Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/archive29

Supporting

Creatures of Impulse has been co-nominated by me and Ssilvers. Should we support it as well, or is that presumed? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 13:58, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Not necessary - it's presumed that the nominators think the article is of FA quality. Maralia (talk) 14:02, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

FA and WP:OWN

Why is there a requirement that nominators fix problems with an article. And why should folks "take credit" for FA articles. Is this not against the spirit of WP:OWN? Shyamal (talk) 05:59, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

When you nominate an article for featured status, you are certifying that it conforms to the featured article criteria. When reviewers point out examples of how it does not, you logically need to fix them before it can become featured. Of course no one "owns" an article, but self-identifying as a major contributor helps other editors know who is best-equipped to solve problems. The major contributors are most familiar with the subject matter, sources, and so on. --Laser brain (talk) 14:13, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Agreed in general. But it appears that many FA review comments are actually things they could very well have been made to improve the article. Instead comments are provided and the nominator's response seems to be the focus of attention. In other words there could have been a lot more collaboration to improve the article than is generally seen. I have no supporting data to tell if FA "trophy collection" leads to competition or a consequent reduction in collaboration. If indeed competition produces more FAs - then maybe ownership can really be good. I can however see for instance that WP:BIRD has a produced a collaborative spirit that seems ultimately to produce more FAs - and feel that the FA process should finally encourage a form of collective "ownership". One way to make it the process constructive is to impose some kind of cost on opposition. (This is reminiscent of a situation written about by Frey, Bruno http://www.iew.uzh.ch/wp/iewwp117.pdf). Shyamal (talk) 14:35, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't really know what you are suggesting. What's a "cost on opposition"? It's true that the nominator becomes the focus of attention during the FAC but that's because that person has chosen to be the "delegate". I don't see any issues with people "taking credit" for FAs as it's clear to anyone who bothers looking who worked on the article. The editing process here is completely transparent. Additionally, it can be very difficult to find collaborators on almost any subject. For example, I've been asking for collaborators at musical instrument for a couple months now. It's a broad, general-interest topic and a core topic. I've gotten some help on sourcing and outlining, but no one is actually interested in writing the article. Most high-energy collaborations around here are on films, video games, and TV shows. --Laser brain (talk) 15:01, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Hi, you haven't had an FAC nomination (according to WP:WBFAN) so perhaps your understanding of the process is not complete. For one, it is usually easier to work on an article alone than to find others who are interested in working on it; a lot of people work on such obscure topics that no one else is interested in spending so much time on it. There are just a number of issues that eventually somewhat lead to WP:OWN, but hey, it's better to have an expert on an extremely rare frog species found only in the jungles of Venezuela than not. I've personally collaborated a few times on FACs with others, mostly on video game articles because those are so popular, and others have been willing to help out. Gary King (talk) 14:54, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Part of the problem is that some FAC reviewers, such as Casliber are regular FA writers, know how hard it is to do, and collaborate by fixing minor errors. Other reviewers seem to take an effectively adversarial approach. Whilst I expect to have to make changes to get articles I nominate through FAC, I find it irksome to get comments on the lines of "there's an ndash missing from reference 43" or "sentence X needs a comma" when it would be quicker and more constructive to fix it than tell me. Adversarial reviewing is bound to make the WP:OWN problem more entrenched. jimfbleak (talk) 15:40, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I generally don't fix citation errors, because half the time (or more than half) I'm not familiar with the system the article is using. I'm more than happy to fix small typos I find, I just get leery of fixing things in citations where I might make bigger errors than the ones I'm seeing. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:44, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Simple answer to Jimfbleak; I took my one and only Wiki stress break once after I was completely raked over the coals, literally, for changing one "s" in a featured article. It was absurd that someone took me to task for an "s", but when I realized it was more absurd that I was bothered by that, I took a week break. My point is, there is no such thing as a trivial change, and depending on how well one knows the nominator, many reviewers have learned to be cautious in making any change to an article at FAC. Further, entering comments on a FAC is a better way to increase the knowledge footprint, since everyone else reading can also learn things that need to be addressed, no matter how trivial. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:50, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I think that a lot of perhaps seemingly trivial points are raised as comments so that the nominator, and others, can learn a few things about MOS that they might not know about. For instance, the use of en dash might not be common knowledge, so sometimes the only way to get the word out is to consistently comment it when it needs commenting on. Gary King (talk) 15:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm a little worried that you think that if reviewers offer a comment about a minor error that is "adversarial". I'm a reviewer and regular writer too. As a reviewer, sometimes I dig in and fix things I see, and sometimes I don't. I tend to not fix things if a) the article/section needs a lot of help, b)the section is really long and it would take time to locate the one comma I wanted to change, c) I don't know a lot about the topic and my copyedits could potentially cause meaning changes, or d) if I'm trying to dig through a large watchlist or lots of FAC and don't have time to provide a lot of help. Because of the shortage of FAC reviewers, unless I'm really interested in the topic I tend to think my time is better spent reviewing multiple articles rather than fix the issues in the article I am currently looking at. As a reviewer, I certainly don't intend to be "adversarial" - I just want to make sure someone sees the issue and can fix it. Maybe because I do spend so much time reviewing, it doesn't bother me when I'm a nominator to have other reviwers make those same types of comments. Karanacs (talk) 15:54, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Karanacs, it certainly helps when you've been on both sides of the process, because then you know how others feel. I would put myself in that category, too. I think that a large bulk of reviews come from a small group of people, whereas nominations generally come from a large group of people, so reviewers are usually stretched thin and would rather not want to have to dig in to an article. Gary King (talk) 15:59, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I often edit articles at FAC and offer them as suggestions. I've received complaints a couple of times, but most of the time nominators put up with me. The reason I don't get well and truely "sruck in" is time, (or lack of it), I have projects of my "own" to research and write. GrahamColm^Talk 16:31, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm very new to this (I've only done two FAC reviews), but I think there are two points as to why reviewers don't just implement all their comments themselves. Firstly it's a lot quicker to review if you don't have to hit 'edit' every time you see some change, especially if you're on a PC/connection as slow as mine. But that's less significant than my second point - my philosophy is to only make very minor changes directly to the article (inserting commas, missing words, correcting tenses, for example), since featured articles candidates are generally the product of a long and arduous process and generally any change I suggest may already have been suggested and rejected for the article for some reason I've not thought of. Adacore (talk) 13:38, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Viewing contents table without whole page

I'm not entirely certain this is the right place to ask this, but I can't think of anywhere better. Is there any way to display just the list of current FACs (the contents table on the FAC page) rather than the whole page, so I can go straight to the individual article FAC pages without having to open the main FAC page, which is normally so long it effectively crashes my browser? Adacore (talk) 13:43, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes: Wikipedia:Featured articles/Candidate list. Maralia (talk) 13:54, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Adacore (talk) 14:07, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Before I list...

Can someone read over Toronto Magnetic and Meteorological Observatory and let me know if I should bother listing or not? Maury (talk) 23:09, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried peer review? Ben (talk) 23:21, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I agree it would benefit from a peer review first. It's a very interesting article; if you take it there I will try to review it tonight or tomorrow. Risker (talk) 23:24, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

But peer review works best if you take advantage of all the tips at WP:FCDW/March 17, 2008 (I saw some unformatted citations and incorrect use of WP:MOSBOLD, and wouldn't stack the images per WP:MOS#Images). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:26, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I think it's an excellent article, beautifully written and structured. But it's rather short for an FA, and, not knowing the subject very well, I have no means of knowing if it's comprehensive or not. Bishonen | talk 23:32, 10 June 2008 (UTC).

Fair enough. Risker, do I have to list? I always seem to break everything when I list anywhere. Maury (talk) 00:43, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

• Search for collaborators in the edit histories/summaries of related articles? TONY (talk) 01:47, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Huh? Maury (talk) 14:50, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I believe what Tony means is to look at the edit history of an article that is related to the Toronto Magnetic and Meteorological Observatory, like the University of Toronto, to find other knowledgeable editors that could help out by providing a fresh pair of eyes. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 20:19, 12 June 2008 (UTC))

I thought that too... but what does that have to do with my concerns about breaking the pages? Maury (talk) 20:47, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I can't speak for Tony, but I assume it was directed at the comments above about peer review. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 20:52, 12 June 2008 (UTC))

Two silly questions

Thanks to those who responded to my query about fixing minor errors above. Two more questions.

1. The guidance for citation says that you should give references for information that is likely to be challenged. At FAC, the effective rule seems to be that everything should be referenced. This is an admittedly extreme example, later largely reversed by a subsequent reviewer, but the fact remains that a paragraph without a reference will be almost automatically tagged with a "fact" template, and/or lead to an "oppose" comment.
2. I religiously write page ranges in refs with ndash. I have no idea why I have to do this instead of using a hyphen. 05:53, 11 June 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimfbleak (talk • contribs)

One of the reasons everyone likes stuff to be cited is because let’s face it, I have no clue about birds in general, House Martins in particular, so how am I going to know one grain of imformation on the article is true if not backed up by good sources? A player of Halo is going to know players can move around and strafe, but will a reader who has no knowledge of video games going to? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 13:31, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

David, do you think a non-gaming reader is going to stop and say "gee, I really doubt that you can move around in Halo! I want a ref!"? Or for that matter, if you really knew nothing about House Martins, how would you know the refs are accurate? I don't see any reference for it actually being a bird, after all. Do you want a ref for that?

The reason for the "likely to be challenged" clause is to avoid "over referencing". The Halo article is a good example of what happens when you don't follow it. Itmakes it hard to read and even harder to edit.

As Jim pointed out, in spite of this well-meaning rule to avoid over-referencication, the FA (and GA) reviewers invariably demand one reference per paragraph, or claim too few refs and fail it. Maury (talk) 19:53, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Regarding your first question, see wikipedia:When to cite Raul654 (talk) 14:08, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

New editintro for FAC nominations

Just a heads up, I (after bringing it up with Gimmetrow and Sandy) have modified the {{FAC}} template so that it includes an editintro. An example can be seen here. Gary King (talk) 04:20, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you so much, Gary ! Now let's sit back and watch how many people will now read the instructions :-)) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:30, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Looks great, but could this also be easily accessible within the FAC page too (or something closeby), so that one can refer to it outside of opening a nom? Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 04:51, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

It's at the very top of WP:FAC. The reason we put it in the nomination page now is because people rarely see the one at WP:FAC; apparently you are one of them :p Gary King (talk) 04:52, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Guilty as charged, sir! :) (Although in fairness, I've not nominated for two years now.) Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 05:07, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

It might be better if they were easier to read. The background is rather dark? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 06:01, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay lighter now. Gary King (talk) 06:09, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Wow! Thanks :) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 06:16, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Remember, prior to --> before...plain English .... :) Seriously though, looks good. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:27, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I have made the change. Even though it's not an FAC! I just can't get away :| Gary King (talk) 06:44, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Unless I'm very much mistaken, Casliber was suggesting changing the "prior to" (later on in the text) to "before" - not the other way round... Trebor (talk) 09:54, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, "prior to" usually precedes an event while "before" precedes a verb. The only other "prior to" is "article prior to nomination" and nomination is an event, so I think prior to is correct in that instance. Same goes for the headline of "Read this prior to submitting an article for featured article candidacy". Gary King (talk) 14:38, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

I know it's much too late to join this debate now, but I've only just seen it. "Prior to" usually precedes an event while "before" precedes a verb - is a grammar rule I've not met before. What about Before Christ, "Before the hills in order stood...", "I before E except after C" and "Pride goeth before a fall"? Collins English Dictionary defines "prior to" as "before". Just thought I'd point this out. Brianboulton (talk) 17:33, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Making reviewing and assessment easier?

Well, I've been saying for several months that I think making a rubric would benefit the process so nominators can understand what they should address. So I went into the old and rusty teacher's box in my brain to draw this up. I hope this will also make evaluating FACs a bit easier for potential and experienced reviewers. I find some editors daunted by the FAC process, overwhelmed with too much detail. I hope this makes it less intimidating.

You can view it here. Feel free to tinker with it as well.

I don't quite know how this should be implemented, if at all. If you fine folks think it could be useful, I envision an almost automated process somehow, since the table format these are in is not particularly user-friendly. I was barely able to do the tables (and so impressed that they look like they do - we have to celebrate really small things sometimes), so I don't know how to automate it at all. But this is my idea, for what it's worth. --Moni3 (talk) 20:08, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I added comments to the talk page there. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:18, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Primary contributor clause

"Nominators who are not significant contributors to the article should consult regular editors of the article prior to nomination." - I was in favor of this addition to the FAC rules when it was added recently because I knew it would cut down on drive-by noms and reduce the workload of our already overworked directors. I had assumed it would be interpreted loosely, not strictly. The recent dust-up at Talk:King Arthur#FAC? has raised some issues for me, however. A bunch of copyeditors and formatters helped prepare the article for FAC, but we decided to let the main content contributor do the nominating (this decision was reached on the talk page). When he returned, after a small break, he nominated the article for FAC. However, because he had a lower number of edits than some of the copyeditors, the article was removed from FAC and consensus was required from the copyeditors for the FAC nomination. Although we had consensus at this article for FAC among the copyeditors and the main content contributor and thus the FAC should have proceeded, I would like to ask FAC reviewers whether they believe someone can be a "primary contributor" without having the highest number of edits on an article. In this case, the subject expert did not have the highest number of edits, the copyeditors did. What if someone pasted a "finished" article into mainspace in one edit and then copyeditors took over, leaving that person with a single, solitary edit and the copyeditors with hundreds? Are the copyeditors the primary contributor although the other editor researched and wrote the bulk of the article? Are we intent on defining "primary contributor" as the person with the most edits? I am concerned that if we leave this clause in the instructions and interpret it strictly according to the statistics, we will not actually be identifying who we want as nominators. I would be interested to hear what other people have to say about this. Awadewit (talk) 03:15, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

This is a no-brainer. May I add that the number three editor of King Arthur is not even a copyeditor. All he's ever done with that article is kill vandalism. We need to squash this problem before it goes any further. Edit counts are not the end-all of determining primary contributors. Sometimes you have to assume good faith and believe what people are telling you when they say they are the primary contributor, especially, when other editors are backing them up. Wrad (talk) 03:22, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

(ec reply to Awadewit): This isn't an entirely accurate representation of the issue, and your response to this matter is interesting, Awadewit, since only hours before I removed the nom (based on your post to the talk page), you advocated that there was no rush and not to hurry.[1]

First, the instructions for FAC now say we need to consult the primary contributor of the article before nominating. Second, it is my opinion that only people well-versed in the subject matter should nominate an article for FAC. That way, when questions that demand research arise, there is someone available who has the books or who knows where to look. For example, if you see the review I posted at the William Wilberforce FAC, you will see that some of the points I raised required the nominators to dig out the books again. I'm not sure why we are in a rush to nominate this article. Awadewit (talk) 17:00, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

That is what was on the talk page at the point that I checked the talk page to see if significant contributors (the FA team) had been consulted and I removed the nom, and two of the top three contributors had not weighed in to say it was ready. This is not about counting edits; it is about a clear post from you on the talk page saying not to hurry, not to move forward yet with the FAC. That you changed within hours, and didn't post that to the talk page, is hardly reason to accuse me of "abuse of authority" because I enforce FAC instructions.[2] Perhaps there would have been no "dust up" at Talk:King Arthur if experienced FAC participants had weighed in calmly and professionally, as the nominator did and as I have. The nom will be restarted soon enough, but letting this cloud settle now, rather than spreading the fire further, will be best. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:28, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Sandy, for the millionth time. THE ENTIRE REASON she said not to hurry was because Hrothgar hadn't shown up yet. He finally showed up and nominated it, as was his right, and you went against everything the main contributors had decided and said he wasn't good enough to nominate it. If you say FAC instructions are to kick a main editor out for a bunch of stupid numbers, then I don't think we're reading the same instructions. Wrad (talk) 03:31, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Wrad, please calm down. What she may have thought and what was on the talk page are two different things. The nom will go forward soon enough so try to relax. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:36, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't think you're abusing authority, necessarily. I don't think you'd do that intentionally. I'm just upset at what I see as a respect for numbers and statistics over real people who make real contributions to wikipedia. I think the clause we're talking about was intended to respect editors like Hrothgar, not punch them in the face. Wrad (talk) 03:40, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, apparently Awadewit does, in spite of the fact that my decision was taken based on her post to the talk page along with information about primary contributors and the FAC instructions. You're both, frankly, feeding a fire for reasons I don't understand. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:57, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

And speaking of respect, I didn't notice Awadewit getting upset the last time the King Arthur nom was removed; would she prefer I apply the rules "selectively"? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:06, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Your decision was based on a misreading that you continue to make, despite repeated attempts to explain the misreading to you (I'm really baffled by that). Moreover, as my original post here demonstrates, I am now questioning the entire idea of applying the idea of using "primary contributors" as a exclusion for nominating. I had always had a slight concern about the reliance on edit counts, but I had assumed that if any situation such as Arthur arose, it would be dealt with reasonably, since you are generally a reasonable person. However, if that is not going to be the case and if the FAC directors are going to define "primary contributor" strictly by edit count, I will argue that we should not have this criteria at all. Awadewit (talk) 04:15, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

And your questioning the idea is based on you not acknowledging that the nom was not removed based on edit count: it was removed based on talk page discussion, specifically your strong post saying not to move forward with the FAC only hours before I removed it. Before I remove a nom, I look at all of the factors. Regardless of who may have misread or misunderstood along the way, the current situation is that 1) I have told you I don't remove noms based on edit count without reviewing all the facts and nonetheless, 2) you have accused me of "abuse of authority" for following FAC instructions in good faith and 3) you are fueling a firestorm around this FAC. Why? I apologize if I took your talk page post too seriously or literally and made a decision, that you consider wrong, based on respect for your participation in the FA-team, but if it was a mistake, it was a good faith honest mistake, and not an "abuse of authority" or edit counting. (You didn't complain when I removed the FAC last month.) You know, it's really OK to move along and let the FAC proceed without this cloud. I am sorry for any misunderstanding; can we let the FAC proceed without all this drama? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:27, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm not really sure why you are continuing to misread my post after I have already explained to you what it means. This is not really the place for that, as I wanted to start a larger discussion about the idea of the "primary contributor", but I will explain again. On the article talk page, I mentioned that we should wait for the "primary contributor" who was a subject expert. He returned mere hours later, after a several-week wikibreak and nominated the article for FAC (I could not anticipate that happening, of course.) Qp10qp, who is one of the top contributors by edit count (for copyediting, I might add), had already stated on the article talk page that the article was ready and that we should wait for the subject expert to return (agreeing with me and other editors on the page). I am far more concerned about the fact that "primary contributor" is being defined by edit count alone than I am by this particular nomination. This nomination is an exemplar of why that is not the best policy. The subject area expert, who contributed the bulk of the article, does not have the highest edit count - the copyeditors do. The best person to nominate the article and answer questions about it is the person who did the research and wrote the bulk of the article. That his nomination has been removed until we hear from the copyeditors because of their high edit counts is what I find problematic. That is why I started this discussion. I want to know whether other reviewers think "primary contributor" should be defined by edit count alone or whether we need to have other rubrics. Awadewit (talk) 03:42, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

