The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.
The article was kept by User:Marskell 13:14, 28 October 2008 [1].
Agree that it could be trimmed as the interesting and relevant content is currently lost admist all the extraneous kb and minutiae....but not a difficult task if you are familiar with the subject. However, the standard of referencing is very inconsistent; author, publish / retrieval dates etc missing from quite a few, and thats messy, tedious and unappealing work. Ceoilsláinte
Article has issues : There are inconsistencies with source formatting and broken links (probably the result of the recent trimming, but who knows). Many of the web links are of poor quality, I think we need one of the professional link checkers to give this a look. There are sections that are under sourced, it might be wise for someone to run through it with fact tags so we can see what needs doing. Any voluntaries to commence the fact tagging process? As a side note, User:Indopug told me a few months ago that he was considering having this article checked. I'm trying to remember what he told me (I have too many archives), I think he thought the recent sections were too long. — Realist201:24, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've given it a little clean through and checked every web link manually. Save to say this is going to take some work. There are still a lot of poor web links (as I've already said) but again, we really need one of the link pro's to do a stronger investigation. There are a lot more I personally would like to remove and replace with fact tags. — Realist202:39, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please remove IMDb.com as a source from this article. I removed these myself and many of them have popped back up it seems. — Realist217:28, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Really? www.bjorner.com has been used as a point of reference by many major Dylan books published since 2000. Michael Gray’s Bob Dylan Encyclopedia (2006) has an entry about:
Bjorner, Olof [1942 - ]. Gray begins by describing the Dylan research that Bjorner published (on paper) in the 1980s and 1990s. Gray then goes on to say:
"In 1999 he decided to make all his work available on the internet and at the same time to expand vastly his chronicling of Dylan’s work and career activity. The result is the enormous and invaluable website www.bjorner.com, which (so far) offers a detailed run-down on every Dylan year from 1958 to 2002: offering a catalogue of his recording sessions, his concert performances—listing every song performed in every concert—plus his record releases, books published by and about him, tapes newly coming into circulation, and more besides. The detail is extraordinary, and the level of accuracy phenomenal." (Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, p.50)
If you are claiming that www.Bjorner.com is not a reliable source, does that mean that Gray’s Bob Dylan Encyclopedia (much used as a reference in this article) is not a reliable source? Mick gold (talk) 15:16, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Personally, I don't think he is a reliable source, looking at this http://www.bjorner.com/me.htm . He seems to be a complete nobody who happens to be an uber Dylan fan who has done a lot of his own research. We are basically just repeating his original research. His own research might be very accurate, hell I've visited Michael Jackson fan sites that are very accurate, but there is still something about it that isn't right on a featured article. It's basically a fan site run by one old guy that happens to get it's figures right, it still means nothing against sources from The New York Times, BBC etc etc. A featured article is meant to be the best of our work, I don't think it reflects well if we included those sorts of sources as our best work.
Lets say this featured article goes onto a wikipedia DVD, sent to schools. The school tries to contact the wikipedia foundation asking for more information on the sources used in the Dylan article. I bet the poor lady working for the foundation would have a hard time explaining why we are using www.Bjorner.com as a source so many times in the article. IMHO that is. Others are free to disagree with me on this. — Realist215:34, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You haven’t answered my question. You seem to be saying that Gray’s Bob Dylan Encyclopedia cannot be trusted. My point is that when Michael Gray and Andrew Muir (whose work is used in this article as references) write their books, they do not set out to discover, from scratch, which songs Dylan and his Rolling Thunder Revue played in Montreal on December 4, 1975. They look it up on Bjorner’s website. I know this ‘cause I’ve talked to them. There is no Dylan data in print comparable to either the scale or accuracy of the info that Bjorner has compiled online.
I fail to understand the plight of “the poor lady working for the wikipedia foundation (who) would have a hard time explaining why we are using www.Bjorner.com as a source so many times in the article.” Can’t she explain www.Bjorner.com is the most authoritative data on Dylan’s recordings and performance? Because that happens to be the truth. It's a specialised website which is regarded as the most authoritative in its field. Most of the info in this article doesn’t come from The New York Times or the BBC. It comes from Michael Gray, Howard Sounes, and Clinton Heylin. They are acknowledged experts in this field, and get a lot of their Dylan info from Bjorner. I appreciate the work you've put into this WP:FAR but strongly disagree on this one.Mick gold (talk) 16:29, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm for ditching that entire "Fan base" section in favour of a more well-rounded "Legacy" section that better describes his impact etc. The random list of musicians inspired by him doesn't make for interesting reading does it? Do Isis and Derek Baker really need to be mentioned here at all? indopug (talk) 13:28, 19 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delist at the moment but can change mind: The strength of the sources seems to be better, I'm still not happy about the use of www.Bjorner.com but I can let that go. I'm saying delist on the grounds that huge paragraphs are not sourced throughout the article. That's before I've got to any other issue. — Realist200:53, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Bjorner.com (http://www.bjorner.com/me.htm) is a fan, hobby site, shouldn't be used for anything; surely there are reliable sources for Dylan. The article is under 10,000 words so I won't complain about the length. There are WP:DASH and WP:MOSDATE#Precise language issues in the section headings (1.11 2000—2006: Things Have Changed, 1.12 2007—present: recent activity, those should be endashes not emdashes, and avoid "to present") indicating there are likely to be MoS errors in the text, although I haven't looked yet. There are faulty dashes in the citations (Sounes, Down The Highway: The Life Of Bob Dylan, p.41-42) which User:Brighterorange will fix if you ask him to run his script. A close look at MoS issues will be needed here once citations are clean and reliable sources are used; I haven't checked other sources, only happened to notice bjorner.com because Realist2 raised it above. I also saw errors in logical punctuation, WP:PUNC. SandyGeorgia (Talk)
I went through the web links myself Sandy, removing and fact tagging all the poor ones a week or so ago. Aside the use of Bjorner I am personally happy with the other web links. I haven't checked the reliability of book sources etc as I don't have access to them. — Realist219:58, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I fixed all the em dashes and cut the spaces before and after as in WP:DASH. Oh, now looking again I see spaced en dashes are permitted in place of unspaced em dashes, but in any case, I made it consistent. Moisejp (talk) 01:10, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Both Realist and Sandy have said that Bob Dylan article should not use Bjorner’s website as a ref/source. Realist wrote:
He seems to be a complete nobody who happens to be an uber Dylan fan who has done a lot of his own research. We are basically just repeating his original research. His own research might be very accurate, hell I've visited Michael Jackson fan sites that are very accurate, but there is still something about it that isn't right on a featured article. It's basically a fan site run by one old guy that happens to get it's figures right, it still means nothing against sources from The New York Times, BBC etc etc.
This raises the intriguing possibility that Bjorner’s website might fare better if Bjorner were a) female, b) young. But, joking aside, there's a strong WP warning on fan sites and self-published works. Relevant policy WP:SPS states:
===Self-published sources===
Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, knols, forum postings, and similar sources are largely not acceptable.[1]
Self-published material may, in some circumstances, be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications. However, caution should be exercised when using such sources: if the information in question is really worth reporting, someone else is likely to have done so. For example, a reliable self-published source on a given subject is likely to have been cited on that subject as authoritative by a reliable source.
First point I want to make about Bjorner’s website is that he has published all his material as books. When I last looked at amazon.co.uk, it listed 14 books by Bjorner documenting Bob Dylan’s recording and performing career, all published by Hardinge Simpole Publishing: [[2]] [[3]]. I don’t have the money to buy all Bjorner’s books, but he has made his research available online.
Second point I want to make is Bjorner’s website has been cited as a reference by highly-regarded works on Dylan. Michael Gray published his 900 page study of Dylan, Song & Dance Man III, in 2000. He published his Bob Dylan Encyclopedia in 2006. This has been favorably reviewed: [[4]]. Gray write of Bjorner’s website: “The detail is extraordinary, and the level of accuracy phenomenal." (Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, p.50)
I asked Michael Gray why he considered Bjorner a reliable source in the books he has published. His reply is lengthy, but IMHO makes interesting points about the relationship between established sources (e.g. the BBC), academic publications, and the work of ‘amateur’ fans and researchers in the areas of the blues, Bob Dylan, and popular culture. He also makes clear that what Bjorner provides is verifiable, factual documentation of Dylan's work. There is no critical opinion in Bjorner's work. He has consolidated the most authoritative database of Dylan's performing and recording career (and published it in book form as well as online):
Dear Mick Gold
I am the author of The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia and of the critical study of Dylan’s work that is widely acknowledged as a classic work, Song & Dance Man: The Art of Bob Dylan, the third edition of which was published by Cassell Academic in 1999 and subsequently by the New York academic publisher Continuum.
My work has also been published by Hart-Davis MacGibbon, Abacus Books, the Hamlyn Group, St.Martin’s Press (New York), the Reference Division of Henry Holt (New York), and in The Times, Literary Review, Independent, Guardian, Observer, Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph, Independent on Sunday, Sunday Telegraph, Rolling Stone, the academic journal Canadian Folklore canadien and many other journals.
I have also delivered lectures for the Institute for Folklore Studies in Great Britain & Canada, the Northern Ireland Arts Council, at York and Exeter Universities and at Goldsmiths College, London. In 1999 I was a plenary speaker at the first annual Robert Shelton Memorial Conference at Liverpool University and the keynote speaker at the 2001 conference. In 2006 I was the closing speaker at the Bob Dylan Congress at the Institut für Sozialforschung, Goethe University, Frankfurt, and in March 2007 gave the closing address at the University of Minnesota’s three-day academic symposium on Dylan’s work, at which other speakers included Christopher Ricks and Greil Marcus.
I set all this down simply to establish that if Wikipedia’s moderators have no access to my books it is surely only reasonable, given this evidence, that my work be acknowledged as legitimately published and of widely acknowledged value, not least in terms of their research reliability.
That said, I hope they won’t mind my suggesting that their very understandably motivated policy of only using self-published books, newsletters, personal websites and similar sources in exceptional circumstances is in some areas impractical as well as misguided. My reasons are these:
I accept that mainstream publication usually suggests that a process of verification has been involved, and for works that rest upon skills such as critical evaluation I would expect that if no mainstream publisher would take such a work it may well be not worth reading. Certainly in the world of Bob Dylan studies, I never read the relevant online discussion forums, believing most of what’s posted there to be careless and thoughtless and of no value whatever. I would certainly never seek to use opinions or evaluations from any such non-professional source.
But where facts are concerned, the situation is different - and the study of subjects like rock’n’roll, pre-war blues musicians, or the life and work of Bob Dylan has always been pioneered by enthusiasts outside the mainstream - because this music itself was outside the mainstream: was part of, and emerged from, subcultures that were not considered legitimate areas of serious interest for many, many years. The earliest and best photograph of Blind Willie McTell (Georgia’s pre-eminent blues artist) is known to us only because a part-time volunteer working for self-published bohemian arts magazine Jubilee in Manhattan at the end of the 1950s rescued it from a garbage pile awaiting disposal outside the magazine’s office - a magazine financed as a hobby by one of J. Paul Getty II’s ex-wives, Ann Light. It was recognized and authenticated as McTell by other enthusiasts and non-professionals. It was their “unprofessional” knowledge and work that made possible the later use of this photograph by journals like The New York Times.
An exactly similar process has brought into the light of the mainstream large tracts of our now-accepted knowledge and understanding of the blues - and indeed of the largely oral culture that created it. The world’s first English-language blues magazine only came into existence in 1963. This was the British monthly Blues Unlimited, edited by Simon Napier and Mike Leadbitter from a room above the family furniture shop Napier was running in Bexhill on Sea, Sussex. Leadbitter was a civil servant. Both would play a part in showing mainstream record companies that their archives included material these companies knew nothing about yet which, subsequently released, has been widely judged to be of historical significance and artistic worth. The first blues magazine ever published in the United States, Living Blues, began as late as 1970. The founding editors were students who put it together at a cheap apartment on West Dakin Street, Chicago. No academic folklore journal ever devoted an issue to the blues until a Southern Folklore Quarterly of 1978. In every case, amateur enthusiasts were there first, and made formative contributions to the field which are recognized as such by the professionals who came along later.
I also question the claim that “anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field”. Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, yes - but unless this anyone actually does have some expertise in a particular field, they are very unlikely to be accepted as an expert or drawn upon for trustworthy information. In the case of Olof Björner and his website www.bjorner.com, the information which is so very detailed, and so very usefully drawn together by this source, is all of a straightforward factual nature, such that there are literally many thousands of people who follow the topic of Bob Dylan to an almost obsessive degree and who would have abandoned any reliance upon, or respect for, the website and work of Mr. Björner had they detected, as they would, more than a morsel of inaccuracy within it. There has been an impressive total absence of even minor carping from those who would be swift to scorn unreliable information in this way. For myself, I found in the course of researching the 800+ entries within The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia that Mr. Björner’s work was both extraordinarily useful as an assembling together of otherwise widely dispersed facts and figures and phenomenally accurate. All his listings are of verifiable facts - which musicians played behind Dylan at what concerts, what songs were performed on different individual nights of a concert tour, etc. - and it seems to me demonstrable that www.bjorner.com is an invaluable source, built up with great care by someone who knows and disseminates freely a vastly greater amount on his topic than any mainstream publication such as The Times or any mainstream media organization such as the BBC.
It’s also true that these newspapers and broadcasting companies themselves commonly rely upon the expertise of non-professionals. The BBC’s online material on Dylan, for instance, includes a so-called Timeline.[[5]][[6]] This was constructed from the material supplied at the BBC’s own request from a Dylan hyper fan named Ian Woodward, who has never published a book, and until recent early retirement had a full-time job in local government.
Yours sincerely
Michael Gray
Andrew Muir is the author of Razor’s Edge, the most detailed book-length account of Dylan’s Never Ending Tour. He writes:
As you know I used Bjorner’s research extensively when writing Razor’s Edge. I used his website for convenience but all of the information – and indeed more – is also available in book form. I used him because I knew I could rely on him as he is a diligent worker. True it is a fan’s “labour of love” but, as you are aware, I was in constant communication in those days (I still am I guess) with all the known Dylan authorities and I know that Olof checked and re-checked with all of them over any doubtful or debatable data. I passed information between various sources myself as well as contributing, especially when I was running my information service. Olof collects, collates and cross checks the information from Clinton Heylin, Glen Dundas, Michael Krogsgaard and so forth.
The last 3 names, Glen Dundas [[7]], Michael Krogsgaard [[8]], and Clinton Heylin [[9]], are the best-known authorities on documenting Dylan’s recording and performing career (in addition to Bjorner) as a check on amazon will confirm.
btw I was told that IMDb is not a reliable source, and asked to get rid of references to this source in the Dylan article. I’ve just noticed that Frank Zappa has just been promoted to Featured Article and it contains 2 references to IMDb. Some inconsistency?
Mick gold (talk) 14:13, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
IMDb is in my opinion an o.k. source if it concerns reference for, e.g., an actor's apperance in a certain film. It cannot be a valid source when it comes to other things than pure film credits (as all the "goofs", "trivia", etc. information is provided by readers. The two instances IMDb was used in the Zappa article was to establish a matter of pure film credits. --HJensen, talk21:47, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I must say I was surprised by the flap over Bjorner, and hope Michael Gray's and Andrew Muir's comments (incredible stuff) settle the matter. Frankly, if Bjorner’s books had been cited instead, there wouldn’t have been any question raised. However, that would leave most readers in the dark on the vast information Bjorner has so generously made available on his website, a very Wikipedian gesture on his part. As for the featured status, the recent editing and vetting have improved the article considerably, a tribute to the FAR process as well as Mick gold’s efforts. Of course, more could be done to flesh out the story, trim less important detail and hone some of the writing, but that’s true of most things. For now, I believe readers are exceptionaly well served by what's here. Allreet (talk) 16:46, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: mainly comprehensiveness concerns.
I think the 2000s section still goes into too much detail (although good work in trimming it so far). For example: "Martin Scorsese's film biography No Direction Home was shown on September 26-27, 2005, on BBC Two in the United Kingdom and PBS in the United States." A lot of stuff from these could go into sub-articles. There's no need to mention every release esp. compilations and documentaries made by/about him. Remember that we have 50 years of his career to consider.
Needs an authoritative Musical style section that discusses his guitar-playing, singing and the main elements of his music, and how they changed over time. This way, a reader who only wants read up on Dylan's music needn't have to wade through his biography.
Definitely needs a section on his Lyrics, which have been very exhaustively discussed by music critics and scholars.
Needs a Legacy section: While there is a list of names, Dylan's specific influence on music hasn't been discussed. For example: Hendrix and Lou Reed have acknowledged Dylan's vocal style as being influential on their own. What about his impact on folk music in general?
There seems to be undue coverage of the Never-ending tour; does it need a section of its own.
"The tour culminated in a famously raucous confrontation between Dylan and his audience at the Manchester Free Trade Hall in England. At the climax of the concert, one fan, angry with Dylan's electric sound, shouted: "Judas!" to which Dylan responded, "I don't believe you... You're a liar!" He then turned to the band and, just within earshot of the microphone, said "Play it fucking loud." Seems very iffy sourcing that to Scorcese's documentary. "famously raucous confrontation" is not even explicitly mentioned in the movie as being so. indopug (talk) 06:43, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
To respond to this valid final point, I've added the Rolling Stone review of the live album of the 1966 concert as a ref, which describes the atmosphere in the Hall: "This isn't rock & roll; this is war."
As for Never Ending Tour, it's what Dylan has been doing for past 20 years (nearly half his professional career). Isn't it worth noting schedule of 100 concerts per year, in addition to radio shows, art exhibitions, movies, autobiography, and making albums? Also important to acknowledge how divided Dylan's fans are today about the quality of his live performances. Mick gold (talk) 13:33, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've started some trimming of the 2000s section, but I think it could still use some more. (I'll try to get some more done tomorrow if possible.) Of course, if any editors disagree with any of my trims, feel free to revert any essential info, or as has been suggested, try to move some of it to the subarticles. Moisejp (talk) 12:36, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, my; this FAR has a huge WP:TLDR factor (like the article, which is too long), and having already waded through one FAR on Dylan, I'm bowing out. But the dab finder in the tools at the top of the page show dablinks that need repair. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:36, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comments. I have made a number of edits trying to make the cites more consistent. I have some questions and comments that popped along the way:
The book Trager, Oliver. Keys to the Rain, the Definitive Bob Dylan Encyclopedia. Billboard Books, 2004. (ISBN0-8230-7974-0) should not have its place in the footnotes, but in the reference list. Also a page number is missing.
Some section titles are all capitalized while some are not. I did not dare tocuh it, as some are album titles, where full capitalization may be ok (?).
What is "an about-face" mentioned in 1990s section?
The cite-web template makes accessdates into links conforming with your preferences, while the cite-news template does not. This creates quite some inconsistency, but I cannot see how the main author of this piece can be blamed on inconsistencies among templates (and the fact that naked date linking is not reccommended). Dates gets autolinked irrespective of template used. This is a serious issue, but not for this article as I see it.
The citation: "Paul Simon, Rolling Stone interview, June 1972....." strikes me as incomplete
Otherwise, I think the article reads very good, but I think it could still be shortened. There are, e.g., exceptionally many quotes from others that are rather long. Another thing: Why are there NO sound bytes? That appears me as quite peculiar. Cheers!--HJensen, talk16:16, 22 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Citation question: The fn 33 reads "The booklet by John Bauldie accompanying Dylan's The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991 (1991) explains: "It was Pete Seeger who first identified Dylan's adaptation of the melody of 'No More Auction Block' for the composition of 'Blowin' In The Wind'." Dylan acknowledged the debt in 1978 to journalist Marc Rowland: "'Blowin' In The Wind' has always been a spiritual. I took it off a song called 'No More Auction Block'—that's a spiritual and 'Blowin' In The Wind follows the same feeling." pp. 6–8." There seems to be two cites going on here, or is everything from the booklet? It is a bit difficult to see, and in any case isn't it a bit over the top to mention three times where the melody comes from?--HJensen, talk23:21, 24 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yet another citation question In some instances, a citation is given, and then followed by "Reproduced online at.... some web address". I am not sure that most of these web links are allowed, as they point (as I can tell) to sites that do not own the copyright to the material. Mick, could you please go over these, and just delete them if they are copyvios? (Sorry for being such a pain....). --HJensen, talk22:04, 25 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep FAR has eliminated a lot of cruft, and improved references and WP:MoS issues. Overall, I think it's a well-written, well referenced account of a long and complex creative career. Mick gold (talk) 06:10, 26 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep for the same reasons given by Mick gold above. I really feel in the last weeks the article has become quite a bit more focused, and the WP:MoS issues have been dealt with. Moisejp (talk) 07:03, 26 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - the FAR process has seriously tightened up the prose, completely removed cruft, improved punctuation & word-choice, and give an already strong article an added focus. Overall a highly informative, well-researched and thoroughly referenced article, deserves to be Featured ContentWarchef (talk) 23:26, 26 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.
There isn't anything on history of society. Therefore not a comprehensive overview. There is lots of fascinating stuff on how the age of menarche has changed over the ages. I say a brilliant study not long ago that looked at the the effect of a strippers cycle on the amount of tips she made. It was published in the medical post. Another spook about the effect of a womens cycle on how she dresses.
Need work on references. There is talk about IUDs and it states "Most IUDs are not designed to affect menstruation". There are two IUDs in use. A copper IUD and the Merina IUD. One can increase DUB and the other is used to treat it. That is at least the case in my county.
No references in the entire Contraception section nor in the In other mammals section. There are only 30 references when an article of top quality should have more then 100.
Okay the study on strippers is quoted but the whole article is so dry. It is not comprehensive at only 30,000 word. Needs work on section and subsections especially in the area of contraception.
Doc James feels this article is not comprehensive, but I think we disagree on its scope.
The history of social attitudes toward menstruation falls under the scope of the culture and menstruation article (which is a subarticle of menstruation). Menstrual cycle is a physiology article, not an article on culture; social history is outside its scope.
The effect of nutrition and other factors on the age of menarche falls under the scope of the menarche article. Again, outside the scope of "menstrual cycle".
How female fertility effects human behavior is the topic of concealed ovulation, a subarticle of "menstrual cycle".
Hopefully this explains why I feel the article is comprehensive in its current form.
I think part of the "dry" issue is that the sections do not flow smoothly into one another, and the article did not provide wikilinks to a number of relevant related articles. I have done some work in this direction and would appreciate feedback.
I have addressed many of the lacking citations just now; I will work on cleaning up and referencing the "contraception" and "other mammals" sections as I have time.
