Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/archive17

message: Is the Encyclopaedia of the unusual really a featured article?  I couldn't find the FAC on it. Шизомби 14:10, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is because they transcluded Exploding Whales, which is an FA, but also has a spoken version of it. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 15:40, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Wikipedia:WikiReader/Encyclopaedia of the unusual/Dev]]

message: *1. Check the featured article criteria and make sure the article meets all of them before nominating.
*2. Place UNIQ3955154a7002a5c3-nowiki1832cedd26bad27000000001 on the talk page of the nominated article.
*3. From there, click on the "leave comments" link.
*4. (If you are resubmitting an article) Use the Move button to rename the previous nomination to an archive. For example, Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Television → Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Television/archive1
*5. Place UNIQ3955154a7002a5c3-nowiki1832cedd26bad27000000002 at the top.
*6. Below it, write your reason for nominating the article.
*7. Finally, place UNIQ3955154a7002a5c3-nowiki1832cedd26bad27000000003 at the top of the list of nominees on this page by first copying the above, clicking "edit" on the top of the page, and then pasting, making sure to add the name of the nominated article.
What's going on with this page? UNIQ...? Does anyone else see that? —BorgHunter ubx (talk) 22:19, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I see it. It looks like it's been happening for a few days now. Oy. —Bunchofgrapes  (talk) 22:30, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes, it's very strange. This revision is fine, this one breaks, but the diff shows nothing unusual. All of the UNIQ* strings correspond to nowiki tags in the template - presumable MediaWiki replaces them with unique strings, parses everything else, and then is meant to substitute the contents back... MD87 22:30, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed it.  Somebody used  tags in a transcluded discussion, and apparently that broke the formatting on the FAC page.  Is this likely to happen often enough that we should put a note somewhere saying not to do this (or figure out how to make it not break the page)?  RobthTalk 22:37, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I don't think so.  As I understand it, all the parsing of the wiki-code is done server-side; all our browsers see is the html and css that's produced.  But just to check, take a look at User:Robth/sandbox and tell me what you see.  RobthTalk 21:05, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is distorted. Then perhaps I had not been logged onto Wikipedia at the appropriate time. Excuse my error. —Eternal Equinox | talk 14:27, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What on earth? 

message: My appologies if this has been brought up before, but I ran across an interesting case today that made me think about our policies.  It seems a year ago the article Many-worlds interpretation was up as a FAC.  It was rejected because it was written in a style only understandable by specialists.  This article came to my attention because one of the authors cited in this article's reference section mentioned to me a few months ago that he had looked at the article.  He went to the article with the intention of improving it and told me that the article was so good that he had nothing to add.  This I take to be a ringing endorsement of the accuracy of this article.  Now, there is no doubt that a non-specialist couldn't get much from this article.  Readability by a wide audience is included in Wikipedia:The perfect article but not in Wikipedia:What is a featured article?.  I think we ought to discuss the extent to which this ought to be a criteria.  In particular, I can think of many articles in my area of expertise that simply could never meet this condition because bringing the audience up to speed on the topic would make the article simply to long (and would be off topic). Sorry so long... thoughts? --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 05:09, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the criteria already covers this in section 2 It is well written, comprehensive, factually accurate, neutral, and stable. The definition of well written may be a stumbling block for this type of article (a) "well written" means that the prose is compelling, even brilliant;  in that use of complex terms doesnt necessarily make compelling prose for those that dont already have an interest. Maybe this should be redefined as something like -  well written means that the style of prose is compelling to the articles audience, even brilliant  in other words when you comment on a FA nomination you consider those that will chose to read the article, after all this is an encyclopedia not every topic needs to be understandable to the average 14yr old. Gnangarra 08:46, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that the article is pretty good; however, its lead section is inadequate (presumably parts of the "overview" should become the lead, but they need explaining in much simpler language); further, it would be helpful to have a section for the layman at the start, before delving into the details, as recommended in Wikipedia:WikiProject Science#Proposed structure of articles. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:19, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for your comments.  I didn't mean to start a conversation about this article in particular.  I may nominate it for a FAC when I have some time to dedicate to improving it based on people's suggestions.  What I wanted to talk about was whether or not we should expect a FA to be understandible by a wide audience.  I have a few articles I'm working on that will simply never meet that criteria, and so I have some interest in whether this is taken to be a requirement.  --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 19:20, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, this is an encyclopedia, so I would expect that certainly the lead section, and ideally a few sections after that, would be comprehensible to the interested layman without preparation.  I would not be concerned if an article on a technical topic went beyond a layman's comprehension to give a proper treatment of the topic (indeed, I would expect it). -- ALoan (Talk) 19:28, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Yep, I was thinking about this when reading quite a few articles in various biology, math., etc. topics. IMO it would be good to request "Article title" for Dummies section in hi-tech articles, written in the Manual of Style. What do you think? `'mikka (t) 21:10, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Ugh, no - there's a fine line between writing for non-specialists and infantalizing them. Your proposal is too much the latter. Raul654 21:47, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

text: In some areas, Wikipedia's depth is the same as a specialized encyclopedia in that area (i.e. far more in depth than any general encyclopedia). These articles can not "start from scratch". They _have to_ rely on other articles as building blocks. So the best we can do for the total neophyte is to link all the relevant keywords, give as a close to real world application as possible and make sure the sentence structure and grammar is good. Some Feymann-esque simplifying real-world analogy would be ideal. More mundane idea: a little sidebar saying "For more accessible articles in this topic area, see ...". Better to get a wider pool of FAC reviewers than throw out great articles just because they are too specialized. Pcb21 Pete 21:42, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think we should be throwing them out, but I don't think asking for at least the introduction to be accessible is asking too much. Eigenvector has a perfect illustration in the introduction. Raul654 21:49, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that's a great illustration and heartily encourage that sort of thing. Indeed, I think we should be using sidebars for text content more than we are in general. (Presently it is just images and template boilerplate stuff that goes there) Pcb21 Pete 22:14, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

