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Wikipedia:Featured article review/archive/October 2006

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Kept status

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John Dee

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Review commentary

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Messages left at Filiocht (away indefinitely), Bio, UK notice board, Astronomy, Geography, Math, and Writing systems. Sandy 20:58, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Please note that the primary author, User:PRiis, didn't get one. (See Filiocht's nomination). I just saw this review, and have left a note for PRiis today. Unfortunately he's away too. Bishonen | talk 21:35, 12 October 2006 (UTC).[reply]
I do these extra notifications as a courtesy (the formal notification is the FAR template on the talk page); when compiling the original authors and WikiProjects on 423 articles, I couldn't read through the entire FAC commentary on each one. Thanks for the additional notification to PRiis; if more time is needed for ongoing work, it is always granted. Sandy 03:27, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This article was promoted in 2004. I think it's basically well written and saveable, but it has issues. Starting with the minor points, it has no infobox and a questionable number of redlinks.

On a more serious level, it has no inline citations, and a listcrufty "Dee in fiction" section at the end. --kingboyk 20:39, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Several problems: besides no citations and extremely listy, in the lead, we find a very strange sentence, with improper capitalization: "Dr. Dee (Or, Mr. Dee, as he left university before achieving his doctorate) straddled the worlds of science and magic just as they were becoming distinguishable." I hope that's not typical of the rest of the prose. External links is strange. Sandy 20:58, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • What exactly is wrong in having no infobox?
  • Any objections to simply delete the Dee in fiction section?
Pjacobi 21:12, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The weird sentence is a good example of the way FAs will deteriorate once the main contributor leaves or stops watching. (PRiis left shortly before it got that way.) This is less a problem of vandalism, which is usually promptly reverted, and more of well-meant but ill-judged, er, well, infobyte addition. I expect many main authors (most FAs are essentially written by one person, according to Raul) can testify to an inherent tension between the impulse to remove incoherent additions, and the likelihood of getting told that they're in violation of WP:OWN. All of it an argument for stable versions. Bishonen | talk 04:16, 16 October 2006 (UTC).[reply]
  • An infobox isn't mandatory for an FA as far as I know, but they're standard issue and present the biographical data in an easy to digest manner. That's not a key issue as I said in my introduction.
  • I personally wouldn't object to simply removing the fiction section; others might. --kingboyk 21:35, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I found the following unsatisfactory

He believed that mathematics (which he understood mystically) was central to the progress of human learning. ... It should be noted, though, that Dee's understanding of the role of mathematics is radically different from our contemporary view.

which begged the question: so what was his understanding?

I'm not sure about the wholescale deletion of in fiction that section demonstates his impact today. Quite a few well know authors have used him as a sort of iconic figure. --Salix alba (talk) 22:29, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know the subject in depth, but I think it would be a pitty to delete a whole section. Of course, it is listy. Of course, it needs rewriting, but deleting ... I don't know ... A sub-article could be created and keep just the most important things of the current section here. This is just a proposition. But what about the inline citations? Even if the section is deleted, the problem with referencing remains.--Yannismarou 16:27, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I understood his view of mathematics from the sentence alone. Had I not, there were other sentences that explained it very well. While an FA is written for a general reader, it's also supposed to be a generally educated reader. From Pythagoras through Newton, and into some contemporary mathematicians, mathematics has been understood by some people to be real and not proportional. In other words, in the real mof ideal forms, mathematics is the supreme truth (cf. Plato in Timaeus). Dee saw mathematics in this way: math was a truth beyond the existential: it was essentialist. We don't generally think of it that way, these days, as most Platonic Idealism is rejected, but Dee did. Geogre 15:01, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Lacks inline citations (1. c. violation), and the "Dee in fiction" section needs a vast rewrite from its poor listy format into readable, fluent prose that's cohesive throughout. LuciferMorgan 17:55, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concern is lack of citations. Marskell 09:41, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep per my comment above. --Ghirla -трёп- 10:55, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I tagged the biography section in order to show what the article needs. "Reputation" needs also referencing. This was just an example of what the article needs. Let me give you another example:
  • Arthur was also an alchemist and hermetic author. John Aubrey gives the following description of Dee: "He was tall and slender. He wore a gown like an artist's gown, with hanging sleeves, and a slit.... A very fair, clear sanguine complexion... a long beard as white as milk. A very handsome man." This is a quote. Quotes should always be citated. Where is the citation?
  • And of course it is not correct that only disputed assertions should be ciated. Every assessment, quote, reported historical event or referred printed source should be citated. And this article fails these criteria.
  • "Casaubon, who believed in the reality of spirits, argued in his introduction that Dee was acting as the unwitting tool of evil spirits when he believed he was communicating with angels." Where did he argue that? Citation needed. General reference inadequate for a FA.
    • See earlier in the same paragraph "[sold Dee's] manuscripts to the scholar Méric Casaubon, who published them in 1659, together with a long introduction critical of their author, as A True & Faithful Relation of What passed for many Yeers between Dr. John Dee (A Mathematician of Great Fame in Q. Eliz. and King James their Reignes)...". Not every citation need be a footnote; insisting on "Casaubon, op. cit.: Introduction" would add nothing. . Septentrionalis 22:30, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • "There is doubt, however, that an organized Rosicrucian movement existed during Dee's lifetime, and no evidence that he ever belonged to any secret fraternity." Here we have somebody who "doubts" another assertion. But we donot know who's this person, because we have no citation. According to your own argument Ghirla, here we need a citation!
  • "As a result of this re-evaluation, Dee is now viewed as a serious scholar and appreciated as one of the most learned men of his day." Viewed by whom? Citation needed. We have no verifiable source to support the specific assertion (and verifiable sources are of course a fundamental FA criterion).
  • "The centrality of mathematics to Dee's vision makes him to that extent more modern than Francis Bacon, though some scholars believe Bacon purposely downplayed mathematics in the anti-occult atmosphere of the reign of James I." "Some scholar believe", while obviously others "do not believe the same thing". Therefore, we have another "disputed assertion". Don't we need a citation here? In any case, "some scholars" without a citation are weasel words and weasel words are inacceptable in FAs.
  • "Dee's most long-lasting practical achievement may be his promotion of mathematics outside the universities." Curious expression in every respect. It "may be" his most important achievement?! But it "may also not be"?!! Who say it "may be" and who says it "may not be"? Rewording and referencing needed here.--Yannismarou 11:20, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It would be a marginally better article if all of these were more specific; but there are three modern lives of Dee cited in full in the references. Adding the three of these to each sentence is a triviality. Would details on these, which no-one has yet denied, improve the article? Would they be worth the bits? Septentrionalis 22:30, 26 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No, with these improvements the article would be an article fulfilling FA criteria, something that it is not doing now. As it is now this article would never pass FAC (as it is FAC now). I insist on this point, because I think it is totally unfair for all these Wikipedians who are nowadays striving to upgrade their articles to FA status and also strive to properly citate them, including at least one inline citation for each paragraph and sometimes one inline citation for each sentence. If we kee totally uncitated article like this as FA, I'm afraid we show no respect to their efforts and we apply double standard in similirar cases (this particular article in FARC and all the others in FAC - e.g., Salvador Dali's FAC was blocked for some time, because the editor of the article could not citate one particular sentence - and during my Demosthenes' FAC a reviewer placed a [citation needed] in one particular sentence I had not citated, although I had about 150 citations in total). In this specific case, the mere and unspecified presence of references at the end of the article is not enough. The use of this sources is not specified. It will be specified when every assessment of this article will be verified with a verifiable inline citation. This is the rule FAC applies nowadays and I think this is the principle we should also apply. And instead of having this theoritical discussion, it would be much better if somebody could go through the article and add the necessary citations so as the article no to lose its FA status. This is the real solution to the present problem - not the questioning of an existing and obvious problem.--Yannismarou 07:42, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Bah! May work so sometimes, and sometimes it's at best silly. Before in-line citing it was a biography article based on three well accepted, large biographies of Dee. If someone had doubts about it, or want to kown, he can read one of those.
Now it looks like specific sentences come from specific sources, of rather mixed quality. Referencing an encyclopedia article by another encyclopedia article? With all due respect to the EB, this isn't good practice.
And as a highlight, referencing Around the same time the True and Faithful Relation was published, members of the Rosicrucian movement claimed Dee as one of their number. There is doubt, however, that an organized Rosicrucian movement existed during Dee's lifetime, and no evidence that he ever belonged to any secret fraternity. with a reference to the Hermetic Journal? Didn't know that there are peer-reviewed journals on alchemy nowadays. And that they count as valid references for English history? Also what exactly did the reference support? In my quick reading, it is just of the opposite opinion.
Pjacobi 04:22, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think if the books in "References" had been moved to "Further reading" then your claim would have some validity, but since they are still listed as references, I think they have to be looked as at general references for the whole article (which is precisely why I haven't moved them). Inline citations provide an important function in that they make us examine the statements in the article. Without them we can claim that the general references cover anything in the article, but since the article is dynamic this often turns out to be untrue (or at least unverifiable). For example, in this article it was claimed Dee married three times, a claim which all the available sources contradict. Incidently, the Ackroyd biography was added as a reference yesterday, so if that was one of the three it indicates one of the problems with general references being accepted as the sources of the article. If the article was static and peer reviewed then a list of general references would be fine, but since anybody can add any information at any time, demanding a minimum level of inline citation is the only way to maintain the standard. With regard to EB, I've argued against this in the past, but since we use a great deal of data from the 1911 EB and that is regarded as an acceptable source, I think it would be somewhat ridiculous to exclude the 2006 version on the grounds it is less acceptable. The Hermetic Journal reference is badly placed (it replaced the fact tag rather than being put at the end of the preceding sentence), but if you feel it is an unacceptable source I will remove that statement. Yomanganitalk 11:23, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Arguments over whether it should have inline citations aside, I was wondering if anybody has either Wooley's The Queen's Conjuror: The Science and Magic of Dr. John Dee, Adviser to Queen Elizabeth I, or French's John Dee: The World of an Elizabethan Magus mentioned in the reference section? I think some of the remaining uncited claims are too specific to have come from anywhere else. Yomanganitalk 12:50, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • After Yomangani's excellent referencing work I turned my vote into weak object. There are still two paragraphs in "Achievements" needing referencing and one more [citation needed] in "Biography". I'd also welcome a slight expansion of this two stubby section at the end of "Biography", but I don't think that this is a major problem. They are quite fine even with their present form.--Yannismarou 17:46, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There is some more information that can be used to fill out both of those sections, but it needs collating and checking from the different sources - I'll come back to those once I have finished filling in the references (I'm having trouble with the last one in "Biography"). Yomanganitalk 18:19, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The subsections 'Thought' and 'Dee in fiction' under 'Achievements' still need inline citations. LuciferMorgan 02:23, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I agree for "Thought". For "Dee in fiction" I'm not absolutely sure that citations are needed (they would be, of course, welcomed). Recognizing the great improvements done in the article, I turn my vote into Weak keep, waiting for the minor remaining improvements.--Yannismarou 07:17, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I won't change my vote until my concerns are addressed, indeed the people at FAC wouldn't change their vote if they still had minor gripes. "Thought" is a major 'original research' concern unless inline cites are added. LuciferMorgan 11:11, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'll look at those. Yomanganitalk 11:23, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Military history of Puerto Rico

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Review commentary

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MilHist and Marine 69-71 already notified. Message left at Puerto Rico Project. Sandy 15:16, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Some of the main issues with this article:

-Does not have a single citation despite the fact that it is 61 kb long. Needs more citations.

-The lead is insufficient and too short for a featured article.

-Needs significant copyediting. The prose is less than brilliant to say the least.

-Comprehensiveness could be potentially be an issue. The article does not note any military events prior to the arrival of Europeans. That could be because there were no significant ones, but the article needs to address this issue somehow (that is, Puerto Rico's military history in all the millennia prior to the coming of the Spanish).

I have a left message on the talk page and will also contact the individual who nominated the article for Featured status.UberCryxic 02:45, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment There are 26 {{inote}}s in the article. Footnotes are not the only citation method.
Furthermore, the indigenous people of Puerto Rico (Taíno at the time) had no written language, thus their military events are not part of recorded history. It is known that they were at war with the neighbouring Caribs but details are scant. The recorded military history of Puerto Rico begins with the arrival of Europeans in 1493. Joelito (talk) 03:48, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Can you please explain what those inotes are? I've never heard of them before and don't know how to look for them. And if I don't know how to look for them, it is likely others will find themselves in the same situation, which is a big problem, even if this article was cited to the ends of the Earth. Right now I can't identify any sort of citations in this article. Either way, even that is still not enough. There are quotes that go uncited.
Regardless of the fact that recorded military history in Puerto Rico started with the arrival of Europeans, there have probably been some historical studies done on Puerto Rico about life before the Europeans. These must have described war somehow. If so, they should be included in the article, regardless of the level of detail they contain.UberCryxic 04:38, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have converted the inotes to cite.php.
I will try to dig up any info on war events before 1493 but it will be difficult. The only good Taino reference I have is Rouse which is primarily an archeological book. It goes into some small details of warfare such as the use of bow and arrow, the election of temporary warchiefs, and the use of red paint. I will have to read the book in detail again because I was not looking for military info when I read it the first time.Joelito (talk) 05:14, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I consider this a "bad faith" nomination. Before the Spaniards arrived there was "no written history" of Puerto Rico. I would like to quote the words of a user on that subject:

"History my friends, is not a past event as many of you out there think; history is the interpretation of that event. That is, an event happens and nobody knows about it, that then is not history; it becomes history when somebody writes about it or speaks about it. It is a big misunderstanding to think of history as an event in the past. History is an academic discipline that one gets to study with its sets of rules and methods for doing it; methodology is called. Now, there is no previous [military history] before Columbus times by the simple reason that nobody has ever written about it, or has documented it in any other mean whatsoever. Of course there had to be some fighting between clans or tribes; somebody knows about them? The answer is no, there is no history to it."

There 26 "inote references" plus 11 references and 6 "External links". The article passed its peer review and was vote a "Featured Article". It has already been identified as one of the "best articles" produced by the Wikipedia community. Military history of Puerto Rico already appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on June 30, 2005. On July 3, 2006 it was selected for the featured article queue of the War Portal and on August 2, 2006 was selected for the Version 0.5 release of Wikipedia.

The article is constently updated and now someone wants it unfeatured?

I consider this nomination not only an insult to myself but, to all those who spent countless hours working on it making it one of the Pedias best. This is one of the reasons why I longer strife to have another featured article in the pedia and why at times I feel like quiting. The only thing that keeps me going here is that I owe myself to my people.

Tony the Marine 06:25, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tony, don't you know that in Wikipedia we should assume good faith? Does UberCryxic have any special reason to insult you personally? Does he know you personally? Do you know anything about him? Have you learnt his history in Wikipedia? Do you know, for instance, that he has nominated 4 FAs and that he is one of the best contributors in articles about the military history? You should have learnt these things before assaulting him.

UberCryxic just wants high standards for the FAs. And I want exactly the same thing. You should thank UberCryxic for his detailed review, not assault him. By the way, the challenges for a FA a year ago are not exactly the same with the challenges now. And I also believe that this article, though good, has some serious deficiencies. This is my review:

  • Very short lead. Tony, the lead should summarize the whole article. Is this a good summary? Do you honestly believe that? Check WP:LEAD and rewrite the lead accordingly.
  • In section "The English" one paragraph has no inline citations. The argument that "Before the Spaniards arrived there was "no written history" of Puerto Rico" is not convincing. There are always secondary sources. Weren't you based on such sources? Otherwise, who told you about these stories? You should mention your sources, even secondaries.
  • The last two parphs of the same section have also no inline citation. Mention your sources.
  • The two firsth parphs in "South America" have no citation. And these events are during the Spanish period. So you should also have primary sources. Primary or secondary sources, I don't care. Just mention them.
  • In "Puerto Rico" 3 parphs have no inline citations. Inacceptable for a FA article. Again mention your sources.
  • The whole section "Cuba" has no inline citations. Again, what are your sources, my friend?
  • "Spanish-American War" begs for inline citations! As a matter of fact, the whole article begs for inline citations!
  • In "Puerto Rican National Guard" I see no inline citations. And now we are in the 20th century! Again no written sources? I don't think so!
  • In "World War I" we have 6 parphs and just one inline citation. Again inacceptable for a FA.
  • In "World War II" I see some very short paragraphs; one of them is an one-sentence paragrpah. Merge them or expand them. Such paragraphs are not recommended for FAs.
  • In "World War II" again the first paragraphs have no inline citations.
  • "Revolt against the United States" has no inline citations. Why?
  • "The Korean War" has no inline citations. Why?
  • "Mass court-martial" is a mess. Insufficient iline citations and bad prose (tooooo many one-sentence paragraphs and incoherent writing).
  • "Cuban Missile Crisis" also has no sources and seems to me a bit stubby. It could be a bit expanded.
  • "Vietnam War" has no inline citations. Why? Again, what are your sources?
  • "Vietnam War" is also too listy. Personally, I donot line the prose.
  • "Somalian Civil War" is stubby. Expand it or merge it.
  • "Afghanistan and Iraq" has no inline citations. Now I'm surprised! So recent events and you mention no sources! Why?
  • "Military installations in Puerto Rico" is for me too listy and should be turned into prose.
  • For many of your inline citations (they are not many!), which are printed sources, you don't mention pages. Just an example: "El Grito de Lares: Puerto Rico's Revolt for independence, 1868 by Olga J. De Wagenheim (1990) Pub. Waterfront Pr. ISBN 0943862515". Where are the pages? You should go through all your references and find the pages. Otherwise, such references are inacceptable under current FA standards. This is a huge problem.
  • "External links" are not mentioned in the right way. You should also mention date of retrieve, and author (if there is one mentioned).

My conclusion is that this article is good, but at this specific moment it does not fulfil at least three of the FA criteria:

  • The lead does not summarize the whole article.
  • Sufficient inline citations.
  • Brillian prose (because of the many one-sentences sentences and one or two stubby or listy sections).

