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Earthsuit

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review
Result: List as GA per improvements made and consensus below. Geometry guy 11:10, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This article recently failed GAN over one reference, here. The reference is an interview conducted by a Christian online-store with the band. Jezhotwells, the reviewer, felt the interview did not constitute a reliable source simply because it was conducted by an online-store, "As a commercial organisation statements on its web site are likely to be promotional material for the merchandise it is selling, thus it is not a reliable source." However, I cite the statements of the band members in the interview and not one statement from the store. In fact, numerous interviews with other established Contemporary Christian music bands have been conducted by the site, here. I believe the interview is justly used in the article and the GA should pass. Thanks -- Noj r (talk) 20:19, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment.I think the site looks like a reliable source. There are definitely potential bias pitfalls from using commerical sites or interviews, but the article avoids them: The interview is used to source statements about themselves, none of it seems controversial, and most are in quotes, making it aobvious that it is not objective fact, but the bands own view.YobMod 07:20, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I reviewed this article. The reference in question [1] is used to support seven statements in the article. The interviewer, Jen Abbas, has written a book, Generation ex : adult children of divorce and the healing of our pain, but doesn't appear to have published other interviews or articles on music in reliable press sources. A lot of the statements cited to this source could be supported by allmusic [2] or christianity today [3]. I just don't think a book/muisc store artcile is an RS, a bit like the way we traet Amazon and Borders as no reliable. Jezhotwells (talk) 18:33, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: If the interview was hosted on another site, say Jesus Freak Hideout (a source referenced by Billboard), would it be any less reliable? I fail to see how the interview is unreliable simply because an online-store conducted it. The store is obviously widely trusted because numerous bands accepted interviews with them, here. I will say this Jezhotwells, I did not notice that Christianity Today biography. I will see if I can possibly replace the interview and end this discussion. Regardless, I still see nothing wrong with the interview's inclusion. Update: I looked over the references again and the interview remains substantial. For example, none of the other references mention how Adam and Paul met. -- Noj r (talk) 04:59, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I was also surprised to find a Christian book store being used as a source. However, this is a Christian Rock band, and the reliability of a source should be judged against the statements it is being used to source. In this case, they are either quotations (which I think it is safe to assume are endorsed by the band) or uncontroversial matters of fact, so I don't see a major GA problem here (it would almost certainly be a problem at FA, so why not fix as much as you can now?). I did notice, however, that "Drummer David Hutchison was recruited sometime after the EP's recording" is a somewhat vague and misleading interpretation of the source material: "About two years ago we met Hutch, our drummer, through another mutual friend." It might also be helpful to present a specific attribution somewhere in the text ("In an interview with Family Christian Stores..."), so that readers know the nature of the source being cited. Geometry guy 23:08, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I would be happy with Geometry guy's suggestion of tightening up the specifics and attricuting the source. Jezhotwells (talk) 23:33, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I made some changes per your suggestions, Geometry Guy. Perhaps it is looking better? -- Noj r (talk) 02:31, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That's an improvement. I made a tweak, but I'm mostly just facilitating here. I'm sure Jezhotwells will comment on whether there are other issues to address. Geometry guy 22:35, 22 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, I think we have now got a good article. What should I do? Amend my failure into a pass or start a new reassessemnt and pass it as GA? Jezhotwells (talk) 10:38, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The usual thing would be to close this reassessment as "List as GA", add it to article history and list the article. I don't mind doing that, but I usually wait a day or so to be sure that no one has any objections. You are welcome to do it too, since the reason for this reassessment (a disagreement between nominator and reviewer) has been resolved and no further unresolved GA issues have been raised. Geometry guy 22:05, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Akureyri

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review
Result: Delist. Sourcing and coverage concerns remain outstanding, and time and effort is required to address them. GAR cannot support an improvement process indefinitely, and in the meanwhile it is inappropriate for the article to remain listed as a GA. Once GA issues are addressed, renomination is encouraged. Geometry guy 22:03, 2 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This article was originally listed as GA more than two months ago by an inexperienced reviewer. Seeing the article, I did not believe it was GA material and started an individual reassessment. Since then, the article has been improved dramatically through cleanup, expansion, and referencing. However, I have lingering concerns about the article. First, there are issues such as bare-linked refs, a couple stubby paragraphs (and non-flowing prose in some areas), and other minor MOS nitpicks that aren't required for GA. The more major issue is that of comprehensiveness: if one compares this to other GA city articles, they can see that this has much less information. However, that this is an article about a small Icelandic town as opposed to an American or British city made me wary of immediately dismissing this as not covering the broad points. Not being a regular GA reviewer, I am uncomfortable with making a unilateral decision, even if it may seem obvious to some. Thanks in advance for your input, Dabomb87 (talk) 22:47, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think the locality of the sources is unavoidable (even if this may introduce bias). However, i do think the use of at least one local history/social studies book would be better to back the current sources up, and every town should have such a book in the town library. Still not sure if that makes it delist-worthy, so i'll wait to see what others think.YobMod 08:16, 17 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A local history/social studies textbook would help, but there are also books such as "The History of Iceland" by Gunnar Karlsson (University of Minnesota Press, 2000) which may provide a broader context. Google books searches reveal a number of plausible sources like this, which makes me hesitate to endorse as GA an article that relies so much on governmental (essentially primary) and tourist (essentially tertiary) sources so much. Geometry guy 19:30, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That was my concern too, but I wasn't sure if there was much more out there. Seems that there are several sources that could be used. This and this could be used. Looking through Google, I see multiple mentions of a polio epidemic in the city that might be worth looking into. Dabomb87 (talk) 19:39, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Without someone willing to do the legwork and get their hands on the print sources, there isn't much more GAR can do. I've left a message for User:User F203, and hope he/she will appreciate that GAR is part of the collaborative process to improve the encyclopedia. Certainly I would be happy if my efforts to format the references are interpreted in that light. Geometry guy 20:09, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm looking into books. Online sources are much easier but I'm willing to work. We can't all be lazy in life! User F203 (talk) 17:04, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Billy Sunday

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review
Result: No consensus to delist and article has improved during reassessment. Hence keep as GA. Geometry guy 01:51, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Related WikiProjects and main contributors have been notified and a notice was left on article's talk page.


I reviewed this article for Sweeps and made changes throughout the article before passing it. I had initially considered taking the article here for a community consensus, but figured that I would address the issues I noticed. The article is well-written and is also sourced for the most part. My main concern with the article is what I believe to be POV language throughout the article. In my edits, I tried to alleviate most of it, and was reverted by one of the article's contributors. Examples of some of the POV language is the use of "brilliant", "remarkable", "exceptional", "money-grubbing charlatan", and use of italics to stress a point such as "...gainfully employed worker made $836 per year." None of the use of these words is quoted to a particular individual or placed in quotation marks. I had also condensed some of the paragraphs in the lead to reach four paragraphs per WP:LEAD, but it has been returned to five paragraphs. I'd like others to take a look at the article to see if I'm being too strict or if there are other issues that I overlooked. As a side note, the article had a previous GAR shortly after it was first passed. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 22:14, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I support your efforts. I am a strong believer in a four paragraph limit on WP:LEADs.
the dabs should be cleaned up.
I believe that any GA should have at least a citation per paragraph. There are currently two paragraphs without citation.
I also endorse your POV language complaint.
However, all the problems are at very minor levels. I would take this to a community GAR to help give the editors the proper encouragement to improve the article. I would tend to vote keep for this article, but would really like to see improvements and would endorse any action likely to bring about such changes.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 03:50, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It should be at the community GAR page, but it looks like the bot hasn't picked it up yet. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 03:58, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I haven't formatted a community GAR in so long, I must of clicked on individual GAR accidentally. The bot should now add this page to the list. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 04:05, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at the diff you provided, before I even go over to the current article, I agree that POV needs cleaned. Athanasius • Quicumque vult 15:00, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've provided the four paragraph lead and ensured that each paragraph has a citation. I'd like the debate to center on the language, which I believe is simply good writing. If any significant changes are to be made there—especially without reference to the sources—I will try to have the GA status withdrawn.--John Foxe (talk) 15:07, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Good work on dealing with the lead and sources. The language may be good writing, but if words such as "brilliant" and "money-grubbing charlatan" were not from the sources, then it is illustrating the view of the contributors, not the facts. If you are saying that these words are used by the authors (or attributed to others) within the source, then it needs to be placed in quotation marks, followed by a direct citation. There's no reason to threaten to have the GA withdrawn, when there only some changes to the article that need to be made. Even if the the GA were to be delisted, uncited opinions of Sunday should still be removed. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 17:15, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Here's a sample from the American National Biography bio of Sunday. Of course, there are no citations to any authorities: "The conservative nature of his theology also was apparent in his caustic denigration of theological liberalism. Probably the only people he loathed more than liquor producers and sellers were pastors and seminarians who derided the authority and inerrancy of Scripture." Note, for instance, the words "caustic denigration" and "loathed."--John Foxe (talk) 20:55, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I was one of the major contributors to and editors of this article. I do agree with John Foxe that Sunday's ministry and life elicited strong language from his contemporary commentators, both admirers and critics. Contemporary sources will show that language. In fact, one of my objections to this article all along has been that the picture the article paints of Sunday makes a reader wonder why such language was used; in other words, Sunday got people worked up, but the Wikipedia portrait doesn't show that guy. The section on his religious views might prove my point. Anyway, I am on record throughout the discussion page as believing that the article does have POV issues. I more or less gave up arguing about it, though, since JF is proprietary about the article and does not want anything in the article to appear demeaning to Sunday's credentials as a conservative Christian. I, on the other hand, feel that Sunday was also a popular culture hero and that that part of his influence should be reflected in the article; I think that Sunday's "human" side, if you will, takes nothing away from his success as an evangelist. JF and I agreed to disagree, and the article is what it is. However, I do believe the article is well written; I believe it deserves to be GA; I believe it is well sourced and factual; and I believe it does not have a NPOV. I welcome input from others to provide that NPOV.Rocketj4 (talk) 21:14, 8 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate Rocketj4's edits, which seem to defuse the objections about POV language. (I'm amused that the Carl Sandburg quotations now make his criticism of Sunday sound almost genteel.)--John Foxe (talk) 11:09, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
At least the vitriol Sandburg felt toward Sunday shows up in the quote in the footnote.--Rocketj4 (talk) 13:33, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

John Foxe and I have fallen back into our edit war. (See article history & talk page.) I would really appreciate it if we could have a mediator. Is there anyone out there who can chime in with an opinion?--Rocketj4 (talk) 11:49, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I went through the article and found the following issues or phrases that I believe to be POV. If others disagree, feel free to point out if I'm being too stringent.

  1. "...he was a part-time player, taking superstar Mike "King" Kelly's place..." I think "superstar" is excessive, and the sentence wouldn't hurt with its removal.
  2. "A former society matron who worked there finally convinced Sunday that he must receive Christ, and after some struggle, he did so." "must receive Christ" should be reworded. Assuming someone does not know of the religion, and this being the first mention of Christ, perhaps it should be reworded to something like "convinced Sunday of the Christian ideology" or "convinced Sunday of accepting the teachings of Jesus Christ" or "persuaded Sunday to believe in Jesus Christ" or something to that effect.
  3. "...viewing all professional baseball players as "transient ne'er-do-wells who were unstable and destined to be misfits once they were too old to play."" Citations should go directly after quotes (even if duplicated at the end of the paragraph). There are a few other occurrences in the article.
  4. "Nevertheless, Sunday pursued her and soon won her heart." This should be rewritten to present a more encyclopedic view on the event.
  5. "Chapman was well educated and was a meticulous dresser, suave and urbane." This should be reworded, unless sourced.
  6. "Long separations had exacerbated his natural feelings of inadequacy and insecurity." If this is something he said/wrote, it should be directly cited and quoted. I'd say the same for the following sentence.
  7. "With his wife administering the campaign organization, Sunday was free to do what he did best:" I debated this one, but stating what he "did best" may be difficult unless a particular person stated so. One could argue that he played baseball the best or he excelled at something else. If it can't be cited, it would probably be "best" to reword (does that qualify as a pun, I don't think so?).
In my opinion, this sentence is fine. Only a pedant would argue that Sunday's greatest gift was something other than evangelistic preaching.--John Foxe (talk) 01:32, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  1. "The vast numbers who "hit the sawdust trail" are also remarkable." This should be up to the reader to decide if it "remarkable".
  2. "Undoubtedly some audience members simply wanted to shake Sunday's hand." Without a direct cite, this could be interpreted as OR.>
  3. "The major cities of Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston, and New York City gave Sunday even larger love offerings." What is a "love offering"?
  4. "..."if you have done your part (i.e. believe that Christ died in your place, and receive Him as your Saviour and Master) God has..." In the source is the statement in parenthesis included or was that added? If it's not part of the quote then it should be reworded to present a neutral view (it's usually not best to use "we" or "you"). If it is part of the quote, then ignore this.
Yep, it's all a quotation from Sunday's tract. If you insert your own words into a quotation, you use brackets.--John Foxe (talk) 01:32, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  1. A few times throughout the article "of course" and "obviously" are used. These would benefit with being reworded.
  2. "Worse, the Sundays were disgraced by the behavior of their three sons who engaged in all the activities Billy preached against." I would recommend removing "worse" and should it be "engaged in many activities" instead of "all"?

This is what I noticed in another read-through, so I invite others to determine if these any of these are not needed or if other issues are noticed. It's good to see that progress is being made on the prior issues, so hopefully this list here will help resolve some of the remaining issues I noticed. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 04:31, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

First, I'd like someone to pronounce whether the following sentence from the Billy Sunday bio published in the American National Biography is POV. (Of course, there are no citations to any authorities): "The conservative nature of his theology also was apparent in his caustic denigration of theological liberalism. Probably the only people he loathed more than liquor producers and sellers were pastors and seminarians who derided the authority and inerrancy of Scripture." Note, for instance, the words "caustic denigration" and "loathed."--John Foxe (talk) 15:30, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I can safely pronounce that this is a point of view, as it is very unlikely to be an uncontested factual statement. However the N in NPOV does not stand for "No" or "Not" (unlike NOR), but "Neutral". The neutral point of view is a point of view, and it embraces points of view. The neutral point of view is the one which represents all significant viewpoints fairly and without bias. If the above viewpoint is significant it should be represented. However, the key plank of WP:NPOV is that Wikipedia should not endorse a particular point of view. A simple tool to deal with this is attribution: if instead one writes "According to the American National Biography, the conservative nature of his theology also was apparent in his caustic denigration of theological liberalism", then the reader is free to decide for themselves whether to agree with the source or not. I would expect a contrary view to represented similarly. Geometry guy 16:14, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have no interest in quoting the statement in the Wikipedia article. I was simply asking why no one blinks an eye when the leading biographical dictionary in the United States publishes such a statement unattributed, whereas similar statements in the Wikipedia article are challenged although they are attributed. For instance, it seems to me that the suggestion we change the phrase "must receive Christ" to "convinced Sunday of the Christian ideology" arises from the belief that wooden and awkward (but politically correct) language is preferable to good English writing. I repeat what I said above, that in my view, rather than change the language, it would be better to withdraw the GA status from this article.--John Foxe (talk) 17:49, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In fact, the statement is attributed. Se my comment below.--Rocketj4 (talk) 00:32, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia is the leading biographical reference in the US, no? :-) We need not blink an eye over the lax editorial standards of a rival tertiary source. To return on topic, "must receive Christ" is not brilliant prose, but unencyclopedic and lazy writing unsuitable for a global audience with diverse cultural backgrounds (and I say this as one strongly opposed to political correctness when it is unencyclopedic). I agree that the proposed alternative is wooden, but that is no reason for not trying to do better. However, brilliant prose is not a GA criterion: clear prose is the GA benchmark. Geometry guy 18:20, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think this Wikipedia article stands up pretty well to the ANB. It's certainly more complete. But I like the gutsy prose that I've quoted above. Those are the kinds of sentences I like to read and the kind I like to write. (Fortunately, editors in the real world let me.) It's easy to come up with a list of things you don't like about someone else's writing. It's another matter to actually improve it. That's what I want: someone to get down in the trenches of the sources with me and make genuine improvements. Suggesting phrases like "convincing Sunday of the Christian ideology" is not encouraging.--John Foxe (talk) 20:58, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree and you are lucky (as am I) in your real world situation. "To actually improve it" can be improved, for example. Geometry guy 21:12, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You're right. In the real world, I'd never use the word "actually."--John Foxe (talk) 21:24, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Me neither - oops, now I come to think of it I have written sentences involving words such as this. Thankfully Wikipedia is a collaborative exercise involving multiple editors, who can trap each other's blind spots. The comments above and below are an opportunity to improve the encyclopedia: I encourage all editors to pursue it. Geometry guy 21:59, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I also agree that we shouldn't be comparing ourselves to American National Biography, as we have different guidelines and focuses than other sites. Above, I provided alternatives to how to reword the "receive Christ" statement. I didn't state that those options had to be used, but provided alternatives to get the ball rolling. The article does do a great job covering the topic, and I found some sections to be quite entertaining. However, I have pointed out only a few areas in the article that need additional improvement. As requested, I provided a list of the statements that I considered that needed rewording, so if you want to reply to each one for further improving the article that would be great, and help to move this process along. For helping you with the sources, wasn't Rocketj4 assisting you? --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 21:41, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There is one clear difference between Wikipedia and American National Biography. The articles in ANB are signed--in other words, one person wrote each article and every reader knows the real-world identity of that scholar. And, you ask, who wrote the article on Billy Sunday for ANB? It was Lyle Dorsett.--Rocketj4 (talk) 23:34, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Excuse me (cough) but is this a reassessment of a GA article, or an FAC? It certainly seems like it after reading the above.--andreasegde (talk) 05:39, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have attempted a rewrite of the passage in item 2. Argue and/or tweak away.--Rocketj4 (talk) 12:47, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And a rewrite for item 4.--Rocketj4 (talk) 13:39, 20 July 2009 (UTC) And fixed item 3.--Rocketj4 (talk) 13:49, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sailor Moon

