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Image/source check requests

• Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates/Elliott Fitch Shepard/archive2 -- source review pls. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:47, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

• Done, some outstanding issues. --Laser brain (talk) 20:34, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates/Operation Goodwood (naval)/archive1‎ -- image and source reviews pls. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:09, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

• Image check Done - all OK. GermanJoe (talk) 11:53, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates/Tom Simpson/archive1 -- Both please. BaldBoris 17:51, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

• Image check in work. GermanJoe (talk) 00:40, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates/The Playboy/archive1 — source review, please. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 22:57, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
• Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates/2012 Budweiser Shootout/archive2 — source and image review, are needed please. Thank you. Z105space (talk) 08:30, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
• Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates/The Destroying Angel and Daemons of Evil Interrupting the Orgies of the Vicious and Intemperate/archive1 Source review please. (Note: the sources on this are virtually identical to those on Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates/Preparing for a Fancy Dress Ball/archive1, since they're written on closely related topics and from the same texts) – iridescent 10:10, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates/61 Cygni/archive2

Can I please demand more attention for this before letting it down second time due to lack of attention. Please....-The Herald • _{my strength} 08:55, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

It looks like Maury has done a lot of work on it. The ways things stand now, he doesn't seem to be happy with the results, you might want to ping him. - Dank (push to talk) 13:08, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

I was intending to wait until there was some resolution. I will take a look sometime in the next 24 hours. Was just in the middle of somethings and now it is late here (Australia) so need to sleep soon. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:22, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

WP:SUMMARYISNOTOR question

• I have a four-panel, medium-sized table where the values in the table only make sense intuitively if you take exp() of them. That transformation is explicitly worked out in about a half dozen different examples in the article text. So I'd wanna do the same for every value in the chart... and then, instead of presenting them as a table that would make everyone's eyes glaze over, I'd make a couple or three pretty little bar charts in Excel or some Misplaced Pages tool or other (if such exists)... No new conclusions, only the exact same of logic as applied in examples in the article, but then presented as a bar chart (which is not done in the article)... All of this without replicating the original table..but credited to the source (of course!). As described, can do? Tks. • Arch♦Reader 13:38, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

• Does anyone know what this is about, and why it's here? Brianboulton (talk) 18:55, 27 May 2015 (UTC)
• Hi Ling.nut. Per the link you cite, that should be okay. - Dank (push to talk) 19:06, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

• @Brianboulton:@Dank: Brian, it's here, to put a potentially delicate matter bluntly, because I kinda trust a FAC answer slightly more than I would an answer that comes from the MOS area of editors, or whoever is watching Misplaced Pages:Attribution. It certainly might be wrong of me to feel that way, and might be wrong of me to say it, but I'm just telling the truth. Dank, thanks for the answer! • Arch♦Reader

• I had no idea you were Ling...how are you? Anyway, Dan seems to be clued in, so no worries. Brianboulton (talk) 20:19, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

• Everything is cool, tks. :-) • Arch♦Reader 01:37, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Template talk:FAC-instructions

Please see the discussion about renaming the template. Graham Beards (talk) 20:38, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Etiquette of image review/spot check/source review

To the delegates, I wasn't sure when to strike them in the box above once done or leave to delegates.....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 22:02, 30 May 2015 (UTC)

A beg

It can be discouraging to have a nomination archived for lack of interest. It's a damned shame to have a second/third/etc nomination suffer the same fate. I'm here to beg the community to provide some reviews for these nominations, which are on at least their second try after receiving little interest:

• Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates/Bill Cosby in advertising/archive2 - nominator's first time at FAC since 2006
• Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates/61 Cygni/archive2 - nominator's first time at FAC
• Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates/2012 Budweiser Shootout/archive2 - nominator's first time at FAC
• Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates/Mercedes-Benz CLR/archive2 - nominator's first time at FAC. His first nom received literally no comments, and this one has been open since 10 May with nothing.