Therefore, this article definitely needs work. As it is now, it is far away from FA status. I'm sorry!--Yannismarou 08:18, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This message is directed towards Uber:Cryxic and User:Yannismarou, You know what? After having slept on the thought I feel that you're both right. I guess times have changed and somethings need improvement. I guess I was caught up with my passion for writing when I stated the above. Together with Joel, I will work to update the article to meet current standards. One question though, how about if it was called "Modern Military history of Puerto Rico"? thereby covering the era of the Spaniards onward? Tony the Marine 18:54, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Tony, you have my sincere apologies if this offended you in any way. I was trying to be as diplomatic, and at the same time effective, as I possibly could. I hope we can focus on what can be done to improve this article. It was not a bad faith nomination: when I first looked at it and delved a bit deeper, I did not feel that it embodied the FA criteria. Yannis did a great job at analyzing and highlighting some of the more specific problems.
About the title: perhaps you can name it that, but I just wanted to know if there are scholarly works that somehow describe warfare in Puerto Rico before the arrival of Europeans. These studies don't have to be that detailed; it's just that it would be more appropriate if the article had some word on the issue, however brief (heck, just a few sentences would do, as long as it's addressed).UberCryxic 21:14, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tony and Joelito, after you have some of the basic work done, I'll help with copyedit: I'm not a great copyeditor, but the other Tony is really busy right now, and at least I can give it a start if no one else is available. Sandy 22:04, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am willing to give the article a thorough copyedit after the main issues (citations, comprehensiveness, stubby subsections) have been resolved.UberCryxic 22:38, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is an article that can definitely be saved. I'm not a good copy-editor and this is the only reason I am not proposing to help with copyediting! But I'll keep a close eye to the article and I'll help as much as I can. I'm sure that thanks to Tony's determination this article will keep its FA status. By the way, I don't know if Robth has the time to help with copyeting. He is one of the best around here in copyediting.--Yannismarou 11:02, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]


I would like to, first of all, thank all those who so far have pitched in to bring this article up to current FA standards. I have adde the inline refs. and worked on some of the contents. Sandy and Cryxic do your thing, you have my blessings. Tony the Marine 04:25, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have given the article a copyedit. Others are welcome to go over it again and correct something I might have missed. Let me just say that there has been massive improvement of this article. On a second reading, however, I am somewhat worried that this article follows very personalized guidelines. That is, much of the military history of Puerto Rico as this article describes it seems to be just about a few individuals who did this and that for the first time. The following is one example of what I mean:

On November 2, 2003, Specialist Frances M. Vega became the first female Puerto Rican soldier born in the United States to die in a war zone. A ground-to-air missile fired by insurgents in Fallujah hit the Chinook transport helicopter which Vega was in. She was one of 16 soldiers who lost their lives in the crash that followed. On March 1, 2005 Specialist Lizbeth Robles became the first female Puerto Rican soldier born in the island to die in Iraq when her Humvee was involved in an accident.

Yeah that's sad, but Wikipedia doesn't care. This is an encyclopedia, not an obituary. I don't see how subordinating this article to a few personal tragedies and triumphs makes it encyclopedic. Where individual actions or titles are notable, of course, they should be mentioned (as in a major commander doing this or that), but in this case above, the incident is clearly not notable to overall Puerto Rican military history. There is little discussion about trends and progression among Puerto Rican military institutions (regiments, divisions, National Guard, and so on). The article certainly alludes to some of these complex features, but not strongly enough, at least in my opinion. I think it's fine if these personal stories are kept, but I want to see some more analysis on larger historical trends and questions surrounding Puerto Rican military history.

Additionally, I feel that while it's great that we are getting so many citations, it is slightly regrettable that many are from internet sites. A few more scholarly and published works would definitely help make this article more professional.UberCryxic 18:15, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The problem mentioned by UberCryxic can be solved by spinning content about individual soldiers into a separate daughter article, summarized back to the main article using Summary style, with one or two paragraphs. I suspect that doing this will also eliminate many of the less scholarly sources from the main article. I know it's hard to part with content that might interest some readers, but it will improve the encyclopedic tone, and the content could be saved in a separate article. Sandy 02:54, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the daughter articles. I have been pondering this myself. Furthermore I am in the process of gathering more scholarly sources to replace the websites. Also I am continuing to trim away the fat from some sections. Joelito (talk) 02:57, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]


  • It should be noted that all of the main concerns have been properly addressed. The citations even though they may not seem scholarly, are none the less from verifiable sources as required by Wikipedia policy. Puerto Rico's Military history becomes intertwined with American Military history after the Korean War, therefore there was a need to mention some individual contributions and personal achivements of some Puerto Ricans which American history books have neglected to acknowledge. Improvements will always be more than welcomed Tony the Marine 05:29, 6 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry to disagree Tony but this still needs work.
My time has been limited this week. I will try to work on it today. Joelito (talk) 18:32, 10 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have finished the ref formatting. I have hidden some of the refs as broken and commented on some as unuseful. Joelito (talk) 20:47, 10 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are insufficient citations (1c), LEAD (2), prose (1a), and comprehensiveness (1b).

Comment: Looks like some work has been done here. Moving it down to keep it on pace. Marskell 09:36, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. First, I'm most unhappy about the use of the linked term "War against Terrorism", which appears in the first sentence. The article in question has a template posted at the top stating that the balance is disputed. I agree with that sentiment. Let me know if you need me to explain this view further. In addition, that article begins by stating that it's a term used in the United States (thus, it's centric in national/cultural terms). Second, although the article is now fairly well written, there are still a glitches, such as:

    • "46 cannons were sent to the island ... to rebuild the city". (I've stripped it to its bare bones; this is an embedded meaning here.)
    • "the latter 18th century"—were there two of them? ("late 18th century"?); "try his luck as pirate" might be OK, but seems a little informal to me—does this come from reference 7?
    • "In 1811, Miguel Enríquez participated in the expeditionary force, under the command of Juan Roselló, which fought and defeated the British in the island of Vieques."—Doesn't the first comma make it harder to read?
    • "and dispatched Captain Balduino Enrico (Boudewijn Hendricksz) with the task of capturing Puerto Rico."—Just "Hendrickz) to capture"?

Needs sifting and weeding. Tony 15:52, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I rephrased, pointing out that the "U.S." and its "allies" refer to it as War on Terrorism. I hope that takes care of it. Tony the Marine 05:55, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Parliament Acts

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Review commentary

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Talk messages left at Morwen, UK notice board, Politics, and British Govt. Sandy 00:59, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • (i) There seem to be more references now (just turning the inline links to refs, I think). It would be nice to add Halsbury's Laws and Erskine May, I suppose. (ii) "Very short" is hardly an actionable complaint, as long as no major facts or details have been left out to create a lack of comprehensiveness. Indeed, WP:WIAFA requires featured articles are meant to be "of appropriate length, staying focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail". What do you think is missing? (iii) A couple of the sections are rather short and could be merged. In what other ways does it "just generally seems not up to FA standards"? -- ALoan (Talk) 09:44, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Both the "Uses of the Act" and "Validity of the 1949 Act" sections have lists of information that need further explanation, and should not be in list form. Beyond that, the Enacting formula section is odd and either doesn't deserve it's own section or isn't nearly well-explained enough, and there's basically no information on said "Recent developments". Staxringold talkcontribs 13:03, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I cleaned up what few references where there, but the article is still not adequately cited. If there are questions, I could add some cite tags, but don't want to pepper the article. Sandy 13:30, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you both for your further comments. We will have to see what we can do to deal with your concerns.
Why is the list format unacceptable? It would be less clear to have a paragraph listing the items in continuous prose, rather than a list, and most of the items in the lists are explained briefly. Perhaps the explanations could be expanded a little, but I'm not sure how helpful it would be to have a longer and more detailed exegesis on the Welsh Church Act 1914, Home Rule Act 1914 or the other acts mentioned - the short summaries in the lists look reasonably adequate to me.
It may help to pepper the article with cite templates selectively, so we know what you think needs a specific reference. -- ALoan (Talk) 14:45, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I can see how the cite templates could be helpful, I'll go through when I've got a bit more time (heading to the gym pretty soon). As for list formats, I just tend to see lists as one of two things. Either loosely associated information not worthy of further explanation of importance (the violation of this "rule" of course being things like DVD release dates) or it's a list of information that deserves more explanation but isn't getting it because it's relegated to a list. Staxringold talkcontribs 17:54, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I really dislike adding cite tags when the entire article needs inline citations. Will do if needed, though. Sandy 18:12, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I feel the same way as Sandy - 1. c. needs addressing throughout the article. LuciferMorgan 20:27, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Besides one inline citation added by Yomangani, there has been no movement on this article. Are any editors planning to work on it; if so, should we add specific ref tags? Sandy 14:18, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks for the reminder - sorry, I have been distracted by other things. Some "unreferenced" tags have been added to some sections, but more specific tags would help. -- ALoan (Talk) 14:25, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I started from the bottom (hoping others will start from the top):
        • (Weasle words and one sentence section): In March 2006 it was reported that the Government is considering removing the ability of the Lords to delay legislation that arises as a result of manifesto commitments, and reducing their ability to delay other legislation to a period of 60 days.[7]
        • Next section up, Enacting formula, is another (basically) one-sentence section, poorly constructed with no citation.
        • (Validity of the 1949 Act):
          • (Weasle words): "doubts have been raised by legal academics" - no citations for any of these concerns or who these academics are.
          • The prose is frustrating: Tony should look at it, as he would be better able to explain what problem is making the prose so tortured.
          • Another citation needed: Following legal principles established when the United Kingdom granted legislative powers to assemblies in its colonies in the late 1700s
          • One-sentence paragraphs: The first legal challenge to the 1949 Act is believed to have been made during the first prosecution for war crimes under the War Crimes Act 1991, R. v. Serafinowicz, but this challenge was rejected, and no record of the legal arguments remains.[3]
          • No citations whatsoever: Support for this conclusion can be drawn from the parliamentary debates on the 1911 Act, in which an entrenchment clause was considered but rejected, the Government clearly displaying the intention to be able to make such amendments if necessary.[citation needed] However, the 2005 decision was made on other grounds, so the question of whether the Courts could refer to the 1949 Act's Parliamentary debates was not decided.[citation needed] The 1949 Act was also held to be primary legislation, but of an unusual sort, since the Courts can rule on whether the provisions of the 1911 Act were complied with.[citation needed] This analysis also applies to the other Acts passed under the Parliament Acts. It was also held that the 1911 Act clearly permits the Parliament Act procedure to be used for "any Public Bill", and this was sufficient to dispose of the argument that the 1911 Act could not be used to amend itself.[citation needed] Effectively, the Court took the view that the 1911 Act was a 'remodelling' of the constitution.[citation needed]
      • This is intended as a sample only of the work needed: the prose is difficult. Tony should have a look. Sandy 14:55, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The title should be Parliament Acts, since the article covers both acts and "Parliament Act" doesn't really get a mention outside the context of the dated acts- can somebody move it? Yomanganitalk 00:02, 7 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are sufficiency and formatting of references (1c). Marskell 12:39, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Can somebody have a look through and see what still needs doing - I've added citations, and expanded and reworded some sections. In this case, I think the use of lists benefits the article rather than detracting from it, as otherwise it may seem dense and difficult due to the need to accurately represent the legal aspects which, in turn, restricts the vocabulary that can be used. Yomanganitalk 11:21, 13 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: As a jurist (though not in Britain!) I can say that it is fine! Comprehensive, covers the history, the jurisprudence and the problems. My only concern is the lack of more academic citations, in order to have a more in depth analysis of the theoritical approaches. The only academician I saw mentioned was the one in note 15.--Yannismarou 18:23, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Sorry, I've been busy on other articles and forgot to look back at this one - apart from the article mentioned above, I haven't been able to find any online primary sources for the claims that the 1949 Act was invalid, but since the rulings, proposed amendments and the article cited all refer to them, I considered them reliable secondary sources (anyway, I heard that retrospectively adding inline citations to previous FAs isn't necessary any more...boom, boom). Yomanganitalk 01:17, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, provided all of the referencing issues are addressed. Tony 15:24, 27 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, referencing looks good now. Sandy (Talk) 14:56, 28 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Homo floresiensis

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Review commentary

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Messages left at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Primates and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life. Sandy 21:49, 12 September 2006 (UTC) Additional message at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Evolutionary biology. Sandy 21:06, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nice article on the species, but there are a few issues with its content, most issues are to do with 1.

  1. The text is disjointed, and not very well written (many paragraphs exist of just two sentences). (1a)
  2. There are also some POV issues about the status of the hobbit, the article is set up (structure) and argues for the hypothesis that is is a new species, while the counter argument is not given much weight. (1b,c and d)
  3. Lots is paraphrased from the Nature articles, but the sources are not well identified. It is also presented as fact, rather than as a hypothesis. (1c and d)
  4. Significance section is weasley, as is the reaction section. (1a) They might be better merged into a section specifically about the discovery and publication of the original articles.

--Peta 06:41, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Under-sourced definitely. The Ebu Gogo paras are begging for cites (did the discoverers themselves really support the idea?). Last four sections need significant reorganization, as the species debate is brought up repeatedly in a disjointed way. I don't think the counter-argument is ignored, but clauses like "If in fact it is a new species,..." need to be introduced throughout, even if it is tedious. That said, this is probably in better shape than other 2 yr old FAs. Hopefully, it still has some watchers. Marskell 13:58, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The counter argument is not ignored- it's just presented in such a way that the pro species POV is overt.--Peta 22:54, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Needs inline citations, especially the "Reaction" section. LuciferMorgan 18:33, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment:Definitely under-referenced. Some sections are full of one-sentence paragraphs. This needs work as well.--Yannismarou 09:04, 14 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment:Regarding the "pro-specices POV", one thing that has to be considered here is whether the "pro-species POV" is the majority view in the scientific community (i.e., following NPOV:Undue weight). It's not POV if it's the majority view. The difficutly here is that there are, as of yet, very few peer-reviewed publications on this find. Therefore, simply counting references won't work to establish the majority view. A second proxy for number of publications might be to look at the amount of data and research that has gone into the few publications that are out there. In that respect, the original discoverers would be expected to have had time to collect the most data and do the most comprehensive research, and their opinion would have to be accordingly given more weight than that of others who have had less time to examine the samples. The main problem with the criticism section is that it introduces the counterarguments before properly introducing the objections. This seems to be a problem with logical flow, but I am not sure it rises to the level of POV. My own research area is neuroscience, not anthropology, but I have an interest in brain evolution, and I found some of the arguments made by the Falk et al. 2004 study concerning brain structure (reference number 14 in the article) to be quite persuasive. Perhaps dealing with POV here is more a matter of clearing up flow and explaining the data beter, not eliminating a "pro-species" POV. Edhubbard 07:28, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. It is significantly under-sourced by current standards. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 21:22, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment on above by Samsara. Again, as I noted above, there aren't that many peer reviewed articles. A quick pubmed search for Homo floresiensis turns up exactly 11 citations. However, eight of those are in Nature or Science, the two most prestigious scientific journals around. So, if you simply evaluate the quality of the article by the number of citations, it's going to fail the number of citations test, but if we evaluate the article on the basis of the prestige and importance of those citations, we may reach a slightly different conclusion. The current version of the article only includes four of these peer-reviewed sources, and doesn't always cite them where it might be appropriate, so the referencing can be improved, but the total number of citations probably won't increase dramatially. Edhubbard 21:45, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not talking about the number of references. I know that literature reasonably well. I'm talking about the fact that there are some long paragraphs in the article that do not indicate the providence of the material. References can be used more than once, and each statement made should indicate which reference supports it. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 06:23, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • The POV is a real issue when the article presents the species issue as fact, uses the dismissive section title "A new species?" claims that this is a "controversial issue" and then really gives no space to the argument as to why it isn't a species; in this case I don't think it is up to us to choose the new species argument over the alternative since nothing has actually been confirmed. The article is sill also pretty disorganised and the lead is out of date.--Peta 23:35, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I have managed to obtain copies of both Nature articles used in the article. Providing citations should not be a problem :-) Joelito (talk) 23:38, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment I have now downloaded all of the pdfs of everything I could find in the pubmed data base (Nature and Science, but also some specialist journals). Joelito, if you would like copies of any of them, please feel free to contact me off wikipedia at edhubbard AT gmail DOT com. I will incorporate the Falk et al. article, and the debate that it spawned, into the article this weekend. Along the way, I hope to improve some of the other references, and along the way, perhaps I can clarify what is proposed by the original discoverers and what the counterarguments are... since much of the debate in the Homo floresiensis debate revolves around brain endocasts and the suggestion of microencephaly, I'm not going too far outside my realm of expertise here. The Ebu Gogo stuff, on the other hand, doesn't appear in the scientific publications I've looked at so far, and is getting a bit further outside my comfort zone. How much longer do we have on FAR to get this back into shape? Edhubbard 19:45, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Thanks for the offer but I have access to the majority of peer reviewed and scientific journals. I have downloaded the majority of H. floresiensis related articles but I am currently working on a FAC I recently submitted.
      • The review process usually lasts 2 weeks and the removal process lasts two weeks. Both deadlines can be extended if people are working in the article. Joelito (talk) 20:01, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are writing quality (1a), POV (1d), and sufficiency and deployment of sources (1c). Marskell 16:37, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Moving this down to keep it on pace. Edh, let us know when you feel it's been properly improved. Marskell 16:39, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. Thanks for the heads up. I've gone back through the history since the article was promoted on Dec. 24, 2004. It seems that since that time, as each new discovery or analysis has been made, there was a small flurry of activity adding the paper to the article. However, there has been no attempt to really step back and look at the overview of the article, and how to structure it. I am starting to see the outlines of a bigger revision than just adding the references and eliminating POV. Another problem is that many of the additions seem to be made on the basis of secondary sources, such as newspaper articles, rather than on a reading of the original scientific papers themselves. I still think that saving it from FARC is reasonable in the next week and a half, but I'll be sure to keep you posted. Edhubbard 08:15, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Several concerns:
  • "Those who suggest that LB1 is a pygmoid H. sapiens with microcephaly obviously find such speculations unnessecary.[5][6]". Is this appropiate for the lead? I find the tone unencyclopedic but I have no idea what to do with the sentence other than to rewrite it altogether.
  • Reply: In their 2006 PNAS article, Jacob et al say "Most importantly, premature elaboration of speculative evolutionary scenarios diverted attention from detailed study of the morphological characteristics of the specimens themselves." (p. 13421). There is a probably a better way to phrase it, but this is the sentiment I was trying to capture; that essentially, speculations on evolution are premature until the species status is resolved. Feel free to rewrite as you have time (see more below).
  • The recent survival section is mostly unreferenced but it shouldn't be too hard to source it.
  • The last paragraph in the recent survival section troubles me. Are we speculating/ editioralizing here?
  • Significance has many stubby paragraphs.
  • Since there are two controversies, access and classification, should we merge into a single controversy section with subsections for each controversy?
  • Reply: I am hoping that the scientific controversy section will be large enough to justify it's own first level heading at some point, but since I can't work on it for a week or so, I leave it to you to decide, and then I'll pick it up after my conference. Edhubbard 06:42, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • The lead is too long; the third paragraph is not necessary at all
  • The shortness of access controversy makes it stand out like a sore thumb; some combination of reaction, access controversy and species classification controversy might be worthwhile since they all cover related information. Mabye called "challanges" or "controversy"?
  • The article still assumes that this is a new species; could use the liberal addition of "reserchers propose", "if the hypothesis is true" etc. Stuff like the long quote from the Nature editor (not really a specialist in the field) just add to the pro species/great discovery hyperbole.
  • In general the significance section is just really weasely
  • Ex links could use pruning
--Peta 05:30, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I've now read the 20 so peer-reviewed articles that are out there (some are little more than one page peer reviewed debates), and based on the state of the current literature, I think the case for a new species is much weaker than I thought it was when I first started working on the page. The main thing the article needs is for things like the "Species controversy" to be integrated into the relevant data sections. My idea was to integrate the debate by presenting the scientific deta that has been published, both for and against the species view, and then let the reader see where the weight of the evidence lies. My goal was to have a much longer, and more comprehensive section, but I've been buried under work. I am leaving for a conference (The Society for Neuroscience meeting in Atlanta) this morning and just have been too busy to really complete the project I set myself here. In the final version in my head, I think the scientific controversy will be big enough that it might still deserve a separate section. I'd like to see the article saved, but I'll be gone for a week (until Oct. 18) and I can't justify keeping this article in limbo until then. Sorry to leave the article in not the best shape, but hopefully, a little better than it was. I still have my plans for improving it, which I will do even if the FARC closes before I can get back to it. Honestly, though I'm surprised and disappointed that more people that work on the related projects that Sandy contacted didn't come out to help save their FA. Edhubbard 06:39, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not entirely happy with the TOC. I think some of those later sections can be merged/shuffled. Given that Ed is still up for working but not immediately, and that it still has issues as identified by Peta, I'm a remove. No worries Ed, BTW; you've done what you could and definitely improved the sourcing. I'd like to see this come back to FAC if it loses status as I think it a vital topic; you can work toward that. Marskell 22:00, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've done a fairly severe edit, removing most of the problematic text and reorganising other parts. If someone can source all the things that still have cite needed tags then the article is probably OK as an FA and will hopefully be further enhanced by Ed at a later date.--Peta 05:07, 13 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Concern over TOC has been addressed with this edit. Not a keep yet, however, as Recent Survival needs sourcing. Marskell 10:36, 13 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I believe the article is properly cited and FA quality. Only one paragraph lacks citations. I do not have access to the papers that support the paragraph. I have read websites that support the text but I prefer to add the peer reviewed references since they are more reliable. I believe everything is fully cited now. Joelito (talk) 21:25, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The article looks much better with Joel's changes. I am still interested in adding more scientific details, but as it stands it seems to now meet FA standards. Edhubbard 12:10, 22 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tuberculosis

