Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/archive21

message: I tried adding "When you nominate an article, please consider also choosing another article from the list to review." to the instructions and was told that was not a good place for it.  I would like to encourage more participation in FAC; what do people think would be a good way to do this?  --Ideogram 19:30, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Inform relevant WikiProjects and noticeboards; you are a lot more likely to get knowledgable reviewers that way than any other (unless you know specific, appropriate individuals to solicit). - Jmabel | Talk 06:22, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Noticeboards? -Ravedave (help name my baby) 05:25, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Regional notice boards. Titoxd(?!?) 05:26, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Encouraging participation 

message: I don't like to whine, but I was wondering how to make sure a FAC gets enough third-party attention. I've put Serial Experiments Lain up for two weeks now, and it has had only four answers. Is there a place to post about that?--SidiLemine 14:03, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, adding a note to relevant WikiProject discussions (like anime, tv series, computers?) is a good idea. You can also leave messages on talk pages of editors that in the past have significantly edited this article or discussed it. Beyond that, it's just luck...-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  17:24, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for Comments 

message: Since the Nov. 11 promotion, none of the failed facs have had the fac template updated on their talk pages.  Should I/someone do that?  If so, where do we find a list of all that need replacing?  Do we go through each one, by reviewing the history here?  Sandy (Talk) 02:41, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Archived nominations/November 2006 and Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Archived nominations/December 2006 Raul654 02:45, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, Raul, I'll work on them.  Sandy (Talk) 02:54, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Done.  Sandy (Talk) 03:49, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: facfailed template

message: The vexed issue of date-links occasionally takes up space in the FAC room. I'm trying to gather support for an attempt to have the developers create a parallel syntax that allows dates to be autoformatted without being linked, while retaining the current system. We hope that this will have a number of benefits for the project, including a reduction in conflict. 
The discussion, draft request text, and list of supporters are here. Tony 08:42, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  autoformatting and date-links 

message: I was peer reviewing Psycho (1960 film), and found it tagged (with a big ugly tag on the article page) as "extra-long" by the Wikipedia:WikiProject Extra-Long Article Committee.  It was 53KB overall, lots of inline citations (about 90), and had 38KB of prose: lots of overhead in references.  These folks are trying to hold articles to the old 32 KB limit, before inline citations improved, and when technical limitations were different.  If they're going to be tagging anything over 32KB, that would result in many FAs carrying this ugly tag.  Sandy (Talk) 06:33, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ack. Sometimes articles have to be long, no matter what Wikipedia:Article size says. Titoxd(?!?) 06:35, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: double-ack.  I just came across Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Extra-Long Article Committee/Conduct, and I'm troubled that the committee doesn't seem to be calculating prose size at all.  Sandy (Talk) 07:04, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I found their project page today as well. They even compare themselves to the IRS — no one likes them, but they do necessary work. I'd just remove the templates for now; they seem to be concentrating efforts where there's the least amount of opposition for the moment. — BrianSmithson 07:59, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I noticed they aren't really frying the bigger fish, that need to be fried (the massively huge articles), rather going after a little film article with 38KB prose.  They indicate on their Conduct page that they plan to gang up and go after editors who remove tags. Wikipedia:WikiProject Extra-Long Article Committee/Conduct  It bothers me that they don't even seem to be considering calculations of prose size. Version when I checked.  Sandy (Talk) 08:07, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Yeah, I left a note on their talk page as well. I'm also highly concerned about the wording of Template:Long-article-committee (the version I'm looking at, in case it changes). Sounds like something official, is vaguely threatening, and it is definitely off-putting to newbies. Gzkn 08:30, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: They are starting off very cabal-ish:  In addition to their "Conduct" page, they also have a revert page.  Wikipedia:WikiProject_Extra-Long_Article_Committee/Reverts and a whole team-tagging strategy of how to get articles below 32KB.  They're even rating talk page reactions to decide whether to back off:  very un-Wiki-like.  They appear to believe 32KB is a hard and fast limit, and they don't seem to account for readable prose or references.  Even though WP:LENGTH says, "Readers may tire of reading a page much longer than about 6,000 to 10,000 words, which roughly corresponds to 30 to 50 KB of readable prose," the tag I removed from Psycho (at 38KB prose, explained on the talk page) was just re-instated, with no talk page dialogue from the "committee" member.  WP:LENGTH is a guideline allowing for a calculation of readable prose:  I don't know why they are picking on an article with 38KB of prose, but a hard and fast 32KB limit will affect FAs.  Sandy (Talk) 10:28, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Length of article depends entirely on the subject matter and the organisation of the material. Overlong articles are self-evident because they contain non vital material that would be better moved elsewhere. On articles which cover broad and diverse subjects, and are potential gateway articles to other pages, such restrictions will impede information and diminish the credibility of the page. If the articles are well organised, going above 30-50KB is not an issue for readers. To attempt to apply a rule as an absolute would be disasterous, ignorant and should be resisted.--Zleitzen 13:11, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Discussion has moved here. Sandy (Talk) 13:14, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Extra-long?

