Wikipedia:Featured article review Information & Wikipedia:Featured article review Links at HealthHaven.com

Reviewing featured articles

Shortcuts: WP:FAR WP:FARC

This page is for the review and improvement of featured articles that may no longer meet the featured article criteria. FAs are held to the current standards regardless of when they were promoted.

There are two stages in the process, to which all users are welcome to contribute.

Featured article review (FAR)

In this step, possible improvements are discussed without declarations of "keep" or "delist". The aim is to improve articles rather than to demote them. Nominators must specify the featured article criteria that are at issue and should propose remedies. The ideal review would address the issues raised and close with no change in status.
Reviews can improve articles in various ways: articles may need updating, formatting, and general copyediting. More complex issues, such as a failure to meet current standards of prose, comprehensiveness, factual accuracy, and neutrality, may also be addressed.
The featured article director, Raul654, or his delegates Marskell, Joelr31 and YellowMonkey, determine either that there is consensus to close during this first stage, or that there is insufficient consensus to do so and so therefore the nomination should be moved to the second stage.

Featured article removal candidate (FARC)

An article is never listed as a removal candidate without first undergoing a review. In this second stage, participants may declare "keep" or "delist", supported by substantive comments, and further time is provided to overcome deficiencies.
Reviewers who declare "delist" should be prepared to return towards the end of the process to strike out their objections if they have been addressed.
The featured article director or his delegates determine whether there is consensus for a change in the status of a nomination, and close the listing accordingly.

Each stage typically lasts two to three weeks, or longer where changes are ongoing and it seems useful to continue the process. Nominations are moved from the review period to the removal list, unless it is very clear that editors feel the article is within criteria. Given that extensions are always granted on request, as long as the article is receiving attention, editors should not be alarmed by an article moving from review to the removal candidates' list.

Older reviews are stored in the archive. A bot will update the article talk page after the review is closed and moved to archives; the delay in bot processing can range from minutes to several days, and the {{FAR}} template should remain on the talk page until the bot updates {{articlehistory}}.

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Nominating an article for FAR

Nominators typically assist in the process of improvement; they may post only one nomination at a time, should not nominate articles that are featured on the main page (or have been featured there in the previous three days), and should avoid segmenting review pages. Three to six months is regarded as the minimum time between promotion and nomination here, unless there are extenuating circumstances such as a radical change in article content.

Place {{subst:FAR}} at the top of the talk page of the nominated article. Write "FAR listing" in the edit summary box. Click on "Save page".
From the FAR template, click on the red "initiate the review" link. You will see pre-loaded information; please leave that text.
Below the preloaded title, write which users and projects you'll notify (see step 5 below), and your reason(s) for nominating the article, specifying the FA criterion/criteria that are at issue, then click on "Save page".
Click here, and place your nomination at the top of the list of nominated articles, {{Wikipedia:Featured article review/name of nominated article/archiveN}}, filling in the exact name of the nominated article and the archive number N. Click on "Save page".
Notify relevant parties by adding {{subst:FARMessage|ArticleName|alt=FAR subpage}} (for example, {{subst:FARMessage|Superman|alt=Superman/archive1}}) to relevant talk pages (insert article name). Relevant parties include main contributors to the article (identifiable through article stats script), the editor who originally nominated the article for Featured Article status (identifiable through the Featured Article Candidate link in the Article Milestones), and any relevant WikiProjects (identifiable through the talk page banners, but there may be other Projects that should be notified). The message at the top of the FAR should indicate who you have notified.

1 Featured article reviews
2 Featured article removal candidates

[edit] Featured article reviews

[edit] Franklin D. Roosevelt

Notified: WikiProject Military History, WikiProject U.S. Presidents

I am nominating this featured article for review because of a lack of formatting for many of the citations, sections of questionable importance, and sections without citations. Although the article is generally good, it could do with improvement. Some areas of improvement:

Many (about 20) lack formatting; some are merely hyperlinks, others provide inadequate information which renders them useless.
The sections on "Coat of Arms", "Boy Scouts supporter" and "Limousine" seem unimportant.
Further, two of these sections ("Coat of Arms" and "Limousine") are not referenced.
"Administration, Cabinet, and Supreme Court appointments 1933–1945" requires a better layout.
Citations are needed generally in other areas (end of the "Fourth term").
Prose could be tightened in places. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 19:22, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

File review

File:FDR speech.ogg: What's the CC license all about? What's the real source and license supposed to be?
File:Sunshine Special -6.jpg: source is an internet forum. "Johnny of Cadillac Club Message Forum" is not the copyright owner.
Other files OK.

The external links and bibliography sections need trimming/splitting off. DrKiernan (talk) 14:40, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Please add alt text to images; see WP:ALT. Eubulides (talk) 07:19, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Serial Experiments Lain

Notified: $yD!, WikiProject Anime and manga

I am nominating this featured article for review because there are some issues need to be resolved before this article meets the current FA status which I will list below.

~~All the episode links are now redirected to List of Serial Experiments Lain media.~~

Done.

Delinked the last 3. Extremepro (talk) 03:44, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

All the pictures in the article need alternate text.
Anime on DVD reference has not been changed to their current Mania ones. (ref 36)
The |publisher= field needs to be filled in for all references.
The episode refs (eg. 11 and 12) are possibly not needed as the plot does not need refs? Not really sure about this.Extremepro (talk) 13:05, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Comment There are also too many fair use images, and File:Serial Experiments Lain DVD Vol 00.png does not have a rationale for fair use on this page. DrKiernan (talk) 13:22, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I've removed two of the non-free images and fixed the FUR for the DVD cover. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 15:08, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Comment These all seem like fairly small issues that could be fixed pretty quickly. ~~Not sure a FAR is really needed but~~ will work on some of these. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 14:57, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Plot issues fixed. Delinked the episodes, though the references still need to be fixed to add their missing basic information. My biggest issue with the article is the media all being shoved off to a media list, which goes against current standards for anime/manga articles and seems to have been purely to remove non-FA level content from the article. Having a standalone episode list I could understand, but the single video game and the few art books and soundtracks could and should be covered in the main in prose properly, IMHO. Looking closer, the character section is lacking in references for many elements, which is required as it is not pure plot summary. So striking above. Also looking closer at some references, they are non-RS. Attempting to address them now. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 15:08, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Breakdown of questionable sources:
1. Movie Gazette (#2, 5, 18) - appears to be a self-published personal site - is Tim Marchant, the site's editor/author a noted expert in films?
2. Anime-revolution (#8) - dead link
3. ~~http://www.cjas.org/~leng/ (#9, 20) - some university student's personal website~~
4. CorneredAngel (#10) - itself not a reliable source, reprinting a university student's essay with no details on what make it reliable[1]
5. TV Tropes (#15) - already long rejected as being non-RS - user editable
6. Anime Lyrics (#28) - distributions illegal materials; complete violation of WP:COPYRIGHT
7. BeatJapan (#34) - dead link of archive of dead link....
8. Sci Fi Weekly (#35) - dead link since it went to SyFy and they seemed to have dumped most old content
9. DVD Net Review (#39) - the author Tony Lai is not listed as one of the site's staff[2] and what makes the site reliable?

There are also some episode cites being used to cite interpretations rather than plot, which would fall under WP:OR -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 15:34, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I'll try to have a look at the sources in the coming week. What would be the guidelines to include all media in the article? They were removed during FAC because that was the norm back then. --SidiLemine 15:42, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

See Tokyo Mew Mew for a current FA with a media section, and WP:MOS-AM for the general guidelines. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 16:08, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Collectonian, I'd point out that Leng is not 'some university student'. He earned his doctorate studying anime & otaku, for starters, and has more than a few publications, lectures, panels, etc., and has covered first-hand the industry for something like 2 decades now; his writings report many invaluable events, such as Toshio Okada's residence & talks at MIT, to mention just one. If he is not an expert we can quote, then no American (such as Carl Horn or Susan Napier) is. --Gwern (contribs) 15:59 11 December 2009 (GMT)

That is not evidenced by the site itself. What he earned his doctorate in is irrelevant, but the publications what what not are. As I said, they were questionable, and not an outright rejection of all (though most). Struck that one. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 16:08, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Comment There is no RS to assert both Japanese & English voice actors casts. ~~While the Anime Jump! interview reference is ok, i don't see why weight was given to Anime Jump! review in the reception section.~~ Thanks. updated --KrebMarkt 21:19, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Comment. The images (other than the tiny flags) all need alt text; please see WP:ALT for guidance. Eubulides (talk) 07:18, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Anabolic steroid

Notified: All six Wikiprojects involved [3][4][5][6][7][8] Wikidudeman [9] Xasodfuih[10]

I am nominating this featured article for review because if is not that well organized, some of it is confusing, and it is still limited in scope.

Does not discuss trend in usage.
Starts by says they are "a class of steroid hormones" yet on the steroid hormones page are not listed as one of the five classes
"related to the hormone testosterone" does that include testosterone? And a couple others should be listed in the lead
"stimulate bone growth" is mentioned in the lead however this is no longer done due to growth hormone and the article should reflect this
medical uses section is a list. Should be presented as prose. Some uses are unreferenced. How effective for all these indications should be mentioned. A number of conditions are historical, some are in research stages, and others listed were found to be not effective.
Mechanism of action and Pharmacodynamics are listed under side effects?
Improvement tags are present
Nothing on there veterinary use?
Indications should come after history
I do not like this wording as fairly low is vague. "It is difficult to determine what percent of the population in general have actually used anabolic steroids, but the number seems to be fairly low" This ref says it is widespread [11]
Too much primary research is cited rather than reviews. These review for example seems to contradict the above [12][13] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 11:32, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Please notify significant contributors, and link the Project notifications at the top of this page so they can be verified. (See WP:FAR instructions.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:05, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Image review

File:Rawdealsteroids4.jpg: the "source link" links to the source for File:Rd17.jpg not for itself. All other images OK, but alt text required. DrKiernan (talk) 11:56, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Please see WP:ALT for advice about the alt text that the images all need. Eubulides (talk) 07:15, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Søren Kierkegaard

Notified: Poor Yorick, WikiProject Psychology, WikiProject Denmark, WikiProject Christianity, WikiProject Philosophy

I am nominating this featured article for review because it no longer meets the FA criteria. It has been three long years, and while FA has evolved, the article has not. The main issue is 2c), as parts of the article are entirely unreferenced, and most parts lack some referencing. Other issues include the lead not being too short, and even finishing off with a one-sentence paragraph (2a). The images lack alt-text, at one point the images sandwich the text and all the portraits have the eyes looking out of the article (they are wrongly aligned). Why there needs to be two shots of the same grave, I do not know, particularly when the one is of rather bad composition. The texts consist of eleven (unless i counted wrong) rather long quotes in two styles, most that add nothing to the understanding of the article, or merely seem to function as either decoration or an attempt to "educate" the reader through excessive use of primary sources. For instance the section "Kierkegaard and Christianity" consists almost entirely of a bulleted list of prose and quotes. There is a lot of overlinking, for instance Denmark is suddenly linked in the middle of the article, and Danish State Church is linked several times, even when they are very close. Concerning specific points in the text, I don't quite understand why I would confuse the two Schlegels. There is also incorrect use of italics in the "Kierkegaard and Christianity" section. The article seems to have an excessive number of external links, of varying quality. The four see-also links should be weaved into the article text, to provide context. The biography should be put in a table, and ref. 47 is incorrectly formatted. In the bibliography section, "P. Houe and Gordon D. Marino ed." is linked. Arsenikk ^(talk) 22:40, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I am interested in rescuing this. If the issues are all individual ones, it would be helpful if you could itemise them line by line, with suggestions where possible. From WP:PHIL, Skomorokh 01:23, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Ref 47 (Kierkegaard's Reception in Japan) Corrected

Merged one-sentence paragraph into larger paragraph

Bibliography "P. Houe and Gordon D. Marino ed." unlinked, made consistent

Pruned external links to 7, corrected links

[edit] George III of the United Kingdom

Notified: Ian Rose, DrKiernan, WikiProject British Royalty,WikiProject England

I had thought that all of the Emsworth articles had been reviewed until noticing this hasn't been done. It was originally listed as having no citations but has seen substantial organic improvement. I bring it here just for a look over. I will try to go through the prose myself. Marskell (talk) 17:09, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Image check OK but alt text required. I'll have a go at writing some. In my opinion, this article meets the criteria for comprehensiveness and accuracy. DrKiernan (talk) 09:59, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Yep, this is an article which fortunately has stayed on people's watchlists since attaining FA status, so it should be in good shape and just need a few updates from a MOS perspective, e.g. for alt text, as DK points out. I'll go though it from top to bottom as well. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:27, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually it looks pretty good as far as MOS goes, though the gold guinea image under William Pitt cuts into the left-hand side of the following section on my screen. Perhaps this image would be better placed in the legacy section. Apart from that, I think we need a bit of work to tighten up the referencing, mainly ensuring each para has at least one citation and/or that we finish every para with a citation:

Under Marriage, the last bit of the first para should be cited (it may be just a matter of moving the previous citation to the end, or repeating the first citation of the next para).
Ditto first para of American Revolutionary War.
Ditto second para of William Pitt.
Ditto second para of French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and sentence The possibility of invasion was extinguished after Admiral Lord Nelson's famous naval victory at the Battle of Trafalgar.
Ditto second, third and fourth paras of Later Life.
Ditto first para of Legacy.
Ditto second and third paras under Arms.

Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:49, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Marriage, Nelson, Arms, and one paragraph of Later life done. Pitt merged with follow-on sentence. The remaining paragraphs in the Later life and Legacy sections are just standard facts.

That only leaves the concerns over the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars sections. These are very general statements that surely represent a fair summary? DrKiernan (talk) 11:22, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Exceedingly minor formatting question: is it usual to include the definite article in the dabs of titles? I had started removing them (the Duke of Saxe-Gotha --> the Duke of Saxe-Gotha) but realized it's done throughout. I don't want to introduce an inconsistency.

I think any prose work needed will be very slight. Marskell (talk) 12:56, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

"His humane and understanding treatment of two insane assailants, Margaret Nicolson in 1786 and John Frith in 1790, contributed to his popularity." Without a blue link, this sentence leaves me curious for more. Would a short section on assassination attempts be warranted? There seem to have been enough of them.

I really can't find much to complain about in the prose. Napolean's plans to invade are perhaps given too much play relative to the other military history. Conversely, things seem to end rather abruptly at 1809. Did George not have any public role or comment during the later Napoleonic Wars or the War of 1812? The War of 1812 doesn't even get mentioned. One or two more sentences on the etiology of porphyria (as well as any criticism of the theory) might also be in order.

Other than that, I think the coverage is excellent. Marskell (talk) 17:51, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Link to Margaret Nicholson and John Frith (assailant) added; coverage of invasion scare reduced. With regard to his years of darkness, his last public appearance was in October 1810, and most of his powers were transferred in February 1811, with the remainder following a year later. His biographers skate over the last decade of his life as there's really nothing much to say about him personally other than he was ill. DrKiernan (talk) 09:58, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Once DrKiernan and Ian Rose are satisfied here, so am I; I probably won't revisit this FAR unless someone pings me for input. Minor issues: the article mixes citation styles, citation and cite templates (see WP:CITE, and some instances of p. have spaces after them, others don't, in the citations-- please make consistent. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:49, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Citation formatting done. DrKiernan (talk) 09:12, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Close without FARC. I'm unsure about some of the WP:ITALICS in the "Arms" section, and I don't know why that stupid Citation template italicizes websites, but this looks to be good enough to close. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:11, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Arsenal F.C.

Notified: Qwghlm, Mattythewhite, Ed g2s, WikiProject Football

This is the oldest unreviewed sports FA, a fact which caused me to take a look at this article. What I found showed a few issues that, while not overwhelming, would be best resolved by the FAR process.

1c: The history section is noticeably light on references. A couple paragraphs are unreferenced, and a couple others have citations which don't appear to cover everything before them. Problems also exist with the references used; a couple sites used (Arseweb and Arsenal Shirts) appear to be fan or personal sites. Several dead links as well.
- Replaced 3 of the 4 dead links with 1 archive.org copy and 2 changed urls. I've left the 4th, nufc.com, which has an archive.org copy but is a fansite. I'll try to go through the existing refs in the next couple of days to fill in missing dates, authors etc, and will replace any fansites if I can. Struway2 (talk) 12:46, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
  - Update: have been through existing refs, tidying as best I can, and have replaced a few with more obviously reliable sources and added a few more. Struway2 (talk) 20:01, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
2c: Reference 2 is not formatted well. Not as important as the stuff above, but worth a mention.
- Done. Struway2 (talk) 12:46, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
3: Alt text is now required for images in FAs.
- Started to add ALT text -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 10:38, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
  - Alt text all now added apart from the image in the "colours" section - I can't figure out how to do that one....... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 12:38, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
    - Thanks, the alt text so far looks good. ~~For the image in the "colours" section, please use the |alt= parameter that I just added to {{Football kit box}}.~~ Eubulides (talk) 20:31, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
      - I fixed that. Eubulides (talk) 18:55, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Referencing is the main concern for me. Giants2008 (17–14) 02:41, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Image problems

File:Trophy presentation Highbury 2004.JPG and File:Arsene Wenger.JPG: source verification failed.
- Wenger image replaced with a new, sourcable one. Removed the other one -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:50, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
File:Arsenal crest 1888.png: no source.
File:Arsenal fc old crest small.png: two of the links supporting the claim that it is not copyrighted are broken. ~~The third does not mention the copyright.~~
- The third does in fact mention the copyright: "Arsenal have revamped their famous cannon crest as part of a major shake-up of the club's corporate image. The rebranding will give the Gunners a tighter grip on merchandising as they had been unable to copyright their old badge" (my highlighting). However, this link to Arsenal F.C.'s website states that "Firstly, as the VCC crest incorporated many separate elements introduced over a number of years, there was uncertainty surrounding its exact origination. Consequently, the Club was unable to copyright the crest." I've added this link to the image's description. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 21:59, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
~~File:Emirates Stadium Arsenal.jpg: what does "photo taken...on Dennis Bergkamp's testimonial" mean? Is this photo by Dennis Bergkamp?!~~ DrKiernan (talk) 14:44, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
- Are you kidding on the fourth point? There is nothing ambiguous about the description: the photo features a game (that is about to be played) at the Emirates Stadium, and the occasion is the testimonial match of Dennis Bergkamp. Chensiyuan (talk) 00:50, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
  - Of course it's ambiguous. My objection stands. DrKiernan (talk) 08:47, 21 October 2009 (UTC)
    - I've changed the description to read "... before Dennis Bergkamp's testimonial match." which should clarify. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 18:06, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

What's happening with the two unsourced paras in history? YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles Featured topic drive:one left) 04:08, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

There is also one unsourced para each in Colours and Stadiums. Hopefully these can all be taken care of quickly. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 16:07, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Have done these as best I can... cheers, Struway2 (talk) 10:25, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

This looks to be close to keeping without FARC, but there are dead links in the citations (The Times), unformatted citations (http://www.arsenal.com/usa/sh/news/news-archive/kroenke-increases-stake-in-arsenal-holdings), WP:MOSCAPS in the citations, and the image captions need to have a punctuation review per WP:MOS#Images (sentence fragments should not have final punctuation). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:17, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
- Fixed unformatted cite and MOSCAPS, also added missing publication dates and moved publishers to "publisher" parameter where needed
- Fixed image captions
- Can't find a dead link. Unless you meant ref#35 "Suspension of the Plumstead Ground", which doesn't come from an online source.
- One thing I was confused by, your edit summary which said websites shouldn't be italicised. This article uses the cite templates for formatting. The documentation at {{cite web}} says where online items are part of a larger "work", such as a book, periodical or website (my italics), that name should be supplied at the "work" parameter, and the publisher if any should go in the "publisher" parameter. This is illustrated in the examples, and results in the website name being italicised. Is the objection to italicisation something specific to FAC, of which I have little experience? Or are you saying that the output generated by the cite templates doesn't comply with the MOS? and if so, shouldn't someone mention it at the relevant talk page. Or have I just misunderstood something as usual :-) cheers, Struway2 (talk) 11:45, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Much better. Whatever the dead link was, I can't find it now, but it was when I clicked on a link from The Times. Yes, there is a long-standing contradiction between WP:ITALICS and cite web: I will raise this at MOS, and you are the first to have noticed and pointed this out! The "Managers" section has problems; it has a citation needed tag, and we can't cite another Wiki article (Wiki is not a reliable source). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:01, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Sourced Wenger's long service and being first foreign manager. Removed best & worst manager by win percentage: it's an arbitrary choice of how to order managerial success, no idea how to briefly source it, and detailed figures are available at the main manager list. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 15:06, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I left some more sample edits of items that should be reviewed, but I'm satisfied and probably won't revisit. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:17, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Been through again per sample edits. Also added couple of refs for unsourced bit of history section. cheers, Struway2 (talk) 15:45, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Technetium

Notified: User talk:Aarchiba, User talk:Mav, User talk:Jan van Male, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Elements.

FA from 2005, a few minor 1c issues, otherwise there is some copyediting that could be done: a few very short subsections that could possibly be merged, and one-sentence paragraphs and other short paragraphs. 9 images used in the article: File:Tc-TableImage.png - "other versions" appears like it needs fixing, File:Tc,43.jpg - could use formatting for source/author info, the rest of the images could use formatting with commons:template:information, including: File:Дмитрий Иванович Менделеев 4.gif, File:UraniumUSGOV.jpg, File:Basedow-vor-nach-RIT.jpg, File:Technetiumhydrid.png, File:Technetiumcluster.png, File:Technetiumcarbonyl.png, File:Technetiumkomplex.png. Shouldn't be too hard to bring the article up to speed. Cirt (talk) 23:16, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

This article already received a major overhaul in May from Materialscientist... I guess we might as well make things official and fix the images, table and other minor issues. Will take a look this weekend. --mav (talk) 00:25, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Sounds great! :) Cirt (talk) 01:11, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I've contacted two people who should know the source of File:Tc,43.jpg, but couldn't get information on the source (one doesn't know, other doesn't reply), thus replaced the image with a sourced one. Materialscientist (talk) 09:05, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Commons info template now on each image. HTML table replaced File:Tc-TableImage.png when the new Elementbox was implemented for this article. --mav (talk) 01:26, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I always try to help out whenever a an element is brought to FAR, so I'm on board too. I'll try to take a look in the next couple of days. Perhaps I'll do a line-by-line prose review to help improve the writing. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 01:17, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Alt text done; thanks. ~~Several images need alt text as per WP:ALT. Please see the "alt text" button at the upper right of this review page. For the structural formulae I suggest IUPAC as per WP:ALT#Chemistry.~~ Eubulides (talk) 07:41, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Alt text updated (by several editors). Please check. Materialscientist (talk) 09:19, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. It mostly looks good. Two problems, though. First, the two images File:Tc-TableImage.png and File:Tc,43.jpg lack alt text. Second, and a very minor issue: the phrase "Black and white image of" should probably be removed, as per WP:ALT #Phrases to avoid. Eubulides (talk) 09:38, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Third image fixed, first two is a general (unresolved) issue with all elements FAs: those images are "hardwired" into the elementbox. This is a question to Mav. Materialscientist (talk) 10:44, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Mav, perhaps you could comment? For File:Tc,43.jpg, could you please fix the problem by adding a suitable |image alt= parameter to Template:Infobox technetium's invocation of {{Elementbox}}? (I just added support for that parameter.) You're right that the periodic table is a more-general problem than just this article; perhaps I should ask at WP:ACCESSIBILITY for help or ideas on that. Eubulides (talk) 21:44, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I see the image was changed to File:Tcfoil.jpg; I added some alt text for that. Eubulides (talk) 16:16, 2 October 2009 (UTC)
Comment. The history section has one big problem. Nobody was searching for a element with a certain place in the PSE before 1869, because there was no PSE at that point. The discoveries of polinium pelopium ilmenium are absolutly unrelated to technetium. The davyum discovery has to be looked at if Kern calls the element ekamanganese or points to a place in the PSE for his element. --Stone (talk) 08:02, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Some of the literature is also flawed. The atomic number was first propsed in 1911 so something must be wrong with when Jonge (1996) doi:10.1007/BF00837634 states: Various workers claimed to have discovered an element with Z = 43 in naturally occurring ores and proposed such names as polinium (1828), ilmenium (1846), davyum (1877), lucium (1896) and nipponium (1908). He quotes Kenna BT. The search for technetium in nature. J Chem Educ 1962; 39: 436-442. for that fact. So how you can sarch for something which you do not know that it is missing or search for Z = 43 when Z is unknown to you. Further problems is that ilmenium and pelopium are niobium an tantalum similar while polinium lucium and polonium are iron group metals similar to platinum, so they are not ment to be element 43.--Stone (talk) 13:53, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

You have really good knowledge of history of elements. It would be great if you could take initiative and fix that section in the article. Materialscientist (talk) 11:42, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

The history section is not that bad and I have the literature used as source, so I can improve it. --Stone (talk) 15:31, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Do we want the history part which is not related to technetium except that the discovers quote a mass of around 100?--Stone (talk) 15:31, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I would briefly mention that too and then see how the article stands. If it doesn't swell too much, my vote is to keep expanded history as this information is mostly lost on the internet. Materialscientist (talk) 10:44, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment. I think (at least some of) the subsections of Chemistry need to be merged. Hydrogen has chemistry subsections, but they are larger and each cover a broader range of information. Perhaps the technetium chemistry information could be resorted into Inorganic, Organic, and Clusters. Any thoughts? --Cryptic C62 · Talk 17:00, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Possible, but my vote is no because subsections bring clarity. Other opinions? Materialscientist (talk) 09:19, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Some lines of prose that I don't really understand: Cryptic C62 · Talk 17:10, 23 September 2009 (UTC)
- "Pure metallic single-crystal technetium becomes a type II superconductor at 7.46 K; irregular crystals and trace impurities raise this temperature to 11.2 K for 99.9% pure technetium powder" This sentence says that technetium becomes a superconductor at these temperatures, but the sentence that follows it discusses superconductor effects below these temperatures. Which is it?
  
  Regarding your first question: superconductivity is a low-temperature phenomenon. When someone says that a material becomes superconductive "at 7.46 K", it implicitly means that it is superconductive at temperatures lower than 7.46 K, with 7.46 being the critical temperature. This could be made more explicit, though. --Itub (talk) 17:21, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
- I think the information about Tc-99m should be removed from the new Toxicity section, as the information is already discussed at great length in other sections of the article. Also, it doesn't really make sense to elaborate on this here because it isn't toxic to the human body. Perhaps Tc-99m could be referenced in passing in order to contrast it with other more toxic isotopes: "Unlike Tc-99m, which is used in medical applications, blah blah blah..."
  
