Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates

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FACs needing feedback
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Radcliffe, Greater Manchester Review it now
Star Wars: Rogue Squadron Review it now
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[edit] FACs requiring extensive third-party copy-editing

I think these candidates should be archived and re-submitted because:

  • It is getting hard to distinguish FAC from Peer Review.
  • Of more concern (to me at least) is that it is not fair on those nominators whose FACs require extensive, third-party copy-editing, but do not receive any offers.
  • Occasionally supporting comments no longer relate to the current version of the article after the CE, because errors have been introduced, (I am not throwing stones, I am guilty of this).
  • These candidates remain at FAC for too long.
  • Subtle pressure can be applied to reviewers to take on the task of copy-editing.
  • It does no harm.

Any comments? Graham. Graham Colm Talk 18:00, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Just one: Amen. Dabomb87 had a great quote at the Sunderland FAC, which just closed. In response to a reviewer who was critical that opposers didn't want to edit the article, Dabomb said: "FAC is meant for fine-tuning, it is not a build-a-Featured-Article service." He's right and so is Graham. The point about new errors being introduced by copy-editing in particular is excellent. I haven't been re-reviewing articles that I've supported because my time is invariably taken up by new reviews. This is something that I will pay closer attention to in the future. Giants2008 (17-14) 20:27, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
I think the key is that we as reviewers need to oppose rather than leave it as comments. Without opposes, Sandy can't archive. Karanacs (talk) 20:35, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
I suppose I could, if I wanted to be regularly chewed out for closing FACs with no commentary, and I do if I must, but I'd rather think that my "job" is to measure the consensus of reviewers rather than make all the decisions myself :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:49, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
I for one would welcome our new FAC overlord :P Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 21:02, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
I think opposing based on the prose and saying something like "these issues are too extensive to fix at FAC" vs. "these issues can probably be fixed by one quick copyediting sweep" might help us (and Sandy) determine the difference between articles that need a quick polish and those that need hours of work. Awadewit (talk) 22:30, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
I agree. As a side note, I think it might be a good idea to gather a group of editors who are willing to help copyediting FACs upon request. –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone 22:35, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for all these very helpful comments. I think we should oppose those FACs when "these issues are too extensive to fix at FAC", apply, (thanks Awadewit), and maintain our opposition despite offers of extensive copy-editing. It might be helpful to find a diplomat and ask them to write a generic comment to explain this, thank and encourage the nominator to re-submit. (I think Tony could do this well IMHO). Graham Colm Talk 23:25, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

The prose would have to be pretty dire for me to oppose on that basis alone, rather than dig in and fix the problem. --Malleus Fatuorum 23:35, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

How many hours are you willing to put into the copyediting? Awadewit (talk) 23:37, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
Depends on the pay. ;-) To be more serious though, I tend only to get involved in the FACs of those articles I have some interest in, so in those cases the answer is usually as many as it takes. Just for the sake of completeness I'll point out that I already do a very great deal of copyediting at GAN, and similarly would never fail an article just because of prose concerns. Sometimes that involves a great deal of work ... --Malleus Fatuorum 23:47, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
That seems to be the nub of the issue. There aren't a lot of editors who are willing to take on a decently researched article that needs major copy editing; many of the editors who are capable of doing a good job of this (quite reasonably) prefer to work on their own choice of articles. A good number of my copy edits have been done when the article was on FAC, or in preparation for FAC; however, I tend to avoid articles that don't or won't meet other criteria (images, reference sources, external links, etc.). I've willingly put in up to 40 hours to work on an article that I know is within reach of a successful FAC, and the primary editor(s) are interested in collaboration rather than ownership. Requests for assistance, however, have always outstripped my availability by a margin of 3 to 1 (and I'm even less available now than ever before). I've yet to figure out how we can encourage more editors to focus on improvement of content instead of just expansion of it. Risker (talk) 23:55, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
  • More people need to be ready to read & place quick opposes on articles when the prose clearly falls short, even if they are not willing to fix it and are not interested in the subject. The main problem is that some articles then receive half-assed copyedits that don't move them much nearer the proper standard, but you have to keep rechecking the article to confirm that. Johnbod (talk) 23:55, 12 January 2009 (UTC)
If it is a new person who has not submitted before, I will often try to use comments or apologise for opposing and be helpful. However, I will use opposes for definite dealbreaker issues. The other issue is the degree of copyediting as a benchmark. Very tricky. I am willing to copyedit, though limited time often means I prioritise those I am interested in. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:00, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
eg, I didn't actually think the Sunderland AFC one was that far off, still maybe focussing on it now and listing outstanding issues woill be good to show the reviewer that it is not a catastrophe to fail. This might be a good thing for prose fails. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:02, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
As reviewers, we should differentiate between quick-fails (problems that can't be fixed during a candidacy), regular opposes (substantial problems that can be fixed during FAC) and straight comments (polishing). If an article should be quick-failed, we should put that in bold instead of just opposing. This will allow the closers to measure consensus and have a good reason for quickly archiving an FAC. Giants2008 (17-14) 00:34, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
From my chair, there is no such thing as a quick fail; I will archive a nom sooner rather than later if many reviewers find it seriously deficient in many areas. Otherwise, as long as FAC instructions were followed, they all get a fair chance. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:30, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
It's not so easy to differentiate, and except in the most obvious cases I'd be against quickfails. Committed editors can achieve the most surprising results, particularly if one or two FAC regulars are assisting. --Malleus Fatuorum 00:38, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
How many "regulars" are there that are willing to assist? Do we have the resources to offer a copyediting service and keep up a good reviewing rate at the same time? Awadewit (talk) 00:47, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
I remain to be convinced that the reviewing rate is a problem. However, you make a good point. --Malleus Fatuorum 01:14, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
As a supplementary, I wonder how many articles get through FAC without copyediting help from the FAC "regulars"? None? --Malleus Fatuorum 01:34, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Good question. I can't think of any that I have nominated or seen. I will chekc mine for the 'smoothest run' Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:37, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Some of mine have - see, for example, Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Mary Shelley. Awadewit (talk) 01:40, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
I think an excellent writer like yourself can probably do it in niche areas like 18th-century literature, but there are very few with your skills and knowledge submitting FACs. --Malleus Fatuorum 01:45, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Well, I just started looking at the FACs promoted in December and there are quite a few that were promoted without copyediting by the regulars. I haven't looked at other months. Awadewit (talk) 01:53, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Also without copyediting from any of the reviewers, whether you consider them to be FAC regulars or not? --Malleus Fatuorum 02:01, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
If you mean, are there any FACs that passed without a single change during the review process, probably not, but this is a wiki. There are, however, FACs that have passed without extensive copyediting efforts on the part of reviewers (regular or not). Awadewit (talk) 02:05, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
For the record, by far the smoothest runs I have had are Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Banksia spinulosa and Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Amanita phalloides, most need double the amount of work or more. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:39, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
So that would be a "no" then. --Malleus Fatuorum 02:46, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Indeed. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:48, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Butting in, I agree with Awadewit above. I seriously doubt that there has ever been an error-free article—but that's not the point. Honestly, IMO, too many articles nominated here need substantial copy editing (I'm an offender, excuse me), and should pursue a second or third peer review. I also believe that an article should not be allowed to be nominated without at least one PR. ₪Ceran →(slip→sled →snow) 02:13, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, there I will have to leave you. I think that PR is by and large a waste of time, but I fully accept that's just my opinion. --Malleus Fatuorum 02:44, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
PR is useful for getting articles to GA; for anything more significant, it can sometimes slow everything down. –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone 02:49, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Slow in what sense? I find that peer reviews slow me down in a good way. I take more time to assess my prose and I am able to respond the needs of readers unfamiliar with the topic which I may not have been aware of before. Awadewit (talk) 02:56, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
I think regardeless of whether an official PR, or a request to uninvolved editors is immaterial, as long as there have been more eyes to look over the article is the thing really. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:14, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Quite. PR is an irrelevance. --Malleus Fatuorum 03:23, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Aaawwww, that's a bit mean. I do try and pop in from time to time, just overloaded alot of the time these days :( Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:31, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, that sounded harsher than I meant. I didn't mean to say that PR was generally irrelevant, as I suppose that those who are lucky enough to get anything other than an automated review are grateful for the feedback. I simply meant that I don't see PR as a useful step towards either FA or GA, unless the article's editors have no other third-parties to call on for advice. --Malleus Fatuorum 03:38, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
OK, everbody's Good Deed for the Day, --> Go to WP:PR, take 5 mins to look and drop a few notes on a PR candidate, anything, doesn't matter, pretty quick and easy to find some content or prose issues. Go for it and make WP a better place! Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:43, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
A thought: In addition to making a LoCE-esque list of people willing to help at FAC time, could we have a list of folks who could be "run-by" people, who might indicate to potential FACers – before the FAC is started – whether the prose is ready? This would take much less time, and could save a ton of trouble. (IE: "The prose needs work. Get a copyedit before you submit it to FAC.") Just a thought. Scartol • Tok 03:45, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
I was going to raise this point - PR and (in particular) LoCE traditionally gives little feedback; as long as editors are able to get some feedback and help from PR or LoCE, then FAC would stop being an avenue of first resort. - Mailer Diablo 03:18, 14 January 2009 (UTC)

