Wikipedia

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Archived nominations/January 2017

< Wikipedia:Featured article candidates‎ | Archived nominations
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Sarastro1 via FACBot (talk) 11:24, 29 January 2017 [1].

Sarawak edit

Nominator(s): Cerevisae (talk) 11:09, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about Sarawak, a territory on the island of Borneo. It is a state inside a country named Malaysia. It has one of the regions with the highest biodiversity in the world with the rich cultural heritage. It also has a unique history where indigeneous people accepted white people as their king (or White Rajah. Gunung Mulu National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Rainforest World Music Festival is listed as "Top 25 Best International Festivals" by the magazine Songlines. This article has undergone GA and FA reviews, and peer review. I hope that it can achieve FA article status in this FA review. Any comments are welcomed for this article. Thanks! Cerevisae (talk) 11:09, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Drive by comments As an Australian military history nerd, the following statements jumped out at me:

  • "Allied forces later carried out Operation Semut to sabotage Japanese operations in Southeast Asia" - Semut was a fairly limited scale operation aimed at scouting in Borneo and starting a guerrilla war there, and didn't extend to other areas of South East Asia. See [2] - Done Cerevisae (talk) 13:06, 21 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Intelligence gathered from the operation helped Allied forces (headed by Australia) to reconquer Borneo in May 1945 through Operation Oboe Six" - the Australian forces only liberated the island of Tarakan off the east coast of Borneo, Labuan, some bits of British North Borneo and Balikpapan by the time of the Japanese surrender: the rest of the island was in Japanese hands. Operation Oboe Six was the campaign in north Borneo, with the landings elsewhere in Borneo having different code names. Please see the Borneo campaign (1945) article for background and references. - Done Cerevisae (talk) 17:28, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "This led to the surrender of the Japanese to the Australian forces on 10 September 1945 at Labuan" - The Japanese forces surrendered as part of the general surrender of Japan, not due to the campaign during mid 1945. The Australians actually planned to leave the remaining Japanese in Sarawak well alone from about June 1945 as they'd captured the territory they were after (the oilfields and Brunei Bay) and the Japanese posed little threat. - Done Cerevisae (talk) 17:28, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Sarawak security was also the responsibility of Australia and New Zealand", with an implication that this started sometime around 1888 - this simply isn't correct. The source appears to be referring to the Five Power Defence Arrangements which was a relatively loose arrangement which came into effect well after the Second World War and applied to all of Malaya and involved several countries with the UK being the most important. Australian forces only served in Sarawak for a short period during the confrontation with Indonesia, and the Australian Government was fairly reluctant to get involved there. - Done. Removed the sentence. Cerevisae (talk) 17:28, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm surprised that no mention is made in the history section of Japan's brutal occupation policies in this region during the Second World War Nick-D (talk) 10:08, 19 January 2017 (UTC) - Not Done. I cannot find any notable Japanese atrocities in Sarawak, unlike the Sandakan Death March in North Borneo and Pontianak incidents in neighbouring Kalimantan, Indonesian Borneo. Would greatly appreciate it if you are able to find one.Cerevisae (talk) 17:28, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • I included a little bit of information on this topic at Battle of Labuan#Background. From memory, the book Rising Sun Over Borneo : The Japanese Occupation of Sarawak, 1941–1945 provided much more detail on this topic, and the bibliographic details for it are in that article. Nick-D (talk) 09:51, 20 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the info, but I have included a more detailed explanation of the Japanese occupation in the article "History of Sarawak". Generally, it is the harsh labour and ill treatment of the Japanese towards captured Allied soldiers and civilians in the internment camp. Cerevisae (talk)

Comment - I found examples of close-paraphrasing. In the article we have:

"Strongly export-oriented, the Sarawakian economy is susceptible to global commodity prices."

- Done. Rephrased. Cerevisae (talk) 13:06, 21 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This is close to:

"Nor Zahidi said the Sarawak economy is strongly export-oriented and therefore susceptible to volatile global commodity prices."

This is from this source [3], which is not cited in the article.

And, in the article:

"The Kuching Water Board (KWB) and the Sibu Water Board (SWB) are responsible for management of the water supply in their respective areas. The state-owned LAKU Management Sdn Bhd manages the water supply for Miri, Bintulu, and Limbang" -

Done. Rephrased. Cerevisae (talk) 13:06, 21 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

is close to:

"Kuching Water Board (KWB) and Sibu Water Board (SWB) are the two Statutory Authorities that responsible for the management and provision of water supply services to Kuching and Sibu respectively, while State-owned LAKU Management Sdn. Bhd. manage the water supplies water to Miri, Bintulu and Limbang."

Which is from here [4]. Graham Beards (talk) 14:55, 20 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - for now. I think more thorough checks are needed before this article can be considered for promotion. Graham Beards (talk) Graham Beards (talk) 11:40, 26 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator note: I think before we ping other reviewers, those concerns over close paraphrasing need to be at least responded to. If nothing is being done, I would be inclined to archive this quite early. Sarastro1 (talk) 00:36, 28 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Above two concerns have been addressed on 21 January 2017. Cerevisae (talk) 10:34, 28 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
My concerns remain. I was rather worried about finding close-paraphrasing in an article that was not even cited. I would like to see further checks. There is an elephant in the room.Graham Beards (talk) 20:40, 28 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I intend to carry out some checks in the next few days, but am not able to do so immediately. If you have more details that may be useful, uncited close paraphrasing can happen incidentally when discussing simple statements. CMD (talk) 04:24, 29 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Closing note: Given that there are concerns about close paraphrasing, I think these are best addressed outside of FAC so I am going to archive. Before bringing it back, the whole article needs to be checked very carefully by someone experienced with the possible pitfalls of close paraphrasing. Sarastro1 (talk) 11:22, 29 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 21:35, 28 January 2017 [5].

Coloman, King of Hungary edit

Nominator(s): Borsoka (talk) 05:38, 22 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about a king of Hungary who was regarded one of the most learned monarchs of his age. Borsoka (talk) 05:38, 22 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. - Dank (push to talk)

  • "His proficiency in canon law was eulogized in a letter that Pope Urban II addressed to him in 1096.": You can't eulogize someone until they're dead, so why would the Pope be addressing a letter to him?
  • "contemptile": contemptible?
  • Support on prose per my standard disclaimer. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 21:45, 24 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Dank, thank you for your copyediting and support. I fixed the above problems. Borsoka (talk) 03:45, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • File:Oton_Ivekovic,_Smrt_kralja_Petra_Svacica_u_Gori_Gvozdu_1097_god.jpg: assuming the attribution in the caption is correct, the given tag cannot be
  • File:Seal_of_Coloman.jpg is not a 2D work. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:32, 27 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Nikkimaria, thank you for your comments. I deleted the two pictures from the article, because I am unable to fix the problems. Borsoka (talk) 03:38, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Tintor2 edit

Thank you for your support. Sorry, I do not know video games, so I could not review articles about characters from such games. For instance, I cannot decide whether the cited sources could be described as reliable sources for WP purposes. Borsoka (talk) 03:31, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Support by Cas Liber edit

Taking a look, queries below:

Coloman allowed the organized groups to pass through Hungary peacefully but mercilessly annihilated the bands who were entering his kingdom unauthorized or pillaging the countryside. - why "organised" here? Do you mean the ones who were granted permission, in which case say "groups granted permission" or "groups that had sought permission" or something similar.
In paragraph 3 of the Early years (till 1095) section, a statement that the circumstances of Coloman taking the throne are unclear or something similar would be helpful before launching into evidence.

I made these changes. I hope they are ok and do not change the meaning
  • Support Overall a nice read and on target for FA status I think. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:05, 15 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your edits, and also for your comments. I hope, I fixed the above problems. Borsoka (talk) 04:09, 15 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
And also thank you for your support. Borsoka (talk) 02:27, 16 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Leaning oppose for the moment: I'm recusing from coordinator duties on this one, and I think we still need a little more work to reach FA standard. Nothing too major though. I've read to the end of Early Years so far. Sarastro1 (talk) 12:13, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your comprehensive review. Please find my comments below. Borsoka (talk) 16:06, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • We are definitely overusing "Coloman" here: there are 163 uses of the word in the article. It's an easy trap to fall into, but we need to reword so that we don't use his name too often. It's easy to sort; change a few to "he" and reword others to avoid the need for his name.
    • 23 was modified or deleted. (Please note, that the name is also used in titles of cited works, in captions, etc.) Borsoka (talk) 16:06, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "who was "half-blind and humpbacked"": The quote is fine, but I don't think we need to link those terms, particularly as those links that we use don't necessarily reflect what the chroniclers would have meant.
  • "but mercilessly annihilated": I think this is a little strong for wikipedia's voice, and suggests a little POV and assumption of Coloman's motives.
  • "Coloman had to face his brother's lust for power throughout his life": Similarly a little strong, and lust suggests POV.
  • "Hungarian chronicles, which were compiled in the reigns of kings descending from his mutilated brother and nephew, depict Coloman as a bloodthirsty and unfortunate monarch.": Again, mutilated is suggesting some kind of POV, and the sentence would work fine without it. Also, I gather that the meaning here is that the chronicles favoured his brother. I think a more common way to phrase this would be "Hungarian chronicles, written after Coloman's reign and favouring his brother and nephew, depict Coloman as a bloodthirsty and unfortunate monarch."
    • I think, the present wording helps to understand the reasons that he was described as a bloodthirsty monarch in later chronicles. Borsoka (talk) 16:06, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
      • The current phrasing is better, but I'd still prefer it to explicitly state that the chronicles were anti-Coloman. Sarastro1 (talk) 19:04, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
        • I think, we cannot state that the chronicles were anti-Coloman. They were compilation of texts written during the reign of many kings (including Coloman and his son, Stephen II). Consequently, some pro-Coloman texts were also preserved in them. Borsoka (talk) 05:03, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why are we saying "baptismal name" rather than just "name"?
    • I think, the baptismal name is the proper expression here (it was not his family name or his father's name, but the name he received at his baptism). Borsoka (talk) 16:06, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Géza's Byzantine second wife—whose baptismal name is unknown—left Hungary after her husband's death, implying that she was childless": Why does this imply that she was childless? Rather than clutter up the main body, I've seen this kind of thing explained in a note which summarises the working out in the source.
  • "According to historians Gyula Kristó and Márta Font, Coloman and Álmos were born around 1070.": Again, it would be nice to know, maybe in a note, how they know.
  • "The king's decision was unusual as Coloman was older than Álmos.": I think this could be spelled out - younger brothers were usually the ones sent to the church.
    • Sorry, I do not understand your above remark. I do not know such a practice of the Hungarian royal families. Borsoka (talk) 16:06, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
      • It was general practice in medieval Europe that younger sons, who would not inherit land or titles, were sent into the church. Maybe Hungary was different. In any case, I think we need to say why this was unusual; don't assume the reader knows why the older son would usually inherit. Sarastro1 (talk) 19:04, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
        • Thank you for the above clarification. I modified the text. Borsoka (talk) 05:03, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "According to the 14th-century Illuminated Chronicle,": I'd rework this section a little. When we introduce the source, we should say briefly what it is and why it was written; that's when we can say that it favoured his brother rather than at the end of this section. Also, we should not be questioning the reliability of the source in wikipedia's voice, but explaining current academic consensus on the article, or at the very least, say who thinks it is unreliable.
  • "According to late medieval chronicles": Which ones? And why the doubt over where he was bishop? Sarastro1 (talk) 12:13, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "which suggests that Coloman ascended the throne without bloodshed": Who says so? Again, we can't use wikipedia's voice to judge.
    • Sorry, I do not understand your above remark. Would you please clarify it? Borsoka (talk) 16:06, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
      • Certainly. When we write on here that a fact "suggests" something, it looks as if we are interpreting that fact. We cannot do that on here. However, this is easily remedied. Presumably, this is the interpretation of a historian, so we need to state which historian has made this interpretation. Sorry for any confusion. Sarastro1 (talk) 19:04, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sarastro1 (talk) 12:14, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

        • Thank you for your clarification. I modified the text. I think scholars emphasize that the circumstances of Coloman's ascenson to the throne are uncertain, because contradictory data were preserved. Some report suggests (not says) that Coloman mounted the throne without fight, other data imply (not prove) that he had to fight for the crown. Borsoka (talk) 05:03, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

