Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/archive6

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Removing objections

I was wondering that if I am nominating an article, do I have the right to remove objections if the author does not respond to responses. For example, if a person objects, and I respond telling them I corrected their reasons for objection, but they never respond nor change their objection, or any other form of response, do I have the right to remove it, or change it to a comment or something like that? How long should I give it till I consider it a "dead comment"? I ask this simply because I feel it is unfair for a person to object but yet not to consider the responses (in the form of article corrections or a written response) to their objections.

I think it would not be good form to remove someone else's objections - better to leave them a note on their talk page asking them to have another look at the article, if they haven't done so on their own initiative after a few days. Worldtraveller 11:15, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Also, I was wondering when a candidate becomes an official Featured Article. How many supports:objections must it have? Thank you. --Lan56 06:11, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

Uh, there's no hard and fast rule - an article is promoted when I deem it to have "consensus". →Raul654 09:14, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

Some guidance would be useful though, if you would oblige, Raul? Where all matters in an "oppose" vote appear to have been addressed, but, after a few days, whoever left the "oppose" vote has not for whatever reason had an opportunity to reassess the article, do you treat that "oppose" vote as invalid? jguk 12:38, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I do take it into consideration when I see lists of objections that are all (or mostly struck) out, and yes, I do tend to discount those votes. →Raul654 22:32, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

Relisting failed nominations

What is the policy on relisting failed nominations? Tintin was rejected as it had two supports and one objection (which may have been redrawn, I believe the points were adressed), and I cannot find a relisting policy in the tlak archives. {Ανάριον} 07:52, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

First, as I said when you asked on my talk page about this - 2/1 is obviously not consensus. This nomination clearly failed (it wasn't even borderline -- 4/1 or 5/1 is borderline). Second, in the past, when articles were renominated, it was after a reasonable period of time (a month or two) - and even then, the first question asked is usually 'have all the previous objections been resolved'. Relisting it before that would... not be good (it sets a bad precedent, it's bad form, it keeps the page overloaded, and it annoys the person who needs to keep cleaning this page out -- me). →Raul654 07:56, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

I do not duispute it failed — I am asking what the standard relisting period is. This should be stated somewhere. {Ανάριον} 08:12, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The idea is not to set a hard limit. That would be instruction creep. →Raul654 08:14, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

So, if a nominated article gets archived without becoming a Featured Article, then it does have to be renominated in order to be considered? Nathanlarson32767 19:23, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes. And as I said above, the first question asked is almost always - have all the previous objections been addressed? →Raul654 21:07, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)

Would it help avoid confusion to add that information to the FAC page? Nathanlarson32767 21:32, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes, when renominating, it is quite common to mention how the previous objections have been addressed. →Raul654 23:03, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)

Relisting Successfully Nominated Pages

There have been at least three relisted nominations of Featured Articles in the past few weeks are so. I myself was almost guility of this when I was going to nominate the Fermi Paradox article, but then realized it was already featured. Perhaps we should just start putting the {{featured}} template on the front of the page rather than on the talk page? Any other ideas?

One other idea (which could be done as well as or instead of the first idea): Change the featured article instructions at the top of the wikipedia:featured article candidates page to say "Check that the article you want to nominate hasn't already been featured before nominating. You can check on Wikipedia:Featured articles or check on the article's talk page" (or something similar)? Jongarrettuk 21:42, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Metadata should not be on the main article page. The problem you cite is not big enough to override this general principle. Talk pages should really be read before nomination anyhow, to get a flavour for the history of the article. Pcb21| Pete 22:42, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

So why not advise them to do so as part of the 'how to nominate' bit at the top of the featured article candidate page? Jongarrettuk 22:45, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Pete is exactly right - keep the metadata out of the articles. And if someone lists something that's already a featured article, delete the nom on sight. →Raul654 00:32, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

What exactly is wrong with a tag on the article page saying it's featured? There are tags to say articles need cleanup, merging, attention, expansion, etc etc, which go on the article page, do they not? Worldtraveller 21:06, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sesame Street

Here is results from the vote on the article Sesame Street. Does the vote need to more definitive than this?

Supported: Ta bu shi da yu, Filiocht, Mpolo, Zanimum

Opposed: Jongarrettuk, Jeronimo

"Object at the moment": Mgm

Jongarrettuk kept harping on the industry standard term edutainment, despite its world-wide usage. I changed the wording for him, but right after, the nomination was archived.

I addressed all but one of Jeronimo's concerns, but he didn't bother to change his vote, or comment elsewise.

I addressed one of Mgm's two concerns; the other, merchandising, didn't need expanding on the main page, IMHO. -- user:zanimum

Generally, yes, if there are open valid non-trivial objections then a FAC is does not becomes Featured. Rather than worrying about the process, it may be more productive to put the articles back into WP:PR for a couple of weeks and then re-nominate. -- ALoan (Talk) 16:03, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

con·sen·sus noun 1. broad unanimity: general or widespread agreement among all the members of a group [1]. 4-2 doesn't sound like widespread agreement to me. →Raul654 16:39, Oct 6, 2004 (UTC)

If Jongarrettuk changed his vote after the changes it would be 5-2. Jeronimo hadn't responded after the changes and may also change his, making it 6-1. Perhaps it just needed to stay on a little longer before being archived. violet/riga (t) 16:54, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Umm, by my count it is currently 4-3, Jeronimo, mgm and me all opposing. I'd certainly hope every 'object' really means 'object at the moment'. Personally I never vote 'object' unless I'd be prepared to support if my objection was dealt with. (And any harping I've done is because zanimum kept asking me to comment on his comments - which I'm happy to do, but I don't think it's fair to then complain about it:) BTW, I don't view having a negative first impression of an article and explaining why to be a trivial objection if that comment's directed at me.)Jongarrettuk 17:05, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Oops, I misread the bit where zanimum said he changed it - I've seen the revised version now (thanks for changing it zanimum, I think it reads better now). Violetriga's right, if I'd seen it before the nomination had left I'd have changed my vote to support to make it 5-2. Check whether jeronimo feels the same way, if he does, relist it straightaway. Jongarrettuk 17:08, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

If we fail to get any further response, what happens? Can I even just relist Sesame now? -- user:zanimum

As I have said to previous nominations -- relisting the same article immediately after it has failed is bad form. The first question that will be asked is - have all outstanding objections been addressed? →Raul654 18:09, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)

• Which suggests to me that it was taken off too quickly, especially as Jeronimo has some further discussion to add. violet/riga (t) 09:19, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

• I was reminded only yesterday that the article had changed, and I'm not constantly available for Wikipedia. So now I "bothered to check", I find that not all of my objections have been addressed. The character section is still messy and without a discussion of the major characters. There are several one sentence/one paragraphs sections, which should be avoided. Much of the article is very US-biased (e.g. ratings), and the "Regional variations of the show" mentions only some of the countries, and is inconsistent. Summarizing, I will not change my vote to support. Jeronimo 07:32, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

• • Knew you'd snipe at that. I was talking merely in theory of someone not checking, for future reference. The major and minor characters change every five years. Regional variations is limited in the countries it mentions, as it is only meant to sample the most popular or note worthy. With time, I will write a whole article on the internationalisation, but mentioning a spin-off that only lasted five years in a relatively small country is not going to help the article in any way, shape, or form. And yes, it is US-centric, because its a US show. Sesame Workshop creates like shows for other countries, and they are not Sesame Street. Is Seinfeld to US-centric, not mentioning how Luxembourgians felt of the show? -- user:zanimum
    • I think one of the special things about Sesame Street *is* that there are regional versions of the show, many of them long-running as well. This certainly deserves more attention. (I watched Bert and Ernie and Kermit c.s. when I was small, and when I turn on the television today, they're still on Dutch TV). Many of the (puppet) characters are famous in their own right, and the article should give some more info about that. Jeronimo 06:48, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC
      • Yes, gosh darn it! Listen to me, please... I too think the local version are fantastic. It's just when someone from the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, etc, thinks of Ernie and Bert and Prairie Dawn, they think of the show Sesame Street. When someone in Germany thinks of Ernie and Bert and Rumpel, they think of Sesamstraße. When someone in Holland thinks of Ernie and Bert and Pino, they think of Sesamstraat. They are different shows. They deserve different articles. Ignoring geography and language, this is no different to Happy Days, in relation to its spin-offs Laverne and Shirley, Blansky's Beauties, Mork and Mindy, Out of the Blue, Joanie Loves Chachi, Fonz and the Happy Days Gang and Laverne and Shirley in the Army. They were all different, yet similar programs in format and content, and so they get different pages. -- user:zanimum

May I relist? --- user:zanimum

If you believe that all the objections are now met and that the quality of the article remains high enough to be a featured article, you don't need anyone's permission - I say go for it! As I'm sure you're aware, it's probably worth noting when you do renominate it that it was recently listed, add a link to the discussion we had then, and note that you believe all the matters objected to are now dealt with. If you don't, someone else will and may use more negative phrasing than you would. jguk 17:34, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Voting contributors?

