Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Archive 73
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- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 00:12, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
GA from 2009. There are multiple statements and/or paragraphs that lack sources, and there is no Reception section. Many sources used are unreliable (IMDB, YouTube) or self-published. Needs a lot of work to maintain GA status. Spinixster (chat!) 08:12, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
- I have confirmed the issues listed in the nomination remain present. As it has been a month since listing with no improvements, I will be delisting. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 00:12, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
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- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Kept, with thanks to Yerktnery. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:21, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
Lots of uncited sections, bloating in the "Recent work" section and updates needed in "Family", "Charity", "Theater" and possibly "Recent work" sections. Z1720 (talk) 02:17, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
- I will try to resolve all of these issues within a couple of days. --Yerktnery (talk) 04:32, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
- Yerktnery, thanks for your efforts; I believe the honors and awards sections are still uncited. Do you think you can source them? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:24, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
- AirshipJungleman29 I added citations to the honors and awards text, and moved the template to its own article. --Yerktnery (talk) 15:29, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
- Yerktnery, thanks for your efforts; I believe the honors and awards sections are still uncited. Do you think you can source them? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:24, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
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- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:22, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
Tagged with an "update needed" tag since 2017, the article seems to be missing information about its demolition and is therefore no longer considered comprehensive. Z1720 (talk) 17:57, 4 September 2023 (UTC)
- Delist Lacks comprehensive coverage and it also relies heavily on a single, outdated website originally created by the Mississippi Department of Transportation. I think it would need to be rewritten with new sources to satisfy GA requirements. Ppt91talk 02:17, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
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- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: No consensus to delist. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:23, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
It was kept as GAR in 2009, but GA standards have improved since then, I don't feel that the article is comprehensive enough to be a GA anymore. Grandmaster Huon (talk) 16:20, 31 August 2023 (UTC)
- What information do you feel should be included Grandmaster Huon? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:57, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
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- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:23, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
The article is significantly out of date, with no statistics later than 2008 being cited. Recent reports are freely available online, but a complete overhaul of the article would be required to retain GA status. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:15, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
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- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:24, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
A 2011 listing, this article has not been updated in more than a decade. The history and development section, along with the competitive history table and international history, need updates to meet GA criterion 3a). ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:58, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
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- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Per ILT GAR precedent, speedily delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:50, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
This is the last ItsLassieTime-related GAR, I promise. This is another situation where the primary author is a banned sockpuppet of the above and had a history of copyvios (see Wikipedia:Contributor copyright investigations/ItsLassieTime) but honestly I'd be sending this here even if that wasn't the case. The traditions and controversies sections almost feel like random picking and choosing and some of it feels a bit like undue weight. A lot of the sources are offline with no page numbers, which normally would not be only a minor issue, but because of the copyright concerns above it makes many of the refs impossible to verify. Wizardman 02:02, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
- Also, some copyvio has already been confirmed per the edit history, and sadly I'm sure there's a lot more yet. Wizardman 02:03, 22 September 2023 (UTC)
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- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 01:18, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
article was promoted in 2008 with this "review". the article contains many unsourced statements, many duly tagged with {{citation needed}}. ltbdl (talk) 11:16, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
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- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: I am in agreement with SnowFire. No consensus to delist. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 01:20, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
Many uncited passages, not much information post-2015, and formatting concerns with lots of short paragraphs. Z1720 (talk) 15:29, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
- Leaning keep. The article seems acceptably cited. Short paragraphs are a stylistic choice, not an error, and can be valid when there are many pieces of not strongly linked information along the lines of "A went to this competition, then this competition, etc." For information post-2015 - as the article already notes, he sorta retired in 2010, he came back for a bit, he suffered a groin injury, he retired again for real in 2014. Since 2015, he hasn't done Wikipedia-notable things aside from getting married in 2019, which is indeed in the article. According to [1] , he's working in real estate with his wife and stopped skating for 5 straight years. That's wonderful for him but not particularly notable enough to cover in the Wikipedia article. SnowFire (talk) 06:06, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
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- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • GAN review not found
- Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 01:22, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
Fails criteria 2, 3, and 4. The article needs more citations (preferably from secondary sources), it is tagged as needing updates, it goes into excessive detail significantly beyond what is appropriate for the article, and the commentary section uses a non-neutral structure. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 01:52, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
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- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted per consensus. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:39, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
GA from 2008. The article uses several unreliable sources (IMDB) and some paragraphs aren't formatted correctly, and the Casting section contains unrelated information. I'm also concerned about the sourcing; the reception section is sourced to books that presumably quotes the original reviews instead of the original reviews, though I know it is probably not a good reason to delist. Spinixster (chat!) 08:46, 18 August 2023 (UTC)
- Delist per the sourcing issues and the disorganized "casting and crew" section. Though personally, I think taking reviews from a book gives more legitimacy to their weight than finding random reviews online. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 07:36, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
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- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:40, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
Many paragraphs lack references and some are only half-referenced. The subsection "Habit" and the section "Habitat" have no references at all. This is a violation of criterion 2b. The last GAR happened 13 years ago, see Talk:Drosera/GA1. Phlsph7 (talk) 15:11, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
This is wrongly listed under Physics and astronomy. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:17, 30 August 2023 (UTC) [now fixed]
- Delist. Expectations regarding citations have risen significantly since this article became a GA. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 07:29, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
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- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • GAN review not found
- Result: Kept. 141Pr {contribs} 19:25, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
I'm requesting reassessment to this GA article. The most pressing things to work out here appear to be removing dead links, addressing the maintenance tag, and modernizing the track map. ChessEric 18:55, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
- Keep unless a major issue is being made apparent by the maintenance tag. Dead links and map styles aren't really GA issues. That just leaves a tag that vaguely indicates inconsistency. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 07:40, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
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- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted per consensus. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:48, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
Numerous uncited paragraphs, including most of the Notable people section and residences. Demographics section needs an update of the prose, and the history section needs an update of COVID-19 information (and I'd argue that it needs to be expanded to include many more significant events). Z1720 (talk) 01:58, 14 September 2023 (UTC)
- Delist per citation issues and outdated demographics. This history section overall does seem lopsided, though I don't know if COVID-19 is due, unless it uniquely had a major effect on the university. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 07:44, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- I agree that the article does look outdated somewhat. Johnny Au (talk/contributions) 12:06, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
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- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • GAN review not found
- Result: Kept. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:49, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
Numerous uncited passages, including the entire "2014 and 2015 reform acts" section. Z1720 (talk) 02:34, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
- Think I've rectified most of the issues. Willbb234 21:35, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- Keep after Willbb234's work, though it's not following MOS:PARA as well as it could. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 07:15, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
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- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:49, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
Fails criteria 1, 3, and 4. The lead section is far too long for the article length and includes a random paragraph (with typos) about an alumni who was convicted of corruption in Malaysia. Additionally, the history section needs significant reorganization. It also appears that the article isn't up to date, as the last dated event in the article is hiring a new headmaster in 2019. Finally, there's a fair amount of PEACOCKing. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:27, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
- Unfortunately GA often accumulate trash edits, school articles in particular, and especially if the creator or caretaker is retired from Wikipedia. The solution to this of course is simply to restore to a stable version that still meets the GA criteria on which it passed GA. 2001:44C8:4180:42D:D0AF:62A2:39D7:66AA (talk) 02:51, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
- The issue with reverting is that the article passed GA in 2010. That version of the article would fail 3a as the article would be out of date by 13 years. voorts (talk/contributions) 02:57, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
- Have tidied the lead. I'd agree it still needs work. KJP1 (talk) 05:14, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
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- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Feel free to rv if you think this is controversial; GAR coords haven't bothered, so closing as no consensus to delist. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 10:48, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
Only four sources in the whole article? Seems like a massive 3A/3B failure. Also it skips from antiquity to the 20th century without hinting much at the in-betweens. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 06:21, 10 August 2023 (UTC)
- TenPoundHammer most of the article is dedicated to "the in-betweens". There is no GA criterion for minimum number of sources—the only relevant requirement is that the article should address the main aspects of the topic. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:30, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
- I still feel there is not enough content to satisfy 3A/3B. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 18:04, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
- I'm inclined to agree with TPH's assessment. More troublingly, it's a little difficult for me to determine the scope here. The proverb is most recognized in English by its abbreviated "silence is golden" form; is this meant to be discussed in this article or somewhere else? "Somewhere else" seems overly splitter, but there is no discussion of it here, and none of the disambigs are on the proverb itself. Shouldn't the article touch on how the proverb evolved, given this is certainly a main aspect of the topic? I don't think in and of itself a low number of sources is problematic, especially when books are involved (though on a personal level I'm not a huge fan of the "book cited once as a solid chapter, with {{rp}} for pages" structure), but I wonder about things like this. Vaticidalprophet 09:12, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
- I still feel there is not enough content to satisfy 3A/3B. Ten Pound Hammer • (What did I screw up now?) 18:04, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
@GAR coordinators: please close. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:59, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- I will take a look tomorrow. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 01:46, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- If it passes notability guidelines, there's no requirement for an exacting amount of sources. I'm not sure we can delist on a 3A/3B as I don't think the article misses much about the history of the phrase - any ideas if anything happened pre-20th century we need to include? It's certainly not "in unnecessary detail" for 3B either Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 07:53, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
- Looking at the article, I question if it's really notable, but that's outside of scope as far as GA goes and therefore does not impact keep/delist. I don't think it's really a worthwhile article personally, but I also can't point to any criterion it fails to meet. However, I am concerned by the overreliance on one source for almost all of the article. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 00:10, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
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- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 10:49, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
GA from 2007. Article suffers from a lack of citations and a lack of expansion post-2007. Onegreatjoke (talk) 23:59, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- As the main contributor to its initial GA push, I would be happy if this were speedily delisted as a GA; I have no intention of spending the time necessary to change it to meet current standards. Chubbles (talk) 03:23, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
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- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 10:50, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
Many uncited statements, and questionable sources such as IMDB and history.com. Z1720 (talk) 02:40, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
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- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 10:50, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
Numerous uncited sections. I also think the amount and length of block quotes should be reduced. Z1720 (talk) 15:06, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
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- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted per the above issues and significant uncited material. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 10:52, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
Fails 1a (concision) and 3b (unnecessary detail). This article has ballooned up to 19,000 words. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 07:05, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
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- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:00, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
At over 14,000 words, this article can probably be trimmed. The "Personal life" section is excessively long, and the "History" section gives too much weight to more recent events. Some sources should be removed (IMDB, Gawker) while others should be reevaluated for inclusion. Z1720 (talk) 01:36, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
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- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:16, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
Several unsourced sections, including almost the entire "Components of a postal code" section. Z1720 (talk) 21:07, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
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- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Kept. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:18, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
Uncited sections and use of unreliable sources like onlineworldofwrestling and Wrestle Zone. Z1720 (talk) 00:34, 27 August 2023 (UTC)
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- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:19, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
Very reliant on unreliable sources, and with many citation needed tags, this 2008 listing violates GA criterion 2. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:54, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
- Delist. This article is a relic from the early days of YouTube history, and became a GA at a time when Wikipedia's standards for sourcing was less strict compared to 2023's standards. Unfortunately, the developing stronger standards for GA coincided with Kev's declining popularity due to his decreasing activity online. So unlike most other e-celeb articles, there most likely aren't any active editors willing to put in the work for this article for the foreseeable future. I would work on it myself, but I'm already stretched thin with other plans. Unless someone steps up, I'd sadly have to vote Delist. PantheonRadiance (talk) 22:54, 4 October 2023 (UTC)
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- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • GAN review not found
- Result: Violations of GA criterion 2. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:19, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
GA from 2007. There are many parts without sources or uses unreliable/primary sources. For instance, many claims in the Reception section are sourced to primary sources or none at all. I also see a lot of WP:CRUFT. Would need a lot of work to maintain GA status. Spinixster (chat!) 09:15, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
- Agreed that there's cruft. However, I am not especially well-versed in the fine line between cruft and not. Certainly the details and quote about his father's death is something to be removed as cruft.--SidP (talk) 21:40, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
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- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • GAN review not found
- Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:21, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
Multiple uncited paragraphs, IMDB and Online World of Wrestling sources need to be replaced. Z1720 (talk) 01:39, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
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- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: In addition to the below, problems with GA criterion 2b) such as not meeting MOS:OVERSECTION ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:22, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
Numerous uncited sections, including whole paragraphs. Fox News sources might need to be replaced with different, more reputable sources per WP:FOXNEWS. Z1720 (talk) 01:31, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
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- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • GAN review not found
- Result: Delisted. Real4jyy (talk) 04:35, 6 October 2023 (UTC)
This 2007 listing has two problems:
- Significant uncited material in the International practice rights section, violating GA criterion 2b), and
- A lack of updated material, resulting in citations from the early 2000s or earlier being described as current. I'm not sure if the information has to meet WP:MEDRS as its not strictly WP:BMI, but a lack of updates means the article violates both GA criteria 3 and 4. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:54, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
- @AirshipJungleman29, do you have any reason to believe that the profession has materially changed in the last 15–20 years? (I don't, but perhaps you know more about it than I do.) If nothing's actually changed, then I don't understand why the date on the citation would affect whether the article addresses the main topic, stays focused on that topic, and complies with NPOV. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:16, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
- WhatamIdoing, the article talks in 2000s-voice extensively about how the differences between osteopathic and other disciplines of medicines have decreased (
There is currently a debate within the osteopathic community over the feasibility of maintaining osteopathic medicine as a distinct entity within US health care
sourced to nine citations, none later than 2008;The president of the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine commented on the current climate of crisis within the profession
sourced to a 2009 source;However, the proportion of osteopathic students choosing primary care fields, like that of their MD peers, is declining. Currently, only one in five osteopathic medical students enters a family medicine residency (the largest primary care field)
sourced to two sources from 2005). The article also talks about how this change was very recent (in 2007):In 2004, only 32% of osteopathic seniors planned careers in any primary care field; this percentage was down from a peak in 1996 of more than 50%.
- So to take this to its logical conclusion: either the trends evident in 2007 have continued or they have stopped. There is not, however, evidence of either in the article. Can you really therefore say that the article addresses the main aspects of the topic or is neutral, when it actively or passively ignores the last fifteen years of what by all accounts was a fundamental threat to the profession in 2007? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:28, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
- Delist. Another example would be a section about "Attitudes" cited entirely to 1998 and 2005 (and overquoting). The Research emphasis section and the Primary care sections certainly should be updated. There are MOS:CURRENT issues everywhere (eg, "At the same time, recent studies show an increasingly positive attitude of patients and physicians (MD and DO) towards the use of manual therapy as a valid, safe, and effective treatment modality", recent being cited to 2002 is poor prose, and this is found throughout. But I don't know if that problem is an issue at GA-level (not that familiar with what GA expects, but if the datedness is a concern, most of the medicine GAs are in the same boat). More importantly, there is considerable uncited text throughout; even if the uncited or content cited to dated sources is correct, this article does not meet GA standards based on the uncited text alone. And the overquoting throughout means the article does not rise to the expected prose standards. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:17, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
- @SandyGeorgia, the Wikipedia:Good article criteria explicitly says that GAs must comply with the MOS pages on "lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation" and no others. Violations of MOS:CURRENT are consequently irrelevant for decisions about whether to list or de-list. It would, of course, be a better article if it complied with all of the MOS pages, but it can be a Good Article™ without doing so.
- The uncited paragraphs, of course, do not comply with the recently amended rules about citing ~everything. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:31, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, I know that part ... which is why I said the vagueness in the text as a result of MOS:CURRENT is a prose problem. The text is meaningless without an as of date. How we can say something is current or recent when it's not (or at least needs checking)? How can an article be "good" if it misleads readers? Maybe these issues don't occur in other content areas, but in biomedicine topics, they do matter, and if that's what a "good article" can do, then (as I've said before), I truly don't understand what GA is or means, at least in the biomedical or any dynamic topic (perhaps not a problem on more static topics, whatever those may be). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:54, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
- Articles can be good without being Good™, and they can be Good™ without being good. (AIUI readers are almost completely unaware of the little green GA icons, so they are not relying on this designation.)
- Renaming GA to something like Wikipedia:Articles that, in the opinion of a single human, meet six specific criteria, which suggests they are probably better than most articles but you wouldn't necessarily want to call them 'good' because there is definitely room for improvement, especially since they're not required to comply with all of the policies and guidelines, some of which are obviously important might give editors a clearer idea of what the process is really supposed to achieve. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:06, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
- LOL, well anyway, uncited text, and I don't think dated text should qualify for a GA. If that means I'm wrong, the process has Coords now, and they'll have to earn their big bucks and ignore my "delist". SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:02, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, I know that part ... which is why I said the vagueness in the text as a result of MOS:CURRENT is a prose problem. The text is meaningless without an as of date. How we can say something is current or recent when it's not (or at least needs checking)? How can an article be "good" if it misleads readers? Maybe these issues don't occur in other content areas, but in biomedicine topics, they do matter, and if that's what a "good article" can do, then (as I've said before), I truly don't understand what GA is or means, at least in the biomedical or any dynamic topic (perhaps not a problem on more static topics, whatever those may be). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:54, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
- I think you might be misunderstanding "fundamental threat to the profession" re. primary care -- primary care means a specific subset of medical specialities, the exact same that are less popular amongst graduating MDs in the past couple decades as well, that DOs were and still are markedly overrepresented in compared to MDs. My impression is that the trends described (DO educations becoming more like MD educations, DOs not being 100% locked into primary care all the time in every circumstance but still much more likely to match to it than MDs) have continued. I'm not sure how to source it. Vaticidalprophet 20:00, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
- That's just the thing. I don't have any reason to believe that the situation has changed. @AirshipJungleman29, you say that the bit about "the feasibility of maintaining osteopathic medicine as a distinct entity" is sourced to 2008, and surely things have changed because it's been a whole 15 years since then. That sounds reasonable on the surface, but I'm remembering that this debate was going on in the 1960s (and perhaps before then, but I know that in the 1960s, California told all the DOs they could legally become MDs if they wanted to, and nearly all of them wanted to, which triggered the same doomsday thinking among DOs), so if it hadn't resolved in the half-century between the 1960s and the 2000s, why should it have been resolved in the 15 years since then, especially since we've spent the last few years distracted by a pandemic?
- If you want current statistics, then https://osteopathic.org/about/aoa-statistics/ has the newest numbers, but I'm not sure that they're directly comparable. For example, it says that last year, 57% of DOs were matched to primary care residency programs, but "seniors planned" (=the stat in the article) and "seniors actually got" (=the stat in the report) are different things, and primary care (=57% in the report) is much bigger than family medicine (=20% in the article), but these are also different things. So, have the numbers changed? Probably, but maybe not materially. It's hard to tell at a glance whether these differences are important, or just the usual year-to-year variation (maybe with a bit of pandemic chaos thrown on top).
- Overall, I think that recent sources give editors confidence that the article is (probably) neutral (i.e., that it fairly reflects the current views of sources), but if the underlying facts haven't changed materially, then spamming in a fancier citation is just so much window dressing. The article says about 20% of DOs go into family medicine; if that is still true, then the article is accurate and neutral regardless of whether the little blue clicky number leads you to a source from ten years ago or ten hours ago. It's ultimately the facts that matter, not the citation. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:56, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
- I have a pretty strong impression from, like, Student Doctor Network that the situation on the ground has changed (at least, people still made "should I go DO or Caribbean?" threads in 2007 that could go either way, and ten years later the conclusion was always "what the hell, absolutely DO, there's no possible dispute about this"). I don't think {{cite sdn thread}} would go down very well, though. Vaticidalprophet 23:51, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
- That California dispute is outlined in the article, WhatamIdoing.
The article says about 20% of DOs go into family medicine; if that is still true, then the article is accurate and neutral regardless of whether the little blue clicky number leads you to a source from ten years ago or ten hours ago.
Sure. Is it true? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 08:46, 9 August 2023 (UTC)- Apparently it is true. https://www.aafp.org/students-residents/residency-program-directors/national-resident-matching-program-results.html says 22.2% for the most recent round. The article says "about one in five", and 22.2% is fairly described as "about one in five".
- Did you try to find sources to answer your question, or were you just hoping that someone would do it for you? I strongly doubt that anyone is going to clean up the article for you. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:48, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, WhatamIdoing, as I have little knowledge of medical terminology, sources, or the US medical school system, I was indeed hoping that you would be able to answer my question and help improve the article. I have a further couple, if you don't mind; to quote that source "the percentage of DO students matching to family medicine (22.2%) continues to decline steadily"—do we know what it is declining steadily from? Presumably it was more than one in five (and incidentally it contradicts "the proportion of osteopathic students choosing primary care fields... is declining"). Also, is "the number of DO seniors matching to family medicine reached a record high" relevant? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:45, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
- The number of DO students has gone up over the last couple of decades. This makes it possible to have both a reduced percentage and a higher absolute number.
- If you are interested in this, I suggest that you spend some time with your favorite web search engine. That's what I would have to do. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:51, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
- Ah, I see. Thanks for the explanation. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:07, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, WhatamIdoing, as I have little knowledge of medical terminology, sources, or the US medical school system, I was indeed hoping that you would be able to answer my question and help improve the article. I have a further couple, if you don't mind; to quote that source "the percentage of DO students matching to family medicine (22.2%) continues to decline steadily"—do we know what it is declining steadily from? Presumably it was more than one in five (and incidentally it contradicts "the proportion of osteopathic students choosing primary care fields... is declining"). Also, is "the number of DO seniors matching to family medicine reached a record high" relevant? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:45, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
- Delist. Another example would be a section about "Attitudes" cited entirely to 1998 and 2005 (and overquoting). The Research emphasis section and the Primary care sections certainly should be updated. There are MOS:CURRENT issues everywhere (eg, "At the same time, recent studies show an increasingly positive attitude of patients and physicians (MD and DO) towards the use of manual therapy as a valid, safe, and effective treatment modality", recent being cited to 2002 is poor prose, and this is found throughout. But I don't know if that problem is an issue at GA-level (not that familiar with what GA expects, but if the datedness is a concern, most of the medicine GAs are in the same boat). More importantly, there is considerable uncited text throughout; even if the uncited or content cited to dated sources is correct, this article does not meet GA standards based on the uncited text alone. And the overquoting throughout means the article does not rise to the expected prose standards. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:17, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
- WhatamIdoing, the article talks in 2000s-voice extensively about how the differences between osteopathic and other disciplines of medicines have decreased (
- @AirshipJungleman29, do you have any reason to believe that the profession has materially changed in the last 15–20 years? (I don't, but perhaps you know more about it than I do.) If nothing's actually changed, then I don't understand why the date on the citation would affect whether the article addresses the main topic, stays focused on that topic, and complies with NPOV. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:16, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
Personally, I would keep GA status. The needed revisions seems minor, but should be addressed. Rytyho usa (talk) 16:17, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
- Comment I have reopened per SandyGeorgia's concerns, which I share. Apologies for stepping on your toes, Airshipjungleman, but I think further discussion/improvement is needed here. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:39, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
- I didn't want to have to mar the article with maintenance tags, but I was quite surprised to see it closed as a Keep without further independent review, so did some cleanup and tagging; I maintain some hope that this is not representative of GA standards. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:09, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
- The other concern I have is that this article is quite typical of the state of most of the medical GAs, and I am still hoping we're not saying this kind of work is GA standard. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:11, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
- I'm kind of involved as I reopened this, but for the record I am in favor of a delist in light of the numerous citation needed instances in the article at present. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 22:41, 26 August 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Kept. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:16, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
Significant uncited material, while the existing references are predominantly from 2011 or earlier; thus several sections are out of date, and GA criterion 3a is violated. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:37, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- Things like the rules of netball don't need to be cited per WP:SKYISBLUE, and it's not obvious why an article on the sport of netball in general would require recent sources. Taking a look at the article, the citations and coverage seem to have held up pretty well over 10+ years, so you're going to have to be more specific than that about your concerns. Sportsfan77777 (talk) 06:31, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
- I am willing to work on the article to provide additional references. If the concern is criterion 3a "addresses the main aspects of the topic", then I agree with Sportsfan77777. Provide details of what you believe to be out of date, with appropriate references to back them up. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 08:27, 20 September 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:29, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
GA from 2010. The article still holds up quite well as a description of the state in 2010/2011 and events leading up to 2010. However, there have been only the most cursory updates since then. Recent developments (of which there were quite a few) are only covered briefly, which provides a marked contrast to the extensive (still good) descriptions of earlier parts. Therefore, the article no longer fulfils GA criterias 1 and 3 for its subject. GeorgR (de) (talk) 15:28, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:33, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
Article (promoted nearly 15 years ago) is out of date and missing substantial information. For example, there are systematic reviews of the drugs' potential in asthma and arthritis both of which are barely mentioned in the article. None of the article's sources are more recent than 2015, while clinical trials of these drugs are ongoing as of 2023. (t · c) buidhe 09:26, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
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- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted/ ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:34, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
Responding to a GAR request from buidhe on July 29, 2023. I see numerous uncited passages, multiple citation needed tags, inappropriate external links in the body. This is sufficient in my mind to justify listing for reassessment. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 22:09, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
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- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • GAN review not found
- Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:35, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
Lots of uncited prose, including almost the entire "Worship and devotees" section. Z1720 (talk) 02:49, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • GAN review not found
- Result: More than a week, little to no movement towards improvement; article delisted. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 17:42, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
Fails criteria 2 and 3: the article needs more citations (preferably from secondary sources), and it goes into excessive detail significantly beyond what is appropriate for the article. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 01:51, 5 September 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted. More than a week, little movement towards addressing issues. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 17:44, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
Per multiple maintenance tags and other issues. Use of lists and tables may be excessive in some areas. The versions section resembles a WP:CHANGELOG at certain points. The applications section needs to be reorganized or rewritten. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 07:34, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- The Versions section is probably the best-written section on versions of a major technical spec I have ever seen. What is the particular criticism? --
{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk}
10:41, 24 September 2023 (UTC)- Several of the paragraphs are just a literal changelog update, and there are excessive lists and excessive tables. If I were a GA reviewer for this, I would recommend a few paragraphs that briefly describe the main points rather than an extensive list of every version and feature, just like you'd write for any other subject. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:01, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- Thanks. I understand your point of view now, but I do not share it. What you may see as mere temporal snapshots of an alleged single spec, I see as a family of specifications, all under the HDMI umbrella, with a rich and occasionally checkered history. Along with the physical specs, the Versions section + tables represent the heart of the article, the answer to the question, what is HDMI? If I were a GA reviewer, I would be fairly happy with this part of the article.