  Article changed a bit. I would keep the radiation protection (former "toxicity") part. Some people really need that information. Materialscientist (talk) 10:44, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Comments by Cryptic are moved to talk:technetium for further work. Materialscientist (talk) 08:00, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Much great work has been done by several people. Getting close. --mav (talk) 01:31, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I just finished an extensive copyedit, added some missing inline cites and removed or commented out material that really isn't needed but is still uncited. What else, if anything, is needed? --mav (talk) 02:12, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Much much better. I added one {{fact}} tag. Some images are still missing info, such as date, or author info. Cirt (talk) 04:20, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Added cite to the fact. Checked date/author info for images, added one author. IMO, date/author info is reasonably complete. Materialscientist (talk) 04:58, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I still see multiple images with empty fields. Really now, this should not be too hard to fix. Cirt (talk) 05:03, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Could you please point to an example (image and empty field)? Materialscientist (talk) 05:30, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

File:Дмитрий Иванович Менделеев 4.gif = this one is an easy fix. :) Cirt (talk) 05:44, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Replaced the image instead ;-) - actually long wanted to, as the new one is much more realistic. Materialscientist (talk) 06:04, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Great! :) There are still some minor issues with the other images, as noted above. Cirt (talk) 06:30, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Info template, description, source and author info is on all images. --mav (talk) 17:43, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

<indent>Using the same tactics, I changed the uranium ore picture to a referenced one (much easier than to find back the 2005 sources). Other images are self produced, thus author/dates are specified and to be taken from the individual image versions. Materialscientist (talk) 07:21, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

File:Tcfoil.jpg = no way this has to be fair use, a free use image could definitely be used instead.
File:Technetiumhydrid.png = missing date field, should be an easy fix.
File:Technetiumcluster.png = missing date field, should be an easy fix.
File:Technetiumcarbonyl.png = missing date field, should be an easy fix.
File:Technetiumkomplex.png = missing date field, should be an easy fix.
File:Basedow-vor-nach-RIT.jpg = missing date field, should be an easy fix.

Cirt (talk) 17:48, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

All have dates now. Still trying to tie-down the source info for the original image. A valid fair use rationale for Tc image may be possible depending on how constrained access to the element is. --mav (talk) 18:34, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks very much! Keep us posted. :) Cirt (talk) 18:35, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

A note on "rationale" issue: search of techentium on images.google.com would return a few results, none being referenced, except for File:Tcfoil.jpg - that was the reason for using it. Just 6 October, I've got an email on the source of File:Tc,43.jpg and put into the description file. I have no access to that source, but the email person has, and offered to provide more details if needed. Materialscientist (talk) 04:51, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Can't File:Tc,43.jpg be used, and the fair use one deleted? Yes, info on the author-field for File:Tc,43.jpg would be good. Cirt (talk) 05:00, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Author added (unknown). The trick here is I have to trust the email of that person on that image (that it is pure Tc and US government work - fine with me, but other opinions are welcome. Anyone has access to that book ?). That is why I keep the foil image in the infobox. Materialscientist (talk) 05:11, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Given that, and the fact that versions of this image are so widely used on the Internet, I say we put Tc,43.jpg back. It has a cite, we know the cited book exists but can't find a copy. I think we have done our due diligence. Let's get rid of the fair use image. --mav (talk) 03:19, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Done. In terms of photographic and scientific quality, Tcfoil.jpg is better by all counts, but if fair use is an issue .. Materialscientist (talk) 03:30, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks very much, excellent work all around. :) Cirt (talk) 04:24, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Cool. Are we done with the FAR now? --mav (talk) 06:56, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Looks good to me, would like to hear what others think though. Cirt (talk) 06:58, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Can we close this now? I think we are done and the article is now clearly up to current standards. --mav (talk) 21:47, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

My voice may be disregarded, as I am a contributor, but I also think the article is up to the standards. We are polishing it further with Cryptic (many thanks to him!), but I believe this goes beyond FAR. Materialscientist (talk) 00:10, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

As a member of WikiProject Elements, I am obviously biased towards keeping this as a Featured Article. Regardless, throughout my review I have yet to see any red flags which suggest that it should be demoted. I will continue to work on the article with Materialscientist regardless of how the FAR turns out. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 00:40, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think this article is ready to be kept yet. I found MOS issues in the lead (didn't look any further), text squeeze between images in several places, and one unnecessary red link (ppm). Further work and review needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:55, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
- Thanks for taking a look. I went ahead and fixed some obvious MOS issues. A more MOS-experienced set of eyes welcome to point out remaining issues. --mav (talk) 21:08, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
  - The first image 1) creates text squeeze with the infobox, and 2) has the subject looking off the page (see WP:MOS#Images). Could it be relocated, further down in the article, and right-aligned so the subject is looking into the text? You might ping either Dabomb87 (talk · contribs) or Maralia (talk · contribs) to ask if either of them has time for a MOS tune-up. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:55, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
    - Fixed the image issue. Materialscientist (talk) 04:03, 9 November 2009 (UTC)
      - The article looks fine with regard to MOS compliance. However, there are a few dead links (check the toolbox; two links have "connection timeouts"). Dabomb87 (talk) 17:40, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
        
        I have replaced the two last dead links by links to googlebooks.--Stone (talk) 22:34, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Can we close this FAR now? This nom was mostly about marginal issues to begin with and the nominator has stated that the article is now up to par. I'd really like to move on to other things and stop worrying about this article. --mav (talk) 15:14, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Reading the discussion on Wikipedia talk:Featured article review#Concerns i get the feeling that a lot of articles fail FAR and a lot of people are not happy with it. When I compare my work for FAR Helium and FAR Technetium know that something chaged, the process is less interactive and the coments come in at a point when most of the people improving the article think that the work is done. The workload done for FAR Helium compared to that with FAR Technetium has also increased without changes in the FA criteria. I hope we are done with FAR.--Stone (talk) 17:04, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. Helium had some serious issues when it went to FAR and fixing those seemed easier and the FAR process seemed to go more smoothly. --mav (talk) 20:39, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

With FAC and FAR getting very hard, I understand that some people or whole projects come to the conclusion that it is not worth to give that much work for the bronze star, when other article suffer from lack of work.--Stone (talk) 22:30, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Per above comment by Mav (talk · contribs), I agree this could be closed successfully as Keep. :) Cirt (talk) 03:10, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Not there yet. There are still significant inconsistencies in the citation style ... I picked out the following examples on a quick flyover, indicating work is needed on reviewing all citations for a consistent style.

Unformatted citation (example): neurolite (bicisate dihydrochloride)". http://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov/dailymed/drugInfo.cfm?id=3709.
Some use harv links to Bibliography, others don't
Missing accessdates and authors: http://arq.lanl.gov/source/orgs/nmt/nmtdo/AQarchive/4thQuarter07/page1.shtml
Why MarLap instead of EPA?
Different formatting of author names

Undefined or unlinked jargon ... The coordination number 9 in this complex is the highest for a technetium complex.
Missing NBSPs (I found three on a quick glance)

added a dozend somewhere (no clue if I eliminated all breakable spaces)--Stone (talk) 07:36, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Why is "computer simulations" in quotes and why isn't it linked?

I can understand why, but the short answer is there is no need. Removed. Materialscientist (talk) 04:32, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Incorrect linking: in the "Isotopes" section, the word occurs many times before it is linked.

Sorry, couldn't locate the questioned word. Materialscientist (talk) 04:32, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I think she was referring to the word "Isotopes"; I linked the first occurence. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 06:34, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I stopped there ... more work needed still. Please try to locate a non-Chemist person to go through and do a jargon and linking check. I also disagree with some of the statements above: the article would not pass FAC in this shape. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:32, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you indeed. Refs, author names, harv, accessdates, EPA fixed. Coordination number wikilinked. Some articles have no identifiable author. Materialscientist (talk) 04:32, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Just finished a MOS/Chem and readability copyedit to lede and ==Characteristics==. Dealing with jargon is difficult since explanations of it often include yet more jargon... Links and some explainers in the form of expanded jargon that hopefully conveys the meaning in context added. More later. --mav (talk) 16:01, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Move to FARC for further review; the linking is still off (see example, beta decay, used before it is later linked), and the technical jargon is still thick, requiring the reader to click on links to understand the article. Incorrect punctuation in the second sentence of the lead gives concern for copyedit issues (Technetium occurs in nature only in minute amounts; as a spontaneous fission product in uranium ore or by neutron capture in molybdenum ores.) This article still needs review and copyedit by a non-chemist person. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:29, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
- I'd like to take another stab at cleaning things up first. Will work on this tomorrow. --mav (Please help review Mono-Inyo Craters) 20:24, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
  - Working... --mav 14:58, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
- Another copyedit now done for entire article. I could not find any other issues with non-braking spaces to fix but fixed some linking issues. Some formatting fixes implemented. Most notable is putting the ==History== section back on top since that is what most readers will be interested in. More jargon explained or removed. --mav 17:31, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Anything else needed? --mav 23:01, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Featured article removal candidates

Place the most recent review at the top. If the nomination is just beginning, place under Featured Article Review, not here.

[edit] Liberal Democrats leadership election, 2006

[edit] Review commentary

Notified: Whouk, Bondegezou, WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom.

I am nominating this featured article for review because I believe it is far from meeting citation standards expected for a featured article today. Whole sections have a sparse number of citations, including "From close of nominations to end of voting", and "Opening of the campaign" (the longest prose section of the main body) has no citations at all. The other parts of the featured article criteria seem, to me, to still be met. HonouraryMix (talk) 14:10, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Images Licensing OK, but alt text required per WP:ALT. DrKiernan (talk) 15:42, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, alt text. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles finally at Featured topic candidates) 22:47, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Hurricane Floyd

[edit] Review commentary

Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tropical Cyclones

This was promoted in early 2006, when it did meet the FA criteria. For such a difficult storm, it is still a very good article to this day—but it is lacking in some areas. More specifically:

The Meteorological history section is far too brief, and it makes use of basically only one source. There are dozens of advisories from the National Hurricane Center on the storm that could be incorporated.
The Preparations largely ignores North Carolina, which is where the storm made landfall. Also, there are two paragraphs missing citations.
Although the Impact section is acceptable in some areas, it contains several unsourced statements and is not in any way complete. For example, it gives only one sentence of information to the storm's effects in New York.
There is little if any information on the aftermath of the storm. Ideally, the article should cover post-storm assistance, rebuilding efforts, cleanup, etc.
Major MoS issues throughout.
Very few references to reports and documents on the hurricane.

For these reasons I don't think this article meets the criteria, unfortunately. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 02:28, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Please add alt text to images; see Wikipedia:Alternative text for images. Eubulides (talk) 08:06, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Images All OK except File:Floyd flood map.jpg. Is this really a NASA image in the public domain? It's labelled as "Courtesy Dartmouth Flood Laboratory" at the source, and though DFO is partly funded by NASA, it also has other funding sources and claims copyright on its homepage [14]. DrKiernan (talk) 15:31, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, MOS, comprehensiveness. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles finally at Featured topic candidates) 22:44, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Liberal Party of Canada leadership convention, 1968

[edit] Review commentary

Notified: User talk:SimonP - main contributor and nominator, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Canada, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Politics, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ottawa

I am nominating this featured article for review because it currently lacks inline citations - featured article criteria 1(c) Tom B (talk) 14:54, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Please add alt text to images; see WP:ALT. Eubulides (talk) 21:45, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Yikes, this would need a total overhaul. Eight sources in the whole article? I know the rules have been tightenedd over time regarding featured articles, but come on. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 18:42, 29 November 2009 (UTC)
Comment - I have the resources book and knowledge-wise to get the sourcing in this article to FA standard, but I'm not sure I have the time over the next couple of weeks, owing to exams, papers, ArbCom candidacies, other on-wiki commitments. I'll try to do it, though. Steve Smith (talk) 08:20, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Images

File:Trudeau and Sharp.JPG: I've replaced the outdated historic fair-use rationale with a new fair-use template.
File:Trudeau podium2.JPG: I've changed the pd tag to a fair-use one. DrKiernan (talk) 10:47, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't believe either of the above, or File:Trudeau, Turner, Chretien, and Pearson.jpg, pass criterion #8 of the WP:NFCC, but would welcome others' views. Steve Smith (talk) 11:45, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Ordinarily, no, they don't. The first image of Trudeau and Sharp is just two men talking to each other, and Trudeau on the podium doesn't show anymore than any moment in any political rally. However, in this instance the sources clearly state that there are no restrictions on use or reproduction, e.g. [15], and we have fulfilled LAC's requirements for reproduction of their material anyway [16]. DrKiernan (talk) 12:10, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Steve has only been able to make a small expansion and citing, so I moved this YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles finally at Featured topic candidates) 22:43, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, image copyrights. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles finally at Featured topic candidates) 22:43, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Final Fantasy VIII

[edit] Review commentary

Notified: Deckiller, Hibana, Axem Titanium, WikiProject Video games, WikiProject Square Enix

I am nominating this featured article for review because the article fails 1(b) - it fails to mention any Development or Reception content regarding the Windows version release. Also the Merchandise section has only one Reference, the rest of the three paragraphed section is unsourced. — Bl ue 。 01:50, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

It looks to me like these should be easily fixable problems. The merchandise section can have references added or be trimmed (it doesn't seem super-important anyway), and as for the PC release, only a few sentences need to be added (a short paragraph, max, saying something like "A PC version was released on ____, here's how it did commercially and critically"), and you yourself have already dug up and shared a few sources at the talk page, section PC Version Development. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 02:17, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Agree with above: what issues are there are easily fixed and need not a full FARC to have fixed, just some talk page discussion. --MASEM (t) 02:52, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Gotta echo the statements. We need to hold a review for two missing things? - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 06:16, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Comment. There's a ref in the lead, which should be removed as the content's already in the body of the article. There are also a few unreliable sources: FLAREgamer, ffshrine.org, members.tripod.org, Empire arcadiA, and fs.finalfantasytr.com. Also, RPGamer is frowned upon as a source in FAs, but I'm not gonna complain as I use RPGFan as a source myself. :P And isn't TopTenReviews unnecessary; I think GameRankings and Metacritic are sufficient. I also think the prose in the reception section is kinda confusing to read, with all the direct quotations; it seems like overkill. This is a good example on the matter. The Prince (talk) 10:04, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
- "ffshrine.org, members.tripod.org" are both used only in linking to translations, with the actual magazine issue in question already linked to. As for the rest I'm looking through them now. RPGamer however should be fine (they are referenced in a few books from a quick Google Books search, and do fall back on Crave Online as a host).--Kung Fu Man (talk) 11:19, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
  - Flaregamer might be harder to get rid of, that information is in the FF8 Ultimania and I currently lack it. I could cite the book as a whole but would preferably cite pages if possible...--Kung Fu Man (talk) 11:39, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Comment Kung Fu Man has already fixed the PC Reception and citation problems, dude is fast... The merchandise section still needs refs, as noted by Blue. I don't think we need more than a sentence or two about the PC development- they just ported the game, there wasn't much "development" as it had already been created. --Pres N 15:46, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm concerned about the following items: Fifelfoo (talk) 10:00, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Citation of corporate authors (Companies, Staff, etc.) needs to be regularised. Square isn't an editor, its a corporate author. Website staff can simply be identified as [Staff] for a news source, or the Company for an official site.

Otherwise I'm quite glad at 2c, there's a recognition that IGN is a news-service but Gamespy is simply a website.

For 1c, though, I'm rather concerned about the use of PRIMARY sources (the game itself)

Similarly at 1c, SELF published material. Square publishing about Square is not particularly reliable.

I'm kind of concerned about the quotes in the references, but I realise they're location information for a difficult medium to identify the location of a proof.

Surely there are some appreciations or critical receptions by now? Yahtzee or more academic?

also this cite needs work, the square brackets: "^ a b c "Final Fantasy VIII". Electronic Gaming Monthly]] (123): 188. January 1999."

While I want to tackle the other points you brought up, this one really stood out:

"Citation of corporate authors (Companies, Staff, etc.) needs to be regularised. Website staff can simply be identified as [Staff] for a news source."

Since *when*, exactly? More often than not you end up stuck with an article unattributed to a particular staff member, but written by the staff. Marking the end result as staff has always been previously acceptable for such items that I've seen before, since it shows the reader clearly it wasn't just a fan submitted piece of material.

This source is authored, not edited: Square Electronic Arts, ed (1999). Final Fantasy VIII North American instruction manual. Square Electronic Arts. pp. 20, 24, 36. SLUS-00892GH.
This source is correctly cited as an author: Square Co.. Final Fantasy VIII. (Square EA). PlayStation. (1999-09-09)
The IGN is slightly redundant, as its obvious from the publisher / work: IGN Staff (1999).

As for other points:

"For 1c, though, I'm rather concerned about the use of PRIMARY sources (the game itself)"

Again, since when has this been a problem for FACs for material related directly to the game? You don't need a website to reitterate what's stated in the game's text before you can cite it after all.

The use of primary sources in general is the invitation to OR and synthesis. This is a challenge to prompt a response indicating the editorial care displayed by the article editors. Fifelfoo (talk)

I'm sorry but that's not the way that works. In this case any secondary source is going to be an interpretation of the primary, which is why heavy care is emphasized by Wikipedia. That is a baffling and, well, ridiculous statement.

I don't know you, or any of the editors, who made their interpretive appreciations of final fantasy 8 in writing the article. This is why direct use of primaries are bad. There is no simple way to interpret a primary source, which is why I'm asking below for more scholarly appreciations of the source. This is the same reason why we don't accept original interpretations of poetry, plays, novels for those wikipedia articles--its original research which should be done by critics, not by a random editor. There is no veracity in your personal interpretation, or any personal interpretation, if it isn't backed up by being published in a Reliable Source. The lack of high quality scholarly reliable sources in video game review at the moment, or a concept of canonicity in video games, means you can get off lightly and rely more heavily on lower quality RS; but the interpretation of primary sources is the job of professionals and scholars publishing in reliable secondary sources, not wikipedia. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:35, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

"Surely there are some appreciations or critical receptions by now? Yahtzee or more academic?"

It's being worked on, but at some point sources more or less start repeating themselves. There's only so many times you can cite "we do/don't like this" for the same items. For the record I don't think the VG project finds Yahtzee the most reliable of sources, nor have I seen it fly in many FACs unless cited very carefully. It's like trying to cite the Nostalgia Critic: there's his actual opinion, then there's his gimmick, which might be two very different things.

True. But until we get the Journal of Humanities Video Game Studies... we get it where we can. Fifelfoo (talk)

No, we get it from reliable sources.

"Similarly at 1c, SELF published material. Square publishing about Square is not particularly reliable."

I'm not sure where you mean here. You mean for development information? If so that's perfectly acceptable for FAs: they're the guys behind the bloody thing, why *wouldn't* you cite them directly?

The same reason why I wouldn't cite a government about its own intentions and purposes; or a political party on the value of its ideology. Reluctantly, with care, where no other sources exist. Reasons to distort the actual development process include: creative differences, marketing, unexpected success, unexpected failure, minimizing problems. This is a challenge to prompt a response indicating the editorial care displayed by the article editors. Fifelfoo (talk)

Forgive me but I really can't take that article seriously. One way or another the information behind a game's development comes from the people behind it, whether it be a book by the people behind the item or an interview. You're effectively arguing that because you feel the horse's mouth might be lying, we should get the information from people citing the very same source?

Yes, that's precisely the point. Wikipedia is not a forum for the analysis of texts. Wikipedia is a tertiary work written out of secondary works.

"also this cite needs work, the square brackets: "^ a b c "Final Fantasy VIII". Electronic Gaming Monthly]] (123): 188. January 1999."

It's being worked on.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 11:37, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Other than those, the 2c / 1c looks good. Fifelfoo (talk) 11:54, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I've left responses, but in all honesty to seem to be new to the handling of the FAC process on the whole when it comes to video games (and possibly literature items). I would suggest checking FACs around the website as your notions on primary sources in this regard are well in left field.--Kung Fu Man (talk) 12:39, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

If other articles play in traffic... Fifelfoo (talk) 22:35, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

My concerns with the article are that the article is written to an unnecessary degree from primary and self, leading necessarily due to the nature of interpretation in the humanities (see: hermeneutics) to original research and mis weighting. Fifelfoo (talk) 22:35, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

@Fifelfoo: there is absolutely nothing wrong with using the work itself as a source for plot summary and such. As far as I can tell, all the primary-source refs are in the Story section. Unless you can provide examples of references to primary sources for things other than in-game elements, I see nothing actionable in your concerns. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 10:37, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Primary sources are not inappropriate for using as reference to the game's plot. If there were scholarly articles about the plot, as I'd expect for something like Shakespeare's plays or the like, I'd expect more use of secondary sources, but this is a JRPG; one may be lucky that secondary sources even go farther than the first few hours of gameplay (in a 40+hr game). The problem with primary sources is aleved by the inclusion of quotes in the references so that one can verify the summation (not interpretation) of the work. --MASEM (t) 14:37, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Comment I think I've added every bit of valid reception I can...there's a lot more out there of course, but it's either just repeating what everyone else is saying, or more related to other aspects (such as an analysis of Squall, or why Quistis is boinkable. That stuff belongs in the character list anyway). Merchandising still needs some attention, and there's really not much at all for the PC version (there's one ref I need to check).--Kung Fu Man (talk) 13:53, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Alt text done; thanks. Alt text is present (thanks) but it has some problems. Some phrases in the alt text generally do not add to the description of the visual aspects, and are not verifiable by a non-expert who sees only the images. These names need to be moved to the caption and/or removed as per WP:ALT#Verifiability. The problematic phrases are "North American version", "Squall, Rinoa, and Seifer" (please describe the characters briefly, rather than naming them), "the" (in "shot of the party"), "Balamb Garden", "Selphie, Squall, and Zell", "early boss called "X-ATM092"", "Zell is preparing to summon the Guardian Force Shiva to do ice damage to the enemy". That last phrase has an additional problem in that it repeats the caption; please see WP:ALT#Repetition. Eubulides (talk) 18:48, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Fixed? I will never understand why we try to make ALT text describe the way the image looks the most while describing what is actually in the image the least. Surely this is counterproductive, given that a textual description of visual stimuli to blind people is useless. And why does it matter if it's "not verifiable by a non-expert who sees only the images"? That's why it's in the article that is trying to inform the reader/viewer of these facts, n'est pas? --Pres N 23:05, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Most visually impaired people are not completely blind; and most blind people (as well as most visually impaired people) were formerly sighted and can interpret text that contains imagery (they're impaired because of cataracts, macular degeneration, glaucoma, etc.). The point of WP:ALT#Verifiability is that alt text should describe only what you can see in the image, and shouldn't contain other details: either those other details are covered in the caption or other adjacent text (in which case repeating them in the alt text would hurt the visually impaired), or the other details are present only in the alt text (in which case the sighted wouldn't be told the details, which would hurt the sighted). Anyway, thanks for improving the alt text. Eubulides (talk) 23:55, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Comment: Is there an image out there that could be used to describe the setting, i.e. a map or a picture of the world? Tezero (talk) 21:50, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, comprehensiveness, quality of citations. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles finally at Featured topic candidates) 22:39, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. Seems like the only thing that is really left to do is that Merchandise section- PC reception has been added and the weaker sources replaced. Fifelfoo disagrees with the use of quotations as refs in the plot section, but he's the only one; they are commonly used in VG FAs. --Pres N 17:23, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Turkish literature

[edit] Review commentary

Notified: All WikiProjects.Author is completely retired, no edits for 2.5 years.

This article fails 1c by a long way because many subjective statements ("Perhaps" etc) as well as entire paragraphs and sections are not cited. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles Featured topic drive:one left) 20:41, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Image review

File:Fuzuli Divan.jpg: the poetry is by Fuzuli, but the artwork is presumably by someone else. No date, author or description. Is this an image of an original sixteenth century copy or a nineteenth century one?
File:Ozan.jpg: upload source is a dead link. No author or original source.
File:Kaygusuz Abdal.jpg: source is a dead link. No author, date or description.
File:Ottoman Garden.jpg: the poetry is by Baki, but what of the artwork? Unclear date: is it from the sixteenth century or a later copy?
File:Fuzuli.jpg: no description, date, author or original source.
File:Evliya Celebi.jpg: source is a dead link. No description, date, author or original source.
File:Tevfik Fikret2.jpg: no author, date, or date of first publication.
File:Genc Kalemler.jpg: no date. The article says the journal started in 1911, but it doesn't say when it ended. Presumably the date is on the cover written in Turkish, so perhaps a Turkish speaker could look at the image and transcribe the date into english?
File:Orhan Pamuk3.jpg: I can't access any of the four sources given, including the web archive.
Other images OK, but alt text required, see WP:ALT for guidance.

On another note, the purpose of navigation templates is to provide links between related articles. On the templates here, half the links are red. They should either be stubbed or removed. If the writers are not notable enough to have an article, then they are notable enough to be on the template. DrKiernan (talk) 12:23, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Two references sections and a notes sections. Might want to regularise that. Also references, need more. Fifelfoo (talk) 10:04, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

FA criteria concerns are sourcing, copyright, alt text. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles finally at Featured topic candidates) 05:28, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Delist - no work has been done to address the concerns listed at the FAR since that process was begun. Delist vote based mainly on lack of referencing - many claims, statistics, potentially controversial statistics are left without references. Other concerns include a lack of alt text and prose issues, such as number presentation. References are improperly formatted, with books and websites lacking publishers and foreign language references not having their language specified. Dana boomer (talk) 02:24, 8 December 2009 (UTC)
Question. Why was User:Saposcat never notified of this? The nominator says he hasn't edited in 2 and a half years--that is not true: he has edited every few months, most recently in April, and there's no reason to assume he doesn't watch his talk page. This FARC is premature; I will notfiy Saposcat now, but he should be given an opportunity to make improvements. Chick Bowen 18:11, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Cystic fibrosis

[edit] Review commentary

Notified: ImGz, InvictaHOG, Kyoko, WP MED.

