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Proposal to reduce restrictions on FAC submissions

Restrictions on FAR have been reduced to allow for nominators to nominate one article every two weeks, and have up to four active nominations at any one time, without the consent of a coordinator. I propose that the same restrictions be imposed on FAC nominations, in order to bring the two into line. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 18:47, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Very amusing! ——SN54129 19:00, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
Hmmm, I think it's comparing apples to oranges here. There is no logical need to bring them into line. The problem with FAC remains lack of reviewers, which more nominations won't exactly help. FunkMonk (talk) 20:30, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
Not just a lack of reviewers; there have been complaints of general slowness, low review quality and insufficient output as well (that's why we occasionally re-run TFAs nowadays). Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 20:58, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
We re-run TFAs because the rate of promotion of FACs is much less than one per day. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 09:57, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
No, we re-run TFAs because a bunch of people whined about how their pet topics were So Damn Important that they should have a second appearance despite it meaning bumping the more recently promoted FAs from ever appearing. Even if we shut down FAC completely and never promoted anything again, it would still take almost three years just to burn through the existing backlog at WP:Featured articles that haven't been on the Main Page; sticking with the "articles which ran more than a decade ago are treated as if they'd never appeared" informal status quo, we have an essentially unlimited supply even were nothing ever to be promoted again, as it would take upwards of 1000 articles to be delisted just to prevent us going back to the 2004 queue and re-running the entire TFA calendar 16 years on, with WP:FANMP articles used to plug the gaps where articles have since been delisted. The sky may be falling in some places on Wikipedia, but TFA is not one of them. ‑ Iridescent 13:03, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
Well, 870, which is 2.38 years. All it would take is battleships on Mondays and Thursdays, Australian birds on Tuesdays, cricket on Wednesdays, TV episodes or obscure albums on Friday, and free choice over the weekends! The sky may not be falling in, but I was shocked to see we only have four fungus species & one Etty painting left. Johnbod (talk) 13:38, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
That's pretty much it. We got into this situation because the TFA coordinators wanted to "balance" the stream of articles that appear on the front page so that it showcased different subject, with long gaps between articles on similar subjects. As the table above indicates, there are major differences between the numbers of articles submitted in different topic areas. The result was that some areas became completely depleted. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:12, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
We have five Etty paintings left (The Combat, Musidora, Sirens, Cleopatra and The World Before the Flood), so you needn't panic. I could knock off FAs on Venus and her Satellites and Pandora Crowned by the Seasons at short notice if so needed (the main reason I haven't is that they're two of the most wretched daubs ever committed to canvas), and could probably do at least 20 more with minimal effort. ‑ Iridescent 13:50, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
Phew, that's a relief! I must have overlooked them because their titles aren't long enough - or are they categorized under "economics" or something? Johnbod (talk) 16:44, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
Johnbod install the "been on main page" thingie in your monobook, as in mine, to easily see which FAs have already run (when you click on WP:FA they show up green): User:SandyGeorgia/monobook.css SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:52, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
Here is the relevant RfC, and here is the discussion that led to the RfC. There may have been some support because of people wanting to rerun particular articles, but my motivation in starting both the discussion and subsequent RfC was that older FAs were often unfit to run, and I felt it was better to start rerunning TFAs occasionally in order to indefinitely delay the day when we ran out of old FAs that could be run. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:23, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
I'm so sorry I wasn't active then to press the point that we should have been running the unfit TFAs all along, so we wouldn't now be in the position of needing to process hundreds of them through WP:FAR :( :( I could be giving at least ten FAR NEEDED talk notifications a day, and yet, I can only submit a FAR every two weeks. I fear we should have never let things get to this point. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:31, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
I have sympathy with Hawkeye's position in having a queue of articles coming through (the same thing happens with me, but only very occasionally), but I agree with FunkMonk that these are apples and oranges here (someone nominating a poor article at FAR doesn't have to do any further work on it, whereas nominators are expected to at FAC).
I have always found the FAC co-ords to be flexible on the point of a second nom after about the third week (as long as the first nom has 2 or 3 solid reviews, nothing outstanding and the source/image reviews cleared). Hawkeye, have you had problems getting a green light from the co-ords to list a second nom if the first one is fairly well advanced? Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 20:43, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
Yes, many times. They are inflexible. Nobody mentioned anything about articles being "advanced" until a couple of weeks ago. I'm not playing games like that with the FAC coordinators. The fact is that FACs are never advanced. There is no metric to tell you if they are or not. There are several that I would put in that category in the queue right now. Last week there were a dozen. Who knows why they are still there? And why should it matter anyway? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 09:57, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
The reason for my sardony (?) is that Hawkey7 knows perfectly well this was relatively recently discussed and rejected. And IIRC, he agreed with that. Wot gives. ——SN54129 21:02, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
What I said was: The coords were not willing to drop the one-at-a-time rule. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 09:57, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
Wot I mean is, they don't officially drop it, but if your article is close to promotion you can submit another one. So two can be running at the same time? And that's not counting the co-nom you might have up? ——SN54129 10:23, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
You still have to ask the coordinator for a fiat, there is no telling when an article is close to promotion, and in any case that is not what I want. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:12, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
Just get somebody else to nominate any additional ones. Yomanganitalk 00:18, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
If you're bothered by not being able to run more FACs, the best thing you can do is engage and review more FACs to move the queues along.
With GA and A-Class, the MILHIST coordinators do exactly that, picking up the ones that are stuck, and so keeping the queues moving along. But that is only possible because we know what the status is of each nomination, and so can target the ones that need attention. Someone who approaches FAC with the objective of moving it along rather than reviewing an article because it is on a subject of interest to them has no way of knowing whether an additional review or two will make the difference. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:12, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Also, Hawkeye, may I ask what the point of reverting the FAC bot? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 13:58, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

A bug was found with the Featured List run in that it had not been adding the top and bottom templates since March 2019. A special one-off run was then created to go back over the old nominations and add the templates. A couple of runs were required before I got it right. I was then able to run it over all the Featured Lists promoted in April 2019 through January 2020. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:12, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Although I've always preferred the current system (one solo nom + one joint), I am coming round to the idea of some limited relaxing of the rules on the number of nominations, although I think it would have to be carefully done. (To note my conflict of interest, I think I ask one of the co-ords permission to run a second nom maybe twice a year, but this isn't reason I'm supporting the idea). Would the idea of "three noms at any one time, as long as at least one is a co-nom" have any detrimental affect that people could see? The only one I can think of is reviewer fatigue, but others may have a different view. - SchroCat (talk) 17:50, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
    I don't see any problem with either that or raising the limit to two per nominator. If there is concern about reviewer fatigue, we could run a trial period and see how it leaves FAC at. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 17:53, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
    I like the idea of a trial period to see if it works. My guess is that it will only be useful for a very small number of experienced editors and won't cause too many problems, but it would be best to have a safety mechanism just in case. - SchroCat (talk) 18:03, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
    I could see going to two per nominator at a time (third with a co-nom) but subject then to no extra allowance from the Coords. And, it would be very uncool if those people putting up two at a time didn't do their fair share of reviewing, because the problem here is as much lack of reviewers as it is lack of nominators.
    Even more preferable to me would be to only a second nom for editors who significantly contribute at FAR. THAT is how the processes should be working together. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:02, 3 February 2020 (UTC)
    I think we could stretch to two concurrent noms with a third co-nom. It is only going to be useful to prolific content creators/nominators, and most of them already do a fair bit of reviewing and could be encouraged to do more if they were able to nominate a second one. I would anyway, and generally review every Milhist FAC regardless. From a personal perspective FAC is where my production bottleneck is, I have about twenty Milhist A-Class articles awaiting a run at FAC. What about a six month trial to see if it helps FAC throughput? We could ping in the top twenty FA producers to get a view on the extra reviewing expectations. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 00:23, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
    What about an exemption for Vital Articles?--Wehwalt (talk) 10:43, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
    Not really sure that creating an exemption for a particular type of article is the way to go. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 10:46, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
    I may have some sympathy for it, except that once you get past the second tier, the selection of articles is fairly crap - too much recentism and a US bias in the selection. The choice of what constitutes "vital" was done a few years ago by a small group with no expertise in any particular area. I tried to persuade them to punt the decision of specifics out to the projects, but they demurred and made the selections, with a limited basis in historical importance or a world-wide approach. - SchroCat (talk) 11:11, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

Pre-RfC discussion

Given some positive movement in this direction, I'm minded to open an RfC on this, unless there are negative comments on the thought here. Aside from the thread above, the most recent discussion I can find is here. There seems to be general agreement with the idea of some loosening, although the support is not unanimous.

What I would propose at the moment is:

  1. To replace the instruction "An editor is allowed to be the sole nominator of only one article at a time, but two nominations may be allowed if the editor is a co-nominator on at least one of them" with "An editor is allowed to be the nominator of three articles at a time, but only if at least one of them is a co-nomination";
  2. That this is run as a trial for six months. If there are problems during that time, a discussion will be opened by the FA co-ordinators to revisit the question as to whether to return to the current version (1 sole nomination + 1 co-nomination only). If there are no problems during the six-month trial, there is no need for this second RfC;
  3. That three nominations is a red line limit, and that no allowance is to be given for four nominations;
  4. That there is an expectation that while all editors are encouraged to help in reviewing other FA candidates, those who run multiple nominations are encouraged and expected to review more articles at FAC and to take an active part in FAR.

The first three are fairly uncontentious (I think that while there is some reticence to allowing a third nom, there seems to be a broad support for relaxing the limitation). The final point is what I'd like to hear feedback on. I'd rather not get into some formula (X nominations=X+3 reviews or the like) that forces a limit on people that can be gamed or ignored, I do think people should be encouraged to increase their participation in constructive reviews. Thoughts are welcome on all these points, but particularly on point 4. Cheers – SchroCat (talk) 13:14, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

I like it in principle, but as you’ve written it, point 4 is not enforceable. Make it, third nom only on fac or far coord permission per far participation? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:12, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
Possibly an expectation that those taking advantage of the third nomination be active in the other FA processes and be available for coordinators to call on from time to time.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:46, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
Yes, but with equal participation of all process coords ... for example, a FAR coord could say, hey editor X, you can have a third nom if you will give a solid review of article Y, currently at FAR. Coords know which editors are good at which kinds of reviews ... I guess we are saying then to make the third nom subject to any coord approval? Practically speaking, this would force some of our MILHIST reviewers and writers to engage other topics at FAR, which I think is just fine. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:52, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
Not sure if I really want to decide those things, but I also don't want TFA to become a backwater as people spend their time "where it will do them some good".--Wehwalt (talk) 14:55, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
But Wehwalt do you agree FAR coords should have a hand in helping optimize our limited reviewing resources?
For example, peeps, right now FAR needs help adding citations to Sicilian Baroque, evaluating whether Big Bang is salvageable, evaluating use of sources at L. Ron Hubbard, and deciding whether any medical editor gives a heck about updating Asperger syndrome or if it should be put out of its misery. Any FA writer clamoring for an additional FAC can have a look and pitch in. Anyone with access to a good library can add some citations to Sicilian Baroque, or give an opinion at L. Ron Hubbard. If we go this route, anyone clamoring for an additional nomination can give an hour to FAR, put in a solid review, and ask the FAR/FAC Coords for a third nom. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:10, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
On balance, I would prefer to avoid the whole question of permission, which I'm not a big fan of. I think if we got buy-in from people on expectations, that would have more value.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:23, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
I support Wehwalt's view immediately above. I like point 4 as written, but could argue a case for deleting "encouraged and". Gog the Mild (talk) 17:32, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
I admit that I am not really persuaded that there is some imperative need to throttle FAC input, especially not for a trial thing. I thus recommend dropping #3 and using #4 in case people ask for many allowances. In other words, people can still ask for a fourth nomination ... if they put in a lot of serious effort at reviewing other people's nominations (i.e not just driveby comments). Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 21:09, 4 February 2020 (UTC)
I think this will only work if enough prolific FA producers buy in on the extra reviewing work involved in #4. That means, in addition to those who have already expressed opinions above, people like @Sturmvogel 66, Ian Rose, Parsecboy, Hurricanehink, and Jimfbleak: @Mike Christie, Ealdgyth, Ceoil, David Fuchs, and FunkMonk: @Tim riley, Iridescent, and Nick-D:. Personally, I would review outside Milhist (and at FAR within my capabilities) if I could submit an extra solo nom and still have the scope for a co-nom as well. Could those pinged express a view about whether the above is something they would sign-on to? Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 01:18, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

Sure, I'm in favor. I don't imagine it affects *That* many users. If they have that many high-quality articles that were ready for FAC at the same time, sure, go for 3 (I agree w that limit). Hopefully that'll lead to some more collabs. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 03:44, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

I don't think I'll solo nominate more than one article any time soon (my GA backlog has run dry), but if I do, it sounds like a good trade off. FunkMonk (talk) 12:11, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
I have a fairly decent backlog of articles that I could run, but I don't know how frequently I'd do that, in practice, since balancing the demands of responding to reviewers in all of the stages of review (GA, A-class, FLC, and FAC) with writing more articles to feed into the pipeline is already sometimes demanding (especially if I have 1 or 2 at FAC, another at FLC, and another 1-3 at A-class at the same time). But when I feel the desire to run more than one solo FAC, I'd be happy to take on additional reviews here and at FAR to account for the extra work mine would require. Parsecboy (talk) 12:54, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

The names at the top of WP:WBFAN aren't the editors who are currently most productive; I've only nominated three FACs since the start of 2018, for example. Here's a list of everyone who has nominated ten or more FACs since 1/1/18, excluding conominations. Many of these editors have also conominated multiple times, but since we're talking about allowing multiple solo nominations these are probably the editors who would be the most likely to take advantage of a change in the rules.

Nominator # of solo nominations
Wehwalt 20
SchroCat 19
Aoba47 19
Peacemaker67 17
Casliber 16
Gog the Mild 16
Parsecboy 14
Sturmvogel 66 14
Ian Rose 13
Usernameunique 13
Kaiser matias 12
Serial Number 54129 12
Ergo Sum 11
Jo-Jo Eumerus 11
Hawkeye7 10
SounderBruce 10

I have no objection to the proposed change if nobody else does, though I think three should be a hard limit, at least until the six month trial period is up. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:05, 5 February 2020 (UTC)

These numbers don't include nominations in January 2020; I haven't tabulated those yet. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:39, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
Sorry to cause trouble Mike Christie, but I think I'm on 11 noms, and that one of those there is a co-nom? Unless I can't count of course, perfectly possible  :) ——SN54129 11:29, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
Answered on your talk page to avoid cluttering up this page with another table. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:41, 5 February 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for this, Mike. Much more scientific than my ping list. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 00:34, 6 February 2020 (UTC)
It provides an explanation for my frustration. Although I've had articles continuously at FAC throughout the period, I have only gotten five promoted each year while others had twice as many. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 18:44, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
G'day SchroCat. It seems to me that those that responded here are broadly supportive of 2+1. Next step, RfC? Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 00:05, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
Hi Peacemaker, Probably, but as I've said below, I'm withdrawing from all featured-related business for the foreseeable future (although I see one of those clear statements has now been removed. It seems rather heavy-handed to censor an entire conversation when just the email text could have been removed to be replaced by a one-sentence summary, but little surprises me any more). Anyone else is free to use my proposed text to continue the process if they wish. Cheers – SchroCat (talk) 06:58, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
If this were to go to RfC then you may wish to change the proposed wording of point 1. At the moment a straight reading means that an editor can only have a second single nomination if they already have a co-nomination. I don't see what's wrong with 'An editor is allowed to be the sole nominator of only onetwo articles at a time, but twothree nominations may beare allowed if the editor is a co-nominator on at least one of them.' Gog the Mild (talk) 12:57, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
Why not just start doing it? The only people this is going to impact are regular FACers who want to put more noms in. It's not like there's suddenly going to be a flood of multiple nominations. Worry about changing the wording of the rules later. If Hawkeye7 (or whomever - not singling you out, I just can't be bothered to scroll up and look for other names) consistently puts in three noms (one co-nom) without participating elsewhere then just stop letting people do that. Then again, we do love an RFC. Yomanganitalk 13:12, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
RfCs are frequently a pain in the neck, but they produce unexpected outcomes often enough that I think it's worth posting something here. Nothing will burn down while we wait a couple of weeks to see if anyone has a convincing reason why this would be a disaster. But if all the coords agree they want to try this and nobody objects here in a couple more days, I'd be OK with that as a shortcut. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:52, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
If we get to the point of launching an RFC, my preference is to see two choices.
  • Current text: An editor is allowed to be the sole nominator of only one article at a time, but two nominations may be allowed if the editor is a co-nominator on at least one of them.
  • Proposed text: An editor is allowed to be the sole nominator of only two articles at a time, but three nominations are allowed if the editor is a co-nominator on at least one of them.
  • Proposed addition: At their discretion, the Featured article review coordinators may grant a fourth nomination to editors who actively engage in improving Featured articles in that process.
My reasoning for this extra encouragement is that the relaxing of FAR rules we adopted on 23 January may (too early to tell) be helping deal with the backlog in FAR nominations, but there is not enough participation at FAR to close any of the nominations there one way or the other, so we still haven't found an effective way to deal with the backlog of out-of-compliance articles. Any editor can only nominate one FAR every two weeks, but even at that pace, if there are no reviewers, FARs can't be closed. And the uptick in nominations at FAR since we relaxed the rules is only slight.
Nor do any of the TFA proposals (intended partly to provide broader exposure to all FAs on the mainpage) appear to be gaining traction, so we still have no significant resolution to the hundreds of out-of-compliance older and unwatched FAs.
I continue to believe that the quality of the bronze star is deteriorated if the processes don't work together and don't do the necessary housekeeping, and I am unlikely to support an option to increase FAC throughput if we don't do something at the same time to address the bigger picture and maintain the quality of what FAC produces.
"Once an FA, always an FA is becoming permanently enshrined", and in fact, maybe even becoming worse with declining review at FAC. I was recently accused of making "major" changes in an upcoming TFA for simply offering a proposal while making minor MOS changes to issues that weren't reviewed at FAC; the big picture in the overall process is off. Continuing to make small tweaks, without addressing the overall picture, has not proven effective so far. There is no frequent FAC nominator who doesn't have the skills to either nominate something from the FAR notifications template, give a notification and add something to the template, or go over there and weigh in one way or another on a few of the reviews.
Summary, to Mike C's points, yes I object to putting this in place without clear consensus, and I hope the process can move back towards a culture that appreciates the quality of all FAs, including the older and unwatched ones. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:46, 14 February 2020 (UTC)
I think the proposed text is fine (Thanks Gog, Sandy and others) and I support us running an RfC with that proposed wording to establish a clear consensus for the change. I think Sandy's addition regarding FARs is useful and might encourage more work at FAR by prolific FAC nominators, but I add a note of caution regarding expectations. In my view, one of the biggest issues with helping out at FAR is that often specialist knowledge of the content and access to specialist sources are needed to bring the article back up to FA standard, and fixing MOS stuff, image licensing etc that anyone can do is pointless to the FAR process if the content isn't fixed, as it will be delisted regardless. Even though we have a number of prolific FAC nominators in Milhist, we are all generally specialists and may not have the knowledge or sources to contribute to the content aspects of FARs outside of our area of specialisation. Wikipedia:Featured article review/George B. McClellan/archive1 is an example of where we need American Civil War specialists to fix the content and POV stuff. Once that is done, I'm happy to fix the MOS, citation formatting and image licensing stuff. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 04:38, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

