Wikipedia:Featured article review/archive/June 2007

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 10:15, 24 June 2007.

Schizophrenia

Review commentary

Brilliant prose promotion (promoted version); messages left at Medicine and Psychology.

I'm nominating this article for Featured Article review because;

  1. It fails 1a, having many stubby paragraphs.
  2. It fails WP:SUMMARY.
  3. It has an external link farm.
  4. The citation style needs consistency.

All this needs addressing for the article to be brought up to current standard. LuciferMorgan 19:51, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Hi there, the article certainly needs a bit of a spring copy-edit, but I would argue against point 1 above, as the many 'stubby paragraphs' as you call them, actually seem to be an appropriate level of depth for a main article that attempts to cover a massive amount of scientific literature, in line with FA criteria 4.
I need to look at WP:SUMMARY in more detail, but you could be right here. The external links certainly need cleaning up, but it seems the citation style is pretty consistent throughout the whole article. Could you clarify this a little?
Thanks! - Vaughan 22:19, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
Stubby paragraphs don't need expansion, but need merging. WP:SUMMARY is in line with criterion 4. LuciferMorgan 14:27, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
After two and a half hours of work, I'm about two-thirds through cleaning up the references. (The very strange reference formatting used was chunking up the article size; I've already shaved 7KB by just employing the PMID template, which strangely, wasn't used.) The good news is that virtually all the sources are journal-published medical literature. The bad news is there is a very long list of issues needed to bring this article to standard, which I'll type up after I finish the ref cleanup. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:32, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
The refs are cleaned up now; that took many hours and shaved about 10KB from the article. I only had to delete one self-published source. The sources that are there are generally very good and the citation level in the article is commendable, reflecting a lot of hard work, although there are still major problems with the article citations. Also, book sources are still lacking page numbers. Outriggr also eliminated some of the trivia in popular culture. It will take me some time to type up the very long list of issues that need to be addressed in this article, but work should start quickly on pruning the outrageous External link farm per WP:EL and WP:NOT. Most of the links can be eliminated by simply linking to DMOZ (see Tourette syndrome for an example). It will take a sustained, concerted effort to bring this article to standard. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:03, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Good work thus far; shame I cannot really help, as medical related topics aren't my area. LuciferMorgan 14:27, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
The "Deficit Syndrome" subsection needs citations. LuciferMorgan 14:28, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Not now; I moved it to the talk page. Undue weight, uncited, perhaps if someone wants to cite it, it could have its own article and be linked to this article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:33, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
To do

I've cleaned up the TOC to conform with WP:MEDMOS. All of the info/recommended sections were there, but just not well organized and divided into stubby sections. The stubbiness should now be eliminated, with a cleaner TOC, reflecting sections headings as suggested at MEDMOS. Here is the former TOC. Some tweaking of the text may be needed now to reflect the new organization.

The "Overview" section is an expanded lead; it is unencyclopedic, and should be eliminated, with the lead rewritten to conform to WP:LEAD.

I eliminated this section, moving to text to appropriate sections or daughter articles, which will need to be reviewed by the main editors (some of these sections are now repetitious). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:11, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

There is still MASSIVE amounts of work to be done, but this should put a basis structure in place for citing, cleaning up and copyediting the article. (Since this article was a "brilliant prose" promotion, and it has grown considerably since promotion, most of the text has never been subjected to a review under current standards.) In terms of comprehensive, I think the only info missing now per MEDMOS is Screening/prevention.

I've also added the DMOZ links to External links, and did some initial pruning per WP:EL,WP:NOT and WP:MEDMOS, but deeper pruning is still needed.

Further reading also needs cleanup to a standard citation format.

Cleaned up, but the final listing (Wiencke, Markus) needs a language icon, and I couldn't find this book listed in any ISBN finder or anywhere else. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:04, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

And, I still need to type up the very long list of issues remaining, not the least of which are very serious copyedit and citation needs. The article is 60KB; unnecessarily too long. The Causes section, as but one example, is a clear candidate for Summary style (especially since there are some undue weight issues there). For an example of summary style in a similar article, please see Tourette syndrome. Treatment should also be summarized. Using Summary Style on these two sections should 1) bring the size into a range that conforms with WP:LENGTH, 2) eliminate some of the copyedit needs, 3) eliminate some of the undue weight issues, and 4) reduce some of the citation needs in the main article. In other words, a lot of the marginal text could be cut from the main article, and included in the summary article.

I created Causes of schizophrenia and cut text to that article, which removed a lot of uncited text and has brought the readable prose size down to a manageable 45KB. Regular editors will probably want to review and re-do what I left summarized in the main article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:11, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Large chunks of the article remain uncited, and I am concerned about the lack of the use of good, recent reviews, particularly with respect to undue weight. You can find a study on PubMed that says just about anything; what is needed is a good recent review to put it all in place and context, with due weight. As an example, note that Tourette syndrome uses at least half a dozen recent comprehensive peer-reviewed reviews, in addition to the PMID citations. Undue weight is a concern in this article. Wiki doesn't need to cite everything ever printed about Schizophrenia; it needs to provide a current, encyclopedic overview.

Please be aware that this article is likely to be long as it needs to adequately reflect what is known about the disorder. Tourette's is not a good comparison. There are just over 3,000 scientific article on Tourette's on PubMed, while there are nearly 75,000 on schizophrenia. To fully cover the main areas, even in outline with links to main articles, the schizophrenia entry is likely to be larger than most. I'm a bit concerned that an over-strict application of templates will 'tick boxes' at the expense of scientifically rigorous main article. - Vaughan 19:29, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
Agreed (re the comparison and the amount of research on the two topics); nonetheless, summarizing Causes and Treatment is needed and would be appropriate here, and would fully solve the size issue. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:14, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Among the long list of copyedit needs I still have to type up is the frequent use of the word "recent" to describe studies; this terminology becomes outdated. What was "recent" when the text was written may not stay recent; but the copyedit needs are extensive and will require a sustained effort, after parts of the article have been removed to daughter articles per summary style, and after uncited text is removed or cited.

The Medication section needs serious expansion; also, see the suggestions per Fvasconcellos (talk · contribs) at Tourette syndrome with respect to how to deal with generic and trade names.

The article needs images. Since it will be hard to find them, you may have to resort to what we did at Tourette syndrome, using medications and perhaps Eugen Bleuler. You might also ping TimVickers (talk · contribs) and Fvasconcellos (talk · contribs) for some ideas.

Outriggr has added and Quadzilla99 fixed images — much better now. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:35, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

External jumps need to be cleaned up.

Done. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:04, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

See WP:GTL and WP:MEDMOS; See also needs to be pruned. Articles should be linked into the text where possible, and articles that are already linked in the text need not be included in See also.

I cleaned up See also. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:46, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

A large effort at improving the wikilinking will be needed after all else is completed.

