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Kept status

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept by Dana boomer 20:43, 29 May 2010 [1].

Degrassi: The Next Generation

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Review commentary

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Notified: Matthewedwards, Starsking, L0b0t, Bearcat, Ckatz, WikiProject Degrassi, WikiProject Toronto, WikiProject Canadian TV shows, WikiProject Television.

I am nominating this featured article for review because I believe it hasn't been maintained to the standard of a featured article, since being featured. Some content is a year old, some references are broken, and there is no consistence for writing a reference. It is the featured and main article of an inactive project. 117Avenue (talk) 03:34, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I started work on this late last night and I'll get to it again this afternoon. Matthewedwards :  Chat  15:24, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the problem I'm having with this is that I don't watch the show any more. Once the majority of original cast left and they started bringing in new kids in season 7, I pretty much stopped watching. I haven't even seen an episode of seasons eight or nine, so it's become difficult for me to keep up with the article and keep reign on what all the 12-year-old fans keep adding in. :(
So far I've made some improvements to the prose and added a couple of references here and there. I've just finished doing the Broadcast/Distribution section, and I'll get to the Impact section tomorrow. Other than a few updates in the Cast and broadcast sections, not much of the article to this point needed updating. Certainly the production section didn't need much. The ratings, awards and reception subsections could do with being updated to more recent seasons, and I'll work on that next. I'll take a look at the Complementary media and merchandise sections after that.
After all that is done, I'll review the references, especially the dead ones and those that require registration to access, and look for better alternatives. Hopefully I'll be able to get it all done in the time allowed. Matthewedwards :  Chat  07:44, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Notes: alt text is no longer required by the FA criteria, and there is nothing wrong with web references that require registration as long as they are marked as such. Dabomb87 (talk) 12:52, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Dabomb is right about ALT text no longer required. See here. Now about the citing sources that require registration, I'm pretty sure that is discouraged, especially when there are so many listed. Other sources can't be found? I've seen many editors (admins) remove links from references because of this. —Mike Allen 18:12, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, there are no policies or guidelines advising against them. Now, if there are free-access sources that can source the same info, then they are probably better. However, just because a source cannot be seen without registration does not mean it cannot be used. Dabomb87 (talk) 21:07, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Still working on this. I need to update the Awards and critical reception sections, and then decide what to do with the mess that is Complementary media. Then I'll work on finding alternative refs and fixing the dead ones Matthewedwards :  Chat  23:24, 27 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How is work progressing on this? Dana boomer (talk) 22:57, 6 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm collecting information regarding what awards the series has won or been nominated for in the last two years. I shouldn't think it will take me much longer - maybe by the weekend. Then I just need to write it all up and insert it into the article. I'll try to find references that do not require registering at the official site, but because that is not totally necessary, it's not my main priority right now. Matthewedwards :  Chat  00:58, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Featured article criteria of concern brought up in the FAR section include referencing. This has been at FAR for over three weeks, so moving it here to give it a bit of a push. Dana boomer (talk) 22:47, 17 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist Still a couple improperly formatted references, an under-construction tag. Media section has several one- and two-sentence paragraphs. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 03:09, 18 April 2010 (UTC) Keep all issues now taken care of. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 19:10, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Argh, I forgot all about this nomination. OK, I'll get on it. Matthewedwards :  Chat  22:34, 18 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I've finished updating the section about awards, and I've removed the under-construction template. Now working on the structure of the Media section. Matthewedwards :  Chat  22:46, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    I've actually removed the Media section. It was basically a list of all the stuff you could buy or download, or anything else that had any sort of link to the series, including "events" the US broadcasting network had put together, and the majority of it had all creeped in over the last couple of years. I did extensive reviews on Google, Google News, ProQuest, Press Display, etc etc, and found no secondary sources that could indicate their notability. Yes, they exist and there are references for that, but I didn't feel it meets WP's policies and guidelines. I moved the section to the talk page instead. Matthewedwards :  Chat  23:21, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Everything that has been brought up has now been addressed.

  • The article has been updated through to the 2009-2010 television season (season 9 of Degrassi)
  • all references have been standardized, using citation templates, Commonwealth date format, title case for page titles.
  • All deadlinks have been replaced (none have been removed, I've either hunted down updated URLs or archives)
  • There are two references that point to degrassi.tv, but as is stated in the article, these are written by the Exec producer of the show, and that can be verified by a RS. There is no feasible way of changing these, and according to the discussion above, they should be okay.
  • Prose has been tightened. The Media section has been removed as I was unable to ascertain its notability
  • Under-construction tags have been removed.

I think that's everything. Matthewedwards :  Chat  04:49, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Impressive. 117Avenue (talk) 05:30, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I'm not happy with the prose. Tony (talk) 10:24, 14 May 2010 (UTC) I've gone through the top, copy-editing and unlinking redundant or low-value links. Needs the same treatment throughout. BTW, see the WikiProject for talk of how poor the genre articles are. I unlinked "teen drama" because it's just ... not helpful. Tony (talk) 05:05, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"The theme music, "Whatever It Takes", was written by Austin Russell, Jody Colero and Stephen Stohn. McGrath composed the music, and Colero and Stohn wrote the lyrics which include the lines". Can this be rationalised? I'm confused: what did Russell do? Why not just specify the composer (usually first), with lyrics by blah and blah? Tony (talk) 10:22, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Strong oppose: failure to comply with WP:NFCC

  • File:Emma Nelson (season 1).jpg: Per caption, this image is only to illustrate a character, not for any critical commentary. Nothing is written of the appearance of this character. Based on "Moore realized that the character Emma Nelson, born at the end of Degrassi Junior High's second season, would soon be entering junior high school, and development for the series took a new direction by focused on Emma and her school experiences.", there is nothing here to suggest that the appearance (rather it is the age—the concept of a junior high student) is the cause of inspiration for the offshoot series. The image does not "illustrate that Degrassi was created because of Emma's birth during Degrassi Junior High" (she is born as a teenager?) either.
  • File:Dtng intertitles.PNG: No critical commentaries can be found of the intertitles; i.e. the text has no critical remarks of what impact these comestic changes have on the show or audience, nor of any outrage or fawning by the fans or wider communities over them. Neither does it "commentary on the plot outline." File:D-TNG logo.PNG already serves as the series logo and lede image; there is no need to spam its variations within the article.
  • File:Smith Mewes Morrisette Degrassi.jpg: None of the rationales written qualify. No critical commentary is written of the appearance of these characters (cast in the context of the show). Mewes, Smith, and Morisette have their own articles and their "free photos". This image is purely decorative (just to show the characters).

It is my view the three above images would unlikely meet NFCC requirements without substantial addition of critical commentaries that require illustration by those images. Jappalang (talk) 02:56, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • I'm pretty sure that there isn't enough to be said that would help keep the images. You're right in all you've said so I've removed them from the article. Thanks for giving me the nudge to remove them. Matthewedwards :  Chat  22:31, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept by Dana boomer 20:43, 29 May 2010 [3].

OpenBSD

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Review commentary

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Notified: WikiProjects. Author long inactive.

This article lacks citations in many paragraphs and fails 1c YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 03:53, 26 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • I whacked out a little bit of trivia. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 03:22, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Toolbox shows three dead ELs. Surprisingly, I don't see any sources that seem unreliable. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 15:13, 31 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Pretty sure this mostly meets 1c. Can you give examples of some relevant literature not covered, or some bits that lack citations but should not? Most assertions I can see are attributed with a cite. The only places I can spot where cites are a bit thin is the last section and most of the stuff in there is factual. We can add a bunch of links to openbsd.org, or the manual, but what is the point in that? NicM (talk) 19:21, 7 April 2010 (UTC).[reply]
    • I've added a bunch more cites, only one thing I can't really find a reference to right now (the change of logo, it just happened, even the CVS logs are helpful). Anyway, I'm away for a week but if you say what else you think is missing I'll have a look when I get back. NicM (talk) 21:23, 7 April 2010 (UTC).[reply]

FARC commentary

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Featured article criteria of concern brought up in the FAR section include referencing. Dana boomer (talk) 00:19, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment In the first paragraph of the section "Open source and Open documentation", there is the quotation "runs counter to the open source philisophy". Is "philisophy" a typo in the Wikipedia article, or is it in the original text? If in the original text, I suggest either flagging it with sic or quietly amending it. (I see no reason to draw the readers' attention to another example of the poor spelling endemic in online communications.) -- llywrch (talk) 19:11, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
 Fixed. It wasn't in the source.--Oneiros (talk) 22:31, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Good. Thanks. -- llywrch (talk) 16:22, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Looks fully cited now. --mav (Urgent FACs/FARs/PRs) 23:53, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Are there better sources than a giant stack of mailing list posts? YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 07:07, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • No. Public OpenBSD discussion takes place largely on mailing lists, that is where comments from developers are found. The article uses news reports and interviews where possible but in some cases these aren't available. NicM (talk) 23:08, 28 April 2010 (UTC).[reply]
  • Linking: I unlinked "documentation" (if there's a section link possible to a more specific target, please do that), and "Alberta", which is a more general "chain-link" from Calgary. I fixed a few MoS issues. The writing is not of thrilling quality, but it's OK. I think it probably passes Cr. 1a. Tony (talk) 11:06, 28 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist Looking through the article, I saw sections of it unreferenced. A perfect example would be the third paragraph in the "Distribution and marketing" section. GamerPro64 (talk) 19:15, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    That would be an unreferenced paragraph, not an unreferenced section... But yeah, a cite is needed for that para. --mav (Urgent FACs/FARs/PRs) 22:03, 2 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    At least you gave an example, but I don't think that one is sufficient to delist. We need a cite for at least one part of that paragraph but there isn't really one readily available. We may need to change it around, I intend to have another look for a cite and fix it one way or another soon. Any others? NicM (talk) 17:11, 3 May 2010 (UTC).[reply]
    I've trimmed that paragraph down a bit, relegated one sentence to a note, and added some links to the OpenBSD site. NicM (talk) 17:27, 3 May 2010 (UTC).[reply]
    To answer your question, NicM, yes. GamerPro64 (talk) 19:17, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    The first paragraph and the last sentence in the last paragraph of "History and popularity."
    The last sentences in the first and third paragraph of "Open source and open documentation."
    And the last sentence in the "Licensing" section. GamerPro64 (talk) 19:17, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • The first two of these were referenced already, but the references were also used on a prior or subsequent sentence, I've duplicated them. Also added a reference to the source tree and man pages for the last. NicM (talk) 18:58, 12 May 2010 (UTC).[reply]
  • The article looks improved. Changing to Keep. GamerPro64 (talk) 18:59, 21 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The "See also" section looks problematic; in a featured article, ideally, most links to relevant information are incorporated in the body of the article-- if not, the article might not be comprehensive. Also, please review MOS on those one-line quotes. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:23, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't really understand this, six of the see also items are obviously comparisons or generic pages (BSD vs GPL licensing/security focused operating system) so they can just be dropped if necessary. That leaves only four. Of those, BSD authentication and the KAME project are not significant enough to mention in the article IMO, they could just be dropped too although I don't see the harm in leaving them. Hackathon could be worked in somewhere probably, not sure about POSSE but it probably could be too. A big issue during the original FA was the length of the article, so rather than try to be comprehensive we cut out a lot of fringe material to focus on the most major and most illustrative events in OpenBSD's history. NicM (talk) 18:26, 12 May 2010 (UTC).[reply]
  • Delist, still a bit of problematic referencing issues throughout. -- Cirt (talk) 16:32, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Images - For the purposes of wp, media licensed as "the copyright holder allows anyone to use it for positive promotional uses" is considered non-free. This article has non free content in abundance without justification, and fails FAC Fasach Nua (talk) 10:20, 23 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You mean the logo? I think that's justified, it's the logo. 74.13.28.209 (talk) 22:41, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I cannot of course read Fasach's mind, but I think he is referring to File:Openbsd23cover.gif, which is considered non-free since copyright is retained and conditions are put on how it can be used. So, it needs to follow all of the fair-use guidelines, including providing a comprehensive WP:Fair use rationale. The same applies to File:Paintedpuffy1000X907px.png. You already have "puffy" represented in File:Openbsd2.svg, which, although fair-use logos have been established as OK when used as the lead image for the company they represent, still needs a fair use rationale. I hope this helps. Dana boomer (talk) 02:25, 25 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed the painted puffy and cover. I don't know anything about image copyright, anyone else want to help out with the others? NicM (talk) 17:59, 27 May 2010 (UTC).[reply]
Can you please be more specific rather than making us guess? There are eight images in the article, which ones do we need to look at? NicM (talk) 17:50, 27 May 2010 (UTC).[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept by YellowAssessmentMonkey 23:40, 18 May 2010 [4].

