Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/archive12

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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 . --SPUI (talk) 14:49, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  SVG 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: Featured article advice

message: 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)
replies: text: standards change as do articles.Geni 19:33, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

text: 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)

text: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text:  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)

text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  How a nomination is done? 

message: 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
#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)
thread_title: Issue 1: The FACfailed template

message: 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
#Oppose. I think this would be overly strict and unnecessary.--GordonWatts 13:52, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Issue 2: The "What is a Fac" standard

message: 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)
replies: text: Thx for the offer, Mark. That's not the only time policy was changed in reply to my concerns:  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)

text: 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)
thread_title:  Featured article comments 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Featured article removal candidates 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: —Preceding unsigned comment added by  Rossrs (talk • contribs) 01:59, 25 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Self-nominations and voting 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  How fast are they coming in? 

message: 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)
thread_title: =Gordon's two-cents' worth

message: 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)
thread_title:  SVG objects 

message: 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  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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title:  Image checking 

message: 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)
thread_title: Featuring articles in Wikipedia namespace

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: Backlog?

message: 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)
thread_title: Good articles

message: 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)
thread_title: Image requirement

message: 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)
replies: text: Aha, thanks. I should have known I wasn't the first person to spot this problem. Leithp 08:57, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Review of existing FAs 

message: 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)
thread_title:  The bounty board 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Version 0.5/1.0 

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