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review
Result: Keep. Improvements were made in response to concerns about citation and broadness issues. No further case has been made that the article does not meet the criteria, or in support of delisting it now. The article may not meet some WikiProject criteria, but these are not, per se, part of the GA criteria. Geometry guy 02:03, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The recent reassessment seems much more focussed on the anime-manga manual of style than on the good article criteria, and isn't specific enough in its criticisms. --Malkinann (talk) 07:38, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The article clearly fails all of the Good Article criteria. If you felt I needed to be more specific, then asking would have been sufficient. I felt the problems were large enough that going into minute detail would have only been excessive. Do you actually disagree that it does not meet the GA criteria, with the reams of unsourced content, lacking completeness in that it has no production information (despite it being available), lacking proper coverage of the actual main medium (the manga), and lacking an actual plot summary. And meeting the anime/manga MoS is part of the GA criteria, criteria #1. I left specific comments on every section and noted the major problems in each. I stand behind my delisting of this article. And it would seem the review was at least specific enough that you began attempting to make some fixes to the article after starting this GAR. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 08:06, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I am asking for more specific details and a second opinion, via this group reassessment. I don't feel that there is 'reams of unsourced content' - I'd appreciate you pointing it out for me, specifically rather than by banner tags - in the past when we have asked you to use inline tags rather than banner tags we have been able to find citations etc. to solve your concerns. There is production information in the article already, although if you have more, I'd appreciate it if you made it available. I'd appreciate knowing what would constitute a 'proper' coverage of the manga, too, as I'm not sure what the current manga section is lacking. It has a plot summary in the story section. The article does not have to comply with the anime manga manual of style, as part one clearly states it only has to comply with lead sections, layout, jargon, words to avoid, fiction, and list incorporation, no other manuals of style are required for GA status. Thanks for your participation in this GAR discussion. I have attempted to make a good faith effort to fix some of the stuff that's easily fixable, but I would appreciate more direction for the rest.--Malkinann (talk) 08:15, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the article does have to comply with the anime/manga MoS, same as film articles must comply with the Film MoS, etc to be a good article. The FA criteria also does not state this explicitly, but its understood that following the appropriate part of its relevant MoS is a necessity. The "story" section does not have a plot summary, it has a teaser with a list of links to arcs. That is not a proper plot summary at all. I use banner tags with adding inline citations would be ridiculously excessive. The entire character section is unsourced except for a single line in Usagi description (and yes, it does have to be sourced). The bulk of the manga section is unsourced. The anime section's section paragraph, entirely unsourced, and the last part of the first. Stage musicals - only one source in the first paragraph. Live action series - only has two sources on the first paragraph, nothing more. English adaptations - most of first paragraph is unsourced, as is most of the fourth. The article does NOT have a production section nor production information beyond the music section, and two small paragraphs in the manga section. There are many sources on this series due to its fame and longevity. Simple search of Google Books shows many untapped resources, as do Google News searches. This is not completeness. Proper coverage of the manga's reception would start with having some at all. Except for a single paragraph noting the manga won an award, the entire reception section is purely about the anime, which is completely unbalanced. There are critical reviews of the manga as well, yet none are in the article. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 08:23, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
WP:WIAGA explicitly states in the first footnote that the only manuals of style that apply are those I listed earlier. I believe this means that the anime manga manual of style is irrelevant in terms of being part of the GA criteria. The Google results are misleading - Sailor Moon is used extensively as an example of popular anime and manga, plastic girlhood of the 90s and so on - many of the mentions of Sailor Moon are inconsequential and irrelevant to the article. I've looked through Google News, Google Books, and Google Scholar before this and used some citations from there. --Malkinann (talk) 11:02, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment (without prejudice). I've stated this before at GAR on several occasions, but it seems appropriate to reiterate it here: WikiProject guidelines are not, and never have been, part of the GA criteria... (See the talk page.)
Per Wikipedia:Good article criteria it does state it needs only apply to the primary MoS. However, MoS says in the first paragraph, "Additional subpages of the Manual of Style, listed and linked in the menu on the right-hand side of this page, explore some topics in more detail." for which MOS-AM is a subpage, so the bottom line is that t's unclear by the criteria of 1b as currently stated if MoS-AM applies or not.陣内Jinnai 07:05, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Malkinann on this. GAs do not have to be compliant with the MoS, only the specifically listed sections of it. Therefore, MoS subpages and project guidelines are not part of WIAGA.YobMod 07:36, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It is hard to be more explicit than footnote 1: "Compliance with other aspects of the Manual of Style is not required for good articles." Geometry guy 19:42, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree -- the guidelines seem to be clear on this point. —Quasirandom (talk) 21:18, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment MoS and review-style aside, i think it would have merited delisting for the uncited paragraphs, of which there are many (most have see also to subarticles, so maybe there are cites therein that simply need copying over?). Presumable this is fixable within a reassesment timescale, as much of the unsourced content is release dates and formats (although the character descriptions may be more difficult - i they just from the primary sources?). No opinion yet on the other templates.YobMod 07:25, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment and question. I agree that there are some statements needing citation which are not cited: in the last paragraph of "Manga" and the middle paragraph of "Anime" for example. There is some production information at various places in the article (a separate section is not required): what is missing? Geometry guy 19:42, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Already noted what I felt was missing above. -- AnmaFinotera (talk · contribs) 01:06, 21 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: While there is probably reception and production information available that is not being used, I would like to assume good faith and believe Malkinann when she says she has checked most of the Google Scholar and Google Books hits and found most of them trivial mentions-in-passing and so not useful. The uncited bits are the sort of information that warrant opening a GAR (with detailed guidance) so that editors have a week to work on it, rather than immediate delisting. —Quasirandom (talk) 22:06, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for your helpful remarks. Tempting though it can be to discuss guidelines, process and editors' contributions, I hope we can focus on whether the article meets the criteria or not and encourage article improvement: that is what GAR is for. Geometry guy 22:23, 20 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question - How is the article looking now? What else needs citing, or what else needs fixing to retain GA status? Although the prose quality was criticised in the initial GAR, I don't think it's that bad... it's serviceable enough. --Malkinann (talk) 22:23, 23 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Not every paragraph requires an in-line citation. The Good Article criteria say that in-line citations are required "for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons." While the article had citation issues a few days ago it is much improved now. And at this point I'm concerned that reviewers are requesting citations for innoculous statements. Majoreditor (talk) 00:44, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Given that the musicals and live action series isn't as well known as the anime or manga in the English-speaking world, those items are more likely to be challenged.陣内Jinnai 23:41, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      • When people ask for citations on general areas of the article rather than specific claims made by the article, I can provide citations, but I am left wondering if I cited the important parts, or merely the easy parts to provide citations for. --Malkinann (talk) 01:06, 26 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
        • Well it seems kind of strange that such a series like this would not have an (cultural) impact section, but if all the other sources are trivial, I guess not.陣内Jinnai 21:29, 26 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
          • There's a reception section that touches on the cultural impact Sailor Moon has had to anime and manga fandom (mostly by making it more girl-friendly), is that the kind of information you were looking for? --Malkinann (talk) 23:13, 26 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
            • I guess so. That kind of information is usually not put in the reception, but in a legacy or cultural impact section since it's not really "reception".陣内Jinnai 23:20, 26 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
              • The important thing is that the information is in there, yes? ;-) So what else needs doing for the article to meet the GA criteria? --Malkinann (talk) 23:35, 26 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
                • GA criteria it's fine and don't think it should fail for that. Be aware though the issue is likely to arise if this goes to a FAC. The more important issue is that it may possibly fail in the lead section then if the info is listed elsewhere since references in the lead are generally removed in such cases.陣内Jinnai 01:47, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
                  • As far as I'm aware, there are no immediate plans for a FA drive for the Sailor Moon article. I don't know why references in the lead would be removed, as per WP:LEADCITE (part of WP:LEAD) the lead has the same citation requirements as the rest of the article. --Malkinann (talk) 02:07, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
                    • "Because the lead will usually repeat information also in the body, editors should balance the desire to avoid redundant citations in the lead with the desire to aid readers in locating sources for challengeable material." - This is why. The lead section is often the main section quoted in multiple pages from wikipedia without the citations added therefore it generally disliked. The information being cited in the first paragraph of the lead would seem to fit with the latter part of the 2nd paragraph in Reception. The only item in the lead which is not discussed later and does not have an appropriate section deals with the Takeuch's influence for the manga.陣内Jinnai 04:32, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

TNA World Heavyweight Championship

[edit]
Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review
Result: No action. I'm sorry that noone has closed this reassessment sooner. There isn't a sufficient review here to list the article. It needs to be renominated at GAN, but comments here will be added to the article history to inform future reviewers. Geometry guy 00:31, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this article for reassessment because I disagree with it being failed. I feel it passes the Good Article criteria. The main reason it seems to me it was failed was disagrees between myself and the reviewer. I was unaware of the feels of the reviewer when it came to my disagreements. I usually like to discuss changes first or explain certain things within the article to outside parties so they get the full picture. The article is fully reliably sourced with only a few minor problems that have come to my attention which I plan to address very shortly. I wrote a previous good article on a subject similar to this one, so I based most of this article's expansion off of it. The history of this title is an interesting one at that. So any questions regarding its history and the many many many many many previous discussions over the history which led to its current form, do not be afraid to ask.--WillC 14:18, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. My first thought on reading the article was "this is very short, maybe it is failing broadness". The review itself seems fine, going into sufficient detail, but not being unreasonably demanding. I would Support fail at this time, as i think the article needs expanding, the spun out list of winners should be merged back in, and the lead should be rewritten to summarise the important points of the article, rather than acting as a section in itself. Sorry!YobMod 11:40, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Well the list of reigns article would be split back out at 10 reigns, so that would be useless. I had a belt designs section within the article, but there was a user who thought it was OR because it was based off of an image. I'll figure out what else I can add.--WillC 12:21, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There is no guidleine for auto-splitting out lists when they reach 10 items (indeed, FL now has guidelines against this when the parent article is short). eg. I see at FLR there is a list of 15 items about to be delisted for being an unecessary fork.YobMod 16:02, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The project agreed that at 10 reigns, a list of champions article could be cut off. I'm in the process of making two seperate topics. One for all the champions and one for all the titles. So the list of champions article will be taken to FL as soon as it gets to 10 reigns. I am also in the process of lengthening this article. So by the end of today. It should be in depth enough.--WillC 16:13, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I am done for now with expansion. I feel it is fit the criteria better now.--WillC 08:01, 14 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Although i still don't think being able to stand as a list automatically means the list should be separated, i think the recent expansion of the article makes it GA quality. In the future, i would expect the summary style section of "Reigns" will get longer too.YobMod 15:32, 15 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes that section will get longer.--WillC 01:34, 16 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Burnt Norton

[edit]
Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review
Result: List. Much was done to improve the article, and the original reviewer basically retracted his review. Those who participated in the reassessment concurred that the article met the GA criteria. bibliomaniac15 01:49, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This article was, I believe, unreasonably quickfailed because it provides no online references. The reviewer, not having access to the published sources cited, therefore failed it as "stinking of OR". --Malleus Fatuorum 14:18, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I wanted to note that the poem in question is short and in copyright until 2030, so it is hard to find specific works devoted to it (as people cannot provide a thorough close reading without the possibility of infringing). I am sure there are sources that I left out, but I covered all of the major and critically renown sources on the matter (13 non-primary Eliot sources when you count those quoted from a book that collected some of the original critical responses to the poem). Ottava Rima (talk) 14:27, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree the article was unreasonably quickfailed. I commented a moment ago when this was raised at GAN. I hadn't realised from that discussion the reviewer had applied a quickfail result. I thought the reviewer had commented awaiting feedback. Quickfailing with the phrase "Large parts of this article absolutely stink of original research" based, apparently, on alleged under-citing and the use of books (which the reviewer doesn't have to hand) as sources is, not to put too fine a point on it, rude.
The spectre of citationitis raised its head in-review when discussing the poem section, even though here the cite is to a small page range, which can often summarize to several sentences. I felt there's some crossover between plot elements and themes between the Poem and Themes sections, but that is something I'd ask about and discuss with the nominator, were I reviewing. At the very least, replacing in the nominations queue is appropriate. –Whitehorse1 14:47, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Please tell me you've read the review? Let me quote from it: "It passes the quick-fail". Alan16 (talk) 15:16, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. You: "Starting review, and it will not take too long. Alan16 03:55, 9 August 2009". GA1 revision history: "04:17, 9 August 2009 Alan16 (GA fail)". That's 22 mins. I take it you're referring to a distinction between a quickfail (in which no full review is undertaken) and a fail without hold (in which problems are sufficient to rule out any short hold). –Whitehorse1 15:27, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I said it wouldn't take long because I'd already read the article and made a decision, and all I had to do was write that down. I felt the latter of what you described applied to this article. I was obviously mistaken, and I think it was perhaps a mistake, and now I am a disgrace to GA reviewing history. Alan16 (talk) 15:35, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I think that's a bit much. –Whitehorse1 15:38, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ottava has added the ISBNs for the sources. Hopefully that resolves this issue. Alan16, please note that the very first example on WP:REF guideline is indeed a book, and not an on-line source. — Ched :  ?  16:05, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is... What's the point? I never said that the books weren't reliable - I said that some of the numerous online sources might be a good idea... Alan16 (talk) 16:34, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Expanded with two sentences, but it was hard to summarize it all without putting too much weight in it (MoS wants 1 paragraph for the lead, so I figure two moderately sized paragraphs are fine without going overboard). Ottava Rima (talk) 23:11, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I made some other clean ups with a small expansion of the lead. Ottava Rima (talk) 23:24, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Nice work on the lead, Ottava. It's fine now. Majoreditor (talk) 00:04, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

<edit conflict>

  • Comment: I agree with others that the original review issues regarding references are not consistent with WP policy on references; I agree there is no evidence of original research. That said the article has some issues, primarily concerning written expression, which I have started to look at, but don't have much time to work on right now. I can come back on and off over the next couple days. While I think the first review should be set aside, here are some concerns I would want to see addressed before it passed:
  • Repetition in the lead of reference to contemporaneous writing of M in the C.
  • "The poem's title refers to a town Eliot visited known as Burnt Norton" - later text implies it is a manor, not a town. Clarification is needed here - is Eliot taking the name of the manor and applying it to a fictional town in the poem, or is there an actual town and manor called Burnt Norton? This needs clarification in the lead, and possibly fuller explanation in the relevant part of the body text.
  • "The idea of "Burnt Norton" " - strange. The ideas expressed in "Burnt Norton"" perhaps?
  • "The actual Burnt Norton is a manor located..." Does this para belong in the background section - it sounds more like the material in the later section called "Sources".
  • ""Burnt Norton" was published on its own in 1941 when "East Coker" and "The Dry Salvages", two later poems of the Four Quartets, were being published" - confusing: how can something be published on its own when two other poems were being published. Does this literally mean that two books came out at once, one containing Burnt Norton, the other containing East Coker and The Dry Salvages?
  • Style query - (my ignorance at work here) - should the poem titles be in quotation marks, or in single quotes / inverted commas / italics?
  • We are told the garden "became the focus in the poem", but then when the poem itself is being described, we have several lines that tell us of very abstract themes, then the description says "The scene of the poem moves from a garden...", thus leaving the garden behind before we have heard anything about it. The garden should either be mentioned earlier, with examples of how it is significant in the poem's text, or the earlier text of the WP article should not suggest the garden became the focus in the poem.
  • "The beginning scene" is a clumsy phrase; I htink "The opening scene" or "The first scene" would be better.
  • "Peter Ackroyd believes that it is impossible to really paraphrase the content of the poem. The poem is too abstract to really describe the events and the action.[13] However, the discourse on time is connected to the ideas within St. Augustine's Confessions."
  • "to really" used twice, and this is not a great phrase to ever use in an encyclopedia if it can be avoided.
  • The use of "However" implies that the third sentence stands in contradiction or contrast to the first two. However, it seems like something of a non-sequitur to me.
  • "However, George Orwell looked down upon what Eliot was doing within the poem..." This expression does not work, though I am a little stuck on how to resolve it. It reads rather as though Goerge Orwell was viewing it from a great critical height, whereas I think what is meant is that Orwell disapproved of Eliot's intent. This needs work.
  • "The beginning scene has a rose garden that allegorically represents a potential existence. Although the garden does not exist, it is described in realist manner and gives it a sort of reality." This makes little sense, as well as needing copyediting, starting with the vague expression "sort of".

Not every single point above needs fixing at GA rather than FA, but overall the text is not clear enough to the reader to pass GA at present. I am more than happy to work with Ottava over this week to assist if I can, but I'm a little pressed for time right now and am in opposite time zones I think. hamiltonstone (talk) 00:20, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

1. Repetition fixed - I was going to move it down and forgot to remove the first bit. However, I rewrote it and left the placement in the second sentence. 2. Rewrote. 3. Changed "idea" to "concept". 4. Sources is reserved for poetic sources where background is reserved for historic information behind the creation of the poem. Two different critical approaches. 5. Published in the same year but each independent of the others. Rewrote somewhat. 6. Style - I prefer italics for these kinds of works, but many editors on Wiki like to force quotes for any poem smaller than 200 lines. Who knows really. 7. I rewrote the first line to mention that the garden provokes the discussion as per the summary. 8. They are referred to as "parts" so I am going to use that term to describe what the referential is. 9. I added "make up the poem's narrative structure". This should let the reader know that you can't describe the action but can describe the philosophy. I rewrote the next line some also so the "however" makes more sense. I removed the "really"s, especially when I split infinitives in an awkward manner. 10. I simplified it to "disapproved of "Burnt Norton"". 11. Rewrote the section. Ottava Rima (talk) 01:01, 10 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for all these improvements. I will continue to make comments here, unless editors want me to move this discussion to the article talk or elsewhere.

