Wikipedia:Featured article review/Seattle/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 kept by Joelr31 02:57, 9 March 2009.

Review commentary

 * Notified: WikiProject Washington, WikiProject Seattle, User:Bobblehead, User:Lukobe, User:Jmabel
 * previous FAR

I have nominated Seattle for review because I think in the year since the previous review, the article could use some work. Some issues that need to be addressed are:
 * The lack of citations in some areas (e.g. Economic history, Topography, Media, Outdoor activities, Infrastructure)
 * Dead reference links
 * Use of list in history section instead of prose
 * Lack of proper WP:SUMMARY style - the article is huge (117k) but the main, most important, pieces of information seem to be lost in a sea of seemingly trivial facts

I hope that by bringing the article forward at FAR, that these items can be quickly addressed. Best, epicAdam(talk) 05:25, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Isn't it standard operating procedure to bring up concerns about a Featured Article on the article's talk page prior to sending the article through FAR? But to cover the points:
 * I'm not sure what the nominator is expecting as far as references. The sections seem to be rather well covered and in line with applicable guidelines. There are a few claims here and there that are not referenced, but aside from a claim in the Media section about "a large number of publications about the environment and sustainability" that could be removed without harming the article, I don't see anything that requires citations that is already covered in a citation.
 * Unless I'm missing something, having dead reference links is not a Bad ThingTM. They can be marked as dead, but it is generally acceptable for dead links to exist as they indicate that the reference was there at one time...
 * The listification of the History section is a bad thing, I'm going to see if I can figure out when that happened and why.
 * The article has 44kb of readable prose, so WP:SIZE concerns are not a concern here. The remaining 74k is references and wikimarkup that are generally not considered part of the size restrictions. The sea of trivial details may be valid, but welcome to Wikipedia. I doubt you'll find any article, particularly those of cities, that don't have a large amount of trivial details. --Bobblehead (rants) 16:31, 11 December 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi Bobblehead. I decided to go forward at FAR just so the greater Wikipedia community can have input into the process, as opposed to just those who happen to have the article watch-listed. There are only a few items, like those I have listed. I plan on providing a more detailed review, but wanted to get the ball rolling and see if any other editors wished to provide additional comments. So yes, I didn't mean opening the FAR because I thought the article should be demoted or anything of the sort. Best, epicAdam(talk) 19:01, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

