Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/World Science Festival


 * The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by User:SandyGeorgia 23:43, 29 November 2008.

World Science Festival

 * Nominator(s): Markus Poessel (talk)

World Science Festival has been a good article (see review) for a few months now, and it underwent a helpful peer review in October. I think it's ready for its FA candidacy. Markus Poessel (talk) 14:56, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Initial comment Images are fine, and my first reaction is very positive. This is an event the nominator clearly cares about, and he wants to do a good job sharing his experience with the world. Personal involvement with the subject matter isn't in WP:FA?, but it's one of those "I know it when I see it" things, and it makes a positive impression. Doing some copyediting now. Since there are around 1600 words, it's likely that someone might bring up comprehensiveness; others are much better at figuring out those questions than I am, and after I finish my copyediting, I'll sit back and watch the discussion. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 15:14, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Done with copyediting. I've got to run, but I'll be back with general disclaimers after lunch.  As always, feel free to revert anything. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 17:28, 18 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the comments and helpful copyediting! Markus Poessel (talk) 18:58, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Support per standard disclaimer. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 17:42, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Image review - All images have descriptions and verifiable licenses. Awadewit (talk) 23:51, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

Support - (Note: I peer reviewed this article.) This article is a bit short, but I think it covers all of the aspects of the festival: history of, planning, event, and reception. The only thing that I can think to add is a history of science festivals and public demonstrations of science, a phenomenon which began during the eighteenth century but became extremely popular during the nineteenth century. However, I think that might be too far afield for the article and my interest is probably personal. :) Awadewit (talk) 04:03, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the support! As for the more general history of science festivals and public demonstrations: shouldn't that be a part of the more general lemma Science festival? Markus Poessel (talk) 08:20, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
 * More concretely, if you have any good references for the history of science festivals, feel free to either put them somewhere on science festival or its talkpage, or if formatting them would be too time-consuming, to dump them on my own talk page. The science festival article is definitely also on my list of articles I want to improve, and any good reference helps, of course. Markus Poessel (talk) 17:19, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
 * It's clear that science festival is going to have a "history" section of some sort, but I was wondering whether one or two sentences about the tradition of science festivals might be appropriate for this article. As for references, that would take me a while to track down. Could you leave me a note and I'll try to do some looking after finals? Awadewit (talk) 19:46, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

–Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone  22:10, 23 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Comments
 * All references need consistent last access dates.
 * Why are the publication dates in some references linked, but others not?
 * Some citation templates don't seem to have adjusted to the date linking deprecation thingy. - Mgm|(talk) 12:03, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * All references now have consistent access dates, using the Citation template (note that for newspaper articles with a definite publication date, access dates are not displayed – which is apparently deliberate and, I think, makes sense). Date linking: this wasn't a template error; the dates were explicitly linked. I'm pretty sure I didn't do this myself (didn't bother tracing the history, though); anyway, the dates are now unlinked. Thanks for your comments! Markus Poessel (talk) 20:22, 25 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Comments:
 * The images are all aligned to the right which makes for a very dull layout. Could you alternate?
 * Helping out here; I only saw one image that could be alternated. Done.
 * The reception section is very short. Any other coverage you can mention? - Mgm|(talk) 12:13, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comments, and for helping out with the image alignment. I have now expendanded the reception section, giving more quotes, more references, and a new paragraph on online coverage. Markus Poessel (talk) 21:52, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Comments -
 * Almost all of your web links are lacking last access dates. Also, the access dates should ideally be in the same format.
 * What makes the following reliable sources?
 * http://blogs.discovery.com/world_science_festival/2008/06/science-of-spor.html
 * http://blogs.usatoday.com/sciencefair/2008/05/world-science-1.html
 * http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/31/the-world-science-festival-behind-disneys-magic/
 * http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/
 * http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1233001/ (source is also lacking publisher and last access date)
 * http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/167386/may-27-2008/brian-greene (source is also lacking publisher and last access date)
 * Otherwise, sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:06, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Access dates now fixed using Citation template throughout.
 * Blogs that are part of the online coverage by news organizations are under editorial control, same as articles. I know that for a fact for the New York Times (I asked one of their reporters), and science writer friends tell me it's usual practice – anything that goes out under the news organization's label is checked. That would make the USA Today, Science Channel and New York Times blogs reliable sources by Wikipedia's usual standards, I believe.
 * I didn't know about the IMDb controversy before. Anyway, I have replaced that link with a link to the Guest Archive on the official website of the TV show in question.
 * The colbertnation.com link is to a video of Brian Greene's appearance on the Colbert Report on the date given, in which he and Stephen Colbert talk about the World Science Festival. That should be a reliable source for the statement that Brian Greene did indeed appear on the Colbert Report on the date given.
 * Thanks for your comments! Markus Poessel (talk) 20:31, 25 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Comments.
 * The citation in the first paragraph of "History and background" should be placed at the end of the paragraph, since it supports the entire paragraph.
 * I find myself wondering about more details of the festival's planning and organization. How was it organized? How did some of the more prominent events and figures become part of the festival? What were the hurdles faced in getting the event going or was it smooth sailing with broad support? Besides the founders, who were the principal figures in making the festival a reality and how did their role play out?
 * "Reception" seems fairly anemic. It mentions (uncited) that "coverage of festival events was overwhelmingly positive", yet only references a single source (the Times).

This is a nice article, but it yearns for some expansion to meet the comprehensiveness requirement. Vassyana (talk) 14:29, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your comments!
 * Citation in first paragraph of "History...": moved.
 * Details about planning and organization: I could write pages and pages of OR about this topic. Reliable sources are hard to come by. I'll give it some thought.
 * Reception: To be fair, the "single source" was an article summarizing the reaction of a number of different critics, but I see your point. I've expanded the section, given some more quotation, more references and reactions, and lots of references to online coverage (possibly too much?).
 * If you have any further specific information about what is missing re comprehensiveness, I'll do what I can. Markus Poessel (talk) 21:58, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the prompt and enthusiastic response! Would you mind if I dropped a line to a few science-minded editors and WikiProjects to see if they might be able to find additional sources about the genesis/organization/planning of the event? Vassyana (talk) 09:51, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I added some more content about the organization and background: one paragraph about the major producers, which I had written for an earlier version, but never used, and some more information taken from the Scientific American interview with Brian Greene about the first organizational steps, and the general reaction of the people they asked for support. You are more than welcome to ask around for additional material, but I'm a bit pessimistic. I went through the festival's collection of press cuttings pretty thoroughly after the 2008 WSF was over. That said, there is some online material I didn't use, since I didn't consider it sufficiently reliable: The WSF press releases at http://www.worldsciencefestival.com/media-resources/ (no details about the organization, though), and an interview with Brian and Tracy which I made for the WSF website (online here, but I don't think it adds much detail beyond what's in the Scientific American Interview). Thanks for your help! Markus Poessel (talk) 10:23, 26 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Support. Given the mild expansion and general unavailability of further sources, I have stricken my remaining point. This article is well-written and meets all of the FA criteria. Vassyana (talk) 02:17, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the support. In any case, I will keep your comment in mind – it is possible that additional reliable source material will become available as the 2009 festival comes around; if it does, I will expand as per your initial comment. Markus Poessel (talk) 10:10, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.