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Article is still a featured article

Review commentary

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Promoted during "Brilliant prose" phase, no original author. Messages left at Medicine FAR, Clinical Medicine, and Medicine. Sandy 15:22, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've made an effort to resolve the organisational problems I found with this article. However, I am still concerned that it has only 13 inline references from 11 sources. Of its eight general references, three have abstracts available, so they could be easily matched with the statements they support. It may also be possible to obtain further sources from sub-articles such as Tuberculosis treatment. Others, such as Tuberculosis diagnosis, are similarly poorly referenced. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 12:35, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

First, you could use more images from here. NCurse work 14:57, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The article is seriously undercited, doesn't conform to WP:LAYOUT or WP:MEDMOS, doesn't use the highest quality sources specific to the subject area, doesn't cite PMIDs, has an External link farm, the lead is overly technical and not a compelling summary, the article mixes citation styles and uses weasle words. Adding images might make it pretty, but won't address the major problems :-) I've been working my way through the medical articles, and hadn't realized this one was so bad: all of the older ones should be checked. Sandy 15:30, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • A new user, User:Gak, is an infectious diseases specialist. He may be able to assist here. JFW | T@lk 19:57, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm leaving a note (hate to hit a new person with a massive cleanup job :-) Sandy 20:58, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Ha ha ha you think I haven't already been staring at tuberculosis for the last 3 months and shaking my head in dispair? I rewrote the TB treatment article with a view to gradually tackling the various bits one by one in manageable chunks. My current project is re-writing the latent tuberculosis article so it is less US-centric and actually applicable to people elsewhere. I've got together some decent references on my desk and I'm planning to do that over the next few days. The current UK NICE guidelines on TB are MASSIVE and dwarf even the CDC guidelines. Currently trying to recover from a weekend on call, so please forgive me if I'm a bit tardy. Also trying to organise a job move from Birmingham to Bangkok. --Gak 22:38, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • The WP:LAYOUT/WP:MEDMOS concerns should be relatively more easy to fix than the issues with sources. An action plan could look like this:
  1. Make structure conform to guidelines
  2. Mark up unsourced statements and references not within WP:RS
  3. Find missing or more reliable references as appropriate.
Sounds like it will take more than a week, with people being busy. Is it worth demoting the article? - Samsara (talk • contribs) 15:59, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You have the entire month of October, and more time is usually granted when progress is being made. The process is at least two full weeks in review, followed by at least two weeks in FARC. Any chance of making Tuberculosis the MCOTW? Sandy 16:16, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've made a start at adding more references. However, I only know the <ref>stuff by stuff in thing</ref> format so I hope this isn't too disruptive. TimVickers 22:55, 6 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • It looks good, Tim. The only thing you might do differently is italicize the journal name instead of the article name: it looks like that will maintain consistency with the cite template that was in use there. But don't worry about that: a layperson (like me :-) can go in and fix refs anytime - more important is for the docs to get the writing done. Sandy 23:09, 6 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've made a stab at reorganizing the sections to more closely conform to WP:MEDMOS, cleaned out the External link farm, fixed some headings to conform with WP:MOS, cleaned up the opening list, cleaned up some references, and did some copy editing. The article is still mostly unreferenced, though, and some of the text is awful. It also seems to focus a lot on the UK. It still needs a lot of work. Sandy 06:04, 7 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • The article now has a cleaner structure, better conforming to WP:MEDMOS, and TimVickers has added some inline cites, but the article is still vastly undercited and not yet comprehensive. Some important sections (Diagnosis and Treatment) are very brief, relying on daughter articles via Summary style, but those daughter articles aren't fully cited and are very technical. A non-technical, referenced, comprehensive, encyclopedic overview/summary of diagnosis and treatment would help. Similar for prognosis, in terms of answering basic layperson questions about the prognosis for latent and active TB patients. Some of the prose needs polishing, relying heavily on parenthetical inserts, which should be converted to prose. In terms of a global view, work is needed to reflect more geographic regions than the UK. Sandy 17:16, 7 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • More: some of the data needs to be verified and updated. For example, WHO says 1.7 million deaths annually, while CDC says 2 million. There are some specific incidence numbers from a media report which I can't match to any TB database numbers: relying on media reports in scientific articles should be avoided per reliable source guidelines. It would be better to cite that data from a health organization, and I'm wondering why so much specific data is given for London and not for other areas of the world? If it's because London provides an example of what is happening in European urban areas, that needs to be better explained and explored. Sandy 17:20, 7 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Some general notes as I'm sorting through the article:
    • History can probably be better referenced (was probably originally referenced) from the books now listed in Further reading.
    • Treatment, prognosis and diagnosis still need basic, referenced, summary rewrites/overviews.
    • The article is poorly wiki-linked, but that work should be deferred until rewrite is finished.
    • I'm adding cite tags as I go through it: I still don't understand the preponderance of UK-specific information, and the lack of information relevant to sectors of the world where TS is very big problem.
    • A physician needs to make sure "other names" and "symptoms" sections jive.
    • I've added inline comments, questions: do a text search on <!

Sandy 20:50, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment I feel the "Other names" section will need inline citations. Also the introduction to the "Prevention" section will need citations (as I'm curious as to where the three priority strategies came from). Good luck to editors - one could be adding inline citations until Doomsday (good work by the way)! LuciferMorgan 18:31, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • eeek, I feel like other names fall into the realm of general information. Maybe we can get an opinion from a Wikiphysician. TimVickers has been working his tail off on the article. Tim, where do you think it stands? I wish we could get a fresh set of eyes to look at it, to see what else needs to be done, but I haven't been able to entice anyone else over from WikiProject Medicine. Sandy 21:17, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, quite right. I've added citations for the beginning of the Prevention section and am going to be removing the strange focus on the UK. I also added refs for the Other Names section. TimVickers 21:40, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • FARC? TimVickers has made great progress, and I'd rate the article higher on FA standards than his seven out of ten: I give it an 8. But further review is needed, there's still some work to be done, shall we keep it moving to FARC, and encourage other physicians to review? The referencing is complete, quality of references are good, Tim and I have both worked at copy editing, but my remaining concerns are that we get a better overview of prognosis, diagnosis and treatment, another set of eyes on copyedit, and the blessings of several WikiPhysicians on content. If we can get someone to do this small bit of remaining work, we could possibly avoid FARC. Sandy 05:06, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Is there anything else you need me to do Sandy? TimVickers 16:15, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think you've done a stellar job so far, and don't see that there's much else you can do. I'm not sure what's going on with the recent anon edits, though—keeping the article on your watchlist might be helpful? Since I'm a layperson, I'm having a hard time sorting out vandalism from legitimate edits. Sandy 16:57, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I'll keep an eye on things. Just drop me a note if you need anything else done. TimVickers 17:00, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - All inline citations citing web sources need the date they were last accessed. If they then become dead links, they can be retrieved more easily using the Wayback Machine on www.archive.org. Minor work needs to be done to the article (a few more cites here and there maybe), but insufficient enough for me to vote it for FARC. I think this article should avoid FARC. LuciferMorgan 15:14, 13 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieval dates or PMID added. Need ISBN for Britannical 1911. TimVickers 16:07, 13 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've pestered the Medical Projects and Wikiphysicians, and no one has objected, so considering that the article is now organized, referenced, cruft cleaned up, and copy-edited, I think we can avoid FARC. I am surprised at the level of vandalism this article gets, though, and hope several people will keep it on their watch lists. TimVickers is to be commended for a job well done and a lot of hard work! I'll leave a message asking SamSara if he's satisfied. Sandy 12:59, 14 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's at the level where if I came across it, I wouldn't nominate it for FAR. On the other hand, I did come across one piece of weak prose in the lead, which I fixed, but I wonder whether there is more. I don't have time to read through all of it again just now. So if everybody else is happy, we can leave it at this. Regards, Samsara (talk • contribs) 15:01, 14 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I took that word out once, too :-) I'm not necessarily happy, but I'm not necessarily willing to FARC it. More opinions needed. Sandy 15:10, 14 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well I've stated I feel this one's a keep without FARC. If anybody does have actionable actions though, I urge admins to hold before FARCing so someone can address them. LuciferMorgan 17:25, 14 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concern is insufficient citations. Marskell 09:38, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think that concern has now been addressed, the article now has 65 independent citations, the large majority to peer-reviewed journals. TimVickers 16:04, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I would agree. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 16:24, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I also agree citations are fine. Unless another WikiPhysician appears and says the article isn't comprehensive for any reason, I'll be a Keep on this one. Sandy 01:32, 16 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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Review commentary

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Messages left at User talk:Phils, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computer and video games, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Nintendo, and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject The Legend of Zelda series. Sandy 00:48, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This article need some improvement. In light of the recent Featuring of high quality FA fictional characters, it has the following issues;

Way too many and somewhat repetitious fair use images which also lack rationales and sources.
No information on character creation and portrayal from outside of the universe.
Not sure if this is a criteria, but there appears to be a ton of information about Links relationships and other in-game information that may be unnecessary.
Finally, there are few in-line citations and in the old format style.

I will try to help with this, but I hope this article gets saved. Judgesurreal777 00:07, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My minor issues:

  • Many of these images are collages, and as such very difficult to source (since we need to source every single image that was composited).
  • Many other images are unnecessary. Why do we need an image of the ending of Zelda II when prose suffices? Why do we have so many images of essentially similar Links (the pre-N64 links, with the same outfit, hair, and essential appearance)?
  • Why is there a synopsis of every single Legend of Zelda game? We have an article on the series and on each game already.
  • More SSB cruft in Nintendo articles. There's a wholly unnecessary full page on Link in the Super Smash Bros. series, including detailed gameplay abilities.
  • Ditto for Soul Calibur II.
  • An extremely lengthy cameo section; this could be prosified or even summarized (no need to list EVERY cameo).

My major issue:

  • 99% in-universe content, 1% out-of-universe content. It's all "Link does foo in game Bar" and no "The creators did X for Y reason."

While I don't want to see this demoted, I'm not entirely sure it's even GA status right now. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 00:28, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

To make it clear, the minor issues are relatively easy to fix and shouldn't be a big deal, but the major one I feel is FARC-worthy. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 03:23, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also, there is way too much information in this article that should be left to Weapons and items from The Legend of Zelda series. Pagrashtak 14:28, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • I agree a large number of images should be cut. Also, the summaries of Link's adventures in each game should be drastically reduced to some standard size and focus on the peculiarity of the incarnation in each game, not provide a synopsis of the story. The cameos section should be pretty easy to "prosify". Phils 03:16, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
While they're not exactly at standard size, I had a go at taking out 'storycruft' in the adventure summaries. --Sparky Lurkdragon 06:02, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There are one or two promising hits at Google Books and Google Scholar for anyone willing to slog through the results. And there's always this site. — BrianSmithson 11:06, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, 90% of the problems are gone, including all the minor ones. As to the major problems, I am going to start hunting for references and going to massively start trimming the article. If anyone wants to help, please consult current featured fictional characters such as Jabba the Hutt or Padme Amidala. Judgesurreal777 21:55, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Whilst reading this article i was surprised to see the gold star - this simply isn't FA-worthy in its current state. The Video Games section is way too long, waffly, and full of crap. The Characteristics section is fairly pants as well. It needs cleaning up as in language, formatting, as well as more sources and more relevant information (and less non-relevant information). I'll try to help out where i can. -- jeffthejiff 14:18, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Someone please help! People have undone all the work I am doing on Link (Legend of Zelda) and I don't want to break to 3 revert rule, so someone please stop them from reverting everything I did. Judgesurreal777 03:49, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, situation under control, thank you to those who helped out :) But as you can see, I have a lot of copyediting to do, anyone wanting to help would be greatly appreciated. Judgesurreal777 17:34, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Of ALL our FAs, this is the LAST one I want to see go. I will do whatever needs to be done. Leave a note on my talk page if you are having trouble with something. The more specific, the better. Sir Crazyswordsman 20:14, 23 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm adding references to the story section. I could appreciate some help. I say three to five per game, depending on the importance of it. Sir Crazyswordsman 03:02, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are images (3), format and sufficiency of citations (1c), comprehensiveness (1b). Marskell 10:43, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The suggested concerns do not take into account any of the work done on this article, such as the lack of any current image issues. Also, on the other two points, A lot of work has been done, and it would be good to hear reviewers comment on how its going, as opposed to now moving to FARC with active work on the article. Judgesurreal777 12:18, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I say the issues raised have been addressed. If there are any further objections, please state them so those working to keep this article FA can begin work. Judgesurreal777 22:29, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
To elaborate, I was the one who initially wanted this article reviewed, little suspecting I would be one of the prime fixers :) The images, starting at over a dozen and many montages, are now 3 encyclopedic images with rationales and sources. The article is now comprehensive as it has a ton of concept and creation info, as there was very little before, and we have gone from 1-2 inline ciations to many many more now. Judgesurreal777 17:30, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. More images can be added, as can more citations. Most of the issues have been adressed though. The article is definitely comprehensive. Sir Crazyswordsman 16:42, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    The problem was that there were too many images, many of which were unsourced or impossible to source. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 22:49, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Frankly there will be disagreements among editors about what constitutes enough images. There always are. Sir Crazyswordsman 21:01, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. It does look tons better, so kudos to Judgesurreal. The cruft keeps creeping back in, though, so be vigilant. It's unfortunate that there's nothing else to say about the character's concept and creation. Are there other sources that might be consulted? — BrianSmithson 22:28, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm still ambivalent about keeping this. The cruft was annoying but not the key problem; there's just so little information here that isn't gleaned directly from the games, and a good chunk of it is of interest primarily to hardcore LOZ fans. (For example, a full quarter of the "Character creation" header is dedicated to explaining that zomg yes there is a Zelda continuity.) It feels more like an A-class than a FA-class to me, but I'm not sure if splitting that hair is worth it. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 22:49, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - We should fix the problems but keep it. As the Importance=high clearly states, Link is one of the staples of NES and Gameboy and should be portrayed accordingly in Wikipedia. We just need to bring it up to par. I'll help !! Renmiri 13:46, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, so I added a bunch of game references to get the ingame stuff set, but I see that many people are mentioning the need for concept and creation information. What specificially do people want added? Say what it is, that way we can add it :) Judgesurreal777 16:56, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Where did the name come from? Why'd they design the sprite the way they did? Did Miyamoto know the backstory before the character was created or was it kind of random as with Mario's design? What design decisions were made and by whom in the character's reinterpretation in future games? That sort of thing. — BrianSmithson 01:43, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Great suggestions Brian! I also did some wordsmithing, trying to make the section more out of universe and adding specific design criteria Miyamoto has mentioned on interviews. Have a look folks, see if you like the changes Renmiri 02:50, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
PS: The article is long and the Characteristics / Appearances sections look daunting. I suggest trimming it, though I have not had the chance to read it in detail Renmiri 02:50, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So, how's the article looking now? More has been added, more re written. Judgesurreal777 02:10, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Laika

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Article is still a featured article
Messages left at Zerbey and Dogs. Sandy 16:09, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure if this is referenced well enough to be a FA; and also the popular culture section at the end is mostly just large ugly lists. Mlm42 15:48, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment Agree with all the above points. The popular culture section needs pruning as well as rewriting - there are some very tenuous connections in there. If this doesn't get any attention, I'll come back to it when it hits FARC. Yomanganitalk 23:41, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've noticed another problem with this article - the images of Laika fall foul of the change to copyright status of PD-soviet (see Commons:Template talk:PD-Soviet). I've removed one that is about to be deleted from commons, but I'm not sure whether the main one can be saved with a fair use rationale. Yomanganitalk 01:37, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There is a picture on the NASA web site, I did write to NASA about the copyright status during the original FA nom but never got a reply. My opinion is that it is covered under the same restrictions of other NASA images and should be usable. It's unlikely that a free image of Laika is available anywhere else. Thoughts? Zerbey 20:31, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've been looking at that, and I think any real images are likely to originally come from the Soviet Space Program, so wouldn't be NASA images per se (they've got images of the stamps there too which certainly aren't theirs to release). However, I'm not sure about the "mock-up" photo - that could easily have been done by NASA, and judging from the fact the dog looks nothing like Laika, was probably not done by the Russians (wild speculation there). I'm trying to track down the original source for that photo at the moment. Yomanganitalk 23:20, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I just noticed that the mock-up in the photo at NASA might be from the model in the Sputnik 2 picture in the article (you can see something similar if you look closely), in which case it comes from the Polytechnical Museum in Russia rather than NASA.Yomanganitalk 02:03, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - I know I said I'd leave it until FARC, but I've nearly finished rewriting and citing this. The image of Laika (top right) seems to come from TASS, but I would think it is promotional material - any fair use experts know the correct fair use tag for this (I can write the justification, just unsure on the tag). Yomanganitalk 02:03, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I left notes for Peta and Jkelly. Peta knows animals, Jkelly knows Fair Use. Sandy 15:03, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to me that we could, in theory, make a good Wikipedia:Fair use claim for Image:Laika.jpg but both best practice (and policy would mean knowing more about this image. If we're claiming "fair use", we should have some confidence in knowing whose work it is and where it comes from. The URL given as this image's "source" is just some random website that is republishing the image without providing any information about it at all. Image:Russian Sputnik 2 Space Capsule.jpg doesn't have this problem, and just needs a fair use rationale like Image:Laika.jpg already has. Image:Opportunity-Laikia-soil-target-sol-400.jpg needs to be sourced to NASA (where did we find this?). Jkelly 20:46, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The Image:Laika.jpg must come from the Soviet Space Program originally, as there is no other possible source - before she was in the space program she was a stray and there was no after. I have not been able to find it formally stated anywhere though. I'll write a fair use rationale for the Sputnik photo and find a source for the soil sample. Yomanganitalk 23:10, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment (after cleanup). It's a fascinating read, well written and (AFAIC at least) captivating. Now has inline citations. --kingboyk 17:40, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment, there lead does a bit more than summarise the content of the article and is probably a bit long given the length of the rest of the article. Moving some of the detials about the dog to the body of the article would get rid of most of those cites from the lead (where I don't think they should really appear).--Peta 01:10, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Concur. Generally cites shouldn't be in the lead (which shouldn't contain anything not in the body; cites can go there), although there are exceptions (a lead in a biography of a human contains full name and date of birth, and this generally isn't repeated in the body; if citations are needed for these - as they are in the case of Bill Drummond, whose real name and place of birth have been confused in the past - that's OK I think). Anyway, it's a minor issue so whilst I concur I don't think it need prevent moving to close. --kingboyk 10:39, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I don't have a problem with occasional cites in the lead: there are times when they are called for, and sometimes I ask for a cite when an extraordinary piece of info must occur first in the lead. Since I don't usually object to cites in the lead, can you point me to any guideline which would change my mind? Sandy 16:35, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Found: WP:LEAD says the lead "should be carefully sourced like the rest of the text". I usually expect sources only for unexpected statements or claims, and don't look for general summarized concepts in the lead to be cited. Sandy 21:10, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • Exactly. The lead should be carefully sourced, but the lead should also be a general summary - ergo, the material can be referenced in the body :) (with exceptions of course!) Not coming from any policy I've read, just general observation of how existing FAs do it. Citations in the lead don't seem overly common. --kingboyk 14:06, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment, great work by Yomangani over the last few days - the article has been given a well needed makeover. Zerbey 02:17, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment . . . Wait just a second before we decide to keep this. I have concerns about the sources used. Three of them are self-published websites, and as such, fail WP:RS. The sites in question are the ones at novareinna.com, Robin Chase (angelfire? really?), and Sven Grahn. These may be wonderfully written websites, but, like I said, they are self-published, so have no editorial oversight and are thus in violation of WP policies. Can someone find some more reliable sources to replace them with? I doubt it would be hard; merely a trip to the local library (or Google Books) should suffice. After that, I think the article should definitely be kept. It's a great example of the kind of thing Wikipedia does best. — BrianSmithson 22:18, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to close FAR as keep. Only outstanding issue is Fair Use on image, and that is being addressed. Sandy 02:38, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sex Pistols