Question to Raul: I noticed recently that some of the contributors have voted on their own article. E.g., Chris73 voted for his "own" article about Japanese toilets (nominated by someone else), while several collaborators on the Irish Geography article have also voted. Are their votes considered together with the non-contributing voters? Not that I mistrust these contributors (after all, they identified themselves as such), but these people are usually not too objective about their own article (I know I'm not). Just a question... Jeronimo 06:52, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

As I understood from the top paragraph, you cannot should not vote for a self nomination. But since in my case someone else nominated the articles I believe I can vote, too. After all, an article is usually created by multiple contributors. I always disclosed my status as contributor when voting for an article I contributed to significantly. If i misunderstood the guidelines, please let me know and I will remove my vote. -- Chris 73 Talk 06:57, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)

As long as the contributors identify themselves as such then I think it should be ok. Only non-contributor votes should be counted as deciding to make it an FA though. violet/riga (t) 07:47, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I agree that votes by users who contribute in any significant way before the article is listed should not be counted. However, I think it's fine for someone to see the listing, go improve something, and then come back and vote. I think this distinction is important and I know that I have voted for articles I worked on after they were listed here without identifying myself as a contributor. Filiocht 07:57, 2004 Oct 12 (UTC)

Good point. I have in the past objected to an article, then fixed some of my objections. violet/riga (t) 08:12, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

This is putting process ahead of product taken to the extreme. It is totally natural that users who have knowledge about X will have contributed to articles about X. You want to prevent them having any say in whether that article is any good or not? Just leave it to the people who don't know about topic, eh? No wonder featured articles becomes steadily more about box-ticking in terms getting the stylistics/formatting right and much less about the quality of the content. Someone being able to say "I have knowledge about this subject, and this article is accurate and complete" is far more useful than "TOC too long" and other typical objections. Pcb21| Pete 09:22, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Problem: What is a significant contribution? For Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates it's pretty easy, since it is usually only one person that created the image, but for articles its harder to say. For the sake of simplicity I would allow contributors to vote, too. Usually, an article does not pass anyway until almost all objections are met. Pete also has a good point about the most knowledgeable wikipedians being the one that edited the article the most. Is there any policy or guideline available somewhere? -- Chris 73 Talk 09:25, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)

I find this highly disturbing and against the Wiki way. Anybody who has contributed to the article but is not the nominator should have the right to vote, regardless of how big or small his/her contributions were. Johnleemk | Talk 10:56, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I have usually added "I helped/contributed" etc. when it is the case that I have. I believe this is sufficient. Common sense is required on deciding how much weight to lend to such votes. It's not a case of inflating "votes in favour" like in VfD, as here, even one objection usually is enough that it must be fixed. zoney ♣ talk 11:13, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think we should take the perspective that FAC is not a poll, but a process. As any objection can stop the promotion of a FAC, it shouldn't matter whoever put in the objection, if it's a valid one. Effectively, "support" don't contribute much to the process, and should not be take an as a measure of FA-worthyness. ✏ Sverdrup 11:26, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Absolutely agree with this, and with what Zoney said. Having said that, I think comments like "I have knowledge about this subject, and this article is accurate and complete" are helpful too. It would be a disaster if FAC went down the sad road of VfD and, latterly, RfAdminship which attempt to redefine consensus in terms of percentages. Because FAC is generally mercifully free of trollish behaviour, hopefully the accolade of having one's article featured is not so great that people will ever make deceptive supportive comments. Pcb21| Pete 11:36, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Equally valid is 'I know nothing about this, which is why I'm looking it up in an encyclopaedia. Having read the article, I now know a lot/even less, so I support/object.' My point about people who make significant contributions (and yes, I know that would take some defining, I'd mean adding matters of fact rather than improving the style) not voting comes from two things: articles that get voted on to FA because they get a number of supports and no objects and articles coming from the various COTWs that now exist. It seems to me that one of the participants in the COTW grouping nominates on behalf of the group, not just as an individual, which leaves some open questions around the votes of other contributors. Yes, this is a much nicer place than VfD, and no, I do not think that rigged votes are likely, I just think there is a new situation now with all the COTWs and the process here needs to address that. Filiocht 12:27, 2004 Oct 12 (UTC)

• Guys! Don't get me wrong, I was merely inquiring whether it is taken into account that the votes of those who are so kind to indicate they are contributors are from people who may have added significant parts of the article. I don't want to add or change any nomination/voting rules, I'm just curious if Raul - who ultimately judges a nomination - uses this information or not. Nothing more. Jeronimo 17:55, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

• I voted on the Irish Geography one, and whilst what I said may make it seem like I contributed, all I did was whack redlinks; the same goes for most of the others in that example Kiand 19:06, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Here are my thoughts on the subject (sorry for taking so long to reply, but I’ve been swamped lately). I believe true the arguments made against allowing people to vote on an article they have worked on (Because yes, there is obviously a tendency to think well of one's own work), but I also think that keeping all people who have worked on an article from voting on it would tend to bias the featured-article selection process away from the contributors best knowledgeable about a subject. I think the system I have been using up until now -- to ignore the vote of the nominator but count everyone else's -- tends to work best. Virtually all the nominations being made are self-nominations, and so discounting the nominator tends to counter self-promotion bias. On the other hand, letting others vote on the article ensures that we don’t risk the "factually accurate" criteria, which after all is the most important criteria of being a featured article.

Furthermore, this has the wonderful characteristic of being simple - we don't have to worry about defining what a significant contribution is, or whose votes count and whose doesn't, etc. Going down that path only leads to VFD and RFA like pages, which will happen to the FAC over my dead body. →Raul654 16:53, Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)

Fari points all. Lets leave things as they are. I certainly do not want the VfD virus to take hold here. Filiocht 11:04, Oct 15, 2004 (UTC)

Great, thanks for the reply. Jeronimo 11:34, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

What is wrong with this page?

I'm adding a nomination, but it doesn't show until I force the page to purge. What's up with that? - Ta bu shi da yu 11:37, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Overwriting sections

This has been discussed before, but if:

1. someone starts to edit a section;
2. someone else adds a new section above it; and
3. the edited section is saved,

then the edited section is saved in the wrong place (replacing and overwriting the section above). This leads to duplicate sections - one with the edit above one without the edit - and the overwritten section disappears. Deleting duplicate sections is easy enough, but the overwritten section is only apparent from the page history.

This is a significant problem on a high-traffic page like this. In the past week or so, I've replaced overwritten sections a number of times. Presumably it would be possible to avoid this if each FAC nominee went into its own subpage (say, /Shroud of Turin, /Congo Civil War) as on WP:VFD, WP:RFA and others - is there a reason it is not done here (other than historical accident)?

In the meantime:

1. please would editors check that their edits go in the right place and don't have unexpected side effects;
2. if you are deleting a duplicate section, please check that it has not overwritten another section and, if so, put the other section back again.

Thanks. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:13, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I've found after several mistakes that the easiest way to avoid this is to check the most recent page history just before saving your own edit. If an edit (a nomination) has happened while you were editing, then copy the text of your edit and start over and paste it in. - Taxman 02:21, Oct 16, 2004 (UTC)

Smile?

In writing up a Wikipedia:WikiProject Albums/Featured albums proposal|Featured albums proposal, I have discovered that, as I thought I remembered, Smile was once nominated for featured status, but I can't find any record of it. Am I missing something? What are the extant objections? Tuf-Kat 23:55, Oct 17, 2004 (UTC)

It is here. Somewhat surprisingly, not much support or comment. -- ALoan (Talk) 13:41, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Nomination checklist?

