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Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Archive 33

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John Herivel

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Result Archiving as a delist; several people note that the article could be renamed and would require very few changes to become a GA. The simplest path to a GA then should be to rename and renominate the article. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 07:10, 19 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(Edit · Talk · History · Watch)
(De)listing: Archive at GAR, WP:GA, T:GA#, Article talk.

Listed as a result of current GA sweep (Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force). Whilst this article meets many of the GA critera, I believe its coverage of - and focus on - its subject are questionable. The majority of the article relates to a single event in John Herivel's life (in considerable detail); further biographical information is sparse. IMO not GA standard for a WP:BIO article, but I'd like further opinions ;) EyeSereneTALK 13:30, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. I am leaning toward "Keep" as GA since the article's subject -- Herivel and his role in Cryptanalysis of the Enigma -- are noteworthy. Also, the Herivel article contains useful material not found in the Cryptanalysis of the enigma article. Majoreditor 15:12, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Would a name change+redirect be the way to go then? If a person is only notable for one thing I understand that it's difficult to write about him/her without writing about that thing, but my feeling is that this article takes it too far. EyeSereneTALK 17:56, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. (Fair warning: I'm the primary author on this one). Firstly, I don't believe there's much extra published material that could be added to give more details about John Herivel's life; the biography is "complete" in that sense, at least for the time being, although EyeSerene is quite correct to point out that it's not very detailed. And yes, the article does essentially deal with two interrelated topics at once. That was a conscious decision, and I would argue that it's not necessarily a bad approach. You could split out the article into two stubby articles, but I think it makes for a better encyclopedia article to treat both together — indeed, that's always how the topics are treated in the sources. — Matt Crypto 10:20, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist. Rename. Renominate. On very narrow grounds (for astoundingly, I enjoyed the article and under slightly different circumstances would argue for its inclusion). If the name of the article was hidden from me, and I was invited to guess what it might be, I would opt for 'Herivel's Tip'. That's what the article is about, and I do think it is important that the name of an article reflects its content. When I open a can of peas, I feel cross when I find chickpeas inside. Certainly I can settle for the closely-related legume, but the fact of the matter remains that I was misinformed; the can labeler should have taken a little bit of extra care at accurately identifying the contents. As for the closely related (and unwritten) biography of John Herivel, it would be a thin article indeed; John Herivel appears to have succeeded in conducting a quiet, uneventful life in which he has written some interesting books. So a fellow who does a neat bit pattern recognition gives rise to a Good Article on that work, and the article on his life is otherwise brief. So be it, so long as the contents of the various articles are identified in unmisleading ways. Gosgood 20:07, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Keep. I find this article to be definitely interesting. Oppenheimer only did one thing in his lfe, did he not? --andreasegde 15:00, 28 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Rename and keep - Quality wise, it's good. Although, I would like to point out that "Interesting" is not a criteria for GA. It covers the topic of Herivel's Tip very well, but there is entirely too little biographical information to consider this a biography. Lara❤Love 18:27, 28 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist, rename and renominate. This clearly isn't a biography, but what little biographical information there is may not be relevant to an article called Herivel's tip. --Malleus Fatuarum 18:42, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Rename and Keep The whole proces of delisting, re-nomming etc. is a boring exercise. Just rename the darn thing. --Ling.Nut 06:38, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • rename and keep I would concur. As a biographical article, it would fail on Broadness grounds quite handily. As a description of an historical event, it is adequate. A simple page move and rename would be sufficient to keep this on the GA list. That is not to say that Herivel himself will not someday have an article about HIM, but this one isn't it... This one is about the event and the name should reflect that. Otherwise, it seems to meet criteria quite well. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 07:25, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Conditional Keep, rename, and refocus. seems to meet the criteria, there's just a mismatch between the intended focus of the article and the actual content. Renaming and redoing a bit of the prose (mainly the lead and the after the war sections) should be enough. Mind you, this is a conditional keep.Drewcifer 08:56, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist Struck through previous vote and changed it to delist, based on the fact that nothing is being done to improve the article, as well as the discussions below. Any editors are welcome to renominate the article at GAC if the issues with focus and the article's title are eventually taken care of, but for now it looks like delist. Drewcifer 16:10, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I have some sympathy for the "rename and keep" position, but what does it actually mean? It seems to mean that keeping the article on the GA list is conditional on renaming it. Okay, so does that mean someone should close this discussion and rename the article? Would this article, in its present form (and it hasn't been edited since February!) really meet the criteria if its title were "Herivel's tip"? I don't think so: with such a title it fails at least WP:LEAD and 3b (focus), as pointed out by Malleus Fatuarum and Drewcifer. I think it would also fail 3a, as an article purely on the tip needs to provide more context about Bletchley Park and the Enigma machine, rather than essentially beginning with that fateful evening in February 1940. More on "cillies" and "bombes" would also be helpful to the reader.
As a process, GAR can only decide whether an article meets the criteria or not, and endorse keeping or delisting. So, in my opinion, "Conditional keep" or "Do X and keep" is a temporary position that reverts to "keep" if the conditions are met, and "delist" if the conditions are not met. I think that Gosgood called this one about right with his "Delist. Rename. Renominate." Only the "delist" was bolded, because that is the only decision that GAR can make: the rest is just a suggestion. It is up to individual editors to rename and renominate, because that requires work.
Of course, this is more than just a process: it also draws in a bunch of editors with a lot of GA experience, and so we can sometimes do better than just making recommendations and suggestions. In my view, if this article is not going to be delisted, one or more of us have to get stuck in and rework it. I'm tempted myself, but I thought I would raise the general question here, because this sort of GAR has arisen more than once before. Geometry guy 19:24, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I really don't think we should be in the business of renaming articles, since there's already a separate process for that, and what happens if editors disagree with us? Articles don't have to be GA's after all, so they shouldn't have to be renamed as the result of a GA/R. Homestarmy 20:01, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think you are right. Of course individual editors can rename and rework the article, but it isn't the role of this process to decide that. Geometry guy 20:19, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. There doesn't seem to be much doubt that the article as it presently stands should not be listed as a GA, and I don't think there's much doubt that simply re-naming it wouldn't make it fit the criteria either, for all the reasons stated above. Surely the only course is to delist it, work on it, and then re-nominate it? Sure, it's a nice article and very interesting, but it doesn't fit the criteria. --Malleus Fatuarum 20:10, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm inclined to agree that delisting seems to me to be the best way forward, and if some of us want to join in the effort to rename, rework and renominate, so much the better. But if the "rename and keep" folks have a strong argument against this, I'd like to hear it. Geometry guy 20:19, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Nah, that;s fine. I would endorse that move. I think it would take VERY little work to make a GA for this under Herival's tip, or whatever the new title would be, but if you want to delist it and renominate it under the new title, that seems fine. I would endorse that decision. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 05:31, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(undent) It doesn't deserve to languish in GAC for a month. If one of y'all would agree to review it immediately upon its revision, then I can accept delist, revise & renom. --Ling.Nut 05:58, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That seems to be a rather novel interpretation of the GA criteria. --Malleus Fatuarum 06:16, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Novel? Seems like excessively following the rules to me. I just said that to go along with the crowd (since I am G-guy's bad-hand sock). My real view is this: leave the GA intact. Fix the !%&?% thing. Move on. :-) --Ling.Nut 06:40, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well here's my real view. This article does not meet the GA criteria and it ought therefore to be de-listed. I fail to see the point of having any criteria at all if they're going to be ignored whenever an individual editor believes that an article is "interesting". --Malleus Fatuarum 07:25, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Principles of learning

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Result: Archiving as an endorse fail. Articles must be cited with in-line citations. bibliomaniac15 06:25, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(Edit · Talk · History · Watch)
(De)listing: Archive at GAR, WP:GA, T:GA#, Article talk.

Article was quick-failed for lack of inline citations, but there is no such requirement in either WP:GA? or WP:V. Although inline cites are commonly used, they are not always required. They are only specifically required for: "direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons" which are not applicable to this article. Many editors object to the overuse of inline cites because they are unnecessarily distracting. This article is a compilation of several public domain sources which are in general agreement on the topic, which is the practical application of the "principles of learning." Each alone supports the entire article (with the minor exception of the Navy source which omits Recency). The text of the article is mostly verbatim transclusion of the best examples and explanations from each, with some minor editing to make the presentation generic. There is no need for inline citations on each sentence to show which of the documents each came from. The article meets WP:V and should be assessed on its merits. Dhaluza 14:46, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment None of the references seem to be from educational psycologists, but instead, various parts of the U.S. federal government....? That seems very odd, especially since the lead says that education psycologists are the ones who I suppose agree about these principles of learning. Homestarmy 17:04, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse fail. The sources supplied are geared towards training, in particular training the trainer, and are at best tertiary; the article needs better quality sources. I agree with the review comment about inline citations. It is not sufficient merely to list a number of sources in a References section, unless all of the material in the article could be considered to be general knowledge and therefore not needing to be sourced. Which is not the case with this article. Much of the material could be challenged, such as the effect of stress on learning for instance. I also believe that the article is substantially incomplete, focusing as it does on teaching as opposed to learning. There is no mention of the students' learning strategies for instance, topics like distributed vs massed practice, transfer of training, promptness of feedback, learning to learn, or individual differences in learners; this is perhaps because the article seems to focus on training, as opposed to learning. There is much else that could be criticised in this article, and although it may be a reasonable start it barely scratches the surface of this topic and is unbalanced. --Malleus Fatuarum 18:25, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You are correct that the article is geared toward training--I intended that to be clear from the lead. The refs also cover student strategies, and other factors but in separate sections, so this could be covered in separate articles. This article was intended to be focused on a much narrower topic, rather than be a complete treatise on the subject of learning. Dhaluza 12:04, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reply. Then the article ought to be called the Principles of training, not the Principles of learning. But it doesn't cover either subject in sufficient detail, with sufficient references, to be listed as a GA as it stands. --Malleus Fatuarum 02:32, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse fail as failing reviewer. I no way suggested that an article must have, "inline citations on each sentence". But in general, facts must be attributed to particular sources for strong verifiability. Simply take a look at all other articles listed at WP:GA. Leaving it to readers to figure out which facts are associated with which sources is not acceptable verification for GA-class articles. Regardless, as mentioned above, the source material isn't exactly the most topically appropriate. If you don't want to use any inline citations, that's fine. But it's not Good Article class work. VanTucky Talk 18:45, 11 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If you check the history or the refs, you will see the text of each section is taken from different refs on a sentence by sentence basis, to the point that virtually each sentence would require a cite. This would be unnecessarily distracting because the refs are all in basic agreement. There are no citable facts per se, there are merely descriptions of each principle as commonly applied. I agree that inline cites are generally a good thing, and I certainly know how to use them, but I don't think they are necessary or desirable in this case. Dhaluza 12:04, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Again, if don't want them, then the article doesn't necessarily need to have inline cites. But if you want to be GA class, it must. Read the quote from the criteria provided further down. Good Articles must have inline citations. Period. VanTucky Talk 21:10, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Endorse fail Published opinion is what this article is about, and that needs citing. While such opinions may be held by those in high accademic standing, and such opinions may represent a majority opinion in the scientific and educational psychology community, they are still published opinions, and must cite where they come from. Without inline cites, it is impossible to tell which reference each idea is tied to. Also, I would agree with the above assessments over the kinds of references. I am a teacher myself, and there are GOBS of texts on this topic. This article seems to rip text from half a dozen U.S. government publications, and cites another half dozen texts. With the hundreds there are to choose from, many of which present differing ideas on these principles, I have serious concerns over broadness with this article AS WELL AS referencing. While I abhor the notion of "quick failing" an article (I have never done it, and never would) and would prefer to see reviewers take the time to leave comments necessary to improve the article to GA standards, I would endorse the failure of the article for the reasons outlined above. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 02:36, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The article does transclude text from six U.S. Government publications, the other refs are further reading, not cites. The article is not intended to be broad, it is intended to narrowly focus on the practical application of the principles, as stated in the lead. Dhaluza 12:04, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse fail. To quote from GA criterion #2, a Good Article "at minimum, provides in-line citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged." The article in question lacks any in-line citations, which means that it fails. Sorry. Majoreditor 14:07, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse fail without any citations, I have no idea of how accurate this article is or upon what basis the editors used to write it. The principles may be accepted, or they may not be, how do I know? Because the article claims it is so? But doesn't back it up. Are these views universally held or accepted only by a certain segment of educational psychologist? Sorry, this article is stating as fact something that I can see groups questioning/challenging. As such, it needs citations.Balloonman 20:18, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Eva Perón

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Result: Keep the article as a GA.Yamanbaiia (talk) 16:48, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(Edit · Talk · History · Watch)
(De)listing: Archive at GAR, WP:GA, T:GA#, Article talk.

