaborative work, there is the expectation for the editor who brought the article to FA to go back and add inline cites into an article, years after the fact, without those initiating the FAR offering any assistance or accepting any responsibility for identifying areas of concern. (There are some FA reviewers who genuinely assist, and I exclude them from this paragraph.) It is also concerning that this article has only come to FAR because an editor wishes to translate it but doesn't want to do so without inline cites so expects the original author to do that work for him; and that the only comment on the quality of the article to date is its lack of (unspecified) inline citations, and its "bad organization" - the style of which is common to the majority of FA/GA architectural articles throughout (English) Wikipedia. Folks, without a specific concern about the article, or any identification of controversial claims, Holkham Hall still appears to meet featured article criteria. Risker (talk) 00:43, 15 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed - there is little benefit in a page ref to a book you don't have, and most of the works referenced would I imagine not have too many mentions of Holkham to make finding them with the index difficult, once the book is in your hand. Admittedly, one would not know which book has a particular point, although I imagine many are in several of them. Hussey '55 and Pevsner both devote over 10 pages to the house & no doubt the vast majority of the article could conveniently be verified from either, without going to the monographs. Johnbod (talk) 01:03, 15 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia for the general reader, not a place for essays on specialist subjects such as Palladian architecture. I have challenged six statements above and still no-one has told me who made them, how can I make it any clearer that these are the statements that I am concerned about? If these assertions were preceeded with statements such as "according to Hussey" or "Pevsner says that" I would be a lot happier as I could check the relevant books. However, I do feel that some of the statements such as "Today, this perfect, if severe, example of Palladianism" are probably the personal opinion of the editor. As was pointed out above, it is only polite to give the major contributors the chance to fix the problems first, but when one of them tells me to "stop bleating" and that I'm a fool for not accepting what he says without question, I have no interest in collaborating with him. I don't profess to be any sort of expert on architecture, but I have already spent a fair bit of time editing one of the sections where I thought the style could be improved and I've made a number of other small edits, so you can hardly accuse me of complaining without making a contribution. If there is a general consensus that the way this article is referenced is acceptable for today's FA standards, that's fine by me. It will be mean I don't have to bother with all those citation templates in future. I'll just put a list of a dozen or so publications at the end, and if anyone challenges anything I'll tell them to go and read them all themselves, However, I've a sneaking suspicion that they wouldn't get through.

Can I also draw your attention to a sentence from Wikipedia:Citing sources?

"Articles can be supported with references in two ways: the provision of general references – books or other sources that support a significant amount of the material in the article – and inline citations, which are mandated by the featured article criteria and (to a lesser extent) the good article criteria"

It also says "Full citations for books typically include: the name of the author, the title of the book or article, the date of publication, and page numbers". Well quite a few of the book references in the article don't have page numbers either.

Sorry to "harp on" about this - I thought we were having a reasoned discussion, but it seems when someone disagrees with you you're harping on. Richerman (talk) 09:10, 15 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

People keep saying to you, cite the obvious if you feel so inclined, delist the page, or just remove the commonplace facts you find so concerning. Only you seem greatly bothered enough to "harp on" - no one else is that interested or could care less what happens to the page. If you feel you are improving Wikipedia, get on with it. Giano (talk) 21:44, 15 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, you keep saying those things. Firstly, I have every right to respond to the criticism made against me that I feel are unjustified. Secondly, I can't delist anything, this is the first stage of s discussion about whether the article should be delisted and the whole point of it is to flag up the problems and suggest remedies, both of which I've done. The delisting is done by the features articles editor if a consensus is reached. Thirdly, if I took out all the bits that caused me concern there wouldn't be a coherent article left. And finally, if you have no interest in the article then why do you keep coming back with comments? Richerman (talk) 22:29, 15 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Because you want me to reference the obvious for you, and I'm not going to. So there! I have pointed out to you (as have others) which books the obvious facts that concern you are in, yet for some reason you don't seem to want to do it yourself. You come here demanding this and that, your comments above demonstrate you clearly know nothing of the subject, so here is your golden opportunity, get the books out of the library and improve your mind. You may even find some interesting facts I omitted. FAs are a very fleeting and vainglorious accolade, you say you want to see this referenced and not delisted, you have concerned yourself with it, so go on down to the library and get on with it, and do stop berating us here because I have no intention of adding one more cite to it. FA status or not. If you are too lazy to meet your own demands to reference the obvious then as you hint you are quite at liberty to remove the offensive facts from the page. Giano (talk) 22:50, 15 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You've got it completely wrong, I don't want you to do anything. You've already made it quite clear you're not going to add anything to the references - all you are going to do is to indulge in personal attacks on those who disagree with you and so I am not willing to discuss this with you any further. I assure you that any further comments I make on this page are not intended for you. Richerman (talk) 23:07, 15 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Richerman, Giano hasn't been making personal attacks. Though he's made some snarky comments, labeling them as personal attacks is a complete fabrication. I suggest that you stop being so offended at what Giano is saying - he has a right to his opinion, and his opinion is that there's no need for inline cites. Though I disagree that the facts are obvious (well, they may be obvious among experts on architecture, but they're hardly likely to read Wikipedia, are they?), fruitless arguing over it will do no good. If I have time, I'll try to add inline references from the two online books I linked to, but unfortunately I can't find any others. I certainly don't think this article should be delisted either way, as Risker pointed out above. The prose and organization is excellent, and a lack of inline citations shouldn't be a huge hindrance. I do ask of you, though, Giano, to please help add at least a few - there are those who think that an article should be delisted on inline citations (or a lack of them) alone, I don't want that fate to befall this particular article, since it's one of the best I've read in a while. Nousernamesleftcopper, not wood 01:13, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, the voice of reason at last. I absolutely agree that everyone has the right to their own opinion but they are also expected to put it across in a civil manner. maybe "personal attack" is too strong a phrase but he's certainly not being civil. Anyway, I'm certainly not going to go running to teacher to complain about it - I would just prefer to have an adult discussion on talk pages and not let it descend into schoolyard rhetoric. I agree entirely that this is well-written article and the referencing is the only problem - however, I do think that's a big problem for a featured article as they are supposed to be an example of the best wikepedia has to offer. Having said that, I'm certainly not being goaded into removing information from a featured article, or to make any other major changes, just to make a point, without first gaining consensus. Richerman (talk) 07:51, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
On referencing, the two books I could try to find the ones not on the internet at my library this weekend, but I'm not optimistic - it's quite a small library. Of course, I'd much rather reference the article than remove valuable information. Nousernamesleftcopper, not wood 20:19, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's a shame there are no pictures of the interior, though I appreciate these places don't usually allow photography. Perhaps one of the cross-sections from Brettingham's book [6]? BTW, there is a quote from Lees-Milne but Lees-Milne is not listed in the references. Someone may wish to add this in (or, given the discussion above, they may not wish to add it in). One other minor quibble: is the orangery still roofless and windowless? DrKiernan (talk) 16:46, 17 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • It is inded a huge shame, hopefully , now phone cameras are more prevalent we shall se more interior shots. I suspect the orangery is still ruinous, as a search of Holkham's own site (which has a search facility) yields nothing of interest. Had the estate spent a fortune on restoration I feel there may have been a mention. There are cross section drawings on commmons which may enhance the page. Giano (talk) 21:27, 17 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I was there a couple of weeks ago and I'm afraid the orangery is still roofless and windowless. Richerman (talk) 23:07, 17 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I added a pic of the Green State bedroom, under FU. I suppose we are allowed one FU image. Ceoil sláinte 21:02, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"on return Coke lived a feckless life, and preoccupied himself with drinking, gambling and hunting" This is getting ridiculous. maligning someone's memory without providing any evidence. I've put a fact tag on this as I don't want to revert it and get into an edit war but I don't suppose it will stay there long. Richerman (talk) 22:59, 18 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It was covered by Wilson in the next sentence, but I've added the same cite to 2 consecutive sentences just for you. "Maligning someone's memory"; please. Grow up. Ceoil (talk) 23:03, 18 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I misunderstood, but it's a lot clearer now with the double reference. Richerman (talk) 23:14, 18 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No worries. Ceoil (talk) 23:19, 18 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I see the effort has started without me. No need for me to go rushing off to the library, then? I'll try to correct any minor Manual of Style errors in the article. Nousernamesleftcopper, not wood 00:35, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, this article is a wonder in terms of MOS - perfect. Some of the prose isn't quite brilliant, though, but all of it is quite good. I might make a few prose adjustments here and there. Nousernamesleftcopper, not wood 00:38, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I'd like to see a third lead paragraph summarising the features of the building. Have a pathological fear of leads, so I wont attempt this myself. Ceoil sláinte 23:41, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done. I might have made an error, though, so I would appreciated a double check. Nousernamesleftcopper, not wood 02:09, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Looks great! Ceoil sláinte 11:53, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks - I like to think of myself as good with prose. There'll be no need to bring this one to FARC, I hope? Nousernamesleftcopper, not wood 16:53, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think there is. I've asked Richerman to revisit; and well see how that goes. Ceoil sláinte 00:42, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There are still some quite large chunks of text without cites in Interior, Exterior and Grounds but I'm sure that could be fixed with a few extra refs. Other than that I think it's looking great. I gave a longer reply to Ceoil about it on his talk page the other day but he may have missed it as it's a busy page. Richerman (talk) 00:53, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I read it alright Richerman, but hadn't digested it properly! Read it again now - I don't think anything you mentioned is problematic, and guess its just a matter of mechanically going through each and fixing. Thanks for the quick reply; hopefully we can be done here soon. Ceoil sláinte 01:02, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Reading your reply on Ceoils's talk page, Richerman, I'll give the article another prose run-through. You're right - at FAC, there would be hordes of brilliant-prose advocates storming in and nitpicking every detail (I'm not ashamed to admit that I would be among those hordes). Nousernamesleftcopper, not wood 01:08, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, ok, and thanks for looking at the Heaton Park page too. Heaton hall could use some TLC from us as well as Manchester City Council. I pinched your idea for the fair use image too! Richerman (talk) 01:13, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
TLC from Manchester City Council is not actionable ;) Ceoil sláinte 01:17, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well it may come 80 years late but with some help from the lottery they grudgingly give some. Mind you, they're going to hit us with a congestion charge to get they're own money back. Richerman (talk) 01:24, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Could this be archived now, then? It seems just to be taking up space now to me. Nousernamesleftcopper, not wood 17:47, 25 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've added what refs I could from online libraries, etc; but I think this is enough. I don't think this needs FAR/C. Ceoil sláinte 19:17, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I left a note with Marskell. [7] Nousernamesleft (talk) 00:06, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, it's looking really good now. Richerman (talk) 14:01, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Dont have a problem with centuries; inscription is fixed now. Ceoil sláinte 16:18, 27 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 kept by User:Marskell 11:38, 27 June 2008 [8].

George Fox

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Review commentary

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Wikipedia:WikiProject Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and User talk:69.108.205.8 notified

This was featured in 2004 and appears to be abandoned (original nominator and contributor are no longer active). Minor problems include an insufficient lead. But more importantly, old unreliable sources are used (19th century) in the Harvard references. As for citations, only primary sources (i.e., his autobiography and his journal) are cited which would tend to produce a biased result. This should be written based on scholarly secondary sources like Ingle, mentioned as a useful source, but does not appear to be used at all. I think I can help bring this up to standard (got to check out if I can get some books), but I hope others can help here. --RelHistBuff (talk) 15:25, 5 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. Thanks! --RegentsPark (talk) 15:45, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I notified the WikiProject. I could post to the nominator, Quadell, and contributor, AlexG, but I assume that would be as useful as notifying Emworth. The top 10 contributors are IP addresses. --RelHistBuff (talk) 15:51, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I see that. Perhaps a note on the IP address discussion pages for 86.158.6.105 would help (assuming that their edits were not trivial). Though I see that when you say 'abandoned' you mean it! (Perhaps adding an invitation to the article talk page - in addition to the notification - would also be useful.) --RegentsPark (talk) 16:00, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I did some cleaning up and in the process I should point out a correction. It turns out that his autobiography and journal are the same. It also appears that an early edition (Jones 1908) was used rather than the more reliable modern edition (Nickalls 1952). So basically the sources for this article are Fox's Journal (1694, Jones edition), Marsh (1847), and Schaff (1914, tertiary source). This means 1c is not satisfied in that it does not use "reliable sources and accurately represent the relevant body of published knowledge." --RelHistBuff (talk) 08:14, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Here's one thing I'm not too clear on: "His education was based around the faith and practice of the Church of England, of which his parents were members; this parish was strongly puritan, in this case Presbyterian." What exactly is being said here? "He was brought up Anglican, but his neighbours were Presbyterian", or "He was brought up as a puritan within the broad umbrella of the Church of England"? DrKiernan (talk) 07:15, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not clear at all. It sounds contradictory. I took a look in the Journal and Schaff-Herzog and there is nothing about his education being based around either the Church of England or a Presbyterian church. It probably came from a secondary source somewhere. A question before working too heavily on the article. Would you be able to get one of the secondary sources, i.e., Ingle or Wildes? If so, then I will try looking for one of those in the library and then we could try to get the article in shape jointly. If I try to do this by myself, I know that it will take me a few months which is too slow to save it from being FARCed. We could conceivably cover different sections of the article and work simultaneously. --RelHistBuff (talk) 15:00, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have access to the Jones, Penney and Nickalls versions of the Journal, Ingle's ODNB article (which I've used extensively so far), and Hodgkin's much earlier biography from 1896. I don't have access to either Ingle's book or Wildes. I could get access to other George Fox-specific material as I'm within driving distance of Atherstone and Hinckley local studies libraries but to be blunt I don't want to put myself out! I think splitting the work is a good idea. We could try to use different sources. Again, to be blunt, I don't fancy reading more than one book. We could also try working on it at different times, say me this week, you next week, so we don't bump into each other's edits. Whatever you want really, this is much more your field than mine. DrKiernan (talk) 08:08, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I will hunt for the books on my next trip to the central library. This will take me a couple of weeks as I don't go into town very often. As I don't have access to the ODNB, you could go ahead. If I can get the books, I will add to what you've done. --RelHistBuff (talk) 09:27, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This article is worth improvement. I thought I'd invest five minutes in the first section, and set off to edit it. I was surprised to see a number of hidden comments, variations on <!--Fox in Nickalls, p.3-->. I'd guess that this means "Fox on p.3 of Nickalls' edition" and I'd be inclined either to convert it into a note or to add it to the adjacent note. But I do neither and instead hit the browser's back button, , because I don't know what motives the person had who either wrote it as a comment or commented it out. What has been going on here? Morenoodles (talk) 09:46, 26 May 2008 (UTC) Struck out by Morenoodles (talk) 07:21, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am still working on integrating references from Nickalls into the article. DrKiernan (talk) 17:17, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Good job! Morenoodles (talk) 07:21, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are LEAD (2a) and citations (1c). Marskell (talk) 16:51, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I see there's been some work. Keep us informed. Marskell (talk) 16:51, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See above. DrKiernan (talk) 17:17, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I managed to get to the library yesterday and I am really sorry to say that the books are unavailable. They do not have Wildes. According to their catalogue, they have Ingle, but they cannot find the book (they have put a search for it). However, in my opinion, with the excellent work done by DrKiernan, this one should be a keep. Normally, it isn't ideal that Fox's autobiography is used as the main source, but I'd rather overlook this as it looks like in good shape right now and perhaps someone from the Quaker Wikiproject will finish the job afterwards. --RelHistBuff (talk) 15:37, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that using an autobiography as a main source is not ideal, but we are using Fox's journal in an edited form and there are 20 references from a secondary 2004 source. I was also concerned that the sources all seem to be written by Quakers, but I'd rather not resort to using clearly bias works like the Catholic encyclopedia and the article seems neutral to me. I would be happy to keep this. DrKiernan (talk) 11:21, 17 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 kept by User:Marskell 11:38, 27 June 2008 [9].

League of Nations

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Review commentary

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Notified at User talk:Formeruser-81, User talk:UW, User talk:ALoan, User talk:Sam Korn, User talk:MisfitToys, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Human rights and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject International relations

An article on an important topic that has been a featured article for over 3 years and has not been reviewed formally in that time. It seems to be in pretty good shape, although there are few references and citations by modern FA standards (although there is a "Bibliography").

For instance, the lists of presidents and secretaries general are a bit distracting and would perhaps be better split off. -- Testing times (talk) 00:23, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Keep & Comment. Yet another fine, long-standing article on a topic of truly encyclopedic importance, about to be defeatured due to lack of notezorz. But that's ok, it will be replaced by ridiculously over-cited articles on game or Poke cruft. And that's ok because any topic can be featured so long as it is blandly written and chock full- o -inlines. For here in Wikiland, quality=verifiability=quantity of inlines. Surely there is someway out of this mediocracy madhouse, someway to grandfather in articles such as this one, which have been long featured and whose quality has not drastically declined. But I doubt the blind pedantics will find one.--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) (talk) 20:05, 11 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think you'll find people will be more inclined to read your arguments with an open mind if you use "Move to close" rather than "Keep". It's much the same as "Keep" but it doesn't garner the same sort of hostility. DrKiernan (talk) 09:11, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That's the problem; most here don't have open minds...at least not anymore. They see a lack of inline notzorz and they knee-jerk vote remove. Just see the bureaucratic-sounding comments below. Which begs the questions-With articles such as this defeatured and great contributors such as Aloan leaving in frustration and disgust, what makes Wikipedia NOT suck?--R.D.H. (Ghost In The Machine) (talk) 09:58, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There's certainly a lack of references. I've add a couple and plan to add some more over the next few days. The list of Presidents and Secretary Generals might be better split off especially if some commentary is added about their periods in office. --Kaly99 (talk) 12:50, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry - if you can translate this alphabet soup into plain English for me, I could begin to help some of this "lots of work". I can't work out what WP:DASHes or WP:MOS#Ellipses - or indeed WP:MOSBOLD - are saying is wrong with this article. Presumably a simple cut-and-paste could fix the "portals belong in See also" problem, no? -- Testing times (talk) 22:43, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

--U.S.A.... The United States never took part in the league of nations. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexdow93 (talk • contribs) 23:13, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are referencing (1c) and formatting (2). Marskell (talk) 12:00, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Here's an update of work that I've done on the article:

  • Removed obvious dashes, I still need to check which of the other shouldn't be there
  • The longest section headings have been removed (along with the lists)
  • Cleaned up the See also and External links sections (including portal) and removed bolding from the main text.
  • Tried to sort out the quotes in the mandate section but I need to re-read the guide lines on these as I'm not sure I've formatted them correctly. Once I have I'll sort out the rest of the article's quotes.
  • Added references, but it's a slow process to verify and correct the text and there are still a lot that need adding.