How to weight opposes

Thinking again about individual opposes tanking an FAC in the face of otherwise overwhelming support...We have 10 criteria (5+3+1+1), but some are more equal than others; an I'm thinking of stylistic or MOS preferences here. How about opposes on some criteria can be left standing if in the judgement of delegates, there is otherwise support on this point. Obv the same wouldn't go for comprehensiveness or either breath/quality of sources. I realise that the delegates are smart enough to have realised this already and it is factored in practice, but how about if an FAC gets bogged down on a single issue, a delegate reminds the opposer that they are outside of the wider consensus, and their continued engagement will not impact outcome. I think to be fair, that uncertainty drove SchroCat up the wall, to take the most recent, but by far, far, far, not the only example. Also, such a rule would allow delegates to do their work without out risk of leaning towards one personality or view versus the other. Ceoil (talk) 21:02, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

I don't think we need to burden the Coords with this (they already know how to "weight" opposes, and know what importance to give to MOS concerns in the big picture). And I see a number of problems with "unweighting" MOS. First is that I've recently witnessed multiple instances of FA writers somewhat stretching WP:OWN#Featured articles into an interpretation that FAs are set in stone, and that everything in the FA was approved at FAC (which is almost never true), and using OWN:FA as a justification to oppose even minor MOS corrections. I don't think we should encourage that, as even if we let MOS stuff through, we should let others fix them. Second, what stands in an FA is invariably used in WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS arguments, so we should not set priorities that might affect that problem.
I feel it far more important to remind nominators not to get into personal conflicts on FACs, and trust the Coords to sort it out. If we are NOT trusting the Coords, then we have a whole 'nother level of problem. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:20, 15 February 2020 (UTC)
My aim here is to give more transparency as to how coords think, thus avoiding the uncertainty that leads to the win or die arguments we have seen recently. Should have been cleared though - I dont want to undermine basic MOS, which are never at odds in these instances, more gamesmanship wrt higher level stylistic preferences. Obv MOS will have been met if a majority of reviews are passing on prose. Ceoil (talk) 21:41, 15 February 2020 (UTC)
Opposes are few and far between and anyone making the mistake of opposing quickly learns the error of their ways. And will be continually reminded over the course of years. For anyone with the guts to oppose a good practice is stick to the criteria, i.,e "opposing per ....". Back in the day when I was still reviewing I'd mentally do something like that anyway, take the totality into consideration. But I also used to grade hundreds of student essays in short periods of time, always against a rubric, so assessing a piece of writing in its totality was second nature. Still is, the difference, obviously is that this isn't a job. I've never opposed, as far as I know, on a single criterium. Sorry to be so dour. Just to add: mutual respect between FAC nominee & FAC reviewer is paramount. It's a collaborative exercise and has to be treated as such. All of the articles I've submitted for review have benefited greatly from the process, fwiw. Victoria (tk) 22:46, 15 February 2020 (UTC)
You, Victoria, have never opposed on frivolous grounds. Maybe we can build commonly understood gradations for weighing opposes, whether they are scene stealing or not; dunno, kicking around. Ceoil (talk) 23:04, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

I'm a little dubious about commenting on this because it's not an exact science and, like minimum-three-supports "rule", is perhaps best not spelt out. OTOH I don't think there should be any surprises -- everything I have to say on the following aspects of the FAC criteria is based on WP policy and guidelines, to whit:

  • Appropriate image licensing is not simply part of policy, it has legal implications owing to copyright, so it's right at the top. I can't recall the last time I had to archive a FAC over images though -- nominators generally simply remove or replace problem files.
  • Likewise, reliable sourcing is part of policy and plagiarism has legal implications, so it's up top as well, and that's not to mention the credibility issues of poorly sourced articles. A negative source review or spotcheck can kill a FAC, and so it should.
  • Neutral point of view is one of the Five Pillars, so it also has to ride high. Unresolved issues on grounds of NPOV can sink a FAC.
  • Poor-quality or even middling prose won't land us in court, but it certainly damages our credibility. It is subjective though, and I think you can only determine on a case-by-case basis as to whether it should result in a FAC being archived. I've occasionally promoted an article and asked that minor prose points be dealt with afterwards.
  • MOS is a guideline, not policy, so while it's important, I don't see it carrying the same weight as the above. As above, I have promoted an article and asked that outstanding formatting issues be dealt with later.

That's just a snapshot. On the subject of transparency, I don't tend to explain why I'm promoting an article, because most of the time it should be pretty clear there's been comprehensive commentary and support, and the requisite source and image reviews have taken place. We almost always provide a rationale for archiving though -- nobody wants it, so I think the nominators deserve to know why we're doing it. Articles can be promoted with outstanding opposition if that opposition isn't grounded in the FAC criteria, if the points seem to have been reasonably dealt with by the nominator, or if it seems subjective. Likewise an unactioned, well-reasoned oppose based on the criteria can sink a FAC in the face of several supporting reviews. It's not a matter of numbers. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:55, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

I'll add that the second James Humphreys FAC provides an example of when commentary on promotion is called for, not simply to deal with the outstanding opposition but to address editor behavior, and I fully endorse Ealdgyth's words. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 01:25, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
There is still something that is not working that we havnt put our finger on yet, why both frequent nominators and sometimes reviewers feel equally disenchanted. I'll put it bluntly: the most able editor in the area I work most closely on has long viewed DKY as more worthwhile than FAC. That cant be right. I dunno exactly, but it would be a good thing if there was collective responsibility, and people said that works and doesn't work for them in this review process.
My opinion: For obv reasons wiki disregards and discourages experts at the day to day level, but we are crying out for them at FAC. This is a fundamental disjoint. Ceoil (talk) 01:31, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

Reviewing conventions

Mike Christie how do you deal with these issues in your monthly stats? Do you use a script, or do you have to go through manually?

It was once standard, assumed, and enforced that a) reviewers should declare any involvement or conflict of interest wrt their declarations, and b) there was only to be ONE bolded support or oppose. When going through archives to count those supports and opposes, it was possible to scan for only those bolded.

On recent FACs, I have encountered as many as three supports by the same reviewer, in addition to the Support in their section heading (which was once discouraged). And, quite often, reviewers are not declaring their involved support. What gives? How does your script work around multiple declarations from the same reviewer? Could we/should we be watching for this? I 'spose I used to do all of this cleanup myself, by going through and unbolding the multiple instances, to make it easier for Maralia or me to go through archives when we did stats. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:54, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

As someone who believes people who nominate at FAC should give back with reviews of their own, I don't like the idea that separate source/prose/image reviews for the same candidate should be treated any differently than if they were made across different candidates. In my admittedly sporadic visits to FAC I put a significant amount of time and effort into source reviews, and if I then spend more time completing a prose review on an article that I have also source reviewed, as I did in one case in January, then it seems only fair to see them as two reviews that go into the credit column for the nominations I then ask others to review for me. Factotem (talk) 18:49, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
I do it completely manually. I can't imagine a script that could do it accurately. I don't track conflicts of interest, and I count supports/opposes once only, but a reviewer can get credit for up to three reviews for a single FAC if they perform a content review, a source review, and an image review. I do keep track of editor name changes -- you wouldn't believe how many times the signature on an old FAC no longer points to the editor's current name.
A longer answer re the latter, for anyone who's interested: I count a review as an image or source review if it's obvious that's what it is, or if the reviewer says they've done one. E.g. "Support, couldn't find any problems; also checked images and sources and no issues there either" would usually count as three. That's rare -- more often it's evident someone's been checking sources because they list problems, and ditto for images. For supports and opposes, I try to follow what I think the intent was of the editor. If it's not bolded but it's clear they meant it to count then I'll include it; conversely if they forget to strike an oppose and later register a support I just call it support (this is rare). I record the data in an Excel spreadsheet and it will eventually get put in a database and perhaps made into a queryable tool. That means some kinds of errors are going to be easy to spot and fix -- I'll be able to search for all instances where I've recorded multiple supports from a single editor in a single review, and clean up those errors. Something similar happened when you asked the other day how often a FAC had been promoted without three supports; the query I ran to find examples revealed cases where I'd failed to enter one or more the supports in a FAC. And finally, I don't count "Support" against image and source reviews unless the editor in question explicitly says they're supporting on those criteria. There are a surprising number of edge cases, I've found, for this and other aspects of the data. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:41, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Is there really no minimum page size requirement in FAC submissions?

What if I were to whip up the articles: Possessive pronoun in English, Reflexive pronoun in English, Relative pronoun in English, Interrogative pronoun in English, Demonstrative pronoun in English, and Indefinite pronoun in English, cite them to the most up-to-date grammar books and fix them so that each is 300 words long and comprehensive? I might be being over-optimistic here as pages have been written on "who" and "whom" alone and I haven't even mentioned the personal pronouns; but, I could change "English" to "modern English" to "modern American English" ... and so forth until I have reduced comprehensiveness to 300 words. In other words, we don't have to be rocket scientists to know that if we choose our topic small enough, or obscure enough, we can write a comprehensive article of short length in short order. Very soon I would have a template for writing 300-word comprehensive articles on the irreducibles of grammar. Question: Can I nominate such hypothesized articles as FACs? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:01, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

I don't know if consensus on this changed in the years I was away from FAC, but in the years I was delegate, I had to promote both ultra-short and ultra-long articles (both of which I disagreed with) because consensus accepted both. In my not so humble personal opinion, we should set a lower limit on short articles, and if an article can't use summary style to get something under 10,000 words, it should. On the ultra-long, no one should be expected in an encyclopedia to sit down and read for half an hour; those who are interested in that kind of depth will read the sub-articles. And an ultra-short article cannot, by definition, IMO, be an example of Wikipedia's best work. How others define ultra-short and ultra-long varies, but the discussion is worthy. Consensus always seem to evade us, though.
Interesting aside: some of the ultra-short I had to promote have now been eliminated, as even the hurricane editors themselves acknowledge other material should be merged into them, and those have been/are being addressed at FAR. So, to use that as an example, why not merge all of your hypotheticals into one article on pronouns? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:19, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
I think consensus always eventually arrives at the answer "If they meet the criteria" and can survive the other processes. What would be the argument against merging them all to Pronouns in English?
(Also have a look back in the archives. This has been discussed [insert number] thousand times). Yomanganitalk 16:33, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
@SandyGeorgia: Well, in their defense, they might actually serve a useful purpose as ultra-short articles, as focused ready references for questions, issues, or disputes of grammar, for which longer articles could be confusing or overwhelming. I've always thought an FA Semi-colon in English could be very useful in FAC reviews. Punctuation in English would be too long. Without the FA imprimatur, a grammar article, short or not, would be useless. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:37, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
So, there is: Semicolon#English, but the FAC could be a little more comprehensive. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:40, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
In your argument (punctuation article is too long), I call victory on both ultra-short and ultra-long :) You write the overall article using WP:SS, and you also write the sub-articles. The sub-articles are not FAs; the summary overview is. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:41, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
PS, historical trivia factoid. We once had a featured article on a word, thou: Wikipedia:Featured article review/Thou/archive2. I bet you could bring that back to standard. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:43, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
Nominating a cookie-cutter article is one of the secondary options in Sandy's favourite guide, but as far as I know only one nominee has admitted to using it. Trying to combine it with short FAs is a daring approach though. Yomanganitalk 16:46, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: If the sub-articles could be ultra-short FAs, I see some value in a Featured List "Pronouns," with a lead in summary style. I think an FA "Pronouns in English" written in summary style, would not only take too long to write but would also be hard to comprehend in summary style. Plus, people could be forever changing the sub-articles as they wouldn't be FAs. All this assumes that the review process for the ultra-shorts might be speeded up. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:52, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

My fingers are tired. [1] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:55, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
Sorry. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:59, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
That's OK! Because of that, you have my permission to do your penance by editing my talk page to fix the excess of semi-colons. I have no delusions that my views on length will ever prevail :0 SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:02, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
:) It's funny too that because of your question, I'm having to defend what I had originally come here to run down (the ultra shorts). I'm seeing value. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:04, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
re Yomangani: The flip side of the daring approach is what Karanacs had called "nominator fatigue." Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:31, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
  • As a personal practice I do not send anything to GAN if it's below 1200 words or so, and not to FAC unless it's considerably longer. I disagree with the notion that every topic can have a GA or FA written about it; we're an encyclopedia with a very wide scope; very many things are going to remain stubs for the foreseeable future, and that's okay. I would prefer to think of a comprehensive article as one covering every reasonable aspect of the topic in detail, rather than one that just covers all available information. Vanamonde (Talk) 18:17, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
  • Yes, I think for a long time the record short FA was Ælle of Sussex, about whom almost nothing is known, in particular whether he even existed. Subjects like that - including for example most pre-Renaissance artists - are the best excuse for very short FAs, but I too am dubious. What we badly need is more FAs on BIG subjects, not microtopics. Johnbod (talk) 18:29, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
  • The ones that really stand out to me are things like How Brown Saw the Baseball Game, at 712 words; while I congratulate the nominator for doing their best with an obscure topic, this isn't "comprehensive" as the term is generally understood outside of Wikipedia; it just encompasses all that we know about the subject, which isn't much. And that's true for a very large number of topics. For instance, I wrote Fulvous owl some time ago; and I incorporated essentially all the sourceable information that existed at the time. If I were to subscribe to FAC's historical definition of "comprehensive", I could nominate it now. I don't think I should though, because that would be silly; it's a poorly known topic, not a best-of-the-best article. Vanamonde (Talk) 19:01, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
Glancing at the taxonomy section of that owl, I think it could be expanded a bit. Who made the various taxonomic revisions and why? Does the specific name simply mean fulvous? Any genetic work? Etc. That's at least what I'd ask about during a GAN or FAC review. There's also a nice painting on Commons that shows it in more detail which is not used. FunkMonk (talk) 23:22, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
  • I think it's often the case that, early in their tenure, nominators view FAC as the end-goal of every article's evolution. Once the novelty of the star wears off, and the skills necessary to navigate FAC have been honed, people usually focus their efforts on promoting fewer but more substantial articles. Frankly, I'd almost consider it a rite of passage. – Juliancolton | Talk 19:20, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

What we said before. Yomanganitalk 18:47, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

To me the ultimate question is not how short something is, but whether it places the subject in appropriate context. If you can't get 800 words out of a subject and you've exhausted your resources, then that might be better off included in a larger topic. Likewise, especially with stuff like FLCs, I see content that is better off just being absorbed into what it was spun off from in the first place. Like Julian, I think my arc has shifted somewhat, in that I'd much rather have fewer, better articles than more fragmented ones. It's ultimately up to the reviewers to decide case-by-case. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 19:35, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
In going back through old FACs I recently reread the FAC for Tropical Storm Erick (2007), which was for a while the shortest FA. It's now been merged into the relevant hurricane season article. At the time several editors (I was one) said they would have opposed if "should be merged into a parent article" had been a valid oppose reason. If David and Julian are representative of FAC regulars, perhaps we could add something to that effect to the FA criteria. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:49, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
Placing a topic in the appropriate context is certainly important, but I don't know if adding that entirely addresses my concern. Many of the topics I have written about simply do not have the coverage in reliable sources to advance far beyond a stub, but are nonetheless well-defined, coherent topics (again, see Fulvous owl for an example of what I mean). I don't think such things ought to be brought to FAC at all (or GAN, though the threshold is somewhat different there), because the comprehensiveness criterion, as currently written, does not permit it. It's just that this criterion has been understood and enforced differently in the past, it would seem. Vanamonde (Talk) 21:07, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
I certainly have a clutch of articles that I think of as "never FAs" that I get to GA and figure that's the ultimate endpoint for that article. Bronze stars I don't think should be considered the ultimate end for every single piece of content we have. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 21:35, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
sample (typing on iphone): klazomania. At the time I wrote it, that was all the text I could scrounge from every source. 1700 words. It is complete (or was when I wrote it, have not checked today). I would not FAC it. But neither do I think the text should be merged to a new article covering all of these various complex tics (echolalia, echopraxia, coprolalia, et al) ... or maybe it should. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:59, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
I have a that problem with NASA Astronaut Group 2, which clocks in at just 2,300 words (NASA Astronaut Group 3 is even worse at 2,099; the small NASA Astronaut Group 4 has just 1,669, and NASA Astronaut Group 5 has 2,452. Intended as lists, the articles were rejected by FLC, so I don't really know what can be done with them. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:44, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
NASA astronaut groups 1962–1972? Gog the Mild (talk) 23:13, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:Hijackers in the September 11 attacks#Merge discussion

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Hijackers in the September 11 attacks#Merge discussion. (Featured material is under discussion) ——SN54129 14:55, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Request for guidance

Hello! I have a FAC going currently, and I'm still pretty new to this process, so I just thought I'd make sure I'm not missing something. All of the editors who've posted have voted their support for the article's promotion (with the exception of a drive-by poster who commented and then never returned; I've addressed that person's suggestion, anyway) after substantial discussion and feedback, and the three substantive supporting reviewers are all coordinators of the relevant WikiProject. There hasn't been a comment on the FAC in over a month now, yet it hasn't been promoted. Is there something else that I'm supposed to do? I'm very willing to take feedback and make improvements, but this month+ of silence is leaving me somewhat at a loss. Any guidance as to how to make this process work would be greatly appreciated! -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 22:30, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

Hi Bryan, tks for your query, left a note on the page. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:56, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

FAC reviewing statistics for February 2020

Here are the FAC reviewing statistics for February 2020. The tables below include all reviews for FACS that were either archived or promoted last month, so the reviews included are spread over the last two or three months. A review posted last month is not included if the FAC was still open at the end of the month. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:26, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Reviewers for February 2020
# reviews Type of review
Reviewer Image Source Content Total
Nikkimaria 8 3 1 12
Gog the Mild 4 1 2 7
Sarastro1 3 4 7
Buidhe 1 4 1 6
SchroCat 1 5 6
Fowler&fowler 1 5 6
Graham Beards 5 5
Tim riley 5 5
Usernameunique 1 3 4
FunkMonk 4 4
Cassianto 4 4
CPA-5 3 3
SandyGeorgia 3 3
Jimfbleak 3 3
Dunkleosteus77 2 2
J Milburn 1 1 2
Outriggr 1 1 2
Wehwalt 2 2
KJP1 1 1 2
Casliber 2 2
The Rambling Man 2 2
Coffeeandcrumbs 1 1 2
L293D 2 2
Johnbod 2 2
Ealdgyth 2 2
Harrias 2 2
Dudley Miles 1 1
Hurricane Noah 1 1
Slate Weasel 1 1
Jens Lallensack 1 1
7&6=thirteen 1 1
Giants2008 1 1
Theramin 1 1
Moisejp 1 1
Display name 99 1 1
Ceoil 1 1
Brigade Piron 1 1
Llammakey 1 1
Jo-Jo Eumerus 1 1
IJReid 1 1
Maury Markowitz 1 1
Peacemaker67 1 1
Yomangani 1 1
AustralianRupert 1 1
Cplakidas 1 1
SusunW 1 1
T8612 1 1
Epicgenius 1 1
Regice2020 1 1
Gleeanon409 1 1
Serial Number 54129 1 1
Gerda Arendt 1 1
JennyOz 1 1
Grand Total 14 20 92 126
Supports and opposes for February 2020
# declarations Declaration
Editor Oppose Support None Grand Total
Nikkimaria 12 12
Gog the Mild 1 6 7
Sarastro1 1 2 4 7
Buidhe 6 6
SchroCat 4 2 6
Fowler&fowler 3 3 6
Graham Beards 3 2 5
Tim riley 5 5
Usernameunique 3 1 4
FunkMonk 4 4
Cassianto 3 1 4
CPA-5 2 1 3
SandyGeorgia 3 3
Jimfbleak 3 3
Dunkleosteus77 1 1 2
J Milburn 1 1 2
Outriggr 2 2
Wehwalt 2 2
KJP1 1 1 2
Casliber 2 2
The Rambling Man 2 2
Coffeeandcrumbs 1 1 2
L293D 2 2
Johnbod 2 2
Ealdgyth 2 2
Harrias 2 2
Dudley Miles 1 1
Hurricane Noah 1 1
Slate Weasel 1 1
Jens Lallensack 1 1
7&6=thirteen 1 1
Giants2008 1 1
Theramin 1 1
Moisejp 1 1
Display name 99 1 1
Ceoil 1 1
Brigade Piron 1 1
Llammakey 1 1
Jo-Jo Eumerus 1 1
IJReid 1 1
Maury Markowitz 1 1
Peacemaker67 1 1
Yomangani 1 1
AustralianRupert 1 1
Cplakidas 1 1
SusunW 1 1
T8612 1 1
Epicgenius 1 1
Regice2020 1 1
Gleeanon409 1 1
Serial Number 54129 1 1
Gerda Arendt 1 1
JennyOz 1 1
Grand Total 5 59 62 126

Script to detect unreliable sources

Main page: User:Headbomb/unreliable

I have (with the help of others) made a small user script to detect and highlight various links to unreliable sources and predatory journals. The idea is that it takes something like

  • John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14. (John Smith "[https://www.deprecated.com/article Article of things]" ''Deprecated.com''. Accessed 2020-02-14.)

and turns it into something like

It will work on a variety of links, including those from {{cite web}}, {{cite journal}} and {{doi}}.

