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Wikipedia:Featured article review/€2 commemorative coins/archive1

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

The article was removed by Dana boomer 21:04, 29 March 2010 [1].

€2 commemorative coins

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Review commentary

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I am nominating this featured article for review because firstly, it is really a list with hardly any prose in it. Secondly, half the sources are to a ad hoc website with no information on the author or editorial process, or where their base is, so it is not a reliable source. The other sources are all EU press releases and newsletters. These are neither reliable nor indepedent. If there are no independent sources, then are their any scholarly outlets that even care about the topic?? Furhtermore comprehensiveness. Some of the newer entries have no prose attached to them, and there is nothing at all apart from stats and description. What has been the public reception to these coins as collector items etc? YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 04:08, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  • Regarding list vs article: We've had this discussion about three times so far. If you insist, we can have it a fourth time, but I expect the outcome will not be too different; a small majority agreeing it is an article, and minorities stating it is a list or not caring about the distinction. Secondly, how are official communications from the European Commission not reliable? And as the article is about a non-controversial, entirely factual topic, I really don't see how the independence of the sources enters into this. They're officially communicating what's meant to be on the coins and when the official release date was. I also don't see what kind of scholarly outlets you'd like to see cited about this. Neither do I see the fault in comprehensiveness – the newest coins are not out yet, so there is no official source with their description yet. Regarding public reception, I've been trying on and off over the past years to find sources on that, with no luck; up to now, this lack was seen as too minor to disturb the status of the article. —Nightstallion 14:49, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. Alt text done; thanks. Please add alt text to images; see WP:ALT. Eubulides (talk) 05:07, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • I assume you're only talking about the two images showing the former and current reverse side, the map, and the five alternatives which could be voted on for the 2009 common commemorative coin...? All the other images are described in detail in the tables. —Nightstallion 14:55, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Those are the main problems, yes. One other coin image that needs fixing is File:United States penny, obverse, 2002.png; that is a purely decorative image in the W3C sense, so please use the "|link=|alt=" parameters of {{portalpar}} as per WP:ALT #Purely decorative images. There are twenty or so flags that need to be fixed in a similar way; I suggest using {{flag}}, which does the right thing. For an image like File:€2 commemorative coin Greece 2004.png, where the adjacent text describes the image quite well, WP:ALT#Placeholders suggests using "See adjacent text" for the alt text. You can see which flags etc. need fixing by looking at the Altviewer output: click on the "alt text" button at the upper right of this review page. Eubulides (talk) 17:22, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        • I think I've made the changes you requested now. —Nightstallion 17:50, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          Thanks, that solved most of the problems. A few remain:
          • For the very first image, File:EUR 2 (2007 issue).png, it's appropriate to describe it in more detail, such as the central gold area and surrounding silver, the huge "2" in the Atlantic and the smaller "EURO" over Europe, the placement of Spain and the British Isles in the center and the map stretching to approximately the Russian border in the east; the overlaid stars and lines. The existing alt text "The new reverse side shows all of Europe up to the Ural." doesn't do the image justice and is not all that accurate anyway, as the map doesn't get anywhere close to the Urals. The 2nd image's alt text need not give so much detail: it can mention only the differences from the 1st image.
          • The map's alt text doesn't give the gist of the map, which is that the member countries consist of Western Europe south of Denmark, Greece, and Finland (which have issued the coins), along with Ireland (which, along with the Netherlands, has not). Please see WP:ALT#Maps.
          • The phrase "; see adjacent text" is missing for File:€2 commemorative coin Finland 2004.png. Likewise for the four coin images in 2010 coinage. Two of the latter coins are missing the adjacent text as well.
          • Alt text is missing for File:Euro coin navbox crop.png and File:Trichet signature.svg. Please fix this by editing {{Euro topics}}.
          Eubulides (talk) 19:00, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
          • The last two were only decorative anyway; done. Added "see adjacent text" for the missing ones, but for the 2010 coins which are not yet out the lack of a description is intentional, as the images are not yet the official ones. I don't really see why we have to reiterate the same information which is already in the text in the map's alt text, but I added a bit of info. Tried to make the description of the two euro backside more detailed. —Nightstallion 20:15, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
            • Thanks , that just about does it. You're right about not repeating map info in the alt text (see WP:ALT#Repetition); if the adjacent text already contains the info, please just say "See adjacent text" (if this info is far away, though, we do need to duplicate it). We still have a problem for the two images that are not described, though. How about including that info in the article text but clearly marking the images as being unofficial? Alternatively, we could simply remove the images. But either way, if the two images conveys useful info to sighted readers they also need to be described to visually impaired readers. Eubulides (talk) 21:17, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary

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Featured article criterion of concern are reliable/independent sources, whether the page is a list or an article, comprehensiveness YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 01:13, 25 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist per self YellowMonkey (bananabucket) 06:43, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as FA. I've replied to your concerns, and you did not explain back; I really do not see how these constitute viable concerns. —Nightstallion 09:47, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Half the sources are not from an official outlet but a ibiblio.org. That website's about section doesn't explain who is responsible for it. What makes it a reliable source? YellowMonkey (Southern Stars photo poll) 06:40, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      • Other than the fact that this is such an uncontroversial topic that this site, although not official, is still very reliable, ibiblio references the dates, which are also referenced in the EU site. Heck, they could all be removed, as the EU journal still references everything, but ibiblio serves to back that up. Reywas92Talk 23:19, 11 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist, per nom, per sourcing concerns, short lede per WP:LEAD, bits of unsourced material present as well in the article. Cirt (talk) 06:43, 4 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep as FA Sources are official and very reliable. Article is as comprehensive as possible. I have expanded the lead a little; it's hard to summarize when most of the article is coin descriptions. Compared with the five other languages in which the article is featured, this has more info or is about the same. Reywas92Talk 01:08, 5 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep; I don't think a compelling case has been made that the article is not comprehensive or that it relies on inappropriate sources. The EU sources do seem to verify all the information, making the reliability of ibiblio not a significant issue. I don't think the article/list issue is particularly resolvable nor do I believe that the distinction is particularly of importance in this case, so I don't see a good reason to rehash the judgment of the initial FAC discussion. Christopher Parham (talk) 18:51, 5 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • Delist Per YM and Cirt. Lack of independent sources is the biggest issue for me but the list-like structure of the article is also an issue. -- mav (Urgent FACs/FARs/PRs) 23:12, 13 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    • Sources are still very reliable and consistent. The list issue has been discussed already.

Delist—Odd tone; glitches in the writing; under-referenced.

  • "but are not to be confused with"—ordering our readers around is a breach of the MoS, I believe.
    • Changed
  • The basis derived from?
    • Changed
  • The prohibition of changing?
    • Changed
  • "Additionally"—an avoidable back-connector.
    • Changed
  • Under-referenced.

I'm not prompted to read further than the top. Tony (talk) 08:16, 21 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've been asked to return to review my declaration. I took one humungous parenthetical text as a sample:

"(These provisions forced Belgium to change its design back to show the original portrait of its monarch, as the 2008 update to follow the recommendations also updated the portrait, which was against the rules; the Belgian coins from 2009 onwards show the original portrait of 1999, but the new 2008 coin design as far as the country identification and year mark are concerned. These provisions also prohibits further sede vacante sets of coins by the Vatican City, allowing only commemorative coins for such occasions.)"
  • First, the opening up to the semicolon is long and winding; I'm still not quite sure what the "as" means, and there's twisting and turning to make a long hike worse.
  • Second, the "sentence" after the semicolon is incomprehensible and ungrammatical. What does it mean?
  • "provisions also prohibits"? Get rid of "also" and correct the grammar, please.

I need to look no further to say that this piece needs to be put out of its misery forthwith. Just how Reyway, Christopher Parham and Nighstallion think this is FA material is very hard to fathom. Have they read the text, even superficially? Tony (talk) 00:49, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I fail to see what's so bad about this particular parenthesis. Fair enough, I've split it up from two main clauses conjoined by a semicolon to two separate main clauses, and fixed the minor grammar mistake in the last part, but apart from that, it's simply a longer sentence explaining a series of events: The provisions forced Belgium to change its design back. Why? Because (= as) the update of the design in 2008 not only changed the design to follow the new recommendations, but also updated the portrait, which was not allowed under the rules. Therefore, the coins now show the new design in general composition, but keep the old portrait. What's so difficult to understand about that sentence? —Nightstallion 14:41, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It was written poorly, but I don't think you could have put that much ruder, Tony. There are some of us who prefer to improve the encyclopedia and receive constructive criticism rather than be told an article is crap and that it should be put out of its misery. If you had thought about what you said, the only way to put it out of its misery, as the article will not be deleted, is to actually improve it, which you do not seem very receptive to doing. Maybe it's not FA worthy, but I'm sorry that it doesn't belong in your land of perfect writing. This is definitely not the first time I have seen you rudely criticizing an article - and its writers - and refusing to even consider the concept of improvement.Reywas92Talk 21:40, 29 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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