I'm sure there are other MoS issues as I'm not an expert on the guide lines. If I manage to reference the rest of the article in time I plan to sort out the lead and carefully go through the MoS and check it against the article. --Kaly99 (talk) 11:49, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Kaly99 - that is the sort of thing I was suggesting above I could do, but I first wanted someone to explain clearly what would be necessary to resolve the various issues. I'm still prepared to help, if someone can tell me what is required. -- Testing times (talk) 21:47, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The main problem is referencing as there's still a lot of the article that's missing references. Alternatively, you could have a look at the section of the Manual of Style (MoS) on quotations and format the quotes in the article to comply with it. Also you could check through the rest of the Manual of Style and make any changes to the article needed to comply with it. --Kaly99 (talk) 22:02, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fixes still needed. The main issue is lack of citation, but I'll list the minor MoS issues again in case anyone wants to work on them. Incorrect use of WP:HYPHENs instead of endashes in citations, example: Glover Forster, The Esperanto Movement, pp. 171-176 Inconsistent date formatting and date linking in citations, see WP:MOSDATE, examples: Origins and history, International Labour organization, Retrieved on 25 April 2008 vs. "League of Nations Ends, Gives Way to New U.N.", Syracuse Herald-American, April 20, 1946, p12 (the dates need to be wikilinked). Incorrect use of named refs on repeat refs, see WP:FN, example, 47 and 48 are the same ref and should use a named ref: 47. ^ "League of Nations Ends, Gives Way to New U.N.", Syracuse Herald-American, April 20, 1946, p12 and 48. ^ "League of Nations Ends, Gives Way to New U.N.", Syracuse Herald-American, April 20, 1946, p12. Inconsistent page numbering convention in citations, some examples of p12, and some examples of p. 12. No consistent style. Incomplete references, example missing publisher at League of Nations chronology, Retrieved January 21, 2006. (And notice that one does have a wikilinked date, while remaining citations don't, no consistent style.) Inconsistent date linking in the article (see WP:MOSDATE), incorrect use of WP:HYPHENs instead of endashes in the article, and missing WP:NBSPs throughout; here's a couple of sentences with a sample of each: unlinked date, 33-0 should be 33–0, and a missing nbsp between 5:43 and pm. The final meeting of the League of Nations was held in Geneva on April 18, 1946. Delegates from 34 nations attended, and a motion was made to close the session, with the resolution that "The League of Nations shall cease to exist except for the purpose of the liquidation of its assets." The vote was 33-0 in favor, with Egypt abstaining. At 5:43 pm Geneva time, Secretary Carl J. Hambro of Norway stated, ... Incorrect use of {{main}}, where {{seealso}} or {{further}} would be more correct. Incorrect spacing on ellipses, see WP:MOS#Ellipses, example: might call military sanctions... Incorrect logical punctuation on quotes, example: "Generally it appears to me that any such scheme is dangerous to us, because it will create a sense of security which is wholly fictitious". Incorrect use of italics on quotes, see for example "General weaknesses" section, and WP:ITALICS and WP:MOS#Quotations. WP:ITALICS, why is Firestone in italics in "of forced labor on the massive Firestone rubber plantation in that country ... " ? WP:MOSNUM, don't start sentences with numbers, example: 90.3% of votes cast ... More incorrect WP:DASHes on date ranges, example: Chaco War, 1932-1935. That's scraping the surface for a start. In other words, the MoS cleanup needs here are substantial, but I'll be glad to help if this article moves into Keep territory, which it won't until it's cited. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:03, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Still wondering if anyone is working on this, because I can help with the MoS issues if it looks like it's warranted. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:18, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I seem to be the only one working on it but I won't be able to do any work on the article until after next Wednesday. I am still planning to finish adding references (and rewriting where necessary). Any help would be great, but as the areas with the main MOS issues seem to be the ones that are going to need the most rewriting it might not be worth going ahead with some MOS corrections until after this has happened. --Kaly99 (talk) 12:37, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I'll check in later, or ping me if my help is needed once everything else is set: I'll be glad to do MoS cleanup when all else is set. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:54, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I did some of his, Jbmurray did some, I struck some, but I'm not sure everything has been done. Also, the {{main}} template is used when summary style is employed; I think some of the main templates need to be changed to {{further}} or {{seealso}}. The entire article needs to be checked for MoS issues when done. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:13, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist. I'd add that there are also plenty of 1(a) (prose) issues: awkward phrasing, grammar problems including comma splices, repetitious wording, short paragraphs and sections, and so on. I'm surprised by the comment at review commentary that suggests this is a well-written article ("brilliant prose," as the terminology used to have it) that simply no longer accords with current referencing demands. It's not a particularly well-written article at all. I'm going to do some copy-editing (which should indicate some of the problems, so I don't have to list examples here), but don't have all that much time right now; in any case, it would need the concerted efforts of a whole number of editors. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 03:09, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Holding. Much recent work in the history. Marskell (talk) 20:29, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Yes, Kaly99 is doing some excellent work there. I've helped out a bit with copy-editing and restructuring, but I'm sure that s/he would appreciate any other assistance anyone could provide. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 23:08, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It does need a serious ce. I'll give it a go. Marskell (talk) 17:32, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Update anyone? I'm not as concerned about the prose as I was. Marskell (talk) 19:52, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Me neither. I think it is a "keep", at least as prose is concerned. There are a couple areas of concern, but it can be worked out without delisting. I plan to keep this on my watchlist and work on it. I don't have the sharp eye for MOS and other issues that Sandy does, however. --Laser brain (talk) 20:51, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Most of the article is now referenced, and I'll finish this and give the lead a bit of a rewrite in the next couple of days. I don't know what MOS issues are still outstanding. --Kaly99 (talk) 18:41, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is at the two month mark in FARC and needs to go. I'm going to keep it. There are still some fact requests hanging around and I expect people to get to them. I cited the quote in the lead. Good work here folks. Marskell (talk) 11:30, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept by User:Marskell 10:34, 23 June 2008 [10].

Search engine optimization

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Notified WikiProject Internet, WikiProject Business and Economics, User:Jehochman, User:Ohnoitsjamie, User:Cumbrowski, User:ZimZalaBim, User:Bill Slawski, and User:zzuuzz.

This article seems to be a generally good article overall, but is lacking in several ways:

  • 1(a): The prose is decent, but not of an FA standard. I notice redundancies, unclear phrasing, choppy sentences, style issues, and unnecessary use of the passive voice in many areas of the article. To give an example, in the History section, the information on Google seems somewhat disconnected or tangential in places, with some sentences phrased in a way that breaks the flow of the passage. As a second example, the beginning of the "Webmasters and search engines" section is very awkwardly worded and has punctuation issues. Similar problems exist throughout the article.
  • 2(c): A fair number of the references for the article fail the guidelines for reliable sources and verifiability. The site Search Engine Watch and its founder are frequently used as references; I believe that these would be considered self-published sources, as would a few other references used in the article. The "Legal precedents" section has a {{fact}} tag. Never mind, didn't see the discussion in its FAC that explains the sources used.
  • Link issue: The article is short on internal links in some sections. "As a marketing strategy" has only two internal links and the body of "Preventing indexing" has only three. I see many places where links could be added. Not as big of a problem as it looked like at first.

The prose problems appear to be the most significant issue, though the others should be fixed as well. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 22:59, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Pyrospirit, please follow the instructions at the top of WP:FAR to complete all notifications and post them back to here. Did you read the FAC where there was a clear discussion of the sourcing in this article ??? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:07, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Also, without specific examples of prose issues and lack of links, your objections aren't actionable (WP:OVERLINKing is to be avoided). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:09, 22 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My fault, I didn't see the earlier discussion of the sources. I've crossed that out, along with the part about internal links. It could probably use some more links here and there, but it's not a widespread issue and isn't especially problematic. I still have concerns about the prose; I'll post some examples in a few minutes. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 02:55, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Considering the principle editor is recused,[11] and prose issues are the only concerns, is this a good use of FAR or could this work be accomplished on the article talk page? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:11, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're right, this probably is too minor for FAR since links and sources aren't a problem. I'll bring up the prose issues on the talk page. Pyrospirit (talk · contribs) 03:30, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've left a note for Marskell. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:33, 23 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 kept by User:Marskell 17:19, 11 June 2008 [12].

Duke University

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Notified WikiProjects Universities, ACC, North Carolina, and Durham NC; and Durham NC; users LaszloWalrus (talk · contribs), Bluedog423 (talk · contribs), and ElKevbo (talk · contribs).

I have concerns about criteria 4 (too long), 3 (too many images), and possibly 1(a) and 1(d), The article was ~50K when it was promoted and is now ~100K, and has perhaps lost focus. 152.2.128.80 (talk) 00:53, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I should probably be a little more precise... The are phrases like "captured national championships", "men's lacrosse program has been a recent powerhouse", "Duke's men's basketball team, a traditional powerhouse" (also not cited), "legendary coach Steve Spurrier" (my italics in each case) that don't sound very encyclopedic, and perhaps a little unbalanced. I'm not arguing that Duke University has a good reputation in academics and athletics, more it could be stated more objectively and with more brevity. I don't think the athletics section is following summary style well, given there are separate articles for athletics, football, basketball, etc. already. I think perhaps there's a little too much "cruft" in the academics and athletics sections.
I've also just noticed some inconsistencies between the infobox and article prose. For instance student population figures do not agree and there may be other details. I'm not sure the Blue Devil's athletic logo meets fair use criteria for this article, and it is used twice. I haven't checked the details of other image licenses yet.
I think this article needs to be carely paired down towards the length it was when promoted, with less images, and then comprehensively copyedited and peer reviewed. If that can be done during this FAR, then great, but I would tend to think it will take longer and might want to aim to perfect the good article criteria first. 152.2.128.80 (talk) 14:19, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
1.) The article is not too long. It is 94 KB when including everything such as citations. However, the prose is an acceptable length according [[to Wikipedia:Article_size guidelines.
2.) Citations are not needed in the lead when the repeat information in the rest of the article (as the lead should). Please see Wikipedia:Lead_section.
3.) Duke logo.PNG not fair use? Either you are not very familiar with wikipedia policies, or you have an ulterior motive. I assume good faith so I assume you are just new to wikipedia. Although you are posting from Chapel Hill...Duke's rival. Almost all other FA university articles use their athletic logos in them. Perhaps you thought the two reasons listed for fair use weren't enough (I'm not sure why), but instead of listing it as a non-free image, it would be helpful to add the appropriate rationale rather than proposing the image for deletion when it is clearly has been accepted by the wikipedia community that sports logos are acceptable for fair use.
4.) Re: phrases. "captured" is POV? Huh? Is "win" better? Doesn't really matter. The "powerhouse" and "legendary" terms were added recently and can certainly be re-worded or cited without a problem. Hardly a reason to de-list it from FA. Also, the vast majority of the cite needed tags are already cited, just not after every sentence. You have to look at the other citations in the paragraph. For example, I'll take the first fact needed tag that's not in the lead: "The academy was renamed Normal College in 1851 and then Trinity College in 1859 because of support from the Methodist Church." This sentence is verified by both the topic sentence citation and the sentence after it. It is generally accepted to not have a citation after every single sentence as this would make the article unreadable. The article already has 170 citations! (that is why it's almost 100 KB in length when including the citations)
5.) Thanks for pointing out the inconstancy of the number of students from the infobox and the article itself. That can be easily fixed - and the answer can be found be looking at the source article.
To be honest, I think this FAR has no merit whatsover as the article has barely changed from how it read when it was promoted to FA. The only significant change is additional citations, which is why the article size has increased. -Bluedog423Talk 01:19, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I wondered how long before someone from Duke would point out my IP address was in Chapel Hill. Given Durham is less than 10 miles from where I am now, would it really shock you that someone might have connections to both schools? You will recall that the two universities at times share faculty, staff, courses, and students are able to obtain credit from both and North Carolina State University. It's also common to see Duke undergraduates becoming UNC postgraduates and vice versa.
Anyway, I'll assume good faith with you as you should with me. A FAR isn't an attempt to delist, it firstly an attempt to improve the article, and I think it is in need of much improvement.
I'll leave it for other people to comment on the size, but my person opinion is that it is too long. It may be I'm wrong, or is just extra citations, but either way, you'll need to split something soon if it keeps growing at this pace. I would suggest pairing down the athletics section, though, and losing some of the statistics in the academics section.
Some of the information in the lead isn't in the main body, but I agree that you don't need citations otherwise. You should double-check that everything is covered as I don't believe it is.
On the subject of athletic logos, you really shouldn't be using a non-free image twice. The non-free guideline specifically says use as minimally as possible. Also this isn't the athletics page and you could convey just as good message with a free image of an athlete. The non-free guidelines are what you should be looking at, not other articles. You need to fill in an appropriate rationale on the image page naming the article anyway.
Of course you don't need citations on every sentence, but some important points didn't appear to be covered by the citations you have, or the relevant citation needs to be more clearly attributed. Also if you use the link checker tool on the tool server, you will find a few number of broken links. That's to be expected given the dynamic nature of the internet, but they need to be fixed if at all possible.
It's merely my opinion that the article declined for the reasons above and needs to be reviewed, but please remember this is not person, it is a review and not a delisting and we're all working here to keep the article featured in the future. Thanks. 152.2.128.80 (talk) 02:17, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I'll take a deep breath here, and firstly admit a conflict of interest as a major editor of the UNC-CH article. That aside I agree that the lead doesn't need citations, though the only one I would question is the marine lab. I've never heard of it, and I can't track down the reference. My experience with trying to get UNC-CH up to a good article was that we kept athletics section short as we have so many other articles, and all it's hard to be truly NPOV in this part of NC as far as college sports go. ;-) We totally rewrote our reputation and rankings section which previously had long lists of US News reviews, though I've also noticed US News have updated their site with the 2009 graduate schools review, which might be the broken links referred to (I haven't checked). Personally, I have no opinion on the use of logos, but I'd like to see an image of game at Cameron more than the logo. I switched an outside view of the Dean Dome to an inside one for the UNC-CH article, so maybe that's not the most impartial suggestion. ;-) Is it too long? Well, I corrected the external links for you and it crashed my browser a couple of times. It was IE, though... I just looked at the diff, and I'd say the ranking section is where the problem lies (if there is one). It necessitates so many references and article length grows disproportionately compared to what it adds. As I said we rewrote the UNC-CH one, and it seems to work better, so that could be an idea. I'd also reduce the football section down, as you could possibly make the case that lacrosse is more notable than football as far as Duke goes lately. The Rose Bowls are the important football things to mention. This very much a "me" thing, but I'm not a fan of alumni sections since you have to make a judgement on who is "famous" enough, and you have a "list of ..." article to put detail in, so I'd shorten it. But then I'm not a great fan of Nixon or Elizabeth Dole, so I'm a bad person to comment on that section. :-) Hope this helps. Artichoke2020 (talk) 03:06, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Forgot to say that I would delete the gallery. They are nice pictures, but it looks awkward and breaks the flow of text. People seem to like commons galleries instead lately. Artichoke2020 (talk) 03:16, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I also have a conflict of image, as my user page reveals. ;) But I don't feel particularly loyal... Anyhow. As far as I'm concerned, the article is not at all too long. But the "fact" tags don't look good from the get-go. Mind you, as stated above, citations aren't needed in the lead; I'm going to remove them from there. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 07:32, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have addressed your wording concerns in the examples given above and added several new references. There are no fact needed tags remaining. I also made some other small edits. -Bluedog423Talk 16:27, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think that's much improved. I would just look at the first paragraph of the "Profile" subsection and the whole of the "Rankings" section now. I think would be happy with this as a FA if you could convey the messages in both without quite so many numbers. It's a little mesmerizing to read. I think the all part that you really keep from the first paragraph is the student numbers. Percentiles, SAT scores, etc. are a read turn-off for me as a reader. For the rankings, if you can get the message across in a third of the space it would be better. Perhaps be a little more selective with departments or look for a more general survey. I wouldn't list exact numbers for doctoral programs, but just say top 25, or top 10 and shorten the list. Also is there a more recent survey than 2002 regarding the integration of African American students and faculty? There may not be, but just wondering. Artichoke2020 (talk) 20:58, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • Personally, I agree with you that the rankings section is too long. However, if I parse it down, other users will make it just as long, but with less organization and far fewer sources (this is typically the section that people constantly add to and I can't monitor it that closely). Right now, at least, it's verifiable and reliable sources are cited. Furthermore, the format and length is similar to many other Featured university articles - so I must assume that it is accepted protocol to have such details outlined. Duke's ranking section has 368 words spread out over 3 paragraphs. Cornell, for example, has 526 words spread out over 7 paragraphs for its section and far more rankings. Other university FAs are shorter than Duke's, but contain the ranking information in the profile section. I think this is the only method that keeps it a certain length since if it contains its own section, people feel like they can add every single ranking that they can find. Also, in regards to the Profile section, everybody has a different opinion and it's certainly hard to reach a consensus. You may be turned off by the SAT scores, etc. but other people feel that these facts are key and the vast majority of other FA University articles contain such figures. It seems like admissions' selectivity is particularly emphasized in other university FAs and not as many figures about the student body itself - which seems odd to me. In any event, I could see how one could describe this section as containing too many numbers. I could also see somebody argue that the numbers are helpful to illustrate objective criteria. It's very subjective what is important in this section and what is not - I think we should use existing FAs as a guide. Cornell's profile section is similar to the first paragraph in Duke's, but then doesn't contain information about financial aid, current student's scholarships (the third paragraph in the Duke article). I personally think this paragraph is more informative than the first, but I could certainly delete the third paragraph to conform to this standard. Also, the 2002 survey is the most recent. -Bluedog423Talk 22:39, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
        • I see what you mean. I'd be happy to leave that to your judgement, as you're right, it is subjective. Looking at the third paragraph on financial aid, is the information in it especially notable for a private school? I have no idea as my connections are all to public schools, but unless it's really notable I would be inclined remove or reduce it. One final point, I notice the images in the gallery are fair-use, but that the template says that use should be for "critical commentary" on the work of art, genre or technique, or the school to which the artist belongs. I've interpreted that as meaning the article should be talking about the art or art school, it's not apparent that this is the case here. However, are they still in copyright? Artichoke2020 (talk) 19:05, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
          • Yeah, I agree that the images in the gallery don't qualify for fair use in this article. I have deleted them. I also deleted 5 sentences from the profile section that didn't seem that significant, including percentage of valedictorians rejected (doesn't really tell us anything) and some of the financial aid information. I do think it is important enough to mention that Duke practices need-blind admission as fewer than 40 institutions in the nation (out of thousands) practice it (also, while you might think it's obvious since it's an elite private institution, wikipedia's state the obvious policy seems to suggest to include it if it's important enough because it might not be obvious to others). I have, however, deleted the total amount of aid and the new financial aid policy guidelines as they don't seem to be as significant. Cheers, Bluedog423Talk 20:51, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
            • I think you've got the right balance. I'd be happy enough with this passing the FAR and remaining a featured article, though I'm by no means an expert so hopefully others will be able to back that up or offer other suggestions. Artichoke2020 (talk) 17:35, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • It looks better now. I still have concerns about 4 (length), but not enough to vote "remove" if this were FARC. 152.2.128.80 (talk) 14:39, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I believe the motto may be stated incorrectly. I think the motto, as it says on the crest, is "eruditio et religio" --Idreamtofblood (talk) 19:28, 4 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 kept by User:Marskell 09:33, 8 June 2008 [13].

Gangtok

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Review commentary

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Wikiprojects listed on the talk page and User:Nichalp have been notified.

