Wikipedia:Featured article candidates

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This star, with one point broken, indicates that an article is a candidate on this page. Here, we determine which articles are to be featured articles (FAs). FAs exemplify Wikipedia's very best work and satisfy the FA criteria. All editors are welcome to review nominations; please see the review FAQ. Before nominating an article, nominators may wish to receive feedback by listing it at Peer review and adding the review to the FAC peer review sidebar. Editors considering their first nomination, and any subsequent nomination before their first FA promotion, are strongly advised to seek the involvement of a mentor, to assist in the preparation and processing of the nomination. Nominators must be sufficiently familiar with the subject matter and sources to deal with objections during the featured article candidates (FAC) process. Nominators who are not significant contributors to the article should consult regular editors of the article before nominating it. Nominators are expected to respond positively to constructive criticism and to make efforts to address objections promptly. An article should not be on Featured article candidates and Peer review or Good article nominations at the same time. The FAC coordinators—Ian Rose, Gog the Mild, David Fuchs and FrB.TG—determine the timing of the process for each nomination. For a nomination to be promoted to FA status, consensus must be reached that it meets the criteria. Consensus is built among reviewers and nominators; the coordinators determine whether there is consensus. A nomination will be removed from the list and archived if, in the judgment of the coordinators: actionable objections have not been resolved; consensus for promotion has not been reached; insufficient information has been provided by reviewers to judge whether the criteria have been met; or a nomination is unprepared. It is assumed that all nominations have good qualities; this is why the main thrust of the process is to generate and resolve critical comments in relation to the criteria, and why such resolution is given considerably more weight than declarations of support. Do not use graphics or complex templates on FAC nomination pages. Graphics such as  Done and  Not done slow down the page load time, and complex templates can lead to errors in the FAC archives. For technical reasons, templates that are acceptable are {{collapse top}} and {{collapse bottom}}, used to hide offtopic discussions, and templates such as {{green}} that apply colours to text and are used to highlight examples without altering fonts. Other templates such as {{done}}, {{not done}}, {{tq}}, {{tq2}}, and {{xt}}, may be removed. An editor is allowed to be the sole nominator of only one article at a time, but two nominations are allowed if the editor is a co-nominator on at least one of them. If a nomination is archived, the nominator(s) should take adequate time to work on resolving issues before re-nominating. None of the nominators may nominate or co-nominate any article for two weeks unless given leave to do so by a coordinator; if such an article is nominated without asking for leave, a coordinator will decide whether to remove it. A coordinator may exempt from this restriction an archived nomination that attracted no (or minimal) feedback. Nominations in urgent need of review are listed here. To contact the FAC coordinators, please leave a message on the FAC talk page, or use the {{@FAC}} notification template elsewhere. A bot will update the article talk page after the article is promoted or the nomination archived; the delay in bot processing can range from minutes to several days, and the {{FAC}} template should remain on the talk page until the bot updates {{Article history}}. Table of Contents – This page:

Featured content: Featured articles ← Featured lists Featured pictures Featured topics Featured article candidates (FAC) Featured article criteria Featured article log Featured article statistics Featured article review (FAR) Former featured articles Unreviewed featured articles/2020 Today's featured article (TFA): This month's queue About Today's featured article Recent TFAs and statistics Current TFA requests Potential TFA requests TFA oddities Most viewed TFAs Featured articles yet to appear as TFA Script to track TFA recent changes Featured article tools: Mentoring for FAC Nominators of featured articles promoted Recent changes to featured articles Random featured article

Nominating How to nominate an article Nomination procedure Before nominating an article, ensure that it meets all of the FA criteria and that peer reviews are closed and archived. Place {{subst:FAC}} at the top of the talk page of the nominated article and save the page. From the FAC template, click on the red "initiate the nomination" link or the blue "leave comments" link. You will see pre-loaded information; leave that text. If you are unsure how to complete a nomination, please post to the FAC talk page for assistance. Below the preloaded title, complete the nomination page, sign with ~~~~, and save the page. Copy this text: {{Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/name of nominated article/archiveNumber}} (substituting Number), and edit this page (i.e., the page you are reading at the moment), pasting the template at the top of the list of candidates. Replace "name of ..." with the name of your nomination. This will transclude the nomination into this page. In the event that the title of the nomination page differs from this format, use the page's title instead. Commenting, etc Commenting, supporting and opposing Supporting and opposing To respond to a nomination, click the "Edit" link to the right of the article nomination (not the "Edit this page" link for the whole FAC page). All editors are welcome to review nominations; see the review FAQ for an overview of the review process. To support a nomination, write *'''Support''', followed by your reason(s), which should be based on a full reading of the text. If you have been a significant contributor to the article before its nomination, please indicate this. A reviewer who specializes in certain areas of the FA criteria should indicate whether the support is applicable to all of the criteria. To oppose a nomination, write *'''Object''' or *'''Oppose''', followed by your reason(s). Each objection must provide a specific rationale that can be addressed. If nothing can be done in principle to address the objection, a coordinator may disregard it. References on style and grammar do not always agree; if a contributor cites support for a certain style in a standard reference work or other authoritative source, reviewers should consider accepting it. Reviewers who object are strongly encouraged to return after a few days to check whether their objection has been addressed. To withdraw the objection, strike it out (with <s> ... </s>) rather than removing it. Alternatively, reviewers may transfer lengthy, resolved commentary to the FAC archive talk page, leaving a link in a note on the FAC archive. To provide constructive input on a nomination without specifically supporting or objecting, write *'''Comment''' followed by your advice. For ease of editing, a reviewer who enters lengthy commentary may create a neutral fourth-level subsection, named either ==== Review by EditorX ==== or ==== Comments by EditorX ==== (do not use third-level or higher section headers). Please do not create subsections for short statements of support or opposition—for these a simple *'''Support''',*'''Oppose''', or *'''Comment''' followed by your statement of opinion, is sufficient. Please do not use a semicolon to bold a subheading; this creates accessibility problems. If a nominator feels that an Oppose has been addressed, they should say so, either after the reviewer's signature, or by interspersing their responses in the list provided by the reviewer. Per talk page guidelines, nominators should not cap, alter, strike, or add graphics to comments from other editors. If a nominator finds that an opposing reviewer is not returning to the nomination page to revisit improvements, this should be noted on the nomination page, with a diff to the reviewer's talk page showing the request to reconsider.

Nominations

Kinetoscope

Self-nomination. Stable article on the world's first commercial motion picture exhibition system. Judged A-class by WikiProject Filmmaking. The advice and encouragement of project leadership has been crucial in getting the article to this stage.—DCGeist 17:21, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support - read it yesterday. Excellent article. (Minor aside: I still think the use of "Kinetoscope project" to refer to the people working on it rather than the project itself makes for confusing phrasing, especially as it isn't referred to earlier) Yomangani^talk 17:28, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment: Good point. Sentence edited so both clearer and shorter.—DCGeist 18:03, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support - it's been nothing but a pleasure seeing this article develop. Girolamo Savonarola 19:01, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Were all of those "Sources" used as References for the article, or should they be divided into References and Further reading? Sandy (Talk) 21:49, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment: All the Sources are cited in the Notes.—DCGeist 05:12, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support. Sandy (Talk) 19:32, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support.--Yannismarou 09:49, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support. --Dwaipayan (talk) 12:57, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

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

The article was promoted.

---

Germany

• previous nomination

I believe that the article is of sufficient quality to deserve FA status. It is well-sourced and very informative in addition to being well-organized. TSO1D 04:23, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Weak Oppose As the initial nominator, I believe an explanation of the removal of my support might be warranted. The problem is that when I first nominated the article, I did not fully understand the requirements for a featured article. Although I believe that the article is much better in current state than it has been in the past, it appears that it still does not meet the expected level of excellence. I thank all the fellow editors who have helped to drastically transform this article for the better over the course of the last weeks. I also thank the critics whose opinions were extremely valuable in identifying certain weaknesses of the article, enabling the implementation of improvements. I sincerely hope that the other editors will be able to raise the article to FA status eventually (even if it fails this time around). but unfortunately I do not believe that the article is ready yet. TSO1D 03:14, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment I suppose that if the nominator objects to the nomination, this should just be withdrawn. It's great to see TSO1D thanking his fellow editors but I think TSO1D also deserves to be thanked for calmly addressing the various issues that have come up in this process and for helping improve the article tremendously. Whatever happens next, the quality of the article has increased dramatically in the past month. It may still be sub-FA quality but it sure is something Wikipedia can be proud of. Pascal.Tesson 04:42, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry about that, there is really no point in doing that. I still believe that this FAC will probably fail this time, however there's no reason I should try to close it faster. There is no better channel for suggestions than the continuing advice that flows into this page and helps propel the article's improvement. I was just a bit frustrated and tired yesterday, and acted impulsively. I'll do my best to address all new concerns, regardless of the future of the FAC process. So again, sorry, and it won't happen again. TSO1D 22:25, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

• Minor objections: Overall prose is very good, but I have several comments:

1. The lead section does not summarize the article. In particular,
   • This sentence from the lead: Historically consisting of several sovereign states with their own history, distinct German tribe dialects, culture and religious beliefs, Germany was unified as a nation state amidst the Franco-Prussian War in 1871 is confusing, too many things to describes in one sentence.
   • Also this sentence: It is the European Union's most populous and most economically powerful member state uses WP:PEACOCK words, uncited and I cannot find it anywhere in the main article.

   • I mistakenly placed the source for population a little to the right. As for economic prowess, Germany has the third highest nominal GDP per capita and the highest in Europe. Perpahs it could say "one of the most powerful countries", would that be better? TSO1D 20:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

   • GDP per capita doesn't translate into a powerful country neccesarily, in that case we should all bow to luxemborg. Those words should probably be removed anyway, they smell of PoV. 212.10.217.122 17:33, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

   Oh, I meant GDP, not per cap. TSO1D 22:24, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

2. Please replace the source of this sentence: There are 2.3 million guest workers of Turkish origin in Germany, making them the largest group of foreign workers. The accurate source should be from the official statistic reports, rather than a letter article in New York Times. The sentence itself is an orphan paragraph.

   May I help? In this source [1], exactly here: [2] the Federal Statistical Office of Germany is quoted: "Nach den am 20. Juli 2005 durch das Statistische Bundesamt bekannt gegebenen Einbürgerungszahlen für das Jahr 2004 hat sich die Zahl der Türkinnen und Türken in der Bundesrepublik mit deutschem Pass auf insgesamt 840.000 erhöht. Damit ist fast jeder dritte der 2,6 Mio. türkischstämmigen Menschen zwischen Alpen und Nordsee eingebürgert." In 2004 there were 2.6 Million people of Turkish origin in Germany, 840.000 of them had the German Citizenship. -- Cornelia -etc. 01:55, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

3. Why does the Demographics section only describe about foreign workers and asylum seekers? Where is the demographics information of the Germans themselves?

   • I believe that the problem is that the information about the native population is scattered across other parts of the article, for instance Relgion and Social Issues. TSO1D 04:11, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

4. This sentence: The third largest religious identity in Germany, after the two Christian groups, is that of non-religious people... is quite strange. Does the non-religious people is officially one religious identity?

   • Well in the poll they had religion: Protestant, Catholic, and then non-relgious/atheist. That's why it was presented in this way, but I see your point. TSO1D 20:46, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

5. This sentence: Germany has been and continues to be the home of some of the most important researchers of various scientific fields is uncited; thus looks opinion to me. The Science and Technology section still has orphaned paragraphs. The last paragraph of the section is awkward to specifically write in detail about psychology. The flow is abrupt and the last paragraph does not belong to the whole section.

   • The first sentence is common knowledge in my view and too vague to need to be sourced. I mean there have been numerous German scientists as demonstrated by the subsequent information. Well I put in a source just in case. TSO1D 03:52, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

6. This sentences: Unsubsidised long-range service operators can compete freely all over the country, at least in theory. Actually, Deutsche Bahn holds a de facto monopoly on long-range services. It is not a fact, but rather speculation. Not an encyclopaedic statement.

   • I agree, I will try to modify it. TSO1D 03:52, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

7. Please standardize numbers. Use comma for thousands and use non-breaking space between the number and its metric.
8. Please standardize reference items. Some of them are not informative enough.

   I changed two refs; do you believe there are other ones that need to be fixed? TSO1D 15:37, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

9. Trim the See Also list. Articles that have been wikilinked in the body do not need to be listed again in the See Also section.

   I removed two entries that appeared in other parts of the text. TSO1D 15:36, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

The above was reviewed based on [3] — Indon (reply) — 15:37, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. Is it still rated as B-Class? May be backlogged. --Brand спойт 18:23, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

The B classification is from a much older version of the article. TSO1D 20:40, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose: Lack of print sources. Punctured Bicycle 20:03, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Many of the sources are from print sources that are found in online databases. For example, most newspaper links are the digital format of formerly printed articles and all the material from encyclopedias comes from sources that are available in print format. The same goes for the CIA and Library of Congress Reports. I mean I can cite the paper version but I thought it would be useful to have a link to the text that has been made available online. TSO1D 20:39, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

By print sources I meant books, besides encyclopedias (WP:RS: "Secondary sources should be given priority over tertiary ones.") Punctured Bicycle 21:01, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

But compare this article to the FA Belgium that only has about five print sources that are not linked to a specific part of the text. I think overall the German article is much better sourced. It wouldn't really be a problem to find some books about Germany on Amazon and list them here, but since they weren't used for conducting research that wouldn't truly be useful in my view. Furthermore, I believe that all important information that is not common knowledge has been supported by a credible source even if that source is available in digital format online. TSO1D 13:39, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

What sources did you use when conducting research, anyways? Huge sections of text give no indication of where the information came from (in the form of inline citations). 10 citations—comprising magazine, news, and encyclopedia articles—is not adequate for 2000 years of history, for example. Other FAs, which may end up on FARC at any time, aren't an excuse—why not strive to be better than them? Punctured Bicycle 03:03, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

It wasn't I that wrote the article, I just tried to reformat much of the text and provide as many sources as I could find for the content. As a model for my edits, I used the Belgium and Canada articles as they had already received FA status and I believed that they had already come under close scrutiny so they must have reflected adequate Wikipedia standards. Online sources where the only ones I had to my disposal and I selected the most credible ones to support the information of the article. I cannot deny that it would be better to have more sources, that is always the case, however I believe that in its current form possesses a quality of a sufficient degree to warrant the promotion of the article to FA status. Others of course disagree and constructive criticism has been put forward by many. I have tried to do my best to fulfill these requests, however under the circumstances I do not see how I can do more than change the language and add some more sources of the same type I previously included. TSO1D 03:46, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Oppose still This article is not properly researched/referenced. The nominator added tons of print references shortly after saying "online sources where the only ones I had to my disposal" and "it wouldn't really be a problem to find some books about Germany on Amazon and list them here, but since they weren't used for conducting research ..." This suggests to me that the sources listed are being used more for show than actual referencing. As far as I can see, the article did not change significantly to reflect the new sources. For example, where are the inline citations that indicate the page numbers that were used to support specific statements? (See Crawford expedition for an example of this.) Even if we assume the sources listed were used to conduct research, the corresponding inline citations required for verification purposes are missing. Punctured Bicycle 14:01, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

If you are accusing me of adding the references for show you are greatly mistaken. I admit that I didn't use the sources listed to conduct research, but I didn't write the history section either. Rather it was summarized by other users from other fuller articles on various historical periods. I took the sources from those articles and added them to the main article with the summary. TSO1D 21:04, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment: Please read again WP:MOS carefully, especially about WP:CITE. All books/articles/publications that are not used in the article can be listed in Further readings section. Items in the References section are used directly in the article and they have to be supported by inline citations. By listing all available books about Germany from website of a bookstore in the References section is not appropriate. — Indon (reply) — 09:37, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Please read my above comment, I did not get the sources from Amazon, but from the main History of Germany article and its subarticles such as German Empire. That's were the text came from and I assumed that the references listed there were used for conducting research so I added them to this article as well. But I agree with you, as long as those sources are not directly cited the list should be dropped. TSO1D 12:45, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I think we could lose the References section totally. Nobody remembers which book was used to prove which assertion, and I think nobody can be bothered to find out (Germany is one of the most-edited articles, with thousands of edits). Better drop this section and inline reference everything from history books or similar (which is very easy, since all the statements are undisputed). Kusma (討論) 09:42, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I agree the reference list can be removed. TSO1D 23:08, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Some paragraphs are totally uncited. They need citations. LuciferMorgan 21:54, 8 December 2006

(UTC)

I believe that the parts of the text that do not include citations include content that can be considered common knowledge thus not requiring the support of sources. Most of these parts are in the history, law, and government sections that are not cited in other featured articles such as Belgium or Canada for the same reason that I have mentioned. TSO1D 13:43, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

• • I am currently changing the references to other encyclopedias (which I think should not be used in a FA) to book references. Kusma (討論) 09:56, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

• Object. Not written to the required "professional" standard.Excellent job done by the League of Copyeditors; I'd still like just a brief description of how the DDR was different from that of the Federal Republic. It does mention Soviet Bloc, but nothing about life and the economy of the DDR. Take the lead:
  • "It is bordered to the north by"—Unidiomatic. "A portion of the alps"—same.

I am sorry, but how "it is bordered to the north by" undiomatic? That is one of the most common ways of presenting this information in the English language. For instance see Britannica that uses the same structure: http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/article-9370838/Macedonia. TSO1D

• • "Germany is a democratic parliamentary federal republic, made up of 16 states (Bundesländer), which in certain spheres act independently of the federation." I'd remove the last clause, because it says nothing useful unless accompanied by more detail than is appropriate in a lead. Remove ",made up", which is redundant. Saves the repetition in the subsequent sentence ("consisting of").
  • "Historically consisting of several sovereign states with their own history"—Ungainly repetition.

I agree and will remove it. Actually I see that someone already beat me to it. Is it ok now? TSO1D 04:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

• • "distinct German tribe dialects"—clumsy.

Agree again. TSO1D 04:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

• • "Germany has the third largest economy in the world and is the largest exporter of goods on the globe"—"In the world ... on the globe"? The second is unidiomatic, and both together in a sentence are repetitive.

Again, I don't agree that it's undiomatic, though perhaps a bit awkward, I will try to change it. TSO1D 04:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

This needs serious copy-editing throughout. Tony 01:25, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose. The writing is awkward in many places, and the text introduces new terms with only a passing mention (i.e. in the restoration and revolution section). I cannot support at this time. --Danaman5 03:41, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

The article went through many changes and was copyedited many times. Most of the concerns seem to be addressed. How does the article look now?Baristarim 05:55, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm a little late getting back to this. Changed to Weak Support per improvements made.--Danaman5 23:01, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

• Weak support there are a lot of small issues that could easily and should be fixed, mostly concerning references (some sections are a little light on references + see comments above) and prose (not bad by any means but perhaps not brilliant). Still, the overall quality is impressive. Pascal.Tesson 21:20, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

• TSO1D—No point in adding your "support" if you're the nominator .... ahem. Not a numbers game here. I agree about "bordered", having looked it up. I still think it's a little ugly, and would rephrase it myself, but you're right, it is correct as is. ON the globe is not idiomatic, unless it's an insect sitting ON the globe in the kids' bedroom. Tony 05:36, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I agree (about the vote). Although I see that "on the globe" has already been changed and I agree that it sounds a bit awkward I still say that it's not unidiomatic. For instance look at the phrase "country on the globe" on Google. As you can see some more reputable sources also use it in the same context it appeared in the article. I know this doesn't really matter now that the text has been altered anyway, but I just wanted to defend the idiom :). TSO1D 05:43, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comments a couple of specific things/sentences that should be fixed:

• "irregular" government employment such as "one euro" jobs, What's a one euro job? or an irregular employee?

Irregular refers to the fact that the employment is not stable but meant for short periods of time as explained by the examples given. I gave a brief definition of "one-euro" jobs in parentheses. TSO1D 15:29, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

• Despite the tense situation in eastern Germany, total government employment in Germany remains lower than in other states such as the United Kingdom or Canada. Not sure what that means. What is the comparison to Canada and the UK supposed to prove?
• Get your hands on a better university picture than that of Würzburg. It's not a well-known university across the world.

  What about Heidelberg? It's the oldest University in today's Germany and I think it is well-known, isn't it? Perhaps the picture of the aula there may be okay? -- Cornelia -etc. 02:51, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

• The picture of Angela Merkel next to the social issues section should probably have a social issues caption.

Ok, I changed the caption. TSO1D 15:34, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

• For centuries, women's role in German society was summed up by the three words: Kinder (children), Küche (kitchen), and Kirche (church). Throughout the twentieth century, women have gradually won victories in their quest for equal rights, although women are noticeably absent in the top tiers of German business, holding only hold 9.2% of jobs in Germany's upper and middle management positions. While I'm not denying that women's social position in Germany is an important issue, this group of sentences makes it sound like a German-specific issue which, for all I know, it is not. Do French women hold 25% of top tier business positions? I don't think so.

I don't believe the article is suggesting that this is a German peculiarity, it just lists the "ongoing quest for gender equality" in Germany. This isn't one of my favorite sections, but it's still factually correct and I didn't want to remove it altogether nor did I know how else to change it. TSO1D 15:34, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

• many historical figures, though not citizens of Germany in the modern sense, were influential in the German cultural sphere, including Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Kafka and Stefan Zweig. Don't get me wrong, I like Stefan Zweig but he's not really in the same league as Mozart and Kafka. If you want to have three examples (which is always nice) how about Sigmund Freud instead?

Good idea, I actually though about doing that and will do it now. TSO1D 15:34, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

• I'm no expert but one sentence for German philosophers seems like an understatement. German idealism is of major importance in the history of philosophy. Why not link to German philosophy? (even if that's a low-quality article)
• For some reason, the culture section suddenly switches to a surname-only format for name-dropping.
• Cleanup the selection of names. Kraftwerk is influential, Blind Guardian not so much. Only names that have a significant (and third-party established) impact should be in there.

Pascal.Tesson 07:01, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I've just added half a dozen citation requests. These should all be easy to find by looking up the references of the various sub-articles. Note that I'm not peppering the article with citation requests to prove a point but just to highlight the work that remains to be done. Pascal.Tesson 16:53, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment I just took a look at the Germany article in German and found a few interesting things. First, it's incredibly long (which isn't a good thing I know) but it sort of shows what content is missing from the english article. It has a really long series of sections on architecture (we have a one line sentence I just added), a section on cinema (for some reason we don't), sections on sport, fauna, flora, etc (we don't but not sure we want one). Also I realized that for some reason Willy Brandt and Helmut Kohl are not mentioned anywhere in the English article which does not seem right... Pascal.Tesson 04:39, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
  • As Adenauer isn't mentioned, either, it seems not so bad not to mention these two. I don't think the history section should be longer than it is, so if you suggest something important is missing, do you have an idea what to remove or shorten instead? Kusma (討論) 14:03, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Well let's put it this way: should we have room for Adenauer if we have room for Dieter Bohlen? Although I have developed it quite a bit, the section on culture could be refactored and dramatically shortened so that it relies on other existing articles (some of which are quite good). The impact of Adenauer, Brandt, Kohl and even Schröder not only on Germany but on Europe as we know it today is too important for us to ignore them here. Pascal.Tesson 16:10, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I have added Adenauer and Brandt to the post-45 history section. I couldn't find a good way to describe Kohl's role there yet. Kusma (討論) 16:26, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

On a related note: I think the section on German culture is slowly reaching higher quality than the article Culture of Germany and so it does not make much sense to link to it unless we move some of that content. I would favor rewriting the Culture of Germany article by merging the Germany content in there. Then we could rewrite a much more succinct section and add a note in the source that this section should not be expanded too much. We could limit ourselves to a general discussion on the Culture of Germany versus German culture and mention fields in which Germany has been particularly influential. Pascal.Tesson 17:48, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support, the article ahs improved amazingly from a month ago. The "administrative divisions" section could still be improved, though, by adding a one-or two-sentence statment that notes how much freedom the divisions have to make their own decisions. That would make it look less like a table without comment. Kusma (討論) 09:05, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
• Mild support (upgrading from weak) the page has gone through considerable improvement. I think the next thing to do is to shorten dramatically the culture section: I've copied the (excellent) content of that section to Culture of Germany and I think we should have a simple summary style paragraphs or two. The rest of the expansion should go in the Culture main article. On another note, I'm going on a wikibreak so good luck to all, TSO1D in particular who has done a lot of very good work on this article. Pascal.Tesson 05:45, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support — Indon (reply) — 18:28, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

• Further to my objection:
  • Why are en dashes and hyphens inconsistently used in titles?
    • Can you please explain what you mean. TSO1D 22:41, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
  • The history section is way too long: it's out of proportion with the rest of the article, and I'm afraid to say, is pretty boring in places. Why is Martin Luther brushed off in two sentences, whil paragraph after paragraph are given over to grey details from the first millenium? Luther was of critical importance. Same for the Thirty Years War.
    • I'm sorry if you find certain areas of the history section boring, however I believe that the text needs to be this long to even give an overview of German history and personally I am generally satisfied with the distribution of information (except for the last section).
      • Ok, again reduced the length of the history section to a section that I believe is now appropriate. TSO1D 15:54, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
  • The placement of images often forces the text into very narrow columns. For example, Hitler and the subdivisions crowd the whole space.
    • I tried to remove some of the images (I tried to make it so that any line of text was only bounded by one image), however I believe that further reductions would only have a negative effect by removing valuable visual aids. TSO1D 00:22, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Pretty superficial account of modern history, even if it's in summary style. Getting very blue, too. Why the repeated links? I'd ration them. Why not reduce the early stuff and deal properly with the important stuff. DDR knocked off in a few shallow sentences.
    • Ok, I will try to see if this section can be expanded. However I do not intend to remove text from other sections to make room for it. TSO1D 00:22, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
      • I added a little more to the modern history section, however if we continue to expand that section, it will be out of proportion with the rest of the text. TSO1D 15:54, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
  • "The climate is influenced to some extent by the Gulf Stream, which promotes an unusually mild climate in areas adjacent to it." Remove "to some extent". "Adjacent" is odd here.
    • I changed the sentence according to your suggestions. TSO1D 22:41, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
  • "areas bordering on the North Sea"—Spot the redundant word.
    • • Removed "on". TSO1D 22:41, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
  • "along the Rhein which flows into the North Sea"—Comma before "which" almost mandatory. Too few commas throughout, IMV.
    • Added that comma, if you see other omissions please indicate where they are or rectify them yourself. TSO1D 22:41, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
  • "rain falls all year round"—So it does over the planet, but we're interested in the patterns. Is it totally uniform?
    • Levels are relatively uniform though the greatest variation occurs during the summer maximum. I changed the text to reflect this. TSO1D 22:41, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
  • "Winters there are relatively mild and summers tend to be comparatively cool"—"mild" and "cool" are already relative/comparitive.
    • I agree, I took the adverbs out. TSO1D 22:47, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
  • "for prolonged periods of time"—spot the two redundant words.
    • Removed "of time". TSO1D 22:47, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Are you sure the one trillion dollar estimate of exports is correct? Thought it was 1200 million. And does this exclude services and returns on investments, as implied?
    • Thanks for pointing that out. Total exports did in fact add up to 1 tril, however merchandise exports were 912 billion. By the way, the source is here. TSO1D 23:13, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Definitely not good enough.

