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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Archived nominations/November 2011

< Wikipedia:Featured article candidates | Archived nominations

November 2011

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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 candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by Ucucha 14:38, 28 November 2011 [1].

Olek

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Nominator(s): Zanimum (talk) 22:13, 23 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm the primary editor for this article. I feel it offers a fairly definitive overview of this living artist, her work, and exhibition history. I'm wondering whether this GA article might be worth of FA status.

Interesting note: despite the presumed limited audience for fibre art/performance art, it had 23900 views on the front page, when it appeared as DYK. -- Zanimum (talk) 22:13, 23 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose: I don't want to discourage you from trying to improve your work, but the article has received very little preparation as far as I can see, before this nomination. Have you read the featured article criteria, or taken any prior steps to see whether the article meets these criteria? I'm not sure what counts as a "good article" these days, but I think you were misled by your GA reviewer; this is C-class, no more. In its present form the article has no structure, just a single section following a short lead. There is no background information, no critical or NPOV analysis of the artist's works, little in fact beyond a list of the works she has done and her future exhibition plans. Prose is sometimes telegraphic, delivered in short choppy paragraphs. There is illiteracy ("Olek has exhibiting in the United States..." is one example). Some of the references are unformatted, others (e.g. Facebook) are highly dubious from a RS perspective. It can take days, weeks or months to prepare a featured article, not minutes; I'm sorry, but at present this is nowhere near. Brianboulton (talk) 19:12, 24 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose: I agree with the other reviewer's comments above. The article requires extensive further preparation and expansion. No issues were revealed by Copyscape searches, but some related text from The New York Times is now behind a subscription wall and I cannot conduct a thorough search, but I would have done if this nomination had any chance of success. Graham Colm (talk) 22:06, 24 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]


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

The article was not promoted by Ucucha 14:38, 28 November 2011 [2].

Otis Redding

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Nominator(s): ♫GoP♫TCN 19:47, 23 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hello everyone!

After an unsuccessful GAN; copyeditors helped to improve the prose; reviewers helped to construct the article (this was the latest version until I started to develop it on my sandbox), I now believe it meets the FA criteria and I myself don't see any issues. I would also like to see it on the mainpage in Dec 10.♫GoP♫TCN 19:47, 23 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - sorry. I don't want to be at all discouraging but the nomination is premature. The GAN was not successful and the issues raised there have not been fully addressed. The subsequent peer review was closed after only seven days and I think more patience was required – reviewers should have been solicited. The prose, although not far off GA standard, is long way off FA standards. Here's a sentence taken at random from the article, "Redding's wife was dissatisfied that it did not sound like a typical Redding song". It's clunky, clumsy prose. And here, "The Stax crew were similarly dissatisfied; Jim Stewart thought that it was not R&B, while bassist Duck Dunn thought its sound would damage Stax". For a sound to cause damage it has to be pretty powerful. Does this mean "Stax's reputation"? There are many more examples of non-professional writing throughout the article. It needs to go back to peer review and this nomination withdrawn. Graham Colm (talk) 20:26, 23 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I closed this peer review because I asked so many editos to review it, but nobody had time, were inactive or had no desire to perform a top-to-bottom review. 7 days is very long; I am pretty sure that an experienced reviewer is able to polish the prose of a short article like this in minimum 1 day. I don't know how much time you spent to write this comment, but if you could name just examples, why others can not? --♫GoP♫TCN 20:59, 23 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
User:Lfstevens performed another copyedit. How is the prose now?--♫GoP♫TCN 10:52, 27 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - sorry GreatOrangePumpkin, but as you pointed out at my talk page, it isn't ready yet. In addition to the article's problems with prose that you commented on at my talk, I'm also seeing WP:MOS inconsistencies, sourcing issues (Find a Grave, for example, is not a high-quality reliable source), and media concerns (non-free samples are meant to be no more than 10% of total song length - File:These_Arms_of_Mine_-_Otis_Redding.ogg is nearly 20%). I understand it's frustrating to struggle to find reviewers, but your best bet would be to go through a successful GAN/PR first. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:13, 23 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Reduced file; removed Find A Grave.--♫GoP♫TCN 10:52, 27 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]


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

The article was not promoted by Ucucha 15:58, 23 November 2011 [3].

Jennifer Connelly

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Nominator(s): GDuwenTell me! 17:02, 14 November 2011 (UTC)--Gunt50 (talk) 19:04, 14 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The article was expanded since the last nomination, in order to reinforce the comprehensiveness. Copyediting has been performed and the article is ready for a new review.GDuwenTell me! 17:02, 14 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose. From the section 2008 onwards, the article gets choppy and lazy, with a laundry list of movies in which the actress has appeared. An example, "She then voiced the character named "7", an adventurous warrior in the animated film 9." And that's a paragraph within itself--no context, no year, no idea of what the movie is about, or its critical or commercial success. Absolutely nothing. Another: "Parisian fashion house Balenciaga and Revlon cosmetics signed Connelly as the face of their 2008 campaigns." End of story. To the writer, please contrast with the featured article about an actor. Orane (talk) 08:23, 15 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose with considerable regret. This article is important, if not intrinsically then because it has around 1.5 million annual viewings, so it needs to be of the best quality. It is troubling that the article has had so much attention here at FAC (this is its 5th nomination) and at peer review (four reviews), yet it still does not seem to hit the mark. I have just read it for the first time, rather quickly, and these are examples of my immediate concerns:-
    • Trivial detail: I realise there may be little information on record about Connelly's childhood, but is the following really notable: "Her father suffered from asthma, so the family moved to Woodstock, New York in 1976 to escape the city smog.[1] Four years later, the family returned to Brooklyn Heights, and Connelly resumed her education at the same school."?
    • Overlong and over-complex sentences, e.g. "Her first leading role was in Italian giallo-director Dario Argento's 1985 film Phenomena as a young girl who uses her psychic powers to communicate with insects to pursue a serial killer who is butchering students of the Swiss school where she has just enrolled,[19] followed by the lead in the coming-of-age movie Seven Minutes in Heaven, released the same year." (there are other examples)
    • Missing background: "Balancing work and school, she studied English for two years at Yale University in 1988 and 1989..." Well, I don't know the American University system, but is it that simple to get into Yale? And then to move on to Stanford? The impression given here, that Connelly was able to use the top US colleges to "balance work and school", is surely incomplete and needs more research, or better presentation.
      • Ummmm, I haven't looked at what the sources say, but it certainly is possible for some people (perhaps exceptional, ahem), to balance work and Stanford, and I don't see how that relates to being "simple to get into" (although Yale's drama program probably is). Just sayin', but the sources should be consulted. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:17, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • Well, as I said, I don't know how the system works. I do know that to study English at, say, Oxford, you'd have to overcome a great many academic hurdles first. Maybe Connelly did, too. This point is fairly marginal, however; it's the prose issues that mainly need to be sorted out. Brianboulton (talk) 21:12, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Overdetailing: Is it necessary to mention every screen appearance? There seem to be quite a few sentences such as "In 1995, director John Singleton cast Connelly as a lesbian college student in Higher Learning" , or "During 2000, she appeared as Catherine Miller in the FOX drama series The $treet, about a brokerage house in New York City", which basically tell us nothing.
    • Poor prose flow: The jerky prose style, with repeated single sentence paragraphs, becomes acute in the later stages of the article. Partly this arises from the problem mentioned in the previous point - the desire to get some mention of every screen appearance, no matter how insignificant.

The article has clearly been the subject of considerable effort and perseverance. However, I agree with the previous reviewer that at present it does not compare well with, for example, Angelina Jolie, and cannot yet be said to be an example of Wikipedia's "best work". Brianboulton (talk) 12:42, 15 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support—I previously reviewed and supported this article, and my concerns were addressed. It seems comprehensive in terms of her career. Her personal life is a little sparse, but that can be the result of a lack of suitably reliable sources. Regards, RJH (talk) 17:33, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • It's not only the lack of reliable sources. Some user is asking us to compare this article with Angelina Jolie's, who I don't need to say is a celeb on the media's spotlight. You should also consider Connelly's low profile and her reluctance to talk about her personal life which is visible in some interviews.--Gunt50 (talk) 14:50, 17 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
      • Thank you for your comments, Gunt50. I have indeed read the above reviews, and I agree with you. I don't think one should expect an exact one-to-one mapping between articles about entirely different people. To me this article just needs to satisfy the FA criteria; it does not need to transform Jennifer Connelly into Angelina Jolie. Angelina Jolie is much more of a public figure, and hence there is more information available. If suitable sources aren't available to specify certain facts about Jennifer Connelly's background, then I'm not going to expect them to appear in the article. With regards to the criticism about "overdetailing", well this seems like exactly what needs to be done in order to satisfy the comprehensiveness requirement. The only criticism I might agree with is regarding some of the prose. Regards, RJH (talk) 15:57, 17 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • Both of you are missing the point. No one is proposing a "one-to-one mapping" between Jolie's and Connelly's article. But a comparison between both article reveals Connelly's article to be lacking. The problem for me arises in the very first sentence of the introduction. The first sentence of the article should give the most precise and direct information about its subject. If someone asks you "Who is Jennifer Connelly", what would your answer be? a) "Jeniffer Connelly is an American actress" or b) "Jennifer Connelly is an American actress who began her career as a child model"? I'm tempted to think option "a" would be a more concise choice. You can mention how/where she began her career in later sentences. The mechanics of the prose is quite good. But, as I said, in the later sections, it seems as if the writers of the article were constructing a list of appearances from the actress. It is ok to expand on her movie roles: how did they do at the box office? Varitey may praise a performance, but what did another critic say about it? What motivated the actress to take a certain role? Just something more than "she appeared in this movie, then in the next year, she appeared in this one, and then a few months later she appeared in this one." That's what I was getting at when I suggested the Jolie article: the paragraphs are developed; ideas are fully fleshed out etc. Orane (talk) 05:07, 18 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
          • Garamond, thank you for expanding upon the "point" that was perhaps not made fully clear in a single, brief sentence. :-) I'm sure this will be more useful. Regards, RJH (talk) 16:23, 18 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • Also, maybe it was decided in earlier FACs but is there a reason her filmography is not placed in the article? Orane (talk) 05:07, 18 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]


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

The article was not promoted by SandyGeorgia 15:55, 22 November 2011 [4].

Goodbye, Michael

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Nominator(s): NoD'ohnuts (talk) 15:09, 12 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because I believe it has reached the standards a featured article. It also marks the leave of Steve Carell from The Office which has been named one of the best sitcoms of the decade by multiple critics. It has been named a Good Article and recently received a Peer Review. I'll be willing to make any edits if you find any, which you probably will as this is my first featured article candidate. I really appreciate your feedback, thank you very much! NoD'ohnuts (talk) 17:06, 12 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose at this time - I commend your efforts with this article, but I believe it does not currently meet the FA criteria. Here are some specific concerns:

  • Prose needs work to improve flow. For example, "It included an additional 7 minutes of material including David Wallace's deleted guest appearance" - repetitive phrasing
  • Lots of Manual of Style issues - inconsistent italicization and wikilinking, hyphen/dash use, etc
  • Reference formatting should be more consistent
  • What makes this a high-quality reliable source? This?
  • File:Michael_and_Pam_saying_goodbye.png needs full source URL and copyright holder. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:40, 12 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have removed some of the Officetally references, but I believe the series episode poll should be left in order to show fans reaction to the episode . Also AOLtv were used in previous good and featured articles i believe. NoD'ohnuts (talk) 22:21, 12 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: The peer review is still open. Please close it. Brianboulton (talk) 20:15, 12 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Let me just say the episode was about 30 minutes without commercials, it ran in a 50 minute timeslot with commercials. So the plot summary is about the correct length NoD'ohnuts (talk) 21:49, 13 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Review: That it's 30 minutes without commercials makes it easier for me to review.
    • I echo Nikki's comments about the prose, and I would strongly suggest going to the Guild of Copyeditors and requesting an expedited coypedit.
    • The general practice when describing length of television episodes is to do it without commercials, as episodes from 38 to 60 minutes air in hour-long slots depending on the channel; either use "An extended 30-minute episode" or "aired in a 50-minute slot".
    • The plot summary should be slimmed to about 350 to 400 words; remember that plot summaries are effectively derivative works and the FA criteria emphasises that there should not be any more non-free content than necessary.
    • The audience is generally not a reliable source: they're not experts, they have no oversight, and have objectivity issues; this is pretty much exemplified with user review sections for Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, where about one sixth of reviews were found to be obvious trolling by fans of the other series, and a lot more obviously not proper reviews at all. Hence audience reactions are allowed only when discussed by a relaible source, and I don't have any indication that Officetally is one.
    • The rationale for File:Michael and Pam saying goodbye.png simply isn't good enough, and would probably end up with the image being deleted at FFD.
  • Oppose. Due to issues 4 and 5, I must oppose and suggest withdrawal. Sceptre (talk) 21:58, 19 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oh, and by the way, it's best to use screenshots from the original stream, or a close copy, instead of using downscaled streams. As I'm sure that The Office, like any currently airing series, has been in HD for years, a 400*225 screenshot from the HD stream would give more fidelity than the current 624*352 screenshot (in the same way plugging a PS3 into the HDMI input of a 16 inch TV looks better than if it was put into the SCART input of a 40 inch TV). Sceptre (talk) 22:03, 19 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]


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

The article was not promoted by SandyGeorgia 15:55, 22 November 2011 [5].

Nintendo DSi

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Nominator(s): « ₣M₣ » 23:58, 1 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Introducing "Nintendo DSi" and "Nintendo DSi XL", the last installments in Nintendo's highly popular "Nintendo DS" handheld gaming family. The DS product line has sold over 149 million units worldwide and outsold the entire Game Boy series, which sold 118.69 million units. After thoroughly examining the previous Fac's, I'm ready to give this another try. « ₣M₣ » 23:58, 1 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]


Oppose: - there are many some things that make me feel this fails 1(a), 1(b), 1(d) (in the lead mostly), 2(a) and possibly 1(c), 4 (could use 1 more image of a specific type...see below).
Link to the discussion
I'm still opposing this, although the its gotten a lot better. There are several outstanding things that cause this to fail:
  1. 1(a) - I believe that the technical specifications is still littered with technical jargon and meta concepts not explained well to the average reader.
  2. 1(a) - It is my opinion that the dimensions do not make for engaging prose and actually are more difficult to understand in prose rather than a table due to their nature.
  3. 1(b) - There is no info on the region-locking of DS games (not to be confused with DSi-enhanced games). As this would be the first console to region-lock games that aren't region-locked for other handhelds and it would be a key difference between this and the previous DS handhelds, this is a crucial peiece of info. I admit it may have been added "secretly" and thus be hard to find, but that doesn't make it any less of a major piece of info one would expect to find in a comprehensive article on the DSi and what makes it different from its predessors.
  4. 4 - As I pointed out, I believe a comparison picture or 2 of the two would be highly benificial to readers. One such freely available and freely modified image does exist already and its not impossible to create one with both screens open to compare the two. Even if you don't have both, you could probably go down to a local gameshop and ask permission to take an image of both side-by-side. It's not hard to come by.∞陣内Jinnai 16:06, 6 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I'll leave it up to other reviewers to comment on how relevant these remaining points are, but I advise those to look at the discussion for point 3. « ₣M₣ » 19:54, 6 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Link check - no DAB-links, no dead external links, 3 overlinks fixed. GermanJoe (talk) 22:10, 3 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:22, 13 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Not sure if done. To clarify publisher italicization, IGN would be the work and Fox Interactive Media would be the publisher?
  • Removed all locations.
  • Spelled out PALGN abbreviation.
  • Andriasang is headed by Anoop Gantayat, a long time contributor at IGN.com: [6][7][8][9]. Reliable gaming publications that have cited Andriasang include: GameInformer ([10][11][12][13][14]), Eurogamer ([15][16][17]), 1UP.com ([18][19]), Edge ([20][21]).
  • Removed one Kotaku ref. Is it okay to replace the other with inside-games.jp?
  • FN 83: fixed?
  • Proper sourcing depends on context. For example: while development history ends up being primarily from Nintendo (third-party sources simply provide a short summary and links the reader to Nintendo's story), Reception consists exclusively of third-party sources. When the article discuss context behind sales numbers, that's cited by third-parties. The chart is not. The demographic portion (Demographic and sales, Larger model) has opinion pieces from Nintendo, so its important to specify in-text its coming from them. The rest of the Nintendo sources, including those from the manual, are to provide straightforward, descriptive statements for its hardware, features, and certain aspects of its software library section (wp:primary). « ₣M₣ » 00:31, 14 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]


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

The article was not promoted by SandyGeorgia 17:01, 16 November 2011 [22].

