Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/archive86

FAC reviewing statistics for June 2021
Here are the FAC reviewing statistics for June 2021. The tables below include all reviews for FACS that were either archived or promoted last month, so the reviews included are spread over the last two or three months. A review posted last month is not included if the FAC was still open at the end of the month. The facstats tool has been updated with this data. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:31, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Restoring older Featured articles to standard: 2Q2021 summary of URFA/2020 activity
WP:URFA/2020 is a systematic approach to reviewing older featured articles (FAs). It was launched at the end of November 2020. The goals are to:
 * Introduction
 * Identify deteriorated older FAs to submit to Featured article review (FAR)
 * Encourage tune-ups on mostly compliant FAs that don't need a FAR
 * Track older FAs that can be run as Today's featured article (TFA) by:
 * Listing older FAs that are ready for the main page
 * Helping the TFA Coords check older FAs before they run on TFA

This is the second quarterly update on the project. A history of the project and the Q1 report can be found here.


 * Progress

Since URFA/2020's launch, 112 FAs have been Delisted, and 110 deemed Satisfactory or declared "Kept" at FAR. Since the Q1 Report, work has continued to focus on articles reviewed or promoted in 2004-2009: 47 articles have been delisted during this time while 0 have been delisted from 2010-2015, and 25 have been kept from 2004-2009 while 8 have been kept from 2010-2015. Around 20 users edited WP:URFA at least once in this quarter and more reviewed articles at FAR. Help is most needed for the 2004-2009 promotions, as that section has seen 106 delisted and 80 satisfactory or kept (57% delisted), while the 2010-2015 section has seen 6 delisted and 30 kept (17% delisted)

In this quarter, the percentage of older FAs needing review reduced from 74% to 73%. We also have fewer editors marking articles as "Satisfactory" this quarter at URFA/2020, possibly because many "easy-to-review" articles have been checked and the remaining articles require a closer inspection. We also have 152 articles listed at Featured article review/notices given, although older notices need to be re-checked and re-noticed, if applicable.

If we continued on the current trend, it would take over 10 years to check every featured article, which is why we need your help!


 * How can you help?
 * Review "your" articles: Did you nominate an article to FAC from 20042015? Check these articles, fix them up, and mark them as "Satisfactory" at URFA/2020. If they do not meet the FA standards anymore, please begin the FAR process by posting your concerns on the article's talk page, and mark the article as "noticed".
 * Edit and review articles at FAR: FARC/FAR is a collaborative process. We encourage all editors to WP:BEBOLD and fix article concerns posted at FAR. We also need reviewers to list concerns so editors know what to fix. The sooner concerns are addressed, the quicker articles can be declared "Kept" and the nominator can list a new article.
 * Review articles at URFA/2020: Experienced FA writers and reviewers are encouraged to help by marking articles as "Satisfactory" or posting notices for FAR. Inexperienced reviewers are also needed; articles far from meeting the FA criteria can be noticed and eventually posted at FAR. This allows experienced editors to focus on articles not egregiously failing FA standards and allows more articles to be nominated at FAR.
 * Organise "review-a-thons" with editors and Wikiprojects: Are there editors in your Wikiproject that can help? Organise a contest with your Wikiproject to review and improve your project's FAs. The contest can even hand out barnstars and awards! Please post at WT:URFA/2020 if interested in hosting an event.

If you have any questions or feedback, please visit Wikipedia talk:Unreviewed featured articles/2020. Hog Farm Talk 21:20, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Feedback

FAC reviewing statistics for May 2021
Here are the FAC reviewing statistics for May 2021. The tables below include all reviews for FACS that were either archived or promoted last month, so the reviews included are spread over the last two or three months. A review posted last month is not included if the FAC was still open at the end of the month. The facstats tool has been updated with this data. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:20, 10 June 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks as always Mike for maintaining this. Ceoil (talk) 21:43, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Nomination request
Abberton Reservoir has three supports, image review done and a source review in progress, and looks on course at present. I'd like to bring Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots to FAC, probably on Monday, is that possible? Thanks Jimfbleak - talk to me?  12:43, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
 * , it's still waiting on completion of the source review. If you spot this before we do, feel free to ping us again. Gog the Mild (talk) 14:05, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

A Village Pump discussion
There is a discussion taking place here which if implemented will effect Today's featured article and which may be of interest to some editors. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:22, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Transcluding to talk pages?
It looks like FACs aren't transcluded to talk pages the same way GANs are. Was that an intentional decision because FACs can get quite long, or is it something we might want to implement? &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 03:26, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
 * - I don't think it's particularly desirable to do so, for several reasons. It's done with GA because GA is an individual process (one reviewer), while FA is a community process.  The FAC is linked in a big box in the top of the talk page.  The FAC is also generally going to be too long to be feasible to put there.  Featured article candidates/4th Missouri Infantry Regiment (Confederate)/archive1 is fairly short for FACs, and it's rather too long to stick on a talk page.  Imagine something link Featured article candidates/Third Punic War/archive1 or Featured article candidates/Love for Sale (Bilal album)/archive1 on there.  It would also make loading the talk pages a lot slower, thanks to that transclusion-within-transclusion counting double thing. Hog Farm Talk 03:41, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
 * That makes sense; thanks for the thoughts. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 03:43, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

mentor request
Hi. Can someone be my mentor for Tala tank?  Saha ❯❯❯  Stay safe    07:00, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Mentoring request
Hello FA editors. I am soliciting assistance, specifically mentoring, so that I may bring the New Albion article to FA status. About a year ago, I brought the article to GA status with the outstanding review process provided by. has given some preliminary assistance which you may read. I look forward to hearing you, Hu Nhu (talk) 00:27, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't have time to do another mentorship but I'll try to give it a review on its talk page. I'm about to leave on a trip so I can't say when it will be.--Wehwalt (talk) 02:11, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I very much do appreciate that . You can get some context on recent thoughts when you read the assistance  has provided so far.  I very much look forward to what you suggest.Hu Nhu (talk) 20:01, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

High quality sources
Perennial question raised again at WP:WIAFA, see here. Sandy Georgia (Talk)  09:08, 26 July 2021 (UTC)

Request to undo close of Nonmetal
This FAC was closed by User:Gog the Mild after six days. Reason was: "Given the number of unstruck and reasoned opposes I am going to have to archive this."

In less than seven days, a further 50 citations were added in response to early opposes focusing on not enough citations. Today I was going to ask those two opposers if they still had concerns about the number of citations. I didn't get a chance to do this before the FAC was closed.

There were only two outstanding items I hadn't addressed namely User:ComplexRational:
 * asked for one further citation, which was provided;
 * subsequently said the page range for that source of 789-887 was too large, which could've been fixed in one easy edit; and
 * added a minor suggestion which I could’ve fixed in one easy edit.

I didn't see the last two items before the FAC was closed.

User: Hog Farm asked the for input into the existence or nonexistence of a need for a full source review, as required by ComplexRational, as part of the FAC process/FA criteria. This request was not answered by the WP:FAC coordinators before the FAC was closed.

ComplexRational stated that:
 * "I'm not sure how much time I'll have to commit to the review process (whichever it may be), but I'll happily nitpick specific sections or help with copyediting in the next couple of weeks."

The oldest active FAC has been there for 66 days and runs to 100 kB. I'm sure that up to a further 60 days would've been long enough to resolve any oustanding issues with Nonmetal.

In this context, and since the nonmetal FAC runs to 28 kB, closure after 6 days seems undue.

thank you, Sandbh (talk) 05:02, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I'd suggest re-reading the FA criteria and looking at recent FAs on scientific issues to see the standard you need to develop the article to for it to be a FA. The article is clearly not of FA standard at present - any text without supporting references is an automatic fail for instance. Nick-D (talk) 10:35, 27 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve read the FA criteria. There is no requirement in the FAC criteria for all text to have supporting criteria nor do the FAC criteria specify an auto-fail in such cases. Where do these myths come from? Sandbh (talk) 11:28, 28 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Yes, better to keep going, then ideally do a peer review before a resubmission. Johnbod (talk) 13:36, 27 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks Johnbod. I had thought that the FAC process represented a form of peer review. Speaking from experience, when articles are submitted to journals there is no requirement or expectation for a pre-submission peer review. The peer review is conducted after submission; the author is given the opportunity to address the peer reviewers’ comments; and the editor then decides whether to accept the article.


 * The difference at wp is that, as I experienced, authors are not given the opportunity to address all FAC comments. Consider that this FAC was closed after six days versus the longest currently open FAC at 66 days! And when it closed there were only two minor outstanding items that I wasn’t given the opportunity to address.


 * If that is how journal articles are managed why then is the bar raised so much higher at wp? And why are FAC authors treated thusly? No wonder there are not enough FA’s for TFA’s.


 * I don’t question the worth of a peer review. I question the need for two rounds of peer reviews. [unsigned]


 * Good close, peer review might be more helpful than FAC at this point; I earlier noticed a lot of WP:ORIGINAL RESEARCH in the article, which is still present, sample, Radon does not appear to be available commercially. (Even if a source can be found for that, an as of date would be needed, btw.) WP:UNDUE also if there is no source. Sandy Georgia (Talk)  14:12, 27 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Please, if there is a lot of OR what OR is being referred to? There are no sources speaking to the lack of commercial sources for Rn. The best option seems to be to provide a list of commercial suppliers that were consulted without success plus, of course, an as of date. There is nothing WP:UNDUE in noting the apparent unavailability of commercial sources of radon, in a section discussing the costs of nonmetals. Sandbh (talk) 11:28, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
 * It was available from NIST some years ago. Admittedly even then they'd sell you radium and you'd get your radon as a daughter. Still, I do think this kind of situation needs a source, since it's clearly not that simple. Double sharp (talk) 13:51, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Sandbh, what I said (wrote) was that I earlier noticed a lot of OR. Considering the number of issues raised by a number of very experienced FA writers, it would not likely be helpful for me to go back and check to see how much of it was later corrected-- I gave a sample of current OR, and Double sharp appears to concur on the need for a source.   My essay at User:SandyGeorgia/Achieving excellence through featured content is aimed more at medical articles, but I believe that it might be useful for you anyway.  Please do try to take on board advice given to you here by many experienced FA writers, along with the advice in my essay. Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  20:22, 28 July 2021 (UTC)


 * "I question the need for two rounds of peer reviews." The problem is that you're comparing WP to academic publishing. They are not the same and they do not work the same. On wikipedia, neither FAC nor PR are at all analogous to academic peer review. Here on WP, peer review is to solicit help to improve an article. It is a low key, long term process, and is designed to be low-stress. FAC is a process of validating that an article meets the criteria. It shouldn't be used as a way to bring an article that is not close to meeting the criteria up to the criteria. Most FAC reviewers will not oppose if they think the article is close, they will only oppose when they think it needs more work than is possible during the FAC process or if it will take an inordinate slice of the various reviewers time. The fact that this FAC had so many opposes is a sign that the article needs a lot of work in the reviewers view... and they registered that by opposing and recommending it go to the wikipedia peer review. Ealdgyth (talk) 12:32, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, "the FAC process represented a form of peer review" is not how it is supposed to work, and "when it closed there were only two minor outstanding items" doesn't seem correct - that might be your opinion, but I doubt it was that of the reviewers. Johnbod (talk) 13:32, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

Hidden expectations etc Thanks for all the comments.

The outstanding *specific* items have been fixed via two edits.

Re-reading the FAC process, this says,
 * "All editors are welcome to review nominations", i.e. not to "validate" them; and,
 * "…the main thrust of the process is to generate and resolve critical comments in relation to the criteria, and why such resolution is given considerably more weight than declarations of support."

The application of that policy, i.e. the "resolve" part, was not seemingly upheld in this case.

Being a published author, and having peer reviewed journal articles, there is no fundamental difference between the academic publishing process, and the FAC process as written. There is however a wide gap between the written FAC process, and how it works in real life: these are the unwritten expectations referred to previously.

Despite the opposes, the article did not take more work than was possible or would've been possible during the FAC process, nor would it have taken an inordinate amount of reviewers' time. Exception: the stated unreasonable expectation by one of the reviewers for a complete source review (ca 150 sources!), something which has no basis in the FAC criteria as written nor in hidden expectations nor in custom and practice.

The one specific example given of OR ("There do not appear to be any commercial suppliers of radon)" was trivial in its OR-ishness, remains true, and, thanks to Double sharp, has now been made more specific.

Noting mileage may vary, the essay at "User:SandyGeorgia/Achieving excellence through featured content" struck this author as belaboured.

To the detriment of wp, there are academics who disdain wp and do not write for it in light of the above hidden, non-academic, expectations.

Is it too much to expect that the hidden non-wp-policy expectations are made explicit? Sandbh (talk) 04:17, 1 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Sandbh, what changes would you propose to make to the nomination instructions or to the criteria? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:45, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Looking for an article to review?
The FAC urgents list has four articles on it - I have just reviewed and removed a fifth. If each could receive a further general review, that would be most helpful. Thanks. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:38, 9 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the heads-up. I'm putting up a review of Ur-Quan from the list, which I see TRM is also looking at. Vaticidalprophet 17:48, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Just a quick aside, why isn't FAC urgents just a subpage of FAC? It doesn't make any sense to me to have it in userspace... The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!&#33;!&#33;) 18:58, 10 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Any thoughts on this ? Perhaps the "killer" element of the page is off-putting?  Let's make it part of the project... The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!&#33;!&#33;) 19:58, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
 * That's a good point. I assume that it is just an historical anomaly, unless any of the old hands know better? Gog the Mild (talk) 20:03, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I think that's exactly what it is, along with your FAC co-ord log too. I would suggest centralising it, there's no need at all to maintain these kinds of pages in someone's user space. The Rambling Man (Stay alert! Control the virus! Save lives!&#33;!&#33;) 20:11, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I am pretty sure I remember a discussion on moving it to template space (rather than to a subpage of FAC) a few years ago. If I remember rightly, it failed because most participants felt it wasn’t broken and didn’t need fixing.  I had a look in the archives and can’t find the discussion, but I don’t think I’m imagining it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 11:11, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Well it's not broken, but it's hardly a professional approach to have urgent reviews listed in a user (called "Deckiller"!) space. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 11:22, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

I meant to reply to this last week but it slipped my mind. I suggested this change towards the end of last year and was told it was a bad idea, despite it being a very transparently good idea. The urgent list functionally doesn't exist without being on the page. They should be displayed somewhere on WP:FAC, prominently, perhaps even with a brief sentence describing what the article's particular need is. It could be updated either as another transcribed template or by hand by the coordinators or good samaritans; either works. I don't understand the "it ain't broke" resistance whatsoever. — ImaginesTigers (talk∙contribs) 17:55, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I am in broad agreement with both TRM and ITs. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:31, 22 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Well although the discussion has been limited, I'm not seeing a single good reason to not move it to the Wikipedia namespace. And perhaps we can make it more prominently "advertised" too?  The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 16:59, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
 * - Do you remember what the specific reasons last year for not doing this were? Because it seems like it would make sense to move this out of userspace, into either a template or into a project space (which can then be transcluded). Hog Farm Talk 18:37, 25 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the delay, been really busy recently. The objection was that it wasn't necessary. I think there's a chance Mike saw the conversation in question? I think the reason he's struggling to find the discussion is because it was a candidate's review page, not WT:FAC. — ImaginesTigers (talk∙contribs) 08:23, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't think we're talking about the same conversation -- unless my memory is completely off it was a couple of years ago or more. I didn't oppose the change myself, if I recall correctly; I abstained on the grounds that it didn't make any difference.  I still can't find the discussion I'm thinking of, but I did find this where I again say there was a prior discussion, so if this is a hallucination of mine it's a persistent one. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 10:16, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Well it seems like the entire community are either saying "it  should be moved" or "I don't object to it being moved". So I suggest these FAC subpage(s) (I noted that Tony1 has one about FARs in his user space too??) are moved to the Wikipedia namespace. And probably better highlighted from FAC/FAR main pages. I'll leave that to one of the delegates. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 21:52, 31 July 2021 (UTC)
 * You first publicly floated the idea, at least this time around, so it would seem appropriate for you to make the changes. Go for it. FWIIW I agree that there seems to be consensus. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:41, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Done. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 19:49, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

FAC reviewing statistics for July 2021
Here are the FAC reviewing statistics for July 2021. The tables below include all reviews for FACS that were either archived or promoted last month, so the reviews included are spread over the last two or three months. A review posted last month is not included if the FAC was still open at the end of the month. The facstats tool has been updated with this data. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:51, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Sources spot check anyone?
Carillon is 's first FAC. It looks about ready for a coordinator to give a look over to, except that as a first FAC it needs a spot check for source to text fidelity. Does anyone fancy doing the honours? Gog the Mild (talk) 00:59, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Did a spotcheck. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 13:01, 13 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks Jo-Jo, that looks like a nice, thorough job. Gog the Mild (talk) 13:11, 13 August 2021 (UTC)

Canary in the coal mine
The featured article reviews are no longer transcluding to the bottom of the FAC page. Let's get some of these older noms reviewed and moved off before we start losing transclusions for FACs. Hog Farm Talk 03:46, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
 * While I don't think we really need FAR on the FAC page anymore given the momentum the Unreviewed FAs pages have developed, I'm okay to continue with it if the community prefers it. In any case I've just been through the old noms list and expect to be closing several today. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 04:05, 7 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I agree that there are several ready to close. Hog Farm Talk 04:13, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

FAR is not transcluding to the bottom of the page again. I encourage all editors, especially new reviewers, to help us clear the backlog by reviewing FACs. If you are unsure of how to help, please post below. Z1720 (talk) 21:23, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Some of the open ones could possibly be closed, as well. Featured article candidates/Yugoslav gunboat Beli Orao/archive1 looks to be closeable at least to me (pardon me coords if I'm overstepping my bounds here, I don't want to step on any toes and I'm likely not aware of most of the inner workings of the process). Hog Farm Talk 21:36, 23 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I've noticed that co-ords have sometimes added comments stating why an FAC was not closed (someone needs to finish up their review, a comment needs to be resolved, source review is missing, etc.) I think this is an improvement as it reviewers to know if an FAC is missing a review (so I should do the review) or if the FAC wrapping up and my time would be better spent reviewing another article or conducting a specific type of review. I hope this continues, and possibly increases with notes at the bottom of FACs that have been assessed by co-ords. Z1720 (talk) 21:52, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Intro and background [A]
This section follows on from Mike Christie's question. Thanks very much Mike.

I have two FA articles (2014, 2016) and one in which I worked on with the lead editor (2015). I haven't been an active participant in the FAC process since then as I felt the effort involved had not been worth it. Subsequently I turned my attention to being published in journals (2019, 2020, 2020, 2020, 2021 pending). Academic publishing has its own challenges but the process is simpler, and the sense of achievement and reputation enhancement, is greater. I can cite myself, subject to WP:SELFCITE, but I can't cite FAC articles.

Not having any science qualifications I asked an editor of a science-based academic journal if that would be an issue. They said no, and encouraged me to submit my article, noting that many unqualified authors had made contributions to science. I submitted my article, got the peer reviews, addressed them, and that was it—there was no fuss. It was published in 2013. According to Google Scholar the article has been cited 41 times.

Some WT:FAC themes [B]
I looked through the archives back to the start of 2013. The following items raised therein are relevant:


 * 1) Issues with how closures are handled i.e. before giving a nominator an opportunity to address recently posted comments.
 * 2) Why are there are limits on how long an FAC review can be queued?
 * 3) Dissatisfaction with FAC and its inconsistent adherence to certain individual's subjective interpretations of rules which is driving people away from the process.
 * 4) How some editors here can be huge jerks.
 * 5) Drive-by posters who comment and then never return.
 * 6) FAC is an intentionally difficult process.
 * 7) The WP:PR process "shriveled on the vine long ago".
 * 8) "FAC…fulfils the role that PR used to."  See also #B7, below.
 * 9) Unwritten rules that act as barrier to FA entry.
 * 10) The FAC process is not serving its purpose well, and is overdue for reform.

Some suggestions [C]
The following suggestions are put forward with a view to making the FAC process easier for nominators, without necessarily reducing standards.