No matter how much copy-editing is done, there are bound to be editors who are not satisfied with the prose. There are too many hands in the cookie jar -- too many stylistic preferences and overlooked glitches. None of us are perfect, and all of us differ slightly on everything from optional commas to the use of certain transition phrases. Perhaps it's better that all of this is occurring on one level; otherwise, FACs will always encounter turbulence on the basis of prose (I used to generate a list of what I considered to be prose issues in even the most well written articles). — Deckiller 04:47, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, to a point, but a FA is not supposed to be perfect, and it is often not too hard to broadly differentiate between poor and good prose. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:50, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, and that's why I started voting "neutral" toward the end of my time here; I was a nitpicky bastard. If an editor not proficient in copy-editing notices significant prose glitches, then it's obviously a problem that cannot be remedied with a few casual passes. If a couple editors agree, then they should be bold and move the page to a copy-editing center of some sort. After two weeks, a consensus could determine if the article is suitable for FAC or should be placed on a two-month probation from FAC. Heck, I think all failed FACs should be placed on two-month probation, specifically to avoid "luck-of-the-draw" reviewing. — Deckiller 05:04, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
The point about the commas is worth considering for a moment - there are several styles of comma usage. Rather than complaining about an article's style, I would much rather see editors focusing on consistency in this matter. The serial comma, for example, is optional, but if an article chooses to use it, does it do so consistently. Awadewit (talk) 05:01, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Good point. After all, the article writer(s) are usually innocent scholars who don't want to get involved in Wordnerd Wars Episode XLIV. — Deckiller 05:04, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
I started out 18 months ago at LoCE, and it was wonderful until the to-do pile fell over one day and squashed everybody. Then I moved to PR, where I happily beaver away when I'm not writing about obscure creeks. The PR pile might have toppled and squashed everyone there too except for User:Ruhrfisch and other sturdy souls. Often the reviewers suggest to authors that more c/e would be helpful, but with LoCE kaput, where are they going to find a copyeditor? Some don't, and they bring the prose problems to FAC. It would be easy to solve this problem if a pile of extra editors were kept in a big bin behind the cooler. Hmmm. A 10th-grade biology teacher recently encouraged his students to submit their Wikipedia articles to PR. A lot of them did. They seemed extra fond of ghastly diseases and poisonous snakes. Well, my thought is that maybe a batch of college students in English and journalism could be induced to copyedit for Wikipedia. It would give them hands-on experience that they couldn't get in a classroom. Finetooth (talk) 05:08, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
Yeah, I was there too. The workload just became unbearable, and the articles required more than one copy-editor; someone had to be the poor soul to go through it first, and then watch their changes get edited, and then those changes edited, and so on. The problems were just so deeply rooted that the copy-editors were practically rewriting the articles instead of simply going through the usual glitch checklist and offering some other pointers.
You have an amazing point: Wikipedia has huge potential for hands-on lessons. Why write a boring research paper when you can do the same thing on Wikipedia, especially since the typical high school research papers has less than an ounce of independent thought? Why review the same ten examples from a textbook when you could copy-edit whole articles? Wikipedia has so much potential -- scholars need to stop stigmatizing Wikipedia and start tapping into the project to actually, gasp, make it better. — Deckiller 05:26, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
It might not be such a hard sell. The problems here are real, and nobody has the answer book. The subject matter is anything you can think of that can be sourced. The interactions are with real people, mostly total strangers, from all over the world. Everybody's work gets edited and published, and the best of it is really really good. Not boring. So, anybody know any English professors? Finetooth (talk) 06:05, 13 January 2009 (UTC)
As an English-professor-to-be who teaches writing, I have often thought of having my students copyedit Wikipedia as part of an assignment. There are three problems with this: 1) Learning how to edit Wikipedia takes too much time for such a small assignment; 2) The majority of the students I have could not successfully copyedit a FAC or even a GAN - their writing is too poor (sad, isn't it?); having them copyedit stub through "B" class articles seems pointless, though, as these often need to be substantially rewritten; 3) Copyediting Wikipedia requires understanding Wikipedia's basic policies, which take a while to learn. Usually, therefore, we just copyedit a Wikipedia article together as a class. Awadewit (talk) 19:44, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

<outdent>You've thought this through much further than I, and, alas, you are right on all three counts. I have another idea, although I don't know what to do with it. A sizable group of retired writing teachers and/or journalists might find the project exciting. I'm pretty sure most of them use Wikipedia, but they might not think of themselves as potential Wikipedia editors. Since they don't all hang out in the same place, maybe the best way to recruit is by word-of-mouth. Not sure. Finetooth (talk) 20:18, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

To what extent is this about ease of reading and understanding and what extent is it about to MOS minutiae? --Philcha (talk) 20:44, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
To what are you referring? When I consider whether or not have my students copyedit Wikipedia, for example, I never worry about the MOS - what I worry about is how long it will take them to understand WP:NPOV, WP:V, etc. Awadewit (talk) 20:51, 15 January 2009 (UTC)
I think your priorities are right. Unfortunately MOS minutiae have put some editors off submitting articles for FA review, and the private comments of others who have not been deterred would sometimes make Sigmund Freud blush. --Philcha (talk) 09:42, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

(undent) Oi, I Opposed the Japanese racing thing for this reason, and everyone jumped me like I was a malodorous sass-monger. Now I'm copy editing. Ahem. Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 10:47, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

Wrong. I was the only one who jumped you :). A general comment though: opposes based on a general view of the article must be actionable opposes; nominators can easily be turned off by comments that say "the grammar is clunky" or "I don't agree with the sentence structure". You can talk about the dangers of turning off reviewers, but equally you don't want to turn off nominators. Apterygial 10:53, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
Wrong, but I'll elide several points and stick to those that can be discussed here. ;-) The word "actionable" is the catalyst that has permitted the transformation of FAC into PR. It's the hole in any membrane separating the two. Some devotees to that word are those who have enacted the transformation. It could well be deleted from WIAFA, in my opinion. Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 13:27, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
"It could well be deleted from WIAFA, in my opinion." Ling, do you mean FAC instructions? The key here is balance; I think that it is more helpful to provide examples of problems that need to be fixed. However, it is hard to draw the line between giving the nominator something to base their copy-editing off of and actually copy-editing the article for them [as a reviewer]. Obviously, the former is preferable. Dabomb87 (talk) 13:41, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
Just saying "This is badly written" or "There are defects in the prose" is not only unhelpful, it evades accountability and allows people to oppose for personal reasons. People who oppose on grounds of quality of writing should give examples, and be prepared to justify the objection. --Philcha (talk) 14:04, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Image review needed

[edit] That's it

I'm taking my template back :-P I'm thinking about changing "FACs needing feedback" to "FACs requiring a copy-edit". Support? Oppose? Leave Wikipedia again because we know you're only back for like two days? — Deckiller 04:39, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Careful! If you don't stick around this time, I may stalk you up there, track you down, and haul you back in here! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:04, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Once again, FAC produced featured crud

Susianna Kentikian (on the main page 2009-01-23) contains the obviously ungrammatical phrase:

"At the age of five, she left Armenia with her parents and her four-years older brother, Mikael, because…"

This very same mistake was in the promoted version. It's obvious that the reviewers of the article simply didn't read it, at least not with an ounce of intelligence or respect for the English language. It seems more than likely that they simply ran their precious little scripts over the things that can be checked by such automagic tools without giving a damn that featured articles are meant to represent "Wikipedia's very best work" (or simply not knowing what "Wikipedia's very best work" might be). This is hardly the first such problem with Main Page articles, nor will it be the last without a root-and-branch redesign of the system. Once again, I assert that WP:FAC is simply not fit for purpose. Physchim62 (talk) 00:23, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

