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Wikipedia:Featured article review/archive/March 2013

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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:Dana boomer 13:52, 21 March 2013 [1].

Boston

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Notified: Pentawing, Hertz1888, Loodog, WikiProject Boston, WikiProject Cities

I am nominating this featured article for review because it seems very far from meeting current FA criteria, and the issues raised haven't been addressed. The (unprotected) article has been subject to many non-constructive edits since its last review in 2007. --ELEKHHT 13:46, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Some of the most obvious problems are:

  • 1a.) Prose issues: Lead clumsy repeating "Boston" 16 times, and flood of statistics not mentioned in the article: "unofficial Capital, "21st largest", "tenth-largest metropolitan area", "fifth-largest Combined Statistical Area", "largest in British America", "third largest city in the British Empire", "international center", "leading finance center", "11th in the Z/Yen top", "number one for innovation", "world livability [...] 36th globally". Likely many more issues as reader feedback is 2.5 of 5 for "well written" (sample N=159)
  • 1b.) Comprehensive: The culture section doesn't provide a good summary of culture in Boston
  • 1c-d.) Well-researched & Neutral: Unreferenced and disputed content: 4 "citation needed" tags
    • Done
  • 4.) Focus issues:
    • Navbarfarm : 12 navbars at the bottom.
      • Done - Whatever navbars do not have a specific link to the actual article have been removed. PentawingTalk 05:40, 5 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
        • I know this is marginal, but I still find the 10 navbars bewildering. And the "Mayors of cities with populations exceeding 100,000 in Massachusetts" sounds really trivial. --ELEKHHT 10:52, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
          • I have removed the navbars pertaining to the "Mayors of cities with populations exceeding 100,000 in Massachusetts" and "All-American City Award." However, since I didn't create the navbars I have no idea what articles those navbars are actually intended for (and they seem relevant to this article). If you feel that 8 navbars is still too many, I will defer to your judgement as to which ones should be kept. Now that you brought it up, should there be a standard as to when a navbar is appropriate? PentawingTalk 05:08, 7 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
            • Good question. I could only find two essays on the topic with some good general principles and advice: WP:Navigation templates and WP:Avoid template creep. Some could be nominated for deletion, but the question is really which ones are useful for this article? Is it likely that any reader would wish to navigate through all the localities of the Northeast megalopolis or Municipalities and communities of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, United States? Btw, at the 2007 FAR there were 4 navbars. In any case, I think with 8 is much better than with 12. Thanks also for all the other improvements. --ELEKHHT 03:23, 10 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed both remaining DABs. Remaining entries are redirects, most likely caused by some templates or navbars outside the article itself. Bare URL also fixed. The other URL points to a questionable source anyway, so needs further checking or a complete replacement. Just some minor tweaks, i'll leave the deeper content questions to the article's regular editors. GermanJoe (talk) 14:44, 31 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment – I still see several dead link tags (93, 94, 100, 101, 206) in the article. These should be taken care of while this is at FAR. The Internet Archive may have copies of the dead-linked pages; if the Boston Globe page isn't available, I could probably find it with the library access I have. Giants2008 (Talk) 00:08, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • The current dead links refer to US Census data, particularly for 2000. At the moment, it is probably best to look at the 2010 dataset. But is there a bot somewhere that is doing this (the original 2000 census passages, if I recall correctly, were done by a bot)? PentawingTalk 05:45, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Citations - some paragraphs still lack a final citation (first history, and a few more down the article). I wouldn't expect every tiny trivial detail to be sourced, but those broad aspects should have atleast a general source, where the info was taken from. Some narrative may be obvious for a Boston citizen, but still needs citation for the general readership. I'll try to help with another readthrough later. GermanJoe (talk) 08:18, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Further issues - aside from the sourcing issues, which are currently adressed, there are other aspects, which need more work:
  • Several sections seem to focus on Boston as a fascinating and great city with a rich history (examples: parts of History, especially the foundation after "The Massachusetts Bay Colony's first governor ...", aswell as "Accent" and "Crime"). Qualifiers like "highly", "important", "excellent" and all statements of opinion need to be backed up by a reliable source and phrased as neutral as possible.
  • WP:SUMMARY should also be followed more closely. Several long sections contain a lot of details, that would be better presented in their sub-articles.
  • Lists throughout the article need checking. Questionable lists of little notability or unclear scope or sourcing should atleast be trimmed down to the most notable elements.
    • Can you be specific as to which section such lists exists? Otherwise, I am not entirely sure which sections should be looked at (a list which seems questionable to one might not appear so to someone else). PentawingTalk 06:39, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Travel guides and similar sources are only acceptable for common, uncontroversial facts. Needs double-checking for WP:RS (example: the second lead sentence "The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region" is subjective WP:WEASEL and sourced with a travel book).
    • Passage concerning "the unofficial Capital of New England" has been removed until a non-travel source is found. I am looking through other sections for weasel words (though this issue appears to be tied to first of the "Further issues" pertaining to neutral phrasing). PentawingTalk 07:19, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The whole "Accent" section has little encyclopedic content and could be removed. The accent is already mentioned in "Culture", the remaining info is trivia or too detailed for a summary article.
  • (optional) the first lead para reads a bit dry and not very engaging. I suggest to trim out some of the statistical data (or move it further down in the lead), which is already covered in the infobox and the main text.

