Wikipedia:Featured article review

Reviewing featured articles
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This page is for the review and improvement of featured articles that may no longer meet the featured article criteria. FAs are held to the current standards regardless of when they were promoted.

There are two stages in the process, to which all users are welcome to contribute.

Featured article review (FAR)

  • In this step, possible improvements are discussed without declarations of "keep" or "remove". The aim is to improve articles rather than to demote them. Nominators must specify the featured article criteria that are at issue and should propose remedies. The ideal review would address the issues raised and close with no change in status.
  • Reviews can improve articles in various ways: Articles may need updating, formatting, and general copyediting. More complex issues, such as a failure to meet current standards of prose, comprehensiveness, factual accuracy, and neutrality, may also be addressed.
  • The featured article director, Raul654, or his delegates Marskell and Joelr31, determine either that there is consensus to close during this first stage, or that there is insufficient consensus to do so and, thus, that the nomination should be moved to the second stage.

Featured article removal candidate (FARC)

  • An article is never listed as a removal candidate without first undergoing a review. In this second stage, participants may declare "keep" or "remove", supported by substantive comments, and further time is provided to overcome deficiencies.
  • Reviewers who declare "remove" should be prepared to return towards the end of the process to strike out their objections if they have been addressed.
  • The featured article director or his delegates determine whether there is consensus for a change in the status of a nomination, and close the listing accordingly.

Each stage typically lasts two to three weeks, or longer where changes are ongoing and it seems useful to continue the process. Nominations are moved from the review period to the removal list, unless it is very clear that editors feel the article is within criteria. Given that extensions are always granted on request, as long as the article is receiving attention, editors should not be alarmed by an article moving from review to the removal candidates' list.

Older reviews are stored in the archive. A bot will update the article talk page after the review is closed and moved to archives.

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Featured content:

Featured article tools:


Toolbox

Nominating an article for FAR

Nominators typically assist in the process of improvement; they may post only one nomination at a time, should not nominate articles that are featured on the main page (or have been featured there in the previous three days), and should avoid segmenting review pages. Three to six months is regarded as the minimum time between promotion and nomination here, unless there are extenuating circumstances such as a radical change in article content.

  1. Place {{FAR}} at the top of the talk page of the nominated article. Write "FAR listing" in the edit summary box. Click on "Save page".
    Note: if an article has already been through the FAR/C process, use the Move button to rename the previous nomination to an archive. For example, Wikipedia:Featured article review/Television → Wikipedia:Featured article review/Television/archive1
  2. From there, click on the "add a comment" link.
  3. Place ===[[name of nominated article]]=== at the top of the subpage.
  4. Below this title, write your reason(s) for nominating the article, specifying the FA criterion/criteria that are at issue, then click on "Save page".
  5. Click here, and place your nomination at the top of the list of nominated articles, {{Wikipedia:Featured article review/name of nominated article}}, filling in the exact name of the nominated article. Click on "Save page".
  6. Notify relevant parties by adding {{subst:FARMessage|Articlename}} to relevant talk pages (insert article name). Relevant parties include main contributors to the article (identifiable through article stats script), the editor who originally nominated the article for Featured Article status (identifiable through the Featured Article Candidate link in the Article Milestones), and any relevant WikiProjects (identifiable through the talk page banners, but there may be other Projects that should be notified). Leave a message at the top of the FAR indicating who you have notified and that notifications have been completed.

Contents


Featured article reviews

Introduction to general relativity

Fails featured article criterion 1a because it's not well written. 66.68.23.41 (talk) 18:42, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

No examples have been provided. Without examples, this FAR will likely be removed. Please provide examples, and complete the notifications per the instructions at the top of WP:FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:53, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
You needn't look any further than the introduction. The fourth paragraph doesn't have a topic sentence, which makes it easy for the reader to confuse gravitational waves with lensing. More generally, the work does not flow throughout, including, for instance, too many (more than 50 by my count) parenthetical phrases. 66.68.23.41 (talk) 09:35, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
66, please complete the notifications. Instructions are at the top of WP:FAR, and a sample is at Wikipedia:Featured article review/Rudyard Kipling. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:55, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

While it's here, I corrected several issues that got by FAC: WP:ACCESSIBILITY, WP:MOS#Images, WP:LAYOUT and mixed citation styles. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:21, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

  • Comment I'm wondering about the name. Is this even standard? Are these pages allowed? If so, I have some "intro" pages that I want to write. :) Ottava Rima (talk) 17:27, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
    This has been debated many times at WT:FAC, and consensus has been to allow them. You'd have to check archives for the many discussions; I think they've occurred elsewhere as well. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:54, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Bob Dylan

previous FAR


This article is too long and detailed to be really useful. It violates criterion 4 at the very least, perhaps 1a or 1d. Tealwisp (talk) 19:45, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Please complete the notifications per the instructions at WP:FAR
At 79KB of readable prose (relative to 50KB recommendation at WP:SIZE), I believe this is second in length only to FA Ketuanan Melayu. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:05, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Agree that it could be trimmed as the interesting and relevant content is currently lost admist all the extraneous kb and minutiae....but not a difficult task if you are familiar with the subject. However, the standard of referencing is very inconsistent; author, publish / retrieval dates etc missing from quite a few, and thats messy, tedious and unappealing work. Ceoil sláinte

Article has issues : There are inconsistencies with source formatting and broken links (probably the result of the recent trimming, but who knows). Many of the web links are of poor quality, I think we need one of the professional link checkers to give this a look. There are sections that are under sourced, it might be wise for someone to run through it with fact tags so we can see what needs doing. Any voluntaries to commence the fact tagging process? As a side note, User:Indopug told me a few months ago that he was considering having this article checked. I'm trying to remember what he told me (I have too many archives), I think he thought the recent sections were too long. — Realist2 01:24, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I'll ping him. Ceoil sláinte 01:28, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
I've given it a little clean through and checked every web link manually. Save to say this is going to take some work. There are still a lot of poor web links (as I've already said) but again, we really need one of the link pro's to do a stronger investigation. There are a lot more I personally would like to remove and replace with fact tags. — Realist2 02:39, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
I've begun to shorten the article, and to try to improve or fix references where there are problems.Mick gold (talk) 10:10, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Rudyard Kipling

Notified Dabbler, ‎WP Children's literature, WP Burma, WP Pakistan, WP India, WP Poetry, WP Books and WP Biography

Rudyard Kipling is a 2004 Brilliant prose promotion, in need of review and tuneup. There are numerous citation tags, some prose issues, very poor image layout, and MoS cleanup needed. The lead is overcited and images may need review. The bottom of the article has taken on some listy cruft. Citation cleanup is needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:10, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

  • Comments I made some changes with the images to ease the formatting problems in the first section. The major problem is the use of "center" for poems, the overuse of block quotes with images near by, and the excessive image descriptions. This, if done throughout, will ease about 85% of the formatting problems. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:57, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
Brief review of the lead by Eubulides

Alas I don't have time now to read the whole article, but here's a brief review of the lead.

