Wikipedia talk:Featured article review/archive 9

Step 3 should be removed

Step 3 of the guide for "Nominating an article for FAR" is done automatically. Step 3 should be removed. WhatisFeelings? (talk) 04:38, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Not usually; you submitted a FAR that had a previous FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:45, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

It would be nicer, though, if they were all automatic.. WhatisFeelings? (talk) 05:46, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

New FAC and FAR delegates

See this Raul654 (talk) 20:31, 12 March 2009 (UTC)

FAR notification template

I've noticed recently that the template used to notify primary editors of a FAR relating to an article they've been involved in bringing to FA has a few deficiencies. By following the instructions given, the template doesn't automatically sign the name of the editor posting the template, generally leaving an unsigned (and apparently disembodied) message on someone's talk page. As well, it doesn't provide for a method of "personalizing" the message: there is no place for the editor initiating the FAR to add in the reason for the FAR, or to provide any article-specific information that would be helpful to the recipient, or to make a more direct communication. I'm completely incompetent at writing or modifying templates, but would be willing to look for others to help make the modifications if other FAR regulars think it would be helpful. Risker (talk) 14:45, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Tested a field for the reasoning. I guess you can add a less rigid personal statement underneath it. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 03:02, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Strikes me the test was eminently successful, happy to help. :-) Risker (talk) 10:43, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Further to this, Geogre has made some additional comments on my talk page suggesting improvement in the wording of the template; you might want to take a look at them and give them consideration. Risker (talk) 19:18, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I only see comments by Utgard Loki. Is he Geogre? YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 00:44, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Please page ban Mattisse from FA-related pages

Day before yesterday, I received a FAR notice on my talk for Restoration comedy, the first FA I wrote, five years ago. Time flies! I do still have most of the books I used for reference, but I must admit I don't remember the page numbers in them, even approximately, so it'll take a while to add inline cites. Well, if I add them, please read on for why perhaps not. Anyway. I started a version in a text editor and went to paste it in, but I went first to FAR to see if anything was happening at Wikipedia:Featured article review/Restoration comedy. Yeah, whaddaya know, there was, a pertly protective note from Giacomo (wouldn't you know) ... and a consoling message from Mattisse to the nominator of Restoration comedy, which seemed relevant to myself and my miserable article:

I suggest you read Featured article review Buckingham Palace so that you know what is in store for your nomination. Buckingham Palace was nominated on similar grounds. The editors who rose in defense are predicted to be the same group as for this one. Don't take it personally. —Mattisse (Talk) 04:28, 16 March 2009 (UTC)[1]

How much time does one have, exactly, to fix up an old page before Mattisse gets the steam up on his/her crap machine / self-pity generator and spreads tentacles of bad faith all over it? Answer: about 8 hours apparently. Click on the notes in this post, check out how all Mattisse Crap is caused by Bad Faith (the bad faith of other people, of course). Thus, the current Crap is Giano's fault (the favoured recipient yesterday of 6 Mattisse "NPA warnings" on his talkpage in one hour; why isn't Mattisse even blocked for harassment? Risker? Sam Korn?), Casliber's fault (he opened an RfC on Mattisse, how disgraceful), Sandy's, Moni's, whoever's fault. Oh, hey, and Risker's fault, she has boldly criticized Mattisse's warnings of Giano![2] Sam Korn's fault! [3] Durova's![4] And presumably my fault for fucking "rising in defense" of Buckingham Palace, as well as for ever writing Restoration comedy, oh noes, even if it was a long time ago. Raul, Sandy, YellowMonkey, Karanacs, I request that Mattisse be page banned from FAR and FAC and related pages, so as to improve their working climate. Why are we expected to work in this poison miasma? It's intolerable, and I for one won't do it.

Incidentally, is this the same Mattisse who got her/his most recent RfC briskly closed by swearing that s/he would never again post on FAC, FAR, or any related page? Apparently so, and proud of it.[5][6] It's in other words no use to get a mere undertaking from Mattisse to not post on the FAC pages, or to post only non-poisonously. Please do a real page ban (=with blocks if it's violated). Bishonen | talk 15:22, 17 March 2009 (UTC).

I second this motion. I can happily collaborate with, and help, most people in mainspace if they are seeking to improve or write a page, and fequently do. However, I cannot work with Mattisse, from what I can see she is on an ego trip to, make herself appear useful. Her only joy is to snear at and dengrate the hard work of others, which is why she is a parasite at FARC feeding away. When thwarted she cries with self pity and appolagies, yet it all amounts to nothing. Frankly, she is a menace and a handocap to the project. Giano (talk) 18:47, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

This is an interesting situation. There was a recent RFC on Mattisse, brought by Casliber (a sitting arb) and others. One of the main reasons for the RFC was Mattisse's attitude and disruption on FAR. Mattisse begged for days to have that RFC closed and mentioned (of her own free will) that she would stop commenting on FAR and FAC if the RFC were closed, see here. Since that RFC was closed on Febrary 9th, Mattisse has continued to stir the pot in FAR with such gems as this where she "warns" another editor about a "group of editors" that will treat them badly. She has also, on numerous occasions accused Casliber of "bad faith" in bringing that RFC. She also refuses to assume good faith on Casliber's part in that she will not leave the Buckingham Palace FARalone and let Casliber go to the library to check out the books like he asked. It seems to me that most of Mattisse's actions on FAR are disruptive and just completely unhelpful. Does that mean she needs to be page banned from featured article work? I'll leave that to others to decide. Tex (talk) 19:06, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Mattisse also just added to a post almost a day later without making a note of the addition on the Buckingham Palace FAR claiming that Sandy Georgia "invited" Mattisse back to comment on FAR. Unfortunately, Sandy's comment was actually posted some 14 days before Mattisse promised to stop editing FAR. Strange behavior if you ask me. Tex (talk) 20:00, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

A question and most of a thought. Should a 'topic/page' ban be conducted here? or at the administrators noticeboard? Based on the previous RfC, and continueing lack of good faith in anyone who is critical of Mattise's work, I'm sad to say that some sort of enforcable rememdy seems needed. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 20:27, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

As far as Buckingham Palace goes, there is no need to add any more commments. The cards are all on the table. Only the article contents can change this. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 01:23, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

• Support the page ban, with blocks for violation. Part of the problem is the pages. The F** pages are extraordinarily vulnerable to bad tempered, weak minded, or bad faith abuse. As long as there is a belief that all FA's are inherently guilty of badness (see the FAR warning template) until whoever is completely satisfied, and as long as FAC is built along the idea that any objector, and especially a voluminous or constant one, has to be mollified, then any editor who has consistent bad faith, ill temper, or dullness can become a major problem. Given that Mattisse has shown a curdled temperament coupled with a "reformist" zeal (that messianic impulse that says that only You are right, that only You know what should and should not be allowed) and a obsessive's desire to come back and back and back, he or she cannot be at the F** pages. What's more, he or she is already forsworn on the matter. I do not believe in following the personality to play the game of "is he or she nice elsewhere" or "is he or she capable of goodness": I'd like to think all persons are capable of goodness, and I'm certain that most edit well somewhere. The question is an inherently poorly constructed process and a passionately disgruntled person; they should not be together. Geogre (talk) 09:41, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I do not favor a ban. There is fault on both sides. It takes at least two people to have an argument. DrKiernan (talk) 09:48, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

On the contrary, it takes one person to say "No, Mattisse". An then she erupts and trolls, she is a menace. Just look how easy life can be, Risker though some facts could do with citing, quietly went and obtained the reference books (listd) and cited. How simple life is. This is what people should be doing. I suspect some just go keenly through pages looking for fault with no intention of helping fix that fault, then gleefully plaster a template on someones page and sit back hoping they have forced others to jump through hoops, while they go on to the next page. Like some tin-pot,second rate, acnied, junior prefect in a failing school. Such behaviour in not beneficial to the project. Giano (talk) 13:56, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I am inclined not to favor a topic ban because Mattisse adds to FA processes as much as she does not. I find her unpredictable and unsettling: excellent reviews one day and nutjob accusations from left field the next. I think that truly abusive behavior should warrant a topic ban: consistently nominating articles at FAC that are clearly not ready, vandalizing FACs or FARs, becoming belligerent during discussions and showing an evident POV in an discussion. Which leads me to the fact that Mattisse's behavior may be construed as abusive by some. In comparison to the majority of editors, her behavior certainly is provocative. I would, I suppose, compare her provocations to Giano's civility, which begs the question of how does harassment or incivility negate improving the encyclopedia. I don't mind the incivility, and after getting used to the unpredictability of Mattisse's accusations, I've learned to pretty much stuff my fingers in my ears and sing loudly, particularly when she hurls accusations at me and the articles I've written. Just because she says stuff over and over doesn't make it so. Should most of the FA regulars determine what they consider abusive? Maybe. I am just as inclined to say that editors who are apparently unable to follow the peaceful review procedures without discussions devolving into fights that drag others in to sort out their interpersonal squabbles are abusing the system just as well. But again, these contentious few also have good points, and I would not want to silence valid criticism just so we can all get along. Should ANI handle determining if a topic ban is in order? Since most editors who have come in contact in some way with Mattisse here at featured content she has also accused of being against her, that is probably the way to go. But ANI should know how beneficial her reviews are as well. --Moni3 (talk) 14:58, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I do understand your point, Moni3; I will simply state that it was only because an article that I think is an excellent ambassador for Wikipedia was at serious risk of being demoted that I finally galvanized myself to address concerns about it, despite having tolerated significant harassment from Mattisse in the past for having praised the article and having held it up (during my Arbcom candidacy) as a shining example of what Wikipedia is all about. In fact, I suspect my having done so is one of the reasons Mattisse nominated it for FAR. The cloud of behavioural volatility that you characterize so well above may be tolerable to FA regulars - but are you sure about that? How many FA regulars have faded away in the past year? How many newer FA regulars have come up from the ranks? Are editors sticking around to do multiple FAs after close encounters with one or more of the reviewers who "are apparently unable to follow the peaceful review procedures"? The level of vitriol has gotten to the point where I hesitate to assist non-"FA regular" editors striving to prepare articles for FAC for fear my username in the article history will be sufficient to incite a round of harassment on an innocent bystander. After all of that preamble, I will confirm that, yes, WP:AN is probably the best place to take any discussion with respect to topic- or page-bans. Risker (talk) 16:17, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Again, we're treading difficult water in trying to determine which editors new to the FA process leave due to specific comments. I recently read in the long discussions on the Featured Article Criteria page about sources, that the editor who nominated Jackie Robinson will not nominate another article again. I was one of the people who opposed the article, and my point was quite valid, and I was civil and encouraged the editor to go find the best sources, improve the article, and return. It's very unfortunate, but such is the atmosphere in a system that should promote the best work on Wikipedia. I know of a few editors, myself included, who did not know what to expect during an FAC and either met severe criticism or failed in an early try only to take the criticism and improve the nominated article. In this case, it is a worthwhile process that weeds out editors who are not dedicated to the topic, and strengthens the ones who are. I understand the frustration, however: I think Harvey Milk has been criticized unfairly and without grounds repeatedly by Mattisse, and she included some fairly laughable comments about me in her RfC. I think we're going to have to determine where the line is to resolve this. Mattisse's RfC was closed with ambiguous results, delaying an inevitable confrontation. There are no apparent consequences for editors who are abrasive at FAC and FAR. There are no precedents. --Moni3 (talk) 16:45, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, there is a precedent: Requests for arbitration/Eternal Equinox. EE was "placed on parole" for behaviour remarkably similar to Mattisse's (with EE having an additional sockpuppetry habit), although her parole was nearly impossible to enforce because of her use of dynamic IP addresses. It's believed she eventually faded away. Three years later, such a parole would most likely come from the community (via a discussion on WP:AN) rather than a full arbitration case. Risker (talk) 17:10, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I stand corrected. Your link does not work though, and I'm interested in reading the case. --Moni3 (talk) 17:25, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Oops, sorry. Link fixed. Risker (talk) 17:29, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

reply to moni3: well, I participate a lot less than I might, due to the generally snotty comentary at both FAC and FAR. There is a bit to much mingling of specific comments on an article, and general comments about the article, subject, editors, and other unrelated materials. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 17:01, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

First, (per Risker/Moni's comments above) in terms of tools as our disposal, I don't think a full community discussion is necessary. If an editor is behaving in a consistently disruptive way, I can instruct the delegates and FAC/FAR participants to give that person's comments no weight. So they can continue editing here, but nobody is to respond or in any way give them attention. Second, I think this discussion is, at least for the time being, moot. Since Bish started this thread, Matisse has avoided participating at FAC/FAR. Third, I'm interested in continuing the discussion about why good people leave FAC/FAR, and what can be done to prevent this. Raul654 (talk) 17:20, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

If there are any actions or consequences that the community or you, Raul, feel should be implemented, I strongly suggest that they be outlined as soon as possible. I fear that to avoid any more intense unpleasantness, this particular matter will drop for now, only to be picked up again in the future in some other forum. I believe that ArbCom cases happen because editors engage in this kind of repeated brinksmanship. I'm the first to point myself out as someone who does this. I'd rather not deal with bothersome personality problems, leaving it for someone else so I can write articles and stuff.

I also think there is value in discussing why few editors participate at FAC and FAR. I find it interesting to wade through the differences between "snotty commentary" as Rocksanddirt said, and valid criticisms that nominators and other editors may take offense to. --Moni3 (talk) 18:35, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I, for one, generally stay clear of FA participation because of the "snotty commentary" as Rocksanddirt so eloquently put it. Rather than review pages, why not help fix the problems? I see people listing tons of little nitpicks on the FAR page so that the primary author can go back and fix them. What exactly is keeping the "reviewer" from fixing those little nitpicks while he/she is reviewing? If there are serious problems with the article, then that's one thing, but giving long list of stuff that you could have fixed yourself is worthless. Then you have folks like Mattisse who say "delist" and then come back 10 times to say "delist, delist, delist" and demand that SOMEONE fix this terrible article. That's worse than worthless, that's disruptive. Tex (talk) 21:41, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Maybe leaving it to the author(s) is considered politer than rewriting it yourself? I mean the author(s) may have valid comments to make. I don't mind genuine nitpicks at all but I'm sure everybody here can tell the difference between serious if tough reviews, and reviews that are used as a stick to beat people with. Why anybody should be expected to put up with the latter I don't know.Fainites ^barleyscribs 21:58, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

• Look, Raul, others, this situation is not one and done. Did you guys click on the diffs Bishonen provided? Seriously, folks, please look at diffs, when people supply them. I know this is no court, but it's good practice to inform oneself of the particulars that lead a person to seek a page ban. Mattisse is already forsworn, and not once.
• As for the "as much good as bad" done at FAC, let's consider that for a moment. Suppose one works all week on some grand article like the "First move advantage in chess" (which, incidentally, has the most turgid, poorly written lede I've seen in a long time), and then the article goes to FAC. One has not been a "regular" at FAC, but one is eager to know what it's about. Well, Mattisse is in one of his Hyde phases, demanding a shrubbery and then that the forest be chopped down with a herring, and then listing eight screens of minutia. What impression will there be? What will be lost? Every schizophrenic performance loses people, but, and this is critical, seeing someone with boorish, bizarre behavior treated with silent assent by the others, treated with tolerance from the "people in charge," treated as "not a problem, because every so often he's not that way" will mean that the newly arrived and the long timers will say, "Beans to this! Let them have their rotten little pissing game."
• When it comes to FAR, the situation is much, much, much worse. Any one having a labor of love tossed up there for irrational or meaningless cause will not simply walk away but grow hostile. A moment of "incivility" there means absolute enmity thereafter. It destroys the most critical feature: people volunteering to build. It is the very heart of a violation of the real civility necessary for Wikipedia. There should be zero tolerance for pigheadedness and pettiness when it comes to these two pages, because the consequences are at the highest level of article construction. You don't lose a kid who might fill out twenty-eight band articles: you lose the people who create long, researched, well written articles.
• Mattisse has already cost long time reviewers that we know of, and he has done much more with the first timers. All of this is without even considering the quintessentially wrong practices and matter of Mattisse's "objections." A questionable demeanor is impermissible here, and a completely freakish one isn't even a matter of consideration. Geogre (talk) 14:06, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I rather agree. I think the chilling effect of Mattisse is underestimated by the old hands who've "seen it all before". Not only does it make hardworking editors feel disinclined to put up with all the unpleasantness but it also makes people feel utterly disenchanted with Wikipedia for its inability to deal with the problem. Fainites ^barleyscribs 16:03, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

• We all deserve to be disappointed and annoyed at Matisse's continued provocative behaviour. I wrote a conciliatory, "understanding" comment at that RfC, because I believe in giving users ample opportunity to adjust their behaviour. I am surprised that someone who is clearly as intelligent as Matisse is cannot get the point. What she needs to do is to recognise obtusely negative posts before she hits that button, and back off. Tony (talk) 03:43, 23 March 2009 (UTC) PS I should also add that we are in the midst of one of the leading experts in the topic of restoration comedy: WP is very lucky to have her on board. Rather than sniping at a distance, I contend that we should be learning from this expert as whatever citations are appropriate may be added to bring the FA up to more recent guidelines WRT these. A little respect would go a long way, yes? On the matter of Buckingham Palace, we have a beautiful article that is a joy to read. We should be full of encouragement that this be updated. I find the negativity unhelpful; FAR is supposed to concern article improvement above all. We need this type of article in WP's treaure trove. Giano should be proud of it. Tony (talk) 07:20, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Change in FA criteria 1c

Please note that it now reads

well-researched: it is characterized by a thorough and representative survey of relevant literature on the topic. Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported with citations; this requires a "References" section in which sources are listed, complemented by inline citations where appropriate

YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 01:16, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

New FAC/FAR nomination procedure

We missed the Signpost deadline, so this may run next week: Wikipedia:FCDW/FACRollout. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:17, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

How did this slip through the cracks

USA PATRIOT Act, Title III, Subtitle A I don't think this meets a single FA criterion. Clearly non-notable, not a single independent source, not comprehensive, poorly written. --129.10.244.225 (talk) 15:38, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

It was promoted in 2006, and things have changed since then. You're free to nominate it for a FAR if you feel it is necessary. --MASEM (t) 15:46, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Too many people complain about bad FAs and do not participate at FAR YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) 02:06, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Merged

USA PATRIOT Act, Title III, Subtitle A should be reviewed as it no longer exists. 129.10.244.151 (talk) 16:04, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

An admin's attention is needed here; a featured article was redirected out of existence, with no discussion. Talk:USA PATRIOT Act, Title III#Merger proposal. This should be reversed, and the article can be brought to FAR, as suggested above. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:40, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Redirect reverted, but please someone take it to FAR, as I believe there is a valid point being made here. Risker (talk) 02:50, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Comment: FAR started. Please see Wikipedia:Featured article review/USA PATRIOT Act, Title III, Subtitle A/archive1. Cirt (talk) 03:08, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks ! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:28, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

You are most welcome. :) Cirt (talk) 23:06, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

"An admin's attention is needed here; a featured article was redirected out of existence, with no discussion." A discussion was opened, no one raised any objections (thus an implied consensus). A notice was displayed on both pages for twelve days; that's easily in accordance with WP:MERGE. There was no discussion because the article is a non-notable orphan (which is exactly why it shouldn't exist to begin with). 129.10.245.24 (talk) 14:36, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Vancouver

Having a look through the Vancouver art, I highly doubt it would even pass a GAN. Isn't it about time is had a review? Firstly its lead has 7 paragraphs, the media and to a large extent Transportation section are both unsourced. Demographics are a mess and many sections have "citation needed" templates. BTW, I'm not familiar with FAR processes, Thankyou Aaroncrick^{(Tassie Boy talk)} 09:56, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Your FAR is legitimate YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 05:23, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Michael Jackson

Some reviewers around here might want to keep tabs on this current featured article. It was promoted on 7/28/2008, but due to the incredibly large amount of traffic after his death yesterday, the article's integrity versus the FA criteria could potentially be compromised. I'm not advocating nominating for WP:FAR, but it would be good if some experienced reviewers kept an eye on it to make sure that information stays up to par. Dr. Cash (talk) 15:37, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Have you contacted User:Realist2? He may be waking up and shaking his hangover, but should be notified since he constructed the article. --Moni3 (talk) 15:44, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Due to the high level of interest, traffic, etc, probably should not evaluate this until at the very least I'd say two weeks or more from now. WP:FAR does not seem like the right way to go at this point in time. Cirt (talk) 22:58, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Yep. It would be nearly impossible to even attempt to maintain high quality when the article is being viewed millions of times per day. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 23:07, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Heck, I'd wait longer than two weeks if it were put up for FAR. The Coroner's report isn't due for 4-6 weeks and until that comes out there is going to be a lot of unfounded speculation about how he died and what caused his death. I'd extend it to a few weeks after the Coroner's report coming out. --Bobblehead ^(rants) 17:54, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not even going to try to go through it while it's still front-page news; once things settle down, I'll go through and clean up. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:02, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Incentive system

Although people are always saying that it will generate rubbish reviews and such, in the case of FAR, I hardly think it could do any damage. Especially as the articles are getting checked out even less than the supposedly bad GA reviews, as a lot of people like to say, eg I got a bit adventurous and delisted Mumbai even though I went though the FAR was not entirely clear Wikipedia:Featured article review/Mumbai/archive1, but to me it was clearly not up to standard and I explained and elaborated further after I closed it User_talk:YellowMonkey/Archive125#Mumbai; many problems can be spotted within 2-3 minutes. The article is now at GA, see Talk:Mumbai and even after a lot of improvements it is still on hold. As for the current set of FARs there are a lot of with a lot of glaring problems but nobody is biting much even with though some are not much better than a GAN quick fail if at all and the problems can be diagnosed in 4-5 minutes. I guess an alternative would be for me to become borderline involved and make big reviews and then close it myself, which is anything but ideal, or not say/elaborate what the problem is, and then delist the article anyway.... YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:40, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

At the moment, I am already closing a lot of obvious 1-0 delists with no references etc, but there are always a few that are about 70% referenced and nobody will bite YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:41, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

At the moment, most reviews are one-line, because people tend to pick the FAs that they consider to be the worst, and those fished out are those with a complete lack of citations or articles where 40% of the paras have none. In those cases, there isn't really a need to bother doing a 30-minute thorough review of MOS or prose or whether the cites even match up accurately. But the problem is those articles that are fixed to some extent; while these now meet no-longer meet a quick-fail for GA, most are still clearly below FA standard, and the problems could be picked up in about 10 minutes, in less or similar detail to a standard GA review. However, there is a chronic, severe, Zimbabwean style famine of reviews on these articles. To be frank, I don't think there is any chance that an incentive would lead to reviews that would bring down teh average detail in the reviews.... YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:55, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

An incentive system might work, but what would the incentive be? –Juliancolton | ^Talk 03:30, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Barnstars, etc. I should have mentioned that YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 03:51, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm stopping by here per a request on my talk page. For GA Sweeps, we started it (well, I didn't come in until later) with the intention of reviewing all GAs before a certain date, which amounted to over 2,800 articles. No incentives were offered for reviewing 25, 50, 100, etc. amount of articles, it was pretty much a volunteer opportunity to help improve the quality of GAs and the reputation of the GA process. As reviews were initially completed, participation eventually wore off (see File:GASweepsReviewsbyMonth.jpg). I believe I was awarded the first barnstar for reviewing 100 articles, and then Jennavecia created a special barnstar for the process which she awarded to the top reviewers. I had initially thought the process would be done very quickly (was hoping a year tops, but I guess I was a little off), but we're now just under two years with about 800 articles left to review. I plan on awarding members at the conclusion of Sweeps barnstars based on their level of participation. I wasn't really advertising "Review 50 articles and you get a barnstar", instead hoping that volunteers would step up, complete some reviews, and finish Sweeps.