More to come. Sarastro1 (talk) 12:13, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'll hold on until Ealdgyth's points have been addressed for the moment; this is very much her area of expertise! Sarastro1 (talk) 19:20, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Source review The sources are of encyclopedic quality, and the text is thoroughly cited. No formatting errors that I could see. Everything looks to be in order. --Coemgenus (talk) 14:11, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Source review from Ealdgyth (talk · contribs)
  • I checked all the sources, including the non-English ones, and all appear to be scholarly. The non-English sources are all held in academic libraries in the US so they obviously are academic works.
  • I did go through and make the short citations consistent in the use of a full stop in the various chapter/etc parentheticals.
  • I spot checked the article against Curta, which is the only source used in the article I have on my shelves, and there was only one spot of too close paraphrasing: the wikipedia article has "Coloman was crowned king of Croatia in Biograd na Moru in 1102." but Curta: "Colman was crowned King of Croatia in Biograd in 1102." I am inclined to think this is a case of being just too hard to change the wording without losing the meaning, but if a rephrase is possible, it wouldn't be a bad thing either.
  • I will try to review the prose and content shortly.
Otherwise everything looks good. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:40, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose from Ealdgyth (talk · contribs)
  • I have concerns about using Runciman's work on the Crusades. It's quite old, and many new sources and approaches have come about in the almost 70 years since it was published. For example, "The next arrivals, headed by Peter the Hermit, passed through the country without incident until they reached Zimony (Zemun, Serbia),[32] where a dispute between the crusaders and the local inhabitants caused a riot.[34] The crusaders besieged and took the town, where they massacred "[a]bout four thousand Hungarians",[35] according to the contemporaneous Albert of Aix.[36] They only withdrew when Coloman's troops were approaching them.[37]". "32 and 36 are sourced to Runciman. But Christopher Tyermann in God's War says that Colman negotiated a truce with Peter and that later Colman fought with Peter's forces at Pannonhalma in early July 1096. Tyermann also goes into more detail about reasons WHY Colman may have resisted the crusader passage - something missing in this article. Tyermann also mentions that Colman allowed Godfrey access to markets, and stresses how the timing of the crusaders made access to markets extremely important and that the crusaders who attempted to live off the land "poisoned the well" for following crusaders.
    • I think Runciman's work is still a basic study. All the same, I try to find some other works to review this section of the article. Borsoka (talk) 05:01, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
      • I expanded the section based on Rubinstein's monography (published in 2011) and Tyerman's earlier work. I mentioned the importance of timing, in accordance with the sources cited. I hope the modifications made it clear that there is no contradiction between Runciman and Tyerman in connection with the events you mentioned above, because Runciman wrote of the capture of Zimony by the second crusader group travelling through Hungary, while Tyerman about the defeat of the fourth band near Pannonhalma. (Previously the text did not mention Pannonhalma.) I also changed the wording, trying to avoid the use of the adjectives organized/disorganized even if I am not convinced that Tyerman's POV can be substantiated. [Runciman's words suggest the leaders of the "organized" groups knew which is the best season to march through Central Europe and the Balkans, while the "disorganized" groups tried to pass through the region in the season when they could hardly find food (Runciman (1951), pp. 109, 142.). All the same, this is not the proper article to discuss this issue.] Borsoka (talk) 06:47, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Early Years:
    • "It is also possible, as proposed by Márta Font, that..." We've already been introduced to Marta Font, we can refer to them as "Font"
    • "after Pope Urban II had exempted him of his clerical status" - clunky wording, can we figure out another wording that isn't so clunky?
  • Facing the crusaders:
    • "They only withdrew when Coloman's troops were approaching them." may I suggest "They only withdrew when Colman's troops approached them." which is more concise and also more active and engaging prose.
    • "leadership of one Count Emicho six weeks" - any reason you say "one Count" instead of "Count Emicho"?
    • "The first properly organized crusader army.." Tyermann (and others) no longer consider all the early crusaders such as Peter the Hermit to have been an unorganized mass of looters - he argues that they were at least as well organized as most medieval armies - none of which were outstanding examples of military discipline. Tyermann puts Godfrey's seemingly better organized army down to the difference in time when the army went through Hungary - they were enough later in the year that supplies were easier to acquire than when Peter marched through.
      • For the time being, I am not convinced that Tyermann's POV is widely accepted, so I will address this issue some time later. Borsoka (talk) 05:01, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • "After the uneventful march of the main crusader army across Hungary, Coloman's fame quickly spread throughout Europe." Why did it spread and what form did this "fame" take?
  • Expansion:
    • "Historian Gyula Kristó writes that the fact that his brother Álmos had for years had a close relationship with Emperor Henry may also have influenced his decision." Clunky - suggest "Historian Gyula Kristó writes that Álmos' close relationship with Emperor Henry may also have influenced Coloman's decision."
    • "In 1095, her sister Constance had married Conrad, the elder son of Emperor Henry IV,..." elder or eldest son? And suggest removing the "had" - it's not needed.
      • Modified (I preferred to delete the year, because we should emphasize that Coloman married the sister-in-law of Conrad). Conrad was the elder of the two sons of Henry IV. Borsoka (talk) 05:01, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Coloman invaded Croatia in 1097.[63][28] Its last native king, Petar Svačić, who had for years resisted Ladislaus I of Hungary, died in the Battle of Gvozd Mountain." This is unclear - did Coloman take part in the Battle of Gvozd Mountain? Or did it happen before his invasion and Coloman invaded because of the vacuum in power? Context is missing here.
    • "Having no fleet, Coloman sent his envoys with a letter to the doge..." "his" is redundant here - if he sent envoys it's assumed they were his envoys.
    • "Coloman returned from Croatia and marched towards his brother's duchy with his troops in 1098." suggest "Coloman returned from Croatia in 1098 and marched his army towards his brother's duchy." as saying "with his troops" in the article just sounds silly - we assume he marched with his troops because if he marched alone towards his brother's duchy he probably wouldn't have survived very long.
    • "In the same year, Coloman hastened towards the Bohemian..." before or after the Russian conflict? As it's written it implies that it was after, but its not clear.
    • "King Saint Stephen" - we generally avoid using "Saint" in this context. We don't say "Saint Louis IX"
    • "The assembly of Tarcal passed new decrees..." I assume this is the assembly mentioned in the previous sentence? It's not made clear.
      • Yes the two assemblies are identical. Modified. Borsoka (talk) 05:01, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • "The 13th-century Thomas the Archdeacon writes that the union of Croatia and Hungary was the consequence of conquest." - clunky. Suggest "In the 13th-century Thomas the Archdeacon wrote that the union of Croatia and Hungary was the consequence of conquest."
    • Any reason for "known as" in "However, the late 14th-century manuscript known as the Pacta conventa narrates"?
    • When was the Life of the blessed John of Trogir written? And why do we need to say where this information comes from - is it under dispute?
      • Because the reliable source cited (Stephenson) also emphasizes that this story is only mentioned in a hagiographic work. Borsoka (talk) 05:01, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • Why do we suddenly start saying "Based on the Life of St Christopher the Martyr, the historian Paul Stephenson writes that a Hungarian fleet subjugated..." is there some dispute over whether the fleet actually did this? If so, we need it fleshed out, otherwise we can just say that the fleet did it, we don't need the qualifiers.
  • Family affairs:
    • "Álmos returned to Hungary in 1106.[98] In the same year, Álmos fled to his brother-in-law, Boleslaw III of Poland." clunky. Suggest "Álmos returned to Hungary in 1106,[98] but then fled to his brother-in-law, Boleslaw III of Poland."
    • "Coloman sent his envoys..." again, it's assumed that if he sent them, they were his, so "his" is redundant.
    • "Pope Paschalis II" ???? Use the normal English form which is Paschal.
    • "In October 1106, they solemnly informed" ... who is "they"? the last collective is the council, not the envoys, which it appears to be what is meant.
    • "...their king's renunciation of his royal prerogative to appoint the prelates." "the prelates"? the prelates of where?
    • "and was forced to accept the humiliating Treaty of Devol in 1108." - first this needs a source and it especially needs a source for the opinion that the treaty was humiliating.
    • "Although Álmos was allowed to keep his own private property, the annexation of his duchy ensured the integrity of the kingdom." Why/How did it ensure the integrity?
    • "Álmos left for Passau." - was the emperor there or did he contact the emperor from there? It's unclear why Almos would go to Passau....
    • "Hungarian historian Font..." why are we suddenly needing to know what ethnicity Font is? Why does Font think the bishopric was set up by Coloman and why do the Slovak historians think it already existed?
      • Modified. I do not know why they think that the bishopric was established earlier. Borsoka (talk) 04:34, 12 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • "In 1112, Coloman made an incursion into Austria, possibly in retaliation for Margrave Leopold III's participation in the 1108 German campaign against Hungary, according to Ferenc Makk." very very clunky... the bit about Makk is tacked on like an afterthought - and we don't need the first name for Makk since we've already had him mentioned.
    • "However, according to the Illuminated Chronicle, the queen "was taken in the sin of adultery"[110] in 1113 or 1114.[111] Euphemia was soon sent back to her father..." are the two events related or do some historians disagree that Euphemia was adulterous?
      • Modified. I do not know of any scholarly debates. Borsoka (talk) 04:34, 12 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • "and to the holy king's shrine" - I assume Stephen is meant here? "holy king" is POV and should be rephrased.
  • Last years:
    • "near the holy king Stephen" - POV. Remove "the holy".
      • I think the adjective is important in the context: Coloman was buried near the tomb of his canonized predecessor. Borsoka (talk) 05:01, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
        • I disagree. You can get across that point without using "holy". Ealdgyth - Talk 12:42, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Legacy:
    • "written under kings descended from Álmos who was blinded upon Coloman's order" - we already know that Almos was blinded on Coloman's orders
    • "states that the saintly Ladislaus I predicted" POV - remove "saintly"
      • I think the adjective is important in the context: Ladislaus's alleged prediction was only important because he was canonized. Borsoka (talk) 05:01, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • "However, the one-time existence of a favorable image of Coloman can be proven." Clunky and leading - needs rewording.
    • "His scribe clearly mentions him as "the most Christian King Columban", who is "endowed with the artless grace of a dove and with all discernment of the virtues" in the preamble to his decrees." wordy - suggest "The preamble to his decrees says he was "the most Christian King Columban", who is "endowed with the artless grace of a dove and with all discernment of the virtues".
    • "Márta Font,[1] László Kontler[3] and Gyula Kristó" - we've already met two of these - they don't need first names.
    • "According to László Kontler" - don't need the first name here either
    • "King Saint Stephen" POV again - drop the Saint
    • "which gave rise to the development of Hungarian historiography" - unneeded - ALL records will give rise to some sort of historiography - this phrase is just padding.
I'm sure I've missed other parts of the prose that need work. I'm going to have to oppose on the basis of prose as well as concerns about relying on Runciman. The above are just examples - I strongly suggest a good copyedit for flow and redundancy before I'll be able to support. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:22, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your comprehensive and bold review. I will be addressing the above issues in a couple of days. Sorry, I am quite busy now. I also seek for assistance from the guild of copyeditors. Borsoka (talk) 06:09, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I hope I addressed most problems listed above. I still need some time to study scholarly literature about the movement of the crusaders across Hungary. Borsoka (talk) 06:03, 12 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Sarastro1 and Ealdgyth, please find my comments above. Thank you for your patience. I think the article still needs a comprehensive copyedit from the guild of copyeditors. Please let me know if you suggest further modifications. Thank you. Borsoka (talk) 07:09, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'll check the others, but I still have concerns with Runciman's use. Unfortunately, I've got the better part of my library packed up so I can't easily consult other works on the Crusades. I'll note that Ashbridge doesn't mention Colman at all. I would still prefer that other editors work over the prose, which could stand attention from other copyeditors. Ealdgyth - Talk 12:42, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your work. I think Jay Rubenstein's cited work is an excellent monography and he mentions Coloman several times. Sorry, I will not delete references to Runciman. I have not been convinced that his work cannot be cited any more. Borsoka (talk) 13:05, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't ask you to remove Runciman - I wished to see other, more recent, studies consulted. Unfortunately, I don't have those on my shelves at the moment - (besides Tyermann and Ashbridge) but there are plenty of other works on the Crusades that could be consulted to see if they agree with the views of Runciman. And even if we leave aside the Runciman issue - there are still prose concerns that I brought up. I remain unconvinced that just working through my examples will have improved the prose enough. Has another copyeditor gone through the article? I don't oppose quickly on prose issues, there were probably other clunky sections that need work. It's going to take more than just fixing my examples to make me support on prose, unfortunately, as I know I'm not a high level copyeditor. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:22, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your prompt answer. I requested a copyedit on the relevant page a week ago, but copyeditors are quite busy, so I am sure that they could only review this article a couple of days later. Borsoka (talk) 13:52, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I might be able to give this a copy-edit this weekend if that helps. I find it best if I just dive in and raise any issues on this page; if you are happy for me to have a go, let me know. However, I can't really compare against Runciman. I think I've got a couple of recent Crusades books, but for the life of me I can't remember where I put them! Sarastro1 (talk) 19:15, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your offer. As to Runciman, I think you will find that most/all sentences based on Runciman's work are also verfied by a reference to other sources. Borsoka (talk) 02:13, 21 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Sarastro1 and Ealdgyth, a member of the WP:Guild of copyeditors, Corinne, went through the article. Please tell me if you think further actions are needed to improve the article. Borsoka (talk) 03:24, 22 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I've had a quick look, but haven't been able to look in detail this weekend (real life, etc, etc). A first glance does not really settle my concerns, but I don't have time to go into detail. I think a few parts could do with reworking to make more sense and to flow better, which goes beyond a mere copy-edit. I'm also a touch concerned about sourcing still but I'll look more carefully tomorrow. Sarastro1 (talk) 22:34, 22 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Break edit

  • OK, I've had another look and my main problem is a lack of flow. It is hard to tell the story as we keep breaking off for other things. It is not irredeemable, but requires a lot of work. This edit (which I self-reverted) shows one potential way of doing it. This is a big job, and while I'm happy to do it, there would be points that I would need to check on as I don't have the sources. I'm also not too certain on the way we are citing; I'd like to know what the sources say to see how much we can massage the prose. My gut instinct is that this work is best done away from FAC, and this should be withdrawn. But I wouldn't insist. And obviously you can ignore some or all of my suggestions. But without a lot of work, I could not support, nor strike my leaning oppose. Sarastro1 (talk) 20:36, 25 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thank you for your attempt to improve the article. Sincerely, I am not convinced that all modifications you suggested actually improved the text. For instance, you replaced the expression "Coloman's father" with his name "Géza": yes, we know that he was called Géza, but in the context his relationship to Coloman is more important, because Coloman could have only been king after Géza's death, because Géza was his father. Likewise, you deleted the noun "priest" from the expression "ordained priest", although the quite common noun helps most readers to understand the otherwise rarely used verb "to ordain". On the other hand, you added the adjective "Hungarian" when writing of Géza's mounting to the throne, although it is quite obvious in an article about a Hungarian king that his father ascended to the Hungarian throne. Neither do I understand why should we emphasize twice in a short section that the chronicles may have been biased. Borsoka (talk) 07:49, 28 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Other problems: "Modern scholars agree that rumours about the sudden arrival of Coloman's army frightened the crusaders off from the fortress". Aside from the prose (which needs work here, but let's make sure we are sourced first), there is a big issue here. We are saying that "modern scholars agree". No they don't. This is sourced to Runciman, who may be wonderful but is not a modern scholar, and Tyerman. Tyerman supports the facts of the withdrawal, but he does not describe a scholarly consensus. He doesn't discuss any other historical views. So we cannot use these two sources to claim "modern scholars agree". One modern scholar says this, and one source from 1951. A big no to this. Sarastro1 (talk) 20:44, 25 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think, this is a general problem with FAs. Please take a look at Áedán mac Gabráin (the first FA listed under the subtitle "Royalty and nobility biographies"). It contains the following sentence: [a text about Áedán's ancestry] "is generally read as meaning that" .... However, only two scholars are cited. Likewise, the first sentence in the main text of Ælle of Sussex (the second FA listed under the same subtitle) reads as follows: "Historians are divided on the detail of Ælle's life and existence as it was during the least-documented period in English history of the last two millennia.". However, there are only two historians cited, and one of the cited sources does not verify the sentence about Aelle.Borsoka (talk) 07:49, 28 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Coloman did not allow them to leave the region, either because he had learnt of their troublesome behavior during their journey, or he had realized that their movement across Hungary could jeopardize the stability of the local economy.": Checking Tyerman (the only source I have to hand), the reference for this has the following text: "Beyond the scrutiny of the chroniclers, a steady stream of ordinary pilgrims was flowing east, adding to the pressure on food stocks and forage. These material considerations dictated Coloman's refusal in late July to allow passage into his kingdom of Emich of Flonheim and his south and west German followers: with a more favourable supply position three months later, the king allowed Godfrey of Boudillon a negotiated passage. However, beyond provisions, Coloman may also have regarded Emich as a dangerous liability, his reputation for violence and flouting of royal authority preceding him." The statement is also sourced to Rubenstein; what does Rubenstein say, for I'm not convinced the source supports the text entirely here. I don't think we quite catch the nuance. Sarastro1 (talk) 20:53, 25 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • Sorry, I do not understand your above remark. Rubinstein in his cited work writes: [The crusaders] "arrived at Moson ... around June 20, just about the time Coloman began to hear rumors of trouble all along the pilgrimage route and involving all three of the Frankish armies that he had welcomed into his kingdom. Perhaps this is why Coloman held Gottschalk's men up a little longer around Moson. Or perhaps Coloman was just beginning to recognize what an economic crisis the pilgrims might represent." Borsoka (talk) 07:49, 28 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why do we need the long quotation from Albert of Aix? Can this not be summarised? To be honest, the closer I look, the less convinced I am that this is FA standard. Stopping now to allow some replies. Sarastro1 (talk) 20:55, 25 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    • Why do we not need the quotations? :) The more time I spent in WP, the more I beceme convinced that quotations from primary sources (based on reliable sources) improve the quality of articles. Borsoka (talk) 07:49, 28 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose: Based on the state of the article, and the nominators responses, I'm afraid I've struck my "leaning oppose" and am simply opposing now. There are too many issues here on prose and sourcing. Sarastro1 (talk) 10:23, 28 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Coord note -- I think that given the time this has been open it'll be best to try and work through outstanding concerns away from the FAC process (perhaps pinging Ealdgyth and Sarastro1 for collaboration or informal review if they can manage it, prior to a new nom). I'll therefore be archiving it shortly. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 21:26, 28 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 06:41, 25 January 2017 [7].

New York City Subway edit

Nominator(s): RES2773 (talk) 05:01, 25 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about the New York City subway system. Since its last nomination over ten years ago, many improvements have been made to improve this page. It currently has "Good Article" status. Please let me know what you think. RES2773 (talk) 05:01, 25 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • I think the article needs a lot more detail work, e.g. many references are lacking information, and over four hundred for an article of this size is excessive. Alt text is missing on nearly every image, and there are plenty of dead links. These would be good starting tasks. ɱ (talk) · vbm · coi) 05:07, 25 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Coord note -- I don't see any edits to this article by the nominator and, per FAC instructions, familiarity with the article and its sources is a pre-req so as to properly field comments and criticism. I'll therefore be archiving it shortly. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 06:40, 25 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 04:14, 25 January 2017 [8].

The Winds of Winter (Game of Thrones) edit

Nominator(s): Calibrador (talk) 07:11, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because I believe it meets the FA criteria. I am a major contributor to the article, and have significantly expanded it to cover every aspect involved with creating the episode. Calibrador (talk) 07:11, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by JDC808 edit

Lead
  • I already made this copy-edit, but as a rule of thumb, spell out all numbers unless they take three of more words to write. There are exceptions.
Writing
  • At the end of the second paragraph, there's a rather long quote. Block quote it or try to cut it down and paraphrase it.
  • There's another rather long quote in the middle of the fourth paragraph.

Basically, and this applies to all sections, any long quotes, try to cut those down and paraphrase unless you feel that the full quote is particularly noteworthy to have, or that you are not able to accurately convey the same message.

Also, if there are quotation marks inside of a quote, use a single apostrophe at the beginning and end of the inner quote (that is for future reference, as I took care of these in my copy-edits).

Once the quote issues noted above are addressed, let me know. Also, if you have some time, I have an article also at FAC, God of War: Ascension. --JDC808 ♫ 01:10, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

    • @JDC808: Thanks for the assistance in copyediting. I will take a look at the long quotes you mentioned and cut them down as best as I can. Calibrador (talk) 01:20, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
      • @JDC808: Could you indicate by the reviewer's name which quotes you were referring to? Calibrador (talk) 01:29, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Calibrador:
Writing
  • Benioff's quote at the end of paragraph 2.
  • Wright's quote in paragraph 4.
  • Weiss's quote in paragraph 5, though this one isn't that bad.
  • Both of Benioff's quotes int the last paragraph.
Casting
  • Chapman's quote in paragraph 1.
  • Both of Dormer's quote in paragraph 2; the second one isn't too bad.
  • Pryce's quotes in the next paragraph can be trimmed/paraphrased.
Filming
  • All quotes in paragraph 3.
  • Sapochnik's quotes in the next two paragraphs.
Costuming
  • Clapton's quotes throughout this section.
Musical score
  • Any long quotes by Djawadi in this section.
Critical reception
  • Fowler's quotes in paragraph 2.
  • Calia's first quote in paragraph 2. His second quote doesn't really add anything to the reception IMO.
  • Egner's quote in paragraph 3.
  • Hibberd's quote in paragraph 3 can probably be trimmed/paraphrased.

--JDC808 ♫ 01:46, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I will take a look at what quotes I think are important to stay, and copyedit the ones that I believe could be copyedited and convey the same thing. Is there criteria specifically against having long quotes? In the actor instances, I thought it best to have the actual quote that relays their personal feelings about leaving the show or working on the show. Calibrador (talk) 00:10, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
There's not a rule against having long quotes, however, it's not good to have a bunch of quotes (see MOS:QUOTE). In some of the instance noted above, the majority of the paragraph is quote(s). --JDC808 ♫ 03:43, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by HJ Mitchell edit

What you have here is good and I can see myself supporting but at the moment it completely fails criterion 1b, specifically "places the subject in context". A reader who hasn't watched Game of Thrones would have no idea who these people are or what any of the events in the plot section refer to. At the very least you need an introductory paragraph that leads the reader into the detailed plot that follows. As it is, it's like starting Star Wars at "I am your father". HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:52, 13 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not entirely sure how to go about avoiding this. As this is the 60th hour of the television show, there would be a lot to have to provide back story on to make the uninitiated aware of who each of the characters are, what the settings are, etc. Especially with as many characters there are in the show. I've already attempted to cut the plot as short as possible, only including the necessary information, to at least try to conform with WP:Plot, but I would think the Wikilinks to the main articles, that do place the subjects into context, would be the main resource for the uninitiated to understand the basics about the article that's being presented. Only thing I could think of that would alleviate the problem would be to have a big list of the cast and characters and explain what they are all about, and I don't think that would be beneficial for the article as a whole. Calibrador (talk) 00:10, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
My two cents on that situation: Although we're supposed to present these articles in a way that someone unfamiliar could understand, I would find it a bit that someone who has never seen the show would be reading an article about its last aired episode (the 60th episode to put it in perspective). If anything, maybe a small summary at the start of the Plot section (or maybe small summaries for each subsection) that summarizes what happened prior to this episode (at least summarizing the events of season 6 that lead to the events of this episode). As for characters, in addition to linking their names, I would link List of Game of Thrones characters at the start of the plot with Template:See also. --JDC808 ♫ 03:43, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately I've not been able to dedicate as much time to this as I originally had hoped. Because I foresee more issues coming up, I'm going to go ahead and withdraw my nomination. I'm not sure there is something formal I have to do, or if someone else is able to de-list the nomination, but if someone could help with that I would appreciate it. Calibrador (talk) 03:32, 25 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Calibrador -- as one of the coord team, I'll action. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 04:14, 25 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 01:04, 23 January 2017 [9].