I'm not convinced that all of the studies cited in the "Violence" section actually pertain specifically to Schizophrenia. That's a start; there's much more. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:33, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Starting list of copyedit needs, once article is summarized and fully cited, with uncited text removed (Diagnostic issues and controversies is one of several undercited sections):

  • Remove references to "currently" or "recently" and make the text more enduring.
  • I've found numerous instances of missing punctuation at ends of sentences — review.
  • Decide on British or American spelling and check throughout (... which was statistically related to the relatively poor and violent neighbourhoods in which they resided and to substance misuse... )
  • I saw many versions of "it should be noted that", or "it is worth noting that", or "it should be mentioned" — things like that. Unencyclopedic, and we shouldn't tell our readers what to note.
  • A lot of redundancy checking and unnecessary prose can be eliminated, per User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a. Some random examples:
    • Prognosis also depends on some other factors.
    • The same study also found that prevalence may vary greatly from country to country, despite the received wisdom that schizophrenia occurs at the same rate throughout the world. It is worth noting however, that this may be in part due to differences in the way schizophrenia is diagnosed. (received wisdom? worth noting ... )
    • In the western world, schizophrenia is typically diagnosed in late adolescence or early adulthood. In the western world, it is found approximately equally in men and women, though the onset tends to be later in women, who also tend to have a better course and outcome. (In the western world... in the western world).
    • Prognosis for any particular individual affected by schizophrenia is particularly hard to judge as treatment and access to treatment is continually changing, as new methods become available and medical recommendations change. (as ... as ... clauses)
    • Long-term inpatient stays are now less common due to deinstitutionalization, although can still occur. (awkward)
    • (Just saw two more missing full stop) A similar approach known as cognitive enhancement therapy, which focuses on social cognition as well as neurocognition, has shown efficacy[83] ... and ... There have also been advances in social skills training[81]
    • (An example of a redundant "currently") Currently, there is growing evidence of the crucial role of autoimmunity in the etiology and pathogenesis of schizophrenia.

A note, because I just saw this ... why is Abilify the only specific medication mentioned in Medication, and there is no mention of metabolic side effects with the neuroleptics. If Treatment is summarized to a daughter article, a more comprehensive daughter article can be written, without adding to the length of the main article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:48, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Treatment with antipsychotics definitely needs a daughter article. Maybe even can link directly to that onecheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 13:13, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
I suggest a general treatment daughter article, which could be expanded and summarized back to the main article, Treatment of schizophrenia. 13:38, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Question? Equal incidence in males and females? Can't find that covered in the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:51, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Found, but not cited. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:11, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
Cited now. cheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 13:31, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

The most urgent need is to finish citing the article (it is seriously undercited), and trim the lengthy sections with summary style, so the remaining text can be copyedited. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:36, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd move most of diagnostic controversies to a subsidiary page.cheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 13:31, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
I agree. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:33, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
(groan)....what do we call the subsidiary page.....cheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 13:41, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
...actually I mused on a page called Controversies in Schizophrenia and all this plus some of the relevant antipsychiatry stuff could be put in I guess, but I suspect it may be seen as POV..cheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 13:42, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
(as if the article isn't long enough) - a critical bit is something on prodrome to go in beginning of Clinical Features/Symptoms and signs section..man this is giving me a headache...cheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 13:48, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
I'll leave it to ya'll to figure out the controversial title, but if you summarize Treatment and Alternative approaches, there will be no length problem. (I'm still concerened that the regular editors of this article haven't weighed in.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:00, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
It seems that at least one former member maybe a little busy with other matters but hopefully someone will turn up cheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 14:38, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
Hi everyone, I am keeping tabs on things, but unfortunately, this has come at rather an inconvenient time and I'm not going to have huge amounts of free time until mid-June. As a suggestion though, I'd be tempted to keep as much of the diagnostic controversies in the main article as possible as this is one of the biggest debates. - Vaughan 17:55, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
Someone needs to cite it then. I still believe that Treatment is the best candidate for summary, and if it's done, length should not be an issue. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:04, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

The article mentions PMID 4683124 "On being sane in insane places", but makes no mention at all of the fourteen articles listed in PubMed discussing this article, many as rebuttals or describing it as pseudoscience. Is this section NPOV and/or giving undue weight to the idea that Schizophrenia isn't a reliable diagnosis? At a minimum, if this article is mentioned, the rebuttals should be mentioned. It looks like controversies are given undue weight throughout the article, while mainstream literature may not yet be fully represented in the article. Certainly, Treatment and Diagnosis aren't covered as well as controversy. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:20, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

For those of us unfamiliar with the terminology, linking Dysphoria under Signs and symptoms would be appreciated. Thanks. Zealorb 14:01, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Update on article status 30 May 2007

I'd say the article is about 75% through a review of content; this comprises removing alot of non-core material, controversies and some theories on causes that may have more or less evidence but contribute little to everyday clinical practice. As I've gone through I've copyedited a fair bit but a major run through clearly has to wait until the content is settled. Alot of the citing has been done.

It still needs some more core content on management plus adding some references to the material I added, then LEAD tweaking and copyedit.cheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 08:28, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Let's leave it in review a little longer. Marskell 10:37, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Update Apart from a table of progonstic features, I'm now satisfied the content is more or less right, though I haven't heard from Vaughan yet. New sections need some refs, which is no biggie. Next is copyedit and lead. cheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 08:16, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Update The article has improved remarkably, and I'm confident it will emerge with featured status retained because of the concerted effort being made. However, there's still a bit of work to be done. Some things to consider:
    • A review of WP:MEDMOS list of sections: Prevention or Screening haven't been addressed, and Accounts in literature could be changed to Cultural references, to conform with MEDMOS.
      • Done the latter. The former is tricky as it is a very vexed subject in schizophrenia and currently there is only a bit on 'Early Psychosis which we could expand.
    • Alternative approaches still needs work, in terms of consistency in referencing style and potential issues of undue weight (for example, one author is referenced three times on Coeliac disease and schizophrenia, the papers are from the 70s, and one could question how relevant this work is today. (But the referencing is beautiful.)
    • Further reading; do we *really* need all of that?
    • External links still needs pruning per WP:EL, WP:NOT, and in fact, contains some items that actually belong in Further reading rather than External links. The DMOZ links should give a reader most of what they need.
    • A thorough copyedit is still needed. Here are just a few examples:
      • Diagnosis is based on the self-reported experiences of the patient as well as abnormalities in behavior reported by family members or friends, followed by secondary signs observed by a psychiatrist, social worker, clinical psychologist or other clinician in a clinical assessment. There is a list of criteria that must be met for someone to be so diagnosed. These depend on both the presence and duration of certain signs and symptoms. (Clinical-clinician used three times in one sentence. The sentence "there is a list of criteria" doesn't really say anything.)
      • full blood count to rule out an infective process ... ??? ... infectious ??
        • infectious means able to cause infection i.e. contagious, while infective pertains to an infecting process underway.
          • Since laypersons like myself might not know that, is there a wikilink or can you clarify in the text? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:15, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
      • Redundancies, example: The ICD-10 also recognises another two subtypes: good spot
      • Punctuation: This was partly due to the difference in diagnostic systems, the US used the DSM-II manual, while Europe used the ICD-9, each of which had different descriptions of schizophrenia.
      • Terminology: I'm accustomed to discussions of extrapyramidal side effects, but this terminology may be lost on layreaders. More attention to Wikilinking or definitions of technical terms might be helpful. "Recent reviews have refuted the claim that atypical antipsychotics have fewer extrapyramidal side effects ... " (Also, that conclusion seems overstated, considering "Optimum doses of low-potency conventional antipsychotics might not induce more EPS than new generation drugs."
    • Precision: One study found omega-3 supplements to be effective when used as a dietary supplement ... but ... "Five of six double-blind, placebo-controlled trials in schizophrenia, and four of six such trials in depression, have reported therapeutic benefit from omega-3 fatty acids in either the primary or secondary statistical analysis, particularly when EPA is added on to existing psychotropic medication."
    • Organization: for example, differential diagnosis is discussed in the second paragraph of the Diagnosis section, and then again under a Differential Diagnosis section, which really discusses treatment rather than Differential Diagnosis. Yet neither of these sections gives a full description of other conditions to be ruled out before diagnosing schizophrenia, such as that given at http://www.emedicine.com/med/topic2072.htm .
      • Agree we need to clean it up, this reference, however, is by an ER specialist with a very formulaic list of differentials with plenty of very rare things there. I will work on this.
    • There are still fairly significant patches of text that are unreferenced (I listed three articles on the talk page that can be used to source a lot of missing content).
    • Based on the other articles I've read on schizophrenia, I'm still concerned about 1b, comprehensive.
  • The above list is samples only. All in all, the article is on a very good track, but now that more of the content has been nailed down, cleaned up and referenced, some final tweaking of citation needs, copyediting, precision in terminology, and a review for final issues of comprehensiveness should be of benefit, generating a truly excellent article. The hardest work has been done; now, a fresh set of eyes, and reviewing a printout with a critical eye should yield a good final result. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:45, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
    • Little change on the items above; are editors reading the FAR? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:11, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
Yep, just a bit busy.cheers, Cas Liber | talk | contribs 21:20, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are prose (1a), lack of summary style (4), and citations (1c). Marskell 17:35, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Excellent progress has been made on all fronts, but there is still some final tidying and tweaking to be done. Extra eyes to pinpoint any issues would be helpful. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:35, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
    • Adding a link to version before FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:55, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
      • The article is now fully sourced and generally conforms with WP:MOS and WP:MEDMOS as far as I can tell; I wish some fresh sets of eyes would look over the article to see if anything has been missed; otherwise, if no one finds any problems, I'll be a Keep. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:50, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep - I feel that this article either satisfies criteria or otherwise can be fixed very quickly. The prose has been well and truly massaged, the refs all look the same and there are loads of them and I feel the lead summarises the article. I feel we've been as comprehensive yet succinct as possible to keep the article size down.cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:32, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep Nice work by Sandy et al. Trevor GH5 12:37, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
    • The work was done by Casliber and Vaughan. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:00, 17 June 2007 (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 18:36, 20 June 2007.