Moon

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Review commentary

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Notified: Lunokhod, Ckatz, Serendipodous, Nergaal, Rreagan007, rst20xx, WikiProject Astronomy, WikiProject Solar System

Hey folks! I would hate to see this article or its featured topic be demoted, but the article was promoted way back in 2007, and I think it needs some touching up. The main problem that I see is referencing. The following paragraphs (as of this revision) need additional citations:

  • Two Sides of the moon ¶3
  • Presence of water ¶1, ¶5
  • Surface temperature
  • Geologic evolution ¶1
  • Ocean tides
  • Eclipses ¶1
  • Observation ¶1, ¶3, ¶6
  • Exploration
  • Human understanding ¶7, ¶9
Most of those are now covered. Remaining: Ocean tides (now Tidal effects) and Human understanding (now In culture) need to be cited; Exploration sec. 1990-present still needs a bit of cleanup on the manned lunar landing para. Any others? Iridia (talk) 13:41, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Some of the references, presumably those added by n00bs between the original FAC and now, need to be expanded:

  • "Nasa Spacecraft Reveal Largest Crater in Solar System - on Mars"
  • "The Smell of Moondust"
  • "Versteckt in Glasperlen: Auf dem Mond gibt es Wasser - Wissenschaft - SPIEGEL ONLINE - Nachrichten"
  • "Artemis Project: Lunar Surface Temperatures"
Between Stone, Serendipodous and myself, all of those are now I think either gone or fixed. Smell of Moondust is kept as a NASA-sourced document. Iridia (talk) 13:41, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The other potential issue is organization:

  • The entire article is littered with one-sentence and two-sentence paragraphs.
This should now be considerably less of a problem. Please note any remaining? Iridia (talk) 13:41, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is a main section on Lunar surface, but then in the next main section there is a subsection on Topography, resulting in various redundant pieces of information.
    I have merged Topography in with Two sides of the moon. Cleanup in progress. Iridia (talk) 01:50, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • A similar redundancy occurs between Orbit and relationship to Earth and Ocean tides— perhaps the latter should be a subsection of the former?
    Now a subsection; more merging to follow, once Earth and Moon is integrated. Iridia (talk) 01:50, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Merging done! Now Earth and Moon just has to be deleted merged. Iridia (talk) 03:58, 19 March 2010 (UTC) Now merged. Iridia (talk) 05:57, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Orbit and relationship to Earth is a mess of images.
    Hopefully better now? I might see if I can do a bit more. Iridia (talk) 01:50, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, definitely better! I'm not a huge fan of the beam of light image for two reasons: First because its horizontal orientation is somewhat awkward, but that's not really a big deal. Second because the content in the caption is not presented in this section. I suggest either removing/replacing it or adding some material to the prose here. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 05:53, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    It's now next to the text that talks about the size/proportion relationship, & I reworked the caption. Does it seem less out of place now? Iridia (talk) 06:00, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The libration of the Moon over a single lunar month.

Fun stuff. --Cryptic C62 · Talk 19:38, 10 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • Images need ALT text, see WP:ALT.
    All now ALT-text'd. Please do give it a look over: I haven't tried doing alt-text before. Iridia (talk) 01:50, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The external links section needs a trim.
    Now pruned down. I tried to keep notable-organisation links as much as possible, but left one podcast to help with accessibility. Iridia (talk) 06:52, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The see also section needs a trim. If terms are linked in the body of the article, they don't need to be repeated here, and if the article is comprehensive, most of the these terms should be already in the body.
    I gave it a trim: could probably take out the whole thing, truth be told. Iridia (talk) 01:05, 15 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    Now gone altogether. Iridia (talk) 04:49, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not sure how referencing is being formatted. There are several books in the Footnotes section that do not appear to be used for in-line references. If they are not used for this or general referencing, they should be moved to a Further reading section.
I think when it comes to explaining anything remotely involving orbital mechanics & viewing geometry, citations are good. It's an unfamiliar topic for most people. Phil Plait is an astronomer, though I'd prefer not to cite blogs if peer-reviewed/textbook is available instead. Iridia (talk) 04:49, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am concerned about this article meeting the FA criteria for high-quality sources. Many of the references seem to be to popular press and popular science articles (CNN, NatGeo, Epoch Times, etc), rather than high quality book and peer reviewed journal sources, which are plentiful for this topic.
    I am going to go through section by section and replace anything even slightly dubious with peer-reviewed where I can. Iridia (talk) 04:49, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are two dead linking external links and several dab links, see the toolbox.
    Fixed. Iridia (talk) 00:51, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The merge tag in the Orbit and relationship to Earth section needs to be resolved.
    Done. Iridia (talk) 06:00, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The stacking of images in the Eclipses and Observation sections are causing a lot of white space for me.
    Now improved. Iridia (talk) 01:50, 16 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Plus everything that Cryptic mentioned. This article needs quite a bit of work before it's back to FA status, but it's all do-able! Dana boomer (talk) 20:16, 10 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]


I have been bold and taken out quite a few of the images, which in many cases were not useful in explaining the text or adding to the article. Iridia (talk) 01:05, 15 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Suggested article reorganisation

I propose the following reorganisation and consolidation of the sections. This will bring the article more into line with the layout of similarly significant bodies such as Venus and Mars. Please do comment and let me know if this might work... 

   * Name and etymology
   * Physical characteristics
         o Internal structure
         o Surface geology
              o Volcanic features
              o Impact topography
              o Presence of water
         o Gravity and magnetic fields
         o Surface conditions and atmosphere
         o Origin and geologic evolution
              o Formation
              o Magma ocean and subsequent evolution
   * Orbit and relationship to Earth
         o Rotation
         o Ocean tides
         o Eclipses
   * Observation
   * Studies and exploration
         o Early studies
         o First direct exploration: 1950-1980s
         o Current era: 1990-present
   * In culture
         o Legal status
   * Notes (merge footnotes here)
   * References
   * External links

Iridia (talk) 05:41, 15 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Having waited a reasonable period of time, I will now start implementation of this article restructuring. I am aiming to consolidate the material that is already here, and remove the single-sentence paragraph problem. Iridia (talk) 04:10, 23 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]


Lede rewriting

The lede as of this revision is rather straggly and long, and has a lot of infobox-level information. It's a really interesting satellite - this should be highlighted. Here is my suggestion: Iridia (talk) 01:51, 25 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite and is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System. It is the largest moon in the Solar System relative to the size of its planet, a quarter the diameter of Earth and 1/81 its mass, and is the second densest satellite after Io. It is also in synchronous rotation with Earth, always showing the same face; this near side is marked with dark volcanic maria among the bright ancient crustal highlands and prominent impact craters. Despite being the brightest object in the sky after the Sun, its surface is actually very dark, with a similar reflectance to coal. The Moon's gravitational influence produces the ocean tides and the minute lengthening of the calendar year. The Moon's current orbital distance, about thirty times the diameter of the Earth, causes the Moon and Sun to be the same size in the sky: this allows the Moon to exactly cover the Sun in total solar eclipses, a very rare cosmic event.

The Moon is the only celestial body on which human beings have made a manned landing. While the Soviet Union's Luna programme was the first to reach the Moon with unmanned spacecraft, the United States' NASA Apollo program achieved the only manned missions to date, beginning with the first manned lunar mission by Apollo 8 in 1968, and six manned lunar landings between 1969 and 1972–the first being Apollo 11 in 1969. These missions returned over 400 kg of lunar rocks, which have been used to develop a detailed geological understanding of the origin of the Moon 4.5 billion years ago in a giant impact, the formation of its internal structure, and its subsequent history. The Moon has since been visited only by unmanned spacecraft, but these have come from many countries: since 2004, Europe, Japan, China, India and the United States have successfully sent lunar orbiters. These spacecraft have confirmed the discovery of water ice in permanently shadowed craters at the poles and bound into the lunar regolith. Future manned missions to the Moon are planned but not yet underway; the Moon remains, under the Outer Space Treaty, free to all nations to explore for peaceful purposes.

It's great to see good work going into this article! With the lead, however, please note the WP:LEAD recommends a three to four paragraph lead for articles over 30kb (this article is over 90kb IIRC). Also, be careful to make sure that all information in the lead is also included and sourced in the body of the article, and that the lead correctly summarizes the body of the article without leaving out any major issues. (I'm not saying your version does, as I haven't checked that closely, it's just a comment!) The length thing is probably going to be the main issue with your version. Dana boomer (talk) 14:12, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Lead now replaced, slightly expanded from this version. Iridia (talk) 13:41, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
When the MoS Taskforce gets to WP:LEAD in its rolling program of audits, the paragraph guideline will be examined. I worry that some editors obey it by chopping up and producing stubs. I believe it needs to be flexible, although this is not easy to express in concrete terms. That is, however, required. Tony (talk) 11:15, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Featured article criterion of concern include references, organization and images. Dana boomer (talk) 22:23, 31 March 2010 (UTC) [reply]
References are an ongoing work in progress, and have been steadily improving over the last week or so. The [citation needed] tags are expected to be transitory. Please detail your concerns with the organization and images? Iridia (talk) 23:24, 31 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Iridia, this is just a list of the FAC criteria that were brought up during the FAR stage of the review, as a starting point for reviewers. It doesn't mean that I personally believe that these issues are an issue in the current version of the article. Dana boomer (talk) 00:15, 1 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ah! Sorry. Sometimes these Wikiprocesses can be a bit opaque. Iridia (talk) 00:20, 1 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Conditional keep: The work that has been done thus far leaves me with no doubt that the few remaining issues will be taken care of. However, those issues do exist: Hooray!

  • "The Moon's appearance, like that of the Sun, can be affected by Earth's atmosphere, producing effects including a 22° halo ring, and the smaller coronal rings seen more often through thin clouds." Needs a citation.
Done. Iridia (talk) 04:13, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Last paragraph of "Early studies" needs a citation.
Rewritten and done. Iridia (talk) 04:13, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Second paragraph of "First direct exploration" could do with a citation.
Done. (I think; could keep finding he said/she said X was important to the success of Apollo for quite a while). Iridia (talk) 05:15, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Second paragraph of "Current era" could also do with a citation.
Added. Iridia (talk) 13:14, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Other than that, the big issues are all addressed: No more one-sentence paragraphs, less image clutter, better organization. Solid! --Cryptic C62 · Talk 02:17, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Keep. I think this is excellent. There's still one {{cn}} tag to be taken care of, but apart from that my only other comment is that I found the word "species" rather than "elements" in "The absence of such neutral species as oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen and magnesium, which are present in the regolith, is not understood", to be rather unusual, and I'm not sure in what sense these elements are to be considered "neutral". But then I abandoned chemistry after A-level, so I'm probably just demonstrating my ignorance. Malleus Fatuorum 17:54, 14 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have fixed up the text on the magnetic field that had the {{cn}} tag. I couldn't find a wikilink for "neutral species" when I wrote that part, annoyingly. I have modified the sentence to say "such neutral species (atoms and molecules) as oxygen,". It is a little close to jargon, but it is also a precise term: "elements" would be less appropriate. Better? Iridia (talk) 04:31, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. It seems well-written. I've removed an "also", and replaced the hyphen in "planet–satellite system".

  • "Comparative sizes of Earth and the Moon,"—I'd use "the" twice here—I see "the Earth" in the adjacent text.
Fixed. Iridia (talk) 00:43, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It is a little strange. The basin stretches from the South Pole out to Aitken crater, so it is named for the features that mark each end (a little like the Indo-Australian Plate, I suppose). Iridia (talk) 00:43, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, in which case the en dash must be used (to/from is the sense). Shall I be bold and move the article names, too? Tony (talk) 11:17, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I did a quick whip-around on ADS to see the journal usage, and they seem to be consistent in their nice pdf copy with an en dash (or in the case of Science, at least one em dash). Please do :) Iridia (talk) 11:35, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - Prose, refs, images and organization now excellent. --mav (Urgent FACs/FARs/PRs) 00:59, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments I'm unfamiliar with the FAR way of doing things... I was asked to help with copy editing. I've hit a rough spot, not in the surface editing, but in the organization and content of at least one section: Moon#Early_studies. For starters, I wonder if I am wholly alone in disliking the organization of the info. It's kind of... name a period, present a hodgepodge of facts, move to next period and another hodgepodge... roughly chronological order. Sorta. This conflicts with my understanding of unity in a paragraph, not because the info is presented sorta chronologically, but because it could more coherently be organized according to topic... I was kinda working on this in user space (temporary link), but have stopped to get input from this forum. As I was working, I became more dissatisfied... the whole Galilean response Aristotelian "moon is a smooth sphere" thing was a bit underdeveloped, I thought, and... I dunno. It just seems to be a nice yet incoherent hodgepodge of interesting facts that omits some key details, etc. I suppose it's supposed to be a summary of Exploration of the Moon#Early history (which unfortunately has huge chunks of copyvio)... ALSO: No mention of Paradiso (Dante)? No mention of Paradise Lost? Your thoughts are invited. • Ling.Nut 06:11, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Early studies always had a few issues: it had to be extensively condensed in the FAR rewrite, and did get a bit mashed. The problem is partly that it has to be very short (giving it more space than the later paragraphs seems a bit inequitable), and that it also has to cover a lot of different ancient astronomical knowledge bases. I agree: having a good link between the Aristotelian smooth-moon and Galileo is important.
I'm not sure where Dante/Milton can come into it, unless you want to add a sentence down in Cultural influences, which is a bit light on things. Iridia (talk) 02:05, 22 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. There seems to have been a vast amount of improvement from FAR to FARC, which is the whole point of the process. It looks like most of the items listed above have been addressed, except for the issue raised by Ling.Nut (on which I have no opinion) - are there any other outstanding concerns we need to tackle? UltraExactZZ Said ~ Did 13:18, 23 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I probably shouldn't hang out at FAR/FARc, since I Supremely Strongly Disagree that "improvement is the whole point of the process". Improvement is certainly the point of PR and arguably the point of GA, but the point of FAC/FAR/FARC is to ensure that FAs meet a very stringent interretation of WP:WIAFA. If I were gona get involved, I'd Oppose this article's retention, at the very least per my ealier comments (and probably per others). But I'm not gonna get involved. SO I don't Oppose... If people wanna consider me a jerk for being so... whatever... well, at FA it's Not About the Hugs. Or it shouldn't be. • Ling.Nut 15:24, 23 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • My apologies, I was being more general - Everything we do on here, including FA, FAR, et al, is (or should be) intended to improve specific articles in particular and the encyclopedia in general. If bringing (or attempting to bring) an article up to FA standards isn't an improvement, then it's possible we need to rethink the FA standards or the FA program in its entirety. But I agree, raw improvement to an article is better found at Peer Review and its like. On point, I didn't check every concern above; the dozen or more I did check were indeed handled, and they seemed to be representative. That, and the overall state of the article, seemed to meet the criteria. If I get the chance today, I'll perform a more in-depth review, but I stand by my Keep, for now. UltraExactZZ Said ~ Did 12:32, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ling.Nut: Sorry. A bit late to the discussion. You could write a book (several books) on the topic of early observation of the Moon. We've been looking at the Moon since we crawled out of the sea and very likely before then. Every culture has Moon myths and Moon theories. We can't list them all. I don't really know how to present a coherent picture of early Moon observation that didn't become an article (Hell, an entire encyclopedia) in its own right. We have to stop somewhere. As for Dante and Milton, they would belong in the Culture section, though at present I think that should be kept as short as possible, as it too could fill an encyclopedia. Serendipodous 07:14, 29 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. (Just oversight, I think). Iridia (talk) 10:50, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I've had to revert this change for the time being. Per the style guide, we italicize names of spacecraft, such as Luna 1. I'll try to discern what the procedure is for missions (such as with the Apollo missions). --Ckatzchatspy 20:46, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Then could we please have the style guide linked on WP:Solar_System? I did not know where that part of it was, checked a few WP:SS FAs, found them inconsistent in italicization, so went and asked Ruslik before doing this, and the reply was that we don't have a MoS for it. Iridia (talk) 22:58, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Spacecraft names now italicized. "Apollo" consistently not italicized. Iridia (talk) 23:33, 4 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I see some good improvements to the article page. -- Cirt (talk) 16:29, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Comments - Iridia, you have done a great job on this article. I just have a few final comments before I add my vote to keep"
  • Lead, "only celestial body on which human beings have made". Why not just "on which humans have made"?
  • Internal structure section, "Its composition is not well constrained". Perhaps "its composition is not well known"? "Constrained" just sounds a little odd in this context.
  • I'm not quite sure how to fix this. "Constrained" has a specific technical meaning here, along the lines of "from our understanding of the composition of terrestrial planets, our models say something like the Moon should be like this and this, but the values the models put out have large error bars because we need certain pieces of extra data to make the error bars smaller". Iridia (talk) 01:18, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Presence of water, "and water vapour is quickly decomposed by sunlight". Is it decomposed or evaporated?
  • Presence of water. The first sentence in this section is really long and twisting. It would probably benefit from being split into two sentences.
  • Appearance from Earth, "an observer can see a boat Moon". What's a boat moon?
  • Ref #122, "Martel, Linda M. V." has something screwy going on with the formatting.
  • Some authors are given as first name last name and others as last name, first name. This should be made consistent.

