Wikipedia:Featured article review/archive/January 2008

Contents

Kept status

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept 20:14, 31 January 2008.

Michigan State University

Review commentary

Notified Lovelac7, Nburden, and Wikipedia:WikiProject Michigan.

I was looking thourgh this article and there are a number of things needing attention. Dylan 06:07, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

MoS problems I've noticed various MoS violations:

  • I see a number of typographical errors (e.g. "research ,[52]", "any other university. [56].") I imagine that for every one I do see, there are a number I'm not seeing.
    • Done. Lovelac7 15:41, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
      • I figured out what you mean by unformatted URLs, and I fixed the problem. Lovelac7 01:49, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Many of the citations are unformatted or misformatted URLs.
    • I'm not sure what you mean by this. Please clarify. Lovelac7 15:41, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
  • A handful of redlinks
    • Done. Lovelac7 15:41, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Improperly formatted dates (e.g. "June 15th, 2007"; also, non-date enabled dates)
    • Done, courtesy of Jay32183. Lovelac7 18:36, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Example like "offers 3 MBA programs" - doesn't follow <10, written-out number, >10, digits.
    • Done. Lovelac7 15:41, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Other MoS nonconformity examples - "proposed to redevelop the 35 acre...site" should be "35-acre"
    • Done. Lovelac7 18:36, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Verifiability problems

  • Section "Michigan State University Honors College" is wholly uncited.
    • I have completely rewritten this section, and added references. Lovelac7 20:16, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
  • "Greek life," "Activism," "Media" are sparsely cited.
    • Added references where appropriate. Lovelac7 01:34, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
  • "20th / 21st centuries" has no citations at all, but does have a {{fact}} tag.
    • Added references where appropriate. Lovelac7 01:34, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

NPOV problems These are particularly noticeable in "Michigan State University Honors College" and "Professional schools"; the following are only some examples I noticed.

  • "the goal...is to challenge the top undergraduate students to pursue their unique academic interests"
    • Rewritten, as stated above. Lovelac7 20:16, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
  • "Admission to the Michigan State University Honors College is a very competitive process".
    • Deleted POV. Lovelac7 20:16, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
  • "An outstanding faculty of more than 70 resident artists and scholars..."
    • Deleted POV. Lovelac7 20:16, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
  • "The faculty is noted for devotion to teaching, excellence in performance, creating innovative and imaginative curricula..."
    • Deleted POV. Lovelac7 20:16, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
  • "...an outstanding ethnomusicology and jazz studies program."
    • Deleted POV. Lovelac7 20:16, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
  • "...one of the only nationally published student-run law journals dedicated to the leading issues confronting attorneys in the worlds of business/corporation law and securities law."
    • Edited out POV and cited journal. Lovelac7 20:16, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Copyright problems

Comment I have not edited this article in quite some time. I'll give it a thorough edit this week and get back to you. Lovelac7 12:54, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

  • Comment Lead should be expanded to summarize the whole article. At the moment, it includes some very specific facts that probably don't belong in the lead. BuddingJournalist 21:55, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Nominator update: Just wanted to review the article after two weeks and see how it's doing:

  • Still a {{fact}} tag in the lead
    • Fixed. Lovelac7 15:43, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
  • "20th / 21st centuries" is still in dire need of citations
    • Done. I have cited each and every name in the section. Lovelac7 05:43, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
  • "External links" could use a look to make sure it complies with WP:EL
    • Done. I pared it down to the main website, the athletics page, a Geolink template, and a Commons template. Lovelac7 02:17, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Otherwise, my objections seem to be addressed. Good work. Dylan (talk) 01:25, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are MoS and formatting (2), verifiability (1c), and NPOV (1d). Marskell (talk) 19:48, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Question: Why was this moved from FAR to FARC? I am currently addressing the FAR issues listed above. In any case, I'll give the article a thorough edit and come back here. Lovelac7 00:48, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Don't worry about the move; plenty of time here, and you can keep us up-to-date. Marskell (talk) 21:42, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
      • Thanks, Marskell. I'll keep working on it. Lovelac7 04:18, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Comments:

  • I don't know what this means: As of 2007, the Board is made up of three Republicans and five Democrats, and has a 4:4 gender balance.[117]
    • That does sound confusing. I dropped the second half of the sentence to make it sound better. Lovelac7 07:50, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
  • There are hyphens on date ranges in people that should be endashes; I will leave a sample edit. There are still hyphens on scores and sports records that should be endashes.
    • Done. Lovelac7 07:50, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
  • WP:OVERLINKing of common terms throughout.
    • Done. Hopefully I've removed some of the more redundant links. Lovelac7 05:36, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Solo years should not be linked.
    • Done. Lovelac7 07:50, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Avoid starting sentences with numbers.
    • I have never heard of this as being a style error, and I can certainly think of examples of well-written sentences starting with numbers, like "Four score and seven years ago...". However, if there are any particular sentences that sound really bad to you, please let me know and I will fix them. Lovelac7 07:50, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
      • Avoid starting sentences with digits might make more sense? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:32, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
        • Thanks for the clarification. Done. Lovelac7 05:36, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I corrected some WP:MOSNUM issues, pls review throughout.
    • Done. I changed the units of measurement to MOS standards. Lovelac7 05:36, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Undefined acronyms (e.g.; FY, fiscal year)
    • Fixed. Lovelac7 07:50, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I found some WP:ITALICS issues and uncited data.
    • I fixed the italics, and I'll get to the citations a bit later. Lovelac7 07:50, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
      • There. Citations added.
  • An unformatted reference (^ http://brokenwheelranch.com/pete.htm ) Reference formatting is generally good, although I don't know why websites and non-news source publisher are italicized (see WP:ITALICS).
    • Fixed. Another editor added that reference just yesterday. I hadn't seen it yet. As for the italics, I fixed them (see above). Lovelac7 07:50, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
  • WP:MOS#Captions, no puncutation on sentence fragments.
    • Fixed. Lovelac7 07:50, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Sample edits;[1] all these need to be reviewed throughout. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:11, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Keep, looks fine now. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:31, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Good work, Lovelac! Marskell (talk) 20:15, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

  • Thank you for your help and support. Lovelac7 04:35, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept 17:59, 30 January 2008.

Macintosh

Review commentary

Notified Wikipedia:WikiProject Macintosh, Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games, User:Wackymacs, User:HereToHelp, User:Angelic Wraith and User:Grm wnr. --Kaypoh 15:59, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

This article has a few problems:

  • Many sections have no references. For example, "Terminology", "History" except "1979 to 1984: Development", "Processor architecture" and "Effects on the technology industry".
  • The "Software history" section has a tag that says "This section has been nominated to be checked for its neutrality." Other sections also have problems with POV. For example "Effects on technology industry" and "Advantages, disadvantages and criticisms".
  • The lead section is a bit poorly organised.
  • Some references, for example 9, 21, 37 (and the one after "but have also made inroads into the educative and scientific research sectors") have formatting problems.
  • The 1984 image has no fair use rationale.

