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I think this article is about ready to be considered for featured article status. Would like someone to look it over and see if they concur.--XmarkX 10:47, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I'd appreciate train buffs and those interested in Ohio history looking through this and offering suggestions. PedanticallySpeaking 18:09, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)
Granted, I'm not a train-buff nor particulary into Ohio history (WV-history is another matter, but then my better half is from there), but I like learning new things so I popped over and looked throught it.
From the initial read, I got one suggestion: Break it into sections. Please. It's (IMHO) much easier to read on a screen when it is.
Other than that, nice article as far as I can tell. I enjoyed reading it.
I'd agree. I would break it into sections and also maybe see if you can have a see also section where it links to the List of United States railroads page so people can find out more information about rail lines in the United States. Otherwise, looks good. --Woohookitty 00:52, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Thank you kindly WegianWarrior and Woohookitty. I've divided it up into sections of a graf or two apiece. And I put a see also link to the lists of active and defunct railroads. PedanticallySpeaking 18:37, Jan 19, 2005 (UTC)
I'd add a map, though I do understand that it's nontrivial to make one. The easiest way is probably to use a map from http://www.nationalatlas.gov/ and draw the lines. --SPUI 21:05, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
There is a link to a map in my external links. Unfortunately, I'm not that adept at some of the technical side of Wikipedia and don't know where to begin on drawing a map of my own. PedanticallySpeaking 18:20, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)
Are we able to expand the lead section? We need more than one sentence, and we should make it so that we can get a readers attention ("Wow factor"). The map idea might be good (especially of the route), but I can understand if that's a bit tricky. However, well researched and this definitely has the potential to be a featured article! Last thing is: do you have any other images? That always increases people's interest. - Ta bu shi da yu 01:27, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Thanks very much for your praise. I'm not very good on the technical side of things so I wouldn't even know how to begin to draw a map of the route. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures. Someone else added the one that's there. Finally, I will take a look at the lead. My leads usually have been very concise, along the lines of the inverted pyramid style, and others have commented on my leads. Thanks again. PedanticallySpeaking 14:38, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)
I can't see anything else that needs to resolved then! Thought about submitting it to FAC? - Ta bu shi da yu 15:00, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Hoping to get the above referenced articles featured. Appreciate a group review! Revmachine21 10:54, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Not sure I'm so happy about having a list in the lead section. The list in "Natural disasters" seems to start arbitrarily, perhaps we could convert this to prose with a very brief description of each of the disasters (in a similar way that you have described volcanoes). I'd suggest the same for the man-made disasters bit! Lastly, we need a proper references section. I think there are a few surviving disasters books that I've heard of: I think one was a handbook of disasters. - Ta bu shi da yu 00:30, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
The reason for only having a basic list was that by surfing to the natural disaster link, each event was briefly described. I considered prose description on this page a duplicate of information and a waste of hard disk space.
On a different note, my contributions were an in-between-jobs project for the benefit of all mankind. I just started with a new company and will not be able to hit these articles very hard. Will do what I can as able.
Revmachine, it's very good! I just figure we can make it better :) It's great to see a real expert contributing to our articles - I especially found the Business continuity planning very interesting, and this Disaster article is also very good. In regards to a waste of hard disk space: that is literally not a problem. We encourage material, and we ask contributors to never consider hard disk space! Wikipedia is not paper. Also, the reason I suggest prose is that an article should be fairly self contained in it's own right. It's not duplicating information, it's just summarising it! - Ta bu shi da yu 21:32, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I did a quick review of this article. First comment, the article needs more like:
* aims and objectives of conference
* participants
* any agreements to come out of the conference, and
* any further action items to come out the conference.
Added your page to my watch list to see the development. Would you reciprocate and review my disaster and business continuity planning article? Thanks in advance. Revmachine21 11:06, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Learn more about an obscure language today! I've been working on this one for some time now, and it would be good to get some input from other editors. I would like to take this one to WP:FAC eventually, and any help in moving in that direction would be appreciated. Please check this article for EAL-related issues (I'm not a native speaker) and take some time to comment, criticize, and suggest improvements. Thanks in advance! — mark✎ 13:44, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I'm a bit confused by what "Westermann (1970 [1952]:56), apparently based on Rapp (1933), places Nafaanra ('Nafana') in the Senufo group." means. Is Rapp a person? Why are they significant? - Ta bu shi da yu 06:08, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Both are persons. Rapp (1933), a word list by Eugen Ludwig Rapp, is significant for being the first linguistic publication on Nafaanra (see References). Rapp is mentioned here because it is significant that Westermann most probably relied on his (Rapp's) word list in classifying Nafaanra. When dealing with somewhat obscure languages like this one, it is important to know the background of the linguistic classification because usually only a handful of people have really looked into it. As a matter of fact, the classification is often amended when new data comes to light (something which has not been the case for Nafaanra by the way, an indication that Rapp's data was very accurate). But, I agree that the wording is a bit obscure; I'll try to improve that but you're welcome to play with it too (this applies to the whole article of course). — mark✎ 12:16, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Super cool article! The sample sentences are great. I'm not used to reading this kind of material, so I don't know if you set them up according to some well-known standard, but I found them wonderfully illuminating. The whole is really excellent. I'd like to do a light EAL edit tomorrow, if nobody else gets in there first, but I can't think of anything else, it's totally FAC-ready right now. I was going to ask if somebody like maybe Mustafaa might give it a more professional review, but I see from the talk page that that's been taken care of. :-) (Visually, on the other hand: I suppose the table needs to be that big, and too wide for the map? And that orange color... ?) Bishonen | Talk 00:55, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Wow, thanks for the nice words. Most sample sentences are based on sentences from the Jordan 1978 article; I'm glad to hear that I succeeded in arranging the matter in an illuminating way. As for the table, the size and colors come from WikiProject Languages; nothing to do about that indeed. — mark✎ 12:54, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I am trying to make this into a featured article candidate. If you have any ideas or criticisms, please edit the article or at least post comments on the citigroup talk page. Thanks
A few comments:
Too many three-sentence paragraphs, resulting in less smooth reading.
Related to that, too many (sub)sections, making the article look fragmented and uninviting. Try to join some subsections.
Stock: currently this section only lists some links to stock-related Wikipedia article. I don't know anything about shares, but a featured article on Citigroup would certainly have to say something about the stock rates over the past years etc.
Why put the scandals first and only after that the divisions, activities, and other basic information? I would do it the other way around.
"Citigroup was also accused of helping Enron and other companies hide their losses by loaning money to those companies in a special way that would reduce liabilities visible on the balance sheet." What way did they hide their losses? What was that special way? - Ta bu shi da yu 05:34, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
"A New york lawyer accused the company for financing South Africa apartheid government when it was under UN sunctions. The money was used to suppress the same people who are currently paying for it." - which NY lawyer? Where is the source for this? Seems dubious! - Ta bu shi da yu 05:36, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
"During the commission investigating Goldenberg scandal in Kenya, the company name has repeatedly come up as a chief vehicle for trafficking money from Kenyan economy." - what is the Goldenberg scandal? Where is the source for this? - Ta bu shi da yu 05:36, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I'd love to hear someone's thoughts about this. I'm continuing to work on it and I like to imagine a day when it can be a featured article, but the article is about 95% my work and I'd like to have someone else's input. One thing about the subject is that there aren't too many solid facts, but there are a lot of questions and a lot of historical speculation. I'm uncertain to what extent I should report such speculation, and whether it's OK for the article to be as short as it is when the available facts are relatively scarce. Another thing: have I overdone the sourcing? I like to attribute as much as possible, but in the past I've been criticized for citing too much. Everyking 18:27, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Cool article, Everyking! Sourcing: I don't think you've overdone the sourcing, and it's good to have most of it tucked away inconspicuously yet accessibly in footnotes, freeing up the text, which can occasionally be confusing from all the referencing of primary sources as it is (see below). But the footnotes don't work right: they're supposed to take you to the bottom of the page when you click on them. You need to have them encode the actual name of the section referred to; look at Philetaerus for an example. Also look at that article for an example of separating "References" from "Footnotes". If you do a more standard footnote system (well explained here by Paul August), you could actually have fewer superscribed footnotes in the text, a Good Thing. E. g. the little swarm of notes in the paragraph beginning "The victor of Heavenfield, Oswald of Bernicia" might be consolidated into one long note mentioning several sources, which is impossible with your present system. It's not a lot of sourcing information that's distracting to the reader, it's the gnat-like presence of a lot of superscribed note numbers.
Having said that, I do think the info in note 1 should be more summary, considering how small the difference is between the alternatives. Did Penda die in 654, 655, or 656? You don't make a case in the article for why we care. Also, while this may not be a rockribbed rule, it's a matter of good rhetoric to preferably avoid footnotes in the Lead, especially having a note after just a few words. If it was me, I'd mention the 654—656 conundrum further down, and footnote that instead.
Text: ("The battle was known as Cogwy to the Welsh"—so? Is that nugget meant to be just dropped in there, or is it connected with the rest?) From a position of ignorance, I find the "Early activities and beginning of reign" section very confusing, I think it's something to do with the way it keeps coming back to disagreement in the sources about dates, and partly subordinates everything else to that, and at the same time other things are trying to get out from under, like the description of Penda as most warlike. And the agreement after the battle of Cirencester seems somehow linked with the doubts about how old Penda was (surely not? but it says "also"—I can't figure it). I think you need to restructure this section quite radically, and to signpost as much as possible what the focus/foci of it is/are. Perhaps more, rather than less, of source disagreement could go in the notes, making it possible to keep a cleaner line of argument in the text? Or, you could try to highlight the few things that aren't in doubt (are there any?) The next section, "Hatfield Chase and the reign of Oswald", is a lot easier to follow, and I think it has to do with the way all three paragraphs there open with a sentence about something simple that is simply the case—oh sweet relief—and only then go on to all the doubtfulnesses. In relation to the complexities and doubts, the rest of the article reads altogether extremely well, congratulations! Length of sections and of paragraphs is just right, helpful for flow and easy on the eye. And sure the article's long enough—it's comprehensive, isn't it?
Images: I realize you'll have to manage without a portrait, but what about a few nice pics of illuminated manuscripts or something? Best,--Bishonen | Talk 10:30, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC). Comment was apparently deleted by El C, I assume accidentally, after 7 minutes; I'm reinserting it now.--Bishonen | Talk 12:09, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Oops, sorry about that. El_C 12:20, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments; I was unable to reply to them initially because my friend RickK thought he could make an exception to Wikipedia policy for me, because I'm so special. Well, I've fixed the link style; they were that way before, too, but then someone changed them, I don't know why. You're probably right about "Cogwy"; it should just be in the Battle of Maserfield article. I think you're also right about the first section, but I've thought about that and I'm not really sure how to improve that. I'll keep thinking. Everyking 01:26, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, I was aware that there might be a problem of replying and editing. :-( I'm sorry, that whole business must be shattering. The pedagogics of the first secion are tricky to fix, no doubt. The uncertainties in it ought not be simplified. I could have a go at moving bits of it about, if you like, from the disoriented reader's POV, and post a suggestion on the Talk page for your consideration. I'm only too likely to produce a version choc-a-bloc with misunderstandings, but at least that might point you to specific opportunities for a reader to get things wrong.--Bishonen | Talk 10:30, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Would it be possible to expand the lead section? - Ta bu shi da yu 13:21, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I don't know...crafting a good lead section can be hard to do. I'll think on it; I've already reworked it a few times now, never quite to my satisfaction, though. Everyking 03:41, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Very well done. My principal point of criticism is that you cite 2 articles without giving full references -- or are they articles from a collection of papers like a Festschrift? In either case, please add more bibliographical information. The rest of what I have to say I suspect you probably should leave to someone else though, Everyking:
Some points in this article could stand some copy editting -- I couldn't help myself & that's why made the changes in the wording of your footnotes. But this would be done best either after you've left this article alone for a few days, or asked someone else to do it. And this polishing really doesn't detract from the article.
Something that doesn't leap out right at the beginning, but it does linger with me after having read this once or twice is that there seems to be no attempt to explain Penda's actions. When one strips away all of the details on each battle, what is left is a rather bald narrative of "First Penda defeated the kings of Wessex, & then joined with the Welsh to defeat the Northumbrians, & then fought another battle, & then was killed by the Northumbrians." While it is risky to try to explain this king's motives (one would argue that doing so violates NPOV), making it clear that Penda started with a second-rate power (i.e. Wessex), then moved against Northumbria because it was the major power in Britain & so forth would help avoid the "& then" effect. However again, I don't know if you should do this, or leave it undone for a future editor. -- llywrch 23:29, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I cited them as best I could, I gave all the information I had, and since I was working off of direct copies I suppose I gave all the information that existed. Could you specify which references you're referring to? If you want to copyedit, go right ahead; I know people think my writing is too verbose, but I try to be as simple as I can while keeping the meaning as exact as it needs to be. So just be sure not to lose any of the meaning. As for your last point, that would be attributing some central design to Penda's ambitions—that he intentionally started with a smaller power, moved against Northumbria because it was the major power in Britain, etc. I doubt that when he fought the West Saxons in 628 (if that's indeed when it happened) he was envisioning some step by step process towards dominating his neighbors, although he may have envisioned such a process towards establishing or consolidating his power within Mercia. But in any case, all that seems much too speculative, whichever way you take it. We could perhaps cite references attributing to Penda some central design such as that. Anyway, why do you sound so leery of me editing the article myself? Everyking 12:06, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I'll take a look in my library at home to see if I have an example of what I'm talking about that applies to this period: adding a sense narrative to a biographical overview. But as I wrote above, it's not an issue that would keep me from voting for this article as a Featured Candidate, just a suggested improvement.
