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Provide automatic temporary semi-protection to featured articles?

Since featured atricles ARE on the front page of Misplaced Pages, they must have giant targets on them for vandalism. I propose providing temporary semi-protection for featured articles, for the duration of them being featured on the front page.Inspector 34 15:16, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

WP FA Awards - best FA of the year?

I had a look through the archives - I thought a way of promoting FA involvement would be a warm and fuzzy celebration, say a vote for all articles gaining Featured status between Jan 1 & Dec 31 2007. Categories could be Best (overall) - based on prose?, most ambitious (from a controversial area or subject prone to opposing POV and/or edit warring), most esoteric etc. ....Has there been one in past years? cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:08, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

One I can suggest right now as either a criteria for the 'best overall' or for its own award: hardest article to bring up to FA status. Certain controversial topics are ****HARD**** to bring up to FA status, and I think the people who do these deserve extra recognition. Raul654 16:33, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Re warm and fuzzies, I don't think picking a "best" will work (in fact, it may actually be divisive in choosing). I have had some related thoughts. At the end of the year check WP:WBFAN and make a list of the top ten or fifteen for the signpost and/or some other announcement, with an informal award for the winner (I'm betting on DrK, at the moment, unless Yomangani gets back in there.) There could also be an award for core topic FAs along with the hardest category Raul suggests. Marskell 16:50, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Awadewit (talk · contribs) clearly. 8 on the WBFAN, I think another that was nominated by another person, and two more on the way. And probably another half dozen by year's end. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 02:04, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

We don't need more divisiveness, and this will be divisive. Hardest to bring to status already raises concerns. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:53, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

It won't be divisive if there's no voting and the awards are tongue-in-cheek. I'd like to nominate my Norte Chico civilization for the "Scooping Britannica" category. Marskell 16:56, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Maybe it would be a good idea to give awards for the best media featured article, best music featured article, best historic featured article and so forth through all the categories. The winners of these awards can go through to a final round to see which is the best featured article of all. You could have the people who nominated the award giving a short statement about why their article should win (the summary could be limited to a certain length - say 1,000 characters). ISD 17:02, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I like this idea. I hardly think it will be divisive. It would essentially equate to peer recognition, and there's nothing wrong with that. If there's lack of broad support make it "official", do it in someone's user space. — Brian (talk) 04:27, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm in. this is a great idea. I would say limit the awards to a small # of categories though (i'd say 3 or 5). Too many categories and the voting starts to suck. -Ravedave 20:12, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

(unindent) OK then, an idea to make it aspositive and uncontroversial as possible is to make it fairly modest/unassuming, lighthearted and as circumscribed as possible to increase objectivity. Awards could be - best prose (rather than best overall article which would be way subjective), best creation out of a subject prone to POV/editwarring, and most unusual subject (?). I am keen on 1 and 2, not too sure about 3. Agree maybe 3 is enough to see how it goes. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:25, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

What three categories would it be then? I'm guessing "Sciences," "Popular Culture," and "People," but that still leaves out a sizable chunk of articles, seeing as there are many FA's on different topics. Also, what about other featured class things, like topics, media, and lists? bibliomaniac15 15 years of trouble and general madness 02:25, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, no all mine would be open to all categories of FA - subject is no issue - the 3 awards are prose, eye-in-a-hurricane controversy-save FA, and..unusual, but there may be a better one for the last.cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:01, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps we could combine the two systems. The prose, eye-in-a-hurriance-controversy-save, and the most unusual awards, and then we could have the category awards. One possible category system could be to create eight awards, one for each portal listed on the main page. So there would the best FA in the fields of art, biography, geography, history, mathematics, science, society and technology. Then the winners of these eleven awards would go through into a final round to determine the best FA of the year. So there would be twelve awards althogether. ISD 07:26, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Sounds too complex to me. How about 4 awards: Best prose in humanities type stuff, best prose in tech/science, eye-in-a-hurriance-controversy-save, and the most unusual awards. -Ravedave 17:33, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

What exactly is complex about it? As far as I can see, it is simply giving out 11 awards, and those winners are all up for a special award. ISD 17:47, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

It's an unknown quantity really - depends on interest. I haven't done anything like this so someone who's been round longer than me may have more of an idea.cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:02, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Gameplan then

OK - what I'd propose:

Process: - Nominations can come from any article which became a Featured Article between Jan 1 and Dec 31 2007. Voting opens Jan 1 and closes Jan 31 2008. Only named accounts can vote, and once in each category. Winner announced Feb 1 2008.

Awards: - I'll hunt around for one of our graphic artists to come up with something cool...

Dilemma - still, how many cats?

Definite

• Eye-in-a-hurricane Award for FA in most controversial subject. Controversy can be interpreted by real-world (e.g. Yom Kippur War, Shroud of Turin), wiki edit-warring (Asperger Syndrome), or both (Ronald Reagan). Subject must still be FA at Dec 31 2007.

• Prose Award for inspiring brilliant prose that's a pleasure to read. (Note - we can have one award or split into 2 (or more) cats.

Possible

Split off prose awards?

Most unusual article?

Comments here

Please indicate optimum number of awards and others it might be fun to have, and don't forget to sign.cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:32, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

• May be a good idea, but keep it simple. Maybe three best, period? PS They're all supposed to be "a pleasure to read", which is the reason I huff and puff in the FAC room. :-^) Tony (talk) 11:46, 20 September 2007 (UTC) PS it may save a lot of trouble if a committee of the Director of FAC and the two delegates for FAR/C do the initial nominating of, say, 12, from which three are chosen by popular vote. Tony (talk) 11:51, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I know they're all supposed to be a pleasure to read but every now and then one pops up and I just think, "wow". I think keeping it open is good as people really feel like they get to choose their choice rather than something predetermined, however I have no idea how many would be interested and then again, maybe it'd be really hard to read them all. Have to muse on this one...cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:27, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

• The optimum number is zero; it's a distraction. If anything, look at the five top generators of new FA material at the end of the year, and award them based on volume, but setting up voting within specific categories may create divisiveness which is not needed here. Lots of articles are hard to bring to FA for lots of different reasons (look at the off-Wiki lobbying all of the autism articles have to deal with); let sleeping dogs lie and award volume if anything (that is, TimVickers, Yomangani, etc.) without popularity contest "voting" by category. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:51, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

• An issue: We are promoting 50+ articles a month, that means there will be at least 600 FA's by year end. I highly doubt anyone not involved in promotions will be able to read them, so how the heck can we give out an award based on having the best prose? -Ravedave 22:02, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

• I will second Ravedave and Sandy... We're approaching the same issue FAC itself has been said to suffer from: how can we select "the best" articles without "actually reading" all ~600? In terms of recognition, I'd rather see a little committee give users who achieved an FA an award on their talk page at year-end. –Outriggr § 23:50, 20 September 2007 (UTC) Or, wiki-style, you could just let people "pay tribute" to the FACs they liked by listing them under an existing or new category of their choosing. Loose, informal, no awards. –Outriggr § 23:54, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

(sigh)..yeah..once I started thinking about how much reading was involved...it does come across as rather labour intensive.. :( cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:46, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Extensive voting: no. It really will be labour intensive (are we all going to drop working on FA reviews for a month to vote on last year?—if it takes a month, it'll reduce 2008 FAs by 1/12 :).

But: the general motivation is a good idea. Spotlighting the top ten or twenty nominators, I think is fine. Someone may read and think "hey, I want to be on there next year"—that's good motivation. And I do think, basically, that the person who has the most should be given a prize—tongue-in-cheek, but still respectful. Or maybe just a gold-silver-bronze. If bronze is a six-way tie, we give out six of them. Any FA prize shouldn't take itself too seriously, but should acknowledge the effort involved.

Maybe we could have one vote for the the "hardest to do" category. But no extensive voting. Marskell 01:09, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree about the labour-intensive nature of this; the reading makes it impossible. The "hardest-to-do" one might work. For the "most FAs successfully nominated this year" award, I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that I am indeed motivated by that sort of thing, and have been using it as a personal motivational benchmark anyway. I think it would quite probably motivate some of the prolific contributors to try to rack up a few more. RickBot does keep a 2007 list already, in Misplaced Pages:Featured articles nominated in 2007. A quick bit of Excel sorting gives this as an approximate current top nine:

• 10 - Mike Christie, Yomangani
• 9 - DrKiernan, Hurricanehink
• 8 - Awadewit
• 7 - Epbr123, 17Drew
• 6 - Dineshkannambadi, Cla68

Can't tell how accurate this is. Mike Christie (talk) 15:43, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Should there be an award as well, like a amazon gift card which can be used for more research. Thanks 131.94.145.132 01:19, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Administors can nominate the top six in each category, and then members can vote on those nominations. Basketball110 03:36, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

My proposal

OK, I just want to place down the system I have so the two can be easily compared. I propose 12 awards. Three of these would be the ones mentioned by Cas liber - Most Controversial Featured Article, Featured Article with the Best Prose and Best Unusual Featured Article.