--Kaypoh 10:34, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I took a quick glance over the article. Some points.

  1. The article is getting large (70K) so it should be trimmed. In that light, is the Litigation section all that relevant to the Macintosh itself?
  2. The Hardware section is poorly referenced but should be farmed out into 'history of Macintosh hardware' article and the section rewritten as a short concise summary of current Mac hardware. The ‘’Expandability and connectivity’’ section should at least have references for the Warranty claim and the Apple detractors claim.
  3. Proper references seems to be lacing. ‘’The Effects on the technology industry’’ makes at least one claim about Mac 128k audio I can’t find a reference for – not in this article or the Mac 128k article. The closest is the Technical Specifications listing a speaker port, but that is not 8-bit audio.
  4. ’The Effects on the technology industry also does a poor job telling about effects on the technology industry, instead listing ‘firsts’ without telling what effect – if any – it had on the industry. IOW calling it ‘’ Effects on the technology industry’’ is misleading.
  5. With a bird eyes view – images could be better laid out, and the USB plug image should be shrunk/removed.
  6. Advantages, disadvantages and criticisms is not quite feature article quality. Remove or rewrite it in proseline. At the very least provide more references for the criticisms.

--Anss123 11:52, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I have started to improve the article section by section and will do so over several days. To start, however, I reworked the lead and the 1984 image. Skimming the article, I realize that it definitely needs work; hopefully it will benefit from this process. (I work best under pressure.)--HereToHelp 02:36, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

The new 1984 image has a fair use rationale. Can I strike that out now? --Kaypoh 06:31, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
Sure.--HereToHelp 22:31, 16 November 2007 (UTC)
  1. As Anss123 points out, the article is too large. The edit view says it is currently 73K, and further the edit view of History of Apple is 50K. What is needed is a History of Apple Macintosh (with it pulling a bit from both articles). I'd like to see this main article trimmed down to ~32K — half! Unless you are an old salt (like me), or really digging, no one cares about the Raskin's board design or the problems with LC series, etc.
  2. The article also misses the point of what a Mac is — both the hardware and the software. The lead mentions it, but the sections largely dwell on the hardware alone. A case in point, the single button mouse is not just a hardware factoid, but the end result of a design philosophy that existed under the old System and Finder.

--Charles Gaudette 10:30, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

  • You bring up a good point: the main history section needs to include less hardware and more software. We can export or delete the technobabble, copyedit out the bullets, add sources, etc. to the later sections that need them. In the mean time, I'll work on integrating the software into the main history and adding the "essence of the Mac" into the article.--HereToHelp 22:31, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

After significant changes, I feel like I have improved the article significantly. I have "exported" the hardware data to Macintosh hardware, pruned or deleted sections, reorganized content to reduce redundancy, and as a result, brought the total length down from 72kB to 54kB; I estimate the length of the text only to be about 35kB. Having addressed all the major issues, I believe the article is more readable without sacrificing much information. There may be some minor things yet to fix, but I think that as it stands now Macintosh is now more worthy than ever of its featured status.--HereToHelp 22:43, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I think you have done a great job and agree.--Anss123 23:00, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Good edits, HereToHelp! :-) I still feel the article should be more general and that as-such the "Hardware" and "Software" sections could be copyedited down and possibly more elsewhere too. Of all the Mac articles this one should be the most accessible to a general audience (someone with a question in their mind along the the lines of "What is a Macintosh computer?"). ... One other observation, we are on the cusp of 2008, which will make the "1998 to the present: New beginnings" section a ten year span — most spans are five years. A break could be made at the Intel transition and then clarifications made in that area. --Charles Gaudette 19:59, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I trimmed the hardware and software sections to each be one paragraph and main article links. Upon tackling the criticisms section, I found that half of the information was redundant, but half of it was legit and need to be included somewhere — so they got appended to the hardware and software sections. The article has previously been criticized for focusing too much on the history section, so it's necessary to include hard/software information dispersed through the history section and then again, summarized, for readers interested in solely one or the other. So the criticism paragraphs can be moved (if you can find a better place), but the sections themselves need to stay. As for "what is a Mac?", real estate in the lead is extremely valuable, so there's a lot of links, "outsourcing" information. Since the jargon is explained in separate articles (remember: space is valuable), it can be confusing. As for the ten year time span, it's a a valid point, and I'll see what I can do. I would like to request an extension because I will need a few days to make these edits.--HereToHelp 01:01, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

No extension. The article still has many problems which you are not fixing. --59.189.57.215 (talk) 08:18, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

FIrst of all, that's not your decision, and secondly, care to name them?--HereToHelp 21:30, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are referencing (1c), focus and coverage (4), images (3), and LEAD (2a). Marskell (talk) 09:29, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Extension, no problem. It will be a minimum two weeks in the FARC section. People working should update us here. Marskell (talk) 09:29, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. Two weeks should be long enough; no further extension is required. Anyway: I've worked with the lead a whole lot, and frankly I'm out of ideas. The images I'm happy with; I've deliberately put software on the left and everything else (mostly hardware) on the right. Length has been a big deal, but I've brought it down a lot and I think the current 55k is acceptable (the guideline is 32k of text). Admittedly, the "Effects on the technology industry" section is perhaps a little wanting. I personally think that it clearly presents why the various components Apple introduced are noteworthy, and is sufficiently cited by article-wide sources such as MacTracker. If requested, I can rename it ("Innovations introduced" sounds a little POVish; better ideas?) or remove it entirely and put it in Macintosh hardware.--HereToHelp 22:31, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Remove The article still has many problems. Most important, many sections have no references. --Kaypoh (talk) 13:21, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Remove per 1c. LuciferMorgan (talk) 11:10, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
If the main concern is referencing, I can work on that instead. If you care to highlight specific unsourced claims with {{fact}}, I will see that they are either sourced or removed. HereToHelp 14:15, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Reference the whole article and maybe I will vote Keep. --Kaypoh (talk) 06:33, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Please bear in mind that some references, like Apple's Press Release Library, encompass the entire article and not a specific fact. I'm going to be away from the computer until the weekend, but I'm going to try to add a few more references then. It's a good point, which is why I have not yet formally voted keep (yet).HereToHelp 14:28, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep After many, many changes over the FAR and FARC process, hardly a paragraph has been left untouched. The concern here referencing, and there's no definite way to measure how much is enough. I will continue to try to keep everything sourced, but at the moment, I think the article has sufficent references to be retained as featured. HereToHelp 15:58, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
There is no way to measure how much is enough, so I will let the person who closes this FAR decide whether there are enough references, but I think that now there are not enough. So many paragraphs have no references. Also, maybe the article needs a copy-edit. --Kaypoh (talk) 03:11, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm sympathetic to HereToHelp on this one. People should tag examples, as he's asked. Don't bomb the article—a few at time for information that jumps out. Marskell (talk) 02:24, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

