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At what stage is FA team help most useful?

The twelve articles here cover quite a spectrum in terms of quality, from non-existent (i.e., no article!) to nearly GA. I wonder at which stage FA team input is most helpful. Personally, I'm comfortable at the near-GA level, so I've made a few suggestions and edits to Mario Vargas Llosa (okay, I admit I was also inspired because I love the film based on Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter). I hope the FA team can help out with articles at an earlier stage of development, but given the team goals, I guess we are going to concentrate on the more developed articles to begin with, and move on to the others when they improve: there is no point in copyediting a stub! Are there other views about how to handle this? Geometry guy 22:09, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Good questions. I've been thinking about similar things, which is why also I just tried to outline the stages I think we need to go through. We're currently still at the "start" stage, and still need to get some momentum. The delay is partly, I reckon, because April seems a long way away. But mostly because people still find actually editing wikipedia to be a strange and mystifying idea. (I realize you experienced editors probably find that hard to understand, but believe me...) However, the next stage will involve figuring out what needs to be done, to plan each article's structure etc. This is relatively easy for the novel articles, thanks in part to the template provided by the Wikiproject on Novels. It's also not too bad for the biographical articles. I fear that the articles on the dictator novel and on the Boom will be the most difficult and daunting.
So, to answer your question, it might be good if the FA team were to think not only how they can help with already advanced articles (copy-editing, technical issues, etc.), but also (and not only with this project) how they can help people get start class and stub class articles moving in the right direction. I'm not sure I have any answers... --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 00:04, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
I hate to point this out, but the template at WikiProject Novel rarely works well (I've tried to change it, but without much luck, I'm afraid). After having written a couple of novel FAs myself and reviewed many, I have come to the conclusion that each novel article must be designed individually. My first piece of advice would be to thoroughly research the novel and then decide what is important to include in the article. My second piece of advice would be to look at some of the novel/literature FAs to see how widely they can vary. The same is true of biographies as well. I have written several biography FAs now and each one presented its own daunting challenges. For example, sometimes an author's works are best discussed within the context of his or her life (e.g. Sarah Trimmer) and sometimes they are best separated (e.g. Anna Laetitia Barbauld). It all depends on the nature of the biography. Feel free to keep asking questions - article development is often a long process. By the way, I can assure you that editing wikipedia will soon become second nature. It's amazing how fast one picks up the code. I recommend that the editors on the project install wikEd, if possible; it has a lovely color-coding scheme that makes editing much easier. Awadewit | talk 22:56, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Awadewit here that deviation from the template is necessary. The contents (form) of the article should follow what the sources provide. Another point, my background is writing on more technical articles (cities) where it is easy not to infringe on orginal research (advancing an argument). But since recently starting writing on book-articles there have been times when I wanted to explain a theme or story element, but couldn't because none of my references did (even though I know I'm right, of course). Oh look, Jbmurray...there is a current FAC on a fellow UBC professor <plug>Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/David Suzuki: The Autobiography</plug> and an FA on another Rudolf Vrba. --maclean 00:42, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Yup, I've noticed that many FA novel articles deviate from the recommended template. But looking at either such models or the template gives a pretty good idea of the kinds of things these articles should contain... i.e. not just plot summary or lists of characters, for instance! --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 01:59, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Where best to ask for help?

I've put a request for help regarding images over on the project talk page. I don't expect anyone else in the project itself to have the answers, so implicitly this plea is directly directly at you guys, or perhaps any other passing knowledgeable editors. I'm taking it that that's the best place to put such requests. Or would it be better to use this page here? What do you think? --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 07:09, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I wonder about this too. I would suggest that if anyone has a comment or request about this project specifically for the FA-Team then it should be posted here, otherwise it should be posted at WT:MMM. I'm going to send round a message later today to FA-Team volunteers in which I will ask them to watchlist relevant pages. In this case, I think you rightly placed your request on the project page. Geometry guy 09:35, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
I've already watchlisted the talk pages of the biography articles, as well as this page and WT:MMM. Between all of us, we should have everything watchlisted soon, I hope. I would request that all the members of the MMM project also watchlist this page and the MMM talk page so that they can learn from each other's questions. Karanacs (talk) 17:31, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Grand. Yup, all project members have been asked to watchlist this page and the MMM project page. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 22:12, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
I sent out the message to FA-team folk. I hope we will pull together nicely now. Geometry guy 22:58, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Spanish help

I didn't "sign up" for the "team" as I don't want to create a COI, but please ping me for any review needed of Spanish translations or Spanish sourcing issues as articles are prepared for FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:02, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

From the articles I've looked at so far, I'm noticing that Project members will need to decide on a citation style method, {{es icon}} needs to be employed on refs, and there is a lot of WP:OVERLINKing, including solo years and centuries (see WP:MOSDATE). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:30, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Nota bene! It is great that Sandy has commented here, because she is one of Wikipedia's most experienced editors on what makes a really great article. She helps to close FAC discussions on the basis of consensus, which is why she mentions COI (conflict of interest). Geometry guy 22:56, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
So does Marskell, but since FAR works a bit differently than FAC, I feel more ... "constrained" :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:10, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Talk page message for project members