I just saw this FA in the Spanish Wikipedia and there's no comparison with this "GA". It is poorly sourced (too many references come from one book), plus it doesn't respect a lot of MOS rules. There's also too many book quotes, sometimes whole paragraphs, and too many references to "the Evita icon" in her biography section (why are Andrew Lloyd Weber's lyrics mentioned in her biography?). The GA review might have been correct a year ago but the article does no longer meet the criteria. Yamanbaiia 01:43, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep. The article certainly needs work. But I think it's a bit extreme to compare a "Good Article" to a "Featured Article," particularly when the Featured Article version is most likely written in the country of the subject where there is most likely a good deal more timely information about the subject. -- Andrew Parodi 06:33, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Note: Andrew Parodi has heavily edited the article, and he admitted to have the concerns i have today, a year ago when the article was first reviewed (see talk page). Also, a FA in the Spanish wiki is not like one over here, some of them would even be quick failed at WP:GAN. Check out this completly unsourced "FA"s: ex1, ex2, ex3.
Response: This seems to be all the more reason that comparison of the English language Eva Peron article and the Spanish language article about Eva Peron should not enter in to this particular debate. We have different standards. Also, it would be helpful if you could contribute to the article to make the improvements you see necessary. If you think the article needs to adhere to the MOS rules, please help in that regard. -- Andrew Parodi (talk) 20:21, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dodo

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Result: Keep the article as a GA.Corvus coronoides talk 22:46, 2 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(Edit · Talk · History · Watch)
(De)listing: Archive at GAR, WP:GA, T:GA#, Article talk.

I reviewed this article as part of the sweeps, and I found a few issues with it. While from a strictly technical point of view, the lead conforms to WP:LEAD, I feel like there is too much about the Dodo used in language and too little on its biological characteristics. In short, the amount of text given to certain areas of the topic in the lead is disproportionate to the amount of information in the article. Also, I feel like there aren't enough cites in the Diet, Morphology and Flightlessness, and Extinction sections. Additionally, the Dodos and Culture section seems to need to be re-worked into something resembling a paragraph. However, since from a technical point of view, this article seems to conform to WP:WIAGA, I was not sure whether or not to delist it. Corvus coronoides talk 18:19, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. I agree that there are a few issues with this article. In addition to those pointed out, the word Dodo/dodo is inconsistently capitalised throughout and there are too many unnecessary wikilinks. But overall I think it's a strong article that needs just a little bit of TLC to restore its shine. --Malleus Fatuarum (talk) 14:50, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I would say keep too, but isn't it too late? Geometry guy 19:23, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, ok, someone had to say it I guess. :) But I'm going to bring the dodo back to life – or at least I'm going to make the changes that will hopefully allow this article to keep its GA status. Maybe I feel a little bit of affinity with the dodo, but this article will lose its GA status over my dead body. (I'm not sure how to represent demonic laughter in text, so you'll have to bear with me.) --Malleus Fatuarum (talk) 20:45, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Mark Foley scandal

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Result: No consensus. Lara❤Love 03:58, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(Edit · Talk · History · Watch)
(De)listing: Archive at GAR, WP:GA, T:GA#, Article talk.

I believe this article was unfairly failed due to "stability" issues, when the article itself has barely been edited in the past few months. I feel it is a Good Article. FamicomJL 22:59, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Renominate. I suggest that this article should be re-nominated. I really don't see much wrong with it. --Malleus Fatuarum 00:40, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse fail. The stability issue is due to the Transwiki tag in the article. I would endorse that that entire section needs to be moved to Wikiquote or Wikisource as described in the template. The problem with stability seems to be not that the article has NOT changed, but that it NEEDS drastic changes, and a GA review should NOT be undertaken until said changes have been made. I think the reviewer needed to explain that better, but the Transwiki should be completed before a proper GA review should be done since that changes that will make to the article will be significant. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 03:04, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Egads, I wish I hadn't read that. Disgusting. well, you can say Renominate or you can say Endorse fail, either way you wanna cut the cake.. but this shouldn't be GA until after the transwiki issues are cleaned up for sure. I think it should be sent through WP:LoCE as well... but a lot of work has been poured into this article; that much is abundantly clear. --Ling.Nut 04:22, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
..and OH PS I sympathize with those who brought this into GAR; the review was unusually cryptic. But still not GA time for this one yet. --Ling.Nut 04:25, 8 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Renominate It seems stable, the removal of a "Message excerpts" section won't drastically change the article. There are too many of those text message quotes anyway, they're removal will only be for the better.Yamanbaiia (talk) 13:45, 19 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Marsileaceae

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Result: No consensus. However, it is recommended that the article be renominated at GAC. Lara❤Love 04:01, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(Edit · Talk · History · Watch)
(De)listing: Archive at GAR, WP:GA, T:GA#, Article talk.

Failure to use a specific template is not the same as failure to produce a broad article. The specified template is a guideline used by WP:PLANTS for species pages. It is in no way a straightjacket that all plants articles must meet. Many articles do not follow that "standard" template, and many should not follow that template. The Marsileaceae is one such article because a) it is not about a particular plant, b) it is not a plant that is cultivated except in specialized botanical gardens, so the "cultivation" section wouldn't apply, c) it does not have economic uses, except for occasionally substituting four four-leaf clover, which is hardly deserving of an entire "Uses" section. In short, the "broad coverage" criterion was misapplied by the reviewer. It means '"broad coverage", not "specific format". EncycloPetey 04:42, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Endorse fail The article has two inline cites (not none as noted by the reviewer) however, some additional references seems to be required by the scientific citation guideline, which asks for specific citation for statements such as these: :*"In all, the family contains 3 genera and 50 to 70 species with most of those belonging to Marsilea." Statistics need citations always.
  • "The majority of species (about 45 to 65) belong to the genus Marsilea, which grows world-wide in warm-temperate and tropical regions." Again, contains a statistic that needs a reference.
It is understood that SCG has different citation requirements than do other citation guidelines, but there still are some citation requirements.
Also, the broadness criteria seems to not be met. It was not the use of a specific template (in the Wikisense) that the reviewer objected to, it is that the article does not adequately address all major aspects of the topic. While a GA does not require the depth of coverage that an FA does, it does require that there be no major omissions. For example, the ecology (such as relation to other species/relation to its environment) is not covered. Also, no information is given on human interaction with this class of life, such as uses of these plants, or perhaps how these plants are cultivated(if useful) or controlled(if pest). Based on these shortcomings, it looks like a fail was an appopriate act to take. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 05:23, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The citations criticism is accepted and has been corrected. However, please note that the ecology/human interactions criticism is inappropriate. There are about 350,000 species of plants, and for most of those species little or nothing is known of how they interact with other species, and most plants have no human uses. Requiring an article to say "nothing is known of the ecology and there are no uses" imposes an unmeetable criterion, since such a statement would require a citation, and no such citation will exist when no such information has been published! It is a catch-22 to require an article to contain original research in order to meet "good article" status. The broadness criterion only requires known and published information to be covered, not unknown, unpublished information. If the information is so obscure that it is not published in books or articles about the plants, why should lack of that information in the article be a hurdle to receiving "good article" status? These plants are not cultivated, controlled, or used (beyond the little blurb in the article). In fact most of the world's 350,000 species of plants are not cultivated, controlled, or used by humans.
And you are mistaken about the reason for failure. The reviewer said: "This template contains numerous section topics not addressed by the article, hence the failure of broad coverage of the subject." The reviewer specifically failed the article for not including information she assumed should be in the article, whether or not that information actually exists, basing her decision solely on the misapplication of an inappropriate criterion: the WP:PLANTS template. The template does not apply to larger groups of plants and was never meant to be applied that way. It is merely a guideline, intended for use on pages covering a single species of plant, or in some cases a genus. It was never intended to apply to pages that cover larger groups of many disparate species, such as this article on a fern family. The broad coverage criterion is being misapplied. --EncycloPetey 12:52, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Return to GAN The article appears to have addressed the citation issues. Also, I can understand and accept the above arguement for broadness requirements. It is my opinion that the best course of action now is to seek an additional full review, by returning this to GAN. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 16:22, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Opinion only I was the original reviewer and failed the article for lack of broad coverage, citing the non-adherence to the plants template. Not that the template should have been followed to the letter, but it raised plenty of questions for me about broad coverage, that's all. Contrast the sections in this article with those in Fabaceae, also a family-level article, which has sections on taxonomy, description, uses, images, refs and sources. FWIW. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mmoyer (talk • contribs) 23:28, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    That's not a fair comparison. Fabaceae is the bean family, one of the largest, most diverse, and most economically important groups of plants on Earth. It includes over 600 genera and more than 16,000 species, with countless crops (peanuts, peas, lentils, clover, etc.) and a large number of kinds of trees. By comparison, the Marsileaceae is a group of small aquatic ferns with at most 70 species in 3 genera, and no economically important crops come from the group. Equivalent rank (family) in a classification does not indicate anything about the relative size or economic importance; it is merely a scientific label. One plant family may include only a single obscure species of liverwort with no economic or horticultural relevance, while another may have thoudands of members familiar to people all over the world. Compare for example Takakiaceae and Poaceae. --EncycloPetey 01:12, 1 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - it seems to me that some of the items in the reference list (eg. Campbell, Gifford, Kenrick, Lellinger, Moran, Smith Pryer and Schuettpelz, and Taylor and Taylor) aren't being used to reference anything in particular, but are more 'general knowledge'? -Malkinann (talk) 05:03, 19 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    It looks that way only because the in-line citations aren't in place. Each article or reference was used for specific information in the article. --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:26, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    Would it be possible (assuming books haven't gone back to the library, etc.) for you to make these references inline? ie. This came from Campbell, this from Gifford etc.) Just in the same way as the other citations. Page numbers are desireable for books, and how to put page numbers in is shown at {{Harvard citation}}. -Malkinann (talk) 20:44, 27 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, easily, and I expect to do so over Christmas break (provided I remember or am reminded, I'm involved in a lot of Wiki-work right now). All those resources are either available on-line or are in my library (as a volume or a copy). --EncycloPetey 20:39, 2 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Barbara Gordon

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Result: No consensus. Lara❤Love 04:03, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(Edit · Talk · History · Watch)
(De)listing: Archive at GAR, WP:GA, T:GA#, Article talk.

As per my peer review at Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics/Peer review/Barbara Gordon, this is not a good article. It is far too excessively focused on the minutiae of DC comics trivia and continuity, and fails to provide an overview of its most significant claims - that Barbara Gordon, in both of her major comics incarnations, is a cultural icon in some sense. Furthermore, the article is appallingly presentist, with half of the character history being spent on the last four years of comics. The article is not a good article, and requires a thorough rewrite from first premises to become one. Phil Sandifer 14:08, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delist I would agree with the above assessment. The balance between in-universe and out-of-universe perspective is WAY off, per WP:FICT guidlines, and the article is fails the WP:WIAGA broadness guidelines in both of its sub-criteria: It ignores major aspects, as Sandifer notes above, and also delves into unnecessary details. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 00:06, 7 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment None of these issue were brought up during the original assessment, but improvements are being made to comply with this new review.Bookkeeperoftheoccult (talk) 21:17, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This was my first review ever, and even if i now see some of the issues mentioned by Phil Sandifer, i'm afraid others (like it's broadness) could only have been spotted by someone that knows a lot about comic books, i mean Phil says For a character with a 40 year publication history, it is ludicrous for almost half of the character history to focus on the last four years, heck i just though she didn't appear much early on but a lot during the last four years. By the way, Phil Sandifer appears to have retired from Wikipedia. -Yamanbaiia (talk) 23:10, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Renominate At this point all but 3 of the 13 issues mentioned in Phil Sandifer review have been corrected or are in the process of being corrected. This article should not loose its GA status.Bookkeeperoftheoccult (talk) 05:42, 24 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment What are some of the issues brought up by Phil that aren't addressed? The summary style is way off in the bottom of the article - it's poor style to have an empty section with "Main article: such-and-such". Try using the lead from the spunout article as a summary in Barbara Gordon. -Malkinann (talk) 02:04, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Reply The first image should be replaced with something more classic - preferably showing her in her wheelchair. Alternatively, as the article makes the case that her portrayal as Batgirl is what she's most known for, go with a Batgirl image - it is preferable to have the iconic versions of characters over the current ones.
This is one issue I don't agree with. The current artwork is the clearest image of BG without other characters cluttering up the image. And there is already a clear image of BG in her Batgirl persona within the article.
There's a 20 year gap in the publication history between the Batman TV series and attempts to popularize the character and Killing Joke.
While this is true, I, as of yet, have been not been able to find critical reception of the character's use in DC Comic titles between 1970 and 1988- anything added at this point would be plot summary rather than critical analysis.
All other complaints/issues in the peer review have already been corrected. And I added a summary to both "Alternate Versions" and "Media Adaptations" in the main article. Bookkeeperoftheoccult (talk) 06:40, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Thanks for that. The citations also need cleaning up... You can look at WP:CITE to see what needs doing. Like all the references in the form: "["Lady Shiva"]". ["Birds of Prey"]. etc. ISBNs would be very nice too. Web references should also have a last accessed date. -Malkinann (talk) 08:10, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Reply I've used the template from Template:Cite_episode for all for all episodes. They have been filled properly, with deleted parameters (as the template suggests) which are not needed or unavailable. As far as ISBN, I'm the ONLY person who has added them to the article, so if they aren't there (which is usually the case for individual issues rather than the collected volumes) then it means I simply can't find them. Bookkeeperoftheoccult (talk) 23:06, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Silent Hill 2

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Result: No consensus. Lara❤Love 04:06, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(Edit · Talk · History · Watch)
(De)listing: Archive at GAR, WP:GA, T:GA#, Article talk.

