Knowledge (XXG)

:Featured article review/archive/December 2008 - Knowledge (XXG)

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Kept status

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

The article was kept by User:Joelr31 18:55, 29 December 2008 .

Review commentary

Notified USer:Noren, User:Serendipodous, WikiProjects Astronomy and Solar System. Marskell (talk) 15:12, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Worldtraveller's FAs are now far and away the largest group on the few/no citations list and they need to be gone through. The successful FAR of SL9 is what I'd like to shoot for, though help is needed. I've contacted a couple of astronomy editors.

Most obvious concern is referencing. I have formatted a couple of refs and dropped some dubious ones. Also concerned about some of the prose ("For almost everyone who saw it, Hale-Bopp was simply a beautiful and spectacular sight in the evening skies.") Finally, I would like some feedback on due weight wrt the Heaven's Gate and Art Bell stuff. Marskell (talk) 14:48, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Demote: Tim, I don't think this article would pass muster at an FAC; Much of the information could probably be easily referenced, and there should be at least one ref per paragraph. The two tags are going to have to be addressed; they read like the apologetic writings of Ufologists. I've given the article a copyedit, but much more needs to be done. Serendious 15:27, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

Note, Serendip, that we wait a full two weeks before declaring keep or remove. There are no rapid demotions here. Even if it's just a copyedit, any improvement is good improvement. Marskell (talk) 15:33, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
What a shame. Obviously it's not FA material, it'll be pretty tough to get it back up to FA status. —Ceran 23:33, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
  • I should be able to help with referencing, but my language skills are certainly not up to professional level. I am a bit short on time for the next couple weeks (damn deadlines...), but I'll nevertheless try to get things moving forward some time next week. Random astronomer (talk) 10:06, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern is referencing (1c). Marskell (talk) 13:06, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Note No work has been done in a week. Random astonomer, do you intend on performing additional changes? Joelito (talk) 01:00, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

  • Other than fixing those five remaining {{fact}}s I have no plans. If there are any additional concerns, I can try to sort them out, too. Random astronomer (talk) 07:23, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
  • CommentKeep: The referencing is much improved, and so is the tone. I'd lean towards Keep on that basis, but I'm concerned that it doesn't seem as comprehensive as I'd expect. I don't have many ideas for what else needs adding, though. A diagram of the orbit would be nice, e.g. like or , and the implications of the abundance of argon for the comet's formation should be covered. There seem to be several short paragraphs, too, which can be a bit jarring. -- Avenue (talk) 08:53, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
    • I played around with gnuplot and managed to create a first version of the orbit diagram. I am a bit wrong person to make assessment on the comprehensiveness of article — I'm extragalactic guy and know little about comets — but glancing through some papers there does seem to be few missing topics that could be expanded. One of them is the origin of Hale-Bopp (solar nebula vs. pre-solar nebula vs. GMC), which is also connected to the detection of Argon. Then there is the composition, as the comet was quite dust-rich and the dust seems to be a bit atypical in some aspects. I will have to do quite a bit reading on these topics, though. The discussion of the orbit can also be expanded a bit; that should be straightforward. Random astronomer (talk) 11:45, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
Note Left open to address comprehensiveness concerns. Joelito (talk) 14:51, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Lots of little MoS issues throughout, the usual for the astronomy articles where they don't have a convention for citing authors (pls choose last name first or first name first and make them consistent); MOS:ALLCAPS, WP:DASH, WP:ITALICS, etc. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:02, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

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

The article was kept by User:Joelr31 16:36, 21 December 2008 .

Review commentary

Previous FAR
Notified User:Ryu Kaze, WP:Final Fantasy

This article has a lot of issues. Here are the highlights: several unsourced statements and the entire Sphere Grid section has no refs, an overly large storyline section, a poorly designed references Reception section, several one- or two-sentence paragraphs (WP:MOS), and several statements in the lead look like they aren't part of a general overview, as they are specific details. --Hydrokinetics12 (talk) 04:19, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

What does "a poorly designed references section" mean? It's... a reflist. There's no design. --PresN (talk) 06:19, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, I meant to say "Reception" section (I was typing fast 'cause I really needed to hit the hay.) What I mean is that some scores are scattered throughout the prose, others are put into a list, making it look disorganized. --Hydrokinetics12 (talk) 18:37, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

The Development section could be expanded also. It's kind of poor for a featured article. The game is the "best game of all time" according to the Famitsu readers, and the main designers of the game are by far the most talkative people at Square Enix, so there's bound to be more information available. Megata Sanshiro (talk) 18:49, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually, there's quite a lot of development information — it's just allocated to the appropriate sections. The "development" section is for information that does not fit with the other sections. Also, you're not going to get a lot of enthusiasm for trimming the story section, as veteran editors of Knowledge (XXG) — which summarizes most of the members of the FF wikiproject — know of the constant bickering between short and comprehensive summaries. — Deckiller 00:00, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps in most cases the issue of short/long story sections is debatable, but it's not in this case. It contains numerous details that aren't at all necessary to demonstrate how the story works. Moreover, these excessive details hamper readability, making it nearly impossible to make sense of the game's story. --Hydrokinetics12 (talk) 05:48, 1 November 2008 (UTC)
I agree; the story section contains far too many details as it stands. However, unless opinion has shifted again, the WikiProject may not be willing to trim the story themselves, as they were forced to expand it to the current length in the previous review (and I believe it was even trimmed after that, against supposed advice). I'm basically retired, so I won't be able to turn this article into something that matches the norms of 2008. — Deckiller 07:01, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Your best bet might be to go into the edit history and find an earlier, more succinct version of the setting/characters/story sections. — Deckiller 07:08, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

My general experience is that the Wikiproject is ambiguous when it comes to how storylines should be covered. I try to clarify that an issue exists with the total style of the summary in reviews, yet users often try to resolve such concerns by removing a few adjectives to make it "shorter". If it is felt that it needs a summary style, yet the story reads as a point-by-point recount, then the whole thing needs to be rewritten in my opinion. The problem is that users seem to agree that it needs to be shortened in the review, yet the problem recurs in their successive articles. It is unhealthy for FAC contributors at peer review or FAC to take the prompts as absolute truths when they are partially subjective. In my experience, users have been known to make amendments even if they disagree with the advice, even though the option of arguing the case is a perfectly viable one. I was browsing an FAC one day that had a bloated, point-by-point storyline and an influential VG editor commended it especially in his/her review, which is not uncommon. I've felt for a long time that the issue needs to be raised at the VG project, although I also gave up on discussion there a long time ago too. Rant over. Ashnard Talk 12:08, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
I'll give trimming the story section a shot. I think most of the active members of the VG project are in agreement that shorter is better for plot summaries. So it shouldn't be an issue. (Guyinblack25 16:27, 8 November 2008 (UTC))
Didn't trim as much as I hoped, but I shaved 1KB off the total size and got it down to six regular sized paragraphs. Hope it's an improvement. (Guyinblack25 22:16, 11 November 2008 (UTC))
That looks pretty reasonable. — Deckiller 23:36, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I brought the images issue up before. Maybe the Farplane or the Map images can be removed, in favor of the "Sending" scene, which is a better descriptor of the game's art. Also, for a character-driven game, I'm surprised there's no shot that has all of the game's main characters. --Hydrokinetics12 (talk) 22:46, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion, the gameplay section itself is too long, and the plot section should be severely trimmed in terms of setting (including all that unsourced information), and trim and merge the spirituality section into the setting. There's a serious issue of over-reliance on primary sources and I'm getting a vibe of WP:OR throughout. As for development, I'm not exactly swayed by the suggestion that the section is fine as it is. Sure, there's information in other sections (Audio, versions and merchandise), but these sections should be reorganized within the article in a more logical fashion if this is where the content is; the merchandise section, for example, should go before reception. I'd say it currently has issues with 1a, 1c, 3, and 4 of WP:FA? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs 14:36, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

The merchandise section has been placed before the reception section. I hope it is an improvement. Greg Jones II 15:01, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

I was going to move this to FARC but I'll leave it up as people are working. Marskell (talk) 14:51, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

  • I've finished copy-editing and cleaning up the article. I think I've addressed all concerns that have been brought up adequately, and I think it should keep its FA status, even though it has one unreliable source. The Prince (talk) 11:58, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
    • And that one source is? I'm still not swayed by the length of the plot, but perhaps a user who's never played the game can clean it up better; I'll take a look in the coming days. There's still the referencing issue in gameplay and throughout. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs 00:57, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
      • I'm not sure of the plot-merit of naming each of the aeons; they are not prerequisite to understanding the story at large. Actually, that's one of the things that irritated me about the lengthier plot section. --Hydrokinetics12 (talk) 07:31, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
        • Prince's edits have really improved the prose. I just did a copy edit sweep and didn't find too much to improve upon. The in-game content is much more concise and the development section has been greatly expanded from what it was. I don't think the plot is too long considering it sums up 50+ hours of story into five paragraphs. But I agree a sweep from someone who hasn't played the game would help. (Guyinblack25 21:22, 26 November 2008 (UTC))
          • Thanks for the kind words. I think the plot section is as short as it can get, and contains the necessary details of a heavily plot-based game. David Fuchs: The source I'm talking about is ^ Khosla, Sheila (2003-10-13). "Tetsuya Nomura 20s". FLAREgamer. Retrieved on 2008-11-23. I didn't find a reliable source to replace it, and since quite a lot of content from the characters section has been retrieved from that source, I decided not to remove it. But if everyone agrees it should be removed, I will do so. The Prince (talk) 21:43, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Question: Since so many fair use images were removed from the article, would it be okay if a free use image is added? Maybe an image of Sakaguchi in the development section? FFXI has 2 free use images of a developer and the composer of the game. The Prince (talk) 22:17, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
Of course; ideally, it would be entirely illustrated with free images. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs 22:20, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
Added free use image. The Prince (talk) 22:43, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
Was is necessary to remove all the fair use images? The point of fair use images is to illustrate concepts not possible with pure text descriptions, concepts such as the sphere grid and the game's character art. Having too few images is just as bad as too many when it comes to FA. --Hydrokinetics12 (talk) 00:16, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately we are bound by WP:NFCC. Besides there are still 4 nonfree images in the article. As it stands, the main issue with the article is the possible original research and unsourced statements that need to be addressed. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs 02:28, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are images and sources. Joelito (talk) 04:04, 4 December 2008 (UTC)
Comment: I think the gameplay section could use at least a mention of the minigames such as blitz, just like the other FF articles. The article could also stand to use some different screenshots. The Tidus/Yuna image should be replaced by something that depicts more of the game's main characters; the image shown now can't really qualify that it "significantly improves the quality of the article" b/c you can barely see the main characters' faces. I'll again say that a shot of the sphere grid is essential. Fair use says an image may be used iff it depicts something that can't be detailed in words, and every review I have read seems to imply that the sphere grid is one such case. I'll try to make some changes to the lead so it flows more properly. --Hydrokinetics12 (talk) 22:05, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
Info on minigames added. I don't see the need in using an image of the Sphere Grid, though. The text pretty much explains the general idea of the Grid, IMO. The Prince (talk) 23:40, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
The only sourcing issue is one ref's reliability in question correct? If the source and related content is removed, would that solve the problem?
I too think the image use is reasonable. However, if an image has to go, I recommend the Tidus/Yuna image as it adds the least to the article. (Guyinblack25 18:34, 9 December 2008 (UTC))
I agree. There must be a better image than that. You can't even see Tidus' face. I tried to find a better one, but was unsuccessful. A good image would be something like , but since its fan-made and not made by Square Enix, it can unfortunately not be used, IIRC. The Prince (talk) 21:51, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
I cut the image of the two of them disappearing, and I will try to replace the one bad reference left. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 19:13, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
I looked around at the usual suspects, I don't think that it will be found for a while, if at all. All the issues seem to be addressed, can this be kept? Or are there still issues to be addressed? I would take a look at how it looked when this began and now, and you'll see dramatic improvement. Judgesurreal777 (talk) 19:20, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
I've sent an e-mail to the author of the article (Sheila Khosla) regarding its reliability. If it's true that the sources contained the same information, the content about the characters can be added back. But for now, it may as well be removed. Regarding the image usage, I think one more is okay. We just need to decide on one that adds the most to the article. Any suggestions? The Prince (talk) 20:09, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
Also, I think the image in the "versions and merchandise" section should be replaced. The date of when the photo was taken is on the image (see here), and it doesn't look very good, IMO. It also has a very high resolution. The Prince (talk) 20:30, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Knowledge (XXG) talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept by User:Raul654 22:49, 14 December 2008 .