I'm still expanding coverage and tweaking logic, but what's there already works very well. Details and instructions are available at User:Headbomb/unreliable. Questions, comments and requests can be made at User talk:Headbomb/unreliable. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 13:02, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Hey that's brilliant. Nicely pinked IMBD on a new article I just looked at, many thanks Jimfbleak - talk to me? 14:18, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
Love it. This should help with regular editing, AFD, etc., in addition to FAC. --RL0919 (talk) 15:35, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
@RL0919: you're right that this could be useful at AFD. I'll mention it there too! Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:23, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
Nice. Can I suggest more differentiated colours for the "Deprecated/predatory" and "Generally unreliable" levels? I find it difficult to tell between the shades of pink when only one is flagged up. Factotem (talk) 17:35, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
Right now it's based on the color scheme from WP:RSPSOURCES. I've considered making them look more different, but while there's a 'conceptual' difference between 'deprecated' and 'generally unreliable', in practice, they're both in the "are you really sure you want to cite this?" category, so there's not a whole lot of difference between the two categories as far as human review is concerned. The main one mostly being that the 'generally unreliable' can be OK for announcements/press releases sort of statements.
Still, if you've got a colour scheme that's not too aggravating on the eyes, let me know. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:01, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
@Factotem: Came up with a solution. Let me know if that's better. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:09, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
Perfect. Thanks. Factotem (talk) 18:11, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
@Factotem: actually I just made it a bit less annoying with wavy underlines, rather than in-your-face red borders. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:33, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
That's fine by me. I have no opinion on how it's differentiated, just that it should be in some way more obvious than the original shift in shade was. Nice job. Factotem (talk) 18:42, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
I presume it is made clear that a) this script does not recognize all unreliable sources (and that people thus shouldn't go "the script doesn't flag this, so it must be OK") and b) that sometimes even the most unreliable of all sources has its correct use even with a FA? I am a little concerned about unintended consequences of this trend to formally deprecate sources. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 18:49, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
@Jo-Jo Eumerus: see the summary box at the top of the script infopage. I just added the line about not covering all sources out there. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 18:56, 19 February 2020 (UTC)
Whilst I really like this script, it is a little small in scope (potential for improvement, perhaps?) It took me quite a lot of articles (maybe a good thing?) before I saw this actually do anything. Could we expand at least the blacklisted links to the global blacklist (I know it gives an error anyway, for instance cuetracker at 1975 Pot Black.) Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 16:51, 20 February 2020 (UTC)
@Lee Vilenski: well it's 'small' in scope mostly because most sources used end up actually being fairly decent. Expanding to the blacklist would be a lot of effort for very little payoff, give those have been blocked from Wikipedia for a while now. If you're looking to do specific crap-sourcing related cleanup, your best bet is to combine it with things like the WP:CITEWATCH, or searching for known-bad/probably shouldn't be used sources, like Special:Search/insource:/imbd\.com/ or Special:Search/insource:/twitter\.com/ or Special:Search/insource:/10\.4172\/ */ or whatever. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 00:05, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Just wanted to say that this script is an awesome/very useful tool. Thanks Headbomb. Shearonink (talk) 16:51, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

RfC on increasing the number of simultaneous FAC nominations allowed

FAC instructions currently include these sentences, numbered below for reference:

  1. An editor is allowed to be the sole nominator of only one article at a time, but two nominations may be allowed if the editor is a co-nominator on at least one of them.
  2. If a nomination is archived, the nominator(s) should take adequate time to work on resolving issues before re-nominating.
  3. None of the nominators may nominate or co-nominate any article for two weeks unless given leave to do so by a coordinator; if such an article is nominated without asking for leave, a coordinator will decide whether to remove it.
  4. A coordinator may exempt from this restriction an archived nomination that attracted no (or minimal) feedback.

This RfC proposes three things:

  • A: Change sentence 1 to "An editor is allowed to be the sole nominator of only two articles at a time, but three nominations are allowed if the editor is a co-nominator on at least one of them".
  • B: Add the following after sentence 1: "At their discretion, the Featured article review coordinators may grant a fourth nomination or co-nomination to editors who actively engage in improving Featured articles in that process".
  • C: Modify sentences 3 & 4. (Note that sentence 3 refers to the nominator(s) of an archived article, per sentence 2.) How to modify them is open for discussion: suggested options are to leave them unchanged; to remove the restriction; or to suggest a different restriction or different wording.

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:43, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

RfC questions

Please comment under each subheading.

A. Change sentence 1 to allow three nominations

  • should we ever be promoting three nominations at a time? I would suggest that if we simply expanded the wording to allow all users to have two FACs open regardless if they are a co-nominator, or a sole nominator. How does this suggest a nominator would also make comments on additional FACs by others? Would someone with three nominations open have enough time to review three other noms? Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 20:10, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Support, but' leave an element of coords' discretion. An experienced nominator should be able to juggle a maturing FAC, a new FAC, and part of a third with someone else picking up the slack. I'd be happy to see it formalised that a nominator can add another nomination once the first is looking close to promotion, but having three separate FACs open should be the exception rather than the rule. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:11, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose This idea is loony-bin (meant elliptically) for the following reasons:
  • There is already a disastrous shortage of reviewers. Relatively good articles languish for weeks and sometimes months. Many good ones are archived because the critical mass of reviewers has failed to materialize.
  • There is also a disastrous surfeit of nominators who never review, including those for whom—pursuant to systematically boning up on FAC rules—the word "actionable" has come to mean, "that and only that which can be spoonfed."
  • There are to be sure some extremely good reviewers; but their mental effort cannot be expended without grievous suffering when the reviewer ponders an article written according to a template, like a dressmaker's, whose writing has involved changing only the buttons. By its ideally reduced scope, moreover, this template is designed to meet every requirement of "comprehensiveness." Naturally, the word count is less than 1,000, but with ample generic prologue and ampler generic epilogue, it can be fattened to 2,000. No market is awaiting such an FAs arrival for slaughter, at least not for a good ten years.
  • The counterpoint is the community of reviewers who write, "Please add a period here. Please take out a comma there. Should "pine" be "fir?" Should "acorn" be "cone?" Should "squirrels" be "chipmunks?" (picked from the scene outside my window), Cheers, Support," and with two or more blithely delivered "Cheers and Supports" rack up an impressive number of reviews.
  • So, when three or more nominations are allowed, what is certain is that there will not be three submissions on the Theory of Relativity and related topics. Rather, a surfeit of the button-changed, fattened, articles will appear, causing an exodus of the conscientious reviewers, whose capacity for grievous suffering has limits.
  • At this point, the community of three-at-one-time nominators will become identical to the community of three-at-one-time reviewers, indistinguishable now from Officer Muldoon and Gunther Toody, respectively, in the old standard. How will this solve any problems, except the narcissistic ones that consider the cost-benefit only to such nominators? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:09, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose, we're still see plenty of nominations struggling for reviews. Adding more nominations to the mix isn't going to help the matter. Harrias talk 17:40, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Fowler. This is a ridiculous and inherently disruptive idea. We struggle getting people to review the existing backlog; allowing people to shovel an increased flow of cookie-cutter articles into the mix isn't just going to stretch the dwindling pool of reviewers any further, but will likely discourage existing reviewers from participating and potential new reviewers from joining. ‑ Iridescent 17:50, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Fowler and Iri. Johnbod (talk) 19:09, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Support with the proviso mentioned by Harry Mitchell above. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 01:02, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Support with restriction per Harry Mitchell. I totally agree that only experienced nominators (let's say 4 or more successful noms) could have that option, in order to make sure they have enough experience. epicgenius (talk) 16:31, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Support we should not be afraid to try new things; if it is a disaster we can reverse course. Kees08 (Talk) 16:43, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose: I would be concerned that a large increase in nominations may discourage the already small (and likely decreasing) pool of reviewers from doing further reviews. I agree with Iridescent, and there are still nominations that struggle to get commentary so I think they would only get buried further and have a more difficult time getting attention from reviewers. Aoba47 (talk) 20:01, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Suggestion - Given that a lot of the opposers above have raised concerns about increasing reviewer burden, what about amending this to be similar to option B but for FAC reviewing? Nikkimaria (talk) 01:52, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose - it should be allowed only if the nominators are compensating with extra reviews. So a combination of A and B. FunkMonk (talk) 00:51, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

B. Allow a fourth nomination at coordinator discretion

C. Modifications to two-week ban on nominations for archived FACs

  • Comment: Whether or not a change is made to the substance of the rules, this rule certainly needs an update to its phrasing. As a newcomer, I had no idea this rule referred to a two-week delay after a failed nomination; I struggled to parse it but ultimately concluded that it probably signified a ban on nominations for two weeks after making another nomination. Whatever this rule means, it needs a phrase added so that it reads "...any article for two weeks after *insert condition here* unless given leave...". -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 15:00, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment recommend changing the rule to only apply to the same article which was rejected. I can envision cases where objections to one article do not apply to another one that the nominator has improved to FAC quality. buidhe 15:03, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
Seconded. -Bryan Rutherford (talk) 15:11, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
No, the reason the two-week wait is there is to deal with serial nominators of unprepared articles. One ill-prepared nom would go up, consume boatloads of reviewer time, be archived, another (different) ill-prepared nom would go up immediately. Lather, rinse and repeat. The idea is, if your nom is ill-prepared, most of your noms are ill-prepared. If the wording is not clear to newcomers, it could be fixed, but the point of the restriction is still valid-- those who don't present a nomination that is close to meeting the standards should not use FAC for serial peer review. (I also believe this part of the instructions should be subjected to Coord discretion, as Coords know when an exception could be granted.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:41, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
I would suggest some sort of modification though, though in general I agree with Sandy. I'm concerned about the recent conflicts involving nominators and reviewers. It might restore a bit of balance to the situation if you got, say, one exception per year automatically. Or some such.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:30, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
Is there a problem with serial nominators and wasting reviewer time? They seemed to be archived very quickly in my experience. FAC coordinators may be able to shed more light. I agree that it shouldn't affect other nominations, unless there is a problem I am unaware of. Kees08 (Talk) 19:33, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose Most loony-bin. No archived article should be renominated in less than a month. Nominating it sooner, especially when little has been done to refurbish it, flies in the face of the review process. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:28, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
I don't particularly argue with that, but the debate is as to whether the nominator of an archived article may nominate any article within two weeks, not renominate the one archived. Gog the Mild (talk) 23:41, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
It is true, I did not read the rules up above, but, equally, the title of this section, should be changed to: Modifications to two-week ban on nominations for after archived FACs. Regardless, I am entirely perplexed. A nomination has been archived. If it is to have any heft, at least a month's work is needed on it. Should the nominator not work on that article which is still fresh in their minds? Where in the world are they getting the notion, not mention the gumption, to nominate entirely another article, very likely in a similar state of disrepair, in two weeks time and park it at the reviewers' doorsteps? It lends more credence my developing feeling that FAC is becoming an out-of-touch solipsistic world. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:45, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose I think that Sandy's concern that one bad nom may be indicative of a general problem is valid. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:46, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment I agree with Kees that serial nominators of poorly perpared articles tend to have their nominations archived quickly. Anyone who has a pattern of poorly prepared nominations can be banned from submitting an article without the permission of coords. And I've also seen cases (not all that common, and won't link for obvious reasons) where one or two editors tank a nom for IDONTLIKEIT or POVPUSH reasons and the nominator is penalized by having an extra wait before they can nominate another. buidhe 17:08, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
    Furthermore, all of the cases where I can recall this happening are on articles on more substantive and controversial topics, which are precisely those which are most difficult to write to FAC standard. I worry that this restriction further discourages writing about such topics, which are already underrepresented at FAC. Maybe the restriction should only apply to editors who don't have a FAC under their belt already. buidhe 17:23, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
    Are archived articles such as Mandate for Palestine, St Scholastica Day riot or Bengal famine of 1943 (all archived in the last six months) really indicative of their nominators' serial failure to adequately prepare? I opposed one of them, but in all three cases I would argue no. Truly unprepared articles are actually uncommon at FAC. buidhe 05:06, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose except perhaps in the specific circumstance of allowing an editor whose article has been archived from lack of interest (that is, archived with zero legitimate opposes) to nominate a different article. That two-week limit exists for good reason; I assume anyone even thinking of removing it doesn't remember the crapflood at FAC when we allowed people to take the "throw everything at the wall and see if any of it sticks" approach to speculative nominations. ‑ Iridescent 17:55, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Part of the FAC instructions is A coordinator may exempt from this restriction an archived nomination that attracted no (or minimal) feedback -- I make use of this occasionally to waive the two-week rule, say if a nom has attracted just a handful of easily resolved comments from one reviewer, or an image review only. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 21:21, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
  • comment: As playing slightly Devil's Advocate here, I have had an FA fail due to a specific MOS issue, and talked to the co-coordinators regarding forgoing the regular two-week wait, due to the MOS issue being discussed during the review, and fixed during the original review. I don't think we should be making this adjustment for all users, but we should stress that some nominations (specifically those mentioned by Iridescent above regarding lack of interest) shouldn't wait two weeks. I should imagine any nominator that had to wait two weeks - after waiting a long time to get few responses - might be legitimately frustrated. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 19:10, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment 3. just needs to be modified to read "If a nomination has been archived, none of the nominators may nominate or co-nominate any article for a two week period after archiving unless given leave to do so by a coordinator; if such an article is nominated without asking for leave, a coordinator may remove it at their discretion." This will maintain the current deterrence of over-enthusiastic nominators while leaving discretion to the coords if a case arises such as the one Lee mentions above. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 01:20, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Oppose completely changing this rule. I do agree this should just be clarified to ensure that it's 2 weeks after a failed nomination has been archived. epicgenius (talk) 16:31, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

  • I'm not sure I automatically support adding a nomination without reviewing requirements. It might lead to FAC getting even more crowded. Instead, propose allowing another nomination only for editors who have contributed at least four substantial reviews since their last nomination. "Substantial review" includes image and source reviews with comments like, "All images are relevant, available under a free license, and correctly tagged; pass". (At least if there's more than one or two images in the article). One does not have to seek coord permission but must list the reviews; coords may remove the nomination at their discretion if they judge the process is being gamed. Hopefully, this would incentivize more reviewing. buidhe 15:01, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
    I favour this idea in principle: if a nominator could show that they have completed a number of current reviews to offset any additional nomination, then it might be workable. Harrias talk 17:41, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Is this RfC just to discuss wording of the RfC or is it meant to be voted on? Kees08 (Talk) 19:34, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
    For A and B I intended it to be voted on. We hadn't previously discussed C, but it's likely to need to change in some way depending on the outcome of the others, so rather than delay I thought it would be OK to make that an open question, hoping that the closer would be able to pick out a consensus. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:38, 3 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia has traditionally allotted a privileged place on its main page to Today's Featured Article. In the statistics that I have gathered elsewhere on this talk page, of every 1,000 views of the main page, there are only three of the Featured Article whose blurb is displayed on the page. Even if one assumes that the 1,000 page views belong to 200 distinct viewers, this means that no more than 1.5% of main page viewers feel a desire to click on the FA itself. Most viewers, apparently, are content to read the blurb, if that. Will a change in the number of FACs being submitted at one time, and perhaps being promoted, make a difference in the main-page-viewer behavior, which should surely matter to Wikipedia's allocation of prime viewer space?
  • At the very least, then, should an RfC such as this, with wider Wikipedia-ramifications, be the concern alone of a small group of people, and not be advertised more widely in other WikiProjects, and at the Village Pump, placing the issue in context, and writing it in language that is accessible to a wider community. As yet I have heard no rationale(s) for these changes, other than narcissistic ones that consider the cost-benefit only to the nominator. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:21, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
    PS Many apologies "narcissism" was not meant in the sense of selfishness, egocentricity, much less egomania applied to a person. It was a lazy expression, which I have now clarified. Updated. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:48, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
  • PS What nominators champing at the bit to nominate probably do not understand clearly is that reviewers cannot all be comprised composed of nominators unless the group of reviewers is very large. This independence is needed for the neutrality of the review process—for avoiding conflicts of interest, for example. The average reviewer who is not also a frequent contributor is not only volunteering his or her time with no tangible reward (other than one of helping improve an article) but is also risking being opposed by people who by virtue of submitting many previous successful nominations have come to think of themselves are arbiters not just of style, usage, and prose, but also of the FAC criteria Besides, such a volunteer-reviewer, if they are a cross-section of an average Wikipedian, will have nowhere near as much free time on their hands for reviewing an article as a nominator will have for writing it. The page statistics show that. The nominators, therefore, cannot importune the reviewers for the time the reviewers do not have or for the effort they cannot reliably summon. These proposals do nothing but that. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:19, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
  • no rationale(s) for these changes, other than narcissistic ones I suggest striking this, as it borders on a personal attack on Mike Christie. Please comment on the proposal, not alleged motives. buidhe 17:12, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
    True. Please accept my apologies. I was not remotely thinking of Mike Christie, whom I greatly respect, nor, for that matter, any editor who had commented before me pro or con. I wrote "narcissistic," then paused, thinking, "This is lazy language. I need to change it," but then forgot. I have now clarified. Again, no disrespect was meant to any editor. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:48, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
    No problem; I wasn't offended. Perhaps I also should have made it clear when I launched the RfC that I didn't necessarily support any of the options myself -- I was launching it because there were enough apparent supporters in the discussion further up the page that it seemed worthwhile. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:12, 4 March 2020 (UTC)
  • Comment Mike might not be offended, but I am. I resent the implications above that productive editors who have nominated a significant number of FAs are "narcissists", produce "cookie-cutter articles" and/or don't contribute to reviewing. They are massive generalisations and involve unnecessarily pejorative language. How about you stick to substantive reasons for opposing rather than thinly veiled personal attacks on productive editors? Thanks, Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 01:31, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
  • I have to agree. I don't have a dog in this race at all but when I saw the proposal to allow more nominations per person, my mind immediately jumped to a handful of editors who often seem to have several thorough and comprehensive articles on the backburner--projects like military history and numismatics have a tremendous turnover for high quality articles and it's the editors responsible who would largely be impacted here. Gʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ˣ 16:08, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
The art of memory as someone once said is no less the art of forgetting than that of remembering. In real life or Wikipedia, I don't remember the names, only instances of work. Here is the argument. There is
  • group (1): reviewers who are likely to be multiple nominators, and
  • group (2): reviewers who are not likely to be multiple nominators.
  • If more multiple nominations are allowed, then the burden of reviewing will increase. Therefore, either
  • (case a): the reviewers' community ((1) + (2)) will lift the extra burden, while still continuing to fully review their former share of articles, or,
  • (case b): or they will not.
  • In the instance of (case b), we will have a failed experiment.
  • In the instance of (case a), either
  • (case a1): group (2) will lift their share of the extra burden fully, or
  • (case a2): they will not
  • It is my contention that (case a1) will not occur; this means
  • In the instance of (case a2) either
  • (case a21): group (2) will selectively ignore (i.e. not review) the nominations of group (1), or
  • (case a22): group (2) will not
  • It is my contention that (case a22) will not occur
  • In the instance of (case a21), group (1) will be reviewing a good share of their own nominations. FAC will then begin to contain within it an autonomous circle held together by a presumed identity of interests and standards, akin to a blog site run by a few people who are following the rules of Wikipedia but restricting the content (to their multiple nominations). Why should Wikipedia be privileging such distortion of its principles? QED As far as I will go. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:53, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
  • I don’t think there should be any aspect of penalty or punishment about this. We are all engaged in a common exploit and want to get on with it. What about something like “During the two weeks following an archived nomination, its nominators may have further nominations removed by a coordinator if the article is deemed unprepared. The nomination statement shall have a link to the archived nomination and reviewers may draw coordinators’ attention to articles they deem unprepared.”—Wehwalt (talk) 08:24, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
    Coordinators already quickly archive unprepared nominations. I personally do not think the additional rules are needed. If there are serial drive-by nominators (already disallowed I believe) of underprepared articles, instead of dealing with them every two weeks, try to assign them to a mentor to help prepare the article for FAC. I haven't seen any evidence of serial nominators nominating unprepared FACs every two weeks, but maybe I am not paying close enough attention. Kees08 (Talk) 00:35, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