There's no doubt that mistakes get through the process. As you know, the process is only as good as the reviewers and the time they volunteer. You've posted here before about problems with FAC. I think everyone involved with FAC would like to find ways to improve it; if you have ideas I'm sure we'd like to hear them. Believe me, you can't think of or point to a problem that hasn't been discussed; I'm more disappointed than surprised when you identify a problem, but I would be delighted and surprised if you could think of a way for us to improve the FAC process. Mike Christie (talk) 01:05, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
Yes, but what purpose is WP:FAC meant to serve? If you want good articles on the main page, devolve the task to the WikiProjects: that way you will instantly increase the number of reviewers and their competence in the subject matter being discussed. If you want to improve articles and promote the WikiIdeal, why not have a random stub article on the main page? The only response here is that FAC is very difficult for the reviewers, that they don't have the time to do it properly etc etc… FAC would not be difficult for the reviewers if it didn't exist, which is an option that no-one seems to consider. Physchim62 (talk) 02:25, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
Suggesting that main page articles pick from WikiProject selections and that FAC be scrapped is a suggestion instead of a criticism, so I'm glad to see it. I'd prefer to engage people such as yourself, with subject matter expertise, than ignore them. Personally I think other problems would surface with the approach you suggest; I won't go into details as I suspect you are not seriously proposing such a change; at least not with the intention of finding out whether your suggestion has flaws. If you are serious, let's talk. Mike Christie (talk) 02:48, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
I don't think WikiProjects can be trusted. A lot of weak projects would then just pass any old article so that they don't miss out on their main page quota. Secondly, if you want to talk about weak FAs, I can think of some WikiProjects where the members never oppose their own FACs, always vote keep on FARs even with swathes of unreferenced materials and peacock terms and so forth. And nothing stops project members from commenting at FAC and as I said before wiki project members are usually speeding up the promotes instead of slowing them down for more through checks. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 01:51, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
And obviously, when it says "Wikipedia's best work" it means the upper percentile, not perfect. Just look back at 2005 or so when WP was less developed and all sorts of worse things got through. But as a lot of unrenovated 2005 stuff is still there, maybe you could help patrol FAR and get rid of them, because there are a lot of really bad old ones out there. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 01:51, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
But if it's is such an egregious grammatical error, why didn't you fix it? [1] Perhaps it's not obvious to everyone else? Perhaps readers on 1-23 saw that line, thought it perhaps an odd turn of phrase, but deferred to the main authors of the article? Gimmetrow 01:41, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
The simple answer is to review articles that "obviously" have these issues, instead of coming here and bringing it up here. Talk is cheap; action is a lot more dear. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 02:50, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
Yes, but what if I happen to think that WP:FAC is detrimental to Wikipedia, in the resources that it sucks from more productive activity? Physchim62 (talk) 03:08, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
Maybe you should MfD it, but that wouldn't be a good idea. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 01:51, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Either way you're not helping solve any problem. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 03:26, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
Several featured articles which have appeared on the main page are obviously not "Wikipedia's very best work": that is the problem. If you don't think it's a problem, then there's no poit in discussing it. An article doesn't become good just by passing WP:FAC, and yet that is the impression I get from people who are too involved in the Process. Physchim62 (talk) 03:51, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
Were these 2004-06 era FAs or early 2007 even? Most of these are quite poor, an artefact of the lower standards of yesteryear. I agree that many of these are a relic of the past and need improvement or else punting off. I think you should participate at FAR then, which is undermanned, and most of the articles there are so bad it only takes 2 minutes to inspect them, so it would hardly be a waste of time. Especially as the FAC bar is rising a lot and not so much the FAR bar. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 01:51, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
The only way to prevent errors from passing through FAC is to review articles yourself. –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone 03:42, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
The only way to prevent errors passing through FAC is to stop people pretending that FA is an indicator of (some hypothetical) article quality. Physchim62 (talk) 03:51, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
To put this bluntly, Physchim, you are trolling. Please desist. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 03:55, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
It is, for contemporary articles, although, most of the abandoned 2004 articles are B class articles, and some of them really atrocious too, which is why I suggest you FAR a few of them to stop them embarrass the better ones. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 01:51, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
I take that as an admission that you can't answer the question I put above: What purpose does FAC actually serve? If your only response is that I'm a troll, you're in trouble. Physchim62 (talk) 04:10, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
FAC is a review forum to determine our best work; and yes, you are acting like a troll. — Deckiller 04:18, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
As Gimmie said earlier, if there something that you feel like should be fixed, either come here and tell the guys "Ok gents, fix x, y and z" or you can fix the articles that appear on the main page. As for the suggestion to go by Wikiprojects, I think that is not wise, because what some Wikiprojects consider a good piece of work, others will feel like it is not. With FAC, there is a set standard that all have to follow. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 04:21, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
"It's obvious that the reviewers of the article simply didn't read it, at least not with an ounce of intelligence or respect for the English language." So Tony1, who offered a rare support in his review, never reads any articles that he reviews and doesn't "respect the English language"? Could have fooled me. :-) Giants2008 (17-14) 15:52, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
What Zscout said is important to note, because while some projects could theoretically do just fine without FAC (Milhist and Tropical cyclones to name a couple), others have no featured content or experience thereof and would hav problems. How would such Wikiprojects be able to evaluate articles against the high standards? That would also put the smaller or less-active Wikiprojects at a disadvantage, and potentially degrade the quality of those articles becuase less eyes are looking at them. FAC may not be perfect, but it is the best we have now. I agree that as long as the process suffers from a dearth of reviewers, there will be some articles that will "slip through the cracks". The only solution is to review more. To that end, we might just have to start some kind of mass canvassing program from ANI to WT:RFA to recruit more reviewers (only half joking here). Dabomb87 (talk) 16:02, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
I don't see what is wrong with that sentence. It states that her brother was four years older than her, which would make him nine. It's a roundabout way of saying it, but I fail to see why it's worth making a fit over it. - Algorerhythms (talk) 16:19, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
1): I just cleaned it up myself.[2] That took less than a minute. After the original post, the error remained for almost 16 hours, which disappoints me.
2): The WikiProject idea would lower FA standards, for the reasons that Dabomb gave above.
3): The reviewer shortage is awful, especially when there are more than 50 articles at FAC. Everything grinds to a halt. The problem is that FAC is not an inviting place for new reviewers, and I don't see what can change that. Giants2008 (17-14) 16:29, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
Physchim62 said: "...featured articles are meant to represent 'Wikipedia's very best work'...". This is correct; FAs are the very best work on Wikipedia, but that doesn't mean that they're perfect. (Some are.) To find a single typo (even if it's representative of a small number of typos in a small number of articles) and use it to condemn the entire FAC process is just silly. I don't think it makes sense to require FAs to be perfect — and even if it did, it wouldn't be possible due to the aforementioned fallibility of human beings. (How much nicer the world would be if not for that most hated of flaws!) Scartol • Tok 17:19, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I (obviously, if not notoriously) disagree that featured articles currently represent "Wikipedia's very best work". On the other hand, I welcome the comments made about my "WikiProjects" suggestion, and I'll try to come up with a full proposal for discussion. Physchim62 (talk) 01:35, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

One wonders if the above is aware that even with published works, that have professional and paid copyeditors, errors still get through? One also wonders if the above has submitted college or uni work, work which they have spent hours or even days on, only to have the odd typo or grammatical error pointed out to them after review - even if one has read and reread that work countless times...--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 02:07, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

If that were the attitude that was taken with Featured article candidates, it wouldn't be surprising that so many errors got through. It's not of course: FAC for the average editor is pure WikiTorture – a little like jumping through hoops on a terrain of quicksand, given the idiosyncrasy of some reviewers. For information, I make a substantial proportion of my RL income from writing or correcting English, and I've both submitted university assignments and corrected them (not the same assignments, obviously!) I don't, however, have the pretension that my work is "the very best" in its field: according to a well known online encyclopedia, "[i]n almost every list pride (or hubris or "vanity") is considered the original and most serious of the seven deadly sins". Physchim62 (talk) 02:51, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
So you admit and have exp in knowing that errors do slip through even with a decent standard of work i.e. uni work and/or published articles/books etc
Then surely the fact some errors are slipping through the FAC reviews that doesn’t stop them being the best work available on the wiki.
Isnt a big deal being made out of nothing here? If articles were being passed but were completely inaccurate then I would agree with you that something needs to be done but a few grammar/spelling errors, which have been missed but most likely will be sorted out – whats the big deal really? Aren’t you just making a mountain out of a molehill? to fall back on a cliché --EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 03:03, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
I read the first two posts in this thread, but TLDR the rest. Yes, shit slips throught the FACs. There are only two answers, but one is unacceptable to Wikipedia: Either have someone with top-down authority to override fan-club votes (with or without any Opposes from reviewers), or get many more reviewers.. many more competent reviewers.. Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 02:23, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
FAC already has some-one with top-down authority, but how does it propose to get more reviewers? Physchim62 (talk) 02:51, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

(undent) To the best of my knowledge, no one has top-down authority to Fail a FAC that has three or so fan-club votes and no Opposes. Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 03:00, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

This biggest problem with rubbish FAs are the relics from olden days that the original author/wikiproject can't be stuffed fixing unless someone puts a gun to their head and threatens to bin their FAs, eg dreadful stuff like Malwa or Brian Close (punted off last year). Having said that, a lot of old timers are pretty delusional and still count their olden day ramblings as legit FAs after they have been removed for having multiple formatting styles mixed together etc and harp on about the modern punks and how articles in the old days were better, which there patently were not. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 01:51, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestions for review criteria

I think the criticism raised above is essentially that FACs are at least sometimes inadequately reviewed. We currently have article criteria but no review criteria, so although we have high standards our enforcement of those standards varies. To address the specific grammar issue raised above a criteria could be added to the FAC process along the lines of "at least one of <some set of grammar experts, perhaps members of WP:grammar> has reviewed the article for grammar". A similar criteria to address domain expertise might be "before being promoted as a FAC any article tagged as within the scope of any (active) wikiproject must be reviewed by at least one member of each such wikiproject". If we're looking for consistency another criteria might be "at least N members of the FAC review board have reviewed the article" where the FAC review board would be a wikiproject of folks willing to dedicate significant time to the FAC process (I would expect this would be more or less the existing "FAC regulars").

Another way to address at least the grammar issue would be to have an explicit checklist for reviewers to fill out based on the FA criteria. The checklist could be coded in a template that reviewers would include in their comments indicating which of the items they had specifically reviewed for. This would become a declaration of sorts - e.g. I reviewed this article for FA criteria 1a(grammar only), 1b, 1c. An article would then only be promotable after at least one reviewer had checked each criteria in the checklist. The implicit assumption today is that each reviewer reviews against all criteria, which is (I think) obviously false.

I think the bottom line is unless we enforce standards for the review process the output of the process will vary - this is sort of a basic quality control issue. Anything of this sort to be implemented should be carefully balanced against m:creep. -- Rick Block (talk) 17:26, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

On your first proposal: At the core, this is a good idea, but I am afraid that this might lead to specialization, which has already happened in the source- and image-checking areas. Reviewers who usually look at prose and MOS will be less confident in checking sources or content because they are not considered as the "authority" on the subject areas. Your second proposal sounds interesting, although I don't know what to make of it yet. Dabomb87 (talk) 20:17, 24 January 2009 (UTC)
I'd say that more of the hard noses are needed at FAC. A lot of things (at least implementation and scrutiny if not the explicit WIAFA) have risen a lot at FAC, but it seems a bit odd that the FAR enforcements aren't as stringent and the difference between the top 20% of FAs and the worst 20% of FAs is increasing a lot. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 01:37, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
"The implicit assumption today is that each reviewer reviews against all criteria, which is (I think) obviously false". Yes certainly false on my part, and to my mind it goes against the basic wisdom of the crowds idea of a Wiki. I don't think that specialisation is wrong amongst FA reviewers. I've been reading those FA candidates that interest me for a while now, fixing minor errors and pointing out what I perceive as anomalies and gaps. But going from that to saying that a particular article in every way meets the FA criteria would still be a very big step, and would have been an even bigger one from where I was four months ago. IMHO A guide for FAC reviewers with FA Criteria might make it easier for new reviewers, and be something that could be used to invite potential reviewers from say the typo fixers or those IP editors who make really good IP edits to articles. But it needs to emphasise how easy it is for someone with the requisite reading skills to do something interesting and useful in this area. Not present FAC as some esoteric area for WP aficionados only, or imply that you are only useful as a reviewer if you can do a complete review against all criteria. WereSpielChequers 14:06, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2008-04-07/Dispatches SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:13, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Thanks Sandy that's perfect. WereSpielChequers 14:47, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
If anyone thinks it needs an update/refresh, we could probably run it again this year. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:57, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
Its probably worth running an updated version every year simply because of the turnover amongst Wikipedians, I can't remember when in 08 I started reading the signpost or whether I've read that article before. Some stats as to how many articles are involved, how much they change as a result of the FA process and how many readers they get when they go on the mainpage would give context and more reason to rerun the article. Also, and this may be a wider issue it implies that when you spot something wrong at FA you raise that as a comment or a reason to oppose. Surely if you spot something that is as easy to fix as to comment on you should just fix it? WereSpielChequers 15:21, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion for images

