Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Facebook/archive2

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 not promoted by User:SandyGeorgia 02:21, 30 May 2008 [1].

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Facebook

previous FAC

I'm nominating this because I think it has reached or is near FA status. Gary King (talk) 19:49, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Comments by Guyinblack25 (talk · contribs)

• Comments: I haven't done a full reading of the article, but after a quick glance a few issues stood out to me.
  1. In the "Features" section some of it reads like proseline. Specifically in the later half of it, each paragraph is segmented by a specific date.

     Fair enough; any suggestions as to how to improve it, though? Merging them might not work because each paragraph discusses a separate feature, and I would consider the dates to be fairly important for each feature. Gary King (talk) 06:29, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

  2. There were a lot of instances—mostly in the "Controversy" section—of "so and so cited that", "this organization stated that the", "they noted that it", etc. The "that" is not really necessary.

     Very good point. Addressed. Gary King (talk) 06:29, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

     A bit late for this, but I must say, the "that"s are quite necessary for proper English in the examples that Guyinblack25 cite above. I was wondering while reading through the article why "that"s were missing. BuddingJournalist 01:43, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

  3. The lead mentions about the sites popularity, but there is no section in the article for it. I'd expect to read some kind of reception infor about a site as well known as Facebook.

     I'll see what I can do. Gary King (talk) 06:36, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

If I have time, I'll try to give the article a thorough reading, but I hope these comments will help improve the article. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 20:38, 6 May 2008 (UTC))

• Further comments: Quite an informative read. I've never used Facebook before, but have heard about it from friends and in the new. It looks like some of my initial concerns have been addressed and the article is shaping up nicely. After giving it a more thorough read, here are some concerns I'd like to see addressed before supporting.
  1. The lead does not seem to fully summarize the article. It mainly just feels a bit unbalanced.
     • There is no mention of the web site's features, even though there is a sizable section dedicated to them.
     • Maybe include a small mention of the content from the "Funding" section.
     • The mention of the controversies seems small compared to the size of the section.
     • Likewise, the reception information seems much too big compared to the size of the section. (May not be an issue if you're still expanding the section.
  2. In the "Website" section.
     • It might be good to mention that the image is the default homepage.
     • The info about the "2006 study conducted by Student Monitor" the "Website" section seems better suited for the "Reception" section.
     • "...exclusive partner for serving banner advertising. This means that Facebook only serves advertisements..." Personally, I think "This meant that..." is not exactly encyclopedic phrasing, could you reword it? Maybe "...serving banner advertising, and as such Facebook only serves..."
  3. Regarding the "Features" section.
     • "Tags" didn't really seem to click when I read and reread it. Though the wikilink provided enough explanation, so this may not be an issue.
     • The last paragraph looks like it would be better suited at the beginning of the section rather than the end. Something to give readers more overview information to start with.
     • In the "Platform" section, this sentence sounds a bit off. "...which involves Facebook applications "spamming" users to request that the application be installed." Is the application doing the spamming the same one being requested to be installed, or are the spamming application and the application being advertised different? Or are there cases of both?
  4. In the "Controversy" section
     • Regarding the "use of the university's credentials for non-university business" that was later "rectified", can you elaborate a bit more on what was done?
     • "...allowed users to 'deactivate' their accounts. This meant that their profile was no longer..." Same as above though I don't think "as such" is appropriate here.
  5. The "Reception section looks like it mainly repeats the content in the lead, and only adds a little bit extra. Is it possible to find more information? (May not be an issue if you are still expanding it)
  6. What do the NYT and Mashable external links offer that the article doesn't already? I only briefly skimmed them and they look to offer the same info.

Hope this helps some. I've added the article and this FAC to my watchlist, so I'll check back in later. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 18:15, 7 May 2008 (UTC))

I've addressed all of your concerns. Please re-check the article to ensure that your issues have been addressed correctly. Thanks! Gary King (talk) 21:38, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

After another read through, there are a few minor issues I noticed

• In the lead, I think "The free-access website allows users to join networks such as a school, place of employment, or geographic region..." does not accurately convey the intended idea. Perhaps, "...users to join networks organized by school, place of employment, or geographic region..."

  I actually reworded it so that it reflects the exact same wording that appears on Facebook. Gary King (talk) 23:18, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

• There are a some acronyms (MIT and NME) that should have their full name listed instead of the letters.