Review commentary

previous FAR (13:51, 24 July 2007)
Notified: SandyGeorgia, SIrubenstein, ZayZayEM, Cla68, Amatulic, RoyBoy, Filll, CSTAR, DLH, Raul654, Odd nature, JoshuaZ, Guettarda, ScienceApologist, Tznkai, Dave souza, Kenosis, FeloniousMonk, KillerChihuahua, Ed Poor, Ec5618.

I am nominating this article for FAR based on the following FA criteria:

  1. (a) Well written. Some of the language, especially in the lead is very difficult to read. In addition, there are embedded wiki-code in numerous locations that make it nearly impossible to edit the article. I've edited numerous FA articles, and have rarely seen such stuff.
  2. (c) Factually accurate--there are constant disputes on the factual accuracy of certain statements in the article. Edit-warring has continued on these points.
  3. (d) Neutral--edit warring appears to shift the neutrality of the article. Several issues include the Kitzmiller decision, the applicability of DI strategies, etc.
  4. (e) Stable--subject to regular edit warring.
  5. Lead--no longer summarizes the article accurately.
  6. Citations--inconsistent and not up-to-date.

I think this article is very hard to read, using language and logic that are often difficult to follow. It is a constant tug of war between opposing POV's that need consensus. At this time, the article is not worthy of the FA tag. OrangeMarlin 21:22, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

  • comment The wiki-code issue isn't a reason to remove from FA. If edit warring by POV pushers makes an article not stable then by that definition no highly controversial article will ever be "stable" enough. As long as there is a general consensus on what it should look like stability is not an issue. As of yet, no strong opinions on the other issues. Will need to take a look in more detail when I get a chance, but it would be nice to have more expansion on what is at issue precisely in regard to the lead and citations. 22:04, 14 October 2008 (UTC)JoshuaZ (talk) 22:04, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Of course, it's not a reason to delist it. It's just one of many reasons to delist this article. The whole reason for the wiki-code is inappropriate, because so many explanations are required to make sense of the logic. The problem is that the article requires difficult logic, so it has to be explained underneath the article's surface. That makes no sense to me. OrangeMarlin 22:14, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
  • ON, I don't think we're at the point of Keep vs. delist. It's still the comment stage, and it's not stable, it lacks neutrality, the citations aren't even close to FA level, the lead is difficult to read. I refuse to allow this FAR to be a POV vs. NPOV discussion. It is what makes a quality FA discussion. And I contend this article is no longer FA quality. My opinion on ID is well-known, so apparently I'm truly looking at what is right now not an FA. OrangeMarlin 22:18, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
  • ON, please seeKnowledge (XXG):Featured article review. We aren't at the stage of Keeping vs. delisting. There are issues with the article that make it not of FA quality. Not to repeat myself, but I'm shepherding this through the process. Comment on the quality not on whether there is POV pushing, which I know exists. OrangeMarlin 22:24, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
  • comment I'm surprised to see this is FARC'd. The lede, "difficult to read" or no, is virtually identical to the FA version as it appeared on the wikipedia Main Page in Oct 2007. The nature of the topic itself is controversial, a fact that determines from the outset there will always be a heightened level of edit disputes, and no version of it will ever be solidly stable in the forseeable future. It appears there's more a general uneasiness that "anyone can edit" that particular article. Professor marginalia (talk) 22:20, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Again, as I said above, this isn't about the POV of the article, and I can't even begin to respond to your other comment about who or who cannot edit it. It's about quality, and does it meet FA standards. Based on FA standards, it does not. Do we fix it? Yes. OrangeMarlin 22:25, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
I speak of a general uneasiness toward editors rather than the edits because I'm seeing edits which were already included in the original FA version reverted now because they're perceived to have come only recently from editors newly editing the article.Professor marginalia (talk) 22:47, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
  • None of the four (!) images of non-free cover art meet the NFCC requirements for the use of non-free images. Even if one of them met the requirement individually (an argument that has never gained consensus), the ratio of four non-free images to two free images is quite bad, especially for a pseudo-scientific topic for which numerous on-topic illustrations (a mousetrap, an eyeball) could be created. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:44, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Support Perfectly valid and good faith nomination for FARC. This article definitely needs it. However. I do still feel it meets suitability for FA-status. I do not find readability a problem, and coding issues are not a reason for delisting. Other issues such as factuality and NPOV are not substantiated. Edit-warring never goes unnoticed on this page, and the page normally returns to original form relatively quickly. Delisting high-profile edit-war/vandal targets that have a dedicated watch-base is letting terrorists win.--ZayZayEM (talk) 23:57, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Non-free image use rationale. This was brought up before and was very controversial at the time. However, the egregarious use of non-free images of book covers on this page is an issue. WP:FA Requires all non-free images to be used appropriately according to the Non-free content criteria. All 10 criteria MUST be met. These book covers continue to not meet criteria 8 "Suitability":

Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding

At issue is that the presence of these pictures does not serve to "significantly increase readers' understanding", nor would their removal be "detrimental to that understanding". Indeed the only Image I see greatly increasing the readers' understanding in a way that only an image can is the representation of The Creation of Adam at Intelligent_design#Movement. This clearly illustrates the CSC's use of religious iconography in a way that would be difficult to effectively express in prose. None of the book covers actually present material in pictorial form that contributes to knowledge of this article.
To comply with FA standards these images must be removed (unless some editors can explain how the images -not their captions- supply necessary information that can only be conveyed in pictorial form). Removal of these images however would mean intelligent design would be poorly illustrated, and therfore bland and no longer eligible for FA status.--ZayZayEM (talk) 23:57, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
USER:CBM notes that alternative free image illustrations that remain on-topic could easily be created.--ZayZayEM (talk) 00:32, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Oh Gesh or, if "Gesh" is too religion, I'll vote Charlie Brown - "Oh brother". I don't like the See also or the further reading. I believe that some of the sources are blogs and the rest. I also see the second paragraph of "Origins of the concept" lacking a citation at the end as with the third paragraph of "Overview" and the first of "Specified complexity" and the first and last paragraph of "Fine-tuned Universe". Third paragraph of "Movement" along with weird use of italics in that paragraph. The end of "Defining science" lacks a citation and the end of the second paragraph of "Peer review". Missing from the end of the first paragraph of "Arguments from ignorance" also. The end of the first two paragraphs of "Kitzmiller trial" and the quote are not cited. Quote in "Reaction" is not cited. But yeah, this is a huge bag of worms, and the submitter should be flogged. Ottava Rima (talk) 03:36, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Very brief MoS flyover: I spotted WP:ACCESS issues in "Movement" wrt image layout and templates. I see quotes in WP:ITALICS (wrong) everywhere, including the citations. WP:PUNC logical quotation issues here and there that will be irritating to locate and fix (probably just ctrl-f on ". and ." and ," and ", to check them all). What looks like a quote, but in italics not quotes, after: As a reaction on this situation in Holland, in Belgium the President ... Can any of that lengthy See also be worked in to the article, per WP:LAYOUT? There's a mish-mash-mess of date formats in the citations, but with all the citation templates in flux due to the recent date delinking, it might be premature to work on that, and better to wait, fingers crossed, for a bot or script. But setting aside the date formatting, the citations need other cleanup (I saw strange bolding, missing italics on periodicals, and missing info at least.) That's actually the longest external link farm I can ever recall seeing on an FA. But my general impression is that, in terms of MoS, the article is much cleaner than it was at its last FAR; cleanup will not be too hard, except that there are so many citations that need work (using Dr pda's edit references script will help). The dab and external link checkers in the toolbox indicate a few links and dabs need repair. A random check of the citations at the bottom of the article revealed a missing publisher and a completely wrong citation, where the URL didn't point to the source indicated, and formatting issues, so citations need review and cleanup. It is very hard to work around all the HTML in the article, but Dr pda's edit references script helps avoid all of that for ref cleanup work. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:18, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment - no article should have an overview section, as that is what the lead is. If the overview is a section, what subsection of material does it cover? What is missed out? If the subject matter is theoretical underpinnings, history, development, definition, or whatever, the name of the heading should reflect it. I haven't looked closer yet. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:09, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Could you back this up with some policy/guideline. I have seen Overview used in other articles of high quality (eg. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1). Is an exception valid for portal-0style parenbt articles on broad topics.--ZayZayEM (talk) 03:31, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
My argument is thus - the lead functions as the overview (I am unaware if it always did but it certainly does now, an overview being the summary of salient points). Given this, another summary within the article is thus redundant and repetitive. Overview precisely what it says - the idea of a subheading is that certain information relevant to that subheading is partitioned off therein, eg history, causes, characteristics or whatever. Overview is so general..what couldn't go in it? It is not a definable subsection. If the overview is in essence a definition, then rename it thus, or etymology, taxonomy or whatever. I am thinking about other examples and may be swayed. I was never a fan of seealso sections but have come across some (though not many) articles where they make sense. I will chekc up on whether it has been discussed at MOS before. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:25, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment Although I think that the text in this article is far from perfect, it would be better to expend energy on the hordes of related articles that are subpar, rather than chewing over this article again in what promises to be an immense fight and a waste of time. I am not sure that consensus could be reached on a "better" version of this article, given that trying to work on this article is like swimming in molasses.--Filll (talk | wpc) 20:13, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Unfortunately, that's not how it works. If this isn't the best of class at Knowledge (XXG), then it deserves to be delisted. After doing several of these FAR's, I've noticed what is high quality, and what isn't. Frankly, FAR's are used to improve the article, not, as you appear to be assuming, to cause a fight and waste time. Well, I don't waste my time, so if you would rather not assist in helping the article be better, then I suggest you strike your comment and move on. OrangeMarlin 16:04, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep FA While improvements can be made, at worst I would consider them incremental and likely are more stylistic in nature. The article retains excellent structure, comprehensiveness and referencing (which can be fixed in time). I believe it remains an ideal example of how to do an article on a touchy subject. Though I personally would like to address over-referencing, ie. 3 or more refs for one point. - RoyBoy 03:56, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep as FA I personally recommend for interested WP users, admins and FA reviewers alike to review and edit this inherently controversial article (an option always available to theoretically anyone on earth within certain ever-debatable parameters), but without a new formal FAR procedure at this time.
    ..... Alternately, since I appear unable to read, understand, and follow instructions at the top of this FAR request, I request that this FAR request be declined in favor of business as usual, with a bit of extra attention to any minuiae to which willing reviewers may care to attend.... Kenosis (talk) 05:27, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Neutral as to whether to keep as FA or not. But, here are my concerns with the article:
  • Some kind of "Definition" section should begin the article. The "Integral Concepts" section doesn't give the reader a simple and concise introductory definition of the term. A two paragraph Definition section at the beginning, that perhaps summarizes the Integral Concepts section, should be able to do this. The Definition section should not include any criticism of the concept.
  • The Background section doesn't go far enough back. The section should include a brief history of the entire "evolution vs creationism" in US public schooling debate, i.e. a synopsis of this article with a "for further details see" template at the top of the section. Then a history of what directly led to the development of ID, including the "Origins of the concept and term". The last three paragraphs in the Background section appear to give a definition of the idea, not background.
  • After that, the "Integral concepts" section mixes more background with definition. Can't the two be separated? The "Intelligent designer" section briefly defines the concept, and then launches directly into a debate as to its validity. It would be better if one paragraph was dedicated to defining what Intelligent Designer is supposed to mean, then follow that with a paragraph or two about the validity of the idea.
  • The "Movement" section again combines background with current definition. "The intelligent design movement is a direct outgrowth of the creationism of the 1980s." Isn't this a repeat of information that should be included in the Background section?
  • The "Creating and teaching the controversy" section is the section that appears to have the most problems with NPOV. It reads like it was written by someone seeking to discredit the idea. Phrases such as "A key strategy of the intelligent design movement is convincing the general public..." and "The intelligent design movement creates this controversy in order to..." sound like editorializing. Perhaps some of the sources use this kind of language. We shouldn't, however. The fourth paragraph which begins, "Supporters also hold that religious neutrality requires the teaching..." is written more NPOV. Remember, if someone can read the article and not be able to discern the opinion of the author on the subject, then it has successfully been written with NPOV.
  • If this article was an essay on ID, then the "Defining Science" section should be there. It's not an essay, however, so I'm not sure why that section is included.
  • The "Peer review" section has some NPOV issues. The first paragraph is NPOV. The second is not. It needs to say something like, "The American scientific community states that Intelligent design, by appealing to a supernatural agent, directly conflicts with the principles of science..." in order to make it sound like the article's author isn't taking a side. The third paragraph is NPOV. The last paragraph in that section is especially POV. How about, "The Discovery Institute claims that a number of intelligent design articles have been published in peer-reviewed journals, including in its list the two articles mentioned above. Critics from the scientific community reject this claim, stating that no established scientific journal has yet published an intelligent design article. Instead, say critics, intelligent design proponents have set up their own journals with "peer review" which lack impartiality and rigor, consisting entirely of intelligent design supporters." Isn't that a little more NPOV?
  • The next two sections should be shortened and interwoven into the "Concepts" section. As they now stand, they look like criticism sections tacked onto the end of the article.
  • The "Kitzmiller trial" section is NPOV until this line, "As predicted..." Make this say, "As Jones predicted..." See the difference? By putting it this way, you place the opinion as coming from the judge, not from the article's writer.
  • Do away with the "See Also" section. If those topics can't be linked to somewhere in the article, then they don't belong in the article.
  • One question...all of the criticism in the article appears to be from the scientific community. Have other Christians criticized the idea? With all of the Christian denominations out there, there must be a few of them that don't agree with the ID idea or movement, or at least portions of it.
I hope this helps a little. Cla68 (talk) 06:41, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
  • I appreciate your comments. This isn't a point where we're going to "vote" to keep or delist, so I think your issues need to be addressed before a formal vote is undertaken. I'm hoping that someone addresses these points. OrangeMarlin 16:01, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Thanks for these constructive detailed points. A Definition section could be useful, if only to point out the vague and shifting definitions presented by proponents. Whether it should not include any criticism of the concept is an issue of weight and giving "equal validity", and as the section should be based on third party sources this will mean that it is not uncritical. A background section may be a good idea, the issue is covered in outline in the timeline of intelligent design which could be linked as a main article. Detailed attention is needed for the other points you raise, one issue is that peer review in science sets particular standards of open criticism that "in-house" pseudoscientific reviews don't meet. The Judge Jones point was implied by the preceding paragraphs in the section but your suggestion is a useful clarification which I've implemented. The input is much appreciated, hopefully people will find time soon to discuss and implement these points. . . dave souza, talk 08:19, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
  • For my part, I disagree with most of OrangeMarlin's points. The article is well written. It's factually accurate although some facts could be expanded; religious criticisms would be good to have more of. The lead does appear to summarize the article accurately, and the citations are comprehensive, although periodic checks need to be made to ensure that all the links still work. As for neutrality, I agree that there is not enough effort to solicit suggestions from ID proponents on how to make improvements without wholesale whitewashing in their favor. As for stability, that's a non-issue. Controversial articles will never be stable, yet they can still be featured. That said, I think the whole issue of whether or not this article qualifies as "featured" is ridiculous. Designating a featured article, in my view, makes it less stable. The FA designation does nothing to enhance the quality, it's just a label. ~Amatulić (talk) 20:23, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
  • I don't think the lead is well-written at all. The second paragraph is an exercise in redundancy, reproducing the same sentence four times with slightly different wording and sourcing, only to say it again in the fourth paragraph. That's just bad writing. Whether it passed FAR with that lead before is irrelevant: it's not something we should be holding up as a good example. Sχeptomaniac 00:07, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
Good criticism. Also an excellent way to shrink down the lead. A shortening ID ≠ science to a single sentance on Science groups and Kitzmiller may be helpful. Perhaps space can be made for non-background material from teh renamed "overview" section. As mentioned teh lead should be the overview.--ZayZayEM (talk) 01:12, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
  • I'm putting in a couple of hours a day and barely making a dent in the work needed, so I'll start a list here:
    • See also needs pruning, see WP:LAYOUT
    • External links need pruning, see WP:EL
    • Logical quotation needs review, see WP:PUNC, in both citations and text; this will be time consuming.
    • Ellipses have spaces, and is the article using or not using brackets (preferably not), see WP:MOS#Ellipses
    • See WP:CITE, {{citation}} should not be mixed with the cite xxx family of templates because they render different styles, please eliminate citation templates.
    • Quotes are not in italics, see WP:ITALICS, WP:MOS#Quotations
    • There is not a consistent biblio style in the citations. Author name, last name first, followed by first name. Quotes are sometimes before citation info, sometimes after (cite templates place them after). Cite news is often used for web sources. A lot of info is missing (dates, publishers, etc.) A thorough citation audit is in order, as there are many errors. It's taken me several hours to do only a few sections at the bottom. For now, I'm ignoring the inconsistency in date formatting of accessdates because the cite templates are in flux due to the recent MoS change, and I'm hoping someone will write a script.
    • There is still a WP:ACCESS problem with image layout in the "Movement" section.
    • I agree that the section heading "Overview" is redundant and unencylopedic; perhaps a better heading can be found.
    • What is the deal with the awful inline HTML comments? They do make editing quite difficult.
    • The Guardian/BBC source mix up here needs to be sorted:
  • This is trivial but time consuming elbow grease kind of work: I won't be able todo it all myself. I'll add to this list as I review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:55, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment To echo Kenosis, I don't believe use of FAR is needed, but it seems to have brought extra eyes which is great. I do however, agree with the broad criticisms of Orangemartin that the article needs considerably better writing, I just don't think the FAR proccess is the correct one. However, SandyGeorgia's work on the article has revealed apparent substance flaws in the citations, which I think would be severe enough to justify temporary delisting the article if they cannot be corrected quickly. I may add more of my thoughts here to supplement my opinions on improving the article that I have at the talk page.--Tznkai (talk) 20:02, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
  • Just a note about how FAR works, Tznkai. Have a close look at the instructions. We don't temporarily or quickly delist an article (ever), and we take as long as needed at FAR in the hopes of restoring an article to status, as long as work is progressing. The trivials can be addressed here right along side more substantial issues. Sometimes, regular editors may not see issues that have crept in, and FAR can be useful to get more eyes on the article, and more hands typing on the time-consuming issues. FARs may run as long as several months if work is progressing, so there's no need to consider "temporary delisting". SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:07, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are prose, accuracy, neutrality, stability, lead, and citations. Marskell (talk) 13:41, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry I left this so long. Let's get official declarations now. Marskell (talk) 13:41, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

  • It's over two weeks now, and there are still no official declarations. So, let's remove. The article is just too long, has too many sections, is repetitive, strays off focus, and has a very advanced reading age. DrKiernan (talk) 17:15, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
Hmm. "... and has a very advanced reading age". It was my impression that a "FAR" is a prerequisite to "removal". Not that I care much, as the contemporary relevance of the topic appears to have largely changed from a current event to an historical event. Yet, it's pretty much the same article as it was when featured. Maybe it should be reviewed for that reason alone. ... Kenosis (talk) 18:15, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
It fails criteria 1a, 2a, 2b and 4. DrKiernan (talk) 09:12, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
There are also issues with criterion 3, as there is no consensus on the acceptability of the images under the NFCC policy. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:37, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Note Can we notify the users that commented above to gather consensus in this section? Joelito (talk) 14:56, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

  • I vote strong remove FA status, for reasons I've given on the article's talk page. There's no consensus on what ID is in the first place. This has led to the article starting with a turn of phrase that labels a large body of (scientifically illegitimate) work and ideas to be classified as an assertion (a speech act. See category mistake). And the 'assertion' is lifted verbatim from a highly biased source. The article has NPOV issues, it's redundant, not direct, and overly long. There's a lot of information there, and several great sections, but as a whole it's not FA material. There is no clear path to improving the article, so I don't see it happening without the incentive that removal of status will provide. –M 04:31, 8 December 2008 (UTC)
  • keep as FA Is by and large worth being featured. It has some minor issues that need reworking. Most of the serious objections seem to have been dealt with. JoshuaZ (talk) 01:48, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Still neutral. I note that since I reviewed the article on 16 October, it appears that only relatively minor changes have been affected to the article . The article has a lot of good information, but as I noted above, it has some organization and NPOV issues. Cla68 (talk) 02:14, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep as FA, work is in progress to find an improvemnt to the ever-contentious "definition" of this deliberately woolly subject and other improvements are in progress. Agree that some sections are over-long, will review and boldly attempt to apply summary style more ruthlessly. . dave souza, talk 09:25, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Work still needed, relative to the list I posted earlier, I just did a brief check and there is still a lot of work needed. I left some sample edits. The very large external links farm is still a concern; it might be pruned per WP:EL. There is still a large number of unformatted or incompletely formatted citations, and I saw sources of dubious reliability, like dailykos.com, that might need to be checked. There is still a mixture of citation styles, breaching Knowledge (XXG):CITE#Citation templates and tools; the citation templates need to be converted to the cite xxx family. The biblio style is still inconsistent. Most of the list I posted above (almost two months ago) hasn't been addressed. I originally thought I would be able to help out more with these kinds of changes, but with hundreds of refs, it is very tedious work, and I'm having problems with my eyesight, so might not be able to contribute much. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:12, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
The Daily Kos cite is an interview with Barbara Forrest, arguably the world's leading expert on "intelligent design". She's quoted verbatim in the Daily Kos presentation. ... Kenosis (talk) 00:41, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Keep as FA. Agreed with SandyGeorgia that it needs some tightening up. As to length and the "summary style" issue, I note that when the article was featured on the main page 12October2007, it was 161kB in size. This was, of course, larger than recommended but was deemed suitable because of the complexity of the topic. Today it is 169kB in size, most of which is the result of the addition of international perspectives in the last section of the article. Unless there are different article-length criteria now than there were at the time it was featured, it seems to me that it remains of appropriate size for the type of content the article presents. .... Kenosis (talk) 19:52, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Knowledge (XXG) talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept by User:Raul654 22:49, 14 December 2008 .

