Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/archive71

Source review woes
For the past several months I've tried to keep the FAC sources reviews reasonably up to date. There has been intermittent help from others, but mostly it's been me. Apart from format checks, I try to ensure that every link is working and that these links go to the proper places – the external link checker tool is not reliable. I check so far as I am able for source reliability, though for those topics of which I have no specialised knowledge I generally rely on content reviewers to say whether the sources used are the best available. I also do spotchecks, where appropriate.

However, I am finding it increasingly difficult to devote so much time to this particular aspect of WP activity. Sometimes I've spent hours, literally, on a sources review, only to find that the article doesn't get off first base and is archived, perhaps never to be seen again. So I've decided that from now on that I won't start a source review until an article has at least a couple of supports. My main request, though, is that other FAC regulars join in and do a share of the work. It's repetitive and boring, but it's not hard, and in small doses quite bearable. Even if you set yourself to do just a couple a month, that would be a big help – particularly on pop culture article or video games which I find it very hard to do. Some day next week my long-awaited essay "How to do a sources review" will, hopefully, appear, and that might help those who are concerned about their ability to do a sources review thoroughly and effectively. Brianboulton (talk) 21:18, 18 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Not source and image reviewing nominations until they have gained some support seems like a good idea to me, especially since those reviews are usually repeated from scratch once an article is renominated, which seems a waste of time. FunkMonk (talk) 10:01, 19 March 2018 (UTC)


 * I totally agree; if there's a choice between doing it first or last, I'd definitely agree last. I'm up for helping out; looking forward to that essay!  —SerialNumber  54129 ...speculates 10:12, 19 March 2018 (UTC)


 * We've evolved a system for source reviews that's neither sustainable nor scalable. I've likewise spent multiple hours on source reviews or spot-checks and didn't even feel confident that I'd caught anything more than a representative sample of issues. I'm not sure what possible solutions are. -- Laser brain  (talk)  16:32, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, we can't just give up. We have to do with what we've got, until something better evolves or is created. Involving more people will mean less pressure, and a greater likelihood that the reviews will be carried out more effectively. Brianboulton (talk) 20:42, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
 * While we have for reasons of quality refused to consider making content reviews of other articles mandatory for nominators, image and source reviews are mechanical enough that we could consider such a thing, with exemptions for newbies. I am not saying that such a thing should be done, merely that it should be on the table.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:25, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Image reviews may be mechanical, but they can be somewhat difficult when it comes to assessing copyright questions. Depending on what "source review" means in this context, I suspect that many people will flatly refuse given the amount of work involved. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 21:33, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Source reviews should not be mechanical. The main point of a source review isn't whether the citations are formatted correctly, but whether or not the sources meet the standard for FAC. FAs require "high quality reliable sources". That takes a lot of time. And can let you in for a lot of grief. It's very draining to do them for any length of time, and it really does eat into your ability to do anything else on Wikipedia, especially if you have stuff outside of Wikipedia (like a job). I'm afraid I totally understand where Brian is coming from... Ealdgyth - Talk 22:59, 19 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I said "mechanical enough", not "mechanical". By which I meant that enough can be defined in terms of process and goals as may not be as intimidating, as, say, a full FA review to someone who has never done one.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:28, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

I am somewhat disappointed by the generally downbeat tone of some of these responses. Hypothecating about possible new approaches is all very well, but our priority should be trying to make the system we have work better than it does. If a few experienced FAC editors can undertake to do a handful – say three or four – of source reviews each month, rather than leaving it all to one increasingly exhausted editor, then the system, though imperfect, will be more effective. I'm looking for people prepared to do this, and my essay is intended to help them do it. The workload will not be too onerous if it is properly shared. Bluntly, I am not going to continue as I have done for the past few months, so something will have to be done. Brianboulton (talk) 16:17, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
 * And it would be very much in the spirit of "putting a little back" too.  —SerialNumber  Paranoia/ cheap shit room 16:23, 21 March 2018 (UTC)


 * There is perhaps another issue at play here Brian, which is that I for one have always been under the impression that you and Ealdgyth are trusted by the coordinators to do source reviews and that I, for instance, wouldn't be. Eric   Corbett  17:13, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
 * The delegates trusted you. Ealdgyth and Brian did an incredible amount of very useful, and rarely appreciated, work.  There are a large number of nominators happy to receive stars, but somewhat less willing to pay back in terms of the really hard work.  Brian, I would also suggest that too much work is being done prematurely on unprepared FACs.  Spot check a few sources, if work is needed, suggest withdrawal.  I cannot believe that, with the drop in promotion numbers, it is helpful or necessary to have more than 50 noms on the page.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  18:45, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
 * It's worth drawing editors' attention to the dispatch which Ealdgyth wrote some eight years ago, Reliable sources in content review processes, which contains most of the principles which underlie source reviewing and could be used pro tem as guidance to would-be reviewers. Brianboulton (talk) 11:07, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree we can't give up and I think a reasonable way to make the system more sustainable/scalable is to focus the "full monty" source review on nominations that have already gained some traction and are well on their way. My real-life workload will be scaling back soon and I'd like to get more involved. -- Laser brain  (talk)  13:44, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
 * The problem I see with focusing on nominations that have some support is that then things get nasty if the source review finds major issues. Then the pressure is on the source reveiwer to pass the article because the article already has so many supports. It's what burned me out last summer/fall when I was doing reviews. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:56, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
 * How about doing the source review in two parts? Like: the obvious, quick fail stuff first—before the supports arrive—and the detail filled in later, when anything radical will already be known. It might also have the advantage of allowing the owrk to be split among two reviewers (sharing the burden on each review). Of course, nothing's ever as bloody simple as this around here ;) but it's as far as my thinking takes me atm. —SerialNumber54129  paranoia / cheap shit room 14:02, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
 * The problem is, usually by the time you find enough issues to oppose (and have articulated it because you can't just say "oppose, bad sourcing" any more), you're well into the review and might as well finish. I should write up the full process of doing a pop culture source review sometime... Ealdgyth - Talk 14:09, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

I see Brian checking consistency on use of locations, asking for page numbers, pointing out deadlinks, spotting em dashes or hyphens used in page ranges, and so on. This part of a source review is something that could be written up so that newcomers to FAC could take on the work; I mention newcomers because it's often the case that editors new to FAC are unwilling to jump right into prose reviewing, so this might be a way to get started on helping reviews. Lingzhi's recently developed script for source checking finds many of these, though you have to use it with an understanding of what's optional, so it's not a standalone tool.

What that leaves is checking that the sources are high quality and reliable. I don't think this should be a separate "source reviewer" function, to be honest; when I'm copyediting or reviewing prose I look at any accessible sources I can, and I comment if the source looks dodgy, using Ealdgyth's long-standing "What makes X reliable?" formula. With Brian being so thorough I don't feel a need to do this any more, and I think that's a problem; reliability shouldn't depend on just one reviewer. The coordinators don't promote unless there is a consensus across several reviewers that the prose is acceptable; perhaps we should say that they should also expect at least two or three reviewers to say the sources meet 1c?

In addition, there are a couple of things that we could request (but perhaps should not require) of certain kinds of article. While doing some GA reviews recently I was delighted to find that WP:ALBUMS has a list of sources with evaluation of what is reliable and why. Recently has been working on updating the list to link to the underlying discussions that give details on why each source is considered reliable or not. I believe the video games WikiProject has something similar, and the film and TV WikiProjects may have it too. Perhaps we could ask nominators of articles with WikiProject pages covering their sources to list any sources they've used that are specific to that genre but not listed in the WikiProject source list. (That is, they don't have to list the New York Times or CNN, since those are not genre sources.) Then a reviewer can look at those, and do spot-checks to verify that they are correct in asserting the others really are on the WikiProject list. We could also intermittently check that the linked discussions are in fact sufficient and support the reliability of the source. This would in turn improve the quality of those Wikiproject pages and give the project members an incentive to keep them up to date.

I also want to add thanks to Brian for the incredible amount of work he's done on source reviewing. Anyone who's nominated an article here recently has benefitted from his thorough and patient work; I know I would not have had the strength to last as long as he has. It's time to change things so the job does not guarantee burnout. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:45, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
 * again the criteria at FAC is “high quality” reliable sources. Those lists from albums and video games are not useful for evaluating against the FA criteria because they aim merely to meet WP:RS not the FA criteria. I’d also argue that the video game one has some sources I’d consider to not even meet WP:RS. I’ll try to distill down some thoughts later, but as long as people keep forgetting that the sourcing standards at FAC are also higher, same as our prose standards, it’s going to be an issue. It’s what burned me out the last time I returned to source reviewing. Ealdgyth - Talk 12:00, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, that piece wasn't the main point of my suggestion, but why wouldn't a WikiProject want to get consensus on what sources meet FA criteria too? If the result of interaction between a WikiProject and FAC is improvement in those source lists that's a benefit. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 12:08, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
 * It is a major and highly problematic misunderstanding that "what that leaves is to check that the sources are high quality and reliable". That is not how source checking works if the aim is to produce excellent articles. The actual task that enables us to determine whether an article is excellent is not simply to "check" if the sources are reliable: it is to check whether: 1. the sources in fact support the claims they are used to support, and more importantly 2. whether the sources chosen and the information taken from each source in fact represent the current state of accepted knowledge about the topic. THIS is source review. Checking locations and page ranges and m-dashes is not source review but MOS issues. And checking that the sources used are reliable (in the sense of being peer reviewed and written by experts) is the minimum standaard for even being considered for inclusion, but a very far cry from making sure that the article is excellent (or even acceptable).·maunus · snunɐɯ· 11:06, 24 March 2018 (UTC)


 * It's true, the VG and Music source lists are more about meeting the RS standard and usability in notability discussions, but that said, they can still be useful as assistance in the source checking review - it's helped Mike Christie "auto-fail" sources in past GA/FA reviews - I've witnessed it. I think the more prevalent they become, and more developed they become, the more editors will be generally knowledgeable of them, and will in effect cut down on some of the "rookie mistakes" in sourcing at least, which in turn could at least cut down a little on the burnout you all seem to be experiencing in source reviews. It's not an end-all solution, but I think it could be a helpful component in a multi-faceted solution. Sergecross73   msg me  16:07, 22 March 2018 (UTC)
 * At the risk of sounding negative, but based on how such "list of things that are considered useful" tend to end up elsewhere on Wikipedia I expect that once such "reliable sources" list become widespread, we'll see people who consider only listed sources as acceptable. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 14:52, 23 March 2018 (UTC)

