Wikipedia:Peer review/June 2005

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This page contains the Peer review requests that are older than one month, are not signed, or did not follow the "How to use this page" principles in some way. If one of your requests has been moved here by mistake, please accept our apologies and copy it back to the main Peer review page with your signature (~~~~).


Norman Borlaug[edit]

This man saved a billion lives. Thusly, I've added a great deal to the article and want to make sure everything is in order for it to move on to WP:FAC. Please leave me a comment! --brian0918™ 04:26, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • The article has improved heaps, but its still pretty sketchy, the article should be roughly the same size as Linus Pauling covering the topics in more depth, for example the regognition section is way too short, read his CV he has honorary doctorates and awards from most of the world (not suggesting they should all be listed, but the recognition he has recieved is rather underplayed). How Bourlags research is related to the dwarf rices should be expanded upon, advocacy for biotechnology, the Sasakawa project, why he recieved the nobel peace prize should be expanded upon too. Should there be a list of publications? Then there's all the normal things that come up in peer review, the lead should be longer summarisng the articles contents, use of {{Infobox Biography}}, using a inline reference system so the article is verifiable... I've had Bourlaud on my to do list for a while so I'll be happy to help get this up to featured status.--nixie 04:51, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • The parts directly cut and pasted from the Nobel Biography will have to be cleaned up too.--nixie 05:10, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • Please help out with this article. My steps yesterday were simply to add content to the article. The content still needs to be cleaned up and expanded upon in the necessary areas. There's also some confusion as to when the CIMMYT started, please add a date if you can find out for sure. --brian0918™ 14:48, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • I'd like to see approximate dates of capture for the photographs, or perhaps for all but the initial photo. I've done the same at Ray Davis (soldier). Ground 16:45, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • The first sentence is a little clunky, what with trying to say he was the father of modern ag and the father of the green revolution. I'd start with saying that he is the father of the green revolution (which almost no one disputes), in addition to pioneering many modern agricultural techniques. In addition, you might want to mention this fact about Norman Borlaug: "Borlaug failed his initial university entrance exam and had to enroll in the University of Minnesota's General College, a special college for students who weren't yet prepared for university studies." source: http://www1.umn.edu/urelate/kiosk/1102kiosk/general.html Hope some of this helps. --Alabamaboy 23:49, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • What's his nationality? or do we just have to assume he's a USian? Dunc| 01:19, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • It says he was born to Norweigan immigrants, but if you're implying that such info should be in the lead section, I might consider adding it, or you can if you want. --brian0918™ 02:57, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Lead is too tiny, should be doubled/tripled in size. Lots of sections are stub-section size - either expand or remove section title and merge with other sections. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 20:42, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • Thanks for your comment, the article is still undergoing pretty major expansion of content, the lead will be extended when it gets closer to the finished product.--nixie 23:25, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • The article looks good and just about ready to be featured now. But the intro still has room for improvement. (I just made some stylistic changes). "The resulting increases in food production..." would better be replaced by detailed information: Borlaug increased food production by such and such. Or at least a rewording to an active form: "His techniques increased..." "The green revolution" could be briefly explained in a short relative clause.--Fenice 06:07, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Rastafari movement[edit]

What improvements does the community believe this article requires to be suitable as a Featured Article? Whig 13:00, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • This article is pretty good (well done!) but wasn't it at Rastafarianism? There was a long and rather acrimonious debate about moving it but there was no consensus to move. Has there been a second debate to test the consensus again? If not, why was it moved? -- ALoan (Talk) 13:45, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • There was substantial discussion on the Talk page about moving it away from Rastafarianism, because that term is offensive to many and inaccurate, resulting in a NPOV title dispute. The move to Rastafari movement has been largely acceptable to all parties. Whig 16:31, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Renewed peer review[edit]

There's been a lot of improvement of this article over the past two and a half years and it would be good to get some new input on whether it qualifies yet for resubmission to be considered as a featured article candidate. —Whig (talk) 18:38, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely not. This article requires a lot of work, particularly when it comes to POV and sourcing. It is heavily dependent on only one significant source, that being the Owens book. In addition, most suggested changes or improvements are quickly reverted by a zealous editor base. Requests for citing or clarification are removed and ignored. I can't see how this article, in is present (largely unsourced) state even merits an assessment of "B". Bulbous (talk) 20:02, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Carl Friedrich Gauss[edit]

Long, well written interesting article with ample references. I feel that this should definitely be a FA candidate. But are there any improvements you think are necessary? Borisblue 03:50, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • The lead needs to be a lot longer. Filiocht | Blarneyman 14:17, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
    • I've doubled the length of the lead. I think it should be OK now, based on this guideline Borisblue 03:21, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • A good, meaty document. The only issue I have are the unresolved links, which are to names that most likely have existing pages on wikipedia. Olbers, for example, may be Heinrich Wilhelm Matthäus Olbers (but it would need to be checked.) It would be of interest also if there was a brief testimonial from a period witness about Gauss' personality. Thanks. — RJH 17:40, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • That Olbers is definitely Heinrich; there is in fact a blue link to that Olbers earlier in the page, I'm not sure why the second one is red. Fixed the Schumacher link as well. Created a Heliotrope stub, so all the links are now blue! Thank you! I'm sorry, i don't really understand what you mean by a testimonial. Can you please clarify? English isn't my native tongue. Borisblue 03:21, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • By testimonial I meant a character description by a witness who knew Gauss personally. I.e. was he an extrovert, moody, pleasant, persuasive, charismatic, &c.? At least to me, it's interesting to find out what the famous person was actually like once you got to know him. For example, Newton, although gifted, was known to be not a very nice person. — RJH 15:09, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
        • Didn't actually get a tertimonial as such, but I've put in a personality section and added a few anecdotes. Does it look okay now?Borisblue 06:27, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
          • Yes that's very good. Thank you. — RJH 02:55, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Terrorism in Kashmir[edit]

For over 2 decades now, Kashmir remains as one of the most heavily militarised zones on planet Earth. With more than a million troops of both India and Pakistan deployed in the region and several more terrorists targeting innocent civilians, Kashmir might well be the most dangerous region in the world. I would like fellow wikipedians to review the article and make necessary changes to improve its content. IncMan 13:37, May 27, 2005 (UTC)

Well it's just my opinion, of course, but the article loses its neutral PoV in the first sentence with the word "vicious". Not to seem trite about it, but all warfare is vicious to varying degrees. It probably goes without saying that terrorism is decidedly vicious by its very nature. Anyway, as this article is a current and on-going event, it needs careful checking for neutrality. It probably also needs an appropriate warning template at the top. Other than that, I noticed a slightly odd formatting tendency with spaces before the commas and periods in some places. The page could also use at least one category. Overall it looks good, as well as informative. Thank you. :) — RJH 15:49, 27 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
As suggested, I have removed the word vicious from the 1st sentence. Well, one can say that the article is not neutral as it critices the militants in certain sections. However, I have tried my level best in maintaing neutral viepoint from both Indian and Pakistani prospectives on the terrorism. I have also tried to correct the odd format of the article. Thanks :-] IncMan 17:49, May 27, 2005 (UTC)
  • Could you present the "Facts on Terrorism in Kashmir" section a bit better? It looks like a straight copy-and-paste job at the moment. Harro5 22:27, May 27, 2005 (UTC)
  • I have copy edited as far as ==Recent Peace Efforts==. When does the "recent past" start in this context? --Theo (Talk) 11:42, 28 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Visit this webpage: [1] to know more about hawala. --IncMan 10:55, May 29, 2005 (UTC)
  • 1) It needs a copyedit. The language could be improved slightly. 2) The lead-in should be two-three paragraphs. 3) Have you asked for Pakistani opinion on the article to certify that this is not a POV? See Wikipedia:Wikipedians/Pakistan. This is a contentious issue and it best not be a POV if it has to get featured.  =Nichalp (Talk)= 11:40, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)
At least the article is better than that on Kashmir. I have tried my level best on representing Pakistani viewpoint also . --IncMan 13:55, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)
  • I don't like the Re-Evaluation section; the whole thing seems POV. I suggest removing it. Ben Standeven 04:13, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Removng it is not a good idea. Prefer if it is edited. --IncMan 12:57, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

List of snakes of Trinidad and Tobago[edit]

I would like input on this list. Specifically, I think it has the potential to make it as a Featured List eventually, and I would like input on how to get it there. Thanks. Guettarda 15:33, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hrm. I don't like the split links, like Boa constrictor. Make the links as specific as possible (Boa constrictor). If you want to indicate a subspecies that doesn't have an article but the full species does, disambiguate it with a pipe (Boa constrictor constrictor), or use ssp to make the break (Boa constrictor ssp. constrictor). - UtherSRG 16:47, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)
Ok, done. Guettarda 21:12, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • It definitely would benefit from a longer lead. --Dmcdevit 18:33, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • Expanded the intro - should it be longer, any specific info that would belong there? Guettarda 16:54, 26 Jun 2005 (UTC)

List of rivers by length[edit]

I think this is one of the more important lists on Wikipedia, and should be featured. I only made minor edits to the list, but comments would be appreciated. Phoenix2 19:24, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This is the sort of list we would like at WP:FLC. However, it has some issues:
  • Why is there a table and a numbered list, both of which broadly duplicate each other? Can't they be integrated?
  • Since actual lengths are disputed, it does not help very much to list "some lengths found in sources" - much better would be to state which reference cites which length.
  • The format of the table is not brilliant - it could do with a "number" column on the left, it would look better as a {{prettytable}}, and some colours (for example, a different one for each continent) would be a good idea - see the recently featured lists in WP:FL for some ideas.
Good work so far, though. -- ALoan (Talk) 22:21, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the comments, I'll try to get {{prettytable}} in there, add some colour, and check the already featured lists. Phoenix2 22:48, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Amazon and Yangtze have superscripted numbers, but I don't see any footnotes. If you add them, could you use {{ref}} and {{note}}? — mark 08:34, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I'll add footnotes for those rivers. Phoenix2 17:01, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Could you lighten up the table colours a bit? Its too jarring. Could you also mark part of the Indus region area as disputed, like you have done for Ganges-Brahmaputra? =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:15, Jun 24, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment. Phoenix2 20:29, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I will soon submit this list to Wikipedia:Featured list candidates, so if anyone has any final comments/suggestions, they would be appreciated. Phoenix2 02:45, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The colors used for NA and AUS are still bad. BTW the dispute is not India/PRC only. It is India/PRC and India/Pak. Two different disputes. To save you the trouble in figuring it out, just find out how much area it has in Pak/India/PRC-administered Kashmir. map. =Nichalp «Talk»= 08:10, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)
I lightened the colours of Oceania and North America. I'll try to fix the disputed river. File:PhoenixSuns 100.pngPhoenix2 21:57, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Nix v. Hedden[edit]

What have we got to do to get this up to speed? - Ta bu shi da yu 08:19, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Indian Railways[edit]

This is the current Indian Collaboration of the Week. I'll be adding the references and a network map in a short while. Any other comments appreciated :).  =Nichalp (Talk)= 14:54, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

[Update]: I've split the article in two: A big chunk goes to Rail transport in India.  =Nichalp (Talk)= 19:19, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)
  • Thanks for all your work in getting the article this far. I've been going through with quick copyedits and link fixes, but I think the grammar throughout the article could still be improved further. There's also some terminology that may be prevalent in India (i.e. "rake") but doesn't match what I'm used to (would this example be a consist or a trainset? Rake doesn't list a rail transport meaning, and rake isn't listed on Rail terminology). If I wasn't attending a model railroad show halfway across the state this weekend, I would jump in and work on it more thoroughly, but... slambo 17:25, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)
It needs a copyedit I agree. There's still some cross verification of facts to be done. A "rake" is: A formation of coupled coaches or cars that makes up a train (minus the loco) is called a rake; the same as a 'consist' or 'cut' of cars in US terminology. (The word formation is also sometimes used in IR parlance for a freshly assembled rake.) [2]. Thanks for the copyedits.  =Nichalp (Talk)= 17:41, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)
That was my guess from the context. Thanks for the quick reply. slambo 17:55, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)
The article looks pretty good; there isn't anything that stuck out as being missing. I think that the length (currently 37K) is okay, but I don't think it should get too much bigger. I notice that there aren't any references yet; I'm assuming that you're working on getting some before putting this up as a FAC. Beyond that, a few small things that I noticed:
  • I think the word "rake" definitely needs to be defined, for the benefit of North American readers.
  • I'm not entirely comfortable with the sentence "transporting over 5 billion people" in the lead. I changed "people" to "passengers", but I think it should be re-worded to something about passenger trips.
  • The amount of trackage is given as 63,140 km in the lead and 108,706 km in the "Track" section, and 63,028 km in the "Traction" section. Also, the number of locomotives and rolling stock in the lead doesn't match the amounts listed in the "Notable trains and awards" section. Which is correct?
  • In the "Rakes" section, it says "Tracks in many parts of India are still not electrified" (my emphasis). Is the Indian Railways undertaking a programme to electrify all of its lines? JYolkowski // talk 22:05, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for your review. The references are on the Talk page; an unexpected power failure saw half my references being wiped clean. I'm working on adding a map at the moment. 1) I'll define rake 2) I'll check the figures, they don't match probably because they are from different sources. 3) Yes, a programme to electrify all lines is underway (though progress is slow). I'm currently working on drawing a few maps.  =Nichalp (Talk)= 10:48, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)
  • Also worth noting that this was one of the first (although also one of the least successful) WP:COTWs while it was still Rail transport in India so would be good to get up to FAC standard. There is not much I can add, but I'll gladly copytedit. -- ALoan (Talk) 10:11, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)
That would be great.  =Nichalp (Talk)= 10:48, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

The Ashes[edit]

The Ashes is a famous cricket series between England and Australia. Would like feedback if this article is fully mature for an FA, or could do with some further edits. Would also like a view from those not familiar with cricket.  =Nichalp (Talk)= 11:49, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)

  • A comment on images, they need to be verified and replaced if necessary, also the summary of results and statistics could use a graph or something visual. I'd consider moving the section on the trophy up to before the matches section. The article doesn't mention where the matches take place. --nixie 02:08, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for your suggestions. 1) I've removed the unverified images. 2) I've added two bar graphs of the series. 3) I tried to move the =trophy= up but found that it interrupted the flow of the text; so left it as it is.  =Nichalp (Talk)= 09:25, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)
Is there any chance you could upload it with "until" instead of "till"? Sorry to be a pedant, I just think it looks neater. Cheers, smoddy 09:46, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
"Till" is a perfectly good English word. Why shouldn't we use it, Sam? jguk
Because it is ugly! Sorry, I have a problem with keeping the English language pure... smoddy 12:39, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Oops I didn't save the file; I'd have to redo it from scratch. Is it absolutely necessary?  =Nichalp (Talk)= 13:19, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)

I found a way out and modified the same.  =Nichalp (Talk)= 13:35, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)
PS: I've credited Smods in the upload summary :D

Teh graphs look good. You might want to get some fair use images to replace the ones that got the chop. :) --nixie 13:04, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Had a quick read - it's a nice article - and I have one or two polite suggestions. First, I'd put the section about the trophy near the top (I think that "The Ashes" refers mainly to the trophy rather than the series - as in "England have won the Ashes" [I can dream, can't I?] - and that the matches are referred to as "Ashes tests" or "Ashes series"). I'd remove the section on The Ashes today. Then the 2005 Ashes series would justify a subsection of its own (rather than being a sentence incorrectly placed under the heading of Steve Waugh's last, as now) in which the prestige of the contest and prospects for the series could be discussed (and progress updated). Could mention be made that one of the reasons The Ashes retains relevance is surely the Aussie love for pommie bashing?! --RobertGtalk 14:36, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Australia[edit]

I'm working on getting this article up to featured status. I'm currently trackng down references, this article has been written by a lot of different people, making the refs a pain to get a hold of. Please point out anything that you think should be referenced, but isn't. I'd also like some feedback on the general structure of the article as well as the text. Thanks --nixie 07:40, 19 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • It looks good overall. I think the history section needs to include some type of commentary on how England used Australia as a kind of dumping ground for convicts in the 1800s, under the sentence of transportation. There's a remark about this under one of the images further down, but it's also a notable historical element. The history could also use a mention of Australia's role in both world wars. Also hasn't Australia had a certain notable success in the film industry? — RJH 17:52, 19 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks, I added the convicts to the history, added info on the wars, and added a section on film and tv production in culture --nixie 01:32, 20 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Its a good article, but its too long. At 48kb it is way over the recommended limit of 32kb. If I were reviewing it in the FAC, I would object until the size is brought down. You see, articles like these have discrete sections (as opposed to continous sections such as History) and can very well be shortened. (See Talk:United States - Quest for shortnening where I've lent my comments on the article size). The second point I've found lacking are inline references. If you say 005–06 budget provides $2.5 billion show me where you have referenced the figure from. Take a look at India for how this is achieved.  =Nichalp (Talk)= 06:52, May 25, 2005 (UTC)
  • Thanks for your comment. First up, size, at least in my experience, isn't an issue for FACs anymore with many exceeding the 32kb suggested limit. There are parts that could potentially be shortened, and I'll have another go at that. I think that for a summrary article of this type it is impractical to use footnotes so I used inote, the references are there but you need to be in edit mode to see them, there is no policy on refernce style an dinote is preferred by many editors. --nixie 07:05, 25 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • 1) As far as size is concerned, yes its not so much an issue now but for the sake of readability it is better you compress the subject matter. While history articles can be long, articles such as Australia should provide a summary of the salient points of Australia. Each section should not be an article itself. eg. You have a long history section but the History of Australia is badly done. I would suggest that the history section be moved to the [History of Australia] page (before 1901 and after 1901 can remain the child links from that page.) Summarise, the history section and make it to make it shorter. You can do the same with ==demographics== and ==culture==. 2) Unless all the references come from the same source I would strongly recommend that you do not use this style as there are better referencing styles. Use the styles on the India page: Wikipedia:Footnote3 and Wikipedia:Footnote4. For invisible notes, see Template talk:Inote.  =Nichalp (Talk)= 09:19, May 25, 2005 (UTC)
        • I concur with Nichalp that the footnoting system is perhaps the better of the referencing styles, and I believe it to be the system used more commonly in formal writing (like say, encyclopædia). But it might be best to convert to this referencing system later on, when closer to feature status – its just easier development-wise.--Cyberjunkie 09:34, 25 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • As another editor of the Australia article, I agree with nixie that the article's length is of little consequence. Whilst, as mentioned, some areas could potentially be shortened, limiting the article to 32kb would seriously compromise its quality.--Cyberjunkie 09:09, 25 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • get to work then :) Footnote 4 is the nicest to use.--nixie 09:35, 25 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
            • Hmmm. I actually like a mixture of Footnotes 2 and 3. I like 2 because of the in text number does not have brackets (less clunky) and 3 for the 'where in the text' link. But hey, can't have your cake and eat it, right? Oh, and shouldn't the footnote be placed after the full stop (period)? But then, I suppose that wouldn't work (with the template and all). So footnote 4 it is?--Cyberjunkie 10:28, 25 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • I don't believe that by reducing the article length you are sacrificing quality. I've long been involved with the India page, and as you can see, the entire contents of the page totals 29kb. A million things could be said about Australia and future editors could very well go on adding stuff here. That's why we need a summary here and the best way to do so is by précis writing. For a good summary of a long article see the ==History== section of India. You may also read the Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries on what sections are recommended.  =Nichalp (Talk)= 09:19, May 25, 2005 (UTC)

The page has been pruned to 35kb, shorter that FA Cambodia (36kb) and FA South Africa (38kb). The Wikiproject countires suggested headings are just that and you will have noticed that no featured country follows them exactly, countries that have attempted to get featured recently have been criticised for lacking a level of comprehensiveness in the topics covered, I really would prefer it if the article was quite comprehensive rather than a long list of facts directed to other artiles. --nixie 02:33, 27 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

As would I. And I still maintain that zealously cutting the article to recommended size would compromise its quality and constitute a 'dumbing down' of the article. Nevertheless, most of the trimming carried out so far has been okay.--Cyberjunkie 05:00, 27 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Its almost perfect. Good job guys. I agree that the article should be comprehensive and include as many topics as possible, but at the same time have well chosen sentences and generalised statements. I think my referral was slightly misunderstood, I had said 'reccomended' and mean it it imply enforced. I was against the excess subbheadings though, which made the page look ugly. One more thing: Australia willingly participated in World War I. I'm debating the word "willingly". Did the British monarch decide for Aus, or was there an overwhelming paliamentary vote, or was there a refendum? & how willing? I think that word needs to be referenced or 'willingly' be removed, as it could be subjective. You could also add a line mentioning the difference between a state and territory.  =Nichalp (Talk)= 18:56, May 27, 2005 (UTC)

Willingly is subjective, I suppose. I don't doubt it to be true, however, for Australia at that time was fervently 'for Empire'. I don't know chances of finding a reference. It could also be used to describe Australia's participation in World War II, and for that they're may be references (I'm thinking of Menzies "It is my melancholy duty...").--Cyberjunkie 03:57, 28 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
From my reading Australia was quite happy to fight in WWI, gung-ho even, it was WWII where there were reservations, I'll look for an actual quote. --nixie 12:18, 28 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly, there were reservations in retrospect. But at the outbreak, let's not forget who was Prime Minister; "British to the bootstraps". But then, it has been a while since last studying the era, so perhaps I'm mixing my perspectives (or World Wars even!). I'll have to do some reading now..--Cyberjunkie 12:33, 28 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The first official statement, by Senator Millen, Minister for Defence, on Friday, July 31st, the day when the danger that Britain would be involved in the war became really evident. “If necessity arises,” he said, “Australia will recognise that she is not merely a fair-weather partner of the Empire, but a component member in all circumstances.” Prime Minister Joseph Cook, “ If there is to be a war, you and I shall be in it. We must be in it. If the old country is at war, so are we.” By all accounts the public support for Australia to enter the war was strong too, sdding ref now. --nixie 12:56, 28 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Democratic Labour Party (Trinidad and Tobago)[edit]

This is the first article that I am submitting for peer review. I'd like feedback on content and style. What would it need to become an FAC (other than having fewer redlinks). Thanks. Guettarda 18:39, 31 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • A picture would be good, perhaps of a former leader or their logo. A section on what happened to the members- ie which parties rose from the ashes of this might be intersting too if it is possible. Some more informtion on their policy and how it differed from the ruling party would be good too. Since you seem to be working on a few of these you might want to make a series template like {{PoliticsUS}} or {{Politics of Australia}} to tie them all together--nixie 00:49, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • Thanks for the input. I have made some of the changes (I can't find the party logo, can't even recall what it looks like). I'm going to put it up as an FAC and see what happens. Guettarda 23:25, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Geography of India[edit]

This was a former Indian COTW. I'll be adding maps in a short while. How is it? Feedback appreciated.  =Nichalp (Talk)= 13:21, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)

  • It looks pretty good. An enjoyable read and plenty of content. I have to dispute the assertion about this being the world's youngest mountain range, however. The Cascade Range, for example, is only 7 million years old. But my main issue is that there appears to be no section specifically about about the political geography of India. — RJH 21:19, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I've added the political geography. I've also NPOV'd the claim of the youngest mountains; though many sites online preach that it is the youngest.  =Nichalp (Talk)= 20:07, Jun 7, 2005 (UTC)

Half-Life 2[edit]

I wanted to get this looked at by others before I nominate for the FAC. I think it is well developed and would like some feedback. Thunderbrand 19:04, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)

  • a) it's slightly too long; given that it's heading for FA, and will probably be expanded according to people's requests, it's definitely the time to start thinking about ways to reduce length; be careful with wording, remove any repetition (I couldn't find much unfortunately) b) there are many statements which could do with clear sourcing, consider a system of inline references such as footnotes or invisible notes. c) there are "some players" which would be better attributed to specific players (or "some players such as Jeff Jones{{ref|Jones-2004}}") d) read carefully the style guides about langage; some of it needs to be tightened up. Mozzerati 21:21, 2005 Jun 3 (UTC)
It's kind of funny, actually. A bunch of us got together and talked about how to trim down the article. We got rid of some stuff like the weapons and enemies. I'll try to throw in some sources. Thunderbrand 23:00, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)
    • I agree about the length issue. As is, the amount of detail is a bit excessive for an article about a single version in a series of games. Move the detail the daughter articles if you must, but this article needs a more compact treatment, IMO. --mav 00:32, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Well, we got it shortened up a lot more. It is much more managable now. Thunderbrand 19:28, Jun 4, 2005 (UTC)
  • Its a good article, nicely written. however, there seems to be several irrelevant things mentioned in the article. I don't see the need for a list of the deathmatch maps for the game. It seems to be a very minor detail that takes up alot of space. Also, in the post-release controversies, several facts mentioned don't seem at all important. "Reports of auto-save crashes and audio stuttering from some users. Patches have been..." is a minor bug that didn't affect everyone and has since been fixed. "An update released on November 30, 2004, which inadvertently prevented scores.." barely affected people for a day before it was fixed. At the same time I feel the article is missing information about the game's critical praise. Alot is said about plot holes, complaints by players and the game's technical problems and little is said about why the game is considered good. Other missing information is how well the game has sold. MechBrowman 17:27, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, I guess they aren't really as important now, but I think it's worth mentioning it, and since most of it was moved to a new page to free up space, it doesn't really bother me. As for the sales figures, the only info I can find is the amount that they sold from Nov-Jan, which is 1.7 million, not including Steam. Valve hasn't released any new info recently, though. And finally, the article mentins "plot holes", right under the chapters section entitled "Notes". Thunderbrand 20:55, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)

Architecture of Windows 2000[edit]

This was moved from Windows 2000 as the article was getting too large. Would appreciate feedback on the article to get it improved and to featured article status. - Ta bu shi da yu 08:23, 26 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Maybe I'm dumb, but could I ask you to please state the obvious. I had trouble understanding the first two paragraphs even. Quick quote:
    "Windows 2000 is a 32-bit, preemptible, interruptible operating system, which has been designed to work with either uniprocessor or symmetrical multi processor (SMP) based Intel x86 computers. To process I/O requests, uses packet driven I/O which utilise I/O request packets (IRPs) and asynchronous I/O. However, Windows 2000 is known as a hybrid operating system as the microkernel is essentially the kernel, while higher-level services are implemented by the executive, which exists in kernel mode. User mode in Windows 2000 is made of subsystems capable of passing I/O requests to the appropriate kernel mode drivers by using the I/O manager."
I don't know what you mean by 32-bit or preemtible or interruptible or SMP, etc. are. I don't know what I/O requests are. And this may shock you considering how the article dives right into it, but I don't even know what kernel mode and user mode are. I know it sounds stupid, but explaining jargon goes a long way towards making the article accessible to normal people like me. --Dmcdevit 07:47, 30 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Most definitely, I appreciate the feedback. Will look into resolve this soon! - Ta bu shi da yu 07:55, 30 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Decolonization[edit]

I nominated this article for COTW, and it went from an embarrassing and incomplete couple of paragraphs, into a very comprehensive overview of the process of decolonization. Obviously, this is a very important subject that no dictionary would be complete without. I'm submitting it here for two reasons:

  1. If anything has been overlooked, or something glaringly obvious is missing, I hope a number of fresh eyes can point it out.
  2. Since it has been hastily thrown together by a large number of contributors, copy editing and Manual of Style advice would be greatly appreciated. Hopefully after Peer Review, and possible AID, this could become FAC material.