Other than this, things look good. I look forward to adding my vote. Dana boomer (talk) 19:19, 12 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Nice work! I have changed my comments to "keep". Dana boomer (talk) 18:16, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. Much improved. I have only one minor concern: that non-breaking spaces are not used consistently between numbers and units. See WP:NBSP. --Avenue (talk) 00:11, 15 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.

Removed status

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed by Dana boomer 20:48, 29 May 2010 [5].

Aleksandr Vasilevsky

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Review commentary

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Notified: WikiProjects

Article is not reliably sourced. A majority of the sources are by the subject himself, and about another 30% are by a colleague, a General Shtemenko who was the chief of the USSR military. Almost all the sources are by involved people, Soviet military or political colleagues YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 05:16, 23 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment - for the period before World War II, as discussed in the FAC, there are very few other sources but his biography. I do not believe this article should be moved to FARC simply because there are few other sources for the pre-World War II period. Buckshot06 (talk) 02:41, 24 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Rewriting the article solely on Western sources is not feasible - it would mean, as already said, removal of half of its content. Any volunteers? It just won't happen. If current sourcing is unacceptable for a FA, delist. NVO (talk) 04:33, 26 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Featured article criteria of concern brought up in the FAR section revolve mainly around sourcing. Dana boomer (talk) 20:11, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Keep—in the absence of recommendations of sources that should be included, more critical commentary of what is not covered in the article, or an example of a better article on the subject. This opinion is not based on a particularly thorough review or knowledge of the subject so if any other more informed opinions come up I would not mind having this one given less weight, but I wouldn't like this article and others like it of reasonable quality shunted aside unnecessarily simply for lack of an expressed opinion on it. Lambanog (talk) 04:56, 12 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed by YellowAssessmentMonkey 06:32, 26 May 2010 [6].

Delhi

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Review commentary

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Notified: User talk:Dwaipayanc, User talk:Nikkul, User talk:Lostintherush, Cities WP, India WP

I am nominating this featured article for review because it is a 2007 FA that has not been reviewed since, and is currently sitting near the top of Wikipedia:Featured articles/Cleanup listing. There are citation needed tags sprinkled through the article and some external links are present in the body of the article rather than being used as references or in the external links section. There is at least one dead link and many of the references are not formatted properly, missing publishers (or having incorrectly listed publishers), access dates and other information. I also have concerns about the article meeting the high quality sources criteria, as there are many websites and general references being used, while many reliable, scholarly books have been written on the topic. Dana boomer (talk) 02:23, 24 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think this article is fine. It is a model Featured City Article. There ARE some improvements which are needed, but in terms of structure and content, this article is one of the best in wikipedia. Nikkul (talk) 07:32, 24 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You clearly need to read WP:WIAFA. dana's one of the directors of the FAR process, so I would trust Dana's judgment when it comes to a FA in need of reassessment. The source quality in particular is of concern. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 22:16, 24 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Featured article criterion of concern are sourcing YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 01:25, 7 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed by Dana boomer 00:40, 22 May 2010 [7].

Amateur radio in India

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Review commentary

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Notified: all listed WikiProjects

I was a bit surprised by Wikipedia:Featured article review/Indian Standard Time/archive1 that there were complaints of so many references that didn't match the content, which turned out to be true. This article, also by Nichalp (talk · contribs) is the same; I have removed 6 footnotes that have nothing to do with the content that precedes it, and there is also a problem with "Hamfest souvenir" being used 6 times (not RS) and six dead refs (not-RS websites). Another problem is that a report published in 1979 is used to source statements on the current situation. Status data from 1979 cannot be assumed to be true for 2010. This affects about 6-7 cites. Per the FAC statement and Wikipedia_talk:Noticeboard_for_India-related_topics/Archive_37#Amateur_radio_in_India_on_FAC and Wikipedia_talk:Noticeboard_for_India-related_topics/Archive_39#Amateur_radio_in_India_on_main_page_today. the author quite often liked to tell people how fast he can write FAs, well, the sources in these ones don't check out YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 04:34, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Featured article criterion of concern are sources YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 01:19, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed by YellowAssessmentMonkey 23:40, 18 May 2010 [8].

Antarctic krill

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Review commentary

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Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Arthropods, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Antarctica, User talk:Lupo, User talk:Kils, User talk:Yakuzai

FA from 2005, has some 1c issues, and some copyediting needs and some short paragraphs/sections. 10 images used in the article, could use a pass through of an image review for those. The lede/intro of the article fails WP:LEAD - it is a bit too short and does not adequately summarize the entire article and function as a standalone introduction and summary to the article's contents. -- Cirt (talk) 22:39, 17 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Featured article criterion of concern are sources, lead YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 01:20, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed by YellowAssessmentMonkey 23:40, 18 May 2010 [9].

Stephen Colbert at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner

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Review commentary

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Notified: NickCatal, Brian.fsm, Kizzle, Reaverdrop, WikiProject Comedy

I am nominating this featured article for review because its cites are getting invalid (2c). This article was a labor of love and rushed through in 2006 but the subject is a rather ephemeral media/political comedy event and its cites have suffered heavy linkrot.Plotfeat (talk) 16:19, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • I tagged all the dead links that the toolbox found. I also removed some YouTube and Google Video links from personal accounts, as well as some information about a non-notable blog with only one entry that was being used as a primary source. Overall, the large number of dead links is troubling. There are also some issues with the prose and constant use of "however." Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 17:27, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. At risk of pointing out the obvious, but while deadlinks are bad, they are no more invalid for source material than inaccessible offline material. Wikipedia:Linkrot notes "Do not delete factual information solely because the URL to the source does not work any longer. WP:Verifiability does not require that all information be supported by a working link, nor does it require the source to be published on-line." Don't get me wrong, archive copy links should be found if available, but we can safely assume that the referenced were used originally by the authors of the article and the FAC, and thus the article theoretically shouldn't have to change at all? Are there any other issues with it? SnowFire (talk) 19:15, 17 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Beyond the sources, I see many issues with the prose. Colloquialisms and original research abound; to give just one example with the offending words bolded -- "Colbert received a chilly reception from the audience. His jokes were often met with silence and muttering, apart from the enthusiastic laughter of a few in the audience, such as Antonin Scalia's hearty laughter as Colbert teased him. This was in stark contrast to the warm reception that Bush received at the event for his skit with impersonator Steve Bridges, which immediately preceded Colbert's monologue." Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 03:23, 18 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • As a quick note, WP:Linkrot isn't a part of MOS, it's more of a descriptive essay, which means that FAs are not bound by it. Also, if the links are basically convenience links to information that was also distributed in-print (for example, the dead link to TIME and some of the newspaper articles) then it is correct that the links do not need to be fixed, and can simply be removed. However, if they went to completely online sources that were never distributed in any other place and that have been completely removed from the web, then there is no way to verify the information and a new reference needs to be found. Dana boomer (talk) 17:14, 18 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Featured article criterion of concern is sourcing YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 00:57, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep, not seeing sufficient rationale anywhere on this FAR page for removing FA status. Linkrot does not really seem that significant, presumably it is quite likely that WP:V is still able to be confirmed via other aspects of verification techniques. -- Cirt (talk) 16:56, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist. I'm not convinced by this article. There are still many dead links,[10] which means that signifcant parts are effectively uncited. That would not be acceptable at FAC and it ought not to be acceptable here. I'm also concerned that it has not aged well, as evidenced by "It continued to be a top download at iTunes for the next five months and remains a top-selling audiobook on the service", from the Internet popularity section, cited to a newspaper report from 2006. Is it still a "top-selling" audiobook? I'm also concerned about some of the writing, which seems a little breathless, and not altogether consistent. For instance we have "Much of the initial coverage of the Correspondents Dinner contrasted the audience's very positive reaction ...", which is barely even English, and contrasts rather vividly with Colbert's own assessment: "Colbert joked that the unenthusiastic reception was actually "very respectful silence". "They contrasted the critical reaction to Colbert ...", should obviously be "compared the critical reaction ...". Why is "Presidential comic routine" capitalised? "Subsequent coverage has seen commentators debate the stand-alone humor content of Colbert's performance" is just media-babble. There are too many problems with this article IMO, another of which is the choppy nature of the Praise and criticism for Colbert section, with its sequence of short paragraphs. There is no way this article is an FA. Malleus Fatuorum 22:02, 11 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist per Malleus. That is exactly what I was trying to say; I knew there were some issues with the tone but I had a hard time articulating them. There are short paragraphs everywhere and lots of media babble. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 03:54, 12 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I'm unconvinced the prose and citation issues are a serious problem. Also not eager to demote an article that to my mind plays to and is illustrative of Wikipedia's strengths. I'm wondering is there an article like this in Encyclopaedia Britannica? I'm thinking possibly not, yet it is one that in my view seems to have its pulse on cultural events with pivotal impact. An article like this is what makes Wikipedia a potentially better source of information on certain subjects than other conventional sources. Keep if at all possible. Lambanog (talk) 06:47, 12 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • That it's on a subject you consider to be of "pivotal impact" has no bearing on whether or not this article meets the FA criteria. I am in no doubt that it does not. Malleus Fatuorum 13:00, 12 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • There is criteria and there is criteria. If it fails the stated FA criteria, I trust that will be determined by those more familiar with what consensus on that is. Overall, however, I am judging whether keeping or removing this article's FA status improves or diminishes Wikipedia. From what I can tell this may be the best article on this subject anywhere. If so it sets Wikipedia apart. Rarity adds value. Importance of subject adds value. Rarity on an important subject? Now one may dispute if this article is rare or important if one wishes or take the position rarity and importance don't matter—bottom line is that would be your opinion not mine. I think it would worsen Wikipedia to remove this article's FA status. Lambanog (talk) 04:43, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • Your argument makes very little sense to me. You might as well argue that any other article you consider to be "pivotal" ought to be promoted to FA without the inconvenience of having to go through FAC. Further, whether the article has a little bronze star or not has absolutely zero impact on wikipedia or its readers; this isn't a discussion on whether or not the article should exist, simply whether or not it meets the FA criteria. Malleus Fatuorum 13:26, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • FA articles I would imagine are supposed to showcase what Wikipedia has to offer. A bunch of articles that are well-written but which in essence simply mimic what can be found elsewhere do not make a case for why Wikipedia is special. An article like this one in my view does. If you are suggesting the bronze star doesn't make a difference let's simply abolish the FA process and save people the time and effort writing and reviewing FAs. As for what I consider pivotal or not and the inconvenience of going through FAC—this article has already been vetted by going through FAC previously so that argument is academic. I am likely just reaffirming the value in the article I presume other reviewers saw. Lambanog (talk) 18:58, 13 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed by YellowAssessmentMonkey 23:40, 18 May 2010 [11].

