Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Featured log/February 2006

1928 Okeechobee Hurricane

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Self-nomination. My fellow tropical cyclone editors have aggreed this is one of the best and (considering time period and available information) most complete tropical cyclone articles (discussion can be found on the wikiproject talk page). I've been working on this article for a while, and I think I've finally got it structured and written to my satisfaction. — jdorje (talk) 03:28, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I like it. Here are a few problems I see (sorry I didn't tell you them earlier :)
  • Structuring of the Florida section. The aftermath picture on the left is a little big, so perhaps it could be split up into three? Another option would be to move the most intense at landfall table up to the storm history section; maybe put it just below the infobox.
Much better now with larger picture. Hurricanehink
  • Possibly more Puerto Rico damage.
Figures. Oh well. You should avoid using the same word in two consecutive sentences, like damage and damage in the Caribbean impact. Also, the Bahamas is not Caribbean, yet should fall in the same category as Puerto Rico and islands. Not sure the best way to fix that. Maybe Atlantic impact, or something else, but Caribbean is a little misleading (it only spent a little bit of time there). Hurricanehink
  • Is there any information in the impact up the coast? It made landfall in Florida, paralleled the Georgia and Carolina coastline, then turned northwest inland.

*Personally, I don't think too much should be in parenthesis. (perhaps but not impossible), (older sources usually list 3,411 as the total count of fatalities, including the Caribbean), or (but note all such measurements are suspect) are some of those I found that could easily be included into actual sentences.

Great job with this. Hurricanehink
  • Some parts are a little point of view, IMO, including the perhaps but not impossible, as well as the eerie similarity. Eerie? It was named San Felipe Segundo due to the date. You could explain San Felipe like you did, then mention the coincidence.
Overall, well done. I vote no right now, but with a little love it could be the next FA. Hurricanehink 03:55, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
All good points. Too bad you didn't mention them before it was nominated!
  • Florida: These pictures are pretty representative from what I can tell, but being a triple-picture makes it harder to distinguish. There is a gallery at commons:Category:1928 Okeechobee Hurricane; maybe a better picture is available.
  • AFAICT there is no information available on damage in Puerto Rico (which was catastrophic), or in Guadeloupe (which was possibly even more catastrophic), or in the Bahamas (which we can assume was catastrophic), or in the rest of the United States (which was probably fairly mild). There's little enough info about coastal damage, though the gallery includes a lot of pictures. Perhaps you could find something however.
  • I reworded some parts to remove the POV and unnecessary parenthesis.
— jdorje (talk) 04:30, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
When I get home from school, I'll try taking a look to see if there's something on non-Florida US damage. Again, sorry I didn't mention it earlier, but this is the first time I tried looking at it without a hurricane writer's point of view. One more thing, don't use too many short sentences. For the most part that is not a problem, but, for example, you say Then it moved over the Bahamas. You could say, The hurricane continued to the northwest, and moved over the Bahamas with estimated winds of Category 4 status. Something like that is better than saying, then it moved over the Bahamas. Then should not be used too much. Replace it with a verb, like continued or something else. It just seems a little too vernacular to start a sentence, IMO. Still, good job. Hurricanehink 16:19, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Well structured article. The information is detailed, but not excessively so. The images are well-positioned. The article flows well, it's not just a heap of information. Word choice is excellent. The inline sources are well placed. FA quality article IMO. -- §HurricaneERIC§Damagesarchive 22:47, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support with recommendation: Because several sections attempt to construct paragraphs along the lines of "the storm here, the storm there, the storm over there," they end up with quite lopsided development. Where the storm hit unpopulated areas, there isn't much to say, and where it hit heavy concentrations, there is a great deal. It's probably better to organize non-chronologically, by order of severity, and use internal cues to let the reader know the timeframe (which is well established at the lead anyway). Secondly, the "records" section sticks out a bit. The caveats contained in it are necessary and useful to readers, but perhaps they should be folded into the main narrative earlier (at the discussion of storm strength) rather than isolated. In isolation, they disrupt the flow of the article's narrative. These are recommendations, however, and not objections, so I support and merely see a way to make it better. Geogre 15:15, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I merged the records section in with the body of the storm history. It does flow a little better now. The "caveats" could be shortened or removed since such caveats really apply to any storm prior to about 1995 (although for older storms they are stronger). — jdorje (talk) 23:17, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - very interesting, well written. Some minor suggestions - briefly explain Cape Verde-type where it's linked to. Also, the sentence Damage was not reported but was presumably catastrophic is purely speculative and I don't think the article would suffer if it was removed. And Most survivors and bodies were washed out into the Everglades where many were never found implies that the survivors were then swept to their deaths - is this the intent? Worldtraveller 00:47, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Interesting points. I changed the wording of all three places slightly. As for being "washed out into the Everglades", my understanding is that pretty much everything was washed out into the everglades. The bodies were never found, while the survivors (i.e., the ones who weren't swept to their deaths) had to walk out of the marshes. (This comes mostly from one of the sources, IIRC from a first-hand account included in one of the newspaper articles.) — jdorje (talk) 01:09, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak no - It is practically done, but I'm trying to find some references of some U.S. impact (no Florida). So far I've found North Carolina (it caused 5 inches of rain, high tides, and strong winds). The link is here. The reason I did not add it is because there's not enough information for another section with just that. Another thing; it says not until Hurricane Dog were stronger winds measured. What about the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, which had winds of up to 185 mph? The first paragraph of the storm history was a little boring (too many short sentences), so I changed it. Hopefully that's OK, as I felt the previous wording was a little sub-par. The article is getting there, though. Hurricanehink 01:46, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Here's a link for Hurdat, showing the 185 mph winds. [1] Hurricanehink 02:20, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I can't read powerpoint files. What does it say? ... Regardless, that is not the hurdat. The master hurdat files are here, and clearly show 160 mph winds. That said, hurdat is subject to being revised and I have reason to believe 1935 is in the not-fully-analyzed period. So I have no problem with softening or removing the statement. — jdorje (talk) 06:58, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, after thinking about this a bit more I can't see what's wrong with the current statement. The LD storm's winds were not measured. In fact it would be easy to argue that the statement is not strong enough, since Dog's winds were measured at flight level, not surface level. It is entirely possible that no storm has had stronger surface winds measured (except by dropsonde, if that counts). Of course this brings us around to the unreliability of any wind measurement, so it's unwise to make any absolute statement since all measurements are suspect. — jdorje (talk) 08:22, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The file is an early revision to what will be released later this year. Given that it's a government site, I'd say it is pretty official. However, because it is not NHC accepted yet, the way you did it is fine. What about the North Carolina impact section? There is some info there that should be mentioned, but how could it work? Hurricanehink 14:03, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Images, tables, infoboxes, references, stability and a well written article are the criteria (for me) for a featured article, since it covers all the criteria I will give it a support.

juan andrés 04:01, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

1996 United States campaign finance controversy

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Self-Nomination --Jayzel68 22:54, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Changed "note" header to "See also." Removed most of the embedded links and replaced them with inline citations. Removed "List of uncooperative witnesses. --Jayzel68 13:40, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Could the newspaper references in the contreversy be converted to footnotes? Another thing - see Wikipedia:Make_only_links_relevant_to_the_context#What_should_be_linked - all full dates should be linked. I believe the quotes should also be referenced, though I'm not absolutely positive about that. AndyZ 23:31, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry about this- I should've been clearer earlier- according to the Wikipedia:Make_only_links_relevant_to_the_context#What_should_be_linked, only full dates should be linked- that is month and day. On the section above it, what not should be linked is only the year or a month and a year. AndyZ 02:10, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Your issues have been addressed. Note: there are a few mentions of newspapers just for flavor, but I still put in the citations. --Jayzel68 01:55, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Date links have been fixed. --Jayzel68 12:55, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What is this sentence trying to get out- The controversy surrounding whether or not to appoint an independent counsel aside, the Justice Department's internal investigation was fruitful in of itself. it seems as if the grammar is slightly off here. AndyZ 01:02, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A couple of other small issues- James Riady is mentioned in the begining of the section as "son"- I'm assuming of Mochtar. He later is mentioned as having gone to the White House 20 times, but I can't draw any clear connection between Riady and Huang, since every other sentence only mentions Huang as doing everything. Is the temple a major figure? Is the lead sentence true (and NPOV), considering that some of the donators denied that they had contact with the chinese government? Another thing, "who donated illegal money" I believe should be "who donated money illegally" since the money itself isn't illegal/counterfeit. Also, watch out for weasel words, I'm not sure if there are many occurrences of weasel words, but "it was reported . . ." is a weasel word- by whom was it reported? Another thing- "The most notable convictions were against" the sentence only mentions one conviction, so it probably should be notable conviction was. AndyZ 20:33, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • First, it would be helpful it you would give me your complaints altogether rather than piecemeal. With that said, I have a addressed your issues regarding "son", "figure", "who donated illegal money", "weasel word", and "notable convictions". As for your issues re: the huang/riady connection and the lead sentence: 1) I have a picture of riady with huang together and I mention huang worked for riady for years and that they were both convicted of donating foreign funds. Huang, specifically through his former employer riady; 2) just because someone denies someone doesn't mean it didn't happen. The FBI, CIA, and Congress came to the conclusion that they did. --Jayzel68 23:37, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Sorry about this article not making FA status- however after this FAC this article looks great and you could probably get it to FA status the next time around. I have to admit: you put a lot of effort into this. As for the second thing about the denials, leaning towards the American view of the scandal would be POV, since you are inferring that something did happen when somebody denies it. Of course given the sitatution that the FBI, CIA, Congress came to the conclusion that they were involved, it seems to be that this statement is true- however to be not WP:POV, it would be best to add into the introduction a short quick viewpoint from the Chinese government. AndyZ 00:56, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object Support - For the reasons above. "List of uncooperative witnesses" for instance... seems extraneous. If it's really encyclopedic, move it to a seperate article and link it. The section has no description of what "Uncooperative" means, or why the list is important. Is it just to show there were a lot of "uncooperative" witnesses (again, what does "uncooperative" mean anyway?)? If so, you could just write, in prose, that there were a lot of them, and then discuss the topic some more. Fix that section, fix the referencing style (move all those links to a "References" section using inline citations) and then we'll talk about additional problems. Fieari 01:03, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • See above comment. You may have overlooked the text directly above the former "List of witnesses." I did specify how they were uncooperative. Thanks all for the comments. --Jayzel68 13:40, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I like what you've done so far... good job on that. Now there's just a little more work to be done. I'd like to see something of an introductory section in the main body of the article, not just in the header, which goes into a little bit more detail with regards to the surrounding circumstances for the scandal, political climate, and that sort of thing. Think of this article from a "far future" point of view, in that in the year 2087, some high-school history student is looking up information on our time period, but has no clue about what was going on in the big picture now. Maybe the structure of campaign finance or whatever is so fundamentally different then that the entire concept of the scandal is incomprehensible. What if we become friends with China in the future, so that you can't just assume that readers will know that dealings with china is a bad thing. Forgetting the future, what if someone who is simply ignorant of these facts (say a forigner) tries reading this? You need to tell them. Fieari 16:35, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I like your recent edits. I Support now. Fieari 23:32, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've added a new section that I believe address your concerns --Jayzel68 23:02, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Object. Lead is poorly written, with several questionable phrases, and also contains a quote from a person not directly involved and does not use a proper citation for the quote. The rest of the article also needs significant improvements, including formatting issues. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 21:10, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Unless you specify what the alleged "questionable phrases" are, or why you think the lead is "poorly written," I will not be able to do anything to change it to your satisfaction. I feel the quote I used is pertinent and useful in that is distills the issue in such a short and clear way. Mr. Lund may not have been directly involved in laudering funds from the Chinese government, but he was a China analyst for the Canadian government. I personally feels this give him weight on the subject. I guess this issue is just a matter of opinion. Lastly, your comment that "the rest article also needs significant improvements" leaves me helpless without any specific criticism ("formatting" is too vague). Thanks. --Jayzel68 17:07, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Phrases such as "popular term" and "(some alleged, some proven)" need to be rewritten and cited. The lead places undue emphasis on that quote, which I feel is only nominally important to the topic. The lead should summarize the article, not be a place for a quote by an uninvolved party. (In other words, I don't think that the lead is the appropriate spot for that particular quote.) It should be cited using the {{ref}} format you've used below, unless I'm mistaken. Some specific improvements: the article keeps on mentioning "See list of convictions", with a link to a section below. A self-ref is bad style. Also, in the "Congressional investigations" section, you begin with two external links, which shouldn't be there. (They should be moved to either a reference or external link section). The "List of convictions stemming from affair" section can also be either moved to a seperate article and then summarized in prose form, or rewritten with more links and more prose rather than bulleted list. The "See also" section has a huge wikilink at the top followed by prose; a see also section is for other wikilinks with minimal prose. I hope this helps! Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 18:06, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment All issues have been addressed. I look forward to your support. :) --Jayzel68 04:53, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Looks better, but I've still got a few issues. :-) First, in the last paragraph of the "Yah Lin 'Charlie' Trie and Wang Jun" section, there's an unlinked ref - you must have missed it. Second, I would like to see some more refs on the quotes you give. For example, in the "Maria Hsia and the Hsi Lai Buddhist Temple" section there's three quotes, no refs. You provided the speaker, but no ref or source. Finally, the "convictions" section still needs some work - it stil reads like a list, and many of the people are not mentioned beforehand. (For example, it's the first time "Robert S. Lee" is mentioned. Who is he? Is he important enough to be mentioned?) Thanks a lot! Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:30, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I've incorporated your suggestions. Hope you like. Thanks --Jayzel68 02:00, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good; support. Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:13, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support per my comments in the peer review. Proto||type 11:16, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object I am blanket objecting all nominations that fail to use the new cite format. Hipocrite - «Talk» 14:38, 17 February 2006 (UTC) (Actually, I'm not, but it's a really good thing to do.[reply]
    • While technically an "actionable" objection, since something could be done to fix it, "Uses the very latest in mediawiki formatting" isn't actually anything remotely close to an FA criteria. It has references, these references are linked inline, are in their own section... that's about what was required.
    • That's quite a standard. Funny, I don't recall that being mentioned in the FAC list of requirements. If it was required, 95% of all FAs would have to be removed. Heck, many of the featured articles don't have references of any kind. Tell me, before I go through the headache of indulging in your request, do you have any other objections to the article? --Jayzel68 16:32, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree; reference formatting is specifically left up to personal taste by the style guide, and isn't a valid objection (as long as the references, however they are formatted, are comprehensive). Kafziel 17:27, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Withdrawing my oppose, consider it a strongly worded suggestion.

Hipocrite - «Talk» 17:32, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, now you tell me. :) I just changed the citations to agree with the new format. --Jayzel68 17:55, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
But isn't the new format so obviously better? No more ibids, and if you move something around, the reference follows. And I gave you a barnstar! Hipocrite - «Talk» 17:59, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object Reads like a tabloid, example: calling the Army's international arms trade corp "a front company for the Chinese military-industrial complex" Also doesn't mention China joining the WTO. Focuses too much on the hype to be a featured article.--Colle||Talk-- 06:39, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I am sorry, but your opinion that you feel reality is somehow "tabloid" isn't a reasonable objection. Every period and comma in the article is backed up by reputable sources. Specifically, the quote you mention comes from the non-partisian Nuclear Threat Initiative organization that is co-chaired by Ted Turner and Sam Nunn. Also, your comment about hype is a falsehood and I dare you to cite an example. The article is very constrained. Lastly, regarding your criticism about the article not mentioning China's entry into the WTO: So what? The article also does not mention sugar causes tooth decay . They are both completely irrelevant to the topic at hand. Something tells me it is the subject matter alone that makes you uncomfortable. Regards, --Jayzel 07:25, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I like your metaphor, because the WTO situation is somewhat like the sugar that caused the tooth decay. 'Tabloid' may not be the right word, I ment it in the sense of focusing on the sensational; such as focus on the individual actors, and using phrases such as "military industrial complex." One other comment: There shouldn't be US political jargon or abbreviations such as (D-OH). Also, although its not essential, it would be nice for there was a section that outlined the outcome/long term effects of the scandal. I will look into this more tommorow.--Colle||Talk-- 07:54, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Well, if you are really disturbed by the term I can always shorten the quote "military industrial complex" to just "military". You can do it yourself too if you want. I'm going to sleep now. As for dealing with the characters Wang, Huang, Hsia, Trie, Chung, et al.: I wouldn't have an article without them. The article is about the "1996 U.S. campaign finance scandal" not "campaign finance" issues in general. Re: (D-OH), I'll change it tomorrow when I wake up. Lastly, someone else mentioned adding something about the outcome or effects of the scandal, but I felt that would be getting more into the area of opinion and would risk violating the NPOV policy here. If you think you could handle it without doing so, help yourself. Ciao, --Jayzel 08:55, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've fixed all the "american jargon" and cut the quote to remove the offending "military industrial complex." The focus on the scandal players remains. To remove them would be like discussing Iran-Contra without mention Ollie North and John Poindexter or discussing the Arab-Israeli conflict without mentioning Yasser Arafat or Yitzak Rabin. Regards, --Jayzel 14:30, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bangalore

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This is a self nomination for an article on a metropolitan city in South India. Major portions of the article were QA'd and edited based on output received from a peer review conducted this month. AreJay, Pamri, Rama's Arrow, Sundar and Mgummess are some of the contributors who have worked to improve the quality of the article. AreJay 21:04, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Object- Lots of figures(numbers) on the page, many of them are inaccurate and nobody bothers to change them. Article is more of a show-off/PR page with useless comparisons with other cities of India. This page should be about information regarding Bangalore...not how and why it is better. Last time I checked ..it had a complete section on "List of HR Consultants"...on the page..ridiculous.
  • Support-Well documented subject, very well resourced, illustrated with proper images, Comprehensive and concise enough and fulfils all the requirements for FA-Status.-- Shyam (T/C) 21:17, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support object for now. The article has come along fantastically since being listed at peer review, so I hate to say this, but it seems to more prominently cover the positive facets of the city. Among the few drawbacks listed are the infrastructure problems, and that is covered quite quickly. What are the major problems facing the city? Poverty was also covered quickly, only noting that 8% living in slums is less than other Indian cities. That sounds very high on a world scale, though I could be wrong. Is there any significant social/religious conflict? What about crime and crime rates?--The article says higher, but is it the highest of Indian cities, and is there a way to compare it to other cities worldwide? I see it does mention sewage being sent into the river. How much if any is treated and not dumped? Are there other environmental problems? Water shortages are mentioned, what about power? Is it consistent? Ok, sorry to be a pain, but I think this is an important issue affecting NPOV. - Taxman Talk 21:39, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, I will try and elaborate on some of those issues, although I'm not sure if there's a way to determine how much of the sewage being dumped into the rivers is being treated. There is information indicating that sewage from both rivers are treated at facilities located 30 km from the city, but I'm not sure if the proportion can be quantified. Environmental problems are covered in the main article (Bangalore Metropolitan Environment) and I will insert some salient points from that article into the Bangalore article. AreJay 21:47, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Taxman, my understanding from your comments was that you wanted to see a comparison to some of the statistics that had been cited. I have tried to incorporate that detail into the article now. I have added information on power shortages, added some information on the air quality of the city, comparing it to other cities in the country and have expanded the crime rates section. It is a little difficult to compare crime rates of cities in different countries because rampant crimes as described in the Indian Penal Code such as Sati and dowry may have a lower to none incidence in other parts of the world. I have explained in the article, however, that Bangalore experienced the highest incidence of crime for a major metropolitan city. As far as social/regilious conflicts, I have not come across such incidents as part of my research. Communal riots that occured in other parts of the country in the recent past did not really spread to Bangalore. Does this suffice? AreJay 22:57, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My bigger point was the positives are promoted more prominently than the negatives. The specific examples I pointed out were just that. It's a little better, but the overall POV has got to be more neutral. - Taxman Talk 00:05, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I think what Taxman means is that the article portrays Bangalore as a rising city of "India Shining", sorta...Like the media coverage that puts up Bangalore so over-prominently. This article may be giving the impression that India is beyond some very serious problems that continue to exist today, and that its population lives the "yuppy" life. The lead mentions "Silicon Valley of India" but speaks not of infrastructure/social problems. I think he's asking for that sorta balance. While I don't think its a serious problem, but it is a good point that can be fixed quickly. Won't change my vote though. Rama's Arrow 00:11, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The POV bias should have been adequetly addressed now. Before the peer review, the article actually had a complete section dedicated to problems in the city. We moved that piece to a new article and only retained parts of it to effectively address time independence in the main article. I have moved a good portion of that back into the article and hopefully that should sufficiently highlight some of the problems that plague Bangalore and provide readers a more complete and comprehensive picture of the city. AreJay 01:14, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes that's much better. The bit on sewage could still stand to say if there is any sewage processing for the city. Any dumped into the river isn't processed, so is there any that is so that it isn't dumped? - 18:33, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
Are you asking if there are alternate methods for the discharge and treatment of sewage in the city? I just added some information on Bangalore's sewerage system and sewage processing plants. AreJay 20:25, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Conditional support – I would like to see Taxman's comments addressed first. Other than that, the extreme temperatures do not have an exact source ie. #15 points to nowhere. Though the min temp 7.6 is plausible, the only source points to 12 °C, which is what I had added. You'd have to go deeper into the history again. I've also added a comment on the talk:Bangalore page regarding the proper nouns. Regards, =Nichalp «Talk»= 04:53, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment, many single years are wikilinked in this article. Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) tells us not to do this unless the link provides necessary context (or is otherwise important). I have seen bots go through a de-link these single years. Also, this statement "The Kingdom of Mysore relocated its capital from Mysore city to Bangalore in 1831" is referenced to "Public Space in Bangalore" but I cannot find info on this 1831 move in there. Please let me know what part I should be looking at. I also see Taxman's point, the "Demographics" section says 8% of the population lives in slums but one of the references (bottom of page 38) says 25%. --maclean25 06:54, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Conditional Strong Support, Great article and superb effort Arejay!! But Taxman's concerns are valid and needs to be addressed. About the social/religious conflicts: The post Babri Masjid demolition riots did spread in Bangalore. But I think, you should mention the 1992 Cauvery water dispute riots and similar conflicts. There is a wealth of material here: http://www.cscsarchive.org:8081/Bangalore/Home.nsf I have already confirmed with the site owner. But anyways, will ask him to send his consent by mail. --Pamri • Talk 07:48, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Conditional Support Strong Support. I appreciate the wonderful effort, AreJay. But, I'd like the concerns raised by Taxman, Nichalp, Pamri and others addressed. I now realise that omitting the cauvery dispute riots and the endemic social tension due to the demographic composition was a mistake. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 08:45, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support A great article and excellent work. -- Siva1979Talk to me 16:04, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have made the following modifications (some minor, some not) over the past couple of days in response to the comments:
  1. Added a comparison to the statistic on Bangalore's slum population. The statistic is now compared with Mumbai and Nairobi.
  2. Clarified the crime rate statistic, which now indicates that Bangalore has the highest incidence of crime per IPC for a major metropolis in India.
  3. I was unable to find information on the proportion of sewage treated. However, I have added a discussion on Solid Waste in Bangalore and the proportion that gets recycled.
  4. Added information on Bangalore's air quality and statistical results of the Battelle Environmental Evaluation System for the city. Also added a comparison of the air quality findings to other city's in India.
  5. Added a detailed discussion of social-religious tension/conflicts in the city. The article now contains information on Kannada-Tamil tensions as well as Hindu-Muslim tensions in the city.
  6. Changed the Infobox map to more prominently indicate the location of the city.
  7. Extreme temperatures reference has been inserted (extreme temperatures have been accordingly changed based on information provided by source)
  8. Wikified all proper nouns in the article.
  9. Inserted reference indicating change of capital from Mysore to Bangalore in 1831
  10. Added reference to Government of India's 2001 Census which indicates Bangalore's slum proportion to be 10%.
  11. Added information on Babri Masjid violence and Kaveri anti-Tamil riots...all this was news to me!
Please provide your thoughts in light of the recent changes made. Thanks AreJay 05:24, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Great. I'll change my conditional support to full support once the repeat wikilinks within each section are removed. I've removed some of them. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 06:35, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Done! I have removed all repeat wikilinks within sections. AreJay 15:42, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Katie Holmes

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Self-nom for a profile of the actress much in the news for her relationship with Tom Cruise. Article has references, completely chronicles the actress's life, career, and relationship with Cruise. It has photographs as well. The article, cited as a good article, was peer reviewed twice here and here. It also had a FAC in the past, here. PedanticallySpeaking 16:03, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There was a question some time ago on her talk page about if she had an official site. I checked then and could not find one. I will look to see if that has changed. PedanticallySpeaking 16:12, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Was about to support when I realised that the footnotes are out of line; clicking footnote 70 brings me to footnote 69. Please use m:Cite (as documented on WP:FN) to avoid this sort of problem in the future. Also, ideally we should avoid directly linking to external websites in the text (such as was done with the Free Katie website). Aside from that, I see no problem with this article. Good job on keeping it largely free from fancruft. Johnleemk | Talk 16:24, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have corrected this footnote. A sentence was moved in the paragraph above the one you noted but the corresponding note was not moved. Thus the discrepancy. Thanks for your kind words about the article. PedanticallySpeaking 16:39, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I'm willing to support now, although I'd still prefer conversion to m:Cite (but seeing how many {{ref}}s you have, that's going to be a pain in the ass, so I won't press it). Johnleemk | Talk 16:41, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I've also moved that Freekatie link into the notes as well. PedanticallySpeaking 16:42, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Argh, I really hate to be a pain in the ass, but Image:Katiegap.jpg has no fair use rationale or source (although the latter should be fairly obvious). I also doubt its validity in the article, since The Gap or Holmes' relationship with it don't appear to be discussed by it at all. None of the other fair use images have rationales either, but the way I see it, it's fairly obvious; a quick sentence or two should be enough to justify fair use for them. Consider this a support again when this issue is settled. Johnleemk | Talk 16:48, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Her relationship with The Gap is discussed in the "Guest appearances and endorsements" section. AriGold 16:51, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I see. Thanks. Still, fair use has rather stringent guidelines. I doubt half a dozen words really counts as "criticism or comment" under the US government's definition of fair use. The same can't really be said for most of the other fair use images (except possibly Pieces of April, which has a couple of sentences only), since they're discussed in depth (i.e. Cruise's "insanity", Holmes' role in Batman Begins and Dawson's Creek, etc.). Johnleemk | Talk 16:58, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The GQ and Gap images have been removed, and the others now have fair use rationale on each of their description pages. Extraordinary Machine 21:05, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
To likewise be "a pain in the ass" and to clarify, is this now a support vote from Johnleemk? PedanticallySpeaking 18:14, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks very much. PedanticallySpeaking 18:13, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object. (although these things should be fairly easy to fix.) The statement in the lead her films being "bombs" should be sourced. In the Early life and career section, things like The Blade and Joey Potter are overlinked and her parts such as listing her "secret vices" are just unimportant trivia. Image:Katiegap.jpg, Image:Cruiseonoprah.jpg and Image:GQKatie.jpg currently lack fair use rationales. Also, I don't think the use of Image:GQKatie.jpg qualifies as fair use, as it's not an article about the magazine and the issue is not mentioned in the corresponding section. And I think the Bibliography subsection of Notes should just be removed, as they are all listed under References anyway. --Fritz Saalfeld (Talk) 19:11, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • A footnote has been inserted for the "bombs" statement in the lead, and duplicate wikilinks have been trimmed. The Oprah screenshot now has fair use rationale on its description page, while the GQ and Gap images have been removed. I've also taken away the material on Holmes' favourite things, but I don't dare touch the Bibliography section since PedanticallySpeaking supplied virtually all of the article's references. Extraordinary Machine 21:05, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
References list is because on second reference in the notes to an article, I abbreviate the reference, something like "Cohen". Rather than dig through all the preceding notes to find that citation, one can simply go to the alphabetical list and find the reference. I was taught that even with footnotes, one still needed an alphabetized bibliography. PedanticallySpeaking 19:25, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't really see how that's helpful. Now when I want to check a source, I have to first click on the footnote and then look up what I find there in the second list. Why not give the full ciation in the numbered list?--Fritz Saalfeld (Talk) 23:06, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Very comprehensive, well-written and neutral...an excellent article, meets all the criteria. Well done! Extraordinary Machine 21:05, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. She's a terrible actress, but the article is definitely well-written. —Eternal Equinox | talk 00:02, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object - reasonable article, though extremely long considering she's hardly someone whose achievements to date will leave very much of a mark on the world. My problem here is mainly referencing - I do not believe that any article can possibly need 89 references. It's long been joked that we'll eventually see 'Joe Bloggs [1]' with the birth certificate being cited and that's pretty much what this article does. The 'Early life' section is poorly written, with short sentences, no sense of flow, and almost every single sentence having a distracting footnote, whether it contains a potentially disputable fact or not. I also think there is a huge over-reliance throughout the article on quotes from magazine articles etc, which makes it read more like a lengthy news report than an encyclopaedia article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Worldtraveller (talk • contribs) .
Well, according to the footnote there actually seems to be a dispute about her real name, but I agree with you about the Early life section and that the article relies to much on quotes from magazines.--Fritz Saalfeld (Talk) 10:24, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, but I don't think a footnote is the way to address such an issue. It doesn't explain who is disputing it and on what grounds, and if this is really worth discussing it's worth discussing in the main body of the text rather than in a footnote. Worldtraveller 14:48, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
On the talk page of the article you will see a discussion of what her legal name was. IMDB had something different that what you see here. I thought it important to cite that point because of the discussion, which is here. PedanticallySpeaking 16:17, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Why not deal with it in the main text? Worldtraveller 17:35, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Because, aside from the error on IMDB, it is not something I ever saw at issue in the outside world; it only came up here on Wikipedia. PedanticallySpeaking 18:13, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If it's not an issue beyond Wikipedia then surely it doesn't need mentioning at all? Worldtraveller 00:11, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't agree that there are too many notes. Everything I say is cited and verifiable, which is what Wikipedia:Citing sources says to do. I do not see even a caveat about "over-citing" there. PedanticallySpeaking 16:20, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Typically my peer reviewed papers which appear in astronomical journals don't even have 89 references, so I can't think that a bio of a minor actress needs that many. WP:CITE does not say that every single fact needs citing, and there are plenty of things which just don't need a reference. Worldtraveller 17:35, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If I had fewer notes, then surely people would be objecting to my failure to cite sources. I would note that articles in legal journals cite everything and have long reference sections not unlike this one. PedanticallySpeaking 18:13, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know, I'd have thought if you had say 40 references instead of nearly 100, verifiability requirements would still easily be satisfied. Part of the reason you have so many references in the article is because there are so many direct quotes from magazine articles - this is a problem, and you should be endeavouring to say what the articles are saying without just lifting quotes directly. Worldtraveller 00:11, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I am uncertain what material to use if newspaper and magazine articles are unacceptable. She is a twenty-seven year old actress. There aren't books about her aside from those aimed at juveniles. I used the resources which are available. PedanticallySpeaking 16:23, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's not the use of magazines as references I'm complaining about, it's the excessive use of direct quotes in the article. Given what you say I'd also encourage you to consider whether that doesn't imply that she's not really significant enough to warrant a 50kb+ article. FAC criteria say articles should be of appropriate length. Worldtraveller 17:35, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your praise. PedanticallySpeaking 18:13, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Object (for now) - I think it's very good on the whole. I'm so glad to see that the issue with the images has been dealt with. (Well done Extraordinary Machine on such a good job! ) Two things that will be easy to fix : 1. The first paragraph in "Early life and career" contains 12 sentences. These need to be merged to give it a better flow. All it needs is some "and"s and some commas. 2. In the "Dawson's Creek" section there is a sentence beginning "So good was Holmes" - where the "so good" is outside the parameter of discussion being attributed to a particular commentator, and as written looks more like an editorial comment. It needs to be subtly reworded to shift the POV onto The New York Times where it belongs. eg The New York Times considered Holmes to be so good that they wrote...." . Or better still, just drop the "so good" and have the sentence read : "The New York Times wrote ..." and let their comments stand on their own without further amplification. Other than that, I think the article is very good and I will certainly support when these minor points are fixed. Rossrs 10:22, 21 February 2006 (UTC) I like the article, so I've made the minor changes that I thought were needed. It's well written, scrupulously referenced, and the images are well chosen and well supported by fair use rationales. It seems to be balanced and the earlier POV issues have been dealt with satisfactorily. I think the depth of discussion of her relationship with Tom Cruise is relevant because it is current - at some point in the future, when it is no longer topical, it could be culled, but for now it is appropriate. Rossrs 09:27, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As always, Rossrs, thanks for your help. PedanticallySpeaking 18:13, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is a valid objection. Articles need to be balanced, and if one aspect of a topic is over-emphasised that's a bad thing. Worldtraveller 19:39, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Cruise is the reason she's been in the news this year and considering the volume of coverage--even The New York Times ran a big article on them--it does not feel unwarranted to me. PedanticallySpeaking 18:13, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, it's in the news now, but what is in the news now is not necessarily what is most important. Worldtraveller 00:11, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see why it's not a valid objection. Worldtraveller 19:39, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
See reply to Worldtraveler above. PedanticallySpeaking 18:13, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
See above. Worldtraveller 19:39, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object, primarily because of the overuse of direct quotes. Significant portions of the article are simply chains of quotations from various magazines together with footnote numbers; these need to be transformed into something closer to original prose. Maintaining NPOV should not require simply restating the opinions of critics verbatim. In addition, various trivia (e.g. "Before the premiere, the show's talk of sex caused a stir in the press; one of the show's producers, Procter and Gamble, withdrew after negative press in its hometown newspapers" and "Holmes purchased a townhouse in Wilmington in 2002") shoud be excised; the article is rather long as it is. —Kirill Lokshin 02:06, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Quite good. --Pamri • Talk 00:36, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support awesome. you added a few more photos since the peer review stage (I think), which make it look very complete. awesome references look, nicely organized and a nice font/font size. good info! keep up the good work! --Lan56 09:14, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sun