The statement that this article needs 100 reference or that 30,000 words is insufficient to maintain FA status is a little confusing to me; are those official guidelines for FA articles? LyrlTalkC18:21, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No not official. Just didn't notice links to these other topics that you mentioned. Was a little lacking under contraception but once again I guess that that doesn't fall under this topic either. Doc James (talk) 03:03, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Doc James seemed to be persuaded by my arguments on comprehensiveness. Are there specific areas you feel need to be expanded? As far as referencing, I plan on working on the "hormonal control" and "other mammals" sections this weekend. Are there other specific areas you see that need ref improvements? LyrlTalkC22:20, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, virtually every single subsection in the article could use better referencing. Willing to reassess if significant improvements are made. Cirt (talk) 00:02, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Today I added refs to several sections, deleted the "hormonal control" section (it was duplicating material in the "phases" section), and did some section rearrangement. Next on my to-do list is to reference the "abnormalities" section, and add some information about the thyroid to the "effects on other systems" section to help round it out. I would appreciate any feedback on how far this goes toward the needed improvements. LyrlTalkC20:08, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Both myself and several editors from WP:MED have added further references and worked on the text. I believe this article has undergone significant improvement over the past three weeks, and now meets the current featured article criteria. Therefore, I vote to keep it as a featured article. (Still willing to work on any remaining issues that are brought to my attention, of course.) LyrlTalkC23:47, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As the person who nominated this for FAR, I feel referencing is no longer a problem in the article. The only concern (not my concern, someone else's) is comprehensiveness. D.M.N. (talk) 07:28, 13 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Many references have been added (the current version has 64); if anything is missing a reference I suggest adding [citation needed] to make it clear rather than just saying that "100 references are needed". As for comprehensiveness, I agree that this is a summary-style article and some of the fascinating societal topics may belong better in the sub-articles. --Itub (talk) 11:44, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.
See comment below at 03:18, 5 October 2008. The article is deficient on citations although it seems in better shape than when nominated. In its current state I would not have nominated it, but I can not vote to keep due to citation deficiencies.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 03:20, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I was asked to comment on this, but I'm really not notably knowledgable on the topic. I believe most of my contributions were on the level of copyedits. If there is something in particular I can do to help, though, let me know. In particular, if there is anything someone tries to source & has difficulty, feel free to ping me, I'm often very good at that sort of thing. - Jmabel | Talk04:17, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's certainly true that this needs a lot more sourcing (assertion A is from X, B is from Y, etc). Unfortunately I know little and am busy, and "my" library is not likely to be of great help. I did also notice some lumpiness of prose but have already gone through it once. Considering how much I found in such a short time, there's likely to be more. So what are the other less glaring problems? -- Hoary (talk) 04:57, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've gone through it a second time, and also notified WP Jewish history. What this article needs most acutely is a couple of patient people with time and access to a good library, for specific sourcing. (And a word from the de-nominator on what the non-glaring problems are wouldn't hurt.) -- Hoary (talk) 02:39, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I pinged two very good editors who may be able to help. I'm going to try to find time this weekend to add some refs. This is a wonderful article and imo it would be unfortunate to see it delisted. dvdrw19:54, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm with DVD on this one - great article. Tony, would you list what you think is of most immediate concern from a ref point of view and I'll see what I can dig up? Cheers --Joopercoopers (talk) 23:41, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I am going to confess, that I rarely take as close a look at these things as I should. I generally just use the rule that every paragraph should have at least one citation since each is suppose to be a separate topic in a well layed out FA. I think I counted more than a half dozen without. Start with those.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 03:18, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Most of us don't take as close a look as we should, but then most of us also don't nominate featured articles for review. It seems to me that nomination should follow a close look, and that if there was no close look then the nomination should quickly be followed by either that close look or a retraction. ¶ As I understand it, the three articles most recently promoted to FA are Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge, The Greencards and Stonewall riots. I'd never even heard of the subjects of the first two of those articles, know little about the third, and have been utterly unrelated to the editing of any of the three. Each does indeed have an average of well over one note per (not so long) paragraph; let's compare their subjects with El Lissitzky. ¶ No offense to those who appreciate feats of civil engineering, railway history, or the Sublime, but that railway bridge is (perhaps unfairly) not widely known. Give me twenty minutes in a good library and I'm sure I will not be able to find an encyclopedia article on it that's half as good as this one. ¶ The Greencards is a name that doesn't seem slightly familiar even after I look at the article; they may be an excellent band, but (until I look at the list of references of that article, of course) I wouldn't know where in the library to start looking them up. ¶ Clearly the Stonewall riots are significant, but they also belong to the area of US social/political history that still seems to be fought over, at least when the consultants of certain US politicians are looking for a "wedge issue". So particular claims are particularly likely to be challenged and to need backup. ¶ Contrast these with El Lissitzky. His degree of cooperation with the Soviet regime in its most trigger-happy period may be a matter of dispute, but his early and mid career seem free of any major controversy and it's likely that virtually everything in an article about him of a length such as this could be sourced from the multivolume Grove encyclopedia Dictionary of Art and one or two books about Constructivism and/or the Soviet avant garde. Indeed, I'd hardly look askance at the article if its first paragraph were footnoted "This and all the following information comes from [single specified source] except where noted to the contrary." Problems would come when ignorant or careless editors added information without specifying its (other) source, thereby bringing the implication that it came from that source. ¶ So I'd urge you, or anyone, to take a close look at sourcing before citing its awfulness as reason for FAR. -- Hoary (talk) 05:32, 5 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Your lengthy discourse suggests that the original FAR may not have been in good faith or undeserved. The article was in bad shape before this FAR. It has improved greatly through the process. My one ref per paragraph standard has not failed me. I have never had anyone say that anything I nominated was unduly nominated and don't think that if you considered the FARed version you would have any doubt that this was well below FA standard. Much of your discourse points to notability instead of quality. I am not contesting notability.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 05:33, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Any thoughts from the editors here on whether the table should be kept or not? There is the beginning of a discussion on the talk page. I'm unsure and would appreciate more feedback. dvdrw 23:53, 2 October 2008 (UTC) I deleted it, since the information was contained in the links. If anyone disagrees please say so. dvdrw19:31, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
How many fair use images are there now? These need to be kept to a minimum.
Sourcing seems OK, except for Legacy. Note the second sentence of the second paragraph appears to have an unsourced direct quote. Marskell (talk) 12:05, 13 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I can merge the sourced content (which is only a bit) from Legacy into other sections. Would four fair use images be ok? Now there are eight. I'm thinking: one for his portrait; and one each of his early, middle, and late work. Maybe it would be a good idea to restore the table, if we are down to only a few images... DVD02:23, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.
A lot of the article is unreferenced, including "Structure", second half of "Themes", and all of "Allusions to iconography, art, and history". This article will certainly get a lot more attention once the film based on this book is released in March 2009. GaryKing (talk)15:43, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I remember User:Erik was working on a rewrite of the article a while back. I know he had concern over some of the sources used (very few of the available academic and mainstream press references available were used). I suggest notifying him. I'm willing to help out. WesleyDodds (talk) 07:40, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I did plan to work on it a while ago, but it was one of those projects that I couldn't get around to. You can see my resource breakdown at User:Erik/Watchmen as well as my revision at User:Erik/Watchmen/Revision. This article has never been in that good shape, and I had hoped to improve. I'm busy with school these days, but feel free to utilize any resource in my user pages. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 20:15, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, everyone, I'll be using Erik's temp page at User:Erik/Watchmen/Revision to work on the article. All changes to the article should be made there. We'll copy and paste when everyone is satisfied. WesleyDodds (talk) 23:29, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Most of the "structure" section is straightforward enough to use the primary source for. The only slightly dodgy part is the symmetry as theme claim, which should actually probably be removed (with, ideally, a reference to the one really obvious structural symmetry bit, the Fearful Symmetry issue, which can be primary sourced.) The latter section could use some cleanup, however. Phil Sandifer (talk) 03:07, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I started some work in the temp page, and I hope to get into the full swing of it sometime this week. Does anyone own the Absolute Edition of the book, and if so, is there any useful source material in it? WesleyDodds (talk) 05:29, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't realise there was a temp version, so I attacked Watchmen itself. Symmetry is definitely a noted 'theme,' as stated by Moore, Gibbons and Bhob Stewart. (Although 'theme' may not be the best term.) Rorschach's mask, the Rum Runner logo, #5. Stretching the definition of 'symmetry' slightly, the 'mirroring' of events in the plot and the Freighter, the mirroring of the micro- and macrocosm generally, the foreshadowing and shadows evoking other images and happenings... symmetry, mirroring an images as a whole are definitely integral to the whole.
Incidentally, as well as Absolute (which basically reprints Graphitti), Dave Gibbons' new book will shortly become THE best source for this article. ntnon (talk) 23:06, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I can't find the Comics Journal articles used as references online. They are both from The Comics Journal #116, published in July 1987. Would anyone happen to have a copy of these? WesleyDodds (talk) 04:00, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Mostly irrelevant comment Do any of the characters deserve their own articles? I think all of their real-world significance can be captured in this article itself... indopug (talk) 14:00, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds like a plan. I've attempted a plot summary. It's damn hard though. I can do a one paragraph precis in five minutes, but it took me nearly three hours to crank it to four, it's trying to establish the main characters I found hardest. I think it is descriptive, I've tried to avoid anything too outlandish or getting bogged down in too much detail. I think it covers the main thrust of the storyline without duplicating other areas of plot summation within the article. It's hardest avoiding OR. Arguably the last sentence is, but... it reads better than which sees them confronting both each other and their own principles or something like. There's a good paper somewhere that argues that we as the reader watch the watchmen and that the work operates on a meta-textual level. Has that been used in the article? HidingT10:46, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't overly wikified the plot summary deliberately. I think a lot of the stuff is self-explanatory, we don;t really need links to Mars and teleport, do we? And of teh stuff that I'd like to wikify, I'm unsure that that isn;t better presented in the article. For instance, linking Ozymandias seems redundant to a paragraph later in the article which discusses the allusion. Likewise the link I have added to the Doomsday Clock, I'm not sure that is making itself redundant? Re-reading Watchmen you get staggered at the depth of it. Veidt, in his moment of victory standing before a picture of Alexander the Great having just cut the Gordian Knot. Ah well. They say there is a film on the way too. HidingT10:56, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, four paragraphs. That's pretty impressive. I think that it's definitely allowed to be a bit longer. I copyedited it a bit. It was really good, but still read like a "story" in some parts, where it seems to foreshadow something, when in fact it should just tell the events like it is. Overall it's pretty good and it surprisingly summarizes such a complex story pretty well. The only thing I'd like to see is the end of the plot should mention how the story ends (I don't actually have my copy of Watchmen with me right now and I'd rather not want to draw it from memory!) Right now, the end of the plot section reads very speculative and much like the end of a film; it should just tell the end like it is. GaryKing (talk)15:04, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'll read the specific summary (and maybe comment on it) later, but I mildly disagree. The ending should not be revealed unless absolutely necessary - and it is not absolutely necessary to reveal it.
N.B. On character articles, I think their major benefit is lightening the load of the main page somewhat. It's lengthy, but mostly rightly so. There's a wealth of information which really ought to be made available, so sectioning off even a small couple of parts helps ease the burden (as it were). ntnon (talk) 20:16, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
We aren't here to censor information. The ending is part of the plot. Please have a look at existing FA articles for films, video games, etc. with plot sections. GaryKing (talk)20:47, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, quite. But precis isn't censorship. ;o) Hiding's severe pruning of the plot summary isn't censorship (although having now read it through, I think it's a condesation too far, myself), and the ending I was thinkinf of was the precise method of Veidt's destruction of New York. That's not necessary. 'He executes his plan' would do... maybe.
However, I do think that Hiding's current plot summary is too extremely short (sorry, Hiding) at the moment. The current 'summary' at Watchmen is overly lengthy, true. But then I feel that the Black Freighter sections are now better (well, I would!), but they clearly shouldn't dwarf the plot summary! (Even if that's not a true comparative exercise, since the Freighter/alt-EC bits would be analogous to themes & background, too. But on the face of it, it would look odd if the plot summary weren't around twice the length of the current temporary version.) Plus, that will give a little more scope for understanding and breathing space - particularly with all the "Juspeczyk"s! Is it completely anti-guidelines to call refer to Veidt, Manhattan, Rorschach, Dan and Laurie, or must they all be surnames..? Because Manhattan and Rorschach would be very confusing if standardized either way, but Juspeczyk is very awkward. Even doubled from the temporary version, the summary would be 2/3 or less than it is at the moment. ntnon (talk) 21:51, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I tend to agree with ntnon that we don't have to reveal the story; much of it is revealed later in the article and just because we aren't censored doesn't mean we add profanity everywhere. It's about finding a balance. I tend to agree with Wesley that the Black Freighter stuff is superfluous to the plot; that's actually more essential to the structure than the plot, a point I think Moore has also acknowledged. When you look at the plot you can see the truth in his statement that it is only really enough for six issues. I'd contend it may not even have stretched that far. Amazing to think the depth the work has was achieved through padding. How do you summarise the Black Frieghter stuff. "Meanwhile, a boy reads a comic book whose story parallels some aspects of the central plot...? Hard to do. I think the plot summary in the temp version now isn't half bad, to be honest. HidingT10:57, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Progress The plot summary is more or less set (could always use some tweaking) and Nton has be loading some essential reference material from Comics Journal articles and the like into the temp page. Once Ntnon is done, I'll be doing (from my estimate) a week's worth of rewriting using the raw material provided. We'll most likely be able to keep this article featured; however, the final result will look drastically different from the version currently in the main article today. WesleyDodds (talk) 05:12, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds great – it's starting to look better than the actual article already! And there's no better time for the article to get a major overhaul, what with the upcoming film and all. The article will definitely get a lot of edits once that comes out. GaryKing (talk)14:56, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I still think the plot summary is too brief, but... we'll see. :o) Frankly, I'm still not convinced that it needed a ground-up rewrite, but depending on the how it looks "drastically different," I'll comment again then. I'll try and streamline my edits now, to give the Sandman a headstart. Also - is it possible to layer the entireity of the revision edits over the top of the current article, so that the FULL edit history would remain intact..? ntnon (talk) 20:23, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've made some changes to the additions to the plot summary made by Ntnon. I've removed a fair bit so I've broken this into a separate section to detail the what and why. I appreciate this is probably going to be disputed, but I think there are issues with interpreting primary source here. I also made a few style changes, for example an em dash per WP:DASH and also the using of last names per WP:BIO, which you could argue doesn't apply but I will argue it does in order to maintain a consistent style across Wikipedia. I also broke up a few instances of run on sentences.
...police are investigating the probable murder of Edward Blake, who has fallen to his death. After the police find no leads, further investigation falls to costumed vigilante Rorschach, who decides to probe further after discovering a bloodstained smiley face badge in the gutter. Revealing Blake to be the face behind the Comedian, a costumed hero employed by the United States government, Rorschach believes that his murder indicates a plot to eliminate costumed adventurers. He therefore sets about warning four of his erstwhile colleagues, forced into early retirement (or compliance) by a repressive Government.
It's either a probable murder or a murder, and Blake either fell to his death or was thrown. In the second sentence we describe it as a probable murder, but in the next sentence we indicate it is a murder. I think this is conflicting, repetitive and redundant. This is a plot summary and needs to be as brief as possible, not getting bogged down in too much detail. We need to work out what the important plot points are here, and for me the important things are the murder and the discovery of Blake as the Comedian. That is what initiates the plot. Also, Rorschach did not decide to probe further after discovering the badge. The first page shows him walking through the blood, and his motivation for investigation is never clarified, although on page 11 issue 1 he states he had "investigated a routine homicide."
...emotionally detached super-powered Doctor Manhattan.'
I just think that's too many adjectives, and that if you read it out loud it doesn't work as well as super-powered and emotionally detached.
...once the mentally superior hero Ozymandias and now the world's richest man.
I removed the mentally superior because the sentence makes it seem he was once mentally superior but no longer is.
...don their costumes in an attempt to rekindle a love of adventure..."
The text indicates but isn't explicit enough on the reasons for donning costumes, but Dreiberg states he just wanted to "blow away the cobwebs", due to building anxiety and see if taking the ship out would "get myself straight". Page 20, issue 7. Not really to rekindle a love of adventure.
Realizing there is no escape, Rorschach tells Mahattan to kill him...
This is interpretive. The reason why Rorschach tells Manhattan to kill him isn't explicit in the text. Moore has made it clear elsewhere that it was because he realised Rorschach would not compromise. There are many interpretations open to the reader here, so I don't think we can enforce one in the summary. We don't know that Rorscach realizes there is no escape. We only know he confronts Manhattan and tells him to do it. Manhattan at this point has a choice too. We aren't saying that Manhattan, realizing there is no escape (alternative), kills Rorschach. Maybe we should say that Manhattan, seeking to protect Veidt's plan, kills Rorschach. It's a very layered situation, with Manhattan's final "Rorschach..." and Rorschach's retort of "Do it!" leaving many readings possible.
Veidt asks Manhattan for closure, confident yet doubting that everything worked out "in the end." Manhattan, standing within Veidt's orrery, replies simply "Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends," and leaves Earth for good. In the more open and multi-cultural society that has been created, Dreiberg and Juspeczyk attempt to live a more normal, but adventurous life, even as cracks begin to appear in the now-'perfect' world.
I think this is just too much detail and there are too many quotes. I don't think Veidt is looking for closure, either, he's actually looking for Manhattan to approve his method rather than the result when he asks "I did the right thing, didn't I? It all worked out in the end." I think he's looking for reassurance and approval from the one being he respects and sees as a peer. Manhattan chooses to pick him up on the fact that Veidt believes it has ended. I'm also unsure how well established it is that the world post-Veidt is more open, or that cracks begin to appear. I'd also be wary of stating Manhattan leaves Earth for good. That's beyond the bounds of the story. What is curious is that Manhattan says he understands Veidt's plan "without condoning or condemning", which seems to contradict his killing of Rorschach, an act which appears to condone. See what I mean about speculation. :)
Anyway, I hope that clarifies my thinking behind all the changes I made, I'm certainly open to reaching a consensus on a finished form. I'd point out it was at Wesley's request that the summary be shortened to three to five paragraphs, and I tend to agree with what I believe is Wesley's underlying point that less is more. I don;t think we need too much detail to understand the main thrust of the plot, which when you look at it is pretty insubstantial. The depth is something that is hard for us to comment on without breaching WP:OR, sadly. HidingT09:57, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I definitely approve. There's one problem I haven't quite figure out how to address: how do we work in the final scene into the plot summary? The scene (especially the final panel of the series) primarily works on implication. WesleyDodds (talk) 10:49, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see why we should. It's not a main plot point, and it is already made in Manhattan's line "Nothing ever ends". I mean, you'd have to introduce Rorschach's journal, the crank newspaper, and the mailing of and then describe the fact that "in the final panel, seeking filler material for the latest issue, the office junior's hand hovered over the newspaper's crank file, a pile in which Rorschach's journal was placed almost to the top." It's meaningless, trivial and best left to a reading of the work itself, since it is so open to speculation. It's left to the reader to decide whether the journal is published, and if so whether the conspiracy theory is believed, and so whether the utopia will crumble, and we already have Moore's opinion, in Manhattan's words. And to be honest, it paints a certain picture of Rorschach, doesn't it, that his principles are in the hands of... but again that's Moore's biggest point. We watch the watchmen. Even ginger haired over-weight juvenile people of limited ability have to take responsibility. I think the final page, if it is discussed anywhere, needs secondary sourcing. Here:
“
When it
appears that Rorschach’s journal will be published by the New Frontiersman in the end, dramatic
irony occurs as the reader knows that the contents of the journal may unravel the new world
peace, or the journal may be seen as the ravings of a lunatic when it contains the real truth of the
situation. The question left at the end is whether or not the journal will be published, and whether
or not Rorschach gets to have the last word, ending the lie that has ended the Cold War. This
narrative ambiguity is a definite change from the clear-cut superhero comic ending, where the
reader knows definitively who is evil and who is good, and which side has won. At the end of
Watchmen, the reader is left feeling unsure of the morality of the superheroes, and whether good
has prevailed.
”
and
“
Holman believes that Watchmen boils down to a call to action, that Moore is calling the reader to
participate in politics and watch the watchman. For Holman, Watchmen is all about existential
personal responsibility. Indeed, the ambiguity of the ending, and the closing statement, “I leave it
entirely in your hands,” demands the readers’ participation in deciding the message of
Watchmen, as well as extending this personal responsibility to the rest of their lives. The fact that
Watchmen contains a call to individual responsibility removes it from the realm of mere
entertainment, and to the realm of texts with themes and complexity, known as literature.
”
[16], it's a pdf so that's a link to the marker file. Can you get hold of Holman, Curtis Lehner. Reinventing the Wheel: A Multi-perspective Analysis of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Graphic Novel Watchmen. MA thesis. U of Georgia, 1989. through your library, might be of use as well. HidingT12:00, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comments, considering that this is one of the ten longest FAs, I question if summary style has been effectively used, (Crit 4), and I also question crit. 2(b) appropriate structure—a system of hierarchical headings and a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents. I also saw an external jump, pull quotes that need to be addressed per WP:MOS#Quotations and lots of problems in the citation formatting. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:22, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, I'm currently working on trimming it down to size. Most of the excess size comes from unnecessarily-detailed quotes and long sections of original research and synthesis which need to be discarded anyway. The user page with the revision is currently around 83 kb, and will get shorter as time goes on. And references are being standarized as I go. WesleyDodds (talk) 23:03, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Down to 68kb. Plot synopsis and background section are mostly done. Working on publication and critical reception next. Trying to get the hard facts stuff taken care of before tackling structure/themes/motifs. The goal is to be done with the draft by a week from now.WesleyDodds (talk) 07:10, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I worry that this is too extreme - and the merchandising needs to return in some form: it was the badges that caused many of the problems between Moore and DC. I have some more sources, though, so I'll be able to assist with various references. I'm found something that talks about it being one of the first tpbs, since you took out that information under source-issues, because that's integral to the contract/agreement troubles.
(Incidentally, why were the page numbers of the TCJ edited out..? And the editor? Groth is often cited as being rather hands-on with his editing duties, so it seems odd to take that out. Not as odd as the page numbers, though..)
Minor query - why is there a "[sic]" after "best of breed"..? It's a reasonably well-known phrase, I would have thought.
It's useful to note "The eleventh printing onwards have been published in the US by DC Comics' parent company's printing arm, Warner Books, under the more familiar bloodied badge cover." and, if the citation I put there isn't good enough, cite the book itself...
Grid layout is important (maybe also lack of thought balloons/sound effects).
The piecemeal 'script feeding' is as important to the creation as the grid layout, and explains the delays effectively.
Nuclear holocaust is surely a subset of "apocalypicism".
The million-copy printrun is important.
The s/prequel is important.
(again) The badges are VITAL. The Mayfair Games things are extremely notable - the only non-DCU thing released under the DC Heroes line; Moore-approved elements, universe-expanding text, etc.
The smiley face (currently in "miscellaneous") clearly needs to be in "symbols and allusions" (good title), particularly when set against the TCJ #116 cover.