I also propose The Field Awards - Awards given to articles that deal within certain fields. I propose eight fields.

• Best Featured Article in the field of The Arts
• Best Featured Article in the field of Biography
• Best Featured Article in the field of Geography
• Best Featured Article in the field of History
• Best Featured Article in the field of Mathematics
• Best Featured Article in the field of Science
• Best Featured Article in the field of Society
• Best Featured Article in the field of Technology

An article can be nominated for more than one award, as long as there are reasons given are justified by the user nominating it. The winners of these 11 awards will become candidates for Best Featured Article of the Year.

I propose voting for the first eleven awards should take place in 1-15 January, with the winners announced on 16 Jan. Voting for Best FA of the year should take place in 17-31 Jan, with the winner being announced on 1 Feb. Only registered members of Misplaced Pages can vote, with one vote per category.

I also propose that the person responsible for getting the article up to featured article status should be given a tangible award. Something like a certificate of achievement. ISD 11:59, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

You mean, like, on paper? I just thought of some really groovy graphic...I hadn't thought of that, that could involve getting something out of the wikimedia foundation which might make it serious...hmmm..verrrrry interesting cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:33, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm... what if the best Mathematics article was a Biography of a mathematician? Which category would it fall into? What if there were two biographies of mathemeticians that were better than any other biography? Would one win one award, and one win the other? I think this might be too complicated. What about: slimming the categories down to 2 of the 3 from above (Controversial and Unusual), and then a Best in Humanities (combining Arts, Geography, History, Society), a Best Biography, and a Best in Science and Technology (combining Mathematics, Science Technology). Then the 5 could compete for Best Overall Featured Article. Smaller, yet robust enough for enough coverage. Mahalo. --Ali'i 13:46, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

If it's a biography at all, either of a mathematician or biologist then it goes under the category of Biography. Wikidudeman 14:01, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, I said that one article could feature in more than one award, so you could a mathematican in be in the mathematics, the biography and the best prose award, and it could win all three. Under my system, at least one article would win two awards anyway, because one of the winning articles would win "Best article of the year". ISD 16:44, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment. I like this idea. I also propose that one cannot nominate their own article or an article to which they have extensively contributed, strictly peer-nominated. ♫ Cricket02 19:35, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Hey I just skim things now 'cause I'm very very busy. It makes me look dense 'cause I miss a lot of the content. Sorry if that's the case here too...

But I wanna say I Strongest Possible Oppose making an award for "Hard to Promote" or Eye in a Hurricane Articles! the prob is that articles can be hard to promote for two reasons:

1. Controversial
2. many implementation probs with that particular article.

The prob with rewarding articles of the #1 category is that the award implicitly chooses sides in a debate. You say, no, we're above that, this is disinterested, we're rewarding hard work etc. Isay, I simply do not care. Appearances are appearances, and giving a second layer of awards to an article that is inherently controversial is giving a cookie to the side that won out on the FA by some means or other.

The idea of rewarding #2 above somehow seems legit.. kinda.. sorta.. but inevitably bleeds over into #1 so badly that it cannot be acceptable.

So.. no, no a thousand times no. --Ling.Nut 08:16, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

• I think we could go with this proposal and the one above. One for each category, and then an overall. Like the Academy Awards. Basketball110 (talk) 02:28, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

So are we doing these awards or not? ISD (talk) 17:14, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Question about ref placement with regard to books for FAs

I'm working on an manga, hoping to make it a FA. In a few places, there are going to be 3 sentences in a row, all using the same book as their reference. Should I put a "ref name=" after each sentence, or just at the end of the three? If I mention the authors name in the sentence, then is a ref not needed? I ask because it looks a little odd to me to see the same little number repeated so close to itself. Thanks. - Peregrine Fisher 03:31, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd say that if you are sourcing three sentences in succession to the same book, only one source citation is required (at the end of those three sentences). If you later decide to insert a sentence between any of those three, though, you should probably break it into three cites (Book 1, Book 2, Book 1 again). If you mention the author's name in the prose itself, you can abbreviate the reference if you wish. For example, "Historian Rosemary Higgins calls the manga 'the best ever'.<ref>''Manga I Like'', 2005. New York: Bothan Publishers, p. 7.</ref>" It's often a good idea to include a separate bibliograpy-style section where you cite all sources used in the article in full, though (see, for example, Donkey Kong (arcade game)). Hope this helps! — Brian (talk) 04:33, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Cool. Thanks for the quick and detailed response. - Peregrine Fisher 04:41, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Brian's advice is correct. If you write a multi-sentence paragraph that draws on material from one source, the source need not be cited after every single sentence - Misplaced Pages:When to cite Raul654 15:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Is this FA worthy?

I'm trying to judge what sort of differences there are between GA and FA. Specifically, I'm trying to get a feel for what would be expected of my currently GA articles if I want to bring them to FA. I find GA sometimes arduous, othertimes easy, and if there's some way I can predict how much work it would be to go all the way to FA, I might consider it more often.

The Toronto Magnetic and Meteorological Observatory is currently GA, and has been featured on the front page in the did you know section. It has a reasonable selection of pictures, ample references, and a further reading section with lengthy references. Is this FA material? If not, what sorts of things would have to be hit in order to improve it to FA?

Maury 16:11, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

What qualifies as GA or FA all depends on who is judging it. Some people are stricter with GA's than most are with FA's. There are a lot of people who would say that the article you linked doesn't even meet GA status. Most would probably say it doesn't meet FA status. One main problem is that there are entire paragraphs without sources. Wikidudeman 16:25, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

So would it be fair to say that in order to pass FA one needs to have at least one ref per para? What about the case when several paras are all from the same source? Post them anyway? Maury 16:26, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Generally that helps. Do you know how to use the same ref twice? You should at least use one ref per paragraph even if it's the same ref. Or you could alternatively find new references to use to improve reference diversity. Wikidudeman 16:36, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

P.S. Remember that references go after sentences they are sourcing. Wikidudeman 16:37, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I know how to use REFs. I generally detest articles with over-ref-ination, like the Halo one. There's so many superscripts that the text is rendered almost unreadable, and paragraphs become invisible. So when a passage of text is contained within one reference, I include one reference.

Is this really the criterion though? Referencing style? Am I missing something, or is the purpose of FA to feature really great articles? I've had the same question over at GA as well; rarely are the comments about content (with the above article being one of the few counterexampels), it's always "references, references, references". It seems no one actually reads the article to see if it's, you know, "good".

But ok, is this article FA if it has one ref per para or more?

Maury 17:56, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Reference style is just one little thing. I generally don't think that 1 reference per paragraph would make it too hard to read. I'll do a little work on it. I'll also add "citation needed" tags to where I think a citation should go. You can follow behind and add them. Wikidudeman 18:02, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

You could also expand the lead a bit. Add a few more sentences to it to better summarize the article. Wikidudeman 18:15, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I give up. Maury 19:10, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Haha... Featured Article mean's one wikipedia has to offer. Featured article meant it's Great and has Great Writing Style, Great formatting, Great sourcing, Great NPOV, Great pictures. Good article means it's good writing style, good formatting, good sourcing, good NPOV, good in general. See Featured Article Criteria, Good Article Criteria.

I don't think current tribulations to get status are very reliable, as part of wikipedia's general unreliability problems

A good way to see the difference is to look at a couple of FA status articles and compare them to GA status articles, the difference is (hopefully)noticeable.--Keerllston 18:03, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Well this is precisely what I did, and from what I can see, there is no quantifiable difference. For every great FA there's another article I consider to be absolute trash. Looking over the discussions, it appears that the FA tag is granted almost entirely on whether or not the article has enough references. It certainly doesn't have anything to do with "good" or "great". For instance, consider Halo: Combat Evolved. There are portions of absolutely horrible prose, huge tracks of complete trivia, and it's completely disorganized. How did it become FA? Read the thread yourself, it's FA due almost entirely to the TWO PAGES of refs for every conceivable statement in the article. Maury (talk) 22:57, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

I believe writing style is the hard to quantify, and hard to review for. What both GA and FA mostly review for is errors - copy editing, weasel, peacock, organization, sufficient referencing, NPOV. I don't believe that most FA's are brilliantly written, but they mostly look professional.
What GA did you compare Halo to? I just now compared to random GA article Halo has very nice formatting, and is very well organized compared to the one I'm comparing it to. It also references what it says, and does not have weasel statements or have statements that lack attribution. It has proper pictures and looks very good.
The Halo: Combat Evolved Article get's a lot of bad rep for having too many references, but references 35-51 take up the space of 61-100
Perhaps you are complaining about the emphasis on referencing/citations? According to User:Andrewa two recent changes in wikipedia are the added emphasis on sources and the added emphasis on official names.--Keerllston 02:05, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Wowo. just, wow.

