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Drive-by nominations

Should we include something in the intro about these so they can be withdrawn on sight, pending endorsement by a recent major contributor? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 08:09, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm in. Maybe also say that including a link to an endorsement would be helpful (but not required) if it isn't a self-nom? Ling.Nut (talk) 08:14, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a good idea (although major contributors of articles sometimes lack perspective and think their article is much closer to FA than reasonable, but that is another issue). Arnoutf (talk) 08:18, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree it's growing, and becoming a nagging and very time-consuming issue, selfishly I'm unhappy about having to fail so many articles, but I'd not like to do anything precipitous. I have most reluctantly left a note for Yomangani that we may be seeing unintended consequences from the "Finding a subject" section of his funny User:Yomangan/A bastard's guide to writing a featured article. Maybe that's all it is? If we do decide something needs to be done, I'd hope it would only be after careful deliberation, to avoid unintended consequences (elitism, article ownership, and noms from experienced users aren't necessarily always any better, so ...). Each case is unique; I worry about instruction creep and too many rules. But it's certainly consuming a lot of my time, reviewer time, and Gimmebot time; worse, causing other articles to get insufficient review. Something to remedy the trend is in order. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:32, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Drive-by nom's have a place - especially on Wikipedia. One has to assume 'good faith'. Obviously it is aggravating if - as a result of a drive-by nom - no one responds to a review or suggestions. On the other hand, no one owns an article. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 20:33, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

When a Project is actively working on an article and there are clear statements on the talk page that MoS cleanup and copyediting is still needed, that's a pretty good indication the article shouldn't have been nommed by a relatively uninvolved editor. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:05, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Given that this happened with me for Gears of War, I wasn't aware there was a way to stop or withdraw a FAC. I think, if within instructions for an FAC that is put on the article's page, and in more depth here, if all that a major editor for a page needs to do is add in something on the FAC's page to "As a major editor, I wish to have this candidate withdraw", at which point a FA editor (SandyGeorgia, for example), could speedily close it after verifying that that editor is in fact a major editor to the page. You would expect major contributors to be watching the talk page and thus will see the FAC added on, and thus could quickly go add this. This still allows drive-by nominations (and I'm sure someone can list a successful drive-by FA), but a quick-out for articles where editors feel it is not appropriate. --MASEM 20:46, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Masem, see talk page precedent established here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:45, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Since I've seen more of this recently I'll try and help out by noting if they are one of the major contributors, and if not notifying the top three or so editors if they want to proceed. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 21:56, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I want to emphasize how delicate this is, and that each case is individual. When deciding whether to withdraw (which is an enormous amount of work), I look at the experience of the nominator, the nominator's edit history on the article and in general, the article talk page, the state of the article wrt WIAFA, the articlestats to determine if there is significantly principle editor, and many other factors. We must AGF and avoid elitism and "cabalism" (but we must also stem this trend). One of the first difficult FACs I was involved in was the Hillary Putnam FAC; it was grossly unprepared, the nominator put it up to make a point because of another article that had just failed, but he was able to bring it to featured status during the FAC, so decisions to withdraw must be taken carefully. I'm reluctant to codify instructions because of all the factors involved; maybe someone can propose wording that covers it without strapping us in. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:02, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

While we consider the wording below, would it make sense to move the existing withdrawal instructions to their own bullet? Their current position leaves them somewhat obscured by the surrounding text. This may not impact drive-bys (I'm slightly off topic here), but it may assist with the malformed withdrawals. Baby steps. ЭLСОВВОLД _talk 18:24, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Which existing withdrawal instructions are you referring to, Elcobbola? (Do you mean archiving?) I've got a simpler idea that I'll try to put words tonight. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:53, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh for ... I’m sorry, Sandy; I’m an idiot. I read the “objection” in “To withdraw the objection, strike it out...” as “nomination”. A colleague just brought me coffee, should I should be ok from here on out. ЭLСОВВОLД _talk 19:00, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Draft wording

Here's some draft text for bouncing around:

"Nominators are expected to be familiar enough with the subject matter and sources to deal themselves with objections during the FAC process. In practice, this means that nominations will normally come from recent significant contributors. Nominations from uninvolved editors may be withdrawn." Reactions? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 09:30, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Changing the system

If withdrawing articles is so fiddly, why not simply change the system to have three categories: promoted, archived and withdrawn? I'm sure that'll be a load less work in the long run. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 09:30, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As a further thought, this may well ease the burden of reviewers, as it will allow nominators the chance to withdraw articles which attract early opposition without having to hang around for the lingering death a week or so later. In short, no stigma withdrawal should be encouraged. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 09:51, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a good idea, may have helped in the recent EU thing. Although, in that case, frequent editors, myself included initially supported FAC, the process got bogged down by non-FAC related major changes from other frequent editors. Personally I think we should have withdrawn at that moment, to relieve you guys from the burden (which is too much anyway).

I would go further and suggest that if frequent editors agree in any stage of the FAC process that promotion is unlikely they should be able to suggest withdrawal as a third option. Arnoutf (talk) 18:31, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The delicate issue there, Arnoutf, is how we define frequent editors and how we preserve AGF. Some of the recent cases have been abundantly clear on every measure; not all will be so black and white and most are gray, so I'm concerned about how we codify any instructions. Look at the articlestats on the Sea otter nom (talk page precedent) that I linked somewhere in this discussion. When a significant and active editor has 400+ edits to the article, no one else has more than a few on the article, and the nominator has none, it's pretty clear the significantly principle editor can say it's not ready, withdraw; others are less clear ... we can't trigger FAC ownership edit wars. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:14, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We have to consider the (significant) issues about keeping archives and articlehistory straight, that Gimmetrow and I put so much work into when we cleaned up all the articlehistories last year. The willy-nilly anyone withdrawing noms scenario is what I want to avoid, as it could get us back to the kind of mess Gimmetrow and I were dealing with in archives before article history and GimmeBot (see WP:FCDW/March 24, 2008). I've been working in the yard all day, so I'll weigh in later with more thoughts. I'm hoping we can start with a much simpler instruction and see if it does the job (that is, if we can discourage drive-bys to begin with, we won't have to worry so much about how to deal with them); I'm still really concerned about the AGF aspect, and I've got something sorta bouncing around in the back of my brain that I've got to put more thought to ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:50, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good point SandyGeorgia; frequent editors is a difficult thing. We could experiment with leaving the option open and see what happens (I think withdrawals will be reasonably rare).

I would say that a withdrawal is a clear case of "not promoted", so no need to change article history. I think the main value would be to give the signal to the reviewers one of the editors is ok if the FAC is closed without promotion. Perhaps, as such it could be an indication of an editor involved in the article that (s)he is no longer actively engaged in trying to get a promotion (that information maybe of interest to the reviewers). I would not formalise "withdrawals", in any case not until we tried it out in practice. Arnoutf (talk) 19:36, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One downside - which has been tangentially touched on - is the possibility of real nastiness. Most drive-by nom's are going to be AGF with a touch of naïveté. But, you are bound to trigger the bizarre vortex of the downward spiral to wiki-drama in some individuals. Obviously, this affects the wiki-experience of Raul654 and SandyGeorgia the most. Cheers!Wassupwestcoast (talk) 19:48, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly what I'm worried about, Wassup :-) Not sure we want everyone/anyone to be able to withdraw noms, because the buck has to stop firmly with the FA director/delegate, so we don't have edit warrish nastiness. Just yesterday I got a nice note on my talk page from someone who thanked me for the withdrawal of an article nominated prematurely by a new editor in good faith (thank goodness I had cribbed Roger Davies' very nice message for talk page notification, it did the trick :-) Arnoutf, I'm tired from a long day of yardwork, and I'm not completely parsing your message ... can you try another wording (between "I think the ... and the reviewers)? Withdrawal with no objections does not figure in articlehistory as an article event, while a withdrawal after significant opposes does get archived and Gimmebotified to articlehistory. I handle the two differently. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:09, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry wasn't aware that you already distinguished between withdrawal and no promote. Sounds like you already thought it over in much more detail than me. Just ignore my comments if they don't make sense. Arnoutf (talk) 21:03, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But ... I'm still not clear here. Are nominators unaware that they can withdraw ? OR that withdrawal is often a desired option? Are you saying, Arnoutf, that the EU editors would have withdrawn if they had known they could? Because I had to agonize over that one, and withdrawal sooner would have been excellent (I saw the talk page turmoil, but there was nothing on the FAC). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:50, 27 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Some nominators have no idea what is involved; they simply "vote" for an article on a topic they like. It is a matter of ignorance, and no amount of instructions will help, because these nominations come from people who could not be bothered to read the instructions that already exist. No recourse but triage. --Una Smith (talk) 19:25, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Second draft

Roger Davies proposed:

Nominators are expected to be familiar enough with the subject matter and sources to deal themselves with objections during the FAC process. In practice, this means that nominations will normally come from recent significant contributors. Nominations from uninvolved editors may be withdrawn.

I am not a wordsmith, but subject to help from others with the prose, I propose we intially try something milder like:

Nominators are expected to be familiar with the subject matter and sources to deal themselves with objections during the FAC process. If a nominator has not been a significant contributor to the article, and there are significantly principle editors according to articlestats, as a courtesy, the nominator should place a notice on the article talk page a week before submitting to FAC, inquiring whether regular editors consider the article ready for FAC.

Hopefully this prophylactic measure will work to stem the tide of premature noms; if not, I suggest we can add the other suggested wording about withdrawing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:56, 26 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I prefer:

Nominators are expected to be familiar with the subject matter and sources to deal themselves with objections during the FAC process. Nominators who are not significant contributors to the article should consult regular editors of the article prior to nomination.

At least for a first measure. DrKiernan (talk) 08:22, 27 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It has potential :) How about firming up the first sentence and raising the bar slightly on the second, thus:

Nominators must be sufficiently familiar with the subject matter and sources to deal with objections during the FAC process. Nominators who are not significant contributors to the article should ask the regular editors of the article whether they consider the article ready and wther they are prepared to deal with objections prior to nomination.

Thoughts? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk

Last sentence may read ambiguous. whether they are prepared to deal with objections prior to nomination - (might mean that objections need to be dealt with prior to nom; instead of making sure they are a priory prepared to deal with objections during FAC). DrKiernans version is short, that has many advantagous (people might actually read it ;-) Arnoutf (talk) 08:47, 27 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

[Chuckle] How's about this? A combined version of mine and his:

Nominators must be sufficiently familiar with the subject matter and sources to deal with objections during the FAC process. Nominators who are not significant contributors to the article should consult regular editors of the article prior to nomination.

Does that do it? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 09:11, 27 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Whatever is decided, I want to keep the articlestats link, because that is the "hard data" that addresses AGF concerns. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:39, 27 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nominators must be sufficiently familiar with the subject matter and sources to deal with objections during the FAC process. Nominators who are not significant contributors to the article should consult regular editors of the article prior to nomination.

works for me. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:43, 27 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Me too. I suggest that we add it, between the "Before nominating an article" and "Nominators are expected to respond positively" paragraphs, if we have no objections within 24 hours. Seem reasonable? --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 06:45, 28 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I like it. I don't think it will stop all of those types of noms, but it might help lessen the number. Karanacs (talk) 13:10, 28 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:32, 29 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Test case for new instructions

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Hillary Rodham Clinton. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:19, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But the major contributors weren't aware of the new instructions or that what seemed like a casual mention of featuring by an unknown editor with no connection to the article, was going to turn into an actual nomination. We'll deal with it, but I'd recommend that the instructions be further tweaked to indicate that the potential nominator do something more than just make a casual mention - if they get no substantive response I think they should be expected to at least leave a note on the user talk pages of major contributors. Otherwise, this remains drive-by. Tvoz |talk 05:33, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the instructions need tweaking if "consult" is taken to mean "discuss" rather than "notify in the most vague manner possible". It doesn't take much to check whether the principal editors are still active and drop a note on their talk pages. However well-intentioned the nom was, it complied with the minimum interpretation of the letter of the instructions rather than the spirit (plus we wouldn't want some drive-by getting their name on WBFAN - that would really screw up the stats). Yomangani ^talk 10:30, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to think that this nom complied with the letter, not the spirit of the instructions. On some articles, there is so little traffic, that any note stands out on the talk page. With HRC, I'm sure it's easy to miss small mentions. Might "consult with major contributors both on the talk page of the article as well as on their own talk pages" help? Or perhaps "discuss the pending nomination with regular contributors" might be better, as discuss implies more than just dropping a quick note. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:25, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, including the word "discuss" might help, although Yomangani is right that "consult" should mean "discuss with". I think either one of Ealdgyth's suggestions works, and would increase clarity - and more clarity is certainly welcome here. Tvoz |talk 18:00, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ealdgyth proposals: Change

Nominators who are not significant contributors to the article should consult regular editors of the article prior to nomination.

to

Nominators who are not significant contributors to the article should consult with major contributors on the article talk page and the editors' talk pages prior to nomination.

or

Nominators who are not significant contributors to the article should discuss the pending nomination with regular contributors prior to nomination.

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:42, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think the last option sounds best, but I don't think we'll be able to get rid of this problem. The people who create drive-by-noms on articles that aren't ready don't really understand the process, and the people who are active contributors are either unaware of the instruction change or take this type of question as a joke. I don't think tweaking the instructions more fully is going to help the underlying problem. Karanacs (talk) 17:49, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Since misunderstandings seem to 'happen', perhaps:

Nominators who are not significant contributors to the article should discuss the pending nomination with regular and recent contributors prior to nomination.

Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 17:51, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(undent) What about just extending FAC expectations to encompass not only familiarity, but responsiveness (i.e. nominators are expected to actively address and/or respond to reviewer’s comments)? If one wants to bypass the opinions of the main contributors, that’s fine (we then avoid OWN issues), but they need to be prepared to actively participate at the nomination. The hallmark of the drive by is solicitation and expenditure of reviewer time without the courtesy of utilizing or responding to that time investment. We can kibitz over exact wording or defining what constitutes “actively”, but I think the general concept would help address a fundamental fairness issue and help avoid the slippery slope towards OWN issues (down which the new suggestions seem to be headed). ЭLСОВВОLД _talk 18:25, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Totally agree. The problem, though, is that the reviewer must review before the dead-beat drive-by nom can be identified. Some would rather paint all drive-by noms as dead-beat rather than waste the time, effort and good-will of scarce reviewers. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 18:36, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, indeed. I was implicating playing off of Karanacs' comment. This is going to happen no matter what; the best we can do is try to minimize it. We can withdraw before too much reviewer time is spent (e.g. before Ealdgyth has to look through 300+ references). ЭLСОВВОLД _talk 18:49, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm beginning to think some FAc nominations may be just so editors can get an Ealdgyth review of their sources :-)) Regardless of what happens with the HRC FAC, Ealdgyth's work will improve the article (barnstar time :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:54, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, the only reason I did the 350+ refs for HRC was that I like the regular contributors, and figured it'd help them no matter what. I'm getting requests from folks to look at their articles BEFORE FAC, which I greatly appreciate and do everything in my power to do before it hits FAC, makes things easier for everyone. I'm trying to find the time to go to PR and do a souce check on things folks are saying they plan to take to FAC, but life is going to be a bit busy for the next few weeks, so probably won't get as much done as I'd like. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:01, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Further, if the article looks hopeless, I'm not going to bother doing a source check, I'll just oppose because it's not even close to meeting the criteria. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:03, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Copying my comment here from the FAC, so we'll have it for a full discussion of the instructions:

Clarification relative to previous precedent to withdraw noms: Unlike the Sea Otter nomination, which was withdrawn because the principle editor argued it was not yet comprehensive and some sources were not yet included, neither of the principle editors have argued here that the article is not ready for FAC. They argued that "As the #1 contributor to this article, I am not prepared, and do not wish, for it to go to FAC at this time." and "I agree, as another major contributor." This does not conform with the previous precedent set that an article can be withdrawn when the principle editor explains that it's not yet comprehensive or not ready. Unlike Sea Otter, in this case, the nominator queried the talk page about nominating; no reasons were given then or have been given here that the article is not ready for FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:11, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion is still pending (for after the FAC closes), but I'm putting a post here so it won't get automatically archived tomorrow. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:31, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Self-nomination"