The article does not follow most of the FA criteria including, 1b, 1c, 2a and 2c. This article is not worth more than a B rated article. Huge editing is required for this purpose. Amartyabag TALK2ME 02:59, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I would need your inputs on this: When you say that 1b is not satisfied, what points do you have in mind that need to make it more comprehensive? =Nichalp «Talk»= 06:35, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Don't know about other points but 2c is not satisfied. Even the meagre 6-7 refs are not formatted ie. publisher and accessdate are missing. This article desperately needs inline refs. KnowledgeHegemonyPart2 (talk) 07:03, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Inline references can be easily fixed, so I'm not so worried about it. 1b requires more time to research, add, copyedit and reference. =Nichalp «Talk»= 12:39, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest looking at the Darjeeling article for 1b. Specifically, the history section needs some work (for example, the status of Gangtok and Sikkim during British times is not at all clear), and you should add something on Education and Media. For 1c, you will need to find many reliable sources. Too many to point out here but these should be easily available (IMHO). 1d and 1e are fine. Style: 2a is fine though it needs something to 'draw' the reader in, what makes Gangtok special (see the Darjeeling article for example). 2b ok. 2c, well it needs many more citations.--RegentsPark (talk) 15:49, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! Just a note: Gangtok was never under the direct control over the British. =Nichalp «Talk»= 15:52, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I feel point 1a is mostly violated with section "Localities" added to the article. Unless the locality is really of encyclopedic importance(historical,geographical,political,economical,etc...) it should not come into the article. People simply ignore such sections and scroll down the article to read more. --gppande «talk» 08:24, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I see someone removed the localities section. Thanks ! --gppande «talk» 19:09, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One more question - why is there a vertical photo gallery in top half of the article? As such, the bottom section completely lacks images. Rumtek monastery is mentioned many times in the culture and city institution section but photo lies in upper half of the article. Any specific reason? --gppande «talk» 19:20, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Many of the images were added after the article became featured. Please have a look at the version of the article when it got featured. Probably during later addition of the images, those were added haphazardly, leading to the apparent disorganization.
Yes, the "localities" section has been removed. And other works are being done gradually.--Dwaipayan (talk) 10:58, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I tried to fit the images as per section. --gppande «talk» 16:14, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ya, the images are all mixed up. I'll try and source some better looking images. =Nichalp «Talk»= 05:43, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I was surprised to see how much the article has changed. Well, one big question, even in FA version, the civic administration is saying, Gangtok is governed by municipal corporation. Fact is, it was abolished in 1985 and responsility lies in hands of Urban Development and Housing Department[[14]]. As such there is no special body for Gangtok and UDHP takes of major towns in Sikkim. Isn't there a wrong information in both current and FA version? --gppande «talk» 15:56, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That's a good point and reference you have raised. Please go ahead and correct any errors you find. And also, if you can manage some time, please add citations. You can go through the list of webpages Nichalp has provided in the talk page of Gangtok. Regards,--Dwaipayan (talk) 17:38, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's under a municipal corporation now. [15] =Nichalp «Talk»= 05:43, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Right, after intensive google search, I found the first elections for GMC will be held on June 11, 2008. http://beacononline.wordpress.com/2008/04/02/civic-polls-in-sikkim-on-june-11/ Maybe this can go in the section. --gppande «talk» 10:00, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sections Geography, Economy, Civic governance, Media, Transport and Demographics have now been thoroughly cited. --gppande «talk» 15:58, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Update - This version was at the beginning of the FAR. This is the present version. Major works have been done in sections such as Geography, Climate, Economy, Civic governance etc. Inline citations are being added, formatted and improved. About a third of work has been completed. --Dwaipayan (talk) 18:13, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Disclaimer - Sikkiminfo says that it is not fully reliable and the user has to double check for themselves....Also holidayiq seems to be user contributed. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 02:16, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

holidayiq removed. Sikkiminfo has been used to support some non-exceptional sentences, such as the cable TV service provider of the city,and newspapers printed in other cities reaching on the same day in Gangtok. I believe foe such sentences, "sikkim info" (whose information, as they say in the disclaimer, are for general use only) can be used. However, if reviewers insist, no problem in removing the citations.
Otherwise, have tried to provide RS citations. The lead will soon be dealt with by Nichalp, as well as general copyedit. The article has been made comprehensive.--Dwaipayan (talk) 16:06, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think we want better than this for a FA. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 04:42, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I was referring to Sikkiminfo being used as a source, since they aren't qualified in this field and are just running their own website. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 04:55, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ok. Thanks for the clarification. Sikkiminfo will be removed. Taking some time in case RS is found to support the sentence. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 08:19, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
sikkiminfo references replaced/removed. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 08:31, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comments- Woh!!! what a improvement in the article quality. Good works guys. There is no etymology section or a paragraph as per the norms of Wikipedia:WikiProject Indian cities· Pls try to add it. I will comment more when i get time. Amartyabag TALK2ME 16:00, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It use to be there in lead of the article till holidayiq citation was removed for doubt on it accuracy. How about using this. It says The literal meaning of the word Gangtok is ‘hilltop’. The website's about us page says the infomation is correct according to them. --gppande «talk» 16:21, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
While the source provided by GPPande (indiasite.com) is more reliable then the user-generated holidayiq, still it's status is somewhat like sikkiminfo.net. That is, IMO, the site's info are ok for general use. However, the etymology is not exactly a general use. Etymology needs more solid sourcing. Since we could not find such a source, IMO, we may have to part with the etymolgy.--Dwaipayan (talk) 05:43, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are comprehensiveness (1b), referencing (1b), and LEAD (2a). Marskell (talk) 20:16, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Looks good to me! Some quick specific suggestions:

  • I think it would be useful to say what kind of pilgrimage center (I assume for Tibetan Buddhists) in the lead. Other than that (an a few minor grammatical errors) the lead looks good.
  • History is good (I think I can help with the missing citation but gotta get to the library). Except for the last two sentences which are an odd shift from the political history in the paragraph (as well as the rest of the section). Plus, the major disaster goes unexplained (I assume it was a landslide but that is not clear).
  • More later (though probably not much) but a quick question if someone happens to know the answer. Is the Raj Bhavan the former Residency of the British Representative? If yes, I have a nice photograph of the gardens from the early 1900s that I can upload. --Regents Park (Feed my swans) 23:37, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note Here is the version that was nominated for FAR. Here is the diff between FAR and FARC version.--Dwaipayan (talk) 05:32, 19 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comments : *Kindly resolve the [citation needed] tags.

  • I think you need to reword the following section, Flora around Gangtok includes temperate, deciduous forests of poplar, birch, oak, and elm, as well as evergreen, coniferous trees of the wet alpine.[13] Densely forested regions of these evergreens lie just around the town. A wide variety of rare orchids are often featured in flower shows around the city.[13] Sunflower, marigold, poinsettia, and other flowers bloom in November and December. Bamboo grows in abundance along the slopes of Gangtok, providing a perennial source of spring water, which originates from the roots of the trees. In the lower reaches of the town, the vegetation graduates from alpine to subtropical and temperate deciduous. It seems like copy-paste from http://jnnurm.nic.in/toolkit/GangtokCdp/Chapter-2.pdf . pls do the needful.
  • Use {{rp|pp.00}} template for PDF files. Pls see Kaziranga for the usage. Amartyabag TALK2ME 11:08, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding use of the {{rp|pp.00}} template, its use may make prose harder to read. Still, we;ll use in some instances to see how it looks.--Dwaipayan (talk) 11:36, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The description of flora has now been re-worded.--Dwaipayan (talk) 06:04, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Good work here. Will keep. Someone should either provide full publication info for the three books in References or remove them if they are not used in the article. Marskell (talk) 09:30, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Removed those books. They were used in the past in the article. However, the present version hardly used them. And the references of the present version are entirely stated in "Notes" section. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 09:45, 8 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 kept by User:Marskell 09:33, 8 June 2008 [16].

Free will

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Review commentary

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previous FAR
Main contributors, philosophy and religion projects notified.
  • Lead section should be about twice its current length to meet the lead section requirements and therein summarize the article properly, especially considering the great length of the article (I note that this was missed in the last FAR, though this hardly surprises me...)
  • Too much attention seems to be given to (free will in) Buddhism and Hinduism, especially the latter which is also treated in free will in theology, which has its own summarized section further down. If it's to be part of the broader theology article it shouldn't be treated specially here too.
  • It seems that editors are struggling just to keep the article maintained (maintenance not being a requirement, though it should be). I (having been recruited to help out, even though this is a topic I know little about) reverted a dubious edit tonight that had remained for 3 days [17].

This was made an FA very early on in the history of Wikipedia, and though it has survived a review a couple of years ago I don't think it quite meets current standards. I have been putting off an FAR for some time but it's clear the problems aren't going to be addressed very quickly. The article needs some time to improve (and hopefully find some knowledgeable guardians); only then can it return to FA status. Richard001 (talk) 11:39, April 24, 2008

Part of the issue with this article is that all of the editors who have worked in the past to maintain and improve the article, including User:Lacatosias, User:Bmorton3, and User:SnowFire have all since been driven away from wikipedia, and no qualified editors have come along to replace them (check their edit histories, and see BMorton's note on his talk page). I myself am much less active now due to real-life work-load, and can barely keep up with the trolls and vandals to keep the page from going backwards. A look at the diff between the version that was "kept" in the previous FAR and the current version shows that there have been some changes, some good, some not as good [18], but overall, the current version is recognizably similar to the version that was kept. Unless some new editors materialize out of thin air (despite the fact that they haven't so far, in several attempts to elicit help), or the FAR editors decide these concerns are not sufficient to de-list, this article will be de-listed. I absolutely cannot do the work it would take to keep the star. Edhubbard (talk) 19:24, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Note that this malformed nom wasn't submitted until April 25; please notify per the instructions at the top of WP:FAR, following the sample on other FARs listed on this page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:20, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Diff since last FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:24, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Are you in agreement that it isn't up to FA standard anymore though, Edhubbard? I'm the only one that's saying it isn't; you're free to disagree with me (or are you? [free will humour]). Richard001 (talk) 11:56, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have trimmed some of the Buddhist/Hindu content and consolidated the sections. Skomorokh 16:41, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thinking about it as a section on Eastern philosophy (<speaking of short leads!) rather than religion changes my mind somewhat on the balance issue, but it still seems slightly awkward that free will in theology still includes a section on Hinduism. But the universe isn't exactly packaged into non-overlapping categories (or magisteria, if you like (and there's a 'good article' with a crappy lead too)). To be pedantic I think we should change the 'main article' tag to 'further information', since a true summary of the F.W. in theology article would mention Hinduism too. That basically just leaves the lead. I've read the article a couple of times myself but I think I would still have to read it once again to compile a longer summary for the lead. Maybe someone more familiar with the subject/article could take a shot at it? I might even have a go myself if nobody else can manage, if it's going to save it from delisting. Richard001 (talk) 00:08, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's absurd to use the term "philosophy" to refer only to modern and contemporary Western philosophy, as the article did. You would be hard pushed to find a clearer example of systemic bias. I do think the Hindu/Buddhist sections are more philosophy than theology, but if we are to have a Philosophy section and a Theology section, the theology and philosophy of Hindu/Buddhism should be separated. In contemporary Western philosophical circles, what this article refers to as theology is simply philosophy of religion, which might be the way to go here. I'll have a go at the lede in the next few days if no-one else bites. Skomorokh 11:56, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are LEAD (2a), focus (4), general cleanup (2). Marskell (talk) 15:17, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Yes, ideally there'd be some clean-up: for instance the lead would be expanded, and the article isn't quite as obsessively referenced as is the current standard at FAC (for good or for ill). Some attention by people versed in the topic could no doubt give it some polish. But overall I find this a quite impressive article that still stands up well. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 10:01, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think we need to decide on this one. If it doesn't meet the lead criteria, it should be a straight fail regardless of any other reasons for keeping. I'm way too busy at the moment to expand it, so unless somebody else does soon I think it should be delisted. See the 'to do' list for other concerns. Richard001 (talk) 02:59, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Sorry Richard. First, there normally has to be enough votes on something for any action to be taken, and it looks like this hasn't generated enough responses in months now. In fact, since it's been in FARC for almost a month with no movement, it seems that there is really no hope that it will generate enough of a response to make it better, or to delist it (that is, it is not for you to decide what must or must not be done with the article, that is for the FAR "cabal" to decide). Second, while I admire your motives, there are so many other articles that are so much worse that we should all be working on that I just can't justify this. No, it's not perfect, but it's not as bad as you keep making it out to be. Edhubbard (talk) 07:36, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see the lead as a dealbreaker. It is short but it mentions all of the sections at least briefly. An extra sentence or two wouldn't hurt. Might also trim the See also and External links a touch. Beyond that, I am going to keep this as it's overdue. Marskell (talk) 09:28, 8 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 kept by User:Marskell 16:19, 6 June 2008 [19].

Chola Dynasty

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Review commentary

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Wikipedia:WikiProject Former countries, Wikipedia:Noticeboard for India-related topics, Wikipedia:WikiProject Middle Ages, Wikipedia:WikiProject Tamil civilization, User:Sundar, User:Vadakkan, User:Ravn, User:Venu62 notified.

Most importantly, fails 1c. Several sources are suspect or incomplete. I asked for source details long back on the talk page and havent received any responses. Also fails 2c, 1a and perhaps few/many other criteria. However, without the all important 1c being taken care of, it would be difficult and indeed unnecessary to critique this article further. 19:02, 21 April 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sarvagnya (talk • contribs)

Thanks. Further,

ah.. the fine art of trolling! for the record, no. My concern about footnotes has not been addressed. I asked for details (book, p #, ISBN etc) for the citations and was simply told that the "citations" were in fact, "footnotes". Apart from the fact that even footnotes have to indicate where they're coming from (it would be OR otherwise), what we need there are "citations". You dontcite sentences and paragraphs with "footnotes". And, this one below, is an instance of a "footnote"(?) masquerading as a "citation" --
^13 - Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland By Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland
Can somebody show me the "footnote" part in the above "cite"? Sarvagnya 17:53, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Congratulations! You just called me a troll! You win a small cup, and the admiration of all comers for your sensitivity, accuracy, and regard for our policies!
I'm glad that of the 20-plus footnotes you complained were "malformed" you managed to find one which was not cited. Well done! You're right, that completely justifies your statement above.
About "even footnotes must be cited" - well, certainly. Except when, of course, they're footnotes, placed there, as guidelines suggest, to not break up the flow of the prose. Have fun accusing more random people of trolling, and helping, in your small way, make this project a better place! --Relata refero (disp.) 18:06, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comments on "Early Cholas" and "Interregnum" sub-sections
  • This reference needs more information. As it is, it doesn't make much sense to me. <ref name="sangam">lorem ipsum</ref>
Done.
  • Inside the citations, whatever written in non-English will not be readable and hence not verifiable. They can just be avoided. Eg: <ref name="sun">"செங்கதிர்ச் செல்வன் திருக் குலம் விளக்கும்" - [[Manimekalai]] (poem 00-10)</ref>
Done.
  • In the Interregnum subsection, two sentences in the first paragraphs start with "Little is known .." and both are uncited. They will need to be rewritten with proper attribution to reliable sources.
Modified one sentence, provided citations for both.
  • The Pallavas and Pandyas seem to have left the Cholas alone for the most part; however, possibly out of regard for their reputation, they accepted Chola princesses in marriage and employed in their service Chola princes who were willing to accept it. – Reads more like a speculation; and source information is not clear. Needs to be reworded and book and author information needs to be provided.
I'm not entirely sure about this one, am still looking for a citation. If I cannot find any, I'll probably just remove the sentence.
I have now modified this sentence and added citation. --Madhu (talk) 04:49, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang, who spent several months in Kanchipuram during 639 – 640 writes about the 'kingdom of Culi-ya'. – Not sure how this sentence is relevant to this article. Needs to be addressed.
Sentence modified and placed at a more logical location.
  • Despite this loss in influence and power, it is unlikely that the Cholas lost total grip of the territory around Urayur, their old capital. – How? Needs explanation and reference.
Sentence now reads - Despite this loss in influence and power, it is unlikely that the Cholas lost total grip of the territory around Urayur, their old capital, as Vijayalaya, when he rose to prominence hailed from this geographical area. Does that make sense? Added citation as well.
  • However, nothing definite is known of their connection to the early Cholas. It is possible that a branch of the Tamil Cholas migrated north ... – Again, reads as a speculation and unreferenced. The phrases such as "nothing definite" , "it is possible that" etc must be best avoided unless they are direct quotes of scholarly opinions. Citation needed. - KNM Talk 21:53, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Changed to However, it is not known if they had any relation to the early Cholas. to be in sync with the source. Citation added. --Madhu (talk) 19:58, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comments on Chalukya Cholas subsection
Added citations for the entire section (and various other sections as well). Please review the modified article and let me know if you still have any pending concerns. --Madhu (talk) 19:58, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments Needs a copy-editing run through. The "Later Cholas" section looks terrible, no refs, no links, and should perhaps be moved out to a sub-article, with the essential points retained and clean-up. The sources in the "References" section are 4/5 by two authors, though the notes use others. The citation style repeats most book details in full every time. A good bit of work needed. Johnbod (talk) 17:01, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Article no longer has "Later Cholas" section, it has been changed to "Chalukya Cholas". I have increased the number of sources (it has more than doubled, actually) since the article was nominated for FAR and the number of citations has more than tripled. I've also addressed issuesd with citation styles. Let me know if you still have any concerns. --Madhu (talk) 19:58, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Chola Dynasty vs Chola Empire

Article was promoted as FA while the name of the article was Chola Dynasty and the lead was reflecting according to the article title. A particular user is moving it again and again to Chola Empire name, without any consensus to move for it. The lead section is totally changed from the version when the article was promoted to FA status. If required, these two should be considered as two separate topics and developed on their own articles. A featured article, after it is promoted, cannot be moved into another name (whose meaning differs significantly from previous title), and the lead totally changed – that too without any discussion and consensus. Any attempt to inform that user about the FA'ness of this article, is in vain, and resulting in an apparent edit war, bringing 1(e), stability criterion, at stake. I suggest whole article to be rewritten, followed with fresh rounds of copyedits and resubmitted to FAC. The current version does not qualify FA criteria by any means; especially the newly added/replaced sections such as 'Later Cholas' which in its current form, is totally awful for an FA quality article. - KNM Talk 18:13, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

    • I've restored the article to a stable version and left a polite message at the new user's talk page. We can discuss and decide if it needs to be split or rewritten. I believe that the best course would be to decide on the main articles and the summary first. Write the main articles without disturbing this FA and then come back to the summary article. If we feel that a major rewrite is required, we can FAR it and then reapply after the rewrite. Right now, nothing needs to be done to this article, IMO. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 07:06, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Quite a lot of paragraphs have no sources. A lot of the inlines are actually footnotes/extra info, so even though some paras have one inline at the end, there is actually no source attached. However, a more pressing concern is the large amount of peacock/subjective comments that are written in teh narrative voice as Wikipedia POV, rather than being denoted as being a scholar(s)'s opinion. Examples are
  • "Chola inscriptions cite many works, and it is a tragedy that most of them have been lost to us"
  • "It is considered as the model for Kamban for his masterpiece Ramavatharam" needs cite
  • "Ramavatharam is the greatest epic in Tamil Literature"
  • "The Chola period is also remarkable for its sculptures and bronzes. Among the existing specimens in museums around the world and in the temples of South India may be seen many fine figures of Siva in various forms, such as Vishnu and his consort Lakshmi, and the Siva saints."
  • "The maturity and grandeur to which the Chola architecture had evolved found expression in the two temples of Tanjavur and Gangaikondacholapuram. The magnificent Siva temple of Thanjavur, completed around 1009, is a fitting memorial to the material achievements of the time of Rajaraja."
  • "Under the Cholas, the Tamil country reached new heights of excellence in art, religion and literature. In all of these spheres, the Chola period marked the culmination of movements that had begun in an earlier age under the Pallavas. Monumental architecture in the form of majestic temples and sculpture in stone and bronze reached a finesse never before achieved in India."

and many more. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 08:18, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are referencing (1c), ref formatting (2c), and prose (1a). Marskell (talk) 18:16, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sir,

To begin with the title of the article is wrong, smaller kingdoms in other pages like the Hoysalas have been given the title of empires where as an empire with overseas territories and that too for not a small period (in fact, I have in my possession an official brochure published by the Govt. of Sri Lanka itself, which says that invasions from the Tamil country on Sri Lanka leading to its occupation) which lasted for almost 1500 years. These include earlier invasions from the Pallavas, then (when the Cholas were weak between around 435 AD to 848 AD, before being revived by Vijayalaya) it was the turn of the Pandiyan and Chera kings who held sway over the Island of Sri Lanka. Subsequently right from the times of Aditya I and indeed his son Parantaka I who ruled from 905 AD the occupation of Madurai and Ilam by the Cholas started in and around 930 and lasted at least till 1100 AD when the Lankan kings freed themselves, later, the Chola kings occupied Ilangai for various periods during the times of Rajaraja II, Kulothunga II, Rajadhiraja-II and Kulothunga III in addition to their occupation of Kalinga, Telugu country between Nellore and Visaiyawadai (vijayawada) for the most part of their existence.