Thanks in advance for your comments. thames 20:30, 9 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It looks pretty complete... but if it should have any chance of becomming a FAC, you'll need references, references and references. It'll be harder on an article written by more than a couple of editors (in other words, you'll have to get _everyone_ to tell you what references they used where), but it should be doable. Other than that, I find it a very good, well written and balanced article =) WegianWarrior 03:39, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
the formatting is bad when I use Safari as my browser (but no problems with firefox). With Safari, the "From Wolrd War II to the present" table is screwy, with the "year" column being about 3 inches wide and all the text beneath the table being restricted to a three-inch wide column. I don't know anything about html or wikiformating, though. I hope you can fix it. Dave (talk) 16:47, May 10, 2005 (UTC)
I am unclear as to what is meant by "white Dominions". Also, should Afghanistan be included here? (Both under the Brits and under the USSR.) What about decolonization from earlier periods, such as the Roman colonies of Britain and Spain? — RJH 19:28, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
We discussed that on the talk page and decided that there was a substantive difference between imperial conquest/occupation and colonization. Moreover, the word in modern context and usage refers almost entirely to the period which the article currently covers. AFAIK, the Romans had different levels of imperial administration for different territories, but they weren't colonies in the modern sense of the word (a nation occupied, economically exploited, and 'civilized', but not formally part of the occupying country). Non-colonial empires formally integrated their territories.
If you follow the "white Dominions" link to the Dominions article, about halfway down it states: "Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland and South Africa (prior to becoming a republic and leaving the Commonwealth in 1961), with their large populations of European descent, were sometimes collectively referred to as the 'White Dominions'."
I suppose Afghanistan could be included, but the Great Game article makes it seem as though Afghanistan was never successfully colonized by either side. thames 19:44, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
More importantly, Afghanistan was never a Dominion, which has a specific legal meaning. It was sometimes independent, although influenced; sometimes a British protectorate (1880-1919, IIRC) . Septentrionalis 05:08, 12 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • IMO, I think the article confuses a lot of things. There are errors in 20th century Portuguese decolonization, for instance. Plus, there's no information about it (there were wars... Guinea Bissau gained the independence throw war - the country is not even part of the article). More, the philipines were really a U.S. colony? Are we talking about dominion or the colonization of European power across the globe? If we are talking about everything, then we should start with the begining: Egypt, Greece, Phoenicia, Rome... If we are refering to the European colonization it should only foccus on that. The Map well... i think it is USA POV (because of philipines maybe). It would be more useful if it was a 19th century partition map. But we need a lot of maps. -Pedro 22:36, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • The Philippines certainly was a U.S. colony. They weren't named the "philippines colony." If you look at the wikipedia article on the Philippines you'll see that the U.S. gained the Philippines from Spain after defeating Spain in the Spanish-American War. They were a U.S. territory, then commonwealth, then given independence. But, aside from semantics, de facto they were a colony.
    • I think the article makes clear in the intro that the period being dealt with is specific to the european colonies. On the talk page we discussed whether this article would apply to all empires or just to european colonies of the past few centuries. As the term is used in academia today, decolonization refers to the latter: the independence of countries from european colonization over the past two centuries. We can clarify that further, as well as add information on Guinea Bissau—I'll do that ASAP. thames 04:39, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • I've added three notes on Guinea-Bissau's guerilla resistance, leading to its independence. I've also tried to clarify the scope of the article in the lead paragraph. thames 15:14, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ok. But there's info about Indonesia (case of East Timor) and that article will confuse even more people. I'm constantly correcting that East Timor was invaded by Indonesia (it didnt became independent from indonesia, it was a foreign invasion they left East Timor before the independence) and it was a still a Port. colony (under UN administration) and it was Portugal that gave the independence to East Timor in 2002, not Indonesia. Historically speaking, there were guerillas in the Portuguese African colonies. But I see that only in Angola and Mozambique were there were clearly guerillas. But in Guinea Bissau, it was different, Portugal had a lot of trouble dominating it, and it lost control of the territory. I dont know if you can compare it to other countries like in Spanish America or the USA.
  • Most of Portugal's colonies only became independent in the 1970's, and there's only dates, not info at all. The Post-colonial organisations: these have historical and cultural reasons, and the colonial powers havent the power to decide if a country wants to join or not, they all decided to join.
    In place of colonial structures, former colonial powers created institutions which more loosely associated their former colonies.
  • I disagree with this phrase, it is POV.-Pedro 10:02, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I certainly agree that many people don't realize the proper history of East Timor. However, I think there are limits to how detailed the Decolonization article can get. If we were to go through the unique story of each colony, the decolonization article would be tremendously long. However, I have added East Timor's 1975 declaration of independence and subsequent reconquest by Indonesia, in order to give better clarity and background.
    • I realize that the shared history of the former colonizer/colonies is an important element of the post-colonial organizations, but let's face it: the British Commonwealth only includes former British colonies, just as the Latin Union basically only includes former Spanish colonies, etc. There certainly is a measure of choice involved on the part of the now-independent former colonial states, and moreover, not all former colonies are part of the post-colonial organizations. But, how would you suggest altering or adding to that description? thames 15:14, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • The latin union aim is to unite Latin languages speakers (every main latin language - Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian and Romanian), and not only former Spanish colonies, at least today. It also has the aim to spreed these linked languages even more. It also has a cultural aim.

Due to a common history and culture that the former powers and former colonies has, they dediced to create organisations... blah blah blah...-Pedro 11:21, 12 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

    • I've updated the description of the post-colonial orgs as per your recommendations. thames 14:47, 23 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Gnawa[edit]

It seems to be a complete article about gnawa music. Needs some help on reviewing. Cheers Svest 08:04, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

[I changed the title of the PR request to reflect the actual title of the article — mark 10:35, 12 May 2005 (UTC) ][reply]
  • Expand the intro a little so it summarises the article and megre those single sentence paragraps into longer paragraphs. It'd be great if you could get a fairuse short sample (I think 30 seconds is the max length) so that people could hear what the music is like. The list of musicians at the end is unattrcative, mabye it should be stuck on a seperate page or made into a table. A section on the influence of Gwana on other forms of music would be good too. --nixie 23:01, 2 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]


Two short points to start with:

  • Try to lose the bolded words; Wikipedia practice is to use italic text when introducing foreign terms.
  • The article needs references, cf. Cite your sources and Verifiability.

mark 10:35, 12 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

A very interesting article. I too have two points with which to start:

  • The very first sentence is confusing. Is Gnawa the name of a people (that is, an ethic group) or a discipline. Are all Gnawas musicians? Are all musicians in this discipline of the same ethnic group? I know that it is explained later in the lead. Start with the broadest definition.--Theo (Talk) 17:59, 28 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • You are right in that the sentence is confusing. In fact, Gnawa is both a small ethnic group and a spiritual music discipline. In order to be more explicative, I am thinking about dividing the article into two (Gnawa people and Gnawa music). Svest 00:12, May 29, 2005 (UTC)
  • First sentence of ==History==: What is "Old Sudan"?--Theo (Talk) 17:59, 28 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Old Sudan is Sudan (region). It's a historical large sub-saharan region from the Atlantic to nowadays Sudan, conquered by North African Arabs at medieval times. Svest 00:12, May 29, 2005 (UTC)
      • Because "Old Sudan" is not widely used in this sense, I suggest that you explain it in the article with the sentence that you use here. --Theo (Talk) 07:57, 29 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • I agree. I think it´s ok now. Cheers --

Fantasy[edit]

With an eye toward featured article status. My only real remaining concern is the lack of nonfiction citations, but, as I've stated already on the article's talkpage, I'm not convinced that needs to be too major an issue. The article does cite literally dozens of examples of the fantasy genre already, while giving a history of the influences on the modern genre is to a large degree simply collating those influences—all of which have their own articles already—and placing them in the modern genre's perspective. Thanks in advance for your comments and suggestions. Binabik80 01:21, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There's a lot to cover in this category and this looks like a good start. It does seem a little western-oriented, however. Perhaps you could add some material on Chinese, Indian, and other fantasy beliefs? Sexual fantasy isn't listed, and I don't see Walter Mitty mentioned. There's also the psychological aspects of fantasy, such as at what age a child becomes able to distinguish between fantasy and reality, childhood fantasy friends, the relation of fantasy with dreams, and even why we fantasize so much. :) Finally a suitable image at the top would help draw in the reader. — RJH 03:04, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at Eastern genres sounds pretty intriguing--I'm pretty much totally unfamiliar with Eastern lit, though I'm sure Japan, for instance, has a vibrant fantasy lit. Some of the other stuff, though, I think would be more appropriate to fantasy (psychology)—which does indeed mention Walter Mitty—than an article on the speculative fiction genre of fantasy. Looking at the intro section again, though, how can see how it might not hurt to make that more explicit upfront. Binabik80 04:07, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
That works, although the Fantasy (psychology) page looks pretty paltry at the moment. Maybe it'll grow later.... Thanks. — RJH 19:23, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I think that in order for this article to be comprehensive, it needs to take a much broader look at the subject. In particular, I'm thinking of measures of popularity, literary critisism (which there must be a vast amount of), and a more detailed discussion of the various media in which fantasy themes are developed. Regarding references, I can tell you now that you simply must have substantial references to pass an FAC vote. - Bryan is Bantman 03:56, May 3, 2005 (UTC)
Fair enough. I found several books online about the theory and criticism of fantasy that I'll be ordering in to take a look at. I'm also going to take a good look at crime fiction, which seems to be the only featured article on a fiction genre (or at least, the only one I've found so far). Binabik80 14:31, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lead needs expantion. References need adding. Sections can be expanded from subarticles, the article is below 32kb and the one sentence+list sections look bad. There are missing sections in media: 'Fantasy computer games', 'Fantasy TV series'. Fantasy film definetly needs a note on anime. A note on fantasy in theater and such would be welcome as well. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:25, 6 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • The problem with any discussion of a genre is that, rather like the unscientific process that led to the creation of many modern countries, the temptation is to treat the resulting content as homogenous, whereas it is peopled by so many different groups that the single label is arbitrary. You refer the question of whether "Star Wars" is SF, science fantasy or fantasy. Is it possible, or indeed desirable, to come up with a quantitative formula that classifies a given work by the relative percentages of content that meet defined criteria? Surely, the better question is not how we should label them, but whether the Lucas-inspired films, novels, games, etc. are any good. Hence, although this is a brave effort at encapsulating what advertisers currently lump together as fantasy for marketing purposes, I don't think it gets to grips with what "fantasy" really is. Obviously, I can't write a long piece here but let us briefly consider the distinction between narrative and subtext. You correctly refer to early mythology as a prototype for religion. People deify forces they cannot explain in rational terms but, by externalising their fears and aspirations, they make a god out of thunder and debate whether this manifestation is a force for good (or not). Such texts allow people to construct archetypes and, through the use of metaphor, to explore the extent and implications of imperfectly understood phenomena within their own cultures. So Beowulf is an examination of the hero archetype played against the backdrop of a culture where the people had to face their fears of unknown lands and beasts on a daily basis while confronting a religious conversion from paganism to Christianity. The qualities of leadership and political awareness that Beowulf displays would have been powerful contributions to the contemporary discourse on managing change because they are cloaked in a seductive narrative involving scary monsters. Yet, even the monsters are anthropomorphised and not mere brutes. Would not all mothers want revenge for the death of their child? So, too, modern texts allow us to explore our response to modern issues that are imperfectly understood or cannot be addressed directly. For example, a vampire is an alienated and disabled individual that cannot be a full member of contemporary society because of physical and dietary problems. How does such a person survive? What should society's response be? Stoker's Dracula is an Eastern European with sophisticated but decadent tastes. How does the original compare with the Dracula in the series by Saberhagen or Newman? Are the other representations of vampirism evolving over time so that Whedon's TV characters Angel or Spike become modern heroes (even role models) and, in the film or comic version, Blade is a superhero? In other words, the tropes of fantasy deliberately transcend literal reality and, by adopting metaphor and other figurative techniques, enable us to more safely confront sensitive social issues (in the case of vampires: what codes of morality are developed in exclusive groups that must prey on the majority to survive; what are the initiation rites to admit new members to the group; and how should society respond in defence of the innocent victims and the prosecution of those whose nature and nurture predispose them to the sometimes violent exploitation of the weak?). David91 09:54, 24 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • The section on High Fantasy would benefit from some a heavy dose of WP:NPOV. (I happen to agree with the opinion that underlies the section, but that's not the point.) A recent interview with R Scott Bakker (a self-professed Tolkienite) contains a much more profound description of the viewpoints surrounding of High Fantasy. Arbor 11:40, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

1250s[edit]

This is a bit of an odd request for peer review, but I wanted to get feedback from the broader community on my approach to a decade article. I have departed from the standard list-only format and added a couple paragraphs of commentary summarizing the important trends of the decade. I have also used a somewhat non-standard scheme to organize the list of events, and slimmed down the birh / death lists to only those people I feel are truly important (the detailed lists are still available on the year lists). I would eventually like to have year, decade, and century articles all contain textual discussion as appropriate; in the time period of the 1250s; I think this is appropriate on the decade level, while earlier periods might require it be done on the century level and more modern periods on a yearly level (it probably becomes impractical at some point in recent history due to the sheer volume of recorded events). Thanks for your attention, comments, and suggestions! - Bryan is Bantman 21:44, May 2, 2005 (UTC)

  • I would encourage the adding of such summary paragraphs to decade articles. I couldn't quickly find another decade article with any detail to compare it to, but this one looks pretty good to me.-gadfium 23:57, 2 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I like the way it is setup, something every decade article could be like. Were there any major events in the Americas at the time? MechBrowman 01:49, May 3, 2005 (UTC)
  • This is a weakness to my approach; I have little or no independent knowledge of this period, and I've populated the lists solely by (somewhat laboriously) using the "what links here" for every year in the decade, updating the year articles, and then building the decade article off of that. - Bryan is Bantman 17:04, May 6, 2005 (UTC)
  • It's an excellent idea, as the decade articles really ought to distinguish themselves from the annual articles. Trends and major movements are a great way of doing it. However, there is an inherent pitfall in the present organization. While we might well all agree that the Khan is the most remarkable thing in general (surveying from China to Peru), by valorizing in a lead paragraph the articles set themselves up for potential POV wars and sloppy interpolation from future authors. (A fellow links to 1250s, goes there, decides that the baronial rise in England hasn't been sufficiently mentioned, and simply inserts it at the top, making a mess of the narrative you have so carefully written.) (Another person with a point of view comes along, deciding that the Crusades were a genocide, and wants that to be the first thing mentioned and wants every single atrocity mentioned. Some one else, of a Fideist stamp, decides that the Crusaders were saving the heathens, etc.) My suggestion to avoid these is to have a set order of survey for every decade. In Northern Europe, In Central Europe, In the Mediterranean Europe, etc. If you're consistent, you'll warn away the messy and POV pushing editors. Geogre 02:29, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Georgre makes some good points, is there a Wikiproject (Wikiproject:Decades?) looking after these kind of articles, if not you may want to consider making one. That would enable you to formalise a suggested template, then other editors could use to work on the other decades--nixie 08:28, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Geogre does have some good points. I am worried though about overstandardizing though, because of the great variation in our depth and breadth of knowledge for this general time period. The mongol empire, for example, didn't really exist in the 1150s, but by the 1250s are probably the headliners of the world. I have a (perhaps erroneous) stylistic preference for putting the most important events toward the top. While I realize that this could be a POV issue, I think it makes it much more useful to casual readers; I don't want to force people to slog through 14 semi-trivial events in Portugal before showing that the Mongols conquered 1/3 of the known world in a period of 10 years.
  • Regarding the Wikiproject; I think this was probably once under the purview of Wikiproject:Years, but that seems to have gone inactive (I posted a similar note there to what I put here on PR, and have not gotten anything back). Perhaps it would be good to do that for decades, although honestly right now this is such a backwater of editing, I don't know if anybody else is interested in participating (it's a bit of a chore sometimes, too!). - Bryan is Bantman 17:04, May 6, 2005 (UTC)
  • A very nice idea. I expect all years, decades, centuries etc. articles will eventually look like that. You may want to add references (if only from relevant articles). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:28, 6 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I am only using other WP articles as sources, and by design link to every article I use as a source. Do you think I should add a references section listing all of the articles separately? - Bryan is Bantman 17:04, May 6, 2005 (UTC)
Honestly...I am not sure. It wouldn't hurt, though - perhaps a reference section ilinking relevant articles reference sections might work here? I think we are threading on a new waters here. Let's see what others have to say about this. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 13:27, 7 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't think it's a good idea to try to summarize a decade. It's too subjective. Ultimately, you wind up with a mess like The 20th century in review. I think that a simple list of notable events during the decade is more objective and easier for readers to scan. - Brunnock 12:15, May 8, 2005 (UTC)
  • I don't understand why you categorized events pertaining to Mongol Empire separately from events in Asia. If someone is interested in the history of the Mongol Empire, they can read that article. - Brunnock 12:35, May 8, 2005 (UTC)
  • My basic philosophy is that lists should ideally be between 5 and 15 items long: any shorter and they are not much of a list; any longer and they become unwieldy. Given that, If more than 4 or 5 related events happen in a given decade (or year), I thought it would be useful to break them out into categories. It makes things easier to read and presents information more cohesively. Forgetting for a moment that no Timeline of the Mongol Empire exists, I still think it's useful to see what happened in the Mongol Empire during a decade, and then see that next to what happened in (say) Europe that same decade, in the decades articles. Commingling the two lists muddles the arc of history and implies that unrelated events were actually related. - Bryan is Bantman 17:26, May 10, 2005 (UTC)
  • Bryan, I love what you've done with the article. It'd be awesome if all decades were done like that. That way, if someone is reading an article that says "such-and-such happened in the 1570s" you can head over to the 1570s article to get a quick feel for what else was happening then. I like how you have events broken down by both place (Europe, Asia & Africa) and by subject (religion, art & architecture). Excellent job! Jacob1207 02:54, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Master Juba[edit]

Fellas, Gals. I'm not submitting Master Juba to you for feedback in its entirety. I'm considering giving the article a big overhaul and am wondering what you think about the long quote from Dickens currently in it. Personally I love this quote, and though I would normally oppose a quote of such length I believe this one is so good and sets up the atmosphere for the article so well that it deserves to be the centerpiece. Do you agree? JDG 20:51, 2 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

UM, I just read further description of Peer Review above. I hadn't been aware it is strictly for articles nearing FA quality (in fact a referring page elsewhere sort of states it's for any community feedback at all). Well I'd appreciate opinions on the Dickens quote anyway, but if an Admin wants to blow this off the list, feel free. JDG

Er.. put it on Wikiquote and don't worry too much yet, then decide later once the article is more complete and it's possible to see whether the quote is really so important compared to the rest of the article. Mozzerati 20:09, 2005 May 9 (UTC)

Templon[edit]

I wrote this article (adapated from a paper I wrote about a year back) on this important element in early Christian and Greek Orthodox archiecture and then left it. Subsequent editing has made it a bit muddled, I think, though it still has a lot of good information. Any suggestions on how to clean it up? It's very well-referenced, but also a bit dry and muddled, especially in the intro. Thanks! The PNM 09:57, 2 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Hi, here are a few ideas for you to work on. Ideally the introduction would be a summary of the article, what is it, when were they around, who built them etc, no need for explicit architectural details that follow in the text. The sections headings are good, but the text could use a general copy edit, thing like The origins of the templon are curious, should be written in a more encyclopedic style. Also you could add a list of famous templons at the end of the article. I'm surprised there isn't a picture, even a line drawing would do.--nixie 22:53, 2 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • You have many references for the current article size, which is great, but it's not easy to see which reference to use to verify each section. Using a system of inline references (for example footnotes) would really help with this. Mozzerati 20:17, 2005 May 9 (UTC)


Howard Hughes[edit]

This biography has potential for being a Featured Article candidate. I am looking for input on how to make improvements to it before nominating it. During the run of the movie The Aviator it was the subject of frequent vandalism and experimentation, but it has settled back down now. Any help appreciated. Cheers, -Willmcw 04:55, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

  • Two things that seem to come up repeated during peer review :), the lead should be expanded to summarise the article and the materials that have been used as references should be clearly identified in a reference section. Here are a few other suggestions. Highes' seemed to be quite important in taking over from the mafia and making Vegas more of a family place- so I think this aspect could be expanded on, so could his relationship with Nixon and politics in general. The giant list of lovers should be written as prose and included in the main text, perhaps grouped by time of the affair eg. in the 70s Hughes slept with A,B and C.
    • Good points. I think the listing of books supplanted the reference section, but the article should have both. I'll work on the intro, and will make the lover-list into straight prose. I'll check into the Nixon connection, though I'm not sure how much more there is. You're right about his role in supplanting the Vegas mob - that seems underplayed. Thanks for your input. -Willmcw 05:57, May 3, 2005 (UTC)
    • Its not just Nixon, he seems to have made contributions all over the place, as this quote from aide and biographer Noah Dietrich suggests, "During the late 1940s and through the 1950s Howard's political contributions ran between $100,000 and $400,000 per year," says Dietrich. Among the recipients were "councilmen and supervisors, tax assessors, sheriffs, D.A.'s, governors, Congressmen, Senators, judges, Vice-Presidents and Presidents."--nixie 08:18, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Now that's some good material worth getting into. Cheers, -Willmcw 08:19, May 3, 2005 (UTC)
        • Just glanced over it. In general I think quite good! One suggestion: Check the article for American/British language. In the intro it uses "behaviour"... considering that Hughes is American, I'd think the article should use American English (in fact, I'll do that myself right now). Also, as an avowed Katharine Hepburn fan, perhaps more should be mentioned about his romance with her. At one point they were engaged to be married and were rather serious about it; when she turned him down he was pretty devastated. Doesn't need to be much, but perhaps it should rate more than her name in a laundry list. Just an idea, I know nothing about his relationship with the rest of them -- for all I know he could've proposed to them all, in which case the current treatment is appropriate! (Rake!) · Katefan0(scribble) 21:56, May 16, 2005 (UTC)
          • Just did some cleanup of bits and pieces. One suggestion: Hughes Aircraft Company is never properly intro'ed; just blithely mentioned at some point. Some info on its founding might be useful, year circumstances etc. · Katefan0(scribble) 22:15, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

An impressive article. Here are some minor points:

  • What are the "various sources" that cite his two possible birthplaces?
  • What were the moral standards disregarded by Hughes' movies?
  • The ==Hughes: Postwar== section feels too staccato for my taste.
  • ==Hughes: The recluse== Wiki links tp peas, nipples, barber, urine, and toilet seem excessive. Likewise, bananan the next section.
    --Theo (Talk) 21:32, 28 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Vanilla Ninja[edit]

I've nominated this article as I am very keen on, and I believe i'm on the way to getting it to the quality necessary for featured article status. The biggest downfall I can see is the fact that theres not a great deal to write about them, but whats worth writing I think I have. I want to see how to improve the article to a great status in order to make it worth putting onto FAC. I realise most of the version (written by myself) was made yesterday, but I don't think the time it takes to write a solid article revision is relevant. Hedley 23:23, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • This looks like a comprehensive account of their career so far to me. For the moment, I think this can stand as the finished article, though obviously it will need updating whenever the girls do something new. Jess Cully 23:59, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • The artilce is well formatted and written. You will need to provide refernces, see Wikipedia:Cite sources, so that people know where you got the information. You may also want to include a section on their video clips. --nixie 04:31, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Not a bad article but I noticed a few things that could use improvement:
  • Intro Paragraph is a bit cluttered and slightly too long for a comfortable quick summary of the article
  • Several grammatical issues including tense issues
(example: Formation and Eurovision Subsection line 1
Original: "The original line-up should consist of..."
Suggested: "The original Line-up consisted of..."
  • Expansion into Europe section first paragraph could use a rewrite because it's a little bit hard to read through because of the way it's laid out.
  • the Tough Enough subsection first paragraph about sex inequality comes on a little akwardly.

