Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates

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Contents 1 Articles with ndash in the title 2 Process for requesting review of older FAs that no longer meet FA quality? 3 Getting people to read FACs 4 User:Feature Historian 5 Youtube 6 What happened? 7 Two tiers of FAs 8 Closing FACs 9 History question. 10 History of Minnesota 11 Withdrawing Featured Article nominations 12 Kansas Turnpike 13 Food for thought 14 Thoughts on Featured Article process 15 FAC restructering 15.1 Those wretched green checks and the strikeout 15.2 Restructuring the specific format of FAC 15.3 Professional peer review experience 16 Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Encyclopædia Britannica

[edit] Articles with ndash in the title

A number of articles have ndashes in the title, eg the recently-renamed Sino-German cooperation (1911–1941). There are others, but the recent rename got me looking around, and I found this and this discussion, where the point seems to be that anything other than regular hyphens has some accessibility issues. In fact, the ndash causes problems for the FA bot on one of the platforms it runs on. Can we have a clear policy on this, at least for FAs? Gimmetrow 04:12, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

This is also a concern for the recent FA and FACs, Bill Russell and Michael Jordan. There are numerous linked NBA articles which don't use en-dashes in the titles; should article names follow WP:MOS, or should they use hyphens to avoid accessibility issues? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:37, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Right now, WP:NAMING#Special_characters and WP:MOSDASH appear to be in conflict. Gimmetrow 04:36, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Accessibility is our primary concern. I say we use the standard ascii dash. Raul654 04:40, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

En dashes are an important part of the written language. They should be preserved in titles. Tony 20:39, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Process for requesting review of older FAs that no longer meet FA quality?

I've looked around for info on how to request a review of a current FA to insure it is still still FA class, but I must be blind because I can't find it. Would someone mind point me to this process? For instance, Moe Berg was promoted in April of 2005, but it doesn't have inline citations, that's an automatic fail even for GA class. Thanks --Roswell native 15:50, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi, Roswell (GA or NM?). Pls see WP:FAR; if you need help, let me know. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:57, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks SandyGA,(I'm GA BTW). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Roswell native (talk • contribs) 23:15, 10 March 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Getting people to read FACs

I'm a bit concerned that an article I nominated for FAC, Nigel Kneale, isn't garnering many responses to its candidacy, possibly because it simply isn't very interesting to the people who regularly review articles here and cast their votes. Which is fair enough, but I wonder if there's any way I can try and get more people to come and cast their votes that doesn't simply look like me trying to drum up blind support votes? For instance, I was wondering whether to post a mention of the FAC on the talk page of Wikiproject:Doctor Who (Kneale had nothing to do with that show, and indeed disliked it intensely, but fans of it generally tend to be interested in his work too, and there isn't a wikiproject for any of his own stuff) but I don't know if that would be acceptable or not? Angmering 21:58, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I had that problem too. I think posting notices at related WikiProjects is fine. (PS: try to use the preview button) --Ideogram 22:01, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

One problem I see is not enough reviewers for some FACs. Paradoxically, this is discouraging me from commenting. On Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Verbascum thapsus, I am now starting to fear my comment (not objection) sticks out too much and could damage the article's chances unless better-informed people come along to assess the actual subject matter (maybe people just aren't that interested in a glorified weed). With George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore, I was the only objector (there were three support votes) and so I felt I ought to work to meet my own objection (which took me two and a half weeks of reading and noting, since one of my main objections was that not enough sources had been consulted); I'm now being careful such a thing doesn't happen again, because life's too short. And I'm starting to get timid, fearing commenting too soon or objecting against consensus. Is there a way of attracting people to comment here without appearing to canvass? qp10qp

[edit] User:Feature Historian

This is rather odd - a user whose only contributions are to create a humungous table setting out the history of all featured articles. Is this a by-product of the article history template? If not, I suspect the bot could create something like this. -- ALoan (Talk) 14:00, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

It was in use before ArticleHistory, and it has been extremely helpful in re-constructing some missing FACs for articlehistory. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:12, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Youtube

Besides the fact that few reviewers seem to check sources :-), do we need to be more aggressive about Youtube? US$1 billion Youtube lawsuit. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:30, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

We should deprecate Youtube, on the whole, for the reasons given at WP:ATTFAQ. But the legal threat is Youtube's, not ours, and so that in itself shouldn't make any difference for the moment. qp10qp 17:23, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd say "Don't link to copyrighted content on websites involved in $1 billion lawsuits over copyright violation" is a fairly sensible guideline :) – Qxz 17:49, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Where it gets tricky at FAC is that editors defend that their link to Youtube isn't a copyvio; I always have a hard time with Fair Use and other copyright issues. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:04, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Any editors who say their Youtube link isn't a copyvio are talking rubbish 99% of the time. LuciferMorgan 22:21, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What happened?

Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon seems to have disappeared without any "Promoted!" or "Not Promoted!" explanation next to it. Did someone set us up the bomb? Hbdragon88 02:50, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

• Promoted in December. --badlydrawnjeff talk 02:53, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
  • So someone didn't slap on the "promoted" tags (like was done in GameFAQs), or was that not done for successful FACs at the time? Hbdragon88 04:08, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

The tags are a relatively new development. Perhaps a bot will (is?) going through the archives addding them? -- ALoan (Talk) 09:36, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes; tagging and closing by GimmeBot is new. The Ninja article shows as featured on the article page and on its talk page. The Bot is still processing through older noms (Dec 2006 and older) to close and archive the fac pages. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:41, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Two tiers of FAs

I have a question. There seem to be two kinds of good articles that appear here: those that are referenced to scholarly works and those that are referenced to popular works. This is a particular issue on humanities pages. I don't think that scientists are submitting articles based on popular science books. Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Battle of Shiloh and Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia‎ are a good example of what happens if someone mentions that there needs to be more scholarly sources. I would like to know if there is an "open secret," as they say, that there are essentially two tiers of FA articles - those that are referenced to the scholarly literature and those that are referenced to the popular literature. The fact that a science article would never pass FA with references to the popular literature but that a history or literature article can seems problematic. Should not wikipedia's "best" articles have the best research in them? Awadewit 17:16, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Can of worms alert :-) I can't recall all the places where the discussion happened, but there was much discussion about lowering the standards on reliable sources to allow for more pop culture articles. I didn't pay attention to the outcome, as I continue to abide by WP:ATT and reliable sources, and resist attempts to introduce lower-quality sources anywhere on Wikipedia, including FAs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:19, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

There is no need to lower the standards for pop culture articles. Scholars do write on pop culture. I myself attended a panel discussion on Harry Potter during which a scholar passed around an "invisible" Harry Potter figurine (it was clear plastic) to demonstrate "conspicuous consumption." :) Awadewit 17:31, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

I think we mostly have a systemic problem here, which is that citations are not being evaluated at this depth. Reviewing the featured article criteria, sources are required to be reliable and accurate, but those are of course subjective terms. Who determines what types of sources are appropriate for what types of articles? Ideally, popular literature can back up assertions that a subject is popular, or basic facts about the subject that are not in dispute. However, scholarly, peer-reviewed sources should be required to back up scholarly claims or disputed facts. For example, you might back up the statement that a certain historical battle was the subject of a film with a popular source, like a Web site. But historical information such as recounts of the battle should require scholarly sources. --Mus Musculus 18:49, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Whether a source is "scholarly" or "popular" shouldn't be a concern. All we need to worry about is whether it is reliable or not. — Brian (talk) 22:42, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Reliability should trump all. Goldfritha 22:53, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

But reliability isn't a bright line. FAs should be using the best sources available for their subjects, not just whatever comes to hand that meets some bare minimum standard of reliability. It's not always a question of scholarly versus popular -- some works written for a popular audience can be very good -- but the nominator should be prepared to explain the choice of sources. —Celithemis 23:33, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Concur that we should be using the best possible reliable sources for any topic, but the previous discussion I referred to was about problems with finding any reliable sources on some pop culture topics; the notion of relaxing standards was introduced then (I disagree with any relaxing of standards on reliable sources). Too many FACs are still referenced from marginal websources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:18, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