Having watchlisted some of the articles, would it be then useful to follow up by leaving a message (on either the talk pages of the project members dealing with that article, or the talk page of the article itself) explicitly stating that we can be contacted for help (and maybe how to do it and the type of help we can provide). I think an invitation of this sort would help to break the ice with us face-less FA-Team members, and possibly help the new editors get over any apprehension involved in dropping in on talk pages uninvited (like the rest of us do!). EyeSereneTALK 22:40, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me! Any comments, Wrad? Geometry guy 22:46, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Sounds great. The more approachable we are, the better. We don't want them to feel like they're working in a vacuum. Wrad (talk) 23:02, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
It's getting late here, so I'll draft something tomorrow if you like (unless someone else would rather do it or there's some objections to come). Cheerio! EyeSereneTALK 23:16, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Sounds marvellous! --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 23:24, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, how about something like:

To assist WikiProject Murder Madness and Mayhem in its drive to bring this article to Featured status, a number of experienced editors from the FA-Team have volunteered their editing services to the project. To see which editors are watching this article, click here.

You can contact a specific editor directly by leaving a message on their talk page, or more generally by posting a message here. To do this, click the '+' tab at the top of the page and enter your message, and a subject title, in the editing window that will appear. Don't forget to finish off by typing four tildes (~~~~) to automatically add your signature; you need to be logged in for this to work properly.

We're all really enthusiastic about this project, and looking forward to working with you. All the best, The FA-Team

What I was originally hoping to do was to transclude editor names etc into the message, but I'm not sure if it's worth creating a live template for this (it may be going OTT...) Thoughts? EyeSereneTALK 14:15, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I like the message and the link, rather than a list of names. That way more people can sign up to watchlist pages, or some might drop out if life gets too busy, and we don't have to constantly update templates. Karanacs (talk) 14:43, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Yep, that was my concern. I suppose the other way to go would be to create separate FA-Team pages for each article with the editor names on and transclude those with a page link, but again this seems over-complicated. The advantage would be that the MMM members don't have to navigate multiple pages to find someone to help out. EyeSereneTALK 15:55, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
OK, left the above message as there were no further comments. EyeSereneTALK 11:20, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Spanish-language sources

I want to nip this one in the bud. I've noticed that some of the other editors of these pages have problems with pages written in Spanish since this is an English Wikipedia. I don't agree. I think we should encourage the best sources, not the best English sources. If a translation exists, it should be referred to, but if it doesn't, that is not grounds in my view for ignoring the source altogether. Wrad (talk) 23:05, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I think that's right. WP:RSUE provides for foreign-language sources where they are better than English ones - although it does strongly encourage providing a translation of the same for verifiability. How does this go down at FAC? EyeSereneTALK 23:13, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree 100%. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 23:23, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
I've never seen a problem with non-English sources at FAC, but nominators should be prepared to explain the sources a bit if the reviewers can't immediately identify whether they would qualify as reliable. Karanacs (talk) 14:45, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
If English-language sources of comparable quality are available, they should be used. If not, several articles have passed FAC with Spanish-language sources. See Same-sex marriage in Spain and El Hatillo, which had literally only one English language source. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:07, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Along similar lines... This diff[1] shows one philosophy as to how one should approach wikipedia, but I fear it's a little off-putting. It's obviously correct to say that they'd made a mistake, but the MOS is a huge thing to digest before even starting to edit... So, I have wondered if it would be worth putting the under construction template on to these articles. I did consider this and earlier ruled it out... but now I wonder. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 02:04, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I would ignore that comment: the editor is plainly wrong. In a similar vain, please don't add under-construction templates, as they discourage others from editing an article (indeed, they are specifically used to avoid edit conflicts if a major work is under way by one editor). Geometry guy 09:10, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
PS. Given the above 100% agreement, why did you remove all the Spanish sources from Mario Vargas Llosa? :-)
Hey, touché. Though really I'd like to get rid of almost all the further reading sections on these articles. At a later stage, hopefully, they can go. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 19:39, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
I broadly agree in the long run, but I think for now the ideal is to convert as much further reading as possible (in whatever language), into actual references. Geometry guy 20:43, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Absolutely. Which is why also I'm generally moving the references over to the talk pages, so students have them and can go to the library and seek them out. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 22:17, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) The relevant policy: "Because this is the English Wikipedia, for the convenience of our readers, English-language sources should be used in preference to foreign-language sources, assuming the availability of an English-language source of equal quality, so that readers can easily verify that the source material has been used correctly."

The verifiability policy has said as much for a couple of years. We prefer English language sources if they are of equal quality. If there is no English source for a given point then, of course, use a foreign language. Marskell (talk) 20:58, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

And this is a very sound policy. Thanks for the clarification! --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 22:17, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Mission update

Just filling in for Wrad here :-) With about 6 weeks until April 10, time is getting short, especially as FAC and GAN typically take several weeks each (although GAN could be faster if FA Team members reviewed articles which they haven't been involved with). So, what is the situation on the ground? A brief look at the edit histories suggests great progress on The President (novel), and things are starting to happen on Miguel_Ángel_Asturias, but not much else, as far as I can tell. A worrying trend is the addition of unsourced new material, but I'm reluctant to {{fact}}-bomb.