Rhythm game

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Nominator(s): bridies (talk) 05:28, 21 October 2011 (UTC); Masem[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because I'm reasonably confident it meets the criteria in terms of research, is at least as good as the only current video game genre FA -4X- and User:JimmyBlackwing recently copy edited the article. As he's had previous success in FA-level copy editing I think it should also meet the prose criteria. bridies (talk) 05:28, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Quick comment
Not sure I understand. You mean there are too many links in the references sections i.e. we should only link a publication in the first instance? Or do you mean there's overlinking in the whole article? bridies (talk) 05:08, 24 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 19:43, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Compare formatting of FNs 1 and 2
  • Dead links, for example in FN 47, need to be dealt with
  • Check formatting of quotes within quotes
  • Page ranges should be notated with "pp." and endashes
  • Be consistent in whether authors are listed first or last name first
  • Be consistent in whether you provide locations for newspapers
  • What makes this a high-quality reliable source?
  • Books need ISBNs
  • FN 43: magazine name should either be italicized or typeset as it is for its web format
  • FN 46: publisher name is wrong. Also, should note that this source requires login/registration
  • Be consistent in how you notate CNet. Nikkimaria (talk) 19:43, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Think I've got all that, bar the dead links which I'm still working on. As Masem noted 1UP is a reliable video game source in general and Kohler in particular has authored a couple of books. bridies (talk) 05:08, 24 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Removed the last dead link, which was not essential. bridies (talk) 05:06, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Copyscape review - No issues were revealed by Copyscape searches. Graham Colm (talk) 12:31, 23 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. The lead needs to make reference to the rise of motion control dance games for comprehensiveness. Indrian (talk) 06:30, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This looks to be well covered now. bridies (talk) 04:52, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yup, its been taken care of. Indrian (talk) 05:40, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Overlinking things like Rock Band and Guitar Hero among others are not only overlinked throughout the main article, but even in the same section (though in different subsections); this needs to be fixed; I think it should be linked once in the lead and another when first mentioned in the main article, and no more-SCB '92 (talk) 13:46, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Excluding the lead, I can see only 2 links to Guitar Hero and they're different things. One links to the franchise and one actually links to Guitar Hero (video game). I think I got the rest. bridies (talk) 15:45, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I already posted my thoughts here, so I'll just summarize it a bit. Essentially, I feel that the article could be expanded—meaningfully—by adding a few sections describing aspects unique to this genre. First of all, perhaps split Description and Game design (if enough content warrants it), and then I suggested a few new sections, like a Business one describing the unique business aspects of this genre, especially when compared to other ones. I don't think there's been a genre FA yet, so this article could be a great example for future ones. So far, this is pretty barebones; the term "genre" seems to evoke a lot more in the mind than just a stroll through history of it. For some of the sections I suggested, for instance, if you don't want to duplicate info, then perhaps split stuff out of History into new sections, as long as it makes sense. An example could be the dollar figures given in the History section; all of that might better serve the reader by being in the suggested Business section. And so on. Gary King (talk · scripts) 07:40, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'll mull this over for a bit, but actually there is an FA precedent for genres: 4X, which I linked above. This article follows the format used in that FA. bridies (talk) 11:11, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, but there are really no "precedents" for FAs IMO, only examples. Each article should be modeled based on what the content is about. Rhythm games especially are very unique in the gaming world as you know. Gary King (talk · scripts) 18:50, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That being said, I think there are sources that could build a decent "Impact" section. Cultural impact of the Guitar Hero series is probably a good place to start. Of course, care should be taken to avoid undue weight towards the minute pop culture references. I assume that some tidbits in the current content could be moved to a new impact section. I haven't read through the article in a while though, so I could be wrong. (Guyinblack25 talk 19:38, 9 November 2011 (UTC))[reply]
I think another concern is that the article not become another Guitar Hero spin-off. OK... so what is the consensus here? An "impact" section and/or a "business" section? To be honest I personally would prefer to integrate any kind of "real world" information into the history section and continue to divide that into chronological/thematic subsections. Whatever the case, this will probably require a couple of days of reading and head-scratching... bridies (talk) 13:59, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Absolutely. I only mentioned the article because it would provide some of the information relevant to an "impact" section. Please do avoid any undue weight towards Guitar Hero unless there is a proportionate amount of sources to back it up.
In the link below, only three editors commented on an impact section: me, Gary King, and Jinnai. Gary and I disagree on which route to take: general impact or business. Jinnai commented that there should be some kind of impact section.
Personally, I think a general "Impact" section is the route to go and any business trends should be integrated into the history section. Basically use the history section to explain what happened, why it happened, and how it happened and use the impact section to explain any major or lasting effects that happened as a result of the history info.
I think we all agree, however, that the form of such a section is dependent on the sources out there. I guess do the research and see what you can put together. (Guyinblack25 talk 14:27, 10 November 2011 (UTC))[reply]
This type of situation is the worst nightmare of anyone who nominates at FAC, but I don't think I can argue against your point. Bridies: if you can pull together the section they're asking for, I'll give it a fast/thorough copyedit. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 16:02, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've started drafting up some stuff taken from Cultural impact of the Guitar Hero series. At the moment I’m looking at the games’ effects on music education. I will perhaps expand on that article’s points to incorporate dissenting views (per Gary King’s comment on the WP:VG talk page i.e. “making people bad at playing real guitar”). To be honest though, aside from hype coming from those involved with the game and a couple of disgruntled quotes from has-beens influential guitarists, the main conclusion I would draw is that the games have not had a hell of a lot of impact in this respect, especially in comparison to their huge sales reach. See the Salon writer’s lukewarm reception to the Fretlight (already a step removed from Guitar Hero, never mind other rhythm games), his assertion that “most guitar players don't even consider (Guitar Hero) part of their world”, that “Shaffer and others in the music business are dubious of the video game's effect on young people's musical abilities” and finally that “Industry figures indicate that the guitar is far less popular today than it was in the 1960s” (which would seem to trump the guitar teacher’s quote).
Aside from that I may incorporate some stuff from the “health” section. I’m still very skeptical about how much of this type of content should be in this article and wonder if anyone could point to anything which is not about either Guitar Hero or Rock Band. I also think more of this information is covered in the article than it’s been given credit for (or are we talking a question of detail here?). We’ve covered the fact that downloadable content creates revenue for both artists and creators; that a large percentage of rhythm gamers are female and that the genre’s “popularity expanded the console video game market and its demographics”. With regards to peripherals, we know that the cost of producing and shipping them prevented GuitarFreaks from getting out of Japan (OK, the source has these details but the article just says “cost”; we could probably change that...) and that the prohibitively high cost of these things was thought to be behind stagnant sales for later installments. From between those lines I’d draw that the peripherals aren’t such a high (net) earner. I’ll dig into this.
I agree that this may be a subjective personal preference: Gary King is “personally fascinated by the business aspect” whereas the last thing I would like to see in the article is more dollar signs and sales figures. Anyone? bridies (talk) 13:31, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I also think the notion that "The genre is probably a bigger money grab than any other, especially since it's still pretty new and companies are still testing out the best ways to make the most money" strongly goes against what is found within the sources, which often focus on the commercial successes of a few years ago versus the more recent stagnation. It does echo sentiments such as " "The dream I envisaged 15 years ago, of music games gaining mass appeal, has to a degree become a reality...To me "Rhythm Action" can be viewed as nothing more than a gateway to the endless possibilities that music games hold. We truly hope that our fellow developers can help to unlock the potential of this blooming genre." [23] But this would be more the domain of Music video game. bridies (talk) 13:31, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If that's what the sources say, then that's what the sources say. It sounds like the you've found some informative stuff. If there are conflicting sources, then that should make for a good impact section. Keep up the good work. (Guyinblack25 talk 14:21, 11 November 2011 (UTC))[reply]
You don't need to just focus on the guitar games. Dance games seem to have taken over from them over the past year or two. Focusing on them a bit might also bring a new perspective to the article. Gary King (talk · scripts) 16:49, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A comment that I have on rhythm games that doesn't necessarily apply to other genres short of like FPS and MMO is the size of the actual market, and rhythm games pose even a larger challenge in that it is one of the genres that is probably most notable for the rise and fall of the peripherial based gameplay (FPS and MMOs and nearly all other genres simply continue to grow) The problem is is that business, sales figures, etc. aspect of the genre is strongly tied with the history of the genre, making it difficult to write out a separate section. On the other hand, if you took FPS, you can always pull out sources that have total sales figures of the top games and %age of the market, and a lot of other equivalent details, but you only need a few slices to show how popular these are.
How best to approach that with the rhythm game genre is not a simple question, and likely very unique to the genre. I understand trying to define a norm that can work across all genre types in the future, but I caution that this is probably the worst example case to start with because it that business aspect is well outside the normal of any other genre. --MASEM (t) 17:17, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think the problem is before we can say this is a good example for an exception to the normal flow a genre article should have, we have to have a normal flow and as yet we don't have any other genre article up to FA level other than 4X which is still somewhat debated whether its even a true subgenre and really done before we had a somewhat good idea what makes a good genre article. Therefore if we really need to have some other defiition for the standard of what a video game (sub)genre article looks like before we can start deciding how Rythm game looks, we should put this one on the back burner because it will probably be used as an example whether people here want to or not in constructing any future FACs.∞陣内Jinnai 17:34, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That's why I point to first person shooter or massively multiplayer online game as examples of how a genre is normally growing in the real world but not as examples of good articles at the present time. If you take the FPS approach, and consider that we have Definition, Game Design/mechanics, and History, the only section per the above analysis is a Business or Impact section, and here, all one needs is to pull what the current market numbers are for your top FPS games if not more detailed data. I'm not saying we need to jump and fix FPS right now to get it to FA, but envision what that structure is like, how it can apply to the other broad genre articles, and then identify why rhythm games are a unique case or more difficult case to work that. --MASEM (t) 17:38, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The problem Masem is that there are equally good examples that are completely different such as role-playing video game, real-time strategy and Bishōjo game. Using FPS as an example is not a good way to do it just because it could resemble this article. This is why the discussion should be had before this goes forward outside here (I don't know why it was moved here because this is a broader discussion on how to deal with video game genre articles).∞陣内Jinnai 18:23, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think those articles are clearly not "equally good". bridies (talk) 01:40, 12 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'd have to disagree, especially with the MMO article.∞陣内Jinnai 05:59, 12 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Forget MMO, there's still a plethora of other genre articles using this format which are not tagged for various issues, don't have large swathes of uncited content, etc. bridies (talk) 06:19, 12 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And my point is that following that specific structure doesn't make it automatically better than another structure which is what it sounds like you're implying.∞陣内Jinnai 06:43, 12 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think my point was missed. I'm saying that the asked for information is miscellanea heavily intertwined with Guitar Hero and Rock Band and with limited applicability to dancing games, let alone other rhythm games. I think sources which discuss general rhythm games do so in the format reflected by the article up to know. There may be worthy content to be added but IMO really this should have been a question of a minor filling out of the history section. Still, you asked for it... I've pulled together a few paragraphs which I've presently titled "Health and education" and I concede there may be more if we really need to cover every study and every musician with an opinion. For now, see what you think... bridies (talk) 06:19, 12 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Looks like a good addition. I searched online for "dance video games therapy" and found a few interesting articles, and this one from UC Santa Barbara seems most useful, which discusses dance games and how they are used for all types of therapy. Could be a useful article; there are a few references at the bottom, too. Gary King (talk · scripts) 06:44, 12 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    (edit conflict)We don't need to cover everything, but we do need to give the proper weight to everything. If there are case studies out there that could dispute any of the info (Google scholar is good for finding those published online), then we should do so. The article should summarize things, not repeat everyone's viewpoints.∞陣内Jinnai 06:43, 12 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comments for now, leaning support— I've been keeping one eye on the discussion above, but I'm not really interested in project style at this point. Does the article explain what a game is? Yes, and I'd be hard-pressed to come up with terms less jargon-laden. I never found myself asking "so what" as to why this topic was its own article--it's a straight documentation of a billion-dollar genre. If there is enough to merit an 'impact' evaluation, so much the better.
    • "This allowed Red Octane and Harmonix to capitalize on the formula in 2005 with the Western-targeted Guitar Hero." →This line feels like it should be in the next section, rather than the 1980s-2000 one. That would require changing a following line, " Gitaroo Man featured a guitar-playing protagonist four years before the release of Guitar Hero, though the game employed a conventional rather than guitar-shaped controller.", but that might be a good thing-- using past tense for this mention of a guitar-playing protagonist is a break from established cadence and once again is framing the article content by a hitherto barely-discussed game.
    • There's some problems with excessive passive sentence construction that on occasion makes things harder to read, ex. "Specialized titles that targeted specific genres and demographics, such as Band Hero for pop music and Lego Rock Band for younger players, were released." → Who published these, anyhow?
    • Minor Manual of Style issues: non-breaking spaces should be added between units (WP:NBSP—I've done a few in the latter sections).

-Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs(talk) 18:37, 12 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose: Fails 1(b) and 1(c) and 2(b)
  • This article hasn't been thoroughly researched, it does not cover the introduction of rythum games as mini-games into other game types (not asking much here, but it doesn't even have a source that mentions it).
  • Second, a quick google scholar search shows that there is still plenty of information not documented (being behind a pay wall isn't an excuse, although I do sympathize if that does make it more difficult). For example on the first page there is a case study on the entertainment impact the devices have, something not covered here, information on the impact on blind people, the role these games have played in bringing music to elementary school children, use in helping with devices for the elderly, more indepth analysis (ie a superior resource) for the evolution of the controllers, etc.
    I will look into this -and the other references linked here- hopefully later today. Still, I believe we have covered the use as an aid to blind people and bringing music to elementary school children. bridies (talk) 05:05, 13 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Third, the last 2 paragraphs in health and education are solely about Guitar Hero making the crisitism that this a glorification of only about a select few games more prominant. Partly this is IMO a problem on focusing on specific games rather than concept of a "rhythm game".
    As I have said, I do not believe significant press of this kind has been given to anything other than guitar Hero or Rock Band (OK, I will scour Google Scholar and such before definitely arguing this). And your second point is why I don't believe this content should have been added. I think sources which discuss the "concept of a rhythm game" will focus on the genre's history. bridies (talk) 05:05, 13 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, this and the last point are crucial elements. Even for stuff like education, the sources just cite Guitar Hero currently which gives undue weight to that one franchise. Even if the sources use it primarly, the article should reflect this isn't a 1-title article.∞陣内Jinnai 07:40, 13 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I guess we agree, sort of. I don't really think this article should cover the punditry on whether Guitar Hero (or Rock Band, which IMO is pretty interchangeable as far as this stuff goes) is good for music students and think that this weighs the article towards Guitar Hero (and Rock Band). But it was asked for and seems to have been well-received. I'm also struggling to see what else is likely to get this kind of coverage (although again I will dig deeper before definitively taking this stance). There's dance games used in P.E. but we've covered that. bridies (talk) 09:07, 13 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Finally, the article only talks about rhythm games that use special controlelrs or perifirials. It barely talk about rhythm games that rely solely on existing a controllers and have no option for a specialized controller. Other than info in the lead there is no mention of these games in the body. (If they are they are buried very well). I see one for the NDS and that's it which ultimately is not a controller.
    Completely spurious. The article discusses PaRappa, Bust a Groove, Vib-Ribbon, Amplitude and Frequency. Parappa is fairly prominent and the others have generous coverage for obscure games (they are in fact noted for being obscure). Specific suggestions for anything missed are welcome (maybe Um Jammer Lammy). Overall I think the non-peripheral based sector of this genre is decidedly minor. bridies (talk) 05:05, 13 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Willing to concede that point.∞陣内Jinnai 07:40, 13 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Also as far as structure goes, I think dividing 2011 from 2009-2010 is biased division of the history based on recentism because its too soon to say the fallout and saturation is over. It's not even 2012 and yet the division makes it appear that its a done deal. I think those 2 sections should be merged.∞陣内Jinnai 21:51, 12 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    This dichotomy strongly reflects the sources and it doesn't matter what might or might not happen in 2012. bridies (talk) 05:05, 13 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You're right, I actually completely misread this point in my earlier rush. I thought you were referring to the division between "rise" and "saturation" and misunderstood the reference to 2012 a prediction that the stagnation would not continue. I agree we can merge the relevant section if consensus wills it. bridies (talk) 09:07, 13 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Some issues with MOS: There appears to be a problem with a non-breaking space in the first paragraph for 2009-2010. There is also at least one instance of improper placement for inline ciations before the emdash punctuation rather than after. Multiplayer is wikilinked, but not single-player.
    Also i'm concerned with the liberal use of scare quotes with the likes of "social gaming" is in quotes. Same with "battles" and "perform".∞陣内Jinnai 07:40, 13 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed or modified these. I can't see any other examples. bridies (talk) 05:40, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

*Quick update:

  • I've expanded dance games' health benefits. In terms of finding countervailing studies, the closest I've got at the moment is this. At first glance this seems to say DDR (mentioned in the blurb) is only a fraction effective as traditional exercise, but there's no specific findings for DDR and it seems to have been lumped in with things like Wii Sports (this issue is complicated by the fact that dance games are often studied in conjunction with other exergames, which may only involve flicking one's wrist). The Uni. California source that Gary linked on the contrary states that dance games can get a player into aerobic workout territory and are potentially beneficial to one's cardiovascular health. I think I will add that reference, and leave it at that. Opinions?
  • I've added dance games' use in health care for the elderly. At the moment a lot of this stuff seems to be in the prototype stage. If anyone feels the need for an examination of broader purely social gaming for the elderly I can look into that; I've run out of time today.
  • I tracked down in mainstream sources the for-the-blind game Jinnai found on Google Scholar and added a mention, which should temper the guitar game lean a little (actually next to it is Frets of Fire, one of the few guitar games which is not Guitar Hero or Rock Band). There are a couple of things (the Salon article and a business journal) which suggest that the drum peripheral has greater musical and educational potential than the actual guitar controller. Add this?
  • It seems Guitar Center did a survey on guitar games' ability to inspire new and experienced musicians, which was published on GameDaily (now defunct, I believe) and cited in a couple of papers. I guess this would be a worthwhile addition to the anecdotal quotes and will likely get to this tomorrow.
  • I've merged the last section per Jinnai. I myself am ambivalent either way.
  • I'll get onto the (hopefully easy to source) mini-games concern tomorrow. And will round-up the MOS issues one we've cleared the research concerns. I'm also bearing in mind Gary King would like to see more gameplay info. In the meantime, anyone feel there's anything else still missing? bridies (talk) 17:03, 14 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think I'm done with the health and education section and that it's comprehensive and a good summary of the relevant research. I think we're in agreement that there's a lot of lean towards Dance Dance Revolution, Guitar Hero and to a lesser extend Rock Band, but this reflects the heavy weight of coverage towards these games. If reviewers want to see this content summarised here and not just in the games' respective articles, it will inevitably look like this. Nevertheless there is a smattering of other games mentioned.
    • I've added a mention of rhythm-games-as-mini-games in the gameplay section. Aside from this, I don't know how this section would be expanded. The gameplay conventions of this genre are not terribly complicated and as Dave Fuchs noted the section explains what a rhythm game is, allowing the reader to understand all the following real world goings-on. Things like downloadable content, health benefits etc. are amply covered in other sections.
    • Still working on the style issues, but I think getting consensus on the content concerns is most critical. bridies (talk) 05:50, 16 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]


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

The article was not promoted by Ucucha 18:13, 14 November 2011 [24].

Tintin in the Land of the Soviets

edit
Nominator(s): Midnightblueowl (talk) 14:12, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because it has achieved GA status, and although it has been rejected from FA status in the past, the comments provided at that point have been worked upon, bringing the article up to a better quality standard. Midnightblueowl (talk) 14:12, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:25, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Copyscape check - No issues were revealed by Copyscape searches. Graham Colm (talk) 18:02, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Media Review Ahh, Tintin. Racism, plagiarism, gross cultural and social misrepresentation, all the things you want to expose your children to at a young age to help them develop into well adjusted human beings. That aside, the images are fine. I resized one, but for once, I didn't have to fix a T:I or FUR. Good show. Sven Manguard Wha? 12:24, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support by Sceptre [25]

  • Comments: Ah, Tintin. It's obligatory that I should review this. Incidentally, do we have an FA for the release of the Spielberg/Jackson/Moffat movie up?
    • The prose checks out, and I'll make a few little edits to the prose to make it read better.
    • "It is one of only three Adventures of Tintin...": I assume the other two are Congo and Alph-Art, given that I have the boxset for the 1991–2 series which adapted all of the traditional 21, but a lay reader won't know that (or even know of the existence of Alph-Art).
    • There are redlinks in the Background section, including one deleted image, which should be removed or replaced.
    • The history section as a whole does a good job of talking about Catholic antisocialist sentiment in the 1920s and 1930s, which is, of course, important to the writing of this comic. One thing I think that should be included, if it exists in analysis, is the contrast between Land of the Soviets and Congo, which were effectively nationalist propaganda pieces, and anything from The Blue Lotus, which had a reputation for being extremely well-researched.
    • I can see nothing particularly wrong with the "later publications" section.
    • (Added 23:04, 22 October 2011 (UTC):) Your method of referencing is strange; have you considered using {{harvnb}} instead of plaintext in the refs? I'm not sure if there's a precedent for doing names in smallcaps either (especially when the parameter "last", I believe, has COinS issues.) Sceptre (talk) 23:04, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'll leave it to you to do any improvements you see fit, and I'll check in a couple of days and decide whether to give it support or not. Sceptre (talk) 22:43, 22 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Right, thanks for that Sceptre; I've made some of the corrections-improvements that you suggested. However, I have not altered the referencing system in its entirety (although made a few alterations); I see no reason why that really needs changing, as it is still fairly simple and self-explanatory for readers in my opinion. I have also failed to add information on how Herge progressed in his researched post-Cigars; this is a topic that should obviously be dealt with in articles on Herge himself and his later works, but I am unsure whether it is of particular relevence here. (Midnightblueowl (talk) 12:30, 24 October 2011 (UTC))[reply]
      • Hi. How you reference is fine as long as you're consistent, and while strange, your style is definitely allowed. Re, Hergé's attitude to research post-Cigars: I brought it up because I'm aware that Zhang Chongren didn't want China to be portrayed in the stereotypical way the Americans, Congolese, and Soviets were: did Zhang ever comment on Soviets or was it a general comment about stereotypes in the first three adventures? It's not a deal breaker, and I'd be happy to support this article at the moment; I'm just curious and it'd be interesting to give a sentence or two to if such a thing happened. Sceptre (talk) 19:15, 24 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • Hey there, and thanks for your support. Whilst Zhang/Chang (I've seen several spellings) did comment on the earlier works, I'm really not sure whether he commented on Soviets specifically. I suspect that he would of, particularly considering how the two Chinese gentlemen in Soviets are pig-tailed torturers (hardly an accurate image), but I am unsure if this is recorded in any of the texts on the subject (at least in the English language); maybe in future this information will be revealed, and could be added to this page at that later date. (Midnightblueowl (talk) 20:44, 24 October 2011 (UTC))[reply]

Hi. I've been going through the article. Just a couple of Comments for now while I remember. If I notice any more, I'll add them after.

  • In the Plot section: "...sentenced to death by firing squad. Tintin survives his execution..." This seems a little too vague to me. Did all the bullets miss? Was he badly wounded but he crawled off? Or did something else happen whereby the gunmen didn't actually fire, in which case can you say that he "survives his execution"?
  • For consistency, would it be worthwhile to not have any citations in the lead, and move refs #1 and 2 down to the main body of the text where the issues are discussed?
  • Some of the sentences are kind of long and unwieldy. I tired to correct one. Here's an example of another one that is pretty long and complicated: "Here he is brought before the local Commissar's office, where the same OGPU agent that tried to kill Tintin on the train secretly instructs the Commissar that they must make the reporter 'disappear... accidentally'." Moisejp (talk) 04:10, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thank you for these comments Moisejp, I'll come to each of them in turn. Regarding your first comment, I agree, and have made the correction. With your second point, I agree entirely that one of those references was unnecesary (and I have removed it) - the other however pertains directly to a quote, and so I recommend that it is left in. And on your third point, I personally do not find such sentences "long and unwieldy", I think it is a matter of personal taste. I'm more than happy for a change to occur, if it is the concensus, although it would not be my own choice.(Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:07, 28 October 2011 (UTC))[reply]
      • OK, that sounds fine. Though overall the sentences are longer than I would write them, I don't have a strong opinion, and do concede there could be a matter of personal taste. Right now I'm working through the article one more time over the next day or two. If there's anything else I'll let you know. But overall it's looking very good, and I'll likely be supporting, unless I suddenly notice something major. Moisejp (talk) 04:48, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Generally the article reads very well; there's just a couple of things stuck out to me that you might want to consider. The first is that "yet" (i.e. "yet again" or "yet another") is used 3 times in the plot section's final paragraph. The other is the two instances of "staunchly" to describe both Wallez and the newspaper. It already seems a cliché to describe someone as "staunchly" conservative and it jarred a little the second time. Again, otherwise the prose is good. I've no idea about Tintinology but it seems pretty detailed for a comic book article. I haven't reviewed an FAC for a while but I'd lend my support if the consensus were to lean that way. bridies (talk) 12:18, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and I did also raise an eyebrow at "Tintin survives his execution" for the same reasons as above. bridies (talk) 12:20, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for this Bridies; I have removed two of the "yet..." words in that paragraph, which does make it a little less repetitive. Regarding the use of the term "staunchly Roman Catholic" I would personally argue that it should be kept, because it illustrates the attitude that they took towards the religion, although equally I am not too aversed to its removal.(Midnightblueowl (talk) 19:24, 28 October 2011 (UTC))[reply]

1(b) concerns Comments. I'm copyediting at the moment; the prose is definitely improved from the first nomination, but I am finding a few tweaks to make. I'll add comments below as I find them.

  • You say that the serialization was from 10 January 1929 to 11 May 1930, but the Le Petit Vingtième article says the end date was 8 May 1930. I suspect the latter is correct, because both 11 May 1930 is a Sunday whereas the other two dates are Fridays. Could you check your source on this?
  • "Instead, he filled the story with" -- this use of "instead" doesn't really work, because there is nothing to oppose it to. I think the intended meaning is that there were very few facts for Herge to work with, so instead of incorporating factual material he made up (and borrowed from Douillet) scenes that depicted the Bolsheviks in a negative way. I've copyedited the prior sentence so it doesn't read quite as it did, but neither form of the sentence made it work properly -- currently instead implies "Herge made a lot of factual mistakes. Instead, he ..." I suggest making the intended meaning explicit: how about "Instead of providing factual material, he depicted the Bolsheviks ..." which makes the opposition much clearer.
    Per your comment below I've made this change. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:25, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:08, 1 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

On the second point you have my full support Mike! (Midnightblueowl (talk) 12:35, 2 November 2011 (UTC))[reply]
Right, I've checked on the date of the ending of Soviets original publication, and can confirm that you were right, it was the 8 May 1930 after all. This fact is actually missing from all but one of the English language published texts on Tintinology that I have access to (it being mentioned in Assouline), and I have no idea where the other date had come from to be honest. Thanks for pointing that error out! (Midnightblueowl (talk) 22:12, 7 November 2011 (UTC))[reply]
I think the prose is good enough now; it's much improved from the last version I saw. With the exception of the question above about dates, which I do think should be addressed, I have no more concerns about the content that's there. However, the article seems thin on the work's reception and on reviews of it. The "Influences and analysis" section talks about Herge's motivation and the construction of the work, but not about any subsequent analyses of the work by critics. There's a little in the "Publication" section, but much of that is specifically about the artwork or the staged publicity event. I had a look at the prior FACs, and there was a comment about the need for a critical reception discussion there -- I did notice that you've added two sources mentioned there. I looked for additional sources on Google Books and found a few more that look like they might have material:
  • Jean François Revel, Last Exit to Utopia: The Survival of Socialism in a Post-Soviet Era
  • The Economist, Volume 313, Issues 7616-7617
  • New Statesman, Volume 133, Issues 4669-4676
  • André De Vries, Brussels: a cultural and literary history -- De Vries claims that all of Douillet's claims about the USSR were confirmed as being accurate.
I'd like to hear from you that you've surveyed this sort of material and have selected what you need; i.e. that your research extends beyond just the works cited. There appears to be a lot written on Tintin and Herge, and I'd like some reassurance that this article is comprehensive. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:25, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks there Mike; I currently own most of the books published on the subject of Tintinology in the English language (with about two minor exceptions that are out-of-print and hard to obtain, but contain little or no information not included in the other books referenced here). For this reason, I can concur that this article contains the majority of information on Tintin in the Land of the Soviets which has been published in English. Perhaps more has been published in French, but unfortunately I am unable to read that language. Regarding the four books that you refer to above, I have looked up De Vries' book on Brussels, and have now quoted it in the article, but I do not believe that the work is sufficiently reliable to use it as a reference that all of Douillet's claims were correct (it is after all an overview of Brussellian culture not an examination of human rights abuses in the early USSR!). It is perfectly possible that Douillet's claims were correct, but surely an academic historical study of the Soviet Union would be more reliable in this aspect ? Performing a google books search, I couldn't actually find Revel's book (perhaps because I am in the U.K. ?), and I am unable to access the articles from The Economist or the New Statesman on Google Books; is there another way to access them that you are aware of ? Many thanks (Midnightblueowl (talk) 00:28, 8 November 2011 (UTC))[reply]

Has there been a spotcheck of the sources? Ucucha (talk) 14:30, 6 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment and recuse: I share Mike Christie's concern, and would like to see more thorough review here from other experienced reviewers, for prose, comprehensiveness, accurate representation of sources, and POV. Disclaimer, I have a significant COI: I have seen Midnightblueowl's work at Hugo Chavez where this editor inserted and has not corrected significant prose and POV issues (long detailed on article talk). I am encouraged that Mike Christie copyedited here, so the prose is probably up to snuff, but my previous experience with this editor leads me to ask that we get some more independent looks at accurate representation of sources, with an eye towards POV. (For example, I noted The Economist in Mike's list above, and although it is a reliable source, it has been excised from Chavez to create POV.) I tried to do this myself, and found many of the sources behind paywalls. With another experienced reviewer looking at Mike Christie's concerns, I'd feel more comfortable here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:02, 6 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No offence SandyGeorgia, for I respect you as a pillar of the Wikipedia community and for the great work that you do here, but coming onto this Tintin page and criticising my work here because of a disagreement on the Hugo Chavez page is, in my opinion, below the belt. The neutrality dispute on the Chavez article rests on a debate as to the reliability of the right wing media in discussing socialist politics, which you have championed as reliable and I have argued is not (and we've both had other editors supporting us in our respective arguments). It is not - I have argued on the talk page there - about me trying to impose my own POV, which you are essentially claiming I have been doing on both the Chavez article, and implying that I have done the same here. I don't think it fair to drag the argument about Chavez here, to a page that is about literary history, and I don't think we should discuss it any further on this page. I will tend to Mike Christie's concerns when I have the chance, which I cannot currently do as I am away from the resources which I would normally use in creating this article. Again, I really apologize if I'm coming across as rude or over-critical Sandy, but I just feel that your behaviour toward me here is not befitting your status as a pillar of the Wikipedia community. Perhaps I am reading too much into your above statement, but I feel that it is bordering on being an attack against my character rather than a genuine constructive criticism about my work in producing this article. (Midnightblueowl (talk) 23:40, 6 November 2011 (UTC))[reply]
Mike Christie brought up a source, The Economist, that is not mentioned in this article. Just today, you acknowledged on the talk page of Hugo Chavez that

"these sources are innately economically right wing and thereby biased against the economically left wing Chavez government, and so cannot be taken as reliable, neutral sources but must be viewed as forms of opposition media."[26]

That is as far from anything reflecting Wikipedia policies on sourcing and neutrality as I have ever seen an editor openly acknowledge on Wikipedia. When you refuse to consult reliable sources raised by reviewers, in an article about a topic which reflects a POV you openly acknowledge, it most certainly is fair game to raise that on this FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:55, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for such a prompt reply Sandy. On this particular article, I have not stated that The Economist, or the New Statesman for that matter, are innapropriate sources - I just didn't know that they existed prior to Mike Christie bringing them to my attention, because they were rather minor sources relating to the topic of this article. I am unable at this current time to read up on the sources that Mike Christie has highlighted because of prior commitments, but I will get around to it in the coming week. As it is my opinion on The Economist which you seem to be most interested in, I believe that there is a big difference between its usage as a reference on the Hugo Chavez page and this page; The Economist is, at its heart, a paper that is open about its capitalist affiliations. I therefore have grave misgivings about using it as a supposed nuetral source on an article about a socialist president; I do not have such misgivings about its discussion on this particular comic book. And I most certainly don't believe that it is "fair game" to attack me as you have done; I certainly have not been doing the same to you. (Midnightblueowl (talk) 01:05, 7 November 2011 (UTC))[reply]
Pointing out that your stance on The Economist as a reliable source is not at all reflective of Wikipedia's sourcing and neutrality policies is not an "attack"; it is a statement of fact. It is because of your misunderstanding of our sourcing and neutrality policies, and sources that were not consulted for this article, that I am concerned that additional review for comprehensiveness, sourcing, and POV be undertaken.

Editing from a neutral point of view (NPOV) means representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources.