  • The lead's first sentence is unwieldy and does not satisfy the criterion in WP:LEAD #Establish context. It doesn't establish context and it only poorly says why Kipling is notable. Ideally, the lead's first sentence should briefly cover the entire arc of Kipling, including India, his best-known works, his popularity, and criticism over his prejudice/militarism.
  • The lead should not mention relatively-obscure works like Puck of Pook's Hill, Ulster 1912, Life's Handicap, The Day's Work, and Plain Tales from the Hills. Kipling's fame rests on The Jungle Book, Just So Stories, Kim, individual short stories such as "The Man Who Would Be King", and individual poems like "If—", "Gunga Din" and "Mandalay"; that's enough for the lead.
  • Poem titles like "If—" and short story titles like "The Man Who Would Be King" should be quoted, not in italics; see MOS:TITLE#Quotation marks.
  • Agree with SandyGeorgia that the lead is overcited. Try to stick with high-level relatively-noncontroversial stuff here.
  • The quote "innovator in the art of the short story" is out of place here. Reword using our own words.
  • The Henry James quote is not that famous. Really. It's not needed in the lead at all.
  • The Orwell quote is not needed in the lead. Reword using our own words.
  • The Kerr quote is way too long. Again, this stuff should be reworded in our own words.
  • Words to avoid: "However". "famously" (if it's in the lead, "famously" is implied).
  • What I sense from the lead is that there is a reasonably large amount of controversy among Wikipedia editors over Kipling, and that this controversy has been resolved by citing a lot of quotes in a sort of Simon-says style. That kind of style is not prose that is expected for featured articles; see WP:FA? 1a, which says the prose should be "engaging, even brilliant". Alas, this lead feels like it was written by a bickering committee.

Eubulides (talk) 17:38, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Swastika
A whole section certainly seems very odd. A mention somewhere might be nice (I remember being alarmed as a child when I saw the books). Perhaps one could work it in to a couple of sentences on his views on the Nazis. N p holmes (talk) 07:23, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
Problems

The introduction is a mess: the second sentence is a classic example of Wikiprose (shoehorning of a biographical detail into a sentence devoted to other matter, Borgesian category schemes). The biography seems reasonable, but we don't get much clue to what the major works were about or why they were interesting. The treatment of his reputation is bad: broad brush positions that it's hard to believe anyone could hold supplied without citations; the same material reappearing at different points in the article. N p holmes (talk) 08:21, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Kargil War

Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history, Wikipedia:Noticeboard for India-related topics, Wikipedia:Notice board for Pakistan-related topics, User:Mercenary2k, User:Idleguy notified.

This article fails to meet a number of FA criteria:

"factually accurate: claims are verifiable against reliable sources, accurately represent the relevant body of published knowledge, and are supported with specific evidence and external citations; this requires a "References" section in which sources are listed, complemented by inline citations where appropriate"

There are many section with nearly no citations in support of the facts, (e.g. "Location","Protection of National Highway","Impact and Influence of Media")

"neutral: it presents views fairly and without bias"

Although there has been a lot of work on this, the remaining problem is not so much particular statements as what facts should be included and excluded based on notability criteria.

"comprehensive: it neglects no major facts or details"

The "War progress" section is very summary (clearly doesn't compare with any of the Gettysburg battle descriptions) and the map is nearly useless.

"consistent citations—where required by Criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations using either footnotes[1] or Harvard referencing (Smith 2007, p. 1) (see citing sources for suggestions on formatting references; for articles with footnotes, the meta:cite format is recommended)"

Although there are a lot of citations (which need to be further checked), there are many statements without citations.

"well-written: its prose is engaging, even brilliant, and of a professional standard"

I have done a lot of copyediting in the past week, but I still find a number of the sections difficult to wade through.Vontrotta (talk) 12:02, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Vontrotta : I have not gone deep into the article. But from the surface, it's clear that the references need to be formatted properly with cite xxx templates. I'll also review the article. Kensplanet (talk) 12:44, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Minor changes in citation : I agree that some inline citations are out of standard and I'll be working to improve them. Regarding the lack of inline citations, all the statements are backed up with the references section, however I'll be adding newer and extra inline references for easy verification soon. Finally about the war progress section being viewed as a summary - and comparison with Gettysburg - it must be noted that it's often known that in the subcontinent, information (on anything, especially wars) is hard to come by and given this handicap I think the section strikes the right balance without confusing the reader with details - some of which may not be credible or from neutral sources. In this regard I'd like to back up this statement with a citation from the book: South Asia's Nuclear Security Dilemma By Lowell Dittmer, pp 238 "The Kargil war to date has received insufficient study. The official Indian government report, From Surprise to Reckoning: The Kargil Review Committee, is interesting but inadequate" Yet, the article doesn't omit any "major facts or details" which is the essence of being comprehensive, one of the criteria of a FA. --Idleguy (talk) 07:07, 5 September 2008 (UTC)


Factually accurate Let me give an example of the factual problems I have been struggling with. Let's take two simple sentences out of the current article:

"Before the Partition of India in 1947, Kargil was part of Baltistan district of Ladakh", and "The town and district of Kargil are in the Ladakh subdivision of Jammu and Kashmir."

When I originally looked at the article, the link in the first sentence was to Gilgit-Baltistan, which describes the areas on the Pakistan side of the LOC, and really didn't give any indication whether or not Kargil was part of it prior to Partition. Like most of the articles about Kashmir, the Baltistan article has pretty sketchy facts, but at least it had some historical information that implied, at least, that Kargil was a part of the Baltistan "district" prior to Partition, so I changed the link to that article. There was another Kashmir article, which I can't find now, that talked about Baltistan being part of the Ladakh Wazarestan, and since the second sentence above talks about Ladakh (somewhat redundantly), I incorporated the reference into the first sentence (without any real cite to the actual pre-partition administrative divisions). When I looked at the second sentence above, I went to the article on Subdivisions of India to see if there was a description of what a "town and district" are and whether there was confirmation that Kargil is currently in Ladakh, and I was unable to find confirmation.

Since the linked wiki articles are inadequate to support these very basic facts, than an FA, in my judgment ought to have a specific cite to support of them.

With respect to the complete comment, and the reference to the Gettysburg battles, I would just ask what Indian units were involved, who were their commanders, what was the order of battle? Looking briefly at some of the external links, these facts are imbedded in those articles. An FA article on a military conflict should include these very basic facts, and inline cites to support them. If there are two versions of the "facts" in two external articles, there should be a "but, see" rather than a fall back that there are too many ambiguities to draw a conclusion.