Okay, getting to FAR's incentive structure. These are just some ideas that we implemented from FA's little brother GA, and I don't know if they'd apply here or not. For the backlogged GAN, I started the first elimination drive offering barnstars for reviews, which was quickly followed by others. The backlogs dropped, we gained new reviewers, and then eventually the backlog would return, and the cycle would repeat. GAN is really backlogged now, but that can be attributed to the fact that multiple reviewers are focusing on Sweeps, editors are nominating more articles, or some editors just won't review unless there are barnstars offered. If FAR is looking to review all FAs before a certain point then an incentive structure could be created to reward reviewers at the conclusion. Or you can offer a barnstar for reviewing x number of FARs. It needs to be taken into consideration that if awards are offered, you will see an increase of participants, but their contributions should be reviewed to ensure that they are actually reviewing the article against the FA criteria. For GAN backlog elimination drives or for Sweeps we try to keep an eye on new participants to ensure that reviews are performed properly. I would say that you should determine if FAR needs to go through a Sweeps-like process or if you're offering incentives for reviewers just picking a set number of articles and leaving some comments. FA differs from GA in many ways, so I would gauge the reaction of the normal reviewers to see if they would be more likely to review more if incentives are provided and look to past reviewers to see why they stopped reviewing. Sorry for the long message, but hopefully this provides some ideas for a FAR incentive system. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 04:31, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

I've had a thought, so I'll throw it out and see if it's any good. In a nutshell, why not make a WikiCup for reviewers? It could cover all the main content review areas: FA, FAR, GAN, GAR, DYK, and Peer Review. It doesn't have to be a year; a month (like the GAN spring backlog elimination drive) would work too. Shubinator (talk) 00:12, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

That's been brought up before. The main problem with such a contest is that it would encourage users to strive for quantity over quality in their reviews. Worse, there would be no way to counter that as it is impossible to objectively judge the quality of a review. By the way, you left out FLC and FLRC, and I would hardly call DYK a "review" process. Dabomb87 (talk) 01:19, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

All the issues you've raised could also apply to the GAN backlog elimination drives, but that has worked out well. Sorry for the omission; I mentally include the featured list stuff in with the featured article, since they're both "featured". DYK is a review process. It is the easiest of the three of course. DYK also suffers from a lack of reviewers at times, and more reviewers would be the point of an incentive. Shubinator (talk) 01:38, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

True, and I've helped out with reviewing submissions, mostly because I had submitted a couple and I wanted to reduce the backlog so that mine might be reviewed (in general, I think that it should be a rule across all content-related processes that if you add to the backlog, you should help relieve it by reviewing another nomination). In some ways, yes, you have to examine the article and make sure it's decent and that business is taken care of, but it's a lot more like a checklist than the other processes (inline citation, length of article and hook, date). True, some go above and beyond in checking for plagiarism or making sure the article is in a state to be linked to from the Main Page, but all in all, it can't be considered a "review-based process", although some review of nominations is needed. (I'm not putting down the DYK process in any way; these are just my thoughts) Dabomb87 (talk) 04:31, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure FAR is the same as the GAN backlog elimination. Part of the problem is (IMO) we were too gung-ho at the beginning, starting with just a handful of reviewers. It petered off because who wants to sit around grinding? (which just makes it true: Wikipedia is a MMORPG!) I think it's picked up now partly because we were all guilted into doing it by the worst month in the history of the drive, and it's picked up now because the end is finally in sight (hopefully only a month or two over the two year mark?) if current levels continue.

FAR, however, is more of a "I found this bad FA by accident" thing. Many of the old contributors are gone, and so there's no defending of titles, as it were. I try to actually improve articles, at the very least taking care of image issues since those are easiest, but I've got so much other stuff on my plate it's hard to do more than chime in with a delist. Offering incentives wouldn't really help my participation ('cause I'm busy with my own research/writing, the elimination drive, et al) but I defer to others on how it might affect their habits. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 02:42, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

I guess I should also give props to YellowMonkey, though, for making the hard choices on delisting and still managing to top my output of FAs though, I'm not sure how you do it :) --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 02:45, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

I had proposed a reviewers cup some time ago and everyone thought it was the craziest idea. I still think it would work, but don't expect it to ever be approved.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 02:32, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I'll start giving them out, not sure on what basis though. I don't have a good mechanical criteria YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:52, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Counting by size of review prose might work. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 03:07, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps new barnstars/awards related to each specific type of reviewing (FAR/FAC/DYK/etc.) could be created. It's just one more barnstar available for the collectors and would also shine light on the process if other editors ran across the award. Perhaps you can have differing levels of the new awards (gold/silver/bronze, first/second/third, etc.) which could cause some reviewers to strive to improve on or increase the number of their reviews. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 03:18, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

To YellowMonkey: perhaps, but the prose generated by the review may not be original (i.e. text taken from the article to identify problems). To Nehrams: that sounds like a start; obviously, a simple "support - the article is awesome" or "delist - how did this ever get promoted" would not count for much, if anything. Dabomb87 (talk) 03:22, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, sigs would have to be discounted, quotes discounted, and personal attacks/arbitrary disruption etc discoutned YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 03:24, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Not relevant to incentives, but in really desparate situations, you might post at visible noticeboards to get more eyes (e.g. Village Pump, WT:FAC, maybe even WT:RFA if you're feeling bold). Dabomb87 (talk) 03:44, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I've informally started using incentives, as you would have noticed YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 01:40, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps we should focus less on saving FARs. I know one reason that I am leery of participating much here is that I do not have time to save articles - to do so means basically doing the research that the original writer(s) did and more. Perhaps we should have a more up/down voting system? That would also make the process more similar to FAC - people could review articles the same way in both places. Awadewit (talk) 16:42, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I was referring more to the reviews and Mattisse's comments below. Most FARs follow the pattern that a person nominates a way outmoded article with no refs and does a 3 minute nom, because frankly, nothing more is really needed. Then no work happens, and then when it goes to FARC, you do a one line "Delist" as nothing has changed. In about 70% of cases there is little work done so no thought is needed in the review. But in the 30% of cases where there is some work, and the basics are (apparently) done, people are reluctant to do a deep 15-30 minute check to see if refs actually work (sometimes they just whack in a ref at the end of the para that only covers half a sentence) or the prose is still really poor, but nobody wants to do a detailed proper review. Mattisse alludes to it below. I know of one FA that went to FAR last year and there was some work done and the nominators got bored to check it properly for subtle problems and it got kept. Half the paragraphs are unreferenced and the ones that have one ref often only cover 10% of the material. I wasn't worrying about articles being demoted; the article hasn't gone down in quality because the star is gone. It is mostly up to the WikiProjects and authors to fix up the articles, they are ones who brag about themselves being so great anyway. I am aware of your outlook on writing articles Awadewit; that one should read up on some books to gather all the info, then write up. Others just add stuff that pops into their head and then google up, so they could miss stuff. I personally agree with that method and try to read lots of books. So yes it is a lot of work to write a real quality FA because at the end of the day, the writer should be their own toughest master. The reviewers aren't going to read 20 books to see if the author missed stuff. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 05:11, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

The problem was reviewer apathy "Ok, close enough" towards half-improved articles which is why some improved articles that are worse than GA can pass FAR. I think if you look in the FAR archive you will see a lot of keeps that are pretty dubious. Which is why I was looking for the tough reviewers, or just any reviewers, so that default keeps don't happen. If they do silly reviews then it will be ignored. At the moment there is too much of an imbalance between FAC and FAR. Some half-cleaned up articles, I can see heaps of problems in five minutes but I am reluctant to speak up otherwise I can't close it, and I do want to close them because past history tells me that it might be kept very generously at GA standards by other closers. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 05:11, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Basically this entails just looking at the FAC urgents list where I have added the FARs to it. If the article is obviously fail by miles then I don't add it there, but if some work is done and/or people are lurching towards a possibly disinterested/apathetic keep, then I will add it there for rigorous review User:Deckiller/FAC_urgents. There is no need for a detailed review at things like African American literature that are clearly far below standard unless you want to clean it up largely by yourself (from the history it seems you have spent an hour looking at it), unless/until other people clean it up so it is close to the mark. I don't have a problem with getting rid of FAs nor do I insist that people have to fix the article if they want to participate. The main concern is a lack of rigorous reviews and resulting soft keeps. If a WikiProject/author wants the glory of a FA then it stands to reason that they should keep their articles up to the mark, and if they are happy to just make the bare minimum pass and not lift their game until the article gets sent to FAR three years later, then that isn't a sign of a good attitude towards self-improvement. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 05:11, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I support giving Awadewit's idea some consideration. Standards were so much lower in the past that most older FA articles need basically a rewrite. Even articles that are "saved" like Buckingham Palace do not really meet the current FAC standards, such as 1c, in my opinion. It just means that many FAs, although surviving a FAR, still do not meet current criteria and so will have to go through another FAR in the future. I personally am not motivated by "incentives" but I am motivated by a sense of accomplishment that I am ensuring articles are truly meeting current standards, whether GA or FA, rather than just "saving" an article in FAR from the block. The GAN reassessments are more rigorous in that there is less of a drive to "save" articles that are far from the criteria. —Mattisse (Talk) 18:01, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Awadewit said "Perhaps we should focus less on saving FARs. I know one reason that I am leery of participating much here is that I do not have time to save articles ". I guess the wording in the template is "The aim is to improve articles rather than to demote them", well that's idealistic, if nobody bothers to improve old articles then either the author has left, the wikipoject doesn't care or they just do/did the bare minimum to get through FA and collect a star (often with WikiProject piling on without caring for quality) and won't do anything unless a threat of confiscation of a star is made against them. I suggest not feeling guilty about nominating other people's work or feeling obliged to not participate except to fix up the work for other people (unless you like to work on the article of your own accord). That wording was from years ago when blogrefs were allowed, MOS wasn't enforced, lots of articles passed with missing sections, 1a was low, only 20% refs were needed so any outsider could just save any article much more easily. Now you need a full re-write and expand in some cases, aside from just a full copyedit. If people want the wording can be changed if it scares people off, maybe

Ideally, an article will be restored to meet contemporary standards, but in practice, many FAs may need to be changed so much that a new article results if it is to be retained. Nominators are not obligated to re-write the articles.

Or something like that. In the old days, there were a lot of people who helped third-party articles but this has decreased over time and the fixing culture doesn't really hold any more. Some people who didn't like their articles being questioned tried to kill off FAR (see the 2007 archives) by rioting or driving off reviewers and some even mooted deleting FAR so that their articles would be above the law even though the people that nominated their old articles used to help fix them as well. Too bad for them. The result was that now, only the vote-off is around, apart from people from the Australian, Astronomy and Greek WikiProjects fixing up their own stuff. The only problem is a lack of reviewers to scrutinise the worked-on articles properly. Because they are the incumbents, the article owners/WikiProject members sometimes try to stall the reviews by only fixing one explicit example and then going "what" and waiting for the reviewer to basically list every [obvious] thing out for them until they get tired and a default keep results. Explanaiton YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 05:11, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for those clarifications. Changing the instructions might help encourage people like myself who feel obliged to follow them. :) Awadewit (talk) 16:19, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I've tweaked it unilaterally since FAR is pretty quiet. Feel free to copyedit it. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:07, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Opinions needed on the RS-ness of a source widely used on FAC/GAC/GA/FA

A lot of Eurovision Song Contest articles, some of which have been successful and unsuccessful at FA/GA use a few websites that have been contested and are the subject of some debate. Please see Wikipedia:Featured article review/Eurovision Song Contest/archive2 and WT:EURO YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 01:07, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

That'll take time... keep the FAR warm for me in the meantime :) --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 02:47, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually there is an open RfC on this at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Eurovision#RfC on reliable sources for Eurovision articles. Jezhotwells (talk) 09:13, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Changes to instructions

I've removed these changes from the long-standing instructions at FAR, and encourage some discussion before such changes are made. FAR was set up as a deliberative process, intended whenever possible to improve articles rather than delist them, and where nominators are encouraged to take part in the process (or at least not encouraged to make multiple, driveby nominations). The more delisting of FAs is seen as automatic, with nominators allowed to list dozens of articles at a time, the less editors will be encouraged to work to improve articles at FAR; such an environment will not bode well for FAR. Changes such as these should be broadly discussed, including audiences at both FAC and FAR. With only 10% of our FAs needing review, I'm not sure that these changes will work in the necessary direction of restoring FAR to a place where many editors actively work towards retaining and improving FAs. I realize that reviews here are lacking, but is there a chicken/egg effect, as FAR becomes more and more a place where articles are delisted rather than improved? Also, I'm not sure it's true that "the vast majority of FARs result in the article being delisted", or that we should encourage such. In fact, the page size has grown so large, that in itself may be discouraging the kind of collaborative work that used to occur here. I strongly suggest an end to multiple nominations by editors unless they are actively working to improve articles. The page traditionally was kept below 30 nominations, and if it passed 32, was considered backlogged. The page is now at 43 nominations!!!! With a page that size, it's not likely that many editors will be encouraged to do the kind of collaborative article restoration that used to occur here. See Wikipedia:Unreviewed featured articles: FAR handled reviews at a time when 50% of FAs needed review. With only 10% of FAs currently needing review, is it necessary to be encouraging an acceleration in the delist rate, and discouraging collaborative work to restore articles to status? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:42, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

On your "vast majority" point, that is unfortunately statistically true (14 kept to 67 delisted [83%] in the last four months), but I agree it's not something we want to emphasize. Dabomb87 (talk) 14:44, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it is true in recent months, but that is a reversal in the historical trend, which is reason for concern. I'd rather see discussion of ways to return FAR to the place it was in the past (collaborative work to restore articles) before we throw in the towel and assume most articles will be delisted and allow nominators to put up as many nominations at once as they want. Endorsing these changes will be demoralizing and won't encourage the page to return to a place where editors enjoyed working together to save bronze stars. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:48, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

In my opinion, in the past the survival rate was higher, but some of them were cheap and of articles that would obviously fail FAC, and some other articles that would get opposed at FAC without another concerted improvement but are kept anyway because people feel sorry about not giving the benefit of the doubt and letting it stay. In the case of an FAC they are merely holding it up until the author improves it, whereas here, the waiting tactic could be met by not doing anything and the reviewers seem to be more likely to simply do a sympathy keep rather than bite the bullet and confiscate the star, and people maybe feel guilty about taking something away. I know of at least one ridiculous FA last year that survived with about 50% sources, none very high-quality, really bad prose ; I won't name it in case in ends up back here again. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:56, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Another problem is that we only have one active FAR director; Joelito is often not available, and Marskell has been gone for months. YellowMonkey has already single-handedly brought a couple articles back to standards, and he is actively collaborating on a few more. He has also nominated a few FARs. All this to say is that we have several clear keeps and delists that can't be archived because of the conflicts of interest. Dabomb87 (talk) 14:52, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Well the FAR director isn't charged with fixing the articles and isn't responsible if articles are bad, the reason I do it is because I have some background knowledge in certain topics even if I don't know anything in detail, so in those areas I should chip in (cricket, Aus), as it is easier for me than other users from another part of the world. But it's not efficient for me to fix things like Gandhi when I know very little about him that I could write down off the top of my head accurately, and people from the country/wikiproject can do so more much more efficiently if they want. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:28, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I've noticed how much work YM is having to do; another reason we should not be relaxing the "one nom at a time" rule. What's the hurry? The page worked when 50% of FAs needed review, after citation requirements changed; with 10% of FAs needing review, the page is unnecessarily overburdened, which may be a disencentive to editors to work to improve articles here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:55, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

YellowMonkey removed the restriction himself and encouraged me to nominate more while one nomination was still going.[7] He wants more nominations. I think the slowness is what seems burdening to him.[8] I plan to weigh in more to help him out. Regards, —Mattisse (Talk) 15:25, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Just as an explanation, Awadewit said she felt obliged to follow the letter of the law and felt uncomfortable; she thought that it was impolite to participate or nom at FAR unless she fixed the article for them or expected to ensure that the star lived. So, I told her that de facto it wasn't the case, as many people have multiple noms, and hardly anyone bothers to chip in, unless they want to rewrite the article themselves (many of the articles being so outdated and some not comprehensive), and then I removed it, as it de facto changed little. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:28, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm helping out when I can, although I only have two hands and one pedestrian Internet connection, and a million other RL and wiki commitments. Dabomb87 (talk) 15:32, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I know you are as I see your name a lot! —Mattisse (Talk) 15:36, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

History: Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-02-11/Dispatches. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:37, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps we need another Dispatch to revive interest? We could also integrate news of the changes to FA criteria (1c, alt text). Dabomb87 (talk) 15:41, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't have time to write a Dispatch, and since I've been busy, no one else has stepped up to write them. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:46, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I can help out, and I know YellowMonkey has been writing about FAR for the MILHIST academy. I'll ask him. Dabomb87 (talk) 15:47, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

The last Dispatch was May 11, before my surgery; it doesn't seem there's enough interest to keep them going, and I was pulling them along for months, alone. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:48, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

FYI I believe BrianBoulton, Finetooth and Ruhrfish are planning a dispatch on common issues at PR. Dr pda (talk) 22:40, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

The fact is, there are two completely different types of nominations that appear here, and we should revise the process to segregate them:

• Type 1: The primary editors of the article are active and available, or if not, the sources are readily available, or inline citations are not the primary objection. These are salvageable and it's not necessarily maddening to work on them. In this case, the nominator should be expected to assist in the process of bringing the article up to standard.
• Type 2: The primary editors are gone or disinterested, and the sources are not readily available, and the primary objection is inline citations. These have been reduced to an almost prod-like process where they are just waiting around to die, and they rarely get saved.