I would too, I thought that was what the previous discussions had concluded already. FunkMonk (talk) 00:51, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
  • One aspect of FAC that bugs me is that the current process seems to incentivize writing articles on smaller and more formulaic topics. There's nothing wrong with such articles of course, but it just seems wrong that a nominator who goes for a more substantial topic—harder to write, harder to review, more likely to garner opposes on matters that weren't necessarily under the nom's control—is likely to have their article linger at FAC for months and maybe even archived, while someone who writes a very high-quality article on a less substantial topic can quickly accumulate supports and nominate another article. Any FAC reform should help make our process friendlier to articles on more important subjects. buidhe 04:59, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
I think this is a workload problem rather than a process one. Reviewing a broader topic - which often implies a larger article - takes more effort. I also think there may be lots of room for disagreement on what "more important " is. JoJo Eumerus mobile (main talk) 13:50, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
No, there really isn't - Tropical Storm Ileana (2018) is a small and less important topic, Wolf is a bigger and more important one. Views per day are actually a fairly good guide most of the time; outside FAC times the former gets about 2 per day, the latter 4,000 (flukily good choices on my part- I wasn't expecting that big a disparity). I'm not sure that "reviewing a broader topic ... takes more effort", other than it being longer, if the common approach of pretty much ignoring the content and concentrating on style/MOS/tidiness is adopted. User:Buidhe is exactly right - it's a point I've now been making for a decade, in the course of which it's got worse. Johnbod (talk) 15:52, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
And Tarrare averages roughly twice as many views as Visual arts, Architecture or indeed History of the world, while Jennifer Aniston consistently gets twice times as many pageviews as all of those, and Wolf, combined. The whole "vital articles" thing is something of a fallacy; the most important articles to readers aren't "big topics", they're topics which they can't easily find information about elsewhere. I know the WP:VITAL people don't like to hear it, but have a look at the most-read articles list and take note of just how few of them are the kind of "Very Important Core Topic" which a print encyclopedia would cover. It's not our job to focus on non-niche topics, it's our job to make niche topics interesting enough that people who haven't heard of them will want to read them. ‑ Iridescent 17:45, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
I'm not sure there are actually any "WP:VITAL people" left, though they are a useful set of paper tigers, and of course pop-topics get colossal views, which I have no problem with. Generally people have to have heard of a topic before they get to read the article; I believe in giving our readership what they want, and search for. And actually, on that graph, Tarrare is only double the Visual arts average. Most days History of the world gets more views than Tarrare, often more than twice as many. But Tarrare has regular colossal spikes, for reasons you may have some insight into. The most-read articles list covers one week's views, and only about one in ten of the top 100 will still be there in a years time (assuming we are over COVID by then, and The Crown hasn't just released another series). I'm not sure how these articles with huge views are useful in defending Tropical Storm Ileana (2018) - are you suggesting it could join them if it was made more interesting? Johnbod (talk) 17:54, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
I haven't seen the Jennifer Aniston article, but there is no reason why it cannot be vital in my way of thinking. It all depends on what wealth of quality sources is available, in what comprehensiveness, how well it has been utilized and transformed into a final product. I don't believe "vital" necessarily means conforming to traditional encyclopedia subdivisions: Reading, Writing, Arithmetic etc. By quality sources I mean highly reliable sources which have been written at the level of the semantic resolution of the topic. In other words, sources for "Dyslexia" (which is higher-res, more focus, smaller scope) cannot necessarily be counted in determining the scholarly attention paid to "Reading" (which is lower-res; less focus, larger scope). In fact, I don't know that scholarly attention is being paid these days to the traditionally grand encyclopedia topics. If I am correct in this assessment, our hands are tied: we cannot really write "Reading" until the various sub-topics, including "Reading disorders," on WP, faithfully represent the scholarly attention paid to them. If we do, we risk drifting into DUE or SYNTHESIS. Bearing this in mind, the best locations for viewing statistics are not any of the top-viewed-pages pages, whose numbers fluctuate for all sorts of extrinsic reasons, but this TFA site. Please go the top of the rightmost "pageviews" column and choose the ascending order. You will start at around 20K views and end at 100K (discounting Guy Fawkes, featured on GF Day, which at 287K looks like an outlier.). The midpoint (or median) is the article Parinda at approx 46K views. If you now scroll down (i.e. down the third and fourth quartiles) you will see a fair number of "vital" articles. There is even: Distributed-element circuit! So there is a demand for them.
My problem is not that FAs are not being written on Reading (with my luck this will turn out to be an FA.), but that a large number are being written on topics that do not have a wealth of high-quality sources. That, in my view, is a misrepresentation of what FAs should be about if they are to reflect Wikipedia's better content. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:12, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Tangent

Why not allow additional nominations only if the subject of the article is in a different category to the current nomination(s)? No offence to people writing multiple FAs on single topics but having hundreds of FAs concentrating on a few narrow subject areas generally benefits only the writers and perhaps the topic enthusiasts. Look at the listings at Wikipedia:Featured articles - it looks like it has been complied by a group of monomaniacs. Allowing multiple concurrent nominations will only exacerbate the problem. I would go further and mandate that every new nomination must be for an article in a different subject area to the nominator's previous nomination. Yomanganitalk 09:59, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

I like this idea. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:58, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
Good idea. I thought of something similar the other day but decided that the templated (don't know if this adjectivization exists) articles—akin to a dressmaker's of my first formulation above—are on single topics. However, I wondered if other issues might not crop up:
It might interfere with people's intellectual independence. Their mojo works for something, you can't order them to work it for another.
What if two or three people with single-topic mojos collaborate to cycle them through three topics? It might not appear monomaniacal (in whatever NPOV sense you meant it), but the concentration on a few narrow subject areas will not change.
However, there is a bigger topic, one that Sandy G has been bringing up for months, though not necessarily with my spin: As representatives of Wikipedia's better work, FAs have existed for upward of 15 years, which is similar to a hundred years in a big city, London, New York, Tokyo, ... Metaphorically speaking, there are Water Supply FAS, Electric Grid FAs, Sewage Treatment FAs, etc. and there are Movie Theater FAs, Children's Playgrounds FAs, War Museums FAs, etc. If the city main is leaking, you can't condemn it and build a war museum there instead. But in FA-land, it seems like there is less commitment to maintaining all FAs, and more to spinning off new ones. Consequently, the concentration areas of Wikipedias better works are in a constant state of flux, not determined by the flux of external events or needs, but those of internal mojos. I think a better rule would be: For every two new nominations, a nominator must refurbish an old FA, starting with the 15-year-olds, and bring it to FAC (not simply FAR and delist an old FA). That will automatically slow down the narrowing of the subject area concentrations. The worry as you and SandyG (and Casliber elsewhere) have rightly put it (back to the big city metaphor) is not one of seeing the same builders, but of seeing the same buildings. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:49, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
I would vehemently oppose such an idea. I work hard to make sure any article I've worked on that reaches FA status ...stays there. I update it when new research comes out, I stay on top of additions, I make sure it's not getting degraded. So because I do that, if I decided to nominate a new article I'd need to go work on something else on top of the current watchlist work I do? That seems rather unfair to me ... that my "reward" for keeping an eye out on things I've worked on is to ... have to go catch the slack of someone else? Or clean up a topic I know nothing about because another editor left? Sure way to get me to not bring anything to FAC again. --Ealdgyth (talk) 13:01, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
You are essentially offering the reason of intellectual independence I alluded to above. Do you think in the wide array of old FAs, you cannot find something close enough to your interests? I take it you will oppose Yomangani's proposal for similar reasons. So, how does the FA community solve the problem of maintenance? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:11, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
No, I'm offering the reason of "I already do this work" - I, in fact, already DO that maintenance. Your proposal (and that's all I'm objecting to) essentially makes me add to the maitenance I already do. It is not my fault that others may not maintain FAs that they are responsible for. Yes, some editors leave, but I already take on the burden of watching out for FAs I shepherded. And I keep an eye out for some from editors who have left or who are not greatly active. Just beause I don't let the articles get to the needing FAR stage doesn't mean it's not work. --Ealdgyth (talk) 13:20, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
Well, that's a good point. And, in my view, that's an easy fix. If you are maintaining old FAs (> 10 years old), yours or someone else's, then you are exempted as many times as the number you are maintaining. I mean my proposal exists to be amended in light of everyone's expertise and experience. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:29, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
One overlooked issue is that older FAs are not necessarily inadequate because they have degraded over time, but simply because they were nominated at a time when the FAC criteria were much laxer. FACs promoted within the last ten years would be much more robust in this regard (I'm one of those who continuously expand my older FAs as new info is published). Also, we can't force nominators to write/not write about specific topics; it's voluntary, so either they nominate what they want, or they nominate nothing, which I don't think is what we want. FunkMonk (talk) 13:41, 9 March 2020 (UTC)
Those two issues are not really different. Standards of judging change; degrading over time is always with reference to current standards of judging. My proposal is meant to retard the increasing narrowing of subject-concentration. Asking people to write on an altogether different topic area (as in Yomangani's proposal) interferes with their intellectual independence more. I am offering an option of refurbishing (every now and then) in the wide array of old FAs, something close enough to a nominator's current interests, or in light of Ealdgyth's critique, demonstrating evidence that they are already doing this Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:53, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Meanwhile

Featured article review

Talk notices given
  1. Diocletianic Persecution 2020-05-03
  2. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky 2020-05-22
  3. Underwater diving 2020-09-15
  4. Józef Piłsudski 2020-09-25, 2021-08-07
  5. Supernatural (season 1) 2020-11-02
  6. Supernatural (season 2) 2020-11-02
  7. Kahaani 2020-11-18 2023-02-25
  8. Major depressive disorder 2020-11-20 2022-08-18 2024-11-19
  9. India 2020-11-29 and 2023-11-28
  10. 1968 Thule Air Base B-52 crash 2020-11-30
  11. Tumbler Ridge 2020-12-26 2024-11-19
  12. Glacier National Park (U.S.) 2020-12-30
  13. Ivan Bagramyan 2021-02-21
  14. Bird 2021-02-21
  15. Hamilton, Ontario 2021-02-22
  16. Comet Hyakutake 2021-02-22
  17. Mary Wollstonecraft 2021-03-03
  18. Postage stamps of Ireland 2021-03-11, 2023-03-25
  19. The Joy of Sect 2021-04-08
  20. The World Ends with You 2021-04-23
  21. Defense of the Ancients 2021-06-10
  22. Dwarf planet 2021-08-14
  23. Robert Garran 2021-10-09
  24. Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna
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  25. Hurricane Edith (1971) 2021-12-04
  26. Meteorological history of Hurricane Jeanne 2021-12-05
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  28. Hurricane Dean 2021-12-05
  29. Meteorological history of Hurricane Wilma 2021-12-05
  30. Meteorological history of Hurricane Ivan 2021-12-05
  31. Effects of Hurricane Ivan
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  32. Tropical Storm Bonnie (2004) 2021-12-05
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  34. Tropical Storm Edouard (2002) 2021-12-05
  35. Hurricane Fabian 2021-12-05
  36. Effects of Hurricane Isabel in
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  37. Hurricane Erika (1997) 2021-12-06
  38. Hurricane Isabel 2021-12-06
  39. Hurricane Kenna 2021-12-06
  40. Typhoon Pongsona 2021-12-07
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  42. Dürer's Rhinoceros 2022-02-04
  43. Io (moon) 2022-02-13
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    Working [2]
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  50. Battle of Corydon 2022-10-10
  51. White Deer Hole Creek 2022-10-22
    Work ongoing December 2022
  52. Mayan languages 2022-11-19
  53. Sentence spacing 2022-11-19
  54. Indigenous people of the Everglades region 2022-11-21
  55. First-move advantage in chess 2022-11-21
  56. King Arthur 2022-11-22
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  58. Mark Kerry 2022-12-01
  59. California Gold Rush 2022-12-02
  60. Harry McNish Noticed 2022-12-03
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  74. Victoria Cross for New Zealand 2023-01-01
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  75. Bengali language movement 2023-01-15
  76. USS New Jersey (BB-62) 2023-01-23
  77. West Wycombe Park 2023-01-25
  78. Holkham Hall 2023-01-25
  79. Redshift 2023-01-26
  80. Angkor Wat 2023-01-28
  81. Jack Sheppard 2023-02-02
  82. Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia 2023-02-12
  83. Guy Fawkes Night 2023-02-14
  84. Marcus Trescothick 2023-02-22
  85. Moe Berg 2023-03-10
  86. Falaise Pocket 2023-03-29
  87. James Nesbitt 2023-03-29
  88. Johnstown Inclined Plane 2023-04-23
  89. Dengue fever 2023-04-30
  90. Wood Badge 2023-05-15
  91. Hurricane Claudette (2003) 2023-05-16
  92. Cleveland 2023-05-16
  93. Buildings and architecture of Bristol 2023-05-20
  94. Oregon State Capitol 2023-06-02
  95. Surrender of Japan 2023-06-30
  96. Felice Beato 2023-08-04
  97. Augustus 2023-08-08
  98. Caspar David Friedrich 2023-08-13
  99. Jocelin of Glasgow 2023-11-01
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  102. Acetic acid 2023-12-8
  103. Eric Brewer (ice hockey) 2024-01-02
  104. Adelaide Anne Procter 2024-01-30
  105. Boston 2024-04-15
  106. Borscht 2024-06-15
  107. Khan Noonien Singh 2024-07-03
  108. Taylor Swift 2024-08-02
  109. Nahuatl 2024-08-04
  110. Carnivàle 2024-08-09
  111. Your Power 2024-08-16
  112. Washington, D.C. 2024-08-27
  113. George Washington (inventor) 2024-08-30
  114. Alien vs. Predator (film) 2024-10-26
  115. Mom and Dad (1945 film) 2024-10-26
  116. A Cure for Pokeritis 2024-10-26
  117. Zombie Nightmare 2024-10-26
  118. Gertie the Dinosaur 2024-11-1
  119. Characters of God of War 2024-11-3
  120. Homer Simpson 2024-11-24
Find more: Unreviewed featured articles

Meanwhile, over at FAR.

So, I agree with the emerging consensus here that there is no rhyme or reason to relaxing the ability to add more noms (beyond Coord discretion), when the critical shortage affecting FAC is not writers, but reviewers. Particularly when there are problems with reviews enumerated in discussion above. (Hopefully we'll all remember that the next time we chase off a reviewer.) The second reason I am opposed to relaxing nomination requirements (as of now, hopefully this will change) is that we still have the problem that the overall pool does not represent Wikipedia's best work, and there is little crossover in FAC participants to FAR (as there once was).

In January, I proposed a process akin to a broad sweep of older FAs, with the idea of identifying only the worst of the worst. These are typically cases where the nominator has moved on, no one is maintaining the article, no one is willing to maintain the article, and it degrades over time. There are still a few that were passed before the requirement for inline citations, but they are the minority (contrary to what FunkMonk says above).

My proposal did not gain consensus. So, instead, six weeks ago, we relaxed the restrictions on FAR submissions with the idea that we could use the existing process to clean out the older, unwatched, outdated FAs. To facilitate that effort, notices that have been given on talk are recorded at Wikipedia:Featured article review/notices given, so that anyone can check whether there had been progress and initiate a FAR if warranted. How is that going?

The good news; in my estimation, perhaps a quarter to a third of the notices given have resulted in article improvements without the need for FAR. I have been working with several editors on talk, have been able to remove some from the template, and am close to removing others, as articles have improved to a point of no longer warranting a FAR. Not perfect, but not FAR-worthy. Further, even in many cases that come to FAR, the star is saved, and we have even seen a case of a long-absent FA writer now enthusiastic about collaborating to produce a new FA. And, even in areas where FA quality maintenance has been ignored, new reviewers are joining the process and becoming excited about saving stars. My other observation is that, as predicted, there are multiple instances where the main editor has moved on and no one is willing or able to clean up those articles; if more reviewers would engage and !vote, those are the FAs that can be easily processed in about two months.

I believe this has always been my point; re-invigorate the entire process through collaboration towards overall quality.

The bad news; overall, very few regular FA people have engaged the new FAR process, so it runs the risk of stalling once again. If no one reviews and opines (Keep or Delist in the FARC phase), the FARs will sit there and the list will just grow. We hear lots of excuses, which usually amount to "not my content area". It doesn't take half an hour to look at an article and sometimes know it is not at standard. It doesn't take half an hour to review the FAR notices given, review the talk page to if there has been progress since the notice was given, and nominate an article outside of one's content area. With a restriction of one nomination every two weeks, and four on the page at a time, we cannot process the FARs we need to process if more people don't engage.