Please don't misinterpret my comments. I like the article, I just think it can be a lot better.Vontrotta (talk) 11:13, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Point well taken. I'll be improving the inline citations & also including the Orbat wiki links after a couple of days --Idleguy (talk) 02:38, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Death Valley National Park

Notified Mav, Vsmith, and WikiProjects: California, Earthquakes, and Protected areas.

This article, promoted to FA status back on February 5, 2005, requires improvement to maintain the current standards expected of a Featured Article. My main concern is that the article is lacking references and inline citations. -- Longhair\talk 23:02, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Could the nom (or anyone) go through with {{fact}} tags. Even though even the very brief glance I did I can see that with only three inline citations it is easier to point people responding for what to look for cites on. I'm also going to notify two additional projects listed on the article talk page. -Optigan13 (talk) 23:50, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
No need for that until after my first referencing pass. --mav (talk) 00:47, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Hold This article does need more inline citations but already lists all the references used. Please be patient - I already have two other FARs and an article almost ready for FAC that I've been working on so I might not be able to do much here at least one other FAR results in a Keep. BTW, isn't there an informal concept to limit the number of active FARs any one person or WikiProject is expected to address? --mav (talk) 00:47, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
The most basic informal rule here is that you can simply ask me and Joel to leave things open. If you want to defer work for some time, give a hold or a wait. This just started in FAR so there's plenty of time. Marskell (talk) 12:40, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
Note I haven't moved the Geology article to FARC for this reason. Marskell (talk) 12:47, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
Understood - thanks. I added a hold. --mav (talk) 15:31, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Cathedral of Magdeburg

Notified Deus Ex, Chris 73, and WikiProjects: Catholicism, Germany, Architecture, and Christianity.

Cathedral of Magdeburg was promoted in 2004 - No inline citations, WP:LEAD is a bit short, mixed styles of listing versus paragraph formats, flow of the article could be better. Primarily 1c issues, (though 1a and 1b could probably do with reexamination) and also this image Image:DomzuMagdeburg.jpg needs more info filled out. Cirt (talk) 02:45, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Needs a lot of work - pretty clearly mostly a translation, which shows in the prose. Linking is really terrible - Archbishopric of Magdeburg, Albert of Mainz, Thirty Years War, Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly and many many others are missing. There is, for once, a lot on the architecture & art, but it does not seem written with much knowlege of the subject, and has little to say on style etc, mostly just giving sizes and subjects like a poor guidebook. The article does not tell you that the Archbishop was a secular ruler for most of the Middle Ages. Johnbod (talk) 17:58, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

George Brown, Baron George-Brown

Notified WikiProjects. Author has quit Wikipedia.

No inline citations, lead is very short, and a lot of peacock terms flying about. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 00:48, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Russian Ground Forces

Notified Miyokan and Buckshot06 as regular contributors. Buckshot06 was the user who proposed the article. Also notified Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history and Wikipedia:WikiProject Russia Parrot of Doom (talk) 18:35, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Now I'll freely admit to not being an expert but I was surprised to come across this article and see that it is at FA. The grammar needs much improvement, there are many instances of WP:peacock words, the infobox looks untidy, there is a lack of wp:wikilinks. It warrants copyediting at the very least. I would also suggest that quite a few sections are bordering violation of WP:NPOV. Please note that this isn't a criticism of the editors, but of the article itself. I would suggest that the prose needs much improvement and that it is not neutral. I think it has a lot of merit but needs work to keep it's FA status. Parrot of Doom (talk) 13:01, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Please follow the instructions at the top of WP:FAR to complete Project notifications. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:51, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
Could you please provide specific examples of your concerns? The article doesn't have an infobox at present, by the way - those are navigation templates. Nick Dowling (talk) 07:30, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
See below, the image in the box on the right could certainly be tidied up, on my browsers it isn't centralised - a small point, but considering its at the top of the article I think it sets a bad example. Parrot of Doom (talk) 19:13, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
Let me explain a little background here. I wrote my MA thesis for King's College London's War Studies Department on the Russian Ground Forces in 2000. I have tried to reflect the best quality writing on the subject - the Conflict Studies Research Centre - in what I wrote, which has meant the use of terms analytically and a whole bunch of quotations. The Ground Forces emerge from that in a poor light, which I think reflects the real situation - it is a mess, to be honest. Miyokan will disagree, however I believe his particular views on subjects involving Russia reflect a lot of NPOV themselves - anyone who's interested in taking a look should check the attempts to make Russia a FA. Comments and violent disagreement welcome. Buckshot06(prof) 18:16, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
My concerns are mainly with the poor quality of grammar - that was the first thing to grab my attention. There are also several instances of a questionable POV, particularly sections like "It has been a very divisive struggle, with at least one senior military officer dismissed for being less than responsive to government commands. General Colonel Gennady Troshev was dismissed in 2002 for refusing a move from command of the North Caucasus Military District to command of the less important Siberian Military District." and "Without having to account for their actions, they can choose to promote or not promote him, to send him to Moscow or to some "godforsaken post on the Chinese border." typify the problems I see. Can I recommend that you submit the article here as a starting point? I would also suggest splitting the references section up and having a separate Bibliography - that would make it much easier for readers to see immediately what print material has been used. Parrot of Doom (talk) 19:13, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for noting specific areas where you see problems. Are you aware that the second one is a straight quote from a respected journalist in the field, chosen to illustrate a point? To be honest, I'm not sure what you see is wrong with the first one. Troshev was dismissed after a public spat with the Minister of Defence - not survivable in anyone's military. The references section, as per what I understood was the standard, lists only material utilised in the article, as you ask. I would have prefered to title it 'Bibliography,' but that's not the MOS - apparently there are reasons why we don't use the term 'bibliography.' If you've got specific areas of grammar concern, please tell me them and I'll work through them.
Well, "very divisive" is a somewhat questionable use of English, but that's my opinion only - personally I wouldn't use 'very', something is either divisive or not, again in my opinion. "less than responsive" - unless its a quote, I would just type "unresponsive". "Gennady Troshev was dismissed in 2002 for refusing a move from command of the North Caucasus Military District to command of the less important Siberian Military District." is unclear - I would substitute "to move" for "a move", the former implies an order, the latter implies a request - if it was either, then which one? It could be military terminology that I (or another casual reader) am unaware of. I had to read it about 3 times to understand the meaning. The second sentence was sloppy quoting from me, I actually meant to quote "Their morale is low, among other reasons, because their postings are entirely in the hands of his immediate superiors and the personnel department." which is extremely poor grammar in anyone's book.

