Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates

Relisting failed nominations

What is the policy on relisting failed nominations? Tintin was rejected as it had two supports and one objection (which may have been redrawn, I believe the points were adressed), and I cannot find a relisting policy in the tlak archives. {Ανάριον } 07:52, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

First, as I said when you asked on my talk page about this - 2/1 is obviously not consensus. This nomination clearly failed (it wasn't even borderline -- 4/1 or 5/1 is borderline). Second, in the past, when articles were renominated, it was after a reasonable period of time (a month or two) - and even then, the first question asked is usually 'have all the previous objections been resolved'. Relisting it before that would... not be good (it sets a bad precedent, it's bad form, it keeps the page overloaded, and it annoys the person who needs to keep cleaning this page out -- me). →Raul654 07:56, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

I do not duispute it failed — I am asking what the standard relisting period is. This should be stated somewhere. {Ανάριον } 08:12, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The idea is not to set a hard limit. That would be instruction creep. →Raul654 08:14, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)

Relisting Successfully Nominated Pages

There have been at least three relisted nominations of Featured Articles in the past few weeks are so. I myself was almost guility of this when I was going to nominate the Fermi Paradox article, but then realized it was already featured. Perhaps we should just start putting the {{featured}} template on the front of the page rather than on the talk page? Any other ideas?

One other idea (which could be done as well as or instead of the first idea): Change the featured article instructions at the top of the wikipedia:featured article candidates page to say "Check that the article you want to nominate hasn't already been featured before nominating. You can check on Wikipedia:Featured articles or check on the article's talk page" (or something similar)? Jongarrettuk 21:42, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Metadata should not be on the main article page. The problem you cite is not big enough to override this general principle. Talk pages should really be read before nomination anyhow, to get a flavour for the history of the article. Pcb21| Pete 22:42, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

So why not advise them to do so as part of the 'how to nominate' bit at the top of the featured article candidate page? Jongarrettuk 22:45, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Pete is exactly right - keep the metadata out of the articles. And if someone lists something that's already a featured article, delete the nom on sight. →Raul654 00:32, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

Sesame Street

Here is results from the vote on the article Sesame Street. Does the vote need to more definitive than this?

Supported: Ta bu shi da yu, Filiocht, Mpolo, Zanimum

Opposed: Jongarrettuk, Jeronimo

"Object at the moment": Mgm

Jongarrettuk kept harping on the industry standard term edutainment, despite its world-wide usage. I changed the wording for him, but right after, the nomination was archived.

I addressed all but one of Jeronimo's concerns, but he didn't bother to change his vote, or comment elsewise.

I addressed one of Mgm's two concerns; the other, merchandising, didn't need expanding on the main page, IMHO. -- user:zanimum

Generally, yes, if there are open valid non-trivial objections then a FAC is does not becomes Featured. Rather than worrying about the process, it may be more productive to put the articles back into WP:PR for a couple of weeks and then re-nominate. -- ALoan (Talk) 16:03, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

con·sen·sus noun 1. broad unanimity: general or widespread agreement among all the members of a group [1]. 4-2 doesn't sound like widespread agreement to me. →Raul654 16:39, Oct 6, 2004 (UTC)

If Jongarrettuk changed his vote after the changes it would be 5-2. Jeronimo hadn't responded after the changes and may also change his, making it 6-1. Perhaps it just needed to stay on a little longer before being archived. violet/riga (t) 16:54, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Umm, by my count it is currently 4-3, Jeronimo, mgm and me all opposing. I'd certainly hope every 'object' really means 'object at the moment'. Personally I never vote 'object' unless I'd be prepared to support if my objection was dealt with. (And any harping I've done is because zanimum kept asking me to comment on his comments - which I'm happy to do, but I don't think it's fair to then complain about it:) BTW, I don't view having a negative first impression of an article and explaining why to be a trivial objection if that comment's directed at me.)Jongarrettuk 17:05, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Oops, I misread the bit where zanimum said he changed it - I've seen the revised version now (thanks for changing it zanimum, I think it reads better now). Violetriga's right, if I'd seen it before the nomination had left I'd have changed my vote to support to make it 5-2. Check whether jeronimo feels the same way, if he does, relist it straightaway. Jongarrettuk 17:08, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

If we fail to get any further response, what happens? Can I even just relist Sesame now? -- user:zanimum

As I have said to previous nominations -- relisting the same article immediately after it has failed is bad form. The first question that will be asked is - have all outstanding objections been addressed? →Raul654 18:09, Oct 7, 2004 (UTC)