Can other team members report their experience so far, and suggest ways forward? Thanks, Geometry guy 21:17, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

That's about my experience as well, although The President is having fewer problems with refs than Asturias. Wrad (talk) 21:42, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
It might not be such a bad idea for your guys to point out where we need sourcing. I think i'm fairly sure what needs to be sourced but help is always appreciated. Also we've all been on break for a week so that explains the slow progress recently. --Abarratt (talk) 05:13, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
A fail-safe way to do this is to source everything unless it would be totally obvious to everyone (probably don't need to source that Columbus sailed in 1492, or that Martin Luther King was African-American, etc). Everything else should have a source so that people who are interested can verify the information, and so they can go find that source and find more information about that topic. If a fact is particularly controversial, you may need multiple citations for it. Karanacs (talk) 16:22, 26 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes, El Señor Presidente is our shining success so far. I'm likewise a little worried about some of the others. I will report back later today. NB I don't think you need worry about "fact-bombing." This will in fact help remind group-members where citations are needed. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 17:16, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

OK, an update: the situation on the ground is that metaphorical arses have been metaphorically kicked where necessary, and much praise has been lavished especially on the group that has been working on El Señor Presidente. Indeed, I've asked this group to address everyone next week, to pass on what they've learned from their experience of bringing an article up from non-existence to B-class and close to being ready for Good article review. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 02:03, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Good/Featured Article Submission

Do articles have to first become Good Articles, then Featured Articles? Or can we submit any article for featured article review. Or can we submit an article for both Good Article and Featured Article review at the same time? And what's the time frame like? I heard 3 weeks for each review, but I would like someone to confirm this. Lincolnchan98 (talk) 06:58, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Lincoln, here's my understanding, but I'd be grateful for someone from the FA-team to chime in... You don't have to submit an article to Good Article review first, but it seems well worth it, not least because you get feedback as to how it could be improved. Good article review lasts up to a week. Featured Article review lasts longer. Of course, you can (and probably should) continue to improve the article while it's under review, in response to the criticisms and suggestions you receive. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 08:42, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Yep, there's no requirement for articles to go through the review hierarchy step-by-step, but I think it would be beneficial to go for Good article status before trying for a Featured article. Not only does it give some experience of a review process in action, but it will ensure your article is ready for the next step. As far as time goes, both processes are perpetually backlogged and articles can sit on the waiting list for a few weeks (we may be able to short-cut this though). Once an article actually gets reviewed, for GA this takes no longer than one week, and often less. For FA, it really depends how quickly the reviewers' comments and suggestions are implemented; I've seen anything from a few days up to a couple of weeks or more. EyeSereneTALK 08:51, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
The ideal would be Peer review -> good article nominations -> Peer review -> Featured article candidates, but time is short. If you want to go for FA, I recommend at least trying a peer review or good article nomination first. Both can be hit and miss: articles which have been thoroughly peer reviewed are better received at FAC, but that requires a thorough peer review, which is not guaranteed. With GA, you will at least get a review (eventually!). The FA-Team will be watching and trying to troubleshoot: if we are not alert enough, ping us! Geometry guy 19:11, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Request for copyedit on The President (novel)

Hi all. The MMM have been working hard on this article (with help from Wrad and interference from me), and it's rapidly approaching the point where the single biggest remaining task is a copyedit. I'm happy to do this, but I have little experience with literature articles, so it may be more useful if one of our resident novel-FA geniuses (looks meaningfully at Awadewit) was able to help out. If availability is a problem, I'll plough on regardless, but I'd still be hugely grateful for any input. Cheers! EyeSereneTALK 18:10, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

That would be fantastic, Awadewit. Thank you VERY much! EyeSereneTALK 12:49, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

This has now been nominated for good article status. FA team members who have not been involved with the article so far (I think that excludes only EyeSerene and Wrad, although Awadewit has volunteered for a different role) are encouraged to check out the article and review it if they can. Geometry guy 23:19, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I know that there's a backlog, but it would be marvellous if the article could be reviewed sometime before Thursday noon, Pacific time... I'd love to be able to announce the article's promotion in class! --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 11:07, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
I've asked one of the GA sweep team if he wouldn't mind doing the honours. Of course, there's no guarantee the article will pass before Thursday... EyeSerenetalk 11:28, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Marvellous. I know there are no guarantees... but fingers crossed!
I have finished my first round of copy editing and posted comments at The President (novel)#Comments and questions from Awadewit. Awadewit | talk 15:36, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Many thanks for this! --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 16:06, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
Just read your comments - truly fantastic work, thank you! Given your other commitments, your time is massively appreciated. It's painfully obvious why you're such an asset to Wikipedia (and, of course, us on the FA-Team!).
Jacky's raised many of the same issues in his GA review, so hopefully they'll be dealt with during the hold period. Would you be happy with waiting until his GA assessment is over before the rest are addressed? EyeSerenetalk 16:10, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm just happy the comments were helpful. I'm off to work on my Wikimania paper on collaborative writing. Is that ironic in some way? (I have no problems waiting until GA is over - I'm so busy time has no meaning for me anymore.) Awadewit | talk 16:20, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Further Update