text: I do like the introduction to eigenvector, especially the illustration.  This does give me some idea of what we're looking for.  I should note, that someone who had not had any math beyond high school would be lost in the intro.  Phrases such as "non-null", "vector", "transformation", and even "set" are not going to be well understood by many college graduates.  It may only be the availability of graphical representations that saves this article from being over many people's heads.  I'm not sure such representations are possible on all topics, but perhaps I'm just not creative enough... :) --best, kevin [kzollman][talk] 22:54, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes I think Raul's point was that the illustration saves the day. I agree that even eigenvector is a "basic topic" in that it is taught in schools in most countries. However I do think the general technique should carry over to some extent to genuinely specialized topics (topics taught only to post-graduates in a relevant subject for example). Pcb21 Pete 07:42, 11 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Specialized pages 

message: I wrote a message to the mailing list appealing for volunteers to overhaul former FA Ian McKellen following his criticism of the article. As its relevant to the FAC process, I thought I'd link to it - http://mail.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2006-April/044401.html. Sorry about the lack of line endings! Pcb21 Pete 21:24, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Ian McKellen

message: Can I suggest that it be a flat requirment for all support/object votes to come with a full reasoning and critique of the article. (All ones which do not should be commented out, and only used in close cases)
I raise this because of the amount of people who regularly post with just 'as with above', 'Unstable, see WP:WIAFA' or 'very good page'. This really isnt demonstrating the amount of critique that should have been applied to deciding if the page is FA quality. Not only should this dampen use of wiffle bats and 'I voted for it because I like the subject matter', but actualy provide much more usefull feed back to how an article needs improving. --Barberio 19:00, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think, as with other votes of this sort on Wikipedia, it's more important to have reasons for objections than support votes, so that editors can deal with the objections to improve the article. It is implicit within a support vote that the editor believes the article has met the featured article criteria, so I don't see the benefit of requiring them to mention which criteria have been met when it should be all of them. Because of the way the process works, ten support votes are of equal value to two - it's the presence of an objection, or lack of any support at all, that stops promotion. —Whouk (talk) 19:09, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Would the page work better as a negative version of approval voting, 'dissaproval' voting maybe, with a requirment for a full critique in oppose votes? --Barberio 19:16, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it effectively is the opposite of approval voting (not sure what the technical definition of that is, though).  It would be ornerous to give a full critique for an opposition, though, because only one objection may be necessary.  If I see that the article is not comprehensive, I can object based on that, and that's a perfectly valid objection, even if I don't check on image tags or brilliant prose or anything else. "Me too" voting is, I think, generally frowned upon, but it can also be helpful.  If you and I argue over the neutrality of an article, it will probably not be possible to resolve the concerns of the objector and Raul may not promote because of possible neutrality problems; if a dozen people vote "me too" support because they think the neutrality objection has no merit, then Raul (might) conclude that the opposition is invalid (perhaps I'll object to anything that presents the side I don't agree in, for example).  The vast majority of me too votes really aren't helpful, but I think Raul more or less ignores them anyway; I think most FACs have a pretty clear consensus one way or the other, so a few me too votes don't matter too much.  Tuf-Kat 19:54, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem outlined is what I call "drive-by" voting.  It's especially common on the AfD pages where people vote based upon the tenor of the preceeding comments.  I discovered this when I was trying to change a voter's mind in AfD and discovered by the reply that the voter apparently hadn't even read the article.  It was quite a revelation, especially considering that the same person had voted on a number of other articles within the same time span.  My own guess is that there was some edit-countitis related to a run for an admin position.  My own suggestion (which no one liked) was to cap the number of votes at a certain level, say three to five votes a day.  That way, the person voting can't run up the score and will presumably spend more time actually writing and editing articles (what I think were actually supposed to be doing) rather than getting their name out among decisionmakers and voting on stuff that he or she has not even reviewed.  Jtmichcock 01:44, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The problems you speak of are very real. But they are less of a problem for FAC than for AfD or RfA. All three are in theory not votes, but discussions combined with straw polls in order to elucidate information and gauge consensus, but — sorry to say it — AfD and RfA function for the most part like straight (evil) votes, and the main value of stating a reason is to try to sway other voters to your side. Not so at FAC, where one very clear objection can overcome any number of support votes, and any votes made for reasons that have nothing to do with the featured article criteria are ignored by Raul. —Bunchofgrapes  (talk) 01:55, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The term mission creep seems applicable here, with the mission of some people being to open their mouths and spout vapid and conclusory dismissals of articles in order to sway opinion and make themselves look important.  Instead of trying to suggest improvements or (heaven forbid) making the improvements themselves, articles are often met with perfunctory dismissals.  I have been reading Wikipedia Signpost off and on and the number of new featured articles has been steadily declining while the number of removal candidates has been on the increase.  The sad reason is that too few see any obligation to help; it's all about making themselves look better.  The FAC process is turning into a contest to see who has the sharpest tongue to villify the submissions.  I never vote on FAC for good reason: I'd rather expend my efforts actually writing good articles.  The caution should be expressed that there's only so much abuse anyone will tolerate.  Jtmichcock 03:32, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

text: As usual, Taxman has stolen my thunder. Raul654 23:37, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal to stop people making 'me too' and checkbox support/object entries. 