My third successful GA. It has, since its nomination, swelled in its plot summary and gained an OR tag. Does it just need a bit of work or should delisting be considered? Lenin and McCarthy | (Complain here) 20:01, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Conditional Keep A decent article for a great game, but there are a few things that stick out to me. First off the plot section should definitely be trimmed down. I'd say it needs to be about half of what it is now, but that's just a guesstimate. Also, there's a few instances of in-line citations having a space in between them and the sentence. It should be this,[1] not this. [2] Also the in-line citations need to be formatted consistently and need to give proper and full attribution. Some of them are all over the place. Although the Music section has a main article link, I think you should add in a bit more prose than just a single sentence. I'd also trim down the External links a bit. Also, this sentence is a bit confusing "and he has been manifested from the perspectives of the film's characters rather than that of James, as he does not appear in the film." If you can fix those things, I'd say it definitely meets GA criteria. Hopefully that doesn't seem like too much work. Drewcifer 22:56, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist Due to lack of improvement based on the above. Drewcifer 00:46, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Are you sure the version promoted meets the GA criteria? if it does you can be bold a revert back all those versions. - Caribbean~H.Q. 13:40, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I don't see how the plot is swelled. The current version of the plot is 10,1 kilobytes, reviewed version is 8,98 kb. The refs are the main reason for the increased size. --Mika1h 20:43, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Some of the sentence constructions in the plot section are troubling:
    • she has loathing for James - loathes? dislikes?
    • On their way, Maria claims to have seen Laura, and out of concern, Maria and James follow her. - Maria follows Maria?
    • After calling Laura a "liar", she runs off, - Laura calls herself a liar?
    • Pyramid Head, however, chases them and kills Maria while trying to make their escape - Pyramid Head and Maria were both trying to escape?
    • She greets him with disillusions of Mary and provocations. - James:"Hello, Maria!" Maria:"Happy disillusions of Mary, James! And merry provocations to you!"
    • After killing it, Angela becomes furious with James - Angela kills it?
    • There are probably others, I just got tired of listing them. --AnonEMouse (squeak) 14:25, 19 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist Way too much in-universe information and not enough focus on real-world notability (sales figures, influence, etc...). Needs a major trimming on the plot, endings, etc... since as it is now it veers too much toward gamecruft to be GA. Eusebeus (talk) 19:39, 19 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Goldfish

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Result: Delist. Main issue is need for further citation. Article also needs some cleanup and a copy-edit. Lara❤Love 04:10, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(Edit · Talk · History · Watch)
(De)listing: Archive at GAR, WP:GA, T:GA#, Article talk.

Poorly-written and absolutely chock-full of {{fact}} tags. Some major sections are completely uncited. VanTucky Talk 23:52, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delist I get the feeling that this used to meet criteria in its past; the first several sections are all adequately referenced and well written. The last 2/3rds of the article, however, have poor prose, and are in desperate need of citations; even beyond the fact tags are several statistics provided, as one example. All statistics need a source, per WP:SCG, the relevent guide for this article. Its a shame given the quality work done on the first 2-3 sections, but as an overall article, this is clearly below WP:WIAGA standards. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 23:59, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're completely right Jayron. I remember reading the article not too long after it passed, and it was good. The usual stewards of the article got burnt out with the large amount of vandalism that was going on for some time and left, so it's now in the sorry state you see. VanTucky Talk 00:08, 7 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
My heart aches. This one could be turned into GA by a dedicated editor. The ingredients are all there. Delist. --Ling.Nut 12:31, 7 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Stillwell Avenue

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Result Endorse fail. There has been no action on this one, and there seems no consensus at ALL to overturn.--Jayron32|talk|contribs 06:05, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(Edit · Talk · History · Watch)
(De)listing: Archive at GAR, WP:GA, T:GA#, Article talk.

I would like a second opinion on this article, based on concerns at Talk:Stillwell Avenue. Thank you.—JA10 Talk • Contribs 02:07, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Endorse fail: While the reviewers choice of words "too short" may have been a bad choice, the crux of his arguement, that the article lacks the broadness required of a GA as spelled out in WP:WIAGA seems quite accurate. The history section, for example, contains 3 unrelated facts crammed into one paragraph. 80 years of history condensed into 3 short lines does not seem to be broad enough at all. Also, the "future and culture" section? The title itself makes no sense. If both topics are to be covered, they should be part of separate sections "Future plans" and "in culture" or "culture of the street" or some such. Also, we have a superlative statement (largest subway station) that is left unreferenced. That needs referencing, as all superlatives are inherently challenegable. This seems well below WP:WIAGA standards at this time. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 02:23, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse fail. The article does not do enough to assert notability, it is not broad, the lead does not summarize it, and the prose is poor (e.g. "The road is a parallel for a short time to Henderson Walk until the intersection with Surf Avenue at .2 of a mile."). There are several minor issues that also need to be fixed, such as the simultaneous left and right images in the transportation section. Geometry guy 20:31, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse as above. When will "incredibly dull to read" be added as part of GAC? Eusebeus (talk) 19:47, 19 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    I like it! New criterion 1(c): "the article should be incredibly dull to read". I can't wait to delist some articles that are just too interesting to be encyclopedic! :-) Geometry guy 20:46, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Allegory in the Middle Ages

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(Edit · Talk · History · Watch)
Result: Delist. Geometry guy 11:04, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Has been listed as in need of citations for 11 months. As it stands, it is unsourced and reads like OR. Pastordavid 19:25, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Flag of Japan

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(Edit · Talk · History · Watch)
Result: Retain GA. Nomination retracted as the article now meets the criteria. Geometry guy 16:51, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Broad coverage & reliable sources: The article as it stands omits an extensive amount of news coverage and academic literature regarding controversy surrounding the 1999 law regarding adopting the Hinomaru (Rising Sun) as the national flag.. A school principal committed suicide & many teachers brought (ultimately unsuccessful) lawsuits against the government after the gov't ordered all school teachers etc. to fly the flag & sing the national anthem. There are also inaccuracies regarding the flag chosen to represent the period of the Allied Occupation — that flag is a naval ensign, not a national flag. There was no national flag from 1885 until 1999. Finally, the sources used are of questionable reliability & at least one key source is in Japanese. I would be happy to retract this GAR if dedicated editors would add the requisite info & references, but I'm afraid it will take more than a week to do so..Ling.Nut 12:50, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

PS: Notification left on article's talk and on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan. -- Ling.Nut 13:20, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Addendum:See sorta retraction below. Ling.Nut (talk) 16:26, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Ling.Nut. The article omits the controversial aspect of the flag. It's not just about the law mentioned by him, but, for example, the use of the flag in a graduation ceremony. While the article is lengthy, it is, in essence, a mere stub. -- Taku 13:56, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
While I agree with most of what Ling.Nut writes, having a major source in Japanese is NOT a reason to delist an article. ···日本穣? · Talk to Nihonjoe 00:58, 2 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Hi Nihonjoe, thanks for the comment. Certainly a non-English link is not in itself a reason to delist the GA, but it is another facet that needs to be improved if at all possible. The two main points for this GAR are "broadness" and "reliable sources." I question the reliability of the the English-language websites used as primary sources. And even if those are argued to be reliable, the lack of braoadness alone is cause enough for great concern (plus delisting, in my opinion). Ling.Nut 05:20, 2 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I added a section on the controversy of the national flag and dissected parts of the post-war flag section. I clearly stated in the article that it is just a civilian ensign (I had it before, but I guess I needed to make it bolder) and added some Japanese links as references. Honestly, if more Japanese links are needed, just tell me what good ones are and I will include them. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 20:20, 2 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I also began to phase out some of the FOTW links in favor of links to Japanese Government based websites. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 20:35, 2 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(Undent) Retain GA Several problems have been rectified; several of my concerns have been addressed. I'm mostly OK with this article as GA, in its newly-improved condition. Ling.Nut (talk) 16:26, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Morocco

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(Edit · Talk · History · Watch)
Result: delisted by nominator. Geometry guy 21:07, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Similar to the article below, citations are needed in:

  • Culture - no citation

Although other sections have citations (e.g. 1 or up to 2 citations), they are still extremely weak.

It seems to me these sections didn't write down anything (then why not put them to the list of " See also"?):

  • Military
  • Technology
  • Universities
  • Sports

These sections needed to be removed or re-write rather than simply putting the tables or list:

  • Affliations
  • Bilateral and multilateral agreements

References didn't follow MoS. e.g. 8-12 16-22. Coloane (talk) 06:29, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. Although this is not a complete disaster, it doesn't meet the criteria at the moment. Malkinann has copied this over to the talk page. I strongly suggest that the discussion continues there, following the guidelines "If you believe an article should be delisted". A GAR is not necessary for straightforward delisting. Geometry guy 16:43, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • If the article doesn't meet the criteria at the moment according to what you said, it should be delisted. It doesn't make any sense for the article appearing on the GA list and at the same time it doesn't meet the GA requirement. Coloane (talk) 20:34, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      I think you may have misunderstood. I am recommending that you delist the article, but I am recommending that you do it yourself rather than through GAR. I agree that articles which do not meet the criteria should not be listed on the GA page. However, it is sometimes polite to give editors a chance to fix problems before delisting, so that an article which can easily be fixed does not have to go through the severely backlogged nominations process again. It is up to you whether to delist immediately or leave comments and wait a week before delisting. Geometry guy 20:43, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • No misunderstanding. Didn't I leave a message on the talk page and notify editors that the article should be reassessed? don't you think I gave them a chance to improve the article already? by the way, this article is still on the list of GA. I didn't delist it by myself. Don't you think I am polite? Coloane (talk) 23:19, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I believe what Geometry guy is saying is that the article has either deteriorated in quality so much or didn't meet the GA criteria when it was passed, and since it is not a close call in this case, it would have been better to boldy delist the article instead of putting it through GAR. However, if you delisted the article yourself and left a message on the talk page saying if anyone disagreed, they could have taken the article here to GAR. So for this article and Papua New Guinea below, it would be better off to just boldly delist them and if anyone disagrees they can bring it up here. On the talk pages, you should state your reasons for delisting that you included here and mention to the editors of the article that they should consider renominating the article at WP:GAN once the corrections have been made. Let me know if you have any other questions about the process. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 00:08, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
OK, so I removed this article from the GA list. May I doing correctly? Coloane (talk) 04:06, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Papua New Guinea

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(Edit · Talk · History · Watch)
Result: delisted by nominator. Geometry guy 21:07, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This article needs more citations before putting back on the GA list.

  • The section of Geography - no citation is given
  • The section of Ecology - no citation is given
  • The section of Economy - no citation is given
  • The section of Land tenure - no citation is given
  • The section of Sport - no citation is given
  • The section of Religion - no citation is given

These sections do need to provide more information in order to become more comprehensive:

  • The section of Geography
  • The section of Culture
  • The section of Transport - only couple sentenses were given.

Actually they are still in a rudimentary stage and poorly organized.