Make source reviews only address mechanical issues
The suggestion I made about lists has met with some valid objections above, but to me that was a side issue, so I'm starting this section to re-focus on the main suggestion I made above. I think the "source review" section in a FAC review should be only for the mechanical points, and should not be assumed to include spot-checks for paraphrasing and accurate use of sourcing, or verification that the sources are high-quality and reliable. That part of the FA criteria should be the responsibility of all reviewers. Without evidence that there is consensus (not just one source reviewer's comments) on the quality and use of sourcing, the coordinators should not promote. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:56, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * But the "mechanical stuff" is not source review. The "mechanical stuff" is just MOS issues. A source review is making sure that the information taken from the sources is in fact representative of the current state of knowledge about the topic. "Source review" of course requires actually viewing the sources. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 11:08, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree: spot checks of accuracy and close paraphrasing are a core part of any source review. I don't see how this kind of review could exclude them (is the suggestion here simply to check that the reference actually exists? - it seems a bit odd to do that, but then not take the time to check the relevant fact and wording) Nick-D (talk) 11:15, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I mean that source reviews in that sense should not be a specialist (one person) responsibility in any given FAC. Perhaps the "mechanical" piece should be called "MOS review" rather than source review.  What Brian has been doing is both -- the MOS review piece, and the source review piece. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 11:23, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * People have been doing that already - using the term "source review" to look at consistency in refs etc. and "spot checking" to check that the material matches the source. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:28, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Cas, if you've been looking at every source in every FAC you've reviewed, and determining if they meet 1c, then you've been doing better than me. Since specialist source reviewing started, I've assumed this is being taken care of by the source reviewer; I've only been looking at reliability for sources I happen to notice (e.g. if I look at a source to check the validity of a copyedit I want to make).  I think other reviewers have been doing the same.  If a dozen FAC reviewers post here to say they're looking at source reliability just as thoroughly as at prose, then I'm wrong about this, and there's no problem to fix. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 12:21, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I have to say that the focus on "source reliability" is inadequate. Source reliability is a minimum standard for ensuring quality content. More crucial is that the weighting and selection of the content is representative of a selection of the most reliable mainstream sources on a given topic.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:28, 24 March 2018 (UTC)


 * This discussion is going the same way as those interminable discussions about whether copyeditors should be checking sources rather than "just" fixing and clarifying prose issues. The answer there is that of course there's no onus on them to do that, and they're free to check as many or as few sources as they see fit, to feel comfortable that there are likely to be no glaring problems in that area. And a similar logic has to be applied to these source reviews. Checking for MoS compliance and the like is fairly mechanical, but with the best will in the world it has to be recognised that it is very unlikely that any source reviewer will have access to all the sources and so be able to check them all. So why don't we put source reviewing on a statistical footing by asking one simple question: how many sources need to be checked for accuracy for a given article to give a reasonable probability that there are no issues needing to be resolved? What would we like that probability to be, given that it will never be 100% no matter how much effort is expended? Eric   Corbett  12:55, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * As a minimum we have to check whether the couple of sources that are most used in the article are the best available, and that their contents are accurately represented. It is not a statistical question, it has to be evaluated for each article.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 13:06, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * It is indeed a statistical question, and that you can't see that is why this "problem" will never be solved. Eric   Corbett  13:56, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Au contraire. That you think it is, is the reason we cannot even begin to recognize the real problem - namely that calling articles excellent without evaluating the quality of the information they contain in relation to the information that a review of reliable sources suggest they should contain means that we have no way of knowing if the promoted articles are in fact shitty or not.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 15:30, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * You may of course continue to labour under your various misapprehensions, there's nothing I can do about that. Eric   Corbett  15:41, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Random number out of thin air: 90-99% is a "reasonable probability". Now on how to convert that into a sample size of N sources (or N sourced statements) in an article with X sources (or X sourced statements)... Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 14:15, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * 90–99% isn't a reasonable probability at all. In most scientific literature, for instance, 95% is the recognised probability level to have reasonable confidence in the reported result. As to the required sample size that should be rather easy to work out, and could be done mechanically, which would give the source reviewers something to aim for instead of an impossible target. Eric   Corbett  14:43, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Ya, at least 95% would be needed. There are apparently methods to calculate sample sizes, but they require a margin of error as well. Or maybe I am looking at the wrong things. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:58, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * what you wrote above——is not checked often at FAC, either as source review or regular review. You can see for yourself at Featured article statistics; the links to each month's promotions are under "FA promotions (Yearly total)". I agree with that checking sources should be part of everyone's review, even if only by spot checking. Reviews are usually open long enough that someone can get the books from the library, and WP:RX will help with articles behind paywalls. Nominators can help by supplying quotes for reviewers. We need to develop a culture in which this is expected. SarahSV (talk) 15:23, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I know they're not, and that is the main problem with FAC. By thinking of "reliability" as a checklist instead of an evaluation of the degree of correspondence between the article contents and the contents of the reliable literature we are perpetuating a situation where we a producing very well-formatted and well-written articles which may or may not however in fact be complete crap that will mislead and miseducate our readers.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 15:27, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree 100 percent. WP:FACR requires that articles be "a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature". That is not routinely checked. We don't ask "have you used the right sources in the right way?" SarahSV (talk) 15:34, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * How do you know it's not routinely checked? What we really need to do is to eliminate this culture of distrust, by applying a proper quantitative measure to the task. Eric   Corbett  15:39, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * There is a very good reason not to trust wikipedia editors to be able to write excellent content about complex topics: they are not professionals. Professionals write articles and then they are sent to reviewers who suggest how to improve the contents by better reflecting the relevant literature. If experts need this kind of review then amateur editors need it much much more. No amateur editor should expect others to trust their ability to write excellent articles without help in surveying the literature and selecting it.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 16:19, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * But your argument falls at the first hurdle. Source reviewers are no more professionals than are the article editors. And don't make the mistake of assuming that professionals are necessarily competent in every aspect of their profession. Eric   Corbett  16:58, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * The entire point of wikipedia is that amateurs can hope to achive something close to professional quality when there are enough of them involved in the actual work. Which is exactly why we need more amateur reviewers to check the sources. By actually reading them and making sure that they are correctly presented.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 17:06, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * (ec) I await everyone actually stepping up to do this. It's hard enough to ensure that absolute crap sites and self-published works aren't being used as sources ... let's not forget that was what started the whole source review thing back when Sandy asked me to help out. No one was even checking ... in fact, back in 2007/2008 when I started doing reliablity checks, no one was checking for that routinely in their reviews, that's why it got started. At this point, the problem is that even THAT much checking is too much work for the single person that ends up doing it. Let's try to keep the level of checking that we've got before we pile more on to some poor person or persons. I'll note that I picked up some of the slack last year and quickly burned out on just trying to keep the websites from being crappy and the self-published books out. I tried to get folks to use non-primary sources and modern historical scholarship and .. well... it burned me out. (Examples on Mike's talk page). Ealdgyth - Talk 15:40, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I think that you'll have a long wait before anyone does anything more than comment here Ealdgyth. My proposed solution would actually reduce the amount of work needed, but like so much else here it falls on deaf ears. Eric   Corbett  15:48, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * (outdent) Here's an example from a current FAC: Sonic Adventure and Featured article candidates/Sonic Adventure/archive1. Looking at the article, I see that the Pétronille, Marc; Audureau, William work is cited often. I go to WorldCat and see this entry. It's a juvenile book. That seems like a "high quality reliable source". Then we have this source which is just a soundtrack listing - but I see it's used to source "The group created the main theme, "Open Your Heart"" and "In May 2011, Sega rereleased the soundtrack to celebrate the Sonic franchise's 20th anniversary." but I don't see how that is supported. Then we see that this is used, but I'm not sure that Destructoid is a high quality source - its basically a blog. Then we have Engadget, which is a blog network. And another questionable site here. And the last source is Kotaku - is it the blog side or the actual editorial side that's used? And this article actually had a source review and it was noted that it passes based on the list that the video game project put out. I haven't even checked any of those sources against the actual text (beyond the soundtrack one). Just doing this quick check took me 15 minutes. And it's not exhaustive by any means... I'm sure if I looked at a lot of the other sources, I'd find more issues. And this isn't particularly bad as far as a video game article goes.. I've seen a lot worse. Ealdgyth - Talk 16:06, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Would it be possible to generate a script that takes the source reviewer to a headed list of WorldCat entries for a given article, based on ISBNs in its bibilgroaphy? Overall, I think source reviews could be split between MOS and quality/breath. Ceoil (talk) 16:16, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * it sounds like this article should not have passed GA to begin with :-). Is this really on par for FA? K.e.coffman (talk) 16:21, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * The Pétronille, Marc; Audureau, William work is not a juvenile book; it is targeted at an adult enthusiast audience and published by a boutique French press that specializes in video game history and is run by Florent Gorges, the foremost expert on Nintendo in the world. The book draws from direct interviews with all the major participants in the development of the Sonic franchise, most of which were conducted specifically for this book.  It is, quite simply, the best book on the market covering the history of Sonic (which admittedly is not saying that much).  As for the rest, Kotaku has been a bonifide news site with editors and everything since 2010 or so, but the one cite for this article appears to be more of a blog post, so I agree with you that it should not be there.  Destructoid is situational, as respected journalists do write for them, but it is a blog and mostly considered not trustworthy.  These concerns I share with you, but the book is actually fine. Indrian (talk) 22:38, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

(outdent) There are many worthwhile and interesting ideas being raised here, and I am sure that in due course we will devise a more satisfactory process for checking sources on FACs. But that will take time, and at the moment we need perhaps fewer words and more action. There are currently more than a dozen FACs without source reviews; that number will rise quite rapidly as new nominations come in. If we don't want to create a backlog of unmanageable proportions, we need to start doing things now. Any editor familiar with featured content should be able to carry out a sources review. For the benefit of the less experienced, I've now completed the draft of my "how to" essay, which may be helpful, although I'm sure it needs further work. The draft can be found here. Brianboulton (talk) 21:33, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * That sounds like a very useful approach, especially to those who are new at it. Anything would be useful that can be done to reduce it to a series of steps, i.e. mechanical (a term I use with some hesitancy given the reaction previous to my use of it, though I am reassured when I see that Eric's and Mike's uses of it did not attract the same reaction).--Wehwalt (talk) 02:13, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Essentially, you might be able to pull the wool over everyone's eyes at FAC that your article is factually accurate and everything in it is backed up correctly by sources. But you won't be able to fool the people who notice when it runs at TFA, the people who complain at WP:ERRORS, or the people on other websites who happen to be subject experts who read the article and think "That's a featured article? Oh my word...." Factual inaccuracies may be added to articles in good faith, and are tough to spot unless you've got the reading material or know the subject well, but the net effect on Wikipedia is as severe as vandalism. I appreciate that I don't do as much source review checking as I could (I think the last one I did was Tottenham Outrage), but that's simply because I don't want to wade in to an FA review without having some idea what I'm talking about first. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  09:43, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
 * You just highlighted precisely the problems in the way TFA/R is run since Raul was chased off. Raul believed in the Wikipedia process, and knew that exposing FAs to a wider audience by running spontaneous (rather than well-programmed in advance) TFAs was the best way to keep everyone on their toes.  Four days after TFA, the bad ones went to FAR.  Now we have no spontaneous TFAs, a pretense that quality is supposed to be screened at TFA/R, and a moribund FAR.  Because FA writers know they will have tons of advance notice before TFA will uncover their problems (and it doesn't always, btw).  Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  18:13, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
 * If I'm remembering my history correctly, the current system was set up by consensus. With that in mind, WT:TFA is thataway. :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 05:17, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Something akin to WP:GOCE/REQ?
Suggestion: what about setting up something like WikiProject Guild of Copy Editors/Requests, but for source reviews? The instructions could say "don't nominate your article for FA until source review is complete". GOCE takes 3 to 4 weeks, which seems like a reasonable waiting time. This would, of course, need volunteers, but I think if source review and FA review are separated, there would be less pressure / expectations. K.e.coffman (talk) 21:48, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/Image and source check requests Ealdgyth - Talk 21:54, 24 March 2018 (UTC)