{{u|Mark viking}} {Talk}
20:07, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- Thanks. I understand your point of view now, but I do not share it. What you may see as mere temporal snapshots of an alleged single spec, I see as a family of specifications, all under the HDMI umbrella, with a rich and occasionally checkered history. Along with the physical specs, the Versions section + tables represent the heart of the article, the answer to the question, what is HDMI? If I were a GA reviewer, I would be fairly happy with this part of the article.
- Several of the paragraphs are just a literal changelog update, and there are excessive lists and excessive tables. If I were a GA reviewer for this, I would recommend a few paragraphs that briefly describe the main points rather than an extensive list of every version and feature, just like you'd write for any other subject. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:01, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
Recommendation: Major revisions needed to retain GA status.
The topic HDMI is certainly an important one. However, it appears that the article has grown somewhat haphazardly since it first passed the Good Article criteria in 2008 without paying enough attention to being useful to the non-technical reader. There are also some issues that were identified when it failed a Feature Article nomination in 2009 which have not been addressed. Further It has a few issues that editors have identified in the current version which have not been addressed such as information about FRL, Personal computers and one citation needed. There are also many statements which are not sourced, or use low-reputation sources.
A little history. The Good Article review was on 27 June 2008 here. At that time it was 51,666 bytes, ~3500 words, and 91 references The article was fairly tight and passed without any comments.
It was nominated as a Feature Article which was declined 28 November 2009, this version. At that time it was 76,238 bytes, ~4500 words and 141 references.
A key comment at that time was “The main problem is that it is overfull of facts and doesn't explain (to the general reader) how and why…I think the article needs a fairly radical overhaul to make it an engaging read and focus more on getting the point across rather than bare facts.“
The current version as of October 2nd 2023 is 180,638 bytes, ~12,000 words with 225 references.
It appears that nothing has been done to remedy the issue identified in 2009. There is a clear issue with too much detail WP:NOTEVERYTHING, WP:NOTGUIDE could also be relevant, and too much detail about updates WP:NOTCHANGELOG. As noted in the earlier FA review, it fails the GA Well-written criteria as it is too technical and needs at least an introduction for a non-technical audience WP:TECHNICAL. There are many cases it seems to go into unnecessary detail WP:SS.
What appears to have happened is that more sections have been added, with no significant rethinking of this as an encyclopedic article. Many sections read as a depository of technical information which should be elsewhere. Examples of this include HDMI#Cables. There are also many sections which have lengthy descriptions which are poorly sourced and whose utility is unclear. For instance in the Blue Ray section the paragraph that starts with “Blu-ray permits” makes many statements without citations whose relevance is unclear.
When I do a quick Google Scholar search I find many refereed articles. However, I do not find many refereed high reputation sources in this article. For certain Press Releases and Blogs are not high reputation and should not be used. A non-exhaustive list of marginal sources is:
- Press Releases: 6, 26, 82, 152, 196
- Trade Magazines: 7, 14
- Blogs or similar: 25, 26, 27
- Manufacturers articles: 8
A few specifics:
- The paragraph in History that starts “According to In-Stat” reads like an advertisement, as does the next paragraph. The whole section needs to be edited so it is WP:NPOV
- In Compatibility with DVI the paragraph “From a user’s perspective” appears to be a digression. Either condense or make the relevance clearer.
- As mentioned above, it is unclear what the relevance of all the technical information in Cables is.
- The Extenders section appears to be a digression. Either condense, remove or make the relevance clearer.
- The Version section can be compressed, more neutral please. I suspect everything except the latest should only be 2-3 sentences. Details that are in the Main specifications tables should not be duplicated.
- The Personal computers section has a lot of old (obsolete) information. I don’t expect that many 2005 vintage computers are still running, or even 2012.
- The Relationship with DisplayPort seems to wander without a clear focus. Similarly the MHL section
- The two Podcasts from 2009 in the External links are very old, I suggest replacing with something newer.
Ldm1954 (talk) 12:49, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
- Recommendation (revised): Remove GA status. Editors are continuing to make minor changes, ignoring the comments here. Ldm1954 (talk) 10:35, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted. More than a week, little movement towards addressing issues. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 17:44, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
Similarly to Quatermass (TV serial), this 2010 addition has some major sourcing and prose problems. Casting section contains unrelated and badly sourced information, there are two (!) production sections, some parts are not sourced or badly sourced. Spinixster (chat!) 06:49, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted. More than a week, little movement towards addressing issues. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 17:46, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
Tagged with an "update needed" banner for five years, more recent information needs to be added. Z1720 (talk) 18:37, 8 October 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: If it cannot be updated, that is not the article's fault. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:34, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
Article is missing post-2013 information. Z1720 (talk) 18:38, 8 October 2023 (UTC)
- @Z1720: I will comment here that the article mentions that as of 2013, he seems quite content to slide into obscurity, which may explain lack of following information. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 17:47, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
- Thanks for that note. I determined that the article needed to be updated when I saw statements like, "A movie based on his life is planned..." and "As of 2013 Arnada has been involved with nine feature films..." I am not sure how to research and update these statements. Z1720 (talk) 20:08, 15 October 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Kept. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 21:55, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
Fails 1a (concision) and 3b (unnecessary detail). At nearly 15,000 words, this article likely needs to be reduced in size by as much as 50% before it can be reasonably expected to meet the GA criteria. Though this is not a GA requirement, WP:INDISCRIMINATE is also relevant. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 07:02, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- Most of the prose consists of the game summaries which is pretty much the entire purpose of the article. I don't see why this strays into unnecessary detail. Each game is summarised by about two paragraphs which seems concise enough. I don't see how you've arrived at this 50% figure for size reduction. Willbb234 16:53, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
- I suppose there's always a subjective element when deciding which details are necessary in an article like this. Still, I've got 13 of them passed as GA, and the longest is under 9,000 words I think. Looking at this article...
- The first paragraph of every match summary is a preview, which I seems a bit obsolete once the games have happened.
- "Organisational changes" features a number of red-linked scouts. I'm not sure we need coverage of coach beyond the HC and his co-ordinators either.
- For "Roster changes", there could be a table for Acquisitions and another one for Departures, with further prose details given for bigger name players, e.g. Urlacher.
- I'm not sure there's anything too vital in the "Offseason activities" section.
- Harper J. Cole (talk) 20:53, 4 October 2023 (UTC)
The first paragraph of every match summary is a preview
no it's not. The organisational changes section is quite concise for what it covers. It is also comprehensive in the sense that it covers virtually all departures and arrivals of coaches and staff. Just because a coach is red linked that does not make him non-notable. I would agree that a table could complement the arrival and departures section, but this is not a necessity for GAs. I've cut down the draft section but have left the commentary as I think it's relevant. Willbb234 16:00, 14 October 2023 (UTC)- Apologies, I had not seen AirshipJungleman's work before commenting. Willbb234 16:02, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
- I've no objection to this article keeping GA status as it is now. Good work by a number of editors. Harper J. Cole (talk) 12:38, 19 October 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:55, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
Multiple cases of missing citations/unsourced content and need for greater comprehensiveness on topic (particularly in certain sections). May also need some updating (neither the History nor Health sections talk about the COVID-19 pandemic, which I think should be mentioned and definitely has RS on). General cleanup and miscellaneous work is also needed in many sections. Dan the Animator 07:34, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
- Also forgot to mention this above but this is my first GA re-review proposal so if I made any mistakes please let me know. Personally would've preferred just fixing the mistakes myself but the article unfortunately is in need of many major edits. Dan the Animator 07:39, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
- Agree a bit of work could be done. The article has odd bits of extreme detail (I've removed some trivia about Liberland), Science and technology seems oddly undue and "Women in Malawi" feels like it was written for a different article. At the same time, some other sections/subsections are oddly short, eg. Administrative divisions. CMD (talk) 12:24, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted due to failing GA criterion 2. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:56, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
I'm responding to the request made by User:Catfurball back in September.[2] The current version has unsourced material and sources that can't be traced back, either because the reference information is entirely wrong or something else. This is true for Adventist Review, which the freely available archives do not support by the date, volume, title, or issue listed, so there are issues with the referencing. Viriditas (talk) 01:02, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Does not meet criteria 2 and 4, as outlined by The ed17. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:02, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
I am seriously surprised that this article passed GA review. It has two major issues. First, the article is frequently far too vague, just saying that things exist without providing any further information on them or even naming examples. Second, the article has a severe bias towards the US. This goes far beyond the examples for things nearly always being American - very frequently the article presents US-specific information as though it applied worldwide. I can go through the article point by point with my criticisms if necessary. Eldomtom2 (talk) 16:45, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
- I believe this GAR was made in bad faith by someone who has went on a one-against-many crusade on articles such as Talk:Monorail and Talk:California genocide. FWIW, Trainsandotherthings has discussed about this offwiki, but I feel like I need to point this out. LilianaUwU (talk / contributions) 18:13, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
- I have absolutely no personal vendetta against you, Trainsandotherthings, or anyone involved with the article. I would also point out that neither Monorail or California genocide were cases where I was the only one arguing a specific point.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 18:37, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) I checked parts of this article against the sources given and it's really rough. You can see my specific notes in the template fields I added. Overall, I found multiple instances of article info not being covered by the source given, along with instances of sources with limited scopes (e.g. a 2002 newspaper article talking about a single US rail line's potential to reduce highway congestion, or a source about electric rail specifically in Chinese mines) being used to support a sentence that speaks to the entire world. As far as I can tell, these problems extend through much of the article.
- Looking at the open talk page discussion, I'm gathering that there is some friction between the editors involved. I have no knowledge of that, but regardless of the motivation or intent behind the GAR this article has some significant issues that need to be addressed. cc Trainsandotherthings LilianaUwU Epicgenius Ed [talk] [OMT] 18:33, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
- Thanks for the ping @The ed17. From what I can see, I think the crux of the issue is the use of primary sources, as well as sources that fail verification. As explained on the talk page, I did not think it was necessary to include details of global variations in a WP:SUMSTYLE-type article (e.g. for the sentence "...equipped with cabs, also known as driving compartments, where a train driver controls the train's operation", we don't really need to give every possible name for a cab).However - and with apologies to TAOT, who certainly put a lot of effort into this article two years ago - you are definitely right that we shouldn't make generalizations from sources that talk about specific projects. The failed-verification issues do need to be addressed as well; when I made my earlier comment, I was unaware just how many statements failed verification. – Epicgenius (talk) 18:41, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
- I maintain that the globalize tag was inappropriate, and I take issue with certain things you've brought up (calling 430 kph vs. 431 kph "failed verification" is absurd, it's rounding). However, I must admit there are issues with the article, a product of how inexperienced I was when I did the rewrite. I continue to dispute the claim that the entire article needs to be rewritten. It is never my goal to create subpar work or articles, and I can't say I'm proud of the current state of the article, though it is massively improved compared to what came before it. I will note that the issues brought up by The ed17 by and large are not directly related to what prompted Eldomtom2 to open the GAR. When I rewrote the article in 2021, I had far more free time than I do now. I will try and address some points, but I cannot guarantee this will happen in a timely manner, and I am also concerned that reliable sources will be rejected for spurious reasons. For instance, I object strongly to the idea that Railway Age is somehow less reliable just because it isn't a scientific journal. It is easy to poke holes in sourcing; finding better sourcing is a much more significant task, and even the article as you see it now required over a dozen hours of research on my part. I must also stress that this should not be held to FAC standards, which I believe in some instances The ed17 has done. There has been no discussion here of which GA criteria the article does not meet, which needs to happen. That way this does not become FAC-lite, and there is a clear route to maintaining GA status. Otherwise, this will become an impossible task. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 22:34, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
- On a very quick look, GA criteria that could be worked on include: MOS:OVERSECTION (Very short sections and subsections clutter an article with headings and inhibit the flow of the prose. Short paragraphs and single sentences generally do not warrant their own subheadings.); parts of WP:LEAD (I note several sentences which contain facts not cited in the body, while some body sections which are fairly heavily weighted are not mentioned in the lead); and, if the above is correct, criterion 4, which requires NPOV. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:41, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
- @Trainsandotherthings: To be clear, the major problem I found in the article is its text-source integrity: the numerous places where the information in the article is not backed up by the citation it's tied to. That's fundamental WP:V. I expect that most of the current text can be kept, and that sources can be found to back up the info. I have not said that the article needs to be fundamentally rewritten, I have not disputed the reliability of Railway Age (I removed one source to it only because the other source covered the sentence better), and I don't expect FAC-level sourcing (which is why I'm not bothered e.g. about the frequent use of Ultimate Train, a solid general overview of the topic that I got as a kid and am pretty sure I still have in a box somewhere!). I definitely understand that it's easier to "poke holes in sourcing" than do the actual research, but that doesn't diminish these serious concerns. Ed [talk] [OMT] 01:00, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
- @Trainsandotherthings - "I will note that the issues brought up by The ed17 by and large are not directly related to what prompted Eldomtom2 to open the GAR." - What precisely do you think the issues that caused me to open the GAR are? If it helps, I can produce a list of NPOV violations in the article.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 11:18, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
- @Eldomtom2: I'm sure there's some overlap, but it was also my interpretation that they were mostly separate. This is a GAR, so it would indeed help if you could put together a list that we could assess. Ed [talk] [OMT] 16:10, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
Here's a list of some of the issues the article has that I could find from a quick scan. This is not an exhaustive list by any stretch of the imagination.
"Since the 1970s, governments, environmentalists, and train advocates have promoted increased use of trains due to their greater fuel efficiency and lower greenhouse gas emissions compared to other modes of land transport." - not keen on this sentence because it implies that the 1970s onwards saw a sudden surge of support for rail transport, which isn't the case
"Another German inventor, Rudolf Diesel, constructed the first diesel engine in the 1890s, though the potential of his invention to power trains was not realized until decades later" - the first diesel locomotives were built in the early 1910s, so this phrasing is misleading
"Intermodal freight trains, carrying double-stack shipping containers, have since the 1970s generated significant business for railroads and gained market share from trucks." - Significant US bias. Double-stack freight trains are nearly exclusive to America and India and intermodal freight trains do not require the use of double-stacked containers
"Increased use of commuter rail has also been promoted as a means of fighting traffic congestion on highways in urban areas" - I'm fairly certain a lot of people who support increased use of commuter rail want to reduce the usage of cars even when there isn't much congestion
"Trains can be sorted into types based on whether they haul passengers or freight (though mixed trains which haul both exist), by their weight (heavy rail for regular trains, light rail for lighter rapid transit systems), by their speed, and by what form of track they use. Conventional trains operate on two rails, but several other types of track systems are also in use around the world." -this entire paragraph is just a mess that says pretty much nothing
"The railway terminology that is used to describe a train varies between countries. The two primary systems of terminology are International Union of Railways terms in much of the world, and Association of American Railroads terms in North America." - as noted this failed verification, and has obvious issues on its face - what terms are used in East Asia, for instance?
"Early trains could only be stopped by manually applied hand brakes, requiring workers to ride on top of the cars and apply the brakes when the train went downhill" - First, this is inaccurate - steam trains can also be stopped by going into reverse and thus making steam push against the pistons and slow them down. Second, this is another example of severe US bias - many countries had different methods of controlling unbraked trains that did not involve workers riding on the top of the train and applying the handbrakes.
"Train vehicles are linked to one another by various systems of coupling. In much of Europe, India, and South America, trains primarily use buffers and chain couplers. In the rest of the world, Janney couplers are the most popular, with a few local variations persisting (such as Wilson couplers in the former Soviet Union).[31]" - More US bias. It would be better if the article didn't mention Janney couplers at all and just talked about automatic couplers generally.
"but the predominant braking system for trains globally is air brakes, invented in 1869 by George Westinghouse.[failed verification] Air brakes are applied at once to the entire train using air hoses.[32]" - no mention of vacuum brakes, which while never as widespread as air brakes were common enough to deserve a mention
"To prevent collisions or other accidents, trains are often scheduled, and almost always are under the control of train dispatchers.[38] Historically, trains operated based on timetables; most trains (including nearly all passenger trains), continue to operate based on fixed schedules, though freight trains may instead run on an as-needed basis, or when enough freight cars are available to justify running a train.[39]" - only citations are US sources and thus reflects a US idea of freight trains
"Train drivers, also known as engineers, are responsible for operating trains.[43] Conductors are in charge of trains and their cargo, and help passengers on passenger trains.[43] Brakeman, also known as trainmen, were historically responsible for manually applying brakes, though the term is used today to refer to crew members who perform tasks such as operating switches, coupling and uncoupling train cars, and setting handbrakes on equipment.[43] Steam locomotives require a fireman who is responsible for fueling and regulating the locomotive's fire and boiler.[43] On passenger trains, other crew members assist passengers, such as chefs to prepare food, and service attendants to provide food and drinks to passengers. Other passenger train specific duties include passenger car attendants, who assist passengers with boarding and alighting from trains, answer questions, and keep train cars clean, and sleeping car attendants, who perform similar duties in sleeping cars.[43]" - this entire paragraph uses a single US source and is therefore heavily US-biased - for starters, many trains do not have conductors and thus the driver/engieer is "in charge" of the train.
"Trains also need to fit within the loading gauge profile to avoid fouling bridges and lineside infrastructure with this being a potential limiting factor on loads such as intermodal container types that may be carried." - doesn't explicitly explain what loading gauge is
"Modern trains have a very good safety record overall, comparable with air travel.[49]" - source only discusses US
"The vast majority of train-related fatalities, over 90 percent, are due to trespassing on railroad tracks, or collisions with road vehicles at level crossings.[52] Organizations such as Operation Lifesaver have been formed to improve safety awareness at railroad crossings, and governments have also launched ad campaigns. Trains cannot stop quickly when at speed; even an emergency brake application may still require more than a mile of stopping distance. As such, emphasis is on educating motorists to yield to trains at crossings and avoid trespassing.[53]" - First, the figure given for the majority of train fatalities being trespass-related is a US one and thus the figure only applies to the US. Second, this gives the false impression that educational campaigns are the only way to reduce crossing fatalities and does not give any attention to methods such as grade separation
"Diesel locomotives are powered with a diesel engine, which generates electricity to drive traction motors. This is known as a diesel–electric transmission, and is used on almost all diesels" - no mention of other transmissions - diesel-mechanical and diesel-hydraulic transmissions are common enough to deserve a mention
"Train cars, also known as wagons, are unpowered rail vehicles which are typically pulled by locomotives. Many different types exist, specialized to handle various types of cargo. Some common types include boxcars (also known as covered goods wagons) that carry a wide variety of cargo, flatcars (also known as flat wagons) which have flat tops to hold cargo, hopper cars which carry bulk commodities, and tank cars which carry liquids and gases. Examples of more specialized types of train cars include bottle cars which hold molten steel,[63] Schnabel cars which handle very heavy loads, and refrigerator cars which carry perishable goods.[64][65]" - for some reason the "Train car" section solely talks about freight cars
"Long distance passenger trains travel over hundreds or even thousands of miles between cities. The longest passenger train service in the world is Russia's Trans-Siberian Railway between Moscow and Vladivostok, a distance of 9,289 kilometers (5,772 mi).[67] In general, long distance trains may take days to complete their journeys, and stop at dozens of stations along their routes. For many rural communities, they are the only form of public transportation available.[68] Short distance or regional passenger trains have travel times measured in hours or even minutes, as opposed to days. They run more frequently than long distance trains, and are often used by commuters. Short distance passenger trains specifically designed for commuters are known as commuter rail.[69]" - The article completely ignores the existence of trains that cover long distances but have travel times measured in hours - i.e. what is generally called "intercity" rail
""Metro" may also refer to rapid transit that operates at ground level." - this is just a nonsense sentence. The article should just say that "metro" and "rapid transit" mean pretty much the same thing
"Light rail is a catchall term for a variety of systems, which may include characteristics of trams, passenger trains, and rapid transit systems." - another example of the article being so vague as to say absolutely nothing
"Longer freight trains typically operate between classification yards, while local trains provide freight service between yards and individual loading and unloading points along railroad lines.[87]" - US centric again - in some countries unit trains are the sole type of freight train operating--Eldomtom2 (talk) 18:06, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
- It has become clear that I will never be able to meet your expectations for the article. Some of your objections are valid, but I object to many. Your objection to correctly pointing out that janney couplers are the most common worldwide is a clear example of reverse POV pushing, since you want the coupler type used in the majority of the world to be removed from the article entirely. I like how you also implicitly accuse The ed17 of bias considering he just rewrote that sentence yesterday. Nonetheless, it has become apparent that my editing skills are insufficient to meet the expectations of other editors and that it was a folly of me to even try and improve this article. I shouldn't have bothered. So go ahead, delist it, tear up everything I wrote. I don't care anymore. I will be reevaluating and reducing my involvement with much of the project, because quite frankly it isn't enjoyable anymore. I'm sure it will be another 20 years before this article reaches GA, because it is far easier to destroy than to create, and this is coming from a card-carrying deletionist. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 22:36, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
- I don't object to mentioning the Janney coupler - suggesting the mention of it could be removed was just a suggestion. What I object to is the article pretending that janney/buffer-and-chain couplers are the only two types of couplers to see widespread usage. Also, "I like how you also implicitly accuse The ed17 of bias considering he just rewrote that sentence yesterday" - I was completely unaware that the sentence was recently rewritten, and furthermore I have absolutely no idea why the fact it was recently rewritten is relevant.--Eldomtom2 (talk) 11:40, 4 October 2023 (UTC)
The original GA Review
[edit]Eldomtom2 was good enough to notify me of this GAR and furthermore I am aware of WP:AGF and fully support this guideline. Nevertheless, I am sure everyone will understand that I feel the need to make a comment on the quality of the review I conducted. Even on a cursory level I would argue that it can easily be seen that I interrogated and analysed the article in a high level of detail in comparison to some Good Article Reviews which are almost nodded through. Secondly, some of the issues being discussed above were discussed as part of that review; for example the issue of it being US-centric. On that point - some of the examples above are not a reason for removing GA status. For example "First, the figure given for the majority of train fatalities being trespass-related is a US one and thus the figure only applies to the US" is a bit disigenious; would a reference and example from another part of the world be preferable? Of course. But that doesn't negate the data completely and it gives an indication that is useful for the topic of the paragraph.
For some of the comments above, I would draw your attention to criteria 3b which states that the article must "stay focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style)." Some of the comments (for me as a non-expert) are getting into minutiae on the subject. But I am not interested in getting into a debate on that as I have admitted that I am not an expert on the subject.