  • ""Burnt Norton" served, to Eliot, "social usefulness". The poem was the first of Eliot's that relied on speech, and the narrator works as an orator who speaks to the audience directly.[1] Humankind, to Eliot, was affected by Original Sin and could follow the paths of either good or evil and that people can atone for their sins. The individual must leave the time bound world and look into their self, and poets must seek out perfection not bound by time in their images in order to escape from the problems of language.[2]" This whole para is tricky. It reads as a series of non-sequiturs. The first sentence tells us the poem serves "social usefulness". I don't know what Eliot meant by that, but I do not feel the sentences that follow give me an answer. They appear to be about Eliot's theology and his critics' interpretation of how that theology works itself out in the poem. None of it appears to explain either Eliot's strange term (social usefulness) or how it is represented in the poem. The second sentence is about the narrative format of the poem. The third and fourth are about theology or faith. Within the third sentence,we are told humankind "was" affected by original sin, but that people "can" atone for their sins, changing tense; it is also not clear why original sin is being connected with choice of good and evil - i am aware of the connection in Christian theology, but not that this para explains what Eliot is driving at.
  • The following para is better. It however contains this sentence: "The scene beneath London is filled with those who are similar to those of The Hollow Men and describes people who do not understand the Logos or the order of the universe" - but the reader of this WP article has no idea who the people are in The Hollow Men, so nothing is evoked by this reference, while the lay reader will have no idea what "Logos" is.

More anon. hamiltonstone (talk) 00:41, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is the perfect place to comment and discuss improving the article. Please don't let me interrupt. Geometry guy 00:58, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Made changes to both paragraphs. I also added a parenthesis to explain that Logos is a representation of Christ along with a Wikilink. Ottava Rima (talk) 01:06, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(outdent) Thank you Ottava for your revisions (and thank you Geometry Guy). I have now been through the text more carefully and have made some copyedits and rearrangements, including in one or two cases to points raised above. I have two outstanding queries that both concern the "Themes" section and then, were it down to me, it would pass GA:

  • "However, the philosophy can be explained as the discourse on time is connected to the ideas within St. Augustine's Confessions." This sentence is unclear. We have no idea what "the philosophy" refers to: Eliot's personal philosophy of religion? Some philosophy expressed in the poem? Acroyd's philosophy of criticism? This needs careful clarification.
  • "Consciousness cannot be connected to time but humans cannot actually escape from it." Too cryptic. The first two times I read it I didn't even register that "it" was consciousness. However (assuming I got that right eventually) the sentence seems like a kind of non-sequitur. I am going to have trouble explaining myself here, but I'll give it a shot. Why is there some sort of paradox or contrast here (implied by the word "but") - is the implication that, were consciousness connected to time, humans could then escape it? That seems not just nonsensical, but seeking to relate two unrelated types of concept. Also, if Eliot is trying to ground his ideas in the Confessions and the importance of the present moment, why is not conscoiusness connected to time by being the awareness of the present moment? Sorry, I realise that sounds like I want to debate St Augustine, and that is not my intention (!), but rather, as a reader of this passage, it does not make sense and raises objections and questions in my mind. Something needs to be fixed here, but it may take a couple of iterations to work it out. I'm sorry, but I am also handicapped by not having the sources (including the poem!). regards hamiltonstone (talk) 02:26, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I tried to rewrite it in order to explain. A problem is that this is one of the most philosophically difficult poems. Ottava Rima (talk) 02:46, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you Ottava. OK, in my view this article now qualifies for GA. Other views? hamiltonstone (talk) 03:02, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Taj Mahal

[edit]
Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • GAN review not found
Result: Consensus that the reassessment rationale was inaccurate. Indeed123 (talk) 15:25, 16 August 2009 (UTC).[reply]
I found that the majority of this article comes directly from the website http://www.indohistory.com/taj_mahal.html. For instance, there is both a section for the tomb on both the website and the article. These are nearly identical, other than some touch ups to make the article clearer and more accesible, (for instance, defining the word Chamfared). This is well seen by the first two sentences of this section, which are identical other than parenthetical use.

Although I do not know of any wikipedia policies against copy-paste writing, I imagine it probably isn't good. Strictly going by the criteria, I say this article fails certainly for 4, namely neutrality, as the website is not neutral. On the right side, it advertises the article Pakistan: A Failed State. The article could also sort of fail by 2b for citations. Indeed123 (talk) 05:40, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment Not seeing any neutrality issue - it describes the building in a mostly NPOV way. Do we know if copying was done by us or by them? The layout seems very wiki-like - when was the indohistory article written? If it is a copyvio, all the copied material should be removed, and the gutted article would naturally no longer be GA worthy. But not being copyvio is not directly a GA criterion, this should have been sorted out on the talk page first (or at least the articles writer's asked).
This sentence "The base structure is a large, multi-chambered structure. The base is essentially a cube with chamfered edges and is roughly 55 metre on each side (see floor plan, right)." makes me think they copied us (without attribution) as our article in 2007 had the floorplan image to the right of this text, whereas their article has no such plan (to the right or otherwise).YobMod 10:10, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I am one of the major contributors to this article, along with Joopercoopers (talk). Neither of us has made any use of the indohistory.com website. I never heard of it until today, and I sincerely doubt that JoopersCoopers would rely on that source. Please take a look at our Taj Mahal references, and to our other many contributions to assess our commitment to reliable sources. I went through a rather inane GAR of this article some months back, and vowed never to go through another bout. This will be my last comment. If you think that this article copyvios indohistory's, you are living in Upside Down World. --Nemonoman (talk) 13:10, 16 August 2009 (UTC) PS. I will affirm that I and I alone wrote the sentence No evidence exist for claims that describe, often in horrific detail, the deaths, dismemberments and mutilations which Shah Jahan inflicted on various architects and craftsmen associated with the tomb I worked really hard on that sentence, and I am quite proud of it. It appears in the indohistory article, much as it does in the Taj article, the only place I ever personally published it until now.--Nemonoman (talk) 13:23, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think this GAR would be best quick closed, as originiating in an innocent mistake. This was one of the most sneaky of the wikipedia copying sites i've seen. Does someone want to write the email to Indohistory, demanding they acknowledge wikipedia as their source?YobMod 14:51, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry about this. I ought to have checked the archives before starting the discussion. There is no neutrality issue in this case; it only came about if the article was templated after a biased source. I'll close the reassessment down, and attach a possible e-mail to the talk page. Again, sorry for the mistake. Indeed123 (talk) 15:25, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Münchausen by Internet

[edit]
Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review
Result: No action. No further light is likely to emerge from this reassessment. Most reviewers agree that the review was inadequate, yet also no reviewer has substantially disagreed with the points tersely made in the review, nor has anyone argued that the article currently meets the criteria.
Indeed it is easy to point to GA issues. In criterion 1, for example, the lead should serve as a summary of the article: here the lead discusses the link with the DSM, while the article does not; the lead does not mention Feldman, whereas the entire article and every source does so repeatedly; the lead barely touches upon notable cases or causes. There also may be some words to avoid issues (e.g., care is needed when using "note" or "identify"). I've read the online sources (and would be happy to receive others by email) and am not entirely convinced that criterion 2 gets a tick either. In criterion 3, the article does not set MBI in the general context of Munchausen syndrome and factitious disorders (which the lead mentions briefly). Regarding criterion 4 (neutrality), Feldman drew attention to this problem in 1997-2000, yet there are very few later sources, and they all rely on him or Howard Swains at wired.com. In such a situation I would expect an article to use explicit attribution more often than it does. I see no issues re criteria 5 and 6.
I apologize for posting review remarks here and would be happy to expand on them e.g. at Talk:Münchausen by Internet/GA2 or just the article talk page. However, there has been a plethora of excellent offers to review, so I will not be offended if I'm ignored. The article needs a new reviewer, and possibly even a new champion.
This GAR has been remarkably calm, given the amount of historical, personal, and interpersonal baggage that has been brought here. I would therefore like to thank everyone for keeping the discussion on this page as civil as it has been and venting frustrations in more appropriate places such as user talk. I would however, encourage everyone to focus in future on the article and the criteria, not the editor or the process. In that way, we might actually improve the encyclopedia, which is the goal which bonds us all. Geometry guy 20:39, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Review was transcluded at 16.08 and failed at 16.17.
  • Review objections include:
  • Writing too formal. It is a psychology/medical article.
  • Writing is unclear. No examples of what to clarify given.
  • Second paragraph has no citations. Unclear whether this means the 2nd paragraph of the lead, or the cited 2nd paragraph of the Characteristics section. Either way, this point is irrelevant.
  • Bulk of research is by one person. This is made very clear in the article. It is my understanding that GA is for articles that may not ever reach FA. The article is a summary of what reliable sources have printed about the phenomenon.
  • Article may need to be merged with Munchausen syndrome or Munchausen by proxy. This is certainly not a criteria for quick-fail. I disagree with this opinion nonetheless and have stated so in a reply at the GA review.
I welcome a second opinion. It is my first GA review, and I found the steps confusing. It may be a psych/med article (it is listed as a cultural topic), but Wikipedia isn't a science journal. My feeling is that an article should be understandable with some work by a high-school graduate, and easily by someone with a Master's degree (me). I had to read it a couple of times to understand it. The sock notice was placed there frivolously by someone who is stalking me: if you follow the link you'll notice I'm not part of the official sock-puppet case. Noloop (talk) 21:27, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ooh, accusations of sockpuppetry before they've been proven. That rings a bell. I'm sure I've seen that methodology somewhere before. I wonder where...? --WebHamster 22:36, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Noloop, you clearly haven't read the meesages I left you. And before you gone on about stalking, I had the article on my watchlist for weeks.Abce2|Aww nuts!Wribbit!(Sign here) 21:40, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There are five quick-fail criteria, which would warrant an immediate fail such as you have performed. The article exhibits none of these.
A reviewer must be crystal clear about what should be changed or what is unclear. It is typical to give the nominator at least seven days to complete these changes.
I may have asked for a good article reassessment on the singular complaint that the writing is too formal. Not only do I not see that, but the article reflects a tone similar to the sources, some of which are medical journals. I will absolutely not dumb down an article, particularly one that discusses aberrant human behavior. The reason for having GA and FA reviews is to improve writing. I should not be pulling up the reviewer. The reviewer should be pulling up the nominator.
I refer you to other GA and FA psychology or medicine-related articles. GA here and FA here. They are indeed advanced, but I do not understand how a high school student would be unable to grasp the Munchausen by Internet article. Again, you have not provided examples of where the writing is unclear or so laden with jargon that it is necessary to use a dictionary or click on blue links to comprehend the concepts discussed. I think it is rather basic and straightforward.
If this is your first GA review, then you got a good one, and by extension, me as the nominator. Lucky you. You have an excellent opportunity to learn from this article and the process of GA reviewing. I suggest writing a few GAs yourself before reviewing, or asking the advice of someone who is experienced in doing GA reviews. I suggest Geometry_guy (talk · contribs) or Malleus Fatuorum (talk · contribs), both of whom are respected and have high standards. --Moni3 (talk) 21:52, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support reassessment: So basically Noloop trashed failed an article he wasn't qualified to comment on. As he himself states he didn't understand it. It's also apparent that he choose to pop his cherry and fail his first article on an article that had minimal other comments, he doesn't have the experience to be the only reviewer and spectacularly misunderstands even basic tenets of WP let alone complicated scientific articles. Noloops should never have failed this article, he barely understands the GAC procedure as it is. A Master's degree does not qualify anyone to do this. What is required is experience and understanding of the procedures and the subtleties of article reviewing. This takes monitoring and looking (without touching) for dozens of GAC reviews. This is quite obviously not something that has happened in Noloop's case. The current assessment of his should be nuked from space and replaced with an assessment from a reviewer who knows what they are doing. --WebHamster 22:29, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks, such balanced overviews of the situation, expressed in clear unrhetorical language, calm measured comments on whether the article meets the GA criteria, and sensible advice on how to proceed; this will all surely help this GAR reach consensus. (I will omit the obvious </tag> because experienced editors should know better.) Geometry guy 23:07, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - My concern is that it is unclear who uses this term "Münchausen by Internet" other Marc Feldman et al who apparently coined the term, and perhaps a few online sources who picked up on the novelty of the term and the current fad for Münchausen disorders, which are informal names for legitimate psychiatric disorders. The general psychological/psychiatric disorders are known as Factitious disorders. Naming conventions for medical conditions are quite clear that the medical diagnostic term be used. See Medicine-related articles - Naming conventions. Further, the article refers repeatedly to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association[4], the standard diagnostic manual for psychiatri disorders but which does not mention this disorder. This is misleading and seems to be legitimizing the use of this term by relating to standard medical sources. The linked article Münchausen syndrome by proxy probably should not exist either, and is a collection of trivial, OR, and a similar attempt to legitimize a slang or lay term. If someone wants to write an article on Feldman and his attempts to set forth standards etc. fine. But to write an article posing as a psychiatric disorder, while referring DSM is not ok, in my opinion. The rest of the article concentrates on Feldman's ideas, and perhaps becomes OR as it attempts to relate Feldman's ideas to the internet community/culture in general. Like other psychiatric disorders, eg Major depressive disorder, this article should use the sourcing standards of WP:MEDRS if it is to pretend to be a psychiatric/psychological diagnosis. If it is going to be a popular cultural article, it should not pretend to be a psychiatric diagnosis, and admit it is engaging in pop psychology. Regards, —mattisse (Talk) 22:54, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. The only issue which GAR can adjudicate on is whether the article meets the GA criteria or not. I trust comments will be made with that in mind. If nominators or other editors consider that a review was bogus, they might instead consider renominating the article. Geometry guy 23:07, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • What do you suggest, then G-guy? Renominating? Noloop has defended his review here. This is the first article I've brought to GAR. --Moni3 (talk) 23:20, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Now that it has been brought to GAR, I'd suggest waiting a few days to see if you can get some useful comments from uninvolved editors. I believe Mattisse's struck comments above contain useful comments, for example, even if you may not agree with them all. I think it is unlikely that large numbers of uninvolved reviewers are going to come along and say "list this now", but I have only read over the article once. Generally an article needs to have a complete review in order to be listed, and it is unusual for GAR to provide such a review. However, if the article is renominated, any comments made here will be available to inform the next review and you could get some really helpful ones. As nominator of this reassessment you can ask for it to be withdrawn if you think no further light is being shed and are ready to go the renomination route. It will still be linked from ArticleHistory as part of the GA audit trail. Geometry guy 23:38, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Do not support reassessment - I think the reviewer was correct. I think his review was unfairly characterized. An unclear article is hard to understand, and the reviewer should not be ridiculed for saying so. The issues he brought up are real ones. I think those issues should be addressed independent of a GAR. I clarified his comments on the GA1 page. He and I are saying the same thing. I do not support an independent GAR. —mattisse (Talk) 23:51, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • No examples of unclear passages have been given by the initial reviewer or you. I have responded to your other issues on the GA1 page. --Moni3 (talk) 23:57, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    With apologies for any inconvenience, it will simply be too confusing in the long run to have a forked discussion. The GA1 page was closed by the reviewer (for better or worse). You are welcome to discuss improving the article on the article talk page (and I have moved some comments there), but it may be will be more straightforward if the GA status is discussed in one place. Thanks, Geometry guy 00:19, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Another opinion

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  • Prose - reasonably well written - it is precise, no weasel words, acceptable against the standards.
  • MoS - sufficiently compliant
  • References - Well referenced, all seem acceptable, all online refs check out, assume GF for print, no obvious OR
  • NPOV - OK
  • Broad - apparently so
  • focussed - yes
  • stable - OK
  • Images - none - OK
  • Overall - no problems that I can see - perhaps I missed something? Jezhotwells (talk) 01:46, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weasel words in first sentence. There is no evidence that "Münchausen by Internet" is a legitimate diagnosis used by anyone professional other than this Feldman who invented the term and is promoting it. The links to DSM misleadingly lead to Factitious disorders[5]. Please provide a link to the DSM diagnosis for "Münchausen by Internet". —mattisse (Talk) 02:33, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • OR Every source that can be accessed mentions "Münchausen by Internet" in the context of Feldman. The only one that does not, does not mention "Münchausen by Internet" either, but merely talks about internet hoaxes. —mattisse (Talk) 02:43, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I thought I was clear, as is the article, that Munchausen by Internet is not in the DSM.
  • As what a psychiatrist who has been quoted or published by four peer-reviewed medical journals has written, Munchausen by Internet is a manifestation of Factitious disorder and Factitious disorder by proxy, communicated solely by internet communications. In order to understand what a psychiatrist has said, specifically linking Munchausen by Internet to Factitious disorder and Factitious disorder by proxy, it makes perfect sense to explain what these disorders are as described by the DSM, then elaborate that the way Munchausen by Internet is expressed is online.
  • Every source that can be accessed mentions "Münchausen by Internet" in the context of Feldman. The only one that does not, does not mention "Münchausen by Internet" either, but merely talks about internet hoaxes Factitious disorder by proxy was first noted in publication in 1977. It is still being considered for the DSM. Factitious disorder itself was noted hundreds of years ago but published as a possible psychiatric condition in 1951, and accepted as Factitious disorder in the early 1980s. Ideas take time to be accepted by the psychiatric and medical communities, as they should. Internet communication has been around and widely accessible since the early 1990s. The first mention of this manifestation is in 1997. And I must point out that a name repeated in research on the PsychiatryOnline DSM description of Factitious disorder is Feldman's. He is clearly an expert in his area. He helped write the entry.
  • Mattisse, you may be arguing for deletion, but this is the wrong venue. If you feel this strongly about it, put the article up for deletion. The GAR will be voided immediately for instability. But you'll get a wider response, specifically from WikiProject Medicine and WikiProject Psychology. However, you will have to discredit 17 of the cited sources and display how they are not reliable, neutral, or that Feldman's ideas are fringe science. I have another list of sources on my talk page that have proven a little more difficult to find, but I'm working on them. You may also have to work for deletion of other syndromes such as premenstrual dysphoric disorder or exploding head syndrome. --Moni3 (talk) 03:04, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • It is true that psychology/psychiatry on Wikipedia is filled with many junk articles which deters many of us from working in the area. It is impossible to stop the exploding pop psych trash because so many feel compelled to write about it. However, such articles should not become GA under the pretense of conveying professional information. I am hoping GAR as some respect for the fields of psychiatry and psychology, which strive to be science-based. If you make the article a pop cultural article, I would have no problem. It is the clothing it in terms that make it sound legitimate and ratified by the American Psychiatric Association that I object to. Many people are like Marc Feldman and make up terms, garner publicity, and get their own Wikipedia article. It only takes a flair for publicity, which Feldman has in spades. —mattisse (Talk) 12:54, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse reassessment I did not find any examples of text that was too formal or too unclear for an intelligent lay person (ie. me) to understand. Merge worthiness is not within a GA purview, and it would seem to create huge undue weight for any merge target. I somewhat agree about the "one researcher" comment, which is the only thing holding me back from saying promote. I think it needs to be clearer that this is a novel diagnosis - mentioning Feldman's invention of the term, and that most research originates from him in the lead would be sufficient. Also any criticism (if it exists) should be summarised in the lead, highlighting its current lack of acceptance/study.YobMod 11:46, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To GAR closer

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I am not surprised a bit that this article attracts controversy and needless argument.