 * 1) Since 14 days must pass before resubmitting an FAC it seems reasonable to allow a nomination to be active for at least two weeks, unless the article would be considered to be so egregiously below standard by any reasonable editor that it could not be brought up to scratch within 14 days. A similar provision operates at WP:FLC i.e. "Each nomination will last at least ten days (though most last a month or longer) and may be lengthened where changes are ongoing and it seems useful to continue the process."
 * 2) Subject to #1, no nomination will be closed without giving the nominator a reasonable opportunity to "deal with objections during the FAC process."
 * 3) Editors whose nominations are closed without promotion should have access to an explicit one-off "appeal" process, the outcome of which is final.
 * 4) It should be made explicitly clear that WP:FACS, which is neither wp policy nor FAC policy, does not form a basis to oppose an article.
 * 5) Ditto, nominated articles do not require full source checks, while spot checks of nominations from first-time FAC nominators are considered to be reasonable and appropriate. See also #B12.
 * 6) Ditto, citations are not required for uncontroversial statements of fact easily cross-checked against widely available mainstream sources or that someone familiar with a topic, including laypersons, recognizes as true. Example (from Nonmetal): "Nonmetals…tend to have significantly lower melting points and boiling points than those of most metals." This does not require a citation.
 * 7) Ditto, nominated articles only need to meet minimum FAC standards rather than exceed them.
 * 8) Ditto, the main thrust of the process is to generate and resolve critical comments in relation to the criteria, and such resolution is given considerably more weight than declarations of support or otherwise. This sounds like PR but elsewhere the view has been expressed that FAC is not PR. So which is it? See also #A7−A8.
 * 9) Ditto, if an article has been rewritten before being listed at FAC there is no policy requirement for a GA assessment or GAR.
 * 10) Ditto, citing a reliable source by the nominator where this is consistent with WP:SELFCITE does not constitute grounds for objecting to an FAC.
 * 11) Ditto, "English writing does not have hard and fast rules for prose style. There is room for different stylistic takes. Just because…[a reviewer] think[s] something should be written one way does not make that the only correct way to phrase it."
 * 12) There is no FAC policy requirement for nominated articles to have any preconceived frequency of citations as opposed to appropriate supporting citations. Never mind the width, feel the quality. See also suggestion #B6.
 * 13) Reviewers and FAC coordinators are encouraged to err on the side of leniency, bearing in mind the FAR process as a fail safe.
 * 14) Nominators should be encouraged, after addressing reviewer comments, to follow up with those reviewers in the event of any outstanding opposes, including those of drive-by reviewers.
 * 15) The philosophy at FAC should be to recognise that while the FAC standards are high and therefore potentially hard to achieve, the FAC process is supposed to be as easy as possible
 * 16) Unwritten rules e.g. "Three supports plus source and image reviews is the bare minimum to promote, it doesn't guarantee it"; or "Oppose early, oppose often"; or "We're empowered to assess consensus, that's it"; or "support has to be backed up by comprehensive reviewing and awareness of the FA criteria, as well as resolution of outstanding comments"  should be made explicit.
 * 17) An Oppose should be replaced with a Reservation. Consistent with WP:IGF, when all Reservation votes have been addressed by the nominator, the FAC should be promoted. WP:FAR can pick up any remaining deficiencies.
 * 18) "…there is no obligation for anyone to do anything at FAC…everyone, nominators and reviewers, are dependent on everyone else's goodwill."
 * 19) "The MoS is a guideline, not a policy, and not a particularly stable guideline either."
 * 20) "Opposes aren't binding. If the reasons for the oppose are addressed…(either by fixing them or legitimately refuting them), the coordinators can be counted on to pass over them (as they would for hollow supports)."
 * 21) Where relevant, nominators should be able to cite any of the above in response to reviewer comments without accusations of being uncooperative or the like.

Systematic interactions [D]
Reading through the archives I gained the impression, rightly or not, that recurring issues with FAC have been raised from time to time yet nothing effectively changes. Consequently there continue to be less reviewers, less FAC submissions, and not enough different FA for TFAs.

The components of the FAC process seem to be:


 * FAC metrics
 * The editors involved in terms of how they are treated
 * The "organisational" structure
 * The strategy (for ensuring that whatever is the objective of the FAC process is attained)
 * The technology involved
 * The external audience.

All six of these components interact with one another, to determine an outcome. It is like designing a train and making sure its major components—powertrain; wheels; fuel source; brakes; electrics etc—complement and reinforce one another.

My questions are:

Sandbh (talk) 07:41, 3 August 2021 (UTC)
 * 1) Is there an FAC strategy, what are its objective/s, and how are these supposed to be achieved aside from in an ad hoc manner?
 * 2) Do the FAC coordinators have a role in providing FAC and FA leadership, and provide a vision of a better FAC/FA future?
 * 3) Is there an academic outreach program in which wp reaches out to the academic community and encourages them to write FA or bring existing articles up to FA?
 * 4) What causes that part of the majority WP community interested in FAC to not propose or support bold actions to address the decline in FAC articles and reviewers? Is it a fear of loss of something? What about focussing on what can't be done now that would be able to be done after such bold actions?
 * 5) Is there a support program to bring articles up to FAC by editors other than WASPs?
 * 6) Are the right metrics being generated and are they being read by the right editors?
 * 7) How easy or hard is it to compile FAC metrics?
 * 8) Why has Wikipedia talk:Featured article statistics been inactive since 2015?
 * 9) Are the editors involved in FAC (nominators, reviewers, coordinators) being treated fairly and with respect and good will, and with zero tolerance for snarkiness?
 * 10) In organisational structure terms, what are the relationships between nominators, reviewers, coordinators, WP:PR, WP:FAC, GOCE, WP:FAM, WP:FLC, WP:LIB, WP:GAN, WP:FPC and the Wikimedia Foundation, and are these functioning optimally?
 * 11) I used to get WP:Tech News weekly; why is their no WP:FAC News?
 * 12) Are grants available from the Wikimedia Foundation, which has an annual income > US$125 million, to support editors developing FAC?

Graham Beards

 * Comment Sadly, much of this comes across as sour grapes. You are not alone in having experience of academic publishing and Wikipedia is a different environment, with our own traditions and practices. Is the rudeness about other (anonymous) editors necessary? It makes your other points difficult to take seriously. Our FAC process is only possible because of the goodwill of our reviewers, coordinators and writers, and you are in danger of alienating many of them. Graham Beards (talk) 08:17, 3 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Thank you Graham. While I can understand the basis for your response, please rest assured that I posted my comments in good faith. Is that a courtesy you could extend to me? Yes, academic and wp publishing practices are different and that is why academics disparage wp and are not inclined to develop FACs. Is that something we could agree on?
 * Speaking as an academic, no I don't disparage Wikipedia and I do contribute FAs. Graham Beards (talk) 13:13, 3 August 2021 (UTC)


 * The item about the rudeness of other editors was harvested from the archives:


 * ”From my experiences here, newer editors will quit Wikipedia if they aren’t warned about how frustrating it can be at FAC and how some editors here can be huge jerks.”


 * It was not my intention to alienate. Rather, it was my intention to call things as I saw them, given long standing concerns about: not enough FA’s for TFA’s; not enough reviewers; and a perception by others that the FAC process is not serving its purpose well, and is overdue for reform (#B10). Sandbh (talk) 12:48, 3 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Graham, I was hoping we could agree that, in general, academics are disparaging of wp and are not inclined to develop FACs? I respect your own individual approach which, unfortunately, is most likely not representative of the majority of academics. Sandbh (talk) 23:51, 5 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Perhaps, but there is nothing you have suggested here that is going to change their minds. Graham Beards (talk) 08:28, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Certainly not all of them. Certainly none of them based on the status quo. As an academic yourself, what would it take to change more minds? Has anybody asked some of them? Sandbh (talk) 11:00, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Nick-D

 * I agree that this comes across as sour grapes. You submitted a woefully under-prepared article for FA status, leading to the nomination rightly being opposed by multiple reviewers and the nomination being closed by the coordinators. The failure of this nomination is on you, not the system, the FA coordinators or anyone else. There are obviously ways the FA process can be improved, but your suggestions seem to be focused on excusing away the failings of the article you nominated by lowering our standards and complicating the FAC process. The better solution is to improve the article so its next FAC is successful. Nick-D (talk) 08:44, 3 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Thank you Nick-D. While I can understand the basis for your response, please rest assured that I posted my comments in good faith. Is that a courtesy you could extend to me?
 * I didn’t refer to the close of my FAC so that is of no relevance. In any event I referred the subject article to PR.
 * Could you share the obvious ways in which the FAC process can be improved?
 * My suggestions were put forward with a view to making the FAC process easier for nominators, without necessarily reducing standards. Please see the lede sentence to subsection C, above. Sandbh (talk) 13:00, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

CMD

 * In response to some of the questions above, generally the mentioned Wikipedia processes are run independently by the volunteers who choose to dedicate their time to them. Wikipedia does not have a unified formal system or similar which you are perhaps looking for (no group to appeal FACs to for example), and the Wikimedia Foundation is not involved in such matters. CMD (talk) 09:32, 3 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you CMD. I had understood that to be the case. The choice then is to not do anything, in which case things will carry on as usual, with e.g. insufficient FAs and reviewers. Alternatively we could try something new, and see what happens. WP has other formal systems run by volunteers. The Wikimedia Foundation owns wp, and the extent of its involvement or non-involvement is a matter that ought to be amenable to proposals from wp editors. Sandbh (talk) 13:09, 3 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't really understand what choice you refer to and how my comment might relate to it, but the Wikipedia editing community has little power to influence the Wikimedia Foundation. That said, in 2020, the foundation did decide the community should elect some board members. If you are interested, the elections are later this month and can be seen at Wikimedia Foundation elections/2021. CMD (talk) 13:57, 3 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you CMD. The Wikipedia editing community has as much power to seek to influence the Wikimedia Foundation as it chooses to, or not. For example, not that it is ever likely to happen, I'm sure that if editors were to go on an editing strike the world would notice, and report it, and I'm sure the Wikimedia Foundation would take notice.
 * I know nothing about the Foundation other than it owns wp. That said, I'm sure that somebody in the Foundation would respond to a simple e-mail query. That counts as step 1 of influence, however minuscule, on conceivably a 1,000 mile journey (so to speak). Sandbh (talk) 00:21, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Mike_Christie
Sandbh, looking through your lists of points, there is so much there that it's difficult to comment. It's hard to have a coherent response to so many disparate suggestions, so instead let me make a couple of general statements. I think many regulars would agree that FAC can be improved; and those of us who've been here longest have seen many, many discussions aimed at finding ways to fix various issues. I've organized some of those discussions myself and they are exhausting and only occasionally produce substantive changes to the process. Mentoring, the two-week renomination limit, the ban on multiple nominations, and the requirement for separate source and image reviews are all the result of that kind of discussion, but many more ideas have been proposed and failed to gain traction. A long list such as yours actually discourages discussion, because those with the most FAC experience recognize that there's almost no chance your suggestions will result in change, and because it looks like a timesink with no useful outcome.

I accept that you are approaching this in good faith and genuinely want to fix what you see as issues. I think it would be more productive to shrink the scale of your efforts, and identify the one or two points that you feel are least productive, or most off-putting, about FAC. I can't guarantee we'll get anywhere with a smaller discussion but I am sure we'll get nowhere with your ambitious list above. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:10, 3 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks Mike. I hope I can bring some fresh energy to things. The laundry list was not intended as a bombardment nor was I necessarily expecting a coherent response. I'm glad to see many regulars would agree FAC could be improved. In my experience "regulars" of most organised bodies (but not all) respond to suggestions for change along the lines you've outlined. They've seen it all before and opine that there's almost no chance new suggestions will result in change. Back to the laundry list, shooting or saluting one or two items, as Hog Farm did, would've been fine.


 * I intend to post further comments after the "General follow by Sandbh" section. Sandbh (talk) 00:08, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Jo-Jo Eumerus

 * I'd like to second Mike Christie's comments regarding laundry lists. You are raising a few too many points at once for anyone to address in a meaningful manner. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 19:40, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. Just pick one, or a few, and address it or them as you please. Sandbh (talk) 04:16, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Hog Farm
Two comments here: 1) FAC will never be comparable to the peer review system for scholarly publication. It's just a different setup entirely, and shouldn't even be compared. 2) I will oppose any suggestion for FAC changes that removes the source review requirement. The main thing that makes FAC different from GA or other articles is the higher sourcing bar. Take source reviews away, and FAC becomes meaningless. Yes, some of the citation formatting stuff can be pedantic, but FAC is meaningless without higher expectations for source quality, source usage, and avoiding OR. That portion feels like sour grapes to me - the FAC was opposed due to poor sourcing, like any FAC with that level of sourcing would be.

Some of these are implied anyway: C20 (coords can ignore addressed or hollow opposes), C9 is not a thing anyway (I've seen stuff go straight from B-class to FAC successfully), I don't think C10 (self-cite) is something that would change policy, as I'm not aware of anything that prohibits self-citing in reliable secondary sources in FAs, C11 is generally assumed anyway, the example for C6 is likely faulty (I have a bachelor's degree from an accredited US college and I didn't know that, likewise it may seem obvious to me as an American Civil War specialist that the Union won at Gettysburg, but that would still need cited), C1 has issues with the stability criteria - if it needs rewritten heavily, it's not gonna be stable during the review, B6 is intentional because FA is the highest standards so isn't easy (making it easy devalues FAC), etc. This whole thing feels of sour grapes, from a nominator who was last FAC active when FAC had different expectations years ago, and who doesn't like the new standards. Hog Farm Talk 18:13, 3 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Thank you Hog Farm, especially for taking the time to address several specific suggestions.
 * I don't know why FAC couldn't become more comparable to the PR system for scholarly publication, given the latter’s relative success e.g. the exponentially growing rate of publications in chemistry. Nor do I understand why it shouldn't even be compared.
 * My comment about the source review requirement referred to the supposed need for a full source review. Try that for Metalloid and its 500+ sources. Unless this is a hidden rule, there is no such requirement I know of.
 * I've been involved with FAC heavily for a year, and every single promoted nomination in that time has been expected to undergo a source review. No idea if/where its formally codified, but I agree that it should be.  I evidently figured out that it was necessary, but I do not remember how I learned that. (FWIW, I'd be willing to try one for Metalloid if it wasn't already a FA, it just might take an hour or two and several glasses of sweet tea). Hog Farm Talk 05:10, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
 * What does a “full source review” mean? Does it mean checking that every source actually supports the citation it is attached too? All I could find for (Featured article candidates/Bajadasaurus/archive1 was “Spotchecks not done”. Sandbh (talk) 11:51, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
 * - a source review primarily consists of checking source formatting and reliability, although other elements can be mentioned (such as due weight or overreliance on a single source). Spot checks are optional, although may be required for first-time nominators.  The Bajadasaurus one also contains a couple comments about the formatting (referring to the references as "fn"), the reliability check seems to be implied.  Different reviewers have different ways of doing these, I like to spell out what I checked clearly.  My two most recent source reviews are Featured article candidates/Battle of Halidon Hill/archive1 and Featured article candidates/1999 Football League Second Division play-off Final/archive1.  Sometimes source reviews will be brief if the source reviewer conducted a thorough one at GAN, peer review, or A-class assessment. Hog Farm Talk 16:16, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
 * The subject FAC was opposed due to a perception of "poor" sourcing. The WP:FACRITERIA refer to When to cite which effectively provides that:
 * "Citations are not required for uncontroversial statements of fact easily cross-checked against widely available mainstream sources…"
 * In any event 49 citations were added within 4 days of the FAC listing.
 * It doesn't matter to me what the FAC sourcing requirement is as long as, whatever it is, it's spelt out in black and white rather than being a hidden rule for newbies and supposedly out of touch FAC oldies like me to trip over.
 * I agree with this.
 * Great! Sandbh (talk) 11:51, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
 * About C20, the only things FAC coordinators are supposed to do, AFAIK, is to determine if consensus exists for promotion. Where does it say they can ignore addressed or hollow opposes? If it is written somewhere it wasn't applied in this case.
 * I think it's implied, in the same way that judging consensus at AFD involves weighing arguments. The coords will ignore hollow supports in assessing consensus, and you'll sometimes see an instance where they view that a consensus was formed despite an outstanding oppose Featured article candidates/Bajadasaurus/archive1 is the recent one I remember)
 * I could’ve worded my question better. Obviously consensus doesn’t require unanimity. I remain puzzled that while the subject article garnered three opposes, there were just two minor points that hadn’t been addressed, yet the coordinator decided that this was sufficient to close the nomination. It’s moot now since the article has been referred to PR. Still… Sandbh (talk) 11:51, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
 * That would be more of a question for the closing coordinator about how they judged consensus. Hog Farm Talk 16:16, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
 * C9 was a reference to a reviewer's suggestion for a referral of the FAC to GAR.
 * - Sorry, I think this is confusion based on my fault. The suggestion was that the article might not meet the GA criteria and might not meet the GA standards
 * Cheers. I’m not sure that a perception of insufficient sources merits an oppose and probably send through GAR, as opposed to raising a concern and giving the nominator an opportunity to address the concern. Moot now. Sandbh (talk) 11:51, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
 * C10 was a reference to another reviewer's oppose, groundless IMO, based on WP:SELFCITE; there was no breach of that policy.
 * C11 i.e. "English writing does not have hard and fast rules for prose style" was a reference to a reviewer's oppose based on (trivial) style preferences.
 * Debates about fairly trivial style preferences happen to everyone, it's just something you'll have to get use to. I generally go along with everything that I don't think destroys the meanings, sense, or accuracy.  You can ask  about some of the troubles they've had over commas. Hog Farm Talk 05:10, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
 * C6's example is an uncontroversial statement of fact easily cross-checked against widely available mainstream sources; ditto that the Union won at Gettysburg.
 * On C1, there has been no need for heavy rewriting.
 * B6, "FAC is an intentionally difficult process" refers to the process currently in operation being needlessly difficult, rather than the standard expected of an FAC, which can be as hard as deemed necessary as long as there are no unwritten rules. Sandbh (talk) 03:51, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Gog the Mild

 * As someone whose first FAC was quite a bit less than three years ago, and so is something of a newcomer, I struggle to think of anything of substance which I consider substantially unfit for purpose. Looking at some of the specifics you recently mention:
 * "not enough FA’s for TFA’s". As a TFA scheduler I have not experienced this, and I cannot recall my fellow schedulers ever expressing it as a concern.
 * "not enough reviewers". Obviously one would always like more reviews, but given that there have only been five occasions in the past seven years when more that 30 FACs have been promoted in a month, and that one of those was last month, I don't see an imminent crisis.
 * "a perception by others that the FAC process is not serving its purpose well, and is overdue for reform". Some diffs would be nice.
 * Gog the Mild (talk) 18:25, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank you Gog the Mild.
 * That there are insufficient FA's to enable running a new FA on each day was discussed in 2017.
 * A lack of reviewers is something I perceived over my occasional visits to FAC, with some FAC being unable to attract reviewers. That is certainly the situation at WP:PR which is in turn results in not enough FA to run a different TFA on each day. Once an article gets to FAC the hidden rules hinder things further.
 * That perception and the preceding nine listed in subsection B were sourced from the FAC talk archives. I'll see about providing diffs/links. Sandbh (talk) 04:14, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Roles and rules
In light of everyone's thoughts it was suggested to me that much of the low hanging fruit could be addressed by a table setting out the do's and don'ts for reviewers, nominators, and coordinators, including the hidden rules.

For example:

And so on. That would represent the first time the roles/rules involved for nominators, reviewers and coordinators are set out in one place.

