Wikipedia:Featured article review

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Reviewing featured articles Shortcuts: WP:FAR WP:FARC This page is for the review and improvement of featured articles that may no longer meet the featured article criteria. FAs are held to the current standards regardless of when they were promoted. There are two stages in the process, to which all users are welcome to contribute. Featured article review (FAR) In this step, possible improvements are discussed without declarations of "keep" or "delist". The aim is to improve articles rather than to demote them. Nominators must specify the featured article criteria that are at issue and should propose remedies. The ideal review would address the issues raised and close with no change in status. Reviews can improve articles in various ways: Articles may need updating, formatting, and general copyediting. More complex issues, such as a failure to meet current standards of prose, comprehensiveness, factual accuracy, and neutrality, may also be addressed. The featured article director, Raul654, or his delegates Marskell, Joelr31 and YellowMonkey, determine either that there is consensus to close during this first stage, or that there is insufficient consensus to do so and, thus, that the nomination should be moved to the second stage. Featured article removal candidate (FARC) An article is never listed as a removal candidate without first undergoing a review. In this second stage, participants may declare "keep" or "delist", supported by substantive comments, and further time is provided to overcome deficiencies. Reviewers who declare "delist" should be prepared to return towards the end of the process to strike out their objections if they have been addressed. The featured article director or his delegates determine whether there is consensus for a change in the status of a nomination, and close the listing accordingly. Each stage typically lasts two to three weeks, or longer where changes are ongoing and it seems useful to continue the process. Nominations are moved from the review period to the removal list, unless it is very clear that editors feel the article is within criteria. Given that extensions are always granted on request, as long as the article is receiving attention, editors should not be alarmed by an article moving from review to the removal candidates' list. Older reviews are stored in the archive. A bot will update the article talk page after the review is closed and moved to archives; the delay in bot processing can range from minutes to several days, and the {{FAR}} template should remain on the talk page until the bot updates {{articlehistory}}. Purge the cache to refresh this page – Table of Contents

Featured content: Featured articles ← Featured lists Featured pictures Featured sounds Featured portals Featured topics Featured article tools: Featured article criteria Featured article candidates Featured article review Today's featured article This month's queue Main page requests Featured article log Featured article statistics Former featured articles Toolbox Dead links

Nominating an article for FAR Nominators typically assist in the process of improvement; they may post only one nomination at a time, should not nominate articles that are featured on the main page (or have been featured there in the previous three days), and should avoid segmenting review pages. Three to six months is regarded as the minimum time between promotion and nomination here, unless there are extenuating circumstances such as a radical change in article content. Place {{subst:FAR}} at the top of the talk page of the nominated article. Write "FAR listing" in the edit summary box. Click on "Save page". From there, click on the "add a comment" link. Place ===[[name of nominated article]]=== at the top of the subpage. Below this title, write your reason(s) for nominating the article, specifying the FA criterion/criteria that are at issue, then click on "Save page". Click here, and place your nomination at the top of the list of nominated articles, {{Wikipedia:Featured article review/name of nominated article/archiveN}}, filling in the exact name of the nominated article and the archive number N. Click on "Save page". Notify relevant parties by adding {{subst:FARMessage|ArticleName|alt=FAR subpage}} (for example, {{subst:FARMessage|Superman|alt=Superman/archive1}}) to relevant talk pages (insert article name). Relevant parties include main contributors to the article (identifiable through article stats script), the editor who originally nominated the article for Featured Article status (identifiable through the Featured Article Candidate link in the Article Milestones), and any relevant WikiProjects (identifiable through the talk page banners, but there may be other Projects that should be notified). Leave a message at the top of the FAR indicating who you have notified and that notifications have been completed.

Contents 1 Featured article reviews 1.1 Algerian Civil War 1.2 Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava 1.3 A. E. J. Collins 1.4 African American literature 1.5 Lord's Resistance Army insurgency 1.6 Diamond 1.7 Woody Guthrie 1.8 Bernard Williams 2 Featured article removal candidates 2.1 Lake Burley Griffin 2.2 The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II 2.2.1 Review commentary 2.2.2 FARC commentary 2.3 Vancouver 2.3.1 Review commentary 2.3.2 FARC commentary 2.4 Sheffield 2.4.1 Review commentary 2.4.2 FARC commentary 2.5 Eurovision Song Contest 2.5.1 Review commentary 2.5.2 FARC commentary 2.6 Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi 2.6.1 Review commentary 2.6.2 FARC commentary 2.7 Panama Canal 2.7.1 Review commentary 2.7.2 FARC commentary 2.8 Common scold 2.8.1 Review commentary 2.8.2 FARC commentary 2.9 Kerala 2.9.1 Review commentary 2.9.2 FARC commentary 2.10 Krag-Petersson 2.10.1 Review commentary 2.10.2 FARC commentary 2.11 Supreme Commander 2.11.1 Review commentary 2.11.2 FARC commentary 2.12 Sun 2.12.1 Review commentary 2.12.2 FARC commentary 2.13 Pan American World Airways 2.13.1 Review commentary 2.13.2 FARC commentary 2.14 Krag-Jørgensen 2.14.1 Review commentary 2.14.2 FARC commentary 2.15 Attalus I 2.15.1 Review commentary 2.15.2 FARC commentary 2.16 Peterborough Chronicle 2.16.1 Review commentary 2.16.2 FARC commentary 2.17 Cane toad 2.17.1 Review commentary 2.17.2 FARC commentary 2.18 Macedonia (terminology) 2.18.1 FAR commentary 2.18.2 FARC commentary 2.19 Aramaic language 2.19.1 Review commentary 2.19.2 FARC commentary

[edit] Featured article reviews

[edit] Algerian Civil War

WikiProjects notified
This article fails 1c due to a strong lack of citations and is not formatted consistently. It also fails BLP because a lot of the unsourced information is about the complicity of current warlords/terrorists/politicians in dubious activities like rape/slavery/fraud/terrorism etc. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:29, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Frederick Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, 1st Marquess of Dufferin and Ava

Listted parties notified.

Article was promoted four years ago. There is a strong lack of citations, and those that already exist, only list the book, without specifying whereabouts in the book the information is from. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:16, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] A. E. J. Collins

Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cricket, User talk:Brookie.

FA from 2005, some minor referencing/1c issues - however this one is actually not that bad, and the issues could be remedied relatively easily. Some issues however with images, which also should not be too hard to fix:

1. commons:File:AEJ Collins.jpg - would be helpful to know the actual source for this image, instead of just "a picture in the public domain on the internet".
2. File:Aejcollins rpkeigwin lr.jpg - could use standardization with the template {{Information}}.
3. File:Collinsplaque.jpg - Also could use standardization with the template {{Information}}. This one claims to be "issued as fairuse", but is concurrently licensed with free use licenses?
4. File:Aejcollins.jpg - For this one, a fair use rationale is given, but the image may actually be free use.

Cirt (talk) 13:56, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] African American literature

Wikiprojects and author notified

Old FAC from 2005. The article has many uncited passages, especially in the subjective parts about pundit analysis. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:11, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Images: File:Color purple.jpg: fair-use rationale insufficient. As there is literature from before 1923, a free-use cover could be used. File:Frederick Douglass (2).jpg: incomplete information, no author, first publication or date. DrKiernan (talk) 13:40, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

There are few short stories that are discussed, and short stories make up a substantial portion of African American literature. For instance, Uncle Tom's Children is not mentioned in Richard Wright's section (and yet was very important). Thus, there is a weight issue/comprehensive issue. Also, many of the Harlem Ren works (like Wright's) discuss communism, which is not mentioned at all. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:20, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Lord's Resistance Army insurgency

Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/African military history task force, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Terrorism, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Africa, User talk:BanyanTree, User talk:Ezeu, User talk:TreveX.

FA from 2005, referencing/1c issues throughout. Appears to have been some move issues as raised here. Also concern about small subsections and lack of comprehensiveness about the topic. Cirt (talk) 00:46, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

• Quick comments
  • Lead seems short.
  • Many sentences are unreferenced.
  • References" should be under "notes" per WP:LAYOUT.
  • Many of the newspaper articles are incorrectly formatted.
  • Regarding comprehensiveness: although I am not one to judge, as I know nothing about this, it seems to be a little short to adequately cover what is rightfully a controversial topic. —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 03:07, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

• Note Talk:Lord's Resistance Army#Merger proposal. I know of two people on Wikipedia who have the background to comprehensively upgrade the article: Ezeu and myself. I'm burnt out after five years of dealing with editors whose sole interest is itemizing how Christian or Muslim the LRA is, and Ezeu's March proposal to upgrade it was shot down by the editors who moved/split it. In my opinion, there's no need to drag this out for two weeks. Might as well stick a fork in it. - BanyanTree 08:24, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

• Images check OK. DrKiernan (talk) 13:51, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Diamond

I have little familiarity with the article or the subject matter, but on reading a critical review of the article in a soon to be published Signpost interview, I had to have a look at it. I must confess, then, that others more knowledgeable than me will need to make the necessary improvements. It was promoted in early 2005, and four years on I feel it has problems in meeting criteria 1c (some sections have no inline citations at all) and 2a (the lead needing a rewrite and probable expansion). Possibly a touch of 1a also; I can't speak for 1b or 4 really. - Jarry1250 ^{(t, c)} 18:18, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I have 10+ years of research experience in this area and will quickly address any comment raised (I am going through the article, fixing whatever I notice). The article was in poor state a couple of months ago, but has been improved a lot recently by efforts of several editors. I wonder if the interview referred to the previous version of this article and would be glad to see the criticism. Materialscientist (talk) 00:09, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Here's the interview (see the second question). Dabomb87 (talk) 00:33, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I see displeasure with the article and no single comment. To me, saying "laughable" and give that article a start class merely reflects poor judgment of an editor rather than any realistic assessment of the quality of that article. Materialscientist (talk) 09:27, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Woody Guthrie

Notified User talk:Dannygutters, User talk:Kmzundel, User talk:Jeremy Butler, User talk:Hertz1888, User talk:Karanacs, User talk:Gaff, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Oklahoma, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Roots music, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Maritime Trades.

Fails "well-written:" This was on the front page yesterday, linked through the featured picture section. I often read Wikipedia's featured articles and they are usually quite good but I was rather shocked at this particular one's listing. The writing is slipshod, even sophomoric in many places. I left comments on the talk page regarding a missing word in one sentence. Thereafter I decided to talk about the global issue of demotion and detailed multiple problems in just the first section following the lead. Thereafter I discovered this process. I will repeat what I said on the talk page (with some modifications) and expand.

• "who lived across from Guthrie and his family in Brooklyn in the 1940s"
  • Across from him how? Across the street? Across the hall? There is an indispensable word missing in this sentence. It can say she lived "nearby to" but it can't say "lived across from Guthrie" as if "across" is a specific thing in and of itself.

A citation would clear this up. Add a citation needed flag to this paragraph.

I don't see how flagging it as needing a citation would clear up this issue, detail the issue or even speak to the issue, though as a separate issue, the paragraph probably should have an inline citations verifying it.—68.237.250.190 (talk) 21:26, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Two issues, (1) the statements in this paragraph are uncited. They need to be. (2) The above note, the across statement is ambigious. (I would guess they mean across the street as the mermaid avenue apartment was a walkup rather than a many unit building. This is just a guess. A citation is needed to clear up both these issues.) If it can't be cited it should be removed. --Dannygutters (talk · contribs) 16:14, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Inline citation is useful, but I think unnecessary in the case of this rather minor point. [Wikipedia:Citing_sources] says cite inline for 'likely to be challenged' items. IMO, this paragraph is kind of trivia-ish. Footnote citation should be sufficient, if one can't be found it should just be removed. --Dannygutters (talk · contribs) 16:18, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

First section problems

• "Guthrie was born in Okemah, a small town in Okfuskee County, Oklahoma, to Nora Belle Sherman and Charles Edward Guthrie."
  • Needs a date in relation: "Guthrie was born ON DATE in Okemah..."
• "...judging from the circumstances surrounding his death by drowning, suffered from the same hereditary disease."
  • Why? What is it about Huntingtons that makes it likely. What were these "circumstances". Why is the mother suspected in the preceding paragraph? It's all very insinuating and muddled and unilluminating. Possibly what's needed is something like Guthrie's mother suffered from Huntington's disease which is know to cause _______. Scholar/in (NAME OF WORK), it is speculated that the multiple coincidental fires were the result of ________."

Many of these complaints are handled by the superscript citations and the convention suggested is inappropriate for wikipedia. the Huntingtons article describes huntingtons and the quote is verbatium from the bio. The circumstances of Ma Guthrie's death ARE muddy and speculatory so the attempt here was to make refrence to avaliable bio work. Um I will respond in the summary area, some of these errors and suggested updates are not addressable in terms of wikipedia convention. --Dannygutters (talk · contribs) 18:13, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

• "According to one story, Guthrie made friends with an African-American blues harmonica player named "George", whom he would watch play at the man's shoe shine booth. Before long, Guthrie bought his own harmonica and began playing along. But in another interview 14 years later, Guthrie claimed that he learned how to play harmonica from a boyhood friend, John Woods, and that his earlier story was false."
  • "One story" is poor; the source of this "story" should be attributed in text; the "story" is referred to later in the paragraph by relation to "another interview", but we never knew the earlier "story" was an "interview".
• "He seemed to have a natural affinity for music and easily learned to "play by ear". He began to use his musical skills around town, playing a song for a sandwich or coins."
  • "Seemed" is waffling; "began to use" should be rethought if you aren't going to provide a time period in close proximity; "a song for a sandwich or coins" is awkward.
• "Eventually, Guthrie's father sent for his son to come to Texas where little would change for the now-aspiring musician."
  • "Eventually" sounds like a stand in for not having a date; "now-aspiring musician" should never be said without a date or age provided in close proximity; what does "now" refer to? Maybe the move to texas but that is prefaced by the vague "eventually." It doesn't work.
• Guthrie, now 18..."
  • Poor. "Now 18", like the previous sentence, invokes a specific time that has been reached after somethimg transpired; some event just told which relates to reaching "now". Here, we are provided nothing, so "now" attaches to nothing. It should say "At 18" or "By 18" or something similar.
    • It's not just these specific errors that need to be addressed. The section doesn't flow well. We aren't looking for error free prose; we're looking for compelling prose, and this section is not that.