I am confident that the article represents the best sources on a psychological issue, that it is accurately paraphrased, that it discusses the implications of a phenomenon that has psychiatric roots and internet-communicated effects.

The article is well-written, factually accurate, as broad as is possible given a small amount of information published on the topic, is as neutral as possible, has no original research, has until yesterday been stable and is relatively stable, and has no images. It meets the GA criteria.

The initial review was a quick-fail by an obviously inexperienced reviewer. The article had no clean-up tags, no uncited sections, no neutrality disputes, no edit wars, and is not an ongoing current event.

As always, I am happy to make improvements to the article. I will remain open to suggestions that seek to achieve that end. The reason I wrote the article is to understand pointless melodrama that takes away from article improvement and creation. It is for this reason that I am inviting the GAR closer to close this GAR at this earliest opportunity in his/her judgment. I am not interested in perpetuating the inspiration for writing the article by abusing GA review processes. Should anyone have suggestions on how to improve the article, please use the talk page.

In short, the article does not need a GA designation. It's already there and available for any reader to access at any time. If those who comment here decide to reassess it, fine. If not, fine. --Moni3 (talk) 13:40, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum to GAR closer
  • Wow! That is certainly in the spirit of trying to fix up the problems in the article. Why not rewrite the article so that it is not misleadingly imply this is a diagnosis endorsed by APA. Why not be up front that this is one man's theory? Why not read up on WP:MEDRS and WP:RS and WP:OR. You are saying that it is your way or the highway? —mattisse (Talk) 16:23, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have no way, nor a highway. The article meets the GA criteria. You are arguing that the article should not exist. You are not suggesting improvements to get it to GA; you are listing tangential faults that do not address GA criteria. You have made it clear that you think it does not deserve a GA promotion. I have, I hope, made it clear that I am uninterested in the cost of disagreeing with you about it; I don't care that it gets failed. If you feel strongly that Wikipedia should not espouse one man's theory as is in this article, then take it to AfD. Use original research, use fringe, use a hoax as the reasons it should be deleted. Justify why a professor of psychiatry who is an apparent expert on Factitious disorders does not have the the academic authority to state that patterns of Factitious disorder have been observed in online communications. Prove that the Southern Medical Journal, Western Journal of Medicine, Psychosomatics, and the Journal of the American Medical Association have been duped into publishing fringe theories by a man looking to self-promote. Move the article to a more appropriate title per Med naming conventions as it adheres to a diagnosis. I have stated there is no diagnosis and this is irrelevant. I have found what has been published, and what I can access on it. Find the opposing criticism and put it in the article. No one is stopping you. GA is no longer an issue. --Moni3 (talk) 17:04, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I proposed, on the Talk page, two lead sentences that address my primary concern of readability. I also apologize for dragging my retinue of stalkers into this. Noloop (talk) 21:25, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, it is wierd to see two editors i respect so much being so intansigent. Noloops's suggestions are at least an attempt to move forward, rather than arguing. There are clear (if imo, minor) conserns with the article - why not adress them? No article is immune to improvement! :-)YobMod 23:56, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This might explain WebHamster's (and Malleus F.s) behavior, if you really want to know: [7]. It is unfortunate that his harassment is disrupting this review. Noloop (talk) 01:42, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What has that discussion got to do with me? --Malleus Fatuorum 02:14, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. That this article was quick failed is clearly absurd. I fully support the comments made by WebHamster above concerning the competence of the reviewer, and I also find the comments about "one man's theory" to be at the very least bizarre. General relativity is also "one man's theory"; the point about theories is that they provide testable hypotheses, not that they're handed down from a committee. At the very least this nomination ought to be put back into the queue, but preferably it would simply be listed as a GA once a few of the pretty minor glitches are sorted out, which I would be very happy to help out with. --Malleus Fatuorum 00:35, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Am I missing something? I thought the purpose of a GAR would have been to highlight some issues and then given other editors a chance of addressing them over a time period, which didn't happen in this case (??) Casliber (talk · contribs)
I don't know. I understood that I should remove my comments as inappropriate so I did, and put them somewhere else. I am confused now as to what a GAR "should" be. Regards, —mattisse (Talk) 01:06, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Your struck comments above were entirely appropriate, as I noted immediately afterwards. Comments here should focus on whether the article meets the criteria, and your subsequent comments have not identified specific GA failings. For example, if you believe the article is promotional, then that is a neutral point of view concern, so you could present examples which show that multiple viewpoints are not represented fairly and without bias. If you believe the article is a synthesis of cherry picked sources, that is an OR concern, and you need to demonstrate that material in the article does not represent the consensus of available reliable sources. If you believe there is matierial in the article not supported by or misrepresents reliable secondary sources, give examples. Geometry guy 01:56, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The purpose of a GAR is to explore the differences of opinion surrunding the review and to come to some conclusion as to how they can best be resolved. --Malleus Fatuorum 01:27, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No it emphatically isn't! The purpose of GAR is to decide whether the article meets the criteria or not. It may be invoked when there is disagreement on that issue, but it isn't the purpose of GAR to bring arguing parties together: that is what dispute resolution is for. Geometry guy 01:56, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough. I'll leave you to it then, as I clearly don't know what I'm talking about. --Malleus Fatuorum 02:12, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To be clear: I failed it because it fails the first criterion of a Good Article. The writing is unclear. When you ask a reviewer to assess the writing, you are asking for a reflection on the reading experience. That is all that can be given. My reading experience of this article was unpleasant. It was a chore to figure out what was being said.

Naturally, different people will have different reading experiences. Maybe someone out there finds the language of the article a delight. That person didn't take on the task of the review. I did. Noloop (talk) 01:42, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I think you are right to point out observations on writing on any article if you feel it to be the case, I just figured (like WP:FAR) there is some sort of time frame for attempting to address concerns, is all. Balancing plain english with jargon and minimising ambiguity is a perennial problem across all sorts of articles. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:47, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. It is pointless to discuss repeatedly whether the GAN review was crap or not. The only useful information that GAR can provide is on article quality, on whether it meets the criteria, and on suggested improvements to meet these criteria. The GAR nominator has effectively requested to withdraw this GAR in response to the haphazard response so far, and I have been (and still am) sorely tempted to move this entire thread to the reassessment talk page and refactor the relevant (GA criteria based) comments here. A window of opportunity remains available to make amends with specific comments on GA issues and constructive suggestions to address them. Geometry guy 01:56, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I struck my comments as your subsequent comments seemed to disapprove of mine. I can unstrike them if you like. I gave a wikilink to show that all mentions of Münchausen by Internet were articles on Feldman. What more can you ask? There are no independent mentions of "Münchausen by Internet" that are not reporting on Feldman and his view.[8] No one else takes a stand on the validity of his view or the legitimacy of his new diagnosis. They are all pop psych. DSM should not enter into it. But I am totally confused as to what should be posted in a GAR. So disregard and feel free to strike my comments. —mattisse (Talk) 02:10, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think you misread a general comment as a specific response. If my comments "seem" something, I would welcome discussion on my talk page in order to reach mutual understanding. I think if you simply address your concerns to the article and the criteria, without thinking about (addressing them to or making reference to) involved editors, your points may shine through more clearly. In particular, if the term "Manchausen by Internet" is only used by Feldman, that suggests the first sentence of the article is misleading. Geometry guy 02:28, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I've spent some time poking around. Disagree that it's a quick-fail for GA, but agree with the main thrust of Mattisse's concerns. Essentially (as G-guy suggests immediately above) the lead and the article need to be rewritten in such a way as to use a much larger hammer to hit the point that this is not a recognized diagnosis, that it was coined by one person, etc. however, the term has clearly caught on in popular culture. The article is a million miles from AFD. I also saw some niggly little instances of writing that I thought should be tightened, but.. not even close to quick-fail for GA. The writing in and of itself isn't even quickfail for FA, though in my mind it's a candidate for {{sofixit}}. Final word: Needs rewriting. I must confess that I probably would have erroneously PASSED GA if I had reviewed it, to be honest, only because I doubt that I would have been struck by the same subtle problem that Mattisse points out. But standing on her shoulders, I agree with her concerns. I spent more than a little time poking around.. it has been mentioned in some respectable literature, but only mentioned, and always with reference to Feldman. Ling.Nut (talk) 04:02, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree, it needs some work to meet the GA criteria; didn't have to stand on the shoulders of giants to see the bleedin' obvious. The quickfail was clearly absurd, but now we see the impotence of GAR, because what will happen now? Nothing. --Malleus Fatuorum 04:11, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Meh. You and/or Moni3 fix the damn thing. Re-nom it. If and only if I think it's OK, I'll Pass it. Done. We have such an informal process here. :-) This article should have been placed ON HOLD rather than quick-failed. We need an option to move from GAR straight back to ON HOLD, skipping relisting the nom! Ling.Nut (talk) 05:12, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
AFAIK, it doesn't even need renomming. If the concerns are dealt with now, the a consensus here can promote an article. If i am wrong about this (Geometry guy? I am sure i have seen failed GANs promoted here), then this should be quick-closed to allow another GAN, although it makes me confused as to the point of ever bringing failed GANs here (quick failed or otherwise).YobMod 10:28, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, failed articles can be promoted here, in fact that happened to one of mine. In this case though I think the better option would be to take Ling up on his generous offer. --Malleus Fatuorum 13:28, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I concur. Failed GANs have been promoted here, but this is rare (please read the advice at WP:GAR: criticizing reviewers is generally pointless here, as an article can't be listed just because the review was bad) as it requires that the GAR reviewers between them provided an in depth review against all the criteria. Returning to "on hold" has also happened, but that means that the original reviewer is maintained, which usually only happens when the original reviewer had some hesitation about the review and the GAR put it back on track. In most cases it is better to start a new review with a new reviewer. This needs to be listed at GAN, so that other reviewers know what is going on, and can contribute if they wish. It also needs to be started on a new review page for clarity. Geometry guy 20:49, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Proposal to close. Rather than refactor this discussion and hash out here whether this article meets or can soon meet the criteria, I would propose that it be renominated at GAN, with a reviewer (such as Ling.Nut or Malleus) being available to put the article on review immediately, and perhaps even on hold within a day or two. For this to work, all that is needed, in my view, is (1) an expression of willingness from such a reviewer to do this, (2) an agreement from the reassessment nominator, Moni3, that this is acceptable to her and that the request for reassessment is therefore withdrawn, and (3) no valid objections are raised (e.g. from the original reviewer or independent editors) within 24 hours that this would compromise the integrity of the GA process. Geometry guy 20:49, 14 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Close. The writing is, in terms of grammar etc., 98% good. The research is good as well. All it mainly needs is a bit of tweaking to hit the right tone emphasizing the restricted uses of this term (not accepted in medical community yet etc.). Drop me a line when it's fixed. Later! Ling.Nut (talk) 03:35, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Renominate at GAN. We could keep this article at GAR while editors attend to it. However, the simpler path forward is to send it back to GAN. 'Nuff said. Majoreditor (talk) 06:11, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Renominate at GAN. This GAR has become too much of a drama to be useful. After a quick look through the article, my impression is: it has the ingredients of a GA but needs polishing; there is scope for a separate article on this topic, because of the special opportunities the Internet presents ofr this kind of attention-seeking disorder and because of the effects on online communities; it needs to be clear that this is not an officially recognised disorder but still gained notoriety; it would be useful to discuss whether the disorder is still a "hot topic" 9 years after it was first published; some of the prose needs polishing, especially the first para of the lead, which I suspect influenced the original GA reviewer's view of the rest of the article. You can add my name to the list of willing reviewers if it is re-nominated. --Philcha (talk) 09:14, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Fix it, send it to GAN, give it to Philcha. If he wants it, I un-volunteer myself as a reviewer. Cheers! Ling.Nut (talk) 11:00, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The article isn't good. It is a chore to figure out what is being said. That's the basic of test of clear writing. This problem is systemic to the article as a whole, and probably can't be fixed in a week, making it suitable for a quick fail. So, that's my review. Is the reason for all this renomination drama just that people have a different opinion? Noloop (talk) 16:41, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"The article isn't good." I think we've heard just about enough of your adversarial nonsense Noloop – well I certainly have anyway. I have absolutely no doubt that this article could easily have been fixed up in a week were there the will to do it. Discussions have centred around structure and orientation, things that can be fairly easily changed IMO. --Malleus Fatuorum 17:40, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's too bad you haven't heard enough of your own "adversarial nonsense." A GA-nomination is a question: "Is this article good?" If you get your boxers in a bunch when someone answers, "No, it isn't," get a different hobby. Noloop (talk) 18:34, 15 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

LGBT

[edit]
Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review
Result: Keep per improvements made and comments below. Geometry guy 20:31, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I feel this article needs reassessment. The "In non-Western cultures" section, which was added after the article first passed GA (see Talk:LGBT/GA1), is either unsuitable for the article or, in its present state, detrimental to the article and possibly taking it from GA status. Is this article about the four-letter initialism, or the community it describes? Both? Depending on the answer, the section indicates that the article either isn't focused enough or isn't detailed enough. The {{Expand section}} and {{vague}} tags, while not a quick-fail for GA or anything, look really bad on what is supposed to be among Wikipedia's best work.

I am also puzzled by the lead. The quote that constitutes the third paragraph does not reflect material treated later in the article. The lead also contains unformatted references referring to a poorly-defined "As of 2005" even though the second reference is from 2008.

So, in short, I think we need to take another look at this one. Nosleep break my slumber 07:29, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The article is/was supposed to be about the initialism itself; its origins, use, variants etc. The non-western uses section does seem off-topic, as it is talking about acceptance of LGBT people, not how the term is used. As an initialism of english words, it is rarely if ever used in non-English speaking countries (Germany has LesBiSchwul for example), and when used has the same meaning anyway, so i don't see that such a section would be needed at all, unless there are sources documenting unusual use in particular countries.YobMod 10:33, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That prompted me to enter de:LesBiSchwul. Have a look at what it redirects to. Nosleep break my slumber 20:48, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And same for just about all of the interlanguage links in the article. Nosleep break my slumber 20:49, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I can't comment on the use in the other languages, but i live in Germany, and was at numerous gay pride (CSD day parades) in the last month, and LGBT is not used anywhere, except in an English language context. Some German speakers always prefer to use the English term, but i don't think that means broadness includes coverage in German. For example "Itgirl" is used in German and is in dictionaries as of this year (which LGBT is not), but that doesn't mean our article on the concept of It girl should have a section on its German use, imo. But then again, maybe articles on terms rather than underlying concepts should always have sections on international use. There are not many GAs doing this at the moment though, eg No worries only mentions Australia and America, when i know i have heard and read the term many times without visiting wither country, especially in Africa (Ghana).YobMod 11:15, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I think I have addressed all the stated issues and I appreciate a different set of eyes pointing out these issues which did seem confusing but I simply didn't notice them as the problems they were. -- Banjeboi 21:43, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Do you think the sidebar is still needed, now there is the more comprehensive footer navbox? One my screen, the pictured push the sidebar down so it overlapps with the portal box in see also, so i think it should go.YobMod 09:58, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I would leave as we decided that all the articles actually listed on the sidebar should have the sidebar and the rest get the footer instead. -- Banjeboi 11:56, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for fixing the lead.
The citations I've checked are fine. The only reference-related concern I have is the lack of page numbers. WP:CITE suggests that "you should if possible also cite the page number(s) of that passage." However, there is no explicit rule that page numbers must be included in order for the article to meet GA standards. The article will benefit if you can add them at some point, but you needn't do it for this GAR. Majoreditor (talk) 03:25, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Gaa! I'm such a knucklehead. I'll try to be more careful and add them in the future. -- Banjeboi 12:15, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I think they're helpful additions. It will be best if we can add an in-line citation; I've done some light searching on Yahoo to find one, but have had limited success. Perhaps a note at the LGBT Wikiproject may help?
In any case I think that this article meets GA standards. Any remaining minor issues can be sorted out on the article talk page. Majoreditor (talk) 02:03, 22 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'll add a note in the LGBT newsletter and see if that prompts anyone. -- Banjeboi 07:51, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mathematics

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review
Result: Not listed. While the delisting review was inadequate, the article has received more substantial comments below. It doesn't currently meet the GA criteria and time is needed to address these issues. The article can of course be renominated when editors believe it meets the criteria. Geometry guy 20:48, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mathematics was "reassessed", in a single post of two sentences, by a single reviewer.