Which suggests to me that it was taken off too quickly, especially as Jeronimo has some further discussion to add. violet/riga (t) 09:19, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I was reminded only yesterday that the article had changed, and I'm not constantly available for Wikipedia. So now I "bothered to check", I find that not all of my objections have been addressed. The character section is still messy and without a discussion of the major characters. There are several one sentence/one paragraphs sections, which should be avoided. Much of the article is very US-biased (e.g. ratings), and the "Regional variations of the show" mentions only some of the countries, and is inconsistent. Summarizing, I will not change my vote to support. Jeronimo 07:32, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

- Knew you'd snipe at that. I was talking merely in theory of someone not checking, for future reference. The major and minor characters change every five years. Regional variations is limited in the countries it mentions, as it is only meant to sample the most popular or note worthy. With time, I will write a whole article on the internationalisation, but mentioning a spin-off that only lasted five years in a relatively small country is not going to help the article in any way, shape, or form. And yes, it is US-centric, because its a US show. Sesame Workshop creates like shows for other countries, and they are not Sesame Street. Is Seinfeld to US-centric, not mentioning how Luxembourgians felt of the show? -- user:zanimum
  - I think one of the special things about Sesame Street *is* that there are regional versions of the show, many of them long-running as well. This certainly deserves more attention. (I watched Bert and Ernie and Kermit c.s. when I was small, and when I turn on the televsion today, they're still on Dutch TV). Many of the (puppet) characters are famous in their own right, and the article should give some more info about that. Jeronimo 06:48, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC
    - Yes, gosh darn it! Listen to me, please... I too think the local version are fantastic. It's just when someone from the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, etc, thinks of Ernie and Bert and Prairie Dawn, they think of the show Sesame Street. When someone in Germany thinks of Ernie and Bert and Rumpel, they think of Sesamstraße. When someone in Holland thinks of Ernie and Bert and Pino, they think of Sesamstraat. They are different shows. They deserve different articles. Ignoring geography and language, this is no different to Happy Days, in relation to its spin-offs Laverne and Shirley, Blansky's Beauties, Mork and Mindy, Out of the Blue, Joanie Loves Chachi, Fonz and the Happy Days Gang and Laverne and Shirley in the Army. They were all different, yet similar programs in format and content, and so they get different pages. -- user:zanimum

May I relist? --- user:zanimum

If you believe that all the objections are now met and that the quality of the article remains high enough to be a featured article, you don't need anyone's permission - I say go for it! As I'm sure you're aware, it's probably worth noting when you do renominate it that it was recently listed, add a link to the discussion we had then, and note that you believe all the matters objected to are now dealt with. If you don't, someone else will and may use more negative phrasing than you would. jguk 17:34, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Voting contributors?

Question to Raul: I noticed recently that some of the contributors have voted on their own article. E.g., Chris73 voted for his "own" article about Japanese toilets (nominated by someone else), while several collaborators on the Irish Geography article have also voted. Are their votes considered together with the non-contributing voters? Not that I mistrust these contributors (after all, they identified themselves as such), but these people are usually not too objective about their own article (I know I'm not). Just a question... Jeronimo 06:52, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

As I understood from the top paragraph, you ~~cannot~~ should not vote for a self nomination. But since in my case someone else nominated the articles I believe I can vote, too. After all, an article is usually created by multiple contributors. I always disclosed my status as contributor when voting for an article I contributed to significantly. If i misunderstood the guidelines, please let me know and I will remove my vote. -- Chris 73 Talk 06:57, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)

As long as the contributors identify themselves as such then I think it should be ok. Only non-contributor votes should be counted as deciding to make it an FA though. violet/riga (t) 07:47, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I agree that votes by users who contribute in any significant way before the article is listed should not be counted. However, I think it's fine for someone to see the listing, go improve something, and then come back and vote. I think this distinction is important and I know that I have voted for articles I worked on after they were listed here without identifying myself as a contributor. Filiocht 07:57, 2004 Oct 12 (UTC)

Good point. I have in the past objected to an article, then fixed some of my objections. violet/riga (t) 08:12, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

This is putting process ahead of product taken to the extreme. It is totally natural that users who have knowledge about X will have contributed to articles about X. You want to prevent them having any say in whether that article is any good or not? Just leave it to the people who don't know about topic, eh? No wonder featured articles becomes steadily more about box-ticking in terms getting the stylistics/formatting right and much less about the quality of the content. Someone being able to say "I have knowledge about this subject, and this article is accurate and complete" is far more useful than "TOC too long" and other typical objections. Pcb21| Pete 09:22, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Problem: What is a significant contribution? For Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates it's pretty easy, since it is usually only one person that created the image, but for articles its harder to say. For the sake of simplicity I would allow contributors to vote, too. Usually, an article does not pass anyway until almost all objections are met. Pete also has a good point about the most knowledgeable wikipedians being the one that edited the article the most. Is there any policy or guideline available somewhere? -- Chris 73 Talk 09:25, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)