Jtkiefer 23:00, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)

  • I've now implemented the above suggestions. Hedley 00:32, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Terri Schiavo[edit]

Previous peer review request: Wikipedia:Peer review/Terri Schiavo/archive1 (March 2005)
Previous peer review request: Wikipedia:Peer review/Terri Schiavo/archive2 (May 2005)

Well, we've had two peer reviews, a couple of major blowouts, mediation, some RFC's, and a massive rewrite. Personally, I think this version is pretty good, but I've been working on it for some time now. Please note that the article is still listed as in mediation, as a controversial topic, and that this has been a problematic article. Comments and suggestions are appreciated. FuelWagon 23:33, 11 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that this version is pretty good. The main problem is that it does not follow standard Wikipedia style. Why is the TOC right aligned and placed after the second paragraph? Why is the series box placed where the TOC should be, rather than in the upper right as is standard. The lead, if it is the top paragraph, is much too short. If it is the first two paragraphs then it is much too long. - SimonP 15:33, August 12, 2005 (UTC)
I used to contribute to the article, but not for a good 2 months or so now (I gave up as it was too much bother), and it looks utterly different now, so I think I can get away with commenting. It's still twice as long as it should be - I remember a few sections were split off as it had grown to 70k, and it's now 80k + ! It needs a serious, determined effort to prune it massively. It should not be a cover-all-bases, report every fact, in-depth masterpiece. It should be an encyclopedia article. Report the main (the MAIN) facts, leave out all the opinion stuff about which doctor said this and which said that (just say the PVS decision was disputed), halve (preferably three quarter) the length of that huge intro.
If people want to know every facet of the story, they can follow the external links at the bottom and find this information elsewhere. It reads like an article that has been written by comittee (which it has), with every possible point of view on every possible point covered. And editors (who have, admittedly, worked on it ceaselessly) are far too protective of the article. Here is all the article needs to say:
"Terri Schiavo (blah blah 19?? - foo foo 2005) was an American woman who was in a persistent vegetative state. (no discussion of PVS should be in this article whatsoever - just link to the PVS article) Although this diagnosis was disputed by a minority of doctors who diagnosed her (refs), it was upheld a number of times by the courts (refs). Her husband, Michael Schiavo, took the decision to have her feeding tube withdrawn, a decision which was hotly contested and challenged by her parents (refs). The case garnered widespread national and international media attention, splitting the American public. A number of attempts weremade by various individuals, churchleaders and politicians (refs) to overturn the decision to withdraw the feeding tube, but at each stage courts upheld the original decision (refs). Eventually, Terri Schiavo passed away x days after the removal of her feeding tube on foo foo, 2005."
There, that's basically it. There's no justification for that sogging up 80k. The story is really quite straightforward, but it's been overanalysed and overwritten for an encyclopaedia article. Proto t c 23:31, 12 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I kinda agree with Proto, though I would put it in milder wording. 80k is completely over the top for even the broadest of subjects and is hardly reasonable for this rather narrow subject. More consideration needs to be taken to the average reader than to please every minor detail of every imaginable POV of our own editors. If this is to stand a chance as a FAC, it needs to be hacked and slashed quite mercilessly.
Peter Isotalo 00:05, 14 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I kinda agree in the opposite direction; meaning I appreciate and concur with the issues raised; but I'm thinking bigger picture beyond (what I think should be a fluid) FA criteria. Wikipedia is a unique source and by my standards this article is a FA of the highest caliber; which simply entails people interested in the subject can come here and find important information collected and collated on the subject.
The subject is straightforward, but the story and its implications aren't; and the size and detail of this article is a barometer (reflection) of it being overanalyzed and overwritten in pop-culture. Maybe over time as this story fades into the past it would be appropriate to shrink the article; but if that were to occur (and nothing says to me it has to), I'd prefer it to be an organic process in step with its notability... rather than a scorched earth policy in pursuit of rules in a place where there are no rules.
Simply put Wikipedia puts other sources to shame. - RoyBoy 800 04:08, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the feedback so far. I would just say in response to the idea of cutting the article: sure. except as soon as you cut out one accusation of witchcraft, someone will cry bias. Motions and affidavits of the most absurd accusations and assertions were filed and the court found most of them to be utterly without basis. But if you cut one affidavit, someone will howl that we left out so-and-so's accusations that Michael practiced statanic rituals on Terri, drank her blood, and danced on her grave, and therefore say the article is biased. They'll put the accusation back in, and it will get reverted, an edit war will flare up, and the only stable solution we've managed to reach is to describe so-and-so's accusations and then give a full account of how the court viewed them, what the guardian ad litems said contrary to them, and so on. The end result, of course, being an 80k article. If there's a way to shorten the article, that won't get reverted by those who wish to list every accusation of witchcraft against Michael, the only idea I canthink of is to break the 80k article into some sub articles. I'm not sure how, but I think if you just delete something, you'll see someone eventually put it back in, only they'll put in one POV versus all the different POV's. suggestions for how to cut it into subarticles would be appreciated. FuelWagon 06:29, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have a problem with a comprehensive article, but this entry desperately needs a concise and useful lead similar to the draft proto has sketched above. Having said that, and assuming it happens, is this representative of "Wikipedia's best work"? I'd say no: on the contrary, it's a good example of the things that the Wiki approach has typically not been able to do well. As FuelWagon intimates above, when things get contentious, sound editorial judgement (in the true sense of the word) becomes difficult or impossible, resulting in unending churn, or, in this case, an admittedly bloated, almost formless article. (This both despite and due to the obvious levels of time and passion various editors have invested). We have tons of seemingly-random trivia high in the article (e.g. which saint she was named for), while many of the really notable aspects of this subject (media reaction, use of the case for political purposes, and public response) -- the very things that should make up the bulk of the article -- are mentioned in passing or relegated to sub-articles. Jgm 13:22, 18 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This is way too long and way beyond the scope of Wikipedia. I think just the first 2 paragrphs, plus a little summing up statement of its significance should suffice. There is no need to list EVERY doctor, EVERY diagnosis, EVERY school she attended, etc. While this topic is obviously important to those close to the person, it gets a disproportionate amount of attention relative to other articles, and there is really very little in it that would interest a general public. What is needed here is some perspective. For example, the article on George Washington is less than half the size of this article. Is there really twice as much to say about Terri Schiavo than about George Washington that would actually interest a general public? This is not the forum to dispute issues, rather it is the place to put things into their proper perspective and to show how they fit with other aspects of knowledge. What is the historical significance of this case? Why should we remember it in 20 years? What does it tell us about the United States in 2005? Nrets 17:38, 19 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • For a bio, it's too big. But for the crisis in America, it's fine. I mean, she's the Florida State Vegitable, right? ;)

Reults from automated tool:

The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and may or may not be accurate for the article in question.

  • Per WP:MOS, avoid using words/phrases that indicate time periods relative to the current day. For example, recently might be terms that should be replaced with specific dates/times.
  • Per WP:MOSNUM, there should be a non-breaking space -   between a number and the unit of measurement. For example, instead of 18mm, use 18 mm, which when you are editing the page, should look like: 18 mm.
  • Per WP:CONTEXT and WP:BTW, years with full dates should be linked; for example, link January 15, 2006, but do not link January 2006.
  • Per WP:MOS#Headings, headings generally do not start with the word "The". For example, ==The Biography== would be changed to ==Biography==.
  • Please alphabetize the interlanguage links.
  • Per WP:WIAFA, this article's table of contents (ToC) maybe too long- consider shrinking it down by merging short sections or using a proper system of daughter pages as per WP:SS.
  • This article may need to undergo summary style, where a series of appropriate subpages are used. For example, if the article is United States, than an appropriate subpage would be History of the United States, such that a summary of the subpage exists on the mother article, while the subpage goes into more detail.
  • There are a few occurrences of weasel words in this article- please observe WP:AWT. Certain phrases should specify exactly who supports, considers, believes, etc., such a view. For example,
    • allege
    • apparently
    • might be weasel words, and should be provided with proper citations (if they already do, or are not weasel terms, please strike this comment).
  • Watch for redundancies that make the article too wordy instead of being crisp and concise. (You may wish to try Tony1's redundancy exercises.)
    • Vague terms of size often are unnecessary and redundant - “some”, “a variety/number/majority of”, “several”, “a few”, “many”, “any”, and “all”. For example, “All pigs are pink, so we thought of a number of ways to turn them green.”
    • Temporal terms like “over the years”, “currently”, “now”, and “from time to time” often are too vague to be useful, but occasionally may be helpful. “I am now using a semi-bot to generate your peer review.”
  • Please ensure that the article has gone through a thorough copyediting so that the it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work. See also User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 2a.

You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions (and the javascript checklist; see the last paragraph in the lead) for further ideas. Thanks, Andy t 08:28, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Peneda-Gerês National Park[edit]

I've just expanded this stub. Any contribution is appreciated but mostly I would like you to review the spelling and grammar (I'm not an english language native), and the article structue. It needs an image, or more, I'll try to get some soon. --Nabla 23:30, 2005 May 6 (UTC)

  • My idea:
organisation:
1 Human history
2 Geography
3 Geology
4 Biology and ecology
5 Tourist information
6 References
7 External links
  • the park has really a touristic aim? It sounds very shocking to me. They even forbitted to create roads in it. That's a good thing! once I used the Romam road. it was the only avaiable in the centre of the park. In the way back I had to go throw spain, cause I would die if I had to do that again. But it was great!
  • Plus, the park has dangers, in the winter mornings ice is formed in road areas were the sun doesnt reach. There should be info about dangers in the park.
    • Sounds a bit too much like a travel guide entry to me. I don't know what "Tourist information" means in this context, but it sounds like the same thing. How about "Tourism" instead? / Peter Isotalo 09:51, May 22, 2005 (UTC)
  • The article doesnt talk about its clear and famous waters (the park is intended also to protect it). There are various small waterfalls, in very hided places.
  • It needs a map, places to rest nearby.
  • There are also little villages in the mountains.
  • We need pictures of animals/plants, and describe them a little.
  • The park has History, it was a place where some kings went to hunt.
  • look at this article: Yellowstone it is not great, but it is a start.-Pedro 23:24, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Thanks for taking a look.
      • Structure: I've looked at the suggested articles, and some more, before I made this expansion. I chose the topics based on those but as it looks like there is not a standard sequence I used what I thought best. First Geography, essential to locate the park. Then I followed a somehow chronological sequence: Geology, Flora, Fauna, Human history. Sure, these can be in reverse order but I've kept it as was.
      • Tourism, and education: I should have written a section on these, since they are declared goals of the park. I just did so.
      • Dangers: Yes, dangers are a fact. The one mentioned and there are also wolves, so don't get lost in the mountain by night or you may end up as someone's dinner. Anyway I assume the reader is clever enough to assume it presents the normal dangers of any mountain. But that reminded me to add a little bit about the climate in Geography, it was a major gap.
      • Waters: Added some waterfalls info.
      • Map: I'd appreciate help with that... are maps copyrighted? Or can I just pick one?
      • Villages: There were already some implied info although scatered through the article (terraces, maize, oxes, dogs). I added some more about them in Geography and Human history. I personaly like the human info spread over the article as I find it in agreement with the park's spirit to consider the human presence as one of its normal and integrated features.
      • Pictures and Descriptions: I'm just about to add some original pictures taken by a professional fotographer friend of mine. I will not add descriptions of any particular animals or plants which have wikilinks. The authochtonous species would deserve such description though, or even better an article, but I am not the best person to do that, at least for now.--Nabla 01:44, 2005 Jun 6 (UTC)

Isaac Brock[edit]

Hi! I've done quite a bit of work on this article, mostly because I came here for info on one of Canada's most important historical figures. Finding the article lacking I completely overhauled it, and I'd like to get it up to feature article status BUT I need someone to check it for NPOV and objectivity, and whatever else it needs. Thanks! Scimitar 20:36, 24 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, the article looks great. Do you have anymore pictures that could be added to the article? I think that you need to expand the lead section to make it a more complete summary of the article. Make sure everything that you have used as a reference is listed as a reference, and where you have web link in text consider changing them to footnotes--nixie 12:31, 26 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I can get pictures online, but I'm not really sure about copyright procedure. Do we have a page on Wikipedia outlining what is generally fair game? Also, I read a lot about him growing up, but I'll go dig up the books and include them. I'll also go through and institute your other suggestions. Thanks! Scimitar 14:52, 27 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Nevermind, I found the 'fair game' page. The lead has been expanded, I've changed weblinks to footnotes, the references are in process of being improved, and I'm just waiting for permission to use some images I found. Scimitar 16:19, 27 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Okay. I just grabbed other Wikipedia images rather than importing new ones. If I get permission I will add those as well. What do you think? Scimitar 17:34, 27 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You should probably use subsections to make it easier to follow. I suggest making a section for his life and making "early years"..."death" subsections. Also, Image:Brock portrait by JCH Forster.jpg needs an image copyright tag (I added it, just for future reference and for pics that I missed). BrokenSegue 03:48, 29 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I wasn't very sure about the requirements for images, and I appreciate the help. I'll look at instituting your suggestions. Scimitar 13:55, 30 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I haven't done exactly as you suggested, but I made "Military Service" a section, and "War of 1812" a section. I think this improves readability, and makes it an easier article to follow. Do you agree, or do you think it would be better to organize it differently? Scimitar 15:20, 30 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Much nicer. The only other thing I can think of is a mention of where he was burried. BrokenSegue 13:53, 31 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It's included as part of the text quoted from Brock's monument, but I'll state it seperately, as it's easy to miss. Thanks a lot for the input. --Scimitar 17:06, 31 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Nice work Scimitar, the visual appearance of the article has improved heaps, my last suggestion would be to run the whole article through a spell checker to make sure that the spelling is all good. --nixie 22:26, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. I just spell-checked, and caught about a dozen minor errors I had missed. I'm going to leave this on peer review for a little longer, and then apply for feature-article status. --Scimitar 23:45, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Good article, nice work. However, the use of the term "First Nations" to describe American Indians of Brock's era is jarring (to American ears) and certainly ahistorical. Although there's no official Wikipedia policy on this, my practice is to use the term "First Nations" only to describe present-day American Indians in Canada, and not to project the modern term backwards in time. (I do the same for the term "Native American", which likewise sounds jarring to many modern Canadians, and is not a historical term.) In my opinion, the best all-purpose term is "American Indian", which (not insignificantly) is still preferred by the people themselves, particularly in the U.S. Certainly Tecumseh should not be described as a "First Nation" chief, since (popular mythology aside) he was not a Canadian in any sense of the word.

You might briefly mention in the article how, after Brock's death, things went to hell on the Detroit/Amherstburg front under Henry Procter. --Kevin Myers 00:23, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)

Good points. I wasn't even thinking about terminology, it's just that in Canada, I'm so used to applying the term "First Nations". However, with Tecumseh, the coalition of tribes he led was largely Canadian natives, so perhaps it isn't entirely inappropriate. I wanted to use 'native' or 'natives', but I'm going to take a quick look around and see what terminology other War of 1812 articles use.
As for the war under Proctor, I thought about talking about it, but I wasn't really sure if it would be appropriate for this article, since Brock's immediate successor was Sheaffe. I could look at impact of Brock's death, I suppose, and put a brief write-up in there. Thanks for the comments, and I'll get back to you on what I change and what I find. --Scimitar 14:12, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • American Indian seems to be standard. I've applied it throughout the article. --Scimitar 17:57, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • I've expanded on the impact on British leadership in the legacy section now. --Scimitar 19:12, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The Attitudes section could probably use inline citations so the reader knows how we know that those where his attitudes. The lead could alse be expanded to two paragraphs, mentioning some more info on what he did in 1812, his death and legacy.--nixie 00:25, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You're right, of course. I'll take a look at doing that and then get back to you. --Scimitar 14:19, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Lead has been expanded, and I added inline citations, but they're pretty choppy (disruptive of flow). I'm considering changing it to a foot note on the heading, saying that all information can be found in such and such letters, from Tupper's book cited as a reference below. Which way do you think would be better? --Scimitar 17:57, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • Duh! I switched the in-text references to footnotes. It should be better now. --Scimitar 18:17, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Great, I'm all out of suggestions now :) Good luck on FAC --nixie 13:10, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Thanks. I'm going to nominate it today. --Scimitar 16:48, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Iron Maiden (band)[edit]

The article has been through Peer Review previously, and was subsequently a failed FAC. All points have been addressed now, POV removed, heavily copyedited. Comments please! --PopUpPirate 17:54, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

Archive from previous Peer Review :

This page has been edited and re-edited so many times, it's refining itself into a great page, maybe it needs someone to Be Bold, maybe it's almost there. There's so much more that could be added, review would be so helpful at the moment to apply for FA. Thanks. --PopUpPirate 23:41, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC)

As a big Maiden fan, I could lend a hand on the task, but I may try to do so by writing an article on my own and only after careful review, merge it with the current contents, for I fear my love for the band will make me fall in tons of POV's, like the ones that currently plague it. I'll just try and see what happens :) -- Shauri 20:15, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

British Columbia Railway[edit]

I've built this article up from a stub and am thinking of nominating it as a FAC. As I've been the only major contributor, I'd like to get some feedback on anything that I might have missed or anything that could improve the article before I do so (One thing I'm already aware of is that the article could use some more images; I'm working on that). Thanks in advance, JYolkowski // talk 23:09, 14 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • A few style things: there are quite a few short paragraphs (2-3 sentences) that should probably be merged into longer paragraphs; the map in the lead should probably be moved down a little since on a small monitor it makes the lead look all messed up. The Royal Hudson pops up alot in text, unless you're planning a seperate article on that train, you might want to consider having an expanded section on that train and its history in this article--nixie 01:08, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks for the feedback. I've combined some of the paragraphs into larger ones. There's still a few three-sentence paragraphs out there but it's better than it was before. I've also moved the map down. I've previously written a fair bit about the Royal Hudson in Canadian Pacific Railway so I might spin some of that off into a new article later on this week. JYolkowski // talk 01:54, 17 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • The article looks good to me. I can't think of anything to add. — RJH 17:04, 17 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Looks good. But to pass FAC it will need inline citations. The inote/explain-inote system is the easiest to use. See the edit page of history of the Grand Canyon area for an example of this system in use. --mav 00:39, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Is this something new? Canadian Pacific Railway doesn't have inline citations and it passed okay. Anyway, I took a look at the article you mentioned and the citations don't look intrusive (which is my main concern) so I'll give that a go. JYolkowski // talk 01:46, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've gone through with a copyedit, adding and correcting links, and some quick info on equipment dispositions. At the NMRA national convention in 2004, one of the tours I went on was to CEECO Rail Services where they were dismantling the BCR electrics. I'll look through my photos from the tour when I get home tonight, I think I've got one that could be used here. I've also got a PGE passenger timetable on my desk at home; I'll see if I can get a scan of it (does Kinko's do that?) and then see about adding some of the data within it to the article text this weekend. I think all of the important points about the railroad are covered in the text (at least I can't think of anything that was missed). I'd like to see some more photos of trains in regular service. On the inline citations, yeah, that's something that's coming up more often on the FAC page now; check out Wikipedia:Footnote for more info (I'm not so sure I like the proposal, but it's gaining support). slambo 13:45, May 19, 2005 (UTC)
    • Thanks very much for the copyedit. If you had a picture of the ex-electrics, that would be excellent as well (at a personal level, I find the electric operation at Tumbler Ridge one of the more fascinating things in the railway's history). Thanks again, JYolkowski // talk 02:41, 20 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • I've found two suitable photos from the tour and added them to the article. The image placement isn't the greatest, but there they are. slambo 17:59, May 21, 2005 (UTC)
      • Finally got a scan of that timetable cover uploaded and added to the appropriate section. Sorry it took so long, we finally got a scanner of our own today (so we've got yet another new toy to play with this week; if only it arrived on Friday). slambo 01:03, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)
        • No problem. Looks really good, well worth the wait. Thanks again! JYolkowski // talk 23:58, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Kim Stanley Robinson[edit]

I am interested in submitting this article as a featured article, and would like feedback on its quality before doing so. I don't believe that I have made any factual omissions or fallacies, but am open to criticsm in that department - any stylistic changes are also welcome.

euchrid 10:07, 9 May 2005 (UTC)

Check Wikipedia:What is a featured article. This article fails many technical details: lead is rather short. No references. Too many tiny stub-like sections (expand article). Check articles on Isaac Asimov or Philip K. Dick, both of which are larger - and better. See what can be adapted/expanded. Photo of the author needed. Good luck. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 11:15, 9 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with many of Piotrus points, its important that featured article on similar topics look similar, so check the formatting on Isaac Asimov (Asimov is a nicer article than Dick), you need to expand the section on the authours biography and add a section on Literary themes. The section describing his major trilogies are good, but the writing is a bit fanish. References are also important. I've noticed that this author seems to be a pretty popular public speaker, mabye a section on that could be intereting too. I've found and added a pic and will help out where I can.--nixie 12:18, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Although what you write may be a competent listing of facts about KSR, the article lacks any real critical evaluation of his work to explain why he has been such a success. He is, after all, one of the most nominated of the current cohort of SF authors (from 1982 to date, he has 25 nominations or awards). To me, an encyclopedia entry for an author has to strike a balance between a factually accurate bibliography and an academic critique. David91 11:13, 24 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

David Wheeler (actor)[edit]

I could use some help tracking down the correct bio on this actor, as well as verifying the facts I have so far. The problem is that there are multiple David Wheeler's who are actors and I might have gotten a few of them mixed together. This article is about the David Wheeler who played Selto Durka in Farscape, I'm 99% sure the TV apperance facts are correct because I found those on a site linked from a Farscape episode guide (1). I am however unsure about the rest. The link to Goodwill Hunting seems a bit dodgy for example, on the bio page I mentioned he's listed as "other cew" on the movie and another site listed a David Wheeler as "thanks to" on the credits list. I also found a reference to a David Wheeler in an invetview with Ben Afflec (2), however it also mentios him beeing attached to A.R.T. at Cambridge. The David Wheeler attached to A.R.T. (3) does not seem to be the same guy I'm writing about (none of the work history match and picture doesn't seem to match (although it's not a very good one).

Seems to me either the Internet Movie Database have gotten confused and credited the wrong David Wheeler for participating in Good Will Hunting, or two seperate David Wheelers participated in the movie... Either way I have come to doubth the accuracy of the information I have put into the article so far, so I would appreciate someone with some knowledge on the topic to help me sort the facts out. --Sherool 07:09, 9 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Phil Creswick[edit]

I'm nominating this article for peer review, because I'd like to get creative and professional input regarding it especially from fans of Vince Clarke or the songwriting trio Stock Aitken Waterman. They will certainly know more about Phil Creswick of Big Fun and his colaborations with other musicians in the past 10 years. 80.184.218.142 23:33, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Panavision[edit]

I created this page several weeks ago in the hope that it would attract at least a few edits, but no such luck! I think it's a good article considering it has zero edits, but I'd really like to work on it more...I just need some advice how, where, and what. Thanks much! --Girolamo Savonarola 22:27, 2005 May 10 (UTC)

  • I think I should preface this reply with a statement that I know nothing about the company. With that in mind, it's always good to add pictures and references (especially if you're interested in moving this up to featured status. As far as specifics go, the introduction could use expansion, and you might want to add a section (or section) on their products; right now it seems to be almost exclusively historical. Lastly, it could use more wikilinks. I'll put in a few myself. Good work overall, though. Dave (talk) 23:05, May 10, 2005 (UTC)
  • Consider adding an info box to summarize what the company does. The Microsoft page gives a good example of how to implement such a box. Cedars 02:12, 15 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • You should probably expand your reference section, following Wikipedia:Cite sources so thats it clear where you got the information. I'd also suggest that you explain some of the more technical stuff in a bit more detail so that people can understand without having to move between articles--nixie 11:56, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks for those. I've added a handful of sources I mainly relied on, and also clarified a few of the sections. Also some additional information added, and more wikilinks provided. I'm not certain if individual numbered citations are needed - the Wikipedia article says they aren't needed if the facts are fairly straightforward and uncontested, which I believe most of these are. As far as the technical stuff goes, it'd be easier for me to deal with that if I could have an idea which points in particular need more work - it's all clear to me, of course, but I have no idea which concepts might prove slippery for others, so any guidance would be appreciated. Thanks again! --Girolamo Savonarola 01:59, 2005 May 21 (UTC)
    • Now I reread it I'm not sure which technical points I was referring to either, except making sure that the reader knows that anamorphic means widescreen. One thing I did come across while doing some reading was Stanley Kubricks use of Super Panavision 70 for shooting 2001, does this rate a mention.--nixie 04:48, 23 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'm not certain whether or not it does - Super Panavision was basically just a trade name for the standard 70mm process that used Panavision lenses and cameras. No different than Todd-AO otherwise, as far as I can tell. Super Panavision may warrant a mention, but as a non-pioneering technology, again, I'm not certain. We also certainly could not make a list of films shot using Panavision, since it would encompass something around the order of 20-30% of all major Hollywood productions. --Girolamo Savonarola 12:53, 2005 May 23 (UTC)

American_English[edit]

In the very first paragraph there are contradictions and incorrect facts.

1. American English is refered to as both a language and a dialect. It cannot be both. 2. A claim is made that "97% of U.S. residents speak English "well" or "very well". This should either be corrected to 'The American dialect of English", or removed completely, depending on point number 1.

Please try to see these points as constructive, rather than the method in which the previous peer review was taken.

80.177.116.191 23:26, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

You do not seem to understand. Peer review is not the place for such comments. Use the article's talk page for specific disputes you bring up.--naryathegreat | (talk) 02:48, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

American English[edit]

Firstly, there cannot be any such thing as "American English", by definition, English means to be of or about the country of England. Therefore it's like saying 'Japanese Italian', it doesn't make sense.