New York City

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Review commentary

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Notified: Jleon, WikiProject New York City, WikiProject New York, WikiProject Cities

I looked up this article because I wanted an example for an excellent article for a large city, and was truly disappointed. The article is a complete mess:

  • Large portions of the article are unreferenced, particularly under "geography", "sports" and "demographics". There are numerous citation needed tags.
  • References are located within its own scroll-bar and contain incorrectly formatted entries.
  • Three dead links
  • Disambig link to Baldwin, New York
  • There are diminutive sections such as "Nicknames"
  • Overall, the article has a lot of very short paragraphs. Numerous places, these are single-sentence or single-line.
  • The article is littered with irrelevant trivia.
  • Large sections contain simple bulleted lists, some places using three periods (...) instead of a colon to introduce the list. Particularly "Culture and contemporary life" is deadful reading in this respect.
  • Images are scattered around, some have forced size, some are not, and these use what seems like random sizes. Other places, images sandwich each other.
  • At least three of the "see also" links are trivial and not self-explanatory.
  • There are numerous MOS violations.
  • The list of largest businesses is not accessible (color-coding only for information).
  • A lot of conversions have the wrong number of significant digits.

Arsenikk (talk) 12:18, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • I'd been pondering bringing this to FAR myself, as it's changed a lot in the nearly three years since it was promoted. In particular, the intro is larger than most articles, and the boxes around each borough are unique on Wikipedia, and that's probably for a reason. The Manhattanhenge see-also is my fault, it was an attempt at a compromise with adding a large section about that extremely non-notable issue. A one sentence mention in cityscape *maybe* but otherwise I just don't know where to put it. The other two you refer to, I agree, those are trivial and non-self-explanatory. Remove. --Golbez (talk) 15:47, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You don't vote remove just yet, but now is the time to focus on improving over a (several) week period. Arsenikk I'd compare the current with the version as it was promoted and have a look at what has changed. Once you do this, you find all sorts of interesting things have happened to these high traffic articles. It is a good place to start to see if any good material has been removed, rewritten badly or expanded with material of dubious significance. I will take a look later but I have an ever-growing queue of stuff to trawl through ATM... :/ Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:19, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Diff of changes from promotion in 2007 to now. Here's the permalink. Dabomb87 (talk) 21:37, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Over the past few months I've been debating nominating this article for a FAR. The page is littered with unsourced statements. The demographics and geography sections have changed radically for the worst in the past few months alone. There a too many pictures in the article, and its too long overall. I hope a review will spur improvement. Astuishin (talk) 06:35, 14 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Featured article criterion of concern are citations, length/focus, structure, MOS YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 23:56, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - I just looked at the previous version of the article (when it passed FAC) compared to now. Although the older version has less cruft, the newer version has many more references (over 50, if you include refs used multiple times). I think that the major problem with both versions of the article is the lack of high quality sources, a requirement that went into effect after the article passed FAC and for which it was never updated. There are extensive popular press, general and outdated sources being used, despite the fact that there are many books spanning several decades that have been written about New York City, and dozens more that have been written about New York as a state, in which NYC plays a decidedly large role. I honestly don't think that reverting to an older version would get this article much closer to FA status, due to the major effort that would need to happen to resource the article to high quality, reliable references. That's just my opinion, however :) Dana boomer (talk) 17:48, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist - Based on my comment above and the lack of work that has gone into the article over the past few weeks. Although a revert might help with the cruft, it won't help with the source quality issues, which is a major hurdle to the article remaining a FA. Dana boomer (talk) 18:01, 14 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed by YellowAssessmentMonkey 23:58, 11 May 2010 [12].

Real Love (John Lennon song)

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Review commentary

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Notified: Johnleemk, Oanabay04, John Cardinal, WikiProject The Beatles

I am nominating this featured article for review because it seems to have image copyright problems (3). Plotfeat (talk) 19:21, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • I'm seeing a lot of 1a and 1c issues as well:
    • The prose is very choppy, with lots of one- and two-sentence paragraphs. The "Release" section is just terrible.
    • "apparently to "effect the... snappy tempo" as Alan W. Pollack has speculated. " -- blatant wild-guessing.
    • Very large chunks of unsourced-ness throughout. Lots of unsourced claims in total, including first paragraph of "Reuniting the Beatles."
    • Dubious sources:

Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 15:44, 14 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • I don't have the time to bother with fixing this, but source 5 consists entirely of verbatim quotations from legitimate publications; if someone has the time and inclination, it's a fairly straightforward step to verify them and replace the references appropriately. Re source 17, I am not personally knowledgeable about musicology, but he seems regarded enough to have his own article. Broken links, AFAIK, are not generally a big deal, especially since I suspect the Internet Archive would be quite helpful in this area. Johnleemk | Talk 07:18, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Those requirements were already there when I nominated this article for FAR, which you'd be fully aware of if you read the original FAR where I stated why I nominated the article for FAR. Therefore, either that FAR was wrongly deemed a keep, or this FAR nomination is for false reasons - one or the other. Your concerns I feel are valid, but those concerns should've prevented it from being saved the first time around because as I said, those requirements were there all that time ago. LuciferMorgan (talk) 12:33, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I would say that the last FAR was wrongly deemed a keep, myself. Also, that was four years ago, an I don't think the "high quality sources" concern came into being until maybe a year ago. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 17:17, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Featured article criterion of concern are sourcing, prose YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 00:55, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed by YellowAssessmentMonkey 23:58, 11 May 2010 [13].

2007 UEFA Champions League Final

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Review commentary

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Notified: NapHit, WikiProject Football

I am nominating this featured article for review because I believe that it does not meet featured article criterion 1b. Following the example of 2009 UEFA Champions League Final, I believe that the article should include a short summary of past matches between the two sides and a list of other major matches held at the same venue. Furthermore, a prose account of each team's route to the final would seem to be a big plus. There is also no mention of the venue selection process, the match officials, the teams' financial rewards for competing in the match or the events that directly followed the final, such as the 2007 UEFA Super Cup, the 2007 FIFA Club World Cup. – PeeJay 11:56, 11 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The rationale given for using the image is branding and the marketing section is badly lacking and the image is unreferenced, thus failing nfcc8, as its omission would be detrimental to my understanding Fasach Nua (talk) 18:14, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Featured article criterion of concern are comprehensiveness, images YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 01:00, 27 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist – With the section on the teams' build-up to the match stripped down to the bone, this isn't the same article I saw at the first FAR. A couple of the other suggested additions (site selection in particular) were incorporated into the most recent soccer match FA, 2009 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Final, so it would be nice to see them in here as well to ensure a comprehensive article. Right now, I don't think this qualifies as one. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 23:08, 3 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist – Agree with the above concerns about FA criterion, specifically comprehensiveness. -- Cirt (talk) 16:54, 5 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed by Dana boomer 00:58, 11 May 2010 [15].

Harry S. Truman

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Review commentary

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Notified: Dominus, Americasroof and Gadget850 (most active users who have edited lately), and Rlevse (FA nominator in 2007). WikiProject Biography, WikiProject U.S. Presidents, WikiProject Cold War and WikiProject Politics.

I am nominating this featured article for review. I haven't scrutinized it thoroughly, and I don't have any experience with the FAC or FAR process, really. But it obviously fails criterion 1c.

  • The first paragraph in section "Family, education and early business career" is unsourced.
done. — Rlevse • Talk • 15:28, 3 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The section "Freemasonry" is mostly unsourced.
Done. — Rlevse • Talk • 19:37, 3 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Large parts of the section "Hereditary memberships" are unsourced, including one direct quote.
Done. — Rlevse • Talk • 19:37, 3 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Parts of the section "Jackson County judge" are unsourced.
Done. — Rlevse • Talk • 14:32, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The section "First term" under "U.S. Senator" is mostly unsourced.
Done — Rlevse • Talk • 16:16, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The section "Assuming office" is mostly unsourced.
Done. — Rlevse • Talk • 23:12, 2 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Parts of the section "United Nations, Marshall Plan and the Cold War" are unsourced.
Done. — Rlevse • Talk • 19:34, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Some paragraphs in the section "Election of 1948" have few or no references.
Done. — Rlevse • Talk • 19:39, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The sections "Second term (1949–1953)", "NATO" and "People's Republic of China" are mostly unsourced, there is a dispute tag in the latter section.
Fixed. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:36, 3 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Parts of the section "Korean War" are unsourced.
done. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:01, 3 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The section " Assassination attempt" is mostly unsourced, though there is a more-details-link.
Fixed. — Rlevse • Talk • 02:17, 1 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • A paragraph in the section "1952 election" is unsourced.
Fixed. — Rlevse • Talk • 02:31, 2 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Two paragraphs in the section "Truman Library, Memoirs, and life as a private citizen". Also, there is a one-sentence paragraph. Also there are many one-sentence paragraphs in the section "Legacy".
Done — Rlevse • Talk • 23:58, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The section "Later life and death" is mostly unsourced.
Done — Rlevse • Talk • 23:58, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A quick glance at the reference list:

  • Ref 166 is badly formatted. Is it dubious as well?
That now seems to be 167, replaced it, worked other refs. — Rlevse • Talk • 01:50, 1 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Too many external links?
Deleted NNDB, which to me is not reliable. Others seem okay. — Rlevse • Talk • 01:50, 1 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

A brief note about the first paragraph:

  • It unnecessarily repeats the detail about Shippe and Solomon.
Fixed — Rlevse • Talk • 01:50, 1 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Also note that when it was promoted, this was for no real reason, other than that "Several editors have recently worked hard [...] the prose size is 58k; and the article size is 108k, about the size of the FA on Gerald Ford", and various exclaims on its perceived quality. Geschichte (talk) 17:50, 31 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Parts of the article are needed to be rephrased or rewritten. Cant argue with that. Dont the the whole article needs to get scrapped. Is anyone monitoring this article for questionable editing or it got the star based on whats here now? Meishern (talk) 16:17, 1 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It was promoted 3 years ago, so it was different then. It does not need to get scrapped. — Rlevse • Talk • 20:22, 1 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Aside from the above, which should disqualify it as a FA:

  • That he was rehabilitated at one point falls far short of the outrageous claim in the introduction "Most American historians consider Truman one of the greatest U.S. Presidents" which is nowhere supported in the article.
  • Although the reader could infer Truman's and temper from some of the quotes, the famous incident where he threatened the Washington Post's music critic is not mentioned.
Just added it, with quotes. — Rlevse • Talk • 01:35, 2 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The statement that his "executive order, in 1948, desegregated the Armed Forces" is wildly inaccurate and misleading.

Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:19, 1 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This FA can be saved. You're wrong about his Exec Order and the Armed Forces, it did desegregate the Armed Forces. If it didn't, what are you claiming did do it? — Rlevse • Talk • 20:22, 1 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • The order announced a Presidential intent to treat persons in the armed services equally, and it authorized a board to investigate the matter. Business as usual ensued, while the supporters of segregation conducted a long rearguard action. The board reported in December 1949. Integration did eventually follow, but the Army continued to maintain segregated units until 1954. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:03, 1 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I know. Do you think desegregation in an organization that big would happen overnight? The fact remains it would not have happened without his EO. The majority of units were desegregated a few years prior to 1954. — Rlevse • Talk • 22:52, 1 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think that the article should make this clear for readers who might not understand the subject in the detail that we do. Hawkeye7 (talk) 01:04, 2 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
OK with, can you rework those parts? —

