Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/archive12

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SVG

The SVG format has just supported by wikipedia but User:Gmaxwell plans to object to all articles which have maps and flags in raster format. Yes, SVG is more suitable but I don't think it should be made a compulsory feature so soon:

  • All editors are not graphic artists
  • Older browsers may not have SVG support.
  • Not all editors have a broadband connection to upload high resolution images.

Comments anyone? =Nichalp «Talk»= 12:50, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

    • Yeah, I think that's a little extreme if you've characterized his desires correctly. It's not like it's copyright law or something really critical. Objections solely based on one's opinion and not backed up by the criteria or firm policy aren't legitimate. If he wants to get it in the criteria, he can try that discussion page. - Taxman Talk 13:37, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
    • Though I'd like to see Wikipedia adopt SVG quickly, I think it's a dumb reason to object to an article, yes. Incidentally, what do you mean by "high resolution images", though? That seems to go against your point. SVG images don't have such a thing as resolution, and generally take up much less space. RSpeer 18:46, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
      • Resolution: I was speaking in the context of maps. If you draw a low resolution map (say the outline of Australia) and scale it up (SVG), you still won't get any benefits, other than the fact that the image is larger in size. And converting from PNG to SVG, how useful is that? IMO its the same as JPG to PNG. =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:48, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Considering that neither Firefox nor IE (nor any other major browser that I am aware of) supports SVG, an objection along these lines is wholly without merit. →Raul654 18:52, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

But does Wikipedia leave SVG images as-is, or does it convert them to a raster format on requests? IIRC the announcement that SVG was supported implied it did a raster conversion. --cesarb 19:17, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
Dearborn Station (Chicago) has an SVG map, which is rendered by the software as PNG. That said, I would hope objections to an article because of lack of SVG are treated by referring the objector to {{sofixit}}. --SPUI (talk) 14:49, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
Sorry for the late response, but I can see that this was not carried out at Flag of Belarus. While I added SVG images, I had some PNG images and I did not get an objection. Though, if you face that problem and need a flag image, come see me. Zach (Sound Off) 15:30, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Questions of neutrality

The emergence of WP:FAD has brought to the fore an issue that might well have been important to deal with in the past, but now begs for attention. The issue is this: when an editor votes on an FAC, it is useful to know that editor's affiliation with the article or nominator.

This is important for a number of reasons:

  1. If an editor is in some way affiliated with the parties (nominator or article) of a nomination, everyone should know it so that the community can fairly judge whether bias is a factor in voting patterns.
  2. A large turnout from a small subsection of Wikipedia should not outweigh a smaller turnout from a broad cross-section of Wikipedia; this possibility is currently unchecked.
  3. Participants in a WikiProject may not be aware of certain FA standards; allowing them to pass through their articles because they have high voter turnout is a disservice both to Wikipedia and their Project.
  4. We want to prevent articles receiving support votes just because a voter is friends with the nominator, is hoping to receive a vote for his nomination quid pro quo, or worked on the article himself; conversely, we don't want an article to receive oppose votes just because a voter has disagreed with the nominator in the past.
  5. We recognize that oppose votes are only valid if actionable; there should be a converse restriction that support votes should only be valid if made in good faith and consistent with FA requirements.
  6. We reject votes from sock puppets, and view anonymous votes with suspicion, because their biases or relationships are unknown; it is in the same spirit that we would ask known editors to openly state their potential biases and relationships.

This is already acknowledged in the special case of the relationship between the nominator and the article; if the nominator substantially contributed to the article; he is requested to note it as a self-nomination. I would like to see this extended to all votes, where anyone who has a (positive or negative) relationship with the nominator, article, or nominating project must say so. Thus, a vote from an "interested party" would be appended with a message such as this:

  • Support. (I am a member of WikiProject XYZ, which nominated this article) or (I substantially contributed to this article) or (I work with the nominator on WikiProject ABC and other articles) or (I have a crush on the nominator's sister) or whatever message is relevant to briefly describe potential bias.

Note that I am not asking interested parties to recuse themselves; this is a way to allow everyone to vote, without having potentially biased votes obscure the true community consensus. - Bantman 02:05, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