("American English" meaning 'a person or object of or belonging to England, of or belonging to America' !!! incredulous!!)

Secondly, most of the 'English' speaking world, including Global organisations such as the UN, refer to 'English', being the language in common use by 'England'.

As there cannot be any such thing as 'American English', the article should be renamed to be about 'American', Mr. Websters derivation of English, based on phonetic mis-spellings, and adapting the meaning of words to suit common usage.

This point, and it is a point of a great many English speakers worldwide - deserves to at least be noted in the entry, even if our North American friends do not agree.

80.177.116.191 15:34, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • No.
  • 1. American English is the form of English spoken by the majority of Americans, which itself consists of multiple dialects. Have you not noticed that a word can have multiple meanings? For instance: English can be an adjective meaning "of or relating to England" or it can be a noun meaning a language, the language in which I'm writing, in fact.
  • 2. If a large number of Italians moved to Japan and over time came to change their use of the language, distinguishing it from the Italian spoken by those who live in Italy, then it would be fair to call it Japanese Italian, I say.
  • 3. Most of the English speaking world speaks its own local dialect of English, of which there are many. They all refer to the language as English, but they don't mean the British English you seem to believe they do.
  • 4. I fail to see how adapting the meaning of words to suit common usage or changing the spelling of words is wrong. You are aware that British English arose from various Romance and Germanic languages in just the same way, are you not?
  • To summarize: I disagree.

68.163.208.65 16:43, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The suggestion is preposterous. If taken to its logical conclusion, then there is no such thing as Scottish English, Welsh English, Hiberno-English, Canadian English, Australian English, New Zealand English, South African English, or Indian English, because none of those countries is England either. And if "English" can only mean the language spoken in England, then by extension one cannot use the name "Spanish" for the language of most countries of Latin America, or "Portuguese" the language of Brazil. There would be no such thing as Swiss German or Austrian German either. This request for peer review is basically vandalism. --Angr/tɔk mi 18:07, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree 100%. This page should be deleted and removed from Peer Review. However, I must also suggest that maybe each of these articles include the word "language" at the end of their title. See all of the other language articles, such as Spanish language.--naryathegreat | (talk) 20:24, Jun 12, 2005 (UTC)


So, If we follow your suggestions we should actually be talking about American English Romance Germanic Language. This is my point, it is stupid to continue to refer to a language as a modified set of a previous language. This new language is American, it ceased to be English as soon as it was modified.

There is no such thing as British English either, it's English, full stop (or period, to use your crude American language) As for the point about Scottish English, I don't understand, is this not the same argument. I do not beleive there is such a thing as Scottish English.

I don't agree with the accusation that this request is vanadlism, it's putting across a point of view. Infact, I feel that you have been very insulting there. It's no good to run this vault of knowledge with iron fists, we aren't all North American, and I beleive this is a valid point.

It must also be added that 'English' has been continually evolving since it's "split". Therefore, it can be claimed, that although a common history is shared, the two are now 2 smiilar but seperate languages, increasing the reasoning to call it something other than 'English'. I personally beleive "American" is a very good choice.

Remeber the Americans fought for independence and re-inforced this with a new Language, the least they could do is take ownership

80.177.116.191 23:44, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Virtual band[edit]

Okay, drawing off the previous two peer reviews (found here and here) plus the FAC nomination (found here), along with the article itself, I have been able to deduce the following problems:

  1. The article is too short for feature article
  2. More in-article information may be needed on:
    • The Archies
    • Gorillaz -- especially along the lines of how they came to be
    • Crazy Frog
  3. The extent of the 'animated' qualifier for a virtual band -- should it include puppetry?
  4. A breakdown of the dynamics behind a virtual band is extremely necessary
  5. Language issues must be attended to
  6. Required images -- I've done a little along this line, but should there be more?
  7. The Net-based virtual band (final paragraph of the intro before History now in a separate section) -- this seems, to me, to distract from the point of the actual article (the animated virtual band); should it be moved into a separate article?
  8. Some issues concerning article content, these two being the standout ones:
    • Did the Archies 'open the door' for other virtual bands?
    • The opening statement needs to be reworked as well
  9. Plus some extra sources required -- The Gorilaz's Takedown DVD is a great place to start, if anyone has it

Granted, this is more a request for contribution, but if anyone has any more problems with the article, then please say so here. --JB Adder | Talk 20:53, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Hi; response to your request on my talk page.
    • I'm not enamoured of the idea of footnotes other than for sources; if it's important put it inline or in a separate article. If it isn't get rid of it. In this case, the person's name should be inline and the place where it was said as a source, I think.
    • I reformatted the references to use templates. This is much easier to type and cope with. If you don't like the particular system I chose, there are others.
    • Please cover economic aspects; who profits; how do costs differ from normal bands? I've heard that most bands make their money in concert. How does this affect virtual bands?
    • something about the (presumably session?) musicians behind the bands?

Manitoba Hydro[edit]

I would appreciate any comments. I've looked at the criteria:

  • Well-written - That's my big concern. Is my prose "brilliant" or even readable? Organized?
  • Images - I need at least one moreof the company logo, I'd like to get one of Limestone GS (plenty of pictures around but none that I can get into the PD, so far)
  • Length - I think it's about the right length. I suppose I could exhaustively list every CEO, but I find that sort of thing dull and I can't imagine it's of general interest - some MH CEOs may have their own articles, I should link them here.

Is this even the kind of article that could be featured? Is it even interesting enough or is it just one more company article? I'd like to get some bold collaboration here. Thanks,--Wtshymanski 22:09, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely a reasonable topic for a FAC, and it's looking pretty good. The length appears to be about right currently. I added the company logo that I got from their website, if you manage to find a larger logo that would be good. I think at least one more photograph would be helpful. As well, I think that the introductory paragraph should be somewhat longer (see Wikipedia:Lead section). Finally, there are a fairly large number of one- and two-sentence paragraphs that should probably either be expanded or merged into larger paragraphs. JYolkowski // talk 23:30, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the detailed and specific comments. I was leery of using artwork off the Web site but I suppose it's fair use. I am trying to get some images that can be put into PD. One-sentence paragraphs are a particular stylistic weakness of mine; I shall work on these. --Wtshymanski 01:05, 17 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The page is very good, though more images would help. Slightly unrelated to this article is that I would like to see some articles on the major generating stations and other facilities and projects, or at least red links indicating which ones might someday have their own articles. - SimonP 20:06, Jun 4, 2005 (UTC)
Manitoba Hydro does have good descriptions of each of the stations which could be digested down to articles for Wikipedia - lots of work, but possibly of enough general interest to be worth doing. --Wtshymanski 20:29, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Star Jelly[edit]

I'd like to know what people think needs to be done to make this FA material. Any idea where I can find a picture? RickK 21:58, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

[3] probably not PD, but a start.--Duk 22:33, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I think I'd like to see more about theories about what the stuff is, especially if there have there been any scientific studies about it. JYolkowski // talk 23:40, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm unclear why this is listed under the paranormal phenomenon category. There's nothing on this page in the nature of scientific studies of this supposed material. If there is a scientific contribution available, that would be helpful. — RJH 16:54, 17 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Nuclear accident terminology[edit]

You know the kind of thing - 'broken arrow', 'rogue spear', 'empty quiver', beloved of Tom Clancy novels. A couple of years ago I wrote an article on the same topic for Everything2, and did a lot of frustrating internet research. I came to the conclusion that most of the supposed definitions are either wrong, inappropriate, or fictional, or require a lot of qualification. I have included my Everything2 article in the talk page. I believe that, with a bit of work, it could be pasted over the existing page, but I'd rather have input from others - particularly high-level US nuclear scientists, or anybody who can shed light on this topic, because I have no specialist knowledge on the topic at all. I think it would be fantastic if Wikipedia could become a single, definitive, authoritative source for this information.-Ashley Pomeroy 14:35, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Your article seems better than the current version, but I don't like the title at all: even conspiracy theorists would have to admit that most nuclear accidents are not the fault of the US Navy! There is an international scale of seriousness somewhere, but I can't find it for the moment (otherwise I would do the edit myself). See also Windscale fire, Three Mile Island, Chernobyl accident, Goiânia accident. Physchim62 21:49, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Something like "US military nuclear accident terminology" would be a better title, especially because it would leave the article open for further expansion (I'm sure it's a huge topic).-Ashley Pomeroy 09:00, 17 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Death and state funeral of Ronald Reagan[edit]

A detailed article written almost single-handedly by SNIyer12 and backed up by detailed references. There are several smaller issues that still need to be fixed. Input from the community would be helpful in order to resolve the bigger questions of scope and style that have been raised on the article's talk page. --MarkSweep 02:38, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Detailed is an understatement. :) As is the article is longer than most people have the time or interest level to read. Splitting off the detail between two or more daughter articles and leaving a more compact treatment here will improve readability and give readers the option of zooming to a more detailed treatment of the subject if they are so moved. Also, some sections are very image heavy and the text is squeezed together, esp at the lower resolutions most Internet users surf at (us geeks have much higher resolutions than the average net user). A lead section is also needed as well as a reduction in the size of the TOC (but that will happen anyway once daughter articles are created). ---mav 00:28, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, good points. I agree about the lead section and the number of images. We don't want to make this difficult for dial-up users. Regarding splitting, what would you recommend? Separate articles for each day? Wouldn't those be prime candidates to be put up on VfD, with the likely outcome being to merge them back into the main article? --MarkSweep 03:25, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I concur that daughter articles would not be the right course of action. Indeed the best route, in my honest opinion, would be to go through the article with a fine tooth comb and eliminate anything that doesn't really contribute to the main narrative. On the topic of images, there are quite a few unnecessary images, plus (and I only checked a sample), they all appear to be fair use. This issue was raised in the recent nomination to FAC of the article on Pope John Paul II's funeral, so you should be aware that there a quite a few objections to the use of fair use images. Of course, I couldn't tell you where else to find good images of the funeral unless you know someone who took photos and would be willing to place them on Creative Commons. Ganymead 05:20, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

About the images, there is still a sizable subset of PD images, from the White House or the US Army. Perhaps a good way to start would be to remove the bulk of the fair use images. --MarkSweep 07:53, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

So far this article is an exhaustively detailed timeline. Some method other than a strict timeline should be used to organize this article (example: events leading to death, death, domestic reaction, sections for each ceremony, including preparation, etc). A separate 'timeline of ...' article can keep the events in order and the new organization will give ideas as to which sections could be spun into their own articles so this article can have a more on-topic summary of events (70 KB is just way too much text to go through). --mav 12:05, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

That might work; it would require some pretty radical refactoring. I think it's best to keep the number of spin-offs small. Ideally, this should be split into two, at most three, pages. I don't yet see how a thematic, as opposed to chronological, organization will accomplish that, but I guess this will have to be done by trial and error anyway. --MarkSweep 06:50, 19 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

MarkSweep, I do agree with you. I tried to keep it chronological as possible. You might also want to see the article, Death and state funeral of Pierre Trudeau. That too, I tried to keep chronological as much as possible. I used that article as the model for this. As for the photos, it should be consistent with the timeline. User:SNIyer12

The Trudeau article appears much more concise. Do you think it's possible to condense the Reagan article down to a more manageable length, or should it be split? And if the latter, do you see a natural way of doing it? --MarkSweep 00:22, 20 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is possible to condense it to a more manageable length. I just started to delete some of the images. I used the Trudeau article as a guide User:SNIyer12 00:26, 20 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I also just started to condense the article down to a more manageable length, using the Trudeau article as a guide. There's nothing about the criticism there, so I think there shouldn't be here. MarkSweep, I'm very sorry that I have to remove it, it is part of condensing it.--User:SNIyer12

Fair enough, but I wish the Dan Rather quote could be kept, since it's high on the notability scale. It's rare enough that a TV news personality publicly criticizes TV news coverage. --MarkSweep 01:20, 20 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm very sorry that I deleted the Dan Rather quote. However, I had to condense the article. I removed the footnotes and put the links to where it belongs. It at leasts condenses the article.--User:SNIyer12 01:58, 20 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

A chronological organization is still not going to fly for FAC. Who goes to an article on this type of topic wondering what happened on June 6th? No, they go to an article about this type of topic looking for thematic info; what happened at the state funeral, for example. The organization I suggested is still semi-chronological, so the amount of refactoring should not be too great. And again, once that is done we can better get an idea of where to spin off detail and summarize. Simply removing detail from the current article is not the best course of action; others will just read the detail later if we do not move it to daughter articles. --mav 13:14, 20 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Agree with everyone about chronological order issue. Refactor this, if at all possible. I'd like to request a references section and if you could use Template:Ref and Template:Note, that would be really good :-) Ta bu shi da yu 19:10, 21 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    A references section using Template:Ref/Template:Note used to be there but got taken out again recently. This will have to be reverted. --MarkSweep 20:41, 21 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    OK, MarkSweep, you can revert it. Sorry that I took it out.--SNIyer12

Update[edit]

Woohookitty just finished a major reorganization of the article, which addresses many of the concerns raised by commentators above: the number of fair-use images is down, the article has been structured around topics (as opposed to day-by-day events), and it has been made much more concise. I like the changes and think the end result is much more useful as an encyclopedia article. Any feedback or further suggestions? --MarkSweep 04:32, 30 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think this looks much better than previous renditions, however it is still a little on the long side though that may be unavoidable Jtkiefer 04:39, May 30, 2005 (UTC)
Wow - much, much better. But if you want to put this through FAC, then a much longer wikipedia:lead section is needed (3 good-sized paras given this article's size) to properly summarize the whole article. Another thing is that the TOC is overwhelming. Finding larger themes to organize under and trimming the number of sub-sections would help that. An image or two placed in the white space next to the TOC would also be nice. --mav 17:36, 30 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. I merged a few sections, removed some smaller subsections, and placed an image next to the TOC. The lead section needs futher expansion. --MarkSweep 03:07, 31 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'll have to postpone working on the lead section for a few more days. Aside from the intro, are there any other things on the to-do list? --MarkSweep 03:44, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've had a go at copyediting several sections, it still needs more to improve the flow. --nixie 05:25, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've expanded the lead section a wee bit and the article is still undergoing periodic changes. Shall we close the peer review for now and wait for the editing to settle down before moving on to the FAC stage? --MarkSweep 13:04, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Tooth enamel[edit]

This article recently failed in a bid for featured stauts. However, the main author made many improvements, including adding more substance, adding endnotes, and rewording some awkward sections. While the subject matter is not something I usually get too excited about, I think it is an excellent presentation of its subject and now deserves to be a featured article. - Jersyko 00:41, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

What I noticed to be missing from this article is any mention of the technology, health effects, and cultural phenomenon of teeth whitening. Since it's the enamel that's being whitened, the topic could almost do with its own section further down in this article. (Unless people feel that this should be a separate article.) — RJH 17:09, 17 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
That's a great point. I have not learned anything on tooth whitening as of yet, but I would bet it would be enough to warrant its own article. Nonetheless, something should probably be said in this article about the effect whitening has on the enamel and a link to the other article needed. -dozenist 19:17, 17 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
That suggestion gave me even more ideas, so I added information on tooth whitening under a new topic on "Effects of Dental Procedures". It may need fine-tuning, but I need to look at it later on to judge again. -dozenist 22:59, 17 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I like the changes you made, they improve the article. Good work. - Jersyko 12:30, May 18, 2005 (UTC)

I know the author of this article has written stubs for a lot of the (formerly) dead wikilinks in this article, but I'm still seeing a bit too much red here. I would love to do it myself, but I've never heard of most of them and wouldn't know where to start researching. This isn't something that would prevent me from supporting it as a featured article, but I think others might point this out as a flaw. - Jersyko talk 18:13, May 28, 2005 (UTC)

Jeffrey Hudson[edit]

This little biographical article was started by User:Ngb. I have expanded it. It has a nice picture and an interesting topic and I wonder if it might be of enough appeal to warrant Feature Article status after some community polishing. thanks for suggestions alteripse 00:39, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • It looks like there are lots of relevant things that aren't wikilinks, like Barbary pirates and North Africa, and that's just the lead. You should find out what sources where used and cite them. The duel that cost his his career probably should be described in a bit more detail--nixie 00:47, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • He is not in any categories either--nixie 00:50, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I added some more links. I added another sentence about the duel, but basically no more is recorded and anything else would be entirely imaginary. I have no idea what categories he would belong in and will be grateful if the ardent categorizers among us would attach him to the appropriate ones. alteripse 04:43, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • I'm going to do a bit more research, as this subject is interesting (I almost feel like adding "if true"), because this sounds exactly like the incidents encoded in Book II of Gullivers Travels, where Gulliver, now a dwarf, is sent to the queen as a "lusus naturae" and attempts to move beyond his imposed unimportance by militarism and is disgraced. This fellow would have been Swift's model, no doubt. Fascinating. Geogre 11:47, 17 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy[edit]

Been working on polishing this lately. Any suggestions? Morwen - Talk 16:28, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Good to see a fine article on a book close to many Wikipedians' hearts. Here's a few thoughts, hope they are useful! Worldtraveller 17:13, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Describing h2g2 as "almost but not quite entirely unlike" Wikipedia in the intro is a great use of the phrase, but a bit of a self-reference, and unless it's a quote from somewhere seems rather unencyclopaedic in tone.
    • It's an inappropriate quote from the books. Have fixed.
  • In the 'books' section, does the paragraph in italics really need to be? I think it would look better with "Note:" removed and in normal text, no reason to draw such attention to it I think.
    • Done.
  • The bit about the BBC turning down the chance to publish the book and later regretting it could do with a direct reference - a few other citations of statements and the like would also be nice.
    • I've done that particular one, although I'm not sure how to properly format such a reference...
  • The section on "Restaurant at the end of the Universe" has most of the Brontitall incident was omitted and Instead of the Haggunenon sequence... - the reader needs to know what these were, or perhaps it could just be left that some bits were omitted, a description is probably unnecessary.
    • I've linked the appropriate episodes for these phrases. Could omit I guess.
  • You could maybe mention some reactions to the film, including disgust from some diehard fans.
      • Have done so, but need now to reference these.
        • Have added a link for you, for you to take a look at.
  • I think you could add some bits about DA's legendary dislike of deadlines. If I remember rightly from Neil Gaiman's book, there were stories of him finishing writing episodes of the second series virtually as they were being recorded, and also being locked in a room by his publishers for a week to get him to meet one oft-rescheduled deadline.
    • These stories are indeed true (in one case I believe it was pondered to send the first part of an episode for broadcast whilst they were working on the second part - this turned out not to be needed).
  • In a few parts, there are lots of very short paragraphs, which could be merged into larger paragraphs for better readability and flow.
  • I think the paragraphs where there's a main article might be a bit over-abbreviated, would be nice to have a little bit more material in this article for a good overview before going to sub-articles.
    • We've been trying to keep the article from exploding in size as we have added new material. I've been trying to de-emphasise descriptions of the plot and add real world info - also the sections about the LP and stage versions are new, so we've been editing some sections for tightness whilst adding new. It is about 40K last time I checked. If we add more stuff about the writing (and I want to add a bit more about the popular reaction at the time too), then expanding other sections by more than a tiny bit looks unwise. Morwen - Talk 18:40, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your comments! Morwen - Talk 18:40, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

More good stuff! Well done. My only comment in addition to Worldtraveller's was what was a "Fit" (Fit the First, etc) - I guessed it meant "episode" but the article could say so (the term is already discussed The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Primary and Secondary Phases) . -- ALoan (Talk) 20:27, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Too many short paras, merge. Note that Wikipedia:Lead specifices lead should have at most 3 paras. Remove external links from article, move to notes, link with Wikipedia:Footnotes. And the template-note seems an overkill, I'd suggest deleting this template and replacing it with a simple, standard note. Expand the stub section 'Cultural references' with info its from main article. Otherwise, good job, I expect seeing this on FA soon. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 10:47, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
We had a discussion about the Hitchhiker's Spelling on one of the sub-pages. Trouble is, since we've decided on Wikipedia that we're sticking with "Hitchhiker's Guide" (one word, one capital H, no hyphen), but the pages could be duplicated elsewhere, it makes sense for us to have our own template. Plus it IS included on more than one page, especially where included images show "Hitch-hiker" or "Hitch Hiker." Such use, IMO, meets the requirement for a template. --JohnDBuell | Talk 14:44, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Done a bit more expansion, along with Morwen. I think we've covered about everything we've wanted to cover (judging by the article's talk page). I need to create the new The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy as international phenomenon article and discuss many things: attempts to do the movie in Hollywood from 1983 to the "green light" in 2003, stage shows, radio broadcasts (US rebroadcasts on NPR, translations elsewhere).... Anyway, I think we've got a "set form" for the main article itself - still need to clean up references/notes, but how do others feel about where we've gone with this? --JohnDBuell | Talk 00:45, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The note about the spelling really needs to be done using Wikipedia:Footnote3, especially if you would like it to be a featured article. Also sections where the of use parenthesis to mention where the fact came from, (example: ...and at this time Adams (according to the 25th anniversary reprinting of the radio script book) suggested that...) would probably work better in note format. MechBrowman 03:21, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

Anschluss[edit]

The article is well structured and features both the historical context, the actual historical events and the aftermath of the Anschluss of Austria in the Third Reich in 1938. Themanwithoutapast 14:15, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It was shortly under the FAC - was a mistake, I thought both peer review and FAC is something to be done in parallel (Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Anschluss). Okay, with regards to the article we would need:

a. inline citations

b. some review of the second part (analysis), because someone said it might be POVed (I did not write the second part)

I wrote most of the second part. I have revised it to attempt to attribute views more precisely and to summarize the evidence generally cited to substantiate these views. I'm sure that futher improvements can be made; I tend to think that the most improvement to mitigate POV can be made with the approach just given. If people think this approach insufficient, let's put that on the table. Otherwise I'm inclined to treat this as a research-then-revise problem. Buffyg 13:23, 26 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I finally got around to rearrange this section and add some bits, so please have a look at it and improve it. Martg76 23:08, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Structure is better now, thanx Martg76. Is it time for a new FAC-try? Themanwithoutapast 22:40, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

c. a section about consequences (press responses in the world, pressure on other European countries)

d. general improvements, amendments and expansion Themanwithoutapast 14:35, 23 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

P.S.: feel free to edit/change as much as you like (at least I do not mind having my contributions amended) Themanwithoutapast 14:44, 23 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Emanuel Swedenborg[edit]

See previous peer review request, which was redrawn as it was submitted to the wrong instance (should have been RfC). Wikipedia:Peer review/Emanuel Swedenborg/archive2

The article has since been improved on and might became a Featured Article. The users who suggested the article might make it to featured status were User:Uppland and User:Bishonen.

Most of the contents has unfortunately only been added by me, User:Fred chessplayer. I would request that anyone who knows anything about the subject would give feedback and preferably to be willing to contribute. One contributor makes for a one sided POV , naturally.

I will handle questions of contents but not structural things. Major copediting / rewrite has been done by User:Blainster.

