Wikipedia:Featured article review/Papal conclave/archive1

Papal conclave

 * Article is no longer a featured article

Review commentary
Article was featured back in 2004 when community standards were much lower. It needs in-line referencing and contains a lot of original research-type stuff that needs to be cleaned up. I noticed one of the more egregous examples of this having to do with Pope Pius XII but basically the entire "Historical voting patterns" needs a careful rewrite. The "Voting" section is also almost unreadable. Also, the whole "conclave"/"election" discrepancy between the title and the intro is annoying but is also indicative of a larger problem of the poorly defined scope of this article. The page at conclave should only be about the conclave itself, i.e. the part where they are locked in the room and they elect the new pope. It should should cover the history of when the conclaves started and the changes that have been made as well as notable papal conclaves (and there have been quite a few interesting ones). I hope that someone can fix this, otherwise I think a FARC may be in order after this. savidan(talk) (e@) 22:45, 2 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The prose needs a spring clean. Here are examples from the opening.
 * "Since the year 1061"—spot two redundant words.
 * "replacing the entire College of Cardinals if they were to so choose"—spot two redundant words.
 * "The candidate would then be submitted to the people"—or "The name of the candidate"?

The whole text needs treatment, not just these examples. Tony 02:43, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Ten days have passed, 3 non-minor edits, talk page shows no action, no change in prose problems. Sandy 02:22, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Should go to FARC after 14 days, in that case. Tony 13:58, 16 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Talk message left at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Catholicism/Collaboration . Sandy 21:17, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Message left at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Catholicism. Sandy 01:35, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

FARC commentary

 * Main FA criteria concers are lack of citations and factual accuracy (2c), prose (2a), and comprehensivenss (2b). Marskell 12:08, 20 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Weak remove. There have been a few patches of rewriting, one yielding the following gem:


 * "It should be noted that through much of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the number of cardinals often hovered around the 20s, travel was difficult and usually at least some cardinals did not get to the conclave in time, and the cardinals were usually factionalized along political and family lines."


 * Telling our readers what to note is undesirable. The "hovering" bit is loose. "Usually at least" is clumsy. "On time".

I'm willing to change to "keep" if a little more work is put into it. Tony 12:37, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Another editor began tackling the copyedit on 22 July, but inline citations still lacking. Sandy 19:34, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I saw your recent edit to the bibliography. That editor would be me. I got through the first section (Electorate) and did add inline cites there. Fixing this entire article is going to be a huge task. I suppose there is some time constraint for FARC, but unless it is at least a month I probably can't work within in. How does this process work? Gimmetrow 01:19, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
 * You have at least two weeks from the date of FARC (July 20), and the past consensus here has been to allow more time when steady progress is evident. Specifically, I would advocate for more time since I only began leaving talk page messages on 16 July.  If there is any way we can help, please let us know.  Can you network to find people able to help with inline citations and copyediting?  With a little more work on this one, I will also vote to keep. Sandy 13:27, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
 * The practical matter is that nobody seems interested in the topic. I did see a note at some wikiproject, but only you or I have edited the article in 10 days. I'm currently handling another FAC; you probably know the time that involves. Gimmetrow 02:09, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Another editor is working on this article now, too. Gimmetrow 06:22, 31 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Message left at User talk:Savidan. Sandy 02:38, 31 July 2006 (UTC)


 * To be perfectly honest, I think this article was so problematic when I initiated the review that I'd like to see it be renominated. Otherwise, obviously I think it has improved, and I don't mean to discourage those who are working on it. If I knew more about this subject, I would be working on it with you. To summarize, the first section has some footnotes now, but this article needs more than footnotes at the end of every other sentence, it needs a rewrite. savidan(talk) (e@) 06:54, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Update: Two more editors began working on the article on July 30. Sandy 21:54, 2 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Status. We can leave this open a while. I see half the article has received citations and half still lacks them. Hopefully, Gimmetrow has some more time for lonely Wiki-work. Marskell 15:58, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

 Remove  a week has passed since my last update, no change. Sandy 15:08, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Striking my remove, considering editors are still interested. Sandy 23:25, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm sure the Putnam article has nothing to do with the lack of work on Conclave. Gimmetrow 17:28, 6 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Status This article is next in line as the Catholic Collaboration Effort, a fortnightly blitz of work. The last article that was the CCE was submitted and passed as a GA.  I would reccomending keeping this as a FA, at least until the CCE group has done their work.  Then it can be reviewed again.  --Briancua 14:16, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Delay I'd support defering this until collaborative work is done; in the absence of this pending project, I would have been a delist voice. Sam 17:51, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * That would be quite an extension as its already been up an extra few days. If the work gets started shortly though, I don't see that it would be right to close it. Marskell 19:38, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * This article has been in a bad state for quite a while. I'm a little unclear why there is a rush; this just puts a time limit on writing a featured article. Above I said it would take at least a month for me to rewrite this on my own. With CCE it would go faster, but if I understand the CCE page, they have this scheduled starting August 17. PS Sandy, not all wikiwork involves saved edits. Gimmetrow 21:10, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * By "rush" you mean we are rushing to make a decision on this review? Sav explains it well below: reviews can't be indefinite. There needs to be some urgency. Marskell 08:18, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


 * There are two things at issue here. The first is the quality of the articlce in question. We all would like to see that as high as possible. The second is the credibility of the featured article distinction. The improvements so far, while good independtly, are far from adequate towards addressing the quite substantive objections made by myself and others here. I would prefer for this to be de-featured now, and then invite the contributors to re-nominate it after the Catholicism Collaboration. De-featuring this is not a punnishment for those working on the article, but merely an indication that it is far from up to the current standard.


 * There is no rush, as long as you are willing to renominate. The FAR is meant to give people a heads up for minor corrections, and also for major corrections as long as they are improved quickly. It is not meant to allow sub-standard articles to remain featured indefinitely as long as they continue to improve. There are better articles than this which are not featured and also are improving at a faster rate, in my opinion.savidan(talk) (e@) 23:37, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I estimate this article needs 40-200 man-hours to get into decent shape. You have convinced me that in this case, the better is the enemy of the good. Gimmetrow 19:14, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I am moving to remove, partly based on the above comments about how much work remains and partly because it has received zero edits in a week. We have agreed things may be left open, but this one is completely stalled. And I agree that substantial work is still needed. For instance, the voting section is totally undabbed and uncited, and the prose needs to be dramatically compressed ("On the afternoon of the first day, one ballot may be held. If a ballot take place on the afternoon of the first day and no-one is elected...").

With the Catholic collaboration still moving forward, perhaps a re-nomination can be their goal. Agreed de-featuring is not a punishment—it can be extra impetus if and when substantial work starts again. Marskell 12:37, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Reluctant concur. Sandy 20:40, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Agree. I'm not going to work on this anytime soon, and as good as the collaboration group may be, I think they will be pressed to get this back to even GA quality in a weekend. Gimmetrow 21:29, 13 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Yet another reluctant concurrance; ping me back when you get some work done on it and I'll be happy to critique. Sam 21:53, 13 August 2006 (UTC)