  • Comment Quite well written. However, specific facts (the cost, amount of RAM, processor speed, etc.) of different versions should be cited (take a look, for example, at the first and second paragraphs of 1990 to 1998: Growth and decline). Lead could be expanded to include at least a mention of what happened with the Mac between its release in 1984 and today. Really like the layout of the page, and the timeline is neat, although its text is quite ugly on my computer. BuddingJournalist 16:15, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
    • How's this? Feel free to go over the lead again; it's hard packing so much information into such a tiny space.--HereToHelp 20:06, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
      • Oh, I don't think one needs to make the lead as compact as possible. For an article of this length, I think a lead of three paragraphs would be perfectly fine. I was just concerned that the large and interesting history section was not adequately summarized (see WP:LEAD). BuddingJournalist 20:28, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Remove I still think the Effects on the technology industry is simply a list of first without actually explaining what effect the Mac had on the tech industry. Saying that it is "obvious" is IMO not good enough, as it's far from obvious to me. The article is also rather 'history' heavy, the section weighing in about 32 KB (on top of this, all the other sections seems to touch on Mac history). A History of the Apple Macintosh could absorb a good chunk of this and perhaps even expand further on the subject. The Effects on the technology industry section can also be considered to be part of Mac history, rather than having its own main heading.--Anss123 (talk) 13:52, 27 December 2007 (UTC)
The problem with the big history section is that there's more to say about what the Mac was than what the Mac is. Most of what a Mac is has been exported daughted articles, but the history hasn't. I'm not completely opposed to this, but it would be difficult to summarize the history section. (We don't even have a summary as it is; it just launches right into the development!) Speaking of summary paragraphs, I added one to the Effects section, hoping to prepare the reader for the text that follows. I'm worried that the title might be misleading, i.e. implying a discussion about how the Mac is seen by third parties; its "image". This might not be a bad thing, but it's hard to source something like that, and in the meantime, I can't think of a title that better reflects the section as it currently exists. (Innovations introduced sounds too POVish to me.)--HereToHelp 17:06, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep I think this is pretty much there. Specific comments:
    • I still think the lead could be expanded into three paragraphs to better summarize its 30+ years of history.
    • The specifications of the various Macs in the 2nd paragraph of "1979 to 1984: Development" need citations.
    • I'd like to see the Advertising section better referenced, especially since the daughter article is poorly sourced (the only references there are given for the Criticism section, which does not translate to the main article). The two footnotes given only link to the current Get a Mac campaign.
    • "The iMac also had no floppy disk drive, prompting the decline of that media, but not before a resurgence of external drives." I was a bit confused by the "but not before a resurgence...". What exactly does that mean? Also, the first half of the sentence seems to imply the lack of the floppy disk drive on the iMac caused the decline of the floppy disk. Isn't that stretching it a bit?
    • Since the section is titled "Effects on the technology industry", I don't think the MacBook Air should really be discussed...we don't really know what effects it will have yet.
    • Whenever a claim is given that something was the first to feature a new technology (see the third paragraph in "Effects on the technology industry"), it usually needs a citation. BuddingJournalist 20:05, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
The history is difficult to summarize (we don't even have a section summary; should we?) but I'll tab a stab at it. The info in the Development section is cited under reference #1; I have moved it down a little to make that more apparent. I have reworded the sentence about external drives, and removed the reference to the MacBook Air (Wikipedia is not a crystal ball). There seems to be a lot of contention over the Effects on the technology industry section. Firsts are hard to prove (the 'Air is not the thinnest notebook ever). How much opposition is there to removing the entire section outright?--HereToHelp 21:40, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't mind the intent of it, but if you believe it factually inaccurate and can't source things, then cut away. Marskell (talk) 13:46, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree with BJ that because so much of the article is devoted to history, the lead must cover it. I added two summative sentences myself, which I think improves things. HtH, the beginning of the 1979 to 1984 section lacks refs, as noted. If that and BJ's other concerns are met, we can keep this. Marskell (talk) 09:05, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Lots of little issues here and there to be resolved; see my edit summaries. Also, citations aren't correctly formatted, there are missing publishers, and sometimes publishers are listed as author. I'm continuing to pick through and leave sample edits, but someone should address the citations. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:11, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

The second paragraph of Development is sourced to this reference, written by a member of the original Mac team. Of BuddingJournalist's suggestions, that leaves:
  • Expanding lead with history info
  • Reference the ads section
  • (edit) Clean up references —Preceding unsigned comment added by HereToHelp (talk • contribs) 11:31, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Cut the Effects on the tech industry section, if no objections surface.

Anything else?--HereToHelp (talk to me) 20:22, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Apple is used as an author repeatedly where it should be used as a publisher. Try to pick Apple, Apple Computer, or Apple Inc. as the publisher name consistently (the website uses the last). Marskell (talk) 07:10, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
I like the expanded lead. BuddingJournalist 02:56, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
So that's done, unless someone cares to say otherwise. I'll reference the ads section when I get a chance (a week?), and by that time I think it's safe to remove the Effects section too. As for the references, should we retroactively call documents from the Apple Computer era written by Apple Inc.? I'l look into that also.--HereToHelp (talk to me) 02:45, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
As I don't see an objection surfacing, I have cut that section to the talk. I've made the refs consistent; there's a note on talk explaining my formatting choices. Advertising remains; it doesn't seem especially difficult and H2H has shown a commitment. I'll drop back in on the page, in a week. In the meantime, I'm keeping this. Ten weeks is long enough. Marskell (talk) 17:52, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept 18:16, 25 January 2008.

Manuel I Komnenos

previous FAR


The nominated article fails to satisfy the following criteria:

1. "(c) "Factually accurate" means that claims are verifiable against reliable sources and accurately represent the relevant body of published knowledge."

The article omits fundamental modern academic references and authors on the subject, most notably G. Ostrogorsky, R. Jenkins, A. Cameron, A. Laiou, W. Treadgold, T. Gregory, C. Mango's "Byzantium: The Empire of the New Rome" etc.