So the title Chola dynasty to the deeds of kings who built an empire is nothing but a gross misnomer.

Also deliberate (in order to make the chola empire look like an extension of the Chalukya kingdom) is the title given to the maternal line of Chola Kings who have been (sic)'titled' Chalukya Cholas. It is a fact of history that when ruling over Vengi and over Bastar district in M.P. Prince Rajendra Chalukya a grandson of Rajendra chola I through his daughter (Ammanga-??) was indeed known by that name, but he was quick to change his name to Kulothunga Chola (I), a practice which continued with succeeding kings till the end of the Cholas. Scores of grants, plates and inscriptions of Cholas can be found all over South India all the way up to Eluru, Vizag, Dowleswaram as indeed of successive chola kings at Tanjore, Tiruvaiyaru and the Ranganathaswami Temple in Srirangam where none of the kings from Kulothunga I till Rajendra III have ever been addressed as either Chalukya Cholas or indeed Chola Chalukyas.

If somehow the authors of this article are convinced that the name Chalukya cholas should indeed stick, then let them adopt the same practice in the case of kings succeeding Vikramaditya VI who was married to a Chola princess as well as successors of Hoysala Veera Ballala II who was the son in law of Kulothunga III as Chola Chalukyas or even Chalukya Cholas and Hoysala Cholas or Chola Hoysalas.

User _Earth was very correct in saying that this article does not deserve FA status because its very title is in dispute.

I wonder if there are any right thinking wikipedian admins left in this website who would be keenly following the goings on this page and first of all, take the step of removing this 'article' from the coveted FA list so that a proper opportunity would be afforded for a complete re-construction of this page by backing it up with accurate data, removal of misleading and malicious content currently pervading all over this page so that the Chola pages have any chance of resurrection.

Srirangam99 (talk) 12:15, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Be very careful of what I said. I was referring to a particular edition of the article which has no lead section, thus breaking WP:MOS. I advocate stripping the article of the FA if your style of article structure is adopted. __earth (Talk) 07:06, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

User Earth, there is nothing like 'my style' of this article, I had started to make contributions and before one could link the text with the appropriate sources, unwarranted interventions and revert wars started with me getting blocked twice over.

Besides, for your kind info, I suppose if you were to make a neutral reading of this article it clearly has been filled with misinformation especially the section being called Chalukya Cholas. Though I for one doubt the neutrality of historians, what is even more objectionable is the fact that they go on to christen and baptize the later Chola kings by naming them as Chalukya Cholas as if the Chola empire was under the protection of the Chalukya or Eastern Chalukya kingdoms. This itself is reason enough for removing the FA tag from the Chola article, which in its present form itself it does not deserve.

If in Hoysala pages and indeed in the Chalulya pages scores of inscriptions of the kings of those dynasties can be quoted with their proper names and their titles like Trailokyamalla or Nolambavadigonda etc. then proper attention, if paid to both the names and titles of the later Chola (dubbed wrongly as Chalukya Cholas) starting from Kulothunga I from 1070 to the last king Rajendra III who was deposed in 1279, these kings always called themselves as (for example) Tribhuvanachakravartin Kulothunga Chola and in the process they got categorized as Kulothunga I or II based upon the year of their grant being issued. Kulothunga Chola II also called himself Tribhuvanachakravartin which was after his conquests of Karur, Ilangai, Madurai and Kalinga (after which he also built the Kampahareswara temple near Kumbakonam). other later Chola kings like Rajaraja II, Rajaraja III, Rajadhiraja II etc. all had the title 'CHOLA' suffixed to their main name.

What I want to submit is that under no circumstances and not a single king from Kulothunga Chola I to Rajendra III ever had the Chalukya or Chalukya Chola or Chola Chalukya titles suffixed to their names, but only 'Chola' suffixed to their names for example Rajendra Chola (III) or Rajadhiraja Chola (II).

While adding the suffix Chalukya Chola to the later Cholas simply because the first king Kulothunga I was borne in the Eastern Chalukya household and also while acknowledging Kulothunga Chola I had the name and title Rajendra Chalukya as an Eastern Chalukyan prince, it is worth mentioning and noting that upon ascending the Chola throne, Rajendra immediately took the title Kulothunga Chola I and what is even more importance is that in all their grants and inscriptions the kings succeeding Kulothunga I to the Chola throne always used 'Chola' as a continuous and constant suffix to their names.

Also one finds that some 'references' have been added in the Chalukya Chola apparently to attest the veracity of the name and title Chalukya Chola or Chalukya Chola Dynasty, but I have checked the concerned link and found nothing of that sort, kindly see for yourself:

Search in this book(for clarity) kindly see this link:

http://books.google.com/books?id=XNxiN5tzKOgC&q=Chalukya+Chola

Page 279 ... II then defeated the Chola, ... Page 374 ... Chola II. Shortly after he had repulsed them the feudatory ... Page 394 CHAPTER XIII South India From the close of the 3rd cent. AD (p. 139) the history of South India remains very obscure until about ... Page 395 ... Chola country, and his dominions extended from the Krishna to the ... Page 398 The Chola chief ... more » Page 399 Sorry, this page's content is restricted. Page 403 Sorry, this page's content is restricted. Page 405 ... undid his life's work, and probably died in 953 AD The history of the Cholas during the next 32 years is somewhat obscure. The Chola king Sundara Chola ... Page 406 He was a great conqueror and laid the foundation of the mighty Chola empire. He also made excellent arrangement for the administration of his vast dominions ... Page 408 Sorry, this page's content is restricted. Page 409 Sorry, this page's content is restricted. Page 410 It thus not only comprised the whole of Mysore but even some borderlands to the north. This brought him into conflict with the Western Chalukya emperors ... Page Sorry, this page's content is restricted. « less

In any case with not just these but even more discrepancies in the Chola article, which I will discuss later, what emerges clearly is that in its present form even, the Chola Dynasty article does not deserve FA status. Can you guide me where one can voice his or her opinion and vote for or against granting of FA status to such articles. I would like to register my vote against grant of FA status to this dubious article.

Thank you.

Srirangam99 (talk) 08:19, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

update - I'll be checking in regularly. Because there is a serious attempt to add references, I will be helping with formatting fixes etc. (It would have been pointless to fix them if the refs weren't there). It seems as though there is a good chance of fixing the article. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 10:24, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Much improved. Another look later perhaps. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 07:32, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep User:Nmadhubala has added citations to a large number of unreferenced statements. I notice that Blnguyen (the above commenter) has removed some subjective statements. A critical reviewer like Blnguyen is well-suited to identify and remove such statements. 2 (c) issues have been mostly resolved. I plan to do a round of copyediting in a couple of days from now. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 06:02, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I'm not a past contributor to this article, I just stepped in to save the FA status, so I'm not entirely sure if I could vote or not! As Sundar has mentioned above, I've added added as many citations as I possibly could, as well as addressed the issues with ref style. I do believe (1c) and (2c) are satisfied, and I don't think (1e) is an issue anymore. If there are any specific concerns, please list them here. I agree (2a) could be an issue, and I hope User:Sundar and User:Blnguyen would help out with it. --Madhu (talk) 19:58, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I don't see significant problems with the sourcing, though this subject is far from my field of expertise so I can't fully judge the sources themselves or say much about issues such as comprehensiveness. I should also note that Nmadhubala in particular seems to have done a sterling job, for which many thanks indeed. This is on the face of it a textbook example of how the FAR process should work. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 12:08, 2 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 kept by User:Marskell 16:19, 6 June 2008 [20].

Mercury (planet)

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Review commentary

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Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomy, Wikipedia:WikiProject Astronomical objects, Wikipedia:WikiProject Solar System notified.

This article has undergone significant revision since it was promoted 2 years ago. The current version includes long stretches of facts with no citations to back them up, citations that are not properly formatted, and sections that have been called into question as being dubious. Although the poor state of the article has been recognized for several weeks, there are still many outstanding issues which will require some dedicated research to verify, cite, and if necessary, correct. Kaldari (talk) 21:26, 14 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: It seems to fit the featured article criteria still, a great article still. Don't see any significant problems. Meldshal42Hit meWhat I've Done 19:19, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Because there are significant tracts of unsourced material, it does not satisfy FA criteria 1c to be "factually accurate". There are also "dubious" and "citation needed" tags. Note 45 needs to be fixed to satisfy 2c. Some of the writing also needs polishing up.—RJH (talk) 15:37, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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  • Suggested FA criteria concerns are referencing and accuracy (1c). Marskell (talk) 19:12, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I cleaned up the Ancient astronomers section a bit (getting rid of the dubious claims), but it still needs someone with more expertise than I to flesh it out. Specifically, the section on Babylonian records is a bit sketchy and poorly cited, and someone needs to add info on Maya astronomers as well for it to be comprehensive. Kaldari (talk) 20:54, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think this can be kept if I can find cites for everything, which shouldn't be an issue. Other than the Axial tilt item, are there any outstanding accuracy items that need work? I'm coming in late to the party, I know. UltraExactZZ Claims ~ Evidence 16:24, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
We've cited the planet's Axial tilt, and copyedited the new figure to fit. Everything should be either sourced or tagged for sources; there are only half a dozen items or so still in need of citations, which I can do on Monday if they don't get done over the weekend. UltraExactZZ Claims ~ Evidence 20:59, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Remove. Aside from 1c there are other problems. In my pinion the article is not comprehensive (1b); it is skewed towards observations and orbital properties and does not provide enough information about physical properties. It should have a separate section about origin and evolution of Mercury and and a section about chemical composition of this planet and its surface. In addition there are problems with 1a and 2c: some section need clean up, formating of refs is not always consistent (ndash, order of the last and first names etc.), imperial units should also be removed.
If this article were in FAC now, it would not pass. Ruslik (talk) 18:29, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think you're being a bit harsh, Rus. Neither Venus, Mars, Jupiter, nor Saturn have separate formation/evolution sections. Perhaps they should, but given that they are all currently featured articles that shouldn't be held against Mercury. Serendipodous 18:22, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The article improved considerebly and I changed to Neutral. However it can be made better. At least temperatures should not be converted to °F in my opinoin. The use of °C should also be reconsidered—either all temperatures are converted or none. Ruslik (talk) 07:02, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Is there a particular MOS guideline or format I should look to for guidance? I'm not seeing a real uniform format across the other planet articles (FAs all), so any insight is helpful. Thanks again, UltraExactZZ Claims ~ Evidence 14:59, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The style should be consistent. You should convert everything or nothing. As to °F see Talk:Saturn#Imperial values of measurements. The same logic can be applied to the temperature units. °F are not used in science. Ruslik (talk) 18:53, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think we got everything switched to strictly Kelvin. I don't see any Miles or imperial units, though I might not be looking hard enough; do you see any other errant conversions? UltraExactZZ Claims ~ Evidence 02:57, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I changed to Keep. Ruslik (talk) 18:39, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Great! Thank you. UltraExactZZ Claims ~ Evidence 19:29, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I will hold this a little longer per UltraExact's comments. Marskell (talk) 16:56, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Much appreciated. UltraExactZZ Claims ~ Evidence 18:55, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
All {{fact}} tags have been cleared; we're now running through the article and adding refs for uncited hard figures. UltraExactZZ Claims ~ Evidence 13:42, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Again, the extra time is appreciated. Two of the sections tagged for cleanup have been cleaned up or expanded; in the case of the geology and atmosphere sections, that resulted in a merge-back from Geology of Mercury and a re-alignment of sections. I have also begun to correct image problems (alignment, sandwiching, etc). UltraExactZZ Claims ~ Evidence 14:06, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Perhaps in a perfect world some of these shorter paragraphs and sections could be expanded, but the work that has been done on this article in the past few weeks has been extraordinary. Another great example of the way that FAR should work. Congratulations and kudos to all the participating editors. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 15:48, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Summary. I believe the article can be kept in its current form. The references have been greatly expanded (to over 100 as of this morning's count), and everything in the article (including hard figures) has been tagged to an inline citation. The article is now internally consistent, in that figures in the body match both the source and those in the infobox. The language has been cleaned in many areas, and we have expanded several sections (including, as noted, a partial merge-back from Geology of Mercury). We've added several images, and formatted the images to match other planet articles and the MOS. We're down to clarifying what "lobate" means, so I'm hopeful that all of the concerns about this article have been addressed, especially through the efforts of RJHall, Kaldari, Ruslik0, Serendipodous, Kheider, and others (I'm sure I'm forgetting someone). UltraExactZZ Claims ~ Evidence 13:40, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. This article has finally gotten the attention it deserves thanks to Ultraexactzz and the other editors he mentioned. It's been improved 100% and I think it is definitely up to FA standards now. Kaldari (talk) 15:28, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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The article was kept by User:Marskell 20:40, 3 June 2008 [21].

Military brat (U.S. subculture)

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Besides myself the only other editor with more than 50 edits is SandyGeorgia, and for some reason I think she'll see this on her own ;-) I went ahead and notified her as well as the MILHIST project.Balloonman (talk) 03:30, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'll be honest, as the articles primary creator, I was surprised when this passed the FAC. Based upon the comments at the time, I thought it was going to fail. But it was promoted. I won't complain about it's being promoted, I did take pride in the article. That being said, I haven't been watching the article as closely as I would like, and it has taken a significant turn for the worst. Many of the edits made over the past year, are IMHO, not supported by facts and accurate. I do not believe that this article is FA quality. Unfortunately, I am not motivated enough to get this back to the condition that it needs to be in to preserve the FA status.Balloonman (talk) 03:25, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Have you considered a big revert back to its original form? I did that with Link from the Legend of Zelda and it worked pretty well. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 05:44, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't be opposed to that...Balloonman (talk) 06:28, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have a bit time today and will flog out anything that seems unsourced. Hopefully, not all new edits were garbage. Wandalstouring (talk) 07:43, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I worked through the article and there are two issues where sources should be provided, otherwise I delete them. One is housing of officers in a row. and: "If a person does not like somebody or gets into a fight, they know that in a few years somebody will move and the problem will disappear." needs also cites. Otherwise the article is still FA material and I would strongly oppose a revert of the last edits. Wandalstouring (talk) 08:40, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest looking at changes just after mainpage date, as opposed to the FA version. Also, I understand Balloonman is discouraged, but this article should be saved. I worked on it a lot with him pre-FAC, so obviously I'm biased :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:30, 17 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the article ought not to be demoted, hoaving kept an eye on it during its mainpage view date I kind of feel like it part mine too. Of course, being a military brat myself makes me bias as well :-) TomStar81 (Talk) 04:54, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Next time semiprotect anything that appears on the main page. There have been made some useful edits since 30th April. But I wouldn't oppose a revert to the version before it appeared on the main page in case the useful and referenced additions and images that have since been inserted get implemented. You can easily find them out by comparing the first and the last edits of the edit history pages. Wandalstouring (talk) 06:56, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I just reread the article, and the changes weren't as bad as I thought they were the other night. I just went through the article and compared the current version with the version that appeared on the main page a year ago. I removed all of the OR that was added (especially that which was inserted before a reference) Restored some of the deleted text and fixed some of the other POV inserted into the article. My concerns have been alleviated.Balloonman (talk) 06:29, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I propose a steady keep and watch since the issues seem solved. Wandalstouring (talk) 09:25, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'll keep this one now—there seems to be consensus it doesn't need demoting. I also looked through it during FAC and it still seems fine in comparison, under Balloonman's watchful editing. Marskell (talk) 20:38, 3 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept by User:Marskell 15:27, 1 June 2008 [22].

Harbhajan Singh

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Wikiprojects listed on the talk page have been notified.

The article seems to have a lot of problems. The major problems are linguistic and POV related. Here are a few examples:

Grammatical problems:

  • Harbhajan was born into a middle class Punjabi family, the only son of businessman Sardar Sardev Singh, who owned a ball bearing and valve factory.
  • Arora credits Harbhajan's success to a work ethic that included a three hour training session in the morning, followed by another in the afternoon lasting from 3pm until after sunset, using the headlights of a parked scooter to provide light.
  • Harbhajan was struck by the police, cutting his bowling arm and injuring his elbow.
  • Despite many bowlers having superior domestic performances, Harbhajan was selected to make his Test debut in the Third Test against Australia in Bangalore, where he recorded the modest match figures of 2/136.
  • Harbhajan was then omitted from the team during a home triangular ODI tournament against Bangladesh and Kenya, but was recalled for the Singer Trophy in Sri Lanka, claiming eight wickets at an average of 24.1
  • Harbhajan received a ban of three Test matches after a Level 3 charge of racially abusing Australian cricketer Andrew Symonds calling him a "big monkey" whilst he was batting during the third day of the Second Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground, was upheld by the match referee Mike Procter.

These are just a few examples, a thorough review/copyedit is needed to clean-up all problems like these.

Style issues:

  • Use of editorial adverbs like "Somewhat ironically", "Harbhajan quickly issued and apology", "seemingly out of favour with selectors", "Perhaps fittingly", "His performance improved markedly" etc. should be avoided.
  • Image captions should help read the image in the context of the article. One of the image used has a single word caption "Sreesanth".