I stress the draft nature of the table so feel free to shoot, salute or submit any item/s. Sandbh (talk) 05:46, 6 August 2021 (UTC)


 * I hope that you don't mind me being frank here, but the above is a total waste of your time. The FA process isn't broken, and it simply isn't possible for other editors to engage with the shopping list of complaints you are raising. I'd suggest refocusing your time on developing the Nonmetal article to FA standard instead, as the standards aren't going to be watered down to reach its current standard as you seem to hope. The fact that one of your proposals is essentially to waive WP:V for FACs illustrates how unproductive and doomed to failure this approach is. Nick-D (talk) 11:36, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for your interest, time and advice. Being frank is fine. Sandbh (talk) 13:24, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
 * 1) I don’t share your opinion that the above is a total waste of my time.
 * 2) Of course the FA process isn’t broken since articles get promoted. Even so there are plenty of ways it could be made better.
 * 3) Other editors will choose whether or not to address any or more of my suggestions.
 * 4) Nonmetal has been referred to PR. It sits in the unanswered list along with 35 other unanswered requests. The referral note said:
 * "…first put up for FAC on July 20, 2021 and closed after six days. Pre-closure, all concerns had been addressed bar two minor requests that I didn't see prior to closure. The two minor corrections have been fixed. There has been some further (minor) copyediting: a dozen edits in sum.”
 * 1) Feel free to review it.
 * 2) I don’t understand your reference to me supposedly seeking to essentially waive WP:V for FACs.
 * 3) For nominators the table says:
 * "Claims are to be verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and supported by inline citations where appropriate”
 * 1) For reviewers the table has an extract from When to cite, as explicitly mentioned in WP:FACRITERIA:
 * "Citations are are not required for uncontroversial statements of fact easily cross-checked against widely available mainstream sources.”


 * I would add that a user essay is probably the best place for this sort of material, in default of getting acceptance here for a wholesale rewrite of the instructions, which as Nick says is implausible. Most of what you have above is either already well understood by nominators and reviewers or just wrong as written -- e.g. "no drive by comments"; we don't and can't enforce that.  Coordinators use their common sense in dealing with such comments.  And "No comments based on unwritten rules" -- this is not codifiable except in reverse, by saying that all comments must be based on written rules -- and that is indeed in the instructions, which specify that only actionable objections based on the FA criteria will be considered.
 * I suggest that instead of treating this as an analytic problem, you would find it more productive to get more performative experience by nominating and reviewing here. Writing half a dozen reviews and successfully promoting an article would surely give you examples of the behaviour you suspect is problematic, if it exists, and addressing any issues you find, one by one, here on this talk page, would get you more engagement from the community.  I understand that this may appear to be a hidebound and conservative response, but please consider the alternative -- that it is in fact a helpful and thoughtful response, and that your approach is not optimal. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 12:54, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
 * You need to disabuse yourself of the common conceit that Featured Articles are Wikipedia's best work. They are articles approved by a community of volunteer editors on topics that interest them using rules that are reasonable, not perfect. They are in effect a reviewed blog that WP funds, aspects of hobbies, not professions. Vital topics such as Nonmetal rarely make an appearance.


 * Having said that, I feel you were unnecessarily argumentative at the FAC review. Instead of cooperating with the reviewers and making progress, you were nickel and diming their every comment. Now you seem to be wanting to reinvent the rules. Very likely this is not the venue for it. If I were you, I'd go work on the article and other vital articles.  That's all WP's readers care about.  Best regards,  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  13:11, 6 August 2021 (UTC)


 * "Citations are are not required for uncontroversial statements of fact easily cross-checked against widely available mainstream sources." is a complete non-starter -- In actu (Guerillero) Parlez Moi 14:21, 6 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I strongly agree with this. I haven't done too much at FAC (I'm currently working on my first nomination), but I'm fairly involved at FLC and can't imagine this statement working at all. I guarantee that deciding which statements are "uncontroversial" would simply create more controversy. Also, WP:V states that verifiability "means other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source." The easiest way to ensure this requirement is met is to clearly provide sources for all information, even if it seems like an uncontroversial fact. RunningTiger123 (talk) 22:22, 6 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Dang, I was about two weeks late to this one. Panini! 🥪 12:24, 18 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I was going to get back to this one. Feel free to start up a new thread. I'll be interested to learn of your thoughts. Sandbh (talk) 07:48, 21 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Ha, I also completely missed the discussion due to being away a lot during the past month. I probably wouldn't have said too much that wasn't already said above, re source reviews and the FAC process as a whole - I don't think it's perfect - there are certainly inconsistencies in what people demand of an FA - but I also think it works well enough given the resources we have. I did want to comment on the criticism of WP by academia though, because like Graham Beards I'm quite surprised if that's the case. I'm not an academic myself, but I have quite a few friends and relatives who are, and they generally make very positive noises about the FAs I've written. For example, a university history professor once told me that my Rwandan Civil War article was of a professional standard. Of course, mistakes do occasionally occur with inaccuracies slipping through, but I think most recent FAs are of a standard that would stand up to the scrutiny of an academic peer review process. I'm sorry that you had a bad experience with the nonmetal FAC recently, but I'm glad to see that you haven't been disheartened by it and that the article is now being peer reviewed and is well on the way to the necessary standard. Cheers  &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 10:10, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you. The value-add of the nonmetal PR has exceeded my expectations. That's my current focus i.e. to get the article up to the necessary standard. I intend to revist the FA process and its expectations, here, later on. I'll ping you Panini!  at that time. Sandbh (talk) 05:50, 26 August 2021 (UTC)

Section headers vs bolded headings
Template:Featured article candidates/editintro does say that one should not use section headers in FACses and I remember seeing discussion on this page on which header type to prefer, but I recall the changing bold headings into section headers. Did we get to an agreement whether to prefer one style or the other, or even none? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 14:48, 29 August 2021 (UTC) So it looks like the edit intro to FACses has not been updated for a whole nine years; I did update the bot name. It also only displays when creating a FAC, not when editing one.


 * Interesting. The instructions for "Commenting, supporting and opposing" at the top of the FAC page say
 * For ease of editing, a reviewer who enters lengthy commentary may create a neutral fourth-level subsection, named either ==== Review by EditorX ==== or ==== Comments by EditorX ==== (do not use third-level or higher section headers). Please do not create subsections for short statements of support or opposition—for these a simple *Support,*Oppose, or *Comment followed by your statement of opinion, is sufficient. Please do not use a semicolon to bold a subheading; this creates accessibility problems.
 * I had thought this the standard guidance. Possibly anything different elsewhere should be changed to match it? My personal preference is to not use bolding semicolons, I tend to change these to fourth-level headers. I also find ... style boldings non-coordinator friendly and tend to change them. I would encourage reviewers and commentators to use fourth-level headers for all but the briefest of review page comments. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:36, 29 August 2021 (UTC)
 * I think that the use of semicolons should probably be discouraged - MOS:ACCESS suggests they cause accessibility issues. Hog Farm Talk 18:29, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

Sources spot check
User:Steelkamp has nominated their first FAC, 2019 West Coast Eagles season, on Australian rules football. A source review has been completed, but it needs the customary first-timer's spot check. Would anyone care to help out? Gog the Mild (talk) 21:43, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

FAC reviewing statistics for August 2021
Here are the FAC reviewing statistics for August 2021. The tables below include all reviews for FACS that were either archived or promoted last month, so the reviews included are spread over the last two or three months. A review posted last month is not included if the FAC was still open at the end of the month. The facstats tool has been updated with this data.

It's worth mentioning that August was one of the most productive months FAC has had in years. There were 51 total FACS (promoted plus archived); the last time that happened was in April 2015, and the last time we exceeded that number was in May 2014. The number promoted in August is also unusually high: 37. There were 38 promoted in October 2015; before that you have to go back to August 2013, when 44 were promoted. Let's hope this is a trend. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:50, 3 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks Mike, very interesting. There were 31 promotions in July, and the last time there were more than 68 promotions in two consecutive months was in July and August 2013. Given the number of nominations currently in the system one may, optimistically, start to discern a trend. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:08, 3 September 2021 (UTC)


 * It looks like this is two copies of the same table? Nikkimaria (talk) 01:17, 4 September 2021 (UTC)
 * D'oh. Fixed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:32, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Looking for a mentor for first (and probably only) featured article
Hello FAC regulars,

Do you enjoy passing on your hard-won knowledge? And are you available in the next few weeks?

As you can see at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Greenhouse_gas_emissions_by_Turkey/archive2#Coordinator_note I need an FAC mentor. Whether you know anything about the subject of the article beforehand does not matter at all. And whether you know any science or maths beforehand also does not matter - if I have used anything more than addition, subtraction, multiplication or division in the footnotes then I have made a mistake and need you to point it out.

I think that due to help from other editors the lead is probably OK by now but I am sure you will find stuff in the body of the article which needs improving. I am also able to make graphs - so if you are overwhelmed by the numbers please say so so that I can make them easier to understand in a graph. As most Wikipedia articles are supposed to be an introduction to a subject if you know nothing about the subject beforehand that is fine.

My first question is - please give me an overview of what needs improving and how far it is from featured standard. Do I have any chance of fixing it with your help before COP26 starts? Chidgk1 (talk) 13:15, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I can see the attraction of having this as TFA on 1 November. Assuming that it is an FA by then. I will ask the TFA coordinators if they would tentatively hold that date in case it is. Gog the Mild (talk) 15:33, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I presume they will have something Halloween related on 31st Oct and Divali is on 4th Nov, but as the climate change project apparently also has some other possible FA perhaps the first 3 days in November might be pencilled in for our project? Chidgk1 (talk) 16:14, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I have added it to Potential TFA Requests for 1 or 2 November. Now it needs promoting - and you are unlikely to get a better offer than the one below. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:21, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm happy to help where I can, it's certainly not an area I'm overly familiar with, but I'll give it a look if you think it'd help? I'm also okay with the basics, like MOS, so that might help too.  The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 16:17, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
 * TRM, I am on the verge of archiving this for it to be improved off-FAC, unless you think there are advantages to leaving it nominated and/or in your opinion it is not that far off being promotable. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:21, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Ok, no stress. I was responding to the request for a mentor rather than an urgent request for a current FAC about to fail.  Happy to give advice etc offline, as it were.  The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 19:24, 7 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Great - so TRM I guess the talk page of the article will be the best place to put your advice? Starting with the question above. Chidgk1 (talk) 07:16, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

Politics editor with FA experience needed
Featured article review/Nutrition Assistance for Puerto Rico/archive1 could use some attention from FA experienced editors from the politics (and economics) spheres. Hog Farm Talk 00:55, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Koh Tao murders/archive1
Getting a bit concerned about the tone of some of the recent contributions to Featured article candidates/Koh Tao murders/archive1. Irrespective of the merits or demerits of ProcrastinatingReader's article writing, / [they seem to be the same person] comments are exceedingly rude. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:55, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I've removed the entire last set of comments, something I've never felt the need to do in all my time here. SPAs, on their way to getting blocked entirely I should think. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:01, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Such an odd case—there doesn't seem to be similar activity on the article itself, or its talk page, which would surely have felt like the first port of call for a new user. Would semi-protecting the review page to avoid new socks repeating this behaviour be a step too far? 𝄠ʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ X 11:21, 10 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The accounts have been blocked. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:41, 11 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I've boldly moved the hatted SPA commentary to Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/Koh Tao murders/archive1 as the primary purpose of that material was to disrupt, not contribute to the discussion in a reasonable manner. If anyone objects to that movement, feel free to revert me. Hog Farm Talk 02:39, 11 September 2021 (UTC)

Seeking mentor for Simonie Michael
I have written a few hundred biographies and gotten some GAs under my belt, but I've never done an FA, and I'm considering my first FA nomination with the article Simonie Michael. The Inuit who live in the northernmost parts of the Americas were only granted the right to vote in Canadian elections in 1950, and the government didn't effectively provide ballot boxes for another decade after that. Just a few years later Simonie Michael became the first Inuk elected to a Canadian legislature (he served one term in the territorial legislature for the incredibly immense expanse that became the Northwest Territories and Nunavut). Michael was one of the only people in Iqaluit in the early 20th century who could speak both Inuktitut and English fluently, but his first act serving in a legislature full of English speakers was to speak in Inuktitut for 90 minutes. The other legislators responded by immediately banning Inuktitut from the legislative assembly. At that time most Inuit had only one name, so the government assigned every Inuk a numerical identifier for purposes like mail delivery; Michael saw this as dehumanizing, and was one of the leaders of a movement to ask every Inuk to provide a last name. He was a professional builder, and he led legislative initiatives to reduce massive overcrowding and guard against flooding in the region's housing, build up local health care, and reduce the availability of liquor. He also brought attention to the little-known but extremely prevalent de jure segregation in Canada's north at that time, including establishments that explicitly banned Inuit and would only serve white people. In my many years of writing pages about people who I was really surprised to learn did not have a page yet, from the first prime minister of Madagascar to a super-famous podcaster, this was one of the most eye-popping gaps I've encountered. Since creating the article a few years ago I've also brought it through DYK and GA. The article is short and to the point, I think the story is very interesting, and it should hopefully be an easy lift to review it and give me some pointers. Thanks very much for anyone who can help. :) - Astrophobe  (talk) 17:59, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm not able to mentor this article, but I did leave a suggestion on the talk page. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  18:35, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm not doing mentorships right now due to RL commitments but if you notify on my talk when it comes to FAC, I'll do a review.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:00, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
 * If you open a WP:PR, ping me and I will try my best to comment there. Z1720 (talk) 00:49, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Looking for additional reviewers for Grey's Anatomy (season 17)
Hi all, I'm the nominator of the current FAC at Grey's Anatomy (season 17). It's at risk of being archived from lack of additional reviews/support comments. If anyone has any free time and is willing to give it a review I would greatly appreciate it! Thanks, The Doctor Who  (talk) 03:35, 20 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Featured article candidates/El Tatio/archive1 seems to be in the same boat, lack-of-review-wise. I'll see if I can review that Grey's Anatomy article. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:17, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Image and source reviewers wanted
It is possible that you have already noticed that the list of requests for image and source reviewers (and first-timer's spot checks) at the head of this page has become impressively long. Can I suggest that now may be a good time for anyone who has never done a source review, especially if they have ever received a source review for one of their nominations, to dip their toe in the water. Source reviews are usually fairly straight forward, subject knowledge is not required and the helpful guidance here covers most of what you will need to know. If you do find yourself in difficulty, there are plenty of experienced reviewers, shout for one of them or leave a message here. Anything editors can do towards cutting the list down would be appreciated.

Obviously, source or image reviews, or spot checks, by more experienced reviewers would also be most welcome. Thanks. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:24, 22 September 2021 (UTC)


 * Currently sitting tethering to mobile data to check a few things and it's slow, but if you can ping me in this conversation so I see it in my notices I'll try to pick something up tomorrow when I'm stealing borrowing some company time at the office; I'm happier doing spotchecks than reviewing citation formatting though. 𝄠ʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ꭗ 20:29, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * , spotchecks are good - there are requests for five in the list above. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:45, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I've taken care of most of the requests. However, take note that I generally don't check for subscription or not and that in many cases I don't have a clue on whether something is reliable or not. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 11:23, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I was just noticing that I'd been pipped to the post on the first few I opened to check; good work. 𝄠ʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ꭗ 11:30, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * I just added a new request if you're still keen! The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 11:38, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * It contravenes my strict "Wenger out" policy but I'll have a duke. 𝄠ʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ꭗ 11:42, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Reasons to be cheerful ...

 * 1) The number of featured articles went past 6,000 for the first time yesterday.
 * 2) There were 36 promotions last month. Bar August (37), one has to go back to 2013 to find a higher monthly total.
 * 3) The aggregate number of promotions over the past three months was 104. Again one has to go back to 2013 to find a higher total.
 * Gog the Mild (talk) 09:56, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Nomination supply exceeding (at times) demand from reviewers for stuff to read and critique does have benefits! Those are great stats, and thanks for sharing them. Nick-D (talk) 10:21, 1 October 2021 (UTC)
 * 104 promotions takes a lot of reviewing. I think that it is a huge credit to all of the reviewers involved that such a volume of articles have been reviewed in the detail required for FAC promotions. Gog the Mild (talk) 10:38, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

FAC reviewing statistics for September 2021
Here are the FAC reviewing statistics for September 2021. The tables below include all reviews for FACS that were either archived or promoted last month, so the reviews included are spread over the last two or three months. A review posted last month is not included if the FAC was still open at the end of the month. The facstats tool has been updated with this data. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:21, 1 October 2021 (UTC)


 * I've just corrected an error pointed out to me by Moisejp; I had misattributed an image review to the nominator instead of the reviewer. I've run a query to find if I've made that mistake on other FACs, and there are almost 90 errors like that. Nearly all of them are in FACs ten or fifteen years old.  I've fixed the only one from the last five years and will go through and change the rest as I find time.  This will only affect reviewer stats. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 19:18, 3 October 2021 (UTC)
 * These are all now fixed. Only a handful of reviewers who are still active will have seen their reviewing numbers change, and only by 1 or 2 reviews at most. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 02:40, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

Restoring older Featured articles to standard: 3Q2021 summary of URFA/2020 activity
WP:URFA/2020 is a systematic approach to reviewing older featured articles (FAs). It was launched at the end of November 2020. The goals are to:
 * Introduction
 * Identify deteriorated older FAs to submit to Featured article review (FAR)
 * Encourage tune-ups on mostly compliant FAs that don't need a FAR
 * Listing older FAs that are ready to be today's featured article (TFA) and helping the TFA Coords check older FAs before run on TFA

This is the third quarterly update on the project. Previous reports are listed below:
 * 2021 Q1 report
 * 2021 Q2 report


 * Progress

Since URFA/2020's launch, 145 FAs have been Delisted, and 114 deemed Satisfactory or declared "Kept" at FAR, which the percentage of FAs needing review reduced from 73% to 71%. Work has continued to focus on articles reviewed or promoted in 2004-2009: 136 articles have been delisted during this time while 9 have been delisted from 2010-2015, and 84 have been kept from 2004-2009 while 30 have been kept from 2010-2015. Around 17 users edited WP:URFA/2020 at least once in this quarter and more reviewed articles at FAR.

The project continued to reach out to active editors listed at WP:WBFAN to check the FAs they nominated. The project encourages experienced FA writers to check articles already marked as "Satisfactory" by a reviewer; the first reviewer is often the original nominator or interested in the topic, and they might answer questions or concerns if pinged on the talk page.

As of the end of this quarter, we have 135 articles listed at Featured article review/notices given, a decrease of 17 listings from the Q2 report. This is a result of older notices being rechecked and listed at FAR. The project needs experienced FA editors to review older notices and determine if the article should be submitted to FAR or marked as "Satisfactory" at URFA/2020.

If we continued this quarter's trend, it would take over 29 years to check every featured article, which is why we need your help!


 * How to help:
 * Review "your" articles: Did you nominate an article to FAC from 20042015? Check these articles, fix them up, and mark them as "Satisfactory" at URFA/2020. If they do not meet the FA standards anymore, please begin the FAR process by posting your concerns on the article's talk page, and mark the article as "noticed".
 * Fix an article: Choose an article at URFA/2020 and bring it back to FA standards. Enlist the help of the original nominator, frequent FA reviewers, Wikiprojects listed on the talk page, and editors that have written similar topics. When the article returns to FA standards, please mark it as "Satisfactory" at URFA/2020.
 * Edit and review articles at FAR: FARC/FAR is a collaborative process. We encourage all editors to WP:BEBOLD and fix the concerns posted at FAR. We also need reviewers to list concerns so editors know what to fix. The sooner concerns are addressed, the quicker articles can be declared "Kept" and the nominator can list a new article.
 * Review articles at URFA/2020: Experienced FA writers and reviewers are encouraged to help by marking articles as "Satisfactory" or posting notices for FAR. Inexperienced reviewers are also needed; articles far from meeting the FA criteria can be noticed and eventually posted at FAR. This allows experienced editors to focus on articles not egregiously failing the FA criteria and allows more articles to be nominated at FAR.
 * Organise "review-a-thons" with editors and Wikiprojects: Are there editors in your Wikiproject that can help? Organise a contest with your Wikiproject to review and improve your project's FAs. The contest can even hand out barnstars and awards! Please post at WT:URFA/2020 if interested in hosting an event.