Please can you see my suggestion at WT:FA#Images? Simply south not SS, sorry 21:59, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Page size

The FAC page size is approaching 60, reviews are lacking, and we're on track for the lowest number of monthly promotions in about four years, while worthy nominations are stagnating. I've suggested to Gimmetrow that I temporarily return to daily closings to help lower the page size; I also suggest we strictly limit nominators to one FAC at a time until the page size normalizes. Any other ideas? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:21, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

How about not allowing new nominations to be added to the page until the page size reduces below some limit? Nominators in the queue might then be incented to do reviews. Mike Christie (talk) 15:24, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
I follow that as a personal rule, but it doesn't seem like we gain much from stopping them altogether either. I'll just get back to more reviewin'. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 15:26, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
I'd prefer not to limit overall nominations, but by closing daily, I should be able to move off the time-intensive, ill-prepared FACs more quickly. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:28, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
Re-thinking, struck my comment above; would rather hear more ideas, and keep all possibilities open. Something needs to be done. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:18, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

(undent) I remember once seeing someone suggest dividng the FACs into "Active Reviews" and a "Queue". So, say the "Active Review" pool is X articles in size; all other noms are in the queue, in chronological order. The Active Review articles have a time limit of Y days or weeks until they are Passed or Failed. At that point, the top of the stack is popped off the Queue into Active reviews. Lather, Rinse, Repeat. [There might be a mechanism for extended reviews (aka "Marathon Wholesale Rewriting Workshops") This is a bone of contention, though. Let the bickering begin. Grrr.] I've forgotten who suggested that idea. I think I'll try to track it down and give him/her a barnstar. Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 16:59, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I think you're remembering a similar suggestion I made last year. To avoid bureaucracy I would suggest we make it much simpler: Sandy or Raul can choose to comment out new nominations whenever they want to. Commenting out preserves order, so that is automatically a queue. They can uncomment them whenever they want. If there are commented-out nominations, new ones should be added already commented-out; if not, things proceed as at present. Mike Christie (talk) 17:08, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Actually, I was talking about myself behind my back: I made the suggestion above. But I think I'll have 2 hours or so free time today. And I may become more regular (an interesting term) in a few weeks, if RL permits. Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 01:57, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
    I believe you're right; sorry for trying to take credit. I think I agreed with you back then too. Mike Christie (talk) 11:46, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
As a more drastic measure (not one that I would recommend, but all the same, it might be considered), we could have an admin protect WP:FAC and place edit notices and a banner at the top of the page, explaining that because of the immense backlog, no more nominations are being accepted until FAC has under X number of nominations. Dabomb87 (talk) 17:17, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
Just an idea. But how about all FAC candidates must have been through a peer review before they come here. It might not do a lot, but perhaps might just put candidates in a better shape before they appear on the FAC page. If they are in a better shape, they might take less time to pass through the system. Peanut4 (talk) 17:19, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
An idea that has come up before, but has been rejected each time I believe. I think that there is general opposition to forcing articles to go through another process before coming here (as going through WP:GAN has also been suggested as well). Anyways, I have been reviewing video game FACs lately, so hopefully at least those will build a consensus sooner than normal. Gary King (talk) 17:27, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
Really, everyone participating in this thread should just get out and review an article or two. There are very few changes that will preserve the free-flowing nature of the page, or will not drag down other processes (like requiring a peer review; I know poor Ruhrfisch would probably retire if we foisted that upon him.) --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 18:04, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
I agree in principle, but if that answer could solve the problem in practice I don't think we'd be having this conversation. Mike Christie (talk) 18:30, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
The fact is, it is a lot easier to sit around and think up ways to address the backlog rather than just doing the dirty work. Not an accusation, just a statement. Having said that, I repented for my participation in this discussion by doing two peer reviews just now [3], [4]. Dabomb87 (talk) 18:47, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps what we are experiencing is a version of the Tragedy of the Commons? A possible solution described in that article is to limit the relevant community to a small enough number that cooperative behaviour is prevalent; I'm referring to the paragraph about Dennis Fox's work. Limiting the number of active nominations might have a similar effect. Mike Christie (talk) 18:30, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

That's a very interesting analogy. --Malleus Fatuorum 19:03, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I think being alerted to the fact there is a backlog is helpful as tehre are so many areas to spread oneself that one can miss a page for a while. I have not reviewed much for a while but have been busy elsewhere. Having seen this thread I will try to have a look now. Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:40, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Everyone should take it easy. Remember a couple months ago, when we were seeing FAC dip below 30 noms? Back then, we weren't seeing enough activity here. This is just a shift in the opposite direction, and I have a feeling that it's cyclical. Maybe this is what some mean by FAC "scaling up". I do think that reviewers become discouraged when there are this many noms, because it looks overwhelming. Can't say that I'm overly concerned about it, though. I have a feeling that activity will drop down to normal levels soon. Then again, I don't have to close all of these nominations and deal with upset nominators. Giants2008 (17-14) 01:39, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] User:Ling.Nut/HARI

  • I'm pressed for time; am shifting much responsibility/work to the nominator(s).
  • See User:Ling.Nut/HARI for a review method I will adopt whenever I see the need.
  • Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 06:19, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
I think this looks like a very sensible idea from a nominator's perspective as well. It's easier to engage with specific points and the format ("This source says X - is it already in the article, or should it be?") is quite non-confrontational. So I look forward to dealing with this style of review for Dreadnought. The Land (talk) 11:41, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
Currently Ling's review generates a subheading, which is a no-no per the FAC instructions. Ling, can the review be done without the subheading? Mike Christie (talk) 11:48, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
I put that there manually, because I thought that fourth-level subheadings work OK with transclusion. Have rmvd it; thanks. Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 12:24, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] FA quality, and more FARs to improve it

Per, the latest kerfuffle: This biggest problem with rubbish FAs are the relics from olden days that the original author/wikiproject does not raise the article's quality to keep pace with modern standards unless someone puts the article under the hammer and threatens to bin their FAs, eg rather disorganised pieces like Malwa or Brian Close (punted off last year). I think that it humans normally work that way and need to be put under pressure, for the most part. So I think FAR is a pretty strong incentive to improve poor FAs, and the vast amount of problems with FAs is from the way old FAs, rather than current FACs that have skated through with errors. There are hundreds of 2006 and before, and even a few poor FAs in early 2007 like Technopark Kerala, a lot of which are worse than GAs and even some B class articles. The other thing is that with the likes of Ealdgyth etc on FAC, the standards in FAC have been rising a lot but with FAR this has been less so, and I think the standard deviation between the worst and better (new) FAs is increasing. Especially because of the need for consensus to change, sometimes a couple of dubious WikiProject "keeps" at FA is enough to get a FAR to crawl home when an article is still only half fixed up.

Having said that, a lot of old timers seem a bit disconnected and still count their olden day work as legit FAs after they have been removed for having multiple formatting styles mixed together, substandard English, no sources or random geocities websites used as sources etc and sometimes harp on about the modern trends and how articles in the old days were better, which there patently were not. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 01:51, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm more than happy to pop over to FAR when requested, I just can't add another duty to my pile... I had to drop FLC as being too much time away from writing articles (which, in the end, is the point, right?) Anytime someone wants me to weigh in on an FAR, drop a note on my talk page. Sandy already had that open invite for FAR, anyone else is welcome to it too. Ealdgyth - Talk 02:00, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Gosh YM, you taking the Australia's dismal run pretty badly good point. I have my finger in a few too many pies but try to pop in every once in a while. Just trying to help out with a few current FACs first...Casliber (talk · contribs) 02:32, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
I don't think that I was in an angy mood and not because of the cricket, but I have reworded it because looking at it again it doesn't look pleasant. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 23:37, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
In my locale, "rubbish" is a very loaded, dismissive word. Thinking about the real spirit behind policies like WP:NPA, which gets quoted any time someone acts a little naughty... well, I'd rather have someone tell me to "fuck off" on Wikipedia than I would have someone describe the effort of any volunteer, including me, as "rubbish". No, your attitude and the existence of FAR are not "incentives"; in fact, they're very much the reason why a person seeking any sort of middle way on wikipedia learns eventually to just stay the hell away from it, at least in any substantive capacity; especially to stay away from the self-appointed experts on what constitutes a quality article. –Outriggr § 06:54, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
YellowMonkey isn't trying to denigrate anyone's work, but let's face it; many of those articles are poorly written and under-referenced, making them less than middling GA rather than FA according to today's standards. We don't need "self-appointed" experts on what makes a quality article because we have criteria; and frankly, if you don't want your work being judged critically, why the hell did you try and have your writing featured in the first place (let alone write on the wiki?) --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs (talk) 12:51, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Critical assessment is fine, but "rubbish" isn't critical assessment. I'm quite willing to believe that YM has reason for his comments and that the cited articles are below current standards, but like Outriggr I'd prefer it if we could avoid such terms as "rubbish" in this sort of conversation. There's plenty of scope for people to get upset without starting off with emotive language. Mike Christie (talk) 13:12, 27 January 2009 (UTC)
Sure, I didn't mean that the articles were useless, so that was a pretty poor rant on my part, so I've reworded it as it might be seen as being aggressive and hostile. I do think that the gap between the standard deviation in FA quality is getting very large nowadays. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 23:37, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