A few observations: personally, I think this is an answer looking for a problem. I certainly would not vote based simply on my personal affiliations: that kind of consideration may inform which articles I would review (for example, I would almost certainly look at something nominated by User:Emsworth or User:Worldtraveller or User:Giano or User:Bishonen, because they typically produce well-written articles in areas that I find interesting) but I would not hold back from bringing up objections if I thought they were merited. Perhaps naively, I assume good faith from other Wikipedians, and trust that people who participate in a WikiProject would not blindly support an article produced by their project: in fact, they are the people who are most likely to know about the topic in detail, so their support is a helpful indication that the article is on the right track (and compliance with WikiProject guidelines is part of the Featured article criteria. In any event, apart for demonstrating a minimum level of support (I think User:Raul654 looks for at least four support votes), the number of "support" votes is not really that important. Far more important is that there should be no substantial and actionable objections.
What we really need is to encourage full disclosure where a person makes a substantial contribution to a nominated article that they either nominate or support: in the main, I think disclosure is made (the contributions are all in the edit history anyway). -- ALoan (Talk) 10:48, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
I had this same exchange here and with the FAD folks a while ago on their talk page after exchanges elsewhere. I think the FAD case is a bit of a potential extreme: the goal of the project is to create feature articles, which is a clearer inherent conflict of interest than most projects face. I do, however, think that this is a risk and should be made transparent. I would emphasise that this transparency is not because I would impute a history of bad acts to anyone but because it is difficult to determine if there are any bad acts without a requirement for disclosure. This is certainly the standard I've held myself to when votings on FACs.
I would also tend to agree that some of the feedback quality is questionable, with the result that articles of questionable quality are featured. I believe that "A for effort" comments to justify a support vote are irresponsible; the FAC process should not be another form of "social promotion". That being said, I'd reckon the best we can do is provide guidelines and tell people that votes that are substantiated may count for less by the FAC director, although they will be stricken or become the basis for litigious debate. We should take advantage of some of the non-transparency and non-democratic nature of the process here and say that FACs require substantive criticism and that a lack of such criticism damns article with faint praise. If you aren't clear in explaining why you support or oppose a candidacy, the case won't be made either way. Buffyg 12:24, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
I had mentioned something like this earlier (see "Chicago fan votes" Archive 10). If the nominator does not take care of valid concerns, or at least give a plausible reason why s/he cannot address the objection; then I feel the article has no business gaining the Featured status. We need to keep the quality of our best articles intact. We cannot compromise on it. =Nichalp «Talk»= 13:23, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
In my own votes, I've volunteered information on articles where I've done more editing than just minor spelling corrections (i.e. "Support I contributed some photos and copyedits to this article"). While it would be nice to see other editors do this in their votes as well, I don't want to make such a disclosure a requirement of voting. Generally, it's pretty obvious when an editor has contributed substantially to an article on FAC; however, encouraging editors to volunteer their involvement in an article could be considered a Good Thing (tm). slambo 14:10, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Featured article advice

Since I'm going on a Wikibreak (temporary, I promise), I've written a page up detailing the most common failings that pages nominated to FAC have and a little expansion on the featured article criteria that I think is important for people to be aware of before nominating an article at FAC and especially for reviewers to read before giving advice. Buffyg brings up a good point that some of the advice given is bad because people don't understand the criteria and aren't familiar with how they are applied. I've put the advice together based on my more than a year of experience with a good portion of the FAC nominations over that time and from many discussions about the criteria. Like I explain there, if more editors were familiar with how articles should be written to pass the FA criteria, not only would more articles pass, but I think more would be nominated too. If we have more consistency about what advice is given less time would be wasted and more effort would be going in the right direction. So if others substantially agree with the advice or a version of it that can be agreed on, I suggest all potential FAC and Peer reviewers be directed towards it before reviewing articles, and that every FAC and PR nom get the advice contained there. Thanks all, it's certainly been fun so far. - Taxman Talk 15:08, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

I just took a read through your notes and compared it again with Wikipedia:What is a featured article. While I agree with the majority of what you mention, more could be said about the criteria that is not discussed. For example, I've seen several candidates come through with either no images or images that don't really enhance the article text; other times, when they are appropriate images, the captions are either insufficient or completely missing. There have also been some pretty involved discussions about article length recently. Sure, there's the Wikipedia:Summary style guide, but if you're going to further discuss other guides like lead section, then you should discuss this too. I'll try to put some thoughts down myself this weekend. slambo 17:50, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Here's something that is really driving me up the wall, hopefully you folks can help: Ann Arbor, Michigan is commonly cited as the gold standard in city-profile articles that are nominated as FACs, but Ann Arbor is a much smaller city and thus can go into much more detail than larger cities (I'm having this problem with Cleveland at the moment, but I've also seen it crop up with Miami). There's simply too much in bigger cities to pare down to the size of a college town like Ann Arbor. Can anyone provide some guidance on this? Thanks. PacknCanes 19:29, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

How a nomination is done?

How do you guys object or support a FA candidate? Do you read the whole article? Do you check every information? Do you check every image license? Do you read all the talk page? Do you see the page history? I'm worried that voting for an FA status is done lightly. There has been more than 70 former FAs indicating that a lot of "bad" articles have passed through. How do you explain it? CG 19:23, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