Review commentary

Notified Paul August, Hoary. Ceoil 22:42, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

A Filiocht from 2004. I'm nominating the article as it is listed on Knowledge (XXG):Unreviewed featured articles and will have to undergo the re-review process at some stage, and I want that to happen at a time when I am available to respond. I worked on this this time last year, and been meaning to get back to it since. Comments and suggestions welcome; and yes the lead needs to be expanded. I'll notify Paul August and Hoary, I might leave Filiocht's talk in peace. Ottava might be helpful here in a providing a detailed review (hint hint). Ceoil 22:03, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

This is, erm, not so close to any of my areas of interest or knowledge; several kilometres removed, indeed. (Anything beyond a mere mention of Pound or Freud tends to make me nod off.) I've read it and made a number of little changes of the kind that are particularly easy to make, but somebody is going to have to print it out, look at the whole picture, and red-ballpoint some shunting around of paragraphs. And some chunks need a lot of (well-informed) work, e.g. the stuff about which work is based on which classical work. -- Hoary (talk) 00:29, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Images Image:Aldington.jpg: no proof that the image was published prior to 1923; missing author details. If it's anonymous and published after 1923 with copyright, then it will still be in copyright until 95 years after first publication. Similar problems with Image:Hdpoet.jpg (which I have already raised at Knowledge (XXG):Featured article review/Modernist poetry in English/archive1): source appears to have been taken down, and the domain name lapsed. No evidence that it is public domain. Appears to have been scanned from a book, as the lines of text are visible through the image; no detail on publication date (likely to be after 1923, since H.D. did not become famous until after then) or on photographer's date of death. DrKiernan (talk) 12:25, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are lead (2a) and general cleanup. Marskell (talk) 14:28, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
Still intended to finish this, so hold please. DrKiernan I agree re the images, first priority is to address. Ceoil 19:54, 31 October 2008 (UTC)
Note Any update on this? Joelito (talk) 00:59, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
3 days and I'll finish up. Ceoil (talk) 01:14, 22 November 2008 (UTC)
Presumably, that's an Irish three days? DrKiernan (talk) 15:35, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
Hmm, very droll DrKiernan, although to be fair right on the money. I suppose I should have stipulated that I didn't mean 'day' in the usual sence. Anyway, I've stripped the article of all but the lead image, which I intend to claim under FU - as soon as I figure out how. Remaining tasks are responding to inline cmts by Hoary + a third lead para, and I'm working through those now. Ceoil (talk) 22:18, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
Update: 3rd lead para added; one or two of Hoarys cmts left to respont to. Ceoil (talk) 13:51, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
I'm done. Ceoil (talk) 18:40, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
  • I believe it's explained with this sentence: "During a meeting with H.D. in the British Museum tea room that year, Pound appended the signature H.D. Imagiste to her poetry, creating a label that was to stick to the poet for most of her writing life." Perhaps it would be easier to not refer to her as "H.D." before this is explained, however? María (habla conmigo) 18:59, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I'm still not too happy with it. There seems to be some repetition of points, e.g. "HERmione...dealing with the conflict between heterosexual and lesbian desire....closeness to H.D.'s own life"; "H.D. completed...HERmione, based on the pull between lesbian and heterosexual love in her own life", and "she believed that the onslaught of the war indirectly caused the death of her child with Aldington: she believed it was her shock at hearing the news about the RMS Lusitania that directly caused her miscarriage." There are parts where it is unclear who believes what—or to put it more specifically, it is unclear whether the views expressed are widely accepted or fringe theories. These parts would be better expressed as quotes from acknowledged experts, or referenced to general works rather than minor academic journals.

I now regret not spending more time on this article, as I think it deserves (as Ceoil first requested) a proper review by an expert, which I am not. DrKiernan (talk) 14:19, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

  • Leaning towards support, but some comments:
  • "Imagism as a movement was launched with H.D. as its prime exponent." Shouldn't this be cited?
  • "All of her poetry up to the end of the 1930s was written in an Imagist mode, with a spare use of language, a rhetorical structure based on analogy rather than simile, metaphor or symbolism and a classical purity of surface that can often mask an underlying dramatic energy." This cneeded stuff should be fixed.
  • "Gilbert was killed in action. H.D. moved in with Cecil Gray, a friend of Lawrence's. She became pregnant with..." Maybe a bit choppy. And for the reader this information for her affair with Gray (who is he? How did the affair occurred?) comes a bit briskly.--

Yannismarou (talk) 15:00, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

  • Asking for this to be Held. All of the above comments follow a common thread: the article is muddy. I think I need to do deeper research, find better, more widely accepted sources, better untwine the timeline in places, and generally bring more light into the facts of her life, career and influence. To properly achieve this will take to until early January. I realsie this is beyond the usual time allowed, but the more I read up on her, the more I think the page has the potential to be a fine example of a lit or biography FA. Ceoil (talk) 22:43, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Knowledge (XXG) talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept by User:Marskell 17:30, 2 December 2008 .

Notified: WP Biography, WP USPREZ, WP US Congress, WP Politics, User:Meelar, HailFire and User:Tvoz.

previous FAR (12:56, 19 September 2008)

It pains me to say this, but this article does not meet the featured article criteria for the following reasons:

  • 1a - well-written: its prose is engaging, even brilliant, and of a professional standard
    • The article fails this criterion because it has a maintainance tag at the top of the '2008 presidential Campaign' section complaining about proseline
    • In addition, the massive amount of information added/changed after he won an election makes the article inconsistent, slightly repetitive, and some parts are badly-written and out-of-sequence.
  • 1C - factually accurate: claims are verifiable against reliable sources, accurately represent the relevant body of published knowledge, and are supported with specific evidence and external citations; this requires a "References" section in which sources are listed, complemented by inline citations where appropriate
  • To a lesser extent 1e - stable: it is not subject to ongoing edit wars and its content does not change significantly from day to day, except in response to the featured article process
    • The article has been placed on article probation - does that reflect stability?
  • 4 - Length. It stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style)
    • This article (even though summary style is used) is too long, both for easy reading and for fragile connections.

As I say, it pains me to do this, but after 2 hours and 30 minutes, the most visited article on Knowledge (XXG)'s problems were not solved, and FAs should be of a higher quality than this. Dendodge Talk 19:58, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

  • Comment The way I understood it, the article was placed on probation not because there are a lot of edit wars going on, but to enable administrators to get rid of SPA's and POV-pushers who are behaving in such a way that in normal circumstances, it would be nearly impossible to find a "legitimate" (so to speak) reason to ban them from the article. (e.g. they go to 2RR; don't revert the same thing, but always pecking away at the consensus version, etc.) J.delanoyadds 20:03, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
    • True as that may be, a few too many vandals and trolls have been blocked for my liking, and the article content changes rapidly (since he recently won an election). It's also a bit long for my liking - my laptop can barely handle it! Dendodge Talk 20:11, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
      • Only a few are listed there, but vandalism and disruption isn't a stability issue. Previous FARs have shown that there is no actionable stability issue, and it's logic that following the election of Obama, the article is substantially modified. The prose issues in the election section can be addressed on the talk page. It's still featured quality, but needs some time to assimilate the recent events. Cenarium 00:30, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
  • The prose for that particular section can be cut-and-slashed down to between three and five paragraphs, with a retrospective view - the rest should go into the sub-article. - New content will surely come once his term begins. - Mailer Diablo 21:40, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
Aww, I suppose it was inevitable. FAR is simply not going to be able to handle Obama. I dunno what to do. Marskell (talk) 14:35, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
Comment about article the lead paragraph needs more citations, i'ved tagged a couple places with the citation needed tag. - -' The Spook (TALK) (Share the Love with Barnstars) 21:37, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
Actually, WP:LEAD says that content mentioned in the lead section, which is then cited throughout the article, doesn't require as much emphasis on citations. So I wouldn't be too sure about that. — Do U(knome)? or no 21:57, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
Comment I would agree that FAR might not be able to handle an article like this. I believe the whole system of featured articles is just not built to consider articles such as this one. This will be the recipient of constant editing for the foreseeable future. Maybe in oh, ten years, it may settle down to a stable state, when new information, both cited and uncited, is no longer being added. Further, my understanding is that a featured article need not maintain stability at all times, but that it shows that stability and agreement is possible during FAC and FAR.--Patrick «» 22:16, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
Thank you, LukeTheSpook, for pointing out the citation issue - I, too, notice it is a problem now you mention it and have addded it to my list of concerns at the top. Patrick, I agree that the FA criteria were designed to prove that stability was possible - unfortunately, it isn't on this article, and probably won't be for a while. Dendodge Talk 22:40, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment The issue of how Obama's racial background should be described, what issues are involved with his self-identification as an Afro-American, the status of the latter group in U.S. society, the attitudes of various ethnic groups in the U.S. towards the idea of "mixed race" --- all these issues have broader implications aside from how they impinge on Obama's story. Although I too have contributed a bit to the discussion, I now feel that in the main article this issue should only be briefly touched upon, but with a clear reference (blue intratextual hyperlink?) to another article in Knowledge (XXG) which goes into more detail on these inter-related subjects. What I don't appreciate is some high-handed Wiki-whiz hiding my Talk-Page contribution(s) inside some "archive", in effect deciding without general consultation which material should or should not be left in open view for those who come to read the Talk-page. The disposition of comments and suggestions from individual Wiki-editors should rely on informed consent in order to maintain a civil and harmonious atmosphere. Efforts should be spent on acceptable, orderly placement of contributions, not on hiding them inside "archives".Jakob37 (talk) 14:53, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Procedural Close Pending Cleanup I agree that there are some minor tweaks that can return this article to FA standards. It was set to probation, just like the other 3 major nominees, due to a mix of vandalization and "overlove" during wone of the most unique elections in many of our lifetimes. That does not mean that, like the last FA challenge, it has the grounds to be removed from FA, it merely means that the repair todo list must be swiftly documented, and immediately enacted upon consensus. Duuude007 (talk) 16:15, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment - Typically I would do this myself, but since there is so much activity surrounding this article, I'll just comment and let the regular editors decide. The multiple-column reference list at the bottom malfunctions on many articles. The bottom of the article is cut off and the FA star disappears at the top. I would urge editors to stick with {{reflist}} by itself, and not use any multiple columns. I would direct editors to read this to become familiar with the problem. -- Veggy (talk) 03:58, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Comments on the various points raised:
    • This article, like almost all FAs, has a two column reflist, there is occasionally a problem with reflist with three of four columns, but it's not the case here.
    • The prose had recently to be modified due to external events indeed, some concerns have been raised and resolved and if you have any, please be specific.
    • I don't see any citation problem, the citations in the lead have been properly removed in accordance with WP:LEADCITE.
    • There is no actionable stability issue as I said and previous FARs concluded, vandalism and disruption is not a stability matter and articles must obviously be modified when external events with importance on the subject arise.
    • Length has been discussed many times and consensus is roughly that indeed it's quite long compared to other articles, but it can't be helped, and some similar articles have about the same length (Bush, McCain). Cenarium 00:35, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
Cenarium's comments seconded. Duuude007 (talk) 15:06, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
  • I'm going to get around to a copy edit within the next 24 hours. —Ceran 01:14, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
  • It alarms me when I look at the top of the page and see that so few of the projects on the article's talk page have been notified of this discussion. Surely, you understand that this might be the most important WP biography to WP:CHICAGO and WP:ILLINOIS as well as WP:USPE and a few others. The article continues to be vigilantly watched for current news and vandalism. I would probably prefer a two-column reflist to the current three-column one. I think the article is excised properly for forked topics. I think the article adheres to WP:WIAFA, and it continues to be an example of the best of WP, IMO.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 14:13, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
    • I see, the reflist is {{reflist|colwidth=30em}}, so on most configurations, it's a two-column, but it may be a three-column on certain configurations. It can be changed to {{reflist|2}}. Cenarium 15:21, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
      • I really don't think many editors are even taking this FAR seriously. It seems this article has an FAR every month, and as mentioned above many editors don't even know anything about it. To me this is one of the finest FA biographies we have on wikipedia, and it is used as an example for so many wikiprojects. So after a few more minor fixes, I would doubt that this review would have to continue. -Marcusmax(speak) 03:50, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
        • Agree, I don't see any FAC issue with this article, there is almost no activity, so I suggest a close. Also on the reflist, it should be noted that the {{reflist|n}} (n>2) caused problems in certain configurations, however the {{reflist|colwidth=30em}} did not. The comments above did not assert that there were a problem in this article, so there is no issue. Cenarium 23:04, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Knowledge (XXG) talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept by User:Marskell 17:30, 2 December 2008 .