If you want to have a discussion about primary contributors and edit counts, you should base it an example that backs up your case. In this case, the nom was removed based on talk page discussion about the nom: specifically, your post (as a member of the FA-team) saying the nom should wait. Will you be happier if I agree not to take you seriously in the future? :-) Qp's last post on the thread was June 15th, and he also advised waiting. FAC instructions say to consult; I review the talk page for consultation, and in this case, I found you saying that the nom should wait (only hours before you started what you call a "dust-up"). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:54, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Sandy, you just aren't ready the talk page carefully. I'm sorry, but that is the case. I quote from the beginning of the discussion:

It seems that the main editor, Hrothgar, wont be back for a while. Do you think that we can go ahead and just put up the FAC? No one hes edited the article since the 11th. I think the odds are pretty good that we pass. Mm40 (talk | contribs) 12:42, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

He's said he will be up for it soon; I think we should wait, at least for a while, because he is a respected authority on this topic in the real world, and having him around during the reviews will be the difference between a very good article and an impeccable one. I suggest we wait till the end of June and then make a decision whether to proceed independently.qp10qp (talk) 12:58, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

It is always best to have an expert around and the person who has written the bulk of the article when going for FA.Awadewit (talk) 13:02, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

The rest of the discussion proceeds from there, with us discussing whether or not to wait for the subject expert. It becomes clear that we all agreed to wait for the subject expert, Hrothgar, who wrote the article. My last posts refer to this earlier part of the discussion. Once the subject expert, Hrothgar, had returned, we obviously endorsed his FAC (the one you removed). We were waiting for him, actually. I only posted the "let's keep waiting for the subject expert" post because it seemed like someone might post the FAC without him. This is all very clear on the talk page. Anyway, I still would like to have a larger discussion about what a "primary contributor" is. That is much more important. Awadewit (talk) 04:05, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Your last post was not to go forward; if you had some off-Wiki or IRC or some other conversation where that changed, I wasn't privy to that. What is clear to me on the talk page is that the last and strongest post from you was saying not to go forward only hours before. Shall I disregard your input as a member of the FA-team on FAT projects in the future? And if all of this boils down to a big misunderstanding, um, why the quick claim to "abuse of authority" anyway? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:10, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Sandy, the editors agreed, and I stated, that the FAC nom was not to go forward without Hrothgar, the primary content contributor. Seriously, how many times do we have to say this? It is clear on the talk page and we stated it explicitly when you removed the FAC nomination. Your refusal to comprehend this (it can only be a refusal - you are a smart person) is utterly confounding. The reason I consider your removal of the FAC an abuse of authority is because the editors on the article talk page explained the situation to you - we were waiting for Hrothgar to nominate, which he had - and yet you refused to let the nomination go forward. You are now, apparently, the FAC nomination gatekeeper. That is what I find so troubling. Furthermore, is it true that there cannot be any other definition of "primary contributor" than by edit count? That is the issue I wanted to raise here. Awadewit (talk) 04:23, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Guys, calm down. It was an honest mistake. These things happen. There's no way Sandy can possibly read minds, and Adadewit had just indicated there was no hurry to nominate. Everybody, please let it go. Firsfron of Ronchester 04:18, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Sandy might not be able to read minds, but she can use an edit counter to make the following post: [3]. That post listed the top five editors by edit count, and Sandy then picked the top editor by edit count and said (among other things) "Jbmurray is away for at least another week". I read through that talk page discussion and I thought, "oh look, Hrothgar has posted, all will be OK now". And then I saw Sandy's post about the removal. I double-checked the times of the posts, hoping that the timelines showed some mix-up, but the only thing I can say is that possibly Sandy did the removal without checking back for the latest discussion on that page - ie. her removal was based on the state of the talk page after the post by Awadewit she keeps pointing to, and before she had seen the posts by Hrothgar. But then Sandy posted the stats on edit counts to (supposedly) bolster her argument, so she was clearly focusing on that at first. The "no harm in waiting" argument is actually pretty unassailable, but Sandy should have used that argument from the get-go. I've gone through the contribs, and Sandy starts off with the "edit count" post, and then later refines her argument to this. That's what it looks like to me, anyway. If that is indeed what happened, then Sandy should just say she made an honest mistake (as Firsfron says), and we can then all move on. The wider issue of whether all members of a team should be consulted should probably also be addressed. When someone is away for several weeks, they should expect things to carry on in their absence. Carcharoth (talk) 07:40, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

It's not mind reading ! If editor A nominates an FAC, you don't go looking for reasons editor A isn't a main contributor ... you look for evidence they have some legitimate reason to be a nominator. If the Director had simply searched on the the nominator's name "Hrothgar" on the talk page none of this would of happened. The Director should not be looking for some "FA team" approval for anyone to be able to nominate anything. The Director simply should admit they did not read enough of the talk page or were looking for the wrong type of evidence. You don't have to be as "popular" as other editors who hang out on the talk page of the FAC in question to nominate an FAC. This is the root of the problem, nobody has to bow to FAC teams or favorite editors or such, or do they ? 70.65.76.64 (talk) 07:49, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

This is a good point. If you apply the edit counter to Talk:King Arthur, you get Qp, Wrad and Hrothgar as the top three contributors there. This doesn't take into account contributions via peer reviews and (ironically) FACs. Sometimes the best contributions comes from reviews. Maybe tweak the nominator clause to include talk page contributors as well? Carcharoth (talk) 07:55, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Carcharoth. Writing "clearly the significant contributors have not said they are ready" (italics not mine), posting the edit counts, and naming jb and qp as requisite for a FAC nom before identifying Awadewit's post as the reason for withdrawal made it look like Hrothgar was being dissed. --maclean 07:56, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

To be fair, Sandy has since apologised to Hrothgar ([4]), though having left this message previously, I think she needed to. Having said that, I'm now rather concerned that Sandy has re-added a different FAC with the comment: "transcluding to FAC, since I'm no longer able to close it based on significant contributors". Sandy - I apologise for bringing this up (I spotted it while looking in your contribs for your apology to Hrothgar), but please can you wait for discussions concerning your judgment to conclude before flip-flopping in this way? I see you have also restored the King Arthur nom, but restoring the Babylon5 nom seems a bit pointy, unless you are just saying you got it wrong in both cases. This needs to be sorted before people lose faith in how FACs are accepted and rejected. Carcharoth (talk) 08:08, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Please, again, work on getting facts right before making inaccurate statements about me. I didn't restore or flip-flop on Babylon5; another editor notified me that it hadn't yet been transcluded to FAC but was receiving commentary. Rather than evaluate on my own whether it met the significant contributor test, I brought it to FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:30, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, goodness. I took "since I'm no longer able to close it based on significant contributors" to refer back to this discussion. I shouldn't have assumed that and, again, without having looked at the history of the FAC nomination in detail (ie. taking what you have said on trust - I do actually try and do that most times), I apologise unreservedly. I'm very sorry. Going back to the "King Arthur" FAC thing, and remembering that I have apologised for the misundertanding over the Babylon5 nomination, please don't imply by saying "again" that I've done a similar thing here ("making inaccurate statements"). I stand by what I've said about the "King Arthur" FAC business here and elsewhere: the impression you gave by the sequence of your edits was that you were using edit counts as a large part of your decision-making process, and you took entirely the wrong approach to Hrothgar who, as it turned out, was (and is) the primary contributor to that article, a point you acknowledged yourself with your apology. Right, I'm back off to wikisource now. Carcharoth (talk) 10:08, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Less drama, more substantive discussion (hopefully)

As no one is going to want to read the drama above, I will try to restate the question I asked above. I have some concerns that "primary contributor" is being strictly defined by edit count, to the detriment of the nomination process (see Talk:King Arthur#FAC? for why). As edit counts do not always reflect who has contributed the bulk of an article's content or who might be the best equipped to handle a nomination, I was hoping that there would be flexibility in the definition. How do FAC reviewers think "primary contributor" should be defined? Awadewit (talk) 04:27, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

And anyone who does read the discussion above will find this characterization is a misrepresentation. Please heed Fisfron's advice and let it go now. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:32, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I would appreciate it if we could have the larger discussion now. Thanks. Awadewit (talk) 04:34, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Do you have an example that we can use for this larger discussion? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:36, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Frankly, we don't even need an example (we've seen the chaos that reigns when we focus on the example). All we really need to know is how "primary contributor" is being defined by the directors and then we need to discuss whether we, the community of reviewers and nominators (and anyone else who drops by), think that is an appropriate definition. Awadewit (talk) 04:42, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how an example will help either, but User:Dmoon1 was known for creating articles/rewrites in a few edits. Some of his/her FAs were articles with a lot of traffic too. Ben (talk) 04:58, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

• Awadewit et al: looks like a storm in a teacup. Can't you work through this among yourselves? Sandy is too busy to be stressed out by this kind of stuff here. Perhaps ask for her advice at strategic points. TONY (talk) 04:46, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

• I think not. This is something that needs to be hashed out by everyone as the definition of "primary contributor" affects all nominations. Do we really know what this means? That is what I am asking. I had thought the definition was flexible until now. That is what I am trying to figure out. If the definition is not flexible, that is, if the definition is based solely on edit counts, then I think the provision should be removed from the instructions because it does not guarantee that the best person will nominate the article. However, we need statements from Sandy and Raul about how they interpret the "primary contributor" phrase. Awadewit (talk) 04:49, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Since the significant contributor clause is a source of concern for Awadewit, we should consider and discuss the tradeoffs involved in removing it. Its purpose was twofold: 1) to help conserve reviewer time (always in short supply) that was spent on premature noms in cases when the main editors agreed the article wasn't ready, and 2) to help lower the FAC backlog to allow for closer review of FAC-ready articles. FAC has been a manageable size for many months now, and nominations are getting much closer review as reviewers aren't spread so thin. There has still been no example presented of "edit countitis" being used to remove a premature FAC nom based on a faulty interpretation of significant contributors, and Awadewit wants to have a discussion about something that, to my knowledge, has never happened; easier will be to just remove the clause. The previous King Arthur nomination (last month, in spite of contributors saying it wasn't ready or not being available) would have been allowed to run its course, reviewers would have had to review it even though there was talk page consensus it wasn't at all ready, and it might not have succeeded, or it may have succeeded at a cost of everyone having to dig in at a time that wasn't optimal. Editors who may have spent months working on an article may find the article appearing at FAC during, for example, a time when they are traveling and can't respond to the FAC or access their sources. If that's what is wanted, it's actually much easier for me to move a failed nomination to the FAC archive (one step) than to do the checking on each FAC to make sure this instruction is complied with. The idea of that clause was to help the FAC backlog and reviewers and the FA writers, but if that's not desired, and if we'd rather let every nom run, I only have to do one step to move premature noms to archive after reviewers have had to review and fail them. Much easier on me. We'll have a larger FAC page and a lower promote rate and possibly a decline in quality as reviewers will need to spend time on premature nominations, but if that's what others prefer, I won't oppose. (As I recall, we added the clause when someone nominated Sea otter well before it was ready.)

With respect to reinstating King Arthur, I'm waiting to hear from either Jbmurray or Qp10qp; I have every confidence based on Awadewit's statements after her post of July 5 17:00 that they will agree and the nom will go forward, but an unforeseen response from Jb or Qp resulting in another issue would not be good at this point, so I prefer to use an abundance of caution and wait to make sure other contributors are on board, so we don't have a second bad start. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:32, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

• (Much-needed break from place-card calligraphy and sewing for rambunctious flowergirls ;)) I'm sure that we're all well-meaning and kindly disposed to one another, and we'll all gracefully and gently overlook each other's shortcomings and things said/misunderstood in haste.

There is definitely a substantive question lurking here, as Awadewit points out; I've felt it myself and I suspect others have as well. It hasn't broken out into the open before, because the primary contributor is usually so obvious at FAC. When there's been confusion post-FAC, it's usually associated with laughter and pointing the benighted well-wisher towards the real author(s). Or people will out-do each other in modesty, "No, he did all the real work." — "No, no, she did." ;) So I don't think it's too pressing a problem now, and we have a few weeks at least to think it through carefully. I feel that we should keep the clause, to prevent the problems seen in past; I myself remember my shock and dismay when someone nominated Catullus 2 prematurely.

Following Awadewit, I feel we should think about this and draft some guidelines. I sense that this issue is partly technical; Sandy and others use edit count, I believe, because it's quantifiable (no arguments with numbers, right? ;) and servers for that metric are so easily available. As far as I know, software for alternative quantative metrics have not yet been made. But they could be and will be if we can give the programmers guidance on what they should program, don't you all think? For example, we could say that the primary contributor should be the editor who contributed the greatest number of (surviving) bytes to the text of the nominated article. Or we could allow for multiple primary contributors, e.g., the editor who added the greatest number of illustrations, or the greatest number of scholarly references (the latter might be an excellent discriminator among editors!). Or we could allow for some kind of voting/consensus system among editors; but I can imagine situations in which such a non-quantitative, human-based system might, umm, go awry.

I'll still be flickering in and out here, so I'm sorry that I won't be able to contribute much to the discussion. But if you talk kindly among yourselves for the next two weeks, I'll promise to try to code up whatever metric(s) you decide upon. :) With serene wishes for smiles among my friends; please wish me patience and luck for the wedding in return, Willow (talk) 06:47, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

How did I know from the first sentence that that post was by Willow? :) I think if you could invent a way of showing who is the main contributor in a non-edit-counting way, that would be rather neat. qp10qp (talk) 08:12, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Ha! By the fifth word I thought it was a Willow post. That's very funny. --Moni3 (talk) 15:41, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Is the idea here that if it is repeated enough that "Sandy and others use edit count", it will somehow become true? I withdrew the nom after reading this post made by Awadewit only hours before the nomination and based on all of the factors. I've seen this rumor twice now in a few hours; where is this rumor coming from? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:01, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Rumour? It is presumably based on this post where you post the results from an edit counter. Sure, you later expand/change/refocus (whatever) your argument, with this post, but please don't say that you didn't, at an early stage in this, make a post and argument based largely (solely?) on edit count. You can retract your use of an edit counter, or say you didn't fully explain yourself at that point (flashing orange bars maybe?), but you do need to address the point that you did at least seem to use an edit counter. That is the quickest way out of this, and then we can all get back to work. Carcharoth (talk) 07:50, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Carcharoth, how do you have the ability to know what I've read or thought or checked before I make a post? Perhaps you haven't caught up with all posts, but I accounted for Awadewit's very recent post, Wrad's post to the FAC saying he had recently considered delisting the article from GA, Jbmurray's absence, Qp's earlier posts on the talk page, FA-team past experience, the previous premature nom for the same article, as well as the edit counts. You are, of course, free to construct alternate conspiracy theories about how I secretly wanted to crater a FAC. And you may have missed another step in your analysis; unlike Awadewit, I have apologized to both her and the nominator for any mistake or misunderstanding, and the nominator has been gracious. And now people who rarely weigh in at FAC are opining, apprently based on rumors. Qp has weighed in now and I'll be restarting the FAC; may I have any assurances that all of you can let this go and not disrupt the FAC? For my part, concern about significant contributors is resolved; doing the analysis and leaving the talk page messages was extra effort for me, and no longer removing them will take much less effort on my part (one move to archive or promote). Note that the FAC page will grow longer and the promote rate will decline as we let them run, and reviewers will have to review the premature noms, so quality may decline. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:01, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Funnily enough, while you were posting this, I was posting above pointing out that you had apologised to Hrothgar. Looks like I can read minds! (That was slightly sarcastic, but the point remains that an impression is given by the sequence of your posts, and though we should assume good faith, sometimes you need to step back and try and see what it looks like to others). Carcharoth (talk) 08:10, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

• OK, Sandy, I can see you are stressed out by this, so I am going to step back, but please can you listen to what people are saying here, if not now then at least later? A way to focus FAC (and avoid premature nominations) is most definitely needed, and the current system seems to work most of the time, but please don't yield to pressure to change the system and then grouch about how it will lead to poorer quality. Stick to your guns and work with others to get something everyone is happy with. Carcharoth (talk) 08:17, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

• King Arthur is not only reason I brought up this point. I have been doing research for a Wikimania paper over the last few months which has demonstrated the problems of this edit count tool quite clearly. (This tool is beind used to identify primary contributors (how did Sandy generate her list of who to contact? - from the edit count list)). However, this tool has severe limitations. Do we know, for example, that the directors are rejecting POV-pushers and edit-warriors? In controversial articles these types of editors rank very highly under edit counts, but they have not necessarily contributed productively to the article. Are the directors discounting the accounts of sockpuppets? Just last night I was looking at the statistics for Joan of Arc. To properly understand the contributions there, one has to combine several accounts, and after doing so, the second, third, and fourth most frequent contributors are either trolls or banned contributors. Is this an issue that we know the directors are dealing with? Awadewit (talk) 15:17, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

• There has still been no example presented of "edit countitis" being used to remove a premature FAC nom based on a faulty interpretation of significant contributors, and Awadewit wants to have a discussion about something that, to my knowledge, has never happened - The issue here is not "faulty interpretation" but what does "significant contributor" mean? It seems strange to me, for example, to wait on the copyeditors of King Arthur, with their high edit counts, rather than giving precedence to the subject area expert who wrote the bulk of the article. We have a difference of definition and that is what is at the heart of the discussion. (And, by the way, I do not think it is a good idea to wait for this problem to happen - I think it is a good idea to avoid it the first place by thinking our policies through carefully.)