Attempts by other readers to replace historic but antiquated sources such as Gibbon and Paparrigopoulos by more modern sources have been inexplicably resisted. It is undeniable that Gibbon and Paparrigopoulos are extremely important for History: the former was one of the first historians to base his work on primary sources and the latter was a pioneer in the study of the history of the Greek Nation from Antiquity down to the 19th century. However, they wrote in the 18th and the 19th century respectively and, obviously there has been a huge amount of work done on the subject since then. In particular, many of the prejudices that strongly manifest themselves in their work have been overcome during the last several decades (Gibbon's anti-religious and anti-"oriental" fervor has famously compromised his interpretation of Byzantium and Paparrigopoulos's narrative is often driven by his Greek patriotism.)

This does not mean that the work of either of them or the other older authors quoted in the article is worthless but rather that their contributions that have stood the test of test are included in works by modern authors. It is odd to base a Wikipedia article on 18th and 19th century authors rather than on modern scholarship which anyways mentions those conclusions of the older authors that haven't been discredited.

2. "(d) "Neutral" means that the article presents views fairly and without bias."

As mentioned above, the article relies disproportionately on classical references to the expense of modern scholarship that has in the meantime superseded older works. As a result, the prejudices of the older works about Byzantium feature prominently in the article although they are now largely discredited. That would not be a problem if these views were juxtaposed with modern scientific opinion. This is not done in the article in its current form. On the contrary, the old prejudices are given as facts and characteristically, a typical Gibbon citation is enclosed in a box! Today citations such as those are given only in reference to Gibbon himself to illustrate his prejudiced view of Byzantium and not in reference to specific aspects of Byzantine history, especially since their factual content is anyways limited.

Again, attempts to edit the article (by at least removing the box mentioned above) so that presents views fairly and without bias have failed.

3. "(e) "Stable" means that the article is not the subject of ongoing edit wars and that its content does not change significantly from day to day."

There have recently been "edit wars" related, among other things, to the points made above.

In my opinion, if the above three points are addressed, the Feature Article status can be maintained. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12gh34 (talk • contribs) 22:32, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Your concerns would be taken more seriously if you did not use multiple accounts. Please choose one of them and stick to it. DrKiernan (talk) 15:17, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

My responses to the 3 points above:

  1. The article uses a series of reliable sources (more than 50), so the argument about Gibbon and Paparrigopoulos does not stand. From the 87 citations of the article, only 7 rely on Gibbon or Paparrigopoulos. So, even if we accept that there are better sources, the article remains as a whole adequately referenced and cited according to criterion 1 (c). To the contrary, the changes that the nominator here tried to introduce tended to undermine criterion 1 (c), since he insisted on removing the citations he did not like and add his own without mentioning particular pages, something repeatedly condemned in WP:FAC. When he proposed a compromise to keep both his sources and mine, I accepted, but I insisted on one term: his sources should be in accord to the article's FA status; therefore, pages should be included. Unfortunately, the nominator failed to do that. And a final note: Yes, G. Ostrogorsky, R. Jenkins, A. Cameron, W. Treadgold, T. Gregory, C. Mango may not be here, but why the nominator conceals the fact that the article uses modern sources, such as Magdalino, Birkenmeier, Angold etc., namely the standard sources for the Komnenian period? Even from this point of view, the article is in accord with criterion 1 (c). And I would also ask the nominator to be a bit more careful and accurate, when he speaks about the sources. For instance, he says that Laiou is missing, but he fails to mention that works edited by Laiou are there (e.g. "Jeffreys, Elizabeth; Jeffreys Michael (2001). "The "Wild Beast from the West": Immediate Literary Reactions in Byzantium to the Second Crusade", The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World edited by Angeliki E. Laiou and Roy Parviz Mottahedeh").
  2. The argument for violation of criterion 1(d) is based on the mere fact of the existence of the Gibbon box! Even if we accept that the box is POV, this is obviously not enough, in order to support such a claim by the nominator, who fails to provide further reasons supporting his weak POV argument. An article should be examined again as a whole and a box out of the main text is definitely not enough in order to stigmatize a FA article as POV. Now let's speak about the box itself: The box constitutes part of a whole section, so it cannot be examined separated from it. The second paragraph of the section analyzes Manuel's contradictions: his pros and cons. And to this direction works also Gibbon's box, which I strongly believe that it is not POV. Gibbon's style is vivid, exciting and adds a lot to the section and to the article as a whole. And when he says that "The most singular feature in the character of Manuel is the contrast and vicissitude of labour and sloth, of hardiness and effeminacy", he makes a very interesting remark. We should we lose that? Wouldn't the article be poorer without such exciting and witty comments by prominent scholars? Probably, the nominator wishes just an hymnology of Manuel. I am also an admirer of this emperor, but, when you admire somebody, you should have the guts to point out his possible wrong-doings and any negative assessments. That is what I did since my first FA (Pericles), and that is what I did re-writing Manuel. The nominator accused me once of trying to discredit Byzantium and Manuel! How wrong and unfair he is! Yes, this is an unfair comment about the editor who strove to keep FA three article of this period: Byzantine empire, Manuel, and Treaty of Devol. To close, I believe that the argument according to which because of the box the whole article is POV does not stand, and IMO the article gets poorer without this box, without Gibbon and his comments. Of course, if the reviewers here have a different opinion, and support the removal of the box and the complete eradication of Gibbon, I'll respect that and I'll follow their advice, but I'll still believe that they are wrong.
  3. It is strange the person who participates in an edit war to uses this edit war as an argument to disqualify a FA article! In any case, the nominator never brought his arguments in the article's talk page, and, instead of doing that, he now prefers to initiate a FAR. I let the reviewers judge his stance (and mine as well, of course!).

And a final remark: I would like to point out that 11 months ago this article was again in FAR and FARC, and, at the end, FA status has been confirmed, and my efforts have been lauded. Todor: "It is certainly much better now. Yannismarou, you've, expectedly, done a tremendous job". Bigdaddy1204: "I commend Yannismarou for his excellent progress on improving Manuel I Komnenos. I am much impressed by the changes that have been made. I also entirely approve of the new images that have been introduced. Good work!" qp10qp: "Excellent restoration work by Yannismarou". Nothing has changed since these comments were written. Therefore, I am open to any improvements (as I also stated above), but allow me to regard this nomination as a bad joke.--Yannismarou (talk) 14:50, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

  • Move to close I think this nomination was premature. Any issues on very specific sources should have been brought up on the talk page or with the primary editors before bringing the issue here. The nomination seems to have been started by a sockpuppeteer[2][3][4][5][6] who failed to respond to requests for further discussion and clarification[7][8], and then brought the issue here as part of his dispute. Apart from the nominator's own edits the article is stable. The essence of the dispute has been raised on the talk page, and further discussion should be re-directed there: Talk:Manuel I Komnenos#Gibbon. DrKiernan (talk) 10:19, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
    • I see that the account nominating was single purpose. Sorry for not noticing. I will close this; it doesn't seem substantially different from the version closed less than a year ago and FARs shouldn't proceed with sockpuppet noms. Marskell (talk) 18:11, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept 07:15, 24 January 2008.