There's been quite a bit of movement over the past couple of weeks. Most significantly, El Señor Presidente has now been submitted to Good Article review. Other articles are also now moving along, and sourced material is appearing. Some are of course still moving quicker than others... But things are looking up! As always, FA-team input is much appreciated. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 23:12, 10 March 2008 (UTC)


Requesting Help on Miguel Ángel Asturias

Well, the pace of things is picking up. Someone came and did what they themselves called a "fly-by" GA nomination of Miguel Ángel Asturias. And then almost immediately someone else did a preliminary GA review. If you ask me, the article wasn't quite ready, but still... Now obviously enough the promotion has been put on hold, so we have a week. I know that a lot of attention is being paid to El Señor Presidente right now. It would be lovely if we could also have some help on Asturias! --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 02:14, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

It happens ;) If this is a problem, you can always contact the GA reviewer, explain that you didn't intend to nominate the article yet, and request that the review be postponed or even cancelled until you're ready. You can also request an extension on the GA hold if that would be helpful. EyeSerenetalk 08:34, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Well, we'll see what we can come up with in the next few days! I've suggested to that group that the nomination could inspire a week's worth of hard work. Still, and despite the fact that quite a lot has been done on the article, it's certainly not close to the state that El Señor Presidente was in at nomination. If need be, yes, I'll ask for an extension. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 09:02, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Fair enough, you could be right! I should also add the proviso that the reviewer has perhaps misinterpreted one of the GA criteria: images are not in fact required at GA. The criterion is that, if they are used, they should be properly tagged and captioned (no. 6 here). EyeSerenetalk
Yes, to put it politely, the difference between the two reviews received so far is a study in contrasts. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 10:37, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
That is a polite way to put it ;) If nothing else, it's illustrative of the main drawback of GA's single reviewer system. Generally we feel the payoff in reduced complexity, higher throughput, and a more personal and less adversarial approach than FA is worth the odd outlier... it's just rather unfortunate for all concerned that you've bagged one. I can only apologise on behalf of the GA WikiProject, and I've pinged Karanacs and Geometry guy (as they've got this article on their FA-Team watchlists). EyeSerenetalk 11:25, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Let me know if I can be of help. I've written several "literary biographies", so I might be able to provide some guidance. Awadewit | talk 13:12, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
I went through and fixed some of the issues that the GA reviewer had pointed out (with a comment that his images request was not reasonable). I've also added a section to the talk page with more items that need to be fixed and should have been mentioned in the GA review. Karanacs (talk) 14:00, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Many thanks for this! Very helpful! --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 09:43, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

B-Class review?

Guys and guyesses... A little later than is good for my own sanity, some of these articles are now really starting to motor. I've noticed that the students have often appreciated it when their articles have been reclassified as "B-Class." It gives them a real sense of achievement. To be honest, I'm not entirely clear on what "B-Class" really signifies. But I think that a bunch of the articles are there are almost there. It would give them a big boost if anybody could swing by quickly and either bump an article up a grade, or very briefly state on the talk page what might need to be done to get the article over that hurdle. Many thanks! --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 09:47, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, scratch that... Someone else has just gone through and upgraded almost all of them. I'm not sure that that wasn't a little precipitate, but still, it'll warm the cockles of the studes' hearts. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 10:52, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Stub, Start and B-Class are wikiproject specific ratings and different projects can rate articles differently. If you want to motivate those working on the less strong articles recently upgraded, leave them at start class at WP:MMM. Geometry guy 18:51, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Aha, so our little wikiproject could have its own criteria! OK. Though in this case, I think it's more motivating to go with the flow of the external assessment. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 19:44, 16 March 2008 (UTC)


Update, March 17

A beginning of the week update... As I've mentioned, there's been significant movement on a number of our articles. Above all El Señor Presidente made it through GAN, with much very appreciated help from you guys. I think they have a good sense of what still needs to be done, especially thanks to User:Awadewit very thorough review. There seems little doubt that this will be the first article that will go to FAC, perhaps well before the April 10 deadline.

I'd point out the following regarding a few of the other articles: I, the Supreme has now got a significant number of decent sources, and is really shaping up. There are a couple of obvious things to be done, most notably the addition of a decent synopsis, but I think that this is now one of our better articles; The General in His Labyrinth is not far behind, and is perhaps at the stage where a brief once-over from someone from the FA-team would be appreciated. I could see both of these two articles going up to GAN fairly soon. Miguel Ángel Asturias is at GAN, but progress there has slowed a little bit in the last couple of days. The main problem here, I think, is still decent sources, and there is room for expansion throughout; on the other hand, the structure of the article is in place. Then I'd just mention two articles that are somewhat lost: the people working on Dictator novel still need focus, though in fact this is an article that has received quite a lot of work. It might be especially good to encourage User:Abarratt. And Mario Vargas Llosa has had a fair amount of input, but more on the politics than on the literature; some advice on structure might come in handy.