Yes, there's a pattern here—these folks have waded into new waters and struggled. I think we owe it to ourselves to support and encourage new FA writers, even if their stuff is not in our wheelhouse. --Laser brain (talk) 14:41, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

I owe some reviews at the moment; I will try to get to at least a couple of these, but it might be later in the week. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:30, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

I'll start the Merc one right now, comments tonight or tomorrow. Brianboulton (talk) 20:54, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

I've looked at 61 Cygni. I'd like someone to go over the technical side of it. Once that is done, I'll give it another read through with a expectation of supporting it once the prose is tidy.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:49, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

I know next to nothing about these subjects (which is why I haven't commented, sadly no animal noms at the moment), but I could take a look at 61 Cygni from a layman's perspective. FunkMonk (talk) 23:05, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Every bit helps, of course, but I'm hoping someone who knows a bit more about stars than I do will look at it. I found just enough problems on the non-technical side to make me worry about what I may be missing through not knowing the lingo.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:14, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

The 61 Cygni one is a headache. Have looked at it a few times and needs a whole going-over. Am trying to rustle up more enthusiasm to do more....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:14, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

You pull and I'll push?--Wehwalt (talk) 00:26, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

(sigh) there's stuff that's just Not How It's Done. Not sure how much there is though.....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:44, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Neither 61 Cygni nor the 2012 Budweiser Shootout articles have had recent peer reviews. Maybe the noms should be advised to bring their work to PR before FAC, because in doing so they might bring tighter articles that need less attention and already have a few interested reviewers. RO 19:10, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

That sounds very reasonable to me. I reviewed in response to the request made by the nominator further up the page, but it certainly could have benefited from another pair of eyes before the FAC.--Wehwalt (talk)`

I am hesitant about advising people to go to PR unless a) I'm prepared to review the article there myself or b) can recommend someone who will. PR can be a desolate place these days – there is no longer a resident core of peer reviewers, and articles frequently hang around, ignored, for weeks. That is one of the main reasons why more articles are coming to FAC in an unprepared state. I don't know what the answer is, except...more reviewers. Brianboulton (talk) 14:05, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

I agree that PR is meaningless without willing and skilled reviewers. What happened to the resident core of peer reviewers? RO 16:02, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Battle fatigue. After years of largely thankless reviewing, and repeated failed attempts to get others to take a regular share of the work, they withdrew. Misplaced Pages owes them a debt. Brianboulton (talk) 18:16, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

WP:FAC is the new WP:PR • Arch♦Reader 18:28, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

I'll try to help out more, but what if we made PR the required, not just suggested, first step to FAC? RO 18:33, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

It's been suggested many times. Without more regular reviewers it's a non-starter. The most practical solution would be for editors to act more collegially, to interest themselves in others' projects and invite others to share in theirs. They then get used to reviewing each others' articles, not just as a chore or a quid pro quo but out of real interest. Thus I will always review articles where, say, Tim riley, or SchroCat, or Wehwalt, is the main editor because I admire and enjoy their work. It takes time, and effort, of course. Brianboulton (talk) 19:11, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

I made an attempt at contributing to PR but gave up after (a) a number of reviews I made in a row went ignored by the nominators, and (b) half or more of my own nominations were archived without comment. The place is a vacuum. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 23:24, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

I don't exactly have my finger on Misplaced Pages's pulse these days, but do we think editors pay attention to edit notices any more (if they ever did)? When FAC's was originally expanded to stress the criteria, I seem to recall it resulted in (or perhaps merely coincided with) a temporary drop in the nomination rate. Perhaps if the notice were strengthened, recast as a checklist (example here) that new nominators were encouraged to follow, it might stave off some of the more unprepared nominations. Steve  21:13, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