Next section:

• "Robbin, who became Guthrie's political mentor, introduced Guthrie to Socialists and Communists in Southern California" and later "Guthrie requested to write a column for the Communist newspaper"
  • Why are Socialists and Communists/Communist capitalized?
• "...with Germany in 1939 KFVD radio owners did not..."
  • There probably should be a comma after 1939 as a a natural break point, and it's "KFVD's owners" or possibly "KFVD radio's owners", though that does not really work for me because radio is not part of the name of the entity.
• "the wanderlusting Guthrie"
  • Wanderlust is a noun. I know what is meant but the construction is outré.

I'm not going to go through the whole article but it is a long way from brilliant prose.—141.155.159.210 (talk) 11:55, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Let me highlight a few more:

• Please review the numerous uses of the word "eventually" throughout, and where appropriate affix an exact time period or span of time in its place.
• I forget to mention earlier, in "1939 KFVD radio owners did not want its staff", "its" should be "they" using that construction, even if the construction should be changed as a I noted earlier.
• "Without the daily radio show, prospects for employment diminished" should read "Without the daily radio show, Guthrie's prospects for employment diminished"
• Although Mary Guthrie was happy to return to Texas, the wanderlusting Guthrie soon after accepted Will Geer's invitation to come to New York City and headed east." besides the wanderlust problem noted earlier, "headed east" is redundant, it should be "thereafter", not "after", and it should be "accepted an invitation from Will Geer to come..."
• Woody G., N.Y., N.Y., N.Y.". should not have the trailing period
• Guthrie was paid $180 a week, an impressive salary in 1940. (should be a semicolon)
  • It should not be a semicolon, as semicolons are used to separate two independent clauses. I do wonder if the claim that the salary was "impressive" at the time can be supported. Dabomb87 (talk) 16:37, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
• "The reunion represented Woody's desire to be a better father and husband." The reunion represented a desire? I think I know what was meant. No, upon further reflection it's just a mess. Maybe "the reunion offered an opportunity..." Not sure. Rewrite or get rid of it.
• Unfortunately for the newly relocated family, Guthrie quit after the seventh broadcast, claiming he had begun to feel the show was too restricting when he was told what to sing." (poorly constructed and passive voice; missing a hyphen after newly, "unfortunately" presents as editorial opinion). I suggest: "Guthrie chaffed under the radio show's restrictive format which dictated his song choices. Despite the recentness of his family's move, he quit Pipe Smoking Time after only seven broadcasts."
• "Disgruntled with New York..." Wrong vocabulary choice. We don't get disgruntled WITH something; we are disgruntled BY something. Consider disgusted, fed up, disenchanted...
• "The original project was projected" this would be great if you were teaching homographs and wanted a sentence example usage, but is frowned upon in formal writing.
  • Still not halfway through the article, and I want to stress that fixing these is not the real issue. Fixing every grammatical mistake, syntax problem, punctuation error, etc. and it still won't turn mediocre writing into compelling prose. What I have highlighted is just a symptom of the root problem.—141.155.159.210 (talk) 18:48, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

NOTE: This article appeared on the main page January 10, 2009. I do not know where the "yesterday" factors in here. --Moni3 (talk) 12:14, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

NOTE: It was on the main page yesterday June 2, 2009. It may be that it was on the main page AGAIN at that time—141.155.159.210 (talk) 12:22, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

NOTE: Clarification. We're both correct. It was not the featured article yesterday, it was linked through the featured picture that was of Guthrie. So it was on the main page yesterday, but not as the featured article.—141.155.159.210 (talk) 12:27, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I see one problem that goes towards criteria B of comprehensiveness. The article is concerned primarily with Guthrie from a biographical point of view but does not deal with him as a musician - I would suggest adding a section about his musical styles and development possibly extracting some points from the historical treatment.·Maunus·ƛ· 16:55, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

File:Woody Guthrie - This Land.ogg needs a fair-use rationale. DrKiernan (talk) 16:23, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

This should be provided in the ogg page, it was rationalized as 'sample' --Dannygutters (talk · contribs) 17:57, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

A license template is not a rationale. The file page does not include any rationale. Jay32183 (talk) 00:57, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Updated, added fair use rationale template. --Dannygutters (talk · contribs) 20:01, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

The rationale needs to be about the recording not the song. This recording is copyrighted, but the song itself is public domain. Jay32183 (talk) 21:19, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

That's not exactly true, the song itself may be public domain but reproductions of it, say as sheet music have been restricted in the past by the Guthrie family. (For example, use in Chicago's Old Town School of Folk music sheet music book was prevented). Anyway, I updated the wording a bit to refrence this particular recording. It is a sample of the most historically notable recording of this song (first with Moe Asch) and used to support decription of both this period of recording in Guthrie's career and the notability of the song itself. There are no freely avaliable recordings of Guthrie performing this song to replace with. Do you think this sample doesn't meet sample rationale for non-free material? --Dannygutters (talk · contribs) 12:54, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I still don't like your rationale. Don't use the word notable. There is no "sample rationale", you have to produce the rationale. You need to explain why hearing the sample will significantly improve the readers' understanding of the topic. Simply relating it to a significant moment is not significantly improving readers' understanding. You may wish to review WP:NFCC particularly point number 8. The lyrics and sheet music are public domain because copyright was not renewed correctly. Only recordings of the song are copyrighted. Jay32183 (talk) 20:56, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Is FA status review really the way to go about intoducing copyedit changes? Shouldn't the user merely intoduce the changes they see fit and followup on the discussion page? I don't really see anything listed here of note for status changes other than copyedit/wording changes and citiation needed items (all of which i agree SHOULD be updated). Plus some of the suggestions for inline citation of source material is not in line with wikipedia's citing methods. I will inline comment on these issues and welcome updates if this review request is valid, but I think redoing FA review would be overkill. Oh well, are Anonymous users allowed to initiate FA reviews anyway? This user seems unfarmilar with the process and conventions here. One thing I do take issue with is the comment 'I'm not going to go through the whole article but it is a long way from brilliant prose.' this (aside from sounding petty) makes me wonder how we can even respond the critique of the article if the questing user can't even muster up the effort to read the whole thing. Also, usage updates are warmly welcomed, but please check the citation with the assumption that quoted material is SIC. I vote Keep. and will add citation needed tags for uncited statements in the article. --Dannygutters (talk · contribs) 18:13, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

These aren't copyedit changes. They are various type of identified problems, which includes copyedit material. I do so to show the endemic problems with the writing throughout; I use them to typify problems the article suffers from. Some of them, yes indeed, I could fix, and others I cannot fix because I didn't write the article and don't have access to the sources, but that is not the point. I'm not sure what you are referring to when you say "...suggestions for inline citation of source material is not in line with wikipedia's citing methods" I didn't call for a single citation to be added and I am very familiar with Wikipedia's citation policies and methods. You say you take issue with the comment "I'm not going to go through the whole article but it is a long way from brilliant prose", taking that to mean I did not read the article in its entirety. You misunderstand. I read the article carefully, top to bottom and inside and out—twice. I refer in this quote to going through each and every prose problem, by listing each one on this featured article review page. The reason why I am not going to do that is the same as the reason I stated earlier. The problems I identify are a symptom of a larger problem with the prose in general. You can find wonderful prose with poor punctuation and misspellings. You can have insipid prose with no such errors. Though, brilliant prose is rarely chock full of errors, and prose chock full of errors is rarely brilliant. The problem here is that the article is not very well written. I am showing that by highlighting some fundamental errors, but if it just needed a copyedit, I would have done that. I'm sorry you take offense at my characterization of the writing. I'm not sure how it's "petty" though. I can see how easily criticism of an article can be felt as a direct attack on those who participated. I do not wish to cause hurt feelings, but I think Wikipedia's image is more important, and I am quite sure I do not know how to say this fails the well written "even brilliant" prong of the featured article criteria, without saying that it does so fail to meet that standard. I think it would set a terrible example if this FAR was discounted simply because I am not a user with an account. That would be baby-bathwater territory; forest-for-trees shortsightedness. You are correct that this critique does not follow the standard entry I see for other articles. Were I to change it to say "fails criterion 1a. Not well written. Has punctuation, syntax, grammar and vocabulary errors and many of them; many passages are confused... etc."? That would be more in line with other examples, but I think less illuminating for those reading. By the way. I don't think anyone votes keep or delist yet. That process, per the instructions on this FAR page, happens after time is given for the issues identified to be addressed.—68.237.250.190 (talk) 21:26, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment: any changes have to be consistent with WP:MOS, which "Guthrie was born ON DATE in Okemah..." for instance, is not.--Grahame (talk) 01:33, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Okay. I took a look through the manual of style page and was not able to find the section stating this. I only found a section stating that the date of birth and death should be listed in the intro, but not that you shouldn't repeat the date of birth in the first section of a biography (nor the date of death at the end of a biography). It seems logical to me to include a date of birth at the start of a biography--especially when the lead of an article is supposed to summarize the body--but I can live with it. I would appreciate it, however, if you were a little more transparent, pointing me to the specific section of that many-tentacled body of pages for my own edification. I just took a look at other featured article biographies to see if they follow this convention and those I surveyed do not. James Joyce, Henry James, Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe and Edgar Allan Poe, which I clicked on at random, all disagree with this notion. You also seem to be inferring, by your use of "for instance", that many suggestions I have made transgress the style guidelines. I would also appreciate it if you stated that with more precision so that I can learn Wikipedia's style conventions better. Thanks.--141.155.159.210 (talk) 02:32, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Bernard Williams

Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Philosophy, User talk:SlimVirgin.

FA from 2004, referencing/1c issues but these could be addressed without much problem as there is not an overwhelming amount. Could use an image review of the 4 images used in the article. Also could use a once-over from some fresh eyes for things like flow, small subsections, and short paragraphs. Cirt (talk) 11:40, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

• There are some things I noticed:

1. None of the cited sources in either the notes or ref sections are archived.
2. There are some duplicates between the notes and ref section. If this is intentional, it might be advantageous to switch to a shortened footnote style.--Rockfang (talk) 19:10, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I've tidied the refs. I'm not sure what's meant by "archived." SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 15:06, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Looks a bit better, nice job SlimVirgin (talk · contribs). Only needs a little more work actually. Cirt (talk) 19:38, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

This talks about the archive parameters when using a cite template (cite web in this instance).--Rockfang (talk) 00:28, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I think a couple are archived, but I can check the rest. Cirt, what else did you have in mind? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 14:17, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I merged a couple short paragraphs, and added three {{fact}} tags that can easily be addressed, other than that I don't think there is much else. Cirt (talk) 14:21, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll add the extra references within the next day or so. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 14:44, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Okay sounds great. Cirt (talk) 14:48, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I've added sources where you requested them. [1] I removed two things: first, that he wrote the entry for opera in the Grove Dictionary of Music. I think it was in one of the obits that is no longer online, so I can't currently source it. Secondly, I removed an unsourced paragraph about thick and thin concepts that someone else wrote. I'll restore it eventually, but I may have to get to an academic library to do that. Otherwise, it's all done, I think. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 19:41, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I found the source for the two things I'd had to remove (the "opera" entry, and the thick concepts),[2] so that's it all done now. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 21:34, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Okay, those issues for me are done. IMO, only thing left to address are the images. Cirt (talk) 01:11, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Images

1. File:BernardWilliams.jpg = could use improvement with {{Non-free rationale}}
2. File:KingsCollegeChapel.jpg = could use improvement at Commons, with commons:Template:Information
3. File:Nietzsche1.jpg = could use improvement at Commons, with commons:Template:Information, also Missing: Name of artist, date, source name of the artwork, brief description, etc.
4. File:Immanuel Kant.jpg = could use improvement at Commons, with commons:Template:Information

Cirt (talk) 01:14, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I've added a rationale for Williams, which I uploaded. I didn't upload the others and don't know anything about them, so I'm not sure what I can add to the image pages. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 01:21, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Okay, what I've done instead with the others, is replace them with images that have more complete descriptions on their image pages. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 01:26, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

My apologies, for the File:BernardWilliams.jpg, I meant to link to Template:Non-free use rationale, it would be most helpful to standardize the image page with that. Cirt (talk) 01:27, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I fixed this myself. Cirt (talk) 01:33, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

1. File:Nietzsche1882.jpg = Unfortunately this one lacks source information.
2. File:Immanuel Kant (painted portrait).jpg = This one lacks author/artist information, but has a source - it would be preferable in the future to get that info, but this one is probably okay.

Cirt (talk) 01:35, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I replaced the Nietzsche image with File:Friedrich Nietzsche drawn by Hans Olde.jpg, which is fully appropriately sourced, so I think I'm done. Cirt (talk) 01:42, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

The one that was in the article did have a source. The image page said it was Nietzsche by Walter Kaufmann, Princeton Paperbacks, Fourth Edition. ISBN 0-691-01983-5 SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 01:43, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I added the source more clearly to the Nietzsche page on the Commons. Thanks for fixing the Williams image page. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 01:47, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Ah, I see that now - and I've undone my image replacement. All is well. Cirt (talk) 01:50, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment I noticed first- and second-person pronouns in the reasons for action section. Much of this sounds encyclopedic when taken out of context; is there anyway it can be quoted/rephrased? I understand that it's hard to summarize this material in an "encyclopedic" way. Dabomb87 (talk) 00:38, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

You mean this one sentence? "If I feel moved to do something good, it is because I want to. I may want to do the right thing for a number of reasons. I may have been brought up to believe that X is good, and I may wish to act in accordance with my upbringing, or I may want to look good in someone else's eyes, or perhaps I fear the disapproval of my community."

It could be rephrased, sure, though this is the way philosophers write, so I personally don't see it as a problem. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 00:42, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, that's what I thought; a good time to ignore the rule. The article looks fine; I've made a couple cosmetic changes, but I think it's FA level. Dabomb87 (talk) 00:47, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Done anyway. :-) SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 00:48, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Nitpick: In the "Early life and education" section, three consecutive sentences begin with "He"; can we change it up a bit...? Dabomb87 (talk) 00:52, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Featured article removal candidates

Place the most recent review at the top. If the nomination is just beginning, place under Featured Article Review, not here.

[edit] Lake Burley Griffin

Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Lakes, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Australia, User talk:Ta bu shi da yu.