I've nominated File:Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition - Rainier Vista.jpg for deletion. Editors may wish to comment there. No other image problems that I could see. DrKiernan (talk) 14:44, 12 December 2008 (UTC)
 * That image's licensing concerns appear sorted out on commons now. rootology ( C )( T ) 19:01, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I've tried rewriting the history section to get it back to prose rather than lists. Take a look. There may be more work to be done, but I think this gives a much better basis to move forward on that section. - Jmabel | Talk 05:31, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Where are we on this FAR? The only real problem identified by the nominator (The listification of the History section) seems to be resolved (good job, Jmabel). Jmabel has also found a postcard with the image that was nominated for deltion that seems to indicate the image was published prior to 1923, so the image seems to be in the public domain despite what UW says about the copyright status. --Bobblehead (rants) 06:53, 28 December 2008 (UTC)
 * The image issue is resolved. DrKiernan (talk) 13:17, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I just ran the tool Sandy added and I see only one completely dead link looking quickly. rootology ( C )( T ) 18:58, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
 * External links
 * The dead link isn't one that can be replaced, unfortunately. It's dead and it's going to stay dead. there is a link to a copy of it on WikiSource, but I doubt we can use that as a replacement for the dead link. Do we need to replace the link, or is it okay if it stays as a dead link with the understanding being that it was alive at one point? --Bobblehead (rants) 23:32, 9 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Work needed. Has the original nominator been pinged to see if he is satisfied now?
 * There is an inconsistency throughout the article in usage of percent vs. %, sample:
 * The racial composition of the city was 67.1 percent White, 16.6 percent Asian, 9.7 percent African American, 2.38 percent from other races, 1.00 percent Native American, 0.50 percent Pacific Islander, and 4.46 percent from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 6.3 percent of the population.[161] 11.3% were of German, 9.1% Irish, 8.1% English and 5.0% Norwegian ancestry according to Census 2000. 80.1% spoke English, 4.2% Spanish, 2.3% Chinese or Mandarin, 2.0% Tagalog and 1.9% Vietnamese as their first language.
 * Replaced all % with percent. --Bobblehead (rants) 00:53, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
 * There are several dab links needing repair, identified in the toolbox.
 * Fixed all the dabs. --Bobblehead (rants) 00:53, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Dead links can also be checked via the toolbox.
 * See question above to Rootology. --Bobblehead (rants) 00:53, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, locally known as Sea–Tac ... Sea–Tac has en endash, but Seattle-Tacomo has a hyphen, which is it?  Perhaps check with  on which is correct.
 * I believe it is just a hyphen. I've never seen an en dash used in association with Sea-Tac before, so I went ahead and replaced all instances with a hyphen. Good eyes, BTW. I never would have seen it. --Bobblehead (rants) 23:32, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Date formatting in the citations is all over the map (I think I saw four different formats).
 * Part of the problem with the different date formats in the citations is the evil auto-formatting they are using in cite news and cite journal which, for some unexplainable reason, is converting dates in ISO format to DMY. Until they fix the templates to match the rest of the cite templates, there's nothing we can do about the format of the accessdate. Most of the rest were due to hold over from the linking of dates so I'm guessing they picked up on how you have your autoformatting set? the remainder I believe I fixed most except those that were published in date ranges (May 1-May 8, 2007), only list a month (November 2006) or a season (Spring 2006). Everything else should be in ISO now. --Bobblehead (rants) 23:32, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
 * WP:ELLIPSES (no spaces) and WP:PUNC (logical punctuation) need attention.
 * There are poorly sourced and hard to believe statements, sample:
 * Seattle is probably second only to New York for number of equity theaters (28 Seattle theater companies have some sort of Actors' Equity contract).
 * is sourced to Lonely Planet, not a particularly strong source for such a surprising claim.
 * On Seattle being second only to New York for number of equity theaters: not sure where else one would go to source the comparison to other U.S. cities, and I'd be very interested in suggestions, but as a New York native who has been 30 years in Seattle, I'm pretty confident that Seattle is at least a strong contender for second place. Seattle is a strong union town and a strong theater town. 28 equity theaters is a lot (and that number is cited from a more solid source). What other city are you thinking might have more? - Jmabel | Talk 05:51, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
 * There are statements throughout that could benefit from WP:MOSDATE, sample:
 * The Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestras (SYSO) is the largest symphonic youth organization in the United States.
 * could be:
 * In, the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestras (SYSO) wass the largest symphonic youth organization in the United States.
 * I'm not sure what can be done with a date on this specific example, the references I've been able to find, and  are undated info pages that refer to SYSO as currently being the largest youth symphony in the US, so based on those sources applying an "As of " would seem to be innacurate. --Bobblehead (rants) 01:50, 14 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Pretty confident that statement would have been true at all times in the last decade. Again: it's hard to find solid sources for comparisons among cities in the size and scope of arts organizations, do you have any suggestions of what you would consider appropriate sourcing? - Jmabel | Talk 05:54, 17 January 2009 (UTC)
 * There are surprising claims that are unsourced, sample:
 * The city also has a large number of movie houses showing both Hollywood productions and works by independent filmmakers. Among these, the Seattle Cinerama stands out as one of only three movie theaters in the world still capable of showing three-panel Cinerama films.
 * This one specifically is now sourced. --Bobblehead (rants) 00:53, 10 January 2009 (UTC)
 * There is unattributed opinion, sample:
 * Spoken word and poetry are staples of Seattle arts, paralleling the explosion of the independent music scene during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Seattle's performance poetry blossomed with the importation of the poetry slam from Chicago (its origin) by Paul Granert. This and the proliferation of weekly readings, open mics, and poetry-friendly club venues like the Weathered Wall, the OK Hotel, and the Ditto Tavern (all now defunct), allowed spoken-word/performance poetry to take off.