  • That is manifestly inadequate. In addition, the reviewer shows
  • Ignorance of the relevant guideline, which endorses summary style, especially in this article, the top of the subject pyramid.
  • Ignorance of what is common knowledge in the subject.
  • Willful disregard of the relevant policy; that assertions that are challenged, or likely to be challenged need citations.
  • Indeed, I see no evidence that he read the article, as distinct from counting footnotes, before delisting.

This has been extensively discussed, both at Talk:Mathematics/GA1 and on the Project Math page. While there is no consensus on what to do about this, there is no support for changing style. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:36, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. I would like to add that general referencing is one of the acceptable methods of citation in wikipedia as per Wikipedia:Cite#General reference summary. While over-reliance may lead to requests for footnotes, that does not mean that the style is ipso facto incorrect. Personally, when I can, I prefer parenthetical "Author-Date" citation as per Wikipedia:Cite#Parenthetical referencing, but that is a stylistic choice. Mathematical articles often draw heavily from one or two papers, and repeated in-line referencing to those would end up with either tens of identically numbered footnotes or Author-Date entries. For these articles, moreso than biographical or historical articles, general referencing is a useful method, and should not be the reason for a delisting. -- Avi (talk) 03:16, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I agree that the review is inadequate, but hope that this reassessment will stay focussed on the article and whether it meets the criteria. (The talk page of this reassessment page is available for metacomments if necessary.)
The inline citation requirement for GAs is intended neither to be onerous nor trivial, but reads: reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose). The scientific citation guidelines are also part of the criteria (footnote 2), both for when citations are needed/helpful and when they are not. When I get time I will provide specific examples from the article. Meanwhile, I think Mathematics#Common misconceptions is in obvious need of attention. Geometry guy 10:13, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yeah, the "misconceptions" section has been a wart for a long time, though the current text doesn't seem quite as bad as I remember it. My longstanding position has been to get rid of it entirely (I think salt and burn its bones was the phrase I used somewhere back in the archives, probably a couple years ago, obviously after Supernatural hit the airwaves). --Trovatore (talk) 20:13, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I can understand why some editors might want to use the Mathematics article as an opportunity to clear up misconceptions. Such editors should be challenged to "source it or lose it": this is exactly the sort of situation that WP:V is intended to handle. Geometry guy 20:42, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments I only took a quick peak, but there are a lot of uncited paragraphs of non-basic-science claims that oculd do with citing, outside of the commmon misconceptions section, which looks entirely like OR. I don't think they can all be shrugged off because this is a science article. Over-citing should be avoided, but at the moment, the cites are not doing their job of pointing the reader to sources of information (which of the genderal sources should i read to find the common misconceptions, or the history of prehistoric maths?). There are numerous single line paragraphs, and chappy writing and organisation. Is the reverting over the lead the cause of the semi-protection? Without the protection, is this article stable? User:Gary King did the delisting, and has now provided his opinion on mutliple points that need improving; most of these seem somewhat correct, imo. I don't ever delist articles withut warning (as i find giving them a some time usually results in more improvement, evne if not up to GA level), but i don't see any point in complaining about a delist of an article that was promoted even more unilaterally (with no review at all). YobMod 12:17, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
On a second look, i think this also fails the broadness criterion. Many important areas of maths are reduced to a single sentence mention that they even exist. As it is not near to the limit of acceptable page size, there is no need to give such truncated summaries of eg. chaos theory, that the reader does not have the slightest idea of what it is, or why they would want to click on the link.YobMod 13:00, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: As I understand, this process should also help improve the article. Would it thus be out of line to ask the editors who believe there are sentences that should have citations to go around and add a "citation needed" tag to every such sentence? Though in the very short run this may lead to a cumbersome article, it seems to me the most practical first step. The second step would be to add these citations. The third step could then be to discuss how to deal the with the possibility that the article will appear, say, "heavy" on the citations, if it even does. In other words, let's begin by being sure everything in the article is actually supported by the references, then worry about whether or not inline citations are excessive. Whaddya say? (I realize there could be other problems with this article, however the reason for the delisting was lack of citations so perhaps this should be dealt with first). RobHar (talk) 15:32, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Question. Much of the article is structured around the idea that mathematical ideas can be broadly classified according to whether they deal with "quantity, structure, space, or change", which is quite insightful. Does it come from a particular source or multiple sources? Geometry guy 21:16, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Half a dozen very recent sources use that exact division and order; the first (by Coleman) appears to be the source for the origin in astronomy, etc. It reminds me of Bernal, but I can't find it off-hand. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:57, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
      Educationalists evidently read Wikipedia! Coleman is plagiarizing our article. I was initially concerned that it might be the other way round, but the evidence that he plagiarized our article from the 2006/2007 version is pretty convincing (see the talk page of this reassessment). Other educationalists have picked up the idea. This demonstrates the importance of grounding our articles in reliable sources. The idea that analysis is the study of change, for example, is just one way of looking at it, and should be attributed. It could have real effects on educational policy if it is taken as fact! Geometry guy 20:48, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think the {{cn}} tag on Mathematical language can also be hard for beginners is silly; is this statement of possibility (which is a topic sentence for a paragraph of reasons it can be difficult) really likely to be challenged? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:40, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse delist. My comments based on a quick reading of the article; an examination of the Scientific citation guidlines; and some comments above:
  • The guideline on summary style relates to sections that have a series of sub-articles. However, there appear to be parts of mathematics not clearly tied to sub-articles, yet lack references. This is particularly a problem under "fields of mathematics".
  • The uncontroversial knowledge guideline favours an in-line cite to a general source, not a complete lack of in-line cites. Again, there are significant sections where this does not occur.
  • There are specific facts which I would have thought do require cites under any guidelines, but which do not, eg: "A new list of seven important problems, titled the "Millennium Prize Problems", was published in 2000. Solution of each of these problems carries a $1 million reward, and only one (the Riemann hypothesis) is duplicated in Hilbert's problems."
  • Notwithstanding this being a top-level summary article, the history appears to me to be too concise, with a yawning gulf between prehistory, Incas and ancient greeks, and the number of published papers since 1940 (itself hardly a fact worthy of note in this top level article's history section).
  • At this stage at least, the "common misconceptions" section should be deleted altogether. hamiltonstone (talk) 03:54, 12 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Lack of broadness" - that's an interesting comment. Can you be more precise ? Are there specific aspects of mathematics that are not already mentioned somewhere in the article ? Or are there topics that you feel it should describe in more detail - if so, which ones ? Or do you feel it is not accessible to a broad audience ? Gandalf61 (talk) 10:48, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It is alredy explained above (but nobody answered my concerns). "On a second look, i think this also fails the broadness criterion. Many important areas of maths are reduced to a single sentence mention that they even exist. As it is not near to the limit of acceptable page size, there is no need to give such truncated summaries of eg. chaos theory, that the reader does not have the slightest idea of what it is, or why they would want to click on the link." Do you disagree? Imo, links to major section of mathematics should at least have enough context that a reader knows what they are clicking on. Almost all areas of maths have no description. Even a broad top level article has space to cover more detail, as seen by the small size of this article. A "List of mathematical topic" could get away with no description at all, but an article cannot do so and be called good, imoYobMod 11:03, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, so your concern is a lack of detail and context. The only example you have mentioned explicitly is chaos theory. Concerning chaos theory, the article says "Many phenomena in nature can be described by dynamical systems; chaos theory makes precise the ways in which many of these systems exhibit unpredictable yet still deterministic behavior". How exactly would you improve that one-sentence summary of chaos theory ? And can you give, say, three specific examples of topics that you feel are mentioned but have "no description" ? Gandalf61 (talk) 11:25, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This: "Trigonometry combines space and numbers, and encompasses the well-known Pythagorean theorem" is far too vague to be useful. This: "In order to clarify the foundations of mathematics, the fields of mathematical logic and set theory were developed." does not consitute a descritption of set theory. Group theory, game theory and optimization are just bare links with no text, and category theory just says "is still being developed". Why do you assume that these are limited to single sentences? - the article can more than double in size and still be easilly within size limits. I am not a mathematician, and have no interest in re-writing the article, but it is plain that this is not a good overview of mathematics. But even if rewritten, nothing has been done to answer others concerns about sourcing, so it would still fail on that.YobMod 12:05, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have expanded the text around some of your examples. I don't agree that all topics mentioned need more than a single sentence summary - once you go beyond one sentence, you end up writing a paragraph on every topic, and then you introduce more terms that need context and description, so more paragraphs and so on. A one sentence summary seems to me like a sensible place to draw the line. I have to say I am surprised by the negative tone of your concluding remarks - "even if rewritten ... it would still fail" - that provides little incentive for editors to address your concerns. Gandalf61 (talk) 12:34, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I am afraid i can give no incentive. There are simply the GA criteria, and the article must pass all of them. Focusing on one of the problems will imrove the article to be sure, so is to be applauded (the trigonometry example is now far superior). But it does't change the myriad other issues that need addressing, and i didn't want to immply that expanding on these areas would change my recomendation to keep delisted.YobMod 15:00, 16 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Special relativity

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review
Result: Delist. Although this article contains much useful information about special relativity, it profoundly fails to meet the GA criteria or indeed many of our norms for encyclopedic writing. There are multiple sections and sentences without references that need them. There are also several examples of editorial interpretation and emphasis. Further the article goes into unnecessary detail in several places. As substantial rewriting is needed, there's not much point in giving a more detailed review. I would simply point to General relativity and Introduction to general relativity as exemplars of encyclopedic articles on a topic like this. Geometry guy 21:52, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have done an individual reassessment on this article as part of the GA Sweeps project. I found the article to lack adequate sourcing to meet the GA Criteria. My review is here. In response a discussion on the nuances of sourcing scientific articles ensued. I do not feel qualified, in light of the arguments brought forth, to adequately determine whether this article meets the sourcing requirements of a scientific article. I am therefore requesting community review to determine an answer to this question. I do not hold tightly to my original assertions and if the community feels as though the article meets the sourcing requirements to maintain its GA status I will gladly keep it as such and be wiser for the experience. H1nkles (talk) 16:10, 24 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. I agree that it is undercited, including for non-mathematical non-obivous claims. The first claim i checked was also not cited in the "main"-linked article - i supect this is true for many cases, so claims of summary style making citations un-needed should be viewed with caution. The "too long" template seems appropriate (you have to read loads before even getting to it), as such a dense article gets difficult to concentrate on (it is currently 45 kb readable prose, but much more with the equations), and it is overall badly written (using first person pronoun: "we" must then....) and organised. The external links list is too long also.YobMod 19:13, 29 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And i checked a claim that think would be challenged, which was not in a sub-article. There are also citation needed tags placed by other editors, which is an implicit challenge of verifibaility.Staements like "The principle of relativity, which states that there is no preferred inertial reference frame, dates back to Galileo", do not seem to be basic fundemental science to me, they are history of science claims that can be challenged for verification. But at the moment it should be delisted for poor writing anyway, which the scientific citation guideline does not excuse. There are numerous examples of single line paragrpaphs one after the other, and use of first person and imperative mood.YobMod 12:05, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
See Galilean equivalence. Like most scientific attributions, it may be older than Galileo, at least in part, but that does not contradict what our article says - and Galileo certainly presented his argument as novel. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:27, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Which is why it needs citing. There is no reason to assume that someone with a broad understanding of math would know such details, particulalry if there are numerous interpretations. How would i even know to check the Galilean equivalence article from reading this article? The link is to Galileo, and discussion of inertia in his article are also uncited. But the writing is just a problematic for this article anyway, every time i look i find another example of textbook style teaching text.YobMod 10:04, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Luis Castillo (baseball)

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • GAN review not found
Result: Delist per consensus below. Geometry guy 21:56, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

My knowledge of baseball is limited at best but the fact that it seems to rely on one source for the majority of the article makes it a bit unreliable. Also:

  • The prose doesn't flow well because of the constant short sections.
  • The personal life section is a lot smaller than some other baseball GAs
  • Some sections are unsourced or not adequately sourced.
  • The lead needs expanding a bit.
  • The reviewer admitted that "I am not 100% confident this would survive a Reassessment"

I put this in the "Articles needing review and possible reassessment" section but no action was taken so I've decided to request a community reassessment. - Spiderone (talk) 16:37, 4 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delist. The article is a nice start and certainly could be a GA with work, but as it is I don't think it works. Here are some issues on top of what Spiderone noted:
    • No pre-draft info. I'm sure he played high school baseball somewhere and had an upbringing of some sort.
    • No real reason to make each season its own section, especially if it's going to be only 1-2 sentences. (which they should be minimum one good-sized paragraph each since he was a starter)
    • I don't like using MLB.com as a source, mainly because if he were traded or abruptly retired, that link is gone. Using a newspaper source or baseball digest would be far more useful.
    • The awards and achievements sections not only just duplicate the infobox, but should be meshed into the prose.
Lastly, 8.2kb of prose is quite short for a 14-year veteran as well - it can easily be doubled. Wizardman 20:08, 9 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist. For broadness, with such a meagre amount of personal life (where was he born even?), this would be better titles "Baseball career of Luis Castillo". His ceareer would be better presented in larger chunks of prose, making it a better read.YobMod 08:45, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Glengoyne Distillery

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review
Result: Endorse fail. Hopefully the additional comments below will be helpful in improving the article. Articles can be renominated at any time. Geometry guy 22:03, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am calling for the reassessment of this article as I feel that this article does not deserve to have been failed. In my opinion the reviewer of the last two GA reviews has been too harsh and too criticising. Frankly I find the requests of this reviewer to be unreasonable under the scope of GA. I am seeking the view of third party(s) on this matter. -- Cabe6403 (Talk•Sign) 01:45, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • If I may be a little single minded here; I think the non-free images in the products section need to go. The topic of the article is the distillery itself, so I don't see how those images of their products can measure up to the criteria that says all non-free images must significantly increase the readers understanding of the topic. According to the non-free use rationales provided (the first two lack even this btw.) the purpose of the images are: "To demonstrate the appearance and colour of a rare whisky", however the apperance and color of any of their products is not devoted any coverage in the actual article. Yes seeing what theyr products look like is "nice", but I don't see how removing those images would actualy make any of the article content harder to understand, and as such they fail to satisfy the non-free policy criteria regarding significance. --Sherool (talk) 14:17, 5 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I thought the same thing, and i've asked at the WP:NFCC talk page to see what others think. I really looked like a catelogue, which i'm sure the company doesn't mind, but makes it not free for re-users.YobMod 06:53, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse fail. The reliable secondary sources in the references are insufficient to support the material in the article. I see no evidence that MaltMadness.com is a reliable source; Glengoyne.com, bruichladdich.com and blog.glenfiddich.com are primary sources; other sources include SMWS.co.uk, WhiskyDistilleryTours.com, ScotlandWhisky.com, WhiskyMerchants.co.uk, BBR.com and TheWhiskyGuide.com, which appear to be associated with producers and/or sales. Thus for example, no reliable secondary source is provided for "In the early nineteenth century, due to the heavy taxes on spirit production imposed by the government, many whisky producers were forced to operate illegally." (First sentence, history section.) "Glengoyne saw a vast increase in output capacity as well as a similar rise in sales." is sourced to Whiskey-pages.com, which is a slightly better looking source (editorial control by published writers), but the source has only a quotation from the Brand Heritage Manager. Further, Glengoyne's awards are sourced to its own site.
In addition to these issues, the lead is too short to summarize the article adequately, and there is unencyclopedic prose, e.g., "Unlike many malt whisky distilleries, Glengoyne does not use peat smoke to dry their barley, but instead selects to use warm air." and "Unlike many malt whiskys Glengoyne does not use peat smoke to dry their barley but instead favours the use of warm air." Why "selects" and "favours"? Finally, I agree that the multiple non-free images make this rather too much like a catalogue. Geometry guy 21:07, 6 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Endorse fail The article was failed this time round due to lack of corrective action by the WP:GAN nominator. I carried out the review (see talk:Glengoyne Distillery/GA3), on 18 May 2009, and left the review open. The nominator also raised some questions on 18 May 2009. The nomination was failed on 19 July 2009; I checked that the nomintor was active on wikipedia before closing the nomination. The nominator states on his talk page that he is a student at Strathclyde University, but appears to be unable to provide any WP:verifiable references. The article is little more than links to blog sites and whisky websites, yet there are numerous books on the Whisky industry, I sent the nominator a list taken from Strathclyde Univerity's library catalogue. This was discussed by the first reviewer in talk:Glengoyne Distillery/GA1. The only written reference was added by me in an attempt to improve the article. The article has certainly been improved as a result to the last two reveiws, for instance: it was necessary to make these comments in the previous review (see talk:Glengoyne Distillery/GA2), mainly due to the uncritical inclusion of "facts" from the distillery company's own website:
I regard "Glengoyne does not use peat smoke to dry their barley, but instead favours the use of warm air" and "boasting eight working warehouses" as marketing hypo.
Again, why push corporate hospitality at their visit centre, I'm sure that if Rangers or Celtic wish to take clients out for a "nosh up" they will not use wikipedia to search out a venue. Incidentally Ref 6 does not mention corporate hospitality, but it does mention 35,000 visits
The Rob Roy is a nice story, but it is uncritically included in the article as fact. By all means include it, but let's have some objectivity. Roy Rob is a character, i.e. he does not exist. You have provided the following information from the company website: "the character Rob Roy, known for many illegal activities, is believed to have hidden in an oak tree just 300 metres from the distillery to avoid detection by the local law enforcement". So critical questions, is there any conformation of this in the Rob Roy novels? Sir Walter Scott died in 1832 and the company did not become legal until the following year, so how do we know it was their still (it was hardly a distillery, just a collection of stills, possibly only one) (and the company web site, ref 4, says at least 18 stills were operating in the area, it does not claim that they were theirs)? The UK did not use metric measure in the 18th and 19th centuries, so the distance would not have been measured as 300 metres (possibly 1,000 ft).
The infobox states that rain water is used - nice bit of marketing spin - the article and the references quoted state that water is taken from the burn.
This article has the potential of reaching GA-status, but it is not there yet.Pyrotec (talk) 18:23, 8 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Alex Pettyfer