(undent) Hi Outriggr & all: I use strong language when reviewing and speaking to reviewers. I simply believe that being all hugs 'n love will do zero-point-zero to staunch the flow of crap (did I say crap? I think I did) that people shove into FAC simply because it has fewer ungrammatical sentences than grammatical ones... even though the grammatical sentences are usually merely WP:COPYVIO. I think... Wikipedia's reputation sucks. It's improving, but I have been looked at like a Martian by professors when I mention it. It's considered a toy—an inaccurate, useless toy. WP:FA represents (or is supposed to represent) Wikipedia's very, very best, period. It is not Romper Room; it's not a place where love 'n hugs are distributed to boost the self-esteem of junior high students. Those junior high students need to go home and crack open a grammar book (and one about research skills, etc.) before they even set foot here. Our job is to present a high-quality product, not be baby-sitters. Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 02:29, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I've no more interest in hugs at FAC than in insults; I guess I wasn't being clear. My comment to YM was only about his language, not his meaning. If he has critical comments to make about FAs I think they should be made. One can write accurate and condemning comments about an article's shortcomings without insulting the author of an article, however; and I think anyone who can write an FA understands the use of language well enough to do so. Mike Christie (talk) 02:41, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
The flow of crap pushes onward. If we had tons of reviewers who would fail and fail and fail and fail the crap, then folks might get the message without any need for a dash of vinegar. But we don't. And they don't. Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 02:47, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
How does one define "crap"? (In FA terms, of course. I know too well what the main definition is. :-)) Is it just bad articles, or are you referring to repetitive FA topics? We're usually good at spotting the ones that aren't ready yet, and there are no real solutions to the latter problem. Editors will work on what they want to work on, even if they end up copying formats after a while. As for our reputation, every article on Wikipedia could be FA-quality and we still wouldn't be considered a reliable academic source. At some point, we should recognize that and accept it; we can still be a great free source of information for anything encyclopedic that you can think of. That's our advantage over Brittanica, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. Giants2008 (17-14) 17:57, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

(undent)

  • Writing and researching are processes that require substantial input of time and effort. If the text is WP:COPYVIO copy/paste, the article is crap. Even if the text of the article is so imbued with the its sources that the voice of the article is the voice of the sources, the article is crap. If the references do not truly reflect the breadth of the literature, the article is crap. If the references are cherry-picked for a POV, the article is crap. If the article is incomprehensible to the lay reader, but could be made comprehensible with enough effort, the article is crap. If the article has five references, all online, and took a long afternoon to write, the article is crap. If an article goes all the way through FAC and no one reviews it except 1 systematic image reviewer, 1 systematic references reviewer, and 3 or 4 members of the relevant Wikiproject (all Supporting), the article is probably crap: reviewers, being unable to state the obvious for fear of being argued to death, have "voted with their feet" that the article is crap. Does that draw a picture? :-)
  • However, having said that, I'm growing ever more and more weary of being the only one willing to call a piece of crap a piece of crap. On the one hand, crankiness is tiring. On the other hand, the folks pushing through substandard articles should be Opposed. Firmly. Decisively. In a memorable manner. Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 10:09, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
Just to give an example, there is a FAC that has obvious deficiencies in regards to sourcing. Two regular reviewers made comments noting the problems (but did not vote) and they were simply brushed off by the nominator(s). I have made my oppose vote, but I am rather surprised that no one else has opposed this FAC even when the problem is so obvious. I leave the FAC unnamed because I do not want to attract undue attention to it. --RelHistBuff (talk) 10:32, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
    • Obviously, candidates that copy sources should be quick-failed (why is this still on the page?). These other source concerns are all valid, but it's not easy to defend against them due to lack of time on our part. There are sometimes hints, though; I'm thinking of city pages that use mostly primary sources, for example. The best advice I can give is to get out and review the articles, which you seem to be doing more of lately. Sandy/Raul can't read the minds of those who don't show up. Giants2008 (17-14) 15:57, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
      • Just an aside - FAC doesn't have a quick-fail process. Currently, noms are being promoted/archived twice a week to work around GimmeBot's schedule. If the nominator agrees to withdraw the nomination, we can remove it early, but that's usually the only time we do so. (I've left a note with the nominator of the example given to see if he's willing to withdraw.) Even in copyvio situations, there's always an outside chance that the nominator could clean the article up into an acceptable status within the FAC time. Karanacs (talk) 16:08, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
        • If there is not a quick-fail procss for copyright violations, there should be. There should be a powerful disincentive to bringing plagiarized text to FAC (and anywhere else in Wikipedia, for that matter). There seems to be an attitude by some (and I don't mean anyone commenting here) that copyright violations are OK if you don't get caught. Copyrighted text remains in the article history even if removed; it should never be there to start with. We have a situation where "rewards" are given for successful FACs, but there is no real downside to theft of intellectual property. Kablammo (talk) 16:20, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
          • There's no way a nomination will be promoted if there are copyvio concerns. This problem is not confined to FAC; it's appeared at DYK as well. I'm not sure if there are actually more copyvios now than before, or if we are just getting better at catching them. I think some people don't understand sourcing, and they really don't get it that you can't copy text verbatim. Sometimes all we have to do is explain to them and they are cured of the bad habit. Karanacs (talk) 16:29, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
            • Agreed. But where competitions or simple pride rewards promotion, the tendency to create content by cut-and-paste moves becomes stronger. (And how often are copyvios missed? Do all reviewers regularly check for them?) Kablammo (talk) 16:35, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

(undent) I'm gonna start a quick-fail for FAc thread, just to irritate Sandy. :-P I promise much bolded and bolded-with-italics text, a few exclamation points !! and several ambiguous remarks that might or might not be insulting. :-) Hey seriously though: do any of those "how to" FAC essays deal with copyvio and quoting? Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 14:40, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Don't know, but I'd like to think that most nominators know that it's bad. As for quick-fails, they may not be official, but if six reviewers oppose something right off the bat, it's a de facto quick-fail. This is a prime example of what I mean. By the way, what happened to the backlog? Guess things are back to normal now. Giants2008 (17-14) 21:32, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
Not really "normal"; this month may have been the highest "fail" rate ever; we still need reviewers. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:38, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Question about FA notability

During a recent FAC, someone stated that only notable events should be brought up in an FAC. I feel that this is 100% untrue, and that a biography should contain all of the important information, if its independently notable or not. Regardless, the information that the user wished to dismiss was 5 years of the biographical subject's participation as a Privy Counsellor, an extremely important political position in Great Britain. Not even a bit is mentioned about anything he worked on, who he worked with, what projects happened, what his philosophy was in the position, etc.

Is this truly acceptable? Is "comprehensive" limited to just what someone says is "notable"? I'm really upset about this. Ottava Rima (talk) 16:25, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you Ottava, that's complete rubbish. The subject has to be notable, of course, but the article has to be comprehensive. Two quite different things. --Malleus Fatuorum 16:33, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
Objections based on the subject matter are not actionable, and (per the top of the FAC page) are therefore not valid. Raul654 (talk) 16:45, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
Objections based on the subject's lack of notability would likely lead to a concurrent AfD and FAC. But if I've understood correctly, Ottava was talking about the content of an article about a notable subject, not the notability of the subject itself. --Malleus Fatuorum 16:55, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
Ottava was talking about the content of an article about a notable subject, not the notability of the subject itself. - So if I understand you correctly, you are talking about non-notable content (e.g, trivia) in an article about a notable subject? (For example, person X was born at 742 evergreen terrace, etc) Raul654 (talk) 17:03, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
Ottava says perfectly clearly what we are talking about at the top of the section. Johnbod (talk) 17:13, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
  • Although people sometimes fail to grasp the distinction, there are no WP guidelines etc defining or requiring "notability" for content within an article, only for article subjects. The nearest we have is "defining" in the context of categorization, but no one has ever suggested articles should only mention what is defining, which would be absurd. For what to include in an FA, we have only the requirement to be "comprehensive", and bringing up the concept of "notablility" in such a discussion is just confusing. On the specific issue, one would think it should be mentioned - you don't say what date we are talking about - nowadays it is not really "an extremely important political position in Great Britain" and rarely involves any actual work, let alone projects. But this was not always the case. Johnbod (talk) 17:07, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
    • So at the risk of introducing new terminology, we are talking about relevant information versus non-relavant information (trivia) in articles about things that are definitely notable (e.g, would survive an AFD nom). So the questions here are:
      • Is it OK to object on FAC if an article is missing relavant information?
      • Is it OK to object on FAC if an article contains trivia?
      • Is it OK to object on FAC if an article is missing trivia?
    • I believe the answers to these questions should be yes, yes, and no. But deciding whether or not something is trivial or not is obviously subjective. Raul654 (talk) 17:12, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
Better stick to the existing terminology! This is an issue about whether the article is comprehensive without this aspect being covered. Being a Privy Counsellor can't really be called trivia, whether or not it is required for comprehensiveness. What was the article in fact? Johnbod (talk) 17:16, 28 January 2009 (UTC)
I do not want to list the article because I do not want it to make it seem as if I am campaigning or forum shopping. I would rather not attract people to it. I want to see opinions and if opinions are against me I would strike my oppose. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:36, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Clarification: I believe an FA must be comprehensive and define that as including vital information on a subject. Vital information, as I see it, must cover the basics to understanding a person (in terms of biography). Having a large chunk of a career missing, especially when it is a major political position, seems to fail this. Ottava Rima (talk) 17:34, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Returning to Ottava Rima's original question, whether events etc. that are not notable in themselves should appear in FAs, the answer has to be "Yes, if they were significant for the subject of the article." For example the spouses and children of politicians and sports stars are seldom notable in their own right, but one would expect to see such details in a bio. Mikhail Botvinnik's chess talent first became obvious when he won a game against world champion Capablanca in a simultaneous exhibition in 1925, and that simul is not notable in its own right. --Philcha (talk) 00:26, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
OR wrote: the user wished to dismiss was 5 years of the biographical subject's participation as a Privy Counsellor, an extremely important political position in Great Britain. Not even a bit is mentioned about anything he worked on, who he worked with, what projects happened, what his philosophy was in the position, etc.. I would certainly mention that s/he held that office. As for discussing his/her actions of that period, I would work backwards from whatever is most notable about this person's actions. If s/he is notable for standing up for agriculture & farmers in later years, forex, I might look for seeds of that stance in earlier actions, but would tend to disregard unrelated issues, e.g., s/he lobbied to have some library refurbished. Etc. Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 00:34, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
I believe that's the view that most reasonable editors would hold. I find this artificially created dichotomy between "notable events" and trivia to be rather puzzling. Is it a "notable event" that someone has a brother or a sister, for instance, or the occupation of their father? Bizarre. This paranoia about BLP is starting to go way too far. Best if there are no wikipedia articles at all about living people, then nobody can complain. --Malleus Fatuorum 00:54, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Oh, and no pictures either, what a nightmare they are! --Malleus Fatuorum 00:57, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Thankfully, the subject of the article is long dead. So, he wont complain. :) Ottava Rima (talk) 01:29, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
I steadfastly refuse to get involved in any article about a living person. Don't need the hassle, I get enough of that at home. But if this person is dead, then it adds even more weight to your privy counsellor argument, because that has been a very important political position until relatively recently. --Malleus Fatuorum 01:34, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Having found the article (see my or OR's contributions), in fact the position is very much mentioned, but nothing is said about his term in the position pre-dismissal, probably because there is nothing to say, although this itself should be explained. Johnbod (talk) 01:47, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
I did find one article that emphasized the importance of the PC during the dates that he was a PC member. I also believe that the biographies used have more information on the time but I did not check them. There would be public records of votes, discussions, etc, if at the very minimum. If its all boring, that's fine. People may need to be shown that it was boring. It at least shows that something happened. Ottava Rima (talk) 01:59, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