standards change as do articles.Geni 19:33, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
The "good" commentators/"voters" read the whole article, check every source and image license. Most of them are "good" ones too, but there are some "bad" ones who have questionable supports/opposes, but usually it's some of the opposes that are sometimes "bad". As for former FA - back then sometimes they would round up and nominate a bunch of articles at once, in addition to the fact that the standards have increased dramatically - so it's not suprising at all. Ryan Norton T | @ | C 19:36, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
Most of the former FAs were holdovers from the days when this page was called "Brilliant Prose" and was just a list of articles that people added to whenever they found an article that seemed pretty good. At the time, the Wikipedia was very small, so any article that was at least reasonably thorough and well-written was considered quite excellent (and they were excellent compared to the other articles at the time). Since then, the process has changed and the standards have been raised, but all those articles were initially kept, even though they wouldn't pass if nominated today; some were eventually removed as particularly egregious, others have not (generally, it's harder to remove FA status than to gain it, I think). Tuf-Kat 20:04, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
Yes, you're right. Take a look at WP:FARC, why the featured article removal candidates don't get revewed? CG 12:45, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
To get a "support" vote, an article must meet all FA criteria. Objecting is much easier -- just reading the article, or even just skimming it, is often enough to notice significant deficiencies, which can be noted in an adequate "oppose" vote. As the article improves, the voter must look harder and harder for items that remain to fall short of FA criteria; when the voter cannot find anything else, then and only then can he vote "support". Thus a support vote is much more difficult to make than an oppose vote: an oppose says "there is at least one thing wrong with this article, which is... [list of objections]", while a support vote says "I believe that this article meets FA criteria in all respects." I share your fear that most support votes are not backed up by rigorous reviews -- unless an article is nearly perfect when nominated (which it almost never is), most articles should receive a lot of oppose votes to begin with, which are slowly converted into supports as objections are addressed; this is clearly not the standard case, which indicates a problem with voting. - Bantman 21:16, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
It is often the case on controversial articles... but on ones which people generally like outright or articles that are technical that more often thann not is not the case. I also have a problem with "drive-by opposers"... people should respond when their objection is (supposively) addressed. Some nominators don't even bother to address objections while the FAC is going on and just wait until the next month, which is problematic too. Ryan Norton T | @ | C 22:18, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
In general, if you think you have met an objection, you'd do well to contact the objector. For example, I weigh in here now and then when I have an opinion, but I don't continually look in on this page. I only occasionally support and only oppose if it's a blatant issue (and then I often haven't read the whole article: you don't have to eat a whole egg to know it's bad); more often I just comment on what could be improved, without formally opposing. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:18, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
I basically review only topics which I do have some knowledge of. If my objections are taken care of, or at least get a plausible response if it cannot be taken care of, I withdraw my object vote. I sometimes read if not skim the article content and put up my findings here. People are also less likely to object to articles nominated by experienced people like Emsworth. On the image front, Carnildo is doing a great job tracking faulty images. However FAC sorely misses User:Jeronimo who used to read and comment on all articles. =Nichalp «Talk»= 07:05, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
This pretty much describes my approach, too. Having had some of my own nominations passed after objections were addressed (and some failed), my view would be that the person who reads well and objects coherently does more to help improve the article quality than most. Filiocht | Talk 14:52, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Seeking Feedback & (eventual) Consensus

OK, I have complained about things being done wrongly here in Fac, but I may be wrong.

I seek feedback, and eventual concensus on unclear issues, and, no, I'm not seeking any particular outcome; you may opine as you like; however, I give you fair notice, fair reader, that I intend to seek an equal and fair application of whatever policy results to all people -equally, you know? OK, here are my areas in need of clarification:

I don't see why you are setting up some kind of vote on policy when you are in favour of the status quo and apparently just want to know how things work. Even if you wanted to change policy, we try to avoid votes if possible (see Wikipedia:Survey guidelines). Worldtraveller 19:22, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Note: This has been done before

(Please note: The possibility for changing Policy is not without precedent: Here, in the Revision as of 01:31, 13 September 2005, we find Bureaucrat User:ALoan adding a "stability" requirement to Wikipedia:What_is_a_featured_article to include that there are "no on-going edit wars," in response to the very brief, but not ongoing, edit war that locked Terri Schiavo for a few days.)

Whether ALoan is a bureaucrat or not is immaterial - administrators and bureaucrats have no authority over other users. In fact, the stability criterion has been part of WP:WIAFA for a long time; what was going on there was just some fine-tuning of the wording used. I think you'd benefit from watching Wikipedia function for a while - you haven't been around that long and I think you don't fully understand many of the ways in which this community works. Worldtraveller 19:22, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
  1. I am not a bureaucrat (I was one briefly, for a few minutes, due to a technical snafu when I became an admin). But, in any event, I find I can do pretty much anything I want as a plain editor, without using admin abilities, and there is nothing much that a bureaucrat can do that I would want to do.
  2. As Worldtraveller says, the "stability" requirement was there before Tony1's recent reformulation of WP:WIAFA - I just adding back a few phrases that I though should be kept from the version before Tony1's edits (link to the version immediately before Tony1's changes). Looking as the edit history, Raul654 added stability as a requirement in January 2005, commenting that I thought it was already obvious... (link to stability being added). I added the words "with no on-going edit wars", but isn't it obvious that an article with an on-going edit war is not "mostly static, and not chang[ing] signifcantly [or rapidly] from day to day"?
  3. Whether I am a bureaucrat, an admin, a plain registered user, or an anon, does not change the value (or absence thereof) of my edits, which is judged by consensus. If there is consensus for my edits to stay, they will; if not, they will go. Period.
  4. Finally, please read and inwardly digest my last message on your talk page. Written policy is a formulation of widely-held community consensus at the time it is written. If there is consensus for a change, policy will change, often without the written policy changing, although the written policy may eventually catch up with what happens in practice. Raul654 and my edits to WP:WIAFA are just instances of that. -- ALoan (Talk) 10:52, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
"Finally, please read and inwardly digest my last message on your talk page." I just re-read it, and, while I respect all the feedback, you seem to have particularly addressed moderation and common sense in both the FA and RfA processes. I also remember your passing comments about having been into Astronomy and/or Physics-related fields. (To have written that paper about which you briefly commented on Nichalp’s page, I am sure you worked hard along the away, in your prior field.) I appreciate the effort taken to master such disciplines, and personally understand how hard (and how fun!) some of these classes can be. That does not add to or take away from your valid feedback, but it helps build a picture in my (limited) mind of your logic and gives voice to your words. Thanks for the feedback and wise words of wisdom regarding how consensus and policy interrelate.--GordonWatts 03:55, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Issue 1: The FACfailed template