• • Overcompartmentalisation, esp. in "Culture". Can the subtitles be removed?
    • The problem is that the entire section needs to be summarized, removing the subtitles wouldn't be sufficient. However, you are right, the section is too lengthy as it is. TSO1D 22:58, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Oh, I just love the last sentence tacked onto what deals with amazing grandeur:

In the field of music, Germany claims some of the most renowned classic composers of the world including Bach and the Bonn-born Beethoven, who marked the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western classical music. Other composers of international fame include Handel, Telemann, Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Brahms, Schumann, Wagner, Strauss, Orff, and Pachelbel. The film score composer Hans Zimmer is from Germany as well.

Ok, I reduced the size of the culture section and removed all subtitles. Perhaps more could be taken out, however I believe that the amount of space dedicated to the section is proportional to its importance to the topic. TSO1D 00:17, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Bonn-born Beethoven ...

Sorry, that's my awkward translation from German. I completely removed it now. TSO1D 22:50, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

of the world

Ok I said "some of the world's most renowned...", it was at least repetitive. TSO1D 22:56, 21 December 2006 (UTC) TSO1D 22:50, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Did Bach also mark the transition? That's what it says.

Ok, I put Beethoven first so that the statement would be restricted to him. TSO1D 22:50, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Really folks, this does not compare to the other nation FAs. Tony 14:08, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

• Ok Tony, I think I have addressed all of your concerns, at least partially. TSO1D 15:54, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• I agree with Tony that this does not compare to other nation FAs. It is better. Support. ---Pedro 00:04, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

• Object This article's structure is definitely not correct. Please see Canada, Australia and India, some of the best country articles out there. Demographics and society sections need to be combined. The article is not very easy to read. However, the references and the depth of the subject matter is good, so will support if the structural issues are dealt with. As for other country FAs: there are some that will be getting a delisting soon like People's Republic of China - apparently it passed FA in 2004 with the standards of the day, but currently it is nothing but a mess. So please restructure the article. Plus some of the information in the article needs to bet seriously cut, and some other stuff expanded: History section is way too long. Most of that stuff should go to sub-articles. There is no need to mention the wind-power capacity of Germany in this article, that also needs to go to relevant sub-articles. There are seealsos in the middle of sections etc. Better take this article to peer review first I think. However, if the regular editors can work on it, then it should be fine. Cheers! Baristarim 09:03, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions. I tried to use the framework of the Canadian article, however there are several significant obstacles. What the Canadian or Indian articles call demographics is supplemented here by a society section with three other subsections that sometimes overlap with that subject, but at other times would be impossible to integrate there. I am talking about religion (which should easily be merged with dem), social issues (which might be merged in part), and education (which I really don't see a way of merging). I guess I will deal with the society section by merging what's possible with demographics and making education a new section. The history section presents another important obstacle. I see that many users have expressed complaints about its length, however I never fully realized the magnitude of the reductions that should take place. I have tried to trim the section over time, however it is still much too long. I guess I will have to remove all subtitles and slowly reduce it. Do you believe that other sections such as transport, which do not appear on other FA national articles. They seem too informative to remove. By the way, there was a peer review for the article, but it attracted only limited attention. TSO1D 14:54, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment and minor objections The structure looks better. I know that writing country articles can be hard :) Well, I think that there are some improvements that can be made, not neccessarily because the article is bad, but simply because it will make the article better.. However some of them are pretty important: The culture and science and technology sections might be better combined. The thing is, there are too many names listed that it is somewhat confusing. More analytical sentences about the German culture and its place in the global context might be better than simply listing names. I know that some of those people have been very important in global culture, but a greater focus on Germany would be better, since the article is about the country. Also culture sections should include something about the sports in the country as well. What kind of sports are popular (I know that it is football, but for the uninformed reader :)), olympics etc? It shouldn't be simply a list of the country's achievements either (i ran into this problem in France :)), it should be about how the sports relate to the country and the people as a whole. I don't know, is there a traditional German sport for example? No need to mention it if there isn't one, but might be interesting if there actually is/has been one. I also think that the social issues should be combined with other sections, with the paragraphs combined into their relevant sections. As I said, the only problem I can see is the overlisting done in some places. As for the transport section.. There was a similar thing in France.. Someone is insisting that the transport section should be included at all costs :) However, I think that it would be more appropriate in a sub-article. I just cannot see the transport being as important then a country's culture or politics or etc. The things is, transport sections generally seem to make the articles something like a travel guide. In fact, what you might need is a "Topics in X" template to put in the see also section, that way you can list all topics about Germany easily and give the reader the opportunity to select what want to know about Germany directly in that list. I will try to drop by later. Baristarim 19:20, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

About the culture and science sections, I agree with you that too much of the text is composed of a list of names. I tried to reduce this (it was even worse in the past), however it's very hard to decide what names to remove (Mozart, Einstein, Mann?). You are right, however, more comprehensive sentences should replace much of the current format. As for including sports and other elements in the culture section, I hadn't even thought of that. When I thought of culture, I immediately assumed it was high culture. However, the other elements you mentioned are also very important and should be included in that section. As for transport, I am not that big a fan of the section personally, I even tried removing it in the past. I tend to agree with you that it might be better just to link to the subsection. TSO1D 20:09, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

By the way, the topics in... template is much better, thanks for pointing that out. TSO1D 21:47, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

lool. I know, when I first came to Wikipedia it kinda surprised me to see sports in the culture section, however it made sense after a while. The "topics in .." template will really help out the article, you will see. Not only will it look nicer, but all the see alsos will take less space while grouping everything related to Germany in a very concise section easily accessible to the reader. Just use one of the layouts of the other topics templates and replace the wikilinks with relevant Germany articles. For the moment I don't have a lot of time but I will check in soon. Cheers! Baristarim 02:20, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh, I've already used that template since you first made the suggestion and it looks great. TSO1D 03:02, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I have added a sports section. Do you think that's sufficient in that area? TSO1D 16:03, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Sports section looks just fine :) Baristarim 05:48, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

• Support My above concerns were addressed and the article looks really good now. I am sorry about not being able to get back to this earlier, I have been busy both in Wiki and real life because of the holidays et al. A great congratulations to editors who have spent a lot of time trying to address the concerns in the FAC, and the article seriously looks really good at the moment and it fits FA criteria. The "topics in X" template also simplified a lot of things and really made the article informative for readers who want to know more about the country. Good job for the whole effort! Baristarim 05:48, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

• Further comment. I was going to weaken on my objection, but there are problems wherever I look. You must find this frustrating, I'm sure, but a FA should read smoothly and be crystal clear. There are problems in both the rendering of facts and in readability. I've cast my eyes about and found these issues at random in a few small windows of text.
  • "the Chancellor is the head of ... a pluriform multi-party system"—Are you sure? The distinction between being head of the government and of this might be lost on most readers. It is on me.
  • Awkward word order: "in the face of a growing migration of East Germans to West Germany via Hungary and mass demonstrations"—just move "mass demonstrations to after "face of", and follow it by "and".
  • "The country eventually came to enjoy prolonged economic growth beginning in the early 1950s (Wirtschaftswunder)"—what on earth is "eventually" doing here? Replace "beginning in" with just "from". Insert "known as the" before the German term.
  • "The recovery occurred largely because of the previously forbidden currency reform of June 1948 and from 1949 on partly by U.S. assistance through Marshall Plan loans." This is cumbersome: more commas throughout the text would make for easier reading and more accurate expression—here, one is needed after "1948", isn't it? "On" should be "onwards". "By" should be "through".
  • "The sectors controlled by France, the United Kingdom, and the United States were merged to form the Federal Republic of Germany on 23 May 1949; the Soviet Zone established the German Democratic Republic on 7 October 1949." No, the Soviet Zone didn't establish the DDR, the Soviet Union did.
  • "were somewhat reduced"—spot the redundant word.
  • "During the summer of 1989, in the face of a growing migration of East Germans to West Germany via Hungary and mass demonstrations, East German authorities unexpectedly eased the border restrictions in November 1989,"—There are time-phrases at the start and finish that seem to overlap.
  • "sent a peacekeeping force to secure stability in the Balkans and sent a force"—repetition.
  • "In recent years,"—this should be banned from WP as so vague that it's useless. "Since 2001"? "Over the past five years"?

Now, why not try out our new League of copy-editors? Specify precision of expression, commas, and redundancies. Perhaps the Director is willing to wait another few days ....? Tony 09:04, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I introduced the changes you proposed above. I guess I never took the time to carefully copy-edit the entire article. I will do that, and also I have taken your advice and asked the League for help. TSO1D 14:30, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I went through the entire article and did a general copyedit. I'm sure I missed some things, however. I've become so used to the text in its current form that I'm liable to overlook certain errors. Nevertheless, I have to say that I'm satisfied with the general quality of the text. Hopefully others will catch any residual mistakes, but at this point I don't see what else I can do to improve the article's quality. TSO1D 23:54, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

• Weak support, is a great article and there are only tiny problems left with it. Mathmo ^Talk 08:16, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
  • If you have any specific concerns, could you please list them so that the editors of the page can try to improve those aspects of the article. TSO1D 20:54, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

• Object Fails 1c. How did this article get this far into FAC without cleanup of basics like WP:MSH?
  • What is this at the bottom of the article? ( [nds:Düütschland]] ) ?
    • That was added a few hours ago by another user who added the interwiki, fixed it now. TSO1D 18:18, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
  • There are unformatted and incorrectly formatted references throughout (example: http://www.olympic.org/uk/games/past/table_uk.asp?OLGT=2&OLGY=2006 Turin 2006 Medal Table] International Olympic Committee. Retrieved 2006, 12-28 )
    • In that example, is it just the extra bracket, or was there something else as well? And other than that what sources are not formatted correctly? I thought I had used MLA style for all. TSO1D 18:18, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
  • A spot check of the references turns up lacking - this, for example, is a dead link (Germany: Culture Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2006. Retrieved 2006, 12-27 )
    • That one is strange. I did it again and it seems to work now. TSO1D 19:13, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Pls indicate a German-language icon on sources which are not in English - it does me no good to click on those sources to attempt to verify them. For example, (in Spanish) is the Spanish-language icon - I don't know the German one.
    • It's (in German) and I will do that.
  • What is this? (Hoppenstedt business databank 2002 )
    • Oh, I had replaced that one, I guess that got lost in some reverts though. Anyway, I will do it again. TSO1D 19:13, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Include all bibliographic info in citations; for example, the authors on this and this.
• I stopped checking references, since the referencing is overall sloppy and incomplete.
  • I did it for most of them, I guess I just missed some. I'll go through them again and check and I will correct these two. TSO1D 19:13, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
• Why did you leave out the rising mortality rate, mentioned in one of the BBC sources, and what is that due to?
  • I mean a lot of information was left out, only a summary of the most important aspects of German demographics was kept. Besides, I included the BBC source because I needed a citation for the birth rate, and having found that I did not pay close attention to the rest of the article. TSO1D 19:13, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
• "Critics have alleged?" Please specify what critics.
  • I completely removed those two sentences. The view of non-compliance was held by a small minority. In any case, that part was too detailed, the rest already exists in subarticles. Anyway the problem disappears there. TSO1D 20:53, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
• The article is undercited - I'm going to add ref tags to only a few sections as examples. Many statements also need to indicate as of when (a date). I cited some of the facts myself, by using named refs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:14, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I will provide sources for the ones you listed. The problem is that for many of them, I just added a citation at the end of a group of sentences supported by one source. I guess I will add it for every instance though. TSO1D 19:13, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I think I have addressed all the major concerns that you presented. I checked all sources and tried to make them conform to Wikipedia standards. I added language tags for the sources that were written in German. I also filled your citation requests and added new sources elsewhere and removed the problematic bits of text you identified. TSO1D 23:37, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

The references are looking better now, although every time I've come back to the article, I've found more referencing problems that needed to be fixed. External links could use pruning per WP:EL and WP:NOT - they should be kept to a minimum. The CIA factbook is already used as a reference, hence shouldn't be be in External links. This doesn't look "encyclopedically" useful - [4]; this says it's "official" or "government", but the website doens't seem to indicate that, and it seems commercial [5]. Can the Wikitravel link be included in the sister projects box? Science and technology is unreferenced. Main templates are used incorrectly: they should indicate when a main article is summarized back to this article via summary style, yet many of the articles listed as Main are barely stubs, aren't cited, and don't support the text given in this article, meaning for example, that the Culture section should be better cited, as it can't rely on the daughter articles. (The main templates should be switched to See also on the articles which are barely stubs.) For example, Education in Germany is an uncited diseaster needing cleanup - it can't be the main article upon which an FA depends, nor can Germanic culture. Demographics of Germany, Geography of Germany, Judiciary of Germany and Economy of Germany are also uncited rambling unorganized articles - I suggest that none of these are appropriate uses of the Main template, and might be listed as See also. Those are the ones I checked working from the bottom up - I stopped there, since I'm finding that the daughter articles don't support the text in the main article. I'm not convinced this article yet rises to the level expected of an FA on the English wikipedia: I don't speak German, so I don't know about the German Wiki. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:37, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I reduced the external links per your suggestion and removed some quasi-trivia. As goes for the main templates, I removed it for education and German culture, but Geography of Germany has useful information on other geographic landmarks of the country, Economy of Germany includes much relevant data, and demographics of Germany and Geography of Germany also supply further info. Thus I see no reason to remove them. Whereas I agree that they could be improved, I don't agree that it's necessary to remove them altogether. And I know you don't like this argument, but all other national FA's are the same way. Look at Canada, for instance, where many of the subarticles linked with the main template are in a much poorer condition than Germany's articles. As for science and technology, what exactly could sources be provided for. I found one for physics, but most of the text is purely Common Knowledge. TSO1D 21:04, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

I added some references to that section after all. But I don't think it needs to go any further. I mean is it really necessary to provide a source for the fact that Gutenberg invented the printing press in Europe or that Geiger was the inventor of the Geiger counter? TSO1D 21:54, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

• Support now, the article is much cleaner, has been copyedited, and is better referenced. I'm still concerned about the use of the "Main" template, and would prefer they be switched (in some cases) to See or Further (since the daughter articles are *clearly* not the basis for summary to the main article), but that's not enough to object over. Nice, persistent work. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:27, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment User:Raymond arritt over at Wikipedia:WikiProject League of Copyeditors was kind enough to pitch in and copy-edit the article. Perhaps those who commented on prose could revisit this one? Gzkn 09:47, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose (1) section heading in the history section blow out this size of the TOC; (2) Social issues section is biased to whatever this author things these issues are - merge demographic issues into the demographics (demographic effects of reunification, opposition to immigration etc) section and drop the rest; (3) Education also should be a part of demographics; (4) Merge Sports into cluture since its so short and sport is a part of culture in many other country FAs; (5) The science and tech section just adds a long list of names to the article - a brief mention of technical innovation in the history section would suffice. The culture section could use some work too, how does being a large market equate to influnce on trends, is Kraftwerk the only successful German music export, wasn't Rubens Flemish?--Peta 02:44, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

1) Even if the subsections inflate the TOC, they are useful in sectioning that part of the article. I tried it without them and it didn't work too well. Of course, there will always be the matter of bias, but the social issues section reflects what the media covers to the greatest extent, not the views of the authors. If you believe that any element is given undue weight, please explain which one. 3)How can education possibly be merged with demographics??? 4)Ok, I merged sport and culture. 5)I really don't think a brief mention of German innovation in the history section would be enough considering the long history of science and technology in Germany. Besides, to what period should it be added? 6)No one said that Germany's large market makes it influential, that sentence just describes the actual situation; Kraftwerk is only given as an example, there are many more, but I don't believe that section should be expanded further. Oh, and Rubens was born in Germany, but his family fled to the Netherlands because they were Protestants. TSO1D 21:10, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I decided to merge social issues and demographics after all, and seems to work fine. As for education, I scratched my head for a long time over this, but I just don't see a way of merging it anywhere else. However, given the peculiarities of German education and its importance to the state, I don't think it should be too big a deal to just keep a small section for it.TSO1D 01:23, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

How about merging tech into the economy section? It really is predominately a list of names just taking up space.--Peta 02:48, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I merged science with culture. I just didn't know where else to put it, but the information there is too important to Germany to be removed entirely in my view. In any case, scientific pursuits have been a deeply intertwined with German culture and some of the philosophers mentioned elsewhere in that section also were important scientists and mathematicians. Do you think this works?TSO1D 03:10, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose per Peta. John Smith's 20:01, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I believe, however, that most of Peta's stated concerns have already been addressed. Could you please specify what major problems you believe persist. TSO1D 20:31, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I concur, the article went through a lot of changes since the start of the FAC, and unless further specific objections are raised per FA criteria, I don't know what can be made of this objection.Baristarim 05:51, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Provisional sSupport This is a very good article. I hope you approve of my edits. The article has clearly benefited from the past few weeks of hard labour by its proposer and by the constructive commentators. Consequently the problems that I have with it are relatively small and if they can be addressed, I would give it my strong support.

• The rise of liberal and nationalist movements was in part a consequence of disagreement with restoration politics. I don't understand. IMHO liberal movements arise from enlightenment; nationalism out of better mass communications. Link to restoration doesn't help.
  • The problem was that nationalism and liberalism emerged simultaneously and were believed to be linked at the time. This was mostly an intellectual phenomenon that attracted much more support from students than from the masses at that point. And this liberal-nationalist movement emerged in Germany in great part due to the fact that these young intellectuals disagreed with the repressive and conservative way in which the Prussian government (or others) operated during this period. More detail can be found in the main article for the period: German Confederation. Of course, it might help to go into further details, but don't wish to expand this section further. But I removed the useless link to restoration. 21:24, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
• After scrimping to fit German history into a metaphorical postage stamp there are four lines occupied by its capabilities in wind-power. Seems excessive.
  • Ok, I reduced that to about a line and a half. There actually used to be an entire section about this kind of stuff, and this is one vestige of the old mammoth. TSO1D 21:24, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
• Not sure that its large cities are caused by the country's federal structure since this is recent. Each state has a capital which may have provided a nucleus back in history, but since I have supposed that people have clumped together mainly by economic factors, so it is by definition decentralised. Do state capitals automatically cause a population increase? Compare Springfield, Illinois with Chicago.
  • Regardless of the validity of the reasons (which I myself doubt), it's mere speculation, and original research. I removed the reason and just left that fact. TSO1D 21:24, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
• There are 500-1000 children schooled at home in Germany.In a country of 80 million it it hard to justify its inclusion as a significant feature/issue in a summary of German education.
  • I agree, that fact is really of no importance given the small number of people affected. TSO1D 21:24, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
• If Kraftwerk is your best example, I would not describe Germany's influence on the world's popular music as strong. If anything it is not pulling its weight. JMcC 20:25, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Ok I just said that they influenced music, without any further adjectives. I agree, the influence hasn't been that great, and it's misleading to call it strong, but I assume there must be at least something there. TSO1D 21:24, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Not sure why you're picking on Kraftwerk though. This was an immensely influential band in electronic music and has been recognized as such numerous times. Now of course, nowadays one might argue that noone singing in a different language than English has a world-impact on music but if any German band ever had a universal impact, it's got to be Kraftwerk. Pascal.Tesson 00:48, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
• Not sure why my vote of strong support has been altered by someone else back to 'provisional'. Perhaps I never saved it. If it happened, it must be against Wikipedia policy. I have re-instated my support. JMcC 08:55, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Looking at the edit history, I see no tampering. It seems like it was simply a lapse on your part. Pascal.Tesson 09:08, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

Hoysala Empire

This article has been through a peer review. It has been reviewed for balance in content, facts, citations and has been copy edited by multiple reviewers. Please provide further recommendations if any and I shall gladly comply.Dineshkannambadi 00:23, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment you don't wikilink solo years, ie, 1320. Rlevse 03:28, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Reply Per WP:DATE, "There is consensus among editors that bare month and day names should not be linked unless there is a specific reason that the link will help the reader to understand the article. There is less agreement about links to years. Some editors believe that links to years are generally useful to establish context for the article. Others believe that links to years are rarely useful to the reader and reduce the readability of the text."

So, a copyedit has been done per WP:CONTEXT, and most of the solo years have been de-wikilinked. However, some important years, like the start year or end year of the empire, start date of family record of the empire etc. and reigning years of Kings in Template:Hoysala Kings Infobox have been kept as wikilinked. Please see and comment. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 04:06, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment 2 citation needed tags added. Please address.--Dwaipayan (talk) 07:51, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Reply--> I have provided the requested citations in "Women" section.Thanks.Dineshkannambadi 13:51, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support : The article probably needs a couple of rounds of cpedit to tighten prose. That apart, a very useful, important and informative article. I wholeheartedly 'support'. Sarvagnya 22:56, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Object—(1) I'm not agreeing to a promotion until the trivial chronological links are delinked. Why on earth do we need the page to be scattered with blue? And why do you want your high-value links (there are a lot) to be diluted in this way with irrelevant links? Aside from the obvious disadvantages, this aspect is inconsistent. (2) Needs a copy-edit. Here are examples:
  • "Literature in Kannada language, in the Vaishnava, Shaiva and Jain traditions flourished." THE Kannada language.
  • "Sanskrit works spanning Advaita, Vishishtadvaita and Dvaita philosophy were written". Awkward expression.
  • "Poetesses"—please use "poets". "Such as" is more elegant in formal prose than "like". "Gained fame"—bit of a jingle. ay ay. And the grammar suggests that poetesses were an age for emancipation.
  • "Administrative responsibilities were no longer the monopoly of men. Performances in music and dance by women became popular." Stubby sentences that continue similar grammatical constructions to those we've just read. Needs to be varied. But more seriously, these sweeping statements seem to be a little dangerous. I hope that they'll be referenced copiously and authoritatively further down. Do they belong in the lead? Can you have a performance "in" dance, or a performance "in" music?

Don't just correct these examples. The whole text is at issue in this respect. Tony 01:39, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Reply-->Thank you for your candid critisism. I am starting with removing all Chronological links (years and centuries) and repeat linking in many places. I am also simplyfying the LEAD.

I shall then look closely at the rest of the article for sweeping statements and replace them with more sobre statements.Thank you.Dineshkannambadi 03:04, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Copy edits--> I have taken out many repeat links, date links and sobered adjectives through out the articles. The LEAD has been trimmed. I have replaced "like" with "such as" and "poetess" with "poet". Please take a look and give me your opinion.Thanks.Dineshkannambadi 17:41, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

• Object -- choppy prose. =Nichalp «Talk»= 15:41, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

  Please reply on this page, not user talk pages.