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Article is still a featured article

Review commentary

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Message left at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music. Sandy 02:13, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Promoted in brilliant prose days. Poor lead. Poor referencing; lots of citation needed tags (and more can be added). Abundant weasel words, POV, and original research. Not well written. Overuse of parentheses. I feel it should be moved to FARC quickly because I don't think it can be improved to FA quality in time. Punctured Bicycle 11:50, 30 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I left a message at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Punk music. Oldelpaso 11:15, 3 September 2006 (UTC)‎[reply]

Some work on referencing since the nom, but numerous cite tags and lack of inline citations, and issues above not addressed. Move to FARC. Sandy 02:09, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lack of inline citations are an issue (1. c. violation) with this article. Also, the inline citations there are need a vast cleanup so one knows who wrote the quoted article, who published it, its date of publication, ISBN (if a book source), the date an article was last accessed (if a web source) and so on. LuciferMorgan 16:36, 14 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

About half of the requested citations have now been provided. At least some of them (the ones I added!) do meet the above criterion. I'll see what I can do about some of the rest. - Jmabel | Talk 02:23, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are LEAD (2A), referencing (1c), POV (1d), general copy issues (2). Marskell 04:58, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Here is a diff. Some work has been done on refs though ce'ing remains; Jmabel, keep us up-to-date. Marskell 04:58, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I feel the lead section is too small also. LuciferMorgan 17:05, 16 September 2006 (UTC) 17:05, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Remove The article is a carry-over from the brilliant prose days, so it has never been through a proper FA nomination. The writing quality is very poor. The article is not well-referenced; I've added many more citation needed tags. The lead is indeed too small. Does not exemplify Wikipedia's very best work. I think this article needs a complete rewrite. Punctured Bicycle 18:51, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Weak and reluctant remove. This article is quite bad and I see some inline citations, but they are insufficient.--Yannismarou 14:17, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: While there are, indeed, quite a few statements in this article that could use citation and lack it, I'm pretty confident that there is little or nothing that is inaccurate. But some of Punctured Bicycle's requests for citation raise questions of what citations are for. They seem to me to come from a stance that our writers are supposed have no judgment or discretion. For example:

  1. Do we really need a citation that Radio 1 dominated UK music broadcasting in 1977? This is something known to literally anyone vaguely familiar with the time and place. It may be possible to cite for, but at the time it was so obvious that no one necessarily bothered stating so overtly. It's like having to cite for the fact that the members of the band all breathed air.
  2. Of the Pistols' last UK gig (a benefit for the families of striking firemen) should we really need citation for "the gig was considered by some as a vindication of their anti-establishment stance when they were, for once, united with what might be viewed as their true constituency, the dispossessed British working class"?
  3. Even more so, should we really need a citation to refer to "the band's state of disintegration by this time", given that the band broke up three weeks later? Or for saying that The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle "was McLaren's fictionalised account on the band's history, claiming he controlled and manipulated the band from start to finish", which would be apparent to anyone with traces of a brain who had seen the film?

I believe we need to think long and hard about what we are actually trying to do here: not just in this article, but in Wikipedia. In my view, Wikipedia should not be some sort of game of trying to set new world records for level of citation. It should be about writing excellently written, accurate articles. It is entirely reasonable to ask for citations where someone with at least some knowledge of the topic has some doubts. It is wasteful of effort that could be better spent elsewhere to demand citations for the obvious at every turn. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:48, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  1. The request is really for "Coming at a time when deference to royalty was still a predominant trait in both the establishment and the country as a whole, it caused tremendous public outcry"
  2. Yes, of course we need a citation for that. Why wouldn't we?
  3. Now that I look at it I think the "disintegration" part should be broken out into its own sentence(s) and expanded upon, or just deleted and saved entirely for the "breakup of the band" section. The article makes a massive leap from Never Mind the Bollocks to "disintegration" of the band without any explanation. I agree that the film is self-evident and doesn't necessarily need a cite (the "controlled and manipulated" triggered the citation needed alarm).

I did not add the citation needed tags as part of a game. Inline citations are required of featured articles. I feel that the majority of my requests are reasonable. It is not obvious to me that Le Bomb was one of their potential names, that Bruce Foxton of The Jam accused them of plagiarism, that they held a secret tour in August 1977, that they are planning a Japanese tour in the near future, that "There is no future ... and England's dreaming" is a de facto position statement for British punk, that Rotten bluffed the breakup of the band, that Vicious was beaten by the bodyguards he hired, and so on. Punctured Bicycle 09:27, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The examples given in the last paragraph, I agree with you, need citations. - Jmabel | Talk 21:48, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: Have resolved about 80% of Punctured Bicycle citation requests (good work there bike, btw), but a remaining section - "Influences and cultural legacy" - though crucial to the article, in it current form is purly orgional research, & POV. I can't cite that stuff, move that it's deleted, at least until rewritten. The whole article, while contaning an exhaustive & well detailed history of the band, is ridden with trivia and needs serious toning down, copy editing etc. I'll try, but i'm not the best copy editor, Coil00 23:28, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Nice effort. Just a remark: Inline citations go straight after the punctuation and without a gap without the punctuation and the citation. If you can't citate this section, write it for scratch with your own sources. This is my suggestion.--Yannismarou 17:03, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like this has now been pretty much brought in line with current standards. I would think that at this point the burden should be on those who think if falls short. - Jmabel | Talk 02:49, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

    • Second look subsequent to additional work done:
      • The references have been sufficiently expanded to encompass bibliographic information, but they use an inconsistent bibliographic style. That is not an objection, but it would help to clean them up, using a consistent style.
      • Are all of those External links good and reliable sources, or are any of them just adverts? Refer to WP:NOT and WP:EL.
      • Discography: what source does one use to confirm the #'s ?
        • I have an encyclopedia of music somewhere in my attic, it may have the postitions - will try and dig it out Coil00 22:26, 3 October 2006 (UTC). My attic does not contain the positions. - Coil00 21:55, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Is this OR? The lead should summarize the article, but I can't find further mention of this in the article. "While their English contemporaries such as The Clash were perhaps more politically motivated, The Damned more versatile, and Buzzcocks had more astute pop sensibilities, "
        • I had had the same thought and removed. The Pistols are more iconic than the Clash but I don't know if they've had "more recognition." In any case, personal judgements don't belong.
      • I can't determine a source for the entire incident in EMI and the Grundy, beginning with the sentence: "However, it was the band's behavior that gained them their first national exposure:" Since it includes "(ie, they had consumed a large amount of alcohol)", it seems to require a cite. The ie isn't good prose: if we are to retain this article as FA, considering it was promoted during the Brilliant Prose days, I'd feel better if Tony analyzed the prose.
      • Influences and cultural legacy seems like OR, and is uncited.
        • Note the internal link to "satire boom". "The Pistols communicated directly with a more vernacular audience" should be clear from the rest of the article. There are some cites lower down, though specific band mentions (Rancid, The Libertines, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club) should be cited along with Oasis. Marskell 16:07, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • This is just a cursory second look, to give some examples of concerns I still have: I can be convinced if Tony has a look at the prose and anything that looks ORish is referenced. Sandy 15:39, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't participated in this process a lot, but do I understand that we will remove it from being a featured article if even a single sentence has an issue in terms of citation? - Jmabel | Talk 06:20, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I am a keep, pending a bit more work. I'm not a 100% on the writing yet, but I just made a couple of edits and will try and do more to make sure it's at 1a. It's comprehensive and moves at a nice pace without tangents or too much fan aggrandizement.
The sentence with the two cite requests in influences is syntactically very bad, and does indeed require sourcing. There are a couple of other spots that could also use a source, but they can probably be eliminated in a copy-edit. Taken in sum, this is sourced to about the degree we have expected of most. Marskell 10:28, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
During the repair work quite a lot of text had to been removed (including by myself), leaving the article quite uneven in places. Suggest that as well as the continuning copy edit, certain sections are expanded, esp. the lead. Also, looking through the edit history the article is fairly unstable and a magnet for trivia and cruft. If it does pass this review, it'll need close watching.
A lot more still needs to be done, and I'll vote keep, pending per Marskell above - Coil00 22:26, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Per your edit summary and comments here, hold is probably the best note. No harm if work is going on. Marskell 22:36, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Update I'm through my copyedit of the body. I'll give it one more read through, but I'm fairly satisfied on 1a. As noted by Coil, things had to be removed to avoid OR (this includes the bit that was bothering Sandy, which I just got rid of pending sourcing) but I don't think 1b has been compromised. This covers what it should cover. Two things:

The Never Mind the Bollocks section needs a sentence on critical reaction. The sentence re the stolen riff is tacked-on to the first paragraph and should be moved (which riff exactly?).

If anything exists in this regard, a sentence on the Royal Family's reaction to God Save the Queen would be interesting.

I'm going to wait for more comments before casting a final vote-like-comment. Marskell 16:02, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and this may be a Brit usage thing, but I removed spaced em dashes—I prefer them this way—as well as uses of single quotes for 'certain items' in the text. Marskell 16:06, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I just had another look: the top part is much improved, but I started to find very trivial copyedit things towards the bottom of the article. Let me know when it's time for another look. Sandy 16:27, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Update: The page has had a flurry of activity today. I'll wait one more day and see if any new copy issues have been introduced. Marskell 18:41, 7 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'll look tomorrow (the 8th) then. Sandy 21:34, 7 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Very small thing: I won't remove 'single quotes' anymore; I'm deducing this is a Brit usage, and thus is not an error and should actually be followed for this British topic. (I don't think, before editing this page, I'd ever intentionally typed "whilst" anywhere, as another example :). Marskell 21:46, 7 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Someone should put up a tutorial somewhere :-) Sandy 21:48, 7 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment
    • The lead is still short and unsatisfying. The second paragraph is like an island; none of the points are explained or expanded upon later in the article.
    • "Rotten and his circle of friends (coincidentally all also called John) adopted these accrutrements whilst already possessed of a similar style—a grungy version of the 'soul boy' fashion affected by fans of Roxy Music." This sentence is a mess. The parenthetical trivia should be removed. Accrutrements is not a word. The sentence is overly complex and pretentious, and the common reader probably would not understand it. Personally I have no idea what it is trying to say.
    • "'Anarchy in the U.K.' . . . served as a statement of intent—full of wit, anger and visceral energy." This sentence has no citation to support its claims. It is also needs to be stripped of its romantic tone.
    • "Despite a common misconception that punk bands 'couldn't play', contemporary music press reviews and live recordings reveal the Pistols to have been a tight, competent, musically professional and ferocious live band." One author's view is cited; either identify the author, or find and synthesize multiple sources if you want to generalize. However, I read the cited article and couldn't find evidence in support of the sentence anyways.
    • Gig to mean "concert" is slang/colloquial. This is a formal encyclopedia.
    • Shambolic is slang.
    • The use of sic is distracting and unnecessary.
    • "Always washing his feet". Is this an idiom or is it literal? In any case the potential confusion leads me to believe it should be removed.
    • "... although he later claimed to have been bluffing." Citation?
    • "The sale was criticised by critics as a 'sell out'." Again, this is one author's view; identify or synthesize. "Criticised by critics" is an awkward phrasing.
    • The influence/legacy section remains very weak and requires revision and expansion. "The Sex Pistols remain influential, both for their musical style and in terms of their effect on the British cultural landscape. The Pistols communicated directly with a vernacular audience." A quote where Lydon expresses the band's aims is entirely insufficient for backing up the preceding claims, which are quite bold. Many secondary sources are available—both on the Sex Pistols and on punk music in general (which surely would discuss the Sex Pistols' influence)—why are they not being used? The lead stated "They are widely credited with creating both the UK punk revolution and the first generation gap within rock 'n' roll." This is not clearly elicited anywhere in this section. Rancid, The Libertines, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club—these are the strongest examples?
    • WP:FA: "'Well written' means that the prose is compelling, even brilliant." In general I don't find this to be the case. Punctured Bicycle 03:29, 8 October 2006 (UTC) Punctured Bicycle 20:54, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I am a keep, finally. I'm still going to scour it for typos, as work has just been done, but this meets 1a IMO. I have changed a few things per Punctured's suggestions: "generation gap" dropped because not mentioned later; "accrutrements" was a typo (should be "accoutrements") but changed to "apparel"; shambolic --> chaotic. Not sure about some of the complaints, though. "The use of sic is distracting and unnecessary." Why?
Re the lead: given repeated attempts to rm OR, it became shorter and shorter. I've added a paragraph detailing a few important points from the body. Coil and I discussed changing it further, so it can be beefed up but I think is fine as it stands. Marskell 08:01, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"Don't use sic to show off with gotchas. Too many writers sic sics on the authors they quote just to show they spotted a trivial error. If your audience is unlikely to be confused, don't draw attention to minor booboos."[1] Punctured Bicycle 08:43, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's not a minor booboo in that when people notice they me be prompted to go to the link to find out where the error lies, which is a waste of time, or they might "fix" the sentence, which we shouldn't do with a direct quote. Sics are trivial when dealing with a quoted prose paragraph, but non-trivial when dealing with a direct quote, IMO. Marskell 08:53, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
They may check the source in futility, and they may unwittingly "correct" it. But it is much more likely that the error would simply go unnoticed if the sic was absent. Moreover, this is not a strict error (as in spelling and factual errors), it is just poor grammar; we are not in a position to police others' grammar. If you really are worried about editors inadvertently changing it, then put a note in an HTML comment (though I'd say the possibility of editors adding penises to the article is of greater concern). Punctured Bicycle 09:21, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: By now all of the issues leading to this review have been addressed and resolved. This is a comprehensive, fully cited, factually accurate, and neutral article. IMO it is also well written, and meets FA criteria. Coil00 12:15, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment
    • Article says "The tour proved exhausting, badly-planned, and dispiriting. Over the course of the two-week tour Vicious . . . was beaten by the bodyguards hired to protect him, Rotten suffered a severe head cold, and the band's performances were plagued by bad sound and physically hostile audiences." The source cited does not support these claims at all. On a side note, the source paints a picture of the band's stage personality that this article, unfortunately, only hints at vaguely: "The sold-out 2,200 seat hall witnessed Sid Vicious clobber an aggressive cowpoke with his bass . . . The next show was in Baton Rouge, where Vicious got a simulated blowjob onstage from an enthusiastic Southern belle . . . They pogo'd, spit all over the stage and on each other, threw umbrellas, fruits, coins, eyeglasses, sweaters, coats, shoes, socks, tampax, a brussel sprout, scarves, chains, plastic guns"
      • I can't really find that either. There's certainly plenty of "colour" that can be found and cited otherwise.
    • Article says "Inspired by the performance, many of the attendees formed groups of their own, popularising punk music throughout the British Isles." The source cited concerns only Joy Division.
      • Subsequent sources: the Clash source mentions the Clash in relation to Pistols in the second sentence; the Siouxsie & The Banshees sources mentions the relation in the fourth sentence; the Fall relation comes in the 13th paragraph but does specifically mention a Pistols show. This does not rise to remove, though "many of the attendees formed groups of their own" should be removed and the two paras compressed.
        • What about the bold claim "popularising punk music throughout the British Isles"? Perhaps when the two paragraphs are combined it will become more apparent how incomplete the influences section is. (80% of it will be devoted to the Lesser Free Trade Hall performance. That's it? That's all we can say about their influence?)
    • Article says "After the end of the 'Anarchy Tour' in December 1976, EMI decided it was too dangerous for the Sex Pistols to play live in the UK and arranged a series of concerts in Amsterdam for early January 1977." The source cited says nothing about EMI deciding it was too dangerous for the Sex Pistols to play live in the UK.
      • No, it does not (but see 15).
        • ??? 15 is what I was looking at.
    • "Most of the bass parts on the band's later recordings were played by either Jones or Matlock, who, according to Lydon, had been redrafted as a session musician." Which of them was redrafted? Why is this "according to Lydon"?
      • Matlock, apparently, as a previous version stated. This was compressed. I'm sure Coil can cite it.
        • The point is, it's worded ambiguously, and it isn't necessary to use "according to" for seemingly uncontroversial claims.
    • "A&M dumped the Pistols" Dumped? Is that formal writing?
      • Seems an OK verb to me, in this context.
    • Why is Nancy Spungen not mentioned or explained until her death?
      • Because the blue link is there.
        • From what I've gathered Nancy was a significant influence (perhaps only negatively) on Vicious and the band itself. I'm not saying we should detail everything about her. I'm saying that Nancy must be introduced and explained earlier in the article, not just tacked on at the end: "Oh, by the way, Sid had a girlfriend named Nancy who died."
    • Why is the Bromley Contingent never explained?
      • Because the blue link is there.
        • They were the Sex Pistols' entourage. How is it that they are so tangential that they don't deserve any real estate in the article? And by real estate, I mean perhaps a sentence or two. The article picks them out of thin air without explaining who they were and how they came to be associated with the Sex Pistols.
    • "Following bad publicity from an incident at Heathrow Airport during their return, EMI finally had had enough and released the band from their contract." What is the nature of this incident?
      • 15 explains this.
        • Wikipedia doesn't.
    • The article says "Though matters took an uglier turn when young punk followers of the Sex Pistols became victims of physical attacks in the street by 'pro-royalists'. Rotten himself was assaulted by a razor-wielding gang of 'Teddy Boys' outside the Islington Pegasus pub (a music venue at the time)." The actual source says "Meanwhile, during a break from their recording sessions: Johnny Rotten, Chris Thomas (producer) and Bill Price (studio boss) are attacked outside the Pegasus pub. Johnny has his arm slashed open and suffers tendon damage." Besides the obvious incongruity between the article and the source, it seems that the boat incident and pub incident are not even connected (as the Wikipedia article implies). Punctured Bicycle 23:15, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • The attack(s) on Rotton are well-attested. We need something specific to "Teddy Boys" that I can't find.
Most of the concerns are minor but there are a couple of major things, particularly how to present 1. There's ample sources for the general screw-up of the tour, but perhaps we should not present examples, lest we highlight "this" at the expense of "that." Marskell 00:09, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
(Replied to some above.) Some can be considered minor, but we shouldn't downplay their importance; collectively they amount to a great concern. Then there are the concerns which are great in their own right. The sourcing concerns, where claims don't even correspond to the source, are an obvious example. Comprehensiveness is another big one; the influences section is wholly incomplete, the article is vague about the band's stage personality or personality in general, the premises upon which they formed the band (their influences, their rejection of progressive rock) are never explained, Nancy and the Bromley Contingent are never explained. The writing quality is another big issue, though some seem to find it acceptable. It is difficult to explain what is wrong with the writing. Here's a random example from the lead: "They released just a single studio album", which should be "They released one studio album". Then there is a sentence like, "Over the course of the two-week tour Vicious, by now chronically addicted to heroin, was beaten by the bodyguards hired to protect him, Rotten suffered a severe head cold, and the band's performances were plagued by bad sound and physically hostile audiences," which needs to be broken down. Some paragraphs do not order the sentences logically. An example of this is the paragraph concerning the Grundy incident; it goes 1. aftermath 2. actual incident 3. things prior to incident 4. aftermath. The lead is another example of this. One's attention should not be limited to these examples; the writing quality overall isn't "compelling, even brilliant". In general it's boring and vague. The article has obviously improved greatly since the nomination started, but the question is not whether it has improved, the question is whether it is FA quality. To me the answer is no. The complacency towards this article in light of the problems is strange; if it were to actually go through WP:FAC, which it never has, I think it would be judged differently. Punctured Bicycle 02:25, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Complacent is just not fair. Given that you nominated, you know that this was the version to begin with. When logged in and looking at it, Coil has quickly responded to most every request. I'll admit that trusting sources often means trusting other users; in this case I do, because where I have followed them/searched myself they've seemed fine. Sourcing errors can be like typos: editing on top of someone else's edit can cause the mistake. Let's bear in mind {{sofixit}}.
In no particular order:
  • Wikipedia doesn't explain what happened at Heathrow. Should it? We write summary style here and we've already got one mention of a band member vomiting :).
  • For the example para I would suggest: 1) topic sentence 2) important points (the actual cussing) 3) lesser points (they were replacing Queen) 4) aftermath. This is an appropriate inverted pyramid, IMO.
  • The "influences" section was deliberately pared down to have precise mentions of bands that have been influenced by them. This is just presenting a catch-22: vague ORish section, no; focused section, no. Also, do see the end of the "Never mind the Bollocks" first para: "It is commonly regarded as one of the most influential rock albums of the last 40 years, and has been described as 'simply one of the greatest, most inspiring rock records of all time'."
  • On Spungen: the fact that she is not described at length, was one of the first pluses I had noticed in this article. The bluelink comment was not meant to be glib; if you want to read about Nancy Spungen, go to her article. From there, "Vicious' emotional dependence on her is said to have interfered with the Sex Pistols' performances and contributed to the band's breakup during their US tour" could be added here, if sourced (though it seems to me they broke up because everyone had come to detest Rotten).
  • On the intro: if you believe other examples belong, suggest them, but I feel these are roughly the most major. God Save the Queen absolutely should be there.
  • I removed "dangerous" as a possible OR inference. Various physical assaults and other things (e.g., a police raid on Rotten's apartment) can be sourced if we want details; there's obviously been a lot of myth-making re violence associated with the band but there was, evidently, violence associated with the band.
  • Bromley contingent: we have "the group and their close circle of followers," and earlier "the [fashion] trend quickly spread, and was adopted by the group's followers." We can move the link up, if you like.
  • That you find the writing "boring and vague" is not actionable.
  • On an earlier point, I added another review to back up the competent playing bit. It's from Rolling Stone, 1977--actually a great read.
  • I agree we should have a sentence or two on the "rejectionism"; in fact, I can probably use the source just mentioned to do it. Marskell 11:38, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Coil suggested we hold this again. I don't see why not, as the rule of thumb is "obvious momentum", which this has (there were additions to the influence section tonight and some more edits in general). I do believe this is generally within criteria, but Punctured has some actionable points above which should be addressed. One more week? Marskell 23:48, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Whew. I wanted to spend time in it, but need a clear head and a fresh mind. Sandy 23:50, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Transit of Venus