message: New text was added to the Project page, targeting Featured articles, FA review, and editors of Featured articles.  The text inserted by Tim Vickers about overall size vs. prose size was removed.   I reverted these changes, and discussed on talk page, where FA editors are accused of "derogative attacks".  Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Extra-Long Article Committee.  Sandy (Talk) 15:18, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Again

message: The ELAC may have been misguided in its approach, but there is a problem when FAC lets through an article with 91KB of prose (127 KB overall), as we did this week.  I believe we've now reached a new high in ultra-long FAs.  Apparently, because of the topic, few regulars bothered to review the article (I didn't).  For anyone interested, you can get Dr pda's script for easily calculating prose size, and I implore other reviewers to please begin watching for basic structural items like length and compliance with minimum standards such as WP:MOS, WP:MSH, WP:GTL, etc.  We should be looking at these articles which truly are "extra long" and asking about WP:SS.  On a related note, we also need to make sure that supporters who are significant contributors are following the FAC instructions. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:00, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: A problem

message: I would like to close the Serial Experiments Lain FAC, as there is material to add to the article, and copyediting to be done, in order to re-submit it in 2-3 weeks. I couldn't find how to do this, could someone point out the procedure please? Thanks--SidiLemine 16:40, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: except the template also has to be changed on the talk page:  if SidiLemine wants, I'll do that.  Sandy (Talk) 20:49, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. The template has been placed, I'll now remove it from WP:FAC.--SidiLemine 10:18, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  closing an FAC 

message: This article seems to have regained its FA status, yet there's no sign of the process at[] being closed/decided. --Dweller 09:17, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There are no top/bottom closing templates for FAC - the list at WP:FA is definitive. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:20, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But someone arriving at Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Bodyline wouldn't know it's been closed and could waste their time contributing to a closed debate. And if he/she can't bring themselves to mention on that page that it's closed, wouldn't it be polite for the person who closes the process to at least let the nominator know whether or not their nom has been successful? Why this insistence on opacity? --Dweller 12:26, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The person who "closes" the process is User:Raul654, who decides on all promotions and failures here.  I suspect he would be rather displeased to have yet another thing to do. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:37, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not so sure that Raul654 being busy is a terrific argument against changing things if they aren't optimal. Of course there may be better arguments as to why a nom can't be visibly closed, but if this is the only one, can't someone help Raul654? Are we so short of people who understand what makes something an FA? And, now that you mention it, I'm not sure it's a great idea having just one person deciding these things anyway, for all kinds of reasons. Heck I know I'm a skinny wet-behind-the-ears newbie and I'm sounding kind of arrogant telling all these admins and whatnot that the systems they've been using for yonks aren't very good, but... they aren't. Sorry. --Dweller 13:27, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think part of the reason there is no "closing" tags for FAC is that nobody really thought it was necessary. FAC pages are difficult to stumble upon accidentally. People usually find them from the article talk page - where it will be clearly indicated if the FA was successful or not by the change of template. Gimmetrow 14:37, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well, AIUI, it was thought at the time - early 2004, IIRC, and [] some months later - that a single person was needed to keep control of the FAC process, and decide what would be "featured" on the Main Page, to avoid different standards, edit wars, etc.  OTOH, the other "featured" content pages (WP:FLC, WP:FPC, etc) and the other Main Page selections (WP:POTD, WP:SA, WP:DYK, WP:ITN) seem manage with a cohort of admins to do the closing/selecting/updating.  -- ALoan (Talk) 15:32, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