• I think we can come up with a reasonable definition of "primary contributor", but it is only fair to the community that we articulate that definition and not make it a rigid one that excludes people who contribute large sections of content in relatively few posts while at the same time welcoming POV-pushers and the like. Awadewit (talk) 15:17, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I understand what the issue is here and I agree there must be a dual definition of "primary contributor". Many very helpful copy editors have racked up quite a few edits in my Everglades articles. Since I wrote most of those articles in a smoking sandbox where I racked up a huge number of edits, my edit counts in the mainpsace to Geography and ecology of the Everglades, for example, are considerable lower than, say, my edits to Mulholland Drive, where I took the article over after it had been been laying in wait. If the primary contributor is a vandal reverter or a copy editor who has made many small edits, or even a content contributor who has not included citations—or worse yet, a content contributor who has included inaccurate information—we should determine somehow how to quantify who the most recent content contributor is. Is there a counter that includes edits by space? --Moni3 (talk) 15:41, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

There is some sort of tool that shows the "stickiness" of an editor's work. (It was proposed as a way to identify "reliable" editors, but it is too easy to game for that purpose.) I'll have to find it again. Awadewit (talk) 15:55, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Isn't there some search tool geek who is waiting to be told to build this thing? (Be clear: I'm a geek of a different sort.) Since the article history measures how much a person has added or detracted from the article, I'm assuming it wouldn't be too difficult to measure how many hits each individual user has had, and then include the sum of information each individual has added or removed from each article. Is there a search tool page here at Wikipedia where they discuss this sort of thing? I can go there and ask for what we need. It won't solve everything, but it will be another aspect to the article that is more comprehensive. --Moni3 (talk) 12:28, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I think it is one of those insoluble problems, at least as far as copyediting goes. Say two people add the word "the" to an article, but later the sentences get removed. When you look in the article for the word "the", it looks like their contributions are still there, when in fact they are not. Needs human judgment. Carcharoth (talk) 13:48, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Like I said, I don't think it will answer everything, but it would address the immediate issue that caused this discussion. The main contributor to King Arthur added the majority of content to the article, but a copy editor and a vandal reverter had higher numbers of edit counts. There could be a way to see the top ten article contributors with a graph of how much they have added to the article, yes? Sandy and FAC reviewers can't be expected to have intimate knowledge of each article's history when it gets nominated. This would give another piece to the puzzle. --Moni3 (talk) 14:05, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

(undent) I'm holding the line on my assertion that a tools-based solution—assuming one is even possible, which I doubt—is not a solution but merely a reconfigured headache. I think a requirement to give public notice and wait two days is the only realistic answer. Ling.Nut ^(WP:3IAR) 14:27, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh my goodness. I can't remember the last time I've seen so many good contributors furiously turning a molehill into a mountain. That Sandy primarily makes decisions based on the tool is completely preposterous. And even if this closure was a bad one, no one has articulated what the big deal is. This is a wiki: you can nom again tomorrow. Awadewit needs to take a step back to examine her AGF radar because the above amounts to a j'accuse against the most important editor FAC has. Marskell (talk) 07:37, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I liked the "significant contributors" verbiage when it was developing. I now see its flaws—it will be difficult to figure out who's who. I say, remove the "significant contributors" verbiage entirely. Asking FAC to define "significant contributors" and then check to se if "significant contributors" has been notified will lead to more teeth gnashing etc. I say, instead, put in the rules something about "Responsible Good faith Notification" that requires a couple things 1) posting a "I'm gonna FAC it Folks" to the article's Talk AND to the talk pages of relevant Wikprojects at least 48 hours before FAC nomming 2) the nominating editor "should" make a "Good Faith" attempt to notify other editors who have been actively editing. Maybe stick in a word or two about how hard it is to determine significant contributors etc. in a footnote. But the key point is, FAC shouldn't have to determine who the significant contributors are; FAC should only have to determine whether sufficient Good Faith notification has been posted. This moves the whole responsibility question off FACs shoulders and puts it on the nommng editor's. FAC checks for notification. In the rare event that a screwup happens, we collectively offer condolences and say that we verified that notification was performed, but we are not omniscient, etc. In an optimal word, we could perfectly determine the "significant contributors"; in a suboptimal world, we can just make sure some reasonable attempt was made to do so. Done talking. Back to the salt mines. Ling.Nut ^(WP:3IAR) 08:39, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

(ec) I see in the instructions that "Nominators who are not significant contributors to the article should consult regular editors of the article prior to nomination." but I see no statement that nominations not fulfilling this criterion are removed. The discussion at Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/archive28#Drive-by nominations surely indicates that drive-by noms are removed when, and only when, editors who have contributed substantially to an article have substantial reasons to oppose the nomination? But maybe I misunderstand, the above discussion is too long and involved to fully digest. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Harrymph (talk • contribs) 08:50, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Marskell, when you say "That Sandy primarily makes decisions based on the tool is completely preposterous", do you mean that you don't think she does this and people saying she does this is preposterous, or do you agree that she does this and it is preposterous that she does this. Actually, on second thoughts, don't bother to answer that. We should just flatten the molehill and move on. Carcharoth (talk) 13:50, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I see practical reasons for identifying recent significant contributors to a nominated article, but other than that, it seems too close to WP:OWN. As it is, FAC gives great deference to the identified significant contributor. Do we want to give greater weight to this concept than already exists in violation of WP:OWN? I am confused about this whole line of discussion. —Mattisse (Talk) 13:58, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Further adding to my confusion, this whole discussion seems to have evolved from one incident that has since been rectified. Is there some reason to think that sufficiently identifying the significant contributor(s) is an overall problem leading to frequent screw-ups in FAC? Cannot clicking the Edit history stats in the Toolbox in the left nav bar plus some human discretion by SG, who most agree is a good judge, be enough? No process is completely error free. Presumably a significant contributor still in play would have the article on a watchlist and be monitoring its status anyway. Is this a question of giving "credit" or a current practical problem that significant recent contributors are not being identified? —Mattisse (Talk) 14:25, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Considering that the FAC instructions link "significant contributor" to an edit counter, an edit counter is now included on every FAC nomination page, edit counts are listed when there is a dispute (such as at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/September 11, 2001 attacks, and people are now identifying themselves as significant contributors because they "have the most number of edits" (see, for example, at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Babylon 5), I think that we need to be clearer about our definition of "significant contributor". Sandy says that she looks at things other than edit count - I think that needs to be made much clearer on the FAC page itself. That way, everyone who comes to FAC will know what "significant contributor" means (and it would help us avoid any unfortunate incidents in the future). Also, are both Raul and Sandy using the same definition? Awadewit (talk) 15:01, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Those are good examples, Awadewit. I wasn't aware that the edit counter was in the FAC toolbox and that Sandy was posting "top five" editors stats to FACs where there were problems. I do sympathise both with those who want to bring an article to FAC (you have to do this at some point) and those who want to wait until it is ready, though I do favour the latter. There have been mutterings recently (by you, Awadewit, I think!) that The Lord of the Rings will need to go to FAR soon. I agree and when it went to FAC I think I was there and thinking "this isn't really ready yet". I think I helped out a bit <checks>... in fact, I opposed and then struck my oppose and said "I am now too involved with editing to support or oppose". I do hope to do some work on the LotR article (I happen to have a library of 60+ Tolkien-related books - the market has grown exponentially in the last few years), but I find it hard to knuckle down and write on the topic - partly because of the masses of fancruft to wade through. The point I'm making is that, eventually, the standards on the articles will improve, and a FAR or new FAC for LotR should succeed, but it will always rankle a little bit that the article that was on the Main Page on October 5, 2006, was not the best it could have been (and apologies to SorryGuy if he is reading this - he actually did lots of the work to get the article to FA [working mostly with online sources], which is more than I can say - high ideals on my part, but little action). Anyway, to get back to the main point, by the time the LotR article is at FAR or comes to FAC after being demoted, I should be the main contributor by most metrics (if I do the work on the article, that is), but this case of articles being largely rewritten and resourced, shows how the metrics for contributors should be taken with care. Of course, the real top contributor in the long-term will be User:AntiVandalBot (or its clones)! :-) Carcharoth (talk) 17:05, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that ... Sandy was posting "top five" editors stats to FACs where there were problems. Neither was I; you learn something new every day ! Where did this info originate? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:44, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I was generalising from Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/September 11, 2001 attacks (one of the examples Awadewit provided). I apologise if that was an isolated example, or if I've misrepresented what happened. What I saw there was a nominator being asked if they had consulted other editors before bringing the article to FAC, and you posting, in addition to that question, a list of top five editors from this edit counter. What I think might address this is if nominators are required to show that there has been discussion on the article talk page about trying for FAC, before coming to FAC. Simple requirement, and hopefully significant contributors would see that discussion. If significant contributors disagree an article is ready, it doesn't always mean a nomination should be withdrawn. Carcharoth (talk) 07:09, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I think a discussion on the talk page is a good idea, too. One of the problems I currently see is the appearance of a reliance on edit counters. Sandy says she does not rely exclusively on edit counters. Ok. The problem is that looking through the examples of where the significant contributor question was raised, we see an appearance of reliance on straight edit counts to answer that question.

• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Super Smash Bros. Brawl
• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/History of timekeeping devices
• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Hillary Rodham Clinton/archive2
• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Omar Khadr/archive1
• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Neptune
• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Mario Vargas Llosa
• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/The General in His Labyrinth - Interestingly, in this instance Sandy wrote "As usual, my edit count is inflated by frequent little MoS fixes and ref cleanup, and I added Wikilinks and other Spanish-language help". Having contributors explain their contributions like this also might help solve the problem of just listing numbers.
• It is therefore, unsurprising, that people have taken to notifying contributors based on the status, as at Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/SS Christopher Columbus. Awadewit (talk) 14:32, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Do we have a pattern of issues yet? In the current dispute, I can see how both sides reached their conclusions on whether the article was/was not ready. If this is an isolated incident, as it appears to be, I don't see a need to further refine our instructions. For what it is worth, I also see no problem in loosening the automatic withdrawal criteria to only cover those who have had little to no exposure to the article (I've removed several where the nominator had either done nothing or just fixed a few typos). Karanacs (talk) 17:37, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Not only do we not have a pattern; we don't even have one example upon which this concern is based. We do have an apparent push to make tools a part of the FAC process in ways they have never been before, which seems to be somehow related to research Awadewit is conducting. I do not support this push to automate decisions at FAC, and I don't share the low opinion Awadewit has of FAC or her view that it welcomes POV-pushers and elevates copyeditors above content producers. I don't know if this tempest is based on her ongoing misunderstanding of the role of tools at FAC, or is related to her upcoming presentation at Wikimania, but I'm somewhat concerned now that misrepresentations about FAC may occur at Wikimania. While better automated tools may be useful in general to Wiki, they have never been used in the ways Awadewit suggests at FAC, and they aren't likely to ever replace the sigificant amount of real human analysis that goes into FAC decisions, so I'm not sure this discussion is even relevant to the FAC page. I'd be more interested in learning why Awadewit deprecates the hefty contributions made by our colleagues, Jbmurray and Qp10qp, to King Arthur, and why she considers them mere copyeditors, as some lowly contribution category. They both made substantial contributions to that article. And I'm surprised that she's not aware that there is only one FA director, and that since this clause was enacted in March 2008, Raul has never engaged it. Lots of misunderstanding here, and a tempest in a teapot, but my concern now is that FAC is not misrepresented at Wikimania. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:49, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Not only do we not have a pattern; we don't even have one example upon which this concern is based. We do have an apparent push to make tools a part of the FAC process in ways they have never been before, which seems to be somehow related to research Awadewit is conducting - I have never suggested this - I am not even developing tools! Please read my posts with more care. I merely mentioned this research to indicate that my concerns stemmed not just from Talk:King Arthur incident but because I had been using this exact same edit count tool in my own research and had realized its limitations. So, for example, I wrote: King Arthur is not only reason I brought up this point. I have been doing research for a Wikimania paper over the last few months which has demonstrated the problems of this edit count tool quite clearly and then explained some the problems with POV-pushers and trolls in the edit count at Joan of Arc. Awadewit (talk) 19:00, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't share the low opinion Awadewit has of FAC or her view that it welcomes POV-pushers and elevates copyeditors above content producers - First, I have a very high opinion of FAC or I wouldn't spend nearly every day here. Second, I am trying to prevent a potential problem - people gaming the FAC system. It would be very simple to do. If you want me to demonstrate how this can be done, I would be more than happy to do so. :) Awadewit (talk) 19:00, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Awadewit deprecates the hefty contributions made by our colleagues, Jbmurray and Qp10qp, to King Arthur, and why she considers them mere copyeditors, as some lowly contribution category - This is just ridiculous. I highly value copyediting. That I think an FAC nomination is best run by the person who has done the most research on the topic of the article does not in any way "deprecate" the excellent work that these copyeditors do. Awadewit (talk) 19:00, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

And I'm surprised that she's not aware that there is only one FA director, and that since this clause was enacted in March 2008, Raul has never engaged it. Lots of misunderstanding here, and a tempest in a teapot, but my concern now is that FAC is not misrepresented at Wikimania my concern now is that FAC is not misrepresented at Wikimania - Sandy, that was a shorthand. Really. Awadewit (talk) 19:00, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion drive by noms are generally good faith effort by (usually new) editors. So when in doubt I whether an article is nominated by the primary editor I would put a FAC on hold and ask the nominator: "Are you a substantial contributor to this article?". Anyway, I would be careful with the phrase "primary" editor as that sounds a lot like WP:OWN. While some very specific articles may indeed have a single champion (to stay in the spirit of this discussion, Lancelot), articles of general interest (like King Arthur) may have many (all the knights of the round table, who are not all equally known, but according to the spirit of the table have no hierarchy among them). Arnoutf (talk) 18:02, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Decisions at FAC have always included a full human analysis of all factors, and as long as I'm around, always will. It's wonderful that WillowW was willing to take valuable time off from her sister's wedding to weigh in here and is willing to write a new tool, but I don't think a tool can or will replace the analysis that goes into every decision. Qp said it well on his talk page: [5] As long as we're clear that FAC isn't misrepresented at Wikimania, I don't see any problems here, and do not support any push to automate FAC decisions or make cut-and-dried, black-and-white definitions of things like "significant contributors". Anyone who argues for that overlooks how Wiki in general and FAC in particular works. FAC is not a vote, and we don't do it by numbers. The "significant contributor" clause was added in March to aid the process; if we lose it, it will make no difference to how I do my job (in fact, will be easier on me), but it will increase the page size, increase the fail rate, and increase the reviewer load, so until someone actually identifies a problem, I don't see the need to change anything, but I don't much care if we lose the clause either. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:15, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

What is that full analysis, though? That is what I really wanted to get at here. What are all the factors you take into account when deciding if someone is a "significant contributor"? Awadewit (talk) 19:07, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Regardless of the full analysis (which I suspect is a very human process), what is the problem in a practical sense? Sorry to be so dense, but I do not see a lot of negative consequences to the "significant contributor" designation in practice. If a "significant contributor" has not been included for some reason, all that editor has to do is interject on the nomination page and relay the information regarding his or her contributation along with a relevant opinion. A significant contributor does not WP:OWN —Mattisse (Talk) 20:17, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Like you Mattisse I really fail to see the problem here, or at least the problem I see is not the same one that others appear to be seeing. In my own limited experience what happens is that the regular editors of an article will agree on that article's talk page that the article is or is not ready to be nominated, and if the decision is that it should, then one, other, or all of them will nominate it. As I understand it the "significant contributor" clause was intended to deal by drive-by nominations, in which the nominator did not or was unable to deal with the issues materialising during the review. The issue over King Arthur which triggered this discussion appears to me to demonstrate a flaw in the FA-Team's processes, not the FAC process. And of course, bad cases make bad law. Just what is the problem here that the FA-Team can't solve themselves? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 21:37, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

But the whole point is that we should not limit our analysis of this issue to our own experience - that is by nature, anecdotal. I started this discussion with an example, because people tend to like concrete examples. However, like many discussions I have seen on Wikipedia, it has descended into an unfortunate mess around that one example. However, if I had not given an example, and just started with the abstract question, there would have been an immediate call for examples (in fact, after I restarted the discussion, that is exactly what SandyGeorgia did). The example is not the issue. I have asked for a definition of "significant contributor", since the only one we have the nomination page is by edit count and SandyGeorgia assures us that she does not define by edit count alone. The nomination page is misleading nominators - on the current FAC page, one person is claiming that they are a significant contributor because they have the "most numbers of edits". As this reliance on edit counts could easily be abused by POV pushers and the like, I think we should make it clearer on the nomination page what a "significant contributor" is. I have no idea why articulating the principles we operate by should be controversial or difficult to understand. It is very simple: define what we mean by "significant contributor" on the nomination page. Awadewit (talk) 21:51, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

All experience is anecdotal, including your own. I was merely trying, in an admittedly roundabout way, to make the point that I believe this to be a ridiculously large storm in a stupidly small teacup, caused largely by the way in which the FA-Team operates. Clearer now? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 22:06, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I would much prefer to have this discussion without examples - they are not necessary (at least, not at this stage). Also, I'm not really sure why you think this discussion about the definition of "significant contributor", which is relevant for every FAC nominated, should be dismissed because I started it with a poor rhetorical choice. I ask you to look past the example and answer the question: how do you define "significant contributor"? Then we can start to have a real discussion. Awadewit (talk) 22:10, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

"Rhetorical choice"? Please, let's not go there. Before answering your question I would first of all want to know what the purpose was of identifying "significant contributors". So, what's the purpose of identifying "significant contributors"? Once the purpose is known, then the definition will easily follow. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 02:56, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

As Sandy states above, its "purpose was twofold: 1) to help conserve reviewer time (always in short supply) that was spent on premature noms in cases when the main editors agreed the article wasn't ready, and 2) to help lower the FAC backlog to allow for closer review of FAC-ready articles". Awadewit (talk) 03:11, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid that second point doesn't make much sense to me. Closing down the whole FAC process would have the same effect of reducing the backlog. I'm also sorry to see that your response to the first point deploys another previously undefined term, "main editor". Are we looking to define "significant contributors" or "main editors"? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 03:24, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

History

I'm adding the history here, for concern that the issue not be misrepresented at Wikimania. Raul appointed me as FAC delegate in November 2007, and I began closing FACs sometime in December. The "significant contributor" clause was added to the FAC instructions in March 2008, following discussions about the January nomination of Sea otter; concerns raised by David Fuchs and Roger Davies in March; and another premature nomination of an FA-team collaboration, also in March. I initially expressed concerns about ownership and exercising caution; reviewers and nominators alike pressed for the clause. Since it was enacted, Raul has never engaged it, and Raul is the only FA director, so I don't know why Awadewit continues to press for a definition of "significant contributors" from "Raul and Sandy" or the "FA directors". SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:31, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm way too busy in RL to comment much, but just say that I'm uncomfortable with the notion of "primary" editor per WP:OWN. At the same time, being the or one of the "top" contributors I think carries some responsibility that when articles come out of FAC, they are at a certain level of quality, accuracy, etc. If not all significant contributors can come to consensus about that, then I don't think an article is ready for FAC. Not being consulted, or furthermore, being disregarded when an article is put up for FAC is a problem.--Aude (talk) 18:33, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

As for Awadewit's Wikimania talk, I will also be at Wikimania and can come to that session. If interested, I think it's possible to use skype to allow people not at Wikimania to contribute questions/comments. Though, I don't know how much discussion time there will be. --Aude (talk) 18:33, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for weighing in Aude, and I'm relieved you'll be at Wikimania. Your feedback is of interest because of the 9/11 nom. I'll comment further on that after the nomination closes, as I don't want to comment while it's up. It does, however, provide an example of the complexity of the issues, and shows that these decisions are not at all automatic. I don't speak Skype or IRC, and am not at all fond of backchannel communications influencing Wiki. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:42, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Skype (voice conference call) is what's used to facilitate Wikipedia:NotTheWikipediaWeekly. That's what I had in mind, as a possible to allow people to participate. (I agree with you on backchannel communications) Of course it's Awadewit's talk and there may not be a lot of discussion time. --Aude (talk) 18:50, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

My paper is not on FAC. In fact, it will barely be mentioned. My paper is on collaborative writing. I only happened to mention the paper because I used the edit count tool when I was doing my research and I realized its limitations. I thought that making reviewers aware of the tool's limitations, since we had been using it more and more at FAC, would be a good idea. I would love to have people come to the talk, however they should be aware of its topic. Awadewit (talk) 19:05, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I realize I'm at least peripherally implicated in this discussion. However, I'm on a fairly remote Scottish island (Islay), and have no real time right now to read through and add to the discussion in any particularly informed way. I note, however, that King Arthur is now at FAC, and everything seems to be going as it should. I'm glad that that is the case. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 20:46, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I see that you have not had time to read through the discussion, so I would like to head off any return to discussing this particular case. It was apparently a mistake on my part to begin this discussion with an example. I think just discussing the definition of "significant contributor" should be what we do at this point. Awadewit (talk) 20:51, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Organized (?) discussion

As this discussion has frequently fragmented and we have still not really achieved any sort of definition of "significant contributor", I am going to try and restart it again. If you believe the phrase "significant contributor" should be in the instructions, please offer a definition and a rationale. If you believe the phrase should not be in the instructions, please give a rationale. If you are undecided, please explain. Hopefully this will give us something to work with. Awadewit (talk) 22:30, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