Besides the amount of concerns the article has a lot of great content. But like many city or country articles, a lot of content gets added, that is either not sourced, a bit too subjective or too detailed. GermanJoe (talk) 15:51, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • I've read this article more or less at random, and have a few comments:
    • The article has lots of outdated data - pretty much every 'recent' figure should be updated to 2012 or 2013.
    • A fair amount of material isn't referenced
    • "In the early 21st century, the city has become an intellectual, technological, and political center." - hasn't this always been the case?
    • "and was ranked the 99th most expensive major city in the world in a 2008 survey of 143 cities" - this can be updated
    • "Owing to its early founding, Boston is very compact." - seems something of an over-statement given that Boston has suburban sprawl, and isn't terribly compact compared to many cities in Europe, Asia and the Middle East
    • "is one of the very few in the country so pure as to be exempt from federal filtration requirements" - is 'exempt' the right word here? (which suggests its explicitly excluded) - 'not subject to' or similar might be better
    • "Fog is somewhat common" - 'somewhat common' seems contradictory
      • Done. 05:18, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
    • Classified as an Alpha-global city by GaWC studies, Boston is placed among the top 30 cities in the world - there are lots of different city indexes, and it's not sensible to just pick out one. Boston does generally rank highly in these indexes, but its position varies.
    • "Tourism comprises a large part of Boston's economy, with tourists spending $7.9 billion in 2004" - this should be updated, and seems to warrant more than just a sentence (eg, what share of these tourists are domestic and international, and what do they travel to see in Boston?).
      • The tourism passage in the "Economy" section is meant to mention the economic impact of tourism on Boston's economy. It is not meant to discuss what these tourists are visiting (which can be found in the "Culture" section). Nevertheless, the economic impact in dollars has been updated. PentawingTalk 05:18, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Nick-D (talk) 04:00, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Images - already improved, just some more quibbles:

Transportation - Looking through "transportation":

  • air travel seems underrepresented with just 1 line of text.
  • the Port of Boston (or other nearby sea ports) should be briefly mentioned, even if it is technically outside the city proper.
    • See above comment pertaining to the air travel section. 04:02, 4 March 2013 (UTC)
  • Bicycling, with a commuting percentage of just 2 percent, is given undue weight and too many details.

GermanJoe (talk) 10:03, 1 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Citation cleanup - Some "old" references seem to be no longer used and should be moved to "Further reading", if they are no longer directly needed. The sources in question are: Boston (1909), Downst (1916), Gershkoff (2004), Harris (1999), Jones (1975), Seasholes (2003), Shand-Tucci (1999), Snow (1828), Vanderwarker (1982). I would move them myself, but maybe some of them are still useful for inline-citations. By the way, you can install this great script User:Ucucha/HarvErrors.js to see such citation problems highlighted in red in the article. GermanJoe (talk) 07:59, 5 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment this article came a long way and is undoubtedly much better now as result of the FAR. All highly visible issues I raised initially have been solved. Thanks to Pentawing for his very hard work. There are surely some small issues left and some structural Wikipedia-wide issues as well.

Minor issues:

  • Lead: " population of 626,000 in 2011 according to the U.S. Census". That cannot be correct as the Census was in 2010, so 2011 figures must be projections
  • Climate: text indicates "The city averages 42.5 inches (1,080 mm) of precipitation a year". But the table shows 43.7 (1,110).
  • Demographics: "median income for a family was $61,035. Males had a median income of $52,544 versus $46,540 for females". This doesn't make sense to me. If individuals earn almost as much as families, it would imply that most Bostonians are single. The reference indicates "Per capita income of $33,158" so the second sentence is certainly wrong.
    • The income data came directly from the US Census Bureau. However, the passage concerning male and female workers has been specified as being directed to "full-time year-round" as opposed to all workers (which include part-time seasonal). PentawingTalk 05:49, 7 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Government: Voter registration figures in the table are 2008, but the rest of the section already refers to 2012 election outcomes.
  • Transport: "Nicknamed "The Walking City" [...] 13% of the population commutes by foot, making it the highest percentage of pedestrian commuters in the country out of the major American cities". It should be specified that this is 2000 data, and what major city means (population above 250K, 500K ?). There is also more recent data available showing 14% for 2009.
  • Further reading: could the four volumes of Memorial History of Boston be simply placed into one line? Also the publication year for vol.1 is unlikely to be later than for vol.2.
  • External links: duplicate link to Vikivoyage, both inline-link and a link in the box
link to "Open Space Plan 2002–2006" seems aleatory. Surely there are dozens of council policies equally relevant.