Joker (comics) edit

Nominator(s): Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 13:29, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about the fictional supervillain the Joker, arguably one of the most famous characters in the western world, and definitely among the top comic characters and villains of all time. Over the course of several years I've slowly helped expand the article from just before my earliest edit here to what it is today. It paradoxically isn't the easiest thing to find sources for a lot of information about a character that is 75 years old, but I finally think that the article is as complete as it can be at this point and that it is ready to stand among our best articles. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 13:29, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose for the exact same unaddressed reasons as in the first FAC. These are the minor and superficial changes that have been made since the first FAC closed. I hope you don't think you can just keep throwing this back at FAC until it happens to slip through. Delist, and figure out whether this article is about the Joker character or the character's appearances in comics, then begin fixing it once you've figured that out. Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 13:45, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Joker (character) was made per your suggestion, this article focuses on the comic character. FYI for any other editors, this was last nominated for FAC over 15 months ago and THESE are the changes made since then, not the link to which Curly linked above. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 16:21, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You're right—I got the wrong diff dates. The opening sentence is better, but the article still needs to be retitled: "Joker IS-A comics" is simply absurd. Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:21, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'm reinstating my oppose under 1(e) (stability) as one of the editors proposes unilaterally making the character's comics appearances the base article. This issue won't be cleared up soon, so the FAC should be withdrawn. Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:14, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
1e: stable: it is not subject to ongoing edit wars and its content does not change significantly from day to day, except in response to the featured article process.
Your debate with DarkKnight is not of any impact to the stability of the article and I ask you withdraw your oppose. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 23:23, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The issues are not being solved, and we have a declaration from an editor to disrupt things. That's unstable. Deal with the problems first—there's no reason to rush an FAC. Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:35, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The solution is so simple, too, and I proposed it back in the first FAC: rename the article to something like Joker in comics, and then you don't have to deal with any of the stuff you're not intereseted in. If the article is moved to Joker (character), then you'll have a lot of work to do to meet the expectations of readers who have come to read about the character named "Joker", most of whom will have come after watching something like Suicide Squad. Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:41, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Anyone looking for the Suicide Squad Joker would go to the Suicide Squad article. If they wound up at the comic character article, they'd go to the In Other Media section which would link them to the Suicide Squad article. The comic character links readily and easily to any relevant areas or separate articles as required, so I don't see the harm in moving it to Joker (character), as it's scope leads the reader to absolutely everything Joker related. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 00:04, 7 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Or we could avoid all this nonsense and simply title the article to ensure people get to where they intended. Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 01:37, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Joker (character) is not the subject of this review. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 17:50, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It shouldn't be, but it calls into question the good faith of the nomination. Please explain. Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:21, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
A user on the Joker (comics) talk page does not think the Joker (character) article is necessary because the comic character is the primary and source topic. The comment relayed by J Milburn is of that one user, and my only involvement in that discussion is about a completely separate article about the film version of the character. I created Joker (character) 8 months ago and then I left it alone because I personally have no interest in developing that separate article. It's existence is in no way an influence on my nomination of the Joker (comics) article. I've bought books with my own money to develop the Joker (comics) article, I just want it to be as good as it can be. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 23:04, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps the confusion is that the user in question with a flaky understanding of semantics is Darkknight2149, and being confused with Darkwarriorblake. It looks like WP:COMICS is trying to have its way with the world again. Regardless, this article still needs to be moved. Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:18, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
There is no excuse for the existence of Joker (character). This isn't any different from any other comics character article. The character is primarily a DC Comics character that primarily appears in DC Comics publications that has merely been adapted in other media. Joker (comics) IS the base article (again, just like every other comics character article) and Joker (character) therefore should be deleted accordingly. DarkKnight2149 00:20, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You're making all the same arguments that makes talking to WP:COMICS folk such an embarassing headache. Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:24, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
And on that note, I say we continue this argument on Talk:Joker (comics). There's no reason to have it on two places at once. DarkKnight2149 00:40, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The above "conversation" is predictably not going anywhere, but I thought I'd stop by to give some friendly advice to the nominator. This is not required for FA, but to make the article more reader-friendly, you may want to take a look at WP:CITEBUNDLE, which shows a number of techniques for bundling inline citations together so as to avoid things like "Hamill was replaced by Troy Baker for the 2013 prequel, Batman: Arkham Origins, and the Arkham series' animated spin-off Batman: Assault on Arkham,[209][228][229][230]", which break up the prose and interfere with the reading experience. Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 05:59, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Can I suggest that this candidacy is put on hold until the discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Joker (character) is resolved? For obvious reasons, this may have a considerable effect on the article under discussion here and/or reviewers' approach to it. Josh Milburn (talk) 03:46, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I agree with Josh Milburn's proposal that this candidacy should be put on hold until the discussion is resolved. It may be best to even close this altogether as it does not look like the discussion will be resolved in the near future unfortunately. I choose to stay out of the discussion as I am not familiar enough with how articles on comic book characters are run to contribute anything meaningful so I apologize for not being much help with that. Aoba47 (talk) 18:29, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Coord note -- with no discussion for two weeks, and in light of the recommendations above, I'm archiving this nom; I think a PR would be appropriate before considering re-nominating at FAC. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:03, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 02:00, 23 January 2017 [10].

The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H. edit

Nominator(s): —Bruce1eetalk 10:21, 26 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about George Steiner's controversial 1981 literary and philosophical novella in which Adolf Hitler (A.H.) is found alive in the Amazon jungle thirty years after the end of World War II. It is currently a GA and has recently been peer reviewed. I believe it meets the FA criteria, but I'm open to any comments/suggestions. —Bruce1eetalk 10:21, 26 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Source review—
    • Wouldn't "The Prince of Asturias Foundation" be the name of the publisher of the source in note 18, instead of the name of the published work containing the source? I'd check other cases, like "University of Wisconsin" in note 26 to see if other situations call for switching from a work to a publisher.
      • I've changed "work" to "publisher" in those cites, plus a couple of others I found. —Bruce1eetalk 09:20, 28 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • Per the spirit and guidance at WP:OVERLINK, usually we'd only link a newspaper name once in the footnotes, that being the first time it's cited. So notes 19 and 20 don't need The New York Times linked because it is so in note 3. Check others to see if they're affected as well.
    • In the works cited section, I wouldn't use double quotes around the name of the novella when it's repeated within the title of the Burton article. The Chicago Manual of Style would say that you should italicize a title within a title if that title is normally rendered in italics. (If it's normally rendered in quotation marks, dropping them to single quotes from double would be the appropriate action.)
    • State names as a part of a location are usually dropped when that same state name is part of the university publisher. In this case, you can safely use "Bloomington: Indiana University Press" instead of "Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press".
    • In reading through the sources, all appear to be high-quality, reliable sources as needed for a Featured Article. In short, just a little polishing and you have your citations at the FA level.
    • If this review was helpful, you may want to review other nominations, like mine to help out other nominators. Imzadi 1979 → 04:32, 28 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Prose review—ok, I'm giving the article a full read, and I have just a few minor copy editing suggestions:
    • "...were reworked from these earlier works" maybe "were reused.. or "...earlier books" just to avoid "reworked ... works"?
      • I've replaced "reworked" with "drawn". —Bruce1eetalk 09:20, 28 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • Shouldn't there be a matching comma after the title in "...memoir, Errata: An Examined Life Steiner..."?
      • You're right, I've added a comma. —Bruce1eetalk 09:20, 28 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    • The rest of the text looks good to me, and I'm inclined to support promotion with those two points cleared up unless anyone else finds something I've overlooked. Imzadi 1979 → 05:17, 28 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
      • Thanks for picking up this nomination, and for your useful suggestions – I've addressed the issues you raised. I'll have a look at your nomination, although highways is not my area of expertise; I'd rather tackle subjects that I'm familiar with. —Bruce1eetalk 09:20, 28 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: suggest installing the Harverrors script, as many of your reference links are broken. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:14, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thanks for that – I've fixed the broken links with "ref=harv" in the cites. —Bruce1eetalk 06:34, 31 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Coord note -- sorry but with no commentary for over three weeks this nom seems to have stalled, so I'll be archiving it shortly; the FAC list is particularly long at the moment but after the customary two-week wait the article may well have a little less competition for reviewer time. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 02:00, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 01:08, 23 January 2017 [11].

This England (album) edit

Nominator(s): --Another Believer (Talk) 03:19, 24 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about an album recorded by the Oregon Symphony. It was created in February 2013 and promoted to good article status in March 2013, and has been reviewed by a member of the Guild of Copy Editors. I have four featured articles under my belt, and this album follows Music for a Time of War, which has been promoted to FA status. I am happy to address any concerns by reviewing editors. Thanks. ---Another Believer (Talk) 03:19, 24 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Really seems inappropriate to me as failing under FA criterion 4 (length). (see also WP:AS). Fantastically long, overdetailed and boring for the topic, with WP:UNDUE details such as names of everyone in the orchestra. Descriptions of the pieces recorded are also WP:UNDUE, a link to the main article of each piece is more than sufficient - the pieces tell us nothing about the recording per se. Not the sort of thing we should wish to promote as a shining example of what WP can achieve. I appreciate that the author has (as admitted) a deep personal involvement in some way with this topic (see his/her comments on his/her WP:COI on the article talk page), but few are likely to become as enamoured by reading this overstatement of details about a really rather non-notable recording.--Smerus (talk) 09:28, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Smerus: Hmm, ok. First of all, thank you for taking a look at this article. I am somewhat surprised, though. I constructed this article in the same way I did several other classical music album articles, including: Joseph Schwantner: New Morning for the World; Nicolas Flagello: The Passion of Martin Luther King, Orchestral Works by Tomas Svoboda, Tragic Lovers, Music for a Time of War, and Spirit of the American Range. Reading your feedback, I am not really sure if there are specific concerns that I can address, or if you just don't think this article is FA-worthy in general. You finding the subject matter "boring" seems a bit subjective and not really something that should be held against the article itself. Is there anything specific I can do to earn your support, or...? Thanks again for contributing to this discussion. ---Another Believer (Talk) 18:22, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for these comments. Please don't misinterpret me; I have specifically not said that I found the subject boring; I have specifically said that I find boring the treatment of the subject in the article. (My words I think were clear: "Fantastically long, overdetailed and boring for the topic".) I see certain generic problems here. Let's take just one - listing all the musicians on the recording. It seems to me that this is unquestionably WP:UNDUE, except for soloists. None of the orchestral musicians listed are notable, and setting out their names does not add anything to our understanding of the significance of the recording. To defend (e.g.) this criticism by pointing out that the same procedure has been used by you in other FA articles simply means that those articles show excess in the same way. Faults in one article are in no way justified by the same faults being present in others. The corollary is that these other articles are also imo unworthy of being featured articles in WP. If I had been asked to comment on them, I would have made the same criticism(s). It seems that there are those who think that somehow a featured article should contain every possible scrap of information about its topic, and they of course will support you. But an article is not a book, or a thesis, or an exhaustive treatise - it should be a distillation of information which makes clear to the reader (even if a novice) the elements of what is important about the topic. And a featured article should therefore be a fine example of that distillation. Overloading it with detail makes it unclear to the reader and turns it into just an indiscriminate compilation of stuff. The proof of the pudding is the very low readership the articles you mention actually get, despite their having GA or FA status, and despite the great amount of work you clearly put into them. Obviously you are carrying a torch for this orchestra, (you have yourself declared the existence of COI which perhaps prevents you from being strictly neutral in your advocacy) and your dedication to providing these articles and pumping up their status smacks highly to me of WP:NNPOV and WP:PROMO. I'm not going to lose any sleep over it, but it seems to me a disappointing waste of effort and in general brings down, rather than raises, the standard of FAs and GAs. In a nutshell. "When you wonder what should or should not be in an article, ask yourself what a reader would expect to find under the same heading in an encyclopedia." A large proportion of what the articles you mention contain would not be found in an encyclopaedia. By this standard they should all be substantially stripped down if they are to held as good or featured examples of encyclopaedic articles and of what Wikipedia is for. That's all. Best, --Smerus (talk) 23:30, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Smerus: Regarding the inclusion of the orchestra roster. I don't point to my other GAs/FAs as a reason to mention the contributing musicians, I point to the many other GA/FA album articles that include complete lists of contributing musicians, producers, vocalists, and other personnel. We always include personnel lists per Wikipedia:WikiProject_Albums/Album_article_style_guide#Personnel. And, with all due respect, I don't think my COI prohibits me from being able to write neutral album articles. I'm not carrying a torch, and I created these articles years ago. I don't care to respond to your comments re: COI, my inability to be neutral, and "bringing down" the FA/GA standard (by the way, I posted a similar COI note on the Music for a Time of War article, and that didn't prevent its promotion). I think my portfolio in its entirety shows a pretty solid understanding and appreciation of how Wikipedia works. I'm not sure I am going to be able to change your opinion about this article being promoted, so I don't know what that means for this nomination in general. Apart from the unnecessary orchestra roster, which actually seems consistent with other featured content, you haven't offered specific concerns to address. I hope other reviewing editors won't take issue with this article's promotion because they find it "boring for the topic" or think it doesn't meet traffic standards. ---Another Believer (Talk) 23:51, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Smerus: @Another Believer: I haven't given this article a full review (one will be forthcoming), but this article does not fail the length criterion. Personnel sections are extremely standard for album articles. As a matter of course, everyone credited on any album will be listed, even for a large orchestra. A single paragraph on each major work featured on the album is also not undue. If this article included, I don't know, a full biography of every orchestra member, or an article-length description of each piece of music, that would be undue. As is, the article is an entirely appropriate length, one with the details that I would expect from any decent article about a classical music album. —BLZ · talk 23:03, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Brandt Luke Zorn: Thanks for this, and for further review soon. ---Another Believer (Talk) 23:53, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I edited this article for the WP:GOCE when it was a GA candidate, and I just checked the prose again to make sure it had not changed significantly since then. It still looks good to me. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:37, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, User:Jonesey95. ---Another Believer (Talk) 18:22, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Another Believer, I enjoyed the article and I disagree with Smerus’s comments that it is too long, boring, and about a "rather non-notable recording. At ~29kb with wikimarkup, it is well below limits suggested at WP:TOOBIG, and a list of personnel is traditional in articles about recordings. The descriptions of pieces recorded are all in summary style. Further, the critical reception has been strongly positive, and is documented well in the article text. I support this article for FA. I do have have 2 questions:
1. Could the tense of this sentence be updated to indicate whether the fourth album is forthcoming? "The recording is the second of four albums expected to be produced by the Symphony and PentaTone before the end of the 2014–2015 season"
2. I was confused by the timeline of release, which was after the symphony release party where the album was for sale? Maybe it’s just my ignorance of the promotional timeline for releases…"This England, released by Dutch record label PentaTone Classics on November 13, 2012" but "The Symphony celebrated the recording by hosting a CD release party in late October" with the source indicating albums will be "available for sale".
Cheers! — Grand'mere Eugene (talk) 20:30, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Grand'mere Eugene: Thank you for your kind words and support. I changed the tense of the sentence you mention. Please let me know if you had something else in mind. Regarding the album release party, this was merely the Symphony selling advance copies of the CD at its release party. The album was later available to the general public. I don't think this is too abnormal, or worth going into additional detail, but I'm certainly willing to change the article's wording if you think it's necessary. ---Another Believer (Talk) 20:39, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'm happy with the change to the one sentence, as I confess ignorance about release dates and pre-release sales. The article looks very good to me. Grand'mere Eugene (talk) 21:01, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Grand'mere Eugene: Thanks for confirming, and again for your review. ---Another Believer (Talk) 23:54, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • File:Elgar-by-haines-1912.jpg: as noted in the description, the given tags don't match the details of the image. It is quite possible this is non-free in the US
@Nikkimaria: I replaced the image with the one used in the lead of the Edward Elgar article, which has been promoted to Featured status. I hope this means the image is appropriate and your concern has been addressed. ---Another Believer (Talk) 18:26, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:Vaughan-Williams-by-Rothenstein.jpg needs a US PD tag. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:13, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Nikkimaria: I hope I added the right tag correctly. Image policies are definitely not my forte. ---Another Believer (Talk) 18:28, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

My reaction to this article was somewhat similar to, although less strident than, Smerus's. It reads like the author is trying to draw blood from a stone. It is an unremarkable classical album, in an era in which few people buy classical albums. History will forget it, if it ever knew of it. Having said that, I don't think that this gut reaction of mine is relevant to the Featured Article Criteria. Rather, the gut reaction is relevant to the different question of whether there should be an article on this album at all. I am open to supporting its promotion. I have some comments:

  • On what basis is Music for a Time of War twice described as "highly successful". What is the difference between "successful" and "highly successful" and what criteria does the album meet to be described as either? It might have been critically acclaimed, but did it sell? Should sales be the metric of success, or critical acclaim? (You see what I'm driving at here).
  • I removed "highly successful", which I understand is subjective. Previously, the article mentioned the album's Grammy nominations, but since those details were deemed not necessary for this article, I think it's appropriate to remove the superlative. ---Another Believer (Talk) 20:34, 31 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The recording was the second of four albums expected to be produced by the Symphony and PentaTone by the end of the 2014–2015 season..." Did this expectation come to fruition? If not, it is not worth mentioning. If so, the other albums should be listed.
  • It did not. Spirit of the American Range was released in 2015, so 3 out of 4 came to fruition. I don't think it's worth mentioning that only three out of four came to fruition, but multiple sources describe the orchestra's plans to release 4 within the designated timeframe, so I would think this is worth noting. I am definitely open to adding to, or amending, the current article's text if reviewers think Spirit of the American Range is worth mentioning. ---Another Believer (Talk) 20:40, 31 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • On the blood-from-stone theme, some of the information presented borders on the trivial: the CD release party and the local radio station offering it as a thank-you gift.
  • Brian Horay's credentials look dubious to the point that I don't think his views should be represented. He describes himself as a "recent convert to classical music". Benson and Ritter seem legitimate; I haven't been able to find out anything about Campbell. Syek88 (talk) 10:56, 31 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • If Horay is writing for The Huffington Post and The Portland Mercury, shouldn't his commentary be included regardless of his "credentials"? Both are notable publications, and the article doesn't go into detail about Horay himself... it just offers a summary of his commentary. ---Another Believer (Talk) 20:37, 31 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Syek88: Thank you for reviewing this article. I've replied to your 4 comments above, and addressed 2 of your concerns. Happy to discuss other concerns further. ---Another Believer (Talk) 20:41, 31 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not convinced that the album is truly notable. There are no notable compositions/charting and the sources used for notability are not great either.