• Undecided - I do not know the current definition of "significant contributor", so it is hard to know what to do. We have been assured that "significant contributor" is not determined solely by edit counts, but the FAC nomination page does not offer anything else to go by. The FAC page links to the edit counter, it links to the edit counter on every FAC nom page, and we list edit counts during disputes. Since other factors are being taken into account, I believe they should be offered for the community to discuss and come to a consensus upon. I personally believe that a "significant contributor" is someone who has contributed a substantial amount of the researched content to the article - someone who can answer questions about the article's comprehensiveness and the reliability of its sources, for example. This is the person who I believe is best equipped to answer questions at an FAC nomination. This person does not exist for every article, obviously, and sometimes this is a group of people. However, if we are going to have a "significant contributor" clause, I believe it should privilege these editors. I recognize that we may come to the conclusion that we do not want to privilege any editors at FAC because I recognize that this stance could be interpreted as falling prey to WP:OWN. I would like to hear a multiplicity of views on this. Awadewit (talk) 22:30, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
• Oppose I repeat myself. I supported it initially; this incident (the discussion, not the events that preceded it) has changed my mind. No matter how you define it, someone will complain somewhere along the line. Second, dedicating time, effort and emotional energy to determining the sigcon(s) is a distraction. Third (and most important), the moral obligation to do so should not be on FAC's shoulders. FAC evaluates content not contributors. I say again: make a rule tht the talk page and all wikiprojects must be notified 48 hours in advance; make a suggestion that some good faith attempt at notifying active/significant contributors is considered "good form"; third, leave it up to the nominating editor to define "significant contributor"; fourth, reply to all complaints with commiseration but a firm "we are not omniscient, sorry." Now I drop out of this thread. Ling.Nut ^(WP:3IAR) 22:52, 7 July 2008 (UTC)
• Should- be in the text, that is. It's not ownership, it's common courtesy; I don't want to have to take extra time to defend and improve an article at FAC when it's not ready; it's a pain for reviewers and editors alike. I don't think that edit-counts are the be-all and end-all of finding the contributors that are 'significant', but by posting on the talk page you can get a feel for who is and isn't. Note that when someone initiates a drive-by nom, generally the top three or five editors are contacted- it's a good bet at least one of them has contributed significantly to the article. In short: the significant contributor clause, for lack of a better phrase, helps keep the cogs at FAC moving. My opinion. Plus, it eliminates the bulky steps outlined above by Ling: investing the "energy" to find significant contributors is certainly better than notifying the wikiproject and talk page, waiting around, and having "significant" in the eye of the nominator (" I made the FAC page! That makes me significant!") Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 23:01, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

• I think both of you suggested posting on the article's talk page. I wonder if there is some agreement for that. Awadewit (talk) 14:45, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

• I'm more of a lone wolf editor; with a few exceptions-Halo 2, Golden Sun, etc.- I'm generally the only editor working intensively on the article. So I don't do much interacting with other editors before FAC, but I guess yes, I would say it's generally best to get another opinion on whether it's ready or not. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 19:11, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

• Like you, I primarily edit alone, and it would be a waste of time for me to post anywhere that I was planning to bring an article to FAC. In a lot of cases I doubt that anyone else even watchlists the articles I'm working on. Karanacs (talk) 19:30, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

• Of course. There have a couple where I don't bother since they are very low-traffic articles. But if it's a big attention-ish topic, I would always solicit some input to save people time at FAC (for example, Phil Sandifer pointed out that Halo 3 was too heavy on Features and read like an advert, which we regulars didn't catch at all.) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 20:11, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

• Comment - it should be noted that the significant contributor is not always the person best equipped to answer questions at FAC. I don't mean copyeditors here, or content writers who are shy and retiring (they do exist), but cases were someone else who has not yet contributed significantly to the article is better equipped to carry out a review at FAC (because they know more about the subject). In other words, if it turns out that the article needs further improvement, it might be because the FAC discussion discovers that the current "significant contributor" has only managed to take the article to a certain level, and that a "new" significant contributor is needed to take the article to the next level. In other words, never assume that the current significant contributor is the end of the line. Carcharoth (talk) 00:41, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
• Comment. I think it is invaluable to have a system that can remove nominations by editors who have rarely if ever touched the article, because in 99.95 of those cases, the article is not ready. I am ambivalent on whether this system should be extended to remove nominations by people who have edited the article but are not necessarily significant contributors. I don't want FAC to become embroiled in editing disputes between editors who disagree on whether the article is ready, but I haven't paid close attention to how many nominations do get removed that fall into this territory. Without hard data that there's a problem, I don't really see that there's a need for change. Karanacs (talk) 01:30, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
• Undecided - Ling.Nut and David Fuchs make well-articulated points. Ultimately, it is aimed at protecting writers and reviewers from disruption. However, as illustrated in the section above, it threatens miscommunication and invites misunderstanding which could cause more disruption than it prevents. Articles are brought to FAC with very diverse backgrounds and very different relationships between contributors. A new formula or an extra instruction will not be a panacea. --maclean 03:14, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

*Question After reading the discussion above, I can't figure out whether "significant contributor" is supposed to mean, or be mostly about, co-nom-ship. I've been struggling with the idea of how to define what it means to do a "good job copyediting". There are a number of us who will jump in and do a strenuous copyedit either before or after an article arrives at FAC, but there would be a lot more if copyediting were "sexier" in some way. Bronze stars on userpages appear to be reserved (in practice) to noms and co-noms of FAs. How about the userbox that says "This user has significantly contributed to X Featured Articles on Wikipedia"? Would it be false advertising for a copyeditor to up this count by one, if they provide a link on their userpage to an acknowledgment by the nom(s) on the FAC page that their copyedit and other improvements contributed largely to the article passing? OTOH, I think we want to discourage people who are acting as copyeditors from trying for a nom credit, because that might make people wary about asking for help with copyediting. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 19:36, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

• A suggestion - Use The FA-Team or bring back The Awards Center if you think intrinsic rewards and personal satisfaction are not enough. Is it really all about "credit"? —Mattisse (Talk) 19:55, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
  • If that was replying to me, what I'm saying is that it would be a good thing if we didn't have so many articles arriving at FAC that give the appearance of not having been copyedited, and I'm trying to figure out how to fix that. I have never (before now) considered asking for any kind of credit for copyediting an article, because I thought that would make the problem worse: writers are less likely to ask for a copyedit if they think that means they'll have to share credit. But presumably, we'll get more people copyediting, and also trying to do a better job of it, if they think that will give them the appropriate amount of feedback and recognition. That's about it for my opinion; I'll let everyone else work out the details. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 21:05, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

***Backpedaling: I was thinking about a push to allow copyeditors to use that "User FA" template to give a count of Featured articles they had copyedited, but the problem is that both that userbox and general consensus considers the concept of "significant contributor" to be the same as someone who is or deserves to be a co-nom on an FA (the userbox links to the category of co-noms of FAs)...and that's the opposite of what I want, both because writers won't usually invite copyeditors in the door if the copyeditor gets equivalent credit to the writer, and because this is not at all the relationship that the writer and copyeditor have in the real world. The writer's name goes on the book, not the copyeditor's.

• • • So, it's time to invent a new userbox. Wikipedians are notorious apathetic about new forms of "egoboo" and new userboxes, so it will take a push to get copyeditors interested in proudly displaying the new userbox, but I don't see an alternative at the moment. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 23:47, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
      • To be honest, I'm not sure I see the issue here. I've copyedited articles in the past where the real editors have suggested that I should be one of the nominators in return, but I've refused. Conceiving, writing, and developing the article is what counts. Us Johnny-come-lately copyeditors who come riding out the sun at the last minute, like the cavalry, ought not to be stealing anyone's glory. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 00:02, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
        • Not that I mind stealing anyone's glory, but they might mind. I've struggled with this userbox idea, and I don't like that either. What I'm thinking now is that we encourage people who know something about professional style guides and Wikipedia guidelines to do roughly what they've always done (which should have been my first choice!): demonstrate their skills, and build trusting relationships with other editors so that they get invited to collaborate on GAs and FAs. Simple. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 01:17, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

The real issue

I was merely trying, in an admittedly roundabout way, to make the point that I believe this to be a ridiculously large storm in a stupidly small teacup, caused largely by the way in which the FA-Team operates. Clearer now? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 22:06, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Now someone is getting to the real issues :-) The FA-team problem highlighted by Malleus in the King Arthur nomination is but one small example, representative of the many issues presented at FAC by projects, so I'm glad to see someone finally honing in on the issues that do have the potential to impact FAC outcomes beyond who nominates an article. From an average WikiProject that is topic-based, to WP:1FAPQ and WP:FAT that are FA-based, and to The Awards Center and others that are awards-based, they operate in diverse ways including how they

• nominate (some Projects may list only one nominator on collaborations, while another recent FAC listed nine nominators, although several of them haven't contributed in months, didn't contribute to the FAC, and independent reviewers ended up fixing the issues raised at FAC),
• decide who nominates and when to nominate (precedent was set on at least five previous FACs by the FA-team),
• support their group noms (including different levels of disclosure of their participation, a factor lately forgotten by several of them),
• evaluate their candidates before nomination,
• use notification processes like templates, newsletters and talk page posts to announce their FACs and bring in more reviewers/supporters,
• use award processes like barnstars,

and many other factors affecting how they present at FAC and garner support for their nominations. As a reminder of a piece of FAC history, the edit count tool was introduced at FAC as a way to help evaluate independent support vs. contributor support. As another example, the FA-team had set a precedent on five previous nominations regarding how they nominated and when, and FAT members had clearly discussed on talk pages that King Arthur shouldn't come to FAC yet. I took their established precedents and their talk page comments seriously as the final factor in deciding to withdraw a nom, yet Awadewit and Carcharoth are curiously now proposing that we should base withdrawal decisions on talk page discussion before nominations—Awadewit is now proposing the very thing that led to her objection and this discussion :-) How can Brain Boulton have a talk page discussion with himself before he brings articles he develops largely on his own to FAC? As an example of the differences, Brian Boulton's noms typically have to wait weeks to garner support because he's not part of a Project, while FA-team Projects garner dozens of supports, (with supporters rarely disclosing they were part of a collaboration). The issues these Group projects present are many and diverse and require careful analysis that can't be done by any tool. Group think affects independent evaluation, members may be too close to their own articles to see its issues, so Project support combined with independent eyes is optimal. Do these Projects give us enough disclosure to assure a candidate is receiving independent review? Should they be required to disclose they are group projects? The Mario Vargas Llosa FAC was illuminating in terms of independent evaluation; Ottava Rima pointed out an issue that all of us had missed (I include myself, because I speak Spanish and I also missed what he pointed out about non-English sources in a BLP). The current History of timekeeping devices presents a different set of issues. The FA-team had a breakdown here; looking at some of the other group nominations, a variety of other factors to be considered comes to light. The most significant issue is being overlooked in this editcountitis discussion: who nominates is less important than who evaluates, reviews and supports these FACs. FAC isn't a !vote and decisions can't be made by tools, rubrics or numbers, but a discussion of the more important issue of how to weigh Supports from large Projects versus independent evaluation of the articles would be most welcome at this juncture. Should it be part of my "job" to track these Projects and know whether they disclose when they nominate and know the various ins and outs of how they operate, so that when I apply their precedents and use their talk page messages as a factor in my decision to withdraw, FAC comes under fire, or who should be watching for these issues? Discussion is needed, not about a tool that still isn't and never has been used in the ways that Awadewit and Carcharoth are painting, but how FAC evaluators and supporters should be managing these Group nominations, their rewards, their supports, their talk page notifications that generate supports, and many other factors. I would like to see a discussion of how reviewers and nominators can address these issues, so that FAC in general doesn't come under fire again when FAC instructions are applied and Group project procedures falter. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:48, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion, if there has been a true group collaboration, then the members of that collaboration should not !vote at FAC (some of the FA-team collaborations fall into this). Other people who interact with the article (basic copyedit, peer review, GA review) should mention their role if they are !voting. I don't think WikiProject members necessarily need to identify themselves (I'm a member of WP:BIO and WikiProject Texas, neither of which is that involved in this type of thing). I think editcounting can help identify a reviewer who might have a slight (or more) conflict of interest. If any reviewer sees someone with a COI !vote, they should leave a nicely worded note pointing out the potential COI, and possibly leave a message on the reviewer's talk page to let them know they should be identifying themselves. Karanacs (talk) 20:41, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

If collaborators would be prevented from supporting or opposing a FAC, this nom would have had exactly two !votes. It is like pulling teeth getting most paleo articles reviewed by anyone. Removing those editors actually interested in the article leaves no one left to review it. Firsfron of Ronchester 21:53, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I hope I didn't leave any impression of preventing or requiring or defining or limiting or whatever; there's no call in this section for black-and-white, cut-and-dried definitions, requirements or thinking, as FAC just can't work that way. Each Project, each article and each FAC is different, and as always, that's how I approach every FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:00, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Three times I have tried to focus this discussion on the definition of "significant contributor". Because it appears from the evidence that FAC relies on edit counts to define significant contributor (our instruction page links the phrase "significant contributor" to the edit counter and provides no other defining characteristics) and because edit counts appear to be the sole determining factor in disputes (see list below), and I believe there is some agreement that there is a danger in relying solely on edit counts, I thought it would be a good idea to try and define what we meant by "significant contributor" and even revisit whether or not we wanted this clause in the instructions:

• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Super Smash Bros. Brawl
• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/History of timekeeping devices
• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Hillary Rodham Clinton/archive2
• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Omar Khadr/archive1
• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Neptune
• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Mario Vargas Llosa
• Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/The General in His Labyrinth

Sandy has assured us that she doesn't rely solely on edit counts, so I have asked her several times to explain what criteria she does use, as I thought her expertise would be an asset to this conversation. However, we still haven't seen an outline from her of what she thinks a "significant contributor" is. All we have is the evidence from FACs, which leads one to conclude that edit counts are extremely important. I can't really see any point in trying to continue this discussion. We haven't really been able to address the question I raised and while Sandy's new points are important, they deserve a careful and thoughtful hearing on their own. Awadewit (talk) 14:23, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

(undent) I refuse to put more than three colons before any edit  :-). More importantly, I suspect that perhaps the best thing to do would be to put this issue on the back burner for now, since strong emotions have been evoked and hard words have been said. That isn't the normal modus operandi for Wikipedia talk forums, but we are all friends here in this particular forum; we know each other well and have ongoing relationships. There are two issues: an objective one regarding the definition of "significant contributor" (or whether having one is a good idea: I say Nyet) and a subjective issue regarding recent Arthurian events or perceptions. I suspect we are far too close to the latter to have any clarity regarding the former. I say we draw a curtain of grace over the latter, make peace, and go on. As for the former, perhaps it could be revisited with greter clarity and emotional distance a few weeks down the road. This plan may not be the most satisfying one, but it may be the most productive. Ling.Nut ^(WP:3IAR) 16:17, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

After reading this series of comments, and trying to helpfully participate, I think you might be right, Ling.Nut. First, I'm rather confused as to what the exact problems are. I recognize the issue of a significant contributor is murky and worth defining, though it doesn't seem to be a pervasive problem. That doesn't mean that it might not be a problem in the future. This is still a very young system, clearly working kinks out as they arise. I think SandyGeorgia does an admirable job, and for the most part, FAC participants do what they can to assist. I'm quite proud to be part of what appears to be one of the most productive and agreeable projects on Wikipedia. However, I think it's a very worthwhile point to explain how articles are promoted and archived. Though I don't think it needs to be a challenge to SandyGeorgia, it might assist newcomers to know how they are decided, and it would also explain to outsiders or Wikipedians unfamiliar with the FAC process how a particular article was promoted (considering the froofraw over Elderly Instruments that was on the main page). Though Sandy and Raul don't necessary have to explain themselves: there's no governing board that questions them, but with Wikipedia Review gaining some prominence, it may be an issue in the future, and not from more reasonable editors like Awadewit. In a few weeks some of these issues may seem less important, and some may be clearer and more easily definable.--Moni3 (talk) 17:44, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Splitting WP:fAC list into sections

Similar to WP:GA, why can't we split the list into sections such as Media, Everyday life, etc? Limetolime ^{Talk to me • look what I did!} 16:49, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Not much point, really, as there are only about 50 at most nominations at a time, not the hundreds of possible articles waiting for review at GAC. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 17:02, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

We only have about 40 nominations at a time, and segmenting the page creates a maintenance hassle that yields little benefit. And, we don't want page that looks like this and is a deterrent to reviewers. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:32, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't think the categories of WP:GAN is a deterrent to reviewers. But I do agree that the FAC page doesn't need categories due to it's relatively small size. Perhaps, you guys should thank GAN for keeping your backlog down,... ;-) Dr. Cash (talk) 03:20, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

LSWR N15 class

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/LSWR N15 class has received a lot of attention, including a copyedit from Awadewit, yet it turns out the nominator hasn't edited since June 4. I dropped a note to a rail person to see if s/he would take over the nom, but am hoping everyone will take a closer look so we can decide what to do with it. It's too close to archive, but considering no one is watching it, not sure what to do. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:21, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I also pinged EdJogg, who appears to have collaborated a bit with the nominator and who has made a few edits in response to feedback. --Laser brain (talk) 16:30, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Houston, we have a problem.

The U.S. Roads project, which I am a part of, is having a problem with the recent removal of images from New York State Route 32 during its FAC. This was a big problem during the FAC and apparently still is. If it is possible can the reviewers from the FAC please take a look and help come to a consensus? Thanks.^Mitch32^contribs 01:24, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Again, WT:USRD is a better place for this discussion, as now that it has been promoted, FAC has nothing to do with it. I would suggest just leaving the situation alone for a while to see what happens, instead of creating Wikidrama. Juliancolton ^{Tropical Cyclone} 01:34, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree that WT:USRD is the place for the discussion, but it might help to have regular FAC reviewers who deal with images or other MOS/image experts involved in that discussion so that the article writers at that project know what to expect when they come to FAC and are shown into the labyrinthine MOS. Awadewit (talk) 13:12, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Why were the images removed? If they were removed for licensing issues, and the concerns were legitimate, then removing them may have been the correct thing to do. If it was for some aesthetic reason, then it is a far, far grayer area. During the FAC review of Taiwanese aborigines, a reviewer just went through and yanked out several images. No explanation was given as to why it was done. I called his hand on it, and he said "I think Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not an image gallery." I replaced the images posthaste. There may be legitimate aesthetic reasons for removing images, as in the hypothetical case in which an image has top-to-bottom, wall-to-wall images (that would be an eyesore). But if images are used fairly sparingly and are properly licensed.... in that case, people may have strong personal reasons or beliefs or opinions why these images may be removed. But screw 'em. My word is as good as theirs. Ling.Nut ^(WP:3IAR) 14:53, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

It was basically a MOS dispute. Awadewit (talk) 01:10, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Kazoiks! Willow's Emmy Noether FAC template

I think it's neat. Though often when I think something is neat, Sandy or someone else will find something detrimental about it.

I'd like to propose overlong FACs (i.e. mine, right now) use this. It would help me keep track of who's been addressed and who hasn't.

Neat thing, by the way, Willow. --Moni3 (talk) 15:49, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Err nevermind. --Moni3 (talk) 15:50, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Saint Joan (play)

Status of Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Saint Joan (play)? Bebestbe (talk) 01:55, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

The FAC page was prepared in 2006 but never submitted, I found it in 2007 and archived it as never submitted. I'm not sure what the question is. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:57, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Help needed

Can some kind soul please give User:Mr David R Miller a hand. He's a new user, and wanted to nominate his article "Service Excellence" for FA status. There are several problems though: first, instead of creating it as an article, he created it as his userpage; second, the FAC nom (as it existed; I tried fixing it before realizing that there was no SE article) was not linked from this page. Raul654 (talk) 16:27, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Note - I did some page moving and complete the FAC nom. I don't expect it to be promoted, but it will help to get more eyes on it. Raul654 (talk) 16:45, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I left a note for him. Hopefully he'll be willing to accept a little help learning the ropes. Karanacs (talk) 16:59, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Ooh, I think it has to be carefully recast to avoid the impression of self-promotion. This is apart from any consideration of nominating this for FAC. I'll leave a note for him. TONY (talk) 08:45, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

date autoformatting is optional

I'd like to remind nominators and reviewers that for some time now, the autoformatting of dates has not been required.