[edit]

Our star's article contains a wealth of info, is well illustrated and structured, and is an interesting read. Not really much of a self-nomination, I've really only done a lot of minor edits to this article. Much of the content has come from solar physicist Zowie. Worldtraveller 12:29, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm... Just noticed something of a hole in the article that should be fixed before it goes to FA status -- there isn't really much mention of the sunspot cycle or its effects on space weather. That is a pretty large omission, I'm sorry I didn't notice it earlier. Worldtraveller, are you able to add something about this? If not I'll "eventually" get around to it, but I'm out of time for today. zowie 17:53, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely agree we need that - I can add a paragraph or two, will do so shortly. Worldtraveller 01:15, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Have added a section on this. Worldtraveller 14:44, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. The influence of the Sun's rotating magnetic field on the plasma in the interplanetary medium creates the largest structure in the Solar System, the heliospheric current sheet. By what standard is the HCS considered a "structure"? Andrew Levine 15:42, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't too happy with that sentence, so I've reworded it a bit. It was added by someone who's oddly obsessed with plasma and likes to inflate its importance in all sorts of astronomical articles. Worldtraveller 16:00, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
:-) I'll add something about it in the talk pages too -- but it's NOT the largest structure in the solar system -- that would be the heliopause, the shock front that separates the solar wind from the interstellar medium. I took the liberty of removing the "largest" clause. zowie 22:30, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Well done; maybe decrease the size of the references section to 90%? I always think that looks good. KILO-LIMA 19:23, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Although I changed the lead a bit to improve its flow. Any additional improvements would benefit the article. Cedars 00:10, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - A good article sure, but not yet FA, IMO. We have a goal of being Encyclopaedia Britannica quality or better, so we should look at their article on the subject: They have multiparagraph sections on internal structure, atmosphere, solar activity, and history of observation. The ==Structure== section in our version is great, but the ==Atmosphere== section is embarrassingly short on detail and there really isn't a section on solar activity. Also, there is no comprehensive section on the history of observation; such a section would start with what is in the ==Human understanding of the Sun== section and end with the text in the ==Solar space missions== section, but that leaves nothing in the middle. --mav 02:31, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks for the suggestions, I'll get to work on addressing them now. There's a section on solar activity but I can probably expand it a bit. Worldtraveller 17:15, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • OK, we now have expanded info on the atmosphere from Zowie and more about the history of observations that I've put together. I've tried to be as concise as possible with the history as the article is now 45K in length, so welcome thoughts on whether it's OK or if more info would be good. Worldtraveller 01:19, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object. A few details should IMO be changed: the "sun and eye damage" section is too long compared with the other sections which makes the article somewhat unbalanced, it might be better to mention the matter in two sentences and move the section to an article of its own; I think sungrazers should be mentioned somewhere; the "sunspots" section might perhaps better be titled "solar activity", and the effects of solar activity on and near earth (e.g. polar lights, Van Allen belts, geomagnetic storms) should be explained a little more (but not overly much, as we already have space weather and several related articles). It's a very fine article and otherwise of FA quality. Kosebamse 17:51, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I don't think that sungrazers should be mentioned here as they are not really a solar phenomenon -- they are comets and should be mentioned there. I have shrunk the sun and eye damage section, but I don' think it should be shrunk much more or broken out -- the three components are literally the three most common questions asked about looking at the Sun. (The section replaces a BIG RED BOX!!! that had been placed on the top of the page in the distant past.) zowie 23:37, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Another point that should be clarified: the article says that although the Sun itself orbits the center of mass of the solar system, which is offset from the Sun's center mostly because of the large mass of Jupiter. The mass of the Sun is so much greater than that of the planets that the center of mass of the solar system is generally within the bounds of the Sun itself. This is unclear or even contradictory (what does "generally" mean here?), as it does not make clear whether the center of mass is within the Sun or not. It might even be inside or outside at different times depending on the relative positions of Jupiter vs. other bodies in the solar system. Kosebamse 16:40, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reluctant support. It could do with a copy-edit in some places (especially towards the end), but otherwise, it is a fabulous article. By the way, external links should be placed at the bottom of the article as they do not deal with the information provided within the article. I won't change my vote if this is not addressed, but it would be useful to others. Anyway, good effort! —Eternal Equinox | talk 21:51, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: Brilliant Giano | talk 08:34, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Having thunk it over, I believe that the article might benefit from having some more about astronomical observation of the sun. That's a highly specialised field, with specialised techniques (heliostats, coronographs, spectrography, etc.) and should be discussed in a section of its own. Observation by space missions is already well covered, and the somewhat lengthy "eye damge" section could be integrated into a subsection about visual observation. Kosebamse 06:20, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object. External links in main body should be transformed into proper inline citations. A section on 'Sun in fiction' should be added (to mention for example novel Sundiver), and the 'Sun worship' should be expanded (currently it's not even a stub-section, but a see also in main body - not what MoS recommends).--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 02:18, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Could you elaborate a bit? As far as I was aware the links are already acceptable inline citations. I will do some work on the historical understanding bit, but I'm not sure I agree there should be a sun in fiction section as I think it's rather tangential to a scientific article and what to include in such a section would also be an extremely subjective choice. Worldtraveller 18:06, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • While technically hyperlinks in mainbody are inline citations, this form of referencing is discouraged. External links used as references should be moved to references section, and linked with some form of footnote/citation tool from main body. As for cultural section, I'd gladly support the article if it was Sun in science, but as long as it is about sun, it should be comprehensive and include a cultural section. Compare Sun article to our FA of Venus#Venus_in_human_culture.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 19:31, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Who's doing the discouraging? Can you point me to the relevant discussion or policy page? I don't want to be awkward but personally I much prefer the fewest clicks possible between seeing a citation and getting to the reference, so prefer not to introduce another click by moving all the external links to the bottom.
        • As for sun in fiction, I can't add anything about it because I don't know of any books that feature the Sun prominently enough to be worth mentioning. Personally I really don't like all the 'xx in fiction' sections in many science articles as they are always very arbitrary and don't add much value at all to the articles. I also think the Venus article is not up to current FA standards... In any case, though we don't have a section listing books and films in which the Sun has appeared, we do at least have a discussion of the Sun in human culture.
        • The article does appear to have been promoted now but I'm keen to ensure that all objections are addressed as far as possible so welcome more comments. Worldtraveller 00:22, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • There are several books involving the 3rd (I belive) Lagrange point of the sun and the earth, which is on the opposite side of the sun, and fictionalized often as holding a paralell world to the earth. But how related to the sun itself I dont know. The Only other fiction I can think of is Superman which I'm sure needs little explanation, and Mobile Suit Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz, in which they send their weapons into the sun in a failed effort towards peace.--Oni Ookami AlfadorTalk|@ 08:29, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • Besides the fact that I personally think that external links in text look 'primitive' - which by itself would be just my personal opinion and no ground for an objection - note the both Wikipedia:Inline Citation and Wikipedia:Citing_sources state that all external links used as reference should also be added to the reference section (the latter one also lists some other disadvantages of this particular inline citation style). Currently, in the Sun article, they disrupt the note numbers - thus note 27 (in text) links to note 18 (in References). This is confusing, and it's very hard to verify if all hyperlinks in text are mentioned in references (unless sb wants to waste time and check every single one). The very fact that this article uses two styles of referencing (hyperlinks in text and footnotes) is enough for me to ask that one system is chosen and used consistently. As for fiction, I don't see how the article can be comprehensive without paying attention to culture - unless, as I suggest it earlier, you rename it 'Sun in science' or sth similar.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 19:43, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Kargil War

[edit]

The article covers the 2 month long conflict from every angle possible and any issues of POV have been addressed by providing reliable and neutral sources. The factual accuracy of the war is near perfect IMO. The images are all properly tagged and it does make a good read too and making this a FA would be a step in the right direction as it could enthuse more editors to improve coverage of Asian wars. I have worked extensively having taken a peer review before and incorporating all the suggestions. Any objections can be addressed to make this even better. Please vote. Thanx Idleguy 04:08, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The grammar and vocabulary needs some work. A couple of quick examples that really jumped out at me:

  • "The cause of the war was infiltration of Pakistani soldiers and Kashmiri militants..." There should be a "the" between "was" and "infiltration"
  • A caption (on the Star TV screen shot) calls a missile launcher "indigenous". That pretty much only applies to living things, so unless Pinaka missiles grow on trees in India...

There are probably more, but I don't have time to go through it with a fine-toothed comb right now. Those two just caught my eye right off the bat. I do think the article itself looks pretty comprehensive, and the subject is interesting. If the language is improved I would have no problem supporting it. Kafziel 05:22, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I feel it could use an editor with proofreading skills to give it the tweaks and gloss it needs in the grammar and vocabulary department. If anyone can do that it'll be even better. Hoping someone does that. :) Idleguy 05:46, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I am posting an "Object" vote until the article is fully copyedited. I will post more.
The article needs improvement in several areas. I will give a few examples of each.
  • Grammar and tone
  • "media coverage was pretty much lopsided" - unencyclopedic
  • "India conducted its first test since 1974" should say "in", not "since"
  • "vantage heights" should be "vantage points"
  • POV
  • "Few nations believed the Pakistani attempt at plausible deniability by linking the incursion to Kashmiri "freedom fighters"." No cite for this, so the quotation marks on "freedom fighters" are not quoting a source but rather are being used to cast doubt on their designation. Since the claim is made that "few nations believed" it, a cite is needed.
  • "But by the second week of May, the intrusions had been detected after an Indian patrol team acting on a tip-off by a local shepherd in the Batalik sector was ambushed." This sentence implies that Indian forces "detected" the Pakistani incursion, when in fact the Pakistani forces abushed them. The Pakistanis weren't detected; they deliberately made their presence known.
  • "This was the first ground war between two declared nuclear powers." No offense, but India and Pakistan are not "nuclear powers". They are just countries that possess some nuclear weapons. The same idea is expressed more accurately (but redundantly) in the section "WMDs and the nuclear factor".
  • Internal links
  • References
  • Footnote 19 - the quote in the text is very badly twisted from the actual quote in the referenced document. This is clearly POV and not at all faithful to the original source.
  • "It might also have resulted in the coup d'etat by Pervez Musharraf in October 1999." Might have? Did it or did it not? Are there references for this?
There are many other examples. I would strongly recommend any other voters to set aside personal loyalties and actually proofread the article before voting "Strong Support" and the like. There is a lot of work to be done here. Kafziel 16:49, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have changed the ascent link, which now points to ascent (climbing), an article that does not exist so far. -- Robert Weemeyer 01:53, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Please do not attempt to insinuate that people who feel strongly that this is a good article have ulterior motives or influences. You have your reasons for your vote which I respect, and others have theirs which you should respect. Rama's Arrow 21:14, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have to respect the fact that nobody else has actually proofread the article. How is that nobody noticed the links that don't work? Or the spelling and grammatical errors? I think it's important to note that featured article candidacy is not a vote, per se. This is a list of errors that need to be corrected, and it can't be a featured article until they are addressed no matter how many people vote otherwise. Your vote demonstrates your prejudice; a hasty "strong support" vote followed up by actionable objections? That doesn't make any sense. My statement was not intended as an insult, but as a suggestion that those of you who support it (either blindly or with at best a passing glance) should instead lend a hand to fix it. Kafziel 01:13, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Kafziel, you are in no position to make judgments on other people's examination of this article and their respective votes. I know that user:Idleguy and others will not hesitate to rid the article of any problems, and I don't vote "no" over small errors, becoz this article is a good work on the whole. And frankly it doesn't matter beocz your comments do not affect my "strong support," and will shortly be in no position to affect anybody elses. I do not want to continue this debate on this FA vote page, however. Rama's Arrow 03:45, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Many of your points have now been addressed Rama's Arrow 04:09, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Then all the wars on Wikipedia would have to be moved. eg. Korean War. The "W" in the war is almost always capitalised when mentioning it with the proper noun. That has been the norm here and elsewhere. Also a note has been provided why its increasingly being referred to as Kargil War and not otherwise. Thanx Idleguy 09:41, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My mistake. I didn't know this exception to the general rule. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 10:12, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Throughout the text the article goes back and forth between "Kargil War" and "Kargil war". The title says it is "Kargil War" but the bolded introduction term says "Kargil war". Which is correct? --maclean25 19:46, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object. Not bad at all, but I have the impression this needs more work by more people, and—as the nominator himself admitted above—a thorough copyedit. In some places, I feel that the general flow could be improved and the text streamlined. Some example points I discovered on a cursory read:
    1. Unnecessary and confusing use of abbreviations: LoC instead of "Line of Control", WMD for "Weapons of mass destruction", and what is NLI? LOC could be used sparingly if introduced first.
    2. "The observation posts allowed Pakistani spotters to control the indirect fire of the artillery at the Indian troops and vehicles." - Huh? That comes a bit out of context. What observation posts? Anyway, is that important? It is already stated that they were able to shell the road. I'd just drop it.
    3. "The infiltrators were well equipped with assault rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars, artillery and anti-aircraft guns, thus putting the Indian troops right in the line of fire." - Eh, what? Of course one would assume that in an armed conflict, troops would get under fire. Drop.
    4. Inconsequential linking. Why is "line of sight" linked? Why "taped" or "phone"? Why "versimilitude"?
    5. Language or word choice issues. Why is the Bofors infamous?
    6. Language issues. "Based on military tactics, much of the costly frontal assaults by the Indians could have been avoided"... first, just drop the "Based on military tactics". Second, whose opinion is that? Reference.
    7. Image:KargilPak.png has no source, and is claimed fair use, but the article doesn't discuss the coverage of the event in Time at all. IMO, not a correct fair use.
    8. Sloppy quoting. "Nuclear weapons can be used for national security" is not what the Pakistani Senate leader said according to the source given, that's just the headline of The News on July 1, 1999. According to the source given reference 19 in the article, the senate leader said "The purpose of developing weapons becomes meaningless if they are not used when they are needed.".
In summary: I think this is not quite ready. Lupo 13:52, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding the Time magazine cover, it is indeed fair use. That story is covered under external links and is one of the few comprehensive reports from the western media on the war. Additionally that is the only reasonably fair use image that was available on Pakistani troops. In the absence of an official photo, such fair use images are ok. A similar issue had been raised with an administrator Slimvirgin and it was decided to keep such images for the lack of an alternative.
As for the quote of the senator, the quote itself is correct, if you'd notice carefully, the headline itself is a quote of his statement. "N-weapons can be used for national security" is the precise quote. The second one is another statement made in the Senate. Both were exact reproductions. one was used in the headline with the quotes another in the article with quotes. So no sloppiness or selective quoting etc.
I raised this issue as well. The quote in the article is deliberately shortened to change the meaning and make it seem as if Pakistan was all set to nuke India. The actual quote is just a simple statement of fact (that the purpose of having them is to be able to use them), a sentiment shared by India, whether they stated as much or not. The quote should be removed, in my opinion (because it's meaningless and doesn't actually imply anything at all), or at least shown in its entirety. Kafziel 16:32, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I went in and inserted the correct quote. Kafziel 17:11, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The details have been added since this is an encyclopedia and meant for general readers who might not be into military tactics or the operational importance of a battlefield etc. Thus I feel it necessary to retain such lines for a clearer understanding and a link to wiretapping doesn't hurt anyone. Atleast I didn't know an article could exist with versimilitude or wiretapping (which is an interesting read) for a casual reader. Stating the obvious is a style guide encouraged in Wikipedia given that lay readers might not even know many of the terms. Ok, maybe the phone wikilink was a bit too much, i'll remove that.
Verisimilitude (most people don't even spell it correctly on the first try, yourself included) is a needlessly esoteric word evidently added to make the article seem more scholarly. It could easily be replaced with a simpler synonym (realism, for instance) that wouldn't need to be wikilinked for clarity. Changing the word would avoid all confusion and needless linking. Kafziel 16:32, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I went in to fix it myself, but realized the problem is even bigger than simply vocabulary. First of all, it's redundant, because realistic treatment doesn't lend verisimilitude to a project; realistic treatment IS verisimilitude. Secondly, whose opinion is it that the movie is realistic? That needs to be sourced or removed. Kafziel 17:11, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have copyedited it. As for sources, it is internally sourced to the Lakshya article, which inturn links to the IMDB page. A rating of 7.3 is a pretty good one for an Indian war movie. Additionally I've provided a direct link to rotten tomatoes (a critics only site). But the site doesn't have enough reviews for the tomatometer rating. It has also been received well in Pakistan - not often does it happen in a war movie by India since it involves "Pak-bashing". I'm not adding the individual pakistani sites to keep the ext links to a minimum. Idleguy 06:09, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As for the question regarding the "costly frontal assaults" it is taken from the sources. I believe it was RAND Corp, given in the references section.
Of course some suggestions I'll work on like the abbreviations; as you'd have noted many of the concerns raised earlier have been addressed by me other editors. Idleguy 15:35, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
DONE :) And added a few Km to Mile conversion too. Tx Idleguy 05:53, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It is War with a capital "W", until someone made those changes. I missed that edit, now rectified. Thanx for bringing it up. Idleguy 04:30, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - appears comprehensive, adheres to NPOV and is well referenced. However some minor concerns are mentioned below.
    1. Indian media as force multiplier - A very strong claim that needs a reference.
    2. Please avoid unnecessary wikification - this comment applies to the session on aftermath of the war where words such as irregularities, strategic and tactical are linked - doesn't make sense as they are dicdefs at best. It may be worthwhile to link "irregularities" to an article on the coffin scam or the Tehelka issue.
    3. I believe the correct spelling is "Dras" and not "Drass" as mentioned at a couple of places in the article.
    4. It may be worthwhile to link NH1 and NH1A and create stubs for them.
    5. I believe the "location of conflict" should be the image on main page and probably in the infobox.
Not withstanding the above comments, I strongly commend the editors of the article and vote support for this well-written article on an otherwise controversial topic. --Gurubrahma 14:38, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hello, I've added an additonal note for comment no.1 - it is originally mentioned in the committee report and a RAND publication - being the primary sources of the article.
  • Minor Object - The MoS for references needs a check. Sometimes there are spaces after the full stop/period and/or comma, then the reference, like: "on the larger issue of Kashmir. [29]" Shouldn't it be on the larger issue of Kashmir.[29]?
    • Also, link #30 under the "Kargil War in the arts" section really should be put with the inline citation. It looks very weird to have everything in an inline citation, but #30 just uses the square bracket form. KILO-LIMA 21:12, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Wonderful article. Congratulations to the editors who have strived hard to produce a balanced write-up on such a controversial article. I'm just worried about the nationalists from either side vandalising this article on its turn on the main page. Comment: Should invite some reasonable editors from Pakistani wikiproject to add more info about its portrayal in Pakistani arts. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 09:27, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Well written article. covers most aspects of the conflict.Arjun 09:14, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Support, looks quite good after the latest rounds of copyediting. —Kirill Lokshin 16:37, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Still need more information about Pakistan: who initiated the conflict, why, the fallout internally, who the "freedom fighters" were and where they came from and why, etc.. although this information may or may not (yet) be available. The balance of information in the article is mostly about India, or from an external perspective looking in at Pakistan. But overall this is a complex and difficult subject that Idleguy has taken from this to its current form. well done.-- Stbalbach 18:09, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

3D Monster Maze

[edit]

Self-renomination. Previous FAC objections have been addressed, another peer review ended, resulting in even more productive edits, and, finally, the article got a green light from two of the original objectors. --BACbKA 18:17, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support. I've watched this article grow with a lot of work from BACbKA and others. I first became alerted to the article when BACbKA came to my talk page to ask me about an article I'd written on another non-WP website (I used the same nickname on that page, hence his finding me) in order to clarify a research point. I think this attention to detail is indicative of the work that went into the article as a whole. I also see that previous objections have been addressed. With this in mind, I see no reason why this article can't make it to FAC. Nach0king 12:59, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Nice to see an older game article be improved. Process to get here was very positive as well. Batmanand 15:02, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: the "critical acclaim" section somewhat bothers me because of its abundance of quotes and relatively few prose. Would it be possible to rewrite this section or improve it? Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 16:24, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I gave one quote per one stage in the press reflection of the game that I know of. I felt that all are essential, so I don't fancy any of them for being cut away completely, but if you want to increase the prose/quote ratio, you're welcome to give it a try. It's probably a good idea not to lengthen the section substantially beyond its current size, because of the relative proportion to the other History subsections. If you are unsure whether your version is better than the present, please suggest a variant on the article talk page; otherwise, just go ahead and change it. --BACbKA 20:08, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for the reply! The main thing I'm concerned about is the seemingly random collection of quotes; were those that you chose significant in any way, or were they simply representative of all the critics' views? Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:13, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I tried to give a single representative quote out of a bulk of similar quotes per each period of the game/Sinclair platform/retrogaming timeline (such timeline precise definition in other terms would probably be original research by myself). I didn't try to suppress some kind of known quotes that express a different opinion, of course :-) --BACbKA 21:24, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've just consolidated the citations of the 2 references in this section with their other appearances in the article; this eliminated cut and paste jobs (and restored synchronization of diverging citation info), as well as made the non-prose proportion slightly shorter, while actually cutting no info! Hopefully this looks better. --BACbKA 22:32, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you. While I did indeed make the majority of the edits, there effort was made by several other wikipedians as well, and some of this help by others was really instrumental in reaching today's quality of the article. Thanks to everyone who contributed, and to folks like you who had provided constructive critisism. --BACbKA 11:08, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object I am blanket objecting all nominations that fail to use the new cite format. Hipocrite - «Talk» 14:37, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • While technically an "actionable" objection, since something could be done to fix it, "Uses the very latest in mediawiki formatting" isn't actually anything remotely close to an FA criteria. It has references, these references are linked inline, are in their own section... that's about what was required. Fieari 15:47, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Hipocrite, if you really care for the reference style over at the 3DMAZE article, you probably should try to join the relevant discussion on its talk page. (My personal opinion is that the citation/reference format should be generic and the rendering should be customizable as per the style sheet/user preferences in effect, so that each of us would see it in the style we like it). If you want to make a general point about adding a new requirement to the featured articles, try achieving consensus on the matter at the general FAC discussion forum. As it is, as Fieari has just pointed, references style has not been a reason for objection in FA nomination, so your vote will probably not be counted as it is. Dispersing it across several FAC votes also has (intentionally or not) a FUD effect, by discouraging other editors from using the styles you don't like, in case they happen to read your objections before comments like the replies you've gotten here so far. Please reconsider your means to achieve the goal. --BACbKA 16:04, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • It's not ref-note, but {{ref harvard}}/{{note label}} in this case; AFAIU cite.php doesn't support it yet. (If it produced the same results with simpler markup than is used now, I'd have welcomed the switch.) And I still believe that you're trying to discuss it at the wrong place as per above. --BACbKA 16:28, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Fine then. If and when it works in a backward-compatible way, and allows to do the same H.refs with less markup than the ref-harvard/note-label, I'll be happy to try it out. --BACbKA 17:47, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • P.S. As you seem to be withdrawing it elsewhere, too (at least in the one other current FAC thread I am watching), let me thank you for that --- certainly it no longer has any sustained FUD effect. :-) BTW, you might want to use striken through font to cross out your "Object" vote in these other threads (I've just done it for you here). --BACbKA 17:54, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support well done --PopUpPirate 16:06, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - looks like objections have been cleared. good job making the subject interesting to the average reader. pschemp | talk 03:52, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, good article. --Terence Ong 16:12, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Arthur Ernest Percival

[edit]

self nom. Yes another Anglo war leader but in this case a very human one who experienced highs and lows in his military career, who sometimes seems to have embodied the "stiff upper lip", a genuine hero in the Great War, he worked to help his fellow prisoners after their release and yet at other times earned a reputation for being unnecessarily ruthless. To my mind a personal mirror for the end of the British Empire in the 20th Century Nickhk

  • Comment Problems I noticed at a quick glance:
    • Duplicated footnotes need to be combined, see Wikipedia:Footnotes for more information.
      • I think these are now improved Nickhk
      • Notes 13 and 15 both say "Percival, Chapter 1, see link above". This should be one footnote referenced twice. Also, I'm not sure what link this means. --Pagrashtak 04:18, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Circeus has kindly worked on the refs to address this. I have also collapsed the Bibliography into the References - I hope this will remove the confusion about the reference to the link Nickhk
    • Check your ref tags; footnote 15 does not link back correctly, I'm assuming it's just a label problem.
    • Resolve copyright issue on images like Image:Flyingcolumn westcork-DB668.JPG and add fair use rationale to images claiming fair use. --Pagrashtak 18:21, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I have written to the uploader - lets ssee what he says first Nickhk
  • Support - looks good! --Pagrashtak 15:53, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Minor objections. First, I'd like to see the sections on early life and later life expanded; it's a bit short. I realize that information may be scarce on these times, but if at all possible, they should be a bit more comprehensive. Second, I'd also like to see the publications section be re-formatted. I'm not sure what the MoS says about that, but that section just seems to stick out like a sore thumb to me. Finally, I would also like to see the issues Pagrashtak raised above addressed. Overall, though, a great read on its way to FA. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 21:00, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think he was cold shouldered after retirement so missed out on appointments etc. There must be more on his early life though and I will have a look in the library next weekend. If anyone has any untapped sources please let me know Nickhk
      • I have gone though Hong Kong Central Library and extended the article in these areas. Can you now support? Nickhk

Invasion

[edit]

Invasion is a former Collaboration of the Week, and one of the most successfully improved candidates I've seen in recent months. Quite a few excellent editors spent a great deal of time turning a very weak couple of paragraphs into a comprehensive, informative article. Our peer review was very positive, with good feedback and further improvements made to the formatting of the information and the references. The prose is solid and stable, the photos are sourced and relevant, and the topic is certainly current. This is a self-nomination. Kafziel 05:41, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A number of points in the article require attention:
  • "relatively recent justification for invasion, which arose during the nineteenth century... has been to change or restore the leadership or political regime of a nation or territory" - I know of this being done as early as the sixteenth century; I suspect there are even earlier examples to be found.
  • I would agree, in that the main motive for any invasion is a regime change of one type or another. That's nothing new. At first I thought what the author meant was that, in more recent times, that's the only justification people need to support a war. (No hope of expansion, or riches, or even the promotion of their own ideals; simply altering the leadership of a region to be something else. Which is certainly more true than ever before.) But as I was editing it I found the overall intent confusing. I'm not sure what a good substitution would be, so I'm going to consider this one and see if the original author can shed some light on the subject. Kafziel 07:06, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • The "Defenses against invasion" section mentions modern fluid defense, but fails do discuss earlier scorched earth tactics.
  • I believe the intent here is to discuss holding a line or defending a certain area. Scorched earth is more of a covered retreat; defenders couldn't occupy scorched earth areas any more than invaders could. Kafziel 07:06, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Assyrian invasion of the Kingdom of Israel" - Hammurabi?
  • "Ottoman Empire’s conquest of Constantinople" - not really an invasion so much as an isolated siege. If something from this period is needed, the Ottoman attacks on Rhodes or Cyprus (or even their later campaigns in Hungary) may be better examples.
  • More generally, the choice of invasions for the list is slightly questionable (they are listed as "Major invasions", after all) and shows a certain preference for recent events, even if not particularly significant.
  • I agree, and that has been the topic of some discussion on the talk page. I don't feel that the Chinese annexing Tibet should be on the list, Operation Barbarossa is a bit repetetive of Napoleon's campaign, but they were somewhat of a compromise. That's wikipedia. I don't know where that coup d'etat thing came from, and I'm removing it. Definitely not on par with the others. Kafziel 07:06, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Quite true. Off the top of my head, I might include one or more of the barbarian invasions of Rome (Attila the Hun, maybe?), the Seljuk invasion of Asian Minor (Battle of Manzikert, etc.), the Italian Wars, the Mughal invasion of India, the Deluge, and possibly some others; certainly the article is short enough that another dozen entries wouldn't seriously hurt (although converting them to prose may stave off the inevitable complaint that the article is too list-heavy). —Kirill Lokshin 07:17, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Beyond that, the "See also" section needs to be trimmed of anything already linked in the text and the "References" section should be properly numbered. More inline citations might also help.