The second type should be moved to a different process. Maybe they get listed here for 10 days and if the primary contributor doesn't show up with sources in hand, they are auto-delisted. Maybe they just get a Talk page tag that they are going to be delisted unless someone comes forward to work on them. I personally think the old FAs whose only problem is inline citations should be grandfathered in, but that's neither here nor there and I wasn't around for the discussion. Working on Type 1 is fulfilling; I'd rather get syphilis than work on Type 2. --Andy Walsh (talk) 16:54, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

What about those articles like Cane toad and Lake Burley Griffin that had to be completely rewritten and expanded because the old versions continued irrelevant material or trivia, while omitting a large amount of core info? In those cases the authors were long gone, and even once the existing info was cited, the main body had to be totally transformed. I agree that if the main authors or the Wikiproject members survive, then it is good etiquette for the nominator to help with things that don't require any knowledge of the topic if the main guys/wp are serious about fixing the article, like formatting and consistent presentation and copyediting. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:49, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

But there are only about twenty or so of those (Type 2) left on the Unreviewed list ... does it make sense to separate them at this point? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:04, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Some of the "no citation" FAs that were "Brought to Standard" have since been brought back to FAR (A. E. J. Collins, Bernard Williams, Nafaanra language). Dabomb87 (talk) 17:07, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunate, considering the larger list (10%) of unreviewed, older FAs. I encourage us to do all we can to further a return to a very deliberative, controlled process, keeping focus on articles most in need of attn. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:09, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, based on your point of how few Type 2's are left, I agree. I strongly suggest that the nominator should be involved in improving the article, and that one nomination at a time be allowed. --Andy Walsh (talk) 17:14, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

(reply to Sandy) While the list to mid-2006 leaves only 250-odd articles, the standards are so different now that mnay, if not most of the late-2006 and early-2007 FAs would get pile on opposed if they were at FAC now. Many have already been mauled. As an example, I will refer to FARs of Indian subcontinental articles, as I follow that part of Wikipedia (along with cricket and Australia). Even an early 2007 article got knocked off one year later, easily. I will add a list of them soon YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 05:47, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Delisted subcontinental FAs since tthe start of 2008 and the problems are

• Kerala - Many criteria cited
• Gandhi - Many, including wide range of views/research/analysis, refs, too reliant on autobio and book by grandson when hundreds of indept full bios available
• Sikkim - Poor refs, no refs, prose
• Mumbai - Prose, poor refs, lack of refs
• Syed Ahmed Khan - Lack of refs, article was based on paraphrasing a few minibios from govt sources when major biographies were available on this high-level statesman (passed Nov 06, removed 09)
• Ladakh - Prose, poor refs, lack of refs (passed Sep 06, removed 09)
• Malwa - Poor/no refs
• Iqbal - Lack of refs, article was based on paraphrasing a few minibios from govt sources when major biographies were available on this high-level statesman (founder of Pakistan) (passed July 06, removed 09)
• Mujib - Lack of refs, article was based on paraphrasing a few minibios from govt sources and online encyclopedias, when major biographies were available on this high-level statesman (founder of Bangladesh) (passed July 06, removed 09)
• Ziaur Rahman - Lack of refs, article was based on paraphrasing a few minibios from govt sources and online encyclopedias, when major biographies were available on this high-level statesman (President of Bangladesh) (passed Sep 06, removed 09)
• Black pepper - not comprehensive, poor/missing refs (eg from marketing shops not textbooks)
• Kalimpong - Prose and refs
• Indian Railways - Refs, mainly from a fan club or not 3rd party
• Pashtun people - Lack of refs or good ones (passed June 06, removed 09)
• Jinnah - Lack of refs, article was based on paraphrasing a few minibios from govt sources when major biographies were available on this high-level statesman (National poet of Pakistan)
• Kargil War - Lack of scholarly refs
• Rudyard Kipling - sources
• Bengali language - sources [mostly webpages] (passed November 06, removed 09)
• Kazi Nazrul Islam - Lack of refs, article was based on paraphrasing a few low quality sources and online encyclopedias, when major biographies were available on this high-level person (national poet of Bangladesh) (passed late 06)
• Rajshahi University - prose, lack of reliable/indept refs (passed March/April 07)

The only FAR survivors were Dhaka (passed oct 06 and overhauled) and ahmedabad (passed Aug 06, FAR mid-08). Aside from these two, all the other articles from the second half of 2006 also failed. A common problem apart from just a lack of citations, is the lack of detailed research. Many articles were obviously just written off the top of the author's head and then googled for a related cite, including blogs and other amateur sites, or were closely based on a few short internet bios and paraphrased, which is why they don't cite any scholarly books (much). Many of these late-2006 FAs would clearly fail the new 1c about lit review and using high quality refs instead of rewording a few tertiary sources.

In many cases, when one does look up books to fix up uncited FARs, one finds out that the article is not comprehensive and missing a lot of things that can't be found by a run of the mill google, but was in the book.

As an example I refer to all the Australian FARs since 2008 as I can remember all of them

• Cynna Kydd - Expanded a bit to keep up to date. Kept a bit weakly early 08. I ought to have been hardnosed about it, but Joelito closed it anyway. There are probably still bits missing and some uncited.
• Shrine of Remembrance - Had 0 citations. Bilby (talk · contribs) and Melburnian (talk · contribs) completely redid it, 2X expansion, basically a new article. A lot of new info was added to fill in holes that were not noticed by nominator and only found out when books were read. Kept mid 08
• Waterfall Gully, South Australia - Expanded a bit, more books were read up on. Broadened. a Bilby job. Kept late 08
• Dietrich v The Queen - Small expansion, added cites from legal textbooks. Kept March 09
• Sydney Roosters - Had no cites, inconsistently formatted, copyedited. Kept. Luckily, most of the info could be easily found in a general rugby league history book and only took me 2 hours to add about 50 footnotes. (late-2006 promote) Kept May 09
• Lake Burley Griffin - Had to completely rewritten/expanded 3x due to random and large gaps in the coverage, unreferenced. Nominator only cited lack of cites, but on looking up books it was obvious that the article was nowhere near comprehensive. Currently on FAR
• Cane toad - Had to be completely expanded on biology/environment and also a more international balance. Effectively a new article mostly by Bilby. Again, the nominator did not bring most of the lack of comprehensiveness and the holes were only discovered while trying to read up for the cites. Currently on FAR
• Australia at the Winter Olympics - Comprehensiveness was not raised as a major factor, but reading up on a book for the cites, shows that it is a big problem. Being expanded. Currently on FAR, promoted early 06
• Kylie Minogue ???

On looking up books etc for these FARs, it became clear that many were far from comprehensive. On most wiki-topics only the author and a few WikiProject colleagues (if the WP is not minnow) know much at all about the topics. So if the author gets lazy and their WikiProject doesn't care/exist or just piles on at FAC/FAR, they can get an uncomprehensive or shallowly-researched article through. Theoretically the FAR repairer might also be the only person who finds out by their reading that an article is not comprehensive, but might keep it to themselves so as to do the minimum work needed to crawl through. Judging by the examples given above of delisted FAs that were older than June 06, I would guess that there are heaps of articles that aside from having maybe only 40% cited info, are also based only on whether is trawled off the top of the author's head or google, which would seriously skew the article and almost certainly not be comprehensive. Many of these sources would also now easily fail the RS checks of Ealdgyth very heavily, let alone the high-quality options. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:28, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Just on the topic of the new changes, many of my FAs were passed without content complaints in the last two years, including some in the last 18 months where I thought I had exhausted all leads on some of the smaller Vietnamese topics (using only proper textbooks and no websites) from scrolling the index of dozens of hardcopy books, but after I started using google books I found that I was often able to get sometimes 20-100% more material because it was searching hundreds of them, so I had to expand them. A lot of other Australian FAs from late 06 onwards that I started to pre-emptively improve, I saw a lot of comprehensiveness issues, including Don Bradman, which was promoted 12 months ago. I think the same could be said of a large minority, if not majority of articles, although I doubt things like Pham Ngoc Thao would have ever been FARed diff, even though strictly speaking it did not meet the "well-researched criteria". YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:28, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

In short, I think that a lot of FAs up to mid-2007 and even beyond would not meet FAC. From a visual check, about 10-15% of the articles in the latter half of 2006 seem to have been struck from Wikipedia:Featured_articles_promoted_in_2006 already. I also suspect that the older articles aren't rising fast enough to keep up with the gap between contemporary FA passes and old remaining FAs is increasing. As a result I don't think the way of expecting the nominator to fix things significantly is going to work because

• A large minority of articles need a complete rewrite and expansion, aside from sourcing and MOS
• A lot of people/WikiProjects are happy to parade their stars, votestack etc, and only fix things when a FAC/FAR reviewer objects, so they will never do anything unless someone threatens to confiscate it, so many articles cease to improve once the star is added, often for three years. If the reviewers have to fix it they will just sit there, and reviewers will baulk at doing all the work (maybe 30+ hours if a content overhaul is needed) for another person's/WikiProject to sit there and engage in freeloading. The result is that it will be too easy for a bad article to stay FAs indefinitely; either the outsider has to serve the other still-active guy with a free lunch and the article stays legitimately, or else the outsider gets told off for "not fixing it yourself" and the stigma will lead to bad articles not being accountable. A lot of still-active people I have noticed, don't respond to FARs, and then go around saying they still have X FAs even though they are still delisted and don't meet modern GA standards, for an ego trip. Some guys even oppose RfAs because people criticised their unsourced "featured articles". I don't know why these types of people who drag their feet and only see the star as an ego-trip and means of wooing disciples, should be pandered to.
• Most people think that all FAs, including old ones should meet current standards. Putting heavy expectations/stigma on the outsiders will mean that lazy/bludging WikiProjects, including some with a 100% support rate on all their FAs can just sit there as they will always do the mininum possible. It plays too much into their hands. It is not feasible for outsiders to clean up everything.
• Yes, it is best for morale that everything is always improving, but it is very inefficient for a person from the US for instance, to have to rewrite a deficient cricket FA, things that they don't have a background in. Australians can help with Australian articles more efficiently so I just pre-emptively work on some of them without waiting for FAR. Authors and Wikiprojects should take responsibility for their "achievements". Many articles are never improved unless a star or GA is at stake, due to people's attitude, so FAR is the only way of prompting it unless maybe 10-25 people are expected to rewrite 1000 FAs in topics they aren't familiar with. As long as people are being pro-active in improving/maintaining articles in their sphere of interest to modern standards, I don't think they should feel guilty at questioning articles of those people/projects that choose to not improve their articles unless threatened. Certainly I do not feel guilty at FARing articles on topics I am not acquainted with and not fixing it for them; most people/WikiProjects are not shy about their achievements, some WikiProject leaders even talk to the media and take credit for FAs that they or their group didn't even write; they shouldn't expect to be able to hide behind articles that don't come close to GA standard or expect others to build a star and give it to them. Otherwise the quality of the FA cohort will never come close to being consistent; the bigger the inconsistency, the more discredit it. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:28, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

In short, if pressure is put on reviewers to fix up articles, a lot will simply not bother, and the owners will mostly just sit there and expect to be served. Articles will rarely be improved by disinterested parties, especially content issues that apply to most older FAs. If Wikiproject people don't do it, then it basically won't happen, and WikiProjects tend to not be harsh with themselves, so if outside noms are expected to fix it or else shut up, the result will be that more and more featured articles will fail more and more of the criteria and still be unfairly categorised. The article isn't actually going backwards when a star is being removed. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:41, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I should have just referred people to my collection of archived rants at User talk:YellowMonkey/FAR, User:YellowMonkey/FAR and Wikipedia:WikiProject_Military_history/Academy/Initiating_a_featured_article_review YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 07:41, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts, YM—they are illuminating as always. You have spent much more time at FAR than I have, so I defer to your judgment on the general matter of author/reviewer/nominator behavior. I see your point that a person should not hesitate to nominate an article here because of a requirement to help work on the article. I would not want to stick my nose into 75% of the FA topics other than to fix surface issues, simply because I lack the expertise. The problem of recognizing comprehensiveness really transcends FAR—when I review your articles at FAC on Vietnamese history, for example, I would have no idea if there were large gaps in coverage. We have to AGF that people researched the articles to the best of their ability.

I still think people should be limited to one nom at a time to keep the page from being swamped, especially if there are multiple FARs from the same subject area. It's probably not reasonable to expect an active WikiProject to address multiple FARs at once. --Andy Walsh (talk) 14:45, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

The oldest FAR nomination currently active has been open four months now. Is it reasonable that nominators of articles for FAR are able to do so only a few times a year? Not many editors are willing to nominate as it is. YellowMonkey has made huge strides in making the process orderly and preventing the "rioting" so common previously. As he noted, many many FAs are below criteria. As he says, the goal should not be to retain the bronze star on articles below criteria, but to correctly classify articles. Awadewit said somewhere (I can't fine it) that she felt frustrated when editors said they had carefully modelled an article on an FA on the same subject, only to be told that article modelled was out of date and no longer complied with FAC criteria. As YellowMonkey so aptly put it, many editors seem to be interested in their star count but do not maintain their articles. Some even get upset when attempts are made to upgrade "their" article. Is Wikipedia really interested in attaining and maintaining high quality?

Is there any evidence that certain projects are overburdened with nominees? The Military Project has high quality articles because they actively maintain their articles. Regards, —Mattisse (Talk) 15:25, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually, MILHIST don't maintain their old FAs and in the last four months maybe 10 have been booted off and the only ones I can remember off the top of my head being kept were a couple that were kept because they were Greek and Yannis tries to fix all the Greek ones himself. They just make about 10 new ones or so each month and to them, losing 2 a month isn't considered a big deal. In one of the discussions somewhere in WT:MHCOORD there was quite a feeling that it was a waste of time to completely redo some of the articles; Kirill explicitly said it somewhere. While MILHIST is extremely large because war and killing has pervaded every country and every historical era, I don't think it is a particularly dense project. Most people only know something about articles relating to their country, and in a lot of cases have never heard of the subjects of the articles at FAR/FAC/ACR; certainly many reviewers including project veterans say that they had never heard of some Vietnamese military thing I nominated, and the same applies to articles I see, so I doubt that they would want to fix articles not from their country of interest. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:44, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

It's also funny how some WikiProjects see that because MILHIST is the biggest, that they will copy everything that MILHIST does even though they are too small to sustain it. Some WikiProjects see that because MILHIST has dozens of taskforces, they will do so too, and then end up with lots subprojects with 200 articles and some in double figures, with 1-2 participants, and spend all their time fiddling with talk page templates and setting up bureaucracy pages, thinking that it will make their project more prestigious, like a deluded cleric who invents more pointless ceremonies to pretend that they are becoming holier. Often it is by a self-serving wikipolitician who likes to create lot of meaningless titles and groups to feel better about themselves or to make themselves feel more important when they run off to some newspaper for self-promotion or decide to run for some wikielection or to get a few wikidisciples and a personality cult. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:53, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

YM,while I appreciate your concern over old articles relative to rising standards, one of the aims of FAR when citation requirements changed was to assure enough time for older articles to come to standard. One of the reasons for not allowing multiple noms at once was to assure that no one editor, topic area, WikiProject, etcetera would be overwhelmed and unable to bring articles at FAR to standard. With only 10% on the very old list, slowing things down might give editors more incentive and time to work on deficient articles. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:34, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Well just speaking of the three relatively large projects that I observe, with MILHIST per above, it is very large but also very broad, and most people only concentrate on a specific war or their country and don't know about anything else; often they only write in one taskforce. In most cases apart from the big ones like WWII, WWI and US, there are only a dozen active members and often only 1-2 people reguarly writing the GA+ level articles, so if the original author does away, there is often nobody interested in the same country/war who will fix it. Even among the WWII/I and US taskforces, there may be 20 active FA people but even then, most concentrate only on their country's battles, or in the US case, some focus on ships, others on infantry, and others on civil war. There has usually been no interest in any of the FARs except for Yannismarou on the Greek facet, and there have been lots of FARs as there are so many FAs. WP:BIO isn't really a wikiprihect, it is just a classification more or less, so nothing happens there. WP:AUS listed above, I don't see much proactive work on citations/formatting/prose or content upgrades, and about 8 FARs in the last 12 months (although all have been saved so far) isn't really enough to keep up with the fact that the project has 141 FAs and about 25-35 get passed each year and therefore many of these will go out of date each year. I did comment on the Australian noticeboard multiple times that without pro-active rewriting, a big catastrophe will result, but it hasn't had any effect and when it gets to FAR it has been the same two people over and over, and two people can't fix 30 articles when most of these might need 15 hours or more, and in some cases a new article entirely. As for the subcontinental ones, about 75% of their FAs passed in 2006 or earlier, and an abnormally high proportion of the main writers quite in 2007, so they basically aren't coping because of the extreme rise in standards. (Most of the 20 or so delisted examples that I cited needed a content overhaul or major rewrite, and because only five or so new FAs have been produced in the past 12 months, there isn't enough personnel to improve the articles) Even when only one FAR was open, the vast majority of FARs had zero improvements. Only a small minority of WikiProjects have more than a handful of FAs anyway, so the chance of a small WikiProject having 2 out of 15 FAs being FARed is small, and in any case, in small WikiProjects, often 1-2 people have written most of the FAs. If they retire, then typically nobody in the project will care or maybe not even notice, and if there are multiple noms against the same project or author, they are usually slowed down if the author is working on them. They were always granted/offered to Mav, Piotrus and Nichalp, although Nichalp never fixed any of them when he was active, so maybe he was trying to buy time and hoping someone else would do it for him. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:44, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

In short: Most big projects with 50+ FAs will have at large amount of outdated FAs due to scaling, and one FAR per project at a time (in the absence of pro-active fixing, which is rare) will mean that more and more articles will fall behind, especially if say 20-35% don't meet modern standards. That would mean dozens, maybe 30-40 for some projects, and one FAR at a time won't work. Pro-activity is the only way to keep a high rate of old articles at FA, aside from allowing articles that fail the criteria remain, and at the moment there isn't enough proactive improvement. I also sense that for big WikiProjects, it isn't a big deal to lose a FA, whereas with small WikiProjects, they don't have many FAs so they covet them more and tend to engage in bloc voting and political stunts more readily. Also in small Wikipedias, they tend to have 50%+ of articles less than 500 bytes so I think there is a mentality of small groups trying to "prove themselves" and creating/pushing a lot of low-quality stuff through so that they can overtake other groups in the FA-count/article count rankings and become one of the superpowers, whereas the English Wikipedia and MILHIST, because they are well ahead in the numbers, don't need to inflate the numbers by cutting corners. Most smaller projects are a one/two-man band as far as FAs go, and it all depends on the author, and if they are actively working, then second/third noms are held almost automatiiccaly or on request anyway. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:44, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

On another related note, a lot of the people who were the most in favour of making the FA criteria more difficult, never come to FAR. I think it rather defeats the purpose that new articles need proper research, while not much of a finger is lifted against a litany of articles that were just paraphrased from tertiary source internet miniobios or worse, like home made sites. YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 02:44, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Index/Comparison - As of last year, only 30 groups had 50+ FAs (but this is inflated as some of them count FLs as FAs) and only about 10% had more than 10. Only about 40% had more than 2, so the chance of a small project getting swamped is negligible. If a group has 10 FAs, there is a (10*9/2)(10/2500)^2 (less than 1 in 1200) chance that two will be nominated consecutively YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 03:15, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

To reiterate, I think the change in instructions is a good one. I, for one, am not willing to research a panoply of topics at FAR to "save" FAs. I am willing to review, like I do at FAC, but the time it would take to research an article fully is immense. If an article can be saved through some brief work, that is wonderful, but if we make saving every article the goal, we will get only patchy work because it will take months of in-depth reading and extensive writing (perhaps years, depending on the topic) to fully rewrite some article. That is very time-consuming - we cannot ask the reviewers here to do that consistently. Awadewit (talk) 02:53, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

I didn't keep a total count, but saving Lake Burley Griffin took about 20-25 hours to read up and expand all these holes. Half of the Australian ones I mentioned above needed some content changes, so it might take a similar time and they were all uncontroversial and didn't involve pundit analysis. If the topic is controversial, or has a lot of disputed facts and analysis it might take, 100 or more. I predict that the Gandhi article that was delisted might have taken maybe 200 hours or more for an outsider to be up to speed with research. Aside from adding citations, Gandhi was analysed by hundreds of historians, and only a handful of books were cited in the article, including autobios etc. Most of the delisted subcontintental national subcontinental leaders I mentioned above (Syed, Jinnah, Ziaur, Mujib) might have taken a similar amount; instead of simplying paraphrasing an online govt miniobio or the coreesponding online enyclopedia, they might have to read 5-10 books about the president's policies and rule before distilling it. The same might got for Iqbal and Nazrul as they were regarded as the national poets of their country (How long would it take to read up on Shakespeare?). YellowMonkey (cricket calendar poll!) paid editing=POV 03:15, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

This must have been considered and rejected, but you guys should just delist them like at WP:GA. And do it as quick as you can, allowing people to do multiple FARs. Trying to get people to do heavy work on subjects they don't care about is a losing proposition. People work on what they want to work on. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 02:52, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I think this is an unreasonable requirement for FAR. Yes, it would be of great help if the nominator worked on bringing the article back to FA status, but if he honestly believed that the article could be saved without having a complete rewrite or referencing done, then he could have just asked a few people on WikiProject talk pages to offer some assistance instead of submitting an FAR in the first place. I think nominators are doing there part by simply offering their suggestions on how to bring the article back up to standard. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 03:31, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Changes reinstated

I've reinstated teh changes YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 01:41, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

• I agree with the reinstatement. JKBrooks85 (talk) 08:20, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I deeply regret this development. Historically, FAR was a place where a high percentage of stars were saved, 500 uncited articles were carefully processed over several years in such a way that many could be kept featured, and the page was kept below 32 so that each FAR could get attention from a dedicated group of editors who enjoyed saving articles. With the page moving towards more than 50 FARs at a time, and multiple noms from a small group of editors, it should be no surprise that less and less editors will want to come here and help out. I checked Every Single FAR for years, but with more than 50 up and a mentality of running them through and defeaturing as many as possible, even though only 10% of our FAs are in trouble, I'm disinclined to exert effort here. I strongly believe this change is a disencentive to the entire FA process. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:13, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

With this refreshing change, I am strongly encourage to exert effort here. It is nice to know that there is no double standard for "old" and "new" FAs. Awadewit (talk) 23:47, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

For the record only, I'm not aware that there ever was a double standard, rather an attempt to allow enough time to bring older articles to standard. More than 500 articles were processed with a high "save" rate, while last month, we had only one Keep to multiple Delists. IMO, this isn't the way to go. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:36, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

It was 1-15 but it should have been about 4-15 except that Raul hasn't been closing a couple that were fixed up. I think the system is robust enough. In those areas where people have been interested, like Greek, Australian and Atrononomy FARs, they have lasted until the people have finished, sometimes three months, except when they fixed it more quickly. The only ones closed after a month were when people got bored. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 03:05, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Problems with reinstated changes

In reviewing the reinstated changes I see several problems:

• They summarize the consensus a bit harshly. There does not seem to be a consensus that the intent is that "the vast majority" of nominations should result in delisting, even if in practice many are delisted. The instructions should not put phrases like "the vast majority ... being delisted" into what many will read as a prescription for the process.
• They introduce redundancy. "Ideally, an article will be restored to meet contemporary standards" is redundant with "The ideal review would address the issues raised and close with no change in status." The newly-introduced text can be greatly abbreviated without losing its gist.
• As a lesser point, the 1st bullet in the FAR step is overburdened with a discussion of the intent of the overall process. This should be moved elsewhere, most likely to the intro.