A lot of the articles nominated here have some basic defects, which should really be there before becoming featured. Top defects include missing references and an insufficient lead section; also image problems occur frequently. Referring back to Peer Review usually doesn't work (it isn't moved, or the peer review is poor). Would it be an idea to make a "Nomination checklist", which lists these issues spefically ("What is a featured article could also be adapted")? We could then refer to this checklist when a nominated article has such problems, without having to explain the problems in detail once again. This should save space and effort, which can then be used to judge the actual content and accuracy of the article. I wouldn't want to make this a formal thing, but I think it would be useful for both nominators and voters. Jeronimo 11:41, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I agree that a lot of articles have basic defects, but what do you think is missing from Wikipedia:What is a featured article? It mentions lead sections (though that could be expanded to say 2-3 paragraphs), images, and references. Perhaps we could number the items in the criteria and simply point to the fact that they are deficient? That would make editors at least read the criteria. We could keep working on making the criteria more clear and comprehensive. - Taxman 12:05, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)

I don't really think anything is missing, it's more that people should actually read it before nominating. Perhaps numbering would indeed be sufficient to serve as a checklist. Then we can refer to the numbers when an nomination is discussed. Jeronimo 19:41, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The ramblings of someone with too much time on his hands

Some time back, when I nominated a bunch of my works on WP:FAC, they received a great deal of support. However, there was one objection which was never removed (this held up I Want To Hold Your Hand; even when I personally contacted the objector on his talk page after fixing the objection, it was not withdrawn, nor was any reason given for continued objection). The objection? That I made too liberal use of online references (for examples, see the relevant sections on Hey Jude and Something, both already featured articles). I think we should get some sort of consensus on this (I tried Cite sources, but nothing resulted).

I mean, if it's some site on Tripod with no bibliography or references, and practically unknown anyhow, that's okay, it's reasonable. But the sites where I got my material from do list their references, and both score extremely high on Google when searching for "the Beatles". This site is the second result for "the Beatles", just behind the official Beatles website. This site provides a bibliography. Clearly if the article's references are credible, they should be allowed to stand; referencing some teenybopper's Frontpage-designed Geocities site shouldn't, or at the very least, be questioned. I think this should be viewed as part of a slightly larger problem — if I'm not mistaken, policy dictates that no article can become featured unless all objections are resolved. However, what objections are actionable/reasonable? For example, take the nomination of A Tale of A Tub. Jeronimo's objection sticks out like a sore thumb. If my understanding of policy is correct, this holds the article back, despite the mass amount of support from others, many of whom have criticised the objection (much like what occurred with the nominations of A Day in the Life and The Long and Winding Road).

Quite often I find that some objections/comments are just so vague, I'm not sure how to take action. A good deal of the time, if asked to clarify, the user doesn't respond (at least in my experience). For example, Ambi said some of the chronology on Get Back is unclear. I wasn't sure what she was talking about, so I asked a few days ago, and I still haven't got a response.

Sorry if I've wasted everybody's time with my rambling; I think we need to alter the policy sometime soon, as as our community grows, more and more users will be frequenting FAC. As the old parable goes, we're not able to please everyone. Some objective standards clearly must be met, such as references and a lead section. But in some more subjective ones, I think if there's mass disagreement with the relevant objection (or just a clear consensus), we should be able to sidestep the objection in question. We already trust this policy with electing our sysops; why not with our featured articles? Comments? Brickbats? Suggestions of more useful things to do than rambling on a talk page? Johnleemk | Talk 13:04, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Just face it mate, this isn't the most efficiant system in the world. Sometimes people object just because they feel like it, sometimes they just don't get back to you. So far as I can see, you've had articles up before (didn't you do yesterday?), if not, well neither have most of the contributers. No use getting wound up about it. Also, all you're stuff seems to be beatles songs. As much as I would like to see loads of Beatles featured articles, the powers that be want a bit a variety. Branch out. Good luck anyway, chin up.--Crestville 15:51, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)the free encyclopedia.

The only thing you are missing is that a single objection does not hold up a article from being featured. The standard expressed has been substantial majority or rough consensus, not 100% consensus. While 2 or 3 supports and a solid, fixable objection will not be promoted, 8 supports and one objection will not hold an article back. Also just because someone does not withdraw their objection, if you have substantially fixed it, just note that and that will be taken into account. - Taxman 16:07, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)

So why is it still not a featured article?--Crestville 16:16, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Generally a week is given for any objections to be responded to (or new objections to crop up), unless the Featured Article Director rules beforehand that the remaining objection(s) are/is inactionable. Johnleemk | Talk 16:26, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Not in my experience. A recent one is Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Archived_nominations#King James Version of the Bible. I had just fixed two objections, one old objection had just been withdrawn in the wake of my edits, and one support had been changed to neutral (apparently due to an unreasonable belief that mentioning numerology in an article is equivalent to lending it credence). Little to no time was alloted for the two other objectors to respond to my edits. Johnleemk | Talk 16:26, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The main page featured article and FAC are quite unusual in that just one person takes care of doing the housework. Raul almost always makes the right decision, but, because he can't be wping 24/7 mistakes are made in trying to deal with things in a hurry. In these cases, I don't think people have problems with renominating things.

Oh to respond to Taxman, yes all reasonable objections do have to be resolved. The problem is more about making sure they are seen to have been resolved. Pcb21| Pete 17:29, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

What's to be done about stuff that doesn't get many votes at all. Smile got one support, no objections, no neutrals last time it was nominated. It now has three supports. How many supports does an article need? Tuf-Kat 02:56, Oct 21, 2004 (UTC)

Although there is no written minimum (with good reason), when I promote, I like to see at least 3 supports, although I'm more comfortable with 4 and up. The logic behind it is the definintion of consensus - "An opinion or position reached by a group as a whole or by majority will.". Less than 3 people does not a group make. Typically, if a nomination has no objections but not enough supports, I'll leave it here longer than usual. This has the advantage of being simple (and very resistant to VFD disease). →Raul654 03:00, Oct 21, 2004 (UTC)

Length of articles

I'm sure this has been discussed elsewhere/before, but is "too long" a valid objection to a Featured Article candidate? Is the 32k "limit" advisory or mandatory? John Vanbrugh is around 41k, but excellent; Blackadder is also 30-something k, but very good. Does it matter that they exceed the "limit"? -- ALoan (Talk) 16:15, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

In my opinion, 32k is a mainly technical limit. This is also supported by policy, which says that the combined _prose_, excluding lists and markup, should not exceed ~30-40 k, or it will be hard to get through. If an article on FAC exceeds 32k, it means that it could be problematic for a few percent of Wikipedia's readers to edit it, but that can be circumvented by using section editing. Very few browsers have that limitation today. So, I don't think "too long", without suggesting a section or part of one to split off into another article, can be considered a valid objection on articles shorter than 40 k. — David Remahl 16:24, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I agree. I'd hate to see a good article artificially split up because of a technical limitation like this. Filiocht 16:43, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)

It is notable that nothing about the "maximum" length of articles is mentioned in:

• The perfect article
• How to write a great article
• What is a featured article
• Manual of Style
• Policies and guidelines

although the 32k "limit" is discussed in Article size, Browser page size limits, and How to edit an article so long that you can't edit. Is the page limit really an issue? How many user are using old versions of browsers that are affected by this problem (Netscape 4.76 and earlier, and Opera before 6.05, apparently)? Or is ostensibly a technical issue but really a rule of thumb to avoid exceeding the reader's attention span? Would there be a problem if the limit was increased to, say, 64k? -- ALoan (Talk) 18:33, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Clearly a featured article should adhere to existing Wikipedia policy. Whether the policy should be changed is another issue. Long pages get boring (even well written ones), and a number of techniques have been developed to deal with them. The three techniques that I'm aware of can be seen in: cricket, September 11, 2001 attacks and Isaac Newton (in depth). Personally I prefer the first two styles, which allow for a good main article, plus lots of other bits of interest that are easy to find from them.

I don't think it can really be disputed that any long article can be split up. Good long articles will always have a structure that can be adapted to one of the existing techniques.

What about the other 'length of articles' objection: namely that some articles are too short. In principle I disagree with this. If everything interesting about a subject can be said and illustrated succinctly, then it should be a short article. Artificially increasing it by references to arcane, and uninteresting details, just so it is a bigger article damages, rather than improves the article. jguk 19:14, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, policy is not imposed by holy writ - it is something that we decide together, and it is sometimes difficult to work out what "policy" actually is. If we decide that the limit is not mandatory but merely advisory, or should be changed, then we can do that, no? It would be interesting to know whether any existing Featured Articles are near/at/above the "limit".