The section of demographics is pretty vague. Can the editor(s) provide clear ethnics percentages (stats. or figures) that is composing the general population of Papua New Guinea? Coloane (talk) 05:29, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Speedy delist Article was passed back in mid-2006 before current standards of required inline citations. This article could even be boldly delisted for the reasons listed above. It's for articles like these that I'm glad we're doing sweeps. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 07:54, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to talk page. Rather than speedily or boldly delisting (sweeps terms), I strongly recommend delisting the article according to the guidelines "If you believe an article should be delisted" above. A GAR is unnecessary for straightforward delisting. Geometry guy 16:43, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I removed this article from the GA list, am I doing correctly? Coloane (talk) 04:07, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Characters of Carnivàle

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Result archive as PROMOTE.

(Edit · Talk · History · Watch)
(De)listing: Archive at GAR, WP:GA, T:GA#, Article talk.

I disagree with the fail (Talk:Characters_of_Carnivàle#failed_GA) in both points.

  1. The fatal flaw here is the extensive problems with WP:INUNIVERSE - If you look at e.g. the recently FA-promoted Characters of Kingdom Hearts, you see that character sections are summaries for what happened with the characters (i.e. bios). The bios of the drafts were rarely addressed in the show, so I summarized them for creation&development of the character. It's not my fault that these draft bios read like "bio[s] of a real person"; all I could do was label the sources in an out-of-universe-tone in the text ("in his original biography"), and so I did. I kept the re-iteration of what happened in the show to a minimum (a few sentence to one short paragraph), more than what other GA and FA character lists (or articles) usually do. There were 18 main characters who competed in plot attention and also in press/media attention, with thin media coverage as a result, so I summarized real-world information in separate yet in-depth sections for Casting, Make-up and costumes, and Reception at the end of the article. I already tried to present the information like the GA reviewer likely had wanted once before, but attaching two real-world-content sentences without context at the end of each character section is just plain ugly.
  2. The references - what's wrong? It's the creator of the show posting online (because that's what he did... mostly) and the show creator and actors in interviews that are hosted in blogs (because the interviewer was a fan in out-of-proportion-good contact with the creators and some actors, and she happened to publish her couple of dozens interviews in her blogs... before she organized a major fan convention that many show creators and actors attended). The show creator and the actors are reliable sources, no matter where they commented, and I would have used other/better sources if any were actually available (e.g. there were no companion books for this short-run show, there were only few DVD extras, and the media mostly focused on the show's convoluted mythology and inaccessability instead of the characters). In FAC, this would be called "non-actionable opposition".

I wouldn't mind a hold, but failing is IMO completely inappropriate. – sgeureka t•c 18:02, 4 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I hope this isn't gonna sound nasty... but... I hate to say this, but as time goes on I'm becoming less and less (and even less) impressed with arguments based on comparisons to an existing FA article, and in particular a recently-promoted one. Everyone gripes about GA being broken... well, welcome to FA, which is broken as well. Due to a lack of knowledgeable reviewers, articles can be (and are) passed on the strength of fan-club votes. I haven't delved into the names of the reviewers of FA offered as an argument above (and probably shouldn't). I'm only trying to say this: Show me a substantive argument that sets aside my concerns about WP:INUNIVERSE. Thanks! Ling.Nut (talk) 00:55, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
How do you present the content of a given biography, if not by saying, "in his original biography" and then summarizing the biography? And, as I stated above, I chose the format BIO-BIO-...-BIO-BIO-OOU-OOU...-OOU-OOU (out-of-universe) instead of BIO-OOU-BIO-OOU...BIO-OOU-BIO-OOU because it makes for a better article flow instead of a choppy mess. I feel the article violates nothing in WP:INUNIVERSE#Contextual presentation. There are also no WP:INUNIVERSE#Notability and undue weight problems. There is currently no GA list article for TV show characters (forget FAs), so it's not like there are some set precendents that I could follow, and I could only draw from FA and GA video game character lists. This article is about the characters (obviously), so I can safely skip the "X is a fictional character in Carnivàle" bit for each character section. If you feel like
Samson
  • Played by Michael J. Anderson (Seasons 1–2 main cast)
Samson, in earlier drafts also called Edgar Leiber[4] or Edgar Leonhardt,[34] is the dwarf co-manager of the Carnivàle. Per his original biography, blablabla... At the beginning of the series, blablabla...
should be written like
Samson
Samson is the dwarf co-manager of the Carnivàle. He was played by Michael J. Anderson in seasons 1 and 2 as a main character. Earlier drafts gave his full name as Edgar Leiber[4] or Edgar Leonhardt.[34] His original biography gave his background as blablabla... At the beginning of the series, blablabla...
then I consider that a personal preference of limited practicability because it makes it harder for the reader to find the actors' name, the durance of the character, and avoiding spoilers (a major issue with this show). If this doesn't convince you, I could do a rewrite in four hours. A Hold however would give me time until next Wednesday. If you want to anticipate fan-clubbish behaviour by Failing except for Holding, I'll point you to the Carnivàle FAC which actually suffered from a lack of fan-club votes. – sgeureka t•c 02:44, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse promote Or whatever the commonly accepted terminology is these days. :-) The editor has sufficiently addressed my in-universe concerns. I acknowledge that I made a mistake failing this article rather than putting it on Hold, but the mistake was an honest one: I simply thought it would take much more time to address the in-universe issues than it did. As for the weakness of the sources, I searched Google Scholar and Academic Search Premier (didn't do JSTOR; probably should have) and came with very meager pickings. This is simply the nature of the beast when working with pop culture topics. I suggest this should be promoted to GA. Ling.Nut (talk) 04:02, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Promoted - Very good article, fulfills the requirements of verification, and notability for fiction. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 22:22, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Close discussion. The reviewer, Ling.Nut has recommended promotion of the improved article (and I agree with him). I leave it to him to archive this discussion and promote the article. There has been no objection at GAR, and further messages of support are unnecessary. Geometry guy 22:46, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Percy Henn

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Result: Article renominated. Geometry guy 20:30, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Article has gone through a thorough peer review, and all points have been addressed. Failed GA back in March. This article now meets the GA criteria in my opinion. Auroranorth (!) 11:10, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If it was failed back in March, why did you bring it here instead of just renominating it? That said, the article does not appear to assert the subject's notability. -Malkinann (talk) 22:23, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't really too sure. The failer said if I wished to contest, I could take it to WP:GA/R (good article review, now good article reassessment). Auroranorth (!) 03:51, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I will readd it. Auroranorth (!) 03:52, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
How come? -Malkinann (talk) 22:50, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think you should bring it to GAN, not GAR. Personally, I agree with Majoreditor, I think it's too short and under-referenced. OhanaUnitedTalk page 05:19, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Peterborough (UK Parliament constituency)

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Result: List. Geometry guy 20:51, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Disagree with decision not to list this as a good article, as per comments at Talk:Peterborough (UK Parliament constituency)#Good article nomination (2). Chrisieboy 10:50, 4 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Weak list as GA. This is primarily a broadness issue, so the question is "how broad is broad?" My feeling is that it is just about broad enough for a GA, but here I am disagreeing with some very well qualified GA reviewers, and this is a judgement call. If some efforts were made to address the concerns of the reviewer, I would be able to recommend listing with greater confidence. Geometry guy 21:31, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • List Endorse Fail. I think the article falls down a little on broadness of coverage, most notably by its lack of a demography section. If one were to be added to the article I would change my opinion to List. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 22:13, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep List as GA as an electoral district, this seems well within "broadness" criteria. Would demography be nice? Yes. Would it be needed for an FA. Yes. Does its absence take it below GA standards? In my opinion, no. I don't think the article misses it. For its subject matter, the topic is adequately broad in my opinion. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 05:59, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. The article is about Peterborough parliamentary constituency, not the politics of Peterborough, so I think coverage is broad enough. The dynamic nature of Wikipedia and the subject-matter means that the article will continue to evolve even with GA status. Chrisieboy (talk) 12:05, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Census area statistics have now been added under Franchise. I hope this addresses the concerns raised about demography. Chrisieboy (talk) 21:00, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

York Museum Gardens

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Result: Keep. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 21:12, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
(Edit · Talk · History · Watch)
(De)listing: Archive at GAR, WP:GA, T:GA#, Article talk.

Someone promoted the article while I was reviewing it; totally my fault as I suffered immense delays. However, now I've reviewed the article, I've come to the conclusion it contains too much repetitive language (i.e. "dates back to the"). The article also suffers from bad grammar. There's so much of it, that I can't correct it all in one go. Even if I could, some of the sentences have an ambiguous meaning. The article also has some statements that while I expect they're sourced, said source isn't next to the sentence in question (and not at the end of the paragraph either). I believe this article should be delisted until it has been copyedited. -- Mgm|(talk) 20:18, 2 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

*Delist. I agree that this article ought not to have been promoted, and it is seriously in need of a thorough copyedit before it could be considered to be well-written. I've started to make corrections to it, but there are a lot still required, as Mgm suggested. I don't see anything major though, so it's quite possible that everything will be fixed before this nomination is closed, in which case I'll strike my delist and support it.--Malleus Fatuorum 23:48, 2 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I just hate to see articles that are obviously loved fail GA. But in all fairness I can't take the credit if this article manages to keep its GA listing. User:PamD put in a lot of work as well; I suspect that she may be a Yorkshire lass. :) --Malleus Fatuorum 01:42, 4 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Opus Dei

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Result: Delist. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 01:08, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
(Edit · Talk · History · Watch)
(De)listing: Archive at GAR, WP:GA, T:GA#, Article talk.