I attempted to fix the above problems with an edit that I don't think alters the intent of the reinstated change, though it does soften the wording somewhat.

There's one other problem. Under the current rules an editor could nominate all the FAs for review, merely because of a change to the criteria. For example, right now I suspect that almost all FAs fail criterion 3 due to lack of alt text, so according to the rules I could nominate 95% of all FAs right now. I don't think this is our intent. The previous limit on nominations may have been too restrictive, but having no limit is even worse: it's just asking for trouble. Not being intimately familiar with the process I don't know what a good limit would be, but to start the ball rolling I propose a limit of one nomination per week for each nominator. Eubulides (talk) 21:57, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Perfect example of the problem with this new mentality. When citation requirements changed, we managed to review ONE HALF of the current FAs over time (when inline citation requirements were added, 52% of then current FAs were uncited), with no hurry. Besides the above noted redundancies, I remain very concerned about this push. Putting no limits on how many noms a person can have up at once cannot lead good places. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:10, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm starting to agree here. Although I'm one of the individuals who's pushing multiple FAs through the process, I believe it's starting to get a bit overwhelming here. We have enough people willing to scour the FA listings to see which articles don't meet the current criteria, but we don't have enough editors who'll put the work into restoring an article to meet standards. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 03:07, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not a big fan of multiple listings myself, but more because it tends to overburden any process, not just this one. However, I don't think we can complain about the fact that there aren't enough editors willing to read up on a subject and save an FA - it takes months, if not years, of research to understand many subject matters. As Sandy herself said, "I spent ten years researching and gathering material for Tourette syndrome, and six months writing it (granted, I was a newbie, and figuring out the ins and outs of Wiki, and there was, back then, not a single other Wiki editor who could help me...Colin and I have discussed FAing History of Tourette syndrome (many interesting sources available), and that would take me at about four months of research and work." (see here). I'm not sure why we expect editors at FAR to put in this amount of work, because to fix many of the articles, this is what would have to be done. It is not as simple as "just adding citations". One has to essentially redo all of the research to make sure the article is comprehensive, etc. Awadewit (talk) 03:20, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I sympathize with most of Sandy's points, but also agree with what YellowMonkey and Awadewit have to say, so let's meet in the middle. Perhaps a compromise would be to reinstate a limit on noms, but loosen the rules slightly: an editor should normally nominate only one article at FAR, but if an article they have nominated has reached the FARC ("Removal") stage and has a clear consensus to delist, he/she is allowed to nominate one more article to FAR (no editor would be allowed more than two FARs at any given time). Dabomb87 (talk) 03:34, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

That is pretty much how Marskell ran FAR. There was a one nom limit, but then exceptions were made for <ahem> editors who were working very hard every day at FAR, when their previous noms had already been dealt with. In other words, I often had up two or three (AT MOST), because the earlier ones were finished but still on the page. It was handled on an exception basis, also employing common sense. Under the current rules, someone could put up every FA for a given WikiProject, and the Project would be overburdened. That's why we had rules before-- to assure that no one area or editor would be unable to restore an article because multiple reviews came up at once. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:37, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, I support reinstating that rule (perhaps making it more defined?). For the record, I have two FARs running: one that is at FARC and has no chance of being saved (even the original nominator has said the article needs a complete rewrite), and the other is at the first stage, and one editor just volunteered to work on it. In the interim, the good news is that after today's archive of FARs, we have more "saves" this month than in the whole July (although to be fair, those two articles should have been archived much earlier)! Dabomb87 (talk) 03:47, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I would like think that people can be sensible and not nominate 20+ at a time, although I'll ease off myself personally. Having said that I am still certain that the gap in the FAs is growing, and that in cases like the presidents and statesmen above like Gandhi, Jinnah and Mujib, even for people from those countries it would take 70+ hours to do research at least, and probably 140+ to do it properly per the the "well researched" criteria, let along an outsider. I think that many of the old keeps would never have passed a FAC at the same time as the FAR, eg Rail transport in India (check the mid07 version) and Chennai (kept late 07) but were kept partly out of sympathy for the article and/or author. I can cite many more (some even worse) but if I assailed the article I would have to recuse from their subsequent FARs. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 03:58, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I added seven and six were subtracted; where's the good news <chuckle ... just kidding>. Anyway, the current rules open up all kinds of bad doors, such as mentioned by Eubulides. I hope we can work around. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:51, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm fine with the rules being tweaked, but given that often 50+ FAs passed per month in the old days, and that most articles are not improved much at all afterwards, with only about 15-20 new FARs per month until recently, there will be a lot of outdated FAs building up. I don't think many of the kept FARs from past times would pass FAC, I don't think Witold Pilecki would and was waiting for Piotrus to do some more cleanup, for instance, bu Joelito closed it anyway. For Cynna Kydd in early2008 I should have been more firm myself, it would not have passed FAC but was kept anyway; I couldn't find online news older than a few years and gave up but everyone else sort of just went "close enough...." YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 03:58, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd accept reinstating the "one nomination per editor, except for a special group of elites trustworthy and responsible FAR frequenters" rule. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 04:08, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

That might be interpreted as "elitist": I say leave it unstated, and let YM use discretion, as before, in case any one area is overwhelmed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:11, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd say just leave it and interfere as necessary. Like I said, I won't be adding any more in the next period. I agree with the no exceptions; I know Nichalp tried to say at WT:INB that he should be given an exemption to self-award A-class articles without a proper review. I think it's ridiculous. In any case, there have been plenty of instances of 3+ FARs at a time in the last year, not just in the last 2 months when it became a bit of a high-profile issue. In any case the old rules were never followed, so it's better to have no rule and just let me interfere if it gets too much YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 04:16, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "the old rules were never followed". Yes, there were cases of more than one FAR at a time: when a FAR had been up several weeks and it was apparent that there were no editors available to work on an unsalvageable article, active FAR participants (like myself) could add another FAR. That is quite different from instructions that don't prevent every editor from nominating dozens of articles at a time: I oppose this change, as it adds a disencentive to improving FAs. I'm getting a sense of retribution and an overfocus on WP:WBFAN, rather than motivating editors and WikiProjects to monitor and preserve FAs ... a focus on editors and lists rather than articles. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:42, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

There is no evidence that any editors are motivated to nominate "dozens of articles at a time". It actually takes quite a bit of time and effort to read through an article, check out the sources, outline the issues the article has, research to see if fixes can be made, decide to nominate the article, then clearly present the problems in FAR. It is unlikely that anyone will be able to do this for dozens of articles at a time. —Mattisse (Talk) 15:55, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Then there's no reason for the instructions to allow, even encourage it. If that is the exception, not the rule, then the older instructions were more close to actual practice. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:57, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree with YellowMonkey. His judgment is good; he is not afraid to step in if the going gets tough. Please allow him to use his discretion in this matter. —Mattisse (Talk) 16:13, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

The long-standing instructions did not prevent YM from using his discretion: quite the opposite. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:20, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Quite. Juat as the new ones do not prevent YM for using his discretion. So lets go along with the instructions YM prefers. —Mattisse (Talk) 02:03, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Adding toolbox to FAR pages

I've recently changed the FAR instructions and templates so that we'll get the same toolbox on FAR pages that we do on FAC pages. I have tested this as best I can without actually doing an FAR. Does anyone care to suggest an article that really needs FAR, so that I can test the new template scheme on this article? Eubulides (talk) 18:49, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I tested it using the preview button, and everything looks fine. I think the toolbox is a good addition; many web references were added years ago, and link rot takes its toll. Dabomb87 (talk) 20:13, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

• Thanks! The toolbox is a big help. JKBrooks85 (talk) 08:20, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Another FAR delegate

Does anyone else think that another might be useful? I involve myself in a lot of the FARs so can't close them, and Raul is only available intermittently. Joelito and Marskell are inactive. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 02:46, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not terribly active at FAR, but I'd be able to help if necessary. –Juliancolton | ^Talk 02:52, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Well it doesn't take a long time, except for some FARs where there is some work and it take s bit to work out if the article is good or not. Plus, the reviews are sparser than at FAC so in closing you might have to research more. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 03:00, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I think having another active delegate would be useful. YellowMonkey has expended much effort into improving/saving/nominating FARs (for example Lake Burley Griffin) that we have a backlog of closeable FARs that can't be archived. Dabomb87 (talk) 03:03, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I think another delegate is needed. With YellowMonkey involved in some of the FARs, we only have Raul654 to close FARs. Unfortunately, his availability is dodgy at times, which leaves FAR a bit overwhelmed at times. I'd be glad to help out. I'm fairly active at FAR, with the nominating/voting process and more recently, in efforts to save FAs. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 03:14, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Apart from the articles I nommed, I have also edited five of the current FARCs, and can't close them. Plus with not that many reviews on some articles one has to be a bit more proactive in examining the FARCs that are improved... YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 03:37, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I would support Nishkid, and also recommend DrKiernan (talk · contribs) and Cirt (talk · contribs) as delegates. Dabomb87 (talk) 03:26, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I wonder what the process for appointing a new delegate. Usually Raul just does his thing, do we have to wait for him to come back? Also, has anyone else noticed a big increase in the depth of reviews and attempts to fix up articles in the last month and a half. It does increase the FAR delegate workload. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 03:37, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Judging by the fact that Raul scheduled TFA two weeks in advance, which he doesn't usually do, he might be totally away for a while. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 03:46, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

A community discussion is wiser than handing off the selection process to one editor. The FAC/FAR processes are a bit odd, in that they are chiefly controlled by one user. It would seem more appropriate that instead of having a FAC/FAR tsar with self-appointed (do correct me if I'm wrong) delegates, we create a committee of FAC/FAR deciders, who each possess the same amount of might. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 03:55, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Although I've been generally disappointed with the FAR backlog, for which I'm somewhat responsible, I have taken some relief in seeing an increased effort by various members of the community to save FAs. Keep up the good work, everyone. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 03:48, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Me too. I wonder if the informal incentive system carrots anyone YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 03:52, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

My impetus is seeing more users working hard to bring articles back to shape rather than bickering with POV-pushers, complaining about the philosophy of footnotes, or just ignoring FAR altogether. Dabomb87 (talk) 04:02, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Oddly enough, there is less complaint about the way FA is run than about importance community processes, even though the directors/delegates are appointed rather than elected, as opposed to ArbCom (selected via a direct vote) or RfA (mixture of voting and discussion). Dabomb87 (talk) 04:04, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, I think that a lot of non-content people think that FA is BS, although they also regard it as irrelevant to whatever they are interested in, so they don't bother. Heaps of people just mumble negative things on their pages about FA (except when their old stuff gets FARed/GARed so forth) YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 04:19, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't know of any reason to think that Raul is away for an extended time, nor any reason that he isn't available for closing FARs (there is no hurry), but I continue to be concerned about the page backlog due to multiple nominations replacing a mentality of addressing items on talk page and coming to FAR as a last recourse. I don't see this as a problem with lacking delegates as much as a shift in the way the page is being used. I'd also suggest consulting Raul before furthering the notion that he's not available, as I have no reason to believe that to be the case. Also, Marskell was very involved in saving FAs, and still closed them when the work was done; there's only a problem when there are outstanding issues. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:31, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Well I have been speaking out about being pro-active at WP:AWNB and to various Australians, with no obvious result. On a few old FARs I did a while ago, I also posted on the talk page before FAR, with no result, although obviously there is no problem with putting them on talk first to see if there is a reaction. Also, the FARs are overwhelmingly of 4-year old articles by authors who have quit. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 06:33, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't want to get involve in rubber-stamping things that I work on, unless the nominator explicitly withdraws it. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 06:38, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

FA save efforts are usually directed by the editors who originally worked on the article. As of late, most of the FARs submitted are of articles that were promoted three or four years ago. Naturally, some of the editors who originally worked on these articles have left Wikipedia or are inactive. It seems inefficient to use an article talk page when the article needs a total revamp and could use the eyes of the larger community at FAR. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 12:39, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Agree. I have learned through experience to be especially wary about putting suggestions for improvements on FA talk pages of older articles as these may not be welcomed. Also, a recent FA article I looked at had not had a talk page entry in three years. So that is not always a feasible way to go. Further, I support Awadewit in her suggestion (I believe) that since so much energy is needed to bring a deficient FA article up to snuff, she would rather put that energy in new FAs rather than an older one for which there are no other editors knowledgeable enough to help. The goal should be to have current FAs representing the best of Wikipedia, not some misguided attempt to preserve woefully below standard articles. Efforts to fix articles before they reach FAR often brings retribution. FAR is a quality control check and should be welcomed as such, as is the GAR process where the GA status is not considered a sacred cow. Many "saved" and "kept" FAs in the past did not meet FA standards at the time, never mind now. So many of those must be done again. Regards, —Mattisse (Talk) 12:57, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

It can never hurt to suggest a review on talk to see if anyone picks up the ball. Well-positioned comments aren't usually rejected, and "often brings retribution" is unjustified in my experience, except for a few unique circumstances. I've seen no proposal to "preserve woefully below standard articles"; when FAR was a place of active work, reviews here were often more indepth than at FAC. Saved FAs did meet standards in the past: standards have increased continually, and with only 10% needing review, I still do not understand what is happening to this page. Guaranteed mass delistings will not provide incentive to editors to improve articles. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:33, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

It is incorrect to say that only 10% of current FAs are endangered/need inspection, based on the list at WP:URFA. A quick look at the listing of subcontinental pages on FAR that I listed above, a lot were written in the second half of 06 and some in early 2007. It was unanimously agreed on all of them that they were far from FA standard (none had decayed due to vandalism or nationalist/racist troll armies turning it into a joke, the standards in those days were simply very low). Looking at the listing at WP:CRIC, the first ten are from late-2006 up to mid-2007, all earlier ones are delisted. Bodyline was nowhere near comprehensive or well-researched and has been undergoing an overhaul for a year, Collins is getting through FAR, CWC isn't very comprehensive and doesn't use good sources. Collingwood and Pietersen are current players and haven't been kept up to date properly, the post-07 bits are uneven and skinny, West Indian cricket team in England in 1988 doesn't meet criteria, Gilchrist is not particularly comprehensive and has undue weight problems in 08-09, eg he won the Allan Border Medal in early 2003 (was the best player in 2002) but the 02-03 period has the shortest section, O'Reilly is not comprehensive, given that he is regarded as one of the top 30 players of all time, and especially as he was involved in perpetual Catholic/Protestant infighting and power struggles among the team members. Although these are far from the worst FAs out there (eg, the already delisted 06-07 stuff), there are a lot of places where improvement is possible. From my personal check, around 25% of Australian FAs need a checkup, and from other relatively projects I've checked, they have at least the same %. Furthermore, Ealdgyth only started checking RS last year; in late-2007, there were family tribute sites and hobby sites used on passed FACs. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 02:18, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured articles promoted in 2006 shows that many post June-2006 FAs have already been crossed off, and most of the discussions in those cases were pretty overwhelmingly against those articles. I remember doing some work on Russian Ground Forces, which was correctly delisted in Oct-08 22 months after promotion in Dec06, with Sandy as one of the people advocating delist (correctly). YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 02:25, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Let's state the obvious: we need more reviewers. And we need more experts. ceranthor 13:21, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

But until this magical fuzzy wonderful time comes upon us... :P --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 13:42, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Or we could get the experts who are already contributors... maybe that could work. But that's a definite maybe ceranthor 15:16, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Even if the FAR backlog is reduced, I think the entire process should be delegated to a few active editors to prevent stress and burnout that would be observed when a single user is regulating the system. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 02:29, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Concerns

I have some concerns about the way FAR is approached. The default seems to be to delist unless relatively minor issues are addressed by the original authors, or at least by someone other than the reviewers. This is very unwiki-like. My memory of when FAR first started was that the point of it was to improve FAs to current standards, not to delist, but at some point the pendulum seems to have swung away from that. Does anyone know what percentage of articles nominated for FAR reached FARC, and what percentage of the latter are delisted? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 19:17, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Those numbers, as you noticed, are changing. You can review the FAR archive for a month-by-month summary. If I have time, I'll put together a chart, but I too, am concerned about this trend. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:18, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

What recently caught my eye were two articles that had appeared on the front page. I forget the first; will look for the name. It was apparently on the front page one day, and put up for FAR the next. The other is Woody Guthrie, which appeared on the front page on January 2009, and was delisted yesterday. Looking at it, I can see areas that could use improvement, but they are all relatively minor issues. What concerns me is that it was regarded as good enough to promote, then good enough to feature on the main page a few months ago, but has now been delisted because a very small number of reviewers found minor faults. It seems most unwiki-like. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 20:07, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

If an article was just on the main page, it should not have been nominated here. (In the past, I was the one to check for that, but with the increased volume on this page, I've given up trying to participate.) Also, in the past, Marskell simply didn't allow delisting over minor issues -- he rounded up editors to fix them, pinging everyone he could. My concern about the page is that there is now less motivation to work to fix minor items. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:09, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

• I am quite happy to offer myself and an adjudicator of, if and when it is time to delist a page. The only requisite qualification is to be in possession of a half decent education and an ability to decide what can be reasonably assumed common knowledge Giano (talk) 20:26, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Looking through the figures for this year, January and February don't seem so bad, but since then there seems to have been a presumption in favor of delisting:

• July: one kept, 15 delisted; 94 percent delisted
• June: two kept; 18 delisted; 90 percent
• May: six kept, 14 delisted; 71 percent
• April: six kept, 21 delisted; 78 percent
• March: six kept, 13 delisted; 68 percent
• February: six kept, six delisted; 50 percent
• January: five kept, seven delisted; 58 percent

This is very demoralizing for FA writers. Did something happen in February/March to cause a change? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 20:54, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

We had new delegates in mid-March. Dabomb87 (talk) 21:10, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

People changed 1c at WP:WIAFA to say "high-quality" sources after the FAC on John Wilkes Booth used some sources that were not as good as the textbooks available and "well researched". There have been instances of FARs where people have complained about too many tertiary sources being used; typically these were old FAs where the author pulled off a few minibios from online encyclopedias and just mixed a paraphrased them. Examples of articles that were heavily pulled from govt minibios/Banglapedia/CIA intro guides etc that were removed in the last 5 months include Ziaur Rahman, Mujib, Sir Syed, all written by the same retired person. To satisfy (1c) would have required a lot of reading up of serious history textbooks. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 01:43, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm going further back to see whether this really is a new trend, or whether we've had mass delistings before:

• December 2008: seven kept, eight delisted; 63 percent delisted
• November: four kept, eight delisted; 67 percent
• October: 12 kept; 14 delisted; 54 percent
• September: 17 kept; 18 delisted; 51 percent
• August: nine kept, 12 delisted; 57 percent
• July: ten kept, eight delisted; 44 percent
• June: 12 kept, 14 delisted; 54 percent
• May: four kept, 16 delisted; 80 percent
• April: 12 kept; 10 delisted; 45 percent
• March: eight kept, 16 delisted; 67 percent
• February: 11 kept, 10 delisted; 48 percent
• January: 14 kept, nine delisted; 39 percent