Splitting works well where there is a discrete chunk that can sensibly be split out. However, it has the tendancy to weaken the parent article, particuarly where the parent is a coherent whole: the usual replacement is some sort of précis of the section spun out, which seldom covers the same ground in quite so satisfactory a way. (Taking, for example, John Vanbrugh, which is at the forefront of my mind right now, you could spin out the early life section, or the playwright section, or the architecture section, or the legacy section, or any two or more of these, but the result would probably be one weaker (parent) article and one or more weak (daughter) articles. I'm rather loath to ask Bishonen or Conte Giacomo to do this as they are implacably opposed, and it seem bizarre that such an excellent article should fail WP:FAC for such a narrow, technical, and seemingly groundless reason.)

On shortness, What is a featured article says:

A featured article should: [b]e comprehensive, factually accurate, and well-written. ... Some people feel that every featured article should have a certain length, and if not enough can be said about the article's subject to reach that length, it should in most cases be merged into another article. However excellent short articles are also accepted.'

I think this must be right. -- ALoan (Talk) 19:54, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Certainly policy can be changed if the consensus is there for it to be changed. Maybe it should be, and anyone wishes to change policy can discuss that in the policy section. I have counterarguments. It's a policy against long and rambling articles. John Vanbrugh is a rare exception to a long article that is not rambling. And I believe every article can meet the <32kb criterion.

On the specific point of John Vanbrugh. FACs require consensus, not unanimity, so if I am alone in opposing this article, that will not (and certainly should not) stop it being promoted. If whoever's in charge of promoting articles needs directing towards my view, then please show them this comment.

Finally, no doubt the comment However excellent short articles are also accepted. needs noting to User:Ambi, who seems to be against short articles in the same way as I am against long articles:) jguk 20:26, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Oh, I can see great merit in trying to keep within 32k as a rule of thumb simply to prevent long rambling articles (although presumably a long rambling article would not pass WP:FAC anyway - a comprehensive list finds it hard enough - cf. the recent North American birds / List of North American birds). But I don't see why tight, concise, well-written articles that happen to be 33k or 39k or 41k should fail too. Of course, John Vanbrugh could be reduced to 32k, but would it be as good? -- ALoan (Talk) 22:00, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The 32kb rule doesn't apply to lists (as far as I am aware). Maybe this one's a case for Wikipedia:Ignore all rules sometimes taking precedence. Certainly if an article is going to stay as long as John Vanbrugh it [EXPLETIVE DELETED] well ought to be good. jguk 22:11, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

jguk, please don't think we don't appreciate being told about the structural options, it's very helpful of you. I wasn't even aware that there was a page named Wikipedia:Long article layout, for instance. Of the three structures you discuss for keeping below 32 kb, I don't have any general preference, I think it depends entirely on the subject. Cricket is a subject I can visualize as a radial or spider shape, but I have a lot of trouble doing that with a person. (It would be helpful if you have an example to give of an article about a person that's structured in the way of Cricket?) Maybe that's because life is lived linearly, or just because I've formed a prejudice from reading about persons mainly in books, rather than in hypertexts.

Anyway, no, of course it can't be disputed that any article whatever can be split up using the Isaac Newton (in depth) principle! That's not really splitting up, the structure remains linear, and if I've understood you right, that's what you don't like about that alternative (and what I do like, in the case of a person).

I agree that article length is itself a factor for boredom. But if that's your main concern with John Vanbrugh, the Isaac Newton (in depth) technique surely won't have any effect at all, so why mention it--clicking on "Continue" halfway through the text can't do a lot to relieve boredom, can it? The reader only sees one screenful of text at a time, anyway, whether the text is one long page or two medium pages, not an off-putting broadsheet of print.

I am opposed, yes, but I have tested not being, doing my best to summarize the John Vanbrugh "Playwright" section and have it point to daughter articles. It's just that I was unhappy with the result, so I didn't post it at John Vanbrugh. In case anybody'd care to look at this "spider structure" effort, here it is (only the Relapse daughter exists yet). Maybe discrete bio episodes like where he tunnels out of the Bastille with a spoon would be better candidates for separate articles, or the molly house scandal? (The last sentence was just a transparent attempt to make more people go read the article, sorry. But Vanbrugh was in the Bastille.)--Bishonen 22:43, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

jguk writes : Long pages get boring. Holy moley. That an intelligent person could write that boggles belief. If you think long pages are boring, you must really struggle with books and newspapers. Not a fan of War and Peace, I take it. I don't believe we should have policy dictated by the limited attention span of our more easily distracted readers. -- GWO

More easily distr... oh, shiny... -- ALoan (Talk) 17:16, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think that the techniques we have for dealing with large articles are more suited to certain articles than others. You have to have a subject matter where all the information centers nicely in blobs that have little overlap, so that a small summary of the blobs is enough to produce a coherent article. With a person's life, there are always going to be references to things that happened before, things that this scheme pushes out to a subarticle. Jesus works pretty well in this style, because the main material is relatively well-known to most readers, so a limited biography with links to more detailed sections "works". And there are lots of sub-topics that separate out nicely into interesting articles on their own. Even so, the main page of the article is around 45k the last time I looked... I think that we could allow articles in the 64k range without problem. The goal would be considerably shorter, though. It could be a valid objection to a FAC that "the part about use of rubber doowangers in Australia would work better as a subarticle of Doowangers", but not just "too long", so that the objection is really actionable. (For what it's worth, the Isaac Newton (in depth) solution seems rather silly, except to retain editability for older browsers. Mpolo 17:57, Nov 2, 2004 (UTC)

Adolf Hitler is another article on a person in the cricket style. And by the way, for whoever asked, I have read ''War and Peace'' (in translation). It is split up into lots and lots of short chapters:) Maybe I'll have to try A la recherche du temps perdu:) Finally,I personally don't like the Isaac Newton (in depth) style, preferring the cricket or September 11, 2001 attacks style. jguk 19:10, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Then why introduce 'Isaac Newton in depth' into this equation in the first place? - JGUK are you just arguing for the sake of being dificult? - Long pages, and no pictures, are sometimes tiresome, "but now we are very big" they are sometimes interesting too Giano 20:23, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I introduced it to give a full picture of the techniques that have been adopted to make sure articles don't become too long. jguk 21:37, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Just for the record - I agree with jguk about articles over the 32kb limit. Such articles are horrid to load on dialup, and in those cases, summary style makes a heck of a lot of sense. This doesn't excuse, however, nominating three-paragraph articles - as the Soda can stove example illustrates, these are rarely, if ever, really comprehensive. Ambi 07:23, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Such articles are horrid to load on dialup. It is ironic then, that Isaac Newton, the poster boy for the 32kb article has about 80kb worth of pictures with it. Doubly ironic that the three picture-free Isaac Newton (in depth) articles are smaller combined, than the illustrated Isaac Newton. Download time on dialup may suck, but its rarely the text that's to blame. GWO 11:25, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Uh, yes, it is. I don't know about yours, but my browser typically loads text before pictures. So if I just want to edit the page, check the history, or don't want to load the pictures, I can stop the thing. A long article - and I'm talking about text, not pictures, on dialup, is a pain - particularly in a period when Wikipedia is rarely this fast. Ambi 11:34, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Optimising articles for editors rather than users is completely ass-backwards. We're writing a comprehensive encyclopedia, not one thats convenient for you. -- GWO 12:03, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Bicycle

... fell short of "feature", though it appeared that only one or two individuals had outstanding objections, vs. eight supporters. It has already started "going backwards" in quality, with people making bizarre changes, hideous misspellings, editing without context, not using wiki style, etc.. I plan to track it, make the last changes suggested, and reintroduce it after a suitable time. This is sad, as this article was much better than most of the stuff that slips through the process.Sfahey 22:13, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I don't know where you are coming up with those numbers. I just recounted to make sure - I count 5 supports (Fifelfoo, Zerbey, Geogre, Niteowlneils, and Revth) - 6 is you include Taxman's ambigious statement. On the other hand, GDR and Sf have lodged quite a few objections, and Jeronimo seems to have older ones. All in all, it does not strike me as "consensus". →Raul654 03:50, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)