Is it me, or are there more articles getting to FA-class?! I swear, every 2-5 days, theres a new FA-class article on the main page! Wow! About a year ago (or 9 months) I used to see an FA-calss article on the page for weeks. Things are truly shaping up on Misplaced Pages!

GOOD JOB! THROUGH FIRE JUSTICE IS SERVED! 00:22, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Since about february, the net production rates (newly promoted ones minus demoted ones) has increased noticeably. See the 1st graph at the bottom of Misplaced Pages:Featured article statistics Raul654 00:25, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

As for the frequency at which the Main Page is updated, it's been daily ever since I've been here (December 2005). You might want to check that your browser cache preferences are set to check for a new version of a page every time you visit it, unless you have a slow connection. — TKD::Talk 00:32, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

December 2005? Newb ;) Raul654 00:33, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

I should've seen that coming. :p — TKD::Talk 00:35, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Some stats I put together a while back: Misplaced Pages talk:Featured article candidates/archive23#Promote.2Farchive stats SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:24, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

The increase bothers me, because it's unrelated to the quality, or if it is, it's likely to be an inverse correlation. Tony (talk) 11:47, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't there is any way to tell if a correlation between number of promotions and quality exists. Either the standards have stayed the same and the quality has risen or the quality may be stable or lower but the standards have dropped. A third possibility is that the standards have increased but the quality has risen at an even great rate, which is most ideal but not very likely. Gizza 12:01, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Hang on. aren't there more editors all the time? We have a dynamic not a static population so that's another veriable to throw into the mix.cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:29, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

PS: Has anyone calculated the number of users commenting on all FACs in a given month compared with one in the past (i.e. to calculate average and median number reviewers per FAC)? Let's say August 2007 with August 2006? Might be a first step to examining this —Preceding unsigned comment added by Casliber (talk • contribs) 09:24, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Cas, Gimmetrow and I spent seriously months in archives when we built the {{articlehistory}} templates. Without doing the math, I'll assert that the number of reviewers and the quality of reviews have seriously grown (the Stuttering example above is not atypical—there was a lot of "I like it" in the past). The number of FACs promoted to FA has also grown commensurate with the overall growth of Wiki. The only number that has dropped is the number of failed FACs, and my sense on that is that I agree with what Raul said on the earlier stat thread I linked above; Raul is letting reviews run much longer now, so we work on each FAC longer, we're working much harder, and less articles are failing. We're doing Peer review work here, where in the past, a couple of quick Opposes and the article was archived. My sense is that we're working harder, longer and better to promote more articles. I'd rather see some of that work move over to Peer review, but I don't see that happening. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:54, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Oops, wrong page on the Stuttering example, which is here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:58, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeah well, that's the thing. GA has had some rallies, maybe it's PR next...hmmm...maybe I'll drop in there soon. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:59, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I used to have a goal of doing one peer review a day (gee, a much better use of time than trying to sort out which version of the MOS is up hour by hour and what the current WIAFA is). Doing one peer review a day is time intensive, because you find yourself roped into following that article all the way through the process :-) If each one of us did one PR a day, I suspect things would improve at FAC, but it is time consuming. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:11, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

nominaton

I want to nominate Ho Chi Minh City ITC Inferno —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.71.211.66 (talk) 12:34, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

This is the wrong page. If you want to nominate an article for feature article status, send it here. ISD 13:12, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't recommend that particular article though, as it has no references and a {{wikify}} tag. Pagrashtak 15:06, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

That and the original upload was a likely copyvio, which hasn't been entirely fixed. The article also had one non-free non-fair use photo. This anon is likely the original creator of the article, who has a poor understanding of copyright. Natalie 14:23, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Article missing its little bronze star

Is there a reason why Selena is missing its FA star? I traced it to this edit, which has an edit summary implying that it was reverting a FAR, which I can find no evidence of. The talk page shows no signs of a FAR, and the music FA list still has Selena there. Hope this is the only one. Any need to request some bot to check the FAs for similar problems? Carcharoth 14:06, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

The Selena template at the bottom appears to be messed up, and apparently wiped out the little star. I moved the FA template so I think it's fixed now. Wizardman 15:53, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I always assumed the featured star template went at the top of the wiki-code page display (the bit you see when you press edit) anyway. I didn't realise you could put it elsewhere on the page and still have it appear at top right. Carcharoth 15:50, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

The template {{featured article}} goes at the bottom of the article (see the template instructions, it's less susceptible to vandalism there); the problem with Selena hasn't been solved, and appears to be in the coding of the collapsible navigational template at the bottom of the page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:55, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

The article Vega is missing its FA star. Is this a similar problem? — RJH (talk) 23:35, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Only if the nominator doesn't add the star :-))) WP:FAC/ar SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:53, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah. Well in the past it seemed to be automatically added and I wasn't sure what was appropriate. Thanks. — RJH (talk) 20:42, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages 1.0 topics

It seems to me that it would be a good idea to make the categorization of featured articles on this page compatible with the 10 Misplaced Pages 1.0 topics. This would mostly be just a matter of regrouping the headings, so that, for example "Computing", "Engineering and technology", and "Transport" would be subheadings of the Misplaced Pages 1.0 topic "Engineering, applied sciences and technology". The only additional changes would be the need to split "Art, architecture and archaeology" into "Art and architecture" and "Archaeology", and similarly to split "Philosophy and psychology" into two separate headings. However, this would seem to make sense from a logical point of view anyway, as these are rather different subjects. I'd be happy to make the change if others agree. Geometry guy 19:10, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

I nearly didn't post here, thinking that this might be a wiki-gnome activity, but instead the effects are quite interesting. I have experimentally made the two subdivisions suggested above, and it turns out that there are very few archaeology FAs, and very few (in fact one) psychology FA. This is a pity, as these are both important subjects within which there are many potential FAs. Perhaps it is because they are experimental/observational subjects, which tend to be less well represented at the FA level. I don't know, and won't comment further. Anyway, I still think a regrouping is a good idea, and possibly also some further subdivisions of the larger categories, now that the number of FAs is growing (1 in 1230 now, great!). Geometry guy 21:02, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

I can't think of any good reason that FA needs to follow 1.0, and we don't need categories here with one or three articles only. Further, the merge of Psychology and Philosophy was based on a very heated discussion, and Parapsychology is well placed in the merged category. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:10, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Consistency. WP 1.0 exists (by order of the founder) and makes a great deal of use of featured content; a great deal of thought (rather than heated debate) has gone into organizing it. Many articles now come with a topic parameter in their ArticleHistory indicating the WP 1.0 topic. Articles should be organised logically, not by numbers. It is easier to find an article in one of c. 30 categories if they are grouped in a logical hierarchy of ten. Combining archaeology with creative arts is nuts: its methodology is a combination of the historical and the scientific, not the creative.

Psychology could be folded in elsewhere, if this is an issue, but to be honest, if there was a heated debate over something as trivial as the categorization of this page (which is not used anywhere else on WP), it suggests that the participants were bringing baggage from elsewhere. Right now, this talk page is notably lacking in traffic. Geometry guy 08:14, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

I have now read the talk page archive on this, and am sad to find my suspicions confirmed. The completely unnatural "Psychology and Philosophy" section was a tired compromise generated by the totally irrelevant question of whether "parapsychology" is a science or not. Article categorization should not be determined by disputes over individual articles.