I'm wary of keeping anything in the article that is not attributed to a reliable source. As this is a Feature Article, it shoudl only utilize the best sources. According to the New York Times article I found last night, the reason Moore left DC was because they kept Watchmen in print. As for the magazine references, all that's really needed when citing an article are the author, article title, publication, and date; it's the standard way I cite articles when working with music topics. The million-copy print run is mentioned in the "Film" section. Badges have been moved to "Publication" since they were intended as promotion; sequel info is there now too. WesleyDodds (talk) 21:43, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Wes, I've just added a lot of material to your talk page for want of somewhere else to put it. I don't mind taking a pass or two if that's okay with you. Amongst them you'll note two more reasons for why Moore left DC. It appears to change. I should be able to source the merchandising claim too at some point. Have you got either of Sabin's books? They both sit here on my shelf along with Gravett's one on the graphic novel. HidingT00:02, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have Comics, Comix and Graphic Novels at my library; i didn't relaly find anything usable in it. Anything useful from the other books, put it in the Miscellaneous section in the temp page. WesleyDodds (talk) 21:43, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"Publishing and reception" section is about 80 percent done. I need cites for those Eisner and Kirby Award wins. A Google Book search turned up a Comics Journal issue that listed some awards the series won, but it wouldn't let me see the entire page. Anyway, any help with that would be great. Going to tackle the characters section next; hopefully we can make the individual articles for each main character completely pointless (which they probably already are, given that they primarily consist of plot info). WesleyDodds (talk) 03:31, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, got kind of delayed by a recent discussion elsewhere on Wikipedia in the past day, but I decided to skip ahead to the composition and structure. I'll most likely be folding the section about symbols into it. WesleyDodds (talk) 09:39, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Changing my projection for completion to Wednesday. Background and Reception are done aside for minor details; Art and Composition is about 75 percent done; I still need to insert more information in the characters section for Veidt and Silk Spectre; Alientraveller may or may not get around to sprucing up the Film section. Themes is the last section I really haven't done major work with yet; that one requires me to read some adacemic essays I haven't gone through yet. WesleyDodds (talk) 03:46, 13 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I am almost done. I need to finish up the Themes section, revise the lead, add a little more info on Veidt and Silk Spectre, and work in the stray bits of info I have placed at the bottom of the draft page. I'm waiting to hear back on a few editors in regards to some source material and whether or not I should go ahead and revise the film section myself. At this point I'd like other editors to give the draft a look and a copy-edit. WesleyDodds (talk) 10:40, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Update I've copied the draft version to the main article space. There's a few things I still need to add, and the lead needs expansion, but it's more or less done now. So what does everyone think? WesleyDodds (talk) 01:16, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
First of all, bravo! The article looks in great order. Just a couple of nitpicks -- does the "Film adaptation" section need to be so long? I mean, we have a whole article for it... why not just have the first paragraph of the film article's lead section, minus its last sentence? It seems succinct enough. Secondly, is there a plan for the critical analysis I mentioned a while ago? I think that its content would flesh out "Themes" even further. I will have to take a closer look at the content, but from what I saw developing on the subpage, a lot of good changes were made. This article is probably in the best shape of its lifetime, better than its revision at the time of the FAC process. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 01:54, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
We can probably trim the film sections a bit more, but I think the information currently provided (due to the work of Alientraveller, I should mention) is sufficient summary-style for a section that that links to a separate article. I have one more book sources I need to work into the "Themes" sections, so there'll be a bit more to add there. Aside from that, I want everyone to take a stab at the lead, which I think still needs work. WesleyDodds (talk) 02:22, 19 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sure I wrote something here yesterday... must have been eaten oh well. I think it's a little bitty; very dense (needs more sections and images); and yet still overly brief in part. The Mayfair Games RPG modules flesh out the history of the W Universe; were the only non-DCU ones released under "DC Heroes"; and the first was written before the series finished - apparently unprecedented. The marketing of the buttons/badges/pins were crucial in Moore's disillusionment with DC; as was the rating system. The latter may not need to be mentioned here (although it's skewed to suggest it's perpetual-printings alone, and seems tautological to have so many similar quotes one after the other. Fair play, they're quotes I dug up, but..! ;o)) but the former ought to be, even if it's "citation required" for the time being.
We do want to keep the article concise yet informative in order to fulfill the "well-written" requirements of the Featured Article criteria. The Mayfair Games things isn't that important to the greater subject, especially given we've only got one reliable source that discusses it in-depth. The badges thing being responsible for Moore leaving DC was only sourced by an reliable site. as for the rating thing, it's not necessary since we're talking about the comi here primarily, not Moore's reason for leaving. WesleyDodds (talk) 23:23, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I thought it was being merged, rather than copied, to preserve the edit history...? Clearly Wesley deserves much of the praise for the rewrite (although I think there's polishing and expansion still to do), but I still thought that Hiding and I had asked for some kind of merger for historical-preservation purposes and "GFDL".
As and when there's movement on the "critical analysis" front, I'm more than happy to re-mine all my books, as well as van Hise's Critics Choice commentary on #1-4 (essentially an on-the-spot, printed source from a high-profile comics/pulps/pop-culture afficianado that serves well as a sourcable version of the unsourcable online annotations. But just for the first four issues, sadly.) ntnon (talk) 20:47, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Fair points, although I presume I could edit Watchmen as well as the temporary version now, too...? The RPG elements do underscore the series' notability and add depth to the world, but.. we'll see. Plus there's a newsarama/cbr interview with the creators, as well as Gateways #4.
I focused on the real-world elements of the RPG game, which is why it ultimately got summarized to a single sentence. It is important to note that adds to the backstory a bit (which the article does), but it's not necessary to indicate in detail how it does it. And yes, you can make edits to the main space version now, but if you are providing a large chunk of info, it's probably best to post it on the temp page so we can comb through it and cut it down to fit in the article. WesleyDodds (talk) 02:33, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I understand that the ratings is not to do with W (although I think W was not rated, although others were starting to be, which may be telling), but I worry that as written it's misleading. I'll see if I can work on it at some point. Likewise, the badges were part of the bigger picture, so I'll keep searching for the source to add that in (since I assume it's source holding back rather than pertinence..?).
I think I wrote that disagreements over royalties was one of the reasons Moore left DC; if I didn't, we can change it to say so and that should solve that problem pretty succinctly. WesleyDodds (talk) 02:33, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: The "Themes" section does not seem to use any of these:
Rosen, Elizabeth (Autumn 2006). "'What's That You Smell Of?' Twenty Years of Watchmen Nostalgia". Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction. 35 (98): 95–98. ((cite journal)): Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
Hughes, Jamie A. (August 2006). "'Who Watches the Watchmen?': Ideology and 'Real World' Superheroes". Journal of Popular Culture. 39 (4): 546–557. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5931.2006.00278.x. ((cite journal)): Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
Goldsmith, Jeff (Jan–Feb 2002). "The Watchmen: Interview with David Hayter". Creative Screenwriting. 9 (1): 16. ((cite journal)): Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
Fishbaugh, Brent (Fall 1998). "Moore and Gibbons's Watchmen: Exact Personifications of Science". Creative Screenwriting. 39 (3): 189–198. ((cite journal)): Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
Dittmer, Jason (March 2007). "The Tyranny of the Serial: Popular Geopolitics, the Nation, and Comic Book Discourse". Antipode. 39 (2): 247–268. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8330.2007.00520.x. ((cite journal)): Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
Wolf-Meyer, Matthew (Winter 2003). "The World Ozymandias Made: Utopias in the Superhero Comic, Subculture, and the Conservation of Difference". Journal of Popular Culture. 36 (3): 497–506. ((cite journal)): Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
Thompson, David (January 2001). "No laughing matter". New Statesman. 130 (4520): 40–42. ((cite journal)): Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
Holman, Curtis Lehner (1989). "Reinventing the wheel: A multi-perspective analysis of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' graphic novel Watchmen". University of Georgia. ((cite journal)): Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
I've looked at the Hughes, Dittmer, and Wolf-Meyer resources, and I think that they would add even more substance about this topic from very academic sources. I think that this article is better than it has ever been before, but I think that there is opportunity here to be more comprehensive on the themes. The articles go more in-depth, I believe, than the current coverage about deconstruction. —Erik (talk • contrib) 17:59, 24 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but the point is that it is now FA standard again. Of course it could still be improved, but its present state more than meets the comprehensive requirment. Work can continue, of copurse. Ceoilsláinte20:56, 24 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That's what I'm not sure if I'm sold on. Being "comprehensive" means "it neglects no major facts or details". Since this is a defining literary work, "Themes" should be a major component of this article, and I think it neglects the content in the resources above. I don't know if it's a fair comparison, but looking at To Kill a Mockingbird, this literary work has very substantial coverage on "Themes" as a Featured Article. Seems like Watchmen should do the same. I really am more for keeping than demoting, but I don't believe this article is yet true exhaustive with its themes. —Erik (talk • contrib) 21:13, 24 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Still working on adding details obviously, but for now, I focused on incorporating the essential notable sources, ie. the books, since they have more authoritative weight. Also, a lot of these authors have repeated the same points, so it's become a matter of quoting one over the other, and I tend to favor the books. WesleyDodds (talk) 22:35, 24 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
To Kill a Mockingbird is indeed a great article, and I admit I hadn't heard of "Watchmen" before this FAR. Wesley, do as Erik says and keep working; this is shaping up to be one of your best pages. Ceoilsláinte17:26, 25 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.
1. (a) English is not my native language so someone else might do a better job in evaluating this, but sentences like: "In a global economy, law is globalising too." or "Property law governs valuable things that people call 'theirs'." don't strike me as well-written and engaging.
because? As a native English speaker I would like to hearby confirm that these sentences are both well written and are legally accurate, therefore engaging. Wikidea20:34, 26 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(b) This article lacks any significant coverage of Islamic law. Islamic law is one of the three most common legal systems of the world, and this article is written from Western perspective of common and civil law. Also, something on maritime law would be nice.
Islamic law is not a legal system. It's a form of religious law, based on holy texts. It is not very significant in either population terms or in theoretical terms. It is in fact well discussed, and there are links to subpages. As for maritime law, that is given its line with all the other specialisms under further subjects. Wikidea20:34, 26 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
According to a properly sourced claim in its article Islamic law is among the three most common legal systems of the world and according to our own article on Legal systems it is a legal system. Faculty of Law at University of Ottawa divides world legal systems into four main categories - civil law, common law, customary law and Muslim law. According to their map Muslim law is predominant legal system in Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, Arabian Peninsula countries, Syria, Jordan, Sudan, Libya, Morocco and Mauritania, and significant influence on legal systems of countries from Indonesia to Algeria. Customary law has heavy influence in countries like China, Mongolia, Japan, Korea, Sri Lanka, and number of African countries. So Islamic and customary law are two major legal systems and they are more or less completely ignored in the "Law" article.
Also concerning comprehensiveness, one of the four main sections of article "Legal institutions" begins with "The main institutions of law in liberal democracies are...". That is fine but what about the main institutions of law in other political systems? -- VisionThing --16:30, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I definitely disagree with you. Islamic law has its place in the "history of law" and "religious laws" sections, but any further expansion on that would be IMO overdue. Are we then also going to analyze all the Christian canonical laws as well?! Why should we choose to follow your pro-Islamic POV, and ignore these religious laws as well! Following your rationale, as a Greek and Christian Orthodox I demand from Wikidea to add a long and super-analytical section about the Orthodox canonical law, which is practiced by a church of more than 300,000,000 members, and has a huge history as a continuation of Byzantine law, whose influence in modern western systems is ecumenically recognized!--Yannismarou (talk) 17:14, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
He just doesn't know what he's talking about, and I think the University of Ottawa would say the same. Religious law encompasses islamic law, and once again it's not significant either in population terms or theoretically. Wikidea17:53, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have any specific POV on this issue; I'm simply stating what the sources say. My rationale is that according to sources Islamic law is one of the main legal systems in the modern world. If you have sources that claim the same for Orthodox canonical law, then yes, we should also deal with it. However, I doubt that you will find sources for such claim. -- VisionThing --21:36, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Islamic law is presented as one of the main systems, but within the framework of religious law. And this is the correct thing to do in terms of structure.--Yannismarou (talk) 12:50, 1 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Islamic law is more than just religious law. Personally don't care which umbrella you place it under, but islamic law does extend into other areas of law, more commonly understood such as finance. These are specialisations in which Malaysia is a world-leader, and even global law firms/vocational teaching institutions now cover their methods of raising money. We need to give it a little more justice. :) Sephui (talk) 06:53, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
(c) Although this article has 130 inline citations many of those are primary sources. Per Wikipedia's policy on primary sources, articles should relay on secondary sources, specially when it comes to interpretive and synthetic claims. Unfortunately nature of this article requires synthetic and generalizing claims and conclusion that cannot be drawn from individual cases without OR. Few examples of bad sourcing: Constitutional and administrative law section contains following claim: "A case named Entick v. Carrington illustrates a constitutional principle deriving from the common law." Who says that that case illustrates constitutional principle? In that section we have another similar claim: "The fundamental constitutional principle, inspired by John Locke,…" and given source is Locke's The Second Treatise. Who says that this constitutional principle was inspired by Locke and not by someone else? Whole "Constitutional and administrative law" has only one secondary source. Similar problems are present in other sections. Also, there are some POV claims like: "Civil society is necessarily a source of law, by being the basis from which people form opinions and lobby for what they believe law should be." (this one is also unsourced).
Pick up any first year public law text and it will talk about the case. The moral of the story in Entick is that without a warrant, the sheriff (a government body) had no authority to act, therefore could not act. This is also an especially interesting case because it preceded the US declaration of independence. So it is law in all common law nations. Examples of cases throughout the article try to be relevant to as many readers as possible. You can find the Locke source in the footnote, and if you read Lord Camden's words they are quoting Locke verbatim. As for civil society, Robertson QC's quote is telling you the same.
But that's just it, isn't it Vision Thing. You don't care about reading things, or getting it right, that you're happy to keep wasting everyone's time, and you're just pursuing a sour grapes agenda. Wikidea20:34, 26 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
WP:PRIMARY states: "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. To the extent that part of an article relies on a primary source, it should:
only make descriptive claims about the information found in the primary source, the accuracy and applicability of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge, and
It is absurd to speak about referencing problems in such a well-researched (mainly thanks to Wikidea), and rich with sources article. Just look at the sources section (all of which are used in the article; this is no fake list!); legally speaking, I rest my case!--Yannismarou (talk) 17:29, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
He doesn't understand the point of this distinction between primary and secondary sources. If you can't quote from a case, or say what is in a statute, then everything that I have written on this website should be gotten rid of. Wikidea17:53, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Another example of poor sourcing is Judiciary section. This section has five inline sources but let us look what is sourced. Four sources are links to webpages of appeals courts, and one source is US Supreme Court verdict. Claims that are sourced are establishing the names of appeals courts in the US, UK, Germany, France, and EU. Fifth source is supporting claim that the United States Supreme Court did reach one verdict. At the same time some very specific claims are not sourced - "In most countries judges may only interpret the constitution and all other laws." "...the UK, Finland and New Zealand still assert the ideal of parliamentary sovereignty, whereby the unelected judiciary may not overturn law passed by a democratic legislature." -- VisionThing --21:39, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This section also vividly shows lack of comprehensiveness – it only talks about judiciary in Western countries. What about judiciary in Arab countries, India, China, Japan...? -- VisionThing --21:41, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Judiciary in communist countries (with China being the most prominent one) is now treated. About India I don't see what should be added, since it is a part of the common law system without any spectacular particularities.--Yannismarou (talk) 09:50, 2 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
2. (a) Lead section opens up some questions that are not discussed later in the article. It says: "The study of law raises important questions about equality, fairness, liberty and justice, which are not always simple." If those questions are important why they are not discussed in the article? What is relation of law towards equality and liberty? What does the "rule of law" mean (it is mentioned in the lead and only in one place in body of the article)? Also, lead contains (in my view) a POV quote by Anatole France. For one, Anatole France is not a well-known legal scholar, he is not even a legal scholar, so undue weight is given to him. He or his views are not mentioned anywhere else in the article, and, as far as I can see, for a good reason. Also, he presents a specific point of view that goes unanswered. -- VisionThing --18:37, 26 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is his original gripe (among many others on many pages). Anatole France won the Nobel Prize for literature. His aphorism is widely known, and quoted in law classes the world over. It's not France's view that is the problem. It's just Vision Thing here, who is bringing a neutrality dispute from this, the history of economic thought and the competition law page. He just wants to push some conservative authors' quotes, and so far as I can see, is a very uninteresting and worthless contributor to Wikipedia. Wikidea20:34, 26 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If his aphorism is so important that it must be quoted in the lead then it also should be important enough to be discussed in the main body of article. However, that is not the case. -- VisionThing --16:30, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: This is the first time I have commented on a FAR, so . . . :
The article seems to be primarily about "western law" or at least has a "western law" explanative view reference point.
There does not seem to be anything about non codified or oral tradition or "tradtional law", for example the law in "indigenous societies"
The "definition" of law seems to be only from a codified perspective. Should it say something about "socioanthropomorphic constructive" law, for example:
the law is in reality the set of social behaviours enforced within a society, whether or not they have been legitimately codified, are conscionable, etc. . . . even if the law was draconian, arbitrary, illegitmate, unconscionable, . . .
The real lead needs to be longer. It is one very short sentence. The rest of the lead perhaps should be very slightly expanded in to an introduction section - law is such a broad area, and the current lead leaves one a little befuddled. It does not lead one into the following sections as well as it might.
What is there seems to be good, but it needs more.
While there are many references, there seem to be a few unreferenced key assertions.
Speedy close. This is another clear case of content dispute, following Reagan and Roman-Persian Wars. The nominator is in a content dispute with Wikidea, and he thought that the best way to continue this personal feud was to bring this article here. I really can't take seriously arguments like not covering maritime law (?!!!!) or even Islamic law; such an article cannot cover every religious law in detail. Also saying that the article does not include adequate secondary sources is more than mere nonsense (and it reminds me of the same nonsense [but in an even worse version now] when Pericles was nominated here), and a poor excuse for Vision Thing's only and real problem, his 1d argument (which here is just one line, although this is what caused this nomination, and I'm sorry about the nominator's lack of straightforwardness). Therefore, I am per the speedy closing of this nomination and the continuation of the content dispute issue in the article's talk page. Finally, I would like to point out that this tactic to nominate an article here as a result of a content dispute (and as a "means of pressure" towards the article's main editors to succumb to the nominator's demands?) is getting really really annoying, and we maybe should discuss how to deal with it.--Yannismarou (talk) 07:14, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If you regard my above comments as a personal attack, then I am sorry but you have no idea about what a personal attack is, and you definitely have to distinguish in your mind the terms "personal attack" and "criticism". Trying to defeature the article, because other editors do not agree with some of your edits is no "good faith attempt to improve the article"; it is exactly the opposite. And I do insist on everything I wrote above. Your arguments are more than weak (this the most "gentle" term I can find in order to characterize them without making you believe that I personally attack you!), and this is definitely the wrong place to pursue your content dispute goals.--Yannismarou (talk) 17:05, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comments. Although I see a few omisions of citations, this could have been handled on the talk page and would not require a review. Now, for the things that should be cited: 1) "The United Nations, founded under the UN Charter, is one of the most important international organisations. It was established after the League of Nations failed to prevent the Second World War." and the lines following. 2) "This increases the number of disputes outside a unified legal framework. Increasing numbers of businesses opt for commercial arbitration under the New York Convention 1958." 3) "The leading judge, Lord Camden, stated that," 4) "Lord Coleridge, expressing immense disapproval, ruled, "to preserve one's life is generally speaking a duty, but it may be the plainest and the highest duty to sacrifice it."" and what follows. 5) "The boy sued the goldsmith for his apprentice's attempt to cheat him. Lord Chief Justice Pratt ruled that even though the boy could not be said to own the jewel," and what follows. 6) Law#Further disciplines section should have some links, or one reference at the top to show where this list can be found, etc. 7) Law#Legal systems would need a source at the end, all though it is general, it would be nice to link a general source or a couple provided later. After that, there are only a few scattered spots. Less than 20 total citations needed, which is easily fixed. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:59, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've just done a couple of those: Armory v. Delamirie doesn't appear to be online; it can really be found in the library using the case citation. Would you like to paste the rest on the talk page for me, so we don't clutter up this page? Wikidea14:28, 30 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep open. How did this ever pass through FAC to begin with? An article on a topic as complex and important as the law should not garner only four support votes (one of which was cast by the main author). Anyways, the article doesn't exemplify our very best work. I agree entirely with Vision Thing's comments about the sourcing. In many instances, instead of citing reliable secondary sources with professional editorial oversight, the article directly cites cases and philosophical texts hand-picked by a Wikipedian. If the information is significant, it should be easy to find and cite a reliable secondary source to support it. Not to mention that entire paragraphs don't have a single citation. Punctured Bicycle (talk) 22:24, 29 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
With respect, if you were lawyers, you would not think that there was anything wrong with a direct citation of what judges have said in cases. If you were able to find the bit of WP:PRIMARY that says cases are either primary sources or secondary sources, then you might have a point. But even if it did say that quoting from cases was bad, then it would be wrong, and out of kilter with what every academic legal author does every day. "The law" in the abstract sense is the primary source, and a judge through a case telling you what the law is would seem to me to be the secondary source - you would need quite a long jurisprudential discussion to resolve that though: I recommend getting a copy of HLA Hart's The Concept of Law if you'd like to find out more.
Yes, you're absolutely right that I hand picked the cases. The point is to allow readers a glimpse into understanding what each subject is about. There will always be discretion involved in trying to boil down an entire legal field, whether it is contract law, property law or whatever, into a paragraph. It was not me that passed the article for FA status by the way. In fact, I think this article is brilliant, and quite frankly, nobody else on Wikipedia would have - or did - write anything approaching the quality, clarity, succinctity of this. And moreover, as I think I pointed out in the FAC process, there is no other main academic subject page which is featured, or ever was close to what you have in the law page. The reason of course is that many editors come to Wikipedia being specialists in things outside what you'd find in a traditional encyclopedia, and the best pages are usually things that it is comparatively easy (going by the weight of the FA list) to be an expert in: computer games, celebrities, cities, countries... The science, literature and history pages are a few exceptions. Law is one of those things that people think they might be experts in, or have a legitimate opinion on, to say what is relevant or not, what good academic practice is or not. If you are one of those people, you are wrong, and you need a law degree (not a paragraph or two from me) to teach you why.
A good way to confirm what I say it to go and buy a copy of Professor Raymond Wacks A very short introduction to Law. You will find, as I did when it came out in 2007, that it covers very similar ground - uncannily similar ground - as what I did when I wrote for free on Wikipedia. I would add one cavaet to his book though: he has about 15000 words. This article is about 8000. The page is always open to growth and development. As you can see above, I developed it a bit by adding maritime and the law of the sea into the further subject lists. But it is necessarily hugely condensed, and necessarily serves as a route map to the pages where things can be done in more detail.