Notified WikiProject Motorsport, WikiProject Formula One, 4u1e, and Skully Collins
previous FAR

My primary concern with this June 2006 promotion is that I believe it fails 1c. Much of the career summary is low on citations, leaving many facts unreferenced. An example of this comes from the 1993-1996 section: "as he had repeatedly complained of cramp in the tight confines around the pedals." The 1998-1999 section describes him appearing to lose motivation, a statement that really needs a reference. I also see some phrases like "who took an emotional win" that creep in, though these can easily be fixed. I left a message on the article's talk page a while back, and the page has improved quite a bit, but I think it needs further work to meet current FA standards. Giants2008 (17-14) 02:08, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Very quick first response - I'd say "some" facts unreferenced rather than "many", but it's irrelevant either way really, they still need to be ref'd. Would you mind putting in cn tags where necessary, Giants? I've deliberately left "emotional win" in for the moment because of the very specific and extreme circumstances: Hill's teammate Ayrton Senna was killed a few weeks previously in another race, leading to a massive worldwide media reaction. At the time one possible cause of the fatal accident was believed to be a breakage on Senna's car, built to the same design as Hill's. A direct quote to this effect from someone would be better though. All other comments welcome. Cheers. 4u1e (talk) 08:20, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
Actually, there are more cites needed than I thought. Fair cop. I've marked up the ones that I can see. 4u1e (talk) 08:36, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
I added a couple more. One thing I want to point out is that the list of helmet sponsors strikes me as unnecessary. Maybe that could be reduced or eliminated altogether. Giants2008 (17-14) 18:20, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
I'm a mind reader. It's already gone. :) 4u1e (talk) 18:25, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

OK. All cite needed tags are now gone. So has 'emotional win', in the absence of a suitable quote, and a couple of other bits of emphatic language. I believe that covers all extant comments. The article has in fact been re-written quite extensively since Giants' first comments. Are there any more comments from here? 4u1e (talk) 18:18, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

I think the article is fixed. Since the original comments it's been significantly re-written (see diff), including restructuring of sections; a large percentage of the references have been replaced with more reliable alternatives; all of the refs have been moved to cite template format; a large number of refs have been added (71 now vs 46 before); and all wikilinks have all been checked and duplicates and low value links removed. Unless there are further comments, I suggest that the review should be closed before FARC. Cheers. 4u1e (talk) 22:15, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
My biggest concern as far as the references went was the lack of citations for race results in the body. 4u1e added a reference to the result table at the bottom; I'll leave it to others to decide if that's sufficient. Other than that, it is looking a world better than it was when I first saw it a while back, though someone might want to check the space after reference 22. It will be difficult, because there isn't one. :-) Giants2008 (17-14) 00:15, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
Picky, picky ;-). I'll fix the space. Regarding references for race results, Giants and I have discussed this before, and my view is that it would be actively harmful to the article to put in a cite for every simple factual statement such as "Hill finished fourth" - these things are completely uncontroversial and have a vanishingly low chance of being challenged. Remember that WP:Verifiability says "Material challenged or likely to be challenged, and all quotations, must be attributed to a reliable, published source." There is a full table of Hill's F1 results at the foot of the article, and this is referenced to the official F1 website. Pre-F1 results are inline cited, as there is no such comprehensive 'official' source for them. Where more detail on a race result is included (i.e. "Villeneuve took pole position, but Hill led away from the start"), there are (or should be!) inline cites. Cheers. 4u1e (talk) 10:18, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Knowledge (XXG) talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept by User:Joelr31 14:40, 5 December 2008 .

Review commentary

Notified: WP Scientology, WP Paranormal, David Gerard, ChrisO
  • 1c:
    • Inline Citations needed for quotes, statistics: a basic GA criterion is not fulfilled. Inline refs needed for all of them, giving whether primary or secondary references are used. If primary references, publisher, page numbers, date of source needed.
    • Wherever Hubbard's views are stated, they need an inline reference to support the fact that they are Hubbard's views. S
    • tatistics like dates (years) need references.
    • Possible WP:OR "shows pictures of uniformed men in white helmets carrying boxes in and out of a spaceship, which may refer to the transportation of Xenu's victims."
    • Then there claims of things being "the most popular critical Web site", "popular with critics". **Inline references like "Hubbard, Scientology: A History of Man" lack publisher info, year, page numbers. Others include refs 2,3,4, 42.
    • ref 5: seems to be a blog, not so sure , see home. Anyone who can read Dutch can verify (I used Google translate).
    • The neutrality of can be disputed. It seems to be an anti-Church of Scientology site, I doubt the reliability of the writer too. It's disclaimer reads "DISCLAIMER: I, Andreas Heldal-Lund, am alone responsible for Operation Clambake. I speak only my own personal opinions."
    • Reliability of and , is doubted by me. Prove it to be a RS.
  • Violations of WP:MOS: "Section names should not explicitly refer to the subject of the article"
  • 3: Images: Image:Xenu-LRH-handwriting.png, Image:Xenu BBC Panorama.jpg needs fair use rationale.
  • were added to the page, see , which were reverted.--Redtigerxyz (talk) 04:52, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
    • Comment: Many of the above points are indeed valid ones. I will try to work on this. Hopefully there will be others that can pitch in and help as well. Cirt (talk) 05:18, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
    • Comment: The subsection title that includes the word "Xenu" I have changed to "Variant spellings". You dispute the Peter Forde article is reproduced in its entirety on xenu.net. The disclaimer by Andreas Heldal Lund refers to his own personal opinions, not those of Peter Forde whose work he is hosting on his site. Karin Spaink's web site (the Dutch one) is not a blog. MartinPoulter (talk) 20:49, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
  • I find the figure of 75 million years intriguing. Is this related to what is considered to be the K-T boundary (Cretaceous-Tertiary; don't ask me how the C became the K) ? Katzmik (talk) 10:19, 28 October 2008 (UTC)
K-T was 65 million years ago (the K is German for Kreide, Cretaceous, and is used as the standard abbreviation). Hubbard may have believed that the dinosaurs were killed off by Xenu, but he evidently got the date wrong by 10 million years. -- ChrisO (talk) 00:38, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are referencing (1c), MoS (2), and images (3). Marskell (talk) 14:46, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment. We've done some tweaking and copyediting, and gone through and removed some unsourced material, and addressed the self-referential subsection headers. I will try to work on sourcing and cite work soon, would appreciate a tad more time. Cirt (talk) 15:01, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
MartinPoulter (talk · contribs) has been quite helpful in improving the article lately, and there are still ongoing improvements actively being done. Cirt (talk) 21:41, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
The MoS concerns have long been addressed. The two images cited have fair use rationales spelled out- are these not sufficient? Apologies but I'm new to the FARC process, so what's the issue there? OR and some dubious refs have been deleted. I welcome guidance on what remains to be done.MartinPoulter (talk) 22:05, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Well after I see you have done some cite work I also plan to go over it and help out more, and perhaps hopefully others will as well. Cirt (talk) 22:06, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Update: I have asked Redtigerxyz (talk · contribs) to add back some {{fact}} tags that were previously placed in the article, so we can see where to focus on as far as referencing efforts. Cirt (talk) 18:53, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Good job. The article has certainly improved, though i have tagged it at places. References like 2,3, 39 (a few mentioned, check all) lack page numbers. Please add them, haven't tagged them. Needs some more work to remain FA. --Redtigerxyz 12:53, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for the tagging, I will get on this soon, within a couple days at latest. Cirt (talk) 12:57, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
Thanks Redtigerxyz - much appreciated. I think the way is clear to resolve remaining problems with references, though I've only had time to skim this week. Expect further progress in the next couple of days.MartinPoulter (talk) 14:38, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
Great work but a little more is needed. Missing page numbers for references in ref 3,4, 15, 17, 18, 21 etc. still an issue. The article should have any ref info left out, like page numbers. Nearing Keep, not reached yet --Redtigerxyz 13:42, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
I will address these remaining points and give an update soon. Cirt (talk) 13:59, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
Update: Additional points addressed, and I left a note for Redtigerxyz (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 06:35, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Sorry. I missed Cirt's comment as another user had written a comment on my talk, so new messages did not show Cirt's comment. Anyway now it's a Keep. Great job. --Redtigerxyz 13:36, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.

Removed status

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

The article was removed by User:Joelr31 18:56, 29 December 2008 .

Review commentary

Users notified: Geogre, Bishonen, Portal talk:England

This article fails 1c and 2c of Knowledge (XXG):Featured article criteria

  • Criteria 1(c) factually accurate: claims are verifiable against reliable sources, accurately represent the relevant body of published knowledge, and are supported with specific evidence and external citations; this requires a "References" section in which sources are listed, complemented by inline citations where appropriate;

Although there is a list of References at the bottom of the article, they are not specific to statements claimed. Some of the statements seem to be personal opinion or the opinion of a particular group, but not necessarily representative of various opinions given their due weight as in NPOV. The article can be seen as a scholarly essay representing a particular view or evaluation of the subject of the article.

  • Criteria 2c: :consistent citations—where required by Criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations.

This article was promoted in 2005 when the standards were more lenient. —Mattisse (Talk) 21:18, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

What statements do you believe require inline citation? Christopher Parham (talk) 23:17, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
  • This article has no citations whatsoever. Knowledge (XXG):OR states: "Citing sources and avoiding original research are inextricably linked: to demonstrate that you are not presenting original research, you must cite reliable sources that are directly related to the topic of the article, and that directly support the information as it is presented."

Examples:

  • ' "Augustan" derives from George I wishing to be seen as Augustus Caesar'
  • "Alexander Pope, who had been imitating Horace, wrote an Epistle to Augustus that was to George II and seemingly endorsed the notion of his age being like that of Augustus, when poetry became more mannered, political and satirical than in the era of Julius Caesar."
  • Outright quotations are not cited; examples,
  • 'Thomas Babington Macaulay would say of Anne that "when in good humour, was meekly stupid and, when in bad humour, was sulkily stupid." '
  • '"we are not to describe our shepherds as shepherds at this day really are, but as they may be conceived then to have been, when the best of men followed the employment" '
  • ' "all ages and characters, from Walpole, the steerer of the realm, to Miss Pulteney in the nursery." '
  • Seemingly POV comments are not cited: "There were other satirists who worked in a less virulent way, who took a bemused pose and only made lighthearted fun."
  • Essay type statements are not cited: "The parodic satire takes apart the cases and plans of policy without necessarily contrasting a normative or positive set of values. Therefore, it was an ideal method of attack for ironists and conservatives—those who would not be able to enunciate a set of values to change toward but could condemn present changes as ill-considered."
  • And another essay sample: "These developments can be seen as extensions of Protestantism, as Max Weber argued, for they represent a gradual increase in the implications of Martin Luther's doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, or they can be seen as a growth of the power and assertiveness of the bourgeoisie and an echo of the displacement of the worker from the home in growing industrialization, as Marxists such as E.P. Thompson have argued. It can be argued that the development of the subjective individual against the social individual was a natural reaction to trade over other methods of economic production."
  • Many words are in quotes "updating", "learned" for no apparent reason. It would be nice to know why.
  • Seemingly OR statements are not cited: "To some degree, Pope was adapting Jonathan Swift's habit, in A Tale of a Tub, of pretending that metaphors were literal truths, and he was inventing a mythos to go with the everyday."
  • Even if statements are purported facts they should be sourced: "Ian Watt's The Rise of the Novel (1957) still dominates attempts at writing a history of the novel. Watt's view is that the critical feature of the 18th-century novel is the creation of psychological realism. This feature, he argued, would continue on and influence the novel as it has been known in the 20th century. Michael McKeon brought a Marxist approach to the history of the novel in his 1986 The Origins of the English Novel. McKeon viewed the novel as emerging as a constant battleground between two developments of two sets of world view that corresponded to Whig/Tory, Dissenter/Establishment, and Capitalist/Persistent Feudalist." - Is this the editor of the article's views or whose?
  • Another example: 'A particular play of unknown authorship entitled A Vision of the Golden Rump was cited when Parliament passed the Licensing Act of 1737. (The "rump" in question is Parliament, on the one hand, and buttocks on the other.)'