Obviously it isn't the article doing the nominating. So why in the world are so many of these applications characterized as "self-nominations"? Hasn't anybody here read Wikipedia:Ownership of articles? Gene Nygaard (talk) 05:09, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Writing "self-nomination" might no longer be necessary anyway as I believe that it has become the norm. –thedemonhog talk • edits 05:17, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So why are these improper ownership claims condoned? Gene Nygaard (talk) 06:27, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think anyone really uses those indicators anymore. That text is just a relic of older times and if consensus here agrees, it will be removed. SorryGuy Talk 06:30, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How is it an ownership claim, improper or otherwise? Self-nom indicates that the person nominating did a large amount of work on the article to bring it to FA level and that they aren't just some random person who went "oo, I love this topic so it should be an FA cause I love this topic." WP:OWN does not mean editors aren't acknowledge for having actually done work on an article. Beyond that, I don't see many self-nom indicators anymore either, as it is presumed to be the case and I believe the FAC is axed if the nominator is not one of the major article contributers (or if a major contributer objects to the nom), as as it is generally the the nominator who will be expected to fix any issues brought up. Collectonian (talk) 06:36, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Now we're getting somewhere. It isn't generally the attitude of the nominators I'm concerned about. It is the attitude of the FAC reviewers, and their pushing of this notion of ownership and responsibility onto the nominators. It isn't right. Gene Nygaard (talk) 11:33, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think its is an inadvertent 'ownership' issue. The practical problem is the nomination of articles that are doomed to fail. Perhaps that is what should happen but a FAC culture of 'article remediation' has taken hold. Good faith FAC reviewers point out flaws but are unable actually to fix the problem themselves without bootstrapping themselves on the topic. Supposedly, the contributing editors can easily fix the problem themselves. However, Gene Nygaard (talk · contribs) has a good point in that the Wikipedia ethos is against 'ownership': why can't any editor nominate. I think SandyGeorgia (talk · contribs) dislikes drive-by noms because of the impractical number of them, which she finds very time-consuming to process. Therefore, the interest of the FAC reviewers - and directors - is being served here. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 13:45, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The biggest flaw with drive-by nominations is that the nominator is often not familiar with the topic. SandyGeorgia has had to remove a lot of nominations because the major contributors, who are assumed to be very familiar with the content, say that there are comprehensiveness issues. This is sometimes hard for reviewers to spot, because we aren't usually that familiar with the topic either. Karanacs (talk) 14:31, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is also the issue that a non-involved editor who randomly sees an article they like and sticks it up at FAC may not be capable of addressing reviewers' concerns. They may not even be aware of the need to address them, in fact. Typically, they list the article and then never come back, leaving the comments and oppose !votes to stack up. FAC is supposed to be a collaborative process, with feedback and suggestions and compromises, but if non-involved editors nominate articles, there is a chance of little give-and-take. Self-nomination notes are usually followed by "I did this amount of work on the article and I'm looking forward to feedback" -- it's not ownership, it's assurance. Or at least that's how I look at it. María (habla conmigo) 15:01, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is an interesting conversation, but little of it is related to why or how the "self-nom" term came to be used at FAC. In the "olden days", editors rarely nominated articles they had worked on; it was traditional for another Wikipedian to put them up instead. Then, the nominator would also Support the article, since they were viewed as an independent, neutral voice, not having worked on the article. When self-noms became more common, it became necessary to know whether the nominator was an involved party or not, in terms of supporting the article, so the term came into use. (I'm not sure how Raul handled Support from significant contributors, but I look for a level of independent Support, aside from the principle contributors.) "Self-nom" is unrelated to the wording change proposed after issues like Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/archive26#Sea Otter and Wikipedia talk:FAC#Drive-by nominations, when several nominations were put up by new editors who had never edited the articles, without participating in the talk page or inquiring if the article was ready, and when significantly principle editors agreed the articles weren't ready. Another sitatuion occurred when User:Wassupwestcoast nominated The President (novel) in spite of extended talk page discussion about the work still needed on the article among several significantly principle editors (the article was not yet finished, had not been copyedited, had sourcing issues, needed a MoS check, and had several principle editors and an entire WikiProject who were still working on the article and discussing a FAC nomination). That premature nomination was withdrawn, re-submitted when work was finished, and a better prepared article is now succeeding at FAC. Yes, it takes me about twenty minutes to do all the edits and archiving and talk page messages to deal with withdrawing a nom, and it takes even more reviewer time to provide a peer review on an unprepared article, but the bigger objection is from the significantly principle editors who have the sources and know the work remaining, who are forced to jump through hoops before the article was ready at a time that may not be optimal for them. If a significantly principle editor agrees an article is not yet comprehensive, copyedited or well sourced, no one is best served by continuing the nomination. Wassupwestcoast asks, "why can't any editor nominate"? Any editor can nominate, there is no requirement that the nomination be from a principle editor (see Walter de Coventre), but when an article has significantly principle editors who agree the article wasn't ready, or when an editor new to Wiki has never edited the article or participated in talk and there are multiple significantly principle editors who agree the article isn't ready, continuing the nomination isn't productive. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:42, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

SandyGeorgia, I'm never going to live this down, am I? I was the one who both prematurely nominated and withdrew the nomination! Yup, I wasn't particularly involved on the article's talk page so was a bit oblivious. On the other hand, I wasn't a typical drive-by nom. I was and am still involved in the article. I was surprise to find that I was the sixth most frequent contributing editor. Nevertheless, I'm resigned to being the exemplar par excellence. Never again, will I nom an article :-) Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 15:47, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if you're going to live it down; you brought it into the discussion by saying SandyGeorgia "dislikes drive-by noms because of the impractical number of them, which she finds very time-consuming to process". That wasn't exactly a spot on description of the situation. Time consuming or not, I'm here to make the process work the best it can for all involved (articles, nominators, reviewers), to yield as many examples of Wiki's best work as possible. I'm always open to better ways to make FAC work, but I did nix the strong wording originally proposed wrt driveby noms, specifically to discourage a culture of ownership. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:56, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the strike, Wassup; the gesture is appreciated. All the best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:07, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I want to reinforce what Sandy is saying about the so-called drive-by nominations. The FAC process relies partly on the fostering of a healthy culture on the part of both nominators and reviewers. An accepted protocol—either written or unwritten or both—that minimises the nomination of premature candidates, is essential to make FAC work properly. So is the avoidance of drive-by reviewing, in which reviewers write simply "oppose" or "support" with no or little supporting text. I'm concerned when I see statements here such as:

It isn't generally the attitude of the nominators I'm concerned about. It is the attitude of the FAC reviewers, and their pushing of this notion of ownership and responsibility onto the nominators. It isn't right

It's the attitude of everyone that is at issue, and I hope that Gene isn't promoting an us-and-them mentality.

Furthermore, keeping the FAC list under control (it reached more than a hundred items not long ago) is essential to the psychology of all players here. I support Sandy's efforts to minimise inappropriate/premature nominations, which gum up the works, make reviewers feel that they're confronting a cascade in which they can barely make an impression, and generally lead to an unsatisfactory process. TONY (talk) 16:09, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Its not Gene who is promoting the "Us and Them" attitude: the idea of a "selfnomination" promotes that idea in my opinion. "Reviewers" and "nominators" and "contributors" are all peers in their capacities as editors. Having to identify as a contributor or self nominator makes the nominator feel like a student who is trying to pass an exam, and gives the idea that "reviewers" have some kind of special authority over the article, which the selfnominator and other contributors must subject themselves to. I don't believe this is the way it should be according to the Wikiprinciples. Basically I think the idea that a nominator or reviewer must identify as a contributor is based on assumptions of bad faith - it seems to indicate that "reviewers" don't think "contributors" are sufficiently able to recognise an article that conforms to the FA criteria. I also see this attitude in the FA review process where reviewers often seem to have a feeling of being automatically right in their opinions, and contributors seem to often conform to reviwers suggestions without questioning them. I think the review process as it is now promotes a hierarchical structure in the project that I believe goes against the fundamental principles, and I believe that the idea of nominating contributors having to identify as such is a part of that problem.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 16:51, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So you disagree that there is value added in having new, fresh, independent, uninvolved editors looking at and Supporting an article, and you promote the idea that significant contributor Support from the editors who worked on the article, without independent peer review, should be sufficient for promoting to featured status? Then let's eliminate FAC and just let contributors assign themselves a star :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:55, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Strawman.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 17:50, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No. Without identification of significant contributors, what differentiates self-promoting articles to featured status? Or what differentiates FAC from GAC, where one editor can promote? Please don't evade the question; without identification of significant contributors, how do we achieve independent peer review? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:54, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My point is that making a sharp division between "reviewers" and "contributors/editors" is detrimental to the solidarity between the editors who are supposed to collaborate on improving articles. Reviewers are editors like all other editors who can edit the articles under review and who should seek consensus for their proposed changes. I do not want to cast doubt on the fact that review process are beneficial for article - because new eyes see things differntly and because old eyes often stare them self blind on certain details and lose sight of the big picture. This is undoubtful in my opinion. However, in a FAC review process the power balance tilts in favour of the reviewing editors because the "nominating contributors" of course have something to gain or lose if they fail to achieve the support of the reviewers. This is natural and probably cannot be completely avoided - but the power relation could be better balanced by focusing on the fact that a review process is a discussion between peers about how to improve an article achieve the most and not an examination of someones homework by a board of tenured professors. The idea of a "selfnomination" takes the FA process closer to the examination scenario because one editor assumes a special responsability for the state of the article and expresses a personal wish to see an article reach a certain state of perfection. Ideally this wish and responsability should equally pertain to the reviewers, who like the nominator is working to improve wikipedia, and maximising the amount of high quality articles. I think that the FA review process should strive to balance the power relations between reviewers and nominators instead of putting nominators in the spot as is the case now. I think that maybe the ideal nomination would be a drive by nomination where an editor accidentally discovers an article that is of very high quality and which only needs a little work, nominates it, collaborates with reviewers to make the finishing touches, and finally promotes it. I think that the FA process could be improved if it were explicitly stated that the goal of the process is for reviewers and nominators to collaborate on improving the article - and not a forum where nitpickers can go to get an easy night out on the nominators cost. Also I don't see why there must be differences between the processes that leads to an FA or a GA - why should there be? GA and FA are just distinct marks of quality, there are no reason the review processes should be different. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 18:33, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For all the very time-consuming and thankless work they do, it's interesting to me that you don't view reviewers as collaborating to improve articles, while I see them as very selflessly collaborating to improve articles and help nominators succeed. Without the selfless work of reviewers, who often get little thanks or recognition for what they do, we wouldn't have an independent community process resulting in our best work to be displayed on the main page. I guess we all see things differently :-) GA is no mark of quality, since an editor who was a troll vandal or sockpuppet yesterday could promote an article to GA today. Question: why should we presume that a process whereby "an editor accidentally discovers an article that is of very high quality and which only needs a little work, nominates it, collaborates with reviewers to make the finishing touches, and finally promotes it" will result in anyone who has access to the highest quality sources and knows if the article is comprehensive working on the article, particularly when the editors who do have access and do know the topic agree the article is not yet ready? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:42, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) If I may butt in, I would hate to see articles being presented at FAC which are clearly far from ready in the hope that reviewers will fix them. GrahamColm ^Talk 18:49, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Again you are reading something I didn't say into my words. I did not say that reviewers are not collaborating to improve articles - I said that I think we should do more to stress that this is actually what an FA process is about. Reviewers do a great job and my own experiences in the FA reviews in which I have participated have been almost purely positive. If I understand your last sentence correctly, then my answer to your question about "why we should assume..." is that we should assume that because Assumption of Good Faith is a basic tenet around here. And in my opinion it is also near self evident that articles that are very far from being perfect in the opinions of the editors who are experts on the topic would not be promoted because the FA reviewers and the expert editors (who assumedly have the article on their watchlist) together would quickly see that the article was not ready and form a consensus to denominate. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 19:00, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Peer review is a good place for "an editor [who] accidentally discovers an article that is of very high quality and which only needs a little work, nominates it, collaborates with reviewers to make the finishing touches" to move the article closer to FA, hopefully garnering input from editors knowledgeable about the topic. If we had an unlimited supply of selfless reviewers and wanted the FAC page to regularly run 100 noms, we could do it all here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:55, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I try to stay out of actually editing most of the articles that I review for FA and just offer comments on things the nominators should be able to fix. This is for two reasons: a) I'm not an expert on most of these topics and have no access to the sources) and b) when I do get sucked into editing an article that was having FA difficulty (like Roman Catholic Church) it ends up taking a great deal of my time and then I don't have the opportunity to provide constructive feedback on any other articles. A lot of nominations get closed without promotion because there aren't enough reviewers to go around. This is compounded by the fact that too many nominators either don't understand the FA criteria or want the FA reviewers to finish writing the article for them. Nominators and contributors should push back if they find reviewer comments unreasonable. I've struck my own comments when the nominator can provide a good reason for why something is the way it is in the article; and even if I don't strike it, with their explanation Sandy and Raul can at least weigh the objection and throw it out if needed. As a nominator, I've also refused to make changes because I didn't agree with them, but I explained why.

As a reviewer, should my opinion count more than the contributors'? I think that depends. The contributors are obviously the factual experts. However, contributors can get too close to an article and not see its problems. The regular FAC reviewers read lots and lots of Featured article candidates; we know what gets promoted and what doesn't and why. The "opinions" we present are often the result of the consensus we've seen in those promotions and non-promotions. Reviewers seem to be the target of a lot of anger about the process; if I didn't think Sandy would drag me back kicking and screaming I would have quit a few times by now (that, and the fact that occasionally I find an article that is really, really good). Karanacs (talk) 19:38, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. I'd like to add that a lot of people don't realize that many of the regular FAC reviewers are also regular FAC contributors; we've been on both sides and are still here. Maybe if other contributors started reviewing articles they'd change their minds about how awful the reviewers are. Karanacs (talk) 19:38, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer burnout is something I worry about; I don't like to see either nominators or reviwers taking a beating. Reminder to self to stalk Karanacs' for personally identifying info so I can drag her back kicking and screaming if she ever leaves :-)). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:43, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I also dislike the "self-nomination" label on so many FACs, for the same reasons already stated. That said, I think a large amount of triage is inevitable. Rather than write ever longer and more complex instructions to nominators, how about expanding the instructions to reviewers? Reviewers now respond with "support", "oppose", and "comment"; how about adding "premature" to the list? Or, hey, how about encouraging reviewers to oppose because the nomination is premature? --Una Smith (talk) 19:21, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Already discussed in several sections above. Some nominations which appear grossly unprepared might make it; some do. And we need actionable opposes; premature doesn't do anything different than Oppose if it's not actionable. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:25, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There aren't enough reviewers, period. How does it matter whether they hang out in PR or in FAC? --Una Smith (talk) 19:27, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It matters because peer review affords the luxury of time. Extensive work can be done outside of FAC, without pressure. And "not enough reviewers" is the opposite side of the "too many driveby noms" coin :-) Same thing. There are enough reviewers if they don't have to peer review premature noms. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:30, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewing a FAC can be quick, easy and a pleasure, if the article has been well prepared.[1] It's not a pleasure when the article is far from ready and the nominator can't understand why or thinks FAC is the place for articles to get fixed,[2]. But, enough from me. GrahamColm ^Talk 19:42, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is really a pointless discussion. "Self-nom", whether implicit or explicit, is a matter of ethics. It is crucial to know whether someone who is "supporting" an article has significantly contributed to it. I always make it clear in my "nomination" statements that I am the primary editor or the article by explaining my contributions. If I were to offer a "support" vote under that nomination, it would become clear that I was trying to !vote stack. "Self-nom" is just another way of making this claim clear - I do not see a big distinction between this phrase and other phrases people use to indicate that they are the primary contributor to the article. Let's not get picky. If we want to have a discussion about the ways in which FAC itself promotes article ownership, by all means let's do that, but let's look at the real issues, not tangential ones. Awadewit (talk) 23:07, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To me the pint is precisely that a selfnominators vote of support is worth exactly the same as a reviewers vote of support and has nothing to do with vote stacking. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 06:09, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think major contributors have a conflict of interest and must be identified. Obviously they think the article is FA-ready, or they should not have nominated it. The point of FAC is to see what the rest of the community thinks, and we need a way to easily see who that is. Karanacs (talk) 14:47, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just as a comment from a different angle, is it necessary or reasonable to expect that the person nominating an article will be the "go-to" person should any issues come up during an FA review? There can be some value, if this is the case, to indicating self-noms as to know if there are people that are going to jump in to fix anything that may come up. --MASEM 15:08, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is reasonable to expect nominators to pick up and deal with issues raised during the review, or at least be prepared to act as a backstop if they're not dealt with by someone else. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 16:13, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I think people have read it but choose to willfully ignore it when it comes to the FA persuit process (after all, autocracy and oligopoly have always been much easier and faster ways to reach a defined objective than consensus building). I think that the featured article criteria and the FAC page should both be amended to include a firm reminder that the Wikipedia:Ownership of articles policy must be unquestionably adhered to throughout FA development as a prerequisite for consideration as a FAC. Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 04:00, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Readability tools

Since I have limited time to take on projects, I need to know if the readability tool^{Beta ver.} should be developed further. The new thing I've added the bottom is the SMOG scores per paragraph. It known that a single author writes in a constant style and their work will be roughly the same score with any given text. But Wikipedia's articles have multiple writers. The tool will indicate on some article[3] if the style varies too much in readability. If there's no significant interest then the tool will only be developed as an academic excess. — Dispenser 05:19, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's excellent. Should help reviewers and editors quickly identify some paragraphs needing work. Shouldn't the number of monosyllabic words and polysyllabic words equal the total number of words? Check spelling of "readable prose" ;) Gimmetrow 05:48, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You forgot about words which only have two syllables. There are (glaring) flaws in the software, so the idea is to rewrite it with properly researched algorithms. — Dispenser 13:05, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Forgive me for saying this but I'm profoundly suspicious of automated analysis. Probably just the Luddite in me. In one experiment I read about (which I've tried Googling for but can't find) the "To be or not to be" soliloquy was supposed to have a reading age of eight or nine, based on the shortness of the words used. Hmmm. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 13:48, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I found it interesting, but I'm a geekette, so while I wouldn't use it to support or oppose, but it is a good all around extra tool to use. Just like I don't completely trust the link checker tool (I usually click on most of them anyway) I wouldn't trust any tool totally, without reading the article myself. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:50, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, if you find something incorrect with the results of checklinks.py leave a note. — Dispenser 14:46, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your absolutely correct. I had same doubts when first learning of readability tests and early on added a boilerplate message advising them not to take the results too seriously. I plan on adding flags if the parameters of particular tests are not meet in the rewrite. Right now I've hack in a word count check. — Dispenser 14:46, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Cool. I like it. I'm addicted to Word 2003's readability statistics. I find them useful as an objective score that I can use to show my progress in revising. (Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level 7.8) Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 15:05, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The best use of the tool would be to help us improve the prose; the scores themselves are probably not so important. I like tools that list the most "difficult" sentences. qp10qp (talk) 15:58, 9 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You wouldn't want to use the scores directly because of the rather large standard deviation and the use of names (especially Japanese) will only give something good in ±2. As for individual sentences, the sample size is too small to inaccurately do that. It is actually good to stick short sentences in to break monotony. — Dispenser 04:37, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Readabible text" - intentional jest, holy typo, or exhortation to study the scriptures? Yomangani ^talk 00:20, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Whoops, I'm surprised I hadn't caught that. — Dispenser 04:37, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think I'm missing something. Can someone explain how to use this tool to improve an article? It looks like an interesting tool, but I'm not sure how to apply its findings. — Dulcem (talk) 00:27, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're not alone in that. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 00:43, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The idea is to find outlier and other unusually thing as well as to monitor constancy. For example, when newspaper first started using readability tests they were able to increase the size of their audience by making it more accessible. Most adults read at a 7/8 grade level. — Dispenser 04:37, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Does it mean that having consistent even bars with little variation is good? Is a small bar easy or hard to read? Blnguyen (bananabucket) 01:45, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The end section gives SMOG values per paragraph. Smaller numbers correspond to easier-to-read text. Wild variation might show a text needing more unity, but some paragraphs will need to use longer words to cover what they need to cover, and they will naturally have higher scores. Gimmetrow 01:57, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I still don't get it. Apparently the final paragraph of Donkey Kong (video game) requires 23 years of education to understand? (link) Perhaps someone could write a walkthrough on how to use the tool and interpret its results. Might make a good subject for a Dispatch article. — Dulcem (talk) 04:53, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are articles on the readability tests. Each produces different numbers. The bar chart at the end of Dispenser's tool uses the SMOG test. Depending on your browser setup, if you mouse-over a bar it shows the first sentence of the paragraph, so you can tell which paragraph it is. The paragraph with the 22.92 score is short with a few 3+ syllable words and only two sentences, so it scores high. You can decide whether that paragraph is really too complex, and if it is, whether it needs to be. I would just treat it as a tool to identify paragraphs that may be rough for readers. Gimmetrow 06:21, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, readability tests are in the same category as spellcheckers and grammar checkers. They are all tools that automatically point to possible problems in writing. They are not magic and have a false positive and false negative rate (no surprise). Nevertheless, they are very useful tools when you are bleary-eyed and too familiar with a text. They focus your attention to a possible problem. You, though, have to decide what to do. (Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level 7.3) Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 12:30, 10 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank for you feed back. I have abandoned the 1.3beta and am moving forward to the 2.0 rewrite. And hopefully I'll come up with better graph and method of explaining the data. In a way I had felt disillusioned that the algorithms were combinations of sentences and word length. — Dispenser 03:54, 16 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Seems to have sparked off a discussion at Talk:India. Some folks are measuring the article by the magnitude of the number. I tried the test on some FAs and some really bad articles and it seems that the really bad articles, eg, Rahul Dravid, Baazigar and Sachin Tendulkar. I presume this is because of the three articles have really short and choppy sentences, since that is what the formula measures. One could write "He am Australian" and "He is Australian" and get the same readability score although one fails 1a and the other does not. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 05:36, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Readability tests are not grammar or spelling checkers! Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 15:50, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