This template: Template:FACfailed is unclear to me, because it says one thing, and editors do another:

  • This article is a former featured article candidate. Please view its sub-page to see why the nomination failed. For older candidates (where the individual nomination does not exist) please check the archive. Once the objections have been addressed, you may resubmit the article for featured article status. (Emphasis in mild red added for clarity)
  • ISSUE 1:

Should we add language that would add the phrase in dark blue to read as follows? "Once the objections have been addressed, you may resubmit the article for featured article status, but only after waiting at least one month -so that prior problems associated with the article will have had sufficient time to stabilize."

Vote Count (0/1/0)

Support

Oppose

  1. Oppose. I think that if the article is fixed, it should be renominated ASAP (as soon as possible) to be efficient.--GordonWatts 13:52, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Neutral

Comments

  1. Vote any way you like; Feel free to change policy to support the recent call for me to wait for a while before resubmitting Terri Schiavo -but which ever way you vote, this policy applies to all people, not just a select group of targets, OK?--GordonWatts 13:52, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
  2. If there's been no discussion on this point, voting is really inappropriate. I oppose changing this template in the way Gordon suggests. I also oppose treating all articles equally. If an article on some obscure species of octopus is rejected at FAC because of a lack of images, and someone finds some images two days later, they should renominate it immediately. If an article on a controversial topic is rejected due to ongoing neutrality concerns, a stable version needs to prove its stability before being a FAC again. Tuf-Kat 18:43, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
  3. I oppose your vote Gordon. Agree as Tuf-Cat. IMO, the more the oppose votes received, the longer you should delay a renom. (18:59, 20 September 2005 Nichalp --forgot to sign; I'm signing for him.--GordonWatts 19:06, 20 September 2005 (UTC))
    Wait a second: I too oppose changing the template. See my vote above? I think we don't need any "wait a month" language added, but TUF-KAT right: Every situation is different.--GordonWatts 19:05, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
    I don't think he opposes the vote you cast, but rather the vote that you set up. Meaning, this is not an appropriate time to be voting on this topic. Tuf-Kat 19:23, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
    Actually, adding my vote to that support/oppose thing might trap me. I feel it's a little ambiguous. Instead, I directly oppose his "oppose" vote verbatim. I've mentioned the reason above: More oppose votes = needs more time to re-nominate. This is my view. =Nichalp «Talk»= 19:34, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Issue 2: The "What is a Fac" standard

This page: Wikipedia:What_is_a_featured_article is unclear to me, because it says one thing, and editors do another:

  • "stable" means that an article does not change significantly from day to day (apart from improvements in response to reviewers' comments) and is not the subject of ongoing edit wars; (Emphasis in mild red added for clarity)
  • ISSUE 2

Should we add language that would add the phrase in dark blue to read as follows? ""stable" means that an article does not change significantly from day to day (apart from improvements in response to reviewers' comments) and is not the subject of ongoing edit wars; an edit war is considered "ongoing" if it has occurred less than a month ago, or if the page was locked for any reason other than technical purposes less than a month ago."

Vote Count (0/1/0)

Support

Oppose

  1. Oppose. I think this would be overly strict and unnecessary.--GordonWatts 13:52, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Neutral