So, relaxing the FA nomination rules might benefit a few nominators only, but will not help improve the overall quality of the pool, and does not generate enthusiasm that the process can be re-invigorated. Multiple new reviewers have surfaced through the increased activity at FAR, and THOSE are the people who can be educated in WIAFA and encouraged to become FAC reviewers, and when THAT happens, we may see increased FAC throughput.

Conclusion: go add a talk page notification for an out-of-compliance FA, add the notice to the template, nominate an article on the template if progress has not been made, and review a FAR. The rest will come naturally. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:41, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

I've been getting your pings, but have been literally swamped with stuff outside wp. Still recovering from sick, hubby was home for five days, and now am trying to deal with the paying job for a bit. I hope to get to it soon... --Ealdgyth (talk) 16:57, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, Ealdgyth (there is one in particular that I am fairly certain you can solve, and that one can be closed as a saved star). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:59, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
We have FACs, FARs, and FARCs listed on the FAC page, but only instructions for FACs on the page. Maybe adding instructions (just above section 3?) would help. Kees08 (Talk) 17:09, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
I think that would crazy bloat the FAC listing; instructions can be seen at WP:FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:11, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Maybe include a link to it in an obvious place in that area? Kees08 (Talk) 17:15, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

"the quality of the pool." Well-spoken, SG. I propose further (if I may on the wrong page): (a) The FARers explain in a few lines what is wrong with the FA, and by way of a few examples how it might be set right. Judgments without explanations are not helpful, especially when the original authors have left, (b) the FARers collect a bronze star for the rescue effort if indeed the rescue work is substantial. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:36, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Couple of questions...

I nominated my first FAC(Bath School disaster) on March 5th and am wondering a few things...

  • How long can the process from FAC nom to either promotion or decline take? is it usually a month/2 months/whatever?
  • What's the longest time that it took for an FAC to be promoted or declined?
  • Is there a # of Supports that is a threshold for possible promotion?

Yeah, I realize I am anxious about the FAC...maybe it might be a good thing if some sentences to the effect of "this might take a while" were placed in the instructions. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 17:16, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Hard to say because FAC is seriously backlogged because of a lack of reviewers. The best thing you can do is go to the bottom of the page and start reviewing :0 Quid pro quo is discouraged, but reviewing others' work can never be a bad thing to help speed up the page. There is not supposed to be a threshold for promotion, but lately one is lucky to get three supports. Many FACs for many years have been on the page for many months (the standard used to be two to three weeks). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:52, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Usually one to two months, I think under unusual circumstances three months. Usually minimum of three supports, an image review, a source review, and a spot check for new nominators. If there is no one reviewing they get archived in 3-4 weeks in my experience. It can help to fin an experienced co-nominator for your first nomination if you can. Kees08 (Talk) 17:56, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Thanks folks. Yeah I am reviewing/helping out on another FAC. Can't take on another FAC-review until I do a last deep-dive/close-read on Barren Island, Brooklyn. Am both reassured and not re the possible timelines... Shearonink (talk) 18:05, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Shearonink, with both Gog the Mild and me both reviewing and overseeing your work beforehand, there is no benefit to having a second nominator. You will need a copyvio/close paraphrasing check (as a first nominator). Gog and I have also reviewed your sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:20, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Ok, thanks SandyGeorgia. Do I need to ask for a copyvio/close paraphrasing check? Or does it just kind of happen by serendipity? Shearonink (talk) 18:29, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
No, it's standard for first-time noms, Coords will look for it, but I can do that as you get closer. Not to worry. I've been busy, but can do that if no one else does. Also, I do not Support because it is independent supports that you need. I believe you also already had an image review from Nikkimaria?
What we have here is a well-prepared nom that, like many others, is not getting enough attention because of a lack of reviewers. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:32, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
I had planned to spot-check sources on this one today; would also checking for close paraphrasing during this accomplish this request or does it need to be more in-depth than a spotcheck? Gʀᴀᴘᴘʟᴇ ˣ 09:49, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
Yeah, I would only want independent reviews (Support or Oppose) anyway. I reached out to a few folks that I've worked with in the past to ask for a Review, either Support of Oppose, doesn't matter to me, just the honesty. Will practice being patient... Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 18:42, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Reminds me of my first ACR: I wanted to hide under the duvet while chewing the pillow. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:47, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Ah, good times. But I get anxious whenever I make a nomination: What if this time I ballsed it up? Mr rnddude (talk) 05:35, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

No activity on a nomination

Hello!

Just wondering if my nomination is visible at all for anyone? I nominated it on 26 February and no interaction, not even an image review, has been added. I wouldn't be complaining if not for the fact that every other nomination on the page has activity, and I really don't want it to go to older nominations before a review is placed.

Thanks, -NowIsntItTime(chats)(doings) 03:08, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it's visible at WP:FAC. Nick-D (talk) 04:02, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
:) I did miss this. Inexcusable, as we are big fans of Tippi Hedren's animal welfare work. Have reserved a slot. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:19, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
Yes, sorry I haven't been there yet -- it's one I was planning to recuse coord duties on and review, will see how I go this w/e. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 05:36, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
FAC is generally very slammed, NowIsntItTime, so it usually takes some time to gather reviews. Best option is to try and chip in on other nominations to reduce the glut and get more attention on your own noms :) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 16:34, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
Thanks everyone :)
I know you're all busy and that's part of the reason why I needed to see if I had overlooked something while nominating the page, like maybe I might have forgotten/neglected to activate something that would make it visible. Thanks for your help! -NowIsntItTime(chats)(doings) 16:38, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

See discussion at Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article#Proposal to re-run virus-related TFAs during Coronavirus pandemic SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:40, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Input on a suggested change to WP:FA?

Just crossposting this proposal to interested parties on this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_criteria#Deprecating_parenthetical_citations

Cheers, Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 18:19, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

OTRS?

Do we have any OTRS volunteers? I've been able to arrange a significant gift of numismatic images but I'd like OTRS to finish with it before acting on it. The ticket number is 2020031610003058.--Wehwalt (talk) 19:28, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Sphilbrick is always helpful SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:47, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
Thank you for that, Sandy.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:30, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
If you had not had the pleasure before, you are about to deal with the Bee's Knees of thorough, comprehensive, helpfulness ! Meet S Philbrick :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:17, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
Wehwalt, Checking now. S Philbrick(Talk) 21:16, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
Wehwalt, This will be a little tricky, as there are a number of issues. Let see if I can summarize them coherently, and check with some others. S Philbrick(Talk) 22:12, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
Wehwalt, I'll pick this up on your talk page. S Philbrick(Talk) 22:19, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Locations in citations

I misremembered the guideline/policy for having locations in sources. I was thinking of the MOS:OVERLINK, which recommends not linking locations such as New York. I mistakenly had it in my head that publications such as The New York Times do not require a location in the citation.

The essay Guidance on source reviewing says: Publisher location and, where possible, ISBN are usually added, but they are not required by WP:CITE. Consistency requires that these optional fields are either added in all instances or omitted in all instances (except where a book does not have an ISBN).

The only past discussion I found was a 2009 discussion, where SandyGeorgia says "...it is necessary for the citation style to be consistent and for all relevant information to be provided."

I am sure I just did a poor search and this has been discussed to death, where has this been discussed? I am surprised that the FA criteria does not require ISBNs if they are available, and while I found some guidance on adding locations for books, I saw nothing for newspapers.

I want to make sure my source review at SounderBruce's FAC is proper. From what I can tell, the article was compliant, and at my request the article is now non-compliant, since some newspapers have locations and others do not.

My instinct is that the newspapers should have locations if it is not obvious (like The New York Times or Seattle Times), but require them in the cases at the source review.

Is there any pre-existing consensus on this? If the locations were not supposed to be added, I can go through and remove them myself. Thanks. Kees08 (Talk) 16:38, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't know of any previous discussions, but I've never seen locations used for newspaper articles in FAs. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 18:30, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
Nor have I. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 19:15, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
All of my FACs, such as Neil Armstrong, have them. Not to say they are prominent or anything else, but just noting that they exist. Kees08 (Talk) 19:25, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
I can certainly think of a case where locations would (and are) used in newspapers; look at dab page El Universal. Our objective is for a reader to be able to locate the source. Saying El Universal would not give the reader all the information necessary to locate the source, and although the location of the work is mentioned in our wikipedia article (for disambiguation purposes), the actual name of the work is the same in each case, so we would need to specify location. I am certain I have written an article somewhere sometime that cited both the Venezuelan and the Mexican El Universal, so I had to sort them. I don't think that is inconsistent with what Nikkimaria says. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:11, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
@Kees08: You might be thinking of the documentation for {{cite news}}: "Geographical place of publication; generally not wikilinked; omit when the name of the work includes the publication place". In terms of the consistency requirement, in my opinion an article that follows that guidance ought still to be considered compliant. The question of ISBNs has been discussed on several occasions, including Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates/archive75#Are_ISBN_numbers_required_in_the_bibliography_for_FAC?. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:53, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
Interestingly, searching for those words actually helped me find previous discussions (specifically looking at Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources/Archive_34#What_does_WP:CITEVAR_cover?, though the discussion itself is not particularly useful for this case). There is the Citing sources guideline (which is not a policy), which says city of publication (if not included in name of newspaper). Seems like the accepted practice, unless there is some sort of exception, is to include the city of publication if the name of the city is not in the newspaper. Is there any other policy/guideline/essay on the matter that I am missing? Kees08 (Talk) 02:35, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
The physical location of a publisher's office seems not greatly necessary to me in a Wikipedia citation in 2020. What is the reader going to do with it? Write them a letter? --Wehwalt (talk) 01:02, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
If you mean for books, isn't that one of the pieces of information you need to provide a unique identifier if you are not using an ISBN? Kees08 (Talk) 02:35, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
It used to be necessary to look up a book. Books were indexed by location in A2-sized ledgers. But the advent of the internet and the ISBN generally makes them redundant at best. APA dropped the requirement for locations for books in 2019. But for newspapers it is necessary in order to locate a paper where the city name is not part of the title. The astronaut articles tend to have references to newspapers in obscure home towns in the US, and I added locations to all the newspapers to make them consistent. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 03:02, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

FAC reviewing statistics for March 2020

Here are the FAC reviewing statistics for March 2020. The tables below include all reviews for FACS that were either archived or promoted last month, so the reviews included are spread over the last two or three months. A review posted last month is not included if the FAC was still open at the end of the month. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:29, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Reviewers for March 2020
# reviews Type of review
Reviewer Image Source Content Total
Nikkimaria 14 1 1 16
Gog the Mild 3 3 8 14
Buidhe 2 3 5 10
FunkMonk 7 7
SandyGeorgia 1 6 7
Peacemaker67 1 6 7
Mike Christie 2 3 5
Dudley Miles 5 5
Shearonink 2 1 1 4
Jimfbleak 2 2 4
Epicgenius 4 4
John M Wolfson 4 4
Fowler&fowler 1 3 4
CPA-5 4 4
JennyOz 3 3
Lee Vilenski 3 3
Kees08 3 3
KJP1 3 3
Sarastro 1 2 3
Harrias 1 2 3
Ian Rose 1 1 1 3
Graham Beards 2 2
Kaiser matias 2 2
KN2731 1 1 2
AustralianRupert 2 2
Wehwalt 1 1 2
Johnbod 2 2
Hurricanehink 2 2
SMcCandlish 1 1 2
Coffeeandcrumbs 1 1 2
Tim riley 2 2
Auntieruth55 1 1 2
Jens Lallensack 2 2
Rodney Baggins 1 1 2
J Milburn 2 2
Jo-Jo Eumerus 2 2
Grapple X 2 2
Zmbro 1 1
Pendright 1 1
Sainsf 1 1
Jonesey95 1 1
Nick-D 1 1
Spy-cicle 1 1
Dank 1 1
Moisejp 1 1
HaEr48 1 1
Llammakey 1 1
Emicho's Avenger 1 1
Davey2010 1 1
AppleWormBoy 1 1
MarnetteD 1 1
BennyOnTheLoose 1 1
Tintor2 1 1
Paparazzzi 1 1
Kailash29792 1 1
Mirokado 1 1
Ceoil 1 1
Eddie891 1 1
Red King 1 1
Ruby2010 1 1
The Rambling Man 1 1
Noswall59 1 1
Nova Crystallis 1 1
Serial Number 54129 1 1
JavaHurricane 1 1
Aoba47 1 1
7&6=thirteen 1 1
In actu 1 1
Giants2008 1 1
Cassianto 1 1
Derpdadoodle 1 1
Toa Nidhiki05 1 1
Juliancolton 1 1
Isento 1 1
TropicalAnalystwx13 1 1
T8612 1 1
ChrisTheDude 1 1
The Huhsz 1 1
Keith D 1 1
WereSpielChequers 1 1
Grand Total 26 25 140 191
Supports and opposes for March 2020
# declarations Declaration
Editor Oppose Support None Struck oppose Oppose converted to support Grand Total
Nikkimaria 1 15 16
Gog the Mild 1 6 7 14
Buidhe 1 9 10
FunkMonk 7 7
SandyGeorgia 1 1 5 7
Peacemaker67 6 1 7
Mike Christie 2 3 5
Dudley Miles 4 1 5
Shearonink 1 3 4
Jimfbleak 2 2 4
Epicgenius 1 3 4
John M Wolfson 1 3 4
Fowler&fowler 1 1 2 4
CPA-5 2 2 4
JennyOz 3 3
Lee Vilenski 1 2 3
Kees08 1 2 3
KJP1 1 2 3
Sarastro 2 1 3
Harrias 2 1 3
Ian Rose 1 2 3
Graham Beards 1 1 2
Kaiser matias 2 2
KN2731 1 1 2
AustralianRupert 2 2
Wehwalt 1 1 2
Johnbod 1 1 2
Hurricanehink 2 2
SMcCandlish 1 1 2
Coffeeandcrumbs 1 1 2
Tim riley 1 1 2
Auntieruth55 2 2
Jens Lallensack 2 2
Rodney Baggins 1 1 2
J Milburn 2 2
Jo-Jo Eumerus 2 2
Grapple X 2 2
Zmbro 1 1
Pendright 1 1
Sainsf 1 1
Jonesey95 1 1
Nick-D 1 1
Spy-cicle 1 1
Dank 1 1
Moisejp 1 1
HaEr48 1 1
Llammakey 1 1
Emicho's Avenger 1 1
Davey2010 1 1
AppleWormBoy 1 1
MarnetteD 1 1
BennyOnTheLoose 1 1
Tintor2 1 1
Paparazzzi 1 1
Kailash29792 1 1
Mirokado 1 1
Ceoil 1 1
Eddie891 1 1
Red King 1 1
Ruby2010 1 1
The Rambling Man 1 1
Noswall59 1 1
Nova Crystallis 1 1
Serial Number 54129 1 1
JavaHurricane 1 1
Aoba47 1 1
7&6=thirteen 1 1
In actu 1 1
Giants2008 1 1
Cassianto 1 1
Derpdadoodle 1 1
Toa Nidhiki05 1 1
Juliancolton 1 1
Isento 1 1
TropicalAnalystwx13 1 1
T8612 1 1
ChrisTheDude 1 1
The Huhsz 1 1
Keith D 1 1
WereSpielChequers 1 1
Grand Total 13 93 80 3 2 191

When are page numbers needed...

...in a FAC candidate? The question is about Cerro Blanco (volcano) which I wrote years ago w/o any page numbers. I've been thinking of doing an expansion with recent journal sources and the pagenumber question is one of the things holding me back (the other, that these sources are singularly useless. Keep droning on and on about stratigraphy...). Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 20:48, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

It depends on what you're citing. If it's a three-page paper, I wouldn't worry too much about the page number; if it's a 700-page book, the page number (or a paragraph number or section number if it's an unpaginated e-book or one of those tiresome publishers like Middleton Press that cling on to the affectation of not printing page numbers) is pretty much essential. The question in every case should be, "if someone didn't believe what I'm saying here and wanted to check for themselves, could they find the information for themselves based on the information in the citation?". ‑ Iridescent 21:05, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
What Iridescent wrote, which is spot on. Give as small a page range as you can, ideally a single page, to lead a reader to the information that supports the text in the article. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:21, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
For journal articles, I would say as a rule of thumb, you should probably be citing a specific page or range if the text is more than a few pages long (say, half a dozen at most). HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 21:54, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
When citing a book, page numbers are always needed. When citing journal articles, they are almost never needed. I say "almost never" because I did provide them once for an atypical, 100-page journal article, but journal articles are usually short enough that page numbers aren't needed, are never used, and also because one almost always has to be familiar with the full content of a journal article before using it at all. If page numbers were required on journal articles (they're not-- just ranges), we'd have to defeature a whole ton of FAs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:16, 2 April 2020 (UTC)
I do not agree that page numbers are not needed for journal articles (apart from very short ones of up to four pages). Even with a 20 page article, searching for the correct page to check a reference wastes a lot of time. Also, it is usual so far as I can see. Looking through a dozen FAs on kings of England, the only one I could find which did not supply full page references was promoted in 2006. Dudley Miles (talk) 09:12, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Most often, when citing a medical journal article, one is citing the conclusions of the entire article, and page range is the page citation. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:55, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for the comments. One kind of source that is particularly a problem is this one (just an example; there are more of that form) - lengthy article that is not paginated. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:41, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
In that particular example, I'd go with listing the relevant section header in the citation, so someone doing a source review can at least ctrl-f and get to where they need to be instead of reading the whole thing. In extreme cases where a lengthy paper doesn't have any kind of page numbering, section or paragraph numbering, or section headers, I'd think the best thing to do would be to include descriptive locations ("approximately halfway through, immediately after diagram 4") if you feel the paper is long enough that it's not reasonable to expect people to read the whole thing just to check a single minor fact. ‑ Iridescent 09:51, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
For an unpaginated online paper I suggest finding a word or phrase nearby which is only used once in the paper and then adding eg "Search for 'single minor fact"". Dudley Miles (talk) 12:45, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
Jo-Jo, the citation templates give you already the parameters needed to handle that situation. In the cases of long articles that aren't paginated, that is the same as citing something to a website (that isn't paginated)-- generally, the text can be found by ctrl-f. But if the wording is significantly changed so that you are concerned it can't be found via ctrl-f, you can use the |quote= parameter to include a short excerpt of what you are citing, and the reader then has the needed info to search the text for the full content, without you having to jump through hoops to add something not provided for by standard template parameters. But usually even that isn't necessary. Recall that while working on your last article (Coropuna), even though the sources were in Spanish while the article text is in English, I had no problem in any case finding the text you were citing without any unnecessary guidance. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:02, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
I've decided to use the "loc=" parameter and to give the section it's in. It's academic Spanish, yes, but still in Spanish and not always the exact wording so I wouldn't rely on Ctrl+F solely. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 14:47, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Good idea (until someone writes a bot to force location to include a geographic place and then starts altering your citations :) :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:49, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Or, starts adding your non-geographic locations to error categories, resulting in FAs showing up on the error lists we use for examining articles that need to go to FAR. (Some script somewhere does that now when |issue= includes more than a number, like Suppl.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:07, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Sorry, wasn't sure if you were being serious or not, but in case you were, the loc parameter is used for this purpose and not for geographical locations, see Template:Sfn#Adding_a_URL_for_the_page_or_location. Kees08 (Talk) 17:53, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Good one :) I was quite buried in another complex issue, and you can see the thread just above this one to see where my brain went (besides AWOL). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:03, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
That article links to a PDF version, which is paginated, although I'm sure there are instances where no such alternative exists. Choess (talk) 15:02, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