I've looked through 61 Cygni and would be happy to contribute to a PR. I am reluctant to review it for FA, though, since I would probably not support it at present even if everything I can think of is dealt with, and that would not really be fair. Perhaps one answer would be to put articles which are clearly not yet up to the required standard out of their misery quite quickly? A delegate could say something like "I will archive this in one week's time unless a fairly positive review is forthcoming"? --Mirokado (talk) 20:11, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Seems the problems mentioned by the more knowledgeable editors above are beyond my league. But ping me if/when the more technical issues are sorted out, and a more casual look is needed. FunkMonk (talk) 15:16, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Carl Nielsen

I would like to thank the other nominators of Carl Nielsen (review) for all their hard work over the last month or two improving it in time for his 150th anniversary. I had to spend the last couple of weeks abroad "saving the world", so did less work on the article in this time than they might have expected. User:Ipigott made substantial improvements a few years ago and initiated this anniversary drive, which User:Dr. Blofeld and User:Smerus joined with great enthusiasm. Thanks also to the reviewers, particularly for their help with images. --Mirokado (talk) 11:07, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I think it showed what can be achieved with collaboration/cooperation. Everybody played a good part in it, I've thanked people on User:Ipigott's talk page. Looking forward to the 9th now!♦ Dr. Blofeld 11:11, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Here it is: Misplaced Pages:Today's featured article/June 9, 2015. Let me know if I left anything out that you wanted to keep. - Dank (push to talk) 00:27, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

A good summary. Thank you. --Mirokado (talk) 10:39, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

An additional beg

Further to the "beg" thread above, which highlighted several neglected FACs, I notice that 4th Army (Kingdom of Yugoslavia) has been on the page since 12 May and has only a single line image review. Surely someone in our large MilHist contingent can give it a lookover? For some reason the article doesn't feature in the "needing attention" box on the top right of this talkpage, and seems in danger of being forgotten about altogether. Brianboulton (talk) 10:13, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Can I have a one-off permission to run two at once?

@FAC coordinators: Is there any chance I could bend the rules and nominate a second FAC while another is live? Per this thread, The Wrestlers was written to try to get it through FAC in time for a main page appearance on August 1st, to coincide with the reopening of the York Art Gallery with which the WMF has a partnership, but which currently doesn't have an FA on anything in its collection. Assuming the FAC process generally takes 4-6 weeks, it will be cutting it fine if it's left much later to nominate it. I already have an open FAC for The Destroying Angel; as things stand I can't nominate The Wrestlers until this one is archived or closed (and if I temporarily pull The Destroying Angel, it will technically count as a fail and bring the "wait two weeks before nominating anything else" clause into play.) Destroying Angel has been live for a month and is currently sitting on 4 supports & 0 opposes, so (unless someone spots some major issues now) the "people nominating a second article which repeats the mistakes of the first" issue is hopefully not going to be a problem. – iridescent 09:32, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

It's not uncommon for us to permit a second solo nom when the first is obviously fairly close to promotion, so I have no objection -- the current nom looks like it's ready to wind up pending a source review (you might like to list a request at the top of the page). Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 09:45, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

I've requested a source review above—there shouldn't be any issue as all this series are using mostly the same sources. I'll give it a couple of hours before I nominate The Wrestlers just in case anyone has any objection to raise. – iridescent 10:13, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Instead, I've nominated Preparing for a Fancy Dress Ball, which is also in York and there seems to be a broad consensus that it's a better fit for the opening day than The Wrestlers. – iridescent 00:47, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Self-promotion on Misplaced Pages

I'm here to talk about a very uncomfortable subject. I would rather talk about just about anything else. There's a Request for Comment coming up that I'll be one of the closers for (not related to Featured Content) that I can't talk about, but it's going to be an important one and we'll have to deal with related issues there. The more progress I can make on this issue ahead of time, the better, so I'm picking a relatively safe environment to start in, to see if talking about the problem leads to anything good (maybe not, or maybe I'll find out that I'm wrong). The subject is Misplaced Pages's culture of pervasive gratuitous insults, and pervasive gratuitous hyping (which amounts to the same thing as insults, really, if you're saying you and your kind are better than someone else) ... things like "I am smarter/better/more moral/more Wikipedian/whatever that you are". These problems aren't terribly different than those faced in any organization or company, and I'm sure by now there's a large body of knowledge (that I'm completely ignorant of) on this kind of organizational problem. And I'm no less guilty than anyone else, since I've willingly participated in all sorts of Misplaced Pages processes that have a history of making other people feel like crap, without complaint. Just so we're clear.