--Fred-Chess 11:18, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • You talk a lot about the various discoveries of of Swedenborg, but it is unclear which discoveries made an immediate impact, and which were essentially "rediscovered" later, much like the genetics discoveries of Gregor Mendel. At least the way that I read the article, it seems to hint that many of the discoveries should be placed in the later category. BlankVerse 12:00, 22 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your comment. It has been attended. --Fred-Chess 10:18, 27 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Some more pictures would be nice--nixie 04:53, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thanks. I am trying to look for any, but find them hard to find. --Fred-Chess 10:51, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Fred, would you consider adding footnotes to the article? Referencing each part of the article carefully will make it more difficult for random people to just add unreferenced stuff to the text. As for illustrations, I am sure it would be possible to get a picture of Swedenborg's grave in Uppsala Cathedral. Other than that, perhaps a photograph of a title page or an original manuscript? It would be valuable to have some suggestions as to buildings or places in Uppsala, Stockholm, London, the Netherlands or elsewhere which may perhaps already be depicted among all the images here or on commons or other Wikipedias, or possibly easily dug up in the form of engravings and other PD material that can be scanned from old books. Any ideas? Uppland 09:42, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I have considred your points. References are, I think, not something I would do just yet because alot of material is derived from different sources, sometimes even in one sentence. I know this isn't in the spirit of the jaggedness of academical publications, but so be it...
Some pictures would be nice, I have been a little hesistant because I can't see how they would improve the article. A photo of a title page is OK however. I will get one if I can.
I will ask some people in Uppsala if they can take a picture of his grave, but don't expect them to be all too happy about it.
A picture of sv:Swedenborgs lusthus his house and garden in Stockholm would be nice.
--Fred-Chess 03:37, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
As for footnotes or inline references, you may be asked to put them in when this gets to the FA nomination stage. As for the grave photo - rather than using the services of your unenthusiastic acquaintances, I asked Wiglaf on his talk page about it. He has a camera and may be willing to take a picture from the Cathedral. Uppland 07:22, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Looks good. I've heard that the casket is behind iron bars which makes it hard to photo in the first place.
I've now asked sv:Användare:Jordgubbe about lusthuset and he appeared positive. --Fred-Chess 22:14, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Thanks! I had to put the camera between the bars, and tried from several positions.--Wiglaf 10:53, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Nonhuman animals ethics[edit]

This I think is borderline nonsense. It is I think an explanation of altruism in organisms, and it does go into reciprocity and kin selection okay. But it misses the immense level of competition there is between organisms; nature is red in tooth and claw. I also think it commits the naturalistic fallacy when implying that because something happens in nature, it is therefore right and/or is some personal speculation on whether animals have ethics. I'm good on the biology, but not so good on the ethics. Oh and its images are probably copyvios. Dunc| 00:42, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hi, sorry, but that is not what peer review is for. For that kind of thing, please list it on cleanup. Peer review is for getting advice from others on what you can implement in the article, perhaps also with some help from people making the suggestions. - Taxman Talk 02:37, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)
Well what is it for then? I want other people to look at this article, preferably ones with backgrounds in ethics and comment on it in order to improve it. This is not WP:FAC. Dunc| 11:46, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
At the top of this page it reads "This page is for nearly Featured-standard articles that need the final checking by peers before being nominated as Featured article candidates." Please try Wikipedia:Pages needing attention. Thanks. :) — RJH 15:17, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

IB Biology[edit]

I would greatly appreciate any form of comments, critique, or review. Also, I need help in completing this project. Any artists with (or without) knowledge of biology that would be willing to help me draw some of these diagrams? Thanks alot! Akapsycho 09:05, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • Since the page has been transwiki'd, the note instead looks more like a candidate for a speedy delete. Sorry. Isn't there a review area for wikibooks? — RJH 20:58, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • I would think there is somewhere but I'm not exactly sure. Alot of people were complaining that it should be in the books section so I moved it. Akapsycho 05:17, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • You could try posting to the Village Pump and also check out the Wikibooks community portal. Other than that, perhaps there are some forums around the internet where you could try recruiting some help? Perhaps some mailing lists? Dunno. — RJH 16:00, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Double the Fist[edit]

Lots of info in this article; it needs a bit more detail in the episode summaries, some pictures and maybe some organizational work.-PlasmaDragon 21:07, 19 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • I'm not sure what is the value of the Steve Foxx, Rod Foxx, and The Womp links are since they all lead directly back to the Double the Fist article. Should they be linking to another article not yet written? If not, the links seem rather redundant to me. dozenist 23:45, 19 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • A whole article for each character seemed like a bit much, so I have just removed the wikilinks.-PlasmaDragon 23:11, 20 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've added more detail to the episode summaries.-212.85.24.83 13:05, 20 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I loved that show... I'll never forget the one where they bagged the ABC and it stopped the show... :-) However, that said, this computer needs a major restructure. The lead section should not be so long, and in fact from what I can see of the article I would suggest moving parts of the lead section into the main body of the article. I would also suggested an overview of the show before the episode summaries. Needs a proper references section (see cite your sources). Didn't Double the Fist have a logo for the show? We could use that under fair use. - Ta bu shi da yu 13:55, 21 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've added the logo, and reorganized the article. I'm unsure of how to continue with the citations. I don't own the DVDs or the book, so I can't cite those. Most of what I've added has been from memory of seeing it on TV.-PlasmaDragon 16:56, 21 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Cal Tjader[edit]

I've been a long-time fan of Tjader's work and feel he's an important and underrated American jazz musician. One of his more notable accomplishments was to bring authentic Cuban and Carribbean players to American audiences, although he did much work with musicians of other backgrounds as well.

What I found most fascinating in my research was to learn how highly regarded he is in Latin America, Mexico, and Carribbean countries. There he's known as "the Greatest Anglo Latin Jazz Player", a high compliment considering how central music is to those cultures.

I am worried about bias in the article as well as contributing a complete, well-rounded article to Wikipedia. Any suggestions, additions, or thoughtful criticisms are certainly welcome.

Request submitted by Jimbonator at 15:56, May 19, 2005 --Allen3 talk 21:02, May 19, 2005 (UTC)
  • Boy, I learned a lot about Cal Tjader, who I had only thought of as a vibraphonist. My main comment is that you now have made the Tito Puente article look puny by comparison, so that one will need upgrading. ;-) (And the red-links in the article show that a few articles need to be written, such as Poncho Sanchez.) The one thing that I see missing is some more online references. You should try to see if any of the big music websites has an online discography for Cal Tjader, or if any of them have any samples of Tjader's recordings. BlankVerse 11:02, 22 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Thanks. I've gone through and checked the red links, and most of the others, to correct disambiguations. Jimbonator 20:14, 26 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Agreed, most music FAs have some samples, anything shorter that 30 seconds should be ok under fair use. Also you're going to need to get a photo that has clear copyright status--nixie 23:20, 22 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've replaced the questionable photo with another photo album,a good shot of Cal looking out over the bay. (Album covers are good under fair use, right?) Also, if I made my own music clips, under 30 seconds, could I upload them under fair use as well? Jimbonator 20:14, 26 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Album covers are fair use, if you're making sound files make them as .oog and then mark them as fair use when you upload them. I had another question, in the article is says he played the conjas is that an alternate spelling for congas?--nixie 11:00, 30 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • I can't find the word "conjas" in the article. That would be a typo if it were spelled that way.Jimbonator 21:04, 31 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

How Democratic Is the American Constitution?[edit]

Someone cited this book as a source for a different Wikipedia article, so I borrowed it from the library to check up on it. I discovered it had this article, and I ended up doing a major expansion. I thought I'd solicit feedback now in case I needed to check the book itself before returning it to the library. If you haven't read the book, then you will be able to tell if I haven't explained something clearly. If you've read the book or have it, you can check my accuracy. This article probably also needs basic markup improvements and general copyediting, since it's fresh from my Emacs buffer. Thanks for reading, Beland 04:55, 19 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Nice article, thanks. I never really thought of the U.S. as a "pure democracy", and I'm not even sure that one would work at that scale. Anyway, I saw a few places in the article where you could add some useful cross-links, such as representative democracy, suffrage, slavery, American Civil War, &c. Is the "I" in the book title supposed to be capitalized? Also we usually include the ISBN number for books. — RJH 17:30, 19 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I linkified the ones you suggested and probably too many others. Feel free to directly tweak links as desired. I actually checked on the title page of the book itself, and yes, the "I" in "Is" is capitalized there. This follows the rule I learned in elementary school, which is that all verbs, even short verbs like "is", get capitalized in proper titles. The ISBN of this edition is 0-300-09218-0; I'm not sure where that's supposed to go. Also, this is not the only edition of the book in publication, nor is it the most recent, and I gather different editions have different ISBNs. -- Beland 06:00, 21 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
You could probably just put the ISBN in the parentheses with the publication date, thus: (2000, ISBN 0-300-09218-0). — RJH 18:51, 22 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Added. -- Beland 03:10, 29 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • It looks like an interesting book. It would be nice to see some sort of totals at the bottom of the table in the article. BlankVerse 10:43, 22 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Done, though I did not try to make them look pretty. -- Beland 03:10, 29 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I haven't read the book so cannot comment on the accuracy of this as a summary but I make two observations: I'm not convinced that a precis of a book dealing with politics is a meaningful entry in an encyclopedia and, even if it is, a precis without any critique makes the entry less neutral than it should be. To take one issue as an example: the partisan jerrymandering of constituencies is clearly undemoctratic since it disenfranchises the voters from the minority party in each constituency. Thus, no matter what voting system might be in place, the result would be skewed. Unless you contextualise the book and consider how justifiable its conclusions might be in the light of a more objective set of criteria, I regret to say that I doubt the worth of this piece. My apologies.

David91

  • I don't think there are any "objective" criteria, really, but I do agree that it would be nice to attach criticism, or at least link to opposing points of view. I'll have to leave that to others, because I am not really familiar with any such sources. I'm not sure what the jerrymandering example was supposed to be showing, exactly. Clearly a voting system which used a single voting district for the entire state (like most PR systems, I assume) would not be subject to jerrymandering...who is supposed to be asserting this false claim? -- Beland 03:10, 29 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to see some explanations for "stong judicial review" and the other 3 elements in the table, especially where to draw the line so it becomes "strong". Especially I want to point out that Germany is stated as having a "stong judicial review" while Austria and Switzerland are listed as "NO"-countries - this is somehow confusing, because the systems in all 3 countries are rather the same: all 3 have one federal constitutional court that has the power to review and invalidate all legislative acts that are inconsistent with the constitution. In addition what constitutes "strong federalism"? Is this with regard how much power is given to the states and if yes, how many powers are necessary to qualify? While Germany has certainly a stronger federal tradition than Austria (a few more legislative powers are in the hands of states), the system itself is rather similar. To sum up, I've not read the book, but in order to write a good article on it, I would suggest to give some more explanations in what the author actually wants to say + some conclusions of his international comparisons. Themanwithoutapast 00:33, 24 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

A good question. There are some sections in the book which directly correspond to those answers. I've added as much material as I can along those lines. (A lot of what's in those sections is devoted to considering which choice is the better one.) If there's any remaining doubt over who should be classified where, Dahl doesn't give any more explanation (in this book, at least) about why he arranged these countries as he did, as far as I know.
It would be cool if Wikipedia created its own government-system comparison chart(s), which would presumably be better explained, more detailed, and more reliable. -- Beland 03:24, 29 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The issue is not whether it would be "nice to attach criticism"? Criticism is not critique and you open Pandora's Box with an invitation to consider whether there are "objective" criteria! But let us put all that to one side. The difficulty with PR systems is to match the desire for local representation with wider voting patterns so, upon what criteria is the size of a constituency determined at each level within the political system? It is convenient in the U.S. that there are states within a federal system but, if you were to adopt a slate system for an entire state, is the list going to be open or closed? Is the list going to cover only the President and each state's legislature, or will candidates be listed down to city and district level across all functions currently elected? If so, what controls will be put in place to ensure that nepotism does not replace gerrymandering? And even if non-partisan controls are enforced, why would this be a more representative system than, say, Mixed-Member Proportional Voting? Obviously, this is not the place to debate the merits of the different systems of PR nor to judge PR as against any other system, but I repeat my opinion that unless there is some contextualisation and critique of all these candidate voting systems (and in this, I concur with Themanwithoutapast that international comparisons should be validated), any page that simply reproduces the POV of one book on politics lacks the necessary quality of neutrality. -David91 08:44, 29 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

OK, feel free to add context. I guess it's safe to return the book to the library, since additions along these lines would need to come from external sources, with which I am not familar. -- Beland 04:18, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

(a) This is the peer review page and I have no interest in adding material. (b) If you look at the other books covered in the Political Books classification, almost all the entries are very short or the material is about the book's production history or a comment. In my short survey, I found no other entry at your length. My advice (which has little value since I am relatively new at this Wiki game), is to reduce this entry to about ten lines of text and walk away. Alternatively, you might consider putting it into Wikify and let the world have a go at it. -David91 06:04, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

USS Missouri (BB-63)[edit]

I'm nominating the article because I feel that it could be a featured article, but I want some input from other people before it gets placed out on the FAC section. In particular, I'm worried that the page may not have enough references, so input on that aspect would be most apreciated. TomStar81 22:32, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hey nice work. I remember touring the Missouri when it was at Bremerton, and we were all a little disappointed when it was relocated to Hawaii. Anyway, the only entry that caught my eye was the wording "her mighty guns". That seems a little too colorful IMO, so perhaps "her main guns" would be more encyclopedic? Thanks. — RJH 03:00, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Noted and adressed. Thanks for the input. TomStar81 05:26, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Second Crusade[edit]

After we worked to make First Crusade a featured article, a lot of work has been done on this one to make it the same quality. Before it goes to FAC it would be nice to have some outside eyes look at it. Adam Bishop 05:00, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This article is comprehensive and very informative indeed. Obviously it should be put into featured articles after First Crusade. Or maybe we can put Crusades as featured article series? Another suggestion is a series of Crusade features, as listed in here. CrossTimer 06:57, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Lead is too short, see Wikipedia:Lead and expand. Failure and aftermath sections are rather sort, look like section stubs and can use expantion as well. Otherwise, a good article worthy of FA after the above points area adressed. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 15:56, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I've expanded the lead. The last two sections kind of repeated each other, so I've combined them into one...perhaps more work could still be done there. What do you think? Adam Bishop 18:14, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Lead looks better now. I still think it can use some expantion, as well as the entire article - I always say if it is under 32kb it's too short - but I wouldn't object if I saw it on FAC. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 20:56, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Okay, well I'm not sure what else to add...perhaps if people had specific questions about things, it would be easier to expand those areas. I'll leave it on Peer Review for another couple of days, then add it to FAC if there are no problems. Adam Bishop 06:14, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Good work as usual. One issue is Image:Realoui7.JPG. It claims to be fair use, but I don't see how it meets any of the fair use criteria, especially important is that it has no source listed. Moreover it was uploaded by User:Isis, a fairly notorious copy violator. - SimonP 01:29, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)
I don't know...I know I have seen other photos from tombs like that on Wikipedia. The article wouldn't really suffer if it was removed entirely. Adam Bishop 20:33, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

TARDIS[edit]

I've een working on this with various other editors over the last year or so, and I think it's gotten to the point where it can be a FAC. Any suggestions on improvement to make any subsequent nominating process less painful would be appreciated. --khaosworks 11:32, May 21, 2005 (UTC)

  • Since when (what episode?) is the current doctor the last of his kind as was repeatedly stated in the new series? Your description of other TARDISes implies there's other Time Lords still alive. Mgm|(talk) 12:03, May 22, 2005 (UTC)
Hm, point taken. We don't know when the destruction of Gallifrey happened, just that it did sometime prior to the first episode of the new series. I've changed the tenses to past tense in that section, in any case, and added a sentence to clarify.
  • You've probably done this already, but check Dalek and make sure you've covered similar ground. Is there TARDIS merchandising for example?--nixie 23:44, 22 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • The TARDIS has been a keyring, a bank (money box), cufflinks, and even a cookie jar! (thanks ebay!) --JohnDBuell | Talk 21:12, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Is it known officially by its acronym? Otherwise it should be spelled out in the title. If it is, the article should say it is the name, not just the acronym. --Dmcdevit 07:55, 30 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • A quick google search shows that TARDIS (all caps) is a registered trademark of the BBC. The acronym was spelled out in the very first episode - I don't know if the BBC has trademarked "Time and Relative Dimension(s) in Space) or not.... --JohnDBuell | Talk 21:09, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Électricité de France[edit]

EDF is a featured article on the fr: wiki and I had a dab at translating it from there to en: as much and as best I could. I did most of it literally though and I'm stumped about how to improve it further. I'd appreciate any comments and changes. Thanks Craigy (talk) 22:33, May 22, 2005 (UTC)

  • First, the article needs approriate citations for its references. Did it come entirely from the French language wiki or were other sources also used? Second, Wikipedia:Companies, corporations and economic information has recently developed an infobox for corporate articles. This article should be updated to conform to the current project standards. Finally, the first major section is nothing but a big list. This should be changed into a text format or else the article sections reordered to move it towards the end of the article. --Allen3 talk 01:12, May 23, 2005 (UTC)

Layla[edit]

I have worked extensively to try and bring it up from a stub to the same quality as some of the other featured song articles. I'd like to see what some of the rest of you think. Not enough information? A little too affectionate? I'd really like to see it be featured. Deltabeignet 20:47, 22 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Little things:
    • Never hurts to Wikilink things in the lead section, ie. Clapton's name.
    • I'd move the pic of Pattie Boyd down, and maybe add the bit about comparing her to the album cover into the history section. Then, give the photo a simple and concise caption - eg. George Harrison and Pattie Boyd
    • Perhaps expand the writing into longer sentences - remember, everyone loves flowing prose, even in an article about a song.
    • In the History line, "The title was inspired by a Persian love story...", it wouldn't hurt to make it blatantly obvious what you're talking about by saying "The title, Layla,..."
    • It wouldn't then hurt to italicise all instances of Layla or other song titles per the Manual of Style.
    • Maybe analyise the song lyrics a little more if you can - but remember, no original research, so have proof for the reasoning of the lyrics.
    • Any more info about the context of Layla being used in Goodfellas? What was happening, the power of the song, any reactions from critics?
    • Small detail, but give the pages in the reference section titles instead of showing URLs. Makes it more aestetically pleasing.
    • Last but not least...what a great article on an unforgettable song. Good work, and I hope my feedback helped. Please give me an indication on my talk page. Harro5 (talk · contribs) 07:43, May 23, 2005 (UTC)
      • Note: per the Manual of Style, songs should be in quotes, and albums in italics. Tuf-Kat 06:59, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)
      • That was my mistake when I wrote my feedback, but the proper Manual of Style formatting is used throughout this article. Harro5 07:50, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)
        • In your RFA page, you mentioned that you hoped Layla would be a FA soon. I feel its almost there, but you should add some footnotes to get rid of inline links (the one in the lead is particularly ugly). It won't hurt your RFA to show you can do this either! Harro5 08:24, Jun 16, 2005 (UTC)

Kigo[edit]

The kigo article is about the use of season words in the short Japanese poetry form known as haiku, as well as in the longer linked-verse form known as renga. A couple of different people have worked osporatically n this article over the last half year and they have transformed it from a bare stub into an article that I think is now close to being worthy of nomination as a featured article.

In soliciting comments, one person said that the introduction needs to be larger, another did not like the use of Bold for each kigo, and another said that they thought that the first paragraph in the section titled Must haiku include a kigo? was confusing. My own opinion is that the article still needs a few more photographs to illustrate some of the representative kigo.

As for references, although most English-language haiku books usually include a small amount of information on kigo, the two books by Higginson listed under print references are the only books in English that are only on kigo. One of our Japanese Wikipedians also helped on the article, which is the reason that there is a reference in Japanese listed. BlankVerse 10:32, 22 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Neat article. I'm not sure how to get around the list/glossary feeling of the article, stringing it our into prose seems counter productive, more text will probably decrease the prominence of the lists, or there is a option to shorten the lists, or move the lists to a seperate glossary article keeping the best examples. You may also want to cut back on the use of bold text. The lead should be expanded slightly. Its going to seem silly but it wasn't clear to me if people use kigo in regular speech or if they are just used in poetry--nixie 00:23, 24 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your comments. There have also been a few people making very helpful comments directly on the Talk page for the Kigo article.
For the Japanese Wikipedia entry, they have a smaller list of kigo in their kigo article, with a separate article that is a list of kigo. The Japanese, however, are very familiar with haiku (there are daily haiku columns in most major newspapers, for example). For the average English Wikipedia visitor who will probably not be that familiar with haiku, and probably not know anything about kigo, I think that it helps to have numerous examples of kigo, although I agree that the number of example kigo might be too large currently. I have been thinking of cutting back on number of "Common kigo" (but will probably also end up adding a few new kigo since I think the number of kigo related to Humanity and Observances which are currently categories that I think are underrepresented).
A couple of people have commented about the inadequate lead, but I am having trouble expanding it. The suggestions I have had so far I think have oversimplified some of the issues discussed in the article to the point where I think that they would cause confusion.
FYI: Kigo are only used in haiku and renga (and occasionally in senryu), and are not used (AFAIK) in regular speech. It is interesting though, that there is a Japanese poetic technique called kakekotoba which is the use of the numerous homonyms in the Japanese language to create puns or multiple meanings in a poem, that also has a similiar techique in regular speech called share. BlankVerse 07:17, 24 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The fact that they're words excusively for poetry could go in the lead, it makes them quite unique :) --nixie 14:49, 24 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Ah...enlightenment! I misinterpreted your question. The season words (kigo) for the most part are just regular vocabulary words (that have seasonal associations), although like English there are words, usually rare or obsolete in normal conversation, that are considered "poetic". The word for frog in Basho's famous frog haiku, for example, was an ancient term, so it was something like Shakespeare using a word from the vocabulary of Chaucer. Those sort of poetic words, though, are much more common in waka than they are in haiku.
However when the words are used in haiku (or renga), because of the convention of kigo, the words will have a deeper resonance for both the poet and reader than when they are used in regular conversation. When you read a haiku that mentions the moon, for example, you know that it is about the autumn, so you end up interpreting the rest of the information in the haiku based upon that knowledge. I guess that is something I need to make clearer in the article. BlankVerse 10:30, 25 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
So it is better for us to say "Kigo (literary "seasonal words") is a concept and technic of some genres of Japanese poetry, originally in renga and today in haiku which was developed from renga. Most of kigo are common words in conversation, some were common but currentdays sound archaic and poetic, some were generated for the poetic-rethorical purpose or bollowed from other poetic genre including waka or Chinese poetry. Though most of those words appear in other poetry form, kigo is highly haiku and renga technic, hence never considered as "kigo"".

Black Death[edit]

Been working on and maintaining this article for a while. I like its chances at FAC, as it seems to me comprehensive, has good references, and plenty of useful images, and it's only 32 kB at this point. I'm just afraid I've overlooked something, so I'd appreciate if anyone could take a look at it. Thanks a lot. --Dmcdevit 00:02, 22 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • I've given it only a quick look, but it seems quite comprehensive to me. Mgm|(talk) 11:48, May 22, 2005 (UTC)
  • It appears to be an excellent article. There are probably a few more words that could be cross-linked, but nothing of significance. I'm not sure whether you are interested in adding a Media section? For example, the Hugo award-winning novel Doomsday Book is based on time travel back to the era of the Black Death? There's also the classic movie The Seventh Seal. — RJH 18:47, 22 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • In fact, I really like the idea of an overarching "Black Death in literature" section to deal with contemporary and modern things. I don't know if cinema really counts as literature, but can't come up with a better name. Working on it now... --Dmcdevit 20:40, 22 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • I think I've done all that I can with the modern literature section, and I'll be fleshing out the more contemporary stuff soon. --Dmcdevit 02:39, 25 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • And I have two specific requests. I am just putting in the literature section a little at a time, which has quotes. Is there a policy on how to put in longer quotes, because they are usually indented and a slightly smaller text, so I just did that my own way, but I don't know if that's correct. And also, could anyone check on the copyright status of the images? Some of the tags worry me. Anyway, thanks for your input. --Dmcdevit 21:30, 22 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Content is great, but the lead should better summarise the content of the article, there are also a few format things you may want to play around with. Do the Alternative explanations have to be broken up with h3's, it increases the length of the TOC and they're only short paragraphs. Counterarguments and Miscellaneous could lose the bullet points, lists tend to go down like a ton of lead on FAC. Trim the see alsos, most of these are already in text links. Image:BlackDeath graph.jpg is a pretty average diagram, if you or someone else redrew it, you'd clear up the uncertain copyright and have a diagram that looked a lot better. Image:Map of Death.jpg that you uploaded should have a better description of where it came from on the image page, otherwise the rest of the images look good in terms of copyright. There are a lot of numbers, you may want to use some sort of footnote, or innote reference system to make it clear where the data came from (this will definately come up in FAC so its best to address it before you get there). --nixie 23:38, 22 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I just got rid of the bullets and and extra headings, and I agee it's better. In fact, those headings disturbed the flow, adding nothing, and I didn't really even need to add any transtions. I've also just gotten rid of the Miscellaneous section entirely, as it's a strange place to put things, so i just merged them into other sections. As for the map image, it came from a .edu university site, but I've done a search and frustratingly can't find it now. I don't really know how to search for specific images rather than just perusing the web sites, but in all honesty, I think it's redundant with the better map at the top. --Dmcdevit 03:11, 23 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Since Image:Map of Death.jpg is a duplication of the one in the lead you might just want to send it to {{ifd}}. You could move another pic into the lead and move the map down to be with the relevant text.--nixie 04:26, 23 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • Just removed the duplicate map and moved the other one. --Dmcdevit 04:49, 23 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've been a contributor to the article, see some problems before it goes FAC. I can work on when my time and focus allows, or others might too.
  • The last paragraph of the section "Signs and Symptoms" is awkward. It talks about a wide variety of social and economic effects which already have their own section, repeats. It also touches on some topics that are not yet covered elsewhere that should be. The text just needs to be re-integrated into the new structure.
    • Actually it was the last two paragraphs, and they don't belong at all. Thanks for pointing this out. I remember writing those, but that was before the "Signs and symptoms" section existed, I think. I don't know why they were there, but I moved the last one to economic effect, since it was about governmental economic controls instituted, and the other to the beginning of the "Patterns" section because it was about the plague's precursor. --Dmcdevit 05:57, 23 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • The "Social Change" and "Economic effects" I think need a re-examination as they both discuss some of the same issues, but come to different conclusions. A bit confusing.
    • I see what you mean. I've attempted to fix this by condensing the "economic effects" and the class system effects in "social effects" into one "socio-economic effects" section, which seemed to make more sense and make it less splintered. The economic and social effects in this respect really can't be separated. I think it works better the new way. --Dmcdevit 23:02, 23 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • The references and external links section needs some organization. See First Crusade for how it could look (a FA I worked on). We need a section of "Contemporary sources" for example.
    • I really like that example, so I changed around the references section. --Dmcdevit 04:49, 23 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is not much discussion of the "live for today because you might die tomorow" effect. Liquor consumption rises, crime rises, death-culture emerges.. all things that remain to this day, we can easily recognize as "modernity", versus the age before (13th C), which was more religiously pious and less recognizable to us.