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • GAN review not found
Result: Delist. Good advice on rewriting the article can be found below. Articles can be renominated at any time. Geometry guy 22:08, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly this article was promoted a long time ago and there isn't a way of accessing the review. The prose doesn't flow very well as there are many short paragraphs in the career section. A few of the references are also missing information and I've added "citation needed" in some places. Spiderone 12:37, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. The article fails to meet Criterion 1. Portions of the article are stubby; for example, "Family background" is too short to stand alone as a section and should be combined with "Personal life". The prose suffers from disjointed one-sentence paragraphs. Additionally, several of the references aren't correctly formatted. Fortunately, one can correct these problems with a small amount of effort.
The article meets Criterion 2b requirements for in-line citations. While it is always worthwhile to further improve an article's citations, the Good Article Criteria doesn't require a citation for every statement. Rather, it says that the article should have in-line references for "direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons".
I contend that a statement such as His most recent modelling jobs were ad campaigns for Burberry in 2008 and 2009 does not require an in-line citation to meet GA criterion because it isn't a controversial statement, counter-intuitive, an opinion etc. Majoreditor (talk) 13:35, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree in general, although it should be possible for the reader to find essentially all of the article's material in the sources used (per 2a), be it cited inline or not. In this particular example "most recent" is problematic: without a source this is (admittedly extremely minor) OR, but also it will soon be out of date, so a cite would help not only with 2b, but also with 1a and 2c. Alternatively, the sentence could be rephrased. Geometry guy 20:30, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm. "Most recent" is a strong phrase to use; I have changed it to "Recent". Majoreditor (talk) 21:04, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist. A collection of facts which are not put together in a readable form. Some of the facts are disputed, and some are trivial. This is not an article, this is a set of notes to prepare an article, and it hasn't yet been decided which notes to use. This is particularly trivial: "Pettyfer has seven tattoos, including a Celtic cross on his chest, Arabic script on the inside of his right arm, the words, "What Goes Around Comes Around" on his right shoulder, the letters "ER" inside interlinking hearts on his right wrist and a Kanji script on his lower waist" such detail is more suited to a fan magazine than an encyclopedia. SilkTork *YES! 16:43, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist. Per Silktork. The career section in particular needs a rewrite. It currently reads as a collection of facts, often presented in single sentence paragraphs, with no narrative pulling them together. A career section for an actor should be more than a proseline list of jobs, as we are already given a filmography etc.YobMod 09:38, 6 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist, per my earlier comments on the prose. I see few signs of improvement. Majoreditor (talk) 05:14, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Charlie Sheen

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review
Result: Delist per comments below, which raise multiple issues and suggestions for improvements. Geometry guy 19:52, 19 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Article has serious neutrality issue, in that it far overemphasizes personal life and political positions over career. Should be delisted per criteria 4. Stetsonharry (talk) 18:27, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment: an objection has been raised by an uninvolved editor about this GAR as premature. I think that's the threshold question at the moment. If it is, I'd have no problem withdrawing this for the time being. Stetsonharry (talk) 20:57, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Re-classify as B or C class article I support the GAR, as I think that the deficiencies of the article are serious, and their severity outweighs the added work of removing the GA status and maybe reassessing the article in three weeks. WP should not indicate to its readers that it would consider this article a GA. Major problems are:

  • Imbalance of information in the Personal life section.
  • Wording of the Personal life section.
  • Length of the Personal life section, especially in relation to the length of the article overall.
  • Lack of structure (sections, subsection).
  • Few indications about what aspects of his career are most important, this is mainly a list converted into full sentences.
  • Improvement of the article is not restricted by to external factors, such as lack of coverage in reliable sources.
  • Lack of consensus on how 9/11-related statements from Sheen should be covered (although the consensus on this may be achieved in a few days or weeks).
  • Lack of consensus on the further development of the article (although not everyone who has introduced the information that others now - rightly - consider undue is currently participating in the debate.
  • Various issues related to style.

  Cs32en  21:20, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I also support a review, the article gets a lot of edits and reverts and is in need of an assessment. Off2riorob (talk) 22:18, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reclassify per Cs32en; in addition, the lead section needs a lot of work. Should give the reader a good understanding of what's significant about Sheen. Specifically, the fact that he's the highest-paid actor in (American?) television needs to be mentioned. -Pete (talk) 01:42, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

GAR can only decide on whether the article meets the GA criteria or not: WikiProject classifications, while important, are beyond our remit. Geometry guy 21:35, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly. That's a WikiProject assessment. Wildhartlivie (talk) 23:19, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delist, this article is clearly does not meet Wikipedia:Good article criteria and I see no valid reason to delay the GAR because of an on-going issue. The issue's resolution is not going to fix the article. It fails 4 of the 6 criteria:

  • 1 - it is not well written and does not comply it WP:MOS with the horribly short lead, the bad layout and organization, and several malformed references
  • 2 - this is a WP:BLP with unsourced claims - just not acceptable in a GA article; further, what makes "BiggestStars.com" a WP:RS? Is InfoWars a legal distributor of its video clips from the Alex Jones show?
  • 3 - far too focused on his personal life, with a bare minimal of career information - he is an actor with a 30+ year career, summerized in a short 3 paragraph section, while there are three personal life sections spread over the article
  • 4 - tagged for neutrality

I won't even add stability because of the current issue. For anyone interested in improving the quality, why was List of awards and nominations received by Charlie Sheen split? It isn't that long and I see no reason it couldn't be in the main article. His filmography would be a more appropriate split. -- Collectonian (talk · contribs) 02:13, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I support delisting, i.e. not assigning any class, as a temporary measure. (infowars.com says it is under copyright by Alex Jones, so it seems to be a legal distributor.)  Cs32en  02:27, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Alex Jones wrote a book called infowars; it's part of the same beast for sure. -Pete (talk) 09:14, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist. The most significant problem are the glaring ommissions in the career section. The references pose another serious problem, as some of them represent less than reliable sources. There are a number of minor issues; for example, the lead is a poor encapsulation of the article. Majoreditor (talk) 04:29, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: I want to mention this. The initial GA nominator, from Talk:Charlie Sheen/GA1, appears to have worked very diligently to meet a continually-shifting set of critiques. While the current tenor of this discussion reflects that it doesn't meet GA standards (correctly, I think) it's worth acknowledging that hard work has in fact gone into this article, and the foundation it provides is certainly a strong one. I'm still in favor of delisting, but I shudder to think what this review would look like from the perspective of someone who once put a lot of effort into the article. -Pete (talk) 09:14, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, if there is a lot of information available on an article's subject, it's quite difficult to sort out what is most important, how to organize the stuff etc. Compared with some earlier versions of the article, the GA reviewed version is a significant improvement. The first GA review focused too much on the details (resulting in a lot of work) and was not thorough enough with regard to the overall structure and balance of the article. The work on the details is very useful, however, as this is the stuff few editors would want to work on rigorously. I'll inform the editor, Music2611, about the current GA review.   Cs32en  09:49, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Also, to be fair, much of the 9-11 publicity has been of Sheen's own doing, generated by him, and his various other escapades have gotten ample coverage in the media. It's only natural for editors to give that significant attention. I don't really fault the editors who gave all that so much space. Still, it just doesn't seem proportional and the article should be delisted until these issues are sorted out. Stetsonharry (talk) 15:12, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the comments, Peteforsyth and Cs32en. With additional work this article can meet GA standards. For the moment the best course of action is to delist it, allow editors the time they need to imrprove the article, and then re-nominate it at GAN. Majoreditor (talk) 21:13, 13 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know how I missed this before -- this article had a very pointed peer review shortly after its GA nomination, by one of the most diligent Wikipedians I've encountered. He had strong statements, most significantly about the article's compliance with WP:V. It does not appear that the peer review was met with any response at all. Just thought this should be pointed out. -Pete (talk) 16:12, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delist, per the above comments. I got this article up to GA status last year I believe. It was the first GA I ever wrote, and my knowledge of the Good Article criteria was minimal back then. The article was already a bit questionable when it was promoted, but along the way, a lot of cruft has been added. At the moment I'm not really interested in getting this article (back) in shape, as I have moved to editing other types of articles.--Music26/11 15:26, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest closing this discussion on September 20, unless significant new information is posted here.  Cs32en  15:36, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Assuming the unanimous consensus continues, I agree that this coming weekend would be a good time to consider a close. Geometry guy 21:35, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist. Falls far short of GA status. Wildhartlivie (talk) 23:19, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist. Per above. As someone pointed out, the personal life section is not necessarily too long, but the filmography section is much too short. As such, the article can not be said to be broad in its coverage of the subject. The significant expansion and cleanup required, along with the fact that no editor has explicitly expressed willingness to do the required work, makes it very unlikely that this can be brought up to GA standard within reasonable time. decltype (talk) 17:44, 18 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Mahabharata

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • GAN review
Result: Delist. Review comments can be found below. Articles can be renominated at GAN at any time. Geometry guy 19:59, 19 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This article had a very poor GA review, and i noticed some problems so intended to do an individual assessement. I had concerns about sourcings (and added a few "citation needed" and "who" tags) and also broadness. There are few examples i could look to for precedent, but i consider sections on religious significance, themes, and analysis of the writing style to be essential for ancient epics.

User:Redtigerxyz has the expertise and willingness to work on this in the future, but he preffered a community GAR first in order to get more input on what was needed to pass broadness for such an article (and any other requirements for this to be GA in the future). As this is such an important article, and i think it will need more work than a typical hold period would allow, i agreed that a community GAR is better.

Note, in it's current state, i would say Delist for failing criteria 2b) and 3.YobMod 09:44, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delist, for several reasons. For starters, there are several statements which need in-line citations. Two examples:
  • It is usually thought that the full length of the Mahabharata has accreted over a long period.
  • Beside being rich with philosophical and religious jewels , the epic also reveals complexity of human relationship in various dimensions which can be related even with the modern complexity of the human relationships.
Many of the article's sections rely too much on lists or charts; others are a collection of stubby sub-sections. A better approach is to merge stubby sections and augment lists, charts and tables with additional prose.
I also noticed that some of the citations are incomplete, such as note 31, " What makes Shyam special... "
A final concern is that the article says little about the poem's lasting importance and influence. The short sub-section on "Modern interpretations" hints at it but doesn't really discuss critical reception, influence on Indian art, literature and culture, and global reception and influence. I was disappointed that the lead mentions that the poem is of immense importance to culture in the Indian subcontinent, and is a major text of Hinduism but the body of the article fails to elaborate. Majoreditor (talk) 01:10, 19 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist I've given the article a partial analysis and I see two problems, mostly pointed out already:
The article lacks a "wider view". Associated missing or underdeveloped main aspects: (1) influences on India, Hinduism and the World (2) critical reception and analyses of factual accuracy and philosophical significance, (3) the story of its publication including popularity, and (4) the epic's use or lack thereof in current day Hindu practice.
I agree that the two examples pointed out by Majoreditor need citations for being controversial or likely to be challenged and are also reasons to delist. Diderot's dreams (talk) 19:23, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Squab (food)

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page
Result: Delist. This ended up being primarily a criterion 1 issue. The article does not flow well. See reviewers comments below. Geometry guy 20:30, 19 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I assert that the article fails criteria 3a and 4, due to the lack of length and sources, and the inclusion of weasel words. –blurpeace (talk) 19:41, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delist It relies on fairly minor sources to assert 'facts' which are vague, and not truly encycloapedic without supporting sources. "roughly a month old", "throughout much of recorded history","not usually a staple", "may be considered peculiar","pigeon in general, have been consumed in many civilizations" - it is all very vague. Also, it is rather short, and I feel that it lacks broad coverage.  Chzz  ►  20:59, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep - covers the subject of squab meat well - includes that the meat is mainly found in the breast, that the meat is dark and lean, the texture and flavour, what it has been traditionally served with, and outlines the consumption of squab from the time of the Roman Empire to the present. What other major topics are missing? All the phrases pointed out by Chzz are cited to the book "Pigeons: The Fascinating Saga of the World's Most Revered and Reviled Bird". --Malkinann (talk) 01:01, 2 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The article uses all of the best available sources, as you can see from this exchange where someone tried to look for better sources and failed. Also, length is not really a GA issue. It's breadth of coverage that matters: GA was specifically created for shorter articles that couldn't meet FA standards. As for the first vote, I suggest you take a look at the improvements done since then. This is a relatively obscure subject, and this is a great article on it considering that fact. Steven Walling (talk) 04:31, 3 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. The prose is substandard. Look no further than the lead for examples:
In culinary terminology, squab (prob. of Scand. descent; skvabb, meaning "loose, fat flesh") is the meat from a young domestic pigeon; formerly adult birds from several species were called by the same name. Squab for the table are roughly a month old; they have reached adult size but have not yet flown. Consumed throughout much of recorded history, squab is not usually a staple food where it is a part of modern cuisine, and it may be considered peculiar or exotic.
Several of the sentences are poorly composed. For example:
  • The abbreviation "prob." shouldn't be used
  • The phrase "formerly adult birds from several species" is odd and difficult to interpret.
  • " Squab for the table" - as opposed to squab for something else?
  • "[S]quab is not usually a staple food where it is a part of modern cuisine" is yet another strangely composed phrase. The reader is left to wonder what exactly "where it is a part of modern cuisine" means.
Unless this article is rewritten it should be delisted. Majoreditor (talk) 19:50, 4 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, the article has improved considerably in the last few hours. Great work! Majoreditor (talk) 02:22, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! Are there any other issues with the article? --Malkinann (talk) 03:27, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist. Several major issues. Prose is not clear. Sentences are short and choppy. It feels as though information has been cut and pasted into the article with little regard for overall flow and legibility. We have dove and pigeon appearing at one point with capital letters. We have "age" and "old" in the same sentence. We have squab as singular and plural - it appears as though the intention is to use singular for the meat and plural for the animal - but this is not clear. And if the term squab for the animal is a former use, why is that use being revived for the article? The lead section doesn't summarise the article. The division of content into the two sections is not clear - there is history discussed in "In cuisine" (and that is an unclear section title), and husbandry discussed in the "History" section. I haven't checked references, though I have noted several statements unsourced. I am unsure of broad coverage, as I think the article needs first to be better organised and written to assist the reader to understand the topic. I feel there is a considerable amount of work needed on this article, such that it is unlikely to be brought to standard within the time allowed to discuss it during a reassessment. Currently it is a collection of facts poorly presented. It is C class: "fails one or more of the criteria for B-Class. It may have some gaps or missing elements; need editing for clarity, balance or flow". The B class criteria missing are - 1: "suitably referenced"; 3: "The article has a defined structure. Content should be organized into groups of related material, including a lead section and all the sections that can reasonably be included in an article of its kind"; and 4: "The article is reasonably well-written. The prose contains no major grammatical errors and flows sensibly" SilkTork *YES! 16:28, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comments. The history being discussed in the "In cuisine" section is the history of how squab has been served as a foodstuff, which is why it is in the 'cuisine' section and not the 'history' section. The modern husbandry of the animal is part of the history of keeping them, as the modern industrial equivalent to the medieval dovecote. Why do you feel it is unsuitably referenced? Which challengeable statements do you feel are unsourced? --Malkinann (talk) 22:42, 5 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Please note that WikiProject criteria are not, nor have ever been, GA requirements. Any reasons to list or delist should be based purely on the GA criteria, not on extrapolations of criteria provided by WP:1.0 and other WikiProjects. Thanks, Geometry guy 22:36, 6 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I know you are keen to keep some form of separation of GA from the overall class ratings; however, there is a relationship. An article that is GA becomes GA class on the ranking scale; as such, at times it can be helpful to look at where an article is on that scale to indicate how close (or far) the article is from being GA class - or just simply to indicate to editors what work needs to be done to generally improve an article. My point is that this particular article is not GA class according to GA criteria, and further, that it needs some work to lift it up from C class, where it more appropriately should be placed for the reasons given above. The aim of the class rankings is the same as FA and GA - to improve the quality of articles by both giving guidance as to what can be done to improve, and to reward the effort put into improving an article by giving a ranking. We maintain the quality of that incentive by maintaining the quality of the whole ranking system from stub up to FA - including GA. SilkTork *YES! 22:52, 7 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have explained why the article is organised the way it is, and now I must ask again - Why do you feel it is unsuitably referenced? Which challengeable statements do you feel are unsourced? It's difficult for me to try to address your concerns within the timeframe of the reassessment if you don't explain them adequately. --Malkinann (talk) 23:03, 7 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist, with regret. The prose shows signs of improvement but is still riddled with problems. Another example:
The modern preference for young pigeon likely began because it is much easier to collect birds that have not yet flown from the nest, and the meat is more tender as it has not been exercised by flight.
Phrases such as "the meat is more tender as it has not been exercised by flight" read as if malformed by translation software. While the article is off to a good start it needs more wordsmithing than we can attempt here at GAR. I suggest de-listing the article, allow editors time to improve the prose and then re-nominate it at GAN. Cheers, Majoreditor (talk) 02:53, 9 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
One person's "reading as if malformed by translation software" is another's favourite phrasing. I've altered it, and had (another) readthrough User:Tony1's copyediting guide. Is there anything else? --Malkinann (talk) 06:09, 11 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, there's more (such as the odd choice of the word especially in the sentence Ten pairs of pigeons can produce eight squabs each month without being fed especially by the pigeon keepers.) GAR is a forum for assessing articles rather than improving them. It will be best to de-list the article and allow editors the time to recraft the prose. Perhaps Peer Review or the League of Copyeditors can help? The article is progressing nicely; it's informative and interesting, and with additional efforts it will eventually meet GA standards for readability. Majoreditor (talk) 02:09, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have read through prior to closing this reassessment, and agree that the prose needs work for grammar and flow. It is still unclear when or whether "squab" refers to the bird, the meat, or both, when it is singular or plural, and what the distinction is between "squab" and "squab meat". There are spurious quotation marks and sentences which don't hold together, such as "The use of squabs probably stems from the relative ease of catching birds which have not yet fledged,[3] or that unfledged birds have more tender meat". There is also repetition, for instance of the fact that squab meat is tender. Geometry guy 20:30, 19 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Reggaeton

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • previous GAR
Result: Procedural close. Article renominated at WP:GAN. Geometry guy 23:44, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings to all the respected editors at wikipedia, The article Reggaeton has been cleansed of unverified additions, and accurately updated to include the lastest academic studies on the matter, i would like to request a reassesment fo the article, to finally help it retain the status it once had.

Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review
Result: No action. See comments below. Geometry guy 23:50, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Visual arts, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chicago, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Illinois, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Museums, AKeen (talk · contribs), L Glidewell (talk · contribs), SilkTork (talk · contribs), Lampman (talk · contribs)--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 22:53, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ordinary procedure would be to renominate this at WP:GAC following a delisting. However, since this article just passed at WP:GAR during GA Sweeps 3 months ago, I am requesting consideration of the delisting here.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 22:43, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment I was the one who passed this article in the sweeps review. After my initial review, the editor put in a good amount of work on it, and I believed at the time that it was enough to pass. Undoubtedly it still has some problems though. The lead is too short, and there are some instances of poor language ("1000's" instead of "thousands", "originally" twice in same sentence). At the same time, I think the reviewer this time is a bit too strict. There is no absolute rule against the use of pullet points, and the architecture of the building is covered in the "New structure" section, as well as in the "History" section (though this raises the question of repetition). I think I will recuse myself from this one, and see what others say. Lampman (talk) 23:35, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The article is very short for a subject that seems pretty, well, major, and I'm not sure it meets WP:WIAGA 3(a). The prose also needs some serious work here. Sentences such as "The Museum of Contemporary Art was founded in 1967 in its former location at 237 East Ontario" make no sense; the location at which the museum was first located cannot be called a "former" location when it is first mentioned. Sentences such as "The first director of the MCA was Jan van der Marck" are too choppy, and I'm sure more could be said :) "The new four-story 220,000 square feet (20,000 m2) building" should be "The new four-story, 220,000-square foot (20,000 m2) building"; "1000's" is still in the lead; the "Collection" section includes two consecutive sentences starting with "The collection includes"... etc. These are just examples; the whole article needs an overhaul for (a) prose and (b) comprehensiveness. (Not FA comprehensiveness, but still.) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 01:52, 24 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. The lead at the moment is a confusing tangle. The notability issues (for the first paragraph) are: it is contemporary art museum in Chicago; it opened in 1967; it is now one of the world's largest (citation needed) contemporary arts venues; it has thousands of objects in its collection; it has hosted many notable (citation needed) debut exhibitions. The two addresses, reasons for the change, funding drive etc., would better be discussed together in a second paragraph. The final paragraph could then give more information and examples about the collection and exhibitions. Here, though, the last sentence is a garden path: it might suggest either that Koons attended his own exhibition a record number of times or that he has a record number of exhibitions at the museum. That clearly wasn't the intention! Geometry guy 22:30, 26 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • I have addressed these issues.
  • Comment I do believe that single-sentence paragraphs should be avoided as far as possible in GA articles. The "free Tuesday" info seems like advertising anyway. The bullet list I see as one of the few cases where this might be permissible. As for the comprehensiveness; once more I'll recuse myself. Lampman (talk) 01:17, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment It seems to me if there is a breadth issue that needs to be addressed, someone should point out what it is. I think I can: the article lacks information on the operation of the museum. What organization oversees it? Does it have a board of trustees? How many people work there? How is it funded? What is its operating budget? Are there any recent budgetary or operational concerns because of the economy? The whole topic of operations is a main aspect which has several major points. As I interpret the breadth requirement, this main aspect needs some coverage, and overall the article can't missing more than a few major points.
I think the free days, days of operation, and even more can be included in the article as "encyclopedic", or rather "wikipedic" -- suitable for wikipedia, not quite the same thing. I bet many articles on museums include this kind of information, and it may represent consensus to include it. I don't see the added info as advertisy as written, since the statements don't seem to be trying say "come to the museum". They are minor points, though, in my estimation.
The operations info needs to be in its own section. What little operational information there is now shouldn't be under "recent exhibits". Having operational info there makes the article disorganized in that section and therefore not sufficiently well written. Diderot's dreams (talk) 20:53, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Is what I have added sufficient.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 03:27, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The organization problem: yes. The operation main aspect: yes.
Glad I could help.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 03:54, 17 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There might be a major point missing still: who has ultimate power over the museum. The board of trustees does, but how are they chosen or elected? Does the mayor appoint them, does the rest of the board appoint them? That is the key to the ultimate authority question.
I am not sure whether this type of information is available on the public record. It does not seem to be discussed in the annual report or on the museum website.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 03:54, 17 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sometimes you can't get the information. In addition, I just thought that the number of visitors per year or somesuch would be a good thing to add. Diderot's dreams (talk) 18:01, 19 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And the newly added stuff needs a copyedit, as there are some punctuation and spelling errors. Oh, by How many people work there? I was talking about the number of people who work at the museum. Diderot's dreams (talk) 18:59, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have attempted to copyedit and found many of the errors you referred to. I can not tell you how many employees they have, but did figure out that they have three departments and included that in the text.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 03:54, 17 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There was one last typo, I got it. Diderot's dreams (talk) 18:01, 19 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ok, now I've given the whole article a good lookover, and I'm seeing numerous and varied problems: several sentences that are contradictory or otherwise don't make sense, too much unnecessary detail in places, disorganized writing in places, overwikilinking or redlinking, not enough information about the collection, and a lack of background information about other topics referred to in the article which would give the article more "color".
Examples of the problems, with the problem text underlined:
  • While the Museum has an mandatory admission charge and operates with a suggested admission...
  • The museum has a 296-seat multi-use theater with a proscenium-layout stage. The seats are laid out in 14 rows with two side aisles. The stage is 52 by 34 feet (16 m × 10 m) and elevated 36 inches (91 cm) above the floor level of the first row of seats. The house has a 12 degree incline. The stage has three curtains and four catwalks.[33]
  • The Organisation section is an example of disorganized writing.
  • The second paragraph of the History section is overwikilinked and redlinked.
  • A brief description of some of the significant paintings or artists would be very helpful
  • The article mentions that the MCA is the second largest museum of its kind. We could mention the largest one.
I am only giving one example of each problem, there are many others. There is too much to patch up here, though the article clearly has merits and good information for readers. I have to support the delisting. The article needs a good peer review followed by another GAN-- one that offers specific commentary. Diderot's dreams (talk) 18:01, 19 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Cham Albanians

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Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review
Result: Delist per uncontested and supported review comments below. Articles can be renominated at any time. Geometry guy 23:54, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This article is not good social science, nor good history. It reads with a Greek POV, with some concessions to Albanian ideas. An social science approach does not start from national perspectives -- whether Greek or Albanian -- but tries to understand how and why things evolved in a particular way. There is no such analysis here, which means it is nothing more than opinions backed up by some selected references. Xenos2008 (talk) 03:30, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. Please provide specific examples of what you consider to be POV assertions or poor-quality sources. Thanks, Majoreditor (talk) 23:24, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. The article had been nominated for GA by an Albanian editor, who had worked the hell on it. I just wanted Xenos to be aware of that. Which are the poor-quality sources? The ones Balkanian provides?!--Yannismarou (talk) 16:00, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Certainly, the article can be improved. But the facts are a) it provides a very thorough coverage of the Chams, their history & culture, as well as their current status & politics as a community. b) in terms of POV-ness, throughout its development, it has had to be toned down from a pro-Albanian POV to a more moderate one, a fact the article's principal editor (Balkanian's word) appreciated and accepted. I think he would be quite surprised at having this article labeled "pro-Greek" in any way, especially given the epic quarrels with Greek editors over its content and style. c) the GA criteria do not call for scholarly standards as to the text's critical and analytical merits, but broad coverage (check), verifiability (check), and NPOV (check IMO and until I see some concrete examples to the opposite). Regards, Constantine ✍ 16:21, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I should point out that the definition of NPOV is not that it satisfies two parties (e.g. Greek and Albanian) but that it actually tries to take some distance from the subject matter and describe the events for the benefit of outsiders. It will take some time to go through this carefully and explain what the exact problems are, and I am short of time at the moment: I will try to do so in a week or so. However, my general point is that anyone not versed in the history of the Balkans will read this and actually fail to understand anything other than the Greek POV. The precise mechanism by which this occurred for this article is not of interest to me, or to any reader. Xenos2008 (talk) 19:34, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    NPOV is about representing significant viewpoints fairly and without bias. If this is what you mean by distance then I agree. However, NPOV is not about eliminating points of view (the N in NPOV does not stand for "Not") but describing them without endorsing them. That can mean going in close. In terms of GA criteria, you evidently believe the article does not meet criterion 4. Are there any other GA issues you would like to highlight? Geometry guy 21:31, 29 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I also want to say that almost the entire article is written from an Albanian editor (Balkanian's word-710 edits-) with the help of other Albanian editors in such a way that almost every try from Greek editors to change a sentence immediately resulted to a massive edit war from the part of the Albanian editors. I would like to point that the POV flag in the article is currently put after the protest of many Greek editors over that situation while the Albanian contributors insisted on the removal, causing the interference of administrators who accepted that the article has indeed Albanian-POV issues and decided that the flag should remain. Regards, --Factuarius (talk) 07:46, 30 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Moved to talk. Comments on this reassessment should be based on whether the article meets the GA criteria or not. I have moved the latest thread (and a couple of preceding comments) to the talk page. If there is no more substance than a content dispute going on here, I will close this reassessment without prejudice. Geometry guy 12:23, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • To answer specifically, the Greek POV starts with the military occupation of Chameria in 1913 and everything thereafter is dominated by Greek POV. There is so much wrong with it, it is a major effort even to document the problems. I have seen from some small changes I made on Chameria that the Greeks are not able to defend their claims with valid references, that some of the references used are student presentations, and there are strong claims being made that are not supported by the references provided. In other words, the whole of the post 1913 history is fraudulent and manipulated. It is completely unacceptable to think that popular Greek opinion counts for anything, yet this is the basis of the modern history section of this article. VERY POOR WORK INDEED. Xenos2008 (talk) 15:17, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Vague. Vague. Vague. Can you be at least once a bit more specific; locate the problem and expand it with concrete examples, instead of writing generalities?--Yannismarou (talk) 15:59, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with this. If there are many things wrong with the article, it is not necessary to document them all, only to point to some of them. Geometry guy 16:15, 31 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I recommend that this GAR be closed with no action taken. Majoreditor (talk) 05:18, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    I'd like to, but I usually read through the article first to check that the consensus reflects the content. Reading through the first half raised so many problems that I cannot close this GAR. Here are some quotes: the problems are mostly self-evident, but I've added remarks in some cases.
    • "For the next few decades, according to complains by the Albanian side, the Chams were marginalized and discriminated against by the Greek state, who viewed them with distrust. Their properties were confiscated, some thousand were expelled to Turkey, and their cultural identity was suppressed."
    • "However, apart of the accusation of the Albanian side, there was little evidence of direct state persecution."
    • "At the same time, Orthodox Chams are often referred by Greeks as Arvanites (Αρβανίτες),[2][7] which primarily refers to the Albanophone Greeks of southern Greece but is commonly used as for all Albanian-speaking Greek citizens."
    • "In the first decade of the 14th century, some Albanian clans were reported in Epirus and Thessaly, mainly hired as mercenaries from the Byzantines."
    • "After the Ottoman conquest of the region, a number of Albanians were converted to Islam, while others maintained their Orthodox faith." How many, and according to whom?
    • "The process of Islamization of the Chams started in the 16th century, but it reached major proportions only in the 18th and 19th centuries."
    • "The main instigator for the beginning of mass conversions in the region were the draconian measures adopted by the Ottomans after the two failed revolts of Dionysius the Philosopher, who had led an army made of Orthodox Albanians and Greeks, as well as a number of Muslim local farmers, against the Ottomans.[35] In their wake, the Ottoman pashas tripled the taxes owed by the non-Muslim population, as they regarded the Orthodox element a continuous threat of future revolts. Another reason for conversion was the absence of liturgical ceremonies in Chameria, especially in the northern part of the region.[35] According to the French historian Fernand Braudel, in the wider region of what today is Southern Albania and Northwestern Greece, "it lacked the church discipline; in the churches was not performed any religious ceremony, what meant that Christianity did not have deep roots there".[36]" Is that last quote, with its appalling English, an authorized translation?
    • "The Souliotes were important contributors to the war that achieved the Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire, liberating a number of regions, under the command of Markos Botsaris and Kitsos Tzavelas." This sentence has an unqualified perspective (e.g., "liberating"). The rest of the subsection has a similarly unencyclopedic tone in several places.
    • "It can be inferred that during the Interwar period the Muslim Cham community did not appear to have a clear-cut understanding of their national affiliation beyond their local religious affiliations.[51] Chams were in fact divided amongst themselves as to where their loyalties lay.[21] In the event, the Chams chose the Greek nationality instead of the Turkish." This garbled and wordy prose may reflect hedging of OR.
    • "After pressure by Italian and Albanian delegates which made a strong case that the Chams primarily self-identified as Albanian nationals (a dubious claim), Greece in 1925, two years after the exchange had officially began, accepted that Muslim Chams were not subject to the exchange." Dubious according to whom?
    • "On the other hand the Albanian state presented the Chams as being forced to leave Greece because the Greek authorities were making life "unbearable" for them; but this was merely a ploy to distract world opinion and attention away from the harsh conditions endured by the Greek minority in Albania." Dubious prose, dubious interpretation, and the rest of the subsection is similarly involved and unencyclopedic.
    • "His priority in establishing good relations with Albania was soon materialized by four agreements between the two governments, among others addressing the confiscation of Cham properties before 1926, when Greek refugees from Asia Minor were settled in the region." A better subsection, but prose like this needs clarification.
    • "Furthermore, beginning in 1927 with the publication of the relevant Presidential Decree, the Greek government implemented a policy depriving Muslim Chams and other minorities of their Greek citizenship if they would leave Greece. According to the 1927 decree, Greek citizens of non-ethnic Greek origin ("allogenis") could loose their citizenship if they left the country." Appears to say the same thing twice, and consequently is very confusing.
    • "But once again, the change of the Greek government with the coup d'état of Ioannis Metaxas made this agreement void." Looks like OR to me (is "but once again" in the source, or is it a synthesis?)
    • "The Albanian state gave them homes in specific areas in the south of the country, so as to dilute the local Greek element in the region (known as Northern Epirus to Greeks)[5]. In 1946, they formed a congress, where they adopted a memorandum accusing Greece for their persecution, and asked the international community to react in order to return to their homeland and to receive reparations." Is "so as to" in the source? Why "accusing" and why "for their persecution"?
    • "For those Chams of the Orthodox faith who remained in Greece after 1945, their Albanian identity was suppressed as a deeply repressive policy of assimilation ensued and, as before World War II, the Albanian language was not allowed to be spoken in public, nor taught in the schools." Strong language, no citation.
    This is all I can manage for now, and I'm less that half-way through. The article is 161Kb, which is well beyond recommended guidelines. In addition to the above problems, the article plainly goes into unnecessary detail and fails to make adequate use of summary style. I am unable to see how it can remain as a GA in its present form. Geometry guy 21:52, 14 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist After just a partial examination, I agree with two major points raised by Geometry Guy. Clearly this article is (1) too large and goes into unnecessary detail, and (2) lacks citations for contentious material or material likely to be challenged.
Even if you are a believer in handling more than minor fix ups to articles here at GAR, surely this article needs such major work that it is impractical to do in this environment with multiple reviewers. So let's just delist. The article can be given a peer review and then renominated where a single reviewer can guide the article to GA. Diderot's dreams (talk) 20:16, 16 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nick Griffin

[edit]
Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review
Result: List as GA per improvements made during this reassessment and consensus below. Geometry guy 13:10, 11 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This article on a very controversial UK politician was failed earlier today mainly because the reviewer felt that it was not written in a sufficiently neutral manner. A lack of stability was also mentioned, but the only "instability" evident to me was some edits in response to the charge of insufficient lack of neutrality.