Having said all that, I will of course check back in on the final result of this discussion and take whatever learnings I can for GA reviews. Mark83 (talk) 12:47, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: No consensus to delist. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:34, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
With a readable prose size of ~23500, not counting 9,000+ words of notes, image captions, quotes, and tables, this article clearly violates criterion 3b) of the GACR. To remain a GA, this article needs to undergo a large amount of cleanup, with a particular emphasis on summary style. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:54, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
- There has recently been concern expressed that the article in its current form is too long for readers, with the indication that its good article status will be placed at risk of revocation so I will work toward a plan of a.) editing the main Royal Space Force article so that sections are summarized to an acceptable overall length and b.) creating new articles on related topics based upon the previous versions of those sections. Iura Solntse (talk) 21:47, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
- Looking at a comparison between the reviewed version and the current version, it seems like a huge amount of direct quotes have been added, particularly in the screenplay and themes sections (the latter completely new), quite possibly in violation of MOS:QUOTE ("Using too many quotes is incompatible with an encyclopedic writing style and may be a copyright infringement") and thus failing GA criterion 3b). I am additionally unsure why near-tripling the number of notes in the article was necessary—most seem to fall under WP:INDISCRIMINATE or WP:TRIVIA. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 21:57, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
- So would it make more sense to revert it back to the reviewed version when it became a Good Article? GamerPro64 03:28, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- Pretty much, yes, but I believe the initial nominator has below started transferring information, so we'll wait until they're finished and assess then. 15:07, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- So would it make more sense to revert it back to the reviewed version when it became a Good Article? GamerPro64 03:28, 18 July 2023 (UTC)
- Looking at a comparison between the reviewed version and the current version, it seems like a huge amount of direct quotes have been added, particularly in the screenplay and themes sections (the latter completely new), quite possibly in violation of MOS:QUOTE ("Using too many quotes is incompatible with an encyclopedic writing style and may be a copyright infringement") and thus failing GA criterion 3b). I am additionally unsure why near-tripling the number of notes in the article was necessary—most seem to fall under WP:INDISCRIMINATE or WP:TRIVIA. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 21:57, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
- I have begun a process of reducing the reading length of the article through the creation of a new sub-article Academic analysis of themes in Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise and the corresponding condensing of that section in the main article with the addition of further subheadings for easier reading. I'll continue the process with other sections in the main article. Iura Solntse (talk) 03:52, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
- I've created a second new sub-article Critical response to Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise while condensing and adding further subheadings for ease in reading to the corresponding section in the main article. I’ll continue the process with other sections of the main article. Iura Solntse (talk) 22:37, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
- DYK helper gives me 21112 words, 127400 characters at the moment. That's definitely an improvement but I'd say more trimming is needed. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 22:21, 25 July 2023 (UTC)
- Instead of moving content to other articles (or 'sub-articles' as you've called them), I'd say it's a better idea to just trim down or delete parts of the article. It's important to remember that not everything belongs on Wikipedia and simply transferring content to another article just de-centralises content, making it harder for readers to follow, which seems contrary to the purpose of an encyclopedia. Willbb234 14:28, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
- See the editing guideline summary style, Willbb234. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 08:36, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
- I think that guideline just backs up my point. Only "major subtopics" should be split into other articles. We would need to assess if each subtopic that is split off is considered "major", otherwise it might not be appropriate to split off. See WP:NOPAGE - we need to use our "editorial judgement" here. Willbb234 09:32, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
- If you feel that other articles are non-notable, feel free to take them to WP:AFD, Willbb234. That is outside the purview of GAR, which only focuses on if the article accredited with GA status still meets it. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:13, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
- I think that guideline just backs up my point. Only "major subtopics" should be split into other articles. We would need to assess if each subtopic that is split off is considered "major", otherwise it might not be appropriate to split off. See WP:NOPAGE - we need to use our "editorial judgement" here. Willbb234 09:32, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
- See the editing guideline summary style, Willbb234. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 08:36, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
- I've created a third new sub-article Marketing and release of Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise while condensing and adding further subheadings for ease in reading to the corresponding section in the main article. I’ll continue the process with other sections of the main article. Iura Solntse (talk) 03:37, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
- I've created a fourth new sub-article Music of Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise while condensing and adding further subheadings for ease in reading to the corresponding section in the main article. I’ll continue the process with other sections of the main article. Iura Solntse (talk) 23:00, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
- You seem to be having trouble with the "condensing of the main article", Iura Solntse. I am seeing little-to-no improvement in the article actually under discussion. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:29, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
- I've created a fourth new sub-article Music of Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise while condensing and adding further subheadings for ease in reading to the corresponding section in the main article. I’ll continue the process with other sections of the main article. Iura Solntse (talk) 23:00, 7 August 2023 (UTC)
- I've created a fifth new sub-article Voice acting in Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise while condensing and adding further subheadings for ease in reading to the corresponding section in the main article. I’ll continue the process with other sections of the main article. Iura Solntse (talk) 05:42, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
- I don't know why you felt the need to add further subheadings, Iura Solntse, but the article now infringes upon MOS:OVERSECTION, so that's another thing to work on. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:20, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
- I think they took the boilerplate advice
please consider splitting content into sub-articles, condensing it, or adding subheadings
in the{{Very long}}
template literally. Charcoal feather (talk) 19:40, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
- I think they took the boilerplate advice
- I don't know why you felt the need to add further subheadings, Iura Solntse, but the article now infringes upon MOS:OVERSECTION, so that's another thing to work on. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:20, 13 August 2023 (UTC)
- I've created a sixth new sub-article Cinematography of Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise while condensing the corresponding section in the main article. I’ll continue the process with other sections of the main article. Iura Solntse (talk) 06:34, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
- @Charcoal feather, Trainsandotherthings, Willbb234, and GamerPro64: I'm considering delisting based on the lack of significant improvement and the inability of Iura Solntse to WP:ENGAGE meaningfully beyond copy-pastes. Thoughts? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 10:51, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
- I would delist at this point, simply because the article is still just too damn long, especially the massive notes section. I think the sub-articles are unnecessary and the material in question just needs to be made more concise, but that's neither here nor there as far as GAR is concerned. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 21:46, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
- There has been a 7250-word / 31% reduction in size since the start of this GAR (not counting notes), which I think is reasonable and steady progress. Communication was suboptimal, but they evidently did listen to the feedback (subheadings improved once that was pointed out), and they have now started to engage. I see no need to delist at this time. Charcoal feather (talk) 10:38, 25 August 2023 (UTC)
- Since I began the summarization process on July 17 I have reduced the length of the main article thus far by 125 KB. Regarding the notes I have thus far removed 63% of them from the main article. The summarization process is being done in reverse order (beginning with the last sub-sections of the main article and working backwards to the beginning) in order to reduce the likelihood of introducing errors into the citations and references so the changes to the article may not be readily apparent yet from its earlier sections. My goal is to reduce the main article size or at any rate its readable prose size to that it was when it first received the good article designation. As was pointed out the adding of subheadings was based on the suggestions of the "very long" tag that had been placed previously on the article however after these additions were criticized I did not employ subheadings on the most recent summarizations (the Cinematography and Animation sections). Iura Solntse (talk) 17:16, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
- I have now reduced the length of the main article by 140K since the summarization process began with the latest edit of the art direction section and removing some of the subheadings criticized earlier. I’ll continue to work backwards towards the beginning of the article with further summarizations of additional sections. Iura Solntse (talk) 04:41, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- After having summarized the design section the main article is now nearly 151K shorter since the beginning of the process on July 17. As mentioned earlier I'll continue to work backwards towards the beginning of the article with further summarizations of additional sections. Iura Solntse (talk) 04:00, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- I have thus far removed 157K of length since the summarization process began including 74% of the notes section. As mentioned earlier my objective is to reduce the article length to that it had when it was originally appointed good article status and with the latest edit to the screenplay section 67% of that objective has now been reached. I’ll continue to to work backwards towards the beginning of the article with further summarizations of additional sections. Iura Solntse (talk) 10:03, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
- I have thus far removed 167K of length since the summarization process began including 78% of the notes section. As mentioned earlier my objective is to reduce the article length to that it had when it was originally appointed good article status and with the latest edit to the pilot film section 71% of that objective has now been reached. I’ll continue to to work backwards towards the beginning of the article with further summarizations of additional sections. Iura Solntse (talk) 22:52, 13 October 2023 (UTC)
- I have thus far removed 157K of length since the summarization process began including 74% of the notes section. As mentioned earlier my objective is to reduce the article length to that it had when it was originally appointed good article status and with the latest edit to the screenplay section 67% of that objective has now been reached. I’ll continue to to work backwards towards the beginning of the article with further summarizations of additional sections. Iura Solntse (talk) 10:03, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
- After having summarized the design section the main article is now nearly 151K shorter since the beginning of the process on July 17. As mentioned earlier I'll continue to work backwards towards the beginning of the article with further summarizations of additional sections. Iura Solntse (talk) 04:00, 18 September 2023 (UTC)
- I have now reduced the length of the main article by 140K since the summarization process began with the latest edit of the art direction section and removing some of the subheadings criticized earlier. I’ll continue to work backwards towards the beginning of the article with further summarizations of additional sections. Iura Solntse (talk) 04:41, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Charcoal feather, Trainsandotherthings, Willbb234, and GamerPro64: I'm considering delisting based on the lack of significant improvement and the inability of Iura Solntse to WP:ENGAGE meaningfully beyond copy-pastes. Thoughts? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 10:51, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
- I've created a second new sub-article Critical response to Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise while condensing and adding further subheadings for ease in reading to the corresponding section in the main article. I’ll continue the process with other sections of the main article. Iura Solntse (talk) 22:37, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
- This GAR has been open for three months, and thus the due date is upon us. I still do not feel that the article "stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail" (GA criterion 3b)). Pinging those involved in this discussion: @Iura Solntse, GamerPro64, Trainsandotherthings, Willbb234, and Charcoal feather: ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:49, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
- Well if you believe that its still not up to GA standards you can always just delist it. I honestly don't know what else there is to do besides someone willing to comb through the entire article. GamerPro64 04:42, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
- I cannot delist if that is not the consensus, GamerPro64. On that note, do you believe this article meets the Good Article criteria? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:18, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
- Keep. The article has improved considerably during this GAR process and is still being trimmed. It's still not perfect, but I do believe it complies (perhaps barely) with GA criterion 3b. I also disagree that we have a due date. Per GAR instructions:
reassessments should not be closed as delist while editors are making good-faith improvements to the article
. Charcoal feather (talk) 14:43, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
- Well if you believe that its still not up to GA standards you can always just delist it. I honestly don't know what else there is to do besides someone willing to comb through the entire article. GamerPro64 04:42, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:35, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
The article's information is supported by three cited sources. Whilst the article is well-written and three sources is sufficient for general notability, the fairly large sourcing limitations make it difficult to assess that the article is capable of providing broad coverage or giving appropriate weight to its sources. VRXCES (talk) 06:40, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
- Delist I am dubious that the broad in scope criteria is passed. There is no development information and slim reception, it feels somewhat incomplete. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 12:44, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
- Delist: Thank you for the notification on my talk page. I was the original GAN reviewer for this article. I was still a very new Wikipedia editor at the time so I fully admit that I did not do a great job here. It appears that the citations from the version of the article I had reviewed (here) were removed though, which is odd, but the article in its current state does not meet the criteria for a GA. Aoba47 (talk) 16:50, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
- It seems to have been removed because it was more about the company than the game itself. I don't think wholesale deletion was the way to fix it, as that left a hole in the article. I do think it could stand to be more focused on the development of that particular game though. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 19:05, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
- Thank you for the response. That makes sense to me, and I agree with your point on both aspects. I do not think wholesale deletion was the best option, but I agree that more focus (and ideally more sources) on this particular game would be best. Aoba47 (talk) 19:14, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
- Just passing by here, but there is also a review section that only contains the name of the magazine with a source that leads to the review. I feel like it could be better if it was merged with the reception section, but it appears to have been added after the original GA review. Blue Jay (talk) 10:00, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
- Thank you for the response. That makes sense to me, and I agree with your point on both aspects. I do not think wholesale deletion was the best option, but I agree that more focus (and ideally more sources) on this particular game would be best. Aoba47 (talk) 19:14, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
- It seems to have been removed because it was more about the company than the game itself. I don't think wholesale deletion was the way to fix it, as that left a hole in the article. I do think it could stand to be more focused on the development of that particular game though. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 19:05, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
- A lot of the articles for games by PSS were like this, many were listed as good articles but don't really seem that good; the development sections of most of them largely just copied a paragraph from the main PSS article, for instance. I'm adding my thoughts to this because I was the one who cleaned up most of those, which did shorten them significantly but it felt wrong to leave them the way they were. Sorry I haven't tried fixing them up, there should be a fair amount of sources for some in some old magazines. --Ringtail Raider (talk) 23:44, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 21:07, 31 October 2023 (UTC)
Much like the case of Quatermass and the Pit (film), this 2009 addition has some major sourcing and prose problems. Casting section contains unrelated information, many parts, such as the first two paragraphs of the Production section, are not sourced or badly sourced. Spinixster (chat!) 01:25, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
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- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 15:11, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
This 2009 addition has several unsourced paragraphs, especially in the Broadcast format section, which would fail criteria 2 of the GACR. Spinixster (chat!) 09:22, 17 October 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Agreement between both the orginal nominator and reviewer that this was a bad review, thus delist. Clyde [trout needed] 17:46, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
Last year, I nominated this article for GA and it was rightfully quickfailed. After another (albeit small) revision, it passed another review in May of this year. I have since become a much more experienced editor, and after re-reading through this upon an inquiry on the talk page, I do not believe this aligns with the GA criteria. There's a lack of page numbers on many sources in the history section, there's little independent coverage of the subjects discussed under arts and culture, and the reliability of numerous sources is questionable (e.g. RateBeer.com, Encyclopedia of Alabama, Tennessee Valley Civil War Round Table, etc). This article fails criteria points 2b and 3a. MyCatIsAChonk (talk) (not me) (also not me) (still no) 14:49, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
- I don't believe we've had a self-nom before; thanks for your honesty MyCatIsAChonk. Personally, it seems to me that the quality of the sources is the real smoking gun, and unfortunately it would take a lot of effort to replace all of them. Delist ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:41, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
- Ok, I take the self-nom part back, buidhe has apparently beaten you by a day. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:42, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
- I was the reviewer and I only spot-checked a handful of references. Upon a closer look, I agree with both of you that we should delist due to questionable sources. ––FormalDude (talk) 05:08, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
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- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 02:15, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
The sourcing here is terrible, a definite compromise to the article's quality:
- What makes Coaster-net (source 1) a RS?
- What makes Ultimate Roller Coaster (source 5) a RS?
- Surely there is a better source than YouTube (albeit Cedar Point's official one) to replace sources 7 and 8.
- What makes The Observer "Squashing the Mantis" (source 9) a RS?
- What makes Roller Coaster Database (sources 14, 20, 21) a RS?
- What makes American Coasters (source 15) a RS?
- What makes Top Coasters (source 16) a RS?
- What makes The Coaster Critic (source 17) a RS?
- Source 18 (Ohio.com) is dead
- Most of the citations are not fully fleshed out and only give the title without the work, author, or access date.
This article was promoted in 2012 and clearly shows it due to a lack of maintenance, poor source choices, and linkrot.
- I'm probably not going to have enough time in the near future to fully review this, but a recent discussion at WT:WikiProject Amusement Parks/Archive 5#Reliable source discussion should reflect the WikiProject's stance on some of the sources in question that you've listed above. RCDB is generally reliable for statistical data and dates, and it has survived multiple GA and FA promotions. The Coaster Critic has been recognized as a subject matter expert by reputable sources such as the Washington Post and Fox News, but the others at first glance are probably suspect and/or worth further discussion. It's also worth noting that the article was promoted when it was Mantis prior to being renamed Rougarou, so it may need some serious work to retain GA status. --GoneIn60 (talk) 06:25, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • GAN review not found
- Result: Delisted. Real4jyy (talk) 03:05, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
This 2007 addition has unsourced or badly sourced information (IMDB, Getty Images, etc) which fails criteria 2 of the GACR. Spinixster (chat!) 13:01, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
- Delist. Questionable sources, Blackadder was popular and there are surely better sources out there. Unclear if this is truly "broad in coverage" either, seems suspiciously short. SnowFire (talk) 16:29, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • GAN review not found
- Result: Delisted. Real4jyy (talk) 03:07, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
Numerous uncited sections, 17th-century section tagged with "additional citations needed" banner since 2020, post-2018 information needs to be added, and 21st-century information needs to be expanded. Z1720 (talk) 02:40, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
- Delist unless some editor decides to closely work on the article. The GA review dates back to 2007. The age of the review is not a problem in itself, but the review was pretty short possibly because the standards at the time were lower. A full review would be ideal (or needed?) given the nature of the first review regardless of the current problems. On top of that, there are the aforementioned issues but also orphan links like this and this, broken citation templates, likely non-RS, page needed tags, and so on. Aintabli (talk) 02:41, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Kept per discussion of the GA criteria. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:26, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
The article was listed as GA in 2014. It is well written, but the structure of the article does not conform to the MOS. This diverts a clearer focus on information about the gameplay and reception of the title. VRXCES (talk) 06:35, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
- Delist MOS failure. However, the material is here to where, if someone were willing to put in the effort, could likely bring the article back to GA status fairly easily. It's all a matter of organization. NegativeMP1 17:44, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
- @Vrxces and NegativeMP1: which part of the GA criteria, or for that matter the MOS, does this article not conform to? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:38, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
- I would say 1b in the context of the deviation from the WP:VG MOS in not following the conventional structure of gameplay, development and release, and reception. But now that I look at it more, the sources are not that great either. [9] is a review of the official Leisure Genius version. [8] is news about the Leisure Genius version with a passing mention of past actions. [6] is literally just a comic and bizarre promotional blurb. [3] is used to suggest that the developers marketed the game as having artificial intelligence, when that wording is not used in the citation. The article itself acknowledges the game received only one full-length review. It's still likely notable but I don't know, the good writing sort of masks what isn't a particularly strong article in terms of its layout, broad coverage, and use of sources. VRXCES (talk) 23:36, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
- @Vrxces and NegativeMP1: which part of the GA criteria, or for that matter the MOS, does this article not conform to? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:38, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
- Keep. There is nothing in the GA criteria 1b about adhering to standard section titles. The section titles in this article are appropriate for what it is, not a standard video game with reviews and development, but the historical summation of unauthorized software from 1983, broken into its original distribution and subsequent legal actions. Not seeing the issue there. Re: sources, they are fine for how they're being used, either as primary sources or as follow-up on the game's legacy. That it doesn't have many reviews underscores my point about it not being a traditional game (see my original GA review). If the issue is notability, that's a matter for AfD, not here, and I reckon it'll be kept. czar 15:56, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
- Keep. The VGMOS section structures, much like the pirate code, are more like guidelines than rules. And a case like this article is perfectly set up to be an exception - this is probably not notable as a game, its notability is really as a matter of a law / public relations / activism. So the VGMOS section headers are only questionably applicable anyway. SnowFire (talk) 16:59, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • GAN review not found
- Result: Violations of GA criterion 2. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:27, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
Article uses IMDB numerous times as a source for biographical information: these will need to be verified by another source and replaced. Z1720 (talk) 22:50, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • GAN review not found
- Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:29, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
A 2009 promotion that no longer meets the criteria. Significant amounts of text are uncited, and the more recent season sections with the exception of 2015 are quite under-developed. Hog Farm Talk 03:58, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Kept. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:29, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
Significant NPOV issues and changes since article was reviewed 13yrs ago. // Timothy :: talk 23:31, 4 November 2023 (UTC)
- Please spell out the NPOV issues that you are concerned about. Thanks, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 03:17, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
- Is there meant to be two reassessments going on at the same time? (Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Adem Jashari/2) I suggest that the second one (which no-one has commented on yet) gets deleted.Nigel Ish (talk) 10:29, 5 November 2023 (UTC)
- Since the second nomination doesn't seem to be right, or even in existence, I've removed it from the talk page. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:36, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
- It is quite un-obvious why this article should have been nominated, as it appears to be decently structured, neutrally written, and very fully cited to reliable sources. Unless there are pressing but non-obvious reasons (please state them), I'd !vote Speedy Keep. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:38, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Much of this review focused on whether the article is TOOBIG. However, the article has been significantly cut—by almost 100k bytes—since the start of this review. Other than vague concerns about additional cruft and hagiography, nobody has identified any specific issues with the article under the summary style guideline. As such, there is no consensus to delist. voorts (talk/contributions) 03:03, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
Fails criteria 1a (concision) and 3b (excessive detail). It appears that this article attempts to compile everything ever written about the man, and it may be one of the longest articles on Wikipedia by word count. A few hundred more words, and this article will be longer than The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. Significant trimming and summarization are required. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 07:19, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
compile everything ever written about the man
– This is either a joke or you have no idea how much has been written about Von Neumann. This article seems excellent and it would be a crying shame to dramatically chop it apart just for the sake of jumping through artificial bureaucratic hoops. The biographical section is of appropriate length, and the technical sections are an extremely compressed summary of Von Neumann's work.... it's just that the man single handedly invented like 10 different brand new fields of study and his work output was incredible by the standards of ordinary humans. It's wonderful that Wikipedia dives into at least a tiny bit of detail about these instead of hand waving them away. Let the bureaucrats take away the little green badge if they must, but if any busybodies try "significant trimming and summarization" on this basis without first getting complete support from whichever dedicated authors originally wrote this article, I would recommend vigorously fighting such changes. (Disclaimer: I have never tried to look at this article before today, but am a big fan of Von Neumann.) –jacobolus (t) 07:29, 23 September 2023 (UTC)- Astronomy is a good article, and it only needs 6,524 words to adequately summarize the entire millennia-old field. That's about a quarter of what's written here for one man. Wikipedia isn't a dumping ground for any mildly interesting thing that can be said about a subject. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 07:57, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- God knows how. That article has substantial unreferenced sections. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 10:00, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- Astronomy is an acceptable but not amazing article which largely outsources specific detail to separate sub-articles. This is fine for something as broad in scope as a whole field of study, but wouldn't really be helpful or appropriate for a biography in my opinion. (What counts as a "good article" here mainly comes down to who wants to jump through hoops and tick boxes, rather than which article is best written or most useful to readers.) –jacobolus (t) 16:34, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- As someone who helped out with Astronomy keeping its GA status, I agree with jacobolus that it's not a very meaningful comparison. XOR'easter (talk) 21:46, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- Astronomy is a good article, and it only needs 6,524 words to adequately summarize the entire millennia-old field. That's about a quarter of what's written here for one man. Wikipedia isn't a dumping ground for any mildly interesting thing that can be said about a subject. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 07:57, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- Speedy close. No valid reason given for nomination of a fully sourced article on one of the most important scientists of all time. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 09:33, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- I tend to agree with the above. Von Neumann remains a towering figure in mathematics, physics, economics, and computer science, and his contributions to each of these are appropriately and briefly summarized in the article (briefly because fully explaining them would probably take several books). The comment above that "the man single handedly invented like 10 different brand new fields of study" is accurate. —David Eppstein (talk) 10:27, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
Delist unless adequately trimmed.Hawkeye7, the nomination does not mention sourcing but instead GA criterion 3b), which requires, among other things, that the article meet WP:TOOBIG. Do you consider this an invalid reason? If you do, you may want to start an RfC at WT:GAN to change the GA criteria. jacobolus I do not doubt that huge amounts of information have been written about von Neumann, but I think it is probably less that that written about Apollo 11. Hawkeye7 above wrote that article, and it is only 42% the size of this one. I note that this article devotes more than 750 words to detailing the events of one meeting on July 28 1955, which could easily be summarized in four sentences, while Apollo 11 takes only 500 to summarize the entire launch and journey to lunar orbit of the most significant journey in history. Looking at this data, would I be right in saying that either the Apollo 11 article is not broad enough, or that John von Neumann is too long? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:30, 23 September 2023 (UTC)- I'll agree with you that the section John von Neumann § Defense work could be tightened a bit, with an eye to forming and following a clear narrative and leaving aside tangential details. The sections on Personality, Recognition, and Legacy could also possibly be reorganized and condensed a bit to be clearer. It's plausible that a general copyedit tightening other sections could moderately shorten them while still clearly conveying the same information. But I don't think anything which might be characterized as "significant trimming and summarization" is justified here. The technical sections about mathematics, computer science, economics, physics should if anything be expanded. As for GA criteria, I don't really care too much about which articles get green checkmarks, and am happy to leave those decisions to someone who does. –jacobolus (t) 16:47, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- AirshipJungleman29: are you really treating an expensive road trip as equivalent to founding multiple entire fields of scientific endeavor in their depth of material to be covered? Really? What is someone with such an extreme anti-intellectual point of view doing editing Wikipedia? —David Eppstein (talk) 17:43, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- And indeed, that road trip would have been impossible without more than a few of the fields von N pioneered -- the stored-program computer and various numerical techniques, just for starters. What qualifies as "concise" versus "unnecessary detail" is relative to the topic, and this topic is a huge one. All articles grow and accumulate a bit of bloat here and there. The nominator would have been well advised to invest his time attending to that task, instead of asking numerous other editors to waste their time debating the GA designation. EEng 20:20, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- I didn't ask anyone to debate anything. This is an open and shut case of WP:TOOBIG. If you have an issue with how the GA process works, raise it at the appropriate forum. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:28, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- Thanks for reminding me: I had meant to say that this nomination reminds me of the mindless stupidity of the rigid numerical limits found in TOOBIG. Slipped my mind. EEng 21:37, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- I didn't ask anyone to debate anything. This is an open and shut case of WP:TOOBIG. If you have an issue with how the GA process works, raise it at the appropriate forum. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:28, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- And indeed, that road trip would have been impossible without more than a few of the fields von N pioneered -- the stored-program computer and various numerical techniques, just for starters. What qualifies as "concise" versus "unnecessary detail" is relative to the topic, and this topic is a huge one. All articles grow and accumulate a bit of bloat here and there. The nominator would have been well advised to invest his time attending to that task, instead of asking numerous other editors to waste their time debating the GA designation. EEng 20:20, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- David Eppstein I'm editing Wikipedia, actually; I wasn't aware that soapboxing about anti-intellectualism was a necessity to work on the project, but I'll be sure to do so going forward. If you want me to provide examples of individuals who may meet your criteria for significance and my criteria for concision, how about Leonardo da Vinci , Albert Einstein , Isaac Newton , Charles Darwin or Adolf Hitler who you'll probably dismiss as someone who wasn't involved in founding scientific research. Or perhaps you feel that no individual who ever lived is more significant than von Neumann—in that case how about Evolution , Earth , Sea , Logic , Knowledge ? None of these articles are even half the length of Von Neumann's massive article, but they still manage to summarize their esteemed and heavily researched topics exceedingly well! Even Jesus is just a few words more than 50% of the length—but then again, he didn't make much scientific progress, so any true intellectual would ignore him. Right? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:56, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- Von Neumann was way smarter than Jesus, and produced an incalculably larger and more varied body of work. EEng 21:42, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- Absolutely correct. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 21:51, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- Von Neumann was way smarter than Jesus, and produced an incalculably larger and more varied body of work. EEng 21:42, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- These are high-level articles whose main purpose is providing a guide to the information contained in their many subarticles. Albert Einstein is the best comparison, although neither his interests nor his influence was as diverse as those of von Neumann. If you look at it closely you see that there are a series of subarticles - Einstein family, Political views of Albert Einstein, Religious and philosophical views of Albert Einstein, Annus mirabilis papers, Einstein's unsuccessful investigations etc - that contain thousands of words. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:21, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- That's what we're trying to tell you! All of our information about Albert Einstein isn't cluttered into Albert Einstein because that would create an article so long that it becomes useless as a reference work. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:29, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- +1. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:55, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- Information is easier to find when it is in the one article. It becomes problematic when WP:UNDUE issues arise. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:26, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- I completely agree with Hawkeye here - moving relevant info into subarticles is a horrible way to maintain an encyclopedia. Instead of someone's views on something it's much more usable to reader-friendly to have a section on that. And TOOBIG should just be archived, it's not a dial-up times anymore, you can load big articles with no problem. Artem.G (talk) 08:53, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- I agree that dial-up is irrelevant. The question is more how much time it should take to read an article from top to bottom. I don't think it should take several hours. I don't want to read an article about War and Peace that is longer than War and Peace. So I believe that excessive length is bad, and harmful to our mission. —Kusma (talk) 16:57, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- Perhaps I am biased from having to clean up the same oversimplified dreck in one article after another thanks to needless fragmentation, but I tend to agree with Hawkeye7 and Artem.G here. Maintenance is harder when the material is in too many pieces. XOR'easter (talk) 16:23, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- +1. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:55, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- That's what we're trying to tell you! All of our information about Albert Einstein isn't cluttered into Albert Einstein because that would create an article so long that it becomes useless as a reference work. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:29, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- The length of the von Neumann article is not primarily in the scientific contributions. They account for only about 1/3 of the total byte count. So this focus on gutting that part of the article is misguided. It will not help readers and it will not satisfy bean counters. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:00, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- I fail to see how anyone in this discussion was focusing on scientific contributions David Eppstein. Then again, I am a rabid anti-intellectual, so perhaps I am missing something. In any case, how about we discuss how the article as a whole can be trimmed in adherence to summary style, as Hawkeye7 kindly outlined above using Albert Einstein as an example. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 21:09, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- You should start by writing a single article about e.g. "Von Neumann's contributions to X", and then we can have a concrete proposal for a section to replace by a shorter summary with a link out to a "main" article for that section.