 * do you mean source review in the sense currently used (checking formatting and source type), or do you mean in the sense of checking that the right sources have been summarized properly? SarahSV (talk) 22:53, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * more of the latter ("the right sources"). This should be occurring at the GAN level, but especially at FA. I've run into this issue at WP:MILHIST, of which I'm a member, so speaking somewhat from experience. --K.e.coffman (talk) 23:49, 24 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Let's get something straight. What should be checked at GAN is laid down by the good article criteria, not whatever you'd like to see written down. And unless you're willing to pick up some of the source reviewing yourself, it's rather hypocritical to try and mandate the impossible. Eric   Corbett  10:58, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
 * A reasonable interpretation of the GA criteria already includes a source review. But in practice it is haphazard if a reviewer actually does it or is capable of doing it. Which is why it makes sense of requiring yet more eyes on the article and its representation of sources before and during the FA process.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 11:13, 25 March 2018 (UTC)


 * A couple of final points: there is no reason why any of the contributors to these threads should not do an FAC sources review now, against the FA criteria, in the way they think such a review ought to be carried out. Why wait for a new policy or guideline to be hammered out? There's plenty of FACs to practice on. Secondly, some of the contibutors seem to think that at present, source reviewing is nothing more than MoS compliance checking. That is far from the truth; MoS is one aspect, but much more time is spent seeing that each source entry contains all the information necessary for verification, checking that online links work, frequently using the "about" button to help assess   quality/reliability – a pop culture article may need 100+ checks. This is the grunt work, and is only feasible if enough editors  will forgo their metaphysical arguments and get stuck in. Brianboulton (talk) 16:14, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
 * I will, but due to travel at present, I can't do a lot of link checking and am in a better position to do off-line prose reviews.--Wehwalt (talk) 00:04, 27 March 2018 (UTC)


 * Comment - re: there is no reason why any of the contributors to these threads should not do an FAC sources review now..., hence lies the challenge. One needs to be familiar with a subject area to know which sources are generally reliable vs fansite-like, unreliable, biased, dated, fringe, etc. That's why it seems odd to wait to do a source review until after a few supports (?) I.e. shouldn't those supporting have done a "source review" of sorts before voting in support of promotion? K.e.coffman (talk) 01:02, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Taking the last part of your comment first, that's a fair point and I'd agree that if someone offers unqualified support for promotion then they should have satisfied themselves re. all areas of the FA criteria, even if that means clearly deferring to someone else who has already performed a source review or a spotcheck or an image check (I do this myself sometimes; you can find places in the archives where I've supported on prose, structure, comprehensiveness, etc, but stated that I am taking as read say Brian's source review or Nikkimaria's image review. Re. the first part, familiarity with a subject may help sort the wheat from the chaff as far as reliability goes but I don't think it's necessary to call out or at least question many sources that appear not to be official, or to lack peer review, or that allow user input, etc. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 02:06, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Is that a typo? You don't " think it's necessary to call out or at least question many sources that appear not to be official, or to lack peer review, or that allow user input"? I don't understand. I thought calling them out was the whole point. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 05:45, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * Uh, no, I was saying that familiarity with a subject might be helpful but isn't necessary to call out questionable sources. Admittedly there was as typo in my post but that wasn't it... ;-) Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 08:07, 30 March 2018 (UTC)
 * OH. My confusion was as to the meaning of "it's". Here you use "it's" to refer to "expertise" as in "I don't think expertise is necessary for..". But I thought it was the "empty" or "dummy" subject, as in "I don't think it's gonna rain today." OK> Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 08:15, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

(outdent) If the sources reviewer has familiarity with the subject, well and good, but most of the sources criteria can be handled by editors without this specialised knowledge. Every sources review should carry the hidden qualifier "as far as can reasonably be ascertained"; we have to proceed on the basis of what is feasible, not seek for some impractical ideal which follows the practices of learned journals. Brianboulton (talk) 13:19, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

FAC reviewing statistics for March
Per some recent discussions, I'm no longer going to be giving out barnstars for reviewing, but will simply list here all reviews for the month (as usual, the month is defined by what's in the featured log and archive log for that month).

I've also begun tracking reviewer declarations: support, oppose, oppose which was struck but not turned into a support, and oppose which turned into a support. If I ever see a support that turns into an oppose I'll start tracking those too. I will at some point be able to report on things like which editors most often support nominations that are opposed by others, and vice versa, if we think that sort of thing is interesting to look at. recently asked a question along those lines, for example. If I get the energy I may extend this data backwards over the last few months. In March only one editor,, posted an oppose that was subsequently struck for an article that was ultimately promoted. There were nine opposes, by nine different editors, spread across the articles that were archived, plus a struck oppose. The most controversial was Sasuke Uchiha, which had five supports and three opposes. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:37, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

GBook links
In the current FAC for Cleopatra, the editor has added GBook links to many of the sources listed in the bibliography. I've found that a number of these link to different editions than those indicated by the ISBN references provided in the bibliography. Does anyone have an opinion on how strict we need to be with this? In one case, the incorrect Gbook listing linked to has a handy preview facility, while the correct Gbook listing does not. Both relate to editions that have the same number of pages, so whilst there can be no guarantee, I imagine the page numbers used in the article's referencing would be the same regardless of edition. On the other hand, the obsessive in me demands that we be strict about specifying the exact edition used to source the article. Also, there are two instances in this article where the GBook linked edition has a different number of pages than the edition found in Worldcat by searching on the ISBN, with implications for the page numbering used in the article's references. Factotem (talk) 13:30, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
 * sofixit. Or better yet, tell the nominator to do so. If you need someone to play bad cop, I have nothing to lose. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 13:53, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks, but no-one needs to play any kind of cop, and the nom is quite happy to fix it themself. Just seeking clarification on how precise we need to be when it comes to specifying editions of sources in cases where there appears to be little to distinguish between them, and an incorrect edition has a handy Gbooks preview that the correct edition does not. Factotem (talk) 18:46, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
 * It seems to me that the utility of Gbooks links varies according to one's "region", and possibly other variables too. So a Gbooks link is merely a convenience. By contrast, the ISBN is definitive. Nominators (and other editors) should not be adding a different ISBN than the edition where they found the material that they added. But in the absence of any certain means to prove that they have done so, personally I would leave the technically incorrect Gbook links in place for the convenience of those who are able to use them. MPS1992 (talk) 19:47, 9 April 2018 (UTC)
 * In my view, if the google edition of the book is that cited in the article, and if at least some of the cited material appears in the google preview, the link is useful as an aid to verification. If it's a different edition with different pagination, or has no relevant preview, then it doesn't aid verification and I would recommend not adding the link. Brianboulton (talk) 10:06, 10 April 2018 (UTC)
 * What if it's a different edition with the same pagination? Is that acceptable? Factotem (talk) 10:13, 10 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I'd probably accept that, if the preview was relevant. Brianboulton (talk) 16:58, 10 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Someone explained something many moons ago that should be in the archives here somewhere, but the gist of it was ... links to gbooks aren't available in all countries, aren't always available to all readers, and aren't enduring. So, the way to do it is NOT to link the book, rather to link to the specific page number (include the link to the page in the page parameter of the cite template).  That way, you are citing to the book, but saying where you got it, while providing a courtesy link to the page for those who can access it.  If the link is no good, or not accessible, you have still complied. That's what I watched for while FAC delegate ... Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  17:26, 10 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Here is an example: Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  17:28, 10 April 2018 (UTC)
 * That works OK for individual citations. But what if there were, say, 30 citations to the book? How would that work? How could we employ short citations, harvard etc? Brianboulton (talk) 10:37, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Isn't it OK to use it still?
 * Fisher A; Hanin I; Yoshinda M, eds. (1998), p. 353.
 * I have only ever used manual citation method for short form, so don't know about the various templates.   Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  13:01, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm not very imaginative. I may try this out on my next FA effort and see how it plays. Brianboulton (talk) 13:31, 11 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm not very imaginative. I may try this out on my next FA effort and see how it plays. Brianboulton (talk) 13:31, 11 April 2018 (UTC)

Question about Possible Second FAC
Hello everyone! I am currently waiting on a status report/update for my current FAC (Featured article candidates/All Money Is Legal/archive1); I believe that it is ready for promotion as it has already attracted a fair amount of reviews and has received an image review and a source review. I was wondering in this circumstance, if I could put up another FAC while I am waiting to hear a response on the other one. I completely understand if it is not advisable, but I just wanted to check in about this. Thank you in advance, and have a wonderful rest of your day and/or night! Aoba47 (talk) 03:55, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I often think that this regulation hampers very active editors, and can be demotivating. Maybe it would be best to generally allow editors to nominate a second FAC under the condition that the editor must have had delivered a number of (lets say, four) in-depth reviews to other nominations in the month before? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 04:38, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
 * The FAC instructions state that editors can seek leave from the coords to open a second solo nom if the current one appears close to promotion. I think this has generally worked quite well. In this particular case, Aoba, I'd have no objection to you opening another. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:57, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the response! I hope that you are having a wonderful week so far! Aoba47 (talk) 13:36, 19 April 2018 (UTC)