There are four advantages in not linking dates:

1. Inconsistent raw formatting within an article is obvious to editors and thus less likely to escape our attention. (The autoformatting mechanism conceals the inconsistencies from us, the very people who are most likely to enforce consistency, but the raw formats are displayed in bright blue to almost all readers, who are not registered and logged in. The rules for the choice of format in an article are in MOSNUM, here); they are easily summarised as (a) be consistent within an article; (b) take account of national ties to a topic; and (c) retain the existing format unless there's a good reason not to.
2. There are fewer bright-blue splotches in the text, which makes it slightly easier to read and improves its appearance.
3. The following issues concerning the dysfunctional aspects of the autoformatting mechanism do not arise:
   • piped links to date elements ([[20 June|20]], [[20 June]] [[1997 in South African sport|1997]]) (several forms of piped links break the date formatting function);
   • links to date ranges in the same calendar month e.g. December 13–17 or the night of 30/31 May – the autoformatting mechanism will damage such dates (30/May 31);
   • links to date elements on disambiguation pages;
   • links to date elements in article and section headings; and
   • links to date elements in quotations (unless the original text was wikilinked).
4. As a minor advantage, edit windows are slightly easier to read and edit.

It may be that WikiMedia might be persuaded to invest resources in revamping the mechanism to avoid or mitigate these problems, but this is unlikely to occur in the short to medium terms. TONY (talk) 13:49, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

But also remind that, when some dates are linked, all need to be linked: consistency throughout the article, either way. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:13, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

May I ask then why a bot is doing this? I didn't think they needed to be in a particular format. D.M.N. (talk) 18:31, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

• No, Sandy, if some full dates are linked, the option remains to remove those links. TONY (talk) 07:40, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

That particular format is required by that template to autoformat it. It is explained in the documentation for those templates. Gary King (talk) 18:38, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

• Hmmm, I'd rather a bot that undid full-date autoformatting; but I'm not going to push that, because there'd be screeching from stasis-fixated people. TONY (talk) 08:37, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

It's probably not a good idea to undo full date formatting when they have already been applied, because in most articles, different date formats are used and so the date formatting pulls the dates together to be the same format. If an article is primarily maintained by one person, then perhaps all the dates can be unlinked because any new dates can be formatted accordingly on-the-spot. Gary King (talk) 16:50, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Reviewer note on dashes et al

I'm seeing a lot of comments asking nominators to fix endashes and footnote placement. Since that can be tedious busy-work, and since Brighterorange has a script to fix those issues, it might be more welcoming to nominators to refer them to Orange rather than asking them to do this manually (reminder that BOs script is still under development, and occasionally misses a few). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:27, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

What's "Orange"? TONY (talk) 08:38, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

User:Brighterorange Gary King (talk) 16:49, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Lead lists vs featured (?!) lists

<Moved from Wikipedia talk:Featured articles> SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:25, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Query: Should the term "Featured" for written article space content be limited to items that pass through featured article candidates? I'm testing the waters on this idea by posting here. Through a random editing path, I came across Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of schools in Marlborough, New Zealand. The list was proposed as featured because it was similar to List of schools in Northland, New Zealand, which was recently promoted to featured list. Honestly, List of schools in Northland, New Zealand seems far from Wikipedia's best work. Featured means "A prominent article in a periodical".[6] I am beginning to see that Wikipedia:Featured list candidates is more of a way to get the moniker "Featured" attached to something in article space without the rigors of going through Featured article candidates. I think that only those written article space items that pass through Featured article candidates should have the term "Featured" associated with it. I think "Featured lists" should be renamed as "Lead lists", "Prominent lists", "Distinguished lists" etc. because they represent the best lists of those lists in Wikipedia. The term "Featured" for written article space content should be limited to items that pass through featured article candidates. Bebestbe (talk) 16:23, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

With the help of User:Tony1, the WP:FLC criteria have undergone a significant overhaul in recent weeks. I think you'll find that lists being passed as "featured" nowadays (with the odd exception, none of us are perfect) are in a much better state than they were. I think claiming "Featured" for FAC only is pure snobbery, spend some time at FLC and see how much scrutiny some lists get and how determined editors are to comply - you're just devaluing their efforts by claiming such. Anyway, I look forward to yet another "FLC is the poor cousin of FAC" debate. Good luck everyone. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:33, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

And I have to say, this contribution is currently directly in contravention of the strict rules we have on making the lead engaging and the prose compelling. Your addition is grammatically incorrect and is pretty much a repetition of the title of the list - how does that improve it? The Rambling Man (talk) 16:38, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I am unaware of strict rules in Wikipedia, a purpose of the lead sentence is consistency and context, and your opinion about repetition is subjective. If so desired, please continue the first sentence discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. Bebestbe (talk) 16:44, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

That edit would be acceptable for FACs, but things work differently at FLCs, and as only one of the differences, FLCs don't always have bold text in the lead. Gary King (talk) 16:45, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

(off topic, but related to "List of schools in Marlborough, NZ"), why would you add a sentence and then tag it with {{fact}}, Bebestbe? Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 16:49, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

The sentence was taken from the featured list candidate's posting. I added it to help clarify the scope of the list. His claim needed to be backed up by a citation. What was your purpose for posting that admittedly off topic query in this thread rather than some place appropriate? Bebestbe (talk) 16:55, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Because I knew you were watching this thread at this moment in time. I'll strike it since it bothers you. Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 17:00, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Changing the name of featured list candidates does not devaluate the evaluation efforts towards list candidates. It clarifies the use of the term "Featured", particularly since Featured Articles appear on the main page and those lists coming from featured candidate lists do not. "Featured" has a significant meaning within Wikipedia. Having Featured Articles and Featured Lists splits that meaning and may cause confusion on non-Wikipedian readers. Bebestbe (talk) 16:50, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Quite the opposite. Your degrading comments to people who want nothing but the best for Wikipedia are patronising and the edit you made to "improve" the article in question is frankly poor and contravenes the criteria we're working hard to tighten up. I think the only person confused about this situation right now is you. If you are (as you say) "unaware of strict rules" here on Wikipedia, please don't drive by and claim the work of the folks at WP:FLC is not commensurate with that of the folks at WP:FAC. Sure there are many subtle differences and nuances but ultimately all any editors involved in striving for promotion to featured content are working hard to ensure their work exemplifies the best Wikipedia can offer. The Rambling Man (talk) 16:56, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if you are aware, but there are other areas that use Featured, also, including WP:FP, WP:FPO, WP:FT, and WP:FS. Are you also considering to redefine those? I think they all have different meanings within their own scope, and as long as we can continue to define some borders between each one, then things are fine. Gary King (talk) 16:53, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree with TRM. FLC was a bit unsophisticated a few months ago, but since being revamped, the process is much more rigorous. In a few months, the FLC review process will be as exhaustive and comprehensive as FAC (hopefully). Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 16:54, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Good point. If the FLC review process is working to be exhaustive and comprehensive as FAC, then featured would be appropriate for the written article space content. Bebestbe (talk) 17:09, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

As written above, my assertion is limited to written article space content, not pictures, portal space content, sounds, etc. Bebestbe (talk) 16:59, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Curious logic - surely a "featured sound" is as confusing as (if not more than) a "featured list"? The Rambling Man (talk) 17:01, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Lists contain written description and and an organized table. Non-list articles contain written description and can contain an organized table. Sounds do not contain either. Bebestbe (talk) 17:06, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

(Un-indent) Bebestbe, I think your interpretation of Featured content stems from the definition you provided on thesaurus.com. And while that is a perfectly acceptable definition, Wikipedia's definition has changed and grown beyond that. My assumption of the purpose behind Feature content is to allow readers to find information that is accurate and professional, whether it be an article, list, image, or sound (someone correct me if I'm wrong). (Guyinblack25 ^talk 17:21, 23 June 2008 (UTC))

My interpretation of featured written article space content stems from Wikipedia:Featured article criteria. Even accounting for the differences between an article primarily focused on written content and an article primarily focused on a table, I think the term "Featured" for written article space content should be limited to items that pass through featured article candidates. Bebestbe (talk) 17:40, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

But it also needs to stem from WP:Featured list criteria, as both articles and lists are in namespace. Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 17:42, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Your interpretation would be correct if we were using "article" to mean article space. We are not; Featured article criteria covers articles that are in article space, while featured list criteria covers lists that are in article space. Featured lists go through a similar process as featured articles but are reviewed by people who are more familiar with high quality lists. Both strive to become the best of their category. Karanacs (talk) 17:44, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

• Bebestbe, no one is going to change the status or name of FLs, and I think we're all pleased with the new lease of life that the main contributors have given to the FLC process, what with the directorate and the user-friendly criteria. It's still early days, but vying with FAs in quality standards is within the reach of the FLC system soon. Give them a little time and watch this space. Talk of the kind of change you're suggesting is idle, I'm afraid. TONY (talk) 17:50, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Starrcade (1983)

It appears that the nominator for Starrcade (1983) has subsequently left Wikipedia: [7]. Not sure what the correct process is in these circumstances. Best, Gwernol 23:29, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Add that note to the FAC; it means I may archive it sooner than usual (but not yet, in case the nominator has a change of heart, or in case another person agrees to take it over). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:32, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, will do. Gwernol 00:23, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

When does a list become an article

I have a question about when does a list becomes an article and when does an article becaome a list. please comment at Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates#When does an list become an article --Gman124 ^talk 00:10, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm still waiting for someone to volunteer to write a Dispatch about this. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:13, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Eyesight

Is it only me? I know I'm more sensitive than most here in terms of what I can see/read on a computer screen, but I'm having a very hard time at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Polyclonal B cell response. Is anyone else having a hard time with what the font sizes in that sig are doing to the surrounding text? If it's only me, I'll print the FAC to read it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:49, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

It's not just you, Sandy. I'm on my "old" computer right now, the one with the smaller screen and the Internet Explorer6, and I find the signature throws off the last line of every response. Perhaps the nominator might consider reverting to the default signature for the duration of the FAC? They can "save" their somewhat fancier one on a user subpage for the short time involved, and it will make it easier for those of us who sometimes do not have the latest technology available. Risker (talk) 21:56, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I've also discovered the text straightens out if I insert a line after all of his/her responses. Not sure what to do here, hard to read; maybe I should just refactor to insert spaces after each one of his/her sigs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:58, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Per Customizing your signature, "markup such as <big> tags (which produce big text), or line breaks (<br /> tags) are to be avoided, since they disrupt the way that surrounding text displays." Perhaps a friendly note on KC Panchal's talk page may be needed. Bebestbe (talk) 16:37, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Looks like they got the message. Gary King (talk) 16:48, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Good info to know! So, Gary, about that K all over FAC :-)) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:56, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I will continue using it until it haunts you in your sleep ;) Gary King (talk) 01:01, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I really, really wish that raw signatures were disabled. Raul654 (talk) 03:25, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

All of them? Waltham, The Duke of 21:32, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Reflist

See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Problem Displaying American Airlines Flight 77. Somewhere, the MoS used to recommend no higher than reflist|2, but I can no longer find that. Should we be checking that reflist|3 and 4 aren't used? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:09, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

At Template:Reflist, I found "Three-column lists are inaccessible to users with smaller/laptop monitors and should be avoided." Gary King (talk) 05:14, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Brilliant; I nominate you as the official reflist|3 checker :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:16, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

But I actually like three column reflists for long lists of references :( Especially for articles with 100+ references. I suggest you use Firefox to get a feel for how multiple reference columns affect articles first. For instance, a lot of recently promoted FACs have FOUR (!) reference columns, especially the ones with Harvard citations, including Georgette Heyer (3 columns), Angus Lewis Macdonald (4), Talyllyn Railway (4), Battle of Lissa (1811) (3), and Emmy Noether (3). 5 of the last 10 promoted FACs have 3 or more reference columns, while the others have 2. Gary King (talk) 05:16, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Accessibility matters; they should change to 2. (And, until that bug is fixed, that means those articles have problems, so they should change to 2 now.) Also, probably the reason you like it is because you're used to looking at it; the same reason I don't like it (cluttered, busy for my taste). At any rate, we know it's not working now, so they should be changed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:26, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

As I posted at User talk:VegitaU, "The immediate issue is a Firefox bug and should have Firefox deal with it, NOT change all the reflists here, because it only affects Firefox 3 users." Also, Firefox 3 was only released a week ago, so most visitors are not using it. I don't necessarily agree or disagree with you, but I think that it's a bit hasty to say let's change all of them right now, especially considering probably about 50% of existing FAs have reflists of three or more, and of course, I'm a lazy bum. Let's at least get some more input on this, first. Gary King (talk) 05:28, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I kinda agree with Sandy. Reflist 3 does look a little sloppy and I have a 1280 X 1024 resolution with a 14pt font default. We have to think about the poor people who still use Windows 98 with 800 X 600 res. Reflist 3 would be a mess. -- VegitaU (talk) 05:30, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Things change, too. The accessibility guidelines have to take into account that the majority of people (meaning 85%, according to January 2008 statistics) have monitors of 1024x768 or bigger. Anyways, if you really want to, you could get a bot to do this for you. Gary King (talk) 05:32, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

(after another 85,000 edit conflicts, Gary, pls try to get your posts done in one try :-)) It's not only a Firefox 3 issue; see your post above. At Template:Reflist, I found "Three-column lists are inaccessible to users with smaller/laptop monitors and should be avoided." And I seriously doubt that 50% of existing FAs use more than 2; I used to check that when I reviewed and we never had more than reflist|2; this seems to be a new thing that FAC is letting through. It looks AWFUL to me (now that I've seen VegitaU's images). And I have every size monitor in this house, but I set my res to accomodate for my crappy eyes, and I hope I'm not the only non-teenager on Wiki. We don't need a bot; I'm quite sure there aren't that many, because I used to check them. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:37, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

It is only a Firefox 3 problem as far as I know, and as I like quoting myself so much, "Of course, Firefox is still the primary culprit, so hopefully they fix it." This is regarding the bottom of the page being cut off, by the way... probably not what you were referring to. I took a few (very) random samples and found 3-columns as far back as March 2007; a few other articles have very scary references, such as ones with scroll bars. I think we should primarily be serving people with 1024x768 resolutions and higher, and after taking a look, I think 3-columns is the minimum that should be allowed for that. Especially when Harvard citations are used, which take up much less space. Something should probably be added to WP:ACCESS about this. Also, I'm on a 1440x900 monitor, so perhaps that's why I've got lots of whitespace around references :) And yes, my English is bad so I always have to correct it. Stop staring at me! Gary King (talk) 05:40, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Re Scroll bars: Wikipedia:CITE#Scrolling lists. We shouldn't be failing to serve anyone; until I got my new laptop for Christmas (which I didn't want, surprise!), I was on a Windows 98, 800 x 600. I have several very large monitors in the house, but I still keep my res set low. In spite of the average age on Wiki, there actually are a lot of baby boomers on the internet; our articles should be broadly accessible. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:59, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that's why I have to admire Wiki. It looks out for the people who don't have dual-core, Nitrogen-cooled, overclocked, compensating-for-something computers. -- VegitaU (talk) 06:02, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

VegitaU: I also use a laptop, though. Sandy: I'm just saying that you gotta draw a line somewhere. You will definitely, never, ever have perfect accessibility with every existing device out there. Also, any thoughts on automatically making reference columns with 3 or more to revert back to 2? That would probably require some consensus, though, but, thoughts anyways? It probably isn't really practical, but I figure I'd mention it, anyways. Gary King (talk) 06:10, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

(unindent)I don't think reflist 2 vs. reflist 3 is such a debilitating policy. The only thing that changes is the scroll bar gets a little longer. Reflist 3 doesn't save you that much space anyway because longer refs get wrapped around 4 or 5 times and expand the page. The article size itself doesn't change. -- VegitaU (talk) 06:16, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Yep, although I'm specifically focusing on articles using Harvard citations, like the examples I mentioned above; those are usually only a few characters long, each, and are typically almost all the same length in an article. Again, I'm not too caring about how this goes either way, but I'd just like to throw some thoughts into the mix first before y'all go and do your thing. If I can make someone think of their actions before executing them, then I have done my job, or something or other. Gary King (talk) 06:19, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

That's sounds good. We should definitely invite discussion. Anyways, it's beddy-bye for me. -- VegitaU (talk) 06:22, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

OMG, Gary! My watchlist is going crazy! ;) Personally, I don't like the three column reflist, but I saw no problem with the page in question when it was first reported, and I'm using Firefox 3. Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 07:53, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry :( I will stop now -_-' Gary King (talk) 08:11, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

(light bulb turns on above head)

Would it be technically possible to create a footnotes section which would somehow automatically adjust to screen resolution? This might solve some problems. (And create others, I suppose, but who knows?)

By the way, I also have Firefox 3, and I am experiencing no problem with multiple columns. Waltham, The Duke of 08:22, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

{{reflist|colwidth=30em}} can be done, which would "allow the browser to automatically choose the number of columns based on the width of the web browser." according to Template:Reflist. Gary King (talk) 08:23, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Could I just note also that 2 column reflists are also problematical with some browsers? See Template_talk:Reflist#Multiple_columns_deemed_bad for more discussion. DuncanHill (talk) 10:20, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree, they don't work with Internet Exporer 10. GrahamColm^Talk 12:31, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Some well-intentioned editor set all my Everglades articles to reflist 3 since they're primarily short citations. My stinky work computer reads only one column no matter how many are set. My laptop at home is a Mac and does everything perfectly all the time, dishes included. So - do I have to reset my reflists to 2? --Moni3 (talk) 12:36, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

One would be better - as it is the only setting which appears to work on all browsers and displays. DuncanHill (talk) 12:41, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

My Everglades article, which is not unique at FAC, has more than 170 citations. I think one column would be too much. --Moni3 (talk) 12:44, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Moni, Internet Explorer (which is most of the world, I believe, like me) sees it as one column anyway. Until yesterday, when VegitaU posted an image, I had never even seen these multiple columns, which are quite unattractive to me (but I guess it's a matter of what one is used to looking at). And at Hillary Clinton, we did find out how much they slow down load time. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:10, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Two columns doesn't work with Safari (and IE10 according to Graham). The little letters get displaced, and the link between the ref number and the reference itself doesn't work. DuncanHill (talk) 12:46, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Then this should be an MoS issue that should be cleared up there. I'm going to hold off on changing anything until SandyGeorgia or Tony or someone with MoS connections determines what the rule should be. --Moni3 (talk) 12:49, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, reading the previous discussions linked, this is a much bigger problem than I knew about, and needs to be settled globally. The logical place is MoS, but the usual disruption will occur there, so I'm not sure where to take it. I would suggest that for FA audiences, you all consider that 1) there is currently a bug, 2) reflist columns slow down load time, 3) there are accessibility issues on small screens, laptops and for those with los res settings for poor eyesight, so you might factor into your decision whether you accept that some readers won't see the bottom half of your article (which is broken), while most don't even see your reflist|2 or 3. I think MoS should get rid of this option, but I don't know where that conversation might best occur. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:10, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Two columns works just fine for me in Safari (Safari 3.1.1, OS X 10.5.3). — Bellhalla (talk) 13:08, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Could you link an article where it works for you? (I use Safari 3.1.1 (525.17) on WinXP). DuncanHill (talk) 13:14, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

SS Kroonland, for one. (The build # for my version of Safari is 5525.20, FWIW.) — Bellhalla (talk) 15:24, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, doesn't work for me - I get the misplaced letters and broken linkage from refnumber in the text to the reference itself. DuncanHill (talk) 15:26, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

The conclusion I come to is:

1. Most of the world (Internet Explorer) only sees a one-column list anyway.
2. Accessibility issues are created by reflist|2 and higher on any browser.
3. Reflist|2 and higher are broken even on some browsers that support it.