FIFA World Cup

Review commentary

Wikipedia:WikiProject Football‎, User:Oldelpaso‎, User:IanManka‎ notified This is a Secret account 23:39, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

This article has a few problems:

  • Referencing is not FA standard.
    • Only 2 references in "Growth" section.
    • "Qualification" section has no references.
    • Only 1 reference in "Final tournament" section.
    • Paragraphs 2 and 3 of "Selection of hosts" section has no references.
    • Only 2 references in "World Cup summaries" section.
    • "Successful national teams" section has no references.
    • "Performances by host nations" section has no references.
    • Only 1 reference in "Best performances by continental zones" section.
    • "Awards" section has no references.
    • Only 2 references in "Overall top goalscorers" section.
    • "Fastest goals" section has no references.
    • "Most tournaments appeared (players)" section has no references.
    • "FIFA World Cup winning captains and managers" section has no references.
  • The article is poorly organised. It has too many lists. Info like how well host nations do, the best Asian and African teams, the players who score 5 goals in the World Cup, who can score goals in 11 seconds, who played in 5 tournaments, is trivia and FAs should not have trivia. Also, the "Media coverage" section needs more info.
  • The lead section is weak.
    • Maybe the lead section needs some information about the trophy and "selection of hosts".
    • "The most recent World Cup Finals were held between June 9 and July 9, 2006 in Germany, where Italy was crowned champion after beating France in the final, winning the penalty shootout 5-3 after the match finished 1-1 after extra time. Germany placed third after beating Portugal 3-1. The next World Cup Finals will be held in 2010 in South Africa, and the 2014 Finals will be held in Brazil." I think this is called recentism.
      • I disagree with this. The Olympic Games has a similar statement in its lead paragraph, as well as other international sporting event articles. It gives information to the reader about the timeframe of where the cycle of the World Cup is currently and also who was the most recent champion with some details added for some flavor. If pressed, we could reduce the details of the match, but I think that it is interesting to note in the lead section without having the reader trying to hunt for the answer in the article. If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 06:59, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
        • Upon further reflection, I have since edited the lead section to address your concerns. How does it look now?
          • Yes, there is less recentism. That is OK. Now add some information about the trophy and selection of hosts. Also write a section about the Women's World Cup or remove that sentence from the lead. But the lead is not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is not enough references. --Kaypoh (talk) 03:17, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
            • Okay, I will try to work on that. If you would not mind, I would appreciate it if you could strike that particular objection from your list, so that we can visually see how far the article has progressed. If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 03:29, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
              • OK. I strike that. --Kaypoh (talk) 03:35, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
    • The lead section says "Since 1991, FIFA has also organized the FIFA Women's World Cup every four years" but there is no info about this in the rest of the article.
      • At one point or another, I believe there was a brief section discussing the Women's World Cup, with a link to the appropriate article. It appears that this section has been removed. This should be re-added into the article. If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 07:02, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
        • This has since been edited. If you feel our coverage of the Women's FIFA World Cup is acceptable, please strike your comment, or otherwise suggest ways we can improve it. If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 20:35, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
          • I think you should expand the "Other FIFA tournaments" section, but that is not a problem with the lead. The lead no longer has a sentence about the Women's World Cup, so I strike that. --Kaypoh (talk) 11:36, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
  • The article needs a copy-edit but I cannot help because my English is not very good.

--Kaypoh (talk) 07:32, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

    • Note that this was orphaned, listing now This is a Secret account 04:04, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
      • Secret, I had encouraged Kaypoh not to add this nomination, because Kaypoh already has two noms running; are you willing to follow this one through and do the notifications, per the instructions at WP:FAR? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:40, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
    • Ok will do This is a Secret account 23:34, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
  • The nominator brings up some good points. I will try to collect my thoughts on the subject and post a reply here soon. If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 06:59, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
  • I am already in the middle of addressing the FAR for Premier League. Can this wait until that is dealt with? Oldelpaso 10:49, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
      • That's one of the reasons I had asked that this FAR be held off; extra time should be granted if needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:04, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
    • I've notified User:Conscious and User:Chanheigeorge, who have also contributed significantly to the article. Oldelpaso 11:08, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
  • The problem with this article is that it's mostly written from a football statistician point of view. It's okay as a sports article, but not really as a featured article, which should be directed to a general audience of both football and non-football fans. We can easily remove most of the statistics and lists, but then there won't be a lot of material left. I have some ideas of what topics we need to add, but it's going to take time to make the new material well-written and well-referenced. I suggest as a starting point, we identify a few books and almanac written about the World Cup that we should cite, and by going through them we'll also know what we need to add. Chanheigeorge 09:01, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
I will attempt to replace the tables of statistics with a prose section similar in style to that of Arsenal_F.C.#Statistics_and_records. Oldelpaso (talk) 10:33, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
You need to think what statistics are important to keep in the article. Remove the other statistics. --Kaypoh (talk) 11:36, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are citations (1c), LEAD (2a), and organization (4). Marskell (talk) 17:06, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Remove Issues not addressed. --Kaypoh (talk) 06:47, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
    • I object to your premature removal opinion. As stated above, there was another Featured Article Removal nomination being addressed at the same time with similar topics and similar contributors, Premier League. The aforementioned FARC finished on December 19, a day and a half after your objection. Please allow a sufficient amount of time to pass (the Premier League nomination took nearly a month to complete) before deciding on your objections. Thanks! If you have any questions, please contact me at my talk page. Ian Manka 01:56, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
      • I will strike my oppose if you improve the article so it is FA standard. --Kaypoh (talk) 02:48, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
    • Addition of references to various sections is well underway. Oldelpaso (talk) 12:55, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
      • OK, good, but you must also deal with the writing and statistics. --Kaypoh (talk) 02:26, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
        • And I am doing. Can you be more specific with prose issues? It is difficult to fix without knowing what is wrong with it. Oldelpaso (talk) 15:11, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
    • I have converted information in tables to prose where possible, and have removed extraneous tables of statistics. The article now contains only three tables. Oldelpaso (talk) 19:34, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep - All major issues seems to have been adressed. --Peter Andersen (talk) 17:21, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, seems good. Any last comments? Marskell (talk) 08:32, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