Stbalbach 00:59, 23 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Does it also need to be inCategory:Asian history?--nixie 11:58, 23 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Good point, just added the categories for Middle East, Asia, and Eurasia history. --Dmcdevit 22:13, 23 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lots of great stuff, so some observations:
  1. The selected sources and further reading needs to be reworked to eliminate the ambiguity. Further reading could include a work on the topic that has never been consulted by the page authors, instead simply made available for the interested reader. Including that in with the sources that were actually used by the page authors means that it is impossible to tell if there is more than one actual source for the article. Please split the section into separate "References" and "Further reading" sections, unless all the listed sources were actually used, then just name the section references.
  2. A lot of important facts are left uncited. Please prioritize the article by the most important facts in it and cite those (using footnotes or parenthetical inline citations, etc) directly to the most reliable source available. I can pick out many that need citations if you like, but as a contributor to the article, I'm sure you can too.
  3. The explicit focus on European sources seems improper. Basically I'm saying what is the topic? Is it the plague that happened in Europe at the given time, or is it the worldwide plague that happened. Does the term "Black Death" unequivocably mean the former? Why? If so, then where is the article on the plague in the rest of the world? If not, then a focus on European issues is improper.
    Well, really, yes, it does usually only refer to Europe. the term Black Death itself is overwhelmingly used to refer to the European outbreak within the worldwide pandemic. It's like having an article on the Northern Renaissance, which is a subset of the larger Renaissance. Especislly when we refer to "Black Death" in the academic field of history it is as solely the European plague. And the plague in other areas, like China, is referred to by other names. --Dmcdevit 20:38, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    Ok then the discussions of the plague in Asia are straying from the topic, except when specifically discussing origins of the European plague. It is important to define the topic and stick to the topic. You can cover related events in the rest of the world at the time, but the coverage should be focused in one part of this article and summarized. Also, why this article/term is about Europe should be made clear. Just note the above, ideally with citations, that the term exclusively refers to the European plague. Then ideally create or link to the article(s) on the plague in other parts of the world. - Taxman Talk 20:08, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)
  4. The recurrance section could use some expansion. Recurrances happened, but on what scale? Why don't we hear about those nearly as much? The mention of the London fire seems out of place, because what effect would that have on keeping the black death out of anywhere else in Europe or the Mediterannean? Is that fire really so central to the issue for some reason?
  5. If the cause of the attack is unknown, then statements like "Bubonic plague struck various countries in the Middle East during the pandemic..." are improper, unless there is specific evidence for that statment to be also true, even if the overall cause was not Bubonic plague.
    Good point. I think that comes from the (bad) habit of using "bubonic plague" and "Black Death" interchangeably. I think I've cleared it up, and all references to bubonic plague state that it is a theory. --Dmcdevit 21:01, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    Well the fact that they have been practically used interchangeably could be made even more clear too then. - Taxman Talk 20:08, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)
  6. Was the population of China at the time really only estimated to be 37 million? That is the inferred number from saying 2/3 died = 25 million.
    Well, that depends upon how you define the borders (during the Mongol rule, the borders would have been much different, not just our "China"), but actually I wouldn't be too surprised. Remember, the population of all of Europe, including the Baltic, East, and Balkans, is normally estimated at ~75 million. And China had been through some severe wars and famines just before. But I'm no expert, so I'll see if I can't find that cited somewhere else. --Dmcdevit 20:30, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    True, sounds good. - Taxman Talk 20:08, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)
  7. Oh yeah, one more, the depopulation section gives the reasons why the European deaths were concentrated in the cities, and the next section states that the Middle Eastern deaths were more rural. What gives? There's either an inconsistency or more information is needed. I'll look for more if you like, but thought that was a good start. - Taxman Talk 14:58, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

This article has much that is good, but I have some problems with it, some major and some not so major.

I think that the article paints with a pretty broad brush, which in a general article, such as this, is not always a bad thing, however I think this is a bit too broad. For example, this passage has a host of problems:

In Western Europe, the sudden scarcity of cheap labor provided an incentive for landlords to compete for peasants with wages and freedoms, an innovation that, some argue, represents the roots of capitalism, and the resulting social upheaval caused the Renaissance and even Reformation. In many ways the Black Death was good for peasants, at least in Western Europe, because of the shortage of labor they were in more demand and had more power, and because of the reduced population, there was more fertile land available; however, the benefits would not be fully realized until 1470, nearly 120 years later, when overall population levels finally began to rise again.

First off there are the weasel words "some argue". Who exactly? More serious is the actual argument. Although the Black Death might have had some hand in shaping the Renaissance and Reformation, it did not start them. Both were part of a pattern of recurring movements. There were multiple "classicisizing" periods in European history (See for example, the Carolingian Renaissance and 12th century Renaissance). There were also multiple reform movements stretching back to St. Benedict. Whatever the influence of the Black Death, the invention of the printing press surely had a greater impact, especially on the Reformation.

"the Black Death was good for peasants". It is never good to die of a horrible disease, or, if you survive, to watch your children, or parents, and many of your neighbors die. Moreover, the argument that the Black Death was good for the Peasantry is a bit suspect. If, as seems to be the case, your yardstick for measuring prosperity is population levels, then you cannot claim that having more land per person is the cause of the prosperity, otherwise, when the population rose, the prosperity would disappear. However, population levels are not a good measure of prosperity, otherwise China and India would be the most prosperous countries on Earth. Even when a better yardstick is used, there has been a great deal of criticism of the "Black Death was good for the Peasantry" thesis, which should be included.

I was somewhat surprised to see that the section on contemporary literature did not quote The Decameron, which contains one of the most famous descriptions of the plague. However there are advantages to using less famous quotes.

However, this section bothers me:

A few were famous writers, philosophers and rulers (like Boccaccio and Petrarch), but most were quite ordinary people who happened to work in a job requiring literacy, a rare talent; most often, this meant a low-level, peasant monk. For example, Agnolo di Tura the Fat, of Siena, records his experience:

This implies that Agnolo was a monk, which he wasn't (The five children are a big clue.) I'm not sure that I would categorize literacy, as a "rare talent" in the fourteenth century. Someone was reading Chaucer, and the Romance of the Rose, and using all of those Books of Hours and it wasn't just monks. Also, it took money to become a monk. There were few "peasant monks" and those that did exist probally weren't literate. Of the three authors quoted, not one was a monk. (Henry Knighton was a Canon, which is not the same thing.)

One final quibble. The image Image:BlackDeath graph.jpg is, as has been noted, lackluster and of questionable copyright status. It is also misleading. Because the baseline is set at 40M rather than zero, it appears that a much greater percentage of the population died than actually did. Dsmdgold 04:23, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

Order of Canada[edit]

Me and User:YUL89YYZ have been updating the article in the past few days. I have added pictures (some of my own creation, others from Veteran Afairs Canada), cleaned up the list of the various recepients by placing them under which grade they have been appointed to. We also added the ranks to the foreign receipients and found out when the Queen Mum was awarded the Order. I know there is some cleanup that needs to be done, but I want to see to send this article to WP:FAC after I am done here. Thanks. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 21:19, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It's very small. If not for the pics, lists and section spacing, this could fit on one page. Solution: expand, expand and expand. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 20:56, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
What areas should be expanded the most? Zscout370 (Sound Off) 23:11, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Here are some questions I would like to see answered: Why was it created? What, if any, system of honours did Canada have before 1967? What happened to this prior system when the new one was created? Who were the first inductees? Was it based on the system of other countries? Has it been copied by any other Commonwealth states, e.g. the Order of Australia? Most of the Advisory Council seems to be political appointees, how much influence does the PMO have over who is selected? - SimonP 23:58, Jun 19, 2005 (UTC)
Dear Simon, I have a few. The honours system was based on the British system and before the Canadian system was used, the British system was used. I have no clue if it was copied by other nations. I can check why it was created and also the first people who got it. I did put information about Terry Fox being the youngest CC in history. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 00:13, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Roland Michener was the first appointee to the Order. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 00:29, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
And once the Canadian system was in place, the British system was discontinued all together. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 00:52, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I also put in the ref/note templates in, so the external links have been removed from the main article space. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 23:44, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

As for the PMO (Prime Minister's Office), I have no clue on how much influence they have (I am an American, so I have no clue on what they can and cannot do). Plus, the citizens make nominations and politicians in office cannot be accepted to the Order. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 01:59, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Also, if the Liberals seem to be getting awards, then the Conservates will get a few. That is why there is an panel that rates each nominated person for appointment. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 02:01, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I answered all of Simon's questions and comments. The Order of Canada was created first, before the Order of Australia and New Zealand. As for the Advisory Council, I have no clue on what rules the Order Constitution have laid down to say who can be part of it. Plus, if any politician appears on here, then they are usually not members of the Order itself. Some do appear on here, but if they have CM, OC or CC, they are not in office anymore. The British system was used before the Canadian honour system was created, but now, the British system is no longer used in Canada. However, most medals were copied from the British system, including the Victoria Cross. I listed the first receipient on the article, but I can see how many were appointed in the first year of its creation. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 04:15, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

But I do have a question: is it ready for WP:FAC? Zscout370 (Sound Off) 04:15, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Forget it, I am placing it there now. Zscout370 (Sound Off) 23:00, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Carey Baptist Grammar School[edit]

Hi people, i have done quite a bit on this article and i'm hopefully trying to get this to FA status but i would like to know how i can improve it.mtothedc 12:44, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

  • I think it's a little too obscure to ever have it as a featured article, however I will remain positive and say that it can be made into a more sound article. For a starting point, there needs to be some references put in, so that wikipedians can falsify your information, and see if the sources are verifiably correct or not. This is considered a given if it is to be featured article standard. --Knucmo2 18:19, 25 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Not sure about the placement of the pictures - especially "middle school students". They seem to stick out in funny places and crowd the article. Harro5 23:42, May 25, 2005 (UTC)
    • It also seems like the pics might have some problems--the first is not tagged and the second is under GDFL presumed, but frankly they both look like promotional pictures. Some campus pics rather than close ups of people smiling might be, at the very least, more NPOV. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:53, 2005 May 25 (UTC)
  • Perhaps also have a read of the Caufield Grammar FAC to get an idea of comments regarding these schools. Harro5 23:50, May 25, 2005 (UTC)
  • Even as an alumni of the school I'm afraid this seems too obscure to be a FA. Notability? Also, I'm afraid it comes across as an extension of Carey's ads. There's no real sense of what niche the school fills - frankly, I always perceived it as one of the minnows of the APS. --Cinephobia 12:24, 26 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Also reading it again, the material on its co-educational status is blatantly not NPOV. I'm afraid I'm becoming more cynical about this article.--Cinephobia 12:29, 26 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I fear the user who posted this review has disappeard - I've got Carey on my watchlist to see it's progress, and currently no changes since this peer review began. Harro5 22:18, May 27, 2005 (UTC)
  • I've re-shuffled some of the pics to improve the look of this page. Unfortunately, this peer review hasn't addressed any of the problems with the new version of the article. Cinephobia might have a look at it from a Carey alumni perspective and de-POV the writing. Harro5 (talk · contribs)
  • As a current student, I will try to implement some of the peer review suggestions, and hopefully remove the bias - I've always found carey heavy on the advertising :) --Veloxsilentium (talk) 15:48, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Chauntea[edit]

This article is about a fictional goddess from Dungeons and Dragons. It was prematurely submitted to FAC, and I moved it here once the author asked to have it removed because it wasn't ready. I think it needs quite a bit of work, including:

  1. verifying the sources originally used (one is the house rules of some DM at Stanford).
  2. checking copyright status of the pictures
  3. adding in-line references
  4. adding information from more sources, especially rule books and Forgotten Realms novels about the goddess and her followers

Dave (talk) 19:47, May 23, 2005 (UTC)

  • I'm uncomfortable about articles such as this one as they cut a little too close to somebody's bread-and-butter. At the least, though, I think that detailed game-specific information should be examined carefully and only presented in broad, general terms. Thus, for example, the portion that reads "annul the senses of deities below her rank (e.g. Intermediate deities for 19 hours. She can create any magical item that summons creatures, or elementals. She has a dizzying array of spells, and is 30th level caster." should be a little more vague about details like "19 hours" and "30th level caster". Also, if possible, you might credit the person or persons who came up with this deity. It does need references to the WotC publications that describe Chauntea; at least for v3.5. Thanks. :) — RJH 19:28, 24 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I see what you mean, perhaps some of the language I used is quite obscurantist. Rather than perhaps rewording it, maybe the intermediate deity could be linked to a wiki-page that explains exactly what such a thing is, for instance.--Knucmo2 12:38, 25 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Well it wasn't so much that as the numerical values. Information you'd actually need to use this in a game. I could possibly see this page being useful, for example, if somebody were reading some FR-based fiction, where you'd want background on the theology. But the values are game-specific. — RJH 16:17, 25 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • If you want an example for an article about a game-related fictional character for some additional inspiration, check out the FA Link (Legend of Zelda). It has developed quite nicely. /shameless plug :D Phils 21:36, 24 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Pan American World Airways[edit]

This article has gone through peer review before (see archive). However, I am wondering if there are further ways to improve this article to featured status. In particular, I am wondering about images since half the images have questionable copyrights. Pentawing 21:03, 9 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Mozilla Thunderbird[edit]

The page organization and content is similar to that of Mozilla Firefox, which is a featured article. But I think it needs more content, which is quite hard as this application doesn't have as much attention as Mozilla Firefox. The ultimate goal is to (of course) make it a feature article. ;-) --minghong 07:57, 23 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I share your feeling about content, the format is very good, but the content is a bit thin. In addition to trying to expand the existing sections you could add a section on criticisms, from a quick google seach it seems there are stability problems if you have massive amounts of mail etc. --nixie 00:35, 24 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yup, definately. But since I don't have any knowledge about the criticisms, the section isn't created yet. --minghong 18:19, 26 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed, there are a few grammatical flow errors throughout the article that make it hard to read as well. MyNameIsNotBob 08:20, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)

Phone sex[edit]

Hello, we are in need of some help from the Wikipedia community. I hope this is the right section to post in.

What is happening is that while we've ironed out some of the biases that were originally in the article, one thing we cannot seem to iron out is the allowence of commercial advertising in the links section. One person keeps insisting that their phone sex business is "the most respected and the most relevant" to Wikipedia and is now saying that they are going to place their personal advertising there, while preventing other phone sex workers from placing their advertising links. This person wants to be the sole voice and sole advertiser. Please advise on what we need to do on this. Do we need to open the links section and allow all phone sex sites to place their links or completely prohibit commercial advertising altogether in our section? [posted, but not signed by ] User:24.205.205.22 21:53, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

  • Actually, the village pump or help desk are the places to post such things. Wikipedia has a firm no advertising rule. External links should provide information to go with the article, any commercial link is going to violate the NPOV policy. - Mgm|(talk) 12:35, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

Obesity[edit]

This article has had a previous FAC, which failed for various reasons, such as paucity of pictures and lack of hard statistics on prevalence. I'm trying to finally lift this vital health topic to Featured Article status. At the moment it needs more historical/cultural emphasis (PMID 15722988 may help here), some pictures (of people!), some hard stats. I think the science is basically done (e.g. metabolic syndrome, leptin/ghrelin/etc), but for encyclopedia use it needs wider scope. All help appreciated! JFW | T@lk 23:50, 24 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • A couple of points/suggestions from my first scan which hopefully will be useful:
    1. The lead pic is of the fat mouse, animal obesity is mentioned in the lead but not really expanded elsewhere in the article. Most of the causes and complications associated with obesity are the same in animals and humans. So either more needs to be added on animal obesity or the article should be exclusively about human obesity.
    2. You will need to use a footnote or inline reference system, especially where statistics are quoted. Innote and Wikipedia:Footnote4 seem like good choices.
    3. Is there sufficient litterature to warrant a section on the genetic aspects of obesity?
    4. Pics I could think of, BMI from [4], and mabye a picture of one of the drugs. A graph obesity in different countries would be neat, OECD data for 2003 can be found here [5]
    5. Does it need a discussion of first world vs third world? This series of short articles on the growning problem of obesity in the third world is good [6] and this WHO project seems interesting too [7], it'd be good to get a hold of the data thats it's generating. Also much of the data presented is on the US, similar data exists for most OECD countries and should be represented where possible.
    6. Where practical lists should be turned into prose.
  • That should keep you busy and has made me alot more interested in the topic--nixie 03:03, 25 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I also remembered on my way to lunch that there are countires where until recently obesity was still a socially positive thing, like in the Pacific Islands of Tonga and Samoa--nixie 04:03, 25 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • To respond: animal obesity is not a serious concern, and perhaps a small paragraph should be inserted. Footnotes are indeed important. The genetic aspects are very poorly understood; perhaps a mention of polymorphisms in particular genes is useful. Practical lists should stay this way to remain systematic. I'll have a go at the worldwide data at home when I can draw a graph. JFW | T@lk 10:46, 25 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • I've added a graph based on the OECD data to the article. Feel free to replace it with a more complete graph if needed. Phils 14:20, 25 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Have you consediered merging the etymology into the definition?--nixie 07:10, 26 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Seems a bit US centric. Do you have info on obesity in other parts of the world? Mgm|(talk) 10:47, May 26, 2005 (UTC)

Update: progress has come to a standstill. I've had great difficulty finding good historical references and worldwide statistics, and was wondering if anyone could chip in here. JFW | T@lk 09:08, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Have done lots. It is coming along.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:15, 13 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hard Times[edit]

I have been working on this article flat-out for two days, with 'CRUSHING' effort. While I realise it is not perfect, I contrasted and compared it alongside the pinnacle of the literature featured articles, and believe that with a few adjustments, it could be a featured article. What say you? Perhaps there are some grammatical errors in the article, or it is too sententious, or given to judgment or non-neutrality. Who knows? I have tried to find these and have eliminated them draft by draft, so I adjure you to scrutinize this article! Knucmo2 16:52, 24 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It's a good article, but could perhaps use some editing for style and clarity. There are a few commas in incongruous locations, and some sentences are rather longer than is needed. Also the indented paragraph should use the colon indentation method rather than actual indentation (which converts the text to PRE). Thanks. :-) — RJH 16:24, 25 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the remarks and valued opinions. I think it's a contender for a Featured article. I have edited it for overstretched sentences, indented the paragraph correctly, and removed some of the surplus commas. Please reread it and see what you think.--Knucmo2 22:06, 25 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I went in and made some minor tweaks. Hope you don't mind. — RJH 15:32, 26 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Killer. I commend what you've done with the article, minor as the adjustments were, it's well on the way now. I think I'll add some more material to the critics section, and perhaps clarify some of the background information, with some extra material I picked up.--Knucmo2 18:02, 26 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting, thoughtful article. I'd like to see all of Dickens' work done this way! However, I am missing references to contemporary versions of Hard Times (e.g., the television series, see IMDB. Also, although the section on literary criticism is good, I'd like to see a bit more on the influence of the novel on society. I mean, Dickens wanted people to understand and know social mishappenings, but did he achieve his goal? -- Cugel 11:42, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)
I certainly concur. When I was writing the article, I had some idea of inserting something about what the novel achieved, I know it was an inspiration for Gaskell's 'North & South'. What sort of heading could it go under. Perhaps there are some critics who commented on this (I shall look), and maybe this could be featured in the article's critical response section.--Knucmo2 22:30, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
In the The Old Man and the Sea the articles the section on films is unsurprisingly called films, so a section called mini series would be appropriate. Or you could call it The novel's influence like in The Brothers Karamazov and include other things like the books influence on other writers. I don't really like the ===h3=== headings in the themes section, I think they could be written into the text, reducing the length of the table of contents. If possible the lead should be expanded a bit too perhaps by adding a two-three sentence synopsis. Also I think the people on FAC will ask for inline citations for things that aren't general knowledge from the Background and publication and the Critical response sections, so you might want to consider adding them--nixie 22:42, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I disagree with the headings point. It's irrelevant, inspect other FAC articles that have a myriad of sub headings and sub-sub headings, yet the article flows. I think this seems to be more of a matter of personal preference rather than actual improvement of the article. A succinct synopsis in the introduction would be suitable. The inline citations is a good point also--Knucmo2 23:12, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

SS Andrea Doria[edit]

After reading through the article, I believe that it has the potential to be a featured article. Aside from a lack of description about the ship itself, I am unsure how else to improve it. Any thoughts? Pentawing 05:30, 26 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It looks quite good to me. I can't think of anything to add, and it's an enjoyable read. The only oddity I noticed was the sentence toward the end of the first section about communication improvements and good response averting the loss of life from the Titanic 40 years ago. Well I know what you meant, but it does have a slightly humorous time-travel connotations. :) — RJH 05:25, 29 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
This is not comprehensive - it is missing 2 sections: 1) early history - background (Italy reconstruction and image rebuilding), who build it, where, perhaps a contemporary newspaper review, launching ceremony, etc. and 2) ship features - details of construction, etc. Also, the term uses many terms which have no stubs - I ilinled them in the lead, please create a short stub to explain to laic (like me) what is an A-deck, double hull or watertight compartment. After this, I believe the article can pass the FA.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 14:09, 29 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I included information about ship features and construction, though I believe more could be added. Pentawing 02:52, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Alot of the specific facts that are in the intro should be moved into the actual article where you would actually expect to see it. For eample before the description of the accident it should be explained where the Andrea Doria and the Stockholm were going. The intro should be more of an overview than the only place you find the size of the ship and its destination. MechBrowman 03:01, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

Vlad III Dracula[edit]

I'd like some review of the structure of this page. Are the historical and apocrophical accounts of Dracula well separated enough? Would some other structure be better? Also general style review please. Zeimusu | (Talk page) 00:18, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

First impression - bad prose - too many tiny paras, merge. Sections are ok, you may want to break off the end of 'Reputation' section into a new one ('Fiction' or sth like this) and expand this with info from Dracula#Origins. A few more pics would be nice. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 10:45, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

European Space Agency[edit]

ESA - interesting and informative. I've started to improve this article and actually I think it really has improved, however it could be even better! I urge all Europeans to help bring this article to FA-niveau. Themanwithoutapast 23:51, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Looks good but not near FA status yet, I think. I'm missing information (a time frame?) on launches, and disasters/crashes (I believe there are a few!). Also, aren't there any books on the ESA? Some references would add a lot to the article. -- Cugel 14:31, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)
Added some references - regarding the timeframe, do you mean a more detailed history section or a list of launches - a list wouldn't really add to the article. Themanwithoutapast 21:35, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Need references. External links should be moved to external link section from main body and linked with notes. Too many lists, too little content, it should at least double in size before it is comprehensive enough for FAC. For example, the 'Current projects' should be transformed from bullets to paras. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 10:40, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
External links should be moved to external link section from main body and linked with notes are you referring to wikifootnotes? As far as I know they are not required in the wikipedia FA criterias. As to the content issue - I think now it is quite detailed, or do you still feel it's to short? Themanwithoutapast 00:47, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Yes it looks good. There's perhaps a little too much emphasis on future space exploration plans, which can (and often do) evaporate depending on funding changes. But that could be counter-balanced with more history details, &c. — RJH 15:23, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
One thing that stuck out at me is the comparison between the ESA and NASA in the Budget section. It sounds partially like an excuse for the ESA and partially like a NASA-bashing exercise, neither of which is appropriate. There's good content there, and some comparison should undoubtedly be made, but I think it should be reworded. Oh yeah, it also misses an important point — ESA is only a space agency where NASA is an aerospace agency that also spends lots on atmospheric R&D type stuff. -Lommer | talk 01:23, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Well, the budget section was certainly not intended as to "bash NASA". Could you add some more details on the POV-argument of the budget section? And you are right, ESA is merely a space agency, however research in aeronautics is carried through by the national space agencies such as DLR, CNES and above all the majoritly national owned EADS corporation. As with regard to NASA, although having a branch of aeronautics, it has always had its major emphasis on space and nearly all of its budget is spent for space-related activities. Themanwithoutapast 21:35, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
ad "space agency" vs. "aerospace agency" -> I've just checked the budget figures of NASA and discovered that for 2005 only 900 million are allocated to Aeronautics out of the 16 billion overall budget. This means that 94 % of NASA's funds are used for space-related activity, therefore this distinction between ESA and NASA appears less important - I will nevertheless add a note on this matter in the article. Themanwithoutapast 14:54, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Burkhard Heim[edit]

This is a biographical article which has changed very much over the past 3 months. A lot of content has been added, but perhaps in a manner where it may be confusing to the reader. It would be nice if someone could go through the article and suggest any of the following for improvement:

  1. Proper sectioning
  2. Suggestions for organizing the external links
  3. Resolution of the POV in the article
  4. Commentary on the content (Here is a list in particular that focus should be given to)
    • Is it clear? (Does the article seem muddled, or disambiguous?)
    • Is it factual? (Does it lack substance? If so, how to improve on this given the lack of resources?)
    • Is it knowledgeable? (Does it sound competent and consistent?)
    • Is it comprehensive? (Does it cover all the essentials of a biographical article?)
    • Is it applicable? (Is it an article that is welcome on Wikipedia?)
    • Is it analytical? (Does is explain clearly the character of this person from different perspectives?)
    • Is it synthetic? (Is the article a good conglomeration of facts on this person?)
    • Is it evaulative? (Does this article critically assess the circumstances of this person?)

It would also be great if someone could go through it and make corrections to any of:

  1. grammatical errors;
  2. spelling;
  3. flow;
  4. anything which will improve the quality of the article.