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Review commentary

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Messages left at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomy and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomical objects. Sandy 17:33, 27 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There are very few references: apart from a couple of in-line links, there is only one reference for the whole article - and that is a single page from a publication. Hard to believe that the entire article's information is referenced within that one page. These reference styles are inconsistent in any case.

There is choppy, unprofessional language used through the article. ("the transits of 2004 and 2012 last about six hours"). What tense is this supposed to be written in?

This article looks interesting on the surface, and I'd like to see it remain Featured - but it needs to be cleaned up a bit by someone who knows the subject well enough, and is able to obtain more references. EuroSong talk 16:24, 27 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Status? Four edits since nom, some refs added by Pagrashtak, (diff), still lacking inline citations, move to FARC. Sandy 01:07, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are prose and inline citations. Joelito (talk) 15:46, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove Lacks inline citations (1. c.). LuciferMorgan 17:13, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong remove.Neutral..Keep Very very very poor references-not a thoroughly researched article. AALmost no inline citations. Three sections are stubby and full of one-sentence paragraphs. Section "Transits of Venus in popular culture" is like a trivia section-it should be turned into prose.--Yannismarou 14:26, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I'm starting work on this, but in addition to the citation problems it is currently not comprehensive: there is no discussion of the contact phases other than in a brief aside. It's not necessary to devote vasts amounts of text to this, but it should be mentioned. I suspect it is thoroughly researched though, just not referenced - you don't pull the exact details of the transits out of the air. Yomanganitalk 23:06, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I've rewritten this and given inline citations. The scientific interest and observing sections have been almost completely reworked and the popular culture section has been dropped (as most of it wasn't popular culture, and what there was could be worked into the text) and replaced with an ancient history section. I think it could remain an FA now, but constructive criticism is welcomed. Yomanganitalk 19:53, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wow, another fine save job. The referencing is thorough, I'm leaning towards keep after we hear from other editors who know the territory. Sandy 01:11, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Nice referencing work. I turn my vote into neutral per Sandy.--Yannismarou 14:29, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Same as above. I feel a few more refs wouldn't do the article any harm, though even if this action isn't taken I still feel it would be enough to say 'Remove'. So, I change my vote to neutral (can't remember if I've ever gone for this vote). LuciferMorgan 16:47, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Keep It's a lot better now, thanks to the hard work of Yomangani. However, I'm still not sure if it feels like a Featured Article to me. There are things missing: for example, it is mentioned that the current pattern of 105.5, 8, 121.5 and 8 years is not the only pattern possible; and examples are given of other patterns. However, no explanation is provided as to why these patterns change. In other places, the style is inconsistent (first paragraph of "Grazing and simultaneous transits"): dates are not Wikified (they're given in exclusively American style). This paragraph is also unreferenced. As I say, the whole thing is much improved: but still needs work. EuroSong talk 12:42, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've addressed the points you raised (Can't believe I failed to cite that paragraph - I've slapped myself, so it won't happen again) Yomanganitalk 14:52, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Great work, thanks :) I now switched from "Comment" to "Keep". EuroSong talk 08:04, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: More fantastic work from Yomangani. Some thoughts:

  • "Before modern astronomy, observations of transits of Venus helped scientists using the parallax method calculate the distance between the Sun and the Earth." Would we call them scientists "before modern astronomy"? The people mentioned later as doing initial work on the topic, Kepler and a Mr. Jeremiah Horrocks, are both post-Copernican, and "before modern astronomy" doesn't well describe them. Or is that sentence in the intro meant to refer to still earlier work?
  • This leads to thoughts on sectioning. I think "Ancient history" should be moved up immediately before "Scientific interest in transits". Rename the latter—perhaps "Modern research". They might both then be moved under one level two ("Research and observation"?). "Grazing and simultaneous transits" should then be bumped above "Observing", the latter becoming the last section. Sectioning in general is, of course, partly open to interpretation. But this one doesn't seem right.
  • Given the rarity of the event, surely the 2004 transit produced research papers. A small section on that would be fine.
  • "A transit of Venus should be observed only with proper precautions" and following in the intro. The shift to a prescriptive tone does not have the right feel. Tweak it to a neutral description of how observing occus (e.g., avoid "should").

This obviously well on its way to a keep. Kudos again. Marskell 16:56, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't that happy with the layout either, but since nobody raised it I didn't want to play around with it - I will now though (and take care of the copyediting). With regard to the issue of the 2004 transit - it has its own article and I think that level of detail probably belongs in there (it isn't actually in there, but it should be), what do you think? Yomanganitalk 17:20, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I will move to a keep as I think this is now within criteria. Re 2004, I think five or so sentences as a level three under past and future would be in order, particularly if it's not in the sub-article and should be; a sentence or two on what to expect for the next one would be fine too. Might see what can be found here. Marskell 21:12, 28 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Removed status

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Definition of planet

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Review commentary

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Original nom User:Serendipodous. Message left at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Astronomy. Sandy 20:01, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This article has been fundamentally redrafted since the announcement on the 24th of August of a formal definition of "planet" by the IAU, and is very much a different article from when it was featured. Also, the controversy surrounding the formal definition has meant that this article has been accused of bias. Serendipodous 17:01, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have to agree. After quick read through the article it no longer has the feel of a FA. It seems (Again after a quick read I will post more later) that it is about either B or GA class. Æon Insanity Now!EA! 17:40, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Without reading the article in depth, I would say that this article should not be featured because the subject material is still rapidly changing at the moment. The debate did not end with the last IAU meeting. Featured article status should be reserved for subjects that are not in a state of flux. George J. Bendo 20:58, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly recommend that the article remains featured. It should not suffer under the overenthousiasm of some editors after IAU 2006, and I don't see how the recent changes have made the article as a whole (except the related sections, which could be rapidly cleaned up) any worse. Nick Mks 16:22, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. There are numerous statements lacking inline citations. I didn't tag them in the article, as there are many, but will give examples if someone is working on them. Sandy 23:21, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are stability (1e), POV (1d), and citations (1c). Marskell 11:01, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I am definitely in the "there is no reason this can't still be an FA camp." If we disallow something because of a recent event, we're overturning one of Wiki's strengths. Beginning near the top, can references be tracked down for the history section? Marskell 10:38, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm in the middle of tracking down a PhD topic, so I'm not really in a position to do the research, but I think the best thing to do would be to find unabridged English translations of both Galileo's "The Starry Messenger" and Huygens's "Systema Saturnum" to determine if the Galiean moons and Titan are indeed referred to as "planets" (as I recall, Galileo called them stars.) As for locating that "terminological distinction", other than trolling through Ptolemy's Almagest or the works of Aristotle I'm not sure how we could cite it. I've cited and expanded the "semantics" paragraph, so that it no longer reads like someone's personal opinion. The first three paragraphs of the "minor planets" section are all cited by the same source [cite 2], so I've redrafted the citations to make sense of that. I've also provided what I think is a citation for an uncited bit of OR I did. As for "Hydrostatic equilibrium," I've attempted to contac the guy who wrote the material twice, but he hasn't got back to me. Serendipodous 10:44, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove. I want to add 1a to the concerns—it wouldn't pass FAC at the moment. Let's look at the ungainly, repetitive opening para:
The definition of "planet" has for some time been the subject of intense debate. Despite the term having existed for thousands of years, no definition of "planet" by an official body of scientists existed before the early 21st century. Until the beginning of the 1990s, there was little need for a definition, as astronomers had only a single sample within the solar system to work from, and the sample was small enough for its many irregularities to be dealt with individually.
    • The second sentence is ungrammatical. Try "Despite the existence of the term for thousands of years,...". Avoid "exists" again by saying: "... there was no need for a definition ...". This exposes the sameness of this sentence and the next one. The last clause better as: " because astronomers had only a single sample in the solar system, which was small enough for ...".
    • Then casting our eyes down to the second para, we see "discovery" three times, one of them "new discovery" ("old discovery"?).

I'll reconsider if the whole article is copy-edited. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tony1 (talk • contribs) 02:34, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Remove.
    • Were all of those Secondary sources used as references in the article, or are some of them Further reading or External links?
    • There are two main articles under "Extrasolar planets and brown dwarfs": is that the correct usage of the main template?
    • History is not well cited.
    • Echo Tony's concerns about copy edit: I noticed "our Moon" in the lead, which doesn't seem encyclopedic (Earth's Moon?) Sandy (Talk) 14:53, 28 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Holy Prepuce

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Review commentary

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Messages left at Muriel Guttrop, Religion, Catholicism. Sandy 23:44, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Have one brief look and see for yourselves that this is hardly an FA on any of the criteria! - Samsara (talk • contribs) 23:04, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns lead, referencing and tone (editioralzing). Joelito (talk) 19:43, 13 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Psychosis

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Review commentary

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This article was promoted during the "Brilliant prose" days: there is no original or main editor. Message left at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Psychopathology, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Clinical medicine.

Psychosis does not have adequate inline citations (1c), does not have an adequate lead which summarizes the article (2a), has one-sentence and stubby paragraphs and many weasle words (1a), does not conform to suggested headings per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Medicine-related articles) and does not conform to WP:GTL (2), does not appear comprehensive per sections missing from MCOTW guidelines and the brevity of important sections (1b), is very listy, and doesn't appear to rely on the best possible sources for a medical article. It is not up to current FA standards. Sandy 22:28, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I concur. Where can we find the MCOTW guidelines? I suggest defeaturing or immediate emergency surgery.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 09:03, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
They are linked above (sorry, they changed the name to incorporate Manual of Style rather than Medical Collaboration of the Week). The FAR process allows for two weeks of review, and then if the article has not been brought to standard, another two weeks of FARC. You might also want to look at Asperger syndrome, which recently went through FARC and was mostly brought to standard. Sandy 12:20, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove featured status. Reams of unsupported statements. Too little on the anthropological significance of psychosis (were psychotics seen as "possessed" in the past?) Flow is chaotic (no attempt at systemising the information). JFW | T@lk 21:17, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
And then there's the unqualified assertion that CBT, of all things, is recommended for psychotic people. The only I've ever read that said that simply tacked it on at the conclusion-end, which everyone noticed (it's some British psychiatry journal somewhere).--Rmky87 14:36, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Move to FARC for further work. Substantial improvement has been made during FAR (see diff), but the article is still far from meeting FA standards. It doesn't yet conform with WP:MEDMOS, and most of the text remains uncited. Perhaps the medical editors can let us know if they consider the rest of the work doable. Sandy 16:21, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are inline citations (1c), failure to meet MoS (2), comprehensiveness (1b), and writing quality (1a). Marskell 08:22, 6 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Louis Armstrong

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Review commentary

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Messages left at Phil Sandifer, Biography, and Jazz. Sandy 13:59, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Only one inline citation at the very end, which is a news article about a stadium named after him. Even the note about his birthdate doesn't supply a reference, which it definitely needs. Otherwise seems like a good article. Mlm42 09:20, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are lack of citations (1c) and comprehensiveness (1b). Marskell 10:26, 10 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Louis XIV of France

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Review commentary

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Messages left at Biography and France notice board. Sandy 13:56, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
MilHist informed. Sandy 22:08, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This article has no references, only a section of "further reading", and a misplaced template. Judgesurreal777 03:16, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are lack of citations (1c) and prose quality (1a). Marskell 10:23, 10 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Attila the Hun

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Review commentary

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Posted to WP:WPBIO and WP:MILHIST --plange 22:25, 24 September 2006 (UTC) Also notified Classical Greece and Rome and Middle Ages. Sandy 22:54, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Lacks inline citations per 1c --plange 22:18, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. My knowledge of the subject is limited to what it says in Heather's Fall of the Roman Empire, but there are a few parts of the article which may be original research. First, regarding Merovech. The footnote is vague. If this is an exciting new interpretation of primary source material, whose is it ? The part on meaning of Attila's name seems similar. Lastly, who is Michael Babcock, and is his work on Attila's death taken seriously ? [Answers: a philologist and probably not.] Angus McLellan (Talk) 08:07, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment As a lot of reviewers have commented, weasel words which seem like original research need to be addressed. A lot of required inline citations are missing too (1. c. violation). I think the prose may need tightening up also (1. a.) - Tony will be able to give a more comprehensive review regarding the possible 1. a. concern if he has the time. LuciferMorgan 22:40, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are lack of citations (1c) and prose (1a). Marskell 08:39, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Article no longer featured

A Hard Day's Night (song)

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Review commentary

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Messages left at User talk:Johnleemk, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject The Beatles, and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Songs. Sandy 20:22, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm nominating this article for the same reasons I nominated 'A Day in the Life' and 'She Loves You'. These are as follows;

1) This article needs sufficient inline citations (1. c.). ALL direct quotations need to cite their sources, an example of this is quotes attributed to Beatles members.