The Economist is a reliable source. You have stated at Chavez that you think you can pick and choose sources according to ideology: while that has been done on Chavez, it cannot be done on an FA. I'll be awaiting your feedback on the sources identified by Mike Christie that have yet to be consulted. Further, Mike Christie pointed out that "De Vries claims that all of Douillet's claims about the USSR were confirmed as being accurate"; this needs to be addressed for neutrality. Also note WP:WIAFA, 1. (c) well-researched: it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:51, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Being naturally very interested in the subject of Tintin, I viewed the BBC documentary, but can't say that there was anything of real benefit for this particular Wikipedia article. I certainly wouldn't say that it was a reliable source - in the documentary, Gardner admitted that he hadn't even read all of the Tintin books, and in another part he quoted this Wikipedia page word for word; I strongly suspect that much of that documentary was written by a script writer who had used this Wikipedia page as a basis! Nonetheless, it might be worth noting in this article that the BBC produced this documentary ? (Midnightblueowl (talk) 00:46, 7 November 2011 (UTC))[reply]

Reluctant oppose (again) by Ruhrfisch. I opposed the first FAC on criteria 1a, b, and c grounds, and missed the second FAC. The prose is much improved (so I think it basically meets 1a now) and I like what is there. The problem is what is missing, so there are still 1b and 1c concerns - is this truly comprehensive and is it well-researched?

In the first FAC I wrote The article does not have a separate section on Reception or Critical responses, and the little critical material that is there is pretty pro-Tintin. I think this is still the case and find it odd that an article up for FA on work of fiction has no critical recpetion section. In the first FAC I spent a few minutes searching via Google and found some book sources that seemed as if they should be included. Although the two books I mentioned in that FAC are now cited in the article, I went back and looked at "The metamorphoses of Tintin, or, Tintin for adults" by Jean-Marie Apostolidès, translated by Jocelyn Hoy again here there is fairly interesting material on the evolution of Herge's work over time and how material in this volume was reworked and reused in later Tintin adventures. Page 34 lists five episodes in this work which were reused in later volumes, and on page 124 there is a discussion of how Herge changed the characters of Tintin and Snowy over time and gave some of the traits Tintin displays here to Captain Haddock. Page 33 of the same book notes how much Tintin changed over the years, going from gunplay in this work to pacifism and far right politics to something like "the Liberal Left". Theobald's book spends about seven pages on the book, discussing five themes of anti-Soviet propaganda seen here [27].

While I am glad to see the improved prose and the inclusion of a smattering of material from the two sources I found, I still do not think this meets 1b or 1c. There is an awkwardly placed paragraph quoting Theobald at the end of the Later publications section that is the kernel of a critical reception section, but more is needed. I do not have the time or inclination to search further, but I recall seeing other promising books in my earlier search. I also note that each book is on Google Books and so is missing pages, and a search for the title of the book may easily miss material that makes reference to this work in other ways (I did not search things like "Tintin's first adventure" or "time in Moscow").

Criteria 1b and 1c (emphasis mine): "(b) comprehensive: it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context; (c) well-researched: it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature. Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by inline citations where appropriate;

Sorry, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 04:42, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No worries Ruhrfisch, you've provided some useful constructive criticisms here, that will undoubtedly allow the article to be improved further in future. (Midnightblueowl (talk) 21:01, 7 November 2011 (UTC))[reply]
Have you reviewed suggested structure at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (comics)#Article content? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:05, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose, unfortunately, on 1b and 1c. This looks very interesting and promising to boot—but after a few minutes of poking around in major databases, it's clear a lot more attention to sourcing is due. Even among sources that you use in the article (such as Theobald), a lot more depth of information is available than what you use. --Laser brain (talk) 14:45, 11 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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

The article was not promoted by SandyGeorgia 14:45, 10 November 2011 [28].

International Academy of Business

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Nominator(s): Mheidegger (talk) 07:38, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because it totally opens knowledge about the academy. In the Kazakh Wikipedia the article became featured. Mheidegger (talk) 07:38, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose and speedy fail there is absolutely no way that this is close to be one of the finest articles on the English Wikipedia, even if its equivalent article is featured elsewhere. The second sentence of the lead, for example, is "IAB is one the first business higher schools in Kazakhstan — the Academy has been organized in 1988 as Alma-Ata School of Managers, in 1996 it has been transformed into the International Academy of Business." That is a very poorly written sentence, and Wikipedia stopped including links to years like 1988 a long time ago. You may want to take this to peer review to get further feedback, and it needs a thorough copy-edit by someone with a better grasp of English, since at the moment it reads more like a machine translation. In the meantime I will leave you a welcome message on your talk page, which nobody else has done in the couple of months you've been around I'm sorry to see. BencherliteTalk 10:14, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:Peer review/International Academy of Business/archive1 and WP:FAC instructions-- articles should not be at Peer review and FAC at the same time. This article should remain at Peer review, and perhaps then consider WP:GAN before returning to FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:44, 10 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]


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

The article was not promoted by SandyGeorgia 19:58, 9 November 2011 [29].

Atlantis: The Lost Empire

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Nominator(s): DrNegative (talk) 01:44, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Since the previous nomination failed from a Copyscape review of text that I was not aware had been copy/pasted, I have rewrote the offending text and made other improvements for a second attempt at FAC. Thank you ahead of time for your comments. DrNegative (talk) 01:44, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:39, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Ranges should use endashes
  • FN 32: formatting
  • check for minor inconsistencies like doubled periods
  • Check wikilinking in footnotes for consistency
  • What makes this a high-quality reliable source? This? This? This? This?
    • Filmtracks.com - I believe that the recognition mentioned here from our own page qualifies it as reliable. Recognition from Film Score Monthly, Entertainment Weekly, and Variety Magazine is to me notable enough to justify it as so. DrNegative (talk) 02:52, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Laughingplace.com - This site is been a news source for all things Disney since 1995. They have a live Podcast, radio show, a magazine, and frequently report on Disney film premieres with photos and interviews of the actual cast and production crews. Also, notable news sites like Orlando Sentinel have used the site as a source. DrNegative (talk) 02:52, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • RottenTomatoes.com - RT is one of the most popular and widely known film review sites on the internet. The film's project Manual_of_Style not only allows but recommends it as a source for general critical consensus within a film article's critical response section. Notable film critics and news sites continue to reference it a gauge of consensus as to how well a film did from a critical standpoint. DrNegative (talk) 02:52, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • ReelViews.net - This is a site owned and maintained from notable web-critic James Berardinelli. Along with his site, he has also had books published which featured his site reviews. Notable film critic Roger Ebert has wrote his book forwards and considers him "the best of the Web-based critics." Rotten Tomatoes also considers him a "Top Critic", a title which they reserve for only the most notable film critics around the world. DrNegative (talk) 02:52, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • GateWorld.com - Founded in 1999, this site has become most popular site on the internet concerning the Stargate franchise. Several notable media organizations have mentioned the site including; Entertainment Weekly, Chicago Tribune, and The Vancouver Province. DrNegative (talk) 02:52, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • FN 95: page formatting
  • Don't need total page numbers in Bibliography. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:39, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I looked up the film in Film Index International, which is published by the British Film Institute, since it can provide a good list of references. In particular, the August 2001 issue of Cinefantastique and the May 2001 issue of Creative Screenwriting each have several articles that appear useful. Neither issue is referenced in the article. Did you have a chance to vet them? Not all information about a film will be available online. You can see the list of references here. Erik (talk | contribs) 18:18, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thank you for your comments Erik. The only source out of your list which I have looked over is the short Cinefantastique article. Although it is interesting in discussing Pomeroy's history as a Disney animator and briefly his character design of Milo, I did not feel there was anything noteworthy for inclusion into the article in addition to what was already mentioned about it in the cast section or in this source from which it came from. I could go on into more detail about it, but with the article's length, I felt it would be unnecessary for the reader's comprehension of the film from an encyclopedic standpoint.
The two Starburst references, as well as the Empire and Sight and Sound references, were film reviews which coincided with the international UK release date in November 2001 and the UK DVD release later. Usually, I try to keep reviews from the film's country of origin as recommend in the style guide unless the foreign reviews offer something substantial from a standpoint of thematics not already mentioned in the article. The May 2001 issue of Creative Screenwriting however I have not seen and would like the get my hands on it, but I am unsure as if it would offer anything noteworthy aside from what Tab Murphy has already mentioned about writing the film within the multitudes of sources I already have on him.
I completely agree with you when you say, "Not all information about a film will be available online." FA's should never rely solely on online sources, but about 50% of the prose in this article is derived from sources which are offline. So, I am unsure what you are trying to imply in that regard. Now, I could pull out written scholarly sources all day as to how juggernauts like Lion King, Toy Story, and Shrek changed the animated film industry forever, but as far as this little critical and financial flop released in the midst of them, no one really cared enough to write about it. It's tough. DrNegative (talk) 20:21, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not too worried about the reviews; there's always plenty for a mainstream film like this. :) Cinefantastique is addressed. As for Creative Screenwriting, I agree that you have a lot about writing already. All I meant about print sources is that part of the featured article criteria is to be thorough in surveying the relevant literature. Some sources are rather tucked away. (For future reference, I've been able to get page shots of periodicals like Creative Screenwriting and Cinefantastique, so just let me know!) Google can be pretty useful, though. I am wondering, how much did you vet Google Books and Scholar Search? My approach is to review the top results within a given year. For example, the top results for this shows something that could replace the reference used for the Nadia passage in the article. I outlined the approach a little bit at User:Erik/Research. I'll also read the article for clarity and either make easy changes or ask you about certain passages. Erik (talk | contribs) 20:59, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think this is useful background about Whedon's initial involvement too, since the article does not mention anything about the treatment. Erik (talk | contribs) 21:07, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I added a short bit about Whedon and cited the book you linked into the Writing section. DrNegative (talk) 21:43, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As for searches with Google Books and Google Scholar, I used them both heavily to find the book sources which were used in the article, about 7 of them I believe. I did stumble across the Nadia controversy in an anime book on Google[30], but it basically summarized the same information which Anime News Network reported on the issue. I was also being very careful to avoid undue weight with this topic too. However, I could swap the sources though or add it alongside. If you could shoot me link or a personal email through Wikipedia of the location of the Creative Screenwriting capture, it would be appreciated. I would like to look it over even for the sake of redundancy. DrNegative (talk) 21:54, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I added the book detailing the Nadia controversy along with a direct quote from Wise in response to the claims. DrNegative (talk) 22:36, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose I noticed that this hasn't been supported or opposed by anyone, and I'm rather a fan of the movie, but unfortunately I cannot support this. The article has a number of awkward phrasings. "Many millennia later in 1914, Milo Thatch (Michael J. Fox) is a cartographer and linguist at the Smithsonian Institution." is one. That section has a few more. I just don't think that the clarity is there in this article. Consider taking it back to GOCE and having someone look at it specifically for clarity and sentence flow. Sven Manguard Wha? 15:50, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment (leaning oppose): I agree with Sven about this, it needs a copyedit. A couple issues, which I will add as I find them to avoid edit conflicts
Lead
  • "The film features the voice talents of Michael J. Fox, Cree Summer, James Garner, Claudia Christian, Corey Burton, Don Novello, Phil Morris, Jacqueline Obradors, Leonard Nimoy, John Mahoney, Florence Stanley, David Ogden Stiers, and Jim Varney in his final role." -- This seems overly long for the lead; Milo and Kida's voice actors, definitely... Rourke, probably. Whitmore... maybe. But I doubt the voice actors of Mole and the other supporting characters need to be mentioned in the lead.
  • The plot summary in the lead seems awfully short.
  • "At the time of its release, the film had made use of more computer-generated imagery (CGI) than any of Disney's previous animated films and remains one of the few to have been shot in anamorphic format." -- Awkward. Perhaps "At the time of its release, the film had made use of more computer-generated imagery (CGI) than any of Disney's previous animated films; the film also remains one of the few to have been shot in anamorphic format."
Plot
  • Overlinking -- You already linked Atlantis and linguist in the lead. Mercenaries is a fairly common word.
  • As identified by Sven, "Many millennia later in 1914, Milo Thatch (Michael J. Fox) is a cartographer and linguist at the Smithsonian Institution." -- Perhaps "In 1914 (several thousand years later), Milo Thatch (Michael J. Fox), a cartographer and linguist at the Smithsonian Institution, believes that his research has revealed the location of "The Shepherd's Journal", an ancient manuscript that allegedly reveals the way to Atlantis" (this merges two sentences).
  • "She takes him to Preston B. Whitmore (John Mahoney), an eccentric millionaire who, owing a debt to Milo's late grandfather, has funded a successful effort to find the journal and now with it in hand, recruits Milo to decipher it and lead an expedition to find Atlantis." -- Perhaps "She takes him to eccentric millionaire Preston B. Whitmore (John Mahoney), who has funded a successful effort to find and retrieve the journal to repay his debt to Milo's deceased grandfather. Whitmore recruits Milo to decipher it and lead an expedition to find Atlantis."
  • "... a military man who led the expedition to recover the journal." -- Was he the only leader? I think "the" would probably work better. Also, "military man" does not come across as especially encyclopedic.
  • "Among the crew are; Vinnie (Don Novello), the crew's demolition expert, Mole (Corey Burton), the geology specialist, Dr. Joshua Sweet (Phil Morris), the ship's medical officer, Audrey (Jacqueline Obradors), a tomboyish mechanic, and Cookie (Jim Varney), the ship's western cook." -- Erm... this doesn't come across especially well. Perhaps something like "The crew includes Vinnie (Don Novello), the demolition expert; Mole (Corey Burton), the geology specialist; Dr. Joshua Sweet (Phil Morris), the ship's medical officer; Audrey (Jacqueline Obradors), a tomboyish mechanic; and Cookie (Jim Varney), the ship's western cook." Also, does having long hair disqualify Audrey as a tomboy?
  • "They set out in a massive submarine, the Ulysses, and as they approach the entrance to Atlantis, the Ulysses is attacked and destroyed by the Leviathan, a huge robotic guardian of Atlantis." -- Run on. Perhaps "They set out in the Ulysses, a massive submarine, which is later attacked and destroyed by the robotic guardian of Atlantis as it approaches the entrance to Atlantis."
  • on foot and by vehicle --> Which kind of vehicle?
  • "They are greeted by Kida, now a young woman in her appearance only, ..." -- Perhaps "They are greeted by Kida, who despite her age looks like a young woman, ..."
I think that's enough for now... I agree with Sven that someone from the Guild would be able to help you pass 1A. Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:44, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Media spotcheck (my first, so another editor should feel free to take a look)
  • File:Atlantiswidescreencap.gif -- What makes this particular screenshot so valuable to discussing the widescreen format? Doesn't seem especially "immersive" as a still. Also, commentary underneath the image should not introduce new information.
  • File:Atlantispropsubmarine.jpg -- Assuming OTRS checks out (don't have that user right). Once again, commentary underneath the image should not introduce new information.
  • File:Atlantiscrystalchamberclip.ogg -- 3:45 = 225 seconds. Therefore, this sound clip should be 22 seconds at the longest, per Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Music samples (30 seconds or 10%, whichever is shorter). Also, I'm not entirely convinced that the sample "significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding" (FUC8)
  • Album cover for the soundtrack would be allowed, methinks, as it doesn't have its own standalone article
That's it for my media spotcheck. If I've done something wrong, FAC regulars please feel free to point it out. Crisco 1492 (talk) 02:57, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Drive-by comment: This doesn't appeared prepared in terms of MoS compliance. Problems with image captions, punctuation on quotations-within-quotations, end punctuation on complete-sentence quotations, etc. --Laser brain (talk) 16:08, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]


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

The article was not promoted by SandyGeorgia 19:51, 9 November 2011 [31].