message: A consensus seems to be emerging on Wikipedia talk:Featured article removal candidates for some kind of merger between the review process on WP:FAR and the removal process on WP:FARC. More ideas and points of view are welcome. -- ALoan (Talk) 16:12, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: [[WP:FARC]] / [[WP:FAR]]

message: Some pages like today's featured picture article White's Tree Frog have been moved after it was featured. During featuring it was White's tree frog. So now the discussion page of White's Tree Frog does not link to the FAC discussion of this page. So if there is no problem can that page be moved to Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/White's Tree Frog?--Raghu 15:16, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. Pcb21 Pete 17:27, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Best practice in these cases is to create a redirect at the subpage for the new title, or move the old discussion subpage to a subpage named for the new title.  Moving an article can also disconnect if from the discussion at WP:PR or WP:FARC or WP:FLC, for example. -- ALoan (Talk) 22:24, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Page moves after Featuring 

message: I recently nominated Fujiwara no Teika; some valid opposes popped up at the same time as my own life grew a bit hectic, and so I didn't have time to address them. But shortly after the FAC closed, I had time to fix it up.  What's the minimum acceptable time between nominations? --maru   (talk)  contribs 03:57, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The most commonly discussed time is a month. You could go shorter if you got a few regular FAC reviewers to agree that you have done a very good job of correcting all the legitimate problems brought up before. That would nicely avoid a time limit and also the problem with repeat noms where the only person that thinks the issues are fixed is the nominator or otherwise involved editors. - Taxman Talk 19:53, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Guess I'll wait the month, then. I don't know any FAC regulars, and it's not like there aren't other articles I've been working on. --maru   (talk)  contribs 07:09, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Really? The other option seems the better one. There are plenty, just look at the fac page and see who's up there a lot. Johnleemk, Titoxd, Aloan, any of those would be excellent. - Taxman Talk 13:38, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it all depends on the level of improvement the article received from its editor. If the improvements are immense and all objections about the article were corrected, it could even be in a week's time. --Siva1979Talk to me 20:20, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How soon is too soon for a second nomination? 

message: The guidelines makes it clear that WP:SUMMARY should be applied to FAs, is it pertinent to expect some amount of quality from a FA subarticle? Say, if the subarticle has less information than the section in the main article, or if it has no reference whatsoever while its summarized conterpart is weel referenced, can we reasonably oppose the nomination? See for example my  peer review for Cornell University. Circeus 01:09, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: We vote for the article in question, not the quality of subarticles; though some coherency should be maintained so that contradictions are not observed. If you plan to summarise a subarticle without sources, it mean that the entire section is unreferenced, thus violating a compulsory criteria of WP:WIAFA. As far as you nom is concerned, why don't you add references to the subarticle? =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:09, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Subarticles 

message: By the way, I'd like to point out the following: the writing does not have to include life; this is not listed at WIAFA?. —Eternal Equinox | talk 23:01, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is absolutely ridiculous! Someone really needs to put an end to this. I asked you on your talk page to stop communicating with me,  yet you just don't stop harrasing me! I'm really at my wits end with you! I don't want to comment on this, just like I didn't comment on your request for adminship (which obviously failed miserably) because I WANT NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU!! LEAVE ME ALONE! It's so transparent that you're doing all this (e.g. request for adminship, nominating this article for a fourth time) as a pathetic plea for attention that you can only get by antaganizing the community, no one can be this dense. No one. You have an uncanny talent for bringing out the worse in people. I actually have a question for the administrators, I know there's a rule that users can be banned for "exhausting the community's patience". I really think there would be a tremendous amount of support to ban Eternal/Hollow/Cruz, and all of his/her IP addressess once and for all. HeyNow10029 23:47, 3 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Although this is not relevant to the FAC discussion, I shall respond: I have to warn you that media you uploaded is going to be deleted and therefore, I contacted you. I also contacted you to please provide input in this discussion since you objected last time. Everything else you've mentioned is really unusual. Of course I'll leave you alone; to be honest, you and I have never communicated on a friendly basis. And no, I am not nominating this article for attention; does anybody on Wikipedia do that? I've nominated it so it can become a featured article. And who is Cruz? o.o —Eternal Equinox | talk 23:53, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Thank you! By the way, I removed the "z" in front of "omg" since... well, I think you know why. Feel free to replace it if you'd like for any reason! —Eternal Equinox | talk 00:56, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I did re-add, it was meant to be satirical, internet slang and all that, I just found it inappropriate that someone is bringing those comments into a FAC. Should have gone to your talkpage :) -Mask  01:00, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I would also like to add that the nominator showed a large leap of good faith on my talkpage, which erases any issues that I had with previous conduct. -Mask  01:00, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "We belong together": personal debate 

message: How many support votes are necessary to achieve Featured Article status?  Am I correct in assuming that even one unaddressed objection is enough to prevent it?  Ideogram 18:30, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See the above thread Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates#Proposal to stop people making 'me too' and checkbox support/object entries. =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:37, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

text: "Am I correct in assuming that even one unaddressed objection is enough to prevent it?" - depending on the severity of the objection, yes, this is possible. Raul654 19:00, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  how many votes to achieve FA? 