I'm not implying that you shouldn't make the copyedits I suggested to the article yourself, Everyking -- or make any further edits to it. I'm sorry that it came over that way, because it was not my intent. My point was, based on my experience as a writer, is that often after working on a piece for so long & so intently (as you have done) you starts to overlooking small details that need fixing, or assume that because you know what you're talking about, so does everyone else. (Here I'm using the second person in a general sense, & not directed at Everyking; I've had this problem of literary myopia, & so have other writers.) That's why I suggested that you take abreak form the article, forget about it for a while so you can go back to it with a fresh take. Or, if you want to get it considered at WP:FAC immediately, ask someone you trust here on Wikipedia to copy edit it. That was all I was saying. -- llywrch 18:25, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Well, sure, I agree with that. That's why I listed it here on peer review. Last time I went straight to FAC things didn't, uh, go so good. Anyway, can you point out what references you were talking about that you thought were lacking? The Prestwich article about Aethelhere at the Winwaed? I truly don't believe there's any more reference info that I can give for that. I got the journal, the title, the author, the page numbers, the year and month of the issue. Everyking 18:52, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Sorry about not specifying which citations, Everyking; I got distracted & forgot to add that information. (I'm writing this from work, & for some reason my employer wants me to get some nonWikipedia stuff done.) The ones I was indicating are both in footnote 1:
'D.P. Kirby, "Bede and Northumbrian Chronology", 1963'
It's far more useful to have citations in the extensive manner as you did with J. O. Prestwich's article in footnote 16. -- llywrch 20:37, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Oh! Yeah, I see what you mean. Well, the reason it's like that is because those are basically references for the notes, not for anything in the article proper. I could fully cite those articles, but it seemed like it might be too much if it wasn't directly referring to something in the article. I figured if it's a footnote, I better keep it short. Everyking 20:52, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Well your citation of Kirby picqued my interest, & I was curious to see whether I could track down his article. If you mention a source in an article, please provide sufficient information so an interested reader can locate it. You did that nicely with Prestwich's article. -- llywrch 05:54, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I'll add the information into the article, but I'll comment it out so it doesn't weigh down the text too heavily. If you believe it should be visible to the reader, feel free to make it that way. Everyking 11:10, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
It's an interesting article. Some of the sections seem a little unnaturally combined ("Descent, beginning of reign, and battle with the West Saxons" isn't exactly snappy), and a picture would be great - are there any coins with an image? Otherwise, a conventional depiction would add a little colour to the article. Warofdreams 15:56, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Well, they're combined because otherwise the sections would be really short. They are all loosely linked by chronology. There are no pictures to use that I know of. Everyking 16:51, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Could there be some mention of the widely held belief that the penny was named after Penda? Dsmdgold 01:03, Feb 19, 2005 (UTC)
I will. I hadn't done so yet because I'm unsure of the respective merits of the arguments—I've never read anything except "some people think..." Maybe you could do better than me? Hopefully I can eventually find a good source for the issue. Everyking 02:20, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I have worked on this article for a while now, and I kindly request assistance in getting this article into a good shape so that it could be considered for a featured article status. User:Gary_D accepted to copyedit the article and gave me some good pointers. Any other help will be most welcome. --Zappaz 02:57, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The article speaks of the ineffablity of "Yahweh," but it fails to account for that of Elohim nor mention Elokim. From the Centralized Dictionary for the Hebrew Language (p. 266):
Yehova, Yhova,
The original writing for the name of the God of Israel in the Mikra, pronounced "Adonai" or "Hashem" or "Adoshem" if its vowelization/punctuation is "Yhova," or "Elohim," "Elokim" if its vowelization/punctuation is "Yehova," since it is forbidden to utter the name in its letters.
Speaking of "Yehvoa / Yhova" viz. "Yahweh" as an important example, the article fails to correctly depict some Hebrew words –in their most common use form– phonetically. What the article calls "Yahweh," then (and yes, I have read the qualifications in the Tetrag. article), is incorrect in this sense: the word is pronounced "Yehova" or "Yhova" (Ye-ho-va: Ye as in ¥ yen, ho as in holy, and va as in value) not Ya-h-veh. Maybe philologically, but there is no "heh" (that is, the sound, phonetically, not the letter "hey") in modern use.
Some other examples of failing to convey words phonetically in favour of a more formal translation (an approach I urge the respective editors to reconsider), has to do with the choice of letters: a "w" instead of a "v" for "Yehova," a "b" for "Abraham / Abram" versus "Avraham / Avram," etc., so again, I am in favour of making clear phonetic qualifications for these. Perhaps it was pronounced "Yahweh" but it generally isn't in modern Hebrew, and I think that this should be noted clearly in the article.
Also, the meaning of Yehova as "He Causes to Become" (or, I would say, "He brings to being") that is mentioned in the Tetrag. article, is one which this article fails to mention, thus failing to bring to its logical conclusion its respective introduction: "the third person singular imperfect of the verb 'to be,'" an introduction which I do find superior to the one in the Tetrag. article.
Lastly, I think it's superfleous to have a References and Bibliography section, I would suggest that the two sources cited in Ref. be moved to the Bib. one which then could be named Ref., or left as Bib. (dosen't matter), either way, I think there should only be one. Hope this helps. Best of luck with the article. El_C
Thank you for the comments. Feel free to come around and do some edits as per the above. Just please keep the Ref and Biblio separated as it is customary (Refs are that: referred in the article, Biblio is generic stuff that is supportive of the text.) --Zappaz 06:01, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Hmmm... the generic stuff should be in further reading then, I think. - Ta bu shi da yu 04:47, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Hi, sorry for the delay. Feel free to employ any of the suggestions I listed above in the article, and to solicit my opinion on these (or anything). I, myself, only use Ref. as encompassing both the generic material and sources used in the article itself – the odd times I may resort to footnote, but I do not do so often because the code for it is somewhat buggy at this point; in fact, I think I only used footnoting once (in The Destruction of the European Jews). At any rate, what is customary varies, unless I'm missing some MoS policy to that effect, and my comment on that front was only a suggestion. Instead of the above, I tend to highlight sources used directly by denoting these at around the top of the Ref. list. It isn't, though, a point I would press on when there is opinion to the contrary, at least not in articles I made no contributions to. More on your talk page. El_C
I've done a bit of tidying up of the article. It needs some thorough copyed and linking if anyone's up to it. Gareth Hughes 23:56, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Recently went through heated debate and several edit wars; see Talk:Natural monopoly. Any comments or contributions welcome. Rd232 17:19, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Yep, looks like someone wanted to be the sole author of the article. You know how that goes. RJII 17:52, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I'm trying to write a good article which resembles what one would find in an encylopedia written by people who are knowledgeable of the subject. I'm sorry if you prioritise pushing your political POV, especially when you can't be bothered to either (a) describe it accurately and succinctly (or even readably) or (b) research it properly (and provide actual arguments instead of pointless waffle). Rd232 18:23, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
If you want something that "resembles what one would find in an encyclopedia" then why don't you go work for Encyclopedia Britannica? Wikipedia, from what I gather, allows for a little more diversity of information than what is present in traditional encyclopedias published by "the establishment." I'm sure Encyclopedia Britannica would love to hire a guy with your mentality. RJII 03:11, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
You're the one implicitly criticising my request for input from other Wikipedia editors. Honestly. If you're single-handedly trying to drive me away from Wikipedia, you're nearly there. Rd232 08:26, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
"Diversity of information" doesn't mean your NPOV bullshit. Wikipedia isn't a blog. Go play out your paranoid anti-establishment fantasies in some LARP. I've read all the revisions as far back as 16:54, 15 Jan 2005, and user RJII is abusing the topic as a political soapbox. A factual description of the concept of a natural monopoly does not include your opinion on what "advocates of laissez-faire capitalism" say, or your straw-man refutations of anything. Take it to the discussion page. Not the article. I can't find a version to revert to that doesn't contain opinionated crap, so some major revision needs to occur. I reiterate the need for peer review of this article. -- anonymous, 25 Jan 2005
Why is there a "common tendency for average costs to first fall then rise as output increases"? Also, the diagram could be improved to make it clearer that the $ axis is the cost. Also a brief description of a cost curve might be nice in the diagrams section: economics plebs like me find that sort of talk confusing :-) An explanation of a "dead-weight loss" might be nice, this is mentioned but I don't think it's too clear! Another question: who is Baumol? Is he an economist? I kind of guess he is! I realise he's in the references, but it would be nice to clarify this. Otherwise (from my non-Economist POV) this is a very informative and interesting article. And I don't find economics articles terribly interesting... Ta bu shi da yu 04:21, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Does anyone have a source for this image? Supposedly it's NASA, but no URL is given and I can't find any such image using Google or NASA search. The NASA pages simply say "very little is known about this moon". The image is suspiciously spherical for such a small moon; usually they would be irregular in shape.
Many of these are legitimate images, but there is also a purported image of Lysithea (moon) that looks suspicious to me. -- Curps 22:29, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Need to have this page (Gangtok) critiqued. Wrote a lengthy article on this mysterious capital of the state of Sikkim, India complete with images. I fear that the page is too much of a "travel magazine" and maybe a little too verbose. Nichalp 20:55, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)
You're being too hard on yourself. Most of the article is very well written, interesting, comprehensive, and covers the subject from a variety of angles and with the right degree of depth. The images are superb. I think the opening two paragraphs need to be written in more conversational English. They appear to be trying desperately hard to grab attention, and there is a bit of oversell in using words like "cynosure" and "sybaratic" - it makes the opening seem very pompous. I suggest toning it down somewhat, in keeping with the general style of what follows it. The other sections are well written in my opinion. The only one that I think needs revision is the "Culture" section. The first paragraph I think is out of keeping with the rest of the article because it's POV and makes generalisations about the people that is out of place. I mean phrases like "nattily dressed" etc, there must be a better way of saying essentially the same thing. I don't think it's too verbose - shortening it may achieve the result of making it static, clinical and uninteresting. As it is now, it is very readable. There are tiny traces of "travel magazine" scattered throughout the article in the form of a few adjectives, that would be better served by more neutral/generic terms. Maybe some of the adjectives could be reconsidered, but that's a very minor point. Rossrs 11:34, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I'll take a close look on the first para on the culture; yes, it is out of sync with the heading. As for the intro, my personal opinion is that all encyclopedic articles need an eye catching phrase there. Pompous true, but it must be truthful and colourful at the same time. Nichalp 20:33, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)
I got what you said about the first para. Yeah, it was repetitive. I now merged the sentences. Also toned down the culture part. Nichalp 18:47, Jan 20, 2005 (UTC)
I think you've done a great job. You said about needing it to be truthful and colourful - I think also "lively" and the style is lively. Makes interesting reading.Rossrs 14:57, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Delightful article. I would be hard pressed to improve on it. Deb 21:29, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Looks very good. I think the pictures can be bigger and the text less dense but that's more appearance than content. I think it's ready for FAC. --JuntungWu 17:04, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Ok, I'll do that, but I'll nominate the page next month as I have some prior commitments this week. I also have some loose ends to tie up on the page. Nichalp 20:12, Jan 22, 2005 (UTC)
I am resubmitting this for review; see the Wikipedia:Peer review/Decapolis/archive1. I have been the main contributor, but I believe that it may be ready to be a FAC. Any thoughts or suggestions? Fishal 03:40, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
It's really cool that there is a map now (that was one of my comments in the previous PR request). However, what I don't like about that map is that it (1) is released under a non-free license and (2) contains an url and a site name. Especially (1) is something that doesn't fare so well on FAC. — mark✎ 07:57, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Even though we have permission to use it? (The URL has to stay because we don't have permission to alter it). Fishal 19:17, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
The map maybe copyrighted, but the locations sure aren't. I could trace out the image outline and locations and upload it under GFDL. Anybody interested? Let me know on my talk page. =Nichalp (talk·contribs)= 20:38, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)
Cool! That's the best solution of course; and I think you can do a better job than they did (the present map is very grainy and low in resolution).
Re:Fishal — yes, it's a problem even though we have permission to use it because this permission is incompatible with our GFDL license (hence 'non-free'). There is an ongoing debate whether Wikipedia should allow this kind of limited permission images at all; they make it more difficult to distribute Wikipedia as a whole under the GFDL. — mark✎ 20:54, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I've made a new map based on the old one. I hope you'll didn't have any high expectations on my map skills. (I'm a novice at cartography). I've also deleted the old map since it was non free. (It can always be restored). =Nichalp (talk·contribs)= 18:00, Apr 1, 2005 (UTC)
Now that the image is fixed, are there any other problems with the article that should be addressed? Fishal 03:22, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The mention to the decapolis in the bible could use some changes, in my opinion. Matthew also mentions it ([1]), and some might not understand the importance of the herd of pigs comment. That either could be expanded to talk about why that means they were in "gentile" areas, or it just could be removed and more general information about Jesus' ministry be given. The biblical accounts, granted, don't give much, so while it's important to mention, it's ok if it's short, just as long as it's clear. --Spangineer∞ 06:45, Apr 3, 2005 (UTC)
The article is shorter than most other Featured Articles, perhaps you could expand it by talking more about the culture of the Decapolis cities? (specifically, could you talk more about the religious life of the region?) Perhaps you could talk about the history of the archeological digs in the area too?Dinopup 01:40, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Steve Dalkowski was a minor league pitcher for the various Baltimore affiliates, he was as much known for his 100mph+ fastball as his inability to control it. I've been working on this article since last week and it's slowly starting to come together. What it really needs is more baseball buffs to have a good look over it (and hopefully some minor league experts as well, since this is not my forte) and iron out the rough edges. It also needs a good copyedit and the structure improving. Also, does anyone have a better picture? He's a fascinating character and this could easily become a great featured article with some TLC. Thanks for your attention. :) Zerbey 18:21, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Update: Article has been largely rewritten to address all concerns, feedback would be greatly appreciated. Zerbey 17:50, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Zerbey, you've certainly picked an interesting topic to work on! I found the article fascinating. However, I do have several concerns.
I read your sources, and comparing them back to the article, it is apparent that much of the material in the wikipedia article would definitely be considered plagiarism, if not an outright copyright violation. This material needs to be rewritten, where it matches the language and phrasing of the source article too closely.
:*Agreed, and this is my primary focus right now. Zerbey 19:52, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Dalkowski's claim to fame was his fast pitches -- however (as I'm sure you are aware), even today there is dispute over the measuring of pitch speeds (what with "fast" and "slow" guns), making radar gun measurements best used for relative, not absolute, speed comparisons. Earlier technologies were likely even less reliable. I think that this article needs to discuss more thoroughly that the purported speeds of 105 to 110 mph were never verified. This doesn't make the article non-notable; it just shouldn't be reported as fact that his fastballs "on a good day" reached the 105-110 range.
:*Noted, will work on this. He was officially clocked at 95mph in the 60s but the results were controversial, this will be included soon Zerbey 19:52, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Testimonials of other players are very interesting and good sources, but it is known that some pitches "look faster" than they actually are, due to various factors including the pitcher's arm motion and release point. Some discussion on how pitchers in general can make pitches appear faster than they are, any information on whether Dalkowski used those techniques (although I realize that info might not exist), and the inherent unreliability of batter's testimonials due to these effects, should be included.
A parallel project could be the history of radar guns and other technologies for measuring pitch speed; lots of information on that is scattered through the Dalkowski article, but would be a good read by itself if collected in a new article. It would also shed lots of light on the whole question of "how fast were Dalkowski's pitches, really?".