Wikipedia-wide issues:

  • Stuff inclusionism, in particular towards the bottom of the article is a general problem: we have 9 navbars, 5 portals, 25 further readings,
  • Postcard style image in the infobox. I find these unattractive, pushing important info down the screen and the individual images always end up being duplicated in the article anyway. My preference is for a simple skyline or aerial image, but understand consensus might differ.
  • Demographic history: I think a graph would be much more useful than an endless table, but again this is probably not yet a commonly accepted standard at FAs

In any case I am satisfied with the progress, and it will be up to the FA director, or his delegates to close or further pursue this FAR. -ELEKHHT 07:53, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sports - merged and checked (assuming the core data was OK) the list of sport clubs and moved the result to "Sports in Boston". Keeping such lists in two articles just makes one redundant and maintaining the data more difficult. GermanJoe (talk) 08:48, 6 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Another issue within the demographics section: "But as of 2010, in part due to the housing crash, as well as increased efforts to make more affordable housing more available the minority population has rebounded. This may also have to do with an increased Latino population and more clarity surrounding U.S. Census statistics, which indicate a Non-Hispanic White population of 47 percent (some reports give slightly lower figures)." I find the statement given, highly speculative and poorly referenced, and I think it could have been worded better anyway. Grrahnbahr (talk) 20:08, 16 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment (status) - all my previous comments have been adressed, mostly thanks to Pentawing's edits and cleanup. Considering this is a 2007 article promoted under a vastly different mindset, i see no major outstanding concerns. More minor polishing is always possible with regular talkpage activity. GermanJoe (talk) 13:26, 18 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

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

Removed status

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

The article was removed by User:Dana boomer 13:54, 21 March 2013 [2].

Halloween II (1981 film)

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Review commentary

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Notified: Fuhghettaboutit, WikiProject Film

This article has problems. IMDB is used as a reference. I'm not convinced that the HalloweenMovies.com is reliable. More than one non-free image is used, but I'm not thoroughly convinced that either File:HalloweenII title.jpg or File:HalloweenIIscreencap.jpg is necessary. George Ho (talk) 17:45, 30 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • This article underwent the FAC process in May 2006, and I believe that the process has become more stringent since then. I searched for Halloween II in WorldCat.org, and it looks like this covers the film and is not referenced here. There is also this that covers the film in part, but it is newer and can be excused. From what I can tell, there are not any books about this film and not too many specific chapters about the film. Seems like content is piecemeal, and I think there are probably more print sources covering different parts of the film. One can tell that whoever worked on this article had to work with what was available online, either originally or re-printed from periodicals. Erik (talk | contribs) 20:52, 30 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agreed, the sources let it down, and I doubt it would pass FA now. That said, I wouldn't support the removal of the halloweenmovies.com interviews from the article, though IMDB should certainly be replaced. --xensyriaT 09:10, 31 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Featured article criteria mentioned in the review section include referencing and images. Dana boomer (talk) 23:49, 24 February 2013 (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 not promoted by User:Nikkimaria 08:37, 16 March 2013 [3].

Gregorian chant

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Review commentary

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Notified: Antandrus, Makemi, Martinuddin, WP Songs, WP Middle Ages, WP Christian music, WP Lutheranism

I am nominating this featured article for review because it is significantly under-referenced, with many sections and paragraphs being partially or completely unreferenced. This is the most major issue, with one section having a references-needed banner that has been present for almost two years. Other issues include:

  • The external links section needs a trim, and possible merging with the "learning resources" section.
  • The very short "Miscellaneous section" should be integrated with one of the other sections.
  • 21st century section is basically a non-bullet point pop culture section, and completely unferenced.
  • There is one dead link tag that should be addressed.
  • What is Ref #55 ("Gregoriaans ritme. Dutch Wikipedia contribution by Dr. Dirk van Kampen.")?
  • Ref #53 (Dirk van Kampen) and #56 (Chris Hakkennes) need page numbers
  • Book ref formatting is all over the place - different page number formats, with/without book title, full info in notes for some and references for others, etc.