An FAC should not be failed because of lack of comments

Right. I've been working on for a months now, the 1995 Japanese Grand Prix article. It's been through PR, had it's GA passed and a thorough review by two users at the talkpage without no major problems. So, my expectation was to nominate it for FAC have a lot of constructive critism and support/oppose opinions. However, if an article is nominated, it should not end in "Not Promoted" if no one has opposed it fully!! My point is, is that articles should not be faield because of lack of comments. It's not my fault that people don't comment on the article. I could of left a big banner sailing across the FAC, along with my talkpage saying "REVIEW THIS NOW!", but I'm not like that, and I shouldn't be forced to do that. I also think it's damn unfair that articles are archived without thorough opinion for oppose. This is a decision to decide whether it should be an FA or not, if there isn't a lot of discussion, the FAC should continue, continue and continue until there is a lot of discussion and until there is 6/7 opposes. The current FAC process is absolutely bad and needs changing. I'm pretty sure this is only one of many articles that falls foul to this system that shuod be dropped. IMO, FAC's should only be archived IF there are six/seven opposes. At the end of the day, it's not be fault if no one hardly comments on it; I refuse to run round every single project begging on my knees to ask them to review it, because I'd only get it in the neck several days later. I just feel the FAC process should be changed, because in it's current state, it is very bad. D.M.N. (talk) 09:51, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's happened several times and it's unfortunate. One thing I would suggest you do is follow up to the people that have commented on your nomination, because my first impression after reading this was that it did not receive any comments, but it looks like it did. Let those people know that you have addressed their concerns and ask them to re-review the article again. I'd think that's the best way to go about this type of situation, because most people will return and then promptly reply with a Support if they have no more concerns about the article. GaryKing (talk) 10:03, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid that we're faced with a process that is central to establishing and maintaining WP's standards—the FAC system—that is drastically short of reviewers, even more so of skilled reviewers who don't drive by and fling a "Support—great article" comment. The latter is increasingly viewed as not meaning much, with good reason (it's open to abuse, provides no evidence that the person has actually read or, dare I say it, engaged with the article, and has little to do with the critical commentary that prompts improvement in nominations. Another serious problem is the length of the queue; having 70 to 100 nominations in the list is a psychological drag for current and potential reviewers. Raul and Sandy endeavour to keep the size under control, but it's hard. Under these circumstances, if there's little interest on the nomination page, there's no presumed automatic right to a promotion; on the contrary, it's likely that a nomination will be bumped off. This is a healthy aspect to the process, since taking a little more time to polish an article (so that it garners more interest next time) is usually just what is indicated; a renomination is often a learning process for all involved and results in improved quality in the encyclopedia: we all want that, yes? TONY (talk) 10:47, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's my problem. I can't improve the article as they were not any specific comments on how to improve the article. One comment left was to expand the lead, which I have already done. Another comment was about the TV coverage, but I cannot find any sources for that. I could if I wanted to go to WP:LOCE, but I'd be waiting in a very long queue. Therefore my only option is to re-nominate for FAC. But, if I did I would get Oppose: This article was only just failed. It shouldn't of been failed for lack of comments. D.M.N. (talk) 10:52, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I sympathise; we realise that nominators can put in a huge amount of work, and it must be a let-down when there's insufficient response at FAC. All I can say is: give it time; seek wider collaborators (it's the essence of WP, and makes the whole thing worth it); and resubmit after a while. There's not hurry, and nothing to stop you preparing another in the meantime. TONY (talk) 12:39, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I sometimes wonder if FA reviewers lose sight of the fact that contributors are volunteers, not professional writers; it's a bit of a knock-back when you are failed without getting anything wrong. I've no axe to grind on this, since it's not happened to me and I do occasional reviews at FA - usually having read the articles first (: Jimfbleak (talk) 12:56, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We're all volunteers, and all equal, irrespective of the role(s) we choose to take on here. TONY (talk) 13:03, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Now that I'm maintaining the Urgents list daily (see the top of this talk page), all articles are getting feedback, and it is extremely rare that I have to fail an article for lack of feedback. The article in question received feedback from at least eight editors over almost two weeks, none of whom decided to Support it. Suggestions for getting further feedback can be found at WP:FCDW/March 17, 2008; opening a peer review and inviting editors who commented on the FAC, as well as seeking out other editors from the list at WP:PRV, might help uncover the reasons the article was unable to garner support at FAC. A few steps like that are often enough to push the article over the line on its next FAC nomination: good luck ! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:12, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Right, let's see:

Ealdygth: Only checking sources, nothing else. It's strange how an article she's developed gets the 1st Class treatment from two others who have commented above and are involved in the FAC process, what about the rest of us??? Where's our reviews from two of the best here?
Guroardrunner - Member of WP:F1 - none of WP:F1 will support because it's "vote stacking"
AlexJ - Member of WP:F1 - none of WP:F1 will support because it's "vote stacking"
4u1e - Member of WP:F1 - none of WP:F1 will support because it's "vote stacking"
Diniz - Member of WP:F1 - none of WP:F1 will support because it's "vote stacking"
SandyGeorgia - I don't know, you'll have to ask yourself. You had enough time to copy-edit Ealdygth's article, but when it comes to reviewing someone else's article who she doesn't know that good, well....
Readro - Member of WP:F1 - none of WP:F1 will support because it's "vote stacking"
Laser_brain - (S)he reviewed the article, but only comments, no support or oppose despite the fact I sorted her comments out. Not much I can do about that.
Blnguyen - I addressed his oppose, he said he'd look at "other things", but that failed to materialize.

That's nine, but only four could of supported it. Why didn't they? Well, that's not my problem if they didn't want to, is it. I feel like renominating it right this second. D.M.N. (talk) 13:35, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing prevents members of a Project from Supporting an article. Many editors are willing to engage with an article that is not yet at FAC, as they have the luxury of time to work as they will (which is why I suggest you open a peer review and specifically invite editors to comment there). I know horses and the lingo—I don't know a thing about race cars; I doubt I could add anything helpful to your article as I could to the horse article I edited last night. Finally, I don't Support or Oppose articles at FAC. I hope you'll consider opening a peer review and seeking out editors knowledgeable in racing, as well as volunteers from WP:PRV, to help prepare the article for a successful candidacy. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:54, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done. I hope you realise that I feel that the article should 110% be re-instated as a FAC, and that the crap process called FAC should be changed, and also that I have heavily considered leaving this place today. D.M.N. (talk) 14:23, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

DMN, I appreciate your frustration, but believe me, WP is just great for finding collaborative friends and sharpening our skills at a number of intellectual tasks (I'm gradually improving). Now give Sandy (and me) a little slack here: just as you are free to join W'projects and form collaborative friendships (one of the exciting things about the project), so are we, yes? I, for one, would have to spend every waking hour on copy-editing duty if the gates of the dam opened. Yet I've etched out my role here, which is highly selective direct work on articles (for whatever reasons I choose), reviewing, and negotiating style and policy. You're free to choose your role too. So while I give you every encouragement, please don't put pressure on me or anyone else to do what you'd like us to do. Have you researched the edit histories of similar pages to the nomination in question, to locate copy-edit-type people from their edit summaries? That's how you get to know the lie of the land. TONY (talk) 14:33, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, because out of the 755+ Formula One race reports, only about 3 are fully race reports, all the rest of stubs. On the subject of FAC's and promotion, just why was this promoted?. Yes, three supports, but there were a lot of concerns that were not addressed. Oh dear. D.M.N. (talk) 14:36, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Four supports, and the editor who left a list of concerns subsequently Supported. All editors don't necessarily return to strike; the subsequent support is the indication that concerns were satisfied, and striking every line isn't necessary. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:15, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

DMN, you're not the only person to have difficulty in an FAC. Many editors find it a very frustrating process. You're more than welcome to leave, or just write excellent articles without trying to get them featured. In the grand scheme of all things, the majority of people who read Wikipedia have no idea what a featured article is. It's my opinion, small as it is, that your article wasn't presented as "sexy" enough, if we use Giano's terms. There are a sore few FAC reviewers here, and I never feel competent to review anything but the 2 things I think I know about. It's quite natural for you to be angry at feeling like all your work has been ignored, but the next time an article of yours comes up for FA, it will be a better article. Many editors who have multiple FAs got plenty of rejections and re-nominations after being opposed and told to go back and work on the article. So, leave if you want to (although I would just leave without announcing it), but accept the possibility that your article needs more work. If you love the topic you're writing about - and you shouldn't be writing about it if you don't - it might hurt your pride, but it shouldn't be a chore. --Moni3 (talk) 14:44, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry that having friends look at my articles (when I didn't even ask them to, mind you, although I'm more than willing to egg them on when they start!) is somehow wrong. As for why I didn't review the grand prix article more fully, it was several reasons. One, while it was up, I was pretty busy helping seahamlass with Navenby, where she was pretty busy with some major sourcing issues. Much bigger than your article had. Another was the first couple of comments I got on the Grand Prix FAC. Being snapped at didn't exactly make me want to come back and look at the prose in depth. It's not a bad article, but I'm sure there would have been something I didn't understand (im not a race fan) so I just wasn't motivated to get snapped at again. And third, I've been on the road. And will be again, so I didn't feel it would be fair to review and run if I couldn't give that much time to the effort.

May I make some suggestions? I really respect that your other racing project participants won't just mass support. THAT sort of statement makes me more likely to read the article if it comes back to FAC. But one reason why I get help and my articles get reviews is that I review/peer review/help with sources on other articles, not just here at FAC (although I do that too.) I do some peer reviewing, trying to help folks out with sources over there. I get requests on my talk page to look at articles, I do GA reviews. All that work means that folks are more willing to look at my articles when they come around. We need more reviewers, and the simplest way to make sure that YOUR article gets more looks is to at least look at and comment on other articles. I don't know about others, but I'm much more willing to look at other articles outside my interests when the nominator has spent time reviewing other articles and not just nominating nominating nominating. I'm not saying the F1 project has nominated too much (hardly!) but a bit of time spent reviewing will probably pay itself back. I have one FA to my credit, with one in the wings. On the other hand, I've done nine "full" FA reviews plus however many just reviews of sources. I'm up in the 50s in GA reviews, to under 20 GAs that i've worked on.

If you'd like me to look the article over, I'll try to look at it when I get home Tuesday. I can't promise that it'll be a great copyedit, I'm not the world's best, far from it. I know you're upset, I would be too in your shoes, but just like you are a volunteer, so am I and so is everyone here. Reviewers are just plain scarce, not just here, but everywhere. Current wait time on GAN is about a month. PR is working better now, but it for a while there it was lacking in reviews too. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:02, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think PR is working better because we've made an effort to explain to people that they can't just put up a PR and hope for feedback: they need to seek out reviewers as explained at WP:FCDW/March 17, 2008, by contacting knowledgeable editors in the topic area, previous opposers, and volunteers from WP:PRV. Many peer reviews still close with little input, but if nominators at PR aggressively seek out reviewers, PR can be very successful. PR allows you to solicit input without concern for canvassing, and allows reviewers the benefit to work without any time pressure: they can contribute as much or as little as they're able. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:10, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Understood. It might be an idea to raise at the wikiproject that principle of recusing from supporting (or opposing). In my opinion, it is not only acceptable for members of a project to support or oppose FACs (so long as they are not major editors of the article), but they make the most useful reviewers—particularly with specialist topics like this. Occasionally there have been examples of projects or national groups supporting an article en masse, but this is very rare. Projects want articles that represent them to reach the highest standards.

If an article gets few reviews, it is a good idea for the nominator to ask people to review it. The sort of people to ask are your contacts, or people whose articles you have reviewed, people who have commented on the article's talk page or on talk pages of similar articles, and anyone you can remember doing a good turn for. As someone said above, this is a collaborative project, and the more one edits here, the longer grows the list of colleagues one has collaborated with. This is the reason why certain FACs receive a lot interest and others little: networks of collaboration come into play, and there's nothing sinister about it. qp10qp (talk) 15:12, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ealdygth, please do, and I'm sure your review won't be crap. If you don't mind, leaving comments on the PR will make my day. :)

Right, Qp10qp, the thing about WikiProject's in FACs is that it is classed as a canvassing if all members are Supporting. I would prefer it if a lot of people who know nothing review it because:

They have no knowledge at the subject
The review will be entirely neutral
Their review would probably represent the overall opinion - if this person knows nothing about the subject and finds some sentences confusing, then someone else who is "dumb" at the subject will also face the same problems.

People working at the WikiProjects which are involved in the same article (e.g. with 1995 Japan and WP:F1) is that they may not recognize the problems as well as a "dumb", neutral reviewer, hence why I'd prefer neutrals to review it. If anybody above does which to comment at the PR, that would be much appreciated, and if anyone did, who has no involvement in motor racing, the comments would be appreciated more than if a WP:F1 member commented on it. D.M.N. (talk) 15:21, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clear up some possible misunderstanding about Project support: we need content knowledgeable, expert review, and that comes often from the Projects. For example, when WikiProject Medicine members don't support a medical article, there may be a reason. We also need independent review and fresh eyes; an ideal FA promotion has both (topic area experts and independent reviewers) kinds of support. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:26, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just chipping my 2p in. I've supported a fair few WP:FOOTY-based articles recently, but I've made comments at Peer Review to try help improve them. I'm sure if the four editors above have made critical comments, suggestions or improvements themselves, it doesn't matter if they're "vote stacking", it wouldn't be a problem, but endorsement of the work put in. I'm sure User:SandyGeorgia notes where the votes are from when she promotes / archives work. If your fellow editors have putting in the work at PR, to help bring a polished article to FAC, which doesn't require much work, then their support ought to be expected really. Peanut4 (talk) 15:35, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How about we split up WP:FAC into different categories, similar to WP:GAN, so that reviewers can find the category they are most interested in and engage themselves in those articles, rather than having to sift through articles that do not interest them? Just an idea, but it's also important to consider that the number of nominations will only surely increase over time, while the quality of WP:FA will decrease unless something is done. Gary King (talk) 19:03, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Or just use WP:FACL. BuddingJournalist 19:09, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was not aware of that page. It must be new? It's also almost completely orphaned. It's also NOT a good page to Watch because it transcludes its list from ANOTHER page, and most people will not be aware of this. Gary King (talk) 19:19, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What's that page actually used for? D.M.N. (talk) 19:22, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How about we not try to turn the FAC pages into the kind of jumble seen on the GA pages? Notice a backlog template at the top of WP:GAN? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:26, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're surely not suggesting that the "jumble" is somehow responsible for causing that backlog? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 19:33, 19 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Peer review/1995 Japanese Grand Prix/archive2 shows a productive peer review, and provides examples of why the nomination didn't succeed at FAC and how peer review can be used effectively, per Dispatches: Changes at peer review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:07, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikiproject chums and support vote chestnut again

I do feel for DMN and no-one in WP:F1 supporting. I have no problem supporting noms from other WP:birds or dino articles, mainly because I am not shy to point out issues or oppose if need be and all the others I know of in both wikiprojects can be frank and brutally so at times with issues in my noms (especially when I have been a bit sloppy/casual which can happen), and I am grateful for their honesty if it makes a better article. One positive of two active reviewers is two sets of eyes is better than one. Anyway, if they can give moral support then that may be something....Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:55, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. A minor apology for my attitude yesterday above, I was a little peeved that the FAC was failed for 1995 Japanese Grand Prix, and I'm happy that I brought it up for discussion over here. I've put it up for Peer review, so I'll have to see where that takes the article. ;) D.M.N. (talk) 09:10, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

DMN, please don't leave: we need you to foster a collaborative culture in your field. You're doing good here. TONY (talk) 09:21, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Woah, who said I was leaving? I was a little annoyed yesterday, and probably over-reacted. Of course I'm not leaving. ;) D.M.N. (talk) 09:24, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Good! Coming a bit late to this, you have all my sympathies. The only thing I can say is that FAC reviewers are spread very thin and regulars (I include me here) do do their best to cover as much as possible. I'll keep an eye out for this article when it re-surfaces at FAC and will do my best to chip in. (Leaving me a reminder on my talk page is a good idea!) --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 10:36, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

D.M.N., let you know when you nominate it again so I can review it against FA standards (it's not vote stacking since I asked). I can do an unbiased check since know a lot about racing without being a Formula 1 fan. I can provide specialist knowledge of racing without being influenced by WikiProject Formula 1. I am also concerned about getting enough reviewers for a NASCAR driver GA that I've been working on for a FA, so I know where you're coming from. Royalbroil 16:03, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Undent - I have to say I contribute to this problem, I personally only like to review animal/plant/chemical/state FACs because those are the ones I enjoy. This is a volunteer organization so people are going to focus on the things they like. One thing that I did to drum up reviews when I submitted Minnesota was to review other articles (even in subjects I didn't like) and then ask the submitter if they could take a look at mine. Didn't always work, but it got some extra people to look. -Ravedave (talk) 16:43, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Since many people do exactly that, it can result (at the extreme) in uneven standards for FAs. If serious reviewers jump right on the technical or scholarly topics, and Oppose anything less than perfection, while they ignore more popular or everyday articles that have glaring grammar and prose deficiencies, some of our content experts end up getting the short end of the stick. I've said it before: anyone can glance at an article on a well known or pop culture topic and see if it has glaring prose and grammar issues; you don't need to be a topic expert to glance at an article and see deficiencies. (Example of this problem at the other end, lack of reviews on technical topics, while popular topics garner Support: look up the page at Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates#Emery Molyneux.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:53, 21 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to do the same, sticking mostly to anime, manga, television, and film FACs. They are the topics I enjoy and the areas I'm familiar enough in that I can speak to those areas specific MoS requirements and how the article may fail to meet it. When I've stepped outside of those areas and tried to review other topics, the reception was not so good and I got chastised for the items I picked up "not being something to worry about for an FAC." I felt they were problems regarding MoS and other issues, and some were even things that had been pointed out to me in my one FA, so it was disconcerting and discouraging enough that I just stick to my own areas. Collectonian (talk) 18:03, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Criterion 2b

WP:WIAFA, criterion 2b, states that an FA has:

"a system of hierarchical headings and table of contents that is substantial but not overwhelming".