I am not personally involved in the article, and am actually not sure whether the article should be delisted or not. However, one user has delisted the article without giving any time for concerns to be addressed, and I think it is much better that a consensus be reached (especially as it is not 100% clear this article should be delisted). Some of the concerns can be found at Talk:Opus Dei#Delisted the article as GA. Shudde talk 00:34, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep on the GA list. I honestly don't see the POV problems the delister is complaining about. The article is comprehensive, indeed an excellent overview of the subject, and it DOES present both well publicized positive and negative perceptions of the organization. The sources are approrpriately used; it cites both secondary and primary sources as approrpriate. While I would agree that for obvious cases, it is quite allowable for an article to be delisted without discussion, this was right to be brought here. I see no major issues with this article as it stands now. Indeed, I would recomend an FA run in the future. This seems quite close to meeting the requirements of an FA. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 02:30, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist. I do think that there's a neutrality issue with this article, as noted by the editor who pre-emptorily delisted it. I'm particularly concerned about the Replies to criticism section. If whatever's important in that section was distributed elsewhere in the body of the article then I might be persuaded to change my mind, but as it stands it does look a bit like "set 'em up and shoot 'em down". --Malleus Fatuarum 02:48, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as the article meets GA criteria and is well-balanced. I'd prefer to see the criticism and the rebuttal integrated into, rather segregated from, the rest of the article -- but that certainly isn't grounds for de-listing. Majoreditor 04:02, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Well this is a first Of all the articles I have ever read and come away knowing no more than before I began, this is by far the longest and most meticulously documented. I lean toward Delist, because I have no idea why O.D. is so powerful, and the criticisms were glossed over in a hurry. Please feel free to persuade me to Keep... --Ling.Nut 13:11, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep There are definately some problems with the article. The introduction is very choppy and should be smoothed out. I saw a lot of criticism of O.D. throughout the article. The controversy section used a lot of weasel words (name critics and supporters.) The controversy section was also where the article was its weakest. The criticism section should be strengthened, while the rebuttal section should be shortened. But overall, I thought the article is clearly a Good Article. I do not, however, agree with Jayron in thinking that it is "quite close" to becoming an FA. Too many sections where the prose wasn't quite there.Balloonman 20:11, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Nowhere near FA; still very questionable on GA. I think it's a diligently created puff piece, frankly. Glossed over everything. To repeat, I learned nothing except what I could have learned if I had bothered to find some pamphlet in some Catholic library somewhere or other. --Ling.Nut 00:40, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Diligently created puff piece would be a good summary of my opinion of the article as well. Nowhere near FA, and very dubious for GA. --Malleus Fatuarum 04:56, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I shall have to remember "Diligently created puff piece" as a possible GAR recommendation! Although I have seen worse, I would have to agree. I read through the article, trying to imagine I'd never heard of the topic. By the time I reached the "Controversy" section, I was thinking "How dare they criticise such a wonderful organisation! Okay, some of its members may have strange personal practices, but look at all the good work they do."
Controversy sections are not a great idea at the best of times: when they are of the form "Criticism - Rebuttal" they are particularly unhelpful at achieving NPOV. This is yet another article (cf. Freemasonry) which is written from the internal point of view of an organization that feels more widely misunderstood. Consequently, it fails to achieve a neutral tone: where criticism is discussed, the article is defensive, and uses loaded words and sentences. Words not avoided include "claim", "point out", "although", "despite", "report", "allege", "maintain", and "contend". Also, although "while" is not mentioned at WP:WTA, it is misused in several places, including a particularly flagrant abuse in the lead no less. As a result, the lead clearly fails to summarize the article, with all of the controversy swept under the carpet in that loaded sentence.
After my own review, I went to the talk page to read the case for delisting made by Jaimehy. While I cannot verify some of the individual points made, I tend to agree overall with the analysis there.
WP:NPOV is, in my opinion, one of the most misunderstood of Wikipedia policies. I have said this here many times before: NPOV is not primarily achieved via a contest between pro- and anti- viewpoints, it is primarily achieved by writing and structuring the entire article from a neutral perspective. There is a beautiful and eloquent description of this by Gosgood in my talk archives.
I can see that a lot of work has gone into this article, but I cannot support the continued GA listing of an article which is riddled with sentences like "Despite his praise, the relationship between Paul VI and Opus Dei has been described by one Opus Dei critic as "stormy"." Delist. Geometry guy 14:06, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies I apologise sincerely for preemptorily delisting this article. In my astonishment that it should have been listed in the first place, I didn't stop to understand the accepted procedure. However, given that the article is, on the one hand, very important in its category and, on the other, astoundingly misleading, incomplete and biased that it should be urgently delisted. In tone and content, it is exactly the description of Opus Dei would have made of itself. Considering the controversial nature of the organisation, it is very inappropriate that this should be the case. Please delist as soon as possible Jaimehy (talk)
  • Keep. I agree with those who voted "keep" based on GA criteria. I believe this piece follows actual Wikipedia statements on NPOV: "All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view, representing views fairly, proportionately and without bias." The word "proportionately," I believe, is more often than not forgotten when WP:NPOV is discussed. This word goes with another word "expert" that is also usually missed: "Wikipedia aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation among experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties." John Allen, Jr. and Vittorio Messori are highly respected professional journalists and are not Opus Dei members. Marax (talk) 13:24, 19 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Reply This sort of argument from authority has no place in Wikipedia. Besides, while John Allen and Vittorio Messori are both highly respected journalists, they are prominent apologists for a variety of flavours of Roman Catholic conservatism. Extraordinarily, even the mild criticisms of John Allen fail to be addressed in the article. Delist urgently Jaimehy (talk) 16:44, 20 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Jaime, arm-waving comments such as Delist urgently aren't going to help you reach consensus. Calm, civil discussion works best. Majoreditor (talk) 16:57, 20 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That is good advice. Note that Jaime is relatively new to WP, so we need to allow a bit of slack per WP:BITE. In any case, it is the substance of the argument that is important, and no one has addressed the issues, for example, that I raised above. Geometry guy 17:47, 20 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Further reply. Even if the article does represent all significant views fairly and proportionately (which I very much doubt), this only means it satisfies part of the neutral point of view policy (described mainly by WP:UNDUE). The NPOV policy requires that articles are written from a neutral perspective. The clue is in the name of the policy. Representing all significant views fairly and proportionately is but a part of that (otherwise the policy would be called ASPOVFP). As for the criteria, I see no counterargument to my assertion that it also fails 1b (via WP:LEAD and WP:WTA), although I am pleased to see that both Jaimehy and Marax are making efforts to improve the article. Geometry guy 17:54, 20 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Perhaps they can take a crack at re-phrasing the "while" in the lead. Majoreditor (talk) 18:15, 20 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe, but one of the reasons that the good article criteria flag up WP:WTA is that it is a strong indication that an article has not been written from a neutral perspective (which, as WP:NPOV boldly declares, is "non-negotiable"). So fixing the "words to avoid" alone is unlikely to solve the problem. The article needs quite a bit of rewriting, and then the lead will need to be rewritten to summarize the article. I've usually found it is pointless to fiddle with the lead until the article is in good shape. Geometry guy 22:54, 20 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for all your comments. The WTA you mentioned were placed there by Alecmconroy who did a major rewrite (see here please). You might want to look at his his user page. He has been suspected of being an atheist and a Jesuit. He was suspected by a pro-Opus Dei editor of planting a number of straw men arguments (see here) so as to put Opus Dei down. I believe Alecmconroy did a good job in structuring the article so as to include a lengthy coverage of criticisms. I also believe much of Jaimehy's concerns are covered by that generous section and other criticisms found throughout the article. While the section can be improved, I have not seen another article with such generous coverage of criticisms. I do believe Alecmconroy’s use of WTA was balanced. Those words were placed strategically on both sides of the dispute. Balance has always been his main concern. However, in deference to clear Wikipedia consensus on WTA, I am helping bring back the "he state", "he said" and "he wrote" that was in an older version before the major revision by Alecmconroy. All this is to show you that great efforts were expended by editors here to write the article from a neutral perspective. Marax (talk) 02:18, 23 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
For those who might be confused about how Marax could accuse me of being a Jesuit and an Atheist in the same breath, I should clarify. Opus Dei and the Jesuits are sort of like East Coast and West Coast Rappers. To people who are on the outside looking in, it might seems like the two groups would be close allies-- but actually they are bitter rivals. So, accusing me of "being a Jesuit" is to imply that I have a vested religious interest in promoting criticism of OD.
For the record, I am neither an atheist nor a Jesuit. Although, let's not have that denial just encourage further speculation about "Who and What _IS_ Alec, religiously?". I am not bound by the rules of Rumpelstiltskin, and in the highly unlikely event that someone were to correctly guess my own religious views, they shouldn't expect me to instantly confirm it and then promptly disappear. :) --Alecmconroy (talk) 14:57, 14 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You are welcome for the comments, and thanks for the fascinating answer. First you pin the article's problems on an editor and report vague accusations about him, questioning his good faith (excuse the pun). Then you say that you believe he did a good job. Then you suggest that you are helping to undo his edits in deference to consensus on WTA.
Let's unpick that a little. First, the religion of an editor is irrelevant: what matters is the quality of their edits. Second, I can see that Alecmconroy inserted several "claims" for the criticism he added, but the two oldid's given in your link do not support the idea that Alecmconroy is responsible for the words to avoid, loaded sentences, and lack of neutrality in the current article. The pre-Alecmconroy oldid contains plenty of words to avoid and loaded sentences, while many of the problems I noticed with the current text cannot be found in the post-Alecmconroy oldid.
It would be rather odd if the article's bias towards an internal Opus Dei and/or Catholic point of view were directly caused by an editor adding external criticism, especially given your accusation that this editor was hostile to Opus Dei. Instead there seems to have been a defensive response to the added criticism.
Neutral point of view is not primarily achieved by being "generous" in the coverage of criticisms, it is achieved by writing the entire article from a neutral perspective (how many times do I have to say this?). And if you have not seen as "generous" an article, I recommend Homeopathy and Parapsychology. Geometry guy 19:16, 23 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think the Parapsychology article you draw attention to is an excellent example of writing about a potentially controversial subject from a neutral POV. No matter how good the rest of this Opus Dei article was, the mere presence of a Replies to criticism section gives the game away. There is absolutely no question in my mind that it is not written from a NPOV and ought to be delisted as a consequence. --Malleus Fatuarum (talk) 21:53, 23 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for specifying further the problem you see -- the replies to criticism, and for bringing up two examples of neutral writing. These examples, I believe, strengthen my previous point about proportionality and expertise. With regard to homeopathy and parapsychology, the majority of experts or neutral writers about the field find the criticisms valid. In the case of Opus Dei, the majority of third party experts who have studied it have concluded that the criticisms are not valid, they are myths.
In deference to the fact that the findings of these experts on Opus Dei have not cascaded down to the majority of readers, unlike those of the experts on homeopathy and parapsychology, the replies to criticism section is almost the same length as the criticism section. In fact, if we are to follow the logic of proportionality and expertise on homeopathy and parapsychology, this article would have to be re-written to provide more space to the replies to criticism so as to explain Opus Dei further according to Wikipedia standards of WP:RS.
John Allen, Jr.'s book was published in 2005 and was said to be "widely considered as the definitive book on Opus Dei", and was praised by Opus Dei critics. John Allen, Jr. is CNN Vatican analyst (once described as "maddeningly objective") and his independent work agrees with the findings of other investigators, e.g. Vittorio Messori and Patrice de Plunkett.
I hope I was able to understand your position well and reply accordingly, if not I'll be glad to know your position better. Marax (talk) 02:53, 24 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's my view that a Replies to criticism section is completely inappropriate, unless you also have a Replies to replies to criticism section, and a Replies to replies to replies to ... section. It appears to be apologists having the last word. You present the case, you present the criticism. You don't then try to refute that criticism. --Malleus Fatuarum (talk) 04:16, 24 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The problem then is how to include the findings of studies done by reputable writers such as CNN's Vatican analyst, John Allen, and an encyclopedist of religion, Massimo Introvigne. In the article on parapsychology, there is a whole section with three subsections containing the findings of objective studies on the topic. The research findings of Allen, Introvigne, Messori, Plunkett, et al are worthy of a serious encyclopedia, and perhaps even worthier than the scientific criticism of parapsychology. I believe this matter has to be addressed squarely. Marax (talk) 11:20, 28 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Malleus Fatuarum, I've thought a lot about your suggestion of moving out the replies to another spot. I've attempted to do it mentally but was not satisfied with the results. I believe that (1) it is difficult to write about replies to criticism in some place where criticisms have not been fully expounded, (2) the writers for the replies have clearly greater expertise and notability than the critics, and so deserve number two slot to the discussion; this might be debatable, so am referring you to (3) Alec's defense of this structure here, on giving equal space to responses to Opus Dei. Scroll down a bit and you'll see his argument.
So, in response to your concern that the replies are an "apparent refutation of the previously stated criticism," and to these 3 reasons, what I have done is to change the subtitles to Critical Views and Supporting Views. I've also tweaked the previous section title to "Statements of Catholic leaders." What do you think? Marax (talk) 04:13, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(undent) Delist. I've seen enough. See my comments above. Ling.Nut (talk) 09:10, 24 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Weak Delist Mainly sticks to a factual breakdown of Opus Dei, but a bit spotty in its coverage/handling of its controversial nature. Much of the content necessary for a neutral approach seems there, so perhaps a reorganization of the article would do the trick. But as it stands it reads a little too positively. Drewcifer (talk) 04:07, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Updated comments needed. I read the article again a week ago, and once more this week. It has improved: the lead is better, and the assertion that it is a "puff piece" is not so easy to justify. However, it still falls down as soon as it gets onto controversial or critical material. The problem with separate criticism sections is that they marginalize criticism. Criticism is particularly marginalized in this article, with legitimate criticisms folded in with outrageous ones. It seems from the above that editors feel this is justified, because the criticisms are myths created by opponents, and the supportive voices have more expertise than the critical ones. This echos comments made by editors of Freemasonry, when that was brought here.
However, it is not Wikipedia's role to set the record straight, only to report on what is stated elsewhere. We show, we do not tell. The key is to let the reader decide. It is a matter of opinion whether Allen is a "maddeningly objective" observer, or in part an apologist. It would be much better to demonstrate his objectivity, for example by quoting his criticisms of Opus Dei, than by stating his credentials. The article shoots itself in the foot by separating the reaction into critical and supporting views. It would be much better to organize criticism by topic than viewpoint, because it makes it easier to include objective analysis (without, I emphasise, asserting objectivity), and to let the reader decide.
There are still loaded sentences (including the awful one I quoted above). I also had closer look at the sources, and found rather too much reliance on primary sources (Opus Dei related websites and literature). There is plenty of secondary literature on this topic, and it could be deployed more effectively. The cosmetic changes made so far have not convinced me to change my delist recommendation. I encourage other reviewers to revisit the article, as further comments are needed to determine consensus here. Geometry guy 17:17, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Updated comment. I agree that the article has improved, but it has still not addressed my concern over the criticism and rebuttal sections being separate. If that criticism had been addressed I would have been prepared to consider altering my !vote to keep. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 18:56, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Updated comment. I still vote to keep, as the article appears to meet GA criteria. I agree that criticism sections are usually cluncky; tacking on response to criticism sections doesn't help. However, there is no consensus on the matter in Wikipedia. There are many GA-class articles with criticism sections and several with both criticism and response to criticism sections; for examples, see Kyoto Protocol and Anna Wintour (the sections may use slightly different names but are essentially "opposition"/"criticism" vs. "pro"/"response"). That said, I would encourage the article's editor to discuss how they can dismantle the two sections and integrate the material into the rest of the article. Cheers, Majoreditor (talk) 00:15, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I appreciate the comments on the separate controversy section and suggestion to dismantle it. For you to understand the historical evolution of this article, this suggestion was tried for some time, but was frowned upon by a number of Wikipedians (non-editors of this article) who believed that Opus Dei's highly controversial nature deserves a separate treatment of the controversy. They viewed the redistribution of controversial material as hiding the controversy. Marax (talk) 05:32, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not against the existence of a controversy section, as in this case the controversy is notable and needs to be discussed. However, that should not prevent criticisms being discussed in other parts of the article, as every part of the article needs to be written from a neutral point of view, not just the controversy section. I agree with Malleus that the main problem is splitting the controversy into criticism and rebuttal. It is virtually impossible to achieve neutral point of view with such a structure. Geometry guy 19:11, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I remember, Alec et al argued to allow critics to have a opportunity to make their case in toto. Once that decision is made and given the demands of neutrality, you then arrive at the other decision of allowing supporters to air their views. I've asked Alec to argue his point further if he wishes, for I might not be doing justice to his able work. As the other editors here have noted, I see that criticisms do exist in other parts of the article. Marax (talk) 02:43, 14 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, they do. There is a discussion about mortification, which does not read neutrally at all ("opponents" and "critics" provide the critical viewpoints, but the supportive viewpoints are worded authoritatively). Apart from that, the only other critical remark I found was the awful sentence on the stormy relation between Opus Dei and Pope Paul VI, which still has not been changed. Geometry guy 19:26, 14 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep on GA list. This is not for Featured Article, but only for GA. This is not meant to be perfect, but good. As such I vote for keep. I agree with Majoreditor. If other GA articles have this system of criticism and response, with greater reason should this article be allowed to keep its system. Walter Ching (talk) 09:41, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note. Just to clarify process here: this is not a vote. Consensus is determined by weight of argument and comparison of the article with the good article criteria. Those who believe that this article does not violate neutral point of view need to provide arguments to support their view and/or refute the arguments made by others that it does not. The argument that other stuff exists is widely viewed as irrelevant. Thanks, Geometry guy 19:15, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • No opinion, but lean toward delist. As I explain in more detail below, I don't think this is one of our better articles. It's still clear, reading it over, that most of the editors on the page have a very pro-OD stance-- if the page were truly neutral, I shouldn't be able to guess what POV the editors had. That said, I practically never involved with GA criteria discussions, so please take my words with a grain of salt. It's important that GA criteria be applied uniformly, and I'm not even remotely familiar enough with how GA criteria is usually applied to offer an educated opinion on how they apply to this situation. --Alecmconroy (talk) 15:06, 14 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for such detailed comments. I agree almost entirely with what you say here and below, especially with the point that one shouldn't be able to guess the point of view of the editors from reading the article, and with the comment about the huge problem that Wikipedia faces in writing good articles about controversial subjects, when the editors who are attracted to contribute to such an article tend to have a point of view.
    I also share your sympathy with all editors involved: everyone is doing their best to make a good article here. I am similarly sympathetic with the editors of Freemasonry who want to set the record straight and explain what Freemasonry really is about to Wikipedia readers. There is no doubt in their good faith, but the result is a non-neutral article. I have also recently opposed the listing of Universe as GA because it was not broad enough in its coverage of other viewpoints. Another example is Veganism, which has benefitted from the contributions of many good faith editors, but still fails to achieve NPOV.
    NPOV is not only a GA criterion, it is a policy that every article must satisfy. Listing a POV article as GA sends the wrong message. The criticism-rebuttal section is not neutral, but I agree that if the two sections were integrated, the article would rapidly become worse, not better. I don't know what to do about this either. The article faces a Catch 22: to make it NPOV will make it unstable (another GA criterion). However, we certainly shouldn't be closing our eyes and listing such articles as GAs, just because we can't think of a better solution. Geometry guy 19:51, 14 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's not so clear to me that merging the criticism and rebuttal sections would necessarily result in the article becoming worse. As I think you said earlier, there is sufficient controversy around Opus Dei to warrant the inclusion of a section discussing it. While I do take on board the very good points made by Alecmconroy, I don't take such a gloomy view on the practicality of producing a balanced article on controversial subjects. For me, the only thing holding this article back from a GA listing is the rebuttal section. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 20:24, 14 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Mild delist. On account of the criticism/replies sections, especially the latter. I do take strong issue with the characterization as a puff piece, and second the contrast by Marax above between this topic and (say) homeopathy, noting "neutral" does not necessarily mean "equal". But a 'replies to criticism' section, even if the totality of the article somehow still remains NPOV, gives the strong impression of POV and even OWN, and is a very poor editorial issue. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 19:12, 14 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. It has not been clear to me why covering two separate views in reference to a controversy is not neutral. It is clear to me that a coverage of only one view in reference to a controversy is not neutral. Walter Ching (talk) 05:58, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Of course, but that is not the issue here. The issue is how such views should be presented editorially. While reasonable people may disagree on exactly how neutral the article as a whole is, the Criticism section (discouraged per guidelines) followed by a Replies to Criticism section (so obviously poor there is no guideline to explicitly condemn it!), even if the WEIGHT issues work out OK, read awfully. And actually another POV problem can arise from this tactic: that of the Criticism section itself coming off as a straw man to be flogged by the Replies section, indeed by the very existence of such a separate section. The key here is to see that this comes about not because of content but because of structure. The ideal solution would of course be to incorporate all of the material appropriately into other sections, although others have suggested (e.g., below) that might not be without other problems. Baccyak4H (Yak!) 15:42, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I can't see this topic ever coming to an end. It's my view, based on the consensus above and the comments made by a major contributor to the article below, that the discussion ought now to be closed and the article delisted as per the nomination. We can all keep arguing about the same old stuff for as long as we like, but it seems unlikely to change anything. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 21:56, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I was going to close the article soon. As per the instructions at the top of this page unless a consensus can be reached (it has not) then should wait for 5 weeks. I think it's been over this now. I'm reluctant to fail because of there not being a clear consensus (the insutrctions say, in that case, the status remains how it was before GAR). There have been several clear keeps, several clear delists, and a lot of opinions in between. I think we should keep the discussion open for a while longer, although I respect Alecmconroy's opinion below, just because he was the primary author does not mean his opinion holds extra weight here (as per WP:OWN). There are problems with the article, but whether or not these are bad enough for a fail I don't know. We are not looking for perfection here. I might post something on the article's talk page later today, and then let this run a little longer. Hopefully changes can be made because of the discussion here to improve the article some more. Improvements have been made since this GAR started, and hopefully that can be built on. I'll certainly close before Christmas though. - Shudde talk 22:21, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough. I was on the point of closing this myself, as I think a concensus has been reached; but I'm happy to wait for you to do the honours. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 22:39, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think the discussion needs to be closed too, but I believe closing as no consensus misses a crucial point about weight of argument. This is not a vote. Neither Jayron32 or Balloonman have commented further to defend their views in the light of the detailed criticism of the article. Majoreditor has commented further, but has only (in my view) addressed these criticisms in rather general terms. I also do not find Walter Ching's arguments at all compelling. On the side of keeping the article, this leaves only the contributions of Marax, who has made a fantastic contribution here. Many issues have been clarified as a result of this input, and I have tremendous respect for Marax's action to alert Alexmconroy to this GAR. Marax has contributed significantly to the article, but recognises, I believe, that there is more to be done. The consistent argument, that pro and critical voices are presented differently in the article, has not received an adequate answer, so if I were archiving, I would delist. However, as I have primarily contributed to one side of the debate, I will not, but would encourage the archivist (be it Malleus or Shudde or a.n.other) to consider the weight of argument here, not the number of votes. Geometry guy 00:36, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Obviously I can't speak for Shudde, or anyone else for that matter, but it was my intention to close this as a Delist for precisely the reasons you gave, weight of argument. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 00:46, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion of the issues raised by Opus Dei