FAC for George Washington and slavery

The FAC for George Washington and slavery is approaching the bottom of the list. I can accept archival on the grounds of not meeting the criteria, but it would be a real shame for such a significant subject to fall short for lack of reviews, especially as three editors have put significant time and effort into reviewing so far. Any chance that I could tempt people to contribute a few more reviews, including a source review? Thanks. Factotem (talk) 13:39, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't think articles are ever archived if they have at least three supports and no opposes, though, so that shouldn't be a danger. FunkMonk (talk) 04:01, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm counting four supports thus far. The other two seem neutral to me. I think it only needs a source review, which I would do if I had any idea about the relevant material. Has it been requested? Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 05:56, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
I've done a source review. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:16, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

FACs in the Time of Coronavirus

(With apologies to Magical Realism) This is a difficult time for everyone, around the world. (I had a talk this morning with my physician who is one of the world's experts on community-acquired pneumonia at one of America's major medical schools. He emphasized that social distancing has to be exercised as much as is possible, even to the extent of asking family members who live elsewhere to stay away, within reason, until a clearer picture has emerged, and putting up with attendant stresses. I say this not to show off, but to underscore the gravity of the situation.) Given what I heard, I have to think that the coming weeks are going to be stressful for everyone. I am requesting therefore in all earnestness that the usual schedule (whatever it is) for FACs and FARs being archived be relaxed until a clearer picture of the pandemic has emerged. The promotions are fine. But the archiving, in my experience, is highly stressful both for the nominators and reviewers. This may mean that what was two months might become three months, but unless nominators see the wisdom of withdrawing their nomination for off-FAC improvement, I think archiving should be put on hold temporarily. It is probably stressful for the FAC directors as well. Anyway, I don't know all the rules, but their fine-tuning can be worked out by the regulars here. @FAC coordinators: Best regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:57, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

I agree that some of the archiving schedules should be relaxed a bit. It's difficult to get follow-up research or clarification when every library in the state is closed (as is the case in Washington). SounderBruce 02:54, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
I would say we should have a relaxed view of the pressures across Wikipedia specifically during the pandemic. Let me know if there is something specific I can do! (My time on wiki will be a little deminised than usual though.) Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 13:09, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
The social distancing could have mixed effects on Wikipedia and FAC. On the one hand, it may mean that some people may have more time on their hands to finally write those articles they've been thinking about for ages. On the other, access to research materials may be more difficult for a lot of people with libraries and archives closing their doors. Obviously we can't keep FACs open indefinitely if the article doesn't (quite) meet the criteria, but I'm sure the coordinators will be flexible where they can. Perhaps an FAC could be put 'on hold' somehow if a situation arises where the nominator can't get hold of a source to resolve a concern. But we can cross those bridges as we come to them. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 13:29, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
Harry is exactly right (nice to see you back BTW!) -- the current situation will affect different people in different ways. Timings at FAC might well be more relaxed owing to effects it has on the coords as much as on nominators and reviewers -- for instance right now my work commitments have escalated owing to the effects of the panic on supply chains. I expect we'll continue to try to treat every case on its merits. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 15:15, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
@Ian Rose: Is there anything that can be done to ease the burden on you guys? I just looked at the nominations page and it is just swamped. I know all of you are quite busy as essential employees. NoahTalk 22:10, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
I can't speak for the other guys just this minute but I suspect things will ease for me next week and I'll be able to spend more time here. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 00:44, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

The point of my original post was not to assert that people will have less time or more, but of probing the possibility of states of mind—born of anxiety and isolation—that could make it harder for them to edit, to respond promptly or judiciously to reviewers' or nominators' queries or responses, to even admitting to needing more time. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:47, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

It does appear the FAC list is longer than it has been for a long time? FunkMonk (talk) 10:23, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
I've been doing some reviews, working up from the bottom of the list, and I think there are several nominations that have enough input for a decision now. The coordinators are probably busier than usual at the moment, but if there's anything that they want to see more reviews on before making a decision, it would be good to add those to the urgents list. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:07, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
My time constraints/issues on FAC reviewing over the last month have had nothing to do with COVID. I would like to be doing more to help out here, but that is not possible at the moment. I hope time constraints here are relaxed. If there is a FAC where my input might be useful, please do ping me. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:45, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
I went ahead and added three FACs that seem to me to be most in need of further comments to the urgents list. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:22, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Citation-template change

"Selected works" in Coral Lansbury
"Bibliography" in George Washington and slavery an FA

Someone has changed {{cite book}}, {{cite news}} etc to make "ref=harv" the default, as it is with {{citation}}. It means that User:Ucucha/HarvErrors.js and other scripts that warn when citations are missing are not warning when sources are in Works cited but not used as short cites.

In some cases (but strangely not all), the scripts are returning error messages when the templates are used in FR or Selected works (see right). To get rid of those warnings, I believe we have to add ref=none, but clearly we can't go around doing that or expecting that others will.

The degraded functionality of {{cite book}} etc has been done to make the templates work even when they aren't formatted properly. The change in error messages will have an effect on FAC source reviewing. Would anyone interested please add a comment to Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Change to CS1 (cite xxx) templates is showing warning messages to some editors using custom scripts? There is also a discussion at Help_talk:Citation_Style_1/Archive 69#Cite book Harv warning. SarahSV (talk) 21:40, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

I've just looked at a recently promoted FA, George Washington and slavery, and it's a mess. The bibliography and FR sections are full of brown error messages for editors using User:Ucucha/HarvErrors.js and perhaps other scripts. SarahSV (talk) 21:45, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

So that's why I'm suddenly getting obnoxious harv-ref errors, when I don't use harvrefs!! Thanks for the notice, Sarah. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:50, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
Sandy, if you care about this, please say something in one of those discussions, preferably at the pump. We're being told we have to find our own solution. SarahSV (talk) 21:55, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
I don't often find it productive to try to discuss with the bot/citation people :( But I added my voice there; I don't have time to engage that right now, because I am up to my eyeballs in That Other Thing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:56, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for saying something. The change means that writers and source reviewers will have to put up with the brown error messages or lose the scripts' warnings when a long citation has been added but not a short one. They've suggested several scripts but they all have the same problem. Pinging Ealdgyth. SarahSV (talk) 22:09, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
My circuit breakers are popping. THIS is why I used manual citations for years. I have unwatched; friendly friends may my edit my userspace scripts if a solution if found. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:11, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
I've never used those scripts, so I'm not seeing the errors. I've always done my short cites by hand ... because I detest the lack of title in the sfn/harv system. When source checking, I've always just done it by "hand" - if the list is long, do a printout of the full cites and compare it to the short cites. Tedious, but ... --Ealdgyth (talk) 22:32, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
SarahSV Like you, I have spent a considerable amount of time today explaining the problem and the template people are not interested. We just have to live with it. Anyone who has the line importScript('User:Ucucha/HarvErrors.js'); in their common.js needs to add in a new line window.checkLinksToCitations = false;. This should get rid of the false error messages. Dudley Miles (talk) 23:58, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
window.checkLinksToCitations = false; also gets rid of at least one type of good warning (when there are long refs but no short). Dudley, there's a proposal here to have a bot remove ref=harv. I've opposed, whatever that is worth at this point. SarahSV (talk) 00:11, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

(I-support-this-change disclaimer) I don't think the CS1 people are ignoring the issue, I think they are saying that the added difficulty of having to redo a script or adding |ref=none whenever you use such a template for a bibliography list is not enough to justify overturning the change. Especially since having to add |ref=harv every time you use such a template with Harv referencing is also tedious and annoying. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 08:44, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

That is not the answer I get. I am told to ask for a script to solve the problem, and when I point out that no script can solve the problem I am told to go and ask for a script. The bottom line is that the people who are adversely affected by the change are few compared with the supporters, and it is a waste of time and energy to pursue the matter further. Dudley Miles (talk) 08:58, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
I think both parts of this are correct. I think the correct solution for bibliography sections that are not linked to short link templates is to add |ref=none to suppress errors, not to write scripts. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 09:13, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
It would not be practical to go through all the existing articles which use cite book without harv referencing and add ref=none to each source. I also do not see the point. If I understand correctly, it will not be an error to use cite book without harv referencing. Dudley Miles (talk) 10:40, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

FAC page has exceeded the template include size

As in, it's now in Category:Pages where template include size is exceeded and the FAR/FARC sections are thus no longer visible. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 12:27, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm going to try to get some dealt with today... life outside wiki is a bit ... hectic for obvious reasons. --Ealdgyth (talk) 12:41, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
I made a promotion/archive pass, which has got us past the hump. I'm going to be busy for a bit during the day, but am going to try to put on my reviewing hat and do some reviews shortly. --Ealdgyth (talk) 14:49, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

As an aside - I'm wondering if the proliferation of Template:TQ is part of the problem? --Ealdgyth (talk) 13:40, 25 April 2020 (UTC)--Ealdgyth (talk) 13:40, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Good question Ealdgyth. I've tried to test it out at User:Jo-Jo Eumerus/FAC size test with this revision. The PPIS for the direct copy is 2047519 bytes - with templates omitted - and the Transclusion expansion time report[1]. Substituting all the FACses brings it to 774955 bytes and the transclusion expansion time report[2] The substituting the 222 tq instances brings the PPIS to 735749 and the transclusion expansion time report[3] So it seems like the problem might be citation templates. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 14:54, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Not sure if you all are aware of the very old discussions in archives, where templates transcluded on FAC pages end up being counted twice, causing this problem. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:53, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

I remember hearing comments to the effect that {{done}} is disallowed for this reason, yes. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 16:01, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
There's a whole lot of hatting with cot-cob, hat-hab (those count in the template transclusions).
There are also lots of pingy-thingie transclusions.
It would sure be nice if we could get reviewers to take their reams of prose nit-picks to article talk or the talk page of the FAC. This business of very long, nitpicky FACs is something I do not understand. Long discussions on article talk, with a summary link back to the FAC, would do the job. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:19, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
I've moved the cites I added to the Women's Cricket FAC to the article's talk page. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:08, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
I've also moved the single hatted bit in my review to the article's talk page. Please tell me if that has made a difference. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:18, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm responsible for a lot of cot-cob, which I shall try to be more careful with ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:42, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Dunno if this has been mentioned before, but would it help (and/or feck things right up!) if we gave FAR, FLC their own pages? I know they're generally not so busy as FAC, but they must still bring one helluva lot of transclusion with them, so we could hive them off and shorten the page considerably in one stroke. Also—from more of an "optics" sense I guess—it would also demonstrate that they are all equals. At the moment, they are crushed beneath a burgeoning FAC page—I'd already been at fac a few times before even realising that they were there! And if they had their own pages, it might make it easier to encourage editors to participate (hypocrite, 54129!). But perhaps there's a technical reason for having the one page; if so, as you were  :) ——SN54129 18:54, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Confoozled ... what do you mean by FLC? If they are transcluded here, I am not seeing them? As to removing FAR, I think the number of FACs, FARs etc is not the problem as much as items transcluded on them. IT's not size per se that causes the problem, rather number of transclusions. I had a lot of transclusions at FAR, which might have been part of the problem. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:13, 25 April 2020 (UTC)
SN, FAR does have its own page as well. The list of noms is transcluded here in addition to that to get more eyes on. Looking forward to seeing your participation ;-) Nikkimaria (talk) 00:27, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
Check! Apologies for creating more confusion  :) ——SN54129 11:45, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
Sandy, per both Jo-jo’s note above and my own recollection of the old discussions, I’m pretty sure that cot & cob (and tq and its ilk) are harmless - it’s complex nested templates that cause the problem. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:43, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
Mike, TechnoDumbie101 ... what is a complex nested template? Some examples? (There is also a lot of color on the page.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:22, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

I've done another test run, with "collapse" templates substed rather than "tq" and it yields a PPIS of 595858 and a Transclusion expansion time report [4] while substing the "cit" templates yields a PPIS of 583845 and a Transclusion expansion time report[5] So I'd say that tq does not add nearly as much as both collapse and cit* templates. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 11:49, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Transclusion expansion time report (%,ms,calls,template) 100.00% 1992.314 1 -total
    • 23.16% 461.470 1 Wikipedia:Featured_article_review
    • 12.62% 251.389 2 Template:Reflist
    • 11.78% 234.694 1 Wikipedia:Featured_article_review/Asperger_syndrome/archive4
    • 9.70% 193.315 1 Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/2009_Women's_Cricket_World_Cup_Final/archive2
    • 8.21% 163.648 1 Template:Reflist-talk
    • 7.13% 142.011 1 Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Rigel/archive1
    • 6.88% 137.016 24 Template:Cite_journal
    • 6.77% 134.800 11 Template:Citation
    • 5.97% 118.903 1 Wikipedia:Featured_article_review/Ian_Smith/archive1
  2. ^ Transclusion expansion time report (%,ms,calls,template) 100.00% 2038.814 1 -total
    • 24.82% 506.117 1 Wikipedia:Featured_article_review
    • 15.81% 322.327 11 Template:Citation
    • 13.18% 268.629 2 Template:Reflist
    • 11.11% 226.509 1 Wikipedia:Featured_article_review/Asperger_syndrome/archive4
    • 7.73% 157.592 1 Wikipedia:Featured_article_review/Ian_Smith/archive1
    • 7.28% 148.357 1 Template:Reflist-talk
    • 7.23% 147.373 24 Template:Cite_journal
    • 6.15% 125.468 1 Template:Talk_ref
    • 6.12% 124.731 1 Template:FAC-instructions
  3. ^ Transclusion expansion time report (%,ms,calls,template) 100.00% 1910.896 1 -total
    • 25.04% 478.532 1 Wikipedia:Featured_article_review
    • 15.77% 301.354 11 Template:Citation
    • 11.94% 228.228 2 Template:Reflist
    • 10.63% 203.174 1 Wikipedia:Featured_article_review/Asperger_syndrome/archive4
    • 7.50% 143.292 1 Wikipedia:Featured_article_review/Ian_Smith/archive1
    • 6.64% 126.943 24 Template:Cite_journal
    • 6.41% 122.508 50 Template:Font_colour
    • 6.40% 122.206 93 Template:Ping
    • 6.31% 120.667 1 Template:FAC-instructions
  4. ^ (%,ms,calls,template) 100.00% 1569.205 1 -total
    • 18.92% 296.911 11 Template:Citation
    • 9.24% 144.984 1 Template:FAC-instructions
    • 7.06% 110.766 1 Wikipedia:Featured_article_review
    • 6.97% 109.386 229 Template:Tq
    • 6.69% 104.917 50 Template:Font_colour
    • 6.48% 101.689 94 Template:Ping
    • 5.80% 91.083 3 Template:Shortcut
    • 5.39% 84.653 149 Template:Trim
    • 4.83% 75.747 355 Template:Xt
  5. ^ (%,ms,calls,template) 100.00% 1534.343 1 -total
    • 8.51% 130.641 1 Wikipedia:Featured_article_review
    • 7.76% 119.035 1 Template:FAC-instructions
    • 7.12% 109.260 94 Template:Ping
    • 6.61% 101.462 50 Template:Font_colour
    • 5.68% 87.176 229 Template:Tq
    • 5.53% 84.801 149 Template:Trim
    • 4.24% 64.992 1 Template:Short_description
    • 3.66% 56.168 49 Template:Re
    • 3.61% 55.349 355 Template:Xt
Jo-Jo, I don’t know what that means. Are you saying it was all the citations in those two (now-archived) FARs? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:53, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
Sandy, what I meant was that when a page is transcluded and it in turns transcludes other templates, that causes much more burden than a simple template such as tq that doesn't transclude anything else within it. For example, {{cot}} and {{cob}} are simple, but using the {{collapse}} template puts anything in the collapsed text inside it, so if that includes more templates you have nested transclusions. As I recall, that caused much more of a problem that non-nested transclusions. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:10, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
Yes, the cite templates on the Asperger's FAR were within a collapsed section, which was transcluded onto the FAR page, which was transcluded here, so you had a nest, inside a nest, inside a nest, inside a nest. That's why that FAR was causing 10% of the page burden. DrKay (talk) 12:27, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
Got it (until I forget it, and someone has to remind me again :) And besides, so sad to see a Eubulides Featured article bite the dust ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:46, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

How about promoting a half dozen or so articles? What's holding up Mercenary War - Rigel -Operation Rösselsprung (1944) -MAX Red Line - Charles Duke - Spacewar! - Ice dance - Midland Railway War Memorial? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:01, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

  • Normally, I am not inclined to play "why haven't you archived such-and-such-an-article" but ... in the interests of clarity: * Well, the war memorial is held up by image issues - specifically alt text. Ice dance has just two supports and an outstanding oppose that needs addressing. Spacewar only has two supports. Charles Duke needs at least a source review and Kees08 is in the middle of a review. I just promoted MAX Red Line as it needed a resolution from one reviewer. Operation Rösselsprung (1944) Ian is dealing with that one as he has commented on the nom page. Rigel has two active reviewers. Mercenary War has some outstanding concerns by Buidhe and the source review needs revisiting from Nikkimaria. --Ealdgyth (talk) 15:05, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

What constitutes a reliable source?