  • In his review for The Huffington Post, Brian Horay wrote that the orchestra delivered "knockout" and "beefy-yet-restrained" performances of the Peter Grimes compositions. - I managed to find the source and it is actually a contributor article, not a staff article. Contributor articles (like at Forbes) are not subject the same editorial checks (Views on RSN has generally been against using these). Essentially these are considered WP:SPS and I wouldn't include them.
  • Classical CD Review's Robert Benson called the Elgar performance "brilliant" and appreciated that "Passacaglia" was programmed before "The Storm". Again, Classical CD Review seems to be a self published site. I don't see a need to include this review
  • Steven Ritter of Audiophile Audition wrote that the Symphony performed "with a brilliance and verve equal to any on record"... - I don't see any indication that Audiophile Audition (online magazine) is a notable source.
  • Several Oregon publications included This England on their lists highlighting local products. Portland Monthly included the album on their list of "November's Best PDX Stuff", which showcases Portland's "coolest products and ideas" - The list seems to a regular non-notable list. It doesn't seem worth mentioning in the article
  • The Oregonian included the album on their list of "25 local gifts under $25" - "25 local gifts under $25" is trivia. At this point, it seems like barrel scraping.
  • Oregon ArtsWatch contributor Brett Campbell recommended the album on his list of Oregon classical music I unclear about the notability of Oregon ArtsWatch. It seems to be a local magazine, the kind who also publicise events (such as this). If this is not a major magazine, then it should be removed.
  • The Portland Mercury invited local music industry professionals to list "Portland's Top Five Records of 2012"... - This is trivia as well. The source consists of multiple lists by many people, and none of them are notable.
  • CBC 2 - Would it be possible to find a reference. I am unable to find one.

That's all that I saw for now. My main issue is with the quality of sources. --Lemongirl942 (talk) 19:18, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Lemongirl942: Would it help if the article's prose noted which commentary was made by guest contributors and/or local publications? Isn't local coverage of a regional organization needed in order for the article to be comprehensive and meet criterion WP:FAC 1b? Do sources need to notable, or just reliable? ---Another Believer (Talk) 23:53, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

*Withdraw nomination: Given Lemongirl942's sourcing concerns, I'd like to withdraw this nomination. I removed all of the above sources from the article (in preview mode), and have decided I'd rather keep the article in its current Good article state than eliminate tons of details for the sake of a star icon. I want to thank everyone who contributed to this review. ---Another Believer (Talk) 20:19, 14 January 2017 (UTC) Wait, before closing I'd appreciate a reply from User:Lemongirl942 for future reference. Thanks, ---Another Believer (Talk) 00:36, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Lemongirl942: Pinging again as a reminder, thanks! ---Another Believer (Talk) 17:15, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Coord note -- I think it's time to act on the withdrawal request; Lemongirl942 can always make further comments on the article talk page -- or at a Peer Review, which might be the logical next step -- prior to any future FAC nom. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:08, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 01:05, 23 January 2017 [12].

Economy of Iran edit

Nominator(s): SSZ (talk) 02:16, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
SSZ, while you are not obliged to tell us anything about your article here, my guess is that you will be more likely to attract reviewers if you can be bothered to do so Jimfbleak - talk to me? 13:59, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Coord note -- nominator has been blocked for edit-warring on the article, which doesn't appear particularly stable in any case so I'll be archiving shortly; things will need to settle down before any future nom. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:56, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 11:13, 22 January 2017 [13].

Iazyges edit

Nominator(s): Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 01:52, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about a Sarmatian tribe that moved into the Danube steppe, and served as a buffer state, enemy, and client state of Rome throughout its history. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 01:52, 16 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Cas Liber edit

Interesting topic. I will take a look and jot queries below. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:01, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Later on in their history however, they came to be used by Rome as a client tribe-state. - possibly a little ungainly, why not just, "Later on in their history however, Rome used them as a client tribe-state."
As is, Lake of Maeotis is a redirect to Sea of Azov (which is linked just beforehand). Is there a subsection of that article or another that would be a better link?

::According to Littleton and Malcor, in 184 AD, 5,500 Iazyges auxiliaries were led by the Roman general Lucius Artorius Castus - is "Iazyges" the singular or/and adjectival form too?

There is no mention of anything about the language or culture of the tribe. If unknown, then surely there must be some form of speculation about them somewhere..? Also, where does our information on them come from?
@Casliber: There is very little information on their culture, other than that they had a sedentary lifestyle, and had similar burial styles as the other Sarmatians. Most of our information comes from Roman historical records, which explains the absence of cultural information to some degree. I have yet to find a reliable source willing to say anything else about their culture. The language is presumed to be Iranian, but again, little is known about it. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 14:43, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I think some note to that effect would be good, saying that little is known about them etc. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 18:44, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Casliber: I'm unable to find a source that says even that. I did find a source that said there language was a dialect of Old Iranian, which was distant from the other dialects. I am considering splitting off the language and sedentary pieces into a "culture" section, however I think it may be too small if I did. PS: Would you like me to continue pinging you, or do you have the page watchlisted? Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 21:57, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I have it watchlisted. But pinging doesn't hurt. I think a culture section is a good idea. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:46, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
User:Casliber Done. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 01:57, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, how about this? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:21, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Excellent, great find User:Casliber, I've added the contents to the article in the culture section. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 05:17, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I am not an expert on the area and I feel a little uneasy at a lack of material on culture so will defer to someone with more experience in the field. I will read the prose again soon as I think it could do with some more massaging. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:29, 18 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose: I'm afraid this currently falls some way short of FA standards. There are problems with prose throughout and I have major concerns about at least one aspect of the sourcing. I'm not going to do a line-by-line review but here are some samples. If pressed, I could find many more issues, and I would suggest this is withdrawn. Sarastro1 (talk) 00:15, 22 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • In the lead, we have several problems:
  • "Later on, in the 1st century BC,": We don't need both "Later on" and the date
  • "They were often in conflict with Rome": It's best not to begin a paragraph with "They"
  • "They were often in conflict with Rome, with them raiding the Romans, and the Romans sending a punitive expedition to discourage future raids, and punish the raiders.": This sentence is a bit of a mess, to be honest. "with them raiding" is not a good construction, we have "Rome...Romans...Romans" in the same sentence, plus "raiding...raids...raiders" and there are two clauses beginning with "and". And there is probably too much going on for one sentence.
  • "Later on in their history however": Aside from the unnecessary use of "however", this whole phrase seems redundant.
  • "Later on in their history however, Rome used them as a client tribe-state.": Whose history? This is not clear. Also, we need to explain for the reader what a "client tribe-state" is.
  • "This followed with the Roman policy of allowing tribes or countries to continue to exist under Roman control, rather than annexing them, if they would be too rebellious to be worth assimilating.": Again, there is too much going on in one sentence. "This followed with"? If the Romans had annexed them, they might have continued to exist. There are numerous examples of this happening.
  • In general, I'm not too clear what we are trying to say in the second paragraph of the lead.
  • Additionally, the lead does not seem to sufficiently summarise the whole article, and we spend far too long listing the various ways their name was latinised.
  • We mention Ptolemy in the lead, but then he is never mentioned again.
  • Glancing further ahead, most paragraphs in the history section begin, very repetitively, with "In [year]..."
  • We seem to have a lot of sentences which state a fact but do not connect with the rest of the text around them, making for very disjointed reading.
  • Unless I've missed it, there is nothing here on sourcing, historiography, archaeology, religion, and probably many other things.
  • The King Arthur section is a bit of a travesty. Littleton and Malcor are not exactly respected historians, and their idea is hugely discredited. In fact, any mention of him in this context gives me pause as there are no respected historians who give any credence to any stories where Arthur is mentioned. I really don't think this should be in any FA. I also question whether the "rebuttal" is OR: I have no access to the other two sources, but the Guy Halsall book does not mention the Iazyges, so he cannot be used to support the idea that the theory of Arthur fighting them is right or wrong. Nor does the Lacy book (at least from a google books search). All they do is shoot down idea of Arthur having any historical basis as Lucius Artorius Castus. I am having some difficulty discovering if the final book cited, "Lucius Artorius Castus and the King Arthur Legend" by Miletić , even exists. The ISBN does not show anything on google, a search for it finds nothing, and the only mention of it that I can find links back to our article on Lucius, which does not reference this book. If it does exist,I have grave, grave doubts about any book which does much more than discuss high medieval attitudes to the legend. Sarastro1 (talk) 00:15, 22 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Closing note -- per the above comments it does look like, despite its successful MilHist ACR, this nom is underprepared for FAC so I'll be archiving it shortly and ask that the points raised be worked on away from here; Iazyges you are eligible to participate in the FAC mentoring scheme, which I'd recommend prior to a future nomination. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:13, 22 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 06:37, 21 January 2017 [14].

Star of Bengal edit

Nominator(s): 凰兰时罗 (talk) 18:59, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about a British/American sailing ship. 凰兰时罗 (talk) 18:59, 8 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose, unprepared - Please go through your article and ensure it meets our MoS guidelines (image captions, use of hyphens and dashes jump out at me). This should be part of your preparation before nomination. I would also like to give you a friendly reminder about Wikipedia:Mentoring for FAC, which is strongly recommended and quite useful for first-time nominators. --Laser brain (talk) 17:00, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Laser brain: Thanks for your critique. May I ask you to be more specific?
  • Whatever the issue is with the dashes, I believe that it can be fixed in 5 minutes, as long as the problem is well defined. I find MoS ambiguous on dashes, so may I trouble you for a quick mentoring on the spot?
  • With captions, I attempted to "draw attention to what is relevant to the text". Do you find all captions wrong, or just particular captions?
  • Finally, I read about mentoring, but putting articles for review yielded very little results for me so far. Thanks again, 凰兰时罗 (talk) 17:32, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
What, are you saying the MoS isn't the wondrous and easy-reading document I thought it was? ;) The dash problem I noticed is your page range expressions. These should be uniformly en dashes. I see a mixture of hypens, en dashes, and even em dashes. These might be an artifact of what appears to be a copy-paste job from somewhere. Image captions that are not complete sentences should not have a terminal period. Those are just the things that I noticed. Mentoring is not the same as peer review—our FAC mentors can help you decide whether your article is prepared for nomination beforehand and help you through the process as needed. --Laser brain (talk) 17:38, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Laser brain: Yes, it takes a lot of re-reading over and over again ;)
Checked I fixed the dashes (Hyphens are part of entries, not page ranges. These are for Lloyd's books which do not have page numbers. I believe they should stay, correct?)
Checked I removed the periods from captions.
Please, do notice something else, I would like to make sure that from now on all my edit/articles comply with the best practices. 凰兰时罗 (talk) 17:59, 9 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I've stricken my opposition, as the issues I noticed appear to be resolved. I may return with a full review if I can manage it. --Laser brain (talk) 00:19, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Comments by Mymis
  • The companies should not be in italics, for instance, J.P. Corry & Co., Harland and Wolff, Alaska Packers' Association etc.
    Added the markings where appropriate.
That is not what I said, you should NOT write the names of companies in italics. For instance, Alaska Packers' Association -> Alaska Packers' Association etc.
Checked I apologize for the confusion, @Mymis: for some reason, I was absolutely positive MoS stated that those should be italicized that I misread your suggestion. (Confirmation bias...) Now I think I fixed everything.
  • Add Wikiprojects and stuff to the talk page of the article.
    @Mymis: Thank you for doing this.
I added just one, you should find more projects that this article is in relation to, for instance, WikiProject Belfast etc.
Checked Added four more.
  • TheShipsList.com -> TheShipsList.com. Should be archived as well. Also, is it a reliable source?
    Checked Since it raised doubts, I removed this completely. This source is inconsequential, as all the relevant information is available in Lubbock (1927). In fact, Lubbock was probably the original source for TheShipsList, but the website presented the information in more organized fashion.
  • Remove links in See also, as both Alaska Packers' Association and Joan Lowell are mentioned in the article many times already. You can add similar links like on RMS Titanic article, for instance.
    Checked I replaced those with the Titanic and another famous ship that was wrecked in Alaskan waters.

Mymis (talk) 16:11, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your comments! 凰兰时罗 (talk) 17:48, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove "The" from the section headings, for instance, "The wreck" - > "Wreck" etc.
    Checked Done.
  • In "Specifications" section, all three paragraphs start with the same words, quite repetitive.
    Checked I rewrote the beginning of the second paragraph.
  • Some statements in the article are oversourced, for instance, the sentence "Under the circumstances, 63-year-old novelist successfully assumed the command." has three references. Isn't one reference enough, why do you need so many? It's like that in many places in the article. Mymis (talk) 22:44, 11 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
    This is a more complex issue. Let me explain first.
    1. In most cases, the multiple sources complement each other. For example:
      • "the Star of Bengal was the largest vessel in gross tonnage in service of J.P. Corry & Co., but in December 1874 she was surpassed by the 1,981 GT Star of Russia.[15][16]" The [16] is needed to make the statement, [15] is used to give exact GT for of the Star of Russia.
      • "While the Star of Bengal sailed under J.J. Smith & Co., her captain was H. Henderson.[5][43][44]" No single source covers the full range of years.
      • "The Star of Bengal was built by a famous shipbuilder Harland and Wolff Industries in Belfast, Ireland in 1873–1874.[4][5][6]" Several statements are packed in here, and I make sure that the fact that the ship was build there, the long dates, and the fact that Harland and Wolff is "famous" are all covered.
      • "During the next 54 minutes, the ship's hull broke in three pieces, and she sank at 55°49′30″N 134°17′0″W with just her mizzen topmast visible above water.[54][55][68][105]" Similarly, none of these sources have all four statements that are packed in these sentence.
    2. In some cases, my reasoning for supplying several sources is different. Per WP:REDFLAG, unusual statements require multiple sources. Hence:
      • "Even though it was quickly exposed as a hoax,[133][138][139]" — somebody's autobiography is declared a hoax – I supplied three sources.
      • "their role in the wreck remains uncertain.[38][126][127]" — even though no source known to me explicitly contradicts this statement, a couple of minor accounts may be stretched to do so, if taken in isolation and out of context, so I felt compelled to include several statements that unequivocally indicate uncertainty.
      • Finally, the particular example that you provided above also falls into this second category, because it's very unusual, perhaps the most unusual in this article. Normally, novelists with so limited maritime experience do not make successful sea captains. I initially read a note about this in Gibbs (1997). I also saw "G. Cupples" inserted as the ship's master in Lloyd's (1886), but I still was not convinced. I thought that Gibbs might have seen the same Lloyd's registry and jump to a sensational conclusion based on the same name which could have been just a coincidence. Only when I read an independent account of this incident in Lubbock (1927), I realized that this actually took place. Hence, I felt compelled to include all three sources that were required to convince me.
    So, if the logic that I just laid out for the two cases is generally correct, 95% of the sources should remain (I can comb the article a little to weed out possible extraneous 5%). If not, please advise, and I'll make some systematic changes. Thanks again for your comments! 凰兰时罗 (talk) 02:12, 12 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Even after I ran the standard scripts, the article remains heavily overlinked. Tugboat, for example, is linked six times. The sample cargo manifest and selected voyages list look like excessive detail. Worse, on mobile, they do not even remain hidden.—indopug (talk) 12:41, 13 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Indopug: Thank you very much for edits and comments. I don't mind de-linking or removing the two hidden blocks that you mentioned if there is a consensus in here for this action. This can be done promptly and easily. Let me explain, however, the approach that I exercise, so that I'm clear how to proceed in similar situations in the future.
  1. On Wiki-linking. Before I started editing, I used Wikipedia extensively. We all know that in modern world, people almost never read material continuously. As MoS suggests, a typical person reads the lead, then jumps to a section or two. Here is when I (as a reader) had issues with "under-linking". If I were to jump to a particular section, in an under-linked article, the only wiki-link to a term of interest would be way up in the body and hard to find. This is especially inconvenient on mobile devices, where retyping or page-searching is costly. Hence, in the absence of clear guidelines (correct me here if I'm wrong), I adopted the following rule for myself: one wiki-link per term per section. (This should not spread to common words that you kindly de-linked, – I appreciate your edits here – I just wasn't sure to what extent wiki-linking is normally done). What do you think of this approach?
  2. On the two hidden blocks. Again these can be easily removed. I know that on mobile devices, these blocks are displayed; however, the whole section is hidden, hence the blocks would be visible only to those who specifically opened J.P.Corry subsection. I added these examples, because I thought that they allow a much deeper understanding of the ship's trading routine, immersing the reader in the peculiarities of the past trade, including the length of voyages. I was just trying to make the reading more interesting – without these details, trading routine is just routine... So, do you still want me to (a) remove them completely or (b) shorten them considerably? I can also move the manifest a little further down, to make sure that mobile users start reading the subsection from the text, not from the manifest.
  3. Unused template parameters. I'm not going to argue this point as it's quite inconsequential for the article, but just a word of caution for the future. Contributing to the template when these unused parameters are removed is much harder, moreover it becomes almost impossible for novice users. On the other hand, I fail to see any harm that the presence of these parameters can possibly do. (Hence, I would remove only those parameters that cannot possibly be filled out in the future.
Thanks again for your contribution and for offering your opinion. Please provide some further guidance/confirmation, 凰兰时罗 (talk) 17:48, 13 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • File:StateLibQld_1_172019_Star_of_Bengal_(ship).jpg is tagged as lacking author info, and what is the status of this work in the US? Same with File:StateLibQld_1_170527_Star_of_Bengal_(ship).jpg, File:StateLibQld_1_171287_Star_of_Bengal_(ship).jpg
  • File:SanFranHouses06.JPG is tagged as lacking author info
  • File:Star_of_Bengal_moored_by_Fort_Wrangell_cannery.jpg: when/where was this first published?
  • File:MapStarOfBengalCrash.png: what is the source used for the route?
  • File:Cradle-of-the-deep-StarWreck-illustration.jpg: the copyright was renewed