We're an encyclopedia- we should use the highest quality sources available. I think a suitable compromise would be to insist on scholarly sources when scholarly sources are available. For instance, in pop culture, I would be far more strict on a Hermione Granger FAC than a Sailormoon FAC, given the amount of literary and feminist scholarship available on the Harry Potter novels. Hermione's article should have citations from peer-reviewed journals to be featured (this is not hard- I did a paper on Harry Potter once, they are tons of them) but for Sailormoon a feature article from a manga magazine would suffice. In this way, we protect the integrity of the FA sources whilst not locking out the more obscure pop culture articles. Borisblue 01:12, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

In my mind, this isn't a question of using the best sources. Rather, it's a question of comprehensiveness. In other words, if someone submits Hermione Granger to FAC without using these scholarly sources, the article should fail because it lacks a feminist/scholarly interpretation of the subject (and is thus not comprehensive), not because the sources weren't the "best". I just don't think that we need to be creating an additional level of sourcing that goes beyond Wikipedia's Attribution policy. — Brian (talk) 01:30, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Sandy brought up popular culture; that's not what the original examples were about. When you're dealing with biographical or historical facts, it's not a question of comprehensiveness but one of reliability. An FA on a historical figure should generally not be based entirely on popular-magazine articles if scholarly biographies are available. It's not a matter of creating a completely separate standard for FAs, but of recognizing that reliability is relative: there's a minimum standard below which information can be thrown out entirely, but sources that meet that minimum standard are not necessarily ideal. All articles should strive to use the best information available, and by the time they reach FA they should be primarily based on good -- not merely acceptable -- sources. —Celithemis 03:10, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

One major problem with the FA process is that any reviewer can decide an article's sources aren't reputable "enough" or are "low-quality". It is entirely subjective, and FA reviews often seem based on the whim of individual reviewers. Take the FA candidacy of the DuMont Television Network, for example. One FA reviewer strongly opposed because of sourcing from The DuMont Television Historical Web Site. The site has been used as a source in print publications, the old managing director Ted Bergmann said the site "got it exactly right", and (Weinstein, 2004) said of the site "no other broadcaster has been rewarded with a site as informative and thorough" (page 186). Yet the FA reviewer said the site couldn't be used because it didn't meet WP:RS, so alternate sources were found. These were also rejected. The same FAC reviewer rejected Roaring Rockets, a web site which conducted interviews with old DuMont employees and producers and which Weinstein (2004) called "a comprehensive site... that looks at Captain Video and other 'space operas', rivals any Web treatment of a particular program or genre of the 1950s" (page 186 also). Other sources were also rejected, for seemingly spurious reasons (one site was rejected as a "blog", when it clearly wasn't), etc, etc. It eventually became apparent that any source, no matter how respected or authoritative, even if it appeared in the bibligraphy of print media, would be objected to, and the article wasn't promoted. When well-respected print publications are using sources which are rejected by Wikipedia based on subjective guidelines, it worries me. If Featured Article status can be withheld from articles because even a single editor deems the sources unreliable, there's a problem. WP:ATT states of reliable sources "their authors are generally regarded as trustworthy, or are authoritative in relation to the subject at hand." There are all sorts of articles I'd love to bring up to FA status, but after an experience like the DuMont FAC, I gave up on this idea, because it became clear then that the FA process really is subjective. I still work on the dinosaur FACings, because that is a group effort and there are plenty of people to help jump through all the hoops, but I won't submit another FAC on my own again. Firsfron of Ronchester 01:38, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

This upsets me greatly. Had I realized this, I don't think that FAC nom would have turned out that way. Raul654 03:15, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I appreciate your comment, Raul. Firsfron of Ronchester 04:55, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

It's not an accurate summary of what happened wrt the references (and there were prose problems as well). There was a refusal to identify publishers of websites, which still exists in the article today (example, http://www.slick-net.com/). I switched to Strong oppose not because all of your sources were rejected as unreliable, but because you refused to even indicate who the publishers were (per WP:CITE/ES) as well. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:12, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Not according to what you wrote at the time: "1c, (switching now to Strong object, unresolved, article fails WP:RS)". As I mentioned at the time, I followed the citation style listed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_sources/example_style . All specific prose problems were addressed. The other editors on that page had agreed the concerns were addressed and had stated "unfortunately Sandy now appears to be Wikilawyering. Specifically, what I perceive as a counterproductive insistence on a rigid vision of WP:RS leads me to conclude that Sandy is "Breaking the spirit of a policy or guideline through sticking to a too-literal interpretation of the letter of Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines," and is also in effect "Asserting that technical interpretation of Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines should override the principles they express." Firsfron of Ronchester 04:55, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I switched to strong object for two reasons: you refused to identify publishers, and not all sources were reliable. Prose concerns were not removed. And "editors" is not plural; the charge of "wikilawyering" came from one editor—DCGeist—who by the way left a significant personal attack against me on your talk page. Just wondering: as an admin open to recall, do you not feel any obligation to uphold NPA and to attend to personal attacks in plain sight on your talk page ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:07, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

As I said, Sandy, I followed the citation examples that were provided at Wikipedia:Citing_sources/example_style. In your objection you stated the sources used weren't reliable. You did object to Roaring Rockets, you did object to The DuMont Television Network Historical Web Site, and you did object to the Tulsa TV Memories site (calling it a blog). All of these things have been preserved on the FAC page, where anyone can read them. you did not change your opinion on any of them, and your last comment on the FAC page was that the DuMont article used unreliable sources. These three sites are credible, and two have been used as sources in print media (it's possible the third one has, too, but I haven't seen it). I am certainly listed as an Administrator open to recall, and if six editors have decided I've abused my admin privledges, I will step down. I don't see how someone leaving a comment on my talk page (and me not removing it) is an abuse of admin privledges, but feel free to formalize a request for me to step down. If the six person threshold is met, I will step down. All this seems somewhat removed from the central issue: sources deemed reliable by (a)multiple editors, and (b)well-respected outside publications are being rejected at FAC by regular FAC reviewers. Firsfron of Ronchester 05:38, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Again, referring to multiple editors when you mean one editor. You still refuse to identify publishers on the websources; they still aren't in the article. End of story. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:10, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

As I've already stated repeatedly, I used the citation style given at Wikipedia:Citing_sources/example_style. Soon after I pointed out that I had followed the citation example onWP:CITE/ES, you changed the page, adding "publisher" as part of the example. This is something else that worries me: FAC reviewers changing sample citation pages as they see fit, to justify their earlier objecting to FACs. The example citation style I used had been unmodified for over a year, reflecting the consensus of the community. You strongly objected to the article on January 7th. You changed the citation example on January 26th. There is nothing wrong with enforcing existing guidelines and policies. There is something wrong with ojecting based on a guideline that isn't even on the page. End of story. Firsfron of Ronchester 07:27, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Soon after? This is a simple situation; please stop misrepresenting facts (this is the third or fourth time you've done that). There were not multiple editors who agreed that you had established reliable sources (there was one, who encouraged you not to provide the publishers—you chose to follow that "wikilawyered" advice). I corrected the faulty example on the sample page well after your FAC closed; it didn't impact your FAC. The example given 1) was to a dead weblink, and 2) didn't follow any recognized citation style. I told you on the FAC what was wrong with the example; you chose to ignore that. It wasn't a guideline; it was a faulty example, which disagreed with everything else on the page. This entire argument is a red herring; my one Object didn't determine the outcome of your FAC. Your FAC did not have support or consensus that your sources are reliable, and you refused to indicate who the publishers were. If your FAC had had Support consensus, my object wouldn't have mattered a hill of beans. And, if you had indicated your publishers rather than arguing over such a trivial matter, on my fourth or fifth visit back to re-check the FAC, I would have had a new look at the sources. The process worked for you as it is intended to work; if only one reviewer had objected (as you state), with many Supports, the FAC would have succeeded. That was not the case; you seem to be misunderstanding the consensus by which FACs are promoted. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:51, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Hogwash. The article was only reviewed by a handful of people. Your strong object certainly did matter. Someone on that FAC (not me) accused you of "Wikilawyering"; when you begin with "Explain the basis for believing your websources are reliable" after explanations have already been given, it does lead people to think you're Wikilawyering. Firsfron of Ronchester 08:16, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