  • Keep Looks good. Woody (talk) 20:18, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Can we have a uniform state for citations, some use templates, some don't. Woody (talk) 15:20, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Fixes needed, endash and citation formatting attention needed, missing dates and authors, endashes on scores, see my sample edits.[9] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:44, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
    • I looked, and a large percentage of the weblinks don't have a date or author. Fifa.com doesn't provide them, for instance. Marskell (talk) 08:39, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
      • OK, still catching up. I'm busy this afternoon, but if you keep it open one more day, I'll run through it and do a final check. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:47, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
        • I have done an ndash sweep. It is the fact that the citations aren't uniform that is my issue. Is it ok to have citation templates for some but not for others, if the end result looks the same? Woody (talk) 16:57, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
          • If the end result is consistent formatting, I'm happy with some templates, others not (I'm not a fan of cite templates, so adding them unnecessarily isn't something I usually do). Woody, if you've checked through everything, and there's nothing left for me to check, that will save me some time tonight; I still have a lot to catch up on. I was worried about missing info (typically found on news sources). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:01, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
            • I was going to do a cite sweep in a bit, I saw a few BBC ones without dates, they don't have authors. Other than that, it looks good I think. Woody (talk) 17:03, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept 20:37, 21 January 2008.

Music of the United States

Review commentary

Notifications left at WP:US, WP:MUSIC‎, Raul654, Misfit Toys‎, Jkelly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by TUF-KAT (talk • contribs) 03:25, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm the one that originally brought this to FAC, and I thought it was quite a nice little article. I haven't been too active in Wikipedia for a long time, so when I came back to take a look, I was disappointed that most of the changes were negative -- actually, most of the changes revolved around multiplying the amount of info on modern alternative rock by some six times... I've completely reverted the altrock stuff back to my original version, which I think is plenty for an article that is meant to cover more than three hundred years of music spanning hundreds of millions of people from literally thousands of cultures, in addition to modern hipsters. Anyway, I thought it might look like I was being protective of the article, since I reverted most of the really substantive edits (except for some good changes made on the R&B/soul section), so I thought I'd bring it here to get any additional thoughts. Also, since the original nomination, I added a few new things, specifically the "social identity", "diversity" and "scholarship" sections. Here's the diff. Tuf-Kat 03:03, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