This medical article is a 2006 promotion with unsourced statements, unformatted and inconsistent citations, doesn't conform with WP:LEAD, dead links and MOS errors, in addition to an overreliance on primary sources that don't conform to WP:MEDRS. Prognosis section is incomplete, epidemiology is poorly cited, and several sections are lacking appropriate sources. The article needs to be re-worked to conform to WP:MEDRS and the use of high-quality, peer-reviewed, secondary sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:00, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Image review

File:CFTR.jpg: it would be nice to have the issue and page number of the journal
File:Mucoviscidose.PNG: Missing information. I guess this is generated by the uploader using the Ensembl data? I don't know enough about the program/database to figure out how it is used, or who the author, etc is.
File:CFtreatmentvest2.JPG: no source or author
File:Dorothy Hansine Andersen.jpg: possibly not public domain. The National Library of Medicine says "Transmission or reproduction of protected items beyond that allowed by fair use as defined in the copyright laws requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Specific NLM Web sites containing protected information provide additional notification of conditions associated with its use."[17] If you look at the credit line, at [18], you can see that the photograph is credited to "Archives and Special Collections, Columbia University Health Sciences Division". (It is the other image at the NLM webpage[19] [the one at the bottom] that is credited to the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.[20])
Other images OK. DrKiernan (talk) 23:27, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Please add alt text to images; see WP:ALT. Eubulides (talk) 23:49, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Comment. Although not absolutely necessary, the article could use a main picture at the top right-hand corner of the page. This is typical of many featured articles. Tyrol5 [Talk] 02:38, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Move to FARC, very little happening here, still a lot of uncited text. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:07, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

This is definitely in need of some work, particularly due to uncited content and reliance on primary sources. I'd be happy to help with wordsmithing, MOS cleanup, ref formatting etc. if we can get something happening on the content and sources end. Maralia (talk) 19:42, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Comment The entire October issue of Seminars in Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine was dedicated to reviews of cystic fibrosis. If someone has access, these could be used to greatly expand and update the article. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 22:02, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
- These articles are now available at Wikipedia:WikiProject Resource Exchange/Resource Request#Cystic fibrosis. Dr pda (talk) 04:12, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
I am also concerned with the lack of daughter articles; this is one topic where the application of summary style would be very appropriate. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 22:20, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

FA criteria concerns are sourcing, copyright, MOS, lead. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles finally at Featured topic candidates) 05:31, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Canada

[edit] Review commentary

Notified: Jeff3000, JimWae, Soulscanner, Ground Zero, Jkelly, SimonP, Thirty-seven, Ckatz, Sunray, WikiProject Countries, WikiProject Canada

Toolbox
disambig links edit count external links alt text

This article was promoted in 2006, and it doesn't look like it has had a review since. I am nominating this featured article for review because I found there are many many sections are lacking in sources/citations. For the section of history; for example, its length is too long and going into unnecessary detail. In addition to these, notes/references are not in correct formats according to the standard of Wikipedia. Oei888 (talk) 17:04, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Also, images need alt text as per WP:ALT. Eubulides (talk) 19:40, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I've started this but as I have little experience with alt text I would appreciate it if someone else would take a look. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:14, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! What I see so far looks excellent. Only two minor points: first, please omit "French" as per WP:ALT#Verifiability; second (and less important), I'd omit "Oil painting of" as per WP:ALT#Phrases to avoid. Eubulides (talk) 01:32, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay, done. I wasn't quite sure what to do with the maps though; any suggestions? Nikkimaria (talk) 01:45, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

The page takes a long time to download. Download times might improve with some pruning. Perhaps the number of external links, nav templates, and quotes from references could be reduced? There's one image I'm not sure about: File:NAFTA logo.png in Template:NAFTA. As a logo, is the licensing information correct? Other images OK. DrKiernan (talk) 14:23, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Too long to down load?? well anyways not sure if this is still being talk about ..But if it is i would hope that a GA/FA review type process would be done first listing the problems. WITH much time given to update the article to new standers. IN other words give editors a chance to fix it before it is downgraded i see no rush in downgrading the article it was once just fine. Buzzzsherman (talk) 20:44, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

This is supposed to be the encyclopedia for everyone. If it's slow for me (in a first-world country on a fast connection and computer) then anyone in the third-world or using an old computer will never see it. That defeats one of the key purposes of the project: to provide information for those that cannot otherwise afford it. The page needs trimming in size to meet criterion 4. DrKiernan (talk) 10:36, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Comment. To Buzzzsherman: this article is still open for comments, discussion and editing. Articles are generally listed at FAR for at least two weeks, and then move on to the FARC (the actual voting phase), where they remain for at least another two weeks. Here are my thoughts on the article:

I have serious doubts about the article meeting FA's new requirements for "high quality sources". Much of the article that could be sourced to high quality books and journal articles is instead sourced to mediocre (although technically reliable) sources. The Further reading section could indeed stand a significant trim, but I would suggest that many of these references be used to source the article, instead of being simply tossed.
See here for a list of dead links and other links with problems. There are over 20 dead links (both references and external links) alone, a serious problem for a FA.

Dead links fixed, not sure about the other stuff. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:13, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

References need significant work on formatting. Web references need publishers and access dates at the very least, which many of the current references are lacking.

This should now be fixed for all references, although I would appreciate it if someone would double-check. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:13, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

What makes current ref #26 (bloorstreet.com) a reliable reference?

Changed

What makes current ref #132 (railwaypeople.com) a reliable reference?

Changed

What makes current ref #167 (Global Recession...) a reliable reference?

Removed

Hope these suggestions help! Dana boomer (talk) 14:52, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

ok tks i will get a few people like User:SriMesh to help fix this page ... I see that User:Nikkimaria is already working on refs...with her and SriMesh help we should get this done in a few weeks...we are just finishing up GA level for Aboriginal peoples in Canada Buzzzsherman (talk) 22:39, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Reducing size

Question... we need to trim down the article anyone got a problem with removing some content that is coverd in main article ..I was thinking the following bellow could be removed..but some pictures would have to go..any opinions? "The gulf is bounded by Newfoundland to the north and the Maritimes to the south. The Maritimes protrude eastward along the Appalachian Mountain range, from northern New England and the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec. New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are divided by the Bay of Fundy, which experiences the world's largest tidal variations. Ontario and Hudson Bay dominate central Canada. West of Ontario, the broad, flat Canadian Prairies spread toward the Rocky Mountains, which separate them from British Columbia. A lake in the foreground reflects the image of the snowy mountain-tops in the background. There is an outcrop of forested land between the two Moraine Lake in Banff National Park, Alberta.

In northwestern Canada, the Mackenzie River flows from the Great Slave Lake to the Arctic Ocean. A tributary of a tributary of the Mackenzie is the South Nahanni River, which is home to Virginia Falls, a waterfall about twice as high as Niagara Falls. A pier and some houses on the edge of a body of water. There are rolled pieces of fabric on the pier in the foreground, and more houses in the background A Maritime scene at Peggys Cove, Nova Scotia, which has long been sustained by the Atlantic fishery. Northern Canadian vegetation tapers from coniferous forests to tundra to the Arctic barrens in the far north. The northern Canadian mainland is ringed with a vast archipelago containing some of the world's largest islands." Buzzzsherman (talk) 21:37, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

done since no one said anything i will go out on a limb and do it ... i went ahead and trimmed the articles size again. I have replaced above text with a reference and this statement "Canada is surrounded north, east, and west with coastline and since the last ice age has consisted of eight distinct forest regions. The vastness and variety of Canada's geography, ecology, vegetation and landforms have given rise to a wide variety of climates throughout the country. "

Getting there

not done Getting there people lets keep at it....needing a good Canadian english copy edit (still need to reduces size) and some..alt text is still missing +....links looking good with templates only one dead link left (its new)...anything else??Buzzzsherman (talk) 10:23, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Redlinks aren't important (they are placeholders to indicate the need of a subject-specific article). I'll check over all the alts a bit later, and add where needed. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 19:34, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I found the current version of the one remaining dead link and made the update in the article. PK T(alk) 22:11, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Although most of my comments from above were completed, I still stand by my statement about high quality sources. I still am not convinced that Encyclopedia Brittanica, the World Book Encyclopedia and multiple Canadian government websites should be considered high quality sources when there are so many books and journal articles to choose from. The list that is now the Further reading section looks like (from talk page dicussion) it was the original references section before in-line citations began to be required. Now, these books, which were presumably originally used to write the article, have been delegated to a bloated Further reading section, instead of just being used with in-line citations. Dana boomer (talk) 15:07, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

agree with World Book Encyclopedia and as for Encyclopedia Brittanica i think it is great and well written Encyclopedia (to be honest it has a much better good source reliability history then wikipedia does) but it is a wiki competitor and i can see why using it is discouraged ....''The government of Canada links are not the best but are very useful in furter understanding (reading on the spot) more about each subject line.

As for old original references i can only find 4 of the 19 books listed in the Ottawa university's library's... I will need some help in finding them if we plan to reuse them.....Still the article has come a long way since we started 2 weeks ago.. Good job guys.... love love love Buzzzsherman (talk) 19:07, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Update ok have used 7 of the old refs , 2 were links i could use ...need help with the rest only 6 to go!! Buzzzsherman (talk) 21:45, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Lead

This sentence is in the lead: "Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces.[9][10][11]". Do we really need 3 references for this, in the lead? There is only one other reference in the entire lead. DigitalC (talk) 16:48, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

The lead is a basic and condensed summary of the rest of the article. Citations in the lead are generally discouraged/not needed for the simply reason that they should be present sourcing the information in the main body of the article. If they are not being used in the body, then they need to be added from the lead ASAP. If they are, then there is no reason to have them in the lead anyways. MelicansMatkin (talk, contributions) 07:22, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

If there is no listed author, it is left empty, we don't list the author as the publisher twice. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles Featured topic drive:one left) 04:18, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Move to FARC for further review. This article is cluttered by too many images, which seriously impacts the load time. Citations are inconsistently formatted and have many typos. I haven't looked at content yet; will once the article is cleaned up. The {{main}} template is used incorrectly, and some should be switched to a different template. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:44, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

A few images still need alt text [21]. Dabomb87 (talk) 17:47, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
Citations still have inconsistencies (check my cleanups). Dabomb87 (talk) 18:03, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

FA criteria concerns are sourcing: consistency and quality of citations. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles finally at Featured topic candidates) 05:30, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I came here intending to help out, but I'm finding it very slow to load, and once I do get it open, I see the text is full of citation templates, which make it very hard, if not impossible to copy edit e.g.

From the early 17th century onwards, that part of [[New France]] that lay along the [[Saint Lawrence River]] and the northern shores of the [[Great Lakes]] was named ''Canada'', an area that was later split into two British colonies, [[Upper Canada]] and [[Lower Canada]], until their re-unification as the [[Province of Canada]] in 1841.<ref name=Rayburn>Rayburn, Alan (2001) (p.1-22).</ref> Upon [[Canadian Confederation|Confederation]] in 1867, the name ''Canada'' was adopted as the legal name for the new country,<ref name="Martin">{{cite journal| last=Martin| first=Robert| title=1993 Eugene Forsey Memorial Lecture: A Lament for British North America| journal=The Machray Review| publisher=Prayer Book Society of Canada| year=1993| url=http://www.prayerbook.ca/library/machray/issue5/machray5d.htm| accessdate=2008-11-05| quote=Strictly speaking, the official name of the new country was, simply, "Canada," but usage sanctioned "Dominion of Canada".}}</ref> and ''[[Dominion]]'' (a term from Psalm 72:8)<ref>{{cite book| last=Clarke| first=Michael| title=Canada: Portraits of the Faith| year=1998| page=60}}</ref> was conferred as the country's title;<ref>{{cite book| first=J. E.| last=Hodgetts| coauthors=Gerald Hallowell| year=2004| chapter=Dominion| title=Oxford Companion to Canadian History| location=Toronto| publisher=Oxford University Press| isbn=0195415590| quote=The title conferred on Canada by the preamble to the Constitution Act, 1867, whereby the provinces declare 'their desire to be federally united into one Dominion under the Crown of the United Kingdom.'| page=183}}</ref> combined, the term ''Dominion of Canada'' was in common usage until the 1950s. Thereafter, as Canada asserted its political autonomy from the [[United Kingdom]], the federal government increasingly used simply ''Canada'' on state documents and treaties, a change that was reflected in the renaming of the national holiday from [[Dominion Day]] to [[Canada Day]] in 1982.<ref>{{cite web| title=Government of Canada Events 2009 Canada Site| publisher=Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada|work=Minister of Public Works and Government Services Canada|date= 2009-10-19| accessdate=2009-10-19| url=http://canada.gc.ca/whats-quoi/nel_fg-eng.html#July| quote=Canada Day was established in 1879 under the name "Dominion Day" and became known by its current name in 1982.}}</ref>

Sandy, you wrote above that the images were slowing it down. Might it not be the templates, and is there anything we can do to stop people from filling texts with templates like this? It has almost become an access issue, because the articles are left practically uneditable, except by people with the special template-filtering eyes, which doesn't include me. :) SlimVirgin 06:49, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Gimmetrow did an analysis once somewhere, and IIRC, images slow down load time more than cite templates. He might know where to find that info. He removed all the cite templates from an article and compared load times. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:48, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

The page can be reduced in size without altering the templates by cutting out quotes which simply duplicate material. Also, it is unnecessary to use "ref name" when the reference is only used once. The paragraph above can be reduced in size by at least 20% (from 2374 to 1811 characters) without any loss or change to the article text:

From the early 17th century onwards, that part of [[New France]] that lay along the [[Saint Lawrence River]] and the northern shores of the [[Great Lakes]] was named ''Canada'', an area that was later split into two British colonies, [[Upper Canada]] and [[Lower Canada]], until their re-unification as the [[Province of Canada]] in 1841.<ref>Rayburn, Alan (2001) (p.1-22).</ref> Upon [[Canadian Confederation|Confederation]] in 1867, the name ''Canada'' was adopted as the legal name for the new country,<ref>{{cite journal|last=Martin|first=Robert|title=1993 Eugene Forsey Memorial Lecture|journal=The Machray Review|publisher=Prayer Book Society of Canada|year=1993| url=http://www.prayerbook.ca/library/machray/issue5/machray5d.htm|accessdate=2008-11-05}}</ref> and ''[[Dominion]]'' (a term from Psalm 72:8)<ref>{{cite book|last=Clarke| first=Michael|title=Canada: Portraits of the Faith|year=1998|page=60}}</ref> was conferred as the country's title;<ref>{{cite book|first=J. E.|last=Hodgetts|coauthors=Gerald Hallowell|year=2004|chapter=Dominion|title=Oxford Companion to Canadian History|location=Toronto|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0195415590| page=183}}</ref> combined, the term ''Dominion of Canada'' was in common usage until the 1950s. Thereafter, as Canada asserted its political autonomy from the [[United Kingdom]], the federal government increasingly used simply ''Canada'' on state documents and treaties, a change that was reflected in the renaming of the national holiday from [[Dominion Day]] to [[Canada Day]] in 1982.<ref>{{cite web|title=Government of Canada Events 2009|publisher=Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada|work=Minister of Public Works and Government Services|date=2009-10-19|accessdate=2009-10-19|url=http://canada.gc.ca/whats-quoi/nel_fg-eng.html#July}}</ref>

If the entire article is similar, which it apparently is, the article is 20–25% larger than it needs to be, even before making any cuts to the actual article prose. DrKiernan (talk) 10:23, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, though it's hard to see where to make the cuts, because the templates made the text hard to edit. I was intending to go through it and do a copy edit for flow, which would have included tightening, but I can't do it with the templates in place. SlimVirgin 10:25, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Comment: Citation templates are mis-used. Obvious non-publishers are listed in publisher fields. Invented names for official organisations are used. Inappropriate sources used: A world elephant conference on geographic formation; a Prayer book society publication on history. Gross repeated citation of inappropriate tertiary sources including non signed, non specialist, and low grade (worldbook) tertiaries. Failure to cite law and government proceedings correctly. Typos in names in citations. Works in works (book chapters, encyclopedia articles) not cited correctly). Bias towards full-text online sources. Use of low quality sources, lack of high quality sources. Fifelfoo (talk) 21:18, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

"Be Bold" has become an informal slogan of Wikipedia

Agree refs are messed up,howerver from what i can see there is a genuine effort in trying to cite citations properly..this is one of the hardest things to do for new editors (as there is many many different templates now..like cite journal, cite web, cite book etc.). This copy that passed the FA level way back when, clearly was lacking in what wiki excepts today, so [citation] tags were add over time and then a reference added to get rid of a [citation] tag. So here we are today with an article that has a REFERENCE for almost ever sentence sometime 2 or 3. (some good and some bad ones). I believe we should remove lots of them....Do we really need a reference for things like .. "the war of 1812" [was in 1812]. After reading the original FA copy and I now hold copies of the refs books used.. i see most references used cover hole paragraphs and more. Lets all remove what we feel is over the top and/or bad references..then lets sit back and see what we need to cite after. I just dont see the point in fixing templates if the ref is no good ..so we should cuddle all we can then come back see if a reference is need for a statement....Then what i will do is a layout fix of the references so they stand out. Then someone with the skill to do a grammar and spelling check can go threw it. ......Remember be Bold .....Buzzzsherman (talk) 22:50, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Dime (United States coin)

[edit] Review commentary

Notified: WikiProject Numismatics, User:Wehwalt

I am nominating this featured article for review because it is in terrible shape and would need nearly a total rewrite to become FA class again; just fixing the sources alone would require a great deal of work from a large number of editors. There's almost nobody watching it; nearly every edit this year has been made by an IP, with an occasional bot fix or vandalism revert.

There are several unsourced paragraphs "History," "Seated Liberty," "Winged Liberty Head" and other sections.
Design history contains some percentages that aren't in the citation.
Per the summary style guidelines, the header on the Roosevelt dime should, at the very least, contain a summarizing paragraph under the {{Main}} template. It does not.
Is the mintage figures list even needed? It's a really butt-ugly list and it's unsourced.
Almost every citation seems fishy: CoinResource, CoinSite, US Coin Values Advisor all look like personal sites with no indication of authorship.
The Dictionary.com reference is not formatted properly, containing a bare URL.

Overall, the article is in terrible condition and mostly cited to an unreliable-looking website (CoinSite). It's blatantly obvious that this was promoted back in 2007, before FA guidelines were quite as strict. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 20:46, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Please add alt text to images; see WP:ALT. Eubulides (talk) 23:50, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

The only way for someone to salvage this article would be to go through with some reference books on US coins. I don't own any.--Wehwalt (talk) 01:12, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I have a couple but they're 10-15 years old, and probably got wrecked from being in the basement for so long. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 02:07, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Image review

Two of the commercial coin merchants used as image sources claim that they hold copyright over the images. These claims are unlikely to be enforceable. In the United States, simply scanning or photographing items already in the public domain is not considered sufficient to create a new copyright. Furthermore, merely arranging two images side-by-side so that the obverse and reverse of a coin are depicted together does not require either great skill or any creative input. Consequently, in my opinion, and as I understand it in the opinion of wikimedia, these images are in the public domain. The article meets the criterion for images. DrKiernan (talk) 11:24, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Quality of the citation style is very poor. More worried about the quality of the citations themselves and the research they represent. Fifelfoo (talk) 10:08, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, research. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles Featured topic drive:one left) 00:19, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Delist, referencing issues. Cirt (talk) 21:09, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
Delist does not meet FA standards, no one has the books and the willingness to do the work, so very little choice here.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:21, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
Delist. Almost no edits have been made to the article since the FAR was initiated, and nothing that significantly improved the sourcing of the article, which is the largest problem. Multiple unreliable sources (listed in the above FAR), information in the lead that is not in the body, large amounts of the article not sourced at all (much of this marked with valid citation needed tags), no alt text, etc. I agree that the mintage figures could be presented in a much nicer way that doesn't take up so much space, and they also need to be referenced, as they are some very specific figures. Improperly formatted citations (bare URLs and improper capitalization). Dana boomer (talk) 00:19, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
Delist I really wish I could save this, but I don't have the sources necessary. Reywas92^Talk 02:36, 9 December 2009 (UTC)
Delist Needs a total overhaul and a huge amount of reliable sources; the current sources should be deboned, for starters. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 03:50, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Three Laws of Robotics

[edit] Review commentary

Notified:

I am nominating this featured article for review because this article is poorly sourced and contains OR. _R_ (talk) 19:22, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Did you notify the wikiprojects and author if they are still around? YellowMonkey (bananabucket!) 20:53, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I've notified everyone who notified me of the original FAC - which is only fair, I think. _R_ (talk) 21:44, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Image review

File:I Robot - Runaround.jpg: I agree that there is no profit-loss to the makers of this image by having it here, and images are abit thin, so I think it's OK. Perhaps we could also argue that it depicts a robot taking care of a human to boost the relevance argument of the rationale?
Other images OK. DrKiernan (talk) 22:46, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Please add alt text to images; see WP:ALT. Eubulides (talk) 23:48, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, original research. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles Featured topic drive:one left) 00:22, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Note Could the nominator give some examples of OR to inform other readers? Thanks YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles Featured topic drive:one left) 00:22, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Note, the nominator never indicated if significant contributors and Projects were notified: I hope someone will check. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:50, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh he didn't. I should have checked. His answer was as cryptic way of saying that nobody advertised the FAC to him so he didn't have to do anything. Let's see. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles finally at Featured topic candidates) 05:18, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

WPs notified. Nom and main author hasn't edited for 18 months. Nobody else with 12 or more edits YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles finally at Featured topic candidates) 05:23, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I have left a note at the Isaac Asimov talk page. Mike Christie (talk) 14:30, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Delist, unsourced bits, odd structure, overquoting. Missing: A subsection on secondary source commentary and critique, the article is mostly descriptive, with no secondary source analysis presented, and I am sure the topic has seen an extensive treatment of this. Cirt (talk) 21:11, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
Delist. There is quite a bit of unsourced text that needs sourcing, including quotes and statements of what various people thought or felt. This is the main problem that needs to be fixed, and no work has been done on this since the FAR began. Other, more minor, issues include the lack of alt text, a lead that needs to be expanded, the (I think) improper use of curly quotes and improperly formatted refs (foreign language refs not specifying the language, book refs lacking page numbers). Dana boomer (talk) 18:55, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Given that notifications were delayed, I think additional time is appropriate; this should not be delisted till it's clear work is not proceeding. Mike Christie (talk) 19:12, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
Delist, and as soon as possible : this article is a shame for Wikipedia. Freewol (talk) 09:25, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Military brat (U.S. subculture)

[edit] Review commentary

Notified: User:Balloonman, User:Awiseman, WP:MILHIST

I have nominated this article because I feel it has significant structural weaknesses and does not meet certain criteria of WP:WIAFA. I noticed that there was a prior FAR, however I do not feel that it touched upon any of the critical weaknesses of the text. So here I am.

The main issues as I see them are 1c and 1d. There appears to be a heavy "pro-military" view pervasive through the text. Most strikingly, it shows in the choice of images—US armed forces pics of smiling families and happy kids complete with inane captions reads like a US Army brochure. The references do not appear to meet the "high quality" requirements: I could find little in the way of evidence that Aletheia Publications, for example, meets the criteria, and a great deal of references (Ender, Cottrell, Eakin, Jordan, Price, Tyler, Smith, Williams) are from one or more Aletheia publications. They do not appear to have a web presence, but they are definitely a small press and [22] suggests they are relatively recent and only have five employees.

Examples of in-text POV language or issues with tone:

"...In researching her book, Wertsch identified common themes from interviews of over 80 offspring of military households. While this book does not purport to be a scientific study, subsequent research has validated many of her findings..." There is no citation for this; the next citation comes for a blockquote and is a dead link.
Weasel phrasings: "While some may not like the origins of the term, most are comfortable with it", sourced to [23], which shows that the citations to Wertsch may not be the most neutral either.

Among the more minor issues are dead links (as mentioned above) and ^{[citation needed]} tags in the body. I'm concerned the external links section might need auditing as well. I'm a bit pressed for time, so I haven't fully checked the images; at the very least lots of them need cleanup, which will help in checking that they are all actually legitimate free use images. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 22:21, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Comments I agree with the 1(c) and 1(d) concerns discussed above. My comments are:
- While the article states that the term 'military brat' is applied to the children of service personnel in several English-speaking countries, the article contains no comparisons of the experiences of American children with those from other countries. This means that the article isn't comprehensive and criterion 1(b) isn't met.
- Some of the referencing seems a bit dubious; for instance, the statement that "But most assimilate quickly and well as they have to do so with each move" is referenced to something which, according to the text in the footnote, states that a very high proportion of these kids feel isolated, and the statement that "In 1991, Mary Edwards Wertsch "launched the movement for military brat cultural identity"" is referenced to an Amazon.com product page and the two paras devoted to her book feel a bit spammy and aren't properly referenced to independent sources (the second para is a direct quote from the book's introduction praising it!).
- Some text isn't referenced at all
- The article strongly implies that all military families live on base and that there are no significant non-military or non-school influences on the children. I doubt that this is correct for the US military.
- I agree that the photos are sentimental and detract from the article's credibility Nick-D (talk) 10:27, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
  - The reason why this is on the (US Subculture) is because there has been no research done on brats from other countries. The only "research" was for Grace Clifton to take US research and speculate whether or not it would be true for British brats as well.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 21:48, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Image review

File:I'll Miss You Dad by Cecilio M. Ricardo Jr.jpg: source is a dead link, but no-one picked that up at the featured picture candidate page, so I guess that's OK.
File:Marine Brats waiting for families.jpg and File:Marine Corps Community Services.jpg: no author or description, and the source is a dead link, so I can't add them.
File:Waiting for the return of a Marine father.jpg: source is a dead link, but all the information is there
File:Yokota High School JROTC Honor Guard.jpg: no author; couldn't find it at the source given, so probably moved
File:Where's YOUR Wingman by Nicholas J. Pilch.jpg: source broken, but all the information is there
Other images OK. DrKiernan (talk) 22:37, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Please add alt text to the images; see WP:ALT. Eubulides (talk) 23:47, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Comment: I notice the ref for the use of Brat in the UK seems to imply a different usage of the term Brat (ie. British Regiment Attached Traveller, as oppose to a buzzword for child). I'd like to see a few more refs for the line "The term is used in several English-speaking countries, especially Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom" in the lede. I grew up in a military environment with all the postings abroad and fatherly absences that accompany it, and I'm afraid to say I've never heard the term used in the UK. Ranger Steve (talk) 00:23, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
- Actually, the British Regiment Attached Traveller is one of the many explanations as to the use of term Brat being tied to military children and is used to reference military Children. Grace Clifton, the only person whom I found to do any research on British brats (and his research was only hypothetical at the time) uses that acronym explicitly for military brats. One of the more reputable Brat organizations takes it for fact that British Regimented Attached Traveller is the origin for the term, but based upon my research, I think that is highly unlikely.[24]---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 21:45, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Comment re ref other militaries esp UK. the OED has this to say on the meaning "military brat n. N. Amer. colloq. a child with a parent, or parents, in the armed forces; esp. one who exhibits behavioural problems associated with the unsettled and itinerant nature of military life. " I personally think if there is a British term for the same thing it is unlikely to have the word "brat" which is uncommon in British use except as "spoiled brat". GraemeLeggett (talk) 16:55, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

I've never heard of it being applied to the children of Australian military personnel either. Nick-D (talk) 21:21, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Looking through the history of this article I notice there have been numerous debates and effort on its title and world view before, so I'm sorry to tread old ground. I'm obviously going to be a little guided by the fact I've not experienced this term before, but it seems to me that there are very few refs to back up its use outside of the US (or at least its use in some other countries). Would it not be more appropriate therefore, to just make that very clear from the outset? A year ago I deleted an extremely annoying opening sentence on an article, but it seems to me that it might be an appropriate opener here. If all the research has been done in the US and none outside of it, then we have to go with what the sources tell us. Personally, unless some other sources can be found, I'd be tempted to delete (US subculture) in the title as well, and just explain that it's a US phenomena in the first sentence.