Oppose pending resolution of some of these issues. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:14, 14 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator note: To reiterate what Laser brain said above, I really think this article would benefit from the nominator working with a mentor from the list found on this page. If you were to do this, and perhaps withdraw the nomination now to work on it with a mentor away from FAC, I think this would be a much smoother process. It is not a requirement, but I think it would help. Sarastro1 (talk) 21:19, 17 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry for late response -- I was traveling. I will address the issues on images anyways, but fine, I withdraw the nomination. If anybody is interested in my opinion, to me as a newcomer, this process comes out as odd. (Specifically, lack of dialog on important issues and disproportional attention to details which, as I can see, are usually corrected by bots -- all this is puzzling and create very little value for me as an aspiring Wikipedia editor.) Perhaps later on, as I get more Wikipedia experience, I'll change my mind. Thanks everybody for your time! 凰兰时罗 (talk) 20:48, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Closing comment: Thanks for your feedback, 凰兰时罗. FAC does concern itself with prose and style more than other review processes in WP, but substance is very important as well. If you take up the suggestion to work with a mentor, they should be able to advise on this aspect as well. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 06:36, 21 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 06:14, 21 January 2017 [15].

Unlocked (Alexandra Stan album) edit

Nominator(s): Cartoon network freak (talk) 21:46, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about the second studio album recorded by Romanian singer Alexandra Stan. This is the page's third nomination and I strongly believe it's good enough now to go after several changes adopted from the past nominations.

Comments from Aoba47
Resolved comments from Aoba47
  • The quote box in the “Background and development section seems really unnecessarily long and thin; I would suggest making the width slightly larger as 22% seems rather low. Just by a little bit though so it does not interfere with the infobox.
  • I do not understand why you separate the charts in the “Release history” section between “Digital releases” and “CD releases”. I would suggest combining these two charts together. I would suggest looking at FAs such as 4 (Beyoncé album) to see what I mean about this.
  • Did Alexandra Stan support the album through live performances outside of the tour, such as the singles or anything else? I would suggest adding them if she did and if she did not, then it is fine as it currently stands.

@Cartoon network freak: Everything looks good after the following two FACs. Once my comments are addressed, I will support this nomination. If possible, could you please add comments to my FAC for Russell family (Passions)? Thank you and good luck with this nomination. Aoba47 (talk) 21:11, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Aoba47: I've fixed all besides the live performances thing. I'm going to look over your FAC today. Best, Cartoon network freak (talk) 07:11, 7 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Cartoon network freak: Support, you have done an excellent job with this article. Good luck with getting this promoted and I look forward to working with you more in the future. Aoba47 (talk) 18:46, 7 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Dan56
  • Support per my commentary and review at the previous nomination. Dan56 (talk) 23:05, 13 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]


Image review by Aoba47
  • File:Unlocked International.jpg: Nonfree album cover, as these usually are. Has a default non-free use rationale with all the details, which seems to fit. Inclined to say that each WP:NFCC item is satisfied.
  • File:Unlocked Japan Edition Cover.jpeg: Nonfree album cover, as these usually are. Has a default non-free use rationale with all the details, which seems to fit. Inclined to say that each WP:NFCC item is satisfied.
  • File:Alexandra Stan in Osaka.png: Free file on Commons, is in a section where the album's promotion is extensively discussed so I'd say it's pertinent. Description says that it si the uploader's own work so I will go on good faith for that. Not the best quality image, but it will due. It requires an ALT description per MOS:ACCESSIBILITY.
  • No audio files used, images only. An audio sample of one of the songs may be helpful given the subject matter, but this is up to the nominator.

Everything looks good with the images, aside from need to add an ALT description for one image. Good luck with the rest of the comments. Aoba47 (talk) 22:09, 15 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Mike Christie edit

I'll leave notes here as I go through the article. I'll copyedit as I read through; please revert as needed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:04, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Cartoon network freak, I agree with Graham's comments below that this needs significant copyediting. Rather than list all the issues, I could just do a copyedit, but it would be a bit more intensive than usual at FAC. Let me know if you're OK with that; you'd need to review afterwards to make sure I didn't change the meaning of anything, particularly for anything with a Romanian source. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:41, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Mike Christie; I'm okay with you doing a copyedt. Thanks in advance, Cartoon network freak (talk) 14:48, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I'm starting the copyedit; I may not finish it this morning. Three points have come up so far:

  • "After her recovery from health issues": Google translate of that source doesn't say anything about health issues as far as I can see -- can you clarify what this refers to?
 Done I removed the whole statement as I realized it's overfluous here and it's already included in Alexandra Stan v. Marcel Prodan.
  • Were the contested songs that Prodan owned the rights to songs from Stan's first album? Or songs by some other artist that she did cover versions of?
I can assume that they were all her songs until that point, but the source does not give further info. Cartoon network freak (talk) 20:16, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "because of the popularity of her previous works there": I don't think the source supports this.
"27 august 2014 este ziua in care noul album Alexandra Stan va fi disponibil pentru comanda in Japonia, in mediul digital. Artista si echipa ei s-au concentrat 100% pe teritoriul asiatic in ultimele luni, avand un succes urias cu "Cherry Pop" si "Dance" care au ajuns foarte repede no.1 pe iTunes." → 27 August 2014 is the day when Alexandra Stan's new album will be made available for digital purchase in Japan. The artist and her team have concentrated 100% on the Asian territory in the past few months, having a big success with "Cherry Pop" and "Dance", which speedily reached number on on iTunes.

-- Out of time for now; more later. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:51, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Mike Christie: Thank you for the copyedit! I've modified your result a little bit, though. Cartoon network freak (talk) 20:16, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
OK -- I'll keep going from where I got to and will go back through again after that. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:59, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Actually I'm going to have to stop and get a couple of clarifications from you on the release section before I can do much more there.

  • Your source from above just says that she concentrated on the Asian territory and had a success with two singles; it doesn't say that's why Unlockd was initially released exclusively in Japan. There's no connection made between the success and any result of the success.
  • The source for "worldwide digital availability followed" is an iTunes page; I see a release date there, but how do we know that that indicates worldwide availability?
  • You say the CD and DVD were released in "various other territories". The supporting cites show the availability of the CD in Germany, Australia, and Japan, and of the DVD in Japan only. Do we know if either was released in any other territory? Or did you just find these, and not want to imply it was only these territories? I assume not as you refer to a Spanish version later. And I also see that the Australian page lists it as an import, not as a domestic release, so should that source be cut? Assuming I have the above all correct, I'd cut this to what we actually know: "the album was released on CD in Germany, Spain, and Japan, and a bonus DVD was also made available in Japan". If we can't be precise because we don't know where else it was released, then don't mention territories at all: "The worldwide digital release followed on 25 November, and the CD was made available by the end of 2014, with a bonus DVD available in Japan".
  • You mention that the German release included "We Wanna", but I don't see that here.

I'll go ahead with the next section while waiting for your responses. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:35, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. I started looking at the next section, but there are questions I would need to answer before I can copyedit. The prose is not FA-quality at the moment, and I think there's more work to do than can be done at FAC. I suggest withdrawal and renominate after some more work has been done. I'd be willing to work with you on the article to try to get it to FA-quality. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:43, 20 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Mike Christie: I've solved everything above. Cartoon network freak (talk) 14:51, 20 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, but I think there's more to do here than should be done at FAC; FAC is supposed to be where we decide if an article meets the criteria, not where we edit it to meet the criteria. With limited reviewing resources, it's fairest to do the work elsewhere. I'm going to let my oppose stand, and the coordinators can decide what to do. As I said above, I'd be willing to help work on the article, if it doesn't get promoted. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:50, 20 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Mike Christie: Ah okay ;) I have re-read the whole article again and re-edited it. You can check it out again if you want to, but if you have no time then its ok, as well. Thanks again for your help and your copyedit. Cartoon network freak (talk) 19:31, 20 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Graham Beards edit

Oppose - the prose is not FA standard. There are fused participles e.g. " with one comparing it to works by American singer" and overuse of the "being" (a word rarely seen in FAs) and a combination of both problems "with the latter one being influenced". I think more work is needed to bring the writing to a professional level. Graham Beards (talk) 14:08, 19 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Graham Beards: You may check the article now after I have re-read it and re-edited it with the help of Mike Christie. Best, Cartoon network freak (talk) 19:33, 20 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
My oppose stands. It would be wise to take Mike's advice; I too suggest you withdraw the nomination and work on it away from FAC. Graham Beards (talk) 20:01, 20 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Carbrera edit

Note – I'd like to see Mike's copyedit (as he is excellent when it comes to prose) with the article before revealing my thoughts and concerns. Thanks, Carbrera (talk) 04:28, 20 January 2017 (UTC).[reply]

@Carbrera: You may check out the article now. Best, Cartoon network freak (talk) 19:34, 20 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Closing comment edit

@Mike Christie: I note the supporting comments at the top but am persuaded by Graham's and Mike's concerns, so I'll archive this now and hope that the nominator will take up Mike's offer to work on this outside the pressure of the FAC process, and return here at the appropriate time. Tks/cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 06:12, 21 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Sarastro1 via FACBot (talk) 21:54, 6 January 2017 [16].

Forensic chemistry edit

Nominator(s): Majora (talk) 20:47, 1 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The various forensic disciplines are tasked with providing valid scientific evidence during the legal process. Forensic chemistry is the discipline that helps investigators determine the identity of unknown materials found during the course of an investigation. Forensic chemists use a variety of instrumentation and methods in the course of their work and follow strict standards and guidelines in order to ensure that their results are valid and admissible in a courtroom.

Today, I bring forth forensic chemistry as a featured article candidate. I rewrote the entire article last year and brought it up to GA status. Since that time, there has been little needed maintenance showing its comprehensive nature. This is my first FAC and I hope that you all enjoy reading the article. I look forward to answering any questions regarding it. --Majora (talk) 20:47, 1 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Jim edit

Welcome to the bearpit! I'm a chemistry graduate and a former expert witness in a different field, so this caught my attention. Before I go any further, two issues regarding comprehensiveness.

  • I get little sense of a global perspective here. The only standards agency given is the US one, and I see no mention of any other jurisdiction. Should this be moved to Forensic chemistry in the US?
    I'm not really seeing what you are seeing I'm afraid. I tried to keep everything as general as possible and avoided getting too specific with any one country. All of the methods and standards are international. SWGDRUG is an international society comprised of scientists representing multiple different countries and the UN. They were created in the US but they work towards international standards acceptance not just US acceptance (see [17]). The history section takes into account the various international scientists that made forensic chemistry the way it is today. Moving it to Forensic chemistry in the US would really not be truthful as the information in the article is valid for any country. --Majora (talk) 16:53, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Although you link to expert witness in the lead, I don't think that's sufficient. The lead is meant to be a summary of the main text, but I see nothing in the body of the report regarding testifying in court. The whole point of any forensic work is that at some stage you may have to be cross-examined on what you have written, and you need to explain in your text more about the role of a forensic expert in court. As it stands, you don't mention anywhere the need for independence, FRE rule 702, how experts are paid, or anything else regarding the role of an expert witness in the US (assuming that's where we are staying).
    I can definitely go into more about testifying and what is expected of an expert witness. It would fit nicely into the standards section anyways. But I don't think we should be going too far into FRE/Daubert/Frye standards since those are definitely US specific and would requiring going down to state level differences that would probably be too much. --Majora (talk) 16:53, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

At first glance, the article otherwise looks pretty good, but I'm reluctant to go through in detail until we have discussed or resolved the comprehensiveness question. Jimfbleak (talk) 16:07, 9 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

OK, fair enough, ping me when you're ready Jimfbleak (talk) 07:43, 10 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Jimfbleak: I just want to apologize for the delay. Things got a little hectic during the last couple of days and I haven't had the time to finish off the requested text. It is still being worked on and I should have it done either today or tomorrow. Thanks for your patience. --Majora (talk) 11:38, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Jimfbleak: All set. Let me know what you think. --Majora (talk) 00:13, 14 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This looks to be a very good and comprehensive article, so the following are just minor nit-picks before I support Jimfbleak (talk) 05:49, 14 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • can provide directions for investigators to look in—Call me old-fashioned, but I don't like the final proposition, rejig?
    Rejigged. --Majora (talk) 18:29, 15 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the Role in investigations section, there is some repetition, eg "For example","would tell"
    Fixed. --Majora (talk) 18:29, 15 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Just for info, there are repeated links to strychnine, arson and retention factor— not enough to matter, so you can ignore if you wish
    Fixed. One of those strychnine links was changed to the article on the alkaloid instead of to the one on the tree. --Majora (talk) 18:29, 15 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Stas' method—is there an article to link to?
    Not that I'm aware of. I can redlink it if you think that would be appropriate or go into more detail about it. --Majora (talk) 18:29, 15 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • a unique spectrum when exposed to a specific wavelength of light—doesn't make sense as written, you can't get a spectrum from a single wavelength
    That was a typo. Should have been plural (wavelengths). Fixed. And I also fixed an inaccuracy that I missed before. --Majora (talk) 02:01, 16 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • examine the plant proteins that make up chlorophyll—I'm not convinced that chlorophyll is a protein, it's a pigment like heme
    Sort of. Chlorophyll by itself is a pigment. But it doesn't exist that way in plants. It is attached to a protein. Just like heme is part of a hemeprotein. The section on this in the chlorophyll article explains it far better than I ever could. "The identity, function and spectral properties of the types of chlorophyll in each photosystem are distinct and determined by each other and the protein structure surrounding them." is the relevant part of that section. --Majora (talk) 18:29, 15 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Certain aspects that forensic chemists must be aware of—here and elsewhere, the tone is a bit WP:How to, maybe Factors that forensic chemists might consider or similar. Please check for similar
    I see what you mean and I like your suggestion for the fix there. I have changed out the line (and made sure to give you credit for the idea ). I'll go through the rest of the article but I would appreciate it if you could point out where you see that just to make sure I get it all. --Majora (talk) 02:01, 16 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • behalf of the prosecution or the defense—In the English legal system at least, experts can be jointly instructed by both sides
    Added a little bit on how an expert can be called as a "court's witness". --Majora (talk) 02:01, 16 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is it worth mentioning that experts' remuneration cannot be dependent on outcome?
    It would be hard to find a source that is all encompassing that would say that. Experts that work for the prosecution are going to be paid regardless since testifying is part of their job requirements. For the defense experts and judge appointed experts I can see what I can find. --Majora (talk) 02:01, 16 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • attorney—would lawyer be better than the more specifically US term?
    Fixed. --Majora (talk) 18:29, 15 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • You don't need to give retrieval dates for on-line versions of real publications like journals, just for web-only articles which might change
    I wasn't aware of that. I always just put it for everything since it acts as a time frame to look for on archive.org if/when the link goes dead. I can remove them if that is a sticking point. --Majora (talk) 18:29, 15 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'm now happy to Support. I fixed a typo, otherwise happy with tone and content. I'm not too concerned with the retrieval dates, but obviously other reviewers might comment. Good luck Jimfbleak (talk) 05:43, 16 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Support on prose per my standard disclaimer. These are my edits. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. - Dank (push to talk) 15:02, 16 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Mike Christie edit

A few points, but generally this looks to be FA quality.