2) A section dealing with the critical reaction of the song from esteemed critics / magazines past and present would also help the article (1. b.), and since this is a Beatles song there must be a hefty trove of possible references to use. Other non-Beatles song articles have found these, so this article shouldn't find a problem. The "Other recordings" section needs a proper intro, and all the sentences in the section need to be tied together to make a cohesive article (1. a.) which will address the disjointed prose. The chart success, or lack of, alongside the differences between versions, is a possible avenue to explore. LuciferMorgan 14:15, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Beatles and the Papacy have really been taking a beating here recently :(. Marskell 09:45, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps the new lists by Project will encourage reviewers to focus on some other areas. Sandy 13:32, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If they were kept up to FA standard they wouldn't take such a beating. Also, I find it saddening no Wikipedia talk:WikiProject The Beatles members have even replied apart from kingboyk - if someone addressed the concerns I'd be happier than anyone to keep them from FARC. I was hoping these Beatles FA reviews would instill a Beatles fan editor with the passion to address the FA concerns, but not yet. Along with the reasons just outlined, I also want people to get the correct impression of the FA star, and the Beatles articles I assume attract a lot of viewers. I'm sorry if people think I have hidden intentions - I actually like the Beatles, Lennon being my fave of the lot. LuciferMorgan 16:04, 25 September 2006 (UTC
Yes, I've noticed an indifferent response too and I'm sorry about it, but there's nothing I can do; I can't force people to respond and I can't write the entire enyclopedia myself**. (Or, to quote a wonderful song by Mr George Harrison, (not that he was the first to say this of course but I'm working on a theme here!) "You can take a horse to the water, but you can't make him drink"). **I'll try, if somebody wishes to hire me :)
I am a little worried that we'll end up with no Beatles FAs at all, but standards are standards and we have to move with the times. But, look, I'll go to the project and scream some more. This one definitely is saveable, it just needs a few folks to dig out their Beatle books. I can but ask. --kingboyk 20:49, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - A fine example of a song article, but it lacks sufficient references. A true shame, really...the article is definitely FA quality. -- Cielomobile talk / contribs 22:38, 29 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment - I was actually applauding you Kingboyk, maybe you misunderstood what I was saying. I do appreciate yourself making the time to comment. LuciferMorgan 19:19, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • No, I didn't take any personal offence (whatever made you think I did? :)), and your point about the WikiProject response was valid. Anyway, I went to the Project and hollered but it doesn't seem to have worked. Sorry about that. --kingboyk 16:16, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Comment - It's ok they haven't responded. I think when someone has the time, they'll attempt to address the FA issues and renominate for FA, which will be nice to see. My idea for the Beatles Wikiproject is to recruit inline citers whose contribution to the Wikiproject is adding citations (just an idea). LuciferMorgan 19:33, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Here's a reason it's not yet ready to be a featured article: The notation (sheet music excerpt) is wrong. The tonic chord is G but the melody is in C. If the song is in G, which the article indicates, then it is the melody that needs to be changed. Play it on a piano if you don't believe me. Someone should contact the fellow who put it up there - or find a notation that is right. I am new to the site and cannot do it. Jdm003 06:53, 7 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

    • I completely agree. I happened across that error a while ago and being new to Wikipedia just added a "correction" in the article itself; Hyacinth (properly) removed my correction to the talk page, where it has not sparked any discussion. Seeing Hyacinth as an editor/arbitrator etc., I put a more lengthy discussion on his talk page (User_talk:Hyacinth#Serious_Errors_in_Source_Material), but he must be away for a while and has not answered. I don't have the time to be a Wikipedian, so I leave it to others to make the necessary improvements, but leaving such a serious error in a candidate for featured article status for this long is not a good situation. AlanH212 12:38, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment This is featured article removal candidate, which means this article's status may be removed if it doesn't meet current criteria. LuciferMorgan 08:46, 7 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are insufficient citations (1c), comprehensiveness (1b), and overall writing quality (1a). Marskell 08:35, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Turquoise

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Review commentary

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Talk messages left at User talk:OldakQuill and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Rocks and minerals. Sandy 20:24, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Although there are a number of references provided, there isn't a single inline citation. Mlm42 14:57, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concern is insufficient inline citations (1c). Marskell 08:36, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove. I started work on this, but I can't find enough online to cite the article, and I don't have any of the books listed in the references. Yomanganitalk 00:27, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove Not enough citations.UberCryxic 18:57, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove. Per all above.--Yannismarou 08:33, 13 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. Who came up with the inline silliness? The article as it stands is perfectly credible. Dr Zak 18:12, 13 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove Since the issue is verifiability, not credibility, the article has insufficient inline citations. Jay32183 19:53, 15 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • The article is verifiable from the references. Who came up with the idea that every single uncontentious fact should be accompanied by a footnote? Certainly bleeding-edge research or contentious statements must be backed up with a source - but footnoting uncontroversial stuff like this?! It's just faux-scholarly. Dr Zak 20:45, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I noticed the phrase "is proven" without a citation. In what experiment was it proven and by whom was the experiment conducted. An inline citation would answer the question without cluttering the article. FAR editors generally don't add {{fact}} tags to entire articles without requests from editors attempting to save the article. I'm sure some one will add them if you say, "Hold on, I'd like to save the article, but I'd like to know what facts require citaions." There's still time left before an official decision is made. Jay32183 21:05, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • This is exactly what I meant by "uncontentious fact". Any mineralogy text will tell you what the crystal system is and no one will doubt it. Now explicitly annotating this basic fact with a footnote (as opposed to a broad references section) gives a problem: you are giving undue prominence to the textbook of your choice. Dr Zak 22:26, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • "Is proven" is no different than "studies show" which is specifically on the list of weasel words. The fact is not uncontentious, I contested it. Without a citation I am free to delete it. If the article doesn't need anymore citations then it is full of weasel words and should still be removed. Jay32183 23:59, 17 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
            • Once you take a class in crystallography you would agree that assignment of a mineral to the crystal class is mostly uncontentious. Webster (2000) will list it. Now how about the sane guideline that the Wikiproject physics came up with, it's here: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Physics/Citation_guidelines_proposal. Seriously, I can't see any contentious statements that need to be backed up by inline citation here. Which ones to you take offence at? Dr Zak 02:18, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
              • I am a geoscientist and I find this article not up to the standards of geoscience articles. The reason I haven't added fact tags already is that there is so much without citation, entire sections are uncited. I do not currently have the time or resources to fix the article. The article needs to be accessible to non-experts, people who have not taken geoscience courses need to be able to handle the article. I have not stated that things are untrue, that's not the issue. Inline citations are required by Wikipedia and are actually standard within geoscience publications. Jay32183 02:58, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
                • You seem to be saying that inline citations work to make an article "accessible" to non-specialists. Well, I think that anything uncontentious to a specialist should be relegated to a generic "references" section and only recent or contentious points should be annotated with inline notes. Anything else is not scholarship; it merely gives a veneer of scholarship. Dr Zak 18:41, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
                  • Have you read WP:REF? Your current argument is in direct contradiction with "To ensure that the content of articles is credible and can be checked by any reader or editor."(emphasis added by me). The other points on when to cite sources are a useful read as well. Jay32183 19:20, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
                    • If you read the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources#Back_to_basics you will find that consensus for your viewpoint (that each assertion needs an inline reference) is nowhere near as unanimous as you claim. Especially those people that edit science topics disagree. And even if a textbook is given as reference anyone can still borrow it from the library and cross-check. Dr Zak 20:30, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
                      • So are you ignoring that people seem to agree that when a good faith request for citations has been made then they should be added? Six editors, including myself, have requested more citations during the FAR and FARC. Jay32183 22:11, 18 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
                        • People saying "not enough citations" when there is a section of references sound thoughtless. Maybe when they way "citations" they mean "inline citations", but then they should state why inline citations are preferable to a general references section. I have made my case against, someone should make the case in favor. Hint: you don't make a case by pointing to a guideline that hasn't half as much support as you assert. Dr Zak 20:33, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
                          • There is an existing policy. Until it is changed it will be followed. There is no reason to change it other than editors being lazy. It is a standard acedemic practice not unique to Wikipedia. Wikipedia has in fact been several decades behind the times on implementing inline citations. The standard acedemic practice is an inline citation anytime you make reference to the work of someone else that is not "common knowlege". Common knowlege does not mean what is accepted by specialists. Wikipedia does not allow original research, therefore everything comes from some one else's work. Add citations or you are committing plagarism or including original research. Jay32183 01:58, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove, inadequate inline citations. Sandy (Talk) 03:54, 21 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ackermann function

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Review commentary

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Messages left at User talk:Pakaran, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Mathematics, and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computer science. Sandy 15:49, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Became a featured article way back in March 2004, reviewd in Oct 04 Wikipedia:Featured article removal candidates/Ackermann function. I don't think it meets current FA standards. In particular the introduction does not establish context in simple terms which the layman could understand. --Salix alba (talk) 14:41, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • I have to agree that this is not at all up to FA standards. There is the issue of readability by the layman of course, although for this kind of article I think it's unwise to insist too much on that goal. Still, I don't think anyone can seriously say that the prose is compelling or brilliant (even with the right amount of background). I'm also worried about the comprehensiveness of the article. A number of things could be expanded on. For instance it would not be evident to most that we should care that there are non-primitive-recursive functions and there should be some better intuitive notion of primitive recursive (unfortunately, the article about it is not really helping). Also, I may be wrong but what's Gödel got to do with any of this? It looks like gratuitous name-dropping. Pascal.Tesson 06:31, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • The lead is problematic. Short and complicated.
  • In the lead again computability theory directs to a disambiguation page. This is inacceptable for the lead of a FA.
  • And I see very very few inline citations.
I think all three issues can be worked.--Yannismarou 14:08, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree that the extended discussion of On The Infinite and the discussion of the Busy Beaver function are not relevant to this article.

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are LEAD (2a), citations (1c), and accessibility and quality of writing (1a). Marskell 10:31, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

History of the Netherlands

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Article is no longer a featured article

Review commentary

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Messages left at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject History. Sandy 00:11, 22 September 2006 (UTC) Additional messages at Wikipedia talk:Notice board for Dutch wikipedians and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries. Sandy 21:14, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

History of the Netherlands was promoted during the "Brilliant prose" days, does not seem to have a main editor or author, and does not have inline citations. Inline citations are a requirement for current FAs. Sandy 23:42, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are inline citations, lead, comprehensiveness. Joelito (talk) 15:39, 6 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove - Insufficient inline citations (1. c.). Only Sandy has tried improving the article, but his/her time is so wrapped up and being torn between FARs one can't really expect him/her to do the work. LuciferMorgan 17:49, 9 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Miles Davis

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Article is no longer a featured article

Review commentary

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Messages left at Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography/to do, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Jazz, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Missouri, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Composers and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Albums. Sandy 19:57, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Promoted in brilliant prose days. No inline citations. Not brilliantly written. The article seems short for this subject. Pipes years in music contrary to the guideline at WP:ALBUM. Doesn't exemplify Wikipedia's very best work. Punctured Bicycle 02:51, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment - Needs inline citations (1.c.). Also, it fails to discuss Miles Davis' legacy which means it isn't comprehensive. LuciferMorgan 10:22, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I agree. It is important to discuss the legacy of such an influential and revered artist. Punctured Bicycle 18:55, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I think the article does a pretty good job of going through Miles's career, it's good work. Since they decided to go YouTube, which I like, I am going to supplement it chronologically with three added videos from later periods of Miles' work which are also available, and see what the authors of the article and whomever else, says. If someone wants to get into Miles' legacy, draft a section and nail it down. I, for one, hope it makes it. Thanks. Tvccs 17:03, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Mixes references styles, needs to be cited. Sandy 23:24, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Incomplete and unbalanced. The text implies that he might not even have studied at Juilliard! No mention of the grounding in music theory he learned there or how that influenced later work, neglects to mention that Birth of the Cool is widely regarded as the first example of cool jazz. Devotes inordinate space to fusion jazz, which is arguably the least important of his musical innovations. No mention of Davis's idiosyncratic playing style. Fails to reference controversial assertions such as, The period is characterized as a colorful time by Davis in his memoirs, where wealthy Caucasian women would ostensibly lavish him with sex and drugs. In reality, he had become completely dependent upon cocaine and heroin, spending nearly all of his time propped up on a couch in his apartment watching television, leaving only to score. The entire article has only one line citation. Miles Davis deserves a featured article. If my copy of his autobiography were handy I'd add line citations myself. Help this, please. Durova 16:37, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are writing quality (1a), comprehensiveness (1b), and lack of citations (1c). Marskell 11:00, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Telephone exchange

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Article is no longer a featured article

Review commentary

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Message left at User talk:66.96.28.244 Teglin 19:22, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Message left at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Technology. Sandy 17:13, 14 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

1. Citations are used sparingly, most information is not verifiable.

2. Sections of the article are not encyclopedic content. "Number plan trivia" includes unnessesary information on numbering plans not directly related to telephone exchanges. This section needs to be more concise, or moved to a new article on numbering plans.

3. The article neglects major facts and details, see 1(b). As referenced in the talk page, the article does not address several major functions of a central office. Information pertaining to central offices is not current.

4. Prose is inconsistent and does not meet wikipedia standards in some sections.

Teglin 01:47, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns citations, accuracy, and prose. Joelito (talk) 19:24, 30 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

War elephant

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Article is no longer a featured article

Review commentary

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Notification placed at Template:WPMILHIST Announcements. Marskell 15:33, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This seems to be an ancient FA:

  • Lead section is inadequate and too short.
  • Poorly sectioned.
  • Poor referencing.
  • It's not sure if war elephants fought against Alexander the Great in the battle of Gaugamela...
  • ...but they certainly fought in the Battle of Ipsus - nothing about it.
  • Shang China may have primitively used elephants for military purposes as early as c.2500BC. but Shang China began to rule in ca. 1600 BC...

Probably more errors, I hope the article will be improved. Gdarin | talk 16:46, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We should point out the difference between African Forest Elephants (Egypt, Carthage ->the Barcid import also some Indian war elephants -> Suru, last surviving elephant of Hannibal for example) ->Battle of Raphia and Indian Elephants. In crossbow are some images from the cham using elephants and double-bow crossbows. I doubt this animal was used to a great extend by the Shang, they did have no natural ressource of elephants. Is it possible that this should refer to some evidence from southern China during the Shang time (lots of things mixed up)? Wandalstouring 17:24, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The opening paragraph alone is badly written with poor grammar and erratic punctuation. Why does the history section come to an abrupt end in the 16th century? I don’t know much bout war elephants but I know they were often used in India against the British eg: Arcot 1751, and used for a hundred years after that! Under referenced. No citations. This is only a B-class article and far from the recent standards now required for FA status. Raymond Palmer 19:40, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If we can work out all questions that need research, I can help with Histoire Militaire des Éléphants, depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu'à l'introduction des armes à feu; (introduction of mobile artillery was the end of elephant attacks in India, because they were too easy to stop) avec des observations critiques sur quelques-uns des plus célèbres faits d'armes de l'antiquité.;
par le Chevalier P. Armandi, ancien Colonel d'artillerie (it is a 500 page volume in French); 1843 Paris, London, Francfort-S.-M.Wandalstouring 16:13, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
An article with many problems:
  • Lead section short.
  • No inline citations.
  • See also section too long. Some links should be incorporated in the main prose.
  • Section "Battles" looks like a long list. Prose is recommended.--Yannismarou 18:37, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Needs inline citations LuciferMorgan 23:37, 5 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

List of issues that need sourcing:

  • please add here
    • I checked the article to provide some samples, but I'm not sure doing so will be helpful. The entire article is uncited. I can pick any random section, and find numerous statements which need cites, so I'm confused about the question (and since it's unsigned, I don't know who asked it). If more specific input is needed, I'll help, but the entire article is uncited - there is one inline citation. Sandy 17:21, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Move to FARC - no improvements since nom - where are our MilHist editors? diff since nom. Sandy 17:37, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns LEAD (2a), sectioning (2), referencing and accuracy of information (1c). Marskell 07:49, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question - There doesn't seem to be anybody working on this, but I think it may be salvageable. Before I start trying to fix it up, how do people feel about the list of notable battles involving war elephants? I can't see an easy way to work all those into the text, so if this is going to be an objection to leaving it as an FA, I'd prefer to work on something else and stick this on my "FA restoration list" to look at later. Yomanganitalk 16:36, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think that is an appropriate use of a list. It could probably be neatened up a bit, but I don't think it should stop the article from being considered featured, if everything else is fixed. Jay32183 19:32, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Can you check with the MilHist group: they may have guidelines on lists such as this one? Sandy 12:31, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I haven't been able to find enough references to properly cite this article, so the list problem is academic for me. I'll order some books and come back to it sometime if it is demoted, as apart from a bit of tidying, the lack of inline citations seems to be the main sticking point here. Yomanganitalk 10:39, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FAR tag added to article talk page. Sandy 17:23, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

BZFlag

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Article is no longer a featured article

Review commentary

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Messages left at User talk:Lan56 and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computer and video games. Sandy 00:58, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a bit concerned about this article's current standing as a featured article as representative of Wikipedia's best. It was apparently nominated and elected as FA back in February of 2005 (see review candidate page).

There is an extreme lack of references. There are four expanded URLs listed in the references section, which, I suppose, are to encompass the information in the listed headers. There are also numbered Wikipedia:External links acting as citation - there are three links in the (very short) introduction and one in the Developers subsection. Many statistics and questionable subjective statements are left uncited.

For example, "This new mode added a requirement of strategy and skill, which was sufficient to keep interest." and "In 1997, the release of version 1.7d came with a groundbreaking new feature". The prose is not brilliant by any means, the subsections are very small, and several links have no relevance in the article (rectangular, yellow, red, green, blue, purple) There are also tables of both the version history and map creation, as well as lists of flags found within the game, that are not presented in an encylopedic manner and appear to exist only to take up space. ~ Hibana 22:28, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No inline citations. Poor references. Some listy and stubby sections. I also think that the lay-out needs some more work.--Yannismarou 17:13, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are citations (1c), sectioning (2), and prose (1a). Marskell 10:44, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A Day in the Life

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Article is no longer a featured article

Review commentary

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Messages left at User talk:Johnleemk and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject The Beatles. LuciferMorgan 19:49, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm nominating this Beatles song article to undergo FAR for mostly the same reasons I nominated "She Loves You" - in fact I feel there's a few other old Beatles song FAs which should undergo FAR for the same reasons, which I'll do at regular intervals (to give time for editors to address my concerns). If helpful work is being done to the articles I'm sure admins can keep the FARs open anyway. The Beatles are a great band, but a lot of their old FAs haven't kept up to the requirements of FA articles. The Beatles are a popular group and properly attract a lot of people to Wikipedia, so I don't think they should have misconceptions about the FA star. This article needs sufficient inline citations (1. c.). ALL direct quotations need to cite their sources, an example of this is quotes attributed to Beatles members. Other statements need proper citations also, an example being this line in the "Controversy" section;

"It has been claimed that the BBC's ban has not officially been lifted, but like other former BBC bans it has clearly fallen into abeyance, because the Corporation has played the song quite frequently in recent years."

Claimed? By who?

Another example;

"An urban legend was perpetuated that the intent was an officially sanctioned ban on the listed songs, but this has been denied by Clear Channel Communications."

Denied? A citation of Clear Channel Communications statement please?