At the moment, by trying to claim some sort of usage in other countries, I agree that it fails criterion 1(b) and 1(c). It might also fail 1(d), purely because it is trying to present a worldy topic where there may not be one. I'd also say it fails 2(b). Where is the section on the history of the term? I would also very much like to see the opening sentence referenced, as I can't see a ref for it in the main text.

I'm also concerned by the spin off effect this article will have in its current form. If this is a US centric ideal then it seems wrong to apply it to other countries so easily, as this article does. Backdating a term that (as far as this article makes out) has only existed since the 60's, to apply to people in other nations another 40 years before that seems dubious and maybe WP:SYNTH to me. There is no indication in the list as to whether or not their parents being in the military had any bearing on their development, or that the term Military Brat has ever been used to describe these people (Yep, I'm thinking of people like Christopher Lee specifically). Ranger Steve (talk) 11:17, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

The term is most definitely used in those countries, just because you may not have heard it does not negate the fact that it is used for self identification among non-American brats. Here are just a few sources. Note, some of these may not be "reliable" in the sense of [{WP:RS]], but they do show self identification. Americans do seem to have embraced the term more than other countries, but that does not negate the fact that it is used elsewhere.

British: [25],[26],[27],[28],[29],[30],[31],
Canada: [32],[33],[34],[35]
India:[36],[37],[38],[39],[40]

Australian and New Zealand: [41],[42],http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4832724558]

As for the term being coined in the 1960's. That is simply not accurate. Morton Ender, the main researcher on the subject, indicated he has traced the use of the term "brat" to define a child of a military person dates back to the US Civil War. While he admits to not knowing the origins of the term, the origin story he believes to be the most compelling is that the term came about from the camp followers. Soldier A: "Whose that kid?" Soldier B: "Oh he's my brat." At that time it probably didn't have the same positive connotations, but this is the origin story I find most compelling. Debbie Adams, an author for the magazine Military Brat, mentions two of the origin stories. One from the Civil War and the other from it originating in Britian during the 18th century.[43]

While it may be true that the specific term "military brat" is probably more recent than the civil war, that is more likely the result of linguistic reclamation of the older term "brat." As for applying it to people who predate the term? Was Malcolm X really an "African American?" How about any of these List of African-American abolitionists? The term African American was not used back then, but has evolved to be the term used to describe Blacks/Negroes/Colored People/etc. I personally called myself an "Army brat" (and cringed) all my life despite my dad being in the Air Force. The specific term "Military brat" only became widespread after I graduated from High School. My dad who graduated from HS in the early 60's grew up his whole life knowing that he too was a "brat".---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 23:19, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the info Ballonman, must say I find it interesting that this is used by people in the UK at all, but as this link you provided states, it seems to the influence of the web that is seeing it used in more countries. Don’t worry, I don't mean to imply that just because I haven’t heard of the term means that it doesn’t exist, only that that’s why I’m commenting on the issue.

I must admit though, I ’m having trouble with this article. I realise that there are very few studies on “Military Brats” in countries other than the US, but I would frankly be absolutely astounded if there wasn’t any research into the social effects of growing up in a military family in Britain. I can say this with confidence because I remember covering it to a minor extent in my Sociology GCSE, and I know people whose job it is to help military families with many of the issues described in this article. The thing is, we just don’t refer to children as Military Brats. Yes, some may self identify themselves as brats, but there is a difference between self identification and a recognised term to identify a group. I’ve heard plenty of phrases – service families, forces families, forces kids, etc… but not Military Brats. Saying that there has been no research done on brats from other countries is not something I can believe I’m afraid. It just goes under a different name.

So, is the problem here that the article is about a social phenomenon but limited to one country’s name for it (and thus limited in the research it can make use of)? Perhaps this article should be renamed Military Brat, and just say something like “In the US, Military Brat is a term used to describe Children of Armed Forces personnel…. Slim the rest of it down and transfer the rest to the new article and then expand that with international coverage. Just a thought.

On the subject of this article as it stands now, as I’ve said, you’re dealing with someone who has no familiarity with the term here (despite apparently being a Military Brat myself, although it is not something I would label myself as), so I can only go with what this article tells me. As I’ve said above it would benefit from a history section especially given that, at the moment, there is no mention of any use of the term pre 1970’s (guess I should have said 1970 instead of 1960 above). This is why we’re here of course, as I would personally expect more information on the history of the term from a featured article.

As for extending the name to other nationalities, while the term African American might be relatively new, it is a widely recognised term internationally. It is also considered respectful. Military Brat, as discussed, is a US centric term to describe a socio factor, and may well be considered derogatory in other countries. Listing a number of British (and other nationalities) people who just happen to have had a parent in the armed forces as ‘Military Brats” is like listing President Ulysses S. Grant as a Victorian man. Besides which I’m sure it won’t be difficult to find a reference saying “Malcom X was an African American….”, but I’m still waiting to see one for any of the people in the list saying they are “Military Brats”. I’m sorry but I find the comparison a bit tenuous. As you say yourself below: “any cross cultural exploration would be original research”. Regards Ranger Steve (talk) 00:37, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I have little doubt that the use in other countries has increased due to the use in US, but it is used and when the article goes without the US Subculture it gets tagged repeatedly with Globalization and US Centric, and all sorts of other tags.

As for research, I can't respond to your personal experience. I can only respond to what researchers have stated. Morton Ender, the premier authority on the subject, has stated in several of his publications that he laments the fact that no significant research on the children of military personell have been conducted outside of the US. Clifton, a Brit, similarly regrets the fact that there hasn't been actual research into the subject. His reserch provided the only research into non-US brats that I could find, but his research is mere speculation on how British Brats would compare to the research performed by Ender/Wertsch. His reseach is not supported by actual studies, but rather lays the foundation for which such research might be conducted. He blatantly states that there is "no significant literature" on British Brats. My guess is that what you've read would be insignificant speculation or extrapolation, not true research on Brats. Ann Cotrell, who is an authority on Third Culture Kids, has also mentioend the lack of research on non-US brats. When she talks about Military Brats she has gone out of her way to indicate that what she says about Military Brats is true only for US Brats because of this dearth in research elsewhere. She has explicitly stated that brats in other countries do not fit the same criteria as US brats because most countries do not relocate families (particularly overseas) to the same degree as the US military and that the role of the US military is different from that in many countries. When she talks about other types of Third Culture Kids, she will talk about the similarities/differences between nations, but goes out of her way to indicate that there is no research on non-US brats to make these comparisons.

The use of African American was just one of many that could have been made. When new demographic populations are identified, it is not uncommon to look through history to see if certain demographic themes can be identfied. The fact is that "Military Brat" is a term used by sociologist to describe the segment of community that are children of military personell and it contains no inherent bias/negative connotations. (Even Clifton uses the term Military Brat in his British sociological research to describe the segment of the population that has military parentage.)

I would not be opposed to a history section, if we had something other than original research on the history. Like I said, my dad grew up pre-1965 with the term "brat" and I grew up as an "army brat" (despite my dad being in the air force) I personally never heard the term military brat as a child---but I was firmly aware that I was a brat. According to Ender, the term, "Brat", has been traced back to be used in conjunction with military children back to the civil war. Also, note the book "Psychiatry and the Army Brat" which was published in 1970. Unless that book was coining a new term, I think it is safe to say that the term was in common use back then. Mary Wersch's book may have been published in 1991, but it dealt primarily with baby boomer era brats and before---who proudly referred to themselves as brats. Some of the interviews discussed how/when people became aware of the term and how the might not have liked it at first, but came to embrace it... again we are talking about kids who grew up in the 40s/50s/60s.

As for your notion of moving the article and trimming it, please review the extensive discussions on the subject. That is a very bad idea which I firmly oppose. Trying to "trim" it to fit what works for brats of other countries would be 100% original research. The subject has been discussed, but there are very few things that you can state universally about military brats. I also oppose "trimming" for the sake of making it "global" or less US specific, you don't get rid of information because of a lack of information elsewhere. That makes no sense whatsoever.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 23:50, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

As I said above I'm afraid I just can't believe that there has been no research into the children of forces families in any country other than the US. I wonder if the researchers you mention above are perhaps too fixated with the brat tag. Here are some articles from a very quick google search using just one alternative name for a child with parents in the services:

BBC - Forces children face 'time bomb' Recent report into military children, doesn't use brat at all.

The Independant Please notice in this one that Military Brat is mentioned, but is considered derogatory.

Children and Young People Daily Bulletin This looks like it may be reporting the same paper as above, but doesn't use brat at all.

BBC Report from three years ago.

BBC Report from ten years ago.

Forces Childrens Trust A quick scan doesn't reveal brat here.

The Armed Forces Childrens Education Fund This one's interesting, its an American charity that doesn't use brat.

News of the World Not the best paper, but they don't use brat either.

I also think that some organisations might dispute the researchers claims of no study of the phenomena of forces kids outside the US:

The Royal Navy and Royal Marine Children's Fund

Sailors Families Society

SSAFA

The Army Welfare Service

It strikes me that this article is all about the social and psychological effects of growing up in a forces family. Whatever name is used, that is a global phenomena, but this article is tied to one country's name for it. Thus it fails to provide a worldly view, even though I imagine there is loads of research into the subject. As for the lists of famous brats, "Military Brat' is, as you have identified yourself, a term used almost exclusively by American sociologists to talk about a name that has only been seriously studied in the US. Although Clifton uses the term, he would appear to be using it with a different meaning. A more recent study has now considered it derogatory in the UK, so it clearly does contain negative connotations. Once again, there are no references to suggest that the other nationalities in the list have ever self identified themselves as brats, or been called brats. It seems to me to be original research to take one country's cultural identities and apply them to another without any references. You agree with this position below, the same applies here. Ranger Steve (talk) 10:00, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

PS. I think you may have misunderstood my suggestion for moving the article. I wouldn't trim it at all. First I would move it, in its entirety, to something like Children of Armed Forces personnel. Then I'd expand that article to make use of research from other countries that doesn't use the term Military Brat (such as above) to provide a more worldly view of the cultural phenomena of growing up in a military family. The article Military brat (US subculture) would exist as a redirect, and the article Military brat could take a condensed version of the research currently contained here, with a similar opening to the one it has at the moment. There's no question of trimming it, just moving it to a more appropriate title and expanding it. This is a global phenomena, and the references to expand it do exist. Regards Ranger Steve (talk) 10:54, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

~~Please provide some sources.~~ I've provided three sources, who have explicitly stated that research on non-US brats is non-existent. I do believe that Ender (the premier expert on Military Brats) and Cotrell (one of the leading researchers on Third Culture Kids) are smart enough to know to look for research using other terms than just military brat. These are highly respected individuals within their fields. (I don't include Clifton not because Clifton isn't qualified/respected, but rather because I am not as familiar with him. Both Cotrell and Ender are routinely cited as authorities by others.) EDIT: The source that I just noticed above is just within the past month... so it is new and might be worth incorporating into the article.

As for providing a more "worldly view of the cultural phenomena of growing up in a military family." Can you define it? How often do military families move? In the US quite frequently, in other countries not that often. How about moving to foreign countries? Unless engaged in a military action most militaries do not have bases in foreign countries, but the US (and formerly USSR) it is quite common. Do families accompany military personell, in the US generally yes, in other countries not that often (especially overseas). What about the risk of war? Some countries the military is more of a police force where in seeing action is unlikely, in other countries you are essentially guaranteed to see combat regardless of your job. Is the military voluntary or is mandatory service required? Experiences in an all volunteer force are different from ones where everybody has to serve a term. To what degree do families live on military bases? This differs from country to country. How about the role of women? Are woment allowed in the military? How about combat roles? What about (country specific) racial minorities? What is a "wordly view of the cultural phenomena of growing up in a military family?" Can you provide ANY sources to substantiate your position? The answer will be no. When I researched the subject, the authors of various studies routinely indicated that their research was on U.S. brats, not on children from other countries. In short, I would oppose the creation of any a generic article that used the sources I've read. Heck, I'd cite Clifton to support that opposition!

As for Clifton using the term Brat in a different meaning, bullshit. That tells me that you didn't look up the source. The article is explicitly a summarization of Ender and Wertsch's research and how Clifton thinks military brats from England would compare to the American version. The article summarizes findings from Ender/Wertsch as they apply to US brats, then Clifton explains why he thinks the finding would apply to brats from England. Clifton attributes the acronymn "British Regimented Attached Traveller" as the origins of the term Brat, but he is definitely talking about children of military personell.

As for your "study" please provide the reference that show that brat, when used in the military brat context. I have no doubt that the word 'brat' by itself is considered derogatory. It is considered derogatory in the US as well, unless used in this context. I've provided sources above that show that the term is used to self identify military brats from other countries (such as England) and that when it is so used it is not derogatory.

As for Children of Armed Forces personnel please provide sources to support that name change. The article shows sociologist and academics who use the term "Military Brat" in academic research/studies. The term "Military Brat" is the appropriate term, changing it as you suggest would amount to original research and personal bias.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 15:39, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Just took a closer look at the sources you provided:

The research study that is not yet available, but reported on in November 2009 looks like it probably has some interesting things to say that could possibly be added to the article. I am interested in seeing what it says, because it appears to be a piece of significant literature to which didn't exist prior to last month. The fact that there are negative stereotypes to the term military brat does not negate the fact that it is A) used and B) accepted. The fact that the authors use it supports the notion that it is used in England in this context. The fact that it has negative stereotypes does not mean that it isn't accepted. The authors may view them as negatives, but part of the reason why Military Brats use it is because it becomes a badge of honor. There is a Disney movie, Tiger Cubs, where the lead character is adamant that she is not a "Military Brat." She is extremely vocal about that fact because she isn't a brat, by the end of the movie she has come to grips with the term and embraces it herself. In other words, I am extremely interested in the full report not just a sound byte. But of course, this article is about the US subculture, not British brats. This source MIGHT make the foundation for changing the name of the "List of"s but it does not affect this article, I am also a little concerned about the scholarship of that "study." (see below.)
The BBC articles are not significant pieces, but rather fluff pieces that really don't say much if anything.
The fact that articles don't use the term does not mean the term is not used or accepted. Do non-military families have trouble using the term? Yes. One of the researchers, and I believe she is cited in the article, actually said that she was uncomfortable using it, but it was the term the studied community used and embraced. It is part of linguistic reclamation.
You provided four organizations with the note, 'I also think that some organisations might dispute the researchers claims of no study of the phenomena of forces kids outside the US.' Only one of those organizations actually has a link to a study, the one released LAST month. In the US, research didn't really begin until the 1990's on brats. There were a few published pieces, but not much. Most of what was used prior to the 1990's, was conjecture and opinion pieces based upon individual experiences. With the exception of the new report that was announced a month ago, none of the links you provided had any mention of any research or studies performed on children of British military. At least I couldn't find any.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 16:44, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

<Outdent> On a slightly different topic, I have to question the report that was released on November 4 2009. If you look at the footnotes supporting the statistics used, the footnotes indicate that the survey was conducted from October 30 to November 4, 2009. This is a huge red flag regarding the reliability and objectivity of the report. Now it may be a misprint, but if they just finished the survey, how can they provide results to said survey the same day? Like I said, I am interested in seeing the report and have no doubt that this will be an oft cited report, but this makes me question the reports scholarship. (It is definitely self published.) Also, about the research, note that one of the principle reasons behind the report is a cry to do more research on this community. I am also curious as to how they used the US research. Did they use US research in lieu of actually studying British Brats or did they use it as a jumping off point to do valid comparisons? Based on what little I've learned over the years about how the British army works, I suspect the former and not the later. There are several things that *I* associate more with US military experiences than with British military experiences. For example, it is my understanding that British Military families are not nearly as mobile as their US counterparts, but this article cites that as a defining characteristic. This is contrary to what (little) I know about the British military. If that is the case, then I have serious problems with this "study" as most of the research done in the US is exclusive to US brats. Most researchers want there to be research performed on British brats, not extrapolating US research onto the experiences of others.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 17:04, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Wow. Just wow. Ignoring the insults and aggressive attitude, you have clearly misjudged what this FAR and my comments above are about. I have just demonstrated that research into military forces children exists in countries other than the US. And not just research, but organisations tasked to work with these kids as well. So what if they haven’t published a paper in an academic journal? Does the fact they are working to alleviate the problems suffered by some forces children not prove that this phenomena exists outside of the US? The 2 BBC articles aren’t good enough for you? Please read them more carefully. The British government has been studying the effects of this for at least the last ten years. I don’t think that that’s insignificant speculation or extrapolation. Please understand the point I’m making here. I’m going to lay it out really carefully so that it is clear, because you don’t seem to have understood it from what I’ve said above.

The concept of a Military Brat is not limited to the US alone. It exists anywhere where children have parents who work in the forces. However, in different countries these children are referred to differently.

That this is an international phenomenon keeps getting brought up here, but also that the name is not recognised outside of the US. Yes, some people may self identify as brats, but there is no official use of the term outside of the US. In other countries it can be considered derogatory, as I have shown. Here’s the quote from the Independent link above:

Some face bullying at school, dismissed as "military brats" once it is known they have a parent in the forces. "One of the main problems of being labelled a 'military brat' is the stereotypical image of a child from a military background – one of authoritative parenting, buzz haircuts, withdrawn emotions and relocating frequently," the authors say.

And the OED:

military brat n. N. Amer. colloq. a child with a parent, or parents, in the armed forces; esp. one who exhibits behavioural problems associated with the unsettled and itinerant nature of military life.

These are hardly positive references to the term are they? Anyway, as it has been shown that the cultural phenomenon exists in other countries, isn’t it worth expanding the article to incorporate this? Yes. Is it appropriate to use the title Military brat (US subculture) in such an article? No.

Consider this idea: So far there isn’t a catchy name for forces kids in Britain or other western countries, but lets just assume that there was. Lets call it Forces Kids for the sake of argument. If an article were written on it, would that be a good idea? Or would it be worth merging it with articles on exactly the same phenomena in different countries? There is no reference for Children of Armed Forces personnel, it’s a generic name to describe an international cultural phenomena. Much the same as Military use of children.

This is Wikipedia, not a research institute. All of the refs I provided show evidence of the phenomena, and could easily be incorporated into this article (note article – not a research paper). Speaking strictly personally here, one problem I find with this article is that it reads too much like a research paper into the psychological and sociological effects of being a ‘brat’ and not much else. It isn’t about the term Military brat at all (if it was I doubt we’d be here). If it was, there would be a history section, there might be a section on attempts to deal with the issue (which is where all four of those organisations would come in, Think of something like: In Britain several charities and organisations have been set up that work to deal with the issues faced by military families and children… On several occasions in the past the British government has studied the effects of growing up in a military family on a child’s education …etc…etc…) At the very very least there would be a section about the concept outside of the US. But hey, that’s just my opinion.

As for your second paragraph above, Britain still has a lot of bases around the empire you know. Besides which, the differences between military forces and their effect on children is exactly what Wikipedia should be tackling (WIAFA 1b). Admittedly we can’t describe the effect of growing up in a military family in Iceland lets say, because there is no research and no other Reliable Sources to use, but as we already have one country that does, we can start. And what about historically? I’m sure there’s plenty of RSs about the huge number of children who grew up without a dad because they went to fight in two world wars. Is that not relevant? As for Clifton, quite right I didn’t pay to download the article. Perhaps you can enlighten us as to exactly how he defines that “The term is used in several English-speaking countries, especially Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom”, the line it is referencing. From what you say, he merely compares the effects from two countries. Or is it perhaps a throwaway line he uses in the paper’s introduction to set the scene but without providing any data? Regardless, I’ve already demonstrated that the same phenomenon exists in this country, whatever it’s called, so it doesn’t matter.

Anyway, I’ve had enough of this. I’m well aware of the troubles of communicating in text, how it can be difficult to work out the tone and slant being used in a reply and so on. You’ve clearly misjudged my attitude, but don’t worry, you own has been made perfectly clear. I strongly recommend you have a coffee or something and sit back and read what I’ve written above again, but try to imagine it more softly, perhaps like Morgan Freeman or something. Perhaps then you’ll realise that I’ve been politely making suggestions to help improve the article by solving some of the issues that it clearly suffers from (otherwise we wouldn’t be here, would we?) Heck, I’ve got so interested in it I might have even helped. But I think I’ve wasted enough time here now, so lets just summarise:

I support taking this article to FARC, as it fails several WIAFA requirements. Namely 1a, 1b, 1c, 1d and 2a. I’m also dismayed to note that despite your interest in the article, you have so far made no edits to incorporate the concerns raised here. With no hope of improvements soon, I strongly support FARC.

Good day Ranger Steve (talk) 20:24, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I have zero problem with expanding the "Military Brat". In fact, I fully encourage it and would love to see the effects of growing up in other countries expanded upon. Especially if reliable sources can be found. Nor would I have a problem changing that article name to something else with a discussion of the term "Military Brat" therein.

What I do have a problem with is the notion that we have to gut an FA which is comprehensive for the subject being discussed. The phenomena of military brats is different for every country/culture. One of the problems that has repeatedly come up in the past is that there is very little that can be said about military brats that is universal for all countries... and that research has been dearth in other countries. Clifton/Ender/Cottrell all support the notion that research has been lacking in other countries. The study you provided, I'm sure will get a fair amount of air time, but I suspect it is questionable for the reasons I cited above.

As for the OED, dictionaries (even the OED) are not perfect. I suspect that the person who wrote the entry did not understand the term or its current usage. The article cites numerous authorities on the use of the term and nowhere have any of them had negative connotations to the term. The quote from the person who authored the survey you addressed above is the first one which raises any question on the use of the term---and does make a case for renaming the parent article on "Military Brats". (I should point out that there are almost 7000 people on the British Military Brat facebook page would would probably agree that the OED is wrong.) But that is a different topic than this one.

This article is not about non-US brats, it is about US brats, and thus is comprehensive for that subgroup. What you are proposing is tantamount to taking an article on the American Bald Eagle saying, no we don't need this article lets generalize it to discuss the concept of "Eagles." Frankly, that's a bad idea---the better idea is to expand the article on Eagles. We can have both, we are not constrained by size or pages. If we have a good article that focuses on the US Subculture, why get rid of it?

As for Clifton, no she doesn't cite any studies/research. Her essay is basically a compilation of research into US military brats, where in she basically speculates on how/why the research done in America would or would not apply to their English counterparts. Clifton, who was apparently a graduate student at the time (her PhD was written in 2007) basically presents the findings of Morton Ender/Wertsch and says, "I think this applies/does not apply to British kids because...." She then explicitly states that there is no "significant literature" on the subject. It does appear as if she has done more research on the subject since then and I would be interested in knowing if she was involved with the study you linked to above.

As for bases around the Kingdom, I can only go on what I've been told here and elsewhere. What I'd been told previously (when somebody was arguing that the article didn't apply to British brats) was that in England families tended to stay in one place. That they didn't move around and rarely accompanied the military member overseas. Again, I do not know if that is true or not, and based upon your comments above, I suspect it isn't.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 21:20, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Stepping in to this for a moment, it was I who objected to the internationalisation of the article, based on the fact that the term is pretty unique to the US and there was a dearth of available sources. On reflection I'm also unconvinced that what is available adequately captures the extent of the topic. Previously the debate has been around the term Military Brat rather than the sociological phenomenon around the families of servicemen. If we're discussing extending the article to be around something like that then it may be possible, although I have a feeling that the topic becomes a lot more complex. As an article describing the US term then there are weaknesses, as identified. The article is lacking in certain aspects of discussion of the term and is dominated by the sociological elements.

If there is a change in focus then I think there are clear weaknesses in what can be said. I'm unconvinced that there is one single social profile, given the very different cultures in the US services.

I have a few friends in the Welfare and Families services so will try to find out what there is. They're generally all trained social workers so have exposure to the research. Whether much of it meets the needs of WP:V might be an issue.

fwiw I'm a little uncomfortable with your representation of what was said about British military culture, in my experience there is a lot less wholesale family mobility in the Royal Marines, Royal Navy, Royal Air Farce and some elements of the Army. That varies according to rank range, with Officers much more likely to have home location stability and specialisation or branch, with Inf more likely to move around as a formed unit. What we're seeing is a lot of the Corps now having SNCOs and Officers living in the vicinity of the Depot and weekending when posted away, that brings it's own tensions that are different from uprooting every two years.

My main objection is that by trying to infer UK behaviour from US research there was a significant risk of portraying UK military family culture as similar to US military family culture. It's a very different thing.

Essentially we get down to making a decision about the purpose of the article, is it about the term or the social phenomenon?

ALR (talk) 16:57, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I think you've described the issue quite well ALR, at the moment the article reads too much like an investigation into the social phenomena. But if it's about the social side, then it needs to be balanced with research from other sources (even if outside the States) to meet comprehensiveness requirements. I'm concerned that at the moment by not doing that, it already tends to infer UK (and other countries) behaviour based on primarily US research (see my comments below). I think an article can cover both country's aspects if it uses all the available literature. Yes they will be different, but that's what the article should be explaining. It might not be extensive enough to meet a FA, but that's life for a wikipedian! Ranger Steve (talk) 19:19, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

The focus on "this" ariticle is pretty clear, it is about the social phenomenon in the US (eg the dab.) Frankly, I don't care if it remains an FA or not... I'm not involved enough anymore with WP to put the effort into it. But I do care about diluting a perfectly good article to try to "internationalize" it. Which is what would have to happen if we tried to make this a generic article about military brats (or children of military personel) as a whole. The experiences of US/British/Australian/Canadian/etc militaries is entirely different, I appreciate ALR's discussion on some of those differences from a first hand perspective.

