Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/C-SPAN/archive2

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

The article was not promoted by Ian Rose 10:02, 31 December 2013 (UTC) [1].[reply]

C-SPAN[edit]

C-SPAN (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs)

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This is my second nomination of this article. Currently listed as GA, I strongly believe it meets and exceeds the FA criteria: it is well-written, comprehensive, well-researched and neutral. While edits of a copy-editing nature are made occasionally, there has been no substantial disagreement about the article's content for a very long time, and vandalism is similarly low. I believe readers will find that it follows Wikipedia's style guidelines very closely, including a well-considered structure and extremely careful sourcing throughout. It includes numerous freely-licensed images, and its length reflects the breadth and depth of information about C-SPAN available in third-party sources over its thirty-plus years in existence. During this article's first nomination period, I received quality suggestions from User:KConWiki, User:Ruhrfisch, and User:Awardgive, all of which was incorporated or addressed in one way or another.

It is also important to mention here that, as the primary contributor to this article, I am also a consultant to C-SPAN. I have been involved with this article for a couple of years, however I have made no direct edits since late 2011; these days I refrain from all direct edits to the mainspace when I have a financial COI, following Jimbo's advisory to COI editors, as explained in his Paid Advocacy FAQ. I realize that this may introduce added complexity to this process; when editors ask that changes be made, I feel I should not be the one to implement them. For this reason, I would like to suggest that reviewing editors be willing to make changes that are agreed upon. However, I also can find additional assistance to implement changes if necessary. Thanks, and I'm looking forward to the process.

Nominator(s): WWB Too (Talk · COI) 17:31, 2 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(Note: I have a question/comment regarding COI editing on the talk page.) – Quadell (talk) 20:22, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Source review The citations are inconsistently, and in some cases correctly, formatted. Please audit them for the following representative sample.

  • Books are missing publication location, which is a standard part of a citation in my experience. The location has been provided for newspapers where it isn't a part of the title, so the location should be provided for books.
  • FN3 uses "Last, First" format yet FN 4 uses "First Last" order. I believe its because some citations are using |author= and others are using |first= and |last=. Also note that if you want to link an authors name, there is |authorlink=. In any case, using |author= or |coauthor= instead of the |first1= |last1= |first2= and |last2= scheme emits different metadata in the citations as well.
  • FN 8 uses "The University of Michigan". Unlike that pretentious institution in Columbus, Ohio, most universities do not include the definitive article in their name, and even the statutes that establish OSU do so inconsistently. Also on FN 143, "The Johns Hopkins University Press" should also have the definite article removed as well to match FN 136.
  • FN 12 repeats a link to "University of Oklahoma Press" that also appears in FN 9. Per WP:OVERLINK, only the first footnote should include the link and the subsequent ones should not. This also occurs with newspaper titles and other things, so you'll need to audit all of the footnotes for this.
  • FN 14 italicizes "Fox News Network", which is a publisher. A work or publication they produce would be the title of a specific TV program. Also, FN 26 styles it as "FOX News Network", but in that case the ALL CAPS should be reduced because "Fox" is not an acronym/initialism.
  • Also on FN 26, but I would drop the "foxnews.com" as the name of the website. It's a stylistic choice, but I don't see the utility of such redunancy, especially when you're resorting to the domain name to provide a website title. This also applies to things like "college.columbia.edu" on FN 7 or even "c-span.org" on FN 1. Where the domain name and the publisher are clearly the same, or variations on the same, the publisher can stand alone.
  • Skipping ahead to FN 120, "baltimoresun.com" should be dropped, and "The Baltimore Sun" should be the italicized work. There are other cases where the name of a publication has been used as the publisher and the domain name of its website has been used as the work, and these should all be changed.
  • FN 133: "C - SPAN Launches New C - SPAN Digital Bus and C - SPAN Local Content Vehicle" should have the spacing in the acronym silently changed to conform to the rest of the article.
  • FN 133 links to a PDF. Really, you should include |format=PDF so that people are aware the item links to a PDF. Not all browsers can, or will, display the little PDF icon with the link.