Comments

  1. Vote any way you like; Feel free to change policy to support the recent call for me to wait for a while before resubmitting Terri Schiavo -but which ever way you vote, this policy applies to all people, not just a select group of targets, OK?--GordonWatts 13:52, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
  2. Again, voting is not appropriate in this case. I oppose this change. An article may be too unstable for FA if there was an edit war six months ago, irregardless of whether or not the page is protected, because discussion could still be ongoing. OTOH, an article may have an edit war that begins and concludes satisfactorily within a week. I oppose any attempt to introduce strict timelines and rules to the FAC guidelines -- the FAC process is inherently about achieving consensus, and the criteria given are merely some starting points and basic, essential issues that have to be taken into consideration. Tuf-Kat 18:48, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
    Wait a second: I too oppose changing the template. (See your post above, where you accidentally thought I was for changing it, -no biggie.) I think we don't need any "wait a month" language added, but you're right: Every situation is different.--GordonWatts 19:05, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
    Then this vote is disruptive and should be removed. Why would you propose something you disagree with, if not to prove a point? I don't know what your point is, but I'm quite certain this change will being overwhelmingly opposed, as will this vote itself. If you'd like to propose an actual change, please explain what and why. Tuf-Kat 19:27, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
  • It doesn't make sense. Why would an article be locked for "technical reasons"? =Nichalp «Talk»= 19:43, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Gordon, knock it off with all the polls. All you are suceeding in doing is pissing everyone off! Consensus (note carefully the spelling of this) will NOT be arrived at in this manner. Fawcett5 03:07, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

(quoting TUF-KAT) "Then this vote is disruptive and should be removed." No, I'm not trying to "make" a point or be disruptive; Rather, I'm trying to "identify" a point, namely concensus: Whatever concensus is, I will likely abide by is; If I don't like it, I will simply leave without any hard feelings. (quoting Nichalp) "If you'd like to propose an actual change, please explain what and why" I proposed, in my vote above, that we not "change" the template, but I did also propose a bigger "change": Let's identify and abide by concensus: That is not happening, and it needs to "change!" "It doesn't make sense. Why would an article be locked for "technical reasons"?" Oh, Nichalp, it's possible, for example, if the server is updating, if often locks. In fact, when Uncle Ed did my name change (dropping the DotCom suffix) is taxing on the server and is oft done in the quiet evening hours, the whole en.Wikipedia was down for a few minutes while the server was updating all my files and renaming them. (quoting Fawcett5) "note carefully the spelling of this" I apologize, as do sometimes misspell words, but my spell-checker and I don't see any problem in this page; I saw that post elsewhere, and I think you saw a misspelled word elsewhere -it does happen. "Gordon, knock it off with all the polls. All you are succeeding in doing is pissing everyone off!" No; I'm identifying concensus, slowly but surely; You can’t abide by concensus, when you don't know it, and since policy is oft times not obeyed, it wakes the editor wonder what the real concensus is, thus prompting my need to inquire and discuss it: I can't read minds, lol, but don't worry about it; Things will work out; I am only human, and I can not (and will not) overload the wiki -I am only one person, and sometimes I'm even right. (PS: I fixed your spelling error of "succeeding, FYI. It's no biggie.)--GordonWatts 10:56, 21 September 2005 (UTC) Note: You may vote for or against either one; They are not mutually exclusive. In other words, you may vote to delay for resubmissions, but deem edit wars no problem once over; You may also seek to wait after edit wars, but not for resubmissions -or you may choose to wait for neither, either, or both. See also: Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_adminship#To_Nichalp for related proposals.

Featured article comments

Gordon - about your comment that changing featured article policy is not without precedent - you're right, but not for the reasons you think. Aloan added the "with no ongoing edit wars" comment after Tony had (in the previous edit) changed some phrasings around and removed it. So in that case ,there was no unilateral change to policy. However, there is precedent for it because I (in my capacity as featured article director) added the stability requirement a while back. However, if you had asked beforehand (instead of going here and creating these ridiculous polls) I would have told you that we don't have minimum times (for what counts as an 'ongoing edit war' and for re-nominating articles) on this page because such things are inherently evil. →Raul654 02:02, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Thx for the offer, Mark. That's not the only time policy was changed in reply to my concerns: [1] is where the RfA definition of "good standing" was altered. I don't agree with the edit, but if it's concensus, I accept it -and am happy the point is clarified. So, since you promised it'd be OK to renominate (see below), and since the edit war's over, what about it? Even if I'm strange (not a guarantee), the article's OK. See you in the front page.--GordonWatts 11:03, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
Here, an Aug. 26, 2005 nomination for Terri Schiavo, a stable article, was narrowly defeated by what looks to be a 6-11 or 7-10 margin, and it had problems, but Mark, the FA-editor says here that we fixed most of them, and suggest renominating in a few weeks. However, here, when it was renominated on Sept. 05, 2005, a few weeks later, after all his concerns were addressed, and then re-nominated, as Mark had suggested, it was rejected by Mark, who has the authority to make decisions: He went with concensus, instead of policy. However, since then, the edit war on that page has calmed down, making it reeligible. Since he's a good editor, admin, bureaucrat, and have made many contributions, I expect he'll keep his word here -after an uncertain delay as his discretion.--GordonWatts 11:03, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Featured article removal candidates

I'd like to highlight that the Wikipedia:Featured article removal candidates isn't getting much attention and votes. The last nominated articles are all very less discussed. For me, this page is equally important to Wikipedia:Featured article candidates in term of preserving quality to WP:FA. CG 20:05, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

