Wikipedia

Wikipedia:Featured article review/archive/June 2019

< Wikipedia:Featured article review‎ | archive

Kept status edit

Removed status edit

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was delisted by Casliber via FACBot (talk) 4:42, 5 June 2019 (UTC) [1].

Campaign history of the Roman military edit

Notified: WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome, WikiProject Military history.

Review section edit

I am nominating this featured article for review because this article was promoted FA in 2007, but now it looks quite under FA standards. I am mostly troubled by the bibliography:

Many of the sources used here are very questionable to me. Should a book written by Boris Johnson (!!!), or even Churchill, be included in a featured article, on a subject that is outside their sphere of competence? Moreover, Bury (1889), Harkness (1887), Gibbon (1776!), and Pennell (1894) are really dated; Victor Davis Hanson and Liddell Hart have dubious reputation; Holland, Welch, and Wood are more popular writers than academics. I suppose the criteria for featured articles were different in 2007, but I think this article should be delisted as it relies too much on sources that should not be used in a featured article. This was already pointed out during the review, but ultimately ignored. Moreover, few people curate the article, and there have been a number of unsourced additions.

The title is a bit weird as well. I would prefer something like "Wars of Ancient Rome", but that's a detail. T8612 (talk) 12:34, 5 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delist In my view this article lost its FA status. There're dozens and dozens of gaps of paragarphs or sentences without any citations which means this article doesn't support b1 of the B-class reviews. This article even doesn't use sources which a normal FA article ought have. Unless someone wanna restore this article I reckon this ought be a delist. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 18:09, 5 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist The article needs a complete overhaul which would change it so substantially in my opinion that it would need to be resubmitted altogether. SpartaN (talk) 22:07, 5 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist Which is a shame, but CPA-5 and SpartaN are accurate in their comments. Gog the Mild (talk) 11:30, 7 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Hi all, I'm moving this to the FARC section now, but in future keep in mind that declarations aren't generally made until that happens. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:02, 18 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

FARC section edit

Issues raised in the review section largely focused on sourcing. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:02, 18 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Delist per review section. I did some minor copyediting but I think this would require an overhaul to meet the FACr. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 20:33, 19 May 2019 (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 review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was delisted by Casliber via FACBot (talk) 7:37, 20 June 2019 (UTC) [2].

Terry Sanford edit

Notified: WikiProject United States, WikiProject North Carolina, WikiProject United States governors

Review section edit

I am nominating this featured article for review because the issues I raised about it in May have not been addressed. This article was promoted to FA back in 2008 and, as was characteristic of the time, the review was not very rigorous. Terry Sanford was a monumental figure in North Carolina and throughout the southern United States in the 20th century and had a long, acomplished career. Per WP:FACR 1b it is expected that featured articles be comprehensive. This article is simply not a full summary of all the reliable material out there on this man. Some things not well covered:

  • He suffered "wounds" in World War II. No elaboration on how he got those, or why he wanted to be a paratrooper in the first place.
  • No details on how or why he became an FBI agent (plenty found in the very underused source, Terry Sanford: Politics, Progress, and Outrageous Ambitions)
  • Many details on his personal life absent (see above source)
  • Sanford left the bureau to work at the Institute of Government (this not stated explicitly in the article), but there are no details of his work there.
  • No details on his tenure as President of the NC Young Democrats
  • No details on his campaign for governor against I. Beverly Lake, Sr., despite the fact that a whole book (Triumph of Good Will: How Terry Sanford Beat a Champion of Segregation in and Reshaped the South) has been written about it, not to mention the political effects of race in that contest.
  • Only two small paragraphs on his work for NC education, probably his biggest legacy.
  • No background on the establishment of the North Carolina Fund or evaluation of its success, and no info on his relationship with LBJ and involvement in the overall War on Poverty
  • Very little info on race relations politics (I added most of what's there), which played a very important role in shaping his image as well as the face of Southern liberalism and the Democratic Party
  • Only the briefest info on how Sanford promoted Research Triangle Park
  • Aside from a blurb about his views on capital punishment, not very much other info about his gubernatorial career
  • As President of Duke University Sanford had a very important role in trying to right the institution's finances and get more money by appealing to wealthier students (see here), but this is not mentioned.

I've made some improvements but right now I don't have the time to read three books and rewrite a Wikipedia biography. -Indy beetle (talk) 06:00, 11 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Update: I've since added more info about his education policy as governor, though details on his work with commuity colleges still needs to be fleshed out. -Indy beetle (talk) 19:24, 29 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

FARC section edit

Comments in the review section largely focused on comprehensiveness. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:26, 6 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

This reads to me as an FA standard article - no doubt partly due to Indy beetle's improvements - but I am not qualified to judge its comprehensiveness. Dudley Miles (talk) 11:15, 12 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Notes:

  • Bare URL in citations
  • Incomplete citation ( Sanford Holshouser Economic Development)
  • Incorrect use of ellipses ("Sanford was a very engaging extrovert....His vision in life was to help people.)
  • Incorrect non-use of italics (The New York Times writer David Stout characterized Sanford as ... )
  • Why do we have "also" here? (Sanford was also a staunch opponent of capital punishment. )
  • Awkward, cumbersome: Sanford was an assistant director of the Institute of Government of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1946 until 1948, then began a private practice of law in Fayetteville.
  • WP:OVERLINKing everywhere; I unlinked a few, but kept finding more.
  • Redundancy, why the "next"? (a position he held for the next 16 years.)
  • What is a "private career"?