  Expanded a few acronyms including MIT, NYU, etc. but I would have to argue about NME because that's what it's known as (check NME and you will see that the article's title is NME for that reason.) Gary King (talk) 23:18, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

• The image in the "Website" section should probably say it's the default homepage. I didn't know that until I clicked on the website's link.

  Reworded. Let me know what you think. Gary King (talk) 23:18, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

• Is it possible to find more reception content?

  I'll see what I can find but a lot of Facebook news is usually not about how popular it is, but I'll see what I can dig up. Gary King (talk) 23:18, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

That's about all I think of. The article has shaped up nicely. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 21:05, 8 May 2008 (UTC))

• Support: All my concerns have been addressed. The article is well-written and comprehensive, and the sources seem to be in order. Looks to be of FA quality to me. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 15:51, 9 May 2008 (UTC))

• You guys did some serious work here. A month ago, the article wasn't so nicely fleshed out. When I saw this nomination, I was seriously confused. I have to say "kudos to you" (the references are flawless). I'll probably come back some time later to point out more specific issues, but for now:
  • 1. The Stefanie Rengel image claims fair-use, but it has considerably higher resolution that necessary.

       Shrunk Gary King (talk) 06:29, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

    2. The image caption: "On Facebook, a login screen is shown for users who are not logged in," just seems awkward. "The Facebook homepage shows a login screen for current users at the left and an "advertisement" on the right which includes multiple reasons to join Facebook." My example isn't perfect, but something describing the page instead of simply "login screen" needs to be added. In my opinion, that caption is kind of boring, and 'log' is repetitive.

       Done Gary King (talk) 06:29, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

• Thats all I have for now. Good job! --haha169 (talk) 23:04, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

• Comment. What really lacks in website-related articles, is good and detailed information and analysis of traffic. I know this kind of info is hard to find, but it consists a major issue concerning websites. Anyways, you did write about traffic in the lead, but there is no mention of it in the body, which is a violation of WP:LEAD. Eklipse (talk) 07:14, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I created a new section called 'Reception' containing this information. Gary King (talk) 07:33, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Gary King, I fixed the incorrect threading; you might consider responding below the reviewer comments to avoid the messed up threading. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:19, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

It was 2:30 am for me so I was a bit tired, and just responded with the regular indents. I know how to do the proper indents, though, so I'll continue doing that. Cheers. Gary King (talk) 16:47, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

---

Comment - Why the subsection "Funding" is in the history??--Mojska 666 – Leave your message here 11:31, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Because it plays a big part of the History of the company. It was originally part of the rest of the History section but was then moved out because it had its own theme. Gary King (talk) 16:47, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

• Comment I'm not a big fan of the criticism section. I think it should be broken down by topic, which would be more informative and neutral. For example, a topic "privacy" covering privacy features (touching on beacon), privacy criticism, etc would be a much better treatment of the topic than only covering criticism of privacy in the criticism section. The section on the connectU lawsuit could be moved into the history section, etc. 140.247.241.177 (talk) 21:58, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

• Also the screenshot of the memorial group fails NFCC8, because we can understand the concept perfectly well w/o seeing a picture of it. 140.247.241.177 (talk) 21:59, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Comments.

"post messages to these friends" would work better...

• "Pokes for sending virtual "pokes"" - um...but what's a poke?
  • I don't see this resolved. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 04:13, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
    • It's resolved in the body. The lead is just to introduce it. Gary King (talk) 04:20, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
• "Privacy has also been an issue of the website, and it has been compromised several times by separate parties." - you mention privacy a sentence or two up
• "Initially, the News Feed caused dissatisfaction among Facebook users: some complained that the News Feed..." - use more variety...change second News Feed to "it", perhaps...
• "Facebook has been involved in a number of controversies" - duh moment....is this really necessary to say?
• "so they were "restricting access to it"." - you could end the sentence without this, you've already said it's restricted
• Why was it banned in Burma and Bhutan? You've only mentioned Syrian and Iran.
  • They're still mentioned in the lead. Please don't remove their mention; add information. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 04:13, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
    • The information was unreferenced and I don't know if they were true or not. Gary King (talk) 04:20, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
• It feels like there should be more reception information...surely there's more out there?
• Is an NME award that big a deal, considering it's a music magazine?
• External link could have a slightly better description

dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 03:50, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