As for inferring behavior to UK brats and other countries, I have to disagree. The article is fairly clear that this is about the US phenomenon. The title itself indicates that it is about US brats and there are several places where the article explicitly reiterates that: They've been researched as "third culture kids" but they are almost exclusively from the U.S or the U.S. Armed Forces sponsored research on the long-term impact of growing up as a military dependent or but a studied segment of U.S. culture. It talks about the US Pledge of Allegiance, God Bless America, The US Code of Military Justice, Directive 5120.36 , Executive Order 9981, DoDDS or DDESS, the terms U.S./America/United States are used over 30 times. The only references to non-US brats are explicit statements that the research is not about non-US brats. For example, Outside of the U.S. there is no significant literature on the effects of growing up as a military dependent and it is in the United States in particular that this term is ascribed to a collectively identifiable demographic. Between the title, the repeated use of U.S./America/United States, and explicit statements that this is about the phenomenon in the US, I don't know what else we could do state this is about the US subculture. None of the images or quotes are from or about British children. Right now, I could see a short paragraph or sentence being added based upon the November study, but I honestly don't see what else could be done to indicate that this is about the US phenomenon. Can you provide specific reasons why you think the article makes those inferences?---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 21:41, 15 December 2009 (UTC)EDIT: I did make two changes based upon your comments below (where the article mentioned For example, in the United States and primarily from America... I made them more explicitly about US brats.)---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 21:55, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I don’t want to appear condescending by pointing out prose issues, but that’s what lets it down. As I’ve said below I don’t feel it distinguishes between the term (used in various countries apparently) and the demographic (in the US) sufficiently. The lead explains that the term is used in various countries and in the US is applied to a demographic, but doesn’t state that the focus of this article is on that demographic enough. It needs to be clearer to avoid misunderstandings. The next paragraph opens with the term again. Are we talking about the term or the demographic? It isn’t instantly clear. Although US identifiers are used in the article, only once is “US” or “American” used before “Military Brat” to distinguish that that’s the demographic group being described in following sentences rather than people just collectively identified by the term (and that’s the change you made yesterday). There are 16 headers or sub headers in this article, but in only 4 instances is the term US or American used in the opening paragraph for that header. Another 4 use a phrase that implies American origins (Truman or DoDDS etc…). But that’s only half of the headings, and most lead paragraphs should be an opening into the contents and themes of that section. The whole section on Military Culture for instance takes some time to clarify that it is talking about US military; even then it could be argued it doesn’t really even clarify that.

Surely you must be able to accept that there’s something wrong given the number of people who have commented on this issue in the past? There have been various comments, with a real mix of opinions drawn from reading the article. Some feel that it’s condescending and derogatory to US culture, some feel that it’s too self-worshipping. Some get annoyed that this paints too many countries with the same brush, while others say it is too US centric. This is because the article is too ambiguous. It is very hard to clarify exactly what group is being described here. Using US more in the right places will help. Don’t underestimate the power of opening the article with “In the U.S. a military brat is …” either, which makes it clear from the very start (I don’t feel the title does that fwiw).

On a related note, briefly commenting on the comments in the archive that echo vandalism like this, I suspect it’s because the article comes across as too authoritative. There are too few terms like “Research has suggested…” or “It has been shown that some…” to put this research into perspective. There are a few “may”s and “can”s but that’s insufficient. Studying several hundred participants cannot allow inferences to be made about a demographic of millions so strongly. They only suggest possibilities. Statements like “The military family knows that the service person may be killed in the line of duty, but may accept that risk because they are taught that the military mission is worth dying for. The mission is one in which the brat shares by extension through his military parent” is referenced but still extremely strongly opinionated. It should open more like “In his 2002 paper, Williams suggested….”

Again this is all linked to the prose and structure of the article. I’m sorry to have to say it so bluntly, but there are a lot of people who don’t think this is a “perfectly good article”. I’ve tried my best to rationalise the various issues as I see them (and which are echoed by other comments over the last 2 years) and suggest ways to restructure or make the article more comprehensive. But seeing as no-one seems interested in improving the article that seems to have been a waste of time. Ranger Steve (talk) 21:56, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Comments:

There are no works concerning this topic in Germany while these children face similar problems. The same may be tru for other countries leading to the focus of the article.
Alatheia seems to be a small company, but size is no guarantee for quality.
The photo captions do point out the stress placed on these children while missing one of their parents and the joy of reunion. That's typical for them, crying children are a bit hard to photograph and it isn't obvious that this is something typical for children of soldiers. Wandalstouring (talk) 10:44, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

- Er, that is why this is (US Subculture) and not just the generic term. There has been no research performed on German brats, which has been lamented by US researchers, so any cross cultural exploration would be original research. But this goes back to the original discussion concerning the name. There has been a fair amount research on the US brats, thus the focus on this article.

Since there haven't been objections in this space, I have boldy removed some of the most daft images; I will try and add alt text for the remaining and see about their copyrights. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 20:32, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, NPOV, comprehensiveness/breadth. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles Featured topic drive:one left) 00:20, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

- Mary Wertsch is considered to be the original push for study into the subject, most of the academic research that I saw was to validate/contradict her initial research. Morton Ender has emerged as the primal authority on the subject of Military Brats from an academic perspective. His book, which collects academic research, is definitely a high quality source, as are many of the journals. Alatheia, as Wandalstouring mentions may be a small company, but that doesn't discredit the company and using its sources might be a bigger concern if the article relied upon it. Comprehensivenees/breadth seem to focus on the fact that this article on the US Subculture of Military Brats doesn't include discusion on non-US brats, which is a different subject.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 15:42, 4 December 2009 (UTC)
  - I don't like relying on the promotional fluff on a dust jacket for evidence of a sources' authoritativeness. As for Alatheia, yes, size doesn't disqualify them... the fact that they don't have much of a reputation, however, does concern me. The fact that I can't verify how long they've even been in existence does bother me, as does my suspicion that their editorial staff may be just one person. Show me that these authors are reliable and experts. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 01:03, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

The company is small and I beyond this book, *I* am not familiar with the editor (which doesn't mean she isn't respected or good.) The authors, however, (namely Eakin and Ender who are used in the article) who contributed to the book are definitely reliable and experts. Ender is the premier researcher on Military Brats, after Wertsch Ender is probably the biggest name in MB research. The other source that uses Eakin was ACCORDING TO MY PASSPORT, I’M COMING HOMEPDF (666 KiB), which is a document of the US State Department. Eakin is more known for works dealing with Third Culture Kids.---Balloonman ^{NO! I'm Spartacus!} 16:04, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

The fact that they are widely cited by the government doesn't exactly inspire the confidence I'm looking for. Do you have a reliable source for Wertsch's "pioneer" status? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 19:26, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I recommend delisting this article. I am not confident most of the Alatheia publications meet high-quality source requirements. Issues with weasel wording, unreliable citations and original research not addressed. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 16:10, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I’ve just noticed that this article has in fact passed into FARC (dunno how I missed that!), so with that in mind I’ll elaborate on my concerns further here, comparing them to the main criteria of WP:WIAFA. I currently recommend delisting the article, based on my reasons below.

1a. Well Written.

I find that some of the text is disjointed and not necessarily related to other statements in the same section. In sub section “Values and patriotism” for example, the fourth paragraph is an isolated sentence that seems awkwardly placed amongst the other ‘rituals’ being described. A similar issue can be seen in “Reunited and reaching out” - the first sentence is totally isolated and may leave the reader thinking “… so what?” The second paragraph only answers the question “why?”

The prose is not always engaging or brilliant. Consider the first line of “War in the 21st century”. There are several ways to rewrite that without repeating the same words. In the second sentence, despite the fact this is now a comparison, no reference is made to past figures. The first paragraph of “Growing up military” also contains awkward sentence structure and confusing grammar. Had the children lived in another country and then come home? It should be “His study revealed that 97% had lived in at least one foreign country”

There are numerous other grammatical errors (eg. the entire last paragraph of “War in the 21st Century” is full of them, and I note several others as I read through sections).

These are minor quibbles, but most of them are things that would hold up a GAN. I believe the article needs a thorough copy edit to rectify the issues; most of the text is okay, but I’m afraid that personally, I find very few examples of brilliant or professional standard prose.

1b. Comprehensive and 1d. Neutral

This is the big issue I suppose, that concerns all of my issues raised above and the use of this term outside of the US. First I think it is important to consider what this article is about. An early assumption might be that it is about the term “Military brat”. But there is no section on the (interesting) history of the term, it’s use outside of the US, or its criticisms. The section on “Linguistic reclamation” is the only part that deals with the words themselves. The rest of the article is about the sociological and psychological effects of being a military kid, and the life at home and at school for such children. Lamentably it lacks a section dealing with attempts to integrate and work with this demographic, something I believe it would benefit from.

Although the title specifies that this is a US subculture, the article frequently implies a more worldly perspective. In the lead we have the statement “The term is used in several English-speaking countries, especially Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom; but it is in the United States in particular that this term is ascribed to a collectively identifiable demographic (with extensive psychological research done on the group by U.S. Defense Department).” This is referenced to a single study that, it would appear, does not cite any research to back up the assertion and regardless, is only making comparisons between the US and the UK. Added to which the researcher was apparently a graduate student, so I’m really not sure his/her opinion is a high enough class of resource. This assertion in the lead is then totally ignored in the body of the text, where one would expect it to be expanded upon.

Although the claim is made that the article is US centric, the big problem is that the prose and tone of the main text fails to make that distinction. By implying that the term “Military Brat” is used in several English speaking countries, any subsequent uses of the phrase in the article appear to be describing the phenomena in all of those countries as well. This is compounded by specific references to the US in some cases. For example, in “Values and Patriotism” 2nd paragraph: “It has been claimed by Samuel Britten on the basis of anecdotal evidence that life on military bases is associated with comparatively greater patriotic sentiments. For example, in the United States…”, or the 3rd paragraph of “School life”: “Military brats, primarily from the United States, are the most mobile of the Third Culture Kids, moving on average every three years.” I imagine this is why the article gets so much negative feedback and vandalism decrying its (seemingly) opinionated stance on other country’s military forces. I realise it doesn’t intend to, but the prose lets it down here.

The issue is then compounded by the fact that further study in other countries does exist, and references to the fact can be found in several reliable sources. The biggest problem is that in these examples the term Military brat is not used, although the demographic being studied is the same. This is a very serious oversight, as it clearly demonstrates that the assertion in the lede is questionable. Although there may be a claim that some UK residents self identify themselves as brats, the demographic’s name is not the same. It also demonstrates that there is a cultural comparison to be made with several aspects of the text in this article - particularly the “School life” section. There is also scope for making more comparisons in the whole “Modern brats” section. I believe these comparisons would be necessary to meet criterion 1b.

As ALR suggests above, the focus of this article needs to be decided. At the moment it appears to be focussed on the sociological aspects rather than the term itself. But the sociological aspects are studied in different countries, so that should be incorporated. If it focuses on the name then it needs to be more detailed on the history etc… So either way it currently fails comprehensiveness.

1c. Well researched

I’m concerned that the article places too much emphasis on research papers and not enough on other reliable sources. For instance, a search of the footnotes reveals only one link to the popular press (in this case USA today - it is perhaps interesting that this article does not make use of the term Military brat at all, but extensively describes the demographic). If this is a common phrase in the US, then I would expect to see evidence of it’s use.

Perhaps something on the popularisation of the term by films etc… would help as well. The Great Santini was nominated for 2 Oscars after all.

2a. A Lead

As mentioned, elements in the lead aren’t in the main body and vica versa. In fact the current lead could be used as an intro section, and a new lead written.

2b. Appropriate Structure

As I’ve explained I feel it’s too much like a research paper. Added to which, headings like “reunited and reaching out” are hardly encyclopaedic.

Cheers, Ranger Steve (talk) 19:03, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Colley Cibber

[edit] Review commentary

Notified: Geogre, Bishonen WikiProject Biography, Wikiproject Theatre

I am nominating this featured article for review because of its lack of in-line citations: Life has only one reference (about his father), Autobiography has only one (for a quote), Cibber as actor has no references, etc. There are many more books in References than are cited in-line. Additionally, weasels are used quite prominently: "colourful", "distinctive British tradition of chatty, meandering, anecdotal memoirs". Most images need sources (I think) and ALT text. Mm40 (talk) 03:01, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Note - there are many citations but they do not use the "ref" system - example: (Parnell, 294). These could easily be converted over. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:12, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Agree with nomination. I think all the adjectives should be removed, they are all sort of descriptive. Adjectives are unecessary and just make the page too long and hard to read. I would like to see more big pictures and less text, then I could just sort of look at them and guess what it's all about, like I do when I read my comics. Any facts that are worth keeping could be summarised in a neat info-box for anyone, like a teacher or somebody, interested because there won't be many people interested in a dead guy. Who was this guy anyway, he's been dead for so long, it's gruesome so there won't be references to find becuase his kids will all be dead too. - it's not like he's cool or his stuffs on TV, DVD or made into a computer game. Giano 08:27, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I'll see if I can fix the referencing at least over the next few days - I've formatted the ref lists and started converting to Harvnb, although annoyingly this is the first time I've found out that Harvnb has been deliberately broken. Oh well. - Bilby (talk) 10:22, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Alt text done; thanks. ~~Please add alt text to images; see WP:ALT.~~ Eubulides (talk) 08:28, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Delete with maximum prejudice - no disinfobox at all, unlike many far more important articles (such as A. E. J. Collins‎). And imagine, someone refusing to force their article on to the Procrustean bed of footnotes (which remain optional), but using instead elegant Harvard citations. And using adjectives like "colourful"? O tempora o mores! More seriously, either we have Cibber's dates of birth and death wrong (11 June 1671 - 12 November 1757) or the ODNB does (6 November 1671 - 12 December 1757) or we both do (11 December, perhaps?). And is Virtue Rewarded the subtitle of his play Love's Last Shift, or is it The Fool in Fashion?[44] But anyway, per my prediction, who will be the first to launch a torpedo towards Ormulum or Jonathan Wild? Don't be shy. -- Disinfoboxman (talk) 11:26, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

You want to delete a Featured article? Cirt (talk) 11:44, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'm sure there is a word for it. Delete - remove, expunge, erase, efface, cancel, wipe out, excise, eradicate, obliterate. Surely we can't keep featured articles by a notoriously "abusive sockpuppet", can we? Particularly if they don't have the requisite density of footnotes, or have too many adjectives. -- Disinfoboxman (talk) 19:29, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

The problem isn't so much the use of Harvard in-line cites rather than footnotes, although the footnotes tend to be preferred, but that the citations are incorrect, often with full author name, no year and no page. - Bilby (talk) 12:21, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

"footnotes [are] preferred"? Who, one might ask, is passively expressing this preference? Notwithstanding, I have added some footnotes to the ODNB.
I would note that significant portions of this article are cited inline: there is a covering footnote ("Except where otherwise indicated, all details of Cibber's private life, as well as all role information, performance dates, and quotations from contemporary reviews come from "Cibber, Colley" in the authoritative Highfill et al., Biographical Dictionary of Actors, and have where relevant been double-checked against the calendar The London Stage.") and many quotes, etc, state the source specifically inline (e.g. in the lead, 'frequent criticism for his "miserable mutilation" (Robert Lowe) of "hapless Shakespeare, and crucify'd Molière" (Alexander Pope).'; or in the section on The Careless Husband, "As late as 1929, the well-known critic F. W. Bateson described the play's psychology as "mature", "plausible", "subtle", "natural", and "affecting".") No doubt these can be converted to footnotes, if desired, but the current formulation is more elegant.
Anyway, enough from this "sarcastic joke account". (Ad hominem for free these days. Better a sarcastic joke than [ ... ] ) -- Disinfoboxman (talk) 19:29, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm just commenting on what I've seen before, and I would love to be wrong as I prefer - and originally wanted to do - inline refs in articles. But I've seen a number of editors get upset over inline refs, as they argued heatedly that they were distracting to the reader. My guess, and it is only a guess, is that (some) people like me are willing to accept footnotes, even if we don't like them as much as inline, and others hate inline, so the result has been to use footnotes. But if I'm wrong on this, or if we're simply happy to use inline anyway, then I will joyfully help use them. Other comments re citations are below. - Bilby (talk) 21:17, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Interminable response. Hi, people. I'm the main author of the article. I'm sorry people are aggravated by the referencing system I used. It's not wrong, though, and does not require being "converted over" to the "ref" system or to any kind of templates.The reason I kept it simple and non-technical is that it's a lot easier for users to add stuff if they don't have to f around with citation templates (I find them pretty unmanagable myself, and they must be a lot worse for newish users). It's not the case that footnotes "tend to be preferred"; please see SandyGeorgia's recent explanation at WT:FAC of the referencing required of a Featured article:

Recently, specific citation style requests are appearing at FAC: neither WP:WIAFA nor WP:CITE require or prescribe a specific citation style, so I hope reviewers and nominators alike will understand 2(c) of WIAFA.

It's not necessary for nominators to jump through hoops to write citations in a style preferred by an individual reviewer: it is necessary for the citation style to be consistent and for all relevant information to be provided."[45]

Read the whole, if you will. I ask the editors who are undertaking, above, with sighs, to convert the referencing in various ways, to refrain. You obviously don't want to do it, but think it's needed; I don't want you to do it, either, and will argue that it's not needed.

I'll go through those claims which I take issue with from the top and work downwards. First Mm40:

""Life" has only one reference (about his father), "Autobiography" has only one (for a quote), "Cibber as actor" has no references, etc." No, you misunderstand the system, and don't seem to have read the footnotes themselves. "Life" has only one footnote; that's not the same as having only one reference. The one footnote explains: "Except where otherwise indicated, all details of Cibber's private life, as well as all role information, performance dates, and quotations from contemporary reviews come from "Cibber, Colley" in the authoritative Highfill et al., Biographical Dictionary of Actors, and have where relevant been double-checked against the calendar The London Stage. In other words, the footnote isn't merely "about his father", but is many references, as Ottava Rima points out (I think; he's not necessarily referring specifically to that one), and covers all the information in "Life" (as well as lots of information in the rest of the article). Merely counting the little superscript figures in the text won't tell you what information the footnotes cover.

"Autobiography" has two specific references, namely (see Barker) and footnote 2 (for a quote, as you say). The rest of the information in "Autobiography" is covered by footnote 1, the one you say is about his father.

"Cibber as Actor" is again mostly covered by footnote 1, but there are also quotations in it: from Cibber's Autobiography and from the Biographical Dictionary of actors. Shouldn't they have footnotes of their own, then? That's a matter of taste; I preferred to do without, since the text combined with the list of references at the bottom of the page, contains all information that a footnote would.

Etc.

There are many more books in References than are cited in-line.*

Do you mean that there are many more books in References than have footnotes (superscript numbers) inline? There's nothing wrong with that, you know. All the books in References are cited—as in used, mentioned, supplying information to the text—inline.

Bilby, I'm sorry my references annoyed you. I don't understand your objection that "the citations are incorrect, often with full author name, no year and no page." (Do you mean without full author name..?) I merely identify the work in the text, in parenthesis, like, say "(Barker)", and give full bibliographical information in an alphabetical list at the end, as I expect you've noticed. This is one of the standard systems in my research field; if the "Harvard system" requires years given in the "short notes" at all times, then this is not precisely the Harvard system, though very close. Anyway, it's academic and consistent. Are you discussing supposed shortcomings of the "short notes" in the text (which indeed don't have any full names or years, and aren't supposed to), or in the list of references which supplement them, which I believe have full names, years, and pages (except that web versions don't always have any pagination)? The entire list may not be perfect—I'll check later—since some books have been added later by other people—for instance, one unpublished one, which is always a bit of a nightmare to refer to. But I certainly disagree that "the citations are incorrect".

One more point before I'm out of time: alt text. Are we insisting on going through all old FACs, such as this one, and adding alt text? In that case, perhaps somebody would do it? I just don't have the time, and it would be a lot more useful, frankly, than messing with my purportedly annoying and incorrect references (which I have tried to show are all right as they are).

OMG, I hope that wasn't as boring to read as it's been to write. I'll have to come back another time and reply to some other points.

I remind everybody that, as Sandy also points out, CITE is a guideline that states that established citation style should not be changed without consensus. If somebody nevertheless insists on changing my references to, for example, footnote templates, go ahead, but I hope you'll be watching the article and fixing any mistakes which arise when new users try to adapt to that rebarbative system. Bishonen | talk 19:25, 19 November 2009 (UTC).

Personally, I prefer traditional Harvard inline to footnotes, if only on the grounds that I could never publish with citations in footnotes in my field and inline cites work well in print, so I have a lot of experience using the style. Thus generally I like the (Smith 2009, p12) approach. (I also don't mind MLA, but I have less experience with it). If it is ok for Harvard or MLA to be used on a FAC then I'm happy. The main limitations with Harvard inline (only useful for an educated audience, gets long with multiple cites, and doesn't work well where the author is unknown) are not really applicable for academic audiences, but may come into play with Wikipedia generally.

At the moment, though, the article uses a mixture - footnotes with Harvard inline, footnotes with full citations (only one left, though), inline in Harvard (occasionally), and inline that isn't Harvard or MLA in two styles (full author name or author's family name). I presume this is the effect of multiple authors. The last - inline that isn't Harvard or MLA - is what you refer to with (Alexander Pope) and (Barker). While I can understand a desire to leave out the year, (which happens using the MLA author-title-page format, or the occasional MLA author-page) we end up without page numbers, and generally this isn't a typical academic style. (As an aside, the year becomes valuable if the one author is cited for multiple works, but that hasn't happened here yet). At this stage my focus is to see it get a consistent referencing system, but I'm happy with anything that's acceptable here.

On an unrelated note, this is one of the few featured articles on Wikipedia that I genuinely enjoyed reading because of the writing style. I generally enjoy the content of featured articles, but this time I liked both. :) - Bilby (talk) 20:18, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I forgot to mention: my concern about incorrect citations was the lack of page numbers. I'm not aware of an academic format that leaves them out, although I guess technically they're just present to make verification easier - having the author is sufficient to avoid other problems. I prefer years to be included, simply because I prefer Harvard, but year isn't essential. Normally as part of making the citations consistent (to whatever format we want) I'd dig up the sources and add the page numbers where required. - Bilby (talk) 21:29, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Image check OK. Perhaps they could be arranged prettier so that text isn't sandwiched between Foppington and Garrick? DrKiernan (talk) 19:50, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I did a bit of ALT text too. Perhaps someone can review it before I do some more. -- Disinfoboxman (talk) 19:51, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I found it both amusing and accurate, which is an ideal combination. DrKiernan (talk) 20:04, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

My pleasure. I have done the other ones, but was lacking inspiration. -- Disinfoboxman (talk) 21:38, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Why is the account Disinfoboxman (talk · contribs) still on this page, when it said above its intention is that it wants to delete this article? Cirt (talk) 22:16, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't know Cirt, you are the one who has just had it checkusered, why don't you tell us Giano 10:45, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

While I can, I just wanted to note that I plumped for the ODNB dates when adding some references; but please could someone else clear up the issue over the subtitle of Love's Last Shift - is it Virtue Rewarded or The Fool in Fashion (or perhaps both). Adieu. -- Disinfoboxman (talk) 19:45, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

It's both. Bishonen | talk 00:33, 4 December 2009 (UTC).

Comment. The alt text added by Disinfoboxman is first rate! Thanks. However, two images still lack it: can you please add alt text for those as well? The images are File:Colley Cibber as Lord Foppington in The Relapse by John Vanbrugh engraving.jpg and File:Drury Lane playbill 1725.jpg. When writing the alt text for the first one, you can assume that the visually impaired reader already knows what Colley Cibber looks like because they've read the lead image's alt text (see WP:ALT#Portraits); that may save you a bit of work. Thanks. Eubulides (talk) 18:57, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

There were typos in the formatting. Corrected now. DrKiernan (talk) 13:39, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, the alt text looks good now. Eubulides (talk) 18:28, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, NPOV (weasel words). Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles Featured topic drive:one left) 00:17, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

So... has this article been moved to the FARC section, and is about to be defeatured, because of Disinfoboxman's and Giano's joke votes...? It looked to me like people were fixing the citations (insofar as there was ever anything wrong with them). Oh well. Bishonen | talk 00:39, 4 December 2009 (UTC).
WP:WIAFA: Criterion 1c requires "high-quality reliable sources in a references section": Yes? What? Those are high-quality reliable sources in a references section. What's supposed to be wrong with them? Bishonen | talk 11:16, 4 December 2009 (UTC).

This is an excellent article, and it would be a great pity to see it defeatured. Can we have a clear list, from the nominator of this FAR, of the things that need to be done? I glazed over when I read the technical stuff above about the citations, but I'm sure they can be fixed. Tony (talk) 13:41, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Sure, the article is better now. My biggest issue at this point is possible original research. Reference two says "all details of Cibber's private life, as well as all role information, performance dates, and quotations from contemporary reviews", but there is information with no inline cite that isn't his private life, role info, etc. The second sentence of Autobiography is an example. The rest, I believe, is fine-tuning. For example, here's some issues in As an actor:

Which two theatre companies merged into a monopoly? They're not named
"He had still after five years" sounds a bit awkward; I suggest "After five years he had still"
"The Relapse" should be italicized at the end of the fourth paragraph.
"Papal Tyranny in the Reign of King John" has a stray apostrophe, I believe.
The three right-aligned images cause a large whitespace at the end of the section.

I must admit, I did enjoy reading this, and some is quite humorous. Cheers, Mm40 (talk) 13:21, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, it's not sacred or untouchable. If you see something like a title that needs italicising, or an apostrophe on the loose, might it perhaps be simpler to fix it than to list it? Things like whitespace are a problem, though; I think it varies according to which browser you view the page in. I can't fix the one you mention, because it looks good in my browser (SeaMonkey). Or is the {{clear}} template perhaps newly introduced, so that it now looks good for everybody? Bishonen | talk 19:35, 6 December 2009 (UTC).

[edit] Flag of India

[edit] Review commentary

Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Heraldry and vexillology, Wikipedia_talk:Noticeboard_for_India-related_topics, User talk:Nichalp.