  1. Kannada and Sanskrit literature were prolific during the Hoysala rule. The 12th century saw the Champu style of works go out of vogue, while new metres like Sangatya in compositions (meant to be sung to the accompaniment of a musical instrument), Shatpadi and Tripadi in verses (seven and three line) and Ragale (lyrical poems with refrain) rose in popularity The first is too short, and second sentence is long and windy. 2. Cattle farming was attractive in the highlands (malnad regions) from where diary products, fruits and spices came -- awkard sentence 3. They came to be treated with deference. Their accomplishments gave them more freedom in that they could distance themselves from social conventions to a greater degree.
  2. The sections need a rework. The sections need an overhaul with many of them combined under a single heading. =Nichalp «Talk»= 16:32, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
  3. Only Hinduism is mentioned. What about other religions such as Jainism and Buddhism?

=Nichalp «Talk»= 16:33, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Reply--> As far as I have read, Buddhism had made its exit from India, becoming more rooted in SriLanka and the Southeast Asia. There may have been a few monasteries though. Jainism itself was on the wane. I shall write briefly about these topics also. Please give me a day. I shall also correct the sentenses you mention above as choppy, lengthy etc.thanksDineshkannambadi 16:54, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I propose the following sectioning:

• History (no subsections) - summarise
• Economy (no subsections) - summarise
• Governance
• Culture
  • Religion
  • Society
  • Literature
  • Architecture
  • Language

The map should be added to the infobox =Nichalp «Talk»= 17:35, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Reply-->DoneDineshkannambadi 12:52, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Reply--> I have no problem with reorganization of the article. Do other reviewers have their own suggestions?thanks.Dineshkannambadi 18:36, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment I have added a few lines about the decline of Jainsim and exit of Buddhism in the 11th century-14th century time.Thanks.Dineshkannambadi 19:41, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Thought Since the major developments of this time were art, architecture and Religion, should'nt these topics be ahead of economy and governance.thanks.Dineshkannambadi 20:09, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Reorg--> I have reorganised the sections per Nichalp's proposal. I will embark on the summarising aspect tommorow. Just two questions, 1) Do I keep the "impact" section as seperate from Religion or merge it and 2) Do I keep the subsections under "Society" or merge it.thanks.Dineshkannambadi 03:17, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Reply to reorg IMO, Religion and its impact must be merged. subsections of society should also be merged. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 14:14, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Reply DoneDineshkannambadi 03:37, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Reply on REORG->Thanks. That gives me the direction I needed. This job can be done within a couple of days.thanks.Dineshkannambadi 15:46, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Administration-->I will summarise tonight.thanksDineshkannambadi 16:10, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I've made some more changes to the structure. This leads to a slightly larger section which should be summarised.

Some additional points:

1. Use the Template:Infobox Former Country, the closest infobox we have for such kind of articles.-->Done by Dwaipayan/Dinesh
2. More problems with the grammar: The Hoysala society was comparatively liberal. Woman enjoyed administrative powers. Queen Umadevi administered Halebidu in the absence of Veera Ballala II.[40] Women made progress in the realms of music, dance, literature, poetry, politics and administration. Queen Shantaladevi was a noted dancer. -- very choppy, appear to be just statements instead of flowing text.

Reply modifiedDineshkannambadi 02:22, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

1. The Hoysalas followed the Western Chalukya and Western Ganga Dynasty (Gangas) method of governance -- not very useful bit of information for those reading it for the first time.

Relpy modifiedDineshkannambadi 02:22, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

1. See alsos should be placed at the end of the section.

Reply doneDineshkannambadi 02:22, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

1. The images should be reduced, as far as possible, keep only images relevent to the section placed in.

=Nichalp «Talk»= 16:27, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Reply Will do this once the text editrs are complete.Dineshkannambadi 02:22, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

SOCIETY--> I have created a subarticle for this also and will compress the content on the main page.Dineshkannambadi 12:54, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Compressed SOCIETY secton.

TBD-->1) compress RELIGION section without loosing context-->Done by DwaipayanDineshkannambadi 17:06, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

2) Learn to use the Template:Infobox Former Country

3) Get the IPA for the article

Please tell me if there are other things to be done.thanks.Dineshkannambadi 16:05, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

• I'm happy with the current structure and content per section
• The text still choppy, so request you get a third person to copyedit it.
• Phrases not common to standard English should be modified with context. eg. He relied more on the Puranas -- most people outside India would not know what the Puranas are. How about ...literary works of the Puranas?--->Done.Dineshkannambadi 19:08, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
• Use British English spellings (eg favorable --> favourable)
• Remove the script from the infobox. For those without the correct fonts, it would be badly rendered at large sizes.-->DoneDineshkannambadi 19:08, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
• change 1/4 to 'a fourth'-->Done

=Nichalp «Talk»= 17:57, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

• Remove the script from the infobox. For those without the correct fonts, it would be badly rendered at large sizes.--> The Hoysala Empire box or Hoysala Kings box?ThanksDineshkannambadi 18:03, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Infobox: Template:Infobox Former Country. Is there an example of this in use somewhere?. That would make it easier for me to correctly use it.thanksDineshkannambadi 12:40, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for putting in the box. The big ? is where the emblem goes right?thanksDineshkannambadi 15:23, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

I will add symbols for previous and sucessor kingdoms today.thanks.Dineshkannambadi 16:06, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I dont have pictures of the emblem of the preceding kingdom. So that portion will have to wait for a future trip of mine. I may have the "Varaha" emblem of Vijayanagar Empire.Dineshkannambadi 16:13, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: can the items from see also be incorporated into main article?-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  19:25, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Reply-->All the items in "See also" are included as wikilinks and appear at various points on the main article.Thanks.Dineshkannambadi 19:44, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Per MOS, if a link is in the article, it should not be in see also - removal of the section seems to be in order.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  01:58, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello, I removed the See Also section. It is funny because I was thinking of same thing and then I came here and saw your comment and went ahead with the removal. --Blacksun 10:11, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support Minor contributor to the article (copyedits etc). The article now has a size that is not intimidating! It's well-referenced. Has appropriate links to daughter articles. WP:MOS has been followed. Just one issue: images and the Hoysala kings infobox may not appear properly placed in all browsers/resolutions. Please attend. Assuming this actionable point would be taken care of, I support this artcle to be given featured article status. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 08:47, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Reply-->Done. I have anchored all images and kings infobox to the right so they wont appear misplaced in other browsers.Thanks.Dineshkannambadi 13:49, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, this Hoysala kings infobox is still creating problem. I am using 1200 by 800 pixels, usiig Mozilla firefox, in a wide screen laptop. The infobox is not exactly fitting. The infobox appears to hover around in the right-ish middle zone of the section "History", with a lot of white space to its right. Probably there is a problem of space between the former country infobox and this infobox. I tried to left allign the infobox, with unsatisfactory result (sentences almost crammed into the infobox). Is anyone else facing such problem?--Dwaipayan (talk) 14:38, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

No problem on my screen.The kings infobox is snuggly aligned to the right side, just as the country infobox.ThanksDineshkannambadi 16:18, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Requirements, =Nichalp are there any other requirements for this article. Dwaipayan and myself have done one more copyedit for choppy sentences per your advice.Thanks.129.42.208.182 19:28, 14 December 2006 (UTC).Sorry, last edit was mine.Forgot to log in.Dineshkannambadi 19:29, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Nope, still not up to the mark I'm afraid. A cursory glance: 1. It must be noted -- Essay type phrase. 2. Inscriptions were of three kinds — Kannada, Sanskrit and bilingual -- redundant words present: --> Inscriptions were in Kannada, Sanskrit, or bilingual. 3.Queen Umadevi governed Halebidu in the absence of Veera Ballala II and is known to have fought wars against antagonistic feudatories.[35] Women participated in music, dance, literature and poetry as well. Queen Shantala Devi was well versed in dance and music and performed publicly -- choppy =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:31, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

ReplyTook care of these choppy sentences.thanks.Dineshkannambadi 19:56, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Copy edit-->Another user, Mattisse is helping me with copy edits.thanks.Dineshkannambadi 01:13, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Let me know when done =Nichalp «Talk»= 19:13, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

• Conditional Strong Support - I read through just a bit over half of the article and have added few inotes and citation tags. I will read through rest of the article later and add additional inotes if neccessary. Mark me as support once these are addressed. Pretty good article so far and should be easy to make it FA.--Blacksun 10:31, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Reply I have addressed the concerns. Please take a look.thanks.Dineshkannambadi 18:18, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

The Hoysala map I have (ref:A Concise History of Karnataka, Dr. Kamath, page 328) covers the entire northern Tamil Nadu connecting Kanchi down to Srirangam excluding a narrow strip of Coastal Tamil Nadu. The territory also covers Karnataka coast parallel to Shimoga going down to Kerela's northern tip. More than one reviewer has come up with his question. Can this be corrected.?ThanksDineshkannambadi 18:25, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

In addition, I suggest that the core empire be in dark color while the rest of south India south of Krishna river be in a lighter colour indicating Hoysala dominaton there. This way we make sure no questons are raised about Hoysala control over southern deccan.Dineshkannambadi 20:34, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, if you cannot find a better map then the present one will do. Atleast you have a date now to give it context. I added couple of more inotes in the second half of the article. Please respond to that and then mark me as support. I am very pleased with the attention to details in the article. --Blacksun 10:13, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support - Quite interesting and informative. I have two minor issues though: the See Also section needs to be more stratified. Also redlinked cats are not a nice sight.Bakaman 02:50, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

Replies to questions raised by User:Blacksun

all citations requested have been provided.

Innotes on Hoysala page

1. The legend may have gained popularity after King Vishnuvardhana's victory over the Cholas at Talakad as the Hoysala emblem depicts the fight between Sala and a tiger, the emblem of the Cholas.

Reply-->Historians are not sure who Sala was though they have tried to associate the early kings Nripa Kama I or II, but this has not gained popular support. The legend of Sala bacame more popular from around 1117 CE after Vishnuvardhanas victroy over the Cholas after which sculptural and inscriptional depictions started to appear. The emblem rather than focussing on Sala focusses on Salas (Hoysalas) victory over the Cholas, the tiger being the Chola emblem.Dineshkannambadi 16:02, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Hello, thanks for your reply. However, my question was did this incident make the legend more popular (as stated) or is it arguably the source of the legend? In case of latter then the sentence can be phrased in a better way. Otherwise, it is fine in its present form. --Blacksun 10:09, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

2.Reply-->added dates for inscriptions implying Yadava lineage.

3.QuestionBy the 13th century, they governed most of present-day Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and western Andhra Pradesh in Deccan India.

Reply-->The map shows the core Hoysala areas and excludes loyal feudatories from coastal Karnataka. The Pandyas who payed tribute for some time from Southern Tamil Nadu. I have a map here that is more precise and will request user Nichalp to correct it. The map shows the entire northern Tamil Nadu under Hoysala occupation (the Cholas had been reduced to their feudatories at this time, though their control over Pandyas was periodic 1220-1250, 1290-1313 when the muslim invasion started)Dineshkannambadi 16:11, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

4.The kingdom was divided into four provinces named Nadu, Vishaya, Kampana and Desha, possibly in decending order of geographical size.

Reply-->The kingdom was divided into these four categories and there may have been several Nadus (and Vishayas) under which were several Kampans and under that, several Deshas etc, Just like we have a state under which there are several districts and under them Taluks in present day India (just a crude comparison).Dineshkannambadi 16:14, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

5.Question Under them were the local officials called Heggaddes and Gavundas who dealt with local farmers and labourers hired to till the land.

Reply I will clean this up. They took care of hiring/paying farmers and labourers.Dineshkannambadi 16:19, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

6.Question There were other coins called Bele and Kani as well.

Reply No more info on these units are available. However from the way it is just mentioned by the author suggests very low denominations.Dineshkannambadi 16:23, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

• • Question of Sala Legend by user:Blacksun

Hello, thanks for your reply. However, my question was did this incident make the legend more popular (as stated) or is it arguably the source of the legend? In case of latter then the sentence can be phrased in a better way. Otherwise, it is fine in its present form.

• • Reply

If the incident you mention is " Vishnuvardhana's victory over Cholas" then from what I read (source-->Dr. S.U.Kamath) the legend appeared for the first time in the Belur inscription of 1117 after his victory, but he also says it may be a symbolic represention the wars between the Cholas and early hoysala chieftains (no clarity what early means). However a twist to this is the presence of the emblem in a 1060 Chalukya-Hoysala transitional style temple in Balligavi (which I have visited and photographed), which researcher U.B. Githa claims was added by Vinayaditya, Vishnuvardhana's grandfather. So one can specualte when the legend came into existance. The victroy at Talakad may be the source of the legends "popularity", but Prof. Settar says it is Vishnuvardhanas creation. At present, the earliest inscription with the mention of Sala is 1117, but that does not mean the legend did not exist earlier. So there is no consensus. hope this helps. thanks.Dineshkannambadi 00:56, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

• Further to my object, I have problems with 1a. Here are random examples.
  • "He wrested Gangavadi from the Cholas in 1116 and shifted the capital from Belur to Halebidu." No, "moved" in this register. "Shifted" is too loose/informal.
  • "four way struggle"—Hyphen required. Please audit similar constructions. I see "high ranking positions".

But the more serious problem concerns the referencing.

• • The list of references at the bottom (under "Notes") is very sloppy. I'd like not to have to sift back to the earliest mention of Kamath's Concise History to find the publication details, including the year; these should appear in every note. lease remove the copyright character from the reference list. In Note 1, "1998-00" will not do for "1998–2000". "OurKarnataka.Com, Inc." is unclear—is it some hybrid web address/company name? Why is there a book title AND a web address/retrieval date? "pp" means "pages" (plural), and should not be applied to a single page. Remove "Dr." from authors' names, and professional words such as "Historian". Is "Joshi surmise that ..." your speculation, or the title of a book chapter, or what? Fix spacing/lack of spacing throughout. Total consistency in formatting is required. Why just two texts referred to so much; it makes me suspicious of the veracity of the article. How reliable are these texts? Without a great spread of sources, there's a huge risk. And the site http://www.ourkarnataka.com is not itself referenced. Is it just opinion?

Unacceptable, I'm afraid. Tony 13:42, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Replies to Tony's questions

I will certianly clean up some of the things you pointed out. Regarding your more serious concerns, (I hope I have understood your questions correctly) 1."OurKarnataka.Com, Inc." is unclear—is it some hybrid web address/company name?

Ans. OurKarnataka.com is on line website (not a blog site) that comprahensively covers many topics about Karnataka state and Kannada language. Under this web page are listed various topics including history.

2.Why is there a book title AND a web address/retrieval date?

Ans Here is an example-->Historian C. Hayavadhana Rao, J. D. M. Derrett, B. R Joshi surmise that Sala was a mythical founder of the empire, A Concise history of Karnataka pp 123, Dr. S.U. Kamath, Arthikaje, Mangalore. History of Karnataka-Hoysalas and their contributions. © 1998-00 OurKarnataka.Com, Inc. Retrieved on November 17, 2006.

In a citation like the one shown above, I have referenced multiple sources, one is a book and another the web page. Both of them give the same information, one of them may have had the name of an additional scholar which I though should be accounted for. So there are two citations clubbed as one.

4. Is "Joshi surmise that ..." your speculation

Ans-->Not my speculation. The reference book/web may say "In the opinion of Joshi" or "Joshi feels that". Surmise is just used as another word meaning the same thing. If there are specific wordings you dont like, I can refer back and change the word.

5.Why just two texts referred to so much

Ans I have refered to 7 books all of which are listed. One book focuses entirely on Architecture and another on literature. Four of the books referred to provide the same consistant infomation on the birth/growth/decline of the empire, though two are more detailed (Dr Kamath, Prof. Sastri, the less detailed ones being John Keay and Dr. Thapar) I could refer any number of books but the infomation at some point becomes repetitive. For instance in citation #48 thru 54, I may have as well cited R. Narasimhacharya, History of Kannada Literature, 1988 as he also provides the same information. Prof. K.A.N. Sastri dwells slghtly more in detail, so I used his book as reference and used the former book as additional reference in places. If you want both cited, I have no problems with it. The history of the Hoysalas is one of the most understood because it was not too far back in history (speaking relatively) and the empire has left behind a large number of inscriptions, next only to the Vijayanagar empire. In addition, literary sources from that time abound.

Number of references--> Dr. S.U.Kamath (32), Prof. K.A.N. Sastri (11), Dr. Thapar (12) John keay (2), Web based (19). Please remember that in many a case, I have cited both Dr. Kamath and Dr. Sastri OR Dr. Kamath and Dr. Thapar OR web reference and one of the books mentioned, and so on, indicating the scholars and sources concur. Sometimes I have clubbed citations to cover some extra info in one reference not found in the other for completeness.

6.It makes me suspicious of the veracity of the article. How reliable are these texts?

AnsThe authors of all seven books are renouned scholars and historians. This can be verified online. There is a wiki page also for Dr. Romila Thapar, Prof. Sastri is Prof. of history at Univ of Madras[6][7], South India, Dr. Suryanath Kamat is winner of the prestigious Sahitya Academy award 1973, from Government of Karnataka. He is the Director of Karnataka State Gazetteer and Director of Raja Ram Mohan Roy Historical Library in Calcutta. R. Narasimhacharya is a renouned authority on Kannada language and I can quote you other books he has authored as well. His books and historical lectures are available from Vedams books in New Delhi ([8] akin to Amazon.com except they deal mostly with India related books). John Keay, John M. Fritz and George Michell dont need an introducton. The authority of these scholars is beyond doubt. Some of there books are avaliable even in book stores in the USA, others have to be ordered for from publishers.

7.And the site http://www.ourkarnataka.com is not itself referenced. Is it just opinion?

AnsThe info to this page comes for historians themselves or info collected from historians. The fact that it is copyrigthed and deals with so many subjects makes it a valuable site to source from or verify from. So far I have not seen any inconsistancy between the contents of this web page and the books written by the scholars I have referenced. When I find something interesting worth mentioning from the web page, I reference it.

The copyright is irrelevant, and should be removed (there are so many of them in the list). My problem is that the web site is not itself explicitly referenced. That's all that counts. Our readers shouldn't have to wonder. I don't mind a few references to web sites that are themselves unreferenced, but not a lot, as here. I can only discount the info on the web site in terms of research veracity, because of this shortcoming. The information about the author(s) that you provide here is, I regret, irrelevant. Point 4: my point was that it's unclear what the function of that clause is.

1c is a serious issue for this nomination. Tony 03:03, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Umm, I would help but I do not really follow what Tony is talking about. Anyways their are only nine citations that include the website in question out of sixty-seven? I do not think their is a reason to not use available information just because it is from a website and the article has a lot of good references besides the website too. Maybe the issue is the way it is formatted? Also, I do not agree that simply using three-four books is not enough. It matters on the quality of those books and the subject matter. I cannot imagine finding dozens of books or needing to find dozens of books or someone actually having the time to read dozens of books for this article. --Blacksun 09:11, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, I think I see some formatting issues. For instance, I do not think that you need to cite the ebook store where you retrieved the book from. You should just cite the book as citing the site is akin to citing the library where you borrowed the book - bit silly. I can see the reason to cite it if the book is accessible for everyone on a website but needless to cite a place where you have to purchase it. --Blacksun 09:31, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Reply-->are you saying I have too many web references from www.ourkarnataka.com (8 of them actually) and that should be removed?thanks.Dineshkannambadi 03:21, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I did not understand this comment."1c is a serious issue for this nomination". What is 1c? thanks.Dineshkannambadi 03:23, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

It basically implies that you require citations or that your citations are not good enough. I strongly disagree with the assessment. --Blacksun 09:42, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I was typing this in when you replied. I counted the number of citations just in case you wanted the info. Number of references--> Dr. S.U.Kamath (32), Prof. K.A.N. Sastri (11), Dr. Thapar (12) John keay (2), Web based (19, of which 8 are from www.karnataka.com). Please remember that in many a case, I have cited both Dr. Kamath and Dr. Sastri OR Dr. Kamath and Dr. Thapar OR web reference and one of the books mentioned, and so on, indicating the scholars and sources concur. Sometimes I have clubbed citations to cover some extra info in one reference not found in the other for completeness.thanks.Dineshkannambadi 03:25, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Dinesh, do not club sources. Simply make another citation and put two cites next to each other in the text. "For example, this could be a sentence with two difference sources saying the same thing [14][15]".--Blacksun 09:33, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, make separate notes for different sources. And "1c" means WP:WIAFA criterion 1c. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 16:19, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Objection to candidature of this article

* Object - I object to this article's nomination for FA. This article is not neutral, nor is it well-sourced. It's sources are mainly pro-Kannada and it quite easily hides the Telugu and Tamil connection of Hoysalas. It seems to me like an advertisement of Kannada and Karnataka state. The user who has authored this article, User:Dineshkannambadi is well-known for his POV-pushing as I read from some talkpages of other articles. See Vijayanagara article's talkpage, or see Talk:Rashtrakuta or further see it's archives and see talkpages of Seuna as well. He has been regularly accused of pushing pro-Kannada POV in his articles. He has sone the same here. The article is full of Kannada-POV and I wonder how the administrators and other regular editors are missing the advertisement-style tone of the article. I vehemently oppose this nomination. We cannot let political propaganda run its course in Wikipedia. S Shri Venkata 11:34, 22 December 2006 (UTC))— Possible single purpose account: S Shri Venkata (S Shri Venkata • contribs) has made few or no other contributions outside this topic.

Comment - I have blocked the above user as a disruptive sockpuppet of a blocked user. Please ignore his comments as the user has been known to have disrupted articles edited by Dineshkannambadi- Aksi_great (talk) 19:30, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Mmm, can you be more specific? I have read the article thoroughly and have not noticed anything that seemed like PoV pushing. But I am not well-versed in South Indian history so can't be sure if I missed anything subtle. Can you provide sources and examples? Also, lets try to stick to the article instead of getting into personal conflicts. --Blacksun 12:30, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

The above account S Shri Venkata was created on 11:25, December 22, 2006 I believe with the sole purpose of rising an objection.If the user has any real objections he should bring verifyable sources to prove the Telugu/Tamil origin of the Hoysalas and I will be happy to include it. The sources should be accompanied with author, publication year, page number etc to validate the POV claim. If the conflicting source is in another language it has to be accompanied with preferably third party translation.Dineshkannambadi 12:39, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Your objection is invalid without providing a citation for your claims to POV. Secondly comment on the article not a user's history in FAC. =Nichalp «Talk»= 04:36, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support. Language can always be improved, but it is easily among Wikipedia's best as it is now. Nice work. The references look solid and it seems comprehensive. I'd like to know a little more about daily life during the empire's rule, such as food, lifestyle, etc, but that may be more appropriate for other articles. - Taxman ^Talk 16:28, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

update (12/22/06)

1.Removed city of publication from citations based on advice by User:Blacksun
2.Split combined citations into individual citations per User:Blacksun and User:Dwaipayan

If the 8 citations from www.OurKarnataka.com (pointed out by User:Tony1) is a concern, I can quite easily replace some of it with citations from other "referenced" web sites from well known Karnatakan scholar Dr. K.L. Kamat (not to be confused with Dr. Suryanath Kamath whose book I have used as reference) or may be from my own books. Please tell if that is required.thanks.Dineshkannambadi 18:44, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Done I have reduced this web site usage anyway by giving a few citations from other sources.