The lack of referencing is the most pressing issue, as I said above, but the other issues also need to be addressed. Dana boomer (talk) 14:24, 24 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

JJ98 (Talk / Contribs) 08:50, 25 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Very nicely written article, but does need additional referencing. This subject isn't my forte and the primary editors that brought this article to FA have apparently been inactive for some time. The issues covered in this article aren't of a controversial nature so delisting due to the issues listed above seems a shame. I can't see the urgency for this FAR though I concur that additional referencing should be added. Has anyone tried to reach out to the primary authors via email to inform them of this FAR?--MONGO 01:26, 26 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure why we would use e-mail? Three of the four most frequent contributors are still active, and have been notified on their talk pages, per the guidelines. Also, there is no "urgency" to the FAR - it's just a FA from 2006 that has yet to be re-reviewed, has had a major cleanup banner for two years, and had a talk page notification made over a week ago with absolutely no response; that's not exactly a quick-moving process. Dana boomer (talk) 11:54, 26 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • It has been about three weeks since the last comment here, and the only changes to the article have been minor formatting and one typo fix. I don't see a concerted effort to improve it. Such swaths of unreferenced material are a serious issue. Chris857 (talk) 02:55, 18 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • *bump* Its been over two weeks since the last comment, and we have seen the addition of one interwiki link and some minor formatting that does nothing to improve the issues outlined. Chris857 (talk) 20:49, 16 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Featured article criteria mentioned as issues in the review section include sourcing, images and MOS compliance. Dana boomer (talk) 00:14, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Gimme, I'm still seeing extensive unreferenced information, a cleanup banner, etc. Are you still planning to work on the article? It looks from the history like you encountered some resistance when you attempted to work on cleanup in late December/early January... Dana boomer (talk) 21:58, 9 February 2013 (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:Dana boomer 10:27, 2 March 2013 [4].

Tropical Storm Erick (2007)

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Notified: myself, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tropical cyclones

I am nominating this featured article for review because I was the article's creator, writer, primary editor, and FA nominator, and the novelty of being responsible for writing the shortest FA in history has worn off. The article has slowly been hacked away at in the past several years due to increasingly strict weather-related article information-inclusion standards, and it can no longer, by any stretch, be called my best work or the project's best work. Most of the tropical cyclones project has long been in favor of merging the article, and as soon as this is demoted, I intend to act on that proposal, so I ask that this process by hastened a bit. Thanks all. Juliancolton (talk) 03:02, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

As a member of the project (and longtime proponent of merging), I support everything JC said above. There's nothing that can't be merged into the season article, and the article is so short that it shouldn't be featured. --♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 03:05, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
If there's established consensus for a merge, the article doesn't need to go through the full FAR process. Maybe we can leave it up here for a week or so, just to see if there are any comments from outside parties? After that, you can go ahead and perform the merge, and then one of the delegates can do the "paperwork" for the technical delisting. Dana boomer (talk) 17:02, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Juliancolton. Also, based on the length of this section, an article for Erick is not necessary.--12george1 (talk) 17:43, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
While I still oppose a merge, I understand where JC is coming from. Unfortunately, many people have decided to trim down the article, and a combination of high standards for the project (which I to some extend agree with) since TAWX's Darby article in late 2010 that was later merged. Over the next month or so, there was a push to merge many articles such as Hurricane Claudette (1991); however, many of the articles were low quality, and I supported most of them. Since then, I've tried to prevent it from getting out of hand; however, after this and to a lesser extent this, I've decided fighting over 500 word articles was not worth the trouble, and nothing was getting done, and instead, focus on actually building an encyclopedia, not debating on whether content should be moved. As said, I still want the article to be kept, but if it means fighting tooth and nail over it, I may or may not be okay with seeing the article go if it means keep peace and allowing us to focus on more important storms. I've long suspected that some users (not you Hink) have been trying to merge articles so this article is more of an outlier, and so it gets merged. YE Pacific Hurricane 17:55, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The high standards that you talk about are just avoiding trivia (like naming, ACE, saying "the storm did not affect land"), and not having an excessively long meteorological history for a storm that wasn't meteorologically significant. --♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 18:04, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

OK, Julian, since there appears to be a consensus for a merge, why don't you go ahead and implement it. Just drop a note here when you're done, and Nikki or I will take care of the technical stuff with the FAR. Dana boomer (talk) 21:26, 27 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It is done. TropicalAnalystwx13 (talk) 00:47, 28 February 2013 (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 not promoted by User:Dana boomer 16:06, 1 March 2013 [5].