These are just examples. As I said, nothing in the article is cited. The references do not seem to include any current scholarship or reviews of the period. Most of the sources seem primary. Many of the historical ones are dated. And the references are not fully cited. Example

  • Thompson, E. P. The Making of the English Working Class

—Mattisse (Talk) 00:26, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Disinfoboxman
Delete. No infobox. Also various incorrect commas, and missing dashes.
But congratulations to User:Mattisse on managing to restrain himself for almost 24 hours after the FAR of Augustan drama was closed and this one was opened. Perhaps Knowledge (XXG):Unreviewed featured articles can give a clue as to which articles may be next on his "hit list": if he is concentrating solely on User:Geogre's contributions, there is still Jonathan Wild, Ormulum and Peterborough Chronicle; if it is User:Bishonen, there is Colley Cibber and Restoration comedy. It would save time to have an omnibus FAR and damn them all.
In answer to the prickly question at Talk:Augustan literature, plenty of authors (let alone readers) of articles such as this one fo not give two figs for the style-sheet form-filling approach. They care more about the prose in the article than "nofootnotes". It would be more of a "downfall" to pander to the current preoccupation with footnotes then murder the article in seeking to save that brown piece of tinsel which is the FA star. -- Disinfoboxman (talk) 11:44, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
Yes, you attempted to elicit "cooperation" through the hallowed tactic of slapping a nofootnotes template on the article twice, saying - "I am going to replace the tag. ... Please do not remove the tag without fixing the article ... There is no rule that the tagger has to fix the article ... I am unable to fix the tags myself as I do not have the references." This is my favourite form of cooperation, where someone instructs people to do things, and they obey.
But there are at least three place we agree - 1/ like you, I expect this article will "fail" for lack of citations; 2/ like you, I am not going to fix it either, because 3/ like you, I am one of those people "just talking" who doesn't care enough to do anything about it. I suspect we may disagree about whether such "failure" is very important.
As I said in one of my "few edits to Knowledge (XXG)" (so rare, but feel the quality), why not just it over with and remove the brown asterisk from this article and its friends. Do what thou wilt, but the sun will rise tomorrow. Enough from me - I need to save up some electrons for my next post. -- Disinfoboxman (talk) 15:30, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
Since this is in a hidden box, I guess I can reply.
  • I have added plenty of references to articles. I have written articles full of references. I fix up plenty of articles that are not mine. So I am not like you who "just talks".
  • Cirt also added the {{nofootnotes}} tag and it was likewise removed without fixing. It was not just me who saw a problem.
  • I have nothing to do with removing the brown asterisk. That is outside my abilities. —Mattisse (Talk) 16:11, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Comments I agree with Mattisse's comments above and I would like offer some specific references that editors could use to improve the article. While much of this article is excellent, there are two ways in which it fails to meet the current FA criteria: sourcing and POV.

1) The article does not use inline citations in the way that has become standard at FAs (whatever the editors think of that practice). Readers need to be able to verify the information that they find in these articles since they have no idea who wrote them - footnotes and complete reference lists allow them to do that. Moreover, the references at the bottom of the article do not cover the claims being made in the article (most of the sources listed are primary sources) and the list does not include the major secondary works on the period. Some examples that should be included in any article about this topic:

  • Pat Rogers, Grub Street
  • David Fairer, English Poetry of the Eighteenth Century
  • Essays by Maynard Mack
  • J. Paul Hunter's Before Novels
  • Margaret Doody's Daring Muse

2) The article includes a specific POV on literary history rather than presenting the various scholarly views on the topic. For example, in the novel section, the reader learns that Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding were the important novelists who shaped the development of the genre. This is the view of Ian Watt, who wrote decades ago. While we in literary studies still read his work, his view has been serious challenged by many critics since then. Giving Michael McKeon a few sentences does not begin to address the complexity of the "novel debate". The exclusion of the entire amatory fiction tradition, for example, is egregious. Ros Ballaster's Seductive Forms: Women's Amatory Fiction from 1684 to 1740 is the seminal work on this genre and should obviously have been the basis for at least a few sentences in the article. To give an example of the extremely controversial statements in this section:

  • Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719) was the first major novel of the new century
  • Although there were novels in the interim, Samuel Richardson's Pamela, or, Virtue Rewarded (1740) is the next landmark development in the English novel.
  • The dismissive paragraph on women writers and the novel of sensibility is almost comical. It is as if the article is saying "oh, yeah, I have to say something about those 'scribbling women'". The debates regarding "sensibility" are enormous (there are many volumes written on them) - what is its origin? how far back does the tradition stretch? what does sensibility even mean? are there several traditions of sensibility? is sensibility different than sentiment? etc. See, for example, Barker-Benfield's Culture of Sensibility and Mullen's Sentiment and Sociability. The weight given to Defoe and Fielding in this section and the shortchanging of "feminine" genres such as novels of sensibility and amatory fiction clearly introduces a POV into the text. (Even Sterne, who wrote one of the most popular sentimental novels of the eighteenth century, is discussed as a satirist!)

I hope these comments are useful. Awadewit (talk) 18:41, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Nonsense. Watt remains standard. While it's true that there are other discussions, it is not true that any of them are either critical standard or that they are appropriate to get a survey in a survey article. Would anyone here really like to see every single literary theory get a sentence, with a citation? Let's get Paul Hunter involved. Let's get Edward Said's disciples. If you want some new Feminist approaches, then why not Marxist, why not queer, why not post-colonial, why not body? The authors here answered, silently: why not? because this is a survey article, and trying to jam in every book of the month is irresponsible to the reader. In fact, I would argue that Sentiment and Sociability is, in fact, not going to reject Defoe, Feilding, and Richardson as important. It is, instead, going to opt for a separate axis of analysis and therefore foreground a separate line, but without diminishing the old line at all. It's folly to suggest that a survey article have every possible, potential view.
Additional nonsense is the idea that the article reiterates Watt. Indeed, it does not. Watt's analytical principle is psychological realism. McKean's is the dialectic. The article offers nobody's critical principle. As for whether these are "really" the important novels, historically they are. You can argue that it's teleological, like Watt, to look for those things that engendered imitation, but it's also historically undeniable which novels sold best, which stirred imitation, and which were innovative. Take the whole mass of the "scribbling tribe" (an American novelist's complaint), and you won't match the sales. Whether it's unfair or not, it is the historical record, and reflecting the historical record needs no faddish recast.
Furthermore, to say that it is, on the one hand, the old view and then, on the other, that it's POV is contradictory. Which is it? Is it the author's nasty personal research, or is it the background view that informed 50 years of readers? If it's the one, then it's common knowledge. If it's the other, then I would suppose it to have flown in the face of common sense.
All I can say is that I shudder when I imagine what a "good" survey would look like, and I hope that no one attempts to write one, because it will be dreadful, outmoded as soon as written, and so infested with footnotes to obvious and indisputable facts as to be incomprehensible and unworthy of holding on a flash drive, much less a server. Utgard Loki (talk) 17:19, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but you are totally incorrect. Watt's Rise of the Novel (1957) is no longer the standard and I even read parts of the works I listed as an undergraduate. No one is claiming that we should include "every single literary theory", only the ones that shaped the field, per WP:NPOV. Whether you like it not, literary studies has changed quite dramatically since the 1950s (postmodernism, deconstruction, feminist literary criticism, etc.) Awadewit (talk) 17:38, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
And I'm sorry, but you are misinformed or miseducated. Watt remains standard. I'm not sure what "even read parts of the works" as an undergraduate, but it's quite likely that one will toss in fashionable issues-related critical works in an undergraduate class, but it is not likely that one will reorganize a survey class around such critical theories. Those that do will create undergraduates incapable of graduate school, because each of the major literary theories since 1965 has been a reaction against "canon": each is therefore tacitly recreating the positivist theories of the 1950's. That, however, is a complete side track, because your understanding of "what is current" is a series of side tracks. There is no formative, generative model of the organization of The Novel outside of Marxism and Watt. The Marxist view we find in McKeon concurs with Watt on who the major milestones are. To chase down every thrown stick over which other works have competing aesthetics is to lack the ability to speak in survey terms. One can have a survey of the novel according to the development of the woman, a survey of the novel as it encodes and rejects queer identity, a survey of the novel as expression of colonial and non-colonial voices, etc., but each of these requires a critical/analytical principle in the foreground and "history" in the background. The only historical analysis is Marxist and naive positivist. These form the backbones of the study still. I should point out, additionally, that Hunter also maintains Watt's mileposts.
Therefore, again, unless you want to shuffle and reshuffle to have everyone's history-as-determined-by-critical-principle, you can have none. I am sorry, but you completely fail to understand the difference between "literary theory" and "literary criticism," which is always faddish perforce and which has changed since the moment I began writing this comment, and "literary history," which is relatively unchanged since 1950, at least with the novel.
Oh, and please don't assume that those who do not organize information along a specific literary theory are ignorant of that theory. If you were truly an adherent of feminist literary theory, you would want to see this article deleted, as it implies an hierarchical and historicist organization. Utgard Loki (talk) 19:21, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for admitting that the article is organized around a single literary theory - that is my point. Although I myself am a historicist, I recognize that Knowledge (XXG) has not adopted historicism as an organizing principle for its articles, therefore I include other theories when I write articles to make sure that they conform to WP:NPOV. Thus, even though I have serious problems with psychoanalytic criticism, for example, I include it in the articles I write (when appropriate, such as in the case of Mary Shelley) because I recognize that I cannot impose my view of literary criticism onto Knowledge (XXG) articles. You do not seem to want to accept that we have to present theories that we disagree with. Awadewit (talk) 21:44, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Here are where the direct quotes mentioned above come from:

  • all ages and characters is from Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets* by Samuel Johnson (the edition I turned up on Google Books was published in 1866 in Philadelphia by Lippincott & Co).
  • shepherds is from Alexander Pope's *A Discourse on Pastoral Poetry* (in his Collected Works).
  • meekly stupid is from Macaulay's *The History of England*, Chapter 15.

I note that there are very few Google hits for any of these phrases outside Knowledge (XXG) (outside the texts they come from).

Also, the quote from Tristram Shandy's father in the section about the novel should be have you not forgot to wind up the clock?.