As I already discussed elsewhere,

Every criterion in FAC is subjective- comprehensiveness, neutrality, copyediting etc. Your experience is unfortunate, but just because there was a troll in your FAC doesn't mean that quality of sourcing can't be a criterion. Borisblue 03:18, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I certainly would not call SandyGeorgia, a regular at FAC, a "troll", which is why the situation disturbed me greatly. The other FAC reviewers were puzzled by this incredibly rigid interpretation of what was at that time a guideline, and stated so on the FAC page. Quality of sourcing is important, but even the best sources available are being refused as "unreliable" or "blogs". Firsfron of Ronchester 04:55, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

You're again using other reviewers (plural) to describe *one* reviewer, who engaged in personal attacks. Moreover, to this day, the article uses and doesn't give a publisher for AOL member websites, and sites like tulsatvmemories.com, chicagotelevision.com, http://www.slick-net.com/ and others. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:40, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I don't know. It seems to me you were treated pretty well during most of that article's FAC process. Everyone certainly started out with "please" and "thank you"-type comments: take a look at the beginning of Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/DuMont Television Network/archive1. You were certainly thanked for pointing out problems with the article. DCG started out even agreeing with many of your points. It was only after you objected to any source submitted that things started looking ugly: like when you objected to the web-site of Steve Jajkowski, who is an archivist at Chicago's Museum of Broadcast Communications, claiming it was a "hobby site". This was pointed out at the time, but you never deigned to comment. Personal attacks should never be used on Wikipedia. But people do have a point at which they become exasperated, and you may have crossed the line around that point. This just highlights the problem that "reliable source" is a somewhat subjective term which any editor can use when objecting to a FAC. If a regular FAC reviewer can dismiss highly-respected sources with comments like "looks like a blog"... it can (and does) scare off potential nominators. Firsfron of Ronchester 06:09, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Explain the basis for believing your websources are reliable so that others can evaluate and come to consensus and add information about the publisher to the citation, and you should have no problem with future FACs. Your refusal to identify publishers was interesting; you seem not to have grasped that readers or reviewers shouldn't have to click on every single source to verify publishers. Had you identified publishers, I would have been in a position to strike my objections to any given source. By the way, still wondering why you still refuse to identify publishers on part of your sources, coincidentally, the ones from sources like AOL members homepages. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:12, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Sandy, it seems like whatever I say, you're going to debate. I told you right from the beginning that I felt the DuMont Television Network Historical Web Site was reliable, and provided examples where the site or its author have been cited by other sources. You poo-pooed me "It's still a self-published, AOL members website, and he is described as a "Dumont buff" - not good enough to satisfy me it rises to the level of WP:V and isn't just self-published <whatever>, sorry.", and so I thanked you for your patience, and removed those refs and replaced them with new ones. You objected the new ones as well, with spurious arguments about Tulsa TV Memories being "a blog" (it's not), Jajkowski's site as a "hobby" (it's not), Roaring Rockets as "unreliable" (it's used in well-respected print media), etc. user:DCGeist said he felt objecting to Chicagotelevision.com as unreliable was "Wikilawyering of the clearest sort." user:Kicking222 said he felt the objections had been addressed and that the article was "well-written and well-sourced". user:Dhett said the article was "FA-worthy". These users worked with me to help improve both the prose and the sourcing of the article. The only one objecting to the sources by the end was you, and several of those very same sources have been deemed reliable (not only reliable, but recommended) by outside sources, including print publications. Firsfron of Ronchester 08:02, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

And now, back to the facts again. Only one other editor specifically addressed the issues I raised about the sources; there was not consensus that they were reliable. It's curious that you ignored the sample you seem so tied to most of the time; you included the publisher on most of your sources, and left them off only on the sources that I questioned. This creates the appearance of something to hide. Add to that your failure to uphold NPA on your own talk page, and I'm beginning to wonder if you understand consensus or respect Wiki policy. It seems that you are trying to re-visit one FAC in this discussion because you weren't happy with the outcome. The question at hand was about reliable sources; reliability of sources—like everything else on Wiki—is a matter of consensus. You didn't have it, perhaps because you chose to follow "wikilawyered" advice and an attackish tone, which is never good practice on Wiki or on a FAC. Add info about publishers to the few sources you left them off of (there aren't that many, it shouldn't be hard), get a copyedit as suggested on the FAC (prose needed fixing throughout, not just the samples given), and resubmit to see if there is consensus on your publishers now. Should be simple. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:31, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Sandy, I have "something to hide". I stopped reading your comment at that point. Even after that unsuccessful FAC, I still had respect for you, because you did work hard to review so many other articles. But I can't respect someone who can't admit s/he rejected perfectly valid sources as unreliable and who hints other editors must have "something to hide". Ugh. Firsfron of Ronchester 08:42, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes credible references are very hard to come by, especially on stray topics that no published work has ever been written. I had a tough time with Indian Standard Time, on a topic which hardly had a single printed publication on the subject. Some flexibility should be allowed for such topics. =Nichalp «Talk»= 06:07, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry to see how acrimonious this discussion has become - I did not see the FAC for DuMont Television Network, otherwise I may have commented on this point.

I thought it was reasonably well established that we require sources that are "generally regarded as trustworthy, or are authoritative in relation to the subject at hand", as WP:ATT says. The "in relation to the subject at hand" is crucial: there is a paucity of published information on some topics, and we have to rely on other sources that are nonetheless regarded as trustworthy or authoritative. Picking an example, spoo relies heavily on quotes from internet discussion boards, but, given who made them and where, they are as good, in this context, as material that has been published in print. -- ALoan (Talk) 10:27, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

And I've long disagreed with that. What that results in is articles of vastly different reliability with not much way for the reader to know unless they have the ability to evaluate the sources themselves. It results in articles that look referenced, but aren't in any useful sense. I've always felt we need a minimum standard of references, and it damages the project to allow promotional websites, etc to be used as references. - Taxman ^Talk 13:25, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, readers who are unable to evaluate the reliability of sources for themselves are going to struggle with an encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

But anyway, I don't see how sources that are "generally regarded as trustworthy, or are authoritative in relation to the subject at hand" create a misleading patina of reliability. I did not mention promotional websites, which are usually just as unreliable as any other self-published work, and I wonder what you "etc" includes; however, even advertising copy is reliable as a source for itself - “Coke claims that "It's the real thing"; however, U2 says that it is "even better than the real thing".” There are plenty of works in print that are neither trustworthy nor authoritative. -- ALoan (Talk) 14:27, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I regard these last two comments as really useful, and apologise that the conversation did turn acrimonious. I was attempting to point out a specific example where I felt FAC guidelines and WP:RS were being given too strict of an interpretation, but this got out of hand.