Also, As far as some of the citations, especially in the literature and architecture sections, I can provide more from R.Narasimhacharya and Gerard Foekema whose books I own and use as additional sources (Foekema ofcourse has been used extensivly on the Hoysala architecture page). I just did not want to overwhelm the article with repeatitive citations.thanks.Dineshkannambadi 18:50, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Done I have used History of Kannada Literature - R. Narasimhacharya and A Complete Guide to Hoysala Temples - Gerard Foekema

These above changes were made without altering the content of the article itself. As I had mentioned earlier, after reading a few books, much of the infomation becomes repeatitive and hence easy to find similar sentences and content while providing citations.Thanks.Dineshkannambadi 23:02, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Object I too object this article as given the 'background' of Mr.Kannambadi,he is an 'dubious' editor, extremely ill-mannered and indecent who manipulates the history to suit his own 'loyalties'. Historical articles need neutral and 'detached' editors. IMO, Hoysalas were not an 'empire' it was a kingdom. Peace. Mrtag 03:40, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Reply-->There are small empires, there are large empires (please look at article Empire). One has to focus on the contributions also, not just size. One of the main requirements for any rule to become an Empire is imperialism, meaning one culture occupying the land of another culture and influencing the occupied territories by way of culture, architecture etc. This is what the Hoysalas did when they occupied neighbouring Tamil Nadu and parts of Andhra Pradesh. Also if you do a google search for "Hoysala Empire", you will see many more listings (twice as many) than for Hoysala Kingdom.thanks.Dineshkannambadi 05:19, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

MrTag, please comment on the article not the editor in question. If you feel it to be a POV, please cite sources to suppliment your claim. Else this vote is invalid. =Nichalp «Talk»= 05:59, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I have little knowledge of Hoysalas hence cant comment on it. Probably this article is fine. My allegations about Mr.Kannambadi are justified, but seems it is not a place to say this. I take back my vote. Mrtag 06:40, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I would like to thank Mrtag for taking back his vote. Would he be kind enough to "scratch" it out because it spoils the otherwise positive mood on this page. Can I do this myself?.Thanks.Dineshkannambadi 12:02, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Umm I did it. *shrugs* --Blacksun 14:13, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Please note that User:Mrtag has now been indef-blocked as a disruptive troll run by User:Sarvabhaum. - Aksi_great (talk) 19:39, 23 December 2006 (UTC),

Caspian expeditions of the Rus

This is a good article now, and several editors on its talk page have suggested nominating it for FA. It had a peer review by the WikiProject Military history, which is available here. The article is comprehensive, fully referenced, and well-illustrated, so it should be up to the FA standard. User:Ghirlandajo and User:Briangotts have greatly contributed to improving the article, special thanks to Briangotts for drawing two highly informative maps. Beit Or 11:23, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support per nom. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 15:22, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support. I would like to note that the article is fresh. It was started on Oct. 18 and represents the most comprehensive treatment of the obscure topic available anywhere in the web. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 17:46, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support per nom. Kmorozov 10:09, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support per nom. Can a native English speaker look through the lead? I believe we can improve prose here. E.g. is there a synonym to the word spoils? It is used in every second sentence. Otherwise a very good article on an interesting topic. Alex Bakharev 10:31, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Of the six times the word "spoils" appears in the article, I have changed three of them. Now it does not appear in any section more than once. --Grimhelm 15:00, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support I just made a minor correction to clarify things about a possible connection between Ingvar's expedition and the Byzantine-Georgian conflict.--Kober 11:05, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support I tidied up one or two of the image captions, but aside from that the article seems to cover an interesting topic quite well. --Grimhelm 14:02, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support per nom. Acs4b 15:50, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support Per Ghirlandajo.--Eupator 19:01, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support per nom. —dmytro/s-ko/© 21:50, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support - excellent article, like many of the early slavic ones. Adam Cuerden ^talk 22:01, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Object—1a. Here are examples that indicate that the whole text needs serious copy-editing.

• • "On their way back home, the raiders from the north were attacked and defeated by Khazar Muslims in the Volga Delta, and those who escaped were finished off by the local tribes on the middle Volga." Slightly informal for this register: "back home"? Better as "On their return". "Finished off"? Very loose—what does it mean: killed? Routed? Beaten in battle?
    • No. Massacred. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 14:16, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  • "Afterwards, several more raids occurred; the last Scandinavian attempt to reestablish the route ..." Like "eventually", "afterwards" does not belong in an encyclopedic register: it's just too vague. "Further" might be better than "more". Hyphen within "reestablish".

And further down from the lead, at random:

• • "No later than in the early 9th century, the Norsemen settled in Northwestern Russia, where about six miles south of the Volkhov River entry into Lake Ladoga, they established a settlement called Aldeigja (Slavic: Ladoga)." Quirky construction at the start. Make it "By the early 9th century, the Norsemen had settled ...". Why the N for northwestern? Metric equivalent ...? Relocate the "they established" clause to straight after "where".

Not good. Tony 01:50, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Made changes suggested by Tony.--Riurik ^(discuss) 05:46, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

But what about the rest of the article? Mine were just examples. Tony 05:38, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

The response from Ghirlandajo (see below) is that an expectation of brilliance is subjective and arbitrary and hence non-actionable. Yet, if not brilliant, is the prose compelling as stated by Wikipedia:What is a featured article? #1(a). I think Tony's objection and my comment on the issue are valid and "actionable".--Riurik ^(discuss) 21:19, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Maybe you could pinpoint some passages that you find to be less than well-written? Otherwise, this comment is difficult to address. Beit Or 21:53, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

No, I cannot do the the actual copy-editing. I do have two items that may be answered...Under the Destruction of Khazaria section, it is stated that several possibilities have been suggested explaining the roots of the conflict. Maybe this can be made more clear and organized. I counted three possibilities. If that's the case, a possible revision may be: "There are three explanations for x, y, z. etc, etc..."

Also, the first sentence: The Caspian expeditions of the Rus were military raids undertaken by the Rus between 864 and 1041 on the Caspian Sea shores. Is there another way to say the same thing without using the Rus twice? I made one alternative change, but was accused of being an anti-Normanist. I was not even aware of either position (Normanist and anti-) until then. Are the Rus not the East Slavic people?--Riurik ^(discuss) 23:26, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support Kyriakos 01:53, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment the article can benefit from copy-editing, for example, currently the prose is not "compelling, even brilliant", but the content is superb.--Riurik ^(discuss) 06:05, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support. Looks great! Khoikhoi 06:25, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support Terrific article, looks like a featured one. Hello32020 13:27, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support per nom. --Boguslavmandzyuk 06:02, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comments. In general, the article is informative, well-structured, well-researched and well-referenced. These are my remarks about the article:

• The "See also" section has only two links. I think you could easily get rid of this section by incorporating the two links into the body of the text.
• Is it ibn Khordadbeh or Ibn Khordadbeh, because the title of his article is Ibn Khordadbeh?

• The first letter of the title of WP articles is ALWAYS capitalized. The correct usage is ibn Khordadbeh. --Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 04:03, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

• There is an inconsistency concerning the books mentioned in references. Some of them published after 1990 have ISBNs, while others also published after 1990 do not have.

• ISBNs added, where applicable. Beit Or 10:04, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

• Persons and terms come and go without any information about them. Who is ibn Khordadbeh and who al-Masudi? Yes, you link them, but I think that you shhould clarify in this article that they are prominent Muslim historians of the X or Z century. Again what is the Primary Chronicle? I want an explanation in this article!
• For me the writing is OK. But I'm not a native English speaker, while Tony is one, and I take seriously into consideration his remarks (and Riurik's as well). Maybe a slight copy-editing by an external native English editor would be helpful for the article. I'm sure the article's prose is "good", but I'm not sure it is "brillant".--Yannismarou 09:45, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

  I have been reviewing the evolution of Yannis' FA standards for quite some time and I advise everyone to take them cum grano salis. Per WP:POINT, Wikipedia is not consistent and it should not be. Any attempt to force consistence on Wikipedia articles is ill-advised. Our articles are not expected to repeat general information on every ABC term that is mentioned in the text. If you want to know what Primary Chronicle is, it's enough to click the link to this article. That's how online encyclopaedia works, as opposed to a paper encyclopaedia. The concept of "brilliance" of prose-writing is inherently subjective and arbitrary, hence non-actionable. Furthermore, following Yannis' self-imposed standards makes the article overlong and basically unreadable as his own articles are. I believe this is the issue for Wikipedia:WikiProject Extra-Long Article Committee. I am surprized that they have not split Demosthenes or El Greco into three nice 32K articles as yet. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 11:12, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

• Huh? Not sure why you're lashing out at Yannismarou here...I particularly don't see where Wikipedia:WikiProject Extra-Long Article Committee comes into play...I don't think Yannis suggested any expansion of this article... Gzkn 11:18, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

  What is this if not a request for expansion where it is not needed: "Persons and terms come and go without any information about them. Who is ibn Khordadbeh and who al-Masudi? Yes, you link them, but I think that you shhould clarify in this article that they are prominent Muslim historians of the X or Z century. Again what is the Primary Chronicle? I want an explanation in this article!" Yannis' premise that every article mentioning Leo Tolstoy (or al-Masudi) should introduce him as "the Russian novelist of the nineteenth century" (or "the Arab historian of the tenth century") is fundamentally wrong. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 11:22, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

  Oh...thought you meant Yannis wanted new sections in the article or something. Anyway, I don't see what the big fuss is all about...I'm sure Yannis means well...he is a very friendly editor, and he did preface his comments with "the article is informative, well-structured, well-researched and well-referenced". :) Gzkn 11:34, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

  My remarks have nothing to do with expanding the article. I speak about a few more words, not even adding 1 kb to the article. And I proposed these minor explanations (which is a minor issue anyway), because here we do not have to do with Tolstoi, but with some historians, institutions etc., which are not known to the majority of the readers. Who has a clue about the "Primary Chronicle" outside Russia? Not me and I think not many other readers. I must say I'm surprised by the personal attacks against me; taking into consideration the fact that I did not comment negatively on anybody here, but I made some (mostly minor) remarks about the article. If Ghirla thinks that by insulting others and attacking their contributions in Wikipedia, serves this FAC he is wrong. I'm even more surprised, because I did not object, but, on the other side, I lauded the high quality of the article. Nevertheless, I'm happy, because the nominator does not follow the same tactics with the above mentioned user; this is something very positive and I have to stress it. I also thank Briangotts and Beith for their swift and accurate responses on their remarks. At least, they know which is the right attitude towards a FAC reviewer.--Yannismarou 14:33, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

  Yannis, where do you see an insult or a personal attack? I often call into question your nebulous standards of what FA should look like and I don't believe my criticism of your approach qualifies as a personal attack. Also, there is no insult in pointing out that many of your articles are extremely long. Please cool off and don't resort to ad hominem arguments and comparisons. Best, Ghirla ^-трёп- 15:14, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

  Thanks for your interest in me cooling off. Whatever you may say about my "nebulous FAC standards", I feel vindicated, when, for instance, I see the level of referencing of this article (where you are an editor, if I'm not wrong). You were saying in the past that inline citations are not necessary, while this article (whose you are an editor) has citations in almost every phrase. According to your previous arguments, this shouldn't happen, and this article should be regarded as "extremely referenced". Anyway, I'm happy, because your actions negate your words and vindicate my positions. I'll be always here, in order to offer you guidance that you will first ridicule and then implement. Best, --Yannismarou 07:35, 12 December 2006 (UTC)--

• Support. Seems good enough to me. --PaxEquilibrium 13:16, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support - Can someone put a ref for the first para of section "Raid of 913"? Blnguyen (bananabucket) 04:31, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

I have done so. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 21:34, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support. A superb piece of work. --Irpen 06:51, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Bodyline

Former FA, (very) recently defeatured because of lack of inline citations, now fixed. Outstanding prose of a quality rarely encountered in WP, useful and enlightening illustrations and a sound retelling of the complex story of one of those exceptionally rare occasions where sporting controversy leads to serious political ramifications - in this case, just about averted. --Dweller 09:52, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support. Concerns raised at FAR were subsequently addressed. Sandy (Talk) 09:59, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support. Deserves its title back. Has proper citations now. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:57, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support. A comprehensive and entertaining read. jguk 12:14, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support and Ouch! --Xtreambar 18:53, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support nice restoration work and in such a short time too. Jay32183 19:41, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support - the FAR criteria have been fixed. Blnguyen (bananabucket) 02:43, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support a restore of FA. One comment: the article refers to the TV miniseries as "Bodyline: It's just not cricket", whereas IMDB and the DVD cover in the article both make no reference to the subtitle? --Steve _(Slf67) ^talk 02:57, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support per nom. Acs4b 15:52, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Object—Needs a copy-edit throughout. Here are examples from the top.
  • "several of the Laws of Cricket were changed to prevent this kind of tactic being used again"—The last three words are redundant: beautiful example.

Thanks. Fixed (although I don't think it was dreadful as it was) --Dweller 23:38, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

• • "that could be caught by one of several fielders located in the quadrant of the field behind square leg." Remove "located". Why is the "square leg" link piped to "Fielding" when there's a WP article on square leg? And if you're going to pipe it to "Fielding", why not to the specific section where s l is mentioned? I had to use my finder to locate it in that linked article.

Square Leg has nothing to do with cricket. Personally, I don't think that the fielding article is very good and there's no specific reference to square leg worth the mention. The best is the diagram. Anyone unfamiliar with the concept of fielding positions probably only needs to know that it is a fielding position... which the current link does admirably. --Dweller 23:38, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

• • "and make the ball come up into the body of the batsman"—not well expressed: "into"? Sounds like a penetration. "Make" is a little awkward; what about "so that the ball would strike the batsman's body"?
  • "to fend the ball away"—fend away? Try "deflect". Tony 03:26, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
    • I think that fend is more appropriate in this sense as we are talking about using gloves, etc at chest-neck height pushing the ball away at an awkward height. Using deflect gives the impression the batsman may have played a sublime leg glance or square cut or something... Blnguyen (bananabucket) 04:28, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
      • I agree. Fend implies a defensive element that deflect does not. --Steve _(Slf67) ^talk 06:23, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment - the DVD cover needs a justification for fair use. gren グレン 08:01, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Scouting

Overview of the worldwide Scout movement. Rlevse 01:15, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose. Too many places have no sources, at a quick glance. Hurricanehink (talk) 01:33, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Just added 5 refs (making 50 different ones, some used more than once). Will keep working on it. Let me know if there's a specifc ref you feel is needed. Rlevse 03:29, 7 December 2006 (UTC)...added 3 more, total 53. Rlevse 11:23, 7 December 2006 (UTC)...added 6 more, total 59 now. Rlevse 14:28, 7 December 2006 (UTC)....3 more, 62 different refs now.Rlevse 03:06, 8 December 2006 (UTC)...See "Announcement" below. Rlevse 14:32, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment: Is it really possible to judge the quality of an article by the sheer quantity of its references? --jergen 09:11, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Every section has at least one-two, often several. They are not a judging of the text, but an indicator of the level of referencing.Rlevse 16:37, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Do refs 47-52 use other WP articles as sources? -- Kicking222 14:21, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

No, these are notes, which refer to Wikipedia articles as a "see also". Although you should seperate these into a different section. Michaelas10 (Talk) 14:23, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Michaelas10 is correct, those are explanatory notes made when questions arose in the past; I've seen this done in other FACs/FAs. If the consensus is to separate them, we can, but I've generally seen these left in the regular notes section. Rlevse 14:32, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, it is technically impossible to separate proper references from "see also" references if you use the <ref> scheme.--GunnarRene 16:04, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

If I may clarify my comment: I knew that they were notes as opposed to references, and I knew that they can't be separated. My comment was really that the "includes ###" notes made me think that this information was simply taken from other articles, and it was not sourced in those articles (as I checked a few of them). -- Kicking222 16:23, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, these numbers were just taken from the mentioned articles. I think I could source most of the numbers, but this would take some days. And it is (nearly) impossible to get complete informations for the countries with fragmented Scout movements because nobody has a complete list of the existing associations. But this concerns mostly small local organizations with only a few members. --jergen 18:13, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

We've fixed Germany and France, are working on the others.Rlevse 01:40, 8 December 2006 (UTC)...fixed Italy now tooRlevse 03:06, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

See El Greco as an example of how to separate notes and refs. Gzkn 06:49, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Announcement a separate Notes section has been created for those five items, the standard footnotes are now in Citations. There are 5 notes and 55 footnotes now. Rlevse 14:32, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Can you please convert these to Roman numerals? Michaelas10 (Talk) 20:26, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Done, I'd just followed the article that showed me how to do it. Rlevse 22:21, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support I think it's well written and well sourced. --evrik ^(talk) 14:32, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support per Evrik. It has 59 refs now, plenty enough and every section has at least 1-2, if not several. I think the notes are okay where they are. Sumoeagle179 16:05, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment the "In film and the arts" section is awfully short, especially considering that what's there says that Scouting is "prevalent", and used by "numerous films and artwork". Also, though it may be most prevalent in American popular culture, there should be some mention of elsewhere, if possible. Tuf-Kat 16:31, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

I've made what was a regular wikilink a "main" link, there's a whole article on this. I'll work on this more later. Rlevse 16:39, 8 December 2006 (UTC)...Added a Scottish bit too.Rlevse 22:21, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Object—1a. Let's look at the opening para.

Scouting, or the Scout movement, is a worldwide youth movement of multiple organizations for both boys and girls whose aim is to develop young people physically, spiritually and mentally so that youth may take a constructive place in society. The movement employs a program of non-formal education with emphasis on practical activities in the outdoors, using the Scout method with programs targeted for up to five age groups, as defined by the founders of Scouting in the early 20th century. Most countries have Scouting programs for children and young adults from ages 6 to their early 20s.

• • "Scouting is subtely different from "the Scout movement", so shouldn't be cast with the "or" equivalent. My Phrase Checker shows that M should start Movement.
    • uppercased, changed wording slightlyRlevse 02:29, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  • "Multiple"?
    • yes, several organizations are part of the movement, but I'd rm'd 'multiple'.Rlevse 02:29, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  • "Both" is a marker; do we need to make some point that it's unexpected to have both genders in the organisation?
    • rm'd 'both'Rlevse 02:29, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Is it the aim of the "boys and girls" or of the "organizations"? It shouldn't be ambiguous grammatically.
    • rm'd 'boys and girls', slight reword. Rlevse 02:29, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Oh dear, the supernatural is introduced in the first sentence. I don't know whether this word "spiritually" is in the written mission statement, but I'd avoid using the term at the top, where it's fuzzy without further detail. Is it a quasi supernatural religious movement? I didn't think so.
    • rm'd, oh my gosh.Rlevse 02:29, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
    • put back in - spirituality does not equal religion, and it is a core part of Scouting... Horus Kol 09:59, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
  • We have "young people" and "youth" in the same sentence. Are they the same or different?
    • made the same.Rlevse 02:29, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  • "with emphasis on practical activities in the outdoors"¸—No, "with an emphasis on practical outdoor activities".
    • changedRlevse 02:29, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  • "from ages 6 to their early 20s". Clumsy; treat the two items equally.
    • rm'dRlevse 02:29, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

This is a very bad start, and indicates that the whole text needs major surgery. Tony 02:03, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

• I'll do what I can on the rest, but since I, like most of us, aren't as good at it as you and we're not mind readers, it'd help if you could be specific on the rest. Rlevse 02:29, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Try to find someone who's distant from the topic. Fresh eyes. Tony 03:38, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

That'd be you.Rlevse 04:06, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

• Object 1a not met, per Tony. Some examples culled from Origins section:
  • The seeds of the idea of Scouting began during the Siege of Mafeking, South Africa, during the Second Boer War of 1899 to 1902, where Baden-Powell served as commanding officer. Seeds began? Idea began? Unclear, but "The seeds of the idea of Scouting began" is just awkward in general. Also, repetition of "during the".
    • reworded to "Baden-Powell began to formulate ideas of what became Scouting during a battle of the Second Boer War, the Siege of Mafeking, South Africa, where he served as commanding officer." Rlevse 13:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  • As a result of his status as a national hero, acquired as a result of his determined and successful defense of the town of Mafeking, Baden-Powell's military training manual, Aids to Scouting (written in 1899) became a relative best-seller and was used by teachers and youth organizations. Rep. of "a result of his". What's a relative best-seller?
    • fixed. Rlevse 13:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  • subsequently met Baden-Powell, and they shared ideas about youth training programs. When?
    • added year and month
  • subsequently published in book form. Again, when?
    • added year and ref. Rlevse 13:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  • At the time Baden-Powell intended... and As the movement grew Sea Scout, Air Scout... these could use commas for clarity.
    • addedRlevse 13:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  • In 1919 Gilwell Park near London was purchased as adult training site and scouting campsite. Purchased by whom? Also, "an adult training site".
    • added bothRlevse 13:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Baden-Powell also wrote a book for the assistance of Leaders entitled Aids to Scoutmastership, and others for the use of new sections that were formed, such as Rovering to Success for Rover Scouts in 1922. Huh? Gzkn 05:04, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
    • added 'other handbooks'Rlevse 13:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Many thanks for these precise suggestions, would appreciate more if you're so inclined. Rlevse 13:02, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
      • Since it's been copy-edited, striking out my object until I find time to read the article again. Gzkn 03:32, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
• Weak Support I liked the article, but the issues Gzkn were essentially my concerns as well. I think you can get them fixed without too much problem, but I thought it was a solid article.Balloonman 09:42, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support I like the article also. It may not have the most sources on Wikipedia, but the information is well presented and sourced well enough. I don't have any problem with it being a featured article.Ganfon 23:27, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support I've watched this a couple of days before voting. I think the additional references have been a big help, and I don't really see any problems with the prose after a read-through. --JohnDBuell 03:35, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support This article has come a long way in the past few days, well done to the editors. Sorry I couldn't have been more help with finals and all. I don't see any problems with the prose, but I'll look over it again and see if I pick anything out. Darthgriz⁹⁸ 04:49, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment: The Wood Badge course is covered in two different places; could this be resolved? The sentence "Other popular youth movements have also adopted similar attributes successfully" doesn't make much sense. I've attempted to make the use of the serial comma consistent (sorry if it was intended that it not be used). --Spangineer^ws (háblame) 14:02, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Fixed both issues. Thanks for the help.Rlevse 17:05, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Hoary has given the article a good copyedit. Sumoeagle179 12:42, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment Outriggr has done some copyediting.Sumoeagle179 14:30, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

• Note: only one paragraph! Intend to do more. –Outriggr § 22:38, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

• Gosh, I'm just finding time to read this. A lot of respected editors have copyedited here, but I found a sentence fragment in the second sentence of the body of the article ... disappointed :-(
  • Robert Baden-Powell founded the Scouting movement in England in 1907 based on his experience, in and outside the army. First only for boys as Boy Scouts, but in 1910, with help from his sister Agnes Baden-Powell, for girls too as Girl Guides or Girl Scouts. Later it spread all over the world to young people of all ages.
• Sandy (Talk) 21:19, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment that para was cut and merged earlier today, but someone else modified it and stuck it back in. I've rm'd it again.Sumoeagle179 22:03, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

• Ditto. It's a danger of the wiki method, Sandy. :) –Outriggr § 22:38, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 22:50, 27 December 2006 (UTC).
• Comment After a brief copyedit, does this sentence read awkwardly to anyone else "Program specifics are targeted to Scouts appropriate to their age"? Shouldn't it be "Program specifics are targeted at Scouts appropriate to their age" or something along those lines? Darthgriz⁹⁸ 05:47, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Not much of a difference to me.Sumoeagle179 13:42, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• I objected above, and have returned to check progress. Take this bit of the lead:
  • "By 1909, girls wanted to join the Scout Movement and they are called either Girl Guides or Girl Scouts. In 2006, Scouting and Guiding have over 38 million members in 216 countries and territories represented through different Scouting associations at the international level. The works of Ernest Thompson Seton and Daniel Carter Beard influenced the early development of Scouting. Internationally, Scouting has become a significant part of popular culture." Sentence 1 has tension between past and present tenses. Two statements are uncomfortably jammed together with "and", which should be used to join very close ideas. Sentence 2: Are the last four words necessary? Sentence 3: we zig-zag back to the early days, followed by the international theme again in Sentence 4. This is very poorly organised.
  • The third para in the lead is: "The movement has experienced controversy. International Scouting associations have formed outside of the mainstream. Policies on membership regarding sexual orientation, religion and co-education differ between Scouting associations." Sentence 1: stubby and unexplained. Sentence 2: "outside OF"? Remove the second word, and explain what, exactly, the sentence means. Then this bit about sex and religion ... needs to be smoothly summarised, not poked at for the sake of it.

I'm sorry, I can't change my object, yet I wanted to. Tony 09:36, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. I've worked all the above. Since you left no specific points for the rest of the article, we can only assume you support the rest of it.Sumoeagle179 21:05, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment one reason of my reticence in supporting this nomination has among others been that the lead text was not in line with the fairly well organized body of the article. There even was information in the lead text, that was not mentioned in the body. I have given the lead text a major edit now, and kindly invite native English speaking editors to give it a further copy-edit for its English. Wim van Dorst (Talk) 22:27, 29 December 2006 (UTC).

White Deer Hole Creek

White Deer Hole Creek has had a peer review (which is here). The peer review found no major problems and the suggestions for improvement have all been addressed. The article follows most of the recommendations of WikiProject Rivers (although there is no list of tributaries, as the creek has only one named tributary). This article also follows the model of Larrys Creek, which is a similar stream and a featured article.