If you have any questions or feedback, please visit Wikipedia talk:Unreviewed featured articles/2020. Z1720 (talk) 20:21, 2 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Feedback


 * Probably a dumb question (I'm full of those), but I keep any articles I've taken through FA on my watchlist and look over them diligently enough, is that enough to considered them "satisfactory" as they aren't drifting far from the version that passed (over the years things like markup changes or templating updates will creep in but I'd say most of them are still 90%+ the same revision as at the time of promotion) or does it need an uninvolved editor to mark it off? 𝄠ʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ꭗ 19:30, 6 October 2021 (UTC)
 * - Three editors will look at the article before moving it off the table, and you are encouraged to check your own. Hog Farm Talk 19:37, 6 October 2021 (UTC)

Featured article durations by month
I posted a version of this back in March, but have just added an option to the facstats tool to list durations by month for both promoted and archived FACs, so others can query the raw data if interested. Here's the result.



The archive duration has clearly been getting shorter for at least a year, which is interesting. (The spikes (both up and down) appear to be due to very small sample sizes at those points.) The duration of promoted FACS might be shrinking too but that trend is more recent; perhaps it will continue to drop if the FAC volume stays high. Personally I don't think we need to leave FACs open for a month if they've had plenty of comments from diverse editors; the problem with duration has always been a balance between leaving FACs open to try to get more comments, and closing them to reduce the length of the page. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:34, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I am interested in a graph showing the page size of the FAC nomination page for promoted articles. I suspect that the current backlog is caused by an increase in nominations, while in previous years it was caused by an increase in the number of comments given by each reviewer. However, I have no data to support this hypothesis. Z1720 (talk) 14:55, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I produced a graph like this a couple of years ago: see this archived discussion. I've stopped tracking it because the script I was using for page size started giving me inconsistent results.  E.g. this archive was coming up as prose size of 1.799Mb a couple of years ago; now the prose size is just 49 bytes.  If you know of a reliable tool I can use to get page sizes, I can start tracking it again.  Also be aware that I wasn't tracking it FAC by FAC, only month by month -- it's too time consuming to do it for each FAC.  I think this is good enough for our purposes. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 16:05, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Longer duration for articles that end up getting promoted is not all bad. It may mean that articles are getting more scrutiny than they did in the past (certainly that is the case compared to 2006 FACs!) (t &#183; c)  buidhe  15:14, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Agree with Buidhe. Some of the short older FACs don't instill much confidence, such as Featured article candidates/Flag of Armenia (2007 promotion, delisted last month). Hog Farm Talk 15:17, 8 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I think the important factors are improved standards, and more reviews against those standards. (Maybe more experienced reviewers too, but that's harder to measure.)  An article that's had five content reviews in 14 days has been scrutinized more thoroughly than one with three content reviews in twice that time.  I guess what I'm suggesting is that duration by itself is a poor way to judge when to archive or promote (not that I think the coords are doing that) and that if the increased activity recently means more reviews happen more quickly, that is going to lead to shorter durations. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 16:05, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

Basiliscus
Hello all, recently as part of WP:URFA I took a look at the Basiliscus article, as he was an Eastern Roman emperor and that's my general field. The article was pretty rough, with some text uncited for 14+ years (the bit about Marcus was uncited from at least its A-class nomination and during its FAC), general disorganization with muddled ref usage, and other problems. I have re-written it in my userspace and just introduced it to the article space. The article is, at present, entirely unrecognizable from the one that was passed as FA; it is nearly double the size in terms of bytes and words and at present 92.4% is my work per XTools. I don't think most URFA improvements have been so drastic, so I wanted to make a note here in case people believe it should be run through FAC again, or FAR, either of which I am willing to do. Iazyges  Consermonor   Opus meum  00:15, 9 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you for making those improvements! FAR has a lot of nominations at the moment, so if your improvements bring the article to FA standards then I don't think it needs a formal reassessment. Instead, mark it as "Satisfactory" at URFA/2020 and other editors will review it, make suggestions, and informally ensure that it meets FA standards. Would you like me to take a look at it from a non-expert perspective and leave notes on the talk page? Z1720 (talk) 00:23, 9 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, that would be great. Iazyges   Consermonor   Opus meum  00:24, 9 October 2021 (UTC)

WikiCup
There's clearly been an issue this year with a perceived COI between FAC co-ords and the WikiCup. It needs working out before next year. Frankly, it's a shambles, we have one active co-ord who actually is part of the WikiCup competition and who has been advised to avoid any action (between the end of round 4 and the beginning of round 5 and thereafter). It's a joke. We either believe in the competition or we don't. Get a grip and do the co-ord job, regardless, or maybe we should remove FAs from the competition. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 22:06, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
 * 1) If you believe that I have promoted an article by a current WikiCup participant, as I was requested not to, a diff would be appreciated.
 * 2) Similarly if you believe I have granted permission to run a second nomination to a current WikiCup participant.
 * 3) This discussion would seem to be better located on the WikiCup talk page: "We either believe in the competition or we don't", I imagine that most readers of this page are thoroughly agnostic.
 * 4) "The purpose of the Cup is to encourage content creation and improvement and make editing on Wikipedia more fun."
 * Thanks Gog the Mild (talk) 22:31, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
 * OK guys, I think we can dial down the rhetoric here. I think the instruction for Gog to avoid handling other participants' FACs was made in good faith, but for a number of reasons I do agree that it was the wrong course of action. Not least because Gog holding on back on promoting those FACs is actually beneficial for them, compared with promoting them in the usual fashion. So I think that next year (or even perhaps for the remainder of this year?) Gog should simply be instructed to handle all FACs as they normally would. I'm quite sure Gog would always to this to the best of their ability and not intentionally do anything to game the system or hinder their rivals in the Cup, which is after all a friendly contest. The issue with FAC promotion timing between Lee and TRM at the start of the round was also unfortunate, but again made in good faith and that's something we need to address for next year - most likely by allowing discretion in whether to include certain promotions in the last round or the next. Cheers &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 22:38, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Cheers! The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 22:55, 13 October 2021 (UTC)
 * And yes, it's pretty clear we need to work out some timings so our "overworked FAC delegates" can sort things out. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 23:45, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

FARs transcluding again
Noting here that FARs have returned to the FAC page. The lack of transclusion was first noted on August 23 in this post. To avoid this problem, I encourage editors to review nominations, especially the ones listed under "Older nominations". Editors can also review articles at Template:FAC peer review sidebar, so that there are fewer comments for these articles when they are eventually nominated at FAC. Thanks to everyone for their help in reviewing noms. Z1720 (talk) 16:02, 16 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, it looks like my excitement was shortlived as FAR is not transcluding again. Hopefully, we can review some FACs and clear the backlog! Z1720 (talk) 15:30, 17 October 2021 (UTC)
 * , Apologies for the ping, but the FAR is transcluding for me (at least at the time of this posting). Aoba47 (talk) 20:59, 17 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Me too; I noticed the transclusion returned after Gog promoted an FAC earlier today, but wanted to see what would happen later on today. I think the backlog starts when there are more than 50 FACs, though the exact number varies depending on how long/large each FAC is. Perhaps reviewers can aim to have less than 50 FACs going at once by increasing reviews when we get close to that number. Z1720 (talk) 21:11, 17 October 2021 (UTC)
 * My guess is that it also depends (to a lesser degree) on the size of FAR. My guess is that the sheer length of some of the FARs (TAMU, Great Lakes Storm, etc.) added to the large source assessment table on the Doug Ring FAR are a decent amount of transclusion limit.  Having 50+ FACs open is taking a lot of space, but FAR being a lot more longer and active than in prior is also likely making this crop up more.  As an example, by my count we've had 21 FARs closed as kept and 140 closed as delisted so far this year; in comparison there were 17 FARs closed in all of 2019, 38 in 2018, 17 in 2017, etc. Hog Farm Talk 06:37, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Requesting Mentorship for a Featured Article Candidate
Hello! Would anyone be willing to be my mentor in getting Cueva de las Manos to Featured Article status? The article's main topics are cave art, archaeology, and Argentine/South American Prehistory. Thank you! Best, Tyrone Madera (talk) 18:02, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I could help once I'm done with some FAC reviews, but I'm not too strong in palaeoantrhopology, so I wonder if FAC regulars who have written such articles like and  might want to help too? FunkMonk (talk) 18:18, 18 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you,, I would love the help! I didn't know there were users here who were strong in palaeoanthropology, but if there are I would very much appreciate their assistance. Tyrone Madera (talk) 17:17, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Closure of Nonmetal
Nomination posted: October 6th; archived October 18th, after 12 days.

Could you please provide some further reasoning for your decision to archive this nomination on the basis of:


 * 1) "the large number of uncited statements";
 * 2) "a number of other basic issues"; and
 * 3) the outstanding oppose by Nick-D?

The situation wrt the above is:
 * 1. There are no remaining uncited statements. I had just finished addressing this remaining concern of buide, as raised by him only yesterday and was about to ping them, only to find the nomination had been closed. It seems I'm not even allowed one day to respond to an easily addressed concern.
 * 2. Every issue raised has been addressed by me, as noted (Nikkimaria seems to have some remaining concerns about the layout, but has not been forthcoming in responding to my ping to them apart from acknowledging that the layout had improved somewhat.
 * 3. I pinged Nick-D and Material Scientist, along your own lines, one day ago. It appears recipients of these kinds of pings, as practiced by you, are not to be allowed more than one day to respond.

In contrast to the 12 days given to nonmetal, the oldest outstanding FAC nomination, for "Greed (game show)", was posted on August 12th, nigh on 10 weeks ago = 70 days!

I acknowledge your comment accompanying the closure of the nonmetal nomination:


 * "Hopefully we will see it here again, although the usual two week hiatus will apply."

Of course, come what may, I'll renominate in two weeks.

In the meantime I'm perplexed as to the basis of the closure, which appears very harsh and to have not fully taken into account the status of the nomination, as set out by me above.

thank you, Sandbh (talk) 06:33, 19 October 2021 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, that's just how it works. The article had improved a lot from the previous nomination but it was not quite at FA standard yet IMO. Unless the article has attracted support for promotion within a few weeks it is liable to be archived. If it looks like consensus might appear soon the nomination may be kept open for months (also happens when coords have recused to review the nom). (t &#183; c)  buidhe  07:38, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Agreed. If an FA is clearly not close to being ready, with an outright oppose on non-trivial issues, then it's routine for it to be archived. FAC is not a holding area for open-ended improvement drives, it's for articles that are ready for the star, bar any easily resolvable issues. And regarding the OP's promise that "come what may, I'll renominate in two weeks", I would recommend that the coordinators speedy close such a nomination if the substantive issues have not been addressed. &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 07:58, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree and add that there are still uncited statements, there are too many notes, overly-long figure legends and broken references (218 and 366). Graham Beards (talk) 08:07, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Aye, in my experience when a nomination has such obvious problems it's liable to be quickly archived. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 12:38, 19 October 2021 (UTC)


 * In my view, the article fails because the lead fails. The lead fails because its phrasing is opaque, redundant, or incoherent.


 * If I pick up an old high school chemistry textbook, it tells me, "Nonemetals: these are usually poor conductors of heat and electricity. They cannot be hammered into sheets or drawn into wire because they are usually too brittle. Sulfur is an example of such a nonmetal. Some nonmetals such as iodine, carbon, and phosphorus are solid at room temperatures. Bromine is a liquid nonmetal. Others are gaseous, as oxygen, nitrogen, and chlorine." (I comprehend immediately.)


 * If I pick up the Oxford Dictionary of Chemistry, it tells me: "nonmetal An element that is not a *metal. Nonmetals can either be insulators or semiconductors. At low temperatures nonmetals are poor conductors of both electricity and heat as few free electrons move through the material. If the conduction band is near to the valence band (see ENERGY bands) it is possible for nonmetals to conduct electricity at high temperatures but, in contrast to metals, the conductivity increases with increasing temperature." (The text is coherent. I don't understand everything, but I want to find out.)


 * Yours text says:
 * "In chemistry, a nonmetal is a chemical element that usually gains one or more electrons when reacting with a metal and forms an acid when combined with oxygen and hydrogen."
 * "In chemistry" ... "chemical element" (redundant?) "usually gains" ... "one or more" (redundant?) The reader is already getting distracted by having to muse about this.


 * "At room temperature about half are gases, one (bromine) is a liquid, and the rest are solids. Most solid nonmetals are shiny, whereas bromine is colored, and the remaining gaseous nonmetals are colored or colorless."
 * Why the reverse order in the second sentence? Why can't shiny things be colored? Pearls are. "Most ... whereas" (Most=not all; the "whereas" is already present in the solids.) "Remaining gaseous nonmetals?" (but you didn't mention any gaseous nonmetals earlier for any to remain.)


 * "The solids are either hard and brittle or soft and crumbly, and tend to be poor conductors of heat and electricity and have no structural uses (as is the case for nonmetals generally)."
 * Brittle is hard (i.e. hard that breaks easily); why not, "the solids snap or crumble easily?" The reader doesn't know anything about structural uses.


 * "There is no universal agreement on which elements are nonmetals; the numbers generally range from fourteen to twenty-three, depending on the criterion or criteria of interest."
 * "There is no universal agreement .." Is this really needed after you have attempted to define it in such detail?  "depending on the criterion or criteria of interest"  What else could they depend on?


 * So you see, the text in the lead is a melange of academic jargon and things that don't cohere. The reader begins to be puzzled or distracted. Please find two standard undergraduate-level textbooks on this subject and model your writing on theirs. In other words, you don't need to limit the content to these, only the style of exposition. It may be that the rest of the article is fine. But the lead is important.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  13:43, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
 * While I certainly agree with the above points about the lead being incoherent at present, and not really defining the subject accurately, I'd caution against the advice to model the style of exposition on a textbook. Indeed, we have a section of a policy page covering this, at WP:NOTTEXTBOOK. The prose should be structured encyclopedically, not in the language of instruction, and it should have prose which summarizes the state of knowledge on this subject. This may include material not found in a textbook. Cheers &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 14:36, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
 * That is true, but if an FA is overly instructional, it can be easily fixed. But if there are issues of textual coherence and cohesion, it is much harder.  It is the latter I am suggesting s/he use the textbooks for.  The nominator is a professional scientist; s/he knows the material at the highest level.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  16:15, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

Sandbh, let's be plain. You have a number of editors trying to give you advice. You refuse to accept any of it. You then wonder why you're not getting the results you want. This is a recipe for a bunch of future failed FACs where few people want to give you reviews because they'll be picked at with your passive-aggressive "let me rebut you" attitude and constant pings. Even in this very discussion you are doing rather pointless and unhelpful things like adding unneeded section breaks. At this point, this whole thing should probably be shut down because it's not going to lead anywhere productive.

Guess what? Maybe the expectations are arbitrary, maybe the process is unfair. Fundamentally, why do you care? If you think an article is exceptional as-is and it's the FA standard that needs changing, you're welcome to try and change it, or failing that, you can just not nominate articles for FA. No one marched you here under duress. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 01:23, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Thank you… …for all for your interest and taking the time to provide valuable comments. I'll further consider these and act accordingly.

In the meantime, I have some follow-on observations:
 * Thank you for the "sorry", which I was not seeking but I appreciate the empathy.
 * All issues raised in FAC #2 had been addressed by me, including the sole oppose by buidhe the basis of which was easily resolved.
 * Now, despite close to 400 supporting citations (ca. one cite for every 28 words), it has been suggested the article needs yet more citations. Really? Further, I should look to dictionary definitions of nonmetals. Really?
 * I'll respond to Fowler&amp;fowler's more technical questions at their talk page.
 * Re, "The nominator is a professional scientist; s/he knows the material at the highest level." Thanks for the gracious assessment; I'm not a professional scientist although I have publications in the peer-reviewed chemistry literature. My professional background is in the humanities.
 * The nonmetal article was put through PR, with seven reviewers. All feedback by the reviewers was responded to. None of the seven reviewers raised the new issues collectively raised here.
 * Graham Beards opines there are still too many footnotes; and overly long figure legends.
 * The number of footnotes was addressed by me in FAC #2, in what I considered to be a balanced manner, as follows:
 * "I generally use endnotes to elaborate items which would otherwise seem to make the main body text too detailed for the general reader. At the same time, the footnotes may appeal to the specialist reader. For a technical subject, I feel this is a good way of addressing FA criterion 1c, "it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature." Still, there may be scope to reduce the number of footnotes and I'll look at that too. Sandbh (talk) 07:01, 9 October 2021 (UTC)
 * 27 of the endnotes are in tables where the end notes would otherwise take up too much room. I propose not to do anything further about these.
 * There are now 33 endnotes in tables, and 32 in the main text. For a technical article such as this I feel the number of main text notes is OK. I could incorporate some of them into the main body of the article however I feel this would reduce readability, for no real gain. Accordingly, I've changed my status marker for this item from pending to done."
 * In conclusion, the obvious question to ask is, "If this was good enough for seven peer reviewers, why is it not good enough for Graham Beards?"
 * I did not comment at the FAC.Graham Beards (talk) 08:38, 20 October 2021 (UTC)


 * The figure legends clarify technical information. I'll review these for excessive length. Again, the issue is that I could place some of them in the main body of the article, which likely makes it more complicated to read; or I can put a part of the legend into a footnote which will increase the number of footnotes, which Graham Beards is critical of; or I can trim the figure legends, which will make the figures less decipherable.

On equity PS: Where is the equity? opposed older nomination 2.15 Sustainable energy on October 16th "simply due to the volume of cleanup needed around citations". It is now the 20th. The Sustainable energy FAC runs to 11,500 words, more than the nonmetal article itself! The Sustainable energy FAC was posted on 20 Sep, two months ago, and has still not been promoted, suggesting, including in light of Nikkimaria's oppose, that it was far from being FA ready in the first place. Why has this nomination not been closed? In contrast, (a) the nonmetal FAC was closed less than one day after addressing all concerns; and (b) pinging reviewers to see if they had any remaining concerns, as per the practice of, and (c) not allowing the pingees time to respond. The nonmetal FAC ran to just 3,100 words; given there were so few issues to address. Where is the equity? Sandbh (talk) 03:43, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Summarising, I feel like a rat inside a lab running wheel. Every-time I complete 100 revolutions along comes a further set of new expectations for another 100 revolutions. Sandbh (talk) 03:43, 20 October 2021 (UTC)


 * The rules cannot be applied completely evenly, simply because coords do not have enough time to constantly check all nominations. Absolute fairness is not the goal, just a workable system. The Sustainable energy FAC also got multiple supports before it was opposed, so it's not comparable to the nonmetal fac. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  07:10, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I hate to be blunt, Sandbh, but if you continue in such a fashion, whatever little mood there is on this page for engaging you and helping you will evaporate. Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  10:47, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you buidhe. With no disrespect intended to anyone, civil behaviour I would've thought includes fairness. I appreciate that may not be the case at WP:FAC. If so, WP:FAC is not working as it should, IMO Sandbh (talk) 06:16, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
 * thank you for expressing how you feel. With respect, none of this would be necessary if the hidden, unstated FAC criteria were clearly spelt out. Every time I feel I have addressed the FAC criteria, another set of mystery criteria are invoked, and I have to run around the lab rat wheel another 100 times. If I ever get to the bronze star I'll write up the ingredients for the secret sauce and hidden lore, and post it here.
 * However else you feel about me, I'm learning a lot about the way things work around here, or the "personality of the FAC process" and intend to share my learning in due course. Sandbh (talk) 06:16, 21 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Further to the Sustainable energy FAC, multiple issues were raised with it on three separate occasions, before it rec'd each support. Evidently the article was nowhere near FAC standard from the outset. The first support was not rec'd until nigh on four weeks had passed.


 * For the nonmetal FAC, in contrast, it took one day to address the concerns raised by the sole oppose. Even so, despite having addressed all other concerns at the time, the FAC was closed in less than two weeks. It was not even given the hidden rule opportunity to attain three supports in three weeks.


 * "How odd", as TRM would say. Sandbh (talk) 02:29, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

The Rambling Man This article needs a proper copyedit and a thorough review against FAC criteria before renomination. I only read the lead (six paras, see MOS:LEAD) with sporadic references in the lead (see MOS:LEADCITE). One para in the lead was a single sentence which was jarring and clunky. I'd be happy to help but my reviews have been subject to reviews of themselves by certain "elements" around here. Perhaps we could conduct a review in private. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 17:41, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you,
 * If I can speak plainly, the article was subject to the views, commentary, and criticism of seven peer reviewers, none of who mentioned a requirement for a copyedit. Like the comments posted by Graham Beards, another new requirement appears on the scene.
 * As I recall from reading through the FAC talk archives you've experienced your own concerns about certain elements around here. Welcome to the club.