message: I'm fed up with seeing peoples only reason for opposing an article as 'not many citations', when it is usually the case that the very fact that this article is up for potential FA status is that it abides by just about all the WP policies. Some articles are about the things where there is very little to cite, i.e. rules of a game, you do not need to cite, however if it is a historical, especially a political one, article almost everything needs to be cited, so using number of citations as criteria for how well an article is cited is wrong. I really get the impression some people scroll down an article and think 'ooh, a list, and only 15 citations, this article must be crap.' without actually thinking, well maybe there is something to be listed, and not many things requiring citations. I challenge every person who says not many citations as their reason to go down the article putting  tags on everything that needs citing. So then they might see if the article actually needs more citations or not. Philc TECI 21:53, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you have a specific article in mind? -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 22:55, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: With regards to any nomination, if you believe an objection is invalid, state your case there.  If you staunchly believe you are correct, feel free to insist on the point.  Raul will judge your case, and if he agrees with you, then the objection isn't valid.  Remember, FAC is not a vote.  Fieari 07:22, 5 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citations 

message: I was asked to copy-edit Indian Institutes of Technology, and did the lead, which required heavy editing (I've worked a lot on articles on the subcontinent—it's a worthy endeavour). However, I didn't realise at the time that it was a FAC, and now I see that it was promoted just two weeks ago. 
I see that the one POV objection during the FAC process has not been thoroughly addressed, with remaining clangers such as "it had established itself as an excellent academic institution". Says who? In the lead, I see that there's an inline citation (prompted by my objection to the POV); yet when you follow up the reference, it's a Congressional document referring only to Indian graduates in the US, whereas the text to which it is appended says: "considered to be a benchmark of academic excellence in India and beyond". Sorry to be picky, but let's use the references precisely. A Congressional document is hardly going to be balanced or authoritative, given that US votes are at stake. Have a look at it.
Under no stretch of the imagination could the prose be said to meet the requirements of 2a. Here are examples from just one section from the middle of the article.
**One paragraph starts with "As per ..." While we might start our reviews with "as per so and so", this latinism does not belong in the prose of our articles. 
**The Act "was suitably amended to reflect the addition"—how could it have been unsuitably amended for that purpose?
**The Committee "laid strict guidelines"—as though they're eggs laid by hens.
**"the the following seven colleges"—nice, and followed by a long list of bullets, too.
**What are "discretionary residual powers"—are both epithets required?
**The history "dates to 1946"—there's a word missing here.
**Many parts of the article could do with more commas, both for meaning and ease of reading; this is not just a matter of personal style.
**"The committee also felt that such institutes should not only produce undergraduates, but also researchers and academicians." Are two alsos a wise decision for this sentence? Unless you're referring to "a member of an academy, esp. of the Royal Academy of Arts, the Académie Française, or the Russian Academy of Sciences", the last word is inappropriate; what's wrong with "academics"?
Then under "Educational rankings":
**"in the world in their World"
**"The IITs strong only in their undergraduate programs ..."
**"Another of the common criteria being the Social Science Citation Index, the rank of IITs suffer as they don't have large departments ..."
**"Also, since the IITs do not get international students (except by exchange programs) and faculty because of paying in Indian Rupee which is ..."
**"... there has been a call to boycott them." Well, this dramatic claim requires a reference: who made that call? It's not covered in ref. 34 that follows.
In case I'd just struck two bad patches, I looked at the top, and found "Their locations have been deliberately selected to be scattered throughout the country in order to ...". No, just about every sentence beyond the lead needs fixing.
Now, I have a great deal of respect for my subcontinent friends, but I'm afraid that this should NOT have been promoted. As a Good Article, it might have had a chance to gradually improve to the point where we're not embarrassed by putting forward its prose as representing "our best". Where are the reviewers to stop this kind of promotion happening? A few voiced serious objects; e.g.:
**Nichalp—"it still needs a copy-edit [by other editors]" plus concerns about referencing.
**Anwar: "... I am more concerned about absolute lack of information as to how/why IITs are considered superior to other educational institutions ...".
**Spangineer—many, many examples of problems in the prose, including: "Hope this helps. Please look for these problems throughout the article and don't just fix these examples. If I only wanted the examples fixed, I would have done it myself." This was met by "If there are any more actionable concerns, please let me know." At one point, the response to Spangineer's advice was "That is just stupid." The question is, why did these reviewers end up supporting the article. Perhaps they're tired of a process that makes them work very hard to make an impact. Look at the sea of fans you'd have had to go against.
Something is very wrong. Lots of hard work went into preparing this article; why can't the prose be fixed? I'm listing this now for Major Review on the FAR page; it's most unsatisfactory to have to engage in the churning of a recently promoted article, but I don't see an alternative if we're to retain any semblance of dignity.
Tony 10:12, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds like a good candidate for FA removal. Everyking 11:31, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Comment: I would like to add that Spangineer and Nichalp both gave it a thumbs up after changes were made.  Tony's selective quoting makes it seem like they were against it becoming FA.  That is misleading and I hope that it was done by mistake.  Furthermore, "that is just stupid" comment was made by me but it is again funny how selective quoting works.  I gave an example and was commenting on that example.  I was not attacking Spangineer and I do not think he took it in that manner either but you would have to ask him about that.  Selective quoting for the win?  Good job being misleading. Finally, I strongly object you branding hard working wikipedians who supported that FAC as fan boys. I have nominated articles for FARC that I have worked for months because I did not believe they met the FA criteria.  Attacking other users and their opinions in this manner is mean-spirited. --Blacksun 23:40, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, you're right with respect to that one instance, and I withdraw it. The rest, however, stands. Glad to see that you withheld the assertion that I'm "obnoxious" that you wrote on my talk page. Tony 01:31, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *shrugs* I don't know you that well to judge you in that manner.  I meant to call the act of implying everyone else as fan boys as mean-spirited and yes, obnoxious.  I am not really sure what exactly you are withdrawing and standing by but I have made my point clear.  I think you could have stuck to pointing out what is wrong with the article without a) attacking other users b) using selective quotes to make it seem like some of the more well-known users supported it from some type of peer pressure.  --Blacksun 05:55, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Mean-spirited and obnoxious I'll wear with a smile, rather than a shrug. It was the "stupid" comment that you're right about, above. Please don't take all of this personally—it's not meant to be personal. It's just about language. Tony 07:11, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I am not sure how your implications are not personal but ok? I would like to know from Nichalp and spangineer if they voted yes because they felt overwhelmed by peer pressure.  Have you talked to them about this? Both of them seem pretty capable to me of standing their ground and have a proven track record to do so.  Anyways, I will ignore the personal comments that were made by you and focus on comments related to the article.  --Blacksun 15:30, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