- Instead though this is just a vacuous complaint of "I don't like this so someone else should fix it." –jacobolus (t) 23:17, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- That is what Gar is for, raising specific concerns about an article's congruence with the GA criteria that an editor does not have the knowledge, time, or ability to take on the work themselves. (t · c) buidhe 23:39, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- If making lazy complaints that pointlessly waste a lot of valuable editors' time that could be much better spent improving the encyclopedia is "what GAR is for", maybe GAR should be abolished. Seems like a huge negative for the Wikipedia project. –jacobolus (t) 23:48, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- Nearly everyone involved in this discussion has written multiple Featured Articles jacobolus. You'll forgive us for having the temerity to waste our time on pointless complaining; I think we've earned the right. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:29, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- What you are saying is that you think the time of the people involved in this discussion is extremely valuable.... which proves my point. –jacobolus (t) 00:45, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- Your point, jacobolus, seems to be that you get to choose what extremely valuable editors get to focus on. I say that we get to choose. After all, you are choosing to "waste your time" in this discussion, aren't you? Why aren't you "improving" Wikipedia? I thought you "don't really care too much about which articles get green checkmarks", which is after all the entire point of this discussion you are currently "wasting your time" with. What gives, man?
- Anyway, this has spiralled. I'll be WP:DROPTHESTICKing and not participating in this discussion any more. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:56, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- I'm done with this discussion after this, but let me try to be a bit more productively substantive on my way out the door: this GAR submission is the most unhelpful frame and content for a peer review that I can even imagine. The criticism is vague, non-specific, emotionally charged, and negative. Its outcome is structured as a threat: satisfy me or I'll take away your prize. It doesn't suggest specific actions to take and it puts the burden on readers to make up their own interpretation of what the critic is bothered by / imagining as a plausible fix. Instead of starting a concrete or substantive discussion about the content of the article, it instead is almost perfectly set up to launch a completely off topic and emotionally charged meta discussion. It sucks not only time but also (perhaps more importantly) emotional energy away from productive work on the encyclopedia. As I said before, I don't care about the checkmarks, to the point I think it would be entirely worth sacrificing the checkmark instead of making the "significant" changes demanded to keep one. –jacobolus (t) 00:59, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- Jacobolus, the vast, vast majority of GARs go smoothly or at least cordially. You're the only person I've ever seen go off like this about a GAR. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 01:12, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- You're about to see your second person. This is a goddam fucking waste of time. GAR should be reserved for articles that somehow become hopeless cases. What the nominator should have done is identify ways to address one or two of the problems he perceives, and either get to work on those problems himself, or raise them on the article talk page. Did I mention that framing a perceived need for article improvement as a GAR debate is a goddam fucking waste of time? EEng 04:18, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- Do you always interact with your fellow editors with such an egregious disregard for conduct policies? Also, Wikipedia:Don't demand that editors solve the problems they identify. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 04:22, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- Calling a waste of time a waste of time doesn't violate any policies. As for demanding, you seem to have missed
either get to work on the problems ... or raise them on the article talk page
. I've put the second disjunct in italics to help you focus. Read more attentively next time. EEng 17:02, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- Calling a waste of time a waste of time doesn't violate any policies. As for demanding, you seem to have missed
- Do you always interact with your fellow editors with such an egregious disregard for conduct policies? Also, Wikipedia:Don't demand that editors solve the problems they identify. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 04:22, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- You're about to see your second person. This is a goddam fucking waste of time. GAR should be reserved for articles that somehow become hopeless cases. What the nominator should have done is identify ways to address one or two of the problems he perceives, and either get to work on those problems himself, or raise them on the article talk page. Did I mention that framing a perceived need for article improvement as a GAR debate is a goddam fucking waste of time? EEng 04:18, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- Fair enough. I'll be out of your hair and you can get back to your regularly scheduled delisting then. If anyone starts in on "significant trimming and summarization" without the support of the primary authors of the page, I'll be happy to come argue on the side of any page authors who don't want their work chopped up. –jacobolus (t) 01:17, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- Jacobolus, the vast, vast majority of GARs go smoothly or at least cordially. You're the only person I've ever seen go off like this about a GAR. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 01:12, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- I'm done with this discussion after this, but let me try to be a bit more productively substantive on my way out the door: this GAR submission is the most unhelpful frame and content for a peer review that I can even imagine. The criticism is vague, non-specific, emotionally charged, and negative. Its outcome is structured as a threat: satisfy me or I'll take away your prize. It doesn't suggest specific actions to take and it puts the burden on readers to make up their own interpretation of what the critic is bothered by / imagining as a plausible fix. Instead of starting a concrete or substantive discussion about the content of the article, it instead is almost perfectly set up to launch a completely off topic and emotionally charged meta discussion. It sucks not only time but also (perhaps more importantly) emotional energy away from productive work on the encyclopedia. As I said before, I don't care about the checkmarks, to the point I think it would be entirely worth sacrificing the checkmark instead of making the "significant" changes demanded to keep one. –jacobolus (t) 00:59, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- What you are saying is that you think the time of the people involved in this discussion is extremely valuable.... which proves my point. –jacobolus (t) 00:45, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- Nearly everyone involved in this discussion has written multiple Featured Articles jacobolus. You'll forgive us for having the temerity to waste our time on pointless complaining; I think we've earned the right. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 00:29, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- If making lazy complaints that pointlessly waste a lot of valuable editors' time that could be much better spent improving the encyclopedia is "what GAR is for", maybe GAR should be abolished. Seems like a huge negative for the Wikipedia project. –jacobolus (t) 23:48, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- That is what Gar is for, raising specific concerns about an article's congruence with the GA criteria that an editor does not have the knowledge, time, or ability to take on the work themselves. (t · c) buidhe 23:39, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- I fail to see how anyone in this discussion was focusing on scientific contributions David Eppstein. Then again, I am a rabid anti-intellectual, so perhaps I am missing something. In any case, how about we discuss how the article as a whole can be trimmed in adherence to summary style, as Hawkeye7 kindly outlined above using Albert Einstein as an example. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 21:09, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- Albert Einstein is only a Good article, not a Featured article. To my eye, it suffers from having too many choppy subsections and could use moderate expansion here and there. I'd be happier if it resembled John von Neumann more, rather than vice versa. XOR'easter (talk) 21:39, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- @David Eppstein, that comment about Airship is beneath you. I hope you will retract it. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 19:26, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- Keep listed The article already is in summary style, presenting a comparatively concise overview of a subject that could otherwise expand to a door-stopper biography and several textbooks. XOR'easter (talk) 21:49, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- @GAR coordinators: can someone please step in here? There are editors here exempting themselves from both content and conduct P&G. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 21:45, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- I agree. Comments that just say keep without a credible argument how the article is in concert with the criteria as agreed by consensus should be ignored. (t · c) buidhe 23:41, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- The article has ballooned from under 10k words at the time of the last GA nomination to over 25k words. Especially the Career and Private Life/Defense work/Personality/Recognition/Legacy sections are bloated (too many quotes and too much content about other people) and should be summarised and moved to subarticles. The scientific parts could also use a little trimming, but generally are of mostly appropriate length given both the breadth and importance of von Neumann's contributions. Overall, the article is in worse shape than when it passed GA. I do not think it needs to be delisted right now, but it is absolutely fine to discuss how to get the article back to something that can be fully digested in a more reasonable amount of time. Could we dial back on the "keep!"/"delist!" votes and discuss how to fix the problems that have crept into this article over the last seven years? —Kusma (talk) 21:49, 23 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Kusma: While the article has gotten longer since the GA nom, the real problems have come since February 2022, when the article stood at 166k bytes. See my comment below proposing a revert to that version. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 06:05, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- The scientific parts face the difficult challenge of providing enough context to frame von Neumann's work without losing focus. On the rest however I agree you have identified key points, and the abundance of quotes and other content creates a somewhat hagiographic feel. This comes through from the lead, which has many added quotes and accolades not present in the 2016 version (or the article body), as well as some odd wording changes (why did "150 papers" turn into "over 150 papers", is there no exact number?). At one point there are three thick paragraphs on a single meeting with the President. The personality section in particular needs a significant overhaul, it is full of the oddly trivial ("He often liked to discuss the future in world events and politics and compare them with events in the past", "he did join in on class pranks", "he would go home and sleep on it and come back later with a solution") and the strangely boastful ("once on a trip to Mexico he tried to create his own "neo-Castilian" mix of English and Spanish", "he could of course read in the original language", "Von Neumann was asked to write an essay for the layman describing what mathematics is"). CMD (talk) 03:17, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Chipmunkdavis: What if we cut the personality section? It doesn't appear in the GA version or before 2022, and it would save nearly 2,800 words. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 06:10, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- Do you hear yourself? This is text in cyberspace, not an overweight suitcase 5 minutes before the taxi is scheduled to take us to the airport. EEng 16:49, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- @EEng: Are we reading the same article and same personality section? The one that's chock-full of florid quotes, discursive asides, and random anecdotes? For example, I don't feel like I'm getting a better understanding of von Neumann's personality from the list of languages he could speak. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 03:46, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
- We are reading the same material. I'm sure there are plenty of places reductions could and should be made, and that might possibly be especially true of the personality material. But that needs to be done through actual consideration of the material, not via anything like the reasoning you're expressing. EEng 04:34, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
- What if we flipped that on its head and carefully considered the additions since 2022 that doubled this article's size? What was wrong with the GA at that point in time? Ed [talk] [OMT] 04:55, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
- For one thing, the discussion of the areas of mathematics where von Neumann was weak (e.g., topology and number theory) didn't exist at that point. XOR'easter (talk) 16:02, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
- What if we flipped that on its head and carefully considered the additions since 2022 that doubled this article's size? What was wrong with the GA at that point in time? Ed [talk] [OMT] 04:55, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
- We are reading the same material. I'm sure there are plenty of places reductions could and should be made, and that might possibly be especially true of the personality material. But that needs to be done through actual consideration of the material, not via anything like the reasoning you're expressing. EEng 04:34, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
- @EEng: Are we reading the same article and same personality section? The one that's chock-full of florid quotes, discursive asides, and random anecdotes? For example, I don't feel like I'm getting a better understanding of von Neumann's personality from the list of languages he could speak. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 03:46, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
- Do you hear yourself? This is text in cyberspace, not an overweight suitcase 5 minutes before the taxi is scheduled to take us to the airport. EEng 16:49, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Chipmunkdavis: What if we cut the personality section? It doesn't appear in the GA version or before 2022, and it would save nearly 2,800 words. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 06:10, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- I suspect a great deal of it could be cut/summarized, but I am not going to suggest it should be cut entirely (and/or combined into private life?) without checking on the weight the various sources give it. (I'm not a fan of defining improvement completely by word count, the word count is more a signal that attention is needed rather than a purely quantitative end in itself.) CMD (talk) 10:09, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- I have never before seen an article so long that the DYK tool refuses to open on it. That's my go-to method for determining prose size, and this tells me it is extremely long. Believe it or not, it is not "an extreme anti-intellectual point of view" to recognize that the article is too long for an encyclopedia. There are numerous sub-articles on the various subjects Neumann pioneered, and relevant content can be moved there to cut down on the excessive length of the main article. Nobody is denying the subject's importance to science. The good article criteria are meaningless if nobody is enforcing them and ensuring older articles remain up to standards, so I find the idea that GAR should be abolished to be rather ridiculous. And on top of that we have the classic attacks ("bean counters", "bureaucrats", "busybodies", etc) levied against anyone who dares challenge articles written by certain editors. Apparently AGF goes right out the window when someone raises concerns about certain editors' work. We do not accuse fellow editors in good standing of having an "extreme anti-intellectual point of view". That is a blatant personal attack, and seeing it come from an administrator is doubly concerning. This sort of response to someone bringing an article to GAR in good faith has a chilling effect on the entire GAR process. I don't care how many shiny stars you have next to your name, policies and guidelines apply sitewide. They apply to me, to you, and to everyone else. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 02:45, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
Arbitrary break
[edit]- I've taken a stab at removing some of the excess detail from the article and removed about a thousand words. Unfortunately, there is still a long way to go and I don't have the knowledge of mathematics to do it. (I might suggest starting by looking at the "Honors and awards", "Consultancies", and "Personalities" sections, along with examining all of the quotes in the article to determine if they are crucial information or not?) Over 24,000 words and over 300,000 bytes isn't close to the guidelines at WP:TOOBIG that apply to any article on Wikipedia, let alone GAs. WP:VNOT is also a good thing to keep in mind. This is a biographical article about a subject—not the biography itself! Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 04:22, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- The primary reason this article doubled in size from 166k bytes to over 315k earlier today is due to one editor's additions starting in March 2022. Is it possible to revert to something approximating the 2016 GA-approved version (under 10,000 words, the guidance given at WP:TOOBIG), or the February 2022 version (12,599 words, still a bit large but would be good enough for me) prior to the extreme details being added? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 04:53, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- I urge you to aim for "how can I make this section as good as it can be" rather than "how can I cut as much material as possible" during this effort. Some seems fine, but on balance the changes so far seem like a net negative change to me. –jacobolus (t) 05:12, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- @Jacobolus: The aim here ought to be "as good as it can be ... in a readable length". Per WP:VNOT: "While information must be verifiable for inclusion in an article, not all verifiable information must be included. Consensus may determine that certain information does not improve an article. Such information should be omitted or presented instead in a different article"
- I'm not an expert on von Neumann and make no claims to perfection... but as it stands the article is nearly 2.5 times the length it should be, and so unfortunately radical cuts are needed. What I removed or combined was primarily excess detail and excessive use of decorative quotations. For example, what did these quotes add to the article that we couldn't say in our own words in a single sentence?
- If you believe all of this info should be kept on Wikipedia, I would urge you to propose appropriate child articles. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 06:02, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- There's no a priori way to decide what counts as «necessary detail in which an article is founded that should not be handwaved away or trivialized» vs. «excess detail distracting the reader from the intended narrative». Deciding how much detail is necessary to fairly and accurately describe something is a judgment call and reasonable people can disagree about it. Those will likely need to be individually litigated with the previous page authors on a paragraph by paragraph basis. I am also not an expert and don't really have the bandwidth to wade into a point by point about it, but I personally think your changes here are a bit mis-calibrated.
unfortunately radical cuts are needed
– I would urge you to abandon this as your starting point; as a fundamental criterion it is vanishihngly unlikely to lead to the best outcome, not only because it leads you to read the article in a motivated rather than dispassionate way while editing, but also because it frames any discussion about the changes as an unavoidable conflict rather than a truth- and consensus-seeking conversation. To make this more concretely productive, rather than "perform sufficiently radical cuts", some alternative goals might be: "the organization should be clear to readers without miscellaneous topics mashed together incoherently", "the same material should not be split apart and repeated several times", "the article should fairly characterize the subject's prowess without fawning over him", "the level of detail in each section should be reasonably consistent with the topic's importance to the subject's life and impact", "the article should try to show readers through concrete claims rather than telling them what to think", etc. Some of these goals might lead to cutting, combining, or reorganizing sections; summarizing material and leaving detailed discussion to the cited sources; replacing quotations with paraphrases, or the like. But the goals should be structured with reader benefit in mind, rather than just some absolute word count target. –jacobolus (t) 07:17, 24 September 2023 (UTC)- There is a point when an article becomes objectively too long for an encyclopaedia. A 500 page book-length biography is out of place in an encyclopaedia, and certainly requires radical treatment to be summarised to a more digestible length. The article at hand is currently twice as long as other articles that are exceptionally long due to their subject matter. It can be very helpful to think in terms of radical cuts ("what content can be moved to a subarticle?", "how can I condense this by a factor of three?") to force yourself to actually perform the re-organisation you suggest. This needs to be an article about a forest, not about its individual trees, and the question at hand is not "does this require reorganisation and rewriting to get to a more reasonable length?" but "how should this be reorganised in order to get to a reasonable length?" I don't know what the best length for this article is, but I'd be very surprised if it isn't a lot closer to 10k words than to 20k words. —Kusma (talk) 09:30, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
It can be very helpful to think in terms of radical cuts ("what content can be moved to a subarticle?", "how can I condense this by a factor of three?") to force yourself to actually perform the re-organisation you suggest.
Maybe this has helped someone, but I have never in decades of scientific writing found the pursuit of an arbitrary ratio to be useful. Killing darlings just for the sake of it is merely being bloodthirsty. XOR'easter (talk) 16:19, 24 September 2023 (UTC)- You should not be doing any scientific writing on Wikipedia, and you certainly should not being doing any literary writing, which is what that linked article is discussing. We're writing a reference work, the point of which is that it's easy to find the main points about a given subject without being bogged down with detail the way you would with a book. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:25, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- I just threw that link in for the sake of anyone who hadn't heard the expression "kill your darlings"... And I don't really follow the rest of what you're saying here. Scientific writing isn't just books, and well-written books aren't
bogged down with detail
anyway. My point is that this all just sounds like cutting for the sake of cutting, before any informed judgments are made. But if that's what green checkmarks and gold stars are really about, well, OK: no more GAR's or FA saves for me. XOR'easter (talk) 16:32, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- I just threw that link in for the sake of anyone who hadn't heard the expression "kill your darlings"... And I don't really follow the rest of what you're saying here. Scientific writing isn't just books, and well-written books aren't
- You should not be doing any scientific writing on Wikipedia, and you certainly should not being doing any literary writing, which is what that linked article is discussing. We're writing a reference work, the point of which is that it's easy to find the main points about a given subject without being bogged down with detail the way you would with a book. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:25, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- There is a point when an article becomes objectively too long for an encyclopaedia. A 500 page book-length biography is out of place in an encyclopaedia, and certainly requires radical treatment to be summarised to a more digestible length. The article at hand is currently twice as long as other articles that are exceptionally long due to their subject matter. It can be very helpful to think in terms of radical cuts ("what content can be moved to a subarticle?", "how can I condense this by a factor of three?") to force yourself to actually perform the re-organisation you suggest. This needs to be an article about a forest, not about its individual trees, and the question at hand is not "does this require reorganisation and rewriting to get to a more reasonable length?" but "how should this be reorganised in order to get to a reasonable length?" I don't know what the best length for this article is, but I'd be very surprised if it isn't a lot closer to 10k words than to 20k words. —Kusma (talk) 09:30, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- There's no a priori way to decide what counts as «necessary detail in which an article is founded that should not be handwaved away or trivialized» vs. «excess detail distracting the reader from the intended narrative». Deciding how much detail is necessary to fairly and accurately describe something is a judgment call and reasonable people can disagree about it. Those will likely need to be individually litigated with the previous page authors on a paragraph by paragraph basis. I am also not an expert and don't really have the bandwidth to wade into a point by point about it, but I personally think your changes here are a bit mis-calibrated.