So, deep breath. I think and always have thought that the FAC community, collectively, is as guilty as any other on this score. Needlessly provocative, sorry - Dank (push to talk) Case in point: every FA is labeled with "has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Misplaced Pages community". (I'm assuming people understand "Misplaced Pages community" in a sense similar to "black community" ... kind of meaningless, but a phrase that has its uses.) How about "has been determined to meet a set of community standards for language, comprehensiveness, sourcing and neutrality"? How would we react as reviewers if a FAC nominator started off every article about any book written by X with "This book has been identified as one of the best books produced by the black community"? Even if X is widely regarded as the best at whatever, does that sound neutral? Or does it have the ring of fanboy-ism, casual boasting, or a snarky dig at X's competitors? How about if a nominator starts off every nomination with "This is one of Wikiproject Military History's articles, the wikiproject identified as the best producer of Featured Articles on Misplaced Pages?" How are you likely to react to that if you're not in that wikiproject (or even if you are)? Behind the pixels, there are actual people ... people with feelings, people who aren't likely to respond well to a constant drumbeat of "My stuff is much better than yours." Another case in point: every week, the Signpost devotes a whole column to Featured Content ... just Featured Content (with very minor exceptions), week after week, year after year, as if there are no other processes identifiable groups of people on Misplaced Pages that produce things of sufficient quality that the Signpost should give them a mention. (There's a column on wikiprojects, but it doesn't usually make any claims one way or the other about the quality of the work.) I'll finish up by saying: there are a variety of reasons why self-promotion and partisanship are sometimes okay ... what might sound like self-promotion to me might not to you, and we certainly don't want to sanction people every time they say something nice about themselves ... it's often hard to know where to draw the line. But there's no question in my mind that it's an issue on Misplaced Pages in general with real consequences, and one that we could do better with, collectively. It wouldn't surprise me if the constant hyping of Featured Content is part of the reason we have a hard time attracting new reviewers and new wikiprojects, though that's just a guess. Thoughts? - Dank (push to talk) 14:00, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

I actually like the proposed rewording better than the actual - it's important, I think to specify that this process (and others like GA and FLC) are relying on a set of standards. It is, in theory, not just a group slapping each other on the back, which is an impression that I've run into in various corners of the encyclopedia over the year. If anyone actually pays attention to that notice, then a new wording focusing on the standards may attract a little more interest in the process(es) rather than having someone sit around and think "what is this 'community' and who gets to join?"

I don't see a problem with the Signpost column on featured content - it's a great way to advertise the processes and highlight articles that meet the standards the community has thus far determined make the 'best' articles. In other words, they are good example. I would support the addition of other columns to highlight other types of articles, but there would need to be community discussion on how those articles would be identified. Funniest DYKs of the week? Weirdest DYKs? subset of GAs? Highlight random new articles? Highlight articles created by newbies? Articles requested? There are a lot of different options. Karanacs (talk) 14:24, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Thx kindly. To be a little clearer, I changed "processes" to " identifiable groups of people". There are other people doing good things. Even if we can't figure out a consistent way to identify when that happens, it might show our community in a better light, and attract more reviewers, if we make the effort to identify and acknowledge when people are doing good work outside of Featured Content processes. That's all I'm saying, I'll be quiet now :) - Dank (push to talk) 14:34, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Years ago, we had the Dispatches that talked about how to review articles. We did attract a few more reviewers that way, but I can't remember how many that was. If that is one of the goals, then it might be worthwhile to look at advertising such as that - letting people know that process X needs reviewers and how it works to do that. Or a series on what the FAC criteria actually mean (with examples), what the FLC criteria are, GA, FP, etc. That kind of educational effort may pay off in convincing others to try their hand at these processes. Karanacs (talk) 14:55, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