  • I wouldn't oppose over this, but you might consider moving the "Role in investigations" section down below the "History" section.
    When I first added it, I thought about doing that. I put it above after thinking how someone who knows nothing about the topic may want to read it. After the intro reading about what forensic chemistry actually does in investigations seemed like the logical choice. If they want to continue, then the history section and the rest of it. I can certainly change it around if you think that would be received better. --Majora (talk) 05:47, 13 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    No, that's fine; I can see your point. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:14, 13 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "there is a specific blood alcohol content cutoff where penalties begin or increase": shouldn't this be "there are specific blood alcohol content cutoffs where penalties begin or increase"?
    Fixed. --Majora (talk) 05:47, 13 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "A bottle of strychnine extract was easily obtainable in apothecaries": as far as I can see you don't make this point in the article text, so I think you should cite it in the caption. I'd also suggest making this "was once easily obtainable".
    So, I've been thinking about this and the source would be the image itself and the catalog page [18]. Is that what you were looking for? The fact that it came from an apothecary is on the bottle. "Manufacturing Chemists" is an alternative term for them. I changed it to say was "once" easily obtainable. As for the source, did you just want me to use the link above? --Majora (talk) 05:47, 13 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not going to let this hold up my support, but I think ideally we'd use an explicit written source. Google Books has Wildlife, Land, and People: A Century of Change in Prairie Canada by Donald G. Wetherell, which includes the phrase "Good-quality strychnine could now be had cheaply everywhere", which I think does it. That particular book is one of those weird Google Books transcriptions that has no page numbers, so it would be annoying to cite, but you could use that if nothing else can be found. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:14, 13 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The wide range of instrumentation for forensic chemical analysis also started during this time period": suggest "began to be developed" instead of "started".
    Sounds good. Changed. --Majora (talk) 05:47, 13 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "GC-MS is also capable of quantifying substances which can be used by forensic chemists to determine the effect the substance would have on an individual": I initially misread this as saying that GC-MS is used to quantify some substances, and those substances are used by forensic chemsists to ...", so I'd suggest rephrasing. Perhaps "GC-MS is also capable of quantifying the substances it detects; forensic chemists can use this information to determine the effect the substance would have on an individual".
    Done. --Majora (talk) 05:47, 13 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are some uncited sentences in the "Standards" section, at the end of each of the first two paragraphs.
    Fixed. I reworded it a little so please let me know what you think. It sounded right in my head but who knows what it sounds like to others. --Majora (talk) 05:47, 13 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not knowledgeable about this area, so I can't really tell if this is comprehensive or not, though it seems thorough. However, I was wondering if a short section about reference material or professional publications might be in order? Are there standard references that could be listed, or professional journals that are regarded as central to the field? This is only a suggestion -- don't feel obliged to follow it if there's nothing that fits this description.
    They do have reference standards for comparison purposes and calibration. The phrase "NIST traceable" is common in all US forensics. I'm not sure what other countries use though. I would have to research some things to see. As for the publications, it looks like a forensic chemistry journal was just launched in March by Elsevier [19]. Whether or not that is going to be the go to journal for this field is to be seen. Currently most research in forensics is shared at conferences and published in a wide range of different journals and magazines. The Journal of Forensic Sciences being a big one (but not specific to this field). So central to "this" field? Not at this time that I am aware of (at least not until Forensic Chemistry gets a little bit more time to circulate). Central to forensics in general? Sure. But I am not sure that is what you are asking for. --Majora (talk) 05:47, 13 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    It sounds like we're fine with what you have; I was just checking. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:14, 13 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:19, 11 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Mike Christie: Responses made. --Majora (talk) 05:47, 13 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Support. I think the referencing on the image caption for the strychnine bottle could be improved a little, but since, as Majora points out, the availability is reasonably evident from the label visible in the image I'm not concerned about it for FA status. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:14, 13 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the support Mike Christie. In the interest of being complete I added a ref to the book you mentioned. The URL I put in is a direct link to the passage in question. The citation is just going to have to live without the page numbers at this point as it is hard to determine what it would be without actually counting. --Majora (talk) 21:16, 13 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Coord notes -- hi, unless I missed them we still need the following checks:

  • Image licensing.
  • Source formatting/reliability.
  • Spotcheck of sources for accurate use and avoidance of close paraphrasing as it's Majora's first FAC.

All these can be requested at the top of WT:FAC, unless any of the above reviewers would like to have a go. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 14:37, 19 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Whoops. Sorry Ian Rose. Wasn't aware I had to actually request those things. Thanks for the heads up. All done. --Majora (talk) 18:52, 19 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Don't worry, you'll get used to it....! Image and source reviews are required for every nomination, spotchecks for new nominators and for older hands who haven't had one for a while. Sometimes people just do them off their own bat much earlier in the review process, but when it looks like a nomination has decent support for promotion, and they've not been done, the coordinators invite you to request them. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 22:23, 19 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Ian Rose: Please excuse my ignorance but is it normal for it to take this long for someone to do a source review on a nomination? I just don't want this to be archived for lack of that necessary check. --Majora (talk) 22:00, 20 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Image review edit

  • File:Punuk.Alaska.skulls.jpg: Free image on Commons. Seems at least moderately germane to the topic as deaths are often investigated as potential crimes. The license checks out.
    This one is just part of the {{forensic science}} template. It is easily changeable per article but I couldn't think (or find) anything that would be really specific for this field (unlike say forensic firearm examination that has a photo of a bullet). --Majora (talk)
  • File:Oklahomacitybombing-DF-ST-98-01356.jpg: Free image on Commons on an event discussed in the section. Source link is broken.
    Is the source link necessary? I can change it to an FBI story on the matter but I can't seem to recover the original source. It isn't in the archives and apparently the DoD requires an access card now to search through the images at the current link. Just to note that this image has already appeared on the main page. So its provenance already checked out. --Majora (talk)
  • File:Bottle of extract of nux vomica, London, England, 1794-1930 Wellcome L0058630.jpg: Free image on Commons, license checks out on the source page. It's a bit unclear what the image adds to the section, though.
    I agree that this one is more tangentially related than the other ones. It is more of an example of "early history" than anything else. The fact that you could easily buy such poisons in shops in the past and there were no accurate way to determine if someone died of poison made it a much more common form of murder. --Majora (talk)
    I think this one is worth keeping; it illustrates the easy availability of poisons in the past. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:52, 19 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • File:GCMS open.jpg: Free image on Commons. Marked as "own work", defective EXIF, present elsewhere on the web but always postdating the upload. It shows a machine discussed in the section.
  • File:ATR FTIR of Hexane.png: Free image on Commons. Marked as "own work", it seems like a machine-made image though; what was it created with? It shows the output of a process described in the section.
    I honestly can't remember what software I used to make that or the one below. I did them back in college and it was whatever was installed on the computers that ran the instruments at the time. There is nothing copyrightable there anyways. I self'd it instead of PD-simple because I took the photo of it but I can change it to PD-simple if you think that is more appropriate. I also updated the author parameter to my current username (it was my previous one before my rename). --Majora (talk)
  • File:HPLC readout for APAP, ASA, and caffeine mixture.png: Free image on Commons, same considerations and question as above.

In-article images have all ALT text. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 19:22, 19 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Jo-Jo Eumerus: Responses made. --Majora (talk) 20:10, 19 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
On the source link question, Webarchive-searching the link indicates that it once led to a search function. That should be brought back, if searching for "F-3203-SPT-95-000023-XX-0198" yields the image. I am wary of diagrams like these being marked as PD-simple, a court could quite reasonably consider it involving creative choices. I am not sure if it's cut and dried whether the creators of the software in question would own co-copyrights to its output. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:27, 19 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Jo-Jo Eumerus: I'm still trying to recover the source link but the archived search isn't bringing up anything. I'll keep trying other avenues. As for the diagrams, I understand that the software itself can be copyrighted provided there are enough elements there to make it pass the threshold of originality (although if I recall correctly the software on these instruments were basically a blank screen and some minor buttons). However, the readouts can't be "original" because of their nature. Take the FTIR image. All FTIR images of hexane will always produce the same result. They have to. Else it would make searching for them in a database moot. There are no original elements in the readouts because there can't be. If the readouts were copyrighted it would also present issues in court as the other side would not be able to effectively retest/rebut the evidence (which is a current problem with some expert systems being used in DNA analysis). --Majora (talk) 21:46, 19 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Update: I found a book link that shows the bombing photograph, the photographer, and his DoD affiliations. I have added it the file page. --Majora (talk) 23:18, 19 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Jo-Jo Eumerus: Thoughts? --Majora (talk) 22:43, 21 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I have a small concern that these diagrams may have a "selection and arrangement" copyright belonging to whoever wrote the software used to create them. Best to ask commons:COM:VPC on this, probably. One of the less endearing aspects of copyright screening. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:00, 22 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Jo-Jo Eumerus: Asked and answered. The graphs are fine. --Majora (talk) 00:10, 23 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Seems like the images are OK, then. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 16:18, 23 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Passing thoughts from Bencherlite edit

I'm a lawyer based in the UK rather than a chemist, so that's my starting point, and I'm looking solely at the section about testimony.

  • "The standardized procedures for testimony by forensic chemists are provided by the various agencies that employ the scientists as well as SWGDRUG." No, in England and Wales for instance the procedures for testimony (giving evidence in court) are provided by rules of court, not by the agencies employing the expert / the party instructing the expert. This sentence is not universal.
  • "In some jurisdictions, experts can also be called by the judge to act as a "court's witness" thereby making the expert appear more impartial to the jury." Two problems: (a) checking the reference, "some jurisdictions" turns out to be supported only by a reference to the US Federal Rules of Evidence; (b) even under the US Federal Rules of Evidence, the relevant rule would appear to be Rule 706 ("Court-Appointed Expert Witnesses") not Rule 614.

Hope this helps. BencherliteTalk 21:51, 23 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Bencherlite, as a former expert witness, I raised this issue myself earlier, but failed to pick up that the response wasn't entirely satisfactory. FWIW, the relevant guidance in England and Wales is Part 35 of the CPR Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:58, 24 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Bencherlite: I think you misunderstood the point I was trying to make with SWGDRUG (and perhaps the sentence needs to be reworded). SWGDRUG is essentially an ethics board. Standardized reporting/testimony standards are what SWGDRUG publishes and what all forensic chemists are expected to follow. Yes, the court sets the courtroom procedures and, in the end, decides who can be an expert witness. But the standards of how the person testifies, and what they can and can't testify to, is published by SWGDRUG. For example, if during cross the witness is asked a question about something they haven't been proficiency tested and certified in (it happens) the procedure for that is to not even attempt to answer it but explain that you can only answer questions directly related to the areas you are proficient in (even if you are confident that you know the answer). That rule is an ethics things and comes from SWGDRUG, not from the courts as the courts aren't asking the questions (generally). Again, I think the sentence just has to be reworded to be clearer, which I will do when I have some time to think after the holiday.

I fixed the reference. Thank you for catching that. It is appreciated. As for the "some" jurisdictions, how many citations would you like? The UK one would be Rule 35.7 of the Civil Procedural Rules [20]. I can look up and cite as many jurisdictions as necessary but I didn't want to overkill the citations so I just listed one. --Majora (talk) 03:55, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You've misunderstood CPR 35.7 - the court isn't instructing or calling an expert itself, it is telling the parties that they are to choose an expert between themselves to be jointly instructed by the parties, rather than have one expert per side. This is generally done in lower-value cases where the costs of having two experts would not be proportionate to the value of the claim, or for less important issues in large cases. The parties give the instructions to the expert, not the court. As for referencing "some jurisdictions", you need a reference that this happens in "some jurisdictions", not just one. As for the ethics point about not answering questions outside your area of expertise, with respect, that rule did not originate from SWGDRUG and is not exclusive to forensic chemists or to SWGDRUG. Never having heard of SWGDRUG before this nomination (although I don't practise in this particular field) I'd be interested in seeing something that says that forensic chemists in the UK (to take a particular example) are expected to follow its reporting and testimony standards. It seems to be a very US-orientated body, not something to which a UK forensic chemist would defer when reporting and giving evidence. BencherliteTalk 09:19, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think we are working off of different definitions of "court's witness". Joint instruction by both sides and an obligation to the court, as oppose to the "dueling experts" that is otherwise common, is the definition I am working with. I understand that the UK's CPR says that experts are always obligated to the court first and that is true in the US as well. But that isn't really how it happens. Experts with alternative opinions happen all the time. That is the whole point of being declared an expert. You can give your opinions in regards to evidence. I can certainly change the sentence to whatever you want it to say to be more clear on this but I think we need to agree to a definition first.

SWGDRUG is an international organization with representatives from multiple different countries as well as the UN. When the UK had a forensic science services department they were represented by Dr. Sylvia Burns (who is still part of the organization as part of a private lab since FSS dissolved). At least as long as Brexit is on hold the UK is also represented by Dr. Michael Bovens of the European Network of Forensic Science Institutes. SWGDRUG is mentioned many times in the publications put out by the ENFSI including in the use of reference samples/spectra in the proper identification of unknown substances [21]. The standardization of these things primarily has to do with accreditation. Any lab is free to do whatever they want. That is true globally. But only if they follow a specific set of guidelines would they be accredited, which is what matters. Again, I am open to suggestions as to the improvement of that section but saying that SWGDRUG is a US-orientated body is simply not true. --Majora (talk) 18:28, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is is the "called by the judge" part? As I read more of the CPR that seems like the most offending part. Perhaps, In some jurisdictions, experts can act as a "court's witness" whose duty is to the court as opposed to the prosecution or defense. These experts can be questioned or cross-examined by both sides thereby making the expert appear more impartial to the jury. --Majora (talk) 20:37, 25 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I have gone ahead and made this change since there hasn't been any comments in a few days regarding it. If there is still issues let me know. --Majora (talk) 00:36, 29 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I got distracted by work. This is still wrong. You don't understand the Civil Procedure Rules for England and Wales. You are using "court's witness" in a sense unknown to the E&W system. All experts in E&W owe duties to the court, and also owe duties to the party instructing them (where that is not in conflict with their duty to the court). There is no jury in civil cases here (save, very rarely, in defamation or police malpractice claims). And you are still saying "some jurisdictions" by citing two sets of rules, primary sources to boot, and apparently making a generalisation from that to "some". The article doesn't actually need the two sentences In some jurisdictions, experts can act as a "court's witness" whose duty is to the court as opposed to the prosecution or defense. These experts can be questioned or cross-examined by both sides thereby making the expert appear more impartial to the jury (nor the words in the previous sentence can be called on behalf of the prosecution or the defense and), as they're not specific to forensic chemists and so I suggest that you remove them. BencherliteTalk 00:42, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Bencherlite: Seeing as I was asked to include the point by Jimfbleak I am now getting conflicting requests from two different FA reviewers. Kinda makes this whole process a tad challenging when that happens. You also seem to be committing the same error by only taking into account the UK's version of law. I can simply change the citation to be that of Australia or any number of other countries that allow the same practice. Hence the "some" part of the "some jurisdictions". Obviously I'm not going to find and list every single country in the world that allows such a thing. That would be madness. As for knocking the fact that they are primary sources. Of course they are. The policy on the matter clearly states that Unless restricted by another policy, primary sources that have been reputably published may be used in Wikipedia. I don't see how I am in violation of that in any way as I am not interpreting what is clearly written in the Federal Rules of Evidence of the United States. If I misunderstood the UK's version that is my mistake and I apologize. --Majora (talk) 01:55, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The very fact that you are misinterpreting a primary source (the civil rules for England and Wales) shows the dangers of using primary sources here. Your Australian link shows that the systems for expert witnesses vary in its nine separate jurisdictions, so saying Australia allows this or that in terms of expert evidence isn't terribly helpful (your article even says that "Three jurisdictions have specific provisions in respect of the appointment of a single expert by the court or the parties"). But I really don't see why the article needs a couple of sentences explaining that legal systems have various different procedures for expert witnesses. It adds nothing of value to our understanding of forensic chemistry evidence. Perhaps Jimfbleak can chip in again? BencherliteTalk (using his alt account Bencherheavy) 13:26, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Bencherlite: Sentence removed. --Majora (talk) 00:40, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Sorry for the late reply. Good luck. I don't have the time to provide a full review. BencherliteTalk 07:43, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Graham Beards edit

Oppose - There are numerous unsourced statements. Graham Beards (talk) 15:02, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Graham is quite right; not sure how I missed that in my review. I guess I was focusing on the prose. I'll leave my support in place for now on the assumption that this will be fixed shortly; I'll return in a couple of days to take another look. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:12, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Graham Beards and Mike Christie: Could either of you be more specific please? Obviously, I think it is well sourced else I wouldn't have put it up for this and unsourced statements are an insta-fail even at the GA level, which this passed. And if numerous people missed it, which seems to have happened, then saying that there are "numerous" errors such as this confuses me. So I'm going to need more to go on than "numerous unsourced statements". Thanks. --Majora (talk) 21:37, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Majora: here are the ones I see. I'm sure these can all be sourced, but they don't currently have a citation.

  • Last three sentences of the first paragraph of the body.
    Not entirely sure that needs a citation per WP:BLUE. Death from A, you look for A or the precursors to A. That seems pretty straightforward to me and frankly I'm not sure I can find something in a published anything that says that since it is straightforward.
  • Last sentence of first section.
    Also seems mildly BLUEy but less so than the first one so, sourced.
  • Last two sentences of "Early history", starting "The ability to separate..."
  • Last sentence of next paragraph, starting "AA analysis can..."
  • Last two sentences of Spectroscopy section, starting "AAS is useful..."
  • Last three sentences of first paragraph of Chromatography section, starting "This solution is called..."
  • Last sentence of next paragraph.
  • Last four sentences of "Forensic toxicology".
  • Last two sentences of "Standards".

