Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Seattle, Washington

For the current discussion, please see Featured article candidates/Seattle.

Seattle, Washington
Partial self-nom. We've been kicking around the possibility of nominating this for about half a year. I think it's at least very close. Most of what would normally be long lists has been either factored out or turned into prose. Lots of pics. As you can see from the enormous number of blue links, this leads to a rather dense collection of several hundred other Seattle-related articles, most of them far shorter but pretty decent in their own right. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:49, Dec 20, 2004 (UTC)


 * I added the Mapit template (combines aerial, topographic, and street maps into one external link box), and fixed the latitude/longitude values listed in the article (they were switched). --[[User:Brian0918|brian0918 talk]] 19:11, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

BTW, I know that one of the things that constantly comes up in this process is references. I've added specific citations for the few statements in the article I thought might be controversial, and a rather thorough set of references for the city's history. Because the article "sits atop a pile" of other, more detailed articles, many of the detailed references are at one remove. However, if there are any particular statements that someone thinks are controversial and require a specific reference to substantiate them, just give the specifics and I can probably track those down. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:38, Dec 20, 2004 (UTC)

Mild and conditional oppose (sorry, Joe!). First, I have to say I really like the article overall, and am very pleased at the hard work Jmabel and several others have done to give my old hometown a great and detailed article. My few objections are as follows. First, there are too many 1-line/1-sentence paragraphs: this is especially noticeable in the Utilities section, but they occur elsewhere also. Second, the top of the article is pretty cluttered with a TOC, taxobox, and two photos -- can at least one photo move down in the article? Third, while I admit that the article must of course be brief in many ways as an overview, I think it is occasionally too brief: several sections (the one on education, for example) read in many places much like a recitation of links to allow people to jump to articles with explanatory content...the sentences themselves offer too little information, I think, to make them easily readable (especially given the link density). Finally, the notes at the end of the article about Seattle's existence in TV, film, and novels are very nice, but a little too brief (the absence of Ridley Pearson jumped out at me...perhaps it's the only one, but I think it bears another look). All of these objections are exceedingly minor, I think, and I have every confidence that they will be fixed. Once Now that they are, consider me an enthusiastic supporter. :-) Jwrosenzweig 04:32, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * I'll try to take on some of these. Let's see if I can list your issues, so that we have a chance to address them. Tell me if I'm getting any of this wrong.
 * too many 1-line/1-sentence paragraphs, especially in the Utilities section.
 * I've taken my shot at these. Some things were simply more natural as bullet-lists, so I've taken them that way. I added miscellaneous salient facts here and there to get slightly prosier style.
 * Clutter at top of article should be reduced.
 * I think I've dealt with this one now, tell me what you think. That Infobox is a monster, but it appears to be the same for all major U.S. cities. -- Jmabel | Talk 09:57, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)
 * Education too much of a laundry list
 * I think I've dealt with this, you'll have to tell me if what I did is good enough to meet your standards.
 * Want more on representation of Seattle in popular culture.
 * In particular want mention of Ridley Pearson
 * I don't know Ridley Pearson's work, and our article on him doesn't mention Seattle, so Jay, if you can add what you think is relevant about him, it would be appreciated. -- Jmabel | Talk 08:01, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)

General question (not just to Jay James): how unacceptable are bulleted lists? Some of these things (like hospitals) seem to me to be inherently lists, and the effort to make them prose just makes for dull clumsy prose instead of a clear, crisp list. We could say something about each hospital but this is already a longish article. -- Jmabel | Talk 09:57, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)
 * I don't expect that there will always be something to say -- in such cases I think bulleted lists are fine. And I recognize the limitations of the ~40K ceiling.  But I do like very much the work you did to go beyond -- one example that sticks in my head is the paragraph on power in the Utilities section.  You provided several links while simultaneously offering just enough sense of history and importance to make me more interested in selecting those links.  Very well done! Jwrosenzweig 18:42, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The thing with the link density: we've probably got articles on as good a percentage of what is notable in Seattle as on any one place. Note that almost none of these links are red. I don't see us wanting to lose many of these links, and the article is already about 37K up to 41K as I address these other issues; if we add much more prose, it's going to become too long to be featured, right? -- Jmabel | Talk 10:27, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC)


 * I agree. If anything, prose in this article should be cut down, no? --Lukobe 19:36, Dec 21, 2004 (UTC) (who has also worked on this article)
 * I don't know about others, but when a topic can't legitimately be split up any further (and I don't think Seattle can), I wouldn't object to an article that floats up around 50K or even more (eventually IE will get it sorted out, right? We have to hope so).  Granted, the general issue of "will a reader sit still this long?" still applies.  I can't speak for others though. Jwrosenzweig 18:42, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * Object for now. For my sins, I haven't actually worked on this article. Currently, the sports section is just a list of teams - this could certainly be prose, and perhaps a place to mention the Kingdome. And the demographics section could stand to be something other than Rambot data. If I have time, I may try and fix these things myself. --Michael Snow 23:43, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * I'll admit, I really don't care about professional sports. Not even a little. I'm not sure I could have named some of these teams, and I've lived here half my life. Is someone else interested in working on that part? -- Jmabel | Talk 04:59, Dec 22, 2004 (UTC)
 * I've reworked it now, and I see the demographics looks better too. 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. --Michael Snow 08:03, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Can someone explain to me: I see this has now been removed from the FAC page, and I believe I've met all the objections, but I see it is still listed on its talk page only as a Featured Article Candidate, not as a Featured Article. Has this been either accepted or turned down? Is it in limbo? Is there some further step I need to take? -- Jmabel | Talk 23:12, Dec 27, 2004 (UTC)
 * The man to ask, I think, is User:Raul654 - he usually knows about such things. I hope it's just a clerical error, since it looks to me as though the article is ready for FA (at least, after its seven days up it received comments from 5 users, none of whom objected to promotion), but I don't know the process well enough.  Our standards in terms of number of votes may be higher than 5, but if so I'd hope it could stay on the page and receive more attention. Jwrosenzweig 01:37, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)


 * It seems to have been moved to the archived nominations page, which would indicate it was turned down. I'm not an expert on the criteria for promotion either, but I do wonder based on Jwrosenzweig's comment whether it fell short of five users. Not counting Jmabel on the assumption that the nominator is not included in the count, I only find four - myself, Jwrosenzweig, Brian0918, and Lukobe. --Michael Snow 03:08, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)