FA from 2004, referencing/1c issues throughout. Could use copyedit/review for flow, check for comprehensiveness, and review of images (14 images in article). Cirt (talk) 12:32, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

• The article has comprehensiveness issues which I wasn't aware of at the time, but picked up in later research. There needs to be an entirely new section of the history covering before it was built - there were quite substantial political battles over the design of the lake, and the entire basin near the museum and the university was nearly not bueilt so as to save the sporting fields and racecourse that were on the site at the time. (The article doesn't even mention that they were there.) I also think the layout of the article isn't great - some strange sections, some quite short sections, and lots of dot points. It doesn't flow all that well either. Rebecca (talk) 13:51, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Dot points all gone YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 08:27, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• I've removed the long list and templated it. The list looks ridiculous YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 07:41, 28 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Nice work with the template - that would be a good addition to all the articles linked within. Rebecca (talk) 13:59, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I've done that YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 00:33, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

• • • While I'm down the bottom of the article though, why is Royal Canberra Hospital implosion not mentioned in the text? The article's coverage of the lake's history is awful. Rebecca (talk) 14:06, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I dunno. Perhaps you could write a list of things that are missing... Bilby (talk · contribs) completely rewrote two things on the run while they were on FAR last year. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 00:33, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Things that the article really needs to mention:

The early proposals for the lake: the Griffin plan, and how this was altered to form the current one. This would probably require hitting up books on Canberra history.

What was on the site of the lake before it was built (among other things, sporting fields, the first Canberra racecourse, I think it may have also flooded part of what was the suburb of Westlake.)

The political battles fought over the final design. There was serious opposition from within parliament about everything that was to be flooded, and the entire basin over near ANU and the Museum was very nearly removed from the plan. The NLA's online newspaper archive would be okay for this I think; the Canberra Times of the period covered this in quite some detail.

How this was resolved - unfortunately the disputes ran past the end of currently public domain newspapers at the end of 1954 so this isn't online.

The lake naming issue (which is referred to in passing in this article at the moment).

Development along the shores over the years (High Court, Royal Canberra Hospital, National Museum, etc.); fit the implosion in somewhere

Most of these accounted for. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 02:26, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Modern-day development - the Kingston Foreshore (which has actually altered the shape of the lake)

Besides history, it strikes me that a section about the lake and surrounds for public events might be warranted too. Rebecca (talk) 06:35, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

The book by Eric Sparke that I cited in Canberra and this article has about 20 pages on the planning and changes, but not so much on the local amenities type stuff, which is why I could only cite a few things with the current focus of the article when I tried to change it last year. It should be useful and more than thorough enough, I checked ANU, Melb, USyd, UNSW, Adelaide they all have it and chances are every other uni has it as well YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 06:44, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

• Sparke, Eric (1988). Canberra 1954–1980. Australian Government Publishing Service. ISBN 0-644-08060-4. 

• Photos - all are made by Wikipedians, either PD, CC or GFDL YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 00:38, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Other things that need fixing:

• The safety section needs to be put into prose, and quite possibly shortened; it's a little bit irrelevant compared to much of the other information

Shortened by removing repetition and merged into recreation as it relates to swimming/boat accidents not crime or water poisoning YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 08:27, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• The "lakeside recreation" section needs to be cleaned up - the subheadings don't work well, and it should integrate public activities on the lake shore
• "Captain Cook Memorial" should be in a "Features of the lake" or similar section, along with islands, bridges, the Carilion, etc - this would eliminate a lot of the article's flow problems caused by all sorts of random sections
• "Water quality" is a stub of a section, and looks messy. Perhaps this could form part of a broader environment section, and be mixed with information about fish and bird life in the lake

Fish/aquatics and water pollution are together YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 08:27, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• The lead is also quite short for featured articles these days

Expanded a bit YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 08:27, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• "Design" could do with a paragraph or so on the final proposal for the lake, and a description of the various basins, etc.

If these more stylistic problems were dealt with, it would start to look a lot more salvageable in terms of featured status. Rebecca (talk) 12:12, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Great job on this round of changes - the article is much improved.

• Under "Walter Burley Griffin's design", there's mention of a casino. I have no idea what this is referring to - the wording is a bit vague.
• Where would the removed eastern lake have been in terms of modern-day Canberra?

Added Fyshwick YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 08:27, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• I would like to see some more sources used for the history. While the basics are generally covered, it feels like there's a fair bit of potential detail missing - that only one source has been used shows.
• From "Construction" down, the organisation of the article is very strange. It integrates the sections describing what is there now, with new information about their construction, and it doesn't fit together well. I still think "Bridges" might be better off in a "Lake features" section, along with the former Captain Cook Material section, which seems to have mostly disappeared. This would leave what's left more tightly focused on the actual construction.
• Not a big fan of the remaining list. This feels like engineeringcruft to me.

Prosified. It is discussed in detail in the official governement report, so I think it should be mentioned YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 03:18, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

• I think the "Dam" section should be merged into "Final layout", and that this section should be emphasisised a bit more, considering it is the design that actually got built and now forms the basis for the lake.
• I think the "Lake as city centrepiece" section is a bit odd - the title implies that it's describing the lake now, but it's really a history section. I think calling it something like "Recent history" or "Modern history" might be better. I think this section could be fleshed out more. It also doesn't mention the Kingston Foreshore, which in turn doesn't make much sense unless you mention the almost industrial area that was there before it.

Evolved into history. Kingston added. Nick-D added stuff on the Immigration bridge YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 08:27, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Tweaked to "Later development into...."

In spite of all of this, much improved - nice job! Rebecca (talk) 06:16, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

In terms of article structure, my suggestion would be:

• Design - take the final layout section, blow it up, so it doesn't immediately launch into history - same was it was before the latest rewrite
• Design history
• Construction
• Modern history
• Features of the lake
• Recreation
• Environment Rebecca (talk) 07:15, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

This is mostly the way it is now. Still hoping for more comments. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 08:27, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Infobox: I tried to complete it from the article: catchment area (1865 km² according to [3][4] or 2100 km² if Molonglo catchment of 78,000 ha is 37% [5]) and residence time (0.2 years [6]) are still missing. I'm sure better references are available. -- User:Docu 14:29, 1 June 2009 (UTC), updated 14:41, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

One further thing - what happened to the images? The tiny image in the infobox looks awful, all of the new content is bereft of images, and then there's a cluster at the bottom, none of which are all that great general views of the lake. Rebecca (talk) 12:14, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

The image in the infobox is probably better in the panoramic images section (File:Twilight canberra as seen from telstra tower observation deck.jpg). It's too wide for the infobox. Maybe a cropped version of File:Canberra view from telstra tower.jpg would fit the infobox.

There is a discussion on Talk:Scrivener_Dam#Which_image_where about the images in that article. -- User:Docu

I'm not a fan of that image either. Of the ones in the article, either the one of the Commonwealth Avenue Bridge or the Captain Cook Fountain would be better. The article could do with some pictures taken from less strange locations, though - from the National Capital Exhibition across the lake, or of the National Museum from the other side, or from the Commonwealth Avenue Bridge, would be much better photos. Would also be nice to have a picture of the Kingston Foreshore. Rebecca (talk) 14:24, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Looking at an old version of the article ([7]), all of these images were originally a lot larger, and they, and the article, looked much better for it. Even fixing this up would help things a lot. There's also a dumped image [8] which looks better, IMHO, than several of the ones currently there. Rebecca (talk) 14:26, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I did some sorting over at commons (Commons:Category:Lake Burley Griffin and Commons:Lake Burley Griffin). As commons seems a bit slow today, I didn't categorize more of the available images [9].

A few larger panoramas are now at Commons:Lake Burley Griffin. Now that there are imagemaps, we could probably make one that replaces File:Lake burley griffin from telstra Tower2.jpg.

Any selection that illustrates the article's sections and gives an overview of the various parts of the lake and its surroundings, .. is fine with me.

Some of the differences in size might come from the removal of the image sizes from thumbnails. Normally, one would use "thumb" and leave the scaling to the individual users preferences. -- User:Docu

All of these photos are pretty rotten. The larger pictures are really amateurish and taken from too far away, and the close-up ones don't show anything significant of the lake. They're of random stretches of water, and despite living near the lake for four years, I have no idea where they were specifically taken. There's so many good scenic vistas there, but even if we can't get new ones, we have the larger ones that were there before. I have no idea if the change you suggested caused the tiny images, but any image formatting that makes them look like crap in an ordinary browser is probably not good in a featured article. Rebecca (talk) 15:32, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I can take some pictures at specific points you might like to nominate, perhaps waiting for a sunny day.--Grahame (talk) 02:03, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

That would be fantastic if you could. We just need a couple of good shots of the lake that aren't taken from somewhere Mt Ainslie, or closeups of some obscure point on the lake. The points I suggested might be useful, but anywhere where we can get a decent shot with a few landmarks would be great. Rebecca (talk) 04:13, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Here is a map of images at commons that have been geocoded. Not too many based compared to the number of images available at commons and compared to the number of Wikipedia articles listed. -- User:Docu

Thanks for this - that's a great little resource. This image was, I'm sure of it, in the original nomination, and it's the sort of one we should have in the infobox. Rebecca (talk) 04:36, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

There's a stack of photos on related articles that you can plunder. To be honest I don't care about picture quality much (or lack of pictures full stop) YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 05:02, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I've added some pics at commons, some are a little dark, but there are a couple of cute pics of black swans feeding at the SIEV X memorial.--Grahame (talk) 13:41, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

• Comment: A $3 million underground pipeline will be built to pump water from Canberra's Lake Burley Griffin to the National Botanic Gardens. Could this be added to the article? Aaroncrick^{(Tassie Boy talk)} 22:19, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

• Update All information accounted for. Some small snippets had to be killed off, but the majority were sources found or info tweaked to fit. Cites should all be consistent now. Remaining issues appear to be structure/posibbly missing hiostory and polishes. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 08:27, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

One of the reasons the layout is a bit "short" is because the layout is already discussed in terms of alterations to the original plan, which is all in the history. Reiterating it all could be a bit repetitive YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 08:38, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• Comment: Ref 60; Canberra Plan, is dead. Aaroncrick^{(Tassie Boy talk)} 08:46, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Alt refs added side by side YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:41, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

• Comment: Article looks much better, great work on recent improvements. Might be worthwhile for someone to stub the redlinks and make some of them blue with a couple WP:RS/WP:V sources:

1. Immigration Bridge
2. Acton Peninsula
3. Royal Canberra Hospital
4. Kings Avenue
5. Sullivans Creek
6. Jerrabomberra Creek
7. Kingston Foreshores Development
8. Kingston Powerhouse
9. Regatta Point, Canberra
10. Black Mountain Peninsula
11. Yarralumla Yacht Club

Just a suggestion. :) Cheers, Cirt (talk) 08:47, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Immigration Bridge, Acton Peninsula, and Royal Canberra Hospital could all do with articles. Kings Avenue should be at Kings Avenue, Canberra. I think Sullivan's Creek probably warrants an article; raised quite a few engineering challenges in the early days and has been the source of pollution controversies more recently; not sure about Jerrabomberra Creek. The Kingston Foreshore link should be titled either Kingston Foreshore or Kingston Foreshore Redevelopment (actual names). Someone recently wrote an article on the Canberra Glassworks; I'm not sure if a seperate article could be written on the Powerhouse, so a piped link might be okay there. Regatta Point and Black Mountain Peninsula need articles; Yarralumla Yacht Club is probably non-notable. Rebecca (talk) 15:33, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

All created. Except Regatta Point, it's just a thing inside Comm Park unless I am mistaken but some Canberran intervene as I don't know. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:41, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Wow, that was a quick response, awesome! Cirt (talk) 07:50, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

They were mostly a bunch of mickey (monkey) mouse 3-liners. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:56, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

• Comment I also think that the article is now up to scratch, and the 1c problems raised at the start of the review have been addressed. Nick-D (talk) 10:29, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

This is immensely improved over where we started out. It still has problems with not seperating history from describing the current state of the lake very well; the bridges and dam sections, despite being in the middle of the construction section, arent really about the construction, and some important lake features, like the Captain Cook Memorial, are only mentioned in the context of stuff-that-was-built-in-the-70s. This means that key landmarks adjoining the lake which aren't necessarily necessarily notable in a historical sense - like the National Capital Exhibition, or on the other side of the lake, that it practically fronts on to Russell Hill, are not mentioned. Speaking of things adjoining the lake, it mightn't hurt to work Blundell's Cottage into the early history somewhere. I still think a "features of the lake" section would make all this a lot more coherent. Rebecca (talk) 15:33, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Other niggly things: The couple of sentences describing the criticism of the lake's construction are a light on detail, generalising and only use one source. "Later history and development of the lake into a city centrepiece" is an awkward title.

shortened YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:41, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Most of this is now solved. I'm still a bit unsure about the way the article mixes history and lake features, but in its current state, I think it works okay. Rebecca (talk) 15:30, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

This paragraph - Government House and the newly-built Australian National University, on the southern and northern shores of the West Lake, both gained a waterfront. The National Museum was later built on the former site of the Royal Canberra Hospital. The public were encouraged to watch the controlled demolition of the hospital, but a girl was killed by flying debris, leading to criticism of the ACT Government. - jumps from 1966 to 1996 without really any implication that three decades has passed, and that the first half of these paragraph occurred chronologically before the previous paragraph in the article (which refers to the Captain Cook Memorial in 1970). I'd be surprised if there was really nothing that could be said about historical developments in a 30 year period there; either way the text needs to be clarified.

Clarified I think. hopefully rearranged better. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:41, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Good job with this - nicely solved. Rebecca (talk) 15:30, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

The "Lakeside Recreation" section still isn't stellar. Still of its use for major public events - Skyfire and Floriade are the big two that come to mind, but there are others. The water sports section is a little bit strange; no mention of paddle boating (seen on the lake every day), but windsurfing (which I never saw in four years) is popular? "Opportunities for swimming have decreased"? I'd like to see a source for it ever having been a particularly common activity.

Added info on Floriade and pedalboating, windsurfing is in the book; tweaked to say that swimming has often been banned, although it is already noted that the water is cold. But the book said that swimming occurred without specifying numbers YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:41, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely superb job. The only quibble left is the "...crowded area in terms of swimmers and vessels being in the water" - one thing Lake Burley Griffin will never be is crowded with swimmers! Rebecca (talk) 15:30, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

The recent history section could do with a bit more work, too. One thing which I totally forgot to mention before was the huge controversy over the National Capital Authority's now-axed plans to develop the Albert Hall precinct, which could have seen developments right on the water. The Kingston redevelopment is missing mention of other urban renewal there; the Old Bus Depot Markets and the Canberra Glassworks. The intended expansion to demolish the somewhat historic Causeway neighbourhood next door might warrant a sentence. I think the weight placed on the Immigration Bridge proposal is possibly a bit high; it gets as much article time as the far more notable Kingston changes. Finally, "...luxury apartment complexes were built in the suburb of Kingston, turning into a upper-class area" is a bit strange; Kingston was already an upper-class area.