Turkish language

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Review commentary

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Notified: WikiProject Turkey, WikiProject Languages

I am nominating this featured article for review because...

  • ... it hasn't had one in the more than five and a half years since it was promoted,
  • the three editors responsible for getting it to FA have all left Wikipedia in that time, leaving it vulnerable to vandalism and general neglect,
  • it already shows some signs of slipping, such as the poor layout in the first section and some uncited bits at the end of paragraphs. Compared to Swedish language, the other language FA, there has been some definite decline.
  • In a week since I posted about this on the talk page there has been neither a response there nor any non-bot edits to the article.
  • It may be salvageable, but I'm not the one to do it. Daniel Case (talk) 21:02, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • The rationale seems a little vague to me. I don't know how one would practically address what seems to be a fairly general concern that the article may have deteriorated because of lack of attention.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 21:14, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Well, isn't this about looking for ideas? It's a politically sensitive enough article that it's semi-protected; without addressing this now there will be less room for debate on a future review. Daniel Case (talk) 23:32, 7 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
One user has begun adding unsourced and poorly sourced material to the article so maybe it is justified after all. Unfortunately I have neither the expertise or interest to save this article from being demoted.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:55, 15 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Featured article criteria brought up in the review section include referencing and structure. Dana boomer (talk) 23:51, 26 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The only concrete concern you had was poor layout in the first section which I fixed weeks ago, and uncited material which you didn't specify well enough to be actionable. If you had given concrete concerns it might have been possible for someone to address them.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 13:03, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry I hadn't noticed the photo issue had been resolved, Good work.

However, there is now so much uncited in the article (particularly the later sections) that I have given up adding {{fact}} tags to it, and I think it needs a {{refimprove}} banner. My opinion is even firmer than it was that this no longer meets the criteria.

I also don't see the need for that long poetry sample at the end. Daniel Case (talk) 05:26, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think the poetry sample is good and important. So is your point with the references that the referencing standard for FAs has risen since the article promoted or that the article has deteriorated? The refimprove banner doesn't help anyone unless they can also see where you believe references may be needed.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 09:19, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I put a batch of tags in the article last night; perhaps I should put a section banner in.

My point was that it seems that there seems to me to be even more unreferenced material now than when I first brought this article here.

As for the poetry sample, it would certainly be relevant to an article about Turkish poerry; I fail to see what point it makes about the language as a whole that it requires including the entire poem. Daniel Case (talk) 15:24, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum: OK, I see that the article on Swedish has a sample too. However, I a) note that it's much shorter, and doesn't include IPA and b) I question the need for a sample at all given that any decent article on a language would have more than enough samples included in its examples demonstrating grammar, syntax etc. that have the additional benefit of directly demonstrating what is described in the text.

Just because our only two FAs on languages have sample sections does not mean that all our articles on languages should have one. Daniel Case (talk) 15:34, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The article is about a language, being able to read a coherent text in the language is an illustration equivalent to having a picture of a the empire state in an article about that building or a map in an article about a geographic location. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:31, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
See my response above, which actually seemed to have anticipated your response before the edit conflict. Daniel Case (talk) 15:34, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The addition of IPA in this article is an improvement relative to the Swedish article because it includes pronunciation help. Swedish and Turkish are not the only two featured articles on languages - Nahuatl also includes a text sample. Mayan languages doesn't because it is abotu an entire language family. And no that doesn't mean that all article on languages have to - but it means that your point that is it superfluous is unjustified. It is just an "I dont like it" argument. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:38, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry; when I had originally searched for other language FAs while I was doing peer review on American Sign Language, I only found two in the index that seemed from their names to be about specific languages. I missed Nahuatl because it doesn't end in "language". My bad.

Still, though, I believe I gave a lot more reasons for not having one than your characterization of my response would allow. I do not see what encyclopedic purpose a long text sample by itself serves, particularly when it is presented entirely without context (granted, this is not the case with the Nahuatl article).

Now, granted, especially with the IPA included, it might make more sense if it was also accompanied by an audio file of a native speaker reading that text (There is no audio in that article, but then there's not in a lot of our language articles). Daniel Case (talk) 15:59, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree, as do apparently most of the authors and reviewers of FA language articles.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 16:08, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Disagree with which of my assertions above? That without context it's pointless? Or that it would be better with a sound file? Daniel Case (talk) 17:43, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
With this: "I do not see what encyclopedic purpose a long text sample by itself serves". Of course it would be better with a recording but that is not the standard in language articles. To my knowledge no language articles have actual sound samples. Yes it would be good if they did, but it is not currently feasible.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:46, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, it's quite feasible to record something, convert to .ogg, upload to Commons, and put it in the article. I've done this with videos ... audio shouldn't be a problem.