So, regardless of whether MoS currently takes a position, we shouldn't be using this option on FAs if we want to assure that everyone can read our mainpage articles. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:32, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Oops, add one:

4. Reflist|2 and higher slow down load times, an issue on long or heavily referenced articles.

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:59, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I support Sandy's conclusions. DuncanHill (talk) 16:04, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Just an FYI (as have been all my comments, as I don't push for any position one way or the other), in May 2008, 54.5% of browsers were Internet Explorer, 40.5% were Firefox, and the rest were either Safari, Opera, or other. And Firefox usage is growing the quickest, at roughly 0.5% increase a month :) Gary King (talk) 16:25, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Source? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:28, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I just found this: Usage share of web browsers. It's pretty different from the numbers I put up, above, which is to be expected considering there isn't a single place that collects all the browser statistics. Anyways, to clear up a few things mentioned above:

• There is no such thing as Internet Explorer 10; the most recent version is 8.0.6001.17184 (IE8 Beta 1)
• Internet Explorer WILL support multiple (CSS) columns in the future. It is a CSS3 standard now, and even though Microsoft is slow at developing things, they will eventually get there. It might take a while, but they will get there.

Gary King (talk) 16:34, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

A reliable industry source would be helpful. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:36, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

The first one I used with 40% for Firefox was w3schools, which is geared more towards people who want to learn HTML. The second one, where Firefox is 20%, is more reliable as it covers a much larger number of websites, and can be found at HitsLink. And of course, Firefox was was just released :) Gary King (talk) 16:40, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Quote from w3schools: "W3Schools is a website for people with an interest for web technologies. These people are more interested in using alternative browsers than the average user. The average user tends to use Internet Explorer, since it comes preinstalled with Windows. Most do not seek out other browsers. These facts indicate that the browser figures above are not 100% realistic. Other web sites have statistics showing that Internet Explorer is used by at least 80% of the users." A reliable industry source would be good; there's no doubt that IE is the majority, so let's stay on topic since this is already a long discussion. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:48, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

← So, we have to put up with millions of obnoxious people who won't do us a favour and ditch Internet Explorer. Let's accept it and move on from that. ;-D

Personally I find two, or even three columns (when footnotes are very short) quite useful; the excessive white can be annoying (especially when considering what a pity it is to waste it), and scrolling should be minimised when there is nothing interesting to see—I believe the usual case is that footnotes are only useful when you get there by clicking on the numbers. So, unless we add yet another option to the growing set of user preferences (which won't work for most readers anyway), we'll end up with a maximum of two columns, or even just one. In this case, I have a suggestion to make...

Create a template placed either manually or automatically at the top of the references/footnotes section, with a link bypassing said section. It could be used only for very long sets of references... Just to avoid the scrolling. Although I have recently defended the position of the references section in the appendices, and still consider this placement the best one available, we cannot forget that it kind of breaks the page's continuity.

That's one solution: bypass the "chasm". The other one is... Eliminate it. I am thinking of a collapsible references section, opening up either when clicking on a footnote or the usual way ("show" button). A little amateurish in appearance, perhaps, and I have no idea if it is technically possible, but it's worth discussing, no?

So, that makes two ideas. Your turn, people. Waltham, The Duke of 21:14, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

All of that is possible, but come with their own problems. I still think the best thing to do is to have fixed column widths for references, instead of fixed number of columns. What this does is it dynamically changes the number of reference columns based on your screen size; so, for me, there could be 3 columns, while for people with small monitors, it could show 2 columns, or even only 1 column for small devices like mobile devices. Gary King (talk) 23:56, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm in agreement with Sandy that FAs should be accessible to as wide an audience as possible. As a Mac/Safari user, I know how frustrating it is to get to some website and have it not function correctly. But to put the points above in perspective, for IE users, which may number anywhere between 55 and 84% (per sources linked above), current implementations of {{reflist|2+}} display as a single column. (From personal experience, I know the previous version of Safari (Safari 2), did the same.) Not all non-IE users are having problems, so it is only for some unknown percentage of the non-IE users that multi column {{reflist}}s may be actually "broken".

Any way, I don't know how all of the technical stuff works, but perhaps multi-column references could be set up as a "Preferences" thing—like date formats—for each user to (if they care to do so) adjust to his or her particular browser/monitor/vision requirements. Set the default to be for single column refs, and the "problem" goes away. — Bellhalla (talk) 08:51, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Technical question about citing the same sources very often

I am currently working on the raccoon and I want to ask a technical question about citing the same references very often. I use mainly six monographs as references for the article. Since they contain nearly all information one could ever include into an article about raccoons, I cite them very often. Until now, I have written the page number in a comment behind the <ref name="xyz" /> like this: <!-- PAGE 15 -->. However, it is probably more usual to use a reference style like here: Zhang_Heng with short refs for the author and page number every time. What do you prefer? Is it better that the reader sees the page numbers in the reference list at first sight or is it better if the reference list does not get too long? I wonder why there is no function like <ref name="xyz" page="15" /> what would eliminate this problem. (Please do not make any comments regarding the article qualitiy. I know that there is still a lot to do.) --Novil Ariandis (talk) 07:43, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

The style used in Zhang Heng is much better because any reader can see what page number the note in question is citing. In raccoon only someone who clicks the "edit this page" tab can see what pages are used. — Bellhalla (talk) 08:13, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I thought it was clever at the beginning, but have become more and more suspicious about it for the very same reason. I'll change it. --Novil Ariandis (talk) 08:33, 26 June

{{harvnb}} might also be useful. Gary King (talk) 23:37, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Collaborative project

The whole point about Wikipedia is that it's supposed to be a collaboration, open-source, GFDL etc., and yet at FAC that all falls apart. Reviews are (increasingly?) adversarial, with reviewers content to say what's wrong but not fix it (and I'm not talking about specialist subject knowledge - a current FAC review included "comma missing").

I know that a recent new FAC contributor was quite surprised to discover that at FAC WP:OWN reigns supreme - basically it's your article - you fix it. Even (polite) direct requests for help get responses like free copyediting service - not, which to a middle-aged Brit like me actually seems quite offensive.

I know it's easier to criticise than to fix, but isn't a colleagual approach what drives this project? Sorry about the rant. I know how the system works, and I'll play the game, but it's tough on less experienced or more sensitive souls jimfbleak (talk) 18:07, 26 June 2008 (UTC)2008 (UTC)

You have a good point. However the point of FAC is to point out to an editor what needs to be done, and then !vote based on what has been done and what shape the article is in. I agree that the "comma is missing" or the "footnote before the punctuation" comments are just as easy for the reviewer to fix, but if a reviewer wants to touch base with every FAC, they might be short on time. Also, in theory the reviewers are doing the nominator a favour by commenting on an article, so most people (myself included) don't usually feel obligated to preform copyedits on FACs. However, if the nominator asks me on the FAC or my talk page to copyedit an article, I will usually try to make an effort to take a look. Just my $0.02. Juliancolton ^{Tropical Cyclone} 18:18, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I guess this is a continuation of the above section. This comes up a lot. A lot of people do not understand that FAC is not a place to find collaborators, it is not peer review, and it is not supposed to be a time to rewrite an article. Rather, it's a place to determine whether an article already meets the FA criteria. There are not enough reviewers to go around, and we have to choose where we spend our time. I personally think my time is better spent giving feedback to 10 nominators so that they can go fix the problems themselves (or find another collaborator), rather than help rewrite one article (and I bet the other 9 nominators agree). Part of me says we should modify the instructions to make this more clear to newer nominators, but the other part says most of them don't read the directions anyway. Do you have any specific suggestions on what changes should be made? Karanacs (talk) 18:57, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not so sure that there needs to be any changes made to the directions, although I do understand the points that both you and Jimfbleak are making. We're each different though, and this is a volunteer project after all. Personally I wouldn't even consider flagging a missing comma as a problem, except as an example of an endemic problem with the article, or where I wasn't confident I had understood what was meant; I'd just fix it. Again, just a personal view, but I'd prefer to spend more time on an article that I have at least a passing interest in, instead of forcing myself to trudge through material that I have not even the slightest interest in. Thank God we're all different! --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 19:28, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm guilty of this particular onerous crime (in fact, I may even have been the reviewer jimfbleak was talking about) and the reason that I usually don't fix the concerns myself is either because they're rather numerous and I don't have much time (read: am too lazy) or because I'm unsure of whether they're correct. In some, like the one nominated by Cla68, neither applies, but I still don't correct it myself out of sheer habit. Perhaps I'll try to stop doing the latter, but really, how important is this issue, anyways? It hardly matters who removes the comma, fixes the spelling, etc. Nousernamesleft (talk) 22:52, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

It's not a crime, and neither is it onerous; just different reviewers have different ways of reviewing. At the risk of bringing the Wrath of Sandy down on me again, I think my own approach was formed by my previous involvement in GA reviewing, where digging in and helping out with the review seemed quite natural. I'm not going to be drawn into passing any comment on the relative merits of either project though, except to say that I enjoy contributing to both. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 01:02, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I was being rather tongue-in-cheek with that description, actually. Nousernamesleft (talk) 01:17, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

(unindent)I don't see it as a problem in general--it is just part of the natural division of labor in Wikipedia. Opposing based on a single comma would be excessive because it takes the same amount of time to fix the problem than it takes to point it out. But if the comma is just given as an example of problems with punctuation all over the article, mentioning the problem instead of fixing it is a perfectly legitimate choice. --Itub (talk) 09:44, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Courtroom drama

It's not just a collaboration, it's also a courtroom (civil court, with plaintiffs and defendants, not criminal). The biggest factor in whether a FAC will succeed or not is whether anyone has functioned in the role of lawyer for the plaintiff, either before FAC ("Don't do that; they won't like it") or during FAC ("The rule isn't this, it's that", or "We've tried our best to do X"...the implication being that the jury can more easily trust someone that they have a track record with). Some reviewers at FAC function as the lawyers for the defendant, Wikipedia, protecting it against bad FAs. If the plaintiff(s), the nominator and friends, don't already know all the answers themselves, and don't get the sense that anyone is on their side, then any real-life lawyer could tell you what's going to go wrong, without having to read a single FAC.

See for instance WP:Featured article candidates/First-move advantage in chess, which just passed, and I'll try to bring up this analogy in FACs when it seems relevant. I operated, in a sense, as lawyer for the plaintiff, and that helped reduce tensions and get the thing over with faster. Krakatoa and I worked together on the copyediting, and he did a fine job. There were concerns that Tony and others had, in part because they didn't know the subject matter, but the fact that I was around to certify that certain things had been complied with meant that they weren't forced to either trust someone they didn't know or verify every little thing themselves before they could come to a decision. There will always be people saying "you didn't comply with X", and it just makes things go so much faster if someone who knows the rules can deal quickly with objections. Krakatoa objected strongly to my saying that a word was "a bit POV", but I think it's likely that he had a much better reaction to me saying that than if someone on the "jury" had said it, because I had been functioning as an advocate for the article and working hard to make it pass. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 17:17, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

urgents list largely wasted

Raul and Sandy: have you thought of putting the urgents list at the top of the FAC page, as FLC does here? When I occasionally visit FLC, I go straight to the items on that list, shoved in my face as soon as I arrive. Good way of easing more good reviewers into the fray? TONY (talk) 04:07, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I concur. I do not concur :) Gary King (talk) 04:09, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes. First, there is no "Urgents list" in the same sense that FLC has one, because FLC has a timeline on promotions that we don't (or at least they had one, the 10-day thing, not sure it's still there). A FAC isn't "urgent" after any predetermined time. Second, no one is maintaining that semi-formal list. Third, it bothered me that when I was maintaing the informal urgents list, it seemed that reviewers were waiting for FACs to go "urgent" before looking at them, so nominators were getting caught by surprise (how come the FAC has been up for two weeks, and suddenly I'm getting opposes?). I'm no longer maintaining Urgents, and I really dislike the idea of mucking up this page at all. I have nightmares we'll end up looking like this or this. A final point: I never had any indication the "Urgents" list worked. Few people transcluded it, and most often when feedback is lacking on a FAC, I have to drop hints, leave notes and reminders on the FAC myself, drum up reviewers, or close the nom. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:24, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I've been using the list the month - should I not continue using it? Awadewit (talk) 13:59, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I stopped regularly maintaining it over a month ago; no one noticed, I guess, which worries me even more about how that list is used. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:01, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I just started using the list. Since there were articles on it, I just assumed someone was updating it. I guess I won't use it anymore, then. Awadewit (talk) 17:28, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I removed the transclusion here, then. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 20:04, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I put it back, in case someone else decides to maintain it. The problem with me doing it was that it began to feel like people were waiting to enter comments until they thought I was ready to pr/ar a particular FAC. We might have more discussion about how to use the Urgents list better; if it's only being used to include every FAC that is "old", well, then reviewers can look at the bottom of the page for older FACs. It should be used to list FACs that need more eyes for whatever reason, and by me being the one to do *all* of that listing (no one else was helping), there is too much emphasis placed on only one set of eyes (mine). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:36, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Nominator indefinitely blocked

The nominator of the Michael Gomez FAC, Vintagekits (talk · contribs), has bee indefintely blocked for vioating his probation terms, see this ANI discussion. What happens to the FAC in this case, does it continue, or does it get pulled out and not promoted as the nominator cannot respond to opposes? D.M.N. (talk) 14:55, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I believe Risker and others were responding to the FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:01, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

That's correct, Sandy; in fact, I was just heading over to address several comments on the article. In any case, I believe D.M.N.'s post was premature, Vintagekit's status is still being discussed at WP:AE and a final disposition has not yet been decided. Risker (talk) 20:40, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

If you find you can't finish it up, please leave a note on the FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:45, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Will do, Sandy. I think we can manage to pull it through; VK was traveling last week, I understand, hence his non-responsiveness. Risker (talk) 21:01, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Thriller (album)

I might have made a mistake setting up the nomination, its seems to have covered over the previous fail. Im not going to touch it because I will make it worse. — Realist² (Who's Bad?) 01:32, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I'll look in a minute; for now, I need help sorting this. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:49, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Template limit again

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Featured log/June 2008 shows 52 promoted articles, although there are 56. The bottom four are falling off. I think we've hit that transcluded limit thingie (?) again, but I don't know why. (It doesn't help that I'm getting multiple Wikimedia errors when I have six tabs open and am trying to promote.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:49, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Hell, I know, whats up will all these crashes, I have targets to meet and its slowing me down. Cheers Sandy, no rush. — Realist² (Who's Bad?) 01:53, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, they're making me nuts. Your nom is fine. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:56, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Cheers Sandy, best to be save than sorry. :-) — Realist² (Who's Bad?) 02:01, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

The other four are links at the end of the page. Gimmetrow 01:55, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but why aren't they adding in the tally? They aren't transcluding for me; they're dropping off, just like we had on the FAC page when we passed the transcluded limit before we eliminated graphics. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:56, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Post-expand include size: 2045732/2048000 bytes. Gimmetrow 01:59, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Translation? Wikipedia:Template limits was the problem last time this happened, but I can't find the thread (I Do Not Like Automated Archiving). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:07, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it's a transclusion-related limit. There are various limits; post-expand is one of them. Gimmetrow 02:08, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

So, what the heck. What do we get rid of? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:09, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

What exactly is the problem? Numbering the headings? (I don't see numbered headings so I wouldn't notice). You could "noinclude" parts of some FAC pages to gain a bit more, perhaps the "capped" comments. Gimmetrow 02:12, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

For me, they're gone from the TOC and the tally; they're not transcluding at all. This is why I'm always discouraging the overuse of caps. So, I need to remove some caps from every FAC ??? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:14, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I removed a bunch of caps from the World Series, and part of the file is back. The caps are the problem. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:24, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Yep, and the page is still in Category:Pages where template include size is exceeded; we need to minimize these caps and other templates. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:26, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I just want to make it clear that I had nothing to do with the recreation of Template:Resolved comments! Juliancolton ^{Tropical Cyclone} 02:27, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

"Capped" comments use a content= parameter. I think that makes them count twice, since the size is included as a transclusion in the "cap" and then when the FAC page is trancluded. They could be noincluded, which would then only count for the FAC page and not the archive. Gimmetrow 02:30, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I removed some more, and now the page is back. For now. What do we do now? I don't know what you mean about noincluding? We're only a few days from the end of the month (there should be only a few more additions to each file), so would reminding the regulars not to cap unless the conversation is really really long do the trick? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:33, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Noincluding would be putting noinclude tags around capped comments. They wouldn't appear in the archive page, and shouldn't count against its post-expand include size. Just one idea. Gimmetrow 02:36, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

So, we'd have to remind reviewers to do that when they cap? Ugh. I'd rather remind them to take long conversations to the article talk page and not cap at all :-)) Suggestions, everyone? Promotes have been slow this month, so future FAC archives would reach the limit sooner. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:39, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I removed one more set, so we'll be OK in this month's archive, but that doesn't solve problem long-term. (And I'll have to go back to each of these three FACs where I uncapped and make sure I didn't uncap an oppose.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:46, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I think I fixed all those FACs, and notified the nominators. An hour and a half later ... now, where was I? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:03, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I've been trying to not cap unless it's really really long. I can put up noincludes around mine too, which should help, I hope. Hopefully, a reminder will be enough. Ealdgyth - Talk 02:55, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

But wouldn't noincluding also cause the text to be excluded from the FAC archives? We can't have that.  ?? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:06, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I noted that drawback above. Anyway, the apparent problem is the "cap" template uses a content= parameter, which makes the content part of the transclusion of the "cap" template. "Capping" long comments is worse, therefore. If this were handled by separate "top" and "bottom" code before and after the content, it wouldn't add more to the transclusion. Gimmetrow 04:50, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Why do people need to cap at all? Surely indenting everything other than the opening comment (or whatever), plus a strikethrough, is just as clear? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 05:55, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

To my mind, a valid reason for capping is when a very long, convoluted discussion, that may deter other reviewers, is resolved. Some of the peer review type discussions could be taken to article talk pages, too. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:59, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

(od) Indeed. But if people get into the habit of indenting everything and then marking stuff like this:

Comment Resolved (or, better still, Support).

then it's easy to scroll through. But, as you say, most of it could be moved to the talk page and replaced with a link. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 05:55, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Not moved to talk page; when reviewers give long line-by-line analyses of prose or missing page numbers on refs, they could put it on the article or FAC talk page to begin with, so I don't have to move it :-) By long, convoluted, resolved commentary, I'm referring to something like a dispute over an article name, or something that works itself out during the FAC; by capping it, subsequent reviewers aren't deterred by an overwhelming discussion. Better still is for reviewers and nominators to stay on topic as much as possible, and thread responses correctly (I spend a lot of time just keeping some pages manageable :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:11, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Nominator gives thumbs-up to flushing autoformatting down the pan

Yesterday, I attempted to solve a massive overlinking issue with List_of_Final_Fantasy_compilation_albums, a new nomination at WP:FLC, by removing all of the autoformatting. No one minds US date formatting, even if it requires a comma, just as they accept Euro formatting after their signature.