Rlevse • Talk • 01:35, 2 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Done. I have also added some material about Harry and historians. I replaced your link with one to the actual poll. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:46, 4 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • If nobody monitored it for 3 years maybe it needs to loose the star. Or revert all the way back to edit when the star was given. Its just in its present form, I don't think this article deserves accolades. Meishern (talk) 00:43, 2 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
You need to wait til the FAR is over. This FA is salvageable. Hopefully someone besides me will put a significant effort into it. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:49, 2 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I'll be willing to put in effort to save Truman. However, it's currently quite late, and I will be calling it a night. If I don't drop by on Friday/Saturday, drop a message on my talk page and I'll help. NativeForeigner Talk/Contribs/Vote! 05:21, 2 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Featured article criteria of concern brought up in the FAR section include referencing and prose. Dana boomer (talk) 00:14, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
HUH? The refs have ALL been fixed and no one critcized the prose. Would you care to explain yourself? Plus Hawkeye7's last comment was "Looks okay now". — Rlevse • Talk • 00:18, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
When moving to FARC, the delegates simply restate concerns raised during the FAR; concerns were raised about sourcing and prose. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:21, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
There were no concerns about prose and since what was raised was fixed why are we moving to FARC? — Rlevse • Talk • 00:23, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) Please read what I wrote above. Those criteria were brought up in the FAR section - I (and YellowMonkey, when he moves reviews) list them here as a starting point for reviewers listing keep/delist declarations. One of the commenters wrote "Parts of the article are needed to be rephrased or rewritten.", which I took to mean that they thought the prose needed work. I am not stating that I agree or disagree with any of the comments, just that they were mentioned in the previous section. The review was moved here because there was not a clear consensus by multiple uninvolved editors that the review should be closed prior to the FARC section. Dana boomer (talk) 00:25, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) "Parts of the article are needed to be rephrased or rewritten" is a prose concern; articles move to FARC unless there are declarations to close. It is *not* a big deal; just the way it works. In the future, Dana might ping editors to ask if the article is in keep territory and a FARC can be avoided, but please be kind to the new delegate. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:27, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Sandy - I'll keep that in mind for the future. Pinging editors before moving to FARC hadn't even crossed my mind (I don't know why, it just didn't!); I guess I'm more used to needing to ping editors for articles down at the bottom of the list. For what it's worth, I've mentioned this article to a couple of editors in an attempt to get it quickly moved through the FARC process, and I know Dabomb has pinged a couple of others. Dana boomer (talk) 00:58, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Lots of it was rewritten. Thank you everyone for wasting my time. Next time I come across a FAR I'll ignore it and let it flounder instead of trying to be productive. You said "prose" and that is only mentioned in ref to its state 3 years ago. As for rewriting did you both to read it? Most people haven't even bothered to comment on it's current state. Again, sorry I wasted my time trying to fix this, I won't make the mistake again. He should consider the work and those who wasted hours on this stuff. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:29, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Rlevse, you're overreacting to a normal part of the process: articles automatically move to FARC unless there is clear consensus not to-- reviewers enter Keep or Delist declarations at this stage. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:38, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No I'm not. It should not even have been moved to FARC. The concerns were clearly met. — Rlevse • Talk • 00:42, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Then it shouldn't matter, because people will !vote to keep the article anyway. Dabomb87 (talk) 00:47, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It shouldn't be here at this point anyway, so it does matter. At any rate, — Rlevse • Talk • 00:49, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I have to agree with Rlevse that this article's issues were addressed. The article has much better sourcing, and the referencing was ironed out. I'm not a regular at FAN or FAR but it seems counterproductive to have a time period for mistakes to be missed, and when the editor bringing them up says all is well to move it into a bureaucratic three week vote. I understand that you guys are new, but I certainly see where Rlevse is coming from. NativeForeigner Talk/Contribs/Vote! 01:56, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
FYI, the editor that created this FAR never returned to re-review the article. Gary King (talk) 03:39, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
D'oh. I made the assumption the user heading the critique nommed it, but that was not the case. NativeForeigner Talk/Contribs/Vote! 05:09, 14 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It looks alright. Referenced well from legitimate sources. POV is not blatantly partisan. There are a few minor things that could be rewritten or rephrased in my opinion, but nothing major sticks out to warrant deletion of this article. Needs a bit of polishing, thats all. Cheers! Meishern (talk) 20:04, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Needs work
    • The history channel is a massive joke. Should not be used when professors' books are available
    • Ditto for Global Security, not great when textbooks are available about Mao and PRC.
    • Books in footnotes 140-142 are used about a dozen times and have no page numbers. So are 136, 165 and maybe some more. They are needed for verification
    • Use of FDR everywhere, even a "n't" in main prose
    • hyphens in page ranges
    • I think the prose gets too dramatic, expecially in describing the 1952 election, with the strong adjectives, making it sound like sports commentary hyperbole
  • More importantly, the content of this article seems questionable.
    • I checked the Vietnam section, and the statement about HCM re-declaring indept in 1950 isn't in the source (almost all of the paragraph is not in the source, which in any case seems to be an unofficial review which can be sourced with scholarly books) and sounds dubious. The statement implying that France had almost all the territory is wrong, and talking about increasing aid to, and supporting an indept VN is ambiguous as the only Vietnamese govt previously mentioned is the communist one. Presumably it meant the French-backed State of Vietnam; And did the US pay the SoV or the French Army? Part about VJ Day is ambiguous as the VJ Day article says that there are three of them (in this case, sept 2)
    • More generally, China, VN and Korea are treated piecemeal; domino theory and linkages between the three aren't touched on and word domino isn't even touched. Content is ad hoc
    • Bit about NH primary repeated.
  • Undue weight
    • Sections on his middle name, his "hereditary memberships" as well as some parts of early life are very much larger than the sections on Vietnam and China, which seems questionable, especially as the "losing China" accusations dogged Truman a lot. But it only has 2-3 lines. In contrast, Pakistani recognition is bigger than VN and China put together. The section on Truman having a rant at a journalist for criticising his daughter's singing, and the renovation of the white house are also larger than these two sections. What makes these more important than Cold War powerplays?
    • Tech specs of atomic bombs and their etymology given in detail, but controversies over Supreme Court not explained except to vaguely say that they were criticised

In general, the content/focus of the article doesn't appear convincing to me. The density of ambiguities and errors in the one section that I follow a bit, makes me suspicious about the preparation that went into the content of the rest of the article. I'm going to ask for some other opinions from people who follow big-picture Cold War politics of the 1940s and 1950s YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 06:47, 14 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments: Definately not a bad article, but there are a few issues that I feel need to be addressed.
    • I think I've fixed the issue with the endashes for page ranges;
    • I agree with YellowMonkey's concerns (see above) about some of the citations not having page numbers;
    • Citation # 24 (Chronological Record of the 129th Field Artillery), needs an access date; as does # 26 (Capt. Harry Truman & Battery D);
    • I'm a little confused about what is included in the References list and what is not. McCullough is cited in Notes, but not in References, so is Eisler. So my question is, what is the style that is being used, what is the criteria for inclusion?;
    • Footnote # 95 ("There is reason to believe the Japanese...") needs a reference, as it is providing information but doesn't indicate its sourcing;
    • Some sources are consolidated per WP:NAMEDREFS, but others are not (for example 41 and 42 "Branded as Rebels";
    • Some of the websites do not have publisher details (for example Citation #244: Harry S. Truman School of Public Affairs - I think the publisher should be University of Missouri);
    • In the References section, the Neal work needs an ISBN;
    • I feel that there's undue weight on the issue of Truman's middle name/initial, indeed it completely unbalances the Personal life section IMO;
    • In the Hereditary memberships section the prose is choppy. For example, the first section begins with Truman, then the second sentence begins with "Harry S. Truman". It would be smoother if it were reversed;
    • Later in the Hereditary memberships section, Truman is refered to as "Harry" which seems a bit informal to me, but then later "President Harry Truman" and "President Truman" which seems overly formal;
    • A citation is needed after the last sentence in the 1940 election section: "It was the turning point of his political career";
    • A citation is needed after the last sentence of the Defense policy statements section: "The remark was the first";
    • First sentence of Vice presidency section needs a citation;
    • In the Vice presidency section, this paragraph needs a citation: "Truman's candidacy was humorously dubbed the second..."
    • In the Assuming office section, the term "wheel chair-bound" should be hyphenated, but has an endash, which is not consistent with WP:DASH;
    • In the Recognition of Israel section, the emdashes are incorrectly spaced, per WP:DASH they should be unspaced;
    • There is some inconsistency in abbrievations, for example "US" and "U.S." (example in Pakistan section);
    • the names in the Judicial appointments section need citations;
    • the sentence on Other courts section needs a citation;
    • the last part of the third paragraph of the Legacy section needs a citation: "the early and mid-1970s, Truman captured..." — AustralianRupert (talk) 12:44, 14 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist. I think there are numerous problems with this article: it's far too long, parts are rather poorly written, and it seems to have only a passing acquaintance with the MoS. It needs work, best done elsewhere. Malleus Fatuorum 22:53, 14 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The weight given various topics needs adjustment. Israel is covered in so much greater detail than any other aspect of Truman's political life. There is also disproportionate detail about nonpolitical aspects of the his life, including an extended section on "Hereditary memberships." By contrast, containment and the Truman Doctrine get only passing mention. There is a section on China, but no indication of why this is relevant to Truman's life. (The reason being that many Americans saw WWII as a war to save China, so "Who lost China?" was a powerful political issue, leading to McCarthyism and so forth.) Also, I don't notice any analysis of Truman's psychology or character. Deborah Larson does a good job of this Origins of Containment. (Her analysis is that Truman was extraordinarily anxious to be seen as strong and decisive, hence his tendency to make surprising "snap" decisions.) I'd cut the section on Pakistan; You could have a section like this about almost any country. The stuff about Indochina is confused. Ho Chi Minh issued his declaration of independence as soon as he arrived Hanoi. That this was also VJ Day is just coincidence. Truman decided to back France in Indochina immediately after the Korean War broke out. The article misunderstands "containment" as hardline anti-communism, but Truman's thinking was more complicated than this, as his reaction to the Communist takeover in China illustrates. Kauffner (talk) 12:46, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comments
    • Why is the long paragraph on his middle initial in the "personal life" section? It's bordering on trivia IMHO; I think most of it should be in a note or somewhere else.
    • "Both men were ti have a profound influence on Truman's later life." -- "ti"? (to)
    • Otherwise the article looks pretty good, though a few paragraphs are missing cites at the end. I'll try to do a reference check soon. —Ed (talk • majestic titan) 21:00, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments I'm inclined to vote to delist (YellowMonkey asked me to look over the article because of my interest in politics of that era), and will note some concerns.
POV. By separating the two discussions of American communism, and by lumping McCarthy, Nixon, and so forth into a single paragraph, there is a certain amount of implicit POV that Truman was opposed to McCarthy and Nixon, and to some extent a victim of the red scare. Go look at Truman's, and Attorney General McGrath's statements from that era.
The "fur coat" scandal is underplayed. Most of the fur coats did not involve the IRS, this is a segue I doubt you'll find in the sources. These were big news all through the last years of the Truman administration, and surely deserve more space than his army buddy being knocked for bumping a wounded veteran from a flight. Ever wonder why Nixon said in the Checkers speech that his wife didn't have a mink coat? Well, she didn't, but it was a swipe at the Truman scandals.
Why all the one paragraph sections? They break up the prose and should be merged into broader topics.
I'm rather troubled by the legacy section. "revisionist historians began attacking Truman" is rather a POV statement and also undetailed. Suggest using similar language and attention as the pro-Truman historians, naming the most prominent adherants.
I'll be back with more later, but it may have to wait until Monday. This would not pass as a FA today, but it's maybe salvagable.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:56, 16 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Just on the last point: I added this because the article originally falsely claimed that Truman is held in high esteem by historians. I can improve this part along the lines you suggest, by bringing in more material from the references I already cited. which provide ample deetail. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:01, 21 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've got more, but I'll wait until initial comments are replied to/dealt with. I'll enter a vote to Delist pending further action.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:09, 19 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed by YellowAssessmentMonkey 00:58, 7 May 2010 [16].

Marshall Plan

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Review commentary

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Notified: SimonP, Mosedschurte, Stor stark7, Socialism WP, Politics WP, US History WP

I am nominating this featured article for review because it is a 2005 FA that has not been reviewed since, and is currently sitting near the top of Wikipedia:Featured articles/Cleanup listing. There are citation needed tags sprinkled through the article, as well as many paragraphs and some full sections completely without references. There are at least two deadlinks, and the ref formatting needs some work to make it consistent. I also have concerns about the article meeting the high quality sources criteria, as there are many websites and general references being used, while many specific references are left languishing in the Further reading section. Dana boomer (talk) 15:56, 10 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Agreed 100% with Dana's analysis. There are way too many unsourced portions in this article, and the print sources should be integrated. Toolbox, surprisingly, shows only one dead link. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 18:22, 15 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Featured article criterion of concern are sourcing, MOS YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 05:23, 23 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed by YellowAssessmentMonkey 23:58, 4 May 2010 [17].

35 mm film

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Review commentary

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Notified: Girolamo Savonarola and Films

I am nominating this featured article for review because of the massive amount of reference problems. There's dead links, citations needed, unreliable sources, and not in citation given tags in the article, as well as un-referenced sections in the articles too. Now, in case I missed some problems in this review, please add them. GamerPro64 (talk) 01:49, 5 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Agreed 100%. There is a very serious lack in the referencing department, as the tags will quickly attest. Also, could the specs not be made into a table for ease of reference? Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 00:38, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Featured article criterion of concern are citations YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 23:57, 20 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed by Dana boomer 01:19, 1 May 2010 [18].

Amateur radio direction finding

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Review commentary

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Notified: Nominator and WikiProjects ...

This article is heavily undersourced for modern requirements, and many of the websites used have gone dead. YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 05:34, 30 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Featured article criteria of concern brought up in the FAR section include referencing. Dana boomer (talk) 00:19, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed by Dana boomer 01:19, 1 May 2010 [19].

Adriaen van der Donck

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Review commentary

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Notified: Wikiprojects. Author inactive.

This article fails 1c because of a vast lack of citations in many paragraphs YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 03:48, 26 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You mean 17, yes? But it's not enough. Johnbod (talk) 23:45, 27 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Serious lack of sources, yadda yadda, one was dead so I tagged it, threw in a couple [citation needed]s...egregious lack of sourcing all around. Did I mention the lack of sources? Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Many otters • One bat • One hammer) 15:34, 31 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

[edit]
Featured article criterion of concern is referencing YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 02:32, 10 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was removed by Dana boomer 01:19, 1 May 2010 [20].

Military history of France

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Review commentary

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Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Military history, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject France, User talk:UberCryxic,User talk:DITWIN GRIM, User talk:Carl Logan, User talk:FFMG (ie everybody with 10+ edits who has edited it since 2006)

I am nominating this featured article for review because tomorrow is the fourth anniversary of the FAC nom. Since then the article has not been reviewed, and seems to have had little attention. The talk page has only had 4 minor threads since 2007. Standards have changed a lot since early 2006, and a review is badly needed.