I thought Kingston was an industrial area.... please fix as required. Added into on powerhouse and glasworks YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:41, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Albert Hall mentioned. Help with some of thsi Kingston thing requested YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:56, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

You've done a really good job here. The one remaining issue here is the Albert Hall redevelopment; the significance of this is that it would have led to shops/bars/etc on the shores of the lake in the central area (and wasn't just heritage activists; was generally very controversial) - a couple more sentences here would be good (though the refs you've already got there should be enough to support it). As for Kingston; it's an upper-class suburb - it's where the pollies hang out at night when parliament's sitting, but there used to be a strip of industrial facilities along the edge of the lake, which is what's currently being redeveloped. Rebecca (talk) 15:30, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

And as noted above, the article has a fair few redlinks. I've noted above that some could be delinked or piped to existing articles, but there's still a fair few that need writing.

All in all, it's hugely improved, and its already an excellent article. But it could still do with a bit more work to really bring it up to top standard. Rebecca (talk) 15:33, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Ah the tough workout will be good in the long run. Ideally people within a wikiproject know more so they can scrutinise more properly. WP:AUS is better than some others with 100% pile on supports of any old article, that's for sure. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:56, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Nice work on the stubs (although I'm still not sure that at least the Yacht Club is notable), but could you please write an actual stub about the Royal Canberra Hospital? The Royal Canberra Hospital was a separate hospital serving Canberra along with the Woden Hospital for a quarter of a century before it closed and the Woden Hospital changed name; it really deserves an article of its own. That, and the one other slight quibble above, and I think we're done here. I'm really impressed with the job you've done here - I've been a damn hard critic with a fair bit of background knowledge, and you've turned out the sources and put together an article many times better than the one you started with. Rebecca (talk) 15:30, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

RCH has its own now. Also, Albert Hall is a bit bigger. Found a bit more ref diversity. Tweaked a few more things. No pain, no gain. Thanks again for your help. A check for typos/copyedit/consistent formatting should suffice now. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:51, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Superb. No further objections, well deserving of featured status. I'm very impressed. Rebecca (talk) 07:55, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

• Comment - I've gone through the article and corrected several typos, grammar problems, and general overlinking. The flow seems fine to me as currently written. --Laser brain (talk) 17:57, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] The Lord of the Rings: The Battle for Middle-earth II

[edit] Review commentary

Notified User:Theleftorium, User:Gary King, Wikipedia:WikiProject Strategy games, Wikipedia:WikiProject Middle-earth, Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games, Wikipedia:WikiProject Xbox

Violation of 1.C.

Citations do not match the content provided in the article from top to bottom. Issue was first raised by myself here with follow ups here. I have performed a cursory check of -every- cited section and have found inconsistencies and statements that are far from what the sources state. The most egregious comes in the form of this:

Electronic Arts added new battles to the story, and introduced original characters to the game, such as Gorkil the Goblin King. Some characters were altered in their appearances, abilities, and roles; for instance, a combat role in the game is given to Tom Bombadil, a merry hermit from The Lord of the Rings.[9]

which is cited to: "Tolkien, J. R. R. (1954), The Fellowship of the Ring, The Lord of the Rings, Boston: Houghton Mifflin (published 1987), "The Old Forest", ISBN 0-395-08254-4". It is 100% unacceptable to think a 1954 book is a reliable source for information on Electronic Arts or that such information would not fail WP:V and WP:OR. The whole article is contaminated and every single line and source will need to have to be rechecked and compared to the original language to ensure that the citations actually match everything cited. Ottava Rima (talk) 22:09, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

• Comment I concur with OR's assessment after looking at the article. This issue appears to have escaped us at FAC. It is quite serious and an audit of each source is going to be needed. --Laser brain (talk) 00:23, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

  Thank you for bringing this up. I don't really know what I was thinking when I added the sources, but I certainly did not just "randomly" threw them down. I will do my best to address your concerns (I've already started, as you can see). :) TheLeftorium 11:36, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern are citations/accuracy of source agreement. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. FAQ? YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:28, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

• The offending material listed above has been removed, but a more thorough check would have to be made to see if everything is clean. This suggests a set of new references for the more detail list of problems that was provided to Theleftorium before. My opinion is neutral as of this moment (it was previously de-list). Ottava Rima (talk) 04:03, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Vancouver

[edit] Review commentary

Notified: Portal talk:Vancouver, Portal talk:Canada, Wikipedia talk:Canadian Wikipedians' notice board, ‎Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities, User talk:Emarsee, User talk:Bobanny.

At its current state it's neither well-written, comprehensive or well-researched. Its lead has 7 paragraphs, the media and to a large extent Transportation section are both unsourced. Demographics are a mess and many sections have "citation needed" templates. Aaroncrick^{(Tassie Boy talk)} 10:09, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Images

• File:Dfdv.jpg: incomplete information: no license or source.
• File:Vancouver BC crime.png: should specify the source of the data.
• File:Art gallery vancouver.jpg: incomplete permission (uploader needs to confirm that they represent the web site). DrKiernan (talk) 13:27, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment: Also at least 6 refs are dead. [10] Aaroncrick^{(Tassie Boy talk)} 08:59, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for identifying these problems. I've started to fix some of them - reduced the number of paragraphs in the lead, moved some material that didn't fit in the "Demographics" section. I will continue working through the article and fixing problems as I spot them. In the meantime, any further specifics you can give would be most useful. Sunray (talk) 07:57, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, structure, comprehensiveness. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:09, 3 July 2009 (UTC)FAQ?

• Delist needs a lot of work. The stubby paragraphs in Demographics could be conflated, and "According to Statistics Canada, Vancouver is the least obese metropolitan area in Canada, with only 11.7% of the population obese." doesn't seem to be well placed, although I don't see any "Health" section to transfer it to. There are unsourced mini-sections that should be merged into the parent sections. What makes http://www.vancouverhistory.ca/chronology1958.htm a reliable source; I'm sure there are better ones out there. http://www.vancouver.com/about_us/ seems to be questionable as well. The prose isn't bad, although it's not "brilliant". "even amongst the artists themselves" ("amongst" is unnecessarily archaic); "Vancouver has over 1,298 hectares (3,200 acres) of parks, with Stanley Park being the largest at 404 hectares (1,000 acres)." (the noun + -ing problem, and "with" is usually a bad logical connector anyway); "The diverse ethnic make-up of Vancouver's population supports a rich range of multicultural media." ("rich" is unnecessary flourishing language ("diverse" says it all), and as opposed to what? no citation either). In fact, the entire Media section is unsourced, and needs a rewrite. The primary problem is citations (1c), followed by organization in prose and article structure (1a and 2b). Dabomb87 (talk) 01:47, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
• Do not delist. I don't see any problems identified above that some sustained editing couldn't fix. City articles need a great deal of patrolling because so many people want to add their little factoid. It is evident that the article hasn't been tightly enough patrolled and has suffered somewhat. How about giving the regular page editors some time to work on the problems? A comprehensive list of issues needing attention would be most helpful. In any case, I've begun working on it and will enlist others to join in. Sunray (talk) 07:25, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

It's only been two days since the FARC segment was started; I wouldn't imagine this would be closed anytime soon. As long as you are working, they won't close this. As for a comprehensive list, I'll see what I can do in the next few days. Dabomb87 (talk) 13:41, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I've contacted some of the main editors of the article. If there is some support for an editing blitz we should be able to get this puppy into shape! Sunray (talk) 16:02, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Work automatically slows down teh clock YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:08, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

• Delist, per FA criteria concerns, as well as comments by Dabomb87 (talk · contribs) and by Aaroncrick (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 13:25, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
• Do not delist (yet, anyway). Somehow few people seemed to notice the article was up for review - but are now working on it. The concerns can likely be addressed within a week. There are about 15 <citation needed> tags - nearly ALL of which were added just today. None of these appear to be in dispute, they just need to have a source added (such as a source that says what nearly everyone knows - that "the city is named after George Vancouver") --JimWae (talk) 17:54, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

• Delist, Even though there finally appears to be some action on the article, it's in such a bad state I can't imagine all issues being fixed for a while yet. Also the page is 111 kilobytes long and yes, New York City (133 kilobytes) amongst others are longer, but shouldn't sections only include important information with the rest placed into a specific article on that particular topic? In saying this, the Media section and Fitness and health sub-section need expansion and refs. Do we really need two panoramas? I suggest keeping the image taken during the day, and deleting the one taken at night, but that's just my opinion. Aaroncrick^{(Tassie Boy talk)} 03:23, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Large cities that have received FA status tend to have relatively large sizes. Comparably-sized cities clock in at about the same length (e.g., Belgrade (105 kb), Manchester (128 kb), Minneapolis (112 kb) and Seattle (126 kb). Not that that is justification for sloppiness. I would anticipate that we will be cutting it down considerably in the course of this review.

I agree that we don't need two panoramas. Of the two, the night scene is a featured picture and has considerable support from the page editors. I removed the second panorama. Sunray (talk) 20:18, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Featured article statistics. The prose size is what counts, although obviously if book sources are used they take up less space and are more user friendly from the POV of download time. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:08, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

This article's prose size is 50 kb. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:23, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

As a comparison, Detroit is 52 kb, New York City is 51 kb, Manchester is 48 kb, Boston is 47 kb, Houston is 45 kb Cleveland, Ohio is 45 kb, Minneapolis is 38 kb and Belgrade is 38 kb. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:29, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

• Comment - I think everyone involved here should look at the bigger picture. Vancouver is the host city to the 2010 Winter Olympics in 6 months. Over the past 6 months we have seen a decline in the quality of the article due to its increasing popularity. If internet browsing history is any indication of trends on Wikipedia, Vancouver will be the most visited article for January and February in 2010. Other than a single post on the talk page, none of the major editors or its corresponding WikiProject were notified; I mean unless you had the talk page on watch and were checking every day you'd miss it and if you're anything like the many long time editors that were involved in its featured article process, you'd know they edit over a broad spectrum of hundreds of articles. It is likely that writers and editors of the various related WikiProjects such as WikiProject Vancouver, and WikiProject Canada, will be interested to clear this article up in time for the Olympics. The technical problems such as only 6 dead references out of 152 wouldn't take it very long would it? Long sections can be shortened and moved to sub articles in relative ease. Personally I think this nomination should be removed and in a few months time no motions to improve this article are well under way, then you have reasonable cause. I also believe Wikipedia has been long striving to place itself as a usable and viable resource for knowledge and information, and that removing this article as a featured article and making no attempts to improve it would be showing of how Wikipedia is not any of those things. Seems foolish to me to spend all this time analyzing a couple references when a stronger effort could be made to get people to improve the article or do it yourself. Inputting and review the meta data for the references seems like an equal amount of work than removing the references since most of them are news links that would be impossible to replace. Mkdw^talk 10:51, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Sheffield

[edit] Review commentary

Wikiprojects notified. Nominator retired

This article has an extreme lack of citations in some place, while other places are well covered. Secondly, it has accumulated an extremely large amount of examples of notable people, groups over the years, probably due to a large amount of drive-by additions of examples, due to vanity, advertising etc YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 06:28, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

You are correct that much of the material added to this article since it became feature is not properly referenced, and some gives no appearance of notability. But I disagree that it has an "extreme lack of citations" - it has a reasonable number, and the core material is referenced. It shouldn't be too difficult to look over the additions and either reference them or remove them for lack of notability. It may, however, be a good chance to utilise more of the information available in paper publications concerning the city - the vast majority of current references are to websites. Warofdreams talk 13:29, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Clarified YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 06:51, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern are citations. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. FAQ? YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:10, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

• Delist, per FA criteria concerns. Cirt (talk) 13:26, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
• Delist Still issues with citations, and there doesn't appear to be a lot of work on fixing these issues. Aaroncrick^{(Tassie Boy talk)} 02:59, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
• Delist per own statement YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:06, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Eurovision Song Contest

[edit] Review commentary

Notified: User talk:Eurosong, User talk:Jess Cully, User talk:AxG, ‎Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Europe, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Eurovision.

FA from 2006, referencing/1c issues throughout. Lots of unsourced info, wholly unreferenced paragraphs and subsections, in addition to multiple violations of WP:NOR. Cirt (talk) 09:40, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

You are correct. Since the article was featured, it has been subject to a lot of unreferenced - and sometimes P.O.V - additions. I have been meaning to go through it and clean it up, but haven't yet got around to it. Thanks for the nudge: I shall do this in the coming week or so. Of course, Jess and AxG are welcome to share the task! :) EuroSong ^talk 10:27, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Okay thanks, keep us posted. :) Cirt (talk) 10:39, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I was going to bring this up this weekend at WT:EURO, you have only just beat me to it. I agree that the article does not meet FA at present and needs a complete review. I will bring up the topic of reliable sourcing again however after an article was quick failed GA for containing ESCToday and Okiotimes sources, something that effects this page as well. Camaron | Chris (talk) 17:59, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

There is something strange going on with the esctoday and oiko refs. It isn't clear if they should or should not be used and there hasn't been enough input in the discussions started. Esctoday IMO is a lot more reliable than oiko, but i think we should avoid using them if possible for this page in the meantime unless there is a concrete consensus. (Hint for someone to establish one) Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 21:23, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, quality of references, POV. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. FAQ? YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:08, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

• Delist, per above. Cirt (talk) 13:23, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

• Shouldn't what needs to be fixed try to be addressed first instead of delisting? Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 14:34, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes. I have done lots of work on the article since the FAR was initiated: I just have not had time to clean up a couple more things and then write a comment here about it! EuroSong ^talk 16:52, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

• Delist: References are in a mixture of styles - not consistent. Some do not support stated facts. The prose style is not good enough for current FA standard. Many of the cites do not meet the higher FA standards, certainly not blogs, or fan sites.

1. • Ref #3 (http://english.aljazeera.net/} does not support number of viewers, it just redirects to the frontpage of Al Jazeera.
   • Ref #30 redirects here {http://www.ukraine-observer.com/articles/208/655}
   • Ref #28 {http://www.doteurovision.com/1993/green.htm} returns 404
   • Ref #23 cites a Swedish ESC fan site, surely the official Swedish viewing figures should be sought out?
   • Ref #27 is to a private tourist accomodation booking aggregator, not a RS
   • Ref #29 cites various sources - why not get the information from Finnish Tv or the Finnish press?
   • Ref #57 cites Bubblegum University which describes itself as a kinderpop think tank.
   • Ref #53 cites the EBu so the information should be found there.
   • Ref #48 cites Des and Mick online!!
   • Ref #45 ESCToday not sources cited.
   • Ref #36 ESCToday cites ERT, which may be the official broadcaster. Surely that source shouldbe used.