I could go through the entire article and find more examples of such grammar, but it would be easier to submit it for copyediting. As someone who hasn't contributed (save some recent copyediting myself) to the article, I'd rather somebody else did that. Better for a major contributor to deal with it, than someone just 'browsing'. Parrot of Doom (talk) 23:24, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Happy we've got a dialog going. Cheers Buckshot06(prof) 20:07, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Delist. This article passed FA in 2006, when standards for FA articles were far lower, and it is easy to see why.

1. Copyediting and such that the nominator mentioned needs a lot of work.

2. The "History" section is way too long and takes up half the prose.

3. The cherry-picked opinon quotes should be removed (eg "The Russian Ground Forces' performance in the First Chechen War has been assessed as "appallingly bad"; "Furthermore, the human cost of the current situation remains high, with the mistreatment of conscripts being labeled "one of Europe's worst human-rights scandals" by The Economist in 2005", etc, etc). Just write the facts of the war, and in other cases, the facts of the issue, and let readers decide for themselves.

4. A lot of information is outdated and relies on old sources. For an entity that has undergone such rapid change in the past decade (eg military spending increased 6-fold under the Putin administration, compared to when it was in chaos and on life support in the 90's and early 2000's), this article should use at least only year 2006+ sources, especially for the "Personnel", "Crime and corruption in the ground forces", and "Equipment" sections.--Miyokan (talk) 10:23, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to trip you up on a minor point Miyokan, but as SandyGeorgia once said to me you cannot say 'Delist' during a FAR. 'Delist' is only possible after the article has moved to a Featured Article Removal Candidacy/FARC. I believe what you would actually want to say is this article should go to a FARC. When it got to the FARC you would want it delisted. Buckshot06(prof) 11:57, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
On the substantive questions, the 'appallingly bad' quote is on the First Chechen War, so if this got through a FARC and was delisted, and I was working on it again, I would still wish to include it. It is the opinion of a respected British expert at the CSRC, Michael Orr, working from Russian newspaper sources, and is a professional assessment of the state of the army at that time. It's a bit like saying the British Army was appallingly bad on 1 July 1916 on the Somme - or that initial US Army counter-insurgency tactics in Iraq were bad. What objection do you have to it?
What is wrong with the length of the history section? The article is roughly ~60kb, and so there's no size worries, simply details on an important topic.
I've previously added 2007 material from a more recent CSRC report by Keir Giles in response to your legit worries over out of date ness. I'll look for further material on the subject. But that does not imply deletion of the other material - at the most, maybe some of it should be moved to Military history of the Russian Federation.
I'll make your above suggested grammar changes Parrot of Doom. Buckshot06(prof) 12:08, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
Will you also ask for it to be copyedited at the link I provided? Parrot of Doom (talk) 12:51, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
No problem. I would list it, but that project seems to have become inactive - it's got a great big banner across the top. Please, if you know where an active copy-editing project is, direct me to it and I'll add it. Cheers Buckshot06(prof) 13:04, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject_Guild_of_Copy_Editors Parrot of Doom (talk) 14:01, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
Done. Buckshot06(prof) 19:49, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Coconut crab

Notifications at Chris73 amd WP Anthropods

Coconut crab is a 2004 promotion, lacking citations, mixed citation styles, numerous ciation needed tags, WP:LEAD underdeveloped, and MoS cleanup needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:07, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Cricket

Notified: WikiProject Cricket and users THUGCHILDz, JPD, RobertG, and Tintin110 (top 4 contributors with edits to the article in '08).

Cricket is one of those featured articles that was promoted ages ago, on 4 September 2004. While it may have met the criteria then, I believe it extensively fails today's criteria 1(a)(c), 2(b)(c), and 3.

  • 1
    • (a) well-written: The prose is not engaging, brilliant, or professional; it is overly wordy and relies too heavily on links to other articles. As somebody who knows nothing about cricket (and was hoping to learn something), it took me over 20 minutes to get through the lead alone. Every other sentence sent me to another article, as Cricket fails to explain even the most basic aspects of the game, thus relying far too heavily on links to other articles.
    • (c) factually accurate: Few if any claims within the article are verifiable, as 25 of the 33 provided inline citations are used within one section (verifying the sport exists in a long list of countries). There are a few other sources listed, but it is impossible to know which sources, if any, cover the claims within this article.
  • 2
    • (b) appropriate structure The headings and TOC on this article are extensive and overwhelming. It appears that many of the sections could be combined, eliminating much of the bulk but requiring a major restructuring.
    • (c) consistent citations With the exception of one section, citations are all but nonexistent in this article. The references that are provided mostly use the citations templates, but some still consist of bare links without proper formatting.
  • 3. Images. Cricket seems to have gone overboard on images, and also includes audio recordings throughout the article. If the recordings come from a reliable source, their content would be better incorporated into text. The images I checked do, however, appear to have proper licensing and source information.

I know the FAR instructions indicate I'm supposed to propose some remedies to correct these problems, but I believe nothing short of a total rewrite would suffice. Maybe I'm being too critical, but I imagine any editor who nominated this article for FA today would be pistol whipped and sent to the corner. I don't think this one can be saved. - auburnpilot talk 02:31, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

  • Remove. I agree with you entirely. The problem is that the article has had too many minor changes in the last couple of years and most of them do not add value. Far too much time has been spent in citing every single little point instead of, for example, providing one source such as Wisden that covers the whole list of countries.
  • In addition, and frankly speaking, the article has suffered because certain people (including one of those named above) are obsessed with trivialities such as the perception that cricket is the world's second most popular sport after football. So it might be, but the object of this article is to present an informed discussion of the subject that will provide readers with a useful knowledge base.
  • You are absolutely right that it needs a rewrite. We had to do that with History of cricket last year for similar reasons. BlackJack | talk page 07:43, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
    Please see the instructions at the top of WP:FAR; Remove and Keep are not declared during the review phase. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:43, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
  • I have no comment on the rest, but I very much disagree about the lead being clear as to how the game works, in fact posting this after reading it. You definitely seem correct about the audio files (though I haven't listened to them, if they are what they claim to be they don't belong), and I question whether there should be a video in the infobox (again, I haven't watched it, but I can't see how it would be appropriate). --NE2 07:40, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Remove. Article is way below FA quality and too much work to be done to make it reasonably savable during this process. I'm going to try and bring it back to scratch, hobpefully with the help of others, but you may as well remove it here and I'll work it through FAC in due (lengthy) course. --Dweller (talk) 12:53, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
Comment. The state of the article is being discussed on WT:CRIC, mainly by Dweller and myself. We have already begun the process of restructuring and rewriting the article, which has had its status reduced to start-class accordingly. I suggest that this FAR is closed now. Thanks to AuburnPilot for bringing this matter to a head as we probably would not have taken action without this review. BlackJack | talk page 14:32, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Comments - Is it allowable to change an article's rating before the FAR process concludes? Keep in mind that FARC hasn't even started yet. Remove declarations are not supposed to be made during this period. That being said, the article did need revamping. As I look at this now, it isn't comprehensive enough for an FA. Of course, chopping almost half the article for rewriting doesn't help in that regard. More in-line citations are sorely needed throughout. Giants2008 (17-14) 01:02, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Project assessments are a process unrelated to featured status, although it is unusual and confusing for the Project assessment and featured status to be out of sync. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:43, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
The point is that the article is badly in need of restructure and we have begun that process already. If you like, I'll remove the project rating until the FAR has formally been concluded. Let me know. Thanks. BlackJack | talk page 12:30, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Law