 * I have another case, Featured article candidates/Dilophosaurus/archive1 has been open for over two months, with five supports. Then dropped by and left a couple of comments and an oppose, not to be seen again on Wikipedia since that day, more than a week ago. I fixed the issues within the hour, but now it just feels like being hung out to dry; I know there is no time limit for a review, but after waiting this long, what almost seems like a drive-by oppose is pretty demotivating. No offence to Sarastro1, of course, but their complete absence from Wikipedia since that day seems puzzling. Is this a case where I would be allowed to nominate another article,, or do I have to wait until Sarastro1 some day returns? FunkMonk (talk) 11:40, 19 April 2018 (UTC)
 * It seems like you could ask to put up a second FAC without implying that a FAC coordinator would make a "drive-by oppose". Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  11:54, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I honestly don't believe it was intended as a drive-by oppose, but as I said, it feels like one in effect when there is no follow up even ten days after. The oppose is no problem in itself, it just seems unusual that the reviewer, coordinator or not, completely disappears from Wikipedia afterwards (I don't know the circumstances, so I'm not scolding anyone). As for just asking for a second nomination, that standing oppose complicates the situation, which is why I bring it up. Usually, I would never even ask for a second nomination, but seeing I don't know when Sarastro will return, I likewise don't know when I will be able to make another nomination. FunkMonk (talk) 12:04, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
 * The way I understand it is that by making a review of your candidate, Sarastro has effectively recused himself from promoting it; and per WP:FACPROCEDURE, If a nominator finds that an opposing reviewer is not returning to the nomination page to revisit improvements, this should be noted on the nomination page, with a diff to the reviewer's talk page showing the request to reconsider—I assume, that should the opposer not return, the co-ordinator will consider his opposition satisfied. We can't allow the process to be hidebound just because e.g. someone takes an extended holiday. —SerialNumber54129  paranoia / cheap sh*t room 12:23, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I would have no problem just waiting for Sarastro to return if I knew they were around, but they have not edited Wikipedia at all since that day, which seems a bit worrisome, as I would imagine a coordinator would announce a leave. Is someone in contact with Sarastro outside Wikipedia, could something have happened? FunkMonk (talk) 12:31, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
 * A brief look at his editing patterns shows regular breaks of a week or more, so I doubt there's any cause for concern. -- Laser brain  (talk)  13:20, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

UX Suggestion
The WP:FAC page is pretty overwhelming and cluttered. Maybe have some content or most content collapsed by default? It is hard to navigate as is. Has this been investigated already?  Kees08  (Talk)   04:39, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
 * You should try adding nominations viewer to your vector.js. :-) Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 04:56, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Ah, thank you. So that solves the problem for me; but for other newcomers to FAC who do not know that, the problem would still exist. Could be worth trying to implement a similar look on the page by default, without adding the js file? Some of the hesitance to that may be that we do not want to break the js script or other scripts, but in that argument, maybe you keep this page as a back-end page and have a different front-facing page.  Kees08  (Talk)   05:00, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I've boldly added a link to Nominations viewer in the header, at least as an interim solution (it should really be more visible regardless). I imagine that trying to implement it on this page by default would be pretty rough on mobile users, but then again this page is pretty long for scrolling through on a phone. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 05:05, 23 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Just checked on my Android. In desktop view, the script functions as intended (as expected). In mobile view, the sections are initially collapsed. After opening a section, you can see the script does not work. You may have known all that already, but just in case someone reading this did not.  Kees08  (Talk)   05:20, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

I do not want to make a whole bunch of sections, but another thing that would make reviewing easier is knowing which ones do and do not need more reviewers. Some have enough reviewers, they are just going back and forth with the nominator. I would prefer to concentrate my efforts on articles that still require more reviewers. Just another thought from a newcomer at FAC.  Kees08  (Talk)   11:11, 24 April 2018 (UTC)

Image/source check requests suggestion
In the transcluded Image/source check requests box at the top of this page, I suggest that the bold text be changed. It currently looks like this: I suggest it be changed to this: I made changes to the two current requests (one of which I made) as examples. The purpose of this change is to give potential reviewers a better indication of whether the request is premature. Jackdude 101 talk cont 17:05, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Requests should only be posted here for FAC nominations that have attracted several reviews and declarations of support. Premature requests can be removed by any editor.
 * Requests should only be posted here for FAC nominations that have attracted several reviews and declarations of support. Noting the nomination's number of confirmed supporters, and whether it has passed an image or source review, is suggested. Premature requests can be removed by any editor.
 * Seems superfluous. The current wording already states these things are required, the new wording only adds a layer of extra work for nominators (listing current supports). As for stating whether it already has an image or source review, this also goes without saying, that's what the section is for. If people request a source review, reviewers won't give it an image review. If you mean that finished requests should be crossed over, the wording could be clearer. This said, is there an actual problem this proposal attempts to fix? Do people frequently add requests there prematurely? FunkMonk (talk) 17:13, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm just brainstorming about ways to encourage reviewers to review things. By listing the number of supports in the request, it could make the idea of reviewing it more attractive. This is all based on a prior discussion where concerns were raised about making thoughtful reviews in nominations, only to see them fail and get archived due to not having enough supports. This is a very small change that I believe will have a big impact. Jackdude 101  talk cont 21:17, 24 April 2018 (UTC)
 * As has also been discussed before, I think the bigger problem is that reviewers rush to source and image review nominations long before they get any kind of prose review. Many nominations are archived after source and image reviews, which just makes it a waste of work. The reviewers can clearly see already that the nominations don't have any supports before doing those reviews, so I doubt it would make any difference to list number of supports in the request page. Rather, we would need wording that discourages people from source and image reviewing nominations without supports, if that's the outcome we want. FunkMonk (talk) 10:13, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Ideally, source reviews should always precede content reviews/supports, since the latter will be valueless if the sources prove to be inadequate. I am minded of my experience with this, a few years ago – seven recorded supports before my sources review uncovered a multitude of problems leading to the article's archiving. When I said a few weeks back that I would not in future conduct sources reviews until a couple of supports had been registered, this was a pragmatic decision; at the time I was almost the only one doing source reviews and the workload was proving impossible (I have since taken a total rest from source reviewing but will resume soon). If sufficient editors will engage themselves with source reviewing, I'd argue strongly in favour of getting these reviews in early. Brianboulton (talk) 15:42, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
 * In that case, it doesn't seem the proposed change would be desirable either. FunkMonk (talk) 16:33, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Little wonder that reviewers seem reluctant to oppose
It seems as if opposing an FAC nomination is fast becoming a no-go area, which can be of little benefit to the project. Is it the general consensus now that calling an article an uncomfortable read is unacceptably rude? Eric  Corbett  09:03, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I have a hard time deciding whether it is more odd to be offended by having one's article called "an uncomfortable read" or to make a surprised post at FAC when a nominator reacts defensively to criticism.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 09:08, 20 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Your observation has been noted and filed in the appropriate receptacle. Eric   Corbett  09:12, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't find that rude, personally. But, as you know, wikipedians differ as to what they do and don't consider acceptable levels of civility. DrKay (talk) 15:23, 20 April 2018 (UTC)


 * If you are going to talk about me, then it would be nice if you could at least ping. I took issue with the "an uncomfortable read" statement, and I would have just preferred that you just opposed it on prose. I did not take issue with an oppose and did not say so in the FAC so this discussion is not entirely correct. Either way, I am done with the FAC process and Wikipedia as a whole so you have little to worry about now. It would have been preferable in my opinion if you contact me on my talk page. I agree that I took the criticism too personally and I should have just stepped back ad requested that the FAC be archived from the start. I have to agree with Maunus on his point (i.e. "to make a surprised post at FAC when a nominator reacts defensively to criticism"). Aoba47 (talk) 16:35, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm not talking about you, I merely posed a question prompted by your reaction to a comment I made about your prose. If it hurt your feelings, then as far as I'm concerned that's just tough. My real concern though is not with you, but that reactions such as yours are gnawing away at the credibility of FAC, which seems to be well on the path to becoming little more than a rubber-stamping operation, with too few reviewers prepared to tell it like it is for fear of upsetting the delicate little snowdrops. Eric   Corbett  16:54, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
 * You shouldn't take it that hard, it's just the usual sniping Eric is known and loved for. Anyhow, another content creator down, we're sure getting somewhere. FunkMonk (talk) 16:50, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for demonstrating my point, albeit inadvertently. Why not just outlaw all critical comments? Eric   Corbett  16:54, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Funny you should ask, I think I made a similar observation once. FunkMonk (talk) 17:01, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I no longer have an issue with your comment. I overreacted to your comment and the article is not prepared for FAC, simple as that. As for the standards for the FAC, I am not entirely sure how far that this discussion will go as this particular issue has come up multiple times in the past. Hopefully, it will be resolved one day in the future; maybe something like a committee of FAC reviewers will need to created to ensure some sort of "standard" for reviewing and strictness when it comes to the FAC criteria. Either way, I guess this "delicate little snowdrop" will leave this to the more "real" contributor and reviewers. Good luck! Aoba47 (talk) 17:16, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, my point with the link above was that it's pretty laughable that a guy who is well-known for overreacting towards criticism has the gall to call someone else "snowdrop" for overreacting to criticism. The only difference is that you become hurt, while he just becomes obnoxious. And yes, that drives reviewers away and makes them feel like criticism isn't allowed, just like Eric is somehow complaining about here. FunkMonk (talk) 11:33, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Are you not criticising me here? Have I become obnoxious? Eric   Corbett  11:40, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I am saying that it is funny that you should create an entire section about something you are quite guilty of yourself. That of course doesn't make the general point invalid, the problem is when it drives away an editor because useless snark like "snowdrop" absolutely has to be part of it. That's what I would call "unnecessarily personalising", as you so innocently put it in the edit summary. FunkMonk (talk) 11:48, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * It's clear to me that you are making an inappropriate attempt to characterise me as someone who drives other editors away, when nothing could be further from the truth. But it's you that has to live with your conscience, not me thankfully. Eric   Corbett  12:50, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * That is perhaps the single most hilarious statement I have read this month. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 15:19, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * What do you hope to achieve with your attitude? Eric   Corbett  17:46, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Basically I agree with Eric and have left a few comments at the FAC and made a few edits to the article to demonstrate the issues. It is difficult to oppose; that's a fact these days. Victoriaearle (tk) 17:40, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Eric's comment was very mild and it was fair. Just before he commented, I had considered opposing, because the article is not well written. But I know from past experience that Aoba47 takes even mild criticism personally, so I decided not to say anything. I thank Aoba47 for acknowledging that the nomination was unprepared. SarahSV (talk) 18:10, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the comment. I acknowledge that I took the response too personally. On that note, I would request that you please turn attention away from my FAC/response and towards the more general discussion on the nature of opposing in FACs. I feel at this point bringing up my behavior is beating a dead horse. I would just like to leave Wikipedia with some sense of peace at least. Aoba47 (talk) 18:15, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