Hard (song)

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Nominator(s): Calvin • NaNaNaC'mon! 00:00, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because... only three people commented last time, and the FAC was closed due to not enough people casting a vote or posting a review of things to do after only 6 days. Calvin • NaNaNaC'mon! 00:00, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Calvin, for future reference. Transcluded as of this time stamp. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:41, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:55, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Copyscape review - No issues were revealed by Copyscape searches. Graham Colm (talk) 21:04, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose Comment - There have not been many changes to this article since its last nomination. Some of the problems with the prose that were pointed out last time are still present such as "with Rihanna commanding an army". This should be "with Rihanna's commanding...", but this does not flow well and the sentence needs to be completely recast. And we still have "changes to daytime desert scene with Rihanna walking...", which should read "changes to a daytime desert scene as Rihanna walks...". Quotations should be chosen for their quality; this is rubbish, "fishnets, boots and a reggae-inspired leather playsuit with go faster stripes in red, green and yellow and a hood". I am not going to oppose because I am fed up with coming across as the FAC bastard. But this is still not up to FA standards. Calvin, this not personal, I admire your commitment and perseverance – there must be a lot of Rihanna's fans here on Wikipedia; have you asked around for help? At least read this.Graham Colm (talk) 21:31, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • PS. I have made some edits (suggestions) that might improve the Lead and give a clearer understanding of the problems I see with the prose. [32] Having not heard the song or seen the video, I might have introduced inaccuracies; so please do not accept these edits as given. Graham Colm (talk) 22:56, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And I have done your changes. Calvin • NaNaNaC'mon! 14:41, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Extended discussion moved to talk. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:20, 8 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose --Efe (talk) 14:59, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with Graham: "coming across as the FAC bastard". I had opposed several of Calvin's nominations, but his perseverance has been amazing and noteworthy (at least in the WikiSong Project). Anyway, here's my review as basis of my opposing:

  • Poor usage of quotes. For example, the information regarding the development of song in which Rihanna is quoted as saying this and that. Doesn't flow well, and aside from the non essential commentaries of the artist, the whole quotation can be paraphrased. --Efe (talk) 14:59, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Done. Or do you want me to paraphrase ones in the Critical reception section too? Calvin • TalkThatTalk
  • Unclear words / jargon. What do you mean by pin-sharp beats? --Efe (talk) 14:59, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Done Calvin • TalkThatTalk
  • Loose prose such as "'Hard' incorporates musical elements of hip hop". What other elements are we talking about? --Efe (talk) 14:59, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Hip Hop is the only genre that was written by reviewers. Calvin • TalkThatTalk
  • Very technical phrasing: "the song is written in the key of B minor and is set in common time with a Pop and R&B groove and a tempo of 100 beats per minute" the average reader can't even understand that. --Efe (talk) 14:59, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Vast majority of articles are written like this. Calvin • TalkThatTalk
  • "low note of G3 to the high note of B4" If Rihanna's vocal range in a song is G2-B3, would you still say "high note of B3"? From what note in an octave should "high" starts? --Efe (talk) 14:59, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    You mean G3-B4, not G2-B3. Well, you need to have a low and a high in order to have a range. A high note depends on the singer. For Rihanna, a B4 is moderately high. But for Mariah Carey for example, she can knock out E7 is considered high for her. So it depends on the singer. Calvin • TalkThatTalk
  • The incorporation of reviews in a section intended to present the song's composition (i.e. music) is very lousy IMO. The use of this does not connect with the rest: "Ailbhe Malone of NME stated that although Jay-Z was not involved in the production of Rated R, "his influence is tangible."[9] and that Rihanna adopts Jay-Z's vocal style in the lyric "Brilliant, resilient, fan mail from 27 million.""
    Done? Tell me what you think. Calvin • TalkThatTalk
  • There are stray punctuation marks "'his influence is tangible.'[9] and that Rihanna" and should that be the stop, the following sentence starts with a non capital letter. --Efe (talk) 14:59, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Done. Removed the sentence. Calvin • TalkThatTalk

From that alone, it seems the article has still so much to improve. Thanks. --Efe (talk) 14:59, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I endorse what Efe says about the need to paraphrase. Take this: ""When I first heard the song, I was in Paris, Dream and Tricky, they flew out and played me the record. They played me a few [songs], but this one stuck out to me. It had such an arrogance to it, which is so far from who I am ... which is part of why I wanted to do it. It was fun. It was bragging. A lot of attitude. Young Jeezy was the perfect person for the topic of the song. Just the vibe of the song. I love, love, love his verse. He added so much more to the record." It's OK to use direct quotes for short, pointed comments, but not for this sort of showbizzy over-the-top venting. She wanted to do the song because it was a chance to do something different from her normal output; that's pretty well all you need say. Brianboulton (talk) 16:01, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've changed the quotes in the Background and composition section to prose instead, what do you think? Calvin • TalkThatTalk 17:55, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]


Are you actually having a laugh? It was only transcluded 2 days ago. I thought it was unfair that the first one was closed in less than 6 days, but less than 2 days is really taking the piss. I am not impressed at all. You are not giving my FACs any time to get any form of notice, yet for some reason, other FACs get to to stay for weeks and weeks, even if no one has commented for over a week. I'm so angry and annoyed right now. Calvin • TalkThatTalk 20:01, 9 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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

The article was not promoted by SandyGeorgia 16:19, 7 November 2011 [33].

Joe Danger

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Nominator(s): — Joseph Fox 02:14, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because I believe it (now) meets the criteria for doing so. After a fairly extensive peer review I think all of the debilitating errors have been eliminated. I look forward to your analysis/support. — Joseph Fox 02:14, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:04, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Link check - no DAB-links, no dead external links, no wikilink issues. GermanJoe (talk) 10:14, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Copyscape check - No issues were revealed by Copyscape searches. Graham Colm (talk) 14:27, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - an interesting read, but some issues:

  • The second lead paragraph "Since Hello Games had not hired any public relations staff ..." is only partially covered in the main article body. All lead facts should occur in more detail in the main text again (see WP:LEAD as "summary" of the main article).
    Ah, alright, I will investigate further on this matter and be back to you within a few hours, with any luck. — Joseph Fox 11:59, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Just removed this reference, is the replacement okay? — Joseph Fox 14:51, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lead: "They relied heavily on word of mouth ..." - needs a source and clarification: was this a planned decision or just the consequence of lacking a PR team? (also needs elaborating in the main article body).
    Again, that's something I will look into, I'm sure I read that, perhaps did not give enough thought to inclusion. — Joseph Fox 11:59, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Same with this, is the replacement okay? — Joseph Fox 14:51, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Did you consider a separate "Release" section? The last 2 paragraphs of development (and some missing PR information, see above) could probably be separated with a little work (no deal-breaker, as other game article seem to merge release information aswell sometimes). GermanJoe (talk) 10:14, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Would a level three section within "development" be appropriate in this instance? Thanks for the feedback. — Joseph Fox 11:59, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Of the 3 reference videogame FAs in the peer review, 2 use "Release" as a level two section - it seems to be more intuitive than putting release under development, especially when you include release preparations and additional backgound information of the release in "Release" aswell. But whatever works best for a clear structure, depending on how you split which content. GermanJoe (talk) 12:31, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, I'll maybe see. The development section (in particular the second-last paragraph which discusses bugs-turned-features) is fairly woven so it may be hard to separate the two. — Joseph Fox 12:40, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

More Comments after reading through the complete article:

  • Lead "The game was released on the PlayStation Network in June 2010 after Hello chose to publish [it] solely with Sony Computer Entertainment." ==> missing word, or was the publication agreement for all future Hello games?
    Missing word. :) — Joseph Fox 14:51, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Critical Reception "Eurogamer's Tom Bramwell noted "not enough games are happy and colourful [like] this one" ==> Merging of 2 original phrases in 1 sentence is a bit too far from a direct quote. The original caption should be used (quotes should stay unchanged, whenever possible).
    Okay, that's fine. — Joseph Fox 14:51, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Scott Alan Marriott of G4 TV berated ..." ==> "berated" is too strong as term here, see the source. He just "noted the lack of" or "critized" or "was disappointed".
    Got it. Will do. — Joseph Fox 14:51, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Follow-up "Following the relative commercial success of Joe Danger..." ==> i smell a WP:WEASEL :), is there any specific information available about the game's net profit? If not, it may be better to replace the "relative success" part with a neutral chronological approach ("n weeks after Joe Danger's release ....").
    Good point, will fix. — Joseph Fox 14:51, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually, this comes a section after "Joe Danger sold over 50,000 units in its first week on sale on the PlayStation Network..." so I'm not all that sure it's weasely at all, but I've just reworded anyway. — Joseph Fox 16:05, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Quotations - the article uses several very short quoted phrases. Please recheck, if some of them (when they cover uncontroversial, simple information) could be rephrased as normal prose. Quotes should be only used, where really needed - to support a controversial or subjective statement, or to repeat a distinct original phrase, that can't be paraphrased (a general remark without examples, as quoting is a matter of taste to a degree and needs case by case decisions). GermanJoe (talk) 13:47, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I might admit I'm a fan of the small quotes, as they back up the text with words, well, from the horse's mouth. I'll look into this. — Joseph Fox 14:51, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • *sigh* I would note that Hello has chosen this week (to spite me, no doubt!) to announce that they'll be releasing the game on the Xbox Live Arcade as well. Working this into the article while keeping the standard of prose high will be a challenge, and the article may change substantially as a result. — Joseph Fox 14:53, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Please keep us updated, what needs to be done for that change in your opinion. If greater changes are needed, you may want to consult a delegate for advice how to proceed with FA. GermanJoe (talk) 15:35, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I believe I've got it sorted now; would you care to have a look at the "Release" section and let me know if a) That is too detailed, or b) in the wrong place. :) — Joseph Fox 16:06, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Added unsigned, pls sign your FAC declarations. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:42, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the infobox, there's a cite error
    Think this is sorted. — Joseph Fox 16:20, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Most of the promotion for Joe Danger was garnered through interviews with the four developers of the game, in particular managing director Sean Murray" — "in particular" sounds a bit strange, and I'm a bit confused here. Do you mean "in particular" as in especially or most of the interviews?
    Missing a "with", methinks. — Joseph Fox 16:20, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "After the release Murray gave a number of presentations revealing the difficulties and issues of trying to get work published." - comma needed after "release"
    I don't think there is; a comma only appears there if it is spoken in a certain way. I welcome other views on this.— Joseph Fox 16:20, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Joe Danger received generally positive reviews on release" — replace "on" with "upon", as "on release" sounds weird
    It sounds fine to me?— Joseph Fox 16:20, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Using leaderboard statistics, the game is thought to have sold over 109,169 units in its first three months on sale." — thought to have? Wouldn't it be clearer to say it was an estimate?
    Yeah, guess so. — Joseph Fox 16:20, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Performing tricks awards points." — reword this to "Awards are given when tricks are performed" or something like that
    Except "awards" aren't given, "points" are "awarded".— Joseph Fox 16:20, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Other obstacles designed to hinder the player include conveyor belts, slowing the motorbike" — I'd recommend removal of the comma here and change "slowing the motorbike" to "that slow the motorbike"
    Good idea, done.— Joseph Fox 16:20, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The player's primary objective in each level is to collect as many "stars" as possible. A star is collected for completing an objective" — you use the word "objective" back-to-back, and you appear to mean differently each time — the first time, you mean what the objective for the game is, and the second time, you seem to say "objective" like game-speak (like wikispeak, except for games)
    I'll correct the consecutive use of "objective", but the meaning of that word you have picked up on is certainly not restricted to games.— Joseph Fox 16:20, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Other features included in the download were custom soundtracks, levels for single- and multiplayer" — since you used a hyphen after "single", logically you should put one after "multi", right? I'm not sure if that's in the MoS though
    Maybe; however, I believe it is "single-player" but "multiplayer" - my spell check agrees. I'll look it up.— Joseph Fox 16:20, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "A month after the release, Murray revealed at the Develop conference" — what's the "Develop conference"?
    It is now Wikilinked, but I will further expand.— Joseph Fox 16:20, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "In October 2011, Eurogamer picked up on an Xbox Live Arcade listing for a Joe Danger: Special Edition on the Korean Media Ratings Board;" — you meant to put a period/full stop here, right?
    That was a save to prevent an edit conflict ;) — Joseph Fox 16:20, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Others focused on links to Super Mario Bros., such as non-linear level progression" — wtf is "non-linear level progression"?
    See the peer review linked at the top. — Joseph Fox 16:20, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Before its release" — personally, I think "prior to" would be a better wording
    "Before" is more concise, and we favour concise, afaik. — Joseph Fox 16:20, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is my first extensive FA review, so you can object to these comments. ;) HurricaneFan25 15:07, 4 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment – The prose could be improved by changing "while". Try "although", "when" and "but". There are about nine occurrences in the article. Graham Colm (talk) 14:45, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Have done, cheers. — Joseph Fox 15:20, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - sorry. The prose is far below FA standard and needs a fresh pair of eyes. There is redundancy throughout and unintelligible sentences such as this one in the Lead, "Most of the promotion for Joe Danger was garnered through interviews with the four developers of the game, in particular with managing director Sean Murray," what on earth does this mean? And similarly this "following the game's progress through both their official website and Sony's PlayStation Blog". The problem words might be "promotion" and "progress", but this is difficult to be sure about because the meanings are so elusive. I find this pretentious, "online multiplayer modus"; does this mean that the game could not be played online? Same problem here, "opinions were split over other modes". I tried to be helpful and started a copy edit, but the article needs a radical overhaul from top to bottom. This is not up to FA standards and would be an embarrassment to see on the Main Page. Graham Colm (talk) 21:45, 5 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Are you serious? I've gone through a peer review, three other users picking through the article for errors, and the prose is still not good enough? FA is so subjective these days it's a wonder anything ever gets promoted. But, fine, if you really do think it's that bad, fine. — Joseph Fox 03:48, 6 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Quick comment: the word "game" is overused. Do a highlight-all search to see what I mean.—indopug (talk) 10:04, 6 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not entirely sure how this can be avoided, if I'm honest, but I'll give it a shot. — Joseph Fox 12:30, 6 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Right, that's now cut back on them (or at least the ones not in quotes, proper nouns or otherwise best kept as they are). — Joseph Fox 13:48, 6 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support - my above concerns have been addressed, comprehensive and well-structured, several checked sources are OK, a few final comments regarding minor prose issues:

  • "Doyle said that working as an independent meant making smaller games would be more cost effective, compared to working on them as part of a larger company." ==> the first half reads awkward with "working" - "making" as one phrase, even if probably correct. I read that sentence 3 times and still don't like it (unfortunately i have no idea for a better wording myself ...).
  • As pointed out, try to alter key terms as often as possible (game, work, develop, team, Hello, ...). GermanJoe (talk) 14:25, 6 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose and recuse, and suggest withdrawal. I read Graham's oppose, went to the article, and saw multiple issues of same everywhere I looked-- this article should not be at FAC yet, and certainly should not be getting support until it's been copyedited. A few random samples (no, do not just fix these and continue on, they are only samples, and I believe this FAC should be withdrawn):

  • Joe Danger sold over 50,000 units in its first week on sale on the PlayStation Network.
    • Sold ... (while) on sale ... of course. — SandyGeorgia 16:43, 6 November 2011 — continues after insertion below
  • The team announced at the Develop Conference 2010 that they broke even on the day of release.
    • The team broke even?
      • Okay, the company did, minor issue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fox (talk • contribs) 16:56, November 6, 2011
        • Actually, no, the team *is* the company... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fox (talk • contribs) 17:00, November 6, 2011
  • Based on Gamerbytes' statistics—which use the number of unique entries on a game's leaderboard to estimate the number of sales—it sold at least 68,455 units in its month of release.
    • Non-gamer, I have no idea what this sentence means. And, is "first" month of release intended?
  • The next month saw at least 16,619 new players; the exact number is uncertain due to limitations in leaderboard statistics, since only a certain number of scores can be held within a leaderboard for PlayStation Network games.
    • Again, no idea what this sentence is trying to say, but if the exact number is uncertain, I don't know why we're giving a number to such precision, and the final clause gives me no idea what this sentence is about.
      • Again, this is as verbose as I am willing to go to explain how this system works. An alternative would be appreciated, if you can bring yourself to give one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fox (talk • contribs) 16:56, November 6, 2011

Those are samples from one para only-- this article needs to be reworked, and I suggest that its GA status should be re-evaluated. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:43, 6 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It is very, very difficult to explain these fully without reels and reels of text in baby-talk. Thanks, though, for lowering my confidence, that was obviously necessary (by this I refer to the very snide "not worthy of even a GA" comment). I don't know what I have done to upset you, but whatever it was must have been pretty serious. — Joseph Fox 16:53, 6 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't want to be patronising but it is misguided to take these criticisms personally. All the above shows how premature this nomination is. Our job here is to maintain the high standards of Featured Articles – that's all. I think the process has been rushed and this is why there are so many issues that should have been sorted out before the article was nominated. The nominator's first edit was less than a month ago, some of our most gifted writers spend six months preparing an article for nomination. I have looked at the GA discussion, which was only 17 days ago and was, in my humble opinion, superficial. The Peer Review, by an experienced FA reviewer, spotted many of the problems that should have been highlighted at the GA review, but should have been left open a little longer and more reviewers canvassed. Graham Colm (talk) 17:45, 6 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Not upset at all, Joseph, and please don't take it personally-- with a bit more work, you could have a fine FA, but when you get a Support from a reviewer whose native language is German-- and there are obvious prose issues-- it doesn't help either you or the article or the FAC backlog, since the review will drag on longer than necessary and turn into peer review. An article with this level of prose issues shouldn't be a GA, and you (as a new FAC nominator) are being misled by such faulty reviews. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:49, 6 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
With less value judgements (even an Oppose can be put in a forthcoming and constructive tone) and more specific examples or other advice those issues could be fixed faster. Last time i checked, offering specific examples for all observed problems was a requirement for actionable objections. I also don't see, how a nomination with a whole 3 days of duration adds to our backlog. Other articles with prose issues were given some time even during the FA nomination to fix them (some even got a whole copy-edit during FA nomination), why not this one? GermanJoe (talk) 18:19, 6 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
To be honest, Georgia (and I'm sorry to both you and Graham for letting it get to me), while I know you have a lot of FACs to juggle, would I be able to ask for a copyedit? I think the technical aspects of the article (refs, basic facts) are all there, so it wouldn't be all that difficult to give this a thorough look over for prose? Of course there's no need to accept this, but I must say that finding copyeditors is probably the most difficult aspect of this process, especially given I had no reason to believe the prose was anywhere short of the expected standard. (Also, the prose issues might be obvious to you, but the article reads utterly fine to me; 1A is a very, very finicky criterion.) — Joseph Fox 03:59, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comment:

  • Apart from the issues raised by Graham and Sandy, which mainly focus on prose, I am puzzled by the matter of the Xbox Live Arcade release. We have Murray, in October 1910, calling the Xbox Live Arcade platform a "slaughterhouse for small developers". Then in the next line we find, a year later, that there is an Xbox Live Arcade listing for a Joe Danger: Special Edition. What happened to the exclusivity agreement with Playstation? No reason is given for Murray's apparent volte-face; an explantion is surely required.
  • On prose, there are two main issues: possible lack of clarity in some of the technical explanations, and instances of clumsy or awkward phrasing. I'm not sure that all the fixes could be done quite as quickly as Joseph imagines. I note that the article was not peer-reviewed before its nomination here; the GA review looks very superficial and did not focus at all on the prose. If Joseph will agree to withdraw this FAC nom, I promise I will give it a complete peer review and copyedit within the next couple of weeks, so that the article can return here later this month with a much better chance of success. In the end, I believe, that will be a quicker procedure than allowing the article to wait here for its likely archiving, a week or so down the line. Brianboulton (talk) 15:28, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you for the offer, Brian, and I will take it up on your talk page. I wish for this to be archived, and will be in contact with Georgia shorty to ask how this is done. Thanks. — Joseph Fox 16:13, 7 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]


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

The article was not promoted by Ucucha 15:21, 6 November 2011 [34].