The above is just a sample of issues and all 143 footnotes need to be audited for these concerns. Imzadi 1979 → 23:06, 3 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Imzadi, can you point me to a concise list of citation criteria you're working from? WP:CITE is overbroad for this purpose, while WP:FACR only specifies "consistent citations" and even says: "The use of citation templates is not required." Keeping in mind that there is no such thing as the WP:PERFECT article, are there certain formatting issues you consider more important than others? WWB Too (Talk · COI) 00:01, 4 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This is based on past experience, experience doing citations for papers for college (in APA, MLA and Chicago citation styles), the various reviews I've been through that have set a general expectation for consistently formatting things. You should notice that several of my comments are specifically on the issue of consistency. Why are some authors listed "Last, First" and others are "First Last"? Why are some newspaper/publication names in italics as per standard practices, but others are not? Why are the names of some publishers, which are not traditionally italicized, rendered in italics and others are not? Why does one title have "C - SPAN" while the rest of the article, including all of the other footnotes, uses the unspaced version of the acronym? FAs are expected to be polished and consistently formatted, and that's the basis for my comments. Imzadi 1979 → 00:39, 4 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
OK, that does make sense. The inconsistency owes, I think, to the long development period of the article; besides involvement from other editors, I wasn't watching this aspect as closely as the content itself. Per discussion with Quadell on the other page, I'd like to prepare all of these updates at once and then implement. I'll start working on that tomorrow. Best, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 04:39, 4 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hi again, Imzadi. I've been working my way through the references and I have a couple of questions for you:
  • First, about the inconsistency between author names appearing as "First Last" or "Last, First". It turns out all cite news and cite web references use |author=, which produces "First Last"; it's only cite book that uses |last= |first=, which is obviously where our "Last, First"s come from. So, at least they are generally consistent within type of reference. Far fewer books are cited than the others; it would be relatively easy to convert cite book to |author=—in fact, a few books already do—and therefore make everything "First Last". Does that work?
Relatedly, for at least two of the books there are no "authors", only editors. Based on the |editor1-last= |editor1-first= parameters these editors names will appear "Last, First". Another option: using |author= and appending something like (ed.). What do you think?
  • Second, about WP:OVERLINKing in references. I haven't heard of this guideline being applied to citation templates before, and in fact I think it might make it harder for readers to navigate Wikipedia. In general, readers do not read a reflist in order, but will look at specific references when they jump down while reading the article. And when they see The Washington Post they are unlikely to know that The Washington Post appeared thirty references earlier. Meanwhile, determining the first place a source is used may not last as sources are replaced or relocated. Lastly, at the risk of being told WP:OSE, plenty of FAs old (see here) and new (see here) link the same way. Is it OK if we let this one go?
That's all I've got for now, let me know what you think about the above and I'll let you know if I have any other questions. Cheers, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 00:01, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
In reply:
  • I would suggest using |last= and |first= parameters consistently across all reference types. Because of the metadata in use, appending "(ed.)." to the |author= distorts things, and the templates emit more accurate meta data when the first/last are entered separately.
  • I've been told in my past FACs to avoid overlinking because it dilutes the usefulness of the items that are linked. When it comes to references, we want to steer our readers to the external link to the source instead of the wikilink to an article on the publisher. However, we also want to provide ready access to those other articles so readers have additional information to basis their personal opinions of the sources used. To balance those competing ideas, I've found it's best to link just once in the references section and not in every footnote.
Imzadi 1979 → 00:21, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Another quick question for you, Imzadi: if I put in the time to perfect the citations according to your suggestions, will you support it for FA? WWB Too (Talk · COI) 00:41, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose—I've now formed an opinion on the status of this nomination. At this time, I oppose promotion and suggest it be withdrawn. The FAC instructions state that "nominators are expected to respond positively to constructive criticism and to make efforts to address objections promptly." (emphasis mine) I understand temporary real-life restrictions on editing capacity; however this nominator has a COI and came here without a co-nominator or a pre-determined plan to handle editing the article. If the nominator can't or won't edit the article he or she nominated, even when the appropriate guideline allows non-controversial edits, and doesn't have plans in place to handle such a thing (and it's extremely rare to have an article go through FAC without requiring some editing), then that nominator has no business being here. Imzadi 1979 → 00:59, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
As you can imagine, I'm disappointed to hear this. Moreso, I'm disappointed to hear that your opposition has nothing to do with the article's content, so far as you've said. I understand why you view my pledge to follow the "bright line" as incompatible with the requirements of FAC, however I have offered a workable solution and am committed to following through any actions needed as part of this FAC. In terms of a co-nominator, Awardgive has said he's willing to act in basically the same capacity as you're asking for. And while I do believe you're holding this article to a higher standard than other FAs have been held to, I am very much willing to put in the work if it will accomplish the goal of making this article one of the very best on Wikipedia. Will you withdraw your "oppose" if I can fix the citations? WWB Too (Talk · COI) 16:31, 6 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Following up my own comment here, I first want to say to Imzadi, I'm sorry if I come off as cranky about this. I recognize your aim here is to ensure that FAs are as good as they can be. That really is my goal as well. Quadell shared some worthwhile thoughts about this back on his user page, linked here. I may well withdraw this nomination on procedural grounds, but I need a little more time to think on it. Whatever the case, thanks for considering it and I hope you will again—whether soon or again down the road. Best, WWB Too (Talk · COI) 04:27, 7 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
This nomination is a sticky situation. I honestly want to see every article improved and promoted wherever possible. There's just been too much discussion over how to fix what are really minor items instead of just fixing them though. Imzadi 1979 → 06:03, 7 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support— I think this article is well-written, well-sourced and balanced. If there are edits having to do with formatting of references, I would hate to see that be a reason for declining FA status, especially given that WWB2 has bent over backwards to avoid article-space editing so as to stay in line with COI guidelines. I have gone over this article several times and made a variety of tweaks. I have also been a regular C-SPAN viewer for over twenty years, and have read a number of books and articles on the topic, and I think that this article captures the various aspects of C-SPAN's heritage, activities, and approaches well. KConWiki (talk) 03:38, 9 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Closing comment -- With no activity for almost three weeks this nom has stalled so I'll be archiving it shortly. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 06:24, 30 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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