Looking at this, the only comparable month was May 2008. Otherwise March to July 2009 stands out as the killing fields of FA. At this rate, we'll have no featured articles left, and no featured article writers either. Is there support to reverse the trend? SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 21:32, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I've given my suggestions for how to reverse the trend ... limit the page as was done previously, which will encourage editors to work to save FAs when possible. We're getting multiple noms of FAs written by same editors ... very demoralizing and will affect FAC as well as FAR. Even when we had scores of Emsworth articles to get through two years ago, we took them little by little and didn't allow all at once. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:46, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Well Emsworth had 57 FAs and they were all FARed. They stopped some time late in 2008, and Emsworth was doing some stuff in 2005, so they were done in at most 3-3.5 years=36-42 months, at least 1.33 FARs a month, but I suspect most were done since the new FAR in 2006, so more like 2+ per month. No other editor has been subjected to that. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 02:55, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Looking down the list, I see multiple FARs nominated by one editor, but don't see "multiple noms of FAs written by same editors", as Sandy says. I know we've had trouble with certain editors over nominating "their" FAs, but that doesn't seem to be the trouble here. Dabomb87 (talk) 21:53, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't have time, but for example, someone should look at the stats on this year's Giano, Bish, Geogre noms. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:05, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

They have not been targetted more than anyone else, less in fact. Buckingham Palace, Restoration comedy, Peterborough Chronicle, Augusta, Lady Gregory (Filiocht). One each since March. Piotrus, Nichalp, Rama's Arrow, Worldtraveller have all had three or more (and maybe I forgot some others) and some others two. There were two on the Mini by the same author that were removed. Some statistics compiled by machine would be good. There are a lot of perceptions that I would like to see corrected YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 02:55, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

There are a lot of perceptions about the FA process in general that I would like to see corrected. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:58, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

This seems to have been a slowly growing trend that snowballed in March. I don't think the issue can be addressed simply by limiting editors to one FAR nomination at a time. I'll compile some statistics to see the breakdown of FAR participation. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 22:00, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Here is the breakdown of current FAR nominators:

• TenPoundHammer – 1
• Aaroncrick – 2
• Aubergine - 1
• Awadewit – 1
• Cirt – 8
• Dabomb87 – 2
• Dalejenkins – 1
• DroEsperanto – 1
• Durova – 1
• Future Perfect at Sunrise – 1
• Giants2008 – 1
• Jarry1250 – 1
• Jclemens – 1
• JKBrooks85 – 1
• Jmh649 – 1
• Koavf – 1
• Mattisse – 5
• Nishkid64 – 2
• Noisalt – 1
• Otumba – 1
• Parrot of Doom – 1
• Peter Andersen – 1
• SilkTork – 1
• TheCoffee – 1
• The Prince – 1
• Tpbradbury – 1
• YellowMonkey – 11

Certainly interesting... Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 22:12, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

• 51 total nominations, the top three nominators are responsible for 24 (47.1%) of all FAR nominations. Frankly, that is ridiculous. I knew I saw some names constantly popping up at FAR, but I didn't suspect that we could be down to ~30 FARs if we had enforced the 1 nom rule. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 22:16, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

The issue seems not to be the nominations alone, but the decision to delist over minor issues, even when people are speaking out in favor of keeping. I wonder how much work it would be to carry out an audit of this year's nominations. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 22:19, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

What minor issues are you thinking of? I haven't checked through every single current FAR, but I reckon they center around referencing and prose issues, which are far from minor. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 22:24, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

There are style and formatting issues that get mentioned a lot. That's one of the reasons it would be a good idea to have an audit. Some are being delisted for style issues, some for substantive issues; some FARs are being moved to FARC for no obvious reason; some are closed quickly, some left open for months. If the stock of FAs is being reduced so quickly, it would be good to know why, and whether it's being done consistently. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 22:48, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

August's delistings:

• Anne of Great Britain – factual errors, citations missing, comprehensiveness
• Rail transport in India – citations missing, low-quality sources, comprehensiveness
• Names of the Greeks – neutrality, content disputes, primary sourcing issues
• Krag-Petersson – citations missing, insufficient high-quality sources, and sources that were there lacked page numbers
• African American literature – prose, citations missing, structure and balance
• Aramaic language – prose and citations, mainly (in addition to MOS niggles)
• Meteorological history of Tropical Storm Allison – uncontroversial procedural nom to allow for merge
• Whale song – citations missing and unclear sentences/explanations, comprehensiveness, images
• Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport – Prose, comprehensiveness, citations missing and over-reliance on primary source, images
• Woody Guthrie – citations missing and prose problems (writing was improved, but there were still multiple complaints about it, especially on the higher levels), and a mention of missing coverage in one area

Hardly an in-depth survey, but enough to show that no article was delisted only because of "minor problems". Dabomb87 (talk) 22:51, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't recall of a situation in which an article was delisted primarily on style and formatting issues. It's usually secondary to something else, like prose or referencing problems. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 22:58, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Agree, and when an article is restored by other editors, someone usually comes along and addresses the minor MoS issues. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:00, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Almost nobody (Except the odd Tony1 nom) nominates on prose or MOS. They normally do it on missing info and references, and throw in the others as an extra if the latter conditions are true. As for more surveys, a list of delisted subcontinental articles is listed a few sections above. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 01:59, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

SlimVirgin, the process has speeded up in recent months. Usually, FARs are moved to FARC after two weeks, if there is consensus on the level and type of FA issues. At any time, an FAR can be placed on hold for an extended period of time if an editor states that they wish to work on the article. Aramaic language was at FAR for roughly four months I believe; it stayed there because the main contributor said he would work on the article. In the end, it was delisted because the contributor had not edited in over a month and there appeared to be no indication that the concerns could be addressed in a timely manner. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 23:06, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

The two weeks only applies if no work is done whatsoever YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 01:59, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

OK, I found one FAR that was borne out of stylistic issues: Wikipedia:Featured article review/Lazare Ponticelli/archive1 started because of an edit war over a linked date (and "citation density"). However, when the FAR was started, the nominator and others also pointed out legitimate prose glitches. Then, other major problems such as plagiarism, comprehensiveness and factual accuracy surfaced. Most of these were fixed, and the FA was kept. To be honest, though, the article was never in danger of being delisted. Other than that, I've never seen MOS issues and the like feature heavily in FARs. Dabomb87 (talk) 23:10, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Guthrie

I think Woody Guthrie was delisted for minor reasons. Dabomb, if you disagree, can you show me something substantive about that article that justifies the delisting e.g. contentious material that can't be sourced; writing so poor it would be hard or very time-consuming to fix it.

It was on the front page on January 10, 2009. An anon filed a FAR on June 9 because of supposed poor writing e.g. someone "lived across" from Guthrie, without saying across from what; it says he was born in (town) to (parents) without saying when; and several other somewhat odd complaints, including, "Guthrie was paid $180 a week, an impressive salary in 1940. (should be a semicolon) ," which is just wrong.

Others add:

1. Not enough about his music

2. An ogg file has no rationale

3. Tony made some copy-editing suggestions, but said it's a keep

Keep: Dannygutter, Tony

Delist: The anon who nominated it

It was moved to FARC on July 17:

1. Some citations are needed, and there's a hyperlinked external link in the body (Cirt).

2. The prose is not brilliant, and the structure is poor (Hamiltonstone).

3. Prose problems e.g. "In the late 1930s, Guthrie achieved fame in Los Angeles, California, with radio partner Maxine "Lefty Lou" Crissman as a broadcast performer of commercial "hillbilly" music and traditional folk music" [what's wrong with that?], and unspecified citations missing (Dabomb).

4. "I don't like voting to delist because there are so few concerns, but no progress has been made toward resolving the problems listed above. The "Jewish Songs" section is uncited, and there are a few other paragraphs that need citations as well. It's too bad, because this is a good article other than that" (JKBrooks).

5. Sourcing and prose problems, and no one working on them (Matisse).

6. "No one has even bothered to make the changes above where I cited garbled and awkward prose and provided suggested text for replacement" (the anon who nominated it).

It was delisted on August 11.

This article has 117 citations, some of them dead, but they can easily be replaced using the Internet archive (e.g. [9]) and live links aren't required anyway. And bear in mind that only quotations and material likely to be challenged needs a source; there's a tendency in FAR to ask for sources for the most straightforward issues.

I admit that the writing is not a style I particularly enjoy reading, but it's not bad. I've seen worse FAs. As I see it, there was no issue here so major that it had to be delisted. It seems that the delisting was prompted because no one was working on it as much as anything else. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 00:31, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Am I under a misunderstanding that our goal is to improve the encyclopedia? Would "I've seen worse" work in FAC? Regards, —Mattisse (Talk) 00:57, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Some were minor issues (in isolation), but taken altogether (with live links), the article would not have passed today's FAC.

I don't want to put words in other editors' mouths, so I'll stick with explaining my own example: "In the late 1930s, Guthrie achieved fame in Los Angeles, California, with radio partner Maxine "Lefty Lou" Crissman as a broadcast performer of commercial "hillbilly" music and traditional folk music" a borderline run-on sentence that is put together with the logically vague connector "with" (was Crissman part of the reason why Guthrie gained fame, or was he just a sideshow unrelated to Guthrie's notability); more subjectively (and I would never oppose or !vote delist over this), "achieved fame" doesn't sit right with me, as fame isn't a definite, hard achivement—I would suggest "gained fame" or "became famous".

The thing is, it's hard to copy-edit prose when you don't know the subject matter and you don't have anyone who is familiar with the subject matter to query. Now, could I spent more time searching for and listing issues? Yes, and I would have if someone was actively working to bring it up to standard.

I think other editors were pretty detailed in their criticisms too, which were hardly minor. For example, Hamiltonstone did a good job of explaining higher-level issues with the prose, which cannot be addressed by someone who doesn't know the subject.

Now for citations, it's hard to make arguments when editors are all over the board over how many inline citations should be used. So, I'll provide a few examples that I think need citations at the FA level:

• "In the late 1950s and early 1960s, a new generation of young people were inspired by folk singers including Guthrie." According to whom? This isn't widely known or accepted fact. Also, what is meant by a "new" generation?
• LaFave said, "It works because all the performers are Guthrie enthusiasts in some form". There's a reference, but it's dead, and there's a tag that says it's not in the given citation.
• "Guthrie's Jewish lyrics can be traced to the unusual collaborative relationship he had with his mother-in-law, who lived across from Guthrie and his family in Brooklyn in the 1940s" Certainly not common knowledge except perhaps for a die-hard fan.
• "Many of his songs are concerned with the conditions faced by these working class people." This could very well be original research or synthesis by someone
• "Although Mary Guthrie was happy to return to Texas, the wanderlusting Guthrie soon after accepted Will Geer's invitation to come to New York City and headed east."
• "Guthrie, known as "the Oklahoma cowboy"," Dabomb87 (talk) 01:02, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Dambomb, I chose one of your examples at random—the influence of the Jewish mother-in-law—did a Google search and after literally 60 seconds had two sources, a website and a book. [10] [11]. I do think reviewers could find an awful lot of missing citations themselves with very little effort, and if they even just started to do it, others would see the effort and appreciate it, and might join in, rather than a resentful "writers v reviewers" relationship being established. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 19:10, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I couldn't access the google books ref, and would be wary of using an ostensibly primary source for that fact. I do appreciate the point you're making, though. I chose some of the more "obvious" examples; some editors have more stringent standards for citation than others. Also, I don't want to make it look like all I do is go down the FAR list and !vote "delist" on each. When I see that editors are willing to put in substantial time and effort into saving an article and the subject is not out of my league, I will happily help with citations, MOS and prose. I didn't see that at Woody Guthrie, so I spent more time on other FARs, such as doing MOS cleanup at near-keeps and helping out with adding citations at Sheffield. Dabomb87 (talk) 19:20, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

The book reference was Yiddishe Mamas by Marnie Winston-Macauley, p. 136. I'm not sure I'd call the Woodie Guthrie Foundation a primary source as such, but even if it is, that's fine, they're allowed; also bear in mind that the material isn't contentious.

I've been reading though older posts on this page, and posts elsewhere about FAR, and what I'm seeing is a degree of resentment on both sides. There are frequent comments from reviewers about how certain FAs haven't been edited in months; no one is maintaining them; when the FAR opened, no one responded, and it seems that articles are being delisted almost because of the lack of interest in itself. On the other side, writers aren't bothering to come and save the articles because they feel belittled by the process. What can we do to create a sense of collaboration, rather than us v them? Slowing the number of nominations down will help a lot. I'm wondering what else can be done. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 19:30, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

• Guthrie was an extremely important musical and historical figure, and to say that a sloppy article is good enough for him reflects poorly on Wikipedia, from my point of view. Further, plenty has been written about him, and this article does not reflect that at all. It is rather a "dashed off" type article. —Mattisse (Talk) 01:28, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Major change

I think the main point is still being missed. In 2005, there was a major change in FA requirements, when inline citations were required. Rather than running 'em all through and delisting 50% of our then-current FAs, we processed them slowly over time, which allowed for a high save rate. Now, instead, we're running 'em through to account for new requirements, rather than proceeding deliberatively and slowly so that editors can have time to bring their articles up to new requirements. If FAR continues on this path, there will be no incentive for editors to bring articles to FAC, because they will just be delisted every time requirements change. Please STOP allowing a few editors to make multiple noms, and instead, return to a slow and deliberative process so FA writers won't be demoralized. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:18, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the general sentiment, but I find your explanation behind the delistings to be a bit misleading. Most of the current FA delistings rest on failures to meet the criteria originally established back in 2005-2006. A few articles have been delisted with the newer criteria in mind, such as the use of high-quality sources, but it is usually treated as a secondary concern to more pressing issues, such as 1a and 1c. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 02:23, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

That's misleading...many of the articles being delisted under 1c today would easily have met 1c as it was originally interpreted when implemented. The citation density expected by FAC has massively increased over that time. In 2005, 10-15 inline citations in a relatively lengthy article was fine, so long as quotes and controversial statements were cited. Now an article that has less than 1 citation per paragraph tends to be rejected prima facie, and even this is considered a pretty low density of citation. Christopher Parham (talk) 14:43, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

"they will just be delisted every time requirements change" No, people pick the worst ones, generally, and most of the FAs have failed FAC for the last 18 months at least. There was never a stable 50% keep rate, it was 35% long term at most. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 02:42, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

The barn door is now wide open for mass delistings every time requirements change and quality increases. No one should have up eight or five noms at a time. Even when I was doing almost all of the work on this page, involved in all the notifications, checking every article, working on every save, I never had more than three at once. The current situation and instructions are demoralizing. Go back to one nom at a time, which will force nominators to seek out the FAs truly in need rather than just running them all through. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:29, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

People are not exploiting the barn door by mass-ambushing articles as soon as the bar is moved up. Almost all the articles here have not had sources for over two years and the other problems as well. Hardly any and probably none of the cases were of 80%+ RS-cited articles who were ambushed as soon as the new 1c came in 6 months ago on grounds of using too much newspapers instead of scholarly journals, for instance. Whether there are 30 or 50 articles at FAR, there will be more and more falling behind. In 2006 and 2007 there were often 60 new FAs per month, but how many of them have been/are being improved? Simply put, the variance in FA quality will increase if FAR is cut back. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 02:42, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Stats, as requested

Averaged over two months

Of course, the keepcount can be skewed because some of the keeps were speedy keeps due to vandalous/TFA/immediate-post-FAC/misunderstood noms that were closed quickly. Also, as there are only 20-40 odd articles in a sample, a few FARs changing direction can change the numbers; particularly as most FARs need a lot of work (25+ hours, 70%+ unsourced or non-RS) but AEJ Collins was nominated and it only took around 2-4 hours to clean up, so if there are a few Collins-like articles nominated in a short span of time, it can skew the keeps due to a few easy to save articles. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 01:52, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Straw poll

Although I don't like poles, I think it would help if we figured out where people stand on the issue. Should editors be restricted to maintaining 1 FAR nomination at a time, with some leniency after a nomination starts to wind down, or should we keep the current system where users can, using their own common sense, nominate as many FARs as they want at a time? Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 02:36, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

In favor of old system – 1 FAR nomination at a time, with some leniency

1. After looking at the statistics and the latest trends, I think it's better we go back to the 1 FAR nom rule. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 02:36, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
2. Support, maybe even with a temporary freeze on FAR noms until the list goes back down to a manageable number. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:38, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

   I would also support a hard limit on total running FARs at any given time instead of (but not in addition to) a one nom per editor rule. Of course, that might lead to a few editors hogging the FAR list capacity, but common sense should prevail. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:55, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

   That was also how Marskell ran it (that is, when the page size was down, I might have three noms at once; when the page size was up, regulars limited to one nom ... at no time did any one nominator have more than three to my knowledge, and 32 was considered a backlog). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:58, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

3. Yes, go back to this, allowing for Eubulides' subsequent copyedit for reasons mentioned above. Almost half of current noms are from only three nominators, and it isn't necessary to delist articles so quickly every time requirements change. FAR should be a deliberative process, allowing editors time to adapt to new requirements, and forcing nominators to seek out the FAs that are truly deteriorated and in need of review, rather than attempting mass delistings of older FAs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:40, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
4. Support the one-FAR-nomination rule, plus restoring to the instructions that, "The aim is to improve articles rather than to demote them." [12] SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 03:43, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

   There was a comment in my version that the ideal situation is that the article is made complaint, but Eubulides got rid of it in the most recent reversion YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 08:18, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

5. The potential for problems is too great if single editors can make lots of nominations at once. (I have my doubts about imposing a hard limit on the backlog.) Eubulides (talk) 06:38, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

   A hard limit wasn't imposed before; Marskell managed the page by discouraging multiple noms from regulars when the page volume was high, and allowing them when the number of noms up was low. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:11, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

6. Maximum two nominations at a time. The vast majority of the not up to standard pre-2006 articles have already been cleared by FAR. Given that we patiently waded through them for two-and-a-half years, why the sudden rush to nominate so many? YM notes that the page slowed down towards the end of '08—we wanted it to slow down. That was a sign that we'd been successful going through the old ones. Keep the informal understanding that the page should not exceed thirty. Twenty would actually be a good number. Marskell (talk) 08:26, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

   The disparity will grow with only 20 in there....Unless people start voluntarily cleaning up their own articles, which mostly isn't going to happen YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 08:33, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

   But having 50 dilutes what is already a very, very thin supply of improvement editing. It guarantees the remove rate will go up, which is not something we should want. I don't like the new template wording. It's like we're shrugging our shoulders and suggesting remove is the default. Marskell (talk) 10:57, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

7. Fewer nominations encourages greater focus on article improvement, which is the end goal of the process. Meanwhile, there is little urgency to put articles through FAR. Christopher Parham (talk) 14:43, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
8. Strong support for max one nom at a time. If somebody can spare the time to keep an eye on the civility level of the FAR/FARC discussions as well, and intervene as needed, it would be nice, too, because I feel that's another thing that has gone down. But that's a lot to ask and an unutterably dreary job, no doubt. Bishonen | talk 18:24, 12 August 2009 (UTC).