Throwawayhack (talk) 11:53, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

You do, of course, realise that FAR is the single most useless thing on the entire Internet. Filiocht | The kettle's on 12:36, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

does it get any credit for persuading you to pop back in...? I only know of you, but geez, it's good to see you :-) Hope you're wonderfully well :-) Privatemusings (talk) 05:43, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
is it possible to 'pan out' at all?

as I mentioned on the talk page of the article, I totally understand folk seeking to drive up standards across the encyclopedia, and I appreciate the dedicated work that many put in... I wonder however if it might be possible to take a little step back for a moment and just consider whether or not we think the article itself is simply wonderful! I do - and I'd hope the 'featured' process isn't unable to offer flexibility and or adaptability in clearly assessing the quality of this article as very, very high.... I don't think it's necessary for Geogre's points on the talk page concerning inline citations to be extrapolated to bring the whole featured system crashing down! - but I think the 'feautured article' crop will drop in average quality for this articles exclusion, and that's both a huge shame, and a dangerous direction. Just one chap's thoughts... Privatemusings (talk) 05:49, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

  • PM, as I explained above, there are serious problems with this article. It doesn't reflect modern scholarship and it avoids a discussion of female novelists and their traditions (see specifics above). These POV problems are in addition to the inline citation issue. Awadewit (talk) 05:56, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
I don't doubt your sincerity one bit, but would really really like to encourage you to consider a) how sure you are of such a strong statement and b) whether or not being 'right' in this matter genuinely serves the project / drives quality.. what I can say (as but a fule!) is that I do perceive the danger of a not-so-great dynamic here, and feel that this is one area where FAR might just might cause more harm than good.... I'll bow out here, and entreat folk to think about it.... :-) Privatemusings (talk) 06:02, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
You don't have to trust me, assume good faith or any of those things. You can check the sources I listed which outline the information that is missing from the article. That is why I provided the citations. Awadewit (talk) 06:07, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
Hmm, looks like this FAR is being used for some arbcom related electioneering. Ouch. PM, politics and content are just not suited and make an ugly match. Let it go. Ceoil (talk) 02:46, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

← I agree entirely that this is a beautiful article, so far as prose and style go. However, without inline citations it's impossible to verify what's been left out, what has too much weight, etc; one the greatest reasons we use inline citations is so that anyone can confirm what's being said on one particular paragraph and expand their knowledge from there... which has the benefit of editors (and readers) becoming more informed on their own whims, which in turn improves the project if they decide to edit the article. As it stands, we have nothing to measure the accuracy or neutrality of this article. Xavexgoem (talk) 16:20, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

  • A few small points:
    • First sentence -- "Augustan literature is a style of English literature…". A style, which links to "literary genre"? That's surely erroneous, or at least in contradicts the rest of the lede, where the evolution of various genres are summarized. The rest of the article seems to operate on the assumption that the Augustan is a period.
    • ""Augustan" derives from George I wishing to be seen as Augustus Caesar." Ungrammatical use of the gerund "wishing". The whole paragraph seems to me to be pretty turgid. 24.57.137.218 (talk) 21:55, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern is citations. Joelito (talk) 14:23, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment Since Augustan refers to a specific type of Post-Restoration/Early Georgian type of literature (anti-government satire), and not as a genre or a time period, I believe that the only concerns would be sourcing (and possibly some image problems). Many of them have been addressed, but not all. This is easily fixed. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:06, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Knowledge (XXG) talk:Featured article review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed by User:Joelr31 16:36, 21 December 2008 .

Review commentary

I noticed someone tried this on the 9th but it was too soon. It's now been 3 days since this was on the main page, so here goes. I think this one is pretty obvious: The section about the song's content is totally unreferenced, there're only eight refs total, and a {{refimprove}} tag, so 1c and 2c apply. Obviously this was promoted ages ago, before the FA criteria were so strict. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • 03:56, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

  • Comment. I spent some time with this article while it was on the main page. I think it would help if we could be specific about what needs referencing, and where (if) those references could be found. If more references can be found, then I'd be all for it. But I'm no fan of references for the sake of it, and my feeling is that there's not much (I'm not saying not anything) that needs further referencing here. Admittedly, however, I've never worked on this kind of article before. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 04:01, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
  • The sections on composition, origins, and covers are almost entirely unreferenced, and there seem to be problems with OR as a result. I would imagine that professional writers have dedicated plenty of pages to The Temptations, so there's probably something in print. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • 20:40, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
  • I'm aware of that, but you haven't answered the question: what needs referencing? In the "Composition" section, I don't see anything that does, for instance. The information is either purely descriptive ("a full orchestral arrangement with strings and French horns adorning a bluesy rhythm track and guitar line provides the instrumentals") or is fully cited. Where would you require further citation in this section? --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 19:18, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
  • In all probability, you are correct in that the article would not pass today's FAC. However, I agree with Jbmurray; it's not the worst article, and with some referencing and slight expansion, the article has a shot at being kept featured. –Juliancolton 20:46, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
I agree with TenPoundHammer that this article needs work on sources to be considered a FA. Further, I would argue that there should be no grandfather clause for FA. Either an article meets the (current) requirements, or it doesn't (and so isn't a FA). --Falcorian  18:21, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
I agree. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • 19:21, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

By the way, here're some lines I have issues with:

Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • 19:21, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

  • Verifiability. The lack of comprehensive referencing to reliable sources is a serious concern. Just to take one example, the following paragraph is unreferenced:
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, producer/composer Norman Whitfield and lyricist Barrett Strong crafted a string of "psychedelic soul" tracks for the Temptations. After the success of Sly & the Family Stone's fusions of psychedelic rock and soul music, particularly their 1968 hit single "Dance to the Music", several soul acts, including the Temptations, The Isley Brothers, and The Four Tops, began releasing similar records. By 1970, the Temptations had released three albums of psychedelic soul material (Cloud Nine, Puzzle People, and Psychedelic Shack), which also showed heavy influence from rock acts such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Jimi Hendrix. During this period, the Temptations released psychedelic-based hits such as "I Can't Get Next to You", "Psychedelic Shack", "Ball of Confusion (That's What the World Is Today)", and the Grammy Award-winning "Cloud Nine".

It it isn't possible to get a citation for the claim that Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong produced several "psychedelic soul" tracks for the Temptations then it should go. If it is possible, then it needs to be done. The same could be repeated for every sentence above. Then there are all the other unreferenced or partially referenced parargraphs.

OK, as I'm sure you know, WP:CITE says that "Sources should be cited when adding material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, when quoting someone, when adding material to the biography of a living person, when checking content added by others, and when uploading an image."
Perhaps you can explain which of these conditions applies in each sentence of the paragraph you quote?
To me, it seems quite uncontentious and descriptive. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:14, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
Whilst I don't think that it is particularly contentious, I still challenge the material (ipso facto the first condition applies). It is not unknown for editors, writing with the best of intentions, to misinterpret sources or just make plain and simple errors. Verifiability is hugely important. Greenshed (talk) 18:52, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
Which material are you challenging? All of it? --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 19:17, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
Having recently taken an article through the good article process I was required to cite everything and rightly so. Soul music is not a topic that particularly interests me and so I do not intend to work line by line through this article and so I shall just give one example. I am not trying to be contentious but every time I read uncited material in the WP, I think to myself that there is a markedly greater chance that it may turn out to be wrong that material from a reliable published source. To answer your question, I am challenging the claim that Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong produced several "psychedelic soul" tracks for the Temptations. I suspect that there are reliable sources which could be cited. If this is to be WP's best work then we should have them. Greenshed (talk) 21:53, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

As it stands, this article is way below the featured article standard. Greenshed (talk) 20:02, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

  • Comment. Seriously, guys, I think that this is a case where people counted the citations rather than reading the prose. Again, I suspect that someone armed with the Otis Williams book might be able to judiciously add another citation or two, or perhaps rephrase to clarify the that the same source covers multiple claims. But this article is not significantly uncited. Moreover, people are saying things along the lines that "someone must have written about this stuff." But people don't usually publish books about the obvious.
  • If, however, we can point to a significant source that has been overlooked, presumably one that's been published in the past few years since this article was featured, then of course it should be consulted. But I don't see anyone saying that. (Though I do think that this is quite possible.) --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 21:14, 12 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment: I just added refs for cover versions and removed the unverifiable Prince and whatever odd Texas Band covers. Still, needing citations are: The instrumental process and background info.--Andrewlp1991 (talk) 21:22, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Comments The prose is globally satisfying (though I am not competent on that part), and the recent edits by Andrewlp1991 have been greatly helpful on the verifiability issue for the 'Cover versions' section. A lot of unsourced material has been removed since the passage on the Main Page, but there are still entire paragraphs without citations and all sections except the aforementioned one lack citations, to which we can add the photo's description.
  • The only citation of the section 'Composition' is , it covers only the last three sentences of the first paragraph. This being an interpretation of the lyrics by one critics, other analysis are needed, in order to be comprehensive and not to rely entirely upon a single source, as required by our policies on verifiability and neutral point of view. Recent FAs I have read on songs, films or video games have multiple sources for analysis of lyrics and plot. The second paragraph is unreferenced and has been objected as probable original research.
  • The section 'Recording the song' has only two citations, to Williams & Romanows, again, it cannot be verified that it covers the entire section and even so, multiple sources should be used for this kind of sections where almost each sentence is challengeable.
  • I may comment later on the two other sections. Cenarium 02:16, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Question Thing is: Where can we find sources that analyze this song? I've searched Google Books and found only the Bronson article, beyond that no luck. Could the Temptations biographical book by Williams & Romanowski cited have any more info that anyone missed? Google Books lacks a preview for that. I also searched the New York Times archive from the early '70s, no coverage from that time. Rolling Stone website has only a three-sentence summary from their "500 Greatest Songs" list.--Andrewlp1991 (talk) 22:12, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Hmm. There could be other print sources available, but if this is really all we have, I'd say there's probably no chance of this ever staying FA. I still strongly believe it should be delisted. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • 00:29, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Why? It's as thorough an article as it could be, given the sources. There's nothing likely to be challenged that's unsourced.
  • Anyhow, you misunderstand FAR. This isn't a vote. Yet you're treating it as such. The point is not to say that you want it delisted, but for us to discuss how it could be improved. Until and unless you can point concretely to ways in which it could be improved, then there's no progress here. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 01:19, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
While voting for delisting is jumping the gun, I would support submitting this article as a Featured Article Removal Candidate. As regards the discussion above, the onus is on the contributor to provide sources and a lack of such sources does not eliminate the burden on the contributor. Rather, it points to verifiability and original research concerns. Greenshed (talk) 17:34, 16 November 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, you're right I kind of jumped the gun. I still think that this article needs a lot of improvement, and have been doing a serach but found nothing that isn't already available. The problems of original research I'm not sure how to fix other than by simply removing them. Ten Pound Hammer and his otters • 18:25, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concern is citations. Joelito (talk) 23:57, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
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The article was removed by User:Raul654 22:49, 14 December 2008 .

Review commentary

Notifications to Ziphon, Davidruben, Knowledge Seeker and WP MED

According to Knowledge (XXG):Featured articles/Cleanup listing, Asthma is among our most problematic FAs. Promoted in 2005, it is largely uncited, has been tagged as needing citations for more than a year, has an undeveloped History section, has numerous short, stubby sections, and has an underdeveloped WP:LEAD. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:43, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Yep this article has some big problems. Hopefully we can get enough people interested to get this article back into shape. It was peer reviewed in July. Knowledge (XXG):Peer_review/Asthma/archive2#BirgitteSB. Most of the recommendations are still applicable. Ziphon (ears) 04:22, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
  • This is not currently meeting my definitions for FA. For instance, long inline quotes from researchers are completely out of place (section about long-acting beta-2 agonists). The history section is woefully inadequate (nothing to say apart from some random quote from a minor paper) and ignores about 2000 years of asthma research. JFW | T@lk 11:56, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Hey Sandy, whatever happened to "only one nomination at a time"? ;) Dabomb87 (talk) 00:53, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are referencing (1c), comprehensiveness (1b), and LEAD (2a). Marskell (talk) 17:26, 2 December 2008 (UTC)
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The article was removed by User:Joelr31 23:46, 7 December 2008 .

Review commentary

Notified:Knowledge (XXG):WikiProject Physics

This is a top importance article which gets around 6,000 view per day. It has been featured for over 4 years now, and has not been formally reviewed in all that time despite having changed substantially. There are quite a few references and citations, but parts remain poorly cited, and no doubt there are egregious MOS violations too. -- Testing times (talk) 14:42, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with these concerns. I haven't actually read the article, but just skimming I see several , sections with almost no references, unnecessary use of TeX for simple inline equations and symbols, inconsistent use of quotation marks, inconsistent use of fractions, improper formatting of SI units, and inconsistent formatting of large numbers. I also think that the lead is too short and incomplete (e.g., no mention of history at all). Finally, the external links section has accreted a lot of stuff that doesn't belong (if fact, I doubt that this topic needs an external links section at all). --Itub (talk) 12:06, 21 October 2008 (UTC)

Issues I'm just skimming through, and listing all the technical issues I see. Working backwards...