Oops. I just now stumbled back on this page while tracking "Space Race" on the FAC page. When I wrote that note, I recall being (more than) miffed, because one guy voted "object" b/c he thought there should be a human in the lead picture instead of just a bicycle(?) and the other fellow voted a separate "object" for each one of his reasons. I thought I had resolved all of "Jeronimo"s older objections. This highlights the trouble I have with the FAC process: Unless they are on obscure topics, articles GET TO the FAC level by true consensus. In the judging though, it is possible for critics to use the leverage of "object" votes to go past consensus and get what THEY want. At that point, the nominator can either cave in and make changes he/she doesn't believe in OR hold his/her course and trust the wisdom of the final arbiter to see whether "unresolved objections" were really substantive. In "Bicycle", I thought the "objections" in the last go-round were screwy, and wouldn't change the text; in "Space Race", I sucked it up and complied with a request that I thought didn't justify an "object" vote. Sfahey 05:15, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well, don't tell anyone that I said it, but an article can still be changed after it is featured. Reversing a change that was made get round a FAC objection might be considered sharp practice by some, but the article would remain featured unless the change made it bad enough to lose featured status via Featured article removal candidates. I'm not aware of anyone actually do that, I hasten to add... -- ALoan (Talk) 11:54, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Don't be disheartened. Work on the article, address the objections, nominate it again in a month or two and I expect it will pass. Gdr 01:02, 2004 Nov 8 (UTC)

Thank you, Gdr. I'll probably do this at some point, but there is so much legal and political stuff in there now (that another co-editor won't let go of) that it's not as good as it once was. I was hoping HE would re-nom. it, let the critics have their say, and maybe it would get back to where I thought we had a great article. Perhaps I should do it for him. Sfahey 05:15, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well if you don't renominate it, I will. It is a very good article. - Taxman 14:44, Feb 16, 2005 (UTC)

As one of the former objectors to featured status for this article I am happy to say that my former concerns have been addressed and on that basis I would not object its renomination. --Sf 10:42, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Why is the FAC page protected?

Why is the FAC page protected?? How long will it be protected? How about putting some information about it at the top of the page?--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (Talk)]] 21:57, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)

My bad. Earlier today, I tagged it as {{inuse}} and protected it so that I could promote and archive some noms. When I was done, I removed the tag but forgot to unprotect. I have fixed it now. →Raul654 22:23, Nov 12, 2004 (UTC)

Oh, good, I was nonplussed and thought of vandalism. Just to admit what an embarrassingly quiet life I have, I've never encountered a protected page before.--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (Talk)]] 01:10, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Sure you have - The main page is protected ;) →Raul654 01:13, Nov 13, 2004 (UTC)

Grade (education)

I removed this prematurely, since it was obvious not all concerns could be addressed during the candidacy. Moved discussion to Talk:Grade (education). Perhaps put it on peer review to get additional comments. — David Remahl 18:54, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Scientific and other technical articles

There are, and have in the recent past, been a number of scientific or other technical articles that have been FACs. I for one take the view that these articles are not suitable as featured articles unless they can be understood by a layman. And I have not been the only one taking that view.

However, I do acknowledge that there is merit in having technical articles suitable for those who have a reasonable understanding of the underlying subject matter. I am also conscious that one of the objections to Wikipedia is that it has no quality control on scientific articles. What about having a new category of articles called "featured technical articles" (or something similar) that covers high quality encyclopaedic articles suitable for the technician rather than the layman? jguk 22:50, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Lists as FA's?

In the ongoing vote on Skateboarding trick, several voters have objected giving the reason that the article is a list. Is it policy that lists are not eligible for featured status? Is there a reference for it? I already asked in the voting itself, but I guess this is a better place, and more likely to be noticed. Could somebody please point me to a policy page, or similar? I rather like the article. It's a list, indeed, but it does have a Lead section, so displaying it on the Main page would be OK.--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (Talk)]] 13:06, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Simply look at the featured article criteria. It mentions great writing. Lists are not that by definition. Only the part of the article that is prose can qualify. If you remove the list that is not great writing, there is usually very little left to the article. Also the criteria lists being comprehensive. A list cannot be comprehensive because it does not do anything but list the elements of a set. It needs to explain. Therefore not a featurable article. - Taxman 13:21, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

Looking at the article that brought this up, it is a bit different from a straight list, so I'll comment on it specifically at its FAC entry. - Taxman 13:27, Nov 18, 2004 (UTC)

In the past, when they have been nominated, people have tended to object for the reasons Taxman writes. →Raul654 07:01, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)

What's the score?

On a more humerous note: I've noticed the colloborations of the week 'keeping score' by counting the number of featured articles they have produced. I'm curious - what's the score? Who's winning?

PS - IMHO, encouraging these kinds of competitons is good for wikipedia (as long as it doesn't get out of control). →Raul654 07:04, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)

WP:ICOTW has one. Filiocht 08:42, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)

Any others? →Raul654 00:14, Nov 20, 2004 (UTC)

WP:ACOTW has one (Cyclone Tracy). Martyman 01:05, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

WP:GCOTW has one (Super Mario 64). Andre (talk) 02:15, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps we should decorate this page with a little scoreboard? ;) →Raul654 03:11, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)

That would be cool. Andre (talk) 03:16, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)

WP:COTW has two (Academia and Siege). Two others were COTW nominees but were not selected and later became featured (Abbey Theatre and Attila the Hun). -- ALoan (Talk) 18:15, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

WP:UKCOTW has one (National parks of England and Wales). -- ALoan (Talk) 18:15, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

My attempt at creating a score board, see User:Solitude/FA Scoreboard. A few things: Should a column be included listing the FAC's, so just the nomination count? Should COTW be included as a column describing how much articles the project was able to "promote" to COTW, or should COTW be a "contestant" itself? Table needs some more filling and there's obviously projects missing right now. [[User:Solitude|Solitude\talk]] 10:29, Nov 25, 2004 (UTC)

WikiProject Featured Articles On Main COTW's Members WP:ICOTW 1 ? ? 23 WP:ACOTW 1 1 ? ? WP:GCOTW 1 0 ? ? WP:COTW 1,2 1,2 ? ? WP:UKCOTW 1 0 ? 70 WP:CSBCOTW 1 ? ? 45 WP:MCOTW 0 0 ? ?

I would suggest a mandatory 1 featured article minimum before including a COTW in the table. Also, we could cap it at (for example) 5 - so only the 5 leading COTWs would be including in the chart. Also, you might not want to include some things (like # of members) because those stats are impossible to keep up to date. →Raul654 19:54, Nov 27, 2004 (UTC)

Duplicated attribute values on ID elements in *HTML* source

Does anyone understand why the article's HTML source has duplicated the value, toc, for the id attrib (on 2 different elements)? This is obviously invalid. -Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley 16:34, 2004 Nov 27 (UTC)

It's from Template:Featuredtools, which (like too many templates) wrongly uses id="toc" when it should use class="toccolours". I've fixed it now. - 19:49, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC) Lee (talk)

Archived FAC discussion

See this subpage of the Talk page for the Rachelle Waterman article, for a discussion of why a consensus could not be reached that would allow making the article into a Featured Article.

Recent revert reverted rather too much

Hi this revert by 172 reverted too far back. It nailed some other editors comments including my own. There have been edits since, and I unfortunately do not have the time to sort them all out. Can someone do it, or perhaps User:172 can? I left a message on Tuf-Kat's talk page (oops, sorry) regarding the issue. Thanks. - Taxman 22:19, Dec 1, 2004 (UTC)

That appears to be 172's reversion of himself, which should have been back to my version but was not. I've gone and fixed it though. Tuf-Kat

Thank you. Sorry I accused the wrong person! - Taxman 22:58, Dec 1, 2004 (UTC)

Objections removed

Hi, I recently self-nominated Bernard Williams for featured article status. There were some objections, which I dealt with, and all objections have now been withdrawn. What is the next step in the process? Can the article now be considered a featured article?

Many thanks to all who gave advice and then support. Slim 23:41, Dec 1, 2004 (UTC)

You will have to nominate it again. I recommend that you let at least a week or so pass between the removal and the new nomination. — David Remahl 00:27, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

To clarify (I hope), I think David has misunderstood. This is not a question about relisting a failed nomination, it's a question about a current nomination to which objections have been resolved. We wait about a week for anyone to object who wants to, and for the objections to be dealt with, so this nomination will either succeed or not succeed around the 5th of December. Mark¹ 00:42, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Oh sorry. Yeah, now you just have to lean back, congratulate yourself on a job-well-done, rest and wait :-). — David Remahl 00:45, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Oh thanks. That's great news! Okay, I'll hang on for another week. :-) Best, Slim 00:57, Dec 2, 2004 (UTC)

Subpages?