This is a self-nomination in that I have made most of the edits to the article, but I have sought feedback from many and have received positive comments. White Deer Hole Creek is a relatively small, but quite interesting stream and I believe the article does it justice. Thanks for any feedback, Ruhrfisch 15:09, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support - A marvelous article! My only complaint would be the over-linking of unnecessary terms. Please look closely at each term linked and see if it adds anything to the understanding of the text. There are many common words linked that should be unlinked. In addition, some terms are linked a number of times in the text, they should only be linked once. Otherwise, congratulations on a great article! *Exeunt* Ganymead | Dialogue? 19:42, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support Terrific article, many details. I also agree with these things that could be fixed, but the article seems good enough to be featured. Hello32020 20:18, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Response Thanks for your support and kind words. I did the final copyedits on a paper printout of the "printable version", which does not show wikilinks, so I will go through and remove duplicates links and try to remove those to unnecessary terms. Ruhrfisch 21:33, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Good job with further editing, removed comment. Hello32020 03:20, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment I haven't had time to read it all yet, but can you shorten the very long caption on the introductory image? It makes a very busy visual presentation. Also, quotes don't need to be in italics (see WP:QUOTE), and can you fix your second footnote - There's an extra bracket, and an overly long linked article title. Sandy (Talk) 21:43, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Response Thanks very much. I have shortened the caption and fixed the italicized quotations. I will fix the extra bracket in the second footnote. The full title of the book in print really is that long (it was published in 1892 - the web version does not give the full title). I really like using the full title, but will shorten it if that is what is required. I have started to remove duplicate wikilinks already, but to carefully do all of these things will take me a few hours at least. Ruhrfisch 22:47, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Support. Sandy (Talk) 23:38, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support The article is terrific! It seems to cover all the bases and tell you everything there is know about White Deer Hole Creek. I grew up on the other side of the mountain from the creek and never even knew its name. This just goes to show you what can happen when someone takes in interest in a creek. Articles like this should go a long way to helping preserve the wild streams of Pennsylvania. Dincher 23:06, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support, excellent. Everyking 01:35, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Response Thanks for all the support and praise. I believe I have now addressed all the issues raised above. I removed 51 duplicate or non-essential wikilinks from the article and fixed a couple of disambiguation links that had snuck in there along the way. I also fixed the extra bracket in the second footnote, but left my beloved very long title (for now at least). Ruhrfisch 02:43, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support Its very comprehensive, I'm in favor. I like to see some of the more obscure articles being featured. RideABicycle 03:35, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support Excellent work.--Dwaipayan (talk) 15:03, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support As a member of the rivers project myself (I think I am, anyway), this is everything we want our articles to be. Shame we're better at doing it with a very minor tributary of a major river than the major rivers themselves (Then again, geographically this was within the scope of what one editor could research and accomplish. Extraordinary work).

  I do have some suggestions — minor copy errors, some image suggestions, but IMO they are not and should not be fatal to featured status, which this article has achieved. I will instead share them on the talk page later. Daniel Case 18:33, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

  • Response Thanks again for the support and praise, it is always nice to have one's work appreciated. I had a useful question on my talk page about the Name section which I copied to the the article's talk page. I would be glad to try and respond to other questions or suggestions here or there. FYI, my eventual plan is to get all six major creeks in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania (plus one or two of Pine Creek's tributaries) up to FA status, then work on the West Branch Susquehanna River. I started with Larrys Creek because it is small and all in one county, then moved to White Deer Hole Creek as it is also small. Thanks again, Ruhrfisch 18:58, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support. Beautifully written article. I'm amazed that there is so much interesting to write on a previously unknown to me tributary. Sjakkalle (Check!) 07:50, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support. But I would still like to see the word 'watershed' linked to whatever is its proper use from the watershed disambiguation page. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:39, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Response Thanks for the support and praise. I have re-linked the first "watershed" to drainage basin. There is also a link to this in the infobox (from "basin"), so I had removed the duplicate link earlier in this FAC, as requested above. Ruhrfisch 12:29, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Object—1a. Here are examples from the lead that indicate that the whole article needs surgery.

• • Remove "located" from the opening sentence: it's redundant. People do this all the time, and I'm unsure why.
  • Why are "forest" and "agriculture" blued out? We do speak English. But wait, there are more. This is turning into a dictionary. Please delink these nuisance blueings.
  • The western part of the creek is in the Tiadaghton State Forest and has very high water quality." Two ideas that sit uncomfortably in the same sentence. Try a semicolon with some kind of causal factor? Or recast.
  • "The watershed has opportunities for canoeing"—The watershed goes canoeing?
  • "small scale lumbering"—What's "scale lumbering"? Hyphenate "small-scale".
  • "In the Second World War a TNT plant was built in the watershed, which later became a federal prison." Why be vague when you could easily google for the year it became a prison ...?
  • "In the 21st century, most development is in the eastern end,"—"has been"? Are you referring to development since 2000? Can a more precise time span be used than a whole century? Why not just remove the opening phrase? Recast to get rid of the hated "located"? "Most development has been in the eastern end [?particularly since ???], comprising two unincorporated villages, a hamlet, and most of the farms (primarily Amish)." Tony 02:14, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Response Thanks for your constructive criticisms. I will do my best to clean things up, but it will take me some time (I need to get some sleep soon). I will print it out again and get a fresh red pen. Ruhrfisch 04:58, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

      I have now edited just the lead to hopefully address the points you raised. The starting date for the prison was given in the article. I have reread your suggestions for meeting 1a and the criterion itself. Neither mentions the number of blue links (that I could see) - could you please direct me to the policy on this? I will work on the rest of the article, but hope the lead is now satisfactory. Thanks again and good night, Ruhrfisch 05:50, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I think that Tony's concerns are more about wikilinking common terms like pond, right bank and left bank, paths, bunkers, etc. See Wikipedia:Only make links relevant to the context Gzkn 10:59, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

• Thanks very much - I had thought right and left bank OK to link to in an article on a stream, but will work on this and Tony's other points. I appreciate all the feedback and help, Ruhrfisch 15:00, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
• Update and Questions I have removed all wikilinks to common words except for the names of plants, animals, fish, and birds. If you think I should delink these I will, but at least some are useful links i.e. hemlock in PA is really tsuga. Please let me know what to do. There are a few duplicate wikilinks left, all in the infobox first then put back in by other editors at their first occurrence in the text (Clinton and Union Counties, Pennsylvania, perhaps some townships). If you want, I will remove them from the infobox and leave them in the text. Again please tell me what to do. Finally, I have removed 1 kb from the article in redundancies and have hopefully cleared up any remaining trouble spots. I will ask some other editors to look this over for copyediting, but please, if you are better at this than I, let me know of problems and I will do my best to resolve them. Thanks and I look forward to any feedback on these edits, Ruhrfisch 19:42, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I think you overdid the delinking a bit. If we insist on referencing even the most innocuous assertions of fact (and I remember Uncle G pointing out somewhere that even things like, say, a well-known foreign capital cannot be presumed to be commonly known, we ought to allow more linking than WP:CONTEXT (a page which admits it's in constant conflict with WP:BTW) would seem to suggest, at least as interpreted by Tony. "Unincorporated" should definitely be linked in this context IMO.

And I would add, too, that he should have been more civil in his phrasing. If you're going to brashly assert "the whole article needs surgery", cite examples from the whole article, not just the intro. When I object to an FAC without reading the whole thing through, I usually try to say as much (nor do I consider mildly troublesome prose in the intro to merit a blunt "Object". Better to just say you have concerns you want to address. Daniel Case 02:43, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

To elaborate on this a bit, why delink all the outdoor sports in the intro? They're certainly context-relevant.

Also consider that people (wikipedians or not) don't always click on links because they don't understand something and need further explanation. They might have an interest in the subject and want to see what the actual article looks like. Maybe, just maybe, that will convince them to become active editors. Especially if this article makes it to the main page, as I expect it to someday. Daniel Case 02:56, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

• Response Thanks very much, I will add back in the sports and unincorporated wikilinks. If other editors want them out, please say so. I have used wikilinks as a way of explaining more if a reader is interested. I know a lot about Ohio, where villages are incorporated municipalities (population under 5000), and Pennsylvania, where they are unincorporated and part of townships (which are municipalities), so I always try to make it clear what the PA situation is and think the wikilinks help clarify this. I similarly had "white" (for the deer) in the Farley quote linked to albino. I just want to have the best article possible and help make Wikipedia better and appreciate all help in reaching this goal. Ruhrfisch 03:38, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. I used to live in Ohio, too, and like NY where I live now, there are just three types of municipalities: cities, villages and towns (townships in Ohio). But when I saw "Village", I thought, aren't small communities in PA called boroughs? The link does help. Daniel Case 05:20, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

• Villages in PA are marked with a sign by the Pennsylvania Dept of Transportation (i.e. "Village of Elimsport"), but even smaller communities (i.e. Spring Garden) are not, so I called Spring Garden a hamlet. Ruhrfisch 13:12, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

• Response Your points about the wikilinks are very valid in my opinion. It doesn't hurt to wikilink turkey (just as an example) even though most people reading the article probably already know what a turkey is. It seems to me that at least part of the purpose for wikilinks is to provide more information, not just a definition. Tony's comments seemed to be pretty harsh and would have set me off.Dincher 04:15, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Hip dysplasia

Self-nom - I think this has become a thorough article on this common veterinary medical condition. It has suitable balance and images, and is well written and informative on a broad scale. Other points are, it is non-controversial in content, the text and structure has been long-term stable, and it has been added to both the Cats and Dogs WikiProjects. This article exemplifies most FA criteria well, as far as I can see. In-line point by point recognition of sources may be an issue, against this formal sources are cited and several sections are linked to source articles rather than in-line cites. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 19:32, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

• Strong object Nice start, and you've done a lot of work, but it's not nearly ready for FAC. At first glance, at least, you need to expand the lead, reference the article with one style (and a preponderance of peer-reviewed PMID sources), remove all the external jumps, and follow WP:MEDMOS. Have a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine, and the most recent medical FAs (Bacteria, Influenza, and Tourette syndrome). Sandy (Talk) 20:49, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment I think it would be better to split into human and animal hip dysplasia articles. And also before nominating here a peer review can be very useful. Not anywhere near FA quality right now. --WS 23:37, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose: doesn't cite sources enough, doesn't comply with WP:MOS.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 18:45, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Brabham

Self nomination Current Good Article on a former Formula One team and racing car manufacturer with an interesting history. I've been working this one up over the last 6 months or so, on and off. It is comprehensive - more so that most webpages on the topic, which tend only to cover the team's F1 involvement. It's also pretty thoroughly referenced mainly from hardcopy sources (although no doubt someone will immediately spot something I've missed :)). It was peer reviewed here - all the issues raised were dealt with to the satisfaction of the peer reviewers. Finally, I think I've pegged all the relevant bits from WP:MoS. I believe it is now up to FA standard, but await your views. Thanks in advance. <ducks and hides under desk> 4u1e 00:40, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Support Don't be like that 4u1e, Brabham is a great article and it's rating as a GA, in my opinion, is an understatement. Great job!. --Skully Collins ^Edits 07:20, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment Oh, I'm not that worried! In fact, since my concern for the article is that I'm too close to it, I'll be quite happy if/when someone points out a problem with it. Thanks for the support :D 4u1e 08:09, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Neutral Very close, just one thing that concerns me, the image used in the infobox is also used later on in the article (with the caption "The Brabham BT52 was the first turbocharged car to win the F1 drivers' championship"). Also the copyright notice of the image seems a bit dodgy to me, and I couldn't find anything on the source website to confirm it. Suggest that a logo be used in the infobox and if possible proof of the the BT52's copyright status be found (or the image replaced). I will support when this is done. Alexj2002 09:24, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I'll check out the BT52 picture copyright notice, it's not one of the ones I loaded (there's a pic of a BT49 around somewhere if this one's not OK). Regarding logos, I agree, but have a small concern. I originally had the BRO logo at the top of the page. Because BRO only represents a small part of the team's history, I was going to go with the team's most recent logo (the scorpion/snake thing). I have a gif of this one, but didn't record the site I got it from and cannot now find it on the web anywhere. This means I can't fulfil the requirement to give the source of the image. Any advice? 4u1e 09:56, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

You're right. Very dodgy licensing, and the pic has gone from that website as far as I can see. I've replaced it with a cc-by licensed image of a BT49 from flickr.com in the text and the BRO logo at the top of the page. 4u1e 10:18, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Try [9] for the snake/scorpion logo. Alexj2002 10:20, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

That's the one. Apparently it's referred to as Hissing Sid. Don't know why it didn't come up on search. I'll fix that one tonight. Cheers. 4u1e 10:23, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for finding that. I'd be grateful if you could check I've gotten the fair use rationale right. 4u1e 20:49, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Support Objections resolved. Alexj2002 21:08, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comments.
  • Please remove Amazon.com links from references.
    • First of all - many thanks for such a comprehensive assessment of the structure. Happy to remove the Amazon links, although I find them more useful than the ISBN ones for the kind of sources we're talking about here. Out of curiosity, is there a specific policy on this, or is it a preference?
      • It's a commercial site - and raises the argument of why Amazon, and not B&N. We aren't a bookseller :-) Sandy (Talk) 18:55, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
        • Done. 4u1e 21:08, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I fixed one of your references to include the webpage title: in the event links go dead, future readers need to know the exact bibliographic info in order to attempt to re-locate the info. Please doublecheck all your web links, and make sure last access dates are provided. When a page links to static results, consider linking to the internet archive for a stable version.
    • What I really wanted was a link to a general 'results archive' page. Unfortunately the F1 site isn't structured like that, you have to link to a specific year. I didn't want the reference to look like it was just to a single year's results, so left that part of the title out. However, you're probably right, it's misleading to do so. Excellent point re archived versions of the page. I will investigate.
      • Sadly, I don't think the internet archive will work here. The way the f1 site is structured, each year's results have a different page. Each year has 16 or so races, again each with a separate page, and the results can be viewed by driver, team or season summary. If I understand correctly, the links from each archived page go to the current version of the linked page, not the archived version. Without giving individual links to archived versions of each of the relevant pages (perhaps 30 x 16 = 318 pages!) I can't see how this can be made to work.4u1e 22:26, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Is there an ISBN for Pinder?
    • No, and I think I may drop him as a source. I hadn't noticed at first, but the coincidence of his name and the publisher's indicate that it is probably a vanity book. While I think it remains a useful and reliable source on Repco, and there is nothing in the book which contradicts other sources, it's probably cleaner just to use Henry instead.
      • Pinder removed, substituted Lawrence, which gives more info than Henry on Brabham's technical involvement in the project, if anyone ever actually reads the reference text! 4u1e 19:05, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Wiki is a dynamic environment, and future editors could insert new text - I can't support an article carrying this statement: "Facts which are not otherwise footnoted have been taken from the following sources:" Facts which need to be footnoted, should be footnoted.
    • Again, your point is fair. I suggest that the article's readability will suffer if I footnote all race results, so how about I remove the general reference to Alan Henry's 1999 Motorsport article and leave the race results under the heading 'All race and championship results taken from'?
      • Use your best judgment: you know the territory better than I do. Sandy (Talk) 18:55, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
        • Done (to my best judgement ;-)) 4u1e 21:23, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Why do you include page numbers in References? The point of References is to list sources, with specific page numbers provided in the Footnotes.
    • The ones with page numbers are articles in newspapers or magazines, so the referenced source is a particular article, not to the magazine in general. In newspapers, which are not generally indexed, the articles will be harder to find without a page number. The page number is given in the footnote, though, so I can live with losing them from the references.
      • Sorry, I see that now. Sandy (Talk) 18:55, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
        • I did consider seperating out the books and the newspaper/magazine references, but decided that would be overly complicated! 4u1e 21:23, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Some bluelinks in some footnotes need to be expanded to include full bibliographic info - if the sources go dead, future readers need to be able to find the article, example, www.sfo.gov.uk is not sufficient info.
    • Good point. Will fix.
      • I've made some tentative changes, but haven't finalised an approach yet. Can I confirm that www.sfo.gov.uk wasn't actually a problem? It has the website, the name of the document the info came from and the title of the case study within that document. I've added the 'click path' to the title as well, but don't see what else can be done with this one. I assume www.f3history.co.uk, www.grandprix.com and www.indy500.com/stats are the issue? I've tried something with the first two (see references section). Better? 4u1e 07:13, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
        • Have added more detail on each ref, and re-written some of the article to use hardcopy references instead of on-line (Online now in 'External links' section). 4u1e 22:45, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Why are these bolded ? devised a hydropneumatic suspension system, Murray started using lightweight carbon fibre composite panels, The Brabham BT46B of 1978, also known as the Fan car, to introduce full width rear wings for downforce and increased grip, etc ?
  • Why is this italicized? downforce created by aerodynamic ground effect.
    • It wasn't me that did it, but I believe the intent was to highlight technical terms, an approach I've seen recommended somewhere in one of the style guides (I'll check that out in more detail). I'm happy for it to go if it's distracting.
      • OK. The guidance I was thinking of is Technical terms and definitions. Having read that again, I've settled for italics for technical terms which I believe many people won't have encountered before. Thus I have italicised monocoque, but not wind tunnel because I think most people will have a vague idea of what it is. I've italicised at the first appearance, and at the first appearance in the 'Technical innovation' section, since this is where most of the description is done. Better? 4u1e 18:57, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Re-arranging images in Racing history - other formulae will help avoid chunks of white space - images don't *have* to be right next to the text they refer to, when doing so results in chunky white space.
    • Will give that a go, on a variety of screen settings. It looks OK on the three different set ups that I normally use, but I guess that's not really representative of the world at large.
      • I've tried a couple of different screen resolutions, a load of different window sizes and IE as well as Firefox (Netscape now uses the IE and Mozilla rendering engines, so I haven't bothered with that). I can't see any 'chunky white space' on any window or screen sizes, other than right at the top of the article on my maximum resolution settings. I have re-arranged the pictures anyway to make the page less uniform. Any better? If not, could you be more specific about what the problem looks like, perhaps with screen resolution settings and browser details? A screen cap would be good, if you can do it. 4u1e 18:00, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I haven't read the text yet; I'll do that after structural things are addressed. Sandy (Talk) 17:22, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Response to comment: I think I have addressed all of the points raised above. Do you agree? 4u1e 22:45, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Responded on talk. Sandy (Talk) 01:47, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support Excellent article.--Diniz 13:46, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Megadeth

Self-nomination. This article was put up for FA before I got a hold of it, but has been completely rewritten, formatted, cited, and peer reviewed. It may be a little long in kilobytes, but nearly half of that is inline citations, and seems comparable to other music FA's such as The KLF, Rush (band), and Pink Floyd. -- Skeletor2112 06:39, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support This is a remarkable improvement over the previous version. Well cited, very detailed while staying on topic, and well-written. Great work. Jay32183 23:48, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support, so long as you fix the categories. Why is it in Category:American heavy metal groups and Category:Heavy metal groups? Country specific categories are already subcategories of the main category, so putting the article in both is wrong. They should only be in the American one, the general one should only contains band that don't yet have a specific heavy metal category for their country. Also, why are they in the speed metal, thrash metal and heavy metal categories? Pick just one - the article describes them as a heavy metal band, so I would go with that. Otherwise, article is fine. Proto::► 13:30, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I've removed the Category:Heavy metal groups. Not sure what you mean about the genre categories though, after all, they belong to each one of these genres. Michaelas10 (Talk) 15:33, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I also removed the speed metal category, even though they were commonly referred to as a speed metal band, the term has fallen out of favor, and is somewhat contested these days. But the band is widley considered both "thrash metal" (early albums) and "heavy metal" (later albums), since their sound has changed greatly in the past 20 years. Skeletor2112 05:39, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support Weak support. Please correct the excessive music samples problem as described over the Slayer discussion page, once you done with it I will probably switch to full support. Michaelas10 (Talk) 15:33, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I've removed all of the extra samples, leaving only Grammy nominated songs, and "hits" like "Symphony" and "Trust", ect. Skeletor2112 07:52, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment The lead shouldn't be inline cited - the lead is meant to be a summary of the article. Any info in the lead should be in the body of the article also and cited there. LuciferMorgan 01:37, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I've removed all cites from the lead paragraph. Skeletor2112 07:52, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support Thorough, well written, and well referenced. It wasn't ready last time, but it is now.JeffStickney 08:54, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support As stated.--K-UNIT 15:14, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support, great article. Deizio talk 00:39, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support, universally rocking! Also very well written and well referenced article. FrummerThanThou 03:59, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

The above user seems to speedily tagging some of the articles on FAC with {{LEAD}} without bothering to actually read them...:-/ (see Special:Contributions/FrummerThanThou). Gzkn 04:52, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

The KLF has a lead roughly the same size, and won a Wikimania 2006 Award, so I don't feel the objection is actionable. LuciferMorgan 20:09, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

FrummerThanThou, can you explain what "not universally rocking" means? The lead has been combined into four paragraphs, as per WP:LEAD, and is roughly the same size as the Battle of Dien Bien Phu page, which you voted to support today. Skeletor2112 06:15, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

• Object Image problems. Image:Megadeth-Band-2006.jpg fails WP:FUC #1 and needs deleting. Five other images are sourced to some fansite, with no indication of copyright holder (failing WP:FUC #10) and need deleting -- they should have been tagged as "found on an unconfirmed website", not as "promotional". One of them is apparantly the back of an album cover, so that one at least could probably be properly sourced -- look in the liner notes for the photographer and copyright info. Jkelly 19:56, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Gigantour is the official tour website of Megadeth's latest tour and is a confirmed website. Image:Megadeth-Band-2006.jpg meets WP:FUC, as the picture is promotional and is intended for use by third parties. LuciferMorgan 20:07, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

You need to actually read my comment. Image:Megadeth-Band-2006.jpg fails WP:FUC #1 (and is now so tagged -- incidentally, it also fails #10). The rest of the images are from fansite with a Polish extension, except for the one that is a back of an album cover, which is nevertheless credited to the same Polish fansite. Jkelly 21:36, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Since you seem so certain it fails #1, what free equivalent is available then?— Preceding unsigned comment added by LuciferMorgan (talk • contribs)

Image:Megadeth at Sauna.jpeg is a recent photo of the band. In case it is helpful, I've cropped it -- Image:Megadeth at Sauna crop.jpg -- to remove the extraneous overhead space. In any case, we don't need to already possess a freely licensed image to know that something is replaceable. Many editors spend significant time asking people to donate their photography under a free license. You can find some examples of polite letters to use at Wikipedia:Boilerplate requests for permission. Jkelly 23:25, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

So we should remove Image:Megadeth at Sauna.jpeg and make Image:Megadeth at Sauna crop.jpg the lead image, and then just remove all the images marked as unsourced? I want to make sure I understand your suggestion. Jay32183 23:30, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

More or less, except that I really have no opinion on whether the cropped version should be used or not... that's an aesthetic decision, and you should feel free to use whichever version of the freely-licensed photograph that the local editors prefer. Jkelly 00:30, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

If you've tagged the images as having no source won't a bot remove them from the article and in a few days it won't be an issue? Jay32183 21:14, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Right, most of the images need to be deleted, and when they are my objection has been dealt with, but that means the article will look quite different once the problem images are gone. Jkelly 21:36, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Well when the images are gone, it's obvious someone will moan about lack of images, which may I add isn't a valid reason for objection.— Preceding unsigned comment added by LuciferMorgan (talk • contribs)

Support, Well written and well referenced article. Acs4b 16:03, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Support Well written with plenty of pictures, music samples, etc... It's a lot better than most featured articles Freezing the mainstream Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Power: A New Social Analysis

Hero of Belarus

This article was FA before, but was farc'ed because of lack of maintainence on my part. After I got some of my other projects out of the way, I started to bring this article back to shape and see now if it is FA worthy, again.

The first problems people had was the citations. When I wrote this in May of 2005, I did not know about the (ref) tags, either because I was still too new or that wasn't started yet. Regardless, I used that system in this cleanup and used 16 references (with some of them repeating). Second, people are having problem with some of the grammar. I have tried to fix that as the best as I could, but grammar has been an issue haunting me a lot on Wikipedia. Any help on that is welcome. Third, at the time when I wrote this, I had some illustrations and I was a noob to copyright law. Now, I know a lot about it and many of the former illustrations have been nuked. Some other concerns, about missing sections, I have included some more information and added a new section dealing with misc. topics.