text: While that's true, the people who've already visited the page and commented will probably have it on their watchlists and there's no reason to think they have the article or main FAC page on their watchlists, so unless they check either before revisiting the page they wouldn't know the process was completed (something the template below won't solve). Yomanganitalk 15:53, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: ah, yes, correct.  On the other hand, most people watching a FAC/FAR are also watching the article, so would know what's on the talk page.  Sandy (Talk) 16:02, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Bodyline]] 

message: I'm not certain how this idea will go with the community, but I'm proposing a bot that will monitor Special:Prefixindex/Wikipedia:Featured article candidates checking if one is present here (Wikipedia:Featured article candidates). Those that are not currently FAC's but old discussion it will tag with one of the Archival templates to show that the discussion is closed. The bot can run, I guess, once a week. This could help improve organization and can also fix any user mistakes, for example, commenting on an FAC directed there another page like Special:Contributions/ or a WikiProject news template, not knowing that it had already failed/passed. Just wanted to see how people feel about this here before going to Wikipedia:Bot requests.  - Tutmosis 15:56, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My response is probably a tangent (sorry), but with the holidays approaching, it's increasingly harder for me to dedicate time to FA.  Any possibility of putting that off to January? In theory, I like it - just don't have time to focus on it. Sandy (Talk) 15:58, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've put in a bot request for this, only following the simpler method of watching the FAC archive and log to tag failed/promoted respectively. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 23:47, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think Raul tags all the promoted FACs (and I think he wouldn't turn that over to a bot, not sure? - so the bot would need to doublecheck, and indicate article was promoted) - so it's really the facfailed tags, which I've been doing.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:56, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is for tagging the FAC pages, not the articles themselves, though. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 00:04, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: ah, yes, good idea - then the same bot could flag the WP:FARs - same task, in reverse.  The archive is at Wikipedia:Featured article review/archive.  SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:27, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bot idea 

message: Is there a maximum number of song samples on an article to be worthy of FA? M3tal H3ad 04:46, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: In order for an article to be worthy of FA, it must meet the criteria. Since song samples are usually copyrighted they should be only added if they help understand a large part of the subject, and to answer your question samples barely if at all influence an article's FAC. Lastly there is no policy on minimum/maximum number of samples per article. See also Wikipedia:Music samples for further information on samples.  - Tutmosis 17:04, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Allright, thankyou for the reply. M3tal H3ad 06:58, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Song samples

message: I'm rather discouraged by the quality of some of what is offered up as FAs and by some of the articles that have succeeded (Cladistics, for example, is utterly awful imo).  I think that this process goes rather fast.  This may be because more participants have more time than I do to review the articles.  However, it seems that there is a sense of a need to do this quickly.  How much time does it usually take for an article to go through FAC? Is there some minimum/maximum?   I would like to comment on more articles but simply don't have the time. KP Botany 21:13, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Most of the articles from 2004 don't meet the criteria set in 2006, as its undergone big changes. As for your question for how long, it all depends on the votes and the person who nominated. Articles with all objects and major problems get failed quickly. While articles with even votes and the nominator making the necessary changes can take a number of weeks (see scouting). I hope that answered your question. M3tal H3ad 05:48, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For old FAs not meeting the current criteria (2006's criteria are not the same with 2004's) there is WP:FARC and WP:FAR, where I encourage you to participate (until recently there was a backlog). As far as the time is concerned, there is no official time limit and no time pressure. Raul is the final judge to estimate when there is a final consensus (or not), and I know FACs that have been there for more than a month; I think Macedonia (terminology) stayed there almost two months until it was approved.--Yannismarou 12:39, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks.  I think I need to take speed reading classes, though.  KP Botany 20:35, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  FAC in general 

