User:Gog the Mild/FAC boilerplate

Closing FACs

Copyediting: I pay particular attention to the lead and ce as I think necessary; I also check to ensure every paragraph at least ends in a citation (and all tables or other summaries are cited unless its evident the info is cited in the main body); finally I spotcheck the whole article looking for redundancies and words to watch (you've probably been on the receiving end of these, not everyone agrees with them but they have their reasons -- a useful guide is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Tony1/Redundancy_exercises:_removing_fluff_from_your_writing).

Lastly, if you see people talking about supports (or opposes) as 'votes' you can gently remind them that's not how it works -- yes there's an unwritten rule about three supports minimum but they need to be pretty comprehensive. Any drive-by supports or opposes are worth little if anything. And just as an article can be promoted with outstanding opposition if the nominator has made reasonable efforts to action them, so can a nom with several supports be derailed by a single well-reasoned, actionable oppose that hasn't been effectively dealt with.

a large number/part

in order to

a number of

in addition

however

, and

significant

over (more than)

that

due to (because of)

while

Welcome to FAC

Hi [[User:|]] and thank you for your nomination to FAC. A few pointers on the process and how to get the best from it:

What to expect

As a first time nominator at FAC, the nominated article will need to pass a source-to-text integrity spot check and a review for over-close paraphrasing in addition to all of the usual requirements.
You should be aware that every aspect of the article will be rigorously examined, including the standard of prose; breadth, standard and formatting of sources; image licencing; and adherence to the Manual of Style.

Dealing with reviewers

Try to deal with comments in a timely and constructive fashion.
Remember that reviewers are constructively giving their opinion on the article.
Keep calm when dealing with criticism of any aspect of the article.
Don't take the criticism personally: reviewers are examining the article – not you!

How to get the best from the process

Reviewing the work of others is a good way to get a grasp of the process from the other side.
Reviewing other FACs also increases the likelihood that others will review your nomination – although remember there is no quid pro quo at FAC.