My main goal for this FAC is not much, except for getting that shiny brown star again on it's talk page. It has been on the main page before, so don't worry about that. However, if there is anything I missed, let me know and I will try and make sure it gets added/subtracted from the article. Thanks again. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 21:57, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. How about turning the Recipients section into a table? Some points for readability could be earned as I think. --Brand спойт 19:43, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I think the flowing prose in that section is preferrable to a table. I can't give my official comment on the article yet. If the nominator's main concern is grammar, then I'll have to give this an in depth read. Just don't want anyone turning prose into a table when it isn't necessary. Jay32183 00:01, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Honestly, I have not thought about a table, but I am not sure it is going to work. There is going to be a lot of information about the heroes that would be lost if a table is used. While I know that the 2001 and 2006 heroes will be alright, I am afraid the paragraph on Karvat will be lost if it is put in the table format. However, Brand, I thank you for your suggestion. Jay, take your time, there is no hurry. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 05:17, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
      • Support. No serious issues to fix in my opinion. --Brand спойт 11:06, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support After further review, the writing looks good. Excellent work bringing a former featured article up to the current standard. Jay32183 05:42, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Thank you. For future reference, I originally created this article and brought to FA the first time around, but I let the article go to waste. I am glad it is back up to standards now. User:Zscout370 ^{(Return Fire)} 05:51, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support, looks good. [ælfəks] 03:07, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support savidan^{(talk) (e@)} 09:14, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Battle of Dien Bien Phu

This is a second nomination (Old nom). The previous comments were mostly minor, and I think they've been addressed now. Raul654 21:44, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment per WP:MSH, section headings should not have wikilinks, and words should not be capitalized unless it is the first word of the heading or is a proper noun. AZ _t 22:19, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I fixed the wikilinked section header (and put it into the paragraph itself), but I fail to see any capitalized words that shouldn't be. Raul654 22:24, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
    • I found a few. I think they're all good now. —Kevin 05:56, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose This article is pretty good, but it needs some work to reach FA status. Some suggestions:
  • The first half is very lightly cited.
  • Some of the claims in the article are contridictory. For instance it is stated that VM AAA batteries "made it prohibitively costly for the French to bring in reinforcements", yet the French did manage to bring considerable reinforcements into DBP, including several complete battalions (albeit at a serious cost on transport aircraft). Similarly it is stated that "The Viet Minh elite 148th Independent Infantry Regiment, headquartered at Dien Bien Phu, reacted "instantly and effectively"; however, three of their four battalions were absent that day". If the 148th Regt was so weak at DBP how could it be effective?
    • The 'instantly and effectively' is quoted verbatim from Davidson. I don't believe it's contradictory - they were understrength, but the people who were there fought effectively. As to the comments regarding the airdrops, I agree that may need clarification. Raul654 04:59, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
      • Perhaps you should also add how many battalions of the regiment reacted "instantly and effectively". Wandalstouring 20:24, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

• • The section on the American involvement in the battle should be expanded. It should also cover the United States considerations of intervening directly in greater detail - the US also seriously considered conventional raids at DBP. --Nick Dowling 08:20, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Agree; I mentioned something Fall discusses on pages 306-307, about several American and British leaders considering the possibility of lending atomic weapons. — Deckiller 06:33, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
      • This section has now been largly expanded. Raul654 20:49, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

• Object. In order to be encyclopaedic, the article should not look like the summary of a single reference. We expect more variable sources from a featured article, especially when the topic is potentially contentious. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 09:45, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I own Hell in a Very Small Place, so I can add some page citations to combo-cite. — Deckiller 05:22, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
    • The article now contains many more citations to Roy and Fall. Does this address your objection? Raul654 07:24, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
      • It's OK now. --Ghirla ^-трёп- 19:06, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support. nice. --TheFEARgod (Ч) 20:50, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support, a very interesting article, very well written. Feature it! FrummerThanThou 04:14, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support. Very detailed and interesting article on a little known subject. PHG 19:56, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Support after copyediting the article on the previous nomination and helping Raul refernece on this one, I'm safe to say this article is yet another one of Wikipedia's outstanding History selections. — Deckiller 00:19, 9 December 2006 (UTC) (Sorry, I forgot that I didn't get around to copyediting this in the old nomination; I just added sources)

• Oppose. Please clean up the references section. Books should have a publication date, web references should be expanded to include the name of the site and the last access date. There are many one and two-sentence paragraphs, resulting in choppy prose. There are also statements that should be cited (for example, "The garrison constituted roughly a tenth of the total French manpower in Indochina.") Sandy (Talk) 00:45, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I don't think the paragraphs are an issue, but then again, I've always stongly disagreed with the "stubby paragraph" arguement. I cited what I could from the one book I had, so Raul might be on his own for the rest. As for the reference issues, again, I couldn't help there, since all I know is the Bernard Fall book. — Deckiller 00:51, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
    • I've added dates for all the books and switched the website references over to the cite web template with the access date. The smaller paragraphs, located primarily towards the beginning of the article, have been merged together by Deckiller and myself. I've added a reference for the 'tenth of manpower' statement, but I don't see anything else that should be cited that isn't. I think that addresses Sandy's concerns. Raul654 01:44, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
      • Support (providing Tony's points are addressed - how's that for circular reasoning? :-) My concerns are addressed. Sandy (Talk) 02:29, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support, providing Sandy's points are addressed, and the issues below are fixed. (These are only writing glitches that I found on a quick read-through; there may be more.) Generally, it's well written.
• "a colleague whom he trusted"—better "a trusted colleague".
• To be picky, this is ungrammatical: "would require operating his army far from its home base". Better: "would require his army to operate far from its home base".
• "launched a massive artillery barrage against the surprised French"—better as "a massive surprise artillery barrage".
• "unbeknowenst" (like "whilst" and "amongst"), should go into the bin of forced formality. Just remove the last two characters.
• "and had practiced assaulting it used models." ??
• "However, the Viet Minh ..." Stubby para.
• "While the fighting was going on ..." Too informal. "During the fighting".
• "on the night of the 14-15 and the 16-17"—Are these dates? Format correctly, with en dashes and "th"; remove the two "the"s.
• "4 155mm howitzers and mortars"—Confusing and unacceptable. Spell out "4". Tony 01:12, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  • I have fixed all the problems Tony has identified. Raul654 01:40, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

• comment article has a redlink to an ethnic group in Vietnam: T'ais: "Anne-Marie was defended by T'ais". This group is not listed in the article List of ethnic groups in Vietnam. Perhaps someone could reconcile these facts. Thanks Hmains 01:35, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  • The defect is in the list article. See this for a description of the T'ais. Raul654 01:37, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
    • I take it back. The list has a link to Thai people, which gives T'ai as an acceptable alternate spelling (I have now made this a redirect). Raul654 01:38, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
    • I am not sure this is the answer. The 'Thai people' article does not show many Thais living in Vietnam. I think the www link is talking about a different group, truly named "T'ai", who are in Vietnam. It might be the Tay people who are being discussed, the largest minority group in Vietnam--and who seem to live in the correct area. Sorry, I do not have reference material at my disposal to help out. Hmains 02:32, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
      • Tai peoples is the correct article. It includes links to Black Tai and White Tai, which are both mentioned in the link above. Raul654 02:36, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
      • comment Article has the following sentence: 'generals Gilles and Dechaux (the ground and air commanders for CASTOR'.) It would be nice is the full names of the two generals could be found and included. These names are only referenced this once in the article. Thanks Hmains 01:49, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
        • Good point. I've added it to the article (they're both named Jean) Raul654 01:55, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
• support a good useful article. Hmains 03:08, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
• comment overall a very good article but some issues could be adressed Mieciu K 16:26, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
  • how did the French forces took care of their wounded, and how many of them were evacuated?
  • did the French use helicopters or attempted night-time ressuply (to avoid Vietnamese AA fire)?
  • how well were the Vietnamese units armed in small arms like submachine guns and machine guns compared to the French forces, and how well were they supplid in ammunition?
  • did the Vietnamese use human wave tactics?
    • The answer to most of your questions is no. The French doctors and surgeons tried very hard to treat the wounded (Roy 138 describes Dr. Grauwin, the French surgeon, as a man of "considerable virtuosity") but the field hospital they used wasn't much more than a hole in the ground - one which the Moroccan workers had to dig the walls out of every night in order to expand it, to accommodate the ever increasing numbers of wounded. As far as evacuation - the airfield became unusable not too long after the battle began. After that, as the article says, supplies and reinforcements had to be parachuted in (a one-way trip to be sure). A helicopter rescue - especially in the extremely primitive 1950s helicopters - would have been a suicide operation. Helicopters tend to be large, slow-moving , and easy to knock out. A night time resupply would only have made the problem of inaccurate supply drops far worse.
    • Most of the ammunition used by the Vietnamese came from China. Given the logistics involved in transporting it through untamed jungle from China, the Viet Minh operations at Dien Bien Phu consumed virtually their entire supply capability. As far as their armament, I'm not entirely sure - none of the sources I've read explicitely state it (and it's somewhat beyond the scope of this article. It would more properly belong in an article about the Viet Minh). If I had to guess, they were probably using Chinese knockoff AK47s, although at the time there was a *LOT* of surplus WWII equipment from the British, Japanese, Chinese, and French in the area, so it wouldn't surprise me if the logistics were very diverse. Raul654 03:35, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
    • As far as human wave attacks - no. The fighting was reminiscent of the trench warfare of WWI, but I wouldn't go so far as to describe it as having human waves. Raul654 03:50, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
      • I think Fall describes the Viet Minh as swarming, but Hell in a Very Small Place is slightly French biased. — Deckiller 04:42, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

California Gold Rush

I am nominating California Gold Rush, which had an extensive peer review and has been rated a Good article. It is very well-referenced, and meets all of the FA criteria: well-written, comprehensive, factually accurate, neutral and stable. While I did not create the article, I did contribute significant portions. This is the first nomination of this article. NorCalHistory 19:38, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment I should add that this article is the Selected article of the California Portal. NorCalHistory 20:19, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

*Object, mildly. On the whole it's a good article, but it lacks any direct mention of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company (that article also needs some work, by the way), which played an important role in the development of California during the gold rush era, and which was itself greatly affected by the gold discovery. Whyaduck 01:39, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

• • Fixed Information was in article; added specific name Pacific Mail Steamship Company (PS: I agree that PMSC article could use some work - sounds like a fascinating topic!).NorCalHistory 03:03, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
    • OK. I might make a couple of small, clarifying additions to the Pacific Mail article myself (there's a lot of information about the company available online), but haven't the time to do the full expansion the subject deserves.

• Comment Good luck, hope it achieves FA star.Showmanship is the key 01:51, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

• comment I would certainly want to support this, but I see that another editor who is trying to edit war is following me along to articles I work on and inserting links to stand alone years. Your article now contains these unnecesary links--links which I did not and have not touched in any way, but this other editor in his zeal failed to notice this. Sorry this is involved now. No need to say anything in return. I will view any result.
• Support. Since it is a good article, it should be a featured article. Chris 02:52, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose. The lead is unencyclopedic in tone. Comment The lead has been greatly improved in tone and focus, but I'm concerned that it might not adequately summarize the entire article. -Fsotrain⁰⁹ 18:19, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Addressed Please see changes. NorCalHistory 17:08, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment, for now. The lead needs some serious work. The Geology section seems completely out of place here. Some of the writing sounds like a Zagat review guide, what with all the random, short, out-of-context quotes used throughout the text. --DaveOinSF 05:07, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Addressed Please see changes. NorCalHistory 17:08, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Comment2. From a cursory glance it is improved. I will read it in full a little later when I have time; just putting a note here that I haven't forgotten.--DaveOinSF 19:58, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Support. Nice job. It meets my expectations now.--DaveOinSF 05:11, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose for now. While many parts of the article are excellent, I find the very first paragraph unencyclopedic and written in the form of an argumentative essay rather than an encyclopedic article. Unencyclopedic paragraphs do not belong in FA's (or FACs, for the matter), let alone the lead. Fix (preferably remove) and I will support. --²¹⁰physicq (c) 05:48, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Addressed Please see changes. NorCalHistory 17:08, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
    • Ok. Even though I still find the first paragraph of the Longer-term effects section (which can be shortened to "long-term effects, BTW) still sounds a bit argumentative and the Geology sections seems out of place, I am willing to change my vote to support even though slight changes can still be made. --²¹⁰physicq (c) 18:17, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
      • Thanks. If the consensus is that the Geology section still doesn't seem to fit, it can easily be removed, since that daughter article has been created. NorCalHistory 18:46, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. It looks very good for the most part, and is certainly well-referenced. I feel that it is very, very close to FA quality. The parts I'm most concerned about are the lead, and a few other short sections of the text that have the feel of a popular book, rather than an encyclopedia. As noted above, the Geology section is mostly background information, and should probably be moved to its own article with only a brief summary left in the Gold Rush article itself. One addition to the article might be a little on the mythology of the Gold Rush (see, for example, the Levi Strauss & Co. article). ^BlankVerse 08:13, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Addressed Please see changes. NorCalHistory 17:08, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support. I offered some guidance when this article was in peer review. Since then it has improved to become impressively referenced and comprehensive. Its only shortcoming is the need for a copyedit to eliminate a few civic-boosterism phrases. I may provide that copyedit if my time allows. Those turns of phrase are not entirely unmerited: prior to this era California had been an isolated region of little importance; if it were an independent country today it would have the world's sixth largest economy. I don't think a few minor inconsistencies in tone constitute reason to oppose. All of the underlying FA requirements have been satisfied. Durova^Charge! 17:27, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

• comment This article needs a good map of the Gold Rush area during the Gold Rush era; I added one citation needed tag to the article (on 300,000 arrivals); all wikilinks need be checked to see they are pointing to the desired article; Placerville points to a disambiguation page, for example. Hmains 18:28, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
  • A map is an excellent suggestion, and the requested cite will be supplied shortly - thanks for catching that link (which has been fixed)! NorCalHistory 18:46, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support I contributed to the peer review, and have followed the article and made minor tweaks and suggestions since then. While some improvements can still be made per suggestions above, I believe the fundamentals are in place. Over time, I'd like to see the article grow in the areas of history, immigrants such as the Chinese, and effects, and a daughter article on Forty-Niners created and correctly disambiguated. I agree that a map is a much-needed addition, and it should highlight the site of original gold discovery, as well as Route 49. Sandy (Talk) 18:59, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

• Object. We don't blithely write "in 1848, retrieved 273 pounds (124 kg) of gold in a few months"; we aren't Encyclopedia Britannica. What in the world is the italics supposed to signify, anyway? Why are these 273 pounds equal to 124 kilograms, rather than 102 kilograms? Don't use any pounds at all without explicitly identifying them, after you have made damn sure you know what they are. Does the original source of this statement identify its pounds, either in the place this came from or generally in the introduction? Does that source include the kilograms, or did some Wikipedia editor add that? Does it indicate its source for the numbr, so you can track that down? Is the specific number "273" in that source? Gene Nygaard 09:18, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

. on Page 230: "... in gold; others from a nearby tributary, $12,000 ON THE FEATHER RIVER six miners with fifty Indian workers took out 273 pounds of gold AT SINCLAIR's RANCH Sutter's neighbor, ..."--Paul 16:02, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Response: Gene - I hope the following answers your concerns;

(a) Yes, the figure of 273 pounds is given in the source cited.

(b) When I use any of the standard conversion websites (like this one), they confirm that the metric equivalent of 273 pounds is 124 kilograms.

(c) Italics are used for the word pounds here because all prior references to gold are in ounces. The italics assist the reader to see that a different unit of measurement is being used here.

Do these respond to your concerns? NorCalHistory 18:01, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment: 1 kg = 2.2 lbs; Ergo, 273 lbs * (1 kg/2.2 lbs) = 124 kg. --DaveOinSF 19:58, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Your conversion is incorrect because you are converting from avoirdupois pounds to kilograms, rather than from troy pounds. The correct figure in kilograms is 102. Andrew Levine 19:59, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Response Judging that the secondary sources cited are ambiguous whether it is avoirdupois pounds or troy pounds, perhaps the best thing would be not to include a metric equivalent in the main text, but to footnote the metric equivalent of both troy and avoirdupois pounds, with an explanation.NorCalHistory 00:31, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Response There's no possibility of ambiguity because gold is always measured in troy pounds and never avoirdupois. Andrew Levine 00:52, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Always? Get real, Andrew. Troy pounds are only rarely used any more. Why in the world do you suppose I mentioned Encyclopædia Britannica? Every time they mention pounds with respect to gold, they are avoirdupois pounds, though usually not identified as such. Gene Nygaard 05:46, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

"Rarely used anymore?" Is that why the New York Mercantile Exchange still denominates gold and silver prices in troy ounces? Andrew Levine 07:09, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Response to NorCalHistory (and DaveOinSF). Respond to my concerns? Most definitely not--it amplifies my concerns. You even seem oblivious to the fact that the troy ounces used for gold are different from avoirdupois ounces, in addition to being unaware of the fact that there are twelve of those troy ounces in a troy pound of gold. That is different from the 16 of the smaller avoirdupois ounces that make up an avoirdupois pound, the one you converted it as. That makes the use of italics in the text doubly confusing.

Do you know how many of those troy ounces it takes to make up one avoirdupois pound, the type of pound for which 273 of them is 124 kg?

Answer: 14⁷⁄₁₂ ounces to the pound. Weirdness we ought to avoid at all costs. Like I said, we aren't Encyclopædia Britannica.

One of the biggest problems, of course, is that troy pounds were more commonly used back in 1848, the time for which this number is quoted. But on the other hand, the number comes from a book written in the 1990s, a time when a whole lot of people are so innumerate as to be totally oblivious to the fact that troy pounds exist, and very often happy to use the comfortable-sounding old word ounces without even having an inkling that the ounces still used in much of the world's gold, platinum, and silver trade are different than the ounces some of us still use for meat or sugar or a baby's birth weight, and different yet again from the ounces we use for beer or soft drinks.

Back in 1848, it was still 30 years before the British would outlaw the troy pound, in the Weights and Measures Act of 1848. Yet, in one of the ultimate illogicalities and weirdnesses in the world of measurement, the UK today, 128 years later in the 21st century, has a specific exemption written into its metrication laws for continued use of troy ounces, even though the pound from which it was derived (and its pennyweight subdivision) were thrown out back in the 19th century.

Of course, in 1948 the troy pound (373.24 grams) remained the primary standard for United States weights. A specific artifact known as the "Troy Pound of the Mint" was the primary standards for all U.S. weights; even the best quality avoirdupois pound standards maintained by the government were secondary standards. That is a situation which had prevailed in England as well since back in the time of Henry VIII, when the independent standards for an avoirdupois ounce, whose independent standard before then had been measured to be about 7002 troy grains, was redefined as exactly 7000 troy grains.

It was 45 years after 1848 that the United States abandoned all independent primary standards for pounds, and redefined the avoirdupois pound as 0.4535924277 kilogram, and another 66 years after that before current world-wide definition of the avoirdupois pound as a slightly different value of 0.45359237 kg was adopted. That value was adopted in part because it is divisible by 7, making the troy grain's representation in metric units a terminating fraction, exactly 64.79891 mg. A troy pound is 480 of those grains, compared to only 437½ of those troy grains in an avoirdupois ounce. Gene Nygaard 06:12, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

The United States never did outlaw the troy pound. But it isn't used much any more, rather people usually use thousands and millions of troy ounces. Once in a while you see troy pounds used, as in some documentary last year about salvage operations on some old Spanish shipwreck in the Carribean. Gene Nygaard 06:27, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

NYMEX still denominates gold and silver futures in troy pounds and ounces (and not in avoirdupois). The USGS says that "The basic unit of weight used in dealing with gold is the troy ounce." [10] I have never seen avoirdupois as the basic unit for gold (though I often see a measure of gold listed primarily by its troy weight, followed by what its equivalent in avoirdupois would be). Show me some of these places where gold in the present day is primarily measured in avoirdupois. Andrew Levine 07:17, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

What's the point? The ounces in this article aren't what's being questioned, and there are quite a few of them. Remember, the Brits—and much of the Commonwealth, not sure whether Canada and Australia, big players in the metals field outlawed the pound, but I know that Australia also has a specific exemption to its metrication laws for the troy ounce, and Canada's metrication laws may be weak enough that no exemption for the troy ounce is necessary, but it is still used there—only outlawed the troy pound, not its ounce subdivision. Whenever Britannica (which isn't British and hasn't been for nearly a century) gives gold weights in ounces, they are troy ounces, too. Goo look for the weight of the sarcaphagus lid on King Tut's tomb. If you find it listed as 243 pounds (give or take a couple), those are avoirdupois pounds. You only very rarely see it as 290-odd pounds. Gene Nygaard 10:33, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Response Thanks to everyone who offered very useful information on this topic. I see that the article has been updated. Thanks again! NorCalHistory 12:13, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Continuing objection. Stating worth $x at a specific price is just like stating a mass, because ($y/oz troy)(z oz t) = $x, or z oz troy = $x/($y/oz troy). But stating "worth $x at 2006 prices" is even worse, because of the ambiguity of the price ranges over the year 2006, and we cannot even use a yearly average at some commodities market for that value because the year isn't done. Gene Nygaard 15:01, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Figuring out what 273 troy pounds of gold in 1850 would be worth today is an imprecise exercise, but it isn't going to be off by much. In 1850 a troy oz. of gold was worth $20 (c.f. the $20 "double eagle" gold piece which contained 1.125 troy oz. of 22k gold). So 273 troy lbs. * 12 troy oz. per lb. = 3,276 oz. or $65,520 in 1850 $. Various long-term inflation calculators are available and they indicate that this would currently be worth about $1.5 million. If you had 3,276 oz. of gold today, you could sell it on the London Exchange for about $1.8 million. So a conservative estimate of the value is "in excess of $1.5 million in 2006 dollars.--Paul 21:07, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

The thing is, we don't know that it was 3276 troy ounces. It might well have been in the neighborhood of 3980 troy ounces (273 avoirdupois pounds). And there is another possibility not yet mentioned here that is probably just as likely—that the reason the pounds were not identified in that book is that some author or editor was oblivious to the distinctions, and that some number originally 4368 troy ounces (or somewhere between 4360 and 4376) was divided by 16 to get these "pounds", of the fictional 16-troy-ounce variety. So that is quite a variation, with the larger amounts 34% higher than the smaller ones. Gene Nygaard 12:24, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

In any event, the current wording "in excess of $1.5 million in 2005 dollars" is correct under any scenario that has been discussed.--Paul 02:37, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Proposal Gene - given that the only information we have is that "273 pounds" of gold were removed in the early Gold Rush by this one party of miners from this one location, would you be kind enough to give us an approximate modern-day dollar valuation of that amount, as you see best? Understanding that we need only an approximation to give modern readers a sense of scale (and do not need precision), you can describe your methodology and include whatever caveats you think are appropriate in a footnote (for example, "worth approximately $1.5 - $2 million in Dec. 2006 values"). Your educated assistance on this point would be appreciated! NorCalHistory 17:16, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

This particular detail seems unecessary to the quality of the article. I have further rewritten to make it even more non-specific. If there are other instances where precision seems to be detracting from the sense of scale, it might be best to just rewrite them; you can also bring them to my attention and I will rewrite them.--DaveOinSF 20:24, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose, I noticed a few places which lacked sources, for which I placed a {{cn}} next to them. In addition, the lede seems a bit awkward looking. Hurricanehink (talk) 23:52, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
  • ResponseBe glad to supply the sources. Regarding the "awkward" comment - do mean visually? That is typically a function of a reader's monitor size/resolution. Could you provide a bit more detail, and is that visual a reason for your present opinion? NorCalHistory 01:37, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Fixed Each "citation needed" has been addressed, and some additional material added to the lead. Do these changes meet your concerns? NorCalHistory 07:51, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Factually, it looks good. Support, now. What I was referring to before was the placement of the images. Might it be better to start with the larger image and have the history or California template below it? Hurricanehink (talk) 22:14, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
    • I agree - the History template should be secondary to the actual article image. Sandy (Talk) 01:26, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose: The lead really needs to be fixed. The lead is more of a history than a brief summary. When this is fixed, I will give it my support.-Hairchrm 03:48, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment Thank you for your observation, I did make a change in the lead. I am trying to understand your observation a little more clearly. Wikipedia:Lead section suggests that the lead should "stand on its own as a concise version of the article." This article describes a historical event. A "concise version" of a description of a historical event may very well read like a history - it's not clear to me that result is to be avoided. In general, major points in the article should be summarized in the lead. As I read the article and the lead, major points in the article appear to be summarized in the lead. I would be interested if you would be kind enough to provide a bit more information; for example, is there is a major item in the article that you feel is not adequately summarized in the lead? If so, please suggest that missing information, and perhaps an editor will be able to include it. Thank you again, and I look forward to hearing more information. NorCalHistory 12:41, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Tiridates I of Armenia

Self-nomination. This is the article's first nomination and the article is very stable. It achieved a GA status in April. It is illustrated and has a good number of notes and references with page numbers etc. A peer review request didn't bring up anything other than automated suggestions (which have been taken care of). There are only two red links which can be removed as they are not that important anyway. Also, there is hardly any other information available that can be included in the article. I researched the topic quite thoroughly.--Eupator 19:41, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. First off, it looks very well-written and well-cited, so good job on that. Just a few issues: —Cuiviénen 20:36, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
  • The lead seems a bit short, though somewhat understandably so given the brevity of the article. Maybe just a couple more sentences would be a good addition.
  • This sentence: Tiridates was one of the principle characters in George Frideric Handel's Radamisto and Reinhard Keiser's Octavia operas seems tacked on to the end. Are there any other mentions of him in culture? You could create a separate section for that.
  • A map of Armenia and its geographical relation to Rome and Parthia during his reign would add greatly to the article.