   One thing that has improved in the past few months at FAR is the amount of flame wars and the personalization of issues WRT nominations, usually leading to a few editors trading personal attacks and a long, stagnant FAR page. I don't know if it has to do with the fact that certain editors no longer contribute here or certain articles are no longer nominated, but it is a positive trend for FAR that we should preserve. Dabomb87 (talk) 18:48, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

9. As above. Outriggr (talk) 01:39, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
10. Tentative. I have'nt been active on FAR for well over a year now, but I remember it from before as a place where the overriding goal was to save as many as we could, and logically keeping the number of live FAR to a minimum is going to make the most of what scarce resources are available. That said, I note the high number of saves Yellowmonkey is personally responsible for, and I credit him with high levels of clue. Pehalps if the commonsence offer below is demonstrated we do not need to set a limit. Ceoil (talk) 21:25, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
11. Support, as above. I've often been involved in one FAR only for another to come up, which stretches my time and resources. There are some article which are utter messes and should be delisted quickly, but quite a few can improve easily with a week or two of work. WesleyDodds (talk) 22:42, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
12. I've also found myself struggling to find the energy to come here as the page has gotten busier, and I'm surely not the only one who feels that way. The (few) people who work on articles at FAR simply can't save as many due to the increased workload. To put it simply, the old system wasn't broken. Giants2008 (17–14) 03:01, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
13. Support - and why are anon's nominating FARs? Nobody without an account is likely to find their way here. We should close that door while we're at it. --Joopercoopers (talk) 18:16, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

    I don't like to summarily dismiss anon's opinions (if you read enough and click enough links, it's not impossible to understand FAR), but it is suspicious when they have a thorough knowledge of Wikipedia's more obscure policies and guidelines. Dabomb87 (talk) 18:25, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

In favor of new system – unrestricted FAR nomination, limited by common sense

1. It is being limited by commonsense. I've restrained myself YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 04:19, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
2. Agree with explanation given by YellowMonkey (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 04:49, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
3. Agree with above. Aaroncrick (talk) 08:38, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
4. Agree. YM is uses dispassion and commonsense, free from the wikidrama that this discussion is starting to elicit. —Mattisse (Talk) 12:16, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Discussion

As active as YellowMonkey is, I don't think we should count on him to do all the enforcing for us. It's hard to stop the ball once it gets rolling. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:40, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Marskell did it, but part of the formula was an attempt to keep the page under 30 noms at all times ... the reason there is so much work for YM is that he is allowing the page to run to 50 noms because of multiple noms! An additional conflict is created because YM is the leading nominator, so he can't close those. Marskell never nominated. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:52, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I did a random check on a few diffs of the FAR page in Dec-Mar 07 and all four samples had 35-40 FARs up and running. I've stopped nominating for a while and it will go back to that level before. The one-FAR has never been enforced that strictly. Nishkid added 2 at once last year [13], and supposing that is kept to, we still have 35 or so. I know I had three staggered on the odd occasion last year and nothing was ever made of it. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 03:07, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Sandy, how long did a typical successful FAR fixup take in the halcyon days when FAR was well staffed? YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 03:09, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Speaking off the top of my head, most of them made it within a month, but a (select) few may have taken as long as three and many took two months. My concern is that we're going to get less and less saves if the page always runs 50 noms, and FA writers will become discouraged if delistings are happening as fast as listings every time requirements change. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:17, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I meant labor hours: reading up books, expanding, citing etc. Most of the Australian FAR saves took more than 25 hours because most of them had content problems that needed fixing and reading up, and topics like Lake Burley Griffin and Cane toad are hardly wideranging and complex when compared to a national leader or iconic person in their field, such as Newton or Gandhi, because researching their tactics/character and subtleties take longer due to subjective content. I'm not sure how a 30%+ save rate can ever be achieved on those articles, unless the author decided to fix it up by themselves without being prompted. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 03:33, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I think the best way I can answer this (since I'm confused why it's being asked) is that I spent over 24 hours only cleaning up citations for Bird when it was at FAC when I was a reviewer. The goal is to improve articles, whether at FAC or FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:42, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

If it took 24 hours to just clean up the cites, it might take even more when the content is messed up as well. I know the goal is to improve articles, I don't wait for FAR to improve exising FAs. The only problem is that with FAR people might just sit there and try and make everyone feel guilty so that they fix the article for them, or roll over and vote keep because they can't be stuffed taking the initiative against the article owner all the time. In any case, I'll just have tell people to not feel guilty and think they have to rewrite and expand B-class articles else shut up (even if the article needs 10 textbooks to be read), ie not take the instructions literally at all. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 04:01, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec)Once again, because I am a pathetically masochistic glutton for abuse, I would, in great fear and trembling, and donning my cast-iron athletic supporter, I would wonder whether a queue system would be worthwhile. FAR itself would have tight restrictions as per Sandy and (not yet sainted) Marskell. Those who have an abundance of zeal could list other noms in a queue, with detailed explanations of the (real or perceived) problems by the listing editor (not "nominating editor"). The queue is not FAR and should not be dealt with as such. It is, in effect, merely a notification. Articles would be popped from the queue to FAR in FIFO order, thus giving folks time to see what's what. The key would be to preserve cordial/collegial relations between those listing articles in a queue, and those who wish to improve the listed articles. I bow and scrape in 'umbleness. I exit in fear and trembling. Ling.Nut (talk) 03:35, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

<berate>YOU MUST BE !@#$% CRAZY!</berate> That actually sounds like a good idea. What sort of time frame are we talking about here? I think any practical application of this system would greatly expand the FAR timeline from a few weeks to quite easily a few months. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 03:50, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

The timeline is whatever it is. Wait for others to shoot this idea down, though. Ling.Nut (talk) 03:55, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Disagree for (some of ) the same reasons I disagreed when proposed at FAC. It creates extra work, and won't bring the worst FARs up first. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:55, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Told you it would get shot down ;-) As for more work, FAR has no responsibilities with respect to the queue. Only listing editors do. As for "Not worst first"; no one said articles HAD to be listed in a queue. That wouldn't work, because of the "one nom per nommer" rule. If I do not use the queue, I can just pop an article in FAR. Those who want to use the queue need to do so very judiciously. Ling.Nut (talk) 03:58, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

It's fine with me, and gives people more "notice" (although it is pretty obvious that the article needs help without being flagged) but a lot of people will complain about the bad vibes of scheduling and lining them up for the oven/gallows. Having said that with a lot of FARs, people just sit there for three weeks until the delists start coming in before they make a move, hoping that the articles' problems will simply vanish or be forgotten about. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 04:01, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Ling Nut, my worry is that it involves the same process, just with a different name. It leads to uncertainty and pressure for the original writers, which can continue for months: do this and this and this, or the article will be delisted—the very opposite of Wikipedia's "sofixit" philosophy. I would like to see the number of writers put through this kept to a minimum, with each article being given care and attention with a view to improving, not demoting, whether we call that process "pre-FAR queuing," FAR, or FARC. It's the abundance of zeal that is the problem: renaming the process will accommodate it, whereas I feel we need to dampen it. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 04:02, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Yep, just more paperwork, longer process ... for that we can use talk pages to suggest FAR is needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:04, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

(undent) I was thinking a queue would serve as a damper. Folks who use a queue cannot change the order they list things (except to completely remove them). They cannot FAR articles if they have one in the queue. Etc. It becomes a headache for the zealous, but not one for others. Eh screw it.Ling.Nut (talk) 04:06, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

To be frank, a very large proportion of people are willing to do anything unless their star is at stake (as judged by the fact that people do the bare minimum to scrap by, and don't fix articles until they get dragged to FAR years later even though they know standards have changed), so putting their star under the hammer is the only way to get the article improved (or removed) unless a small amount of FA regulars have to rewrite half the 2005 or 2006 articles after reading a lot of books, which isn't going to happen. Else we end up with double or quintuple standards of FAs. I have a lot of old FAs of all types on my watchlist and nothing ever happened despite all manner of cn tags etc for over a year until it was dragged to FAR. If people only care about the star and not improving articles simply to raise their own standards, then nothing can be done about making them feel better (except everyone writing their article for them, and that doesn't matter anyway, because I have seen a lot of people claim FAs even though they were delisted or overridden by a rewrite). YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 04:17, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm willing to stop nominating completely and to stop participating in other FAR nominations. The restriction would make the whole enterprise less rewarding, as I was getting satisfaction in helping YM out by thoroughly evaluating other nominations also, not just mine, becoming immersed in the FA criteria. But there are plenty of other things to do on wikipedia. And there is little incentive to nominate (or keep track of the nominations) when the evaluation and nomination of articles would be limited to around four a year. I am surprised there is such a dust up over improving FA quality. Just have a rule that an FA star is permanent and do away with FAR. Or rule that only Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by featured article nominations can nominate, and make the rest of us ineligible. —Mattisse (Talk) 11:58, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Who said you had to stop participating in FAR? We're just asking people to slow down with the nominations. With over 50 pages at FAR, it puts a strain on editors who hope to save multiple FAs. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 12:32, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I do. When these type of familiar accusations start to fly, and my name is listed as on of "the top three nominators are responsible for 24 (47.1%) of all FAR nominations", I know it is time to jump ship, just as I did with FAC (where currently I copy edit only very, very rarely now. And even then, it seems to become mired on controversy. Other places I contribute a lot, like DYK and GAN, I get medals for a large amount of contributions. I think I will return to greener pastures. —Mattisse (Talk) 14:34, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Please consult your mentors about the direction you've taken in this thread and refrain from personalizing discussions, which may derail them from the important issues at hand. There is not an accusation that you are one of the top three nominators: this is nothing more than a verifiable fact. The discussion is about FAR, not individuals. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:09, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Your nominations were perfectly in line with FAR rules. It's only now that we're seeing that this change has caused some unintended problems with FAR. You're not mired in controversy and you're surely not in trouble. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 14:46, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I think Sandy's suggestion about using talkpages more often is the best solution suggested so far. And I also recommend doing it before you engage in drive-by fact-tagging and WP:V-citing finger-wagging.

As for having too many nominations going at once, I think the handling of Nafaanra is a rather good example of what can happen if you over-extend yourself as a reviewer; you get into arguments you can't win simply because you don't have time to do the homework, and all of a sudden you look like a bit of a jerk despite having the best of intentions.

Peter ^Isotalo 16:12, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

(o/d) Matisse, you were able to contribute last year when the page was in 30ish the range. There's no reason you couldn't do so if we let this present spike taper off to a manageable level. In fact, you could better focus on fewer reviews, which is the whole idea—having so many up dissipates the keep energy. Assuming that improvement editing remains constant, increased noms necessarily means a greater removal percentage. In the worst case, keeps decline relatively and absolutely as the few reviewers available are forced to comment on a greater number. Only three keeps in June and July is a bit of shock. Marskell (talk) 17:08, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

With the page running at 50, I stopped working on saves or reviews. It's a matter of quality or quantity, and I'm not going to try to follow 50 FARs at once. The incentive to work on saves has been lowered. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:14, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I have removed three of YM's noms and will stop by to keep or remove his others. That will take care of that potential conflict, at least; adding another delegate to close one delegate's noms doesn't seem necessary. There's a few others that could go right now, but I'll leave those for YM, having not been monitoring things. I also added the backlog tag and reverted back to the older template wording, as the change doesn't have consensus here. Regarding the main closer nominating, I only did so when the page was really low. About one or two a year.

As far as the queue idea goes, we already informally have one with WP:URFA. It looks like people are beginning to systematically nominate at the bottom of the '05 list. That's not a bad idea, but there's no rush. I'd say dip into that list when FAR declines below 30. It's true that this page was often around 35 in the past, particularly in '07—less than 30 was ideal, 35 was regular, and 40 was a redline.

Perhaps we should also finally make a dedicated reward system for "savers"? I co-opted Barnstar of Recovery from time-to-time to give to people. There's also the Reviewer's Award. But there's nothing specific to FAR. Marskell (talk) 18:16, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

IIRC, YellowMonkey has implemented his own reward system for FAR savers over the last few months. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 18:27, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

A reward system is a good idea. I think we should also be clear that reviewers should stick to the policies. I'm seeing a lot of citation requests that are unnecessary. WP:V requires refs only for quotations and material likely to be challenged. I don't want to give examples because of the danger of personalizing the discussion, but in broad terms, citations are being requested for material that is obviously true or non-contentious, then articles are being delisted because no one responds—rather than the reviewer finding a ref himself, or better still not requesting it to begin with. Page numbers are being insisted on when no page number is needed, including when it makes no sense to request one: WP:CITE does not invariably require page numbers.

Above all, Wikipedia:SOFIXIT is an important part of Wikipedia culture. Reviewers ought to begin a review by trying to find some missing citations themselves, or by fixing a badly written sentence or two, and only request input for issues they can't deal with or references they can't find. That doesn't mean they have to spend a week in an academic library before declaring a delist, but half an hour on Google from each reviewer would be helpful as a start. It would also show the primary article writers, if they're still around, that people have arrived to help, not just to criticize, which would change the whole atmosphere for the better. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 18:31, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

How are any of these examples anything different to the norm at FAC. We'll just end up with a system where FARs are reviewed on 2006 FAC standards. If we change the FAC norms back to having lots of uncited paragraphs as well, and information that is not accounted for, fine. Else, we might as well delete FAR and have FA for life. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 01:18, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

For example, this could have been fixed almost as fast as it was tagged: [14] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:14, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Very disengenuous This is irrelevant. That article was not at FAR. —Mattisse (Talk) 01:32, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for striking, Mattisse: noted and appreciated. However, the relevance is that you frequently tag articles, and then later bring them to FAR, and reviewers need to ascertain that the tagging is correct. Unfortunately, FAC had turned into a forum where we were seeing many Delist declarations from editors who didn't appear to be reviewing the tagging, so it was quite relevant here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:28, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I've struck the "easy fix" example per new information. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:42, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I just did a quick check on the current FARCs. It looks like we'll see an increase in saves in next month's statistics. Here's hoping that we get back to the glory days of FAR. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 19:17, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

There have never been glory days because there's never been enough content editors... Marskell (talk) 10:19, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Ah, so cynical. I approve. Alright, here's hoping that we get back to the days where we saved more than we delisted at FAR. Nishkid64 _{(Make articles, not wikidrama)} 12:32, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Advice for reviewers

Would it make sense to create a page with advice for nominators, reviewers, and closers? It could spell out what to do, what to avoid, what the applicable policies say. I would start it but I'm not sure I'm familiar enough with FAR culture to do it. Indeed, there may be one already somewhere that I haven't seen. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 19:02, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Does Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-04-07/Dispatches cover what you have in mind? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:12, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, thank you, that covers a lot of it. Could we create a FAR page for it? I would like to add things like parenthetical references being okay, and no need to request references for every single point. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 19:17, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I pretty much gave up on the Dispatches because, although I poured heart and soul into them and was very proud of them, no one else seemed to care. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:39, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I have never seen someone say that parenthetical citations are not OK. The problem with saying when to cite and when not to is that editors have widely varying standards on what and how much to cite. I've seen modern FAs with one or two citations per sentence and others with the same number in a paragraph. The best we can do is summarize the trends of FA when it comes to citing; I'm against further guidance on this except for obvious things (no need to cite widely known facts, cite direct quotes and controversial info about BLPs, etc.). Dabomb87 (talk) 19:25, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

This page specified a minimum of 20 footnotes. I do think some guidance is needed, given the recent FARs I've looked at. I'm hampered because I don't want to give examples, but there have been citation requests that are unnecessary, and a few cases that made little sense because the sentence contained its own verification, in the sense of being obviously correct as written. Also, as I said above, page numbers are being requested when it's clear that an entire book is being used as the ref. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 19:35, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

But it shouldn't have to be spelled out; it's something the FAC/FAR delegates should know and, if it happens, should intervene. I understand not wanting to point fingers at past examples, but how about pointing it out here the next time you see it occurring? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:38, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, good idea. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 19:41, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Also, you are suggesting citation criteria identical to Good article criteria, so why not use that, SlimVirgin? —Mattisse (Talk) 19:52, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

WP:V is the applicable policy page; FAC/FAR delegates shouldn't have to monitor changes in the GA process. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:02, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Those criteria seem fine, Mattisse, though I wonder whether it would look odd to highlight GA criteria for FA. The point for reviewers to bear in mind is that every sentence doesn't need a ref, and that the policies and guidelines need to be adhered to (V, NOR, CITE). I think maybe there's a temptation while reviewing to go a little overboard to justify the reviewers' presence, which is understandable; it's human nature. But from the writers' perspective, it can look like nit-picking or make-work. Also, I've been a bit concerned to see primary sources being rejected. There's nothing wrong with using primary sources, so long as it's done carefully: see NOR. SlimVirgin ^{talk|contribs} 20:08, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Its funny that the requirements for citation in GA are WP:V also - exactly the same as FAC! You would expect FAC to be stricter (the GA people are under that impression), but no! —Mattisse (Talk) 20:13, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

A lot of GAs are better than FAs, something that is considered a politically incorrect statement YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 01:12, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

There are probably B-class articles better than some GAs and FAs, created by good writers who don't care to go through all the red tape and technicalities of the GAN and FAC processes. Dabomb87 (talk) 01:19, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

WP:V is a policy which all articles are required to follow. Probably over 2 million articles don't meet it. However its meaning and interpretation has many subjective points (what is a "challenge", what is "likely"?). GA criterion 2 is a bare minimum interpretation, while FA is supposed to be the gold standard. I made this point earlier here. Geometry guy 01:44, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the arc of SlimVirgin's concerns (and also with SandyGeorgia's concerns about changing the FAR template wording, etc.). I haven't participated in FAR for a long time because I generally don't agree with the underlying assumptions about article quality that make FA/FAR/GA what they are... but I would like to point out that there is no need for featured articles and good articles to have "different" levels of citation—just as there is no need for them to have "different" amounts of original research! In both cases, articles need to follow policy, and we get into trouble when we have articles that display a significant research effort but "there are more sentences that could be cited". There are always more sentences that could be cited—and unless people want to follow that idea through to its logical conclusion, which is that every proposition in an article be marked up in a way that indicates what source that proposition came from, then the community has to back off from the "here's some more to cite" approach. (I hope anyone who carries this idea through to its logical conclusion realizes that you'd no longer have a prose encyclopedia if it were followed—you'd have an epistemologically paranoid and naive list of facts about a topic. Note please that a linguistic analysis of the propositions contained in every sentence would have to be part of the citation-cult's process!) Practically speaking, FAs are likely to be more cited than GAs because the former are expected to be more comprehensive. But the "standard for citation", IMO, is not the standard of a project, or a review process—it is the standard of Wikipedia. Outriggr (talk) 00:08, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Updated cleanup listing

As of today, Wikipedia:Featured articles/Cleanup listing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:17, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Cheesburgers, that's a lot! JKBrooks85 (talk) 08:05, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Non-free files

The list of articles with excessive non-free use is up and running again (here) and has got a lot shorter than it used to be (two years ago it held over 2,500 articles). Working from the bottom, I've only found one FA so far (The KLF) which is currently on review anyway. I haven't parsed the whole list yet but there do certainly appear to be less FAs there than previously. Not sure whether that's because they've been fixed or delisted, but it is certainly a step forward! Black Kite 10:24, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Probably because, these days, no FAC passes until it has had an image review, and nominators know that is now part of the process. But, I should mention that it is very tiring work, those who do it often give up, and we could really use your help. Every time I sit down to promote, I find half a dozen otherwise-ready articles that haven't had image reviews. Other FAs on that list I noticed on quick flyover:

• Only Fools and Horses
• The Smashing Pumpkins
• Eagle Scout (Boy Scouts of America)
• Punk rock
• €2 commemorative coins

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:08, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

• • Just had a quick look at these;

• Only Fools and Horses - two title screens, only needs one (if it even needs one); spin-off image and DVD boxset image used elsewhere, thus duplicated. Everything else looks reasonable.
• The Smashing Pumpkins - not bad - doesn't need the touring line-up 2000 photo, that's replaceable with a free image. Otherwise it's six sound files - that could probably be trimmed slightly, but I'm quite familiar with SP myself and I can see that their numerous changes in sound and style need to be documented.

• During the FAC we worked out a consensus about the soundclips to determine a reasonable amount, so we've tackled this before. WesleyDodds (talk) 10:11, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

• Eagle Scout (Boy Scouts of America) - oh, yuck. Multiple practically identical badges and crests. This is overuse.
• Punk rock - lots of sound files, as expected. Music genre articles always have this issue. Unsure how many are actually necessary. Album covers aren't required - replaceable with a free image of the band, if an image is needed at all.
• €2 commemorative coins - there's a discussion going on about fair-use overuse in numismatic articles at the moment, let's see where that leads; this is clearly excessive use, though. Black Kite 15:30, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

• Only fools and horses actually has three title images. Arguably one might be unnecessary--the two at the bottom seem to have some justification in the prose. Protonk (talk) 22:37, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

• I'm opening a discussion at Talk:Eagle Scout (Boy Scouts of America) about that article's images. Several of those images depict PD objects (the badges/medals that are pre-1923 are PD and can be replaced with a free image if someone can locate an original.) --B (talk) 17:50, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I noticed Megadeth on the list with 20+. None of the images are necessary, and not more than 3-4 sound samples should be required to describe Megadeth's across its career. indopug (talk) 19:25, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Review rigor

Reviewing images and sources on all FARs might be a very high burden, but I suggest that sources and images should be reviewed on any FAR that is looking like a Keep. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:10, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Please reverse the trend

Norman Borlaug was defeatured on September 11 and died on September 12, causing me to take a look at the article although I'm traveling. The article was extensively cite tagged, although retrieving the dead links from the internet archive would not have taken much more time than tagging the article did. Then reviewers come along, see a number of cite tags, and vote to delist, apparently without determining if the tagging is justified or easily fixed. Did anyone spend a minute in the internet archive ? Wikipedia:Featured article review/Norman Borlaug/archive1. What is the point in cite tagging a featured article, when for a few more minutes, and with the use of automated tools, one can easily update the links? I just did one as an easy sample. It reflects poorly on FAR that we could have a featured article in In The News today, on the mainpage, but this one was defeatured without, apparently, anyone attempting some very easy fixes. Reviewers, please don't automatically vote to Delist when someone citetags an article; check to see if the tagging is justified or easily fixed with the tools, that can be used to update internet archive links. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:58, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

DaBomb87 and I did this in 15 minutes; that's all the time I have, but I suspect a good deal of the citation could have been completed if anyone had checked. Regardless, I hope reviewers will check cite bombing of FAs; in the past, it was discouraged; my concern is that reviewers aren't checking the validity of tagging or how easily some can be fixed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:18, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I feel a bit guilty about putting the article up for FAR without taking care of the easy work first. On the other hand, I think the article still needs a fair bit of work; hopefully somebody with time and a little more knowlege on the subject can rework some sections, add citations where needed and integrate the scholarly sources suggested on the FAR page. Dabomb87 (talk) 14:21, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

There were also issues with the scholarly sources. If the thorough books were read up on, I would also bet evidence of uneven coverage would pop up (if the person reading the book chose to report the fault) YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 00:46, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Mandy Moore

I was planning on nominating Mandy Moore for featured article review, as its quality is quite shoddy. However, as an anonymous user, I don't seem to have any rights to complete the nomination (I can't create Wikipedia:Featured article review/Mandy Moore/archive1). Could someone create it for me? My concerns are around prose (an utter lack of narrative flow throughout most of the article, and amazing sentences such as "Moore reached mainstream radio later, and at a younger age, than Simpson, Aguilera and Spears had, and she was initially not as successful as they were, although So Real was certified platinum in the U.S. in early 2000 and sold nearly one million copies."), questionable sources, focus, and comprehensiveness. 71.227.179.189 (talk) 19:00, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

That's one of the best sentences I've ever read!