Of course, you all may have noticed other issues, and we'd love to hear your input.

I should also say personally that the process has been fascinating (and also challenging). I do hope to write up some reflections on everything at some point.

Again and as always, many thanks to you all for your help. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 22:39, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

In fact, if you are interested in reflections in media res, I have started writing something here. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 12:44, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Requesting Help on The General in his Labyrinth

A bit of a ditto of the Miguel Ángel Asturias nomination... Though if you ask me, this article is in better shape than the previous one, it's still not yet there I'd have thought. Any help appreciated! --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 18:50, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmmmm... deja vu... I don't think we're ready yet either, but if your students have the time available I believe it's do-able ;) EyeSerenetalk 19:44, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Will drop by and make general comments. Awadewit (talk) 22:05, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Help Please on Mario Vargas Llosa

Hi everyone,

In the past week we've been loading up the article, Mario Vargas Llosa with lots of sourced material. We think that this article has come a long way since before our project started. What we're in desperate need of, either from a helpful FA-Team member or a caring Wikipedia citizen, is a thorough copy-edit. We're all extremely new to Wikipedia and are highly unfamiliar with the accepted format for articles. We are hoping to submit this for GA nomination soon, and would greatly appreciate your help. Lincolnchan98 (talk) 07:32, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Ditto what Lincolnchan98 said. And now it's been nominated! --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 08:21, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
The article is in pretty good shape now. I hope it is now receiving the attention it deserves from myself and Karanacs (I should have helped out earlier, sorry), but we need a GA reviewer (EyeSerene?) urgently and a literary copyeditor (Awadawit?) in the next few weeks. Geometry guy 23:17, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
It's now a GA and has been listed at Peer review. I'll ping Outriggr. Geometry guy 08:52, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Update, March 25

Another update for the beginning of another week, with only a little over two weeks of our project to go. As we're coming rapidly up to our deadline, the pace of editing across the project continues to be pretty fast and furious. There are currently three articles in Good Article review: Miguel Ángel Asturias, The General in His Labyrinth, and Mario Vargas Llosa. Unfortunately, the first of these is rather at a standstill, both from the side of our editors and from that of the reviewer. I will try to do what I can with the editors; I'm not sure what to do about the fact that the reviewer seems to want to take his or her leave of the review process. Meanwhile, I hope we can find a reviewer for Mario Vargas Llosa very shortly.

As per the talk page for El Señor Presidente, I think we're a little stuck and intimidated by the various demands of the Manual of Style. I've been trying to read up on this and, boy, is it daunting! We discovered with the brief and over-precipitate nomination to Featured Article candidacy that we could be very quickly shot down on MoS non-compliance. I'm hoping that we can move to candidacy properly shortly, at least as a test case. Otherwise, to be frank, I fear that the goal of producing featured articles is just over-ambitious. It may be that we will have to rest content with GA status. Any and all advice here would be welcomed.

Finally, can I point you to a couple more articles that could use some advice and/or intervention. Gabriel García Márquez has, after a long period in the doldrums, had a lot of attention over the past week. For what it's worth, this is also an article that gets over half a million page views a year! As per their comment on the talk page, the editors would like some orientation as to where to go next, following their big spurt of adding sourced material. And Latin American Boom has also had plenty of edits from a couple of editors who have a number of reasons for feeling overwhelmed: for instance, the fact that this is by far the broadest topic, and also because they are affected by a number of offline issues. Any help you could render them would also, and as always, be much appreciated.

Many thanks. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 09:51, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