  • External links: Do we really need links to random news articles? That's what links to sister projects like Wikinews are for. See WP:EL
  • References: See WP:CITE, PDF documents need to be denoted as such through the format= field if using templates; use en dashes in page ranges, mix of Citation and Cite XXX templates needs to be converted to one format, ref 4 is just a bare untitled link.
  • See also needs to be pared drastically, I bet most of those links are already in the article. See WP:LAYOUT
  • "The constant speed of light is one of the fundamental Postulates" What's the reason for the random capitalization?
  • Only captions that are complete sentences should have periods, see WP:CAPTION.
  • Overlinking throughout, examples: mirror, second, vacuum. See WP:OVERLINK.
  • Wrong use of bold text, see Knowledge (XXG):Manual of Style (text_formatting)#Boldface.
  • There are one-sentence sections that could be merged with others.
  • Unnecessary use of {\displaystyle } templates for fractions.
  • Use {{Convert}} template.
  • Inline citations should be outside punctuation, not inside.
  • Use of slightly unencyclopedic language ("Note that").
  • Instead of "A more complete description of the passage of light through a medium is given by quantum electrodynamics.", use a see also template. Dabomb87 (talk) 03:31, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

FYI, I've done a few of the tasks noted on the page: Moved some of the most newsy external links, fixed reference 4, fixed some of the "citation needed" places, and worked on the lead. I agree with all the suggestions, and I hope someone does them sooner or later, regardless of whether or not the FA status is kept. :-) --Steve (talk) 06:27, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Dabomb87, while I agree that "nline citations should be outside punctuation", Knowledge (XXG):Manual of Style#Punctuation and inline citations does not mandate it, but says "Inline citations are generally placed after any punctuation such as a comma or period …" (my emphasis). -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 10:20, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
Well, most other FAs put inline cites outside the punctuation. Also, the format is inconsistent right now, and most of the existing inline citations are outside the punctuation, so it makes sense to fix that one example. Dabomb87 (talk) 01:09, 29 October 2008 (UTC)
One convention I've seen used is to put the note after punctuation if the citation applies to the whole sentence or clause, and before if not. For example:
Light can be red or green.
vs
Light can be red or green.
In the first case the reference covers both colors, and in the second each reference covers only one color. --Itub (talk) 06:38, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are referencing (1c) and MoS (2). Marskell (talk) 13:47, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

There's a problem with Image:Usaf-laser.jpg: no source is given. The original file on wiki, which was unlicensed, was labelled as PD-USGov by an anonymous IP. DrKiernan (talk) 17:31, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

This is beyond my expertise, but I'd be inclined to remove it. There are long sections without inline citations, making it difficult for an outsider to assess reliability. I'd recommend trimming the table of contents and the see also links (it's unnecessary to put links already in the text or common terms, such as meter and SI units, in the see also section). DrKiernan (talk) 15:48, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

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The article was removed by User:Joelr31 14:40, 5 December 2008 .

Review commentary

previous FAR

Notified: Knowledge (XXG):WikiProject Bosnia and Herzegovina, User:Asim Led, and User:TodorBozhinov

I nominated this article because it appears to need a little work. Citations are missing from various areas (including a few fact tags), references are often not properly formatted, and the prose is in need of a copy editor's touch. Best, epicAdam 20:18, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Fails 1c, 2c and, in some parts, 1a. Although there are only a few {{fact}} tags lying around, I can see the opportunities for many more. Entire sections are left with none or one reference, and IMO, 44 references (almost all referenced only once) are definitely too few for an article of this size. The prose is good, but it can be better. I read the lead only, but I have already spotted some errors, e.g. should the metro population be mentioned in the first sentence? Also, there seem to be some non-obvious pipes (e.g. "assassination" to Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, or "recovering" to Constructions and reconstructions in Sarajevo after war). Admiral Norton 10:59, 2 November 2008 (UTC)
Image concerns:
Geography and climate. First, according to WP:CITYLIKE this is not the proper name for this section. Second, coordinates should not normally appear in prose (at least I believe so). Also, the whole section does not have a single reference! There are some stray images and a lot of work needs to be done.
History. More inline citations are necessary (there are some paragraphs without them) and prose could use some WP:MOS fixes (improper italicizing of settlement names). There are also redundancies: "It is estimated that of the more than 12,000 people who were killed and the 50,000 who were wounded during the siege, 85% of the casualties were civilians." and a misplaced gallery.
Government. Again, referencing. There is only one reference in four paragraphs.
Economy. GDP? Average salary? Some major points are missing. Referencing?
That's it for now. I might continue this review later if someone cares to address this issues (esp. referencing). Admiral Norton 18:20, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are references and their formatting (1c and 2c), prose (1a), and images (3). Marskell (talk) 14:53, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
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The article was removed by User:Joelr31 14:40, 5 December 2008 .

Review commentary

Notified: Tom, Jacob1207, WikiProject Maryland. WikiProject United States, WikiProject United States Government, WikiProject United States regions, WikiProject U.S. states. Cirt (talk) 18:08, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

Primarily 1 (c), 2(a), 3. This fair use image, Image:Great Seal of Maryland reverse.png, is being used with a claim of fair use on no less than seventeen articles, with fair use rationales given for two of them. Was promoted to FA back in 2004. Cirt (talk) 17:58, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

  • Problems (mostly because I have an intimate understanding of Maryland's government for various reasons) - Lead is far too short. Organization is wrong. No history or background section first. The Executive Branch is more than the Gov and Lieutenant. We are missing the Comptroller and the Attorney General (et al) in this section (yes, they are part of the Executive Branch, so it should be so) for starters. Lets not forget about the Cabinet. Too much put on Judiciary vs Legislative. There is a lot more to add about the Legislature. There is a lot missing. Nothing about the cities listed. County sections are too short. Nothing is said about Annapolis being the capital and explaining how the capital use to be St. Mary' City. Etc etc etc. This is far from comprehensive. Ottava Rima (talk) 14:43, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are referencing (1c), LEAD (2a), and images (3). Marskell (talk) 14:45, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
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The article was removed by User:Joelr31 14:40, 5 December 2008 .

Review commentary

Notifications at Mercuryboard, Xtreambar, WP Cornell, WP Universities

I noticed the talk page of this article over two weeks ago that it needed extensive cleanup: per the number of cleanup and citations needed tags, it appears to be Wiki's most problematic FA at the moment. I'll detail additional issues if anyone begins to work on the article; the notice on the talk page over two weeks ago generated no response. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:59, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

  • The entire Greek life section has no citations. The Historic sites section is a bulleted list. The Alumni section is a vast rambling wikilink farm with almost no citations. From a MOS standpoint, there are several places where text is sandwiched between images. Confusingly, there is one section titled 'Press' and another titled 'Press and media'. The number of images should probably be reduced, and the image captions could definitely use improvement; many do not make the connection between the article subject and what is depicted. Definitely in need of some work. Maralia (talk) 22:38, 27 October 2008 (UTC)
  • I have a slight visual issue with the infobox regarding its usage of three logos. If I remember correctly, the infobox should only contain the university seal and either a doing-business-as logo or an athletic mascot logo. - Jameson L. Tai 08:02, 7 November 2008 (UTC)
  • The article needs to address several major issues:
    • The history section is woefully inadequate and misses the boat entirely on important historical issues common to almost all universities like WW2 impact, post-war growth, Vietnam protests & social unrest, retooling mission after cuts in gov't funding in 80s, impact of growth in 90s & 2000. What little content is in the history section is either platitudinal or unverifiable (Along with its population growth, Cornell increased its breadth of course offerings; Cornell expanded significantly in the 20th century; Today, the university has wide-ranging program; etc.) I would venture that this is case of summary style gone awry by boosters who would rather keep the grittier parts of history off of the glossy, admissions-friendly main article.
    • Instances of unencyclopedic style are rampant: "The Ithaca Campus is among the rolling valleys of the Finger Lakes region and, atop the Hill, commands a panoramic view of the surrounding area.", "Cornell has partnered with Queen's University in Canada to offer a joint Executive MBA. The innovative program includes both on-campus and videoconferencing-based, interactive virtual classroom sessions.", "because engineers knew more than literature professors did about running steam-powered printing presses."
    • Academic profile and faculty sections are out of date. Instances of facts overwriting other facts without corresponding citations being updates (class of 2012 stats reference a citation dated 2007), non-authoritative sources used, the previous president resigned 3 years ago.
    • Campus section attempts to detail the location and mission of every program not in Ithica. Cut down and summarize.
    • External links in the ranking section.
    • Citation style is spotty with regard to including publisher, title, etc.
    • The article is missing basic descriptive information about its academic profile that could be readily gleaned from the Carnegie Classifications for Higher Education.
    • Financial aid does not deserve a top-level heading. Merge with admissions or student body information.
    • Red links in Housing section.
    • Embedded lists for Press and radio and historic sites need to be "prose-ified" and integrated into appropriate sections. Far too much emphasis on Greek life or controversies therein.
    • The research section should be made more adjacent to or integrated with the faculty or academics sections rather than floating near the bottom of the article between student life and alumni
    • Alumni sections are always tricky with regard to balancing verifiability with overlinking, but it appears there has been no attempt to cite these passages. Nor has there been any attempt to summarize this information (as was done to excess for the history section).
    • Self-referential links indicative of deleted articles redirected back here but never updated: Undergraduate Business Program at Cornell University

There's a serious amount of work to be done here. Madcoverboy (talk) 15:30, 8 November 2008 (UTC)

A number of the images should have more solid information. As there are a number of images, questionable ones should be removed or replaced.

Sorry that I have not had time to respond to any of these issues; I've been working my tail off for the Obama campaign for the past month and a half, so Knowledge (XXG) has not been a high priority as of late. That being said, I absolutely agree that the Cornell University article has become somewhat bloated and filled with fluff. Thus, I would not be offended if its FA status were revoked pending a much needed cleaned up. --Xtreambar (talk) 20:45, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are MoS and formatting (2) and images (3). Marskell (talk) 14:50, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
Note: concerns with references and their formatting (1c and 2c) were also expressed above. Maralia (talk) 16:35, 28 November 2008 (UTC)
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The article was removed by User:Joelr31 14:40, 5 December 2008 .

Review commentary

previous FAR

WikiProjects notified

Article lacks sources in many places, and these are badly formatted or mostly from adhoc websites that are not reliable. MOS violations. MAny single sentence paragraphs. Has also been the subject of edit wars from anons which has caused a bit of irregularness in the presentation of the article. YellowMonkey (click here to choose Australia's next top model) 05:19, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Issues with images:

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are reliable sources (1c), MoS (2), and stability (1e). Marskell (talk) 14:48, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Remove. Per YellowMonkey (talk · contribs). Cirt (talk) 17:58, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
  • Remove Citation needed markers should be replaced with reliable sources verifying the claims made. The rationale for Image:Sharbat Gula.png is too weak: it's just a picture of a girl, so fair use doesn't apply. In addition the citation at the end of the sentence, "The difficult lives of Afghan female refugees gained considerable notoriety with the iconic image of the so-called "Afghan Girl" (Sharbat Gula) depicted on the June 1985 cover of National Geographic magazine." does not support the claims made in the sentence. It is a link to the article but it does not confirm that the image is iconic. That would require a third-party source referring to the image and the article. The Image:Mamoud Tarzi-203.jpg has no author information, so the fact that one of the sitters died over 70 years ago is irrelevant. The important factors are when the photograph was first published and when the portraitist died. Image:Ahmed Shah Durrani.png is not acceptable. The uploader is a sockpuppet of an impersonator, and on flikr it says very explicitly "all rights reserved". I have tagged this image as a copyright violation. DrKiernan (talk) 17:38, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
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