—Kirill Lokshin 06:18, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • This has been come up on the article's talk page, and again during the peer review. This isn't just a list. (In fact, since the peer review, it isn't even in list format.) It gives summaries of the events and states why they are relevant. Maybe the title should be changed to "Examples of historically significant invasions" or some such thing, but I really can't understand why so many editors want 10,000 words in plain prose form for every article. Who wants to read that? I don't see the harm in presenting a small amount of information organized in a different way, the same way one might add a chart or map to an article. It gives the reader a break and an easy way to branch off into other subjects. Kafziel 18:37, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • " (for example, Hadrian's Wall [2] and the Great Wall of China)." - consider removing parentheses, make that external link a footnote like the rest
    • "A modern political trend, probably instigated" - one sentence paragraph should be merged or expanded, and should definitely be cited
  • This passage, like the one mentioned by Kirill Lok above, seems biased to me. I'm hoping the original author will show up and improve it, so I'm giving this a couple of days. Kafziel 18:37, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • In general, I guess I was thinking this article would be about military strategy primarily. What sorts of tactical considerations are important? What about "winning the hearts and minds" -- that would seem relevant.
  • Now Support. Sorry, but article is way too short for my liking considering the amount of info on the topic there is. Plus my number one pet peeve is external links in the text. Please replace with a footnote system, which can be copied from any other big article. If possible, could you please supply the before & afters of your changes for my first request. Thanks, Spawn Man 04:02, 14 February 2006 (UTC).[reply]
  • We've discussed footnotes (see the talk page of this fac) - and we even tried using them, here. I'm sorry external links bother you so much, but it would seem (from editors' feedback and from reading the manual of style) that a lot more people dislike footnotes. Personally, I don't see anything wrong with being able to click on an external link without scrolling down to the bottom of the page and losing my place in the article. Obviously I can't speak for everyone else, but I'm willing to reluctantly accept your objection if it means keeping the article the way it is. I guess it's like they say, you can't please all of the people all of the time. I do appreciate the feedback, though. Kafziel 04:58, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • As for the length... we're not voting to lock the article, just to feature it. I think the article covers the concept of invasion quite well, without drifting too far off-topic into the minutiae of specific invasions, which are covered in their own articles (and which is one reason I like the list format for the examples, rather than letting them get out of hand as they are bound to do in prose form). Is there more to add? Sure. I hope we can get more editors to work on it as a featured article. But that's not to say that the current article isn't informative, well-written, and enjoyable. Kafziel 05:12, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I've done a hell of a lot of fixing. A large portion of that fixing was changing the reference formats to suit the majority of voters - the style happens to conflict with your preferences, but that's too bad. The majority of editors, as well as the manual of style, disagree with your stance on footnotes; it's not an actionable objection any more than someone saying they want me to add photos of dogs wearing hats.
As for being "way too short", I've added a few different things since your first post. Since you weren't specific, that's not a valid objection, either. If there's something you'd like to add, please feel free. Kafziel 03:07, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I was specific. There is so much more on the topic that it would need its own article for me to write it down for you. I said generally expand, but to me it looks basically the same since I posted (unless you supply me with the history of your "hell of a lot of fixing", which I asked for). you so far have proven nothing of your efforts to me. Further, I don't like people getting snippy at me, especially since I'm the one voting & you're the one doing. Instead of taking the oh so cliché "the article is sooo perfect so I'm going to defend it until I'm blue in the face when I actually could have done whta he asked me to do" road, why don't you take the "yes sir, would you like fries with that sir" road. This would save me from opening up a can of whiny-ass & make my vote change to support & the article go to the main page. Sounds fun? Ya? Dansk coffeeee? Great.... Til further notice, my vote remains the same... Spawn Man 04:52, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"If you did half as much fixing as you did complaining..." and I'm the one who's snippy. Right. Before you said that, my responses were very polite and I even gave you a careful explanation of why we're not using footnotes. I'm not clear on your request for me to provide you with a history of my changes and proof that I've fixed things; Wikipedia does that for you, on the history page. You didn't ask me to do anything but make it longer. No specifics whatsoever. Someone said it should have something in it about winning hearts and minds. Now it does. Someone else said it should have something in it about using retreat as a strategy. Now it does. You didn't ask for anything at all. Just... more. Well, there is more. If you want something in particular, ask for it.
By the way, I didn't start this article, I don't feel particularly attached to this article, and I don't get a raise in salary if it becomes a featured article. I'm not defending it "until I'm blue in the face"; you're just being unreasonable. I'm willing to try to make any reasonable changes you request, but if you think I'm going to beg you for your vote, and ask you if you want fries with that, you're out of your mind. "Sir." Kafziel 06:02, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly!! Why should I change my vote when the one electing it is too lazy to even provide history links?! I'm now changing my vote to 'Extremely Strong Oppose because of your unwilling attitude. This whole process is a test, showing who's prepared to do the work & who isn't. You are clearly one of those who isn't prepared to do the work. Fill in the article so it takes me less than a few seconds to read the entire article is all I'm asking. Compare the article to the likes of Dinosaur or Texas Ranger Division & you'll find that it is quite short. Now compare it with the featured article Flag of Mexico. This featured article is quite short as well. But the difference is is that it's a flag. People have been invading other places since the dawn of time, so Invasion should be considerably larger. Even ants & other insects invade other ant colonies! Why not write about that? See my jist? Large subject, should be large article. But it isn't. Spawn Man 01:40, 18 February 2006 (UTC) P.S. The funny thing is is that all the listed articles above have footnotes![reply]
You are being completely unreasonable. At this point you have acted with imaturity towards Kafziel and to everyone who has helped with this article. Personally I don't care if you oppose or support this article because frankly I feel that there are enough other Wikipedians reasonable enough the show that this article does have enough information and is at a respectible level. Also (I hate when people do this but what the hell) when you go to WP:CITE you'll see this, "The three most popular styles of in-text citations are Harvard style, footnotes, and embedded HTML links. Note that no matter which inline-citation style is used, all the sources used in an article should be listed at the end in a references section." Citation is a personal preference rather than a policy. If it were a policy I'd be the first to let you know that you're right, but it isn't and your not. The last thing that I have to say is that Kafziel should under no circumstances be called lazy. He has been the main person to turn this article from a stub to a FA. We all have our priorities and I know that Wikipedia is no way the highest of mine and I doubt the highest of Kafziel's, but he has spent so much time on this article and should be commended on how well he has added and complied with others requests. Oh and I really don't care what kind of response you give me and what kind of flaws you say are in what I just said. So basically go take it and shove it. This has been fun RENTAFOR LET? 02:00, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'll pretend that I didn't just hear that from someone I thought was a friend... I'm over the footnotes thing as I didn't mention it in my last post. I'm still opposing however from the length point of view, see above if you don't understand. If he's not lazy, & still wants my vote, then why hasn't he provided me with links to what he's done? Well? Um.... Cause he's lazy... You were the one who brought me here to vote & you obviously thought that just because I was your friend that I'd forgo my wikipedia standards & vote through the article. You were wrong. I'd love to support it, but it still needs beefing up a lot as I've explained. It also shows that you're lazy if just because you've got enough votes to put the article through that you'd discount any points I make. I have one comment to make to you Renta after your last comments: See that strawberry on your signature? "Shove it, shove it gooood. Na na na nah, da da da da da. Shove it, shove it goooooood!!!" -- Divo. Spawn Man 07:29, 18 February 2006 (UTC). P.S. You'll feel my full wrath soon enough. You've made it personal...[reply]

The article's come a long way thanks to Renta & no thanks at all to Kafziel. A really good article. Changed my vote since what I asked was done, however "unreasonable" it may sound to lazy editors. Thanks, Spawn Man 00:06, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Renta and I thank you for your support. Kafziel 05:35, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments
    1. ...and indeed -- non encyclopedic tone
    1. Great Powers -- kindly expand
    2. The notion of completely static defenses has not totally lost its validity -- tone
    1. Also, the United States under the Bush administration has put -- rewrite to: Countries such as the ...
  • Will do. On second thought... what other countries have a system like that? As far as I know, the US' National Missile Defense system is the only one of its kind. Canada just got on board with it, but it's still the United States' system. It shouldn't imply that this is some kind of recent development of the Bush administration, since it's been around for a long time, but neither should it imply that anyone else employs a similar system (unless someone has refs to the contrary). Kafziel 20:41, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    1. Great Britain is the island. United Kingdom is the nation-state. plz change
Fixed. Kafziel 20:41, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    1. A successful naval defense, however, usually requires a preponderance of naval power -- isn't an air force considered to be the first in the line of defence?
  • I'm not sure I follow you on this one. The navy has always been the first line of defense. Even by today's standards (which would mean ignoring the thousands of years before air forces even existed) how does an airplane have greater range or stamina than a naval vessel? Planes may run patrols, but without a carrier to return to, their range (in terms of defense of the US coastline) is very limited. Kafziel 20:41, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    1. fleeing to the neighboring country of India. --> "fleeing to neighbouring India.
    1. The word "invasion" in the heading title is redundant.
    1. Pics of seige weapons would be a good addition.

=Nichalp «Talk»= 14:29, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can you be more specific? Too short? Too long? Don't like the color or format? Would you prefer it bulleted rather than tabled? Or do you just not like the fact that it exists at all? Kafziel 16:04, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's not comprehensive, nor is it really indicative of all the interesting invasions -> for example you have the allied of Normandy, but not the axis blitzkrieg of France, which is equivalently, if not more, notable. Lists like that always appear to devolve into "here's 5 xs!" as opposed to "here are the most interesting 5xs in the world," because getting the best 5 is impossible. I'd lose the whole section, but it's perfectly good for what it is, and even though it blows *FOR A FEATURED ARTICLE,* it's still indicative of our best work. Hipocrite - «Talk» 16:09, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's interesting you should say that, because I've had different feedback from different people on this subject. In fact, I just shortened the list even more today to try to make it less of a "list" and more of a small table of examples. The blitzkrieg was one of the original entries on the list; some editors felt the list was too focused on modern events, and some felt it was too focused on European events, so that was one of the ones that had to go (having no particular record of its own, like Normandy's "largest amphibian invasion" or Barbarossa's "largest invasion"). The examples are spread out over time and continents, to try to avoid too much focus on one era. I'd be happy to make it much more comprehensive, if enough people could agree on that. Some people think there shouldn't be a list at all (a view for which I can't find any support in the manual of style).
Personally, I hate list pages. But I don't hate lists. I just think those lists should be integrated into real articles, like this one. For example, List of invasions is never going to be a featured article. It's just a list. So why is that piece of junk getting in the way of a quality article like this one? Short of merging it into this, which I would love to do, we picked a few more famous and significant ones to include. Of course it's not complete, but as long as "List of invasions" exists, it can't be complete, or everyone will howl that it's redundant. It's a catch-22. Kafziel 16:32, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You have it right on the nose. I don't think I have a perfect solution - and as such, I support with or without correction, as I believe my possible objection is not-actionable. Hipocrite - «Talk» 17:59, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Object Before and after reading this, I wasn't entirely convinced that this is a distinct topic. Is "military invasion" a technical term in military theory (if so, then an explanation of that is missing). It seems more like the definition of the word, expanded around some mostly obvious ideas of war: when one state enters another? by land, sea, or air? countries defend their borders? Aren't these self-evident? I would expect discover more. Apart from the table, I didn't find anything in the article that wasn't quite obvious, and "really" about various military methods and tactics that aren't specific to invasion, but simply to war. Or, put another way, isn't conventional war basically always about invasion? Has there been a war between states where no invasion was involved?

If this IS really a distinct topic, then I have a problem with comprehensiveness, as contenporary considerations don't seem to be well-covered. There seems to be no discussion of invasion in the modern role. Is invasion still a viable military option today, for which nations, to what degree? What is the role of invasion in "fourth generation warfare", when non-conventional, borderless wars are possible, even likely? --Tsavage 00:12, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Finally, someone who agrees with me.... Spawn Man 05:40, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know if I "agree"—your review seems to have a significant and prerequisite backstory, which I didn't follow—but I do agree, being a minority in a majority world...sucks... --Tsavage 06:19, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that some of the content is self-evident... to us. A lot of things on Wikipedia are pretty obvious if you know a little bit about the world, but I don't think that means they shouldn't be explained for those who don't. I wouldn't say that it's a "technical" term, but it's certainly the most common meaning for the most common term; that's why there's a disambiguation page for things like insect invasions, home invasions, etc. And although invasions are part of many wars, they are not synonymous with war, and as the article states they have different strategic applications. (Maybe I should expand on that, though?) Personally, the first example that comes to my mind is Kosovo; the Serbs didn't have to invade, they were already there. Any revolution or civil war doesn't generally include an invasion. And other wars might start without an invasion (Japan bombs Pearl Harbor), include an attempt at invasion (the island hopping campaigns), and ultimately end without one (the surrender after Hiroshima and Nagasaki).
In terms of modern warfare, I take it you want more information about current methods and more contemporary, post-WWII examples of invasions and an assessment of their effectiveness? Iraq and Afghanistan, for instance, certainly show how America deals with fourth generation warfare: invade everybody. I think it's a laughably ineffective tactic for dealing with terrorism, but that's my POV. If you'd like to see something like that, I can certainly play the devil's advocate and create a separate section on it, with arguments for and against. I may need some help with that, though, because it's tough to come up with legitimate, non-truthy support for the other side. :Some editors are wary of making the article too focused on modern times, lending too much importance to relatively minor events (like the Iraq invasion), so it's been tough to keep it balanced. If you mean more information on the current methods, like LCAC landings and Seabees setting up forward airstrips and the like, I can do that, too.
I hope I've addressed your points, and if I misunderstood any of your requests, please let me know. I will start working today to add the content you requested. Kafziel 16:02, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've added a new section on the application of invasion strategy in fourth generation warfare. Kafziel 20:26, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Kafziel: Thanks for your thoughtful and, um, reasonable reply. I'll read the changes and comment tonight if I get a chance, or sometime tomorrow. Please note that in my comment, I'm not expecting the article to be loaded up with stuff that I think is missing. It's (often) hard to convey in a vote/review, but many times, it is only a sentence or two here, paragraph there, or bit of a rewording that (IMHO...) can make all the difference. I think that a smooth reading experience is critical to an effective article, and flags being raised get in the way of that (which happened to me here). But "fixing" often isn't a big deal in terms of...length (IOW, sometimes "fixes" can cause other problems). Anyhow, sorry for being wordy, just my opinion, but I think this does apply particularly in this case, and I'll try to take care to address that in my reply... (What a complicated process this can be, huh?!) :) --Tsavage 02:17, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't mind wordiness...as you can see from some of my posts here, I can get a little wordy myself. Sometimes that's what it takes to try to make yourself understood, so feel free to be as specific as you want and rest assured I will read every word. :)
It's a complicated process, but as my first time working on an fac it's been educational and (for the most part, anyway) fun. Even though I have a military background, I don't usually spend this much time on military-related articles; it's not so much the topic I care about, it's just interesting to get feedback to see what other editors' expectations are, so I can use that for future work. Thanks again. Kafziel 04:04, 21 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
On the assumption that it's what you were looking for, I've added the 2003 invasion of Iraq to the table in the article. Kafziel 20:17, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I reread the article with full attention, and I'm still of the same conclusion. The fourth generation warfare section was definitely interesting and IMO entirely relevant and necessary contextual information. Unfortunately, it only served to even further focus my attention on the self-evident nature of practically the entire article. Yes, I understand that some readers might not have a CLUE about "military invasions", but that stretches things: someone without any exposure to, say, the news, or mainstream movies... To learn a few paragraphs in that CASTLES and FORTS are one method of defending against invasion...really got to me! :) Anyhow, the issue in actionable FAC terms is IMO comprehensiveness. For specifics, what are some basic questions an encylopedia reader might ask?:
  • What is an invasion army made up of? How is such an army put together? Is it just a whole lot of troops? Who decides how many, are there...formulas? How do they eat? What about all the support people, the cooks and medics and mechanics and supply drivers and stock boys and...? And so on... This, of course, is NOT a call for 200K of detail, but simply a succinct treatment of these various basic logistical and size and scope aspects, in the same way quick way "land, sea or air" has been dealt with...
  • How is a successful invasion wrapped up? In invasion planning, does the army go in, kill the crap out of the enemy, and...go home? Take wives (husbands?) and settle down in the new land? Become the mayors of all the towns? Historically and now, the resolution of invasions seems to be a...part of the invasion. (The pacification paragraph only really covers the "conquering army marching victoriously through the streets" part, what do they do the next day, or the week after that?)
  • The pacification section covers a lot more than just armies marching through the streets. Propaganda, reeducation, all those long term things are in there, along with practical examples (and now a photo). Kafziel 03:33, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • What exactly IS the difference between an "invasion" and a plain "war"? Isn't anything but a civil war always sooner or later about invading somebody else's country? Are there wars between states with no invasion involved, if so, what's the alternate plan? How do you have a war without invasion? What does an army do if it's at war and not...invading or defending against invaders?
  • Sometimes they conduct (and defend against) raids, bombings, missile strikes... none of which are invasions. Sometimes they reinforce an ally who has asked them to be there. Sometimes they occupy and pacify a territory that was granted to them in a treaty. Sometimes they patrol the airspace without actually entering the country. And civil war is a huge part of modern war; most of the wars going on right now are revolutions, coups, genocides, and civil wars. Invasions make the headlines, but they're actually relatively rare. There are plenty of other examples of things that are not invasions (some of which are in the introduction). Kafziel 03:33, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • How do invasions affect things at home for the invaders? What's the impact of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of countrymen off somewhere, killing and dying? What formal homeland planning part of the invasion plans?
  • I think as far as impact on civilians, this goes back to the difference between invasion and war, and that's more a question for the main war article. But I do mention the employment of civilians in service jobs related to logistics. Kafziel 03:33, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Are there some sort of international conventions and definitions defining "invasion", like, the "rules of invasion"? Is there an official moment when a military action technically becomes an invasion? Are armies supposed to behave differently when they're invaders, not defenders? Do international law-abiding states give declarations of invasion?
  • What are the invasion highlight stats? Biggest? Smallest? Longest? Shortest? Bloodiest? Smallest country? Biggest country? Costliest?
  • Stats like that are tough to come up with, but I've created a section of record breakers including biggest land invasion, biggest amphibious invasion, bloodiest invasion, and fastest invasion. Kafziel 03:33, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
These are the kinds of things I'd expect an invasion article to touch on. I don't find that here. And I don't think it's a matter of, like, 10,000 more words, more like a more comprehensive article outline and a target word count to meet. Hope it helps clarify my objection! --Tsavage 03:46, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Good suggestions. I wish someone had brought them up when it was a collaboration, or during the peer review, or even during the first week of this FAC. I'm going to see if I can add some info on each of those topics, although as I said I'm not really in love with this subject and after almost two weeks it's getting a little wearisome. Spawn Man's latest round of lunatic remarks have kind of soured me on the situation, but maybe if this ends up failing the FAC, I will at least have given someone else something to work with. Kafziel 05:08, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose too short, needs more context and integration concerning the various battles, such as perhaps the "evolution of an invasion". After all, it only jarringly skips between land forces and air droppings, perhaps without documenting the numerous invasions which led up to current technology. Also, though I prefer footnotes, I dislike having inline links and print sources cited that jarringly - find some way to integrate. Elle vécut heureuse à jamais (Be eudaimonic!) 20:22, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
So... you want to include a history of every invasion that had an impact on modern technology? I'm not sure on how to go about doing that... the article would be as long as the rest of wikipedia. There's a list of invasions, though, if that's what you mean, and we did include a sampling of invasions to give people an idea about how they've evolved.
As for the refs, I'm going to spend some time this evening switching the article to footnotes. Even though it's not a valid objection to an FAC, I'm tired of fighting about it and I think it will help the article in the long run. Kafziel 20:36, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Not really, my point was that the list of invasions needs to be converted into prose. One doesn't list battles, but rather lists how they evolved, and just choose landmarks. And a summary of basic invasion techniques, rather than just citing paratrooping, or airborne tactics, etc. as an example. Citations will help. Elle vécut heureuse à jamais (Be eudaimonic!) 21:57, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's not at all accurate to say that, for example, Genghis Khan's invasions of Asia evolved from those of the Sargonid Assyrians in the Middle East. There's no reason to think they had anything to do with each other at all. The Chinese didn't steal their idea for the Great Wall from the Romans, so why would we group them together by using prose form? And since we can't group them together, we would have to choose one or the other.
After tons of feedback on this article (keep in mind we're not only almost 2 weeks into this FAC but it has also had a peer review and it was a collaboration of the week) it has been shown that there are two options for prose here: a) present a very basic example of how invasions in one part of the world evolved, which was already deemed to be ethno-centric by other editors, or b) write an individual section detailing the evolution of invasion techniques in every culture on earth (which is practically impossible and would always be criticized as incomplete anyway). Our solution was to include brief examples from different eras and cultures (America, Europe, Asia) which necessitates keeping them separate because many of them are completely unrelated.
Obviously, from the length of my responses, I don't mind writing prose. It just doesn't work in this case. I would encourage you to look through the other discussion histories and hopefully you can relate to why it's set up the way it is. I'd be willing to make an experimental page of prose, but it will be utter crap if we lump Alexander the Great, the Aztecs, Operation Market Garden, and Saddam Hussein into the same section. They have to be listed as examples, not compared with one another. Kafziel 22:36, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but what I meant by prose was something falling along the lines of Wikipedia:Summary. The "methods" section should include more examples of say, land warfare, which though obviously broad there have been several brilliant land battles to cite...rather than bringing them into a list. IMO, there shouldn't be a list at all. We could have a "see also" link to a "list of invasions", but any selected battles should be cited as an example to the assertion of methods of invasion, history, or development. Elle vécut heureuse à jamais (Be eudaimonic!) 15:15, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm actually working on that right now. See the article for my latest change. I will do more as time allows. Still, I haven't received an answer from anyone to this question, which I posted when the FAC first started: "I really can't understand why so many editors want 10,000 words in plain prose form for every article. Who wants to read that? I don't see the harm in presenting a small amount of information organized in a different way, the same way one might add a chart or map to an article. It gives the reader a break and an easy way to branch off into other subjects."
What I mean is, how is it better to have paragraph after paragraph of "In 336 BC, so and so invaded so and so...", followed by "In 632, so and so did this and that, which has nothing to do with the previous paragraph, but it's prose so it's cool," followed by, "In 1812 Napoleon stomped on Europe." It's not "brilliant prose" if each paragraph is disjointed and unrelated to the next. But if we spend too much time putting it in context, the information becomes redundant because there are already entire articles dedicated to doing exactly that. The proper way to put unrelated items together is with a list. That's a very basic truth of writing, and that's why there is nothing in the style guide that says tables are bad and should not be used. In fact, there are whole sections dedicated to explaining how to make them.
So I really don't get the fascination so many people have with doing away with lists. Yes, I hate useless lists that take up whole pages, but there's no reason to hate lists when they are informative and used properly. You don't hate seeing maps or pictures in articles, do you? They're just giving you a different way to take in information. Everything on a map or a photo could be described with prose, but that would be... dumb. Does anyone here think Encyclopaedia Britannica doesn't have any charts or tables in their articles? Of course they do.
So I don't understand what the big deal is with it, but as I said, I'm working on it anyway. Kafziel 16:09, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I just set up footnotes with the format RentaStrawberry used. We originally changed it because some others weren't thrilled about it (it doesn't work with the printable version), so I'm trying to figure out the right way to put numbers in the refs section. Kafziel 23:27, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've changed the footnotes over to the new format, so they are numbered and will work properly on the printed version. I also added in a few examples in spots and I am working on getting rid of the rest of the list. Kafziel 20:37, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I owe you an apology. I mean who was I to tell you to put footnotes in the Invasion article? Honestly, I know nothing & you knew better than me! Therefore you shouldn't put the footnotes in. Oh? What? Someone just told me you did put footnotes in?! That would make me.... Right? And you would be? Wrong? A know-it-all? Hmmm... I guess I did know better than you & Renta aye? I guess you shouldn't have put me down all those times & maybe done the job I asked you to do earlier? Have a nice time kicking youself.... Spawn Man 01:21, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment: The table of examples is dead. Each section has been completely converted to prose and has a sub-section under the main section heading. I've also added info to other sections and revamped the footnotes to the new <ref> style. Support, anyone? :) Kafziel 01:18, 25 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion

[edit]

An excellent article on this infamous hoax, that includes both a great history as well as in-depth discussion of the document's origins and uses. Lots of references, images, and good sectioning make it both easy to read and easily verifiable (it has also been through a peer review). I have already seen the Wikipedia article cited several times online as a good account of the history of the Protocols (for example: LA City Beat and Engage, etc) and it definitely deserves FAC status as one of the best overviews anywhere of this tragically important document. --Goodoldpolonius2 06:08, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

*Object. Good work, but shorten up the intro (if it weren't an FA candidate, I'd slap the {{intro length}} template on it. Also, two problems re the images (which I haven't even checked for licensing yet (Update: oops, they're book covers and can be used): 1)The Times exposé of the forgery should be down in that section of the text, and 2) is it really necessary to have all those images? At times I thought it should be retitled Gallery of images of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Daniel Case 15:11, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

:And can you give us a link to the peer review to see what issues were raised? Daniel Case 15:16, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Peer review linked. I should also clarify, I haven't worked on this article (except in the last day or so), user:humus sapiens, among others, deserves credit. --Goodoldpolonius2 15:19, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The intro is rewritten, are you happier now? --Goodoldpolonius2 18:12, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

::::It's a little bit better, but the last two grafs could be combined somehow. Maybe by taking out the sentence "The Protocols are widely considered the beginning of contemporary conspiracy theory literature, such as None Dare Call It Conspiracy and Conspirators Hierarchy: The Committee of 300" if it isn't properly sourced. Daniel Case 22:39, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. --Goodoldpolonius2 02:09, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
OK, now that I have the chance to read the article in depth and make minor edits for clarity and style:

:::::"For further information, see INRI, Jewish Messiah, Jewish view of Jesus." Can that go in See Also? I see what you're trying to do, but we usually don't put that sort of thing in sections.