Manchester City F.C.

Oldelpaso, The Rambling Man, SteveO, Mattythewhite and WikiProject Football notified

With the current issues over the clubs ownership this aricle has started to become a little unstable. I'm a little worried that the overall standered has been dropping. Buc 16:45, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Buc, please notify relevant parties (original FAC nominator, top editors, and relevant WikiProjects) per the instructions at WP:FAR with {{subst:FARMessage|Manchester City F.C.}}, and list the notifications at the top of the FAR as in other examples on this page. Thanks, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:02, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Note Please present examples of where you observe either a stability issue or a degradation, by it in prose, content, referencing, etc, in this article or this FAR will be closed. Joelito (talk) 00:34, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Mainly the Ownership and History sections. Buc 18:33, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

The proposed takeover is not mentioned in the History section, and there is a single paragraph about it in the ownership section (which does indeed need sorting out, I'll take a look). As with more or less any article which reached FA more than a year ago there's probably some areas which could do with touching up, but that strikes me as something which could be done on the talk page (where these issues have not been raised thus far) before bringing it to FAR. Oldelpaso 10:31, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
To me it seems fine. It's two mere sentences, well sourced, with no track of bias. Anyway, as Oldelpaso suggested, this issue might be easily discussed in the article's talk page. --Angelo 17:39, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
As someone who watches the article (but hasn't made any substantial contributions), it doesn't seem particularly unstable. Currently, its 50th most recent edit dates back to 8th June, and many of those in between are just vandalism anyway. SteveO 21:49, 18 June 2007 (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 20:26, 5 June 2007.

1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens

Messages left at User talk:Maveric149, Volcanoes, Geology, Disaster management and Washington. LuciferMorgan 13:25, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Three sources, no inline citations. Punctured Bicycle 20:57, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

In addition to the citation needs:

  • Attention to WP:UNITS needed throughout (non-breaking hard spaces). The templates {{Convert}} and {{nowrap}} may be useful, since there are so many instances.
  • See also needs pruning per WP:GTL; most of those links could be incorporated into the text or should already be there.

Doesn't look too bad; should be able to retain its star (as all of Mav's articles have). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:47, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

This shouldn't be a problem to fix. I'll start work on the inline cite and unit issues soon. --mav 01:06, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

  • Question? I have never seen a "Main article" template at the top of a main article; isn't the correct usage to just wikilink Mount St. Helens in the lead ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:16, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Image:Mount St. Helens Goolge Earth.png has to be dealt with before May 24. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:31, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Image replaced by USGS PD image. -- MarcoTolo 00:49, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Wow - Thanks to everybody who has helped so far. Much improvement done already. I've been very busy in the real world lately but will start to work the cite issue after the American Idol finale is over. Hopefully everything that needs a cite will be cited by the end of this weekend. --mav 01:01, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Ran out of time tonight. BTW, much of the article was originally PD text I compiled/refactored from here. I plan to create separate cites for each section in that long USGS article. Please try to do the same when creating cites - the article is really too long to not be more specific with cites. --mav 03:47, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
All cites from Fire Mountains of the West added. More cites later from Tilling USGS text. --mav 03:25, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
All cites from USGS precursor articles added. --mav
Well done as usual mav. There's some figures on the cost that could take citation. Otherwise, this can be kept unless Punctured B. has some more comments? Marskell 08:23, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks - Will do. I still have the Tilling text to finish citing. Should be done in a couple days at most. --mav

I think I'm done now. Anything else needs fixing? --mav 02:52, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I've cited/fixed a few more things. I'm happy with it. -- Avenue 14:42, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Looks good, no FARC needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:12, 5 June 2007 (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 13:38, 1 June 2007.

The Country Wife

Review commentary

Messages left: none.
I've moved this article down to FARC earlier than is usually done, but there has surely been enough of the FAR discussion below, please see talkpage. I hope I won't be reverted, and urge the people defending the article's FA status to stop doing that. How important is the FA thing, seriously? (Speaking as the author, though not indeed the owner, of this article.) Let's not cling to FA status, but rather put a stop to these unseemly spectacles. Bishonen | talk 13:31, 1 June 2007 (UTC).

This article is largely uncited. --Flex (talk/contribs) 20:53, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

  • Perhaps Flex missed that in addition to the Notes section, which contains 16 footnotes, there is the following References section:
References
  • Beerbohm, Max (1920). And Even Now. London: William Heinemann.
  • Canfield, Douglas (1997). Tricksters and Estates: On the Ideology of Restoration Comedy. Lexington, Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky.
  • Dixon, Peter (1996). William Wycherley: The Country Wife and Other Plays. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Dobrée, Bonamy (1924). Restoration Comedy 1660–1720. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  • Holland, Norman N. (1959). The First Modern Comedies: The Significance of Etherege, Wycherley and Congreve. Cambridge, Massachusetts.
  • Howe, Elizabeth (1992). The First English Actresses: Women and Drama 1660–1700. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Hunt, Leigh (ed.) (1840). The Dramatic Works of Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh and Farquhar.
  • Kosofsky Sedgwick, Eve (1985). "The Country Wife: Anatomies of male homosocial desire". In Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire, pp. 49—66. New York: Columbia University Press.
  • Macaulay, Thomas Babington (1841). Review of Leigh Hunt, ed. The Dramatic Works of Wycherley, Congreve, Vanbrugh, and Farquhar, in Critical and Historical Essays, Vol. 2. Retrieved 6 February 2005.
  • Ogden, James (ed., 2003.) William Wycherley: The Country Wife. London: A&C Black.
  • Pepys, Samuel (ed. Henry Benjamin Wheatley, 1880). The Diary of Samuel Pepys. Retrieved 14 March 2005.
  • Wilson, John Harold (1969). Six Restoration Plays. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
  • Zimbardo, Rose A. (1965). Wycherley's Drama: A Link in the Development in English Satire. Yale.

