Wikipedia talk:Featured article removal candidates/Archive 1

Guidelines
This page is useful and clearly needed, however it currently lacks guidelines. Implicit from the present operation seems to be the suggestion that there needs to be a consensus to remove an article. I do not agree.

Featured articles should have consensus support to be listed, because we want the whole community to stand behind them. It makes no sense to require the reverse course for removing them - that an article where 4 people support removal and 1 person objects remains featured.

I therefore suggest the following guideline at the top of the page:


 * If there remain strenuous objections for featuring a certain article even after a week of discussion, the article should be removed from the list.

That way we assure that only articles which have the largest possible community support are featured.--Eloquence* 17:57, May 28, 2004 (UTC)


 * The chief difficulty appears to me to be that this page gets a lot less attention than the nominations page. It strikes me as hard to speak of "consensus" after a week, when there's only one or two comments on a proposal after a month or so has passed.  Perhaps a boilerplate removal macro needs to be devised.  Smerdis of Tlön 18:51, 28 May 2004 (UTC)


 * Yes, let's do this for the talk pages, and let's increase the time to maybe two weeks.--Eloquence*

Archiving Nominations
I think we really ought to be archiving old nominations, to prevent this page from becoming stale. There's nominations here that resulted in removal several months ago and have not been touched since. Ambivalenthysteria 04:31, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * Thanks Raul. The page looks a lot better. Ambivalenthysteria 06:21, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)

political correctness
would this count under "Do not list articles that have recently been promoted", as it recently survived an attempt at removal? Sam [Spade] 04:49, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * No, but I'll add a second rule - "Do not list articles that have recently survived removal attempts" &rarr;Raul654 04:56, Jun 12, 2004 (UTC)

Merge with Featured article candidates ?
It's been noted above that this page doesn't get a lot of attention. Seeing as its effects are just as significant as those of the addition page, the problem should be remedied.

The removal page instructs people to go ahead and pull the article from Featured articles. Consequently, what happens on the removal candidates page is more like voting to feature it again than voting to remove it. So, why not merge it into featured candidates? That way, the articles are always held to the latest standards for featured articles and the voting gets the attention it deserves. The same rules for removal would apply except that they could be distilled to one, since there would be no more voting off, only voting in and revoting in. Thoughts? Nathan 16:00, Jul 1, 2004 (UTC)
 * I might support this. One thing that certainly doesn't help is this page is not linked to from Featured article candidates (unless I missed it). Another thought is that the current removal protocol is open to abuse, in that articles are temporarily defeatured while they are nominated for removal; this seems to be a "guilty until proven innocent" system. &mdash; Matt 16:05, 1 Jul 2004 (UTC)
 * NO!!!! The FAC is convoluted enough as it is. The rules here aren't even well defined yet (and I say that as the one who wrote them). At least for the time being, I'd prefer this page stay nice and managable (and here!). &rarr;Raul654 19:12, Jul 1, 2004 (UTC)
 * Whoah. Uh, ok. I can see that it might be easier administratively to keep the pages separate. That's partly because the already-removed "removal candidates" aren't getting the attention and discussion that they deserve. At some point this should be reconciled though, right? If the FAC is significantly changed to deal with its present convolutions, eliminating this page is something to consider. Process wise it's simpler: If you think one of the featured articles doesn't belong and it hasn't recently been voted on, remove it yourself and list it as a featured article candidate. Nathan 21:16, Jul 1, 2004 (UTC)
 * Take one look at some of the antics that... ahem, a certain user prepetuates on the FAC to see why this idea is so very bad (especially while the rules are ill defined). &rarr;Raul654 21:20, Jul 1, 2004 (UTC)

This page was moved off FAC for a reason - it was making the page far too long. However, I do think this raises a key point. At the moment, FAC and FARC both serve a similar purpose, because this is practically a vote to relist. Since when did we agree to allow users to unilaterally remove an article from Featured Articles, particularly after it had to go through a rigorous process of consensus to get there? To me, this doesn't make much sense, and I can't recall it ever being discussed. Ambivalenthysteria 09:07, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Time limit?
How long are articles supposed to stay here? L. Paul Bremer has been here for two weeks, with no support for removal from anyone except the original nominator. What is the procedure for restoring this to FA status? Right now this page is more of a featured article oubliette. - DropDeadGorgias (talk) 15:00, Jul 20, 2004 (UTC)


 * I think this needs two things. For one, it's about time we set this up like FAC itself, and stuck to a rolling timeframe. Secondly, to avoid cases like this, I still believe we should need support before removing an article from FA. After requiring such rigorous support to get there, I shouldn't be able to take it down (even temporarily) because I don't like an article, unless I have the support of other editors. Ambivalenthysteria 06:47, 21 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * I agree with both proposals made by Ambivalenthysteria. What do you propose as the timeframe for listing an article on this page?  And how many people should be required to support the removal of a featured article before it moves to this page?