I hadn't really thought about it like that TBH - any concern about scaring off has to be balanced by keeping the goal of a quality 'pedia in mind, and I think that is the major point of the FA process. OTOH I have always felt WP needs to show its imperfections to highlight it is a work in progress and the need for more people to get involved. I'd not thought of the quote as being territorial or snobbish, but can see what you're getting at. Maybe show a random selection of new articles that have been created, as well as some stagnant stubs...Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:29, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

• I'm sorry, but the argument that promoting the fact that someone or something excels is also an argument that others are failures is just totally asinine. When I chase a bronze star, I am not saying "my work is better than yours". I am saying that I believe in my work. There is no statement made - overt or implied - that I am judging others by that act. In fact, in coming to FAC (or another review process), I am asking people to judge me and my work. I am asking reviewers to expose my flaws. And if the community feels that my work merits recognition in the end, then that actually stands as a positive inducement to excel. And since I am being honest, your views expressed here - if I am reading them correctly - leads me to be more than a little concerned about how you will close the RFC you refer to, for a number of reasons. One of which is that if honestly you think it depreciating the recognition of excellence would be a good thing, then you are dooming the project to mediocrity. And by the same token, you are demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of what processes like FAC promote. I am a far, far better writer because of these processes. That has benefited me personally in the real world, and it has benefited the project. And it has benefited our readers.

• As far as your "black community" metaphor goes, I am trying really hard not to draw negative inferences from why you chose to go there. Since I don't really know why you did, I will say only that "the Misplaced Pages community" and "the black community" are not the parallels you seem to think they are. The former is inclusive of everyone who participates this project while the latter is an exclusive group. Resolute 14:46, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
  • What negative inferences? If you're concerned that I might be saying something about black people here, let's take that to my talk page. What I'm saying is that we use the phrase "Misplaced Pages community" in our banner, but that doesn't mean that all Wikipedians identify with the same community, it means that, for some purposes and on some issues, we're all in this together, and "black community" generally has that same sense. (I've had some involvement in civil liberties issues for many years now, and I try to be careful about gratuitous insults.) For the rest of it, I don't want to respond because most of my point here is to see what direction this whole conversation runs in, except to say that what I said must have come across as a criticism of your work or FAs in general, and I apologize for that. - Dank (push to talk) 18:45, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
    • No Dank, I don't view your comments as a criticism of my work. I view your comments as an attack on the entire concept of encouraging people to improve and excel out of some misguided impression that praising one person must also insult another. It is nonsensical and cannot hope to achieve anything but to lower the overall quality of Misplaced Pages. Also, "the Misplaced Pages community" is anyone who is active on this website. Being a member here and not being a part of the Misplaced Pages community are mutually exclusive. Resolute 16:39, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

• • Resolute, the standards the articles have to meet are the Misplaced Pages:Featured article criteria, so I don't think this would downplay quality in the least. Meanwhile, "has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Misplaced Pages community" could apply to those early articles back in 2004 that were "determined" to be "the best" basically by a raise of hands. Also, there is a problem with certain editors who use their bag of stars to beat other editors over the head: "I have XX number of FAs, thus you are the shit on my heel, and I win this argument by default." Very few, but I'd be surprised if you haven't seen that. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 22:03, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
    • And that is a fault of an individual editor, not of a community or of a process. You deal with the individual in that case. You do not extrapolate that individual's actions into a broad brush attack on the intentions of anyone else with "a bag of stars". Resolute 16:39, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
      • My primary point remains: "meets some sort of standard" is more meaningful than "has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Misplaced Pages community". Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 01:28, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