I agree with both of youse, to some extent. There should not be a reliance on promotional web-sites (though I don't think promotional web-sites were discussed above), but I don't see any reason that you can't say that the company claims X, and reference the company's web site where it says that. What does the "etc" cover? Firsfron of Ronchester 15:25, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I also apologize for the tone this took (set initially by the attack against me allowed to stand on your talk page, I felt, and continued by singling me out unfairly in a misrepresentation of what actually occurred on the FAC). Returning to the broader topic, I do hope you see that reliability of sources is not a black-and-white issue; because I didn't agree that you had established reliability of your sources is not a reason to make it so personal. As with other matters on Wiki, consensus determines whether borderline sites are reliable. Anyone can write anything on a personal website. Promotion of the article should require consensus about the sources; I think that's what we were discussing here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:02, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

In response to Taxman (above): The problem of telling the level of reliability of an article (or at least the kinds of sources it uses) at a glance, without actually reading and evaluating, is one that is not limited to simply the borderline cases like spoo where we really have to go out on a limb source-wise. It's just as much or more of problem for articles that have a huge volume of relatively reliable sources of different kinds (journal articles, scholarly books, semi-popular books, popular books, academic websites of varying quality, children's books, TV specials). Ultimately, this problem will have to have a technical solution: the capability to classify and flag articles according to the types of sources used, so that a reader will have a first-order approximation of (un)reliability of the sources at one glance. As for FA's, I think we take the right approach generally, in tailoring our reference expectations to the subject at hand.--ragesoss 15:41, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

It is certainly not as much or more of a problem for articles that have a huge number of reliable sources. By nature reliable sources are reliable sources, and they either substantially agree or we can state where they don't. That results in a high quality article. But where we allow low quality sources under "authoritative in relation to the subject at hand" but have none of the processes of fact checking and academic rigor that reliable sources do, then we water down the soup. And those are being presented to the reader as if they are just as reliable. That's a problem. I agree a system like you refer to could be useful, but it's a long way from implimentation, and certainly isn't enough to solve the problem by itself. - Taxman ^Talk 16:30, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

It's an inherently insoluble problem, we always have to accept different sources for different subjects. Consider articles on mathematical theorems that can be rigorously proven, no other type of article will ever achieve that. A little bit lower are articles on other sciences that have reproducible experiments. A little bit lower still are articles on modern events - we will never have as good a coverage of Carthage as we do on New York City, for obvious reasons. We can't demand that Pokemon be sourced to peer reviewed scholarly tomes if there aren't any. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 16:49, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Right, there's a spectrum basically of quality from high to low. What we then have to do is pick a bottom point where we won't go below. We can all agree that self published websites are well below what we want to allow except for very limited statements such as stating claims people make about themselves on X website. And what I'm basically saying is that when we set that cutoff to a quality level that's so low it's almost the same as a self published site, we are doing the project and our readers a disservice. The simple conclusion is that when a subject has no source above a certain level of reliability, we simply don't cover it. Lest people scream Pokemon discrimination, lets pick a subject I like, Hindi films. There are lots of Hindi films that have little to no coverage in reliable sources. For a film that does have some reliable sources, lets pick Kuch Naa Kaho. Trying to cram that into a FA with 50+kb of explanation sourced from various Bollywood fan magazines would cover the appearance of being properly sourced, but it would amount to regurgitating fan material to fluff up the material that could be actually sourced to reliable sources. I would argue those fan sites are not reliable sources because they are essentially promotional material. Now if we pick a slightly more obscure film, then we're closer to the pokemon situation where individual pokemon have essentially no reliable sources about them. So again, the answer is that if there aren't sources of a reasonable level of quality, we simply don't cover that topic or subtopic. Using whatever sources are available no matter how poor quality they are just because that's what we can get on the topic is what waters down the soup and brings the whole project down instead of up. - Taxman ^Talk 20:56, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Awadewit's concerns. There is nothing wrong with popular works per se—some (for example Pauline Croft's 200-page King James, which I have just read) are scrupulously distilled from the latest scholarship—but in my opinion such works should be a starting point for an editor seeking an overview of a subject. The next step is then to double and treble and quadruple check the assertions in that popular book to the scholarly works on the subject (many popular works fail this test appallingly). "Reliable published sources", as defined by Wikipedia, are in my view a threshold, a minimum requirement, not an invitation to complacency. The conscientious editor will search for academically sound sources (they are instantly recognisable) and will not lazily rely on those—the majority, without a doubt—which are shoddy. For me, this takes effort, time, expenditure, and obsessiveness. If writng FAs was just a case of cleverly summarising a few popular books, we could knock them out very quickly—but they wouldn't then offer Wikipedia readers the best service. Feature articles should offer the best service—which I would define as lucid, readable articles that unobtrusively reflect the best and the latest scholarship. qp10qp 21:51, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Closing FACs

Is it okay for any administrator to close a Featured Article Candidacy? Kingboyk and I have been reverting back and forth on Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Sonoma County, California regarding this issue. He argues that as an administrator, he can close the nomination because "it's clearly not going to pass," while I've argued that the instructions on Wikipedia:Featured Article Candidates are quite clear that only the Featured Article Director has the authority to fail nominations. Now, I don't know Kingboyk or Sonoma County from Adam or Eden; I just want to make sure we don't open a can of worms by allowing any old admin to determine whether to fail a nomination (and I don't like the "closed discussion" template being used here). Rather than continue to revert and re-revert with Kingboyk, though, I hoped to hear further opinion on the matter. Thanks, — Brian (talk) 02:32, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Well generally, no, people should leave FAC's alone. But that's also no reason to revert war on it. I just takes one to end a revert war. Walk away and discuss it, it makes your position stronger anyway, and only takes patience. But they should stay open because a) they cause no real problems, and b) they can get some good feedback until Raul654 closes it. - Taxman ^Talk 03:31, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

No - nobody should be closing FAC noms but me. Raul654 03:42, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

We have discussed it, and avoidance of revert warring is why I brought it up here. Thanks for the replies. — Brian (talk) 03:57, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think some admins (Bishonen comes to mind) have closed obviously-failing FACs before. -- ALoan (Talk) 10:24, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Do you have a specific example? In the last 6 months, the only nominations in the archives not closed by Raul are this and this closed by the nominator, and this closed by Titoxd.[1] There are occasionally bad faith or incomplete nominations. Gimmetrow 10:57, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I can't name an example off the top of my head - more than 6 months ago, no doubt. With FAC running to 60+ open nominations now, perhaps it makes sense for interested admins (or others) to close clearly-failing FAC (for example, with no support after 4-5 days) rather than having to wait for Raul64 to do it? -- ALoan (Talk) 11:39, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with ALoan; we recently hit over 70 FACs, making it hard to review. We should have a means of closing the obvious SNOWs, such as Sonoma County. On the other hand, I don't agree that just any admin should close them, as they need to be closed and archived correctly (the wrong template was used here, for example) and we shouldn't start down that slippery slope. I propose we move towards asking Raul to name several and allow long-time experienced FAC reviewers (an example would be ALoan) to close and archive the SNOWs, so that GimmeBot can tag them correctly and update the article talk page. This would apply to SNOW objects only—not to promotions or controversial cases.SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:43, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Ha! Thanks for the job offer, but I have quite enough to be getting on with :) IIRC, the process to close them now involves the FAC subpage being added to an archive somewhere, so the bot can find it and do the necessary? -- ALoan (Talk) 15:17, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

If Raul wants help, I'll volunteer myself for it - it's easy enough to clear out the obvious ones in either direction at least, saving him some time and energy. I won't be able to start helping until after Easter, though. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:44, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit conflict]Sandy, I'm afraid I'd be uncomfortable with your suggestion. Things have been a little fractious and devisive at both FAC and FARC recently and whilst I'd be more than happy with Aloan doing this - who else? Perhaps a better idea would be to give Raul some clerks - Raul maintains his sole authority but can instruct the clerks to close/pass etc. --Joopercoopers 15:45, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Failed nominations are simply removed from WP:FAC and listed in WP:FAC/Archived nominations. This process has been unchanged for as long as I remember - well before the bot. (The bot took over updating the article talk pages.) It would take as long to tell someone else to do it, as to just do it. Gimmetrow 15:51, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