raised the issue of how difficult it is to write these character articles when there isn't much to say about them. The articles end up being stuffed with PR comments about the actor, film, game, director's opinion, casting, and who else was nearly cast. The writing is almost always a problem, but if you fix it, then people arrive to "support on prose", so you've helped to have a very bland article promoted. SarahSV (talk) 19:00, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
 * My first experience with featured articles was on FAR, where I made attempts at saves, but was met with sometimes blunt *but* constructive opposes. Was taken aback at first, but it was an invaluable learning process, and realised early the comments were intended to guide towards article improvement. Aoba, if you offer an article for review you have to expect positive as well as "room for improvement" feedback, and its the latter in the end that makes the page you are working on more the better. In particular I'd pay attention to the Iridescent/Sarah advice on bloating; a concise and short focused article is far preferable, to readers and reviewers, to something that is padded out with irrelevancies, repetition, [chart] stats, cross-pollinated cultural references etc. Ceoil (talk) 22:13, 20 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Well, Eric's comment "I think that you need to learn how to accept criticism gracefully. Admittedly though that's a rare skill here on WP,..." has made my week. Will you be offering classes, Eric? Johnbod (talk) 22:59, 20 April 2018 (UTC)
 * If you've got something to say Johnbod then please do the best you can to try and spit it out, if possible without diverting attention from the topic of this discussion, although I realise that may be asking too much of you. In the meantime FA has lost another reviewer, but who cares about that? Eric   Corbett  00:04, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I can't decide whether to pop popcorn or take a nap. "Nonproductive". Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 00:10, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Eric I know you have tougher skin that to retire from FAC over this. Opposing is *hard* and as recent stats have shown, happens rarer than it should, so don't stop that. You have a lot of weight with us old timers here, yet bear in mind that sometimes new comers wont know you from Adam. Ceoil (talk) 00:32, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * FA hasn't been fit for purpose for some time now, at least partly due to the pressure on reviewers to "act nice", and only to complement the nominators on the fine pieces of work they've produced, without any regard for the actual quality of the work. And as we've seen even here there are too many editors who are blind to this problem, preferring instead to settle old scores. There's absolutely nothing I can do about any of that, and so reviewing has simply become a net negative from my perspective. And no doubt editors such as Johnbod and Funkmonk will consider my decision to be a win from their perspective anyway. So the die is cast. Eric   Corbett  06:06, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't for one minute think Johnbod was criticising you on substance. The recent stats put you top of the class in opposing, and thats respected in terms of maintaining standards. Its also clear that the delegates wish to see more of this rather than drawn out and tortured sentence by sentence FACs. To a certain extend we're trying to figure out the least disheartening (to the nominator) way to kill these off early. Ceoil (talk) 08:45, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Actually, I think there may be an easier short term fix to this issue than my reform proposal - what if we required that nominations should always be joint with at least two editors, one of whom must have a predetermine number of previous succesful FAs. That would mean that articles that simply are not FA material will not be nominated because the nominator wiull be uunable to find a conominator.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 08:54, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Maunus, yes, but on first read doesn't seem practice. And it opens the door to more quid pro quo, cronyism and political jousting (who here wouldn't want to be attached to eg Giano's next FAC), as well as raising barriers to entry. My idea state would be that if you saw an article that was far from standard, you could say oppose on criteria x,y,z, and to borrow from Tony1 and Eric's approach would give one or two examples, "as examples"(!) from the lead of endemic issues throughout the article (they usually are), rather than the current tooth and nail sentence by sentence battleground we currently have settled into on less prepared articles. Ceoil (talk) 10:57, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, cronyism perhaps, but that is also another word for "collaboration". And if someone wants to be a conom of someone's FA that would mean that it is probably a good FA, and there will still be a review to pass.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 11:40, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * collaboration vs cronyism can be measured in edit count and kb of readable text added to the article. The main issue for me is that it raises barriers to entry (you have to get to know people with clout) and is recipe for cabal. Ceoil (talk) 12:00, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I think it raises the incentive for collaboration and lowers the incentive for conflict and antagonoism in the review process- I think that is pretty important at this juncture. The raised bar for entry will be countered by better retention of nominators and reviewers once the process becomes less antagonistic.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 12:15, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * My experience is that collaboration is the result of friendship rather than any prescribed goal agenda. Its ephemeral and cant be legislated for. I suspect you are viewing this from an idealist academic pov, rather then the practicalities of managing a bunch of hobbyists. Plus as somebody who con-nomned with Ottava "multiple" (to borrow his lexicon) times, there is no safety in numbers, and in fact can be a serious hindrance. Ceoil (talk) 12:32, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

As per Sarah's post and what Iri wrote, articles about a character are marginal at best, and this thread should focus on that. Because it's hard to oppose, those of us who would, decide to pass. Then the FAC gets only positive reviews, the coords have no choice but to promote, and after year after year of that sort of thing the process degrades. Aoba received some useful comments; they have, however, requested a self-block, which is unfortunate. That's why I've stopped reviewing. Not directed or in reply to anyone, btw. Just saying' Victoriaearle (tk) 01:03, 21 April 2018 (UTC)


 * This is exactly the type of unfortunate situation that arises naturally and logically from the current FA review model and which my Peer review reform proposal is designed to avoid.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 07:00, 21 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Replying to SarahSV's ping here as the indentation is already quite tangled; helped to have a very bland article promoted isn't necessarily a bad thing. Some topics are inherently boring but nonetheless important, and blandless isn't an issue if the topic is one on which you'd expect the article to be bland. (Unless you have an unusual level of interest in the economics of bulk brick shipments in 19th-century Buckinghamshire you'll find Brill Tramway mind-numbingly dull; it doesn't mean it's not a valid article. I'd hate anyone to think I in any way endorsed the "brilliant prose" nonsense it took us a decade to get removed from the FA criteria.) My problem with "fictional character" articles in general is that unless the character in question is either a major character in something with a significant impact in popular culture, or a character from something like Shakespeare where every line has been the subject of non-trivial discussion in multiple sources, there have often been only a few people who have written in depth about that character; as a consequence there isn't sufficient coverage for a mainstream opinion to emerge, and the articles end up giving undue weight to the opinions of the few people who have written at length about the character regardless of how fringe-y those opinions are. (To take the FAC at hand as an example, in the Narnia books the Handsome Prince marries the Beautiful Princess, who in turn gives birth to a Handsome Prince of their own. This is a completely generic trope of children's literature and European fairytales and—with the exception of Frozen, which intentionally subverts the convention to create a twist ending—one would be hard pressed to think of a piece of children's literature featuring a prince and princess in which the prince doesn't marry the princess and raise a family at the end. However, because one of the few academic papers to discuss this particular princess in detail claims that Lewis was intending to "imply heteronormative sexuality" we in turn end up repeating it, even though common sense tells us that this is obviously a crank opinion.) &#8209; Iridescent 08:00, 21 April 2018 (UTC)