Note. ESCToday is a full service news website which gathers its own information in addition to sourcing it from other articles. If ERT and the EBU are the sources, then they had contact with them, there is no article that they are reproducing. Grk1011/Stephen (talk) 18:01, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

[edit] Review commentary

Notified: User talk:Classicfilms, User talk:Nirvana2013, User talk:Ashwatham, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography, Wikipedia talk:Noticeboard for India-related topics, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography/Politics and government, Wikipedia talk:Hinduism-related topics notice board, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Indian politics, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Indian history, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Philosophy, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Hinduism/Philosophy, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Human rights, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Alternative Views.

FA from 2005, referencing/1c issues throughout. Mohandas_Karamchand_Gandhi#Freedom_and_partition_of_India tagged with issues since March 2009. 21 images used in the article, could stand to have an image review. Cirt (talk) 06:29, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

• Comment: Cirt asked that I participate in this FAR. From the standpoint of topic and theme alone, I would like for the article on Gandhi to remain an FA. However, there do appear to be some serious structural, stylistic, and mechanical problems with the article.

Re: WP:WIAFA:

1a. I cleaned up the language of the introduction a bit. However, the entire article could use a clean up. This is a relatively large task and perhaps would be better accomplished by dividing up the work among editors.

1b. The article is comprehensive but it is also uneven. The section "Gandhi's principles," for example, consists entirely of quotes that really do not offer a concise overview of the topic.

1c. Wikipedia:Verifiability is a serious problem throughout the article, not just in the tagged section. "Early life and background," "Civil rights movement in South Africa (1893–1914),"Struggle for Indian Independence (1916–1945), and "Swaraj and the Salt Satyagraha (Salt March)" stand out but virtually all of the sections lack proper referencing. From this point only, this problem may force the article to lose its FA status if it is not corrected. As with 1a., it will prove to be a large task and may need multiple editors to correct it. I just added the "sources" tag at the top of the article.

1d. I have witnessed edit wars on this article in the past. It seems to be relatively stable now, but some of the sections were constructed more in an attempt to resolve edit wars than to cover the topic at hand (such as "Ideals and criticisms) and thus may have to be reconstructed.

1e. See 1d. I haven't watched this article in awhile so I cannot comment about the present.

2a. As I stated above, I tweaked the lead a bit although it could probably benefit from the contributions of other editors as well. As an FA, the lead needs to be of the highest quality.

2b. I think that it is fine but as with any biography the structure is somewhat subjective and perhaps we need to hear from other editors on this topic.

2c. I haven't gone through all of the citations, but as with 1c the references could stand a full review.

3. I concur with Cirt on the topic of images.

4. See 2b.

Conclusion: These problems will need to be attended to in order for the article to maintain its FA status.

-Classicfilms (talk) 13:47, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I know it's a lot of work but could you add citation tags wherever you think necessary? It will be a lot easier to search for cites for specific things. Thanks! --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 19:35, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Well - I'm a bit hesitant only because it would mean adding a fact tag after numerous statements throughout the article and that could irritate a number of readers. My rule of thumb when upgrading articles is to cite any and every point that is offered as a definitive fact. So I can look at this article and see that numerous points in it need to be attributed to some kind of source. So here is a thought. Why don't we take it section by section? Pick a section you would like to work on and if the citation needs are not clear, then post a question here. -Classicfilms (talk) 20:04, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I'm restricted to about one library day a week and it is easier for me to take a list of problematic sentences and look up citations than to follow a cite and post cycle. (Those dratted real life issues ....!) I was sort of hoping to get a handle on the extent of the problem. But, no worries, que sera sera, etc. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 21:07, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm facing the same issues. Frankly, I think that this article needs a full team of editors to make all of the corrections. It is far too much for one or two people. Which is why I'm leaning towards removing the FA status and letting it rebuild over a period of time. -Classicfilms (talk) 21:24, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment:Just as an example Harvey Milk is a well - maintained FA biography which is heavily sourced. This is what I would like to see in the Gandhi article. -Classicfilms (talk) 23:05, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Early life I think I've got this section cited - except for the last sentence in para 1 (which is not a fact anyway). I'll try to work on the South Africa next but am unlikely to get this done on the FAR timetable! --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 18:41, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Great job! -Classicfilms (talk) 15:18, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

If the work is steady then a lot of time is available, but in theory, articles on very prominent leaders, the giants of the world might take an inordinate amount of time given the criteria "characterized by a thorough and representative survey of relevant literature on the topic" and the hundreds of books on the topic. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 03:12, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Which is why I am wondering if it might not be best to put this article through an actual vote to make a decision about its FA status. As I said above, the subject matter is worthy of an FA, but the article still needs a great deal of work to bring it back to an FA level. I think that with the dedication of a number of editors it can be brought back to this level but until that happens, we need to decide if it should be considered an FA. -Classicfilms (talk) 03:26, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Well the review is supposed to last 2 weeks before the voting phase, and that is tomorrow, so if people think it is unfeasible to have six-month running repairs, it can be delisted YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 03:29, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Support: I would support delisting for now with the understanding that if the page is brought back to FA level, it can go through the FA process again. Perhaps delisting will help bring the page back up to FA status. -Classicfilms (talk) 03:32, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I'll keep working on it but it's going to be slow. Meanwhile FA or not-FA is fine by me. --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 22:06, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks RegentsPark. -Classicfilms (talk) 02:48, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Images

• File:Portrait Gandhi.jpg: invalid licence. Copyrights expire 60 years from publication, not 60 years from creation, which means the first publication must be noted. According to the source, it was taken and published on 29 September 2006. This is very clearly wrong.
• File:Gandhi sign.jpg: no source. How do we know this is his signature without a source? File:Nehruwithgandhi1942.jpg: photographed where? Need to know where this document is displayed, so we can check it is by Gandhi.
• [:File:Young Gandhi.jpg]]: source is a dead link. Date "c.1886 (or is it 1876?)" does not inspire confidence.
• File:Gandhi and Kasturbhai 1902.jpg, File:Gandhi South-Africa.jpg: sources are dead links
• File:Gandhi Boer War 1899.jpg: unfortunately, and obviously, this image has been retouched heavily.
• File:Gandhi Kheda 1918.jpg: no original source.
• File:Salt March.jpg, File:Nehruwithgandhi1942.jpg: no information on first publication.
• File:Mahadev Desai and Gandhi 2 1939.jpg: source is a dead link; no information on first publication.
• File:Gandhi's journals.jpg: invalid license. The journals are public domain, but a photograph or collage of them isn't necessarily so. Independent thought is required to select the journals and arrange them artistically. substituted pic. The journals one was of doubtful pd status since it seems to have been taken from a 1950s film.
• In the "Legacy" section, I think it's OK to show more than one statue, and statues from different continents, as that clearly shows the profound impact that Gandhi had worldwide. However, they could perhaps be better arranged, for example, by using "upright" parameters. DrKiernan (talk) 12:40, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Support: I agree with DrKiernan. -Classicfilms (talk) 15:17, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

A question about the images. Most of the images listed above (and other images with Gandhi as a subject) have been reproduced in multiple locations with no license or copyright status explicitly mentioned. First publication history is almost impossible to come by for almost all Gandhi images. The photographers are uniformly anonymous. Under these circumstances, what is the appropriate thing to do? Delete them? --RegentsPark (sticks and stones) 22:16, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Since the issue at hand is improving the article so that it is back to a level appropriate for an FA, I would delete any and all images which are a) not free and b) which have the kind of issues you raise above. An FA article needs images but this one has so many that deleting a few should not make a difference. I would rather see just a few free/fair use images than multiple images which are questionable in terms of fair use. -Classicfilms (talk) 02:48, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, lead, prose, depth and breadth of research/coverage on Gandhi's politics, copyrights. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 08:12, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

• Delist, per FA criteria concerns, and above comments. Cirt (talk) 09:27, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
• Delist per above with the understanding that if it is rewritten and improves over time, it can go through a new FAC. -Classicfilms (talk) 13:35, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Panama Canal

[edit] Review commentary

Notified Wikipedia:WikiProject Maritime Trades, Wikipedia:WikiProject Central America, Wikipedia:WikiProject Transport, User:Ian Rose, User:Mark Shaw, and User:Shanes. Nominator User:Johantheghost has not edited the article since 2006.

Unverified material and citation needed markers. External link farm. Citations not uniformally formatted, and missing publishers, access dates, etc. Images with inappropriate licenses: for example, the permission for File:Admbuilding.jpg says that we can use information on our website but it does not give permission to "use it for any purpose" as claimed by the license. At the top of the cleanup list. DrKiernan (talk) 16:43, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, images, external links and style. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:05, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

• Delist, per FA criteria concerns. Cirt (talk) 09:30, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Common scold

[edit] Review commentary

Notified:WikiProject Law

Yuck, what a mess:

1. 1a. Clumsy prose with lots of sentences beginning with "the".
2. 1b. Seems rather short. Some parts are barely a paragraph long.
3. 1c. Very few sources. At least two {{fact}} tags, only 10 cites overall, large chunks of unreferenced-ness.

This has clearly slipped way, way, way below the FA guidelines, given that it was promoted in 2004. Notified User:Majorly, who pointed this article out on IRC, and WikiProject Law. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 01:56, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Um, did you all discuss simply reverting it to the version that passed FAR last time? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:09, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Hardly any better. That revision still has almost all of the same problems, minus a couple red links. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 02:12, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Point them out, please ... this looks like an example of citation density counting ... common sense doesn't need to be cited, and some facts are cited inline. where is the clumsy prose, what needs citation, and "Seems rather short" is not a valid criticism for an FA. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:20, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Like I said, half the sentences begin with "the". Mix it up a little. The "Current status of the law" section is hardly common-sense, doesn't-need-to-be-sourced type stuff. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 02:32, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

4u1e's comments

• The article probably is almost completely covered by the references identified, although perhaps the citations could be tidied up to make this clearer. Some specific points:
  • Refs 1 and 5 are broken links.
  • There's a mix of inline and footnoted citations - ony one style should be used.
  • The interpretation of John Holt's remarks on the punishment may go beyond what the reference actually says.
  • The comment on Fye Bridge is not cited.
  • The last two paragraphs are not cited.
  • The quality of the references doesn't seem very high. All are acceptable, they just don't really look like a thorough cross section of the best scholarship available.
• I have doubts as to the comprehensiveness of the article. For example:
  • There's almost nothing on the offence itself, most of the article is about the punishments and when the offence died out. What behaviour led to prosecution? Several cases are quoted, but there's nothing on what the accused actually did. It would also be interesting, if possible, to have some idea of when the offence originated.
  • Similarly, was this unique to the British legal system (and by descent, the American one)? If purely a British punishment, the difference to mainland Europe is striking and should be commented on.
  • I find it hard to believe that's there's not a vast scholarly literature on such a topic, but if there is, it's not reflected in the article. For example, there must have been much comment from a feminist perspective. (see Google Scholar for a start.)
• The section 'Historical prosecutions' is quite confusing. What point is being made here? It reads like a fairly random list of historical occurences. Why are these the most notable instances? What do they tell us about the offence? The section may be trying to address the issue of when the practice died out, but I can't really tell.
• Has anyone informed the relevant wikiproject and editors, by the way? Cheers. 4u1e (talk) 16:06, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, quality of sources, comprehensiveness, lead, inconsistent style. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:04, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

• Delist. Inconsistent citation style, very average sources, some unsourced material, and appears not to be comprehensive. No changes since my comments above. Cheers. 4u1e (talk) 22:10, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
• Delist, per FA criteria concerns. Cirt (talk) 09:29, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Kerala

[edit] Review commentary

Notified: Kerala discussion board, User:Saravask, User:Salih and more.

This is a rather high level Kerala FAR discussion. I'm sorry.

Lead section

1 (c) issue at the first paragraph, since Kerala is not bordered by the Arabian sea in the east, but the Laccadive Sea. 1 (a) and 1 (c) poorly written summary of the history in the lead section. There is only one primary source, which seems to be a very brief and vage one. There should be more clear sources to support these views, hence there is also a 1 (d) issue: The neutrality of this view is debatable. A few Keralite groups are credited to have formed the language of the state. This has to be clearly sourced by reputed scholars. 1 (a) issue with the term "Early contacts with Europeans". This looks pretty misplaced, because Romans and Greeks, which are mentioned earlier, are also Europeans. 1 (c) Original research at the last sentence, which says, that it is a "unique" feature of the state. The sources, which are provided, don't state that. Also there is no mention in the lead, that Kerala became a very successful tourist center, which contributes to Kerala's economy in a big way. An inclusion is not supported by the main contributors.

History section

1 (c) Details of Muziris/Pattanam have not found the way to the article, which I strongly regret, because this was the early history site of Kerala. A reference was made in the lead section, but the history section is completely empty. Early contacts with Babylon and ancient Egypts are not mentioned. Also the first two paragraphs are very poorly sourced, hence another 1 (c) issue.

Subdivision section

1 (a)/4 The city box seems to be too large. A normal box on the right side would be better.

Government and Politics section

1 (a)/4 These sections should be merged into one "Politics" section, since the content in Politics is really small. Generally there should be more information about the history in Kerala politics. Then the section could stay divided.

Education section

2 (c) not a single inline citation in the whole section, accept one.

--Stopthenonsense (talk) 15:54, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

3 I've nominated File:School children line Cochin Kerala India.jpg for deletion. File:Kathakali Performance.jpg has no source. No permission for File:KalariPuttara.jpg. DrKiernan (talk) 10:43, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

• Apart from the concerns raised above, I think the Education section should be written in WP:SS and provided with some citations. Further I doubt the use of non-free image File:Kannur university-logo.png in this page.

Culture section

2 (c) The section should have more citations.

Media section

Dozens of newspapers are published in Kerala; they are printed in nine major languages. - Please include the exact numbers.