Fixed.←Humus sapiens ну? 09:19, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

:::::Also, get rid of the year links unless they're necessary, as we've been trying to do everywhere.

"After the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, various warring factions used the Protocols to perpetrate hatred and violence against the Jews." Which warring factions? In Russia? Outside? It should be clearer.
Fixed.←Humus sapiens ну? 09:19, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Shouldn't the Mein Kampf citation be a footnote?
Fixed.←Humus sapiens ну? 09:19, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"He was brought to court, in what has come to be known as the Berne Trial, by Dr. J. Dreyfus-Brodsky, Dr. Marcus Cohen and Dr. Marcus Ehrenpreis." Are these the prosecutors? Judges? Is this referring to a book? If so, it should be named as a reference.
Fixed.←Humus sapiens ну? 09:19, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have also clarified that it was a civil suit now. Daniel Case 05:56, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"Many Arab governments fund the publication of new printings of the Protocols, and teach them in their schools as historical fact." Which ones? We need sources; otherwise this will doubtless spark vicious edit wars.
The article mentions quite a few, and more dreadful examples can be easily sourced. ←Humus sapiens ну? 09:19, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"The Protocols have been accepted as fact by many Islamic extremist organizations, such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Al Qaeda." There's good evidence for the first two, we know, so it could use a citation. Is there anything extant that suggests that about al-Qaeda, however?
Fixed.←Humus sapiens ну? 09:19, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
OK, but I checked footnote 14 and the source is a summary of Horseman Without a Horse, which says nothing about whether the Arab leaders in question had made the attributed statements. It seems from the source text that you may have mixed up a reference? Daniel Case 05:59, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This still needs to be fixed.
The refs were fixed long ago. ←Humus sapiens ну? 09:53, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Then why do I still read "Past endorsements of The Protocols from Presidents Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar Sadat of Egypt, one of the President Arifs of Iraq, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, and Colonel Moammar Qaddafi of Libya, among other political and intellectual leaders of the Arab world, are echoed by 21st Century endorsements from the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hamas, and the education ministry of Saudi Arabia," without any sourcing or citations of the named individuals in the first half of the sentence? That's what I've been asking about. Take it out, soften it or do something with it. Daniel Case 05:07, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I think I misunderstood you there. It was not my passage but I think now I found a pertinent ref. ←Humus sapiens ну? 23:11, 24 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"Translations of the Protocols are extremely popular in Iran." Source?
Fixed.←Humus sapiens ну? 09:19, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Consistent dating and quote-mark style throughout the article (some use single, English-style; others use double American quotes)
Source: 'Hadith and Islamic Culture', Grade 10, (2001) pp. 103–104" This should be in the bottom footnotes.
Fixed.←Humus sapiens ну? 09:19, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Are all the references to Palestinian use of the Protocols necessary? They're encylopedic and verifiable, but that section sort of reads like it was written by MEMRI or something. We get the point with just one or two.
What up with all the whitespace after "Egypt?"
"On February 20, 2005, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (appointed by Yasser Arafat)" Is that necessary? Some of these can really be put in other articles with links back here.
I do feel it is important. ←Humus sapiens ну? 09:19, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
OK, but why? Did someone ever confront Arafat over this? How did he react? That should be in there. 05:59, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
Still would like something on this. Daniel Case 05:56, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Arafat is gone. ←Humus sapiens ну? 09:53, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
How about some more material on their contemporary use and dissemination among neo-Nazis in Europe and North America?
Daniel Case 06:46, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I guess we've got what we're going to get. Daniel Case 05:56, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Glad to see what you fixed but some issues I have remain.
I added some stuff at the head of the Arab section to give it a little context I think it needed.
In the intro, it occurs to me, we should say more clearly that this revolutionized conspiracy theorizing by being the first popular CT to assert that a single group secretly controlled the world and/or was bent on doing so, it strikes me that this was also the beginning of purely secular antisemitism (in that the Protocols turned the supposed motivation for opposition to the Jews from "They killed Christ" to "they're running the banks" ... do the references support this? (And the intro is much improved, BTW)
Finally, what the whole article has a crying need for is a single section explaining in detail why the Protocols are a fabrication. As it is we have the evidence of plagiarism of earlier work which faulted other groups in one section, Nilus's changed story and contradiction of himself in another, and the use of terms Jews were not likely to use in yet another. Given the discussions on the talk page by various people who assert "bias," we need one section where it is made ringingly clear why all credible historians have concluded this document is a forgery.
We also learn, near the end, about Kerry Bolton and his book trying to refute that conclusion. It might be interesting to know what he would base such a refutation on and have something about it in the article (it would help avoid the claim made by some of the antisemites on the talk page that WE'RE PART OF THE PLOT because "we" sweep Mr. Bolton under the rug). Not that those people will really respond to rational argument anyway, but why help them out?

Or maybe this can all be taken care of in some hypothetical daughter article. We'll see. Daniel Case 05:59, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Daniel, it is difficult to imagine how we could express in more detail why they are a fabrication. If they were not the secret transcripts of a bunch of elderly Jews in a graveyard, then they are a fabrication, and the article explains where they actually came from. Can you give me a clearer idea of how you would want this explained differently? As for Bolton, there are lots of anti-Semites who say that the Protocols are true, the arguments basically are "the Jews/Zionists made up the story of the forgery" -- trying to answer these sorts of silly assertions point-by-point give fringe views much more room than is needed in a main article. If you want to create a new subarticle about this, I am happy to help. Any chance you can change your vote now? --Goodoldpolonius2 15:20, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't say I wanted more detail, just that the detail you have should probably be centralized in some way. Maybe some bulleted list? (It's a shame the formatting doesn't allow for sidebars, which would be the perfect place for it)
I think if you get that done, then I can support this. Daniel Case 18:06, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
OK. I just went through it again myself, looked at Graves' article, and put some things in the article to clearly indicate why fact X shows the Protocols are fake.
I also like that you put the Islam and Anti-Semitism link at the head of the Middle East section. That gives it more context.
I'm getting a lot closer to supporting this. Let me look over the whole thing again tonight. There might be just a few more things to do (As for the daughter-article idea on the continuing claims for their authenticity, I think it's a great idea but it is not necessary for featured-article status, so that could be done later). Daniel Case 19:09, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I am now changing my vote to provisional support if, between now and whenever this goes on the Main Page, the remaining issues above are taken care of. Plus, the Nora Levin quote needs a footnote. Daniel Case 05:56, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I couldn't find her book. For now I added atertiary source that includes that quote. ←Humus sapiens ну? 09:53, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object the lead needs a substantial rewrite. (1) it is too long, (2) it needs to be a summary of the rest of the article (per WP:LEAD), (3) I don't think wikipedia should be using Britannica as a source, (4) having refs in the intro is very distracting (besides, some reference-able statements are refed, others are not). Also, "Subject matter" needs to be referenced; so do "The forger" and much of the rest of "History". Contains weasel: "Some scholars compare..." etc. Mikkerpikker ... 17:36, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Okay, to address (1) and (2) the lead is rewritten and now summarizes the content; I also removed the "some scholars compare" language. As for the other points, I have to disagree: (3) I moved the Britannica reference to a footnote, but there is no reason to eliminate other encyclopedias, we quote from the Jewish Encyclopedia and others all the time in Wikipedia; (4) references are critical in the introduction because (as you can see in the talk page) the factuality of the article is sometimes challenged, and the references are useful in discouraging this; and (5) I tried adding footnotes to the forger and history section, but exact footnotes aren't really needed here, since this is the commonly accepted history, and every book in the reference section states the same material, thus it doesn't really demand footnotes. --Goodoldpolonius2 18:12, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Good job on the lead! Big improvement... I relent on (1) (fixed), (2) (fixed), (3) (it's my personal taste so I'll let it be) and (4) (forgot for a moment how controversial this is, you're right refs are needed in the intro). However, my objection stands on the issue of references. WP:V states

Facts, viewpoints, theories, and arguments may only be included in articles if they have already been published by reliable and reputable sources. Articles should cite these sources whenever possible.

And, as WP:CITE points out "The main point [of refs] is to help the reader and other editors". That is why you still need to cite your sources in the "Subject matter" and "History" sections - even if the material is in most (or all) sources consulted, you need to say where in the those sources and which particular sources you're using so we can check it up for ourselves. Mikker ... 16:20, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Fixed, I believe, I added a number of footnotes, and the restructuring addressed some of the other issues.
I couldn't find her book. For now I added atertiary source that includes that quote. ←Humus sapiens ну? 09:53, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object I am blanket objecting all nominations that fail to use the new cite format. Hipocrite - «Talk» 14:40, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • While technically an "actionable" objection, since something could be done to fix it, "Uses the very latest in mediawiki formatting" isn't actually anything remotely close to an FA criteria. It has references, these references are linked inline, are in their own section... that's about what was required. Fieari 15:51, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: An excellent factual account of this complex and controversial topic. Giano | talk 00:12, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object: very interesting article, but not there yet IMHO.
    • The text has to be proofread against unnecessary rhetoric. Preferrably by an editor who has not seen the article recently; and who can do it calmly. (I myself feel very strongly about the subject and have to restrain myself so as not to use pretty strong words about the "protocols", so I'll pass :-) ) For an example look at the end of the lead: still has currency in the arsenal of contemporary anti-Semitism.)
    • Should be more detached (explicitly invoking the cited sources, as in "according to..."), rather than stating things matter-of-factly in some cases, e.g.: The text is generally accepted as truthful in large parts of South America and Asia, especially in Japan where variations on the Protocols have frequently made the bestseller lists. BTW, speaking of which, I believe I have read a different opinion once, perhaps in the earlier version of this very article, about the contemporary usage in Japan --- that they study it in schools etc. as an explicit example of a forgery? Sorry I'm lazy to look it up myself...)
    • Becomes too sketchy towards the end, feels a bit cut in the middle. (Some restructuring needed?) this one is probably more of a comment than an objection, as I don't have a suggestion what exactly to do.

--BACbKA 18:51, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Some change have been made, take a look again. And specific points of objections would be helpful. --Goodoldpolonius2 22:53, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reluctantly have to oppose. No doubt, a notable topic, but a featured article must look and read good. As of today, the article looks ugly (personal impression). Lots of small sections with long titles, with text often not matching titles. Sectioning countrywide with a single sentence per section is pointless. Further, as with any historical work, naturally, there are statements about possible motivations of the actions of persons involved, which are, naturally again, someone's POVs. The article must put more effort to make sure that these POVs are not wikipedia's POVs, but of certain experts. mikka (t) 07:39, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the suggestions. I've reworded a little and consolidated some of the smaller sections. The small images are now a gallery. Not that I love the section titles, but I don't see anything wrong with them. ←Humus sapiens ну? 09:53, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object - sorry, this is generally an excellent article on an important topic, but there are too many one-sentence paragraphs - even one sentence sections - and I don't think we need a gallery of 15 cover images, pretty though they are. -- ALoan (Talk) 20:56, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • But the sections really help the organization of the article, what else would you suggest? --Goodoldpolonius2 22:53, 22 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think the images are important to prove and illustrate the distribution of the phenomenon. ←Humus sapiens ну? 06:49, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I agree. It is amazing to see the effort in spreading this text. HOwever I'd restricted one pic per country: 4 Egyptian is just too much. mikka (t)
        • We already removed a few images, I think the rest are important: not so long ago, the talk page was full of "believers". Regarding Egyptian editions, post-1972 were published in various periods after the Camp David where Egypt committed to stop antisemitic incitement and during the Peace Process. Look at the graphics. ←Humus sapiens ну? 09:55, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Is there any statistics about Protocols: in how many countries printed, total circulation volume, etc.? mikka (t)
        • I didn't feel comfortable putting this into the article, but according to Radio Liberty [3], "In the last 100 years, the Protocols was published in tens of languages worldwide, and its cumulative print run most likely exceeded the works by Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The Protocols appear to be the largest contribution by Russia in the global so-called 'culture'." (The translation is mine) ←Humus sapiens ну? 09:55, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • Why not add that, with citation? Regarding the images, I can understand the need to show some of the - rather striking - covers, but the number seems excesssive to me. The geographical spread is obvious from the text. Regarding short paragraphs/section, they should be expanded or consolidated. Much of section 3 ("Contemporary usage and popularity") consists of single-sentence paragraphs (the single sentence section, "Lebanon", has been expanded). -- ALoan (Talk) 11:03, 23 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Uma Thurman

[edit]

Self-nomination and support. I have been working on this article for the past month, and recently achieved Good Article status. I think that I have finally reached the point of adequately addressing the subject in more than enough detail.--Fallout boy 09:15, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support Object. 1) This sentence needs reworded: "father Robert Thurman (b. 4 August 1941), a professor at Columbia University of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist studies of British ancestry". When I first read it, I thought her father taught British studies also. 2) The footnotes need to be numbered and put in a footnote section, separate from the un-footnoted refs. Rlevse 11:25, 9 February 2006 (UTC)Rlevse 22:22, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. --Fallout boy 18:17, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have expanded the lead-in to include more about the roles and films she takes, if that helps.--Fallout boy 23:58, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object - why is footnote number one not the first one? (It's actually in a picture in the middle of the article). Also, the article needs some re-writing; I found it be dull and repetitive, especially the sentence patterns - almost all of it is in subject verb form. Scan down the article and read the first sentence of each paragraph and you'll see what I mean: most of them are "Thurman did..." Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 21:27, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment I don't see what you're talking about. I see no footnotes in image captions.Rlevse 15:25, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That issue seems to be resolved (if you want to see what I'm talking about, check the history). However, I still object (see my objection above). Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 16:35, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I moved the image footnote to the body article. As for the sentence patterns, I can have those rewritten today.--Fallout boy 22:31, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Great, please let me know here when you're done. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 00:22, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
An edit summary is here (the same messge is on your talk page).--Fallout boy 23:18, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Great work! Support. Flcelloguy (A note?) 23:14, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak Object There is little in the article outside her career, as both the early and personal lives sections are quite thin (as is the hiatus section). It's a pretty darn good summary of her career as an actress, but I don't know if a beefed up IMDb page is enough to get featured. Staxringold 12:10, 16 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There are a few more details about her life I could add to her early and personal life sections, such as some information about her body dysmorphic disorder. As for her personal life section, I wanted most of the article's focus to be on her career rather than personal life, to keep it more encyclopedic rather than a supermarket tabloid. Anyway, I added more of the major details about her non-acting life. --Fallout boy 05:47, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes it is. It is actionable, and it would improve the article. Please use the best refrences format available. Featured articles are supposed to be our best work - our best work no longer uses the old ref-note format. Hipocrite - «Talk» 15:33, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • While technically an "actionable" objection, since something could be done to fix it, "Uses the very latest in mediawiki formatting" isn't actually anything remotely close to an FA criteria. It has references, these references are linked inline, are in their own section... that's about what was required. Fieari 15:49, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • As I was typing up my response I realized I was spending more time arguing with you about why Cite.php is the best thing since sliced bread, so I just went ahead and slapped a major-edit tag on the article and started to fix it. BBL. Hipocrite - «Talk» 15:54, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • PS - if you take a look at it now, you'll see the refrences are currently wrong because there are two named "tbio," and as such, the linking is broken. Luckily, the Cite.php format dosen't have this problem.Hipocrite - «Talk» 15:57, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I repaired the only other issue with using the same footnote multiple times using the ref name tag. --Fallout boy 19:33, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I don't have a STRENUOUS objection. However, I am concerned that what we promote as FAs in the "current fame and celebrity" category (entertainers, pop music, and the like)—what we're tagging as "the best we have to offer"—is often quite pedestrian and press release-oriented. I believe it's good for WP to have "bios" on important people. But somehow, without SPECIFIC, ACTIONABLE OBJECTIONS, I still feel that FAs should celebrate more than a PR/press kit-based summary, which I think this one is... --Tsavage 06:29, 19 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I can understand your concerns, with a lot of celebrities and "flavor of the moment" entertainers (ie. Lindsay Lohan, Julia Stiles, etc.) getting FA status. As for a "press kit based summary," I wanted to write a verifiable review of her work, and I didn't include any praising statements unless they were said by a professional critic/review. I didn't want to make an article just praising her, and I included all of the valid criticisms and background information on her career I could find.--Fallout boy 05:10, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Pink Floyd

[edit]

The Pink Floyd article was subjected to a peer review (archived here) some time back and many considered it a candidate for a featured article at that time. Many of the concerns in the peer review were addressed, and I've addressed the rest in the last couple weeks. Many other editors have copyedited and tweaked the article in the months since the review to the point that I think it's worthy of featured status. - dharmabum 01:40, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have now provided in-line citations for sales figures in the article wherever possible, and removed uncited figures to the individual album pages. The one thing I'm stuck on is a citation for the RIAA's official 23x platinum certification for The Wall, as the RIAA's site doesn't seem to provide the ability to link directly to a single album. I'll work on finding another credible source - if anyone knows another repository for their figures it would be appreciated. - dharmabum 05:27, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support This major Pink Floyd fan says yes, yes, yes. Denni ☯
  • Oppose:
    • A featured article should assume the reader knows nothing about its subject. If I had never heard a Pink Floyd song in my life, I could read this whole article and still not have any more than a slight hint about what they sounded like. Fair-use audio clips of a few representative tracks may be helpful (general consensus is that fair-use clips of copyright songs should not exceed 30 seconds, should be noticeably less than CD-quality audio and should be in OGG Vorbis format). However, description of PF's "sound" is also a must.
    • The external links sprinkled throughout the article should be converted to proper inline citations.
    • The article almost entirely leaves out the reception of the band by professional music critics. Given the body of writing that has been published about Pink Floyd, this should be easy to find.
    • "noted for their ... thoughtful lyrics" What does "thoughtful" mean here? If it means that PF's lyrics are more poignant/intelligent/poetic than typical rock lyrics, this is a POV assertion unless it is backed with good citations. Again, it should not be a hard task to find support from some noted rock critics.
    • "a significant intake of psychedelic drugs took its toll on Barrett. In January 1968, guitarist David Gilmour joined the band to carry out the playing and singing duties of Syd, whose mental health had been deteriorating for several months." Obviously Barrett's issues back then have become part of rock lore and are factual; nevertheless, whenever you make claims about a person's illegal drug use, mental illness, etc., it's best to cite them directly.
    • "The album contained hints of things to come..." Like?
    • "The album was a transitional piece for the group, hinting at future musical territory." And again.
    • "The title is schoolboy slang for sexual procreation" Source?
    • There are a lot of other statments that need to be cited. This article has a lot of information but will need going-over with a fine-tooth comb (preferably by someone without much familiarity with the band, as it seems to me that non-fans may be the ones most puzzled by this article) before it can become Featured. Andrew Levine 04:28, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have addressed many of the direct critiques presented. I have changed "thoughtful" (which I never liked) to the more apt "philosophic", as a brief glance at their lyrics indicates their philosophic intentions, but the word does not carry a POV implication of whether such philosophic lyrics are well-written or insightful. Citations and external links have been formatted correctly, sources for Barrett's drug use, the "Ummagumma" slang provided, and the specific questions about "things to come" have been addressed. I have also provided more detail on the band's sound, describing it more fully in the Barrett years and providing an overview of each era's changing sound at the top of their subsections. There are still no audio clips (I have some technical issues that will delay providing any), and someone unfamiliar with the article going over it with a fine-tooth comb would be terrific, but I just wanted to let you know what had been addressed. - dharmabum 22:56, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Good article. Cedars 08:49, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Good article, should be featured. --Myles Long/cDc 15:01, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weak Support Weak Oppose - The article is well-written, fairly intriguing. However, as per Andrew Levine's comments, I'll have to oppose. I'm willing to change to a (weak) support if some of those issues are corrected. ♠ SG →Talk 21:11, 10 February 2006 (UTC) Alright, it seems like some of it was corrected, but I still don't see much describing their sound (which was very unique compared to the other bands during their years). However, even if it gets FA status, this article will never reach the front page without having at least one sample (Comfortably Numb would be good). Nevertheless, you have my support. ♠ SG →Talk 23:54, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The article now has an extensive series of sound clips which are cross-referenced to their applicable eras in the article, which can be viewed here. This is the first time I've encoded OGG files, uploaded them and added them to an article, so please let me know right away if you find any problems with them. - dharmabum 08:14, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Battersea Power Station provides this link to support the bit of lore that not only was the inflatable pig difficult to control in the high winds, it actually broke away. This should be in the article IMO. Other than that, since it's an FA on the Hebrew, Polish and Russian wikis, it's high time to get this together and make it an FA here. Daniel Case 05:28, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Added the link you provided, thanks! - dharmabum 08:14, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Strong Support. It's hard to imagine not knowing what Pink Floyd sounds like, so descriptions like "progressive compositions" and "sonic experimentation" seem perfectly suitable to me. I'm not sure how many samples fair use allows, and it would be impossible to give an adequate example with just one clip. Sure, Comfortably Numb is a great song, but it has almost nothing to do with their more experimental sounds on songs like Echoes or Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun or Several Species of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together in a Cave and Grooving with a Pict. The clip doesn't seem all that important to me because it would be a tiny drop in a vast bucket of wildly different sounds. Fair use only goes so far. Kafziel 06:25, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know that fair use prohibits the number of clips, just the length and quality of them and the context they are put in. The Beatles, which is a featured article, provides 27 clips, for instance. I've prepared a bunch of 15-25 second 64kbps OGG clips showcasing the different styles of the Floyd eras, they just need to be uploaded and inserted, should have them in the article by tomorrow (unless someone demonstrates that there is a restriction on the number of clips). - dharmabum 06:44, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wow - 27, huh? Well, your additions sound good. If I could enter another "support" vote, I would. I'll just go ahead and change my vote to "strong support"... not that that counts for anything, but what the heck. Kafziel 07:13, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
"It's hard to imagine not knowing what Pink Floyd sounds like..." Guess what? Some people don't. And some people have trouble playing our sound files, or can't for technical reasons. Phrases like "progressive compositions" and "sonic experimentation" mean nothing to most people who aren't heavily into music, and even for audiophiles they can imply a wide variety of very different sounds (The could apply equally to Yes, or Merzbow, or Cecil Taylor or, or, or...). There simply needs to be more prose description of what Pink Floyd sounded like. Andrew Levine 02:06, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - The article seems clean of fan bias and is well-written. More description of their sound might be welcome, but that could be difficult considering the several eras the band's history is split through meant a constant change in their sound; such as the psychedelia of Barrett, the post-Barrett/pre-Dark Side period which was very experimental, the somewhat jazz-influenced and deliberately paced Dark Side period, and the Roger Waters period which often leaned more into hard rock. Medico Dimamico Talk
I've done my best describing their sound, but I lack the prose. I find trying to describe music with words difficult, at best - I could write 10,000 words on J.S. Bach's music without giving the sense of it that 5 minutes of listening would. I selected the sound clips very carefully, trying to showcase their sounds without just providing clips of their most prominent singles, and while I acknowledge the problem some people have playing OGG files (me included), it's the best I can offer until someone with better prose abilities decides to give it a shot. - dharmabum 08:11, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This may be beside the point, but in my book if someone comes to Wikipedia to learn about what Pink Floyd (or any band) sounds like, then they don't deserve to know. ;) Kafziel 08:19, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wow. Are you serious? An encyclopedia article about a musical group shouldn't make an effort to describe what they sound like? Do you think that that this article should only be intended for people who are already Floyd fans? Andrew Levine 01:26, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'll have to put some thought into how to address this exactly, but it's worth pointing out that the lead was actually expanded recently in order to meet the Featured Music Project criteria after its evaluation. - dharmabum 06:17, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This comment and the one at Phil Collins's FA candidacy from Flcelloguy has changed the Featured Music Project criteria regarding intro sections. I've trimmed the introduction in accord with the new criteria. - dharmabum 10:43, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the reply! I'll need to have some time to re-review the article, but another minor objection first: it appears that all the refs at the end of the sentence are placed before the period in the article, while the standard (see Wikipedia:Footnotes) suggests that they be moved after the period. Could this be fixed? Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 00:29, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Done. - dharmabum 00:46, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've now moved the section about bootlegs to the discography; if you have any other suggestions for info that should be moved elsewhere to streamline the article, I'd love to hear them. - dharmabum 08:43, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've taken your ideas further and removed a large volume of information about Pink Floyd's live shows, reducing the article by around 20k and moving it to the new article, Pink Floyd live performances. The "Live Performances" subsection has a link to the new page using the {{main}} template. - dharmabum 01:52, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the tip; I'm a newcomer to the ref system and didn't even know not putting a name attribute was an option. I've done as you suggested. I plan to put some references to Schaffner's biography into the article, but it's the only one in the bibliography I own and I haven't had time to sit down with it yet. (Done) - dharmabum 21:36, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • support. my prior comments that references not complete enough for the extent of material. written with bad grammar and in too much slang and colloquial have been addressed. lots of good material and cover art . Anlace 00:44, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've altered the language somewhat and tried to clean up any slanginess I could see, but if you have any direct examples I'd be happy to address them. I've also added over 20 references. - dharmabum 01:43, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oh, also, I could only find 2 instances out of nearly 100 uses of the word "band" which incorrectly used a reference to a plural noun. If you spot any others, please let me know. - dharmabum 01:56, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I went through and changed a few more plural references to "band". InTheFlesh? 17:43, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thrasybulus

[edit]

Self-nom. I've been working on this for a while, and I think it presents a balanced and comprehensive picture of a man who has been nearly forgotten today despite being quite prominent at his time. The one thing I wish it had is more pictures, but one of the downsides of being nearly forgotten is that no one really bothers to draw many pictures of you. RobthTalk 22:31, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support I'm suporting this. It's well referenced, and hence reliable. I'd prefer Greek transliterations than Latinizations of the names, but that's a wikipedia policy thing. Decent article. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) File:UW Logo-secondary.gif 22:37, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Well referenced, well written, good lead, sections well laid out... I don't know the subject well enough myself to know for certain that it's comprehensive, but it looks that way to me. One thing that could be improved is the use of images, though that's not an FA requirement. Image:Cyzicus.JPG is a nice informative picture, but alas, it... isn't pretty. If someone could whip up something that looks nicer while having the same content, that would be awesome. Other images might be nice, simply to break up the text and make it prettier, but I understand the difficulty in just comming up with new images, and as I said, it isn't an FA requirement. Good work on the article. Fieari 00:38, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'd just like to second that comment about the Cyzicus picture. The current one is the best that me and MS Paint could whip up, but that's obviously pretty far down the totem pole as far as drawing programs go, and I never have been known for my "skills of an artist." Anyone with more talent or better software who has the time to improve it will earn my undying gratitude. RobthTalk 01:57, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I'd like to see more specific page references in the footnotes. Durova 02:37, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. A good lead grabs the attention immediately and the article is up to the standard of any features I've read recently. The writing and layout are excellent, references and footnotes fine, content and links interesting - all adding up to a comprehensive treatment of a subject that as the submitter says was once prominent, now forgotten. No quibbles really, but agree images would enhance. Thamyris 15:11, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object. Translated texts (e.g., note 30) don't identify edition or translator within article. Also agree with Durova concerning footnotes. Monicasdude 20:33, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've listed translators for the works that I could find the information for (I couldn't find it for the Thucydides or Xenophon). As far as editions, all the editions used are the online versions linked to (I made a point of taking any quotes, line numbering etc. from those editions). I won't be able to add page numbers till Sunday afternoon at the earliest, since the copy of the R.J. Buck book that I used is in a non-circulating library that's closed most of the weekend, but I'll put them up as I get a chance. RobthTalk 21:21, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • You don't need to list the translator unless you're quoting an actual translation; so just simply list the place you got the translation after the passage reference. The others all you need is, for instance, citations of the type Thuc. x.12. . For your secondary texts, you do indeed need to do the page references, and use citations such as ibid., passim, op. cit. and loc. cit. - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) File:UW Logo-secondary.gif 23:03, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Page numbers have now been added to all citations of modern sources. I didn't use ibid. etc, since I recall reading somewhere that those have been deprecated by the MLA. RobthTalk 02:03, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • You are correct: the MLA style book has been opposed to "ibid" since about 1982 or thereabouts. Few style sheets use it anymore, and I think Chicago ("Turabian") is against it as well. Geogre 03:38, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Never thought of such organizations as authorities. Certainly made little impact on the journals and books I've been reading lately. What do they suggest one uses in their place? - Calgacus (ΚΑΛΓΑΚΟΣ) 02:45, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Battle of Badr

[edit]

According to the WikiProphet, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than to write a good NPOV article on Islam. However, I have tried and rewritten the article from scratch, so any errors in it are mine and mine alone. It covers a decisive battle fought by Muhammad against his Quraish opponents in 624, which has an extremely important place in Islamic history, roughly equivalent to the Jews' escape from Pharoah in the Torah. The article has had a thorough Peer Review, is listed as a Good Article, and has been copy-edited at least once. I hope you will see fit to support this nomination. If not I would very much appreciate detailed responses so I can keep improving this page. Palm_Dogg 22:06, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

F-35 Joint Strike Fighter

[edit]

Previously submitted, not a self-nom. Archived here, nice front page article --PopUpPirate 00:04, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

(fixed) article needs some work, some rough spots. For example see the Design section, almost nothing there, AND SINCE WHEN DO WE WRITE ARTICLES IN ALL CAPS? Some of the references are dead links. --Duk 11:38, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Phil Collins

[edit]

Hello, all. Self nomination of Phil Collins. As you may previously remember, this article was nominated prematurely to FAC about 1 1/2 months ago by a new member to Wikipedia and was rightly rejected. I have spent the last month making this a labor of love of sorts, and the article is a vast improvement over the original. Among new additions -- references/notes/inline citations (with the deletion of anything that could not be referenced), audio samples, removal of most grammar / passive voice, expansion of the introduction, elimination of the "list" feel which originally overtook the article (including a seperate page for the looong discography), renaming of the sections, and a host of other improvements. Article went through peer review [[4]] and I believe 99.9% of additions have been made. I also have the original FAC nomination at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Phil Collins/archive1. I think you'll notice a substancial difference between the time of its original nomination [[5]] and its current format [[6]]. Thanks for the review! --Ataricodfish 04:50, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment Meets all the Featured Music Project except some problems with image copyrights. Any image used under fair use needs to have a listing on the image page of why its use in the article Phil Collins qualifies as fair use, and must have its source credited. Tuf-Kat 05:40, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Tuf, I added source information and related fair use information to each photograph. There was a Genesis photograph on the page prior to my working on the page with unknown but a definitely copyrighted photograph showing the band's classic lineup. I really liked the image, but it had no information and it's surely copyrighted, so I removed it from this page (It remains on the main Genesis page). I replaced it with an album cover that's equally amusing and considerably easier to reference, although I'm hoping to hear back from the webmaster of the official website regarding the use of promotional photographs in the future. (also posted on Talk page) --Ataricodfish 07:27, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The source info is good, but that's not a fair use rationale. You need to explain why you think its use is fair, according to the legal principles of fair use. See Wikipedia:Fair use for more info, and Image:Robertjohson.jpg for an example. Tuf-Kat 07:38, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the example. I reviewed the Robertjonson example as well as prior examples in other featured articles, such as Marilyn Manson. Fair use explanations have been added to the photos on the Collins page.--Ataricodfish 15:37, 5 February 2006 (UTC) Also added fair use explanations to audio samples.--Ataricodfish 16:07, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, as all my major concerns have been addressed, and the article is well-written and apparently comprehensive, though I must admit I'm not a fan. I do have two suggestions though: consolidate some of the short paragraphs, of which there are a lot, and consider moving the sound samples into the article body (e.g. two systems: Music of Nigeria or Music of the United States). Tuf-Kat 07:27, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Tuf, thanks for your constant reviews of the article. Especially since you're not a fan of Collins, I appreciate that you have taken the time to review the article several times.--Ataricodfish 18:54, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Essex, thank you for your vote and for reviewing the article.--Ataricodfish 20:46, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object - vast improvement since last peer review - well done! The writing however still needs some work. Here are some examples but I think the entire article would benefit from a copyedit.

