Wikipedia:Featured article review/Steamtown, U.S.A./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 User:Dana boomer 08:39, 31 December 2013.

Steamtown, U.S.A.

 * Notified:, , , and 

I am nominating this featured article for review per the discussions on the talk page there is significant enough consensus to request a review on the basis that this article is too long and too intricately detailed. Due to this and a disagreement which has escalated to Dispute resolution noticeboard‎‎ this article is no longer stable. All of this means that this article no longer meets FA requirements 1a, 1e, or 2a.Technical 13 (talk) 14:31, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I am in agreement with the assessment made by Technical 13. The article needs significant work to bring it up to FA standards.Oanabay04 (talk) 14:40, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I disagree. The article has not change much at all since its FA review.  The only thing that has really happened is that one editor put some arbitrary tags on the article and I asked for help in determining if there was actually a cause for the tags.  Another editor, who I guess was trying to help, added several more tags.  A third person advised that since the article had been thoroughly reviewed the tags were unnecessary.  I agreed with that and removed the tags and then one of the people who tagged it started removing sections of the article.  The article is about a steam locomotive excursion and museum that was the forerunner to a National Historic Site, but no longer exists as it once did.  The article covers the history of the site and the collection it once housed.  A couple of people (whom I believe did not actually read the article) think that each piece that was in the collection should have its own article and that just the history should remain on the main article.  Up until two weeks ago, there was nothing at all written on the talk page and, as I said, the article itself has changed very little since the last FA review.  I believe that, for some reason, two people created the instability on this page and then one of them nominated it here in order to have the FA removed.--Ishtar456 (talk) 02:09, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
 * The page is 35k characters in prose (almost 6000 words) for those who don't want to count. A little blubber could be trimmed, I think, but the article looks solid enough. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:49, 12 October 2013 (UTC)
 * The problem isn't necessarily the overall length of the article . It's the fact that the words are specific details about the different types of engines which would only be important to articles about the engines and which aren't important to an article about a place that use to house such engines. It's appropriate for all of the engines to have a paragraph about how they relate to the place, and a section hat note pointing back to the main article for the engine for those that want to know more about an engine, but it's not okay for each engine to have multiple paragraphs about the engine itself. Technical 13 (talk) 14:59, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I never said 35k is necessarily a bad thing. I just said there is likely some blubber that could be trimmed, and meant to imply that 35 is fairly reasonable. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:01, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I am the "third person" who agreed with Ishtar456. Whilst any article, even a featured one, can be improved, and should be, I see nothing that should necessitate the removal of FA status here, In an article about a train museum there are likely to be details about, well, trains... The detail isn't excessive, and, quite frankly, it would piss me off as a reader to have to leap about between a zillion little stubs to read the piece. I, and I assume others, find it much easier to read a decent length article, and that's what this is, and what the reviewers obviously felt it was.
 * Any "instability" has been caused by unnecessary tagging and retagging without any attempt at prior discussion, and my feelings on that episode are on the article talkpage for anyone who's interested to read. I shan't repeat them here, save to say it would be a damn shame if a good editor and an excellent article both suffered because of that.
 * I regret my part in getting upset at the pointy behaviour, since that probably caused heels to dig in harder and sticks to be clutched more tightly. I would like to think we're better than that, and can move on. If small improvements are desired to be made, fine, talk them through, but I see no need for removal of FA status in the meantime. Begoon &thinsp; talk  16:06, 13 October 2013 (UTC)


 * I think the detail is appropriate and well handled. Its very polished.  There needs to be some freedom of arrangement that is not prey to someone coming in and doing aggressive carve-outs of a well developed article.  Also, really these trains are not so noteworthy on their own and they are much better understood in the context of the collection.  (Steamtown is not really so much a town or a museum as it is a collection of pieces (was moved and pieces evaluated and all that).  Furthermore, I don't think that the FAR should proceed.  (The only way the filer will be appeased is if his desire to redesign the article is made so.  But it passed in the current arrangement.  It's not an issue of needing to clean up agreed to mistakes. -TCO208.44.87.91 (talk)


 * Keep – After taking a look through the article, I don't see anything that would require the removal of FA status. I agree with Crisco that a few details could probably be cut out, but this can be accomplished through talk page discussion and I wouldn't want to see too much taken out. Like TCO, I think that having information on the trains enhances the article, making it a more interesting read. I would like to see references added to the next-to-last paragraph of the article, but I have good faith that this will be done and won't treat it as a deal-breaker. While I'm here, I feel compelled to say that some of the suggestions on the article's talk page from those seeking a delisting are questionable. One person recommended a three-to-four sentence lead, which is way too short to meet FA standards. Another was curious as to why GA status wasn't sought before FA; please keep in mind that GA is not required for an article to have a shot at FA. If an editor is talented enough to directly go for FA and succeed, I have no problem with them skipping the months-long wait at GAN to have a shot at an FAC review. Giants2008  ( Talk ) 00:17, 20 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I had a death in the family and have not been on for several days. Since I was last on, the discussion on the dispute board regarding this article has apparently closed.  I did not see what was concluded and alterations have already begun on the article.  I don't even understand why this was put up for review while a dispute was going on, but no one ever answered my query. In any care, this article was GA before FA.  It won the "four award". --Ishtar456 (talk) 00:16, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Question: If the article is being altered while this review is going on (by the person who wants to decrease it) which version is being reviewed? If the decision ends up being "keep" would it be for the cut-up version or the version that it was when the review started? --Ishtar456 (talk) 00:01, 25 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Comment: Length seems fine to me. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; reply here 04:28, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Dana boomer (talk) 13:39, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.