Again, fascinating topic, I'll try to keep up with changes and help the article along where I can... it'd be a fun FAC, but not yet. Bantman 19:35, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)
I'm not an American, and don't really understand baseball, so a few baseball terms should probably be explained. For instance, what does "walked" and "strike out" mean? I would also redistribute those external links in the lead section to the text, and reference them properly in the reference section. The trivia section is evil :-) that needs to be incorporated into the text as it's all interesting and good information! I must say, this has been a valiant stab at writing about a sports star. Usually I find it pretty dull, this article was actually interesting and informative! I'd love to see this on FAC and onto the featured articles page. - Ta bu shi da yu 16:42, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Thank you for the kind comments. Trivia: I am looking into making this better without turning the page into a list of anecdotes (see above). Strikeout/Walk: I will link to the already excellent wikipedia articles on these subjects. Links: OK, will do. Any other comments welcome. Zerbey 02:05, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I have just started merging it. I'm thinking that some of the trivia can be incorporated into the history section into the relevant section. I just processed the first item (check the diffs), maybe that would give you some idea of how to procede! - Ta bu shi da yu 02:55, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Merge is done! Someone might want to look at this to see how well I've done this. - Ta bu shi da yu 23:58, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I have found an image at http://www.astroland.net/belinsky.jpg and have emailed the owner of the site to see if we can use it under the GFDL or Creative Commons license. - Ta bu shi da yu 23:48, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
How would a picture of a different ball player be relevant to this article? Zerbey 01:14, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
It couldn't! I made a silly mistake, and the owner of the picture (a fellow Wikipedian, User:Rastro) also asked me the question... Rastro says that he might be able to help out if we can give him some focussed questions on stuff about this player. Do we have any? - Ta bu shi da yu 03:16, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
We need to know:
More on what happened after he retired. What little we do know is already in the article, I'd really like to have some more on his life as a migrant worker and how it affected him.
I'm not actually sure if he's still alive (hopefully he is!) as the last information we have on him has him sick, but active in 2003. So, more on what's going on with him now, he has a family and he still attends ball games. What else does he do with his time? Any recent pictures? Zerbey 04:34, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Updates on the picture issue:
Steve Dalkowski either hated his photograph being taken, or people just didn't like taking photographs of him!
Wrote to the Orioles about a month ago asking for help but haven't got a reply yet.
As far as baseball trading cards are concerned the image we have is the only one he ever appeared on. Am waiting for a reply from Topps to see if we can use it (they're not very forthcoming)
Wrote to the Assoc. of Professional Ball Players asking for help this week, no reply yet.
Last resort: SI did an article on Dalkowski in their July, 2003 issue - I'm hoping that there was an image and that they will let us use it. To this end, I'm ordering a copy.
As always, any help Wikipedians can provide would be appreciated!
Ta bu shi da yu emailed me yesterday, thinking that a picture he had found on my website was that of Dalkowski. It wasn't, it was of Bo Belinsky. The reason why TBSDY's google image search came up with the image was that on the same page as the image, I mention that Belinsky (who believe me is worth an article himself) was a teammate of Dalkowski's for the 1958 Aberdeen Pheasants.
They were also rivals the following year in the long-defunct Alabama-Florida League. http://www.geocities.com/dalkowski110/dalkowski.jpg is also posted at this site, and for this reason I have always thought that the picture portrays him pitching for the '59 Pensacola Dons, though I have no proof of this. sparks81@nc.rr.com, who posted the same picture at http://www.alabama-florida-league.com/dalkowski.jpg might know this for a fact (or not)
This highly recommended book (link to Amazon)
introduced me to Dalkowski. Its first chapter is on Dalkowski, by Shelton. Also stories on Moe Berg, Manny Mota, Karl Spooner, Bill Lee, and other fascinating if not always so famous players. . . .
The following is a post by Society of American Baseball Research member Kit Krieger on Dalkowski. He is wrong about Etchebarren, who is very much alive:
Dave Baldwin write about the legendary speed and wildness of Steve
Dalkowski. Many of the stories derive from Pat Jordan's writings more than
30 years ago. I never had the privilege to see Dalkowski pitch but remember
that his arm was a frequent topic of conversation in my clubhouse when I was
the visiting clubhouse attendant for the Vancouver Mounties of the Pacific
Coast League from 1967-69. I remember a conversation about ten years later
with Andy Etchebarren, who caught Dalkowski when they both played with
Elmira in the Eastern League in 1962. I started the conversation and
repeated some of the stories I had read, including the one that Dalkowski
had once hit a batter in the on-deck circle. Etchebarren said that Dalkowski
was not tough to catch. He described his fastball as "light". He also
remarked that Dalkowski's wildness was high and low (mostly high) and not
inside an outside. He said that Dalkowski had trouble because his ball had
so much upward movement and not because he couldn't come within range of
home plate. I know that the question of whether a fastball can rise en route
from the pitchers hand to home plate is of some dispute among people with
more knowledge of physics than this teachers' union president. The new
biography of Koufax has some commentary on this possibility. I distinctly
remember Etchebarren saying that Dalkowski would throw a fastball that
looked like it was coming in a knee level, only to see it said past the
batter's eyes.
I think that Etchebarren died a couple of years ago. Harry Dunlop, one time
Oriole coach and catcher in Ron Necchai's 27-strikeout performance in
Bristol, VA is still alive. He caught Dalkowski and should be contacted.
Kit Krieger
Cubaball Tours
4772 Narvaez Drive
Vancouver, BC
Canada V6L 2J2
tel: 604-266-4664
e-mail: kkrieger@bctf.ca
I'd definitely email Mr. Krieger if you wanted to use excerpts from the above.
"Lost Phenom Finds His Way," a story in the February 16, 2003 Baltimore Sun is a good pre-Camden story on Dalkowski
Found that in the web archive and several others, I'll see what information they yield! :-) Zerbey 23:56, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I'm certain I would have heard through SABR if he had passed.
Ah, collaboration at its finest! And to think I found you via a google image search :-) Ta bu shi da yu 13:01, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)
OK, the APBA wrote back to me confirming that they provided support for him between 1974-1992, which is useful to know. Unfortunately, they where not able to give any more information for confidentiality reasons but that little titbit is useful :). Zerbey 23:56, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Letters have been sent to the Baseball Hall of Fame and to Mr Krieger, I will post here if there is any response. Zerbey 18:34, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Success! Kit Krieger was kind enough to allow us to use text from his post. :) Zerbey 21:46, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Success 2! The Baseball Hall of Fame where kind enough to send us a free picture. :) Zerbey 18:24, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
This seems to be a possible Featured article. This is my first time submitting an article to Peer review, so please let me know what may be wrong with the article. JesseW 05:51, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I agree - the film would make a great featured article. It needs quite a lot of work though, and needs to be expanded, and analysed in more depth. It's all possible though, because the film is one of the all time greats, there is bound to be a lot of resource material available. eg Billy Wilder, Gloria Swanson's autobiography etc. There must be a lot of critical comment available too. Casablanca (movie) was a Featured Article, so if you're looking for a point of reference that would be a good place to start. If you decide to work on it further, let me know, I'd be happy to help. Rossrs 10:09, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I've been intrigued with the idea of developing this article since it was listed here, so today I've added a lot of info, plus images. Just wanting to point out that I know what I've done is extremely rough. There is so far no critique of the film - and that's essential, so will work on that. I know the article as I've done it now, needs a lot of tidying up, but I wanted to make a start on it. Rossrs 14:59, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Also have changed article name to just Sunset Boulevard (movie). If there were other significant films with the same title, it would be justified in having the year as part of the article name, but there haven't been. Rossrs 15:16, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)
There must be commentaries on the work somewhere, especially if it is a significant film. This is a good, brief overview, but is not comprehensive enough to be called a featured article. - Ta bu shi da yu 16:32, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Wow. Well, I'm delighted with the work that Rossrs has done. I didn't even realize how much more needs to be done. I don't personally wish to commit to finding and creating a critique section, so I guess this should remain in the archive. Thanks, Ta bu shi for reminding me of it. Good luck Rossrs, and everyone. JesseW 20:32, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Leading up to the 60th anniversary of her death, I think this article is a good one to try to raise to featured status. I have done a complete rewrite, and have sourced everthing I've written. One comment - I specifically tried to make the article biographical, and not a study of the diary, because I believe that if further discussion of the diary is required, it should be within its own article. (I don't think it's required though). I now hope that some new eyes will go over what I've written, and comment/edit appropriately. Rossrs 01:40, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Please remove the bolded names. It is out of convention and looks ugly. Nichalp 20:07, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)
I have removed them. I agree it looks better. thanks. Rossrs 02:22, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Some more suggestions
The page size is 30kb. I would prefer to see some unnecessary text pruned so that the warning does not popup.
Consider putting a photo of Anne right on top instead of the statuette. If an image is not found, then put the diary's image.
The ToC is too long. Can you remove some headings?
Lastly, although I have not read the article in detail, I find that it lacks a definative flow; it seems more like a novel rather than an encyclopedia.
I appreciate that you took the time to look at this again, thanks. I have moved the diary image to the top & moved the statue picture further down. Works better that way, I agree. There will always be problems with photos - as far as I know public domain images of her are virtually nonexistent.
Now - not to start an argument, but I honestly disagree with everything else you've suggested. I disagree that 30kb is too long. Featured article Duran Duran (who will be well and truly forgotten many years before they're dead) is sitting at 43kb, so in terms of relative importance in world history, Anne Frank should be at least 900kb, but I'm not proposing it be stretched ;-)
Reducing the length of the article just for the sake of removing a warning message does not make sense to me either. It should only be done to improve the quality of the article.
Removing ToC headings is going to make individual sections longer. Note that Albert Einstein has 25 headings, Anne Frank has 15. The viewer has the option of not selecting them. The appropriateness of headings as they appear within the article, should be more of a determining factor than the admittedly ugly ToC they create.
The other things I can't action because you haven't really given me anything to work with. The reason I put this on peer review was because after spending hours writing, rewriting, editing and reediting this, I was done with it. To suggest I remove "unnecessary text" is not helpful or constructive, without giving some clue as to what you consider "unnecessary" because I've already gone through the process of editing to the best of my ability. Also I just don't understand what you mean by "I find that it lacks a definative flow; it seems more like a novel rather than an encyclopedia." You would need to explain what you mean. To me the sequence is logical, and flows appropriately. Comparing it to other biographical articles, which I have read through with considerable care, I can't see anything jarring that makes it more like a novel than an encyclopedia. I don't think it's perfect or I wouldn't have listed it here, but I do think its style is at least equal to quite a few articles I've read here, and also better than some. I'm not dismissing what you say, I've thought about what I could do to improve it, but your comments are vague and unactionable. Rossrs 10:59, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
have been thinking further about the ToC. Have gone back and reworked it to reduce it. Now has 13 headings only, with no subheadings. Another improvement. Rossrs 12:13, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
We are all here (PR) to improve on the quality of this encyclopedia rather than pick arguments with other editors ;). I know some reviewers really put you through the grind (I've gone through it unfortunately) so I only quoted from what I had to go through. I don't want to be "arguing" with you, so that why I aim to clarify my points here.
See the phrases She made her last diary entry on August 1, 1944. and The camp was liberated by British troops on April 15, 1945. The single sentence would seem to be a climax or anti-climax of some novel rather than a more subdued paragraph in an encyclopedia. The three line paragraphs also seem to have abrupt endings. (I'll try and paraphrase a few lines on the talk page)
"Unnecessary Text", that I would leave it to you as I haven't read the article in detail. You could also precis it, which would shorten the length of the article. I still would prefer a <30 kb page. You wouldn't have to to too much of a job on pruning text I assure you as it is marginally over the limit. If major clipping is needed you can move 'fate of Anne's friends' to a dedicated article. The heading is just an ancillary topic.
The first and the third image could also do with a more descriptive caption.
The Toc is now OK, definately an improvement. Its not only the topics in the ToC that count, its also the overall asthetics of the page that scores as a FA.
This is really good. I understand what you're saying now. I've also had a look at what you've written on the talk page. This is exactly the sort of clear advice I was hoping someone would provide, so thank you. I'm not going to have a chance to look at this again for maybe a couple of days, but when I get time, I'll go back over it all. thanks again. Rossrs 21:38, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I've gone back over it. Tried to make the style more uniformly encyclopedic. Moved "Trivia" to the talk page. It's still sitting at 30kb though. I'd be interested to know if it's going in the right direction. Rossrs 09:54, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Much better, though I am hard pressed for time online to review it as I have prior commitments later this week. As of now I have no objections although it would be better on the eye if you could fragment a few long paragraphs. Also consider shortening the heading to "Fate of Anne's friends". Nichalp 18:46, Jan 23, 2005 (UTC)
Wow! Fantastic article! However, could we please state for the record which holocaust deniers say that Anne Frank did not write the book? A reference to that would be good.
Also:
The Soviet writer Ilya Ehrenburg later said of her: "one voice speaks for six million - the voice not of a sage or a poet but of an ordinary little girl" - source? (Add to references)
"As Anne Frank's stature as both a writer and humanist has been elevated over time, leaders such as Nelson Mandela and Elie Wiesel have noted her importance as a symbol of the Holocaust and more broadly as a representative of persecution in general." Source? Again add to references.
"Commenting on Frank's particular writing style, dramatist Meyer Levin praised it for "sustaining the tension of a well-constructed novel",
while the poet John Berryman wrote that it was a unique depiction, not merely of adolescence, but of "the mysterious, fundamental process of a child becoming an adult as it is actually happening"."
Anyway, great job and almost ready for FAC! - Ta bu shi da yu 16:26, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thanks for looking at this, and for the positive feedback, which I appreciate. I've now rewritten the "Criticism and authentication section".
Have sourced Ilya Ehrenburg, John Berryman, and Meyer Levin. Could not source the Elie Wiesel comment, so removed it, replaced it with a Hillary Rodham Clinton quote which I have sourced, also expanded and sourced the Nelson Mandela remark. Holocaust deniers - I found a couple of names of people sued in "Roses from the Earth" which I already had listed as source. Also a quote and a bit more on that topic regarding David Irving, which I have sourced. In terms of naming and sourcing the deniers, that's the best I've been able to come up with. Do you think it suffices? Finally, the bit about the Netherlands Institute for War Documentation's forensic study - is from "Roses from the Earth". I'm not sure with quoting sources, how to do it. ie. The bit about the forensics comes from the book, I've listed it in the source references, but how is anyone to know? If you get the opportunity, would appreciate your comment in view of the changes I've made. thanks again.. Rossrs 09:26, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Heya, I think the changes are very good. May I make the suggestion that you move this to FAC? If you do, let me know so I can archive this... - Ta bu shi da yu 02:50, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)
This is a highly controversial subject, and the article has not caught the attention of many editors. It has to be reviewed to have its neutrality and accuracy established. Etz Haim 08:40, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Well, for a start we need references if we want to verify any of the information. Secondly, someone attempted to add images, but by linking them in from another site, which we don't do. Perhaps we could get some public domain/GFDL images? - Ta bu shi da yu 16:06, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I wrote this article as an adaptation of an assignment for an English class I was taking, and I believe it would benefit from greater scrutiny. The article addresses the etymology of Go, and while I would appreciate help from qualified linguists and/or those who know quite a bit about historical linguistics, simple copyediting and stylistic suggestions would be helpful. I've written a first draft here, and I think that the help of a few linguists would benefit the article greatly.Zantastik 04:32, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
References... I'm sure you have some. Also, I was always told to write in full instead of using acronyms - I guess ME means Middle English, but what is PIE? More about how it relates to other germanic languages might be neat too, even if it's just a line or two. WegianWarrior 05:09, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
content ʘ From its title, it is not clear why the article would cover only the morphology etymology of the verb go in English. I think it would make sense to include some syntax and semantics as well.
style ʘ First, get rid of the first person perspective altogether. Also, the style is sometimes too inquiring, I think.