1. lead paragraph contains elements of POV/overstatement. These are not indisputable facts, therefore need to be made more neutral. "haunting rock classic", "propelled Collins into an international superstar" (it's a bit awkwardly written and "superstar" is not encyclopedic).

I believe I eliminated the potential POV statements in the lead.--Ataricodfish 18:54, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

2."Early life and career" - "ambition to wield the sticks" - that's a really, really awful phrase.

"Ambition to wield the sticks", as well as much of that section, was prior to my arrival to the page. It's difficult to edit sometimes, as I don't want to eliminate someone else's work solely on my review. I've cleaned up the section some more, and removed this phrase.--Ataricodfish 18:54, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
but if someone else's work is really, really bad, by all means change it ;-) just kidding. Remember - be bold Rossrs 12:58, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

3.General copyedit needed to remove awkward sentences. Examples : "When his turn arrived he knew all the parts", "although the decade failed to treat Collins as well as the previous..." etc

I have a general problem with wordiness, although I eliminated much of these phrases during the peer review. I have made another read through and made some eliminations (although personally, I liked that decade line). I believe it's cleaner now.--Ataricodfish 18:54, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have the same problem. I read everything I write about 400 times and still find things to remove. I know exactly what you mean, and yes it's much better. Rossrs 12:58, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

4.Writing style needs to be tightened to remove superfluous or inappropriate words - examples "In total, Collins sang the lead..." why not just "Collins sang the lead .. etc". "climbed as high as #3" - why not "reached number three". "explaining his lack of invite" (the correct word is "invitation")

Made these corrections and more.--Ataricodfish 18:54, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

5. Incorrect use of future tense - "it wouldn't be until 1976", "1985 would be a banner year". all tenses should be past. should be "in 1976 he ....." and "1985 was a good year" etc.

I corrected these and didn't catch any other instances, although I could be wrong.--Ataricodfish 18:54, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

6. The word "Collins" is overused, even for an article about someone named "Collins". For variety the article needs a few "he"s and "him"s to be used instead.

Made some changes.--Ataricodfish 18:54, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

7. Cites and punctuation - in some cases the full stop appears before the cite, sometimes after, and sometimes both. Should be before the cite in all cases.

Corrected this as well.--Ataricodfish 18:54, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

8. The fair use rationales for the images are well done, but I think the Rolling Stone image is a problem in that fair use could be best demonstrated by some discussion of the fact that he was featured on the magazine cover. It's significant as mentioned on the image description page, but this is not mentioned in the article. The problem is amplified by the fact that it's used as the lead image, and that the logo and part of the headlines are cropped. Suggest swapping it with the screenshot image, which is not an ideal choice for the lead paragraph but which would be better, and ensure that Collins' featuring on the magazine cover is at least mentioned in the article.

I have exchanged the two photographs. I perfer the magazine as the lead photo, but I'm also not that experienced with the concept of fair use. I will keep the solo image at the top for now and will see if anyone else makes note of it.--Ataricodfish 18:54, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
fair enough. Aesthetically, I prefer the cover too, but I think it's better this way. Rossrs 12:58, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

9. There is no critical discussion of either his music or films. I think for a musician/performer/songwriter/actor - some comments, positive and negative, are essential. Rossrs 12:14, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I began putting critical reviews, as it was mentioned in peer review, but hesistated after seeing critical reviews on other Wikipedia articles. Critical sections always appear biased by whoever's writing it to back up their views of a performer, with people of the other camp then protesting to note the bias and begin including other views to balance it out. Personally, I believe critical reviews should appear on the articles for the individual albums or singles. Also, this article tetters on the recommended 32K, and I didn't want to create a large article. However, I will be glad to attempt a critical section if this is the main issue.
Anyway, thanks Rossrs for reviewing this article twice now. I appreciate that you have taken the time to read the article twice and post your comments. Please let me know if the other issues have been addressed properly.--Ataricodfish 18:54, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You're welcome. I still think critical comment is important, but you're right. Even the choice of comments used is biased by what we as editors want to include. But the same argument can be applied to anything. I think to gain a more rounded understanding of Collins as a performer we need to know for example - were credible reviewers liking or disliking his work? Did he alienate reviewers by taking the middle-of-the-road route after Genesis' progressive start? Was his music considered to be "good" or just "popular"? Was he considered to be an insightful lyricist? A good songwriter? Did reviewers feel his live shows demonstrated his capabilities as a performer? Or was he just a crowd pleaser? They are the kind of things I think could strengthen the article, so I'll stand by my earlier comment. It could be done in a critical section, or could be scattered throughout the article, like for example the comments about the Ark 2 album. But really great job you're doing with the article. NatusRoma's advice further down, is right on the money.
Thanks again for your review and compliments. This article has taken up much more of my time than initially expected, and I think everyone is surprised after peer reviewing an article just how much hard work it takes to get it to featured status. I have added some reviews (only two so far, besides the Ark 2 reviews) and put them into the article, because as mentioned, I'm not a fan of having a separate header for critiques and I think that's just asking for trouble down the road. I'm trying to figure out a way of putting the other reviews into the article without disrupting the flow, and will try again later.--Ataricodfish 18:27, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Rossrs, I've added five additional critical reviews, including one for a film, since the page was nominated. I took your suggestions of scattering them in the article, as I'm not a fan of separate critical sections as I think that is asking for vandels in the future. --Ataricodfish 05:44, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support - I think the review comments were well chosen, particularly the one about the possible "disaster" of Peter Gabriel leaving. Nicely done. Article is well written, well illustrated, even, thorough without delving into trivia, and non-NPOV. Rossrs 00:29, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Rossrs, Thank you very much for your support. You have seen the before and after of this article, and I can assure you a lot of work went into it. Thanks for your help and suggestions in the process. --Ataricodfish 04:58, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No problem. And I can assure you, I understand exactly how much work goes into getting an article up to scratch. I don't doubt how much time and effort you've put into this. Rossrs 09:57, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Question - what is meant by this sentence? "In the 1980s, the group scored a string of successful albums, including their first UK top hit Invisible Touch (1986)". Top what? I've checked some reference material and it wasn't their first top 10, or top 5 or even first number one album, and I can't see anything significant about the chart placing. Or should it be US rather than UK? Can you clarify please what is meant here? thanks Rossrs 12:58, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is called an example of poor fact checking on my part. :) No, when I reviewed the article, I doubled checked the statements regarding chart position and only varified that, yes, Invisible Touch did indeed make it to number one in the UK. However, you're totally right that this wasn't the first Genesis album to do so, so I chalk it up to being originally written incorrectly and then overlooked in the editing process. I deleted this.--Ataricodfish 18:27, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Andy, thank you very much for your comment. It was my understanding that the lead was appropriate at four paragraphs. I was using the template for the Wikipedia:Featured Music Project, which says at L1, "Typically, the lead ... is from two to four paragraphs long". However, I noted that User:Petaholmes has condensed this to three paragraphs, which WP:LEAD recommends, and I agree and appreciate the editing. The list of names in the lead was from a prior editor, and as I mentioned in response to Rossrs, I hesistated with deleting too much work by other users. Is the lead approproiate now? Thanks! --Ataricodfish 01:21, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
To follow up on Andy's comment, after this and a similar comment by another editor was made during the FAC for Pink Floyd [[7]], the Wikipedia:Featured Music Project now recommends 2-3 paragraphs instead of 2-4. Thanks for your suggestion. --Ataricodfish 23:53, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Don't hesitate to be bold in changing other people's work if you think that it's not up to snuff. I've often significantly altered text that other people have written, and other people have often significantly altered text that I have written, with positive results. Also, don't get too hung up on the 32kb line. It's not really a big issue anymore, and many featured articles are much, much longer than 32kb. NatusRoma 06:47, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Natus, thank you for your comment. This is my first Wikipedia article for which I've done more than just spell check, vandel edit, or add a piece of information. My initial concern was that the Wikipedia community wouldn't like it if I turned this into AtariCodfish's article, so I tried to save other editor's statements whenever possible. --Ataricodfish 18:27, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't worry about that. As long as "AtariCodfish's article" is good, I don't think anyone will care The Catfish 22:36, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Catfish, I appreciate the comment. I reviewed be bold as well, as was recommended earlier. I'm very happy with how the article has progressed.--Ataricodfish 04:23, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment, the numbered notes in the text do not have a note in the list of notes that shares the same number, which is kind of the point of numbered notes.--nixie 03:15, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
nixie, thank you for pointing this out. This comes down with my confusion with the numbering system and my recent adds of new notes. However, this was corrected rather quickly, just tested, and everything matches. --Ataricodfish 04:13, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Minor objection - good article, but could the "Band" section be expanded or turned into a prose? I don't think a bulleted list of his band members with only one (er, two) sentence lead in that section is appropriate. Also, why is that section and the discography section below further reading and audio samples? Correct me if I'm wrong, but those should be at the bottom, with any text above it. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 17:27, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Flcelloguy, thanks for the comment, and I appreciate that you reviewed the article. I personally like where further reading is because it's immediately after the article text itself. My logic; if you've read this and would like to read more, here you go. As for the audio samples, it was the same logic; you've just read about the guy, now here's a list of samples in historical order for the article just read. I modeled this after the Marilyn Manson featured article, as I liked how the audio section was featured and ordered. I placed the discography and band afterward because they are lists and, I feel, would be distracting placed earlier in the article. I don't know if there's a general accepted format on Wikipedia for this, but I personally like how it is set up.
As for the band list, originally the article had a LONG band list of every member in the band ever, including studio musicians. I liked the information but felt an entire list was inappropriate for this article and that a summary of the current band would suffice. I created a separate article, Touring and studio musicians of Phil Collins, and cut-and-paste that information over. I had briefly considering deleting the band section and putting it in a "See Also" section at the bottom, but I thought it looked unprofessional with only one link, (That touring link), and nothing else, and I also thought the information was informative in its current format, so I kept the article as is.--Ataricodfish 20:10, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your reply! I need some more time to re-review this article; I'll get back to you soon. Thanks! Flcelloguy (A note?) 00:39, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Eternal, thank you very much for reviewing the article and for your vote of support. --Ataricodfish 20:10, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support per all support nominations above. Captain Jackson 19:24, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sydney Newman

[edit]

Self-nomination. This article has existed on Wikipedia since 2003, but in November last year I rebuilt it from the ground up and have been refining it since then. I'm pretty pleased with it (but then, that's what they all say). I put it on peer review on Monday, but it just sat there receiving no replies, so after enquiring on the FAC talk page I decided to move it here rather than keep it hanging around on PR. Despite the lack of response at peer review, I did specifically ask a couple of users, User:Bodnotbod and User:Josiah Rowe, to look at it for me, and they both seemed to think it was pretty good, so I thought it was probably good enough to nominate it now. Angmering 23:51, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • SupportMild object. I changed the references to notes with numbers since the footnotes in the text create numbers. This will make it easier on the reader. My only other concern is that there are several red wiki links in the article (at least 8). Can these be removed or can articles be created for them? Rlevse 16:02, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't aware that featuring redlinks was a factor against FAs, but I can certainly create decent stubs for most of them and remove any that seem less likely to deserve or ever get articles. Angmering 18:51, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There are now no redlinks in the article. Angmering 22:52, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's acutally buried in a sublink off the FA criteria page about linking. A few are okay, but too many don't look good. Thanks for fixing it, I changed my vote. Rlevse 13:56, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Just browsing through some of the already featured biographies, and I can't say it looks to me as though the section lengths here are wildly out of preportion? Angmering 22:16, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cape Horn

[edit]

Self-nom: An interesting and significant subject, IMO. I've done a bit of work on this; after a very productive peer review, I think this is about ready for FAC. All comments welcome. — Johan the Ghost seance 10:48, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Conditional Support – 1. metric equivalent of 400 miles needed 2. Strait of Le Maire is the only red link. Creating the article would give a more professional touch to the page. 3. Anything on demographics (if possible)? population/density etc. 4. Pamir was the last commercial sailing ship to round Cape Horn laden with cargo. When? 5. A brief sentence on the etymology should be present in the lead. =Nichalp «Talk»= 19:03, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks again for the comments:
  1. Done.
  2. Done (Le Maire Strait).
  3. Clarified this: "... the navy supports a lighthouse keeper and his family (the only residents of the island)".
  4. Fixed.
  5. I've added that quite briefly in the first sentence; thought about adding more, but this seems to cover it — what do you think?
— Johan the Ghost seance 20:45, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object (Criterion 2a) The lead doesn't fill me with confidence.

It has improved. Tony 13:33, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cape Horn (Dutch: Kaap Hoorn; Spanish: Cabo de Hornos; named for the Dutch city of Hoorn) is a headland at the southern tip of the South American continental shelf, and, as part of the territory of Chile, is widely considered to be the southernmost point of land in South America. The cape is the southernmost of the great capes, and marks the northern boundary of the Drake Passage; it was for many years a major milestone on the clipper route, by which sailing ships carried trade around the world. However, Cape Horn is notorious for particularly hazardous conditions, due to strong winds, large waves, and icebergs, and became notorious as a sailors' graveyard.
    • 'as part of'—sounds as though because it's part of Chile, it's the southernmost point.
    • 'point of land in'—why not 'tip of'?
    • 'southernmost' twice in two phrases.
    • 'it was for many years'—awkward word order.
    • 'and became'—awkward as the final item in that 'listing' sentence. It's because of the strong winds, etc, that it became a graveyard—make the causal connection clear; a chronological item would be good here, too (during the 17th and 19th centuries?).
The whole article needs serious word-work. Tony 23:49, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for the comments. I think I've addressed all the above, and tried to better present the cape's slightly ambiguous status. I've also gone over the whole thing to work on the language. Funny how you can't see those awkward word formations when you've worked on an article — I re-read it like 20 times before FAC, but someone else points them out and they look horrible. — Johan the Ghost seance 01:45, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. You've pointed out a critical phenomenon for writers and editors. Put away a text for a week and read it afresh; print it out instead of editing on the monitor; or get someone else to look at it—these are all ways of achieving distance from the original writing process. This distance (I call it 'functional ignorance') promotes good writing. See if you can invoke the third method here, by having someone else highlight the bits that need work. Tony 03:51, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I had a peer review... do you have further comments on the article? — Johan the Ghost seance 10:55, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Um ... sorry, but peer reviews are irrelevant here. Tony 11:55, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I guess I don't have a clue what you're saying. Peer reviews are part of the FAC process. — Johan the Ghost seance 12:10, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I guess that's not true any more, since "Path to a Featured Article" has gone. — Johan the Ghost seance 12:22, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object (Leaning toward support; a pretty ship-shape article by and large):
    • The sentence "The Horn (as it is commonly known to sailors) is widely considered to be the southernmost point of South America; as such it is not a true cape, however, as it is actually situated on a small island, Hoorn Island (Isla Hornos), which is the southernmost of the Hermite Islands" needs help in a bad way.
    • The "Shipping hazards" section would benefit from an explanation to the layman of which direction a westerly wind blows.
    • Reading the article almost made me believe no east-to-west passages of the Horn were ever made, but I don't think that's true, even for sailboats...
    • Would it be worth having a separate discussion of sailing vessels vs. motorized vessels, as far as the navigational challenges of the passage go?
      • I've no real info on that; many of the issues are common, however. Big waves is the core issue (caused by the combination of the basic waves of the south, winds, shoaling, narrowing, and currents), and no ships like big waves. — Johan the Ghost seance 02:36, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Hmm - but if the winds blew true from the west for a sustained period, a sailing vessel (at least an old square-rigger) could make no real progress, or so I gather from too much Patrick O'Brian. But this isn't a big deal; my objection isn't going to stand on this.
    • A couple sections peter out with one-sentence paragraphs.
    • Footnotes to web pages should list authors and dates where possible; listing the date the page was last retrieved is also customary (in case the site goes down or changes significantly, having the date helps with looking it up on internet archives sites).
—Bunchofgrapes (talk) 00:11, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I notice you put the ESPN show in. I originally had this, then deleted it, because as far as I can see it has no relevance — "around the horn" in basketball seems to refer to going around the goal-post, or something. Do you have a reference that makes it relevant to Cape Horn, or shall I delete it? — Johan the Ghost seance 11:00, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Seems like a solid article to me, although I don't know enough about the topic to fully vet it. Object Sorry for being later in the process on this. Overall, I found the article good: informative, easy to read. But, the Literature and Culture section raised flags. Here, the coverage seems extremely superficial and arbitrary. A choice was made to include the section, so it should be done well.
  • Discussion of literature incomplete Things like Mutiny on the Bounty, Two Years Before the Mast, Darwin's The Voyage of the Beagle and other interesting old and contemporary literature are not mentioned. Also, movies and the like. This doesn't have to get out of control, just some of the most notable titles would suffice (IMO).
  • Thanks for the comments, which I found constructive and helpful. However, I can only put in what I have information on; I've added a note on Two Years Before the Mast, but I have no idea about the relevance of the others — OK, the Bounty went around the Horn, but does the book have anything significant to say about it? If anyone has any info on these books, please feel free to add it. — Johan the Ghost seance 20:10, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • The specifics were just suggestions, but I think the section is better filled out now and can be added to. For Bounty, I believe a significant part of the trip/story was failure to get around the Horn. I'll add it if I ever confirm. I added a Darwin paragraph, which may seem long, and represents only a tiny part of the book, but it is a great description and in the context of sailing at that time, and seems to fit nicely overall... --Tsavage 02:33, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • The final sentence is trivial and unsupported - Closing on that was kind of a letdown. This stuff belongs in a trivia section, and must be supported, else practically anything with "horn" in it could be attributed to Cape Horn. For all it contributes, even with support, it should probably be deleted unless/until a comprehensive Trivia section is constructed. In an FA, it is a negative. (I leave it to the currently presiding editor to decide for now...)
Two smaller points:
  • "Contemporary weather records for Ushuaia show" - location needs clarification In climate, after reading a para about conditions as recorded in the 1800s, Ushuaia suddenly comes up. This interrupted the flow, because presumably from the use of ancient recrods, getting true conditions for Cape Horn is difficult, so I immediately wanted to know how closely or not Ushuaia related...
  • In literature, single-handed sailing is mentioned - the first to succeed should be mentioned Having introduced the idea of small craft doing this on their own, more info seems missing when it's not there.
  • I found this: The first sailor who really conquered the great Cape Horn was Connor O'Brien, who rounded it with three friends on board the 42 footer "Saoirse", during the circumnavigation between 1923 and 1925 becoming the first cap hornier in the history of sailing.[8] You may want to include it if sources check out. --Tsavage 02:33, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Overall, I'd make the changes, even to literature, if I had more than passing knowledge. Thanks. --Tsavage 11:46, 12 February 2006(UTC)
  • weak oppose the references are weirds. there are footnotes in a "Reference" sections, but no "Sources" section collating all the paper references. Also, books that are used as sources need not be in "Further readings". Circeus 19:11, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • The Manual of Style (headings) says that the section for sources is titled "References", not "Sources", and that's what I've done. The "footnotes" in the "References" section are all the sources for the article; these are formatted in "footnote" style, which seems to be the preferred style, as per WP:CITE. Why would the paper references be collated separately? Several of the references (eg. The Circumnavigators, by Don Holm) are both paper and electronic. As for the "Further reading" section, the books in there were not used as sources, or else they would have been in the "References" section. They are listed for further reading for anyone who's interested. — Johan the Ghost seance 20:10, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
says that the section for sources is titled "References", not "Sources", still, many current FA uses "sources", though that doesn' make much difference, I admit. It does allow a separation between "major", and "other" sources, though.
Why would the paper references be collated separately? What I see is a "references" section containing footnotes, no "references" or "sources" section and a "further reading" section that i expect to contain books that were not used to write the article. I expect that if a book is mentionned in the footnotes, it should amongst the references too. the main sources of my confusion is that the Dallas book is in both sections. (Oh god I'm making absolutely no sense -_-;;;;)
Extra comment: Would you mind much a conversion to <ref>s? (I can do it myself). It'd allow for easy concatenation of the multiple identical references.
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Circeus (talk • contribs) (due to format typo)
Hi, thanks for the response.
  • Not sure what you mean by "major" and "other" sources; I've simply cited every source I used. Anyhow, the fact that other articles use "Sources" isn't a reason for me to break MoS.
See Scotland in the High Middle Ages for an (extreme, I admit, it's the first that come my mind) exampleof what I meant. Circeus 20:50, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not sure I understand your second comment. You're quite right about the Dallas book being in both sections; that was my mistake, and it's now fixed — sorry for the confusion. The "References" section right now does not contain footnotes. It contains references, formatted in "footnote" style, which is in line with the WP:CITE part of the Manual of Style. The "Further reading" section contains exactly what you said; books that were not used to write the article.
  • As for <ref>, I've only just found out about it — I guess it's new. I'll get to work on the conversion when time allows, since it's obviously the best way to do this.
It's not necessarily the best way to do it. Though it has it's advantage over the template-based methods,it has disadvantages of its own, notably in how you must hunt down the note within the article to change it (having been doing conversions today and yesterday, I assure you it can be a real pain). The easy concatenation is a prime advantage, though. Circeus 20:50, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Cheers! — Johan the Ghost seance 20:41, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I've changed it to <ref> references. (The template method was a right frig, because it relied on two independent numbering systems coincidentally producing the same numbers; so it was very fragile. I therefore really like ref; at least all the information is in one place, which is where it is used.) — Johan the Ghost seance 21:14, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Belarusian Republican Youth Union

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While I have been working on other articles, the BRSM article has had a grammr, spelling and link check. There could be some links that could be dead, so I will use the way-back machine to see if I can get those back to life. I also wonder that, for this short article, if the photos are an overkill or not. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) Fair use policy 05:15, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wayne Gretzky

[edit]

This is one of the finest articles produced by WP:HOCKEY. It is a solid, stable piece of work with good references and NPOV and I think it would be a great example of Wikipedia's work in sports. edit: I suppose it's a self-nom; I've edited it a few times in the past. RasputinAXP talk contribs 14:50, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Very interesting! For starters, though, the introduction should probably be closer to three paragraphs, given the length of the article. The first para is good; you might follow it with something like "Seen as a hockey prodigy at an early age, Gretzky made his professional debut in X and went on to win an unprecedented number of etc.," then in the last paragraph, "After retiring from pro hockey in YEAR, G went on to a career as a WHATEVER." That kind of thing. Kaisershatner 15:19, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've added a longer intro. Thanks for the suggestions! RasputinAXP talk contribs 14:58, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose I think it is a good article, but it needs some work to bring it up to FA status.
  • The sections need to be made more even in length. Perhaps some of the very short sections could be merged? Likewise, the "NHL career" paragraph could do with another sentence or two in the introduction explaining how he found himself in the NHL after the WHA. The WHA and early years sections could probably be merged.
  • It needs thorough copyediting. Some sentences are awkward, and although you can usually extract what they mean, it doesn't feel like the most lucid prose. For example, in the WHA section, the sentence with "...liquidated..." is unclear. You'd assume his "greatest asset" is Gretzky, but you don't know until the next sentence. The remainder of the article seems to have similar problems. Perhaps you could rope an outside editor into doing some copyediting?
  • Needs more thorough referencing.
  • Some of the list information could maybe be incorporated in a better way. I don't really think the "stats and facts" or "quotations" trivia sections belong in an encyclopedia article, especially one that is already quite long – maybe this information can be incorporated into the main stream of the text? As for the career statistics and awards section, I don't know. They interrupt the flow of the text, but they are important. The stats sections is too big to be in a sidebar, but perhaps the awards section? Can't it be merged with honours and accolades? In fact, can't NHL records, awards, honours and accolades all go in one big section?
Again, I think this is a good article about an important subject, but it needs a little more work to make it to FA status. –Joke 16:03, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the pointers. I've done a pile of copyediting and added referencing with a Notes section as Coffeeboy suggested below. RasputinAXP talk contribs 14:58, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The article is much improved. I still have some lingering concerns.
  • Some statements in the off the ice section need to be referenced, as does the assertion that his presence on the Kings was partly responsible for the expansion of hockey in the US sun belt.
  • The post-retirement section needs something after the header, and some of the little sections seem a little short to me. Maybe this section could be reorganized to help the prose flow better, without the aid of so many headers? Maybe one long(er) section could cover the Winter Olympics, starting with the disappointment as a player in '98, '02 and now '06.
If these things are cleared up, I will support. –Joke 15:48, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I reorganized the post-retirement stuff and referenced what I could from the off the ice section. I removed the Tim Horton's reference as (on further research) I couldn't find anything to support it. RasputinAXP talk contribs 16:40, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Probably people with nits to pick could polish the grammar and improve the referencing, but I'm happy. (Who puts so much sugar and cream in their coffee, anyways?) –Joke 17:02, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • SupportOppose overall agree with the above, and a distinct lack of inline citations.Coffeeboy 16:56, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, there is some minor room for improvement, but overall I think its good enough for featured article status. Croat Canuck 17:58, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose.
    • This sentence needs two improvements: "'The Trade,' as it came to be known, upset Canadians to the extent that one lawmaker demanded the government block it, and Pocklington was burned in effigy." First, why is the "lawmaker" not named? Are we talking about a member of the Canadian Parliament? If so, who? And was this politician joking? Second, there is no citation for the "burning Pocklington in effigy," and no indication of who did this (Hundreds of hockey fans across Canada? Or just one?)
    • All the fair-use images need fair-use rationales.
    • "He hosted Saturday Night Live in 1989, though this re-enforced the notion among the public that he had better not quit his day job to pursue an acting career." POV uncited assessment of his acting skills.
    • The last three entries in the "Quotations" sections are uncited.
    • Andrew Levine 21:42, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object as the "Quotations" section needs to go. That's what Wikiquote is for. Tuf-Kat 16:54, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

*Sort of oppose for now. First, this is a great chronological over-view and is certainly close. But I think it needs a paragraph describing his playing style. "The greatest play-maker that ever was or ever will be (Hallelujah!)" comes to mind ;). More seriously, you could have a topic sentence on "skill set": puck handling, speed, behind the net play, angles and maybe work in other players (Kurri as finisher, McSorley as enforcer) etc. This might actually go after NHL career as a kind of summative thing.