Notified: WikiProject Law, WikiProject Sociology, WikiProject Philosophy, WikiProject WP1.0, WikiProject Law Enforcement, Yannismarou and Wikidea. The editor who originally nominated this article for Featured Article status, Parker007, was blocked as a sockpuppet.

1. (a) English is not my native language so someone else might do a better job in evaluating this, but sentences like: "In a global economy, law is globalising too." or "Property law governs valuable things that people call 'theirs'." don't strike me as well-written and engaging.

because? As a native English speaker I would like to hearby confirm that these sentences are both well written and are legally accurate, therefore engaging. Wikidea 20:34, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

(b) This article lacks any significant coverage of Islamic law. Islamic law is one of the three most common legal systems of the world, and this article is written from Western perspective of common and civil law. Also, something on maritime law would be nice.

Islamic law is not a legal system. It's a form of religious law, based on holy texts. It is not very significant in either population terms or in theoretical terms. It is in fact well discussed, and there are links to subpages. As for maritime law, that is given its line with all the other specialisms under further subjects. Wikidea 20:34, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Oh I was wrong about maritime law, and in fact there are now two very good pages on admiralty law and United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. I'm putting them in. You see, this is what people do with Wikipedia, they make an effort. People, who I wish would go away, just argue and expect others to do the work. Wikidea 20:55, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
According to a properly sourced claim in its article Islamic law is among the three most common legal systems of the world and according to our own article on Legal systems it is a legal system. Faculty of Law at University of Ottawa divides world legal systems into four main categories - civil law, common law, customary law and Muslim law. According to their map Muslim law is predominant legal system in Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, Arabian Peninsula countries, Syria, Jordan, Sudan, Libya, Morocco and Mauritania, and significant influence on legal systems of countries from Indonesia to Algeria. Customary law has heavy influence in countries like China, Mongolia, Japan, Korea, Sri Lanka, and number of African countries. So Islamic and customary law are two major legal systems and they are more or less completely ignored in the "Law" article.
Also concerning comprehensiveness, one of the four main sections of article "Legal institutions" begins with "The main institutions of law in liberal democracies are...". That is fine but what about the main institutions of law in other political systems? -- Vision Thing -- 16:30, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
I definitely disagree with you. Islamic law has its place in the "history of law" and "religious laws" sections, but any further expansion on that would be IMO overdue. Are we then also going to analyze all the Christian canonical laws as well?! Why should we choose to follow your pro-Islamic POV, and ignore these religious laws as well! Following your rationale, as a Greek and Christian Orthodox I demand from Wikidea to add a long and super-analytical section about the Orthodox canonical law, which is practiced by a church of more than 300,000,000 members, and has a huge history as a continuation of Byzantine law, whose influence in modern western systems is ecumenically recognized!--Yannismarou (talk) 17:14, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
He just doesn't know what he's talking about, and I think the University of Ottawa would say the same. Religious law encompasses islamic law, and once again it's not significant either in population terms or theoretically. Wikidea 17:53, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
I don't have any specific POV on this issue; I'm simply stating what the sources say. My rationale is that according to sources Islamic law is one of the main legal systems in the modern world. If you have sources that claim the same for Orthodox canonical law, then yes, we should also deal with it. However, I doubt that you will find sources for such claim. -- Vision Thing -- 21:36, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Islamic law is presented as one of the main systems, but within the framework of religious law. And this is the correct thing to do in terms of structure.--Yannismarou (talk) 12:50, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
Relevant paragraph rewritten and expanded. I really don't know what more could be added there!--Yannismarou (talk) 12:12, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

(c) Although this article has 130 inline citations many of those are primary sources. Per Wikipedia's policy on primary sources, articles should relay on secondary sources, specially when it comes to interpretive and synthetic claims. Unfortunately nature of this article requires synthetic and generalizing claims and conclusion that cannot be drawn from individual cases without OR. Few examples of bad sourcing: Constitutional and administrative law section contains following claim: "A case named Entick v. Carrington illustrates a constitutional principle deriving from the common law." Who says that that case illustrates constitutional principle? In that section we have another similar claim: "The fundamental constitutional principle, inspired by John Locke,…" and given source is Locke's The Second Treatise. Who says that this constitutional principle was inspired by Locke and not by someone else? Whole "Constitutional and administrative law" has only one secondary source. Similar problems are present in other sections. Also, there are some POV claims like: "Civil society is necessarily a source of law, by being the basis from which people form opinions and lobby for what they believe law should be." (this one is also unsourced).

Pick up any first year public law text and it will talk about the case. The moral of the story in Entick is that without a warrant, the sheriff (a government body) had no authority to act, therefore could not act. This is also an especially interesting case because it preceded the US declaration of independence. So it is law in all common law nations. Examples of cases throughout the article try to be relevant to as many readers as possible. You can find the Locke source in the footnote, and if you read Lord Camden's words they are quoting Locke verbatim. As for civil society, Robertson QC's quote is telling you the same.
But that's just it, isn't it Vision Thing. You don't care about reading things, or getting it right, that you're happy to keep wasting everyone's time, and you're just pursuing a sour grapes agenda. Wikidea 20:34, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Oh I should add, Entick is (for you guys from the States) the leading inspiration for the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Wikidea 20:37, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
WP:PRIMARY states: "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. To the extent that part of an article relies on a primary source, it should:
  • only make descriptive claims about the information found in the primary source, the accuracy and applicability of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge, and
  • make no analytic, synthetic, interpretive, explanatory, or evaluative claims about the information found in the primary source." -- Vision Thing -- 16:30, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
  • It is absurd to speak about referencing problems in such a well-researched (mainly thanks to Wikidea), and rich with sources article. Just look at the sources section (all of which are used in the article; this is no fake list!); legally speaking, I rest my case!--Yannismarou (talk) 17:29, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
He doesn't understand the point of this distinction between primary and secondary sources. If you can't quote from a case, or say what is in a statute, then everything that I have written on this website should be gotten rid of. Wikidea 17:53, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Another example of poor sourcing is Judiciary section. This section has five inline sources but let us look what is sourced. Four sources are links to webpages of appeals courts, and one source is US Supreme Court verdict. Claims that are sourced are establishing the names of appeals courts in the US, UK, Germany, France, and EU. Fifth source is supporting claim that the United States Supreme Court did reach one verdict. At the same time some very specific claims are not sourced - "In most countries judges may only interpret the constitution and all other laws." "...the UK, Finland and New Zealand still assert the ideal of parliamentary sovereignty, whereby the unelected judiciary may not overturn law passed by a democratic legislature." -- Vision Thing -- 21:39, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Sources are now provided.--Yannismarou (talk) 08:45, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
This section also vividly shows lack of comprehensiveness – it only talks about judiciary in Western countries. What about judiciary in Arab countries, India, China, Japan...? -- Vision Thing -- 21:41, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Please, try to understand that we cannot tell everything in this article! Per WP:SS the section is comprehensive enough.--Yannismarou (talk) 08:45, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Judiciary in communist countries (with China being the most prominent one) is now treated. About India I don't see what should be added, since it is a part of the common law system without any spectacular particularities.--Yannismarou (talk) 09:50, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
  • References to Arab countries' judiciary also added.--Yannismarou (talk) 12:12, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