I agree with all of the above. I think the article could begin with a few illustrations of the verb and its forms in sentences, and more examples can be inserted in other sections. Long sentences need breaking up, in my opinion. And the section on the Latin ǐre and ambition seems like an unimportant tangent. The article has lots of very good information, but a few stylistic changes like that will make it able to communicate better. Fishal
Is this advertising? RickK 09:31, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)
Yes, it was advertising, it is now a suspected copyvio, and how was it appropriate for Peer review in the first place? Please see header for purpose of this page.--Bishonen | Talk 21:37, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
This article has a note This article needs cleanup. It's far from perfect, but is no worse than 1000's of other non-perfect articles. There is nothing on the discussion page, but the history page shows frequent revisions. Apart from incompleteness, what is the problem with the current article? --Mount Pleasant 08:34, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I've structured it and wikified a bit more. Looks fine to me now. Rd232 19:52, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I cleaned up the language slightly and sentence structure a little bit more. I think it could probably use more revisions in terms of grammer. Joseph Buchanan.
Looks fine now. --Karmafist 2 July 2005 18:02 (UTC)
Well, this is my first big leap into the wonderful world of Peer Review. Any suggestions would be helpful. Please don't bite the noob. Size of this page is apparently becoming a problem, please comment to the CFB Shilo Discussion page Weaponofmassinstruction 06:31, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I don't know anything about this subject, so I will restrict myself mainly to comments on style and structure.
My first impression is that the article is too fragmented. Either there are too much headings, or the paragraphs are too short. If you're not planning to expand the article significantly, I'd cut down on the headings.
The article lacks sources/references. If the two external links are your only sources, it might be a good idea to indicate them as such.
Bolding headings is not in accordance with the Manual of Style. I fixed it for you, along with fixing a typo.
Hope this gives you a start! — mark✎ 15:36, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
This seems to be not too far from Featured quality. Could do perhaps with a little more on his work (though without shading too much into discussion of Marxism which should be elsewhere). Any comments or interest in contributing? Rd232 14:08, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Too ignorant for informed comment on content I'm afraid, but I have a point about the references. On FAC, you will inevitably get asked for a list of sources. In spite of the various lists of printed and online works at the end of the article, the reader has no way of telling which works have been actually used as sources (=for supplying or verifying facts in the article). This is Taxman's hobby-horse, see Taxman/Featured articles with possible references problems, and rightly so, in my opinion. The sources versus non-sources distinction is the important one to make, not the online versus printed works distinction. IMHO, a better set of sections at the end would be somethinig like:
Works by Karl Marx (incidentally, it's not clear to me why your Marx and Engels archive reference has a subordinated list of direct links to selected (?) texts appended, and the Gutenberg Karl Marx resource doesn't, but perhaps there are good reasons.)
References (online and printed works used as sources)
External links (online works not used as sources)
Further reading (printed works not used as sources)
I'm not personally any too happy about the logic of distinguishing between the last two, since I think online texts can be "read further" just as much as books can, but that's me; Wikipedia practice calls squarely for a separate "External links" section and the Manual of Style seems to assume there will be one.--Bishonen | Talk 03:04, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I think that it's very good, and very informative, but I agree that the reference section should be seperated from his list of written works and further reading. - Ta bu shi da yu 23:15, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Could we get some help on converting the point form to prose? - Ta bu shi da yu 03:57, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I have sourced a much better image to replace [[Image:Wpdms davinci lastsupper marymagdalene.jpg]]. I will upload it, post the wikilink here and leave it to you to change it if you wish. --Zappaz 03:01, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I've made quite a few changes to this article recently; in summary, the size has gone down by 7Kb, the number of references has increased by 16, and it's hopefully better than it was before. However, considering it's, well, Wikipedia... the first link on Main Page, and one of the most-viewed articles, it's far from perfect. The talk page has a "to-do" list some of which I think has been addressed, though I've added some more things too. Some related articles still need a lot of work... Criticism of Wikipedia, Reliability of Wikipedia, History of Wikipedia and Wikipedia in popular culture, so a look at those would be appreciated too. I've made a couple of edits to them as well, but there's still a long way to go. Looking at Wikipedia:Article Creation and Improvement Drive, it seems very likely that Wikipedia will be the next collaboration in three days' time, so ideas for improvement here would give them things to work on too, which would be nice – Qxz07:51, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Just an update to say that User:WillowW has made some very helpful changes; the article now has a whole new section that tries to compare Wikipedia with other encyclopedias, and the size has gone up by 12Kb (perhaps a bit of a trim may be needed again, but I think the new material is useful). More references, too – Qxz19:29, 27 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There are some technical terms in this article, such as "mirroring" or "forking". They may need to be put in quotation marks to make it clear that they're somewhat uncommon terms. A more common word such as "vandalism" might also need this the first time it's used if they have a different meaning in Wikipedia's context. —msikma (user, talk)17:07, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You've been doing excellent work to fix this article up, by the way. It was just inching along before, and one dedicated editor working on it for a short time is so much more useful than 10 minor edits per day. —msikma (user, talk)21:37, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes; I did a complete rewrite over four days, then copied the changes over. (You can look at the history of User:Qxz/Sandbox to see the whole process). I like to think I made an improvement; at the very least, I cleared the way for new content to be added, which has indeed happened. Not just me now, though, it looks like at least two others have joined in. Hopefully we can settle our differences and perfect the changes. More comments welcome, of course – Qxz21:52, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There are still some of weasel words in the article, unfortunately. Such as here. I changed the wording slightly, but "Wikipedia users generally do not consider Wales to be a dictator or to be one who gives non-negotiable orders." is still subjective. —msikma (user, talk)21:56, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Also, someone should go through the article and place a [citation needed] on every single dubious claim. I'll help with this as well, although I'll be pretty busy the upcoming days (maybe weeks). Claims such as "The editors of any encyclopedia have a responsibility to keep its articles as free of bias as possible. Historically, even the best encyclopedias have suffered from bias; for example, the "Lynch Law" article of the 11th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica describes the Ku Klux Klan as a "protective society" and unabashedly defends its actions." should be sourced. —msikma (user, talk)21:56, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's WillowW's new section, which is barely a day old and I guess is still somewhat in draft form, at least insomuch as it's likely to change substantially in the next few days. I've removed or reworded some of the more biased stuff, and Bramlet Abercrombie's contributions reflect a similar concern, but the section fills what was previously something of a gap in the article. It just needs to be trimmed down (right now I think it's a bit more extensive than it needs to be), neutrally worded and cited where possible. Peppering the page with {{fact}}s won't necessarily help much, because we know it has problems. But I understand your point — it needs doing – Qxz22:11, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This may be the most tedious work, but I also believe that we should use the proper citation templates in this article. As it is right now, lots of references are written in text, while they should be converted to proper Template:Cite web instances. This makes it easier not only to keep the references consistent, but it's also generally a good idea to use correct markup for an article (for screen scraping purposes et al.) —msikma (user, talk)22:02, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
All the web citations are in text form; partly because there's so many of them. As far as I'm aware there's no policy or guideline to say that we have to or should use those templates. Indeed it seems many editors prefer them in this form. But consistency is good – Qxz22:11, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It generally is useful. If someone were to make a bot that could scrape all references from an article and then check whether they're still operational (and if not, grab an Archive.org link that's closest to the date the reference was accessed instead), it would be much more complicated to check every reference to see if it's a web reference. And even then, to find out which part of the reference contains the access date. Abstracting adds meta-data to the text. But it's probably of small concern at this point. —msikma (user, talk)22:27, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"The use of Citation templates is not required by WP:CITE and is neither encouraged nor discouraged by any other Wikipedia citation guidelines. They may be used at the discretion of individual editors, subject to agreement with the other editors on the article. Some editors find them helpful, while other editors find them annoying, particularly when used inline in the text. Because they are optional, editors should not change articles from one style to the other without consensus."
In other words, it's very definitely saying don't change them without consensus. I'm not sure I really want to have to start trying to get consensus to make a change like this – Qxz23:07, 28 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Look here, what's the reason for you posting that on my talk page? All I said was that I believe we should do this. I'm fully aware of the fact that these things need consensus, which is why I'm bringing it up here. If you don't want to do it, then don't. I believe we should, as the citation templates were made to make life easier. I'm not sure if you actually have an argument against using them (since all you did was mention that "there's no guideline that says we should"). —msikma (user, talk)07:02, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Due to the change in layout as a result of the thorough editing, the layout of the images in the article has gotten quite cluttered. It should be checked to see whether some pictures should be repositioned. —msikma (user, talk)19:12, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think over the past week two images have been removed, and one has been added. The second half of the article seems to be lacking in images; unfortunately, I don't think there's really much that would be appropriate there `– Qxz22:21, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It seems awkward, to me, that there are now only level 2 headings in the article. There isn't a single level 3 heading in here. Let's see if I can change that around a little... —msikma (user, talk)20:01, 2 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You're right, it's better with some level 3 headings. Many of the ones that got removed came as a result of "Criticism" being shrunk to a single paragraph and "Encyclopedic characteristics" being removed – Qxz10:59, 3 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In the rewriting of this article, a lot of information was trimmed. The article became significantly smaller. However, there are some sections which genuinely seem skinny. Especially the "Academic evaluation", "Criticism and controversy" and "Related projects" sections are very short even though there is much information on these things as well. Some parts of these paragraphs have a gigantic amount of references for a very short amount of text; it should be noted that good encyclopedic prose isn't just about writing the neutral truth and then providing a reference for the claims, but it should also attempt to explain the subject matter thoroughly. I think that some information can be slightly rewritten to be more carefully worded. For example, "Scholarly studies have concluded that vandalism is generally short-lived,[11] and that Wikipedia is roughly as accurate as other online encyclopedias.[12]" really doesn't have to be one sentence. Why not explain a bit more about what a "scholarly study" really means, and why Wikipedia is found to be accurate? The current version forces people to check out the footnotes, while they're really just references (and not simply external links). —msikma (user, talk)21:54, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"Criticism and controversy" has a whole article to itself, which is longer and goes into more detail, so that section only really needs to be a summary. I agree "Related projects" could be expanded (though again the individual projects have their own articles; the reader can refer to those if they want more detail) – Qxz22:12, 5 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm actually not just talking about the information, I'm also talking about the flow of the article. It's pretty bad prose as it is right now, for most of the article. Reading the talk page, I see that Willow has written a much better explanation of this. —msikma (user, talk)07:15, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Anyway, in my opinion, this peer review is done. I can't think of any other particular things that need to be improved, although I do believe that especially the last point I made does require a lot of work. I hope that future editors will address at least that one. —msikma (user, talk)12:55, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I feel a bit alone with Shakespeare's reputation, please help with content. A few other editors have contributed valuably, but mostly on limited aspects, so what you see is in the main my work. I've done up the 17th, 18th, 19th centuries (not that they can't stand further improvements, esp. the 19th c, and of course critical eyes, too), but the rest really needs more hands. Come to the party, bring 'em if you've got 'em! These are some underdeveloped or missing aspects:
An international perspective. (I feel so ignorant.)
Elizabethan theatrical conditions. (Ditto.)
20th century stage reputation and literary criticism. (Not my field.) However, please note the Talk page suggestion for creating a separate article for Shakespeare movies (hint, hint, feel free to go create it), to keep Shakespeare's reputation from growing into a monster. It's already quite long. It's not comprehensive, though, that's the problem.--Bishonen | Talk 12:01, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I like this article a lot; it's very nice. I could come up with only two ideas for improvement:
Seems like there's a little internal contradiction about coming up with the name "Father McKenzie"... Paul thinking "Dad's a happy lad" and leafing through the phonebook, and Pete Shotton suggesting the change.
Good points -- the contradiction comes because of the two sources -- McCartney, in an interview right after the song, said HE did it, and Shotton, years later, said he did it. I imagine that McCartney is a much more reliable source, especially seeing as how he WROTE the song, and since the interview is from the year he song was released, so I deleted Shotton's claim to make it interally consistent. Thanks for pointing that out! --The PNM16:31, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The Japanese album cover seems out of place, only because it features the band in a live performance, and we're talking about a song never perfomed live.
I'll start looking for some fair use art I could use there instead. I guess it probably does give the wrong impression.--The PNM16:31, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I got rid of all those one paragraphers and in the releases section make a larger graf (and made it flow better). What do you think about it now? Thanks! --The PNM16:31, 14 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I wrote this article some time ago and think that it is fairly okay, but I'd like some comments on how to improve it if anyone is at all interested in taking a look. I'd really appreciate it! Thank you, -SocratesJedi 06:01, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I like it, it's basically well written and on an interesting subject, though it could do with a little copyedit and removal of an occasional whiff of promotespeak ("a vast array of subjects"). I'll try to find the time later to do a little of it myself if nobody else does. Objections:
Lead should be expanded with something about why Mathworld and Scienceworld matter, not just mention them. According to the article, they constitute his main claim to fame, so they need to be in focus in the lead, too.
I think the Education section is too detailed to interest anybody but his mother. Compare the amount of detail on education in this CV that you link to, that seems about right to me.
This link [2] is malformed/dead: it revives if you remove one world, but then it redirects to mathworld "search", so I guess it wants fixing
The image is copyright and used with permission, which does not include third-party use. When I tried to use an image with limited permission like that in October, and asked on the Pump if it was OK, several people told me it had just become non-OK. Apparently Jimbo had just decreed that from then on it was going to be either a) unconditional permission or PD, or b) don't use it. I guess you're still OK, with your September upload, but you won't be indefinitely. Do you think it might be possible to persuade Weisstein to release it unconditionally? Hope this helps a little, --Bishonen | Talk 23:14, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I guess it didn't? SocratesJedi, since you seem to be around the place and editing other pages, do you have plans for showing that appreciation any time soon, like by replying to the points or addressing them on Eric W. Weisstein?--Bishonen | Talk 08:14, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
This is my first edit, which is also a major re-write. As such, I would greaty appreciate any comments about things I may be doing wrong or things that look fantastic. I was very careful in its writing, and I feel it is good as well as complete, but as it is my first article, I would love the opinion of the community here. DrWoody 05:58, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I think you must mean Sleeper Hold ;) But, apapert from that, I have a couple of suggestions:
Pictures - either a drawing or a picture of this hold.
More of the history behind it would be interesting, if you could trace it.