But some articles are camouflaging an overwhelming, rambling TOC by limiting the depth of the TOC display to only the first level (when the TOC may actually go to three or four levels), by using {{TOClimit}}. For an example of the difference, see this full TOC compared to this hidden TOC (which gives a different impression of the article structure). This is not dealt with in WP:MOS (should it be?), but hiding the TOC may circumvent one of the FA criterion that we should be evaluating at FAC (a reasonable article structure reflected in the TOC). Are reviewers watching for this? (And I'm also seeing lots of commercial and non-reliable external links; is anyone checking that?)SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:25, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So MOS should proscribe this practice, do you think? TONY (talk) 02:44, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I'm having a hard time imaging why we use that in articles. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:46, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, seems to me that if TOCable segments are created in the article, they should appear in the TOC. Otherwise, some of the linkable subheadings should be reformatted so as not to appear in the TOC. Can't have it both ways. Who invented this template? I'll have a look. TONY (talk) 03:05, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's just been fully protected by a mop. Ais523 put it up a year ago; Amarkov, Circeus, Alex537, Gog Dodo, Superm401. TONY (talk) 03:08, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Whatever the outcome of the template and conclusions at MoS, since TOC is FAC crit 2b, we need to see the TOC in articles at FAC, and I hope reviewers are watching for this. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:35, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I can't speak for others, but it is something I'll check because I have noticed that in both FACs and GANs. Collectonian (talk) 03:37, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Forgive me for my typical reticence about being overly-proscriptive. It seems that sections have two purposes 1) organizing a table of contents for navigational purposes and 2) allowing editors to edit smaller, manageable sections of an article. While often these two purposes will align quite nicely, especially in articles on the shorter end of the spectrum, I see no reason to disallow occasionally having the editable chunks be somewhat smaller than the headings that the editor considers preferable for navigational purposes in a TOC. I don't see any reason that the two purposes must always strictly align. --JayHenry (talk) 03:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Unless that results in short, choppy sections. But my dilemma is that we're supposed to evaluate the TOC; how do we do that when it's hidden (and we may not even realize that)? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:01, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I guess I'm saying that I consider the TOC only to be what is in the TOC box. The TOClimit template allows an editor to have editable sections in smaller chunks than the TOC. I agree that only section 1 headings in action potential, for example, is a distorted Table of Contents. But using {{TOClimit|3}} on the same article does not hide the table of contents, but does keep it a bit more manageable and also allows one of the larger sections to be more conveniently editable. So when it results in short, choppy sections, we of course can change the headings. But that's not always the case, as demonstrated by my example above. --JayHenry (talk) 04:11, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to me that the table of contents is what's visible to the reader. The tools can be used to create a table that maintains a reasonable length while providing adequate navigation. At any rate it seems to me that if one is unwilling to use the available tools to make the table shorter, one can't at the same time complain that it is overwhelming. Christopher Parham (talk) 04:12, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A system of hierarchical headings and TOC are linked (in our crit); they both relate to how well the article is structured and organized. They aren't separate. Hiding part of the headings camouflages part of what we're evaluating wrt article structure and organization. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:33, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That they are linked I agree. That they must always therefore be fully and completely inseparable and that this must be mandated in our MOS and FACs must fail for slight deviation, does not follow. There is a gray area between linked and separate (in this case they are linked at level 2 and 3, but not necessarily at level 4). Using a level 4 heading with a {{TOClimit|3}} template is actually exactly the same as using a ;Heading within an article, only with the added functionality of an edit tab. And we don't prohibit that (though maybe you'll argue we should?) --JayHenry (talk) 04:52, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think this needs to be discussed in terms of whether or not it improves the article, not in terms of the process of evaluation here. In this particular case the TOC is quite long and this seems like a reasonable way to condense it so as not to be overwhelming. The criteria say that the TOC should be substantial but not overwhelming, and in my view this would encourage rather than prohibit the use of the TOC magic words to accomplish this. Christopher Parham (talk) 05:03, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Proscribing limits on TOCs? What have we come to? Seriously. We should allow limits when necessary. Long articles that are appropriately broken up by sections should be allowed to limit their TOCs. If the TOCs are appropriately informative, editors should be allowed to limit them. Such situations should be evaluated on whether or not the TOCs work as a TOC. I didn't see anyone complaining about Joseph Priestley, which has a limit. If it didn't, there would be an enormous TOC. This doesn't mean that the article is poorly organized - this means that it is long and divided up appropriately to help the reader. However, the TOC is limited appropriately. What I see emerging from a ridiculous rule like "no limits" is gigantic sections and demands that the sections be broken up. The sections are then broken up and then people complain about the long TOC. Well, you can't have your cake and eat it, too. The "limit" function on the TOC is a perfect way to fix this problem and as long as the TOC still makes sense as a TOC and helps the reader, I see absolutely no problem with it. Awadewit (talk) 05:39, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Whether or not MoS or WIAFA addresses this, reviewers should be aware when it's in use, and make sure that crit 2 is met and the article structure and organization is OK (not all articles are like all yours, Awadewit :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:11, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My point is that the reviewers should consider whether the article is well-organized and whether the TOC is helpful. Proscribing limits on TOCs would not help this. Would it be better to rewrite criteria 2b to something like this: "a helpful system of hierarchical headings and table of contents that is substantial but not overwhelming" (italicized new word) Awadewit (talk) 06:23, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that one word would change anything; I just want reviewers to be aware when toclimit is employed. For example, I'd always question external links having five different sections, hidden in a toclimit (practically defines an external link farm), and I want to see what an article organization looks like with the limit off. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:29, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Again, I'll disagree with you on the external links. For example, Jane Austen has sections in the "External links" but we have been rigorous in keeping the number of links down (I just had to prune again, though). I think the sections there are helpful. I tend to evaluate such things when I see them and see if they work in context. The Austen one works, I think, dividing works from author info from fan societies. Other versions might not work so well. This is why reviewers need to take time to think, right?! (Note: Check out the out-of-control Austen TOC. No limit there.) Awadewit (talk) 06:39, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed and repeating; not all articles are like all your articles, and in order to "evaulate such things when [we] see them" we need to be aware when the TOC is hidden, so we can evaulate and take time to think based on full info, not a Wiki feature we're unaware exists. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Are you, *gasp*, promoting article ownership? They're not really "my" articles, you know. :) Awadewit (talk) 06:53, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Unless articlestats say they're all your fault, er, credit, er ... edits :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:01, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I just got a chance to look at Jane Austen. I would solve the External link farm and problem with constantly needing to prune it by taking advantage of Jane Austen at Curlie. Since they already have those categories (for example, societies and fan sites), they can do the job for us, and we don't have to constantly prune the additions; we can add only the truly superlative sites (since a featured article should be comprehensive, there should be little we need in External links, so we solve the whole pruning need by linking to DMoz. See Tourette syndrome.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:10, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So is Cr 2b really a requirement that the structure of the article be kept under control? Is that the intended meaning, expressed in terms of the ToC? TONY (talk) 11:52, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My view:

I agree with the above comments that the article structure and the ToC are related but not synonymous (Anyone can easily confirm this by picking ten random books from the bookshelf). So both need to be judged independently by FAC reviewers. Articles should be written and structured with the view of what is best for the reader; not what is easiest for the reviewer.
Prescriptions against use of {{TOClimit}} are easily circumvented and hence unenforceable. For example I edited the Bibliography in the Jane Austen article to not display the sub-subsections in the ToC, without using any template (before, after). This, in fact, may be an improvement in terms of the TOC for that article although I realize that using HTML directives is usually deprecated. Abecedare (talk) 18:21, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly agree with Abecedare's first bullet point above, and with JayHenry and Awadewit's analyses in general. --Melty girl (talk) 19:03, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I hope someone who has been engaged with WP:WIAFA longer than I have can clarify the purpose of 2b. When I was reviewing, I always reviewed the TOC as part of my first pass/overview at evaluating article organization, comprehensiveness, and compliance with 2b. Hiding the TOC circumvents part of the way I pre-reviewed articles to determine if they passed muster for a more indepth review. If something crucial to comprehensiveness was missing, if the flow of the TOC seemed off, or if there were many levels of headings, that was a tipoff to check the article flow and organization more closely. I'd like more guidance from old-timers as to just what 2b's intent is, if not this. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:59, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I know I don't fall in the category of people whose opinion you specifically invited, but to me the and in 2b suggests that both hierarchical heading and ToC need to be checked. Hiding part of the ToC may make a reviewer's job more difficult, since they cannot simply look at the ToC to judge the article organization/headings. But that is fine IMO, as long as the "hiding" is of some benefit to the reader.

We face a similar issue with piped links, in that they make a reviewer's job more difficult, but those too are justifiable in specific instances. Please let me know if I am misunderstanding your objection to hiding of sub-sections in ToC and consequently barking up the wrong tree. Abecedare (talk) 20:20, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think a literal reading pretty much says exactly the intent - it just echoes the general principles about organization that were found in the various style guides at the time. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:48, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If an article is poorly organized and this poor organization is reflected in a hidden TOC, this is not a problem with hiding/showing the TOC, this is a problem with the organization of the article. We shouldn't confuse the issues. In my opinion, one cannot decide whether an article is poorly organized without reading it. For example, a glance at Richard Dawkins suggests to me that it is poorly organized (too much on recent events), but I wouldn't say that in a review until I had read the entire article. Perhaps there are internal reasons for what looks like a poor organizational structure on a quick glance. Article organization (an issue that I rarely see addressed by reviewers, sadly), actually requires a lot of thought and can only be decided upon after one has all of the material on hand. Sometimes articles themselves do not provide all of this material. Awadewit (talk) 01:40, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Here is the first version of WP:WIAFA (written by Raul); it refers to a "substantial, but not overwhelming", Table of Contents. The notion that the Table of Contents should not be "overwhelming" has been present since the beginning of WP:WIAFA, so the question remains whether hiding the TOC circumvents the criterion, or whether something else was intended. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:33, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Like others I think, I'm struggling to understand why the contents of the TOC are being linked to the structure of the article. I see nothing wrong with having a "hidden" TOC per se, and no reason for it to be added to one of the things automatically checked for at FAC. Horses for courses. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 21:54, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But, also like others, you haven't explained (at least, that I can understand) why we have a criterion that requires that the TOC and system of hierarchical headings (linked) not be "overwhelming". I wasn't here when the criteria evolved, so I can't explain that. But I do know that many articles (and let's not consider nominations submitted by Awadewit as necessarily typical of all noms) that have overwhelming Tables of Contents also have organizational and structural issues. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:05, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think I may be misunderstanding what you're asking, but here goes anyway. Of course the TOC ought not to be overwhelming, because its purpose is to allow readers to navigate around the article. If, to prevent its overwhelming presentation, editors decide to limit the TOC at a particular level, that seems eminently sensible, and not something that ought to be a cross in an FAC listbox. The TOC is not the structure, it's a presentation of the structure, one that the editors decided allowed good navigation around the article. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 22:14, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's abundantly apparent that I haven't been explaining myself clearly :-)) The criterion says that the system of hierarchical headings and TOC should not be overwhelming. The criterion doesn't only mention the TOC; it mentions the hierarchical structure of headings. They're linked: always have been, and have always made sense to me, because many poorly organized articles have rambling, out-of-control headings. That doesn't mean all do; it's just something we need to check by engaging further with the article. I don't know how other reviewers work, but when I was reviewing, I has a series of things I glanced at in deciding which FACs to engage, since it's not humanly possible (unless you're Ealdgyth) to engage with and review every FAC. That was one of the things I looked at it in deciding whether to further engage with the nomination and the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:21, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I guess we all approach reviewing in different ways. I hardly even notice the TOC unless it's causing an excessive amount of white space, I just scan the article. I'm unconvinced by your apparent argument that the TOC should be designed to entice reviewers. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 22:31, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's a significant twist of my argument. Anyway, I don't think we'll see the full brunt of this practice until it trickles down from Awadewit's articles to others, and then we might not see such good results. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:34, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe that it is a twist on your argument: "[The TOC was] ... one of the things I looked at it in deciding whether to further engage with the nomination and the article". Anyway, I've said my piece, I've nothing more to say on this subject. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 22:44, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(←) Sandy, apologies if we're being unclear. When I first started learning the ropes at FAC, WIAFA was different. The criteria were "(b) a system of hierarchical headings; and (c) a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents." I don't know how to put it any simpler than this: I still believe they're two separate things. 1) Headings and 2) table of contents. Looking through the history, I've determined that they were combined into a single point in a series of edits trying to simplify WIAFA, and at the time nobody considered that it might lead one to the impression you have -- that the hierarchical headings and the table of contents must be exactly the same. I see no evidence that the conclusion you're reaching was ever something intended. Perhaps we should return it back to the original wording? The table of contents is the material in the box. The headings are something related, but ultimately somewhat different. They should absolutely both be evaluated, but needn't be absolutely identical. --JayHenry (talk) 23:20, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's probably me who has been unclear :-) I have not intended to say that structure and TOC are the same (there are other ways of sectioning that don't appear in TOC); I have interpreted it that neither section headings nor TOC should be overwhelming, and it's our "job" to evaluate both at FAC. If something is hidden, we might miss it on a flyover, if we decide not to engage that particular review. Your info gets us closer to an answer, but I'd not like to juggle WIAFA until we get more perspective, including historical, on the whole matter. Hopefully Raul will weigh in, since he wrote the first version. It's the trickle down that concerns me, if this trend becomes widespread and people stop realizing they need to check. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:29, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also, the version you linked still equates section headings with TOC, via: "(c) a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents (see section help)," so I'm still wondering about intent. Regardless of wording changes to WIAFA, I hope it's clear that we need to be checking both, and now we need to be aware that TOCs are being hidden. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:40, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is getting more and more obscure. How on earth can section headings be "overwhelming"? Have you ever criticised a book for having too many chapters? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 23:45, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Of course I would criticize a book that had the Wiki equivalent of a lot of choppy, one-paragraph, poorly organized section headings. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:53, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But that wasn't the question I asked. Once again you're confusing presentation with content. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 00:03, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't care if parts of TOCs are hidden. I care if TOCs work as a table of contents and I care if the article is well-organized. How that is achieved is irrelevant - there are many of ways of constructing useful TOCs and well-organized articles. Let's not get bogged down in technicalities. Let's agree that useful TOCs and well-organized articles are the goal. Awadewit (talk) 23:51, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think we disagree on that. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:53, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid the problem that you are raising is not really clear. If we agree on these fundamentals, what is the issue at stake? Awadewit (talk) 00:03, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Was the hole in our instructions on drive-by noms clear until the HRC nom ? I'm prepared to wait and see if this becomes a problem, as long as reviewers are aware that TOCs are being hidden, and know to view the article with all the section headings shown. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:16, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm still struggling with this. TOCs aren't being hidden, and surely any reviewer worthy of the name would at least have glanced at the article regardless of what's in the TOC. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 00:24, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Malleus, as a reviewer, do you really look at every article at FAC? Hat's off to you then, and send me a dozen more where you came from :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:02, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No I don't, and neither have I ever claimed that I did. Like most, I guess, I look at those articles that have for whatever reason attracted my attention. Is my opinion therefore less worthy of consideration? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 01:22, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