FA from 2005, 1c issues throughout. Could use an image review of the 22 images used in the article. Some entirely too-short subsections and even one-sentence subsections and one-sentence paragraphs and short paragraphs. Cirt (talk) 03:19, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Comments I just fixed the dab links, and added some alt, but came to the point where some flags in the article just didn't make sense. There are some significant changes in content (unsourced/undue) since the FA, mostly over the past year that need some closer inspection. Will get some kind of a look-in over the next couple of days. -SpacemanSpiff 05:25, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for starting on the alt text. It doesn't have to be quite that long. I tried to improve it, based on WP:ALT#Brevity, WP:ALT#Context, and WP:ALT#Text. I hope this helps save you some work when writing the other alt text that's needed. Eubulides (talk) 06:27, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it will. I've only written alt for one featured bit before, and in that brevity didn't appear to be a concern :) -SpacemanSpiff 06:36, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Comments The article is in need of a significant overhaul and isn't exactly of the "fix some issues and it'll get there" variety. A couple of us are attempting to make some significant changes, also discussed at Talk:Flag of India, so I'd request a week's time before the article is evaluated by reviewers. cheers. -SpacemanSpiff 18:23, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

If work is ongoing, then it stays open, sometimes for ages like Wikipedia:Featured article review/Cane toad/archive1 and Wikipedia:Featured article review/Lake Burley Griffin/archive1, which were all effectively done anew YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles Featured topic drive:one left) 23:32, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, quality of research, comprehensiveness (incomplete sections). Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. FAQ? YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles Featured topic drive:one left) 23:23, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Delist, as per FA criteria concern. Cirt (talk) 23:24, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Cirt, that is not a valid delist declaration. Work has been ongoing on this article, and the FARC period lasts at least two weeks. What are your reasons for a Delist, so the editors working on the article can try to improve the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:34, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with all of the FA criteria concerns stated in this subsection by YellowMonkey (talk · contribs). I am, of course, always happy to revisit when the article is improved to a satisfactory level of quality. Cirt (talk) 23:35, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

That is still an invalid and non-specific declaration. When moving from FAR to FARC, the delegate mentions concerns that have been raised during the FAR. That doesn't mean they are still valid, or that an autoDelist should be entered without identifying current issues when work is ongoing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:55, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Just so you're aware, the search for decent quality sources took a lot longer than I expected. I've listed out six sources (on the article talk page) that should pass muster (let me know if you think any of them are not good). As far as the comprehensiveness and quality of research aspects, I just split out a lot of content that didn't belong in the article and we're just starting the rewrite, so these two issues will take a few days to address. cheers. -SpacemanSpiff 23:48, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Hold, per above comment by SpacemanSpiff (talk · contribs). Cheers, Cirt (talk) 00:03, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
When this article was listed at FAR for "1c issues throughout", it had, as far as I can tell, at least one ref for most paragraphs except a few in the "half mast" section - and even those may have been part of the Flag Code citation. So what, specifically, are the issues? Gimmetrow 02:12, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
Comment: I see some good improvements, nice work. It appears, however, that especially in the Flag_of_India#Flag_protocol subsection, the images could use some formatting improvements. Cirt (talk) 16:18, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
- Some of those images have to go, and the content in that section has to be condensed. Once the history section is comprehensive enough, I'll tackle this. cheers. -SpacemanSpiff 18:20, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
  - Okay, thanks very much! No worries, Cirt (talk) 18:25, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Sound film

[edit] Review commentary

Notified: DCGeist, Wikipedia:WikiProject Films

Since reviewing more than one FA isn't allowed, I am nominating this particular featured article for review because of the follwing things...

Un-referenced material.
Lots of unnessessary images. There's images in the "Reference" section (WTF)?
And I think that there's a prose problem as well.

So give me your thoughts on this article. GamerPro64 (talk) 02:02, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Please add alt text to images; see Wikipedia:Alternative text for images. Eubulides (talk) 02:31, 16 November 2009 (UTC)
Comments The article seems to fail the FA criteria for sourcing. Despite having 113 inline citations, it still has quite a bit that is not clearly reference or is unreferenced at all. The article does have formatting issues, and I agree that the number of images is overkill, as are the number of external links. Two screens worth of links?? And while the images are non-free, most are being used purely for decorative and superfluous manner. Many could be trimmed and replaced with a simple link to the Commons where they are all housed. Looking at some of the citations, I'm also a little concerned that there may be some SYNTH going on, as some of the references, like 88 and 90 seem to be pulling from a few sources to reach a final conclusion and uses non-neutral language in referring to some sources. I also can now see how such a short lead, compared to the article, is properly summarizing the article as a whole. There also appear to have been some legitimate raised concerns on the talk page over its ending at 1930, and seeming to have little contemporary history of the form, but nothing appears to have been done to address it. That would seem to indicate the article, lengthy though it is, is not comprehensive. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 02:31, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

File:BroadwayMelodyPoster.jpg: There seems to be some dispute about the original source and license of this poster. Hence its duplication as File:BroadwayMelodyAd.jpg. DrKiernan (talk) 15:44, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Comment it does not meet WP:LIST; the lists under History and Aesthetic quality should be converted into prose. Additionally, its structure is lacking; section names like The transition: Europe separate those periods in the history of the topic from the earlier history, putting it out of context. Technology should be its own level two heading. Images don't belong in the reference section, and there are way too many external links. Mm40 (talk) 12:59, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, MOS. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. FAQ? YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles Featured topic drive:one left) 23:24, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Delist, referencing concerns. Cirt (talk) 23:26, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

What referencing concerns? DCGeist has begun working on the article, the FARC period lasts at least two weeks, and entering a vague "Delist" the minute a FAR moves to FARC without more specifics gives him little to work with. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:36, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Per the concerns laid out in this subsection above, by YellowMonkey (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 00:08, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

WHICH concerns? Which are the sources you dispute? What are better sources that are lacking? What needs citation or is wrong with the citations given? Please remember that the default at FAR, in the absence of identifiable specific deficiencies, is a Keep. Since DCGeist is working on the article, he should at least know what to work on. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:14, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

No need for CAPS. Cirt (talk) 00:40, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Status report: I appreciate the opportunity to fine-tune the article this review brings. Addressing the distinct points that have been raised:

Alt text: Added to all images.
Images in Notes section: Eliminated.
Inline citations: I've added 19 to to the previous total of 113. I've also expanded and/or significantly revised 20 or so of the already existing citations. If I have missed any passages that call for inline citations according to our relevant policy, please specify them.
External links: I believe all of these are high-quality links, and each fully abides by the letter and spirit of our relevant policy. While their sum is not "minimal", they have each been carefully selected to pass the standards of "meritable" and "directly relevant to the article". The result is a consequence of two facts: there are an unusually large number of directly relevant high-quality resources online and they are relatively widely dispersed. That said, external links are hardly worth getting into a knotty debate about. If anyone wants to carefully pare the list, I will not challenge that effort. I would ask only one thing—for each link you eliminate, please offer a brief rationale here, so we have a clear new basis for future inclusion and exclusion.
Decorative images: The reviewer who raised this issue seems to have missed an important fact: decoration is good. That is why it exists. In the context of Wikipedia, decoration—which more neutrally we might call "illustration"—attracts readers, involves them, and helps retain their attention. Now, our relevant policy demands that fair use images serve a more transcendent purpose. There now remain only three fair use images in the article: each illustrates a film whose unique, historic importance is clearly explicated in the article; each is irreplaceable by free content; and each supports extensive critical commentary.
SYNTH. The reviewer who raised this issue seems not to have fully grasped the concept, as the content tied to the two specified notes evidences no arguable synth. Each pertinent main text passage presents data cited to a single source in the notes. Those notes proceed to gloss other, well-known sources for the benefit of those few interested in drilling deeper into the data. I have edited the notes in order to mitigate the impression of "non-neutral lnaguage". I have also elsewhere eliminated a couple phrases from the main text that might have constituted synthy conclusions.
Lead length: I admit I favor a relatively terse lede. Anyone else have a strong opinion here?
Comprehensiveness: This issue was indeed raised on the article's Talk page, but nothing close to a consensus was reached that a problem exists here. In fact, I believe this is currently the most comprehensive appraisal in any medium of the development, emergence, and immediate consequences of sound film on a global basis. Those who have said they want more have actually asked for an up-to-the-minute technological/industrial article which would logically be film sound—such an article, which Wikipedia is currently lacking, would indeed be quite worthwhile, but its content would diverge vastly from this historical article.
Image of Broadway Melody ad/poster: Replaced.
LIST: Two of the three arguable "lists" have been eliminated. The remaining narrative presented in bullet-point style concerns the pros and cons of discrete technological and commercial factors of sound-on-disc vs. sound-on-film. I believe the bullet-point style is the most effective and efficient mode for presenting this information, and the result in no way reflects the sort of inappropriate list that our relevant style guideline argues against.
Structure: Our standards for structure have hardly changed in the last three years, and I believe the existing structure remains the clearest and most effective. Did the reviewer really consider an alternative structure in which the reader bounces from the U.S. to Japan to the U.S. to England to the U.S. to India to England to...? And how exactly would a precisely chronological structure be structured, when we have precise months of release for the U.S. and England and some Western European nations, but not for much of the rest of the world? If the reviewer can sincerely visualize a preferable structure, please sandbox so we can vet it—in the absence of a well-articulated alternative, I see no way of addressing this concern. The proposal that "Technology should be its own level two heading" is even more obviously ill-considered. It would disrupt, for no appreciable gain, the existing, coherent structure built around the Consequences of sound film's emergence. Furthermore, no philosophical case has been made for this change. No reason has been spelled out to convince us that Technology is uniquely worthy of a level two heading, rather than Commerce or Cinematic form, each of which is just as fundamental an aspect of sound film's history. In sum, the current structure is coherent; the proposal is not.
Source quality: I have endeavored throughout, both during the central phase of the article's composition and the editing consequent to this review, to make sure that all sources supporting main text content are of the highest quality available. If anyone has any concerns in this regard, please specify them, and I'll address them immediately.—DCGeist (talk) 08:29, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Delist stricken for now. Cirt (talk) 09:49, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I left a few sample edits of items that may need review throughout, and the External link farm could warrant some pruning. I see a lot of unsourced paragraphs, but haven't reviewed the content there yet; are subsequent citations (in later paragraphs) meant to source those paragraphs? If so, can named refs be added? This is a bad link and should be a full citation:

See the January 25, 1930, New York Times review for a description.

Also, please review the dabs and dead links in the toolbox at the top of this FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:04, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Update: Per Sandy's observations here and in article edit summary:

MOSDATE/p. vs. pp./specified link/dabs/dead (and redirecting) links: All addressed.
External links: Cut one identified as amateur. Could really use help in establishing objective basis for further pruning, if necessary.
Unsourced paragraphs: I've added 16 more inline citations to address these.—DCGeist (talk) 09:26, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Looking better, ready for review now from others. On the external links, see WP:EL; in theory, because FAs are comprehensive, there should be little need for anything in external links, the idea being that everything important should be covered in the text already. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:49, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Comment Looks in excellent shape overall. I'd certainly be opposed to any restructuring of what is a very clear and comprehensive history of the origins and emergence of sound film. I note that the two people who said on the article's Talk page that it should be entirely transformed to incorporate all sorts of information up to the present-day have not done a lick of work on behalf of their desires: no evident research, no sandboxing, no creation of a new article for a potential merger, nothing. The fact is, we have articles on cinematography and on film editing, and we do need a parallel article on the major craft field of film sound whose title would naturally be, yes, "film sound". But that would be a very different article from this. I have made a standing offer on the article's Talk page to collaborate with anyone who is ready to put in some work and develop a film sound article. As for the present article, I have four observations:

Note 17 (on circumstances of first Phonofilm screening): Needs to name the sources that provide the correct info. Unless a major work has gotten it wrong (Crafton, perhaps?), I think all that business can be cut.
Note 79 (first Japanese sound film and Burch errors): So Burch is a major source, and his errors are worth correcting in the note. But we need to name the sources that provide the correct info.
In "Transition: Asia": The line characterizing the Madhuri short as India's "mini–Dream Street", though helpful, sounds rather like a personal interpretation/observation. There's nothing like it in the cited source, and ithould probably be cut.
In "Aesthetic quality": This assertion--"Most latter-day film historians and aficionados agree that silent film had reached an aesthetic peak by the late 1920s and that the early years of sound cinema delivered little that was comparable to the best of the silents"--represents published opinion. Though the following example of the Time Out poll is very useful for elucidating it, it still requires direct citation. DocKino (talk) 20:48, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

All addressed. (Note: edits led to elimination of one EL, now used as source.)—DCGeist (talk) 02:34, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Looks good. And speaking of those external links, I'm ready to take up the challenge. I may have 9 or 10 cuts for you. First off, I think the "Historical writings" and "Historical recordings" sections are strong--it's unusual for a historical topic to have so much high-quality historical material online. It is all really valuable to someone researching the topic, and is a worthwhile, common-sense exception to the "minimal" standard. That said, there are two pretty obvious cuts here:

"A Statement"--cited as a source.
Dickson Experimental Sound Film--video deleted at site (also, item itself is blue-linked in article and carries its own ELs, yes?).

Now the lead list of ELs really should be pared to focus on the really strong, helpful, pertinent ones. Here are my suggested cuts. First are three that are accessible via the Film Sound History EL and, just like it, are hosted on filmsound.org:

"Documentary and the Coming of Sound".
"Moving Pictures That Talk".
"100 Years of Cinema Loudspeakers".

And now here are four more proposed cuts, with explanations:

Arthur C. Keller Oral History--goes way beyond the scope of this article, and offers most useful info on later technological matters.
Edison: The Marriage of Sight and Sound--more appropriate for Kinetoscope article; if the above item's too broad, this one's too narrow.
"Hollywood Learns to Sing"--redundant; all of the important material here is very well covered in our article, with much better sourcing.
"'You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet, Folks—Listen to This!': The Sound that Shook Hollywood"--amateurish-looking reprint of 1977 New York Times article; we can lose this without great loss, right?

And my possible number 10:

"Let's Hear It for Sound"--it strikes me that this article could be a good source for a couple of things that would fit well into "Consequences/Technology": the effect of sound on (1) projection practices and (2) the required quality of film stock (and thus improved visuals).

I'll be interested to hear what you think. DocKino (talk) 05:27, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

That all seems reasonable. I've made each of those ten cuts (using "Let's Hear It for Sound" as a source), plus two more, as well--one adopted as a source; the other (a book chapter) already linked in Sources.—DCGeist (talk) 19:06, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

And two more external link cuts: the Kinetophone voice auditions, which have no visual component and which are already linked in the Kinetoscope article.—DCGeist (talk) 19:30, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Update: In addition to the adjustments detailed immediately above, I've recently expanded the lede a bit and added several more refs. Of note: Since, the beginning of the FAR, 52 inline citations (including 5 multiples) have been added to the previous total of 113. At this point, pending any specific issues, I believe the article fully meets our current FA standards.—DCGeist (talk) 01:14, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Keep All concerns addressed. Good to see this brought up to date. An excellent article, now even better. DocKino (talk) 20:52, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Padmé Amidala

[edit] Review commentary

Notified: Deckiller, Jappalang, LtPowers, Dmoon1, and Star Wars.

I am nominating this featured article for review for a number of reasons. It's understandable that this may have happened, as the featuring of this article was many years ago, but it still has to be addressed. Some concerns include:

It has a severe lack of referencing in much of the Appearances section;
It has a dispute over the number of fair use images;
Speaking OF the fair use images, I'm eternally neutral. While their purpose is clear, I'm not entirely sure it's necessary to demonstrate the inspiration for particular costumes twice.
The 2008-2009 Clone Wars section is criminally underdeveloped, merely stating she appears in it. Perhaps even, it should be slightly expanded and The Clone Wars film section should be trimmed, since they are clearly connected.
The film Clone Wars section seems incredibly large, considering that not only is her role not as "major" as in the prequel trilogy, but it seems undue weight with or without the long plot summaries in it. The other appearances sections, especially Episode III, could use some trimming as well to just the bare, most important facts of Padmé's role.
To call her "appearance" in Jedi an appearance comes off as very in-universe - she didn't appear, and she was likely a very different character then (if there was a character to speak of). It should be given a short sentence in the beginning of the Appearances section.
It really has no reception or appearances in popular culture which are both, in all intents and purposes, the most important out-of-universe content. I'm sure someone involved in Star Wars could go on for the longest time about creating the Gonk Droid, but if no one else gives a crap, the Gonk Droid won't have its own article. Not to suggest Padmé does not have her own reception, just that even after it was brought up on its talk page [which is clearly not inactive, or not too so], nothing was done to fix it.
Does not cover the character in video games in any way; it was even mentioned a few years ago, but was dismissed that her appearance in video games was irrelevant and she had no major roles in the games.
It lacks any coverage of her appearance in Star Wars merchandising.

I wouldn't mind throwing my hat in the ring to improve it in some way, but what I can provide ATM is very limited, so basically the same FAR jargon - I'll give the editors a chance to fix the problems, but if it's not addressed in the next seven days, I will move to the consensus process. Good luck! The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 05:07, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Please add alt text to images; see WP:ALT. Eubulides (talk) 05:54, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Image concerns

On the "free" images

File:Xenia.jpg: there is no proof that this was first published in Russia, nor is there proof of the publishing date. The two links provided are dead, but can be retrieved at http://www.hoover.org/publications/digest/3513146.html and http://web.archive.org/web/20030522063737/http://www.hoover.org/pubaffairs/newsletter/99winter/romanoff.html. According to them, this photo is very likely a private possession of Xenia until the Hoover Institution acquired it. If so, first publishing of this photo is 1999 (in the exhibition), which means US copyright lasts for 70 years after the death of an author, or 31 December 2004, whichever is greater.[46] That leads to to question the authorship; someone has put down in Russian that the photographers are "Boasson and Eggler". The Hoover Institution does not state this and no proof is given by the editor that they are the photographers, but the photographers did take another photo that has Xenia in another pose and location, wearing the same gown.[47] Not conclusive, but a likely identity. If they are the authors, then we would have to find out their death dates (for the 70 years pma) if the photo was not first published as a post card. All in all, this photo lacks verification for its first publishing date and location, and authorship, to claim that it is public domain in its country of origin (and United States).
File:MongolianRoyalty.jpg: link provided does not point to the page of the photo. Neither does it provide the necessary information to verify that this photo is indeed "free"—i.e. first publishing date and location, and authorship (including death dates).

On the copyrighted images

File:Padme ep1.jpg: does not fulfill WP:NFCC. Specifically, there is nothing stated about its significance (other than her first appearance), not is there critical commentary about this image.
File:RefugeePadme.jpg: per Talk:Padmé Amidala#The Gallery, the costume portrayed by this image is so close in appearance to File:Xenia.jpg (if Xenia is a verifiably "free" photo) that a free replacement is available (Xenia + words). Hence, it would fail NFCC on that ground alone (again provided Xenia's photo is indeed "free").

The images used as they are would not have passed muster at current FAC standards. Jappalang (talk) 00:10, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

"Xenia + words" is not a suitable replacement for the actual image. Powers ^T 13:14, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

In fact, once this article is demoted, I will be merging it into an appropriate list. Out-of-universe content is one thing, but no one seems interested in the least in saving it, so I doubt anyone's going to do the work to add critical reception of the character. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 21:32, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Are you kidding? A main character of the prequel trilogy? You've got to be joking. There are sufficient references just for her costuming alone. There is no way this should be merged. Powers ^T 14:26, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

What about her clothing makes her notable? How the director made the character is so far from adequate notability. This article lacks any coverage by independent secondary sources. At what point does "notable to Star Wars" become notable to the real world? - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 00:16, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

This is not the place for that discussion. If you propose a merge once this review is closed, we can discuss it there. Powers ^T 01:54, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not going to drag this out here, but you responded to the statement by arguing against my statement with a countering point, so don't try to look like like the mature one. I was stating my intention that when this article is demoted, I would be merging it because it has no critical commentary. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 03:58, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Completely uninvolved admin here, any merge of an article without being properly discussed on the article's talk page will be reverted. -MBK₀₀₄ 04:37, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I probably wouldn't merge it in the end, but it just goes to show how people react. No one cares that it's of low quality, but people care when its low quality is reason to merge it [but will also do nothing to fix the problem]. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 20:10, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

That's because low quality isn't a reason to merge; the merged content would still be low quality. Powers ^T 15:48, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Low quality attached to an article of normal quality. Though the list is in horrible, horrible shape, too, so it's actually impossible to merge anything anywhere at this point. The problem isn't "it's bad", it's "at no point does it ever suggest that this subject is important to anything but Star Wars itself". And like it or not, being notable to Star Wars is not an argument. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 15:54, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, comprehensiveness, undue weight, copyright. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. FAQ? YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles Featured topic drive:one left) 23:28, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Remove. Few to no problems listed on the review have been addressed. - The New Age Retro Hippie used Ruler! Now, he can figure out the length of things easily. 00:41, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Delist I concur with Jappa above on the serious issues with non-free content. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 20:25, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Delist per above, none of the issues have been addressed. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 18:30, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
Delist, unaddressed issues. Cirt (talk) 02:33, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Ann Arbor, Michigan

[edit] Review commentary

Notified: TonyTheTiger, Pentawing, Taxman, Gsgeorge, Avenue, Jay32183, WikiProject Cities, and WikiProject Michigan.

This is a 2005 FA that underwent FAR in 2007. Since then, it's undergone the classic Wikipedia rot. Unsupported information has been added, links have gone dead, and the MOS has progressed.

I've added a scattering of citation needed tags where appropriate.
- Still working on it (primarily in the History and Culture sections). Pentawing^Talk 04:17, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
  - done - Hopefully. Pentawing^Talk 01:41, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
There are several dead links in the article.
- Redlinks or dead external links? Pentawing^Talk 04:17, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
  - I'm sorry ... dead external links. Checklinks shows citations 19, 38, and the two last links in the additional sources list to be dead. JKBrooks85 (talk) 04:35, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
    - done - Though I should note that the last dead external link pertaining to Urbanoasis.org is still active (I managed to open the file in another browser window). Hence, in the meantime, I have commented that external link out. Pentawing^Talk 02:59, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
There are external links in the main body of the article.
- done - Though if there are any I missed, please point them out. Pentawing^Talk 04:17, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
The prose is rough in places, but it isn't my main concern.
- I have gone through as much of the prose as I can, though I intend to look at it further. Pentawing^Talk 04:17, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
  - done - I think I have gone through the entire article. Pentawing^Talk 01:41, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
The article needs to be updated in spots. Forex, there's an "As of December 2006".
- done - Seems to be corrected, though someone else might want to look through the article to make sure. Pentawing^Talk 04:17, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

With the number of University of Michigan alumni and students on Wikipedia, I'm sure there's enough interest to save this article ... it just has to manifest itself. JKBrooks85 (talk) 23:42, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Does it make sense to nominate it during the summer, while the students are away? Can I please suggest withdrawing the nomination and renominating it a month from now? Classes begin September 8. Eubulides (talk) 06:57, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I imagine that there's more free time in the summer, when classes aren't going on. You don't have to be on campus to access Wikipedia. :) In any event, I think there's enough alumni and local users that the timing shouldn't matter. JKBrooks85 (talk) 12:02, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I concur with JKBrooks85's thinking; as a student, I know the general rule is that the start of school is much worse a time to begin a major Wikipedia project, compared to during the summer. Otumba (talk) 22:08, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually the Wikimedia traffic data always shows a major lull during Northern Hemishphere summers and it picks back up about the time school starts again. Summer is a major detraction from a lot of editing—either from students not being at school or vacations. Also, who studies much when school first starts? The weather is nice and there's too much else to do. :) I did go add a couple citations and I'll try to get some more. Overall though the article isn't in terrible shape, it could do with someone going through and detailing any more concerns besides what have been tagged as being needed already. Those can be searched for easily. - Taxman ^Talk 15:06, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

I have gone through the article and corrected as many problems as I can for one night. However, I intend to look over the article again to make sure every issue has been dealt with. Pentawing^Talk 04:17, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I believe that I have gone through the entire article and have dealt with the issues raised. Though if issues still exists, can someone please point them out exactly? Pentawing^Talk 01:55, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Done; thanks. ~~Images need alt text as per WP:ALT.~~ Please see the "alt text" entry in the toolbox at the upper right of this review page. Eubulides (talk) 06:57, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
- Though if there are any that I missed, please note that. Pentawing^Talk 04:17, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
  - Thanks, but I'm afraid that alt text is still missing for File:Annarborskyline.jpg and for File:Washtenaw County Michigan Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Ann Arbor Highlighted.svg; please see the "alt text" button in the toolbox at the upper right of this review page. More important, the alt text that was added simply duplicates information that's in the caption, which is not what alt text is for. Please see WP:ALT #What not to specify and WP:ALT #Difference from captions, and look at the examples in WP:ALT #Flawed and better examples. Eubulides (talk) 04:42, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
    - I went through the alt texts again and tried to follow the guidelines, though I would appreciate it if someone else can improve on the texts if they are found to be inadequate. However, I can't be able to get the alt texts to work for the images in the settlement infobox, though there are entries for alt text that for some reason are not working. Pentawing^Talk 01:41, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
      - That's funny - now the alt texts for the images in the settlement infobox are working. Pentawing^Talk 03:00, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
        
        If you're using the Altviewer, it's often delayed for reasons beyond my control or understanding. Alt text is now present for all images, but there are still two images where the alt text repeating the caption, namely "View toward the southeast of Ann Arbor near Liberty and State Streets ..." and "Ann Arbor skyline as seen from Michigan Stadium". Also, several of the proper names should be removed from the alt text, as they cannot be verified by a non-expert who is looking only at the image (as required by WP:ALT). These proper names include "Ann Arbor", "Michigan Stadium", and "Herman Hesse". The maps' alt text don't convey the useful information that the maps' visual appearance does, namely, just where is Ann Arbor? Other than that it looks good. Eubulides (talk) 13:08, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
        
        Thanks, I see the above changes were done. Eubulides (talk) 17:17, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
File:AnnArborMural.jpg: caption confusing: the mural may depict the five people mentioned when seen in its entirety but this detail just shows one person (either Allen or Hesse, I can't make out which). DrKiernan (talk) 12:14, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
- done - The caption has been corrected. Pentawing^Talk 04:17, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Changes look pretty good, Pentawing. I'm going to do a more detailed combing of the article, so let me know if you think I'm going down the wrong track with some of these changes. JKBrooks85 (talk) 10:23, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I've dropped a few more citation needed tags in there, and citations No. 23 and 24 don't appear to cover everything in the paragraph preceding it. JKBrooks85 (talk) 07:27, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
- I've managed to add in the citations where needed. Pentawing^Talk 04:59, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Newspapers in citations should be italicized. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:04, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
- Done. Pentawing^Talk 04:53, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
There is a dab that needs fixing (see the toolbox), and I wonder if this article doesn't need a check for reliability of sources before it's kept. Have images been reviewed for compliance? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:05, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
- DAB has been corrected. If you meant licensing, there are no problems with the images (several of which I had taken myself some time ago). As for the references, I have checked them and do not see a validity issue at this time. Pentawing^Talk 04:53, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
The Ave Maria part in the education section reads oddly and feels like it was slowly edited with new information over time. Plus I believe it is now gone. Hobit (talk) 03:35, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
- The passage has been edited to reflect the fact that the law school was founded in Ann Arbor but moved out, with the buildings taken over by the Cooley Law School. Pentawing^Talk 04:53, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