This is a considerable amount of sourcing. I fail to see an issue. KillerChihuahua?!? 22:16, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

  • I'd say it has a considerable bibliography, but limited direct references via footnotes, which I'd expect in an FA. For instance, I'd expect a source for the sentence from the intro: "[T]he play reflects an aristocratic and anti-Puritan ideology, and was controversial for its sexual explicitness even in its own time." Likewise throughout. --Flex (talk/contribs) 23:03, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
  • The article has direct quotes that aren't cited. I recommend a complete fact check since something so obvious was missed. Jay32183 22:26, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Amazing how much support this had in its FAC in March 2005, given that something "so obvious" was missed. -- ALoan (Talk) 23:34, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
Standards have changed. Deal with it. Jay32183 00:15, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
I think that's pretty rude, Jay - please try to understand that people are pissed off with the very nature of this 'review', and it inflames the situation needlessly to be so short.... Purples 01:16, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
I really couldn't care less. Jay32183 03:45, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
I don't understand the bit about direct quotes that aren't cited; I don't see any. When I wrote the article, I provided author and page number in footnotes for quotes from secondary sources, complemented by full bibliographic info in the references—a common academic system. Direct quotes from the play itself had, and have, inline cites of the form "(V.iv.169)". From a quick look, this system doesn't seem to have deteriorated any. It's the preferred academic way of refering to passages of dramatic dialogue, especially for older plays that exist in many different edtions with dfferent paginations. It helps the reader finds a passage, no matter what edition they're using. "V.iv,169" stands for Act 5, Scene 4, line 169, and, by convention, it indicates the point where the quote starts. An obvious advantage of this system is that the "point" indicated —the Act, Scene, line which define the quote exactly--is equally easy to find and check in all editions, ancient, modern, or on the web: those don't all even have any page references, but they have acts and scenes, and most of them also line numbering. If such exact citing counts as "uncited," I suggest we save ourselves the argy-bargy and the fraying tempers and de-feature it in short order. I for one won't make a fuss.
The example sentence quoted by flex that he would expect a source for, "[T]he play reflects an aristocratic and anti-Puritan ideology, and was controversial for its sexual explicitness even in its own time," consists of very obvious facts, to people who have studed the field. All sources for Restoration comedy, all scholars of it, would endorse that sentence. It's not, as the Feature Article Criteria put it, "material that is challenged or likely to be challenged". Bishonen | talk 01:05, 31 May 2007 (UTC).
The last sentence of the article is a direct quote that is not cited at all. Jay32183 03:45, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Do you mean ...writes Canfield, "leaving him instead potent and still on the make, the audience laughs at its own expense: the women of quality nervously because they have been misogynistically slandered; the men of quality nervously because at some level they recognize that class solidarity is just a pleasing fiction"? Yes, it's mystery where that quote came from, isn't it? Yomanganitalk 15:56, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Well, to be fair, it could say (Cranfield, p.xxx). But I take your point. I dare say some page numbers could be obtained without traducing the whole article here (insufficient density of dinky footnotes → complete fact check). -- ALoan (Talk) 16:03, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
As I read WP:CITE#When to cite sources, when opinions are expressed, they should be cited. Now perhaps I have misunderstood this guideline, but it appears to me that this has not been followed in this article (my example sentence may not be the best instance of this, but "controversial" does imply there were various opinions on the matter). Also, I don't think the standard for whether something should be cited is whether or not all scholars of Restoration comedy agree that some opinion is accurate. --Flex (talk/contribs) 17:06, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

This review is at best silly, and at worst an embarrassment - hopefully so much so that it might help clarify some important issues. Flex - you nominated an article with a very short reason, that in itself isn't ever going to be an appropriate one. I hope you might see that it's kind of frustrating / disheartening. You see, inline citations are great when appropriate, but should never be seen as an inherently good thing. Or to put it another way, to bring this article here, your assertion should be "this article doesn't have inline citations, and it would benefit from them / more of them" - that at least begins a conversation. If this is your assertion (and hey, that's cool!), please say so, and explain why you think they'd help, and we'll get into it.....

It's pretty clear from even the most cursory glance at the article that it's one we should be hugely proud of - so.. er.. keep featured or give it the badge or what a silly review, of course it's great - i guess my 'non' vote is pretty clear! - cheerio - Purples 01:28, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry if my nomination was too short. I honestly didn't realize it would be so controversial. In short, yes, I am suggesting additional inline citations should be added where appropriate, and that apart from those, I was under the impression that it didn't meet the criteria for a FA. --Flex (talk/contribs) 17:06, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
It would help if you could be more specific, which FA criteria do you think it fails to meet? Yomanganitalk 17:11, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
I mean criterion 1(c). --Flex (talk/contribs) 17:14, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
1(c) says: "...claims are verifiable against reliable sources and accurately represent the related 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 for quotations and for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged." I don't suppose you consider it not to meet any of the first part, do you? In which case we are down to the old bugbear of "complemented by inline citations for quotations and for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged". The quotations have inline citations (some don't have footnotes, but they are attributed in the text), though perhaps, as ALoan says above, they could have a page number, which means we come down to "material that is challenged or likely to be challenged". If you can point out any instances where that is the case, it would be helpful. To take your example, "controversial" refers to the play rather than the analysis, saying the play was uncontroversial would be liable to be challenged, saying it was controversial is not likely to be, so doesn't require its own inline citation. Yomanganitalk 23:26, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
There is no "only" in there. Any opinion, analysis, or measurement requires a citation even if no one is likely to challenge it because of WP:NPOV and WP:NOR. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jay32183 (talk • contribs).
Sure. I'll get back to you soon. --Flex (talk/contribs) 23:43, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Speedy keep and I'd recommend some very stern administrative warnings for violations of civility by "Jay32183." This is one of the best articles on the whole of Wikipedia. I don't see a single citation need, much less a preponderance, which is what would be needed for a review (rather than...gasp!...contacting the primary author and asking for a citation for a troublesome passage.... heavens! I can't be suggesting communicating with people instead of listing things for deletion or review can I? what a horrible thought!). This review is so far out of bounds, both in its nomination and its conduct as to be a very, very serious indictment of those involved. Utgard Loki 15:17, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
    • I recommended a fact check and people got offended. If you get offended by a suggestion for a fact check then you are not deserving of my respect as an edittor or a person. Calling me uncivil so you don't have to do any work on the article is completely asinine. This article is no where near Wikipedia's best. Jay32183 19:31, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
      • Oh? Let's see: Things have changed? From when? You were here? You know how they've changed? "I could care less" seems to be the best summary of your attitude, in fact. The best thing you've said, though, is that this is far from the best, because that begs the question, What is the best that this article falls so far short of? As for "doing work," I suggest that you start writing some better articles, because I don't see any work to do on The Country Wife. It's already one of the best articles on the site. If you don't agree, then give us all a vision of the golden ideal that we should be aiming for. Oh, and please invest in a good dictionary, or use Wiktionary in a pinch, on "asinine." Either it doesn't mean what you think it does or you're so far off base as to be incomprehensible. Utgard Loki 13:03, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Jay32183: I am sure that your have the best of intentions, but I find your tone rather unhelpful.