I was delighted that nominator PresN responded at the FLC page: "Well, can't say I'm sad to see the sea of blue leave. It's much easier to read now, thank you."

You may wish to compare the previous autoformatted version with the new, normal script version. Scrolling down side by side is best, but the difference is clear by comparing one after the other, too. TONY (talk) 04:17, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Polyclonal B cell response

I'd nominated this article for FA, and certain issues were raised, and all of them were being addressed. And, suddenly one day I saw that the article was not promoted.

I'm writing in as I was not happy with the abruptness of the action. Every day many edits were being made to improve the article (may be just showing how far the article was from the FA-quality), and so there should have been some sort of warning or indication that the final judgment would passed at such and such time. Moreover, I couldn't find any link which would tell me clearly as to what major issues remained because of which the article couldn't make it to the FA status. This is important as that would help decide what exact improvements are required. Most of the suggestions made were taken care of by incorporating them or giving reasons as to why they couldn't be incorporated.

Hope I'm told clearly what all criteria the article didn't fulfill so as to be not promoted. And, forgive me if they were clearly pointed out while passing the judgment, and it's only me who couldn't find them.

Thanks in advance.

—KetanPanchal^taLK 07:32, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi KetanPeanchal, I took a look at the FAC. It appears that the nomination did not garner any support after a week, and there were still outstanding opposes. Per the FAC instructions, A nomination will be removed from the list and archived if ... consensus for promotion has not been reached. Without any support comments after a week, and opposes which had not been struck by the reviewers, it is usually likely that a nomination will be archived. Keep working on the article, and when you are done ask the reviewers who opposed if they are satisfied that their concerns have been addressed. Then renominate in a few weeks, and hopefully you will get a better result. Karanacs (talk) 14:02, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Hi! Thanks for the info and encouragement. —KetanPanchal^taLK 14:38, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Template:FATasks

I've made Template:FATasks by using Template:WikiProjectGATasks. What's your idea about it. Can it be useful?--Seyyed(t-c) 13:00, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Its purpose is not clear to me. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:01, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't think this will be that useful. Many of the FAC reviewers don't look at featured lists, featured portals, etc and vice versa. There are also so many requests for each of these that it would be a huge job just trying to keep it all updated. Thanks for trying though. Karanacs (talk) 14:06, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

We can just add the five titles which are close to making decision. For example at present we choose these articles:

1.34 Baltimore Steam Packet Company,

1.35 History of timekeeping devices

1.36 Uriel Sebree

1.37 Chrysiridia rhipheus

1.38 Déjà Vu (Beyoncé Knowles song)

--Seyyed(t-c) 08:36, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

We actually already have a template for urgent FAC candidates. See above on this talk page. Those of us who follow FAC can use the existing one. Most featured candidate reviewers follow only one or two of the processes and wouldn't be interested in seeing the information on the others. Karanacs (talk) 13:28, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

New Requests page

After weeks (months?) of discussion, Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests has been changed to allow for less need to "camp out" at the page to get a slot. The significant changes are:

1. Points are subtracted from requests if a similar article recently appeared on the mainpage.
2. A request that has 80% or more opposition can be replaced by another.
3. A summary chart, updated by regulars, shows which request is next in line to be replaced.

These changes should allow for better community involvement and access at the requests page. We'd like to let this new methodology run for a few weeks to see how it does before proposing any additional changes. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:02, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Erm...how? It still has five 'slots' listed. I left a note on some other page about Sirius which doesn't have an anniversary as such but mid-July is its heliacal rising, so if not this year, then next year....Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:15, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Calculate your points by the new enhanced scheme, and if you have more than the current lowest (indicated in the chart), you can remove that one and add yours. The current lowest is a negative, so you can get in with a 0. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:17, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure that will stay on the slots for a while :P Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 23:51, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

It's been holding on for at least 24 hours by now :) Gary King (talk) 02:48, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Aawww, I feel a bit mean pulling someone else's off the queue...I calculate Sirius as 2 points if appears after July 26 (1=notable, 1=relevant date-sh - month...) Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:07, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Question: When Raul selects the articles by himself (i.e. if there's no plausible requests on a given day), does he look for the things listed on the requests page? I know that he cares about a balance of topics, but how about the other things? Nousernamesleft (talk) 17:02, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Raul takes the requests into consideration, along with other factors. It would be helpful if people here would discuss questions/concerns on the talk page there. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:05, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, I mean, if there's no requests for a certain day and Raul chooses the TFA by himself. This isn't really all that related to the requests page, which is why I'm asking here. Nousernamesleft (talk) 18:33, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I guess I don't understand your question, then, because the general answer is still the same; Raul takes requests into consideration, along with other factors. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:37, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Ah, I thought so; I guess I was misinterpreting your first answer. Thanks, Sandy! Nousernamesleft (talk) 23:05, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Transclusion error

I've got to get out the door to an app't; can someone figure out why the Boy Scouts FAC isn't transcluding? It's on the page, but not showing up. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:20, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Fixed. There was an onlyinclude in one of the reviewers' comments that caused this. Karanacs (talk) 17:35, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Ah,[8] will someone call to this to his attention so it won't happen again? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:56, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Already did :) Karanacs (talk) 18:06, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

New references feature

I'm unsure what to do with Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Mary Shelley. Mary Shelley uses an undocumented, new, "experimental grouped references feature" for the Notes section.[9] This article is ready to promote, but I need some feedback on how to handle this issue. As far as I can tell, this new feature isn't documented anywhere, and isn't discussed at any guideline page, so I'm not sure if an FA should use it. Apparently action potential used this method when it went through FAR recently, but I'm fairly certain reviewers didn't notice (I didn't). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:22, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not seeing anything beyond normal grouping of refs. Here's a sample ref tag: <ref>Moskal, "Travel writing" (CC), 247–50; Bennett, ''An Introduction'', 115.</ref> which just looks like the normal ref tags to me. No odd templates are showing up to me, at least. Ealdgyth - Talk 00:32, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I should have given more details, but I haven't even figured it out yet, and haven't found any documentation. It's the first time I've seen it in use. Look in the Notes section, where you'll see <references group=note/>; I'm not sure it's even a template, I can't tell. Then look at one of the notes, you'll see: <ref group=note>Claire's first name was "Jane", but from 1814 (see Gittings and Manton, 22) she preferred to be called "Claire" (her second name was "Clara"), which is how she is known to history. To avoid confusion, this article calls her "Claire" throughout.</ref> I can't determine what governs the numbering system, but it's not a normal ref tag, it's a ref group, whatever that means. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:41, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Heh. Color me oblivious. I see it now. Urf. I'll leave it for you MOS mavens. I'll keep mixing up my substantive footnotes with my citations, since I understand how to do that system. Ealdgyth - Talk 00:43, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Now we're supposed to say which references are primary and which are secondary? For heaven's sake! Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 00:39, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Unrelated. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:59, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Unless someone is willing to state an 'oppose' at the FAC, nothing should be done here and the FA/grade status should not be affected. maclean 00:42, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

It's about time! This feature is extremely useful, moreso for FLC than FAC in my opinion, because FLC usually has more footnotes. Gary King (talk) 00:46, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

It would be even more useful if someone documented how it works on a guideline page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:49, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Well we already figured it out... haven't we? Wikipedia_talk:FLC#New way of formatting Footnotes. Also, more documentation here. Gary King (talk) 00:50, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok, so now we know it is experimental, and that non-en-Wiki page says to "use with caution", so should we be using it in a featured article? It appears to automatically number, so how are repeat (named refs) handled, for example? And since ref number as 1, 2, 3 how can one alter the Notes to a, b, c ...  ? And where is it explained on en.Wiki for subsequent editors, who may want to edit that page ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:56, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I can check the code to see why it's considered experimental, and what the status is now. It's just like regular references, but instead of "I like pie.^[1]", it's "I like pie.^{[note 1]}". Changing it to "a, b, c" would definitely be nice; I'm not sure if that's possible yet. The original feature creator can also be contacted regarding this. Gary King (talk) 01:00, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Gary, your five edits to one make it very hard to post here without edit conflicts; let's stay on topic so others can read and opine. The question here is whether a featured article should be using an experimental, "use with caution" item that is not fully implemented, documented, or described in any en-Wiki guideline. The other issues can be worked out elsewhere. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:17, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

It appears to duplicate what Template:Cnote does. Examples that use cref with <ref> include Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Trade and use of saffron, Song Dynasty, and Talyllyn Railway. maclean 01:10, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Over at FLC, we've mostly been using {{ref}}, which is also the same thing. But, this feature does all the numbering for you, which is good for FLCs that have, oh, 20–30 footnotes that would otherwise have to be done manually. Gary King (talk) 01:13, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Here's the code for everything to do with <references /> for anyone that's interested. Gary King (talk) 01:13, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

oops, I meant Template:Cref --maclean 01:18, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

These other systems are implemented, documented, described, examples: Template:Cnote and Template:ref/doc. This "grouped" thing is apparently not described anywhere on en.wiki and is described at mediawiki.org as:

• This is currently experimental ...
• Use with caution.
• This may or may not be annoying. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Starting over: The question here is whether a featured article should be using an experimental, "use with caution" item that is not fully implemented, documented, or described in any en-Wiki guideline. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:19, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

If it's turned on on en-wikipedia, it's probably not all that experimental. I see no problems using it going forward. Raul654 (talk) 03:33, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Thx, Raul; that's what I needed to know. (Someone should get that thing documented, though.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:43, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I think it was a month or so ago I first heard of this. However, this extension was never discussed at WP:FN or WP:CITE to my recollection. Since other extensions (with different syntaxes) have been discussed, I'm not sure how or why this particular one got enabled. Gimmetrow 04:52, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree we should get this documented and into use. An unintended consequence of our demand for overcitation is that we had lost the ability to draw a readers' attention to actual important information in footnotes. When an article has a footnote after each sentence, nobody reads them, unless doing serious research on the topic or investigating a specific claim. Using footnotes to store relevant asides (their more common use in professional writing) had been lost. The [Note 1] tag restores this functionally and increases the encyclopedic quality of our articles. It grabs the readers' attention and says, click here for actual useful information. The Mary Shelley article uses this to great effect. I'd say this is a big step forward for Featured Articles. The question ought to be: how do we encourage the use of these professional-style notes in more featured articles? --JayHenry (talk) 05:18, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Um, the functionality is useful, but this syntax may not be the best. How or why was this particular extension enabled when other extensions with similar functionality were not? Gimmetrow 05:27, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

For example, I find the ^{[note 1]} superscripts obnoxious; I'd prefer an a, b, c ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:30, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Just a thought - this is a *perfect* feature for the signpost dispatches. Raul654 (talk) 05:48, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Examples

Some examples to illustrate the features. Gimmetrow 05:57, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

• Groups other than "note" can be used: <ref group=test>
• Groups can be combined with names: <ref name=one group=test>
• And reused: <ref name=one group=test/>
• Some symbols can be used as group names.
• However, the ¶ and § do not seem to work as group names
• Names in one group are independent of other groups: <ref name=one>
• <ref>
• <ref name=one/>

References

• A second <references/> tag only shows subsequent refs.

Discussion

Meaning, it can handle named refs, but the syntax is ... weird? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:51, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Basically, the groups are like the namespaces that you have on Wikipedia. You can have Article and Wikipedia:Article and User:Article, all with the same name (like <ref name="article">), but in different namespaces, or different groups (<ref name="article" group="user">) Gary King (talk) 06:01, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

The use of symbols helped; I'm glad we're not stuck with the longish "note 1", which is what I thought originally. It's intrusive. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:06, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

• I'm not sure why all this discussion is necessary. Could we not have waited at least a few days to see if the creator of the note system was willing to write some documentation? I just asked him a few hours ago. Awadewit (talk) 07:03, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

It's not just an issue of documentation; see User:Sanbeg/ref test. This extension has been active for at least three months, but was relatively unknown. If it starts to appear on featured articles, it will propagate, and once it's on enough articles the syntax will be stuck. There will be too much intertia to change it. Many editors who have discussed previous extensions have expressed a desire for one alternate system for creating lettered notes, rather than a way to create multiple sets of notes with word labels. Where was this particular extension discussed prior to enabling it, and where were the other interested editors queried? Gimmetrow 07:11, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I really was unaware that such things had to be discussed before being created on wiki in this way. I thought people could just create solutions to problems like this. We had a problem - this was a solution. It works better than other systems we had seen. I had no idea it would be such a big deal. Awadewit (talk) 13:57, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

WillowW, though not the code's creator, has kindly added some documentation at WP:FOOT, by the way. Awadewit (talk) 14:00, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Numerous other extensions have been discussed before, so other solutions exist for this problem. What other systems are you comparing this one to, Awadewit? Gimmetrow 21:38, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I have no idea where these discussion take place. I only knew of the one used at William Shakespeare, which is a pain because it all has to be done by hand. Awadewit (talk) 00:09, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

The collective memory is mostly at WT:FN, such as WT:FN#Page_number_support. Gimmetrow 00:18, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, documentation has now been added to WP:FN, and there is discussion there. Shouldn't this system have been discussed somewhere central, like the Village Pump? I was going to suggest the discussion should move to WP:FN, but I'm not sure that's the right place, as opposed to the Village Pump. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:49, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Responding to everyone at once, I prefer "I like pie.^[1][A]" to "I like pie.^{[1][note 1]}". I just can't match up "note 1" with anything done commonly in journalism or publishing. I don't hear Gimmetrow or Sandy saying that this feature is no good because it hasn't been cabal-approved; I think they're saying that it's a good idea to discuss something like this more widely before deploying. People who write on Wikipedia also write elsewhere, usually, and people who read Wikipedia also read other things. If we want to make a significant change to the look-and-feel of pages, we should ask around first to see if this corresponds to what people are used to seeing elsewhere, and IMO, "note 1" just doesn't match up. The argument was made by someone above that "note 1" is great, because it draws special attention. Well, big red stars would draw special attention too, but because people aren't used to seeing that in persuasive, professional writing, it would detract. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:46, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I share the desire for alphanumerical notes, and I also think it would be wise to have a dedicated, entirely separate system for producing explanatory footnotes. I made such a system before the "group" references were adopted; it should work as it is now, but it hasn't been tested. It's used just like the < ref > and < references /> system, but you use < note > and < notes /> instead. It comes with an internationalization file, since you all should consider that letters are not the same around the world. It was already discussed at the technical Village pump here, although we didn't take pains to popularize Steve's solution after it came out, or work to get my parallel system adopted.

As I've pointed out elsewhere, there is no doubt that Steve's system works reliably and well. He wants to extend it further, I believe, but I doubt very much that he'll ever make it backward-incompatible. There should be no question of its working reliably in the future.

If you'd like to have that alphanumerical feature right away, then one approach might be to figure out how to get my solution tested and adopted at the English Wikipedia. All the files you'll need are linked above. I'll be away for the next several weeks, so I can't do it myself within that time-frame, but I could probably do it afterwards, if people wanted that. Alternatively, you could ask Steve to change his system and add internationalization. As yet another solution, you could ask someone else to write such a system from scratch — or write one from scratch yourselves. It's not that hard, really! If these literate footnotes are such a priority for you at FAC, then you have many excellent options open to you. Good luck and best wishes, Willow (talk) 17:21, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm mostly syntax agnostic. I think people will figure it out whatever it is, and I don't think there'd be that much inertia switching to a simplified system later. I do tend to think: < note > and < notes /> is a bit more elegant than the whole ref group name thing. I'm not completely convinced about the merits of letters, as I'm worried it will fall prey to the same thing as the numbers have. The 7 of us in this conversation will know that ^[a] is a footnote worth reading but ^[1] is just there to satisfy our stringent sourcing requirements. These are vastly different tasks, but using single letters and numbers makes this non-intuitive. Readers won't know, and they're the only ones that matter. It's true you wouldn't see something like ^{[note 1]} in traditional academic publishing, but you'd never see anything at 1/5th of the citation density of some of our articles either. And that's why we'd lost the ability to convey useful information in footnotes to begin with. --JayHenry (talk) 23:11, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Jay here. The reason we needed to separate these notes in the first places is because of the high demand for notes on Wikipedia. Wikipedia already uses non-standard citation styles and includes a godawful number of notes. We should not refuse a note system that makes it easier for readers to navigate these things simply based on its style. Awadewit (talk) 00:09, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I kind of agree with that, but part of me also thinks that we've gone citation mad, and that if we just calmed down a bit on expecting every punctuation mark to be cited, then this wouldn't be necessary. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 01:13, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Pointing out that Wiki's featured articles in the med/bio area are not cited more heavilyt than most journal-published med/bio articles. In medical journal articles, most sentences have at least one, if not more, citations. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:21, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

The problem with saying "[1] just meets our stringent requirements, and [note 1] is a footnote worth reading" is that you can't legislate high quality. Some references will be fantastic, and some notes will suck. And if readers don't get that [A] points to a note instead of a reference the first time they see it, I'm pretty sure they'll catch on by the second or third time. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:47, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Lots of articles have informational footnotes. We have separated the two for ease of use. No more, no less. Awadewit (talk) 17:25, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, maybe "worth reading" is a stretch, but what I'm saying is there's a difference, and it's not just degrees of quality, between a citation and an informational footnote. They're two different things, and one need not legislate their quality to make distinguishing the two important. Sandy, I don't know anything about medicine, but at least with zoology are expectations are much denser than any of the professional literature I've read. I've tried to adhere closer to what feels a natural citation density and have often received requests that I felt were arbitrary for additional citation, i.e. not a request to cite any particular fact, but just a general sense from reviewers that the density looks too thin or the reference section looks too small. I would of course prefer that we simply calmed down these expectations, as Malleus suggests. I'm not sure why "likely to be challenged" was discarded in the first place. --JayHenry (talk) 17:36, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Have you really seen requests relating to citation density lately? I try to flag those as unactionable whenever I see them, and remind the reviewer that citation density isn't a valid oppose. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:41, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

It's an objection not infrequently raised in GA reviews, along the lines of: "There should be at least one citation per paragraph." *ducking* :-) --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 02:08, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd be okay with "[a]", "[A]", or "[N1]". If we reach "[z]", we could always use "[a1]" (or "[a2]", if "[a]" is to be considered "[a1]"). Good idea overall. · AndonicO ^Engage. 22:53, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Further discussion

I was unaware of the morphic discussions here and elsewhere (Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)/Archive_27#Global_counter_variables - circa March 2008). I posted to discussion in Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources (circa April 2008 - now archived Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources/Archive_22#Request_for_nb_tags), basically to make a request for code development that would support narrative notes with a list style type of lower-roman numerals ( ^{(i),(ii),(iii)}, etc.), which I suggested might be good with a new <nb> tag...

I've reposted this including example illustration of the desired code and rendering at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Global_counter_variables_and_discursive_notes

Anyway, it would be good if something like this could be developed, though I'd just like to say the reason I suggested a list style type of lower-roman numerals ( ^{(i),(ii),(iii)}, etc.) rather than the use of alphabetic letters, which seem to be otherwise favoured, is not only that you can easily go beyond 26 notes, but principally that it avoids any clash with the alphabetic letters already used in back-links with multiple use of references sharing the same name, as in the example shown via the link ( ii. ^ ^{a b} ).