 * Acegikmo1 15:07, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * Sounds good to me. The rules here were only meant to be a rough draft. Make whatever changes you want with my blessing. &rarr;Raul654 17:21, Jul 23, 2004 (UTC)


 * I agree. Let's call it two weeks. (goes to edit boldly) - David Gerard 19:17, 23 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I've just updated the rules here and on FA. List here, do not remove from FA, two week limit. Should it be longer than two weeks? - David Gerard 00:10, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * Nah. Ambivalenthysteria 00:37, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * The wave of archiving I just did stuck to noms over a month old, and has cleared the list nicely. I suggest we leave it at a month in practice for now, unless and until this page becomes remarkably more active - David Gerard 11:27, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * Does that mean that we'll have to wait a month to remove a bad article from FAC? Ambivalenthysteria 12:24, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * No, not from FAC, from the Featured Articles list itself - David Gerard 13:45, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I meant FA itself. That seems like an awfully long time, if it is indeed a bad article. Ambivalenthysteria 23:48, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * That's why I haven't changed the actual rules from two weeks ;-) I think we should keep it at a month in general practice for now, though, on the basis of 'if in doubt, do nothing' - David Gerard 13:56, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * I thought that the point of removing them from FA was to keep Raul from accidentally putting them in Template:Feature. If that's the new policy though, I'll relist all of the current removal candidates. - DropDeadGorgias (talk) 17:07, Jul 26, 2004 (UTC)


 * You didn't add them to Category:Wikipedia Featured Articles! - David Gerard 23:52, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

More than two week old candidates?
The page says: "Once an article has been listed here for two weeks, it will be removed from the featured articles list if the consensus is to remove.".. Is there a specific reason why many candidates older than two weeks with consensus to remove are still listed here? --Conti|&#9993; 18:22, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)


 * Indeed - a comment I have just made on Wikipedia talk:featured article candidates. Presumably we can be bold and un-feature the ones for which there is a consensus (such as war elephant, crushing by elephant and History of the English penny) ? -- ALoan (Talk) 16:34, 3 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * I've just done that. --Conti|&#9993; 17:32, Sep 4, 2004 (UTC)

Use contested FA's Talk page first
As a matter of courtesy, you should raise your concerns first on the FA's Talk page stating exactly what is wrong and what needs to be corrected before removal. Add applicable links to guidelines as needed or links to where they can get help if needed especially if newbies are involved in recent edits or changes. If the concerns are corrected, then there would be no need for people here to be involved. If corrections have not been made or there have no attempts to try after two weeks (or whatever?), then list them here as candidates for removal. Would it also be appropriate to list the page on Pages needing attention? add new category - FA nominated for removal? Petersam 01:04, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)


 * I don't see a problem with listing them here directly. Wikipedians should state why an article should be removed anyways, and if the concerns are corrected, people will vote to keep the article. The main problem I see here is that this page does not get enough attention to start real discussions about keeping/not keeping featured articles, we should try to change this. --Conti|&#9993; 17:36, Sep 4, 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps there should be a template (not to be confused with FARC) to be added to the talk page, if there is not one already? -- ALoan (Talk) 10:45, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * Good idea! I added Template:Farc to the removal candidates. Maybe it needs a better wording, my english isn't perfect, but it's a start. --Conti|&#9993; 12:43, Sep 7, 2004 (UTC)


 * I also added the reasons to Template:Farc for FARC as well as adding a statement for the page's advocates or anyone else to help get it back to FA quality Petersam 17:17, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Designation of removed articles
I may be missing something, but there doesn't seem to be anything that tells whether an article was actually removed. Featured article removal candidates/archive doesn't mention whether the article was removed or not. It appears the only way to tell is to look through either every single nominated article or through the history of Featured articles, but sometimes the comments there are not very clear. Can whoever removes the article put a note in the archive after the discussion as to whether it was actually removed or not? - Taxman 12:39, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)