As this page has become enormous, and edit conflicts are causing duplication that is very difficult to repair, should we perhaps switch over to the transcluded-subpage format used on VFD, RFA, and FPC? This would also make logging and archiving easier. —No-One Jones ^(m) 00:34, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It's painful, but it's a necessary step, IMHO. I'm actually surprised this wasn't converted before RFA. Ambi 00:58, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes, this is a good idea. — Matt 02:57, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

An excellent idea. - Ta bu shi da yu 06:11, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, probably needs to be done. It does work to load the page history in another tab/window just before you save every edit to FAC and check for new sections or deleted ones, but that is pretty much a pain, and depends on correct edit summaries or looking at diffs. The problem with subpages is having FAC on your watchlist is much less useful. - Taxman 06:38, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)

Does anyone know if there's any chance of the addition by the developers of a watch option that watches all subpages as well as the main page? Proteus (Talk) 09:19, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

There's always a chance. Put in a request, but I'm guessing it might not get high on the priority list. - Taxman 18:26, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)

It's becoming enormous because of the sheer number of nominations. I really think we need to start being more strict about having one nom per person. →Raul654 09:02, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)

That still won't scale in the long run, Raul. I think we should begin migrating to subpages as soon as possible. Johnleemk | Talk 09:09, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Exactly, and no offense to you, but we should do everything we can to encourage the nomination of every worthy article, not discourage it. Though for the effort involved in responding to criticism, I think more than 3 noms per person is not reasonable. Other ways should be considered to handle the workload. For another thing, there are only what, 22 nominations now. And if you want to build consensus for the limit on the number of noms, by all means go for that separately. Another way to ease the burden would be to remove those that are consensus objections in a shorter amount of time. Perhaps 3 or 4 objections as unsuitable, and no supports in a few days or a week would be a good guideline. There are 4 consensus objects, sitting there right now, with no likelihood of success. - Taxman 18:26, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)

There *were* 37 noms until last night. And the reason we 'only' have 22 is because I've gradually gone from a 7 day FAC cycle to a 5 day cycle (which actually increases the chances of a bad nom getting through). Once this page hits 25 or 30, the noms don't really get the per capita attention from the people critiquing them. →Raul654 21:04, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)

Ahh, didn't notice. But in any case, they should be kept on longer, not shorter, I think. Removing clear consensus (both ways) votes earlier could help the situation. - Taxman 13:01, Dec 5, 2004 (UTC)

After seeing the nomination for Laal language wiped out by a server glitch, I converted this to subpages. We can work out the kinks now, but I believe we were up against the technological limits of the old format. —No-One Jones ^(m) 11:09, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

There seems to be some issue with it now; specifically, Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Laal language appears to be out of sync with Wikipedia:Featured article candidates#Laal language. - Mustafaa 17:56, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Should be fixed. I've stolen a feature from WP:RFA for subpages — to ensure that everything is up to date, just click the purge cache link at the top of the FAC page. Johnleemk | Talk 18:35, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

There is something weird, though. I just edited Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Laal language and got an edit conflict, although according to the History it's been six hours since anybody last edited it before me. I'm slow, but not that slow.--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 20:21, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Building consensus

There is a discussion on references in featured articles that I would like everyone to weigh in on at Wikipedia talk:What is a featured article. Thanks - Taxman 18:26, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)

I think that this vote is a bit of a foolish move. I note that there are already two votes against, which means we cannot build consensus as things stand. It would have been much better to have a discussion to achieve consensus rather than rushing madly into yet another vote. Please note, before the straw men come marching in, I support the idea of having references in articles, I just do not think that voting on everything is a good idea. Votes are a way of imposing a majority view, they are not (emphatically not) a way of building consensus. Filiocht 11:29, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

Then what exactly do you propose? Instead of only making negative points, why don't you try to be helpful? It takes more to propose useful ideas than it does to point out flaws in everyone else's. - Taxman 13:16, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

So voting is positive and discussing is negative? My proposal is that the so-called discussion (in fact a vote) actually become a discussion. Let's get all points of view on the table and then see what areas of agreement there are. Then we propose a tentative wording that tries to accomoodate the opinions expressed. This is discussed again and tweaked as needed. At the end, consensus emerges, rather than imposing the bipolar yes/no of a vote. Especially a vote that says: 'remember if you vote no you are undermining the values we all hold dear and there will be no more apple pie', or word to that effect. Voting is not consensus, but there are ways to achieve consensus that respects all opinions and tries to accomodate all points of view. Generally, voting is just a way to impose one view on all users. At best, the proposal (any proposal) being voted on is by definition excluding a possibly infinite range of alternatives. Rather than asking others to vote on what you think is the best thing to do, it is always better to ask them what they think, without imposing the limits inherent in a vote. I hope this is constructive enough. Filiocht 13:27, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

Pagination

I think I like the new setup, but I'll reserve judgement until the next time I have to clean this page out. →Raul654 07:01, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)

How does relisting work with the new paginated system? Martyman 00:46, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sure makes it harder to watchlist this effectively. -- Jmabel | Talk 01:14, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

It really does. Is there really a pressing need for this change? Filiocht 14:37, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

If you're interested in only one or two articles on the FAC, then it makes watchlists usable. — Matt Crypto 15:11, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Many people, myself included, see a pressing need for this setup; see the sections above, #Subpages? and #Overwriting sections. —No-One Jones 15:23, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

FTR, I like it. Tuf-Kat 17:29, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

How Featured Article status is awarded

I listed Bernard Williams some time ago. Evil Monkey added the Featured Article template to the Bernard Williams Talk page on December 4, even though a couple of objections were, at that time, still outstanding. But it's not listed on the Featured Articles list, at least not under philosophy, which is where I assume it would belong as he was a philosopher. So does Evil Monkey putting the template on the Talk page mean it now has Featured Article status, and should I add it to the list myself? There are currently six supports and one objection. It would be useful if something more could be said on the project page about exactly how this process works. At the moment, it's a bit like the election of a new pope. At some point, smoke will come pouring out of a chimney, but there's no information about which chimney; or who is entitled to light the fire. :-) Slim 20:28, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

I actually do remember being at the page but for the life of me can't work out why I changed the template from fac to featured. After I got a message from Slim I've changed it back because obviously there still hasn't been a consensus reached. Sorry about the confusion--Evil Monkey → Talk 20:40, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

I think as much of a consensus has been reached as will be. Six supports and one objection. Does that meet the criteria? Slim 20:44, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

No, you're not supposed to remove it from FAC or add it to the FA list yourself. Raul is in charge of lighting the fire, and as I understand it, the chimney to watch is the WP:FAC page itself: the article is removed from it when a decision is made. (And is soon added to the FA list, but there may be a gap of a few hours.) As I understand it, Taxman's sole remaining objection is paragraph length: user talkpage discussions and edits to the article don't constitute FAC objections.--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 21:35, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, Bishonen. I'll keep an eye on the page for the nomination's disappearance, then.  :-) Slim 22:08, Dec 8, 2004 (UTC)

Sock alert

WP:FAC has been mercifully free of the sock puppets, anons, and created-for-the-purpose accounts that plague VfD, but this process is intrinsically just as vulnerable to them, and can be poisoned as easily. Please take a look at what's happening at the Special relativity vote, Raul, and other experienced users of this page. Is there a policy in place against this sort of thing, or a rule, even? I think one is needed. My own feeling is that trolling by anons and just-created voters on WP:FAC needs to be removed. Any objections? Has this happened before?--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 21:27, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

They're not sockpuppets, they're anonymous IPs. And because every nay vote has to be actionable and require reasoning behind it, this page is generally resistant to sockpuppets. But as long as they abide by the rules, I see no reason why anons cannot participate. →Raul654 21:34, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

They're pretending to be different users when they are almost certainly the same one. That must count as cheating because Featured Article status is awarded when most of the objections have been resolved, so if one editor is lodging multiple objections (or supports), it skews the entire result. (In addition, the objection makes no sense. If the article's treatment of the second postulate is demonstrably false, why would this editor not simply go and correct it?)