Thank you. I know the lead is short, that was one of the suggestions the automatic peer review brought up. I will try to extend it. Added a map. The borders of Armenia were essentially the same from the end of the 1st century BC until the early 4th century when Armenia was partitioned between Rome and Sassanid Persia. Regarding cultural references, those are the only two I know of. There is a statue of Tiridates at the palace of Versailles made by André. I'll try to find some more. Thanks again.--Eupator 21:04, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Could you clarify the copyright status of Image:ArshakuniArmenia150.gif, which you uploaded? (Provide a source and a reason the copyright was released, in this case.) Thanks. —Cuiviénen 22:43, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Well the applicable license is Template:PD-AM-exempt since it's a work of the Foreign Ministry of Armenia [11] but the image was taken to Commons and that template doesn't exist there. Should I reupload it to Wikipedia with a different name?--Eupator 23:26, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

That would be the best solution, I think. —Cuiviénen 00:49, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Done.--Eupator 04:31, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. I suggest to put the monarch infobox and the full transcription for his ordinal from Armenian. --Brand спойт 23:00, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

That would be nice but he has two potential successors, there is no article on his predecessor and his dates of birth and death are unknown. I'll try and add it, see what it looks like with some missing info.--Eupator 23:26, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. I don't understand the footnotes - they don't use a consistent style, some refs need to be expanded, and it's not clear if all are reliable sources:
  • Iranica needs to be expanded to include full info, including author and last access date. What is this site? Is it a reliable source?
  • Mithraism by Roger Beck needs full info including last access date and webhost, is this a reliable source?
  • The Jewish Roman World of Jesus by Dr. James D. Tabor needs expansion.
  • Champlin, Edward (2003). Nero. Belknap Press. ISBN 0674011929. Here the footnote style switches to a conventional last name, first name, while other entries don't follow that style.
  • There are a number of References listed that are never cited - were those sources used in the article? Sandy (Talk) 23:48, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Hello done, except the last two. Tacitus, Cassius, Pliny are not cited with templates because there just isn't any publisher, isbn etc. As for your last point, I assume you're talking about material taken from Vahan Kurkjian history of Armenia. That's at various places in the article. Under references it says:This article incorporates text from History of Armenia by Vahan M. Kurkjian, a publication in the public domain. With a link.--Eupator 00:10, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

• Needs a thorough copyedit. I mainly noticed comma issues. Everyking 11:49, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Can someone help in eliminating run-ons and other grammatical problems. I'm afraid i'm not proficient in that department. Also, all red links have now been eliminated.--Eupator 18:22, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

• Why the marked additive? "an event of far-reaching importance not only for Armenia, but for most of the lands in the Roman East". Better as "an event of far-reaching importance for Armenia and for most of the lands in the Roman East." Tony 15:14, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Changed.--Eupator 19:25, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Does this article fit FA guidelines in terms of length?--MarshallBagramyan 02:03, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

• Object. On a cursory glance, I found two direct quotes with no citations, and a punctuation error in the first paragraph of the body of the article (Vologases considered the throne of Armenia to have been: "once the property of his ancestors, now usurped by a foreign monarch in virtue of a crime,".[9]), suggesting a thorough runthrough is needed. Sandy (Talk)

Done.--Eupator 01:26, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. I'm afraid the article has certain prose deficiencies. Let's pick a phrase in random:

In the summer, Corbulo began moving towards Tigranocerta, through rough terrain, passing through the Taronitida (Taron), where several of his commanders died in an ambush by the Armenian resistance

• Two "through" almost one after the other.
• I count 4 commas. I'm not the best in syntax, but they seem too many to me. And, in general, I think that in the article there is a confusion about the use of , and ;.

I think that this article needs a slight copy-editing by a native Engish speaker. And I think this is its only problem, because it is well-structured and well-researched.--Yannismarou 19:50, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: Did his reign begin in 53 AD (main text) or 63 AD (Infobox)? Also, there's only one good depiction of him in the article - the photograph, as opposed to the sketch of the statue - but since it has so much empty space around it, details can't be made out. I'd suggest cropping and enlarging. Adam Cuerden ^talk 15:46, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

  There is a footnote next to 63 AD in the infobox that states Beginning of reign without interruption. In the article, it states that he became a king in 53 AD, but his reign was interrupted a couple of times.--Crzycheetah 00:40, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment In my opinion, the references should be written more explicitly. It seems like a well-written compilation from Tacitus - Annals and Dio Cassius. In addition, i find it very concise. Better to enlarge and provide more material. E104421 19:11, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: IMO there is a two heavy reliance on primary sources, while secondary sources are far too sparsely used.--Aldux 12:41, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Added a bunch new secondary sources.--Eupator 22:59, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

• Update The article now exceeds 30kb. I expanded it quite significantly today using various secondary sources that were absent from the article before.--Eupator 22:59, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: Just a few notes. I've noted that some paragraphs conclude without inline citations; at least some of these are probably from Tacitus or Dio Cassius, but it's always better to make it clear:

• • "In 53 the Roman governor of Cappadocia, Julius Paelignus, invaded Armenia and ravaged the country, then under an Iberian usurper King Rhadamistus."

• • "Rhadamistus himself returned to Iberia and was soon put to death by his father Parasmanes I of Iberia for having plotted against the royal power."

• • "Tiridates then mounted the steps of the platform and knelt, while Nero placed the royal diadem on his head. As the young king was about to kneel a second time, Nero lifted him by his right hand and after kissing him, made him sit at his side on a chair a little lower than his own. Meanwhile, the populace gave tumultuous ovations to both rulers. A Praetor, speaking to the audience, interpreted and explained the words of Tiridates, who spoke in Greek." Is also this covered by the inline citation by Pliny?

• • "In memory of these events, the Senate honored Nero with the laurel wreath and the title of Imperator, or commander-in-chief of the armies. No reception comparable to this in magnitude and splendor is recorded in the history of Rome. Besides the enormous sum spent in festivities, the Roman Government bore the entire cost of the journey of Tiridates and his retinue, both from and to their homeland. Nero also made a gift to Tiridates of fifty million sesterces."

A different question that may be posed is if the quote from Champlin isn't a bit too long - but regarding this I may be wrong, only I find it a bit too big for the section in which it is.--Aldux 00:55, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I'll add inline citations for the lines you mentioned using secondary sources, since primary ones seem to be disliked by some. I'll replace the Champlin quote with an explanation of Tiridates' speech, citing both Champlin and a few others.--Eupator 01:11, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Finished adding the references. I'm not sure what exactly to do regarding the Champlin quote now though. I would like more feedback.--Eupator 20:27, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Ok, the quote has now been moved.--Eupator 22:24, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support - the main contributor has awnsered to all the problems posed by me and other editors, I don't see any reason why I shouldn't support. Good luck,Aldux 00:16, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support -looks quite excellent, and seems to meet all criteria. Great job! Tuf-Kat 01:44, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support - Eupator has solved all the issues and the article looks fine. Nareklm 07:31, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support - per Aldux, great effort by Eupator. Fedayee 08:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Sei Whale

(self-nom) This article has undergone an overhaul and peer review. It is currently a Good Article and I believe that after implementing the suggestions brought up in the peer review, the article meets the standards expected of Featured Articles.

For comparison, other featured articles about whales include Fin Whale (most recent, link to FAC discussion), Blue Whale (link to FAC discussion), Humpback Whale (link to FAC discussion), Right whale (link to FAC discussion), Sperm Whale (can't find FAC discussion), and Orca (can't find FAC discussion). Neil916 (Talk) 20:33, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

• Support, but with a few nits — A very good article that appears reasonably comprehensive, well-referenced, and an interesting read. I just had a few nits that I thought needed addressing:
  • In the early part of the introduction, the sentence that begins, "Other related whales...," is a bit diverting from the main topic. Since it is covered in the taxonomy section, I wonder if you would consider removing it (or moving it further down)?
  • The second rather than the first occurance of kilograms (and lb) is wiki-linked. Also I believe a period is appropriate following an abbreviated ft., lb., mi., mm., in. and hr.
  • mi/hr is not wiki-linked, &c.
  • The taxonomy section doesn't cover the meaning of the name "borealis".
  • Please use a &mdash; in: "...identified - the..."
  • The single paragraphs in the "North Atlantic", "North Pacific", "International protection" and "Current whaling" sections are quite long. I believe that splitting them up appropriately will make for an easier and more enjoyable read.

Finally, is there any information on this whale's vocalizations? Do they vocalize at all? Thanks. — RJH (talk) 16:14, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

• • Response: Addressing your points in order:
    • I agree, and I have removed that sentence
    • Fixed the wikilink problem. As for the period after the abbreviations, I was under the impression that it should be there as well, but WP:MOSNUM#Units_of_measurement clearly shows dropping the period after all of its examples, even though it is not explicitly stated that the period should be dropped. Any suggestions?
      • According to the abbreviations page, SI does not require a period within or after a unit. So km and mm are correct. Heh, learn something new every day. I'm not sure about the old English units, however: I've always included a period. — RJH (talk)
    • Fixed the wikilink of mi/hr.
    • Added the meaning of the latin word borealis, meaning northern.
    • Added the &mdash; in the appropriate section.
    • Revised and reorganized the paragraphs to make them flow better.
    • Not much is known about the Sei Whale's vocalizations, but I added a section describing what little is known.
  • Thanks for the feedback. Neil916 (Talk) 18:15, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Thank you, and good luck with your FAC. — RJH (talk) 16:57, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

• Mild Oppose for now. I think it still needs a lot of little detail work. However, as it now stands, with attention to a lot of details, and clearing up some prose it has what it takes to be a FA. The biggest thing I don't like about it is the redundancy of text, when you repeat something, make the sentence more detailed the second time, as with the lead sentences for sections taken from the lead paragraph. I added comments to the talk page and will post more soon. KP Botany 23:29, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Response: I've cleaned up the redundancies between the lead section of the article and the main body. I've been trying to balance requests to expand the lead section with the need to not repeat the entire article in the lead section. See if you like that better. I have addressed the other concerns over on the article's talk page. Feel free to review the article again and raise additional issues as you discover them. Neil916 (Talk) 16:44, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
    • No, I don't think the lead section should be expanded at all, sorry for the confusion. I think that when you repeat a sentence from the lead section as an introductory point to another section in the article, the lead sentence from the lead section should be expanded a bit. The lead section for this article is superb, content wise--please don't change it!!! Sorry to mess you up on this. KP Botany 18:13, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
      • No, it wasn't you who suggested expanding the lead section, it was one of the issues that had come up in the peer review, and the result was the version that you saw. I interpreted your comment to mean that you felt that the lead section had become too repetetive, where there was a sentence in the lead section that was just an exact replica of the sentence in the main body (which was the case, in fact, because in some cases I just cut-and-pasted it when I was expanding the lead). So what I've done in response to your concern is to verify that in every case where a fact is mentioned in the lead, the fact is mentioned in more detail in the actual body of the article. The only minor exception to this that I can see is the comment about the whale's swimming speed, because I don't know how much that statement can be elaborated upon, but I did move the article around and made that statement part of a larger paragraph on the whale's swimming habits in general, including diving, which wasn't mentioned in the lead. So when I mentioned the balancing act, I was basically referring to work that I'd done in the past expanding the lead, not plans to expand it further in response to your concern. Neil916 (Talk) 18:24, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

• Support - the article is comprehensive, good pictures (I like the whale diagram picture), well-written and it is easy to follow, well-referenced but only one reference to an external wiki page. As soon as the external wiki reference is replaced, I will change my vote into full support. — Indon (reply) — 09:29, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
  • The unreliable citation to a wiki page has been removed. So I give my full support for this article. Great job! — Indon (reply) — 09:09, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

• Support Very nice comprehensive work. Regards.--Dwaipayan (talk) 10:17, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
• Support I agree the prose is very good and very comprehensive. Good job to all who have worked hard on it.--Seadog ^♪ 12:50, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

• Object. The prose needs cleaning up, and the lead is poor (1a and 2a). Here are random examples that indicate that the whole text needs considerable work.
  • "The whale reaches lengths of 20 metres"—Plural "lengths" and "weights" are unidiomatic. In any case, the largest ever recorded specimen was this long, but much heavier. Conflicting information with the details below.
  • "an average of about 900 kilograms"—Remove "about" (see MoS).
  • "Its name comes from the Norwegian word for pollock, a fish that appears off the coast of Norway at the same time as the Sei Whale.[3]"—Why highlight this in the lead when the info is repeated just below? Big picture first, please. Tony 12:55, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

• • Response: Addressing your points in order:
    • Fixed the wording and corrected information; I had copied the wrong stats when writing the lead, thanks for pointing that out.
    • Fixed that.
    • I disagree with this point. Per the Manual of Style (Lead Section), "The lead should be capable of standing alone as a concise overview of the article, establishing context, explaining why the subject is interesting or notable, and describing its notable controversies, if there are any". By that definition, the lead section is going to repeat information contained in the rest of the article. The lead section is organized from the standpoint that it should address questions that a reader would have if the intro is the only thing they read (or can read, It has been suggested that the CD version of WP only contain the lead sections of articles). It is my opinion that a typical reader would have questions about why the whale has a common name "Sei" and that the question is important enough to raise in the lead section. The fact that it is addressed in the following section shouldn't be a reason to not include it in the lead, and additional information is provided in that section. If your objection is due to the fact that the wording is similar, suggest an alternative for the wording.
  • Please let me know if there are additional issues that you spot. Neil916 (Talk) 17:09, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

• Suggestion Can you add something about this species and the whale watching industry? Many of our cetacean articles could use some discussion of the economic significance of the species, apart from whaling. Kla'quot 07:11, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Good and obvious catch, plus current science outside of Japan. KP Botany 17:54, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

• Rejoinder—My point about allowing etymological niceties intrude into the second sentence of the lead is that it's just too detailed compared with the rest of the info in the lead, which should summarise the topic. It's a nice point to make, but do it just once, after you've provided the big picture in the lead. Like, tell us where the species lives/migrates instead. Lower down, you mention the migration without giving an idea as to whether it roams the whole of the North Atlantic or specific areas off Norway, Siberia, Greenland, etc. THAT is the summary stuff we need in the lead, not etymology that's repeated below.
  • Ok, now I understand your point, and I agree with it. I've rearranged the lead section to put most relevant information first. Neil916 (Talk) 18:42, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Now, more problems:

• • "The whale reaches a length of up to 20 metres (66 ft) long and reaches a weight of up to 45 tonnes (50 tons).[4]" Try: "The whales reach lengths of up to 20 metres (66 ft) and weigh up to 45 tonnes (50 tons).[4]" Ah, much better ....
  • "although it continues to be hunted to a limited extent"—awkward passive construction and inefficient wording: "although limited hunting still occurs ..."
  • "approximately one-fifth"—a plea for plain English: "about a fifth". It's what our wide range of native and non-native readers want. We're vying for their reading time, too. People are busy, and using short, simple language adds up to a satisfying reading experience.
  • "(up to 180 tonnes, 200 tons) and the Fin Whale (up to 70 tonnes, 70 tons)". Um ... get that calculator out.
  • Can you make the expression of ranges consistent? We have "4–5 metres (13–16 ft)", which I like, but more elaborate wording elsewhere—e.g., between 12.2 and 15.2 metres (40–50 ft)".
  • Love your en dashes, but use them consistently (32-60 looks so squidgy), and then "to" below.
  • It's turning into a wiktionary with the linking of common words such as "scar" and "skin". Please delink these throughout.
  • "Very little is known about their actual social structure." As opposed to their fanciful social structure?
  • "The Sei Whale is notable for its speed, being among the fastest of all cetaceans." Why not remove the bloat: "The Sei Whale is among the fastest of all cetaceans."?

I won't read on. Someone with strategic distance is required, to copy-edit it throughout. Tony 03:06, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

• I have addressed these points, but I don't know what "32-60 looks so squidgy" means. KP Botany has been providing copyediting assistance on the talk page of the article, addressing his objections raised on this FAC page. Your participation in that discussion would be welcome. Neil916 (Talk) 18:42, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Because a hyphen is used. Try the trusted en dash for ranges: 32–60, not 32-60; it's standard usage. Tony 07:24, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support: Excellent well written article. -- Scorpion0422 00:45, 14 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support Featured article! E104421 13:18, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

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

The article was promoted 06:16, 31 January 2007.

---

Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria (3)

All right, you've got me, I'm totally desperate to get this one featured, and this time I really, really think it has to pass :)) I say every time that I believe it covers all requirements, and then I develop it even further, so it seems nothing can ever be absolutely complete and perfect, but I hope it's pretty close to perfect this time.

What has been improved from one month ago? (see the article then)

• addressed concerns about the number and variety of references by more than tripling the number of footnotes (from 23 to 67 71) and almost doubling the number of main references (6 to 10). Web-available refs have been added. This is in response to the concerns of Savidan (oppose vote) and Rlevse (comment).
• added comprehensive new section ("Culture and religion") covering that sphere of Ivan Alexander's rule, addressing the comprehensiveness concerns voiced by Hurricanehink (oppose vote). Abundance of refs, of course.
• "Family" section made an infobox, content not duplicated in the main infobox now. No family red links. Fixed the problems Smurrayinchester spotted (comment).
• split a "Rise of Serbia and the Ottoman threat" section from "Relations with the Byzantine Empire", which was too long and not quite accurate
• some minor stuff like "See also" additions, further copyediting (British English instead of some American English word forms), etc.
• added media:
  • new self-made SVG map of the Bulgarian lands during the reign of Ivan Alexander
  • very useful quote about the tsar's rule by a contemporary of his
  • {{commonscat}} and a related Wikimedia Commons category

Is that enough? :) Todor→Bozhinov 13:09, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Support, an excellent and very informative article. I can no longer see any areas for improvement, and the map is brilliant. A few references appear to be missing (in Bulgarian) tags, but other than that, I can't see any formating issues either. Laïka 17:13, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Support looks good, --Vanka5 17:51, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Support the article looks very good, with important and interesting information, nice pictures and map of the Empire. Great work : ) : ) : ) --Gligan 18:52, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Support very good job, well done!:) and very informative article, by the way Hectorian 19:25, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comments. Is there any estimate when he was born, or how old he was when he took reign? There are a few redlinks in the infobox. Are they absolutely necessary, and if they are, shouldn't they have articles? For an article of that length, the lede should be longer. Generally, phrases in parenthesis should be avoided, IMO, as it doesn't seem like compelling prose. The two examples I am referring to are "(therefore, Ivan Alexander was his nephew)" and "(the original one being the rule of Simeon the Great)". Try rewriting so it doesn't need them. It seems a bit sudden for his rise to become an emperor. Is it supposed to seem that sudden? "...probably as a supporter of the claims" Probably isn't a good word to use. Is it of someone's opinion that he was? Try rewording. A few other places in the article don't seem particularly well-written; "called his bluff" and "Here his troops were defeated" (the reader is not at that location, should be there) for example. Co-rulers is pretty short. Should that be merged with Early Rule and placed in the appropriate place? Internal stability problems is short, as well. Another lookthrough by a copyeditor would be nice. Hurricanehink (talk) 18:27, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks a lot for the detailed comment! I've addressed the one-paragraph sections issue and removed the parentheses in these two occasions, tried to reword the "called his bluff" thing and substituted "here" with "there". In addition, I've expanded the lead section somewhat (but enough to divide it into three paragraphs).
• We don't have particularly much information about medieval Bulgarian rulers as to know if his accession really was so sudden. It may well not have been unexpected, because we know he was of royal descent, but we can only presume that. No contemporary source mentions a date or place of birth, although we can guess it was around the turn of the century — he ruled until 1371. This means he must have been crowned when he was still relatively young, but again, this is not backed by any sources from the period.
• As for "probably", this is according to the source. Would it really be necessary to reword as: "probably as a supporter of the claims of his deposed nephew Ivan Stefan, according to John Fine"?, or perhaps add a footnote after "probably" with "According to Fine, Late Medieval Balkans, 274"? :* A copyedit... I've checked the article several times myself and I've used both Microsoft Word's and an online spellchecker, and it all seems fine. Where can I request a manual copyedit by another user? Todor→Bozhinov 19:08, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

• I merged the first two paragraphs in the lede again. Looking at it again in relation to the article, its length is good. Given the time period, the article looks good, enough for me to Support. Not sure who could copyedit, but I suppose those things are fairly minor. Hurricanehink (talk) 19:22, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

• Support, looks good. One minor point, though: can the "See also" section be eliminated? It shouldn't be too difficult to work those links into the body of the text. Kirill Lokshin 20:23, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

• I was thinking about that too, whether the section was actually of use. I incorporated some of the links using {{see also}} in the other sections, and removed the others (which have already been linked from the text). Todor→Bozhinov 21:26, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment: in your book citations, please insert "p." and "pp." prefixes before page numbers and page ranges, respectively. This will make your citations unambiguous; the reader will see that you're referring to page numbers, and not to chapters, years, etc. --Plek 23:09, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

• Done. --Cameltrader 06:36, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

• Support. It looks very nice.--Yannismarou 18:17, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
• Support.   /FunkyFly.talk_  16:36, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Opposeall concerns addressed, see below, Ambiguous, unclear or confusing in too many places.
  • Too much sourcing of the summarized lead. Since there is thorough disagreement on this general topic (see Wikipedia talk:Lead section), I'll retract this if there are opposing opinions with relevant arguments.
  • The state Alexander warred against was not the Byzantine Empire. It was the Empire of Trebizond
    • Sorry! I though I'd deleted that one...
  • Are the diverging transliteration Petritsa/Petrica etc. linked to specific transliteration schemes? Specifying which ones seems pertinent.
  • "This precipitated a succession crisis exacerbated by an invasion of the Byzantines."—This had me much confused, since there is no clear reason for it. Although Ivan Stephen of Bulgaria sheds some light on this... sudden and unexplained development, it also contradict the article we are discussing.
    • I think the problem is that "succession crisis" implies that the king actually died, which is said not to be the case in the very next sentence. Wouldn't that Succession crisis rather stem from the coup d'état, whose sources are then the byzantine relations and invasion?.
  • "The threat from Serbia was neutralized by the deposition of Stefan Uroš III Dečanski by his son Stefan Uroš IV Dušan in 1331."—It is not clear how Alexander had a hand into this, if at all.
  • Why isn't Battle of Velbužd linked?
  • "The contested cities surrendered to Ivan Alexander"—I thought they were disagreeing over "Bulgarian northeastern Thrace"?
  • "managed to see through his bluff"—What bluff? Up to then, there is no indication that Alexander is bluffing.
  • "Stability problems and external conflicts" as a header name does not make it clear enough that it continues the previous' sections historical progression.
  • The first paragraph under "Rise of Serbia and the Ottoman threat" invert the chronological sequence and is thus very confusing.
  • "Emperor John VI Kantakouzenos had realized the danger posed by the introduction of his Turkish (by now mostly Ottoman) allies across the straits into the Balkan Peninsula"—Like others already mentioned, this sentence lacks context not to come as a confusing statement.
  • Theodora of Wallachia should have been mentioned at least as early as her father. And her article should be linked on its first instance (i.e., in "Stability problems and external conflicts")
    • discussed further below
  • Similarly, Sarah (Theodora) should be linked in the text, not only the side box (which is probably a bad idea of itself.
  • The last factlet under "Culture and religion" seems out of place, because the section does not appear to be written in a "legacy" outlook.
  • Awkward or ambiguous writing:
    • "rebelled in Vidin, probably as a supporter of the claims of his deposed nephew Ivan Stefan." this phrasing is awkward.
    • Michael Asen IV is mentioned as co-emperor before his crowning is mentioned. This is confusing.
    • " There his troops were defeated twice by Turkish allies of the Byzantines."—"there" being Adrianople, right? Which allies? Was Umur Beg involved?
    • "the Byzantine Empire was plunged into a second protracted civil war"—Since it's the first civil war mentioned in the article, the sentence should be reworded for clarity ("its second civil war since [...]"), or the word removed.
    • "The successes of Ivan Alexander began to unravel"—This use of "unravel" is ambiguous. It could justas much means "disentangle" as "disintegrate".
    • "Ivan Alexander's control was hardly stronger over other powerful vassals, like the rulers of Wallachia and Dobruja, who carried out their own relations with foreign powers."—Other than his son, or other than himself?
    • "Bulgaria fell prey to the aspirations of the Angevin king Louis I of Hungary. The king of Hungary annexed Moravia"—Unneeded repetition. "Louis annexed Moravia"
    • "In the meantime Bulgarians and Byzantines had clashed again in 1364, and when Emperor John V Palaiologos was returning from his trip through the west, the irate Bulgarians refused to let him pass through Bulgaria in 1366."—Wrong verb tense of "pass", and poor placement of "in 1366."
      • Discussed below
    • "religous prosperity" means nothing.
    • "Donor's deeds of Ivan Alexander evidence that the monasteries of the Holy Mother of God Eleoussa and St Nicholas in Nesebǎr were reconstructed during the time"—Which time? "that period" is probably the expression you want.
    • "as was the St Nicholas monastery near Pernik according to a Hilandar monastery deed, among others."—this "amongst others" refers back to the monastery deed, not the monasteries. Reformulation is needed.
    • "Tthe Dragalevci and Kilifarevo monasteries was also [...]^{[[Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria# note-delev|]]} Literary activity also flourished [...]"—"Also" is used twice in as many sentences
    • "such as the Middle Bulgarian translation of the Manasses Chronicle (1344–1345), nowadays preserved in the Vatican Secret Archives in Rome" is it the Chronicle or its translation that are kept at the Vatican? Was the Chronicle or its translation written in 1344–1345? (as is, it's the chronicle) And these semicolons are totally superfluous; the list elements are not complex enough that commas wouldn't be clear
    • "condemning various sects"—"Who condemned"; Organizing the councils did not condemn anybody.