POV / OR issues:

  • The article begins with a claim that the subject is "one of the world's most successful off spin bowlers." Neither is this claim directly referenced, nor is it supported by any statistics presented in the article.
  • The introduction paragraph ends with: "Despite unremarkable Test performances in 2006, which led to speculation about his lack of loop and his waning value as a strike bowler, he remains India's first-choice ODI spinner." Says who?
  • "He also performed strongly in the ODIs during the Indian season, taking twenty wickets at 19.75 in ten matches and taking his first five wicket haul in ODIs."-The reference only provides raw statistics, but whether the performance is strong or not is an added POV.
  • "With Kumble injured during the home series in March 2001 against the visiting Australians, Harbhajan, whose previous best Test figures were only 3/30, was entrusted with a heavy burden. He was to lead the spin attack against an Australian team which had set a world record with 15 consecutive Test victories, and was searching for its first ever series victory on Indian soil since 1969." Use of terms like heavy burden, lead the spin attack breaches NPOV.
  • "Harbhajan is an attacking-minded bowler who exercises great command over the ball, has the ability to vary his length and pace, although he is often criticised for his flat trajectory." - Failed verification (the reference provided indicates his attacking-mind but the rest is original research).
  • "His main wicket-taking ball climbs wickedly on the unsuspecting batsman from a good length, forcing him to alter his stroke at the last second." - Subjective statements like this need to be attributed to Pandit, instead of being stated as a fact.
  • "Harbhajan tends to bowl outside off-stump more than Muttiah Muralitharan, who attacks the stumps; he captures 66% of his wickets via catches and only 22% by bowling or trapping batsmen LBW, whereas the corresponding figures for Muralitharan are 48% and 41%." - Subjective conclusion drawn on raw statistics, convincing but original research none-the-less. Arman (Talk) 10:52, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I can't see any grammatical errors in the examples cited, although the prose could be tightened in some. The adverb issues, where they are a problem, can be fixed quickly. The POV instances can also be fixed quickly. There seems to me to be zero chance of this article losing FA status and this listing could have been avoided if these relatively trivial concerns were addressed using the talk page. -- Mattinbgn\talk 10:39, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
On the article talk page someone already raised the POV concern, but (s)he was harshly ruled out. FAR seemed to be a better forum to discuss these issues. If you believe these are easy-to-fix then let's do it and quickly close this FAR. Arman (Talk) 10:52, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I see no grave concerns for this article to have been moved to FAR. These concerns could have been addressed in the talk page. I am surprised that the user has not made any attempt to discuss these issues in the talk page but has pressed the trigger to get it listed in FAR. Hence I would have to question the motive of the user in doing so... -- ¿Amar៛Talk to me/My edits 11:45, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I already replied to this just on the post above. I don't believe there is any hard and fast rule that there has to be a discussion on article talk page before listing an article for FAR. The reasons for listing are several and very specific. So instead of spending time investigating the motive of the nominator, let's concentrate on resolution of the identified problems, shall we? Arman (Talk) 12:15, 27 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) 18:39, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Arman (Talk) 03:21, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Articles are nominated for FAR if they require a copious amount of work to meet the current FA criteria. What's the point of bringing this to FAR when all your comments are easily actionable? This bureaucratic process could easily be avoided by bringing up these issues on the article talk page. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 00:29, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This article, in my view, does need a copious amount of work to meet the current FA criteria. The language problems identified here are just examples. The article needs a thorough copyedit. POV concerns are significant. The introduction paragraph starts and ends with unreferenced POV claims. FAR is a constructive process to improve Featured Articles which are loosing quality. If you find this process unnecessarily bureacratic or want to add a new requirement to discuss concerns on article talk page before raising the article to FAR, you are welcome to raise that at an appropriate level. Arman (Talk) 02:05, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Anybody can check anybody else's FAC/FAR record and come to their own conclusions as to whether they are being consistent. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:49, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please feel free to draw as many conclusions as you like, but it would make more sense if discussion in this section is kept limited around the article in question. Arman (Talk) 03:58, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Most of the (legitimate) issues raised have now been addressed and given that this appears to be, at best, a POINTy listing and at worst, one in bad faith—given the previous history between the nominator and some of the major contributors to this article—I would propose closing this review and moving on to more productive activities. As I stated above, the points listed are minor, the article is clearly of featured quality and any remaining issues can be dealt with through the article talk page, where this should have been taken in the first place. FARC is not a place to take personal vendettas and this listing has been an abuse of process. -- Mattinbgn\talk 22:22, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Disagree: The article still has a long way to go. The lead section and the style concerns have been fixed. But the language problems have not been addressed. The article grossly fails criterion 1a of featured article for it's poor language usage - see the examples I have given above. If someone can't see the grammatical problems in these examples, (s)he should consult a high school grammar teacher. Furthermore the POV and OR concerns especially in the "Playing Style" section have not been addressed. For example, the statement, "Harbhajan is an attacking-minded bowler who exercises great command over the ball, has the ability to vary his length and pace, although he is often criticised for his flat trajectory." - now has 3 references but none of them talk about "great command over ball" or "ability to vary his length and pace". Arman (Talk) 02:04, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The article also fails 1c because some unreliable sources are used in the article (e.g. http://clients.rediff.com/philipseyefi/bhaji.htm and http://www.chennaionline.com/cricket/Features/2005/01news12.asp) Arman (Talk) 02:23, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. The diff between the FA version (Mar 9 2007) and the current version is here. The majority of the difference seems to be the addition of the incident in Australia, material about 2007 (world cup and other tours) and updated statistics. I'm no expert but it doesn't seem hugely different to me. --Regents Park (moult with my mallards) 02:32, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I also agree that this review can now be closed. I also note that it is quite heavy handed, if not rude, for Arman to suggest that others that disagree should consult a high school grammar teacher. The few minor grammar changes can be tweaked without this article staying at FAR (all articles are after all fluid including those with FA status) - and they can be easily tweaked by Arman if he really wants to without the discussion continuing here.--VS talk 02:37, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree: I can see that most of the POV issues have been addressed now, and I also agree I can give a hand to address some of the grammar issues that still remain. The article, as it stands now, is close to FA standard and I won't mind if this discussion is closed now. Arman (Talk) 03:27, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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Removed status

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

The article was removed by User:Marskell 15:36, 30 June 2008 [23].

War of the Spanish Succession

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Review commentary

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Notified Wikiproject Spain, Germany, Military History, and User:DrKiernan

This article, one of the last unreviewed Emsworth classics, desperately needs inline citations as it has very few. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 01:15, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. Whoah. When you said "desperately needs inline citations", you weren't kidding. Although the prose of the article is generally excellent, the total lack of inline citations is a bit disturbing. I'd suggest contacting the primary contributors, to see if anything can be done about it. Cheers! Cam (Chat) 22:35, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concern is referencing (1c). Marskell (talk) 16:21, 16 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove I believe that the article should no longer be FA-class, because the lack of citations has not been addressed since the review began, and thus I cannot support the article remaining an FA.EasyPeasy21 (talk) 14:30, 18 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove. The total lack of inline citations is a serious problem. FA-Class should showcase our best work, meaning that it's verifiable. As of five minutes ago, Criteria 1c has not been satisfied. Cam (Chat) 03:40, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove Prose and focus, in particular unnecessary repetition of points, are also problems. In the lead, for example, we have "It was a major European conflict and included Queen Anne's War in North America." repeated in the next paragraph as "The war was fought not only in Europe, but also in North America, where the conflict became known to the English colonists as Queen Anne's War". DrKiernan (talk) 13:25, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove. 1c. Swathes of unreferenced matter. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 05:09, 26 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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The article was removed by User:Marskell 15:36, 30 June 2008 [24].

Alliterative verse

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Review commentary

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Ihcoyc and Io notified.

It seems to be missing citations. Actually, there are no citations. (Criteria 2c) « Milk's Favorite Cøøkie ( talk / contribs) 21:14, 21 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I definitely agree to that one. But then it was promoted way back in 2003, so it's not surprising. But I don't know what in the world the FA criteria was like back then, because even then it had no citations. Noble Story (talk) 10:21, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Back in 2003, I think featured articles were still "brilliant prose", and an article was better referenced than most if it had a bibliography. My understanding is that FAs from before the promulgation of the citation standards - which are mostly the product of the last three years - are grandfathered. I could try to add them, but the article has been substantially revised since I started it back then. It still reads quite well, IMO. - Smerdis of Tlön (talk) 14:11, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure where you got that understanding. Please see the first paragraph of the instructions at WP:FAR: "This page is for the review and improvement of featured articles that may no longer meet the featured article criteria. FAs are held to the current standards regardless of when they were promoted." SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:37, 25 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Back in 2003!!! How time flies. Anyway, I am fond of this article, so I am happy it's been nominated, but because of time constraints, I cannot participate further for the time being. But thank you, Milk's Favorite Cøøkie, for notifying me. Cheers Io (talk) 17:42, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concern is referencing (1c). Marskell (talk) 17:14, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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The article was removed by User:Joelr31 16:06, 28 June 2008 [25].

Libya

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Review commentary

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Notified projects/users: WikiProject Libya, Jaw101ie, Xyzzy n and FayssalF

I have conserns about 1b, and some minor conserns about 1c. Major facts and details that should have been included, is i.e.

  • the conflict between Libya and Chad, and Gadaffis attempt to make a libyan-chadish union.
  • The armed forces/defense of Libya
  • Divisions/Subdivisions; the municipalities used is outdated.
  • Economy: The article doesn't tell anything about unemployness, and is spare when it comes to information about business activities in Libya, and also about export/import.
  • Economy: "an extensive and impressive level of social security" is somewhat unclear, when it does not tell what the social security is.
  • Demography: The age of the population, and birth mortality.
  • The culture section is spare, not mentioning important issues like sport in Libya, or food.
  • Under religion: The time for the oldest jewish settlement is wrong compared to the given source.

Grrahnbahr (talk) 21:44, 22 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are comprehensiveness (1b) and citatons (1c). Marskell (talk) 17:24, 11 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lead gives too much space about the name and neglects other important facts. I suggest creating a Name section
  • The History section should be reviewed by an expert of someone knowledgeable about the subject. Seems to give too much emphasis to conquests and not enough to internal developments. Also one-sentence paragraphs.
  • It seems POV that a "Human Rights" section exists in this article while it is not found in most other countries articles.
  • Update "Municipalities", and add information about local governance.
And excuse me, if this is not the place for these kind of comments. I'm new to the FAR process. Eklipse (talk) 12:50, 21 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Your comments are very welcome. Providing a review is the purpose of FAR! DrKiernan (talk) 13:21, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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The article was removed by User:Marskell 11:38, 27 June 2008 [26].

3D Monster Maze

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Review commentary

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BACbKA and Frodet have been notified, although the former seems inactive, and also left a message at at WikiProject Video games. Stephen 02:06, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Has two sections that lack a single reference. Promoted in early 2006, not sure this is up to the current standards. --Stephen 01:54, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • I see only one section without a reference. That said, I believe part of that issue is that the references do not use <ref> and a dedicated {{cite}} template. Those should be cleaned up. --Izno (talk) 02:56, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You are correct. I misread Edge 2006 as a type of assembler. --Stephen 03:06, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • The image page for Image:Malcolm-Evans-NGS98.jpeg claims modification and commercial use are allowed, but the included email does not support that. I brought this up to BACbKA about a year ago at User talk:BACbKA but it never got resolved. Other non-free images are lacking rationale. The backlink from the footnote works for me in Firefox, but the link from the Harvard ref to the note does not. The section header "Critical acclaim" seems a little POV to me—"Reception" or something similar would be better. The lead should be expanded. Pagrashtak 12:59, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have updated the FUR for the images. Image:Malcolm-Evans-NGS98.jpeg is form commons and I'll give BACbKA some time to update the descirption - it appears that some mail communication has transpired earlier. As for the footnotes, Harvard style, they work both ways for me in Opera. I'll take a look at the lead and citations next. --Frodet (talk) 21:32, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that. The footnote link problem was discussed at Template talk:Ref#Help—it's related to popups. I'd personally rather use the cite.php system, but I know that BACbKA is strongly for Harvard. Does Image:3D-monster-maze-roll-up-roll-up.png satisfy Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria? Why could it not be replaced by text? Pagrashtak 23:43, 20 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are references and their formatting (1c and 2c). Marskell (talk) 09:55, 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 11:38, 27 June 2008 [27].

Theodore Roosevelt

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Review commentary

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Notifications:

All five editors with over 50 edits: SimonATL, Rjensen, Johnleemk, Shanes, & Gdo01
All projects on talk page: WP:Columbia, WP:MILHIST, WP:USPREZ, WP:WPBIO, WP:NY, WP:HSCH, & WP:FM

This article is a tremendous resource on WP. However, I was looking for a place to add an image and saw three {{cn}} tags withing a very short space.

  • I think it's probably time for a top-down review. While I'm a TR fan myself, some of TR's political mistakes, particularly after his departure from the White House are not adequately covered. I've spent almost a year reading every critical book on TR I could find including Pringle and Blum and we ought to consider these as well as the laudatory stuff. Sure TR was a great guy, but consider this - before he finished his last year, Congress was literally ignoring Presidential messages that they would usually read from the House Floor - "O Yes, O Yes, a message from the President to the House..." i.e. instead of reading, they were FILING them. What accounts for his almost "miserable" relations with Congress which can only be partially accounted by his lame duck status (I won't run a again) status. SimonATL (talk) 18:10, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are referencing (1c), LEAD (2a), and focus (4). Marskell (talk) 19:18, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove Problems raised above are largely unresolved. For example,
    • Referencing: "dubious" and "citation needed" tags need clearing.
    • Focus/length: "In 2006, a group of American high school students developed a 10 minute video on Roosevelt's conservation legacy with the help of Roosevelt scholar Edward Renehan and Roosevelt descendant Tweed Roosevelt." This is commented out. Why? It should be removed. The Table of Contents is too long and several sections, e.g. "Views on race", "Anthracite coal strike of 1902" and "States admitted to the Union" should be shortened or merged. "See also" and "External links" sections are far too long.
    • Images/media: unevenly distributed (at least one is duplicated); unnecessary white space created by crowding images too close together; the media files are at too large a resolution.
    • Prose/MoS: References are inconsistently formatted (both Harvard and footnotes). "Clarify" tags need clearing. Dare I say it, shock, horror: spaced mdashes. Some sentences are lucky enough to have two full stops. DrKiernan (talk) 16:46, 20 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove Mostly because of lack of references and citations (1C). I doubt whether this article would pass GA, let alone FA standards. Whole sections of text and assertions have no references. LordHarris 09:16, 27 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 11:38, 27 June 2008 [28].

Kazi Nazrul Islam

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Review commentary

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Wikiprojects listed on the talk page have been notified.

Article lacks appropriate sourcing. A large part of the "mass music" and "religion" section came from obscure and not-so-reliable sources. One was an unpublished and informal talk by a professor and another was an essay by a undergraduate student. So two subjective sections about scholarly analysis are from non-reliable or non-mainstream or non-notable analyses and violate undue. The other part is the general sourcing; most of the article just linked to the front page of a website without citing any pages. Other parts were sourced to blogs and other self-published articles. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:07, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would like the folowing sentences to be altered as they use peacock terms:

  • Nazrul won admiration of India's literary classes by his description of the rebel whose impact is fierce and ruthless even as its spirit is deep:
  • While hailed by many as a pioneer and epoch-making poet by progressives, who took inspiration from his works that attacked
  • Nazrul is considered to have been one of the most brilliant exponents of Shaktism

KnowledgeHegemonyPart2 (talk) 06:20, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I just checked the version right before it was taken FAR and the version that was protected to feature on the main page. This is what I found. The article has degraded much, and one good way to deal with the degradation is a quick removal of all the POV copy and unreferenced information put in "after" it was assessed as an FA through community consensus. This looks like a much better solution to keep quality intact, more so than the painstaking rewriting and citing much of the new stuff would require. Any gem that lies hidden in the dirt can be shoveled back later. If someone wants bits of it back already, the article still would remain surely open to that. Aditya(talk • contribs) 10:56, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, the two sources I was talking about were there from the start. But it doesn't matter now because they have been removed. Although I think the rewrite has increased the amount of peacock terms and caused a 1a issue. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:58, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Sggested FA criteria concern is referencing (1c). Marskell (talk) 20:09, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Don't remove speaking in context of the overall article. Its a subject on which there doesn't seem to be as many sources available. As a solution, I don't see why we can't just remove the sentences/facts without due citations - none of them seem critical or vital to the article. It won't diminish, as it doesn't seem people here can find any better literature. And is it worth risking the status of the overall article over those non-essential sentences? I don't think so. Vishnava talk 12:26, 23 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Don't remove It is always more prudent to remove the parts that hurt, fixing the bits that has degenerated, than to remove the article from featured status. That is one of the reasons why we have this article history thingy. Aditya(talk • contribs) 03:04, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep: The FAR helped improve the article significantly. The citation concerns have now been addressed. Thanks to diligent contribution from Anwarul Islam, Vishnava and others. If there are any other concerns, that should be raised here, otherwise I don't see any reason to remove. Arman (Talk) 06:15, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. The citations repeat the whole book details over and over, some of the refs are still not formatted consistently and – needs to be used for book range. Apart from that one new paragraph has been inserted without references, and some things have been bolded for no apparent reason. US and UK English have been mixed. Some literature names are italic, others are not, while others are in brackets. A lot of POV/commentary has been added, without attributing it to a pundit but in Wikipedia's voice "The forces that opposed him suffered defeat, and like all great poets, he succeeded in creating his own audience" and "astounding and far-reaching success". "Both traditional and non-traditional women were portrayed by him with utmost sincerity" (needs to be stated as a consensus/opinion not raw fact" and "It is the message of love, beauty and truth that he pronounced all his life". Footnotes need to be placed immediately after punctuation....The rewrite has also unfortunately introduced a lot of grammar errors such as "He was born in a Muslim family who is second of three sons and a daughter, Nazrul's father was the imam and caretaker of the local mosque and mausoleum" and so the article doesn't pass 1a anymore. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 06:29, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It can't be retained without serious work.