So if the adminsitrative action (small a) is simple, quick and easy (I thought I'd read Sandy somewhere saying it was quite involved - perhaps she was refering to your talk page gizmo), is the suggestion, the backlog is too large for Raul to cope with? Perhaps someone should ask him rather than unilaterally assuming this onerous responsibility. --Joopercoopers 15:56, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Unless I'm minsunderstanding the basic steps, the act of archiving and promoting do not require administrative tools. Anyone can archive a discussion page, anyone can put {{featured article}} on a page, anyone can remove a nomination from the lineup, and anyone can add articles to WP:FA. Because of the sensitivity of the main page, it's rightfully blocked off from normal editors in setting up the main page and setting up the subpages for the next FA to be on the main page, but I don't think Raul wants to give that up anyway, nor is anyone appearing to look to take that responsibility on. --badlydrawnjeff talk 15:59, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry jeff, I was a little confusing - 'small A' adminstrative action means 'the act of administering/filing etc.' rather than some special admin button. --Joopercoopers 16:05, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I hear you, no prob. --badlydrawnjeff talk 16:07, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Let me clarify - the activity needed to close a failed nomination is quite minimal - there is a page transclusion on WP:FAC, it's removed, and the same transclusion is added to another page. This isn't AfD. Raul654 has been doing this for a long time, and telling "clerks" to do this task won't make his job any easier. He used to have "clerks" update the talk pages for failed nominations - in a sense the bot is now doing that clerk function. It's the promotions that take work. Gimmetrow 16:33, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm confused - are we saying 1. we don't need clerks for failing FAC's 2. Your bot does most of the work to talk pages 3. Promoting FACs takes time - If so, isn't there a case for promotion clerks to take the load off Raul a bit? --Joopercoopers 16:59, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Heh... I did ask afterwards if it was ok... and that archive is relevant to this thread. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 17:34, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to restate this unequivocally, so there is no misunderstanding - other than a very few exceptional circumstances (such as: nomination is withdrawn by nominator, or nominator is shown to be a banned user, 'etc), nobody should be archiving or promoting nominations but me. Raul654 23:37, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, that is clear enough :) But may we ask why? -- ALoan (Talk) 00:52, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't mind the exceptional circumstances, because they are invariably going to pop up from time to time and they haven't been a problem in the past.

I do mind it happening in non-exceptional circumstances for several reasons.

1. I've often noticed that when someone other than me removes a nom, it isn't archived properly (and then I have to go back and fix the arhcives)
2. I prefer to give all noms - even the obvious failures - a certain amount of time on the FAC (a) so as to provide nominator feedback as to how the article can be improve, and (b) on the off chance that it might not fail after all. I don't want people freely removing noms before that minimum time is up.
3. The decision whether or not to promote is a subjective one. I think by most measures, FAC has been pretty successful to date (This whole issue of the FAC becoming too large is simply a scaling issue which is indicative of success), and I'd prefer not to radically change how it works. Raul654 01:06, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Nominator's withdrawn Sonoma, so I've closed it, by moving the transclusion from one page to the other. Let's see if the Bot archives correctly in a couple of hours, if not I will do so manually. --AnonEMouse ^(squeak) 12:58, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

The bot actually checks for edits by Raul654. This would normally have been processed only if it remained in the archive after Raul's next edit. Gimmetrow 14:12, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

I disagree partially with allowing "even the obvious failures" time to get feedback. When an article is so hopeless, and it is clear that the nominator does not intend to listen to any advice on how to improve the article, every time even one more editor takes time to review it, this is time wasted that could have been spent on an article that needed improvement and had a nominator willing to weigh suggestions. The Sonoma County article is an example. On the plus side a couple of editors (not the nominator) are working to make it at least readable. But there are other places, with more people, that an article can be sent to get notice and attention for the drastic load of clean-up that an article like Sonoma County needed. In my opinion, with a sincere nominator, even if the article is crap, if there's an editor working on the article, extra time on FAC is not wasted. But in a case where the nominator repeatedly makes it clear right out of the gate that they haven't read the criteria, don't give a damn about them, and they'll do nothing to improve the article, and wastes additional resources by attacking people, what's the point of giving the article more time for the nominator to antagonize more people? I would like to see exceptions where the nominator is an issue addressed sooner. KP Botany 01:32, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

PS There are a couple of good examples of pop articles that I worked on over the past few months, totally outside of my area, where the prior failures had been SNOWs. The nominators had obviously considered the advice given in the FACs and made readable even excellent articles on concepts that were just not that interesting to me. To me, this broadens the scope of FA content on Wikipedia, when an article from an area not normally full of excellence and experienced editors, gets FA status. I think it works, giving some extra time on FAC. KP Botany 01:38, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History question.

I can't find anywhere or anyone else to ask about this where I would get an answer, so I have to ask you guys.

I have only recently started editing articles on the English reformation, so I am somewhat uncertain about the inclusion of attributing cause and effect. For example, English Reformation recently had "Many factors contributed to the ferment: the invention of the printing press, the rise of nationalism, the transmission of new knowledge and ideas; but the story of how the different states of Europe adhered to different forms of Protestantism, or remained faithful to Rome or allowed different regions within states to come to different conclusions (as they did) is specific to each state." added to its lead. There are similar later statements and discussions on the talkpage about what historian's historiography to go with. I've always been under the impression that Wikipedia reports the facts as far as possible without getting into historical disputes (unless it is to report on them), so this struck me as being irrelevant. However, I am not familiar with the style of history articles and was hoping you could tell me whether this is normal or not. I would like to get some serious work down on the English reformation, but I'm loathe to do so and get it stomped on here. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 08:29, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that those sentences are an overview of historical analyses of the great causation debates. In other words, they give a quick sketch of the subject of causality and refuse to offer a cause. I think they're good statements because a reader (and those are the creatures we serve) will want to know "what caused the reformation?" As clever and educated encyclopedists, we know that it's not possible to answer that question, and so we explain to Bob (my name for the reader) why he can't get a single answer to his question, and we introduce him to the complexities of the question. To me, this is the epitome of how we avoid speculative matters by reporting on everyone else's speculations in an uncommitted form. Geogre 11:03, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Great, thanks. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 19:37, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

On Restoration literature, I tried, for example, not to say when the Restoration period ends. I know that the reader wants a definite period, and I know that historians argue about it. Therefore, I was able to sweep aside the matter by saying that the end point depends upon genre and point of view (meaning that the people who argue, do so more in discussions of some genres than others and the arguments are greater or lesser depending upon the worldview of the historian). However, I am personally an advocate of encyclopedia articles that possess theses and FA's that have a coherent and organic presentation. What we require is a neutral point a view, not a lack of any point of view.

It is possible to view the fights and squabbles in Augustan poetry a bunch of ways. The facts are that the poets fought, one poet dominated, and certain forms increased and decreased in critical praise and public esteem. (Production is another matter altogether. There isn't a significant decrease/increase in the production of certain forms, like the ode, we know now.) So, I felt that picking an approach that would be heuristically sound as not the answer but rather a framework for presenting the information was valid. Nothing of it was controversial, although any other literary historian would prefer another lens with which to view the panorama. I think it is the duty of all surveys to offer up a structure, and that structural principle will inevitably have an inclusion and exclusion criterion as well as a criterion of ordering the presentation. (E.g. choosing to tell the reader about Essay on Man but not include Stephen Duck (I hope that's a red link) means that I have a set of values that I believe are proper. I decided on what to cover by some criterion. Similarly, presenting the works and poets chronologically reveals a set of assumptions, just as laying them out thematically does.) If we are doomed to being present as thinkers when we write, then we should give readers the benefits of a neutral but informed analysis and a sound analytical principle. (Sorry for being wordy.) Geogre 02:42, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

No, that really explained what I was after. I can go work on the English Reformation withouts doubts now, so thank you for that. Maybe I'll help create an FA that isn't quite shallow. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 07:40, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History of Minnesota

I do hope that the problems I pointed out yesterday were fixed before promotion. I do hope. :-( Tony 20:37, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Withdrawing Featured Article nominations

Is it possible to withdraw an FA nom? The Land 09:51, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Of course it is, policy is what we do. But I'd say withdrawing becomes increasingly difficult the longer the nomination has been up, and the more support it's drawn. I felt very conflicted about Great Fire of London at one point, wanting to withdraw but feeling it would be discourteous to the people who had already supported. Bishonen | talk 10:12, 27 March 2007 (UTC).