The advantage of WP 1.0 is that it is used in many places, and so is difficult to change. In fact, the current FA classifications correspond quite closely to the second level of the WP 1.0 hierarchy. By locking the two systems together, both are protected from disruptive change. I find the case for doing this is now even stronger after seeing the unedifying debate over parapsychology. Geometry guy 21:27, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

With the involved editors currently before ArbCom, I'm not highly motivated to debate this right now, but will point out that your proposal created a category of only one article, and another of only three articles. As one of the people who has to maintain the sister page (WP:FFA), I'm not crazy about that. Sometimes we do things because they make our maintenance chores easier, and I would absolutely hate to open the door to see this page go the way the GA page has gone; we try to keep broad categories for simplification. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:50, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely: the problem with the GA page is that it uses all three levels of WP 1.0, and then tinkers with them some more for good measure!! Thanks for pointing out that there is another page (WP:FFA) which uses this list. I agree that there isn't much point in splitting off categories with one article, but I note that the debate over parapsychology was generated by a request for a social science section containing psychology; this is exactly how WP 1.0 is structured. My own view is that maintenance is preferable to dispute: the latter wastes even more time. Geometry guy 22:03, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Gguy, where can I locate the definitions of these 3 levels of WP1.0 ? Anyway, it would be good to hear from Raul on this discussion. (Yes, we try to keep FA and FFA in sync.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:36, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

The reference I use is WP:0.5. GA and GAN are basically a corruption of this: the top two levels seem closer to FA than GA to me, because they don't have the GA tinkering. Geometry guy 22:47, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Got it; ok, now that I'm "fully informed", at what 3rd level there would parapsychology be parked? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:55, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm impressed by your speed! It would be parked under psychology, but because psychology is in socsci (i.e., not under natural science), there would be less outrage :-) Geometry guy 22:59, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Me, speed? Heck, there's no ball game on tonight! OK, so (would like to hear from Raul on this, but ... ) I don't think that solves the problem. That page is weird and has issues as well; for example, why is educational psychology under Education when it's a field of Psychology? And why are autism and asperger syndrome under Psychology when they are neurobiological, medical conditions treated by psychiatrists and neurologists (that really bugs me—they are *not* psychological conditions, and that really MUST be fixed). And how on earth do we justify parapsychology (a sorta/kinda belief system or philosophy) being grouped at the level of most detail together with genetic neurobiological medical conditions like autism and asperger syndrome? Humour under Psychology? Convince me that our solution here isn't much more logical and that WP 1.0 doesn't have just as many issues and ambiguities? The Psychology category there is *messed* *up*. FA should continue to do its own thing considering that WP 1.0 has the same kinds of issues that came up here; we followed Dewey Decimal System, so our reasoning wasn't pulled out of thin air because of a dispute. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:09, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree that WP 1.0 has several issues, and so does the FA classification. In WP 1.0 I also spotted: Film&TV under language won't work; atmospheric sciences under natural science, with geophysics under geography is inconsistent. (It is possible that these discrepancies have been fixed for later versions.) In the FA classification, in addition to the above, I noticed "Chemistry and mineralogy", which is a bizarre combination, considering that there is also "Geology, geophysics, and meteorology". But I was most amazed to discover that the FFA and FA classifications are different! The same thing happened at GA vs GAN for a while, but it has been fixed now (phew).

Anyway, the real point for me, is that whatever issues the classifications have, they should be resolved in the light of community consensus, not a debate over an individual article. I recognise that the solution for parapsychology wasn't pulled out of thin air, but it was pulled out because of a dispute. By and large, though, the top level of WP 1.0 is pretty stable. The main change I would make is to rename "geography" as "geography and geology", or something like that, so that we can put geology, mineralogy and meteorology in there while recognising that this is science. Geometry guy 23:38, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

FA and FFA are supposed to be the same; I thought I had synced them. What did I miss? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:14, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Found, Computers and video games. Someone else separated those long ago, and represented to me that they had done them in both places. Sheesh, must I do everything myself? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:19, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Video games is separate on FA, but not FFA; also FA has "Religion, mysticism and mythology", but FFA has "Religion and belief". I think/hope that is all... but this is all the more reason for establishing a stable classification ;) Geometry guy 00:25, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

I resynced them all; thanks. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:49, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Yep, I saw that. Good work. This exchange has made me realise how important the WP 1.0 categorization is. This is the front line of WP (e.g. for release versions)! It is used or adapted in many places. We should make sure it is good, and then use it sensibly in all our processes Geometry guy 01:04, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I don't speak video games (which is why someone else was to have done that) so I don't know if I made the split correctly. You're aware that a whole ton of people don't support the whole 0.5 and 1.0 and release versions business at all, right? I don't call them the front line of WP at all; I call this page the front line, in fact. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:09, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I exaggerated somewhat, but there can be more than one front line. Anyway, I disagree with you about support for 1.0. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that there has been some very vocal opposition, but that is not the same thing as "a whole ton of people". The 1.0 categories are widely used, and most, if not all, WikiProjects use the 1.0 assessment scheme (Start, Stub, B, A) and support the 1.0 process. Personally, I don't care one way or another about release versions, but find the structures helpful. I suspect that is quite a common view :-) Geometry guy 10:51, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Template:ContentReviewMedal

People were talking about the need for an award for Peer Review, so I made Template:ContentReviewMedal. However, it's not only for PR; can be used for FA GA PR etc. --Ling.Nut 08:18, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

milestone reached

1000 current FA have now appeared on the main page (if my maths is right). Buc 07:18, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Complaining

I happened to look at the comments page for Montreal Screwjob, and saw all the complaints about it getting FA status. This caused me to look at the comments for the past few FAs and saw they all had things like that. Is it a requirement that every FA has people whining "Why is this a featured article?!" ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Smart Mark Greene (talk • contribs) 19:44, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

"Those who can, do; those who can't, teach; those who can't teach, criticize." ;-) — RJH (talk) 23:37, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Lee Smith (baseball player) is another worthless and uninteresting sports statistics page.

I find FAing drivel like that embarrassing for Misplaced Pages and everyone who contributes towards spreading knowledge. It's featured for its citations. Is that all FA aims to highlight? Or does Misplaced Pages have an actual interest in educating people on more than who won the world series in 1965? Featured Articles shouldn't only be good articles, they should be articles worth reading.

In closing, those who know, do; those who don't, play or watch sports and wrestling. 69.121.19.215 (talk) 18:52, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Lee Smith looks like a high-quality biography to me. Just because you're not interested in sports or wrestling, doesn't mean everyone isn't interested. Oviously, if there are reliable outside sources that have written about these subjects, then they are certainly notable and of interest to someone with plenty of interested parties to take the time to write and source these quality articles. Personally, I've contributed and sourced articles about musicians, which may not be of interest to you either, but I'm sure they are of interest to someone. I would suggest that you contribute to something you're interested in, and see how much time you donate to it, before you criticize. ♫ Cricket02 (talk) 19:23, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

How many biographical articles are there about famous Roman gladiators, may I ask, versus Roman philosophers and artists? I don't criticize people's interests, I criticize a person's interests being valued interchangeably with human interest. Music, art, and knowledge are things that interest and impact humanity. Daily updates on the best sports teams articles aren't and don't, in my opinion. Historical sports, today, are valued for their insight into the brutality or development of a culture, not as a thing to be studied in itself.

Notable and of interest do not equate with worthy of being learned about and enlightening. People go to the FA to learn, why doesn't Misplaced Pages make an attempt to teach something worth knowing? Why am I being responded to as a catcalling nitpicker when these arguments are obviously recurring. Have you ever seen Deutsch language's Featured Articles? Other localizations have a very different policy about this; because guess what?: their cultures have more of an interest in modern history and culture than who the best batter was 50 years ago or what contracts Michael Jordan has with Nike. 69.121.19.215 (talk) 21:51, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I think FA simply validates that an article is written to high standards; that is, I don't think it should be the job of the FA candidacy page to deny FA status to pages that are judged notable enough to be in the encyclopedia. I'd also say that the articles that make it to FA simply reflect the interests of the editors, and not any institutional bias on Misplaced Pages's part. Hence I don't really see that anything can or should be done about the situation, except that encouraging good writers to write more FAs on important topics is always useful. I can't see any value in discouraging those who want to write about other topics, even if I don't personally feel those topics are high-value -- those editors aren't suddenly going to switch to core science or history articles, I suspect. Mike Christie (talk) 21:58, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Some of the greatest Greek poems were Pindar's tributes to athletes, and cities then thought athletic victories worth the trouble of commemorating for posterity in stone monuments--including those of wrestlers such as Milo of Croton. DGG (talk) 19:50, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Section merge proposal

The recreation article from "Sport and recreation" with the Video games section and rename it "Recreation". One problem with this is I'm not sure which section the wrestling articles would go into. Buc 16:40, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Organization of FA articles

I've gotta say, the way this page displays FA articles is a mess. Huge lists of articles under broad, general categories seems like a silly way to organize things, especially as more and more articles are promoted every day. Just take a look at the Music section to see what I mean: artists, songs, albums, operas, genres, instruments, even a song contest all smooshed into one uncomfortable alphabetized block. Other projects have much clearer, easy-to-understand ways of organization: WP:FL breaks things down into logical sub-categories when one gets too big, and WP:GA into even more sub-categories. Although I'm not proposing that either method be copied verbatim – though it would be nice to have a bit of consistency – I do think that something should be changed, at least in the geneal direction of the examples above. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Drewcifer 03:37, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it's a mess. I just noticed the fictional character Pauline Fowler has been included with real-life media people, who are also grouped with film titles, television titles and even episode titles. It was OK when each section contained a fairly short list, but it's grown to the point where I think we should start looking at sub-headers. Rossrs (talk) 02:52, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Have a look at the WP:GA page, which is atrocious; if we start subdividing, we could end up there instead, which is unusable in the other extreme. Did I place Fowler in the wrong place? If so, please move. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:06, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:GA is definately the other end of the spectrum, so can we come to a nice middle ground. Here's my suggestion: leave categories as is until they reach critical mass, then make subcategories on a case-by-case basis. The problem with WP:GA is that they tried to make it future proof by making every conceivable division, but then ended up with a bunch of 1/2/3 article listings. If we just do it as the need arrises, that might be a more effective method. Drewcifer (talk) 07:22, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

List of FAs sorted by the date they were promoted.