  • MOS breaches start with the unspaced en dash in the dates at the top. I see curly quotes, proscribed by MOS, and ellipsis-dot-spacing problems. And more.
  • Prose problems such as "Working at the literary society, Nazrul grew close to a rising generation of Muslim writers", although it could easily be saved on that front (concerned about reviewers' points above, though).
  • "Nazrul catapulted to fame with the publication of "Bidrohi" in 1922, which remains his most famous work."
  • US/Br spelling dissonances. TONY (talk) 16:17, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove Large groups of text remain unreferenced, inconsistent ref formatting, MoS errors. I'm not comfortable with using Banglapedia as a source in this article, given that this supposedly neutral encyclopedia uses terms like "martyr" and "freedom fighter" to describe certain individuals in Bangladeshi history. Remember the saying, "one man's freedom fighter and another man's terrorist". I know Kazi Nazrul Islam is a poet, but given Banglapedia's issues with neutrality, I wouldn't consider this an entirely reliable source. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 03:34, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I am afraid you are confusing between WP:VER and WP:NPOV. NPOV is a policy for Wikipedia, but this policy does not say that all it's sources must also adhere to this policy. As long as the sources have reputation of fact checking and proper attribution all sources, irrespective of their POV, are considered reliable. Arman (Talk) 03:59, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Extremely biased (which I consider Banglapedia to be) sources are almost always unreliable. Furthermore, I made this point to demonstrate that even if Banglapedia is a reliable source, its issues with neutrality should be taken into account when selectively citing parts of the text. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 04:13, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Banglapedia is a scholarly work produced by Asiatic Society, one of the most respected scholarly organizations in South Asia. Your claim about unreliability of Banglapedia is unfortunate. If your objections are to the use of the word "Freedom fighter", here is an example from Britannica online, which shows Britannica itself uses the term. So, your claim of POV is also unfounded. Banglapedia is a print encyclopedia, and the print version has full citations/references for all of the articles. --Ragib (talk) 15:55, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Another problem is that 60+% of the article is now sourced to the Nazrul Institute. Although the people who wrote it are scholars, the mission statement of Nazrul Institute is quite hagiographic towards KNI, using extremely emotional language. The problem is that a lot of the new subjective content is now sourced to an organisation that is dedicated towards promoting Nazrul's work - and refers to KNI as "our" in its front page. This skews the pundit analysis heavily towards the promoters and admirers of KNI. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 04:19, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove - needs a fair bit of work on numerous criteria; MOS, reference formatting, (un)reliable sources (oft cited example), and the like. If this is all done satisfactorily I'm happy to take another look. dihydrogen monoxide (H2O) 11:07, 27 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment (about Banglapedia): Virtually ALL sources (academic and popular) in Bangladesh refer to the fighters for independence of Bangladesh as Freedom Fighter and those who died in the war fighting for Bangladesh as Martyr. In fact, if any source published in Bangladesh fails to identify them as such, the source and author is likely to be harshly criticized. You may call this a national point-of-view. Now, if we start to say that all sources that use the words freedom fighter and martyr are unreliable, then we have to cut out all sources from Bangladesh - all newspapers, almost all books and all scholarly works on the history of the country - which is absurd.
Banglapedia is a publication by the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh, a 50+ year old research organization with solid reputation of research work. Some of the most reputed academicians from Bangladesh were involved with this organization. The Chief editor of Banglapedia is Professor Sirajul Islam, one of the most respected academicians in the country, a corresponding fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a former Senior Commonwealth Staff Fellow at the University of London (1978-79), a Senior Fulbright Scholar at Urbana Champaign (1990-91), and a British Academy Visiting Professor (2004). Please take some time to check out the page about him on Columbia University's International Directory of South Asia Scholars. The other contributors of Banglapedia are also known scholars in their respective field of expertise. The book can be found in all the leading libraries in the USA including libraries of almost all the ivy league schools. In Bangladesh Banglapedia enjoys far more credibility than wikipedia itself. Search on Google Scholar generates 170 hits.
Are there problems in the article on Kazi Nazrul Islam? Yes, there probably are; but citing from Banglapedia is not one of them. Arman (Talk) 02:54, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Can't agree with those claiming Banglapedia to be an improper source. I think Armanaziz has given enough reasons to explain why. Wouldn't it be like, you can't use the BBC as a reliable source 'coz its UK government-run and UK-centric in its activities? There are perceptions of bias with BBC, not proven bias. If it bothers you, its your right not to watch BBC but you can't dismiss it as a reliable source. Its not like the whole article relies only on Banglapedia. And Banglapedia is a sister to Wikipedia, helping considerably to expand its scope. Vishnava talk 21:57, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
With respect, I feel you are dragging in an irrelevant perspective - "BBC does not push some POV regarding British figures" - first of all, as I said, there are perceptions, not established facts. The same goes for Banglapedia - perceptions, yes, but established bias, no. Individual criticism cannot affect the reputable status of Banglapedia. You are confidently asserting that BBC doesn't push some POV, and I feel the same about Banglapedia. But even as you criticize Banglapedia, there are many who see a liberal bias in BBC. My point is, you cannot flatly reject Banglapedia as not a RS without due evaluation and evidence. Vishnava talk 01:23, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Also, the Nazrul Institute sponsors research, publishes books and research papers, etc. I don't know why any book published by the institute is disqualified. The reliability of the source requires more analysis than that. Vishnava talk 22:37, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist - In only a couple of glances, I could spot atleast 3 or 4 gross violations of PEACOCK and NPOV. For example, when did Calcutta become the "cultural capital of india"? It is at once, a vio of both PEACOCK and POV. "Nazrul's poetry is regarded as rugged but unique in comparison to Tagore's sophisticated style." doesnt convey anything at all! What is "rugged" and what does "unique in comparison to Tagore's" even mean? Also, some of the images (atleast the one in the infobox) lack source information. It has just been released into public domain on the claim that it was published for the first time over 60 years ago. But there is no evidence to back that claim. Same with other images too. One of the images, infact seems to be up for deletion on eo.wikipedia. Also, what makes nazrul.org and ethikana.com WP:EL-worthy? What makes nazrulsena.com RS? The article fails the basics. Sarvagnya 01:25, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Calcutta's "cultural capital" bit is cited, I believe. Also, comparison of Nazrul and Tagore, if properly cited, is in fact a good addition, giving the reader an idea of the scholarly analysis and views of their respective poetry; now you can't blame someone for using "rugged" and "unique" to describe their analysis. To me personally, the implication is obvious - Tagore's use of Bengali is more classical, especially in view of his sophisticated education and expertise; Nazrul is more colloquial, his background being that of a son of the soil, representing Bengali spoken by common people across the region. The image is clearly more than 60 years old, given Nazrul's birth/death dates and age data. Vishnava talk 02:11, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Nazrul Sena: The Nazrul Sena website has ONLY been used as a source for the statement, "Bangladesh Nazrul Sena is a large public organization working for the education of children throughout the country", which is clearly verifiable from the website of the organization. Since there is nothing exceptional in this claim, I don't see why we have to question this source. Arman (Talk) 03:40, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
External Links: WP:EL says: "Wikipedia articles may include links to Web pages outside Wikipedia. Such pages could contain further research that is accurate and on-topic; information that could not be added to the article for reasons such as copyright or amount of detail (such as professional athlete statistics, movie or television credits, interview transcripts, or online textbooks); or other meaningful, relevant content that is not suitable for inclusion in an article for reasons unrelated to their reliability (such as reviews and interviews)." The links of nazrul.org and ethikana.com have audio records of recitation from Nazrul's poetry and Musics composed by Nazrul. These are relevant materials for Nazrul researchers but these items cannot be directly used in Wikipedia both because they provide too much details and have copyright issues. I hope this explains what makes them WP:EL-worthy. Arman (Talk) 03:50, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove, unless more neutral sources are used. For example, this was cited in the article, and the same website includes sentences such as "By the magic touch of his wonderful talent" and "with a view to preserving his immortial achievements" ([29]). Hopefully this and others are replaced with more nonpartisan sources. If the text in the article becomes more neutral, I will reconsider my decision as well. Khoikhoi 04:35, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Could someone help me understand what the problem is with using the words "Magic" or "Immortal" in the context of Kazi Nazrul Islam? He is the national poet of Bangladesh. Isn't it enough justification to call him immortal? It is quite common to use emotional language in critical commentry on artistic / literary subjects. It can be shown that even Harvard Gazette uses such terms (See Immortal, Magic etc.) So, next time we should have to avoid all Harvard publications as well, shouldn't we? Arman (Talk) 06:55, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Not wanting to act as a double act, but Armanaziz is right (again) and I can't understand this type of objection either. Naturally I'll try to address the concerns once I get an idea how to. Almost all WP:RS-complying types of books, papers and sources contain some subjective statements and assessments and provide/promote one POV or another. I know the guy (don't remember his name) who wrote "Jinnah of Pakistan" also added a tribute to Jinnah as being a founder of a nation, changing the world, etc. So is his biographical work, which is reputed and widely read and cited, a bad source? Have you ever read a bio of Mahatma Gandhi, John F. Kennedy or Mother Teresa that doesn't include praise and tribute? A reputed organization like the Carnegie Endowment will have something nice to say about Andrew Carnegie. Albert Einstein is hailed by almost every scientific institution. Vishnava talk 07:13, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, there have been quite a few books that have slated JFK and Gandhi and Mother Teresa also have their critics. Your point about Carnegie is the problem though. The Carnegie Endowment, obviously because it is an associated organisation of Carnegie, has a predisposition towards him. Likewise, the Nazrul Institute was formed with the intent of promoting Nazrul's work and "spreading the gospel" so to speak, and says as much in its mission statement, aside from the emotive language in it mission statement, it has already stated its predisposition towards Nazrul. As such, its publications have a pre-defined slant. Sourcing 60% of an FA to a body with an institutional COI is not good. Likewise, having 60% of a war article written by the official scholars of one of the warring parties is a big COI. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 09:01, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
HeLa cells (the subject of the first Harvard Gazette story) are immortal cells. Also, the word "immortalized" is used as an eye-catching title. The second Gazette link actually deals with "magic", or rather the medieval concept of magic. And, isn't the Harvard Gazette a student publication? Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 17:32, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, that specific example of the use of word "magic" may refer to medieval concept of magic, but how about this or this? Also, with due respect, you are incorrect about Harvard Gazette being a student publication. Harvard’s Office of News and Public Affairs, which is the liaison between the University and the news media and the general public, manages the University’s Web site as well as the production of the Harvard University Gazette (Reference). Arman (Talk) 06:30, 4 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I was only asking if Harvard Gazette was a student publication (hence the question mark). Besides, it looks like the Harvard Gazette is only used to publicize university-related matters. I wouldn't consider it a reliable source just based on who's publishing it; I would have to do some investigating before making such an assessment. Nishkid64 (Make articles, not wikidrama) 19:20, 5 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So, when Harvard's public affairs office publicizes its works or uses words like "magic" or "immortalize" to describe art and literature works, that's something to be evaluated separately from Harvard's research publications. On the other hand, when Nazrul Institute's website says their mission is to immortalize Nazrul's magical work in a sheer bid to publicize their work, it automatically makes all their research publications biased and unreliable? To me it seems like a double standard.
The bottom line is, Nazrul Institute is a research institution established by the Government of Bangladesh to conduct and promote study on the works of the national poet of the country. As such, the institute finances and coordinates majority of the research of Nazrul scholars in Bangladesh. The publications of Nazrul Institute are almost universally considered to be the most authoritative source about Nazrul in Bangladesh. The fact that they use emotional words in their website about Nazrul is not a valid argument to discredit all their works. If this is not evident to someone not familiar with the culture and academic arena of Bangladesh - it must be, if not anything worse, a big misunderstanding. Arman (Talk) 02:10, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note I would like to request more time to address the issues raised here. It is very important to note that some clear-cut responses citing applicable Wikipedia policies have been provided as answers to the "remove" votes, so its not like there is a consensus or anything, nor can we argue that the objection arguments are settled. Considerable progress has been made in (a) addressing the prose problems (not finished though) and (2) providing sources to facts that required citations - the article doesn't have any holes. The continuing argument seems to be about a few sources contested under WP:RS. Vishnava talk 07:16, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist because 60% of the sources are from an institute with the explicitly stated aim of promoting the legacy and work of the subject. As such, there is a very heavy weight on an organisation/printing house with a declaration predisposition and a COI, as their mission statement has already declared the subject to be "immortal" and "incomparable" etc, and places a strong emphasis on declared supporters of Nazrul. This would be similar to having a religion FA where the sources are from a body sponsored by a missionary organisation related to the said religion. Or a memorial institute to some politician publishing books about the said politician. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 09:01, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Correction - Nazrul Institute facilitates the publication. You cannot insinuate that the works of the authors are necessarily biased because the Institute published it - each book has to be evaluated on its own merit. Otherwise, it won't be worth trusting books from Simon and Schuster, which is linked with CBS News. Vishnava talk 14:41, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, CBS and Simon and Schuster are RS, although not for talking about themselves because that is a self-source and it isn't 3rd party. BBC is reliable, but it is not reliable for saying that the UK government is politically interfering into its journalistic freedom. The organisation is not a third-party organisation because of its mission statement of promoting KNI's work. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:58, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
One distinct point to answer - have any bias from these sources permeated into the article? If we remove them and leave just the facts as cited, does it not work to maintain WP:NPOV? In this context, the research credentials of Banglapedia and Nazrul Institute are fairly good. If we leave out any possible opinons, etc., using them just as reliable verification of facts, then would there be a problem? Also, and I may be mistaken in my interpretation, but there are a few points in policy that are pertinent to this debate: (1) Wikipedia:RS#Reliability_in_specific_contexts - The claim that all or most scientists, scholars, or ministers hold a certain view requires a reliable source. If you claim that the authors of books published by the Nazrul Institute or Banglapedia carry the bias of the Institute or of a pro-Nazrul entity, you must prove it with a reliable source. Like the Simon and Schuster example, the mere note of publisher cannot stain the work itself. Vishnava talk 14:57, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, if the exact same things are in independent sources, then it is better to just use an independent source anyway, since it would be more professional. Even if George Bush's website says the same basic data as a historian for some things, if we put his website there instead of a historian, the reader may just assume that it is self-serving propaganda or a joke. Many FACs have required people to substitute 3rd party references for COI references. Many military FACs have forced the removal of refs by official army historians/publishers. In the case of the Nazrul Institute, many of the references are for non-black/white things about his stylishness, personal character etc and the Nazrul Institute's mission statement has already declared him to be the best etc. This was already done before the institute was founded, so they have already reached their conclusion before they started researching and publishing their papers. Also, your quotation from RS is referring to the use of subjective statements in article. As above, SS/CBS being used to talk about news is OK, but not to talk about itself or its associates. Using an organisation with a mission statement of promoting a certain thing in a WP article about a certain thing is problematic. It's the same as using a Petroleum Institute sponsored book for talking about global warming. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 03:58, 10 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I still think there is something wrong in your argument: (1) Banglapedia is a third party reference, b'coz it is not tied with the subject of the article, Nazrul. It is like the Encyclopedia of Islam and similar subject-specific encyclopedias. It is a national, accredited encyclopedia. (2) The citations are from individual works authored by Bangladeshi scholars; Nazrul Institute is the publisher, who may have its own mission statement, but it is not the author of the works, merely the publisher. Does any book published by Simon and Schuster necessarily carry the same issues of bias with S&S/CBS? No. Your reasoning would only apply if the article was about the Nazrul Institute, Banglapedia or the authors of the books in question. (3) I don't think the article imports any actual POVs from these sources. (4) Any source or work has elements of POV, as we've talked of bios of Gandhi, JFK, etc. In no way does it mean that the source/work is not properly researched. (5)


I think its wiser to ask others to chip into this specific debate, for the 4 of us (Nishkid64, Blnguyen, Armanaziz and myself) can keep emphatically arguing with each other and do this review no good. I am perfectly prepared to accept your arguments if I can see some of my specific questions answered. Vishnava talk 15:04, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hold Placing a request to hold this FAR open for a bit - am working fast on getting more sources and seeking other opinions on the Banglapedia/Nazrul Institute issue. It will take several days - hope everybody is fine with that. Vishnava talk 16:01, 8 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Holding and holding, it seems. What are the opinions on the article? Marskell (talk) 19:54, 24 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Remove, the two weeks of "hold"ing did nothing substantial to address the concerns expressed above. Urge this be closed shortly as there's a clear consensus (other than thoe who !voted "hold") to delist. Daniel (talk) 01:40, 26 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 20:11, 24 June 2008 [30].

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith

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Review commentary

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Wikipedia:WikiProject Films Wikipedia:WikiProject Star Wars, Wikipedia:WikiProject Science Fiction notified.
  • Article is incomplete; same problem with Episode 2. Lots of books are available about literary criticism and cinematic style of Star Wars but this article contains nothing from them. Film scholars and historians have much info about the film that is missing from the article I found some in a two-minute book search:
    • Visions of the Apocalypse: Spectacles of Destruction in American Cinema by Wheeler Winston Dixon
    • Star Wars and Philosophy: More Powerful Than You Can Possibly Imagine by Kevin S. Decker, Jason T. Eberl
    • Alternative scriptwriting: successfully breaking the rules by Ken Dancyger, Jeff Rush
    • Special Effects: An Introduction to Movie Magic by Ron Miller
    • Sound Design and Science Fiction by William Whittington
    • The Gospel According to Hollywood by Greg Garrett
    • Genre Studies in Mass Media: A Handbook by Art Silverblatt
    • Building Sci-Fi Moviescapes: The Science Behind the Fiction by Matt Hanson
    • Creating the Worlds of Star Wars: 365 Days by John Knoll
    • Culture, Crisis and America's War on Terror by Stuart Croft
    • The Myth of Media Violence: A Critical Introduction by David Trend
  • Intro is stubby.
  • Plot too detailed and confusing for a lay reader.
  • Later parts of cast are challenged claims but remaing unsourced.
  • Box office, DVD just half sourced.
  • Awards, music and video game unsourced.
  • "References to the original trilogy" sections contains a lot of fancruft.
  • Uses IMDb, MovieWeb, bigfanboy.com and The Movie Blog which fail RS.
  • overwhelming ext. links, some linked twice, US flag, etc. Ultra! 18:36, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Emphasis on Soundtrack, Novelization and Video game can be lessened. I also have to agree with the comments above about referencing; is there no book or other textual resources that can be used? FWiW Bzuk (talk) 06:15, 30 April 2008 (UTC).[reply]
  • It might not be a good idea to have two Star Wars articles on review at the same time, as the pool of people able to respond to the concerns are probably close to identical. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:51, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • I agree, and nominating more than one article at a time is against the instructions at WP:FAR. If editors need more time, it will likely be granted, but Ultra should refrain from doing this again. Ultra, please complete the notification instructions at the top of WP:FAR by notifying significant article contributors and relevant WikiProjects and posting notifications back to this FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:26, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I haven't read all of this thing, but I've read enough to see that it needs a lot of attention. Here's my first take on just one section ("Awards and nominations"): I'd like to think that it's not quite so bad as it was before I tackled it, but the confused second paragraph still doesn't seem to know what it's about (the small number of anti-awards? Christensen?), and I'm left puzzled by the significance of a "pre-planned" award, and also by descriptions of awards that aren't linked. A brief look at one other section: "Box office performance" has a single explicit mention of "worldwide gross" but the rest seems to be about North America (which I suspect means the US and Canada) and/or America (which I suppose means the US) -- what is pretty clear is that this needs retitling at the least. Morenoodles (talk) 10:36, 24 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are comprehensiveness (1b), lead (1a), and prose (1a). Marskell (talk) 19:55, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Slavoj Zizek, The Parallax View, p. 101-103
Jonathan L. Bowen, Revenge: The Real Life Story of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Greg Garrett, The Gospel According to Hollywood, p. 56-57
An Orson Scott Card critical essay
Camille Paglia makes some observations
more here
www.sagajournal.com - this site essentially is a peer-reviewed academic journal focusing on the series, and at the very least has a lot of other good references contained within. Any case, between Google Scholar, MRQE, and more, there should be strong references to be found. To whomever is reading this, I wish you good luck and look forward to seeing how the article improves! :) Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 22:01, 31 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment on comment: First, if Žižek said anything coherent about this film, then it's out of character for him. Secondly, let's look more closely at "peer-reviewed academic journal". "Peer reviewed" essentially means "reviewed by people in the same position as the writer", and this "Saga Journal" you're advocating seems to be written up by fans who just happen to be at university and thus know how to footnote. I chanced on this paper as an example. The author may be an adjunct prof of history somewhere, but his paper is sophomoric. It doesn't even have an introduction that states what it is that he's setting out to demonstrate; instead, there's an airy assertion about unspecified "concepts", which he then seems to forget about. Clearly he's on some holistic (or similar) medicine trip, writing Many medical experts are limited to what is earthly [sic] visible. [...] The medical establishment in the real world and the Star Wars universe is overly mechanized. They see a client as someone to be altered, not listened to, just as Vader's medical droids put him back together without consideration for his pain. As is his right, but this kind of disparagement of "the medical establishment in the real world" again seems odd in academia. (If I had cancer, I'd be uninterested in what was marsly [?] but not earthly [?] visible, and a lot keener to be "altered" than to be "listened to", but perhaps that's just me.) He calls the Star Wars stuff The saga we all love, which doesn't square with my idea of a dispassionately academic approach; but then, just like a religion or quack therapy, the "journal" even has a page of personal testimonies. I say all this not (well, not primarily) in order to knock the "journal", but rather to point out that what claims to be academic and has some of the trappings of academia isn't necessarily intellectually rigorous or worth careful consideration by anyone, let alone the harried editors of a Wikipedia article. Morenoodles (talk) 06:42, 1 June 2008 (UTC) revised a bit 04:28, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The prose isn't up to it. As far as I could be bothered to read it, it's pitched at about the right level and avoids the truly awful, but it's flabby or dull or something. I worked on one short section and commented earlier/above on having done so, but this doesn't seem to have inspired anybody else to do much more of the same. Here's just one example of what I'm referring to: In 1973, Lucas claimed to have written the Star Wars saga's fundamental story in the form of a basic plot outline. He would later profess that at the time of the saga's conception, he had not fully realized the details — only major plot points throughout the series. (i) I first took this to mean that his claim was in 1973, but what follows suggests that the claim was about 1973. (It's sourced to material published in 2005, not 1973.) (ii) Are "basic" and "fundamental" different here; if so, how, and if not, why the repetition? (iii) "Profess" sounds strange; what's meant? (Chilling suspicion: a fancy would-be synonym for "confess"?) (iv) Since the claim was about having written something basic, fundamental or both, and as an outline, it's pretty obvious that details weren't included; so why add that details weren't included? Now, I wouldn't go on about these two sentences if they were an isolated or obscure example -- but they're neither, they're at the very start of a section near the top of the article, and there's a lot more like them. Morenoodles (talk) 05:17, 1 June 2008 (UTC) revised a bit 04:28, 2 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove, IMDb is not a reliable source. "Video game" section is uncited and may contain original research. Ce needed, redundant and flabby prose, sample: Some unseen or unheard-of elements to the Revenge of the Sith story were fleshed out in the course of the novel. "Soundtrack" is uncited. Article is tagged as containing OR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:11, 15 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove Original research tag needs clearing. IMDb is unreliable. DrKiernan (talk) 16:09, 20 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 Marskell 16:26, June 16, 2008 [31].