LOCE

Months (years ?) ago, I used to maintain the WP:LOCE page to make sure the list of FACs was accurate, and we occasionally got help from them. The requests page there no longer seems to be maintained; I'm wondering why we continue to recommend it, or if anyone is interested in doing something to keep the page up to date? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:11, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What do you need, just someone to clear the list once articles are passed or archived? Can an idiot (me) do that? Or would I have to know something about how to work a kompewtur? I watch the FAC list regularly, but don't feel like I have much to remark most of the time. Maybe I can help with this. --Moni3 (talk) 02:17, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I used to know the answer to that question (I just manually moved the requests to the right category), but they've done something to that page that involves some level of automation, so I have no idea how to make it right. I just know there are a ton of articles listed in the FAC section which aren't at FAC, and there may be some in FA that aren't FA. If you're interested in taking this on, the goal would be to keep the categories up to date over there, so hopefully FACs would get some attention. But you'd have to ask over there how to do it, now that it involves some complicated level of automation that I haven't kept up with. If you do follow it there, I'm interested in knowing if LOCE has actually helped on any FAC: I can't recall any recently, so I'm wondering why we carry it in our instructions. Thanks, Moni !! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:27, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Aw, dude! Automation! I'm gonna have to create new neural pathways! Dang... Let me see if I can find a Simple English article for it. --Moni3 (talk) 02:30, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

LOCE has an enormous backlog and I would never direct an editor there for help with an FAC. –thedemonhog talk • edits 03:26, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But maybe if someone would clean out the categories, it would start working. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:33, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Agreed...I've had an article listed at LoCE with a request for a review since February 8! Not sure if anyone is even doing any anymore as I rarely see much activity there.Collectonian (talk) 03:36, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, LOCE has much potential. –thedemonhog talk • edits 03:37, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It was great when Gzkn was shepharding it. These Projects come and go, fall in and out of favor, but the work at FAC goes on. So, I guess a placement at LOCE no longer has relevance. Shall we remove it from the FAC-instructions ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:48, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I never recommend it anymore. When it comes to FACs, I either do the copy editing work myself or recommend an editor I know. Too bad - LOCE used to work. Another project that desperately needs help. If only I had the time... I agree that removing it from the FAC instructions is probably a good idea. Awadewit (talk) 05:42, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Does anyone disagree with removing LOCE from the FAC instructions? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:23, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not I. Of course, we have PR in there, right? I've been trying to get over there more often and hit the folks who are saying they want to go to FAC with source audits before they hit FAC. Ealdgyth - Talk 22:25, 23 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've never had a good experience with LOCE to date. Even PR is dead, but it's a good place to post a request then explicitly ask for feedback, so it basically serves the same purpose that LOCE does now (which is basically just a place to house requests now.) Gary King (talk) 08:59, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think it should be removed. I've nominated several articles for FA status and more often than not, people tell me to take them to the LOCE. Seeing as this means that it takes about the best part of a year to get through the process and nominate the article again, it is a process that takes to long. I think PR is a good enough process to go through. ISD (talk) 10:34, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Diacriticals

To solve a dispute at WT:Naming conventions, can I assume that there is still consensus for including the diacriticals when writing École Polytechnique massacre and Søren Kierkegaard (both FAs) on Wikipedia? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:54, 22 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal for a fundamental change in the Featured List process

Consensus is being tested concerning a proposal to establish a directorate (possibly two of the regular reviewers) as part of a program to improve the FLC process. Input is welcome. Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates#Should we have a FL director? TONY (talk) 12:16, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A reminder that input on FL director is welcomed over there. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:27, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Infoboxes in articles about historic or other notable buildings

In WT:CHES#Little Moreton Hall a discussion has begun about the placing of an HTML comment in Little Moreton Hall. It requests that no infobox be added to the article. When asked about this, someone who appears to know the editor concerned has replied producing justifications that suggest that similar articles may have had FA status rejected because the infoboxes they had were judged to be ugly in various ways. Can anyone cast any light on this? The infobox which would be of particular relevance in this instance is Template:Infobox Historic building. Surely a broad overall viewpoint about such a matter should be advertised widely if it were that case? Wouldn't it be a matter that could only be considered on a case by case basis? Have any similar articles been rejected because this "ugly" infobox was used? It should be noted that this HTML comment has been placed on many articles by the same editor this evening. Many thanks. DDStretch (talk) 23:16, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Infoboxes are not required by any criteria, and many editors (myself included) find them ugly and disruptive and redundant on some articles. That said, opposing an FA on the basis of an infobox being present or not being present would not be a valid oppose. It's a consensus item, and if editors don't want them, they need not be added. And that answer has nothing to do with FA, since there is no FA requirement or any requirement otherwise for infoboxes. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:59, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for confirming what I thought was the case. DDStretch (talk) 00:23, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Unactionable or invalid opposes

A concern has been raised elsewhere that the FAC instructions may need to better explain that the director/delegate can ignore invalid or unactionable opposes. We say:

Nominators are expected to respond positively to constructive criticism and to make an effort to address objections promptly.

but we don't specify that unactionable opposes can be ignored. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:46, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If this could be made explicit, I think it would reassure we nominators that we can post a little message on the FAC page such as "that is an unactionable oppose and I don't need to address it" or something like that. However, what precisely an unactionable oppose is not entirely clear to me and I have nominated a lot of FACs. This gets at the heart of the matter: what do SandyGeorgia and Raul654 think unactionable opposes are? How clearly does this need to be laid out? I think that different reviewers might have different interpretations of the FA criteria. Whether those interpretations map onto SandyGeorgia's and Raul654's is not entirely clear to me. Awadewit (talk) 07:36, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just add "actionable" before "objections"? TONY (talk) 09:01, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I look forward with interest to watching this issue get dissected. It caused me much confusion in my only experience with moving an article through the FAC process, and it's part of the reason I doubt I'll ever participate again as a nominator. Whether something is unactionable is interpretive, and you can rarely know how it was interpreted by the only two people who are making the crucial decision on how to interpret it. And what does a nominator do when two reviewers raise contradictory objections that no one other reviewers help sort out? Which one is unactionable? Oy vey. --Melty girl 17:29, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Melty, can you pls link us to your first FAC? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:54, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Melty's was this one. We obviously need to strike a balance that discourages neither nominators nor reviewers, and most importantly in my mind, keeps the discussion polite and professional. Differences are generally resolvable between reasonable adults. --JayHenry (talk) 20:48, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the link; I'll look it over as soon as I get a moment. In this discussion, I'd rather focus on closed FACs or past discussions than FACs that are underway, so as not to disrupt or influence ongoing FACs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:53, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If this is updated, please make sure you don't use ignore—as Tony suggests, unactionable objections should be refuted instead. Pagrashtak 21:16, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps there's a misunderstanding, Pagrashtak; the issue raised was to clarify that the director/delegate can ignore unactionable opposes (we don't refute them)? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:22, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You have the quote "Nominators are expected to..." up there, so it sounded like you were going to add the bit about unactionable objections to that sentence. I have no problem with you or the director ignoring them. Pagrashtak 04:48, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

ah, I see: yes, you're right. The concern is that we leave the impression that nominators must respond to all opposes, without ever clarifying that the director/delegate can discount invalid or unactionable opposes. The idea is to append something to that statement to reassure nominators. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:50, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(od) Tony's proposed amendment to the instructions is a fine one. It might be a good idea to include examples of unactionable opposes for reviewer guidance. In the interests of transparency, it might also be a good idea if unactionable opposes were flagged as such. It would help de-mystify the promotion process. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 05:09, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Read the next thread :-) I thought it was helpful to flag what I consider to be unactionable opposes as I become aware of them, to help reviewers better frame their concerns, but that seems to be backfiring in at least one case (although it has been helpful in most cases, since reviewers were then able to clarify their concerns). The logical conclusion is that I should, then, be silent instead, no? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:17, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've also done this and this in the very few cases where I've had to close without a clearcut "!vote tally". But if my attempts towards transparency are going to open me and FAC to the kind of criticism in the next thread, it might not be the wisest path to follow. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:27, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, don't go silent :) There's bound to be some grumbling at first but once the ground rules are clearer and regular reviewers get a feel for what is and isn't actionable, it'll get much easier :) Incidentally, as a quality-control exercise, we ran a B-class-article-checking drive last month at Milhist. By applying the B-class criteria more strictly and more evenly, 1400 articles out of 4300 were demoted from B-class to Start-class. We came in for flak at first but once editors understood the process was fair and even-handed the complaints died away. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 05:30, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sandy, I thought what you were doing was excellent. I noticed a marked increase in others following your example. I thought it was working well. We could see your principles in action. Awadewit (talk) 06:01, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the encouragement, Awadewit; and just a note, I'm going to let this thread simmer a bit, see what others think, and engage more once a few current FACs are closed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:18, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ownership likely in Featured Articles

<Moved from Wikipedia talk:Featured articles> SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:18, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that so-called "significant contributors" tend to (quite predictably) contravene theownership policy in their persuit of "Featured Article" status. It also seems to me like the featured article persuit process has the unintended consequence of facilitating and accepting such contravention. I think either the Ownership policy should be scrapped or the featured article process be better defined to confirm the priority of the ownership policy in featured article development. Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 01:18, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, Wikipedia:Ownership of articles is policy. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 06:10, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've never quite understood. It Ownership of articles seen as a good thing or a bad thing on here? Buc (talk) 06:23, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ownership is a bad thing! The ethos of Wikipedia is summed up in the tag line "the encyclopedia everyone can edit." Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 13:06, 26 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia also focuses on the recognition of consensus rather than employing a battering ram approach by steering/establishing a sequential repair effort to systematically castrate the opposes and turn them into neutrals or struck throughs, which seems to have become the modus operandi with these FAC candidate nominations. In addition,I don't think it's wise to establish a vertically tiered organization ala corporate and that seems to be happening in a stealth way in the way the significant contributors to FAC nominations are being allowed to, and even praised for, practising article ownership and also by the way the FA Directors are completely dominating nominations from the very beginning e.g.[4] with his/her "management" decision to allow the nomination to go forward, clearly against consensus, and then picking away at the opposes with an air of authority while allowing supports to go unchallenged. To me it appears orwellian in its non-consensus approach within a project supposedly grounded in and by a dedication to consensus decision making. Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 03:15, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't understand what connection you're drawing between WP:OWN and the FAC process. Are you saying that a single editor who works on an article and improves it to FA inherently owns it? Or are you making complaint about any particular brand of editor who does so with little to no regard for other editors who may have input for the article? Or something else? --Moni3 (talk) 03:58, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm talking about the brand of editor who does so with little to no regard for other editors who may have input for the article if that input does not fit comfortably with his own, and then,more importantly perhaps, that disregard is being validated by the FA director's pronouncement that contravention of WP:OWN is not a good enough reason to say "Oppose" to a FAC nomination; hence,that "oppose" is considered not valid and ignored.[5][6]Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 04:12, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose declarations must engage WP:WIAFA. Saying an article is "owned" doesn't give anyone a concrete or actionable oppose to work with. For example, if what you're really saying is an article is POV, you need to provide examples. If you're saying it's unstable, you need to demonstrate that. And so on. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:23, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This(1st.8.comments) was the example given and summarily dismissed. Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 04:29, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps someone else can better explain how to more effectively engage WP:WIAFA; one example of one brief talk page exchange between one editor and an IP doesn't do that. Also, you need to demonstrate an effect on the article: but I'll let others try to explain. These kinds of opposes don't give either the nominators or me anything to work with in evaluating your concerns. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:47, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Please have a closer look at those 1st.8.comments in that brief talk page exchange you refer to and you will see it was actually between two significant contributors (# 1 (WastedTime)and # 3(Tvoz) in edit volume) and two different IPs(210.172.229.198 and 99.233.20.151) , not 1 and 1 as you seem to have mis-read. Also, aren't IPs also considered to be editors? Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 14:29, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think there was a display of article ownership here. Rather, there was a dispute between some people who weren't familiar with Wikipedia's general content policies and some who were; and the discussion came to the correct conclusion which is that innuendo, especially when lacking reliable sources, does not go into articles. Christopher Parham (talk) 17:07, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(od) In my experience, a degree of ownership is inevitable in getting to FA status because editing by committee simply doesn't work. Collaborations by very small groups of editors - who have become expert in the subject - are common and new participants have to prove their worth before they are taken seriously. Whether what I'm talking about is the same ownership that policy prohibits is another issue. There is a vast difference between steering an article down a particular quality-controlled path and vetoing any contribution by new participants. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 04:41, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's "ownership" that becomes exclusivist, possessive and inflexible. The "ownerhip" that arises from having made major contributions to an article shouldn't be called such when it involves a commitment to improvement, negotiation, collaboration, inclusiveness and flexibility. That is what is meant by "significant contributors" in relation to FAC. TONY (talk) 09:02, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Now we are getting somewhere. RogerDavies is clearly expressing (when reading slowly and carefully his words),I think, a view which has majority support within the FAC community and especially reflects the FA directors' way of dealing with the Own policy; but that is a view which,in my opinion, does not have even a substantial level of support within the overall general Wikipedia community.
I propose that,for the sake of policy adherence integrity, that either:

A:the Ownership policy be scrapped or rewritten to allow an exception for FA candidates or else,

B:(my personal preference)The featured article criteria and the FAC page both be amended to include a firm reminder that the Wikipedia:Ownership of articles policy must be unquestionably adhered to throughout FA development as a prerequisite for nomination as a FAC. Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 14:53, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

With great respect, we are getting precisely nowhere. In my experience, many drive-by contributions are unsourced and often express ideas which are at best original and at worst barking mad. Far from requiring regular contributors to an article to welcome such editors and their, um, improvements with open arms, policy actually prohibits unverified material and original research. In sharp contrast, and in my experience, the editor making quality informed contributions is very welcome indeed. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 16:10, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Didn't someone do a study showing that FAs that were followed by editors who knew the subject matter or who had written them maintained their FA status better than those that there not followed? I thought it could be demonstrated that articles that were not "watched" by someone rather closely degraded and had to be taken to FAR? This is another important part of the issue, I think.
It is my understanding that it is impossible for an article to maintain its FA status without someone checking all of the changes to an article. Reverting vandalism is only one part of this maintenance. Someone needs to check the good faith changes to content, integrating or deleting them. Someone needs to make sure that the article retains its good prose and organization. Awadewit (talk) 16:32, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I know. It's heartbreaking when they disintegrate. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 16:47, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How pervasive a problem is this really? I can remember some debacles—e.g., Great Fire of London—but a commsensical editor can easily put WP:OWN in perspective on FAC. The primary author doesn't have a veto but should also be accorded consideration and given room to address solutions on their own. Marskell (talk) 16:53, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Quite. I don't think OWN is an issue at FAC. --ROGER DAVIES ^talk 17:02, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would be quite happy for the ownership page to be taken down. I dislike being pointed to this type of page at the best of times, but being told to read something that I know about full well gets my goat: argue your case but don't wave blue capital letters at me. All that matters is edits to a page and whether they are helpful or not. If an editor is reverting good edits made by others, that is an issue of content. It is particularly galling to be accused of ownership on a talk page, when one is simply arguing rather than editing the article.

The Featured Article process has single nominators and groups of nominators, and they are the main editors of the articles. This is common sense. I don't keep a list of FAs on my userpage, but I have no problem with users who do. The only reward for editing on Wikipedia is pride in one's efforts, and the star helps with that. However, all the featured article nominators I know are realistic about changes to the articles they have worked on. I'd bet that there are many changes to such articles that we'd like to get rid of but that we leave in place because we accept that this is a collaborative enterprise. qp10qp (talk) 18:27, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Outdent. I agree with what's been said here. In general, WP:OWN and FAC are not tethered together. When one principal author, or a small group of authors does a damn fine job of writing and maintaining an article, and demanding high quality work from others who dabble in adding to it, that's not ownership, that's imposing high standards. I looked at grantevans2's examples, and not mentioning it was about Clinton's hair color which has to be pretty low in importance on the grand scale of her impact as a politician, the sources were not good sources. I would back up the editors who removed the information. --Moni3 (talk) 19:54, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To clarify; the example given was meant to show the way the comments of those two IPs were responded to by the two significant contributors. Responses, in my opinion, which reflect exactly the type of ownership mentality described in the policy. The issue is not whether the material should be included; the issue is that the majority who commented were open to maybe including the material but the article's "owners" responded to the suggestion in a nasty and dismissive way right from the get-go. Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 02:20, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Agree that ownership isn't a problem (for the purposes of FAC, at least). I can see why some users might think we are coming down on the sides of 'major contributors' and are in a way tacitly affirming our support for ownership of a sort, but the real reason (at least from my POV) is that it's these editors who are going to end up fixing the issues for the FAC they didn't want to start. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 23:07, 27 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It bears repeating that Wikipedia:Ownership of articles is policy and that the ethos of FA contradicts the policy. If push came to shove, I'd rather see FA disbanded than the promotion of article ownership. Wikipedia is the encyclopedia anyone can edit. If one doesn't like that, then join Citizendium. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 02:06, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What would be the correct process for someone to bring this issue before the broader, general Wikipedia community? Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 02:20, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree that FAC promotes ownership. If someone really wished to "own" an article they'd be crazy to bring it to FAC. At FAC you are almost guaranteed to have multiple people proposing all kinds of fixes to an article, and you are likely to have some reviewers dive in and perform vigorous copyedits, change the organization of the article, reformat things that don't match the MOS, etc. It is extremely rare for an article to leave FAC in the exact same state it entered (and it is usually the better for the changes). If someone was that concerned with the article being "theirs", then why open it up to the opinions of so many others? Karanacs (talk) 02:23, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The correct process to bring this issue before the broader, general Wikipedia community involves:

Note that Wikipedia:Ownership of articles is a fundamental policy of Wikipedia and will not be overturned: the firmament would split asunder. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 02:27, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For the record, I agree with Karanacs and other FA people. The FAC process is anathema to article ownership. To quote Karanacs, "If someone was that concerned with the article being "theirs", then why open it up to the opinions of so many others?" Editors who do have ownership problems become livid in their rage at FAC. Real and true ownership issues surface at AfD, and in the phenomenon of Wikipedia:Walled gardens. Most of the Wikipedia community have nothing to do with the GA and FA process. It is out in the Wiki wilds that you see the Wiki-colonist banishing everyone from their turf. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 02:33, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How does that square with your comment above that "the ethos of FA contradicts the (ownership)policy." Also, I don't want to waste anyone's time, including my own. Would you be kind enough to review the current Talk:Hillary Rodham Clinton and give your opinion as to whether there's an ownership problem? If not, then I'll assume I'm off-base with this concern. Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 02:42, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've looked at the talk page, and I don't think there is an ownership issue. The primary contributors to this article are seasoned wikipedia editors who are very familiar with WP policies and guidelines, and it appears (to me) that they are merely trying to enforce those guidelines. For editors who are new to the process and unfamiliar with the guidelines, I can see how some of the comments might seem arbitrary, but from a quick glance they all appear to have sound policy backing them up. Karanacs (talk) 02:49, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I realize my opinion seems to be - on the surface - contradictory, but it is not. The FA process itself contradicts the ownership policy because it gives special recognition to a single (or small group) of editors during the FAC process. If an article succeeds to FA, the nominating editors are accorded special recognition: thus, there is an ownership problem. On the other hand, editors who bring an article to FA are not likely to be control freaks; they present themselves to minute inspection. The editors - if they have ownership issues - will erupt in a Wiki-rage. It has happened recently. However, Talk:Hillary Rodham Clinton doesn't have the signs of there being an ownership problem. Cheers! Wassupwestcoast (talk) 02:59, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I find westcoast's point about recognition somewhat overstated. To be recognized for one's efforts in bringing an article to FA is to be acknowledged by at most a dozen editors who understand the inner workings of the FA process and how much work goes into it. It's not complete anonymity, but neither is it Grand Marshal at Mardi Gras. Or even Wiki Mardi Gras. The reward for bringing an article to FA has to be intrinsic, otherwise the aforementioned recognition would be a sore disappointment to those expecting any fanfare. --Moni3 (talk) 03:44, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I think I finally get the whole thing, thanks to Wassupwestcoast's explanation. I offer apologies to SandyGeorgia and others for my off-base mis-interpretation of the effect of the FAC process, although I agree that the FA process itself contradicts the ownership policy. I'll just try to work within the FA wannabe article culture when I find myself editing in one. I will say that the best products/reports in most fields of endeavor are recognized as such long after they are completed, Van Gogh's paintings and the Gettysburg Address springing to mind, and typically the self-consciousness and micro management involved in actively persuing an award during production usually blandizes and politically correctizes the product to fit with overly current norms and mores. That's just my opinion,of course, and the last word I'll have on the matter. Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 16:21, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, and appreciated, Mr.grantevans2! Your original concerns were confusing to me, since one reason the FAC went forward was to avoid charges of ownership :-)) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:25, 28 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I might have to go the RfC approach after all because the [7] discussions are being dominated by just a very few contributors and the tendency to want to officially prioritize adherence to some policies over others seems to be picking up speed. Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 14:14, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Perennial proposal for GA icon in mainspace

At Wikipedia talk:Good articles#Good article signs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:58, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. As Wiki struggles for legitimacy, its editors struggle for pomp. ЭLСОВВОLД _talk 02:20, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I hope the discussion will stay over there, as an admin will be closing the proposal in a day or so, and the discussion is already split in several places. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:25, 29 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

April FAC stats

For the month of April, FAC had:

120 candidates (61 promoted, 59 archived)

Over 765 statements from more than 230 editors, including
- 5 editors with 25 or more reviews
- 4 editors with 11 to 15 reviews
- 6 editors with 10 reviews
- 41 editors with 3 to 9 reviews
- and another 174 editors with 1 or 2 FAC statements.

(N.B. Changed methodology from February, where I counted only Support/Oppose declarations. Here I counted all meaningful commentary.)

The top five reviewers in quantity of articles reviewed were

Ealdgyth (talk · contribs) with 111 articles reviewed
Tony1 (talk · contribs) with 56 articles reviewed
Elcobbola (talk · contribs) with 39 articles reviewed
GrahamColm (talk · contribs) and Karanacs (talk · contribs) with 27 articles reviewed each.

I reviewed the FAC archives (featured and archived nominations) to assign positive points for extra effort on a review or a review that was a determining factor in the outcome, and negative points for unactionable opposes or support on a nomination that other editors subsequently identified as having significant deficiencies. Three of the top 15 quantity reviewers (having 10 or more reviews) had a net negative on this measure of quality of reviews.

Accounting for quality of review scores from the group of the top 15 in quantity, the top 10 FAC reviewers in April were

"Honorable mentions" go to Epbr123 (talk · contribs) (for running through countless FACs at my request, to do pre-promotion MoS cleanup even if he never weighs in on the FACs), and Dweller (talk · contribs) and Laser brain (talk · contribs) for especially in-depth reviews, even though they didn't reach the threshhold of the top quantity reviewers. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:56, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Restarts

Howdy everyone!

I have a problem with the way some of the nominations have been run with regards to "restarts". Both Raul and Sandy have done this and I'd like to get some feedback from the community at large. The problem I have is not with starting over with a new nomination. I could care less if a nomination is closed as failed and someone resubmits it for FAC a few seconds later. Nothing in the FAC process prevents that.

However, I do have a problem with Raul or Sandy deleting everyone's comments and claiming a restart. IMHO, this is unacceptable. All previous discussions are "lost" from the process. All comments are removed and a fresh slate is given. IMHO, this is the antithesis of an open process. These comments should be able to be viewed. I request that any nominations currently under review (and all in the future as well) that get a "restart" should

Simply be failed due to a lack of clear consensus...that's why we're restarting right?
A new nomination started by the director or his delegate with the annotation why the previous discussion was terminated and restarted.
The comments of the nominator may be kept if that person so desires, but should have the right to pull their name from the nomination (if the article they nominated fails, they may not want to be associated with it. Associating someone else's name with a new nomination may not be their intent).

Thoughts? — BQZip01 — ^talk 04:07, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I could care less if a nomination is closed as failed and someone resubmits it for FAC a few seconds later. Nothing in the FAC process prevents that. Yes, the process does prevent that. That would be a phenomenal waste of nominator time, reviewer time, director/delegate time, and GimmeBot time. I archive a nomination when I'm convinced it's not going to make it in the timeframe of a FAC, and if it's brought back right away, that makes me pretty darn unhappy, since I don't take the archiving decision lightly. (And Raul agrees.[8]) No previous discussion is lost: comments are linked and bolded at the top of the nom, and if your comments are still relevant to the current article (after FAC improvements, they rarely are), you can copy them forward. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:10, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Yes, the process does prevent that." Really? Where? Haven't seen that in writing anywhere.

"That would be a phenomenal waste of nominator time, reviewer time, director/delegate time, and GimmeBot time." but removing everyone's comments and forcing us to sift through a previous diff to find what we typed isn't? It's a collosal waste of reviewer time because it deletes valid previous objections/concerns/support. If something has been addressed, then a comment should be available right after it showing what has been done. By wiping the slate clean and deleting the comments, you are deleting what was written. I'm sorry if you find it a waste of time, but I believe this violates Wikipedia guidelines: Wikipedia:Talk#Good_practice and Wikipedia:Talk#Behavior_that_is_unacceptable specifically...BTW, I'm pretty sure GimmeBot isn't working so hard that it can't take a break once in a while (give me a break, the bot's time is wasted?)

"I archive a nomination when I'm convinced it's not going to make it in the timeframe of a FAC..." perhaps it is time to broaden your criteria? Just because an idea is new doesn't make it wrong. Why not archive it with the note that the article has significantly changed and a new discussion was warranted?

"...if it's brought back right away, that makes me pretty darn unhappy, since I don't take the archiving decision lightly." Respectfully, your happiness shouldn't be a criteria for an FAC...neither should Raul's. My happiness shouldn't be a criteria either.

"No previous discussion is lost" Yes it is. Your deletion of it and replacing it with "I'm starting this all over and deleting previous discussion" does not keep my original comments. I agree the article has changed and should be viewed in a new light, but that does not mean you should remove everyone's comments.

"...comments are linked and bolded at the top of the nom," Yes they are, but only those that were closed. You have unilaterally decided that my comments don't apply and deleted them when, in fact, they still apply. So do others' comments (both Support and Oppose).

"...if your comments are still relevant to the current article (after FAC improvements, they rarely are), you can copy them forward." 1) I resent your implication that my comments become irrelevant after FAC improvements. I assume you meant "anyone" and not "your" (meaning me personally). 2) I shouldn't have to retype/copy comments I wrote already to the same talk page where they previously existed.

In short, you deleted our comments and they should be restored as part of the FAC process. — BQZip01 — ^talk 04:54, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is it really so hard to copy and paste any comments that you still feel are relevant over? Geez. It does not really make any difference if the comments are archived via a link to an oldid rather than archived on a seperate page. The link is placed quite prominently. The difference is a rather minor, technical one and the end result is the same (people can see the old comments quite easily if they would like to). -- Naerii 05:07, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Valid point. It isn't so difficult in many instances, but why should I have to do it in the first place? In this specific case, I have comments all over the page. I shouldn't have to go back, collect them, rewrite them to include the context in which they were written, etc. In short. Why can't the comments be left alone and archived like every other talk page? I wouldn't have a problem with even simply hiding them under a banner, but they shouldn't be deleted from the page and no one else should erase them. — BQZip01 — ^talk 05:14, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

They are not deleted. They are archived, i.e. there is a prominent link to a place where old comments can be read. -- Naerii 05:25, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Archived implies they are in an existing page. Point of fact, they are not. They are in the page's history only. An archive is generally a separate page. — BQZip01 — ^talk 21:17, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I shouldn't have to retype all of my objections for the same nomination. — BQZip01 — ^talk 05:17, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why can't you find them in the edit history, copy them and then paste? The rest of us can, so why not you? LuciferMorgan (talk) 07:39, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why should I have to in the first place? No one should edit my comments anyway: WP:TALK. — BQZip01 — ^talk 21:17, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I can see where BQZip01 is coming from. Reviewing is time-consuming (a self-motivated voluntary commitment) and it is a pain in the neck to have to re-iterate your views. Following through to another review may seem more like a perceived barrier but it is a barrier nonetheless. I can understand when a restart may be more fair than a fail, like if the article has significantly changed since it started. But I say that having never walked in Raul654's or SandyG's shoes. maclean 08:05, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am 100% opposed to "restarts".In my opinion, it comes across as unintentional Forum shopping because it has the effect of nullifying/diminishing prior input. I will not be participating in any restarts, myself. Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 13:29, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think a good solution would be to keep the old nomination, but collapse it like this:

My article FAC

This article should be featured because the images are pretty. --FACnominator

FAC prior to restart—feel free to copy your support or oppose to the restarted FAC --Sandy/Raul

Support It's awesome! --Luvzit
Oppose It's awful! --Hatzit

Note about this FAC being restarted, etc. --Sandy/Raul

Support It's still awesome! --Luvzit

Pagrashtak 13:59, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's a nice idea, Pagrashtak, but the problem is that reviewers would still have to edit around all of that (even though it's capped, it's still there). Also, out of respect for reviewers, when possible, I try not to restart when clear actionable opposes are still being discussed (if I'm still able to sort out the conversation). If a reviewer like BQZip has a new oppose, based on the current article, they can formulate that and re-enter the new oppose, but since articles change during FAC, and as opposes are addressed, there should rarely be a situation where an old actionable oppose is copied forward verbatim. Editing around and sorting out old, no longer active or current or actionable opposes isn't helpful for the process of evaluating the article. I can understand that BQZip may be frustrated that he may have to formulate a new oppose, as his old oppose was addressed, but the purpose of FAC is to thoroughly examine the current article (reflecting changes at FAC) vis-a-vis WP:WIAFA and promote/archive based on a clear picture, not muddle. Followup regarding BQZip's commentary on immediate re-noms; it's not about being unhappy over the extra work (although that's part of it: reviewers shouldn't have to review again the same article which was just archived, and people operate bots). It's about following the FAC instructions. The first point in the nominating instructions is: "Before nominating an article, ensure that it meets all of the FA criteria." If an article was just archived, it was deemed not to meet the criteria, and time should be taken to address issues before a new nomination. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:18, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Given all the trouble that we go to in maintaining archives of process discussions (linking to them from ArticleHistory and so on), it does seem a bit odd that discussions that get restarted are deleted with only a link to the edit history. I agree that Pagra's suggestion doesn't work — also because it doesn't deal with the page-length/load-time issue. However, why not move the old discussion to the next free archive page, close it as "restarted" with a link to the new discussion, add to ArticleHistory and begin again like that? That would making it clear that it is a new discussion, while providing a standard and transparent way to access the old discussion. Geometry guy 17:30, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Another worthy suggestion, but the situation is so rare that I'm not sure creating the overhead to deal with it, and doing all of those extra, time-consuming steps, is a good use of time. We should explore that, but what you suggest actually involves a lot of time, for such a rare situation, and I hate to add unnecessary "process" to FAC. I don't restart very often, and the link to the previous (outdated) commentary is always prominent. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:42, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well it would be replacing one process by another, which would not necessarily have to involve all the steps I suggest. At a bare minimum a page move to the next free archive page is probably faster than deleting the discussion and linking to the edit history. What more is done is a balance between transparency and efficiency. I'm glad you agree it is worth exploring. Geometry guy 17:57, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The most time-consuming part would be adding to articlehistory, and since it's one event, one FAC that wasn't closed, I wouldn't want to go that route. But moving the old FAC to the next open N archiveN and linking as a restart can be considered: I'm not sure if Raul wants to add that kind of process, but you are correct that the number of steps involved could be the same. I'll count next time it comes up, which isn't likely to be soon :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:08, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If a restart were handled by moving the page, the redirect would still need to be edited. I permalink-archive my talk page, and I don't see how moves could be faster. Gimmetrow 05:33, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I completely disagree with SandyG's comments that my oppose has been addressed. As posted on the "new" nomination are my comments that were followed up on by exactly zero people.

Furthermore, if this is a "new" nomination, who nominated it? The person who originally nominated it nominated a different article, by your logic, but you attach his/her name to the nomination. This seems to be putting words in their mouths, a violation of WP:TALK.

Such a drastic change was made that you believe it isn't the same article and everyone's comments are null and void. Why? My comments and others were never addressed and now we need to sift through a previous version of the same page or re-type all of our comments. For the same nomination, no one should have to do this at all.

As for the apparently painful process of archiving, which near as I can tell takes all of three steps (article creation, cut & paste, save), why couldn't this be done? It is used in subsequent nominations with no problems. On top of all that, you are complaining that it increases your workload. Sorry, this doesn't increase it that much and can be quite simple. You are making it complicated.

— BQZip01 — ^talk 18:25, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Being argumentative is not the best way to achieve the change in process that you would like. I think Sandy has appeciated that there is a point here, and a way of dealing with it. Let her think on it, instead of suggesting that it is unreasonable that she is concerned about the extra work. She is one of the hardest working Wikipedians there is.

And before posting your comments which were not addressed, please check whether they have been addressed in the new discussion. The more courteous and patient we are, the more we will enjoy contributing to Wikipedia. Geometry guy 19:51, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No disrespect was intended. No one is questioning her work ethic. This is all about the process. — BQZip01 — ^talk 20:02, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

break

Maybe I could be more clear. I am not against a "restart", but only the manner in which it is currently being done. — BQZip01 — ^talk 21:19, 1 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I put this on BQZip01's talk page,[9] but I'm also putting it here so others will be aware. Please do not disrupt a FAC again to make a WP:POINT.[10] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:27, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That was lame. (His edit, not your warning). -- Naerii 02:50, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but anything that intentionally disrupts a FAC is seriously unfair to all involved (reviewers, nominators). That's why we have talk pages. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:54, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to me that editors with views in opposition to significant contributors are often,eventually, accused of disruption or other shunning labels for perceived minor infractions whereas supporters are never disrespected in such a way for similar and often more blatant behavior. Same thing happened to Ottava Rima [11] the FAC (1ST.start) that generated this topic. It's a common occurance in most anglo-american competitive venues (discredit the person with an opposing view) but its commonality makes it no less obvious nor any more tasteful. Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 04:13, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Do you disagree that he was disruptive in this instance? -- Naerii 04:15, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

At least in my case, Mr.g, you are wrong. I staunchly and vehemently defended Ottava Rima's right (at AN/I) to oppose a FAC based on his/her interpretation of WP:WIAFA. I argued the importance of not silencing any oppose and allowing for vigorous debate and review of any candidate (which is also one of the points of a restart, when a page has become bogged down in details that have already been addressed). I strongly defended O.R.'s right to oppose even if others believed his oppose was disruptive. (Someone can find the old AN/I thread if interested.) I will just as staunchly argue that no one should intentionally and admittedly disrupt a FAC to make a WP:POINT. Two different things. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:40, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

