Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Web traffic/archive1

Web traffic
Article has undergone significant changes over the past months and is now at least getting towards a featured article. Was on peer review where Johnleemk was the only person to respond, commenting about the lead section and references – both have been updated though I do worry about all-web references. violet/riga (t) 22:23, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Weak Object. Wikipedia has a policy to avoid self references. This is the lead graphic:



Otherwise, an informative article.


 * Jon, Conqueror of Men | (Talk!) 23:18, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * While I agree partly with that objection I must say that in order to show a graph of web traffic it had to be about a site, and choosing any other site than Wikipedia might show bias. I went with the thought that this instance of self-referencing was acceptable. violet/riga (t) 23:43, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * google any MRTG graph... find a site that was slashdotted and graphed the traffic... theres lots of other alternatives that are not self-referential. Examples:   ALKIVAR &trade;[[Image:Radioactive.svg|18px|]] 05:07, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Since the graph itself doesn't reference Wikipedia perhaps the caption could simply be changed to "Example graph of web traffic at a popular website". violet/riga (t) 12:57, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * You should by no means worry about all web sources, provided those external links have been used as references—used as sources for the facts in the article. (I'm more worried about the hints that sometimes seem to creep into reference discussions, that books are the only really solid references, no matter the subject.) Only, if you want to be sure of meeting the rather strict referencing standards that seem to be on the way in for Featured articles, you need to do them up a bit more. There are three proper places for them: 1. In the text, if they're being invoked as evidence for a particular point. (Alternatively those could be footnotes, but I wouldn't go there.) 2. In a section at the end headed "References". This is the vital one (Taxman will look for it! :-P), where all links should go that have been used more generally as sources for facts and factchecking. In my opinion any references from 1) should be repeated in this section, too. 3. In another section at the end headed "External links". This is for links that are not sources, but that you recommend as useful/interesting further reading. Use 1) and 3) if they're appropriate; always use 2). Format the links according to this MOS section. For links in the "References" section, note especially the requirement for retrieval dates (that impresses the hell out of people, and then they won't bother to check 'em ;-)). Finally, don't lose the useful comments on the sources that you have now, make room for them, too. Hope this helps.--Bishonen | Talk 00:36, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Apparently not, sorry if it was over-technical, or confusing in some other way. There is still no distinction made between sources and further reading, and the reader doesn't have any way of telling which is which. I have to object on that score. --Bishonen | Talk 11:22, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I was leaving the article alone until other people commented, which they appear not to want to! I've played around with it and split it into References and External links – let me know if you think that is better or if there's anything further that you suggest. violet/riga (t) 12:47, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * No, that's it, it's lovely. It's very nicely done, even without the retrieval dates. If you want to go for orgasmic perfection, see the reference at the bottom of the Cite sources page for a plain example of retrieval dating (the reference itself, not the style guides that it links to!). Not sure what the dates you've added are, but "retrieval" (=the day you looked) is the only safe websource dating.--Bishonen | Talk 14:20, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * The dates given are when the article was written/created. I've added retrieval dates on there too, though they have had to be approximate. violet/riga (t) 19:49, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * I would also like to see some more work from other Wikipedians on this article, but I would also vote for it to be featured as it is.--AAAAA 04:24, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)