  • Also, "...is still ruefully and vividly remembered by many Canadian fans" and anything else that makes reference to an "unqualified present" should go or be reformulated.

Marskell 13:55, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

1/2*Support. Though I support featuring this article, I think it should wait, there is currently new information being inputted into the article. When FBI investigation into the gambling scandal is over, then we can feature it. Pseudoanonymous 04:56, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: It's actually the New Jersey State Police. It's been all over the local news in Jersey lately :) RasputinAXP talk contribs 04:44, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Memory Alpha

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This is a comprehensive article about an excellent reference source (check any Star Trek-related page and you'll get a link to it). It's been worked on by many people, and I suppose it's a partial self-nom since I've put some work into it. It had a peer review; the only suggestion not acted upon was that of a "criticisms" or "controversy" section, because there haven't really been any significant issues for the website. There is coverage of the fact that people don't always agree about FAs and what to include, however. It's also up-to-date with current developments on the website without sounding fannish. Jibbajabba 19:55, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

*Oppose:

    • "Because this license does not allow commercial reuse, it is incompatible with the GFDL, and material from the site cannot be copied into projects that use the GFDL. [...] Also, because Wikicities (the Wikia project which hosts Memory Alpha) is based on the GFDL license, Memory Alpha is officially considered a "sister project." This appears to be self-contradictory.
    • "While the integrity of articles on Memory Alpha is generally high..." POV statement.
    • Picture of Avery Brooks needs a fair use rationale. One might even argue that it does not significantly add to the article and can be removed.
    • "However, please do not spam or solicit Mr. Sussman. He is a part of Memory Alpha because of his love for Star Trek, so his presence should be considered unofficial." This sort of language does not belong in a Wikipedia article.
    • Andrew Levine 21:20, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I took out the integrity statement and Sussman language, but I'm not sure about the other things you brought up. When I read the bit about Wikicities, it makes sense: CC and GFDL are incompatible, and therefore it's a sister project. The picture's fair use rationale is that it adds to the article(?) and is only one picture so is used for review purposes. Sorry, I'm not that familiar with Wikipedia practices in this matter, but I guess it can be removed if need be. Jibbajabba 23:00, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose at the moment - various language and phrasing concerns:
    • however, the project moved forward undaunted - sounds like a fan review rather than an encyclopaedia article.
    • has gained considerable notoriety - the example given here is very far from showing how the site could be considered notorious.
    • The following month, it was the "Featured Wiki" on the Wikicities site - is that really notable enough to be included?
    • The launch schedule of Memory Alpha's international versions is as follows - list should be converted to prose.
    • Several aspects of Memory Alpha set it apart from other wikis, one of which is its method of citing sources - seems an odd way of putting it as most wikis have no method of citing sources at all. This paragraph seems like a very lengthy way of saying what could be said in just a couple of sentences.
    • In place of a "Today's Featured Article" section, the site has an "Article of the Week", as there are a limited number of topics on which to write. - this sentence seems superfluous. Why should whether it's weekly, hourly, monthly or whatever be worth remarking on?
    • A peer review process was the most significant - the internal processes do not seem that significant to me.
    • In this way, Memory Alpha remains all-inclusive while clearly distinguishing canon from apocrypha - looks POV, and contradicts earlier statements about grey areas.
    • First paragraph of current issues seems like a very inconcise description of limited interest to people who aren't users of the site. I think it should be shortened drastically.
    • Are there any mentions of this site in printed media? Without referring to them the article doesn't really establish the notability of the site. I don't think that entirely citing the article from articles on a single wiki is up to the standards required by WP:V.
    • For comprehensiveness, some sort of indication of how widely used the site is, how reviewers have compared it to previous reference works, whether it's seen as authoritative etc is needed, as at the moment all the article is is a detailed description of the site itself. Worldtraveller 01:44, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Thank you for your feedback, as I too am relatively unfamiliar with Wikipedia compared to the people who regularly vote here. I wish we'd had that kind of feedback for the peer review, but c'est la vie. FACs understandably receive more attention and scrutiny. I will try to work on it within the next few hours. For the record, it cites multiple sources (the SciFi Channel newsletter and Ex Astris Scientia links are provided in the Notes section), but more such things would be nice I suppose. Narco 02:01, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Canadian federal election, 1993

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Peer review archived

SimonP did the bulk of the work for this article; all I did was stumble on it and fix some of the formatting, including updating it to the new footnote system. Those who are extreme sticklers for article size should note that quite a bit of that 42kb is just table markup (I could probably get it down to 39kb if only there were a way to specify right-alignment for all the cells in a table). Andrew Levine 06:18, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Scotland in the High Middle Ages

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Self-Nomination. It is up-to-date, actually employs the ideas that are current, rather than those that are out-of-date. This has been helped by the access I have at the moment to some of the people who are the main authorities on the topic. Its major downfall is length. Honestly, the 32kb guideline isn't nearly enough to cover a topic as big as this, and to cover it in a balanced manner, with citations. It broke my heart to cut the 35 or so kbs that have been cut already. I guess opinion on this will vary. The article balances political history with cultural history; it is well cited, avoids spreading misconceptions in a topic highly susceptible to this phenomenon. Moreover, it doesn't make out that we know more than we do (in a topic also highly susceptible to this). The article does not tilt too much coverage towards the end of the period either, another common phenomenon. I think the article is understandable. I'm nominating it because this article has been highly praised by my fellow wikipedians. - Calgacus 04:42, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose, the lead needs to be broken into more readable chunks. Quotes should not be in itallics, see the MoS, the boxes around the quotes don't do much for readability either. Fair use images need fair use rationales, which they don't have. Images should be some standard size. Don't store the references on the talk page. Given that there are many spin off articles, a judicious copyedit could reduce the length of the article, for example Kingdom of Alba or Scotia, would be made more readable removing/paraphrasing some of the long quotes that are provided in full in the daughter articles.--nixie 05:50, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment. Thanks for looking it over. I got rid of most of the text boxes. I genuinely don't know what you meant by "Fair use images need fair use rationales", but I made a serious effort at stardardizing and reducing the number of images (it had been suggested at Peer review that I add more). I got rid of the italicized quotes. I reinstated the references. I did more reductive editing. I don't think it would be productive to reduce the text any further. It is now 74 kbs (57 without the references and notes). I'm not sure 57 is entirely unreasonable for a article as broad and comprehensive as this one. - Calgacus 08:16, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I suggest that the Braveheart promo poster doesn't add a lot of value to the article. Jkelly 18:17, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Reply It was there to illustrate the Exercitus Scoticanus and to help readers make a connection between what they know and what they don't. However, maybe you're correct, so I replaced the image with that of a later medieval Gaelic warrior. - Calgacus 19:53, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Quite, great article. Coffeeboy 18:29, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I was concerned that the recent editing would remove too much information. I'm pleased to be wrong. The quality is retained, the layout is better, the illustrations complement the article and Mel will not be missed. I applaud the depth and breadth of coverage. Many published works gloss over the early part of the period, ignore religion, economics or demographics, and treat regional resistance as a trivial detail, but not here. Angus McLellan 00:31, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • supportwith comments. history is well distilled but inadequate reference to Scone Palace, the coronation place of scottish kings. i think the article needs some summaries of scottish architecture in this period....just a wee paragraph....Dunnotar Castle may also be a missed link.nevertheless very good job on a daunting topic.....cheersAnlace 04:18, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • You're definitely correct about Scone. I added something about its status as a "capital" here. Some castles and ecclesiastical structures aside, Art and Architecture are one of the most sorely neglected features of the period. It would be nice to treat them some time in the future. - Calgacus 06:08, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: a breath of fresh air in the Scotland-related articles. Truly authoritative, well-drafted, sourced, gripping, and balanced. Occasionally this editor borders on the territory of Original research (or, if not "original", then at least "cutting-edge"), but not in this case, in my opinion. A very welcome addition to Wikipedia.--Mais oui! 21:19, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support What a fantastic article! As I have said on a number of occasions, one of my tests of FA-worthiness on a subject I know little about is whether, after reading it, I feel like a semi-expert. This one passes with flying colours. It is nicely laid out, extensively referenced, with a separate bibliography, and as such is a truly scholarly work. Promote asap. Batmanand 11:48, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

History of Portugal (1777-1834)

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Self-nomination. It's a pretty good article. I've worked really hard on this one. It has been peer reviewed and I now think it is ready to be featured. If there's anything yet to do I'll do it. Just say it. Thanks. Gameiro 01:24, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • It sounds to me like he's talking about French history (the 1777-1834 era coincided with the Revolutionary, Napoleonic, and Restoration periods in France), though that's no less puzzling considering this article is about Portugal. Andrew Levine 20:26, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • He means that the article should include a historiogaphy section - basically a section discussing what various historians have written about the topic. For example, Historian A might have argued for one interpretation of events, Historian B might have disagreed. I disagree with him - none of the other "history of..." featured articles I checked have one. Also the historiography doesn't strictly fall within the article's title.--Cherry blossom tree 23:50, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Detailed breakdown of the USA PATRIOT Act, Title II

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Was split from USA PATRIOT Act, Title II, due to the new referncing system it pretty much referenced itself :-) I do think it is probably good enough for FAC, considering the scope of this article. - Ta bu shi da yu 14:20, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • This looks good; my only concern is the abundance of very short level two sections. Is there any way to combine those? Maybe put several sections together? --Spangineer (háblame) 21:44, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Which sections? - Ta bu shi da yu 22:35, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Well, 204, 205, 208, 219, 220, 222 and 225 are the most egregious examples, but 207, 209, and 214 are pretty short too. I'm not sure how to approach this... I'm hesitant to suggest that the article be taken out of numerical order by section, but maybe addressing the sections by relative importance would be better—focus on the primary ones that people talk about first, and then combine the less well known ones at the end. It'd still be easy to navigate because the most important sections would still carry the section numbers in the level two section title, but then the less important sections of the Title would get a paragraph each in one or two catch-all level two sections at the end. What do you think? --Spangineer (háblame) 02:48, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Not a bad idea... only... if someone was to directly reference the section in an article, how would they do this? Still open to the idea, just want to get your take on this issue first. - Ta bu shi da yu 15:11, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • You mean in another wikipedia article? I would assume that since the extremely short sections are so short, they would not be referenced very often (not much is said about them, so there would be few reasons to reference them). If they were referenced, the reference could be made to the catchall section itself, or in the case of 207, 209 and 214, perhaps a level 3 subsection could be used for those. --Spangineer (háblame) 02:11, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
            • Almost every section is mentioned. I'll see what I can do though... I'm not sure if there is a logical grouping to the smaller sections though :( Sorry, not trying to be difficult, just trying to work out how best to do this! Ta bu shi da yu 13:41, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is a tough one to judge. On the plus side, I find it does provide a good breakdown its subject and the writing is careful and precise. On the down side, I find it visually unappealling (~10 horribly short sections and 15 pages of straight text) and difficult to read (choppy, usually uninformative sentences, flow killed by many one-sentence paragraphs and one-paragraph sections). There is room for improvement: the first sentence is currently redundant (see here and here) and the detailed breakdown could come with real world examples. I'm definately on the 'object' side of 'neutral' but I cannot pull the trigger because I cannot see a solution to the big problems. So, I will leave it other voters and hope they know what they are doing. --maclean25 10:22, 5 February 2006 (UTC)(this may not be helpful, but at least I read it)[reply]

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

[edit]

I decided to work on this article because the game has an interesting history: a realistic-looking tech demo followed by the surprise of a cel-shaded (cartoony) game that many did not approve of, ending with acceptance, earning awards for the art style and becoming the fourth of five games to date to earn a perfect Famitsu score. I feel that the article does a nice job of describing the plot, the mechanics of the game, and its development history without getting too "crufty" or turning into a player's guide, and is well-referenced. --Pagrashtak 05:42, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, it's the third. See Link (Legend of Zelda). Phils 08:04, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support The development section makes me support this. BlueShirts 01:38, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support; its fantastic, easily the best video game article I have ever read, trumping even Majora's Mask. Dee man45 02:04, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: is a "cast" section really required? The voice-actors should be contributed in the appropriate places within the article as demonstrated in the Majora's Mask article. —Eternal Equinox | talk 02:43, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Excellent. -- Wikipedical 03:52, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support and comment. Very well-written article, and I agree this is definitely worth of FA status; I do have one comment, however. The "Development and history" section shifts tenses between present and past, something that should be rectified before it officially reaches FA status. Just something I picked up on; other than that it's great. Anthony 18:29, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Way too much coverage of game play and the story line and very little coverage of the importance of the game. It's better than most in that it does cover the reviews well, but sales only gets a couple brief and vague mentions. What were the sales totals? Did it sell better in some markets than others, etc? So it needs that material but I won't object. I do wonder why people choose to spend so much time on topics like these when there are so many basic topics we have next to nothing on. Also, the notes section is rather unfortunate in that it makes the research look more impressive than it is. 18 of the 26 notes are to the same website. - Taxman Talk 23:32, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Comment I agree. The Gameplay and Story concepts should be trimmed slightly, but not so much as to take away from the second featured article guideline. Deckiller 00:07, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • As long as Wikipedia:Verifiability is met by providing sources for the facts in the article, I see no problem with most of the notes linking to IGN. It is a reputable resource, and I see no reason why this would make the research less "impressive". Jacoplane 00:15, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • An article that references 20 different sources shows more time, effort, and research was put into the writing. An article that links to one source, especially a non-peer reviewed, non-published source 20 times is more like reporting and may, in someone's opinion, not satisfy FA criteria #1 "representing Wikipedia's unique qualities on the Internet" if that source is a website. -maclean25 22:25, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Yet this article references more than one source. IGN.com does seem to have been the primary source of information, but I see at least three other websites and a publication as well. And your suggestion of a peer-reviewed article is preposterous - for obvious reasons, none exist. —Cuiviénen (Cuivië) 03:54, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Read the thing myself and I own a copy of the game, it has good information there and seems very well put together. Homestarmy 22:43, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Great use of images to emphisize the text --lightdarkness 19:08, 5 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - No complaints. Great job done on this article. --ZeWrestler Talk 19:57, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Music of Minnesota

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Had it on peer review for awhile and got one response, which was helpful. I think this article covers everything well, and is well-referenced. Thanks for your consideration and comments. Tuf-Kat 04:13, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. Does anyone have any thoughts about the "music education" section? I went into more detail than I have in other articles, and I think it turned out nice. Do you like having the details about public school curricula and University of Minnesota degree programs, or does it seem like too much? Tuf-Kat
I liked it. Jkelly 04:50, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Especially liked this one. Jkelly 04:39, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - thorough, well written, well sourced. (love the Romeo and Juliet image). The music education section - yep, liked it. It's relevant because it shows what the education system is doing for the future. Rossrs 06:27, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Well done, fixed "The Time" link for you to avoid dab page. Coffeeboy 13:58, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object. Unless I'm mistaken, the lead sentence should be edited: "The music of Minnesota has produced many popular performers." Did the music produce performers? Next, if the main subject of the article is/are the musical style(s) of the state, then the History section should probably precede the section that enumerates famous venues, since the article is more about the musical history than about the concert halls. Also, the article about Prince suggests he exemplifies something called the Minneapolis sound, but this Minnesota music article doesn't link to that one. The article is certainly interesting and has citations, etc., so I'd be prepared to support with some copyediting, for what it's worth. Kaisershatner 16:20, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Good changes. I can see your logic about the section order. Thanks for your responsiveness. Kaisershatner 02:34, 2 February 2006 (UTC) I am now Mildly Supportive rather than against; my only reservation is that I'm ignorant of the subject and can't vouch for comprehensiveness or POV. I think it's a good article. Kaisershatner 14:49, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Object There is quite a bit of information packed into a tight format, and for the most part clearly organizaed by section, however, there is also an overall lack of context, significant omissions in coverage of specific styles and periods, and imprecise, vague writing in several areas. So, my objection is based on comprehensiveness. Unfortunately, I feel this reads more like an annotated list of "music-related Minnesota topics" (such as I might find in tourist brochure) than a tight summary of the Minnesota music scene.

  • no mention (summary) of what characterizes music in Minnesota What are the influencing factors on music? Local music is shaped by its cultural and geographic context, and this should be summarized. Primary industries, demographics, ethnic composition, climate, public attitudes, laws, and so forth, whatever applies. I get no sense whatsover of the musical climate. (The Blush quotes indicate what I'm referring to.) Also, I understand the Twin Cities is the focal point, but what's going on in the rest of the state...?
    • You want me to find sources for the ethnic composition of Minnesotan musicians? Much of what you are asking for is simply unstudied and/or unpublished, or if published, is simply unavailable (both directly and indirectly -- my library can't find any evidence of books on Minnesota and music, and neither can google or any other web source I've tried). The Blush quote is very nice to have, but even that is specific to Minneapolis. WRT the rest of the state, I'll see what I can do, but I doubt much can be added inline with WP:V and WP:CITE. Tuf-Kat 22:34, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • hip hop and electronic music should be their own sections "Recent styles" is an understatement. Both hip hop and electronic music have been major cultural and economic forces in new music for at least two decades; any discussion of the current and recent music scene of a US urban region has to include equal mention of these genres. Specifically, the DJ and rave scenes should be addressed in more than a sentence.
    • Hip hop and electronic music have "major cultural and economic forces in new music for at least two decades" in much of the country, but Minnesota is not now and has never been particularly associated with either one. I'll see about expanding on them, but I would oppose splitting that section -- for one thing, I'd wager that virtually all verifiable info on both topics is specific to Minneapolis, and so would be more appropriate at the as-yet uncreated music of Minneapolis. Tuf-Kat
  • no music media section There are some mentions of radio stations, and nothing on local print (or Web sites). Every US city has at least one alternative weekly paper that tends to cover local music more heavily than the dailies. Also, zines (and web sites), and college radio stations. Local music media is an integral part of any local scene, as much so as the venues.
    • I think I've addressed this objection. Tuf-Kat
  • The history section jumps decades in an apparently arbitrary way There are unsettling gaps in coverage. A relatively detailed account of the 1850 to the turn of the centure, jumps to WWII with one artist mentioned, and stops. If nothing noteworthy happened in the many missing decades (the Andrews Sisters alone describe Minnesota music for 50 years?), this should be accounted for in the text.
    • I don't see how I could possibly cite a source for the lack of something happening, and there are no sources available (I don't doubt that somewhere in the world, more detailed information of music history exists, but it isn't on the web, available in my local library or other connected library systems, and, if published, is not publicized anywhere on the web AFAICT. I could fill in some of the gaps some basic statements about what American music in general was doing at the time -- for example, I'm positive minstrel shows were very popular for awhile, but I have no source to prove that in Minnesota. Would that be considered wrong? Tuf-Kat
  • many vague statements There are numerous generalizations and throwaway statements that make the article seem hastily written or based on incomplete research. Examples:
The music of Minnesota has played a role in the historical and cultural development of Minnesota. This is the lead sentence, and says nothing but the obvious.
It's the lead section, it should be saying the obvious. The problem is that it's very difficult to use the article's title in a sentence. Any suggestions?
home to thousands of local bands - No doubt there are many bands, thousands, but this is not developed in the text. Where are the "thousands" of bands playing, where are they, what are they all up to?
The footnote gives some details in that regard, but I don't know what you're looking for here. The fact that local and unnotable bands are numerous is notable because many Minnesotans presumably interact with these bands. This article should not tell the reader what these bands are up to because, in most cases, this would be unverifiable and without importance. Tuf-Kat
widely respected in the classical music world, and has toured widely - "Respect" is unsupported, and "toured widely" where, in the state, US, world?
Rewrote this paragraph. Tuf-Kat
has also aired many local music tracks - What does that mean? Many?
Rewrote this paragraph. Tuf-Kat
many choose to take it as an elective in high school - Many? Is there a higher percentage here than elsewhere in the country?
I don't know. Probably not, but irrelevant anyway. The point of that sentence is pretty clear, I think -- music education is obligatory in elementary and middle school and optional in high school. Tuf-Kat
European settlers to Minnesota brought their own tradition of folk and classical music. - Polish folk music? Britsh? Greek? Who are the "European settlers", which folk and classical musics?
Out of a certain level of frustration, dance music... - How is this frustration established?
Fixed. Tuf-Kat 22:34, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • other questions A couple other things I wondered about include: Blues scene? Absolutely no country? Opera (an opera company is mentioned in the info box). Local record labels? List of "notable musical artists from Minnesota" (is what's there, Dylan, Du, et al, it?)"
Minnesota's not known for either blues or country. Folk blues probably existed in the state at one point, but is not mentioned in any of my sources. The country music industry is very localized in places other than Minnesota -- if any Minnesotans have become country musicians, they almost certainly left Minnesota to do so. The list of musicians from Minnesota is a separate article that is certainly not complete. I'll see if I can expand a bit on local record labels and opera, though I note that several local labels are described already in the article body. Tuf-Kat
The succinct summary style is good, but the coverage I find sketchy, as noted. --Tsavage 06:25, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • You make some good points that I will try and address, but I think much of your objection is not actionable. There is little or nothing available in line with Wikipedia:Verifiability on some of the topics you suggest. I have used a number of print, scholarly and web-based resources; while I don't doubt there's additional information that can be added, there are no books or other accessible sources out there. Any significant expansion would presumably require access to musicological journals, museums etc, which is above and beyond what is normally required for FAs, especially on such a non-technical subject. Furthermore, comprehensive is "covers the topic in its entirety, and does not neglect any major facts or details" -- all the major facts and details on this subject are in the article, including some information on all the major fields of music. True, there is a relative paucity of information on Minnesotan music history, but that's not really a major field of study, and it's probably tangential to the interests of most readers of this article. Even if I had an overabundance of resources, I would not want to make that section significantly longer, I think, and would rather make a spinoff article. On the more modern styles you mention, I filled in what I could find using appropriate sources. I can't prove there's no notable blues scene in Minnesota, but then how could I? Tuf-Kat 07:17, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Tuf-Kat: Thanks for your thoughtful reply. It does raise some concern. In so many words, I understand you to be saying: "this is good enough, this is all I could find, everything important is covered", which IMO completely fails to address the FA criteria and spirit. Obviously, by objecting to this as a FAC, I don't agree. I also disagree with your assessment. First, as noted below, it appears there is plenty of readily available material on "music in Minnesota". Second, eleborated on below, I don't find that "everything important" has been covered. You've provided a generalized response--"much of your objection is not actionable"--it would be much more helpful if you responded to each point individually (I believe they are all clearly, succinctly and separately presented). In any case, to...further support my objection, I spent maybe 30 minutes doing some simple public Web research. An almost random selection from what I turned up:
  • Google Books lists hundreds if not thousands of books about or containing info on music in Minnesota - a general music+Minnesota search listed 28,100 titles. I skimmed the excerpts for the first 60 titles and there is LOTS of relevant published print material out there. And that doesn't include local media sources, where newspapers and magazines must have numerous articles covering music aspects. Nor straight Web searches, which also turned up tons of stuff. So, to say or imply that you've found what was "reasonably available" doesn't seem to be borne out in fact.
    • Using the same search, I see a book on polka that may have a section about Minnesota (can't tell, but it looks like it just cites the Minnesota historical society as a source, but I can't be sure), a book of apparently sheet music from an army fort in Minnesota, a book on Ojibwe music (some of whom live in Minnesota), a history of American classical music (which mentions the Minnesota symphony, already a part of this article). That's from the first 100 links on google books -- at best, it's a paragraph on polka and maybe a few words about Ojibwe music (the Ojibwe are not exclusive to Minnesota, nor are they even primarily Minnesotan, I think). Other than that, I see a lot of books published by the University of Minnesota and various other irrelevant things. Tuf-Kat
  • several blues festivals/events - on my first search hit for blues that I clicked, six events (all with web sites) were listed under MN blues festivals: Bayfront Blues Festival (Duluth), Boogie Woogie Barnyard Blues (Pemberton), Boundary Waters Blues Festival (Winton), Famous Dave's BBQ & Blues Festival (Minneapolis), Ham Bone Blues Jam (Austin), St. Paul Blues Festival (St. Paul). I looked a little further into one, Bayfront, and in 1996, in its 8th year, it was described as having grown into a mid-sized bluse festival viewed as "one of the most fun and well-planned of its kind in the country". Also, 30 clubs/venues were listed under "Live Blues in Minnesota". So, there seems to be some MN blues activity...[11][12]
    • I'll see if I can incorporate some of that, but I don't think it deserves more than a sentence or two -- only the Bayfront festival looks clearly notable, the rest are marginal at best (will have to look more closely, but that's my first impression). "Famous Dave's BBQ & Blues Festival" appears to be almost entirely famous for the BBQ, the "Boundary Waters Blues Festival"'s website doesn't work and the "Hambone Blues Jam" looks totally unnotable, AFAICT. Tuf-Kat
      • Judging from google, Boogie Woogie Barnyard Blues does not appear notable. I've written a bit on the Bayfront, and mentioned the other two that appear fairly big. Tuf-Kat
  • Eddie Cochran was born (Albert Lea, MN?) and raised to early teens in Minnesota; are there other famous musicians than Cochran and Dylan, who came from MN? See also: List of people from Minnesota
    • Will try and find a more detailed bio on Cochran, but if, as our article claims, he was born in Oklahoma and raised to young teens in Minnesota, he's probably not relevant to this article (presumably he didn't perform as a young teen, and since he wasn't even from the state anyway...) Tuf-Kat
      • Allmusic implies he didn't start performing until he was an adult, in southern California, which makes him not relevant to this article, I think. Tuf-Kat
  • Sounds Good to Me! Minnesota music exhibition - Opened in 2000. This would seem a good research point for Minnesota musical context and "critical" bits of history: The exhibit will give visitors a sampling of the state's musical events, personalities and activities through the years, and explore the ways in which Minnesotans make music a part of their lives ... not intended to be a "hall-of-fame " of well-known Minnesota musicians nor a march-through-time of the state's musical history
    • This is already cited. There is little on the website that can be used to expand this article. For example, this looks promising, but the article that goes along with it is a personal essay with nothing worth incorporating really. Tuf-Kat
  • no mention of ethnic musics - This is an aspect of my "no musical context" objection. I find that MN is about 90% white, with ethnic groups including 36% German and 26% Scandinavian, yet there is only the most passing mention of polka music and no mention of Scandinavian music and styles. The web appears to have a lots of MN-specific info on both, and the MN scenes seem current and notable. What about the Minnesota Scandinavian Ensemble...? The list is quite long. And this is not musical history, these appear to be current elements of the MN music scene.
    • As noted above, please point to the "lots of MN-specific info". Grand total that you've pointed to is a book on polka which may or may not have a chapter on Minnesota, and the Minnesota Scandinavian Ensemble", which looks likely notable despite less than 300 google hits and seems unlikely to provide more than a sentence or two, if that (this is the most detailed page about them that I can find, and it has nothing about Scandinavian music in Minnesota in general). Tuf-Kat
I've only included a few selected bits, which hopefully indicate that there is a lot more to the "music of Minnesota" than presented here. Almost any amount of information can be succinctly summarized -- just pick a word count and write to fit--what I'm talking about is simply info that is not there that I would expect to be.
Finally, although you didn't respond to my specific point about "Recent styles", may I suggest that a view of current popular music scene in any US state is rather out of date using the old music classifications. Up to perhaps the 1980s, it would be safe to cover popular music from the old standard "pop, rock and black". Today, and for anyone under 40, or certainly under 30, coverage of the mainstream pop scene is reflected by "rock, hip hop, electronic (DJ/dance-related)". I mean, from a "rock-centric" perspective, a DJ was opening for U2 on tour years ago. Hip hop and DJ/electronic are part of the music mainstream, and to lump them under "Recent styles", even in Minnesota, is not...contemporary. --Tsavage 23:09, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand. You said above that you thought hip hop and electronic dance should be their own sections. I said there wasn't enough to warrant that. This article does not divide into "pop, rock and black" sections. Honestly, I have no idea what you mean by "Today, and for anyone... is not contemporary" -- what do you mean by "reflected"? Do you mean that most people in that age group would self-identify in one of those three categories? If so, that's very debateable and not at all specific to Minnesota anyway. Hip hop and electronic music are mainstream (well, hip hop is, electronic music much less so), but they are still "recent styles" in Minnesota (and really, they're both pretty recent styles worldwide). If you think more information is needed on either, please give me some hints on what is missing.
Anyway, I do value your input, and there are a few things I think I can expand on later tonight. Tuf-Kat 01:06, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I think I've done what I can. Do these changes satisfy any of your objections? Tuf-Kat 09:05, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Henry James