References, references, references... everytime I put somethign up for peer review, I'm asked for it, so I guess they are important ;)
Overall, an interesting piece. take that as justified praise from a layman, who's style of 'martial art' can be described as 'wild swings and headbutts' ;) WegianWarrior 08:22, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Thanks! I've been looking around for a drawing or illustration that would help clarify the article, but this could take me a little time as I'm not familiar with all the copyright issues of wikipedia yet. I'll get it eventually, though. As far as references, I'm a little stuck. Pretty much 100% of the information in there is personal knowledge, and this knowledge was learned first-hand from another person. What is the proper way to make references in this case? And finally regarding the history, I am also interested in finding more in this area, but all of my efforts have turned up nothing so far. Google is flooded with 'sleeper hold' pages that only refer to the Pro Wrestling version, which is not very helpful to me =) Thanks for your input! DrWoody 07:47, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Very nicely written, the care you've taken shows. However, the title capitalization is non-standard, you need to rename it "Sleeper hold", see Wikipedia:Naming conventions: "Convention: Do not capitalize second and subsequent words unless the title is a proper noun (such as a name) or is otherwise almost always capitalized, e.g. use John Wayne but Computer game." It's a simple procedure, you won't feel a thing: click tab "Move" and follow instructions. Agree with Wegian that references are necessary and a picture would be lovely. (Don't get the "you must mean.." bit.)--Bishonen | Talk 03:20, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Thanks, I have changed the title to 'Sleeper hold'. I had noticed that small problem when re-writing the article, but someone else had originally titled it with both words capitalized and I was not sure if it was appropriate to move it =) See above regarding references. Also, I'm not sure what you mean by "(Don't get the "you must mean.." bit.)". Thanks! DrWoody 07:47, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Hi again, doc. The copyright issues are basically that you can only use for instance a picture you find on the web if a) you can get permission from the copyright holder to release it under GFDL (unlikely) or b) it's really old, or the person who created it has been dead for 100 years (even more unlikely). I think your best bet would be to take a posed photo yourself and upload it, stating that you're relasing it under GFDL.
Your reference problem is a bit trickier than average, I must say. Do you think you'd be able to get any references by asking the person you learned it from? I don't know the subject well enough (trying unsuccessfully to sound like I have the slightest idea of the subject) to figure out a smart way of limiting a Google search—do you think you have exhausted that possiblity? (A simple "sleeper hold" minus ""professional wrestling" is no help, I see.) A third possibility: drop a note on User talk:Taxman and lay your referencing problem before him, he has given a lot of thought to the subject and believes, I think, that it's possible to find references for any article (if it's a legitimate article at all).
Sorry the "...you must mean" was confusing, it was no big deal, just that I was talking about agreeing with Wegian's comment and thought I'd better point out that I don't get what Wegian meant by saying "you must mean Sleeper Hold <wink>". Best, Bishonen | Talk 20:21, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
This has gotten a lot of tlc recently; should be fac'able soon. Thoughts? There are probably many related articles it should be x-referenced with, and perhaps more attention should be given to other related terms of non-english origin. +sj + 17:15, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I am not sure exactly what you are asking for. I can't see much room for wikification, and (and as someone who studied tsunamis during oceanography modules at university) I have tried to keep the science on track as far as possible. Do you have more specific concerns? Dan100 21:33, Jan 6, 2005 (UTC)
Since you're one of the people working on the article, you are not the audience I am hoping to attract by listing it for peer review :-) PR is a good way to get feedback about good articles from people who don't otherwise visit them, but have a strong sense of style. +sj + 13:48, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
As a lifelong student of Japanese language, I have a pet peeve about the word tsunami in English. The plural of tsunami is tsunami, not tsunamis. From a style perspective all plurals should follow Japanese convention. Revmachine21 05:00, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The plural in English is "tsunamis". Just like the plural in French of cameraman is cameramans. The borrowing language need not respect the plural-formation rules of the source language. -- Curps 05:24, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I think we should make it tsunami in this case. - Ta bu shi da yu 05:33, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The word has entered English and takes English plural. From dictionary.com: n. pl. tsu·na·mis. It's even got an adjective, tsunamic, which sure isn't Japanese. RickK 05:38, Jan 14, 2005 (UTC)
If you can cite a good example of this "tsunami" as plural, I might change my mind. But you'll note that the link header that was changed to "-nami" is actually titled "-namis." I find no use of "tsunami" as plural in the usual news sources in English. It's an oddity of transliteration similar to, say, "perogies". . . Zosodada 05:47, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
English borrows words indiscriminately from many other languages, and plurals are always formed according to English rules — the only historical exception is Latin (and perhaps Ancient Greek) because Latin was a compulsory subject in schools until a few decades ago. Otherwise, English speakers would have to memorize hundreds of exotic plurals on a case-by-case basis for every single word with a foreign etymology. Should the English plural of "sheik" be "shuyukh" (sp?) because that is the plural in Arabic? -- Curps 05:53, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Revmachine cited an "edit fast" site which suggests looking in the dictionary to solve these dilemmas. My English dictionary says "tsunamis" (pl). Curps is correct. Making "Tsunami" plural here would be instituting a new convention, but I don't think that is the intent of Wikipedia. Perhaps, however, it should be noted at the Wiktionary. Zosodada 06:09, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Hello. I would consider myself to mainly be a bystander in the Tsunami discussion. The only comment I have is that "tsunami" and "tsunamis" are both acceptable plural forms in the English language. Neither one is wrong from an English standpoint. And trust me about this: I think most casual readers of the article will not notice which form you use. In other words, few people will consider this a big deal. If worst comes to worst, why don't you just have a vote to decide which one is most preferable. Oh, and as a reference, see the tsunami entry in Merriam-Websters Online Dictionary. It lists both forms as plural. ~ Wang123 20:36, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Oh by the way, although foreign words that enter English often acquire English pluralization rules, this is not always the case. Sometimes a word retains its rules from the original language. And since we're talking about Japanese, I'll provide a Japanese example. Take the word "samurai" for instance. This word retains its Japanese form when plural, which is samurai. Refer to the samurai entry in the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. ~ Wang123 20:36, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Wondered what needs done before nomination to featured status. DAVODD 08:57, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)
I'd be interested in reading more about the various species and why, at one point, there were more species recognised than there are now. After a bit of Googling, I came across this interesting FAQ, which suggests one alternative use(!). It suggests that the Wikipedia article could be expanded somewhat. A few extra photos (such as the closeup of the hairs and leaf in the FAQ) would be good, too. The FAQ also contradicts our article in some places, "Depending on individual opinion there are some 50 to 100 species of Stinging Nettle in the world." and "Various substances have been claimed as being the active principles of nettle venom, based on speculation and supposition. In fact the venom is a cocktail of three substances, each highly dilute: histamine, acetylcholine and serotonin (5-hydroxytryptamine)." — we probably need to cite sources. — Matt Crypto 09:36, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I've made some style edits and broken the article into several sections. I did this not because there's enough material there now to justify it, but because I'd like to see each of those topics developed more fully. In general, it feels like there's a lot of missing information and inconsistencies; hopefully the sections will help you develop the article more fully. Here's some starting points:
What subspecies is native to Asia? Which have been introduced to South America? Does the European subspecies exhibit such agressive invasiveness in N. America as it shows in its native Europe?
What environments could it potentially thrive in? Does it withstand frost? Is it a perennial? Annual? Does it flower? When / how? Picture? What is its range in Europe? Asia? S. America? What are the biological limits on its range?
Biology of plant in general could be greatly expanded; also, a more thorough discussion of its stinging organs (a diagram would be especially helpful here). How does the plant grow? Propagate? How big is it? Is any animal resistant to its sting? Does it affect other plants?
Not sure on the appropriateness of including a recipe (others have well-developed opinions on this; I'll let them step in on the issue)
Would like to see more historical context on uses. What is it believed to cure as an herbal remedy? What cultures use it that way? How long ago did they start doing it? Have any modern medicines been developed based on / using nettles? Dietary supplements? Are the uses based on the stinging property, or in spite of it?
Of course, the facts need to be accurate, which it sounds from Matt's comment above that there may be some questions on. Sources sources sources. A pain in the neck, but vital when there is a disputed or commonly mistaken fact. I think the article has a lot of potential, but there's lots left to write! Bantman 06:31, Jan 9, 2005 (UTC)
For some time now, I have the feeling that this article is ready for WP:FAC. Some peer review however would be extremely welcome. — mark✎ 20:49, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I agree, it's an excellent article. I'll look over it carefully, and I invite others to help. Mtrisk 03:34, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Change bibliography to references, shift it to before external links. - Ta bu shi da yu 05:42, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Done. Renamed umbrella section "Links and references". - BanyanTree 05:18, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)
This article recently failed a FAC. I have taken care of the things people objected to in that nomination and would like to know what needs to be done in order for it to become a FA. --Maitch15:37, 20 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I'm going to be hard on this one because you want it to be an FA and said that it failed already. So here are some comments:
Second paragraph feels flighty.
Third paragrph 1st sentence, needs to be reworked. Simplify and include use a specific date rather than "to date."
This is way too long for a FA. The recommended length is 30KB, but I think they really are around 40-50... this is 63KB. Go over the article and scrutinize the entire thing cutting it down by about 18KB! It's a pain in the butt, but will be worth the effort. What sections are necessary? Which ones can you get rid of? The article seems to try to be all things to all people. You're going to need to decide what the purpose is and focus on that and use other articles to cover what you don't get to here. I cut out about 10K from my article on military brats
The TOC is also pretty long and intimidating. I would be surprised if 20% of the people reviewing this for FA read the whole thing---even if they are fans!
Movie section needs to be completely reworked. Looks like it was written before the Movie was finalized.
No offense, but the writing style is repetitive. It feels as if the sentence structure is the same throughout the article... for example, the Merchandise section:
Many episodes of the show have been released on DVD and VHS over the years
Many posters involving Simpsons characters are available for purchase
Many characters are available to buy in figurine form
The Merchandise section would be a section that I would consider making into a separate article and expanding.
Thanks for the comments. I will try and work with it. I would like to add that there are FA's at over 90 KB, but I agree that it is not as tightly written as possible and the main problem is the "Merchandise" section. Most of it on the other hand is already summarized with a lot of information moved to subarticles. The movie is not finalized and is scheduled to be released 27 July 2007. I take no offense on writing styles or anything else. This article is a product of a lot of people making minor edits. I'm trying to shape it up to a complete article. --Maitch15:33, 23 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed a lot of the 'merchandise' section. The editing may seem a bit bold, but it had to be done.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Atlantis Hawk (talk • contribs)
You removed the entire thing plus several other sections. It was reverted by another user and I think he made the right move. Being bold doesn't mean that you have to delete everything that isn't perfect. --Maitch20:48, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
On December 6th, DaveOinSF suggested that we go through a final peer review process for the article so that we can finalize improvements and get it to FA status. Thanks to several people and their extensive comments, we were able to improve the article tremendously from comments from the last FA nomination. Any further comments on what the remaining critical areas are will be greatly appreciated. WikiprojectOWU03:06, 10 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
From SG
206 references? Have you made use of named refs, in the event you have any repeats, so that they'll all report to one line? Have a look at citing a footnote more than once, in case that applies. I did an example for you in the Perkins Observatory section (and changed the title of the webpage to what was on the page.) I did another on the University of Delaware Huddleston site, showing you how to use named refs, and also adding in the missing publication date. I also used a named ref on Peabody. By doing these things, I reduced your number of references from 206 to 200: you can probably do much more consolidating.
On book references that you use repeatedly, rather than chunking up the footnotes with repeated information, have a look at the change I just made, which is something you can do throughout. (See Hubbart). If you repeatedly reference page nos from other books, you can do the footnotes that way. Pls provide ISBNs for books.
When fixing the Hubbart references, I noticed several instances where you had a sentence referenced to page x, and the very next sentence referenced to page x+1. I combined those instances into one reference, from pp. x-x+1. This will help consolidate your references.
Fix all your redlinked access dates - either don't link them at all, or link them correctly so they're not red. You have some access dates not linked at all, others redlinked, and others bluelinked.
You don't include publication dates on news items - for example, there was a date on a News Archive item that should be included in the footnote. On news sources, make sure you also give the author, when there is one.
On some of your footnotes, you say the source is owu, on others, you say Ohio Wesleyan University - pls be consistent in your footnotes.
Some of your footnotes have last name, first name on author first, others have the author imbedded elsewhere in the note. Use a consistent style on your footnotes. (last name, first name)
The lead is not a compelling summary of the article: see WP:LEAD.
Size: on FAC, some may object to 82KB overall size - I ran a prose check, and the prose is a very decent 38 KB, so the large size is due to all the cite templates in the references.
You've used cite web for news sources (you should use cite news), so all of the information needed isn't given - see the BBC news ref towards the end of the article. It needs author, publication date, etc.
I can't help with POV and prose issues raised on your last FAC, but they should be addressed before re-approaching FAC - I only looked at referencing, WP:LAYOUT, and WP:MOS. Good luck ! Sandy (Talk) 03:22, 12 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, great job with the referencing . . . I even remember someone objecting for over-referencing on a FAC (though I don’t believe this should be a problem if the ref name attributes are used). BTW, there are typos on footnotes #57, 75 and 158.
Founded in 1842 by Methodist leaders and Central Ohio residents, provides that it "is forever to be conducted on the most liberal principles. misplaced modifier; the college, not the college's charter, was founded by the people
In 2006, Ohio Wesleyan had among the ten highest percentage of international students for liberal arts colleges, a position the school has held for twelve consecutive years. the first part is awkward writing, try rephrasing
The first paragraph of "Founding" is somewhat confusing due to the order it is presented in; the description of the hotel goes after the its purchasing.
The document was edited by Joseph Trimble, and gave wide powers to a board to be composed of twenty-one persons. Who is Joseph Trimble (give us a wikilink or a designation, like …Charles Elliott, leaders of the local…)? to be composed is needlessly redundant.
The college originally admitted only male students, and began with an 29 students and three professors. It was housed in the renamed Elliott Hall, formerly the Mansion House Hotel. Who does "it" refer to (shouldn't it be they)? It would probably be better to mention the renaming above in the first paragraph, so that we don't have to refer to the formerly… part.
On August 5, 1846, the first president Edward Thomson delivered his inaugural address. He maintained that the college was a product of the liberality of the people of Delaware and that it was fortunate that Ohio Wesleyan was founded in a community divided in religious and political opinions because the friction of a mixed society prevented dogmatism and developed energy and pointed out that the spirit of the college is the spirit of liberty. second sentence too long, split it up and make it less wordy. Place your cursor over underlined words to see my other notes.
Thomson and his successors her vocal in other political debates of the time — namely slavery and the expansion of the United States.[18] Edward Thomson, president of Ohio Wesleyan in 1857, denounced the argument that southern Christians "should retain their slaves in obedience to state laws forbidding manumission," saying that "the soft and slippered Christianity which disturbs no one, is not the Christianity of Christ."
I agree that this article represents a lot of work and has improved since I last looked at it. It is getting closer to FA, but there are still some issues that need to be addressed. I have made some of these comments on User:WikiprojectOWU's talk page already, but am copying the ones that are still applicable here and adding a few more observations.