So I look forward to hearing more suggestions on the talk page. But I have no time for impudent ideologues who want to push some narrow agenda for the sake (as began this FAR) of a pointless sentence in the introduction. Wikidea13:36, 30 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'd just like to add that if there were people who really knew what they were talking about making all these criticisms about how the page isn't worthy, then I would be the first to listen. On the talk page. People who are really interested in improvement do things there, and it's always stone cold obvious when someone knows what they're talking about, and because they know what they're talking about it's always possible to have a conversation, reason, and improve. Wikidea13:54, 30 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ottava Rima made some useful remarks in the article's talk page, regarding some parts needing citations. I think his conclusion the article needs about 20 more citations constitutes an exaggeration (after all I do not like such arithmetics), but I'll do my best to source the parts in question, and I hope Wikidea as well.--Yannismarou (talk) 09:46, 1 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
More citations provided by both me and Wikidea. I keep checking the article in terms of wikilinking (there are some cases of over-linking) and MoS.--Yannismarou (talk) 12:49, 1 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"The article directly cites cases and philosophical texts hand-picked by a Wikipedian." Personally, I am proud because this article "hand-picks" cases and philosophical text, and I regard that as a pro and not a flaw. Nevertheless, I keep enhancing the sourcing (which is already enormous), and I'll keep adding secondary sources, wherever I feel necessary (such as in Civil Society about Locke). Nevertheless, I do agree with Wikipedia that cases are fine sources. The work fine in the best law books; why not here?! For instance, two case are cited in relation with the supremacy of the European law that the European Court has declared. For me this is fine, and I see no reason to add an author, who will just repeat what the available in internet cases already say!--Yannismarou (talk) 12:12, 2 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep open. The issue with citing cases directly is not one of WP:V, but of the potential for WP:SYN. There's no guarantee that the cases are representative. We should rely upon secondary sources for selecting cases. Cool HandLuke21:52, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In the case of the European Court, the guarantee is the continuity and the consistency of the court's case law. I have no sourcing problem to add a secondary source, but I really regard it as redundant.--Yannismarou (talk) 14:45, 6 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, you objected about the useful - not unsightly - boxes before, and I told you, before, why you were wrong. Again, Sandy, the layout page gives rules of thumb, not rules. Ottava Rima, however, said that navigation boxes may affect printing. That would seem to be a reasonable objection, but I don't know how much it does affect printing. "I'm uneasy" isn't, I'm afraid, either a useful or meaningful comment. But please do write on the Talk:Law page what the reasons for your ongoing insecurity are. Wikidea16:50, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The reason for the guideline, and the reason navigational boxes go at the bottom of the article, is for printing, mirroring and accessibility. It certainly can't be argued that navigational boxes in place of text are brilliant, professional or compelling prose. The article is too long (but because of the structural problems, I can't even make the page size script work on it), too listy, and legal issues are listed below in the external review I requested. I have never believed this article is a compelling summary of the topic or presented in the most professional format to our readers, and that's without getting into the content issues raised below. I hope someone can calculate the prose size so we can figure out what we're dealing with, but with chunks of boxes in the middle of the text, it's hard to determine how to calculate size. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:19, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think I fixed most MoS-related images problems. I have just one problem with the English barrister's image: it is left-aligned under a === === section. If I right-align it, then the guy won't look at the text, but the view outside the PC screen! If I keep it left-aligned, and move it a bit below, it will break the next section and creat a "sandwitch" effect! If I shrink it, then I may harm its utility within the article. I don't know what to do with it!--Yannismarou (talk) 07:54, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
External review
I asked an attorney friend to review this article, because I've never been comfortable with it. I can't answer on the following points; I'm merely passing along the message.
Dear Featured Article assistant director:
I have sent to you some comments on the Featured Article Review for Law. I would appreciate it if you would post them to the appropriate page. I have not otherwise participated in this discussion nor have I edited this article or any discussion pages on it.
The article attempts too much. Obviously a lot of work went into it, but it needs both some pruning and a good copyedit. (The second sentence is an example of a sentence that is so trite that it essentially says nothing.) More comments:
The case discussions should be taken out. The article is too long now; eliminating discussion of specific cases would shorten it. While stating what a case says is not OR; stating what a case means is. As the general propositions for which the cases stand are already in the text preceding those case discussions, the discussions are unneeded.
I'm just replying to these other comments now, which I'm sure are well intentioned, but pretty much all unfounded. The case discussions are there because they give some idea of what the subject is about. All are fundamental cases to each subject. Stating what a case means is not original research. On such basic cases everyone agrees. Wikidea13:13, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The statement in the introduction that "Some countries persist in basing their law on religious texts" has a cast which could be construed as pejoriative. The separation between church and state, a comparatively recent construct, is not universally accepted; some societies draw no distinction between the civil realm and the moral or religious realm. (As an aside, Sharia, so frowned on in the west, in its origins was a means to insure all were equal before the law.) If this article is to be universal in its coverage it should be nonjudgmental in its composition. No aspersions are cast here on the authors; a sincere effort is made to include non-western systems, but there is still a western flavor to the article.
I personally don't care whether some lunatic fundamentalists would disagree that the state and church should be separate, and that various bibles written a millenium or two ago should form the basis of our law. They are stupid, and wrong, and uneducated. I don't think having a neutral point of view needs to take account of these viewpoints, and I'd suggest that you'd never find an encyclopedia that wasn't from Iran, Soviet Russia or perhaps certain parts of Mid-West America that would. Wikidea13:13, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"However religion never provides a thorough and detailed legal system." Can this assertion be proven?
Are you challenging it? Can you show me an example of where it does? Of course you can't. There are only so many religions, and none of them, not one, never ever, ever, has provided a complete legal system. Wikidea13:13, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Equity and Trusts seems too Anglocentric. Equity can be (and is) handled in the Common law and equity section below?
The statement that Roman Law was lost during the Dark Ages goes too far, and is uncited.
I think this has been changed. The comment is much appreciated. But I think this a good example of how minor and insignificant the changes that could be suggested are. I should add, remember, the Renaissance gets its name from the fact that a lot of things were "rediscovered". One of them was Roman law. Wikidea21:27, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Philosophy of law may give undue emphasis to recent ideas.
Analytical jurisprudence is recent, which is why it's talked about. It began with Bentham. It is the only thing distinctive about philosophy of law. The rest (normative jurisprudence or natural law) is simply a part of political philosophy. Wikidea13:13, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The authors may wish to mention influential individuals such as Coke and Maine in the development and synthesis of common law.
The military and police section seems outside a reasonable scope for the article.
Because? I think it's vital, because how do you enforce the law without the long arm of the law? If you don't enforce the law, to what extent can you say that there is any law, and not merely a state of nature, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish and short... :) Wikidea13:13, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You got your mate who is an attorney to have a look, and that was the best that s/he came up with? This list of five-things-that-I-don't-really-like s not terribly helpful, and I don't think you are being either. But I'd look forward to suggestions on the talk page. For example, I'd love to know why equity and trusts is "anglo centric", especially since it's found in India, South Africa, America, etc, and pretty much the world over in company law! Have a read of the page on directors duties if you'd like to find out more. Wikidea17:43, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Tallying for such a long-lasting FAC is not easy Sandy. Now about the above comments: In most of them it should be Wikidea who answers, because sections, such as "Common Law and Equity" are mainly written by him (just as most of the article). About issue 1, I want to mention that my opinion was from the beginning that there was no reason to analyze particular cases into detail, but Wikidea explained why this would be useful. Concerning OR, I'm afraid I'll disagree again, but, since there are various concerns from many sides, it would be nice Wikidea either to add a couple of secondary source or to trim the cases' analysis so as to get over with that. Issue 3: I'll check the phrase; if sources are not consistent with the assertion I'll remove it. Issues 4, 7, 8: Again Wikidea is the best person to respond. Issue 5: I'll check the text and the sources. Length: I think prose is not too lengthy, but I've a slightly different opinion from that on Sandy: I think comprehensiveness is above lenght, and, in any case, this article is not tiring to me as a reader. I do not get such a feeling, but this may be because I am personally involved in it.--Yannismarou (talk) 09:27, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Issue 5: Sources seem consistent with what the article asserts. Roman law may not have been completely "lost" but it was indeed in decadence. Rephrased accordingly.--Yannismarou (talk) 09:41, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Note, assuming all else will be addressed to everyone's satisfaction, I am not going to be satisfied with a mass of red-linked navigational templates in the middle of the page. It is not compelling prose, it amounts to plopping a massive amount of lists and links in the middle of prose, we don't do it on most articles, and we certainly shouldn't do it on featured articles. If those sections can't be summarized in prose or tables or some other standard article format, they don't belong in the article; per WP:LAYOUT (and for good reason), navigational templates go at the bottom of the article. In addition to the commentary above on comment, there is still an WP:ACCESSIBILITY issue (left-aligned image below third-level headings) and there are spaced emdashes (and mixed with spaced endashes). The non-standard layout apparently breaks Dr pda's prose size script; it would be great if someone could figure out the article's prose size relative to WP:SIZE.SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:32, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"there is still an WP:ACCESSIBILITY issue (left-aligned image below third-level headings)" We speak about one picture I mentioned above, and for which I asked for proposals, because I do not feel comfortable removing it. I thus do not regard that as an issue important enough to defeature the article.
"there are spaced emdashes (and mixed with spaced endashes)". I'll check all the dashes.
"it would be great if someone could figure out the article's prose size relative to WP:SIZE." I don't share this insistence on size. As I have repeatedly said, I personally do not have a problem an article to be long, if it does not get tiring for the reader, and if length is for the sake of comprehensiveness. After all, I know other longer articles than this in terms of prose that have gone through both FAC and FAR(C). And keep in mind that this article makes effective use of WP:SS.
Manually counting prose size (without images, image captions, notes, references, seealso, external links) I found it exactly 65 kbs (although I still don't know if there was any reason to lose my time for that).--Yannismarou (talk) 10:52, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I added Smith in law and economics per Ottava's insightful after all request (editing in Wikipedia is proved to be an educational process as well, since while researching I had the chance to learn some very interesting things about the jurist Smith I did not know). I think his place is better there as a forerunner of law and economics, than in jurisprudence.
I added Grotius in Jurisprudence, and I'll try to improve the references related to ancient Greek and Romans. I think the section is already quite good, and we must have in mind that as indicated above it is difficult to keep the adequate balance between size and comprehensiveness—we cannot tell all the history of jurisprudence in this article.
Something I was thinking about for some days: Although "Military and Police" was added by Wikidea and not me (and I also had doubts in the past about its utility), I am not sure I'll agree with Sandy's friend remark that this section has no place in the article. Military and police constitute the hard nucleus of the state, and were in the center of the social-legal theories of Weber and Schmitt. They are still in the center of modern theories (again influenced by Weber and Schmitt) treating the triptych state–rule of law–power (see the neocons' theories or Fukuyama's analysis about rule of law and failed states). How can we say then that this section does not belong to Law's article?! My point is that there may be various subjective approaches about what belongs or not to the article, but this should not disorientate out judgment about whether its content should be regarded as featured or not.--Yannismarou (talk) 12:18, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I replaced this image causing the "accessibility problems". I also rewrote and cited the whole "Legal Profession" section so as to reflect this universal point of view some critics of the article have asked for.--Yannismarou (talk) 13:18, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I think the page is very strong, as you would expect from Yannis, but could do with a ce from a steady and careful pair hands. It would not be something that I could undertake myself, as the language needs to be very precise, and frankly I would be out of my depth. I see some glibness in places: Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus ticket to trading swaptions on a derivatives market. - not very precise at all. Other than prose, I see an outstanding article here. Strongly leaning towards Keep, but would like to see the review kept open and work continue. Ceoilsláinte15:50, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Ceoil for your kind words. Let me tell you that though "out of your depth" your rewording in the lead was damn professional! I mainly agree about the prose, but this is mainly the result of Wikidea's rationale: he obviously wanted to write a article in simple English so that the "out of his depth" reader enjoys and understands it. He mainly achieved that IMO, but in some places (like the one mentioned by Ceoil) there was a counter-effect: the prose seems to falls a bit back from the adequate level of encyclopedic professionalism (in some parts of the article I repeat). Robth has copy-edited the article during FAC, but again he was not a jurist. So, yes, indeed, a jurist copyeditor's contribution would be very useful to further upgrade the article. But where can we find him?! It seems that Wikipedia does not attract the constant interest of jurists interested in upgrading the law-related articles. Even Sandy's friend who left some very insightful comments he did that "through proxy". Can you convince him Sandy to do some editing as well—I think it would be great both for the article and the project.
I am a jurist and I want to further upgrade the article's prose, but there are three problems: 1) the article's structure and the content of most of its sections is the result of Wikidea's work; I sometimes feel like an "intruder" when editing these sections, 2) I am not a native English speaker, and even if I do my best I'll never reach e.g. Ceoil's talent in copyediting, 3) I come from the civil law tradition, and my knowledge of most of the facts, assertions etc. in Common-law related sections is almost non-existent! These sections were again worked by Wikidea. And this is where again an expert like Sandy's friend is needed.
Attention: do not misunderstand me. Though I admit all these problems, I still think we have a featured quality article here. Guys, it is by far the best in the net! Britannica would kill for such an article! But this does not mean that we cannot further improve it. Yes, we can (oups, somebody else told that just before me!)! But I need the assistance Ceoil talked about before. For the time being, what Ceoil could do (if he is interested in and if he has time to dedicate, with my assistance guaranteed) is to have a look and perform a prose massage in the section I significantly (from 30 to 60%) rewrote during this FARC or the previous FAC, namely: "International law", "Religious law", "Philosophy of law", and "Legal Profession". I can also definitely (or I think so!) assist a copyeditor's work with terminology verifications and clarifications in "Constitutional and administrative law", "civil law", "history of law", "sociology of law", "judiciary", "legislature", "executive", "military and police", "bureaucracy" and "civil society".--Yannismarou (talk) 10:45, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've been away for a while, and I think that Yannis is doing an excellent and dedicated job responding to a lot of very minor and rather arbitrary complaints. I personally don't understand why the images were moved around. They seem messy and inconsistent now. I also don't understand why Sandy is against this article so much. It puzzles me, because this is the only serious academic discipline article over an entire subject which is any good. Why try to take it down? In fact most others are disasters (Maths and Chemistry are two notable exceptions: but why are the social sciences so poor, I wonder?). Everyone has to remember, when I wrote this it was, and remains a MASSIVE simplification. I try to make very difficult, knitty concepts easy for people who don't understand law. That, with great respect, means most of you. The page will get longer (as it already has done) when people pore over it going "there's something at the back of my head which I'd like to see here, you should throw that in." In fact the only person who's has made significant contributions to this article and who knows something about law is... Yannis! He says it's fine. I say it's fine. 90,000 hits a month say it's fine. I happen to like having this as an FA article, because I'm a little bit proud of it. But to be honest, I'm happy either way, because I contribute to Wikipedia so that non-contributing readers might get something useful, not to get internal Wikiawards! Once again, if anyone has access, have a look at Raymond Wacks A Very Short Introduction to Law (2007) - in fact you can see the index and the contents on Amazon. Again, I find it remarkable how similar this page is to that little book, and I don't feel abashed about saying that I know what is significant and important and what is not, and it seemed to have uncanny similarity with the world's most popular short law book. Wikidea14:00, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Rubbish. You're just being a spoil-sport because it didn't pass the first time with your explicit endorsement. You didn't object before, and it passed. It's the same, or better, in many places as before, and it passed. I consistently answer questions and make changes on good suggestions on the talk page. You never raised an issue on the talk page. You haven't raised a single helpful point here either (and neither did your phantom attorney friend), because you don't know what you're talking about. Oh yes, and this review was started by a troll. You've got a habit of not responding to replies to your comments. I find that offensive and disingenuous. I don't expect you will here either, and by now, I no longer care what you think. Wikidea13:33, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I would assume good faith, Sandy, if you weren't just throwing in comments and then doing nothing when I reply to them. At the very least, I think it's civil to try and engage with the explanations I give. I respond to everything, because I want to make this article better. I have contributed oodles to the law pages, and to me it looks like you're just content to sit back and criticise. To me, it looks lazy. I stop assuming good faith when experience teaches me otherwise. And then to quote Wikipolicy at me is just cheeky. I think that you should have a little self awareness too. Not once have I heard from you, "you know what, there's actually been a lot of good work here". Get over yourself. Wikidea00:25, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
About AGF: I am sure that Sandy's only interest is the article's proper quality. About CIVIL: This is an opportunity to stress that IMO it is time to clarify what "civility" means in this project, because it seems that we have two categories of users: those who can swear their fellow editors (expressions like "fuck you" [and all the similar versions, such as "fuck off" etc.] are lately a common place) enjoying a strange asylum, and those who are persecuted even with the suspicion of incivility.--Yannismarou (talk) 19:50, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: The article has no POV or OR problems. These are the lamest arguments one could use in order to defeature it. And I honestly did not expect anything better from Vision Thing, who remembered his FAR (result of a personal vendetta with Wikidea) after some weeks of absence and indifference (better late than never of course!), but I did expect a better objection from an editor of the caliber and high quality of Sandy. It is a pity! One could indeed talk about the prose, the analysis etc., but using POV or OR as the battering ram against this article is IMO scientifically and in terms of citing incomprehensible! By the way, I would like to point out that this is not a "shoot and go" procedure. I would thus expect some follow-up comments by Sandy's friend to Wikidea's responses.
In any case, I want to notice that I have neither the time nor the appetite to further work on the article. If a copy-editor of the caliber of Ceoil wants to give it a shot, or if Wikidea wants to initiate some improvements (e.g., I would get rid of these damn templates in the middle some users dislike—although again wikipolicy is not clearly against them as Sandy argues—or I would add some secondary sources in the cases there are these trivia and exaggerated OR concerns or I would rephrase phrases like the one mentioned by Ceoil) that is fine, but personally I am done with it. And if my vote cares and counts, then I am definitely a keep, and I challenge any of the reviewers here to provide me with a better encyclopedic article on law. If they do find such an article, then I give my word (and you should know, pals, what this means for an Epirote!) that I'll immediately turn my vote into strong remove. But you won't!--Yannismarou (talk) 19:23, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Remove. Traditional encyclopedias recruit experts to write their articles. Typically these experts will draw upon their own expertise and background in composing the article. So, if a law expert was asked to write an article on the law for a traditional encyclopedia, he might select some of his favorite cases and quotes to support the points he makes. That, in part, seems to be what happened here. Wikidea apparently has a law degree and knows "what is significant and important and what is not." So, in some instances, instead of appealing to reliable secondary sources, he appeals to his own expertise. That might be fine and dandy for a traditional encyclopedia, but Wikipedia is not one. Wikipedia has very unique policies—WP:V, WP:NOR, and WP:NPOV—that relegate expertise to the background. A strong foundation of secondary sources is more important, especially for potential featured articles. Punctured Bicycle (talk) 01:10, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Everything I write is completely neutral. Knowing what is significant and important is that. I don't believe Wikipedia's policies are stupid: they know there has to be some selection. In all this debate I note a complete lack of alternatives presented, nobody saying "here's a book and a page reference or a case that should be subsituted for that." Wikidea12:28, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"Everything I write is completely neutral." How is this verifiable? This was one of the least neutral things I've seen on this site. I would like sources, not assurances. Cool HandLuke14:30, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ah yes, the smell of bitter old grudges Luke. Well done for bringing that up. Just goes to show, this isn't really about the law article, is it? On the competition law page, by the way, it happens now to be rather different, doesn't it. At least I try. You're just out to flog people with dead fish! Wikidea15:11, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, this isn't about that article, and it's not about you. It's about Law. When editors don't use sources, they can sometimes insert biases into an article. Even undoubtedly qualified writers such as yourself have fallen into this trap. It's a general problem with relying heavily on primary sources. We need reliable sources to ensure that these cases—hand picked by a Wikipedian—are representative. Beyond that, the only complaints I have are stylistic, and for that I would defer to SandyGeorgia, who is very familiar with our manual of style. For what it's worth, I agree the templates do seem misplaced in the middle of the article. Cool HandLuke15:28, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, that's all fine. But I still haven't been told - not anywhere what on earth is wrong with those templates in the middle of the page!!!!!!!!! I think they're good to have there for readers. It follows logically. The fact that it is a template is neither here nor there, and if it's only a matter of opinion, well, tough. It was good a year and a half ago, it's good now.
Sandy said something vague about the style, but I don't see a problem reading it online. And then I got no replies. Ottava said it came up bad printing. But I don't really see how. And I don't see the alternative being proposed. AND, this this the most piffley boring point in the world. It's niggling. It's being officious. It's a waste of time. It's disingenous. If it was so important, why wasn't it ever raised on the Talk:law page? You can't just say "I don't like that" and expect me to guess what you would like. If Sandy can't tell me why the manual of style is right (and, again, this is one of the few grudgey issues that she brought up before it passed FA in the first place, and it was ignored) then what am I supposed to do? "Just defer" is something I can say too.
I do say it on the content. Luke, I think you might know something about law, because you've been engaged in other law pages. Any Commonwealth or US law student would know. Have a look at the pages for all those cases. That should be enough on its own. Where the pages aren't fully developed, then why don't you find a few textbooks and write them? For what it's worth, I'd actually intended to rotate the cases every few months, but never found time. So I just went with what's famous.
In fact, I give up. I'll see you later everybody. I'm not going to work on it any more, and I'm going to stop watching the law page. Ignore everything I've said. I obviously upset Sandy into being mute by challenging her. I've insulted the troll that started this enough (I won't bore you with pasting up links for the various events that lead me calling him a troll, because you probably won't care). Best wishes, and good luck in figuring out what to do. Though it's not worth anything, I think you should keep the page, because it had never been started; and because this was never about quality, it was about your grudges. I'm very sorry, Yannis, if they delist it, because you've done a brilliant job. Wikidea16:01, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry you feel that way. For what it's worth, I doubt Sandy is very upset. It's just difficult to respond to accusations of bad faith. It would be pointless to reply, "no, we aren't blindly following a troll nomination, yes, I do have good faith concerns, no, I'm not a spoiled sport." Cool HandLuke16:12, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Remove. Once again, cases cited must have WP:WEIGHT demonstrated. This can only be done by citing secondary treatises and articles to ensure that the cases are characteristic and important. Case law is very deep, and hand-picked coverage can yield diverging conclusions. This effect is often employed by advocates. The only way to ensure neutral coverage is to follow existing reliable sources. This encyclopedia is not a forum for synthesizing and documenting heretofore unexplored legal trends. While the article may not be synthesizing new views, only secondary sources can make it verifiable. Punctured Bicycle explains this issue very well above.