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:57, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict):::Hi Majora, nice to meet you. The standards for FAs are much higher than those for GA. We expect every statement to be verifiable by a citation to a reliable source. A minimum requirement is a citation at the end of every paragraph that verifies the proceeding text. Clearly, your nomination falls short on this. Part of the FA review process is to check this, and to spotcheck for close paraphrasing of the sources used. I don't want to litter your commendable article with {{citation needed}} tags, but I can if you want me to. You are clearly an expert on this subject but sadly this carries no weight (and some would argue that this is a problem with Wikipedia). If you use PubMed, this link [22] can be useful. But ensure that you don't use primary sources, review articles are preferred. I enjoyed reading your article. I hope you did not object to the few edits I have made today. Please note my oppose is only provisional. Best wishes. Graham Beards (talk) 22:07, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Graham Beards: In fact I would like you to go right ahead and {{cn}} away if that is what it is going to take. If you don't tell me what to fix, I can't fix it. They will be temporary anyways. --Majora (talk) 22:12, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'll stop dealing with Mike's part while you do that to avoid conflicts. Please let me know when you are done Graham Beards --Majora (talk) 22:16, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Majora, I'd be surprised if Graham's list was much different from mine -- in case Graham doesn't respond quickly I'd suggest fixing the ones I noted above, and you may find that fixes Graham's points too. I can mark them with {{cn}} if you prefer. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:30, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Mike Christie: If you could that would be great. I have to step out for a few hours but I will fix everything you mark tonight. --Majora (talk) 22:43, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Majora: I think I got them all. I put one on each sentence, but in many cases I would guess you can place a single cite at the end of several consecutive sentences, if it covers all of them. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:51, 5 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Mike Christie: I wouldn't want anyone to come along later and say that the sentence is unsourced because it was at the end of consecutive sentences. So, they are being all marked. In regards to the very first one. I responded to it above but asking that a citation be provided for that is like asking for a citation that the sky is blue. It isn't really practical to ask for a citation for something that is unarguably common sense. If you find ricin, you look for ricin. If you find strychnine, you look for strychnine. You aren't going to find ricin and look for strychnine. So I'm not really sure what you want me to do with that one. --Majora (talk) 00:54, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
There is also the last one you noted. For example, the GC elution times would be compared to known values along with the MS spectra. If both of those match a known substance, no further tests are needed. Why would that need a citation? It is an example of the previous sentence, which is cited. I can use the same citation again, but it doesn't explicitly say that. No where would it explicitly say that since the, already cited, guidelines already say that. I guess I am a little confused as to why that would need a citation at all when it is just restating the previous sentence with a filled in example. --Majora (talk) 01:08, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
There are two questions here, I think: why cite something so obvious? and how? It used to be the case that fairly obvious statements didn't need to be cited, but the expectation now is that anything that is not logically obvious without any prior knowledge of the given field should be cited. Mathematical deductions, for example, are not always cited; and there are a couple of other examples. It may seem crazy, but that's the expectation -- I think what has happened over the years is that it was found that leaving loopholes encouraged vague statements, so the standard kept tightening. How to cite is generally pretty straightforward. For example, the sentence you quote is obvious to anyone who reads that source (the SWGDRUG recommendations), so I moved the citation to the end of that group of sentences. You can cite each sentence individually, and some editors do that; I don't, because it leads to just the sort of illogicality you're complaining about -- sometimes a set of statements taken together are all cited to the same source; citing each sentence can lead to putting individual cites on short sentences. But it's your choice.
I fixed a couple of instances where I had access to the source and could tell that a given source covered the point at issue. For the ones that are left, can you either add a cite or give details as to why you can't? I can work with you to get the remaining ones sorted out. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:00, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Fair point on the citing every sentence thing. Thank you for the fixes. It is appreciated. The only requested cite I really have an issue with is the first one, in the "Role in investigations" section. I could find a news article that says, "they found x poison in body and found y precursor in the suspect's house". Those things happen all the time. But that isn't directly citing the A->B relationship that the sentence says. You find ricin, you look for castor seeds. You find arsenic, you look for rat poison (or something else high in arsenic). To me that is logically obvious to the point that "if you find x look for the x or the precursors to x" doesn't need a citation. If you think that the news articles I mentioned above would do it, I can add those right now. Otherwise, I don't think I can cite that sentence in the manner that you want and it will have to be removed. --Majora (talk) 02:13, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I see your point, but from the point of view of a reader that knew nothing of the topic before they started reading, there's actually new information there. (I am such a reader!) I'd never thought about the need to search for precursors; I didn't know there was such a thing as a strychnine tree, and I didn't know that castor oil seeds could be used to make ricin. A quick hunt around on Google found this, which might be useful; it talks about the need for forensic chemists to search for precursors. Actually it mentions the possibility of identifying precursor batches, which you don't cover; is that worth including? Seems like it might be. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:22, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Mike Christie: Chemical tracing is not something that most forensic chemists do. I would consider that more of a subspecialty than a separate field (much much smaller than toxicology). I could of course add something, perhaps to the end of the "modernization" section? Not really sure though since it is something that only a small subset of forensic chemists would even be involved in. I don't think having it in its own section would be doable. But back to the requested cite at hand. Would something like, [23] work? Investigators found castor seeds in the husband's car (planted there by his wife) so it shows that they were looking for such a think during the investigation. --Majora (talk) 02:58, 6 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Any reason not to use both the news source you found, and the cen.acs.org one I link above? That one explicitly talks about precursors. As for the tracing, I think it's worth a sentence -- it's there in a reliable source, and it's interesting and seems relevant to me. By the way, I found this book while searching for something to cite; is this a source you've consulted? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:32, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough. All requested citations are now done (or the sentence removed) and the line about chemical tracing has been added to the end of the modernization section. Please let me know what you think. Hopefully when Graham logs back on everything will be fixed to their satisfaction as well. --Majora (talk) 02:41, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That looks good to me. Since I've supported above I should say for the benefit of the FAC coord that I don't feel competent to judge Bencherlite's comments, so my support shouldn't be taken as a disagreement there. Essentially I'm supporting as a lay reader, so I can't assess comprehensiveness and thoroughness of research (FA criteria 1b and 1c) for example. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 03:06, 7 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Source review from Imzadi1979 edit

In general, a good citation needs to list the following, if applicable:

  • Author (may not be present for news articles published without a byline, for example)
  • Date of publication (sometimes absent, especially with online-only sources)
  • Title of the source
  • Title of the publication, if the cited source is an article or chapter contained within a larger work
  • Location of publication, normally only for books, but also generally for newspapers which do not contain the city in the name of the paper. (A citation to The New York Times wouldn't include that, but a citation to The Mining Journal would note that it is published in Marquette, Michigan.)
  • Name of the publisher (although newspapers and other periodicals generally omit this)
  • Access dates for online works (technically optional for online sources unlikely to change, but really mandatory for undated online sources)

There are other things that make up a good citation, but those are the basics. Beyond that, the citations in a FA-quality article need to consistently format citations so that they all look similar, and similarly polished, in composition. To wit:

  • Note 1 lacks any author, publication date or publisher information.
    • Added publisher. The other information you asked for is not stated on the source. "The authors" thank contributors to the publication but they aren't the authors and I don't see a date. All of the references listed have an access date in 2013. (Probably know the answer to this but) do I assume that that is the publication date? --Majora (talk) 22:41, 21 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
      • Not all sources, as I note above, have stated authors or explicit dates of publication, and where they aren't stated, we can't really include them. Imzadi 1979 → 00:23, 22 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note 2 omits the newspaper name.
  • In note 3, "The National Counterterrorism Center" would be a publisher, not a published work. There are others that have this issue, and generally a publisher is not noted in italics.
    • I guess I am confused here as to the proper time to use which parameter. I fixed the one that you mentioned. --Majora (talk) 22:41, 21 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
      • A publisher is a company, organization or agency. The "National Counterterrorism Center" fits that definition, so it's the publisher of its website. Not all websites have names. For example, the news website published by WLUC-TV is called Upper Michigan's Source, but WBUP-TV's website has no name of its own. The TV stations would be listed as the publisher (along with their |location=), but only a news article from the former example would have a |work= or |website= noted. (Technically, parameters like |newspaper=, |journal=, |magazine= are all aliases of the |work= parameter.) The New York Times is the name of a newspaper published by The New York Times Company, so the paper is a work, and the company, which would wouldn't include normally, is the publisher. Imzadi 1979 → 00:23, 22 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • In note 6, the newspaper name is being listed as a publisher, so it's not in italics. Please audit other citations with the same issue.
    • Confused here too. Cite #6 does have T.C. Forensic in italics. Where you talking about a different one? --Majora (talk) 22:41, 21 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
      • Note 6 is for an article from The New York Times website. Like the name of its print paper, that name would be a work and rendered in italics. Imzadi 1979 → 00:23, 22 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
        • Well I feel silly. My brain took the #3 from the above bullet point and applied it to this one. Whoops. Fixed per guidance below. --Majora (talk) 05:18, 22 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Note 8 omits the "The" in the name of the paper. Now some citation guide say to drop any article that the start of a newspaper's name, and others say to retain it. We're somewhat agnostic about that, so long as we do so consistently.
  • Note 9 uses the ISO-style date format for the publication date, while other notes use spelled out dates. (Also, book citations usually use just the year, not a full date, and usually include the publication location, although this may be optional.)
    • You may want to add |via=Google Books to note that the book was retrieved through that website, to enhance the WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT-ness of the citation.
      • Weird. I certainly didn't do that. Looks like a bot did. Corrected to the same date format and added via parameter. --Majora (talk) 22:41, 21 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
        • Probably a bot pulling metadata from Google Books, however I still don't know where Google gets the full dates for books because libraries only index them by publication year, and print books almost always only print the copyright/publication year alone on the copyright or title pages. Imzadi 1979 → 00:23, 22 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
          • I would guess so. There is a slight discrepancy on publication date which may be a problem. Google Books has it as October 1st while Amazon has it as September 29th. Not quite sure what to do with that one. --Majora (talk) 05:18, 22 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Notes 5 and 11 are citing similar kinds of sources, but the former looks to be using {{cite magazine}} and the latter {{cite journal}}. The difference is that the former prefixes the parts with "Vol.", "no." and either "p." or "pp." as appropriate, and the latter uses a more compressed format. Neither is wrong, but they should match up.
    • That is because one is a journal and one is a magazine. At least that is how they bill themselves as. Chemical & Engineering News is a weekly trade magazine and the Journal of the American Chemical Society is a peer reviewed scientific journal. --Majora (talk) 22:41, 21 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
      • They're both periodicals, and it's odd to me to handle academic journals and popular magazines in citation formatting like that. In working with MLA, APA and Chicago citations in academic writing contexts, you can draw a distinction between the two types of periodical. If you're going to treat magazines apart from journals, magazine citations typically lack the volume and issue numbers, and it would be appropriate to see the page number(s) alone prefixed with either "p." or "pp." like a newspaper article citation. Journals would list the volume and issue numbers, and could either use the compressed style from {{cite journal}}, or the more verbose style given by {{cite magazine}} (which is similar to how Chicago would render a journal).

        In short, if you're treating them as different types of source, drop the volume/issue from the magazine and add the missing volume/issue information to any journals lacking it. If you're treating them as simply just periodicals, then either they all use {{cite magazine}} or they all use {{cite journal}} instead of mixing and matching. Imzadi 1979 → 00:23, 22 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In general, you should give the various citations a quick re-read looking at consistency and completion. It is hard to evaluate the reliability of incomplete citations, which is the other part of a source review. Imzadi 1979 → 07:24, 21 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Imzadi1979: Thank you for doing this review. I do appreciate it. I guess I am going to need a little bit of guideance on the particulars. As mentioned above, I guess I don't really understand the difference between the website and the publisher parameters in the cite templates. And I guess I really don't understand when it is appropriate to use either one. I've read the documentation and I think I may have fixed the issues. But honestly, I don't know. --Majora (talk) 22:41, 21 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I tried to answer some questions above. In short, if the name of something corresponds to a company/agency/organization, it's a |publisher=, and if it's the name of a newspaper/journal/magazine/website, it's a |work=.

The New York Times, Mental Floss (note the space and capitalization), How Stuff Works, Easy Chem, Just Chromatography, Quartz, and the various journal names are all works. On the other hand, the World Health Organization, McGill-Queen's Press, New Mexico State University and the National Institute of Justice are organizations that are acting as publishers.

Another thing to note, but it's better to spell out the initialisms of agencies, so "UCLA" should be "University of California, Los Angeles" and "FBI" should be "Federal Bureau of Investigation"; don't assume your reader will be an American or someone who otherwise knows the full names. Imzadi 1979 → 00:23, 22 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you Imzadi1979. That is very helpful. Especially the breakdown between publisher and work. I think I got them all. I also expanded the acronyms. I'll go over it again next time I am on (after I get some sleep). Thanks again for the explanation. --Majora (talk) 05:18, 22 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Imzadi1979 Any further thoughts? --Majora (alt) (talk) 21:25, 26 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Marjora and Majora (alt): things look pretty good.

I'd like to see the authors of the two university-hosted webpages included. I assume they're professors in their respective fields, but we should clear up the attribution there.

I'd drop the full date on that one book down to just a year though. As I said, the books themselves normally only print the year of release/copyright, and that's how most libraries catalog them. Amazon and Google are probably working off different exact release dates, but neither will really help a reader locate a copy of the source in a library.

For note 16, the word "corporation" isn't capitalized, and it looks odd. I might suggest also adding the word "vol." or "Vol." in front of the volume number, something I do on book citations to clarify what would otherwise be a boldface number in the middle of the citation without context. (The extra characters also shut of the bolding.)

Spectroscopy Online is the name of the web site, so it should be the |work=.

One last comment, and it's been somewhat optional around here in other reviews I've seen, but I tend to harmonize the case of titles. APA style says to use sentence case in titles, and others say to use title case. The former capitalizes an article title as if it were a sentence, while the latter capitalizes the first word, the last word, and basically any word over 5 characters in length, plus all nouns/verbs. There's something to be said for faithfully copying the titles as published, but it just looks better to use the same scheme across all of your citations, to give it that extra bit of polish. Honestly, if that's the only quibbles I have, you're on the right track now for formatting consistency. Imzadi 1979 → 22:15, 26 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

All fixed here. I switched everything to title case and I believe I got them all. --Majora (talk) 01:51, 28 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Reliability review—there are a few sources that should be replaced to meet the requirement of "high quality reliable source".

  • There are a pair of web pages that appear to be published in the personal web spaces of university professors or departments (notes 29, 31). It would be a good idea to investigate finding potential replacement sources that come from more traditional published media, like an academic journal or a (text) book, either online or strictly in print.
    Both switched to book sources. Could you check #31 again? It was a little bit more complex than I'm used to since the book is part of a series. --Majora (talk) 01:51, 28 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • The T.C. Forensic source (note 3) is borderline; I'd also advise replacement if possible. Ditto Waters (note 22) and Techmed (note 30). The reasoning here is that these are commercial web sites that wouldn't need to demonstrate the same level of editorial control as a journal or book editor, nor the reputation for quality of the journal or book publishing house.
    Note 3 is actually a repost according to the site. It was originally posted in Southeast Asia Fire and Security in November 1995. The problem is I can't find any proof of that online. I'm guessing the journal went defunct a long time ago and there just isn't any online record of it. Not quite sure what to do with that. Note 22 was replaced with a book. The new note 31 mentioned above also covered note 30 so that was condensed. --Majora (talk) 01:51, 28 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Just Chromatography source (note 34) appears to be a personal blog from the "About" page on the website. That fails the FA Criteria.
    Well that's a shame. It covered everything in that paragraph. Had to replace it with multiple references to cover everything but done. --Majora (talk) 01:51, 28 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If you can find a few replacement sources for the items above, you'll be in good shape. Imzadi 1979 → 22:15, 26 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Imzadi1979: Everything expect that T.C. Forensic repost has been replaced. --Majora (talk) 01:51, 28 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
As I noted, the T.C. Forensic source is borderline; however if it is a faithful reproduction of a previously published journal article, that changes things a little. It would be nice to reproduce the original journal citation and use the T.C. Forensic page as courtesy link/republication like the Google Books copies. {{cite journal |last = Stern |first = Wal |date = November 1995 |title = Modern Methods of Accelerant Analysis |url = http://www.tcforensic.com.au/docs/article5.html |journal = Southeast Asia Fire and Security |volume = |issue = |pages = |via= T.C. Forensic |access-date= October 28, 2015 }}

I did tweak a few |volume= calls in a few books for consistency, so otherwise everything looks good to go, Majora. Imzadi 1979 → 03:00, 28 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That works. I went ahead and switched it to a journal citation with the |via switch. I'll keep looking for all the rest of the info (volume, issue, etc.) but I've pretty much already looked everywhere I can think of (online at least). Thanks for all your assistance and for the review as a whole Imzadi1979. It is appreciated. --Majora (talk) 03:10, 28 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Looks good for now, and hopefully you can find the missing details. (It might be worth checking http://www.worldcat.org/ to find a library that may have the journal within its holdings. From there, you may be able to contact a librarian or university staff member who can look up the journal article for you. I've done similar at times to request newspaper clippings from remote libraries.)

If this review was helpful, you may want to review the prose on other nominations, like mine to help out other nominators. Imzadi 1979 → 03:57, 28 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator note: There's quite a lot going on here, so I think it's worth just checking how we are doing. Bencherlite how are things looking from your viewpoint now? Also, Imzadi1979 are we all clear on the source review, and did you do a source spot-check at all? If not, we will still need someone to do that. Sarastro1 (talk) 13:50, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Just a source review, not a spotcheck. Imzadi 1979 → 21:26, 30 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Sarastro1: Would you be able to perform the spot check? It shouldn't take you long. I wouldn't have made it this long on Wikipedia if I violated CLOP. It would be appreciated. I don't know what else to do at this point. I already posted at the requests place and that was back in November. --Majora (talk) 05:12, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Sarastro1:, I'm happy with the testimony section but don't have time for a full review. Sorry for not revisiting earlier. BencherliteTalk 07:43, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Some spotchecks edit

He helped develop tests that could determine the presence of blood and was one of the first to use microscopy in the analysis of blood and semen.[13]

  • He helped to develop tests for the presence of blood in a forensic context and is credited as one of the first people to use a microscope to assess blood and semen stains. Perhaps too close paraphrasing?

Modern HPLC instruments are capable of detecting and resolving substances whose concentrations are as low as parts per trillion.[22]

  • Today, compounds is trace concentrations as low as low as parts per trillion [ppt] may easily be analysed.

AAS is useful in cases of suspected heavy metal poisoning such as with arsenic, lead, mercury, and cadmium. The concentration of the substance in the sample can indicate whether heavy metals were the cause of death.