Is there such a list? It will be very useful. --Kaypoh 15:22, 15 November 2007 (UTC) Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates/Featured logBuc 15:37, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Can an article lose its FA status?

Once an article has become a Feature article, can it can lose its FA status? I'm looking at an article that became a FA in 2005 with only 9 references. By today's standards, I question whether or not it would have ever become a FA since it doesn't contain many references (currently 20 references) to back-up the majority of the text, which includes un-cited text quoted from a book and a bunch of statistics added after it became a FA. –panda (talk) 18:03, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

See WP:FAR, but *please* read the full instructions first, and consider listing the issues at the article's talk page first, to see if involved editors will improve the article, before bringing it to FAR. FAR is a bit backlogged right now, so attempts at resolving the issues without FAR are appreciated. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:10, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

The article in question is Swedish language, and I am discussing the issue with panda right now. However, it is disturbing to see how many of panda's complaints are merely over-zealous demands that certain aspects of the MoS be followed slavishly. I'm willing to bolster the references, but not based on many of the complaints so far.

I should also point out that panda has actually been removing references merely because they aren't specified with a footnote (but clearly cited in prose).

Peter 19:25, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Let's not exaggerate. I moved the references to the talk page until there was a clear reason for why they should be included. There was only one case of a reference mentioned in the text that I removed since I didn't see it when I skimmed through the text, but I have since then replaced it. At any rate, the Swedish language article could use some outside editors who can comment on the references, or lack or, in the article. –panda (talk) 20:27, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I had to revert your last edits because you just kept removing the same reference over and over, even after being explained how it was referenced in prose.

You're supposed to read article thoroughly if you wish to take it to a featured article review, not just skim through them briefly. FARs aren't particularly constructive ventures when users don't bother to read articles through properly until after they've made the request to have it reviewed, and then it often deteriorates to mere drive-by fact-taggings of random statements. Those kind of reviews tend to result in far more hot air and discontent among editors than actual improvements.

Peter 00:05, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I have no clue what you're talking about so diffs would be helpful. Anyway, let's please move this conversation back to Talk:Swedish language where it belongs. –panda (talk) 00:09, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

move to portal namespace

See Portal talk:Featured content#move to portal namespace. —Ruud 12:49, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Is importance an issue?

Is the importance of an article's topic a deciding factor in becoming a featured article?  — Noah¢s (Talk) 00:46, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

If a topic is notable, it can have an article on Wiki. The criteria for featured articles can be found at WP:WIAFA. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:59, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

In a word, no. Marskell (talk) 02:46, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

5000 milestone

I just noticed in the last week that the total number of good and featured articles is now over 5000. I believe the milestone was crossed on 20th December. It seems appropriate to celebrate this joint success in this season of goodwill and harmony, so congratulations to all those who have helped to improve the quality of Misplaced Pages articles both by working on content, and through involvement in the good and featured article projects! Cheers - Geometry guy 16:14, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Vasa (ship)

SS Andrea Doria, New Carissa and Pan Am World Airways are listed under Transport, but Vasa (ship) was just moved from Transport to History. Transport seems a more specific place for the historical transport articles, particularly since History is a large section. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:46, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

You could move it under Warfare (with all the other warships) and avoid the issue. ;-) Kirill 15:52, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

oh, thanks :-)) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:54, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Number of FAs?

The lead paragraph of this page says there are 1799 FAs. Category:Misplaced Pages featured articles only includes 194. What is the best way to find the accurate, current number? And assuming this page is more or less right, why are the vast majority of FAs not in the category? -Pete (talk) 18:52, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

The 1799 number is accurate. The 194 number you got from the category includes only the number displayed on the first page. If you click "next", you'll see the rest. Raul654 (talk) 18:54, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Gotcha, thanks. Not that I don't believe you, but I am curious if there's a way (without admin tools) to easily see how many there are (or for that matter, how many GAs)? Can you share how you know it's accurate? -Pete (talk) 19:13, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Paste the wikitext of the list from this article into a spreadsheet, alphabetically sort it, delete the column headings, and bingo - you have the count. Raul654 (talk) 19:18, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Well uh, I couldn't possibly have thought of that for myself, could I? ;) Thanks for explaining, sorry for the dumb question. -Pete (talk) 19:31, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Grandfathering revisited

I have just closed the Tale of a Tub as a default keep after a messy FAR.

Something needs to be done here. There is a group of FAs nominated in '04, those from ALoan, Bishonen, Filiochit, Geogre, and Giano that are continually leaving trainwrecks at the FAR. Aside from topics inherently controversial (Global warming, Intelligent design) the review manages every other "patch" of FAs—Emsworth, Piotrus, mav—well enough. There are two broad outcomes at FAR: nothing happens and it's removed; it improves and it's kept. And then there's this small group of articles that are default kept when the reviews go over the cliff because of the "1c debate." Not that there haven't been arguments over other articles, just that with these there is pattern of disaster, on-going for two years.

I'm completely sympathetic to "this article is as good as when I wrote it and the book sources have the info." Prose quality is never a serious issue. And, of course, the above editors are prolific FA nominators that I very much respect. At the same time, unless you argue that they have literally no statements likely to be challenged, some of the articles in question don't meet the modern WP:V policy, let alone current FAC expectations. Importantly, the nominaters at FAR are random; there's no coordinated effort to bring these articles there. Because it's random, it's going to keep happening. Someone else is going to nominate Tale of a Tub and it will be the same disaster.

So what should I be doing? Automatically closing Geogre's articles as soon as I notice them? If the FAR nominator was acting in good faith, that's not particularly fair. But to leave it up is to ensure drama.

Some form of grandfathering is the only thing I can think of. (Alternatively, defeaturing all at once, but that's especially unfair.) I have been thinking about this for some time, so have a rough outline. If: the original article writer is still active and will swear by all of the content; the article is book based, not web based; the bibliography is robust; and all other criteria are met. Then: the article is exempt from current 1c expectations, with the exception of direct quotes, a basic policy requirement. This would apply to articles prior to March '05, the month, I believe, where it was decided that all articles would be held to current standards. Note it's not just for the mentioned editors, but anyone with a similar article. FAR would handle it: basically, you bring an article there and say "I'd like this to be considered for grandfathering."

I can imagine all sorts of understandable objections. If you disagree, do me one favour: suggest what else should be done at FAR. Although not always successfully, I've tried to be a neutral operator and Joel has done the same. Marskell (talk) 17:50, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I absolutely agree that something needs to be done, and I too am sympathetic to the idea that we don't want to be defeaturing articles that met the standards at the time they were promoted, but I find the idea of having classes of featured articles very disquieting. For many years, we've been experiencing inflation of our standards - the tendency for articles that were good a year or two ago not to meet today's expectations. I think that standards inflation has, for the most part, leveled off over the last year, and I think that's a good thing. I'm open to everyone's ideas on the matter. Raul654 (talk) 18:18, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

My gut reaction to grandfathering articles is opposition. Looking at the history of Misplaced Pages:Featured article criteria, I see that in early 2005 there was no requirement for neutrality, but no one would seriously consider grandfathering in biased articles. While a lack of citations is by far more acceptable than a lack of neutrality, I still feel that the same principle applies—featured articles represent our best work, and are the face we wish to present to the world. Anything less than that is not what we want to present as a model to future articles and future contributors, even though its problems may be restricted to just one criterion of WP:FACR. Marskell suggests that one requirement for grandfathering would be that the original writer world "swear by the content", but this would give the reader of the article the impression that the word of an anonymous contributor passes for acceptable sourcing on Misplaced Pages. If an article does not meet the current criteria, it should not remain featured. That being said, I would not support the mass nomination of such articles, nor would I support defeaturing without ample time allowed (months, even) for the article to be improved to current standard.