Verifiability and neutrality are cardinal principles here, and I wish that contributors would take the criticisms seriously. Dismissing them with unhelpful labels and personal attacks is an inadequate response, and it's against our behavioral policies to boot. Cool HandLuke01:52, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
What a lovely turn. Now everybody's ganging up because people are talking this personally. It just isn't about the article anymore is it? You've all fallen victim to a troll nomination. Well done. Wikidea12:28, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I would say keep open too. If I work closely with Yannis, and if he carefully watches my edits it might be do-able, as regards prose at least. This is a vital article, and has recieved huge talented effort to bring it to this stage; be a shame to let it fall on prose. Ceoilsláinte02:35, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
At five weeks of review, we still have an entire section of the article which is merely a list of templated/See also links (in addition to other issues above that have gone unanswered or unresolved). This is not compelling prose, amounts to a list of See alsos within the text, and does not comply with either WP:WIAFA 1a or 2 (WP:LAYOUT). An alternate way to integrate the information would be to summarize the sub-articles about each region (for example, Law in Africa, which btw is incorrectly linked in the template) back to this article in compelling prose, and the templates would be accessed in the sub-articles. That would not address the other issues raised, but would go a long way towards helping the article. Because the issues have not been addressed, I am still a Remove. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:21, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Frankly; no. I can't see how that long list could ever be anything more than a long list; and not more usefully covered by categories. As the page is structured in a summary style the opening definitions of each tranch should be tightened. In some cases definitions are missing altogether. Ceoilsláinte22:55, 4 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Per Ceoil about the templates. About definitions, Ceoil may be correct but sometimes it is difficult to define what you want to define at law (especially if you have to define a whole law branch)! I'll be with you and with the article on Friday or the latest on Saturday, guys.--Yannismarou (talk) 12:59, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think I fixed them, almost all of them. Tomorrow I'll have a look on the external links as well, and I'll check in detail Ceoil's copy-editing.--Yannismarou (talk) 18:43, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
From a legal point of view, Ceoil's copy-editing looks fine; I also fixed or removed some dead links. I'll look again at the article tomorrow.--Yannismarou (talk) 18:19, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I printed and read this during last week, and was impresed and even learned something. Im a keep in terms of comprehensiveness, scope, prose, accesability and referencing. This is a very intelligent article. Ceoilsláinte13:38, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I offered some further re-writing of the Jurisprudence section (and of some parts of the History of Law), in order to address the worries that before 1700 philosophy of law is neglected. We cannot summarize the whole philosophy of law in one section, as Wikidea has also pointed out, but I now hope that the section reads even better and is more informative. During all my re-writings, my main effort, worry, and fear have been to make the article even more comprehensive and informative, without undoing what Ceoil calls "intelligence", and which is mainly due to Wikidea's different approach of writing, which may seem simplistic, but often manages to "captivate" the reader, and introduce him into the article's world. This combination is very difficult, but sometimes it can be fascinating, taking also into consideration that our different styles arise from two (lately converging however) different legal traditions and approaches (Wikedia is a common law "practical" jurist mind, while I am the product of a stubbornly "theoritical" civil law legal education!).--Yannismarou (talk) 14:33, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I am also replacing Britannica with more specialized sources, and in Criminal Law I added secondary sources next to the cases, but this is going to be completed tomorrow, because now I ran out of time!--Yannismarou (talk) 16:10, 12 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Rewrote "Criminal Law", incorporating the civil law tradition as well. Cases are now backed with secondary sources, although, after reading in detail the chapter, I am more and more of the opinion that the OR arguments are absurd, and these sources I added are needless! I'll check cases in other sections as well, and try to back them with sec.sources where appropriate (a procedure I repeat I regard as needless), but I want to make clear that I do not intend to add secondary sources to the European Court's and Strasbourg's Court decisions mentioned in the article. There should be some limits to this absurdity! These last cases are not OR even with Sandy's friend weird case-related definition of OR. By the way, not even the "criminal law" cases I backed with secondary sources are OR with the aforementioned definition! This FARC should be possibly renamed as "Hunting the Invisible OR"!--Yannismarou (talk) 12:27, 13 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Final comment full of sorrow: After this and this, I am once for ever out from this article. And I am sorry for all the time I devoted, regretting all the edits I did during this FARC! Ask Elonka to save it.--Yannismarou (talk) 19:32, 15 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Closing. I very much hope Yanni reconsiders his decision with regards to this article and Wikipedia in general. Given that this review is causing casualties, so to speak, I'm closing it as a keep. It's certainly in keep territory, even if a bit more work might have been done. Marskell (talk) 13:28, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.
This, the second to last unreviewed Emsworth classic, has done a good job keeping up with the inline citations since they were implemented, but still has big paragraphs completely unreferenced, and should not be too difficult to get up to current, fully referenced standards. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 01:56, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I would, but he has retired, or taken a break from editing for a while, and when I tried to leave him a message, it said his talk page could only be edited by administrators. So if you want to tell him, feel free Sandy :) Judgesurreal777 (talk) 02:31, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I corrected your notifications. When notifying, please use the subst FAR message (in this case, ((subst:FARMessage|Monarchy of the United Kingdom))) so that editors who come straight to this page without seeing the FAR instructions will understand the process. Also, I corrected your links at the top of this FAR; giving a complete link to the notification page makes it easier for others to check that notifications are done correctly. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:48, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The present monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, has reigned since 6 February 1952. She and her immediate family undertake various official, ceremonial and representational duties. As a constitutional monarch, the Queen is limited to non-partisan functions such as bestowing honours. Though the ultimate executive authority over the government of the United Kingdom is still by and through the monarch's royal prerogative, in practice these powers are only used according to laws enacted in Parliament or within the constraints of convention and precedent. On the whole, the Queen must follow the advice of government ministers.
The British monarchy can trace its origins back to the kings of the Angles and the early Scottish kings.[3] By the year 1000, the kingdoms of England and Scotland had resolved from the petty kingdoms of early medieval Britain. The last Anglo-Saxon monarch (Harold II) was defeated and killed in the Norman invasion of 1066 and the English monarchy passed to the Norman conquerors. In the thirteenth century, the principality of Wales was absorbed by England, and the Magna Carta began the process of reducing the political powers of the monarch. From 1603, when the Scottish king James VI inherited the English throne as James I, both kingdoms were ruled by a single monarch. From 1649 to 1660, the tradition of monarchy was broken by the republican Commonwealth of England that followed the War of the Three Kingdoms. In 1707, the kingdoms of England and Scotland were merged to create the Kingdom of Great Britain and, in 1801, the Kingdom of Ireland joined to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The British monarch became nominal head of the vast British Empire, which covered a quarter of the world[4] at its greatest extent in 1921. In 1922, most of Ireland seceded from the Union as the Irish Free State, but in law the monarch remained sovereign there until 1949. After World War II, the declaration of Indian independence effectively brought the British Empire to an end. George VI and his successor, Elizabeth II, adopted the title Head of the Commonwealth as a symbol of the free association of the independent countries comprising the Commonwealth of Nations. In 1931, the unitary British monarchy throughout the empire was split into legally distinct crowns for each of the Commonwealth realms. At present, 15 other independent Commonwealth countries are in personal union with the United Kingdom, sharing the same monarch.
^"Blogs" in this context refers to personal and group blogs. Some newspapers host interactive columns that they call blogs, and these may be acceptable as sources so long as the writers are professionals and the blog is subject to the newspaper's full editorial control. Where a news organization publishes the opinions of a professional but claims no responsibility for the opinions, the writer of the cited piece should be attributed (e.g., "Jane Smith has suggested ..."). Posts left by readers may never be used as sources.
^The terms British monarch and British monarchy can refer specifically to the United Kingdom. As the same individual is also monarch of the Commonwealth realms, the terms are often applied to the monarchy of these other realms, though the official national titles and terms for each of those jurisdictions is different and specific.
^In terms of population and land area of the Earth
I shall not implement until comments are made. Though I would say if these or like changes are not implemented, and the article remains as is, I would not support this article's FA status. DrKiernan (talk) 11:16, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I like that Doc. I think it gives a much better historical overview than the current lead. However, primogeniture should be mentioned in the first two sentences. (Judging from our page, "cognatic primogeniture" is the precise term.) Marskell (talk) 13:22, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not keen. What with the Catholic business and abdications, succession is determined by statute in addition to descent and gender. Can you suggest some form of words for what you were thinking of? DrKiernan (talk) 14:36, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Slightly tongue in cheek, but can I assume from the above that Wales is now a republic as it is not mentioned in this history? More seriously, maybe insert after "Norman conquerors" "Wales was incorporated by conquest in the 13th C" or similar? --SnowdedTALK13:31, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I like the change and I think the conflation maybe appropriate. Llywelyn ap Gruffydd was related to John and allied to Simon de Montfort and his failure to support de Montfort against Edward at Evesham is one of the turning points in British History. --SnowdedTALK14:49, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, I'm back. I will join DrKiernan in the efforts to maintain this article. I was very short of references in April, and did what I can based on the sources I got hold of. I'm at university now, so the resources available to me have vastly increased. When I confirm my registration next week I'll have access to hundreds of sources, making things a lot easier. :) PeterSymonds(talk)20:11, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Close. I'm astonished at how painless rewriting this article was. I was expecting huge rows about Commonwealth realms, personal unions, use of the word "British", republican movements, Ireland, popularity, Camilla and Charles, and all the rest of it. Let's close this FAR before an argument does blow up. DrKiernan (talk) 09:46, 14 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.
Since the last review in 2007, this article has apparently gone from ~60KB to ~127KB. There are several sections which are supposed to be summarizing subarticles which probably go into too much detail. Two people have complained that the article is not accessible simply because it is a bit jargony or densely written. I've simplified the vocabulary in the lead section, but the rest of the article still needs a going-over. A lot of comments have piled up on the talk page, some of which probably need dealing with by people familiar with the subject in order to address potential flaws in the article. Those that have been dealt with need to be archived. -- Beland (talk) 17:22, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry, I don't have time for a lot of bureaucracy at the moment; I just wanted to raise a flag here since the problems seem pervasive and obvious. -- Beland (talk) 05:15, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You mean you want someone else (who doesn't have a lot of time) to do the notifications for you and you don't have time to follow the review. Well, since I don't see much wrong with the article, I suggest we close the review since you don't have time (in fact, even if you do have time). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:17, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've just put notifications on the same WikiProjects that were notified for the first review; if I'd thought of that before it would have been a lot less daunting. It took not very much longer than leaving this message, so no biggie. -- Beland (talk) 05:31, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
At quick glance, I don't see any deterioration in the article, although the Drug section and Alternative approaches have seen recent changes and sourcing there should be reviewed for WP:UNDUE and strength of sourcing. Other than that, I don't see concern or a lot of unresolved issues on talk. That's based on a quick glance and a diff of recent editing. Please be more specific about what the issues are. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:40, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - the article, in its current shape, would get my support if it was at FAC. With that said, I don't see any problems that would be worth an FAR. I see a few minor things (some sections could be merged together, the occasional line with a source in the middle but not at the end of the paragraph, the need for a few paragraphs having an end citation, a left side image "Data from a PET study" that should probably be moved right because it overrides the subsections, "John Nash" image caption should probably be shortened, and a further reading section that could go if needed). However, there is nothing that I could see really disqualify this article. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:45, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
To be precise, the article was at 130,965 bytes at 21:44, 8 October 2008, and 89,597 bytes at 22:20 17 June 2007. 130kb is a bit alarming, though on the other hand, the article does have a huge number of footnotes and whatnot. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Beland (talk • contribs) 05:15, October 10, 2008
For me, what contributes to the feeling that the article is overly lengthy are the long summaries of the subarticles Causes of schizophrenia and Treatment of schizophrenia. Usually subarticle summaries aren't more than a single section, and I find that to be a comfortable length. Summary style isn't quite being followed; this article has content (like Image:Schizophrenia_PET_scan.jpg) that the causes article doesn't have. The whole summary of Causes could I think be done in three paragraphs. For instance, for an overview of genetic factors, I don't really need to know about copy number variants, it's enough to say how strong the heritability is and that multiple genes are involved. The "Neural" section is dense reading; it sounds like there are two theories worth knowing about, which are both tentative, and then a few details about areas of the brain where malfunctions appear to have been localized. It's unclear that the "Drugs" subsection is an accurate summary of Causes_of_schizophrenia#Substance_use; they seem to disagree about whether or not there is evidence for non-cannabis hallucinogens actually causing schizophrenia, and there are grammatical errors in the summary. Three paragraphs is probably also the level of detail I'd want to see for the Treatment summary. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Beland (talk • contribs) 05:15, October 10, 2008
Note, notifications were a week late, in case more time is needed, but I see no pressing need for a review nor anything Cas can't quickly clean up. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:35, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Reply/Comment - these high traffic articles can go up and down in size quite quickly and do sometimes flab up. I will compare versions and see what needs to be done. The subarticles have attracted quite a bit of attention which has not been vetted as much as the parent article, and the subject of schizophrenia has alot of wide-ranging views and interested parties, so some odd stuff is liable to creep in from time to time. I'll see if I can address specific issues as they come up - Beland, balancing jargon and plain speech can be tricky. If you can cite specific areas where improvement is possible, I will see what I can do. Cheers, Casliber (talk·contribs) 05:51, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Skimming through the rest of the article, I can see why it feels long, even if there aren't many words. The prose is just dense. "Screening and prevention" uses passive voice, "Prognosis" buries the most important facts instead of using Wikipedia:Summary style. The DSM and ISD definitions are jargony. (What's the difference between a delusion and a hallucination? What's "derailment"? Do all three criteria need to be met? What is a psychomotor disturbance? What is meant by "insidious"?) The first featured article criterion is that the article be "well-written: its prose is engaging, even brilliant, and of a professional standard;". I think that's clearly not met here, especially given that two people have complained on the talk page that the article was hard to read. -- Beland (talk) 06:07, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I just ran through, and found very little that needs attention in terms of basic cleanup: the article is still very clean and far better than many Medicine articles that should come to FAR. Some images needed adjustment to conform with WP:ACCESS and WP:MOS#Images, there is a bit of WP:OVERLINKing that might be reviewed, and I found some WP:PUNC logical quotation errors that are always hard to spot (pls doublecheck as you go through). The biggest MoS issue I see right now is that Beland is introducing a breach of Wikipedia:MOS#Bulleted and numbered lists to the lists that will need to be cleaned up; since Beland "doesn't have a lot of time", someone else may need to do that cleanup eventually. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:33, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There was an edit conflict which caused me to temporarily revert Sandy's list cleanup. I went back and tried to both make the lists clearer and conform to the Manual of Style. Sorry for the confusion. -- Beland (talk) 06:39, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The lists you have introduced do not conform to MOS, before or after the edit conflict; please read the MoS page I've cited to you three times. If you don't understand MoS, then please don't revert others who do. The article was fairly clean before your edits (as expected, since Cas is one of our top FA writers); there's no need to damage an FA during FAR. If your time is so limited, then perhaps you can focus on explaining where you think there are issues so we can address them. We're all just as busy as you are; since you don't allow your own talk page to be used to continue conversations started with you, please don't clutter my talk page with your talk. I already have more orange bars than the average bear. Someone else will need to clean up the bulleted lists still. Thank you, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:58, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Use numbers rather than bullets only if:
there is a need to refer to the elements by number;
the sequence of the items is critical; or
the numbering has value of its own, for example in a track listing.
All elements in a list should use the same grammatical form and should be consistently either complete sentences or sentence fragments.
When the elements are complete sentences, they are formatted using sentence case and a final period.
When the elements are sentence fragments, they are typically introduced by a lead fragment ending with a colon, are formatted using consistently either sentence or lower case, and finish with a final semicolon or no punctuation, except that the last element typically finishes with a final period.
Also, now hyphens instead of endashes, and changing the list style to partially use hyphens (meant to be endashes I suppose) while the rest of the list doesn't; keeping a list so these issues can later be fixed, and noting that they were not present in the article pre-FAR. [21] Because Beland has already reverted me twice, I can't begin fixing these items. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:19, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.
I think that this article shouldn't be neither a featured one nor a good one because: the history section suffers of recentism, the lead section is too short, the crest section has a non-free image gallery, and so on. Hadrianos1990 (talk) 07:55, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at the archive, this passed FAC way too easily. But I'm not really surprised since it really is happening way too often, based on popularity etc. Anyway, I'm amongst the biggest supporters of Chelsea, but this article is indeed poory structured. The lead is way too short, and some other raised issues stand predominantly. I will do my brief best to fix up any issues, but I really can't promise anything. Domiy (talk) 09:03, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Glancing quickly at this article, I see some minor issues, not bad for an article promoted almost two years ago, but I wonder if we aren't seeing some pointy-ness going on in the Football nominations. Was there any attempt to resolve these concerns on the article talk page? Folks, there are some really old and out-of-compliance FAs out there, and clogging up FAR with articles that could be addressed via talk doesn't bode well. If this becomes a trend, we may need to alter FAR instructions to require prior attempts to work things out on talk before bringing articles that could easily be fixed to FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:27, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with Sandy about this being in pretty good shape, but not that happy with the non-free gallery. Not sure five old logos are needed, not to mention a second use of the current one. The recentism issue is difficult because Chelsea have acheived most of their success since 1997. Naturally, the history section will be slanted toward this period. A little more on the club from before 1950 wouldn't hurt, though. As for the lead, some more on their history could be included. I said that for Real Madrid and it's only fair for me to repeat that here. But overall there have been many worse articles through here and I think with a little work this can be kept. Giants2008 (17-14) 00:50, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Per the comments above, I've expanded the lead and tried to reduce the recentism in the history section. As for the images, my suggestion is to remove the two variants of the current crest and the 52-53 initials one, which would leave just the main three. It's possible that the 1905 and 1955 crests are out of copyright anyway. SteveO (talk) 00:49, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - History section and lead look absolutely fine to me, gallery of crests has gone, and what exactly does "and so on" cover? Looks a lot like a pointy nomination to me..... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 10:18, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I felt this FAR was premature, but the non-free image gallery has been remove, [23], so I am happy. I would give this change a few days to settle as the consensus version before considering closing the review. Fasach Nua (talk) 11:09, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have to say I'm not really that keen on the article's "History" section as it stands. There's currently about one paragraph for each of the last six decades (slightly less, actually, as the 70s and 80s seem to be sharing a paragraph), and the paragraphs get progressively longer as they approach more recent events. Even worse, there is a single paragraph that covers the entire period from the club's foundation in 1905 to the start of the 1950s! 45 years covered by one paragraph and then five whole paragraphs for the next 58 years? Reeks of WP:RECENT to me. You could argue that most of Chelsea's history has come in the last five years (and in terms of trophies, it has), but I'm sure there were plenty of noteworthy events that took place between 1905 and 1950 that could be expanded upon. If this was currently an FAC candidate, I would be in opposition. – PeeJay15:41, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This didn't get comment after the first few days. Normally, it would go to FARC now but I am with the group that views this as premature and probably unnecessary. I don't see a huge issue wrt to recentism and the crests are gone. Keeping. Marskell (talk) 09:16, 13 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.
Fails current FA criteria in several ways. First and foremost, 1c; there are many unsourced, potentially contentious statements not sourced, and worse there are entire paragraphs not sourced. Another issue is the excessive use of nonfree images (crit 3), as well as unnecessary detail (such as weapons info, and a ridiculously long synopsis section.) --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk)02:12, 18 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I corrected your notifications. When notifying, please use the subst FAR message (in this case, ((subst:FARMessage|Half-Life 2))) so that editors who come straight to this page without seeing the FAR instructions will understand the process. Also, I corrected your links at the top of this FAR; giving a complete link to the notification page makes it easier for others to check that notifications are done correctly. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:01, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I completely disagree that this is an undue amount of synopsis for a full-length video game. Many film featured articles have comparable length summaries, and are for two hours, not the 40 hours a full-length game usually takes up. Phil Sandifer (talk) 02:35, 18 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Somewhat of a side issue, but Content cut from Half-Life 2 doesn't strike me as a valid article topic. We might consider merging that into this article. I also question the structuring. It seems to me that some of the "Technical" section should be combined with "Source code leak" into "Development". Possibly "Cuts" as well. Pagrashtak04:20, 18 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I will agree with merging it back in, as the information could be considered plagiarism for the fact it only has one source. A severe trimming should be had on merging, also. It should make the article stronger overall, as I'm sure the citations in the book could be valuable for sourcing other sections, such as Development. Also agree with merging Cuts into Development; perhaps Source code leak should be merged into the article on the Source engine, or at the least up into the section on it, as I'm willing to bet that that is largely duplicated in the target of such a merge. The contract dispute can probably be merged into the section on Distribution. Also agree with trimming #Synopsis; the setting should be inherent from the plot description alone, and so I think that section could probably be axed completely. I also agree that order is poor: Reception should be moved to being near the bottom, at the least.
All those issues, aside from the citations and other issues. However, with the remerge of the "cut" information, I think that will alone substantially improve the text. --Izno (talk) 04:38, 18 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
For one it is not sourced (a single reference is not "sourced"), and two, depends on who you talk to. Looking at the article with my eyes, I'd say you'd be able to get away with not reading the book, which is the purpose of copyright - to protect the user's work. And hence, it is plagiarism to me. Rules may vary depending on who you ask, of course. --Izno (talk) 05:08, 18 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Plagiarism and copyright are different issues. But given that the book is, well, a book, and we are a short summary, I would guess there's plenty in the book beyond our summary. Certainly it is valid under any standard of copyright we have used regularly, been told to use by Mike, or that has been tested in court. As for plagiarism, plagiarism is a completely different concept with a firm definition, and this has nothing whatsoever to do with it. And a single reference is indeed sourced. More sources would be lovely, but that article is not unsourced. Phil Sandifer (talk) 06:14, 18 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, here's my concerns with the article:
The gameplay section needs some substantial copyeditting, and some of those subheadings could be merged into the main bulk of prose. It also needs more references.
The synopsis section is too long, and needs to be brought down a bit. A restructure could be in order, with three headings: "setting" (approx 1 paragraph, summarising backstory and location), "characters" (approx 1 paragraph, introducing key characters and their roles) and "plot" (approx 3-4 paragraphs, concisely summarising the plot).
Cuts, technical, soundtrack, source code leak, and contract dispute could all be put under the title of development, and they need copyeditting and perhaps a bit of reorganisation. Some more references are also needed. Content cut from Half-Life 2 is simply unnecessary, it is not an appropriate, verifiable and notable topic, and should be summarised very concisely in this article rather than spun out, reliant on a single primary source and reading like a fansite.
The reception section needs to be expanded significantly. The critical response section is painfully underdeveloped for a game of this importance, and there's absolutely nothing on the game's impact on the gaming industry and its influence on the genre (beyond a brief mention in the intro), which significantly affects this article's comprehensiveness. The merchandise section could also use padding out.
The expansions and modifications section could use copyediting and more references as to keep down the possible self-promotion of mods in the mod section's prose. The "subsequent releases" stuff should go under this heading, which should be modified to reflect this.
A total of ten non-free images (including box art) is really pushing the idea of minimal usage. For obvious reasons, the box art can stay, although I'd like to see a little bit of commentary on the different box arts available (I believe they sold the game with Alyx and G-Man on the front as well), the infobox caption could be a good place to briefly mention that if it can be referenced. Six gameplay images aren't needed, I'd recommend two at most, one for demonstrating normal gameplay (preferably with some design commentary if possible), and another that shows off some Source effects. The image of Steam isn't 100% needed, although could be justified as Steam was a major factor in the game's release and ran into problems for it. The Orange Box image certainly isn't, and should be ditched. The Lost Coast image is also probably best left to the Lost Coast article.