  • I agree. I've been busy lately and couldn't be as active on the FARC page for the last month. I'll make sure to be more involved in the future.--Alabamaboy 13:14, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
    • Yes, this is disturbing news indeed. I used to contribute a lot there once; I'll also make sure to keep coming more often soon. Shauri 12:58, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Self-nominations and voting

Would it be considered improper to votre for an article one has nominated? What if it's a self-nomination? I know that some people do, but it ought to be pretty obvious that if one nominate it, one means it's good enouight for a FA. Whats peoples thoughts on this? WegianWarrior 20:30, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

A self-nom is pretty much, IMHO, a statement that I worked on this article and I believe it feels to be ready to become a FA. Though, I also think that if you nominate it, it is an implied support vote. Zach (Sound Off) 20:45, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
I agree. I think it's unnecessary to nominate and support, but I guess we'd need to ask Raul whether he counts the support vote if it comes from the nominator. 01:59, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
—Preceding unsigned comment added by Rossrs (talk • contribs) 01:59, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

How fast are they coming in?

What is the rate the creating new FAs versus displaying them on the Main Page? Will there ever be a day when we would be considering featuring two a day? Just an idle question, really. Thanks.--Pharos 04:42, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Today is the 273rd day of 2005. On Jan 1, there were 471 featured articles, and today there are 759, for a net gain of 288 featured article -- or slightly more than 1 per day. (1.054 per day) →Raul654 05:02, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
My take is that 1 per day is the equilibrium number and we increase "standards" to maintain this number. I am not sure it is a good idea... Pcb21| Pete 12:14, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Schiavo nomination

Not only were the three nominations a debacle, but the edit warring to replace the nom and the subsequent lingering of the last one well after it was clear the article had no chance have lead me to request discussion about not allowing the article to be nominated for a while. I don't want to incite controversy and I don't wan't to institue time limits, so I think before the article is nominated again it should have a minimum of 5 people agreeing it is worth nominating including at least one or two editors among the objectors in the recent nomination. Since it's clear Gordon's idea of it being worthy of nomination and almost everyone else's are very different I think a restriction such as this is warranted. Gordon is trying hard, but trying and having lots of activity and good efforts do not make a featured article--meeting the FA criteria does. Currently the article is not very close to meeting the criteria. Cue multicolored debate. - Taxman Talk 15:15, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

That seems pretty reasonable to me. If Schiavo gets nominated again in a few days, it seems unlikely to pass no matter how wonderful the article is because there's a lot of ill will regarding the very idea of FACing it again. It's unfair, but I don't think it's possible for the article to really get an unbiased consideration any time in the near future -- too many people have been alienated by the whole affair. Tuf-Kat 16:34, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
"It's unfair, but..." But nothing: You were correct in your initial "gut feeling": It is unfair. ("Gut feelings" are usually correct -so, please, as a favour, stop whilst you're ahead. Thx.--GordonWatts 03:53, 10 October 2005 (UTC))
I think we should require it to spend at least four weeks on Wikipedia:Peer review immediately before its next nomination, however good it it. -- ALoan (Talk) 17:29, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
I'm going to very respectfully disagree with Taxman and Aloan on this. I don't like the idea adding a lot of bureacracy, of throwing up roadblocks to everyone's nomination is a good idea. Especially when it's only a result of a single bad incident. →Raul654 18:20, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
Extraordinary situations call for extraordinary measures. We aren't in a situation where it's all-or-nothing; we can tailor things just to this case. Everything in WP is subject to change via strong community consensus; nothing is set in stone. All we have to do is gain community support for giving this article special treatment (i.e., place additional limitations on it) due to the special situation, and it's done. We have always had the power to do so. If we must write a rule governing the situation, it could go something like "In extraordinary situations, the validity of an FAC nomination may be limited with respect to a particular editor and/or article, when and as agreed upon by a strong community consensus." - Bantman 18:30, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
"Extraordinary situations call for extraordinary measures." Better late than never: I've identified some potential bad editors, and one of them, unfortunately is my friend, FuelWagon, but punishing the article for the editors is not right: Punishing the editors is only fair, and please note who has made positive edits to the article and who has made negative edits -via my links below --in red.--GordonWatts 03:53, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
I don't see the need for a written rule for such a situation, when usually an explanitory note on the user's talk page will suffice. If worse comes to worse, someone can ask me and I'll drop that user a note in my capacity as FA director. →Raul654 18:45, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
Ok, then please do. He hasn't listened to anyone on several requests not to renominate the article. Nor does he seem able to see the article's deficiencies. I really think it shouldn't be nominated until a few other users (not significant contributors to the article) agree it's ready. And of course it's not close now. So while I don't think a general rule is warranted or valuable, I still think it is valuable for this specific case. Since you disagree though, please do go ahead with a note to him explaining he should still follow this procedure and wait at least a month. - Taxman Talk 19:24, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

There is no problem here - if he just puts the FAC up it'll fail if it doesn't meet FA standards. That might be a problem if there was a backlog here - but if anything there is the opposite at the moment. Even if there is a backlog the FAC can just be removed with a kind message to wait a month. Ryan Norton T | @ | C 19:14, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