Russell T Davies

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Nominator(s): Sceptre (talk) 14:37, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Re-nominating this article because FAC #2 didn't have any feedback other than a source and Copyspace check (both questions answered in that FAC). The nomination statement from the previous is below: Sceptre (talk) 14:37, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is an article I've been working on for the past eighteen months or so, previously nominated for FAC and recently been awarded GA status. I think it's time to subject this to another round against FAC reviewers. Since its previous nomination, I've streamlined sections that, in the past FAC, were seen to be too detailed, and slightly expanded some parts, and I've got it to what I believe is neither too detailed or not detailed enough (although I am aware it is a bit of a hefty article; well, he has been in the television industry for twenty-five years). As with most Doctor Who articles, the same question about the same sources always pops up; the answer is that FAC has often accepted them as RSes and I've heard of no reason to assume that has changed.

Procedural query - it hasn't been two weeks yet since your previous nomination closed; do you have leave from a delegate to renom early? Nikkimaria (talk) 15:34, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Argh, I didn't, I was running off my own internal clock that said "I've been editing other articles for at least a week". I'll flag a delegate now about it. I'd assume it'd be fine, given that it received only minimal feedback last time around, but I'll flag a delegate now. Sceptre (talk) 19:40, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Since this has already been transcluded and I didn't see the initial query until today, I'll let it slide this time. Waivers are usually given to allow a nominator to bring a different article, not the same one. Karanacs (talk) 16:36, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Spot check on sources:

There are a number of citation needed tags which need addressing.
ref #17[35] This doesn't actually say that "the archaeologist Miss Pendragon (Jacqueline Pearce)" is the character referred to.
ref #91[36] supports the quote.
ref #137[37] does not support the statement "Torchwood also tackles LGBT themes by exploring the characters' sexuality and subverting stereotypes and the expectation of heterosexuality in contemporary Cardiff," It does mention the character's bisexuality, but doesn't really support the statement.
ref #134[38] supports the statement.
ref #159[39] supports the statement.
ref #162[40] What makes this a reliable source? Or #164[41] Looks like fan site to me.
ref #178[42] supports the statement.
I could not assess the off-line sources. Jezhotwells (talk) 23:11, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hi,
That reference to the Guardian has been removed for the time being; I do have a reference that does support the statement, but the reliability of academic journals is not something I'm sure about.
Generally speaking, academic journals are considered to be RS. Jezhotwells (talk) 19:43, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That statement is supported on the second page of the story, in this quote:

"Without making it political or dull, this is going to be a very bisexual programme. I want to knock down the barriers so we can't define which of the characters is gay. We need to start mixing things up, rather than thinking, 'This is a gay character and he'll only ever go off with men.'"

.
Added a page parameter.
I am still not seeing "and the expectation of heterosexuality in contemporary Cardiff," Jezhotwells (talk) 19:43, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've edited the article to remove that; it's now talking about how it subverts and explores sexual stereotypes in general. Sceptre (talk) 21:58, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ref #162 and #164 are citations to the Doctor Who news page, which has been in use in articles that were up at FAC before (Doomsday (Doctor Who), The Stolen Earth), and I checked at RS/N that it was still a RS when it moved. Having used it in several successful FACs, and seen no change in either WP:V's content or the site's content that would make it unreliable, I am confident it still counts as a reliable source. Sceptre (talk) 07:59, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
OK. Jezhotwells (talk) 19:43, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:28, 18 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]


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

The article was not promoted by Ucucha 15:21, 6 November 2011 [43].

Somerset County Cricket Club in 2009

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Nominator(s): Harrias talk 14:48, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

From my previous nomination: "I am nominating this for featured article because I feel it comprehensively covers the topic, and provides a neutral and well-written analysis." I feel I have addressed the outstanding remarks from the previous FAC: I have used the Duplication Detector and trawled through each online source, and removed or rephrased those pieces which seemed to too closely paraphrase the source material. I have also read through the offline sources and checked for similar. The article is "largely a narrative told with statistics" – Cricket tends to be, and is given relatively sparse written coverage, particularly county cricket. As always, all comments, advice and question are welcome. Harrias talk 14:48, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:18, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments –

  • Could link Trescothick in the lead, if he isn't already (I didn't notice a link).
  • County Championship: "with Craig Kieswetter and Arul Suppiah both being awarded their county caps after passing the total." This is one of those awkward "with ... -ing" connections that are seen sometimes. It would be better to avoid this structure if possible.
  • Friends Provident Trophy: Minor, but the semi-colon before "three more than there should have been" should probably just be a regular comma.
  • Twenty20 Cup: "After the Indian Premier League's second season demonstrated the importance of spin bowling in Twenty20 cricket, and Somerset's lack of a front-line spin bowler". Confusing sentence, especially if Somerset don't play in the IPL. Is it supposed to be "and with Somerset's lack of a front-line spin bowler"? Giants2008 (27 and counting) 15:35, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support. I supported at the last FAC and looked through a diff just now; I think this is a fine, thorough article. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:06, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments
  • In the lead "first division" is lower case, whereas the background section "First Division" and "Second Division" are used. In the County Championship section, "Division One" is used.
  • The lead discusses the English cricket season, but to anyone not familiar when that is there's nothing to indicate the timescale. However, it's likely that anyone coming across this article will already be familiar with cricket, so perhaps it's not an issue.
  • Maybe it needs to be made explicit that Taunton is Somerset's home ground.
  • "Having been promoted from the Second Division of the County Championship in 2007, Somerset had looked at times like winning the 2008 County Championship in their first season in the First Division.": Could "Having been" at the start be dispensed with? I'm not keen on the repetition of "first", also was 2008 the first time the club had been in the first division since the introduction of a two-tier county championship? If so I think it could be made a bit clearer.
  • " In one-day cricket, David Foot, writing in Wisden, claimed that too many of the Somerset batsmen had "lost their way"": it feels a bit disjointed, I'd move "in one-day cricket" to after "lost their way".
  • Which two months did Stiff initially sign for?
  • When discussing which players had left the club before the start of the season, do you think it's worth qualifying their playing role, ie: "All-rounder Ian Blackwell, captain of the side..."? Maybe include some more information; Parsons was 35(?) but Francis was 27 so why did he retire?
  • What's the source for the 2009 squad?
  • Can the linking in the squad table be trimmed? I don’t think the reader needs 13 links to England.
  • " Murray Goodwin's score of 344 not out in that match was the sixth highest score by a batsman in the history of the competition": not keen on the repetition of "score", perhaps swap the first one for "innings"?
  • " The batting conditions helped three of Somerset's batsmen pass 1,000 first-class runs in the season": a bit repetitious, maybe start with "The home conditions"?
  • "... who were both awarded their county caps after passing the total": a total is something that is complete, so as Suppiah and Kieswetter went on to score more than 1,000 I'd replace "total" with "landmark".
  • "... taking 54 wickets in the County Championship, more than any other bowler in the first division of the competition": I think "of the competition" is redundant here.
  • " Thomas took 35 wickets, his highest total in an English domestic season,[47] and Stiff took 31, more than quadrupling his career first-class wicket total": repetition of total.
  • " Somerset lacked an effective spin bowler in 2009 following the departure of Ian Blackwell the previous season, and the spinners combined only claimed 31 wickets for the county ": "for the county" strikes me as redundant.
  • " reaching the milestone earlier in an English season than any player previously": this is just a bit clunky and surely could be rephrased.
  • " Somerset next picked up victories at Yorkshire and Sussex": they may have "picked up victories against Yorkshire and Sussex", or "picked up away victories against Yorkshire and Sussex", but not "at".
  • The colouring of the tables isn't explained anywhere, and while readers will no doubt be able to work out that wins are green, losses are red, not everyone will know that it means Sussex and Worcestershire got relegated from the first division of the County Championship.
  • " Two further victories ensured that Somerset would enter their final match of the season with a chance to win the title": "would enter" sounds like it was hypothetical, "entered" is definite.
  • I feel like the article might benefit from an aftermath section. For example, Kieswetter's performance in the 2009 season caught the eye of the England selectors. The article already says that Caddick and Langer announced they would retire at the end of the season, but did anyone else? Who was out of contract, who had theirs renewed? What did the club do about its spin bowlers? When was Trescothick named Langer's successor?
  • Is there anything on the club's finances in 2009, or the state of attendance?

Overall, this is a good article and were I to write an article of this type I would certainly use this as a template. For the most part the content is there (the only significant absence I can see is the lack of an aftermath section or something similar) but the prose could use a bit more polish. Nev1 (talk) 14:34, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comments: they look really helpful! I'm going to be a bit busy over the next few days, so it might be the weekend before I have time to make changes to the article. Harrias talk 16:57, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]


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

The article was not promoted by Ucucha 15:21, 6 November 2011 [44].

King Charles Spaniel

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Nominator(s): Miyagawa (talk) 19:19, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because no consensus was reached last month when the nomination was closed and at the time everything had been addressed so I think we're close now. :) Previous FAC nomination is here. To reiterate something said in the previous nomination - A note on naming conventions (as it has come up in previously), it is the Project MOS that dog breed names have each word capitalised (e.g. King Charles Spaniel or Pug), however where the word refers to a type of dog then it is in fully lowercase (e.g. spaniel or toy dog). Also, I am a competitor in the final round of the WikiCup. Miyagawa (talk) 19:19, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:24, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Fixed it to New Haven, Connecticut; all ISBNs have had thier hyphens and spaces removed, and I've made both the citations with multiple publisher locations have those locations seperated by semi-colons - previously one was by this and the other was by a comma. Thanks for looking through the article. Miyagawa (talk) 12:22, 14 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Copyscape review No issues were revealed by Copyscape searches. Graham Colm (talk) 16:50, 13 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Images: Are fine. Mostly fine. File:King Charles Spaniel 200.jpg could do with Template:Information. Is File:Blenheim Spaniel 1903.jpg PD in the UK? The author can't legally request that File:King charles spaniel.jpg isn't edited if it is released under that license. J Milburn (talk) 11:33, 14 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Added the information template to the infobox image and added the appropriate PD tag to the Blenheim Spaniel image (I'd only previously missed it because the source was published in the USA as well). Any suggestions to what I should do with about the request for the image not to be edited? I'd swap it out with another image if one was avaliable but unfortunatly there isn't a lot of images of this breed around (you'd be surprised how hard it is to filter out Cavalier King Charles Spaniel photos on Flickr!). Miyagawa (talk) 12:22, 14 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's the Czech name for the dog kennel that the dogs are at. I've done some Googling and the author of the image is listed as the manager of that kennel. Main site: here. However, I've looked into the uploader and commons and it's quite apparent that he's not the manager as he's uploaded other images of King Charles Spaniels from another kennel under another author name - so I'm taking the image off the article immediately. Miyagawa (talk) 22:45, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

  • Where is "Holland Spaniel" mentioned beyond the infobox?
  • George Romney is a dab link.
  • "these types of spaniels" - new para so shouldn't it be "King Charles Spaniels..."?
  • " toy–sized" shouldn't that just be a hyphen not an en-dash?
  • Same with re-breed and cross-breed?
  • Isn't the Kennel Club just, well, The Kennel Club, not (UK) after it? You don't seem consistent with this (UK) in any case, unless I misunderstand what you're trying to do.
  • Ensure all external refs have access dates.

The Rambling Man (talk) 18:22, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Removed Holland Spaniel (it was a stay over from before I did any work on this article), fixed the dab link and changed "these type" to "toy spaniels". Fixed the en-dashes (need to get my head around those), and removed the "(UK)" bits. Not sure which links you're referring to - if it's the open directory project, that link comes from a template that doesn't allow for a date to be inserted and links to a directory of other links. It did cause me to go through the citations to see if you meant one of those, and found I'd missed publisher details for the newspapers and a format detail for one of the PDFs, which are now fixed. Miyagawa (talk) 08:28, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The article has a very short Health section relative to how small the breed is and how many disorder it's associated with. At the very least the article needs some numbers and percentages of the disorders listed. Others also need to be mentioned. I know what it's like to get breed organisations to admit that their promoted breed has serious issues, but at least the Finnish breed registry for King Charles Spaniels lists, not mentioned at the WP article as of now, as known issues in the Finnish population stub or crooked tail (not of T-Box type) (general breed info). Does this affect European or US populations? It also features detailed numbers in its breeding program (section 4.3 and subsections), mentions that there are no statistics concerning the breed's health available outside of Finland (is this really true?!) and elaborates on RD (retinal dysplasia), pulmonal stenosis, hydrocephalus (as rare), and spefically as internationally admitted problems, PDA (addressed in WP article), and syringomyelia (Norway, Sweden, France, UK, and USA). Pitke (talk) 14:41, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Spotchecks: I checked both cites to Palika p. 190, and I checked five of the eight references to Shaw (1881). In all cases, the source contains the cited material, with no copyright violation or close paraphrasing issues. – Quadell (talk) 13:47, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment: I would reword "The King Charles and Cavalier King Charles Spaniels are often confused with each other." I know what you mean, but a literal reading would indicate that these dogs often get confused when they are near each other. – Quadell (talk) 13:56, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support Dana boomer (talk) 01:00, 12 October 2011 (UTC) Comments - Disclaimer, I reviewed this article for GA status. That was a while ago, however, and the article has changed a good bit since then. A few thoughts:[reply]

  • Lead, "The breeds may have been used for hunting historically;" Later in the article you say they were used for hunting - why the equivocation in the lead?
  • Now I'm starting to question why this paragraph starts out with "the breeds have" (plural) and then switches to "the breed has" (singular). I'm assuming this is because the first part of the paragraph is discussing the history of the four breeds that created what is now the KCS and the later part is discussing the KCS now. However, this should probably be made more specific.
  • 17th century, ""These do not appear to have been the small black kind known by his name, but Cockers, as is evident from the pictures of Van Dyck and the print by Sir R. Strange, after this master, of three of his children, in which they are introduced."" I'm confused as to what this quote is trying to say. Is the "small black kind known by his name" meaning King Charles Spaniels? Because in the next paragraph it says they were named after Charles II, not Charles I as is discussed in this paragraph. Second, "after this master, of three of his children, in which they are introduced." What? I really do not understand what this is trying to say. Also, why is it important that Charles I was seen with cocker spaniels? Aren't these different than the toy spaniels the rest of the article is discussing?
  • 17th century, "Charles II was very fond of this type of dog, which is why the dogs now carry his name," First, you were just discussing cocker spaniels in the previous paragraph, so should probably clarify "this type". Second, the repetition of "dogs" could probably be improved upon.
  • I am interesting to see what you can find from the links Pitke added above. I agree that the Health section does feel a bit short when you consider all of the illnesses that these dogs are prone to.
  • Description, "The American Kennel Club has two classes, English Toy Spaniel (B/PC) (Blenheim and Prince Charles) and English Toy Spaniel (R/KC)," Why does the AKC separate the two types? Dana boomer (talk) 16:00, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The four color types were formerly considered separate breeds, the UK Kennel Club combined them as one breed, but the US Kennal Club classified them as two breeds. I can't find that either of them explained their decision.Marj (talk) 02:28, 6 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The AKC tend to do this sort of thing for a variety of breeds - for instance, I think the American Cocker Spaniel is split into three separate classes. It isn't limited to spaniels either, the Bull Terrier is split into white classes and colored classes, whereas I don't think the Kennel Club do it to any breeds at all. Additionally, the AKC have two classes based on height in the Beagle, so the splits aren't even limited to markings in some cases. Miyagawa (talk) 12:16, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