You say there are direct quotes without citation. As far as I can see, it would generally be more accurate (and perhaps even politer) to say that the quotes are not cited to your satisfacation. I may have missed some, but they all seem to expressly or by implication attribute the quotes to one of the works listed in the references section.

You then say that all of the facts in the article need checking, because something "so obvious" as citing direct quotes was missed. Again, I repeat: many respected wikipedians contributed to the FAC a couple of years ago. Did they all miss something that is "so obvious"? In any event, what gives you reason to think that the whole article needs checking? Given that Bishonen wrote the article and is still here (indeed, has contributed above) can't you see that it is rather offensive for you to breeze in and demand that all of the facts be checked, as if she may be trying to mislead us all or could have made it up? Are you going to "check" the facts for us, perhaps?

You tell me that standards have changed, and I need to "deal" with that. Well, I was here in 2005, and I am here now. I am well aware that many people now see a high density of footnotes as some kind of proxy for good citation. I am also aware (as perhaps you are too) that there is a aubstantial body of opinion that citation of the sort that you seem to require can be overdone, and "high density" citation can be as bad or worse than "low density" citation. Have you seen (to pick a recent example) Horace François Bastien Sébastiani de La Porta?

This is indeed a fine article, and someone (viz. Bishonen) spent considerable time and care writing it. Rather than denigrating the whole article, it may have been more productive, and less likely to cause umbrage, if you have pointed out exactly which quotes you think need more explicit citation. But then you say that could not care less that some people think you are rude. It makes me slightly sad that you don't seem to care how rude other people think you are. O tempora... I would have suggested that you could try being a bit more sensitive about other people's feelings, but perhaps you don't care about that either. -- ALoan (Talk) 21:18, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

  • ALoan, I haven't cared what you thought for a very long time. You have never once demonstrated that you understand the point of inline citations and I consider you a very bad edittor for that. Maintianing civility in this situation is a bad idea because the stupid people will gang up and make sure nothing gets accomplished. I'd rather hurt your feelings and get something done than be nice and accomplish nothing. And if I'm going to accomplish nothing either way then there's no point in being nice. Jay32183 21:57, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Jay, I don't think the options are limited to acting civilly and getting nothing done and acting uncivilly and accomplishing much. Let's aim for civility and getting something done along the way. Life is full of compromises; this is one of them. --Flex (talk/contribs) 22:52, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
right, ALoan is a bad 'edittor'. 100 of Jay3 clones would still fall short of ALoan. and would be unbelievably annoying too boot. you have no idea what you are talking about, go home kid. 83.243.58.152 05:28, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, ALoan. /bishonen hands ALoan her shitsuit. Here, use this. Jay, is your aim to make FAR/FARC so unpleasant that no ordinary editors with ordinary regard for the social niceties feel able to use it? Because that's getting to be the effect you have. Please stop spitting before you find yourself blocked. Bishonen | talk 22:57, 31 May 2007 (UTC).
If I can't suggest that people perform a fact check then Wikipedia is a complete waste of my time. But it is really you who are making me waste my time by not properly citing sources. I would have been nice if you were new users, or didn't immdiately question me. But since you are experienced users my official position is "Cite your sources or go fuck yourself." Call me uncivil all you want, but what needs to change is the quality of sourcing on Wikipedia. Jay32183 23:02, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
I would argue what needs to change is the quality of the sourcing on Wikipedia and your attitude toward fellow editors. I completely agree that you should be able to request a fact check without offending people, and I frankly I think you may be reading too much into their responses on that account. Please remember that WP:CIVIL is official policy, not a semi-optional guideline. --Flex (talk/contribs) 23:17, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Gosh, Jay32183 - "couldn't care less" ... "not deserving of my respect as an edittor [sic] or a person" ... "asinine" ... "stupid people" ... "go fuck yourself" - is this how you accomplish things? You catch more flies with honey, you know.

I repeat: which statements do you think need additional citation? Are you going to undertake this "complete fact check" for us? -- ALoan (Talk) 10:39, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi Flex (and Jay's attitude is befuddling - perhaps The Country Wife touched a nerve? - just play nice if you can!) - thanks for your willingness to respond about this. I noticed that you expanded on your initial nomination slightly, saying you think inline citations should be added where appropriate - could you further say where you think they'd be appropriate? Sorry if you feel caught up in a storm, but what you seem to be saying is not just 'this article doesn't have inline citations' (true!) - but also that it should have - where? - thanks! - Purples 23:37, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I'll get more specific shortly. Thanks for your patience! --Flex (talk/contribs) 23:43, 31 May 2007 (UTC)


FARC commentary

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 12:16, 21 June 2007.

Belgium

Review commentary

Messages left at User talk:Vb, Belgium and Countries. LuciferMorgan 13:50, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Note on closing: listed at WP:FFA as re-promoted.

This article has been considered a feautured article in 2004, but in my opinion the quality currently needs a lot of attention. My main concern regarding this featured article is 1.c. (many parts are unreferenced). A less important concern is 2.a. (style, such as the use of "one"). Another more minor concern is 1.b. (for instance the lack of a "Military" section, which is usually part of a country page, and in the case of Belgium which currently participates and has recently participiated in several peacekeeping missions, I think such a section could be appopriate). Also, 4. could be problematic as it seems that certain sections contain trivia (such as "On December 1, 2005, Father Damien was chosen as the Greatest Belgian of all time by the Flemish VRT, whereas the Walloons chose Jacques Brel."). Sijo Ripa 11:09, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

  • At 1.c concerns I think most sections are sufficiently referenced except for the culture section, which is indeed lacking references. This needs attention
  • At 2.a - concise lead section. I think the lead section requires some copyedit. Also it seems a bit lenghty and overly detailed for a lead section. More importantly I think the information template box which is part of the lead section has grown to ridiculous size which is over 1.5 screen length. Although I realize this is a problem that extends beyond the Belgium article alone, there should be put an end to the endless growth of this infobox somewhere.
  • At 1.b I am not sure whether the military section is so much of an oversight. It is referred to in other sections, and a link to military of Belgium is given in the 'see also' section. And after all Belgium is not a very militaristic country, so IMHO as section on their military would put undue weight on that.
  • at 4. The article is 46 KB long. Although lengthier than generally recommended, this is not very long for a country article. Especially if you take into account the amount of navigation templates; see also's and references given. I do not think this is a big problem.
  • An additional comment regarding 2.c. The table of contents should imho not be collapsed.