edit

Probably more than any one person, I'm responsible for the text that's currently on the page. Last year, I did a major rewrite on this page, taking a 100% puff piece and trying to rewrite it to be far more verifiable and somewhat more NPOV. I went through and tried to make sure every single statement was at least backed up by sources. I spent a long long time on the article.

A big part of that time was devoted to getting allow the existence of a small section dedicated to controversy. The problem we had before was that any criticisms would get overwhelmed by rebuttals, to the point that trying to find criticism was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. By having one dedicated controversy section, I felt like at least no matter what else happened, there would always be one section dedicated to putting forward the criticisms of Opus Dei-- which even supporters admit is "the most controversial organization in the largest religion on the planet".

That say, as someone who fought hard to make the article the way it is, I have to be honest-- I still don't consider to be a "good" article (where good is an English word, not necessarily GA criteria-based). I'm very proud of the rewrite I did, but whenever I brag about it to people, I always show the "look what it was like BEFORE the rewrite", because it's only an article I'm proud of by comparison with the mess it was before. I don't think the end product is a good article, but I'm incredibly proud that the end product was an article that is "consistently not horrible"-- in that, at least one portion of the article is there, if the reader finds it, that actually explains why "the most controversial force in the world's largest religion" is, in fact, at all controversial. Yes, it could, in theory, be improved in lots of ways, but I don't know how to actually create an article here on wikipedia that would both be better and would be "stably better".

The truth is, the problem posed by the Opus Dei article leave me very stymied, and I think it's a question that may have to be solved by something outside wikipedia, something like Veropedia. The question it's left me with is this: On Wikipedia, how do you write a GA or a FA, when the article attracts large numbers of people who have incredibly strong, completely uniform views on the subject matter???.

I'm not sure how to make Wikipedia work in these instances, where a large number of authors come to Wikipedia, all with a very clear and uniform predefined POV, and want very strongly for Wikipedia to reflect what they know in their hearts is the truth-- that Opus Dei is probably the most wonderful organization on the planet earth. You can't accuse them of acting in bad faith-- they're not-- they're just trying to edit Wikipedia so that it accurately reflects the truth they believe in with all their hearts. And you can't simply point them to NPOV, because to them, the wonderfulness of OD is so obvious that any neutral observer will come to the conclusion that OD is wonderful, and deviation from that point of view is non-neutral. And you can't point them to Not a Soapbox, because they care about OD so so so much more than wikipedia, that spreading the truth about OD is vastly more important that Wikipedia. And you can't fault them for this belief, either, because honestly-- who is more important-- God's message or some internet encyclopedia project? And you can't even fault them for coming here, because we're the encyclopedia anyone should be able to edit-- we've invited the world to come here, and they're just doing their best to make sure that the encyclopedia reflects the truth as they see it.

So, that's the dilemma. There's a large number of editors here who, although they choose to be private about their personal religious lives, certainly embody the POV of an OD member, and I expect most of them are members. I think they systemically have trouble writing articles that outside editors see as NPOV, but I don't actually have anything against them. They're doing their best to make the world a better place, using Wikipedia as a tool to spread THE most important message on the entire planet. If they have conviction, they have to come here and try to turn the article into a puff piece. If they have true faith, they have to try to make the article reflect the Neutral Truth that OD is wonderful. If they have any since of what's truly important, they have to put OD ahead of Wikipedia, because OD is an organization trying to do the will of God, while wikipedia is just a fly by night internet project.

I know all this sound ad hominem, but I actually have great respect for those my fellow editors who are OD members. If I was an OD member and believed exact the same as they believe, I hope I too would have their courage of conviction to come to wikipedia and fight to transform it so it reflects the Truth that OD is wonderful, and stop the "lies" that have been spread about it. I feel similarly about the critics who feel OD is a great danger and have come here to help spread that truth. And I feel similarly about people who edit the article not because they're pro-OD or anti-OD, but merely because we're pro-Wikipedia, and want Wikipedia to have the best article it can. There are no "bad guys" here, everyone's doing their best to do their job to improve the world, as they each see it.

But unfortunately, the end product is an article that most outside editors will feel doesn't do a good job of being NPOV. Of course, to the OD members who edit the article, the inclusion of criticism is already too much, because a NPOV will be on which properly reflects the truth that OD is a wonderful organization, beloved by practically everyone except a few vocal malcontents.

If I were the sole editor, I can think of lots of ways to improve the article. But as a practical matter, within the wikicommunity, I don't honestly know how to improve the article. The ratio of outside editors to OD members & opponents is just too small, and I personally don't know how to, as a practical matter, improve the article in a way that will stick. Honestly, I'm flattered that some people think the article might meet GA-- when I did the rewrite last year, I trying to take a complete puff piece and turn it into an article that could be stable while still meeting WP:V and was within the ballpark of meeting WP:NPOV.