 * Those are just quick issues from looking only at the Culture section; I didn't examine the prose or sourcing elsewhere, but this number of issues from one section does suggest a bit more tune-up work is in order here before closing this FAR. Sandy Georgia  (Talk) 19:13, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I cleaned up what seemed like the egregious unsourced content and OR and dumped it to talk here for clean up and rescue. It's all factually true, but could due for a source or two. Touch of minor extra clean up and one missed reference fixed. The few remaining unsourced statement without a clear ref tag are the completely obvious things only (geographical, names of TV/radio/media, etc.) rootology ( C )( T ) 17:27, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

FARC commentary

 * Suggested FA criteria concerns are citations and length (summary style use). Joelito (talk) 14:48, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind keeping this version. Though, I would agree that there is a tendency toward inclusion of material which would be better placed in the daughter articles. DrKiernan (talk) 10:32, 11 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Note We need more reviews to close this out. Joelito (talk) 00:30, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

There are still citation needed tags. Dabomb87 (talk) 00:29, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
 * That was just added here not two days ago, but this text is thrice-sourced. I pulled it for now to review on the article talk. rootology ( C )( T ) 02:18, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure the citation needed tags are valid. The Duwamish tribe seems to agree with the spelling used in the article. Problem being, I'm not sure I would count the source as a WP:RS as it is a WP:SPS. --Bobblehead (rants) 02:22, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
 * For purposes of something like this, wouldn't the Duwamish be the ultimate authority on their own language? That's sorta like saying the US Government's United States Constituation isn't the ultimate authority on the specific wording of what the US constitution says...? For something like this, it would be circular logic to exclude the Duwamish themselves as a source, especially since something as unfortunately niche as tribal language won't be widely reported. rootology ( C )( T ) 02:27, 26 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The Media section is a bit sketchy. I don't know whether indiscriminately listing blogs is helpful (also unsourced).
 * "Seattle has artist-run galleries,[143] including 10-year veteran Soil Art Gallery,[144] and the newer Crawl Space Gallery.[145]" This is a one-line paragraph from "Tourism" that should be moved up a bit. The list of museums is unsourced.
 * "Even though Seattle is old enough that railways and streetcars once dominated its transportation system, automobiles are now the main mode of transportation. Seattle is also serviced by an extensive network of bus routes and two commuter rail routes connecting it to many of its suburbs." These topic sentences at the start of the "Transportation" section are redundant and unnecessary; these type of sentences belong in the lead.
 * Paragraphs about Sea-Tac and utilities need sources. Dabomb87 (talk) 03:24, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm going to pushback on most of the requests for additional sources, per verifiability: "Editors should provide a reliable source for quotations and for any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, or the material may be removed." It is highly unlikely that anyone is going to challenge the list of museums as being located in Seattle, particularly since all of the museums are linked to articles and these articles provide ample sourcing to support a Seattle location. The same goes for the utilities and Sea-Tac airport. This is my #1 complaint about FARs and FACs. It seems that most reviewers are more concerned about there not being a set of square brackets with a number in between them than actually following the freaking policy. If you can identify why we should be sourcing things that are clearly uncontroversial and without question, then I'd be more than willing to provide a link for each and every museum's homepage showing their address. --Bobblehead (rants) 03:49, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
 * What Bobble said. All that info is totally non-controversial, and not a reason to demote anything. The sentence would just be made terribly unwieldy, with individual sourcing. There may be "a" source that has them all listed, or most, but is it likely to be challenged for something like the Seattle Metropolitan Police Museum? rootology ( C )( T ) 05:31, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.