 * The single sentence "jarring and clunky" paragraph was:
 * "There is no universal agreement on which elements are nonmetals; the numbers generally range from fourteen to twenty-three, depending on the criterion or criteria of interest."
 * Which is precisely the case, no more and no less, as per FAC criterion 2a "Lead: a concise lead section that summarizes the topic and prepares the reader for the detail in the subsequent sections;"
 * I'll take up your suggestion and comment on your talk page, about that sentence. Thank you. Sandbh (talk) 06:16, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

If anyone feels like closing this section before giving buidhe, Fowler&amp;fowler, The Rambling Man, and Graham Beards an opportunity to respond, feel free to do so. If that can happen to an FAC nomination, it would seem to be good enough to occur here. Sandbh (talk) 06:16, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Graham Beards
 * The only discussion that counts in deciding on a promotion to FA is the FAC. Nothing said here about the article, or on User pages, is taken into account. The editors commenting here have offered their advice to you in good faith and you have rudely thrown it back at them complaining about hidden rules and lack of fair play. I didn't even comment at the FAC, so your personal attack on me above  "If this was good enough for seven peer reviewers, why is it not good enough for Graham Beards?" is way, way out of order. You not obliged to take any notice of my advice. Your constant complaints about our FA system are unhelpful, boring and just come across as sour grapes. Graham Beards (talk) 10:18, 21 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Thank you.

My reference to hidden rules and a lack of fair play is how I experienced the situation. Buidhe acknowledged the shortcomings of the process in terms of fairness. The seven peer reviewers were asked to review the article in the context of an FAC nomination. Subsequently an abundance of new expectations have arisen. That is what I meant by hidden rules. Apparently they were not known to the seven peer reviewers either.

No personal attack was intended. If I’d intended to mount a personal attack, which I wouldn’t be stupid enough to do, its nature would be quite clear as a deliberate personal attack.

My observations about the FA system are reflective of past comments made in the FAC talk page archives. As noted, I intend to summarise my experiences here and share them with other potential FAC editors, so that their own experiences will be smoother. Another editor has already started compiling something like this.

The good news is that a further two other editors, who noticed what’s going on, have already helped or offered to help, and that is before I’ve posted to The Rambling Man’s talk page.

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts. No hard feelings. I hope we’ll be able to work together in future if not now, then at some later time. Sandbh (talk) 11:05, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Iazyges I
 * I usually put as much distance as possible between myself and Wikipolitics, as this seems to be shaping up to be. I've been following the discussion, but feel the need to say some things: For one, I appreciate that having a FAC failed sucks. I think I nominated about a dozen before I got one confirmed. I also appreciate that you reached out in good faith for advice on how to move forward; at the same time, I do think there is somewhat of a beaten horse about unwritten rules. I'm sure virtually every group ever made has them, especially Wikipedia. This is expressly because the rules are set as minimums, not maximums; most of the "real rules" are done by precedence. The three support rule is a general minimum, possibly inherited from something else (Milhist A-Class requires at least three supports and image/source reviews), or possibly summoned from the ether. That being said, the core element of FAC is consensus, in line with the rest of Wikipedia. If enough people say someone should be banned at AN, even if they haven't broken much if any hard and fast rules, they may be banned. It is by far an imperfect system, but a workable one; you could have an article sink or sail through FAC depending on who you get as reviewers. But that's life. Is it fair? No. Is it equally unfair? Yes. Perhaps the three support and source/image review requirements should be elaborated in the criteria or elsewhere, but even so, this does little to actually change much. The unwritten rules are a product of what the people that review the article think it should look like. With respects to Nonmetal, spots still lack citations, failing to even meet the criteria; unwritten rules are hardly in play here, except in your discussion of the timing of articles being processed by FAC Coords. In general, I agree that spots of the lede could include more basic information, such as them being poor conductors and generally brittle, and don't agree with the assertion that the lede is too technical. I don't think I've even thought of the word "electron" since I took Chemistry in High School, and I found myself able to follow the meaning of the text. That being said, the formatting of the article as a whole with many one-line sections of text, and numerous bullet lists, is not conducive to reading. I don't necessarily have a problem with the notes, but there do seem to be quite a lot where they could be included in the body; I generally only try to use notes to explain that there is an opposing minority viewpoint, i.e. "Source B says they were buried somewhere else". A non-metal article that consolidated the text better into paragraphs, and had everything cited, would have a much better chance of passing FAC, and would be something I might personally support as being of featured article quality. MOS in general can be finicky stuff (I have a deeply hateful relationship with MOS' usage of "'s" for s-ending words), but anything that my brain hates to look at is unlikely to pass. I have not taken a deep look into either Greed or Sustainable energy, but both of them have a format that is more pleasing to the eye, with more consolidated paragraphs. I can't speak for the FAC Coords, but I think the fact that Non-metal was nominated twice within half a year may have played a part in how quickly it was closed, on top of the aforementioned reasons. It could also be that those two articles simply slipped through the crack; I will note that this has been one of the most active periods of FAC for some time. In regards to the number of FAC coords, I would support increasing the number of them, five does sound like a good number, redundancy is hardly the worst thing that can ever happen. In regards to some points about FAC Coords not involving themselves in the discussion, I will note that that is not actually their job. Their job is merely to moderate the FAC nomination process; some feedback from them may be helpful, but I don't think anyone can blame them for not wanting to wade into this.  Iazyges   Consermonor   Opus meum  05:13, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for following the thread, and your refreshing thoughts and feelings.

Not much needs to be done about the dead horse of hidden rules, aside from compiling and airing them. Mind you, for a dead horse, it is powerful magic, tripping up, dare I say, several FAC nominees, and adding another 100 rotations of the lab rat wheel each time.

The need for citations in the lead is one of these. With respect, citations in the lead⸮ Really⸮ When everything set out in the lead is supported by citations in the main body⸮ We'll, I'll be. Never mind that MOS:LEADCITE says:


 * "The presence of citations in the introduction is neither required in every article nor prohibited in any article."

That's OK then; I'll add citations to the lead. Maybe I'll be able to get the total citation count up to 500. Never mind the quality, feel the width.

One-line sections of text have a long tradition in writing as emphatic statements. I further strive to make the flow of my articles evident by reading no more than the first line of each paragraph. Sometimes the ideas collapse down into one sentence. I keep those rather than conflating more one than one idea in a paragraph. That's as an unnecessary encumbrance for the general reader.

I use bullet lists to aid comprehension of what would otherwise be list-like passages. Descriptive chemistry can get like that.

I use notes to keep the main body of the article reasonably concise, encyclopedia style. At the same time, the subject of nonmetal chemical elements is complex and nuanced. As noted by me at FAC #2:


 * "I generally use endnotes to elaborate items which would otherwise seem to make the main body text too detailed for the general reader. At the same time, the footnotes may appeal to the specialist reader. For a technical subject, I feel this is a good way of addressing FA criterion 1c, "it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature."

Based on my experience with having articles published in the academic literature, the levels of concern expressed about minutiae in FAC is remarkable. That should be enough to drive away 80% of academics.

I've tried to tone down the sarcasm level in this post. I may have failed.

Back to editing nonmetal. Sandbh (talk) 01:26, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Mike Christie
 * Sandbh, you make five points you make above — citations in the lead, one-line paragraphs, bullet lists in prose, endnotes, and comments on minutiae in FACs. Citations in the lead is not a specifically FAC requirement; as I recall the relevant policy or guideline asserts that citations in the lead are required for direct quotes or controversial statements.  FAC criteria say nothing about citations in the lead but FAC can’t override rules set down elsewhere.  One line paragraphs and bullet lists are both a matter of prose style; as you say, one line paragraphs can be used for emphasis, and bullet lists are sometimes the simplest way of dealing with some material, but both should be used sparingly.  I haven’t read the article you brought to FAC or either of the FACs, but those are choices that you can defend if you want.  It doesn’t seem unreasonable to me that you may not convince all your reviewers.  As for minutiae, this is a long-standing debate here.  Are long lists of misplaced commas or suggested word choice changes a helpful way to review?  Personally I make those edits directly when I review an article, and let the nominator revert me if they disagree; it’s quicker that way.  But those lists of minutiae are aimed at helping the article, at least, and most of the time I find that those lists include things that really did need doing.  A deeper issue with minutiae is that on many topics, few reviewers are qualified to do anything but prose reviews.  I have a FAC on a Neolithic topic up at the moment and am lucky enough to have had a couple of reviews from people who know that topic pretty well, including one specialist in the area, but for most facts we don’t have SMEs — subject matter experts — who can weigh in on questions such as due weight, accuracy, and completeness.  We have never had a good solution to that, though we’ve talked it about it a few times.
 * I think FAC can help improve even technical articles; there are some very good reviewers here. And nobody is saying FAC is a perfect reviewing system.  But if you don’t want to engage with others and let your own opinion of how to handle the material be overridden by others’ input, FAC may not be what you’re looking for. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 01:51, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Shouldn't all this sub-section be in the section above??? Johnbod (talk) 03:24, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Mike. Nice to hear from you.

You raise good points.
 * I've taken on board and incorporated several reviewer opinions.
 * Citations are required for material challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations, anywhere in article space. At FAC, the policy seems to be that citations are required for everything. That's absurd.
 * Endnotes are nowhere mentioned in the FAC criteria. Yet Help:Explanatory notes says:
 * "Explanatory or content notes are used to add explanations, comments or other additional information relating to the main content but would make the text too long or awkward to read. Such notes may include supporting references."
 * That's what I observe yet the article was criticised for too many endnotes! A third are for the tables, in order to keep them legible, leaving ca. 45.
 * Eric Scerri, in the 2nd edition of his book The Periodic Table: Its Story and Significance, manages an average of 55 endnotes per chapter, and ca. 14,000 words per chapter. The nonmetal article runs to 11,000 words/14,000 x 55 = 43 endnotes.

Thanks again. Sandbh (talk) 06:22, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I concur with the frequency of one sentence paragraphs. I feel the need for a logical flow of ideas is more important than fretting about one sentence paragraphs. That said, none of these now remain, thank you.
 * As noted, list-type passages are intrinsic to descriptive chemistry, an aspect that non-technical reviewers may not appreciate, so I need to mention that at FAC #3.
 * I agree with you about non-technical reviewers and minutiae. In academic writing and reviewing (I do both) there certainly is a lot of focus on technical content. There is less concern about style and opposing publication on such grounds, except for obviously unacceptable manuscripts. Here there seems to be an overemphasis on such matters, given people have diverse stylistic preferences.
 * I look for FA as a way to make quality information free to the world, including students, in contrast to it being locked up behind paywalls, although these are slowly coming down.

Iazyges II One thing I will say is that citations are only required in the lede if the material is not mentioned and cited in the body; in general, this is bad practice, as you want all information in the lede to be in the body (the lede should be a few paragraphs if that; I will note that MOS:LEDE suggests four paragraphs max; although you could quite easily consolidate them into three or less). If you have stuff in the lede that is not in the body, it must be cited, otherwise, it's generally good practice to leave the lede uncited, if only for aesthetics. Additionally, I tend to agree that citations are needed for everything; I have something of a reputation myself of demanding citations for everything. Your best route against this may be WP:SCICITE, but its place against reviewed content is hard to define, and wouldn't likely trump any FAC expectations except for the most basic information (the sky is blue, ten fingers, etc.). Partly this is because it is hard to find uncontroversial statements (i.e. gravity exists) for which a citation could not easily be applied. Additionally, SCICITE is a guideline, which can be safely ignored with a community consensus, especially (by precedence at least) in reviews. I would also say that, although I myself have allowed a Science GAN to pass without blanket in-line citations, an example being Hidden Markov model, there is perhaps a negative chance of this being accepted at FAC. You've done a good job of consolidating paragraphs; I would say that I agree the contents of the lists should be kept, but I think many could either be consolidated into the lines (i.e. Among the nonmetal halogens, and unclassified nonmetals could probably safely have all of the bulleted content brought into regular sentences, or else made into tables. I would also recommend moving some of the notes into the body of the article. One thing I would also caution against is the separation of each "subidea" into its own paragraph; a lot of these paragraphs could be brought together. It doesn't seem to be your preference, but these changes would probably put you over FA standards. I would say that citing everything, even the obvious stuff, would be helpful. As I said, I felt comfortable reading everything as I understood it, but I also have no background in chemistry to speak of. That it makes sense to me means less without a background in the subject. For instance, if I was to read the Romans summoned up 100,000 men during one of their many crises, I would instantly be suspicious and look for a reference to prove it. If that reference could easily be found, I would trust the article more as a whole. After Hidden Markov, I mostly took GANs in the field of history because they mean things to me, I know when things look suspicious, even if I'm not an expert in the time period. Also, no one is perfect. I've definitely misunderstood sources pretty badly, and these have only been caught because someone delved into the sources and looked at them. So, in a TL;DR I will say that: everything needs to be cited, at least in the body and notes, if you want any chance of passing FAC. This isn't really negotiable, as some of the more MOS stuff is. You've done good work consolidating the paragraphs, and I would encourage you go further in merging them as you can within sections. A lot of the bulleted lists should probably be included in the body of text, as well as some of the quotes given their own line, and some of the larger bulleted lists made into tables. I would definitely identify tables as a good option for comparative information with lots of differentiation. Another thing I would suggest would be to remove "meta" content, such as The various kinds of matter are shown in the accompanying image., for one, this is technically impossible to cite without OR, and it generally is less "pleasing" to self-reference. If you'd like, we can import the article into my (or your) userspace, and I can move stuff around to a generally more pleasing organization, and you can approve it or not. Iazyges  Consermonor   Opus meum  16:57, 23 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Thank you.
 * You raise some ideas that go to the heart of stylistic differences, and the relevance of these.


 * The lede has the following paragraphs (idea units), which broadly reflect the structure of the main body:


 * 1. Definition: In chemistry, a nonmetal is an element that…
 * 2. But wait: There is no universal agreement on which elements are nonmetals…
 * 3. It's not so bad: Different kinds of nonmetallic elements include, for example…
 * 4. But wait: The distinction between different kinds of nonmetals is not absolute…
 * 5. The few but the mighty: Although five times more elements are metals than nonmetals… two of the nonmetals—hydrogen and helium—make up about 99% of the observable universe by mass. Another nonmetal, oxygen, makes up almost half of the Earth's crust, oceans, and atmosphere.
 * 6. Uses: Nonmetals largely exhibit a breadth of roles in sustaining life…


 * All content in the lede was mentioned in the main body. Even so, it appears others have expectations for cites in everything, including the lede.


 * Stylistically, I'm generally disinclined to place list-like content into tables, since tables generally require the reader to interrupt reading mode, and go into "study the table" mode, before resuming read mode. Even so, tables have their place i.e. it's a question of judgement, the standards of which will vary among editors. In developing the article over the past eight years I've experimented with varying the mix of list-like sentences, formal lists, and tables. The current balance represents my judgement as to the best way forward. YMMV. The task is more demanding, given the nature of descriptive chemistry which has a reputation for a vast assembly of look-up list-like facts.


 * I've commented at length on my approach to endnotes and my desire, where feasible, to maintain an encyclopedic style, for the general reader, with nuances and caveats for the specialist (or student doing homework) going into endnotes. Again, this has required some experimentation, balancing and judgement, the result of which is the current form.


 * I do not separate "sub-ideas" into their own paragraphs. Each paragraph is its own discrete idea unit, as summarised in the lede sentence of the paragraph. The rest of the sentences in the paragraph elaborate the idea expressed in the lede sentence. If there is a related sub-idea, it goes into its own (next) paragraph. The whole of the article, and its logical flow, can then be grasped, by only reading the first sentence of each paragraph.


 * Some of the quotes were previously included in quote boxes however these were criticised. I moved the quotes into separate sentences and was then criticised for my use of 1-sentence paragraphs. The suggestion now is that the quotes be presented in one-sentence paragraphs!


 * "Meta" content, such as "The various kinds of matter are shown in the accompanying image., is there to help the reader, for whom the "meta" nature of it is neither here nor there. The supporting citations are shown in the image caption.


 * Thank you, I'll take up your offer and move the content into my sandbox, for experimentation with layout etc. I suspect this will come down to qualitative stylistic differences. My writing style in based in academic writing, as published in journals, adjusted here for the general reader, while still catering for specialist readers. Sandbh (talk) 00:35, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Active FAC Coordinators
How many active coordinators do we have and are there enough? Graham Beards (talk) 13:29, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
 * We have three, I believe -, , and ; the latter two are the most active in closing FACs. Hog Farm Talk 13:37, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
 * How active is Ealdgyth? Graham Beards (talk) 13:56, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Regularly editing within the last week, it seems. Do we feel that co-ordinator numbers are a bottleneck though? There are a few co-ordinator nominations and recusals on other nominations but not to the point where I think we'd struggle to have things processed for lack of hands. 𝄠ʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ꭗ 14:02, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I believe they are generally pretty busy. Last edit to Featured article candidates was in April, according to xtools, to archive the now-deleted Featured article candidates/Chlorine/archive1. Hog Farm Talk 14:08, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I may be mistaken but I think has not been active at FAC very much this year. Maybe we need a more enthusiastic coordinator? Graham Beards (talk) 14:07, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
 * There is no reason to replace her. She might be busy but she is very smart and articulate, and when the chips are down, she is the closer par excellence.  More coords can be added of they are needed.   Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  14:17, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree fully with F&F here. I have no idea what "par excellence" means Hog Farm Talk 14:25, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
 * "Par excellence" means "better than the others" which is rather rude and thankless IMHO.Graham Beards (talk) 14:23, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
 * We're used to it. Gog the Mild (talk) 14:28, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I have no idea what "par excellence" means—Very good at golf. 𝄠ʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ꭗ 14:35, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
 * It means, "when the chips are down she is the very best of closers." But if you guys are going to be so sensitive, how about, "she is a closer sans peur et sans reproche?" which fits in with her being a medievalist. (You can look it up; it was said about a knight.)  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  14:51, 19 October 2021 (UTC)

I would support adding another co-ordinator, or asking a co-ord from TFA or FAR to temporarily join the ranks here. Gog and Ian have done a fantastic job, but the number of FACs has increased in the past few months. It might be time to add someone until Ealdgyth returns. Also, if Ian or Gog disappear, FAC would be very chaotic for a while with one co-ord closing the FACs. An extra person would help mitigate that and prevent the co-ords from burning out. Z1720 (talk) 15:15, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Also fine with another coordinator, if a suitable sucker volunteer emerges. Johnbod (talk) 15:20, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I have not discussed this with them, or even hinted but I think has the qualities needed for the role.Graham Beards (talk) 15:31, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm willing to be a coordinator, if another one is desired by the community and they trust me with the role. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  20:59, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
 * You'd be great. But I also value you enormously as someone who does great image reviews amongst other things.  Would you still be able to do that?  The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 21:10, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I think image reviews, and source reviews for that matter, is something our coords should be allowed (not expected) to do without having to recuse. Graham Beards (talk) 21:22, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I'd support buidhe (and just to make it clear, I think Ealdgyth has been doing a good job, so it's not meant as a replacement, but I think it's good for everyone with more hands there). FunkMonk (talk) 21:51, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
 * As would I  Draco phyllum  22:19, 20 October 2021 (UTC)