How's this going? YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 03:16, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I have addressed the issues that have been brought up, and so far it appears that no one has brought up any other problems. If no one brings up any further problems, I believe that this FAR should be closed. Pentawing^Talk 04:33, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Comments -
What makes the following reliable sources?
Current ref 57 is lacking a publisher

lat=42.27083&lon=-83.72639&datum=nad27&zoom=8

Otherwise, sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:15, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I pinged Pentawing for a look at this last comment. Marskell (talk) 15:58, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I looked at several of the sources, and hopefully will take care of them fully in the article soon. Pentawing^Talk 05:06, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I have replaced several of the above citations. However, several of the non-replaced citations (e.g. Topoquest and Airnav) use data that are explicitly labeled as being from a reputable source (US Geological Survey and the FAA respectively). City-data has a publisher, which is now listed. The vt100.net site has a listed author (which is listed in the citation listings), and Emporis (from what I have read) utilizes a rigorous process in ensuring accurate information. Pentawing^Talk 04:06, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Fixes still needed:

The article mixes unspaced WP:EMDASHes, spaced emdashes, and spaced WP:ENDASHes; per WP:DASH, pls pick one and be consistent (spaced emdashes are not used on Wiki).
- I chose to use unspaced WP:EMDASHes. Pentawing^Talk 04:56, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
I mentioned over two months ago a problem with WP:ITALICS on journals, newspapers, periodicals; it's still not fixed, example: US News and World Reports.
- Fixed. Pentawing^Talk 04:56, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Can't Further reading be alphabetical?
- Fixed, by author's names. Pentawing^Talk 04:56, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
Somewhere in MOS, we're not supposed to use # except in charts, should be No., please review throughout ... took the #14 slot ...
- Fixed. Pentawing^Talk 04:56, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

If these and sourcing concerns are cleared up, not in bad shape. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:57, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Has there been an image review? If not, one of the image reviewers should be pinged to have a look, since this appears to be close to a keep. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:21, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

- I believe the images have been looked out some time ago already during the review (see above). Pentawing^Talk 04:56, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Status? No edits since November 14; is anyone still working on this article? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:34, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
- The problems that have been pointed out are hopefully corrected. Pentawing^Talk 04:56, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
  - See these sample edits; last access dates and publishers are needed for all web references. Dabomb87 (talk) 16:17, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

What is with teh undue weight in history. A big chunk on 1960-70 and a blackout on the preceding century YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles Featured topic drive:one left) 04:21, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, undue weight. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. FAQ? YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles Featured topic drive:one left) 23:21, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Delist, some unsourced bits. WP:LEAD is too short. Cirt (talk) 23:27, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

This kind of delist, the minute an article moves to FARC and when editors have been working on the article, concern me. What "unsourced bits"? LEAD too short is a not a good enough reason to delist. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:30, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

If there is ongoing work, of course we can wait a bit more. :) Cheers, Cirt (talk) 01:04, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with SandyGeorgia that unless specific problems are pointed out (as opposed to generalities), the above comment by Cirt to delist should be disregarded for now. Pentawing^Talk 05:48, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Keep; Comments - I don't think that this article is ready to be kept as a FA as it is. My concerns include:
- Per YellowMonkey in the FAR section, the history section needs some work. There are almost two full paragraphs devoted to two decades (the 1960s and 70s), while there is nothing said about the time period between 1851 and the 1960s. This appears to me as undue weight. Also, the last paragraph is out of chronological order. This is one of my major concerns.
  - Fixed - Though some might appear out of chronological order (e.g. the passage concerning railroads), as I have tried to group similar topics together. Pentawing^Talk 05:48, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
- ~~There are a couple of citation needed tags that need to be fixed~~
  - Fixed Pentawing^Talk 05:48, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
- The lead needs expansion. For an article of this length three to four paragraphs would be appropriate. Also, generally, leads don't have references because the information is referenced in the body. However, this is an author preference thing.
  - Fixed - As for the references, I have seen the same thing in other featured articles. Pentawing^Talk 05:48, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
- Also, a check needs to be done to make sure that the lead matches the information and nuances presented in the article. For example, in the lead it presents the idea that the city was named after the founders' spouses and the local trees as a fact, while in the history section this is presented as one of several theories. Also, the lead should not include information not presented in the body. For example, the fact that the University of Michigan moved to Ann Arbor from Detroit.
  - Fixed Pentawing^Talk 05:48, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
- The prose needs a thorough check. Statements such as "On the other hand," are unencyclopedic, while statements such as "a charismatic inter-denominational movement" could be regarded as POV, and are definitely a bit bombastic. Also, why is information such as the nicknames of the local Arboretum "(and known locally as "The Arboretum" or simply "The Arb")" relevant in a summary article about the entire city?
  - Fixed (hopefully) - I should add that I linked charismatic to denote that the term is used in the religious, as opposed to secular, sense. Pentawing^Talk 05:48, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
- "High technology" should be linked in the lead. Also, throughout the article, it jumps back and forth between high tech and high-tech (with and without the dash). Please make consistent.
  - Fixed Pentawing^Talk 05:42, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
- In the Climate section, the table is correct per the Weatherbase reference, but if you look at the Yahoo reference (number 34), it gives different averages. This should be addressed in some way - or perhaps find a source that is more authoritative than both Yahoo and Weatherbase and cite to that?
  - Fixed Yahoo Weather used exclusively. Pentawing^Talk 05:42, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
- Demographics section, "the city has one of the highest foreign-born population percentages in the state sitting at 16.6%." "sitting at" is not really encyclopedic, plus the statement reads awkwardly overall.
  - Fixed Pentawing^Talk 05:42, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
- In the second paragraph of the Economy section, you start out with the present, then jump to a company in the 1980s, then jump back to the present. This needs to be fixed, as the bit about the 1980s company feels oddly placed - sort of dropped into the middle of a discussion about the economy today - over 20 years later.
  - Fixed Don't know exactly if the fix is what you expect, though from what I know Ann Arbor Terminals was a major high tech company in Ann Arbor. Pentawing^Talk 05:42, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
- Economy section, "Borders Books, originally a two-room shop upstairs above 211 South State, was opened in 1969 with a stock of used books by brothers Tom and Louis Borders." I would reword this to "Borders Books, started in Ann Arbor, was opened by brothers Tom and Louis Borders in 1969 with a stock of used books." This removed unnecessarily specific information (it's exact location) and makes it slightly more clear (the original sounds like the books were written by the Borders brothers, rather than the shop being opened by them).
  - Fixed Pentawing^Talk 05:42, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
- Culture section, "and natural history and sciences (see Museums at the University of Michigan)". This see also-type link feels awkward and out of place. Perhaps it would be better in a see also template at the beginning of the section, or perhaps linked through the word "museums" earlier in the sentence.
  - Fixed Pentawing^Talk 05:42, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
- Culture section, "in 2008 a new branch building replaced the branch located in Plymouth Mall. This new branch is called the Traverwood Branch, and opened on June 30, 2008." The double mention of 2008 is repetitive, and I'm not really sure that you need to go into this much detail with regards to the library in general.
  - Fixed Pentawing^Talk 05:42, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
- Media section. The first sentence is a run-on, which should be split into at least two sentences.
  - Fixed Pentawing^Talk 05:42, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
- Media section. You say "Other established publications in the city" and then you say "and Ann Arbor Paper, a free monthly that has ceased production." A paper that has ceased publication is by definition not established...
  - Fixed Pentawing^Talk 05:42, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
- Higher education section, "Opened near northeastern Ann Arbor". Why "near"?
  - Fixed Pentawing^Talk 05:42, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
- Primary and secondary schools, "which enrolls 16,974 students (2005–2006 September head count)" Has there been an updated count in the past three years? Also, should this subsection be renamed "primary and secondary education" to fit with the other section/subsection headings?
  - Fixed Pentawing^Talk 05:42, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
- Publication dates of websites need to be standardized. Currently, some of them are YYYY-MM-DD, while others are Month Day, Year.
  - Fixed Using the YYYY-MM-DD format. Pentawing^Talk 05:42, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
Once these concerns are taken care of, I will conduct a full prose review. The article is in much better shape than it was when first brought here to FAR, but still needs some work before it is of FA status again. Dana boomer (talk) 01:23, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
- Thank you for fixing my initial comments so quickly. I have struck the finished comments, but added a few more that I found on a more thorough reading of the article.
  - All of my concerns with this article have been resolved, and I have changed my input to "Keep". Dana boomer (talk) 18:26, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
Comment (voting towards Keep) - I have addressed the issues concerning the "citation needed" tags and access dates on web-based citations. The lead has now been expanded to three paragraphs and more information of the city during the 1800s to 1900s have been added (though I might add that there does not appear to be much information that, in my mind, sticks out. Much of Ann Arbor's reputation occurred during the 1960s and 1970s, and hence the perceived weight during that time period). I have addressed other problems that have been brought up by Dana Boomer (see above for each point that is addressed). Pentawing^Talk 05:48, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Soviet invasion of Poland

[edit] Review commentary

Notified: Qp10qp, Piotrus, WP Poland, WP Mil Hist, WP Soviet Union, WP Russia

~~I noticed that a number of individuals involved in the current Eastern European mailing list Arbcom were also involved in the of the FAC for Soviet invasion of Poland.~~

1. (a) Lots of passive text, additive terms (“also”) and word to avoid (“many”, “some”, “several”, “despite”. “actually”, …). There is ~~an overuse of blockquote text~~, no shortage of double wiki-linking and a generally improper use of brackets. and text placed in quotes for emphasis not quotation. A heavy copy-edit is needed.

I did a heavy copy edit to address all this. Most of it survived the back and forth of reversions. As far as the block quotes go, some superfluous ones had been added on after the FAC and I removed them, but please restore the Subtelny block quote that you have removed. That is a crucial quote because it expresses the Belarusian and Ukrainian experience, which is needed in the article. I've no idea if you have a point of view yourself, but in order for the POV to be balanced that block quote must remain. By the way, block quotes are within policy and are not removable for the purposes of a Featured Article Review just because they are block quotes. qp10qp (talk) 23:24, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Copy-editing is still needed. --Labattblueboy (talk) 05:39, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

1. (b) There is little to no information on the opposing forces and their composition. Expansion of the ~~Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact~~ and German Invasion of Poland would be helpful.--Labattblueboy (talk) 05:39, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

~~1. (d) POV issues.~~

~~Ex: ”despite their change of overlord, Ukrainian nationalists continued to aim for an independent, undivided Ukrainian state”~~

How is that POV? It's a statement of fact. qp10qp (talk) 23:28, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

2. (a) Lead in need of general copy-edit.

Done. And shortened. qp10qp (talk) 23:30, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

I believe I have addressed all the grammatical issues in the lead. Please see if my edits have been detrimental to the content.

There are still citation issues in the lead.

~~Note 6 has a couple of citation tags~~. There are a number of places where citations could be added and I will see about trying to do that myself.
Dom wydawniczy Wojska Polskiego citation needs to have pages numbers added, placed into template and moved to bibliography.
Polish and Russian language resources require similar work. I can't do it myself because I don't speak the languages --Labattblueboy (talk) 17:34, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

2. (b) The Aftermath section is disproportionately long, compared to the remainder of the article.

It's in three sections, though, isn't it? I can't see a problem. The aftermath of the invasion is an important aspect of it. qp10qp (talk)

2. (c) Citations structure is inconsistent. Citation of a number of primary documents (WP:PSTS). Likewise, I question whether the employment of a number of non-English sources is appropriate or necessary given there appears to be no shortage of English sources.

Again, I think you are overlooking how many of the non-English sources are doubled up with English sources. Sometimes there is another reference tag alongside. But sources may overlap in the sense that what references one sentence may also reference some that follow or went before in the passage, or even a whole paragraph. For example, the cite to Sanford on the Fourth Partition of Poland is tagged to that term but applies to the rest of the information about it. So the information does not depend on the Polish source given at the end of the sentence before. There is no stylish way to umbilically reference every word of an article. As for foreign language sources, they should not be favoured over English language ones but they are permissible, and most of the sources for the article are in English. I think if you read the English language sources cited you will find little that they do not cover. qp10qp (talk) 23:51, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

3. ~~Too many images and most contain descriptions that are far too long. No alt text. Sections are led with left justified images.~~

Removed some images due to bunching. I'm not sure if the choice of images is what the principle editors are looking for, so please review. Basic alt text added. No more left justification section starts.--Labattblueboy (talk) 17:54, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Labattblueboy (talk) 15:31, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

A number of other issues may be valid, but the POV issue is being over-considered. The example given is completely accurate; we should not censor or tone down historical fact. The only change needed in the example given might be to 'despite the change of regime' or 'government'. Buckshot06(prof) 15:59, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I removed some WTA and the overlord issue; I am not a native speaker (and the text went through several native speakers copyedits prior to becoming FA). More of course are always welcome.

What's wrong with lead?

I count three uses of (reliable) primary sources; PSTS allows the use of primary sources (it only discourages them). I think they are used correctly here; although if they can be improved by adding secondary sources to them that of course should be done. Same holds for non-English sources: they are acceptable, but if somebody can improve them by adding English sources, please do. Do note that some facts, sometimes, are simply not mentioned in English sources and one has to reply on non-English historiography or other scholarly literature.

Aftermath is about as long as the military campaign section and slightly longer than background. The invasion had very important consequences; I don't see the lenght of the aftermath as an issue.

I never could figure out the FA image rules. I hope somebody can take few minutes and fix the image issues. I don't recall a rule about caption's lenght, though...?

PS. What does the arbcom case has to do with that article? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:14, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Here are some of the refs. of concern:

(Russian) Pravda, 30 November 1939.
(Polish) Represje 1939-41 Aresztowani na Kresach Wschodnich (Repressions 1939–41. Arrested on the Eastern Borderlands.) Ośrodek Karta. Retrieved 15 November 2006.
(Polish) Śledztwo w sprawie zabójstwa w dniu 22 września 1939 r. w okolicach miejscowości Sopoćkinie generała brygady Wojska Polskiego Józefa Olszyny-Wilczyńskiego i jego adiutanta kapitana Mieczysława Strzemskiego przez żołnierzy b. Związku Radzieckiego. (S 6/02/Zk) - ~~dead link~~ reliable?
(Polish) Szack. Encyklopedia Interia. Retrieved 28 November 2006.
(Russian) Отчёт Украинского и Белорусского фронтов Красной Армии Мельтюхов, с. 367. Retrieved 17 July 2007 - dead link
(Polish) Artur Leinwand (1991). "Obrona Lwowa we wrześniu 1939 roku". Instytut Lwowski. http://www.lwow.com.pl/rocznik/obrona39.html. Retrieved 16 July 2007. - self published
(Polish) obozy jenieckie żołnierzy polskich (Prison camps for Polish soldiers). Encyklopedia PWN. Retrieved 28 November 2006.
(Polish) Edukacja Humanistyczna w wojsku. 1/2005. Dom wydawniczy Wojska Polskiego. (Humanist Education in the Army.) 1/2005. Publishing House of the Polish Army). Retrieved 28 November 2006. - dead link

The online encyclopedia entries (ex: Encyklopedia Interia), are short on substance. I'm not sure 3 line entries are appropriate as sources, but that's just my view.--Labattblueboy (talk) 05:33, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Can you number these so it's easy to refer to them? (Quickly, what's wrong with Encyclopedia PWN?)radek (talk) 05:39, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Why a foreign language ref and not an english one? Both the Olszyna-Wilczyński Józef Konstanty and obozy jenieckie żołnierzy polskich PWN refs are rather slim on material but are used in broader form citations.--Labattblueboy (talk) 07:23, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Also, the Olszyna source is not a dead link [48].radek (talk) 05:52, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Furthermore the Leinwald source does not appear to be self-published.radek (talk) 05:52, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

The material appears to be on a personal website.--Labattblueboy (talk) 07:23, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

I shortened some of the captions and removed the most obvious double wiki links. The rest of the wiki links that may appear as "doubles" are not - for example there is a difference between Ukraine, Western Ukraine, Ukrainian SSR and Ukrainians. So having each of these linked separately to different articles is not an instance of double wikilinks.

Can you point to any other POV problems? Gave it a quick read over and don't see any.

Also, I re read the lead couple of times and did a slight copy edit. I don't see what else is wrong with it.

Last FAC review was two years ago - before any ArbComs case and completely unrelated to them.radek (talk) 16:18, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

On words to avoid:

"Despite" occurs once in the article where I believe it is used correctly: Despite a tactical Polish victory on 28 September at the Battle of Szack, the outcome of the larger conflict was never in doubt

"Several" is not one of the words to avoid [49]

"Actually" doesn't appear in the article

"Some" is not one of the words to avoid, and in fact, the guideline itself uses "some" quite frequently [50]

Ditto for "many".radek (talk) 16:26, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Also, I've looked through the FAC criteria and image policy and I see nothing about how many images are "too many". In fact, compared to some other FAs this article does not appear to have that many images at all.radek (talk) 17:03, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

*2. (a) Lead in need of general copy-edit. I've given it a copy edit and removed material that unduly elaborated on the basic gist of it. It's now an appropriate length again, I think. qp10qp (talk) 19:27, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I've been addressing most of the concerns this evening, which has taken ages, but I've been flatly reverted. Sigh. Giving up for the moment. qp10qp (talk) 21:08, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Welcome to the wonderful world of attempting to edit any article which in any way covers Polish history!Varsovian (talk) 21:19, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Qp10qp I have reverted you because unfortunately you have also changed the meaning of some parts article. Such changes should be discussed first. Loosmark (talk) 21:28, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Some of the meanings need changing to remove accumulations of POV since the FAC. That's part of the point of the exercise. In the process of reverting you have also restored all the unwieldiness, re-lengthened, re-added block quotes, restored bad grammar and wordiness, and reinstated POV. For example you have changed back the section title "Byelorussia and Ukraine" to "Territories of Second Polish Republic annexed by Soviet Union", which is both more POV and bad English. qp10qp (talk) 21:34, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Image review
- File:Jeńcy1.jpg doesn't have a source.

- - I've left a question at uploader's talk page in Commons. Please note that the image specifies that the author is anonymous. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 23:12, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

- Other images OK. DrKiernan (talk) 08:32, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

References

The reference relating to Dom wydawniczy Wojska Polskiege need to be improved. There are multiple sections in the pdf report composed by different authors. The page numbers and relevant author of each reference should be inputted rather than only referencing the document as a whole. I can't do it myself because I do not speak Polish--Labattblueboy (talk) 19:45, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
I have some concern with the number of times the Sanford reference is used. The spread of pp. 20-24 is used over 20 times, I suspect that greater focus is possible here.--Labattblueboy (talk) 19:45, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean by "greater focus"? Sanford is the best source. qp10qp (talk) 22:51, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

I have a hard time believing that each citation covers the 20-24 page spread. If some only utilize for instance 21 than that should be the page cited. --Labattblueboy (talk) 22:56, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid I disagree, because these pages need to be read as a whole. I'm not aware of a policy that says a range of four pages is too large. The point of citations is for readers to check information: to do so in context they need to read more than one page, and I suspect this is what people do, to save them repeatedly checking the same reference as they read through an article. By the way, on eight occasions that citation is reinforced by another one from a different source.qp10qp (talk) 23:01, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Once again still have a hard time believing that the spread is necessary for context on 20 citations. I'll leave it at that.--Labattblueboy (talk) 23:21, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

As it stands, Wikipedia already requires more minute referencing of information than in academia. To expect us to go even further and break up a four-page range into separate single page citations strikes me as actually unhelpful. The way academics check a source is to go to the page number and read several pages or more around it to get the whole picture. This actually saves time, because they don't have to then look everything up anew as they come to re-uses of the same source. The distribution of references around the article, most of which I decided myself when helping prepare the article for its FAC, is, I hope, reasonably sophisticated. Although the article is densely referenced, and everything is sourced, there's no attempt to place tags every few words in the article out of pedantry. It's assumed that when reading a source a reader will see what it covers in a whole passage. Single-page citation is of course used for specific figures, quotations, terms, etc. qp10qp (talk) 00:39, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

While I believe that referencing a single page is better than five, I think page ranges are perfectly acceptable - both in academia and on Wikipedia. Further refinements are welcome, but I think they are above and beyond even FA requirements. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 23:11, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I take no issue with concepts but figures are another story, They should be page specific. If someone is willing to send me a pdf scan of the four pages I am even willing to do it myself, but it needs to be done--Labattblueboy (talk) 12:21, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

The Roberts (1992) references need specific pages numbers. --Labattblueboy (talk) 20:17, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

*The Orlik-Rückemann footnotes have no relating bibliography equivalent.--Labattblueboy (talk) 22:46, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Restored. qp10qp (talk)

* Ryziński reference (Obrona Lwowa w roku 1939) is missing publisher and location information. --Labattblueboy (talk) 00:29, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Publisher is Instytut Lwowski, location is Warszawa. Don't know if this has already been added.radek (talk) 23:27, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

thank you for that. --Labattblueboy (talk) 12:15, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

~~There is no bibliography entry for Norman Davies, Europe: A History.--Labattblueboy (talk) 00:35, 5 November 2009 (UTC)~~

It was there. I've just moved it down one. qp10qp (talk) 02:08, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

missed it my bad. --Labattblueboy (talk) 03:06, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Labattblueboy, you are starting to add more things. You've put a load of citation requests on the article today. Could you give some idea when you are going to stop, because it's dispiriting to address your concerns, have no acknowlegement of it, only to find a whole lot more (hours) of work requested. qp10qp (talk) 02:08, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

FA criteria concerns are prose, refernencing, undue weight, POV. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA requiring "high-quality" sources YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles Featured topic drive:one left) 16:45, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Also noticed that -izing/ed -ising/ed are both used. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles Featured topic drive:one left) 16:45, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Has anyone noticed the empty section? YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles Featured topic drive:one left) 18:16, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Delist due to referencing and POV sources, needs a great deal of work even after all that it's undergone. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 18:45, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

This is not a valid delist. Please state what your specific referencing concerns are and what you consider POV sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:38, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd also like to point out that qp10qp addressed a lot of issues soon after this FAR was listed. For the record, while I accept there may be a small part of the article that got POVed due to some POV pushing since FAing I've missed (and if this is the case, please be specific which part is it), I think the article uses very good sources (again, thanks to some very careful proofreading and verifying by qp10qp back when). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 00:23, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

qp10qp made progress but there is still a lot left to do, and a large number of outstanding issues. I have attempted to do some of the work myself, but I am unable to do any of the foreign language sourcing and verification because I do not speak Russian, German or Polish. The level of support to return the article to FA doesn't seem to be there.--Labattblueboy (talk) 05:14, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Please specify what work remains. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:20, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

1(a) Lots of work remaining in a a number of sections, including WTA, passive text and other general grammar issues. 1(b) There is no information regarding the opposing troops. Not their manpower and equipment dispositions, defensive/offensive plans. The military campaign section appears to be a bit short in my view. 1(c) ~~Outstanding citation tags~~, lots of primary sources, foreign language citation issues ~~(ex: citations for Dom wydawniczy Wojska Polskiego contain no page numbers~~), Sanford citation for p. 20-24, is overused and could be more specific, particularly regarding figures. 3 alt text not present on all images, Jeńcy1.jpg sourcing remains unresolved. --Labattblueboy (talk) 06:22, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I removed unreferenced text. I don't see "lots of primary sources"; Dom Wydawniczy doesn't list pages because it's a pdf article, and we don't list article's pages (AFAIK). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:41, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Dom Wydawniczy is a 156 page report that has been converted into a pdf. IMO each citation requires page #s, how else does one verify the sourcing? ~~I also noticed the Roberts citations require page #s~~. The 3 Avalon project citations, the Telegram: His Majesty's Ambassador in Berlin - Dept of State 8/25/39, the Soviet Note of April 25, 1943, È.Â. Ñòàëèí 30 íîÿáðÿ 1939 ãîäà Òîì 14, ñòð. 343-345, Report On The Foreign Policy Of The Government are all primary - I think that qualifies as numerous.--Labattblueboy (talk) 14:00, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Wow, I forgot how large that one was. I went over it and added page numbers for it, and improved related ref info. I think that 4 or 5 primary sources in about 100 are fine. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 18:20, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Extreme Polish nationalist POV being put forward in this article

I oppose to the nomination of this article as featured, because this article is written comletely from Polish nationalist POV.

1) Nowhere in this article background is given for the occupation of Western Belarus by Poland in 1921. In 1921 according to Riga treaty made between (sic!!!!) Poland and Soviet Russia, without Belarus participating, Poland annexed the territory of Western Belarus "in compensation" for Soviet Polish War.
2) Nowhere in this article information is given about Polonization, colonization of native Belarusian population by Poland. Namely about eradication of Belarusian language, about closure of Belarusian schools, newspapers, about arrests of Belarusian senators in Polish Sejm, about establishment of concentration camps in Belarus by Poles, about Jewish pogroms by Poles in Belarus, about falsifications of population census and denial of ciizenship to non-Poles.
3) I haven't found in this article any information about which side (Polish, Soviet) was supported by local population.
4) Belarusian POV, as well as Lithuanian and Ukrainian POV's would be reunification of their territories with what was occupied by Poland in 1921.
5) In background no information is given about prior participation of Poland together with Nazi Germany in occupation of Czechoslovakia and making of non-agreession agreement with Germany, proposing help to Nazi in war with Russia, and not making non-agression agreement with Soviet Union.

Suggestions: This nomination should be notified to Ukrinian, Lithuanian, Belarusian, Russian noticeboards for wide discussion. Vlad fedorov (talk) 10:51, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

IMO, none of this is applicable. It might be for the article on the Polish–Soviet War, but not in this case. To be honest, I think the article provides a rather good backgrounder on the subject, but as I said that's just my opinion. --Labattblueboy (talk) 14:00, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Delist (but hold off any action until at least 2009-12-25 as editorial response promised): Quality of research (Primaries, Tertiaries, Unverifiable material due to lack of essential bibliographic data, Citation from inappropriately low quality sources when HQRS are available and listed in the references). Some awkward language. Fifelfoo (talk) 04:45, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Could you be specific? What is unverifiable? What sources are low quality? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 04:56, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Tertiary:

^ a b c "Kampania wrześniowa 1939 [September Campaign 1939]" (in Polish). PWN Encyklopedia. Retrieved 16 July 2007.
Plus title capitalisation: ^ "bozy jenieckie żołnierzy polskich [Prison camps for Polish soldiers]" (in Polish). Encyklopedia PWN. Retrieved 28 November 2006.
^ a b "Szack". Encyklopedia Interia. Retrieved 28 November 2006.
Osmańczyk, Edmund Jan (2003). Mango, Anthony. ed. Encyclopedia of the United Nations and international agreements. 1 (3rd ed.). New York: Routledge. ISBN 0415939216.