Although the lead paragraphs are read first, they should be written last. Wait until the article is about ready, then go through and make sure each header and subheader is at least mentioned in the lead paragraphs. Everything in the lead should be in the article. Footnotes in the lead paragraphs are held to a minimum (usually cite the ref in the body).
Be as specific as possible and avoid vague generalities (for example give the exact distance from Columbus, not about 25 miles, or give the exact day and month that the first classes were held, not just the year, and avoid terms like "currently"). What was the original name (the article says it was founded as a college - Ohio Wesleyan College? If OWU was original name, say that). The sub-article History of Ohio Wesleyan University says it was a school for younger students first, then the "College of Liberal Arts" was founded. Is this the original name? Great job on starting sub-articles, by the way. If giving statistics, give the year (as of 2004) and the exact figures.
Avoid duplication - for example Methodism is wikilinked three times in just the first six paragraphs, and you really don't need two pictures each of the Sulphur Spring or of Branch Rickey (so just pick the best one). Do you also need three different photos of the sports facility? I like the Student Protest / Activism photo that was in DYK - why was it taken out?
Be consistent. Photos should be the same size for their format, horizontal ones the same width, vertical ones the same smaller width (you can perhaps break this rule if you need to show more detail in the photo). The photo captions refer to the "Sulphur Spring" and the "Sulphur Springs" - which is it? Make sure section headers fit the text described - classes start before the section titled Classes start.
Remember that you are telling a story. Put things in chronological order unless there is some strong reason not to. The second History section, titled Classes start, covers dates from 1846 to 1990, then the third (next) section is vaguely back in the "mid-19th century" (and talks yet again about the founding, something already addressed in the first section). Read and think of gaps in the story - the charter was 1842, the doors opened in 1844, but the first president was not inaugurated until 1846? Who ran the place before that? What is the Dartmouth University case (the link does not tell this) and why does it matter? Make connections explicit (I assume Elliot Hall is named for one of the founders - if so, why not say so?). What are Edgar Hall and Austin Manor? Several references are made to presidents (I know a previous version of the history was mostly organized in terms of presidents). I would include a small table of the presidents and their years in office (it would take as much space as a picture).
Use pictures to advance the story being told. Try to put photos in places that add to the story (so why is the photo of Elliot Hall, the oldest building on campus, at the bottom of the article and not up with the description of the founding?}. Captions have to be concise, and should add to the story. The Doric Front image is in the right place, and the caption is interesting, but too long (and yet not detailed enough to tell the whole story). What about something like this as a caption "Slocum Hall (left), Thomson Chapel, and Elliot Hall formed the "Doric Front" from 185x to 188x, when the chapel was demolished. Elliot Hall was moved in 19xx." Then mention these buildings in the history as well. If a building is important enough to have a picture, try to explain a bit about it - when built, what its purpose was and is. What about a picture of students in class to go with all the outdoor shots?
Finally, be aware that the authors are often the best copyeditors simply because others do not have the necessary information. For example, there is this sentence: "Between the years 1876 and 1888, enrollment in the college increased three times and music education experienced a decided renaissance, though no major buildings were built during this time." I think it means that enrollment tripled (went up by a factor of three), not that there were increases in enrollment three times in 12 years. However, since I do not have a copy of Hubbart to check, I can't really correct this. The article also later mentions a school of Fine Arts being founded the same year as the Music program. Did the Fine Arts not experience a renaissance? The raw materials are mostly there, but they still need some work. I hope this helps and would be glad to look this over again when it is almost ready for FAC. Ruhrfisch18:39, 15 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Lead paragraphs: To further tighten and focus them on the key facts about OWU, I'd suggest: 1) Drop the quote from the college charter. The first sentence already says OWU is a liberal arts college. It is unclear what else this quote adds. Is "most liberal principles" referring to political liberalism (no), or is it saying there will never be any professional (non liberal arts) instruction at OWU? The quote raises questions instead of answering them, and most importantly dilutes an otherwise strong first paragraph.
I did restructure the lead to take into account why the quote is essential-to welcome all groups. I will change the quote to link to American liberalism, which centers about liberty, not political liberalism. WikiprojectOWU20:48, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
2) The 2 most notable alumni are people the reader will almost certainly never have heard of, so the impression is left that nobody famous came from OWU, so why mention it in the lead? I think the paragraph would be stronger without that sentence. Having famous alums is not a key distinguishing feature of OWU (or most schools), anyway.
Should the inclusion of names answer the question "Who is famous?" or "Why is it important?" Scientific discoveries on topics related to ozone depletion and global warming are incredibly important...unless someone finds it controversial? WikiprojectOWU20:48, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
3) The second sentence in the third paragraph sounds like it is explaining how the 200 acres were calculated. It weakens the otherwise key points in the paragraph, so I would drop it. Details about the campus can be included below. Thanks! Bob schwartz02:29, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I am not so familiar with that university, in fact I don’t even know were Ohio is (I am from Australia) but the article looks good.
good amounts of information
large amounts of footnotes
standard amount of wikilinks
But I am worried about all those footnotes, are you sure there is not any repeated lines. There needs to be more pictures of the college itself, and please can we make the article “user friendly” what that means make the article more understandable so it invites the readers in for more. Sorry I didn’t have time to spell check the article but I will try in the future. Could you please (when you get time) check over my article Ford BA Falcon I am trying to get it to Good article status. Recommend my article to your other reviewers. SenatorsTalk | Contribs22:11, 22 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What do you mean by more pictures of the college? There are several in the article. I would love to hear what you mean by more understandable. This is probably a neglected area that, I might focus on in the future if you have more specific suggestions. WikiprojectOWU23:04, 27 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Looks good – obviously a lot of work has been poured into this thing. Its main weaknesses seem to be problems typical of an article that has had a lot of editors in its development, i.e., it’s a bit clunky in some areas that should be smoothed out and has some consistency problems. The content generally seems to be all there, but it still needs a bit of elbow grease.
Academic information should be more prominent in the article generally, since that’s the raison d’etre of a university. I had to go a quarter down the page before I found out that science was its strongest area (I think it’s strong, it’s described as a bias). There should be something in the introduction characterizing the school academically.
The history section is much too long, especially since there’s a separate history article (which looks shorter than this section!). Much of this belongs in that article. All that’s needed here is a concise overview, which ideally would summarize the main history article and mention some of the big moments. Another option is to give some historical content to other sections where appropriate. For example, the information on the rate of PhDs cranked out could go in the “Academics” section. History is like English: it should be used to make the other stuff better rather than confined to its own little section.
Sections and subsections should begin with a topic sentence to introduce the whole section. For example, the “Today” subsection of history begins with: “The new Science Center opened in 2004 to house all of the school's science departments,” which seems to hit you out of the blue with lead-up. (Other sections are great on this, like “Organizations and activities). Another problem one is “Profile” under the Academics section, which begins by bombarding the reader with stats. Start with the general, then move to specifics. Also, sections could use a general introduction as well, rather than just launching right into subsections.
The structure could use some reorganization to better capture the themes that permeate the article. One suggestion is to change “Activism” to “Social Justice” and group those related things that are currently scattered through the article, such as university affirmative action-type policies and accessibility issues, progressive student organizations, as well as the usual political demonstration type stuff. I believe this would help counter criticism of this section that was brought up elsewhere.
Double check the wikilinks. For example, LGBT is linked several times, and “international” (the international house) leads to a disambiguation page. Try and make the links as useful (i.e., specific) as possible, and terms should only be linked the first time they are used (or second, because blue links should be minimal in the introduction).
Fixed.
Make sure the ‘needing copy-edit’ and ‘invalid ISBN’ labels are eliminated (justifiably, of course).(Btw, its an ISSN for Atlantic Monthly and other periodicals, not ISBN (books) as the note in the “further reading” section indicates --- you don’t need to use ISSN).
Needs a thorough copy-edit. Several technical errors, such as this sentence: “During the mid-19th century, the school focused as on curriculum and fund raising” which makes no sense as it is written. A lot of minor things, but this stuff needs to be squeaky clean for it to become featured.
Be consistent about using periods in acronyms. Some have them, like U. S., others don’t, like OWU, and some are both, like PhD/Ph.D. Personally, I say get rid of the periods. Also, upper/lower case in “the University/university,” which changes throughout the article.
Get rid of the red wikilinks. Either create a stub for them, or just take out the brackets if you can’t imagine someone taking the time to write a decent article on the subject.
Done.
Make sure all the internet sources cited are useful. The first one I checked was this one, and it took a bit of looking to find the OWU connection. There’s over 200 cites listed in the “notes” section, which is huge. Huge is great, but when I first saw how many were there, I wondered how much of it was padding. Generally, you only need one source per point (quote, statistic, piece of information, etc.), and if the cite serves as an example, you don’t really need more than two. The university’s pro-active support and recruitment of LGBT students has seven, and by that point in the article it’s all triple digit numbers. This can be distracting to read, and I’m guessing that by the seventh one, the point has already long been made and sufficiently supported. A bunch others have 4, which might be reasonable in some cases, but make sure they serve a purpose. As a rule of thumb, only when something is controversial or has been challenged do you need to pummel the reader with supporting evidence.
True. Somebody else noted that if something exists it doesn't need a reference. I read the article to eliminate unnecessary references. However, I do think that statements need to be referenced. Controversial statements have more references. WikiprojectOWU19:31, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Following the request at my talk page, I took a look at this article, even though its subject is not my speciality. My remarks:
There seem to be many references. Unless there is some kind of controversy about every statement, I'd get rid of some minor ones or at least combine different refs to the same work.
Some people seem to have problems with language style. Even though I didn't read every sentence, this should be fixed as much as possible, which shouldn't be too much of a problem.
Apparently, there is an (alleged) POV problem. I'm afraid this is bad news. I can obviously say nothing about the content, but discussions should really be settled before trying FA.
Hope you had a good holiday. Here's a few quick comments, in random order. I'll add more later if I think of anything:
The history section is particular is still too long. Spin some of it off to the daughter article. That's what I did, and now History of Michigan State University is an FA as well.
I never thought I'd say this, but there are too many footnotes. It's hard to read and harder to edit. My suggestions:
Some of your footnotes link to as many as six references. (See #110). Try to make it one source per footnote. Pick the most reliable and unbiased source of each of these long footnotes.
True, there is a history for these footnotes being the result of thorough documentation for everything said on a controversial claim earlier in the article's history. WikiprojectOWU15:25, 29 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you scale back some of your sections, you can take out some of the references, and vice versa. Again, don't let this research go to waste. Just move it to a daughter article, improve the readability of this article and the reliability of the others. Specifically:
That Hubbart book sounds like a good read, but I don't think we need so many footnotes alluding to it. Pick out the two or three most controversial statements, and cite them. Move everything else to the daughter article.
You can move a lot of the stuff about the city of Delaware to that article - footnotes and all.
You don't need references to things that aren't controversial. Is there any doubt that VP Charles Fairbanks went to your school? If not, just wikilink to his article.
Start from the top and look for redundant wikilinks. Pell Grants and a cappella are both linked twice within their respective paragraphs. Selby Field is linked in three consecutive picture captions.
Try to make all of your paragraphs roughly the same size. In particular, go out of your way to avoid one or two sentence paragraphs. There's nothing wrong with such a thing per se but these short paragraphs are the result of multiple editors starting their own paragraphs in their own voices. Many anon edits add paragraphs like these, and they often read something like, "In addition the OWU (fill-in-the-blank) club is an important part of life at OWU." The Branch Riley and Norman Vincent Peale sentences also fall into this category. Mergre these into cohesive paragraphs.
Here are suggestions I left on the user's talk page on December 25, 2006 after performing a brief copyedit of the History section. I am copying it here so that it is more readily available for everybody else since most of these issues have not been addressed:
1.) Footnotes come at the end of punctuation. See Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Footnotes_come_after_punctuation. Sometimes, there is a reference cited in the middle of a sentence without any punctuation. I personally like them at the end of sentences instead of after a comma because it just looks messy, but it doesn't seem to be against the manual to put them after commas. But definitely can't just be after a word.
2.) The profile section is a bit too long. Mainly, the details about Ph.D. graduates are really not that important. People care more about things like aspects of the student body. Also, an entire paragraph that includes quotes (which definitely aren't interesting at all and thus ought to be paraphrased even if they were significant) about females in academia is completely unnecessary and harms the focus of the section. OWU stats are not even that much different than the national stats, so I would consider dumping that whole paragraph. Things like SAT averages are not even mentioned, and that's the kind of stuff people who read the article care about. Also, the information under student life should probably be under the profile section, as it is a profile of the student body.
6.) You don't need to provide a source to state that something exists. You need references to back up claims. In this following example, the references add nothing except now we can be certain that they exist, yay: "The Daily Bulletin[125] is the student-run daily bulletin. Other student publications include the weekly The Transcript,[126] the electronic Connect2OWU,[127] @Wesleyan,[128] an online magazine published four times a year, and several academic publications, such as The Civic Arts Review[129] and The Historian,[130] a journal of contemporary and relevant historical scholarship." If you say something like, "The Transcript has a daily readership of 5,000" then that should be cited. But merely stating that it exists doesn't require a reference.
9.) Organizations and activities still seems like a list. I'd suggest to choose the most significant things and expand on them slightly. What impacts the most OWU students? That's what should be focused on.
10.) Going along with my point 9, things that impact very few students probably don't deserve mentioning. Although sometimes it is appropriate to give a brief summary of a few representative organizations; and I can deal with that. Likewise, aspects that are mundane probably can be deleted too. For example, do we really need an entire paragraph stating that commencement exists? Probably not. Is a sentence about midnight breakfast really necessary? We have that at my school, too. Does that really add anything to the article? I think there are a lot of random organizations mentioned and facts presented that can be deleted. Add more subarticles if you want to have this information somewhere. This article is supposed to include the most imperative things about OWU. If you had 15 minutes to explain OWU to somebody, what would you include? I do not think it would be that the Pell grant averages are similar to "Vassar College, Reed College, Colorado College and Hampshire College.[113]" Things like that are not important. Stating the percentage is fine, but anymore than that is beating it over the head. Plus, naming those colleges tell us nothing as they could have been hand selected. If you said this is among the highest 100 institutions in the nation, that actually gives us information.
I removed some of the unnecessarily mundane traditions. Same with some of the student organizations. BryanD reworded the Pell Grant discussion, so let me know if it still further work. WikiprojectOWU19:37, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
11.) Flow is sometimes an issue. The article should be telling the reader a story that they can easily read from start to finish. The main sections that need improvement in this regard are "Organizations and activities" and "Traditions."
I read the entire article to watch for flow. Where necessary, I made changes. If there are specific examples that jump out at you, let me know. WikiprojectOWU19:37, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
12.) Also, the lead could probably be a bit longer for an article of this size. A couple of more sentences would be appropriate. Maybe include a sentence about activism or traditions or the profile something. Those seem to have more information in the text than recent construction, for example. The lead is supposed to summarize the article; not add new information. Everything contained in the lead should be contained with the text of the article as well (I may have been at fault at this point, though, in my article too; but you should strive to be even better than past FA's!)