What's more, some people will want to accuse you of WP:OWN for wanting to withdraw it, and then they'll say that you haven't kept it up, later, when the standards for citation change again and they put the article on FARC. Rueful observations aside, it is possible to withdraw a nomination at any time, but Bishonen is correct that the more supported it is, the more of an angry move it is, and the more anger it may generate. Geogre 10:59, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Kansas Turnpike

Wikipedia is not a reliable source; it is concerning that an article is promoted with 26 statements referenced to Wikipedia alone, with no means of verifying the information. This is not a functional reference for the 26 statements allegedly sourced to this Wiki article—I'd be interested to hear any explanation of how that article sources the statements it is attached to.

^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z National Bridge Inventory

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:15, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, as far as I can tell, the article doesn't, nor does it claim to, be referenced to Wikipedia. All of those references listed above are from the National Bridge Inventory. That the article authors linked the term to the appropriate Wikipedia page was not meant to denote that the information referenced stemmed from the National Bridge Inventory article (That article is not nearly long enough to contain 26 valuable bits of information anyway...).

To me it looks like the source referenced was the actual National Bridge Inventory, a government inventory you can learn more about here. --NoahElhardt 14:25, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

If the sources are some actual inventory, that is the information that should be specified in the footnote—not a link to a Wiki article. Where do our readers verify the info? Give the direct information, whether a book, brochure, website, whatever. What was listed as a reference was 26 statements sourced to a Wiki article, nothing more. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:38, 30 March 2007 (UTC) PS, this goes back (again) to the troubling issue of reviewers who count little footnote numbers and don't check sources. We cannot source statements to a Wiki article only. All those little numbers mean nothing if they don't go somewhere, with an identifiable publisher and a means our readers can verify our sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:43, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

The National Bridge Inventory citation should include a note where the database can be found. (I said that in the KT FAC.) But it is not a reference to a wiki article any more than

Bill Keller (September 22, 2002), Sunshine Warrior. New York Times

is a reference to the wiki articles on Bill Keller, September 22, or New York Times. I think we need to emphasize that a citation should make sense if printed and read from a hard copy. The NYT reference above would make sense. National Bridge Inventory just needs to specify what it is. Gimmetrow 15:31, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with both of Gimmetrow's points. Raul654 15:34, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Right—The NY Times example gives me everything I need to pinpoint and verify any info sourced. I can go to a library, find the Times from 9/22/02, and also locate the article by the title and author. I can find it in a library; I can find it online. I have all the info I need; it is not based on a Wiki link to the Times alone. The National Bridge Inventory example only linked to a Wiki article. As Gimmetrow indicated, it should include a note about where the database can be found, if that is the actual source. And, in that case, it also needs an access date, lest the info changes. The Wiki article alone is not a source. Again, the concern is that reviewers count little numbers without noticing what is behind the numbers. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:41, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing it, Gimmetrow—I'm still trying to catch up from travel, but I'll go back and fix the other referencing issues that weren't addressed during FAC, such as identification of other publishers. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:45, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I suppose the other question is, why wasn't this done some days ago by the article authors? Gimmetrow 15:58, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I just spent about an hour in there, and found and corrected numerous other problems. My question isn't to the authors of the article; it's why reviewers Support articles without checking sources. No matter how well meaning an e-mail is, it simply cannot be used as a reliable source. I'm not convinced that http://www.okroads.com is a reliable source, so I tagged them as well - it appears to be a self-published hobby website, although the authors may convince me otherwise. I brought this up here on the FAC talk page because I don't understand why so few reviewers check sourcing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:40, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm a very slow reviewer. If I review an article, I check sources, but it's a nightmare because, whisper it not, the truth is that a surprisingly large number of citations lead to a source that does not fully support the cited information (or, often, support it at all). Or you get things like "the album was critically acclaimed" cited to one positive review (or phrase from a positive review, quoted on a commercial site).

I sometimes point this out but more often move on to review a different article. Otherwise one would end up the nagger-in-chief (OK, Sandy, not quite). We might hardly ever vote for an article to become an FA. I've come to the conclusion that we can't expect many articles to be written to a professional standard. People get paid to be professional, and editors here are amateurs. One can tell almost straight away whether an article is professionally written; the only thing one can really do about a faulty article which is receiving support votes is rewrite and re-source it oneself, which may take a month (been there, bought the Lord Baltimore T-shirt). Life's too short. qp10qp 21:41, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

LOL :-) I employ the division of labor idea; if I spend a lot of time on sources, others can review prose with more confidence and less distraction, knowing that the text is accurately sourced. Besides, my copyediting skills suck. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:44, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I tend to believe, though, that quality copy-editing (I mean in the sense of straightening out sentences and word choice rather than just tyępoẽź, etc.) involves checking the sources. If the sentence is unclear, the clue to the intended meaning lies in the source. So, even to undertake a copy-edit is for me a major task. And 1(a) and 1(c) also have this in common: a generalised criticism on either grounds in an FAC isn't actionable—one must give specifics; and by the time one has done that, one might as well have fixed the thing oneself. (Sorry about all these "ones", I'm talking as if I'm wearing a monocle.) I've come to think the only way I can be of use at FA is to pick borderline articles and try to help edge them to qualification.

Where you get the energy to do all the things you do, I don't know (I hope you are not on benzedrine). I admire your efforts at FAR, that Gormenghastian cellar wherein no glory resides. (You either succeed in keeping a featured article featured (no one will notice) or in annoying the people who wrote the thing, who, unlike the pert nominators at FAC, have no incentive to jump through FA criteria hoops like obedient shetland ponies with their backsides on fire.) qp10qp 23:11, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I had to look up Benzedrine; it doesn't cite its sources :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:42, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Food for thought

I was having some fun with an article history fetching script I wrote. It shows who edited a given page, and how many times they did. Raul654 06:00, 4 April 2007 (UTC):

---

hydra[56] [~/wiki_research/wikilib/]> get_hist --wikify --summarize --threshold=200 "Wikipedia:Featured article candidates" Fetching Wikipedia:Featured article candidates

• Raul654 896
• Jeronimo 395
• Lord_Emsworth 357
• Maveric149 324
• Matt_Crypto 298
• Ta_bu_shi_da_yu 295
• Taxman 283
• Filiocht 272
• Henry_Flower 201
• ALoan 201

This article has been edited 17385 times

I've been thinking about the same thing. It would be good to know, especially for FAs, how many words that remain in an article were done by so and so editors. There would be some difficulties, such as if the original editor's words were entirely rewritten by a copy editor(s), even though the article's material was all the same.-BillDeanCarter 07:52, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

It's been done Raul654 07:59, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Has there been any discussion about incorporating such an algorithm straight into Wikipedia? Then at a glance you could determine who the authors of a document are. I've heard recently that there will be some changes to Wikipedia's system, something about keeping recent changes to an article hidden until an editor approves them, for either controversial articles, all articles, or some such thing. Any truth to these reports of new changes on the horizon?-BillDeanCarter 08:12, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Interesting. I suspect that rather a lot of my 201 edits were done before the nominations were moved to transcluded subpages. That may also explain the high positions for Jeronimo, Lord Emsworth, and User:Maveric149. -- ALoan (Talk) 08:28, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Very nice; can we use it to enforce contributors to FACs identifying themselves on Support votes? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:08, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