And for what it's worth, this is the week in statistics, with a focus (naturally enough) on the efforts of project members. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 10:37, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused about this over-emphasis and concern about MoS; MoS fixes are easy and relatively painless as long as someone is on board who knows MoS. More important is the use of high quality reliable sources and copyediting. The President appeared at FAC with a few non-reliable sources and with concerns on the talk page that it still needed copyediting; those issues are a more important area to focus on, as anyone can quickly and easily fix MoS issues once the articles are reliably sourced and copyedited. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:36, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
You are completely right, but this illustrates the distinction between perception and truth. If MoS editors do not realise that this is the way that MoS is perceived, then they are as blind as GA editors who believe GA is unbureaucratic. :-) Geometry guy 23:43, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your reassurance on this. I am indeed breathing easier now! It's true that the (very quick) response to the FAC was a bit of a shock to the system! I think it was the series of comments on images that most threw me. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 09:45, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
I left a couple of quick comments at Gabriel García Márquez. Awadewit (talk) 17:06, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
It's important to sort out the image licensing before coming to FAC; you might want to check with Elcobbola (talk · contribs). This is not a MoS issue; it's a policy issue. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:12, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Response to Gguy; I don't see a problem with having a healthy respect for style issues when articles want to represent Wiki' finest work, as featured articles. Per WP:WIAFA, crit 2, those editors should be aware of MoS. That MoS issues are easy to fix shouldn't be confused with that they do need to be fixed. For example, I probably just wasted a lot of time working on The General again, because the article ignores WP:CITE and mixes citation and cite templates. I converted them all to correct cite templates (since part of them use cite templates), in accordance with WP:CITE, cleaning up numerous formatting and other MoS errors along the way.[2] But since the article also uses inline Harvard citations, now there's another conflict that will have to be resolved. (I'd remove the Harvards, but the editors will need to decide that ... if they do decide to use citation templates, they need to be used consistently and correctly.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:16, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the heads-up. They clearly want to use {{citation}} as they are linking to the references from the citations. I will fix it. Geometry guy 22:24, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
You may have to completely revert me then, and then all will need to be converted to citation; since I don't use citation, I don't know how to clean them up, but there are date problems, empty parameters, incorrect parameters, dash problems ... et al. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:30, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
There are also WP:DASH problems throughout; it may be easier for these editors to get in the habit of asking Brighterorange (talk · contribs) to run his script to sort out their WP:HYPHENs and WP:DASHes. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:33, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
I would really like to urge the new editors on this project not to worry about these MOS issues. That is what the FA-Team is for. We know the minutiae of the MOS and can fix up the article before it is submitted for FAC. We want the primary editors of the articles to focus on the content and the prose. Please don't feel like you have to learn all of those MOS stuff in the next two weeks! We are here to help you! :) Awadewit (talk) 22:38, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Agree with Awadewit 100%. Meanwhile, I've done the revert suggested by SandyGeorgia and attempted to fix the problems she found. Blank parameters are fine: this is just scope to add further information, if it becomes available. I hope I have sorted out dashes and date problems. Please troubleshoot. Geometry guy 23:50, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I should say I quite like blank parameters as a reminder that more information could be added later: e.g. an authorlink should the appropriate article be created; and if there's info that's needed, my tendency has been to add question-marks. I realize that may leave things looking a little messy sometimes, but our general movement is onwards and upwards... Many thanks for all this. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 00:00, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Still looking, Gguy; I think dashes are sorted, but dates aren't. I don't know how to fix them in citation templates. Some dates are linked (in text and citation), others arent'. Per WP:MOSDATE, either they should all be linked or all not (for example, no accessdates are linked, but publication dates are). I'm curious about why some editors switch real endashes to html endashes (I've seen this before, and thought real endashes were easier on the servers). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:30, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for fixing the dates. I'm not sure why people switch real dashes to html. Maybe they find it easier to read in the edit box. I usually write in html because I prefer typing to scrolling and clicking (so I switch incorrect hyphens to html dashes) but I'm happy for others to convert my dashes to unicode. In any case, don't worry about the servers :-) Geometry guy 09:03, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Thanks once more for all your help and reassurance. I should also mention that from the start I've encouraged project members to think that change to wikipedia can (and is) incremental. One thing at a time. Perhaps that's because how I approach things... I was gradually changing reference styles from "cite book" (etc.) to "citation." Obviously, I appreciate it when someone goes through with a broom to fix things en masse! But this is perhaps just to explain why sometimes things are half one way, half another. We're working on it! And indeed, from the start I've been stressing to project members that their number one priority is coming up with sourced information. Though I've also stressed for instance that they need full details... a couple of them (e.g. on El Señor Presidente) are realizing now that they have to go back and find these details if they didn't put them in the first time. But that's part of the learning process, and to be honest I'm very proud of 'em all. I was very happy (newsflash here!) to see that The General in His Labyrinth was just promoted to GA. Yay! And once again, we are more than aware that without you guys this project would have been all but impossible. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 22:51, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) I would really like to urge the new editors on this project not to worry about these MOS issues. I admit, I'm confused. Yes, they don't need to worry about these issues, since others can easily resolve MoS issue (not images, copyediting and sourcing so easily), but I'm wondering then why an article was nominated prematurely, without these issues being resolved? We do want to discourage another premature nomination, I hope? What am I missing? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:18, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