Circeus 17:16, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

• Thanks for the detailed post! Please note I'm not a native speaker of English, and it's understandable I would sometimes mess things up without intending to :) I tried to correct most of the awkward-sounding sentences you mentioned, but I can't be sure I haven't further messed them up, so I'd ask you to check what I've done and help fix bad phrasing.

• Some other things:

• Indeed, there are different transliteration systems of Bulgarian. Would a <ref> note explaining things be OK? Such as "This article uses the United Nations system to transliterate Bulgarian Cyrillic. For details, see Romanization of Bulgarian."?
• "The threat from Serbia was neutralized by the deposition of Stefan Uroš III Dečanski by his son Stefan Uroš IV Dušan in 1331." Ivan Alexander had no hand in this, but it explains how the "external threats" mentioned in the lead were dealt with — the accession of Dušan is very important for the change in relations between Bulgaria and Serbia.
• the Battle of Velbužd is linked.
• "Stability problems and external conflicts"... any suggestions as to how to reword this to make it clear it continues from the previous' sections
• The first paragraph under "Rise of Serbia and the Ottoman threat"... to me it looks OK chronologically, would you clarify?
• Theodora of Wallachia and Sarah-Theodora have been linked now, but I'm not sure how to mention the former one is Basarab's daughter in the first paragraph of Early rule, and I'm not convinced it's necessary. "Together with his father and his father-in-law Basarab of Wallachia (whose daughter Theodora of Wallachia he would later marry)..."?
• Not sure how to deal with the last paragraph of "Culture and religion"... I was aware it doesn't fit perfectly there, but there's nowhere else to put it, and it's too important to just drop out.
• "In the meantime Bulgarians and Byzantines had clashed again in 1364, and when Emperor John V Palaiologos was returning from his trip through the west, the irate Bulgarians refused to let him pass through Bulgaria in 1366." What's wrong with "pass"?
• "such as the Middle Bulgarian translation of the Manasses Chronicle (1344–1345), nowadays preserved in the Vatican Secret Archives in Rome"... I moved the years just after "translation", but I have no idea how to specify the translation is in Rome, not the original, without totally destroying the whole sentence. Todor→Bozhinov 18:24, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
• Ah, and about the "contested cities" in Thrace: at the time control over most of the cities in Thrace changed rapidly between Bulgaria and Byzantium, and instead of suffering from prolonged sieges and destruction, the population would surrender to whoever of the two emperors came and claimed control. Todor→Bozhinov 18:31, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm impressed by your responsiveness!

• Transliteration: A footnote sounds okay. You might want to include a link to Romanization of Bulgarian, while at it.
• Serbian threat: On closer exmination, I realize it's the combination of that sentence with the previous sentence ("The new ruler set about solidifying his position by regaining territories recently lost to the Byzantine Empire.") that implies that this is a consequence. Maybe something along the lines of "The deposition of Serbian king Stefan Uroš III Dečanski by his son Stefan Uroš IV Dušan in 1331 helped normalize the relations between Serbia and Bulgaria, previously antagonists over [...]."?
• Battle of Velbužd My bad. The link is discreet and I couldn't find it via text search. Battle of Velbužd, without intervening words, is more usual. Maybe "Ivan fought against the Serbs at the Battle of Velbužd"?
• "Stability problems and external conflicts" How about simply "End of reign" or something like that? It's what the section covers within the article, after all.
• Chronological sequence you first say that a "newly created Patriarch of Serbia" crowned theSerbian king, then that "Patriarch of Bulgaria Simeon participated in both the creation of a Serbian patriarchate and the imperial coronation of Stefan Uroš IV Dušan." (of course, writing "an independant Serbian Orthodox Church" would already help)
• the Theodoras Now that I think of it how about simply writing in his marriage with Theodora of Wallachia whenever it happens in the chronological sequence? I was only assuming it happened earlier, possibly before he became king. I also observe there is no year for his first marriage.
• "Culture and religion" paragraph Maybe a small historiography/legacy section? Other similar appearances can be included.
• "In the meantime Bulgarians and Byzantines had clashed again in 1364, and when Emperor John V Palaiologos was returning from his trip through the west, the irate Bulgarians refused to let him pass through Bulgaria in 1366." What's wrong with "pass"?
  • Oups! I meant "return." It would be better with "returned", in my opinion.
• Translation in the vatican Maybe these notes could be inserted inside the parentheses instead of within the enumeration?
• "contested cities" It's still strange, because in one case, you talk about a general area, and in the other, about specific cities. Your explanation, however, is hilarious—in a good way.

I'll work through my list and see what I can strike.Circeus 19:18, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I added the transliteration footnote, reworded the battle of Velbǎžd part to be more prominent, I changed to past perfect so that it's a little bit better chronologically in the beginning of "Rise of Serbia and the Ottoman threat", I tried to include info about current location of the manuscripts in the parentheses (but I'm not quite satisfied by the way it looks and sounds when read), and I've reworded the Ottoman danger bit so that it doesn't require further clarification. It is not known when Ivan Alexander married the first Theodora, and we can only approximately state when he divorced her to marry Sarah-Theodora, so we can't possibly include this info in any chronological order. I'm a bit reluctant to create a new "Legacy" or "Portrayal in fiction" section because I have no other data about it but that one sentence. That means a tiny one-sentence paragraph, which is ugly and not advisable, particularly for an FA. Todor→Bozhinov 20:17, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

• Translit: The article actually uses official Bulgarian transliteration and gives the UN variants between parentheses...
• Manuscripts: My suspicion is that someone, somewhere will always be unhappy with how it looks anyway...
• Theodoras: Oh... Okay, I guess that makes sense. Maybe stating that the date of hois first is unknown in the article will make it clear why the information wasn't given earlier?
• Legacy: Oh well... I not so hung on it as to oppose over it, though. Just, maybe, drop the "in modern time" mention for dates of publications?
• Conditional support after the minor transliteration and legacy fixes.Circeus 18:32, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose. I'm sorry to sound mean, but it seems to me that this article comes nowhere near to fulfilling the criterion "Well written" means that the prose is compelling, even brilliant. I appreciate that the main editor is not a native English speaker, but this means in practice that the excellent work on researching an unusual and interesting subject is in my opinion not nearly matched by the writing, which is pedestrian, I fear, and certainly below the professional level to which we aspire. I've completed a light copy-edit; but the piece really needs a deep copy-edit, with each sentence taken out and given a good polish before reinsertion. Some ways to invigorate the prose might be to move subjects and main verbs closer to the beginnings of sentences, restrict sentences to one idea each, and to turn some of the many nominalisations into verbs, and passive constructions into active ones.

I also feel the article lacks a defining shape. Even now, after three readings, I have no overall picture of Ivan Alexander's reign imprinted on my mental retina. I would like to see this article tell a story. One premise might be to present Ivan's reign as a watershed in the evolution of a three-way struggle between forces that were to shape the future of the region: Christian Europe, the Byzantine Empire, and the Ottoman Turks.

However, you seem to be doing well with the comments above, so my curmudgeonly view may prove superfluous. qp10qp 00:20, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh well, in practice the person who actually wrote most of the article is a University of Michigan Byzantinist, Ian Mladjov, but he has now left Wikipedia. I did a lot of work by adding references, notes, pictures, improving the formatting, checking the spelling, etc., but I find it very hard to improve the article the way suggested, although I'm absolutely willing to. As I said, I would appreciate a thorough copy-edit by a native speaker, be it you or someone else, it's just that if I try to do that it would have little actual result. I would deeply appreciate some help here :) Todor→Bozhinov 10:17, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Lets see if it passes first. My type of "deep" copyediting (basically a rewrite that keeps to the same facts) would take me a good week, and I'm heavily occupied somewhere else at the moment.

The copyediting advice above is relatively easy to accomplish, though time-consuming: here's an example, intended to sharpen up the following passage, which in my opinion is sapped by subordinate clauses.

The war ended with a meeting between Ivan Alexander and Andronikos III which established peace on the basis of the status quo. A marriage between Ivan Alexander's eldest son Michael Asen IV, who had been crowned co-emperor in about 1332, perhaps to safeguard possession of the throne by his own family, and Maria (Eirene), daughter of Andronikos III, was planned to formalize the alliance, and finally took place in 1339.

I'd change that to something like:

Ivan Alexander met Andronikos after the war and agreed a peace based on the status quo. To seal the alliance, he betrothed his eldest son, Michael Asen IV, to Andronikos's daughter Maria (Eirenne), the marriage eventually taking place in 1339.

(Some imprecision remains: a peace is not literally an alliance. To clarify that, I would need to know the terms of the treaty. And I would like "Ivan and Andronikos ended the war by signing a treaty...", but I don't know if it happened like that.)

I've reduced passives ("a marriage...was planned); I've moved a main verb from a delayed arrival in a sentence to the beginning ("was planned" moved forward as "he betrothed") and also removed a word bundle ("Ivan Alexander met Andronikos after the war ended and agreed a peace based on...") which suspends the point; I've denominalised "a marriage was planned" into the verb "betrothed"; and I've removed the material about Michael being crowned co-emperor because that introduces a different idea and interrupts the flow of the matter at hand. I'd probably relocate that information to the passage about the crowning of the younger sons, or get it out of the way before mentioning the peace and the betrothal. Changes like these can be made without being a native speaker, I think. The idea is to move the reader more quickly from one piece of information to the next, which is what I take "compelling" to mean in the context of an encyclopedia article. qp10qp 16:34, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Is this an improvement? :) Todor→Bozhinov 18:50, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I would say very much so. I would have understood it if you'd dismissed my comments as fusspotting, but I'm impressed. You've lifted those sentences considerably, in my opinion.qp10qp 20:40, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Support, looks like a great article. Kyriakos 22:02, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Support, nice, informative, concise. NikoSilver 23:20, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

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

The article was promoted 20:57, 14 January 2007.

---

Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers)

{First FAC here} Thanks Gzkn and Gimmethrow

• I am self-nominating my article on Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) again. It is now better written than before, after being copy-edited by multiple wikipedia copyeditors. It is not as list heavy as it was. It is well-referenced and more importantly, it offers all significant information on the topic while remaining encyclopedic.Noahdabomb3 00:01, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment Previous nomination is here. Gzkn 01:49, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
• Support per last FAC, all issues I had with the article were adressed. - Tutmosis 02:04, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
• Support. Looks very good, fits the criteria - good work! — Wackymacs 14:12, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
• Support This article ain't nuthing ta f' wit! -- Kicking222 22:01, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
• Support best hip hop album article yet, very nice, one comment, can you add fair use rationales to the images and song samples as they are needed. Thanks Jaranda ^{wat's sup} 01:42, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment (response) - I added the fair use rationales for all the song samples and images except the album cover (thats self explanatory).Noahdabomb3 02:37, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
  • The album cover also needs a fair use rationale. If it's an unfree image it needs a fair use rationale. The album cover licence tag specifically says to add one for each use. Jay32183 22:01, 4 January 2007 (UTC) issue dealt with. Jay32183 03:47, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose too much blog/webpage/listy content of external jumps. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a blog. References are not formatted, making it hard to verify reliable sources without clicking on each one. For example, no author, publication date given for (Days of the Wu. Retrieved on November 6, 2006.) and what makes that a reliable source? That is only one example - all sources should be checked. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:42, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment (response) - I put an author for every source that had an author. Also, I put the website name within each reference. Thanks for pointing this out to me, and tell me if I need to do anything else. Otherwise, I want that oppose to be changed to a support. :) Noahdabomb3 22:08, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment (response) "Too much blog/webpage/listy content...Wikipedia is not a blog". Could you kindly explain that objection in a bit more detail? Nobody is trying to start a blog here. We're trying to write a quality encyclopedia article. Help us improve it. Thanks! Venicemenace 14:24, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

• Support—Flicking through the featured article candidates, this is most impressive. It has nice spread layout and a good visuality with the images. The sections seem comprehensive and the references too. -Kez 19:09, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

• Object. While quite well written, it could do with a copy-edit by fresh eyes; won't take long. Here are little random examples of what I mean.
  • " from 1992-1993"—No, I think if you use "from", you need to insert "to" between the years instead of (what should be) the en dash.
  • "In order to decide"—Spot the two redundant words.
  • "this track was left off the Wu-Tang Clan's debut but eventually surfaced on Method Man's debut, Tical."—"Eventually", I've decided, is not encyclopedic. Why bother using it if you don't tell us when: you're the experts ... And a comma before "but", please.
  • I concur with Sandy on the blogginess of the referencing. Some reviewers, myself included, are becoming increasingly concerned at the use of sources that lack verifiability, authority and stability, and that themselves are not referenced. I think there's an over-reliance on such references here.
  • The fair-use justification of the audio examples is inadequate. Please see the recent warring on the Fair use talk page, in which commercial recordings were deleted without notice by WP's office, breaking the seven-day rule and not, in my view, properly justified by the wording of the fair-use rules. Even written permission of the owner wasn't enough to save the excerpts from destruction. They won't go with the "lower quality" reason, and the "not replaceable" reason appears to count for little. The educational reason, and the claim that the main text is a commentary on these tracks, are flimsy. I see no explicit, direct information on the musical and/or sound production aspects of the tracks. WP seems to be more concerned about keeping its content free than adhering to the common law on fair use; i.e., WP is becoming stricter than the common law, and there appears to be an acknowledgement that its fair-use rules have not kept apace with the tightening of "policy" (a most unsatisfactory gap, IMV). I think you'll have to delete them. Tony 11:51, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment (response)
  • I requested a copy-edit of this article at the Wikipedia League of Copyeditors page, and corrected the examples you gave me.
  • All sources I used are legitimate; most are either from well known publications or interviews. Also, many references are websites that list accolades (rocklist.net), explaining why you might think the article is "bloggy." I assure you that it is not though.
  • In terms of the sound samples, I am going to wait for a second opinion before I take them down. Its not that I don't trust you, but according to you, there is "warring" over fair use samples and I want to wait for the official outcome of the war.Noahdabomb3 01:43, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
    • I've already asked Gmaxwell for an opinion. Tony 02:57, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
      • There is a very important difference between the Bach page and this page, which is that it is possible to create free recordings of Bach, since he's been dead since 1750 so his music is not copyrighted; it is not possible to create free recordings of Wu-Tang, because they are not dead (mostly) and their music is still under copyright. Mak (talk) 20:22, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
        • Yes, but five 30-second excerpts? WP might balk at so many in a single article, especially without much or any comment on the music/lyrics of those tracks in the text. Tony 00:31, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
          • Quite. Mak (talk) 00:36, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
            • It looks as if Noahdabomb3 has gone ahead and removed the samples. Venicemenace 14:11, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
• Support - Well written, well-referenced article. (Ibaranoff24 09:53, 8 January 2007 (UTC))
• Comment (response) Tony, thank you for your explanation of the "blogginess" concern. However, I'd like to ask you to take another look at the article's sources. The vast majority of the claims in this article, including the "exceptional claims", are backed by solid sources like Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, Robert Christgau, New York Press, All Music Guide, Boston Phoenix, Pitchfork Media, Exclaim Magazine (Canada), and The Source. Other sources are interviews with members of Wu-Tang Clan, which should be considered solid as well. Rocklist.com is prominent, but only as a reference to "best of" album lists published in print media -- these are noncontroversial claims of verifiable facts, not subjective analysis. A few other sources (ProudFlesh Journal, Stylus Magazine) are not on the blue-chip level of the first group, but are hardly blogs; these sources are counted on for minor aspects of the article's analysis, and I believe them to be stable and reliable. If you have concerns about specific sources, please inform us (the editors) and we'll address them. However, I don't think the blanket statements - that this article over-relies on dubious sources, or is symptomatic of a larger sourcing problem on WP - are really accurate here. Your assistance and advice is much appreciated. Venicemenace 13:59, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I was the reviewer who first raised the issue of listiness/blogginess; the article has improved, but an example is the List of accolades section. It contains an entire chart of external website links, which could be converted to referenced statements. Most articles I've seen list the title/accolade, and include a column with the reference number - we shouldn't be sending readers outside of Wiki when external jumps can be Wikified or converted to referenced statements. Also, since they are external jumps rather than references with full biblio info, we can't observe the strength of your sources without clicking on each one. You can solve this by adding a ref column, removing the external jumps, and converting them to refs. That table looks like a webpage/blog, sending our readers all over the internet.
  • Also, your references still need better formatting - see the cite templates for examples (although you need not use the cite templates). For example: Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All Time at RollingStone.com. Since this is a magazine, it should use the correct format, identifying (when provided) author, publication date, and the publisher (Rolling Stone) shouldn't be included in the blue link, which should be the exact article title. Have a look at AC/DC; its references are coming along. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:21, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
• Are you going to reinstate one, perhaps two, of those fair-use audio excerpts? If so, refer to the music directly in the text. Maybe someone like Gmaxwell, who's an expert in that field, might think it's acceptable. Tony 15:57, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I definitely think one or two short, lowered-quality fair-use sound excerpts which described in the text would be both appropriate and useful. Mak (talk) 16:39, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment (response)
  • In terms of the list of accolades, the table gets ruined if I put in references, so I think that I will just remove the hyperlinks and forget about references altogether. If anyone is willing to put in a reference column, than that is accepted, but I am not sure if that is necessary.
  • In terms of the song samples, even putting two samples into the article (according to Gmaxwell and Tony) is a violation of this website's rules regarding to copywrite. I do not know too much of wikipedia's policy on song samples, but you will have to beat maxwell or tony in an argument and add more info about the singles in order to get the samples back in the article. I think it is better the way it is right now.
  • In terms of the references, the way they are is perfectly mine. I do not need to add the magazine information for something I found at Rollingstone.com that does not list that information. For all I know, Rollingstone.com has its own information about the 500 Best Albums that its magazine doesn't have.
    Noahdabomb3 22:38, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

• • So, that entire table was taken from another source - how about copyvio? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:36, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

• • • As for the fair-use of short copyrighted recordings, no one has actually said none may be used. Gmaxwell definitely hasn't said this, and Tony was the one who suggested that one or two be included, I was agreeing with him that that would be entirely fair, reasonable, and good. People don't seem to be understanding that there's a huge difference between copyrighted recordings of Bach being used (which Gmaxwell doesn't think we should do) and copyrighted recordings of still-living-still-recording-still-holding-all-possible copyright artists, which I haven't seen Gmaxwell comment on on-wiki, but am fairly sure he would accept as a necessary part of an article on an album or musical group. Mak (talk) 23:31, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes; and reference to music/lyrics in the text would lift the educational value of the one or two examples, raising the quality of the article and further justifying limited fair use. Is each, for example, representative of a certain style/period of the group? Do they contain musical textures/instrumental or vocal forces/lyrics that are characteristic of the group? Just a few sentences for each would do. This is what, I think, we expect of musical articles. In the end, the article needs to be freely copiable by anyone on the planet, without feeling that copyright is an issue. Tony 00:21, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment (repsonse) - Unless someone wants me to add a little more info about the singles, I think everybody should support this featured article request. The article is currently being copy-edited and it is generally agreed that it is well-written. The references are legitimate and presented correctly. Also, the blogginess of the accolade section was addressed. If the article needs any more tweeking, speak up or forever hold your peace. Noahdabomb3 01:14, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
• Object This would normally only be a comment but I feel an objection is required for the action to be taken. The image in the lead still has no fair use rationale. I mentioned this earlier on the page. There is no self-explanatroy fair use rationale on Wikipedia. Tony also raises legitimate concerns. By the way, demanding support is a bad idea, and there is no "forever hold your peace" on Wikipedia. Jay32183 01:34, 10 January 2007 (UTC) isuue dealt with. Jay32183 03:47, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I left a message at the original uploader's talk page to provide a source [12]. Other than that the image fair use rationale is pretty much self-explanatory. Also to note I did revert the image to a previous low resolution version (no offense Ibaranoff24) to better suit fair-use. I hope we are on the same page when you refer to "image in the lead" since I assume it's Image:Wu-TangClanEntertheWu-Tangalbumcover.jpg. Thanks. — Tutmosis 03:09, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand the question. The source for an album cover is, of course, the album itself. Are you asking if I personally scanned it or downloaded it from elsewhere? Does that make a difference for copyright purposes? (I have no idea where I downloaded it from - I definitely did not scan it myself). Tuf-Kat 12:13, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I was asking if you scanned or downloaded it. I was under the impression that is proper protocol if you get an image from the web you should link to where you got it from. But it's all good since a fair-use rationale was provided, I guess since this is a album cover the source isn't much of a difference. — Tutmosis 16:42, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, there's no expressive content to scanning it, so I've given more info on the cover on the image page. It now gives the record label and artist. I don't think anyone else could be considered to have a valid interest in it. Tuf-Kat 03:30, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment (response) - I gave a rationale for fair use for the lead image and I apologize for my cocky comment.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Noahdabomb3 (talk • contribs)
• Comment: Venicemenace explained that the most of the fact-check references are stable. The samples have rationale. "List of accolades" is taken from one website but I don't see how it is a copyvio since it just a list of article titles from various magazines and such, sort of like a copying and pasting a track list. The citations are detailed, they aren't citeweb format but it's really up to the author, no 1 style is currently enforced. So I am a little confused at the outstanding problems that need to be fixed. — Tutmosis 18:30, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
• Support - Very impressive article. Dalf | Talk 07:19, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

Serial Experiments Lain

I believe all the points asked in the previous nom have been adressed. Specifically, print sources have been added, several experienced editors copyedited the article, character design has been expanded, and the video game has been cut off to its own article. IMO, this is a thorough, well written article on a particularly difficult subject. Even thought wikipedia is not censored, an effort has been made to keep the article relatively spoiler-free and out of universe. Reception section could be expanded as more sources are available, but I'm afraid this would set the article off-balance. Thanks for your interest.--SidiLemine 13:55, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Why are you several times linking to Wiktionary instead of Wikipedia? --Peter Andersen 22:58, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment The Wiktionary links are informative. The link to artifact clears up any confusion on meaning and its alternative spelling and the link to blasé explains what it means concisely. The link to charm on Wict. is better than a link to amulet which is where you end up after the disambiguation page for charm. --Squilibob 06:14, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment: Too much white space in the characters section. Avoiding being overly detailed, but give enough text to line up with the images provided at least. This pretty much means a little less than doubling each characters' blurb.--SeizureDog 12:09, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

• Comment. Would it be possible to put half the pictures on one side and half on the other (alternating)? That might solve the problem of white space and might even look better. — Dark Shikari ^talk/_contribs 12:37, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

That's what was originally done, but a user chenged it to this to align with other articles of the same kind. I'll change it back to see if it solves the problem.--SidiLemine 13:06, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I did this, but they don't overlap like they should. Anyone can advise what to do to get rid of that white space?--SidiLemine 13:15, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

I had a try at fixing it. Less whitespace, but it's still there. --Squilibob 14:12, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

yup, definitely gonna have to add to eiri, alice and taro.--SidiLemine 14:41, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Done! Ibelive this issue adressed.--SidiLemine 17:00, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

• Support — much improved since last FAC. — Deckiller 14:53, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support article is very well done and well referenced. --Malevious Userpage •Talk Page• Contributions 17:57, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support, my comments were addressed last time.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  19:30, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support --Supernumerary 19:59, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support, the article might still use some expansion, but what is there looks already fit for FA. CP/M ^comm |Wikipedia Neutrality Project| 14:52, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment: the writing needs some work. In places it feels too conversational, and occasionally seems unclear or clumsy ("Lain draws influence from philosophical subjects"; "who has his own agenda that he carries through"; "many acceptations of the term"; "no surprise that definite influences are scarce at best"). It also includes some purple prose ("The first ripple on the pond of Lain's lonely life"; "her cold-as-ice mother"), however that's not necessarily a problem. Why does "war of ideas" need a (sic)? I think these things could quickly be resolved by a copy-editor (or two) familiar with the subject giving the article a brush-up. In general, a very good piece of work on a subject I know zip about. Angus McLellan (Talk) 19:41, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Those aren't really copyediting issues; they are mainly content issues, so I can't help there, since I've never seen the show. Also, a lot of those unclear statements are in the lead, and developed in later sections, as far as I see. — Deckiller 20:31, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
    • I think the problem with those statements is how they are written as opposed to how clear they are. Same goes for "His relation to Lain is a mixture of fatherly authority and distant fear" and "She is the one to first try to break Lain's shell ...", "Mika is considered by some the only normal member...", and "He has been depicted as a "techno punk teenager" by some...". All four have been added to the article in the last day which is a shame because it is delaying this FAC. --Squilibob 22:21, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
      • That explains it. I never really noticed most of those weasel/peacock terms and sentences, because they were added recently. They should be omitted; it's never a good idea to put filler in. — Deckiller 03:06, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support as before. --Cat out 09:50, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support. Much better now. Note that I removed a seemingly contradictory statement.[13] as well as changing the lead to summarize more.[14] --GunnarRene 20:45, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment I jut added a {{who}} tag to a statement about English language reviewers. This statement was not attributed or cited.--ZayZayEM 03:33, 18 March 2007 (UTC)