  • Comprehensiveness/well researched 1:The article in fact contains little military history, other than sports report lists of wars and battles. A large amount of it is political history explaining the causes of wars France has been in, followed by a couple of battles and a result. Except for the Revolutionary/Napoleonic period, the main author's speciality, there is very little on how wars were fought, and by what forces, areas where French developments often led Europe. I would estimate about 30% or more of the article should be removed as not really military history, leaving plenty of room for a more coherent account of the subject. Two examples, both all there is on the subjects:

Following Clovis, territorial divisions in the Frankish domain sparked intense rivalry between the western part of the kingdom, Neustria, and the eastern part, Austrasia. The two were sometimes united under one king, but from the sixth to the eighth centuries they often warred against each other. Early in the eighth century, the Franks were preoccupied with Islamic invasions across the Pyrenees and up the Rhone Valley. Two key battles during this period were the Battle of Toulouse and the Battle of Tours, both won by the Franks, and both instrumental in slowing Islamic incursions. Claims that these victories permitted the independent development of European civilization seem exaggerated,[21] but nonetheless they were major symbolic triumphs over the "Islamic hordes."[22]

The eighteenth century saw France remain the dominant power in Europe, but begin to falter largely because of internal problems. The country engaged in a long series of wars, such as the War of the Quadruple Alliance, the War of the Polish Succession, and the War of the Austrian Succession, but these conflicts gained France little. Meanwhile, Britain's power steadily increased, and a new force, Prussia, became a major threat. This change in the balance of power led to the Diplomatic Revolution of 1756, when France and the Habsburgs forged an alliance after centuries of animosity. This alliance proved less than effective in the Seven Years' War, but in the American Revolution, the French helped inflict a major defeat on the British. (nb NO refs in this para)

  • Comprehensiveness/well researched 2:The article treats France from the early Middle Ages on as though it was a 19th or 20th century state with total control over its territory and people; the wars discussed are therefore international ones, treated as though taking place in the modern era. This is fundamentally misleading. In fact the story of French history up to say Richelieu is notoriously mainly the struggle to define and control its own territory, which the French tradition of inheritances was always dividing; the excellent French graphic just below the lead shows one aspect of this well, but there is little echo of this in the text.
  • Comprehensiveness/well researched 3: Major persistent themes of French military history are totally ignored: the French invented the castle, and fortified lines continued to be given huge emphasis by French military thinking from the 17th century until WW2. The Fortifications of Vauban are not linked, and the Maginot Line is the only mention of this theme. "Hapsburg encirclement" is just about mentioned, with no link to France–Habsburg rivalry. The article uses the phrase French-German enmity several times, but I can't see a link. The obsession with "natural frontiers" is mentioned, but the list just omits the most troublesome of all, the northern one. The perennial French dilemma of not being able, in the Early Modern period, to compete properly with either the British Navy or the Hapsburg or Prussian armies is not properly explained, and the issue of using galleys in the Med and different ships in the Atlantic not touched on at all. The twisting history of the French cavalry, and their perpetual difficulty in getting decent horses, is pretty much ignored - no links to Gendarme (historical) or Chevau-légers for example, and no mention that the Franks used cavalry as their strongest arm. The point that the Battle of Hastings was Norman cavalry v English foot is not made clear - this whole passage is very unclear. There is little on the unusually intense politicization of French military issues, no Dragonnade for example. The French had near-universal male military conscription between 1793 and 2001, which one would think worth a mention. The Dreyfus affair needs coverage and a link. Generally the whole article is just too superficial.
  • Well researched 4: Detailed examination of the text does not inspire confidence in the account. The article gets off to a bad start with:
"Gallo-Roman conflict predominated from 400 BC to 50 BC, with the Romans emerging victorious in the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar."

- This is not referenced, and I rather doubt it is true. Gallo-Roman is the wrong link - that is about life in Gaul after the Roman conquest. The good Celtic warfare is not linked, but then I don't think it would support this dubious proposition. Most Gallo-Roman wars were with tribes in modern Northern Italy or Switzerland, and I think most scholars would say that the probability is that people in modern French territory spent most of their time in unrecorded wars between each other.

"...with modern-day France lacking only about two-thirds of the Rhine, which is in Germany." Oh, really?!
At Alesia: "Caesar's unique defensive earthworks, protruding towards the city and away from it in order to stop a massive Gallic relief force" - "protruding" suggests a misunderstanding. There were two rings encircling the town, with the Romans in between. There are many such misphrasings; I won't attempt to list them all, but they add to the impression of a lack of real knowledge of the subject, especially before the French Revolution.
  • Well researched 5: There are far too few references. For example the second para of "Themes", covering huge issues, is completely unrefed, which helps explain why it is poor. The article gets from 400 BC to 1789 with only 28 refs! Many refs seem only to cover the immediate preceding point. The books used have many solid-looking works on 1790-1815, but otherwise seem a rather lightweight rag-bag, with none of the major historians who have written on this subject.
  • Images: Up to the Napoleonic period and modern photographic period the images are pretty terrible, a whole series of later romanticised paintings, few actually showing action. There are tons of lively Roman and medieval images on Commons that could be used. I'm dubious the picture said to be of Rocroi actually is - from the costumes it was clearly painted about 60 years later, & I'm dubious they would by then just use contemporary fashion in a historical painting. The Commons image gives no decent source. I haven't looked at the status of other images. Alt text has been added, but not correctly - the subject of the image is given but little or no description of what is seen.
  • Links: I'm not very familiar with WP coverage of this area, but looking around it was disappointing to see how few articles have good material that rises above historical narrative. Nonetheless, there are a lot of articles to which no link is given - I'll end with a list of those I don't mention otherwise - I'm not saying all are vital, but several are. I may have overlooked some that are piped in the article etc.


  • Criteria summary: The article badly fails 1b, the comprehensiveness requirement; this is certainly the main problem. 1c is well below par too. Criteria 1a and 3 are doubtful; most of the prose is serviceable, except where a certain confusion seems betrayed, but the article lacks all brilliance and excitement on what should be a gripping subject. For such a huge subject the article is too short, especially as so much of it is not really on the subject, so 4 is in question too. I have to say that the work required is so root and branch that the article should imo receive a full new FAC whatever happens. But in its current state it would suffer the same fate as the French at Agincourt.

Johnbod (talk) 17:12, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Since UberCryxic has started work, I'll link the exact version I was reviewing, in place 9-13 March. Johnbod (talk) 18:48, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your nomination. I am the nominator and I look forward to addressing all of your concerns. I am starting right now actually. Just give me a few moments. Before I announce my corrections, however, I also want to say that the article has, in fact, received some badly needed attention from me lately (in February). I added alt text, corrected references, improved the prose, etc. You can all see this in the article's edit history. Anyway, thank you again for your nomination!UBER (talk) 17:24, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

First of all, I'd like to thank Johnbod for many wonderful suggestions. In response to the above criticism, I have done the following:

  • The article definitely needed more references, and to that end I have added about 20 citations to critical claims throughout the article, including in places mentioned above (particularly Themes, Ancien Regime). If needed, I can cite this article to death from the first letter to the last, but because this topic is so broad and general, I wrote it with the idea that only potentially controversial claims should receive citations. It hardly seems fitting to cite things like "In this year, France went to war with this country" or "France conquered this territory at this time."
  • I have lightened the TOC by merging Franks and Carolingians with the Gauls section into Early period and by retitling Major themes in French military history to Dominant themes and getting rid of the subsections. As part of this process, I have removed the paragraph about Gallo-Roman conflict before Caesar. The lead now says "60 to 50 BC" and the link to Gallo-Roman culture has been removed. The reason I did this is because that paragraph conflated the history of Cisalpine Gaul with Transalpine Gaul, and only the latter falls under modern French boundaries. This was brought up before repeatedly, but there was always uncertainty about whether it should or should not be a part of this article. It's much safer historical ground just to begin the account from Caesar's encounters with the Gauls, which is traditionally where it starts.
  • Several previously uncovered or confusing topics mentioned above are now covered and clarified: Vauban gets coverage, the rise and importance of castles gets coverage, France in the Middle Ages is treated less as a nation and more as an emerging kingdom, the Dreyfus Affair is now mentioned explicitly in readable prose (although already was mentioned as a visible part of a citation), the part about most of the Rhine being in Germany has been removed, the sentence on Alesia has been rephrased, France-Habsburg rivalry is now linked, France in the Seven Years War is now linked, Manstein Plan is now linked, France in the American Revolutionary War was already linked. The article never uses the phrase "French-German enmity." It uses "French-Germany rivalry" and that is linked to French-Germany enmity.
  • I have given some parts of the article a copyedit to correct minor consistency issues and prose problems, but I wholeheartedly encourage outside parties to go through the article and conduct an independent copyedit.

I gladly welcomed what I read as it related to the above changes. Beyond this point, it becomes difficult for me to delineate between legitimate criticism and fundamental misconceptions. The user suggests that the article has "root and branch" problems and brings up, as part of the evidence, that it's not comprehensive or focused because it covers political history as well. That decision was deliberate and fully warranted: since Clausewitz, it's a quasi-biblical tenet in all military historiography that you never ever separate military history from political history. The two are fundamentally connected and they don't make sense without one another. What's more embarrassing, however, is that the article actually explains this in detail (although now it's cited; before it wasn't). In American military history, for example, the canonical case is the Vietnam War, which was ultimately seen as a failure because of increasing public frustration with its course, not because the Vietnamese defeated the Americans militarily. The French also have their own Vietnam: the Algerian War. In Atlas of World Military History, historian David Isby writes: The French military was never defeated and was winning on the battlefield until the day it lost the war. Politically, the war brought down the Fourth Republic. I could keep listing examples of the fundamental connection between political will and military success on the battlefield until we're old and gray, but that should suffice. In recent times, historians have also added social history as part of the narrative on military history, so if anything, the article should be criticized for leaving those parts out, not for including political history.

French military history is extremely long and complicated. I wanted to give readers a brief and comprehensive overview without getting bogged down with unnecessary and trivial details. Where I left important things out, I was happy to make changes as I explained above. The user mentions cavalry. Well, the knight is almost the central motif of the Middle Ages section, but variations in horse-procurement by the French cavalry hardly seems like a salient topic. The French have long been renowned for having spectacular cavalry forces; sometimes they had difficulties procuring horses, and at other times they didn't. I just fundamentally see this suggestion as totally irrelevant to the larger context that the rest of the article tries to provide, although I have no problem mentioning it if there's overwhelming consensus to do so.

The natural frontiers are mentioned as part of the source that I was using, and that source does not mention the "northern one," whatever the user is referring to. In the context of modern French strategy, "natural frontiers" is a very specific term that explicitly refers to the Pyrenees, the Rhine, and the Alps.

The user seems to be confused on some history. The early modern period is typically dated as 1500 until c. 1800 (or French Revolution). The French did not have a "perennial problem" in competing with Britain or Prussia. First of all, there was no such thing as "Britain" for most of the early modern period (presumably the user refers to the Kingdom of England, making some of the same mistakes with nationalization that I made under Middle Ages) and the Kingdom of Prussia doesn't come along until the early 18th century, nor does it become a main French rival until the Seven Years War. The Habsburgs, on the other hand, were definitely a rival to the French crown throughout the early modern period and that rivalry is mentioned in detail throughout the Ancien Regime section (and now linked too). But even taking the (assumed) point about France having difficulties against England at sea (which is true), there is somewhat of an omission from the user because the article does cover the growing strength of the English/British navy during the early modern period under Topical subjects (French Navy), and also explains that the British navy ultimately secured domination of the seas with Trafalgar. I don't think anything substantial has been left out. On land, from Louis XIV until Napoleon, France was generally recognized as the most powerful force on the European continent, and certainly Prussia was not a "perennial problem." It did become a problem for France during and after the Seven Years War, but under the time period we're considering, it's not an accurate characterization.

I look forward to hearing more comments and suggestions about how to improve the article. Thank you very much for your time.UBER (talk) 21:58, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I forgot to address your points about images and sources. The image for Rocroi is, don't worry, meant to depict Conde at Rocroi. This is one of the most famous images in French military history, and it's somewhat frightening that you're doubting its authenticity. Just so we are all clear, since outdated costumes were brought up, many famous paintings depicting battles are painted long after the actual event, so it's absolutely expected that the painter would make silly mistakes like showing the wrong dress. This is especially true for the French, who produced scores of heroic and promethean war paintings in the 19th century as an emotional catharsis after their defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. That's regrettable, I agree, but it's not the article's fault. Before the French Revolution, the Malplaquet engraving shows action (now removed, see below), as does the Rocroi painting in the background. Not all images have to involve an explicit depiction of fighting; sometimes readers get a better feel for the subject by seeing certain key moments in the midst of fighting. I'm willing to work on alt text, definitely, but I was hoping for some more specific suggestions. Can you please tell me what you think the alt text for the images should be? (see below)