I think this is repairable although some effort may be required. Arnoutf 14:46, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

    • The length of the lead has been reduced.
    • I don't understand how one could add references to the culture section. Do we have to add a reference to prove that Jacques Brel was a famous Belgian singer. I think the references belong to the Jacques Brel article and not here! Vb 09:31, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
According to WP:REF other Wiki articles should not be used as reference; so anythig you use in the Belgium article should be supported by references in the Belgium article. However, I am not talking about Jacques Brel being A fmous singer as that is a well supported thing and I agree adding a reference for that would be overdoing it (if the section would state Jacques Brel was THE SINGLE MOST famous Belgian singer ever - THAT would require a reference within this article). However not all statements in the article are this straightforwaord. Other issues in the culture section are written as fact wihout any reference; and without a way to figure out how to confirm it. Examples (not all maybe equally important and there maybe more, but you will get the idea) where very strong claims are made without any support from refereneces are: "Belgian cultural life has tended to concentrate within each community. The shared element is less important," (opening line! - clear statement as a fact, no reference provided); "Belgium is well-known for its fine art and architecture." (says who -reference needed and this goes for every following example); "This rich artistic production, often referred to as a whole as Flemish art, gradually declined during the second half of the seventeenth century."(says who) "In music, Adolphe Sax invented the saxophone in 1846."(to a lesser extent as this is easily checked elsewhere, but a reference would neverhteless strengthen the section), "Georges Lemaître is a famous Belgian cosmologist credited with proposing the Big Bang theory of the origin of the universe in 1927" (this is not the most essential problem as it can be checked elsewhere), "One cannot understand Belgian cultural life without considering the folk festivals, which play a major role in the country's cultural life." (this is a bold statement though, not supported by either logical argument nor reference); "A major non-official holiday is the Saint Nicholas Day, which commemorates the festival of the children and, in Liège, of the students." (says who); "Football and cycling are especially popular." (based on what statistics; without source nobody can disprove bull fighting is more popular), "Belgium is well known for its cuisine. Many highly ranked restaurants can be found in the high-impact gastronomic guides, such as the Michelin Guide." (provid ref to at least the michelin guide, but the statement is again very bold; well konwn to whom; do HongKong Chinese come up with Belgium when asked for well known cuisines???); "Brands of Belgian chocolate, like Neuhaus, and Godiva, are world renowned and widely sold. In addition to chocolate, Belgian sweets have a reputation of very high quality." (says who); "Belgians have a reputation for loving waffles and french fries (both originate from Belgium)." (who has proven this?); "The national food is steak (or mussels) with french fries and lettuce." (says who?).
Anyway, I hope you get the idea that this section is underreferenced. Arnoutf 21:13, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are referencing (1c), style (2), comprehensiveness (1b), and trivia (4). Marskell 05:04, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

The page has been utterly restructured since the 24th of April. [1] In particular, many references have been added and much has done towards NPOV. Please let the the editors know what is really still to be done. Vb11:14, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

This solves my worries for the referencing of the culture section. Arnoutf 20:21, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

To do:

  • Address a whole lot of unformatted footnotes and sources (see WP:CITE/ES)
  • See also is interesting; a lot of that content should be in this article (education, crime, for instance) Also, this sentence is poor prose, and should be handled via a template or including in See also list ... (See also Religion in Belgium.)
  • The TOC concerns me; there are numerous sections included in other articles which aren't included here, giving rise to concern about comprehensiveness. Where are, for example, Health, Education, Crime, Recreation, Military  ? Are they only in See also ?
  • WP:DASH attention throughout. Hyphen (-) is used to hyphenate words, ndash (–) is used to separate ranges of dates and numbers, mdash (—) is used for punctuation.
  • Copy edit needs, sample sentence:
    • A survey published in 2006 by the Université Catholique de Louvain, demonstrated the "undoubtedly wellknown" better multilingualism in Flanders to be considerable: 59% of the Flemish respondents can speak French, 53% English; the Walloons on the other hand, merely 19% Dutch, 17% English; of the Brussels' population, 95% declare to speak French, 59% Dutch, English is known by 41%.
  • Footnote placement; why isn't this footnote, for example, at the end of the sentence? A 2003 report[26] suggested that the water in Belgium's rivers was of the lowest quality in Europe, and bottom of the 122 countries studied.
  • See WP:GTL; See also, Main, Further information etc. templates belong at the top of the section.

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:15, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

We're approaching a month of review, and it doesn't look like issues are being addressed; feedback from editors? I'm a Remove if issues aren't addressed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:07, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
Second look; I am still in the Remove category. Most of the issues I enumerated above are not addressed, there are still unformatted footnotes and references as well as dead links in the footnotes, and issues of comprehensiveness, but of particular concern are the copyedit needs. The article is still in need of an independent, complete copyedit. Here is a sample sentence from Education:
Mirroring the historical political conflicts between the freethought and Catholic segments of the population, the Belgian educational system in each community is split into a laïque branch controlled by the communities, the provinces, or the municipalities, and a subsidized religious —mostly Catholic— branch controlled by both the communities and the religious authorities — usually the dioceses though the religious authorities within Catholic schools have limited power.
SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:12, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Remove unless properly copy-edited. Here are random examples from the lead that suggest that the whole text needs attention.
    • "In the Dutch-speaking northern region Flanders lives 58% of the population." Marked word order here is inappropriate, indeed awkward.
    • "which also include"—"also" is idle, as usual.
    • "has been dubbed "the battlefield of Europe"[11] or "the cockpit of Europe"." No, "and". Tony 00:51, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Remove per above reasoning. LuciferMorgan 14:33, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

This big article is currently being edited according to the reviewers' lines. We need a bit more time to do the job. Greetings. Vb 09:21, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Hold. Active editing amongst the vandal reverts. We can wait. Marskell 20:22, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