City status in the United Kingdom

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Review commentary

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Notified Lozleader, GSTQ, Morwen, DWaterson, WikiProject Urban studies and planning, WikiProject Cities, WikiProject Architecture, and WikiProject UK geography

The article fails the featured article criterion in several ways. Several sections have no inline citations (1c), the lead is too short (2a), the notes in the List of officially designated cities section are a mess, there are external jumps, the article is somewhat listy and some footnotes are not formatted correct. --Peter Andersen (talk) 16:33, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree entirely. Writing problems and it's too much of a LIST! TONY (talk) 14:58, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It is a sad truth that the page is more like a hybrid between an article and a list; I remind my colleagues that Featured Lists did not exist when this article was featured (2004). Therefore, I have a radical solution to propose: take the "List of officially designated cities", which looks like an intrusion right in the middle of the article, and all its footnotes, and move them to a separate page (preferably titled List of cities in the United Kingdom, which is currently a redirect to the page here examined). An entire range of formatting and layout options would then open for the list, and with some work it could even make it to FL. This article, meanwhile, would be easier to work with, leaving us mostly with the lead and citations to worry about. Waltham, The Duke of 02:54, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So if we remove the list, what do we do with the section on cathedral towns? It seems counterintuitive to have a list of cathedral towns in the article, without also including a list of cities. Perhaps a summary list of cities should be retained, whilst the table can be moved to its own article?GSTQ (talk) 01:30, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It has crossed my mind as well, and I agree that we should keep a list of cities; it would not make for an informative article if it omitted the crucial part of which communities have city status. No information other than the city names and each one's constituent nation should be given, however. The cathedral-towns list would not have to change at all this way, and everyone would be happy. Waltham, The Duke of 02:49, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I think we've fixed the leader and the listiness (as best as it can be fixed in such an article; personally I didn't see a problem with it as it was), and removing the table has alleviated some of the citation problems. I'm not sure about 1(c) though. I'm sure something could be gleaned from the footnotes from the table in List of cities in the United Kingdom, if anybody were in a mind to do so.GSTQ (talk) 05:52, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On another note, I did not understand Mr Andersen's comment about external jumps. Apart from that, a good improvement to the article might be to add another image. The question is, however, "what is there to add?" Waltham, The Duke of 16:43, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
External jumps are links to external websites in the middle of the text.--Peter Andersen (talk) 17:09, 15 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think there are only two of these, both referring to "Key Statistics for Urban Areas", and each tiem the surrounding wording rather repeats the same info too. Shouldnt' be too hard to re-word (maybe link to Census in the United Kingdom), and use the link as a (named) footnote instead. David Underdown (talk) 09:30, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are referencing (1c), LEAD (2a), prose (1a), and focus (4). Marskell (talk) 19:21, 28 May 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 Marskell 16:26, June 16, 2008 [32].


Avatar: The Last Airbender

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Review commentary

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Notified Wikipedia:Wikiproject Television, User:Raul654, User:HeirToPendragon, User:Fyre2387, User:The Placebo Effect, User:Dylan0513, User:Parent5446, User:Herald Alberich, User:Rau J, User:Y BCZ, User:Redsparta

Since its passing in January 2007, the article has become filled with a lot of non-reliable sources, particularly from two Avatar fansites: musogato.com and avatarspirit.com. It also has several unreferenced sections now, which appear to be original research or fan theories. All of this badly violates criteria 1c for featured articles. It also had links to copyvio material. I've removed the most blatant (MP3 downloads), but may still have links to unofficial episode transcripts. There are so many links to these two fansites, in particular, that I do not think it can quickly be fixed or replaced with more valid sources, so sending here. AnmaFinotera (talk) 22:18, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I added a couple of {{fact}} tags to the influences section. One paragraph in particular, which dealt with the focusing of qi during element bending, was sourced with the name of an avatar episode. I removed the source and placed a tag on it because it did not even come close to supporting the very specific statement. However, an editor replaced the source stating the specific statement was a direct quote from avatar (see here). However, it was never put into quotations, nor was it noted (in the actual article) which character spoke the line. This amounts to plagiarism. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 22:49, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I do not know whether I was just looking at one part of the article, but the prose seems to be a little on the confusing side. There seems to be some number of redundant phrases. Even if I'm wrong, I'm sure the article could use a good copy-edit. — Parent5446 (t n c k e l) 00:55, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
We have removed the links to episode transcripts from the reference template, but I will go now and remove them from old references. I will also directly quote the qi part, which was spoken by King bumi in The Return to Omashu, an episode in the shows second season. Rau's Speak Page 01:52, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, when I looked back, the article has no links to episode transcripts. And many of the links to AvatarSpirit are for interviews, which I do not see how a site could be unreliable on that unless it is made up. And that site always cites a sources, so I doubt that they made it up. The links that aren't transcripts are news reports, such as Convention information and information directly from Nickelodeon. And for Musogato, I do not see how translations and article scans of interviews are a bad thing. Rau's Speak Page 02:03, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If AvatarSpirit is citing its sources, go to the sources to get the original version. Article scans of interviews is not the same as the original (can be manipulated, and possibly a copyright issue as they are not a journal service with permission to republish the articles online). If they are all giving their sources, again, go to the sources, get the original, and cite it rather than a fansite that does not meet WP:RS. AnmaFinotera (talk) 02:41, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, thinking about it, nine out of ten times AvatarSpirit does not provide a source other than "Nick said it". So yea, I drop that from my argument. One of the Musogato interviews were from Nickmag, how do we get the original for that? Rau's Speak Page 03:33, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Which interview? AnmaFinotera (talk) 03:40, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The same interview is cited from that site twice: [33]. Rau's Speak Page 03:44, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Does he give the publication information anywhere? Like which issue, date, etc? If you can have that, enough places that aren't reliable sources mention the article that you can relatively safely presume it was published and cite the magazine itself. AnmaFinotera (talk) 03:49, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I'll look into it. I never actually thought of that..... Rau's Speak Page 04:08, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just for comaprison, here is a diff between the current version and the version that was promoted to FA: [34] — Parent5446 (t n c k e l) 11:58, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion seems to have died out. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 18:07, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see the point of letting us see the old version of the article, the point of wikipedia is the improvement of the article. A revert of that scale would diminish the articles quality. And a lot of discussions on this project seem to die. Rau's Speak Page 18:51, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, BTW, the Aang article has a direct reference to the original magazine article. So if you want to copy that reference you can. I believe it is ref sixteen. — Parent5446 (t n c k e l) 01:01, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

May I ask, what is still wrong with this FA? I have noticed the orignal nominator hasn't said anything recenty.The Placebo Effect (talk) How's my editing? Please contribute to my editor review. 01:20, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

None of the issues have been addressed. AnmaFinotera (talk) 01:27, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What do you mean none of the issues have been addressed? We basically shot down the fansite one and I personally just removed unsourced material and sourced other material. I do not see how that is not addressing the issues. Rau's Speak Page 01:41, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
He asked what was still wrong. I was just giving him a short answer. The issues have not been completely addressed yet, so all of the problems are still issues that have not been resolved. AnmaFinotera (talk) 01:44, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Then what is still wrong? Looks pretty good to me. The information is sourced and references are accurate. Rau's Speak Page 01:49, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Avatarspirit is still in use — non-RS fansite. Still has unsourced content, some tagged as needing sources, some that have dead link sources. It also has excessive non-free images per WP:NONFREE. AnmaFinotera (talk) 01:52, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
AvatarSpirit is being used for interviews. What policy does that violate? Show me where the unsourced content is and I will source or remove it. Also don't say some, there is only one. And all of the links in the sources are good, I checked them. Rau's Speak Page 01:58, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I just noticed the fighting styles, I am sourcing that now. Rau's Speak Page 01:59, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
AvatarSpirit is a fansite, and violates WP:RS (and parts of violate WP:COPYVIO making it a bad link to begin with). It can't be used for anything.AnmaFinotera (talk) 02:18, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Its being used for an interview with the staff. I do not see how referencing their interviews violates any of that. Rau's Speak Page 02:31, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You really are one stubborn user, Collectionian. I think you should take a visit to WP:RS when you site it. There is ABSOLUTELY NO MENTION WHATSOEVER of fansites in that guideline (emphasis on GUIDELINE; sorry to have to use CAPS). Avatar Spirit does not just decide to make up interviews from thin air. That is preposterous. In addition, how exactly are the interviews a copyvio. I am very interested to find out. — Parent5446 (t n c k e l) 02:33, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Watch the attitude already. WP:CIVILITY is a policy. I didn't say the interviews violate copyright, the site itself does with its transcription section. Those are not authorized and they are copyright violations. You have no idea if the interviews are real or not because the site does not meet the qualifications for being a reliable source, and being a fansite it never will. And FYI, RS is "just a guideline" but one that supports the verifiability policy, so it is not just a guideline you can ignore. If it isn't a reliable source, it doesn't meet V and doesn't belong, period. AnmaFinotera (talk) 02:37, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Its an interview. And because of that I do not see why any of the others matter. Rau's Speak Page 02:52, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Because it isn't a reliable source, and linking to it can be seen as a copyright violation due to the illegal transcripts, illegal MP3s, etc. As they aren't a news source, peer reviewed, etc, there is nothing to say the interview is a good one, conducted properly, and is factual. Since as it doesn't seem to be sourcing anything not already sourced elsewhere, why even keep it at all? AnmaFinotera (talk) 03:01, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
One, nice find, I forgot all about that. Two, we aren't linking to any copyrighted material I do not see how that applies. And if the only excuse for it not being reliable is that they are a fan site, then you need to do one better. WP:VERIFY states that "the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses" and "Academic and peer-reviewed publications are highly valued". Those are the only mention of peer reviews in the entire policy. After that, we drop to the guideline WP:RS, which has no mention of fan sites at all. Rau's Speak Page 03:19, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Rau J, consensus there has supported that fansites are not reliable sources, multiple times, and that linking to a site that deliberately violates copyrights is not appropriate at all. That was agree in recent discussions over some anime sites that included links to fansub downloads, Ani-DB. All links to it were removed and its templates deleted as it was agreed that linking to it even for the info pages was a violation of WP:COPYVIO. AnmaFinotera (talk) 03:23, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, unfortunately while it shows all, it isn't clear enough to meet the other image use requirements. Also, keep in mind that a character image isn't necessary here. As pointed out in non-free, the individual pages already have images. AnmaFinotera (talk) 03:23, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
How does it violate WP:COPYVIO, I just read the entire page and there was no mention of link to sites that have copyright violating material. And where is the consensus that states that it does? Rau's Speak Page 03:32, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, wrong short cut. See Wikipedia:Copyrights, particularly the second paragraph of the Linking to copyrighted works section. If you want, we can start yet another discussion on why you feel we should link to a site that violates US law and go against that policy, but why not just find better sources.AnmaFinotera (talk) 03:41, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Fine. I will personally remove all links to information on Avatarspirit, and any information that becomes unsourced as a result of it. Rau's Speak Page 03:45, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Could we link here, considering its an archive? [35] — Parent5446 (t n c k e l) 12:58, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, because its an archive of the same site, which still would have the same problems. AnmaFinotera (talk) 14:24, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(ding) May i ask why hosting some copyrighted material invalidates the interviews they did themselves to which everyone else will point back to them for that info? The Placebo Effect (talk) How's my editing? Please contribute to my editor review. 14:40, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Because it violates WP:Copyright. It doesn't matter if they did the interview themselves, they still deliberately violate the copyrights of the property owners. They also aren't really a WP:RS so the value of the interview is questionable. AnmaFinotera (talk) 14:42, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
SO just beacuse they hosted some copyrighted material, every piece of info on there site can't be used? Even if it isn't copyrighted material? That seems a little off to me.... The Placebo Effect (talk) How's my editing? Please contribute to my editor review. 14:45, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I strongly disagree with that policy. In the court trial that the policy cites, the defendant had actually posted information that was copyrighted, they did not link to an illegal site or anything like that. There is no proof or examples that says linking to a site that posts illegal content is against US law. Furthermore, the policy specifically states "It is currently acceptable to link to Internet archives such as the Wayback Machine." Therefore, it would be acceptable to use that link I provided a couple of lines up. — Parent5446 (t n c k e l) 15:01, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, and personally I kind of like that image. We definitely need some sort of image in the characters section. — Parent5446 (t n c k e l) 15:08, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Whether you disagree with the policy is, frankly, irrelevant. The Wikimedia Foundation chose to have stronger copyright policies than US law, as is within their right. It is their website and we are bound by their rules, same as with non-free. And no, an image is not "needed" and many series FAs and GAs do not have them.AnmaFinotera (talk) 15:16, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It is not irrelevant Mr. I-cite-policies-and-guidelines. Wikipedia:Ignore all rules says "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it." So, yea, If we deem that not using ASN reduces the quality of the article, then we ignore it. Rau's Speak Page 18:31, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
A — its Miss, B - WP:CIVIL, C-ignore all rules doesn't apply here. It doesn't prevent anything. The site adds no real value to the article. And, some policies can not be ignored, no matter what. I'd suggest you read Wikipedia:What "Ignore all rules" means to actually understand what IAR really means. It does not mean you get to ignore copyright policies, and it does not mean you get to ignore the consensus of community. IAR is not a "do whatever I want because I don't like your policies" card. You may also want to look at WP:POINT, which is what your last edit was an inappropriate form of. Get over it. Find a valid, non-copyright violating source, or leave it out. AnmaFinotera (talk) 18:38, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for the "mr.", and I was civil. And I read what it means before I cited it. I genuinely feel that not using ASN reduces the quality of the article. And IAR means "Ignore All Rules", that means everything; policy, guidelines, consensus; everything. And my WP:POINT has no bearing on my last edit. Rau's Speak Page 18:53, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
IAR does not mean everything. If consensus agrees that IAR doesn't apply, it doesn't apply. If one could just invoke IAR to do whatever they wanted, we wouldn't have policies, guidelines, and people wouldn't get blocked for vandalizing articles. Articles wouldn't be deleted for containing copyrighted info because one could just claim "its better than nothing" and links to copyright violations would not be something that gets you a single warning before blocking (which it does). If the content from ASN were geniuinely valuable and would improve the quality of the article, the plain and simple truth is that it would exist elsewhere in other, more reliable, non-law breaking places. That no other sources are available for the information brings into question whether it is even factual, must less valuable to the article. AnmaFinotera (talk) 19:05, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And what consensus declared that IAR didn't apply? I know of another source for the information but that site (though an official news source) has links to copyrighted material as well. Giving examples of the musical score. Is that site not allowed either? Rau's Speak Page 19:25, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Multiple discussions at WP:Copyright that such links don't belong, period. What's the new source/link? If it is an official news source, they are likely to have permission to actually include examples (allowable use), versus ASN which has no permission. AnmaFinotera (talk) 19:33, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
How do you know that ASN doesn't have permission. Considering that they receive high quality trailers from Nickelodeon themselves, I think that if Nick had a problem with them having copyrighted material it would have been taken down. (This interview has a lot of the same information, and then some.) Rau's Speak Page 19:38, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Because if they had it, they would state so. They don't, and do not give any note that the transcripts are official or otherwise. Where as that article gives a proper disclaimer, notes the tracks were provided to them, and are only providing short samples (20-30 seconds) for review purposes. That site could be used as a WP:RS. AnmaFinotera (talk) 19:44, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Fine. Later tonight I will organize a new comprehensive section with information from that site. I know of no other sites that have information, nor do I intend to look. If someone else finds a site, they can add the information. Rau's Speak Page 19:51, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is an exact example of something I believe Raul654 said. It went along the lines of "The more time that passes, the less plastic Wikipedia's policies are, and the harder they are to change." Unfortunately, that is the sad truth. Does anybody realize the value of what is being lost here. There are at least ten interview on ASN that have tons of valuable information, all of which have been used in multiple Avatar articles, not to mention that these sources have been reviewed many times and let by (ASN was cited during this article's FA, during Aang's GA, and during many PRs). I do not see what consensus you are pointing to, because I have had tons of editors say "ASN is not reliable", and after I said "the sources are interviews", they were always OK with it. The only thing that is coming in the way of this article and ASN is a policy. Oh, and just so you know, WP:IAR does apply here. It even says in WP:WIARM that IAR can be used if there is an actual explanation that can justify the stray from policy. And there is an explanation. This site has a lot of information. If RauJ does not come back with a lot of information from his new site, I am not going to care what that policy says, because this article is suffering and I will not allow the suffering to continue. — Parent5446 (t n c k e l) 20:00, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Amen. And the indents are getting ridiculous. Rau's Speak Page 20:18, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, you want to use it, use it, but it is valid grounds for the article losing its FA status. Up to you. You don't want it to be FA, then IAR and use unreliable, inappropriate sites as reference. If you want it to remain FA, quit complaining and actually do the work necessary to fix the article back to FA quality, including using proper, reliable sources and removing anything that can't be sourced from a proper source. This whole thing is getting utterly ridiculous. AnmaFinotera (talk) 20:23, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