I don't mind if a FAR regular goes ahead and initiates the review. I see from the article talk that others feel it should be nominated; they should be notified if its started.

Of course, working on the article is always encouraged as well, 71.227. Marskell (talk) 21:21, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Question on article

What should i do if i think that an article should be reviewed as it hasn't been for just over four years but feel i am not really good at reviewing especially as it is not my area of expertise? (The article i am thinking about is Restoration spectacular) Simply south (talk) 13:54, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Have you raised your concerns at the article talk page? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:58, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

No, not yet. Simply south (talk) 14:11, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I have raised some now. Simply south (talk) 14:40, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Oldest open FAR needs more eyes

Could a few folks check out Isambard Kingdom Brunel, which has been under FAR for over 3 months now? I am not the original author, but have been trying to save it. I am in a bit of a catch-22: I can't !vote to keep it because I don't think it's there yet, and I won't !vote to delist it because it would be poor form to contribute to the delisting of an article that I have every intention of bringing to FAC later myself if it comes to that. There have been only 3 !votes in the FARC stage; more input would be ever so helpful. Maralia (talk) 04:10, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I promised Marskell days ago to get over here, and got sidetracked; I will go through by Monday. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:46, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

1c and 2c on Brunel => Delist. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:10, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Maralia's schedule was more the issue than the evaluation YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 01:12, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Also Mandy Moore doesn't have any comments YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 01:12, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

1c 2c => Delist. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:46, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

User:AndyZ/peerreviewer script needs adoption

This script often used in GA/FA reviews needs adoption by an active user or a WikiProject. Please see my comments here for a centralized discussion. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 21:44, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Speedy delist

Have we ever given any thoughts to a speedy delisting in extreme cases where the article is blatantly below current FA standards? Take a look at Data Encryption Standard, for instance. It has at least three {{unreferenced-section}} tags on it. Or take Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me), which was promoted way the heck back in 2005 but didn't appear on the Main Page until last November. At the time, it had eight references, two maintenance tags, and more than half the article was unsourced — and it still took a six-week slog through FAR before it was finally delisted.

Granted, a speedy delist would have to be a definite criterion of some sort: something like "Has at least one header which is completely unsourced" or "Has had multiple {{fact}} tags and/or {{unreferenced-section}} tags for x amount of time" — some easily-defined standard that clearly indicates that it is no longer of FA quality and would require a substantial rewrite to become FA again. I think it is utterly ridiculous to see that big gold star on a page which is also laden with maintenance tags and/or poor writing; people seem to think that if it's been rated FA in the past, it doesn't need any more work on it, ever, and articles that were promoted in the earlier stages of FA are thus left in their no-longer-desirable states. I really think that it does not bode well on the project to claim that some now-substandard work is "featured," and that we need some way to eliminate the really bad cases like that article. What do you think? Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 23:18, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

No. We don't "speedy" promote or demote in the FA process, and FAR is doing just fine. Editors pour blood, sweat and tears into their FAs, standards change, they deserve time to bring them to higher standards, and speedily delisting them would be a disincentive to FA writing, and allow for pointy nominations. And considering your nom of yesterday, TPH, I'm not sure you're fully up on FA standards. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:24, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Bah. FAR still takes way too long. It shouldn't take six weeks (or longer!) to remove that gold star from something with more {{fact}} tags than actual citations. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • ^{(Many otters • One bat • One hammer)} 23:27, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Of four "unreferenced" sections, one did contain references and one of the other three I suspect contains little likely to be challenged information (the "overall structure" section). In short, I think these tags are a poor way to assess article quality - their presence may indicate anything from a serious problem to no problem at all - and shouldn't themselves be cause for any action here. Christopher Parham (talk) 13:46, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Parham's feedback indicates another reason we don't "speedy" anything in the FA process: that could result in editors who aren't well versed in either WP:WIAFA or other Wiki policies and guidelines speedying a request. FAC and FAR work because they are carefully deliberative processes. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:24, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm only just now participating in my first FAR, but I can understand where TenPoundHammer is coming from. I understand all the principals about wp not being finished and consensus takes time and such. But still, I found it surprising that an article can be in such a poor state, and be so far from repair, and there being so many edits between the head and the revision that was certified that rollback is extreme (but tempting!) and nevertheless take something like 4-6 weeks for us to remove the note that the article is/was considered "one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community". I don't know, at this point I'm just musing, but maybe the talkpage template just isn't explicit enough for my taste indicate that "at some point, this article was good, but it's entirely possible that it's been just miserable for years now", maybe putting more focus on featuring revisions instead of articles. Whatever, I'm sure that's all been brought up multiple times, and likely isn't worth getting into, as I veer farther and farther away from my intended point.

Anyway, I wonder, what if, instead of "Speedy", with all its connotations from the article deletion process, there be something like "expedited delist". When it becomes evident from the FAR that there are significant problems that would take weeks of editing to restore, and there is little evidence that any users are trying to maintain and repair the article, the article be delisted shortly after the review. I suppose another way of looking at it could be a WP:SNOWBALL delist. -Verdatum (talk) 17:40, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Then consider TPH's other most recent nom here: Wikipedia:Featured article review/An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump/archive1. This article fully meets WP:WIAFA. It is currently being combed over by art editors, resulting in an even better article, but it met WIAFA before those upgrades. Or yet another (nommed, removed, and subsequently nommed by another editor), where TPH doesn't appear to understand the difference between WP:NN and WP:WIAFA. We can't have editors who don't understand Wiki policies speedily delisting FAs. FAC and FAR are conscious and deliberative processes: that's why they work. We don't "speedily delist" something that might be improved under FAR: that would just necessitate a bunch of bereaucracy via another FAC. The claims of how long it takes to delist an article are based on exaggeration or misunderstanding; when nothing is done to improve obvious deficiencies, it takes one month. One month is not harming the world. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:51, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand the argument about editors who don't understand policies speedily delisting FAs. Editors who don't understand policies attempt to have articles speedily deleted all the time, but the request is simply rejected by a properly informed admin. Why wouldn't the same be true here? If a user does improperly delist something, is it so difficult to undo the change and inform/warn them of proper procedure and policy? Or more likely, leave the power to delist in the hands of the FA director & delegates (if I understand the delist process correctly); but just allow it to take place quicker. My proposal is in reference to articles that genuinely do fail FA criteria, quite miserably so, and there's no reason to believe it will pass or even receive a single vote of "keep" before four weeks are up. I agree, one month doesn't harm the world. Regardless, Wikipedia improves processes that aren't harming the world all the time, and that's A Good Thing. -Verdatum (talk) 18:57, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

It wouldn't be the same here because only 6 director/delegates (Raul, Karanacs, me, Joelr31, Marskell and YellowMonkey) make the decisions to promote or demote, and to my knowledge, none of us support "speedying" the deliberative process of FA promotion and demotion. Delisting FAs at FAR that might be improved during the process will only lead to additional FACs, when they reappear there. The processes work in tandem; there's no need to speedy something here, just to have it show up at FAC a few weeks later. If FAs fail quite miserably, they should be nommed at FAR and given a chance. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:02, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Keeping in mind that the primary purpose of the process is to increase the quality of articles, it's not clear how moving articles along faster would improve FAR. Even if the article is unlikely to reach full FA quality and be retained, (1) it can still happen and (2) even if it doesn't, it still is likely to see some improvement. That improvement would probably not occur if the article were speedy delisted. Christopher Parham (talk) 19:14, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, both of you. I do believe I am convinced :) -Verdatum (talk) 21:18, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank *you* :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:22, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

As somebody who has saved over a dozen articles at FAR and who has limited free time to do so (thus I often take multiple weeks), I absolutely do not want FAR to degenerate into having an expedited process other than what we already have. Time is needed to bring up an old FA to current standards and the underlying purpose and intent of the FAR process is to improve articles listed here. Sadly, and more often than not, nobody steps up to do more than cosmetic improvements to a listed articles. And those articles, the ones that nobody is really helping to improve at FAR, tend to go to FARC fast enough, IMO. --mav (talk) 14:27, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

That said, it does seem to be taking longer than it should to remove a listed article from the FAR list completely once it has obviously improved to current FA standards. I can certainly see a need to improve the delisting speed in that area. :) --mav (talk) 14:31, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the second point. That is because there is little interest in FAR, except the flagrantly below standard ones that aren't fixed. To pick one off the list that is completely unsourced, takes only 1-5 minutes, and in many cases, nobody bothers to fix it, so there isn't any thought required to conclude delist. But if it is fixed, then people are then reluctant to do a proper review. Same at FAC; a really underdone article by a person who doesn't know the standards will get about 4-8 opposes in a few days; often one that is close to done, will take three weeks to get teh three supports to pass. I don't believe there is any support for speedy-delist or ambushing articles. As long as the article is being worked on, there've been plenty that have cruised along in three months. The main problem in my opinion is that lots of articles never get improved after FAC, and as many people only do the minimum to get past FAC, the rising standards means that there are hundreds of backward articles, but the problem is that the bottleneck in asking the article to be accountable rather than cutting people off who are willing to renovate/rebuild. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (help the Invincibles Featured topic drive) 03:44, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Mav, one solution is for you (and others) to review more FARs :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:28, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Grumble. I think the primary onus of that is on the people who nominate FARs. But I'll give it a try. --mav (talk) 04:14, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Joel has been absent for over 6 months, and Marskell for over 6 weeks. Perhaps we need other delegates? Can we add Sandy and Karen to the list here? DrKiernan (talk) 14:27, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not comfortable with the idea of me being the one to Keep or Delist an article I promoted (and I've promoted almost 40% of our current FAs), but I don't have a problem closing non-controversial and clear consensus FARs that I didn't promote, if others agree with that and if it takes the pressure off of YM. That wouldn't solve, for example, the Music of Minnesota problem, since I've weighed in quite heavily on that FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:03, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

"may post only one nomination at a time"

What does this mean exactly? This can be interpreted as anything from, "can't nominate more than one article in a single edit during a single minute of time" to "can't nominate another article until the previous nomination by that editor is removed from from the listing at Wikipedia:Featured article review." My own bias is more toward the second interpretation since (among other things) it gives the nominator some motivation to help move along the process (hopefully by helping to improve the article), but I'm sure others disagree. Either way, I think the instructions should make this more clear. --mav (talk) 15:28, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

It simply means don't put up more than one back-to-back, don't put up many when/if the page is backlogged, but if one of your previous noms is humming along fine, and has moved to the FARC phase with little complication, and if the pages isn't backlogged, one of the delegates may give you permission to put up another one. It's hard to make that clear in the instructions, since it's a case-by-case situation. When I was the most active reviewer on this page, and when the page wasn't backlogged, I often had three up at a time, because I was doing all the work here :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:42, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I see. Still, perhaps some wording to the effect that 'should only have one active nomination in the FAR section at a time' may be helpful. The current wording is needlessly vague, IMO. --mav (talk) 15:50, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

How about changing "they may post only one nomination at a time" to "they should not have more than one active FAR-stage nomination at a time without permission from a FAR delegate"? Eubulides (talk) 18:48, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I sometimes had two at a time, when it was clear no one intended to work on the first, and when the page wasn't backlogged. It's a matter of how the first one is going. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:34, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

So long as we all know what the intent of the wording is, I think that is enough. --mav (talk) 20:44, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Aaron Sorkin?

I wonder if a FAR on this may be warranted? Specifically the separated out "Personal life" section seems to suggest it's not our best writing. Thoughts? -- Banjeboi 15:16, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

There were some problems in this article quite a while ago; I would suggest asking Steve (talk · contribs) and DrKiernan (talk · contribs) what they think now. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:23, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

There was a previous FAR but it didn't really go anywhere useful. I didn't comment then, but five months later when the dust had settled went through the article carefully. I thought it was OK, personally. DrKiernan (talk) 15:44, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Just had a read; barring some unnecessary duplication of information about his 2001 drugs arrest (in "The West Wing" and "Personal life" sections), I don't see much to complain about. Steve ^T • C 16:15, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I guess I'm seeing most personal life sections on non-stubbies as pulling information out of context instead of weaving it into the larger narrative. If the information is notable enough to include it would seem we could find a place besides what seems to be a junk drawer including all the skeletons. -- Banjeboi 16:36, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I can see that point of view; if there is a more suitable place for some of the personal information, it may be best to weave it into the larger narrative, as you say. The way Sorkin's article is structured there is some scope for doing that. On the other hand, I don't think that would benefit our treatment of the drugs sub-narrative, which spans several years, and if we were to move the other personal information to be alongside the wider context of his career, we'd essentially end up with a "Drug addiction" section instead of a "Personal life" one, which is probably worse than we have now. Steve ^T • C 16:51, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I suggest moving the addiction bits to the first time in his life that it's shown to be an issue and simply state that it came up again or later put in what needs to be added referencing that the issue arose again. To me it feels lie we're talking about two people rather than one whole. -- Banjeboi 18:22, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

COI query for community feedback

Regarding Wikipedia:Featured article review/Jarmann M1884/archive1, it doesn't seem improper for Yellowmonkey to go ahead and close FARs like this one, even though he was the nominator and a declarer, since there is unanimous agreement that it should be delisted. Feedback? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:53, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm facing a similar situation with an FLC (Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/Sportsperson of the Year (Czechoslovakia)/archive1) that I have supported, but to close it as successful would probably be uncontroversial. Personally, I don't see a problem here; most would agree that the above article is not FA quality. Dabomb87 (talk) 16:58, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, we can still wait a while. Is Marskell back to indef leave and raul on strike? YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles Featured topic drive:one left) 20:30, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I would agree that after a certain period of time this type of closure is reasonable. But perhaps it is time to get some more FAR directors? Cirt (talk) 22:35, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Inappropriate comments at Featured article review by Disinfoboxman

The account Disinfoboxman (talk · contribs) has a pattern of making inappropriate comments at multiple pages of WP:FAR. I have summarized them, below. These comments foster a negative and poisonous atmosphere at FAR, and make positive constructive interaction all the more difficult - when the FAR comments start out in such a negative fashion. I brought the matter to the account's talk page, and the account responded by blanking it out and redirecting its talk page to its userpage, [15]. Cirt (talk) 18:48, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

---

Use of Disinfoboxman at Featured article review pages, WP:POINT

• Featured article review, Augustan drama
  • 20:35, 9 October 2008 - With edit summary fuckwits, makes comment Delete. No infobox. Also various incorrect commas, and missing dashes - Sarcastic comment by Disinfoboxman at Featured article review, saying a Featured article should be deleted because it is missing an infobox.

• Featured article review, Great Fire of London
  • 11:49, 10 November 2008 - Delete - no infobox. Anyway, Bloodworth was right: a woman could have pissed it out, if only one with a prodigiously large bladder had been located in time. - Sarcastic comment by Disinfoboxman at Featured article review, saying a Featured article should be deleted because it is missing an infobox.

• Featured article review, Oroonoko
  • 12:43, 15 October 2009 - Delete. Far too good for the likes of Wikipedia these days. A few of Geogre's featured articles have not been torpedoed yet: who will be the first to find fault with Ormulum or Colley Cibber or Jonathan Wild?

• Featured article review, Augustan literature
  • 11:44, 12 November 2008 - Delete. No infobox. Also various incorrect commas, and missing dashes. - Sarcastic comment by Disinfoboxman at Featured article review, saying a Featured article should be deleted because it is missing an infobox.
  • 15:30, 12 November 2008 - I am not going to fix it either, because 3/ like you, I am one of those people "just talking" who doesn't care enough to do anything about it. I suspect we may disagree about whether such "failure" is very important.

• Featured article review, Colley Cibber
  • 11:26, 19 November 2009 - Delete with maximum prejudice - no disinfobox at all, unlike many far more important articles - Sarcastic comment by Disinfoboxman at Featured article review, saying a Featured article should be deleted because it is missing an infobox.
  • 19:29, 19 November 2009 - 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. - Reference by Disinfoboxman to the account Utgard Loki (talk · contribs), sock of Geogre (talk · contribs) [16]. (Geogre had used the Utgard Loki account in a similar fashion, to make inappropriate comments at Featured article review pages, while saying with his main account that he was uninterested in participating in the FAR process.)

---

These are all inappropriate comments at Featured article review. Obviously the Disinfoboxman (talk · contribs) account does not wish for the Featured articles to be deleted, and obviously does not want them to have infoboxes. This is a violation of WP:POINT, usage of this account to post "Delete, no infobox!" at multiple FAR pages of Featured articles as a form of protest of the articles being nominated for FAR, and a form of protest against the use of infoboxes. Cirt (talk) 18:48, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

There is no part of WP:WIAFA which requires infoboxes. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:49, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, but that is not the issue at hand here. Cirt (talk) 18:54, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Cirt - your summary above is misleading at best. Starting this sort of thread with the allegation that I have a "pattern of making inappropriate comments ... [that] foster a negative and poisonous atmosphere" is hardly likely to lead to an open and reflective debate, but now that you have brought the matter up in this venue, I look forward to hearing the views of others.

In fact, I replied to a similar laundry list that was posted on my talk page here. You read and inwardly digested my carefully crafted reply for at least 3 minutes before replying here. I responded to that quick-fire response by redirecting my talk page to my user page, as it was before you started on at me earlier today. What is the "issue at hand" here?

Notwithstanding Cirt's comments above, I trust the work I did on the FARs of A. E. J. Collins and Colley Cibber (and indeed other article work) is appreciated to some small extent. I shall now disengage from this debate. -- Disinfoboxman (talk) 19:19, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, your work is appreciated in article-space. No, the above comments made at FAR pages are not. Cirt (talk) 19:20, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

• Note - the account is a joke sock account that operates on specific FARs. The pattern is obvious, and the joke is reinforced by the user page. You could just put up an SPI or just a proposal to block. Or, you could block the account as a single purpose account for disruption. Or, you could just let it continue to make the joke. I don't have any preference or any real position on the matter. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:21, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

It is not so much as a "joke", as it is not humorous, because the account obviously thinks the FARs should not have been started in the first place and does not think that the articles should have infoboxes, thus the Disinfoboxman (talk · contribs) account is taking the FAR process as an opportunity and using it as a forum to make a point about its own agenda with regard to which FAs should or should not get nominated, and the appropriateness of infoboxes in articles on this project. Cirt (talk) 19:25, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

"Joke" meaning not an honest, primary account intended to do basic editing. You have a clear Point violation. You have a SPA violation. You can cite a history of disruption. I'm surprised you didn't just take it to ANI. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:40, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree with your assessment. Cirt (talk) 19:45, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

BAD trend at FAR

One purpose of FAR is to improve articles, even if they don't retain featured status. The FARC period lasts at least two weeks, and as long as editors are working, featured status can be salvaged. Yet, even in cases when editors are working on articles, we are seeing immediate and non-specific Delist declarations the minute the FAR moves to FARC.[17] [18] [19] [20] [21] I hope this trend will stop: the goal of FAR is not to delist as many featured articles as possible and demoralize editors trying to salvage them, but to help articles improve. Before entering a Delist the minute a FAR moves to FARC, at least look over the article to specifically identify deficiencies, give the editors working on them a chance, and be prepared to revisit during the FARC. Just as opposes at FAC must be "actionable", Delists that don't specify specific deficiencies, when work is ongoing, should be considered invalid. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:49, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Has there been a decrease in the number of articles being delisted since this was last discussed in August? [22] SlimVirgin 01:03, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Yep (see log); in fact, in October 2009 we actually broke even (in percent terms) in terms of articles kept vs. articles delisted, the best effort since July 2008 February 2009. Dabomb87 (talk) 01:09, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Updates in case they're helpful:

• November 2009: three kept, eight delisted; 73 percent delisted
• October 2009: nine kept, nine delisted; 50 percent
• September 2009: six kept, 15 delisted; 71 percent
• August 2009: 10 kept, 26 delisted; 72 percent
• July 2009: one kept, 15 delisted; 94 percent
• June 2009: two kept; 18 delisted; 90 percent
• May 2009: six kept, 14 delisted; 71 percent
• April 2009: six kept, 21 delisted; 78 percent
• March 2009: six kept, 13 delisted; 68 percent
• February 2009: six kept, six delisted; 50 percent
• January 2009: five kept, seven delisted; 58 percent
• December 2008: seven kept, eight delisted; 63 percent
• November 2008: four kept, eight delisted; 67 percent
• October 2008: 12 kept; 14 delisted; 54 percent
• September 2008: 17 kept; 18 delisted; 51 percent
• August 2008: nine kept, 12 delisted; 57 percent
• July 2008: ten kept, eight delisted; 44 percent
• June 2008: 12 kept, 14 delisted; 54 percent
• May 2008: four kept, 16 delisted; 80 percent
• April 2008: 12 kept; 10 delisted; 45 percent
• March 2008: eight kept, 16 delisted; 67 percent
• February 2008: 11 kept, 10 delisted; 48 percent
• January 2008: 14 kept, nine delisted; 39 percent

SlimVirgin 01:18, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

In answer to SV, yes, I think the trend has improved, but it is still present, and I've been riding FAR lately to encourage productive work and discourage invalid Delist declarations. The notion of "high quality" sources is being used as a vague blunt instrument, when the actual wording at WP:WIAFA is:

• it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature on the topic. Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources ...

and yet, editors are opting for Delist without indicating high quality sources from a survey of the literature that have been left out. For example, in the recent Sly and The Family Stone FAR, it was determined that a book was published in 2008 that wasn't included: that is valid. Delist per "high quality" or "lacking citations" concerns is not valid, unless specific issues are identified. Worse, even when editors are actively working, Delists are being entered the minute an article moves from FAR to FARC, with no specific rationale given. These kinds of Delists are not "actionable" and don't give the editors working on the article any useful information about what work is needed to retain status. More watchful eyes are needed at FAR, as the Default Keep has moved towards Default Delist. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:27, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Apart from August, the figures still show the same high percentages being delisted that started in April 2009 (with the exception of May 2008), which was the cause of the concern when this was last raised. SlimVirgin 01:33, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

A couple interesting dates:

March 12, 2009 – New FAC and FAR delegates.