- A direct revert isn't necessarily the best way to approach this. Sure, it would quickly fix the length issue, so if pressed for time that would be a reasonable first response, but there was a lot of good and well-cited information added that could reasonably be split off into subarticles. "Honors and awards" and "Works" for example could be replaced by one-paragraph summaries with a {{main}} pointing to the child article. I'm still pondering whether the "Personality" section could be treated likewise. "Consultancies" are certainly excessive detail that should not be in the main article. Perhaps a "Defense work of John von Neumann" subarticle is a good place to put it and some of the other detail. —Kusma (talk) 07:00, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- If anyone blindly reverts to some long-ago version, absent extensive discussion and consensus on the talk page, I'll simply revert back. To be clear, I believe the article would be improved if it were anywhere from 10% to 60% shorter (with most or all dropped material moved into subarticles and so on), but this is best done by skilled editors over 3 to 12 months, not butchers showing up with knives because they can't sleep at night knowing that ridiculous table in TOOBIG is being "violated". EEng 07:32, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- The butchers with knives are trying to help the reader not choke on a whole flank of beef by cutting it down to a few delicious steaks. —Kusma (talk) 09:43, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- That sort of careful review sounds like a good plan, the old version is always there for reference. If that seems sensible to everyone, I would suggest closing this GAR as a delist noting that plan, which may take the apparent heat off this discussion. CMD (talk) 10:19, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- This is the discussion on the talk page, and if it would help consensus, I would support reverting to the February 2022 version before the self-proclaimed "Resident expert on John von Neumann" had started adding WP:INDISCRIMINATE information. FWIW, looking at the avenues this rather productive GAR has gone down, I might start an RfC to see if there is still consensus that TOOBIG is outdated. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 10:24, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- We might also benefit from getting "my article is special" or "my article is exempt from best practices" type arguments added as an example of ownership behavior under WP:OWN to limit instances of this in the future. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:09, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- I want to be very clear here: I (and several other participants here arguing against steep cuts for cuttings' sake) had nothing to do with writing this article.
- This is not at all about "ownership", but rather recognition that Von Neumann is a very unique character whose biography, to match whatever general criteria you set up for biography quality, should naturally be significantly longer than almost any others. There have been a small number of other characters whose wide range of technical or other contributions arguably should be comparably expansive – people like Da Vinci, Euler, Franklin, FDR, Napoleon, ... – about some of whom our current articles are somewhat limited and (unfortunately) don't try to describe the full range of their work/influence to readers, but even among these kinds of people, Von Neumann stands out as having started a large number of completely new disciplines, on which his influence cannot reasonably be compressed or elided in anything resembling a "good" article.
- Anyone insisting a Von Neumann biography must be of similar length to biographies of other people is setting it up for failure. –jacobolus (t) 17:07, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- It seems you're expecting that these articles should be comprehensive works that cover the totality of the subject. But that's not what they're supposed to be. If you're interested in such comprehensive coverage of von Neumann, a Google Books search turns up several works that provide it. Wikipedia is a reference work, meaning it collects the information in these books and presents the main points in a way that can be read in under half an hour or so. That's what it's always been. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:21, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- I don't see where "under half an hour or so" comes from, and the best articles on Wikipedia are supposed to be comprehensive. XOR'easter (talk) 17:27, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- It comes from our own editing guidelines, which editors are expected to follow:
A page of about 10,000 words takes between 30 and 40 minutes to read at average speed, which is close to the attention span of most readers. Understanding of standard texts at average reading speed is around 65%. At 10,000 words it may be beneficial to move some sections to other articles and replace them with summaries per Wikipedia:Summary style
. Articles are not exempt from editing guidelines because we think they're really really important. And if you think that your interpretation of "comprehensive" in regard to FA is correct, then I implore you to go over there and start challenging featured article candidates that don't meet it. I guarantee you that none of them will. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:48, 24 September 2023 (UTC)- It's not about "importance", but about how much detail is needed to basically describe the subject. "Summary style" is a poor fit for biographies. (Which is to say, you are welcome to create new articles about "Von Neumann's contributions to economics", "Von Neumann's contributions to mathematical analysis", "Von Neumann's contributions to set theory", "Von Neumann's contributions to computing", "Von Neumann's contributions to quantum mechanics", "Von Neumann's contributions to statistics", "Von Neumann's contributions to lattice theory", etc., but that will serve to supplement rather than replace the main article, which at most can only thus be shortened by maybe 10–15%, because these subjects still need to be summarized on John von Neumann and there's some lower-bound limit to how compressed such a summary can be while still meaningfully describing the subject.) Really the issue here is that you are trying to rigidly apply rules of thumb as bureaucratic requirements without paying any attention to context or content. This does a grave disservice to readers, for basically no benefit other than ticking some boxes on a spreadsheet. –jacobolus (t) 18:03, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- That's the same page with the WP:TOOBIG section which editors perennially disagree with (just check out the talk page!). And besides, the banner at the top of that guideline says that
occasional exceptions may apply
, just like for any other guideline. So, yes, beingreally really important
can be a valid reason for an article to be longer. Honestly, I think this article is about in the range that would be considered "comprehensive" for FA purposes. It's a bit rambly and redundant in places, but nothing it covers should be omitted completely. XOR'easter (talk) 18:07, 24 September 2023 (UTC)- I think Hawkeye7's version of the article that passed GA in 2016 said everything important, and did so in less than half of the current length. —Kusma (talk) 18:38, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- I can think of at least one thing it didn't (an adequate history of his attempt at a no-hidden-variables proof for quantum mechanics), because the necessary references hadn't even been published yet. The man is dead, but scholarship on him continues. XOR'easter (talk) 14:29, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
- I think Hawkeye7's version of the article that passed GA in 2016 said everything important, and did so in less than half of the current length. —Kusma (talk) 18:38, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- It comes from our own editing guidelines, which editors are expected to follow:
- No, I am talking about an extremely compressed and basic summary. Something "comprehensive" is going to be 10 volumes of dictionary-length door stoppers. –jacobolus (t) 17:28, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- I don't see where "under half an hour or so" comes from, and the best articles on Wikipedia are supposed to be comprehensive. XOR'easter (talk) 17:27, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- It seems you're expecting that these articles should be comprehensive works that cover the totality of the subject. But that's not what they're supposed to be. If you're interested in such comprehensive coverage of von Neumann, a Google Books search turns up several works that provide it. Wikipedia is a reference work, meaning it collects the information in these books and presents the main points in a way that can be read in under half an hour or so. That's what it's always been. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 17:21, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- I see no reason to revert before actually evaluating whether the added material is, in fact, indiscriminate. This evaluation has barely begun. XOR'easter (talk) 16:26, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- I generally feel blanket reverting far back, like more than a year, should only be done in extreme cases like copyvio. It is a very imprecise tool as it wipes out any improvements as well. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:31, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- That sounds about right. XOR'easter (talk) 14:39, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
- I generally feel blanket reverting far back, like more than a year, should only be done in extreme cases like copyvio. It is a very imprecise tool as it wipes out any improvements as well. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 20:31, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- We might also benefit from getting "my article is special" or "my article is exempt from best practices" type arguments added as an example of ownership behavior under WP:OWN to limit instances of this in the future. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 16:09, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- Okay, then we can delist this now and it can be renominated in 3 to 12 months. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 12:20, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- Or we could keep it listed and fix whatever problems it has in a sober, step-by-step way, since none of those problems are actually bad enough to merit delisting. XOR'easter (talk) 16:16, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- The article has really significant issues throughout. Take for example the final paragraph in Weather systems and global warming. The first sentence makes sense, informative and helpful. The second however opens with "Von Neumann proposed a theory of global warming as a result of the activity of humans", which is almost certainly not true; the theory has been floating around since the 19th century. It is followed by a quote which both does not support the claim and which says very little. Then there follows a very long quote which again says very little. The penultimate sentence seems good, but then it's followed by "Although he died the next year, this continuous advocacy ensured that during the Cold War there would be continued interest and funding for research.", which is very bold claim embedded into an odd sentence I can't figure out. An advocacy of 1-2 years hardly seems continuous (unless this refers to something else?), and giving that period credit for "continued interest and funding for research" seems unlikely (unless again this refers to something specific not mentioned). CMD (talk) 16:46, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, the idea has been floating around since Arrhenius at least, but saying that von Neumann proposed a theory doesn't imply that he proposed the first theory. His involvement in weather forecasting dates back to late 1945, with what one would call "advocacy" ramping up in 1946, so we're talking about a decade or so rather than 1 or 2 years. I trimmed the last sentence, since going by the Edwards book it didn't sound quite right, but I don't think it was entirely misguided either. XOR'easter (talk) 17:04, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- So far as the explanatory quote elucidates, the theory mentioned is that carbon dioxide causes global warming, the implication being given that this was novel. Your explanation of the advocacy makes sense, but it is not what was in the article. If there is similarly an explanation for the global warming theory sentence, the article should be adjusted accordingly. I doubt the issues being raised are due to anything being entirely misguided, but the current text could use some work and time. CMD (talk) 17:37, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- Yes, the idea has been floating around since Arrhenius at least, but saying that von Neumann proposed a theory doesn't imply that he proposed the first theory. His involvement in weather forecasting dates back to late 1945, with what one would call "advocacy" ramping up in 1946, so we're talking about a decade or so rather than 1 or 2 years. I trimmed the last sentence, since going by the Edwards book it didn't sound quite right, but I don't think it was entirely misguided either. XOR'easter (talk) 17:04, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- Since conciseness is an actual GA criterion, 23,000 words of text is a problem bad enough to merit delisting. AryKun (talk) 10:14, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
- Comprehensive is a requirement for FA. It is normal for a good article to become unstable as editors expand it for FAC. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 10:33, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
- Yeah, and there are ways to be comprehensive that don't involve writing two hour long articles. In any case, this wouldn't pass FAC with 23,000 words either, so I really don't get that argument. AryKun (talk) 10:37, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
- Comprehensive is a requirement for FA. It is normal for a good article to become unstable as editors expand it for FAC. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 10:33, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
- The article has really significant issues throughout. Take for example the final paragraph in Weather systems and global warming. The first sentence makes sense, informative and helpful. The second however opens with "Von Neumann proposed a theory of global warming as a result of the activity of humans", which is almost certainly not true; the theory has been floating around since the 19th century. It is followed by a quote which both does not support the claim and which says very little. Then there follows a very long quote which again says very little. The penultimate sentence seems good, but then it's followed by "Although he died the next year, this continuous advocacy ensured that during the Cold War there would be continued interest and funding for research.", which is very bold claim embedded into an odd sentence I can't figure out. An advocacy of 1-2 years hardly seems continuous (unless this refers to something else?), and giving that period credit for "continued interest and funding for research" seems unlikely (unless again this refers to something specific not mentioned). CMD (talk) 16:46, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- Or we could keep it listed and fix whatever problems it has in a sober, step-by-step way, since none of those problems are actually bad enough to merit delisting. XOR'easter (talk) 16:16, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- If anyone blindly reverts to some long-ago version, absent extensive discussion and consensus on the talk page, I'll simply revert back. To be clear, I believe the article would be improved if it were anywhere from 10% to 60% shorter (with most or all dropped material moved into subarticles and so on), but this is best done by skilled editors over 3 to 12 months, not butchers showing up with knives because they can't sleep at night knowing that ridiculous table in TOOBIG is being "violated". EEng 07:32, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- I urge you to aim for "how can I make this section as good as it can be" rather than "how can I cut as much material as possible" during this effort. Some seems fine, but on balance the changes so far seem like a net negative change to me. –jacobolus (t) 05:12, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- The primary reason this article doubled in size from 166k bytes to over 315k earlier today is due to one editor's additions starting in March 2022. Is it possible to revert to something approximating the 2016 GA-approved version (under 10,000 words, the guidance given at WP:TOOBIG), or the February 2022 version (12,599 words, still a bit large but would be good enough for me) prior to the extreme details being added? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 04:53, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
- De-list per 1A and 3B. Strip it down per WP:SUMMARY (with which some people clearly need to refresh themselves; it's not a percentage of everything that's been written on the guy), then renominate and relist. At the moment, it's bigger than Donald Trump. This is a foolish situation. I support TheEd17's approach.And while we're at it, can everyone calm down and lose the aspersions and bludgeoning? We're only discussing a Wikipedia article, no one's trying to separate the healthy from the sick. SN54129 11:53, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
- Who has argued for making any decision in terms of
a percentage of everything that's been written on the guy
? I don't think that has been anyone's position in this whole fracas. XOR'easter (talk) 14:35, 25 September 2023 (UTC)- You mean, no one has literally used that form of words. Welcome to summary style, with which the argument "there's so much been written on him that we have to write loads too" is countered. SN54129 14:42, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
- No, I mean that that's not even a reasonable paraphrase of how anyone is actually thinking, as far as I can tell. The issue is not merely that much has been written, but that von Neumann did many things each worth encyclopedic treatment. XOR'easter (talk) 15:00, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
- It was literally a paraphrase of your fellow BLUDGEONeer, jacobolus *facepalm* Anyway—to the room generally, not this particular BLUDGEONista—since this only a GA, it's worth pointing out that it could never become a FA in its present condition. SN54129 15:07, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
- I honestly think it's an inaccurate paraphrase of jacobolus' point. XOR'easter (talk) 15:11, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
If that is "literally a paraphrase" you may want to take up a hobby you have more affinity for than paraphrasing. –jacobolus (t) 15:38, 25 September 2023 (UTC)Edit: Striking my comment here; defending vs. angry insults is cathartic but usually takes conversations off the track. –jacobolus (t) 16:25, 25 September 2023 (UTC)- Ah, the Two Bludgeoneers :D SN54129 15:43, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
- A fine addition to the conversation, completely consistent with your previous "can everyone calm down and lose the aspersions"? Meanwhile, the two editors you are attacking here have been busy (with The ed17) on actually cutting down some of the prolixity in the article. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:25, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
- David, I see that you have the time to complain about other editors but not to retract your own appallingly uncivil comment about Airship. Your conduct in this entire discussion is far below the standard administrators are supposed to uphold. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 20:51, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
- Can we all stop now. This entire sub-thread starting from SN54129's original comment is 100% off topic. –jacobolus (t) 22:31, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
- It's not bloody well off topic to expect an administrator to adhere to basic conduct standards. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 22:33, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
- Can we all stop now. This entire sub-thread starting from SN54129's original comment is 100% off topic. –jacobolus (t) 22:31, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
- David, I see that you have the time to complain about other editors but not to retract your own appallingly uncivil comment about Airship. Your conduct in this entire discussion is far below the standard administrators are supposed to uphold. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 20:51, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
- A fine addition to the conversation, completely consistent with your previous "can everyone calm down and lose the aspersions"? Meanwhile, the two editors you are attacking here have been busy (with The ed17) on actually cutting down some of the prolixity in the article. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:25, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
- Ah, the Two Bludgeoneers :D SN54129 15:43, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
- You mean, no one has literally used that form of words. Welcome to summary style, with which the argument "there's so much been written on him that we have to write loads too" is countered. SN54129 14:42, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
- Who has argued for making any decision in terms of
- Delist per 1a and 3b. 23,000 words is an entire book at that point; even if von Neumann was Jesus, Newton, Aristotle, and Linnaeus combined, that is way too many words. At an average speed, this would take almost two hours to read, which is clearly ridiculous for an encyclopedia entry. As evidenced by this entirely too long discussion, we aren't going to be able to trim it down quickly, so delist and renominate later if anyone ever manages to cut it down to a reasonable word count. AryKun (talk) 10:02, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
- Delist per TOOBIG. My poor laptop struggled to load the article, and I don't have an old or cheap laptop. Which means YES, size is an issue here. Either start chopping or walk away, but don't claim that an article users might not be able to even read is a GA. What I did read of the prose was borderline peacock, fawning, and poorly written. Happy editing, SilverTiger12 (talk) 13:39, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
- That has nothing to do with the text; the lead image in the infobox alone in 281K, which is larger than the wikitext. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 18:55, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
- The 21,000 words are an issue though; it takes 2 seconds to look at a photo, but almost two hours to read the entire article at an average reading speed. AryKun (talk) 19:03, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
- Nobody is being forced at gunpoint to read Wikipedia articles. Readers are extremely varied in their background, preparation, interests, and needs: most probably just want a few sentences explaining the basic definition of an unfamiliar term (or in the case of a bio, a few-sentence idea of who/what the person is); others have specific information they are curious about and will skim/search in the page to find it; others want to read articles for pure enjoyment and may be entirely indifferent to length; others may be themselves researchers or authors using Wikipedia as a reference or bibliography; etc. Articles should not be written with the expectation that most readers will read most of the text: as a fundamental priority/criterion that sets them to fail to meet any readers' needs. –jacobolus (t) 20:31, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
- Jacobolus, if this is how you feel, then you have two options: either go to WP:VPP and make an argument WP:LENGTH should be amended, or find a way to accept it and write articles how the community expects them to be written. Trying to create a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS against guidelines doesn't accomplish anything. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:40, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
- WP:LENGTH is a guideline. A guideline "is best treated with common sense as occasional exceptions may apply". WP:LENGTH is subject to local consensus based on its own wording. WP:HASTE:
There is no need for haste in splitting an article when it starts getting large. Sometimes an article simply needs to be big to give the subject adequate coverage. If uncertain, or with high-profile articles, start a discussion on the talkpage regarding the overall topic structure.
Moreover, there is already an ongoing discussion at Wikipedia talk:Article size, and Jacobolus's position has considerable support. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:09, 2 October 2023 (UTC) - This is not "against guidelines". The GA guideline explicitly says an article must be "Broad in its coverage". Such a criterion is impossible to satisfy about this particular subject in anything like the length you might expect for a person with narrower interests/influence (which is to say, with vanishingly rare exceptions, every other person in human history), without cutting the discussion far short of any criteria you might come up with for "good" encyclopedia writing.
- It is entirely plausible for readers to come to the article John von Neumann looking to know about his contributions to economics, or functional analysis, or quantum mechanics, or lattice theory, or the atomic bomb project, or computer architecture, or cellular automata, or any of several other subjects in which Von Neumann did foundational work. These readers should be able to learn about Von Neumann's contributions to any (or all) of those subjects that they are curious about, here in one place. All of these are clearly encyclopedic and "main aspects of the topic" (as are at least a few sections about Von Neumann's working habits and personal quirks, which have been an object of significant interest and discussion by a wide variety of colleagues, scholars, biographers, etc.), and involve some irreducible amount of complexity to discuss. Covering someone's work with the barest minimum of detail required to explain it to a reasonably broad audience of nonspecialists is not "unnecessary detail". These sections are already extremely compressed, sometimes describing years of work in a few sentences, leaving much of the context and detail to linked sources or other articles (which don't necessarily focus on Von Neumann's contributions). You are not going to be able to significantly compress them without making the article much worse, and some sections should probably even be expanded.
- Readers who don't care about any or all of those sections are entirely free (and the great majority are expected, just like readers of any other article) to skip or skim the parts they don't care about and more carefully read the parts they do.
- The main problem here is that most of the people discussing seem to have no interest or knowledge of the subject, and no particular care for likely article readers' interests or needs. Instead they have come up with some pre-determined numerical criteria which they intend to apply by force without any consideration of context, no matter the cost to the article or the broader encyclopedia project.
- Some editors here are describing the current article as hagiographic. In my opinion, folks making this claim are making it from a place of substantial ignorance (and frankly a closed-minded lack of curiosity). If anything, the current article is rather understated and undersells Von Neumann's abilities and influence. –jacobolus (t) 22:22, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
- But that's the problem. You think that your favorite subject is special. It's not. There are thousands upon thousands of articles about really important, wide ranging subjects. I don't care if von Neumann cured cancer, walked on Mars, and invented a perpetual motion machine on the same day. This is an encyclopedia article, not a dumping ground for everything there is to say about a subject. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:29, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
- An encyclopedia article is where people come to find out information about a subject. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:41, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
- Hawkeye8, honest question, this. Could you please explain why you're so insistent on defending this article's verbosity (just look at that bloated Personality section!), when your own FA's—for example James Chadwick (<5000 words), Richard Feynman (~8000), Apollo 11 (~11,000 and not a word out of place)—are scrupulously and fantastically concise? I can't imagine you'd appreciate it if a Personality section consisting of dozens of lengthy quotes and anecdotes was inserted into J. Robert Oppenheimer (also less than half the size of this one). ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:51, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
- I think you've got the wrong Hawkeye, this one hasn't edited since 2010. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 23:02, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
- Hawkeye8, honest question, this. Could you please explain why you're so insistent on defending this article's verbosity (just look at that bloated Personality section!), when your own FA's—for example James Chadwick (<5000 words), Richard Feynman (~8000), Apollo 11 (~11,000 and not a word out of place)—are scrupulously and fantastically concise? I can't imagine you'd appreciate it if a Personality section consisting of dozens of lengthy quotes and anecdotes was inserted into J. Robert Oppenheimer (also less than half the size of this one). ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:51, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
- No, we've been over this. Going to Mars is a glorified school trip that only closed-minded, incurious anti-intellectuals would attempt. Of far more interest is the anecdote that a mathematician liked to write stuff down. How intelligent is that?! ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:42, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
- It's not my "favorite subject". I don't find Von Neumann's work to be the most personally inspiring, most directly relevant to my personal interests, find him to have had the most interesting life, feel any particular personal connection, etc.
- I'm just hard pressed to think of anyone who would merit a comparable amount of discussion to end up with an article of equal depth of coverage. Among mathematicians I don't think even e.g. Newton, Leibniz, any of the Bernoullis, Euler, Lagrange, Gauss, Riemann, Hilbert, Poincaré, Don Knuth, ..., are going to need as much discussion to adequately cover their contributions. More recent mathematicians are generally more specialized, so even the most prolific can have their work more easily bundled up into a smaller number of sections. Euler might be the most comparable (our current article about Euler, despite currently having a "featured article" star, doesn't come anywhere close to comprehensiveness, I don't personally think meets the GA standard for "broad in its coverage" as regards his mathematical work, and would IMO benefit significantly from dramatic expansion including at least half a dozen new sections; I think the article could stand to be maybe twice as long as its current length). Among physicists, there's certainly plenty to say about e.g. Newton, Faraday, Lord Kelvin, Maxwell, Einstein, or Dirac, but none of these did work in nearly so wide a range of subjects as Von Neumann. If you wanted to write about e.g. Thomas Edison, a lot of the material is going to be about managing and selling other people's work, and doesn't necessarily take much technical depth to describe the contributions. Folks like Leonardo da Vinci or Benjamin Franklin did pretty wide ranging work, but even still I think it is notably easier to summarize [The Da Vinci article would be comparably long to this one but has split out sub-articles on Science and inventions of Leonardo da Vinci and Personal life of Leonardo da Vinci which in my opinion would be better to merge back in: removing these has made the main article worse, and they aren't particularly good as stand-alone articles). There's plenty to say about, I dunno, Rousseau or Nietzsche or Hegel or Marx, but it can still be grouped into relatively fewer high-level buckets and summarized in decent detail in a shorter total space.
- I think your best bet for finding people with similarly wide ranging impact is to pick figures like Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Stalin, or FDR (and indeed, our articles about all of these are pretty long, some broadly comparable to this bio of Von Neumann). –jacobolus (t) 04:06, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
- Jacobolus, you've repeatedly shown that your understanding of comprehensive is very far off from what consensus on the site is; will you please stop stonewalling the discussion now and let the delisting proceed? The Euler article is plenty comprehensive, because it is about the person, not every single thing he wrote in his life. If a person's work is independently notable, we can create a subarticle, as we have over at Euler, instead of bloating the main article to an unreadable length. No person in this world (this is not hyperbole) is going to read a two hour long Wikipedia article, no matter how interested they are in the subject; having this long an article just discourages casual readers from going past the lead. AryKun (talk) 07:55, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
- It's not possible to "stonewall" this discussion; nobody needs my assent to do whatever they like.
the person, not every single thing [Euler] wrote
– You are not at all following my basic point. Describing every single thing Euler wrote would be its own multi-volume encyclopedia, and nobody is coming close to suggesting that here. What I'm talking about is significant areas of research with 10+ papers written through his life, which later spawned centuries of follow-up research but are completely unmentioned or barely mentioned in our current article, but should instead merit at least a paragraph or two.No person in this world (this is not hyperbole) is going to read a two hour long Wikipedia article ... discourages casual readers
– First, this is false on its face: I can guarantee you that somebody is going to not only read an article multiple times any of the lengths we are talking about but will even follow up by examining many of the cited sources for further detail. But even if we grant that nobody would read an article of this length in its entirety, that's besides the point and betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of how people read Wikipedia and what its purpose is. Someone interested in operator algebras could skip over the part about the atomic bomb. Someone interested in quantum mechanics could skip over the part about game theory. A layperson interested in the general human experience and the concept of "polymaths" might skip all of the specific detail about every aspect of Von Neumann's work. Etc. That is to be expected and entirely fine. Articles should not be written with the expectation of someone reading them straight through in one sitting; that is setting them up for failure before you even start writing. –jacobolus (t) 16:08, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
- It's not possible to "stonewall" this discussion; nobody needs my assent to do whatever they like.