 * I added the decisions in the edit summaries of this or the archive page when I moved the removal candidates to the archive. But you're right, that's not very easy to find out. I'll add the decisions whether the article was kept or removed from FA to the /archive section soon. Thanks for pointing that out! --Conti|&#9993; 17:42, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)


 * I've added the decisions whether an article was kept or removed as a FA now to the /archive. --Conti|&#9993; 22:14, Oct 25, 2004 (UTC)
 * Great, thanks. - Taxman 02:14, Oct 26, 2004 (UTC)

Criteria
I think we need to state clearly at the top of the page that retrospective application of new FA requirements is not sufficient reason for listing articles for removal. Filiocht 14:57, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)
 * Well I disagree with that statement, so I do not agree it should be placed at the top of the page. All FA's should meet the same basic standards.  First a message should be left on the talk page requesting the needed changes, then if they are not addressed it should be listed here and left to a vote.  If they do not meet the criteria, they should be either fixed or removed.  What good does it do to have articles that do not meet the criteria still be called featured? Once an article is called featured should it retain that forever then? - Taxman 15:42, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)
 * Specifically the references requirement is critical to having Wikipedia be a truly respectable resource. Without references the article could be complete BS.  Eventually or now, that requirement will have to be retrofitted to all featured articles.  I have left messages on a number of FA's without references and some have added good references since.  Those that have not are fair game for listing in my eyes. - Taxman 15:42, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)


 * Well, we must tread carefully here - there's merit to both positions. We have some 400+ featured articles. In a perfect world, all of them would meet all the featured article requirements. Unfortunately, we do not live in a perfect world. I don't think we should be removing 90%+ of them because they were written before the requirement was added. On the other hand, there are some older featured articles (especially holdovers from the brilliant prose days) that meet very few of the criteria, and rightfully should be removed. &rarr;Raul654 19:03, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)


 * I'd say that this argument might apply to deletion of articles, but to defeaturing, I'm not sure. We could, theoretically, throw out all the featured articles and just start featuring new ones any way we like, and it wouldn't do all that much damage. However, the advantage of having the removal process is that it drives original contributors to upgrade their articles and improve their quality even further, for fear of losing that special bit of status. Deco 23:53, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Especially references. References are so critical to the credibility and long term value of Wikipedia.  It is hard to underestimate the value they have.  How can we say that the best articles we have don't even have valid references?  They could be completely made up if they are not fact checked with the best references in their field.  Spend some time reading Slashdot and others and see among the detractors of Wikipedia that is the only valid complaint they have left.  They can't say building an encyclopedia from random contributors won't work because it is.  But they can take issue with the poorly researched and cited articles that Wikipedia as a whole has.  At least with the featured articles we can take a stand and make it a hard and fast requirement.  It's not that hard. It's a trip to one or two libraries and finding the most respected books or papers in the field and citing them and using them to fact check. On the whole most featured articles do have at least some references.  I'm almost sure it is less than 30% that do not.  By placing requests on talk pages the majority of requests for references to be added have been fulfilled. I propose creating a list of featured articles that do not have references and placing messages on talk pages requesting them, then giving a full month before nominating them here. I will do that this weekend if no one beats me to it. - Taxman 16:19, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)


 * See here, where at very least there is implied agreement that the references requirement would not be retrospective. I agree that references are a good thing (see my voting record on FAC). However, I cannot agree that lack of refs is sufficient reason for listing on FARC. It would be better to approach the main authors and ask that they add references. Filiocht 16:55, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)
 * From what I see so far, that's basically one person, &rarr;Raul654 saying that typically new requirements are not retroactive. What I am saying is that references are important enough to make retroactive.  We could take it to a specific poll if you think that would help.  But of course even our respected Raul654 speaking alone is not a consensus made. The cost of making it retroactive as a requirement is certainly well less than the benefit of having all featured articles have solid references.  Especially if done as I have proposed above. - Taxman 17:11, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)