text: It's problematic if the "sea of fans" aspect allows articles to be promoted in spite of unaddressed problems. I would support removal of FA status for the unaddressed POV objection alone. This article may suffer under the requirements of 2a, but even if met the requirement, brilliant prose can mask POV or poor references.  Unlike 2a, NPOV is a pillar of Wikipedia, and even one unaddressed POV objection supercedes all other concerns. Sandy 11:14, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Undermining our standards: another disappointing promotion 

message: There's an ongoing discussion on the FAR talk page here regarding the abundance of FAs with no inline citations (by my count, about 350 of them). Right now, the proposal on the table is to leave talk page messages about the deficiency, wait a pre-determined amount of time, and begin weeding them out. More comments/input/suggestions/etc. is welcome. Cheers! The Disco King 16:38, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Those articles either need fixing/updating now, or they must have their FA status removed. — Wackymacs 12:13, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  .  Rather than just telling someone to fix something, how about looking into the articles and helping to fix them up?  I don't mind so much seeing the standards improve, but when one volunteer says something is bad without offering to help or at least offer specific actionable suggestions, it's going a little too far.  If you think something is bad, then lend a hand and help to improve it.  We've all got a limited amount of time to work on articles here.  Let's spend that time constructively by improving and fixing things rather than arguing about them.  Slambo (Speak) 12:57, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

text: *I have written quite a few FAs and  have written them to the criteria required at the time.  I have absolutely no intention of spending further hours re-sourcing various long ago borrowed and returned books and page numbers,  just to satisfy the whims and fancies of the moment.  If that were to be the case there would be no time to move on and explore new subjects.  The important thing is that work is referenced  - the precise how-so is unimportant.  To FARC so many already adequately referenced pages would be ludicrous and serve no one well.  However, If it is the consensus of the community to commit such an act of vandalism - then so be it, but it will be Wikipedia's loss. Giano | talk 12:26, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's a good point, Giano. Tony 12:33, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Wikipedia's loss" - you're acting like we're going to delete your precious writings and articles! Seriously, I *love* footnotes - they are very useful in articles, they show that it has been referenced and verified very well. I'm sure you spent a lot of time, but times change, and now the FA criteria and requirements are stricter. — Wackymacs 12:34, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

text: What bothers me is not the fact that inline citations are required or not, but the double standard between past and current FAs and FACs. It takes three times longer to write an article using inline citations than without using them. So potentially, you spend N hours to write a FA while you could write 3 of those. Why should new editors be disadvantaged? -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 12:55, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This isn't a contest to see who can write the most. In point of fact, there is no double standard. Look at the top of WP:FAR (which is what the FARC became) - Insofar as requirements imposed after an article was promoted, the consensus has been to hold older articles to the current standards. It doesn't get much plainer than that. Raul654 12:56, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I totally approve the creation of WP:FAR. However, as far as I understand, FAs will be reviewed up to current standards, which is exactly what I suggest (I never proposed plain removal of them from FA status, let it be clear :) -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 13:07, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Problem is, what you're forgetting, is that footnotes are terribly useful for readers, and that's what an encyclopedia is meant to be, useful; just in-case you forgot. — Wackymacs 12:56, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *Please do not be so presumptious as to try and guess what I am, or am not, forgetting.  Stick to the proven facts not you imaginations about my memory. Proven facts are what are useful on an encyclopedia, more so than any one particular way over another of proving their source. Giano | talk 13:09, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, you've just basically said it yourself - and with facts, citations in the form of footnotes are necessary. — Wackymacs 13:13, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