However, we're sort of losing the point here because the lack of an audio file really wasn't the issue. Daniel Case (talk) 22:55, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What I meant is that it's not feasible to make it the standard for language articles, because it is not very easy to find speakers of most of the world's languages.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 00:21, 5 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
True, but there's a difference between a language spoken by a few hundred on some remote island and a language with over 60 million native speakers spread over a large area. Daniel Case (talk) 21:35, 5 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the underreferencing (even if present when the article was promoted) is a serious threat to retaining this article as FA. I have asked two people from my university that work with Turkish, and while one refused, the other agreed to provide references at least for the stress part. Maybe even more, we shall see. I just want to suggest not to close FARC to quickly. Time goes WAY too fast on Wikipedia. G Purevdorj (talk) 15:22, 12 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A short FAR of my own
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Comparing the versions of 2007 and today:

(improvement) Speaker number is addressed much more carefully in the disinformation box.
(detoriation) Use of honorifics plays a too prominent role in the lead.
(detoriation) Sentence about Tonyukuk is clumsily worded.
(equal) The paragraph starting with “The past few decades ...” is unsourced. This was already the case when the article was promoted. The same holds for the next paragraph.
(equal) Content and quality of the article up to but not including “Dialects” are roughly equivalent.
(arguably improved) The dialect part was somewhat improved, even if the list style information in the latter part of the chapter is a bit overburdening. (One might consider getting it into another article and summarizing it on the basic of linguistic features. But in any case, even the preceding text has been slightly improved, so there is no decrease in quality.)
(arguably equal) The phoneme status of soft g was discussed in a problematic manner in the first article, but the revision has yielded in inconsistent wording. The source is accessible, though, so this can probably be amended.
(deotiation) The wording in the last paragraph of the consonant section (“When a vowel ...”) is a bit redundant; it could be shortened to two sentences.
(arguably detoriated) “Consonant voicing and devoicing” is a useful short new section, but it fails to be integrated with what is mentioned in the preceding paragraph. It also confusingly talks about “letters” where one might expect a discussion of phonemes/allophones.
(detoriated in one respect, improved in one respect) The unsourced addition (“However, ...”) in the “Vowels” section should be sourced or deleted. (The same section has gained a source, though, rendering it approximately equivalent with the previous version.)
(improved) A useful comment on the accusative has been added to the nouns section, and new examples have been added to the ev table (still unsourced and as a paradigm of a major language probably even not requiring a source)
(improved notably) The grammar section has overall been expanded, and the expansions are sourced and concern issues that merit to be mentioned.
(equal) Vocabulary section basically unchanged.
(improved) The writing system section has been somewhat expanded. One may argue that this can be put shorter or that the new length is better. In any case, adding a picture here (as language articles tend to have comparatively little of such supporting materials) seems a very good idea. The new examples are also helpful.

Summarizing, while a few minor edits are in place, the article has slightly improved compared to May 2007. The article should clearly be kept. I also want to express my concern here that a FARC such as by Daniel Case who relegates the actual reviewing work to others or (even worse) delists an article without recourse to article-internal facts unfairly shifts the burden of proof against good articles. The burden should be with the reviewer. And unless he can provide any real evidence (that would have to argue that even the 2007 article did not meet current Wikipedia standards for FAs), he has both failed to demonstrate that the article detoriated or that it didn't meet FA criteria in the first place.

  • Keep.

G Purevdorj (talk) 18:20, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

  • My decision to vote delist does not by any means mean that the article will be delisted. Please try harder to understand this process before you comment. Other editors would have to agree with me that it had declined sufficiently for that to happen. We do have to have consensus.
  • I assume you meant that I was relegating the actual work of restoring the article to others. As I freely admitted, I don't have the expertise. But I did have some concerns that this had to be at least reviewed because it seemed to have declined, not least because the three editors who developed it to FA and looked after it have all left Wikipedia. I provided some evidence that it might have indeed suffered, especially compared to Swedish language, currently our only other language FA. The burden of proof always rests with those who would have an article kept.
  • The article could indeed be found to up to 2007 standards but not today's, and thus delisted. Consensus can change. Daniel Case (talk) 05:14, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
See above, as well. The article has a great deal of unreferenced material. Daniel Case (talk) 05:26, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I think that Purevdorj makes good points. And think he also meant reviewing since your initial comments didn't constitute an actual review, but just a very general statement of opinion about the state of the article. I also think he makes a good point that overall the article has in fact improved since its initial promotion.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 09:24, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
As I said above, I disagree. No article with as much uncited material as I found last night would make it through FAC today. Or even in 2007. Daniel Case (talk) 15:24, 4 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delist. Purevdorj, it really doesn't matter when the article was promoted, or what the standards were at the time, or whether the article has deteriorated or improved since its promotion. There are only two questions whose answers are relevant here: Does the article meet today's standards? Is this article an example of Wikipedia's best work? I am inclined to say "No" to both for all of the following reasons:

  • There is a ton of unsourced material throughout the article. In some cases, entire subsections are devoid of citations.
  • Many of the book sources provided do not give page numbers, which makes it difficult for the reader to verify the material.
  • Why is there a Notes section with only one footnote when the Citations section also has several non-citation footnotes? This is bad organization.
  • What is the distinction between sources which are fully cited in Citations versus those which are fully cited in References and then referred back to in Citations? Again, bad organization.
  • "Work is currently in progress" See WP:ASOF
  • "This example is of course contrived" See MOS:OPED

--Cryptic C62 · Talk 02:35, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with citation style and referencing problems. tons of is exaggerated, but still. (Note that is is not me but the original reviewer who ought to have come up with this criticism.) Two hours by a specialist editor could do the trick. As I am not an expert on this and it seems that I cannot find suitable editors either. Trying to fix everything myself would take more time than I want to use. So procede as you like. G Purevdorj (talk) 09:14, 24 February 2013 (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 not promoted by User:Dana boomer 16:06, 1 March 2013 [6].

Detroit

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Review commentary

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Notified: WP United States, WP Cities, WP Michigan and WP Detroit

I am nominating this featured article for review because... It's completely one-sided. It was promoted to FA in 2006, and offered then quite a neutral view of the place. Since then, several less-than-perfect aspects have been made to disappear, and criticisms have been archived with the issues raised left unresolved.

Examples from the first quarter of the 2006 article :

"Detroit's crime rate has created international notoriety and a tarnished reputation. The city continues to struggle with the burdens of racial disharmony between itself and its suburban neighbors, and an antiquated economy."
"The 1960s and 1970s saw the rise of heroin, and a crack cocaine epidemic. Drug-related property crimes and violence among competing drug dealers rose, and urban renewal efforts led to the razing of abandoned homes."
"The National Institute for Literacy declared in 1998 that 47% of Detroiters were "functionally illiterate.""

All of these statements were, as of 2006, properly sourced, as befit a FA. You'll find none of these in the current page, obviously biased, strongly in favor of an idyllic view of Detroit.

Such criticism has been made on the talk page, in August, then again in November : these comments disappeared from the talk page (left in a pristine condition...), archived without being answered.

As of today, I don't think the article is worth its FA-status anymore. Esprit Fugace (talk) 10:41, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The instructions about who to notify are at WP:FAR; please do so, or post to WT:FAR asking for help. I see talk page issues going back more than a month, so I suppose we can consider instructions were met, even though Esprit Fugace did not raise FAR at article talk first. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:15, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Done (I think). Esprit Fugace (talk) 20:24, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The top contributors who are still active could also be notified. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:16, 28 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment – I briefly scanned through the article and saw that some unreferenced content has snuck into the article, which should be cleaned up one way or another (by adding citations or removing the content). The article isn't unsaveable by any means, so if an interested editor has the time and inclination to add sources, I think this could be salvaged. As for the nominator's comments, the literacy rate is over a decade out-of-date and new figures should be found if a figure is to be added for the purpose of commenting on Detroit in 2013. I haven't read the article thoroughly, and consequently can't give a solid opinion on whether POV issues exist. Giants2008 (Talk) 01:09, 11 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Featured article criteria discussed above include referencing and NPOV. Dana boomer (talk) 13:30, 12 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Notifications still not done. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:20, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I *did* warn Thomas Paine of this FAR, he's the only one in the top 10 who edited the article in the last two months. It wouldn't have taken longer for you to do it in the first place rather than point the lack, check (as such), and then feel self-righteous about it. You're on your turf, I'm merely passing, I only came out of courtesy because on fr.wp DidierC mentioned that his attempt to amend just a tad the obvious bias in the article had been reverted, and has been advised to take the matter to the media, who might appreciate a lead about it. I thought it a bit extreme and wanted to try something a bit less drastic, keeping it in the community. Have it your way, I'm done here. Esprit Fugace (talk) 23:26, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. No warrant for nomination. The article is one of the best and most referenced city articles. Show us a city article that is better in order to discuss it. Of the items mentioned, the only cited one, Forbes discredited the source of the original literacy report.Thomas Paine1776 (talk) 19:16, 13 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm of two minds here. The statement by the nominator is akin to a withdrawal, and I'm not happy with how the whole nomination went down, from not notifying the primary contributors immediately to never posting on article talk as the instructions call for. On those grounds, I think a delegate could justify declaring the whole FAR out of process. On the other hand, I still think the level of citation could use some work; in particular, I see a lot of uncited items in the topography and college sections. If comparisons are sought, Istanbul and Dorset are two FAs passed recently that seem to have more thorough referencing. Giants2008 (Talk) 03:14, 3 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove FA Status. I will say what I already said on the article's talk page: "This article manages to take the small and scattered bits of semi-good news about Detroit and combine them to make it sound like Detroit is doing better than ever. The decline of Detroit's economy, population, and overall well-being has been by far the most important theme of Detroit's history in the past several decades, and this article needs to speak of it. Until that happens, this article's FA status needs to be removed." I will throw NPOV out there as reason for removal of FA status, as this article gives extremely disproportional weight to the idea that Detroit is doing well. Other than that, I also see a lot of uncited material. --Philpill691 (talk) 22:57, 6 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Demote. The article fails to adequately cover essential themes of the topic, specifically the decline of a once-great city. I see boosterism from Thomas Paine1776 as the stumbling block to improvement. I see nobody stepping forward to make the required changes.
    Note that the 2006 FA version was decidedly more truthful than what we see here now. It discussed how "Detroit leads the nation in terms of declining urban population" and how "Detroit's crime rate has created international notoriety and a tarnished reputation". It discussed "racial disharmony", "an antiquated economy" and "budget shortfalls". Binksternet (talk) 23:42, 6 February 2013 (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 not promoted by User:Dana boomer 16:06, 1 March 2013 [7].