As for A Tale of a Tub in particular, I think a sensible course of action would be to restart the FAR, but restrict it to the most pressing and less argumentative concerns. Namely, the deficiency of the lead and a lack of citations for direct quotes or attributions. Pagrashtak 18:42, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I would oppose grandfathering and definately agree with Pagrashtak that if an article does not meet the current criteria, it should not remain featured. Its only fair and all featured articles should be held to same exact standards, in order to represent the project's best work. ♫ Cricket02 (talk) 18:55, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

This is the only place I've heard of this even being an issue. I think a grace period may be a good idea, but not grandfathering. Wrad (talk) 18:59, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

• Following Marskell's grandfathering proposal, I'm ok with it except for the author swearing by all of the content. That seems to be focusing on the merits of the contributor, rather than the merits of the article. Thinking outside the box here, how about Veropedia vets it for us? They accepted A Tale of a Tub. I support a specific and pragmatic solution, like Marskell's proposal conditions (pre-March 05, non-web-based, no other fundamental problems), rather than a broad, catch-all policy. Also, I'd like to note that the fundamental goal of the FAR process is 'article improvement', the rest is just paper shuffling. --maclean 21:20, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Maitch has gone and restarted the FAR, here. I'm too tired to deal with it, for the moment.

Note that, at best, 2% of FAs would get through under the above criteria. Most have been removed already, brought to standard, or would have other issues that don't meet the criteria. It's mainly a means of reconciling certain editors to the process. But people seem against it, so I dunno. Marskell (talk) 08:53, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not thrilled about grandfathering either. I'll drop by and see what I can do at times to try and grease the wheels. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 09:11, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

• (edit conflict)I'm not too thrilled about grandfathering, but where referencing is the main issue, I think there is room for a special review procedure where the articles, perhaps suspended as FAs, are given a much longer period for the referencing to to be added (Wikipurgatory). Plus we need more editors like Coeil prepared to do this mostly tiresome work. Most will need academic library access. Are there very many more old unreviewed FAs left? Or are we reaching the bottom of the, er, Tub? Johnbod (talk) 14:13, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this is the appropriate place for this suggestion or not, but here it is anyway. I think a requirement for nominating a piece of literature for de-listing (especially based on "original research" concerns and similar content-based concerns) should be that one must have at least read the work that is the subject of the article. Not having done so does not allow the potential nominator to be able to distinguish between what is "original research" (or even what needs citation) and what is simply an "obvious on the face of it" statement of fact from the piece of literature. I apologize if this was not the place for such a suggestion.

As for grandfathering, I would agree with such a measure, especially for articles as outstanding as A Tale of a Tub. I love incline citations (check some of the articles I've written), but lack of such should not de-list such a beautifully-written article, in my opinion. -- Bellwether _C 14:11, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm strongly against that. I don't want any situation that creates a class of editors who can/cannot be involved in FAC/FAR. Anyone should be able to nominate any FA to FAR if there is a good faith concern. I don't need to have read Swift's A Tale of a Tub to know that the article A Tale of a Tub has an insufficient lead. Pagrashtak 16:38, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

• Of course you can adjudge whether a lede is the proscribed length or not. I'm speaking more about those who would nominate based on the more nebulous "original research" issue. It's very difficult for a reviewer who has not read the piece of literature to ascertain whether a portion of an article constitutes "original research" or not. It leads to arguments from ignorance; in other words, "I'm not sure if it's original research or not, so it must be original research." I think that's a rather large issue with such potential nominations. That was my only real point regarding that issue. -- Bellwether _C 17:58, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Even then, I would still argue that someone should be allowed in good faith to nominate. "I'm not sure if it's original research or not, but it needs to be reviewed for such." This is featured article review we're talking about—this should be right up it's alley. Pagrashtak 19:10, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm also against grandfathering since I don't like the idea of two classes of FAs and IMO an article that is featured should be able to pass through FAC at any time. Also of the five editors mentioned in the beginning, three have as far as I know left the project and can therefore not be expected to swear by the content of their articles. It is therefore unlikely that grandfathering would solve the problem. Instead I suggest a batch review process where more or less all articles left here are put up for a special review. The special review will last for x months (where x is considerably larger than the normal time allowed for FAR/FARC). After x months Raul and his deputies (ie. Sandy, Marskell and Joel) decide if articles should be kept or removed. This will hopefully take care of the problem once and for all without the drama at each nomination.--Peter Andersen (talk) 14:50, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Eek! 71 FA's with no inline cites - although I notice the list still includes Palazzo Pitti which survived FAR in November & now has 21 notes. The above is a good suggestion - like my own above it allows plenty of time, which the key thing here. It calls for a special task force really. Johnbod (talk) 15:27, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

(outdent; various) Well, it looks like the specific grandfathering suggestion is not going to gather steam. I understand it's problematic.

I see the list has already been linked. It bests answers John's questions about how many are left to do. Sandy and I have fairly closely tracked the stats over time. Some notes on it:

• The % of FAs with few or no citations has dropped from 50% to 10% in 20 months (both because of removals and overall increase). That pool, even as it shrinks, is still the source of a majority of removals. This means, happily, that when it's done with, overall removals should slow down. I'm predicting this will start to happen this year.
• We've basically agreed that, while they're might not be grandfathering, there'll also be no mass removal of stars. Thus I'm iffy about Peter's concept. It could work, if properly thought through, but it will mean that at whatever deadline is set dozens will be removed at once. (This was done once before with Misplaced Pages:Refreshing brilliant prose, I suppose.)
• Not everything on the list is equal. Some, like Geogre's, are well written and have an original author watching. Others are far more mediocre.

It would be nice if some of the people commenting could watch FAR itself, if they don't already. The FARC period has fewer kp/rm's than it needs. More importantly, perhaps you'll see something one day and think "ya, I'll try to save that one." The FAR does a far better job than reputation suggests, and it's because of the people who "make saves."

Lastly, I realize three of the five mentioned aren't currently active. I very much hope that Bishonen, at least, becomes a blue link again. Marskell (talk) 17:35, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm more of an original article writer/stub-expander than FA worker, so I'm not sure if I'm one of the "commenters" you were hoping would help out with the FAR process or not. I only stumbled upon the Tub article FAR because I watch it, and because I watch the talkpage of one of the people who was notified of it's nomination. I'd be willing to help out if you (or anyone else) felt it necessary, but probably only on the literature and history (my two areas of expertise) articles, and perhaps movies and bands (in which areas I'm a bit of a dilettante). I'm not sure how to find the appropriate pages to put on my watchlist, though, so if you could drop me a note on my talkpage with the appropriate links, that would be great. Regards, -- Bellwether _C 17:58, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm traveling and on a slow, borrowed dialup. Couple of notes: Palazzo Pitti hasn't been moved yet only because I'm traveling and haven't kept up with the page (I will update it when I'm home) (Never mind, I see Marskell got it). At any rate, there are still about 170 FAs on that list for review, which is a lot to put up at once. This is a very tentative question because I don't want to stir up a hornet's nest, but ... when I originally put together that list by project, I was hoping we might someday get to a point of being able to ask each WikiProject to focus on bringing their articles to standard. Earlier on in the process, there were just too many and it didn't make sense to burden/alarm the Projects. Would it make sense now to turn the lists over to each Project, ask them to spend a few months bringing the FAs to standard, allowing them to bring them to FAR as they're ready, and see where we are in a few months? I am not so worried about the specific authors Marskell mentions because ultimately someone always digs in and brings them to standard; the problem there is that we are overworking a few dedicated FAR volunteers like Ceoil, Dr Kiernan, Cas liber, Qp10qp, Yomangani, etc. If we could find a way to get them some help, we could probably bring a lot of the list to standard. And we really need a way to recognize the effort a short list of editors (like Ceoil) is making in bringing so many articles to current standards. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:49, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

The question, as ever when they are mentioned: are there enough active projects to handle it? How many would realistically be saved and how much dumped at the deadline? This would also give the list a canonicity it's never had: these must be removed or else.