Ideally, it would be nice to see this as a featured article someday. Thanks in advance for your help and input - it's very much appreciated! --HappyCamper 14:01, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • I've gone through and done some minor spelling, link and POV changes, but I didn't want to do to much for fear of stepping on anyone's toes. I would suggest:
    • adjusting sections (perhaps amalgamating 1940s/1950s)
    • more time spent explaining 'mystical' theories, less time defending them as seperate from his other work
    • I'm afraid I lack the scientific credentials/knowledge to comment on factuality.
    • check your links (e.g. I removed the one on 'incubation period', as it linked to a medical article talking about incubation period of a disease, which I'm sure was not what you were referring to.
  • Just some suggestions, and good luck! --Scimitar 22:13, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Hi Scimitar - thanks for your feedback! Anyone else with suggestions? HappyCamper 04:15, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

There are alot of external links there, choose the ones that you used to write the article and then trim off anything not immediately relevant to the article. You will need to cite your sources and possibly use a footnote system to show which source you used to add facts and opinions, providing you have used neutral sources a good referncing system should also help clear up remaining POV problems. The article could use some more images. How did he get his theories out to the public if not through journals? There should be a list of publications. --nixie 04:36, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • Also the sectioning is confusing in places, early life overlaps with Academic and work history and they both overlap in time with Heim's life and health. I think it would be better to just use a chronological description of his life. 1990s to 2001 is empty. --nixie 04:48, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Do you have a suggestion on how to do footnotes? Is there an example somewhere you recommend? The section 1990s - 2001 is empty because we haven't found much information about this period of his life yet. Burkhard Heim has a companion page Heim theory in Wikipedia. For the purposes of this review, I thought it would be better to attempt fixing the biographical page first and then attempt fixing his theory page. There is no dispute over things such as where he was born and where he lived. The current dispute is over the interpretation of the utility of his theory, and essentially writing the article so that the issues raised by supporters and opponents of his works and legacy are bridged. Thanks for the suggestion on references - I haven't read much on this person which couldn't be considered POV, but at least having a list of some sort would definitely be a good starting point. --HappyCamper 14:24, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Footnote3 is quite easy to use and looks nice. --nixie 23:06, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Pikmin[edit]

I have been a long time Wikipedia user, but this is my first time trying to create a featured article. I know that I need to gather references, but Peer Review cures format, grammar, spelling, etc. errors. I thought it would be a good idea to leave this on peer review while I gather some referneces and further information, and also while my pictures are developing... Feel free to move information, recategorize, merge, divide, whatever to my sections. I am not particularly attached to the section organization of this article, I should be okay with whatever as long as you don't delete vast stretches of it while I'm not looking!

Things I do plan to add within 5 days:

  • references
  • precedents
  • reception
  • color photos

With any luck, by the time Peer Review is done, the information I am seeking will be in place, and style will be cleaned up enough for this to become a Featured Article. And before anyone asks, yes, I do plan to make Pikmin 2 a featured article some day. RyanGerbil10 03:58, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • First thing, all those ===h3=== headings make the table of contents way too long, if you really need those headings try using * in place of h3s--nixie 04:14, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Wasn't there a Challenge Mode in Pikmin? I guess we should add a little something on that. I never played Challenge Mode in that, but I think I remember that you needed all three Pikmin types in Story Mode to play it. Anyways, that seemed to be missing from the article, and it was a fairly important aspect of the game. I think.--Xoo 05:22, 6 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Boston, Massachusetts[edit]

This article has gone through a failed FAC and peer review. Since then I have attempted to clean up this article as much as possible. I was wondering if there is anything more that has to be done before this article is ready for FA. Pentawing 22:58, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Looks great- I don't have time to read though in details, but I noticed two little format things. First, should the table of sporting teams have visible lines? Second, I don't really like the external links in the section on visitor attractions - either write up some stubs if they're quite notable for the area or move the links to the ex links section - although they're not commerical ventures it seems a bit like advertising linked directly from the text.--nixie 01:13, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Taken care of. Pentawing 02:48, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The population figures in the intro and demographics do not tally. Tintin 02:04, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Should the passage in the intro be removed then? Personally, I don't know if the passage should be included since it isn't mentioned much elsewhere (except for demographics which uses the 2000 census data). Pentawing 02:48, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I have no complaints about including it both in the intro and in the other section, but just that they should agree. The intro now puts it at 569,165 as of 2004 and demo at 589,141 in 2000. Probably one of them is wrong; or if the larger number is for Boston CMSA, the demographics section should mention that. If there was a census in 2004, what is the need for 2000 figures anyway. Tintin 03:13, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I decided to use the 2000 census data, given that the 2004 data is an estimate (official census data only come about every decade). I moved the 2004 estimates to the population table in the demographics section. Pentawing 03:38, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
The top line in the article says "Boston redirects here." The intransitive verb "redirect" is a Wikipedia term, but the general readership of encyclopedias is unlikely to know what it means. I suggest deleting the phrase. See, for example, Yokohama, Kanagawa, which does not use the template. Fg2 05:56, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I made some more suggestions at User:Fg2/Boston. Please feel free to use anything you like from that. Fg2 06:32, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
One general comment is that a lot of space is devoted to things that are not in Boston. Given that Wikipedia has an article on Greater Boston, it's questionable whether companies, universities, and sports teams located in Hopkinton, Cambridge, and Foxboro should be in the article. Some of these can be removed from the Boston article (and moved, where necessary, to the Greater Boston article), while others can be recast from a Boston point of view (e.g. Boston's football fans travel to nearby Foxboro to see the New England Patriots play). Fg2 06:51, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I decided to use most of your suggestions for the introduction. I also replaced the redirect template so that it doesn't use the word "redirect." However, I tried to limit the amount of mention of institutions outside of Boston (I chose to reword so that it is from a Boston point of view). Economy is fairly difficult given that many, if not most, high-tech companies are located outside the city of Boston. Pentawing 02:36, 11 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Again, an alternative to eliminating (or to keeping as is) is to put a Boston slant on things. An example of a Boston slant would be, "Boston venture capital plays an important role in high-tech startups in the area, such as XXX in Cambridge and YYY in Waltham" (but I don't know any factual examples, so I can't add this to the article). Fg2 08:00, 11 October 2005 (UTC) Modified Fg2 08:46, 11 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Global city states that one study "...ranked cities based on their provision of "advanced producer services" such as accountancy, advertising, banking/finance and law" so a comment on accounting, advertising, and legal services would be beneficial. These could be stand-alone or integrated with the information on universities.
That article also mentions ethnic communities, so brief mention of Chinese, Italian, Jewish and other communities (present or former) is a possibile supplement to the existing information on Irish, Afro-American, and Hispanic groups.
Boston is also famous for restaurants, and these can be tied in to ethnic cuisine, sites of interest, neighborhoods etc. Seafood has a mention, but lobsters, clams, and scallops, cod, and schrod--- all associated with Boston (in the minds of either Bostonians or others) --- do not. Italian food, New England boiled dinner, chowder, restaurants or neighborhoods that specialize in any of these... all worth consideration (whether they make it into the article or not).
I'm tossing out ideas; please do not think that I would vote against an FAC for lack of any of these! Fg2 08:09, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I added some information that you suggested, though much of it is in sub-articles (notably for culture in Boston). Pentawing 19:14, 15 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I know you've worked hard to establish that balance, so I didn't add the material myself. Fg2 00:33, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, so is there anything more that needs to be added? Pentawing 00:43, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Congressional district? I've looked at several featured articles on cities, and didn't notice anything prominent that they have that's lacking in this article. Hardly prominent, but perhaps worth noting, is Ann Arbor, Michigan's health-care ranking.
This is a very blue article, indicating tremendous breadth of coverage backing up the main article. I do have a question about the BC photo: is the prominent building within the city limits of Boston? If so, we can rewrite the caption to indicate that, or simply keep the photo and change nothing; if the building is outside the city limits, the photo would be more appropriate for an article on another city (it already illustrates several articles). Fg2 01:48, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I can't say much for health-care ranking (as in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which I got to FA, but someone else added that piece of information). I'll see about congressional districts. As for the BC picture, the image description says that it is in the Chestnut Hill portion of the campus. However, I am currently not in the Boston area, so I can't get a replacement image myself. Pentawing 01:59, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding the BC pic: Chestnut Hill isn't actually a town. It's a name that covers parts of Boston, Brookline and Newton. Technically speaking, the Boston-Newton line goes right through the area of the "Chestnut Hill" campus in the picture. The library is in Boston, the larger tower is in Newton. I simplified the text regarding BC's location to make it less ambiguous. --18.95.1.21 05:19, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for clearing that up. As long as a good part of the photo shows Boston, it should be appropriate for the article. Fg2 05:41, 16 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Commonwealth of Massachusetts" this is something new to me and it initially didn't make sense. Is it possible to rephrase it to capital of the state, or more appropriately the commonwealth...?
  • region known as New England --> add location: NE U.S.
  • Encompassing parts of New Hampshire, parts of the states…
  • have a variety of origins --> odd sentence try "Boston has a variety of nicknames" instead
  • Same problem with AA on people's designations. John Winthrop's etc. Who were they? William Tudor might have been the king of England ;)
  • Don't start a para with a left-aligned image
  • you can move the BW history image a bit lower.
  • "Boston is named after Boston, England, a town in Lincolnshire." modifiy to: "Boston in Linconshire county in England".
  • 'Revolution (such as, text in parenthesis diverges from the topic. Embed in text instead
  • rum, fish, salt and tobacco. unwikify
  • Greater Boston, unbold, italicise instead
  • Cambridge, and Charlestown are wikified multiple times in ==Geography==
  • Under ==Demographics== again, do not begin with a left image. keep the image on the right, and move the table a little lower,
  • The image on the Beacon Hill houses are in the wrong place, move it lower, after List of Mayors of Boston, Massachusetts
  • A one line description on plurality voting?
  • Sister Cities International, Inc. (SCI), avoid linking using this style. wikify instead.
  • place the state-house image just after =State and federal agencies= right align.
  • are footnotes 4,5,6 all necessary?
  • See also: Major companies in Greater Boston, this should come at the end of the section. In general, {{main| comes after the title, and under the ==Reference== section.
  • There's a category All-America city. Perhaps you could mention that award under culture.
  • I've checked the content page size, its reduced and I don't have a problem with it. (31 kb raw content.). If there is a need to cut down text, look at the ==demographics== section. Some unnecessary figures can be pushed into a main article.
  • There are nine red links, consider filling them up.

If you can fix these, I don't see any problem in getting past FAC. =Nichalp «Talk»= 11:30, 12 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sergei Korolev[edit]

A man who went from nearly dying in a Stalinist Gulag to head of the Soviet space program: his groups launched the first satellites and humans into space, landed Luna probes on the Moon, designed the first Russian ICBMs, &c. I've tried to update the page to do his story justice. Unfortunately at the moment there is only one really good source for this: the book by James Harford referenced near the bottom. All the web sites seem to give varying tales of his life. Anyway, any suggestions for improvements and some final polish? Thanks. — RJH 23:16, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • The lead could definately be expanded to summarise the content of the artilce. I didn't notice any major flaws otherwise, the language is overly flowery in places, for example The struggles continued until the triumph of the Soviets in 1920 , triumph is a bit flowery and to those who aren't intimately familiar with Russian history who the Soviets triumphed over isn't really clear either. You may want to write the honours section into prose. A lastly are there any pictures that could be used in the middle of the article? There are some more in the Russian version but they seem to be from later in his life too.--nixie 05:19, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • Thank you. The pictures of his earlier life appear to be from copyrighted sources, but I found one one the NASA site of SP in a glider. — RJH 17:05, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • Are you going to use a footnote system for inline citations?--nixie 03:30, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
        • Nope. At the moment there is really only one fairly solid English-language reference for this write-up. The remainder are in Russian. Sorry. — RJH 15:24, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • No problem, just mention that in the FAC request, it'll save you from having to explain it there. --nixie 13:06, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)
        • Thanks, but I'm not really into that whole FAC scene. I was just trying to turn it into a quality article, since he is an important figure. :-) I'll update the page as I find new references. (I did find another, actually, although it had less material.) — RJH 17:57, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Regarding sources: I poked around a bit and found library catalog entries for two English translations of Russian biographies of Korolev:
  1. Romanov, A. 1976. Spacecraft designer : the story of Sergei Korolev.
  2. Golovanov, Yaroslav. 1975. Sergei Korolev : the apprenticeship of a space pioneer.
The U. of California catalog has both; the U. of Washington has #1; I'm sure other large research libraries will have them too... Great article, by the way. CDC (talk) 21:23, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Paul of Tarsus[edit]

This is the second peer review request for this article. I believe the issues raised by the previous peer review request have been addressed, and would like to nominate this for featured article status. However, the last peer review was a while ago, so I thought it would be prudent to let others take a look at it one more time before I did so.--MikeJ9919 20:46, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC) Old peer review is archived here: Wikipedia:Peer review/Paul of Tarsus/archive1

  • I strongly advise putting subheadings within the individual sections, to improve readability, and split up those lengthy sections. --Scimitar 21:45, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Looks pretty good. I can't comment too much on the material, since almost all I know is from catechism class, and going to Mass. A few observations though: 1) You have cited and quoted from the Bible, so it would be good to note what version you are using and add it as a reference. 2) I wouldn't know, but are those citations standard? Do we know that (Rom. 11:1, Phil. 3:5) automatically refer to Paul's letters? Even if that is standard it could be made easier to read by explaining it quickly, and linking to a longer explanation if available. 3) The alternative views section needs reorganizing. Maybe subheadings would work or maybe just make it into prose without the numbered bullets. 4) The citations by title (The Mythmaker) seem strange. Is that common? I'm used to (author, year) or footnotes style, but maybe the way you've done it is fine. In any case the Spong citation is the opposite way, so there should be consistency there. All inline citations (including links to web pages like [8] should be made consistent and ideally listed either in the ==References== section if they are used throughout the article, or in a ==Notes== section if they just support one fact. Pick a system from Wikipedia:Cite_sources and use it for all the inline citations in the article. There is no consensus on which, but consistency is good. External links if used as sources for the article can be listed as references too. 5) Is the Spong work really notable enough to have a whole paragraph on his views? That quote at least doesn't seem to offer any evidence for the claim. - Taxman Talk 19:56, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)
Since I was the one who originally added the Bible references (& I'm amazed at how much of what I originally wrote is still in the article), I can state that they are the standard abbreviations, per the MLA Handbook. Many revisions back, I tried to spell out the entire title of the reference (e.g. "Rom. 11:1" would become "Romans 11:1"), but it appears that someone changed that.
As for the citations by title, I may have responsible for that, since it was the style I used before I noticed a consensus had finally evolved embracing using footnotes. If it is troublesome, then it should be fixed.
Lastly, I am a bit troubled at the "Alternative views" section, mostly because it does not seem to provide a proper survey of Alternative view, but rather a scatter-shot collection of writers who have a bone to pick with Paul. But since I don't know the literature, I can't offer constructive suggestions. -- llywrch 18:32, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Operation Tennessee Waltz[edit]

I think this has the chance to be a great article. 68.59.194.244 02:10, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • That may be true, but it's an ongoing event, and information is still coming in. Maybe we should let it settle a bit first before improving it. --khaosworks 02:18, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)
  • No red links please. Also, the link to TBI is a disambig page with the Tennessee Bureau as a red link. Unless you're going to write these pages, leave the red links off please. Also, the lead needs to say what the sting was for. Harro5 08:32, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)
    • No, that is wrong. If there is a topic that should be written, and you've correctly named it according to the Wikipedia:Naming conventions, it is very important to have these red links, because they tell us where articles should be. They are often very helpful in expanding Wikipedia. Of course it must be taken into account whether the topic deserves its own article or whether it should be redirected and covered in another topic, or not at all. - Taxman Talk 14:01, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)
  • Specific comments for the article, please do research with the most reliable sources available, inlcuding public court filings if possible, and cite the sources preferably with inline citations. - Taxman Talk 14:01, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

University of Wales, Lampeter[edit]

The oldest university college in Wales, and the smallest public university in Europe. This is a resubmitted request, since I have made a large number of changes since the last request and have, I hope, responded to previous criticisms. I am still in the process of finding out dates for the listed academics. Might it be better to remove them until I have the appropriate dates? What else can I add or improve? Your input would be really welcome. See Archive1 for previous request Twrist 23:08, 31 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • I notice you mention the university "rates highly" in theology and such, and I wonder where that information came from. It might be helpful to include some kind of comparitive reference between this university and others. (I don't know if one's available or not- I was thinking something like an article comparing and ranking various universities like what Maclean's magazine does here in Canada.) Just a thought. --Scimitar 20:14, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Soap opera[edit]

I feel this has much potential to become a featured article, and I have ideas as to what to fix, but I want to get a fresh perspective on what to keep, throw out, and add. Mike H 19:52, May 31, 2005 (UTC)

  • It could possibly include a section on the success of Soap Opera in non-English speaking countries, and some significant examples of long-running foreign shows. I know there have also been a few books written on the topic, which could serve as additional reading references. Otherwise it covers the topic fairly thoroughly, as far as I can tell. Thanks. :) — RJH 15:41, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • I'm afraid to attempt that kind of section, because I've found that for other countries, they already have their own articles (telenovela, téléroman, etc.). I think the term "soap opera," in this sense, can only be correctly used to describe the shows in English-speaking countries. I suppose there can be a section describing the other countries, then a "see also" kind of link. I'll think about how to write it up. Thank you! Mike H 17:59, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)
    • I agree with RJH. For example, Korean soap operas a quite prominent in the East Asia region. They have had the effect of bringing Korean culture into vogue in Japan, and produced popular Korean stars amongst Japanese women (this is an important cultural shift, as historically Japanese had looked down on Koreans). Furthermore, bootlegged copies of Korean soap operas are being smuggled into North Korea, defying the cultural control of Pyongyang, and introducing elements of South Korea culture up North amongst the youth especially. There are plenty of english-language news sources from Japan and Korea on the internet that have covered this (Japan Times, Asahi Shimbun, Daily Yomiuri, Choson Ilbo, Dong-a Ilbo, etc). thames 18:23, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
      • A small section (with a link to a "main article" on the topic of foreign-language soaps) would probably work. Perhaps you could just talk about how the concept has been translated into other cultures, and some notable examples? Thanks. :-) — RJH 18:00, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

List of movies with TV shows and other movies in them[edit]

I have been working on this list for a long time and it is still far from being any where near comprehensive. Also, the title is pretty awkward. Hopefully after being reviewed everyone can think of a few to add to the list. --The_stuart 07:07, 30 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Aside from comprehensiveness, it needs pictures, references, and a longer lead section. Also, I can't understand which one is meant to be the movie, and which one is the internal movie of TV show, please clarify. --Dmcdevit 07:17, 30 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I pretty much agree with Dmcdevit. About the only thing I can think to add is the issue of eliminating the bars or patterns (similar to Moiré patterns) that appear when a TV show is displayed in another TV. — RJH 15:58, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

In-N-Out[edit]

After substantial content was added to this article on 17 May 2005, I have been slowly adding more information. I have two questions:

  1. What needs to be done to get this to be a good FA candidate?
  2. Even though references are cited in this article, a large amount of the content is based on either word-of-mouth or personal observations -- which is no surprise since this restaurant chain primary advertises itself by word-of-mouth, and it only sporadically promotes itself through conventional means. What do you suggest we should do about this content?

Thanks. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 03:22, 29 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Some things that struck me at first glance were...
  • I think there should be more information on the history (what happened between 1948 and 1984 or 1984 and 2004, that's a lot of time)
  • More information on the company would be nice too ( how many stores do they have? what is the estimated revenue? (since it's private that may be hard to find).
  • Stylistically, there are lots of lists (I'm not sure how the secret menu could be delistified though).
  • Sentences like, "In-N-Out strives to provide excellent customer service." make the article seem a little too much like an advertisement.
  • Has there been controversy sorrounding the bible quotes? Sounds like that could be further adressed (at least discussed in corporate culture).
  • Non-website references would be nice
  • The "legends" in the trivia section shouild go unless they are quite widespread or they have some basis in realtiy.
Hope some of that is useful BrokenSegue 03:42, 29 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Also see Wikipedia:Companies, corporations and economic information

It would be nice to see a few more pictures. Perhaps a photo of one of the biblical quotes and closeup of the crossed palm trees. Also, the long list under the "Food" section should probably go into a separate article with only a summary description in the main article, and the same for the "Store layout" section. I would also move both of those sections below the "Corporate culture" section. BlankVerse 11:28, 29 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

In N-Out comes up in movies, like the Big Lebowski, use in film etc could be added to cult following. I agree with the other reviewers about the lists, the really get negative points for excellent prose. --nixie 07:39, 30 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The "Bible quotes" section seems a little out of place, and needs context. What is the history, reason, purpose, etc. of the quotes? It's an interesting tidbit. Also, the sectioning seems excessive, many of the small sections, like "miscellaneous", "Cult following", "Trivia", "Bible quotes", and "Advertising", could be merged into one or a few sections. And the lead could be expanded. Finally, isn't there a lot to be said about health? --Dmcdevit 07:44, 31 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Caulfield Grammar School[edit]

This article is a former featured article, demoted after this review in April 2007 and most recently peer reviewed in 2005. I'm trying to fix the problems stated in the April FA review, and have recently worked to get more citations and clean up prose. I need some help on specific problems with prose and/or POV, as well perhaps as suggestions of things that are missing. Reading the old peer review and successful FAC, you can see that some stuff like school song or leadership programs were seen then as unimportant (I still agree with this) but were raised as possible inclusions in the FARC. Any suggestions? Thanks. Harro5 13:32, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Twenty Years[edit]

  • Dislike the vision statement, makes the article seem like an ad. Does it really add anything to the article, does anyone care? no.
  • The school uniform doesnt seem too notable, alot of private schools have a colours system, and a blazer and tie combo too. Id just cut the section all together.
  • The alumni section needs more than just a link to the alumni page, some info on the old boys association would go well there, and some breif prose on some of the alumni of the school.
  • Dislike the list (4 bullet points) in the sporting section, just seems messy. It is expanded on further in the section.
  • The virtual campus starts off with some POV, and well, it simply is boring and doesnt add anything to the article.

The rest seems good, just improve the refs, get rid of the cite tags, and the article will easily pass GA. Twenty Years 13:44, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • A script has been used to generate a semi-automated review of the article for issues relating to grammar and house style. If you would find such a review helpful, please click here. Thanks, APR t 19:48, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Six sigma[edit]

The section "Why six?" has been edited into a state that's sloppy in technique and fairly incoherent. It starts out by trying to explain what "six sigma" has 3.4 defects per million"; it does that fairly decently according to this biased judge. Then it gets argumentative over the matter of the 1.5 sigma long-term drift of an industrial process.

The argument at present uses terms that aren't defined or cross-referenced in the article. And it talks of adding 1.5 sigma to a 4.5 sigma result; I for one don't know what in real life this refers to. People who know something about statistical quality control could usefully look at the article and make it make more sense.