(d) Beside Western POV problem caused by the lack of comprehensiveness there are some POV problems with a lead.

This is why VT brings this here. He's effectively bringing his neutrality issues to an FAR. Wikidea 20:34, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

2. (a) Lead section opens up some questions that are not discussed later in the article. It says: "The study of law raises important questions about equality, fairness, liberty and justice, which are not always simple." If those questions are important why they are not discussed in the article? What is relation of law towards equality and liberty? What does the "rule of law" mean (it is mentioned in the lead and only in one place in body of the article)? Also, lead contains (in my view) a POV quote by Anatole France. For one, Anatole France is not a well-known legal scholar, he is not even a legal scholar, so undue weight is given to him. He or his views are not mentioned anywhere else in the article, and, as far as I can see, for a good reason. Also, he presents a specific point of view that goes unanswered. -- Vision Thing -- 18:37, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

This is his original gripe (among many others on many pages). Anatole France won the Nobel Prize for literature. His aphorism is widely known, and quoted in law classes the world over. It's not France's view that is the problem. It's just Vision Thing here, who is bringing a neutrality dispute from this, the history of economic thought and the competition law page. He just wants to push some conservative authors' quotes, and so far as I can see, is a very uninteresting and worthless contributor to Wikipedia. Wikidea 20:34, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
If his aphorism is so important that it must be quoted in the lead then it also should be important enough to be discussed in the main body of article. However, that is not the case. -- Vision Thing -- 16:30, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Go away. Wikidea 17:53, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Please notify significant contributers as well as associated wikipedia projects and post these notifications at the top of this FAR (see the instructions at WP:FAR). Thanks! --Regents Park (count the magpies) 18:50, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment I was an "Object and refer to peer review" when this article passed FAC; I don't think it has ever warranted featured status. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:01, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment Vision Thing is nominating this because he's a bit sour. Wikidea 19:47, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Comment: This is the first time I have commented on a FAR, so . . . :

  • The article seems to be primarily about "western law" or at least has a "western law" explanative view reference point.
  • There does not seem to be anything about non codified or oral tradition or "tradtional law", for example the law in "indigenous societies"
  • The "definition" of law seems to be only from a codified perspective. Should it say something about "socioanthropomorphic constructive" law, for example:
the law is in reality the set of social behaviours enforced within a society, whether or not they have been legitimately codified, are conscionable, etc. . . . even if the law was draconian, arbitrary, illegitmate, unconscionable, . . .
  • The real lead needs to be longer. It is one very short sentence. The rest of the lead perhaps should be very slightly expanded in to an introduction section - law is such a broad area, and the current lead leaves one a little befuddled. It does not lead one into the following sections as well as it might.
  • What is there seems to be good, but it needs more.
  • While there are many references, there seem to be a few unreferenced key assertions.