• Name the highest circulating newspaper and cite it.
• There are 17 malayalam channels which makes the countries maximum number in regional language. - Citation needed Amartyabag ^TALK2ME 01:25, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, structure, lead, accuracy, neutrality, original reaserch, image copyright. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:03, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

• Delist, per FA criteria concerns. Cirt (talk) 09:28, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
• Delist Some parts are OK, while others are inadequate. There are still unsourced and vague swaths of text, dead links that prevent verification, conversions missing, an external link section that could be pruned. I found the Climate section one of the more disappointing parts of the article. There was very little substance, only random stats ("Daily average high 36.7 °C; low 19.8 °C." is not even a sentence!); there was no flow at all to the section. Parts of the article need updating (why do we care about the 2005–2006 budget). By no means bad, but not FA standard. Dabomb87 (talk) 01:33, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Krag-Petersson

[edit] Review commentary

Article fails 1c. Apart from two hobby websites, one book is cited, and no details are given wrt page numbers, just the name of the book. Images are dubiously tagged under 100 years after death but the designer died in 1916. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 04:26, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

According to Commons (which the files are duplicates of), the copyright was valid during the owner's life plus 70 years, and as he died in 1916, the copyright has expired.--LWF (talk) 04:43, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

• There are many problems with this article; consider this to be a "delist" !vote when this moves into FARC mode.
  • There is too much of a reliance on one source.
  • Page numbers are needed.
  • Even when assuming that citations cover more than one sentence (and I'm not confident of that, with seeing multiple [2]'s in one paragraph), I still see much that is unreferenced.
  • I don't think refs 1 and 4 are reliable.
  • THis is without checking the prose... —Ed (Talk • Contribs) 02:09, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, images. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:01, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

• Delist per above YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:01, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
• Delist, per YellowMonkey (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 09:28, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Supreme Commander

[edit] Review commentary

notified parties: WikiProjects Video Games and Xbox (Strategy Project defunct); users Krator, Xihr and SkyWalker (latter two inactive according to user page)

June 2007 FA that fails current standards (and probably wasn't that great back then, either.) Issues:

• crit. 1: I wouldn't say the article is very broad in coverage, or comprehensive. The 'Development' section is little more than technology overviews and demo/bug fix lists, with little information about the real conception of the game (considering this is meant as the spiritual successor to Total Annihilation, I'm surprised that facet is given short shrift). Prose appears to have eroded and there are lots of tiny one or two line/sentence paragraphs that need to be dealt with. Large swaths of the article are unreferenced.
• crit. 2: Lead section does not adequately summarize the article;
• crit. 3: Poor compliance with WP:NFCC. Three sound clips (Risk, Relief and Victory.ogg, Massive Attack.ogg, and The Future Battlefield.ogg) have absolutely no critical commentary to merit the inclusion of just one of the samples. File:Pcgamer_cover_small.jpg is purely decorative, and File:SupCom Dualview.png and File:SupCom ZoomAnimation.gif need at the very least better FUR than the generic "illustrate subject of the article" they have now.

--Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 15:20, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, breadth of coverage, lead, images. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. FAQ? YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:29, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

• Delist, per FA criteria concerns. Cirt (talk) 06:37, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
• Delist per my reasoning above. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 13:20, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Sun

[edit] Review commentary

Notifications: Ckatz, WikiProject Space WikiProject Solar System

Fails the criteria 1c. Lots of unverified statements. SkyBon^{Talk\Contributions} 11:28, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Two requests: 1) Can you be more specific on what exactly needs to be verified (statistics, sections, paragraphs, etc.) and 2) Please list the notifications you made at the top. See Wikipedia:Featured article review/Kung Fu Hustle as an example. Dabomb87 (talk) 21:29, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

There are a lot of "citation needed" notes. Also e.g. in the 1st part of "Core" section there are a lot of statements and only one reference. SkyBon^{Talk\Contributions} 08:20, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

No problem!--Stone (talk) 05:25, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm guessing by saying that some paras only have one citation, he is also objecting to those with no citation YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:15, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern are citations. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 03:30, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

• Delist, per FA criteria concerns. Cirt (talk) 05:55, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
• There are currently three "citation needed" tags. One is apparently for a number and one is about the Genesis spacecraft - those could be provided easily. Much of the article is basic info that could be verified (and corrected if necessary) from many sources, including most common encyclopedias. This seems like a fairly superficial issue. Is there anything more substantive that would prevent this article from remaining FA? Gimmetrow 00:49, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

  "Sunspots and the sunspot cycle" section has lots of controversial for non-experts statements and has only one inline citation. SkyBon^{Talk\Contributions} 10:02, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

  Also spotted contradiction with list of nearest stars about absolute magnitude. SkyBon^{Talk\Contributions} 19:17, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

  SkyBon, not to suggest that we shouldn't be accurate, but there is also a case of taking things too far, too quickly. For example, putting a prominent "contradiction" template at the top of a featured article because of a difference of 0.02 in the absolute magnitude data was not appropriate. Yes, we'll address the issues - but it would help if you could provide greater detail about what concerns you (for example, the "controversial" sunspot note above) rather than applying templates, removing "featured" stars, and so on. --Ckatz^chat_spy 20:21, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

  The Sun article gives absolute magnitude 4.83 (same as [11]), and the List article uses 4.85. That's a variation in the sources. (And 0.5%, at that.) Unless you can rule out one source as "mistaken", what would you like done about it? Gimmetrow 03:54, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

• Just stopping by to comment, was reading and saw the request for additional comments and I couldn't help but notice that the article only alludes to the fact that the Sun has planets around it, while this is probably common knowledge to most I would bet there are a fair amount of people that wouldn't realize the total number of planets, or their names as well as the large amount of recent discoveries in the Kuiper Belt. I don't think it needs a large section but most star articles I have seen on wiki at least mention the number of planets orbiting. Thanks and I hope this is the appropriate venue to address such a concern.--208.82.225.245 (talk) 07:01, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I think that might be an issue of article scope. Most star articles also cover their orbital system. Here, that content is covered by the article on the Solar System, which has an overview of the Oort Cloud and Kuiper Belt, and which is linked in the first sentence of this article. Gimmetrow 04:03, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Alright, I did a complete overhaul of the references. Many had the wrong information, formatting was all over the place, and so on. Several sections and statements still are unreferenced, and the section on eye safety / eye damage seems to use relatively low-quality references, and seems to be thrown together haphazardly compared to the rest of the article. In this current state, it would not pass FA. However, since the dirty job is now done, perhaps directly inviting the astronomy project to add the refs, and directly inviting the medicine project to review the eye damage section would produce editors willing to fix the remaining issues. Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 16:48, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Question to YellowMonkey: Where is the article NPOV? --Stone (talk) 06:58, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry that was a mistake YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 01:31, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Pan American World Airways

[edit] Review commentary

• Notified Wikipedia:WikiProject Airlines, Wikipedia:WikiProject Florida, Wikipedia:WikiProject New York City, and Wikipedia:WikiProject Miami

The article has a severe lack of inline citations that would disqualify it from being even a good article. I posted requests on various WikiProject pages to ask for help to refimprove it, but so far it hasn't been refimproved. WhisperToMe (talk) 17:54, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Image problems: File:Tran12G7.jpg: needs an LoC id number. Though it's likely to be PD, it's unlikely to be a federal US government image. File:PAA "The Americas" Route Map 1936.jpg and File:PAA San Francisco - Manila - Hong Kong Clipper Schedule.jpg require fair use rationales. DrKiernan (talk) 10:31, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern are citations (spot-check showed that some 1-citation paras did not cover all the text), copyrights. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 04:05, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

• Comment: Looks like there have been lots of improvements. Still some 1c issues, in subsection Pan_American_World_Airways#Accidents_and_terrorist_events. Cirt (talk) 01:17, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Krag-Jørgensen

[edit] Review commentary

WikiProjects notified

• Problems with (1c) The article is almost entirely sourced to one reference and large amounts of unsourced paragraphs. The minority refs do not have publisher info and look like a personal website.
• A lot of listy bits
• Inconsistent formatting of numbers, etc YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 01:53, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
• Comment: Inconsistent formatting of numbers is an easy fix and shouldn't count, and I'm not concerned by the single reference source- the source could be the definitive text on the subject, making reference elsewhere redundant, for example. I do agree the article could use a few more references for some of the paragraphs, but generally it seems OK to me. Commander Zulu (talk) 03:22, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
• Comment: there are a number of paragraphs without an in line citation. The basic rule for B class is at least one per paragraph or block of information, so I imagine that for FA it would need this at a minimum. I would probably like to see page numbers in the citations, but that is not necessarily a must. On the whole, though, it has good content, seems well written, it is well illustrated, etc. Probably just needs a few minor fixes and should be able to stay listed in my opinion. — AustralianRupert (talk) 03:36, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
• Counter-comment (Comment on comment? Whatever :)) There are no rules that say you must have a certain number of cites per paragraph. There are rules that say that "Material challenged or likely to be challenged, and all quotations, must be attributed to a reliable, published source.", and in practice this does usually mean that at least one cite per para is necessary, but I wouldn't want anyone to think that getting to FA-standard means achieving a greater and greater density of citations. If you're using high quality printed media references, you can often get the desired result with fewer cites than if you're using a ragbag of random websites, for example. Rant over. :) 4u1e (talk) 17:08, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

No there isn't and definitely if you write a sport bio from web only you will need a different news/stats report for each game whereas with a dedicated biog it will all worked into the same place. But still, (1c) "well researched" generally implies that there is a variety of sources. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 03:00, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Like I said before, the book the editor used might very well be the Definitive Text on the subject. There isn't always a need for many sources, IMHO. Commander Zulu (talk) 08:59, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Image problems: Sources and rationales required for File:Krag-Jørgensen-Hotchkiss.jpg, File:Krag-Jørgensen-Speed Loader 2.jpg and File:Krag-Jørgensen SNABB38.jpg. DrKiernan (talk) 10:56, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, copyrights. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 01:56, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• Delist per own statement YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 01:56, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
• Delist, agree with above assessment by YellowMonkey (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 07:02, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Attalus I

[edit] Review commentary

Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history/Classical warfare task force, User talk:Paul August, User talk:Sj.

FA from 2004, referencing/1c issues. Article seems to rely way too heavily on primary sources as opposed to secondary sources. Could use an overall copyedit pass and review for flow. Image review and cleanup/improvement of the individual image pages would also be helpful, images include: File:AtaloPergamo.jpg, File:Dying gaul.jpg, File:AttalusICorrected.jpg, and File:Attalus I coin depicting Philetairos.jpg. Cirt (talk) 07:02, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeap, it relies mainly on primary sources, although secondary sources are also used. It was one of the first FAs I read before my own ventures, and almost 3 years later I still regard it as FA quality. I am willing however to help adding secondary sources (through googlebooking only), if that is ok with Paul.--Yannismarou (talk) 18:14, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, of course. Paul August ☎ 04:00, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I'll start working, maybe as soon as now (!); definitely during the weekend.--Yannismarou (talk) 21:02, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, copyrights. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 01:59, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• Delist, per FA criteria concerns. Cirt (talk) 07:04, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Are there any suggestions for changes to the article? Paul August ☎ 18:16, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Main concern iterated above is heavy usage of primary as opposed to secondary sources. Cirt (talk) 23:14, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• O! We are fast here. As I understand the main argument for delisting is citations. I'll express my opinion about copy-editing as well, but, allow me to tell you, that, if somebody argues that the prose is not satisfactory, he/she has to present some concrete examples to support his/her arguments. Otherwise ... In the meantime, I'll start adding secondary sources. As I have made clear, I still believe that this is a FA, and for the time being I am weak keep.--Yannismarou (talk) 20:45, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
• On this subject, from these sources, secondary sources are more likely to summarize Livy than emend him. Most of the obvious secondary sources seem to have already been listed; I would also look at the first chapters of Magie's History of Roman Asia, for an idea of what is important enough to list in comparable space. It would be a virtuous act to check them thoroughly; but it's unlikely to change the text much. Justin (for what he is worth) should also be a primary source, IIRC. Weak keep Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:44, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Peterborough Chronicle

[edit] Review commentary

Wikiprojects notified. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 04:19, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Fails 1c. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 04:19, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I have notified Geogre, a primary contributor, and will be watching this too to see if I can help. Mike Christie (talk) 10:52, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I'll try to look in on this shortly. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:22, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

From comments on Geogre's talk page, he feels it meets 1c, so I'm not going to stick my nose into something so fraught with chances of just causing drama. I've got enough work to work on, thanks. Ealdgyth - Talk 01:44, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Question: Fails 1c? You mean it is not well-researched? If so, a pointer to where you think the research is lacking would be helpful for anybody who intends to work on it. Or is there a specific part of criterion 1c you believe it fails? Yomangani^talk 16:10, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I am fairly sure he is refering to the fact that the article has only one inline citation and not that many references overall. Spiesr (talk) 17:21, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

That may be (actually it has quite a few inline citations, although only one footnote), but I was hoping that YellowMonkey would add more than a two word rationale for what is essentially a request to delist some people's hard work. Yomangani^talk 23:42, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Current feature article standards essentially require every paragraph in an article the have multiple specific citations. Usally in the standard of footnotes like this <ref>Smith 2007, p. 1.</ref>. Modern featured articles like this one have extensive lists of citations in a refernces or notes section. This article contains only 1 item in its notes section. And while the article does have a few of citations of a different formatting in the text, which should look like this (Smith 2007, p. 1), there are not nearly enough of these for the article to pass criteria 1c and maintain its featured status. Spiesr (talk) 17:39, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I'll see if I can't dig up some sources and add some citations. Kafka Liz (talk) 10:52, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

• It might be a good start to reformat the in-line citations to harvnb template format, so they are clickable and lead to the appropriate reference in the references section. I am happy to do this, though I won't be able to insert the page numbers. I wouldn't insist on using footnotes at this time, given that Geogre deliberately used another system; the harvnb citations can easily be changed to footnotes later on if needed. Having the refs show as hyperlinks will also make it more apparent how much of the content is cited. Sound like a good idea? JN466 09:32, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Done. Although there's a couple of the harvard links I can't get to work; most jump down to the appropriate reference, but a couple don't. JN466 21:33, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern is citations. Joelito (talk) 23:02, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

• Delist, per FA criteria concern cited above by YellowMonkey (talk · contribs) and Joelr31 (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 11:12, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
• Delist per Cirt. Not enough citations. FAR has been open for several weeks. JN466 15:19, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
• Let me note that very view of the sources you'd expect to see used have been used for this article. I have to say I don't think Wikipedia should have FAs for historical sources (chronicles, annals, and so on), that don't use such sources. As a result of this problem, the article comments meagerly on important critical issues, little about diplomatic, composition, "textual archaeology", and so on. It's a good article, don't get me wrong, but we expert more comprehensiveness from FAs these days. The required rewrite is so massive that it has to be delisted. Deacon of Pndapetzim (Talk) 05:30, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Cane toad