text: *No! If the only way you can win your argument is putting words into the mouths of others, that is a pity. I said, if you care to re-read "Proven facts are what are useful on an encyclopedia, more so than any one particular way over another of proving their source" IMO, so long as the facts are in one of the listed reference books that is sufficient. Sources can also be listed in the text itself in any number of ways, including Harvard style.  I shall not be debating this issue further with you, as I object to your twisting of words, and method of debate. Giano | talk 13:22, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well this argument/debate is going nowhere anyway because you are getting too stressed and are reacting too strongly over a small issue. Oh well, nevermind. — Wackymacs 13:27, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Well, now.  I am a big fan of inline citations, but if you look at a paper encyclopaedia there are many articles which are a distillation of several cited sources with no individual fact being attributed to a single source.  I'd like to see Robert Hooke as a FA; it has sources, but deciding to which of the sources each fact should be attributed, especially when they all agree, would be tedious.  Or am I missing something?  Just zis Guy you know? 14:37, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's true that few encyclopedias cite sources with footnotes. But most all academic papers do. And if you think about it, it makes sense for Wikipedia for the same reasons that it does for academics. WP is peer reviewed, so are academic journals. If sources are cited, it makes everything so much easier. Wikipedia is targetted both at general audiences and essentially academic ones, so while the World Book might not use footnotes, that's okay because it's just targetted at general audiences. Few readers are going to be peer reviewing the articles. --W.marsh 14:57, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Of course we don't—and shouldn't—regardless of anyone's personal preference for footnotes (which I'll admit I share).  But the article must have some form of citation more exact than merely listing a five-hundred-page book at the bottom (particularly when the book is a general work not dealing specifically with the topic of the article).  Whether the more precise references take the form of footnotes, parenthetical citations, or some other format is irrelevant; what matters is that they be somehow available to the reader. Kirill Lokshin 15:01, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What Kirill said. For instance, when you quote a book on WWII to get just one casualties figure, you absolutely have to have some form of inline citation - not just mention the book. -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 15:04, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed articles should cite sources, and it should be clear which sources support which parts of the article. But the parallel with academic papers does not hold up - we ar an encyclopaedia, not an academic journal, and encyclopaedia articles differ from academic journal articles in several important respects, including that they are intended to be read and understood by a reasonably well-informed non-specialist audience.  I suspect that articles on newer subjects, more controversial subjects, and subjects which are in active discussion in the academic press, will have more inline references, and articles on historical subjects, those where the consensus is settled, or which are not considered controversial, would have fewer.  In the Hooke article I'd expect inline cites for the picture, the Newton debate, and not much else; the balance is supported by common consent the several excellent treeware references cited.  Just zis Guy you know? 16:10, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Disco King, could I ask you to walk a mile in our shoes first? I think you might find your perspectives on the whole FA system (how it should work and what benefits it has) changing if you wrote an FA or two.   (Right now you have fewer than 250 main-space edits, and I admit that leaves me a little surprised.) It's easy to talk nobly about improving the overall quality of the encyclopedia and forget about another important facet of the FA scheme: it's an incentive system. There are few enough rewards for really doing the hard work of researching and writing around here. Leaving the authors and their feelings out of the equation when evaluating FA reforms is a mistake. —Bunchofgrapes  (talk) 17:29, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Brushing aside all ad hominem attacks, do you have anything to say about the points that I made? The Disco King 17:36, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I knew I was opening myself up to it, but I still take exception to the notion that I have made an ad hominem attack here. If someone applies for a job, but has no relevant experience and that is pointed out to them, is that an ad hominem attack? —Bunchofgrapes  (talk) 18:00, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

text: * I rather just think he has said it all! Giano | talk 17:38, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Just because writing FAs is hard and takes a lot of work doesn't mean we should put up with FAs of poorer quality. This whole encyclopedia is basically built on the incentive system. I'll ask again: do you have anything to say to the points that I made? The Disco King 17:48, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

text: * Are you discussing FAs of poor quality? I wasn't, and I don't think Bunchofgrapes was either. Giano | talk 17:51, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If an FA doesn't have any inline citations, then it isn't necessarily of inferior quality to an FA that does. But it's more likely to be of poorer quality. In the absence of footnotes or parenthetical citations, any new information that's added to an article looks at first glance as valid as the material which was originally researched. Inline citations are a safeguard for quality; without them, the quality of an article can deteriorate, which is what has happened with many (but not all) of these older FAs. Adding inline citations will not only improve their form, but also their content. The Disco King 17:56, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *But this is the encyclopedia anyone can edit, so a fully referenced and cited paragraph, is only reliable when it has not been edited by anyone other than it's creator.  Are you suggesting once a page is fully cited it is closed to further editing - Or that an FA is immediatly defeatured once it has been edited by an "anon" Giano | talk 18:26, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Piping in here. Of course not. Ideally, the primary creator(s) of the article will monitor it and will delete spurious material on sight. That's how I've been handling "my" FAs. — BrianSmithson 19:43, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

text: *Sadly "my" is the optimum word, even in inverted commas.  Many editors cannot monitor pages on a daily basis, some not even on a weekly.  There is no way of telling if there is even an "editor-in chief" still on the scene for many pages.  It is only all too easy for an un-sourced anecdote, fact, or even deliberate attempt at sabotage to be edited in.  I think the safest thing is if "in -line cites" for all facts becomes essential, then the moment a page passes FAC -  it must become immediately protected and closed to future editing.  That way we can all sleep safe knowing the integrity and referencing of the encyclopedia is protected. Giano | talk 20:50, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: First, I suspect someone is making a WP:POINT. Second, your concerns are exactly why we have WP:FAR. — BrianSmithson 21:00, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: He's making a point through satire; that has nothing to do with WP:POINT. It would be WP:POINT if he were to go through and protect all the articles, or similar. —Bunchofgrapes  (talk) 21:05, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right. I was being sarcastic, too. — BrianSmithson 21:40, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

text: *Please  come up with a rational response, do not hide behind WPs when you can think of nothing else to defy logic.  It is a simple fact that the moment a cited paragraph has been edited by someone else it cannot any longer be 100% completely safe and trusted - can it? Giano | talk 21:10, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *That's silly; it wasn't "100% completely safe and trusted" to begin with, since (as far as I know) nobody actually checks the citations prior to promoting an FA.  That is the point: it is much more difficult to check whether the changes are backed by the provided references if no specific citations to those reference works are available. Kirill Lokshin 21:16, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I could not agree with Mav more. He is quite right. Giano | talk 21:43, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: FAs without inline citations