I find this highly disturbing and against the Wiki way. Anybody who has contributed to the article but is not the nominator should have the right to vote, regardless of how big or small his/her contributions were. Johnleemk | Talk 10:56, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I have usually added "I helped/contributed" etc. when it is the case that I have. I believe this is sufficient. Common sense is required on deciding how much weight to lend to such votes. It's not a case of inflating "votes in favour" like in VfD, as here, even one objection usually is enough that it must be fixed. zoney ♣ talk 11:13, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think we should take the perspective that FAC is not a poll, but a process. As any objection can stop the promotion of a FAC, it shouldn't matter whoever put in the objection, if it's a valid one. Effectively, "support" don't contribute much to the process, and should not be take an as a measure of FA-worthyness. ✏ Sverdrup 11:26, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Absolutely agree with this, and with what Zoney said. Having said that, I think comments like "I have knowledge about this subject, and this article is accurate and complete" are helpful too. It would be a disaster if FAC went down the sad road of VfD and, latterly, RfAdminship which attempt to redefine consensus in terms of percentages. Because FAC is generally mercifully free of trollish behaviour, hopefully the accolade of having one's article featured is not so great that people will ever make deceptive supportive comments. Pcb21| Pete 11:36, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Equally valid is 'I know nothing about this, which is why I'm looking it up in an encyclopaedia. Having read the article, I now know a lot/even less, so I support/object.' My point about people who make significant contributions (and yes, I know that would take some defining, I'd mean adding matters of fact rather than improving the style) not voting comes from two things: articles that get voted on to FA because they get a number of supports and no objects and articles coming from the various COTWs that now exist. It seems to me that one of the participants in the COTW grouping nominates on behalf of the group, not just as an individual, which leaves some open questions around the votes of other contributors. Yes, this is a much nicer place than VfD, and no, I do not think that rigged votes are likely, I just think there is a new situation now with all the COTWs and the process here needs to address that. Filiocht 12:27, 2004 Oct 12 (UTC)

Guys! Don't get me wrong, I was merely inquiring whether it is taken into account that the votes of those who are so kind to indicate they are contributors are from people who may have added significant parts of the article. I don't want to add or change any nomination/voting rules, I'm just curious if Raul - who ultimately judges a nomination - uses this information or not. Nothing more. Jeronimo 17:55, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I voted on the Irish Geography one, and whilst what I said may make it seem like I contributed, all I did was whack redlinks; the same goes for most of the others in that example Kiand 19:06, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Here are my thoughts on the subject (sorry for taking so long to reply, but I’ve been swamped lately). I believe true the arguments made against allowing people to vote on an article they have worked on (Because yes, there is obviously a tendency to think well of one's own work), but I also think that keeping all people who have worked on an article from voting on it would tend to bias the featured-article selection process away from the contributors best knowledgeable about a subject. I think the system I have been using up until now -- to ignore the vote of the nominator but count everyone else's -- tends to work best. Virtually all the nominations being made are self-nominations, and so discounting the nominator tends to counter self-promotion bias. On the other hand, letting others vote on the article ensures that we don’t risk the "factually accurate" criteria, which after all is the most important criteria of being a featured article.

Furthermore, this has the wonderful characteristic of being simple - we don't have to worry about defining what a significant contribution is, or whose votes count and whose doesn't, etc. Going down that path only leads to VFD and RFA like pages, which will happen to the FAC over my dead body. →Raul654 16:53, Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)

Fari points all. Lets leave things as they are. I certainly do not want the VfD virus to take hold here. Filiocht 11:04, Oct 15, 2004 (UTC)

Great, thanks for the reply. Jeronimo 11:34, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

What is wrong with this page?

I'm adding a nomination, but it doesn't show until I force the page to purge. What's up with that? - Ta bu shi da yu 11:37, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Overwriting sections

This has been discussed before, but if:

someone starts to edit a section;
someone else adds a new section above it; and
the edited section is saved,

then the edited section is saved in the wrong place (replacing and overwriting the section above). This leads to duplicate sections - one with the edit above one without the edit - and the overwritten section disappears. Deleting duplicate sections is easy enough, but the overwritten section is only apparent from the page history.

This is a significant problem on a high-traffic page like this. In the past week or so, I've replaced overwritten sections a number of times. Presumably it would be possible to avoid this if each FAC nominee went into its own subpage (say, /Shroud of Turin, /Congo Civil War) as on WP:VFD, WP:RFA and others - is there a reason it is not done here (other than historical accident)?

In the meantime:

please would editors check that their edits go in the right place and don't have unexpected side effects;
if you are deleting a duplicate section, please check that it has not overwritten another section and, if so, put the other section back again.

Thanks. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:13, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I've found after several mistakes that the easiest way to avoid this is to check the most recent page history just before saving your own edit. If an edit (a nomination) has happened while you were editing, then copy the text of your edit and start over and paste it in. - Taxman 02:21, Oct 16, 2004 (UTC)

Smile?