TUF-KAT, please follow the instructions at WP:FAR to notify involved editors and relevant WikiProjects with {{subst:FARMessage|Music of the United States}} and leave a summary of notifications here as in this sample. Thanks, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:19, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
  • Needs work and to be honest, I don't think it deserves to be a Featured article now, and nor do I think based on the way we assess articles now, would it have passed inthe way it used to be. The layout of the page is generally good, but there's a vast imbalance in musical style areas. R&B/Soul and the whoel rock sections are either too long, or all sections need to be about that long. What sequence are the styles in? It's not alphabetical, nor is it in sequence of when the styles came into prominence, nor is it based on similarities in style, so I'm struggling to see why they're listed as such. And lastly, I'm concerned that at an article as sourced as this has so few inline citations. There's possibly the ability to reference every sentence in the article twice based on the works that are listed as references. I'm certain either it's laziness/apathy that has not allowed for the information to be adequately cited, or it's from the lack of reading the source material and only citing what they can verify is from said source, or (and this is the reason of most concern) it's simpy original research and cannot be supported. There's likely a combination of all of these reasons throughout the article, but for this reason, I don't believe the article meets the Featured Article criteria any more, in fact I think it would struggle to make it past Good Article, based on these concerns. Also, on an aesthetic matter, the map needs a lot of work to be usable in the article. It's terribly cluttered, the text is too small to read on the article, and even on the standard image preview. One has to actually open the image to view close up what the indicators state. While it's an informative list, I would prefer a numerised list of the musical styles and place the numbers in place of the current lines indicating the styles. See this. One last mention about the image is that its comment states The United States is home to a wide array of regional styles and scenes. Now, a "scene" is any demographic region or division, be it socio/econo etc division, and a "music scene" is simply the music of the scene. I don't think it's wrong to indicate that musical scenes and styles differ from place to place, but to distinguish this in an image caption is unwise, as it could potentially be misleading. --lincalinca 10:28, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
There are 117 inline citations - while you're probably correct that many things could be cited to more than one source, I don't see how that would be a major benefit to the article, and it's certainly not typical of Wikipedia articles, even featured ones, AFAIK. If there's something you'd like cited that isn't, I can probably do that; if there's something you'd like cited more than once, well, I can probably do that too in most cases, but as long as there are wide swathes of Wikipedia with no citations at all, that seems not very important for noncontroversial claims. There is an average of 1 citation for every 87 words (actually more than that, as I calculated the word count with the footnotes themselves).
I'm insulted that you are accusing me of laziness/apathy after spending hundreds of hours working on this article, and I'm even more insulted that you would accuse me of intellectual dishonesty by not having read the sources I cited. I assure you I've read them all multiple times, and that there is no original research here (or if there is, it's crept in without my being aware of it). Please Assume Good Faith, and if you'd like to accuse me of something, please provide some sort of evidence. If you'd like me to fix something in the article, please make some sort of specific suggestion about what is subpar.
Regarding the length of the specific genres sections, "blues and gospel" is 414 words, "jazz" is 506 words, "country" is 529 words and "hip hop" is 410 words, well within range of equal coverage ("blues and gospel" may seem short, but there's 167 words on "blues and spirituals" under folk music). "R&B/Soul" and "Rock, metal and punk" are longer, at 670 and 1093 words, which I think is appropriate as these sections cover a wider range of styles than the others, and because they constitute most of non-hip hop popular music of the last few decades (and hip hop doesn't have the history or diversity to warrant being treated the same).
The genres are in chronological order by the earliest significant popularity.
I agree that the map would be better with some work, and I've been trying to cook up a better version, but I don't know of any better images that could be neutrally said to warrant being at the top of this article at the moment. I'm not sure I understand your concern regarding the use of "scenes", but feel free to change the caption. Tuf-Kat (talk) 18:10, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
Please don't misunderstand my intent here. I've reviewed your version and it was adequately cited and referenced, but the newly added information since it achieved FA is for the most part under-referenced or completely unreferenced, and by the looks of the article history, much of this is by IP users or occasional editors, so I'm not accusing you at all. --lincalinca 21:58, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
Oh sorry, I guess I should have assumed good faith in your comments then, myself (though I submit that you could've phrased your comment more tactfully). Anyway, I agree that most of the additions since the original FAC were downgrades. I reverted the worst of it before placing it here. (It did have a whopping six paragraphs entirely about the seven or eight years immediately surrounding the grunge era...) Anyway, specifically referring to the map, I had originally meant for it to go at the top of the article, but I don't have any knowledge of image manipulation and thus the result wasn't as great as I had hoped for. I moved it down from the top of the article for the same reasons you note, but during the FAC it was suggested to move it up. I'm going to go to the WikiCommons and ask if anyone there can help make a map - I envision something like one of those National Geographic fold-out maps, or the kind of thing that could even be a dorm room poster, with particular symbols of some kind that could depict everything from the cities with a notable blues scene, to the regions with a significant history of Armenian or Bulgarian folk music, to the best-selling/most critically-acclaimed symphonies, largest music venues, institutes of higher music education, etc, and I think it could be a fascinating map. But it's way beyond my ability to actually produce. If anybody here is willing to help let me know - I can provide all the info about what to include, so you'd need to find a sufficiently detailed map, come up with the key and put the symbols in their place. (We could even take a subset of the map's symbols and make images for articles like Latin music in the United States). Tuf-Kat (talk) 04:23, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, I know a lot about image manipulation, though this sort of image would be better served as SVG (i.e. a vector graphic) so that its scalability is vastly improved. My issue is that I don't know US geography all that well, and frankly have a little bit of difficulty reading some of the bits that are filled in, even with the size at full. I've downloaded it, as well as a governmental (i.e. state division) SVG map from U.S. States and will set to try to give it some sort of better co-ordination. The existing map already employs colours, so I think I'll use them as a key, but I will probably tap your shoulder occasionally to check what goes where (for things such as Cowboy music, it could be a little bit unclear). It might take me a while. I don't have the time to give to Wikipedia that i used to have. --lincalinca 05:33, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
Great, I'll see if I can come up with a more detailed list of stuff to put on the map tomorrow. Tuf-Kat (talk) 06:34, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
I think I'll just make an article, list of music areas in the United States, and the map would more-or-less be a graphical representation of that. If you can just make a good start on it, it might prompt others to fill in the details (which is kind of what I was hoping for to begin with...). Tuf-Kat (talk) 18:28, 18 November 2007 (UTC)
It has occurred to me that I might want to make the sections currently devoted to the specific styles of popular music and make them the basis for a new version of American popular music (which was a bloated mess last time I saw it), leaving behind an ultratight 10-12 paragraph summary as a replacement. This would allow for expansion on topics that are relevant and currently not really covered (there could be more stuff under "social identity", like "regionality" or something similar, for example). Any thoughts? Tuf-Kat (talk) 18:28, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are comprehensiveness and focus (1b and 4). Marskell 14:11, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Fixes needed. External jumps (for example at: These researchers included Robert W. Gordon, founder of the Archive of American Folk Song, and John and Alan Lomax; Alan Lomax was the most prominent of several folk song collectors who helped to inspire the 20th century roots revival of American folk culture.[112]) Copyedit needs: (for example: Early 20th scholarly analysis of American music tended to ... 20th century perhaps?) Incomplete references, see WP:CITE/ES (for example, Library of Congress: Band Music from the Civil War Era). WP:MOSNUM (example: During the '70s ... ) The size is a concern: at 59KB of readable prose, can some of the sections could be summarized better? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:12, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Clearly, this can be saved and I'm tempted to default keep it, if there aren't more comments. I'll work through a CE over the next few days. Marskell (talk) 20:33, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Another criteria concern is POV, with words like "popular" used too sparingly. LuciferMorgan (talk) 20:49, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I think I probably did some copy-editing on this during the FAC process. I'm afraid I lean towards removing this. Scope is a problem: the topic is so huge and complex, and this is not well handled in terms of WP's summary style. Too much of it is a highly selective (arbitrary?) flash tour ("The New York classical music scene included Charles Griffes, originally from Elmira, New York, who began publishing his most innovative material in 1914."). Daughter articles would be a good project now rather than trying to fix this main article. That might, in reverse, make the summary style easier to arrive at. Take the map: I'm very uncomfortable about the labelling, say, of "Omana sound" or "Cowboy music" in specific locations. The eastern seabord and Michigan look very crowded. There are many unsatisfactory statements. This one starts the Folk music section: "Folk music in the United States is varied across the country's numerous ethnic groups". Tuf-kat, have you thought of preparing and nominating some of those historic recordings for Feature Sound status? Tony (talk) 12:10, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Above Tuf-Kat noted "It has occurred to me that I might want to make the sections currently devoted to the specific styles of popular music and make them the basis for a new version of American popular music (which was a bloated mess last time I saw it), leaving behind an ultratight 10-12 paragraph summary as a replacement." This might be a good idea because scope is most definitely an issue. Unfortunately, Tuf-Kat may have lost interest in this review as he didn't reply when I pinged him. I could still go either way here (hate these +2 month reviews). Marskell (talk) 13:58, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Dammit, I'm going to "default" this. While there have been many difficult reviews, this, weirdly, has crystallized the difficulty at FAR. Nothing is happening after two months. There are no solid removes and there are no solid keeps. No one watching. There is no clear remove indication—and there's no flagrant WIAFA or policy breaches that I would normally hold it up on. I take Tony's points, but we've never explicitly removed for summary style (in the absence of explicit removes). This crystallizes the problem, because it's the first keep that I really don't like. But I think I must keep it.

If an interested editor wants to bring this up again (Tu-Kat?), we could go over it without the formal process. Marskell (talk) 20:34, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept 17:12, 17 January 2008.

A Tale of a Tub

Notified Wikipedia:WikiProject Books, WP:COMEDY, Talk:Jonathan Swift, User:Geogre, User:Ling.Nut, User:Filiocht, User:Hobbesy3, User:Danny, User:Susurrus, User:Taxman, User:Kevinalewis. Cirt (talk) 14:27, 14 January 2008 (UTC).