A section dealing with the critical reaction of the song from esteemed critics / magazines past and present would also help the article, and since this is a Beatles song there must be a hefty trove of possible references to use. Other non-Beatles song articles have found these, so this article shouldn't find a problem. The "Cover Versions" section is way too listy and lets down the article. This section needs a proper intro, and all the sentences in the section need to be tied together to make a cohesive article (1. a.) which will address the disjointed prose. The chart success, or lack of, alongside the differences between versions, is a possible avenue to explore. LuciferMorgan 17:21, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • There isn't any need to point out the need for inline citations when we're all well aware of them. However, the fact is that practically all of the article content at time of featuring (much of which is still in the article today) used the web references listed in the collated references section (excluding the Beatles message board cited, which isn't a reliable source by any means). I'm not disputing the need for inline citations, but they aren't critical for articles which rely mainly on a limited number of web sources - inline citations are mainly useful for citing print sources because of the need to refer to a specific page/article in a publication. The same doesn't apply to web sources unless you're using a few dozen (or more) of them, in which case things would get messy. For instance, almost all quotations in the article are from the same webpage - a Beatles quote database. Our purposes could be served just as well by remarking in the references section that "All quotations unless otherwise stated are from source so and so."
Anyhow, most Beatles song articles have the same issues - no inline citations (even though in many cases, I would say they aren't exactly critical because most of these articles rely on web sources) and degradation because nobody frequently pruned these articles of fancrufty crap like inane lists of cover versions. Johnleemk | Talk 08:57, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I stand by what I said in my nomination. Also I would like to point out when someone nominates an article for FAR they have to say why - so there IS every need to point out the necessity of inline citations. By the way, I make enough comments on FAR's and FARC's to know.
And anyhow, I would say inline citations ARE critical if they have the FA star - if other FA's are required to have inline citations, I don't see why the Beatles should be an exception. Criterion 1. c. of "What is a featured article?" isn't met by this nominated article - I suggest Johnleemk makes himself familiar with the text when saying inline citations aren't needed in FA's (even when directly quoting as well?). Other FA's cite from books (I suggest using www,print.google.com), so why can't this one?
As for the fancrufty stuff in the article which nobody has taken out, where was the Wikipedia:WikiProject The Beatles? The "Cover versions" section could have been made into readable prose which all ties together anyway. The bottom line is FA criteria standards are significantly higher than when this was nominated, and once this initially achieved FA all the contributors rested on their laurels. LuciferMorgan 16:23, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • cough* I suggest you reread what I said: "I'm not disputing the need for inline citations". The point I'm making is that they're not critical for this article. An article which would have about 30 footnotes pointing to the same half a dozen notes is desirable, but not critical. As for print sources, I suggest you heed your own advice and look at the FA guidelines and/or WP:CITE. Web sources are just as acceptable as print ones as long as they meet WP:RS. Some other editors have cited books for the article, but as I do not own them, I cannot add inline citations for them.
I'm not active in the Wikiproject, so I can't answer your question, but the issue at hand is whether coverage of the cover versions would be encyclopedic. Every song, especially one by a band such as the Beatles, has a lot of cover versions, so we need to be selective in discussing only the most notable ones. The cover version list in the article did nothing to indicate notability for these cover versions; simply because a famous person sang a song (or sampled a few seconds of it, as appears to be the case for a number of covers listed) doesn't mean it's worth mentioning in an article (otherwise Yesterday (song) would be hundreds of kilobytes big). Yes, readable prose could be produced. But would this be prose worthy of inclusion? I don't think so. There aren't any cover versions of "A Day in the Life" that are so iconic/well-known that an article excluding them would not be comprehensive. Johnleemk | Talk 12:36, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A quote from "What is a featured article?" criterion 1. c. - "Claims are supported with specific evidence and external citations (see verifiability and reliable sources); this involves the provision of a "References" section in which sources are set out and, where appropriate, complemented by inline citations." I have looked at FA guidelines, and have time and time again during FAR. This is why my concerns are actionable. Articles actually fail to gain FA status nowadays due to lack of inline citations, and they lose their status based on this also.
www.print.google.com is where you can view a limited number of pages from a book. Web sources are indeed just as acceptable, though you said there is "a limited number" so I pointed out that this isn't reasoning for the article's 1. c. weaknesses and how to get around this. The editors who placed these DIRECT quotes in without citing the name of the interviewer, the magazine/newspaper and publication dates need to address the problem. I think readable prose on "Cover versions" is worthy of inclusion in a summary fashion. LuciferMorgan 16:29, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You seem to miss the point that we're vehemently agreeing with one another WRT inline citations. I never said we shouldn't be adding inline citations to this article; what I said was that the lack of inline citations is not a major problem because it doesn't substantially detract from the article. You don't need to act as if I'm a dinosaur when it comes to inline citations or as if I haven't read the relevant guidelines.
Practically all the direct quotes are from the same (web) source. The reason for this is that this source collated the quotes from other sources. Also, as long as the number of sources provide a wide spectrum of views about the article's topic, I don't think the article would fail to meet the referencing requirements for FA. (And I don't think the reliability of the sources is in dispute, since a number of their authors also authored books which are in the top Google Print results for the song title.) And I agree readable prose is worthy for inclusion, but the question is what do we put in the readable prose? If none of the cover versions stand out, how are we to select them for inclusion? (This seems to be the case, btw; none of the sources I've reviewed mention cover versions, unlike with other, more-covered Beatles songs such as "Something" or "Yesterday", where writing a cover version section can be quite easily done.) Do we choose by what we favour/prefer? I'd suggest that contravenes NPOV. Johnleemk | Talk 14:19, 14 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to say the prose isn't in dispute on my behalf, with the exception of the "Cover versions" section which has now been removed. Notability should be decided by what the music critics have commented upon, even if small. If one complains there's none, I'd like to say this is the Beatles. In other words the person isn't looking hard enough. On another note, whoever said we choose what we favour? I didn't. This would reach GA in my eyes, though for an FA it falls short (check All You Need Is Love (The JAMs song) for what meets current FA criteria as far as song articles go).
Fair enough you feel inline citations isn't a major problem, but I feel it is a major problem though for an FA - as for the "dinosaur" comment, feel free to have your own interpretations of what I'm saying. I've said it a 100 times, and I'll say it another 100 times until my message gets through, 1. c. of "What is a featured article?" is a requirement which isn't met by this article, not a guideline. Requirement. Feel free to "act" as if I've said something totally different, no doubt you will.
These web sources should have have cited their sources for direct quotes, and so should this article - the interviewer, the name of the magazine/newspaper, the date of issue, everything. One source isn't acceptable for inline citations, as this provides only the view of the author in question.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by LuciferMorgan (talk • contribs) .
I'd add that The JAMs' "All You Need Is Love" was a small-scale independent release by a band who were at the time "underground" (6500 copies were pressed plus however many of the picture sleeve 12"; I don't know how many of the latter but I'd have an educated guess at no more than 10,000). "A Day in the Life" is one of the most acclaimed songs in rock history by the band who have generated more column inches than just about anybody in the twentieth century.
I keep saying to WP:BEATLES folks "get the books out and start citing" but unfortunately it just doesn't happen. I wish I could take a lead but - besides being too busy - all my books are boxed away at the moment.
There's other sources though: most libraries in the English speaking world will have at least one book with at least some coverage of the band, and many will have one or more biographies; they'll also have archives of old newspapers. Universities often subscribe to ProQuest or similar, an online newspaper archive. There's simply no shortage of reliable, citeable material on The Beatles or this song. The argument "but we've relied on web sources so we don't need citations" just doesn't cut it for Featured Articles; we (I can say "we" because besides being pretty much a one-man WP:KLF at the moment I'm also the founder of WP:BEATLES - how ironic!) shouldn't be relying on these sources in the first place. Most of The Beatles articles (although not all) just aren't anywhere near FA standard sadly, and mostly for this reason. --kingboyk 17:34, 14 September 2006 (UTC) (edit conflict)[reply]
(deindent) Are there critics who have commented? Undoubtedly. Have these critics anything to say about cover versions? If they have, these comments are rather hard to find. AMG, which nearly always has something to say about at least one cover version, is silent in this regard, as is every other source. The fact is, none of the cover versions of this song have made enough of an impact to be worthy of comment in a comprehensive encyclopaedia article; as I said, half of the ostensible cover versions originally listed were just sampling the song, so they don't even count as covers. And as for the implication that I'm strawmanning, I was attempting to explore possibilities for including a discussion of covers; however, as I noted, the only grounds we have for selecting what covers to, well, cover, are our own personal preferences, because critics are silent about cover versions.
You are taking the literal approach to reading the rules. The mischief rule, which looks at the purpose we implemented inlien citations for, indicates that inline citations, although (as always) desirable, are not critical because there are other ways of meeting the intent of our policies concerning referencing. For instance, practically all quotations are from the same secondary source, so one could fulfill the intent of policy (which is to identify the precise source for each statement an article makes) by simply noting that "Unless otherwise stated, all quotations are from source X." As for one source alone being unacceptable, this fails to account for the fact that our lone source itself is based on a number of identified sources - it merely collates the material desired (in this case quotations) from the sources and places them in one document. As for your demand that we cite the primary source for each quotation - that's not practical very often. (The one exception would be the famous David Sheff interview with Lennon published in the January 1981 issue of Playboy, and even then, I don't see how you expect editors to dig up the specific page number for quotations from a magazine issue over a quarter of a century old, especially when the only way for most people to get their hands on this interview is in web form.) Secondary sources should be (and unless we've recently changed the policy in question) and are acceptable for things like this; if we can get the primary source, it's a bonus, but secondary sources ought to be fine. Johnleemk | Talk 17:27, 14 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Secondary sources are fine but they should be reliable and that means preferably books.
  • The Beatles Studio. Retrieved Sept. 8, 2004. --- Beatles.com.hk, presumably unofficial tribute site. Who's the author and what's their pedigree?
  • Lewisohn, Mark, The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, Hamlyn, 1998 --- Now we're talking. The "bible" written by arguably the foremost Beatles expert.
  • The Beatles Anthology, Chronicle, 2000 --- Not bad, but uses need to be cited (with page numbers) as this might be a primary source. We need the ISBNs too.
--kingboyk 17:38, 14 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds fine using the secondary sources for now if they're reliable as kingboyk, and if this is the case, but if Wikipedians can gradually find the primary sources feel free to replace the secondary sources. One secondary source though I feel is unacceptable as the author has their own feelings regarding the songs which comes through in texts. Hopefully somebody will be able to work on this FA sometime. LuciferMorgan 18:11, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I was under the impression that secondary sources from reliable authors are the preferred sources on Wikipedia. See WP:RS: "secondary sources are the stock material on which Wikipedia articles depend for their references." --kingboyk 18:14, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - I don't think this applies to direct quotations from actual music interviews, though secondary sources would be used mostly for critical reactions and so on. LuciferMorgan 22:15, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Move to FARC, lacking citations throughout, hopefully they will be addressed with additional FARC period. Sandy 23:26, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Featured article criteria concerns are insufficient citaions (1c) and comprehensiveness (1b). Marskell 10:40, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove. I don't see any improvements. Pooooor sources. Insufficient inline citations. Some stubby paragraphs. I hope some people will work on the article and I'll have to change my vote.--Yannismarou 16:38, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bishōjo game

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Review commentary

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Messages left at User talk:Shibboleth, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Computer and video games, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Anime and manga, and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan. Sandy 00:40, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Does not meet current featured article quality standards, having no inline citations whatsoever. In addition, a large amount of original research is present, as well as strong violation of WP:NPOV on several occasions. While of minor note in comparison, the prose does not reach standards of "compelling, even brilliant." JimmyBlackwing 09:48, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are citations (1c), original research, prose, and NPOV. Joelito (talk) 15:26, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Abraham Lincoln

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Review commentary

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  • Comment The lead appears to be more of an opinion piece and in direct contradiction to his views on slavery as explained later in the article.
Messages left at User talk:Sarge Baldy, Template talk:WPMILHIST Announcements, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Illinois, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Kentucky, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Congress, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Political figures, and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics. Sandy 00:31, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Doesn't meet current criteria - whole sections lack inline citations and there's even direct quotes with no cites. --plange 16:35, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment I'll work on the lead. It should be at least two paragraphs, explain his slavery views a bit more in-depth (though obviously not over-detailed), touch on his upbringing and law career and mention his legacy beyond "icon and martyr". Anything I'm missing? Stilgar135 19:44, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This Wikipedia entry is typical of the whitewash of the actions of America's version of Joe Stalin. He had northerners who opposed the war on their southern brothers shot down in the streets of NYC by federal troops. While it's true he approved all the northern generals and their tactics, I see no mention of Lincoln's policy of waging war on the CIVILIANS of the South. It was not only Sherman who indiscriminately burned towns, stole or killed livestock, burned wheat and flour, destroyed mills and even ripped up fences. These were war crimes even in the age of Lincoln.

Lincoln's most lasting legacy was probably the federal contract - the spending of huge sums of confiscated tax dollars on "internal projects" like the railroads. Previously, these had been handled through private companies - but with Lincoln, the means of rewarding his industrialist backers with juicy federal contracts came into its own. The new federal railroads were even built on ice and snow, in full knowledge they would collapse in the spring melt. The contractors counted on being paid for rework - just as they were paid per mile of track laid (no matter that the tracks weren't anything like the most direct possible route.)

Almost completely ignored is one of the main reasons for the outbreak of the War of Northern Aggression: Lincoln imposed huge tariffs on imported goods. The agrarian South had long imported good from England and a much lower cost than they could buy the same goods from the North. Lincoln raised the tariffs to put British goods beyond the price of the Southerners and force them to buy northern goods. For the South, that was never an option. The costs would have financially ruined those saddled with the higher costs.

From imprisoning people who disagreed with him (one preacher was even jailed for failing to offer a prayer in support of Lincoln and his war!), to creating a system for wasting federal dollars on sweetheart contracts, to gutting significant portions of the Constitution, to grand-standing on the slavery issue (Lincoln is on record as saying he didn't care one way or the other), to causing the deaths of more Americans than any other person in history (over half a million dead), "Honest" Abe ("Honest" was an ironic term of derision, much as you might say, "Honest" Bill Clinton), was quite possibly the single most destructive force to America in our history, setting in motion disasterous consequences which are still with us today.

I highly recommend the book, "The Real Lincoln" for anyone who wants to get a better view of this EVIL, self-centered power-monger from the mid-19th century. It contains direct cites for all of the above.

Not to derail this page, but The Real Lincoln is an awful book regardless of its author's intent. DiLorenzo may be 100% right, but that doesn't change the fact that he contradicts himself, plays fast and loose with the facts, and has no idea how to make an effective argument. I'm sure there are at least a few good anti-Lincoln books out there, but that sure isn't one of them. Stilgar135 02:58, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
He couldn't possibly be 100% right. See my comments below. Durova 16:08, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]


"I am not, nor ever have been, in favour of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races," Abraham Lincoln "There is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality." Abraham Lincoln "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it be freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some an leaving others alone I would do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union, and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union." Abraham Lincoln to Horace Greeley, 22 August 1862.

Far from being the willing forefather of today's multicultural America, President Lincoln advocated reserving the west of the country for whites, supported a law forbidding black people to settle in his home state of Illinois and was fond of racist jokes. He used two State of the Union addresses to call for the deportation of black people and shortly before his assassination in 1865 said of the thousands of slaves to be freed at the end of the Civil War: "I believe it would be better to export them all to some fertile country with a good climate which they could have to themselves."

He also habitually used the word "nigger" to describe black people, something which would have shocked and dismayed the hundreds of thousands of civil rights activists in the Sixties who made the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC the focus of some of the biggest demonstrations the city has seen.


FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concern is insufficient citations (1c). Marskell 07:33, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - that diatribe has nothing to do with this FAR however... It was posted by an anonymous IP. This article was nominated for FAR due to its lack of inline citations -- can you help get those added? --plange 16:14, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What facts do you think require inline citations, beyond what is present? Christopher Parham (talk) 17:58, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely any place where there's a quote, or asserting a stance of his, like "ridiculed religion". Plus one style needs to be picked, right now there's a mixture of <ref>/CMS and Harvard style for inline citations. --plange 18:05, 25 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove for now. Per Plange. Whole sections and sub-sections of this article have not even one inline citation! It still needs referencing, but it can be saved.--Yannismarou 14:32, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove. Entirely uncited and unstable. Sandy 16:36, 4 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove. Had a good look at this one because of its importance. It's very patchy, both in terms of writing quality and citations (the lack of the latter is enough to defeature). The early life section contains unsourced speculation ("he may have witnessed a slave auction that left an indelible impression on him for the rest of his life" is a gem), while the lead is just...off. Hard to place exactly, but "overthrow" and "destroying" slavery as verb choices, are examples. There's also some repetition and an imperfect TOC (the style of Homefront jars, for instance). There's certainly copious material here—not a bad read, but not an FA. Marskell 13:20, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove - Insufficient inline citations (1. c. violation). LuciferMorgan 13:30, 8 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sudoku

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Review commentary

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Messages left at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Board and table games. Marskell 15:41, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This article certainly does not exemplify the high standards of featured articles on Wikipedia.

With regards to 1a, stubby paragraphs abound, certainly not an FA characteristic. Stubby "paragraphs" include:

  • The attraction of the puzzle is that the rules are simple, yet the line of reasoning required to solve the puzzle may be complex. The level of difficulty can be selected to suit the audience. The puzzles are often available free from published sources and may be custom-made using software.
  • Later in 2005, the BBC launched SUDO-Q, a game show combining Sudoku (albeit only the 4×4 and 6×6 variants) with a general knowledge quiz.
  • During February 7th's episode of The Daily Show, correspondent Jason Jones suggested that to ease the conflict over the Jyllands-Posten Muhammed caricatures, newspapers should be stripped down to only featuring Sudoku puzzles.

However, most offensively, the article does not cite a single source until halfway through (1c). The first ref or external link does not occur until the Construction section. Even then, some of the more technical sections, such as how computer solutions are completed, do not have any references whatsoever. This article is not a good representation of the work that is featured article quality on Wikipedia. In addition, this article had a very poor traffic on its FAC and did not really look all that good when it was promoted in the first place. — Scm83x hook 'em 01:34, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Commnent: The entire "Solution Methods" section needs to be justified, as Wikipedia is not a how-to. Given that, it needs citations throughout. The output grid in the "Mathematics of Sudoku" section is not source code, so there doesn't seem to be any reason why it should be in (ugly) verbatim formatting. Similarly, SVG diagrams would be somewhat preferable to the GIFs and PNGs currently in use. One of those images, Cross-hatching.gif, is using an obsolete fair use tag, which is a matter for some concern. Looks like it's a version of Sudoku-by-L2G-20050714.gif, which seems legit, though. Note that I went ahead and created an SVG version at Sudoku-by-L2G-20050714.svg‎. Don't have time to do the final touches now, though. -Stellmach 21:13, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Never mind my comment about the formatting in the "Mathematics of Sudoku" section, as that algorithm is pretty obviously original research in the first place and has been removed. - Stellmach 01:54, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question: Come to look at it, is the liscencing statement on the image Sudoku-nrc.png in order? It seems to be basically a copy of a layout from a Dutch newspaper, so what right does the uploader have to duplicate it? I find this suspicious. -Stellmach 14:34, 13 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are citations (1c), and structure and stub paragraphs (2). Marskell 18:22, 21 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove. The article is still undercited, and the prose is not compelling. Here is a sample paragraph from History:
  • In 1997, retired Hong Kong judge Wayne Gould, 59, a New Zealander, saw a partly completed puzzle in a Japanese bookshop. Over six years he developed a computer program to produce puzzles quickly.[20] Knowing that British newspapers have a long history of publishing crosswords and other puzzles, he promoted Sudoku to The Times in Britain, which launched it on 12 November 2004 (calling it Su Doku). It was rapidly introduced by The Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail and The Independent. By April and May 2005 the puzzle became a national phenomenon and was introduced to several other national British newspapers including The Guardian, The Sun (where it was labelled Sun Doku), and The Daily Mirror.[citation needed] Sandy 14:42, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove—as per Sandy. "Various other grid sizes have also been enumerated" is a gem of an example that I saw at random. Why are both hyphens and en dashes used for ranges (should be en dashes: 1–9, not 1-9). Insert spaces—ideally small ones, but normal are OK—around the "times" symbols, for which ex is used, regrettably (3 × 3, not 3x3). Tony 15:36, 5 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Joshua A. Norton

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Review commentary

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Messages left at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject California, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Political figures, and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography. Sandy 00:14, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I stumbled across this page by chance and couldn't quite believe it's an FA. Of course, it's one of our older ones.