Very quick fix, which is nothing new, but a return to the old. If a FAC doesn't have significant progress towards promotion within two weeks, it is archived with a note from the coordinators about what the nominator might work on before returning in two weeks or so. We aren't going to get opposes if the page is backlogged continually with four or five dozen FACs that are going nowhere. FAC is not where articles should be pulled through to promotion; it is where articles that are already mostly prepared are checked. Oppose early; oppose often. Coordinators, get the page moving again by having the guts to archive, as you are empowered. Reviewers, back the coordinators when they do so. Holy moly, there are 37 FACs in the "Older" section! Why aren't these being archived? Considering 's extended absences, would it be helpful if were brought back as a Coordinator? Sandy Georgia (Talk)  14:21, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, 32 now (an hour later), & several others ripe to promote I think. It's not "guts" but time/resource that is lacking perhaps? Johnbod (talk) 15:30, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I'd like to add Sandy's words to WP:FAC: "FAC is not where articles should be pulled through to promotion; it is where articles that are already mostly prepared are checked." SarahSV (talk) 18:49, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Agreeing with, more emphatically even: but this stands out grin the point of view of an experienced Wikipedia but an inexperienced FACker ;) the management thereof is possibly undermanned? This must be one of—if not the only—high profile, front of house address of the project which had only two mainstays behind it (and one of which, to quote above, takes "regular breaks of a week or more"— which is fair enough of course, but the problem is, the candidature and reviews don't!). More leadership, would, I think, see an immediate concomitant reflection in reviewing.  —SerialNumber54129  paranoia / cheap sh*t room 18:54, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree. Does have any interest in becoming a coordinator again, or is  interested in swapping her TFA role to become a coordinator? SarahSV (talk) 19:48, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * While I agree that Ian should have more assistance (I will say that Sarastro1 is an excellent co-ord, despite the absences, but RL gets in the way for many of us), I don't have a problem with nominations running for a minimum of a month (which seems to be the norm), or even longer, as it's the standard of reviews that count, rather than the time spent in the queue.
 * It does come down to the standard of articles being added to the queue, and there are too many nowadays that are not up to scratch on a prima facie reading, and that's one reason why the queue gets too long. I agree with Sandy and Sarah's comments about FAC not being the place to 'pull articles through', but for me this goes back to the poor functioning of the PR process, which is where many of the more basic flaws should be picked up, but are not. I have to agree with Eric too, that opposing seems to be taken too personally, and therefore there are many (probably including me) who don't oppose when they know there is a problem, but skip doing a review instead. - SchroCat (talk) 21:26, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Suggestion: The FACBot is currently marking nominations more than 20 days old as "Older nominations". I could increase this to 30 or 40 days.  Hawkeye7   (discuss)  02:02, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * 25 might be ok, I think. Johnbod (talk) 02:51, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * If I recall correctly we went from two weeks to three weeks in recognition of the fact that noms have over time moved slower owing to fewer reviewers, but I don't think should increase the marker again. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 09:35, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Mark me down as very, very, very, very, very strongly agreeing with "...I don't have a problem with nominations running for a minimum of a month (which seems to be the norm), or even longer, as it's the standard of reviews that count, rather than the time spent in the queue" as per, and with all due respect, just as strongly disagreeing with Sandy's very detrimental "two weeks" suggestion. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 23:15, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Back to the original point about opposing, it's something I'm generally loathe to do unless I think there are more issues than can be addressed at FAC but where an oppose is necessary, it would be helpful for experienced reviewers to back up the initial opposer to take some of the pressure off, because being the sole opposer amid a wave of support, with the nominator badgering you, can feel quite lonely. This might encourage people to oppose earlier and might lead to under-prepared nominations being archived earlier (though hopefully with constructive feedback to the nominator so they can bring the article back). I think the slowness of FAC in general is not so much down to an abundance of under-prepared nominations but a lack of fine-detail reviewing, which is understandable—offering detailed commentary and useful feedback on a large article can be a big time commitment so naturally people focus on what's interesting to them and what they have time for. HJ Mitchell &#124; Penny for your thoughts? 21:30, 21 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I am always willing to take on suggestions for improvement of an article. I hope I don't come across as being adversarial to the reviewers. But comments need to be actionable, in the short term (ie correct it now) or long term (withdraw and resubmit). We do get reviewers whose objection is simply that they wouldn't have written the article that way, or who want another article to be submitted (for example) and whose comments must be disregarded.  Hawkeye7   (discuss)  01:56, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * The implication is that articles are taking a month or longer to pass as problems are being worked out. My experience is that they take a month or longer because reviewers can't even be bothered to take a look at the articles.  Archive them after two weeks and you'll see nearly every article get archived, many without a single prose review.  Only 2 of my 24 FAs would've passed under a 2-week rule (or maybe not—they both passed at the 14-day mark), and it wasn't because of opposes or requests for fixes, but indifference—and the lack of reviews has only gotten worse in the three years since I abandoned FAC. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:08, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * As far as absences go, it's actually quite unusual for both Sarastro and myself to be busy in RL at the same time, and we've both been doing reviews to help push things, meaning we've had to recuse from closing some noms -- so I don't think this is an ongoing issue. That said, Andy has had a standing invitation since his departure to return to the work if he wishes, and would be more than welcome if she and the other TFA coords want to work something out. It's good -- if at the same time sad -- to hear people's honesty about not reviewing articles that they fear will not be up to scratch, but unless people are prepared to do that we will just have noms withering on the vine, which doesn't do anyone any good in the long run. Sure we can archive noms that have attracted little interest, but with no feedback positive or negative to work on, the nominee will probably be back and the same issues will remain. In fact part of the FAC instructions are that the coords should grant a waiver from the two-week waiting period when noms have had little or no commentary, so these perhaps-premature noms can be back in circulation even quicker. I always try to check new noms for procedural correctness, e.g. the nominator doesn't have another solo nom in the queue, or the nominator is a main editor, and if those criteria ar not met then it goes; but we all need to do our bit about checking if a nom is premature and recommending withdrawal on the basis of obviously poor referencing or other concerns -- I make a point of searching the queue for "withdraw" every couple of days specifically to catch these recommendations, as well as nominators seeking early closure, so pls make use of it. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 02:20, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * (2 x ec), you could be right, but I wonder whether reviewers would turn up if things were a little snappier. I often think "that'll be open for ages yet", when I look at an FAC, then I forget to go back to it. SarahSV (talk) 02:22, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Sandy's "return to the old" wasn't about them actually passing within 2 weeks, but: "If a FAC doesn't have significant progress towards promotion within two weeks, it is archived" (my bold) - even in the Golden Age (TM) many took over a month to pass, as I recall. Johnbod (talk) 02:55, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * SarahSV, Johnbod: I can say that I always brought articles that I thought were ready to FAC, and I very rarely got opposes of any kind. The first of my FACs I randomly clicked into shows 11 days before the first comment.  My last FAC sat there for 32 days and garnered a single driveby look at the prose before being archived.
 * The same thing typically happened to articles I reviewed. It always bothered me that certain "names" got an excess of reviews, while it seemed most others languished, so I focused on reviewing non-"names".  I contributed probably a review a week, but far too often, mine'd be the only one—and sure enough, a month later, the FAC would get archived, and as often as not the nominator would be so discouraged that they never returned, and my own effort was wasted.
 * An article being ignored to death says nothing about its quality or fitness for the gold star. Archiving an article when there are no open issues to deal with achieves what? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 05:20, 22 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks for noticing, :)  Now don't stir up bad Catholic Church memories ... acrimonious months at a time x what, 5 of them? Not to mention my own name getting added to Samuel Johnson :/   Point is, usually FACs that are sitting there getting absolutely nothing is because reviewers won't engage because they see too much wrong, and don't want to get sucked in to the back-and-forth cycle that results when we don't get a FAC off the page with suggestions from the coords about what they'd like to see happen for it to come back.  When a FAC is getting no feedback, a delegate/coordinator can almost always see why.  Hawkeye, move it up to 30 or 40?  How about move it down to 14, where it once was, to see how much the page is really lagging? The fastest route to promotion is archival, and I suggest that WP:FAS demonstrates that.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  06:02, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * The core of the problem is: nobody but the coordinators knows how close or far an article is from being promoted. If I thought an article had no chance, I would ask for it to be withdrawn; but it would cost me two weeks.  Hawkeye7   (discuss)  06:13, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Hawkeye, I've seen you say that a few times here recently, but don't really know what you mean. I can see that could be related to interminable time on the page, where it's no longer clear how decisions are made ... ?? I think/hope people knew that if there wasn't stuff happening on a FAC within two weeks, I'd close it, and if there was a lengthy oppose, I'd close it too, with a note to come back after a, b, or c was addressed.  All FACs had a better chance if the page was moving and active.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  06:43, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * At least for me, as someone working on a few FACs during your tenure, that was always very clear. And my experience of it was, I was much (much) more worried about a lack of responses than opposes, even on contentious articles with socking and POV-pushing happening during FAC, because opposes were either not actionable (and thus ignorable) or it was something that could be fixed. Active coordinators that pushed the process along (and kept order when things got too far out of hand) were essential components there. I haven't been at FAC for a loong time now, and just going by the discussions here I am significantly worried about whether it's something I would want to expend the time and energy on. If reviewers are reluctant to make their opposition to a nom explicit then this process cannot work from a nominator's perspective. Say what you mean, and why, and give nominators a fighting chance. --Xover (talk) 07:26, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * SandyGeorgia: "usually ... reviewers won't engage because they see too much wrong ..."—can you back up "usually"? Because that conflicts with my experience.  For instance, when I see an article that's clearly not up to snuff, I'd leave a comment saying it should be withdrawn—which (at least when I was active) seemed a common thing to do. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 06:20, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, the full statement was ... "reviewers won't engage because they see too much wrong, and don't want to get sucked in to the back-and-forth cycle" ... with nominators who fix a few, you give a few more, they fix a few more, you give a few more ... and so it goes ... pulling them up to standard, when the oppose should have been backed by other reviewers and archived. It is not hard to tell which nominators don't get the picture and go fix everything, rather only fix what the reviewer specified.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  06:43, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * SandyGeorgia: I'm not disputing that happens, I'm disputing your assertion that that's "usually" what happens. My own experience as a both a nom and a reviewer is thta it's not. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 07:03, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Concur with Curly, often it also seems that reviewers stay away from an article because they are unfamiliar or disinterested in the topic (or that's what I've seen some say once they've been approached to comment), and early archival of such cases would not benefit anyone. See for example the current nomination, SMS Braunschweig, it looks fine, is almost two months old, but has a single support (I'll begin a second review now to prevent it from being archived). In any case, stating one reason or the other as the "main" one is an oversimplification. FunkMonk (talk) 12:49, 22 April 2018 (UTC)


 * I took a look at the article in question and soon found factual errors and inconsistency. As the review had closed, I updated the article.  Aoba47 responded to the update within 3 minutes and so their threat of retirement seems to have been empty.  Me, I get a lot of heat for daring to oppose at RfA.  I contrast this with what happens in Arbcom elections where even the most successful candidates get hundreds of opposes.  The difference is that those elections have a secret ballot and so it is safe for editors to oppose as there's no risk of retaliation.  The FA process might have some similar element of confidentiality, like scholarly peer review but there are problems with that when the process is not open.  What we mainly need to do is support robust reviewers like Eric while deprecating threats to retaliate or resign.  And for an amusing perspective on this perennial issue, please see "In the Neolithic Age"... Andrew D. (talk) 07:50, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Just as a point of order, back when Arbcom votes were publicly logged there was no apparent shortage of opposers, while even high-profile people with a reputation as "insiders" or of having a clique of followers could attract significant opposition without any apparent fears of reprisals among the opposers. The introduction of secret ballots was the result of a somewhat questionable supervote by the closer as part of this RFC (73 in favour of publishing the names and votes of voters either during or after the election, 71 in favour of secret ballot), not by some kind of mass acclaim. &#8209; Iridescent 08:21, 22 April 2018 (UTC)

One thing reviewers could try doing is providing vague criticism at first (which probably does happen, to some extent). My first nomination, John Glenn, did not really receive any review at all until very late in the FAC process, when it was not possible to fix the article in time. After seeing the FAC comments, running it through MilHist A-Class review, and reflecting on the article, I saw its shortcomings and why it was not eligible for FA. However, if someone had just made a couple of comments early on in the FAC like the Senate section does not include enough information and is disorganized, I used a source too many times in one section, etc, we may have been able to fix it on the first go, if I was alerted early enough in the process (honestly probably not, the issues were pretty severe). A bit of hyprocrocy from me too, since I do not do what I am asking; though I am trying to get an article through FAC before becoming a reviewer. Just a thought from an outsider that hopefully will be coming in soon.  Kees08  (Talk)   08:10, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Kees, I think it's invaluable to engage as a reviewer before putting an article up at FAC. (Has there been any response from Laser brain? )  Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  13:18, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I am not sure how I could review to the FAC criteria if I cannot write articles to that standard.  Kees08  (Talk)   19:41, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Sure you can! Some of the FACs that need opposes have non-reliable sources, content not backed by the cited source, obviously poor prose, MOS errors ... you can pick something you do know, and enter comments without Support of Oppose, and even that helps! See Wikipedia Signpost/2008-04-07/Dispatches.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  20:05, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Sure, but that helps FAC more than it helps me, because I would be pointing out things that I know are wrong without necessarily learning what I do not know (I will give it a shot, after I finish up my open reviews elsewhere). I think maybe FAR and FARC might be the best methods of learning, but other than latching onto a frequent FACer, it can be a steep learning curve with not many places to do the learning. Does my point make any sense at all? I have articles piling up at A-Class, but the jump to FA is daunting because I do not have a firm grasp of what I do not know, FAC is not for improving articles, so there really is not a venue to get things to FAC. If people like me prepare better articles, people like you can spend less time reviewing because there are less mistakes to point out. Not sure if I am articulating my point well at all here.  Kees08  (Talk)   20:21, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I think I get your point . I had very similar concerns before submitting my first (and so far my only) FAC. It did go surprisingly well, but I still feel a bit uncertain about the process when I review, so I only review those aspects where I feel reasonably confident and stipulate as clearly as possible the limits of my review and eventual support (or otherwise, if it comes to that). If I may make a suggestion, try reviewing an article which you find interesting, but are not a subject matter expert, from the point of comprehensibility to an ordinary reader, and give feedback about what is not clear from the text. That can help get the prose sorted out and should improve the article's usefulness to the average reader, so whatever else happens, the article should be improved. You may well need to look up the occasional reference while doing this, and can then give feedback on whether the reference supports the text. From what I have seen, articles are usually improved at FAC, so though that may not be its purpose, it is usually its effect. I am not referring to content here, rather to intelligibility, flow and idiom. Cheers, &middot; &middot; &middot; Peter (Southwood) (talk): 17:15, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Funny you bring that up, a few hours before you did I actually preemptively followed your advice. I have done an image review of another article, and another review, so this makes three reviews for me since I first posted. I will also try to provide vague criticism on real bad articles, as I did once already as well. Bit hypocritical of me if I did not.  Kees08  (Talk)   08:58, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * ,, : I'm willing and happy to help out if my involvement would help the community. Effort management is definitely easier with more hands on deck! -- Laser brain  (talk)  16:20, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * , that's excellent news. Thank you, and welcome back! SarahSV (talk) 18:22, 22 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Well done Andy, good to have you back. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 09:37, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Spot checks requested