  • I can't find where this information is explicitly given in the source cited.
    • The information is spread out throughout the entire paper. So, the cadmium section is on page 273. It states that 1600 nmol/g of cadmium causes irreversible renal damage. For mercury that is on page 285. And so on. For the "AAS is useful" claim that is both in the introduction where it states that most metals are usually measured using atomic absorption techniques and in the laboratory investigation section on page 280 where it talks about lead analysis and how the creation of AAS marked a major development in the determination of blood lead levels. --Majora (talk) 20:23, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I'm happy with that. Thank you. Graham Beards (talk) 21:13, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Laboratories also tend to keep in-house databases for the substances they find locally.[43]

  • forensic users find the need to return to the AAFS library or their own locally constructed databases to supplement these sources.

Toxicologists are tasked with determining whether any toxin found in a body was the cause of or contributed to an incident, or whether it was at too low a level to have had an effect.[38]

  • These results can be used to make inferences when determining a substance's potential effect on an individual's death, illness, or mental or physical impairment. For example, the results of a blood analysis from a driver involved in a car accident can be used to determine if the individual was under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
This is a comparison of the article and the sources cited. No issues apart from those in bold. The second one is sourced to a long paper and it is possible I have missed it. Please clarify. Graham Beards (talk) 20:00, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Graham Beards: Thank you for doing this. It really is appreciated. Responded to the second one above. As for the first one, I'm not entirely sure how else I would state his accomplishments and his significance to the field. --Majora (talk) 20:23, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
How about something along the lines of:
A pioneer in the development of forensic microscopy, Orfila contributed to the advancement of this method for the detection of blood and semen. Graham Beards (talk) 21:13, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Graham Beards: I had to think about that because of the term "forensic microscopy" which is oddly phrased (and not technically a field by itself but a tool) but just saying regular "microscopy" wouldn't be truthful. I guess it is alright. I replaced the sentence with your suggestion. --Majora (talk) 22:49, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It's a term in common use. See [24]. Graham Beards (talk) 23:09, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I know. But it is like saying forensic HPLC or forensic PCR. Tools don't generally get that prefix. At least not within the actual practicing forensic community. Not that big of a deal. --Majora (talk) 23:19, 1 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Cas LIber edit

Just reading through...

Forensic specialists in this field have a wide array of methods and instruments to help identify unknown substances. - "Forensic" redundant here as you've already said the field is "forensic chemistry".
Fixed. --Majora (talk) 05:49, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Specific methods common to the field include... - unnecessarily wordy - why not just "These include.."?
Fixed. --Majora (talk) 05:49, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The work performed by forensic chemists is bound by a set of standards that have been proposed by various agencies and governing bodies, including the Scientific Working Group on the Analysis of Seized Drugs. - if the standards are in use and binding then the agents have done more than just proposing, why not "set down" by etc.?
They aren't technically binding. They are "highly recommended" and necessary to be accredited. Labs are fully within their right to ignore them completely and private labs have their own standards. The employees of private labs can still be called as expert witnesses (provided they get passed voir dire) so to call them "binding" or "set down" would be inaccurate. --Majora (talk) 05:49, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Okay then, does that mean you have to change the "bound" above? (8th word in...) Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:43, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
...Fair point. Would "follow" be a better word to use? Forensic chemists follow a set of standards... That way it is less "bound" by and more flexible towards what the particular agency sets. --Majora (talk) 00:43, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, that verb works for me. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:19, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Forensic chemists' analysis can provide investigative leads for investigators - "investigative " redundant, or can change to "leads for investigation" or something
Removed investigative. --Majora (talk) 05:49, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
To ensure the accuracy of what they are reporting, forensic chemists routinely check and verify that their instruments are working correctly and are still able to detect and measure various quantities of different substances. - umm, isn't this true of most machinery and lab equipment everywhere? This doesn't strike me as very specific to this job...
Probably is true for other things. But due to the nature of the work, the end result of which can take someone's freedom, I wanted to emphasis this point. Also, the forensic community quality checks their instruments and materials with every lot of chemicals, every minute change in protocol, etc. So yes, it probably isn't specific, but it is an extremely important part of the forensics field in general. --Majora (talk) 05:49, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
ok, I'll pay that...Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:43, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
In cases where an unknown material is found at the scene, the identification of the substance can tell investigators what to look for during their search. - I am not sure what the point of this sentence is..
The next sentences explain the point. Different explosives have different origins, different poisons point to different things to look for. --Majora (talk) 05:49, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Still strikes me as wordy, how about, "The identification of the various substances found at the scene can tell investigators what to look for during their search. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:43, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
That works with me. Changed --Majora (talk) 00:43, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Casliber: Responses made. --Majora (talk) 05:49, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

To maintain a high level of professionalism within the forensic fields,... - puffy. I'd remove it.
Removed. --Majora (talk) 00:43, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
guidelines have been set up by various governing bodies regarding the standards that should be followed by practicing forensic scientists. - I'd avoid the word "should" as it sounds like it is the article's opinion.
Phrase dropped. regarding the standards that are followed... The standards set by the community as a whole are typically followed by everyone. I don't want to give the impression that every lab is off making up their own standards and not following recommendations. While it certainly can happen, like I said there is nothing to stop them, it needs to be emphasized that standards are paramount in forensics. That is how we know that the protocols and procedures are arriving at the "right" answer. That is also how evidence becomes admissible. It is following a set of previously established, and accepted, guidelines (at least in the US). --Majora (talk) 00:43, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Am not a fan of see also lists - these should for the most part either be included in the main article or dropped. Trace evidence is an obvious one for incorporating into the article.
Eh, only one of those wasn't already in the side bar anyways. Remnant of before I rewrote the whole thing. Removed. Trace and chemistry are completely separate fields that deal with completely different things. I do plan on rewriting the trace article eventually (it is on my list) but to put it here would be mixing specialties. --Majora (talk) 00:43, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Otherwise looks okay prose wise Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:53, 3 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Actually come to think of it, a comprehensiveness query - how does one become a forensic chemist? Is there a specialized degree, if so, when (and where) was it established?
I guess it depends? Quite a few places now offer a general "forensic science" degree. That is what my masters is in (I'm actually a DNA analyst, I'm saving that article for last). Other places will accept a general chemistry degree. Still others want a more focused chemistry degree (like "applied chemistry") but it depends on the agency and their standards. It also depends on what level you are looking to get into. My agency has technicians, scientists, technical leads, etc. that all have different education requirements. I also can only really speak about the US (and really specifically about my agency) without doing more research as I really don't know what other countries require (although it is probably similar). I'm also not really sure I can find secondary sources that would cover the whole thing. I can get primary sources (job listings) that would tell you what specific labs want. But it is not a one-sized fits all deal. --Majora (talk) 00:43, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Is there any source that discusses this? That would be good to add. If nothing then we can't do much about it...Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 15:05, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Casliber: Was that what you were looking for? --Majora (talk) 03:40, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah sort of...I'd replace the "should" so it doesn't sound like a how-to manual....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 19:27, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, word removed and a little bit more added regarding on-the-job training. --Majora (talk) 23:57, 5 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Casliber: Responses made. --Majora (talk) 00:43, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from John edit

Great little article and I can't see any major problems. The word "advancement" is used repeatedly; is it the same as "advance" and if so, would we prefer the shorter word? Also there are three "however"s in the article which I feel we could manage without. That, along with the minor formats I did just now, constitutes my first read through. I will probably have other comments later. --John (talk) 19:32, 4 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@John: I removed one of the "however"s as it wasn't necessary. I feel like the other two serve a purpose as they provide segues into the next sentence. The "advancement"s are in the history section where numerous advancements are discussed. --Majora (talk) 00:06, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Well that's a good start. --John (talk) 00:14, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Could you be more specific please? After a three+ month open review it seems a little much to just say "that's a good start". Is there anything that precludes this from being a featured article? --Majora (talk) 00:31, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
For me it's been two days. Are you unable to parse my comment of 19:32, 4 January 2017? I don't think the howevers and the advancements help the article. They fail the prose criterion. As I said, I will have other comments. As I said, this is a start. --John (talk) 00:42, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator note: The nominator has asked to withdraw this nomination, so I am regretfully archiving it. Sarastro1 (talk) 21:53, 6 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Sarastro1 via FACBot (talk) 12:19, 2 January 2017 [25].

Crispy Gamer edit

Nominator(s): Gamingforfun365 (talk) 01:08, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Give every credit to GamerPro64. Gamingforfun365 (talk) 01:08, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  • Hi there. I'm the person who nominated the article for GA to begin with. I did not tell the nominator for this FAC to nominate it. He didn't even consult me about this nomination. I do not like that someone else is trying to claim credit for an article I worked on. I personally do not think it would survive an FAC. That being said, I would like to see this FAC continued just to see if it would pass the nomination. At the same time, I want Gamingforfun to not take credit in the event it does pass. I find this lack of communication to be unprofessional and rude. GamerPro64 02:36, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I deny that I was being rude, as I was not trying to steal GamerPro64's credit by lying. I had no clue that I was to communicate. Gamingforfun365 (talk) 02:49, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Laser brain: and @Other FAC coordinators: May I please remove the above two comments about an argument, as I find it offensive and it makes me seem like the bad guy? I just want to drop it. Gamingforfun365 (talk) 06:17, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
From FAC: "Nominators who are not significant contributors to the article should consult regular editors of the article before nominating it." If you are not going to take the time to read the full page, you probably shouldn't be worried about FACs. -- ferret (talk) 02:55, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose on procedure. The nominator has made only about 3% of the edits and less than 1% of the text content, see here. It's clear that the nomination does not have the support of those who wrote most of the text, and there must be doubts as to whether the nominator is equiped to address the issues Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:45, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose Largely the same reasoning as Jimfbleak. Nominator is not a significant contributor and did not consult significant contributors. Evidently this, along with the nominator's previous FAC nomination, demonstrates that they have not bothered to read WP:FAC and do not understand what makes a Featured Article. --The1337gamer (talk) 11:25, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Closing comment: I am closing this, mainly for procedural reasons given the two early opposes on these grounds. To quote from the FAC instructions: "Nominators must be sufficiently familiar with the subject matter and sources to deal with objections during the featured article candidates (FAC) process. Nominators who are not significant contributors to the article should consult regular editors of the article before nominating it." Additionally, I don't want a precedent setting here. The primary contributor says that they would like the nomination to progress to see what happens, but that isn't really how FAC works. When it is considered to meet the FA criteria, it should be nominated; in any case, it cannot be renominated until the usual two weeks have passed. Sarastro1 (talk) 12:19, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Sarastro1 via FACBot (talk) 12:13, 2 January 2017 [26].

Mikhail Petrovich Petrov (general) edit

Nominator(s): Kges1901 (talk) 20:52, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about a Soviet general and Hero of the Soviet Union who commanded the 50th Army who died in the early stages of the Battle of Moscow. I believe this article meets the Featured Article criteria and want to improve it so it does if it does not in the opinion of other editors. Kges1901 (talk) 20:52, 12 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Coord note

Procedural note -- Per FAC instructions, you're only allowed one solo nomination at a time unless given leave to open another by the coordinators. Now I can see that Divisional Cavalry Regiment (New Zealand) is reasonably close to being promoted, so you can continue with both noms as we'd normally grant leave in such a case anyway, but in future please make a request on WT:FAC or to the coordinators directly. Feel free to hat this note after acknowledging. Tks/cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:27, 13 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thanks, I'll remember that next time. Kges1901 (talk) 08:12, 13 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Support per my GA review and A-class review. Regards, Krishna Chaitanya Velaga (talk • mail) 00:26, 13 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Support on prose per standard disclaimer. I've looked at the changes made since I reviewed this for A-class. These are my edits. - Dank (push to talk) 02:01, 13 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments: nice work so far, thanks for your efforts. I have a couple of suggestions: AustralianRupert (talk) 07:43, 14 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • in the References lists, some of the authors probably could be wikilinked, for instance Ericson and Glantz, and any others if they have articles
  • suggest adding alt text for the images
  • do the sources give his parents' names?
    • No, aside from the obvious that his father was Pyotr Petrov. Kges1901 (talk) 08:31, 14 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • do the sources state if he married and had a family?
    • Petrov probable married because his son is mentioned in one book, but I wasn't able to find the name of his wife if he had one, or if he had other children besides Alexander Mikhailovich Petrov. Kges1901 (talk) 08:31, 14 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • "became an armor officer" --> "became an armored corps officer"?
  • I'm not sure that the decoration icons in the infobox meet the requirements of MOS:ICON: happy to discuss further if necessary
    • FA-class Ivan Bagramyan and A-class Roza Shanina used the icons. Kges1901 (talk) 08:35, 14 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
      • My concern is that the icons are purely decorative, serving no navigational purpose. I'd argue that that also applies to he articles cited above. It's not a major issue, and one I'm sure that there are competing opinions on, so I won't die in a ditch over it. Regards, AustralianRupert (talk) 02:06, 15 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • the infobox mentions an Order of the Red Star, but this doesn't appear in the body of the article. Can something be added about this?
    • I am unsure where to add this, because all I have found is that he received the Order of the Red Star, but not when he received it. Kges1901 (talk) 08:55, 15 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • the lead says "mechanic at the Putilov Plant", but the body of the article says "worked as a metalworker at the Putilov Plant" --> this seems a little inconsistent
  • suggest providing a link for "cadre"

A few comments

  • "For his leadership, Petrov received the title Hero of the Soviet Union on 21 June 1937. He returned to the Soviet Union and became a tank corps commander, which he led in the Soviet invasion of Poland. He led a mechanized corps in the initial stages of Operation Barbarossa and became commander of the 50th Army in August 1941. He became ...". I'd re-coordinate the personal references: "For his leadership, he received the title Hero of the Soviet Union on 21 June 1937. Petrove returned to the Soviet Union and became a tank corps commander, which he led in the Soviet invasion of Poland. He led a mechanized corps in the initial stages of Operation Barbarossa and became commander of the 50th Army in August 1941. He became ..."
  • "Petrov was born on 15 January 1898 in Zalustezhye, part of the Saint Petersburg Governorate, to a peasant family." Less bumpy: "Petrov was born to a peasant family on 15 January 1898 in Zalustezhye, part of the Saint Petersburg Governorate."
  • Does "also" add anything?
  • "In Petrograd, he came into contact ..." – avoid repetition: "There he came into contact ..."
  • "and fought in the suppression of the Basmachi." We shouldn't need to click to another article to know what on earth it is. "and fought in the suppression of the Basmachi Revolt, an uprising against Russian Imperial and Soviet rule by the Muslim peoples of Central Asia." ... or something like that.
  • later ... later. Tony (talk) 09:18, 15 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

  • File:Portrait_-_Petrov,_Michail_Petrovich.jpg: which of the Russian rationales applies here? When/where was this first published? Nikkimaria (talk) 20:11, 15 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Third bullet, publication date unknown, as I previously state in the GA review. Kges1901 (talk) 09:18, 17 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • If we can't demonstrate a pre-1943 publication, we can't use that rationale. Nikkimaria (talk) 11:51, 17 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Then should it be reuploaded as Fair Use? Kges1901 (talk) 10:48, 21 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, assuming no free image can be found. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:25, 21 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • The only source I can think of for a free image we can prove was published before 1943 are probably Soviet newspapers like Pravda, Isvestiya, and Krasnaya Zvezda. Kges1901 (talk) 11:08, 23 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Comments, leaning oppose for now -- recusing from my coord duties to review...

  • I have to admit the article seems a bit thin to me for a general's career, even one who died relatively young. For example it seems he did very little between the dates of 1923 and 1932.
  • The lack of detail also makes for awkward prose in places, e.g. "He graduated from the Transcaucasian Political School." -- this sentence just sits there, do we really have no idea when this took place?
  • I'm also confused about all he did in 1937: "...serving as a battalion commander in Dmitry Pavlov's tank brigade from October 1936 to June 1937. [...] Returning to the Soviet Union, he held appointments as a battalion commander and then as a tank brigade commander. In 1937, he became commander of a tank division. In June of that year, he became commander of the 5th Mechanized Corps." This seems to be telling me that in the one year (1937) he commanded two different battalions, a tank brigade, a tank division, and a mechanised corps -- is that really possible?
  • I stopped there as far as the main body went. On a more prosaic matter, I share Rupert's concerns with the decorative icons in the infobox: regardless of what might be done in other articles, the Hero of the Soviet Union and Order of Lenin decorations should just be spelt out and linked, like the Order of the Red Star -- apart from anything else, using icons for some awards and words for another is inconsistent.

Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:29, 9 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  • I found his graduation date and removed the icons in the infobox. As for what he did in 1937, the sources differ.
    • Parrish: command of tank battalion in Spain, division, 5th Mechanized Corps
    • Vozhakin: command of tank battalion in Spain, battalion (after return to Soviet Union), brigade, division
    • Drig: command of tank battalion in Spain, battalion (after return to Soviet Union), brigade, 5th Mechanized Corps
  • Tank/Motorized divisions did not exist in the Red Army until 1940 (per Drig), so if he commanded a division it would be from another branch.Kges1901 (talk) 09:52, 11 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I must say, I felt as Ian Rose does when I flicked through it on 15 October. Tony (talk) 12:32, 12 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Closing comment: This nomination seems to have stalled a little here. Nothing has happened now for six weeks and the kindest thing to do is to archive it. This may be a little harsh as we have three supports, but there is also a well-considered leaning oppose, and Tony1 had a few worries. No-one else has come forward, so I don't think we have a consensus to promote at this stage. Rather than leave it here gathering dust, it may be better to start again. My suggestion would be to wait the usual two weeks, but to use that time to get a little more feedback. Perhaps you could ask Ian Rose and Tony1 for their further views before renominating. When this is renominated, a neutrally worded message to those who have commented at this FAC would also be fine (along the lines of "[Article], that you reviewed at its previous FAC, has been renominated"), and if the images remain the same, you can link to this FAC to cover the image review. Sarastro1 (talk) 12:13, 2 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Archived_nominations/January_2017&oldid=762532884"