Although interesting, I'm not sure the prose is brilliant. It degenerates into a list and trivia by the end of the article, including a ridiculous section on the dead Norton posting to Usenet via a spiritual medium! The article is referenced but such a chatty piece really needs inline citations.

A decent enough article, perhaps a GA, but up to modern FA standards? My feeling is no. --kingboyk 15:59, 6 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • I'd agree with kingboyk's comments (though the 'perhaps a GA' comment I feel is being generous given the current expected standards for GA's and FA's). The "In popular culture" section is almost a trivia section in disguise, creating disjointed prose which needs to be addressed (1. a.) by tying the paragraphs together so the whole section is properly co-ordinated. This is an example which needs inline citations (1. c.), or otherwise can be considered original research;
"During the latter years of Norton's reign, he was the subject of considerable rumor and speculation."
In brief, criteria 1. a. and 1. c. need to be addressed in this article. LuciferMorgan 01:35, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Per nominator. Inline citations desperately needed. Section "In popular culture" looks like a loooooong trivia section.--Yannismarou 18:33, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've started restoring this article. Trivia has been moved to a daughter article, I'm changing to in-line cites & I've stared editing out some accumulated cruft.--Paul 14:03, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A very good ongoing effort, with good progress being made by Paul, but it still needs more citations: shall we move it to FARC now that two weeks have elapsed, or will work be completed soon? FARC would allow at least two more weeks to complete work. Sandy 21:49, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Without some help, completion isn't going to be soon. I have addressed the "triva" concerns of earlier commentators; existing references were converted to in-line, and a few new references have been added, though more are required. I am planning a trip to the SF Library where (after looking in the catalog) I know I will have access to most of the listed secondary sources. I like the irreverent and informal tone of this article, and will do some prose polishing to return it to its former glory. I hope it can be rescued as a FA. Trips to the library are weekend projects.--Paul 22:00, 20 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are structure (trivia and lists) (2), and insufficient citations (1c). Marskell 09:41, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A late reply: Paul, I never deduce when moving down what has been taken care of, because that would game the system in favour of my evaluation. I just relist in summary what the nominator said, and the reviewers can then judge for themselves. Marskell 10:33, 2 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Note on closure: Paul did some good work on this, but by his own admission requires more than the available time to get it to standard. A fair bit of work remains. Marskell 10:48, 7 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Go (board game)

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Review commentary

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I find that this article falls short of many FA criteria, most important one being insufficient referencing. I raised my concerns on the talk page of the article nearly two weeks back, but did not find any progress.

Quantifying the concerns, the major concerns regarding this article are as follows:

  1. Article lacks enough references.
  2. Article has over-whelmingly large external links section.
  3. Section "Go variants" has a lot of stub-sections (very short sub-sections).
  4. The article can also lose a bit in size, as a lot of trivia is present in sections like "Other board games sometimes compared with Go".

— Ambuj Saxena (talk) 17:03, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Message left at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject China, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Japan, and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Board and table games. — Ambuj Saxena (talk) 17:12, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'd add that the "Other board games sometimes compared with Go" thing seems like not only trivia, but a real magnet for off-the-cuff original "research". -Stellmach 13:30, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Go_Variants now exists as a seperate page, there remains a seperate link in this article which lists games that can be played with Go equipment. Hopefully this may resolve some of the problems mentioned above. What exactly needs to be referenced? -Zinc Belief

I note that the "chess" article, like this one, contains only five references, and more than thirty external links. Yet that article is not on the FAR list. Is some anti-go POV at work here? kibi 17:02, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have to agree that the article is insufficiently referenced (I would object on these grounds to a GA nomination, in fact). I also think it is clear that it contains far, far too many external links, most of which do not fall under the guidelines expressed in WP:EL. The external links section is over 100 lines and nearly 12 kilobytes in size; this is exactly what is discouraged by the proscriptions against "link farms" in articles. I would add to these concerns that there are a number of stylistic problems, particularly relating to the use of capital letters and redundancy and capitalization in headings. For example, "go" is not a proper noun, so why is it capitalized? I think the article could benefit from significant copy editing. As for the number of references in chess, well, I think that's a problem there too. That's not really relevant here, though. —ptk✰fgs 19:25, 11 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There are indeed far too many links. I may see if I can page off these later. However what exactly should be referenced? If somebody could point out some sections it would help in improving the article. As for Go being capitalised, I am sure you can find out why that is the case if you do some research :) - ZincBelief
I can't find anything. If the name is always capitalized (and this does not seem the be the case), that makes it significantly different from other board games whose names are common nouns, and should be expressed and referenced in the article. —ptk✰fgs 19:10, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Eight references added, some of which (such as The Go Player's Almanac) support many facts thourghout the article. Are the reference-seekers satisfied? kibi 01:39, 14 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please remember not to compare to another FA, which might also need to be FAR'd. The External Links seem to be a link farm. The article has external jumps, which should be corrected. The footnotes contain NY Times references, which should be expanded to a bibliographic or footnote format. The footnotes do not use correct punctuation (see WP:FN). Without looking yet at other issues, I checked the article for inline citations - a few examples (there are others) of uncited statements from a random section in the middle of the article are:
Go had reached Japan from China by the 7th century, and gained popularity at the imperial court in the 8th century.
In 1603, Tokugawa Ieyasu created Japan's first unified national government. Almost immediately, he appointed the then best player in Japan, Honinbo Sansa, head of a newly founded Go academy (the Honinbo school, the first of several competing schools founded about the same time).
The government discontinued its support for the Go academies in 1868 as a result of the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate.
(POV, OR ??) It is a perfect information, deterministic, strategy game, putting it in the same class as chess, checkers (draughts), and reversi (othello).
(Weasle words, screaming for a citation) It is commonly said that no go game has ever been played twice, and this may well be true:
Those are just some samples. Move to FARC for further work. Sandy 17:32, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are referencing (1c), organizations and size (2 and 4). Marskell 20:14, 18 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak remove. A lot of improvements have been made since the FAR started, but the article is still short of FA standards with large parts of the article unreferenced and stubby sections. The problem with external links is resolved, IMO. — Ambuj Saxena (talk) 12:58, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove. Many listy sections that should be turned into prose. Some stubby sections and an obvious problem with referencing.--Yannismarou 16:59, 24 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove. Weasle words, undercited, possible OR or POV, listy and stubby, and although I somewhat cleaned them up, External links/Further reading seems to have become a link farm/advertising for books for sale section. Sandy 15:43, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove grammatical problems, particularly the unexplained and repeated capitalization of "go", a common noun like chess, draughts, and backgammon. thin on references. otherwise an excellent article. EL's still a bit heavy, but are a significant improvement over the situation prior to FAR. Possible non-free images — is Jago open-source? What is its license? Is it okay to use screenshots of this software to show go positions? Or should they be marked 'fair use' only for discussion of Jago? I have no problem with the number of books listed per se, but if their info is so valuable that they need to be listed here, they could probably be worked in as references for some of the unsourced statements. —ptk✰fgs 02:23, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't understand why Ptkfgs is offering unreasearched opinions on a FARC review. Why not look up Jago's website to find this out? Why not look up every national Go website and find that it is the accepted custom to Capitalise the common noun Go. Is there some particular reason wikipedia shouldn't reflect normal practice, if so I would like to hear why? The perception that this is a problem is totally bizarre. If you want to troll please go somewhere else. FARC comments are also supposed to cite instances of problems, as detailed in the guidelines, which none of the reviewers so far have done. Pity. What specifically would people like referenced and why? Which sections are stubby? Why should listy sections be turned into prose, and what are these listy sections? I feel this FARC commentary is frankly woeful. Sorry.
Capitalized common nouns are a rare exception. The explanation that's been added is good, but it's one of the things I'd like to see a reference for. As for what else needs to be referenced? Well, I would start with the second sentence of the article, and then move on to referencing basically every claim in the first paragraph of "origin of the name". Then I'd look for references on the "internal tensions" paragraph the "nature of the game" section. I really don't think I need to list 70 different claims that need referencing. The article in general misses FA criteron 1(c). Sorry you feel this is woeful. —ptk✰fgs 00:00, 7 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you just read the article you can find a reference for the second sentence. I think you do need to list references if you want to make a review. That applies to everyone by the way. Otherwise you're not doing a proper review. I think FA status should be reapplied pending a proper review.

I haven't seen a proper review yet.

There's nothing "good" about the explanation that "go is sometimes capitalized to differentiate from the common verb." If that made sense, then bridge would also be capitalized when it refers to the game. Why is this important? Go is an ancient game with deep cultural roots. It is not just some game that somebody invented and copyrighted. Capitalizing go treivializes it. BTW, the AGA web site is one site that does not capitalize go (although there are errors there.) It is not capitalized in the The American Go E-Journal either. And those that do are just plain wrong, as the example of "bridge" should make clear. Readers who cannot differentiate between a noun and a verb should seek remedial education. kibi 13:38, 10 October 2006 (UTC) 13:36, 10 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually the policy on the USGO site is totally inconsistent, so I am not impressed with your argument there. You can find numerous instances of both go and Go there. The E-Journal's editor clearly prefers to use go. The IGF site uses Go. The BGA site uses Go. Canada uses Go. EGF uses Go. France uses Go. Belgium uses Go. Australia uses Go. Ireland is inconsistent. Anyway this is just one issue, an unresolved dispute. What about the other areas? Anything which has been requested to be changed has been changed. The unspecified problems are still unspecified. Unless reviewers specify what they dislike about the article I don't see how they expect people to change it. When you review and find problems you are supposed to specify what they are, if you are not prepared to do that, then don't review an article.

The process is described as Articles are listed as FARCs only after undergoing a review. 'Reviewers may declare "keep" or "remove", supported by substantive comments that focus on the outstanding deficiencies in relation to the FA criteria. Reviewers who declare "remove" should be prepared to return towards the end of the process to strike out their objections if they have been addressed. If, after a period of review, the deficiencies have not been addressed and there is no obvious momentum to do so, the FA status is removed. If consensus has emerged that the changes have brought the article back to standard, the review is closed.'

Now after objections were raised the article started to be edited and improved. A clear sign of obvious momentum. In my opinion, it is not acceptable to just say Weasle words, undercited,- that is a not a substantive comment. I only see superficial comments, with the possible acception of the unresolved dispute over Capitalisation. Is it acceptable to capitalise go to improve readability, or do we want an encyclopedia that adheres to strict grammatical rules at that expense?

We can examine the original problems

  1. Article lacks enough references.
  2. Article has over-whelmingly large external links section.
  3. Section "Go variants" has a lot of stub-sections (very short sub-sections).
  4. The article can also lose a bit in size, as a lot of trivia is present in sections like "Other board games sometimes compared with Go".
  1. References where added, although no indication of what needed to be referenced was given.
  2. external links section was trimmed as some reviewers indicated
  3. Section Go Variants was hived off into a seperate article
  4. the article can also lose a bit in size, well it did. Other board games sometimes compared with Go is no longer there.


I really do object to how this review process has ended. I will request arbitration if this is not adressed.--ZincBelief 10:45, 12 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

AC power plugs and sockets

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Review commentary

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Talk message left at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Electronics. Sandy 23:06, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This article is, in my opinion, a mess! The prose is very poor (e.g., "If a plug does not mate with the sockets available, do NOT modify either and only replace one if you are sure you know what you are doing"), there's inconsistent spelling (adapter/adaptor), ampersands in links and titles, obscure jargon and technical references (e.g., "The Danish standard is described in DS Afsnit 107-2-D1 (SRAF1962/DB 16/87 DN10A-R)"), and general awkwardness. There are no inline citations and only five references total. Many of the images have obsolete copyright tags. It also seems overly long, though that may be unavoidable for an article of this type. —smably 22:12, 22 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Status? Five inconsequential edits since nominated, here's the diff: [2]. No one is working on it. Sandy 10:05, 1 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment I browsed it wondering whether this were just a minor matter of spelling and syntax, but discovered the article has no line citations at all. While it seems to be accurate and complete and encyclopedic, I like to see references. Durova 00:52, 8 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Suggested FA criteria concerns are poor prose (1a), copyright tags (3), and length (4). Marskell 06:00, 7 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove. Some work has been done on it since Sandy's comment above, but not nearly enough. Convince me that it should be saved. Tony 13:09, 9 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove. Lacking inline citations. Bad lay-out. Huge "See also" section. As it is now, it shouldn't be saved.--Yannismarou 08:12, 10 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Two editors have been working on the article, but not on the FARC issues: I left them talk messages, hoping to enlist their help in the FAR. Sandy 13:22, 12 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I'm one of those editors, the big problem is that the only good references are the official national standards which (unfortunately) aren't generally freely availible and presumablly many of them aren't in english either. So unfortunately most information is either from other websites or from people who actually live in the countries where the plugs are used.
    • As a top level article what should really happen is that all the little sections should be summaries linked to high quality well referenced articles of thier own, but that requires someone with enough knowlage about the particular plug types use to write such an article.
    • I try to keep the article tidy (mainly summarising bloated sections and moving the detail to more specific articles, i'll take a look at see also now it could probablly do with some trimming) but i'm really not in a position to make much improvement on the references issue.
    • As for the copyright tags i stronly feel that if people wan't to go obsoleting tags they should clear up the mess they make themselves.
    • As for length yes it is a little on the long side (and people keep pushing more in which i try to keep under control but its a major job), otoh it is very usefull to have basic info on the worlds common plug types in a single conviniant article. Plugwash 11:12, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I'm the other of those editors.
    • Actually, a lot of information on the more common standards is available on the Web, it's just time-consuming tracking it down. I'm working on it.
    • I'm also working on cleaning up the turgid prose, but there's a lot of it.
    • I tried splitting the article, putting the somewhat bloated safety notes section in its own article, but Plugwash put it back. We really need to get together on what we are doing.
    • Some of the plugs are popular enough to deserve their own article, the Europlug already has its own. It's probably time for the American Type B to get its own as well since it has a number of common variations.
    • We have a bit of a conflict between the North American and British POV. I'm Canadian, so I know the American plugs quite well, and I've seen a few of the European plugs. I find the British plugs kind of humorous (or humourous depending on your POV), but that doesn't go over well with the Brits. RockyMtnGuy 22:38, 15 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • You left the safety notes section as a horrible stub section, i brought the most important bit of it back (and trimmed the version i brought back too) leaving a section convering the most important bits with a main article link which is imo the way it should be.
      • As for the american plugs, i think for the moment NEMA connectors is small enough to just put any detail that doesn't belong in domestic AC power plugs and sockets there. At some point we might wan't to break out say "NEMA 5 series" into its own article though.
      • BTW you say you find the size of our plugs humerous, well i've got two retorts to that. One is the flatness means that in use they aren't as bad space wise as they first appear (e.g. you can push a cupboard against one without it being too far from the wall), secondly its lovely to be able to plug in a 3KW fan heater or electric fire into any socket and to only have minor electrical work to do if you wan't to put in a washing machine or dishwasher. Plugwash 01:04, 16 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Well, I see the British are sensitive about their plugs. I wasn't commenting about their size, I just feel they are somewhat overengineered for what they do.
    • Here in North America we seldom feel the urge to plug in a 3000 W heater because of a concept we used called central heating. If we have a washing machine or a portable dishwasher, we just plug it in and it works. For heavy appliances we have to install 240 V sockets.
    • Most of the NEMA connectors are industrial, marine, or other than domestic; and there are a lot of them. For this article I'd just like to mention the ones used in houses.
    • I moved the safety notes text to its own article and was going to summarize it later. The section seems overly technical. Most people aren't interested in designing their own grounding systems, they just need to know that if they don't have a ground, it could kill them. For technical details there are couple of articles (one on earthing systems and the other on ground (electricity)) that we could link to.
    • Other than that, I'm just interested in improving it to make it more readable to the average person. RockyMtnGuy 03:24, 19 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yeah our plugs probablly are a bit overengineered (though no more so than most other european plug types), central heating does break down from time to time and its very handy to be able to use a 3KW fan heater in any room when it does.
      • regarding "NEMA connectors" you a right there are a lot of them and if/when we have information on a significant proportion of them that article will need to be split. However equally i belive there is no point in splitting a reasonable sized article into a series of horrible stubs. There seem to be a lot of people on wikipedia who have good long term ideas but then use those as an excuse to deconstruct good articles into a series of stubs (and then in many cases the long term ideas are never followed through with). I'm a firm beliver that our structure should represent the information we have now not the information we might have in the future.
      • Keep up the improvements, i won't generally revert wholesale but i will correct anything that is factually inaccurate and/or put some kind of summary back into a section that is left as a tiny stub.

Status: What's going on with this one? Rocky, are you able to work some more? Marskell 19:24, 22 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • I intend to do some more work on it. I'll do a bit more tonight. It's just that the the weather is warm and sunny and the larches are turning golden yellow high in the Canadian Rockies. When the weather turns snarky I'll get more work done. Until, of course, the snow gets deep enough to ski... RockyMtnGuy 02:05, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • It's already been on FARC a week past the usual timing: gorgeous Fall weather notwithstanding, please keep us posted on your progress, so we can keep this moving. Sandy 13:38, 26 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep I had a go at improving some English but all in all, it is a good article. Whether I would want it on the home page of Wikipedia is another matter, but that is more to do with the subject than its quality. JMcC 17:00, 26 September 2006 (UTC) PS Even in British English, it is 'humorous'.[reply]
  • To my own considerable astonishment, I'm going to vote keep on this one after reading it. I think it is a good article. The writing may not be the best, but heck, it's an article about plugs. And the fact that there is a mild edit-war on this of all topics is a salutary reminder of the power of a public encyclopedia! Eusebeus 12:25, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Its already had its time on the front page ;) (though i belive wikipedias standards were less harsh back then) I wouldn't call the situation an edit war there is some mild conflict between the articles main maintainers (currently me and rockymountainguy)and ofc there is the constant stream of well intentioned but poor newbie edits that any major article gets but there isn't any major edit war. Plugwash 15:13, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I was being facetious. What I really meant was that it is salutary to see that a far from obvious topic is the subject of both well-presented information and ongoing interested editing and maintenance.  :) Eusebeus 15:58, 27 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove, few sources and the article doesn't appear to have improved much; some reworking at it could be a featured list candidate, the potential for good prose isn't there for this kind of article.--Peta 08:23, 1 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Remove. Some sections still aren't well referenced (for example, History), there are numerous stubby sections and one-sentence paragraphs, the prose is not compelling and not particularly illuminating. Example of the prose: The idea of "taking fault currents safely to earth" popular in laymans understanding of earthing (and worryingly school science books) is a misconception, the earthing system serves two purposes, firstly it provides a system to automatically cut the power to an appliance with a fault to the case and secondly it tries to hold all touchable metalwork that has a low resistance connection to anything at the same voltage (since it is a voltage difference that causes current through the body and hence electric shock). Sandy 14:27, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's pretty bad, isn't it? I tried to improve the prose for that particular paragraph, and the above was what my edit was replaced with: a candidate for the World's Worst Writing Award. "It was a dark and primarily stormy, with ominous stratonumbocumulous clouds, night, and fault currents were being led confusedly (but not as confusedly as in popular school science books) to earth." Actually, the example you gave is hard to make worse. I am going to take another shot at making it better when nobody is looking, ("No, no! You haven't considered TT earthing in the global perspective...") RockyMtnGuy 14:56, 3 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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