March 14, 2009 – 1c revised to include requirement of "high-quality" sources.

July 1, 2009 – Alt text requirement added. Dabomb87 (talk) 01:35, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Mid-July 2009 – Several changes to FAR instructions to reflect the "reality" of FAR, and the removal of the nomination limit.

Mid-to-late July 2009 – Back and forth between new revision and "long-standing" FAR instruction text; in the end, the existing text follows that which was first instituted on July 13.

August 12, 2009 – Back to "long-standing" text. Dabomb87 (talk) 01:43, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, there aren't enough eyes at FAC or FAR anymore; we also have some historic trends at FAC because of lack of reviews. SV, start reviewing :) As far as I know, alt text hasn't been a deciding factor in any case, but the blunt instrument of "high quality sources" is being applied incorrectly at FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:37, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I keep meaning to do it, but it's so very time-consuming if you're coming to an article with no knowledge of the subject.

I'm not clear what's meant by "high-quality" reliable sources, as opposed to reliable ones. We shouldn't really be asking more of FA editors, source-wise, than we expect of any other editor. Can someone give an example of the kind of source that's regard as reliable enough for a non-FA, but not good enough for FA -- or an example of where this has been an issue at FAR? SlimVirgin 01:41, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

FYI, here's the long discussion that culminated in the addition of the source quality reqirement. Dabomb87 (talk) 01:45, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I saw it correctly applied in the Sly and the Family Stone FAR. The article relied on a marginally reliable (and old) website, written by someone who subsequently published a book (in 2008). To retain FA status, the article should rely on that book. But, the wording "high quality" relates to a survey of the literature; unless someone has identified higher quality sources that have been ignored in writing the article, the oppose isn't actionable or valid. I've seen it incorrectly applied many times at FAR. More importantly, the failure to use the latest and highest quality sources speaks to 1b, comprehensiveness; this was a confusion in the recent Hungarian Revolution FAR, where sourcing was being confused with comprehensiveness because of the new wording at WP:WIAFA. It is fair to expect that an FA is comprehensive in representing the best sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:49, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I've always felt FAs should be the best of Wikpedia at the time they were written. Changing FA standards, then removing old FAs because they're not the best now, means we lose that distinction, which is sad in a way. Comparing old and current FAs would otherwise be a good thermometer of the project. SlimVirgin 02:02, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the consensus that was established when citation changed in 2005 that current FAs have to meet current standards: consider, for example, if we had featured medical articles that were four or five years outdated !!! And, what Marskell did right was to allow reviews to run as long as necessary, as long as someone was working, so that articles had ample time to come up to standard. This trend of immediate Delist declarations is counterproductive to the spirit and intent of FAR, as long as someone is working on the article and progress is being made. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:08, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, good point about medical articles. SlimVirgin 04:03, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I am most troubled to have only now found this discussion about the mid-July change at FAR in YM's user space, along with a personal essay on the interpretation of 1c. Changes should not be made at FAR based on discussion in user space with a handful of editors, and YM's personal interpretation of 1c is at odds with mine, so I suggest his essay should not be linked in FARs as a reason when moving them to FARC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:40, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

This is flagrantly false. The discussion was held at WT:FAR and I copied it into my userspace. Check the page history, it was not a private plot YellowMonkey (bananabucket) (Invincibles Featured topic drive:one left) 05:09, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

The Monkey is correct. See system this version of the talk page. I think he just copied the discussion to his user space for his own records. Dabomb87 (talk) 05:17, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I see, thanks; I've struck the incorrect part, but am still concerned about a personal essay being linked on FARs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:21, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I will reiterate once again that one of the reasons that I do not nominate FAs here that I know are below the current standard is because of the expectation that I will have to work on them. I often don't have the knowledge or time to write the article, but the consistent demand to "fix" FAs here makes me reticent to nominate any FAs at FAR. Awadewit (talk) 03:34, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think the problem is that you have to work on them; the current problem is that people are declaring Delist without even bothering apparently to look at the articles. Work on the articles isn't required; homework before entering declarations should be. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:50, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article review/Hurricane Floyd/archive1 is an example of a proper FAR nomination. It contains specific, actionable (WRT the FA criteria) issues that clearly demonstrate that the article does not meet the criteria. Dabomb87 (talk) 03:57, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

The first sentence of SG's original post is "One purpose of FAR is to improve articles, even if they don't retain featured status", a theme that repeats throughout her post. The issue of poorly considered delists is a separate one, in my opinion. If you want people to carefully nominate FARs, I wonder if we should discourage lengthy improvement drives at FAR. There is nothing wrong with delisting something, working on it for months and then resubmitting it. I would actually think that this would result in higher quality articles. Awadewit (talk) 19:35, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

What it seems like to me is that people are rushing to nominate articles to FAR for things that should first be approached to the talk page and see if it can be fixed that way, and instead bypassing that and directing it here. Obviously, there is the likelihood that the editors of the page in question will be resilient to implementing the requested changes, and thus nothing will be done, but that's a step that should be done before say "oh, this fails, let's FAR it". If that communication does prove to not produce changes, either due to lack of response or resistance to it, then FAR makes sense.

Editors should also be more aware that FA requirements have changed significantly over time, and yes, older articles won't meet the current requirements today. But in the same manner, most of these should be easily met by first pointing out the differences on the talk page of the article, and only proceeding to FAR from there. --MASEM (t) 05:21, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree completely with the above statement. Would be nice to get a head-up on the article talk page before a full-blown FAR is launched. --mav 22:01, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Thierry Henry

The article is too promotional in nature in parts and should be modified to maintain FAR.--Kevinharte (talk) 05:06, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Featured article revert?

More of a question than a suggestion, but why do we demote featured articles which have declined in quality, rather than reverting them to a previous version which had passed featured article review? Autonova (talk) 18:41, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Often it is the standards (both the explicit criteria and community norms) that have adjusted upwards, rather than the quality of the article adjusting downwards.  Skomorokh  18:44, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

A revert should be considered more often, but it's rarely enough, and even with a revert, more work is usually needed to bring articles to current standards. Further, when reverting, it's not always to the featured version, but often to the day after main page, and then worthy edits made in the period to the revert have to be re-incorporated. It's a lot of work to rebuild from a large revert, but all too often at FAR, editors fails to go back and look at the version just after main page day or that was originally featured. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:13, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Israel

I suck. I went out of order (too many tabs open and being dumb) and created Wikipedia:Featured article review/Israel/archive1 and Wikipedia:Featured article review/Israel/archive2. I assume one of them needs to be deleted. I directed those to be notified to archive1. Delete #2? Apologies for causing extra work for someone.Cptnono (talk) 14:24, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks DrKiernan! Cptnono (talk) 14:54, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Frog

I looked (via a few links, as one does) at Frog, and it's poor - a reader who thought this was one of WP's would not be impressed. The faults include: large passages with no citations; prose that is unclear, verbose and sometimes amateurish. At present the article would have very little change of passing GA, even with a very charitable reviewer. --Philcha (talk) 00:13, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

It was promoted nearly four years ago; it's not too surprising that it doesn't meet current standards. Perhaps you can try raising the issues at the talk page and relevant WikiProject before nominating it for FAR? It's a pretty important article, so I imagine someone must be watching the page. Dabomb87 (talk) 00:25, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Well you can nominate it for FAR. It would raise too many eyebrows if I decided to ignore the rules and nominate ten FARs at once, although a quite substantial minority of FAs are clearly far below modern standards. On another note, some FA participants do sometimes show obvious hints of irritation at the equivalent status of their modern work to much less developed older FA relics (eg saying that FAs should be categorised by date etc), but why don't they FAR them then?? YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 23:36, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

My concerns about nominate it for FAR are:

• For medical reasons I've had to drop on of GA reviewing. Doing another type of important of review does not seems prudent, especially if it requires analysis of every individual issue rather than "A, B, C, ... and many others of this type".
• I'm unclear about FAR procedure.
• I'm not chasing for respondents. In a recent discussion at WT:GAN (or WT:GAR) the consensus (slight) was that the watchlist was the main notification. WikiProjects seldom respond, especially to articles promoted years ago. I don't see the benefit of posting at the article Talk page, as (I assume) there's a procedure for passing the FAR to the Talk page (at WP:GAN the GA review is transcluded to the Talk page). --Philcha (talk) 00:26, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't take a lot of work to nominate a FAR. For starters, most of the oldest FAs have 50%+ unsourced stuff, so you can just give a 1-line nominating statement really. With vast swathes of unsourced stuff, there's no need to point out all the problems as it doesn't have to fail all the criteria to not be a FA. You just create the FAR page, add it to the listings, and send the spam notice to the projects and writers. 10 minutes is all it takes, and if nobody adds any sources (which happens about 50% of the time) there isn't anything to think about when reaching the conclusion YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 00:40, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Philcha, if you don't mind, I can nominate the article for FAR. In a quick look at the article, I see many issues I can list, and then if you have anything further you can feel free to tack it on. Does this work? Dana boomer (talk) 00:51, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

I suggest you do that and take the burden off Philcha. It would be appreciated by me, as I am concerned about him. Regards, —Mattisse (Talk) 01:34, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, all, I'd comment when the FAR starts. I assume the FAR will appear on Wikipedia:Featured article review and this will trigger my watchlist. --Philcha (talk) 03:29, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

(undent) The Frog FAR has been initiated. It can now be found on the main FAR page, or at Wikipedia:Featured article review/Frog/archive1. Dana boomer (talk) 12:52, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Reminder to all (to lessen my workload :) [23] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:50, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

Inexactitudes relating to economic numbers and Infobox Country.

In discussind elsewhere some of the economic figures in Israel, it has emerged that the Template:Infobox country automatically labels the GDP-related numbers as estimates. At present the IMF site includes data such as this where the 2009 labels are qualified as internal extimates while the 2008 are unqalified and therefore "real" official figures. Around September, the IMF will publish the "real" numbers for 2009. Unless we are going to describe every official "real" economic figure in the article as an estimate, this means for a significant chunk of the year several features articles are labeling official figures incorrectly as estimates, or at least include them in the body of the article in an unqualified manner as "real" figures and in the infobox as "estimates". Surely this is not the sort of infelicitude that should exist in featured content where we aim to be near-perfect.

I've raised a thread at Template talk:Infobox country#Economic numbers and estimates should people want to keep the discussion in one place.--Peter cohen (talk) 21:24, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Multiple noms

YM, you've got four FARs running at once (and Cirt has multiple as well); this places a burden on Raul654 to close those FARs. If you will alert me here (or others) to articles you plan to FAR, I (or others) can initiate some of those for you, to lessen Raul's burden. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:57, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

That wouldn't work; I can't close it if I told you to nom it and gave you the data to do it; Surely a judge can't preside over a case where a family member is the prosecutor or give incriminating evidence to the prosecutor and then oversee the case. YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 02:15, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

You don't have to give me the data to nom a FAR; I can usually determine that myself :) You only need to point me (or others) towards potential noms, as I'm usually too busy to browse for them myself. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:10, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Well I still can't slag off articles, specifically naming and shaming them even if I don't say what the reason is, but, just going through WP:URFA there are stacks of unsourced ones without having to check any other stuff YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 00:47, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I little bit off topic, but you can review more than one or two article now? GamerPro64 (talk) 00:54, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

What exactly are you asking, GamerPro? If you are asking if you can nominate more than one or two articles for FAR, I would think the answer would still be no, although some people are pushing that limit right now. If you are asking if you can place comments on multiple articles, you are more than welcome to. With almost 30 FARs up right now, some of which have been up since the beginning of last November, we really need people reviewing more than we need people nominating. Dana boomer (talk) 01:18, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I mean the more than one article for FAR part. The one I'm reviewing right now has four delists on the FARC section and I've wanting to review a very special article right now. GamerPro64 (talk) 01:25, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

If the article that you have already nominated is looking to be an obvious delist, then I would see no problem with you nominating another. YellowMonkey, Sandy, anyone else, please correct me if I'm wrong on this. Dana boomer (talk) 01:35, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

There is an unspoken understanding that the limit doesn't apply when there is no backlog; the threshold is about 32-35 or so; At the moment, were well below, and some FARs (the ones at the bottom) aren't really needing any review as there is enough there already and the work is being done. This month there's only been 7 closures (two more are due for Raul) and there are still hundreds of undersourced articles, not to mention other problems that may be spotted as well. I see that in the last 28 days, only 12 FARs were started and 6 were second or third helpings (Arsenikk has three up atm), if the rule was strictly imposed, only six FARs a month, then the FA process won't be robust anymore if 2005 FAs don't get re-examined anymore, and the lack of refs is really obvious. Whereas FAC is short of reviewers, FAR doesn't really need too many reviewers (at least on the 50% or so of un-renovated articles) to process many articles which are easy to review like the way undercooked FACs that get piled on, and the backlog is otherwise pretty small; so feel free to add a few. YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 00:47, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I also note that there are a 5-6 articles where there is slow steady work going on, about 1-2 hours worth per week, in about 30 minute chunks two or three times a week, and those aren't really taking up any reviewer time, they're just simmering away YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 00:58, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps someone can offer to take this out of my hands? I really don't think I have the time or ability to contribute to its improvement, yet I feel that it no longer fulfils the FA criteria. An editor called Mattisse has agreed with me on this, and even started tagging statements in the article as unsourced a couple of weeks ago, but I see no signs of activity right now. Waltham, The Duke of 02:57, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Started FAR (see Wikipedia:Featured article review/Anschluss/archive1). Dabomb87 (talk) 16:43, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Annoying

Simply wish to state for the record that I find the removal of the article I was working on from the list while I was still actively working on it annoying. Lambanog (talk) 22:47, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, VERY annoying. I've been making sure to check back each week to see if progress was being made. It was so I kept on saying so on the FAR page EXACTLY TO AVOID WHAT JUST HAPPENED. I thought that a FAR would not be closed if significant progress was being made on the article. This must be some kind of mistake. --mav (Urgent FACs/FARs/PRs) 01:31, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Which one? -- Cirt (talk) 01:56, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

That would help, wouldn't it? :) Wikipedia:Featured article review/Manila Light Rail Transit System/archive1 --mav (Urgent FACs/FARs/PRs) 02:20, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps a better place to discuss this is User talk:Raul654, since Raul was the closer of the FAR. Dabomb87 (talk) 03:12, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Restored by Raul654 (who is more patient than I am). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:09, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I think I have now reversed all of the GimmeBot steps in archiving this FAR, but since I'm on a slow dialup after a storm, could someone please check? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:07, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. I wouldn't be technically knowledgeable enough to know if everything was reversed properly—so don't let what I say preclude anyone from checking if they were going to do so—but it seems okay. Lambanog (talk) 15:50, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

FAR removal

YM, could you have a look at Wikipedia:Featured article review/John Calvin/archive1? Thanks, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:09, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Template:FARClosed

I created this template to avoid confusion, after the events of today (see the history of Wikipedia:Featured article review/Barack Obama/archive7). Anyone can paste this template onto an individual FAR (either {{FARClosed|kept}} or {{FARClosed|removed}}) after a featured article director/delegate archives that nomination. Dabomb87 (talk) 19:47, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

YellowMonkey doesn't always follow GimmeBot's schedule (archiving on Tuesdays or Saturdays), so if regulars here will add this template, as either Kept or Removed to the bottom of closed FARS, that will help avoid confusion until the bot goes through. I believe GimmeBot had already been through when YM closed late last night. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:50, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

New delegate

Because Marskell and Joel are inactive, Yellowmonkey has been maintaining this page more-or-less single-handedly, and that created problems for him with articles he reviewed. He requested a second delegate, and recommended Dana Boomer. I approved his suggestion, and added her as a delegate. Raul654 (talk) 21:36, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Very glad to have Dana on board (although I'm worried how FAR will fare without her reviews)! Can some please update Template:Editnotices/Page/Wikipedia:Featured articles; requires an admin. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:47, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I was expecting some dramatic drumroll or unveiling on a catwalk or something... YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 23:41, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Time limit is needed for the FARC section

I'm appalled to see that some articles are hanging around this page for months. I do believe that:

1. there should be a general limit of three weeks once a delegate has moved an article from FAR to FARC;
2. an extension for up to another few weeks might be requested, but normally granted by a delegate only where there are compelling reasons to do so, such as the temporary absence of a key author;
3. the current deadline for the delegate's decision should be stated in the lead to each FARC section; and
4. once an article is moved to the FARC section, there be a presumption that it will be delisted unless a case can be made for keeping it.

For example, "Manila Light Rail Transit System" was listed at FAR 4 months and 16 days ago, and moved to FARC 4 months and 2 days ago. This is not fair on the system—neither delegates, reviewers, nor indeed the articles themselves, which are typically left in limbo. Thirty-four articles on the list is just too many, and is a distinct psychological impediment to reviewers. We need more reviewers, and a more reasonably sized list is the first thing required to attract them; otherwise, the job seems never done, and effort just a drop in an ocean.

"Canada" was listed at FAR six months ago and moved to FARC three and a half months ago. Has this fallen into some kind of malaise? Does the open-ended timeframe bring this on?

Do I need to provide further examples? The system needs to be tightened up. Tony (talk) 08:41, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

I would note that in the past four years that numerous changes have been instituted in the FA criteria. Both articles brought up if I'm correct have not been reviewed in the meantime. Should all FA articles undergo a mandatory review each time that a change is instituted? If not and they are reviewed only once every few years would it be too much to ask for a little more time to work on them than if they had just gone review the last six months? Does the article that is reviewed once in that time span really take up more time and resources than articles that have been repeatedly renominated for FAR to keep them up-to-date? Tony I noticed you gave your judgment on the Manila LRT article you mentioned last January. I have been working on it and recently asked for comment on the article. Have you read it since? The opportunity to learn from your experience so that I can apply the lessons in my future editing would be welcome. If there are specifics you have trouble with, knowing what they are would be helpful. Beyond that I probably will not ask further of you regarding this article. Lambanog (talk) 14:50, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

By the way it occurs to me that having many articles at FAR need not necessarily be an issue if there were sufficient reviewers here. Are there any criteria—unspoken or otherwise—for being a regular reviewer aside from hanging around? Lambanog (talk) 14:54, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Anyone is welcome to review. DrKiernan (talk) 08:47, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I love this idea. Apparently most of my FARs end in demotion. With this plan, they could be done earlier and I can start a new FAR. Also, this could decrease chances for backlogs to happen. GamerPro64 (talk) 19:49, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

The featured star should be the showcase of Wikipedia—a beacon to show our readers and contributors the levels of professionalism and reliability that our project can master. It gives hope for a future when the masses our of articles will reach a higher magnitude in eloquence. Yet, the star means nothing today. Our standards rise; what the past deemed exemplary, the present sees as mundane. When looking through the list of featured lists and articles to find showcases for my own work, or recommend at reviews, I keep stumbling across work far below standards. How does the project gain from prolonging the inevitable, and keeping the star on articles far below out standards? If contributors have not been keeping the featured articles up to standards in the past years, why should they not be forced to face the consequences? Another issue is the "rule" that a nominator may only have a single nomination at one time. Thankfully for the project, I have disregarded this—since I have had my oldest nomination on hold for over four months—and in the meantime seen two more nominations lead to demotion and one to an impressive rewrite. If articles are so low in standard they cannot be readily fixed in five weeks, then they are probably a lot better sent through the good article and peer review processes instead. Arsenikk ^(talk) 22:00, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the mere star doesn't prove anything, as a lot of unsourced FAs are still lying around. More concerning is that while FAC standards go up all the time, the most serious reviewers never come here, and the gap doesn't get smaller as one person can get away with nomming 3-4 FARs, but not 10. If the really serious guys came here, there would be a great swathe of faster delists, as many people are choosing not to bite in cases where there is some work. As for the one-at-a-time rule, it was removed but changed back in Aug 2009. But as long as people do multiple noms on articles written by obscure, unpowerful or departed Wikipedians, there's unlikely to be a rumble YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 06:42, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with the entire approach outlined here: the default is keep, and a case must be made for removal. The problem at FAR is not that reviews are running too long, but that motivation for other editors to join in here has waned. Marskell was a very active delegate, pinging people in, fixing things himself, stating on each FAR what he was waiting for in terms of a decision, etc. More of that would help. YM, why do we again have four nominations in succession from you? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:50, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

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A proposal to promote this essay is underway.174.3.113.245 (talk) 05:33, 29 March 2010 (UTC)