Just generally needs a thorough going-over based on this; a number of these items were not there when the article was promoted (oops, passive voice, when I promoted the article). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:37, 13 April 2019 (UTC)[reply]


The lead strikes me as rather short at only two paragraphs. Nixon's article, an FA, has a 4-paragraph lead, while Strom Thurmond (not an FA, but a politician of what I believe is comparable importance, location, and era) has a 5-paragraph lead. While that's probably not in of itself a legitimate argument for delisting, it does reflect poorly on comprehensiveness. – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 00:56, 24 May 2019 (UTC) EDIT: Remove/delist due to the above, and for the following:[reply]

  • His gubernatorial career appears to occupy a disproportionate amount of the article; indeed, there's nothing about his early career other than a brief mention of his being a state senator (and no explanation as to WHY he declined a second term) and it's much longer than his Senate career.
  • It mentions that his death penalty opposition was used by death row inmates in clemency pleas, but does not elaborate on that or give examples. In any case it's the only "other position" in a section whose title implies that there are yet others.
  • Both of these issues (and indeed the lead) are symptoms of faulty hierarchy and organization that I believe would require a fundamental refactoring to achieve FA status.

– John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 21:40, 4 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Casliber, the bot hasn't gone through yet. My apologies as I am new here, but is something wrong with the template or does the bot usually take this long? – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 01:45, 20 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Errr....it is usually somewhat slow but you are right in that this is a fair bit slower than usual......I'll ask someone....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:46, 20 June 2019 (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 review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was delisted by Casliber via FACBot (talk) 4:03, 20 June 2019 (UTC) [3].

Age of Empires II edit

Notified: Giggy, WikiProject Microsoft, WikiProject Video games

Review section edit

This article was promoted in October 2008. Over the last eleven years standards have risen and this article has not kept pace and it no longer represents the best we have. There is a lot of unsupported information, POV/opinions and unencyclopaedic input. – SchroCat (talk) 16:28, 7 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The big issue is the "Single player campaigns" section. These don't seem particularly encyclopedic to me. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 16:43, 7 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Some initial thoughts:

  • The campaigns can probably be condensed down to a line or two for each campaign, given that they follow the very real historical events. It’s not an original plot.
  • The unsourced gameplay stuff can be pretty easily trimmed and cited; I think the stuff that would be difficult to cite is the minutiae and that can go.
  • The development section could use a prose edit and seems a little slight given the caliber of game AoE II was, so I’m going to look for retrospectives and the like to fill it out.
  • Anyone care if I straight-up spin out all the Age of Empires II HD stuff? All the DLC info and reception stuff seems like there’s enough content for its own article rather than this one. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 17:03, 7 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'd certainly co-sign the attempt, especially when maintaining an FA is concerned. I find that game FAs that get ported often start to degrade because of port articles feeling tacked on. - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 18:09, 7 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
      • Ditto from me. Go for it David. --Izno (talk) 18:55, 7 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

FARC section edit

Issues raised in the review section largely focused on sourcing. and significant addition of material that has now been spun out. Can folks - @Lee Vilenski, David Fuchs, Abryn, and Izno:...and hopefully others - please comment on progress? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:54, 5 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
At this point, I'd favour to remove. There are subsections (such as Single player campaigns) that are completely unsourced, which wouldn't pass a GA nomination. However, I don't feel like it should be all that difficult to remedy this. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 07:53, 5 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
I would prefer to remove until such time as the article is worked. --Izno (talk) 13:50, 5 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm still at the remove point. There is still a lot of unsourced material on the page (although it's only a fraction of what was there before) and 101 small, bitty MoS violations within the rather lumpy text. - SchroCat (talk) 19:57, 6 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for commenting folks it needs to remain here for two weeks unless something happens before being delisted. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:33, 7 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment In my attempt to find a source for the Wonders, I came across this. I think it's self-published and thus not reliable, but I found a discrepancy between it and the article; the article contains an unsourced assertion that the Franks' Wonder is Notre-Dame de Paris, while the link above says it's Chartres Cathedral. I have removed the Notre Dame assertion for the time being. I was not able to find any better sources for the Wonders on Google. (EDIT:Even the above website notes that building identification was the best guess of the Heaven Games community. I've removed both identifications in order to avoid repeating Heaven Games's original research.) – John M Wolfson (talk • contribs) 20:08, 7 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove - Pretty much explained by everyone else that this does not meet the criteria for FA in its current state. GamerPro64 23:14, 10 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]
  • Closing note: This removal candidate has been delisted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please leave the {{featured article review}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 04:03, 20 June 2019 (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_review/archive/June_2019&oldid=902626492"