There is already a tool to do that - here - example -- ALoan (Talk) 12:16, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Nice. (But, what's the difference between those and Raul's tool?) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:46, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Mine operates directly against the live version instead of using a data dump. So it takes longer to run but the results are up-to-date. Also, mine can be automated (so it's trivial to run it 100 times and let the computer do all the hard work, instead of doing it all by hand). Raul654 19:46, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Excellent - and we access it by... ? -- ALoan (Talk) 19:53, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

By opening another tool that already did that.[2] Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 05:19, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Is there a tool to make sure that reviewers have read the article they're reviewing or the existing discussion about it? The Land 12:21, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Is there a tool to make sure nominators have read WP:WIAFA before nomming? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:46, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Problem is that tool has a 34 day lag from en_wiki! CloudNine 12:40, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I noticed that the counts generated by my script were higher than the tool, and (after some reading on that page) I was coming here to say just that. Raul654 14:25, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thoughts on Featured Article process

I've been having some thoughts on the Featured Article process based on my own experience and on comments I've read in a variety of places. I think that — if one views FA as a standard of article quality rather than purely a selection of exemplary work — Featured Articles are vital to the future of the project, and the existing process broadly succeeds in identifying good work and improving it so it hits a very high standard. I hope these thoughts are a constructive input into the improvement of the process.

The bottleneck appears to be at the review stage. It takes a lot of time and effort to give a meaningful featured article review. Is it possible to do more to attract reviewers? There is, for instance, a Good Articles wikiproject which helps support and enthuse GA reviewers. Could the same be useful for FA reviewers?

Another point is that a fair number of FA candidates are far enough away from FA status that they will not realistically achieve the right level in a few weeks. This wastes reviewer time on giving extensive feedback while producing no FAs. Should there be higher barriers to overcome before making something an FAC? It would be possible, for instance, to create a 'Requests for Featured Article Candidacy' page where an uninvolved editor could check that a particular article had (e.g.) been passed as a Good Article or A-class article, that it had received a recent peer review, and that no maintenance tags were present in the article before allowing it to be listed on FAC.

I also get a sense that, when reviews are given, discussion sometimes diverges from consensus as much as converging on it. A corollary of this is that instead of the article being improved people can end up yelling at each other. I think there are a number of possible reasons for this:

• Is Support/Oppose voting is basically antithetical to a feedback situation?. In particular, 'oppose' can be followed by anything from 'this article needs several months work and a comprehensive rewrite' to 'make sure you have correctly used hyphens and dashes'. (One might argue that FA should be a straight up-or-down decision on whether an article is one of the project's best, but in practice it is the most detailed level of article review).
• What can be done about drive-by voting? I understand some longstanding reviewers are worried about 'drive-by support' where someone doesn't actually review the article and says 'support' when there are clear reasons to oppose present. The psychology of this is harmful to the process, making reviewers frustrated (and probably therefore harsher) and in turn making FA feel more like a contest for people associated with nominations and increasing the number of drive-by supports.
• Are the FA criteria clear enough? Do reviewers 'gold-plate' criteria with personal preferences? I've seen a number of 'oppose' votes which are not very clearly associated with the FA criteria. Does this mean that the criteria aren't up to date? Does it mean reviewers should be more careful in only saying 'oppose' when they believe there is a consensus to back up their reasons?

Anyway, I hope these thoughts are useful... The Land 19:59, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree that shortage of reviewers is a problem, but it's understandable. To review properly is a big task: for me it would take a day's wikipedia activity (not a whole day of my life, I should say) to read and analyse an article, maybe check books and sources, and write out comments. It's asking a lot of people to do that often.

"Drive-by" supports aren't a problem, because I don't think Raul would take much notice of them if other reviewers identify flaws. I don't believe a pre-FAC process would work—we already have trouble finding enough people to peer review. I rarely get involved with no-chance candidates at FAC now, unless the subject interests me. I think it's best if reviewers concentrate on articles with a chance of passing, either now or in the future.

The criteria are clear enough, but they don't cover everything. Editors are entitled to object on other grounds. For example, some people objected to an article I nominated because a request for mediation had been lodged concerning its title. Fortunately, that objection didn't prove crucial. qp10qp 20:48, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I think lack of reviewers is a problem whatever process you're looking at, be it FAC, GAC, PR or even RfA, where most people seem to vote on one or two diffs provided by previous votes rather than looking for themselves. However, I object to the idea that FACs need to be either passed at GA or be rated A-Class before it can even be considered for FAC - my last FAC was rated start and didn't even go to peer review before passing (I was on a time restraint). It's a work of moments to take one look at an article and realise that it bears no resemblance to FA standards, and to give a few overarching comments to your oppose to help the nominator out, without taking too much of our time. I think most reviewers are faithful to the criteria, though some FAC reviewers base their opposes on criteria harsher than WP:WIAFA, and some are just completely out there (LuciferMorgan's oppose to Trembling Before G-d, for example, because the Awards section wasn't prose). I have complete faith in Raul to sort the wheat from the chaff. So, I think the problems with FAC (lack of reviewers, pointless nominations, stupid votes etc.) are symptomatic of a wider problem withn Wikipedia, and we should try to strike at that instead. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 22:03, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Two very quick thoughts:

1. Eliminate GA. It's a diversion of resources. We don't need to do what GA does; we need to stop people working on GA and have them working on FA. It's an ill-defined process. But of course people won't stop working on it, because it's easier to get almost there than to get there. GA is a slap on the back for having a half-decent article. No more or less.

2. Eliminate support/oppose for the first week of FACs. WP:FAR already does this (two weeks review/two weeks !vote). It doesn't work perfectly, but it works in general. Marskell 22:12, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

But FAR has far less volume than FAC; a similar process to FAR would overwhelm FAC. (Disagree that there's a bottleneck. Agree with other comments from Dev, qp and Marskell, but sure wish we could do something about Project/fan support in the face of obvious deficiencies: I guess some Projects are proud of their contributions, and others just want the star, regardless.) Oh, and Lucifer's objection to listy prose is a legitimate one, even if clumsily phrased. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:15, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't suggesting lengthening this process at all but encouraging comments for the first few days of a poll, with support and oppose held off. Marskell 10:28, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

My thinking is that doing so will lengthen the process anyway, and we could end up with 100 (not 70) FACs running at a time. We get a surprising number of SNOW objects—articles that aren't close to ready—and Raul probably doesn't remove those until he gets a consensus of Oppose. So, if we wait, they hang around longer, delaying their needed peer review. What I've started doing on articles that have a chance is entering a comment first, waiting a few days, then switching to Oppose if issues aren't addressed, but I have a feeling that has a worse psychological effect on the nominators than a straightout oppose would; it seems to catch them by surprise, as they think Comment can be ignored? Maybe I'm wrong. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:07, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

A thought: Personally, my time has been very constrined in past months, so I don't know the answer to this question, but has inappropriate submissions of FAC's been a major problem? There's always going to be the jokester with <50 edits who nominates a start-class article for FA, just as there are jokesters with <50 edits who apply for adminship. Such cases seem to be easy to weed out, I don't even bother to look at a candidate article if another credible reviewer has clearly identified it as such a case. On the other hand, the FAC submission process could be modified such as it is with Adminship, where the person nominating the article must complete a basic form few boilerplate questions, like "Does this article clearly meet WP:WIAFA?" or requiring a co-nominator as a means to slim down the number of inappropriate nominations. I'm not a fan of adding a bunch of steps to a process just to resolve problem that really isn't a big issue, but that could be one approach if it really is a problem. Neil916 (Talk) 18:45, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

If I had to rank possible problems at FAC, that wouldn't be high on my list. The SNOW cases get quick Opposes; and with GimmeBot doing most of the work now, Raul only has to move the nom to archive. I see the number one problem as overwhelming "fan" or WikiProject support in articles that have clear deficiencies. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:53, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FAC restructering