I there were any process to rival it, I'd say let's promote that, too. But there's not. Wikiproject Military history's A-class review is the nearest thing I've seen to FA, but it's only applied to that one topic and many of them make FA afterward anyway. Maybe we've developed some unseemly pride in our work here, which is something people should (in my opinion) try to prevent in all areas of their lives, but I do believe FAs live up to the billing as Misplaced Pages's best content. --Coemgenus (talk) 14:50, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Coemgenus. I will say that I have never taken the phrase "one of the best articles on Misplaced Pages" to exclude non-featured articles, many of which are very well done. I'm not as sure that the language change is necessary, as I don't see it as exclusionary.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:59, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

If we have any real-world analog, it's a peer-reviewed journal. I'm not sure if they come right out and claim to be some of the best articles in the field, but it's implied and I don't think that's necessarily unhealthy. What we say is a more compact way of stating that the authors worked hard, did their due diligence, jumped through hoops, and navigated the minefield of attracting enough reviews and support. It amounts to high-quality work by high-quality minds. I'm comfortable equating that with "one of the best". --Laser brain (talk) 15:18, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Okay, I brought up a bunch of issues at once; I probably would have done better if I tried them one at a time. Guys, what about something like, "has been identified as an article meeting high community standards for language, comprehensiveness, sourcing and neutrality"? Does that still feel like it's too much of a step down from "one of the best"? It reads to me as a step up, but if that doesn't do it for you, that's fine. Thinking about the stronger responses ... by the time your article gets to the TFA column on the Main Page, it's had more independent eyes from more people than most articles will ever see, so the reality is that the FA star is less about self-congratulation than any process I can think of on Misplaced Pages. I'm not talking about the reality ... I'm wondering what it looks like through the eyes of Randy from Boise and his friends, the ones readers generally who don't participate and see only the Signpost and the article talk pages. (And I've been thinking about how best to pull others into the FA processes.) Btw, if what I wrote feels like criticism, it's more a criticism of me than anyone else ... my review work has probably been more narrowly restricted to FAC, TFA and military history than anyone else's here, up to this point. - Dank (push to talk) 18:30, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

I am very reluctant, although I greatly respect Dank. I just don't feel I've been shown adequate reasons for a change. If there's an RfC and there are actual strong feelings in the community, that is something that we can take on board and act accordingly. As for the Signpost, it may be wise to discuss possible community objection with the editors. But I don't think we have that information and I don't think we should act on anything less.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:46, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

• I tend to agree with Wehwalt here. Those with long memories will know I've always been highly sceptical of the FA process, and in some cases feel it actively acts to reduce the quality of articles by forcing them into compliance with arbitrary criteria. (See this extremely long thread for my thoughts on the matter in detail, which haven't changed significantly since I wrote it in 2008.) However, I don't see that dropping Featured articles are considered to be the best articles Misplaced Pages has to offer, as determined by Misplaced Pages's editors. They are used by editors as examples for writing other articles. would serve any useful purpose. Replacing it with something like "Featured articles are articles which have been scrutinised and determined to comply with all relevant policies and to be a representative survey of the relevant literature" might be more accurate, but would look kind of stupid. (A definite no to has been identified as an article meeting high community standards for language, comprehensiveness, sourcing and neutrality, though. WP:WIAFA isn't a set of standards that have been set by "the community" in any meaningful sense, they're standards that a half-dozen people railroaded through back in Raul's day and then threw temper-tantrums whenever anyone dared to question them. I think even the most dedicated supporters of the "unified appearance" principle would concede that a large proportion of the MOS is nonsense.) I don't see it does any harm to highlight the concept that "Misplaced Pages has quality standards and there is something to be gained from complying with them"; if I had my way, DYK and ITN would be unceremoniously booted off the main page since they by definition draw attention to incomplete new articles which make readers think "that's the way Misplaced Pages articles are meant to look". If that's elitist, so be it; "all have won and all must have prizes" was a stupid mentality 150 years ago and is a stupid mentality now. (To go back to your original point, I would have no problem at all with a book being described as "one of the best books produced by the black community", if it were judged as such by a group recognised as competent to judge. This is exactly why the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award and the SI Leeds Literary Prize exist.)

