Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2024-01-31/In focus

That is a pretty good, and pretty accurate, description of the process. It gets easier with practice. But, yes, we are all quite, quite mad at FAC. Gog the Mild (talk) 15:37, 31 January 2024 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure if that means everybody is angry at FAC, or if the people running FAC are insane :-) RoySmith (talk) 15:44, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

It's a heat/kitchen ratio and one's preferred location to either. 2.28.124.91 (talk) 15:57, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

I enjoyed reading this. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Roy! I agree with you on most things. It's silly that we worry about the length of a horizontal line and the whitespace around it in 2024 but it's easier if you just do it as a habit rather than try and go back and fix it later, much like with citation consistency (which I also agree gets a little bit silly, but I can see why it's nice to have all citations to the same publication look the same). I also agree that writing at FA level makes your writing better in ways you don't necessarily notice. Most of all, I find it's nice to have your work reviewed and be found to be of a good standard and to get idea for improvement. There's no such thing as a perfect article and FAC is all about critical commentary so someone will always find something to say. Keep up the good work! HJ Mitchell &#124; Penny for your thoughts? 17:14, 31 January 2024 (UTC)

Interesting read. I'm slightly puzzled that reviewers comment on things like endash spacing without actually fixing it themselves. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 20:37, 31 January 2024 (UTC).


 * Many reviewers like to keep hands off to avoid any implication of a conflict of interest. Hawkeye7   (discuss)  07:10, 1 February 2024 (UTC)
 * I would feel fairly comfortable fixing a dash while reviewing an article, but then again, I would fight someone if they change my date style, so I guess it's reasonable to be hesitant with making any style changes. ~ Maplestrip/Mable ( chat ) 14:42, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Not sure if this is common knowledge, but many subject areas have specialized bibliographies usually in paper form -- although I wouldn't be surprised if online databases also exist. Further, academic periodicals will offer review articles that discuss recent publications in the topic of that periodical: for instance, Journal of Roman Studies used to provide at 5-year intervals a review article of epigraphic works published in the last 5 years. (It's been over 7 years since I've seen the last to appear, so JRS may have ceased this series.) However, these tools may not be available for popular culture topics, but your local friendly reference librarian can help you identify the ones you will find useful. -- llywrch (talk) 00:06, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Excellent article; as good as anything I've read on what it's like at FAC. Thanks for writing this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 03:19, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for this ... I too have had a recent experience with what I had hoped would be a similar FA success story that has only gotten as far as GA so far, despite plans made several years ago to get it to FA with the idea of getting it on the Main Page for a major anniversary late last year. That didn't happen (I should perhaps write a story about this one; it would be an interesting complement to yours as it does not end in total success). But I learned some of these same things in the process, and I have now put an article in FAC PR (something I didn't know about until you mentioned it before), already a GA, with the idea that I could get it to FA and get it on the Main Page for another anniversary date just over a year off. We'll see. Daniel Case (talk) 05:23, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

When responding to reviewer comments, it is often easier to edit from bottom to top, so changes you make do not disturb the reference numbering above. Hawkeye7  (discuss)  07:10, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

FAC is an important process on Wikipedia for sure, but I think it could benefit from more guidance and support. Reviewers and long-time participants of FAC assumes that people would come to FAC with a perfect piece of work and that mentality has slowly drive newcomers away. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 12:56, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for sharing your experience. It is highly useful for new nominators to FAC.Arjunaraoc (talk) 04:34, 14 February 2024 (UTC)