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Partial self-nom. This article has been cooking for a while—most of Wikipedia's history, in fact. Many thanks to Robth for helpful suggestions during peer review. As I said on the peer review page, the main problem I see is the somewhat general nature of the article. The heavy lifting on individual works by James is left to the more than forty related articles. But this may be unavoidable with James. He wrote so many things in so many genres that an article with extensive individual discussions of them would be hopelessly long. The article on The Portrait of a Lady is more than a thousand words long, for instance. Please review and comment. Thanks! Casey Abell 15:08, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Object. I can't help but think that 10,000 words would be inadequate to cover Portrait of a Lady and that this is insufficient to cover the monumental subject of James in American literature. What were his influences on other writers? What was the nature of his personal life? What was his writing process like? How did he come to be published in the first place? Did he have any notable mentors? In general, I'm skeptical of an article in which the list sections (Works through External Links) are nearly as long as the narrative sections. I would also like to see this article more extensively illustrated, with PD book covers at a minimum but ideally images of his family and homes as well. This is a fine article, but given the acknowledged mass of James biography and criticism, I feel like this fails to meet criterion (2b). I feel like a daughter article might have a better chance, say, Major themes in the fiction of Henry James. Good luck! jengod 21:34, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • At some point you have to make a compromise between completeness and the demands of a general encyclopedia for reasonable consiseness. The James article and the related articles on his works amount to over 25,000 words. I did make the decision not to include all the related articles in the main text exactly to avoid an enormously long article that few readers would slog through, as I mentioned in the nomination. But if others feel that a longer article would be better, it would be possible to pull all or parts of the related articles into the main text to form a bigger entry. As for your specific suggestions, the "Criticism, biographies and fictional treatments" section discusses the influence of James on recent writers, though I could expand the section with examples from, say, Adeline Tintner's Henry James's Legacy. His personal life is treated in the "Life" section and several comments throughout the article. (The statement on the incredibly contentious issue of James' sexuality has gone through a particularly long strange trip, as you can see from the talk page and article history.) His writing process - especially his much discussed switch from handwriting to dictation - is discussed in the "Style" section. His publication history in contemporary magazines is discussed in the "Life" section, including his first piece of published writing. Further details of publication history for individual works are given in the related articles. James' studies of the various European and Anglo-American literatures are mentioned, though I'll admit specific discussion of his mentors - Hawthorne, Balzac and Turgenev, for instance - are in the related articles on his critical works. The list sections include the footnotes, which offer much narrative themselves, and the links to the related articles, which have to be listed somewhere. A couple illustrations are in the article already. I could scan some more, though I don't know that a picture of, say, Lamb House would be particularly enlightening. (It's already in the linked article on Rye, East Sussex.) Pictures of his family are easily available from the links in the first paragraph for an interested reader. All in all, it comes down to how lengthy an article is required. If others feel the main article should be significantly longer, I'll pull in text from the related articles. Casey Abell 22:32, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • One more point on the related articles about James' individual works. I definitely want to keep those articles around because quite a few of them have crept up the Google ladder and landed on the first or second page. A few, like A Small Boy and Others, are number one on the hit parade. So even if the consensus is to bring some or even all of their text into the main article, it would be helpful for people searching on Google to have the individual entries available. In general, I have no problems writing more about James, if people want the article expanded. As I said on the talk page: "I keep throwing in more stuff." In fact, sometimes I have to tell myself to STOP TYPING. In the already discussed article on The Portrait of a Lady I found myself pounding away about the Jane Campion movie version and how it got so-so reviews and how James himself might have agreed that the book doesn't make for a great visual presentation and how somebody wanted James to turn the book into a play but HJ didn't think it could be done and...at this point I had to tell myself: "NO MAS. This article has to end somewhere." Casey Abell 01:42, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Well, I went ahead and brought some (edited and rearranged) text from the related articles into the main entry, under the headings "Major novels" and "Shorter narratives." I think this will help meet the objection about an insufficiently detailed article. I also added some carefully phrased comments to the "Life" section that should meet the objections about insufficient material on James' mentors and personal life. Later today I'll add a "James' legacy" section that will expand the comments already in "Criticism, biographies and fictional treatments" about James' influence on other writers. In order to keep the TOC under control, I combined the three sections, "Themes," "Style," and "Analysis." I also used a couple of images from the articles on Rye and Henry James, Sr. Casey Abell 14:30, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I'm almost ready to support this, and, as I said on peer review, I think the article as a whole is superbly written, and I think it's now well sourced as well. At the moment, however, the material on his works added to meet the request above is very choppy; perhaps it could be tied together in a larger discussion of the evolution of his style and choice of themes throughout his career. However it's done, I'd like to see a little more continuity between what at the moment are very blocky and unconnected paragraphs on each of the works discussed. But again, beyond this one issue, I'm very impressed, and I think this can definitely be an FA. Good work! --RobthTalk 17:47, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Good point on the choppy transitions. I've tried to smooth them out by placing the particular novels and tales in the larger context of James' career and the phases of his writing. Casey Abell 18:50, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • That takes care of my concern, and I now Support.
  • Support. Comment. I think the portrait image in the Works section should be moved up somewhere, instead of being at the very bottom. Also, you should try and wikify some terms in the captions of images (such as his father's name), if possible. Gfores Talk 07:39, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I've read this through several times. I think we have to remember that this is an encyclopedia, thus in reality the biography always has to be a little potted. James is a huge subject. There are always gong to be shortcomings, and improvements in the eyes of some James' scholars. Regarding specifically this page - Does it meet all the criteria of a FA ? - In my view it does. Anyone seeking an extensive but accurately summarised view (if those two adjectives are possible to describe a summary) of James life will find all they need here. Coupled with the links to his works - this is good. I'm happy to support it, and hope to see it on the main page soon. Giano | talk 20:23, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Object (Criterion 2a). I, too, want to see this on the main page; however, when we're dealing with a literary great, nothing less than brilliant prose will do justice to the topic. The text needs to be thoroughly copy-edited to meet the explicit demands of 2a, which I think should be applied strictly here. I've extracted some examples of things that need fixing, mostly from the lead. They are representative of problems throughout. Tony 08:22, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • 'the late 19th and early 20th century'—centuries.
    • Changed.
  • 'upon'—most authorities would say use 'on', unless there's a good reason to be old-fashioned.
    • Changed.
  • 'James contributed significantly to the technique and criticism of fiction'—category problem: criticism of fiction has its own technique; needs to be reworded.
    • Reworded to emphasize James' literary criticism. The next sentence emphasizes his inventive use of important techniques in his fiction.
  • An extraordinarily productive writer, he also published substantive books of travel writing and autobiography'—again, a category problem, here involving the use of 'also': so travel writing and autobiography are somehow additional to his extraordinary productivity as a writer?
    • The idea is that James also wrote a number of books in other genres besides the fiction and literary criticism mentioned in the preceding two sentences. But I dropped the "also" (though I think its meaning is clear) and added a couple more genres.
  • Can 'possibly' be avoided in the lead?
    • No. The narrator of The Turn of the Screw, for instance, is possibly but by no means certainly unreliable. The ambiguity helps give the story its tremendous power. See also the possibly but by no means certainly unreliable narrators of The Friends of the Friends and The Sacred Fount.
  • Under-referenced; for example, just below the lead: 'but he much preferred reading and writing fiction to studying law'—says who?
    • Henry James. It's now footnoted with James' own words and referenced to Edel's edition of the Notebooks.
  • Could do with a few more commas, if their insertion is carefully judged.
    • Happy to put them in if you point out the particular places. Oddly enough, James grew to dislike commas as he got older, and he eliminated a lot of them in his New York Edition revisions. In a letter of November 14, 1914 to his literary agent J.B. Pinker, he said that Martin Secker's proposed edition of his books should make sure that the New York Edition "is utterly and absolutely conformed to, to the very most lurking comma, and still more to the very most patent absence of one." (Emphasis mine.)
  • The interpolated comments are mine. Any other suggestions for copy-editing are welcome. Casey Abell 07:13, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks for your response; my examples, of course, were in support of my contention that the whole article needs treatment, not just the examples. On commas, that's an interesting point; however, James's relationship with readers was of his own specific making, whereas in this WP article, our purpose is a little different (incl. speaking plainly, directly and simply to specialist and non-specialist readers alike about James himself), and may justify the use of more commas than the great man himself used. Tony 08:23, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Again, I'd be happy to copy-edit anything else in the article that you think needs the treatment. Please specify actionable items. On commas and punctuation marks in general, I follow the same practice as James: avoid where possible. Thanks for your careful attention to the article. Casey Abell 15:24, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Well, James wasn't writing encyclopedia articles, and we're not writing 19th-century novels; to slavishly imitate his use of punctuation is pointless, because we have a different purpose and a different relationship with the reader. Tony 11:15, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • Sorry to ask this again, but please specify where you think additional punctuation is needed. I've reviewed the entire article carefully, and I can't see any places where more punctuation would improve clarity or flow. I'd be happy to consider any specific examples you offer. Casey Abell 13:11, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I'll give an example: sometimes the 'Oxford' comma is used (a, b, and c) and sometimes not (a, b and c); consistency would be nice.

'travel writing, biography, autobiography and visual arts criticism'
'read, criticized, and learned from'
'travel writing, biography and autobiography'

It's a matter of style rather than presciption; I'd go for excluding the last comma unless required to avoid ambiguity. Apart from the Oxford issue, here's a comma you might remove:

'including two left unfinished at his death, and 112 tales of varying lengths'

Here are a few more points at random. With a more work throughout, the article may be acceptable for promotion.

'the US's refusal'—more elegant as 'American refusal'
'His letters are often filled with'—'Many of his letters are filled with'
'a very large number of nonfiction essays and books'—remove 'very'?
'due to the carefully described details'—most US and UK style manuals recommend 'because of'.
'James's style seems to change during his career from a straightforward style early on to a more languid style later, and biographers have noted that the change of style ...'—'style' appears four times
'middle to late prose'—middle prose? late prose?

Too many stubby paragraphs later in the article. Tony 13:39, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"American refusal" is ambiguous; America is more than just the U.S. Maybe "refusal of the US government?" --Spangineer (háblame) 17:09, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for the specific suggestions. I agree we should eliminate commas where possible! I combed the article for them and got rid of a few of the little critters. I admit there are still occasional inconsistencies. I use ", and" when the joined phrases are long and involved. Some minor rewrites: "America's refusal," "many of his letters," remove that "very," change to "because of," "later works." None of these seem all that important to me, but there's no reason not to change. The only major tinkering was with the "four styles" sentence. I split the sentence into two and used "style" only once in each of the remnants. If it makes any difference, the sentence wasn't mine! Finally, I joined together some of the later paragraphs. This is obviously a matter of taste. I prefer shorter paragraphs, but again there's no particular reason not to make the change. Many thanks for reading the article so carefully. Casey Abell 16:49, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • support well written. important topic. good balance to material includedAnlace 04:52, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • support well written, well organized,well linkedAnlace 03:27, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object—I'm striking the repeat vote by Anlace. A few problems: the third paragraph of the Life section is not referenced; is there a source for the information on who influenced him? The paragraph on Prose says "Biographers have noted". Who? You seem to imply cause-effect; why not make it explicit? Should the possessive be James' or James's? There's only one of him; I've always been under the impression that the s is repeated if the word isn't plural, but I could be wrong on that one. Finally, the links to movies in the legacy section shouldn't point to imdb; they should be internal links to articles here, even if we don't have them yet. Could "Related articles on James' works" be changed to something like "Notable works by James"; as it stands it is a see also section that is largely unnecessary because those works were mentioned in the text. It ought to be some sort of list of his works. --Spangineer (háblame) 16:14, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • James himself acknowleged his debt to the three listed writers, and many critics have noted examples of their influence. I've added an extensive footnote with a number of particular instances. There was already a footnote on James's dictation and the possible effects on his style. I've added specific page references to the footnote and a further reference to the monograph on James's work habits by his secretary Theodora Bosanquet. It's obviously impossible to make a definitive statement about the effects of dictation on James's style. We can't rerun his life to see if his style would have evolved in the same way if he had continued to write all his works in longhand. All that's possible is to note the changes, speculate on possible causes, and give references to writers who have commented on the issue - which the article does. James' or James's makes no difference to me. I've changed to James's throughout the article to resolve the objection. What's wrong with the links to IMDb? They're informative, extensive and accurate for the listed movies. Seems a lot more sensible to link to very good IMDb pages instead of Wikipedia articles that may not even exist. [Update: To resolve the objection I've made the suggested change, even though all the Wikipedia articles are stubs. The IMDb links have been moved to "External links."] The section title also makes no difference to me. I've changed to "Notable works by James" to resolve the objection. Many of the books and stories in the section are not mentioned elsewhere in the article, so the list functions as both a "See also" section and as a more complete list of James's works. (An exhaustive list of all James's works would be impossible, unless we want to duplicate Edel's 428-page bibliography.) By the way, the list of his tales will grow over the next few days. I'm adding articles about a number of his stories. Thanks to SimonP for creating a category for all those articles! Casey Abell 19:52, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Thanks for resolving my objections. I now support. I realize the difference in his writing isn't something that can be measured, but I expect that it has been speculated on, and I assume that the speculation has gone beyond "it's interesting that his writing style seemed to change when he started dictating to a secretary" to "I bet that secretary added some fluff to his writing". Quoting the people who say that and the people who disagree would be optimal, but perhaps not worth the space in this article. As for James' vs. James's; if someone comes along and says absolutely not and gives a good style reference, that's fine with me; I won't object over that if someone is absolutely sure on that issue, as it's never been 100% clear for me. Linking to stubs is better than external links, because that way our stubs are more likely to get developed. If we had originally started using only external links when all we had were stubs, there would be alot more short articles on Wikipedia right now. And yes, I figured that the exhaustive list of his works would be unbearably long; I just didn't want the title of the section to imply that we were listing only the works for which Wikipedia has an article. The difference is subtle, but I'm not willing to suggest that notability of a work is determined by the existence or non-existence of a Wikipedia article. Thanks again for working on this; I'm glad I'm able to support this FAC. You've done a great job on this article. --Spangineer (háblame) 04:08, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Oh, and one more thing; the size of this article is excellent. Wikipedia:Summary style is important, and one has to remember that we're not writing a book about Henry James, we're writing an encyclopedia article about him. 25,000 words in one article would be overkill. I think this article adequately covers the man and his overall contribution to literature, which is the focus it should have.--Spangineer (háblame) 04:12, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • Thanks for the support. I don't think that anybody's suggested James's secretaries padded his work, least of all those secretaries themselves. But many have speculated that dictation may have affected his style. James himself didn't think that dictation had anything to do with the development of his manner. When writer Morton Fullerton made such a suggestion, James brushed it off in a March 1, 1897 letter: "I can be trusted, artless youth, not to be simplified by any shortcut or falsified by any facility." This pretty comment is in the footnoted pages of Edel's biography. I wanted to include the whole quote in the footnote because it's so well-turned and somewhat famous in James studies. But the footnotes are out of control already. Casey Abell 04:27, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Just want to note that I've now met every specific, actionable and correct suggestion from the three objectors. [Update: one objector. The vote now stands 5-1 or 6-1, depending on how optimistic you want to be (wink).] One suggestion for 10,000+ words on The Portrait of a Lady alone was obviously not actionable in any encyclopedia article of reasonable length. Another suggestion to add some commas and then to take some commas out seemed contradictory, but I did my best to use the little critters correctly. Many suggested changes seemed of little or no importance to me (change "due to" to "because of," change a title heading from "Related articles on James's works" to "Notable works by James," change "US" to "America," insert a picture of one of James's residences, change "upon" to "on," etc.) but I made them anyway. Some were matters of taste about which there is no arguing: longer paragraphs instead of shorter ones, for instance. But again I made the changes. I did refuse to make a few suggested changes that were flatly incorrect, such as removing the "possibly" from "possibly unreliable narrators" or stating explicitly that James's switch to dictation caused changes in his style. But I've made every good-faith effort possible to meet the objections. Casey Abell 23:11, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment—It's not a vote; it's a process of gaining consensus. One serious objection may capsize the nomination; three fuzzy objections may not. Best not to do the numbers thing. Tony 01:08, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I thought the (wink) would be enough, but I'll post an OFFICIAL HUMOR DISCLAIMER on the vote count (wink). Casey Abell 02:04, 4 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Shoshone National Forest

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This is a self nomination of an article I started some time ago and discusses the first National Forest created in the U.S., and is a major component of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. There have been several other editors that have also contributed and the article has been peer reviewed and adaptations of comments from that process have been addressed for the most part. Most of the discussions on the talk page center around the size and or number of Glaciers in the forest, resulting in numerous alterations to ensure a NPOV resolution. I look forward to all feedback and will address any concerns in the hope that should this nomination fail, the article will, at the very least, become an even better one through this process.--MONGO 08:57, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose, article needs to use a ref/note system to take the place of in text html links, in the reference section the references need to be clearly distinguished from the general interest websites that weren't used to gather information to write the article.The images in the Fauna section are a bit crowded. See also that are already in the article should get the chop.   should be used to separate numbers and their units, eg 5000 km.
Thank you...I am unclear as to why the article should use ref/note as links to other areas which clarify. My reasoning is due to my preference that evidence that support the article be available at that point and that this isn't a term paper, but instead a wiki, which allows quick links to articles that support the statements. I can, of course use ref/note but I saw that either way is acceptable under WP:CITE. I do understand that immediate referencing needs to be separate from general referencing and I can get that done. I will remove some of the images, probably two at least to eliminate crowding. Will also use $nbsp;...thank you for the feedback.--MONGO 06:23, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I see now what you mean...I can make the adjustments to make it footnote with ref/note style.--MONGO 08:01, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Unlesss I'm missing something management of the area is discussed in the lead and is never really expanded on again in the article, and it should probably have a small section of its own. While the article isn't massively long, it could definately use some tightening, there are some paragraphs that are way to long making them harder to read, and there is also superfilious text - for example there is a bit too much detail on bear management and the methodology of cloud seeding. Also its a good idea to put the most basic facts first in a section, I had to read almost the whole fauna section before I find out how many types of mammal there are in the park, and the whole galciology section before I know that Shoshone National Forest has the most individual glaciers in any U.S. National Forest in the Rocky Mountains. I'm also not sure that the sections are in optimal order - are you using a suggested layout?--nixie 05:12, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I discussed the management throughout, such as in forest uses and fire sections. I will tighten up passages that are not area specific to the forest such as glaciers and fauna. I can also ensure that sections lead off better and the supporting evidence appears afterwards. I rearranged the sections as they are after a few other editors suggested the current arrangment, but nothing is written in stone. I appreciate your assistance.--MONGO 06:23, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've done some copyediting and trimming of duplicate and travel guide material to make the text more relevant and readable. I've left some questions in the text where things need clarification. The text still needs more copyediting, you may want to ask someone like Wayward or Bishonen to go over it again.--nixie 23:35, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely...I appreciate you taking the time to do that and I'll get busy.--MONGO 02:15, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Great job --Jaranda wat's sup 04:22, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments: Very nice work, but a few issues: first, what does the sentence "The Wind River Indian Reservation (population 8,000) is located along the southeastern border of the forest and belongs to the Shoshone and Arapaho Indians" have to do with anything in the first paragraph of the human history section? Seems to be stuck in there randomly. Was it part of the preserved 2.2 million acres of tribal lands? There also a disconnect in the last paragraph of the section, when the text suddenly shifts to "During the era of the Great Depression". Next section: if the "annual operating budget is $5,000,000, with almost twice that from grants", isn't the annual operating budget really $15 million? Is there a reference for the second paragraph of the flora section? Also, please review my recent changes to make sure I haven't obscured any important meaning or eliminated important content. --Spangineer (háblame) 04:49, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    The reservation is only pertient due to the Shoshone Indians as namesakes for the forest...it needs to be moved, I agree and will do so later. I'll have to look into it, but the reservation predates the forest and I don't believe any reservation land was taken by the creation of the forest, but the southernmost forest section is disconnected from the rest by the reservation. Not sure why I put the 5 million and twice fro grants thing there..it was directly from the forest website, rephrased of course. I can find a reference for the flora section. The only change that I saw that you made was to the wilderness section,which was recently put there by me after Nixie stated that I needed to clarify what a wilderness is, but you seemed to have left an adequate explanation and it's linked to (a rather poor) subarticle on wilderness. I might change your wording to emphasize the word "pristine" as that word seems to be widely used when discussing wilderness. I appreciate your commitment to helping make this a top rate article.--MONGO 05:40, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Oops, my bad, I see you left "pristine" in there.--MONGO 06:07, 3 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Trade and usage of saffron

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Self-nomination. 1st peer review. This is the last of the "Saffron" trilogy: Saffron, History of saffron, and Trade and usage of saffron, and is a stand-alone article meant to comprehensively handle elaborate details on usage/trade that are too specialized to appear in the main Saffron article (which was formerly ~ 70 kb). Indeed, creating this daughter article alone knocked ~ 26 kb off of Saffron, helping to bring it into greater compliance with Wikipedia:Summary style. Saravask 18:51, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support: Article professionally written, informative yet not patronising, a prime example. --Speedway 19:17, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support: An excellent article, a credit to all concerned with its creation. Clearly written and well-illustrated. Lisiate 20:21, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Excellent! Boy, but have the WP:FAC regulars learnt a lot about saffron lately?! Mikkerpikker ... 21:00, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object Too many saffron articles on FA already! Support Are you the official saffron guru or something? —Cuiviénen (Cuivië) 21:09, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Spicy! A most delighting article. Phils 21:41, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I think it can now be claimed without contestation that Wikipedia is the number-one source of complete and factual information about saffron on the Internet. Great job, Saravask. Andrew Levine 22:35, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object Great article, but I have a few easily fixable concerns: Support
    • Its aroma is described by connoisseurs as honey-like, with grassy, hay-like, and metallic notes. Saffron's taste is also hay-like, but yet somewhat bitter. Is the footnote near the end of that paragraph intended to cover this? My first impression was that it's rather vague about who these "connoisseurs" are -- are they connoisseurs of saffron or of smells? My second impression was that there's an awful lot of "-like"s in these two sentences. Also, "hay-like, but yet somewhat bitter" is bad, because "yet" implies a connection between bitter and hay-like. Is hay known for being sweet?
    • Saffron is used in many cultures as a condiment for rice (giving "saffron rice"). I've never heard of "saffron rice", and that seems irrelevant anyway. Saffron and rice together are called "saffron rice", which is pretty self-evident.
    • The first paragraph under "medicinal use" needs some work. "has been used for", "was also used against", "was also used to treat", "was reputed to counter" -- these sentences are redundant and confusing, because it's not clear why diseases are in different sentences. Also note "diseases such as respiratory infections such as cough". I'd also like to know who believes these things. Presumably they are some combination of folk beliefs and alternative medicine, which should be in the article. Saffron's folk medicinal uses probably vary quite a bit, so they should be attributed specifically. Excellently fixed!
    • The box and the picture under "Colouring and perfumery" squeezes the first paragraph.
    • "But turmeric and most other spices similar to saffron do not produce such colours" not a complete sentence
    • Remove the passive voice as much as possible (note the first paragraph under "Modern trade")
  • Tuf-Kat 22:47, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hi. I made some fixes to address these ([13]). Saravask 23:36, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Looks very good. I've changed to support, though if you made any changes to the layout under Colouring and perfumery, they haven't solved the problem. Tuf-Kat 04:31, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I apologize — what I did there was to shrink the box/image sizes under "Colouring and perfumery". I guess I didn't understand what you were saying. Could you elaborate on what you wanted? Saravask 04:38, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The text between the colorbox and photo is all squeezed together so there's only two or so words on each line. Since the Buddhist robes aren't mention until a little further down, I suggest moving the colorbox over and the pic down and to the left. Tuf-Kat 05:30, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm. That's odd — w/ my browser/screen resolution, it looks OK. At any rate, I moved the robes image down to "Notes" ([14]). This should look better. Saravask 05:55, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have a teensy little monitor, which is probably why. Anyway, it looks much better. Thanks. Tuf-Kat 16:33, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Two small concerns though: can we be more specific than "substances" in "most costly substances throughout history"? should the John Major work be referenced at "According to John Major's 1521 History of Greater Britain..."? --maclean25 04:04, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the pointers. Some edits: ([15]). Saravask 04:51, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Pretty much all the objections have been dealt with, and I can't see anything to prevent this article from getting featured status. Must say, it's testament to the authors hardwork that saffron has such an amazing representation on wikipedia. I think the tally so far qualifies as a consensus doesn't it? Thethinredline 09:58, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. A well written, well presented, well illustrated and well referenced article. An excellent example of how good sub-articles can be. I also want to take this opportunity to say that while you put alot into articles, you're also very responsive to suggestions on this page on any improvements that need to be, or should be, made. Well done and keep up the good work! --Oldak Quill 22:03, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Why is saffron's taste described as being like that of hay? How many people around the world know what hay tastes like? How many readers, therefore, will be enlightened by that description? Joe D (t) 04:34, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
<Shrugs>. Ask Harold McGee; that's how he describes it in his book. Saravask 04:37, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Some responses:

  • The image gallery is at the very bottom of the page and is not interfering with anything else. It also helps give direct access to free images to the many/majority of readers who are not too (or not at all) familiar with what the Commons is.
  • I don't understand what the problem is with left-aligned lead images. AFAIK, there's no official guideline/policy on it, and it looks perfectly elegant to me.
  • Also, as none of the other voters brought up any of these same concerns, I'm assuming that Nichalp and MechBrowman are in the minority regarding these issues.