There is no problem here - if he just puts the FAC up it'll fail if it doesn't meet FA standards." Bingo: The article should be judged on it merit -its own merit, not that of the editor's attitudes, however volatile. If the article is good, it should pass, and if it doesn't meet standards, it should fail, as you say, Ryan.--GordonWatts 03:53, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
People's time is valuable. - Taxman Talk 19:24, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
"People's time is valuable." In addition to the "quantity" of time, "quality" of article is also important, and punishing the article and it's contributing editors (like me and Patsw and Ann and others) because of a few bad attitude editors is not fair to the rest of us, lol.--GordonWatts 03:57, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

The problem is that simply changing the rules probably isn't going to deter the FAC from re-appearing again, IMHO. Besides, AFAIK its just the one case that's the problem. Do you disagree? Ryan Norton T | @ | C 19:38, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

"The problem is that simply changing the rules probably isn't going to deter the FAC from re-appearing again, IMHO." Correct: Other will no doubt see Terri Schiavo's value as an article: Remember: It was Neutrality and others who bandied the idea for a Featured Article long before I arrived on the scene (see its [peer reviews) -and then I pushed the article uphill, and then I nominated it, this time as a more worthy article. "Besides, AFAIK its just the one case that's the problem. Do you disagree?" Well, this article is a problem, I agree, but the source of the problem is not the article itself but the editors. Even in my absence, things are controversial, as the links section get messed up and not fixed, so it is not my fault: I've done a lot of positives, and short of appropriate discipline, the edit-warring will continue: Do you all want that, Ryan and colleagues?

=Gordon's two-cents' worth

Probably in violation of a variant of "Raul's corollary - It is also proportional to the number of exclamation points and capital letters": Changing to Red color -let's add a few explanation points and "adjectives in his/her edit summaries"

Can I say something? The article got rave reviews from all quarters until Calton and FuelWagon engaged in incessant edit warring over trivial matter -"vanity links" or the like? No! Hidden comments about vanity links: Calton's false claim that I posted "vanity" links -I posted hidden comments here + FuelWagon's incessant deletion of some of the relevant legal history of Terri's Law, and his edit-warring over the grave stone issue as well. Should an article be held hostage over two renegade editors? You decide. But, let me warn you: Giving in to terrorist activities (even in editing) never sets good precedent: It's your move, fellow-editors. Note: I am not the terrorist here: I have contributed positively to the article.--GordonWatts 03:39, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

SVG objects

I've been seeing a few come through here. Could we please make these objections more a request? Not everyone is good at SVG editing (I'm not - I use Word!). Really, lots of effort is put into the articles and though I think the idea of an SVG is fantastic, I can't see how it's a showstopper on the article. - Ta bu shi da yu 03:03, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Image checking

I am a bit annoyed by the "trigger happiness" of some reviewers with respect to the image question. On one occasion, a reviewer incorrectly slapped a {{copyvio}} tag on an image (because he had misread a sentence on the source site, which was in a language that (s)he apparently did not read, and had not cared to run a basic Google or Wikipedia search) then slapped an "oppose" on a candidate article "because of copyright violations".

I think that reviewers should be more prudent before taking such actions. If you don't understand foreign languages, ask for help. Use Google or Wikipedia before making hasty judgments. Thanks. See also m:Avoid Copyright Paranoia. David.Monniaux 09:45, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

For those of us who aren't natives of France, "Service photo de Matignon" sounds like a perfectly reasonable name for a commercial photo agency, something on the order of AP Photo Service. Between what looked like a very clear copyright statement, and a very clear terms of use, I didn't feel the need to do a Google search. --Carnildo 18:50, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
Actually, when people (native French speakers) told you you were wrong, you still argued it was a copyright violation. That is why I think that you (but this is also true of others) should be more prudent. I would certainly not argue with a German guy about whether Bundesfoobarsomething is a government service or not without at least making an effort to check. David.Monniaux 19:14, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
I assumed it was a mistake on the order of assuming everything from the Library of Congress website is public domain (surprisingly little of it actually is, despite the .gov domain), since the images at the top of the source page had a very clear statement of "(C) Service photos du Premier ministre", and the terms of use mentioned that not all images on the site were by government photo services. --Carnildo 23:29, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Featuring articles in Wikipedia namespace

I was just reading Wikipedia:How to read a taxobox and found it really well-written and very useful. As it's not a real article it can't be featured, but there should be a way to do something similar to give kudos to the author(s). Is there such a thing? If not, what could be done? Nikola 19:18, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Backlog?

There appears to be a backlog in the FAC page. 38 entries! I'm concerned that the individual nominations aren't getting enough attention (In particular, my Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Isaac Newton/archive1 only got two comments!]]Borisblue 00:43, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Yes - its ironic they are all coming now - now that a lot of the regular FAC patrollers are temporarily busy/away :(. I know Tony is busy until the end of this week, and I'm busy for the moment.... Ryan Norton T | @ | C 11:06, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Personally, I'm trying to get back to reviewing candidates myself. The whole mess with one article that kept getting renominated several times over left me with a sour taste (that and a lack of time to devote to it lately). I will make more of an effort myself to review and comment/vote on other submissions. slambo 17:26, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Metrication?