- Jacobolus, you've repeatedly shown that your understanding of comprehensive is very far off from what consensus on the site is; will you please stop stonewalling the discussion now and let the delisting proceed? The Euler article is plenty comprehensive, because it is about the person, not every single thing he wrote in his life. If a person's work is independently notable, we can create a subarticle, as we have over at Euler, instead of bloating the main article to an unreadable length. No person in this world (this is not hyperbole) is going to read a two hour long Wikipedia article, no matter how interested they are in the subject; having this long an article just discourages casual readers from going past the lead. AryKun (talk) 07:55, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
- An encyclopedia article is where people come to find out information about a subject. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:41, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
- But that's the problem. You think that your favorite subject is special. It's not. There are thousands upon thousands of articles about really important, wide ranging subjects. I don't care if von Neumann cured cancer, walked on Mars, and invented a perpetual motion machine on the same day. This is an encyclopedia article, not a dumping ground for everything there is to say about a subject. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:29, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
- WP:LENGTH is a guideline. A guideline "is best treated with common sense as occasional exceptions may apply". WP:LENGTH is subject to local consensus based on its own wording. WP:HASTE:
- Jacobolus, if this is how you feel, then you have two options: either go to WP:VPP and make an argument WP:LENGTH should be amended, or find a way to accept it and write articles how the community expects them to be written. Trying to create a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS against guidelines doesn't accomplish anything. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 20:40, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
- Nobody is being forced at gunpoint to read Wikipedia articles. Readers are extremely varied in their background, preparation, interests, and needs: most probably just want a few sentences explaining the basic definition of an unfamiliar term (or in the case of a bio, a few-sentence idea of who/what the person is); others have specific information they are curious about and will skim/search in the page to find it; others want to read articles for pure enjoyment and may be entirely indifferent to length; others may be themselves researchers or authors using Wikipedia as a reference or bibliography; etc. Articles should not be written with the expectation that most readers will read most of the text: as a fundamental priority/criterion that sets them to fail to meet any readers' needs. –jacobolus (t) 20:31, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
- To be fair, it loads the thumbnail version of the image, which is only 63.36 KB. Opening the article in Chrome's incognito mode shows HTML code of the page being the largest file the browser loads. Regardless, readability aside, I don't think the file size in itself is an issue at all, on any hardware from the past decade. Can't compare the desktop browser experience as I have a decently powerful PC (all the tools I use work fine, including the DYK tool that takes a bit since it loads all the recent edits), but I just tried opening the article on a cheap 1 GB RAM, quad-core CPU Android tablet (that barely loads some apps) and it loaded in less than 2 seconds. AstonishingTunesAdmirer 連絡 18:27, 5 October 2023 (UTC)
- The 21,000 words are an issue though; it takes 2 seconds to look at a photo, but almost two hours to read the entire article at an average reading speed. AryKun (talk) 19:03, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
- That has nothing to do with the text; the lead image in the infobox alone in 281K, which is larger than the wikitext. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 18:55, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
Content work
[edit]- @Jacobolus, XOR'easter, and The ed17:, can I get your opinions on whether the lengthy illustrative example in the second paragraph of the quantum logic section (beginning with "This latter property..." and ending with the formula) is needed? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:43, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
- I've been taking a look at that section. I'm not sure what to do with it yet. Using the Putnam quote at the end like that strikes me as awkward; a bland mathematical fact doesn't need that treatment, and it's not like Putnam's words are particularly golden here. XOR'easter (talk) 21:04, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
- On a similar note of poor organisation, can we remove the "known for" section in the infobox, on the basis that a) it's so big my laptop refuses to show the 93 more lines (which is a problem) and b) I feel like you could stick a thousand things in there without plumbing the depths of his work? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 21:16, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
- The same could go for the "influenced" section—there's no reason to select a dozen names when it could very possibly say "Every mathmatician since." ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 21:19, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
- The specific example was not actually in the Birkhoff and von Neumann paper, and I didn't find it anywhere in Putnam's book, so I trimmed it out. The "known for" list has some overt redundancies; for example, middle-square method and pseudorandom number generator are both listed, despite the former being an example of the latter. There is currently a discussion ongoing about removing "influenced" and "influences" from the scientist infobox. XOR'easter (talk) 21:27, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
- As that proposal looks like its going to pass (and we're both in favour of it) I've removed the "influenced" list. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:51, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
- My computer also refuses to show the 93(!) more things that van Neumann is known for. Template:Infobox person says that field is meant to be "A brief description of what the person is notable for": we wouldn't need 120 entries even if readers could actually view them Caeciliusinhorto-public (talk) 09:33, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
- The specific example was not actually in the Birkhoff and von Neumann paper, and I didn't find it anywhere in Putnam's book, so I trimmed it out. The "known for" list has some overt redundancies; for example, middle-square method and pseudorandom number generator are both listed, despite the former being an example of the latter. There is currently a discussion ongoing about removing "influenced" and "influences" from the scientist infobox. XOR'easter (talk) 21:27, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
- I don't know when I'll next have time to work on this, but the "Personality" section probably needs more trimming than anything else. We could perhaps split off the list of publications, on the rationale that the ones about which there is enough to say will already be covered in the text, but that does seem a bit like splitting for the sake of it. XOR'easter (talk) 16:23, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
- I've been taking a look at that section. I'm not sure what to do with it yet. Using the Putnam quote at the end like that strikes me as awkward; a bland mathematical fact doesn't need that treatment, and it's not like Putnam's words are particularly golden here. XOR'easter (talk) 21:04, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
Removed material
[edit]Once this article is in a somewhat settled state, can we compile a "graveyard" of all of the removed sentences, quotations, and paragraphs someplace? (If so, where would be a good place?) I feel like some of the removed material (including friends' anecdotes, von Neumann's quoted opinions, biographical and technical details, background context, etc.) is encyclopedic, of general interest to people reading about von Neumann, and worth retaining or at least discussing concretely, but it's going to be somewhat tricky for passers-by to manually diff the initial and end versions. –jacobolus (t) 22:38, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
- The pre-change diff will always be accessible in the history; if you want to do a formal collation of cut content, userspace would probably be the best place, as you have significant contributions to the site. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:42, 25 September 2023 (UTC)
- @AirshipJungleman29 in my opinion your recent edits are butchering this article, removing much of the material which is most interesting to readers and most human. It's shorter, but in my opinion the result is more like an atomized list of trivia and less like a biography. –jacobolus (t) 18:44, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
- Transforming a compilation of any and all anecdotes willy-nilly stuffed into a bloated hagiography into something that has thought behind it is "butchering"? Sure, I'll wear that insult as a badge of honour, if you don't mind. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 18:58, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
- And I suggest you remember, as mentioned above, that readers are likely to find no information in this article at all interesting if they are unable to load it due to its massive size. Why should people not fortunate enough to have good equipment be unable to access a Wikipedia article because you feel that flowery descriptions of lecturing styles are "human"? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:05, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
- We aren't supposed to write a biography; we're supposed to write an encyclopedia entry, which should be significantly shorter than the current article's 21,000 words. AryKun (talk) 13:41, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
- @AirshipJungleman29 in my opinion your recent edits are butchering this article, removing much of the material which is most interesting to readers and most human. It's shorter, but in my opinion the result is more like an atomized list of trivia and less like a biography. –jacobolus (t) 18:44, 1 October 2023 (UTC)
A proposal: splitting out subsidiary articles
[edit]The discussion has become polarized, so perhaps an alternative take on the question might be in order. The article is certainly long by Wikipedia standards. Biographies do not need to go into great detail on the technical aspects of a subject's work, indeed it's not desirable and we generally don't do it.
I suggest that rather than attempt to copy-edit the article down piecemeal - difficult and time-consuming, and quite likely to create a bad result - we should simply create a set of five (quite long) subsidiary articles, namely John Von Neumann's mathematics achievements (or similar wording), John Von Neumann's physics achievements, John Von Neumann's economics achievements, John Von Neumann's computer science achievements, and John Von Neumann's defense achievements. Each one will contain the whole of the current chapter on its topic, and will be replaced by a brief summary (like an article lead section) with a "main" link to the subsidiary article. This will shorten the parent article very considerably, while not "throwing away" large amounts of text. If colleagues would like this, I'm happy to do the splitting and summarizing. If the answer is yes, please ping me. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:30, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
- Chiswick Chap, I would think that this proposal is dead in the water before it starts—editors such as jacobolus have expressed, for example, that splitting Leonardo da Vinci has made the main article considerably worse; they feel that articles such as Leonhard Euler are nowhere close to comprehensive and should be twice the length. Hawkeye7 has similarly stated opposition to splitting, citing WP:HASTE. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:43, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
- Please yourselves. Splitting is a proven and clean way to cope with large amounts of material: indeed, it is the only generally-applicable method. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:47, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
- I am aware, and would support the idea; however, some editors do not feel that WP:SS is applicable here (despite being part of the GA criteria)/useful to improve an article/useful in the slightest. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:51, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
- @Chiswick Chap: I don't disagree with your contention that splitting is the only generally-applicable method we have of coping with large amounts of material. The main alternative is trimming, whereby we tighten the text to say the same thing in fewer words, but this seldom results in a significant reduction in size. However, splitting also has its limits. It works best when we have a large section that can be moved into its own article with a two or three paragraph summary. Where an article consists of a series of short sections, splitting will not produce a useful result.
- Note that while Summary Style is a project guideline, GAs do not have to the meet every project guideline, just a subset of them. The actual requirement of GA is
addresses the main aspects of the topic; and it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail
, with SS as an advisory rather than a hard requirement. Moreover the guideline itself cautions thatopinions vary as to what counts as an ideal length; judging the appropriate size depends on the topic and whether it easily lends itself to being split up.
I therefore remain resolutely opposed to delisting Good Articles based on a guideline they are not required to comply with. - That having been said, I think this proposal is worthy of further consideration. It will not cause the loss of material, and would facilitate further expansion through the subarticles. The downside would be that many (perhaps most) readers would now have to drill down into one or more of the subarticles, depending on their topic of interest. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:44, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
- Please yourselves. Splitting is a proven and clean way to cope with large amounts of material: indeed, it is the only generally-applicable method. Chiswick Chap (talk) 19:47, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
- I think that would help, but others strongly disagree. Personally, I think many of our articles (including many FAs) are of excessive length. —Kusma (talk) 19:52, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
it's not desirable [to describe scientists' technical work] and we generally don't do it.
– It absolutely is desirable, and we should do it wherever possible (while trying to make the presentation as accessible as practical). It significantly improves biographies of technical authors, and readers uninterested in the details can trivially skip over them. Biographies of technical contributors which skip their technical accomplishments do a huge disservice to technically minded readers. –jacobolus (t) 20:50, 11 October 2023 (UTC)- To follow-up, can you even imagine making this kind of claim about any other kind of person? For instance, "it's not desirable to describe athletes' athleticism, athletic innovations, or major competitions and we generally don't do it"; "it's not desirable to describe authors' writings or writing style and we generally don't do it"; "it's not desirable to describe composers' music and we generally don't do it"; "it's not desirable to describe judges' major legal decisions and we generally don't do it"; "it's not desirable to describe actors' major film roles or acting style and we generally don't do it"; "it's not desirable to describe military officers' major battles or strategies and we generally don't do it"; etc. It would be laughable. But somehow as soon as, say, undergraduate level technical background is required we are supposed to throw our hands up and just leave out the subject's contributions because they might go over some readers' heads? (These are readers who, we should note, probably don't have the context to care about technical authors anyway.) –jacobolus (t) 22:04, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
- We absolutely should not be going into the nitty gritty of decisions made by judges or how an actor portrayed a given character. This is an encyclopedia, not a biography. The whole point is to provide a brief overview to make it accessible for those who won't or can't use more technical sources. You may wish to read WP:Make technical articles accessible. If you want to read a full length biography about John von Neumann, then buy a full length biography about John von Neumann. Right now the article is so convoluted as to be effectively useless to the average encyclopedia reader. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:30, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
- I am very familiar with Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable, but YOU might consider reading it carefully. I'll quote one of the more relevant bits to make it easy:
A highly educated, knowledgeable, motivated reader may comfortably read a 5,000-word featured article to the end. Another reader may struggle through the lead and look at the pictures. A good article will grab the interest of all readers and allow them to learn as much about the subject as they are able and motivated to do. An article may disappoint because it is written well above the reading ability of the reader, because it wrongly assumes the reader is familiar with the subject or field, or because it covers the topic at too basic a level or is not comprehensive.
(my emphasis)
- –jacobolus (t) 02:09, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
- I am very familiar with Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable, but YOU might consider reading it carefully. I'll quote one of the more relevant bits to make it easy:
- Of course I can imagine that, seeing as it's extremely common.
- For athletes, see Andy Murray, recently delisted because minute and irrelevant details of injuries, minor matches, WP:RECENTISM, quotes, and other anecdotes.
- For musicians, see Iron Maiden, recently delisted because of massive indiscriminate fluff, minor details, repetitions of quotes and anecdotes, and hagiographical puffery.
- For films, see Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise, whose GAR will hopefully be finishing shortly, which was so full of lengthy quotations, anecdotes, and distractions its creator found room to split NINE articles out of it.
- And on, and on, and on. Check the GAR archives if you think I'm making stuff up. Now presumably, you'll follow one of three paths: either you feel that all three of the above GARs are "laughable", in which case you should probably start an RfC to deprecate the GAR process; or you think that von Neumann's fluff, anecdotes, lengthy quotations, and other indiscriminate additions are justifiable because he was very important and technical details of his work are indisputably superior to technical details of tennis matches, music awards, or film production, in which case you should probably start a discussion at WT:GAN to amend the GA criteria to allow exceptions for articles you consider important. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:59, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
- We absolutely should not be going into the nitty gritty of decisions made by judges or how an actor portrayed a given character. This is an encyclopedia, not a biography. The whole point is to provide a brief overview to make it accessible for those who won't or can't use more technical sources. You may wish to read WP:Make technical articles accessible. If you want to read a full length biography about John von Neumann, then buy a full length biography about John von Neumann. Right now the article is so convoluted as to be effectively useless to the average encyclopedia reader. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 22:30, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
- To follow-up, can you even imagine making this kind of claim about any other kind of person? For instance, "it's not desirable to describe athletes' athleticism, athletic innovations, or major competitions and we generally don't do it"; "it's not desirable to describe authors' writings or writing style and we generally don't do it"; "it's not desirable to describe composers' music and we generally don't do it"; "it's not desirable to describe judges' major legal decisions and we generally don't do it"; "it's not desirable to describe actors' major film roles or acting style and we generally don't do it"; "it's not desirable to describe military officers' major battles or strategies and we generally don't do it"; etc. It would be laughable. But somehow as soon as, say, undergraduate level technical background is required we are supposed to throw our hands up and just leave out the subject's contributions because they might go over some readers' heads? (These are readers who, we should note, probably don't have the context to care about technical authors anyway.) –jacobolus (t) 22:04, 11 October 2023 (UTC)
|
- Given the breadth and depth of von Neumann's work, I suspect quite a few subarticles could stand alone. I don't think that is the issue here though, which seems to be about what should be on this page. Regarding copyediting, the current prose needs serious attention, whether on this page or a subarticle. "Like in his work on measure theory he proved several theorems that he did not find time to publish." If he proved them, how do we know, and the section on measure theory mentions only one unpublished proof that was supposedly told to someone else who then apparently published a different proof for the same question. CMD (talk) 01:39, 12 October 2023 (UTC)
Closing discussion
[edit]There have now been no edits for a week here, on the article, and on the talkpage, until today when some were made to edit war off a tag. The article remains full of banal anecdotes, mildly hagiographic fluff, and a claim that von Neumann planted people in the CIA (from snippet view this seems an overinterpretation). The tag removal and lack of editing seem to suggest these are no longer being worked on, so this should probably be delisted and closed. CMD (talk) 18:17, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
- You need to build consensus to delist. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:12, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
- Lee Vilenski, as a GAR coordinator and a bureaucrat, could you please close this discussion? User:Novem Linguae/Scripts/GANReviewTool can handle the practicalities, if you're unaware. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 21:37, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
- I'd love to help, but I'm currently struggling for time. This page has now reached a crazy length, so will take me some time to read through the lot.
- From what I've skimmed - it seems like a lot of the issues with the article are general issues with the text (too long, etc), I'd like to see what people's thoughts are on which of the criteria this makes the article fail. That is the crux of a delist discussion. Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 11:19, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
- Lee Vilenski, as a GAR coordinator and a bureaucrat, could you please close this discussion? User:Novem Linguae/Scripts/GANReviewTool can handle the practicalities, if you're unaware. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 21:37, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
- The {{very long}} banner was added in special:diff/1162338987 by Nikkimaria without any consensus and without starting or participating in any discussion. The article is about 1/3 shorter (8000 fewer words) than when the banner was added.
- The portions of the article relevant to all of your (Chipmunkdavis) specific concerns up-thread were since edited by others trying to accommodate you. Which anecdotes do you think are banal, which part do you consider "hagiographic fluff"? If you think the claim about the CIA is unwarranted, why not double check sources / remove it yourself? Nobody at all is stopping you (or anyone else) from "working on" this. Please go for it. –jacobolus (t) 23:33, 25 October 2023 (UTC)
- Removing misinformation about the origins of the carbon dioxide link to global warming theory is accommodating me? I am not going to go through 20,000 words to pull out every banal anecdote and piece of hagiographic fluff, but I am particularly tickled by the note that he got all A's except for when he didn't, and that he sometimes walked and talked with some of his friends. On the CIA I explicitly checked the source, see my comment above. I have done a small amount of work on this article, and like others who have stopped I am under no obligation to do more, but if no-one is going to work on it (and especially if removing misinformation is only done to accommodate others?) and it is to remain in its current state then this process should be closed and it should be delisted. CMD (talk) 01:18, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- You are no obligation to do anything, this is a volunteer project, but you could also refrain from persistent use of hyperbole, sarcasm, shifting goalposts, non sequiturs, or vague handwaving. If you have specific criticisms to make, make them. If you have particular criteria you think should be hit, describe them. If you see concrete problems, fix them or point them out. –jacobolus (t) 01:49, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- I'm not sure where I have done the above items. You stated "all of your (Chipmunkdavis) specific concerns up-thread were since edited by others trying to accommodate you". My first comment in this thread mentioned an "abundance of quotes and other content creates a somewhat hagiographic feel", those are the same concrete problems and the same goalposts as in my most recent comment. I did find the factual in accuracies later though, if that is what you mean, but I do not feel that is a goalpost that needed to be established in the first place. The criteria to hit are the GACR. CMD (talk) 02:17, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- By shifting goalposts I was specifically thinking about this "too long" banner you did 3 reverts to preserve, summarized as
"longstanding tag, plenty of activity to resolve it so far, more still to do. Verbiage is not grand."
It would probably be fairer to say "undefined/unclear goalposts", what counts as "verbiage" or "more still to do"? - Your initial comment above was that the scientific parts seemed (maybe?) fine, but the rest you agree was too long with their "abundance of quotes and other content". Well, that "rest" has now been chopped by roughly half, including dumping most of the quotations and anecdotes. So what are your goals/criteria then? The specific points from others upthread were that ~23,000 words is too much (now ~8,000 words fewer), that the personality section was too long (now much shorter), that the lead was too long (now much shorter). None of those same people has weighed back in about what they currently think needs to be done or how they assess the state before vs. after, so other editors are just less guessing.
- Since "this is too long" has persistently been the main concern described throughout the conversation above, but for the most part people seem to concede that the scientific parts seem okay (or at least won't concretely say which ones they think should be eliminated or made more concise), which parts do you think are too long? The parts about nuclear weapons? The parts about other government work? The biographical sketch at the top? The (I agree weirdly organized) "personality" section? Be specific, and feel free to reorganize, summarize, eliminate, or offer concrete recommendations about these.
- What counts as hagiography in your book? Apparently having explicit quotations from a bunch of the world's top scientists saying (paraphrased) "this is the smartest person I have ever met, 10x smarter than myself" is unacceptable. But how else would you propose to describe the way JvN was viewed by his peers, beyond just directly quoting them? "Hagiography" means exaggerating/idealizing someone's life, as in the fictionalized legends about miracles performed by saints. But is just quoting someone's scientist colleagues (serious people not generally known for hyperbole or flights of fancy) really an idealization? What concretely would you recommend doing to not give this impression? Is the problem just that you don't think there should be anyone who Nobel Prize winners keep praising as incomprehensibly intelligent? Or...?
- [For a comparable example from another field, our article about Michael Jordan quotes Doc Rivers calling him "the best superstar defender in the history of the game", Larry Bird calling rookie Jordan the best player he ever saw, "one of a kind", and later "God disguised as Michael Jordan". Is that also too hagiographic?]
- Other problems you had were paragraphs about a meeting (cut down/removed), "oddly trivial" observations (removed), "strangely boastful" comments (also removed). That's what I mean by your specific concerns addressed.
- You didn't like the description of JvN's commentary about global warming, and it was fixed. What you are hyperbolically calling "misinformation" I would characterize as "a slightly sloppy summary unnecessarily prone to misinterpretation, so thankfully now clarified".
- You now think mentioning JvN's high school grades is irrelevant, I agree: just take it out! (I did.) Thanks for being specific.
- If you have further specific concerns, list them and they can be addressed. A handwave at «this seems like it needs copyediting» isn't specific enough to be actionable. –jacobolus (t) 03:01, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- I have not divided the article into parts that are too long, I have noted issues in multiple parts throughout the article. That the article is 20,000 words does make it a challenge to go through and list all concerns, but I have found the issues readily apparent, as apparently have others given the work that has been carried outBefore I noted a few issues in climate change, you now mention the "parts about nuclear weapons", and the Mutual assured destruction subsection there is another example of the issues in the article, so a good one to drill down on. I haven't said anything about quotes from top scientists so I'm not sure where those questions arise, most of the hagiography (the exaggerating/idealizing of his life) comes through in peacocky writing (like the all A's except when they weren't framing). In this subsection the second sentence is "He also "moved heaven and earth" to bring MAD about", a quite flowery description, and the section frames the whole program as his personal goal, directly contrasting him 1:1 with the entire Soviet Union. (While here, "that they could deliver to the USSR" needs rewording.) This is followed up by the eyebrow-raising claim von Neumann planted people in the CIA, whether you think misinformation is hyperbolic this is wrong. "an ICBM was the ne plus ultra of weapons" is a flowery addition which seems to serve no purpose than to associate von Neumann with a latin phrase? The bulleted pointed list (this should be summarized in prose) of actions von Neumann personally took includes "he promoted the development of a compact H-bomb which could fit in an ICBM", which does not feel remotely notable or unique. (The third bullet is similarly weak.) The one sentence paragraph after that frames von Neumann's views as one man against the general feeling of the time, another obviously hagiographic framing.These are all issues that come through in reading only the prose of that subsection. Checking the source (which I've now found the relevant pages of), they become even more concerning. The "moved heaven and earth" quote, even if it wasn't flowery, does not appear to be in the book (not turning up in the gbooks search at any rate). Most of the views framed as von Neumann's particular thinking are outputs and conclusions of a panel he led. What is provided as his personal thoughts are the missile gap and the inadequacy of bombers, but these are not presented as him against the general thought but against "some people". The "proven correct in the Sputnik crisis" framing is flatly contradicted by the source, which notes Sputnik was "much less importantly, although more dramatically" relevant than ICBM tests and intelligence gained from German scientists who had worked for the USSR. The source even notes that the crisis was when "Americans were fearful of a missile gap that had actually closed two years earlier" (emphasis mine). The CIA plant claim is about a period when von Neumann was working for the CIA. The individuals he "planted" were colleagues who participated in different CIA projects and reported to him. This is just one subsection, and is not simply a copyediting issue (although that would help). CMD (talk) 04:28, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- The article is only 20,000 words. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:13, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- Whoops, that's an unfortunate typo, fixed. CMD (talk) 05:18, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- Let's not exaggerate. It's under 15,600 words (leaving aside image captions, footnotes, and bibliography entries). –jacobolus (t) 05:31, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- The prose alone is exactly 20,073 words as of this writing. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 05:33, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- I literally just did a detailed word count, and it clocks in at 15,568 words (including >100 words of section headings). If you are getting 20k words you must be counting something that is not prose. –jacobolus (t) 05:35, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- Then I suggest you file a bug report with WP:PROSESIZE and inform its authors that their tool is broken. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 05:38, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- Please, don't become sarcastic. Let's all just try to stay civilized, alright? Hildeoc (talk) 05:41, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- The tool is definitely inaccurate (whether based on poor parsing, poor heuristics for deciding what counts as prose, or a poor word count algorithm I'm not sure; my experience is that it consistently overcounts by a significant margin across every article I have ever double-checked). It's not a trivial problem to parse wikitext etc., so whether this counts as "broken" is a matter of opinion. I'd say it's generally a bad idea to be overconfident in the output of tools you don't understand, whose design/implementation you haven't examined, and whose results you have never bothered to double-check. [edit: strike for a sharp tone]
- I based my count on copying the article content directly from the rendered output page in my browser into a separate document, and manually stripping out parts that aren't prose. I promise you it is about as accurate as you can get without hand counting all of the words. (I missed chopping out a couple more mathematical equations, so actually my count above is a very slight overcount.)