SandyGeorgia, firstly I just spent about 10 minures trying to find that AN/I thread: WastedTime's link doesn't seem to get to it but WastedTime's edit at the FAC leaves the impression for those who won't/can't check the thread that OttavaRima is a trouble maker. It would have been helpful,maybe, if you could have made an OttavaRima supportive edit at the FAC to mitigate the impression left there by WastedTime's edit which really had no place at all at the FAC. I'm not saying that anyone is consciously attacking the credibility of editors with opposing views in order to get their way at FAC or with article content. I'm saying that Ad hominem is a culturally systemic, almost habitual, tendancy/approach in many areas of our society right now where opposing views are expressed, whether it be politics or wikipedia; but it should be squashed at every opportunity because it is the antithesis of consensus building.Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 15:16, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have time to look through AN/I archives, so I'll summarize it for you. It was proposed that O.R. should be banned from FAC for disruption (and not on this FAC, by the way). I strongly and vehemently dug in against that, and argued that no oppose should be stifled by such actions, and that even the proposal was a dangerous trend. I absolutely endorse your concern about the importance that opposing views be heard, and that is precisely what I argued on that AN/I thread. Further, when a FAC has gone on for so long, and has covered numerous issues, some of which may be addressed, some not, and gets to the point where there is no longer clarity about where things stand, a fresh start allows for better examination and debate, to resolve any remaining concerns. It appears to me that some people believe a restart is to stifle issues, when it can actually serve to better focus on what, if any, issues might remain. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:36, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just for the record, the two ANI's against Ottava Rima were Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive407#Repeated extreme incivility by User:Ottava Rima and Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive408#User:Ottava Rima. I stand behind my role in the first one. I had nothing to do with the proposed FAC ban in the second one. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:17, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hence it being lame :P -- Naerii 04:15, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Lame is ok,I think, but "disruptive" is blockable and identifies the behavior of the person as a threat to the group. Of course he was not disruptive; it was just a little friendly joke and his edit could have easily been undone if someone took it as a problem edit. Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 04:24, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong again. I don't have any evidence it was a "friendly joke", it was disruptive to FAC (he removed info that subsequent readers need to know), and the last thing we should be doing is encouraging edit warring on a FAC. If that sort of thing ever happens regularly, unlike my staunch defense of Ottava Rima's right to oppose, I will argue for a page ban at AN/I. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:46, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But,SandyGeorgia, AGF policy directs us to AGF even without "evidence" of good faith. Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 15:20, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The edit summary admitted it was a WP:POINT; that's where AGF ends. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:25, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"...anything that intentionally disrupts a FAC is seriously unfair to all involved (reviewers, nominators). That's why we have talk pages." THIS is why I have a problem with what you did. I view it as a disruption. I made his quite clear with Raul when he restarted one of my discussions. The major problem I have is that you have restarted this with no result from the previous one. There is no reason you can't simply archive the previous discussion as "inconclusive, but restart" or something else like that. Simply deleting everyone's comments and assessing that the article has changed so much that the previous discussion is no longer valid is the height of hubris, IMHO. This is especially true if the discussion is ongoing, which this one was. If it is no longer valid because of changes, just archive it! :-)

BTW, I said it might be a little bit pointy, not a violation of WP:POINT. I could accuse you of the same thing, but that won't facilitate a discussion. — BQZip01 — ^talk 20:18, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If the principle of a "restart" is accepted, then it's only a matter of process. Permalinking is the way Raul did it for ages. The end result is not much different from putting the discussion on a separate page (either by a move or copy-paste). The only difference I can think of with a permalink is sections can't be edited individually, but since there are rarely if ever sections in FAC pages, it shouldn't make any difference here. Gimmetrow 05:33, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

making sausage

A few times editors have used the sausage making metaphor to describe an article which has a good end result although the process for getting there was not too pretty. That metaphor has appeal on a certain level and I wonder if it could be applied in terms of the FAC process in opposition to "restarts"; i.e., even if the FAC "voting" process is long,garbled and confusing, as long as the reviewers and "voters" read and assess with the abilities we've come to expect then what's the problem? The end result will be just fine tasting sausage. Mr.grantevans2 (talk) 14:05, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Overhaul of FL criteria

I've re-started the process here. The input of reviewers and nominators from FAC would be valued. TONY (talk) 05:26, 3 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

1b vs 1c

<moved from Wikipedia talk:Featured article criteria#1b vs 1c> SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:10, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

While writing new articles, I have often come across topics that are interesting, but yet do not have very credible sources to list. Now my question here is on 1b vs 1c – To make an article comprehensive, I would have to add references that might not be considered credible, although the content pointed to by these would be best referred to as "common knowledge". On the flip side, without this content, the article cannot be said to be comprehensive (1b). What are your opinions? Can we compromise lowering the high referencing standards for such cases, or do we sacrifice comprehensiveness? =Nichalp «Talk»= 11:18, 4 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Could you perhaps point us to some examples? In my observation, the community already takes this into account and adjusts accordingly. For Shakespeare we require dramatically more reliable sources than for video games. Thus it seems to me that relatively less credible sources already are accepted. That said, there has to be some lower limit. I can't think of any sort of article for which jayhenry.blogspot.com would be an appropriate source. But perhaps you're talking about some specific gray area? --JayHenry (talk) 01:22, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not talking about blogs. Indian Standard Time was one article where I faced several issues with reliable sources during the FAC process some years ago. =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:41, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I didn't mean blogs specifically. But I think the FAC you cited WP:FAC/Indian Standard Time actually resolved the issue fairly well. User:Indon rightly flagged an e-mail as an inappropriate source (this is what I mean by saying there must be a lower limit: blogs, e-mails, just don't really cut it), but the discussion determined that the Greenwichmeantime site was acceptable. It looks to me like the FAC process worked pretty well here, certainly lowering the referencing standard from what would be expected in some topics, without compromising the article's comprehensiveness. --JayHenry (talk) 02:09, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I just gave this article as a specific example, but specifically the point to be made is the quality of references provided. The GMT site, may not be the most credible, but it did help to provide much of the content. =Nichalp «Talk»= 19:13, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am sorry, Nichal, I am possibly misunderstanding your question. You asked the question "Can we compromise lowering the high referencing standards for such cases, or do we sacrifice comprehensiveness?" My answer is that we already allow somewhat lower referencing standards in order to achieve comprehensiveness. You yourself provided an example of it, as that GMT site was allowed, though the site "may not be the most credible" and this article is still a Featured Article. I believe the process has struck an appropriate balance during my time observing and reviewing (only about a year... not as long as some users have been around :) --JayHenry (talk) 01:59, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am afraid, we do not allow lower referencing standards to achieve comprehensiveness. If anything, editors only turn a blind eye to it (for various reasons). I do not see where we legitimize this. Having said that, imo, it will do less harm (there sure will be some harm) and more good if we relaxed the rules for articles less than GA-grade. There should be no such relaxing for GAs and FAs. Sarvagnya 18:22, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say 1c trumps 1b. If no RS cares about a certain facet of the topic, then it is probably isn't notable and violates UNDUE anyway. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 06:48, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

An example I know of is Defense of the Ancients. Granted, its video-game related, but it lost about 2.5KB of information because it was attributed to, according to FAC, unreliable sources or the connection being justified was implicit, such as the mod's changelogs. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 21:56, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Criterion 3—non-free content, copyright

Black Kite is an expert in this field (hangs around WP:NFC), and has just reviewed one of our nominations WRT the use of NFC images. Very instructive indeed. I suggest that we all take heed of the requirements of a central pillar of WP's mission, and apply them a little more often in reviews here.

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess#The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

TONY (talk) 13:36, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Elcobbola (talk · contribs) is quite competent in this area, and in fact, gets to most of them, although it's not possible for him to get to all of them (nor should he, considering the flak he takes and has taken over the excellent work he does). If I have questions about images, I ping someone and make sure someone looks before I promote. It would be stupendous if Black Kite could come over to FAC regularly and help take some of the load off of Elcobbola; in return for his efforts, he might even get dissed in a blog somewhere :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:23, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, it was remiss of me not to include reference to Elcobbola in my post. TONY (talk) 03:46, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Which reminds me: I'm waiting for images to be checked at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:29, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Let's change something

I propose to change something in the criteria for voting/propose an article for FA or for the FAs:

Today an IP promoted this page for FA. Certainly, the article hasn't the criteria for became a featured article. IPs and registred user sice 1 day/1 week aren't experts. Another example is Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Cluj-Napoca (the promotor was User:Danutz, registred in 2005, but that was his 16th edit). So I ask to the specialists for FAC that forbid to the unregistred users/registred user since minus of 1 week to vote or propose an article for FA/GA. This because these user are certainly unexperts, they don't know the FA/GA criteria in 95% of the instaces.
Recently someone proposed the article "Chickasaw Turnpike" for FA (very similar to "New York State Route 174"). It is a short article for a short road, and it's an actual FAC. In FAs page there are links such "Templon" to short articles. For example, look at it:Strada Statale 17 dell'Appennino Abruzzese e Appulo Sannitico. This is a road too; this is a Statal road. We have these sections: Description (from Antrodoco to Sulmona, from Sulmona to Isernia, from Isernia to Foggia), History, Tourism. A FA is a complete, comprehensive article in limit for the topic. We can say more, well, about these articles? In fr.wiki, de.wiki, it.wiki, no.wiki etc. A short (15 kB, at least ^_^) FA may be comprehensive, written in a perfect prose; we will not find a perfect prose. So, I ask to don't propose very short articles for FA if they haven't a perfect prose.
There is a page for FAs, for GAs, but for an intermediate class, A-class articles, there isn't a page. Why? Can we create it?
There isn't a symbol for GAs and for A-class articles. FAs have the brown stars, GAs may have the Swedish blue star (or the "+"), for A-class we can insert a little "A".

I wait for your replies. --Mojska 666 – Leave your message here 15:47, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Um, what about this GA symbol and this A-class symbol: ? Juliancolton ^Tropical ^Cyclone 15:52, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Also, there is nothing that says the article can't be short. As long as it's comprehensive and doesn't leave out any major aspects, regardless of size, then it certainly should have as much respect as a long article. Juliancolton ^Tropical ^Cyclone 15:54, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why we don't put they in the up-right of the page? You don't replied to my questions -.-' --Mojska 666 – Leave your message here 16:02, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There is a process in place to handle "drive by" nominations. If the IP is not a principle contributor and has not conferred with the principle contributors, the nomination can be withdrawn.
Comprehensiveness has nothing to do with length. The criterion only requires that "no major' facts and details" be neglected. See also Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_statistics#Ten_shortest_articles_2
A-class is awarded independently by Wikiprojects. An A-class article for one project could be a B-class for another. FA/GA are Wikipedia-wide assessments and, therefore, are able to have "stand alone" pages. Wikiprojects maintain lists of their A-class articles.
Iconification is a dead horse. ЭLСОВВОLД _talk 16:06, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly! Comreshensiveness has nothing to do with the length of an article. It doesn't matter if an article is short. I mean, of course I'm not going to support an FAC for a stub, but within reason I don't take the length of an article into account when reviewing FACs, and niether should you. Juliancolton ^Tropical ^Cyclone 16:49, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the first item, FAC isn't a vote, and the director won't promote the article to FA if it doesn't meet the criteria irregardless to how many support votes it has.

As far as length, the Chickasaw Turnpike is actually longer than the example you provided. Also, the Chickasaw Turnpike is off the beaten path in rural Oklahoma, there is no tourism and the only ones likely to use it are locals. The key to FA is being comprehensive. If you don't believe the article is compreshensive, point out where the article is lacking. A short article doesn't always mean it is not comprehensive, it depends on the topic.

Promotion to "A-class" is typically handled by the Wikiprojects.

There are symbols as Juliancolton has pointed out.

--Holderca1^talk 16:16, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(ec)A couple points. A, B, Start, and Stub are classes used by WikiProjects to access the quality of the articles; presumably, every project's scale is aligned such that B < GA < A < FA (in terms of # of reviews going up for each step). Basically, a wiki-wide A-class system is not appropriate. The idea of GA stars or the like has just been resuggested at.. up, WP:VPP I think, but basically, this keeps coming up, and generally the argument is that since a GA is only passed by one person, marking it with a certain quality opens the system to gaming and the like. On the first point, I think between SandyG's efforts to evaluate each FAC as it comes it helps to filter questionable nominations from anons and new users (I'm sure more help would be appreciated :) ). However, I don't think we should block anon IP or new users from nominating, as long as we have this filter in place that we can check with the main editors of the page to see if the article should be quickly dropped from FAC; as long as they aren't spamming the FAC list, there's no need to punish these users. --MASEM 17:05, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Correct, IP noms are perfectly valid and acceptable as long as WP:FAC instructions are followed. I've also asked Mojska in the past to stop declaring "Oppose, too short", as that is not a valid oppose (often, neither is, "Oppose, too long": in these cases, you need to show either what's missing in terms of comprehensiveness or what is not tightly focused and could be better summarized). And the perennial GA icon in article space was just polled down again. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:13, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Accessibility

Rick Block pointed out at Wikipedia talk:Featured article criteria#Proposed accessibility criteria that we aren't reviewing very well for accessibility issues.

Although Wikipedia:Accessibility is already implicitly included as a criteria under the MOS criteria (2), I think it would be appropriate to highlight these accessibility guidelines with an explicit, additional, 2d along the lines of:

(d) accessibility guidelines
In the same vein, criteria 3 should explicitly require that images have either a caption or alternative text (3 out of the 5 most recently promoted FAs have at least one image without either a caption or alternative text). Any objections to this? -- Rick Block (talk) 13:53, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

I'm not certain we need to add it to WP:WIAFA (since it's already part of MoS and covered by 2), but we do need to start reviewing for this. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:11, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I completely agree awareness is the main issue. However relegating accessibility guidelines to the morass of picayune MOS details says these are less important than, say, ensuring the lead section is concise. If you're not disabled, these guidelines are pretty easy to overlook. For example, how many of us view an article with image loading turned off? On the other hand, not following these guidelines creates a distinct possibility that at least some content in the article is, well, inaccessible. We certainly don't want instruction creep, but I think these are worthy of top-level mention. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:19, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Rick, it's not being relegated to anything less important. All of MoS is covered by 2, while points a, b and c are in addition to MoS. For example, good articles don't have to comply with 2c, and 2a and 2b aren't specifically mentioned at MoS AFAIK. We try to enforce all of MoS (unless it changes faster than we can keep up with); we just need to increase awareness of this aspect, but adding every aspect of MoS to WIAFA could quickly get out of hand. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:45, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree it's already covered. We can start by removing removing TOCleft and TOCright from all noms. Not only do I personally hate those things, but they violate the accessibility rules and make it hard for screenreaders to parse pages. Raul654 (talk) 03:22, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps you haven't been keeping up with the recent changes to the MoS then? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 03:27, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

* Avoid floating the table of contents if possible, as it breaks the standard look of pages. If you must use a floated TOC, put it below the lead section for consistency. Users of screen readers expect the table of contents to follow the introductory text; they will also miss any text placed between the TOC and the first heading. -Wikipedia:Accessibility -- seems pretty clear to me. Raul654 (talk) 03:29, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"Wherever possible, images of faces should be placed so that the face or eyes look toward the text, because the reader's eye will tend to follow their direction." Added: Where the lead image is a portrait with the face looking to the reader's right, it should be left-aligned, looking into the text of the article. Where this is the lead image, it may be appropriate to move the Table of Contents to the right by using {{TOCright}}.

Is that not clear enough? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 03:41, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, when the image people enacted that, they failed to account for accessibility (and I still think it looks awful and would much rather see the fellow looking off the page, but I lost on that one). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:48, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps. I think it might also be a good idea if the FA director made an attempt to keep up to date with the FA criteria. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 03:59, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The FA criteria are very stable and don't change that much, and I'm well aware of what they are. (Here is the diff since last year. The only note-worthy difference is the clause "except for edits made in response to the featured article process.", the original form of which was added by me).

If you're asking why I'm not aware of some trivialities in the manual of style, that is because the MoS is huge, self-contradictory, and it changes frequently. Perhaps it would be a good idea if you made an attempt to keep up with these basic facts of the FA process. Raul654 (talk) 04:17, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I do try to keep up with these basic facts, but so often you don't. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 04:43, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You claim to be keeping up with the basic facts, and then make a rookie mistake like conflating the MoS with the FA criteria of which it is a part. Raul654 (talk) 04:50, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Malleus, please. That change was enacted recently, it's rarely employed, some of us (me) never agreed it was that important, it's a little known corner of MoS, and really, try to go have a nice day, OK? Marskell a few days ago, Raul today, am I next? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:52, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Am I supposed to hold St Marskell and St Raul in some kind of high regard? I deal with people as I find them, saints or not. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 05:09, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're trolling. And you have no idea what you are talking about. Not the first time, either. Raul654 (talk) 05:11, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh dear. I've disagreed with the mighty Raul, and now I must be punished. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 05:17, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I will accept both of your offerings of worship. I have never done anything wrong and only produce Good. When I die, may my bones be buried beneath the MoS alter of Our Lady of Way Too Many Rules. --Moni3 (talk) 13:46, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And since MoS and MOSNUM are currently under attack by ToR vandals, subject to massive edit wars and long talk page diatribes, it's not going to be long before I lose track of who's on first. At some point, we have to rely on reviewers to keep up with it, because there aren't enough hours in a day, and every time I've tried to catch up with MoS lately, I've left confused, frustrated and no wiser. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:35, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what ToR means, and neither do I care. But when I see the FA director not only out of touch with the FA criteria, but also abusing the English language by misusing a word like "conflating" it is difficult not to comment. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 05:01, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I hate them as well, but some disagree; it has to do with photos looking towards the page, which apparently some people care deeply about. I wonder how the layout importance weighs vs. accessibility. See Wikipedia:MOS#Images, where we've introduced a contradiction because of this image issue. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:32, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I made this change to keep WP:MOS in sync with WP:Accessibility. (Considering how things work at MoS, that should trigger about two months and 200KB worth of discussion that no mere mortal will be able to sort.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:25, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is a good change. Guidelines are good, and I love the MoS however unstable it may be in places. Without it, the encyclopedia would disintegrate. When asked about images, I've been advising people to make the eyes look into the page (or make the trains, horses, and autos run into the page) but to avoid digital image-flipping because it distorts reality, sometimes in impossible ways. I have never advised anyone to move the TOC to solve an image problem. The solution that almost always works is to find or create a different image. Finetooth (talk) 16:11, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Unless I'm missing something, what happened here is that WP:MOS#Images had altered an important TOC accessibility issue to account for a very rare image issue. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:15, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Finetooth (talk) 16:42, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Monthly update of style and policy pages: April 2008

It was a complicated month, so I hope I've captured, as simply as possible, the substantive changes. Please notify any issues on the talk page. TONY (talk) 16:04, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Page name doesn't appear?