 * I think the better question is do the current coords feel they need help? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs  talk 15:33, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
 * True. A call for reinforcements should come from them. The art of coordinating might be no less the art of not closing than that of closing.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  16:26, 19 October 2021 (UTC)
 * True to an extent. If the project is not serving the community adequately, there's also legitimacy in securing more resource to assist with that inadequacy.  We shouldn't be waiting for a missing drowning person to tell us they're drowning.  The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 17:38, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I cannot find when it was but for good reasons we decided we need at least three active coordinators. We have two. was appointed in  2019 but has not been that active and has only taken part in a handful of FACs. I think we need at least three to avoid  heading back to the bad old days of the Raul654 autocracy. I have the fullest confidence in  and, but I think an active third coordinator would afford them more time to a) write articles and b) review them. We also need a succession plan to ensure the inevitable changes in coordinators are problem-free. It speaks volumes, IMHO, that Ealdgyth has not commented here.Graham Beards (talk) 21:18, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I haven't spoken publically because I've been trying to wait on the other two coords, which is putting me in a not fun spot, but hey, that's the joys of being a coord. Ealdgyth (talk) 21:24, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
 * There are few joys to be enjoyed in the role. I know, I served for four years. My only concern is that our FA process continues to be robust and beyond reproach. Perhaps a transfusion of fresh blood will be reinvigorating? I feel we are losing passion. Graham Beards (talk) 21:39, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm a little concerned about this thread. To respond to the Graham's comment above, Mike's fac stats for September are posted a couple of threads above and show robust engagement, so there doesn't seem an eminent unraveling. Given what's been going on in general since March 2020, we have to be a little flexible in terms of how much time we expect volunteers to volunteer and furthermore if Ealdgyth is telling us she's sitting on her hands, then she's doing so for a reason. This feels a little like a let's bash Ealdgyth thread but I hope I'm wrong. If there are specific issues that need more hands then that would be fine to discuss, but I remember others being awol and not seeing a thread such as this (thinking of Andy, Sarasto, etc.) . Just a thought. Victoria (tk) 21:55, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
 * If my memory is correct and for the record, Ealdgyth was appointed when resigned  following concerns raised over their inactivity. Andy was fully active until he gave his notice to quit. Graham Beards (talk) 22:09, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Struck those specifics and buy that my memory is faulty. Main points still stand, though. Victoria (tk) 22:53, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Guys, Ealdgyth did the right thing some time ago when she informed Gog and that she wanted to scale back her coord work. We let it ride a while because we were both fully active but also began considering editors to approach and put forward to the community as a new coord, as has happened in the past.  Sure, we'd have liked that to progress quicker than it has but such consideration has I think yielded good candidates in the past, and I'd just ask the community to be patient and allow that to play out. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:22, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for telling us about the discussion behind the scenes to consider another co-ord. I think that the increased number of FAC noms and this thread shows that one or two new co-ords would be helpful, and it might be time to speed up the search; it's better that new co-ords start when you and Gog are active so that they can get two different perspectives on the role and two people to ask questions to (and three if Ealdgyth is able to chime in occasionally). I also hope that buidhe is considered for co-ord, along with several other editors that should be first considered in private (so this thread doesn't turn into critiquing potential candidates). Z1720 (talk) 16:11, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Just to reiterate, movements at FAC are literally glacial. We have this "unwritten yet well-known" rule of three weeks, three supports, and passes in a source/image review, yet nominations are just left for days/weeks after that with literally no input because effort is being expended on newer nominations. This is a co-ordination issue, if we don't have enough people or those people we do have don't have enough time or inclination to do these promotions, the process completely stagnates. This isn't a "bash" anyone thread. It's a "what can be done to get this process moving again" thread. To attempt to claim it personalises the issue is disruptive and unwelcome. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 22:19, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Not buying "disruptive" and "unwelcome", TRM. Seriously? It's not like I've never had anything ever to do with FAC, but whatever, struck my comment. Victoria (tk) 23:04, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Well then it's curious to leap in and make a defence of something which isn't required. How odd. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 23:09, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
 * TRM, three supports (and not drive-bys) plus image/source reviews is the minimum for promotion, and it sounds pretty odd to be talking of "glacial" movements when promotions for the past three or four months are at their highest in several years. Ian Rose (talk) 23:22, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
 * By "glacial" I mean literally no feedback from FAC co-ords despite several pings (including those you have somehow missed). There's no response, for days, on certain requests.  The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 23:49, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
 * PS who said anything about "drive-bys"? Is that something you'd like to expand upon?  And I wonder why we're currently at the highest rate of FAC promotion?  Why do you think that is?  Not because of the co-ords, because most of them are absent or recusing from duty.  The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 23:53, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I cannot decipher what is meant by "currently at the highest rate of FAC promotion". Please explain: here is the data Wikipedia talk:Featured article statistics. I disagree that the pace is "glacial", and am encouraged at some of the recent trends, but if you look at every year after the 2010 copyvio led to the big downturn, I still can't come up with "highest rate of FAC promotion".  Perhaps I am missing something-- just beginning to catch up, starting at the top of the page. Given that the decision to increase from three to four Coords has already been made, this may be moot, but I still want to understand the terms here. As to the rest of the unpleasantry in this section, I hope we can find a way to discuss the very long-standing controversy over whatever terminology we are currently using for the "vital" article concept without having every discussion of that degenerate to personal insults.  That controversy has been around as long as FAC has, and it should be something that some of Wikipedia's finest editors can discuss.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  19:48, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I see 230 promotions by end of September, so projecting to end of 2021, that's 306 which is best for years. FAR is killing the overall figure of course, as FAR didn't really even exist back in 2017 when the last such number of FAC promotions took place.  Indeed, if we took this year as an example, and projecting, we'll have 169 demotions in 2021 compared to an actual 12 in 2017.  Vital articles are simply tangential to this discussion, that place is a local shop for local people.  The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 20:25, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks, I understand your point of view now. In my view, 306 may be good relative to 2017 (which was not what I consider an optimal period of FAC functioning), but not reaching the highs we had in the years after we initiated copyvio checks at the end of 2010 (which brought the numbers down), but when we also had very strict Ealdgyth source reviews along with numerous prose gurus who held writing to a high standard. That 73% promoted number is a good indicator of the 2017 trend, where the "Oppose" button went missing. I am particularly concerned if we view 2017 as a high-water mark (I think Gog mentions that somewhere later in this discussion, but I am still reading through to catch up), because I am unconvinced that many in that period were our best quality promotions. Also, 306 can only be viewed as a "good" number if we still have the stringent sourcing reviews of Ealdgyth or the prose expertise of many long-gone (deceased, retired, or chased off) editors, and since I haven't been following FAC for a good part of this year, I don't know/can't say if that is the case; we should account for quality in the quantity equation.    By the way, the dates when significant changes were made at FAC are footnoted in the % promoted column; I often read here misstatements about when what was tightened at FAC. Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  20:52, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Your concerns over this year's promotions: are you aware that makes the credibility of our current co-ords (the active ones at least) appear to be in doubt? I'm sure you're not intending to do that, but any suggestion that we're currently seeing sub-standard articles promoted sits squarely with our co-ords, after all no-one else can promote a FAC.  Are you implying that our (active) FAC co-ords are now just accepting a lower quality?  That's an important question, or at least, the answer is vitally important to understand your position here right now.  The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 21:01, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I feel fairly confident that, since the Coords know I walked in their shoes for many years, they know that I know and that we all know very well that we are at the mercy of reviewers in terms of what we are able to promote or archive. I don't have any doubt that all of them/us who served in this role understand this, hence don't take it personally. If any one of them DOES think I am making personal statements about their competence or diligence or scruples (even though I have plainly stated on this page that I have confidence in this competent team), I encourage them to say so, privately or publicly as they wish.  I know very well what it was like to sit with my hands tied because as delegate/coord I had to stay neutral, and how much I appreciated when others took up the discussion of needed issues.  When others were silent and reviews were poor, or misbehaviors needed to be addressed, there was little I could do. I considered myself quite fortunate to have a following of editors who helped in this realm; often my talk page stalkers would address queries on my talk page so that I didn't have to engage or jeopardize my neutrality. Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  21:14, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
 * No, this is simply untrue, and I wish you would take greater care in remembering my own personal experiences. I had a vast community consensus to promote one of my FACs (nine supports, when was the last time you saw that?) and yet the co-ords refused to promote.  I'm afraid historic experience is not a replacement for contemporary actuality. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 21:25, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
 * If I remember correctly, there were also one or two outstanding opposes, and it was withdrawn rather than archived. It was closed because you decided to withdraw rather than work through opposes. Hog Farm Talk 21:26, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, I withdrew with nine supports when someone said they didn't understand the use of the terms "equaliser" or "aggregate". Once plain English needs footnotes at FAC, you know it's doomed.  And you know what the irony was, nothing substantive changed, and it was promoted next time round.  Ridiculous climb-down, and that mini-drama caused by some of the FAC firmament hasn't repeated itself because I suppose the sheer ridiculousness of the situation became evident to those involved in the situation.  But you still make a valid point: co-ords were not at the mercy of reviewers, I defy anyone to find a "modern-day" FAC with nine supports (I was even asked to find a non-male reviewer for the love of God, which I DID, and they supported too....) which wasn't promoted.  My face doesn't fit, I know, and the sad fact of my 50+ FAs must grate, but nevertheless, the point that Sandy is trying to make is absolutely incorrect, co-ords just do what co-ords do, the community consensus isn't actually that important.  The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 21:35, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I disagree with pretty much every point you are making, and most significantly, suspect you don't understand why some people simply stop engaging your FACs, or alternate views on why some FACs get supports while others can't buy a review. But I understand that having a FAC archived left you very perturbed and I don't think personalizing this discussion to one situation with which an editor is very unhappy will be helpful. Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  23:09, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
 * PS, TRM, I do wish you would take greater care not to put words in my mouth that I haven't written (as occurs in the entire next section, where everything I said is misrepresented .. but which I haven't gotten to yet, and I am running out of editing time today). I did not say I am concerned about this year's promotions; I said I was concerned about 2017 promotions, and I haven't looked at whether a similar trend is happening this year. I said we can't view quantity separately from quality, and I don't know what this year's promotions look like, or if the 2017 problems are recurring. Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  21:18, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Ok, for "306 can only be viewed as a "good" number if we still have the stringent sourcing reviews of Ealdgyth or the prose expertise of many long-gone (deceased, retired, or chased off) editors" perhaps you could check this out before suggesting it as a potential issue. Indeed, I would recommend you do that before commenting further on 2021 promotions.  Co-ords can say no, and they have.  Co-ords are promoting more FACs this year than for four years.  Either that means FAC is in a good place or FACs are being badly promoted.  Let us know your thoughts on the quality of promoted FAs, and why co-ords would have promoted FACs which you wouldn't have.  The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 21:25, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I haven't said Coords have promoted FACs in 2021 that I would not have; again, please do not put words in my mouth I haven't said. If you can focus on the big picture, the issue is that quantity and quality are two different things, so while we are talking about quantity, we have to be clear that we aren't necessarily talking about quality. Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  23:11, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

Why are the number of coords limited to three? Five sounds more reasonable to me, including for more seamless succession purposes. As for the highest rate of FAC promotion, I recall recent discussions about low quality FACs being promoted, or something like that. Oh, and it’s good to see confirmation of a hidden rule, which I wasn’t aware of. Sandbh (talk) 11:17, 21 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Well, the low-quality being promoted has little to do with the coords.  It has everything to do with the submissions, most of which are repetitions on the same narrow and shallow themes.  In other words, unlike Nonmetal they are nowhere near being vital topics.  They would not in a million years make the cut on Britannica or a standard encyclopedia. The result is that vital articles are routinely delisted at FAR and insignificant ones are routinely promoted at FAC.  Maple syrup is tricking out; Aunt Jemima is gushing in. And when it can't gush fast enough, the coords get blamed.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  02:56, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Very few of the articles – of any quality – in Wikipedia would make it to standard encyclopedias...  Draco phyllum  03:40, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I've created ~35 articles, and I've heard a grand total of two of the subjects mentioned in conversation in my entire life Hog Farm Talk 03:49, 22 October 2021 (UTC) Hog Farm Talk 03:49, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, let's not confuse 'importance' with 'quality' here. Everyone's a volunteer and editors will research, write and, in some cases, take to FAC the articles that interest them. This can and does result in obscure or otherwise 'non-vital' articles coming to FAC and, if they meet the criteria in the eyes of reviewers, being promoted to FA. One of the pleasures of WP, I think, is finding detailed articles on subjects you wouldn't find in Britannica, etc. The perceived importance of such articles has nothing to do with them becoming FA, which is about assessing quality in terms of prose, sourcing, and so on, not how vital they are.  The higher number of articles being promoted in recent months is reflective of greater throughput and more reviews -- the FAC standards haven't been relaxed. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 09:23, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Pretty much every single FAC I've had promoted has been discussed in conversation with non-Wikipedians over the years. This high-handed foul snobbish attempt to belittle the efforts of some of us really has to just "go away".  The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 09:27, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
 * If it sounded like I said anything about FAC standards being relaxed, I apologize. Perhaps I should not have used "quality." I was looking for an encyclopedia version of the expression "newspaper of record," i.e. "a newspaper regarded as an authoritative and complete repository of factual information."  This is not to be interpreted literally because the coverage of the New York Times (commonly described as a newspaper of record) is not complete; the newspaper does not routinely have articles on the social life of celebrities.  But it does have some authority, and that has as much to do with the kinds of topics it reports on, i.e. the big (the vital, the important) ones. So, coming back to Wikipedia, the question is not whether the FAs within Wikipedia constitute an encyclopedia of record because by your own admission they don't, but whether they are together (if for a minute we grant them purposefulness) even half-heartedly aiming to constitute one. I know there are explanations for everything but the fact still remains that in any month of any recent year, the articles lined up at WP:FAR and those at WP:FAC are very different kettles of fish. I know too that I keep repeating this once a year, but it still bears pondering.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  14:07, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Yet again, shaming editors for what they spend their spare time writing won't get you anywhere, instead, go and write some articles yourself. FunkMonk (talk) 15:28, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't think the user realises how downright offensive they're being. Or perhaps they do.  The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 17:22, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

I have a sneaking feeling that if there were only one page for both FAR and FAC (with different coordinators, of course) and if FAR was listed first and FAC second, the problems we are discussing would resolve by themselves. It is just a matter of the layout. Why would people object to this on a trial basis, say for one year? Fowler&amp;fowler «Talk»  14:36, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
 * There was an analysis of this problem last year, which you can find here. There have been other discussions about this, but I can't find them at the moment. If my memory is correct, one of the reasons FAR is still here is to be a warning to FAC. If FAR is not transcluding, then the FAC is backlogged and if it continues, the oldest nomination will be the next to fail to transclude on the page. WP:FAR already has its own page, and I don't think it would be helpful to FAC to put FARs at the top on the FAC page. Z1720 (talk) 15:23, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
 * See this discussion about when & why FARs were transcluded to the FAC page. Personally I don't think it's necessary anymore. Victoria (tk) 16:11, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I have been looking for that discussion but I didn't realise it was so long ago. It probably isn't needed anymore and, at least for me, the transclusion is causing problems particularly with the page loading time. The nominations viewer, stopped working for me a long time ago because of the FAR at the bottom, and I had to uninstall the gadget. Graham Beards (talk) 16:23, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree; I rarely participate in FARs and would be fine with removing it again. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:26, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
 * It's easier to search in the FAR archives, so it didn't take too long. I'm on a roll today: the discussion I've wanted to find for the longest time seems to be this, explaining how templates expand in transcluded pages. That probably has something to do with our load problems too. Definitely agree with you and Mike below, that we don't need FAR on this page anymore. Victoria (tk) 22:44, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Yep. Naturally I can't find it in archives when I want to but the last time FAR stopped transcluding I also suggested that perhaps it was time to just drop it -- not out of pragmatism particularly but because FAR is really ticking along anyway, and has been for some time. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:33, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * It was only meant to be temporary. The FAC page's loading is a problem and probably puts potential participants off.Graham Beards (talk) 14:59, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * ,, you're both active at FAR; do you think it would be OK to stop transcluding the FAR page here? Also pinging the three FAR coordinators, , , and . Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 15:07, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * FAR editors discussed this in March here. I think there are some good ideas in that discussion. Z1720 (talk) 15:13, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Amazing. The usual forest for the trees problem at FAC.  I wasn't talking about the nuts and bolts of it.  The point is that if FARs were listed first and the FACs next, it would be sending out a message that WP considers saving what vital FAs it already has (from being delisted) as important as promoting the generally not-so-vital new articles it is commonly tasked with. I am suggesting that the wind behind the sails—the motivations people feel—for engaging in the two enterprises might be redistributed, with no hint of penalties or warnings.  The FARs will need to have an equal reward system if they don't already.  Both reviews—FAR and FAC—affect the pool of featured articles.  They should really be on the same page with first recognition accorded to articles that are already in that pool.   Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  17:03, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
 * PS Indeed I didn't even know (or had forgotten) that FARs were listed on the FAC page (which I now realize they are as an afterthought of sorts).
 * FAC is here for all articles. Period. Can you drop this "vital article" demarcation.Graham Beards (talk) 14:59, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * If all the articles submitted at FAC for four years were biographies of males in the Anglosphere that at full height stand just inches above the low bar of consequentiality—figuratively speaking, that is—would there be no disquiet? Eight years? 12? We can't proclaim "All articles are created equal," but overlook that Orwellian reality, "some are created more equal."  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  15:54, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * By all means encourage more diversity in FAC nominations -- I'm sure every current nominator would be delighted to see it. But unless you think we should actively exclude some of the currently nominated articles, that encouragement needs to be directed to people not currently nominating, which means this page isn't a very effective place to make that happen. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 15:59, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * The problem is only in the imagination of an editor who is an expert at rubbing people up the wrong way.Graham Beards (talk) 16:08, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * No disrespect, Mike, but that has been a common response for two hundred years (at least in the US) in most matters of equity.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  16:20, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * PS (Equity = a system of law based on general principles of justice that stands side-by-side with common law, but has precedence when there is a conflict.) Almost all the major changes in America, women's suffrage, the repeal of separate but equal, belong to that realm. The results on FAC are in plain view, the proof in the eating (i.e. of the pudding). Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  16:21, 23 October 2021 (UTC)  PPS On the other hand, British Empire has recently been delisted at FAR; Globular cluster, James Joyce, and Chinua Achebe are hanging in the balance.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  16:43, 23 October 2021 (UTC) PPS It bears repeating too that this is in no way criticism of the coordinators at FAR.  Casliber who closed British Empire had no choice but to delist.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  16:51, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Your comments would apply to a situation where there are resources that can be centrally directed, but here that's not the case. Volunteers will rarely bring to FAC articles they are not interested in. I've done it a couple of times to help out inexperienced nominators, and others have too, but that's about the limit.
 * F&f, I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve with these comments. Are you really trying to convince the readers of this page to change what articles they bring to FAC? If so, I'll stop engaging with you. Are you arguing that it's a pity that FAs are not more diverse? If so, nobody has disagreed with you. Or do you have some specific ideas as to what to do about it? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:58, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Of course not, Mike. I am suggesting, instead, that the FAC and FAR candidates be listed on one page with FARs listed first. I'm sure there is enough brainpower on Wikipedia for overcoming the software and hardware issues involved. It is as simple as that. This does not involve any major central direction.  What is the problem with trying it for a year?  That one page would be a simple uncluttered page with two links: WP:FAR (first line) and WP:FAC second line, and a short paragraph explaining the differences.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  17:13, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * PS We could even start by listing the link WP:FAR above WP:FAC on WP:FA. Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  17:26, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * It's a stupid idea; to have a FAC page where the candidates are listed several pages down! Graham Beards (talk) 18:23, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * It's a stupid idea, from a user who has routinely offended others around here. Time we started shutting down the ability for such users to create this level of toxicity.  The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 21:40, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, the transclusion was a temporary measure because FAR wasn't getting as much participation as was desired. FAR seems busier today than then.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:55, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I have resolved the non-transclusion with this edit. DrKay (talk) 17:55, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I guess I am content with listing of FAR pages at bottom still. Not hugely fussed either way. It is more active now, which is great. As far as herding cats directing editors to write anything than what they're interested in, then the only idea I had really was the Core Contest (which I think has been pretty good at that). I am unhappy with any claims of what is "vital"/"core"?"should be in an encyclopedia" etc. as one can always find a counterpoint. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:17, 23 October 2021 (UTC)


 * As an afterthought, I spent ten minutes reading this page that I'd rather have been doing something else - can we please get back on track and answer the original question either way. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 22:03, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Amen. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 22:11, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Quite. And on that point, I'm happy with the FAC coords (who I have found to be quite responsive to my pings, and I generally have a stake in one or two FACs at any given time) to make inquiries with editors they think might fit the bill, and bring them forward to the community. At this stage, I think another coord would be good, and would build in reserve capacity so if RW stuff piles up on one, there is someone to take up the slack. Cheers, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 22:40, 23 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you DrKay. From the unclaimed luggage compartment to the back of the bus with clear windows.  It is a good first step. I mean that sincerely. The Rosa Parks moment will come, eventually.  Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  12:57, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree for now with keeping the FAR transclusion, because we are still in the position of having three-fourths of the older FAs unreviewed, and many of those flagged as having deficiencies. The value of the bronze star is only as good as the weakest link, and we have too many non-FA FAs, and that contributes to bad impressions of the overall value. The page is now loading fine for me (and I am one who always has load time issues).  Problems with the page stalling can be resolved if/as they appear.  I believe there would be less problems if more reviewers made more use of article talk pages, and by assuring that ill-prepared FACs are archived as soon as feasible.  An alternative approach to addressing the older out-of-compliance FAs was discussed over a year ago, when I proposed a vote-style sweep, and that was rejected, so we seem to have little option but to keep trudging through them via WP:URFA/2020-- an effort that has led to a number of good things happening at FAR, and worthwhile on that score in terms of building the skillset for writing FAs.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  19:56, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals). &#123;{u&#124; Dege31 (talk) 23:29, 23 October 2021 (UTC)

Potential new coordinators
Greetings to you all. As has been mentioned elsewhere, Ealdgyth told Ian and I some time ago that they wished to step back from FAC coordination duties. I would like to pause here to express heartfelt thanks for their efforts in this role. The time and effort they have put into keeping the FAC process going has been remarkable and I hope that it is appreciated by all who have been involved in FAC over the past few years.

