Wikipedia:Featured list removal candidates/United States Academic Decathlon National Championship/archive1


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

The list was kept by Dabomb87 19:43, 9 May 2009.

United States Academic Decathlon National Championship

 * Though the primary author (Yohhans) is inactive at Wikipedia, I have notified him, as well as WP Education and WP United States

I am nominating this for featured list removal because I don't believe it meets the comprehensiveness standard, more particularly, 3a. The article's FLC back in November 2008 was exceptionally short, and several key points are missing entirely from the article, which I now have sources from. In addition, the prose and the reference formatting could use a lot of work; I don't believe that they are up to proper standards at all. Finally, there are several other parts to the article, such as the notes section for example, that could be improved. I'll see if I can take a look at this in a month or so, perhaps, but from my own personal experience and the sources I have recently obtained, I don't feel that the article is currently good enough to remain a featured list. NuclearWarfare  ( Talk ) 03:01, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

Comment from the FLRC director
 * Uh, how exactly does it fail 3a? It looks fine. Maybe the prose needs touching up there and there, but I'm not seeing any major gaps. I don't know what's wrong with the references either. On another note, you really aren't offering any reasons why this should be delisted (i.e. examples of why it isn't comprehensive); your "personal experience" isn't enough here without pointing, even generally, at what is wrong. — sephiroth bcr  ( converse ) 06:01, 28 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I reviewed this FLC. Looking at it with fresh eyes, there are a few awkward parts, but nothing major. Please supply examples. Dabomb87 (talk) 12:25, 28 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I wrote this FLRC pretty late last night, so perhaps I wasn't as clear as I should have been. Let me try again: I feel that there are several very important parts of the National Championship itself (the event that was held last week) that are simply missing; the article does not explain how the competition goes over the four days that it is held. There are also some fairly important events, such as the Welcoming Reception or the Awards Banquet, that are simply not mentioned at all. I feel that the article needs to be substantially expanded with such information, as those who are interested in this article (primarily other Decathletes, I would assume), would wish to know about that kind of information, especially if they would be going to Nationals for the first time or something. As for the prose, I forgot that I had already attempted a fix; that part of my argument is really not as valid. NuclearWarfare  ( Talk ) 18:59, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Can you illustrate why the "Welcoming Reception" and "Awards Banquet" need to be explained? I've been to my fair share of decathlons (not this one though), and any and all reception or awards events tend to be relatively unimportant in the grander scheme of things aside from being formalities. Is there some sort of special importance attached to them in relation to this event? Also remember that we're writing for a general audience, not those participating in the competition, so everything about the event does not need to be covered in exhaustive detail (or covered at all mind you). I'm assuming that you've participated in this in some fashion, but you need to highlight the importance of these events through sourcing. If their only purpose is a mere formality to introduce and award the competitors respectively, then they don't really need to be explained. — sephiroth bcr  ( converse ) 23:08, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The ceremonies are themselves formalities, yes, this is true. However, while they are formalities, the awards banquet in particular was a rather big deal at the National Competition. I do realize that these are for a general audience, but I would assume as well that general audiences would be interested in learning of the order of the events. For example, I would guess that those reading this article would also be interested in learning about the schedule of events; for example, how the events are broken into several days as opposed to just one for most state competitions, etc. I feel that that should be probably be focused upon especially for this article, which is otherwise only 3.5 paragraphs of prose, about half of which probably does not actually need to be there. NuclearWarfare  ( Talk ) 01:19, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

(Outdent) Comment Is there a reason a short paragraph that covers these topics cannot be added rather than delisting? It doesn't seem like much work, if the sources are already at hand.YobMod 14:00, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Well, I was expecting this to be a lot more than just a little work of just a paragraph; probably like two extra paragraphs minimum would be required. Also, while researching, I found that adding several additional tables might be warranted, such as of the three Divisions' scores (which might now have enough sources to be completed), or of maybe top scoring students. I feel that if I would be adding this much information and revamping the article this much, the article should undergo again the FLC process to make sure it is truly a top-notch article. 17:23, 29 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Seeing as FLRC is the perfect venue for auditing list quality, why not make the additions yourself?  Giants2008  ( 17-14 ) 00:55, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
 * From my (limited) experiences at FAR, I have noticed that articles that would basically quickfail at FAC today often have a decent chance of staying an FA through FAR. I had assumed that FLRC would be much the same. Plus, while the article is deficient now, I do not really anticipate getting all the sources I need (some are still with a few friends, etc.), for another two months. I see no reason for the article to stay an FL during this time if it is incomplete. NuclearWarfare  ( Talk ) 01:42, 2 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Q: The lead is already pretty long - Are you planning to expand the text to an extent that it would make sense to instead be a GA? or to perform a split? I would guess that there is a lot to write about the event in general, if we want full coverage. If this article will undergo a major revamp, i would tend towards weak delisting, but the intro to the list should not take the place of a possible seperate article that covers the history etc in detail. Some of the info suggested above to be missing seems a lot of detail for a FL intro.YobMod 08:27, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
 * My intent for this article was for it to not be an article at all. It was meant to be a list (hence the general lack of prose and submission to FLC). A description of the awards banquet could be in order, but it is also something that could (should?) be included in the main USAD article. That section (National winners) is already pretty short anyway and could simply be changed to National competition to justify a discussion of the banquet.


 * Regarding additional tables, I did not include them for the following reasons: I did not have sources for all DI, DII, DIII winners from past years, division winners were not always recognized, and lastly, in some years, there were also regional winners (See the 1997 National competition). Including the data the way I did seemed like the only logical way to represent every past national championship. To add in other tables would require a lot of caveats, concessions and confusion. I figured the only way to make this List accessible to those unfamiliar with Academic Decathlon (or more importantly, its past&mdash;and let us be honest here, how many people in the country, barring a few coaches, score fanatics, and committee members have any sort of understanding of USAD's past?) was to make it as simple as possible. This means making some concessions and only including reliable scores.


 * Add the information about the banquets to the article if you want. It would be awesome to have it in there (granted, some restructuring would have to happen to cut down on the length of the lead). However, not having this particular bit of information seems like a silly reason to have the FL status removed. - Yohhans talk 15:50, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
 * I was thinking over this one since Yobmod had posted earlier, and I think that perhaps both he and Yohhans are right. While there is some missing information, I believe, I do not think that it is vital to the article. What could be added (even incomplete data on Divisions, Regional winners, etc. would be fine) is not necessary for the article. This discussion would probably be better for the talk page. I made an error taking this to FLRC. I do apologize to everyone who spent time looking this over, but I would like to withdraw this FLRC, please. Yohhans, if you are interested, I'll bring up some discussion on the Talk page about possible restructuring of the USAD and USAD National Competition on the latter's talk page in a few days. NW ( Talk ) ( How am I doing? ) 17:45, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
 * That's fine. I'm always open to discussion. - Yohhans talk 18:31, 6 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.