- In any event, I promise you your count is incorrect by more than 20%, which is pretty significant here. If you want to argue about it, go count more carefully yourself using a better tool than "prosesize". –jacobolus (t) 05:50, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- This is unfortunately expressed, especially after the message immediately above it. I am happy to file the bug report on this very common and widely used tool. CMD (talk) 06:01, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- Sorry to get further off topic here. I haven't examined it closely, but my expectation is that significant changes could plausibly be pretty technically tricky, especially if you want something highly accurate across the full range of wiki articles.
- The way to start would to be by gathering together a long list of test cases with their expected word count, including data tables, figures with captions, inline and block math formulas, footnotes of various flavors, lists, block quotations, etc., using the full range of moderately common templates and html tags, and include prose with a wide range of punctuation, etc., so you have something to check against.
- Depending on the results of that testing, it might be necessary to use a different parsing strategy or more careful parsing logic, a better heuristic for splitting "prose" from "non-prose" content, or a better algorithm for counting words in sentences with various kinds of punctuation, etc. –jacobolus (t) 06:26, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- This is unfortunately expressed, especially after the message immediately above it. I am happy to file the bug report on this very common and widely used tool. CMD (talk) 06:01, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- It appears to, indeed, be a bug in the tool. It's the formulae that crank up the word count. If you press Ctrl+Shift+I, switch to Console tab and then execute
$(".mwe-math-element").remove()
to remove all the formulae from the article, you get 15,268 words. AstonishingTunesAdmirer 連絡 07:36, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- Then I suggest you file a bug report with WP:PROSESIZE and inform its authors that their tool is broken. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 05:38, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- And even if it were more, the mere quantity shouldn't be decisive, if our relevance and documentation criteria are met, right (see note below)? Hildeoc (talk) 05:34, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- I literally just did a detailed word count, and it clocks in at 15,568 words (including >100 words of section headings). If you are getting 20k words you must be counting something that is not prose. –jacobolus (t) 05:35, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- The prose alone is exactly 20,073 words as of this writing. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 05:33, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- Note: Generally regarding WP:AS, and to get this right – apart from potential particular issues within this article –, as long as the contents are relevant and well-referenced, merely claiming "That's too much" cannot really be considered a substantial, valid argument, can it? Hildeoc (talk) 05:31, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- If we treat a topic comprehensively, doing so in a single article is often not the way to go, but Wikipedia:Summary style is. Our article on World War II should not include everything that happened in the war, but just a high level summary. As editors, we do no indiscriminately add all possible detail, but choose a level of detail appropriate for the article.
- I think it is very useful to have a rough guide of what is "too much". Having a target of "under 10000 words" looks OK to me; exceeding that by 50% (like in the present article) may be appropriate for some topics, but exceeding it by a factor of ten is going to be too much. World War II at 13k words would not be improved by merging in the 15k words of Eastern Front (World War II), which in turn should not spend 5k words on the Siege of Leningrad and near 14k words on the Battle of Stalingrad. —Kusma (talk) 09:37, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- Okay, great, thanks for being specific. I don't have any particular expertise about MAD or nuclear war, and don't have the bandwidth to tackle this anytime in the next few days, but this kind of substantive content review is something that is of practical value, that other editors can either work on or at least concretely respond to. –jacobolus (t) 05:34, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- The article is only 20,000 words. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:13, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- I have not divided the article into parts that are too long, I have noted issues in multiple parts throughout the article. That the article is 20,000 words does make it a challenge to go through and list all concerns, but I have found the issues readily apparent, as apparently have others given the work that has been carried outBefore I noted a few issues in climate change, you now mention the "parts about nuclear weapons", and the Mutual assured destruction subsection there is another example of the issues in the article, so a good one to drill down on. I haven't said anything about quotes from top scientists so I'm not sure where those questions arise, most of the hagiography (the exaggerating/idealizing of his life) comes through in peacocky writing (like the all A's except when they weren't framing). In this subsection the second sentence is "He also "moved heaven and earth" to bring MAD about", a quite flowery description, and the section frames the whole program as his personal goal, directly contrasting him 1:1 with the entire Soviet Union. (While here, "that they could deliver to the USSR" needs rewording.) This is followed up by the eyebrow-raising claim von Neumann planted people in the CIA, whether you think misinformation is hyperbolic this is wrong. "an ICBM was the ne plus ultra of weapons" is a flowery addition which seems to serve no purpose than to associate von Neumann with a latin phrase? The bulleted pointed list (this should be summarized in prose) of actions von Neumann personally took includes "he promoted the development of a compact H-bomb which could fit in an ICBM", which does not feel remotely notable or unique. (The third bullet is similarly weak.) The one sentence paragraph after that frames von Neumann's views as one man against the general feeling of the time, another obviously hagiographic framing.These are all issues that come through in reading only the prose of that subsection. Checking the source (which I've now found the relevant pages of), they become even more concerning. The "moved heaven and earth" quote, even if it wasn't flowery, does not appear to be in the book (not turning up in the gbooks search at any rate). Most of the views framed as von Neumann's particular thinking are outputs and conclusions of a panel he led. What is provided as his personal thoughts are the missile gap and the inadequacy of bombers, but these are not presented as him against the general thought but against "some people". The "proven correct in the Sputnik crisis" framing is flatly contradicted by the source, which notes Sputnik was "much less importantly, although more dramatically" relevant than ICBM tests and intelligence gained from German scientists who had worked for the USSR. The source even notes that the crisis was when "Americans were fearful of a missile gap that had actually closed two years earlier" (emphasis mine). The CIA plant claim is about a period when von Neumann was working for the CIA. The individuals he "planted" were colleagues who participated in different CIA projects and reported to him. This is just one subsection, and is not simply a copyediting issue (although that would help). CMD (talk) 04:28, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- By shifting goalposts I was specifically thinking about this "too long" banner you did 3 reverts to preserve, summarized as
- I'm not sure where I have done the above items. You stated "all of your (Chipmunkdavis) specific concerns up-thread were since edited by others trying to accommodate you". My first comment in this thread mentioned an "abundance of quotes and other content creates a somewhat hagiographic feel", those are the same concrete problems and the same goalposts as in my most recent comment. I did find the factual in accuracies later though, if that is what you mean, but I do not feel that is a goalpost that needed to be established in the first place. The criteria to hit are the GACR. CMD (talk) 02:17, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- You are no obligation to do anything, this is a volunteer project, but you could also refrain from persistent use of hyperbole, sarcasm, shifting goalposts, non sequiturs, or vague handwaving. If you have specific criticisms to make, make them. If you have particular criteria you think should be hit, describe them. If you see concrete problems, fix them or point them out. –jacobolus (t) 01:49, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- Removing misinformation about the origins of the carbon dioxide link to global warming theory is accommodating me? I am not going to go through 20,000 words to pull out every banal anecdote and piece of hagiographic fluff, but I am particularly tickled by the note that he got all A's except for when he didn't, and that he sometimes walked and talked with some of his friends. On the CIA I explicitly checked the source, see my comment above. I have done a small amount of work on this article, and like others who have stopped I am under no obligation to do more, but if no-one is going to work on it (and especially if removing misinformation is only done to accommodate others?) and it is to remain in its current state then this process should be closed and it should be delisted. CMD (talk) 01:18, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
@Thebiguglyalien: Since we have far longer articles around, which precise contents do you consider expendable here? Also, what exactly do you mean by "unaddressed maintenance templates"?--Hildeoc (talk) 04:45, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- Having just found this discussion, I'll just remark on the irony of thousands of words being written on whether the article is too long or not. A browser based word counter shows it a little over 16,000 words, and I'm not sure if it is legitimate to discount those very long captions, but even at 15,600 words this article is too long per WP:SIZERULE. This is an encyclopaedic biographic article but not a biography in book form, so to illustrate the issue here, the Mathematical quickness section says in 3 paragraphs, and 402 words something that is important but could be said in a sentence (maybe two) in another section. We don't need all the anecdotes. The encylopaedic information was that he was noted for his exceptional speed of calculation, even amongst his peers. This verbosity is a theme. So by the size rule and by perusal of the content, this article needs significant trimming. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 07:04, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- WP:SIZERULE is a self-professed "rule of thumb" which should never have been called a "guideline", which should never be cited in the manner it has been repeatedly through this discussion (and e.g. in demanding the presence of eyesore banners; cf. User:Jorge Stolfi/Templates that I sorely miss and also User:Jorge Stolfi/DoW/Vogonization), and which should frankly be scrapped (there have apparently been repeated discussions to that effect on the relevant talk page, and the arguments for keeping it around are flimsy and unsupported).
- The length here is much closer to "pamphlet", "chapter", or "paper" than "book" (let's not exaggerate), and is broadly in keeping with the typical depth of coverage of other decent quality Wikipedia biographies (but just happens to be about a subject with much wider scope/more wide reaching influence than most) or with biographical articles about comparable figures in sources such as the Dictionary of Scientific Biography, while being significantly shorter than a decent number of existing "good" articles.
could be said in a sentence (maybe two)
– Again, let's not exaggerate. You can certainly argue that this section is longer than it needs to be, that it should be reorganized or combined elsewhere, or even that it should be removed altogether; however, the claims in question been a significant subject of interest to secondary sources (e.g. an hour-long video biography devoted well over 2 minutes to showing Wigner relate the anecdote there, both directly and especially proportionally more than our article), and the same substantive content cannot be meaningfully addressed in 2 sentences. That is, if you chopped it to "maybe two" sentences you'd be saying something substantially different. Which one is better or more appropriate should be left to consensus of wikipedians working on the page and consideration for the plausible range of reader interest, not decided out of hand based on slavish devotion to numerical criteria. –jacobolus (t) 07:39, 26 October 2023 (UTC)- Your disagreement with SIZERULE may be taken up on the appropriate forum, but while it remains it is indicative of a consensus. The style of writing is what makes this look like a book treatment rather than an encyclopaedic article. The article is too verbose. I provided an example. You say a couple of sentences is not enough. If we need 402 words to say that the subject could compute remarkably quickly, then we are not writing in encyclopaedic style, and the number of readers of this article reading the whole thing is probably close to nil. It's too long. It should be tagged as such to attract editor effort to fix this. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 08:05, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
it is indicative of a consensus
– no it really isn't. It was created in the early 2000s based on technical criteria, edited more or less arbitrarily by a random handful of people in the mean time, and never based on anything more than institutional inertia and having a few defenders who cared enough about it that it wasn't worth the trouble for anyone to mount a large-scale effort to get rid of. This is not anything like "consensus".readers of this article reading the whole thing
– this is not the purpose or even aspiration of encyclopedia articles. –jacobolus (t) 08:10, 26 October 2023 (UTC)- It seems incredible that after all this time we've still got people imagining readers reading entire articles from top to bottom as the predominant use case. What a laugh. EEng 14:29, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- Studies indicate that many readers jump about the article looking for specific details. The readers of this article are likely to home in on the section that most interests them, and will expect it to be comprehensive. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 18:18, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- It seems incredible that after all this time we've still got people imagining readers reading entire articles from top to bottom as the predominant use case. What a laugh. EEng 14:29, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- Your disagreement with SIZERULE may be taken up on the appropriate forum, but while it remains it is indicative of a consensus. The style of writing is what makes this look like a book treatment rather than an encyclopaedic article. The article is too verbose. I provided an example. You say a couple of sentences is not enough. If we need 402 words to say that the subject could compute remarkably quickly, then we are not writing in encyclopaedic style, and the number of readers of this article reading the whole thing is probably close to nil. It's too long. It should be tagged as such to attract editor effort to fix this. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 08:05, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- I think I am in favour of delisting now. There is still bloat/duplication and sometimes poor organisation of sections (what type of content is in "Career and private life" versus "Personality"? "Mathematical range" and some of the related subsections of "Personality" could be closer connected to the mathematical work. The blindfold chess anecdote sounds like it belongs into "mathematical quickness". And these are just easily found examples. Some of this duplication would be less problematic if the article was split into several pieces). There seems to have been a lot of local editing, but the article lacks overall cohesion. —Kusma (talk) 09:53, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
poor organisation of sections
– I agree. This is a problem most obviously addressed by re-organization. Propose away, or go boldly make changes. –jacobolus (t) 12:15, 26 October 2023 (UTC)- Is this a good organisation now a Good Article criterion? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 18:31, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
Actual discussion closure
[edit]Hi, as I had a request to close this discussion, and as I'm making my way through reading the discussion, can someone point to which of the GA criteria is not being met by the article? Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 11:54, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
- This was opened regarding 1a and 3b, although there are some 1b (WTW) issues as well that seem linked to a bit of 2c. CMD (talk) 13:39, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
- No 1a, 1b or 2c issues have been raised. All discussion concerned the size of the article, which is not relevant to any criterion. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 18:01, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
- Broad in its coverage
- 3b. it stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style)
- This seems like a criterion that is very directly relevant to the complaint raised. WP:TOOBIG suggests that articles over 15,000 words be divided, and the article currently has 20,000 words. But this is a very fixable problem: just start spinning off the extra parts into summary style subarticles, worst comes to worst. I really don't see why that can't be done - look at all the subarticles in Category:Albert Einstein. Even 17,000 words would be easier to sell as maybe a worthy exception, but 33% over the very highest limit is pushing it. SnowFire (talk) 00:04, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
- The current article is under 15,600 words. –jacobolus (t) 00:41, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
- To be clear, that number is from the WP:PROSESIZE tool which says "Prose size (text only): 101 kB (20075 words) readable prose size" for me. Does it come up with something different for you, is there a bug where it's miscounting, or something else? SnowFire (talk) 01:10, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
- The prose size tool is incorrect. –jacobolus (t) 01:17, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
- @SnowFire: please use the updated tool here. CMD (talk) 01:19, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
- Interesting. I'm guessing the math symbols threw the prosesize tool off? Definitely file a bug if it hasn't been already. I did some copy-pasting into a different browser based word counter, throwing away the math symbols, and came up with ~15,800 words, so mildly more than jacobolus. Anyway, I wasn't planning on !voting, but... articles that use the full 15,000 word max are rare. My suspicion is that there will be a lot less stress for the closer of this GAR if, as a show of good faith, the article could be whittled that extra little bit more. But I was mostly chiming in after seeing the comment above that no GA criterion was cited. SnowFire (talk) 01:37, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
- @SnowFire: please use the updated tool here. CMD (talk) 01:19, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
- The prose size tool is incorrect. –jacobolus (t) 01:17, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
- To be clear, that number is from the WP:PROSESIZE tool which says "Prose size (text only): 101 kB (20075 words) readable prose size" for me. Does it come up with something different for you, is there a bug where it's miscounting, or something else? SnowFire (talk) 01:10, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
- WP:TOOBIG is not criterion 3b. There has been no assertion that details in the article were off-topic and could be moved to other articles. ie the article is not focused on the subject, which is what 3b is properly about (WP:COATRACK). What WP:TOOBIG has to say is:
There is no need for haste in splitting an article when it starts getting large. Sometimes an article simply needs to be big to give the subject adequate coverage. If uncertain, or with high-profile articles, start a discussion
We had a discussion, and a proposal was put forward to split off various sections. Each one would contain the whole of the current section on its topic, which would be replaced by a brief summary with a "main" link to the subarticle. However, it was unclear if this had consensus. WP:TOOBIG is never a sufficient reason to split. The "rule of thumb" is arbitrary and itself lacks consensus. The relevant section is currently under review at Wikipedia talk:Article size, and it is pointless to debate it here. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:51, 2 November 2023 (UTC)- I believe that the existing size criterion does have consensus, and certainly would support it as common sense myself. Wikipedia articles are overviews, not books. I'm not saying that books on von Neumann are bad - in fact, they're fascinating. But it's not what the top-level Wikipedia article is supposed to be. Anyway, it sounds like the article is very close to getting below 15K words, so maybe worth just going a little farther? And to be clear, the whole system of summary-style spinoff articles is what is done everywhere else on Wikipedia. This isn't unusual or weird to expect that this article conform to this. (Alternatively, if you truly want to get rid of TOOBIG, then as a procedural matter, you could argue to put this GAR on hold until an RFC to do so is resolved. But I am skeptical such an RFC would pass. And even then, could always spin any excess content off to summary-style spinoff articles first, propose TOOBIG be removed, and then if that somehow passes, merge them back?) SnowFire (talk) 01:37, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
- The current article is under 15,600 words. –jacobolus (t) 00:41, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
- Some were brought up at the beginning, most recently please see my analysis of prose and factual issues in a single subsection above which you replied to. CMD (talk) 01:00, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
- No 1a, 1b or 2c issues have been raised. All discussion concerned the size of the article, which is not relevant to any criterion. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 18:01, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:11, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
This 2008 listing has some unsourced statements, which would fail criteria 2 of the GACR. There may also be some prose issues, but I am not experienced with weather-related articles. Spinixster (chat!) 10:45, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
- Someone has asked for me to point out prose issues, which I am still not sure of. However, I can point out some unsourced statements:
- Vertical wind shear section
- the end of the Kraft rule section
- Now that I looked at the article again, it may also need some updating since most of the information was collected in 2007, and surely there would be new information available. Spinixster (chat!) 01:19, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Kept. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:13, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
Lots of uncited text, citation needed tags since March 2017. Z1720 (talk) 00:27, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
- Hi @Z1720, I'm happy to fix this one up over the next few days, if there is anything specific you'd like me to address up front, let me know. I noticed the club career statistics is completely uncited which is a major concern but I think I'll be able to address everything. :) Idiosincrático (talk) 12:57, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
- I have tried to fix the "citation needed" points, particularly the Leeds and Arsenal sections. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 13:08, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
- @Idiosincrático and Jmorrison230582: I added cn tags in the article for statements that need them (mostly the ends of paragraphs). Some of these are one-sentence statements that might be removed, but others are for larger blocks of information that definitely need citations. When these are addressed I will try to do a more thorough review. I also suggest reviewing the lede because the last two paragraphs are short and might need to be merged or expanded. Z1720 (talk) 14:04, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
- I have tried to fix the "citation needed" points, particularly the Leeds and Arsenal sections. Jmorrison230582 (talk) 13:08, 24 October 2023 (UTC)
I'd like to now think that everything below and including the international career section is now referenced correctly. I'm yet to review the club career section and lead, but I know Jmorrison has already done some work there. Idiosincrático (talk) 03:51, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
- Keep – I'd like to think that this article is now okay, please ping me if anyone finds anything, I'd be happy to clean it up. Idiosincrático (talk) 14:45, 3 November 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Kept. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:15, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
A massive amount of uncited material, including quotes, statistics, and much else; the article is also probably too unfocused at ~11500 words. Thus, violating criteria 2b) and 3b). ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:59, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
- Delist. At several places, it goes on for several long paragraphs without a single reference. Getting the sourcing in order would require a lot of effort. Phlsph7 (talk) 13:30, 11 August 2023 (UTC)
- Per WP:GA/R "Editors should prioritize bringing an article up to standard above delisting."--Wolbo (talk) 00:49, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
- Improve. It seems the lack of citations is concentrated in the latter years of his career. It should be possible with a bit of effort to address that shortcoming. Would like to try to do that before the article gets delisted.--Wolbo (talk) 00:53, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
- Thanks for starting to improve the article Wolbo; it'll be a large task but greatly appreciated. Please note here when you think you're finished, or can't continue (no prejudice against the latter). ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 10:58, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
- AirshipJungleman29, it will probably take a few weeks and I will report here on the outcome.--Wolbo (talk) 19:13, 21 August 2023 (UTC)
- Hi Wolbo, you've done an excellent job but there are still significant uncited sections. Any chance that you could fix them? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:25, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
- AirshipJungleman29, sure. Most of the work has been done but a few areas still need attention. Have also tidied up the wording where needed and will do a full scan of the article at the end. Took a bit more time than expected but should be done by the end of the month at the latest.--Wolbo (talk) 17:52, 3 October 2023 (UTC)
- Hi Wolbo, any update? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:34, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
- Hi AirshipJungleman29, added more references. Don't see any significant deficiencies anymore. Also tidied up wording a bit more and removed some trivial content in a few places.--Wolbo (talk) 21:23, 2 November 2023 (UTC)
- Hi Wolbo, any update? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:34, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:17, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
There are a lot of self-published sourced tags and a CN tag. If the citations could be improved, then I think it could be kept as a GA. ❤HistoryTheorist❤ 21:02, 21 October 2023 (UTC)
- @HistoryTheorist I see the issue primarily concerns the use of http://catholicsaints.info/saint-maximilian-kolbe/ as source. It does not strike me as a RS. Non-conclusive single mention (critical) at RSN is at Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_384#Religious_fansites. I support replacing this source with something more reliable. A quick glance at the refs here suggests that a few more are low quality too, if not tagged yet. I'll see if I have time to work on this in the near future. This passed GA almost 10 years ago, but I concur it is not up to modern standards. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 13:56, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:21, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
Article contains numerous uncited paragraphs. Z1720 (talk) 01:56, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
- Delist for insufficient referencing, and many citations this does use are improperly formatted (e.g. some incorrect uses of italics). There also are lots of super short paragraphs that make the flow of text feel choppy (I'm particularly concerned about the ones with only one sentence). SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 02:25, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • GAN review not found
- Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:23, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
Lots of uncited text, "Additional sources needed" banner. Z1720 (talk) 02:52, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • GAN review not found
- Result: Article trimmed of excess fat. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:42, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
"Depictions in fiction" section has an orange "additional citations needed" banner since Nov 2022, which should be addressed. Z1720 (talk) 14:48, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
- @Z1720: - is that your only concern? We've got a summary from Macbeth that should be easy to source and maybe should be shortened, a non-notable screenplay by a non-notable author held in a local reading reference library, several non-notable novels by non-notable authors, and a minor cameo in a TV show. It looks like this can be fairly easily solved by just removing the trivial unreferenced content and then sourcing/trimming the Macbeth stuff; I don't think delisting is necessary at all here unless you have further concerns with the article. Hog Farm Talk 00:16, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
- Yeah, that's my only major concern. "Margaret also gave Malcolm two daughters, Edith, who married Henry I of England, and Mary, who married Eustace III of Boulogne." is also uncited. I haven't done a search for additional sources but I think we should be OK considering that it is a GA. Z1720 (talk) 00:40, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
- And I guess "and Sing, Morning Star by Jane Oliver (1949)." is sourced to two sources from a couple decades before said novel was published. I'd be inclined to purge the whole section, add a sourced single-sentence mention of the Macbeth connection somewhere else in the article, and then it's probably good to close as keep unless there's source-text integrity concerns elsewhere in the article or something. Hog Farm Talk 00:51, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
- Yeah, that's my only major concern. "Margaret also gave Malcolm two daughters, Edith, who married Henry I of England, and Mary, who married Eustace III of Boulogne." is also uncited. I haven't done a search for additional sources but I think we should be OK considering that it is a GA. Z1720 (talk) 00:40, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Prose is easily fixable; sourcing issues are not. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:55, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
This 2010 addition has prose problems (most of the text is "Johnson fought this person on a date. He won/lost...") and may also contain unreliable sources/unsourced info. Spinixster (chat!) 02:59, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Significant uncited material. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:56, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
Significant amount of uncited text, including most of the "Planter and naval officer" section. Z1720 (talk) 14:56, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
- I've added a couple of references from ODNB, but there's much outstanding. The writing itself isn't overly impressive either. I wouldn't be surprised if there's OR hidden in there. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 21:51, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • GAN review not found
- Result: Violates GA criterion 2. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:25, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
This 2007 listing has one citation needed tag and relies on a few self-published/primary/questionable sources, which would fail criteria 2 of the GACR. Spinixster (chat!) 08:05, 23 October 2023 (UTC)
- Since someone has asked, I would like to showcase a few questionable sources here.