I don't consider the usage of tertiary sources a major issue; at least compared to others; same goes for primary sources, per my comments above. That said, if we could eventually replace them, I am all for it. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Primary:

^ "The German Ambassador in the Soviet Union, (Schulenburg) to the German Foreign Office No. 317". Avalon project. Lillian Goldman Law Library. Retrieved 2009-06-11.
^ "The German Ambassador in the Soviet Union, (Schulenburg) to the German Foreign Office No. 371". Avalon project. Lillian Goldman Law Library. Retrieved 2009-06-11.
^ "The German Ambassador in the Soviet Union, (Schulenburg) to the German Foreign Office No. 372". Avalon project. Lillian Goldman Law Library. Retrieved 2009-06-11.
^ "Telegram: His Majesty's Ambassador in Berlin - Dept of State 8/25/39". Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. Retrieved 2009-06-11.
^ "Soviet Note of April 25, 1943". 25 April 1943. Retrieved 19 December 2005.
^ Kaczmarski, Jacek. "Ballada wrześniowa [September's tale]" (in Polish). Retrieved 2006-11-15.
Degras, Jane Tabrisky (1953). Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy. Volume I: 1917–1941. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Henderson (1939). Documents concerning German-Polish relations and the outbreak of hostilities between Great Britain and Germany on September 3, 1939. Great Britain Foreign Office.
House, Edward; Seymour, Charles (1921). What Really Happened at Paris. Scribner.
Osmańczyk, Edmund Jan (2003). Mango, Anthony. ed. Encyclopedia of the United Nations and international agreements. 1 (3rd ed.). New York: Routledge. ISBN 0415939216.

Bad Name Formatting, title not Ital, no publisher, no publication location: ^ M.I.Mel'tyuhov. Stalin's lost chance. The Soviet Union and the struggle for Europe 1939–1941, p.132. Мельтюхов М.И. Упущенный шанс Сталина. Советский Союз и борьба за Европу: 1939–1941 (Документы, факты, суждения). — М.: Вече, 2000.

Removed, wasn't needed anyway. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Inconsistent translation of non-English titles. Some translated, others given without translation.

No place given in text (ie: page number or section)

^ Kushner

Page number added. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

So poorly cited that text is unverifiable, no place given in text (ie: page number or section)

^ a b c d "The Katyn Controversy: Stalin's Killing Field work=Studies in Intelligence". Winter 1999–2000. Retrieved 16 July 2007.

Journal; page numbers not needed. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

^ "Rozstrzelany Szpital [Executed Hospital]" (in polish) (pdf). Tygodnik Zamojski. 15 September 2004. Retrieved 28 November 2006.

Newspaper article; page numbers not needed. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Goldstein. Missing.

Could you leave a note about this to User:Qp10qp? I am pretty sure he was the one that added this ref. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Stanley. Missing.

As above. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Inappropriate, not HQRS:

^ Artur Leinwand (1991). "Obrona Lwowa we wrześniu 1939 roku". Instytut Lwowski. Retrieved 16 July 2007.

Why not HQRS? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

"Represje 1939-41 Aresztowani na Kresach Wschodnich" (in Polish). Ośrodek Karta. Retrieved 15 November 2006.

Why not HQRS? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Dunnigan, James F. (2004). The World War II Bookshelf: Fifty Must-Read Books. New York: Citadel Press. ISBN 0806526092.

Double ref, and the author seems actually notable: [51]. Yes, the title is eyebrow raising, but I wouldn't consider replacing this work a high priority (it is cited only once). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

In this context a low grade work: Kenéz, Peter (2006). A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End (2nd ed. ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-052186437-4.

Why? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Kitchen, Martin (1990). A World in Flames: A Short History of the Second World War. Longman. ISBN 0582034086.

Why? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Non academic publisher: Levin, Dov (1995). The lesser of two evils: Eastern European Jewry under Soviet rule, 1939-1941. Jewish Publication Society. ISBN 9780827605183.

Does it make it non reliable? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Illustrated history??? Seriously??? Taylor, A. J. P. (1975). The Second World War: An Illustrated History. London: Putnam. ISBN 0399114122.

But by AJP Taylor. And presumably it has more than just pictures :) --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Why are generalist histories being relied upon? Weinberg, Gerhard (1994). A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521443172.

Why not? If a fact is in them... --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Inappropriate: Newspapers are not sufficiently high quality for history:

^ "Polish experts lower nation's WWII death toll". AFP/Expatica. 30 July 2009. Retrieved 4 November 2009.

Well, it is a report on new historical research. Personally, I find Wikipedia's being more up to data on such issues then most academic sources quite positive. Anyway, the source given is reliable (Institute of National Rememberance, and its president Janusz Kurtyka), but I cannot at this point find an official press release or a more academic statement for this (a lot of Polish news articles quoting him...). --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Publication locations given in some but not all

Inappropriate: Outside of Specialty => Not HQRS

Gelven, Michael (1994). War and Existence: A Philosophical Inquiry. Pennsylvania: Penn State University Press. ISBN 0271010541.

Why? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Dubious, potential exile publication, L. Hill as publisher?

Gronowicz, Antoni (1976). Polish Profiles: The Land, the People, and Their History. Westport, CT: L. Hill. ISBN 0882080601.

Not sure about the publisher, but it is cited by at least few dozen printed sources.--_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Capitalisation of title?

Kutrzeba, S (1950). "The Struggle for the Frontiers, 1919-1923". in Reddaway, William Fiddian. The Cambridge history of Poland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 512–543.

?? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Series title incorrectly given in work title:

Mendelsohn (2009). Jews and the Sporting Life: Studies in Contemporary Jewry XXIII. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195382914.

?? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Out of your style for a chapter in a work?

Orlik-Rückemann, Wilhelm (1985). Jerzewski, Leopold. ed (in Polish). Kampania wrześniowa na Polesiu i Wołyniu: 17.IX.1939–1.X.1939. Warsaw: Głos.

Is this one actually from the Instytut press, or is it, again, a departmental or individual publication (ala the website above?)

Not sure what you asking; but the source is cited: [52] by others. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Ryziński, Kazimierz; Dalecki, Ryszard (1990) (in Polish). Obrona Lwowa w roku 1939. Warszawa: Instytut Lwowski. ISBN 9788303033567.

What about this one? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Some valid points; some I disagree with. I'll try to address them over the coming week or two. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 05:28, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I replied in more detail now. I may not have time to reply more for a few days; if I can I will try to catch up next week. Please feel encouraged to report those issues to WP:PWNB; others may be able to help. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 06:44, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Darjeeling

[edit] Review commentary

Notified: Dwaipayanc, WikiProject India

I am nominating this featured article for review because it has multiple issues. There is a severe lack of sourcing for a start. I question the reliability of sources such as Darjnet and Zubin. The article is similar in length to Gangtok but much worse in standard. I'm sure there are a few cases of bad prose too. Also see the discussion that led to this FAR. Spiderone 08:19, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Alt text done; thanks. ~~Please add alt text to images; see WP:ALT.~~ Eubulides (talk) 08:52, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

done SBC-YPR (talk) 17:23, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for adding all that alt text. What you've added is ~~almost all~~ good. However, the alt text for File:India West Bengal locator map.svg is "Map of India showing location of West Bengal", which isn't helpful to the typical reader who may know where India is but not where West Bengal is; can you please improve that? (Please see WP:ALT#Maps for guidance.) Also, ~~three~~ one of the files still lack alt text: ~~File:Darjeeling.jpg~~, File:West Bengal locator map.svg, ~~File:Darjeeling.ogg~~; can you please fix that? Thanks. Eubulides (talk) 00:38, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I've added alt text for File:Darjeeling.jpg. File:Darjeeling.ogg is an audio file and does not require alt text. As to the other two, they are not directly linked from the infobox, and I'm still not very clear as to how to write alt text for a locator map. Could you please help out? Regards, SBC-YPR (talk) 17:55, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for doing that. The alt text for File:Darjeeling.ogg turns out to be a template issue; I've suggested a fix at Template talk:Audio #Minor accessibility improvement so we needn't worry about it here. ~~To specify alt text for those two maps, please use the |base_map_alt= and |inset_map_alt= parameters of {{Infobox Indian jurisdiction}}; I just now updated that template and its documentation.~~ Eubulides (talk) 19:36, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

done All images now possess alt text. Regards, SBC-YPR (talk) 16:30, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for doing all that. Eubulides (talk) 18:40, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I'll basically copy my post from the talk page: What makes these sources reliable? Most of them look rather questionable: no author credits, no proof of reputability, et cetera.

done. All the above references have been either replaced with more reliable ones or deleted altogether. Regards, SBC-YPR (talk) 17:00, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Also:

Unsourced sentences in the "Economy," "Culture" and "Demographics" subesections (most which I slapped with {{fact}} tags).
Unqualified "and so on" in the economy section. I think that resorting to "and so on" is sloppy writing. It would be better to say "including" or "such as."
"Media" section is entirely unsourced.
"Culture" section has an undue weight on foods, mostly unsourced.
Plenty more I'm sure I missed.

Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 19:19, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Also, I have either sourced or deleted most of the unsourced sentences. The prose has been copyedited and upgraded in many places. As regards media, I could find no references - must the entire section be done away with? Regards, SBC-YPR (talk) 17:00, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Good work all around. If you can't source the media section, I would say delete it. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 04:48, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

FA criteria concerns are sourcing. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles Featured topic drive:one left) 04:11, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I moved it down because many of the paragraphs have one source and they only account for the end of the para. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles Featured topic drive:one left) 04:11, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Delist, concerns about referencing standards. Cirt (talk) 08:21, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Delist Even with the removal of the unreferenced section, there are still noticeable gaps in the references. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 19:31, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Delist - The prose is mostly good but sections such as "climate", "utility services" and "culture" are poorly sourced. Spiderone 19:34, 25 November 2009 (UTC) The sourcing is better now. Spiderone 08:11, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Note: someone has been working on this article, yet we have three immediate and vague delists which don't specify one singlething about what text is lacking sources or what are consider poor sources. This is poor use of FAR, and this trend should stop. The FARC period lasts at least two weeks, and as long as editors are working on the article, reviewers who enter an early Delist should be prepared to say why, so work can continue, and should be prepared to strike the delist if issues are addressed. I don't see valid reasoning in either of the three delists above. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:41, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Efforts have been made to address the above concerns. Could the reviewers please point out any specific issues that remain to be addressed? Regards, SBC-YPR (talk) 08:08, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
At a second look, there doesn't seem to be anything glaring now. Retracted. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 18:34, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Stricken. Cirt (talk) 02:34, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Lots of fixin' needed still; there are numerous MoS errors and faulty citations; I left sample edits. WP:ITALICS are only used on journals, periodicals and newspapers, not websites. Author formatting is inconsistent. Page numbers and publishers are missing and some info is outdated (I tagged one sample). In one section I read, I found a grammatical error. I fixed several WP:DASHes, but the rest should be checked. There is WP:OVERLINKing. There were WP:ACCESS and WP:MOS#Images breaches. Conversions are missing on some numbers. That's my first pass; I'll check back after more work is done. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:12, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Done, mostly. Thanks for the sample edits - based on them, further corrections have been made, and all citations are now uniformly formatted. Outdated information has been brought up to date. Dashes, access breaches, conversions and overlinking have largely been addressed. Please comment if any further changes have to be made. Regards, SBC-YPR (talk) 15:24, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Why is there a hanging citation at the end of the "Notes" section? Did you check the rest of the text for outdated info (I haven't read the full article)? There are still missing page nos (Lee 1971) and publishers (^ "Constitution of Gorkha Janmukti Morcha". http://www.gorkhajanmuktimorcha.org/constitution.php. Retrieved 2009-05-18.) Newspapers that are available in hard print should be in WP:ITALICS. Website should not be in italics, and accessdates are missing (^ "Darjeeling Toy Train". Theme India: Train Tourism in India. IndiaLine. http://www.indialine.com/travel/trains/darjeeling-toy-train.html.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:05, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

References formatted, hanging citation and book without page number moved to Further Reading section. Regards, SBC-YPR (talk) 18:23, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

What is the Falling Rain Map citing, and why isn't it attached to that text as a footnote? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:47, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

The Falling Rain Map didn't specifically cite anything, but was merely a general reference for the climate of Darjeeling. That's why it wasn't tagged with a footnote. Another editor has since removed the reference, and I'm not sure as to whether to restore it. Regards, SBC-YPR (talk) 14:17, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Ah, in that case then, it should have been listed as "Further reading" or an "External link", but I'm not sure it's needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:20, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

┌─────────────────────┘
Thanks for the clarification. In that case, would it be a good idea to restore it, out of abundant caution? This would involve reverting a previous edit. Also, are there any other outstanding issues with the article that need resolving? Regards, SBC-YPR (talk) 14:27, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Featured articles are supposed to be comprehensive, meaning that theoretically, that link shouldn't be needed-- anything useful in the link should already be covered in the article. I will look at the article in more detail as soon as I have time. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:36, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Music of Minnesota

[edit] Review commentary

Notified: Listed Wikiprojects. Author long inactive.

Article has large passages that are compeltely unsourced. Many of the sources used, such as Myspace, and other ad hoc sites are far from RS. There is an undue weight on very modern music. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (help the Invincibles Featured topic drive) 02:35, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Research Quality related issues

http://204.169.52.42/history/ is not a secondary source published by a RS. Its tertiary linkspam.

SELF: "History of the Minnesota Opera". Minnesota Opera. Retrieved February 9 2006.

Unsigned Tertiary: Levy, Mark; Carl Rahkonen and Ain Haas. "Scandinavian and Baltic Music". Garland Encyclopedia of World Music, Volume Two. New York and London: Garland Publishin

Dead: "History". First Avenue. Retrieved January 5 2006.

Dead: "Pulse of the Twin Cities". Pulse of the Twin Cities. Retrieved February 9 2006.

Deliberately unreliable publisher, take the work to RS/N: Blush, Steven (2001). American Hardcore: A Tribal History. Feral House. ISBN 0-92291-571-7

Primary/SELF: "School of Music". University of Minnesota. Retrieved January 30 2006.

SELF: "About the Minnesota Orchestra". Minnesota Orchestra. Retrieved February 8 2006.

Citation Quality related issues

Grossly and completely unacceptable footnotes. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:34, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Please add alt text to images; see WP:ALT. Eubulides (talk) 22:56, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
Exactly what Fifelfoo said. The sourcing is terrible, and there are red links out the yin-yang, most often referencing crap that shouldn't even be there. Furthermore, can someone take a whack at the linkspam at the bottom? This practically needs to be gutted and rebuilt. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 01:37, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I have gone and tagged everything I saw unfit. I snipped "As well, prominent serious composers resident in the state include Libby Larsen, Stephen Paulus, and Timothy Mahr" from the intro because they're mentioned nowhere else in the article, and cut out a bunch of crud while slapping {{fact}} and other maintenance tags left and right. This is the most tagging I've done in my life. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 03:09, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

This amount of tagging is troubling; it's not necessary to deface an article to achieve the aims of FAR. A good practice is to tag a bit, and then tag more depending on whether someone works on the article. Also, please keep in the mind that the level of scholarship required for an article depends on the topic; in an article of this nature, we might expect less than scholarly sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:39, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I think all those tags are necessary. So many of the red links seem irrelevant, and so much of what should be sourced isn't. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 21:37, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Please see WP:RED and do not remove redlinks if an article meeting notability can be written; red links are how the encyclopedia is built, and are not a bad thing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:06, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I know that. I only removed a couple red links, and tagged the rest with "relevant?" to flag for whether or not they should be linked at all. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 01:37, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Comment. First of all, wow. That has to be one of the most annoying, unnecessary tag-bombings I have ever seen. It would have been much easier to put a note here or on the talk page that stated "Please check the red links for notability", and just put the citation needed tags after groups of sentences that needed referencing, rather than after every single sentence. I do agree that the article is very short on citations, has questionable sources (Ref #14, Anderson Jr., G.R, is a blog), needs referencing formatting, and need work on the prose and deciding whether all of the included information is relevant to the article. The external links section could use a cleaning, and the lead could stand to be expanded. Also, File:Slug-Atmosphere-20030727.jpg (the image of Atmosphere), needs a description. Dana boomer (talk) 19:06, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

There is also redundant tagging; it's not necessary to tag the top of a section as well as individual items within the section-- one or the other. And then the top of the article as well. I do think this is the most defacement I've ever seen of an article at FAR, and don't find it helpful. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:13, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I went back and removed all the {{Off-topic?}} tags and a couple other redundant tags. I think that most of the other maintenance tags should stand. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 01:11, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

When there are a lot of problems, it isn't usually necessary to tag everywhere, as highlighting tools are usually to point out the abnormal, but if unsourced parts are the norm...Still I think in Louisville, Kentucky, one of the topic custodians asked for everything to be tagged to remind him, and about 80% of the article was tagged YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (help the Invincibles Featured topic drive) 03:20, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

This one definitely needs every tag I put on it. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 03:46, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, TPH, for removing a large portion of the tags. Between the ones still left and the comments on this page, interested editors should be able to get a good feel for what needs to be done on the article. If someone pops up during the review phase to work on the article, we can always add more tags after the ones already there have been taken care of. Dana boomer (talk) 21:18, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

The fair-use rationales for the audio clips are far too weak. They bear little relevance to Minnesota, and not enough in my opinion to merit inclusion. These groups are not influenced by Minnesota or strongly connected to Minnesota in the public mind. They draw their influences from other sources. Simiarly, the article as a whole appears to be a miscellaneous collection of Minnesota-related snippets rather than an encyclopedic treatment of a defined topic. DrKiernan (talk) 11:51, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I pointed this out in the {{rewrite}} tag. Indeed it feels far more like an infodump than a true article. It jumps willy nilly from one to another. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 19:23, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, copyright. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles Featured topic drive:one left) 02:30, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Delist, it appears that no one is willing to work on the issues identified, only three edits in the last few days. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:35, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Strong delist per my maintenance tags and the fact that no one is willing to fix up the article. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)}`
Delist, as no work has been completed on the identified issues. Dana boomer (talk) 00:30, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
Delist - Referencing issues throughout. Cirt (talk) 09:13, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Manila Light Rail Transit System

[edit] Review commentary

Notified: Sky Harbor, WikiProject Trains, WikiProject Philippines

I am nominating this featured article for review because it fails several of the current FA criteria, in particular 1(c). The main issues are the lack of referencing throughout most of the article, many dead links, references lacking author in appropriate places, {{fact}} tags, listing of what seems to be trivial incidents such as recent suicide and crimes simply committed on the systems property in a table, a "see also" section with links from the main body, overlinking and sub-professional standard of prose. Arsenikk ^(talk) 23:41, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I concur with most of your assessment,especially the criticism of the incidents section. I also dislike the article's organization, as the over-long history section is mediocre writing at best, features an obnoxiously incorrect use of block quote, and should be after the sections on current operations. I say delist. oknazevad (talk) 00:19, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
Wow, I haven't seen this coming. As far as I can see from the article, there's only a single fact tag (and that's someone challenging the translation of the LRT into Filipino, which is the article's name on the Tagalog Wikipedia). However, I've been meaning to overhaul the article from its old 2006-era FA standards, as well as bring the citations in line with current standards, fix dead links and general attrition. I'll see what I can do to bring this back to a more appropriate FA state. --Sky Harbor ^(talk) 02:49, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Citation quality issues

No authors listed for newspaper articles with probable authors.

Pages, Vol & Issue required: ^ The Metro Manila LRT System—A Historical Perspective, Gary L. Satre, Japan Railway and Transport Review, retrieved May 8, 2006

Mixture of fullstops & non-full stop endings.

Inadequately footnoted history section

Lack of probable scholarly sources. Fifelfoo (talk) 03:36, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

A lot of the newspaper articles do not have listed authors to begin with, and Philippine newspaper archives now do not go back as far as 2003 or 2004 (the oldest, which is the archive of the Manila Bulletin, was partially wiped when the newspaper revamped its website), so I cannot check who the authors are. Work is currently ongoing to begin fixing the citations on the article, as well as to cover details currently not cited.

In addition, the LRT has few scholarly sources to begin with. If there are any, they're not available online, and I'd have to go to the likes of the National Library of the Philippines to get them. --Sky Harbor ^(talk) 03:54, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Please add alt text to images; see WP:ALT. Eubulides (talk) 22:54, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

~~File:Tramvia co history.jpg, File:LRT-1 SJ-A.png, File:MRT-2 Violet.png, File:FlashPass Coupon.png: no fair-use rationales. DrKiernan (talk) 11:28, 10 November 2009 (UTC)~~
- All images in question now have proper fair use rationales. However, I'm inclined to believe that the first image may be relicensed as PD (although I didn't do it, pending any opposing opinions). --Sky Harbor ^(talk) 15:36, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
  - For the first image you've used a logo rationale, but that's inapplicable. DrKiernan (talk) 14:54, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
    - That must have slipped my mind: I originally used logo templates (by accident!) for all images, but replaced them with standard FUR templates. I'll switch that now. --Sky Harbor ^(talk) 17:19, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
      - Done! --Sky Harbor ^(talk) 17:23, 19 November 2009 (UTC)
        
        Thanks for doing those. DrKiernan (talk) 17:34, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Comments, as you may have noticed, the FA criteria are a lot tougher now than three years ago. There are quite a number of substandard issues with this text now, and to be frank, it would fail even a good article nomination. Below are some, but I would encourage you to start with references, that are lacking for probably half the prose. Other content/style issues are:

A lot of very short paragraphs, such as "Each LRT line uses different fare structures." That is a twelve-syllable paragraph. But also a lot of other paragraphs are very small
Many headers are too complex, for instance "Station facilities, amenities and services" should be "Stations", and perhaps add a {{main}} to List of Manila Light Rail Transit System stations. "The LRT network" should be "Network".
There is quite a bit of overlinking. For instance, "stairway" is linked.
The blockquote is not appropriate, as it is very remote to the subject at hand. If you want to say something about post-WWII Philippines, say it in the text.
The images are unbalanced. The top third of the article contains no images at all (except a 100-year-old tram), and a picture of an actual train is not available until almost the end.
Measurements, such as kilometers, are not converted to their imperial counterpart. (use {{conver}})
Entities, such as "Manila Tren Consortium", which are industrial joint ventures to make a single bid for a project, are normally not notable (because all that can be said would be a duplicate of the information about the project) and therefore should not be linked (unless, of course, I am mistaken about the scope of the consortium).
The incident list troubles me a lot. First it claims that "[i]ncidents and accidents are rare aboard the LRT", but then it goes on and describes about four a year. The Rizal Day bombings are clearly notable, but should perhaps be integrated into the history sections. Rail operations will always have a number of smaller and larger operational discontinuations, some for mere minutes, others for a days. Using trains for suicide is commonplace around the globe, but is usually not considered newsworthy, and definitely not encylopaedic. Although Wikipedia is not censored, naming a suicide person is a very unethical move and can permanently blackwash the person, who has obviously had a tough and difficult life (even if there is media coverage of him). I would say that to include an incident, at minimum, there must have been fatality (excluding suicides) caused by an error from the system (again, not people being pushed into the tracks), or so substantial damage to the rolling stock that it was rebuilt or scrapped. Simple "closed for the day"-issues are not sufficient. If you would like to have more detail about this, it may be suitable with a subarticle. Also, the list is plagued with recentism.
Do not use "pesos", but the ISO-code.
The see also section is littered with links that occur in the text.
I find the section on rolling stock very confusion. First of all, I am actually expecting to see some specifications (if only basic) of the train, beyond the number of cars. For instance, max. speed, length, power output, width and years of delivery. It doesn't even say how many trains there are.
"Passengers at LRT stations are advised to not stay too close to the red tiles at the edge of the platforms (or yellow tiles in the case of the Purple Line) to avoid falling onto the tracks." is a very redundant sentence, as it could be said about virtually any railway in the world.
Safety and security are not subsets of each other, so the section should probably be called "safety and security". Safety is as you probably know related to the operations per ce (i.e. incidents caused by the regular operation and any technical failure). Security is related to damage (to people or property) caused by third-party people (riders, criminals, terrorists etc.)
It is common to have a WP:TRAIL-style map, among other things to provide easy access to the wikilinks for the stations, lines etc.
I would like to have seen more on the infrastructure, such as gauge, station design (island or side platforms), interchange with other systems (the metro, mainline railway, buses), and if necessary tone down the details of the fare structure.

I will stop here, but may add more comments later. Arsenikk ^(talk) 10:36, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern are citations, prose, undue weight, focus. Also note the recent change to WP:WIAFA (1c) requiring "high-quality" sources. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles Featured topic drive:one left) 02:34, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm currently very busy right now with schoolwork so I apologize for not being able to address concerns in time, but I'm trying my best to do what I can. The only remaining issue with citations in fact is the long incident list (aside from a few in future expansion which I'm trying to finish first) which I plan to spin off into a separate article. The prose should be next. In addition, although WP:WIAFA states that FAs should be backed up by "high-quality reliable sources", what exactly does the qualifier "high-quality" entail? --Sky Harbor ^(talk) 03:52, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Also, please don't forget the alt text that needs to be written. There's no simple answer as to what "high-quality" means, but you can read the policy on sources for more info. Eubulides (talk) 07:50, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Delist, simply does not meet most of the criteria. The lack of large-scale work by the main contributor the last two weeks makes me rather say: take it down to B, find and add references, clean up the article and then take it through GA and PR before FA again. Arsenikk ^(talk) 10:41, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
Delist - 1c issues. Also, agree with comment by Arsenikk (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 09:12, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
Hold I'd say this was a "large-scale" edit. Give Sky Harbor some time before sinking this FAR. Dabomb87 (talk) 16:47, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
- I'm currently following the FAR in class, and I did that rewrite last night. I'm planning to rewrite smaller sections this week before working on bigger sections this weekend (and I'm thankful it's a holiday on Monday). --Sky Harbor ^(talk) 06:46, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
  - Update: The network and ticketing sections have been rewritten. Currently planning rewrites for history and future expansion. --Sky Harbor ^(talk) 02:36, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Ongoing progress noted YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles Featured topic drive:one left) 00:26, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Hold, :) Cirt (talk) 21:12, 5 December 2009 (UTC)
Status?? Nothing has happened for three weeks, sections are still unsourced, and the table of incidents is still there. On another note, they only include post-2000 incidents. Did nothing happen from 1984-2000?? YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles finally at Featured topic candidates) 22:17, 15 December 2009 (UTC)
- I just finished rewriting the history section, and it took quite a while to rewrite because I had to get the ordering of events right for the sake of flow. Work will continue on this one. Meanwhile, events beyond 2001 are the only ones with verifiable sources online. Any older and I will have to dig through (offline) newspaper archives. I left these references unchanged as I intend to spin this section off into a separate article. --Sky Harbor</