message: The project now has a special section for FAC articles in need of a copyedit. Perhaps we could advertise this in nominations where prose seems to be the only major obstacle. Gzkn 02:44, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Cool!--Yannismarou 16:42, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Wikipedia:WikiProject League of Copyeditors]] 

message: Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention.  Badbilltucker 19:57, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia Day Awards 

message: How come the nomination page isn't archived tile XFD nominations? It would make looking back on the old pages easier and the outcome accourding to the director would be explained. Has this been mentioned before? The Placebo Effect 16:11, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it's been mentioned before; I think the main opposition to archiving them like XfD's was the addition of even more work for an overburdened FA director (User:Raul654). However, I thought I heard somewhere that there was a plugin for WP:AWB that made closing XfD's a simple affair. If so, it probably wouldn't be that hard to modify the plugin for the purposes of an FAC. And I'd be willing to do the archiving in that case. Anyone know about this plugin? Or is it just some figment of my imagination? Gzkn 00:52, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  How to end FAC?

message: The Featured list candidates could do with more reviewers. The holiday season hasn't helped. The criteria are very similar to Featured Articles. Have a look and see if you can contribute some of your time there too. Thanks, 12:02, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Help on Featured list candidates 

message: Concerning article: Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia
There are few truly reliable sources written on or even relating to the last Grand Duchess of Imperial Russia (both on the internet and in print). I have been bolstering the article in preparation to nominate it for FA status since the summer of '06, but now I must go through the article and thoroughly cite the facts/assertions (with footnotes presumably). I am wondering if it would hurt the article's chances of entering FA status if one source is used several times? The source is The Flight of the Romanovs: A Family Saga, written by John Curtis Perry and Constantine Pleshakov. Olga Alexandrovna Romanov (the subject of the article in question) is listed as a consultant in the book and a contributor of personal information, which evidently is a rarety. With the credentials of such a book so great, would the FAC allow one source to be used several times over? Thanks. -- AJ24 00:02, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's perfectly normal for a single source to be cited multiple times in a featured article; doing so shouldn't lead to any difficulties. Kirill Lokshin 00:06, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A lengthy question. 

message: I have been attempting to add Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Massachusetts Institute of Technology for FAC review. I proceeded through all of the steps, however, when I try to edit the FAC project page, it states that the link (turkishweekly) is spam blacklisted, although MIT does not exist on the blacklist nor turkishweekly in the link or article! Can someone help me resolve this? Madcoverboy 07:11, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Wow, this is a weird one. I can't even find the turkishweekly link in the blacklist! Maybe try the blacklist talk page or the technical Village Pump. Gzkn 07:35, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK. The entire FAC page is uneditable! So it's not just a symptom of trying to add the MIT FAC... Gzkn 07:36, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You beat me to it by a fraction of a second - I edit conflicted ;) Raul654 07:45, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

text: (edit conflict with Raul) Found the Turkish weekly links. They were in the Turkey FAC. I commented them out for now, and added MIT (the FAC page is now editable). I have no idea why they are on the blacklist though...it's a news site no? Gzkn 07:47, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Spam_blacklist#Turkish_net Raul654 07:48, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah whoops. I added a "proposed removal" before I spotted that... Gzkn 07:54, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  MIT FAC