- Reference 3 (rockcelebrities.net), unsure of reliability
- Reference 17 (capital.net)
- Reference 25 (cliffinourminds.com), seems to be a fan project; it says that it's affiliated with "Metallica Club Scandanavia", also [3]
- These references are used in critical parts of the article, and along with the unsourced statements, I think this fails criteria 2 of the GACR. Spinixster (chat!) 01:15, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: No worries, Donner60. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:12, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
This 2011 listing has several tags for citations, failed verification, and page numbers needed. Overall, I am not sure this article meets GA criterion 2. Pinging Hog Farm for a subject matter expert's opinion on specific content. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 09:56, 25 July 2023 (UTC)
- For a battle of this magnitude and significance, I would argue that only three paragraphs on the actual fighting is under developed. I find it very surprising that Castel's Decision in the West is barely used at all; it's one of the most important modern works on the campaign. I don't have the time or energy right now to take this on. Hog Farm Talk 12:20, 25 July 2023 (UTC)
- I noticed the posting for this. I am rather sure that the defects can be fixed and the article can be revised and expanded to fit the criteria. Note that many of the sources are public domain and can be found on line. I would not use most or all of them because there are almost certainly better ones. I would replace many of these citations to the extent possible with other references from books by reliable historians that I have available. I think I have all but one of the more modern sources that are cited so far in the article and others. The modern ones include the NPS public domain on line source which I would still replace to the extent possible.
- As Hog Farm notes, it was a big battle and the article needs to be expanded. As noted in the lead "Despite the implication of finality in its name, the battle occurred midway through the Atlanta campaign, and the city did not fall until September 2, 1864, after a Union siege and various attempts to seize railroads and supply lines leading to Atlanta." That does not negate the point that it was a big battle but it should be kept in mind that there were later battles that were part of the Atlanta campaign. It needs to be kept in context.
- I would like to work on this and intend to as I have time. I must note that I am a little backed up right now both as to articles I am working to improve here and by real life. Even if I put some other military history "to do" items on the back burner, I think this is going to take some time to research and revise and bring to a conclusion. So I must note that I am not ready to jump right into this and bring it to a conclusion. To the extent I work on it soon, it is likely to come piecemeal. If the reassessment can wait for a while, as it did with Battle of Gettysburg, I will get the work done. Any help that others can add to move it along would also be welcome. If the article needs to be reassessed very soon, I think it can be restored to GA eventually. Donner60 (talk) 06:33, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
- Take your time Donner60; I only ask that you give status updates every two weeks or so. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:00, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
- Thanks. Donner60 (talk) 01:52, 3 August 2023 (UTC)
- Take your time Donner60; I only ask that you give status updates every two weeks or so. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:00, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
- AirshipJungleman29 I made some additions and improvements and added a few references to the article on August 6-8. Brief battle section appeared to have made a relationship to two actions that were separated in location and to some extent in time of day. The reason for the recall of Confederate cavalry from Decatur did not line up with sources. The article still needs additions and citations. I'll be plodding along with it. Donner60 (talk) 07:41, 16 August 2023 (UTC)
- Hi Donner60, you still intending to work on the article? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:46, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
- Yes. I have been rewriting the background section offline rather than post it piecemeal. I think it needs some more detail and additional citations. I may work the current section into the new version to the extent needed for completeness or remove the current section altogether if I have covered and expanded the background. Then I will move into expanding the battle section. I have read some of the sources in detail and think I have a grasp of what happened I hope to have more time over the next few weeks to give it the concentrated effort it needs. Sorry for the delay. Donner60 (talk) 01:38, 9 September 2023 (UTC)
- Hi Donner60, you still intending to work on the article? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:46, 8 September 2023 (UTC)
- AirshipJungleman29 I have moved my work on this article from offline to User:Donner60/sandbox 7. I have drafted a longer background section but I want to work on it more before moving it to the article. I may trim it back at least a little but I think the article needs more background than is in that section now. It was a major battle in the middle of the campaign. This is mentioned but I think more is needed. I still need to add some citations to the draft, which I have available. When the draft section is done, I plan to replace the existing section entirely with the draft section.
- I have drafted a paragraph about opposing forces in the campaign for the opposing forces section. That section only has links to orders of battle articles now. I will be removing a similar paragraph that is in the background section now and include the information in the opposing forces section. I will put further text about the units only engaged in the July 22 battle in that section as well. It would be superfluous to take the space to repeat the full orders of battle in the linked articles in this article; it isn't commonly done, of course. The additions should be more than enough to remove the empty section tag.
- From my reading, I now have a reasonably good idea of the course of the battle and high points. It will take some time to write it all down. There is more to it than the short original version and the slightly expanded version that I posted last month. Donner60 (talk) 06:28, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
- Thanks for all your efforts, D60. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:22, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
- AirshipJungleman29 I have done some cleanup in the article and worked some in the sandbox version mostly on Background; a little more to be done on that section, then on to the other sections. I have replaced the empty section tag in the order of battle section and replaced it with a version of the OOB without the regiments listed and in a format to take up less space than if I had put each entry in a laddered fashion. Now that the info is there, the format could be revised or info possible shortened if desirable. Donner60 (talk) 09:23, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
- AirshipJungleman29 I haven't given up on this. In this case, I think the whole main section about the battle will need to be revised and lengthened. The Gettysburg revision took some time but could be done piecemeal without distorting the article overall. I have been getting used to being a co-ordinator for Wikiproject Military History and have had a few other distractions. This is at the top of my to do list. I hope to have more solid blocks of time after this weekend to work on this. I have the references ready but I just need to do some concentrated work and get the text written. As with the background, I will write this in the sandbox before posting it in final or near final form. Donner60 (talk) 06:45, 20 October 2023 (UTC)
- Donner60, congratulations on your new MILHIST position; I'm sure you'll do great. Hog Farm I don't know how much free time you have these days, but can I ask you for your thoughts on the article? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:47, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- I'll try to find the time to take a look this weekend. Hog Farm Talk 02:18, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
- A few thoughts about the current article, although I have not read much about the battle. 1) Should the Background have any mention of Grant's overall plan to destroy rail line, resources, and infrastructure used to equip and feed the Confederate armies? 2) the Opposing forces section is almost unreadable. We already have an order of battle. Too much detail. Were the various units seasoned vets or inexperienced? How well were they armed? Detail down to a brigade may be too much here, unless a certain brigade had an important role in the battle. Battle: I would get rid of the gallery and instead use maps on the right side of the text to help explain the battle. Someone with a low attention span (me?) should be able to look at two or three maps and have a reasonable understanding of what happened in the battle. I am not a fan of abbreviations such as "Brig. Gen." Siege and closure: Is this part of the battle, aftermath, or what? Legacy: Does the "Map of Atlanta battlefield core and study areas..." do anything to explain the battle or preservation efforts—I'm not a fan. TwoScars (talk) 15:42, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
- I agree with TwoScars that the orbat needs work - the full table is best left in the main orbat list. I personally wouldn't provide much detail below the divisional level if it were my choice. The citation needed and page needed tags should be addresssed. The two Historical Marker Database citations are user-generated and are not RS. I can help a bit if help is needed (it would be mainly utilizing Castel for me) but not until at least next weekened, because work is going to be busy for me this week. Hog Farm Talk 22:05, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
- A few thoughts about the current article, although I have not read much about the battle. 1) Should the Background have any mention of Grant's overall plan to destroy rail line, resources, and infrastructure used to equip and feed the Confederate armies? 2) the Opposing forces section is almost unreadable. We already have an order of battle. Too much detail. Were the various units seasoned vets or inexperienced? How well were they armed? Detail down to a brigade may be too much here, unless a certain brigade had an important role in the battle. Battle: I would get rid of the gallery and instead use maps on the right side of the text to help explain the battle. Someone with a low attention span (me?) should be able to look at two or three maps and have a reasonable understanding of what happened in the battle. I am not a fan of abbreviations such as "Brig. Gen." Siege and closure: Is this part of the battle, aftermath, or what? Legacy: Does the "Map of Atlanta battlefield core and study areas..." do anything to explain the battle or preservation efforts—I'm not a fan. TwoScars (talk) 15:42, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
- I'll try to find the time to take a look this weekend. Hog Farm Talk 02:18, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
- Donner60, congratulations on your new MILHIST position; I'm sure you'll do great. Hog Farm I don't know how much free time you have these days, but can I ask you for your thoughts on the article? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:47, 26 October 2023 (UTC)
- AirshipJungleman29 Hog Farm TwoScars
- (1) I have deleted the order of battle detail. I inserted the text and the detail in response to an empty section tag. I was trying to add part of the order of battle section without adding so many lines. It was something of an experiment. It didn't work. I intended to take another look but left it in place pending that further look. As it turned out, I did not get back to it promptly. In retrospect, I could have spent the time better on something else. The text may be enough or I may add a little to it.
- (2) I have moved my work on this article from offline or the article itself to User:Donner60/sandbox 7.
- (3) I have a longer and improved background section in the sandbox. I don't want to post it or other changes because I think it will overwhelm the rest of the article. Also, I am trying to decide whether the next paragraph or two will be background. At this time I think it will start the battle narrative. I welcome any needed edits or additions to the revised background in the sandbox, but working on the existing text in the article online would be a wasted effort. So please work in the sandbox for now if you wish to work on this.
- (3a) After writing this I decided to add the first subsection, objectives, preparation, to the background section. It is a good addition in my opinion though it does make the background section longer than the battle section even before the further expansion in the two additional subsections.
- (4) In line with TwoScars's comment, I had already mentioned Grant's plan in the expanded background section (now divided into three subsections) in the sandbox. This is in the subsection that I added after posting the initial remarks here.
- (5) I have removed: "Twice more in later campaigns, Hood would seek to lure the thrust of a Union axis of advance upon a position and/or force that he was commanding to seek an engagement. The Union's forces were not turned in those cases either.{{citation needed|date=June 2019}}" I had removed it in my sandbox work. I could not find any source or sources for this. Since it is superfluous, I have now deleted it.
- (6) I don't like the Brig. Gen. abbreviations any more than the NATO abbreviations over which we had some controversy recently. I don't use them in my writing but will sometimes leave them in articles if extensively used. I think the guideline on existing style may not apply to require keeping them, especially since I will likely become the primary author. I have now changed the remaining abbreviations to full titles.
- (7) I had not gotten to the Historical Marker data base citations yet but I agree that they are not RS.
- (8) I also have not looked at the pictures, etc. Some maps are needed because they help understanding the several movements over the course of the battle.
- (9) The article is inaccurate, not properly organized, incomplete and needs extensive rewriting and additions. (All of TwoScars's comments accurately reflect this.) I think that working on it piecemeal is not possible (for me to do a good job, anyway) as it was with Battle of Gettysburg. There are some inaccuracies and too much detail left out of the existing text.
- (10) Even though my previous work was in September, I have a good understanding of the battle and quite a few sources, including Castel at hand.
- (11) Real life, to some extent, learning some co-ordinator work and a few distractions into less important editing have slowed me down. For me, this rewrite will require solid blocks of concentrated time because it is almost like writing a long article from scratch. I am sure I can do it. I should have more such time in November, but I sometimes overestimate that of course.
- (12) None of this is meant to discourage any help on this nor is it meant to pass it off to others, especially others who have so many other things to do. I thought it was important to note the few changes I made today and, more importantly, the work in the sandbox to avoid duplication of effort. I am not sure where we stand on this with respect to timely completion, but I have not abandoned it and it is on top of my to do list on my user page. Donner60 (talk) 22:32, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
- Donner60, this GAR has been open for nearly four months. As you say, the article "is inaccurate, not properly organized, incomplete and needs extensive rewriting and additions". I am leaning towards delisting the article and leaving it for you to work on at your leisure and discretion. Would that be fine? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:24, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
- I am ok with that because I am not sure whether I can improve it enough in the near future to complete the revision soon, even with some work done in the sandbox. I think we should not depend on the few others who might be able to help with this. They have many other things to work on. In the case of Hog Farm, we need to let him concentrate on his career and family and not take on big tasks, if any. My only hesitation now is that it may take time for a new assessment once it is in shape. That's not enough to leave it hanging however. Real life, the holidays, co-ordinator actions and the need for blocks of time and energy may all cause delays. Sorry for keeping this hanging but I plan to work on it and eventually complete it. Maybe it will reappear sooner than we think. Thanks for your patience. 00:01, 18 November 2023 (UTC) Donner60 (talk) 00:01, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
- Donner60, this GAR has been open for nearly four months. As you say, the article "is inaccurate, not properly organized, incomplete and needs extensive rewriting and additions". I am leaning towards delisting the article and leaving it for you to work on at your leisure and discretion. Would that be fine? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:24, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Sourcing issues across what both is and isn't inline cited. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:14, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
Inline citations are needed in the "Memorials" (first half), "Legacy" and "In popular culture" sections. Z1720 (talk) 14:59, 8 November 2023 (UTC)
I removed the unsourced paragraphs added later on that really shouldn't have been in there to begin with. Was that the only issue? I mean that only took me 5 minutes to address not sure if it was worth sending to GAR. Wizardman 00:43, 10 November 2023 (UTC)
- There's still some unreferenced passages throughout the article, which are marked with a citation needed. I took another look at the article and see that most inline citations are to the Shelton source, which is a high-quality source but might not represent the breadth of knowledge about him. Some other sources that could be used in the article are Biographi, a JSTOR article, another JSTOR article and possible sources in the Invasion of Quebec (1775) article (since Montgomery was heavily involved in that). @Wizardman: would you be willing to take a look and add citations or remove uncited passages as needed? Z1720 (talk) 01:05, 11 November 2023 (UTC)
- Sorry for the delay in responding. Reading this a bit further I actually have a couple extra concerns on top of what you noted, namely most of the sourcing being from just one book. While not a deal-breaker in and of itself, that combined with your concerns makes me think we're probably better delisting this one until it can be fine-tuned more (even if I'm able to add/remove the citations I think the issues still stand, unfortunately). Wizardman 02:50, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted. AfD is not within the GAR purview. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:17, 20 November 2023 (UTC)
GA from 2007, reassessed in 2009. The article has some unsourced sentences and prose issues. There is 1 citation needed tag. Also, is this actually notable enough for a separate article? I think this could be easily merged with Kapil Dev. Spinixster (chat!) 08:02, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
- De-list honestly, I don't think this article should exist as a stand-alone article anyway (he coached for 33 matches, which is way less than hundreds of other national team coaches), but in terms of the GA criteria, it doesn't look to meet them. Quite a few places need sourcing, and the article is just a re-telling of a few series, rather than being focused on Dev's role in these series i.e. what did he do that was different and contributed to the team's success/failures? And the "Match Fixing Allegation and Resignation" is not written in formal tone, as it has lots of WP:WEASEL words, so fails GA criteria 1b and 4, as it has clear opinions rather than fact on the issues at hand. Other less major issues include the fact the article constantly refers to him as Kapil rather than Dev (in violation of WP:SURNAME), has links to general articles like Australia national cricket team and One Day International rather than specific links to the series in question e.g. New Zealand cricket team in India in 1999–2000. All in all, fails GA criteria 1a, 1b and 4, so would be a straight fail if nominated for GA today. Joseph2302 (talk) 10:44, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 06:50, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
GA from 2007, reassessed in 2009. There are many citation needed templates, unsourced statements, and possibly unreliable sources, which means this article fails criteria 2 of the GACR. Spinixster (chat!) 03:33, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 06:51, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
This 2008 addition has unsourced or badly sourced information (IMDB, etc) which fails criteria 2 of the GACR. Additionally, there may be some WP:CRUFT. Spinixster (chat!) 01:56, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:41, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
Many uncited passages and an orange "citations needed" banner on top of the "Other media" section. This is a BLP. Z1720 (talk) 02:46, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
- Delist, due to uncited statements. I did wonder if simply removing the uncited statements would resolve the problem, but it's a good few years since this became a GA, and it looks like there is quite a lot that has happened since then that should be covered in the article. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 20:33, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • GAN review not found
- Result: Per general consensus. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:42, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
GA from 2006. I was going to just tag and wait to see if there's anyone interested in fixing it, but the problems are very jarring. The article is written more like an essay, with weasel wording, non-neutral wording, etc. I have added 24 "citation needed" templates, but I have not done a thorough check of the sources, so there might be even more. It would take a long time to fix the article. Spinixster (chat!) 02:26, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
- I am a delist barring substantial improvement, but willing to wait a week or two and see if anyone takes an interest in working on the article. 20+ instances of citation needed is pretty damning. Trainsandotherthings (talk) 00:55, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
- Delist unless someone steps forward to start addressing the issues with the article. BennyOnTheLoose (talk) 20:25, 19 November 2023 (UTC)
- Delist; The opening three paragraphs of the body of the article are simply not acceptable in their manner of phrasing. Eg. 1870 found Bovenplaats under the care of Jacobus Abraham Smuts and his wife Catharina Petronella. Jacobus Smuts lived in much the same manner as his forefathers — a hard-working farmer, a pillar of the Church, and one who took a leading part in the social and political affairs of the neighbourhood. Such was the regard in which he was held that he was later to be elected as the Member for Malmesbury in the Cape Parliament doesn't exactly read "encyclopedic" to me. The Citation Needed tags are certainly an issue.
- Farmwork combined with lessons from his mother — such was the order of Jan's life for the next few years. Not sure that is grammatically correct.
- The whole paragraph beginning "Farmwork combined with lessons from his mother" reeks of OR/SYTNH. The whole statement "on these Swartland farms there was little of the rigid segregation which was already emerging elsewhere in South Africa and which was later to have such profound consequences. Since 1828 the Cape had enshrined in law the principle of strict legal equality between the races." is cited to an 1828 legal ordinance, and I doubt that supports the sociological suppositions suggested.
-Indy beetle (talk) 11:18, 23 November 2023 (UTC)
- Delist: this is not up to scratch for verifiability, and smells quite badly to me of hagiography. Given the extremely controversial nature of its subject, I'm not happy that WP:NPOV is fully met, let alone WP:TONE. UndercoverClassicist T·C 09:48, 24 November 2023 (UTC)
- Delist for issues with tone, sourcing and a lack of NPOV. Zawed (talk) 10:20, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • GAN review not found
- Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:44, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
This 2007 addition relies on many IMDB and other self-published sources, which need to be replaced. Spinixster (chat!) 01:43, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • GAN review not found
- Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:45, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
This 2007 addition has unsourced or badly sourced information (IMDB, etc) which fails criteria 2 of the GACR. Additionally, there may be some WP:CRUFT. Spinixster (chat!) 01:24, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • GAN review not found
- Result: Also overly reliant on non-independent sources. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:48, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
Statistics for the school are outdated, citing numbers from 2007 and 2013. History section stops at 2012. Uncited passages are also present throughout the article. Z1720 (talk) 02:27, 18 November 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • GAN review not found
- Result: Kept. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:23, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
"Later history" section marked with a "needs more sources" banner since October 2022. Other short uncited statements in the article. Z1720 (talk) 18:06, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
- The stuff in that "Later History" section should be very easy to source; it essentially boils down to a very compressed narratives of the city's sieges in 1422 and 1453. I'm not seeing any CN tags outside that section, and the GA criteria don't require everything to be sourced, only one citation per paragraph plus anything controversial, directly attributed or likely to be challenged. Did you have any particular unsourced statements in mind?
- I can see a couple of small-ish things (e.g. a couple of slightly weird inline citations, some slightly strange and purple prose), but I'm not sure I'm seeing a real argument for delisting: it mostly seems like it's picked up some lint which could be trimmed off without too much difficulty and without massively affecting the article overall. Of course, I might not be looking in the same places as you are! UndercoverClassicist T·C 21:48, 30 October 2023 (UTC)
- @UndercoverClassicist and Z1720: anything still outstanding? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:12, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
- There's been some improvements, but there are still some uncited sentences. Also, it seems like the majority of the article is cited to van Millingen, who published their work in 1899. Should this source be used as the majority source of this article? Can other sources be used? Z1720 (talk) 18:32, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
- I've done a bit of work on ancient topography: it's fair to say that it was far more in vogue, as a field, in the 19th/early 20th century, so it's not unusual for the most current source for the minutiae of where such-and-such a temple was to be from the 1920s or so. Just scanning through, Van Millingen seems to be mostly used for fairly pedestrian details (for instance, the names and locations of the walls' various gates), and I would be extremely surprised if much of that had been re-evaluated and totally unsurprised if V-M was the last person to bother to handle the topic in detail. At any rate, I think it clears the bar as a reliable source: there's no requirement in GA to be abreast of current scholarship or even to use the best sources available (that's much more an FA thing).
- On unsourced sentences: at the risk of repeating myself, that's not inherently a problem for GA: in fact, unless those sentences are massive controversial, direct quotations or BLP, or
unless those sentences conglomerate into an uncited paragraph(that's not quite a fair summary), the GA criteria pass no judgement here at all. It might help if you threw in a few CN tags to the article: in most cases, I've been able to track down sources for apparently uncited bits fairly easily. - I'd agree that it's not a perfect article, but could you explain which part of the GA criteria you think it currently fails? UndercoverClassicist T·C 21:21, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
- UndercoverClassicist, the GA criteria were changed in an RfC earlier this year; it is now required that "all content that could reasonably be challenged ... must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph". Z1720 may be referring to occasions such as: It was known in late Ottoman times as the Tabak Kapı., or If this theory is correct, the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI, died in the vicinity of this gate during the final assault of 29 May 1453. Support to this theory comes from the fact that the particular gate is located at a far weaker section of the walls than the "Cannon Gate", and the most desperate fighting naturally took place here.. Hope that helps, ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:33, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
- Yes - on second reading, there are one or two paragraphs that don't end with a citation; I failed to find a (good) citation for the Tabak Kapı, so might end up having to remove it; will do another go-through to catch the others. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:46, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
- I added cn tags to the places that I think need citations. Z1720 (talk) 14:11, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
- So that's four sentences to be cited, and then the article can be kept. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 16:02, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
- I added cn tags to the places that I think need citations. Z1720 (talk) 14:11, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
- Comment: My understanding is that any reasonable cn tag is a per se challenge and a citation must be provided. voorts (talk/contributions) 23:38, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
- I've gone through; that's all the CN tags cleared. I haven't done a full sweep for other dodgy statements, so there may well be more that can be added. UndercoverClassicist T·C 10:44, 26 November 2023 (UTC)
- Yes - on second reading, there are one or two paragraphs that don't end with a citation; I failed to find a (good) citation for the Tabak Kapı, so might end up having to remove it; will do another go-through to catch the others. UndercoverClassicist T·C 13:46, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
- UndercoverClassicist, the GA criteria were changed in an RfC earlier this year; it is now required that "all content that could reasonably be challenged ... must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph". Z1720 may be referring to occasions such as: It was known in late Ottoman times as the Tabak Kapı., or If this theory is correct, the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI, died in the vicinity of this gate during the final assault of 29 May 1453. Support to this theory comes from the fact that the particular gate is located at a far weaker section of the walls than the "Cannon Gate", and the most desperate fighting naturally took place here.. Hope that helps, ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:33, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
- There's been some improvements, but there are still some uncited sentences. Also, it seems like the majority of the article is cited to van Millingen, who published their work in 1899. Should this source be used as the majority source of this article? Can other sources be used? Z1720 (talk) 18:32, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
- @UndercoverClassicist and Z1720: anything still outstanding? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:12, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • Most recent review
- Result: concerns with inadequate detail ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:24, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
Post-2015 career needs more information and suffers from oversectioning. Uncited text throughout, and "Player profile" might need an update. Z1720 (talk) 15:00, 9 November 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • GAN review not found
- Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:26, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
This 2005 listing contains significant uncited material, violating GA criterion 2. Hopefully an easy fix, if someone has references to hand. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 19:43, 12 November 2023 (UTC)
- I have added a few sources to some unsourced statements and fixed a bit, but I don't think I'll be able to completely fix the article; I think a more experienced editor would be up to the task. Blue Jay (talk) 12:11, 16 November 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • GAN review not found
- Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:27, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
Many uncited paragraphs and the lede can be expanded. Z1720 (talk) 05:15, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • GAN review not found
- Result: Delisted. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 23:29, 27 November 2023 (UTC)
Lots of uncited passages, and the prose in various places in the "Same-sex marriage" section needs to be updated to expand upon the latest statistics listed in the tables. Z1720 (talk) 05:35, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
- Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • • GAN review not found
- Result: In addition, a large amount of non-independent sourcing means that the article does not meet the GA criteria. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 21:49, 28 November 2023 (UTC)
This 2007 addition relies on many IMDB and other self-published sources, which need to be replaced. Spinixster (chat!) 02:03, 17 November 2023 (UTC)