I still see some merit in the slow and steady FAR pace. What would be nice is to have more bodies at FAR and then it could handle a slightly increased pace. We could do something like this: once every three days one from the list would be brought to FAR (regardless of those arriving from it anyway). Say one from the top, one from the bottom, one from the middle, randomly. We could process what remains in little more than a year without an arbitrary deadline. BUT, we'd need four or five extra "regulars". There's already two month old reviews sitting there that I can't close for lack of comments. Marskell (talk) 14:34, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

If all these articles need is citations, I would be willing to take on the eighteenth-century literature articles. I actually already own and have read several of the books cited in the "References" sections of those articles. The rest I have easy access to. This would still not be a fast project, but given some time and non-resistant editors, I would be happy to undertake it. I actually thought about doing this a while ago, but I was worried that all of my citations would be removed by the article's main contributors. If I can be assured this won't happen, I could take on four articles: A Tale of a Tub, Augustan literature, Colley Cibber, and Restoration comedy. Just let me know and I will add it to my "To do" list. :) Awadewit | talk 07:42, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Colley Cibber has citations in the current style. If the version you saw lacks them, it's because someone broke the article in their haste to edit it. Tale needs no fixing. I'd rather see it not be an FA than to see hordes of footnotes enter into it. This is because footnotes make works less reliable rather than more, as a footnote requires a reader to go down and pop up and forget the train of thought to check something, while a parenthetical reference clearly places the reference material on the same line as the fact. Tale is one that I simply would rather not have people muddy. I don't think it's at all outrageous to ask people to show the challenged fact, in print. Note that this is not "could be questioned" but something that is "likely" to be disputed. What is "likely?" Well, people who know the topic well can tell you which statements are likely to be challenged, and people who don't know it at all (who have never read the book, for example), can't tell which statements are likely to be challenged and which just lack a footnote. For my part, I would rather not see footnotes to derivative sources added. For example, we have had enough time now for both our Tale article and for our Jonathan Wild to have generated multiple cribbings on other web sites. In the academic community, the idea is that Misplaced Pages doesn't need citing. Having the intrusion of a footnote to take us to a website that comes from us is...draw your own conclusion. In the Jonathan Wild article, there are people putting in references from a person who (get this!) steals from Gerald Howson, and the article is written based on Howson. I.e. someone is again inserting a 3rd generation citation just so they can say that there is a footnote. You can imagine how this does not inspire confidence. No one minds someone adding in where in Fielding this happens, or where in Watts we find that, or what act and scene this occurs, but it's a bit purposeless to add footnotes to material that will never be challenged by educated readers, and then to derivative sources, just to satisfy arbitrary people at FAR (not arbitrary standards, as I have just proven that the standard does not warrant the kinds of activity we see). Geogre (talk) 11:48, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

So, grandfathering? I suppose, although there is no "different class of FA," Raul. There is one class. Some of Emsworth's articles are truly a mess, and I resent Marksell comparing any of my FA's as if they were the same kind of thing. In the Tale FAR debate, the nominator wanted to know, just to pick one at random, "Who says it's an allegory?" Well, Jonathan Swift does, in The Apology for the &c. William Wotton does (included in the notes to the 5th ed. of 1705 and all later editions, as stated in the article). Richard Bentley does. Samuel Johnson does. Laurence Sterne does. In other words, everyone who has ever read the book has seen Swift and the others talking about the allegory and has read the narrator refer to his allegory. This is the perfect illustration of "could be challenged by someone totally unfamiliar with the subject" versus "likely to be challenged." N.b. "challenge" requires peers. A three year old can ask you "why? why? why?" and you recognize that that's the process of education, but it's not a serious challenge to your knowledge of the world. Similarly, people can ask "who says the earth is the third planet? where is the footnote?" but that doesn't mean that this is a fact likely to be challenged. The Tale article had been the #1 Google search for a long, long time. While other articles -- Jonathan Wild is a good example -- have had tiny additions over time or substantial additions at a time, the Tale is virtually untouched. Last year, Restoration literature got 2,000 reads, and yet, other than "and he had a big dick" vandalism, it didn't get any challenges on the talk page, any additions or excisions. I suppose that my expertise in the 18th century British literary field is obvious enough from all my writing, but is it obvious enough that you might conceivably realize that I cite things that are likely to be challenged, that I always have, that I have long before all this querulousness broke out, and that hanging more ornaments on the tree won't make it any taller or stronger. If someone shows me a single print source that challenges the facts of any of my articles, FA or not, I am happy to change them or add more references, if needed, but having to satisfy endless "well, I don't know anything about it, and I don't trust you when you say that it was published in 1703!" is not helpful for our reliability, and it's not how I will spend my time. I'd rather see the FA status go than endorse that kind of foolishness. Geogre (talk) 11:48, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Geogre, to be fair Marskell has only proposed grandfathering for exceptional articles, articles that are clearly superior in all aother criteria (including V), but lack dinky inline cites (ironically inline cites are not in the criteria). Your articles would easily fall into this category, Emsworth's would not (when brought to FAR the issues are multiple, and they have needed almost complete rewriting in some cases). I would support grandfathering under strict criteria, though any such criterial will be hard to define, as it is inevitably a subjective call. Ceoil (talk) 12:16, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

This appears to be a proposal to avoid rather than address a problem. We require citations for statements that are likely to be challenged. The problem is that we can't agree what those are, not what we should do with the articles that are FA quality in all respects other than where this disagreement arises. One camp says "You must know the subject to challenge", the other says "Look, I just challenged it". An article with no inline cites won't pass FAC now (articles without footnotes normally need defending too), just because there isn't a high enough proportion of "anti-inline-citers" engaged as reviewers there (and those that are there won't demand a footnote removed, whereas an "inline-citer" will demand one added). Conversely when the article of an anti-inline-citer appears at FAR it normally garners enough support from fellow anti-inline-citers to retain its star because the proportion of "inline-citers" is far lower at FAR. The reason these FARs are a mess is that the argument over "likely to be challenged" is never addressed except at during these FARs. Addressing the problem of what needs inline citations is the solution here, not some process to divide FAs into "FAs with every statement cited" and "FAs without every statement cited" (We already have grandfathering: it is WP:FFA - articles that were formerly FAs but don't met the current standards). Until that requirement is addressed (and rather more comprehensively than in WP:CITE) you are going to continue to have these "trainwrecks" at FAR, and provided they aren't bad tempered I don't see that as necessarily a bad thing - if it isn't a discussion we shouldn't be allowed to leave comments. Yomangani 13:19, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

This is a good point, Yomangani—we need to have a larger, more centralized discussion about what sort of facts need to be cited. This issue comes up over and over in FACs and FARs, and it's always restricted to the content of one or two articles and never satisfactorily decided. If we were to come to a better understanding on this topic, this grandfathering problem would be greatly reduced. Pagrashtak 14:22, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Grandfathering isn’t an acceptable solution if the articles meet the FA criteria as they stand, and I think they do that just fine. There’s no way around the deep disagreements in the community regarding what requires inline citation, so we are likely to see these “dramas” replayed repeatedly until the question is resolved finally. There’s also no ignoring the significant divergence between the standards applied at FAC (which are determined by the participants in that particular process) and what the actual criteria demand (which represents the work of a broader consensus). It’s quite likely that this divergence will continue to confuse editors who will then accidentally take to FAR articles which meet the criteria perfectly but don’t adhere to the arbitrary demands made by some FAC participants. Christopher Parham (talk) 14:33, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't mind Marskell, Raul etc. doing what they like, whether it's called grandfathering or not. If a FAR becomes uncivil and aggressive, I'm all for closing for the time being to quieten things down. I am not bothered myself whether articles have many cites or few, so long as they are good articles, which TOAT is. I have great respect for the articles written by the writers named above, but I wouldn't tiptoe round them. And I doubt even Geogre would mind too much if added citations were good ones rather than the derivative, tertiary, or superficial ones that drive a careful editor wild (I removed a ref to a BBC poll from the William Shakespeare article the other day, which felt like removing a carbuncle). One point Geogre often makes, which some nominators don't grasp, is that nominated articles may be referenced discreetly within the text ("John Jones suggests that this imagery..."): in that case, if the book is listed in the bibliography, the job has been done. I suspect one point of infuriation is that when main writers are informed that the article is at FAR (which is a courtesy, and I'm in favour of such notification), it must seem as if they are being asked to react; if they feel the article is good, they don't see why they should, and I understand that (why should they do the work, if they are happy with it?). One thing that might help would be if nominating an article for FAR was also a commitment to help bring the article to official standards oneself. It is easy enough to nominate an article and stand back, which must feel annoying to those who wrote the article and are quite happy with it. A gentle and collaborative tone from nominators is surely a must. qp10qp (talk) 16:53, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

The phrase 'likely to be challenged' clearly isn't sufficent and needs to be defined in a tighter way. Agree with the above, let's have a heated debate. Ceoil (talk) 17:10, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I would agree with that, but I also see no harm in adding the page refs where "John Jones suggests..", especially where (not the case in ATT I think) John Jones has written a huge book and the suggestion is not easily traceable by index etc. We all have to write articles that way now & some sort of consistency is desireable, and has clear community support. I think Awadewit's offer is very helpful. Johnbod (talk) 00:58, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, helpful, but... seriously, qué? Awadewit, you will (very helpfully, certainly, and I appreciate it) add inline cites, provided you can be sure the main author doesn't turn up and remove all of them..? I wrote a couple of the four 18th-century articles you offer to work on, and please do be assured that your work will be very safe from me. I don't think I WP:OWN them; I don't think it's up to me to revert good-faith additions to them of any kind ; and I don't make a habit of roaming the wiki at night tearing out inline cites with my sharp teeth. It pains me especially to be the subject (even indirectly and impersonally) of such mistrust of fellow editors in the same thread as Marskell's kind words (hi, Tim). Bishonen | talk 11:02, 24 January 2008 (UTC).