 * It would be good to see a list of the featured articles that are thought to have inadequate references so we can see how big a problem it is. Unless only a small number (say less than 10%) of featured articles are affected, I don't agree with retrofitting the references requirement: however, it is definitely a good idea to ask people to add references where they can. -- ALoan (Talk) 17:19, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * It appears it is a much bigger problem than I thought. I have started the list at User:Taxman/Featured articles with references problems. 63 out of 145 that I have gone through so far have problems. When I am finished with that list I will work on a template message that can be pasted into the talk page as a notification.  - Taxman 19:52, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)
 * I should perhaps clarify my position - I agree that references are very important because (as you said) they increase our credibility (which is the only long term arguement against the project). And I agree that ideally, all our articles should have them. But I am taking the long view. The references requirement was added not too long ago (<2 months), at which time, we had over 300 featured articles. That's a lot of articles to demand references for. So I think we should drop them a note on the talk pages, but that we shouldn't be de-featuring them anytime in the near future. &rarr;Raul654 17:54, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)


 * I agree that every featured article should have a "transition period" in which to bring the article up to new standards. If we defeature too soon we remove the incentive to improve. The time is arguable &mdash; perhaps a month? Deco 19:22, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Good point, &rarr;Raul654. But as Deco notes, what timeframe is reasonable? These are supposed to be our best after all. I don't think one month is overly burdensome, but I'm open to two I suppose. - Taxman 19:52, Nov 17, 2004 (UTC)


 * Many of the worst offenders (by which I mean not just inadequate/no references, but also no sections or incomplete) were "featured" on 15 March 2004 - was this when "brilliant prose" became "featured articles"? Examples: Dreyfus affair, Montparnasse, White Rose.  Villain is also pretty poor, about half of it being quotes.  These ones probably ought to be nominated as removal candidates anyway. -- ALoan (Talk) 20:06, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

All Feature Articles should be judged on the same standards. You don't want cars left on the road that aren't roadworthy, just because they met obsolete roadworthy criteria two years ago. Now Feature Articles don't kill anyone, but they do give a false impression of just how good we want Feature Articels to be (something they gave me). Feature Articles should keep up-to-speed or be ditched IMO. A month or so grace seems a good idea to please the masses.--ZayZayEM 00:40, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Good to see some discussion on this issue, I agree with the above sentiment that the references section is essential to a featured quality article and should thus be included in any article passing WP:FAC. Then there is the issue with retroactively applying standards, image an external independent viewer looking at a Wikipedia featured article right now, not knowing or caring that the article has been a long time featured article, he will merely see a very interesting article lacking any source attribution, how does that make WP look? Taxman's idea of creating an attention-seeking template especially for this issue is a good one, we should add it to all the articles lacking references and give it a clear deadline, which should be long enough to encourage people to improve the article but not put too great a strain on editors who suddenly find a great deal of their favourite articles on the verge of losing their FA status. If in the end this leads to a great deal of articles losing their featured status? So be it, this is not a problem, is just shows we actually take the FA tag seriously and will do whatever it takes to maintain current and high standards, actually keeping them featured degrades the FA tag for article that DO have the proper references. -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\talk]] 19:42, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)

Would it be good to start up a poll and get a wider audience for this issue? I think it's important to know where we stand, do we apply the same criteria to ALL our featured articles and nominees so they are all up to the same standards, or do waive criteria for already featured articles. And if so, which ones do we waive, what does an article need to have at minimum to stay featured, etc. -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\talk]] 19:14, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)


 * I do think the standard should be uniform. I wonder, however, if our FA standards are not a little too high, at the moment. Maybe there should be another "Excellent article" category, where only articles meeting the very highest standards belong, taking some weight off the FA label. (this would not necessarily complicate the nomination process. On FAC, you could just vote for either "featured" or "excellent". But on-topic, yes, we do need more specific guidelines on what we mean by FA. dab 19:21, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

No no no no no no no no... (a) Adding an extra category of good articles is a textbook case of feature creep (b) A poll is unncessary - don't vote on everything. We all agree in principle that at some point in the future, all featured articles should be required to meet all featured article criteria; we disagree on the time scale, but that is a difference of degree. (c) No, the featured article standard is not too high - we're promoting more now than we ever have before. My biggest complaint is that the FAC has gotten progressively larger. &rarr;Raul654 20:03, Nov 30, 2004 (UTC)
 * I agree that we do not need an extra category, that will only make matters more complex. But on the criteria issue, you talk about a timeframe as in some point in the future, why delay the inevitable, keeping articles that are below standards featured does: a) not motivate their editors to improve the article to featured standard. b) reflect badly on articles in the same category that do meet the proper standards. I do not see how waiting is going to help in this case. -- [[User:Solitude|Solitude\talk]] 07:51, Dec 1, 2004 (UTC)


 * No, an additional category of pages would not be a good idea. I think we just need to decide if and when we should get on with it - retrofitting references to between a third and a half of featured articles is clearly a major task.