I feel that this article does indeed meet the GA criteria, but because of its controversial nature, and my disagreement with the original reviewer over its neutrality, I feel that a community review is the best way forward, with hopefully a few more eyes looking at the article. --Malleus Fatuorum 17:00, 7 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. I quickly read the article and saw no glaring POV issues. Although there are signs of earlier edit-warring the article has been stable for the last week. I'll give it a closer reading later this week. Majoreditor (talk) 02:38, 9 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • List as a Good Article. The article has rough edges so I cannot give it a full-throated endorsement. The quality of prose is uneven. For example, there are distracting parenthetical comments and far too many body quotes, particularly in the "Criminal charges" section. There are other minor shortcomings such as the image of David Irving; it would benefit from a more descriptive caption. However, the article is reasonably balanced, broad in its scope and well-referenced. It suffers from periodic vandalism but meets GA standards for stability. Majoreditor (talk) 05:41, 12 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The reviewer requests citations in lead and citations for each sentence in a controversial article. I do a lot of editing on controversial articles and think it is a good way to go, but we must give some discretion to writers. To require it goes beyond the GA criteria, in my opinion.
The reviewer also objects to the article changing because it is unstable for edit warring. There isn't a normal edit war. Sometimes content changes back and forth over the course of a week or longer without heading towards a consensus, a "slow motion" edit war.
Question: is there a "slow motion" edit war? Can the reviewer or anyone else point it out?
Not really. If you examine the talk page and its archives you'll see arguments about the placement of various lines of text, which led to a short edit war over the course of a day or two. This was resolved by mutual agreement, when I copied the article to my sandbox for a few days to continue work. The editors involved in that war, of which I was one, have now resolved these differences. The talk page is a good indicator of collaboration - see the recent posts on it. Parrot of Doom 17:08, 25 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see one either. The article is stable. Diderot's dreams (talk) 17:47, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have examined the article I agree that it generally meets the GA criteria. I found a couple of problems. The section titled "Criminal charges" seems titled in a POV way. The title suggests Griffin is currently charged with crimes, or that the crimes are more serious than what the subject was charged or convicted with, or that there is a long criminal history. I suggest being more specific.
Well, they were criminal charges, that much is indisputable, and he is a convicted criminal, also indisputable. Nobody involved with the article has ever objected to these headings. Parrot of Doom 17:08, 25 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The title is factually correct, but it is the suggestion or insinuation that is the problem. More exactness would remedy it. And it is natural that reviewers here sometimes bring up new issues-- the GA criteria are quite broad and GAR offers a fresh, outside perspective from multiple experienced reviewers. Diderot's dreams (talk) 17:26, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think I'd need someone to make a suggestion - being more 'exact' would doubtless lead some people to believe that we were trying to 'paint' the article a particular way. For instance, 'views' is just that - his views. Public debates is the same - but were both those to be more exact, can you imagine how unpopular that might be? I think that 'criminal charges' is a good compromise, and is backed up by the sources. Parrot of Doom 18:49, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest "Criminal charges over writings and comments". This makes it clear and removes the implications I listed above. These other sections are a different case because they are not negative in the general. No dislikes someone because they have 'views' per se. Very different for 'criminal charges'. I understand you don't want to stir up controversy amongst editors by being more specific, and generally this is a good idea, but not in this case. Diderot's dreams (talk) 14:03, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm, I'd have to disagree with such a change in heading. I think its best to keep things simple. I don't feel particularly strongly about it though. Others may have cause to comment though. Parrot of Doom 21:24, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There is a lot about what Griffin believes, or at least his controversial beliefs, but there is no discussion of what policies Griffin intends to pursue or campaigned for in his most recent election. What does he specifically want to do? I imagine this is the same as BNP policy, but we need to talk about it some in the article. Diderot's dreams (talk) 15:25, 25 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Big can of worms there. We can only really stick to the BNP manifesto, and to be honest (I edit lots of other articles) I haven't really given that much thought. I think its well worth consideration though if anyone wanted to take it to FAC. My involvement with this was to produce the best article we could on a controversial politician. If we can do that, it'll stand Wikipedia in good stead. Parrot of Doom 17:08, 25 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to me that this is a main aspect of the subject. There should be some coverage of it in the article. I think too there are other sources available. Surely Griffin's done some campaign speeches or interviews where he says something about his plans. If not the BNP policies would do.
Its a good point and well taken. I've looked at other politician's articles and noticed this section, so I'll work on this when I return from work next week. Parrot of Doom 18:49, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've made a start. Its taking time though - publication of Griffin's views in the mainstream press is understandably difficult to come by. The BNP website is also quite slow. I know for certain he's against the wars in the ME, and I recall something about calling Tony Blair a war criminal, but its difficult to find this stuff. Parrot of Doom 21:24, 29 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think you are making some progress. I would think a campaign speech or victory speech would have some information and be available. I had no problem getting through to the BNP website, you might try again. The policies that the BNP would implement in various areas are rather clearly detailed. If nothing more specific about Griffin's planned policies can be found, a summary of these would work. Diderot's dreams (talk) 04:06, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've added details of his speech made at that pub in Manchester, upon his election as an MEP. I can't find his election speech for the BNP, it doesn't appear to be readily available (not surprising really since nobody reported on the BNP much back then). I've also added a basic outline of BNP policies, sourced from their website.
I think a very valuable source of information for this article will be his appearance on BBC Question Time later this month. Parrot of Doom 08:35, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What you've added deals solves the breadth issue. I do want to go through the additions for factual accuracy and potential omissions relevant to NPOV. Diderot's dreams (talk) 13:44, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It is easy to omit things like this when you are concentrating of other aspects of the subject. And, of course, missing a main aspect is not to say the article is "bad" in any way-- there's lots of good work here. It is just short of the Good Article standard. Diderot's dreams (talk) 17:26, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. The new segment on policies looks good, and it seems to me that this GAR is near closable as "list". I spotted one minor thing as I was reading: the juxtaposition "The BNP has stated that it does not deny the Holocaust, and that "Dredging up quotes from 10, 15, 20 years ago is really pathetic and, in a sense, rather fascist."[84] However the BNP maintains ties with Roberto Fiore, and fascist groups across Europe.[85][86]" appears to be editorial analysis (i.e., the comparison is not in the sources) and the last sentence might be better placed somewhere in the second paragraph, which discusses links with right wing groups. (Also care is needed when using labels in unqualified prose.) Geometry guy 13:16, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • List as a Good Article. The breadth concern over policies is more than met; my concern with the "Criminal charges" section title I think is valid but not sufficient in itself to block promotion. While the "Polices and views" section seems to make Griffin out to be a muddle-headed, bigoted, reactionary buffoon, the author has let the facts speak for themselves. Diderot's dreams (talk) 03:33, 7 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • List. Now passes criteria fro NPOV and broadness imo.YobMod 09:00, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Jon Burge

[edit]
Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review
Result: Keep per improvements made and comments below. Geometry guy 12:41, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This article fails on points 1, 2 and 4 of Good Article Criteria. Its a mess.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Jbracken77 (talk • contribs) 02:27, 3 October 2009

  • Speedy Keep. Looks fine to me, easily passing the criteria. Without more specific identification of problems, and an unsigned nomination from an inexperienced editor, there seems little reason for a reassessment. No problems have been brought to the talk page either.YobMod 11:31, 3 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    Just a reminder that GAR doesn't assess the nomination (let alone the nominator), but the article. However, in this case, the nominator's concerns can be gleaned from his contribution to the article prior to listing it here. I comment below. Geometry guy 12:46, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As his edit was not reverted, those changes cannot be his reason for delisting. The prose is clear and the spelling and grammar are correct and it complies with the manual of style. I agree the long distance call quote needs a source, and the description of that method of torture should be cited to the officer who his describing his understanding of the procedure. That this method usually result in confessin is in the source, in less formal language.YobMod 18:34, 5 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Can you be more specific? - I still can't find the reference for "usually result in a confession" and this is presented as an unqualified statement of fact, not an impression. As for the nomination, as I indicated below, the nominator probably gave up trying to improve the article part-way through. Thanks for your help, Geometry guy 08:32, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Citation 1 has: "rig up a field telephone and put one [wire] around a finger and the other around the scrotum and start cranking. And they would eventually tell you what you wanted to know..." I took that to be the source for the confession sentence. But this is from a military officer describing the torture method in general, so should be made clear in the article that this is not a direct report on what was done during police interrogations, but an expert opinion on that type of torture. Something like "They allegedly used an old crank telphone to generate electicity...., decribed as a "black box" by alleged victims. According to veteran seargeant D. J. Lewis, this is a method of torture common in the Korean war (where Burge served), and usually results in a confession. Burge has denied ever witnessing such telphone torture procedures."YobMod 10:58, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Much improved now - many thanks for the clarifications. Geometry guy 09:21, 7 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Speedy Keep This article should be watched as the trial approaches, but it is not in violation of WP:WIAGA.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 04:25, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. It doesn't seem such an easy pass to me. The nominator fixed some issues with unencyclopedic prose, verifiability and neutrality up to the "Torture methods" subsection, and it seems to me that problems continue in that subsection.
    • The first sentence has "he was in Mercy Hospital and Medical Center with multiple lacerations to his face and scalp, numerous bruises on his chest and what a doctor diagnosed as second-degree burns to his right thigh." which is not much of a paraphrase of the source material: "Wilson was taken to the emergency room at Mercy Hospital and Medical Center with multiple lacerations to his face and scalp, numerous bruises on his chest and what a doctor diagnosed as second-degree burns to his right thigh."
    • The last paragraph of that subsection ("Burge and other Chicago Police officers allegedly...") appears to have the opposite problem. I can't find the first allegation in the source, nor the reference to "long-distance calls", which gives the impression of a synthesis. This is not helped by the use of in the moment tenses such as "They would use..." nor (in particular) by the unsourced sentence "This would usually result in a confession". "At one point he is even alleged..." contains an editorial moral judgement that torturing 13 year olds is worse than torturing adults. The penultimate sentence is awkward: I don't understand what "regularly" means, and "on or up their rectum" is not very accurate (the rectum is inside, so it might be clearer to use "anus", the opening, and "into" instead of "up"!).
The rest of the article seems to be in better shape, but I would encourage other reviewers to look carefully at an article on a controversial matter concerning a living person. Geometry guy 12:46, 4 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A repeat source has been added ("Mysterious Third Device" is part of "Tools of Torture"), but I still can't find "long distance call". Can someone point me to it? Thanks, Geometry guy 08:32, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I removed that quote, and re-ordered tha paragraph and rewrote the telephone torture sentences. I think it flows better, and puts the accusations into better context, but feel free to revert.YobMod 11:06, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! Geometry guy 22:35, 14 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Morocco

[edit]
Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review
Result: Delist per consensus below. Geometry guy 22:40, 24 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I hate to bring a newly promoted article to GA Reassessment almost immediately, but this one is in a poor state and requires quite extensive improvements. For starters many sections, including "Politics", "Culture" and the highly controversial "Western Sahara status" have zero references and many others have only one or two. In addition, a large number of the references that do exist are simply raw URLs. The ssection "International organization affiliations" has no context and is simply a lick of ackronyms. There are also several fair use images dotted through the article with weak or absent justification. Aside from these massive problems, the article's prose and structure could use work in places, but with such a lack of references it is hard ot be sure that the subject has been given proper coverage. I have notified the reviewer, and I hope that people responding here can perhaps provide constructive criticism that will help in the future.--Jackyd101 (talk) 22:17, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

NB: the article failed a GA review just three weeks ago and doesn't seem to have been significantly improved before it was renominated. See Talk:Morocco/GA1.--Jackyd101 (talk) 22:20, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I agree with Jackd101. There are far too few citations for sentences that need them. And the History section is too long, as there is a history subarticle. The organisation of section also needs a lot of work, the MoS is not followed in many places, and there is an over reliance on (unsourced) lists. The whole page is nowhere near GA, and needs a complete overhaul to get there. At minimum, everything in the GA1 review and the earlier GAR that lead to delisting needs addressing. Until then, delist YobMod 11:40, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist I agree with the above. Many sections are just large collections of links rather than proper prose. Better sources could also have been used; there's too heavy reliance on tertiary sources like Britannica. Lampman (talk) 12:07, 19 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I have notified the nominator. Geometry guy 20:36, 20 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I believe we have sufficiently adressed the problems mentioned in the first review. The history section still needs some work, but not to the degree of making the article ineligible for a GA status.MassNssen (talk) 09:06, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. The majority of the problems identified in the review were not fixed, as even a cursory check will show.
  • "The major issue that this article has is the lack of references. Entire sections are lacking references, including many areas of specific facts and non-widely known information. Correcting this with reliable sources will take a significant amount of time and work" is from the GA1 review, and does not seem to have been acted upon at all.
  • Are you claiming that entire sections are not lacking sources, when we can all see that they do? What about the sections that are only lists, with no prose or sources - they do not exist?
  • "The History section should be trimmed. It should be shortened to a maximum of 7-8 paragraphs and the excess information moved to the sub articles" - this was clearly also not done.
  • There are still dead-linking citations that were pointed out in the GA1 review.
  • Expansion of many sections was not done.
  • The lead is still too short, and does not summarise the article.
None of the above are new criticisms. Ignoring a review and resubmitting at GAN until you get a poor reviewer to pass an article is does not benefit an article or wikipedia.YobMod 10:35, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist. I am the editor who completed the first GA review (on the GA1 page), so I'm not sure if I have a conflict of interest in commenting/voting here. I still agree with most of my comments from my first review, and think that this article needs some serious work before it becomes of GA status. The History section has been significantly shortened, but now contains too many short sections, some of which should probably be combined. However, these are two of the more minor issues in my review. I will repeat what I said from that first review - "The major issue that this article has is the lack of references. Entire sections are lacking references, including many areas of specific facts and non-widely known information. Correcting this with reliable sources will take a significant amount of time and work". Also:
    • The Administrative divisions section and the Regions and prefectures section are largely duplicative of each other.
    • As pointed out above, the International organization affiliations "introductory paragraph" is just a list of acronyms, with absolutely no introduction or sentance structure. This entire section (with its subsections) needs to be more prose and less list.
    • Current ref #27 still deadlinks.
    • Why is there a Languages section and then a Ethnic groups and languages subsection within the Culture section?
    • Many of the web references are still lacking publisher and access date information, and some are even missing titles.
    • There is a heavy reliance on tertiary sources such as Britannica and Encarta, which I believe are indicative of the overall sourcing problems. These sources are OK for simple information and minor use, but not for the amount of information that they are supposed to be sourcing in this article.
If I am COI'd out from actually voting in this reassessment, please feel free to change my "delist" to "comments". Dana boomer (talk) 13:31, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
GAR is not a vote, and all comments on whether the article meets the criteria or not are welcome. Comments from reviewers who have studied the article in detail are particularly helpful. The recommendation (in this case "delist") provides your conclusion based on your analysis, and is useful information. Geometry guy 18:50, 21 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nobiin language

[edit]
Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Information on previous GA assessment
Result: Delist per consensus below. Geometry guy 20:25, 1 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The article fails criteria 2, being mainly unreferenced in most sections, such as history classification and Grammar.--Diaa abdelmoneim (talk) 17:05, 8 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

  • Delist. I wondered why this was on my watchlist, but i see i added two templates five months ago. Absolutely no reaction in article edits or on talk page, until this GAR (and so far no reaction to the GAR either). There is a lot of work needed on sourcing, probably requiring at least a knowledgable linguist, if not a Nobiin expert. No one willing to do it for 5 months, so delist.YobMod 15:28, 15 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. My initial impression is that the article needs additional in-line citations and cleanup. There is no requirement that every paragraph or even every section contain citations. However, some of the article's statements need cites, such as:
- With the Ottoman conquest of the region in the sixteenth century, official support for Arabization largely ended, as the Turkish and Circassian governments in Cairo sometimes saw Nobiin speakers as a useful ally
- Nobiin is one of the about eleven Nubian languages

Additionally, some citations aren't properly formatted; for example: "The languages are clearly genetically related, but the picture is complicated by the fact that there are also indications of contact-induced change (Bechhaus-Gerst 1996)". Superscripted notation is preferred over parenthetics, and page citations are preferred but not required. Majoreditor (talk) 18:24, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The part that first got my attention was the geography section. I strongly suspect that the first paragraph is just discussing Nubians, rather than the population that speaks this specific language. Some of it is useful background information, but needs sourcing, and rewritten to make it clear this does not necessarily reflect actual Nobiin language distribution. Also, the claim for eleven(ish) Nubian language doesn't match the number of languages at the sub-article.YobMod 10:57, 18 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist. Needs additional inline citations, standardization of reference form to either Harvard or the superscript number format (can't remember what it's called at the moment). Also needs clarification of the Sounds and Grammar sections - as a non-language expert I was completely lost in these sections. Dana boomer (talk) 23:29, 26 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Battles of macrohistorical importance involving invasions of Europe

[edit]
Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • GAN review not found
Result: Delist per consensus below. Geometry guy 20:15, 17 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I came across this article rather randomly, after adding a Good Article to the GA page. Looking over the talkpage, it seems like there are a number of other editors who believe this to be well written but ultimately full or WP:Original Research, thereby failing (amongst others) Point 2c, 3a and 3b. Firstly, whilst there is a significant amount of academic research on this subject, it certainly doesn't stop at the Battle of Vienna, and probably hasn't for a hundred years or more. The Battle of Normandy is one example that could be highlighted, and there are probably a number of others; I'm sure the 18th and 19th centuries alone can account for numerous other battles. I think that's the main reason why this should be delisted - copious amounts of OR, even to the extent of declaring in the lead that there were only eight such battles to ever affect Europe in this manner. Further details can be found on the talkpage for other possible examples of OR - I'm afraid this isn't quite my area of expertise, but I think I know enough to see why this shouldn't be a GA.

Addendum: I realize the instructions say that I should have tried an individual reassessment first, but I'm afraid I clicked the wrong link. However, I actually think this might be the best way to go; I certainly don't have the knowledge (or books, for that matter) to try and improve the article, and I'm not entirely sure it can be saved in its current form. I'd also appreciate a wider community viewing of the article to see what people think. Skinny87 (talk) 08:13, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]


  • Comment I agree that the whole concept of the article invited synthesis. Even the choice of which battles to cover seem to have been decided based on what editor's think are important battles. Without sources indicating that the conept of the article as a whole exists, i don't see how it can be considered GA.YobMod 17:31, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As no-one has made any arguements as to why these battles or the concept has an article, i am saying delist for violation of original synthesis and lack of broadness.YobMod 12:23, 1 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I'm surprised that this article hasn't been through an AfD discussion. Although I haven't finished checking the sources it appears, at first glance, to rest upon synthesis and OR. Which particular reliable sources list all (and only) these particular invasions as the macrohistorically important battles? Which source uses the term "Battles of macrohistorical importance involving invasions of Europe"? Majoreditor (talk) 22:34, 23 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delist. I see no signs of progess. Majoreditor (talk) 01:40, 8 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delist, but not a candidate for AfD. I imagine there are sources that discuss this concept, but that the article was probably created without sufficient awareness of the need to discuss them explicitly. Hopefully, the time will come when it gets sorted out. Should not, however, be GA. hamiltonstone (talk) 04:53, 12 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  1. ^ Ackroyd 1984 p. 230
  2. ^ Pinion 1986 pp. 221–222
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