(after ec) As Ling.Nut said, it may or may not be important to discuss, what a person who has been on the Privy Council worked on, who he worked with and what his philosophy was in the position. To give a concrete example: Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma was a Privy Counsellor but given the many other much much more important positions he held, that is not a significant component of his biography. In fact, our FA article does not even mention the fact; while it would be ok to add another sentence to remedy that, discussing the role as Privy Counsellor in any great detail would simply be undue in this case. The same logic also holds for Winston Churchill, another Privy Counsellor. I don't think these are the article Ottava Rima is referring to. Abecedare (talk) 02:00, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

For passing users who might not have followed all of the above, the article being discussed is Edgar Speyer which I nominated. The matter of notability which Ottava Rima has raised seems to revolve around a period of five years in the subject's life during which he was a Privy Counsellor and what he may have done in that role.
The article contains a large section regarding his expulsion from the council after World War I following accusations of his having traded with the enemy and having been in contact with enemy citizens. In contrast to this, there is only a short mention of his having been a Privy Counsellor but little about what he did as one. The reason for this apparent disparity is that one of the things Speyer is notable for is that he was the last person to be struck from the Privy Council (although others subsequently resigned). There is quite a bit of information available for this, but there is very little on his activities in the Privy Council itself - possibly, as JohnBod commented, because he didn't attend many of these or do much when he did.
The issue as to notability is over my comment: "Whilst it is notable that he was a Privy Counsellor, what he did as one is not necessarily notable." to which OR took exception. OR is misquoting me, I did not "state that only notable events should be brought up in an FAC", I simply stated that what he did in the council may not be notable. Therefore, it may not be recorded and not be capable of being included in the article. There are already a number of items in the article included to try and give colour to the subject which could be considered non-notable. For example, his owning a number of Stradivarius violins - which was queried in the FAC for this reason.
With regards to the information contained in the biographies that are available - there are two: one in Who was Who, which gives only the barest minimum of facts, and one at the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography which is one of the principle sources for the article. The rest of the listed sources contain just minor references to Speyer dealing with his interactions with the people in his life. OR seems to be of the view that I am deliberately withholding information that is readily available, I am not. There are minor things I could add which I found through my trawling of the Times newspaper archive but most of this would probably be considered unnecessary gloss and would, possibly, be objected to under the second of Raul654's suggested tests above.
There does seem to be a different standard being applied to the Speyer artcle than has been applied to existing similar biographical FAs. As I remarked in the FAC review, the recent main page featured articles on Richard Hawes and Robert Sterling Yard have parts of their careers covered in minimal fashion and focus on the bits that really make them notable. Speyer, I believe has three claims to notability which are covered in the article, yet one aspect of his life over a period of five years seems to be generating a lot of controversy. --DavidCane (talk) 03:39, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
I have just done a quick count of the counsellors alive when Speyer was appointed to the council (listed at Historical lists of Privy Councillors, they are appointed for life) and there were approximately 180 in total, some of whom had been appointed as far back as the early 1870s. Whilst it was a significant honour to be appointed, it was not that exclusive a club as might be supposed. --DavidCane (talk) 04:05, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
But remember, even a US House of Representatives member (one of 435) still has a track record. The Richard Hawes article does not have a big blatant section that is pure negative, let alone two. Robert Sterling Yard is also not a politician. However, I have a strong academic relationship with the history of British politics, so I am able to examine such pages with an eye to see things that should exist. Now, as I pointed out on the FAC - a cursory search found an article devoted to the time and dealt a lot with Speyer, so much that it even credited him with the beginning of an economic cycle. That doesn't happen out of no where. Ottava Rima (talk) 04:10, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
If I can comment on the Privy Counsellor issue (all that reading I did when finding references for the article at FAR comes in handy!): Once upon a time, say 500 years ago, the Privy Council met as a council of the King and did actually have power. By the turn of the 18th century, when the Hanoverian Kings ascended the throne, power was exercised by a subset of the Council, which is what is now the Cabinet. The monarch ceased attending Cabinet meetings, and when s/he did meet with a quorum of Privy Counsellors it was merely to approve the decisions made by the Cabinet. This is still the case today—Cabinet ministers are appointed Privy Counsellors (for life), Privy Council meetings are held monthly, consisting of the Queen and four or five Ministers, typically those with responsibility for the regulations/legislation being approved. Everyone stays standing at the meetings, which are very brief and consist of the titles of the orders being read out and the sovereign saying "approved". However membership of the Privy Council is also awarded as a titular honour, much like a knighthood. This was true even in the time of Speyer, for example The Constitutional History of England by Frederic Maitland, written in the 19th century says on p.401 "A privy councillor made so as a mere honour—e.g. an ex-judge—goes to the council board once to take the oath, and he never goes again". A House of Commons fact sheet from 2005 says "Membership of the Privy Council is today a titular honour, with the office recognised as a reward for public and political service." and "On rare ceremonial occasions a larger meeting, including members other than Ministers, is convened – for example, to proclaim a new monarch or to hear a monarch give consent to a Royal marriage." The situation therefore has not changed for the last 150 years. As Speyer was not a Minister he would have attended a Council meeting once to swear the Privy Counsellor's oath, and most likely never attended again. Even if he had been a Minister and regularly attended he wouldn't have done anything much beyond showing up. A modern-day analogy to the calls for Speyer to be removed from the Privy Council may perhaps be found in the revoking of Robert Mugabe's GCB.
So to summarise, meetings of the Privy Council are more-or-less a constitutional formality; membership can be also be awarded as a titular honour; Speyer's appointment was of this sort; therefore he has no actions as a Privy Counsellor to discuss in the article. Dr pda (talk) 07:04, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
The article that I quoted on the FAC page makes it clear that he did notable things while on the PC and through the PC. If he started an economic movement through his position, it definitely cannot be dismissed in the manner that you just did. Ottava Rima (talk) 15:13, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps I should have omitted my last paragraph—the point I was making was in the first paragraph of my post, namely that membership of the Privy Council does not confer any political power. Such a statement is a simplification, for a good description of the powers/role of the Privy Council see p140–144 of Mathiot's The British Political System. To summarise the main points
  • The full Privy Council only meets for the marriage, death or accession of a sovereign
  • Meetings of a small subset of members occur more frequently (~monthly). Between three and six Privy Councillors are usually summoned to such meetings, all of whom are Cabinet Ministers
  • At these meetings the Council does not deliberate on matters, but simply gives formal assent to executive acts already decided on by ministers or the Cabinet.
  • Such meetings can also approve Orders in Council, which are used by the Government to enact delegated legislation, i.e. statutory regulations
  • I'm ignoring the Judicial Committee since Speyer was not a judge
Thus in the British political system the Privy Council is essentially a "constitutional rubber stamp" (again I'm oversimplifying to make the essential point)
Nevertheless appointment as a Privy Counsellor has a certain social cachet, conferring the title of "Right Honourable", and appointments, beyond those necessary for constitutional reasons, were used as an honour, much the same way as knighthoods. This practice predates Speyer's appointment (see the references in my last post). Such honours are awarded on the advice of the Government; Speyer was a supporter of the Liberal Party, and a friend of the Prime Minister. The article implies this is the reason for Speyer's appointment; the Prime Minister's response when Speyer offered to resign his Privy Counsellorship and Baronetcy refers to these as "... marks of distinction which you have received in recognition of public services and philanthropic munificence." Indeed even the journal article you found says that Speyer's baronetcy was presumably awarded for his financial support of the Liberal party. Thus it appears clear to me that Speyer's appointment to the Privy Council was simply a titular honour.
Turning now to the journal article you mention, I don't find anything which implies that Speyer accomplished anything through his membership of the Privy Council. Taking it point by point again, remembering his appointment to the Privy Council was in 1909.
  • Speyer came to London in 1887 and took over the London Branch of the family bank
  • Speyer helped to extend and electrify the London Underground between 1903 and 1908
  • Abroad his family were involved in American railway speculation, 1906–8
  • London railways and other domestic investments performed poorly in 1907–8, therefore like many investors Speyer began to transfer his investments abroad
  • Thus by 1912 Speyer was heavily involved in Brazilian railway schemes
Pausing for a moment, here we have Speyer after his appointment as PC, but his actions don't involve the PC, instead they follow from what he was doing beforehand
  • Speyer financially supported the Liberal Party, for which (presumably) he was created a baronet in 1906
  • In 1909 he "held aloof from the City's anti-budget agitation, and was sworn as a Privy Councillor in June, to the disgust of the Council's snobbish clerk, Sir Almeric FitzRoy"
Pausing again; the narrative here is basically chronological. His holding aloof from the budget agitation (whatever that was about) is not necessarily to be interpreted as the cause for his being appointed to the Privy Council (though one could imagine him using his position in the financial world to support the government's position, in which case it is not implausible that he would be rewarded with an appointment to the Privy Council). In any case Speyer is not yet using his PC appointment in any way.
  • George Paish's association with Speyer began in 1904. Paish believed overseas investment would revive the economy; Speyer delivered the same message in a speech to the Institute of Bankers, in 1905 (according to footnote) "which if it did not start the Edwardian capital export boom (as Paish claimed) at least broadly coincided with it".
Pausing again, you mentioned Speyer being credited with an economic movement, however this again predates his appointment to the Privy Council.
This appears to be the last mention of Speyer in the article, and again does not mention his Privy Council membership. While the article does indeed have some information which is lacking from the Wikipedia article, this is of Speyer's activities before his appointment as a Privy Counsellor. Even if they had been during this period, I hope I have explained clearly enough above that there is political power associated with membership of the Privy Council. To try and be even clearer, I would support, on grounds of comprehensiveness, the inclusion in the article of relevant information about Speyer's life while he was a member of the Privy Council, but I don't believe (for the reasons given at length above) that he undertook any actions as a Privy Counsellor during this period. Dr pda (talk) 22:49, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Many thanks Dr pda for that detailed explanation and analysis. As I said above, I am more than happy to add information to the article to expand it further. The 1909 budget agitation mentioned would be with regard to the People's Budget, which precipitated a constitutional crisis when the House of Lords rejected the budget and eventually led to the Parliament Act limiting the power of the House of Lords to veto legislation. --DavidCane (talk) 00:09, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
Dr pda - regardless if you can attribute the various political and economic actions that he was able to accomplish (setting policy is rarely something a non-politician can do) to him being a member of the PC, those five years that he was a member saw many, many things happen that were prompted by Speyer or that Speyer was involved in. He would have been know that time as a member of the PC. Regardless, those five years are utterly missing. There are a lot of details missing. WP:UNDUE would require us not to have 40% of an article taken up by two negative events, especially when there are sources devoted to other time periods. My point is simply that it doesn't matter if the author of the wiki page thinks that the events are "boring" or not. It is not an encyclopedia editor's job to edit it so that a life only appears interesting. We are not a tabloid. We should report the times, dates, and events of a person's life that are important to the person. Ottava Rima (talk) 01:01, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
For curiosity sake, I put in Edward Speyer and Privy Counsellor to see what is found at google. Privy Counsellor/Privy council and comment. Ottava Rima (talk) 01:04, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
Many references there which indicate that this article also falls short on background information about German-Jewish financiers of the period. --Malleus Fatuorum 01:40, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
We do now seem to have gotten away from the original purpose of this thread which was the matter of whether "only notable events should be brought up in an FAC". As this was raised on a misreading of my comment and there does not seem to be a disagreement as to what is to be included and what not then there is probably no more to be said on that matter. Will Ottava Rima be striking his/her Oppose as he proposed?
On the matter of what Speyer's role may have been in the Privy Council, I submit, in further support of Dr pda's comments above, the following extract from the 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica published in 1910-11 (volume XXII, p. 372) which discusses why a person might be appointed to the council and how it operated in practice. This is contemporaneous with Speyer's membership, so seems to explain most appropriately what he might have done in that role - i.e. nothing:

Although the true privy council is the cabinet, the name is to-day given collectively to a large number of eminent people whose membership and position are titular only. All members of the cabinet if not already privy councillors become so on appointment to cabinet office. Occasionally, subordinate members of the ministry and some of its private supporters are made privy councillors as a special distinction. The lord chancellor, the lords of appeal in ordinary, the president of the probate division, the lord president of the court of session in Scotland, the lord justice clerk and the lord advocate of Scotland are always privy councillors, as are the archbishops of Canterbury and York and the bishop of London. In 1807 all the premiers of the self-governing colonies were made privy councillors. Of recent years, retired ambassadors, judges, retired civil servants and persons distinguished in science, letters and arts have been appointed. The custom seems also to be growing of using the honour of privy councillor to reward political supporters who do not wish for hereditary titles. The collective title of the council is “the Lords and others of His Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Council” The members are addressed as “Right Honourable” and wear a state uniform. The appointment is informal, the new privy councillor simply being invited by the king to take his seat at the board. He is then sworn in, and his name placed on the list. Office lasts for the life of the sovereign and six months after, but it is the modern custom for the new sovereign to renew the appointment.

Meetings of the whole council are held at the beginning of a new reign or when the reigning sovereign announces his or her marriage. The lord mayor of London is then summoned to attend. The whole council might also be summoned on other occasions of state and ceremony.

The formal meetings of the council are attended by the few councillors concerned with the orders to be issued These are generally ministers or officials. The chief officer of the council is the lord president, now a cabinet minister of the highest rank, but without departmental duties. The office of clerk of the council dates from 1540 and his signature is necessary to authenticate all orders.

I will be adding clarification to the article to make it completely clear that the appointment was an honour without responsibility.
Regarding Ottava Rima's most recent comments; please refrain from putting words in my mouth. I did not say that the information left out from the article is "boring" - that was your word - but minor gloss which could be considered trivia. I could, for example, have:
  1. included names of many other charities of which he was a board or a committee member: the Royal National Pension Fund for Nurses, the City Council for Organisation of Charity, the Research Defence Society, the Invalid Children's Aid Society, the Royal Amateur Orchestral Society, the Association of Subscribers to Charities and the Royal Society of Musicians of Great Britain, etc.
  2. listed numerous appearances in the court circular listing his trips abroad with his wife
  3. listed dinners and functions he attended
  4. listed very many small donations and subscriptions to charities which are recorded
But this would not be especially interesting.
Thank you for your helpful search of google books, of which I am already well aware. I have already trawled this several times just searching on "Edgar Speyer" looking for useful information and you will note that three of the books listed in the references section already link to that. Yes there are a many matches for Edgar Speyer, but when they are investigated you will find that most of these are passing references of minor interactions with other people who are the subject of the linked book.
There are two new pieces of information gleaned from the first of the lists of matches that you offered (probably because new stuff is added all the time) - that Nancy Astor was "quite fond" of Sir Edgar but thought his wife a "tiring noisy woman" and that Lady Speyer was asked to remove her daughters from their school after the war broke-out as other parents were threatening to remove theirs and she was ostracised from a number of societies that she had belonged to. The first is trivia, the second I will add to the article.
The second, longer list of 192 matches appears at first to provide a great number of links but a substantial number of these are of no use because they provide no access to the text ("no preview available" or "[ Sorry, this page's content is restricted ]" messages are shown) or because they provide links to snippets with just his name and a few out of context words. Please also note that, as structured, your search finds any book or article which included any Edgar and any Speyer and any Privy and any Council. "Edgar Speyer" "Privy Council" produces 20% fewer matches. Of those for which brief summaries can be read, something like 90% refer to Speyer in the context of his being removed from the Privy Council, which the article already has plenty on. There are a number of new documents listed which might have additional information for inclusion and I will read these to see if there is anything worth adding.
Regarding Malleus Fatuorum's most recent comment, I will see what I can do, but this is a biography not an economic history.
Can I suggest that further discussion goes either on the article's talk page or the FAC page--DavidCane (talk) 03:43, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Re-nominating

THis may have been mentioned -> but the instructions to re-nominating a FAC is flawed.

The instructions are wrong, and the pre-loaded templates won't load if there is an archive already stored.

This is to do with the {{fac}} tempalte, and should be fixed.  The Windler talk  11:33, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Still need image review

[edit] How to attract new reviewers?