If these concerns are that important, you're always free to post this article at WP:FARC. Saravask 05:28, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

History of Miami, Florida

[edit]

Self-nom. I started the article as a breakoff of the Miami, Florida article but I decided why not make it Featured, I provided most of the content, AndyZ and a few other users helped me with it. Here is its peer review and I fixed AndyZ concerns of it by replacing the images. I think it's ready for featured status. Thanks --Secret wat's sup 22:22, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is a debate going on at the Wikipedia talk:What is a featured article#Additional requirement for articles dealing with a historical subject to be featured page, which seems to be going in favor of having no histiography pages. Deckiller 00:31, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

New England Patriots

[edit]

Nomination (self). For a few days, I have worked to try and bring this article to FA status. The previous nomination served as a peer review, of sorts. Another peer review was started, but most of the feedback from my friends and fellow editors was corrected beforehand. 25 citations have been inserted, the detailed history has been moved to its own page, one or two pictures have been added (with brief captions), and so on. I feel that it's ready. As for stability: the only major edits during the past four-five days have been by me, except for the occasional wording or link fix. Furthermore, the article has featured only one vandal over the past several days. Moreover, the fact that there is a subarticle for history will divert cruft. Deckiller 20:52, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: User:Wayward was kind enough to copyedit the article. Deckiller 17:59, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Although I'm not the biggest Patriots fan in the universe (Go Falcons!) the layout of this page is outstanding, and its main editors seem dedicated to keeping it in the best condition possible, I think it deserves recognition. AdmiralTreyDavid 02:19, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I removed the first image Image:CoachMacsyr.JPG out of the article. I'm not so sure about the second one. Thanks --Jaranda wat's sup 22:56, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I replaced the coach image with Belichick's image, since it is a book cover. I'm not so sure what to do with the second image. Deckiller 23:05, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Using a book cover to illustrate something that's part of the cover image is not allowed under either Wikipedia's fair use policy or fair use law. --Carnildo 04:24, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed. Deckiller 05:12, 29 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I decided to just remove the patskick image and replace it with a more stable image from a previous version. Deckiller 23:19, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
(BTW, if this gets featured status quickly enough, can we put it on the main page for Super Bowl Sunday?) - transaspie
I think that would only make sense if the Pats had made it this year, and if they had it would probably be seen as POV on Wikipedia's part (The only way it wouldn't be in that situation would be if they were in, won and you had it as the main page article the next day). Daniel Case 16:49, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support It was I who brought the initial nomination forward a few months back and did some initioal cleanup work on it, but I'm glad someone else has taken some real responsability ;). Anyway. Maybe a better indication should be incléuded that the history page is where week-to-week updates can and should be included. This'll help keep up the pages' standards.Thethinredline 09:24, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support; seems rather short but what else is there to write? One thing—is the Doug Flutie dropkick that important in franchise history? Seems to fragment the paragraph somewhat, but I'll admit it is pretty cool. Maybe restructuring that sentence and the ones around it would help. But anyway, nice work, and go Steelers! =) --Spangineer (háblame) 21:08, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I moved the dropkick mention up a couple of sentences so that it fits with the rest of the in-season info. Thanks for pointing that out! Deckiller 21:48, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong object. This article leaves out virtually every significant off-field/business-related event concerning the team, but does manage to discuss logos and uniforms. It's high-grade fancruft. A sports franchise is also a business, and the business aspects need to be discussed in the article for it to meet the comprehensiveness standard. Monicasdude 23:02, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I don't see how that qualifies as fancruft, though I do respect your point about explaining the business aspects. I'll create a section tonight. However, I felt that detailed ownership information would be better suited for the History of the New England Patriots page. Do you suggest a seperate section to cover business aspects or covering the information within the current prose? Deckiller 23:22, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I think a few more details on business aspects would be a good way to balance items out, but details should be moved to the history subarticle per Deckiller and others. Griz 00:08, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Off-field/Business information to add: Here is a list of items that I plan on adding to the article to add balance:
*Paragraph on shifts in ownership during the late 1980s (Sullivan investments/change in hands, GM leaving)
* 1-2 sentences on the Sexual harrassment case in early 90s.
I've added a few sentances on the Lisa Olson scandal, but it's far more than 2, maybe it needs a bit of trimming. Thethinredline 14:21, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Attendence flows (perhaps a sentence marking the sell-out streak and the period of half-empty stadiums)
  • Another sentence or two on Gillette Stadium.
  • Some more minor details in Kraft's ownserhip change.
  • Identify the saint louis owner outside of the logo and uniform section (st. louis shift rumors)
  • One or two significant injuries (and off-field impacts)
These all look like good things to add to the article. My suggestion would be to integrate them into the text rather than adding a separate section. I also think the early history needs a bit of expansion, particularly an explanation as to why the team played in four stadiums over 10 years before getting its own (e.g, did fan base/attendance grow substantially, etc.) Monicasdude 00:36, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
-=Nods=- okay, many thanks for the criticism! I'll get to work on those additions, although it probably won't be until after 24 is over. Deckiller 01:05, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm busy tonight, but I will definitely have those tasks done as soon as possible. Sorry for the delay. Deckiller 03:03, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've informed Monicasdude that Deckiller and to a lesser extent myself have attempted to rectify the objections, and as all current objections have been dealt with (although not sure yet whether or not to the satisfaction of the dissidents) so I think we're pending at the moment... Thethinredline 21:46, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think, although significantly improved, the article still needs a bit more work, particularly in these areas (list order signifies nothing):
  • Explanation of why team moved through so many stadiums (stadia?) in the 1960s
  • Copyedit/spellcheck ("rejuvination"; "ablow 60%"; "Schiefer Stadium"; and so on)
  • I think the presentation of the business/ownership history is oversimplified at best; I'd suggest checking out references like this one [16] which present a substantially different (and more interesting) account of events. (And this one [17] too, which has other interesting points.
  • There's a reference to the "AFC" in reference to the 9/9/60 game that I don't understand, and isn't explained.
I probably could have been a bit more specific on this point in my first comment; the article still includes very little information on player personnel actions (cuts/signings, drafts, trades, etc), which I think of as off-field/business matters. Other than the Plunkett draft and the Bledsoe trade, I didn't notice any others mentioned, I expect the team made other significant personnel moves over 40 years (unlike, say, the Mets ;-)).A year-by-year report certainly isn't called for, but something in the area would seem appropriate. Monicasdude 00:33, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Would you say that something in the area of 4-5 other key draft picks and trades would be balanced? Also, I like those references; thanks for pointing them out. Deckiller 00:40, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My off-the-cuff estimate is that NFL teams make really major personnel moves about twice a decade, on the average, so I'd say in that area, but a little higher. Also, as I think on this, didn't they get a pile of draft choices when they let Parcell go to the Jets? (If so, worth mentioning as well) Monicasdude 01:00, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, that was a big period where players were swapped. Okay, I'll get to work on that later tonight. Deckiller 01:05, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object. List of comments/concerns:
    • Wikilink full dates like "On September 9, 1960..." so my date preferences appear.
    • Explain the purpose of this sentence "Although the team made only two AFL playoff appearances, it had numerous stars." in that second "Franchise history" paragraph. Was it originally a transition sentence to a separate paragraph? It does not make much sense in the middle of that paragraph.
    • Clarify the last sentence of that same paragraph. It reads like Jim Nance won the MVP in 1967, but the reference says 1966.
    • "Player highlights during the early 1970s include Heisman Trophy[5] winner Jim Plunkett[6]..." probably best to add a verb in there so that the sentence can be more specific. The reference says he was drafted in 1971, but doesn't mention anything about his playing abilities, so perhaps add "drafted".
    • "Chuck Fairbanks was fired as head coach in 1973." After reading the rest of that paragraph, this intro statement doesn't seem right.
    • These two sentences, one right after another (albeit in two separate paragraphs) seems redundent: "Berry would ultimately coach the Patriots to their first Super Bowl appearance in 1985. In 1985 the Patriots obtained a wild card slot under new head coach Raymond Berry."
    • "Local product Doug Flutie..." perhaps there is a better term than 'product'.
    • Can an explanation or reference be found for "and controversy within the organization, namely, the Sullivan ownership."
    • The two consectutive " NFL's Longest Winning Streaks" references, when referring to the same streak is probably overkill.
    • Please provide a link in the reference:"Patriots History. Logo naming information. Accessed 26 January 2006.":
    • "The team also started to wear blue pants with their white jerseys.[23]" This statement is not supported by the reference.
    • If all the links in the "References" are in the "Notes", then they can be merged into "References and notes" or simply "References".
    • Also, I agree with the above reviewer's comments about needing off-field/business-related info. --maclean25 19:42, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
maclean25's objection have been dealt, with, as have the majority of Monicasdude's. To both dissidents ( ;) ) have you been satisfied, or are there still points that need adressing? Thethinredline 22:27, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think we should probably make those changes first, just to make sure everything is to their liking. Deckiller 22:29, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Mmmmkay... I have a good half hour now, i'll see if i can adress some more of Monicasdude's objections. But Maclean's objection have seen solved, except for the business side argument, which is covered by the others. I'm not a PAts fan, do you know anything about the potential St. Louis move? Thethinredline 22:41, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah; I'm looking for decent sources to talk about that for a bit. Do you want to take the early years and I'll take the later years? Deckiller 22:42, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I just padded the referrence to Gillette Stadium a bit more and added two nice link, but i have to call it a day. Should be able to eke out a bit more tomorrow. Good luck. Hopefully we'll be able to adress all major remaining concerns by this time tomoz.Thethinredline 23:00, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've done a paragraph on the attendance (although I could only find date from the 1980s onwards) so i'd say we've dealt with most complainst and improved the article. Thethinredline 09:01, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I crossed off some of the accomplished fixes. However, could you clarify what you mean by wikilinking dates? Should they be "January 31 2006 or January 31, 2006? Also, I plan on citing and developing upon that sullivan leadership shift today. Many thanks for the criticism. Deckiller 20:21, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The latter date format, as per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Date formatting. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 20:31, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Katyń massacre

[edit]

A controversial, but well referenced article about one of the most tragic moments in the Polish-Soviet relations. Recently peer reviewed. Your comments appreciated.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 04:35, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose, I'm not sure what's going on with the notes, but numbered notes in text should have a corresponding numbered note in the notes list.--nixie 04:38, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - It is a controversial topic, but the article, through the efforts of many editors, is written with commendable NPOV and should qualify as an example of Wikipedia's best work. Balcer 05:28, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, definitely one of the best articles on difficult subjects out there. It's a pity I added close to nothing to it... Halibutt 05:52, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object. Not even close. Total slanted in favor of the Soviet guilt POV—the very first sentence is horribly POV. Everyking 06:15, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Well, the Soviets did admit they were guilty, so that slant is entirely correct. The corresponding article in Encylopedia Britannica begins: [18] Katyn Massacre - mass execution of Polish military officers by the Soviet Union during World War II. Are you saying EB is not even close to NPOV? Balcer 06:54, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I think Balcer has a point. Raul654 07:14, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • I maintain that it is disputed by enough people, particularly in Russia, that further NPOVing needs to be done. Everyking 09:23, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • Sure there are some people who dispute it. Just like there are Holocaust Deniers who dispute that 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis. Still, we do not extend the idea of NPOV to include their views in the leads of articles like Auschwitz. Balcer 14:32, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
            • I think the comparison is preposterous, and actually a little amusing when you consider that the viewpoint you don't want to include attributes blame to the Nazis—which side is closer to Holocaust denial, really, if you're going to sling mud around like that? I acknowledge the practical necessity of giving the Soviet guilt POV primacy, but that doesn't mean something can't be done to mitigate it. Everyking 06:34, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
              • I made the comparison simply to show clearly that just because there is a small group of people who believe in an alternative version of an event, that is not a good enough reason to include that version in the lead of an article. This is especially true for articles dealing with genocides, massacres, and other painful events, where more often than not you will find some small (or not so small) group that will want to deny the facts in the face of overwhelming evidence. This phenomenon has actually been recognised as the 8th stage of Genocide (see [19]). How one deals with such views is an interesting question for Wikipedia. It appears the practice has been to keep such POV out of the article lead, but discuss it further down in the article. This is precisely what has been done here. Balcer 14:28, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • We have had Russian editors contribute to the article. They had pointed out various things that needed improvement. Eventually all {{fact}} and NPOV have been removed. If you have any specific objection, especially regarding some unreferenced fact (or you have contradicting references), please provide them. The only problem with the first sentence was a mass execution of Polish citizens by the Soviet Union during World War II, as far as I can see it, is that it terms a massacre an execution, and sais nothing about illegality or brutality of the massacre - thus I'd rather say it has a pro-Soviet bias, not the other way around.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:25, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - Well written, thorough and informative. And it is NPOV.radek 07:56, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - beautiful article on an ugly subject. *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 16:20, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - The referencing style in this article is, well, very ugly and difficult to read. I think you should merge the notes and references section, and (since you re-use the same sources a lot) you might want ot use the mediawiki citation style (which generates very nice numbering). Raul654 17:04, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment—yes, worthy topic for FA status; needs a run through by an editor. Just a small point: can you make the spacing, or lack of spacing, consistent for the inline reference numbers? Tony 01:23, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. But all uses of Katyń should be standardized in this article (there are numerous Katyn's floating around in it). --Fastfission 18:02, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Lots of red links. I would suggest removing them until the relavent articles are written, as they look rather ugly. --BadSeed 18:54, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Provisional Support As a historical article, the article cannot be featured until it has a historiography section. The historiography section should probably have a link to a main page, something along the lines of Russian disputes regarding the Katyn massacre. Fifelfoo 00:40, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Very strong oppose. As the standard of FAs has been steadly plummeting, I won't be surprised if this monument to the Polish POV interpretation of history gets promoted too. In the past, we've seen Polish editors promote such articles to the FA in order to fend off any NPOVing changes. When we discussed Polish-Muscovite War (1605-1618) last time, many supported the move to Polish invasion of Russia, but the Polish editors had the issue suppressed. So let's now take a look at the latest candidate.
    Even the title is grossly POV, as my concerns that the article should be moved to Katyn Incident remain unheard. When the officers are killed during the war and our Polish friends style it a "murder" about dozen times around the article, they prepare a playing ground for future revert wars. Currently, the article reflects Polish nationalist mythology only. Russian reaction is misinterpreted. The article's hyped-up reference base doesn't include Russian websites. Now to some more specific concerns.
    1. The article is a lasting monument to the ignorance of those who wrote it. What is Putivli - is it Putivl? What is Vologod - is it Vologda? Other names are so heavily distorted that it's impossible to make any sense of them.
    2. No mention is made of the fact that the episode, quite similar to countless such executions perpetrated by Stalin's regime, was wildly hyped up by Goebbels and Co and has been advertised by every Russophobic force in Germany, Poland, and elsewhere in order to sour the relations with Russia.
    3. While the Soviet government was run by two ethnic Georgians (Stalin, Beria) and quite a few Jews, while a number of Ukrainians/Belarusians were involved in the execution, while 12,000 victims are actually buried in Ukraine, the article stubbornly opperates with the term "Russians" instead of "Soviets" (e.g., "Churchill assured the Russians..."), thus further highlighting the anti-Russian bias. That was the case only in a few places. It is fixed now. Balcer 19:42, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    4. No mention is made of the fact that the very same officers who fell victim to Stalin's terror had planned an invasion of the SU, similar to the one which was effected by the Poles in 1919. In the Polish black-and-white vision of history there is no place for such signal monents of Poland's history as Polish-German Partition of Czechoslovakia and German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact. Every murky fact is being covered up, while the Poles are represented as lambs and victims of those bloody Russians.
    5. Judgmental tone and NPOV phrasing is everywhere: e.g., The demands - often bordering on political blackmail - by Stalin and his diplomats. IMHO the publicity surrounding this obscure episode in modern Polish politics is a pure political blackmail. Unfortunately, no mention of Katyn being instrumental in propagating anti-Russian hysterics in Poland is made.
    6. The investigations that indicted the German state rather than the Soviet state for the killings are sometimes used to impeach the Nuremberg Trials in their entirety, often in support of Holocaust denial... I can't make anything of this drivel. Please elaborate. --Ghirla | talk 10:26, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  1. Your proposal to move it to Katyn incident has been thoroughly discussed at the talk page and it was decided not to, mainly because the term is barely used. Google books has 127 books for Katyn massacre and 6 for Katyn incident, for instance. Not to mention Google. As to typos- I believe we should not confuse typos with ignorance, especially that the two mentioned are not typos. It's two tiny villages, not two major towns, as indicated by the nearest train stations mentioned. The Goebbels' efforts are also well-presented in the article, read it again and you'll find the relevant part. The mention of Russians as synonymic to Soviets, although well-established in English, could indeed be fixed for greater clarity. As to the Polish invasion of the Soviet Union in 1939, you already mentioned that some month ago or so. However, when asked to provide sources for your revelations, you did not comply, so I see no need to include your unsupported claims - unless you find support for them. Also, the Soviets who executed the officers did not really care for their alleged guilts, they were executed without a trial. As to anti-Russian hysteria - I saw non. Perhaps you mean anti-Soviet feelings? After all Stalin was Georgian and so was Beria... Halibutt 11:48, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm just curious, can you supply any solid evidence that mysterious Vologod and Putivli are "tiny villages" as you claim them to be. In the past, you claimed that Ostashkov and Kozelsk were mere villages, until we found time to write articles on those cities. From my past experience, I know that it's hopeless to expect you to understand that Russia consists of anything more than tiny villages and vodka pissers but let me hope at least. --Ghirla | talk 23:25, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  2. I join Halibutt in asking Ghirlandajo to provide some evidence for his accusation in point number 4. So far he has steadfastly refused to provide even one reference, despite being repeatedly asked. As for the massacre being similar to countless others conducted by Stalin's regime, that is not quite true. To my knowledge, Katyn was the only instance in which the Soviet Union conducted a mass execution of Allied POWs. Balcer 14:28, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    It is a moot point whether the SU and Poland were really allies. Perhaps the article on German-Polish Non-Aggression Pact would have cleared up the issue, but your friends' persistant efforts at whitewashing the embarrassing stains in Poland's history induce me to think that the article will never be written. It's so much easier to vociferate about the "murders" of the innocent and high-minded Poles by the bloody Russkies and to forget that the NKVD (presumed to have been guilty of the Katyn executions) was founded by a Polish nobleman... --Ghirla | talk 23:25, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ever considered writing that articles yourself - if you think it is so important? Don't forget to cite your sources, though.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 00:13, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
And what does it have to do with what you wrote above? Moreover, whether USSR was part of the Allies of World War II is a complicated matter, which does not change the fact that Poland indeed was an Allied state - and I doubt the USSR committed similar massacres of other foreign citizens, especially citizens of Allied states. Halibutt 05:37, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
While USSR did posses some other prisoners who were Allied soldiers the mass execution of Allied soldiers from Poland was an exception.It is worth mentioning in the article that the soldiers were part of Allies and not only Polish soldiers.--Molobo 13:29, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Done (except for references to Russia after 1991, of course). Balcer 19:37, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support as per, well, almost everyone.--SylwiaS | talk 04:21, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: This vote is disturbing. Promoting this to FA status will be in blatant contradiction to our NPOV policy. I don't know how plainly I can say it: this article reflects anticommunist Western and Polish nationalist historical views; it is not a balanced portrayal of the event and the evidence and arguments from both of the basic POVs, not even remotely. The article appears to be well-written and well-cited, but all that is secondary to neutrality, which this article fundamentally does not have. Everyking 08:32, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • You have opposed on the same grounds every Polish-Russian related FAC I have seen here in the past. Let me reply as I always did, then: please provide the examples of POVed statements here, and we will see if they can be fixed.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 14:44, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Everyking - are you prepared to cite (with specifity) part(s) of the article which are not neutral? You claimed above that it's not neutral because the first sentence says the Russians did it, and then Balcer pointed out that EB says the same thing. In summary, your comments are long on histrionics and very, very short on meaningful content. Raul654 18:27, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Conditional Support On the whole an interesting article, certainly informative and thought-provoking. Could do with slight NPOVing as Kazak said.--Kuban kazak 11:04, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support-an important historic WW2 atrocitity.Well written and touches all aspects-from cooperation of NKVD and Gestapo to Russian "Katyn denial".--Molobo 13:26, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I just spent the better part of the morning converting this article to use the mediawiki citation style. The references section no longer sucks and is quite a bit more readable now. Raul654 14:53, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Conditional oppose This is an impressive article, and it feels like it should be an FA (though I don't know a lot about the topic other than this material. so I can't comment too much on the historical interpretations used), but the David Irving stuff has to go before it can be promoted. As the judge in his case ruled: "Irving has for his own ideological reasons persistently and deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence... that he is anti-Semitic and racist and that he associates with right-wing extremists who promote neo-Nazism". And his history is totally uncredible:

"Not one of [Irving's] books, speeches or articles, not one paragraph, not one sentence in any of them, can be taken on trust as an accurate representation of its historical subject. All of them are completely worthless as history, because Irving cannot be trusted anywhere, in any of them, to give a reliable account of what he is talking or writing about. ... if we mean by historian someone who is concerned to discover the truth about the past, and to give as accurate a representation of it as possible, then Irving is not a historian.

Other than that, I would support this , though I do have two other more minor issues: (1) The "largest massacre of Allied soldiers" bit in the intro seems like a random POV insertion, and may not be correct and (2) it would be good to have an expansion of why Kaytn is argued to be a genocide, since I don't think the Soviets were exterminationist towards the Poles as whole, though I could be wrong. --Goodoldpolonius2 17:01, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

it would be good to have an expansion of why Kaytn is argued to be a genocide, since I don't think the Soviets were exterminationist towards the Poles as whole, though I could be wrong.

I would say that the main arguments of Polish side that it should be regarded as genocide are following: From http://www.ipn.gov.pl/eng/eng_news_high_katyn_decision.html

  • The selection of persons for extermination was also characterised by the fact that they formed part of the intellectual elite of the Polish Nation which, under the appropriate conditions, could assume leadership.
  • The physical elimination of these people was meant to prevent the rebirth of Polish statehood based on their intellectual potential. Therefore the decisions of elimination were taken with the intention of destroying the strength of the Polish Nation and liquidate its elites.
  • Therefore one can conclude that the murder of Polish prisoners of war and Polish civilians by the NKVD was dictated by a desire to liquidate part of the Polish national group
  • The view whereby the extermination of Polish citizens is an act of genocide was also expressed in the USSR's stance during the trial of Nazi war criminals before the Nuremberg Tribunal after the end of World War II.
  • Having conducted evidentiary proceedings which did not confirm the opinion that the atrocity was carried out by the Germans, the Nuremberg Tribunal in its verdict did not make any substantive reference to the charge regarding the Katyn Massacre.

--Molobo 19:46, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Great, it might be good to have this in the article since it was a bit confusing without this context -- but I still am going to have to conditionally oppose until the Irving nonsense is removed. --Goodoldpolonius2 05:01, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
All the Irving-dependent statements have been changed to use a different source or written out. Raul654 01:51, 2 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments Just wanted to add that I also think that where appropriate "Russia" should be replaced by "Soviet". Second, I'd also like to see the Irving reference removed. He may have just happened to be correct about Sikorski (though undoubtedly for the wrong reasons) but the guy's a discredited odious hack and I think the article's credibility could suffer just by association. Also his relevence to this particular topic seems marginal at best. radek 20:44, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. However, one question I have is the following sentence in the intro: "Since Poland's conscription system required every unexempted university graduate to become a reserve officer,[6] the Soviets were thus able to round up much of the Polish, Jewish, Ukrainian and Belarusian intelligentsias of Polish citizenship." I assume "on the grounds they were enemy combatants" or something similar is the implied conclusion to that sentence. Should it be stated explicitly? Also, either way, the mention of this in the intro is not followed by further discussion in the article, unless I missed it, so as an uninformed reader I would have no idea what motivated the Soviets to do this. Can it be expanded a bit? Kaisershatner 16:41, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Olivier Messiaen

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I think it is clear, accurate, well-organized and a correct size. I was very surprised by the quality. ♦ Pabix ℹ 22:42, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support I agree. I was about to submit it for fac myself! The article provides a well-researched and detailed biography of a particlualrly significant composer, as well as an illuminating expalnation of his work. Pinkville 00:03, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Although having images traditionally has not been included in the FA criteria, this is really only because there are some subjects (e.g. Psychosis) which are not easily illustrated. But when we are dealing with a 20th century figure, of whom photographs surely exist, I really expect there to be a picture, even if it is only fair use. Andrew Levine 00:32, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think there are many photos of Olivier Messiaen that are in public domain or under free license. I'm going to look for it. ♦ Pabix ℹ 07:26, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A fair use one can suffice if you can't find a free one. Andrew Levine 07:43, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I found a photo on Polish wikipedia that seem to be in public domain and uploaded it on Commons. I wrote an extract of a piece with LilyPond and put it too. Now it is a bit more illustrated. ♦ Pabix ℹ 08:20, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately the image Pabix found is not in the public domain. --RobertG ♬ talk 12:59, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This is correct; the person who uploaded it to the Polish Wikipedia told me that he had made an error in so doing. Andrew Levine 21:42, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
While it's not quite the same thing, a free picture of the Église de la Sainte-Trinité should be relatively easy to obtain, and would be nice to have (especially if he was in the habit of playing his own works there). Incidentally, since it seems to be a church of some note, we really should have an article on it. Mark1 21:02, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I consider myself the main contributor to this article [20], so take my support as read! (I was waiting for images to turn up before nominating it here myself.) I am very gratified by Pabix's nomination. I have spent some time looking for pd/fair use images of the composer, but have not found any. I have come to the conclusion that the only way to acquire such a thing is to contact a sympathetic individual who is likely to release a copyrighted image into public domain or under GFDL - I don't currently have the time to pursue this. Another contributor approached such an individual to acquire appropriate images for the other 20th-century composer's article I steered through FAC (Witold Lutosławski) for which images seemed equally hard to come by. I have thought of asking either Peter Hill or Nigel Simeone, authors of thoroughly excellent references, but they are probably exceptionally busy people and I don't know them personally. On reflection, I do not think that the lack of images disqualifies it from being a FA. I will do what I can to help address any issues raised here. --RobertG ♬ talk 12:59, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Further comment - I will upload a couple of fair-use music images over the next day or two illustrating some of the musical points made in the article. --RobertG ♬ talk 13:13, 25 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have uploaded four printed music examples as promised. --RobertG ♬ talk 16:46, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Are you saying that discussion of his music is superfluous for an article about a composer?! See further comment below. --RobertG ♬ talk 11:33, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Further comment. I agree with Mark; the lead is disjointed, particularly the second sentence. Rather than a bit of this and a bit of that from the article, the lead would be stronger if it first painted the bigger picture (it's a rather grand one, in M's case), locating the composer with respect to the western tradition and, in particular, 20th-century art music. What was his legacy?
This bit is a problem: 'Messiaen taught at the Paris Conservatory for many years, being appointed professor of harmony there in 1941, and professor of composition in 1966. In his classes there and abroad he taught many distinguished pupils ...'
What about: 'Messiaen was appointed professor of harmony in 1941 and of composition in 1966 at the Paris Conservertoire, positions he held until ...'
Suddenly we find that he taught classes abroad, a detail that may be better left until the body of the article.
It should be made clear on first mention that the modes of limited transposition are his own innovation.
Synaesthesia is a neurological condition; my recollection is that Messiaen likened his experience of certain harmonies to that condition, rather than claimed to have it (I could be wrong, though); in any case, I'm afraid that I wasn't convinced by M's claim to 'see' specific colours associated with particular chords, when I saw him interviewed at the piano in the BBC doco from the ?early 80s. Perhaps this matter might be covered in a less prominent part of the article.
The fact that his final work was performed after his death doesn't seem important enough to make the lead.
More references are required, even in the lead.
I feel awkward being critical here, because I think the contributors do valuable work on WP, and I know Robert. This article will surely be a FA, but perhaps not yet. Sorry not to offer direct assistance, but I've no time at the moment. Tony 14:48, 28 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Tony - I accept many of these (and Mark's) criticisms about the lead. I tried to make it a potted version of the article, whereas I see now it could be even pithier. On a separate note, Tony, I don't think you need feel awkward being critical. Specific objections to its becoming a featured article are what this page is for! However, since it appears this particular FAC has stalled (unless there is a flood of support votes, which seems unlikely), further posting here may be irrelevant in any case. I should welcome you posting any other problems you find with the article, at your convenience, either on my talk page or on the article's talk page (or fix them :-)).
As an aside, all the references I have read appear to accept Messiaen's synaesthesia. If you have a reference that casts doubts on it can you let me know? If it wasn't a genuine neurological condition then it seems quite extraordinary that he was able to so consistently describe the colours he envisaged, and in such precise terms. You ask for more references in general: which bits aren't referenced that should be? --RobertG ♬ talk 11:33, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Update: I have recast the intro slightly in the light of Tony and Mark's suggestions. --RobertG ♬ talk 15:47, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. It appears that a collaboration is required to meet the objections raised above. I am unwilling to address them on my own, for two reasons. (a) Tony intimates that delicacy prevents him raising other objections which he has, and so the task of getting this article through FAC currently has no scope, and more seriously (b) there appear to be two schools of thought on Wikipedia currently, both represented here - and, while we should attempt to reach a consensus, this is probably not the best place to do it. The schools of thought I refer to are these: One says an article about a composer should include a reasonably thorough introduction to the music (this is what I think, it is why there is a brief introduction to his musical style and technique in this article, and I think that it is the feeling of some other musical Wikipedians I have encountered). The other (to which Mark appears to subscribe - I apologise if I am misrepresenting his view) says it should be a biography, with links to other article(s) discussing the music (which I would argue necessarily leaves any article about a composer failing here against criterion 2(b)). This question has already been discussed on WikiProject Composers; I will, perhaps, revisit it there. --RobertG ♬ talk 11:33, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • You misrepresent me slightly, but I'll keep that for another time. I personally wouldn't organise the material quite the way you have done, but I can't say that your way is wrong, and I won't object on those grounds. The lead is now much better, so I expect I'll support once I've had a closer look. Mark1 15:03, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support This is a good example of the kind of music article we should be encouraging. It discusses Messiaen and his music in a verifiable manner, without limiting itself to a professional audience. The music is placed within a broader biographical, historical, stylistic and intellectual context. There's a good 'further reading' section. This approach is to be commended, in a set of categories that lends itself to waffle at one extreme, and the impenetrable at the other. We shouldn't let reasonable discussion of wider issues of article structure prevent us from drawing attention to a good article, and encouraging more of its kind. Countersubject 14:41, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment This seems really very thorough, and (as a "non-musician") I found particularly the description of his work as a composer to be quite satisfying. What terms weren't immediately understood were fine in context and only made me want to discover more. Audio would be a particularly great addition. Working a more definitive summary statement, along the lines of "Almost no music by Messiaen could be mistaken for the work of any other western classical composer", into the introduction, would IMO work in the lead, as it seems non-controversial and well-supported in the article, and adds to initial interest. A general tightening up of the prose would be good (that sounds vague, but it I believe is elaborated on in comments above). Without any special knowledge of the subject, I found the content balanced and...enjoyable. Hope that's at all helpful...! --Tsavage 20:58, 30 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have gone over the prose and made various style adjustments. In addition, I added a "more definitive summary statement" to cap off the lead with a grand gesture. (Disclaimer: I'm not a music person, so if I screwed something up horribly while fiddling with the grammar, I'm sorry!) Anville 09:09, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
An improvement, thank you. I've tweaked a couple of things. I also tried to provide some back-up to the summary statement you added to the lead, picking out some factors which combine to make his music so distinctive. I hope it makes sense. --RobertG ♬ talk 10:35, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It makes sense to me, anyway. Good work. I can't stop tweaking the grammar (when one uses a comma as well as a conjuction to join two phrases, one has to include the subject in the second phrase, I think). I also prefer active voice in many circumstances ("Messiaen found birdsong fascinating" instead of "Messiaen was fascinated by birdsong"), but hey, it's just a thing which is preferred by me. Cheers! Anville 15:28, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Another fine-tuning thing, the bolded references to examples could be toned down (unbolded) and parenthesized in all instances (at least once, the reference to example is the subject of a sentence). I did find they kind of awkwardly leaped out at me, and the captions are otherwise both self-contained and well-referenced to the text. Just (example 1) or whatever a standard format might be? --Tsavage 17:37, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Colour lies at the heart of Messiaen's music. Messiaen said that the terms "tonal", "modal" and "serial" (and other such terms) are misleading analytical conveniences[27], and that for him there were no modal, tonal or serial compositions, only music with colour and music without colour. For Messiaen the composers Claudio Monteverdi, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Chopin, Richard Wagner, Mussorgsky and Stravinsky all wrote strongly colored music. Hell yes, baby! Support. I will probably take stabs at tightening the prose here and there, but I already found it a good read. Anville 08:08, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Detailed, informative, and readable; there are minor tweaks to be made but it shouldn't stop this from being featured. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 15:53, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Edward Teller

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I think this article hits all the main bases, reads pretty well, stays NPOV about a very controversial character, and is just the right length. More-or-less a self-nomination. Went through a peer review, was modified a bit based on comments. --Fastfission 03:28, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]