 * I've just had a look at Taxman's very useful list of featured articles with references problems - about half of the featured articles have been reviewed, and there is a list of featured articles still to check.


 * Once all of the articles have been reviewed (I think it is useful to have one person to go through the list, to give a consistent approach, although Taxman seems to be stalled since a couple of weeks ago), we should add a special template to the articles' talk pages stating that if adequate references are not added within, say, 4 weeks, they will be added to WP:FARC. (Some of them are so poor that they should be listed on WP:FARC in any event.) Comments? -- ALoan (Talk) 11:25, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Yes sorry, it is finished now. Thanks for the prodding. I support a 6-8 week limit myself.  Then I think references are so important that it is worth listing and removing FA's that don't have references.  There is consensus agreement that FA's need to be well referenced, so I believe we should put a note on the talk page, give some time to improve and then start listing them for removal.  It's no big deal, they can then just get improved and renominated at FAC.  I think some people are acting as if we are proposing deleting the articles, not just removing the FA stamp and asking that they get fixed a bit. - Taxman 13:18, Dec 1, 2004 (UTC)


 * Separately we need to work to a consensus not only on what message will get posted to FA's without references, but also there is currently no consensus on what the references section is called. That discussion should happen on either WikiProject Fact and Reference Check or Forum for Encyclopedic Standards - Taxman 13:18, Dec 1, 2004 (UTC)


 * Re template, something like Template:farc, like this:


 * This article lacks the references required of a featured article. If adequate references are not added within 4 weeks to bring this article up to featured article standard, it will be nominated as a Featured article removal candidate.


 * Comments? -- ALoan (Talk) 18:50, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Four weeks? To improve 191 articles? You're joking, right? (Also, that number does not count the 'other issues' section, with which I have a seperate bone to pick) &rarr;Raul654 19:18, Dec 1, 2004 (UTC)
 * If you have issues with what I have there, let me know on the talk page. That list is just one guy's opinion in an effort to improve something that I think is very important. Some of those in the 'other issues' list will be very easy to fix. And personally I do think 8 weeks is more than enough for authors of each page to go out and get good references or to add and properly format those they have already used. Again, it's not like nominating them at FARC is deleting them, it is just removing the FA stamp until they are improved and renominated. And yes I am willing to do the work to deal with the onslaught of nominations at FARC if that happens. - Taxman 21:19, Dec 1, 2004 (UTC)
 * I think the notice definitely needs to mention that you can't just add any old book and call it a reference. It needs to actually be used to verify material in or add material to the article.  A systematically added template will have to be especially vigilant about that point because it is a large scale. - Taxman 21:19, Dec 1, 2004 (UTC)
 * Hmm. 191 out of 455.  That is a problem.  Perhaps putting them all through FARC is not realistic, but it can't hurt to post a message on the talk pages asking the authors to disclose/find some references for what they have written.  It is not as if one person is being asked to fix all of the articles: there are lots of authors.  And it is not really a question of 'improving' the articles, per se: adding proper references is a much more limited exercise.  We also don't have to do all of them at once either: they could be broken down into sections and done in chunks (although, of course, this will take longer).  The first step, really, is to nominate on FARC all of the articles that are clearly not up to scratch for other reasons.  -- ALoan (Talk) 20:01, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Also, many of the articles, the external links were used to add or check the material in the article, so that simply needs to be verified and then the link needs to be properly formatted. It may not be as easy as you think Aloan, to put proper references in.  Just tossing a book on there is not good enough. As noted above it needs to be actually used to verify the material for it to be valuable as a reference. - Taxman 21:19, Dec 1, 2004 (UTC)
 * I think there are two issues here. First, shutting the gate, so that featured article candidates are appropriately referenced. I think Taxman's poll covers that.
 * Second, cleaning up the old articles. I think that is an issue and will take time. I suggest we need to create a well publicised list(Taxman as created the list here) and add a template to the pages; saying that the article does not meet the new criteria; and this is the deadline(give actual date). The deadline should be about two months, because it is a lot of articles. The page should be advertised on the community portal, the WikiProject Fact and Reference Check and Forum for Encyclopedic Standards to get more interested parties involved. Lets make something of a quality offensive.
 * Of course, in the meantime there is nothing to stop making an article a featured article removal candidate for other reasons. :ChrisG 16:28, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)