Hi to you too, Bishonen. Glad to see your sig. Marskell (talk) 14:27, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Bishonen, I'm sorry you felt that my post represented mistrust and you are right - I should have been more optimistic in my attitude. However, I think I was affected by the various posts I had read in the conversation which led me to believe there was an entrenched position on the part of the main editors of the articles. I should not have assumed that the posts here were precise reflections of the attitudes of the editors. I apologize. Awadewit | talk 15:14, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

• An outside comment While it is very easy for folks in the community to have complete faith and trust in the work of our distinguished FA authors, one thing that I haven't seen considered is our readers. The average reader who sees A Tale of a Tub pop up first on a Google search will probably have no idea about the exceptional quality of Geogre's work and the diligence of his research. There is also very high propensity that our readers will not be experts on the subject. They may not have even read the work. It's a quaint statement but quite a few people use encyclopedias to learn about new and unfamiliar subjects. When someone reads in the "Authorship debate" section of ATT that "Some people thought that William Temple wrote it." that may strike them as a claim to follow up on with the reference-not necessarily because they think it's "BS" but because the source would most likely provide a greater context and explanation on who thought it was William Temple and why. With the current state of the article, it is impossible to know which of the references listed on the bottom will talk about the Temple theory. Now we could hope that our readers are savvy enough to ask on the talk page or maybe look at the history tab to see what contributing editors they could personally ask, but how often do you think that is going to happen? Another option would be to hope that our readers would seeks out all the books listed at the bottom and assiduously combs through each for their desire nugget of info. But how practical is that? With the aid of a simple footnote, a reader could follow the link from the Temple comment and know which resource they should get that will expound on this claim in greater detail. Personally, I think this is what makes Misplaced Pages better than a traditional resource. A world of knowledge becomes much more approachable when you can hone in on the specifics rather than be handed a list of books and essentially told to "go fish". The use of in-line cites benefits Misplaced Pages in so many ways beyond just WP:V. It empowers our readers to truly maximize our articles as viable resources. Agne/ 16:16, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
  • How? I mean, suppose you have "Some people thought Temple wrote it (Guthkelch xxii)" or "Some people thought Temple wrote it <ref Guthkelch and Smith, ''A Tale of a Tub,'' xxiii> that was at the bottom of the page, how is one better than the other? I prefer to see it on the same line, myself, but how is the world of learning opened up by either one? You have to go to a library or go to Alibris (or your local national variant of that) to get a copy of the 1958 edition to check out this further information. I think you're mistaking the virtues of links with the existence of citations. They are only the same if you're writing things that are always citing websites, and that is a fairly unreliable thing. (Websites disappear, folks. Websites have reliability issues of their own. Websites have to be trusted to be reliable, and they don't often have reviews like Misplaced Pages does.) I think we all like links.
  • On the other hand, an emendation is a fine thing. However, that's not "citation." You have to go ask the original writer to put in an emendation. If there were a footnote that was not the citation, but, instead, "According to Guthkelch and Smith, the Christ Church wits were supposed to be the authors, but Swift records, in Journal to Stella, that he was annoyed by people thinking Temple, whom he by that point did not like, had been the author (further citation, now, to JtS)," then we have what you're talking about. That's not a citation issue but a writing issue. (Also, by the way, in this case, I think the article explains the sources of the rumors by indicating Atterbury's letters.) Utgard Loki (talk) 13:20, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

It really doesn't matter if the reference is online or offline. Nor does it matter if the ref is in footnote or Harvard format. The important part is knowing which source that our readers can use to follow up on a given claim in the article. In the example of A Tale of a Tub, the authorship section is not really clear of who thought Temple was the author or the reasons why. A typical readers who stumbles across this will have no clue which of the eight sources listed at the bottom of the page will contain that particular nugget of information. There is an opportunity for an expansion of knowledge and for Misplaced Pages to be even more useful and viable of a resource and we simply pass on it. We pass on it, hoping that the readers will either not care or ambitiously seek out every available resource to find that one single shred of information. That one single bit that a simple footnote would have sufficiently provided. We pass on the opportunity to be an exceptional resource, to be something a little less. Emendations can help and they are certainly better than nothing but there is more overall benefit to the article-and more importantly to our readers, with the helpful use of citations. A Tale of a Tub is a great article and certainly exemplifies the best of Misplaced Pages in many categories, but it is lacking in others and is not overall a representation of the best that Misplaced Pages has to offer. Agne/ 14:21, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

• Obviously, I disagree, as was clear with my comment at the FAR. I think the citations are fine, but, more importantly, see above. qp10qp answers your concern. The material was in the prose. Additionally, the paragraph makes it pretty clear that this is trivia, that no one serious thought that. Additionally again, I see that there is now a reference to a discussion of the authorship question provided by Ceoil. Be sure to see the date on the reference, because it indicates just how much of a non-issue it is. Now, the article tells us that it's a non-issue. It tells us that the anonymous publication by a then-unknown author provoked some speculation, but who guessed what isn't really vital information, and so the author wisely excluded it. It's possible to be curious about that, but if I'm writing an article, I try to anticipate what is extraneous information and what is vital information and exclude the extraneous. In the article on Primary Colors, do we have a footnote indicating every wrong guess about Joe Klein's authorship of the book? Is it important? Is it important for understanding the book? Is it important for understanding Klein? Is it important for understanding Bill Clinton? Back then, you could find someone willing to guess that it had been written by anyone from William F. Buckley to Mrs. MacGreedy's 5th grade science class. It's again an authorship question, a writing question, where our author decided that the information was not important. That, alas, is something writers have to do. Utgard Loki (talk) 15:24, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

We need to stop reccommending foreign language FAs

For some reason, articles which are featured on foreign language versions of Misplaced Pages are listed as possible help to users of the English language Misplaced Pages. Unfortunately, foreign language Wikipedias have lower standards for FA inclusion, and often don't cite their sources. That means that, when someone translates material from a foreign language Wiki, it ultimately saddles the article with highly specific material with no listed sources and no available sources in English. Serendious 20:40, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Where is that recommendation made? Raul654 (talk) 20:41, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm speaking of this:

Template:FAOL

Right now I am attempting to get the English language Triton (moon) promoted to GA or FA status. However I have found that, because that recommendation was made, a well-meaning contributor some time ago translated a vast amount of material from the Portuguese Wiki and added it to the English language version. This material now makes up about a third of the article. However, the Portuguese wiki is completely uncited, and even access to the Science journal archive cannot turn up sources to verify it. So now I'm stuck. Serendious 20:46, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

GimmeBot removes FAOL's from all promoted FAs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:16, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the issue here is a mass of uncited writing hampering efforts to get an article to FA. However, I am sure the uncited material could be removed and restarted from scratch. You could remove it to the talk page and explain what you are intending to do. — BillC 21:24, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, although if there is really a lot posting the diff to talk afterwards is enough in my view. Johnbod (talk) 22:24, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I've sent a message to the author of the original Portuguese article; if he doesn't respond within a few days then I'll remove the material, though it would require rewriting the article from the ground up. Serendious 22:52, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Are FAs automatically semi-protected?

If not, why? FAs are "the best work" of wikipedia and usually requires at least 20h (if not more) of work from dedicated users. Since they have been reviewed, it is unlikely that things are missing out, things that an unregstered ip could actually improve on. There is the case that an ip spots a typo, so I guess limiting ip's edits to ±10 bytes/edit in changing the size of the article could be a partial solution. Nergaal (talk) 07:40, 27 January 2008 (UTC)