 * There is a detailed – extremely detailed, actually! – analysis of the sources used for Bengal Famine of 1943 in the "Reliability of sources" subsection of the current FAC page. As the FAC notes, I have on hand a very, very large percentage of all sources listed. Most of the few sources that I do not possess are books that are viewable through online preview (Google books, Amazon.com). So if anyone would like to do spot-checks on any sources, I would be immensely grateful. You could either label the effort as a bit of community service to Wikipedia, or if you like, as a way of nodding to the fact that I have been active on Wikipedia for over eight years (I took a break for a couple years), about two of which were spent working on this article (off and on).
 * One good place to start would be Greenough's 1982 bookProsperity and Misery in Modern Bengal: The Famine of 1943–1944, Oxford University Press. It's currently cited 42 times in our WP article... I have that book in pdf format (three or four pdfs, all non-searchable, alas). To save you the trouble of having to hunt-n-search through the article to find all 42 references to that book, I would be extremely glad to create a text file that presents a list of snippets with the relevant cites, similar to this: "According to Greenough (1982) the Provincial Government of Bengal delayed its relief efforts primarily because they had no idea how to deal with a provincial rice market crippled by the interaction of man-made shocks ." I dunno what percentage of all those you'd need to check, but any help at all is of course gratefully received.
 * But I could also send any journals etc. that you desired. Just ask on my talk page or via email. A million thanks in advance. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 03:41, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
 * What type of check do you mean exactly?·maunus · snunɐɯ· 09:29, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * You choose any source(s) that you wish to look at. I send you the source(s). If you wish, I can make a text file (as described above), especially if that source is cited more than a few times. You compare the source text on the cited page to Wikipedia text. Is it fair to cite that text and that page for the relevant Wikipedia text? If it's within a bundled cite, how much of the preceding text is covered by that cite? You make a note of all your findings in a (new) dedicated section of the FAC. That's all, from your end of the task... If you find some that are wrong, I will investigate to see where the error cam from. Tks. Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 10:10, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Ok, any requirements of sampling or sample size? There are 330ish references, so if I take 33 random citations and check if they seem to support the claim they are citing that would be helpful?·maunus · snunɐɯ· 10:15, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I have no idea what people usually take as a yardstick for FAC, or  or  might have an idea. While we're waiting for anyone to answer, ten percent is certainly a good start...Tks! Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 10:21, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I could probably do another 33. —SerialNumber54129  paranoia / cheap sh*t room 10:42, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Wow that's great, thanks. You choose them... bear in mind 1) Mr rnddude already did some, but 2) At least one reviewer has very much not withdrawn their Oppose on this point. Thanks! Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 12:03, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Perhaps I should wait until has finished their sweep—so as not to duplicate the work?  —SerialNumber54129  paranoia / cheap sh*t room 15:08, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I think that given the circumstances it may in fact be preferable if you duplicate my work at least partly, just to ensure that we more or less reach the same conclusions. I intend to take every 10th reference, starting with the first.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 15:25, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
 * That's a good idea, it would be in keeping with the spirit of what we're trying to achieve. if it's OK, I'll probably take all the JSTOR articles. My reasons a) I have access, so don't need to bother you (unless there's any odd restrictions of course), and b) I've gone down with a rotten cold, so can't (read: wont!) get to a library for quite a few days; but of course the JSTOR stuff can be done from home. It is also likely to intersect with Maunus's reviews at some point. Cheers,  —SerialNumber54129  paranoia / cheap sh*t room 10:39, 28 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Many multiple millions of thanks. Sorry you have a cold, SN 54129. If either of you needs a source, send me an email. Thanka!!! Lingzhi ♦ (talk) 10:58, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

FAC reviewing statistics for April
Here are the reviewer statistics for April.

There were 136 declarations of support or oppose: 120 supports, 9 unstruck opposes, 4 struck opposes, and 3 opposes that were converted to supports. An additional 99 reviewers did not make a declaration; 61 of these were image or source reviews. No articles were promoted with unstruck opposes. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:18, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the details, Mike. It's good to see that source reviewing is being taken up by a wider spread of editors – 14 attempted at least one sources review in April. I hope this trend continues. My Guidance on source reviewing at FAC is still available to help would-be sources reviewers, though I note that since 29 April the page has had precisely 0 viewings! Brianboulton (talk) 10:06, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Actually that number is 15. I completed both a source and a prose review for Featured article candidates/Porlock Stone Circle/archive1 which was promoted in April, but it's credited in the table above only as a prose review. Factotem (talk) 11:52, 11 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks -- I'll fix it in my database, and have updated the table above. I do this by eye so it's possible I've made other mistakes.  At some point I plan to make the data generally available so others can check it easily. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 12:19, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Book referencing consultation on meta
There is currently a consultation going on at meta over WMDE's technical wishes about book referencing. Thought people here might be interest in it: WMDE Technical Wishes/Book referencing/Call for feedback (May 2018). TonyBallioni (talk) 23:05, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Seeking advice on source reviews
Novice source reviewer question: WP:VERIFY requires that "everything...must be verifiable" and that "any material whose verifiability is challenged or likely to be challenged" must be cited to a source "that directly supports the material". How fastidious should we be on this, not just in terms of policy, but also the standard expected at FAC? An example, in the current FAC for HIAG: The second source above confirms that the publisher was HIAG-owned, but is not used in the article where that statement of ownership is made. There's also an apparent discrepancy in the year in which Munin became associated with/owned by HIAG. I see no reason to doubt the fundamental point being made, that Munin was closely linked with HIAG's members, but in detail, that first statement is not supported by the sources.
 * The statement "HIAG established its own publishing house—Munin Verlag—in 1958" is sourced to a document that does not mention HIAG at all, and states only that Munin Verlag was founded by "soldiers of the former Waffen-SS", without linking them to HIAG or establishing that they were acting on behalf of that organisation.
 * The statement "Der Freiwillige and the Munin Verlag publishing business were taken over by Patrick Agte, a right-wing author and publisher..." is sourced to a different document, which states (loosely translated as best my limited German allows) "The Freiwiilige was published as the association magazine by [HIAG's] own Munin publisher from 1953."

In another example: I've read through the additional guidance linked to in the FAC criteria on sourcing, but am not really any the wiser. On the one hand, I've learned that "Editors making a challenge should have reason to believe the material is contentious, false, or otherwise inappropriate", and I can't say that any of that would apply in these cases (and I'm not challenging the statements, only querying the sources). On the other, I've always bought into the concept that a FA "exemplifies our very best work and is distinguished by professional standards of...sourcing", and interpreted this to mean that there's no room for any discrepancies in sourcing. Is it excessively critical to challenge the sourcing at this level of detail? Would appreciate others' opinions. Thanks. Factotem (talk) 11:33, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The source for the statement "...HIAG-affiliated books were predominantly published by Plesse Verlag (de) in Göttingen, owned by an extreme right-wing politician and publisher Waldemar Schütz (de)" makes no mention at all of Waldemar Schütz as far as a GBooks preview search goes, and certainly not on the page referenced. The linked German wiki article on Schütz sources his ownership of Plesse Verlag. Although there is no preview available to allow me to verify, I have no reason to doubt the veracity of the statement, but again, technically, there's a detail in this article which, without prejudice to the fundamental point being made, is unsourced.
 * This is essential reading for source reviewing at FAC. Good luck! —SerialNumber54129  paranoia / cheap sh*t room 11:41, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I did read through that before posting, but it didn't really answer my question. Factotem (talk) 11:44, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
 * The idea that only material likely to be challenged requires an inline citation has been somewhat superseded in current practice. At FAC these days, we require every material statement, unless self-evidently true, to be supported by a citation, not just material likely to be challenged. If the cited source does not support the text, then either another source should be found, or the text altered to comply with what the source says. Brianboulton (talk) 15:42, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
 * To me, this looks like sloppy referencing. The cite(s) should support the statement(s) made. If this is common throughout the article, it indicates a greater referencing problem, and will require substantial work to make the article FA-ready. Simon Burchell (talk) 11:37, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Those are exactly the sorts of issues that we should look for in a source review. Sourcing should be as well done as any other aspect of the article. Would you like me to step in with a second opinion...I have some of the sources used in that article. Ealdgyth - Talk 11:58, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes. I think a second opinion would be most useful. Thanks. Factotem (talk) 08:38, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
 * This is actually a third opinion – the article had two sources reviews already. Yet the nom has thus far gained zero support after 34 days. There are other, supported articles, lacking source reviews; I can't believe that this over-attention on one article is the best use of reviewing resources. Brianboulton (talk) 21:58, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
 * This has an artificially high profile at the moment because of the ongoing arbcom case, unfortunately. —SerialNumber54129  paranoia / cheap sh*t room 05:40, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

Source spot-check and the like
Greetings, can someone take a look at Featured article candidates/Tutupaca/archive1 and see if they can do a source spot-check? It seems like a " spotcheck of sources for accurate use and avoidance of close paraphrasing" is the main thing missing now. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 07:14, 29 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I did a spotcheck and looked at close paraphrasing when I reviewed the article just prior to FAC; I've left a note to that effect at the FAC. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:42, 29 May 2018 (UTC)

Date conversion
After I ran IABOT to auto-archive my latest FLC, I found that I had nearly 200 dates which needed converting from yyyy-mm-dd to UK date format. I went online and found the VBA code for a Word macro to convert dates, which I tweaked and it works for me in Word 2013 and Windows 7. It should convert to US dates with another slight tweak. I am happy to give out the code or post it here if anyone wishes - of course with no guarantee that it will work for other people. Or does anyone know a better solution? Dudley Miles (talk) 12:07, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Take a look at User:Ohconfucius/script/MOSNUM dates. --RL0919 (talk) 12:24, 30 May 2018 (UTC)
 * Installed thanks. Dudley Miles (talk) 14:27, 30 May 2018 (UTC)

Expert review service
At the village pump I've proposed offering a rigorous independent expert-review service for some of Wikipedia's featured articles. I'd appreciate hearing from editors involved with the FA process if you feel like commenting on the proposal. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 02:40, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Citing WikiJournal of Science for an existing FA
I have an interesting citation question. I just received the pleasant news that WikiJournal of Science has accepted "Radiocarbon dating" for publication in their first issue. It is still going through a couple of last minute edits and the PDF is not yet available. It received several peer reviews, and there are quite a few changes, mostly minor, from the FA text that was submitted a few months ago. In some cases text was added without a citation, on the basis of the peer review comments -- this was always on very minor points. For example, I added the bolded section in this sentence without an explicit source: Soil contains organic material, but because of the likelihood of contamination by humic acid of more recent origin, and the fact that the organic components can be of different ages, it is very difficult to get satisfactory radiocarbon dates.