Good luck with your nomination.

~~~~

Support or oppose?

*Hi {{u|}}, I was wondering if you felt in a position to either support or oppose this nomination? Obviously, neither is obligatory. Thanks. ~~~~

The curse of knowledge

[[The Sense of Style#The curse of knowledge|the curse of knowledge]]

Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable WP:TECHNICAL

"Wikipedia articles should be written for the widest possible general audience."

This page in a nutshell: Strive to make each part of every article as understandable as possible to the widest audience of readers who are likely to be interested in that material. WP:AUDIENCE

First-time nomination

==== First-time nomination====

*Hi {{u|}}, and welcome to FAC. Just noting that as a first time nominator at FAC, this article will need to pass a source to text integrity spot check and a review for over-close paraphrasing to be considered for promotion. Good luck with the nomination. ~~~~

Coordinator comment

Three weeks in and just the single general support. Unless this nomination makes significant further progress towards a consensus to promote over the next three or four days I am afraid that it is liable to be archived.

Coordinator comment

This has been open for over four weeks and has yet to pick up a support. I have added it to Urgents, but unless it receives several further in depth reviews over the next week or so I am afraid that it is going to time out.

Coordinator note

This has been open for more than three weeks and has yet to pick up a support. Unless it attracts considerable movement towards a consensus to promote over the next three or four days I am afraid that it is liable to be archived.

Coordinator note

A wall of comments but with no declarations of support or opposition it feels more like a PR than a FAC. There still seems a way to go to achieve any consensus to promote so I'd like to put it to bed now and ask that further work take place away from FAC with discussion on the article talk page, that you engage these reviewers for a quick check once done, and then bring it back after the usual two-week wait. You can of course again ping the reviewers to comment at the next FAC. Cheers.

Finding reviewers

Reviewers are more happy to review articles from people whose name they see on other reviews (although I should say there is definitely no quid pro quo system on FAC). Reviewers are a scarce resource at FAC, unfortunately, and the more you put into the process, the more you are likely to get out. Personally, when browsing the list for an article to review, I am more likely to select one by an editor whom I recognise as a frequent reviewer. Critically reviewing other people's work may also have a beneficial impact on your own writing and your understanding of the FAC process.

Sometimes placing a polite neutrally phrased request on the talk pages of a few of the more frequent reviewers helps. Or on the talk pages of relevant Wikiprojects. Or of editors you know are interested in the topic of the nomination. Or who have contributed at PR, or assessed at GAN, or edited the article. Sometimes one struggles to get reviews because potential reviewers have read the article and decided that it requires too much work to get up to FA standard. I am not saying this is the case here - I have not read the article - just noting a frequent issue.

Building towards a first FAC.

My standard advice to inexperienced editors is to run 20 or 30 articles through GAN before thinking about FAC. (I did 42.) Then nominate 6 or 8 or 10 "straight forward" articles at FAC, starting with a couple of real gimmes, ideally in the same broad subject area as the target "complex topic". Then one may be ready to put some real toughies through FAC. Of course, no one has ever been happy with these suggestions.

Watch other reviewers

If you were to resubmit it when you had 8 or 10 FAC reviews to your credit it would be much more likely to itself be reviewed. I would suggest also following all of the other reviews for any nomination you review. Note what each comment by a reviewer is and what response or change it elicits from the nominator, then consider whether anything similar applies to your article. I have an immediately pre-nom checklist - here - parts of which may apply to your article(s). Hopefully some of this is of some help.

Leads

MOS:LEADSENTENCE: The first sentence should introduce the topic, and tell the nonspecialist reader what or who the subject is, and often when or where. It should be in plain English.

WP:TECHNICAL: It is especially important to make the lead section understandable using plain language, and it is often helpful to begin with more common and accessible subtopics, then proceed to those requiring advanced knowledge or addressing niche specialties.
WP:EXPLAINLEAD: For these reasons, the lead should provide an understandable overview of the article. While the lead is intended to mention all key aspects of the topic in some way, accessibility can be improved by only summarizing the topic in the lead and placing the technical details in the body of the article. … In general, the lead should not assume that the reader is well acquainted with the subject of the article. Terminology in the lead section should be understandable on sight to general readers whenever this can be done in a way that still adequately summarizes the article, and should not depend on a link to another article.
WP:ONEDOWN A general technique for increasing accessibility is to consider the typical level where the topic is studied (for example, secondary, undergraduate, or postgraduate). … The lead section should be particularly understandable, but the advice to write one level down can be applied to the entire article, increasing the overall accessibility. Writing one level down also supports our goal to provide a tertiary source on the topic, which readers can use before they begin to read other sources about it. Writing one level down also supports our goal to provide a tertiary source on the topic, which readers can use before they begin to read other sources about it. In terms of the example, For example, a long-winded mathematical proof of some result is unlikely to be read by either a general reader or an expert, but a short summary of the proof and its most important points may convey a sense to a general reader without reducing the usefulness to an expert reader.

Quotations

The MoS on quotations: "[t]he source must be named '''in article text''' if the quotation is an opinion". Emphasis in original.

MOS:QUOTE "While quotations are an indispensable part of Wikipedia, try not to overuse them. Using too many quotes is incompatible with an encyclopedic writing style ... It is generally recommended that content be written in Wikipedia editors' own words. Consider paraphrasing quotations into plain and concise text when appropriate".

Wikilinks

MOS:NOFORCELINK: Do use a link wherever appropriate, but as far as possible do not force a reader to use that link to understand the sentence. The text needs to make sense to readers who cannot follow links.

Too specialist

Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable and Wikipedia is not a scientific journal.

Styles

Where more than one style or format is acceptable under MoS, one should be used consistently within an article and should not be changed without good reason. Edit warring over stylistic choices is unacceptable.