There's a discussion going on at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Neanderthal/archive1#Comments by Dudley about the inclusion of recent discoveries in paleo articles (which is standard practice), specifically if these violate NPOV constituting as primary sources; the verifiability of books as opposed to journal articles; and more generally what counts as a reliable source especially in articles with large scopes. We would appreciate more input   User:Dunkleosteus77 |push to talk  15:20, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Pinging Doug Weller, who commented there but may not be watching this page. I think this is an interesting test case. FAs on specialized scientific topics (e.g. Ferugliotherium) have always relied heavily on papers, not books. FAs on broad topics that are not undergoing rapid changes as research continues (e.g. Norman Conquest of England) can rely almost entirely on books, which perform the survey function we need: they filter out (or at least identify) fringe theories and state what the mainstream positions are. A large topic in a continuously evolving field, such as Neanderthal, doesn't fit either paradigm. The books are almost always going to be significantly out of date, and frankly may also be less well peer-reviewed than the papers. Omitting material from journals is going to give readers an out-of-date perspective; for example, the fact that Neanderthals had woven cord, and hence perhaps fabrics, is from this paper published just three weeks ago. I mention this one in particular because when I asked an academic archaeologist I know for an opinion on this question, he pointed to this paper as one that would have to be included for the article to be regarded as comprehensive, but which would not be included in a book summary for several years. He commented that nobody should be even trying to write an article like this without having immersed themselves in the sources, so that they can tell what the fringe theories are and what is accepted. Dunkleosteus77 says in the FAC nomination that they've done that, and I see no reason to doubt it, but that sort of overall knowledge of the field is not directly citable -- I can't quickly validate that Dunkleosteus77's decisions on what sources to include or omit are correct. I don't know what the solution is but I think it's fair to say that 1b, comprehensiveness, can't be met if we go only with survey sources for this article, and 1c, verifiability, is hard to meet if we don't, because of the question of selection of sources. Overall I'm inclined to think that Dunkleosteus77 has done the right thing by including recent research, but I don't know how to review that at FAC without involving a subject-matter expert. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:53, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
One issue with journals is that if they are recent, they haven't received any second-party commentary and thus it's not clear how much weight they deserve. Notice African humid period#Effect on other climate modes, the third paragraph specifically. Another issue is that books are harder to access, and I think there are philosophical disagreements on the relative roles that books and journals should play in article building. Finally, the ever-popular "firsthand = primary" fallacy. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 16:17, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
I see it from a science perspective: A paper (journal article) has to cite/discuss all other papers that are directly relevant for its results, fully independently of the quality of those papers; this is compulsory (books are much less relevant). The mere existence of a journal article makes it and its claims relevant, and its claims should consequently be considered relevant for inclusion in Wikipedia. The reader has to be informed that this claim exist (of course, they should be presented as opinions, not as facts). For a narrow topic where it is possible, every paper should be covered, we cannot select based our own subjective assessment on what is reliable or not. We need to rely on the independent peer-reviewers who accepted the paper for publication. The question remains, though, what to do when the topic gets broader, when we need to summarise and leave less important stuff out. Here I think we must, in the end, rely on the judgement of the author on what is relevant and what is not. Waiting for evaluation by other sources can't be a solution, because this happens far too infrequently; even after a decade a claim might have been referenced numerous times by papers but never got supported nor questioned. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 17:14, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
There are two related issues.
1. The Neanderthal article is mainly based on articles, and the nominator justifies this on the ground that books are unreliable, and articles are to be preferred. I do not agree. Both are biased to a greater or lesser degree, but it is simple for a reader to check reviews by experts of a book. This is difficult or impossible for non-expert readers with articles. Wikipedia articles should be written so that readers can assess them for themselves, not trust in the reliability of the editors, which is necessarily the case with an article mainly based on journal articles. In addition, reliance on articles biases the article towards new findings and against the large body of facts accepted over a long period. A book cannot include findings which emerged since it was published, but these are small compared with the body of established knowledge, and articles can be used where new findings are widely accepted. A crucial point raised by Doug Weller is that peer reviewed articles about new discoveries are primary sources, and WP:SECONDARY states "Policy: Wikipedia articles usually rely on material from reliable secondary sources." A principal reliance on primary sources is against Wikipedia policy. It is also a fallacy that articles are easier to access than books. I can consult a book in a library, borrow it or buy it. I do not have access to most science articles as they are behind paywalls, and I am not willing to pay to significant amounts to read an article of a few pages.
2. The second issue is whether to include new findings which have not been reviewed by other experts, such as the claim that Neanderthals used string. I think that we should wait to see whether such claims stand up, otherwise we may mislead readers. Wikipedia should be an encyclopaedia summarising well established facts, not a blog covering speculative claims. Dudley Miles (talk) 20:37, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
Coming from both a science and an arts background, I am fully in agreement with Mike Christie and Jens Lallensack. Journal articles are peer reviewed, and are not primary sources. The primary source is the raw data from which the report was written, and the journal article writers analyse, evaluate and interpret that data. Whether a source is behind a paywall, and how easy or hard it is to get your hands on it has never been a criterion for us. (WP:PAYWALL) We owe it to our readers for articles to be both comprehensive (WP:FACR) and up to date (WP:NOTFALSE). Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:27, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
That is certainly not the usual treatment here of journal articles describing new research relating to physical material/findings, whether Neanderthal textiles or results of drug trials. From WP:PRIMARY: "a scientific paper documenting a new experiment conducted by the author is a primary source on the outcome of that experiment". It also has "Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them." See WP:MEDRS for more detail on the treatment of medical papers, though I'm not saying this topic needs the full MEDRS treatment. Johnbod (talk) 01:51, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
For MEDRS that makes sense because of the Replication crisis, as the sheer number of biomedical studies come out and subsequently cannot be replicated is enormous, not to mention issues with fraudulent papers with manipulated western blots and histologies etc. However I would considered paleontological papers in most cases to have more robust conclusions than biomed papers because there is significantly less volume of them, in comparison to Biomed where citing a single study rather than a review article for a long passage would constitute undue weight, and the conclusions are largely observational rather than experimental, which means that their conclusions can be more easily analysed by other experts without necessarily having access to the original data. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:59, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
As I said, "I'm not saying this topic needs the full MEDRS treatment", but you haven't addressed WP:PRIMARY. Johnbod (talk) 13:56, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
I think there's a delicate balance to be struck here. Papers are generally reliable for the state of the field at the time of writing, thanks to the peer review process; but it's also true that cutting-edge science can sometimes reflect the authors' views about a particular topic, and in that way may not be representative of the field simply because the field often has not come to a consensus on topics that are being actively researched at the moment. Excluding papers, therefore, isn't a good idea; but we need to exercise caution when using them, by ensuring that all relevant papers (or a representative sample, if the literature is large) have been surveyed, and by using appropriate attribution. Vanamonde (Talk) 00:14, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm broadly in agreement with Doug and Dudley. New journal articles need to be treated with some caution, and for example it may be not appropriate to give their findings in WP's voice, but in a more distanced way "a 2020 article claimed ..." or something. There are many false dawns. This is a pretty striking claim, & if the specialist community generally accepts it, it should not be long before sources that are certainly secondary start to repeat it. Johnbod (talk) 01:51, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm broadly in agreement with Doug, Dudley, Vanamonde, and Johnbod. When publications in a field can begin with "A new Bayesian algorithm ..." OR "RT-PCR protocol ..." OR "Substitution Rate Analysis ..." OR "Macroevolution ..." and end with "ancient DNA," which Wikipedia author will volunteer that they have the knowledge of the special techniques and the maturity and wisdom of the overall field to gauge the depth of the contribution? What means will they be employing to make that judgment? Reading the abstracts and introductions? For it is unlikely that they will get much farther—uniformly—in all those publications, even with specialist knowledge in one sub-field. That is why it is imperative, and non-negotiably so, for a review of the literature to appear in a journal and for the new result to be assigned due weight. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:27, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
And what to do when those literature reviews don't exist? Don't write the article in the first place? Reduce all affected articles, including all our dinosaur FAs, to mere stubs? Using original journal articles is the only possible way to write those articles, and we are doing it for two decades now. Of course we need to be careful, always give attribution, and cite all relevant articles to ensure proper weight. A complete understanding of a technical paper is often not required as we typically only report its main conclusions. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 05:10, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

There are two issues here. A journal article—not a preliminary announcement in a "refereed" mega-journal with lightning fast turnaround time, and hefty publication fee, but a proper journal article, say, in the American Journal of Human Genetics—will certainly decide reliability. But please tell me how the Wikipedia author will be assigning due weight to a journal article? Please also tell me which journals are these that do not have reviews of literature every so often? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 05:31, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

A mega journal does not necessarily have a fast turnaround time, and surly not reduced reviewing standards. Most journals do not frequently publish review articles. The question is rather what topics are not covered by such literature reviews. Lets take a more recent FAs as example, Spinophorosaurus – there is not a single literature review that is even tangentially relevant here. The article is completely based on primary sources. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 05:48, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
And as for the weight to be given to each paper: We try to cover all relevant papers, and we give them equal weight. Of course, one paper might require more text then another, but that depends on the number of claims the paper makes, and on the number of words needed to explain those to a general audience. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 06:12, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Another thing to clarify is whether we are talking about reliability or about secondaryness. People commonly conflate them and this often causes great confusion but they are separate aspects of a source; a peer-reviewed article in a reputable journal advancing a new theory is a reliable primary source while a no-name blogger summarizing multiple research papers is an unreliable secondary source. In my opinion, a number of research papers can be considered to be both primary and secondary; the paper positing a new theory is a primary source for the new theory it advances while it is a secondary source for the background information the authors gleamed from earlier literature on the subject. Review articles such as these demanded by WP:MEDRS would be a special case where there are no new conclusions so everything is treated as secondary. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 11:07, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Those above commenting that surveys are necessary before journal articles can be used have not, as far as I can see, responded to Jens' point that many dinosaur articles (and of course many others) rely entirely on journal articles, with no review sources whatsoever, and that that has always been treated as acceptable.

And what about the question of knowledge of a field? I've seen many FAC comments to the effect of "you need to read all these sources thoroughly, not just skim the abstracts and look in the indexes", meaning that a good knowledge of the field is needed to select information. We've always said that's necessary, and it's never been citable. When Hoxne hoard was nominated at FAC, the nomination statement included the sentence "The involvement of the British Museum experts, including people who have spent much of their careers working directly with the Hoard, hopefully means we can be unusually sure of meeting criteria 1b and 1c." Of course that was true, yet if Dunkleosteus77 were to suddenly reveal that they are an internationally recognized expert on Neanderthals, in theory that wouldn't change anyone's mind. I think this is the dilemma at the core of this issue -- we want experts, but for good reason credentials do not confer authority here. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:46, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Rules are a good guide but have to be tempered with common sense. Dinosaur articles often have to be written from primary sources because no reliable secondary sources exist, but that is not a reason to dispense with the rules where good secondary sources do exist. There are reliable secondary sources on Neanderthals, and readers can more easily consult them than articles behind paywalls. They should be the basis of the explanation of the large body of agreed knowledge, with exceptions for new findings which are well supported by experts but have not yet been covered in books. Dudley Miles (talk) 13:30, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
Porque no los dos? Individual claims in articles can be cited with multiple references for readers with differing levels of technical knowledge or access to books/journals. Abyssal (talk) 15:43, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

I realize that WP:SCIRS isn't policy (it maybe should be?), but it seems relevant to this discussion as a precedent for how sourcing is tackled in the natural sciences. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 21:05, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Paleontology articles

Mike and Jens, I've just skimmed the lead of the Neanderthal article. It cites a number of review articles, books, the best-known journals (PNAS, Journal of Human Evolution), and some of the best-known researchers, Finlayson for example. I have not examined the FAC review, but I would have few issues with the lead.

  • However, examine the article Spinophorosaurus.
  • Why is almost nothing cited to the major journals in paleontology?
  • How do you explain half its citations being to one PLOS One article (cited 25 times)? Explain also why pretty much 95% or more citations are to articles, conference abstracts, even blogs written by the authors of that first article, or their students and post-docs? Explain why a large number is by a recently-minted Ph.D., D. Vidal (2019)?
  • What aspect of WP:DUE is the sentence, "In a 2013 conference abstract, paleontologist Pedro Mocho and colleagues re-evaluated the phylogenetic relationships of the genus by incorporating further information from newly prepared bones ..." hanging its hat on when the author in question was a beginning graduate student and we are never told if the abstract was expanded and published in a proper journal?
  • I have nothing against graduate students or post-docs but do you see a major issue of DUE here and of the possibility of the unwitting use of Wikipedia to highlight research in a manner that is out-of-sync with the attention the research is receiving in the top journals of the field? Forget a mention in a review, they are not even being published.
  • I could round up graduate students in math, theoretical physics, computational chemistry or computational genomics, and they could be submitting FACs that very likely no one on WP but they will understand enough to write a competent review? What then? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:35, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
I've been advised that the discussion has continued here. In lieu of repeating my comments, I'll respond to the new comments above.
  • Why is nothing cited to the major journals? This is a vertebrate palaeontology paper. There is no point publishing it in a palaeoclimatology journal. Perhaps you should look up major journals in vertebrate palaeontology. PLOS ONE and PeerJ are considered, at least within the field, to be the top open-access journals, ranking among the likes of the Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology.
  • Why is everything cited to one article? The descriptive statements on history and anatomy that constitute much of the article are most reasonably sourced to the original paper describing the specimen. In particular, the anatomy can be verified by anyone with knowledge of dinosaur anatomy, so there is no point addressing it in a subsequent publication if the interpretation is non-controversial. Imagine what papers would be like if they repeated anatomical descriptions of every single specimen involved.
  • Why is everything by the same few people? It's a narrow field with few researchers. Ortega and Sanz have major contributions elsewhere in vertebrate palaeontology.
  • Why is everything by PhD students? Following directly on the previous point, you will notice that Ortega is a co-author on papers by both Vidal and Mocho.
  • Should we give undue attention to graduate students? Well, how would you write the article then?
Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 17:02, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
I think the expectarion of "high impact" for paleontology is fundamentally mistaken. Vert Paleo is primarily an observational rather than an experimental discipline where it is ultimately the fossils themselves, rather than any innovative experiment that gets you into a top journal. There are other disciplines like this, for example i've seen much discussion on twitter between geologists about how almost no sedimentology articles ever get into Science or Nature because they're simply not exciting enough. Vertebrate paleontology is a whole different kettle of fish to disciplines like biomed or physics, and you should adjust your expectations accordingly. Hemiauchenia (talk) 20:15, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
You don't see a conflict of interest here? Fields such as mathematics, which have many high-impact journals, some going back 300 years, have six FAs on Wikipedia; on the other hand, non-avian dinosaurs, which are very likely all Vert Paleo, as you put it, have nearly 60. What do you say to the proposition that, deliberately or unwittingly, the authors and nominators of these FAs are attempting an impact on Wikipedia which the authors they cite are not receiving in their fields through the conventional avenues of peer-recognition? Instead of seeking changes in the standards of peer-recognition in their fields, they are attempting to change the well-worn standards of encyclopedicity, seeking special dispensations for their fields. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:52, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
Paleontology is not a discipline that is about the "top" people in their field. as the discipline at all levels depends on access to specimens. Many are independent researchers who produce the same quality of work as those employed at the top universities. Many scholars complain about the metricization of science with impact factors and so on so I don't understand why you think this is so important. Ultimately, a publication on Paleontology in the PeerJ isn't of any different prestige or quality to one published in PLoS one or Scientific Reports. Most academics have a distain for wikipedia as an unreliable source anyways, so I'm not sure what you're getting at manipulating wikipedia for prestige. I remember having a conversation with my Professor at a UK university saying that because Vert Paleo papers got into Nature and Science more often than those of other disciplines and consequently had a higher value on the Research Excellence Framework, the number of positions for Vertebrate Paleontontologists at UK research universities substantially increased. I think that probably has a significantly more substantial effect than people writing wikipedia articles. I think the main reason Paleontology has more FA's is that there are more wikipedia editors interested in the topic. I think another issue is that it's difficult to present a mathematical topic well to a general audience assuming no prior knowledge without going into lecture territory, while it is much easier to create a relatively accessible article on a single extinct organism. Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:37, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
I'm confused. Are Vert Paleo articles appearing in Nature, Science, PNAS, or not? If so, how is it that there is no tertiary source, no textbook, no research monograph, no review of literature—the excuse being made above for Spinophorosaurus—which can help in determining due weight? How does a WP reviewer judge that FA? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:37, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
Just a quick interjection to say that I’ve added a subheading for this conversation to make it easier for others to continue with the original discussion above, as this is a digression into a particular case. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:45, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
Yes Paleontology papers do appear relatively often in Nature and Science, my point is though that this depends on the quality of the specimens, not the research a spectacular fossil of a feathered dinosaur is much more likely to get into Nature or science than say a study on fossil algae, regardless of the quality of the work done. But the quality of the fossil does not depend on research, it mostly depends on luck and access. There are huge access issues in paleontology where researchers haven't let other workers study important specimens for years while not publishing on it themselves, a dynamic which is completely absent in experimental disciplines. Also because there are relatively fewer papers coming out, if the diagnosis of a specimen is obviously wrong (like mistaking a turtle for a pterosaur), then it is likely that the study will recieve a published rebuttal. Also monographs are published in vertebrate paleontology, but these tend to be technical works describing a single species, with the bone morphology covered in exhaustive detail, and therefore do not provide a broad view of the field. There are published textbooks on vertebrate paleontology, but the rapid pace of discovery in the field in the last decade (the so called "golden age of paleontology") means that these are likely to soon be out of date as new studies overturn long held ideas. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:10, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
I would also argue that the subject matter of vertebrate palaeontology is inherently unsuitable for these kinds of reviews or monographs.
As I previously noted, rehashing all of the details of history and anatomy for a particular group that are already covered by the original papers wastes a lot of time best put into new research. Indeed, subsequent papers cite these original descriptions matter-of-factly when it comes to anatomical details. (If anything, such citations lend credence to the original descriptions, but I seriously doubt that citing every such secondary citation is useful for a Wikipedia article.) So that's half of the Wikipedia article covered.
It's for this reason that the vast majority of phylogenetic analyses in papers can arguably be said to be incremental work, unless there is significant controversy. Papers that broadly cover systematics and phylogeny for a particular group exist, but they usually consist of a) reiterating previous research without comment and b) novel analytic results that really do not constitute secondary commentary. A notable example that comes to mind is [3]. But even such papers are rare and require gargantuan effort on the level of a graduate thesis or more.
The fragmentary nature of fossils also means that some areas of research are fundamentally applicable only to particular species. Take Spinophorosaurus and recent studies on its posture: [4]. The vast majority of dinosaur specimens are not that complete, and so it is pointless to synthesize such research among its close relatives because there really is not that much to speak of. Review papers like [5] are therefore extremely general. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 01:12, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
I wish to additionally note that in the specific case of the posture study cited above, there is already extensive discussion available to read about the paper, but the manner of its publication means that we have little or even absolutely no way to cite this commentary in any articles here. The most "citable" "review" that exists is in a self-published blog post by sauropod researcher Mike P. Taylor [6], where the conclusions are deemed probable although additional data is considered needed. The entire remainder of the discussion by any published authors, beyond comments on that blog post, is present on multiple threads on twitter that we have absolutely no way of citing here because of their impermanence. But this discussion between "experts" of the field (Hartman, Taylor, Vidal) exists, despite not being represented in a book or other format that would make the original publication "acceptable" according to some viewpoints of this discussion. IJReid {{T - C - D - R}} 01:56, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
From my observation nearly all such commentary stays online, unless there are particularly egregious issues (e.g. [7], although this paper is not even peer-reviewed yet and probably will not be for years). Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 02:11, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
I would personally consider the SVPOW post citable, as per WP:RSSELF Michael P. Taylor is an established expert in the field of sauropod dinosaur anatomy. (Full disclosure, I once met Dr. Taylor at a conference) Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:14, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
  • Like I also stated at the Neanderthal FAC, personally I like using book sources here and there in palaeontology articles if such are available covering a given topic, because they often give a good overview of the literature for large and complicated topics, such as the woolly mammoth or Smilodon. But often with more obscure animals, such sources simply don't exist, so I don't see how we could write meaningful articles for such cases if we don't use the journal articles alone. In the case of the Neanderthal article, I do agree some book sources could be consulted, if not just to show that a comprehensive survey of the literature has been conducted, but I'm not sure it should be grounds for failure if they aren't. FunkMonk (talk) 14:38, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

All fields have heuristics, i.e. relatively unstructured, ad hoc, sometimes high-level other times low-level methods of reasoning and evaluating. When physicists, mathematicians, sociologists, linguists, or literary critics work, argue, explain ideas to each other, they often use professional heuristics; they don't talk in the way new graduate students do or people who are still cutting their teeth in the field.

However, when they present the same material to Scientific American or the New York Times they use conventions of explanation appropriate for those publications and their readership, i.e. their explanatory heuristics. Wikipedia has its own heuristics for assessing reliability, assigning due weight, and more informally for presenting "engaging prose." They exist for readers, reviewers, and editors alike. They might not be the best fit for any single field but have been judged to be good overall.

Not you @FunkMonk:, but @Lythronaxargestes, Hemiauchenia, IJReid, and Jens Lallensack: are offering professional heuristics. I am also being pointed to the FA Spinophorosaurus as an example of why Wikipedia's conventions are not relevant for some articles in paleontology. I am being told that the original 2009 paper and its spin-offs are really all there is, that we should not look for the usual Wikipedia benchmarks: textbooks, monographs, review articles in journals, or the "reviews of the literature" sections within articles in the more conventional journals of paleontology. So, fine, let's say, for a moment, I agree with them.