Statements made in Wikipedia need to be more than just not "demonstrably false". If someone questions the accuracy of a statement, then the burden of proof falls on Wikipedia to show that what it states is accurate, not on the questioner to show that it isn't. Paul August 23:05, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

What this means is that an editor can submit an article for Featured Article status, then get all their non-Wikipedia friends, who don't give a toss about the project, to submit enthusiastic supports via anonymous IP addresses with no edit histories, thereby drowning out any objections; and that article will nevertheless be given Featured Article status on that basis. That can't be right. Slim 21:48, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

I think you can trust Raul, well-reasoned actionable objections won't get "drowned out". This isn't a popularity contest. Paul August 23:05, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

Current policy dictates that votes are only discountable if they fail to provide an actionable objection. The objections are actionable. How to correctly tally votes is at Raul's discretion. For example, if I nominated a Beatles song article that had a notable hole in its coverage yet there was only one objection, I think Raul probably would have dismissed it anyway. And in any case, probable sockpuppets usually have their votes given less weight if it comes down to it. I don't think there's anything to worry about here, and I'm quite unhappy over the assumption of bad faith here. There's a good possibility one of them could be a real user. Don't bite the newcomers. Johnleemk | Talk 08:46, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I do take Johnleemk's point about bad faith, and Paul August's point about the burden of proof falling on Wikipedia. My apologies. Just to update: I left a note on the anonymous (or new) user's Talk page suggesting that, on Special Relativity's Talk page, he request a reference for the error he believes he has found, and I referred him to Wikipedia:Verifiability, where it says if the authors can't or won't provide a reference, then the alleged error may be deleted. I hope that will smooth things over. Again, my apologies for the bad-faith judgment. Slim 22:19, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

Vote records

I'd like to suggest that when article nominations are archived, those doing the relevant moves etc add a line giving the voting tallies. It's done on featured picture candidates when they're archived, and makes it easy to see at a glance what the result of the discussion was. Worldtraveller 10:49, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

That would be a nice idea, maybe even for the main page. It is done on the Colloboration of the Week page. Evil Monkey → Talk 22:22, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

Rush for references

I notice it is currently in vogue to make sure all article are properly referenced at the time of feature. Can I plug then Template:Book reference. By using this template to add your references, nearly all the work in getting references formatted in the APA style requested at Wikipedia:Cite sources is done for you (you still need to remember to write Author = Lastname, FirstName). If lots of articles use this template, we will have a great starting point for automated conversion as and when the "references"/metadata tab gets implemented (lots of support for this tab on the mailing list at the moment). Pcb21| Pete 22:28, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Huh, which mailing list/thread? Fredrik | talk 22:48, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It's buried in various threads in wikiEN-l, IIRC "Original research" is the most important thread - though there are subthreads off that started by RK. Pcb21| Pete 00:33, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Also, for example,"References considered virtuous (was New policy proposal)" started by David Gerard.... basically there was a general feel of a sudden rush to references both on this page and EN-l. Pcb21| Pete 00:35, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks. Fredrik | talk 01:45, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Query about photographs in articles

I have a question. Several of my articles have been criticized for having too many photographs or for using photos that are too large. Is there a reason some editors don't like photographs in articles? For me, an illustrated article always looks better than one that isn't illustrated. A recent article of mine that I nominated for Featured Article status is Rat Park, which is about opiate addiction. It had four photos: a small one of the author of a study; a photo of a heroin addict; a drawing of an opium poppy; and a drawing of a rat self-administering morphine. A couple of editors said that the poppy and the heroin addict pics are "irrelevant" and they've been removed which, to my eyes, has left the page looking boring and ordinary. It's not the first time I've had this criticism of my articles, but I'm at a loss as to understand it. Encylopedias do use photographs. Does anyone know what the house style or convention is with photograph use, or where this conservatism (as I see it) regarding illustrated pages comes from? Slim 23:20, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)

It's just that articles with irrelevant pictures look funny. Johnleemk | Talk 03:11, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I suppose it boils down to a definition of "irrelevant". I would say that a drawing of an opiate poppy and a photograph of a heroin addict in an article about opiate addiction is highly relevant, but others disagreed. But it's not only relevance. In some of my previous articles, I've had editors complain about the size of photographs and they've reduced them to thumb size, which I always think looks silly, as though the photograph is there but no one's really committed to it. I get the sense, and I'm just guessing here, that it has something to do with people feeling that a fully illustrated page doesn't look serious enough; is too "girly"; not encylopedic. If that's what it is, I'd want to argue that pages must not be boring, regarding the subject matter, the writing or the appearance. Because if the pages are boring, people won't read them, whether they're encyclopedic or not. First and foremost, I would say, Wikipedia wants to be read. Slim 03:42, Dec 15, 2004 (UTC)

Rat Park is about a scientific experiment related to opiate addiction, not opiate addiction. As for the thumbnailing of pictures, you should probably confer with the editors who did that. I suspect this could be because of different resolutions, though — it's possible you're on a high resolution (i.e. 1280*1024) while they are on a smaller one, and thus, the pictures crowd the screen for them. Johnleemk | Talk 03:57, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks John. I hadn't thought that different screens might show the images differently, but now you say it, of course that could be it. I have no idea whether I'm on a high resolution. I'm using an eMac. I don't know whether that would tell you. Slim 04:08, Dec 15, 2004 (UTC)

I'm unaware of what the eMac uses. However, you should be aware that different people read Wikipedia on different kinds of computer displays and settings. Some, for instance, have laptops or other computers with small displays; others may have to use large fonts due to poor eyesighs. In those contexts, the use of many large pictures, not really right on the topic, may render reading the article somewhat unpleasant.

In the case of Rat Park, I'd myself have appreciated some photographs of the experiment itself. To me, the poppy picture, while slightly on topic, was not really needed. If, for instance, we were to write a page on the use of mustard in cooking, I'd primarily expect photographs of cooked dishes and preparation of dishes, not of mustard fields.

But, really, the photographs, I think, we a minor part in the criticism of that article. David.Monniaux 18:45, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hi David, thanks, I'll keep my photographs smaller in future. I've looked around for a photograph of Rat Park, but with no luck so far. I've written to Simon Fraser University in case they still have any. I've also written to Alexander and to the journal that published his work to try to find criticism of the study. I'll be de-POVing the piece over the next few days. Thanks for all your comments on it. The input is much appreciated. Best, Slim 19:57, Dec 15, 2004 (UTC)

Instructions

Re instructions: the current instructions are not the only way to do it, of course (and people - erm, like me - don't read these things anyway...)

When I made my first nomination today after the new sub-page structure had been created (Tony Blair), I edited WP:FAC to add the sub-page reference and then edited the redlink, and finally added {{fac}} to Talk:Tony Blair. The instructions tell you to do it the other way around.

Which is easiest?

(PS - Filiocht - edit away :) -- ALoan (Talk) 15:29, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The new setup here has many advantages, but it sure has complicated things. Filiocht 15:54, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)

Has something other than the above changed here? Every time I try to make a comment on a candidate, the comment previews and saves OK, but is not displayed on the page as a whole, yet if I go back to edit there my comment is as I left it. What am I doing wrong? I've never had a problem before Giano 13:21, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

That is a side effect of the current subpage setup. You are editing Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Some article, which is updating properly, but Wikipedia:Featured article candidates doesn't update until someone edits it or purges its cache by clicking the link at the top. —No-One Jones 13:25, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I've tried doing that, have just made a comment at "Interstate 90" and found two previous comments neither of which awere displayed on my screen Giano 10:57, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, forget it, I am a fool, I have seen how to do it Giano 11:08, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I like the new setup (it does make my job a bit easier) but it has some disadvantages. Plus, the instructions have now ballooned out again. Over the holidays I'm going to prune them down again. →Raul654 19:12, Dec 17, 2004 (UTC)

Reusing featured articles

Please see [2] for a discussion on reusing (unbolding) the current crop of already-featured articles. 20:15, Dec 19, 2004 (UTC)

Skunk snafu

Please, could somebody fix the Domestic skunk/Pet skunk nomination? I noticed something had gone wrong with it this morning--look right at the bottom of the Christmas vote, and you'll see. I've been staring at the History and at the article itself, hoping to fix it, but I can't figure how. (It looks like the article has been moved several times.)--[[User:Bishonen|Bishonen (talk)]] 19:21, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I think it's done- the problem was that the section is called pet skunk, while the article was linked to as domestic. Mark¹ 01:48, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

How to relist a failed nomination

Now that we're transcluding, how do we relist? If I relist then it will show the old nomination, from the old page! How do we do this? - Ta bu shi da yu 00:10, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I suggest blanking the page and providing a link to an old revision. Fredrik | talk 00:33, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I suggest moving the old sub-page to, say, {{WP:FAC/subpage/old}} - if necessary, this can be extended subsequently my moving the second failed nomination to {{WP:FAC/subpage/old2}}, etc., and yes, links to previuous nominations should be given in the new nomination. -- ALoan (Talk) 15:20, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Do it by numberings. If something fails, then the next listing should have a 2 or 3 or whatever. This makes it fully extensible. →Raul654 23:51, Dec 27, 2004 (UTC)

But the {{fac}} template from the article's talk page still links to the old page. I think moving is the only workable solution. I suggest using Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/name_(old_nomination) syntax and obviously linking it when relisting the nom. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 01:49, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

How does this resolve?

On Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Seattle, Washington, it seemed to me like all objections had been met, but I see it has been removed from this page without any apparent action to say "yes, it's a featured article". Am I missing something? -- Jmabel | Talk 23:14, Dec 27, 2004 (UTC)

It had (as far as I could tell) 1 support and 0 objections. 1 support does not a consensus make. →Raul654 23:50, Dec 27, 2004 (UTC)

Jeez. People seemed to be agreeing that it was a good article, but admittedly didn't put the word "support" in boldface. Is it now too late for me to canvass the people who said so and did not use that magic word? -- Jmabel | Talk 02:26, Dec 28, 2004 (UTC)

That's a little disingenous. Michael Snow withdrew his objection, saying "I still think the article could still use some more overall polishing to improve the style, but I don't know if that's a specific enough concern to be considered actionable on a featured article nomination. In any case, things have improved enough that I won't formally object at this point" - saying he won't object is pretty far from supporting. Lukode said "I agree. If anything, prose in this article should be cut down, no?". I don't think it's the case that they simply forgot to say support.

As for recanvassing - wait a while and renominate the article. List it on peer review if you'd like to get some additional commentary. →Raul654 02:38, Dec 28, 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, I have the same question for Pulaski Skyway. --SPUI 23:24, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It had 0 supports and 1 minor objection. This is not consensus. →Raul654 23:50, Dec 27, 2004 (UTC)

So how do I get consensus? Spam people's user pages? --SPUI 00:16, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Certainly not. Some articles just don't happen to catch much attention. Others people see things they don't specifically like but don't comment on. Fix the one minor objection, consider listing it on WP:PR, then fix anything else you know needs fixing in order to meet the criteria then wait a week at least after it was removed as a candidate and nominate it again. No big deal. If it is a great article it will get noticed. - Taxman 00:52, Dec 28, 2004 (UTC)

Exactly →Raul654 00:53, Dec 28, 2004 (UTC)

I did list it on Peer Review, and addressed the concerns. Then I posted it here, and got one minor objection, which I took care of. The fact that no one else commented on it says much more about the process than about how good the article is. To help correct that, I will look at some of the FACs with few comments and comment on them. --SPUI 01:48, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

No one said the process is perfect. But you have made the very best response possible. - Taxman 02:45, Dec 28, 2004 (UTC)

FAC template remains on articles

Thanks for the promotions and removals, Raul654, but when an article is removed from here as a failure the FAC template remains on the articles talk page. This makes it appear that it is still an active FAC and it also still appears in the FAC category. Should it be the archivers job or the nominators job to clean these up? Perhaps a new FormerFAC template should be used that still links to the discussion but notes that it did not reach a consensus at that time and is no longer an active discussion:

This article is a former featured article candidate. Please view that page to see why the nomination failed.
Once the objections have been met you may resubmit the article.

[[Category:Wikipedia former featured article candidates|{{PAGENAME}}]]

The resubmit link would go to the instructions on how to resubmit an article (something that is a little unclear at the moment). Oh, and perhaps it should use the message box template for both templates. violet/riga (t) 17:45, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'm well aware of the problem. I tend to do all of those at the same time -- I purged all the old {{fac}} tags in November based on the 'what-links-here' from the template (see this) Now to answer your specific suggestion - no, I do not think we need (yet) another template message. It's just one more thing to do, and a perfect example of instruction creep. Personally, I'd prefer it if the nominators did the removal, or I can do them as a batch job every few months. →Raul654 17:57, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)

I don't really see it as instruction creep, just changing {{fac}} to {{formerfac}} rather than deleting it. violet/riga (t) 18:19, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree with violetriga. It doesn't matter to me either way. I just hope the removal/change will be done on a more regular basis than once every few months to avoid confusion to newbie editors. Mgm|^(talk) 13:25, Jan 17, 2005 (UTC)

Just to jump in with information, there is already a template for fac's that have failed because of unresolved objections, Template:fac-contested. Gentgeen 04:35, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I support having some template for failed FACs. It is a tad strange when I check some article page and see it is still a FAC - when in fact the voting ended weeks ago. As a frequent visitor of FAC, I could take care of implanting this template, if Raul would just message me each time he moves a batch to archive. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 23:09, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

If you add Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Archived nominations to your watchlist, you should see every time I archive something. →Raul654 00:14, Jan 28, 2005 (UTC)

I found template:fac (contested) and have updated the style to work for both older and newer failed nominations. I think we could start using that one now, though "facfailed" might be better than "fac (contested)". violet/riga (t) 13:27, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

So which one will we use? After Raul makes a choice, I will go over the archive and update them. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:23, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I've renamed it as template:FACfailed and fixed all the archived ones now. violet/riga (t) 18:38, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well, I say I went through the archive... not Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Archived nominations/Index or further though. violet/riga (t) 18:52, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Comment doesn't show up?

I just added a comment to the "Rio de Janeiro" nomination, but it doesn't show on the main FAC page. However, when I click "edit" on the Rio section, it does. Any idea why this is and how I can fix it? Jeronimo 07:24, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Now the same thing happened with my comment on "bossa nova". Just in case, I'll paste my comments here:

• Object strongly. Please go to Wikipedia:Peer review first. This article is well below featured standard. We have: no history section, no politics section, no references. Many of the topics that are discussed need more attention and better sectioning (a section like "miscellaneous" is of course terrible). In addition we could use a map of the city, and of its location within Brazil. Jeronimo 07:21, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• Object. 1) An article about music needs one or more sound samples to get featured. 2) It could use some pictures too - I can think of a famous bossa nova artist performing, or the cover of a wellknown bossa nova album. 3) Contents need a copyedit, text is not very fluent at times. 4) Most sections could use a little more content. 5) Are there dances associated with the bossa nova? If so, this needs to be discussed. 6) References are needed, preferably including some paper references. 7) The list of Bossa Nova musicians is not very useful this way. It would be better to discuss a few of them in the text, and possibly link to a List of bossa nova musicians or so. 8) It is clear from the article that bossa nova music is popular in Brazil, but this is not discussed in detail. Also, what about the rest of the world? This is only touched upon briefly. Jeronimo 07:30, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Just click the "refresh server cache" link at the top of the page and all will be fine. Johnleemk | Talk 11:12, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

A thought

A while back, something occurred to me: what if an article made it past FAC, but then its condition degenerated so that it would no longer match the expectations for a featured article? Is there a process an article could go through to be reconsidered and perhaps stripped of FAC status? I don't know of one, but if there isn't, I think there should be. I just came across the article on Mozart, which according to its talk page is featured, but to me it doesn't even look close to featured quality. Everyking 07:29, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yes, here's the project page: Wikipedia:Featured article removal candidates 172.197.93.113 07:31, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Stupid me! Thank you! Everyking 07:32, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Sure, no problem. I'm glad to have helped you. :) 172.197.93.113 07:34, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It's not so much a "degeneration" than a definite and marked increase in the standards for what a featured article should be. The standards have become so much higher that older featured articles tend not to measure up to the requirements as we interpret them today. This is particularly true of the holdovers from way back in the brilliant prose days. →Raul654 07:42, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I see your point. The Mozart article isn't bad by any means, it's just short of what I'm used to seeing in a FA. I think nowadays people would immediately object to the short lead section, for example. Everyking 07:53, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

As it happens, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was nominated for a while on WP:FARC in October 2004, but the nominator withdrew it - WP:FARC Archive:Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:22, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, it probably shouldn't be featured in its present state, but I'm not the type to actively try to get it defeatured. I was just curious if we had a process, and quite pleased to see that we do. Everyking 12:46, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

If I had to guess, I'd say we defeature about 2-3 articles per month. →Raul654 18:00, Feb 7, 2005 (UTC)

Why is this page protected?

Why is this page protected? How can someone nominate an article in this situation?--Pharos 20:17, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This is frustrating. I would like to nominate Timpani, and have already created Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Timpani. – flamurai (t) 20:19, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

Whoops. My bad. I protected while I was archiving to prevent an edit conflict. →Raul654 20:20, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

No problem. It might help to use one of the protected templates, or some boilerplate of your own just to let people know what's going on. – flamurai (t) 20:24, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)

Something like:

Actually, I used to do that to this page all the time (that's what template:inuse is for) but this was only supposed to last 5 minutes so I didn't think the template was necessary. →Raul654 20:36, Feb 17, 2005 (UTC)