  • Keep Several editors have spent serious effort in addressing the comments. In general they seem to have done a good job. Especially citing, footnotes and sources have been improved dramatically. The editors involved have added several sections (e.g. education) but (IMHO) have used their good judgement in this and have not added sections that are of little relevance for the Beglium situation (e.g. Military). What is done in other country articles should be used as a guideline, not a benchmark. Some minor copy-editing will always be needed especially for an article maintained in large part by non-native speakers. I think minor copy-editing should not be a reason to revoke FA status otherwise Wiki will become very much (more) biased towards information of primary interest to UK and US users. In brief, although the article is not perfect, IMHO its editors have seriously addressed the comments and have seriously improved the article; and I think the FA status should not be revoked at this time; I can only hope they will maintain their quest for quality in the future. Arnoutf 09:19, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Patience is a virtue. SandyGeorgia's remark of June 5th is not correct, all of the issues have been addressed: all hyphenations are ready; with many new references, nearly all 100 footnotes were not just basically formatted, but most often also corrected after verification (language, format, author links, publisher, quotes); all footnotes and 'see also' are in place. As several other contributors, I disagree with a demand on sections about military (nearly absent: 40,000 and being steadily downsized towards a planned 27,000), crime (nothing specific apart from a different approach on law and order, and justice, beween north and south though no hot discussion — another reason not to go into the subject as being NPOV would cause undue weight on the topic), nothing remarkable about health (a bit more notable is the social security system, including health insurance, but this requires a separate article and would not induce the most interesting prose). Education and religion became short subsections, without pretence to be complete. Apart from basic data, the article tries to hold the reader's attention by mainly handling the generally known but often badly understood specificities of Belgium, and the little known but remarkable features. The infamous "undoubtedly wellknown" sentence is my doing and was slightly improved, but after discussion on the talk page, I've prepared a revised version of it (to be put in later tonight).
    I and assumedly other contributors do have a paid job. A mere month to bring a deteriorated and largely unreferenced article into shape is very short, especially on a country with notoriously different cultures causing strong sensitivities; a wakening call was appropriate but time pressure is unacceptable. At the moment there appears to be a lively discussion about details on the talk page, though not on content. Sunday, national federal elections are held and then a coalition is to be formed; one should thus expect rather heated debates and higher vulnarability for vandalism during a few more weeks. The FARC should not have started in the advent of such period, this is not a proper time for final decisions on FA status. Note however, that the politics section already anticipates on a newly formed government after copy/editing to avoid terms like 'former' or 'present' governments, and will be stable apart from some people quickly getting the 'news' appended. Kind regards. — SomeHuman 05 Jun 2007 18:10 (UTC)
  • Request for advice. The section on Communities and regions now includes the 'linguistic regions' aka 'language areas' (current article 4 of the Constitution) which were formed during the then unitary state and with which all six newer subdivisions coincide, and a table showing their relationships, as well as underneath it a short description of the matters for which the different levels are enpowered. An opponent would rather push the institutional language areas out of the main presentation and table, while spending a lengthy paragraph on them further down (see suggestion on talk page, his text is in grey colour). I know this to be chronologically and logically unsound, but would appreciate an outsider's opinion (please take the time to read the relevant footnotes etc so as not to jump to conclusions). — SomeHuman 05 Jun 2007 18:31 (UTC)
Well, we might be a keep on references, but we still have prose like this in the very first parts of the article:
  • "Another 10% inhabits the officially bilingual Brussels-Capital Region, for approximately 85% using French." (Ungrammatical)
  • "The present-day countries Belgium and Luxembourg had a course of history distinguishable from that of the Netherlands from the sixteenth century onwards." (Not ungrammatical, but very bad.)
The prose absolutely has to be gone over. Marskell 20:23, 5 June 2007 (UTC)
I reworded those two phrases and a few others that had been criticized. Because the article was written by many authors, not all mastering the language and aware of style, the numerous copy/edits surely caused some concoctions that its regular contributors by now became used to. A read-over by a native speaker of (British) English would detect errors and unfortunately phrased passages as well as uneasy changes of style. We would appreciate further remarks. Yours cordially. — SomeHuman 06 Jun 2007 00:36 (UTC)
As examples that the article hasn't yet been thoroughly completed: here are two completely unformatted references, both dead links: ^ Digest of Education Statistics 2003, US National Education Statistics, and ^ United Nation Development Programme If there is no content to discuss on certain topics, why are those topics then included as See also? But the bigger issue to be addressed is the need for a copyedit by someone unfamiliar with the text. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:03, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm very grateful for pointing out the dead links (outside WP thus not in red and hard to find), but utterly amazed at your second remark: Wikipedia guidelines suggest the 'See also' section not to include links that are already in the article text. Handling a topic there would cause either a direct link or 'See also' at top of the section, leaving nothing under 'See also' at the end — and such goes for all articles. On WP and elsewhere, See also is generally used precisely to direct the reader towards details or highly specific topics that do not quite deserve a place in the article at hand. I doubt if an actual copy/edit is desirable: such would require someone not only unfamiliar with the (present state of) the text, but at the same time very familiar with the topic. I assume it might be easier to have someone with average knowledge about the topic but a very good sense of style and language, to make only the most obvious improvements and further point out where problems occur and present suggestions. Kind regards. — SomeHuman 06 Jun 2007 19:22 (UTC)
Just because it's been up so long, I was going to edit through it over the next few days. Too much has been done to close this suddenly. Marskell 20:18, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Update The references are now clean, although some of the sourcing in the Culture section isn't high quality and not all appear to be reliable sources. On the other hand, the copyedit need remains. I'm unable to make even minor copyediting changes, as I can't decipher the meaning of some of the sentences. In particular, see the Lanaguages section. It mentions three languages before saying what they are, has sentences starting with numbers, and has a number of sentences whose meaning I can't decipher. If that section is typical of the rest of the article, a thorough run-through by an independent copyeditor is needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:45, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
One is not supposed to read a subsection far down in an article without having read at least the introduction. The "three official languages" mentioned are obvious from the lead, and of course most clear by the Communities and regions section. Furthermore, in that Languages section they are all three mentioned in a following sentence, which is soon enough: till then, precisely which three languages remains utterly irrelevant for the validity and understandability of the statements. For proper understanding, one should read an article, not haphazardly pick a paragraph and see whether one can make sense out of it. That counts double for the most intricate part, as the introduction's second paragraph —on those languages— ends with: "This linguistic diversity often leads to political and cultural conflict and is reflected in Belgium's complex system of government and political history".
There is only one sentence starting with "59% of the Belgian population...". Further down, a figure occurs behind ":" in a proper manner: "... showing this lead to be considerable : 59% of the Flemish respondents...". It is not an error against the English language or style, to phrase it like that, and it would be completely impossible to state "... showing this lead to be considerable : Fifty-nine percent of the Flemish respondents..." because several other percentages follow and having to compare fully written-out figures would not make the section more easy for you. And that one other sentence comes after a most clear announcement that figures will follow: "Figures here given for Dutch, French or German include foreign immigrants and their children for whom neither is necessarily the primary language. 59% of the Belgian population...". Perhaps indeed, that "." should be a ":" (fixed). Kind regards. — SomeHuman 10 Jun 2007 03:16 (UTC)
I also agree: this whole paragraph should be copyedited. It is however not possible because SomeHuman is sitting on this article as a watch dog. Have a look at all his reversal! Vb 18:57, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
...And at the edit comments starting with '84.175.' and the talk page since May 21, including so much later my accusations of 'Vb' being an anon troll using dozens of IPs which do not allow properly following Vb's edits —though signing Vb on the talk page— deliberately sabotaging FA by starting edit warring unless free to get all well-argumented and even admittedly correct and needed information brought to inappropriate out-of-sight places or eliminated entirely, as soon as it does no longer confirm Vb's clear POV. Furthermore, most of Vb's edits are in too clumsy English and on several occasions invoked by a false interpretation of the language, the others are mainly eliminations, leaving very little to build on to improve the article. May I remind everyone that I had explicitly made a 'Request for advice' here (precisely because of Vb's continuous picking on the section 'Communities and regions'), and had asked for a read-over by a native speaker of (British) English. Please, do not let a troll influence the FAR. Kind regards. — SomeHuman 12 Jun 2007 05:01 (UTC)
  • This review has been up for seven weeks, and copyedit needs are not being addressed. The sourcing is quite good in some places, but marginal source are used in others (example Culture has some commercial sources which may not meet WP:RS, and others like about.com, where anyone can become an editor, and data in demographics and economics is not extensively cited). Statements like "Belgium has a particularly open economy.[12]" shouldn't be sourced to the Belgian government, rather an independent source. I'll have to be a Remove soon if progress isn't apparent in finishing up here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:43, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
Sandy, you are not being quite reasonable: You already declared the sources clean on the 9th of June with a minor reservation for culture. One should not always expect official or scolared sources for culture as there will not be an interest for all aspects, and sometimes an in many ways unreliable source can reliably demonstrate the relevance of specificities. You fact-tagged a statement of Belgium having one of the highest gdp/capita though the figure for Belgium is in the World factbook under General online sources. That does not compare it with other EU countries, but should the figure not suffice as it allows anyone interested to make comparisons him/herself? Did you perhaps forget to check those sources that serve as reference for several statements in the article? With no less than 25 references in the Demographics section (apart from e.g. World Factbook, and Country Portal that links to a number of obvious tables), you should be a bit more specific as to what is "not sufficiently cited". About 50,000 bytes of this article goes already to referencing. If the Belgian government describing itself cannot be used for a reference, which office or institution do you think to be so overwhealmingy objective? As long as there is no decent source shown, declaring the contrary about the openness of the economy, it should do fine.
I suggest an independent source (something like The Economist comes to mind) for sourcing an opinion about the openness of the economy. If there is no independent source, then the Government's opinion could be deleted. Since you've seemed somewhat resistant to considering any suggestions for improving the article, I'll leave that as my final comment. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:54, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
Copyedit needs are not being addressed? We're waiting for Marskell who was going to do this 'in the next few days', declared on June the 6th... But even without such, it is not at all reasonable to state that copyedit needs are not being addressed. You can see that really a lot has been done to that respect since the FARC: I made a comparison between the June 13th (current) and May 24th (FARC) versions after bringing images and (♥marked if herein moved from the authentic location♠) paragraphs of the OLD in line with the current version, both without italics/wikilinks/references/etc. so that the actual text can be compared: pre-FARC versus CURRENT text. Many of the changes are mine but of course not all, and the current version is about as good as I will be able to get it: someone less familiar with the article than me, preferrably an educated native speaker of British English, should have a close reading. Before making other than very obvious improvements, he/she should best look at the comparing link here above, to understand which sensibilities and intricate nuances might have played (or not), so as to fully maintain or improve the essential qualities.
If you think even more time should be spent at referencing because surely there must always remain something that can still be improved, your apparent impatience appears out of place. Kind regards. — SomeHuman 13 Jun 2007 23:57 (UTC)
  • POV and copy edit tag. Several paragraphs went down hill since this article's second featuring. Due to some edit war between Vb and SomeHuman, it is very difficult to change the phrasing of those pars. I recommend the reviewers of this article to observe the evolution of this edit war before deciding whether or not they vote for the keeping of this article's featured status. Vb 07:27, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
Vb calls WP:NPOV "POV" see e.g. talk page Vb 07:06, 15 June 2007 & SomeHuman 2007-06-15 10:50, and VB's 'changing' always means a full revert to proven false (and of course unreferenced) statements, e.g. talk page Vb 06:55, 15 June 2007 / SomeHuman 2007-06-15 10:26. Vb is tagging for 'copyedit' and 'POV' only those sections that Vb absolutely insists to be POV without any WP-based argument and edited for NPOV, in which sections Vb wants a clear POV introduced instead. It is then clear what Vb calls "down hill": referenced corrections of paragraphs that had needed copyediting in as much as to have caused the FARC and because of —precisely those paragraphs— having been addressed, could allow FAR. The entire article needs a copyedit review, which Marskell appears to have (just) started. — SomeHuman 15 Jun 2007 10:58–11:27 (UTC)
Reviewer stating that the article need cpoyedit points systematically at par which have been written recently not the ones written during the 2nd featuring process. However SomeHuman keep saying his English is perfect and is modyfing old par which had been the object of long discussions among editors. One cannot modify such paragraph without strong arguments. If one does so one destroy the balance of this article. 84.175.217.163 11:33, 15 June 2007 (UTC) (Aka Vb