You are missing an awful lot and need to relax and trust us that we know what we're doing. I'm sure you realize, or I hope you realize, that that last article was nominated against overwhelming consensus (isn't that why you withdrew it???) MoS issues will be fixed. This project involves a lot of new editors and we are trying to help them understand that they don't have to worry about MoS because the FA-Team will do it for them, the vast majority of it. Please keep that in mind while helping us with this and be sensitive to the fact that the people we're working with are new. If you see MoS problems, address them to us, and not them. With the crew we've got here and the fact that you seemed to notice that that nomination was bogus right off the bat, I'm surprised that you're even worried. Wrad (talk) 02:00, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
As you all know, this has been (is) quite an experiment, and quite a learning experience for all concerned. Both the good and the bad, the upsets and the successes. In some way, I'm glad that there have been a few upsets: from my perspective, that's helping teach the students about the potential downsides as well as the upsides of collaborative work with people they've never met. And that's what a wiki is about. I think they've coped tremendously well. And I can't stop thanking all you guys: and that's of course the marvellous FA-Team, but also everyone who's been involved in the process in some way, Wassup included!
Once the project winds up, it might be useful to do some kind of post-mortem, to return to the very first thread on this page. That would certainly be useful for me, probably for other educators who are thinking of doing something similar (and there are plenty who are interested and watching), but also perhaps for you guys. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 02:06, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Dang. If every university in the nation had just a few classes that would do something like this. It would change the world. Wrad (talk) 02:17, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
SandyGeorgia, The President (novel) was nominated by someone not actively involved in editing it or with the project. The project is an educational assignment, which means that almost all (or all) of the editors are new to Wikipedia. We are doing our best to welcome them and show them the ropes. For some reason, Wassupwestcoast nominated the article, even though it was clear on the article's talk page that the article's primary editors and the FA-Team helpers did not believe it was ready. You would have to ask him why he did that. Thanks. Awadewit (talk) 02:21, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for answering the question, Awadewit; Wrad's rudeness was really uncalled for. I thought Wassup was part of the Project. Wrad, no words; you really need to get some WP:AGFness. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:04, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Umm... I removed all those edits. Your mentioning them here is really kind of weird and uncalled for in itself since I was trying to basically repent of the mistake. Don't dig up old wounds please. And please don't feel like you have to blow the police whistle on people who are doing it on themselves. (I really have no idea what AGFness means). Wrad (talk) 03:07, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
I don't know what you're referring to; you removed what edits? I'm referring to the rudeness directed at me above, in this thread, because I thought Wassup was a member of the class. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:12, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Was that rude? What did I say about Wassup up there? I don't think it says anything about him. I'm really confused. It seemed to me that you thought we were about to nominate a bunch of lousy articles for FA and I was trying to clear that up. I honestly thought you would have understood that the nomination wasn't at all part of this project. You seemed to have said so earlier... I was also trying to tell you that a lot of the people we're working with are new and really have no idea what MoS stuff is.
I might have been frustrated, but I wasn't trying to be rude. I was trying pretty dang hard to tone down my frustration. Wrad (talk) 03:17, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Rude was telling me I need to relax because I inquired why people were saying not to worry when I mistakenly thought class members were prematurely nomming other class members' articles. Relax? When my aim is to help FAC run smoothly for these people? Thanks. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:23, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Well apparently I'm not very good at getting people to relax :) I didn't know what you were thinking. Your aim is my aim, so I guess that's all that really matters. Wrad (talk) 03:28, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
[ec] Sandy, I accidentally edited an old version of this page when I added a sentence to offer help. This edit returned some comments by Wrad that he had self-reverted. He thought you were referring to the reverted edits, it seems, which led to further confusion between you. I hope you will both overlook this disagreement, as this project seems to be very successful and, after all, you're both on the same side—guiding articles toward featured status! –Outriggr § 03:27, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm paranoid sometimes and I'm sorry. The edit you presently see above is honestly my fervent attempt to clear things up. I probably didn't do too well, but ... That's just how it turned out. Didn't mean to hurt anyone. Wrad (talk) 03:31, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
What Outriggr said. I know this project is getting a little fast and furious as we're nearing the end of the semester. We're all immensely grateful for all that you are putting into it, helping to make it such a success. There have been a few crossed wires here, it seems, as is perhaps inevitable. And so understandably frustration arises. But I'm sure we can now move on! --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 03:34, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
I didn't know that Outriggr, thanks for filling me in, I don't have time to follow diffs on this page, and was only referring to what was on the page when I visited. Do I need to see those reverted edits? Never mind, no need for that :-) I thought my knowledge of Spanish and Venezuela was going to be useful to this Project, but I'll go back to pushing paper now. :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:34, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Well don't quit because of my stupidity. I'm probably the youngest and least-qualified editor in this whole group. I try to make up for it with enthusiasm, but too often that just causes more problems because it's easier to get attached. Wrad (talk) 03:40, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Please don't worry about it Wrad; it was a transitory misunderstanding, now all cleared up. I'm still getting used to the new structure of my Wikitime, not being able to work on as articles as much as I'd like, and paying the price for dropping in on talk pages I no longer have time to keep up with day to day. Entirely my fault; I'll have to learn to handle it better :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:54, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Heh. Your knowledge of Spanish and Venezuela is invaluable! I've already noticed you picked up the typo on Bolívar's full name! I'm only sorry we're not doing any Venezuelan novels for your expertise to come into its own.  ;) --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 03:40, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Santisma was a bit hard to overlook, and most Venezuelans know that name  :-) Keep up the good work! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:54, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

MoS and FAC

I want to clarify some things. First, I really wish that The President hadn't been prematurely nominated. It freaked a lot of people out. The fact is. FAC is pretty harmless if you really are ready, and I'm confident the article will be soon. But what I really want to focus on is the MoS issue.

The big secret about FAC is (in this case): Don't worry about the MoS. People at FAC will point things out regarding MoS, but the (unwritten?) rule is that, generally, articles can't be failed at FAC for MoS issues alone. What's more. The FA-Team has people that can fix whatever might be brought up quicker than you can bat an eye.