More later. Dana boomer (talk) 16:00, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • I struck the completed comments above and added a couple more after I finished reading through the article. I am almost ready to support, but want to see your additions to the health section before I do. I saw that there was a minor addition to the section by another user on October 2 - I'm assuming you have more that you're planning to add? Dana boomer (talk) 23:38, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Didn't find anything helpful at the library, but have incorporated information from the Finnish breed club into the article as linked to above. Also broke the section up and did a little rearranging in order to fit the new layout. Also found some information on some issues that they don't consider health issues on the English Toy Spaniel Club of America's site. Miyagawa (talk) 12:11, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(undent) A few further comments on the re-written health section:

  • "as well as specific breed-associated health conditions, there are no clear problems." This "no clear problems" seems to be dangling as you give several health concerns and then say "there are no clear problems".
  • Removed "no clear problems" - what I meant by that was that in some breeds there are certain condition which the majority of the breed will suffer from - for instance the Clumber Spaniel according to some surveys will have an 80% to suffer from hip dysplasia, but there isn't anything nearly as prevalent in this breed. Miyagawa (talk) 22:34, 11 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • "and the breed should be able to reproduce naturally." Should be? Are we saying should be as in the registries say it should, or that we're not sure it can? :)
  • The source says should - outside of the given source this is actually unusual for a stub nosed breed as certainly at least Pugs and Bulldogs have to rely predominately on caeserian sections in order to give birth. But of course every dog is different so while the breed should, there will be individual dogs that won't be able to. Miyagawa (talk) 22:34, 11 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I also made a few copyediting tweaks, please check to make sure I didn't inadvertently change the meaning of anything. Once the above couple of issues are dealt with, I think I will be ready to support. Dana boomer (talk) 12:46, 11 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support: I found the article to be well-written and well-organized, with the MoS followed. The sourcing is excellent, and the images are appropriate. – Quadell (talk) 14:50, 3 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:14, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Too many images for my liking, giving rise to ugly effects like indenting subheadings, some could be lost without detriment
  • cardiac, diabetes mellitus — need links at first use
  • of these same types — similar?
  • showing the partiality of royalty for these dogs before the monarch from which one type would eventually take their name. — clunky and ungrammatical
  • In 1899, the price ranged between $50–$200 for a King Charles or Blenheim,[33] with the Ruby and Prince Charles Spaniel ranging between $50–$150. — why are we pricing in dollars, without conversion, for an essentially British breed? Especially as later you give £25 without conversion, so not consistent either.
  • Being a short–nosed breed, King Charles Spaniels can be sensitive to anaesthesia — I don't understand how the length of a dog's nose can influence its susceptibility to anaesthesia, or am I misunderstanding?
  • Please check that each occurrence of type and however is essential

Have Pitke's concerns (above) been addressed? Karanacs (talk) 01:33, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • I've incorporated the suggested source but neglected to post a response directly under their comment (I'd posted at the time under another users comment regarding the health section). Miyagawa (talk) 18:48, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I found several prose errors; please check the article for other such problems. I also find it odd that you're citing a 1911 source for the breed's Asian origin; surely science has progressed since then. Ucucha (talk) 13:04, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • The problem with modern sources is that more often then not they talk about the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel instead of the King Charles Spaniel. The end of the 19th century and the turn of the 20th century was almost a golden era for dog writing - investigations were made into the history of a number of dog breeds and they were documented properly for the first time. While a number of modern books discuss the breed histories, none of them go into same level of depth as the older books. Miyagawa (talk) 21:50, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. I made some copyedits, and trimmed the Google Books links. Prose and MoS compliance looks pretty good to me, just a few niggles: Sasata (talk) 04:28, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • "Historically the breeds that were merged into the King Charles Spaniel were used for hunting; due to their stature they were not well suited." I'm not sure I understand this sentence: these breeds were used for hunting, although they weren't good at it?
  • That's actually the correct understanding - the Blenheim in particular was used for hunting because they were thought to be exclusively linked to the Duke of Marlborough, since Spaniels at the time were grouped predominetly first by land or water use and then by size, the Blenheim Spaniel was used as a gundog in the same way as a Cocker Spaniel. Except, they were a toy spaniel and both too small to be effective in the terrain and without enough endurance. But because he was known for having these dogs, he kept using them. The quote from the Sportsman's Repository rather sums up that most authors at the time were terribly polite about it, but thought he was wasting his time. Miyagawa (talk) 16:18, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • consistent spelling UK or US: theorized vs. recognised?
  • I share Jim's reservation about the dog prices being in dollars instead of pounds, and not converted to modern values (the prices are essentially meaningless otherwise)
  • I've removed the pounds sterling number as that is useless, but I've kept the dollars as I thought it showed some flavour to the Bismarck affair - it's not the first time that a famous person towards the end of the 19th century got ripped off on a dog breed they didn't know much about. (I remember reading something similar happened with the Tzar of Russia and the Duchess of Newcastle with Borzois, but then then she old paid £200 for them!). I'd prefer to convert the sums into modern figures but the inflation calculators I've found only go back as far as 1914. But the average prices given after the Bismarck note shows how far above the norm he paid for that dog. Miyagawa (talk) 16:18, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think it would be a good idea to add your explanation of why short noses are problematic for delivering anesthesia, assuming that can be sourced
  • Done, and sourced. I'd found a clear reference but was concerned at it's reliability until I found that the article was written by a qualified veterinarian, so I've added it. Also had additional information regarding other issues with the restricted airway, so I've added those too. Miyagawa (talk) 16:39, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • make sure book titles are consistently title or sentence case; same with article titles
  • make sure the US state is or is not displayed in the location, and if so, whether it's abbreviated or spelled out in full
  • ref #10 (Caius 1576) should indicate that it's in Latin
  • accessdates aren't required for print-based sources that are online; yes, I realize it contradicts what the Rambling Man said above, but I'm pretty sure I'm correct :)
  • publication date format is different in refs #44 and 45
  • Since the information is available on the web pages, refs #52, #55 & #68 should have the date the page was created or last modified
  • ref #60 is missing the issue# and the doi
  • the Orthopedic Foundation for Animals is linked twice in consecutive paragraphs, and an abbreviation is not defined until the second usage

Thanks for your comments, I'll find some sourcing for that short nose explanation tonight and sort out the title/sentence case for book and article titles - is there any particular preference? Miyagawa (talk) 16:18, 20 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Leaning toward oppose. I am overall disappointed with the history section. I thought the rest of the article met the FA criteria.

  • I thought the history did not focus well enough on the breed, but seemed to meander into a lot of details and anecdotes about art and royalty.
    • Yes, I agree that it is significant that the dogs are featured in painting, but in my opinion having almost every paragraph of the history section referencing one or more specific paintings is a sign that we've lost our focus. I felt like I was reading a "history of how spaniels were depicted in art" instead of a history of the Spaniel. Summarizing a lot of this (Spaniels which looked like x, y, and z were commonly depicted in paintings by A, B, and C during the period XXXX - YYYY.) would make the section a lot shorter, but a lot more focused.
      • The sheer volume of paintings that the English Toy Spaniel breeds of dogs appeared in over the years demonstrates their popularity during those periods. Prior to the 19th century there is next to nothing written on the history of dog breeds - anything before those dates will talk about dogs mostly in a hunting context, which these types of dogs were not used for. Meanwhile the paintings show the development of the breeds over the years. Miyagawa (talk) 19:16, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • I understand that, but do we need the details in this article, or can we have less specifics and more generalization? I think this is currently much too concentrated on specific paintings. Karanacs (talk) 18:33, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Is it really important to know that Bismarck bought a dog and then to learn the details of that dog?
      • I thought that it showed two things - the first was that these breeds were not favored solely by the British, and secondly it showed the variety in sizes of the breed at the period. Miyagawa (talk) 19:16, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
        • I don't like using anecdotes to demonstrate that "these breeds were not favored solely by the British". That gives the perception of WP:OR. Much better to say "These breeds were popular in other countries" - but if our only point of reference is a source that says "Bismarck bought a dog" then we can't even say that. Karanacs (talk) 18:33, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    • Is it really significant that Grand Duchess Anastasia owned a dog which was killed with her? Even if it is, do we need to know the name of the man of found the bodies, that the bodies were found in a clearing and were burned?
  • Lots of references to British royalty without dates. Charless II is mentioned several times before we finally learn that he lived in the latter half of the 17th century. I understand because I'm familiar with British royalty, but many of our readers won't be.
  • "breed overall moving away from the one seen in earlier works by Anthony van Dyck during the 17th century" - besides the nose, how?
  • The breed's skull and size changed overall. The modern Cavalier King Charles Spaniel is a good description of the look of the old breed - basically the skull was a different shape, and a little bit bigger. Miyagawa (talk) 19:16, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Some of the paragraphs jump around between topics, especially in the section 19th century...
    • The third paragraph was originally in the first section of the history section, but I was advised to move it to the 19th century during the FA process as it was written by 19th century authors. Miyagawa (talk) 19:16, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm still not quite understanding why the king choose King Charles as the name for the spaniels. The history section lists lots of royalty which owned these dogs. The Charles stuff doesn't stand out much in the backdrop of all of that.
    • One set of markings had been named after King Charles (although no evidence to say since when), while the others in use were Prince Charles, Blenheim and Ruby. It was because it was already used for the markings (and to describe this previously seperate breed) that the King at the time requested that the amalgamated breeds be known as this. Miyagawa (talk) 19:16, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Karanacs (talk) 15:48, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments –

  • Get some dashes into the date ranges in the lead (two in the second paragraph).
  • History: Pretty sure that the dash in "mid–19th century" should just be a regular old hyphen.
  • Conformation showing and the 20th century: "Breeders entered what they considered to be sub–par King Charles Spaniels." Again, the dash should be a hyphen here.
  • Other common issues: "causing this tissue to obstruct the dogs naturally narrow airways." Apostrophe needed at end of "dogs".
  • In the general references, if they are intended to be in authors' alphabetical order, Coile should come before Diehl. Giants2008 (27 and counting) 16:41, 29 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments -- as usual, I've sampled one section of the article, the final section. --Mkativerata (talk) 21:20, 29 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Final paragraph of the article: "There are also several breed traits which may cause concern as health issues. These include fused toes, where two or more of the dog's toes are fused together." This doesn't seem to accurately and fully represent the source (which I assume is reliable), which says "Fused toes may be misdiagnosed as a health problem. This is a breed trait and not a cause for concern."
  • "The English Toy Spaniel Club of America recommends that umbilical hernias should preferably be corrected only in conjunction with other surgeries due to the general risk of surgery." This sentence is very difficult to follow. "preferably" seems redundant after "recommends". I'm not sure whether "general risk" is a good term, it seems to encompass all kinds of surgery, whereas the source seems to be only talking about hernia surgery specifically.
  • "This is because in brachycephalic dogs, there is additional tissue in the throat directly behind the mouth and nasal cavity, known as the pharynx. Anesthesia also acts as a muscle relaxing property, causing this tissue to obstruct the dogs' naturally narrow airways." Not sure what the word "also" is doing here, or the word "naturally".
  • "These narrow airways can also cause the dog to have an inability to exercise properly and increases the susceptibility to heat stroke." There's a fair bit of surplus wording in that sentence, especially "have an inability".
  • "However, surveys conducted by the Finnish breed club between 1988 and 2007 found that the occurrences were higher in some years, ranging from 5.3% to 50%." 5.3 to 50? Surely some explanation is needed for those wildly variant numbers.
  • "Of these conditions, distichia (where extra eyelashes or hairs cause irritation to the eye) is considered the most common" I'm not finding support for "most common" in the source cited.
  • Have you consulted the ACVO Genetics Committee Report (2007), cited in Gough & Thomas?

Request to close: Although it pains me to say it, as one of the more recent requests for modifications to this article would result in a rather drastic overhaul of the history section which would pretty much render all previous reviews null and void, I would like to request that this is closed as a failed nomination while I decide whether or not to make those changes. Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to review this article, it's a lot better for it. Miyagawa (talk) 12:32, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

On the other hand, it's had four supports (as is) and no opposes. – Quadell (talk) 13:45, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Miyagawa, please reverse any of these edits if you don't agree with them.
Fused toes, where two or more of the dog's toes are fused together, may seem to be a health issue but this breed trait is not a cause for concern.
The English Toy Spaniel Club of America recommends that umbilical hernias be corrected only if other surgery is required, due to the risk of surgery in brachycephalic breeds.
Anesthesia acts as a muscle relaxant, causing this tissue to obstruct the dogs' narrow airways.
These narrow airways can decrease the dogs' ability to exercise properly and increase their susceptibility to heat stroke.
Compared to other breeds, the King Charles Spaniel has an increased risk of distichia (where extra eyelashes or hairs cause irritation to the eye). Marj (talk) 18:23, 2 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]


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

The article was not promoted by Nikkimaria 14:16, 5 November 2011 [45].

Blackford County, Indiana

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Nominator(s): TwoScars (talk) 19:09, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because of the significant additions made by myself and a second contributor during the last six months. TwoScars (talk) 19:09, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:30, 29 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Be consistent in whether ISBNs are hyphenated or not
  • Use a consistent format for shortened citations
  • Suggest splitting explanatory and citation footnotes into separate sections
  • Check that all shortened citations actually correspond with a full bibliographic entry - FN 43, for example, does not. On the other hand, don't duplicate full bibliographic info in footnotes for sources in the References list. Also, any uncited sources in the References list (for example, Boyd 1985) should be deleted or moved to a Further reading section
  • Be consistent in what is wikilinked when
  • Wikilinks are now generally applied only once, and almost always the first time the term appears in the text. In a few cases, the same link is used for two different names, such as Converse and Crumley's Crossing, since both names are for the same community. Montpelier is wikilinked twice: once for Montpelier, Indiana, and once for Montpelier, Vermont. The Montpelier, Indiana wikilink is in the Geography section instead of the opening (where it first appears) because it is more useful at that location.TwoScars (talk) 22:16, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Newspapers without weblinks need page numbers
  • "The New York Times", not "New York Times"
  • Convenience links to print-based sources like Google Books don't need retrieval dates
  • Be consistent in what is italicized when
  • Use a consistent date format
  • Check for minor inconsistencies like doubled periods
  • There are no doubled periods. There is a reference to a book with a long name—I have used A History of Blackford County..., to refer to this book. I have fixed "four four universities" in the Education and healthcare section, and the spelling in that section, and one spelling in the References section. TwoScars (talk) 03:39, 30 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Multi-page documents like FN 147 need page numbers
  • Don't include page numbers in References for books for which you cite a different page number in footnotes (Ex. Beeson & Bonham)
  • be consistent in whether states are abbreviated or spelled out

Link check - no DAB-links, no dead external links, still several duplicate links (list can be provided if needed, mostly county and town names). GermanJoe (talk) 12:49, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose - while the article had a very helpful peer review and contains a lot of valuable information, prose and structure appear not ready for FA-level. Some comments for lead and geography follow:

  • Lead "Two incorporated cities and one incorporated town are located within the county. The county is also the site of at least 15 unincorporated communities and ghost towns. A small portion of a third city extends into the southeast corner of the county." ==> Too detailed for lead, can be trimmed. Limit information to the most important, essential facts.
  • "As of the 2010 census, the county's population is 12,766 people in 5,236 [occupied] households." ==> self-evident, can be trimmed.
  • "The county's two rail lines are [owned by the same railroad company]." ==> Vague, is the company fact really lead-worthy?. Maybe "The county has two rail lines, consisting of a western and a north-south route, crossing in Hartford City." or something similar instead.
  • Excellent—I will fix that. The current text is the result of a debate about ownership of the lines.
  • "...for [certain] members of the Miami tribe." ==> which members? Or trim the vague phrasing.
  • I will fix. The certain members are Francis Godfroy, family, and friends.
  • "The first European-American settlers were typically farmers, and small agricultural communities became scattered throughout the county." ==> Tense, "... were scattered." or "... were spread".
  • "The county began as mostly swampland, and [became] more agriculture-oriented as the swampland [became] drained." ==> "... the swampland was drained" to avoid repetition. Also "more agricultural-oriented" doesn't work here. The article already states, that settlers were "typically" farmers before - how can it get more agricultural? (More land was available for agriculture, sure. But that doesn't necessarily increase the overall economic orientation).
  • "The county's appearance was transformed ..." ==> How? By the examples, i guess it grew more wealthy and "modern", but this should be stated explicitly.
  • "and became even more important after the loss of several large manufacturers during the 20th century." ==> Main causes for this losses and development?
  • Geography - The location of Hartford City is described twice.
  • content of "Licking and Harrison townships were original to the county. ..." ==> Content of whole paragraph is "history".
  • content of "There are two incorporated cities within the county, and a small portion of a third city ..." ==> With all the population data this paragraph would better fit into either "Demographics" or a new sub-section "administrative divisions" (together with all sub-communities and ghost towns).
  • I would suggest limiting "geography" to general geographical information, that is a broad description of the county's layout and then enter much sooner into history. That whole information about incorporated or unincorporated communities and barely known ghost towns should be moved further down.
The primary target should be to present the information to the reader as accessible as possible. As an outside reader i only need to know at first, that the county consists of 4 major townships and what the biggest 1-3 settlements are, both informations could easily be introduced in history before listing all the communities in detail. As an aside, when you check Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. counties, the used template contradicts the text description, so i am not sure, what the actual consensus is. I'd suggest to use the structure, that works best for the article regardless. The guideline is just that - a guideline. GermanJoe (talk) 10:00, 1 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Image Map of Blackford County:
  • a legend would be great, the reader shouldn't have to guess, which dots (yellow, red) mean what.
  • use consistant colors for name backgrounds (or explain the colors in the legend).
  • the background raster is distracting - could it be hidden?
  • Winterhurst is missing, why? (Slocum has no known location, but could also be added with a footnote "exact location unknown").
  • Tried to fix your concerns in the caption. A legend will cover some of the county or require a bigger map. Winterhurst can be added. I had concerns about Winterhurst and Slocum, even though they were on the Historical Society's list, because I could not find any other information on them. Slocum is on a map that is in the Gas Boom section. I can add Winterhurst. Do you still think I need a legend after the caption change?TwoScars (talk) 01:14, 1 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Image for "Godfrey Reserve" should have a brief caption.
  • A quick check of further paragraphs shows similar problems with awkward, sometimes vague or repetitive phrasing (more examples can be provided, if needed).
  • Yes, please provide more examples. What seems clear to a member of the Blackford County Historical Society can be vague to someone that has never lived in the area. I appreciate your guidance and assistance.TwoScars (talk) 01:14, 1 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I appreciate the amount of work already put into article improvements, but it would probably be better to withdraw the nomination for now to allow some more work on article structure (if necessary) and a cleanup of the article's prose by an uninvolved editor (a request at the Guild of Copy Editors would be best). GermanJoe (talk) 12:49, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]


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

The article was not promoted by Ucucha 16:33, 3 November 2011 [46].

Background of the Spanish Civil War

edit
Nominator(s): Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 15:53, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The background of the Spanish Civil War, is, in a way the story of how a country as 'western' as Spain could come to a bitter, deeply held conflict that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. The previous FAC met with little tangible opposition, but failed to garner sufficient support, so I am relisting it now.

A word on sources: I've scanned Beevor pp. 8 and 9, 30, 31, 32 and 33, although imperfectly; Preston 42, 43, 44 and 45 almost perfectly; Thomas 14, 15, 16 and 17 and can make these available for source review because I am moving to university and cannot physically take the books with me. One or two of the lesser used cited works are online. Previously passed an A-class review.

I'll be away from Monday to Friday and possibly that weekend, but active thereafter and until then. (I should be able to keep up in any case, as a priority.) Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 15:53, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: Ucucha okayed the 10-day gap between FACs. - Dank (push to talk) 17:44, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:08, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Edition notations should generally not be italicized (out of curiosity, why is a print edition being published by an online library?)
  • Would suggest either just "New York" or complete "New York, NY, USA"
  • According to their homepage, the correct capitalization is Library of Iberian Resources Online. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:08, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I maintain that "Oxford, UK; New York" looks unbalanced, but I've deferred. Done the others. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 18:55, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Copyscape review – No issues were revealed by Copyscape searches. Graham Colm (talk) 16:02, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Support. (I raised many issues, all of which were resolved and then moved here.) Sourcing and organization are excellent. All issues with the prose have been resolved. Thorough and informative, this fully deserves FA status. – Quadell (talk) 18:20, 11 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. As always, feel free to revert my copyediting. Please check the edit summaries. - Dank (push to talk) 03:07, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • I think I'm going to be supporting on prose, except in the lead ... but this support is an admission that, if there are problems here, I don't have the background to address them. The title of the article is Background of the Spanish Civil War, and I kept expecting to find, but not finding, a discussion of connections to or implications for the Spanish Civil War. I don't know enough about Spanish history to make any assertions about what's missing ... but something seems to be missing. I'm not happy with the lead, but I don't know enough about the subject matter to rewrite it. - Dank (push to talk) 03:07, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
All your edits are fine. I thought about the direct link between the content and the title, and I think it rests on two things:
  • The vast majority of the article is referenced to works on the Spanish Civil War in general;
  • If you take things like all the people mentioned (quite a lot) they turn up in the war, as do the institutions. It would be impossible to put down here what exactly there role later was, it would simply be unmanageable - and we have the advantage of being able to link to them (nowhere in the books is this link established, either, on the whole).
Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 13:03, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've added a fairly short fourth paragraph to the lead (were being vague and drawing inferences from the article is more acceptable). I wonder what you think. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 20:02, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It would be nice if we could get a roomful of experts together, show them the text below the lead, and then ask the question, "Okay, why do so many authors mention all these things in connection with the Civil War? How did the constitution, the latifundia, the geographic and political divisions of a hundred years all contribute? Explain it so that someone who doesn't know much about Spain can follow, starting with the most important factors" ... which to some extent will mean in reverse chronological order (in the lead), since more recent developments would have been more relevant. - Dank (push to talk) 20:48, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I really don't know what that's going to look like. It's like the story of how Spain got to the point of Civil War. I actually think you can already trace a narrative on certain key issues through the article, such as militancy. There are several people and organisations whose position during the war is justified with the context. Picking out one thing and saying "this helped cause the Spanish Civil War by..." is impossible, if not misleading. There are no featured articles in this position, I don't think, so no help there. We can retitle the article along the lines of the multiple suggestions made before, namely: "Origins of..." or "Events leading to..." if you think these are most appropriate (my previous position has been one of only minor support for the current title, and general arbitrariness). Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 09:48, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think retitling would change things. I agree that the perceptive reader can trace the connections, which is why I'm supporting the text below the lead. But imagine a reader who's only got about 10 minutes worth of time and interest and not much background, and wants to know "just the facts" in 3 or 4 paragraphs. What's the single most important factor that led to the civil war? Then, what's the second most important factor? Etc. I'm not saying it's easy to write a lead that is going to make everyone happy ... it's not. - Dank (push to talk) 11:55, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(←) I've had another go at the lead with this aim in mind. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 12:16, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
User:Johnboddie has offered to rewrite the lead later this week, I'll have a look after he's done. - Dank (push to talk) 12:53, 17 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
He's had a look and doesn't know what to do with it, and I'm not sure either. What you say above would help: "the story of how a country as 'western' as Spain could come to a bitter, deeply held conflict that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people." It would also help to know where historians have come out on which factors were the most important in tipping the country into war. I'm still supporting the text below the lead on prose only. - Dank (push to talk) 11:39, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. Changed my mind after working on this yesterday. All things considered, the prose is very good ... but per my understanding of what's been supported at FAC in the past, I think this probably isn't sufficiently accessible and compelling to the general reader. - Dank (push to talk) 14:12, 29 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

Done. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 20:02, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Is anyone prepared to do a spotcheck exercise? I have the scans ready but can't upload them because of copyright, but can send them. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 17:04, 24 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'll do spotchecks. E-mail me, and we'll set it up. Meanwhile, I'll do the online sources. – Quadell (talk) 14:01, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Spotchecks: I checked 20 footnotes referencing seven independent sources: 1a, 1b, 12, 18a, 18b, 20a, 26, 36b, 37, 42, 55, 56, 58, 75, 97, 100, 107, 113, 114, and 116 of this version. The following minor issues were uncovered:

  1. The statement "Rivera had close to total control of fascism in Spain." was only suggested by Preston in ref 42. The statement should be toned down, or another source should be provided.
  2. Footnote 56 refers to page 4 of Paz. The information is actually on page 2, so the footnote should say that, and the link should be changed in the "sources" section.
  3. The information in footnote 75 (Brincat) is presented in this article in a way that's rather closely worded. After I asked one of our resident experts, it seems this is not a serious problem. But I would feel more comfortable if the material were either reworded or directly quoted from the source.
  4. Footnote 113 sources this sentence: "By early 1936, Azaña found that the left was using its influence to circumvent the Republic and the constitution; he was adamant about increasingly radical changes." But the source appears to me to say that the left was adamant about such changes, whereas he (Azaña) was resistent.

I'm sure these can be fixed with minimal difficulty. In every other case, the information in the article was fully backed by the sources, and there was no verbatim copying or close paraphrasing. – Quadell (talk) 17:41, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't disagree with any of that and have made appropriate changes. With regards to #3, I have reworded it (although if anyone can find a less clunky wording, please change) and have left a short note at the thread Quadell links. Thanks again. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 19:27, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This satisfies all my concerns. – Quadell (talk) 19:37, 25 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If it helps, when I read the last two sections of Miguel Primo de Rivera, 2nd Marquis of Estella, I feel like I get a clearer picture of what led to the Spanish Civil War. That article is barely referenced, so it could all be completely wrong; nevertheless, the narrative feels more like the kind of narrative readers are expecting, when the question is, "What caused this war?" - Dank (push to talk) 18:16, 26 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It is almost identical to sections of the article describing the period in Spain until the abdication of the monarchy. Everything it says is in the article. Of course the actual period of the Republic is similarly important. I'm reviewing other books, but I have no idea what I'm looking for. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 16:19, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, we have a paragraph in hand for the lead if strictly necessary. One paragraph in one book caught my eye, but I still don't feel like I understand the problem. It reads:

Nevertheless, even in the immediate aftermath of the July military coup and before any international factors could come into play, extreme forms of internecine violence were already occurring throughout Spain. So historians are required to explore what this violence meant and how it related to the pre-war domestic environment Three factors were crucial here. First, the extremely uneven levels of development that obtained inside Spain [sic] by the 1930s. This meant that the military coup unleashed what was in effect a series of culture wars: urban culture and cosmopolitan lifestyle versus rural tradition; secular against religious; authoritarian against liberal political cultures; centre versus periphery; traditional gender roles versus the 'new woman'; even youth against age, since generational conflicts were also present. Second the force with which the opposing elements clashed owed more than a little to the cultural influence of a manichaean brand of Catholicism that sill predominated in Spain, affecting even many of those who had consciously rejected religious belief and the authority of the Church. Third, since the detonator of events was a military coup, we must also examine the role played by Spain's army and, in particular, the emergence of a rigid and intolerant political culture in its officer corps during the early decades of the 20th century.

Is this the sort of thing you think the lead needs? Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 16:31, 27 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You've done a good job of avoiding blaming the war on "bad guys" or hooking the readers by getting them attached to "good guys", as required by NPOV. You haven't done as well at the job of creating a narrative that speaks to readers, that makes connections between the facts as you know them and the readers' likely beliefs about Spain and about the origins of war, even if you're 100% right in your representation of what the sources say.

I suggest that we let the protagonist be Spain itself, and I don't think we can get most readers to follow the events or significance of most of the 19th century stuff ... at least, not without covering it in more depth, which would make this article too long and too dense. My recommendation FWIW is to lose the first quarter or so of the text below the lead (use it to seed a new article), down to the last two paragraphs in Twentieth century. The next-to-last paragraph there begins "Increasing exports", but it needs a little fleshing out, and a little more passion ... get readers to feel some connection to Spain, to identify with its suffering.

The next paragraph has a lot of good stuff, but I want more there, too ... I'd like to see something about Spain's modernization and economic success in the 1920s. That will help the readers feel a connection to the country and its story, and also make it intuitively clear how disappointing it was when it all fell apart. Maybe add something like this, and I'm borrowing a lot from the largely unreferenced Miguel Primo de Rivera, 2nd Marquis of Estella here:

Spain shared in Europe's economic boom. By the end of the 1920s, after six years of surprisingly progressive rule under the military dictatorship of Captain General Miguel Primo de Rivera, foreign trade had increased x% [where x is probably > 300%, since that was the increase from 1923 to 1927], Spanish laborers were enjoying significant influence and prosperity under the protection of government arbitrators, and massive spending on public works had created [summary of new infrastructure], including Europe's best road network. Unemployment had largely disappeared.
But Primo de Rivera had brought order to Spain with a price: his regime was a dictatorship, albeit a mild one, and much of the populace felt oppressed. He censored the press. When intellectuals criticized the government, he closed El Ateneo, the country's most famous political and literary club. To suppress the separatist fever in Barcelona, the regime tried to expunge Catalan culture. The inflation generated by huge public spending disproportionately hurt the poor.
Traditional institutions also felt threatened, and by the very reforms that most felt were insufficient. According to British historian Gerald Brenan, "Spain needed radical reforms and he could only govern by the permission of the two most reactionary forces in the country—the Army and the Church." Primo de Rivera dared not tackle what was seen as Spain's most pressing problem, agrarian reform, because it would have provoked the great landholding elite. Writes historian Richard Herr, "Primo was not one to waken sleeping dogs, especially if they were big." [And you have some good stuff about what was inflaming the Church and the Army that could go here.]
As Spaniards tired of the dictatorship, the economic boom ended. The value of the peseta fell against foreign currencies, 1929 brought a bad harvest, and Spain's imports far outstripped the worth of its exports. Although no one recognized it at the time, the final months of the year brought the international economic slump which turned into the great depression of the 1930s.
When Primo de Rivera lost the support of the king and the armed forces, his dictatorship was doomed. The Spanish military had never unanimously backed his seizure of power, although it had tolerated his rule. But when Primo de Rivera began to inject politics into promotions for the artillery corps, it provoked hostility and opposition. Troubled by the regime's failure to legitimize itself or to solve the country's woes, the king also began to draw away. Alfonso, who had sponsored the establishment of Madrid's University City, watched with dismay as the country's students took to the streets to protest the dictatorship and the king's support for it. A clandestine pamphlet portrayed Alfonso as Primo de Rivera's dancing partner. Yet the king did not have to remove Primo de Rivera. On 26 January 1930, the dictator asked the military leaders if he still had their support. Their lukewarm responses, and his recognition that the king no longer backed him, persuaded him to resign two days later. Primo de Rivera retired to Paris, where he died from fever and diabetes on 16 March 1930.

I prefer this approach because it's more likely to mesh with what readers are expecting and what they know. Readers don't think of civil wars as caused by a series of events over a hundred years (and even if they did, it's generally too much for them to process in one article), but because good times turn bad, popular leaders become unpopular, and people get angry. Readers also generally expect that there are powerful reactionary forces lurking, which of course there were here. Thoughts? - Dank (push to talk) 21:09, 28 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the time and effort you've put in. I'm sorry, Dank, but I think we may have to agree to disagree over this. All the sources I've read (Thomas, Preston, Beevor, Payne) take a single narrative through to the start of the civil war, and, barring some summarising, this is it. We are asked not "What caused this war?" but rather "What should the reader know to understand the Civil War best?". We do, I think, set the reader up to put the civil war in its historical context. In many ways, the article achieves what you want it to; the further before the civil war events are the more succinctly they are described. I would therefore think it wise to cling to the thoughts of the historians. In my opinion, we have a narrative of 'good' times turning bad, of popular leaders becoming unpopular, or people getting angry; it's just written so as not to force things to conform to the simple "black-and-white" model that would be most understandable but misleading. I wonder what other editors think. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 09:55, 29 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not saying the historians are wrong, I'm saying that IMO the article should be broken into two pieces, because if you add enough to make some of the bare facts here more accessible and compelling to the average reader, then the article would be at least twice as long as the rough upper limits for FAC articles. YMMV. - Dank (push to talk) 14:12, 29 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sort of with Dank on this I suppose. As a "background to the war", however well researched, the article perhaps lacks focus (where does one stop? What is it that we're trying to tell a story about?), whereas a "causes of the war" article is inevitably going to be more tightly bounded, even if some causes will go back quite a way in history. Hchc2009 (talk) 15:45, 29 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Withdrawn. I realise it is rare for an article with supports to be officially withdrawn, but at a month in, I suppose it could also be considered unsuccessful. I think it would be most helpful to pause and come back to this issue at a later date, perhaps also when I have more time (and full access to the sources). There is more to Wikipedia than this, and I feel I should direct my efforts to other things for now. I thank the commenter of all varieties, they have all been noted. I wonder if a coord could effect this for me. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 19:01, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]


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