message: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Selena I felt was removed and failed prematurely. It only got 3 objections, one of them fixed but the vote couldn't be changed because of the opposer becoming inactive. Another oppose vote was very questionable. Thanks Jaranda wat's sup 02:13, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Selena]] FAC 

message: Having watched two recent FACs (Hurricane Irene (2005) and Hurricane John (1994)) pass, when in both cases the point was made that as they were so short they could not "exemplify our best work", I'm questioning what purpose criterion 1 of WIAFA actually has. Seeing how FAC only cares about actionable objections and when criterion 1 does give one of those it is better expressed through the other criteria is there any point to criterion 1? To me it seems like it is the short answer to "What is a featured article?" but the description on WP:FA covers that better. I think we should either remove criterion 1 or make it clear it is unusable in FAC.--Nilfanion (talk) 08:33, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see why a short article can't exemplify our best work. Tuf-Kat 10:46, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I objected to both those nominations on the grounds of criterion 1.  I'm simply mystified as to how the six paragraphs of main text that make up Irene's article, and the 12 in John's article, can be considered to rank as among the very best articles that Wikipedia can produce.  Most FAs take weeks of effort to write; these look like they could have been done in an afternoon or so.  They're simply not in the same league as most FAs.  Worldtraveller 11:19, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps WIAFA should be changed from opening "A featured article has the following attributes" to "A featured article exemplifies Wikipedia's best work by having the following attributes", that preserves the intent of criterion 1 but removes the ambiguity in its status; objections based solely on it don't seem to have any status. Those 2 articles are significantly shorter than most, but I don't think we ever could seriously claim that all FAs are equivalent in amount of work put into them. Perhaps an idea for these less significant FAs is to expand , adding an option like was used for promoted GAs. This would put them into Category:Non-Main Page FAs (or similar) and put in the featured tag "This article is not appropriate for TFA because...". This would make the illegible FA list explicit as opposed to how it currently is.--Nilfanion (talk) 11:33, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That slightly misses the point, though.  There's nothing wrong with keeping criterion #1 as it is; the concern raised above really boils down to "I felt the articles' length prevented the from being our best work but other people disagreed."  Unless we make all of the criteria purely objective checkbox-type ones, we'll always have differences of interpretation—and of opinion about the article in question. Kirill Lokshin 14:18, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I certainly agree that not all FAs have had the same amount of effort put into them, but I do feel FA should recognise editors who've gone the extra mile to make an article very good indeed.  Giving this status to articles that surely didn't take very long at all to write seems to me to undermine the claim of FA to represent the very best.  To make an analogy, my PhD thesis was good enough to get me a doctorate - not deficient in any way, met all the required standards, etc etc.  But it would be totally inappropriate (even I would admit) to nominate it for a Nobel Prize.  Worldtraveller 15:50, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that's wrong, FA recognises the articles whose editors have put a lot of work into them, not the editors. I suspect the amount of time spent on the articles is approximately proportional to its length (the major work on Irene took about a day). There is two parts to FA, its Wikipedia's highest level of quality validation (or should be) and recognising articles to be showcased. The latter function is truer to the name "Featured" but the former is what it is (and was when it was "Brilliant Prose").--Nilfanion (talk) 17:03, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I meant 'recognise articles whose editors have gone the extra mile'.  Those are the sorts of articles that should be on the main page.  I don't see much point in 'featuring' an article which even its supporters said was too short actually to be 'featured'.  Worldtraveller 06:46, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

text: This is a problem I've always been quite annoyed about - articles which are too "short" to be an FA, but simply can't be added to because they're already at an appropriate level of comprehensiveness for an encyclopaedia article. I think we should make an effort to disassociate comprehensiveness from length, because people tend to confuse them a lot. (And FWIW, length of time from creation to nomination appears to have been used as GA criteria, judging from the articles they rejected, but not for FA; I nominated articles like Something and Second Malaysia Plan within hours of creation, and both passed.) Johnleemk | Talk 15:33, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Articles still fail alot because of size, see Jack Tatum for example a nicely written rather short article but failed because of it's size in FAC. Thanks Jaranda wat's sup 17:14, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

text:  Well, if we consider FA status as a quality benchmark (which is how I see it), then there is no reason why a short article can't be featured. Comparing to other articles that require longer prose is comparing apples and oranges. If an article meets all the quality criteria, particularly comprehensiveness, then it exemplifies Wikipedia's best work. There's two alternatives to that:  giving short FAs a separate process, or not allowing them to be featured. The first seems wasteful and repetitive, and the second essentially takes away any motivation for the 1,000,000 articles in Wikipedia to be of the highest quality possible. Titoxd(?!?) 03:48, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Realistically, FA doesn't provide any incentive for those million articles anyway; it would take three thousands years for them all to reach FA status at the rate this process goes.  I don't know if Irene and John will ever appear on the main page, but if they do I can't help thinking a lot of people will click on 'more' and be a little bit disappointed that there isn't much more.  What would have been the problem with Irene and John being GAs, while Katrina and similar substantial articles about notable storms are nominated on FA?  Worldtraveller 06:46, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Why is FAC slow? If you doubled the number of nominations, you would increase the output substantially. That may reduce quality, but I don't think anyone can know that for certain. I think FAC has a low turn-over because editors aren't submitting enough articles to allow a higher turn-over. The fact FAC is a hard process is a fundamentally good thing, but it could be that which deters the noms. Given the FA production of the cyclone wikiproject at the moment I suspect it is highly unlikely that those two will be on the main page, why pick one of those when theres plenty to choose from?--Nilfanion (talk) 10:21, 15 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Criterion 1 