Ian and I have also noted the more recent suggestion, backed by a number of editors, that it may be helpful to increase the number of coordinators. Given that this would, as has been pointed out, provide cover for future coordinator retirements and, in particular, given the increase in the throughput of FACs, we are inclined to agree.

Therefore we would like to propose that and  become coordinators to replace Ealdgyth, and increase the team to four coordinators.

Both Buidhe and Hog Farm are experienced FAC nominators and reviewers and both have wide experience of the processes around articles at this level and of the standard required for featured articles. Ian and I commend both of them to you and look forward to seeing the views of the community. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gog the Mild (talk • contribs) 08:29, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Two very experienced writers and reviewers of high quality articles, I would Support both of them.  Draco phyllum  08:34, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Looks fine to me. Good luck to them! Cheers &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 08:38, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Hog Farm is a workhorse who will bring a lot of energy and whose judgement I fully trust. Ceoil (talk) 08:52, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Also support Buidhe. I have had differences of opinion with them over the years, but not major and know they are respected so if they want to share the load with the current co-ords, more power to them. Ceoil (talk) 08:57, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I fully support this. My thanks to and  for agreeing to take on the work. Graham Beards (talk) 09:17, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Support. Oppose Buidhe Support Hog Farm. Any potential FAC coordinator who posts: "My first FAC failed… You can figure out how the FAC criteria are applied and make sure your next nomination meets the requirements" is a potential coordinator who supports what I feel is a "trial by ambush" approach to navigating the FAC process, which I cannot countenance. Otherwise I have no hard feelings towards Buidhe. Sandbh (talk) 23:20, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Both are good peoples at FAC, fully support both. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:48, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Support, both will make good coordinators. Hope that we will continue to see their reviews. Femke (talk) 09:54, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Its a fantastic plan to have four coords (I'd be fine with more as it happens). Both candidates are clearly suitable, although I do worry about promoting two of our major contributers and nominators if that will effect their output. Best Wishes,  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 10:11, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Lee, my output will likely go down for a little while, but it's because I've burned through my pile of "ready" articles, not because of this. Hog Farm Talk 14:55, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Certainly not a dig, I just wouldn't want to lose the quality work because of the promotion Best Wishes,  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 12:35, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I became a coordinator 11 months ago. Using Mike's wonderful stats, in 2020 I averaged reviewing 9 times per month (2019 was 7) and had 1.17 promotions a month (2019 was 1.33). To the end of September 2021 I have averaged 8.4 reviews a month and 1.22 promotions. So neither have really changed since I became a coordinator. There are various caveats, and extrapolating from a sample of one is a mug's game, but I found the hard date interesting. Especially given the widespread doubts about my output re both reviewing and nominating inevitably falling off during my counterpart to this discussion. Gog the Mild (talk) 12:52, 25 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Support both. Excellent choices. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 10:29, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Definitely Support both Buidhe and Hog Farm, subject to the condition that they both accept these duties, which I am sure they will! Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 10:57, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Support both, very suitable choices. RetiredDuke (talk) 15:01, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Support both. No brainer. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 15:02, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Support both - already doing a lot of tasks around FAC. And thanks to Ealdgyth, of course. FunkMonk (talk) 15:05, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Support Hog Farm, Oppose Buidhe Sorry! Nothing against an increase to 4, but a) Buidhe does large numbers of image reviews, and b) they have continued, in their image reviews, to present their personal (somewhat extreme) views on aspects of image use as policy, either implicitly or explicitly. Johnbod (talk) 15:12, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * FYI, Buidhe is a woman. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:04, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Ok, but I'm supposed to know that? There's no pronoun indication on their user page. Johnbod (talk) 22:00, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Hovering over their name reveals pronouns for those who opt in, she has opted in, so you see she/her. I'm not saying assuming an editor is male isn't fair given our demographics, but the info is accessible. Iazyges   Consermonor   Opus meum  22:09, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Just noting that if a coord reviews an article and opposes, they need to recuse, leaving it to the other coords to judge consensus to promote. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 21:28, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * That isn't really the problem! Johnbod (talk) 22:00, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * , are you able to elaborate on what it is you don't like about Buidhe's image reviews? I have usually found them to be quite sensible in the FACs where I've encountered them. Cheers &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 22:17, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I have objected to a number of them (not involving me other than as a reviewer), but I can't remember which offhand. Does anyone else recall, or know how to use the tool for this? Unfortunately, no doubt because of the transclusions, the normal contributions tools only catch one's own nominations being added. Essentially Buidhe has extreme views about the number of images that should be included, and how directly "relevant" they have to be, but, worse, presents these views as policy, sometimes with downright misleading links to image policies that don't at all say what is claimed.  In the context of an FAC image review, this made-up policy tends to be accepted.  Johnbod (talk) 22:25, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Here is a list of articles I was able to find with an image review by Buidhe and also comments from Johnbod. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:49, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Ok, thanks - so clever! Relevant ones: There have been other reviews I have seen but not edited, & I think disagreements over such issues on article talk. The Inuit clothing is the best one to see the issues. Johnbod (talk) 23:26, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Featured article candidates/George Vincent (painter)/archive1 - B says "Normally galleries are discouraged" (and overlooks other image issues covered in my review)
 * Featured article candidates/Inuit clothing/archive1 - B opposed (the article still passed) as: "I'm concerned that the image licensing is not compliant with Wikipedia copyright policy in all cases and that images are being used without demonstrated encyclopedic relevance and connection to the article text. As stated in WP:IMGCONTENT, "The relevant aspect of the image should be clear and central." With each image I should be able to connect it to some aspect discussed in the article. A curated image gallery that's not directly connected to the text can be moved to Commons and linked as an external link." Had also said "Sticking a bunch of images at the bottom of an article in a section titled "Gallery" is the worst way to do images in a Wikipedia article. If you MUST have galleries, they should be split up and placed in the article sections where they are relevant. For example, if you feel you absolutely must have three images to illustrate caribou clothing, put a gallery of three images in that specific section." and "MOS says that images should be placed in the section where they are relevant. If there isn't a relevant section with text closely related to the image, then it shouldn't be there at all". Apart from me, at least two other editors object (May 2021).  I query the specific policy claims with B, who does not respond.
 * Featured article candidates/The Great Gatsby/archive2 - image review comments include "...now you risk giving undue weight to the cover art in the article with a lengthy discussion. One possible solution would be splitting to The Great Gatsby cover art and putting the fair use image(s) there." - not a very appropriate comment in an image review to my mind, or a sensible one. By the time I review, the nominator has won this argument.
 * The crux of the disagreemnt seems to be from 1 disagreement over the interpretation of WP:Gallery and of another where template-generated images are considered "images". Iazyges   Consermonor   Opus meum  23:06, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * ?? Much over-simplified. Galleries yes, but other stuff. The main issue might be summarized by B's " "MOS says that images should be placed in the section where they are relevant. If there isn't a relevant section with text closely related to the image, then it shouldn't be there at all" - MOS says the first bit, but nothing like as emphatically as B implies, but the 2nd bit is not in MOS at all, though the wording clearly implies it is. Your "where template-generated images are considered "images"" rings no bells - I just looked at that one & won't look again. Johnbod (talk) 23:26, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Oh, well, I did look again, and whatever "where template-generated images are considered "images"" is supposed to mean, there wasn't any dispute over that. In fact this FAC didn't contain any disagreement between B & me - I opposed until the nominator added some images - it had none when nominated - or pursuaded me that was impossible. In fact some were found and added. Johnbod (talk) 23:40, 24 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Support both. I don't know why this discussion wasn't initiated months ago. Heartfox (talk) 15:39, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * It was initiated in November 2020, see this archive. But after it was pretty much terminated by one of the "regulars", it got nowhere.  Nice to see common sense prevailing here at last. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 15:55, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Support both. I look forward to their pings when I forget to finish my reviews. Can both confirm that they accept this nomination? Z1720 (talk) 15:40, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Support No brainer. Iazyges   Consermonor   Opus meum  16:05, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Support I trust Gog and Ian Rose's ability to assess people with the temperament and attention to detail to allow things to run smoothly. As they are in favor, and my own limited experience with both nominees and the FA process has been a net positive I support the candidates they propose to assist them, as long as both candidates are willing. SusunW (talk) 16:14, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Support, both editors from whom I've seen useful advice and reviews on various areas of the wiki, along with quality content building of their own. CMD (talk) 16:22, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Support, both are among the best reviewers I know. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:05, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Support, having seen great contributions from both. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 18:46, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Support I wish them well, but if they find their voyage is soon bound in shallows and miseries and the ship runs aground again, I hope they won't blame themselves. Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  18:52, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Support, but I wouldn't replace Ealdgyth -- Guerillero Parlez Moi 19:32, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Ealdgyth is resigning coord duties of her own accord. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 21:28, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Support both editors as scrupulous, firm and fair, and more astute than me. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:50, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Support both. Take some of the load off Ian and Gog. Dudley Miles (talk) 21:12, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Support Absolutely, from my trust in Gog and Ian, and the love and respect I have for Hog and Buidhe. – ♠Vami _IV†♠  21:31, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Support: I trust both Gog and Ian and respect their opinions. Buidhe and Hog Farm seem like solid choices and I greatly appreciate that they are willing to take on these responsibilities and to help out. Aoba47 (talk) 22:27, 24 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Support Both of these editors are well placed to take on coordinator duties. I'd like to see another female coordinator though: a five-person coord team would provide good coverage for the workload, and given that one of Wikipedia's biggest problems is the under-representation of topics and issues relating to women in articles at all levels of quality, gender diversity is essential. Nick-D (talk) 00:27, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Support both. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:22, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * A most heartfelt and hearty thanks to Ealdgyth for her valued service and willingness to dig in when the going gets rough. She has been and will be sorely missed.  Hog Farm will make an excellent and diligent FAC coordinator, with an abundance of evidence of conscientious hard work and solid skills at building review processes, as FAC sorely needs.  Buidhe is qualified as well. I continue to disagree that four coords is a move in the right direction or the best way to address what ails FAC.  Nonetheless, I have confidence that this team will work towards correcting some of the longstanding issues that are causing the decreased throughput.  Good luck to all !  Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  04:54, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * PS, I should again reiterate what I’ve said before: FAC needs to maintain diversity and I believe all four Coords are now mostly MilHist focused, which is not good for the prcoess overall; please try to keep things like this in mind for future Coord nominations. Laser, Graham, Karanacs, Ealdgyth, Sarastro, Ucucha and me … all had different areas of editing than MilHist.  FAC is increasingly becoming an extension of MilHist, so the rubber stamp concern I expressed on several MilHist FACs that were passing before I opposed should be kept in mind.  And the absence of art, music, medicine, literature, biology … the breadth and depth we once had in FAC Coords :(. Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  05:43, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Despite supporting, this is something which I agree with. Both the current coordinators, and the two proposed coordinators are very fairly active at MilHist, but that shouldn't be a major issue, as they have a good record of reviewing FACs. Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 05:48, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Perhaps a bit of army discipline is what FAC needs? It's not my impression that any of the people in question automatically support articles just for being military related, quite the opposite. FunkMonk (talk) 08:14, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I've seen literally no indication whatsoever that having "MILHIST people" doing this job has caused any issues at all. Frankly, I think we're lucky to have such accomplished individuals prepared to do the job.  The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 08:23, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * FunkMonk, neither is that my impression, but it is unfortunate that we are losing the diversity of people who know what sorts of issues to look for in other kinds of articles. Sandy Georgia (Talk)  09:06, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Agree with TRM. I see no issue with Milhist members being FAC coords (but I would say that, wouldn't I...). Frankly, I think that due to their familiarity with Milhist subjects, Ian and Gog are more likely to see issues when they are closing or assessing consensus than a coord with no subject area expertise, and therefore they can often expect additional input and action before closing. I certainly have never thought I have had an easy run through any FAC because a coord was a Milhist member. Selection of coords should be about their temperament, knowledge, skills and suitability for the role, not what projects they might be part of. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 09:08, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Indeed. In fact, Gog (for example) has often gone in search of diverse reviewers to ensure that articles are given a proper rounded review.  The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 09:13, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I guess that the point I, and maybe SandyGeorgia are trying to make here is not that we are loosing anything because of Milhist members, nor have they in any way, shape, or form have caused any issues. They are great, and the two proposed coordinators are definitely experienced, that's why I have supported them. Just saying that a bit diversity in the team costs no harm. Rest, first 4 of the 5 American presidents were from Virginia, which caused no issues. Kavyansh.Singh (talk) 09:22, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * @Peacemaker67, yes, this is quite a competent crew, and I have faith in all of them. They are all diligent, knowledgeable, competent, and most importantly, thoughtful in their interactions with everyone. But I still believe we should keep an eye towards diversity in future nominations, as we had in the past. Easier said than done, as not everyone is willing or has the time … but something to keep in mind.Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  09:25, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I saw this discussion on my watchlist and a bit perplexed about the arguments made here when diversity is suggested to be an important consideration. Diversity is a quality quite separate from competence or fairness or ability. Lack of it can't be countered with arguments that these other qualities are present. Just compare to arguments about board rooms being full of white men. You don't win that argument by saying they are really clever white men, or that they have black friends or wives, or that they aren't themselves racist or sexist so that's ok then. As noted, fixing that isn't easy if the pool of talent lacks diversity, and we're all volunteers, etc, etc. I think raising this concern is healthy and maybe deserves some consideration as to why other topic areas are lacking. -- Colin°Talk 10:25, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, but isn't diversity in our pool of reviewers more important? -Graham Beards (talk) 10:46, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Indeed. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 10:58, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Are you suggesting that making them coords removes them from the pool of reviewers (to a degree) so makes the reviewers more diverse? That's a bit like our government boasting that average wages have gone up, when part of the reason is that people in low wages have lost their jobs and aren't counted any more. Looking at the wiki project pages, I see MilHist has 1340 in scope and Medicine claims 62. I know this could be entirely due to good things about MilHist and they certainly aren't to blame for Medicine's woes, but it should generally be uncomfortable if a dominant group also has all the people in "power". -- Colin°Talk 12:59, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I doubt that is the argument being made. More that whatever capacity they might have as co-ords is kinda irrelevant to the actual reviewing of the article. Unless they show a bias towards these topics this isn't really an issue. The issue would be if there were articles being promoted only by subject matter experts. Best Wishes,  Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 13:43, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * No, I was saying that a more diverse pool of reviewers is more important, meaning that we should encourage more reviewers from diverse backgrounds. I wasn't saying anything about our coords.-Graham Beards (talk) 13:49, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Graham, by "diverse backgrounds" do you mean things like sex, ethnic origin, country lived in, disability status, class etc? Gog the Mild (talk) 14:10, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Not really, I meant more scientists to be honest. Graham Beards (talk) 14:31, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I interpreted your "but isn't .. more important" as influencing an either/or decision. If not, then it is independent and the importance of diversity in reviewers is unrelated to the importance of diversity in coordinators. I think it is an important consideration as we aren't voting on a FAC bot. -- Colin°Talk 20:12, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * My concerns come from a different point of view than what I think the direction of this discussion has taken; that is, unrelated to (perceptions of) power or number of reviews and more related to how the overall FA process optimally would/did function. (See Wikipedia talk:Featured article statistics.) To maintain, or restore, the once-held notion that FAs represented Wikipedia’s top quality— and was something worthy of the work to attain—requires vigilance, mentorship, communication, outreach, trend and stats tracking, consideration of all processes working towards the same goals (FAC, FAR, TFA) … constant awareness of the issues that impact editor views of FAs, TFAs, and attention towards improvement. We have seen Gog make efforts in this direction, and know that Hog Farm has the awareness and ability in this direction through his outreach work at WP:URFA/2020. Separately, Mike Christie has, for years, taken over doing some production of stats, and while his work and numbers are immensely helpful and useful, there is still not the same kind of stat tracking that was done in the past. And when stats are viewed, discussions of issues are quickly sidelined and personalized (it would certainly be helpful if participants here would attempt to get that to stop), and there is no place where the buck stops, as we no longer have someone overseeing the entire process.  Using but one example we’ve discussed many times elsewhere, the kinds of things MILHIST does well in terms of building the Wikiproject and furthering content review processes are things that the Medicine project once emphasized and also did well.  Those of us active in the Medicine project know the issues that led (and continue to lead) to the decline of medical FAs (both in terms of FAC and needed FARs), but we can’t claim those issues are the same across other content areas.  For that knowledge, it is likely to be helpful to have editors in leadership from those other areas, as those editors are more likely to be connected to editors from their content area who DON’T frequent FAC.  If we’re getting lower and lower participation from some areas, how well do we know what issues are impacting those areas?  I knew what was affecting medicine, so I wrote User:SandyGeorgia/Achieving excellence through featured content, which I thought was making a difference, until … well, I digress … but the FA process overall has not been a welcoming place for medical content.  But using the medicine example, I just feel it important to maintain broader communication outside of FAC, and I haven’t seen that happening for a decade now.  Ten or fifteen years ago, there were multiple other content areas that had strong participation in FAC; it has increasingly seen declines in participation from areas in addition to Medicine.  This 2020 data shows which content areas have declined over time.  By so noticeably creating the appearance that FAC is an extension of MILHIST (what was once one out of three Delegates has now become four out of four Coords), is the opportunity for outreach, communication, and knowledge about perceptions of— or skills needed to participate in— the FA process held outside of the MILHIST community being missed ?  Regardless of the competence of these participants, and even if they do excellent work, what do we risk missing if FAC is perceived as the domain of few rather than something that should serve as an example for all content areas?   An important part of  (the featured content dispatch workshop) when Raul654, Karanacs and I initiated and ran it was to fuel content review processes and encourage participation by disseminating information to the entire community about all aspects of the path to TFA.  We have nothing of the sort anymore, and the FA process risks becoming a walled garden … the effect of which is seen not only in declining submissions, declining reviews, neglected and dated FAs, but increasingly lower pageviews at TFA.  My view is that a dynamic FA process is not only about how many reviewers any FAC has, but how the overall process is being furthered, and diversity in input and leadership is an important factor in community outreach and hopefully participation.  The MILHIST experience is so different (in good ways) from the more typical WikiProjects and other content areas, that I worry about what we are missing (or risk missing in the future if this trend continues). I am concerned less about losing Laser’s music/culture expertise, Ealdgyth’s history expertise, Karanacs’ literature expertise, Graham/Sandy medicine expertise, Ucucha biology etcetera in reviews … than I am about (actual or perceived) losing representation of broader communities outside of FAC while replacing them exclusively with Coords from an area that does not have the same problems necessarily as other areas. I believe FAC Coords are more than reviewers-plus; they are leaders who should be tracking trends and initiating discussions about improvements as needed. This ties in to my concern that increasing the number of Coords does not necesssarily address the issues in the overall FA process; I’d feel better if someone had a platform for improving FAC that included community outreach akin to the Featured Content Dispatches. Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  14:33, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I appreciate your comments Sandy but I don't consider myself milhist-focused. I don't write about tanks, weapons, battles, etc. The stuff I write about is only peripherally milhist-related, not really much more so than Ealdgyth's contributions in my opinion. In future I want to write more articles like Greek case with no milhist relevance at all. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  22:08, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * , thanks for clarifying this; just want to acknowledge that I "got it" and am reassured! Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  20:08, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I'm interested in the data at Wikipedia talk:Featured article statistics. It shows just two areas which have got smaller, and all others have stayed the same or become drastically improved.  Do we have a corresponding table for the number of active editors at FAC during the same period of time?  It's astonishingly good how many areas have flourished over time, and even those which are static are still seeing candidates getting passed.  I think we've seen a recent substantial improvement in nomination numbers, and much more visibility of FAC than we've had for years.  The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 14:46, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep in mind that the areas that are above average, with the exception of MILHIST, typically represent individual/single editor efforts—part of my concern, as those areas don’t all reflect global/broad participation— and that in addition to those that have gotten smaller, many other areas are below average in growth (declining pool of FAs). Off for the day … Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  14:50, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Sandy, are those numbers just pulled from the WP:FA listing? If so, I'd like to run an update at some point.  I know heraldry/vexillology/awards has been hit very hard by FAR lately. Hog Farm Talk 14:55, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes … an update could be challenging because people have fiddled with the categories … thanks for doing that … the WP:FAS page once had a very active talk page. Sorry for all typos, in a hurry as usual …. Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  15:06, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * In process. I hope to finish this off tonight. Hog Farm Talk 16:36, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * PS, along with Graham (“I meant more scientists to be honest”), I would feel more encouraged if we could bring in a science, literature, or art/music Coord … and someone who professed an outreach goal and demonstrated proficiency in same. Just a suggestion to be aware of next time … Sandy Georgia (Talk)  15:15, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I was unaware that co-ords did outreach if I'm honest. I thought their role was to assess nominations against the criteria and the community consensus.  The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 16:04, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I have always worked off the job description at the top of the FAC page. "The FAC coordinators ... determine the timing of the process for each nomination. ... the coordinators determine whether there is consensus. A nomination will be removed from the list and archived if, in the judgment of the coordinators: ... None of the nominators may nominate or co-nominate any article for two weeks unless given leave to do so by a coordinator; if such an article is nominated without asking for leave, a coordinator will decide whether to remove it. A coordinator may exempt from this restriction an archived nomination that attracted no (or minimal) feedback." I imagine that this is what Buidhe and Hog Farm think they have volunteered for. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:11, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Indeed, and isn't it possible for anyone to perform "outreach" for FAC? I don't think being a co-ordinator makes someone more or less qualified to get more people involved, that seems like a logical fallacy to me. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 16:21, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I typed this up yesterday when catching up but somehow it didn't get posted. I have always worked off the job description at the top of the FAC page… I imagine that this is what Buidhe and Hog Farm think they have volunteered for., your actions speak louder than words, and your actions have always shown the qualities that I mention in my posts above, so I am not buying that you are the kind of person who performs at anything like the “bare minimum” that is what any job description describes. You have frequently done precisely the sorts of things I am talking about—reaching out to reviewers and nominators alike, being an encouraging voice and often a mentor,  being willing to review in areas outside of your own expertise … well, and much more.  Very few editors have been named an FA process (FAC, FAR, TFA) delegate or coordinator without showing the sort of initiative and conscientious consideration of others that typifies good leaders, and both Hog Farm and Buidhe have shown same, so I suspect we may be in violent agreement even if I don’t make my case well.  You aren’t people who are “phoning it in”, doing the bare minimum, simply fulfilling a job description; you are people who think about the processes and, hopefully, observe trends and think of ways to initiate discussions when you see trends that should be discussed.  That’s not going outside of your “job”; that’s just doing your job well, particularly since few reviewers see each and every FAC and can absorb all of the issues to the extent that Coords can because they read through all of them daily.  And it’s not necessary for Coords to do the actual work; there are plenty of people willing to step up when needs and issues are identified.  In other words, good leaders are also good delegators.  I don’t see anything in the way you have operated as a Coord at odds with any of this.  I don't think of you as someone merely fulfilling a basic "job description", and don't think Buidhe or Hog Farm would have the support they do if we thought of them as that kind of editor. Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  23:28, 28 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Also, Sandy asserted "... declining submissions, declining reviews, neglected and dated FAs, but increasingly lower pageviews at TFA ..." but we appear to have more submissions than ever before (is the "outreach" needed??), certainly more promotions in the last few months than in years, and is that a problem? Is it because co-ordinators are promoting sub-standard FAs?  Is that what's being said?  "Lower" pageviews at TFA?  Can someone point me to pageviews of the main page in general?  No-one will click on TFA unless they click to the main page.  I seemed to recall back in the day the main page was up at around 16 millions hits per day, but Wikishark seems to think we're currently trundling around the 6 to 3 million mark.  I don't really follow most of what's being claimed above.  Can we get some statistics to back up these assertions?  The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 20:24, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I believe the main page is running at 2–2.5 mn views per day. The TFAs seem to collect a decent proportion of these as click throughs. As both an FAC coordinator and a TFA scheduler, can I point out that FAC does not exist in order to service TFA. Wearing my FAC hat, I don't much care about TFA and don't see why I should. (I have a Chinese wall through the middle of my head.) Gog the Mild (talk) 23:17, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Well that would imply that main page views have collapsed so views at TFA would naturally echo that. And as for TFA itself, I asked a couple of times a few months back what the purpose of TFA was, like a mission statement (which seems to exist for most other parts of the main page) and no-one could answer that question.  Curiously. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 08:23, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Putting this bit of history here (and will discuss the data on TFA numbers and review numbers all in one post later, where more of the data is posted). While the role of and connections between FAC, FAR and TFA have evolved over time, it can be helpful to be aware of the history to be able to understand the present. History of the Featured article process and initiation of the TFA slot on the mainpage. Well respected FA writers have indicated that the motivation to produce an FA so it can run on the mainpage has declined over time, as less and less readers click through to the TFA.  If that is the case, it affects FAC throughput.  Every time an FA is incorrectly targeted at WP:ERRORS, that can demotivate FA writers. Since there have been discussions in the past about removing or minimizing TFA, I hope we do pay attention to its role, particularly as it relates to the sub-standard FAs we are trying to process via WP:URFA/2020.  The processes are related. And I think schedulers acknowledge that each time they reach out to FAR regulars to make sure articles are up to snuff. Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  20:25, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
 * And a lot of us completely disrespected and often abjectly humiliated FA writers think the opposite, and not because of pageviews, that's a DYK proclivity, but some of us peons are just writing "good" (YMMV) articles about things we are interested in. This has literally nothing to do with main page exposure (i.e. vandalism magnet).  And forget the history links, what is TFA's role today?  We know that a number of FA contributors aren't interested in TFA at all.  We know main page clicks are down so therefore TFA clicks are down (still waiting on stats to prove that TFA clicks are more down in proportion, not forthcoming).  But I'm still unclear as to the mission statement for TFA.  But I tried asking even one of the co-ordinators and he couldn't tell me.  It's amazing.  The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 20:37, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
 * 'Ya know, we don't all have to agree about everything; respectful discussion can still be instructive. And I suspect there are as many different motivating factors as there are editors and articles, and my overall concern that we work towards representing a broad segment of content areas is that we keep ourselves in a position to recognize that Medicine is not Literature is not MilHist is not Music ... and so on.  Some areas are thriving, but many are not.  It happens that my editing area (Medicine) is not, and I think that's sad, since I know very well what factors have caused the lack of FA interest among many medical editors. I don't think we have to view these discussions as adversarial, rather informative. Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  21:01, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't think a single soul here is disagreeing with you. There are outstanding issues though, such as what is the purpose of TFA today?  How does Wikipedia (not FAC, or any other sub-process for that matter) attract more diverse individuals?  How can anyone make FAR more appealing, especially when trying to salvage work principally contributed by former editors?  FAC has acute issues (as witnessed over the last two years, and which you described as me "fanning the flames") which come and go, and those are most likely at the heart of any disinterest by the community.  Ironically, I imagine without WikiCup, FAC would have been a dead duck this year, but then again there's always that body of users who just cry out in pain every time a sports FAC is promoted.  The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 21:14, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I am going to run out of steam soon, and will have to resume later :) I don't know what the purpose of TFA is today; I have some idea of what it is not, but as I may have made clear, I believe it is part of the responsibility of those who "lead" the FA process to make sure we initiate and maintain civil discussions of these matters, so we CAN figure out such issues. I have found TFA to be such a disagreeable experience that I am less apt to engage those particular discussions. One of the ways I believe FAC can attract more editors is first to understand what the issues are that are keeping editors from some areas away.  I can speak to Medicine; I can't speak to other areas so much.  This is the root of my concern that we maintain a group of Coords with different editing interests, so that we are more likely to be more aware of what is happening in content areas that are less productive/organized than MilHist, which stands in a class by itself.FAR has already become more appealing; just look at the numbers.  Not only has it started doing its job; it has resulted in some very good synergies and editing relationships being developed, along with a skill set that has flowed over to FAC.  How did that happen?  A few people took initiative, took leadership, and Just Did It (after a lot of discussion and declined proposals of alternatives).  Simply putting up WP:FARGIVEN and WP:URFA/2020 was all it took to get FAR going again.  Of course, as all of Wikipedia, there are still wrinkles to be worked out, but I think the experience for most of the "regulars" there is similar to what it was before 2010-- where we worked together with a common mission to save as many stars as we could, while getting the deficient off the books.   Re, WikiCup and other issues around the "Vital" article (I have issues with that term, but I think we understand sort of what they think they intend in spite of poor execution), you and I disagree, and I think you know my views so I don't see that dwelling on or repeating my views will be helpful. What matters is that when I was delegate (Coord), I promoted articles based on consensus, whether I agreed or disagreed, and I have always been willing to impartially review any kind of article ... whether that meant "short" articles when those were the huge controversy, or hurricane/video game articles back when those were viewed as problematic, and that is my stance today as well.  I wish we saw more of different kinds of articles, but that doesn't stop me from impartially reviewing any article against the criteria.  The only thing I typically won't review is an ultra-long article, because I am strongly opposed to them, and I can't review them without that entering the equation.   Anyway, I think there is plenty that the FA community can do to reinstate the vigor and reputation of the FA process, and I also think FAR has shown the way.  And now I'm am pooped ... I have not finished on the numbers below, and will try to resume later. Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  21:36, 27 October 2021 (UTC)