All done. Please recheck. Gary King (talk) 04:07, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

• Support. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 04:23, 9 May 2008 (UTC) (see below)

Comments I looked at the sourcing of this article during its last peer review, and nothing serious looks to have changed since then. Ealdgyth - Talk 04:12, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

Sweet :) Gary King (talk) 04:14, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose Prose, especially some misleading and poorly worded parts. Examples:
  • "Pokes for sending virtual "pokes"" Having this in the lead with no explication of what "pokes" are will be confusing to non-Facebook members. I'd suggest removing it from the lead (where retail space is limited and explications should be avoided) and just leaving the description of it in the body.
  • "The website has more than 69 million active users worldwide." As of? What does "active" mean?
  • "Facebook has met with some controversy related to its founders' political views" Really? Nothing below on the founders' political beliefs. Link goes to a short, fuzzy section at Criticism of Facebook, which describes the political views of Peter Thiel, who is an investor, not a founder of Facebook. Additionally, the section and sources provided give little evidence as to a "controversy" regarding a connection between Thiel's political views and Facebook.
  • the website - This redundant phrase is used throughout the article and only serves to clutter sentences.
  • "while attending Harvard University." What year was Zuckerberg?
  • "Facebook later expanded" Dates? Later is quite ambiguous. Some form of "expand" is used three times in two sentences.
  • "and all Ivy League schools within two months." Within two months from April? Awkward placement, which makes for an awkward sentence.
  • Andrew McCollum - Who is he? A fellow student? Friend? What was his role?
  • "Zuckerberg launched the high school iteration" Iteration?
  • "Within 15 days, a Facebook account was the only requirement to join high school networks." Confusing. What was the process for getting a Facebook account then, if it's the only requirement?
  • "It was discovered that..." Why the passive here? Leads me to wonder, "by whom?".
  • "Microsoft announced on October 24, 2007 it had bought a 1.6% share of Facebook for $246 million" Why are there four references for this simple fact? Affects readability. A "that" would ease readers.
  • "Facebook reportedly declined an offer of $750 million, and it was rumored the asking price rose as high as $2 billion." Offer from whom?
  • "based on their projected revenues of $1 billion by 2015, comparable to Viacom's MTV brand and based on shared target demographic audience." Dual "based on" construct is awkward, and it is unclear what the latter one is modifying.
  • In the second paragraph of funding, the timeframes are unclear. "With the sale of social networking website MySpace to News Corp," Date? "Other companies, including Google," Date? "Zuckerberg said," Context?
  • "Users can also connect to friends" Is this the correct preposition here?
  • "which only contains advertisements that have been pre-approved by Microsoft and have an existing agreement established between Microsoft and the advertiser." Is this truly necessary? Makes for an awkward sentence.
  • "When compared with other web companies, Facebook collects as much data from its visitors as Google and Microsoft" This statement is based on an specific analysis with a specific methodology, which should be stated.
  • "and Status, which allows users to inform their friends of their whereabouts and actions" As far as I can recall, Status was never part of the original website, but I may be wrong. In any case, as far as I can see, the sources given for these features do not back up the claim that these were part of the original website.
  • "It then began allowing" Then meaning when? "began allowing" or just "allowed"? "This newly added feature also included the common blog feature of allowing" Why "newly"? Give specific dates instead of terms that will become dated. Tiresome repetition of "feature" throughout this sentence and paragraph.
  • I'm stopping here, about half-way through the article. Much to be done. BuddingJournalist 14:39, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

I have copyedited the article. Please take another look at it. Gary King (talk) 18:30, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Although I haven't yet reread the article, I'm striking out for now in case the article has been much improved. BuddingJournalist 17:41, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Still an oppose Prose is still awkward in many places. Structure of sections is often odd. Examples:

• "A cash flow statement was leaked, showing that during the 2005 fiscal year, Facebook had a net loss of $3.63 million." Awkward passive. Leads to readers asking: "Was leaked by whom?"
• Funding section is all over the place, chronologically.
• Why does the Features section begin with a short and incomplete comparison between it and MySpace?
• "Facebook has a number of features for users to interact with." "Over time, Facebook has added several new features to its website." Throw-away generic sentences. Note the presence yet again of the redundant "website".
• "a News Feed was announced, which appears " Conflict between past (passive again, too) and present.
• "while others were concerned [that would ease readers here] it made it too easy for other people to track down individual activities (such as changes in relationship status, events, and conversations with other users" Reader has to keep track of the relationships between the various "others".
• "Marketplace has been compared to Craigslist by CNET, which points out..." Try reading this sentence out loud.
• "Gifts, allowing users..." Isn't Gifts already explained earlier?
• "when its growth had fallen " Why is the perfect used here? Why not the straightforward and stronger "its growth fell"? In fact, the prose uses perfect tense in odd spots throughout. "Application spam has been considered..." Unattributed passive. Source given for this sentence does not contain any of its claims. I hope this is just a random mistake.
• "they asked him to build for them." Context? When? Where they fellow Harvard students at the time? First source does not match the title/author/publisher given. Again, I hope this is just a random mistake. I'm a bit concerned though...the two sources I randomly checked had errors.
• "The Syrian government cited the ban was on the premise that..." BuddingJournalist 01:19, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Source checking Changing to strong oppose. I was concerned about the sources from my findings above, so I decided to do a more thorough check:

• "More than 70 million people worldwide visited the website in April 2008." Does not match source.
• "The company dropped The from its name after purchasing the domain name facebook.com in 2005" What is the source for this? The given "source" is just the homepage of "facebook.com" before it became the current Facebook.
• "Press Room. Facebook (January 1, 2007)." Title and publication date are incorrect.
• "This expansion continued from April to June when it opened to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Boston University, Boston College, Northeastern University, and all Ivy League schools" Does not match given source.
• "At the end of the school year, Zuckerberg and Moskovitz moved to Palo Alto, California." Does not match source. Source says that Facebook moved its base of operations.
• "Zuckerberg called it "the next logical step"" Source does not put this in quotation marks. A big no-no! You cannot attribute this to him in quotation marks when he did not say this. Source also says the high school version launched in September 2005. No exact date given.
• "Initially, high school networks required an invitation to join, but this was changed fifteen days later to allow anyone to join." Given source says nothing about this.
• "By the end of the year, more than 2,000 colleges and over 25,000 high schools throughout seven countries including the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom had networks on Facebook" I could not find these statistics in either of the given sources.
• "Facebook had expanded membership eligibility to employees of 10 preselected companies by April 26, 2006, including Amazon.com, Apple Inc., and Microsoft." Nothing this specific in the given source. Only states that: "Currently, to join Facebook, you have to be associated with...[a] recognized company such as Microsoft or Apple".

This is all from the lead and the first two paragraphs of the History section; this means that a majority of the references in this part of the text had issues. This is quite disconcerting, to say the least. BuddingJournalist 01:41, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Is work progressing on this article? I see that the nominator has been active the past four days on Wikipedia, but has done nothing to address these issues. If nothing is going to be done, I will consider asking the other editors who have commented/supported here to revisit the article in light of the sourcing issues I highlighted above. BuddingJournalist 16:41, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I'll get to these later today. Gary King (talk) 17:00, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

• Support, per my GA review. I'd like to say that I strongly disagree with the removal of all the "that"s. --Relata refero (disp.) 14:11, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

• Comment: Image:Facebook.png does not have all of the "necessary components" required per WP:RAT (e.g. portion used, replaceability, etc.) Otherwise, images appear appropriately tagged and/or supported by NFCC (I agree with the removal of the "memorial" image). An image of an actual profile may be preferable to the "homepage" image, but is a matter on which reasonable people could disagree. Not caring either way, I offer it only as thought. (I realize there could be privacy issues; I write with the assumption that a "John Doe" profile could be created or doctored). ЭLСОВВОLД _talk 00:19, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Rationale updated for that image. Gary King (talk) 00:34, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

• Note, I'm sorry to see that Buddingjournalist had to bow out; please try to find someone to have another pass at the prose. I'm not a prose guru, so when I can spot issues, work is needed :-) Passive voice without attribution: Concerns have also been raised regarding the difficulty of deleting user accounts. More passive voice: Within a few months of launching the Facebook Platform, issues arose ... Many instances of consecutive paragraphs with similar phrasing, that lull the reader to sleep: Several concerns have emerged ... and Concerns have also been raised ... Due to its popularity ... and Due to the open nature ... Facebook launched starting two paragraphs, one after the other, and there's a third. Grammatical errors: with another hundred created everyday. Redundancies: Over time, Facebook has added ... These are just examples I found indicating the prose needs another run through by independent party. Perhaps Buddingjournalist can be enticed back ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:49, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm here! I've just been busy, so I struck out my oppose tentatively in case the article had been improved and my oppose from before the changes was no longer valid. I was planning on re-reading the article though. 00:39, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Not happy—1a and trivial links all over the place, which fail to meet the requirement of "professional" formatting: "privately", "undergraduate", etc. Why dilute the important ones? Here are pot-shot examples throughout; needs unfamiliar eyes to sift through all of the text.