I also thought the tag <nb> in combination with <notes/> would be more concise than <note>, with the abbreviation paralleling the existing use of <ref> and <references/> tags.

--SallyScot (talk) 17:48, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I've recently become aware of all of the discussions taking place on this, so hopefully I can shed some light on things from my perspective. I haven't really been involved in the policy or documentation of it, so I only discussed with a few of the most interested people, and I'm not sure how much use this feature has gotten.

Basically, the recent changes are just to have <references/> clear the reference list so they don't accumulate; and allow groups of independent references. The rules for what is valid for the group parameter are the same as for the name parameter.

I'm not sure what is meant by experimental; the English wikipedia is about the last place anyone would run an experiment. Minor changes to the way they are rendered are always possible, but it's really not practical to make syntax-breaking changes.

Although I did implement a <note> tag, which was like <ref> but alphabetical, that was reverted because they didn't want two tags that do similar things. So I guess what would need to be done is to add another option to ref to specify a format, i.e. <ref a> or <ref format=a> so that with the proper format specified it could call my new subclass; this should also be independent, i.e. <ref group=a name=b> and <ref format=a group=a name=b> would be from separate groups.

I don't think nested refs are going to happen, since the parser currently can't handle having the same tag nest in itself, and having multiple tags to do basically the same thing isn't acceptable. -Steve Sanbeg (talk) 17:00, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Just noticed this discussion. {{Reflist}} has been extended to allow the use of the groups parameter. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 17:07, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Tool to spot periods and commas in copyedits

It's really frustrating to spend a minute trying to find the tiny red dot in a sea of green to tell me where someone inserted or deleted a period/full stop in something I just copyedited, especially when it turns out there's nothing to find. Does anyone know of a tool to make periods and commas stand out more in diffs? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:09, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

• Microsoft Word ;-) Ling.Nut ^(WP:3IAR) 15:23, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I avoid Microsuck when I can. Will MSWord let me search only for red periods? Or are you saying to use it as the diff'ing tool? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:45, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Wait, I found just what I want...WikEd has a "toggle automatic improved diff" button (to the right of the WikEd off/on button, in the edit screen). It highlights the diff'd chars in a new screen below the normal diff screen...that is, even when you're not in an edit screen. Yay. It even works when WikEd is turned off, i.e., is not the default edit screen. (For anyone who hasn't tried it out yet, WikEd is one of the gadgets in user preferences.) - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:54, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Commercial properties

While copyediting Trump International Hotel and Tower (Chicago), I became aware that there are issues that tend to come up concerning commercial properties at GAN and FAC, so before I do more copyediting, I'd like to get a sense of what's going to fly at FAC. If you were considering going to a theme park, a hotel or a skyscraper, and you pulled up a Featured Article on Wikipedia for more information, would you want to see (given reliable sources, of course) descriptions of amenities or features? (such as a hotel, bar, restaurant, spa, parking facility, and particular rides or attractions). What kind of detail would you as a reader be looking for? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 18:08, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Sure, features, but not read like an advertisement. Of course, only the more notable attractions should be mentioned. I'm sure other topics are similar. The only commercial FA I wrote was Call of Duty 4, and I don't think it reads like an advertisement for the game. Gary King (talk) 17:47, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

That's helpful, thanks. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 18:10, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

Features that are notable, architecturally, culturally, or commercially (the biggest, the oldest, the most expensive, etc). Not having read Trump Tower in Chicago in great detail, I can't say if the atrium, restaurant, or spa is notable. If it spins at the top, it's notable. If it is famous like the Rainbow Room in NYC, it's notable. If it's a deli, then it's not. --Moni3 (talk) 18:11, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

What the heck has happened to the structure of the page?

All of a sudden, one of the articles appears in the middle. Can't see who did it. TONY (talk) 04:16, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I see it; working on it now. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:18, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Sandy! TONY (talk) 04:23, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Fixed: you pasted the article into the FAC. I suspect that means you lost your article edits? They're here: [10] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:26, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

That diff is frightening. Gary King (talk) 04:26, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Tony, edit this page, to recover your edits via edit copy and paste them to the article, assuming that is your corrected version. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:27, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

It's my bedtime; Tony, if you need help recovering your edits, maybe Gary will help? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:31, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

What needs doing? Gary King (talk) 04:32, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Mea culpa, and sorry to cause you trouble, Sandy (and Gary). My edits seem to be intact. Don't know how it happened, but I do know that I can be a computer-klutz. Now to review. TONY (talk) 04:33, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Tony do you want me to move your updated version of the article to the actual article? Gary King (talk) 04:35, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I suspect that's what he needs, Gary; his edits went to the FAC page and not to the article. The article is unchanged. I have to go beddie-bye, if you can help Tony with this, I'd appreciate it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:36, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Oook done at this diff. If it's incorrect then just undo it. Gary King (talk) 04:38, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Comments and support

Sorry if this sounds stupid, but I've only ever carried out one FAC before, so I'm a bit of a novice.

In the main blurb on the FAC page there is a sentence which reads: "The main thrust of the process is to generate and resolve critical comments in relation to the criteria, and why such resolution is given considerably more weight than declarations of support."

Does that mean, if you have fixed the problems but no official support has been given, that it counts as a support?-- Seahamlass 14:29, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, no. A reviewer needs to officially say support before their comments can be taken that way. Some reviewers just leave comments about areas they are comfortable with and don't review the entire article (for example, image or sourcing checks), so they don't feel comfortable marking their vote as support even after their specific issues have been addressed. (Welcome to FAC, by the way!) Karanacs (talk) 14:33, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

You should make an effort to hunt down editors who have commented yet not supported to get them to revisit the article. I give comments then forget where I commented. You can ask editors who comment if there's anything more you can do to earn their support. --Moni3 (talk) 14:37, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Thankyou. Wise words from you both. -- Seahamlass 14:55, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Commas between independent clauses

The blah was blah blah blah blah blah blah, and blah did blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Comma, no comma, doesn't matter? I like the comma. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 20:41, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

I learned in school that you put a comma if the second half could be a stand-alone complete sentence, and you do not use a comma if the second half is not a complete sentence. That has been a while, though. What do the various style guides say? Karanacs (talk) 20:53, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Without the comma, it's a run-on sentence, IIRC. So, yes, you need the comma to connect two independent clauses. Girolamo Savonarola (talk) 21:00, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

See WT:MOS#Commas between independent clauses for discussion and what American style guides say. I would trust the sense of Tony and some of the writers I've been copyediting that you have some wiggle room on other continents, but the 3 most popular American style guides say to use a comma unless the two clauses are "exceptionally short", as in "Nero fiddled and Rome burned". - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 03:55, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Controversy over my copyediting

...but I hope that this discussion will turn into a question of how to promote the kind of writer–copyeditor (note the en-dash...which is kind of pretentious on a talk page, but what can you expect from a copyeditor) relationships that all professional writers are used to, and which tend to be lacking on Wikipedia, resulting in lots of inefficiency and disappointment at FAC. (And if you put a sentence that long and twisty in an article I'm copyediting, watch out.) I was deliberately putting myself in the line of fire, but I don't think it will help anyone (certainly not me!) for me to stay in the line of fire.

My position runs something like this: I have turned down a co-nom that I was offered for copyediting. I have accepted the chance at a co-nom on Trump Tower Chicago, which may come up again at FAC in two weeks, and which I've spent roughly 20 hours on so far, with probably another 20 to go, if (as I suspect) the original writers want to build a case for some things which were considered a little dodgy in the previous FAC plus restart at FAC. My goal is not a co-nom; my goal is a lasting writer/copyeditor (less pretentious, but don't use slashes in an article per WP:MOS) relationship with one or more editors at one or more wikiprojects. Mattisse feels strongly that this is a "quid pro quo" and "very sad". Sandy's position is that I should not "get hung up in trivia about stars, awards, numbers, counts, lists and stats; significant contributions are recognized, and copyeditors are valued". But I'm not hung up in those things, at all; do you see any awards or co-noms on my userpage? But (strikeout to stay focused on the point) I'd like to hear someone else's plan for how to encourage the good copyeditors to take time away from their own articles and their own cabals in order to extend a helping hand to the many, many writers who are excellent contributors but can't in general get their articles to pass FAC on their own. Should we give up and accept the status quo, which everyone agrees is less than ideal, or should we offer good copyeditors something? What should we offer them? What "coin" are they willing to accept? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 01:46, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I believe that some writers would really, really benefit from partnering with a copyeditor to get their articles to FA status. Some people are good researchers but can't get the hang of professional prose. Although I think it rare (not impossible, but rare) that a copyeditor would do the amount of work necessary to deserve a conom, I believe significant copyeditors should be recognized in an FA nomination (it's not only nice to share the credit but it also identifies a potential COI in the reviewer pool). Rewards may make me smile, but they don't motivate me to participate in these tasks - I copyedit, or write my own, articles because they appeal to me in some way and I want to make them better. Karanacs (talk) 02:07, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

As do I. I really can't imagine any reward short of filthy lucre that would encourage me to get involved with an article I didn't have at least a tangential interest in. And I'm deeply uncomfortable with the idea of offering copyediting services on the basis of some quid pro quo. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 02:36, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm deeply uncomfortable with making people deeply uncomfortable. I think there's a pretty good argument that accepting co-noms is something that I shouldn't do, and I've decided not to accept any co-noms, but I still feel that this might be one among several possible useful coins to encourage more effective collaboration before FAC. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 03:35, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I really am struggling to understand why conoms should be so important to anyone, not least someone like yourself. I can copper-bottomed guarantee that I would never accept a conomination unless I felt sure that I had earned it by actually helping to build the article, not just tickle it a bit. And I would cetainly never' make a future conom a condition of my agreeing to do a bit of tickling ... think I'd better stop there, before I start to mix my metaphors. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 03:51, 16 July 2008 (UTC)r

The short answer is: I have no idea if they're important to anyone, but Wikipedians tend to ignore new sources of egoboo, which sometimes means we're stuck with the old ones, even if new ones would work better. The longer answer is: Adam Smith is a current FA-Team collaboration, perhaps he has something to tell us about the benefits of a capitalist system? I recently asked 3 editors if they would be interested in future collaborations that might lead to a co-nom for me. One grit their teeth a bit. One was enthusiastic. One offered me a big pile of co-noms. Adam Smith would say that if I have limited time, I should work with the one that offered the highest price, because the fact that they are offering the highest price means that the service is truly of the highest value to them. And my sense of these 3 editors is that that is 100% accurate: the first has no difficulty writing or finding copyeditors, the second is a good writer but has a harder time finding copyeditors, and the third has been having big problems getting articles through FAC; furthermore, if I am able to help them with their problems in one FAC, that might get them on the fast track to producing many more FACs. See how asking people to pay a price that they don't want to pay is an essential part of making Adam Smith's "invisible hand" rationalize the economy?

On the other hand, there's one thing screwy here, which you may have picked up on: I help write style guidelines and I have a working relationship with some of the people making some of the decisions, and it's very important to avoid the perception that I'm gaming the system in any way, so I should probably back away from awards. But I think we should strongly consider being reasonable about letting copyeditors be paid a reasonable coin for reasonable work, and let the market to some extent decide what that reasonable coin is. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 04:01, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I mean in-wiki coin, of course; dollars would be completely inappropriate. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 12:50, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

• Sorry, Dan, people who feel temporarily uncomfortable is an inevitable fact in a competitive online world, and here we have high standards to maintain, which is bound to ruffle feathers: too bad. In any case, people who do feel uncomfortable should relax a little in the knowledge that WP is a cooperative, collaborative venture, and finding Wikifriends in their field is part of the reward of preparing nominations. My message is: relax, focus, and let's work to keep standards high. Be nice to each other, but firm, even strict, about the quality and compliance issues. People who over-react and shrilly complain to reviewers and/or Sandy should try to see it from a wider perspective; they are quite within their rights to remind us to do the same (we need that sometimes), but this should not be done in a carping manner. TONY (talk) 04:22, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

• Dank55 offered me several suggestions about co-nominations in return for future work. I don't know which one I fit in with his three examples there, or even if I'm one of them. However, I offered the entire nomination for one article for several reasons: I don't seem to have any difficulty finding good information and organizing it in a logical format, nor making strong, important points. Though it's time consuming, if I enjoy the topic it's fun and easy for me to do. I've been very blessed with the help I've received from editors who have tweaked my rough prose to make it flow better, and I am very grateful. Originally I reacted strongly to giving up an FA star to a copy editor, and that made me think that if I am that possessive about my articles, I should give it up. After all, it is the article that is featured, not me. And it is the article and the information that is the reason I put so much time and effort into working on it. Who gets the credit for it is irrelevant. (Although, interestingly enough, I would not agree to someone taking credit for it who had not done any amount of significant work on it.) That said, I also agree with Malleus that interest should drive the editor, not the reward one could get from completing the task. I agree with Dank55 that copy editors should get more love, and were this a physical world I would anoint my copy editors' feet with precious oils and dry it with my hair. In the meantime, barnstars will have to suffice for such an act. I think Dank55 is trying to come up with something different than a barnstar... I'm eager to see what may arise. --Moni3 (talk) 14:11, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

• • You weren't in that list, Moni3; your situation was more complicated and I didn't want to be reductionist about it. I agree with everything you say (and Karanacs, Tony and Malleus). Economists will instantly recognize that in order to distribute copyediting efficiently, there must be some price involved. The feedback suggests strongly that the price should not be a co-nom. On the other hand, a barnstar or an Academy-Awards-style "Thank you to all the little people who made this possible" is too cheap. I'm going to play around with charging a "price" of asking the primary writer(s) to write a paragraph after the FAC is successful on what they learned from my copyediting that they'll be able to use in the next FA. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:12, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
    • Better English! The first thing I can think! The discussion Dank opened is very interesting, and reminded of my past in Wikipedia! I am a non-native English speaker and without the support of the copy-editors I wouldn't be able to bring 6 articles (until now) to FA status. And I feel blessed I had the chance to co-operate with some of the best around: Robth (my favorite - sorry my other great wiki friends but IMO he was [I say "was" because unfortunately he is now inactive] capable of turning prose into poetry), bcasterline, Ceoil (more than once!), Yomangani, Awadewit, Celithemis, Gzkn, Ganymead and now, least but not last, Dank! God!!! I had the chance to meet and cooperate with some of the "prose titans" of Wikipedia!
    • I don't agree with the whole Dank's rationale, but she is correct on one thing: Copyeditors need more recognition. Indeed, the non-native English speakers and, alas, some of the native English speakers as well, we need them to bring articles to both FA and GA status. But the situation is much improved, and this is because the criteria are now stricter. The nominators have to indicate that they worked on prose and the reviewers are tougher (Tony, this terrible electrician but expert on prose per Giano, is hanging around). I remember submitting Aspasia in FAC, and now I feel ashamed because I did not mention the valuable copy-editing of both Robth and bcasterline. How stupid! Now I this kind of attitude from my part looks incomprehensible! So, things are going forward (persons change also; I was a much ruder, impolite, hostile and lonelier nominator at the time), and the copy-editors are esteemed. If more incentives are needed? Yes, but are conoms the solution. I am not sure. After all what is a conom or a nom? A leaf in the wind!
    • In Law's FAC the nominator did not work much to bring the article for FA. Wikidea did all the work (having me whipping him!), but his name is nowhere in the FAs nominators' list! A friend of mine here, NikoSilver was outraged when he saw Raul's name as nominator for an article he and another user brought to FA status. What had happened? The first nom was inconclusive and Raul reopened it! The result: Nikos felt they stole his nomination! But does this nom stuff matter after all?! Yes, it does; I'd like to have as many noms as Awadewit and Cla have, and I envy the bastards! But what matters more is contribution itself. I feel proud for my contribution to Law, and whatever the data and the lists may say, I do know the truth about what mainly Wikidea but me as well have done for the article.
    • Therefore, what we should do here is to try nominations to reflect the actual level of editors' contributions. Can this always be achieved? Maybe not. Now, having a copy-editor and another editor doing all the research and the initial writing and the article structure is a cooperation on an equal basis? I do not think so! I'd like to conom an article with a great copy-editor but I would like to cooperate with him in this case on all levels: structural, research, writing. His expertise would be prose and mine research, but a cooperation should go beyond that. Within this framework, I would have no problem to co-nominate an article with a copy-editor, but only if we start together the work from scratch on all levels. And this is the only way IMO to enjoy bringing an article to a high quality status. Comparing how it was when you started your effort and how it is at the end of the journey. And, within this framework, I would be more than glad to co-nominate an article with you Dank! As a matter of fact I may even have thought of certain particular proposals! Cheers!--Yannismarou (talk) 20:57, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I keep falling at the first fence with this idea. Who cares who the nominator is for an article? Everyone knows in their heart how much effort they put into each article they've worked on, whether it was just cosmetic or whether it was substantial article building. What does it matter what anyone else thinks they know? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 21:43, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Totally agree. I don't get it. —Mattisse (Talk) 21:50, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I made {{UserCE}} to respond to dan's request. It has many alrernate text options. Took me a while to make.. Ling.Nut ^(WP:3IAR) 00:48, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

That looks very nice. I suppose it does leave open the question of what consitutes "significant copyediting", and who decides? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 01:37, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

It's beautiful, thanks Ling. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 03:08, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Dank55, if copyediting TonyTheTiger's articles, and co-nomming them at FAC with him, will mean that you'll be a happy editor, articles will benefit, and TonyTheTiger's articles will appear at FAC better prepared, I'm not even sure what the concern is here. Collaboration is the Wiki way; I offered Tony1 to co-nom Tourette syndrome (because it wouldn't be what it is without his copyedit) and he declined. His choice: doesn't mean everyone thinks the same. Seems clear to me that a collaboration between the two of you benefits articles, benefits editors, and benefits FACs because TonyTheTiger's FACs are long and arduous. I'm happy you're willing to collaborate. Like I said early on; stop worrying :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:14, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

One problem is that I don't want to continue to be accused of blackmail and emotional manipulation. I'll go back to copyediting, and leave the larger question of how to build writer–copyeditor relationships for another day. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 12:47, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Dank, try to find anybody here that hasn't faced any kind of ill-grounded accusations! I think you'll not manage to!--Yannismarou (talk) 09:26, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Image copyright check-up

<Moved from WT:FA> SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:49, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Could someone take a look at the images in F-20 Tigershark and let me know if they are OK? I always seem to get questions about images in FA so I'd like to head this one off at the pass.

Also, is fair use allowed in FA? If not, why not?

Maury (talk) 19:10, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Let's call it non-free for Wikipedia's sake. :) But yes, non-free content is allowed provided it meets all the criteria of Wikipedia:Non-free content criteria. Images on the article look ok. Only the links to to Dodmedia, like in Image:Two F-20 Tigersharks low pass.jpg are dead links. Garion96 (talk) 19:51, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip on the links, they moved them all to a barely working page at "defenseimagry.mil" Maury (talk) 22:30, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Uhhh, anyone know how to edit it? The link at the top of the page says "create this page" and there's no edit! Maury (talk) 22:31, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Duh, nevermind... Maury (talk) 22:32, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Discussion caps

Is there a current consensus on whether it's OK to use caps? Juliancolton ^{Tropical Cyclone} 14:05, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Use sparingly, otherwise it slows down everything, and (i believe) too many break some pages. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 15:23, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Ok, thanks. Juliancolton ^{Tropical Cyclone} 15:29, 25 July 2008 (UTC)