As I've said elsewhere, the criticism and rebutal section is one issue. If I were writing it myself, I wouldn't do it that way, but that was the only section styling I could figure out that would protect the criticism from being totally overrun by rebuttal. As a practical matter, I think if the two are integrated, the article will wind up getting worse, not better.

So, my opinion is that, even though I wrote most of it, it's still not "good", it's just "a lot better" than it was a year and a half ago. Any suggestions on how to improve it further, in light of the fact that there's a veritable army of people with such a strong pro-OD view of the world, is most welcome. --Alecmconroy (talk) 14:02, 14 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Rape of Nanking (book)

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Result Artived without action. This was a content dispute that spilled over from the article talk page. The entire conversation was by two editors who were involved in the dispute, and several GAR regulars who asked them to bring it back to the talk page and not here. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 06:51, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(Edit · Talk · History · Watch)
(De)listing: Archive at GAR, WP:GA, T:GA#, Article talk.

A certain editor is adamantly opposed to the expansion of the criticism section in the name of keeping it pretty for FA nomination, resulting in content dispute. This is a very controversial book that still has much room for expansion. The article has a npov tag on it now (placed by myself). --Saintjust (talk) 08:15, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Here is the version that was promoted to GA - [1], and here's the version it was at before User:Saintjust edited the article - [2]. I absolutely believe the article gave enough mention of the criticism before Saintjust came into the picture. Remember, the article is about all aspects of the book, not a battleground for opinions that praise and criticise the book. I've worked very hard at writing a fair and balanced article to try to push it to FA status. I've offered to help Saintjust write a seperate article just on the controversy surrounding the book, if he is so interested in it. But he only wants to inflate the article with more criticism. What more, most of the points he has added was already mentioned in the article before his edit. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 08:26, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Another thing - I can understand if Saintjust disagrees with me about the amount of criticism offered in the article, but I'm sorry, it's ridiculous to imply that editing an article for FA quality is some kind of a negative. FA quality represents the ideal state of an article. We should be writing all articles with FA quality in mind. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 08:40, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment That an editor from China has been lucky enough to edit the article all he likes on his own for the past several months is quite amazing, considering the everlasting edit wars going on China-Japan related articles on Wikipedia. But now here I am contesting your version of the article for a good reason. Who is right isn't of much importance as far as GA status is concerned because this isn't the place for content dispute. --Saintjust (talk) 08:43, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Now you are just assuming bad faith. Like I told you in the Talk page, I am not trying to suppress the controversy around the book. The intro itself mentions that it is controversial and mentions that it has been criticised. In fact, I have expanded the criticism section since I started improving the article for FA class[3]. All evidence contradicts your implication that I am writing a bias article that covers up criticism of the book. And what is your accusation based on? The simple fact that I am Chinese? Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 08:53, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Your motive is not a concern in itself here. That the content of the article is being disputed and accused of lacking npov now (and the essentially controversial nature of the topic of the article) is the important fact. --Saintjust (talk) 09:21, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • Sorry, you don't get to write something like That an editor from China has been lucky enough to edit the article all he likes on his own for the past several months is quite amazing and then wave that away by writing that my motive is not a concern here. In fact, it would seem my motive is exactly your concern based on what you wrote. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 17:38, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I don't want to get drawn into the content itself being proposed, but I wish to point out that addition of new material to increase the size of the article will not automatically cause FAC to fail. There are many FA articles out there (recently promoted or reviewed) that are much longer. John Smith's (talk) 12:57, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment In addition to the npov dispute over the addition of the two paragraph mentioned above, the article seriously lacks info on the controversial Japanese translation of the book. As it is, the article lacks npob, stability, and coverage on a major issue (Japanese translation). --Saintjust (talk) 15:06, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • The Japanese translation apparently was just published this month, so yes, it does lack coverage on reaction to the Japanese translation. I only now found out about it because of your editing of the article. It's a little insidious what Saintjust is doing here. He makes major editing to the article and then claims that it is not GA quality. I don't know if it is GA quality anymore, but here's the version before he started editing the article[4]. Straight from the beginning he has disliked this article not because of GA assessment, but because of the content - most likely because it is not an article made up only of criticism of the book, judging from his implication that a Chinese editor can't produce a good article out of this subject matter. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 21:41, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Firstly, you (HongQiGong) are the one who has been adamantly refusing my edits to the article with repeated reverts for ridiculous reasons like it will make the article too long to qualify for FA, thereby resulting in edit wars and putting the article in the state of instability. Secondly, you are the one who has been claiming my edits violating NPOV and such, not me (e.g. [5], [6]). So:
        (1) If you keep reverting the article, the article remains unstable.
        (2) If you stop reverting and leave the article as it is, then the article lacks NPOV since the current version has incorporated my input that you consider biased.
        I'm only trying to add my input to the article that I believe legitimate. Content dispute and possible disqualification of the article from GA status are only an unintentional consequence of it. In either way, it still remains true that the article is still unstable and lacks NPOV. The lack of NPOV is an accusation that HongQiGong is making. --Saintjust (talk) 05:53, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • My last edit to the article was almost 2 days ago. I have not made one edit to the article since. So your point that the article is POV and unstable are completely invalid because the last revert on the article was almost 2 days ago and the article is currently at the version that you like. It's extremely funny that you say your input automatically makes the article NPOV though. The article is now inflated with criticism, and opinions from Japanese ultra-nationalists are taken on face value. One of the critics pointedly said there exists no Nanking Massacre and that it was all made up. There was a reason why Shudo Higashinakano was not in the criticism section and instead was in the "Reaction in Japan" section - because despite how serious scholars may disagree with the death toll, none of them would think his opinions on the massacre are credible. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 06:17, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • Please do not misunderstand. NPOV accusation at issue here is comming from you on my edits. It's not from me on your version of the article. My input makes the article POV (not NPOV) according to your allegation. Whatever version of the article I like is not a concern here. That you haven't touched the article for a day or two doesn't change the situation either as far as you still do not like my edits on NPOV ground. --Saintjust (talk) 06:37, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment What exactly do the editors seek from GAR? The nomination is obtuse and doesn't present compelling reasons to delist. Try RfC instead. Majoreditor (talk) 02:48, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Exactly. Saintjust nominated this article for GAR on the premise that a Chinese editor like myself cannot possibly write a fair and balanced article on the subject matter, for no other reason than that I am Chinese. His comment here - [7] - says it all. Hong Qi Gong (Talk - Contribs) 06:20, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Archive with no action This discussion needs to happen at the article talk page, and not here. This is a content dispute, and we should not encourage forum shopping by allwoing this discussion to go on here. Solve your problems on the talk page of the article, not here. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 06:22, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Force

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(Edit · Talk · History · Watch)
Result. Do not list, but recommend renomination at GAN. Geometry guy 19:49, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This article was quickfailed recently for lack of citations, but the nominator reverted the fail template and the GAN page removal. It was then placed on hold for dubious reasons, and the nominator left a message on the GAN talk page. However, some references have been added, and assuming good faith regarding the reversions I think we can treat this as a disputed quick-fail... hence GAR. EyeSereneTALK 10:58, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Renominate. I don't believe that this article should have been quick-failed. Although there are maybe still a few issues with it, including use of citations, none of them seem to be show-stoppers. But quick-failing on a general rule such as that at a minimum every paragraph must have a citation in an article like this one was inappropriate, and the result now looks faintly absurd. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 12:54, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I was following the guidelines laid out in Wikipedia:Scientific citation guidelines for citations when I quick-failed the article and at that time it did not meet them. Please also note that my quick-fail says "each paragraph or section". If it is not important to follow these guidelines at GAC, please don't direct reviewers to them at the top of the science sections. I have read over the guidelines carefully so that I can properly review science articles. However if no one is using these standards, there is no reason to list them. Awadewit | talk 09:06, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I would suggest that the relevant section of those guidelines in this case is the one on uncontroversial knowledge, from which I quote: "in many articles it is cumbersome to provide an in-line reference for every statement ... Therefore, in sections or articles that present well-known and uncontroversial information – information that is readily available in most common and obvious books on the subject – it is acceptable to give an inline citation for one or two authoritative sources (and possibly a more accessible source, if one is available) in such a way as to indicate that these sources can be checked to verify statements for which no other in-line citation is provided." --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 13:29, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not renominate. The article does not include a proper information on a definition of the force. Also a structure of the article needs improvements (There is a mixture of description, equilibria, definitions a Newton's laws which have certain things common but the article makes it a bit unclear). It could be renominate later, in half a year for example, when it will be improved. Nothing pushes us to nominate it now. Miraceti (talk) 00:07, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Can you please elaborate on what you feel the shortcomings of the article are? Where is the article unclear? -Malkinann (talk) 12:56, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Please, see Talk:Force#GA_On_Hold. Miraceti (talk) 10:55, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think this guy is being tendentious with his opposition here. Please renominate and prevent him from obstructing proper evaluations. ScienceApologist (talk) 23:17, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Miraceti, I would suggest that if you want the article to say "always" rather than "sometimes", that you provide a really good source to say so, per exceptional claims require exceptional sources. Your other issues with the article I'm having trouble understanding. -Malkinann (talk) 23:32, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Denmark

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(Edit · Talk · History · Watch)
(De)listing: Archive at GAR, WP:GA, T:GA#, Article talk.

I think this article should be reassessed before putting on the list of GA at the moment. Very weak citation:

  • 1) No citation can be found in the paragraph of Pre-Christian Denmark.
  • 2) No citation can be found in the paragraph of Medieval Denmark.
  • 3) Only one citation can be found in the paragraph of Recent history.
  • 4) Only one citation can be found in the section of politics.
  • 5) some statements in the section of economy need citations:
    • The government has met the economic convergence criteria for participating in the third phase (the common European currency - the Euro) of the Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union (EMU), but Denmark, in a September 2000 referendum, rejected The Monetary Union.
    • In the area of sickness and unemployment, the right to benefit is always dependent on former employment and at times also on membership of an unemployment fund, which is almost always -but need not be- administered by a trade union, and the previous payment of contributions. However, the largest share of the financing is still carried by the central government and is financed from general taxation, and only to a minor degree from earmarked contributions.
    • The Danish welfare model is accompanied by a taxation system that is both broad based (25% VAT and excise) and with high income tax rates (minimum tax rate for adults is 39.6%).
    • Denmark is home to many well known multi-national companies, among them: A.P. Moller-Maersk Group (Maersk - international shipping), Lego (children's toys), Bang & Olufsen (hi-fi equipment), Carlsberg (beer), and the pharmaceutical companies Lundbeck and Novo Nordisk.
  • 6) No citation AT ALL in the section of transport.
  • 7) No citation can be found in the paragraph of Cinema of Denmark.
  • 8) No citation can be found in the paragraph of Danish sport.
  • 9) No citation can be found in the paragraph of Danish Food AT ALL.

Several sections need more information:

  • Transport
  • Religion
  • Military

Many references seems not to follow the format of reference (MoS).

  • 1
  • 14(?)
  • 23
  • 32-34
  • 40-42

No English sources AT ALL provided in the section reference, only Danish and Swedish were given. How about See also?? Coloane 05:15, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Weak delist I guess it could use some more citations for a few surprising/contentious facts, but in general it seems ok. A paragraph-by-paragraph run-down seems like overkill though: there's no rule that says every paragraph should have a citation. The citations are also poorly formatted, and a few sections are choppy/short. Definitely close to GA, except for those few issues. Drewcifer 05:55, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist per the nomination. I agree that citation is a problem here, but there are also other formatting discrepencies with mid-prose external links and images. -- Jza84 · (talk) 17:22, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist per nom. Several sections, particularly those on history, need references. Statements such as "It is believed that Denmark became Christian to prevent invasion by the rising Holy Roman Empire in Germania which was a constitution by Charlemagne, that made Harald Bluetooth build six fortresses around Denmark..." need in-line citations. With some work this article can be a great GA-class work. Majoreditor (talk) 16:04, 21 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist per referencing and citation problems. VanTucky Talk 20:01, 21 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist. And I can't think of any ways that this article is rated A-class. OhanaUnitedTalk page 05:48, 15 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dante's Cove

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(Edit · Talk · History · Watch)
Listing: Archive at GAR, WP:GA, T:GA#, Article talk.