Peet Ern (talk) 05:56, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

  • Speedy close. This is another clear case of content dispute, following Reagan and Roman-Persian Wars. The nominator is in a content dispute with Wikidea, and he thought that the best way to continue this personal feud was to bring this article here. I really can't take seriously arguments like not covering maritime law (?!!!!) or even Islamic law; such an article cannot cover every religious law in detail. Also saying that the article does not include adequate secondary sources is more than mere nonsense (and it reminds me of the same nonsense [but in an even worse version now] when Pericles was nominated here), and a poor excuse for Vision Thing's only and real problem, his 1d argument (which here is just one line, although this is what caused this nomination, and I'm sorry about the nominator's lack of straightforwardness). Therefore, I am per the speedy closing of this nomination and the continuation of the content dispute issue in the article's talk page. Finally, I would like to point out that this tactic to nominate an article here as a result of a content dispute (and as a "means of pressure" towards the article's main editors to succumb to the nominator's demands?) is getting really really annoying, and we maybe should discuss how to deal with it.--Yannismarou (talk) 07:14, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
Reacting with personal attacks to a good faith attempt to improve article won't get us anywhere good. -- Vision Thing -- 16:30, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
If you regard my above comments as a personal attack, then I am sorry but you have no idea about what a personal attack is, and you definitely have to distinguish in your mind the terms "personal attack" and "criticism". Trying to defeature the article, because other editors do not agree with some of your edits is no "good faith attempt to improve the article"; it is exactly the opposite. And I do insist on everything I wrote above. Your arguments are more than weak (this the most "gentle" term I can find in order to characterize them without making you believe that I personally attack you!), and this is definitely the wrong place to pursue your content dispute goals.--Yannismarou (talk) 17:05, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Speedy close and keep. Although I see a few omisions of citations, this could have been handled on the talk page and would not require a review. Now, for the things that should be cited: 1) "The United Nations, founded under the UN Charter, is one of the most important international organisations. It was established after the League of Nations failed to prevent the Second World War." and the lines following. 2) "This increases the number of disputes outside a unified legal framework. Increasing numbers of businesses opt for commercial arbitration under the New York Convention 1958." 3) "The leading judge, Lord Camden, stated that," 4) "Lord Coleridge, expressing immense disapproval, ruled, "to preserve one's life is generally speaking a duty, but it may be the plainest and the highest duty to sacrifice it."" and what follows. 5) "The boy sued the goldsmith for his apprentice's attempt to cheat him. Lord Chief Justice Pratt ruled that even though the boy could not be said to own the jewel," and what follows. 6) Law#Further disciplines section should have some links, or one reference at the top to show where this list can be found, etc. 7) Law#Legal systems would need a source at the end, all though it is general, it would be nice to link a general source or a couple provided later. After that, there are only a few scattered spots. Less than 20 total citations needed, which is easily fixed. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:59, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
I've just done a couple of those: Armory v. Delamirie doesn't appear to be online; it can really be found in the library using the case citation. Would you like to paste the rest on the talk page for me, so we don't clutter up this page? Wikidea 14:28, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep open. How did this ever pass through FAC to begin with? An article on a topic as complex and important as the law should not garner only four support votes (one of which was cast by the main author). Anyways, the article doesn't exemplify our very best work. I agree entirely with Vision Thing's comments about the sourcing. In many instances, instead of citing reliable secondary sources with professional editorial oversight, the article directly cites cases and philosophical texts hand-picked by a Wikipedian. If the information is significant, it should be easy to find and cite a reliable secondary source to support it. Not to mention that entire paragraphs don't have a single citation. Punctured Bicycle (talk) 22:24, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
With respect, if you were lawyers, you would not think that there was anything wrong with a direct citation of what judges have said in cases. If you were able to find the bit of WP:PRIMARY that says cases are either primary sources or secondary sources, then you might have a point. But even if it did say that quoting from cases was bad, then it would be wrong, and out of kilter with what every academic legal author does every day. "The law" in the abstract sense is the primary source, and a judge through a case telling you what the law is would seem to me to be the secondary source - you would need quite a long jurisprudential discussion to resolve that though: I recommend getting a copy of HLA Hart's The Concept of Law if you'd like to find out more.
Yes, you're absolutely right that I hand picked the cases. The point is to allow readers a glimpse into understanding what each subject is about. There will always be discretion involved in trying to boil down an entire legal field, whether it is contract law, property law or whatever, into a paragraph. It was not me that passed the article for FA status by the way. In fact, I think this article is brilliant, and quite frankly, nobody else on Wikipedia would have - or did - write anything approaching the quality, clarity, succinctity of this. And moreover, as I think I pointed out in the FAC process, there is no other main academic subject page which is featured, or ever was close to what you have in the law page. The reason of course is that many editors come to Wikipedia being specialists in things outside what you'd find in a traditional encyclopedia, and the best pages are usually things that it is comparatively easy (going by the weight of the FA list) to be an expert in: computer games, celebrities, cities, countries... The science, literature and history pages are a few exceptions. Law is one of those things that people think they might be experts in, or have a legitimate opinion on, to say what is relevant or not, what good academic practice is or not. If you are one of those people, you are wrong, and you need a law degree (not a paragraph or two from me) to teach you why.
A good way to confirm what I say it to go and buy a copy of Professor Raymond Wacks A very short introduction to Law. You will find, as I did when it came out in 2007, that it covers very similar ground - uncannily similar ground - as what I did when I wrote for free on Wikipedia. I would add one cavaet to his book though: he has about 15000 words. This article is about 8000. The page is always open to growth and development. As you can see above, I developed it a bit by adding maritime and the law of the sea into the further subject lists. But it is necessarily hugely condensed, and necessarily serves as a route map to the pages where things can be done in more detail.
So I look forward to hearing more suggestions on the talk page. But I have no time for impudent ideologues who want to push some narrow agenda for the sake (as began this FAR) of a pointless sentence in the introduction. Wikidea 13:36, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
I'd just like to add that if there were people who really knew what they were talking about making all these criticisms about how the page isn't worthy, then I would be the first to listen. On the talk page. People who are really interested in improvement do things there, and it's always stone cold obvious when someone knows what they're talking about, and because they know what they're talking about it's always possible to have a conversation, reason, and improve. Wikidea 13:54, 30 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Ottava Rima made some useful remarks in the article's talk page, regarding some parts needing citations. I think his conclusion the article needs about 20 more citations constitutes an exaggeration (after all I do not like such arithmetics), but I'll do my best to source the parts in question, and I hope Wikidea as well.--Yannismarou (talk) 09:46, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
  • More citations provided by both me and Wikidea. I keep checking the article in terms of wikilinking (there are some cases of over-linking) and MoS.--Yannismarou (talk) 12:49, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
  • "The article directly cites cases and philosophical texts hand-picked by a Wikipedian." Personally, I am proud because this article "hand-picks" cases and philosophical text, and I regard that as a pro and not a flaw. Nevertheless, I keep enhancing the sourcing (which is already enormous), and I'll keep adding secondary sources, wherever I feel necessary (such as in Civil Society about Locke). Nevertheless, I do agree with Wikipedia that cases are fine sources. The work fine in the best law books; why not here?! For instance, two case are cited in relation with the supremacy of the European law that the European Court has declared. For me this is fine, and I see no reason to add an author, who will just repeat what the available in internet cases already say!--Yannismarou (talk) 12:12, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
I offer a link to this related discussion about the article's citing.--Yannismarou (talk) 19:20, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Keep open. The issue with citing cases directly is not one of WP:V, but of the potential for WP:SYN. There's no guarantee that the cases are representative. We should rely upon secondary sources for selecting cases. Cool Hand Luke 21:52, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

In the case of the European Court, the guarantee is the continuity and the consistency of the court's case law. I have no sourcing problem to add a secondary source, but I really regard it as redundant.--Yannismarou (talk) 14:45, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Notes, there are WP:MOS#Images and WP:ACCESSIBILITY issues with image placement throughout, and there are massive and unsightly navigational boxes placed right smack in the middle of the article (see WP:LAYOUT). I continue to be uneasy about this article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:25, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
Yes, you objected about the useful - not unsightly - boxes before, and I told you, before, why you were wrong. Again, Sandy, the layout page gives rules of thumb, not rules. Ottava Rima, however, said that navigation boxes may affect printing. That would seem to be a reasonable objection, but I don't know how much it does affect printing. "I'm uneasy" isn't, I'm afraid, either a useful or meaningful comment. But please do write on the Talk:Law page what the reasons for your ongoing insecurity are. Wikidea 16:50, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
  • I think I fixed most MoS-related images problems. I have just one problem with the English barrister's image: it is left-aligned under a === === section. If I right-align it, then the guy won't look at the text, but the view outside the PC screen! If I keep it left-aligned, and move it a bit below, it will break the next section and creat a "sandwitch" effect! If I shrink it, then I may harm its utility within the article. I don't know what to do with it!--Yannismarou (talk) 07:54, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Irish Houses of Parliament

Messages left at User talk:Jtdirl and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ireland