[edit] Review commentary

Notified:WikiProject Amphibians and Reptiles, LiquidGhoul

I have split out Cane toad (Australia) since it was a large part of the article (and is also deserving of its own article). Having split out such a large amount of content a FAR is probably needed. I had also found a number of other issues that should not have occurred in a FA. There was a lack of punctuation and poor structure, and before I split out the information about cane toads in Australia the article lacked balance. I have corrects some of these issues. On a minor note I created the Cane toads dab page to get rid of the two links and explanations in the hatnote. Makes it look a little nicer! -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 09:15, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

• The article gets stubby towards the end. Single sentence sections are not good. Jay32183 (talk) 09:05, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

• I don't agree with the split. Many FAs are significantly larger than the two articles combined. I have proposed a remerger of Cane toads in Australia back into Cane toad before this goes on any longer. Discuss at Talk:Cane_toad#Merger_proposal. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:33, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Article size should not have anything to do with FA status. Splitting out Cane toads in Australia is surely a requisite for the ability to retain the FA status. The info I split out gave the article an imbalance toward Australian info - especially with the large "In popular culture" section. It is interesting to note that the new article has already been rated as C Class. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 06:08, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Well of course it'd be rated C-class as it was well referenced and comprehensive. My point is that the rest of the article probably needed expanding, not the aussie bit needing contracting. There is also a guideline not to make radical changes to Featured Articles, and also some form of adequate summary should have been left on the article page. I am sad as I have seen many of these daughter pages receive little traffic compared with the mother article, even when the link is very obvious. As the article is now unstable, its Featured status should probably be revoked on the spot. Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:15, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

The Aussie info is not contracted - it is simply moved. I suspect that the info about other countries is not likely to be expanded and the Aussies stuff may be of a higher notability (I will expand the summary at cane toad at some stage). I don't think the traffic difference is a valid argument. Cane toads is of interest to a wider sector than cane toads in Australia - and that is another reason to split the article. I was not aware of a FA guideline re splitting but I guess being bold can override a guideline. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 09:23, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

• In my opinion this FAR was a bit premature since the FAR was opened moments after the split was made. Discussion in the article's talk page would be better to avoid redundant discussions. Joelito (talk) 15:04, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

The FA was not justified before the split IMHO. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 07:18, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

The article was in overall better shape before the split. You've left the article with stubby, single sentence sections where previously there were fully fleshed out paragraphs in a single section. Although, Joelito's point was that there should have been a discussion about the split on the talk page prior to an FAR. Jay32183 (talk) 07:44, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

The Aussie stuff was spread throughout the article and giving it its own article cleaned it up. The stubby section I left can be expanded and I will do it as soon as possible. I saw no need for a discussion on something that looked like it needed doing. It was hardly a case of being overly bold. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 11:08, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

• Now is not a good time to review this article, given that major changes to the article have been attempted in the last few days, but not completed, and there is a current discussion about the split/merge on the article's talk page. Apart from this, there has been little change to the article over the past year, so I think it's a bit premature to strip it of FA status on the basis that it's unstable. Doing that would set a very bad precedent, in my view. To avoid wasted effort, let's put this review on hold until the talk page discussions and any action resulting from them are complete. -- Avenue (talk) 09:06, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Agree with this. I had intended the original as a rhetorical question and hope it keeps FA. Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:24, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

• According to the Featured article criteria "A featured article exemplifies our very best work and features professional standards of writing, presentation and sourcing." Even before I split out the Aussie section the article should not have fitted that description. WP can do much better than what was on offer in the article. Also, article stability is but one of the FA criteria. A few points to justify remove of the FA status (in no particular order):
  • A lengthy hatnote that should have only been one link
  • lack of punctuation
  • Presence of redlinks
  • A lengthy "in popular culture" section all about Australia yet the sections on other countries were very short and generally lacked references.
  • Poor article flow in the "Introductions" section. It should at least have Level 3 headers for individual countries
  • Unsourced statements since April 2008
  • The Notes and References should be one section (I notice that the References header has since been removed. Not all the References are linked to the article text. It should therefore be in a Further reading section. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 11:08, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

• Agree on many points in the preceding - there needs to be more detail on the native range in the Distribution section, and the Poison section is small. Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:13, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

• I think the refs are not linked to inlined refs as they predate a big move to inlining. So are probably relevant to the text. Hopefully, they can be accessed and we can determine which references what and help get the text inlined. I don't think a further reading section will eb required. Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:15, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

• Delist for the following reasons:
  • presence of redlinks
  • references that could be inline rather than listed after the refs section
  • lack of info on the introductions to the different countries

Note that I had split out the info pertinent to Australia to the Cane toad (Australia) article. See the discussion at Talk:Cane toad#Merger proposal. I had also fixed a number of glaring reasons why the article should not have had a FA status. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 03:50, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

• Comment: I am thinking probably Hold for the time being as from the discussion above, there appear to be a few issues left to resolve that have attention from editors that could potentially address them. I agree with Casliber (talk · contribs) that instead of spinning out material, it may have been best to instead expand the other subsections. However, there do appear to be some 1c issues that should be addressed. Cirt (talk) 07:15, 24 May 2009 (UTC)
• Comment - I'm currently working through the article to address the referencing and comprehensiveness issues. It should take about a week to see that complete. On the plus side, there are sufficient references available to meet any 1c concerns. - Bilby (talk) 01:45, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern is comprehensiveness as a result of section split. Joelito (talk) 22:59, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

• Note Moving to FARC since no progress was observed to resolve the split. Joelito (talk) 22:59, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

• Delist multiple citations needed. DrKiernan (talk) 17:04, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

• I'm on them. :) I'm marking missing ones as I go, but given the topic citations won't be a problem. There's sufficient, readily available material to source each statement, although it will take a few more days to be done. - Bilby (talk) 17:10, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

• Bilby has done a marvellous job on expanding the article, improving the breadth and depth YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 01:01, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Macedonia (terminology)

Featured article candidates/Macedonia (terminology)

Featured article review/Macedonia (terminology)/archive1

Featured article review/Macedonia (terminology)/archive2

Toolbox
disambig links edit count external links

[edit] FAR commentary

Notice to the nominator: Please notify relevant parties (editors and projects) per step 6 of "Nominating an article for FAR; otherwise your nomination is incomplete".--Yannismarou (talk) 08:37, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Now notified all four wikiprojects, and the only two original main authors who are still active, NikoSilver (also the original nominator) and Francis Tyers. Anybody else? Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:04, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

No, I think that's fine!--Yannismarou (talk) 09:10, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Current problems with this article:

• Etymology section: was an amateurish and redundant mix-up of actual etymology and mythology. Partly cleaned up now, by importing text from elsewhere, but may need further scrutiny.

• History section: far too wordy and far too much detail. This is a complete fork of a "History of Macedonia" article. It needs to be reduced to those bits that are actually necessary for the article's task: making the terminology understood.

• Linguistics section: account of Ancient Macedonian is confused, making an ad-hoc distinction between "sister language" and "cousin [language]" (which doesn't exist in linguistic terminology), also stylistically awkward.

• "Ethnic Macedonian nationalism" section: unnecessary POV editorialising about "extremist ... nationalists". Overlong block quote, of a size that makes it a fair-use / copyright problem, should be removed, paraphrased and/or broken down into smaller units. Same for the overlong block quotes in the following section.

• Geography section: needs better maps/graphics to illustrate the various different boundary lines discussed

• Demographics section: problematic POV statement that "As a regional group in Greece, Macedonians refers to ethnic Greeks (98%, 2001)". This specifically Greek meaning (as opposed to one that covers all the ethnicities including the Greeks and the local minorities) seems barely existant in English.

Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:21, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Close.This is a WP:POINT nomination just on the eve of the Macedonia arbitration by an involved party, with a direct objective to undermine the featured status of this article, which elaborates on the ambiguity and complexity of the issue.--Avg (talk) 14:35, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Speedy close: The nominator is most obviously not acquainted with FA criteria, and the relevant procedures. Thus the above nomination fails to explain why the article in question should be de-featured. As I can also notice, another FAR nomination was filed, which was recently closed. In such a short time from the previous one, I see no grounds for the current FAR. In addition, taking into consideration the weird coincidence with the Macedonia arbitration (filed by me by the way), I am wondering if the reasons for this FAR are spurious. In any case, I would like to remind to the nominator that FAR is not a place for the resolution of content disputes among editors. You should thus raise your case in the article's talk page, and not here.--Yannismarou (talk) 08:31, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

It's pretty obvious from my nomination which criteria are not met, isn't it? I said: "History section: far too wordy and far too much detail". That's obviously criterion 4 ("stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail"). I also said: "account of Ancient Macedonian is confused", and: "etymology section: was an amateurish and redundant mix-up". That's obviously criterion 1c ("well-researched"). I also raised concerns over copyright/fair use problems. That's the spirit (though not the letter) of criterion 3, which deals with "acceptable copyright status" and "non-free" content problems (it is ostensibly only talking about images, but of course NFC problems related to text are no less serious.). As for contacting people, how many would you deem necessary? As for the Arbitration case, it has nothing to do with it, except for the coincidence that I saw an arbitrator recommend reading this article, which I then went to do, surprisingly, for the first time, finding the article in the state it is. As for the previous review, it dealt exclusively with an entirely different set of concerns, and was speedy-closed on the grounds that those other concerns were baseless, so I dare say that's pretty irrelevant to the validity of the concerns I am raising. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:53, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Fut, read step 6, and you'll see that it is pretty clear which are the parties you should notify. I do not intend to do your job! As far as to your remarks, let me just notice that, when a FAR nomination opens, the reviewrs do not focus solely on the nominator's arguments, but evaluate the article themselves. At the time, distinguished FAR reviewers concluded that the article adhered to FA criteria. You argue that, in the meantime, suddently something changed. Let's see; you may be correct, while I may be wrong. Nevertheless, I still believe that these are issues which are mainly content-focuses, and should be thus raised in the article's talk page; not here. I stand by my opinion that this nomination should be speedy close, and I keep my doubts about your weird timing despite your explanation.--Yannismarou (talk) 09:09, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

No, the previous review including all the responses to it dealt exclusively with the issue of whether or not an article that dealt with the meaning of a word was legitimate in principle. Apart from that, the discussion only has vague assertions that the content was overall "good". Nobody ever dealt with concerns of the sort I'm raising. BTW, at the time of the original promotion, the overlong quotes (which are directly in contravention of any number of rules and guidelines) weren't yet there. But the etymology section used to be even worse back then. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:15, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Fut, if the problem is the quotes (I also do not like them, but this is not a reason strong enough to defeature an article), raise the issue in the talk page, and split or remove them, or turn them into proper prose. Whatever! I haven't yet read in detail the "Etymology" section, but I honestly don't see any major problems; in any case, I'll look closer to it. As far as the "history" section is concerned, I dont's see why both "Early" and "Modern History" do not adhere to WP:SS. They are indeed summaries of the main articles (which are much longer), and I think that this history summary is very useful for the reader, in order to grasp the theme. If you disagree, again go to the talk page, and say why the history section souldn't be like that. I continue! You say the "Ethnic Macedonian nationalism" sections is POV. Why? Because of the quote? I answered before to that. By the way, I also see a "Greek nationalism section", so isn't that balanced? If you disagree, and you think that there should only be a "Greek nationalism section" (?!), then again go to the talk page. In any case, I can't keep wondering: what are you doing here?--Yannismarou (talk) 09:35, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

No, the two sections are both bad. The one is tendentiously worded, and the other is non-existent, because if you take away the block quote there's nothing left. That's why I'm finding the block quote issue hard to fix, too hard for me to fix it without more time and appetite. If we wanted to take them out, we'd be left with an asymmetrically empty ruin. We'd have to re-write the whole section. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:42, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

No, if you take away the quotes (after you summarize them of course) in both sections, still more than something is left. Shorter sections, but they will continue to exist with good content. I see no empty ruins! By the way, I am not sure if the quotes from the Greek nationalism section should be removed. They are excellent summaries of the Greek nationalism and wrongdoings, dealing also with the use of nationalist and scornful terminology such as "Skopians". Yes, long but indeed very accurate and useful. I still fail to grasps the POV problems (probably you sole real argument concerning the article's FA status) concerning these two sections. Both sides' nationalisms are presented in a detailed and sourced way, and I think quite balanced. You do not like the quotes? This is another issue! So, I'll keep asking: what are you exactly doing here?--Yannismarou (talk) 10:06, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Quotes are non-free content. They must be removed unless the their precise wording is an object of critical analysis, on the same criteria we must remove non-free images that are not the object of such. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:17, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

What I'm doing here? I'm doing precisely what the FA process says I ought to be doing: discussing "possible improvements" with the aim "to improve articles rather than to demote them" in a situation where they would otherwise fall short of the FA criteria. What do you think I'm doing, please? Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:24, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

• Comment Agree more or less with what Fut.Perf states, it would certainly be good to paraphrase those large blockquotes. - Francis Tyers · 10:41, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

• Quotes in the Greek section already paraphrased. If you like my "job", I'll do the same with the Ethnic Macedonian nationalism as well. Of course, "it would be good"! I did not say the opposite. I just said and I insist that this is no argument for de-featuring.--Yannismarou (talk) 10:48, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for this. But for my taste that's still a good deal too long and wordy. In fact, your summary of Danforth repeats things that I'm sure the article is already saying elsewhere (e.g. that Greeks say "Skopje"), and it's generally just following the progression of ideas too slavishly. I think this could easily be cut back further to no more than half the size. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:57, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Updating: Possibly, but there are definitely no copyright problems now (and I believe no POV problems as well). "For my taste", as I said above, this long expose is not necessarily wrong. There may be some repetitions, but sometimes this is inevitable in an encyclopedic article. And I am not sure it is treated before in the article why Greeks say "Skopje" or "Skopjans". And, even if it is, it is this sections which provides the necessary in-depth analysis. So, I am not sure it should be trimmed.--Yannismarou (talk) 11:04, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

The other section paraphrased as well. "Extreme" POV terms removed; references to the language trimmed (they look to me as the standard ethnicMac position, and no "nationalism"); shorter quotes fully in accord with WP:QUOTATIONS kept. Any further real FA concerns?--Yannismarou (talk) 11:23, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

And, by the way, any (serious) criticism I hear until now about the article is a classic {{sofixit}} case.--Yannismarou (talk) 11:29, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

No, it isn't because the problem of the overlong history section concerns a radical change to the whole scheme and scope of the article, which I would neither want to push through without prior discussion, nor do I have the time and inclination to fix it. I just feel that it isn't FA stuff. Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:15, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

"I just feel that it isn't FA stuff" is not good enough Fut. When the article was promoted and kept the overlong history section existed. Unfortunately, my concerns about the reasons this FAR was initiated are reinforced by the vagueness of your arguments. In any case, even under these circumstances, I am happy to see you at last at a FA-related page. We both made our cases; let's see what other experienced reviewers shall say.--Yannismarou (talk) 13:31, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Actually, when it was promoted the history section was a lot more concise. That old version was actually quite readable [12]. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:38, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you are only partly correct (again!). I now checked it in detail, but the longer version existed indeed when it was kept. The only serious difference I see comparing the current version, and the version of the article when it was promoted, it is the first quite long and uncited paragraph of "Early History". Personnaly, I won't disagree to remove it (and I may even do it per BRD). Now, the rest of the two history sections have minor differences. Yes, some minor details have been added, and the bullets have gone, but the focus remains on the terminology (with the exception I repeat of the first paragraph of the first sub-section). In any case, a problematic paragraph is not a reason strong enough to defeature an article.--Yannismarou (talk) 13:46, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I think it would go a long way if we could get the "early history" passage back to the way it was around the time it was featured. I can try and find when the expansion took place and identify the best prior version. As for the thing I mentioned initially about needing better maps, I seem to remember we once had one where different versions of "geographical Macedonia" from the 19th century were compared. Perhaps we can exchange that for the one historical map we have in the geography section now? Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:32, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Hey I found it. It's pretty good, I think, only that it would be even better if it also showed the modern country boundaries for comparison.

Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:35, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Added.--Yannismarou (talk) 21:54, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, balance, comprehensiveness, clarity. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 00:57, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

• Delist, per FA criteria concerns. Cirt (talk) 20:21, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

• Can you be a bit more specific, so that I can try to address your concerns?--Yannismarou (talk) 13:44, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

1c issues throughout. If you like I can tag these parts of the article with {{fact}}, so it is more clear where the article is lacking. Cirt (talk) 19:20, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I'd appreciate that.--Yannismarou (talk) 20:05, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Added some. Cirt (talk) 06:40, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. 3 out of 10 gone. Give me a couple of days to go through the remaining ones.--Yannismarou (talk) 16:56, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

2 or 3 still left I think.--Yannismarou (talk) 00:12, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

• Done. One tagged sentence which for me was not accurate enough, it was removed. In all the other cases sources provided.--Yannismarou (talk) 23:16, 4 June 2009 (UTC)
• Keep. It seems by the discussions above that many of the major concerns have been resolved. Everything now looks to be cited to reliable sources and it presents a clear overview of the subject. The maps are clear, and the history section has been pared down to a version that the original FAR nominator seems happy with. I'm not a content expert here, so I'm not best placed to judge what exactly might still be POV or undue weight; for that, it might be worth getting the nominator to revisit. But in most other respects the article seems strong enough to keep. The prose could do with a light brush here and there (e.g. "Loring Danforth, a professor of anthropology at Bates College asserts that ethnic Macedonian nationalists, who are concerned with demonstrating the continuity between ancient and modern Macedonians, deny that they are Slavs and claim to be the direct descendants of Alexander the Great and the ancient Macedonians"), but not to an extent worth delisting over; I advise badgering a good copyeditor to give it some TLC to be sure. Any remaining content issues should be minor enough now that taking them to the talk page first would be the prudent course next time. Steve ^T • C 12:38, 26 June 2009 (UTC)
• I think the most immediate concerns have been met – the biggest one being the overlong history section. I think there are still a few details that deserve tweaking, and I'm not overall entirely happy with the general impression of wordiness – I do believe the whole thing could be slimmed down quite considerably, but I haven't got the time and energy for it now, so at present I have no objections against keeping it. Fut.Perf. ☼ 14:33, 1 July 2009 (UTC)
• Keep. Some prose polishing would help indeed, but I agree with Steve that the problem is not to an extent worth delisting over. Fut. has an excellent grasp of the English language, and, it would really be helpful, if he could offer some copy-editing, when he fings time.--Yannismarou (talk) 20:32, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Aramaic language

[edit] Review commentary

WikiProjects notified.

Fails 1c. Very few citations. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 01:19, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Wow. I don't see why this article passed in the first place. Hopefully the sources are in the article and the footnotes just haven't been added. I might look into it later. --Al Ameer son (talk) 02:30, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

• The grammar part does enumerate some structural peculiarities of Aramaic, but it does not pin down the existing oppositions and their evolution into each other within grammaticalization. It does not say anything about syntactic patterns, constructions, information structure.
• The phonological part doesn’t address synchronic phonological processes that might often be observed in individual varieties, but is restricted to the sound inventory.
• Next to no in-line citations.

Looks like B class. The content seems to be slightly better, not yet sufficient for GA, while the in-line references lean more towards C class. G Purevdorj (talk) 09:27, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I wrote the original article and got it to featured status a few years ago. The article gained featured status long before Wikipedia had any decent form of referencing. Most of the historical part of the article is based on the overview by Klaus Beyer, which is mentioned as a general reference. When the article gained featured status, the main concern was with its length rather than its references. For that reason, some sections, like phonology, were kept short. If I could have a list of specific practical issues with the article, I can improve it pretty quickly. I feel it is far better to look for ways to improve articles rather than bureaucratic reclassification. — Gareth Hughes (talk) 12:20, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, I guess at least every paragraph must have a reference, and more where required, including page numbers (maybe with an exemption for lexicons?!). The number of books given as references should exactly be those that were quoted in the article.

According to Wikipedia:Splitting#Article size, the size is maybe a bit large, but it is still considerably smaller than the FAs Mayan languages and Turkish language and the GA Japanese grammar, so I hope length will not be of concern right now.

If the others agree with that, I would suggest giving some more details about the function of voice, word order and its functions and the development of the aspect system. The expression of modality would be worthwhile as well. I don’t get the state thing as well. G Purevdorj (talk) 13:34, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

I think the grammar section is severely lacking in information, presentation and sources. It doesnt give any kind of feeling for what is typical of aramaic in comparison with other semitic languages. I would vote delist on this issue alone.·Maunus·ƛ· 17:01, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern is citations. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 04:03, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

• Delist, per FA criteria concerns. Cirt (talk) 00:44, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
• Delist, sourcing issues have not been addressed. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 02:11, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
• Hold on — I have asked for a little time to update this article and don't appreciate this being pushed through. This takes time to build, but a moment to tear apart. — Gareth Hughes (talk) 11:29, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Articles that meet the FA criteria are kept as featured articles; articles that don't are delisted. It's on the community to make sure articles meet current FA criteria. If you want to bring an article back to FA status, then make your intentions clear. You announced your plans to refine this article two weeks ago, but we never received any further comment from you. FAR will give time to editors who want to salvage an article, but you must give us updates of your progress. I believe everyone here assumed that the article work had been aborted. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 15:43, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Feel free to use my talk page rather than assume things. It does take time to write articles, and it takes time for me to take the books down from my shelves to reference everything. I have written an expanded section on grammar also. Our aim is to make the article as good as it can be. I am capable of doing that, most others aren't. To that end I expect the Wikipedia community to be supportive of improvement work rather than pulling meaningless deadlines from the air. I am grateful that a few of the above statements have been useful. — Gareth Hughes (talk) 16:01, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Very well, but you must start referencing the article ASAP or it will undoubtedly be delisted. Even B-class articles need to have footnotes. Anyway, I know it might take time to find the page numbers and the specific book, but you or someone else with sources needs to at least start the footnoting process or editors will not be convinced that it shouldn't be delisted. Cheers and good luck! --Al Ameer son (talk) 16:38, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

While progress is being made to address the referencing issues this FARC will be left open. Be sure to provide updates or I will assume that progress has stalled. Joelito (talk) 16:13, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I have begun adding references to the article. Some re-editing is required as controversial material has been added. Once decent references are in place for all substantive points, I shall add a more extensive guide to Aramaic phonology that I have written. — Gareth Hughes (talk) 14:32, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

• Comment Still many referencing issues throughout. Cirt (talk) 02:52, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

• Lots of work needes still, in addition to the citation issues mentioned, there are image layout issues, a mixture of endashes and spaced emdashes (see WP:DASH), a farm in See also which should be reduced, left-aligned images under third-level headings, etc ... cleanup needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:29, 24 April 2009 (UTC)
• Delist nothing happening YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 03:25, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
• Remove. Referencing concerns remain. Prose issues, structure-related issues (stubby paragraphs and sections), the clean-up need Sandy raised. And not much improvement. I think the best thing is Garzo to re-nominate the article, when he feels ready to do so.--Yannismarou (talk) 09:36, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Firstly, I would like to commend Gareth for his contributions to wikipedia. Subject-specialists and professionals prepared to use their real names as they edit here are in short supply and should be welcomed and encouraged. As he is an identifiable expert, I do not feel that his work requires the same intense verification required for contributions written by anonymous or pseudonymous contributors. I have only one particular concern with the reliability of the article, and that comes from Gareth's comment that "controversial material has been added". Can Gareth assure us that the article represents current academic thinking, and presents a balanced view of the subject area?

On the issue of prose and structure, I have a few comments:

• "Modern Aramaic is spoken today as a first language by many scattered, predominantly small, and largely isolated communities of differing Christian, Jewish and Muslim groups of the Middle East^[1]—most numerously by the Assyrians in the form of Assyrian Neo-Aramaic—that have all retained use of the once dominant lingua franca despite subsequent language shifts experienced throughout the Middle East." - this sentence is too long.
• The use of "(see below)" indicates structural problems, as it should not be necessary to refer to information that follows to understand information that precedes it.
• The "Geographic distribution" section includes some history, so maybe this section and "History" can be combined to avoid the short, listy introductory history section later on?
• Please use either ndashes (–) or mdashes (—) but not both, so that the article presents a uniform style to the reader.
• Make "The dialects mentioned in the last section were..." specific, say "The Post-Achaemenid Aramaic dialects were...".
• The use of idiomatic phrases like "with a foot in Imperial" can be confusing to readers who do not share your particular cultural background or are reading english as their second or third language. It is better to speak plainly and use simple sentence forms.
• I suppose there should be a cite for "Modern Aramaic speakers found the language stilted and unfamiliar."
• There are a number of short sections in the "Middle Aramaic" section. Perhaps reviewers here would be assuaged if this was formatted as a table?
• The "See also" section contains many links that are already linked earlier in the article. It is generally considered unnecessary to repeat links. DrKiernan (talk) 14:38, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
  • Nothing seems to be happening with this one. Main contributor has not edited since May 5. I will wait a few more days before closing in the hope that Gareth renews editing. Joelito (talk) 01:59, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

• • • I apologize for leaving you all waiting: I've been busy with publishing deadlines. I have a draft of three new sections to add to the article, mostly covering points raised above, and I have a list of references to be added to the extant article. Thank you, DrKiernan, for your points, I think most of the changes you suggest can be made without too much difficulty. — Gareth Hughes (talk) 23:52, 20 May 2009 (UTC)
• Can we get an update? This FAR has lasted well over two months now, and I don't see a potential for progress in the foreseeable future. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 20:48, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I have expanded the section on nouns and adjectives, including detailed explanation of the state system, as has been requested: more soon. — Gareth Hughes (talk) 00:29, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

• Delist, I'd say. Put it out of its misery if none of the authors cares. "Old Aramaic covers over thirteen centuries of the language." Hmmm. "Ancient Aramaic refers to the Aramaic of the Aramaeans from its origin until it becomes the official 'lingua franca' of the Fertile Crescent. It was the language of the city-states of Damascus, Hamath and Arpad." Mixed tenses. Where are the citations? Looking no further.Tony (talk) 11:27, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

There's nothing particularly wrong with any of those statements; please explain yourself. I'm expanding those points that have been requested and will be adding the citations soon. — Gareth Hughes (talk) 01:56, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

• Rejoinder:
  • One language "covers" another? To fix, ask why "of the language" is needed in the first place. Better something like "refers to the language in its form from the X to the Y centuries". Be specific and the logic is right, then.
  • "Aramaic ... Aramaic"—please avoid such close reps. "refers to the language of". Easy. But even in the lead, I'd still want a bit of timing ("Crescent in the blah century BC").
  • The link to "Israel" goes to "Isreal and Judea". Is this an important distinction that should not be concealed in the pipe? Unhappy about having to click on "Second Temple" in the second sentence to orient myself. The lead should be big picture and prepare non-experts for the greater detail in the body of the article. This lead creates too many questions in my mind.
• Remove "therefore" from the second sentence? "... period and the mother tongue of Jesus ...". The second sentence is a three-item list, and the second item, without a tense, is uncomfortably hanging between the past of the first item and the present of the third.

That's the opening two sentences. I think this demonstrates that the article needs time off the list, where it can be worked up to modern FA standards in a number of respects and resubmitted. A shining article we can all be proud of will probably result. Tony (talk) 16:50, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

• Delist. I do agree that inserting references into such an article will take a while, but if one is an expert and has the relevant literature at hand, supplying in-line citations could probably be done within one day. Indeed, NONE has been supplied since this review began. But even if work was ongoing, almost two months is too long for a FAR. G Purevdorj (talk) 22:54, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

No, to most of those observations. Some references have been added and the grammar section is being rewritten. It seems no one else has the will or ability to edit this article, so I am doing it all. I have real work to do too. Providing the best references for an article like this isn't that easy: three millennia of detailed analysis isn't found in a couple of books, and I really want to move away from the overdependence on Beyer that the article has. So, this is not a helpful or constructive comment. Of course, if you want to delist the article I'll spend my energy on something more deserving and let you all do this rewrite. — Gareth Hughes (talk) 22:54, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Possibly you are right about the time frame, but the worst problem is not the number (or quality) of cited research work, but rather the lack of linking the available information to its sources in the bibliography via in-line references. During the last 50 or so edits, about one in-line reference has been added. The problem of verifiability should have preference over sheer content matters. I wouldn't have written my last commentary if it was about 10 new in-line references. By the way, TriZ, please care a bit to hit the right tone - commends like my last one are less likely to give me a timeout than yours. G Purevdorj (talk) 19:59, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

• Keep on hold. I can't believe the wiseacres here, it's un-fuckin-believable. Here we have a real expert in the field of Aramaic language, a subject that few know much about, and your doing like this? If you want some quality articles on these subjects, then have some patience and give the experts some credit. Comments like G Purevdor's should be ought to be removed and the user to be awarded with some refreshing time-out. The TriZ (talk) 15:09, 19 June 2009 (UTC)