In writing up a Featured albums proposal, I have discovered that, as I thought I remembered, Smile was once nominated for featured status, but I can't find any record of it. Am I missing something? What are the extant objections? Tuf-Kat 23:55, Oct 17, 2004 (UTC)

It is here. Somewhat surprisingly, not much support or comment. -- ALoan (Talk) 13:41, 18 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Nomination checklist?

A lot of the articles nominated here have some basic defects, which should really be there before becoming featured. Top defects include missing references and an insufficient lead section; also image problems occur frequently. Referring back to Peer Review usually doesn't work (it isn't moved, or the peer review is poor). Would it be an idea to make a "Nomination checklist", which lists these issues spefically ("What is a featured article could also be adapted")? We could then refer to this checklist when a nominated article has such problems, without having to explain the problems in detail once again. This should save space and effort, which can then be used to judge the actual content and accuracy of the article. I wouldn't want to make this a formal thing, but I think it would be useful for both nominators and voters. Jeronimo 11:41, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I agree that a lot of articles have basic defects, but what do you think is missing from Wikipedia:What is a featured article? It mentions lead sections (though that could be expanded to say 2-3 paragraphs), images, and references. Perhaps we could number the items in the criteria and simply point to the fact that they are deficient? That would make editors at least read the criteria. We could keep working on making the criteria more clear and comprehensive. - Taxman 12:05, Oct 19, 2004 (UTC)

The ramblings of someone with too much time on his hands

Some time back, when I nominated a bunch of my works on WP:FAC, they received a great deal of support. However, there was one objection which was never removed (this held up I Want To Hold Your Hand; even when I personally contacted the objector on his talk page after fixing the objection, it was not withdrawn, nor was any reason given for continued objection). The objection? That I made too liberal use of online references (for examples, see the relevant sections on Hey Jude and Something, both already featured articles). I think we should get some sort of consensus on this (I tried Cite sources, but nothing resulted).

I mean, if it's some site on Tripod with no bibliography or references, and practically unknown anyhow, that's okay, it's reasonable. But the sites where I got my material from do list their references, and both score extremely high on Google when searching for "the Beatles". This site is the second result for "the Beatles", just behind the official Beatles website. This site provides a bibliography. Clearly if the article's references are credible, they should be allowed to stand; referencing some teenybopper's Frontpage-designed Geocities site shouldn't, or at the very least, be questioned. I think this should be viewed as part of a slightly larger problem — if I'm not mistaken, policy dictates that no article can become featured unless all objections are resolved. However, what objections are actionable/reasonable? For example, take the nomination of A Tale of A Tub. Jeronimo's objection sticks out like a sore thumb. If my understanding of policy is correct, this holds the article back, despite the mass amount of support from others, many of whom have criticised the objection (much like what occurred with the nominations of A Day in the Life and The Long and Winding Road).

Quite often I find that some objections/comments are just so vague, I'm not sure how to take action. A good deal of the time, if asked to clarify, the user doesn't respond (at least in my experience). For example, Ambi said some of the chronology on Get Back is unclear. I wasn't sure what she was talking about, so I asked a few days ago, and I still haven't got a response.

Sorry if I've wasted everybody's time with my rambling; I think we need to alter the policy sometime soon, as as our community grows, more and more users will be frequenting FAC. As the old parable goes, we're not able to please everyone. Some objective standards clearly must be met, such as references and a lead section. But in some more subjective ones, I think if there's mass disagreement with the relevant objection (or just a clear consensus), we should be able to sidestep the objection in question. We already trust this policy with electing our sysops; why not with our featured articles? Comments? Brickbats? Suggestions of more useful things to do than rambling on a talk page? Johnleemk | Talk 13:04, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Just face it mate, this isn't the most efficiant system in the world. Sometimes people object just because they feel like it, sometimes they just don't get back to you. So far as I can see, you've had articles up before (didn't you do yesterday?), if not, well neither have most of the contributers. No use getting wound up about it. Also, all you're stuff seems to be beatles songs. As much as I would like to see loads of Beatles featured articles, the powers that be want a bit a variety. Branch out. Good luck anyway, chin up.--Crestville 15:51, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)the free encyclopedia.

The only thing you are missing is that a single objection does not hold up a article from being featured. The standard expressed has been substantial majority or rough consensus, not 100% consensus. While 2 or 3 supports and a solid, fixable objection will not be promoted, 8 supports and one objection will not hold an article back. Also just because someone does not withdraw their objection, if you have substantially fixed it, just note that and that will be taken into account. - Taxman 16:07, Oct 20, 2004 (UTC)

So why is it still not a featured article?--Crestville 16:16, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)