Regarding the content cut article, I am fairly sure that "there's another article on the topic that is poorly written" is not a valid criteria for de-listing an article. Phil Sandifer (talk) 17:16, 18 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The other reasons are, but we're not talking about delisting yet. This is just in the review stage, we haven't got to removal candidates and with luck we won't need to. Besides, there is no harm in mentioning that a related article is an utter pile of [insert expletive] and should be done away with in some form, when the only significant link on Wikipedia is from the article under review. What happens to the content cut article isn't going to affect the review, it just seems as good a time as any to clean it out. -- Sabre (talk) 17:58, 18 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Considering how intensive Half-Life 2's development was, a future Development of Half-Life 2 article is not unrealistic. The Content cut from Half-Life 2 would find a suitable home in such an article. About this FAR, should we each grab a chunk of the text (e.g. a section), copy-edit it, and then proof read each other's work. I'm eager to dive in and help save the article (considering its my second favorite game and my FAC seems stalled), but I don't want to get too carried away. Thoughts? -- Noj r (talk) 06:19, 19 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have given a first stab at cutting down the plot (down to 3 paragraphs, I think that is a pretty fair size). Should still have a setting section, but make sure that this doesn't overlap with City 17 (or Sabre's List of locations in Half-Life that I know he has floating around...) --MASEM16:05, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It seems a major issue is that the plot and gameplay are screwed up for anyone who hasn't played the game. I've condensed the synopsis more, but I think the characters section should be refactored and shunted into synopsis, and the gameplay rewritten (and sourced this time) so it doesnt start talking about 'Ravenholm' and such until the reader gets to those story elements. Similarly, the plot specific details (such as riding a bugger during X part of the game) can be entirely excised. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk)04:02, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. I have straightened out the references in the lead and am going to work on the gameplay prose and references next. The plot references need to be supported by a reliable source, e.g. Half-Life Fallout appears to be a fan site. This IGN walkthrough should do the job nicely for the plot section and perhaps most of the gameplay section. EDIT: Finished copy-editing the gameplay section. I cut out a lot of cruft and added references. Feel free to improve on the language and add any significant gameplay features I might have missed. Thanks, -- Noj r (talk) 02:08, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Pshaw, I know you're just after another FTC star :P Looking further at the development section, I can't help but think that it might be better to merge together some of the headers and go through a more focused, historical view of the development. The Steam section and Soundtrack would remain seperate, but the rest of the information might be better served reformatted and with some additional content focusing on the inception. I know there's Raising the Bar out there at the very least, along with primary sources, so it shouldn't be that hard to bolster the section. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk)02:35, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've made some major changes to the article. Could we please start back at the beginning and people list what the article still needs? Preferably in bullet points. GaryKing (talk)16:30, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There's still absolutely nothing on the cultural impact and influence on the industry, which I would imagine is rather substantial, save for a brief mention in the intro. That puts a hole in the side of the article as far as comprehensiveness goes. -- Sabre (talk) 17:14, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sort of forgot about this little gathering. :-p I've never been a huge fan of the article myself (I don't even remember being that big a contributor!), but I think its problem is that the game was important almost solely because it was so very, very good; not something on which you can really go into great depth in an encyclopaedia article. We might want to talk about its impact on the rest of the industry (physics, character animation and digital distribution off the top of my head) as just mentioned, but that's all a bit wooly and hard to be objective about. --Tom Edwards (talk) 17:53, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It already says "Several other games use the Source engine developed by Valve including the popular Day of Defeat: Source and Counter-Strike: Source, both of which were also developed by Valve." GaryKing (talk)23:44, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have to say, I absolutely hate the idea of breaking off the development information. The length of the prose wasn't that long that it needed to be broken off, and seems to needlessly sidestep dealing with the development section, which in my view was reasonable anyway. I'm going to restore the two sections put into the article, that approach simply isn't needed, especially when you condensed the other sections into one so well. Other than on the issue of spinning out the development section, I'm rather content with the article now, and support its continuation as an FA.
And whilst we're on the subject of spinoff content, might I recommend that some point in the future (could be now, could be after this FAR concludes) that we merge Half-Life 2: Deathmatch into the multiplayer section of this article. There's very little information in it, and due to the fact its just the single-player game with a couple of added weapons, its highly unlikely that it can be expanded on substantially. Most of its content is game guide stuff anyway. HL2DM does have some independent reviews from places like GameSpot and IGN, but it shouldn't be too hard to incorporate them into the article. -- Sabre (talk) 16:17, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sourcing isn't the problem (well, it was, as most of it is only sourcable to a primary source, but that's besides the point). WP:IINFO comes into play there, the information in that article generally required players knowledge of Half-Life 2 and to a lesser extent Counter-Strike Source. The average reader who hasn't played the game would have trouble following it, or would wonder why a good amount of it is significant. -- Sabre (talk) 23:02, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I killed off HL2:DM (redirected to #Multiplayer). There was basically nothing to transfer. The only suggestion I might add is that that section have a copyedit, and the specific month of release of HL2:DM added, rather than "3 months later". --Izno (talk) 00:22, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"Doctor Breen’s office at the top of the Citadel, showing the advanced lighting abilities of the Source engine" (image caption) - I haven't played this game and can't remember the last time I played a Source game. As such this caption does very little for me. It looks like a normal light (to me), the caption is basically saying "nah, it's a special light!" without saying why, or without the image making it clear why. The unfamiliar reader (like, um, me) would be a bit confused. IMO. Giggy (talk) 23:07, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I think the problem here is with the image, rather than the caption. It is in-game, just a light emitter, there's nothing that special about it. I could go for a shot from the beginning of the game, showing the G-man up close, which incorporates effects like color correction, advanced facial animation, lighting and various other effects. -- Sabre (talk) 23:10, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The opening sequence didn't give as good images as I thought. I can't think of where-else in the game to get good shots of the Source engine in practice without going to the Episodes, and their technology is not representative of HL2. That image should be replaced though. -- Sabre (talk) 23:29, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I no longer have the game installed, but if I recall, after the start sequence, when you go out the back following meeting Barney, the sun is such in the sky that you should be able to get some good Sun-related effects there - rst20xx (talk) 21:16, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Do you mean this area? We seem to have a good too many HL2 images uploaded around WP, might as well see if any of them are suitable before cleaning them out under WP:NFCC. -- Sabre (talk) 10:26, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
So aside from the image, are there any outstanding concerns? Overall it's dramatically better, and though I haven't done a thorough look I think it meets summary style in all aspects now. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk)04:31, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Distribution could use citing, as well as the 2nd paragraph of #Contract_dispute. And probably #Third-party_mods. Other than that, it looks much improved! --Izno (talk) 06:18, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've updated the image I referred to earlier, with a different angle incorporating some lighting effects. The image is here, is that any better for in the article? Its got a nice bit of sun coming across the rooftops, clear soft shadows on the ground, a metrocop with some alpha shading (not very visible at this resolution though) and the Citadel in the background. -- Sabre (talk) 19:27, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think we could probably include a little more about the reception of it, but other than that, I should say HL2 is safe from FARC. --Izno (talk) 16:40, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.
This article, promoted to FA status back on February 5, 2005, requires improvement to maintain the current standards expected of a Featured Article. My main concern is that the article is lacking references and inline citations. -- Longhair\talk23:02, 31 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Could the nom (or anyone) go through with ((fact)) tags. Even though even the very brief glance I did I can see that with only three inline citations it is easier to point people responding for what to look for cites on. I'm also going to notify two additional projects listed on the article talk page. -Optigan13 (talk) 23:50, 31 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hold This article does need more inline citations but already lists all the references used. Please be patient - I already have two other FARs and an article almost ready for FAC that I've been working on so I might not be able to do much here at least one other FAR results in a Keep. BTW, isn't there an informal concept to limit the number of active FARs any one person or WikiProject is expected to address? --mav (talk) 00:47, 1 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The most basic informal rule here is that you can simply ask me and Joel to leave things open. If you want to defer work for some time, give a hold or a wait. This just started in FAR so there's plenty of time. Marskell (talk) 12:40, 1 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sandy beat me to it, but work on addressing FAR concerns has now started. My ref-pass shouldn't take too long; hopefully we will be mostly done by the end of the weekend. --mav (talk) 01:55, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know why "Telephone history" is there, and it's full of undefined jargon. If it's kept, it needs better linking and a lot of WP:NBSPs. I'm not going to work on it yet, because I can't understand why it's there. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:21, 18 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yet more inline cites added. Only a few paras left uncited now. Once that is done, I'll do a final copyedit and fix the telephone section (which was added after this article became FA - I've never really liked it anyway). --mav (talk) 03:47, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I just gave it a copyedit and MOS cleanup. I left a couple hidden comments in the text (noted in edit summaries) requesting clarification on some sentences I couldn't parse. The only other remaining issues I can see pertain to images. There are so many images in Geologic history that the text is repeatedly sandwiched between images, and there are two image galleries in the Biology section. Given that there are 28 images in the article as a whole, can we prune some of the poorer-quality/less-relevant ones? Some likely candidates: Image:Zebra tail lizard.jpg has a deprecated license; Image:Death valley flowers 1.jpg has enormous artifacting; and Image:Sphinx moth on rock nettle at Mosaic Canyon.jpg doesn't appear to have been taken at DV. Maralia (talk) 00:46, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Maralia and Jbmurray have both been through, so we should be in good shape here, but there are a lot of images; I struggled with how to organize them, and they need more work. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:32, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As the instigator of this review, I just want to add that this article has progressed ten-fold from what I initially saw six weeks ago. Credit goes to those involved in recognition of their efforts in bringing this important article back up to FA standards. I'd say it's very close to a FA, if not already there. -- Longhair\talk03:22, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for initiating the review - I'm normally too busy to do more than maintain my old FAs from deteriorating unless I'm prodded by a FAR to improve them to current standards. The inline cite requirement has been a killer for many old FAs. --mav (talk) 03:30, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for giving you more work? I guess that's a compliment of sorts. We've got ourselves a very nice article now :) As I said above, a credit to all involved. -- Longhair\talk03:36, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.
Big parts of the article are unreferenced and it therefore fails the 1(c) criteria; "factually accurate" and the 2(c) criteria; "consistent citations". --TheLeftorium18:10, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've straightened out the archiving of the old FAR (fortunately I remembered it, although it wasn't listed here). Since the article was cited during its FAR two years ago, please specify which "big parts" you're referring to with specific examples of facts that are likely to be challenged. Consistency in citation formatting is unrelated to whether citations are lacking; please provide examples of 2c issues. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:32, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I worked on this the last time around, and whilst I'd have to go back to the library to get two of the books out again, I'd be prepared to bet that it is almost all verifiable to either Mills, Thompson or Farr, given the article has barely changed since the last FARC, [27]. Consistency of citations is a sofixit issue, no? HidingT11:31, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for fixing the footnotes. I'm sorry I wasn't more specific. The problems I see are that much in the "Memorabilia and merchandise" section is unreferenced, especially the "Shops" and "Coins" sections. Also, the first three paragraphs of the "Theatre" section are completely unreferenced. --TheLeftorium13:52, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm seeing cites in the "Memorabilia and merchandise" section and in the "Shops" and "Coins" sections. Everything in the shops section before the cite is sourced from that cite, that's how I write, I don't put the cite after every sentence but at the end of everything so sourced or the end of the paragraph if it goes beyond one. The coins one looks like it has changed since, but does have a cite. The theatre section shouldn't be too hard to cite, the first sentence is attributable to Comics: Anatomy of a Mass Medium - Page 184. Don't have time to add it now, but do you mind me asking if cite tags might have been better than a FA review? It looks to me like there are what, three or four sentences that could be challenged. We've got an FA on the main page now in the same state. HidingT14:07, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
NOT YET - some statements/paragraphs lack citations. I just found a couple of examples:
---In music, Tintin has been the inspiration to a number of bands and musicians. A British technopop band of the 1980s took the name The Thompson Twins after the Tintin characters. Stephen Duffy, a former member of Duran Duran, performed the minor hit single "Kiss Me" under the name "Tintin"; he had to drop the name under pressure of a copyright infringement suit. Duffy would later release the album Designer Beatnik under the name "Doctor Calculus" in reference to Professor Calculus. An Australian psychedelic rock band and an American independent progressive rock band have used the name "Tin Tin", and British electronic dance music duo Tin Tin Out was similarly inspired by the character. South African singer/songwriter Gert Vlok Nel compares Tintin to God in his Afrikaans song "Waarom ek roep na jou vanaand", presumably because Tintin is a morally pure character. Australian cartoonist Bill Leak often portrays the bespectacled neophyte Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd as Tintin.--- This entire paragraph needs at least one source for every claim of the song made or the copyright issues etc.
The 'Books' section is only a sentence. Way too short. Either summarize the main article and expand it into this article or remove the section all togethor me thinks. Domiy (talk) 06:20, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I never thought any of that was likely to be challenged, to be honest. But it can still be solved with cite tags or people fixing the problem themselves, can't it? HidingT10:55, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.
I think this article needs a lot of work, despite its remarkableness as a source of information on Aaron Sorkin. I have removed the section "Controversies" and placed its subsections within the article in almost appropriate places, for the sake of narrative flow. A serious copyedit is now in order and was already in order due to several stubby sentences and paragraphs throughout. Additionally, Thomas Fahy's book listed in the "Further Information" section, Considering Aaron Sorkin: Essays on the Politics, Poetics and Sleight of Hand in the Films and Television Series should most definitely be used as a reference throughout the article. How unfortunate that it is not used! One section it could help improve would be the "Writing process and characteristics" section. There is also an interview in GQ listed in the "Further information" section that is not used but could be used in the "Writing process and characteristics" section.
The "Personal politics" section should be expanded (Again, use Fahy's book). The "Returning to the theatre" section should be rewritten and expanded. The "Castle Rock" section should be shrunk, and the business about "Kyle Morris vs. Castle Rock" should be better sourced and put into context. The "West Wing" section is crap, should be rewritten, with the "Rick Cleveland" controversy mentioned--this is a legitimate controversy unlike the Kyle Morris one--but with a better narrative flow. There is very little criticism of the shows and films, good or bad. In my opinion, the best sections are the "Early years" section and the "Writing process and characteristics" section. It also disturbs me that Sorkin's personal life is unevenly handled; his dating life and his politics should have a part to offset his drug use, because he is not really wholly a drug addict. Let's show he's human. Also, is there anything good that can be used in the "Castle Rock" section from the 2001 "From Stage to Screen with Aaron Sorkin and Rob Reiner, A Few Good Men" documentary, that is listed in the "Further information" section? Homely Features (talk) 08:51, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have found many more problems:
I have added my own 'citations needed' tags to certain facts, but there were already many such tags in the article. Is the separate "Awards and honors" section necessary? Shouldn't it maybe be incorporated into relevant sections? As in, yes, and then he won the award for that show or that film, whilst critics said this and that too. There is a weird tendency to be very listy in this article. It results in a badly written article with little narrative.-Homely Features (talk) 08:55, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I like this sentence from the Studio 60 section: "The seething anticipation that preceded the debut was followed up by a large amount of thoughtful and scrupulous criticism in the press, as well as largely negative and feverish analysis in the blogosphere." But why isn't it followed up with examples of such criticism?-Homely Features (talk) 08:57, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And what is the nature of Sorkin's relationship to the Obama Campaign? There is an interesting question on the talk page from Agrant33074. Did he really help with a campaign ad in 2004? Do we know everything about these political works by Aaron Sorkin?-Homely Features (talk) 09:05, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Why is there a "Screenplays written in the 21st century" section? Is it really important to make such a strange difference known? The only thing I can think of here, is that maybe Sorkin had returned to film after doing TV shows for a while so that is being highlighted.Homely Features (talk) 09:09, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry to say this but the "Personal politics" section is a disaster. Many paragraphs just do not have a clear purpose. Is the first paragraph in "Personal politics" about the politics in The West Wing? Is the second paragraph about his contributions, both money-wise and film/writing-wise, to the Democratic party? Say so then!-Homely Features (talk) 09:13, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Is a "Personal politics" section really necessary? Shouldn't the information maybe go into the "Personal life" section? It seems like Sorkin's personal politics are being played up simply because he is known for The West Wing, although whenever he does say something it manages to get pretty wide media exposure, making him a little more important than Matt Damon and that "actuary tables" reading he did on John McCain's life expectancy.Homely Features (talk) 09:40, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Redundant information about awards received: "As a writer, Sorkin received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series (The West Wing)." from the "West Wing" section is later repeated in the "Awards and honors" section.Homely Features (talk) 09:41, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I do appreciate the effort that was involved in writing this article and what an accomplishment that is, but I must point out where the article can be improved. I'll help out where I can, but the job is big.Homely Features (talk) 09:13, 24 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps you could benefit from reading the WP:FAR instructions yourself. We're not here to "delist when we all agree it's not up to par"; we first try to enlist all the help we can find to bring it up to par. That's why you do the notifications. You are seeking to improve Wiki articles, right? And if you don't do the notifications and someone appears at the last minute, willing to work on the article, then the FAR can last two or three months. Please do the notifications. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:29, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I see. I may have to read the WPFAR. I think it *might* take months to fix this article so if that is alright then alright. It will cost about 35$ to read the Considering Aaron Sorkin book, and the other book about The West Wing will cost money too, unless you have one of those good libraries with copies of these rather obscure books. I can't promise to get these notifications done this weekend, but maybe next week.Homely Features (talk) 11:19, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry but I will not notify all Wiki people who were involved in this article. It is terrible. I don't think they would be of any help if they were originally involved in this article. It should never have been an FA and it will take much much much work to ever achieve FA. There is no criticism of any of his works. There is a lot of quirky bits here and there... God damn strange article if you ask me. Time to roast this article and let it earn its way to the top.Homely Features (talk) 15:28, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you Dabomb87 for notifying everyone. I believe I am going to have a heart attack if I read anymore of this article. It's terrible. There was an anonymous Yahoo biography used as a source. I'm not sure why a Bartlett4America News Archive is used for Reuters wires of all things. Those are pretty easy to come by. I am finding shockingly abysmal prose throughout. I am beginning to think a rewrite from scratch is needed.Homely Features (talk) 16:33, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The absolute outrageousness of it all
This article is so bad that I am shocked at what I'm finding. According to a Variety article [29]The Farnsworth Invention began in 2003 as a commission for a play! Not a screenplay first in 2005, and later rewritten as a play. Erroneous information is everywhere. Jizz magazine was being used as a source for this erroneous fact. How much of this article is wrong I wonder now.14:30, 28 September 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Homely Features (talk • contribs)
Speedy Remove This article isn't even a Good Article. Start the process over again, from scratch. Let this article earn its way to the top.-Homely Features (talk) 13:39, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Homely, I'm concerned about the editing you've done to the article, as you've removed a large amount of text and a large number of citations. I've asked others to look in here, and I'm wondering if a revert to the September 6 version and rebuilding from there a bit more slowly might be in order. The article appears to have been in better shape then than it is now, and improving sources or seeking new sources, is preferable to deleting citations. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:11, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with SandyGeorgia. A very substantial amount of damage seems to have been done to this article Since September 27. References were removed, and then 'cite needed' tags were added! I am trying to WP:Assume good faith, but it appears that the changes reflect a political WP:Point of view. I returned the article to the September 27 state for now. Instead of replacing the language in this article with which you disagree, HF, I suggest that you prepare a statement of why you think the references that you removed are incorrect and let editors here discuss it and reach a consensus before making the changes. Thanks! Best regards, -- Ssilvers (talk) 04:31, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have to agree with SandyGeorgia and Ssilvers on this as well - the edit summaries alone are enough to raise serious questions about this editor's agenda - see this one in particular. I completely agree with the revert to earlier version and recommend that some action be taken regarding this SPA who seems to have quite an agenda. Tvoz/talk05:44, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have now reverted back to Feb 2008, which was the last date the FAC nominator edited the article, and begun restoring from there. I'm not sure we'll be able to save this star unless someone takes over this article, but I hope we can at least repair the damage that has occurred since the nominator left Wiki in Feb 2008. We will need many people to start going through as I don't know what all needs fixing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:08, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, you're doing a disservice to the article. Read my edit summaries. There will blatant errors throughout the article. I removed the terrible references and added more reliable references. Homely Features (talk) 07:08, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Many facts(can you even call something a fact when it is wrong?) were untrue and in some cases the exact opposite to what Sorkin had said in the given source. Some sources I replaced with others because they were either rinky-dinky or were actually not about the film. I have been trying to excise the sickness and have left a mostly correct article, with less redundant information, and citation needed tags everywhere so that these facts can be sourced. I have still not been able to find a source that states that 40 out of 45 Sports Night episodes were written by Sorkin.Homely Features (talk) 07:20, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It is also a very very badly written article. It severely needs a copyedit unlessly badly written articles are de rigueur here at Wikipedia?Homely Features (talk) 07:22, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My agenda is to fix this article. It is ranked #1 in a Google search which is unacceptable considering how many errors are in it. I can't stress enough how much fixing this article needs. Too many liberties taken. His years at Castle Rock were supposedly "formative" according to this article but nowhere could I find such a fact. Nowhere could I find many other facts, and often I discovered the opposite, that they were in fact untrue.Homely Features (talk) 07:26, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Problem, Homely. Three editors above have agreed to revert the article so it can be restored more systematically, and you just reverted against consensus. That's edit warring; please see WP:3RR. Some of your edits were surprisingly good for a newly registered editor, but your edit summaries are problematic, you've deleted some text unnecessarily, and you've removed some citations unnecessarily, leaving the text littered with tags. And some of your edits or edit summaries appear to be agenda-based. Restoring the article is going to take some sustained effort, but edit warring and leaving the article in a damaged state such as it is in now, regardless of whether it retains featured status, are not viable options. Your edit summaries, and attitude on this FAR (about not notifying other editors and insisting that the article be defeatured rather than addressing issue) don't indicate that your primary goal is to produce a quality article; while some of your edits are good, others appear to be dismantling the article rather than fixing it. Collaborating with other editors will be necessary to restore the article; edit warring against consensus will only get you blocked. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:31, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The previous state of the article was ridiculous. Pieces of information about The West Wing were spread out into every section needlessly. I have moved them all into The West Wing section. The "Controversies" section was very evil. The "Cleveland" controversy was legitimate but belonged in The West Wing section. The "Morris vs. CAstle Rock" controversy was a small fiasco, proven wrong, and if you have noticed is never mentioned in the mainstream media, because it was probably one of many such lawsuits, this being the loudest. It does not make for a standard reading of Sorkin's career to include such a controversy. Also, the treatment of his drug addiction was evil too. It does not have to be mentioned in every section and then separately in the Controversy section.Homely Features (talk) 07:37, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Also, in the "Writing charcteristics" section, aside from the redundant information I removed, many facts were flatly wrong. In fact, I was disgusted to learn in the given source that Sorkin had actually said the opposite.Homely Features (talk) 07:37, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have not removed a single source that was reliable and useful. There were blogs, ummmm..... and some other bad sources. It was quite shocking. I'd have to go through and see exactly what those bad sources were again. Why aren't any of the books that I have put in a "Themes and recurrent motifs in Sorkin's works" section being used?Homely Features (talk) 07:42, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm a very new Wikipedia editor, although I have been reading it for a long time. I don't think this deserves to be considered a Featured Article in its present state. It's badly constructed and badly written. The introduction seems overly long. The section about The West Wing is far too long considering the program has its own article and much of the information here pertains more to the program than Sorkin himself. IMHO, I think this article needs a lot of work. LiteraryMaven (talk) 15:55, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Awesome. Someone making sense. Yes, I have thought that too, that the West Wing section should be restricted to Sorkin anecdotes (not all flattering) and maybe more about the awards he won, rather than what the show won. In Jason Buchanan's bio at All Music Guide he sums up Sorkin's awards won succinctly I think. Will have to re-read that. But with regard to Ssilvers note: I can no longer look at that old FA. I have done enough of that and I believe rooted out all the misinformation and placed appropriate citation tags where facts that appear to be true need to be verified.Homely Features (talk) 16:13, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Additionally, I don't think this article will make it because there really should be a "Common themes and motifs in Sorkin's works" and of course based on those two books of essays that I've placed in this stub-section. Without that, you can't really call this "best work" can you? And that section will take time to write.Homely Features (talk) 16:16, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.
The article was removed by User:Marskell 15:00, 25 October 2008 [30].
I think its high time to do a Featured Article Review for the US Constitution. I think it's a good article, with great citations, but there are numerous issues that collectively question its FA status. Notably,
1A (while succinct, the prose fails to engage the reader, or "flow" well)
1B (it glosses over major subjects that should be included, such as the its history, or fails to appropriately integrate them into the article. It is too general an article for its own good)
2B (its structure is halting, and thus difficult to read)
2C (while a fairly lengthy selection of primary and secondary, it has only 14 inline citations or notes. There are many issues with quotation citations, and specific references etc. etc.)