Specifying the FA criterion/criteria that are at issue:

  • 1. - It is well-written, comprehensive, factually accurate, neutral and stable.
  1. Prose is not "engaging, even brilliant, and of a professional standard." -- Several sentences in the article are phrased and read such that one is led to believe something is the opinion of the author of the article, as opposed to of some secondary source. This also leads to blatant violations of Wikipedia's No Original Research policy, which will be laid out in a bit more detail, below.
  2. "Factually accurate" means that claims are verifiable against reliable sources and accurately represent the relevant body of published knowledge. Claims are supported with specific evidence and external citations; this involves the provision of a "References" section in which sources are set out, complemented by inline citations where appropriate. -- Fails this point noticeably. Only one inline citation is used, and it is virtually impossible to tell precisely what other parts of the article are sourced to where, if anywhere. What pages of the sources listed below are used, and where, and which author are various parts of the article backed up to/attributed to? Very hard to tell without in-line citations.
Some specific examples of WP:OR/WP:V/WP:WHEN issues
  1. The "tale," or narrative, is an allegory that concerns the adventures of three brothers, Peter, Martin, and Jack, as they attempt to make their way in the world. -- Says who? Who initially calls it an "allegory"? Is this the original Wikipedia editor's assumption who wrote this sentence, or from one of the sources listed below?
  2. This part of the book is a pun on "tub," which Alexander Pope says was a common term for a pulpit, and a reference to Swift's own position as a clergyman. -- Alexander Pope is not listed in the sources section. Where does Pope say this?
  3. The third brother, middle born and middle standing, is Martin (named for Martin Luther), whom Swift uses to represent the 'via media' of the Church of England. -- How do we know Swift uses this character in this fashion? Assumption of a Wikipedia editor, or laid out specifically in a source? Which source? What page?
  4. In as much as the will represents the Bible and the coat represents the practice of Christianity, the allegory of the narrative is supposed to be an apology for the British church's refusal to alter its practice in accordance with Puritan demands and its continued resistance to alliance with the Roman church. -- "In as much", "the allegory of the narrative is supposed to be.." Says who? Where?
  5. From its opening (once past the prolegomena, which comprises the first three sections), the book is constructed like a layer cake, with Digression and Tale alternating. -- "Constructed like a layer cake" - is that a literary term, or a phrase made up by a Wikipedian? A source?
  6. However, the digressions overwhelm the narrative, both in terms of the forcefulness and imaginativeness of writing and in terms of volume. -- This type of language shows the editor is making up their own assumptions. Who says it is "forceful" and "imaginative" writing?
  7. Many critics have followed Swift's biographer Irvin Ehrenpreis in arguing that there is no single, consistent narrator in the work. -- "Many critics"  ? Which critics? Where have they made these arguments?
  8. One difficulty with this position, however, is that if there is no single character posing as the author, then it is at least clear that nearly all of the "personae" employed by Swift for the parodies are so much alike that they function as a single identity. -- "Difficulty" ? Says who? "then it is at least clear..." Clear to whom?
  9. In general, whether we view the book as comprised of dozens of impersonations or a single one, Swift writes the Tale through the pose of a Modern or New Man. -- "We" ? Who is "we"? Who is saying that "Swift writes the Tale through the pose of a Modern or New Man" ? The editor that wrote this sentence, or a specific source? Unknown at this point.
  10. Hobbes was highly controversial in the Restoration, but Swift's invocation of Hobbes might well be ironic. -- Who says this "might well be ironic" ? A source, or a Wikipedia editor?
  11. The narrative of the brothers is a faulty allegory, and Swift's narrator is either a madman or a fool. The book is not one that could occupy the Leviathan, or preserve the Ship of State, so Swift may be intensifying the dangers of Hobbes's critique rather than allaying them to provoke a more rational response. -- Who says this is a "faulty allegory" ? Who says "Swift may be intensifying the dangers of Hobbes's critique" ?
  12. In his biography of Swift, Ehrenpreis argued that each digression is an impersonation of a different contemporary author. -- Where did Ehrenpreis make this "argument" ? A quote from Ehrenpreis would be more appropriate here than an assumption/interpretation of what Ehrenpreis wrote.
  13. In any case, the digressions are each readerly tests; each tests whether or not the reader is intelligent and skeptical enough to detect nonsense. Some, such as the discussion of ears or of wisdom being like a nut, a cream sherry, a cackling hen, etc., are outlandish and require a militantly aware and thoughtful reader. Each is a trick, and together they train the reader to sniff out bunk and to reject the unacceptable. -- Says who? Is this just reading into the primary source of the piece itself, or was this conjecture derived from a secondary source? Which source, what page?
  14. During the Restoration period in England, the print revolution began to change every aspect of society. -- Really, says who? "every aspect of society" ? This is assumption.
  15. The change in British society brought about by the print revolution was roughly analogous to our own experiences with the Internet. Just as now a silly person may spend a small amount of money and publish silly opinions, so it was then. Just as now we are confronted with a staggering array of conspiracy theories, "secret" histories, signs of the apocalypse, "secrets" of politicians, "revelations" of prophets, alarms about household products, hoaxes, and outright fraud, so it was then. The problem for them, as for us, was telling true from false, credible from impossible. -- Obvious WP:OR violations here.
  16. This narrator is in love with the modern age and feels that he is quite the equal (or superior) of any author who ever lived because he, unlike them, possesses 'technology' and opinions that are just plain newer. -- Is this a paraphrasing of something Swift wrote, or assumption/OR ?
  17. Although it is somewhat extreme and simplistic to put it this way, failing to be for the Church was failing to be for the monarch; having an interest in physics and trade was to be associated with dissenting religion and the Whig Party. -- "somewhat extreme and simplistic to put it this way" - says who?
  18. When Swift attacks the lovers of all things modern, he is thereby attacking the new world of trade, of dissenting religious believers, and, to some degree, an emergent portion of the Whig Party. -- "thereby attacking..." Who makes this comparison? A Wikipedia editor that wrote the sentence, or a source? Conjecture/OR, drawing your own conclusions?
  19. as A. C. Elias persuasively argues -- Oh really, "persuasively argues" ? Who is callling Elias's argument "persuasive" ? Conjecture drawn from a source.
  20. The entire discussion in England was over by 1696, and yet it seems to have fired Swift's imagination. -- "seems to have fired Swift's imagination" - says who?
  21. The Tale of a Tub attacks all who praise modernity over classical learning. -- Again, says who?
  22. There is no normative value in Rome, no lost English glen, no hearth ember to be invoked against the hubris of modern scientism. -- This almost appears to be a plagarized quote from a source. And if not, it's WP:OR.
  23. Some critics have seen in Swift's reluctance to praise mankind in any age proof of his misanthropy, and others have detected in it an overarching hatred of pride. -- Which critics? Where is this said?
  24. If Swift hoped that the Tale of a Tub would win him a living, he was disappointed. -- Did Swift write "I was disappointed that..."  ? If not, this is WP:OR.
  25. Upon its publication, the public realized both that there was an allegory in the story of the brothers and that there were particular political references in the Digressions. -- The public realized? Says who? Is this an inference drawn from the next section about the "Keys", or is this statement backed up by a source?
  26. Attacking criticism generally, he appears delighted -- "Generally", "appears delighted.." - These appear to be assumptions on the part of whoever wrote this sentence.
  27. The notes appear to occasional