I added a sentence a few days back about academics and I will another one regarding activism, traditions or profile something. Thank you again for your very helpful suggestions!WikiprojectOWU19:37, 7 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am one of the users that Stude62 mentions. I am surprised to see this "complaint". I have no problem whatsoever with reorganizing the sentences to make an article with better mechanics. However, Stude62 seems to be willing to just delete stuff and hasn't added anything to it, yet (except for some bizarre church references). So, that to me seems unacceptable.
Here is what I posted to the OWU's discussion page to him: The changes that you suggest, i.e. reorganizing the mechanics of paragraphs and rephrasing the what's already there to shorten the number of words is fine. I really like how you rephrased them. Go ahead and make such changes that reduce the number of words...as long as you do not remove information without discussing such intentions here first.
Also, I don't know why you think that the man on the bike picture is from a recruitment catalogue?!? Can you point which one? Name, etc? I'd love to see it there because this picture is a personal one so there is no way what you are saying is true :-)
Your example with the radio station is brilliant. Add these things too the article if you are interested in them as a reader. So far, I haven't seen you add any information, though...about things that you would like to see.
?--[[User:Rananim|"user:Rananim"]] 20:27, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
A controversial topic, and one, more than most, where WP:NPOV needs intelligence and care to apply - Undue Weight seems to be key: This is not an accepted scientific theory, and is not even a scientific theory, as numerous sources show. Despite this, I think we've managaed pretty well, and this deserves FA, I think, so what more needs done? Adam Cuerdentalk02:38, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Adam - Overall it looks like a very good and fair coverage of a controversial topic. It is obviously well sourced, and clearly a lot of work has gone into it. I have several comments, but they are all just reactions I had reading through. Feel free to ignore any of them if you have even the slightest reason to do so. Thanks.
Would it be possible to switch to a different referencing scheme, or make multiple references in a single footnote. I find the 7 footnotes after a sentence in the lead a bit distracting.
I find this sentence a little odd "It stands in opposition to conventional biological science, which relies on the scientific method to explain life through observable processes such as mutation and natural selection." In particular, I think may advocates of intelligent design would not take kindly to the suggestion that they aren't using the scientific method. Also, the "observable" tag seems a bit odd, since the biological explanation for the evolution of life relies on large scale speciation which (as I understand it) we have never observed
"Intelligent design in the late 20th century can be seen as a modern development of natural theology which seeks to change the basis of science and undermine evolution theory." Its not clear what you mean by "basis of science" here. Could this sentence be made more clear?
There is inconsistent capitalization of "god".
"Whether this was a genuine feature of the concept or just a posture taken to avoid alienating those who would separate religion from the teaching of science has been a matter of great debate between supporters and critics of intelligent design." I find the wording "genuine feature of the concept" a bit awkward. Could the sentence say something like "whether Christianity can be separated from ID..."?
"Critics of both intelligent design and the weak form of the anthropic principle argue that they are essentially a tautology; in their view, these arguments amount to the claim that life is able to exist because the universe is able to support life." I found this statement a bit jarring. The explication of the argument in the previous paragraph isn't on face a tautology. Perhaps another sentence explaining why the argument is a tautology?
While I thought the paragraph was helpful, I found the second paragraph in the Intelligent designer section a bit out of place. That section is meant, I presume, to explicate the concept of the intelligent designer, while the second paragraph is more of an objection to the view as a whole (not just this one part). Could it be moved somewhere else?
"Phillip E. Johnson stated that the goal of intelligent design is to cast creationism as a scientific concept." This sentence seems out of place with respect to the rest of that paragraph.
The separation (or lack thereof) between ID and Christianity reoccurs in several places. It seemed repetitive. Would there be a way to put it all in one place? (This might not be possible, I understand if not.)
"Natural science uses the scientific method to create a posteriori knowledge based on observation alone (sometimes called empirical science)." My complaint here is with the word "alone". This sounds like empiricism which has largely been abandoned because of apparently non-empirical standards being widely used in science. For instance, preference for unification or simplicity in scientific theories doesn't appear to have an empirical grounding. Methodological naturalism isn't the same as saying only use observation. It means something akin to: don't postulate supernatural entities.
"Furthermore, intelligent design is neither observable nor repeatable, which critics argue violates the scientific requirement of falsifiability." This is a bit inexact. "Intelligent design isn't repeatable or observable" is a bit weird. Of course its not repeatable or observable, it's a theory. The general theory of relativity isn't observable or repeatable either. I think what you mean to say is that ID doesn't entail an observable predictions and no repeatable experiments can verify it.
"This presents a demarcation problem, which in the philosophy of science is about how and where to draw the lines around science." This sentence is awkward, can it be made more clear?
The way you present the list of features of science makes it sound uncontroversial. I suspect it's not. Perhaps you could be more specific where it comes from, and say that this list includes the commonly cited features of scientific method.
"The debate over whether intelligent design produces new research, as any scientific field must, and has legitimately attempted to publish this research, is extremely heated." This sentence is a bit awkward too.
Adam -
Well done overall, though the introduction seems a little biased, i appreciate that your sources are equalized later on. You've obviously put a lot of effort into this. This is how i would re-word the second paragraph to smooth things over a little bit, and to remain as journalistic as possible:
The majority of scientific community views intelligent design as unscientific,[13] as pseudoscience[14] or as junk science.[17] The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has stated that intelligent design "and other claims of supernatural intervention in the origin of life" are not science because they cannot be tested by experiment, do not generate any predictions, and propose no new hypotheses of their own.[19] Theistic scientists who are members of the Intelligent Design Network argue that this too is a subjective stance for, "The assumption is inconsistent with evidence collected per the scientific method that the biological information processing systems and networks of life may be the product of intelligence." (http://www.intelligentdesignnetwork.org/tenreas.PDF)
What do other think on the issue of whether this article should contain a detailed list of, arguably non-notable, products produced by the company? TigerShark 02:20, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Why not? The company made them, and the company is notable enough to have an article. - Ta bu shi da yu 05:28, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
But shouldn't all of the information that is included in an encyclopedia be of encyclopedic value itself, not just related to something of encyclopedic value? I wonder what rules we should use to draw the line.
There is also the issue of duplication of information and keeping one source in sync with the other. With the issue of Products, there is already a link on the page that will take the reader to iRiver's product page. Do we need to duplicate this information on the page? TigerShark 13:40, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I'd say ditch the products. The list is already out-of-date and would require constant updating by Wikipedians. The company is much better equipped to handle that on their own website, so a link to the product page would suffice. Second thought: OR, rewrite the products section so it doesn't read as one big advertisement: try to pick out some notable products and describe what's special about them.--Plek 20:31, 15 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Now that I've had a look at it, I'd suggest the same thing. What about a company history section? That would be good also. - Ta bu shi da yu 03:28, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I realise that this is not the main issue, but the article states that iRiver's products have "more features than others on the market". Can we have some clarification of this? This sounds pretty dubious to me! Oh, we need references. - Ta bu shi da yu 00:14, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
What have we got to do to get this to featured article status? - Ta bu shi da yu 01:37, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Some criticality. It's not as grossly hagiographic as Mariah Carey, but it's not far off - David Gerard 22:39, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Also some discussion of, as they say, "the music" would be great. Hyacinth 23:44, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
I'd love to see it get there one day. I've done quite a bit on that article too, including a rewrite to try to make it less like a Fanzine, which was a fair comment then, but I think a less fair comment now. I also think the music itself is discussed sufficiently and with a degree of criticism - plus there are links to every album. I don't know what else needs to be said there. Perhaps critical comments that can actually be sourced (critical comments by definition being both positive and negative) My suggestion is to go back over previous featured articles such as Johnny Cash (in my opinion a good article to use as a template), and Duran Duran (which I don't think is a good article but that's my opinion), and even some other biographical ones such as Lottie Dod. Examine the type of language used, sources cited, criticisms etc. If you can come up with something that looks related to one of the other successful candidates, any future nomination may have a better chance. Rossrs 02:16, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
just to clarify. I think the Duran Duran article is good, what I meant to say is that it's not helpful in trying to fix Kylie Minogue, because it's really similar in its style and content - and yet it got to be a Featured Article - how, I don't know. Only thing different is that it's got a bunch of sources listed, but KM doesn't..... Rossrs 03:39, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Considering the other Legend of Zelda articles about the games conform to a certain standard, I'm submitting that one here to see what experts think. I wrote about 95% of the article today. Any criticism and suggestions welcome. Phils 18:54, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I started this early in my edits on Wikipedia. I'm no expert on his, but how do we fix this up? - Ta bu shi da yu 18:20, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Try expanding the lead section so it summarizes the article. Also, I would like to see more included on his private life. Mgm|(talk) 12:43, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)
Moved a section to this article and overhauled it. I'd appreciate comments and constructive criticism. --Circeus 16:10, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
The information is great (especially the Vowel part), but the arrangement could be improved.
It would be nice to be able to see at a glance which vowels are most common (or occur in all dialects) and which ones are more exceptional. Also, an arrangement like the IPA vowel table helps greatly to get an impression of the vowel system of a language. The current table should be kept, I think, but maybe another one (or two, separating oral and nasal V's) could be added, cf. Nafaanra_language#Vowels (which is of course a much simpler vowel system).
Some visual distinction between oral and nasal vowels would clear things up as well.
I would join the approximant row with the other consonants, and move all footnotes to below the table.
I'm missing information about the distribution of phonemes (except for some notes on allophony), particularly in the Consonants section. Do all phonemes occur freely in every position? What consonant clusters are allowed? Etc.
What role does nasalization play — what is its relation to nasal consonants?
Any hints on what else I should add to the main article would be appreciated. In the history section, what do you think needs to be fixed on that? - Ta bu shi da yu 15:00, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Intro for the history article needs tweaking; and the Corruption section there is current, and should be in the main article (maybe under Politics). For the main, maybe there's more to be said about its culture, economy, or any particular significance? Rd232 18:05, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
This failed WP:FAC once, and I think I've addressed the problems and want to put it up again. I'd like your input. Bits of the history are tricky to document in an NPOV manner, particularly the X.Org/XFree86/Packard stoush in 2003. The main outstanding requirement is how X extensions work, as a missing section of the 'technical details' - David Gerard 17:00, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I've contributed quite a lot of this article in most areas (bar his European policy) but am concerned the article is rather single authored in places. Also it's a bit long and could use a bit of condensing. Timrollpickering 15:55, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
This article was a fac several months ago, but was rejected while we were still working on it (part of WikiProject Trains) before all comments/objections could be addressed. As one of the contributors, I feel it would benefit from WP-PR before resubmission as fac. This article should have broad appeal to WP readers, including young people and families and may offer an educational opening of a reader's interest into other WikiProject Trains articles. From what I can see, with the exception of William N. Page (which is about one of the founders of the Virginian Railway), we have never had a featured article about Trains (yet). All help would be appreciated. Thanks. Vaoverland 01:43, Dec 28, 2004 (UTC)
Is there a general article about auto trains? These things are hardly limited to the US. If there is, it should be linked; if not, it should be created, even as a stub to resolve the question of what it would be called. Also, I think the intro is too long; I'd just have the first para above the TOC. Paragraphs are a bit short - feels bitty. Too many pictures - remove some; maybe try left-aligning some to disperse among the text. Finally, why is it in the "Defunct railroad companies" category? It's still running isn't it? Rd232 20:06, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Auto Train is an Amtrak service. Auto-Train Corporation, now defunct, originally but the idea into motion. This article should not be in defunct railroad companies category. As far as the principal writers know, it is a unique service in the U.S. and perhaps anywhere else. Amtrak's Auto Train service apparently works economically due to these factors:
1. There is a sufficient volume of customers.
2. The customers are willing to accept a single departure and a single destination point.
3. The customers willing to pay a premium price in order to avoid driving and have the use of their own car at destination.
4. The customers do not choose to travel via commercial airliner despite lower costs and travel times offered.
Thanks for the review and tips. Vaoverland 18:09, Dec 30, 2004 (UTC)
It's not unique. I have friends who've used such a service in Germany (though now defunct I think); I'm fairly sure it still exists in France. Certainly the Eurostar service (UK-France) has it. Rd232 11:08, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
The guaranteed objection it would get at FAC is that it has no references. Print references would be ideal, see what your library has. Reliable online sources that you have used for information could be formatted as a reference as per the guidelines at Wikipedia:Cite sources. 2. I think the lead section is the right length, as they are generally recommended to be 2-3 paragraphs. 3. The flow of the text is generally choppy as there are too many very short paragraphs. Either expand them into full paragraphs on their own or merge them with others. - Taxman 19:51, Dec 30, 2004 (UTC)
Actually, auto trains through the Channel Tunnel are run by the tunnel company itself and have special terminals at either end of the tunnel (Eurostar is the name of the passenger trains London/Paris or Brussels, a separate company). There are others like it in Europe, mainly Switzerland, all of which are different (rather more links in motorways) from the long-distance auto trains the article is about. Maybe "car carriers" could have a separate section in the article.
There is a useful article to be written here but perhaps Amtrak's Auto Train isn't the right hook to hang it on (as a survivor, it ought to be in there, of course). There are still large numbers of these in Europe (although only one in England) and always have been -- summary listings in the Thomas Cook European Timetable. Are there any in Japan or India, I wonder? (given the state of the latter's roads, I'd have thought there would be a good market for them). Australia & South Africa may also have them. Canada?
- LennieStar 20:21, Jan 1, 2005 (UTC)
The name of the article has been changed to more accurately reflect a focus on Amtrak's current Auto Train route and service amd the history preceeding it. I do not know enough about the other similar services on other continents to write a section about them to include in this article. Vaoverland 02:28, Jan 5, 2005 (UTC)
This article was much criticised before, with even Jimbo Wales coming in to comment negatively. The article had a NPOV dispute tag for some time. Now it has been improved coniderably and stabilised. It needs fact checking; location of specific sources, language verification etc. The section Legal investigations of Berlusconi could especially do with some work. Your comments and/or help appreciated. Azikala 23:21, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I've done some work on this over the past couple of days. The original article felt quite miserable for such a mainstream game character. The incarnations section still needs some work (which I'm volunteering to do) but I'd like a few reactions and opinion on where this article has been going and what should be added/corrected. Thanks.--Phils 19:40, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)
This might sound silly, but isn't it odd or NPOV to call Link courageous or fierce ? He is controlled by the player so he is what the person playing him tells him to do. Otherwise nice job. BrokenSegue 23:22, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I'm not sure calling link courageous is a violation of the NPOV: it is made quite clear that courage is a very important attribute of Link throughout the series (he is the bearer of the Triforce of Courage), as opposed to simply being strong or powerful. Moreover, while the Legend of Zelda series do feature high freedom of movement, but they do not really make use of branching story lines, so in the end, no matter how bad the player is, once he has completed the game, the result is the same. Wether a 10-12 year old boy single-handedly defeating myriads of monsters is worthy of being called 'courageous' or 'fierce' is indeed subject to every person's personal opinion. However, I think we can safely say that the games give strong hints that the makers wanted Link to be seen as such. I'll leave it as is, but if it really bothers someone, they can change the article so as to reflect the fact that Link's courage, while hinted at in the game, is subjective.