 * I hope this next period will be the last hurrah of something, that at least no one afterward will say, "We didn't give staying busy a try." I'd like to thank Ealdgyth both for her brilliance and her folksy humor. Fowler&amp;fowler  «Talk»  17:39, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Support. Thanks to Ealdgyth for her work here. Victoria (tk) 21:07, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Support I was hesitant to get involved in the above conversations, as they are basically slightly altered variants of the same conversations that happen every few months, but I am happy to see a more actionable thread being opened up. As I was writing this, I learned via edit conflict that Buidhe herself essentially summed up what I was about to say: their content does not seem to be "Milhist" in the same way as Gog and Ian—it is far more human rights and international law based. If we had 20 incredible candidates and a high functioning system, I would be inclined to expect more diversity from a new coordinator. We however, do not. I'm basically piling on at this point, but I'm glad to see the community make this move and I give enthusiastic support to both Buidhe and HF. Aza24 (talk) 22:18, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Support both, and thanks to Ealdgyth. --Mirokado (talk) 22:40, 25 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment. SandyGeorgia's coment, "I believe FAC Coords are more than reviewers-plus; they are leaders" and what Aza24 said about "the above conversations…are basically slightly altered variants of the same conversations that happen every few months" get to heart of the issue.
 * We appoint FAC coordinators on the basis of their technical expertise and the calibre of their contributions, including at this talk page, rather than taking account of their leadership capacity, By the latter I mean in terms of setting out their vision for a better FAC system, and rallying people to that vision of a better future.
 * Consequently there is just more of the same, per Aza24. Sandbh (talk) 23:45, 25 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Support With thanks to Ealdgyth. Although I have difficulty telling Gog and Hog apart. Hawkeye7   (discuss)  00:23, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I have just set the bot to auto-archive your next two nominations! Gog the Mild (talk) 00:38, 26 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Support. Yes please, both are great choices. —Kusma (talk) 08:38, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Support both, no concerns at all. Thanks so much, Ealdgyth, for your immensely hard work over the years. — Bilorv ( talk ) 12:09, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Support both with thanks to Ealdgyth as well. Eddie891 Talk Work 01:47, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Support both. Presumably this is just a formality after such support above but I have had nothing but professional and courteous experience with both candidates. Will be sad to see Ealdgyth stepping down (which reminds me I really should do something with this medieval english degree some day) but I have no doubts they will be capable and astute replacements. 𝄠ʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ꭗ 23:45, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Happy to support both, they know what they're getting themselves into. If four coordinators turns out to be too many, as an ATD we could merge two of them to User:Hog the Mild. Girth Summit  (blether)  13:04, 29 October 2021 (UTC)

1982 World Snooker Championship
Continuing my observations about inequities in the FAC system.

FAC list date:        Oct 1st Duration at FAC:      25 days Status:               1 Oppose, 0 supports Last proposer comment: Oct 1st

There is a coordinator note dated Oct 21st, that says:


 * "This three weeks in and has attracted no supports and has an open oppose. Unless this changes quite a bit within the next day or two I am afraid that this nomination is liable to be archived."

Why is this FAC still open? Why was it allowed into Older Nominations?

-- Sandbh (talk) 00:10, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Funnily enough, Sandbh, there have been some things going on in FAC beyond the nominations and which also merit the current coords' attention. Rest assured that normal services are continuing.  As for perceived inequities, and as a general observation, every nom is judged on its individual merits -- if it was all a matter of precise times, supports, opposes, etc, we could probably get  to enhance FACbot to close everything... Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:20, 26 October 2021 (UTC)


 * "Is liable to" ≠ "is guaranteed to". This is beginning to feel more and more disruptive to be honest. 𝄠ʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ꭗ 00:24, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I think myself and would have benefited from a ping here - I don't have this page watchlisted. I can't speak for Benny, but I think we both gave up a bit on this nomination, but  it's worth remembering that Gog cannot either promote or archive this particular FAC. Ian has plenty on. If you wish, I can go out and find some people willing to review the article in an attempt to promote it, if that is what you wish. Best Wishes,  Lee Vilenski  (talk • contribs) 12:51, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Thank you Ian. Your perception of "some things going on in FAC beyond the nominations" appears to confirm my impression that the FAC process is not as transparent as it could be. There is no need for an FAcbot only more clarity as to how the process is supposed to work, compared to how it actually works according to hidden rules.

If striving to attain more equity in the FAC process is felt to be more disruptive, then that is odd. We can compare the nonmetal experience (1 oppose, all o/issues addressed, archived after 14 days) with the Snooker experience (1 oppose, all o/issues addressed, still open after 25 days).

I have no feelings about the 1982 World Snooker Championship FAC either way. I hope it gets up. I was using it as an example to highlight inequitable treatment. I'll continue to highlight such inequities, in order to encourage a better FAC experience. Sandbh (talk) 22:23, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
 * I literally have an encyclopedia about the lack of equality between nominations at FAC, but you have to "do the right thing" sometimes, which means leaving your own values at the door. There are users around here who consider their "own" FA contributions to be like some kind of de facto standard, others who simply find a facet of MOS and use it as a sledgehammer, and others who spend their entire time here creating mischief by not actively contributing anything despite voicing pseudo-intellectual soundbites.  Don't ever expect the expected.  Indeed, anticipate the opposite.  And no matter what you do, there's always going to be an "old timer" or a "nay-sayer" who is going to sink your battleship.  And that's partly why FAC is failing to attract anyone outside the core group who have developed an immunity against such.  All FACs are equal, some are more equal than others.  All reviewers are equal, some are more equal than others.  It's just a reflection of "life".  The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 23:01, 26 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks TRM. If that is so, I'd rather know it up front, before I list an article for FAC, instead of walking into a process unprepared. My expectations would then be lower and the disappointment of being archived would be less annoying. It perplexes me that the regulars here seemingly like to keep unwritten lore to themselves. Looking at the statistics, a first time nominator's chance of success is ca 35%. That metric, for a start, ought to be widely publicised along with the reasons why 65% of nominations fail. Sandbh (talk) 06:55, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
 * My first FAC failed. But it set me up for success in the future. You can figure out how the FAC criteria are applied and make sure your next nomination meets the requirements. (t &#183; c)  buidhe  07:04, 27 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Your perception of "some things going on in FAC beyond the nominations" appears to confirm my impression that the FAC process is not as transparent as it could be—There is a large and ongoing conversation on this very page about the future of certain co-ordinator roles. It would require being deliberately abstruse to describe this as not transparent. I am sorry that your last nomination did not pass. I've been there. My first pass was on the article's third attempt. My tenth pass was on the article's third attempt. I've had articles failed because reviewers failed to withdraw provably false claims. But the answer was never to try to make a point of turning other editors' efforts into an exercise in measuring langers. 𝄠ʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ꭗ 09:57, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

Attempting to catch up after a brief absence, I find this odd thread interspersed among a serious amount of other inaccuracies and misrepresentations, which will take longer to address than ideal. For starters, could some kind soul please provide a working link to the FAC in question so that the rest of the readers here can decipher what the issue is? Frankly, the whole thread reads like a conspiracy theory about which many may be uninformed, and that is not helped by a non-working link to a FAC that doesn't appear on the page. " ... some things going on in FAC beyond the nominations" is a mystery and could use further explanation, if something needs to be discussed and addressed. Is this another WikiCup issue? Is there concern about socking? Are unqualified supports or opposes being registered? Or perhaps, Ian, you only meant to say that Coords have been busy so hadn't gotten to that FAC yet ? Whatever the issue is, is it possible to address it more directly (recognizing that it may not be)? TRM, is fanning of whatever flame this is about really helpful? And finally, I agree with Ian Rose and Grapple X; the notion that every FAC is the same or that the timing can always be identical is folly. Each article and FAC presents different issues, and flexibility in closing FACs is a good thing. The Coords work towards maximizing outcomes, as they should. They can't do much when FACs don't get reviews, except continue to be good stewards of the overall process via communication, timeliness, and the other things that good leaders routinely do, as they seek to do. If you need a reason why 65% of articles fail, it is simple: they are not found to meet the criteria or there is not consensus to promote and this is well explained in the instructions. Sandy Georgia (Talk)  16:45, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Sandy, I feel sure Ian was just referring to the active discussions going on elsewhere on this page, and the lack of transparency in his comment was just a sardonic indicator that he felt it was obvious. Another editor has since pointed out the same thing and since Ian has not demurred I doubt I am wrong. Mike Christie (talk - contribs -  library) 17:02, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Sandbh, now would be a very good time to drop the stick and move on. All you have done with these threads is make sure that I (and I'm sure, other potential reviewers) will never touch any of your nominations with a bargepole, because I'm not interested in getting pecked to death over perceived injustices. And you're going to end up with more spurious FAC submissions that fail and you get frustrated about and complain about and hopefully don't get to keep clogging up this page with threads before you get banned from the process. If you don't like FAC's way of running, you can try an RfC (which, I'm going to tell you right now, is not going to result in the changes you want), or you can just walk away and remember that FAC is not some objective barometer of quality or worthiness of an article. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs  talk 17:08, 27 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks both Mike and David for clarifying what may be going on here; I am trying to catch up, and this interspersed oddness felt ... well, nevermind ... not necessary, hopefully resolved.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  17:28, 27 October 2021 (UTC)