Finally, this article was approved for FA status in 2004; fours years is a great length of time without a formal review. And, indeed, there have been incredibly improvements into what is acceptable for FA or not, what was good in 2004 is not necessarily so in 2008. A critical look will do much good for this article. Cheers! Zidel333 (talk) 15:19, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not arguing that it should be Featured, I'm just contending that its currently not up to snuff. Certainly, there are other articles that should be FA as well but their importance should not be a factor in their qualifications. Cheers! Zidel333 (talk) 15:54, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Once again, FA has ceased to amaze me. The section entitled "Unratified amendments" hasn't a single source to any of the statements. This along with other numerous statements which are unreferenced. I don't care how vital any article is, it never has to be a Featured Article. This should be treated no different to an article like Adolf Hitler, Ante Pavelic, Robert Prosinecki or any other random page. Either source the statements or be prepared for the article to be removed. Domiy (talk) 07:42, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please stop trolling FARs. Of course editors should be prepared for the possibility of removal, but this is a long and deliberative process. Marskell (talk) 12:54, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not trolling at all. I'm just notifying the editor that no article must or has to be a Featured Article. I don't go by importance, I go by quality. It's no secret that other reviewers do actually go by importance, which is really diminishing but this is neither the time or the place for such a discussion. I'm just ensuring that the editor knows the possible outcome of this FAR, which is removal if the page does not cite additional references. How you call that 'trolling' amazes me. Let's not get into unnecessary flames here. Just stick to the topic. Domiy (talk) 01:26, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Domiy; you are trolling FAR. Please stop. This article was promoted 4 years ago, before inline citations were required and when standards were significantly lower. Even if it had been cited way back then, some articles deteriorate over time, so blaming the process is silly. Stop WP:SOAPBOXing on FAR pages, because you only make them hard to read. If you don't have specific comments to help improve an article, don't waste time and bandwidth of those who are here to work on improving FAs; those who do want to improve articles shouldn't have to read through pages of unhelpful ranting and verbiage. And since the editor who brought the article to featured status four years ago has made only eight edits to Wikipedia in all of 2008, your rants to that editor to prepare for the article to be defeatured are going nowhere, in addition to being offensive and demeaning, since the article was featured quality for the standards in 2004 when it was promoted. You can dig in to help cite the article, or wait for it to move to FARC and !vote to delist it. Anything else is just wasting time. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:13, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sandy, I find your comments very unethical. So much for assuming good faith, which you are yet to demonstrate to my knowledge. I've made countless suggestions to many FAC and FARC articles. I don't need to stand here and "rant" to you. I think a quick list should do it...Scotland national football team, Gregory House, Absinthe, US Constitution, Germany womens national football team and Chelsea FC are just recent ones. They may come across as high standards and extreme, but nobody can argue that they do actually go by the FA criteria and, on top of being easily satisfied, have helped these pages regain FA status and gain constructive feedback. As I said before, you may indeed think that I am trolling because of the way I post my issues; excuse me from going away from the usual 'top notch' language and using a little bit of writing flare to get my point across. Assume Good Faith, and we're all good. Domiy (talk) 10:42, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comments - I just noticed the little amount of references are a little...dodgy maybe? Not really formatted correctly, some format issues are visible in them and they don't all follow the same style. Additionally, References 6-12 all link right here to the same page. This is just a home page for the Charters Of Freedom. They deliver no specific information which back up the statements. Please link the appropriate references to the exact webpage where the information can be found. Domiy (talk) 01:37, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
One image problem Image:Scene Constitution.jpg is probably a painting by Howard Chandler Christy (1873-1952), so doesn't qualify for PD-Art.
I was thinking of the references section; I've cut the External links by about half, many being redundant to other links or to Wikisource. Same with the See Also section; there's a list of similar documents, and I would think we have a "Major Legal Documents" template of some sort that would collect those. UltraExactZZClaims~ Evidence18:36, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Strongly Remove still many issues present which are yet to be fixed up. Doesn't look like much of an attempt has been made. The reference consistency and display in this article is of very poor standards. Not only does it reference rarely, the few provided references lack data and appropriate placement (some website references still lead to a normal homepage, which doesn't lead to the exact backup of the information). Additionally, the layout is similarly not good standards at all. Domiy (talk) 11:23, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.
The article was removed by User:Marskell 15:00, 25 October 2008 [31].
Cirt, if I understand correctly, you're objecting to (among other things) the self-promotional tone? Would it help to move the sentence "Helvarg has produced more than 40 television documentaries broadcast by PBS, The Discovery Channel, and others." up into the lead section? - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 13:00, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As the original 'author' of this article (and it is essentially all my writing), I am happy to help with its improvement. As I understand it, the issues are:
Cirt has concerns about factual accuracy. I believe all the material to be correct on the basis of the cited sources.
Cirt considers the lead section to be "a bit inadequate". A more detailed criticism would help me here.
Cirt considers the structure to be inappropriate. Again, specific criticisms would help me here.
Cirt has concerns about the fair use of the images of book covers. I have never been able to understand how one can depict a book without fair use. Helvarg's books do not merit their own independent articles so this is the place that they should be described and, I contend, illustrated. We could ask the rights holders for consent, I guess.
Cirt identifies a 'résumé feel' to the article, which is a shortcoming of my writing style. If this is hagiographic, then we need to tone it down. If it is some other problem, then I need a clearer explanation.
Yes that is basically a restatement of what I said above. I'd like to hear what others think as well. Doubtful that this article would sail through WP:FAC in its current state, and would most likely have difficulty passing a WP:GA review as well. Cirt (talk) 13:18, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's hard to know where to begin here; I've never seen quite such a strange layout and citation system, and am not sure how to begin fixing it. The article is largely lacking inline citations, has some inline URL citations, and needs a complete reworking of images for WP:MOS#Images. I'm at a loss for where to start with this one; if the original author intends to work on it, perhaps another experienced FA writer can be enlisted to help. I just don't understand the citation material that is only available in edit mode. The article needs to be correctly cited, and something needs to be done about the WP:LAYOUT. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:21, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
At the time of the creation of this article Wikipedia had no consensus on citation and the use of the inote template was advocated because (it was suggested) this could be used to automate conversion to whatever format gained consensus. The automation never happened so this is an exercise in data conversion, which I am now undertaking. I imagine that the layout issues flow from the clunky citation mechanism but I am sure that you can clarify the problems if they sustain. —Theo(Talk)16:17, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.
The article was removed by User:Marskell 15:00, 25 October 2008 [32].
A 2004, this article would not even meet B-class standards today for a simple reason: there are no inline citations! I also detect some POV/OR, and the prose is dense with unexplained literary terms. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:30, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Certainly has no inline refs, but well-written. You'll have to be specific alleging POV/OR - unless you've read all the many refs you may not be in a position to "detect" the latter. Literary terms seem perfectly well-linked & prose very good (ok, brilliant). Johnbod (talk) 02:20, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It might be well-written, but the fact is, the article currently fails 2c—it does not have inline citations. If that is fixed, it should be easy to figure out which text is OR and which is attributable to reliable sources. Even though literary terms are linked, they should be explained briefly whenever possible. Dabomb87 (talk) 02:44, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Have you found anything in the article that is surprising, controversial, disputed or not derived from the given sources? Neither 2c, 1c nor WP:V unequivocally require inline citations. All quotes that I can see are attributed, as required. I'm not an expert in the subject area, perhaps you could guide me to the exceptional claims or contentious statements about living people (per this page, linked from 1c) in the article that are currently missing inline citations? henrik•talk21:13, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This phrase explains it: "Inline citations are mandated by Wikipedia's featured article criteria" (from Wikipedia:Citing sources). More specifically, quotes, statistics, opinions require inline cites. In general, according to the standards for FAs these days, most facts that aren't common knowlege should have an inline cite. Here are examples from the text:
"Wallace Stevens' essential modernist poem, Of Modern Poetry sounds as if the verbs are left out." Without an inline citation, this could well be considered OR.
"Consequently, modernism in English remained in the role of an avant garde movement, depending on little presses and magazines and a small but dedicated readership." Ditto, according to whom was the readership "dedicated"?
"This construction of an exclusive meaning is essential to modernism."
Comment I took a quick look at the article as it existed in December 2004 and found that some of the doubtful content I had noted was added since then. There is practically nothing on the discussion page, suggesting that no one has really attended to this article since then. As it stands, I would agree that it is no better that B-class. I used to have some expertise with the subject (having considered it as a Ph.D. research area) and I found the the content and emphasis rather surprising. My work was done in the 70s and maybe the general assessment of modern poetry has changed since then. Still, I wonder about OR. --Halcatalyst (talk) 03:15, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Fact and editorial: Bishonen didn't write the damn page. See the FAC? Regarding your "nomination", name the point of view problems. Name the original research concerns. The people who created articles like these, once upon a time, got tired of defending them against editors who nominate them out of nowhere for fun, and whose last 500 edits consist of removing date links from articles with a script. Do you have any real argument as to why this is not among "Wikipedia's best work"? Where is the humility if you've no familiarity with the subject? Articles like this aren't easily come by, and by nominating this one, you're ensuring they'll be even harder to come by. Ex-user Whiskeydog (talk) 03:42, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Whoa there, keep your cool. Yes, I have spent some effort trying to reverse the spread of date linking on WP, but I have done other things too. Please assume good faith; I don't nominate articles for FAR "for fun", this is only my first (and hopefully last). You're absolutely right in saying that I have no knowledge in the topic, so please don't criticize me for not knowing that "T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" is a foundational text of modernism", or that "Much of early modernist poetry took the form of short, compact lyrics." Now, you say that this article is one of Wikipedia's best works; when this article was promoted it probably was. However, the standards for featured articles have tightened since, and now mandate the use of inline citations. I will definitely agree that the article is comprehensive and well-written, and for the most part follows style guides is laid out correctly. However, we need the article to meet all the criteria to be FA, not most. Now, if anyone thinks that I have nominated this article just to get a rise out of editors or for fun, please say so and I will immediately end this review. Dabomb87 (talk) 00:36, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
One image problem Image:Hdpoet.jpg: the source of this image appears to have been taken down, and the domain name lapsed. There is no evidence that the image is public domain. It appears to have been scanned from a book, as the lines of text are visible through the image, but there is no detail on publication date (which is highly likely to be after 1923, since H.D. did not become famous until after then) or on the photographer's date of death. DrKiernan (talk) 11:06, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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The article was removed by User:Marskell 15:00, 25 October 2008 [33].
Listed WikiProjects notified.
A lot of unsourced content, fails also the stability criterion. Article could also do with a wider variety of sources, the main source is by Rajmohan Gandhi, who is a historian, but is also the grandson of Mahatma Gandhi, who was an associate of Jinnah. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 03:38, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
According to the arguments found right here, content, in paragraphs or single statements, can indeed by stated without verifiable sources because readers are supposed to know about the history or every single subject and if they don't, they shouldn't be reading the article. I'm shocked at it too, but Wikipedia has truly never ceased to amaze me. I join the group of [citation needed] force, as I too feel that challenged content must be cited without question; at least if it wants to be a Featured Article. Domiy (talk) 10:43, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This article is plagued with MoS issues, unsourced statements, and a seemingly poor use of scholarly works to reference this article. Also, this article has a number of image copyright issues. Some of the images are tagged as public domain, but there's no evidence that the images meet India or Pakistan copyright law. Furthermore, there's no documentation of whether some of the images were taken in India or Pakistan, so it's quite possible that the incorrect PD tags are being used. Nishkid64(Make articles, not wikidrama)01:41, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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The article was removed by User:Marskell 13:50, 20 October 2008 [34].
This article fails to meet a number of FA criteria:
"factually accurate: claims are verifiable against reliable sources, accurately represent the relevant body of published knowledge, and are supported with specific evidence and external citations; this requires a "References" section in which sources are listed, complemented by inline citations where appropriate"
There are many section with nearly no citations in support of the facts, (e.g. "Location","Protection of National Highway","Impact and Influence of Media")
"neutral: it presents views fairly and without bias"
Although there has been a lot of work on this, the remaining problem is not so much particular statements as what facts should be included and excluded based on notability criteria.
"comprehensive: it neglects no major facts or details"
The "War progress" section is very summary (clearly doesn't compare with any of the Gettysburg battle descriptions) and the map is nearly useless.
"consistent citations—where required by Criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations using either footnotes[1] or Harvard referencing (Smith 2007, p. 1) (see citing sources for suggestions on formatting references; for articles with footnotes, the meta:cite format is recommended)"
Although there are a lot of citations (which need to be further checked), there are many statements without citations.
"well-written: its prose is engaging, even brilliant, and of a professional standard"
Agree with Vontrotta : I have not gone deep into the article. But from the surface, it's clear that the references need to be formatted properly with cite xxx templates. I'll also review the article. Kensplanet (talk) 12:44, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Minor changes in citation : I agree that some inline citations are out of standard and I'll be working to improve them. Regarding the lack of inline citations, all the statements are backed up with the references section, however I'll be adding newer and extra inline references for easy verification soon. Finally about the war progress section being viewed as a summary - and comparison with Gettysburg - it must be noted that it's often known that in the subcontinent, information (on anything, especially wars) is hard to come by and given this handicap I think the section strikes the right balance without confusing the reader with details - some of which may not be credible or from neutral sources. In this regard I'd like to back up this statement with a citation from the book: South Asia's Nuclear Security Dilemma By Lowell Dittmer, pp 238 "The Kargil war to date has received insufficient study. The official Indian government report, From Surprise to Reckoning: The Kargil Review Committee, is interesting but inadequate" Yet, the article doesn't omit any "major facts or details" which is the essence of being comprehensive, one of the criteria of a FA. --Idleguy (talk) 07:07, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Factually accurate Let me give an example of the factual problems I have been struggling with. Let's take two simple sentences out of the current article:
When I originally looked at the article, the link in the first sentence was to Gilgit-Baltistan, which describes the areas on the Pakistan side of the LOC, and really didn't give any indication whether or not Kargil was part of it prior to Partition. Like most of the articles about Kashmir, the Baltistan article has pretty sketchy facts, but at least it had some historical information that implied, at least, that Kargil was a part of the Baltistan "district" prior to Partition, so I changed the link to that article. There was another Kashmir article, which I can't find now, that talked about Baltistan being part of the Ladakh Wazarestan, and since the second sentence above talks about Ladakh (somewhat redundantly), I incorporated the reference into the first sentence (without any real cite to the actual pre-partition administrative divisions). When I looked at the second sentence above, I went to the article on Subdivisions of India to see if there was a description of what a "town and district" are and whether there was confirmation that Kargil is currently in Ladakh, and I was unable to find confirmation.
Since the linked wiki articles are inadequate to support these very basic facts, than an FA, in my judgment ought to have a specific cite to support of them.
With respect to the complete comment, and the reference to the Gettysburg battles, I would just ask what Indian units were involved, who were their commanders, what was the order of battle? Looking briefly at some of the external links, these facts are imbedded in those articles. An FA article on a military conflict should include these very basic facts, and inline cites to support them. If there are two versions of the "facts" in two external articles, there should be a "but, see" rather than a fall back that there are too many ambiguities to draw a conclusion.
All of the endmatter seems to need work, e.g. notes, references, further reading, external links - why all the padding (especially on the last 2)? There are some broken links in the external links, but my main question is whether all these links are needed and conform to WP:EL.
Smallbones (talk) 13:15, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Suggested FA criteria concerns are references and their formatting (1c and 2c), neutrality (1d), comprehensiveness (1b), and prose (1a).Marskell (talk) 13:19, 19 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Suggested concerns are being slowly but surely ironed out. Regarding neutrality issue, I think I'd rather have a little bit extra information, because these articles relating to India-Pakistan tend to get heated up suddenly just because what appears to be non-notable to a third eye is often debated for days or results in edit wars for its inclusion etc. I believe user Vontrotta mentioned about this aspect earlier regarding the notability of facts as the main neutrality issue. Idleguy (talk) 12:23, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
2 out of 3 Rediff links have been replaced with other newspapers/book sources. There is only one rediff link remaining and it is basically a compilation of the media headlines from Pakistan. Being a media related news-story and the fact that any other single source alternative doesn't exit, I've used it because it doesn't affect the seriousness of this topic. Idleguy (talk) 12:19, 23 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Can the remaining paragraphs with no references and half-paragraphs with no references be referenced? And the refs need to be filled out properly. A lot of them are just raw links with a self-made description, rather than the standard details in full. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 06:26, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
End notes
Idleguy and I have each been making some changes as we go along, but it might be helpful to have a more concerted effort by someone to get them in better shape. I did this once in another (much shorter) article, and am reluctant to dive into something that can be a major effort. Any volunteers?Vontrotta (talk) 11:39, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Remove Since I started this process, I wanted to give the principal contributors a chance to address all the concerns before I agreed with the conclusion - at the rate of progress, I agree that it will take months to correct. I don't know what the next steps are, can someone please comment.Vontrotta (talk) 10:17, 20 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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The article was removed by User:Marskell 12:54, 17 October 2008 [35].
Sorry about that. I was just browsing through some of the FA's, and couldn't help but notice what a state the article is in. Again, apologies for the multiple noms. D.M.N. (talk) 17:16, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
According to the arguments found right here, content, in paragraphs or single statements, can indeed by stated without verifiable sources because readers are supposed to know about the history or every single subject and if they don't, they shouldn't be reading the article. I'm shocked at it too, but Wikipedia has truly never ceased to amaze me. I join the group of [citation needed] force, as I too feel that challenged content must be cited without question; at least if it wants to be a Featured Article. Domiy (talk) 10:45, 21 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's not OR, rather a collection of extremely trivial texbook info. Passages like "Many historians hold that a major cause...", "Not everyone in the Commonwealth agreed ..." are clearly below FA standard. "Drinking bouts and other assorted amusements" were common amidst upper classes of that period across all the Europe, this one is IMO redundant. NVO (talk) 08:28, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Well, some parts have citation needed tags and paragraphs are unsourced. There are a lot of parts which I'd prefer to have inline citations - some statements such as "The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth was to be divested of over 30,000 square miles (78,000 km2) of territory, leaving her with 74,000 square miles (190,000 km2)" would need inline citations. D.M.N. (talk) 09:56, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Remove Too much original research and unreferenced statements. Citation needed tags are present in the article, meaning it is not verifiable and worthy of the FA criteria. Domiy (talk) 01:39, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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The article was removed by User:Marskell 12:11, 13 October 2008 [36].
Many of the current issues were present during the FAC, so I won't retype them all unless someone engages to copyedit, cite and cleanup (in particular, the external jumps). Lots of issues here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:01, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Prose: needs tuning, also I find it overburdened with statistics in places.
Verifiability: I took one representative section as an example: "Event in historical context", and examined the sources given. There are only two. In the "Deadliest earthquakes" table, the data in the table does not match the data given at the only web source listed: [37], and the other reference does not make sense to me: "Not Awa, Japan 1703, alleged 100,000, which is probably a misreading of the 10,000 toll given in Watanabe, H., 1998.". What is "Not Awa, Japan 1703"? A reference from 1703, giving details of an earthquake occurring in 1782, disputed by a reference from 1998? Also, where is the source saying that it is "probably a misreading"? There are several uncited paragraphs.
Article structure and focus: needs tuning or pruning. For example, parts of the "Other effects" section read a little like a list of unconnected trivia, and would be better split up into relevant sections; tables and images sometimes crowd together, overlap or displace one another, and could be better organised.
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The article was removed by User:Marskell 12:11, 13 October 2008 [38].
FARC - I came across this article a few months ago and called for it to be delisted in the Milhist talk page. It has multiple problems. It has poor grammar in a number of places, very few citations, and those citations that are used are often misplaced or suspect. Skinny87 (talk) 08:42, 20 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Remove Inline cites are thin. No evidence of active maintenance/work. Some clean up needed on the images (obsolete license tags; image files with same name). DrKiernan (talk) 12:16, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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The article was removed by User:Marskell 12:11, 13 October 2008 [39].
This was promoted to featured status almost three years ago and a lot has happened since then. It hardly qualifies today as the production section and plot sections are way too short, it lacks an actual critical response section, it includes sections that shouldn't be in the main article (such as the "Presidential elections" section - that should go in plot) and a lot of the references are not accepted.–FunkyVoltron talk15:01, 19 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree this article is pretty abysmal. If you wish to take a break from this article please visit the Aaron Sorkin article and help improve the section in this article specifically about The West Wing. It is in need of organization and a severe copyedit. I have been significantly improving this article. Sincerely, Homely Features (talk) 22:23, 29 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Remove. Agree with above by FunkyVoltron and Homely Features. These above points have not been addressed. In addition to comprehensiveness, there are serious referencing issues. There is a bit too much overweighting on the in-universe stuff, and not enough on cast/crew/production info. Cirt (talk) 09:54, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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The article was removed by User:Marskell 13:03, 10 October 2008 [40].
Now I'll freely admit to not being an expert but I was surprised to come across this article and see that it is at FA. The grammar needs much improvement, there are many instances of WP:peacock words, the infobox looks untidy, there is a lack of wp:wikilinks. It warrants copyediting at the very least. I would also suggest that quite a few sections are bordering violation of WP:NPOV. Please note that this isn't a criticism of the editors, but of the article itself. I would suggest that the prose needs much improvement and that it is not neutral. I think it has a lot of merit but needs work to keep it's FA status. Parrot of Doom (talk) 13:01, 28 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Could you please provide specific examples of your concerns? The article doesn't have an infobox at present, by the way - those are navigation templates. Nick Dowling (talk) 07:30, 30 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
See below, the image in the box on the right could certainly be tidied up, on my browsers it isn't centralised - a small point, but considering its at the top of the article I think it sets a bad example. Parrot of Doom (talk) 19:13, 30 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Let me explain a little background here. I wrote my MA thesis for King's College London's War Studies Department on the Russian Ground Forces in 2000. I have tried to reflect the best quality writing on the subject - the Conflict Studies Research Centre - in what I wrote, which has meant the use of terms analytically and a whole bunch of quotations. The Ground Forces emerge from that in a poor light, which I think reflects the real situation - it is a mess, to be honest. Miyokan will disagree, however I believe his particular views on subjects involving Russia reflect a lot of NPOV themselves - anyone who's interested in taking a look should check the attempts to make Russia a FA. Comments and violent disagreement welcome. Buckshot06(prof) 18:16, 30 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
My concerns are mainly with the poor quality of grammar - that was the first thing to grab my attention. There are also several instances of a questionable POV, particularly sections like "It has been a very divisive struggle, with at least one senior military officer dismissed for being less than responsive to government commands. General Colonel Gennady Troshev was dismissed in 2002 for refusing a move from command of the North Caucasus Military District to command of the less important Siberian Military District." and "Without having to account for their actions, they can choose to promote or not promote him, to send him to Moscow or to some "godforsaken post on the Chinese border." typify the problems I see. Can I recommend that you submit the article here as a starting point? I would also suggest splitting the references section up and having a separate Bibliography - that would make it much easier for readers to see immediately what print material has been used. Parrot of Doom (talk) 19:13, 30 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for noting specific areas where you see problems. Are you aware that the second one is a straight quote from a respected journalist in the field, chosen to illustrate a point? To be honest, I'm not sure what you see is wrong with the first one. Troshev was dismissed after a public spat with the Minister of Defence - not survivable in anyone's military. The references section, as per what I understood was the standard, lists only material utilised in the article, as you ask. I would have prefered to title it 'Bibliography,' but that's not the MOS - apparently there are reasons why we don't use the term 'bibliography.' If you've got specific areas of grammar concern, please tell me them and I'll work through them.