Besides images, you also mention that—outside the revolutionary and Napoleonic era—the article does not use major historians. This statement was false before FAR—since the article featured heavyweights like John Lynn (specialist on wars of Louis XIV), John Keegan (pretty much the greatest military historian of the 20th century), and Barbara Tuchman—but it's even more false now as I have added legends like Parker and Paret. The sources are solid in terms of the reputation of the scholars who wrote them.UBER (talk) 23:04, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Update On second reflection, I've grown to appreciate Johnbod's arguments about the images a little bit more, so I have removed three (Vercingetorix surrendering to Caesar, the French at Fontenoy, and the Bayeux Tapestry) that did little else but show some heroic-looking people standing on horses.UBER (talk) 01:00, 14 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. Alt text done; thanks. Alt text is present (thanks), but needs some work.
    • Many of the images contain proper names when these are not obvious from the images themselves. For example, the first image's alt text says "Napoleon", "Austrian generals", and "Ulm" but none of these names are obvious from the image itself. Names like this should be in the caption, not the image; see WP:ALT#Proper names. (Napoleon would be an exception, since he's iconic, but in this image he's so far away that you can't tell who he is, just by looking at him.) Please make a sweep through the alt text and remove all proper names that aren't obvious to an average reader who is looking only at the image.
    • The alt text for the maps don't convey the gist of the information. For example, the alt text for File:Frontiere francaise 985 1947.gif doesn't briefly describe the overall pattern of how France's borders changed. Please see WP:ALT#Maps and WP:ALT#Videos and animations for guidance. "A map of France" and "Map of Frankish lands" don't suffice to convey the gist of those maps.
    • Please omit phrases like "Colored painting showing" and "black and white engraving showing" unless the colors or the paint or the printing style are important, which they aren't here. See WP:ALT#Phrases to avoid.
    • Also, please move details such as "receiving the spoils of war" from the alt text to the caption, when these details are not obvious to a non-expert who sees only the image. See WP:ALT#Verifiability.
    • Also, if there is nontrivial duplication between the alt text and the caption, please fix the duplication, as per WP:ALT#Repetition. For example, the alt text "Photograph of a nuclear strike fighter" duplicates the caption "Mirage 2000N designed for nuclear strike." (not to mention also running afoul of words-to-avoid and verifiability).
Eubulides (talk) 01:04, 14 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've gone through the entire article and modified the alt text significantly per your suggestions. I got rid of some images entirely per concerns raised above. I absolutely suck at writing alt text, I'll admit it, even though I know what the policies say alt text should be like. Don't hesitate to go through it on your own if you can improve on my effort.UBER (talk) 01:54, 14 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, it looks good now. It absolutely does not suck. Eubulides (talk) 06:29, 15 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • As Uber & I have written a lot here, I was holding off coming back in the hope that others would comment, but as this has not happened, except for Eubilides, and Uber's work seems to have stopped, I will just give a brief update. While he has addressed many of my specific points, which is very welcome, and disagreed with others (not generally very convincingly imo), many of the problems I outlined above remain. I still think the article would fail FAC today & should be delisted for improvement. Johnbod (talk) 20:37, 22 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Can you be specific in what else you want me to do? I'm willing to work with you until you are satisfied, within reasonable limits, but more guidance would help. Thank you.UBER (talk) 21:44, 22 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, give me a day or two to re-review. Johnbod (talk) 13:35, 24 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Part 2

I'll revisit my earlier points later, but these are some further points thrown up by a reading of the current version. I haven't checked if they relate to new or old material:

"French strategic thinking has often been driven by the need to attain or preserve the so-called "natural frontiers," which are the Pyrenees to the southwest, the Alps to the southeast, and the Rhine River to the east.[2] Starting with Clovis, 1,500 years of warfare and diplomacy has witnessed the accomplishment of most of these objectives." - Now I have looked into this, I find that recent historians seem universally to dismiss this line, in terms of French thinking before the late 18th century. This was what 19th century Revanchists managed to brainwash into the world, but actually the evidence for this in French strategic thinking before then isn't there, and in fact the well-documented territorial ambitions of Louis IX et al were the completely different "Four Rivers": the Rhone, Saône, Scheldt (aka Escaut in French) and Meuse. These links give good and authoritative descriptions of the modern view. "Four Rivers" and another Unfortunately we have nothing else I can see on the Natural frontiers of France.
"and often rulers of France extended their continental authority far beyond these barriers, most notably under Charlemagne, Louis XIV, and Napoleon." - Not really, except for Napoleon. See the last point also. Charlemagne's concept, and inherited territory, of Francia included North-west Germany just as much as parts of France. The Rhine was no "barrier" to him, as it ran right through the middle of his territory. Apart from a brief and thoroughly unsuccessful expedition to Ireland, I can't think that Louis XIV's armies ever "extended their continental authority far beyond these barriers" either more than ?what 20-40 miles & for brief periods.
"These periods of heavy militaristic activity were characterized by their own peculiar conventions, but all required strong central leadership in order to permit the extension of French rule." - isn't this just waffle?
"Important military rivalries in human history have come about as a result of conflict between French peoples and other European powers. Anglo-French rivalry, for prestige in Europe and around the world, continued for centuries, while the more recent Franco-German rivalry required two world wars to stabilize.[5] French involvement in these protracted geostrategic clashes was at times both successful and unsuccessful. The wars themselves had complex political dimensions, often involving alliance systems that rarely remained static and that yielded dynamic solutions on the battlefield." The first part is more accurately explained elsewhere, and the second bit is more waffle.
"This threat to France became alarming in 1516 when Charles V became the king of Spain, and grew worse when Charles was also elected Holy Roman Emperor in 1519." - Not really. Much more to the point are the complicated marital and military moves of Charles's grandfather and predecessor as HRE, Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, which really established the "Habsburg encirclement". Charles becoming HRE was a foregone conclusion.
"During Louis' long reign, the English reemerged as France's great rivals, allied to the Habsburgs. While they could not stand up to France on land, the British Royal Navy dominated the seas, and France lost many of its colonial holdings." - Standing up to France on land was exactly what the English (with allies) were able to do very successfully once they finally took the field. Nor did "the British Royal Navy dominate the seas" yet in Louis's time, especially not the Mediterranean, where the French were still much more powerful, but also in the Atlantic where the two powers were still pretty evenly matched. "Some" would be better than "many" of its colonial holdings - the losses weren't huge.
"The west bank of the Rhine, much of the Spanish Netherlands, and a good deal of Luxembourg were annexed while the War of the Spanish Succession saw a fellow Bourbon placed on the throne of Spain." - "a fellow Bourbon" is an odd way to describe his grandson. Not much of "The west bank of the Rhine" was held at the end of the day. Despite success in terms of the actual succession, the exhausted and bankrupt state of France at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession, and the first major English successes on the Continent for nearly three centuries marked the end of French miliary dominance.
"For most of the period from 1870 to 1945, France was territorially the third largest nation on Earth, after Britain and Russia (later the Soviet Union), and had the most overseas possessions following Britain" - this is very confused. Clearly France wasn't bigger than the US, China, Turkey, unless you are counting the whole Empire for the British and French, but the second part implies you are not. "Most" in "the most overseas possessions" is very vague. I'm sure there is a point to be made here, but it needs to be clear what is being said.
"The Mirage repeatedly demonstrated its deadly abilities in the Six-Day War and the Gulf War, becoming one of the most popular and well-sold aircraft in the history of military aviation along the way" - is "well-sold" a word? Should not be used anyway.
The section on the Foreign Legion doesn't explan what's "foreign" about them, which is needed.
"Additionally, developments in artillery made it a crucial part of the French army, and the resounding victories over the English at the battles of Formigny and Castillon, both significantly attributable to artillery,[33] were so decisive that the war ended right then and there." - style: "right then and there".
More links that prbably should be included:
Appanage
Glorious Revolution - in England. Fatal for Louis XIV's ambitions.
Some good part-online books with the kind of stuff on the composition of forces that the article is still missing for most periods:
gendarmes etc
standing army, all cavalry
17th century army
Pavia

More later Johnbod (talk) 14:50, 26 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for more great suggestions! In response to the above criticism, I have done the following:
  • In Dominant themes, the natural frontiers are now explained in the context of modern French strategy (this was a major oversight indeed). Charlemagne and Louis XIV have been removed from that paragraph, as have several useless phrases ("characterized by their own peculiar conventions" and the sentence about how the wars ended for France) identified above.
  • The sentence about Charles V has been removed as suggested, and I've given the paragraph a copyedit to make the ideas flow better.
  • Corrected the parts about Louis XIV and the War of the Spanish Succession identified above. English/British importance and involvement made slightly more explicit, although it's already clear enough I'd say.
  • Size of France in late 19th century and early 20th is now characterized in the context of its colonial empire, clarifying some of the confusion above.
  • "Well-sold" removed from Mirage sentence.
  • French Foreign Legion section now explains what was foreign about them.
  • Sentence about Castillon and Formigny slightly rephrased.
On the Glorious Revolution: it contains more importance for English political history and I don't see how you can justify its inclusion given what you said above about mixing political history with military history. It was a huge political blow for the French, but French military forces were not involved. You can probably see a better way to integrate it into the article than I can, so I urge you to go ahead and do it if you feel it's really that important.UBER (talk) 18:19, 26 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Part 3

Turning to Uber's comments on my first set of points, I won't go into arguments on specific points for now, but stick to wider themes:

The politics issue. Of course I'm not denying the importance of politics at all, but despite the improvements, the balance of the article still has far too much on them & too little on the make-up and tactics of the military. If I was doing the article, I would be tempted to greatly shorten or just remove the "unified" chronological scheme, and add more on thematic sections: Enemies of the French government (including internal ones), Fortification, Cavalry, Infantry, Artillery, The military in a democratic state, perhaps The nobility also. Personally I think it is easier to describe the developments of each of these themes when they are taken separately. But of course the same information can be worked into any scheme; however if the current material were reworked in this way it would brutally expose the current shortcomings. The lack of information of how armies (+ navies etc) were made-up and how, not who, they fought remains my main issue with the article. I realize that all the other "Military history of foo-nation" articles I've looked at follow similar patterns, but I would make the same comment on them. In the case of France, so often a leader in developments, the issue is especially important.
Improvements. The article has been improved on many of my specific points, with references and links added, and sentences changed. This is very welcome, but my basic concern remains. It was much too easy for me, as no sort of expert on the subject, to pick up another set of points on a re-read, most of which I'm glad to see Uber has agreed to change. But I expect I could still find others, and an expert far more.
Images. Some have been removed, including unfortunately the Bayeux Tapestry one, the only contemporary image that was in the earlier part of the article. The earliest image (not subject of an image) is now the "Rocroi" one, which I date to about 1690. I'm not stuck on that particular Bayeux image - there are plenty of others, but we definitely need more authenticity in the images, and there are loads from manuscripts etc that could be used. After Napoleon in the lead, and three maps, we still have three cheesy Victorian efforts covering the rest of Middle Ages and Renaissance. On the "Rocroi" one, if it is so famous, please add the usual details (location, painter, date etc) & source to the Commons file - on Google images I can't find it except on blogs, which also give no good details. Johnbod (talk) 23:43, 27 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
On 1689, I won't add anything myself now, as once I start that there won't be too much left of the present article, but something alone the lines of the following should be easy enough to reference from sources already used (for insertion perhaps after "...but French borders expanded steadily anyway.)" : "France's strategic situation changed decisively with the English Glorious Revolution of 1689, which replaced a pro-French king with Louis's enemy, the Dutch William of Orange. After a period of two centuries seeing only rare hostilities with France, England now became again a consistent enemy, and remained so into the 19th century." Ideally I would summarize these major shifts in the early sections though. Johnbod (talk) 16:41, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
In the Early period section, there is strong coverage about the major components of Carolingian armies and their operational style. In the Middle Ages section, there is detailed and almost nauseating coverage of military trends and developments, from size and tactics to armor and siege warfare. In the Ancien Regime section, it's mostly political and military events, but there is still strong coverage on trends during the reign of Louis XIV and the significance of his armies in military history. Revolutionary and Napoleonic France feature heavy coverage of military trends and developments as well. The Modern Period contains a healthy balance between political history and military developments, and it also covers the military's relationship to the republic. I think we just have an honest disagreement here. The article already contains (most of) the claims you say it needs regarding broad themes, and that's one of the achievements for which it was widely praised as it became featured and went on the Main Page.
I really don't want to have a hullabaloo over images, so I've removed Rocroi and the "cheesy Victorian efforts" while reinstating the Bayeux tapestry. I've also included your proposed comment about the Glorious Revolution, with minor modifications for style.UBER (talk) 17:32, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed I think we have an honest "disagreement" on what constitutes FA standards, and should probably leave it now for others to comment. The entire coverage of anything to do with cavalry amounts to one sentence on Carolingian cavalry (your "strong coverage"), only added in response to one of my earlier points, and a passage about "knights" (no link), who the reader can probably work out were fighting on horses, though this is never said, and of course for much of the time they fought on foot (your "detailed and almost nauseating coverage"). After that, nothing. Johnbod (talk) 19:16, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
We must be reading different articles apparently. The Carolingian part about cavalry was there before you brought up this FAR. One passage about knights? That's strange of you to say. The following is what I see:
On the Middle Ages:
Military history during this period paralleled the rise and eventual fall of the armored knight. Following Charlemagne, there was a great increase in the proportion of cavalry supplemented by improvement in armor: leather and steel, steel helmets, coats of mail, and even full armor added to the defensive capabilities of mounted forces. Cavalry eventually grew to be the most important component of armies from French territories, with the shock charge they provided becoming the standard tactic on the battlefield when it was invented in the eleventh century. At the same time, the development of agricultural techniques allowed the nations of Western Europe to radically increase food production, facilitating the growth of a particularly large aristocracy under Capetian France. The rise of castles, which began in France during the tenth century, was partly caused by the inability of centralized authorities to control these emerging dukes and aristocrats. After campaigns designed for plundering, attacking and defending castles became the dominant feature of medieval warfare.
In the eleventh century, French knights wore knee-length mail and carried long lances and swords. The Norman knights fielded at the Battle of Hastings were more than a match for English forces, and their overwhelming victory simply cemented their power and influence. Improvements in armor over the centuries led to the establishment of plate armor by the fourteenth century, which was further developed more rigorously in the fifteenth century. However, by the late fourteenth century and the early fifteenth, French military power declined during the first parts of the Hundred Years' War. New weapons and tactics seemingly made the knight more of a sitting target than an effective battle force, but the often-praised longbowmen had little to do with the English success. Poor coordination or rough terrain led to bungled French assaults. The slaughter of knights at the Battle of Agincourt best exemplified this carnage. The French were able to field a much larger army of men-at-arms than their English counterparts, who had many longbowmen. Despite this, the French suffered about 6,000 casualties compared to a few hundred for the English because the narrow terrain prevented the tactical envelopments envisioned in recently discovered French plans for the battle. The French suffered a similar defeat at the Battle of the Golden Spurs against Flemish militia in 1302. When knights were allowed to effectively deploy, however, they could be more useful, as at Cassel in 1328 or, even more decisively, at Bouvines in 1214 and Patay in 1429. Given the successes of Henry V of England, his death in 1422 altered the nature of the war profoundly and may have permitted the French to recover virtually all their territory by the end of the conflict.
You call all of this "a passage" on cavalry. I call it nauseating detail. I mean seriously: how much more could the casual person want to know about cavalry in French military history? You and I may be interested in the subject, but I think this is enough for most readers.UBER (talk) 19:23, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I admit I'd overlooked the first para of that. My problem is not with that passage so much, as the lack of anything on French cavalry after about 1429. Johnbod (talk) 20:17, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
They're mentioned once more (in passing) in the Napoleonic section, but I think they get about all the coverage they deserve given their decline in modern times. Starting in the 19th century, the importance of mounted troops fell precipitously. However, French cavalry during the Napoleonic Wars saw an amazing resurgence in capabilities and organization, so saying more about that would definitely be appropriate. Is that a good compromise for you? I only want to mention cavalry where it's absolutely essential, not just to mention it for the sake of mentioning it.UBER (talk) 20:23, 28 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well, of course that's fine, but both knights in armour and Napoleonic hussars etc are familiar to everyone from popular culture, whereas the gendarmes, who were a French invention & speciality, and regarded as the battle-winning force until late in the 16th century, are much less well known and still unmentioned. They were also the sole component of the first standing army in post-Roman Europe. Our article on them is for once not bad either. The 17th century cavalry were just as important too. Johnbod (talk) 00:14, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
On second thought, if we're adding material on cavalry, it might as well be on the gendarmes (poor Murat!). I've now mentioned them with the source you gave above and included an image from the Gendarme article.UBER (talk) 01:07, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments: Overall I enjoyed reading the article and found it very informative (although please understand I have no specific knowledge of the topic). I have the following comments about the article and some suggestions in order to keep it as an FA.