Sometimes the MoS provides more than one acceptable style or gives no specific guidance. The Arbitration Committee has expressed the principle that "When either of two styles are acceptable it is inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor to change from one style to another unless there is some substantial reason for the change."[3] If you believe an alternative style would be more appropriate for a particular article, discuss this at the article's talk page or – if it raises an issue of more general application or with the MoS itself – at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style.

Edit-warring over style, or enforcing optional style in a bot-like fashion without prior consensus, is never acceptable.

Title case - article titles in

References: article titles should consistently be in title case, regardless of how they appear in their original.

MOS:TITLECAPS

In titles (including subtitles, if any) that are the English-language titles of works (books, poems, songs, etc.), every word except for definite and indefinite articles, short coordinating conjunctions, and short prepositions is capitalized. This is known as title case. Capitalization of non-English titles varies by language (see below). Wikipedia normally follows these conventions when referring to such works, whether in the name of an article or within the text.

Abbreviations

MOS:1STOCC states "When an abbreviation will be used in an article, first introduce it using the full expression".

Infobox capitalisation

MoS, footnote e.

"Wikipedia uses sentence case for ... entries in infoboxes ...".

Fix loop

User:Mike Christie/Fix loops

MOS:COMMONALITY

"For an international encyclopedia, using vocabulary common to all varieties of English is preferable."

Captions and credits

MOS:CREDITS "Unless relevant to the subject, do not credit the image author or copyright holder in the article. It is assumed that this is not necessary to fulfill attribution requirements of the GFDL or Creative Commons licenses as long as the appropriate credit is on the image description page."

Relevant images

MOS:IMAGERELEVANCE "Images must be significant and relevant in the topic's context, not primarily decorative. They are often an important illustrative aid to understanding. When possible, find better images and improve captions instead of simply removing poor or inappropriate ones ..."

Sentence case for short descriptions

[[WP:SHORTDESC]]: Each short description should:

be short – no more than about 40 characters (but this can be slightly exceeded if necessary)
be written in plain text – without HTML tags or Wiki markup
start with a capital letter
avoid initial articles (A, An, The) except when required for correct grammar and meaning
avoid a final full stop.

FAC specialists

Maths and Earth science - Reaper Eternal.

Coordinator elections

Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/archive83#Proposed New FAC Coordinator

Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/archive86#Potential new coordinators

Proposed new coordinators]]

Mike's explanation of the FAC page

[1]

Shooterwalker on real world relevance

Arriving at this discussion after being solicited by Gog the Mild. I'm here to try to mediate and it shouldn't be taken as me supporting one side or another. I will only share what I learned from bringing fictional topics to the average reader.
- First is audience. A Good Article will be reviewed by your peers with similar expertise, but a Featured Article will be reviewed by someone from a completely different field of expertise. I recall my game content reviewed by people whose expertise is in Billiards, or Military History. Their ignorance of your chosen topic is not a flaw, it's actually for everyone's benefit. When I read a military history article, I may criticize them and say "hey, the average person might not know the first thing about the Ottoman Empire and you just jump right in without telling me the basics of who/what/when". Nobody is trying to be frustrating or pedantic. We are all trying to make our article informative for the maximum number of readers.
- One of the most useful guidelines is "State the WP:OBVIOUS". You have to take off your "expert" hat and pretend you're almost completely ignorant of the world, and yet, somehow also a savant writer. It helps to start with the complete basics, "X is a 19XX video game where players collect fantastical beasts and position them against each other in battle." You might care about all the rich and interesting details, but the reader won't understand (or care) unless you can slowly get them there.
- The first sentence of the body is underrated, and often wasted. Get to the point, and state it clearly. Common errors I see are trying to pack too much information into that first sentence, or assuming someone has thoroughly read and understood the lead. It's useful to understand the game, but even more important to understand the subject of the article. "X is a video game character." That's a good first sentence: it's short, it's clear, and gives readers the most basic context to start to understand the subject. Obviously it will be a bit longer, but not by much. Think about newspaper pyramid style: give people the headline, and then gradually add more detail, with the most specific details at the end of a section.
- The average reader is going to ask "why should I care?" Which inevitably means you have to explain that topic's impact on the real world, because you can't assume that they care deeply about the fiction. It actually isn't a high bar, if a fictional element has any amount of reception in reliable secondary sources. It asks editors to really boil the critical reception down to what matters. Did it win awards? Become a mass market phenomenon? Inspire other game developers to make more games? Earn unfavorable comparisons to something else? There is room for other smaller bits of "this journalist liked it, that journalist hated it". But if you turn the reception into a collection of quotes and reactions, then the article will fail to convey anything to the average reader. It's almost always a bad idea to give every reviewer a lot WP:WEIGHT, with multiple sentences, including a pull-quote. The article will lose sight of the forest, and get stuck on each individual tree. There is a lot of power in being concise: "This element was given a negative reception by X,[1] Y,[2], and z.[3]" Even more specific, "Many reviewers compared X to Y unfavorably, including X,[1] Y,[2] and Z.[3]"
- Especially for fictional content, treat the reception and development as co-equal elements in the article. An ideal encyclopedia article doesn't get lost in the fictional details. Its impact outside the fiction becomes as important as the fiction itself. Development is also underrated, because that also tie the topic back to important real-world events at the time it was being created. What were its authors trying to achieve with this creation? Did they actually achieve it?
- There is no gatekeeping. These are the same expectations of a football player, an ancient empire, a subway system, a renaissance painting, or a social media influencer. These different topics don't need to be equally impactful on the real-world, but they do need to have impact, and you do need to state it clearly and concisely. It's okay to make an article about something that is a niche, or even about something that is mediocre or average! That just becomes its impact: it was received as average, and 20 years later, people remember it as average.
If any of what I said is obvious, I hope my effort can be taken as a reminder, and not as a lecture. I also don't claim to be the authoritative source on FA. There can be more than one way to write a featured article article. (But there are many more wrong ways.) Shooterwalker (talk) 16:46, 25 January 2024 (UTC)