Once the PDF is published and there is a fixed version of the paper to reference, I would like to update the Wikipedia article based on the WikiJSci article. What do I do with the minor points added, such as the example above? Does the WikiJSci article become a source to be cited, here on Wikipedia? It feels a bit circular. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:31, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
 * If WikiJournal of Science meets the definition of a reliable source for the bits in question, it may be cited to support them. Whether WikiJournal of Science meets the standard is properly a question for WP:RSN. Where WikiJournal of Science got its article text from is immaterial. --Xover (talk) 17:00, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I would say definitely yes. The WikiJournal defines itself to be a regular academic, peer-reviewed journal, and as such should be treated just as any other journal. If not, the WikiJournals have to give up their claim to be academic. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 17:49, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

FAC reviewing statistics for May
Here are the reviewer statistics for May.

There were 123 declarations of support or oppose: 116 supports, 6 unstruck opposes, 1 struck oppose, and no opposes that were converted to supports. (I'm only counting bolded opposes. Squeamish Ossifrage indicated they were "leaning oppose" on Tutupaca, but eventually supported; I take bolding to be a declaration and unbolded text to be an undecided comment.) An additional 61 reviews by 26 reviewers did not make a declaration; 47 of these were image or source reviews. No articles were promoted with unstruck opposes. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:34, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for these figures, Mike. The 25 articles promoted during May averaged 54.6 days in the FAC process (shortest 26 days, longest 89). Brianboulton (talk) 16:40, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I hadn't thought of doing that calculation, but while thinking about other possibly interesting queries, I realized that I could easily publish the data by putting it in a user subpage in table form. I've now done that.
 * User:Mike Christie/FACTable contains data on every FAC closed since August 2016. The columns are: FAC name, archive number, date nominated, outcome (Promoted/Archived), date of outcome, nominator(s), number of nominators.
 * User:Mike Christie/FACReviewsTable contains a line for every review since August 2016. The columns are: FAC, archive number, review number (in sequence of review), total number of reviews for that FAC, reviewer name, type of review (blank = prose review, otherwise Image, Source or Accessibility), declaration (Support, Oppose, SO - Struck Oppose, OS - Oppose switched to Support).
 * These tables can be copied and pasted into Excel, where quite a bit more data analysis could easily be done. (Those of you with a data analysis background will spot the unnormalized columns: the data is pasted from a data entry sheet, and the target SQL tables are normalized, but I can't easily post that here.)  I will keep these tables up to date each month.  If anyone wants to go back and do data entry for older data, that would be great. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 00:13, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Here's a table showing average duration of FACs by month. This is organized by month of nomination, not month of closure, so it only goes up to February since there's still a March nomination at FAC.

Looks like a downward trend in FAC duration which started creeping back up a little a few months ago. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 09:39, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

WikiJournal of Humanities spam
If anyone else is receiving spam emails inviting them to "submit your recent FA to the WikiJournal of Humanities", you may be interested in the thread here to save 200+ people (assuming the sender is working from WP:WBFAN) from having to give the same reply. Anyone who feels they have something to add feel free to reply on my talkpage regardless of whether you agree with me. &#8209; Iridescent 16:52, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Primary or secondary
Many distinguished figures have selections of their private letters published after their deaths, often under the direction of their literary executors. If used as a source in an article about the life and works of this figure, should the selection be treated as a primary or a secondary source? Does the position change if a letter is included in the subject's biography and is cited from there? Brianboulton (talk) 17:52, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Primary source since it's not an No original research of anything. Personally I think that WP:PSTS mixes up two different definitions of "primary" vs. "secondary" sources and that too many people assume that reliability has anything to do with this, so I'd look carefully at what it is being used for. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 18:39, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
 * , letters written by the subject are primary sources in articles about that person, howsoever published. A separate issue is whether they're reliable; for example, there may be reason to suppose that the executor has published a misleading selection. But generally speaking if they were written by the subject, they're primary sources in those articles. SarahSV (talk) 19:45, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you both. Yes, that more or less confirms my view, although I think that letters that are quoted and analysed in biographies might be treated differently. Brianboulton (talk) 20:08, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Well, an analysis in a biography would count as a secondary source probably. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:25, 18 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Brian, an analysis written by someone else would be a different source and a secondary one.


 * You haven't said why you're asking. If it's because you think primary sources are bad, they're not. They're often the best sources. We just have to be careful how we use them. For example, in writing about the Holocaust, we use primary sources the way the modern scholarship uses them, because some are unreliable, offensive, etc. In many cases (e.g. Holocaust witness accounts), parts of a primary source are deemed reliable but not others, so it's important to be familiar with the modern secondary literature before using them. SarahSV (talk) 20:28, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
 * All other things being equal, quotes of primary sources in secondary sources should be given more WP:WEIGHT than quotes from primary sources alone. So for example, in this article, I have a primary source quote about "barbarous dialects" being "blotted out", but if challenged, I can probably provide a dozen secondary sources who also thought that was one of the most pertinent parts of the primary source to quote. That argues strongly for its inclusion in the article, in a way that "the quote I personally liked" from the primary source can't be defended.  G M G  talk  23:29, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
 * just to clarify, I've no particular article in mind, and I don't think that primary sources are necessarily bad, although WP prefers secondary ones. I'm just checking the boundaries, with my reviewer's hat on. Brianboulton (talk) 13:44, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
 * No worries. It's not primary sources that are bad; it's your and my interpretation of them. Have to stay away from that, which is why I emphasized quotes above. Best way to avoid original research is direct quotes, unless the source is in the public domain, and then you can do outright close paraphrasing. But you can also introduce a type of original research by which parts of a primary source you emphasize, and which you omit, which is where secondary sources come into play, by giving you an indication of which parts of the primary source are most important.  G M G  talk  14:53, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

George Lincoln Rockwell
I nominate this page as today's featured article. Max of government land (talk) 20:34, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
 * You can do that at WP:TFA/R, not here. But given that it's not a featured article, you won't have much luck.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:39, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Discussions re full dates vs. just years in lede sentence
Notification of this discussion was left at WT:FA but is probably more useful here.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:04, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

Why are the pagelinks now being "noincluded"?
All the current noms start like: "< noinclude>{ {pagelinks|Philip I Philadelphus} } { {Wikipedia:Featured article tools|1=Philip I Philadelphus} }< /noinclude>" (spaces added)? Why? Was this change agreed sometime? Johnbod (talk) 01:48, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Productivity
I thought it would be interesting to know who are currently our most prolific contributors to Featured Article content. The table at WP:WBFAN gives all-time totals for successful FAC nominations, but quite a few names near the top of that list are not particularly active at present. Much of current activity is coming from a new generation who are rising rapidly if unnoticed up the list. Here are the totals of successful nominations for the two years up to 30 June 2018:

Kudos to all of the above. Brianboulton (talk) 19:47, 30 June 2018 (UTC)
 * There is always a flux in the population of a website. Old people leave or drop something, new people join or take something up. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 20:01, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

FAC reviewing statistics for June
Here are the FAC reviewing statistics for FACs ending in June.

There were 91 declarations of support or oppose: 78 supports, 10 unstruck opposes, 1 struck oppose, and 2 opposes that were converted to supports. An additional 73 reviews by 31 reviewers did not make a declaration; 39 of these were image or source reviews. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:50, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I reviewed two articles in June. Victoriaearle (tk) 21:19, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Hi, Victoria; yes, you did, but this listing is based on the FACs that complete in a given month, mainly because there's no other easy way to divide up the data by month. You reviewed Ich will den Kreuzstab gerne tragen, BWV 56 in June, and it was archived in June; you reviewed Black Friday (1910) in June but was not archived until July, so that review will be counted in next month's list. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 21:43, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
 * And I also meant to mention that the tabular data is updated through June if anyone is interested in it: there is a list of FACs, and a list of reviews. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:46, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for explaining, struck my comment. Victoriaearle (tk) 21:49, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

Proposed: Fac coordinators must call win /lose/draw/not wiafa on each/every Oppose reasons before closing Failed
I made this observation very early in the Post Mortem thread above, plus supplied reasons for saying so. I won't copy/paste, but I will say that taking the (perhaps considerable) time to make a careful, detailed reading of the last Bengal famine fac and its flimsy Oppose reasons is the only way you could appreciate where I'm coming from. Disclaimer: for anyone who wasn't aware, I am Lingzhi/Ling.Nut Axylus.arisbe (talk) 12:57, 7 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I put a lot of time into my review of the article, and didn't oppose it lightly. Sarah's oppose was also based on a through review and considerable engagement with the article. I'd suggest that you reflect on what keeps going wrong with your attempts to develop the article to FA class rather than seeking to change the rules to try to nullify comments posted by people who call out the flaws in the article, and your awful conduct relating to it. Nick-D (talk) 00:05, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

Request for backlinks in sfn type citations discussion at Village pump (technical)
Based on a recent FAC review, I've requested a feature to allow the display of relevant body text when hovering over sfn citations in the citations section. This would allow editors to "read" the article from the citations section, allowing for simpler source quality checking. If you're interested, please comment at the village pump! Fifelfoo (talk) 03:24, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

John Adams – archived FAC
The above was nominated on 4 July and archived after just five days. I am somewhat surprised, given the lengths of time that candidates now typically spend in FAC, and the tolerance that has been granted to  nominations arguably less well-prepared  than this. There was a serious question over the article's length, which I raised myself, but I feel that the nominator should have been given the chance to respond on this before the rather abrupt closure, which is rather discouraging. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brianboulton (talk • contribs) 14:48, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
 * My reading of that nomination is that it was likely to be a lengthy negotiation over the scope and length of the article. I think it's clear from the above Black Friday thread that the community favors swifter archiving of nominations where substantial issues are presented. There's nothing lost by working out the issues for a couple weeks and then renominating when it's truly ready. I appreciate your criticism of my actions, but I believe we coordinators have a responsibility to react to community feedback on such issues. Evolving is a better strategy than staying the course for the long-term health of the FAC community. -- Laser brain  (talk)  15:25, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
 * AAAH – Black Friday will consume us all! Brianboulton (talk) 17:04, 9 July 2018 (UTC)