AnmaFinotera: I still have no idea what you are talking about. Nowhere in WP:FA? does it say that an article's sources must comply with every guideline in the book. Nor does it say that WP:IAR cannot be used in a FA. Furthermore, as we've said before, these sources are clearly reliable. The only thing you seem to have against them is the fact they have "illegal" episodes transcripts (and maybe soundtracks) and the fact that it is a fansite. But not every fansite is unreliable. In fact, you'd be surprised how reliable some fansites can be if you analyze them closely. Keep in mind it is in fact the fansite's goal to put reliable, true information about the show on its site. Besides, it is not like we are citing a forum or something, we are citing an interview. As for the supposed "illegal" links, only AnmaFinotera, me, and Rau J have been commenting, and all of our opinions are biased. So I suggest we wait for somebody to respond to the RFC before making a call on that one. — Parent5446 (t n c k e l) 20:32, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Parent, that is a horrific signature length to edit around; would you consider shortening it? Concerns about reliability of sources should directly engage WP:V wording; anything else is hot air. Please justify sources specifically per WP:V policy. Further, the last time I read WP:COPYRIGHT (and WP:EL) they were very clear: we don't knowingly link to sites with copyright violations. Period. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:45, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Which is why I called WP:IAR, not using the site is disregarding a very large amount of information that was acquired through interviews. I find that wrong and degrading of the quality of the article. Rau's Speak Page 20:53, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
We don't jeopardize all of Wiki for one article to violate a copyright. That is an absurd stretch of IAR. Have you read WP:COPYRIGHT and WP:EL on the reasons why we don't link to copyvios? If these interviews were so important and notable, why can't you find the originals or find them in some usable form without violating copyright? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:55, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And amid all this childish hollering and arm waving, can someone please put up the exact URL we're talking about, and the text it is being used to cite? It would be helpful to be able to make an informed opinion. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:58, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Avatarspirit conducted the interview themselves. These are the originals. Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. We were using them for information on the musical score of the show. And is anyone else starting to feel like a douche for forgetting why we are here? Rau's Speak Page 21:10, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please try to provide some clear information that others can follow. If they conducted the interviews themselves, where is this copyvio? And what is the text being cited to these interviews? Who owns the interviews, are they hosted on a reliable source, and where is the copyvio everyone is talking about? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:12, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(edit conflict)Sandy, based on this comment by AnmaFinotera,[36] it isn't that a link to material that is a copyright violation is being used to cite text. AnmaFinotera seems to be under the impression that because the website has copyrighted material on it that nothing on the website can be used. The links from the fansite that are being used to support text are not copyright violations, but are rather interview conducted by the website itself. --Bobblehead (rants) 21:13, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Bobblhead :-) So the RFC question is, when the website hosts other pages that contain copyright vios, is it OK to link to any pages on that website... is that correct? If that is the question, my understanding is no, but I honestly don't know if that specific question has been explored. I do recall reading somewhere that the very fact that a website would host a copyvio renders it, by definition, a non-reliable source. Don't know on which Wiki page I saw that, but that is my understanding of why the source would be disqualified as reliable. Still want to see what kind of text is being sourced (and still want to remind the article editors that there are other deficiencies that need attention). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:20, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This edit[37] seems to cover the text that is being supported by links to AvatarSpirit.Net. --Bobblehead (rants) 21:33, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Text cited to alleged copyvio site (no one has yet shown us the copyvio, this is like pulling teeth)

Avatar features an extensive original musical score, written by composers Benjamin Wynn and Jeremy Zuckerman, founders of the Track Team.[1] According to an interview with Jeremy Zuckerman, the team had been hired by the creators due to a roommate story.[1] Benjamin Wynn had been roommates with Bryan Konietzko while he and DiMartino were creating Avatar. The creators decided to hire Wynn and Zuckerman to do the score, having complete faith in their ability.[1] Because the instruments are chosen based on timbre, and not culture, the music in the show is composed of both Western and Eastern instruments.[2] Chosen for its intimacy and gentle sounds, the Kalimba is used in the more serene moments.[2] The sound of the sunghi horn, a fictional instrument that first appeared on the show in the episode "The Waterbending Scroll", is also used in the musical score of the show. It is described as having a sound like an instrument that is part reed and part brass.[3]

  1. ^ a b c Acastus (2006-07-23). "Music Interview with the Track Team 1 of 3". Interview. Avatar Spirit.Net. Retrieved 2008-04-08.
  2. ^ a b Acastus (2006-08-05). "Music Interview with the Track Team 2 of 3". Interview. Avatar Spirit.Net. Retrieved 2008-04-08.
  3. ^ Acastus (2006-08-12). "Music Interview with the Track Team 3 of 3". Interview. Avatar Spirit.Net. Retrieved 2008-04-08.
So, besides the sourcing question, help me understand why this prose is engaging, compelling or brilliant? Why don't you all stop fighting over one site for a few days, focus instead on bringing this article to standard, don't put up half-baked RfCs that waste community time, and see how this issue works out once you've cleaned up the rest of the article? Doesn't it trouble any of you that you're basing everything about the music score on one source ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:55, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It does now, I never thought of it. But we do have a second source that I had every intention to use to rewrite the musical score section before this was reignited. Rau's Speak Page 22:09, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I'll see what I can do. BTW, if I find the time to copyedit the whole article, the revisions will be posted tomorrow. I cannot guarantee the inclusion of any edits between now and then, but I will try. (For my own reference, this is the revision I am working from.) — Parent5446 (t n c k e l) 02:41, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Just one last thing: I don't understand how linking to ASN is a copyvio. Could somebody please explain? — Parent5446 (t n c k e l) 21:17, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The point here is that in the past, a US court has said it is illegal to link to sights that contain copyrighted material, an dwe need to avoid any law suits at all. Unless we email AvatarSpirit about this asking about it. But i don't know exactly what we could ask them. If they can remove the copyrighted material so we can use them a source on wikipedia and provide proof they had the interviews( I think some are in mp3 form actually)? The Placebo Effect (talk) How's my editing? Please contribute to my editor review. 02:56, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That's what I'm not getting. There is nothing in copyright law that says linking to sites with copyrighted material is illegal. There is a law that says linking to copyrighted material itself is illegal (like if we linked directly to the mp3 files or transcripts, which he have done before, but they were removed). So what is the problem? — Parent5446 (t n c k e l) 03:02, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm also seeing a lot of MoS deficiencies and unformatted and incorrectly formatted citations, so you all might want to stop arguing and start bringing the article to standard. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:04, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry Sandy, but that was mentioned in the original post, so we didn't know that was a problem. We will get right on it. The Placebo Effect (talk) How's my editing? Please contribute to my editor review. 12:42, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I copyedited up to the Influences section. Is it at least a little bit better? — Parent5446 (t n c k e l) 23:52, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concern is reference quality (1c). Marskell (talk) 19:48, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove - still has referencing issues, including large amounts of unsourced content and some non-WP:RS sources. Article also badly fails to follow the TV MoS and no exceptional reason given/demonstrated for not following it. The non-free image issues have been fixed, and article has improved during this FAR, but I do not feel it is back to being FA quality yet. AnmaFinotera (talk) 20:52, 18 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove, besides everything else mentioned, lacking in basic copyediting for fundamental items even I can see. I just cleaned up some obvious things in the lead and fixed the footnote placement, but it doesn't appear that anyone is maintaining the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:05, 15 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 02:04, 16 June 2008 [38].

AK-47

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Review commentary

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Notified: WikiProject Russia, WikiProject Military history, WikiProject Firearms, various other users.

The main problems here are 1b and 1c. I'll start with the former. This article is sourced by some 25 notes, with a few extra "further readings" below. Several sections (Illicit trade, Derivatives, Production outside of the Soviet Union/Russia, first paragraph of Variants, Ballistics) have no references at all, while others (Operating cycle, Design background, Design concept, Disassembly, Cultural influence) have only one or two references. In fact, the only section that would really pass for adequate, reference wise, would be Receiver development history.

1c (or a lack thereof) is mainly reflected in a few stubby sections (Ballistics, Legal status), as well as Design concept and Licensing, both of which I am sure could be expanded to be a great deal more comprehensive.

The subject of the article is not abstract; I am sure that through collaboration this article can rise again to meet current standards. I myself will be very willing to partake in the advancing of the quality of the article, in regards to the two criteria identified. -- Anonymous DissidentTalk 03:52, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. The featured version shows us that while the prose has increased in size, organization is deteriorating and the list of references has shrunk by nearly 25%.
Here's a comparision:
Featured version: "During World War II, Germany was the first nation to develop weapons that embodied the characteristics of the modern assault rifle. The impetus for the adoption of the assault rifle as the primary individual infantry weapon was the knowledge that, in modern warfare, dismounted troops typically exchange small arms fire at ranges of fewer than 300 meters; in most firefights, combatants are within 100 meters of each other."
Current version: "During World War II, the Germans developed the assault rifle concept, based upon research that showed that most firefights happen at close range, within 300 meters."
Seems to me that a improvements need to be made. Teh Rote (talk) 17:44, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are comprehensiveness (1b) and referencing (1c). Marskell (talk) 20:12, 18 May 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 11:24, 14 June 2008 [39].

History of Buddhism

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Review commentary

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Notified User:PHG and WikiProject Buddhism.

An FA from '04 that has serious structural issues. Lead is clearly inadequate, numerous one sentence paragraphs, stub sections (including one that's empty) and poorly rationalized ToC. Obviously inadequately referenced and the references provided are not properly formatted. I don't mind working on prose and organization if there's someone else available for sourcing. Marskell (talk) 12:10, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Marskell. This is an ancient FA, which clearly doesn't have many of the attributes of more recent ones. I personnally won't have much time to devote to its rework, but it may be time for the WikiProject Buddhism community to make a full revamp of it. Best regards. PHG (talk) 17:08, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As I already noted on the talk page of the article itself, there are few citations, & many of the statements in the article are theories, legends or just plain wrong. I support demotion until this is remedied. Peter jackson (talk) 10:53, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There's also under weight on the Greeks. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 07:37, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There are two sections, fuller than most of the sections here. They include both Greco-Buddhist art and King Menander. If this is a typo for undue weight, I could see it; but "under weight"? What is omitted? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:36, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes undue weight. Very much so. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 02:44, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I hate to take accurate, and largely sourced, detail out of an article. Is there a sub-article? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:01, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I can't see this neeting modern FA standards without a lot of work. There is hardly anything on the last 1,000 years, and no section on, and very few mentions of, Tibet, the only culture where Mahayana Buddhism remains dominant. Few mentions of the integration of Buddhism with other religions in China, Japan, Tibet and elsewhere. It might be better to draw a line at some date like 1,000, or 1,200 and just call this the early history. Johnbod (talk) 16:50, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I regretfully agree that this should be demoted. To add another example to those cited above, the role of Gandharan Buddhism in the development of early Buddhist iconography is essentially absent; a major lacuna. That said, this still offers a good structure around which to improve the treatment. Topic is important and it would be a shame to demote it without a plan for its revival. Eusebeus (talk) 13:12, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are LEAD (2a), structure (4), and citations (1c). Marskell (talk) 19:50, 18 May 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 13:03, 11 June 2008 [40].

Bruce Johnson (politician)

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Review commentary

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WP BIO notified. No other project tags on talk page. User:PedanticallySpeaking notified. No other editor has made more than five edits to the article.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 03:14, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

When I looked at this article I was vastly underwhelmed. It has a template at the top, no main image and lacks citations. It is in bad shape and should be failed even at GAR in its current state.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 03:05, 5 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. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:12, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I may not have used the template, but I was doing so while you were posting the reminder.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 03:16, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wow. Underwhelmed is being polite. Tons of unsourced statements including entirely unsourced paragraphs. Many of the other references are hideously formatted in what appears to be an attempt to combine a bunch into a single ref. These issues are completely unacceptable for a BLP, much less an FA one. As no work has been done on it since the ref tag was placed, I'd suspect no one may respond to this to try to correct.Collectonian (talk) 03:13, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Huge work needed. The ref formats are in trouble. Ceoil (talk) 14:12, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are citations (1c) and images (3). Marskell (talk) 16:45, 25 May 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 16:19, 6 June 2008 [41].

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV series)

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Review commentary

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Notified parties

The article for Buffy the Vampire Slayer no longer meets the requirements for being a featured article. In particularly, it fails the first FA criteria 1c which requires the article be factually accurate with all claims being verifiable through reliable sources. There are several unreferenced statements in the text, including several completely unreferenced paragraphs. Some of the worse instances include:

  • Writing - almost entire second paragraph has no source
  • Music - same problem
  • Format - section is completely unsourced
  • Angel - most of section is unsourced, sans first paragraph
  • Expanded universe - only one out of the four paragraphs has any sources
  • Fandom and fan films - unsourced lead out to main article
  • U.S. ratings - spotty sourcing in table, all of prose is completely unsourced
  • Series information - main section prose unsourced and entire DVD section unsourced

Additionally, several of the sources used within the article fail WP:RS, with the heavy use of fansites, including whedonesque.com and and IMDB. I posted a note to the talk page about these issues, but no response nor reaction was seen after 3 days. I'd also question whether it meets criteria 4 for being an appropriate length that doesn't go into unnecessary detail - such as having a six paragraph section on spinoffs that were never even created and which already have a main article. AnmaFinotera (talk) 20:40, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I brought up similar issues in November 2007. By Feb. 2008, nothing had happened. So, this isn't just a 3 day no response issue, this is a several months no response issue. The issues I brought up were subsequently archived without further response. Given AnmaFinotera's current load of 2 FARs, it was discussed on this talk page (see the history) that I would take over this article in the review.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 21:08, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I would like to add that the lead could probably be tweaked to better represent the article as a whole.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 21:45, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agree with the above; since no-one seems to be attending this article anymore, I suggest it be moved to FARC since the problems are not likely to be redressed, per Bignole. Eusebeus (talk) 13:05, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concern is referencing (1c). Marskell (talk) 20:07, 18 May 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 03:03, 3 June 2008 [42].

Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

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Review commentary

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previous FAR

Notified Wikipedia:WikiProject Science Fiction, Wikipedia:WikiProject Star Wars and Wikipedia:WikiProject Films.

Criteria not met

  • 1a, 1 b, 1c.

Concerns

  • Article is incomplete and this is its biggest problem. Lots of books are available about literary criticism and cinematic style of Star Wars but this article contains nothing from them. Film scholars and historians have much info about the film that is missing from the article I found some in a two-minute book search:
    • Visions of the Apocalypse: Spectacles of Destruction in American Cinema by Wheeler Winston Dixon
    • Star Wars and Philosophy: More Powerful Than You Can Possibly Imagine by Kevin S. Decker, Jason T. Eberl
    • From Alien To The Matrix: Reading Science Fiction Film by Roz Kaveney
    • Technophobia!: Science Fiction Visions of Posthuman Technology by Daniel Dinello
    • Movies That Matter: Reading Film Through the Lens of Faith by Richard Leonard
    • Film as Religion: Myths, Morals, and Rituals by John Lyden
    • New Hollywood Violence by Steven Jay Schneider
  • Novel and music are just half sourced
  • DVD has no source
  • Overuse of IMDb which fails RS
  • Redundancies in cast like "Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi. Obi-Wan is", "Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker. Anakin is"
  • Too many external links, repeated links to them, flagcruft etc.
  • References to the original trilogy section has some pointless trivia. Ultra! 21:32, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - You need to list specifically you have notified.
  • I cut the excess external links, the flag, and the unreferenced trivial paragraph in the references to the original trilogy section.
  • The "redundancies" are fine. You need to say who is being referred to, do you not? If we put a generic "he", then it would be unclear.
  • I cut all the IMDB citations, as it is no longer thought to be reliable. I have also added more specific fair use rationales.
  • So now the question is expansion and referencing. Did you find those books on Google scholar or the library? Judgesurreal777 (talk) 21:28, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have been corrected by a user who has, I believe correctly pointed out, that the IMDB links used in the article are not user contributed trivia, which was the questionable IMDB content, but rather their news section, which is, I believe, reliable and sourced. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 23:31, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You mean the "news" site with "The Internet Movie Database takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the articles...nor can we guarantee that reporting is completely factual." at the bottom? It is not reliable, and such links should be removed. DrKiernan (talk) 12:16, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • This article, like other FA-film articles I've just skimmed through are structured Plot-Production-Reception. Why don't they address themes or style? I saw a mentioning of this here-and-there in the FA-articles, mostly in the Production or Reception section, but there doesn't seem to a lack of critical commentary that could support these aspects as full sections. -maclean 00:05, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I find it extremely difficult to believe that a film this widely seen and known has had absolutely no journalistic essays or critical writing whatsoever. Even amongst the review critics there are a sizable number who have written at length about the larger motifs of the series in the context of the particular film being discussed. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 03:13, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Beyond that, there has to be some authoritative textual (book) resources that can be utilized. Having only electronic references seems like that is the only place that the editor has looked at for information. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 06:12, 30 April 2008 (UTC).[reply]
After reading some of the reviews on this particular film, I can see the major themes concern rebellion, independence, and commitment. To what degree they are isolated to this film and what degree they augment the film series is another aspect. --maclean 19:50, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Also, there needs to be a lot more research done on the influences on this film. To not mention The Searchers is almost criminal! :) Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 07:14, 6 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. Thanks!--RegentsPark (talk) 17:19, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are prose (1a), comprehensiveness (1b), and referencing (1c). Marskell (talk) 18:19, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove. The lack responses from anyone interested in fixing the article is really disappointing. Unfortunately, this is one of many "web researched" pop culture articles that ignores any authoritative sources. A quick search in the International Index to Film Periodicals reveals dozens of serious, scholarly works that could be used to research and write this properly. As it stands, it does not meet 1b or 1c at all. --Laser brain (talk) 22:54, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove per Laser brain. Even the web sources have not been updated; at best, the article is simply a snapshot of initial press reactions. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 09:53, 2 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.
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