That brings me to "engaging prose," which in my view, has less to do with style, grammar or flow (though those are important), as with the ability to change, alter, or transmute professional explanations to everyday ones—but in a manner that conforms to the explanatory style of the field, the pedagogical heuristics if you will. The reason to have books or other secondary or tertiary literature is that they demonstrate it to us, reader and editor alike, for a specific field and for a target audience.

If books or other models or benchmarks of explanatory heuristics do not exist, then the topic is not ready or appropriate for an encyclopedia, especially one in which articles exist to be judged by non-professionals. Therefore when some sentences in a PLOS One article:

As indicated by generalized North African forms close to the root of Neosauropoda like Jobaria [15], as well as by the wide paleobiogeographic distribution of Upper Jurassic Diplodocoidea [32], [54], [55], the origin of neosauropods and several subgroups may also be located in the Jurassic equatorial region. Following this idea, equatorial Pangaea might be interpreted as a ‘hotspot’ with respect to sauropod evolution, an issue to be explored in more depth in future works. In this context, Spinophorosaurus represents a key taxon for understanding the early diversification and ecological specialization of the sauropods in the Jurassic, which obviously was strongly driven also by climatic [49] and phytogeographic factors, and not solely by continental differentiation."

are paraphrased as

"Since Jobaria of North Africa is close to the base of Neosauropoda, and because neosauropods such as diplodocoids were widely distributed in the Upper Jurassic, neosauropods and some of their subgroups may also have originated in the equatorial region of Jurassic Pangaea, which may have acted as a "hot spot" in sauropod evolution. The Jurassic diversification of sauropods was possibly controlled by climatic zones and plant biogeography, rather than just continental differentiation."

we have no way of knowing if the summary conforms to any tradition of the field, for no tradition has been offered. So DUE is not the only reason to need books. Summarization, and therefore Wikipedia's notion of encyclopedic information, are dependent on them. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:30, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

If I am reading you correctly, you are saying that we need books on the exact subject of an article (instead of, for example, a more inclusive subfield) to determine how to write the article in an accessible way? That doesn't make sense to me. The same kind of language is prevalent across all literature in at least dinosaur palaeontology, and for the more general cases a variety of books and articles by subject experts are available. We adhere to the kind of writing we see there. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 17:58, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
Popular dinosaur/paleontology books do exist, so there are "translations" for laymen that can be used as general reference. Even if they don't exist for a specific dinosaur species, the way other species have been treated in popular works can be applied to them. That is for example what the dinosaur glossary is used for. FunkMonk (talk) 17:59, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
Also, this is not only an issue of paleontology articles. In 2015 we had the bird FAC Perijá tapaculo, which was nominayed the same year the species was described, which is of course not enough time for it to be covered in secondary literature. Yet I was the only one who raised concerns about this, and it was promoted (with my support). FunkMonk (talk) 19:51, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
I think it's worth noting that the estimated size of the entire Vert Paleo field is around 2500 workers, not counting the churn of grad students and post-docs, it's really not a big field. Ultimately, what is the point you wish to make here? Do you think the current prose is too technical? Do you think that obscure taxa that are only covered by a handful of journal articles fail wikipedia's notability guidelines? Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:14, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
Of course, neither of those. But there might be a concern that the FA criteria cannot be met, as with some other niche subjects. Johnbod (talk) 21:32, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
What would you suggest? Delist all affected FAs, amend the rules, or just continue handling it as we always have? --Jens Lallensack (talk) 21:49, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
  • May I suggest to end this discussion here and now, as it is increasingly becoming disrespectful. Arguing that articles that have to be based on primary sources do not meet the current rules is unhelpful and without point, since this cannot be changed. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 22:23, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
Obviously, I'm not suggesting delisting the articles, but I am suggesting that if authors are conforming to some styles of explanation, it cannot be us, the readers, who have to scurry around looking for their examples, or be clicking out—early and often—to linked articles. It is the job of the authors to present expansive background and context sections which are cited to books and tertiary sources, where the style of communication becomes plain to us, so that in more obscure, complex or recondite sections we can see that same style continue, and if needs be, hold the authors' feet to the fire. The very articles you are citing, the 2020 Scientific Reports article has a longish Introduction section. How then does a Wikipedia article not have it? When Remes himself has edited a book on Sauropods, why is there no mention of the book in the FA? If it means that articles on more specialized topics will need to have larger background sections, and consequently reduced focused content, so be it; it is the price of the specialization in an encyclopedia. If you insist on a special dispensation, then be prepared for a mathematics FA which begins with, "The Deligne groupoid is a functor from nilpotent differential graded Lie algebras concentrated in positive degrees to groupoids; in the special case of Lie algebras over a field of characteristic zero, it gives the associated simply connected Lie group." in which pretty much every noun is a blue-linked trapdoor to a bottomless history. I know the FAC criteria, and I've heard all the Wikilawyer arguments. This is a serious concern. No disrespect is meant to anyone. This is my final post. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:08, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
I don't expect a response, but I will point out that the amount of text from the introduction of the Scientific Reports paper — a study about posture — which has relevance to the entire article is very limited. The relevant content is limited to

Sauropods were the earliest large phytophagous dinosaurs, with an unparalleled disparity in body size, since their Late Triassic origin until their demise at the end of the Cretaceous. Their quadrupedal, long-necked, long-tailed body plan remained fixed during their evolution, although both relatively shorter necks and extremely long necks appeared on several different clades of sauropods. [...]
In 2007, the holotypic specimen of Spinophorosaurus nigerensis was unearthed from the Middle (?) Jurassic of Niger, being one of the most complete single specimens retrieved among basally branching eusauropods. The exceptional preservation and completeness of this specimen enabled to generate a virtual skeletal mount with less uncertainty than previous virtual sauropod mounts.

The first section of the article covers the content of the second excerpt in great detail. If the suggestion is to mandate inclusion of the first excerpt — fine, so be it, but the same information can be obtained from the lead of Sauropoda without reading the whole article. The key is that, unlike group theory, palaeontology is highly accessible (and is thus a "gateway science") and does not require an obscene amount of background to understand. With the exception of some systematic and anatomical terms, the lead of that article provides a perfectly transparent introduction to the subject which a general reader can comprehend. I fail to see any way of writing an extended background or context section about sauropods that would not be full of unnecessary content bloating and forking, with ideas that do not contribute to the wider article. It would be the equivalent of taking that bottomless pit of history and dumping it onto every tangentially relevant article. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 01:48, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
The problem I see is what if it turns out that the the Neanderthals did not have woven cord, that the cord was much younger or was produced by modern humans? Recently, scientists reported the observation of particles travelling faster than light, which turned out to be false. In order to maintain weight, I think it is best to use secondary sources, such as news or magazine reports of the findings, TFD (talk) 01:05, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
That's really not a problem, though. You update the article to reflect the facts (as best as possible). There's a reason revised editions of works exist, they are revised to reflect current thinking. Wikipedia is no different, indeed, if anything, Wikipedia has the advantage of being immediately amendable, which paper encyclopedias and other works do not. Mr rnddude (talk) 02:14, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
Some news and magazine articles about recent discoveries uncritically state the interpretation of the authors is unless it's something extremely controversial like FTL. Remember the massive hubbub about the supposed human ancestor Darwinius/Ida from 2009 that turned out to be a lemur relative instead? Obviously there were doubters from the start (which is reflected in this BBC piece among numerous others from the initial days after the announcement) but some of the more creduluous members of the press swallowed the human ancestor narrative whole (see this guardian piece from the time, a usually reliable newspaper). Therefore it is necessary to be careful to select sources that include outside comment / aren't churnalism of press releases like phys.org Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:22, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

FAC reviewing statistics for April 2020

Here are the FAC reviewing statistics for April 2020. The tables below include all reviews for FACS that were either archived or promoted last month, so the reviews included are spread over the last two or three months. A review posted last month is not included if the FAC was still open at the end of the month. One slightly unusual feature this month is that two FACs received no reviews (one was quickly withdrawn and the other was immediately archived as out-of-process); those show up in the tables with "<none>" as the reviewer. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:33, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Reviewers for April 2020
# reviews Type of review
Reviewer Image Source Content Total
Nikkimaria 18 6 24
Mike Christie 1 9 10
CPA-5 8 8
Buidhe 4 2 2 8
Hurricanehink 2 6 8
Gog the Mild 1 5 6
Casliber 5 5
Peacemaker67 4 4
HaEr48 4 4
KJP1 2 2 4
Fowler&fowler 4 4
John M Wolfson 4 4
Hurricane Noah 3 3
Kosack 3 3
David Fuchs 2 1 3
Harrias 3 3
Kaiser matias 3 3
JennyOz 3 3
Factotem 2 1 3
FunkMonk 3 3
Epicgenius 3 3
Aoba47 3 3
Wehwalt 3 3
Jo-jo Eumerus 1 1 2
Hawkeye7 2 2
<none> 2 2
WereSpielChequers 2 2
Sturmvogel 66 1 1 2
A. Parrot 1 1 2
The Squirrel Conspiracy 2 2
Gerbis 2 2
Cassianto 2 2
Nick-D 2 2
HJ Mitchell 2 2
Ceoil 2 2
TropicalAnalystwx13 2 2
JavaHurricane 2 2
Lee Vilenski 2 2
J Milburn 2 2
Kees08 1 1 2
Usernameunique 1 1 2
Llammakey 1 1
Veera Narayana 1 1
Modernist 1 1
Moisejp 1 1
Indrian 1 1
Amakuru 1 1
Noswall59 1 1
Yellow Evan 1 1
Mr. Smart LION 1 1
SounderBruce 1 1
Dudley Miles 1 1
TheAustinMan 1 1
Rschen7754 1 1
Eisfbnore 1 1
Zawed 1 1
SandyGeorgia 1 1
Shearonink 1 1
CaptainEek 1 1
Laser brain 1 1
The ed17 1 1
Numerounovedant 1 1
Twofingered Typist 1 1
NapHit 1 1
Iridescent 1 1
TheJoebro64 1 1
MONGO 1 1
NowIsntItTime 1 1
DoctorSpeed 1 1
Dough4872 1 1
Govvy 1 1
Toa Nidhiki05 1 1
Ceranthor 1 1
Johnbod 1 1
Kew Gardens 613 1 1
Ruby2010 1 1
Juliancolton 1 1
Jimfbleak 1 1
Truflip99 1 1
Grapple X 1 1
Kingsif 1 1
Yashthepunisher 1 1
Borsoka 1 1
Zmbro 1 1
Norfolkbigfish 1 1
Krish! 1 1
Anythingyouwant 1 1
Thatoneweirdwikier 1 1
JohnWickTwo 1 1
Ykraps 1 1
SnowFire 1 1
Grand Total 31 22 155 208
Supports and opposes for April 2020
# declarations Declaration
Editor Oppose Support None Struck oppose Grand Total
Nikkimaria 23 1 24
Mike Christie 3 3 2 2 10
Buidhe 8 8
Hurricanehink 6 2 8
CPA-5 7 1 8
Gog the Mild 5 1 6
Casliber 4 1 5
HaEr48 4 4
Peacemaker67 4 4
KJP1 1 3 4
Fowler&fowler 1 1 2 4
John M Wolfson 1 3 4
Aoba47 3 3
Kosack 1 2 3
Factotem 2 1 3
Wehwalt 3 3
Kaiser matias 3 3
Harrias 2 1 3
Hurricane Noah 2 1 3
JennyOz 3 3
David Fuchs 1 2 3
FunkMonk 3 3
Epicgenius 3 3
Sturmvogel 66 1 1 2
The Squirrel Conspiracy 1 1 2
JavaHurricane 1 1 2
TropicalAnalystwx13 2 2
Hawkeye7 2 2
Nick-D 1 1 2
Ceoil 1 1 2
WereSpielChequers 1 1 2
Jo-jo Eumerus 2 2
A. Parrot 1 1 2
Usernameunique 1 1 2
Gerbis 1 1 2
HJ Mitchell 2 2
Kees08 1 1 2
Cassianto 2 2
J Milburn 1 1 2
Lee Vilenski 2 2
<none> 2 2
Borsoka 1 1
Veera Narayana 1 1
Rschen7754 1 1
Zawed 1 1
Ceranthor 1 1
Johnbod 1 1
Ykraps 1 1
Thatoneweirdwikier 1 1
Yashthepunisher 1 1
Dudley Miles 1 1
DoctorSpeed 1 1
TheAustinMan 1 1
Truflip99 1 1
Jimfbleak 1 1
Anythingyouwant 1 1
Twofingered Typist 1 1
Indrian 1 1
Kew Gardens 613 1 1
Modernist 1 1
Kingsif 1 1
Numerounovedant 1 1
Juliancolton 1 1
MONGO 1 1
Shearonink 1 1
Govvy 1 1
NapHit 1 1
Zmbro 1 1
SandyGeorgia 1 1
Toa Nidhiki05 1 1
Amakuru 1 1
Norfolkbigfish 1 1
Moisejp 1 1
JohnWickTwo 1 1
SnowFire 1 1
TheJoebro64 1 1
Ruby2010 1 1
NowIsntItTime 1 1
Eisfbnore 1 1
Dough4872 1 1
Noswall59 1 1
Laser brain 1 1
CaptainEek 1 1
Mr. Smart LION 1 1
The ed17 1 1
Krish! 1 1
Llammakey 1 1
Grapple X 1 1
Iridescent 1 1
Yellow Evan 1 1
SounderBruce 1 1
Grand Total 10 112 80 6 208

Page numbers again

The question of when page numbers are needed was discussed at Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/archive80#When are page numbers needed... It was accepted that page numbers are always required when citing books, and there was discussion of how to deal with unpaginated articles. However, Dunkleosteus77 in Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Neanderthal/archive1 has explained that page numbers are not given for a source because it is an unpaginated ebook. Ref 56 in Neanderthal is for five citations of Finlayson's The Smart Neanderthal, all to the whole book. This means that readers cannot check the citations, and it is presumably a problem which will periodically come up when editors cite ebooks. Any views on how to deal with this and what the policy should be? Dudley Miles (talk) 12:42, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

I asked the same here last year:[8] FunkMonk (talk) 12:46, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
I've had this issue sometimes. Sometimes it's possible just to link every ref, or use the "page" numbers that appear only in the address, not on screen (in some types). Ideally one can ask someone to look at a hard copy. Typically chapter numbers are given, which helps a lot - it's perfectly reasonable to insist on these if they are there. I've resorted to vague things like "near the start of Ch. 5", but not for FAC. If it's a main source at FAC it might be a real problem. There were sensible comments last time - I don't use kindle or similar, so wouldn't know about those. Johnbod (talk) 13:22, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
It's going to become more of a problem rather than a diminishing one, so we ought to consider a guideline sooner rather than later. SERIAL# 13:31, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
There's a guideline for this already at Wikipedia:Citing sources: "use other means of identifying the relevant section of a lengthy work, such as the chapter number or the section title." DrKay (talk) 13:48, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
While having page numbers is absolutely the best possible option, it's worth noting that it's going to increasingly be a problem as books become digital and there aren't any consistent page numbers, as the exact same book from the same storefront will paginate differently depending on device screen size, etc. I would say in these cases what editors should do is where feasible provide direct quotes (the way they probably should for content like video, etc.) so at the very least editors looking to verify can manually search a text string and be brought directly to the citation. Otherwise chapter/section headings are the best option. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 14:40, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
There's the issue of Kindle locations as well. I wish more of the books I got via Kindle had page numbers, rather than locations. But I'm not going to buy a hard copy just for that.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:57, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
I think that printed books are vastly preferable to ebooks for research, as it is not satisfactory to cite without page numbers. However, it would not be fair to ebook readers to make it a rule, so long as there is some means of narrowing down the text. I think Johnbod's suggestion of "near the start of chapter 6" should acceptable for FAC. BTW how does an ebook reader check a citation to a book with a page number? Dudley Miles (talk) 15:28, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
I just use chapters or sections when I have to use an ebook. I expect the actual text being referenced could be accessed by reviewers via searches for key words or terms.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:31, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
Would a viable workaround be that the pertinent text/passage/sentences - that backs up the ref (from the ebook/Google Book/Kindle Book)... could that be quoted within the cite? Shearonink (talk) 15:33, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
That can be done. I'm not sure, though, it must be done. A Kindle edition is no different from any other edition. It is accessible to the public, after all.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:59, 6 May 2020 (UTC)
Let's not overthink things as I think that that would be rather excessive in practice. I tend to string together sources into a single cite per paragraph, extracting and copying all of the relevant stuff would at least double the amount of time required to write the paragraph. A general search should suffice.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 18:01, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

I haven't read this discussion very carefully. What I'm about to say is very likely known to most of you, and some may have alluded to it above, but I'm adding it here for the record. If an ebook is available on Google books, there is a way of extracting a page number. Let's say we're on a page in The Smart Neanderthal (which is an ebook without page numbers) and the discussion is about the spatial location of the bones, the tools, and the fire. We pick some words on the page distinctive enough, or long enough, to generate a unique search result. So, let's say, we search for: The Smart Neanderthal X Y spatial location. It takes us to Finlayson's book. Upon clicking, it should say: Result 1 of 1, etc.. We examine the URL. It will read something like: https://books.google.com/books?id=7hqJDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT107&dq=The+Smart ... What follows &pg = PT is the page number, in this instance 107. If you feed that long URL into Reftag you will get: Finlayson, Clive (15 February 2019), The Smart Neanderthal: Bird catching, Cave Art, and the Cognitive Revolution, OUP Oxford, pp. 107–, ISBN 978-0-19-251812-5. A reader can click on the title and go to the page. It seems to be platform invariant as I get to page 107 on the iPhone as well. The HTML savvy among you (which I by far am not) will have more concise ways of describing this process. It does extract page numbers, but only for pages that can be viewed on Google books. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:27, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

PS If you are using Sfn and cite from, say, page 108 in the book: {{Sfn|Finlayson|2019|p=108}}, the reader can go to the "front cover" URL, https://books.google.com/books?id=7hqJDwAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&printsec=frontcover... ), lop off everything after the book id, and then add "&pg=PA108" or "&pg=PT108", This URL will take the reader to the page of interest, if the know this routine, that is, and if that page is available for viewing. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:27, 6 May 2020 (UTC)


WP:WAS discussion at MOS

I just started a discussion here about WP:WAS as applied to magazines; not sure how many here it will interest, but I tend to err towards notifying this group of MoS discussions since the MoS affects us here. The edit that caught my attention was to a featured article I'd nominated. Please comment there if interested. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:15, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

WT:FAC FAQ

I notice that WT:MOS has a FAQ at the top; I wonder if we might benefit from doing the same. We have perennial topics, like the village pump does. I can think of several conversations that come up repeatedly -- short FAs, reviews from subject matter experts, topic diversity -- and a link to prior discussions might help avoid repeating the same discussions. Fowler&fowler, I don't mean that this would prevent you from starting a thread such as the one above, but there have been definitely been prior conversations about diversity, and you and others might find it informative to read them. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:58, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

Sure, that would be a great idea, especially any diversity statements of the type I've talked about above. I obviously have no truck with the banned editor who started the thread above, but I now view the lack of diversity to be a serious issue among topics appearing in WP:FA, not just a cursorily notable one. I also don't view mentorship to offer requisite remediation, especially after reading some of the responses above. Nurturing is a whole other ball game. I will address this again sometime as I've stated above. Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 13:42, 16 May 2020 (UTC)
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