(1) MOS issues/suggestions:

    • endashes should be used for pages ranges in the citations (an example where a hyphen should be replaced is citation # 33 Kinard, pp. 61-2);
    • citations that have the same content could be consolidated per WP:NAMEDREFS (an example of citations that could be consolidated are citations #21 and 22 Brooks, p. 50)
    • the References section could be formated with the {{cite book}} to give it a cleaner look;
    • the titles of the works in the References section are capitalised inconsistently. For example Tuchman is capitalised differently to Weigley. I think they should be consistent with Wikipedia:MOSCAPS#Composition titles;
    • the template ribbon at the bottom of the article would look better, IMO, if it was collapsed, particularly because of the large number of redlinks;

(2) Citations needed:

    • in the Dominant themes section, the end of the first paragaph needs a citation: "French involvement in these protracted geostrategic clashes was at times both successful and unsuccessful. The wars themselves had complex political dimensions, often involving alliance systems that rarely remained static and that yielded dynamic solutions on the battlefield."
    • in the Early period section, the last sentence needs a citation: "The Empire lasted from 800 to 843, when, following Frankish tradition, it was split between the sons of Louis the Pious by the Treaty of Verdun."
    • in the Middle Ages section, the last sentence needs a citation as it is not clear whether it is covered by the previous one: "...were so decisive that the war ended right then and there. Calais was the only English possession in mainland France by 1453."
    • in the Ancien Régime section, the last part of the second pargraph needs a citation: "The vast Habsburg empire also proved impossible to manage..."
    • in the Ancien Régime section, the third paragraph needs a citation: "The long reign of Louis XIV saw a series of conflicts..."
    • in the Ancien Régime section, the last sentence needs a citation as it is not clear if it covered by the previous one: "This alliance proved less than effective in the Seven Years' War, but in the American Revolution, the French helped inflict a major defeat on the British."
    • in the Revolutionary France section, the last part of the second paragraph needs a citation: "The French triumphed at the decisive Battle of Fleurus through numerical ..."
    • in the Revolutionary France seciton, the last part of the third paragraph needs a citation: "As a result of political pressure, competition, promotion, and constant campaigning, France"
    • in Napoleonic France section, the last part of the second paragraph needs a citation: "Napoleon's huge losses suffered during the disastrous Russian campaign would have destroyed any professional commander of the day, but those losses were..."
    • in the French colonial empire seciton, the first paragraph is without a citation; and the second part of the second paragraph needs a citation: "Following victory in World War I, Togo and most of Cameroon were also added to the..."
    • in the Modern period section, the third paragraph needs a citation: "A variety of factors—ranging from inexperienced conscripts to low population growth..."
    • in the Modern period section, the last part of the fourth paragraph needs a citation: "The Maginot Line cost the Germans heavily when attacked, and..."
    • in the French Navy seciton, a citation is needed: (1) for the first paragraph; (2) end of the second paragraph; (3) end of the third/last paragraph talking about a second aircraft carrier;
    • in the French Foreign Legion section citations are needed: (1) assertion about April 30 being Cameron Day; (2) third paragraph beginning with "After the French defeat in Mexico"; (3) this sentence: "Today, it is one of the most respected units in the French Army";

(3) Images:

    • most of the images seem correctly licenced to me (I'm not an image expert, though), however there are a couple of concern to me:
    • the Gendarmes.jpg doesn't have any date, source or author information;
    • the Militaire-Canon_75,_honneur-1915.JPG image seems a little doubtful. It is listed as being from 1915 with a PD claim based on "life of author plus 70 years" (not this is not "image is more than 70 years old", which is clearly is if it was made in 1915. This is not necessarily correct though, for without providing any details of when the author died, how can it be determined that the 70 years are up? For example, assuming the author was 20 when the image was created, one might assume that assuming they lived until they were 70 it would be 1965 when they died. Hence 70 years after that would be 2035, and as such the image would not actually be PD. — AustralianRupert (talk) 05:50, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed the two problematic images you've identified and carried out some MoS changes. I'll source the statements you've presented over the next few days. I just wanted to say a few things about some of your MoS recommendations: it's actually not a requirement that similar references have to be consolidated. They can be separate and that's actually the way I prefer them just in case I need to make changes to individual citations. I have no problem with the cite book standard, but I also like the standard I've chosen for this article and the only thing that matters is that the particular standard remain consistent throughout the article. I tried to collapse the template at the bottom but I'm having trouble. You can have a go at it if you like.UBER (talk) 22:47, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's fine, most of the MOS comments were suggestions. The title heading capitalisation in the References section, however, does need to be fixed in my opinion. I've collapsed the template, it required editing the template itself to turn on the function that allows each article to determine whether or not to collapse or uncollapse. I've also fixed the page ranges as emdashes were added, when they require endashes (slight difference, and very much a nitpick, I know). Anyway, thanks for the response. Good work so far, I will wait for you to add the citations and to address Nick-D's comments on content before making my decision. Cheers. — AustralianRupert (talk) 00:16, 13 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments I agree that this article doesn't presently meet the FA criteria. I don't have time to provide an in-depth review of the article, but I do have the following comments:
    • Some material isn't cited (an easy red flag for any FA)
    • Many of the image captions are troublesome; for instance "French peasants that had never stepped a few yards beyond their homes suddenly found themselves at the steps of the Schönbrunn in Vienna and the spires of the Kremlin in Moscow." is plainly nonsense; even the humblest peasant could be expected to have traveled in their immediate area and the drawn out campaigns of the period were hardly 'sudden'.
    • The coverage of colonial warfare is meager
    • The claim that French forces "exact[ed] a high toll from the Germans" in 1940 is nonsense; German casualties were remarkably light given the size of the force employed and the casualties they'd suffered during World War I and would suffer later in World War II
    • Likewise, the claim that the "large size [of Free French forces] made them notable throughout the war" is nonsense - countries like Canada and Australia fielded much larger forces than the Free French did (for instance, at the time Free France had 230,000 soldiers in early 1943 Australia had something like 800,000 people in its military). The Free French forces were significant due to their fighting spirit, not their size.
    • The concept of a 'Topical subjects' section is dubious, particularly as it's being used to avoid integrating the experiences and organisational history of the services other than the Army into the main body of the article.
    • I don't believe that the claim that "Currently, the French Air Force is expanding and replacing." is correct - the number of Rafales under order is much smaller than the number of aircraft they're replacing, for instance Nick-D (talk) 10:21, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I rewrote or removed some of the sentences with the POV concerns you highlighted. I'm about to add more sources per the suggestions of AustralianRupert above. Please bear with me as these changes might take a few days.UBER (talk) 22:36, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

[edit]
Featured article criterion of concern include references, comprehensiveness, prose and images. Dana boomer (talk) 22:25, 31 March 2010 (UTC) [reply]
I've addressed actionable concerns as best as I could and the article has improved significantly as a result. I'll quickly resolve any other relevant and outstanding issues if they are brought up, but I think this article should remain featured.UBER (talk) 22:40, 31 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist Specific omissions & mistakes I have mentioned have mostly been addressed, or contested, but the basic issues I set out at the start have not changed that much. Needs a thorough revamp to reach today's FA level. Johnbod (talk) 02:04, 6 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I am willing to make more changes until you are satisfied, as I said before, so there is no reason to move for delisting prematurely. We left off with me adding information about the gendarmes, which is what you requested. What other changes do you propose?
Having said that, input from other users would definitely help. Only two people besides myself participated in this review, and one was the FAR nominator. One of the editors was satisfied with my changes, but the nominator remains unconvinced. We're sort of at an impasse here.UBER (talk) 02:11, 6 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed; but Eubilides adressed only the alt image text, which of course is now not an FA requirement anyway. Johnbod (talk) 04:02, 6 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Until other users respond, I don't see a reason for us to stop. We were making progress and we should continue. What else do you want me to do?UBER (talk) 23:55, 6 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well my main points above remain unaddressed. I think the article needs a major overhaul to reach FA standard, not patching repairs. But the images could be fairly easily improved - see above. The process of consolidating control over French territory is now mentioned, but not explained, and there are I think no articles exactly on this subject to link to, so here as elsewhere, summary style does not work as it should. Johnbod (talk) 12:50, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I think I responded to your criticism on the images. Which ones do you not like currently? And I'm also not quite sure what you're referring to about control over French territory being mentioned but not explained. Clarify this remark please.UBER (talk) 22:14, 7 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Responded but not improved much. My initial comment began "Images: Up to the Napoleonic period and modern photographic period the images are pretty terrible, a whole series of later romanticised paintings, few actually showing action...." We now have only two non-map images, fixed very small, covering the whole period up to Napoleon. The second one is a good image but does not read well at small size. The situation is similar for all my general initial points. Johnbod (talk) 11:33, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Well which images do you want me to include in the article? Identify them specifically and I'll put them in.UBER (talk) 01:46, 9 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have time to picture research myself, nor does this fall within the requirements of a reviewer. The "military" commons category here are very thin, I agree, but there is a wealth of mostly 14th & 15th century manuscript illumination in Commons:Category:Grandes Chroniques de France] and its sub-cats, nearly all taken from the BnF website, where there are probably more that can be uploaded as PD. These all reflect armour etc contemporary to the artist, while the events depicted may be 100-200+ years earlier, but they all make a better fist of it than the Victorians & usually look better at smale scale. Johnbod (talk) 16:38, 10 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
That's a pretty impressive database actually. I didn't know about it, but now I'm glad I do. Most of the images are very similar to one another, but I would like to use the ones for Fontenoy (Battle Fontenoy.jpg) and Tunis (Battle of Tunis.jpg) in the article. Is that ok with you? In other words, would that satisfy your concerns with images? I can't act on your requests about images unless I know which images you want, hence me asking you explicitly.UBER (talk) 01:43, 11 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't have specific images in mind, but those would certainly be an improvement. File:SiegeAvignon1226.jpg is one I like also. Johnbod (talk) 04:08, 11 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I included the Avignon image that you prefer, but unfortunately there's not much space in that section for more images.UBER (talk) 01:03, 12 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist. Based on my realm of doing things (Vietnam), the colonial section as a whole is very much skinny compared to the others, and in general, the relationship with Catholicism is only one sentence; Clergy were very prominent in lobbying for colonial conquests so that they could bring in Christianity. Random examples include Pigneau de Behaine and another bishop who accompained Adm Rigault de Genouilly on his expedition against Vietnam. Later there were a lot of political dispute between clericals and anti-clericals on colonial policy. In the 1880s and 1950s there was a lot of political turbulence because of trouble in VN and Algeria. Many subjective statements and whole paragraphs are not sourced, especially when they have content that is not unequivocal fact, eg comments on truning points in history and attribution of such things. I know big-topic articles are difficult and require a lot of reading but in addition to stuff pointed out above, the content isn't reassuring YellowMonkey (vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 06:34, 16 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist I'll add my own "vote" here since this process has gone on long enough. I tried to save this article and I still want to, but I just don't have the time now. The biggest problem seems to be the need for a few more references, so if anyone is willing to go through some of those claims and cite them, I'd appreciate it very much.UBER (talk) 16:38, 16 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist - Per multiple remaining issues and the fact that main person working to address issues has voted to delist. Above discussion should be used to bring article back to FA-level and to FAC later but there simply is too much that needs to be done. --mav (Urgent FACs/FARs/PRs) 19:39, 25 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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