Can someone explain why the title of my nomination did not appear as it does with other nominations? I thought I followed the instructions to the letter. Maury (talk) 20:30, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm looking at it now; there are a few problems. Give me a minute. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:32, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Maury (talk) 20:37, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

While I'm here, can someone with more technical expertise help with two very minor edits? One is to double-column the references, which is a little long in its current format. The other is to make the text in the GALLERY smaller, right now it's annoyingly large. Maury (talk) 20:39, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I added two columns on the reflist (that doens't show on all browsers); I don't know about galleries. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:47, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

When dealing with old {{facfailed}} templates (before Gimmebot started, Jan 2007), there is still a missing step in our instructions. I'll see if Gimmetrow and I can fix it (basically, you hadn't added the sub-heading line because the instructions don't tell you to add that after you move the file, but I also had to rebuild articlehistory, add tools, and correctly archive the old facfailed). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:53, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, cool, I'll remember this for the future. Maury (talk) 21:21, 7 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I rewrote the nominating instructions at {{FAC-instructions}} to account for the confusion when there is an old (pre Jan 2007) {{facfailed}} template. They confuse new nominators because they add a lot of steps to the instructions, they aren't the norm, but the instructions to work with them result in a mess. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:26, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Script

I just created a script for "resolved comments". Anyways, you can't (sadly ;() import the script because of the apostrophe (') in my username. On your monobook.js: importScript("User:Milk's Favorite Cookie/comments.js") There is a link below, and in the toolbar while editing a page, you will see "Resolved Comments". Highlight the resolved comments and click on it. It's pretty self-explanatory from there. The script is available at User:Milk's Favorite Cookie/comments.js, and all you need to do is copy everything and paste it into your monobook.js. Hope this helps. « Milk's Favorite Cookie ^{( talk / contribs)} 20:09, 8 May 2008 (UTC) [reply]

I don't see a sample of what it does, but if it's going to add graphics, check marks, and other things that chunk up the page size, it goes against WP:FAC instructions. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:12, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

~~Resolved comments from ~~~~~~

~~« Milk's Favorite Cookie ^{( talk / contribs)} 20:17, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]~~
So, it's only for allowing reviewers to cap comments? Are you making it clear that only the reviewer can cap their own comments? Don't want to see Scripts Gone Wild in FAC, with people capping other people's reviews when they think they're resolved. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:21, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
FYI you can still import the script; just use importScript("User:username_with_apostrophe's/script.js"); Take special note of the double quotes. That should do it. Gary King (talk) 20:27, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Changed above. About Sandy's Question.... I'm not sure if I an do anything about that. « Milk's Favorite Cookie ^{( talk / contribs)} 20:30, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Most user scripts I've seen come with documentation, instructions, samples, etc. See User:Dr pda. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:32, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Done « Milk's Favorite Cookie ^{( talk / contribs)} 20:43, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In it's current form, I'd not like to see it used at FAC, as it contains no time/date stamp in the cap. I do check these things when I read each FAC :-) In fact, it also doesn't include a sig at all (just a username so someone else's username can be entered), so potentially causes issues. The way I know, without having to step back through the diffs, that someone's comments are resolved is by their sig and timestamp. With just a username, and no ts, I'd have to check back through all diffs to doublecheck who capped. Without ~~~~ in the cap, I'd be discouraging caps, period, because we need to be assured that other editors aren't capping reviewer comments; without a sig, it's creating work and I'd discourage it completely. In fact, unless the script is adapted to contain a sig and timestamp, I oppose its use at FAC. I need a signature and a timestamp indicating comments are resolved; this doesn't give me that unless I go back through the diffs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:15, 8 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
~~I like this, well done MFC. To Sandy, when capping your comments, you can also add a new support (etc.) comment, I take it. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 01:18, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]~~
~~Sorry, can't understand the question, but if a cap doesn't have a signature and timestamp as part of the cap, I oppose its use at FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:20, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]~~
By the way, I should add a note here, because I'm worried about the trend this script could start. Caps at FAC have one significant purpose: to hide resolved commentary that has become so lengthy that it may scare off other reviewers. I still have to read under every cap to see what has been reviewed, so they create an extra click for me. It is not useful or helpful for every little resolved comment on a FAC is hidden in a cap; if that trend gets started, that will not be a step forward. I'm imaging now reviews where I have to click dozens of times to read the FAC; it is not necessary for minor resolved comments to be capped. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:49, 9 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
~~Battle of Waterloo~~
~~See also Talk:Battle of Waterloo#Quis Custodet Custodes? and Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Battle of Waterloo/archive1~~
It is not clear to me why the FA process was so abruptly terminated. Who arranged for the bot to terminated it and why? And as only one person had proposed the that it be promoted and none opposed, why was it not promoted? --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 12:31, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
~~Sandy would of removed it from the main FAC process. I agree, the FAC should of gone on for longer.... D.M.N. (talk) 12:53, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]~~
Most FACs run for just over a week. If the article hasn't attracted sufficient supports, then it is often archived. One support is not usually enough to determine community consensus. Make sure any issues that were brought up were addressed, and then you can renominate it. The FAC list was pretty long, and some of the regular reviewers are not as active right now, which means some articles are going to get overlooked. The key is more reviewers, but they've apparently been hiding. Karanacs (talk) 15:45, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Is this true? A nomination I've made only has "Comments", they all say "looks great" or something and I've addressed all the issues they've raised. But will it fail if someone doesn't put the word "support" in BOLD? Ryan4314 (talk) 16:53, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It may be archived if there are no explicit supports. Archiving doesn't necessarily mean an article failed, just that consensus was not reached or could not be interpreted. Karanacs (talk) 17:05, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
True; there were indeed issues expressed on the review page, and I believe that the third requirement in the instructions—that "insufficient information has been provided by reviewers to judge whether the criteria have been met"—also pertains here. Sorry, it's a fact of life that there just aren't enough reviewers. Try again, please, and let's hope there are enough reviewers this time. On a side-note, does anyone here know WPians who might be willing to lend a hand, even occasionally, to review articles? The process relies on having enough, and we're severely short at the moment. Nominations are just gonna be archived all too easily unless we get off our butts and encourage good people to come aboard in this endeavour. TONY (talk) 17:14, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
PS And Sandy's the last person you'd blame, if indeed there were any blame to distribute. TONY (talk) 17:16, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A brief notice at WT:MILHIST and the other projects that tagged the article would likely help generate more interest in the FAC next time. Maralia (talk) 17:31, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to put it up again. One question, though - is it OK for major contributors to the article to support it? In that case, maybe this time, assuming we feel it's all up to standard, we can put some supports in. I will definitely try to call attention to it on WT:MILHIST. -Kieran (talk) 21:16, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Articles can be re-nominated when previous concerns are addressed; there is rarely an occurrence where they should be put up again immediately, since I don't do frivolous archives. Also, FAC is not a vote, and there is not an automatic number of supports or opposes that will cause an article to be promoted or archived; please focus on the issues raised in the previous FAC before re-nomming. From memory, the previous nom included concerns about sourcing, prose, citations and other MoS issues. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:45, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Also, please note that the FAC criteria say that significant contributors to the article should identify themselves when supporting or opposing. We assume that the significant contributors support the article or it wouldn't have been nominated; the FAC process is really to see what the rest of the community thinks. Karanacs (talk) 02:05, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Other than the nominator no one has either opposed or supported the Battle of Waterloo article. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 09:58, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
That's true, but there were a number of critiques that reviewers, for one reason or another, did not label as "Opposes", and looking through them and the edit history, I'm unsure that they were all satisfactorily dealt with. The emphasis now is firmly on the resolution of criticisms in the FAC process, and we decided a couple of months ago, I think it was, that (1) we should resist the idea among nominators that there's a sense of failure in archiving, and (2) where significant work has had to be done during the nomination process, and appears to be unfinished, it's perfectly natural for archiving and resubmission to occur. This enables the list to be kept to a manageable size. It's no big deal. I like the article, and hope it's resubmitted soon (not immediately, please, since there's a little work to do on it). TONY (talk) 10:23, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I've tabulated the comments as a worklist on the article talk page, and we'll be back once they're addressed. Some of them do need a bit of debate though. -Kieran (talk) 20:22, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Nice summary; curious that you haven't engaged the MilHist A-class peer review process, since it has such a good reputation. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:57, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have to disagree; I don't think the comments of most reviewers, including my own, are described accurately at all. Johnbod (talk) 11:50, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Mine are not described accurately, either. Awadewit (talk) 17:20, 12 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
~~Acid2 FAC~~
A question has been raised at this FAC relating to the article's use of lists and tables. I figure the FAC could do with some more eyes from experienced reviewers.
Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Acid2. dihydrogen monoxide (H₂O) 11:14, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
WP:WIAFA says:
1 (a) "Well-written" means that the prose is engaging, even brilliant, and of a professional standard.

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:35, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
~~The X-Files~~
I'd like to request that some people who are more familiar with FAC than I take a look at this article and post thoughts at this RFC. I'd like to get the article ready for an FAC nomination, since a new X-Files movie is being released this summer, and I think it would be great to feature this article on the main page on or around its release date. I don't think the article is close to ready for a nomination yet -- frankly I think it's in downright bad shape. If you can take a look and offer some input, please do. Thanks. Equazcion •✗/C • 17:31, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've got two suggestions right off the bat
Open a Peer Review for the article and then direct people there.

The article definitely needs to be shortened

Gary King (talk) 17:43, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Done, thanks for the advice :) Equazcion •✗/C • 17:58, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The article would also benefit if you contacted some of the other major contributors to the article, since those more familiar with the material; you can find a list here. After looking at that list, though, it looks like you are the lead contributor by a significant margin! Gary King (talk) 18:06, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, that's definitely helpful. I wasn't even aware such a tool existed. I'll put together a message to spam across some user talk pages :) Thanks again for the advice. Equazcion •✗/C • 18:09, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You have got two months until the film is released, which isn't too little or too much. As long as you move swiftly, you should be able to get this to FA and hopefully on the Main Page. That would be great if that happens; I hope it does! Good luck. Gary King (talk) 18:13, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed on all counts :) Thanks again! Equazcion •✗/C • 18:21, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
~~Huh?~~
~~Why did GimmeBot archive the NIF? I was still planning on doing minor work on that. Maury (talk) 21:53, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]~~
~~Video game FACs~~
I want to raise an issue to the general readership of this page in case some of you are not looking at the FAC list "as a whole" and recognizing a current and troubling behavior pattern. There is a gaggle of video game editors who are taking turns posting and trying to push video game articles through the FA process. On the whole, the articles are far from FA standard when they appear. They have been mostly or exclusively written, reviewed, and GA-passed by other video game editors. The last few to appear are:
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time – posted (for the second time in under a month) by Pagrashtak (talk · contribs). Video game editors Judgesurreal777 (talk · contribs), igordebraga (talk · contribs), and haha169 (talk · contribs) shortly show up to support the FAC, ignoring major problems. HUGE lists of issues develop in the ensuing days, found by non-video game editors, and the article is eventually brought up to standard.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl – GA-passed by haha169 (familiar?), the most active editor on the article in recent history, peer reviewed by other video game editors, FAC posted by haha169 and failed when non-video game editors brought up laundry lists of basic problems.

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess – GA-passed in Jan 2007 with one comment from the reviewer, wikiproject peer review (all video game editors), FAC posted by igordebraga (yes, the editor from above) and failed after another painfully long process in which the concerns of non-gamers could never be addressed. Gary King (talk · contribs) is by far the most active editor here in recent history.

Half-Life 2: Episode One – WikiProject peer review (all video game editors). An earlier FAC, posted by Qjuad (talk · contribs) failed when the concerns of non-video game editors could not be addressed. A new FAC appeared, also by Qjuad but quickly "co-nommed" by Gary King. Qjuad subsequently disappeared and Gary King dominated the FAC. Once again, the FAC quickly stalled when I (a non-video game editor) immediately spotted problems.

Metroid Prime 3: Corruption – another Gary King-dominated article. GA-passed by Judgesurreal777 (talk · contribs), a video game editor. FAC posted by Gary King. After some resistance on the article's FAC talk page by an FA director and various reviewers, guess who showed up to support the article? Wait for it... Judgesurreal777, igordebraga, and another active video game editor.
There are others, and if you start looking through the video game FACs you will see the same names over and over. This in itself is not a problem. Although my assumption of good faith is being pushed near its limit, I'm still assuming some kind of FA drive by the video game wikiprojects and nothing else. However - and this is the point - the FAC process is being abused and reviewers are being stretched thin by this flood of ill-prepared articles. The wave of non-substantive "Support!" comments at the beginning of each, all coming from video game editors, is giving an impression of general community support and due attention to FA criteria which is absolutely not the case. It makes the serious reviewers' jobs harder because we have to work harder to point out why the first handful of support votes are bollocks. It makes the FA director's job harder because she has to sort the comments made with an eye toward the FA criteria from those that are clearly not.
I urge everyone to pay due attention to this situation. It is not the job of FA reviews to pull articles up to FA standard during this process. They need to be there when they get here. --Laser brain (talk) 23:24, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I was actually thinking about posting to the Video Game WikiProject about this very issue a while ago. The video game FACs I've seen have largely been quite disappointing, especially in their prose; some are rather inaccessible to general readers who are not familiar with the games (such as myself). I'd strongly urge video game project members to take a more critical look at the articles and evaluate them at a distance. Ask yourselves: does this article make sense for those unfamiliar with the game or even the platform? Does the prose truly meet the required professional standard at WP:FACR? BuddingJournalist 23:42, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And on another note, edit summaries such as this one are rather unnecessary. I am not "complaining"; I'm giving examples of where I believe the article does meet FA requirements. The fact that you're editing the article in response to my "complaints" implies that you believe at least some of these are valid. Moreover, I'm sure many Video Game editors have been through multiple FACs; they should realize by now that when reviewers give "examples" of problems, fixing only the examples is not likely to resolve all issues. BuddingJournalist 23:57, 13 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Though I agree with Laserbrain to an extent, I do believe that sometimes reviewers will oppose with comments that I personally believe don't satisfy the criteria [generally not the prose as laser commented though, those comments are usually are justified in initial opposing]. Another issue I sometimes see is where reviewers make comments to be satisfied, but don't indicate whether this is the only issue or just don't make further comments. I think reviewers should be encouraged to support, oppose, or make further comments after their objections are satisfied or not tended to.
Another issue is that peer review often lack comments for long periods of time. If peer reviews received more response, editors would be more liekly to submit the article there prior to their nomination. If the root problem isn't fixed in the process, in my opinion, peer review, and the nomination procedure or closure is reformed in some way, this could lead to discouraged editors at peer review, a lower amount of featured content being produced, along with other possible consequences. Hello32020 (talk) 01:02, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

While I understand it makes Sandy's job harder (I never see Raul around anymore :P) I wouldn't say that the FACs will be crippled, just because Sandy can veto the support votes when it's obvious the article doesn't pass muster. That said, I feel part of the issue is that video game reviewers review and work on (shockingly) video games, and the input of the project is requested. I do agree some reviewers should probably hold off on "supporting" articles (I usually only feel comfortable giving neutral reviews one way or another), but really, if you want to stop some of the nominations, just ask the reviewers (I know Gary is being a little obstinate, but still.) --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 01:09, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That said, I'm also trying my best to keep a track of and give comments to all of the above articles as well. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk) 01:10, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I resent that. I still stand by the fact that I only have Facebook up for nomination. I never nominated the earlier two video game articles. I'm only there to help. It may look like I am 'taking over' an FAC, but people (no one person specifically) are assuming bad faith when they think that a conspiracy is going on and I am there just to take over FACs. I look at it like I'm helping out on articles that I am interested in. There are no doubt examples of failed FACs where the nominator did not respond back to a nomination after actually nominating it; these FACs might have ended up in that camp — or not. I don't want to assume what the nominators would have done, but I seriously doubt they would have left the nominations hanging dry. Gary King (talk) 01:16, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I entirely support what Laser brain and BuddingJournalist have said. It has been a persistent problem for some time, and I go as far as claiming that it has been a blight on the FAC process. Those behind this ungainly scramble for FA promotion in this area needs to take a breath and re-examine their standards. I've no time to talk more right now, and will revisit soon to assist our deliberation on this issue. TONY (talk) 01:19, 14 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 873: / Line 873: @@
 :That said, I'm also trying my best to keep a track of and give comments to all of the above articles as well. <font color="#cc6600">[[User:David Fuchs|Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs]]</font><sup> <nowiki>(</nowiki><small><font color="#993300">[[User talk:David Fuchs|talk]]</font></small><nowiki>)</nowiki></sup> 01:10, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
 :: I resent that. I still stand by the fact that I only have [[Facebook]] up for nomination. I never nominated the earlier two video game articles. I'm only there to help. It may look like I am 'taking over' an FAC, but people (no one person specifically) are assuming bad faith when they think that a conspiracy is going on and I am there just to take over FACs. I look at it like I'm helping out on articles that I am interested in. There are no doubt examples of failed FACs where the nominator did not respond back to a nomination after actually nominating it; these FACs might have ended up in that camp &mdash; or not. I don't want to assume what the nominators would have done, but I seriously doubt they would have left the nominations hanging dry. [[User:Gary King|<font color="#02e">Gary</font>&nbsp;<font color="#02b"><b><font size="+1"><i>K</i></font>ing</b></font>]]&nbsp;<font size="-1">([[User talk:Gary King|<font color="#02e">talk</font>]])</font> 01:16, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
+*I entirely support what Laser brain and BuddingJournalist have said. It has been a persistent problem for some time, and I go as far as claiming that it has been a blight on the FAC process. Those behind this ungainly scramble for FA promotion in this area needs to take a breath and re-examine their standards. I've no time to talk more right now, and will revisit soon to assist our deliberation on this issue. [[User:Tony1|<font color="darkgreen">'''TONY'''</font >]] [[User_talk:Tony1|<font color="darkgreen">(talk)</font >]] 01:19, 14 May 2008 (UTC)