To me this calls into question of how lenient we can be regarding Featured Articles -the fact there is an Edit War and Neutrality and Copyedit tags slap bang in the top of the article makes me feel it should be speedily removed and renominated at a later date. I am hoping someone can give me a reason to change a Remove vote.cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:54, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

One more week, let's say. I've started plodding. Though if SomeHuman and Vb remain dead opposed over content it may not be possible to keep it featured. Marskell 17:26, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep. I've done some work on it to make myself happy with it. I didn't read much of what was written above or the talk page so if I stepped on anyone's toes feel free to edit (as always). It passes my interpretation of the criteria. My further suggestions for improvement are (a) dumb down the "Communities and regions" section (only give the essential for understanding and leave the rest to the sub-article, pictures are good), (b) remove the "Science and technology" section (no disrespect to whomever wrote it, but currently it is just a list of notable people, has little to do with the country), (c) shuffle the "Languages" and "Religion" sub-sections to the "Culture" section (I just think that is a better place for them), (d) use Summary Style on the "Culture" section with the article "Culture of Belgium" (currently the "Culture" section is 7kB larger than the article). --maclean 09:59, 16 June 2007 (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 08:07, 1 June 2007.

Bahá'í Faith

Review commentary

Messages left at User talk:Dmcdevit and Religion. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:57, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

doesn't have criticism section suffers from over all POV, ignores criticism section guidelines comparison with islam christianity articles —Preceding unsigned comment added by Esmehwp (talk • contribs)

  • Uh... huh? JuJube 11:15, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Not sure what the editor is contesting, and they don't cite the "guidelines" the article "ignores". Wonder if this is in good faith. MARussellPESE 12:29, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Comment Lead needs expansion, it might be a little oversectionalized, other than that at a quick glance I don't see any other MoS issues. I fixed a "didn't" and two section headers that began with "The". Dates look fine, Summary style is employed well, I don't have any knowledge on the subject so I couldn't speak as to content accuracy and/or POV. Quadzilla99 05:40, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
    • Okay, apparently "The Bab" and "The Convenant" are the way those two are referred to in Bahá'í circles so another user re-inserted them in the section titles. Reviewers should note that. Quadzilla99 14:26, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
      • Here's a couple of minor things that could be fixed:
        • "differing from the other traditions only in its relative newness and in the appropriateness of Bahá'u'lláh's teachings to the modern context." Newness just sounds weird to me, a better word could probably be found.
        • There's a couple of times when things such as "[the faith] is seen as" or "Bahá'ís beliefs are sometimes described as" are without a source, like the second paragraph of the section titled Religion.
        • There are some constructions that I'd like to see use stronger, more definite language: "Although it concentrates on social and ethical issues as well, some of the Bahá'í Faith's foundational texts might be described as mystical."
        • "Study circles" section doesn't have any citations.
        • Since homosexuality is outlawed, maybe the article could use some more coverage of that issue, instead of one sentence mentioning it's outlawed with a link to a subpage discussing the issue.
        • The Persecution section deals with presecution since 1979, I realize earlier persecution is dealt with in the history section, but maybe some earlier incidents merit mention here. Quadzilla99 15:09, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
          • Comment - I have changed the article to address the above suggestions, though the persecution section might be too long now. Thanks for taking the time to look into it. Regards, -- Jeff3000 17:41, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
            • Wow, instant service! Thanks for addressing those so quick, this should be able to avoid FARC. One more thing to nitpick over, I was actually more unhappy with the weakness of the word "might" in the sentence quoted above, "has been" or "have been" might be better. Quadzilla99 18:01, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are comprehensiveness (1b) and POV (1d). Marskell 03:54, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Keep per my comments on FARC. Quadzilla99 00:45, 21 May 2007 (UTC)
    • To be clear I'm keep but as for points for future improvement—the lead could be expanded per WP:LEAD, there a lot of sections but I think they present a logical division; maybe they can be reduced somehow but I don't see how in most cases personally (the two international plans could be combined though maybe), you could condense the multiple refs using the system in Tourette Syndrome, and some of the lists could perhaps be converted into prose (such as the one in the "United Nations" section). But I don't see any of these as major problems; as I said in some instances I personally don't see any other way to present the information. Quadzilla99 00:57, 21 May 2007 (UTC)