message: Our images are suffering from a great but preventable evil, but I need your help to stop it.
Occasionally someone observes that our thumbnails are rather blurry at times. This is usually blamed on high levels of jpeg compression (an example of such a thread can be found ). This theory is, however, incorrect.
The problem isn't caused by JPEG (although a higher quality setting would prevent artifacts and be a good thing). The problem isn't caused by our downsampling (We're using lanczos filtering which is pretty close to mathematically perfect). The problem is caused by a oddity of the human visual system: Our sensitivity to acutance decreases as transitions become smaller.  So when you shrink an image you must artificially increase the acutance. This process is called sharpening, it can often be over done... but used correctly it is essential to maintaining the quality of a reduced size image. Sharpening must be done at the target display resolution, if you sharpen then downsample, you lose the sharpening, unless you sharpened excessively for the larger file. 
I've been aware of this for some time, but it never really concerned me much because I didn't do any side by side comparisons.  After uploading an image last week which looked like crud after thumbnailing, it came to the front of my mind, and as a result I mentioned sharpening on an unrelated thread on wikitech-l... I still didn't consider it an evil that we had to fight right away.  But someone pointed me to that commons thread, and that caused me to do some side by side comparisons... and after doing them, my interest in uploading new images decreased a lot.
From left to right we see actual detail, mediawiki's thumbnail which looks out of focus, and a sharpened image.
At some point in the future we may gain the ability to set per-image sharpening settings. But that will be a way out. One thing we could do *today*, is set global sharpening settings. We've already measured the performance impact (none), and it would be a single line of code change. The problem is... what setting? There are two main parameters for sharpening, radius and amount.  There are good rules of thumb for radius based on the expected DPI of the display device but there is no good rule of thumb for an amount... the amount of sharpening an image can take seems to depend a lot on how noisy the image is... fortunately 200px thumbs are usually not very noisy. :)
So what I'd like to ask people to do is to startup your photo apps, scale some bigger images to common thumb sizes (don't forget the ~650ish px wide image page images), sharpen using unsharp mask, set your radius between .8 and .5,  and figure out what the largest amount of sharpening all of your test images look OKAY with. This number might depend on the size of the thumb, or the ratio of the start image size to the thumb size.. if it does, tell me that too. If and only if we are able to find a safe value which doesn't make images look bad, and makes some look better, then we could activate it on all the Wikimedia sites very quickly.  Oh and feel free to restructure/reformat this post to make it easier to read.--Gmaxwell 03:59, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting, but I have to ask a question: is built-in unsharping of thumbnails something that other websites or software programs have ever done before?--Pharos 04:09, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

text: So this is basically a test? =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:05, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Seems that at least some other sites do sharpen thumbs, but as best I can tell there is no established 'right settings', it appears that the amount was simply selected by the person writing the software. We could do that.. I could prepare a bunch of test images to convince Brion that some setting is 'right'. The problem is that if I do so someone will quite possibly find an image that the settings look ugly with... so I'd like to avoid that cycle by soliciting community input before we patch Mediawiki. --Gmaxwell 17:19, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Software programs?  Sure.  Light unsharp masking always makes digital photographs look better, so unless you're using a high-end DSLR camera and recording to RAW format, any digital photo you take is pre-sharpened by the camera. --Carnildo 06:14, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Carnildo is correct. Another point is that a number of automagic thumbnailing things (websites, browsers on OSes other than mac OS, etc) use low quality downsampling which tends to have a sharpening effect. --Gmaxwell 12:00, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, it certainly seems like a good idea to me.  I don't really have the photo skills to help in implementation or even evaluate it professionally, but the demonstration images above are quite compelling.--Pharos 16:02, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Wee! I intended to put this at the talk page of WP:FPC. :) I guess I'll just leave a note directing people here.--Gmaxwell 12:00, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The contrast is startling.  It would be great to have some kind of guide (perhaps posted at Commons) to help people through the various issues involved in cropping and resizing jpg files.  It isn't as intuitive as one might expect.  Jkelly 17:25, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Great idea, but shouldn't this be directed at WP:FPC or WP:VP, or even somewhere on commons, rather than here? -- ALoan (Talk) 19:32, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Commons is very slow to discuss, the community is not so active. If we get traction here we can take it there to confirm that people there are okay with it too.. there is a not on FPC pointing people here. I posted to the wrong page at first.. DOH. :) --Gmaxwell 21:02, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

text: 30px radius unsharp masking is a lot slower than 1px radius unsharp masking and may be too slow for us to use in thumbnailing. Further, I'm not too confident that we should be solving problems which aren't created by thumbnailing... i.e. the goal shouldn't be to make the thumbnail look better than that orignal, one picture's better may be another ones worse.  It would be interesting to examine the effects of thumbnailing on aparent contrast some..  In any case, I agree that the 1px 40% looks fairly good for this picture. The question is, can we apply that automatically to all thumbnails and not end up with any that look terrible as a result? --Gmaxwell 13:34, 22 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Calling all sharp people.  

message: I am going through film articles, now looking at The Birth of a Nation.  I look at the Talk page, and it says it is an FA candidate.  It has a discussion page that has some comments on it, over a month old, however it is not listed on this project page, and it doesn't seem to have been closed out or even listed properly.  What should I do with this?  Just place it on the FA candidates page so it can get closed out, or does an admin want to just close it?  Please don't hurl spoons at me - just not deeply familiar with the process for this type of thing. Aguerriero (talk) 22:08, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Someone forgot to tag the article as having failed its FA nomination. I have fixed the talk page. Raul654 22:14, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Need help with a possibly botched FA nomination