GA was failed claiming that the episode summary section violated WP:OR. While it appears that WP:WAF allows for the use of the episodes themselves to write summaries as long as the summaries are factual and not a synthesis, the reviewing editor disagreed, stating that WAF is "a controversial element of policy that may or may not have consensus." Regardless, per his direction I relocated the episode summaries to a sub-page but now the reviewing editor is on break for the next week. I'm hoping since the summaries were the only objection that the article can be listed quickly. Otto4711 (talk) 17:41, 19 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt you will get a quick answer here: just renominate, and archive this discussion when you do. Geometry guy 20:36, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Herpes zoster

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Result Archived as a keep, pending the outcome of the ongoing FA nomination. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 19:07, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(Edit · Talk · History · Watch)
(De)listing: Archive at GAR, WP:GA, Article talk.

Difficult to read (not well written in parts) as explained in current FAR discussion. Snowman (talk) 17:25, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hurricane Philippe (2005)

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Result. Keep. There may be an issue with a discrepancy between the GA criteria and WP:N, but there's little doubt that this article meets the present GA criteria. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 21:16, 27 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(Edit · Talk · History · Watch)
(De)listing: Archive at GAR, WP:GA, T:GA#, Article talk.

Article was passed with little comments. Article lacks sources and information. I'm suggesting a delistment. Mitch32contribs 03:00, 16 December 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Hi Mitch. I don't think this is a controversial delistment. Could you delist the article yourself following the delisting guidelines? Then we don't need to have a GAR for it. Thanks, Geometry guy 16:36, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Not sure I agree with that Geometry guy. The article is of a narrow focus, and it is sourced to a very reliable source. While it is only one source, I would consider NOAA to be fairly definative on this one, and see no real problems with this. This seems to comply with WP:SCG, the relevent guideline for articles like this. I don't see anything here wanting based on WP:WIAGA standards... --Jayron32|talk|contribs 06:25, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. This is an interesting case. Does this short article pass criterion 3-a (broad coverage)? One could argue either way. Concerning broad coverage, WIAGA specifically says: "This requirement is significantly weaker than the "comprehensiveness" required by WP:FAC; it allows shorter articles, articles that do not necessarily outline every part of the topic, and broad overviews of large topics to be listed." And then there's the the issue of a single reference source. I'd suggest the article would be better if it cited other secondary sources such as reliable media reports. I'll have to think on this one before recommending delist/keep. Majoreditor (talk) 13:58, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I noticed that a statement on the Reviewing Good Articles detailed guidelines page: "Small articles that are referenced to a single source may still be adequately referenced without the use of inline references." In other words, smaller articles may have a single source and still qualify as a Good Article.
That said, the article is almost exclusively focused on the huricane as a meteorolgical event. Did it have any other significance, such as disruption of shipping, emergency preparation, etc? If so, the article doesn't discuss these aspects. Majoreditor (talk) 17:43, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This is an interesting issue and one that I've been curious about myself. I made a new section on Wikipedia talk:Reviewing good articles. If anyone has input on this issue, by all means discuss. Ɛƚƈơƅƅơƚɑ talk 19:17, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I don't any reason at all why this article should be delisted. A single, reliable source is perfectly acceptable for a short article (even though its repeated citation at the end of every paragraph looks faintly ridiculous IMO), and the article does mention that storm warnings were issued, but the hurricane pretty much petered out without any significant fuss. What else is there to say about it? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 18:03, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. The proverbial tempest in a teapot. A quick scan of media reports doesn't reveal significant details not already covered by the article. Per above comments, it's well-referenced using a reliable source. It's short but reasonably complete. Majoreditor (talk) 18:53, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral. Per the existing GA guideline, the single source is sufficient. The guideline, however, appears to contradict WP:N. I would like to see the discrepancy resolved before taking action one way or another. Ɛƚƈơƅƅơƚɑ talk 19:41, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Battle of France

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Result: Delist. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 05:07, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(Edit · Talk · History · Watch)
(De)listing: Archive at GAR, WP:GA, T:GA#, Article talk.

I have been reviewing all of the "Conflicts, battles and military exercises" for GA sweeps, and am unsure if this article should remain a GA. The article is well-sourced in some areas, but in others, citations are lacking for entire sections or large paragraphs. Although multiple sources have been added since the last recommendation to include them, I don't believe it to be sufficient for the length of the article. Nehrams2020 06:31, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. Much of the article is well-referenced; I count a total of 62 in-line citations. However, two sections lack any citations. The Prelude section would be stronger if it contained a citation on Hitler's peace overtures. The section on Dyle Plan also needs citations. Majoreditor 14:12, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment If the casualties section (which deals with hard numbers) had inline citations for the figures, i'd say this article would be well-referenced overall, neither unferenced section seems critically important, and there are general references at the bottom which probably cover some or most of the material in those sections. Homestarmy (talk) 22:01, 17 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist It is not the number of citations that matters, but how they are used. Most of the citations here are to specific pages to support specific facts, but which facts get citations seems to be a bit of a lottery. Ironically, one of the few examples of multi-page citation (footnote 45) seems to support only a quotation (probably it is supporting the whole paragraph). The article might benefit from some general cites to its sources to support paragraphs containing uncontroversial material such as "Because of a low birthrate that had even further declined during the First World War, France had a severe manpower shortage relative to the total population — which furthermore was only half of that of Germany." On the other hand, there are also matters of opinion that really need specific citations which do not have them. One example is the section on "Allied reaction", which is full of such unsourced opinion statements. In the next subsection, there is also the assertion that "The Allies seemed incapable of coping with events." which surely needs a source. Geometry guy 20:33, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist I would argue that it is both the number of citations and how they are used which matters. This is a large article of around 12,000 words, backed up by only 62 in-line citations. Some tracts of up to 1,500 words are entirely unreferenced, with the Blitzkrieg, Allied Reaction, Weygand Plan and Casualties sections of particular concern in my mind given their content - the former three make judgements about events which really should be referenced to published history, while casualty figures without references always look like conjecture. I recommend that the article be delisted and added to the Unreferenced GA Nominations list. Chrisfow (talk) 20:47, 9 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist per GG. I would agree that its never a "number" of citations that is a problem, its that statements that need citations don't have them. This article is rife with opinion. It may be good opinion. It may be justified opinions. It may be the majority opinion in the historical circles. But without references, we have no verification that these are proper opinions. It would be too much to list every place where such citations are needed. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 06:32, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist, with regrets. No one has stepped up to address the citation issues. There's too many statements in the article lacking appropriate references. Majoreditor (talk) 13:40, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]


Analytical Marxism

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Result: delisted. 哦，是吗？(O-person) 05:12, 28 December 2007 (GMT)

(Edit · Talk · History · Watch)
(De)listing: Archive at GAR, WP:GA, T:GA#, Article talk.

This article doesn't appear to meet criteria 2a and 2b. Sections such as "Justice and Power" and "Denoument" have no in-line citations. For example, statements such as "Most of its practitioners agreed that the Marxism that in the beginning they had set out to interrogate and, to an extent, defend, was not theoretically or politically defensible" lack any cites. Additionally, all of article's in-line citations lack page references. Majoreditor (talk) 03:09, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Delist This has been a GA since Dec. '05; things have changed. I think it simply got a GA tag slapped on it... didn't check GAC.. not sure if GAC even existed then... It does have good content but needs a rewrite in the new GA zeitgeist. Ling.Nut (talk) 13:22, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delist. Because of the paucity of citations and the use of weasel words. "Many Marxists would argue ..." --Malleus Fatuorum 23:52, 2 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. This is an excellent article, which satisfies 2a, in that it provides references to all sources of information, and at minimum contains a section dedicated to the attribution of those sources in accordance with the guide to layout with an impressive bibliography. In my opinion, while lacking in inline citations, required under 2b (and page numbers), it at minimum, provides inline citations from reliable sources for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons. Chrisieboy (talk) 14:37, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. There's too many assertions unsupported by in-line citations. Another example: "Analytical Marxism is usually understood to have taken off with the publication of G. A. Cohen's Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence (1978)." Who exactly "understands" this to be the case? That's why Good Articles require in-line citations. Without them the reader doesn't know whether the assertion is supported by a reliable source or is simply original research representing an editor's POV. Majoreditor (talk) 15:09, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delist. WP:QFC states "The article has any cleanup banners, including but not limited to ..." (emphasis added). Further, 10 in-line citations for an article of this length are not adequate. Weasel words and NOR violations abound. Ɛƚƈơƅƅơƚɑ talk 21:35, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Battle of Britain

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Result. Delist. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 20:26, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(Edit · Talk · History · Watch)
(De)listing: Archive at GAR, WP:GA, T:GA#, Article talk.

I have been reviewing all of the "Conflicts, battles and military exercises" for GA sweeps, and am unsure if this article should remain a GA. The article is well-sourced in some areas, but in others, citations are lacking for entire sections or large paragraphs. I reviewed the article last week and left the article on hold for a week to address the issues I raised here concerning inline citations, but none were added. There are other statements that could be sourced as well, but I believe the statements I mentioned should at least be sourced. I don't know if this is just my obsessive desire for more referencing within articles (see Battle of France below), so I need alternate opinions on the status of the article. Nehrams2020 (talk) 22:38, 21 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm only a small way into the article, but am already finding exactly the same kind of sensational language (i.e., matters of opinion) unsupported by citations as I found in Battle of France. Example: "More shocking to the German pilots was the newer Spitfire Mk I, which was quickly recognised as a nimble, world-class fighter." By whom? And who says the German pilots were shocked? I notice that you mostly focus on uncited facts in your analysis, but it is the opinions that really need inline citation in my view: facts can be supported more easily by general sources. Anyway, I suggest you follow your instincts and continue the delisting process that you started. There's no need for a GAR on this in my view. Geometry guy 20:51, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delist Again, this smells a bit like a GA in places, but many statements are uncited, including statistics and expressions of opinion; some sections lack any citation at all. It doesn't need a WHOLE lot of work, but it is still not GA in its current state. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 03:10, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Hey Nehrams, good work on all the sweeps. I won't post a hopelessly distracting beer image here, but here's a link: Image:Lager beer in glass.jpg. :-) Hey, have you been posting at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history about any GAR's and delistings in this area? Those people are (sometimes) good about getting on top of problems like these.... Ling.Nut (talk) 07:05, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have left messages on the talk pages of the project/task forces when the article was on hold, but I didn't mention the GARs, so I'll do that right now. Thanks for the heads up. By the way, thanks for the picture, because I can't drink the actual thing for another six months! --Nehrams2020 (talk) 01:52, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delist. The article is almost up to GA standards. However, there are statements in the sections on "Tactics", "Channel battles" and "Main Assault" which need to be supported with in-line citations. Majoreditor (talk) 14:28, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Christianity

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Result. Delist. This is an important article, but the amount of work that's been done on it in the course of this review, work which is still ongoing, suggests that it is not stable and cannot be considered to be a GA. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 05:19, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(Edit · Talk · History · Watch)
(De)listing: Archive at GAR, WP:GA, Article talk.

Lack of citations SECisek (talk) 17:48, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Relist. I agree that some work needs done on the sourcing - especially the extended bibliography which has some questionable sources. However, I believe this article still meets the GA criteria. Pastordavid (talk) 18:01, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment and Question. The article does not suffer from a lack of citations. However, the quality of the citations should be improved. Are editors currently working to improve the referencing? Majoreditor (talk) 18:17, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist. This article has severe issues. Even a partial audit of the referencing reveals deep and problematic flaws (see Talk:Christianity#Article sources). This unacceptable referencing is paired with a poor flow of article language and numerous related flaws. It needs a lot of work to meet GA standards. Vassyana (talk) 18:30, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment. We're working hard on improving the article, but it's in very rough shape and it will take a good amount of time and effort to bring the article up to snuff. It is unlikely this will occur within the relatively short reassessment period, but I sincerely hope to see the article brought up to GA standards over the coming weeks. Vassyana (talk) 04:14, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist. This is an important article, but there are too many problems with it for it to be listed as a GA. Others have mentioned the quality of referencing, but it's also not well enough written to pass on the good prose criteria either I don't think. Neither doe the lead do justice to the article, and there are many external references in the body of the article. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 20:14, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I read the lead, and learnt almost nothing about Christianity, why it is important, and what is its history. The lead fails to provide an adequate overview of the subject, and is not a stand-alone summary of the article, per WP:LEAD. Geometry guy 20:30, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]


DELISTED!!! WITH WHAT HAS BEEN DONE? WHILE WORK IS ONGOING? WITH NO CONSENSUS? -- SECisek (talk) 09:49, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  1. ^ sdf
  2. ^ sgfsd
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