One-sided article that presents a theory in an uncritical or supportive light. 119 19:45, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I think that it presents the theory fairly clearly and it's well structured. Adding a little graphic that shows at a glance how the model works would be the cherry on top. MikeCapone 22:47, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Recently undergone extensive restructuring and extension. Would appreciate people highlighting any gaps in the article. violet/riga(t) 17:01, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)
No lead section and references. Otherwise seems fine after a cursory examination. Johnleemk | Talk 17:23, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)
This article seems to be closing in on featured level. Can anyone check it out and see if there are any gaping errors? Johnleemk | Talk 16:55, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Intro needs work; the second and third para should be elsewhere ("Commercial success" or some such). A more genuinely introductory couple of lines are needed, summarising the main points of the article. Structure needs work: separate film stuff (cast+crew, title change, role of Gibson in making film happen [which needs expanding], list of Gospel refs present/not) from Reaction (which should be major sections Religious organisations/Film critics/Public) and (probably) from Antisemitism Debate. "Further social criticism" merge with Antisemitism or clarify distinction. Rd232 20:17, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Just a quick one (I'm tired!). Structure needs work. Half of the page is a list. It won't get through FAC like that. That list needs to be turned into prose: people just don't read lists!!! also, cast and crew should go down the page. - Ta bu shi da yu 18:45, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I am the only one to have contributed to this article - I want some review and some help adding essential information. I'm not expecting much help though because I'm sure most people will say it's "not notable" (a silly argument I think). Brianjd 10:09, 2004 Dec 24 (UTC)
Television show titles take italics. RickK 22:03, Jan 6, 2005 (UTC)
I am requesting additional sources of information for this story, also I want to know if we can do anything to write it from a NPOV. - Ta bu shi da yu 10:06, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Well, I wouldn't say adding a See also section with NAMBLA is very NPOV. I welcome any attempts to make it more NPOV though. --SPUI 10:12, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
The GNAA has nothing to do with gays or niggers, and does not restrict membership to American citizens. Other than that, the name says it all :-) --Carnildo 10:13, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Well, it's back on VfD for the fifth time. Can we say "abuse of process"? - Ta bu shi da yu 01:38, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)
It's just a troll, I see people anonymously posting that crap on Slashdot all of the time, nothing they can do there but mod it down as -1 Troll. I would suggest some kind of filter really. - Polarism 09:51, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Ummm... I don't follow. - Ta bu shi da yu 16:09, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
We've done a major rewrite. IMO it's much better sourced now. Can we have suggestions on further ways of fixing this? - Ta bu shi da yu 01:32, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)
My first attempt at rewriting a major article over. This was listed on candidate for featured articles before I managed to do a rewrite, which received a number of objections. Any sharp observers willing to help out? Will be greatly appreciated. :) - Mailer Diablo 23:54, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I have been adding a summary to this, which I feel is too detailed. Or is there such a thing as a too detailed summary? Plus, is the correct name a summary or a synopsis? Please treat all three as questions.
Lee S. Svoboda 21:43, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I will start somewhat less topically by noting that I am, personally, quite fond of this novel. In answer to your question, both summary and synopsis intimate concision and overview – for our purposes, we should view the two terms as overlaping. Unfortunately, I do find the section in question to be lacking in language, grammatical cohesiveness, and logical flow. These are areas where, I think, it could be significantly improved. Try to aim for clarity, avoiding convoluted sentences, for example: "...doctor who came from London, the only good docter Colin had had, had thought Colin..." I tend to view the citations as being out of place, and likely you should rethink the approach of including these as such. There seems to be an overemphasis placed on the attempt to reconsruct the actual narrative esp. through dialogue. Thus, I think you should aim towards a more objective and detached exposition. Try to condense major developments in a manner which is less emotionally-involved (esp. with the characters in the story).
Hope this helps, good luck with the revision. El_C
My concern regards the changes I've made to the W.C. Handy page. Upon my observation, I first thought the page was plagiarized and hence very well may have violated copyright. However, I was wrong. Yet, the information contained on the original page did not reference any source or citation, save for a brief, excerpted online version of a biography which was (and remains) in no wise exemplary. As a long-time resident of the area of Handy's birth, I have done research into his life and music. Motivated by what I perceived to be a poorly written article which was little better than a stub, I completely rewrote it, citing sources, and adding external links to current events that celebrate and commemorate his work. Referencing the previous article, there was (and which I incorprated in a revision) a reference to some of his works which I felt though only somewhat appropriate, would be better suited in a musicology article. They mentioned only one person's opinion - the writer - again, with no source citation of any kind. In my complete rewrite, I referenced the subject's autobiography, and several independent sources which are included in the external links. There is, in my estimation, a more fully complete picture of the breadth and character of the subject, and one which the casual visitor/reader would find fascinating. One example is that he started his own highly successful publishing company in an era of aparteid, and was widely acclaiamed by all. Though that detail was not necessarily of itself important, in context of the time, it was. And, seeking to present and offer understanding of the subject in context of his era and the current era was my objective. Please take a look at the article(s) and share your thoughts with me. Realize also however, that some minor formatting issues may be present, for which others more experienced will hopefully and gladly correct. The main thrust of my concern is for content, not mark-up.K. L. Bardon 18:08, Dec 22, 2004 (UTC)
Nicely done. I had no comments. Revmachine21 13:36, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
My first full article, I'm not sure about the format. If anyone could give me some pointers how to improve the format, I'd be a happy Wiki. I'm pretty confident about the writing as such though. SauronMaiar 21 Dec 2004 17.10 (UTC)
I will make some verb tense modifications directly to the article. As written, she seems still alive. Revmachine21 12:55, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The article would be improved by the following, pictures of Etty, picture of her momument and or picture of the school named after her. She seems like an interesting person. I also added a couple of additional links. If you know of more external links, it would be nice to include them. Revmachine21 13:31, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Lots of people have contirbuted to improve this article significantly, but I think we may all be bellringers closely involved with the subject, and I fear it may have become overly esoteric for the general audiance. Can anyone who isnt a bellringer still understand it?? Any other comments/sugestions also gratefully recived. Iain 14:18, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Actually, I'm not a bellringer myself, even though I'm responsible for much of the current article (I did a pretty thorough edit a few months ago, including a rewrite of the intro ¶ and a big expansion of the "mathematics of bellringing" section.) One of my principal concerns in this article (as in all) was to explain everything in a logical order — my biggest worry was that my ignorance might lead me into some silly mistake! (So I was glad to get some peer review by bellringers to clean up my contributions.) Doops 05:25, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I've been working hard on this for the past week, and hope this can be the first featured U.S. state article (either this of Hawaii). Suggestions or comments? [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality/talk]] 07:10, Dec 20, 2004 (UTC)
I think that your article is very good. I lived in Vermont for some time, and I know a bit about it. Just trying to think of things that you could discuss... One thing is the act 250 controversies. Basicly, the act requires environmental review of large projects. Some people wanted to build a large mall in Willison, just outside of Burlington. It was prevented, on the grounds that the mall would destroy the property tax base of Burlington (a significant piece of which was retail stores on Church Street), and therefore indirectly damage the environment as Burlington would no longer be able to pay for various governmental services. (Since then, much has changed, and Big Box stores (Home Depot, Wall Mart) have opened in Willison).
In contrast to it's "green" reputation. Much of the economy (in the North West part of Vermont) is dependent on a few large employers: The University of Vermont, which includes a teaching hospital, and IBM manufacturing facility, and a factory which makes equipment for mounting machine guns on military helicopters (it had been a GE business). Morris 16:58, Dec 22, 2004 (UTC)
First of all, the largest employer in Vermont is the state government. Secondly, and I think this is important for inclusion, is that Vermont was either nominated or considering nomination to the National Historic Register in order to deter "box stores," especially Walmart, to which Vermonters have a notably strong aversion to...I think that relates to the act 250? As does the growth of condos...I know that now, out-of-state residents with part-time homes in Vermont have to pay prime tax rates for the privelege. So this is important, I think.
As for the dairy industry, I would like to see something about the "morph" to micro-cheese dairies. If you do a Google, there was an article in the NYT last spring about this. Actually, I have a list of about 12 in Vermont. It's a growth industry and a well respected one too.
Finally, as a historian, I would be willing to help add some important (at least I think so, even if I am a flatlander...) tidbits. Ethan & Ira did not fare well after the Revolution, and that part of their story is fascinating. "18-something-and-almost-froze-to-death" is legendary, and it later resulted in that wave of religious revivalism throughout the state, some of which were incredibly bizaare. There's a book at my library and I can find it for you. I love this page. I always hated the page on my own town, because it just looked like a census report, so I think this is a great and incredibly ambitious start.
Keep up the good work! let me know if I can help in any way! Always room for another trip to the local library! Best regards, allie 02:25, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
This entire article is has been written from the POV that the authorship that the Pauline epistles wasn't Paul. This is POV. As we encourage NPOV writing could an editor who knows something of this subject please look at this article? - Ta bu shi da yu 02:31, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I've been expanding this with knowledge off the top of my head. I'd welcome a non-expert looking over it to say what bits need explaining too non-experts, what bits should be developed further and what else should be written about the subject. I'd also welcome an expert both commenting on the above, and on what I've gotten wrong. All thoughts/comments gratefully received. jguk 23:29, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I believe the article makes lots of unverified claims, which need to be verified. It also incomplete since it does not provide the Arab side of the issue. roozbeh 15:28, Dec 19, 2004 (UTC)
My article on this current U.S. television series has links, bibliography, and a short synopsis. Any thoughts? PedanticallySpeaking 16:51, Dec 18, 2004 (UTC)
I translated this from a German article (de:Ibn Khaldun) which was featured quality. But looking at some of the external links I'm concerned about some contradictions over the middle part of his life (lots of intrigues), and possibly variation in name spellings. Anyone with an interest in the subject? Rd232 12:15, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I recently found this article, and it looks pretty complete. I added some pictures in the proper areas, and was wondering if anyone else thought this had Featured Article potential. If not, please edit/comment away. --[[User:Brian0918|brian0918talk]] 05:59, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Can we have people comment on this article? It's just been through a major battle amongst several parties (including myself) and this is what we now have. It basically needs NPOVing and general cleanup. - Ta bu shi da yu 05:43, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Turmeric's alleged anti-cancer properties, the ones mentioned in the article, also got a mention in the Bad Science Awards... [4] Please review. Etz Haim 09:06, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Added TotallyDisputed comment to the top. This definitely needs editing, by someone who knows what they're talking about. --[[User:Brian0918|brian0918talk]] 22:43, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Came over this page as I was reading about the german invation of Norway in 1940. Rather disapointed at lack of content and a couple of factuall errors, I spendt some time expanding and - in my eyes - making it better. Now, if someone could look over it with some fresh eyes and fix all the things I'm sure I forgotten, I'll be very gratefull. I'll see if I can get time to work more on it myself as well. WegianWarrior 12:13, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I've done a copyedit and wikification. Someone else will have to check the facts. -- ALoan(Talk) 12:56, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I'll try to help out as well. Being a Norwegian, the subject matter is quite relevant to me in the first place* (+ I'm a WWII history 'nut'...). (* but note, of course, that I'm always striving to keep articles NPOV regardless of any personal relevance) --Wernher 15:05, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
OK, I've put in some initial effort. More to follow; the book by Binder & Schlünz is a superb reference. (A pity it's not translated into English. Hmm, an opportunity to earn a little money from my writing, perhaps, contrary to my present wikipediholism...) --Wernher 18:01, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I put this together from scraps of other stuff. I can't get it to cohere properly. If anyone (particularly chemists) could take a look at it, I'd be grateful. -- The Anome 10:14, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)
Was FILLED with POV and unwarranted editorializing. I've tried to clean it up. I'd love a second opinion. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 01:48, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)
You did a good job. Elf | Talk 02:31, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Looks good now.
The page is too large. Current size is 48kb. Wikipedia reccomends <30 kb and 32 max. Why don't you précis the article, and add large chunks of material to related articles? Also consider cutting down on the ToC. Its simply too long. Nichalp 20:30, Jan 15, 2005 (UTC)
Please, someone review the Wiki article on the dietary supplement Methylsulfonylmethane (MSM). The current page content reads almost like stock sales material for a supplement vendor. Here is a key segment from the conclusion:
"This remarkable nutrient has many valuable applications to human health. The basic science to back up these applications is well established and the clinical science is emerging."
In fact, the current Wikipedia page on MSM has no independent reference links at the bottom of the page. I did basic Google and Medline searches on Methylsulfonylmethane and found the following info:
(1) The #1 Google result is from quackwatch.com. Their lengthy discussion of MSM casts great suspicion on any health claims, and thus by comparison one has to wonder why the Wikipedia page contains mainly pro-MSM statements and few if any real caveats. For example, why doesn't the Wiki page mention the 10/2000 FDA action against Karl Loren to stop his extravagant therapeutic claims for MSM.
(2) Medline has few articles on Methylsulfonylmethane. However, one particularly disturbing 2002 study that came up was this one: "Accumulation of methylsulfonylmethane in the human brain: identification by multinuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy." The abstract ends on this sombre note: "Appearance of MSM in significant concentrations in the human brain indicates ready transfer across the intact blood-brain barrier, of a compound with no known medical benefits."
In short, I strongly believe that Wikipedia users are being presented unreviewed, highly biased information about MSM. -- 205.179.101.138
Added TotallyDisputed message at the top. --[[User:Brian0918|brian0918talk]] 21:47, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I have added dubious tags to several sections and have requested feedback on the talk page. I have also removed a whole section called "MSM myths" because that shouldn't be there at all (we do not do original research). I am going to wait for a fortnight for feedback and fixups on those sections. If nothing is said, then all of those sections are getting removed. - Ta bu shi da yu 05:19, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Seems like it is is becoming an awesome article and well on its way to becoming featured. Do people agree? If so, I'll put it in the featured article candidates.--Alsocal 20:13, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Um, it has significant errors of punctuation and usage in the first two sentences. I'll read the rest, too.
It's also kind of dense. For it to be a feature, it should have an introductory section that provides enough context for the average reader to understand why what follows is important. I spruced up some language to make it more readable. I'm not sure it's ready for prime-time.
There was no lead section, just a section called "Introduction". I've removed introduction and made it the lead section, but its still not right. With the lead section, its important to summarise the main body of the article, and also to highlight interesting information.
The entire article seems to be of the history of Korean Buddhism. Probably there should be an article History of Buddhism and a section called History that is in summary form. Other aspects like what they beleive should be in its own section. It's possible that's the introduction, but lots more should be expanded.
I'm rather afraid it needs lots of work. - Ta bu shi da yu 04:59, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