• "high school version"—hyphen easier to read, even in AmEng.
• "$12.8 million in venture capital from Accel Partners, and then $25 million more from Greylock Partners"—Why both "then" and "more"?
• Scrub-up required: "Microsoft is Facebook's exclusive partner for serving banner advertising,[31] and as such Facebook only serves advertisements that exist in Microsoft's advertisement inventory"—"Only" as late as possible, please (you tell us where ...). Comma probably better, after "such". Is "serving" the right word? (I may be wrong on that.) "Exist" is ugly and over-elaborate; what's a plain replacement for it? TONY (talk) 16:29, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppose I've tried several times to review this article and each time I just can't seem to do it. I think that might be a reflection of its writing, which seems to be lacking, particularly in the lead. The lead should be strong and engaging right from the first sentence, and state why the site is notable, and secondarily, why it should deserve a featured article. I find the article right now a gathered list of facts, that though they may be accurate, don't flow together to give an entire picture of the site or the organizers.

• For instance, the first paragraph in Funding: the first two sentences report how much money was given to Facebook (I had to click on angel round to see what it was, and that should be clarified in the article), but the third sentence reports how much the company lost in a leaked statement. Is the purpose of that sentence to explore commercial leaks? Is it to point out the company lost money? If so, why is it not followed up in the rest of the paragraph? Why did it lose so much money?
• I think the article would benefit greatly by including topic sentences in sections and paragraphs. Funding for Facebook has shown to be (adjective) since (time) because of (reason)., or something similar. Then go into detail supporting it.
• A quote from a news story or magazine about the characteristics of the website would be a great opening to the Website section, instead of jumping into its features.
• A sentence proclaiming how the Facebook platform is significant and unique (with a quote, too) before describing the platform would be excellent. These kinds of additions help to make the article more cohesive. Although you're not telling a story because it's an article about a contemporary thing, you kind of are telling a story. It's what makes a featured article so neat to read is when you realize something you considered to be really banal (or in this case, something you use every day) just engaged you for an hour and made you think about it in ways you hadn't previously. I think it won't take much to fix the article to make it better, and I look forward to reading it. Good luck. --Moni3 (talk) 15:22, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Oppose - issues with references and prose as per BuddingJournalist and Tony. I have noticed some things in particular:

• The lead doesn't fully summarize the article as per WP:LEAD.
• "Due to its popularity, Facebook has met with some controversy." - It might be the lead, but this is ambiguous and simply tagged onto the end of the lead. Not descriptive and doesn't flow with rest of the lead.
• "Facebook launched a high school version on September 2, 2005; Zuckerberg called it "the next logical step"" - A "high school version"? I suppose you mean a version which added high schools, or a version intended for high school students.
• "Facebook had expanded membership eligibility to employees of 10 preselected companies by April 26, 2006, including Amazon.com, Apple Inc., and Microsoft.[12]" - Signs of redundancy. Try instead (notice company names moved before the date): "Facebook expanded membership eligibility to employees of 10 preselected companies including Amazon.com, Apple, Inc and Microsoft by April 26, 2006."
• "Facebook finally became open to everyone " - Is it me, or does this sound very informal?
• Funding section is awkard to read. "Blah blah invested ... into Facebook" is repeated in various forms. Why not alternate between Facebook and 'the company' (or simply don't say either, since the reader already knows that all these investments were in Facebook)
• Reception section seems very short, especially for such a well-known and popular website.
• Please get an editor new to the text to copyedit it.
• See Wikipedia:Peer review/volunteers and Wikipedia:WikiProject League of Copyeditors/Members for lists of copyeditors who can help you.

— Wackymacs (talk ~ edits) 18:15, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose per above sourcing concerns. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 01:34, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

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