Like Sandy Georgia says above, just focus on reliable sources and copyediting. Focus on issues that are brought up by reviewers that have less to do with style and more to do with the actual content of the article.

I hope this is comforting. Wrad (talk) 23:51, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

All within reason. When MoS breaches are substantial and overwhelming, they do suggest the article hasn't been carefully prepared for FAC or that editors might not know featured standards; I wouldn't suggest bringing any of these articles to FAC until a person knowledgeable on MoS has been through them. Cleanup doesn't take long if someone is on board and there aren't edit conflicts and reverts. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:35, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

There are WP:MOSBOLD issue in the character section of The General; I'm not sure how to best fix them, because bolding is only used for character lists, and this is paragraphs of prose. Either the bolding can be removed or a table of characters can be created as a list. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:45, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I briefly went through The General; there are still WP:MOSBOLD WP:PUNC, WP:MOS#Ellipes (spaces), WP:MOSNUM (spelling out vs. use of digits), curly quotes to be attended to, and a lot of WP:MOSDATE linking issue. The article needs to either consistently link or never link dates. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:10, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
You're missing something. See my above post in an earlier section. Wrad (talk) 02:02, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Mario Vargas Llosa and Dictator novel

I recognize that there's a backlog at WP:GAN. (I tried to alleviate it a bit and do my karma some good by doing a review myself, and when I have time hope to do more.) But I wonder if a kind soul could be persuaded to review Mario Vargas Llosa?

And I realized I should probably have mentioned Dictator novel in my weekly round-up. This is another of our two "theme" articles, offering slightly different challenges from the book articles and biographies. But I reckon it's coming along nicely, albeit at a rather stately progress. A glance at what's there from the FA-Team would be much appreciated!

As always, thanks to you all so much for your generosity and hard work. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 09:49, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

I can probably do the GA review of Mario Vargas Llosa this evening but I won't get to it till about 8 or 9 p.m. CDT, so if anyone else wants to tackle it before then, please do. Mike Christie (talk) 11:51, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
I left a little comment at Dictator novel. Awadewit (talk) 17:24, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Many thanks for your comments there, Awadewit! Much appreciated! --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 09:25, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Project members, if there is anything I can do to help re copyediting, suggestions, or MOS stuff, feel free to drop me a message. –Outriggr § 02:11, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Mario Vargas Llosa is now GA and has been listed at peer review. Copyediting, and comments, would be much appreciated. Geometry guy 09:05, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Geometry guy, thanks for contacting me on talk. I have finished a copyedit of Vargas Llosa, and plan to place some questions/suggestions on the talk page. I hope the copyedit will be found helpful on the way to FAC, and perhaps instructive, in some cases, on how to smoothen or simplify sentences for the original author(s). (Hopefully there aren't major revisions in the wings!) –Outriggr § 09:28, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Away over the weekend

Just a little heads up to say that I'll be away over the weekend. I may be able to check in from time to time; I may not. I'll be back up to speed Sunday evening Pacific Time. I'll leave a note, but you guys might want to keep half an eye on my talk page? Though I feel confident nothing urgent will come up. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 16:17, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Facundo

Goodness, the number of people that are coming together with this project... it's quite humbling. I'm not sure how to thank you all enough.

It seems too much to ask any favors... but the folk over at Facundo have been putting a lot of time into their article recently, and I wonder if someone could drop by and give them some advice on what more needs to be done there.

Many thanks. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 13:00, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Status and suggestion

Gabriel García Márquez just made it to GA status; that's four at GA, two more in the queue at WP:GAN, and six more not yet at GA.

I'd like to suggest that jbmurray maintains a list of what assistance is needed, perhaps on the mission page. If we could then sign up as we take on those tasks (some of which might benefit from more than one person's involvement) then we can see what the next task is. I feel that the next week or so is a time during which this team can make a big difference -- the content is all there, for most of these articles, and much of what is left is about form, prose, organization and MoS issues. I think we can help by doing GA reviews as quickly as the students put the articles up for review, then doing copyedits as requested and assisting with any other issues as they come up. I think we can get several of these articles to FA; maybe not all of them but that should be the goal.

I would suggest, also, that we rely fairly heavily on jjbmurray for two things: completeness/broadness of coverage, and reliability of academic sources. If we can assume problems in those two areas will be noted on the article talk pages, we can focus on organizing and improving what's actually in the article, without worrying too much about what's missing. Mike Christie (talk) 18:06, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

All the above sounds good to me! I'll get to something like a list of assistance needed shortly (I'm still on the road: at Chicago airport right now). I do try and point you guys to particular articles on this page: so let me take this opportunity for another reminder about Facundo if possible! But I'll try to get something a little more orderly together. You guys are terrific! --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 21:46, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I've done what will probably be the last regular progress report here. The articles that need more details feedback are probably the last three: Dictator novel, Latin American Boom, and The Feast of the Goat (in that order). --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 23:04, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and I should add a reminder that we're waiting for a Good Article review of Facundo. This is an article that still has some way to go, but it's been nominated, and as such a review could help orient editors as to what needs still to be done. --jbmurray (talk|contribs) 09:39, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

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