The number of unreviewed FAs with zero inline citations is now down to about ten. Here is one from early '04. (Looking at the FAC I can't tell who originally nommed.) Along with the obvious 1c issue, I was hoping someone who understands the image rules could go through this as it has a great many pics. The ToC headlines need to be shortened and made less conversational. Marskell (talk) 14:54, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Agree with everything said above by Marskell (talk · contribs), another good FAR candidate - this article is not up to WP:GA or WP:FA standards. Cirt (talk) 17:32, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
Images
  1. Image:Irish Parliament.jpg - Possible candidate to be moved to Wikimedia Commons, could use more source info however.
  2. Image:Hoflentrance.jpg - Should be moved to Commons, with full source info filled out.
  3. Image:Hoflchand1.jpg - Should be moved to Commons, with full source info filled out.
  4. Image:Hofcent1-crop.jpg - Should be moved to Commons, with full source info filled out.
  5. Image:Pthcceiling.jpg - Should be moved to Commons, with full source info filled out.
  6. Image:Bofihofl.jpg - Already on Commons.
  7. Image:Bofiboyne.jpg - Should be moved to Commons, with full source info filled out.
  8. Image:Woolsack-crop.jpg - Possible candidate to be moved to Commons - however owner agreed to photograph is not sufficient - requires permission/verification through OTRS.
  9. Image:IrishHC1780.jpg - Already on Commons.
  10. Image:College-green-aerial-thumbnail.jpg - Possible candidate to be moved to Commons - however owner of shot emailed full permission is not sufficient - requires permission/verification through OTRS.
  11. Image:Ihopcurved.jpg - Should be moved to Commons, with full source info filled out.

See above list of images currently used in this article. Cirt (talk) 17:38, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

All images not already on Commons have been moved except #1 & #10. ww2censor (talk) 04:31, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
  • I agree that this article has some major flaws, especially with the aesthetics of the images. There are also only two references (though not cited) on the topic). I also feel that this page should also cover some of the history that happened within its walls, and not just the walls themselves. A rough example of this can be found here. Ottava Rima (talk) 18:51, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the image work guys. And yes, I had had the same thought Ottava: should this solely be an architecture page or should it also cover history? Marskell (talk) 09:02, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
I dont see this as an issue, as long as the orginisation is correct. Anyway they are intertwined.
Articles on paintings are able to cover provenance/style/influences/influence, and all are all closely related, and I don't see a difference here. Ceoil sláinte 00:17, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Laal

1(c) Lacks inline citations, in fact has none. Tom (talk) 14:42, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

  • Agree with appropriateness of FAR candidate nom started by Tpbradbury (talk · contribs). Article would not pass a current WP:GA review in its present state, let alone the WP:FAC process. Significant improvement is needed. Cirt (talk) 17:40, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Noted. I may have time to improve. Ling.Nut (WP:3IAR) 04:53, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
  • I looked for info. It is pretty scarce; don't believe I can help, at least not right now. Ling.Nut (WP:3IAR) 22:37, 31 August 2008 (UTC)
  • I agree that the lack of inline citations is a serious issue, specially for an obscure language - since we have no way of knowing where the info is coming from. This article shouldn't have been given FA status in the first place.KelilanK (talk) 16:55, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
  • Also, the sole main contributor and original nominator for FAC appears to be inactive[1].KelilanK (talk) 21:38, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve

  • Notified Wikiproject Protected Areas, National Register of Historic Places, Volcanoes, and Idaho

This article, promoted in 2005, has not a single inline citation. I think that is the primary issue. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 05:37, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

It's not just the lack of citations, but the whole article is sub-standard for featured level. Of course it got featured in 2005, when standards were different. The official website at http://www.nps.gov/crmo has so much information that is lacking here and a huge amount of Public Domain images. The history of the park could be easily expanded from this document compiled by the wilderness society. Some additional stuff can be found in the (unfortunately outdated as from 1992) administrative history of the Monument. I have the corresponding article in the German Wikipedia on my to-do-list and when I get to it, I will try to improve the English one along my expansion of the German article. --h-stt !? 16:57, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
  • I am beginning the process of adding inline citations to the article. I have ordered several print reference books and will begin reviewing those for inclusion / attribution. Any preferences for citation formats? --Robbie Giles (talk) 17:21, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
  • Yep - standards have increased since this article was promoted. I'm already trying to address concerns at a FAR for Geology of the Zion and Kolob canyon area but will make sure to help cite what I wrote here before. H-stt - I don't think the article needs to be expanded at all; especially the history section (which already has 4 good-sized sub-sections. But a History of the Craters of the Moon area, along the lines of History of the Grand Canyon area, is most welcome. --mav (talk) 23:44, 24 August 2008 (UTC)
    • Many cites added. A couple minor sources still need to be checked to finish. A MoS and copyedit pass still needed as well. If not beaten to it, I'll finish this up sometime in the next week or two. --mav (talk) 03:04, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
    • I don think it is not up to fatured standard. It is inbalanced, some tiny details are elaborated as the mule deer studies, while the preserve part, its specifics and its use are barely mentioned. Some of the images are either bad or way to small (due to panorama format) to get an idea of the landscape. The plants section suffers from mostly uncommented lists of red links. The part on recreational activities is just copied from the loop drive booklet. History is good, geology is certainsly on featured level. Overall I would oppose if the article were up to FARC. --h-stt !? 06:16, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
      • Yeah, the ==Biology== and ==Recreational activities== sections could be improved and I'll see about doing that. However, I don't think we need to cut down the mule deer part much since the behavioral patterns of the Craters of the Moon herd have led to it having the highest fawn survival rates of any herd in the species. That needs more than a sentence, me thinks. The article does have more emphasis on the pre-2000 monument extent since that is the most accessible part and has the highest concentration of notable volcanic features. Do you have specific things you want added about the larger fields? In the meantime, I'll take a look to see what PD text can be incorporated from the NPS and BLM websites to help address your concerns. As for images; please feel free to swap out some with better examples and crop what you think needs to be cropped. --mav (talk) 00:34, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Agree with above comments by Judgesurreal777 (talk · contribs) and H-stt (talk · contribs). This article is not up to snuff in accordance with current WP:FA standards. Cirt (talk) 17:16, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

  • Animal part of biology section expanded with some PD NPS text. More later. --mav (talk) 02:23, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Geology of the Zion and Kolob canyons area

Notified WikiProject Utah, WikiProject Geology and Mav.

Not a single inline citation. Some MoS issues, and the prose could use some copyediting. Wouldn't pass GA as it is. Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone 15:04, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Was promoted to FA at a time when inline cites were not needed. I'll add them and perform a copyedit to bring this to current FA standards. --mav (talk) 16:23, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
"Wouldn't pass GA" is not an argument, and it sounds quite pompous. This rhetorical tone ("not a single inline citation"), adopted too often by FAR "introducers", does not exactly promote an environment in which one would want to assist the process. What a delight it would be if FAR actually required more than two cut-and-paste sentences for someone to initiate the process. Whiskeydog (talk) 02:15, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
If I were revie