One constant refrain I hear on this page is that FAC needs more reviewers, and I don't disagree. However, the question I have always wanted answered is this: what, if anything, can we do to make the pool of reviewers larger? We can bemoan the lack of reviewers all we want, but the truth is that FAC is the least inviting place possible for beginners. The standards are subjective, even for experienced reviewers; newcomers have little chance of understanding them right off the bat. I also feel that potential new reviewers are concerned that they will be criticized by fellow reviewers if they make a mistake, such as supporting an article with problems. I'm not the first to complain about this, but I've seen few suggestions on what can be done about it. Does anyone have any ideas that can improve the situation, which is causing strain for everyone here? Giants2008 (17-14) 03:29, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Simple: Every nominator must review another FAC for every one they've nominated. No ifs, ands or buts about it. Even if one is not a "good reviewer", there are so many things to look for on an article that it is impossible to not find something to improve on. Dabomb87 (talk) 03:36, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
Also note that most FACs have maybe 5-6 pundits, so that wouldn't make up the whole balance. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 03:37, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
(ec) I'm concerned that implementing requirements as Dabomb suggests will lead to a lot of commentless support !votes, since those are easiest to put down (or, if we implement a comments requirement, support !votes followed by "prose is excellent, all references in order"). Wikipedia as a whole is pretty short of reviewers (see WP:GAC, WP:PR), but to the extent there is a solution I think it involves approaching people who are good article writers and encouraging them to given reviewing a shot, especially within their areas of interest. I actually think that FAC might be less intimidating than GAC, since you're not unilaterally responsible for promoting or rejecting the nomination. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 03:41, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
I don't see it that way. I see GAN reviews as a one-on-one relationship, with the reviewer and the article's nominator. In FAC, when a comment is made, sometimes the nominator will respond, and sometimes others will respond and perhaps criticize, too. Gary King (talk) 03:47, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
I think an issue with GAN is that because one person holds the verdict, a person from within the wikiproject/knowledge area is more likely to abstain for want of looking or being accidentally biased. Probably why my cricket FACs are always faster than my other FACs, but for GAN, it's the other way around because cricket can be a bit hard to understand for outsiders. I know some guys who nom at GAN put a note asking specifically for outsiders. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 03:56, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
You could carrot them with awards etc, which might not excatly feel pleasant, but it works. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 03:37, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
Looking through the archives, it seems like there were way more reviewers in 2006 than now. Gary King (talk) 03:39, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
I think a larger problem is that FAC has gone through gone through a culture change. We have gone from a make a few tweaks and !vote to the Write-an-FA workshop (I am not saying all FACs are like this). I think the fact that we now have dedicated source-checkers and image-checks gives some nominators the idea that "Oh, they take care of the source and image issues there [at FAC], so we don't have to worry. Maybe they will copy-edit the article and do research for us too!" An overstatement to be sure, but I think there is an issue with this. Dabomb87 (talk) 03:45, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
Agreed, which is why there's been talk that reviewers need to be less reluctant with outright opposes, instead of just comments; those allow Sandy to archive nominations that aren't ready, rather than leaving them languishing there awaiting copy-editing and the like. Sarcasticidealist (talk) 03:48, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
I don't think that people not opposing is really the problem here. Gary King (talk) 03:50, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
I think nobody checking is the problem, becuase they know that it takes a while to check if a good looking articles really is good. The weaker FACs normally get singled out with 5-minute opposes really quick. Back in 2006 anmd before, five minutes was all it tooked to reach the good/bad verdict. It's more the fact that relatively sound articles aren't being inspected. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 03:53, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
I don't think there's any reasonable way to attract reviewers. People are either drawn to it or they aren't. Forcing noms to review won't work either for the same reason—the FA writers who are inclined to review content are already in here doing it. What we can do is work on retaining good reviewers by self-moderating the nom pages and making sure the review process is reasonable for all parties. If an article is way off, multiple reviewers should send that message right off the bat so the article doesn't languish here while people make attempts to pull it up to FA standard. If it can be fixed up in a day or two, great. If not, build a consensus to get it out of here quickly. This process of using FAC as a peer review and copyediting service is single-handedly responsible for over-taxing the system, and it's not fair to reviewers or nominators. --Laser brain (talk) 04:00, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
Institute a quick fail procedure. Institute some form of training help for new reviewers (I've been nagging about this at FAC and GAN for 2 years). Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 04:08, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
We have the dispatch. Dabomb87 (talk) 04:14, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I've stopped reviewing FACs because of the many baseless opposes. Back in the day, people would vote according to the FA criteria. Now, it's "Oppose - too boring", "Oppose - Too short", "Oppose - OMG how dare we have an FA on a road?". I think it's easily fixable issues like this which lead to an unfavorable atmosphere that drives reviewers away. –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone 04:10, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

"Oppose - too boring", "Oppose - Too short", "Oppose - OMG how dare we have an FA on a road?" I don't see how this has become a recent epidemic. These kinds of opposes have been around since I started reviewing. Sandy/Raul know to ignore these frivolous opposes. How does this drive reviewers away? BuddingJournalist 15:38, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
I have to admit, that has been bothering me lately. FAC is not AfD. Dabomb87 (talk) 04:14, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
I can see that might be a reason to stop nominating if it were true, but not to stop reviewing. --Malleus Fatuorum 04:16, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
One of the problems is that I'm not sure how much weight Sandy assigns such comments, and as a result, I'm uncertain of the affect that my participation will have on the discussion. –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone 04:19, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
With all due respect, this issue doesn't require fixing because I don't think it matters. I've yet to see Sandy or Raul fail an FAC that had substantive support over non-actionable opposes. It might fail for not attracting significant support, but I doubt it would fail for the reasons you mention. --Laser brain (talk) 04:16, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
"If nothing can be done in principle to address the objection, the director may ignore it." Says it all. Dabomb87 (talk) 04:21, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
"Unfavorable atmosphere" is a code word for "no one liked my nom". FAC is not a hand-holding, kumbaya-singing social event. Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 04:27, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
Ah, but "unfavorable atmosphere" is a code word for "why should I contribute to this hell hole?" –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone 04:31, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
It might help if essays were created, such as Wikipedia:FAC is not Peer Review, so reviewers could just link to them when necessary. Gary King (talk) 04:29, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

(undent)mmmmmmmmmmm I saw one about GAN not being triage.. written by ElCobbola? Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 04:32, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Three ways of looking at it

I think standards have gone up and that requires more reviewer effort. The supply of reviewers hasn't gone up to match, so when Awadewit and Ealdgyth volunteer to take on the image and sourcing reviews, they are in danger of burning out -- and in fact Awadewit has just decided to take a break from the image reviews. Looked at as an optimization problem, you can (1) increase the supply of reviewers, or decrease the effort needed from reviewers by either (2) simplifying the review process or (3) reducing the number of FACs to review. I don't know a way to do any of these without some negative side effects. Solving (1) is just plain hard. (2) requires us to get away from FAC-as-PR; (3), if implemented as some form of queue, would cause frustration among article-writers. I've argued in favour of (3) in the past (and I still like the idea), but how about formalizing (2) -- putting some rules in place that require discussion to happen on the article talk page, and only the !vote left on the FAC; plus (for opposes) the FAC criteria on which the oppose is based. One downside of that is that it's harder for Sandy to scan the discussion and get a sense of what's going on, but might it be worth it? Mike Christie (talk) 04:45, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm gonna fight tooth 'n nail for credit for the queue idea. I think I suggested it first. Na na na na boo boo. Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR)
Yes, that was Ling's idea. Mike Christie (talk) 12:13, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
How about PR-as-PR instead of FAC-as-PR? Editors frequently take articles to PR before bringing them to FAC, especially first-time FAC nominators. In fact reading through WP:PR just now, the vast majority of articles are listed there with statements of the form "I want to know what needs to be done to get this article to FA standard" (or FL or GA). There is obviously a recognition that extra work needs to be done to get an article to FA standard, a willingness to do that work, and they're even advertising the fact before taking the article to FAC! Therefore why not pre-emptively review such articles while they are still at PR, and do the necessary article building there? PR has no time limit, which avoids the problem of articles failing and having to go through several FACs because the work needed cannot be done in time. If the articles arriving at FAC basically meet all the criteria, reviewing there will be much easier (and faster). Dr pda (talk) 09:55, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
In the terms I used above, the answer is that initially this would increase the workload and decrease the workforce. Speeding up PR would cost effort from reviewers who might otherwise be here, and to start with the result would be faster flow to FAC from PR. I suppose eventually we could see better prepared FACs and hence less effort needed here, but I'm sceptical that we'd ever get to that point. Instead I think it would encourage more FACs, which is not the problem we are trying to solve. Mike Christie (talk) 12:13, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
<Begin weary explanation>People continually nom articles at FAC because they can wow their buddies and score points at RfA and so on by having an FA article (even if it was entirely passed by members of the relevant wikiproject, with no other reviews.. integrity means nothing). However, no one can score points by bragging that they are a FAC reviewer. It is—or it should be—a labor-intensive task; it requires saying "no" to those fragile egos and thus being labeled a WP:DICK, and it requires real writing and research skills (whereas if you nom a FAC, you can let folks with real writing and research skills—known as "reviewers"— fix it up for you). In short, reviewing at FAC requires both work and skill, yet has NOTHING TO OFFER IN RETURN (sorry for the all caps), while nomming at FAC requires less work and less skill, and carries a high probability of receiving many good returns, from PR-style help to the coveted Bronze Star</weary explanation> Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 12:50, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Footnote scripts

Is there any script tool to automatically re-order grouped citations so that it is numerically ordered, eg [14][5]->[5][14]? YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 05:42, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Can you show me an example of what you're talking about? Tks Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 06:03, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
It's generally considered ideal to layout cites "The literacy rate is 99.5%.[1][2]" not "The literacy rate is 99.5%.[2][1]" so that the multiple cites are in numerical order. I was wondering if there was a script that did this. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 06:06, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
I could do this fairly easily with Python (programming language), but that would be offline. I have always wanted to write a Wikipedia script... Ling.Nut (talk—WP:3IAR) 06:15, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
That's probably a job that a script like User:Gimmetrow/fixRefs.js should do, in addition to what it already does. Perhaps talk to User:Gimmetrow about that. Gary King (talk) 15:48, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Drastic, but perhaps required, idea

Has anyone thought about just stopping any more FACs being submitted for a few weeks (or however long) until the current backlog is cut down a fair bit? Crikey, at this rate there'll be 50 FACs in a little while. I have a few articles I want to put in the queue, but there's no way I'm doing it at the moment. Please, can't something be done? Skinny87 (talk) 10:39, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

We had 60 FACs a while ago. Dabomb87 (talk) 13:50, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
And it's been as high as 100 before. The something that needs to be done is more reviewing. Lots more reviewing. Karanacs (talk) 14:31, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
100 must be pretty rare; I don't think I've seen that in the past year. The average seems to be around 40. If we stop submissions for a period, then once that period is over, the submissions will just balloon from all the submissions that were held off during that period. Gary King (talk) 15:46, 4 February 2009 (UTC)
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