Chola dynasty

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Review commentary

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Notified: Wikipedia:WikiProject Middle Ages, Wikipedia:WikiProject Former countries, Wikipedia:Noticeboard for India-related topics, Wikipedia:WikiProject Tamil Eelam, Wikipedia:WikiProject Tamil civilization, User:Nmadhubala, User:Srirangam99, User:Venu62

I am nominating this featured article for review because this article had been rated FA in September 2006. Since then, the article has undergone lots of edits. The article underwent an FA-review in late 2008 and was "Kept". However, since then, I observe that plenty of additions and removals have been made. Too much unsourced and POV stuff has been added that this time around, I don't think that the article satisfies the minimum sourcing criteria. Concerns have also been frequenty raised.-RaviMy Tea Kadai 03:42, 13 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Featured article criteria mentioned as issues in the review section include sourcing and neutrality. Dana boomer (talk) 00:12, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I cleaned up the long pending POV. Checking prose. Somebody please elaborate on the sourcinng problem other than formatting (that also will be done soon). Hometech (talk) 13:26, 24 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Good to see some progress. From the talk page there is clearly an issue with nature of Chola influence/control in SE Asia. Many of the Sastri refs are doubled with more recent ones, & a long term diff over 3 years doesn't actually show much problemmatic addition to my inexpert eye. But I think access to specialized recent works such as Chopar et al will be needed to save this I think. Johnbod (talk) 20:51, 30 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
wot dat diff is i dont get. I reduced some of Sastri. Hometech (talk) 19:23, 31 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Does anyone have further comments on the current state of this article? It looks like Hometech did a good amount of work on the article - have the sourcing and neutrality concerns been addressed? Dana boomer (talk) 23:42, 26 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Neutrality is mostly done. New sources have been used, I shall try a few more. busy in real life so just a day or two more.Hometech (talk) 20:42, 30 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Delist. I see large paragraphs without citations or wikilinks (Religion section), one- and two-sentence paragraphs scattered about, and sloppy writing:

  • "Jayamkondar's masterpiece" promotional
  • "the sculptors worked with great freedom ... to achieve a classic grace and grandeur" promotional
  • "Somesvara I tried to wriggle out of Chola domination" word choice?
  • "The Western Chalukyas mounted several unsuccessful attempts to engage the Chola emperors in war and except for a brief occupation of Vengi territories between 1118–1126, all their other attempts ended in failure with successive Chola emperors routing the armies of the Chalukyas at various places in many wars." Huge sentence
  • "Despite this loss in influence and power, it is unlikely that the Cholas lost total grip of the territory around Uraiyur, their old capital, as Vijayalaya, when he rose to prominence hailed from this geographical area." Clunky use of commas, as used in this sentence, which was taken from the article, makes it very difficult, or challenging, for the reader to determine the meaning of the sentence.
  • "There is only one recorded instance of civil disturbance during the entire period of Chola reign." Why?

I could dig for more, but it wouldn't really be worthwhile until the sourcing is improved. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 02:50, 20 February 2013 (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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