[edit] Those wretched green checks and the strikeout

I'd just like to make a suggestion to Raul: could you please add a note at the top of the page or somewhere that says, "please do not strike out text that you have not written and please take it easy on the use of green checks." Any chance this might happen? JHMM13 22:53, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Those things are hideous, but since they only started up this week, I think that politely asking nominators to stop on each FAC should tame then in a week or so, without the need to add a note. I've been commenting wherever I see them. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:56, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

And on strike, the instructions are clear: To withdraw the objection, strike it out (with ...) rather than removing it. Contributors should allow reviewers the opportunity to do this themselves. If you feel that the matter has been addressed, say so rather than striking out the reviewer's text. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:57, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

[Edit conflict: Sandy, quit writing! ;P ] Ugh. Agreed. Those green checks are really annoying, and often the responding nominator could just as easily write a little paragraph summarizing the changes that were made or not made ("I've addressed your first, third, and eigth concerns, but I disagree with your ninth for these reasons . . . "). But I'm not sure we should outright ban them . . . . Striking out text that you haven't written is, of course, a strict no-no, though. — Brian (talk) 22:59, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

 ;P SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:27, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't like it when another editor strikes out my comments (more often than not, it gets struck when it hasn't been addressed), but I've seen some commenters who like having their own comments struck by others as a way of monitoring progress. It should be left up to the individual, although not striking the comments of others should be the default by common sense. Pagrashtak 00:05, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

It is; see the instructions at the top of the FAC page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:18, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Ah ha! So it is. Thanks, Sandy. That'll teach me to speak up before reading the rules. :-D JHMM13 00:26, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

To clarify, when I say it "should be", I mean that I agree with it, not that it needs to change. As for the large green check, it's very close in spirit to striking out a commenter's objections. They are both an attempt to make the situation appear resolved, whether that is the case or not. I would not object to a commenter who refactored to remove the checks. Pagrashtak 22:29, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, is it that much of any issue if they use the checks? Come on, people, there are more pressing concerns! *thinks about spitefully adding checks Dåvid Fuchs ^{(talk / frog blast the vent core!)} 00:41, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm just worried that they take up a lot of bandwidth on a page that takes forever to load. JHMM13 01:02, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Your browser will only load the file (which at 0.53 kb isn't all that big and is probably cached), and then re-use it for every instance it is repeated on this page. So the bandwidth they consume is negligible. Raul654 01:04, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Often, nominators put their green "done" checkmarks when it's *not* done. We don't need that kind of mess; at one point, I felt I had to add a "Not done" in red, so it would be noticed, as the pages become overwheliming with all those tic marks. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:04, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Call me antediluvian, but I find them unsightly - distracting, even - and they are as unnecessary as the {{support}} and {{tl|oppose} dinky icones that get nuked from orbit whenever they are recreated. -- ALoan (Talk) 09:55, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't really have anything to add, but I agree with apparently everyone that those check marks are obnoxious and an impediment to good FACing. Tuf-Kat 02:20, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Restructuring the specific format of FAC

I have a suggestion here gotten from the Italian Wikipedia regarding the layout of an FAC. As much as I don't think their process is thorough enough, I like the designation of special areas for support, oppose, and suggestions. A lot of times FACs can get pretty tough to read on here and it might be helped a little (and it might help Raul sort it all out) if we separate the areas. Any thoughts? JHMM13 23:04, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Looks like a very immature process; a straight vote, similar to what we had years ago when en-Wiki was much smaller. Most of our "votes" change as the FAC progresses, so entering them into a category like that will make a mess. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:55, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Professional peer review experience

As many of you know, when I'm not editing Wikipedia, I'm a grad student. As such, I've done a number of professional peer reviews for computer engineering related articles that have appeared in conferences (unlike most branches of science and engineering, Computer Engineering is conference driven, not journal driven)

The way it works is that an author writes an article. The conference puts out a call for papers, and the author sends his article. The conference chairperson (or someone delagated by him) assigns the papers to reviewers. These reviewers read X papers, and for each paper, they fill out a review sheet. Here's what a review sheet looks like:

ICPP 2007: The 2007 International Conference on Parallel Processing Review Form

Submission #[Article number] [Article name]

Authors: [Author's names]

Summary Ranking

Please evaluate the submission according to the criteria below. Scores for numerical categories are ordered from "bad" to "good." That is, a low score represents a negative evaluation, and a high score represents a positive evaluation.

Evaluation Category Enter Your Score

---

Overall Ranking (1-5)

Technical Quality (1-5)

Presentation (1-5)

Confidence (1-5)

---

Detailed Comments

Please supply detailed comments to back up your rankings. These comments will be forwarded to the authors of the paper. The comments will help the committee decide the outcome of the paper, and will help justify this decision for the authors. Moreover, if the paper is accepted, the comments should guide the authors in making revisions for a final manuscript. Hence, the more detailed you make your comments, the more useful your review will be - both for the committee and for the authors.

Enter comments here:

---

Confidential Comments for Committee

You may wish to withhold some comments from the authors, and include them solely for the committee's internal use. For example, you may want to express a very strong (negative) opinion on the paper, which might offend the authors in some way. Or, perhaps you wish to write something which would expose your identity to the authors. If you wish to share comments of this nature with the committee, this is the place to put them.

Enter comments here:

---

Notice that reviewers are given opportunity to express their criticisms both quantatively and qualitatively, as well as in a number of relevant "dimensions" (e.g, distinguishing criticisms of the material itself versus the presentation). The point I am getting at is that I think this system is superior for generating feedback versus the binary support/oppose system we currently use on the FAC, and both systems (the current FAC one and the professional peer review one) are better than the one JMHH13 mentioned in that they encourage constructive criticism rather than a straight vote.

As far as its application here - the FAC suffers from one serious flaw, which is that the people doing the reviews are probably not experts on the subject. The degree to which FAC can do quality control is an open question. Raul654 01:51, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

This has some merit, Raul. How could we do it without creating absolutely monstrous reviews?

One very small thing we could start to do immediately is to note Speedy close rather than oppose for those that are completely unready. This will be easier for you to notice and clear off the page. Marskell 08:35, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Encyclopædia Britannica

I just realised Encyclopædia Britannica might actually pass its FAC. As this is likely to hit headlines ("Wikipedia has better entry on Britannica than Britannica does") or at least utterly enrage the EBs, they're going to go through this article and find every possible error they can if it passes. Every regular FAC reviewer needs to get down there and go through it with a fine toothcomb to ensure that everything is all above board, referenced, well-written etc. That way we won't look stupid. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 14:15, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the note, Dev; I actually hadn't looked at it since so many eyes have already been there. I should be able to get to it tonight. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:07, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Considering Dev's call to action, I'd really like to review it, but I have to put out a fire today. Would it be presumptuous to ask Raul to let this run a bit overtime? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:53, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

No objections here. Raul654 02:08, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your call to action, Dev! I've been hoping that more people would comment at its FAC to help make it a better article, like the biblical refiner's fire. If you'll take some kindly-meant advice, however, we shouldn't speculate about what the people at the Britannica will feel. I like to think that they will be delighted that the world has another fine encyclopedia article, on a subject dear to their hearts. If they're annoyed, then we should engage them with gentility and fellow feeling and, God willing, charm them with our excellent manners and witty humor. Our enemy is ignorance, not each other; we face common difficulties and share such parallel goals that we might as well be siblings. And although siblings often bicker and tease each other, I hope sincerely that our article will increase the number of visitors to their site and perhaps even their number of subscribers. The world would be a poorer place indeed if the Britannica were lost. Willow 16:50, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Aha! So there's a conflict of interest here! ;-P Kidding of course... Nicely said. –Outriggr § 19:02, 5 April 2007 (UTC)