  As regards the Signpost, I honestly don't think anyone outside their walled garden gives two hoots what they do or don't include. The "Featured Content" section of each issue gets total pageviews of around 1500—including the multiple hits of those writing and editing it—which is less than half the weekly pageviews of this spectacularly obscure article I wrote five years ago about a 18th-century French cannibal. The Signpost does provide a valuable function as a way to quickly disseminate a message to a large number of people across Misplaced Pages who don't necessarily watch the drama boards, but even in its glory days under Tony it was never as important as it thought it was. – iridescent 23:20, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

@Dank:, don't feel bad bringing it up, sometimes it's good to explore things like this without a definitive direction. Ultimately I think the clarity of the language as is trumps any alternative really. As regards signpost, I do think some sort of look at article creation or stubs or something is a good idea from time to time...or regularly, the more I think about it. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:21, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, and I'm really more concerned about that than the language. - Dank (push to talk) 20:24, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

• My tldr thoughts on FAC are here and here. I think WIAFA needs the word "best" in there somewhere somehow, not because FA articles actually are always (or perhaps even usually? debatable) the best, but because there's tremendous value (immediately in terms of process; indirectly in terms of product) in collectively pursuing bestness, and a great deal more of a positive spillover effect (in terms of effort toward article improvement) than people tend to credit. I got all those parentheses at a "Going Out of Business" sale for grammar textbooks. • Arch♦Reader 22:14, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Okay, I'm thinking of, maybe twice a month, inviting different GA writers who write really well but don't usually participate here to co-write one of the TFA columns work on one of the existing TFA columns. That's my little attempt at outreach, and if people want to do outreach in other ways, I'll be happy to help. - Dank (push to talk) 11:34, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

I think GA standards have improved as a practical matter and that would be very much worth doing. I think reviewers dictate what a FA, or a GA is, rather than the written word mentioned by Iridescent.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:46, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm not totally clear whether you're saying "put up one of the GAs in the TFA slot" ... I didn't mean that, and I don't think we could get consensus for that ... but now that you mention it, if we can form a little task force to pick a couple of recently promoted GAs each month and try to push them through FAC, sort of like the old WP:FAT used to do, I'd be very happy to volunteer time for that. - Dank (push to talk) 17:03, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

I did not opine on anything having to do with TFA. That would be a matter having to do with administration, on which I do not opine.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:12, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Heh, okay, well I'm glad I misunderstood you then, because I would definitely be in favor of something FAT-like to reward and acknowledge good work at GAN ... and if possible, to get them to start hanging out over here as well. - Dank (push to talk) 17:41, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

I merely meant that the standards imposed by reviewers are what drive FAC. For example, non-contentious matters don't technically have to be sourced ... but try doing that at FAC.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:02, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

• If you want GAN folks to come to FAC, one possible path would be to go work with them on their own turf, showing respect to their processes etc. Rather than asking them to come here, go work at GAN. Make colleagues. Never say "That's not how we do it at FAC." Never even mention how we do it at FAC unless explicitly asked. Ask questions. Let others show you how GAN functions. And so on. Then when you have immersed yourself in GAN-ness, people might listen when you ask them to visit this forum. Just a little thought. I'll go back to my cave now. • Arch♦Reader 01:28, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

FAC recommendation

Higher up on this page, Laser brain asked for reviewers for some new nominators. Several people responded, which was nice to see; but I'd like to add a specific recommendation for folks to take a look at Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates/Mercedes-Benz CLR/archive2. I've supported it and I think it'll get promoted; but I thought people might like to see the story behind this amazing picture. That's one incredible crash. I thought the height figures in the article had to be a typo, but apparently the car was well over thirty feet in the air. (The driver walked away unhurt.) By all means review the article too -- the prose is clean, but could probably be smoothed a little bit more -- but I found the story remarkable enough just to recommend to others here in its own right. A pity the relevant pictures are all copyrighted. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:44, 13 June 2015 (UTC)