Well, "very divisive" is a somewhat questionable use of English, but that's my opinion only - personally I wouldn't use 'very', something is either divisive or not, again in my opinion. "less than responsive" - unless its a quote, I would just type "unresponsive". "Gennady Troshev was dismissed in 2002 for refusing a move from command of the North Caucasus Military District to command of the less important Siberian Military District." is unclear - I would substitute "to move" for "a move", the former implies an order, the latter implies a request - if it was either, then which one? It could be military terminology that I (or another casual reader) am unaware of. I had to read it about 3 times to understand the meaning. The second sentence was sloppy quoting from me, I actually meant to quote "Their morale is low, among other reasons, because their postings are entirely in the hands of his immediate superiors and the personnel department." which is extremely poor grammar in anyone's book.
I could go through the entire article and find more examples of such grammar, but it would be easier to submit it for copyediting. As someone who hasn't contributed (save some recent copyediting myself) to the article, I'd rather somebody else did that. Better for a major contributor to deal with it, than someone just 'browsing'. Parrot of Doom (talk) 23:24, 30 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Delist. This article passed FA in 2006, when standards for FA articles were far lower, and it is easy to see why.
1. Copyediting and such that the nominator mentioned needs a lot of work.
2. The "History" section is way too long and takes up half the prose.
3. The cherry-picked opinon quotes should be removed (eg "The Russian Ground Forces' performance in the First Chechen War has been assessed as "appallingly bad"; "Furthermore, the human cost of the current situation remains high, with the mistreatment of conscripts being labeled "one of Europe's worst human-rights scandals" by The Economist in 2005", etc, etc). Just write the facts of the war, and in other cases, the facts of the issue, and let readers decide for themselves.
4. A lot of information is outdated and relies on old sources. For an entity that has undergone such rapid change in the past decade (eg military spending increased 6-fold under the Putin administration, compared to when it was in chaos and on life support in the 90's and early 2000's), this article should use at least only year 2006+ sources, especially for the "Personnel", "Crime and corruption in the ground forces", and "Equipment" sections.--Miyokan (talk) 10:23, 31 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry to trip you up on a minor point Miyokan, but as SandyGeorgia once said to me you cannot say 'Delist' during a FAR. 'Delist' is only possible after the article has moved to a Featured Article Removal Candidacy/FARC. I believe what you would actually want to say is this article should go to a FARC. When it got to the FARC you would want it delisted. Buckshot06(prof) 11:57, 31 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
On the substantive questions, the 'appallingly bad' quote is on the First Chechen War, so if this got through a FARC and was delisted, and I was working on it again, I would still wish to include it. It is the opinion of a respected British expert at the CSRC, Michael Orr, working from Russian newspaper sources, and is a professional assessment of the state of the army at that time. It's a bit like saying the British Army was appallingly bad on 1 July 1916 on the Somme - or that initial US Army counter-insurgency tactics in Iraq were bad. What objection do you have to it?
What is wrong with the length of the history section? The article is roughly ~60kb, and so there's no size worries, simply details on an important topic.
I've previously added 2007 material from a more recent CSRC report by Keir Giles in response to your legit worries over out of date ness. I'll look for further material on the subject. But that does not imply deletion of the other material - at the most, maybe some of it should be moved to Military history of the Russian Federation.
No problem. I would list it, but that project seems to have become inactive - it's got a great big banner across the top. Please, if you know where an active copy-editing project is, direct me to it and I'll add it. Cheers Buckshot06(prof) 13:04, 31 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
One image problem Image:Katyusha-chechen-war.jpg lacks a fair use rationale, and doubtful that fair-use is justified given the availability of other images illustrating RGF. DrKiernan (talk) 13:48, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The current formatting of the refs is clearly inconsistent, especially referring to authors by full name, initials and sometimes just surname. Some references are not filled out properly. Secondly, parts of the section on corruption are not referenced and the prose is generally a bit uneven in places. YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 07:05, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Would someone kindly explain why the process has now gone to the FARC stage? I believed I'd addressed the POV issue, explaining the reasons why the extracts from the reports were quoted, and as for prose, the copyedit tag has been added - and no specific sections which have difficulties have been identified. Why is this still being considered for FARC? Buckshot06(prof) 17:08, 13 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Do note the introduction to FAR: "Nominations are moved from the review period to the removal list, unless it is very clear that editors feel the article is within criteria. Given that extensions are always granted on request, as long as the article is receiving attention, editors should not be alarmed by an article moving from review to the removal candidates' list." Nothing to worry about. If you feel this is keep, say so. Of course we'd need to here from others as well. Marskell (talk) 08:12, 14 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This clearly still needs work. There are unformatted citations, the layout is cluttered, the lead is not a summary of the article, and yes it does need a copyedit. As it stands, this is still in remove territory. Marskell (talk) 10:46, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for raising those issues. Could you please expand upon your concern about the layout? The article has fewer sub-sections or photos than most articles of this size and looks fine on my 24 inch monitor (the monitor's unusually large size normally increases any clutter in articles). Nick Dowling (talk) 11:19, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Lots of work needed: it is unclear if the previous Keep declarations have engaged FA standards at WP:WIAFA. To review (samples only, there are issues throughout):
WP:ACCESSIBILITY, WP:LAYOUT, WP:MOS#Images issues throughout, pls read those guidelines and alter the layout and image and template placement to conform.
WP:MOSBOLD, sample: on professionalisation (see Kontraktniki below) has occurred. (Also provides an example of sending readers to and fro with parenthetical insertions.)
WP:DASH, sample: ... will rise to 100,000-150,000 rubles ... and another ... by Sergei Ivanov's Order 428 of October 2005 - and, what
WP:MOS#Ellipses, sample: "...Without having to account for their actions ...
Citation needed tags, citations lacking throughout, and serious prose issues, start with this sentence: The previous 12th in the Siberian MD, and possibly the 15th(?) in the Far Eastern MD seem to have disbanded. Besides being uncited and weasly, the inserted question mark is something I admit to never having encountered anywhere on Wiki. As another example, most of the section it's in (Structure) is uncited.
Strange and inconsistent bolding in the Dispositions section.
Completely unformatted and chaotic citations. Two samples only:
^ История, структура, задачи и перспектиы развития
The three Keep declarations above are quite surprising; considering that it doesn't appear that WP:WIAFA was engaged, I hope they will be disregarded. The article needs a thorough and independent copyedit, a MoS check, an image review, attention to sourcing, and probably a sources check. I'll ping Ealdgyth. When more of the basics are in place, you might ask User:Epbr123 to do a MoS check; asking him now would be a bit abusive though, as the article is far from ready. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:18, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comments SandyGeorgia; I got this promoted on its content, and did not pay enormous amounts of attention to exact MOS and other stylistic requirements. Eurocoptre, Nick Dowling, and I are committed to seeing this article stay as a FA, and thus we will be working through the issues you raise one at a time to rectify them (which for me will mean learning a few new guidelines along the way). I would ask other commentators to give us the time required to fix the identified issues, and to kindly help identify any other deficiencies which are present. Currently I'm located right next door to the Advanced Research and Assessment Group at Shrivenham, one of the best places for producing analyses of the Russian armed forces (mostly by analysts who spend their professional time reading Russian-language sources), so while we're working through the stylistic issues, I'd be quite happy to engage on a point-by-point sources check of any sourcing or facts which need double-checking. Buckshot06(prof) 20:57, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As long as work is progressing, Marskell always allows time as needed; I'll check in periodically, and can also help on MoS cleanup as work progresses. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:56, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sandy, could you please assume good faith rather than declare that I didn't consult the FA criteria and that my comment should be ignored? - that's pretty rude behaviour. I did actually look at the FA criteria, and my view is, and remains, that the amount of work this article needs is fairly minor and doesn't justify de-listing. Formatting references is easy and the required MOS edits aren't a big deal. Nick Dowling (talk) 22:53, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I actually think quite a bit of substantial work is needed (prose and sourcing as well as the easier cleanup), hence my surprise at seeing Keep declarations from seasoned FA participants; at any rate, the work is doable. I'm sorry if I offended you, but because FAR work can proceed at a fairly leisurely pace, it's surprising to see a lot of Keep declarations when an article clearly isn't at FA status. Once again, my apologies for any offense. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:57, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Image:Big Emblem of Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.jpg - needs a verifiable source and summary
Image:Flag of Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.gif - needs a verifiable source and summary
Image:T-72 tank.jpg - needs a verifiable source ("usmc.mil" is as unhelpful as citing prose to "New York Times"). I searched the site for, among others, "T-72", "T-72 Tank", "Russia tank", "Russian tank", etc. and could not locate this image. How can we verify Marine (i.e. federal) authorship?
Comments regarding sources and the referencing in general.
Is it Kier, Giles or Kier Giles? Unclear from the context. Also are the sources by this author books? Periodicals? Is the CSRC the publisher? I see the abbreviation CSRC is finally expanded in ref 41? But it's used long before that.
Bare urls in references, they should have titles.
Website references that lack publishers and last access date.
While I understand the desire to not get involved in the minutiae of the MOS, there are good reasons for some of the rules. It helps imensely in finding your sources if the books or periodical titles are in italics, article titles are in quotation marks, authors are formatted consistently, a consistent format for volume and other information on periodicals is used, etc.
Please use link checker tool to check for dead links. I found that the very first footnote I clicked had a dead link.
References in non-english languages should give the language they are in, for the convience of the reader.
Most of the referencing problems are MOS issues, more than quality of sources, it appears. They are not formatted consistently, as there is no over all system to the refs. It appears you were trying to go for a "Short footnotes - longer references" system, but you've got longer entries in the footnotes and some of your shorter footnotes don't exactly conform to the way the references are presented, etc. For this stuff, Sandy would be an excellent resource to straighten out the formatting concerns. Ealdgyth - Talk02:52, 18 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm normally on board to help with just such work, but this article needs so much work that I'm not yet convinced it's the best place to expend my FAR efforts. If it is copyedited and fully cited, I can pitch in to help with MoS and citation cleanup, but it's going to take a sustained effort to bring it close to status. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:45, 18 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Per Buckshot's request, I've made a first pass through, leaving sample edits only.[41] To save me having to type it all up, please step back through my diffs where I explain each edit. There is much more to do, but this should get you started. I haven't even looked at citations, and there are still copyedit needs. I'll continue to peek in as you work and leave more sample edits. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:16, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It has been a week since my last commentary (again), the article has been under review for five weeks, and there have only been 11 edits, very little change to the article since my last query. Please ask Elcobbola and Ealdgyth to revisit if images and sources have been resolved; there is still a copyedit tag, and MoS issues have not been resolved. I will move to a Remove soon if progress has stalled. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:24, 3 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Remove, three edits the entire month of October, the article still has multiple tags, and work has stalled. The amount of work needed on this article cannot be accomplished at this pace. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:38, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Remove There are too many issues at the moment, and not enough people working on them. I just spent an hour working on the references but abandoned out of frustration, because there are so many conflicting styles being used. We cannot have FAs with cleanup tags on them. Although the specific content seems to be good, there are far too many style issues at the moment. Woody (talk) 08:47, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Closing. This article clearly has issues with regards to the criteria, starting with the lead which doesn't summarize the article. Nothing is happening here and I am taking the removes ahead of the rash of early keeps. Marskell (talk) 12:58, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I really think that this article has improved a lot during ths FAR and is very close to a decent FA now. Disconsidering "Keep" votes above isn't quite fair, especially that editors resolved most of the issues posted here. However, i'm opposing the closing of this review and wish to confirm my keep vote. Before stating that "nothing is happening here", have a look at how this article looked like before the review started, and compare it with its current form. --Eurocopter (talk) 13:19, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please stop posting This review has been closed by Marskell, it is awaiting the automatic archiving by Gimme's wonderful bot. Please post any further comments about moving forward to the article talkpage. Regards. Woody (talk) 17:50, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.
The article was removed by User:Marskell 14:53, 9 October 2008 [42].
Support removal!!!! Good lord, this is a FA opposite! How the hell did this manage to even make it into the candidate list of acceptable nominations? The majority of the article can be called speculation or original research, very badly referenced so few times. Additionally:
Strong POV issues. I have seen the word 'famous' in there a few times already, one is too much unless it is an extreme case of acceptance (which this is not).
Image:Wooswhoopee02.jpg is about to be deleted.
Far too many nonexistent pages are linked! The page is polluted with red links everywhere. I personally don't like doing or seeing this at all, but it can be a blind issue sometimes. As I said, far too many red links. Quite simple really - if the page doesn't exist, don't wikilink it!
Some layout and format issues are visible. Lead may also be a bit too long. This page is in need of a desperate cleanup! Nowhere near FA status! Domiy (talk) 03:10, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Declarations of keep or remove are not made in the review phase; read the FAR instructions. Additionally, lower standards were held for featured articles in 2004, understandably, since the FA process was very new at the time. Nousernamesleft (talk) 22:52, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have noted a number of instances of NPOV, a least two dozen redlinks and an image about to be removed, along with a dodgey referencing style that in totality means a redo is in order. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 03:27, 15 September 2008 (UTC).[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.
The article was removed by User:Marskell 14:53, 9 October 2008 [43].
This article passed FA nearly four years ago (16 December 2004), and underwent a peer review a little over one month later. By the standards we have now, I'm not sure this article passes the featured article criteria.
My main concern is the POV issues. While the article discusses in detail the actions taken by the UN, it doesn't describe what the North Koreans were doing. For example, it describes the planning done by UN forces, but there is no mention of what North Korea was doing in anticipation. Surely North Korean military intelligence had spies to keep them informed on potential attacks. Was North Korea building up fortifications, as only hinted at by the article ("the guerrillas gathered information about […] enemy fortifications" and "the Marines entered Seoul to find it heavily fortified")? Were there campaigns of disinformation to deceive the North Koreans (or vice versa)? This article is written almost entirely from the UN point of view! Granted, there are probably few unbiased North Korean reports of the battle (if any exist), but surely some North Korean POWs, or military officers who later defected, had some different accounts from what is presented here. Even the account of a historian about the North Korean actions—whether the historian be North Korean, South Korean, American, French, Gabonese—might help remove the POV.
Secondary to that, the article hardly contains any inline citations (10 references used a total of 11 times). There are many extra references listed at the bottom, so I don't doubt the information is true, but it is preferred if the facts presented can be attributed to the proper source. Do the people at FAC consider this important?
Finally, the lack of comprehensiveness (aside from the POV issues) is another concern: are "Background", "Battle", "Aftermath", and "Popular culture" really the only aspects to consider? — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 01:30, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for asking for this article to be reviewed, Twas Now. To be frank, this article does not even pass the B-class criteria, imo. There are many statements in the article which I believe should be verified, which I will proceed to highlight with 'citation needed' tags, that are not supported by a source, reliable or otherwise. 10 inline citations is not enough to allow an article to be FA-class.
As for POV, from my study of the battle, I have been informed that there is very little information available regarding North Korea's view of the fight, due to the fact that North Korea has rarely released military information to the outside world. I would like to see an article that balances NK's and the UN's account of the engagement at Incheon, but I do not believe that can be practically achieved. Still, we should still try to get more information on NK's view of the Battle of Incheon, nonetheless.
I don't expect any official North Korean accounts exist, either. If they do exist, I suspect they would be heavily biased, or probably outright fabrications. Still, it's hard to believe there would be no accounts whatsoever (even US accounts) of what the North Korean army was doing. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 01:50, 16 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comment North Korea is such an isolated country (self-imposed) that very little is broadcast about that country. Seeing as how their basic military thought hasn't changed in 60+ years, the U.S. may indeed have information, but are unwilling to share such information with the public because it is still classified. That said, the article is pretty good, but could use a good scrubbing. — BQZip01 —talk17:00, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Remove Most of the article is unsourced, especially since it has only 12 inline citations. As a result, this article fails 1c of the FA criteria, and thus it should no longer be listed as an FA-class article. 86.149.61.123 (talk) 18:30, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Right now we aren't deciding if this should be kept or removed. We discuss possible improvements (many have occurred since I started this FAR), but if the issues are not resolved, then the article can be brought to "Featured article removal candidate", where we will vote. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 21:19, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The FARC commentary has now started. As a result, 'remove' or 'keep' can now be added. Also, whilst some improvements may have been made to the article, it only has 12 inline citations, only 1 up from when the review was started nearly two weeks ago, and that means that large areas of the article are unsourced. A largely unsourced article does not pass FA criteria 1c, and as a result, it cannot pass the FA criteria. 86.149.61.123 (talk) 23:07, 27 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Remove. The article has been worked on a bit since this FAR started but many of the above issues have not been addressed and some serious referencing issues still remain. Cirt (talk) 09:45, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Remove Citation needed tags need clearing. As I do not read Korean, it is very difficult to assess the copyright status or sources of most of the images. DrKiernan (talk) 11:58, 1 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]
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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.
The article was removed by User:Marskell 14:53, 9 October 2008 [44].
Numerous unreferenced statements. It's pointless pointing them out, there are far too many of them. First noticed it in the first section where there are claims of the origin etc. It continued many times throughout the article. Furthermore, it has a couple of single [citation needed] tags, with an entire section needing additional references as per the tags. Furthermore, it has a quality standard tag for another section.
Constant bad layout!. There are some paragraphs which are just a sentence and then skip to the next few paragraphs. The page is, in simple terms, ugly. The 'Production' section squashes text between two large images and there are visible signs of inappropriate use of bold and italic text. And whats with the [NOTE:] things? This isn't good for an encyclopedia. Include as much info as you can in normal text without placing small private messages in brackets or parentheses! Again, there's no use going through and picking out specific parts; it is continuous throughout the entire article!
The 'History' section occurs halfway through the article!!!
Perhaps somebody could check the copyright of these images. I have some small suspicions as to using constant paintings and possibly copyrighted photos repeatedly. I dont know much so this should be just affirmed as legal.
The long quotes from critics etc can be placed normally in quotation marks or maybe even quote boxes if desired. Again, this page is constantly looking very broken and out-of-format. This needs a desperate cleanup and possible copyedit.
And I almost forgot; some few references are lacking, at the very least, publisher information. Some even lack date and author info.
Sorry to edit repeatedly, but I have another further suspicion. I think the references all need checking by appropriate experienced users. I have already stumbled upon some that may be deemed unreliable. Maybe its just me, but who knows. These need to be checked.
Coincidentally enough, I came onto the page in search of information on absinthe. I was somewhat pleased when I saw it was a featured article, but after less than 5 minutes I was stunned, disseminated and speechless as to how this article is possibly still an FA. If you ask me, everyday this article remains as an FA is heavily humiliating the process and criteria for Featured Articles. Domiy (talk) 03:40, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I checked the the images for copyright. Image:Pernodad.jpg lacks the required information and I've nominated it for deletion on Commons. Image:Affiche absinthe.jpg is by Albert Gantner (1866-?), but if we assume that he died before 1938, the image is PD as well. The other images appear to be correctly labeled as PD or as freely licenced. Sandstein 05:32, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with most of the above comments. Frankly I have been dismayed at the number of people who will appear here, fight over a small comment and then leave without touching the many things that needed improvement even when the article was FA quality. Hopefully this review spurns more interest as I just don't have the time anymore to keep things up or to clean up messy sections. I will try to help however :) -- Ari (talk) 06:15, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Remove (sorry Sandy :p) As any issues raised seem to be inactively considered. It looks like the editors of the page don't really care about the article anymore. On top of extreme lack of references, the layout, structure and overall presentation of the article is not appropriate by any standards and can easily be fixed up with time and care. Domiy (talk) 00:04, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I also Support. :D The editors don't "not care" but the few that apparently have been keeping the page up have been too busy. As the original editor to push it to FA status, if no one steps up to fix up the page I would vote Remove from the FA list. -- Ari (talk) 16:47, 28 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.
The article was removed by User:Marskell 12:04, 6 October 2008 [45].
Rudyard Kipling is a 2004 Brilliant prose promotion, in need of review and tuneup. There are numerous citation tags, some prose issues, very poor image layout, and MoS cleanup needed. The lead is overcited and images may need review. The bottom of the article has taken on some listy cruft. Citation cleanup is needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:10, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Comments I made some changes with the images to ease the formatting problems in the first section. The major problem is the use of "center" for poems, the overuse of block quotes with images near by, and the excessive image descriptions. This, if done throughout, will ease about 85% of the formatting problems. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:57, 5 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Brief review of the lead by Eubulides
Alas I don't have time now to read the whole article, but here's a brief review of the lead.
The lead's first sentence is unwieldy and does not satisfy the criterion in WP:LEAD #Establish context. It doesn't establish context and it only poorly says why Kipling is notable. Ideally, the lead's first sentence should briefly cover the entire arc of Kipling, including India, his best-known works, his popularity, and criticism over his prejudice/militarism.
The lead should not mention relatively-obscure works like Puck of Pook's Hill, Ulster 1912, Life's Handicap, The Day's Work, and Plain Tales from the Hills. Kipling's fame rests on The Jungle Book, Just So Stories, Kim, individual short stories such as "The Man Who Would Be King", and individual poems like "If—", "Gunga Din" and "Mandalay"; that's enough for the lead.
Poem titles like "If—" and short story titles like "The Man Who Would Be King" should be quoted, not in italics; see MOS:TITLE#Quotation marks.
Agree with SandyGeorgia that the lead is overcited. Try to stick with high-level relatively-noncontroversial stuff here.
The quote "innovator in the art of the short story" is out of place here. Reword using our own words.
The Henry James quote is not that famous. Really. It's not needed in the lead at all.
The Orwell quote is not needed in the lead. Reword using our own words.
The Kerr quote is way too long. Again, this stuff should be reworded in our own words.
Words to avoid: "However". "famously" (if it's in the lead, "famously" is implied).
What I sense from the lead is that there is a reasonably large amount of controversy among Wikipedia editors over Kipling, and that this controversy has been resolved by citing a lot of quotes in a sort of Simon-says style. That kind of style is not prose that is expected for featured articles; see WP:FA? 1a, which says the prose should be "engaging, even brilliant". Alas, this lead feels like it was written by a bickering committee.
A whole section certainly seems very odd. A mention somewhere might be nice (I remember being alarmed as a child when I saw the books). Perhaps one could work it in to a couple of sentences on his views on the Nazis. N p holmes (talk) 07:23, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As one of the people who contributed to the Swastika section, I think that it should remain because before it was in place in its current form there were lots of comments/edits about Kipling's supposed Nazi sympathies mentioning the swastika. Also as N p holmes has pointed out, it was significant in his experience of Kipling when he came across it. Dabbler (talk) 10:51, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Problems
The introduction is a mess: the second sentence is a classic example of Wikiprose (shoehorning of a biographical detail into a sentence devoted to other matter, Borgesian category schemes). The biography seems reasonable, but we don't get much clue to what the major works were about or why they were interesting. The treatment of his reputation is bad: broad brush positions that it's hard to believe anyone could hold supplied without citations; the same material reappearing at different points in the article. N p holmes (talk) 08:21, 7 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Image problems
The claim of fair use for images of Sukh Niwas Palace, Kipling House, Naulakha and Poet's Corner (Image:Bundi palace1990.jpg, Image:Kiplinghouse villiers steet.jpg, Image:Naulakha fall.jpg, Image:Kipling poetscorner.jpg) are dubious because those buildings still exist, so it is possible just to go there and take a picture.
The claim of fair use for Image:Plaque theirnamelivethforevermore.jpg is far too weak. We don't need a picture for the use of a phrase.
Image:Kipling funeral1936.jpg lacks a source.
As there are two images of swastikas, the fair-use one *must* go since it can be replaced easily with a free-use image. Consequently, I have deleted it.DrKiernan (talk) 08:55, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]
