Wikipedia:Featured article review/An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump/archive1


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

The article was Removed from WP:FAR per FAR instructions by SandyGeorgia.

An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump

 * Notified: WikiProject Visual arts

I am nominating this featured article for review because I think it fails 2c. There are large chunks that are unsourced and fewer than 25 cites overall, most to the same five or six books. That is hardly a broad array of sources, and while I would imagine that there's probably not too much more that could be said, it's clearly not of FA quality. Once again, the article stats show that nobody has made more than 2 edits to it since 2007; hardly any of the edits to the article at all are anything more than vandalism reversion, typo fixing, or otherwise minor edits. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 03:19, 5 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I've removed this FAR per the instructions at WP:FAR regarding one nom at a time. I suggest consulting the article talk page about the sources. I also don't see anything in the nomination statement that indicates the article is not FA quality, particularly with no consultation on article talk for clarification.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 03:28, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Right. I have the National Gallery full catalogue on the British paintings, which has an entry of 13 big pages on the painting, so will give it a run-through when I have time. In my experience the better an article is, the fewer edits it gets. Johnbod (talk) 03:32, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Say what now? "One nom at a time"?! I don't understand. Also, taking it up on the talk page won't work since nobody's touched the article in forever. There are also issues with OR, such as the unsourced "The Orrery was painted without a commission, probably in the expectation that it would be bought by Washington Shirley, 5th Earl Ferrers, an amateur astronomer who had an orrery of his own, and with whom Wright's friend Peter Perez Burdett was staying while in Derbyshire."Paragraph 2 of "Historical background" has only one cite at the tail end. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 03:34, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
 * You have to raise it at the talk page anyway. Do you really think that bit is likely to be OR? Stick a cite tag on it if you like. If the para has only 1 ref, it is all from one source, no? The article is pretty short, & received very high praise from a distinguished bunch of reviewers before promotion. Johnbod (talk) 03:39, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
 * And just who is going to explain the sources? The same batch of editors who promoted this and suddenly fell off the face of the earth? I'd be better off talking to a brick wall. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 03:40, 5 November 2009 (UTC)


 * This article looks fine to me. Statements like "fewer than 25 cites overall, most to the same five or six books" suggest that the nominator doesn't really know what he's doing and just sort of hastily blundered in here.  "the article stats show that nobody has made more than 2 edits to it since 2007; hardly any of the edits to the article at all are anything more than vandalism reversion, typo fixing, or otherwise minor edits."  What does this have to do with anything?  Do we think this is a rapidly evolving topic?  Statements like this show that proper consideration has not been given to the actual content of the article. --JayHenry (talk) 03:47, 5 November 2009 (UTC)


 * One nom at a time is clearly in the WP:FAR instructions. Thanks, Johnbod, for having a look; but I've removed this FAR, so please post any followup to article talk. Sandy Georgia (Talk) 03:43, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.