Hello, It would be great if someone could give their opinion of Metrication. It's been on FAC for days and no-one has voted. Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Metrication Thanks Seabhcán 10:54, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Have given an opinion. Can’t understand why it’s had few comments, it’s a good article on a broad and interesting topic. Hope others will chip in! (Unsigned comment by User:Seabhcan)
I know the reason. Look at the topic just above.. Borisblue 17:06, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Good articles

On this page, we work to identify the best articles that Wikipedia can produce, and they are largely excellent. However, I think there are huge numbers of articles that are good but unlikely to become featured. For example, Boltysh crater probably nominally fulfils all the criteria for FA, but is about a little-known subject so is not likely to become lengthy. I think it would be good to recognise and list articles that are fairly comprehensive, have references, images where possible and appropriate, and are not subject to ongoing edit wars, so to that end I have started Wikipedia:Good articles. I know many people who list articles here also work on articles that for various reasons they probably wouldn’t list here, but are nonetheless interesting, well-written, referenced and generally good, so I’d encourage everyone to go and list articles they feel fall into this category on WP:GA. Thanks! Worldtraveller 16:17, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Image requirement

Now that there is a real drive on to only have freely usable images in Wikipedia, I believe it is time to relax the image requirement for FAs. If we don't, we risk excluding a lot of 20th century topics from this process. For example, there are a number of 20th c. poets I'd like to work up to FAC quality (Louis Zukofsky, Brian Coffey, Carl Rakosi, Basil Bunting, George Oppen, and a load more), but try as I may, I cannot come across usable images. I know that images do add something to articles, but well constructed, informative NPOV articles without images are hard work to produce. By demanding that they also contain images for FA consideration, we may well lose the motivational aspect of this process for a whole swathe of content. Now I'll run and hide. Filiocht | The kettle's on 07:43, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

  • I don't think anybody is objecting to the reasonable use of sourced and rationale provided - fair use images. It's the articles with images that have no source info and over use marginally related "fair use" images that are difficult to justify in terms of fair use that run into problems.--nixie 09:33, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
    • I know, but for bio articles such as the above, fair use really does not come into it. Specifically, one cannot claim fair use for a book or record cover with a portrait of an author, musician, etc for a bio, only for an article on the work the cover is on. For people born after 1900, most of the extant photos of them as adults will be copyright and therefore unusable. I'm speaking from experience; in most cases it just is not possible to find PD photos of these people. Now I like going through the FAC process with articles, but my main area of expertise is modernist literature and I'm looking at a position where, with the current requirement to have images in FAs, I may as well not bother in future. Filiocht | The kettle's on 09:42, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
    • Hmm.. shouldn't official university faculty photos be considered fair use? These seem to exist for most of these poets.--Pharos 09:50, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
      • I'm not so sure. In any case, only two of the 5 listed above were ever on a university faculty; Coffey and Zukofsky. They retired in the 1950s and 1960s respectively, a bit before college Web sites with faculty photos came . Photos on university web sites now (Buffalo, for example) are copyright (often of the writer's estate) and used either with or without permission on pages devoted to the poet's work. In a number of cases I have tried to contact people to ask for permission, but my requests have been almost uniformly ignored. Filiocht | The kettle's on 10:15, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
        • Faculty photos were taken before the advent of the web, and some have been put online since then. Of course the photos are copyrighted; if they weren't we wouldn't have to invoke fair use (permission is irrelevant for this, though of course be nice if someone did agree to put a photo under a free license). The idea is that these photos could be considered "promotional", and we could put Template:Promotional on them.--Pharos 10:28, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Review of existing FAs

As far as I'm aware there is no process for reviewing existing FAs. Having read a few, I've found that they are of very variable quality. This could be down to substantial changes since the review or increased standards for FAs. Is there any review procedure, and if not wouldn't it be a good idea to implement something like this? Leithp 08:52, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Aha, thanks. I should have known I wasn't the first person to spot this problem. Leithp 08:57, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

The bounty board

There is a new project called Wikipedia:Bounty board that provides donations to the Wikimedia Foundation in the names of people who bring articles up to featured quality. Thought readers here might be interested. – Quadell (talk) (bounties) 00:52, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Version 0.5/1.0

Hi, There is a proposal at "Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team" to declare articles which have passed Peer review "Wikipedia Version 0.5" articles and Featured Articles to be "Wikipedia Version 1.0" articles. There is also a proposal to protect peer reviewed articles from edits by IP users and Featured article from non-admin edits. For each FA a "suggested changes" copy would be created which would be open to all edits. Please voice your opinion of these proposals at the above talk page. Seabhcán 09:04, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Good articles

(Moved to Wikipedia talk:Good_articles#Good articles are bad? Johnleemk | Talk 08:49, 2 November 2005 (UTC))

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