Also, I removed a paragraph that seemed to be utter nonsense statistically. Perhaps I was missing the point; an independent check would be useful. Dandrake 23:54, Jun 3, 2005 (UTC)

Canadian postal code[edit]

What do you think about this article? I've worked on it for quite a bit of time, and I think I have milked all the information I can out of this topic. Denelson83 23:49, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It looks good. The only area I would like to know more about is the system before the current one was introduced. The article notes that in 1971 the new system "replaced postal zones in large cities," but doesn't really explain what those were and how they differed from what we have today. - SimonP 01:56, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)
I could only dig up the fact that postal zones were introduced in 1925, but I could not find any information that showed how they worked. In lieu of that, I could always remove that information. Denelson83 23:42, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I didn't get what Forward sorting area and local delivery unit means and the differences between the two. Would also like to see a longer history.  =Nichalp (Talk)= 07:40, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I took that large example of a postal code, just above the postal district map, and highlighted each part of the postal code using different colours. Does that help you somewhat? Denelson83 23:42, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I understood it now. Thanks. Informative article.  =Nichalp (Talk)= 19:30, Jun 7, 2005 (UTC)

Now, all we need is an external reference to that Globe and Mail article on the history of the Canadian postal code, plus a longer lead-in, and I think we may have a new featured article on our hands. Denelson83 05:21, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Actually some of the best sources of information were not articles but the many ads Canada Post ran in the paper when they introduced the new system. I'm not sure exactly how to cite those. - SimonP 23:10, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)
Well, if you have hard-copy versions of those ads, maybe you can scan some of them and upload them to Wikipedia, attributing them to Canada Post. Denelson83 02:20, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
No, I found them on the Globe's online archive. Most major Canadian libraries ley you log on to this service from home if you put in your library card number. - SimonP 22:33, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)
Apparently that means I can't access it, because my library is the Vancouver Island Regional Library, and the Globe and Mail's own website only lets you search back to 2002. Denelson83 00:40, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Actually I think you can. Here is the link to the Vancouver Island Regional Library's access page to the Globe archives. - SimonP 03:56, Jun 11, 2005 (UTC)

Hassan Evan Naseem[edit]

Hello, I would you guys to do peer reviewing of this article, mainly for grammitc errors. Other suggestions for improvement will very much be appricated. --Oblivious 06:36, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've made a few grammatical changes, feel free to revert if you think I've changed the meaning of anything.-gadfium 09:38, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
It's better now. Thanks --Oblivious 09:45, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

MCMXC a.D.[edit]

I've spent a couple of days writing this up, and I'd like to receive some constructive comments and suggestions about the article, style, sentence and content-wise. I'm not really targetting this for FAC, since it seems to be quite a long shot, but I'd appreciate it if someone could help me in giving out comments or contributing to it. :) Thanks, Andylkl (talk) 19:42, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

When you say that 'Back to the Rivers of Belief, begins slowly with the five-toned notes from Stephen Spielberg's movie, Close Encounters of the Third Kind', it might be helpful to refer to the composer of those notes, John Williams (composer). Also, I think the description of the album itself is too brief. And what has its impact been on the dance scene? This album catapulted Gregorian chants into (short) fame, but what have been the long-term effects? -- Cugel 21:48, Jun 7, 2005 (UTC)

Dartmouth College[edit]

This article has a lot of good information, and with some cleaning up and re-organizing, could be a featured article.--AaronS 01:52, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I glanced through the article and it seems to be too long on student activites with little information on the university's academic life. I think you might consider cutting some of the info on student life or creating a subpage Student life at Dartmouth College. In addition, the final two articles should have summaries of the subpages. I would even merge the Native Americans at Dartmouth article into the page as I don't think it's long enough to warrant a separate article. Finally, if you wish this to go up for featured article you will need references. Looks like you've done admirable work already, just a bit more polish and you will have a nice featured article. Ganymead 06:09, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
There's two bits on the film club, time to merge them? -- user:zanimum

History of Central Asia[edit]

Mostly the product of a March COTW on Central Asia, with this article spun off towards the end of the week. I have recently done some polishing and added a lead section, but it probably still needs a once over for grammar and spelling. The biggest issue is that it covers such a huge subject that everything is given pretty short shrift, but this is mostly unavoidable. - SimonP 01:27, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

  • A few things from my first read through, the map in the article is not very informative, Image:Central Asia borders.png would be better. And how does western China fit in to the general history of Central Asia (was it let out for a reason?)?--nixie 02:54, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • I replaced the map, but the new one is still not perfect. I picked one that had the names of the countries, which I thought might be useful. I feel the focus of the article should be on the five Central Asian states, but I agree we should have more on western China. I have added a bit on the subject, but more would be good. - SimonP 04:29, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)
      • I agree with the focus, but since there is a shared cultural/linguistic history it seems weird just to leave W.China out. I think the structure and sectioning is very good and as a summary for such a huge topic it is great. Are you planning to use a type of inline citation, it will probably be asked for on FAC?--nixie 05:08, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
        • My impression is that inline citations are mainly needed for statistics and for anything that might be controversial. A general overview article such as this should really try to avoid both of these, but there are a handful of in text references. - SimonP 15:26, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

Virtuti Militari[edit]

The highest Polish medal. Besides the fact it has no references (I am working on it), I think it is ready for FAC. It looks as good as current FA Medal of Honor. Would you have any other comments? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 20:13, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • Glad you like the article :) As to the comments - it indeed lacks references. Again, as with other articles I created, I can find a plethora of useless sources (that is Polish-language books I actually used) and a number of probably-related English language books I've never read. Which sources should I include? Halibutt 20:21, Jun 11, 2005 (UTC)
  • The tables look messed up on a 15 inch monitor - adding heaps of white space so you might want to play with the layout. I'd rather read some more prose on selected recipients than the list at the end so you might want to work some more names and details into the text, having more text might fix up the format too. You should only include the works you have used as references, include a list of further reading for the english language works since they weren't used for writing the text. --nixie 12:33, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Expanded prose. Still looking for references used. Tables look good on my monitor (17). Tnx for the comments. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 12:26, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Weasel program[edit]

I think this is pretty good work by user:MFNickster. Though perhaps we ought to explain some more of it in our own words rather than Dawkins, wondered what you guys thought. Dunc| 10:58, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It seems pretty straight forward. So was the matching criteria merely the number of letters that matched the string? Were those matches then allowed to mutate or were they locked in position? If it's a short algorithm then possibly a pseudo-code snippet would be useful? — RJH 15:28, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the kind words, Dunc! Unfortunately, Dawkins didn't publish his code, and has said that he doesn't have a copy anymore. But from his description, it sounds like an increase in matching characters could make a string "more fit" and not necessarily be locked in position. For instance, a string could mutate into a variant that loses 1 correct character and gains 2 different correct characters, and still be closer to the target.
Also: It would be nice to know if Dawkins gave each character in the string a probability of mutating each generation, or if the 'children' each varied from the 'parent' by a single randomly-selected character. I think the simplest method would be to have each generation consist of a population of 28 strings that are exactly one character removed from the 'parent,' but my suspicion is that such a program would take many more generations to reach the target than one with a larger population size.
MFNickster 03:14, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I think the fitness function was whether it matched (1) or not (0). Being able to mutate those already matched would simulate reality more, but take slightly longer computational time. I however guess it's former, otherwise you won't see it slowing down as it gets nearer to its target sequence (which ought to happen). I agree on the pseudocode, but not sure how to write it. Dunc| 15:40, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
(RJH 16:33, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)) Here's my simplistic attempt, which I am sure can be much improved:
Create a random population of n members
Base score is zero
For each member in population
  Compute score equal to total character/position matches
  If score improvement
    Store member and its score as best match
For each successive generation
  If exact match found, exit loop
  For each member of a random (1/8 population) sample
    Copy a random sub-string from best match into member
    Compute new score
    If score improvement
      Store member and its score as next generation's best match
  For each member of a random (1/8 population) sample
    Mutate one character of member
    Compute new score
    If score improvement
      Store member and its score as next generation's best match
List the results

Darth Vader[edit]

Very good article just needs some fine tuning...somehow. Thefourdotelipsis 06:19, 18 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

First Peer review available at Wikipedia:Peer review/Darth Vader/archive1

  • The fair use images require fair use rationales. Per WP:LEAD, it would be best to keep the lead at a maximum of 3 paragraphs. AndyZ 19:11, 18 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • There is also evidence of weasel words- “He is often considered one of the iconic villains of popular culture”. By whom is he considered such? AndyZ 19:14, 18 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • It's an observation based on a very reasonable and generally accepted opinion. You don't need a quote or a source for a statement like this. / Peter Isotalo 17:20, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • The article describes Vader too much though he was a real person. The amount of personal information should be reduced. The level of detail right now is very crufty / Peter Isotalo 17:20, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Liberal Party of Canada leadership convention, 1968[edit]

This is an article I created almost a year ago and have spend the last few days trying to polish it to FA standards. I'm not particularly skilled with table markup and I'm not entirely pleased with the way the results of each vote are displayed. The article could also use a going over for style and grammar. - SimonP 13:53, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

  • I actually like the article. It might be worth expanding on why Trudeau was blacklisted in the States (perhaps in a footnote, or something). --Scimitar 14:31, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • It's somewhat off-topic from the article, but you are right that it too interesting a statement to be left unexplained. I have added a footnote. - SimonP 14:49, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

Karakuwa, Miyagi[edit]

I'm attempting to get this article up to FA status, with the hope of it being featured in late March next year (just before the town ceases to exist and is merged into Kesennuma). I'd appreciate any suggestions on what to expand, general suggestions on the writing, and any interesting details that people would like to know. Thanks for the help! --William McDuff 04:50, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • I see only one external link. Where are the references? Also, I'm missing a culture section in the article. You could take a featured city article and see what's included in that and get an idea on what still needs expanding. Mgm|(talk) 09:13, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)
    • I've moved over the merger information link (and the town hall website is linked on the table, by the way, perhaps I should duplicate it?) An other reference was the Japanese page...and I'm living in the city at the moment. Still, yes, this gives me a direction to expand to. Have to go digging (paper and people, most probably). Thanks for the input! --William McDuff 21:58, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • It seems too short to me, even for a small city like this one. There's probably plenty of other things that could be added, such as local government, culture, business, sports, &c. I'd compare it to some featured cities, as Mgm says. Also you'll probably have to convert your bulleted lists into narrative form. Thanks. — RJH 17:26, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • I can work on most of those. (Though sports... There's never been a high school in the town, so that's tricky. Perhaps the Junior High has done something, but is that notable?) Culture, though. I need to find out about the festivals, specifically. Thanks for the input! --William McDuff 21:58, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Perhaps you would like to go through some towns which are Featured Articles. Kalimpong, 50,000 residents is a great place to start from.  =Nichalp (Talk)= 14:01, Jun 11, 2005 (UTC)
    • You're right, Kalimpong is a great starting point. I had paged through the places looking for a comparitable small town, but there was nothing terribly close, I thought. Must have thought Kalimpong was a park or mountain or something, I guess. Thanks! Major edits coming... --William McDuff 21:52, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • Suggest a map of Japan or at least Kyoto (?) showing the location. As a cultural reference, may I commend:
  • Japan - The Story of a Nation by Edwin O Reischauer. LoCCC# 77-10895 Afred A. Knopf, Inc., New York. Previously published as Japan Past and Present (4 Eds., 1946-64)

Edwin barely pays attention to politics, and sums up wars in one or two paragraphs, but he's pretty good on the culture which appears to be his passion, and he specifially discusses your MULBERRY TREE rescuers as a causcoid people to whom he attributes the fact that many Japanese of their descent have significant facial hair. I'm pursuing the Russo-Japanese and Sino-Japanese wars, so I've just given the first five or six chapters a good skim reading, but you might well be able to mine far more than I. Fabartus 06:30, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

    • Excellent! I will find the book and read it as soon as I can get it. Thanks for the tip! --William McDuff 12:50, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Battle of Trafalgar[edit]

This ought to be WP:FA on October 21. It has had significant expansion since its last peer review (the credit doesn't go to me). More comments please and also try to keep it in the public eye. I think the consequences section needs work. Dunc| 21:02, 22 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • References please. --malathion talk 02:13, 23 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Maps please. They are very important for battles. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 12:28, 23 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't how successful it would be, but you could try posting a request to the Wikipedia:Requested pictures page for somebody to draw up a map. You could also search for out of copyright works on the battle to see if they have suitable maps.[9] [10] [11] Also I was thinking that there could be a separate order-of-battle page, in addition to the section on the BoT page, that would give more detail on the ships.[12]. — RJH 16:11, 24 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Map and OoB page added. But the page will probably still have some difficulty making it through for feature status due to the lack of references and reference tags. — RJH 16:00, 29 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • Well a lot has been written about it and no doubt lots more is coming out this year, although we have to watch for pro-British pov, I think much of it presumably is general knowledge and doesn't need citations per se, but that an indication of which books are the better resources would be better(?) Dunc| 17:37, 29 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • In suggesting references, I was just giving a common criteria for failure to obtain FA status. Perhaps you could give it a try for FA status with the proviso that it should not be posted until said date? If it fails you can always bring it back htrough here again. :) — RJH 16:19, 8 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sesame Street[edit]

Wikipedia:Peer review/Sesame Street/archive2
Wikipedia:Peer review/Sesame Street/archive3

What's the article need now? I think I've addressed the concerns from the previous PRs. -- Zanimum 17:50, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program. They may or may not be accurate for the article in question (due to possible errors/uniqueness of articles). If the following suggestions are completely incorrect about the article, please drop a note on my talk page.
Per WP:CONTEXT and WP:MOSDATE, months and days of the week generally should not be linked (Don't link September or Tuesday unless there is really good reason to). Years, decades, and centuries can be linked if they provide context for the article.
See below. -- Zanimum 18:55, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Per WP:WIAFA, Images should have concise captions.
While I agree, concise captions don't allow me to prove enough supporting information to claim fair use. Ideas? -- Zanimum 18:55, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Per WP:MOSNUM, there should be a no-break space -   between a number and the unit of measurement. For example, instead of 18mm, use 18 mm, which when you are editing the page, should look like: 18 mm.
I don't see any measurements. -- Zanimum 18:54, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Per WP:MOS#Headings, headings generally do not start with the word "The". For example, ==The Biography== would be changed to ==Biography==.
Would look to odd with just "Humans" as a category. -- Zanimum 18:54, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Generally, trivia sections are looked down upon; please either remove the trivia section or incorporate any important facts into the rest of the article.
Done, painfully. -- Zanimum 18:52, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Per WP:WIAFA, this article's table of contents (ToC) maybe too long- consider shrinking it down by merging short sections or using a proper system of daughter pages as per WP:SS.
This is already a summarised version. -- Zanimum 18:52, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There are a few occurrences of weasel words in this article- please observe WP:AWT. Certain phrases should specify exactly who supports, considers, believes, etc., such a view.
Fixed any that weren't cited. -- Zanimum 18:52, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This article can use copyediting to ensure that the it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work.
You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions (and the javascript checklist; see the last paragraph in the lead) for further ideas.
Thanks, Andy t 22:26, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As said above, this article needs attention to dates. This can be done quickly, simply copy the entire contents of User:Bobblewik/monobook.js to your own monobook. Then follow the instructions in your monobook to clear the cache (i.e. press Ctrl-Shift-R in Firefox, or Ctrl-F5 in IE) before it will work. This will give you a 'Dates' tab. Hope that helps. bobblewik 17:54, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What exactly about dates? I'm not at a computer right now where I can modify my Monobook. The date links all seem fine. I don't link to any months or days of the week. -- Zanimum 19:21, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There are unnecessary links to solitary years. If you update your monobook as described and press the 'Dates' tab, you will see the proposed edit. Feel free to try it and accept or reject the edit. bobblewik 18:01, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Khazars[edit]

I have worked on this article extensively for some time (with many other contributors) and I think it's a great, detailed article. But it could use some help with formatting, style, etc. I'd like to get it into FAC shape if possible. --Briangotts 20:31, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It looks good, but there are still some problems. Am I colour blind or does Image:Khazar2.jpg actually show the Khazars in orange and the Kimat Khanates in light brown? Most of the images also have no copyright tags and Image:Khazar coin.jpg makes a pretty dubious fair use claim. I also don't think much of Template:History of Russia. It seems to imply that the Khazars were the era of Russian history between the Early East Slavs and the Kievan Rus', which is deeply incorrect. This is a problem with a number of other history series templates, but one we are working to move away from. - SimonP 22:00, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for your input! Your comment about the Template:History of Russia makes sense but I was not the one who added the Khazars there, or the template to the page. With regards to the map, the Kimak are shown in dark yellow and the Khazars in light brown. The two colors seem pretty different to me, but if it's a problem I can adjust them. I will check the copyright tags issue; when I uploaded mosto f the pictures I wasn't aware of them and forgot to go back and add them. As far as the Image:Khazar coin.jpg, I checked with a copyright attorney in my firm and he agreed that the use of one image from a website for a non-commercial academic purpose (which he claimed Wikipedia qualified as) fell under fair use. I personally am not an expert in that field and would appreciate more input. --Briangotts 12:37, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I believe the problem of the copyright tags has been corrected. --Briangotts 00:43, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

El Angel[edit]

I was working on this article a few weeks back and it wasn't till now that I found the time to request a peer review for it. I think the article is well written and has almost all the information anybody would want to know about such an important landmark in Mexico City. Still if it can be improved in anyway, I'd be more than happy to read your feedback.

-- Rune Welsh ταλκ 18:51, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)

Nice article! Here are a few suggestions to improve it: 1) The lead should be longer, summerize the article. 2) A few more images would be nice, the image you have is lovely however to see some close up images of the monument if possible. 3) You may want to create articles for the red-links, especially for those who are buried in the mausoleum, even if they are stubs. 4) You may consider turning the list of those buried into a paragraph rather than just a list. Perhaps briefly state the accomplishments of each of the men. Other than those things it's a very informative article. Ganymead 00:53, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Marvin Gaye[edit]

I think this is a pretty good article, but it could possibly be improved upon. What could be done to expand/touch up this article, so that it is eligible for featured article candidacy? --FuriousFreddy 15:37, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Looks good overall. The lead section is good, but makes an awful lot of uncited claims about Gaye's greatness -- I know these are accurate, but they should be specifically cited; other stuff that should be cited include Stevenson's motivation for writing "Stubborn Kind of Fellow", neo-soul artists citing Gaye as an influence though not being really influenced by him, the Gaye family's claim that Marvin deliberately provoked his father to murder and What's Going On being the first album with socially aware themes. The "Joining the Motown and Gordy families" says that Gaye was gentlemanly enough that he didn't need training from Motown's Artist Development director, but it's never really explained what that means (I assume Motown trained stars to act gentlemanly; this idea is unsurprising to me, but many people might be more used to assuming record companies would encourage anything controversial and publicizing). The claim that Gaye continued to feel pain with no form of self-expression should be cited and is oddly worded anyway, maybe change to continued to grieve without an outlet for musical expression or somthing similar. Let's Get It On is probably his second most notable album, but only gets a single sentence. The sentence Tax problems and drug addictions haunted him, and after failing to get Motown labelmate Smokey Robinson to loan him money to take care of the tax issues, Gaye was forced to move to Ostend, Belgium in 1981. should include clarification on what the tax problems were and should be reworded (in what way was he forced to move? to escape prosecution for tax evasion? if Gaye was a corporate executive instead of a soul singer, I think it would be obviously biased to claim he was forced to move because he didn't want to pay back taxes, but then maybe that's not what the tax issues were). The sentence As noted, Gaye helped give rise to the "singer-songwriter" in African-American and emcompassing Black music should be more specific (I must have missed that being noted). I'm decapitalizing Black because I think Wikipedia normally doesn't -- was this a deliberate choice on your part? I don't think I've ever noticed it in anything else you wrote. Overall, it's a great article and a worthy FAC! Tuf-Kat 23:25, Jun 8, 2005 (UTC)
Most of the things--actually, nearly all--that you wanted referenced can be linked to Gerald Posner's Motown book; I can take care of all of those. The one exception is the claim that What's Going On was the first soul album to explore social issues; The Temptations had Gaye beat by three years, as did The Impressions, and (depending upon the flexibility of the definition of soul music) Sly & the Family Stone and The Fifth Dimension. As far as capitalizing "Black", when referring to Black people, I always have (it often gets copyedited out by others). --FuriousFreddy 21:41, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

IFK Göteborg[edit]

I would appreciate any kind of comments, but first of all I'd like to get comments about grammar and the sentence structure. I'm not satisfied with how I use the language in some places, but as English isn't my mother tongue, I can't figure out other ways to write certain passages. I'd also like to get comments on how to handle the linking of years and other words. I've seen a lot of different styles, from linking every year mentioned, to not linking any at all. The guidelines propose linking only important years, but how to decide which years are important? Links to competitions, players and other clubs are given once in each chapter of the history. Too much? As said initially, comments and suggestions for improvements on any part of the article is appreciated! -- Elisson | Talk 22:17, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • I did a little copy-editting in the first stages of the article, but more is needed by someone who understands soccer (football, sorry). The one consistent problem I noted was that the tense in the introduction was correctly past-tense, but later on it switched to a more fannish present-tense. Someone needs to go through and fix the tenses, preferably someone who knows the sport well enough not to mess anything else up (regrettably, my own knowledge on the subject is severely limited, at best). --Scimitar 13:36, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the input! Your changes definitely made the article better and easier to read. I've changed the tense to past-tense in the rest of the history sections. I noticed that I changed back and forth between tenses a lot, the last section was in past-tense again. I shall think of that when I write other articles in the future. I'd be happy if you or any other native English speaker could read them (and the other sections) through again and edit sentences that could be written in a better way. -- Elisson | Talk 14:31, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I did some more minor copy-editting, but the database is apparently locked, so I couldn't do more. If you put this up for FA I think you'll be asked to trim it, so you might want to keep that in mind. The prose isn't bad, but in places it's a little clumsy, and I was confused about what you were trying to say. This is a good article, and what it really needs is just some minor refining in prose by someone more naturally comfortable with English. Great job, though. --Scimitar 14:47, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Thanks again, I'll think about trimming the history section and maybe move the current writing to History of IFK Göteborg (which has been done on a few other clubs). Yeah, I'm having trouble with getting the text to be smooth to read, I write somewhat "square", that's why I wanted this peer review. Hopefully someone with good understanding of football will show up and improve the writing a bit more. -- Elisson | Talk 15:07, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • There are a few links for other Swedish teams that contain characters that would not work due to Wikipedia technical limitations, but since those articles are yet to be created, this can be fixed. Phoenix2 01:43, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
What links? If you mean Østerbro BK (Danish club in fact ;) ), I don't see a problem with it, there are already articles starting with Ø. -- Elisson | Talk 11:36, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, there are a few articles, it seems to not be a problem. Phoenix2 17:10, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Indeed the article may need to be trimmed, as there is more than enough information. Phoenix2 01:50, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I'll do something about the history section in the following days. Probably move it to History of IFK Göteborg as mentioned above. -- Elisson | Talk 11:36, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I've performed the move and I now request a review on the rewritten and shortened history section on IFK Göteborg, as well as continued reviewing of the article History of IFK Göteborg which is almost completely unchanged since the move. -- Elisson | Talk 21:35, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Are the image copyright tags acceptable (a criteria for a FA)? The badge is under fair use as most logos, the two team pictures are under fair use and old, these images are from a book (the one in the references) and the writers of the book mentions that credits for the photos can't be given as the photographer is unknown. The stadium photo is released into pd (by whom, I don't know). -- Elisson | Talk 11:36, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Rum[edit]

I have performed a general overhaul of this article since its previous peer review. I would like a couple other eyes to take a look before I submit it to FAC. --Allen3 talk 02:28, Jun 25, 2005 (UTC)

It looks pretty good to me, and it's an enjoyable read. The page is a little bare-bones with regard to images and there's a few tiny grammar issues, but nothing significant. Thanks. — RJH 02:53, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the comments. I have managed to track down a couple of images, so the article isn't as bear. As my background is in engineering, I am glad to hear that the grammar problems are minor also. --Allen3 talk June 28, 2005 13:05 (UTC)

I vaguely remember this from researching the history of rum years ago; maybe you can find a historical reference and add it to the artice....

Cuban rum was originally a fairly low quality spirit. The Spanish government offered a large cash prize to anyone who could make a major improvement in the product (not unlike the Ansari X Prize). The guy who started Bacardi was the producer who ended up winning this prize. I can't remember what his innovation was, but apparently, the result was modern rum. ike9898 June 28, 2005 13:40 (UTC)
  • I noticed that text in the earlier versions of the article, but have been unable to find a source to confirm the event. One thing I did find was that shortly after Bacardi developed his new recipe, the heir to the Spanish throne took ill and after sampling some of Bacardi's rum recovered from his fever. As a result of this the new rum received authorization to utilize the Royal Arms of Spain on their labels (from the Cooper book, p. 58). As this story deals with only one specific brand of rum I did not feel it was appropriate for an article on rum in general. There is a section on the development of modern light rum, which is the primary result of Bacardi's innovations. --Allen3 talk June 28, 2005 13:54 (UTC)
I finally found the reference to the Spanish prize and I included it in the article. ike9898 July 2, 2005 23:14 (UTC)

Eamon de Valera[edit]

One of the most important Irish politicians of all time, critical in the foundation of the Republic of Ireland. Talrias (t | e | c) 16:51, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • It's a great article. The only thing I'm thinking is that perhaps the article strays a bit from deV's biography and goes into such detail on the historical background that we begin to lose the focus a bit. I'm thinking here especially of "Neutrality in WWII" which is good and very interesting, but maybe should be in a History of Ireland article. I'd also echo the note from the FAC that maybe there might be a better way to structure the TOC. PRiis 20:49, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Oops, forgot to mention--the article should list its sources, too. PRiis 20:57, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Auburn, Alabama[edit]

I've just finished a major re-write of this article. It's also the first major article I've written and I'd like to get some feedback on possible changes that would improve the quality of the article. Particular emphasis on areas where there is deviation from appropriate Wikipedia styles is requested.--Lissoy 03:52, Jun 13, 2005 (UTC)

Wow, I've not read too many articles this good in a long time. It is well written, and keeps my interest. There is also an abundance of references and sections on every important point, with acceptable levels of information. It has a few minor grammatical errors (I corrected a few_, but nothing big. I like it.--naryathegreat | (talk) 02:22, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)
Thanks. Good catch on the grammar corrections.--Lissoy 02:42, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

1) You'd have to summarise the =history= here and move the detail to History of Auburn 2) Please put a smaller image in the leadin section. 3) You have a lot of references, but which reference corresonds to which fact? you would have to use inline references. See Welding and Kalimpong for inline use. Any chance for a ==media== section? you could expand the =government= and =economy= section. Overall 6/10. Is not in the same league of comprehensiveness like FA's Mumbai, Johannesburg (large city) or Kalimpong (small town) though. What I like is the neatness of the page; the headings are well done.  =Nichalp (Talk)= 19:30, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

  • You might want to relabel the picture at the top to indicate that the view is downtown Auburn as seen from Haley Center on the University campus. Otherwise, a very good article. Great job.--Alabamaboy 23:43, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

History of Poland (1945-1989)[edit]

Another article that is close to FAC status. What do you think? And I can't decide which pic should be moved to lead (and eventualy featured on main page together with article) - suggestions appreciated. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 20:46, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The article is good, but not particularly well written. Also, there are numerous grammatical errors. For instance, you should refer to the Western Allies as the Western Allies and not just Western Allies. These are simple mistakes, but FAs should be very close to perfect. The prose is good, but not "brilliant". Also, it's 47 KB long, which gets really tiring to read. Perhaps this period could be broken down further? And there is only one reference, and the article is far too long for only one. The article is good and I don't mean to harp on it, but the nature of this page is to accentuate the negative. Keep up the good work.--naryathegreat | (talk) 02:16, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)
Nice one again, Piotr. Grammar errors should be corrected, of course, but those are details. The lead is too long, I think. Also, I'm sure more books have been written on Polish history, a few more references would add a lot. -- Cugel 08:09, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)
Tnx for the comments. I will add some more references. Grammatical errorors sould be corrected, of course, but not being a native speaker I am not a specialist in this regard so this will have to wait for somebody with feel of English language niuances to come and polish it up. Lead is long, true, but consider it is the 'history of a country' series and remember the Wikipedia 1.0 guideline that lead should be a complete summary - I feel it is ok, although I will try to trim it down of excessive adjectives and such. As for 47kb size, well, you know I feel that the 32kb is the *minimum* limit for FA comprehensivness, and I have pushed through FAs over 60kbs :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 09:50, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)
30KB is the point where the length of an article may be indicative of it being too long (markup and other non-prose text should not be counted toward that though). Going significantly above that carries a burden of proof that the extra detail is so necessary that including it outweighs the negative aspects of increasing reading time. Above all else quality should come before quantity. It is harder to be comprehensive with less text, but doing so is better for the reader. --mav
FAs: History of post-Soviet Russia is 67kb, History of Russia is 70kb, History of Scotland is 55kb. Eventually, yes, I believe each existing section should have its own article, and no article should be above 100kb, but if we were to demand that country histories are taken down to 30kb or below, we would get a dumbed down summary. And if reader wants a short summary, this is what the lead is for. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 22:01, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Nice article. I've made one or two tiny grammatical changes. Can a "nationalist tendency of a peculiar Communist sort" be clarified; I don't understand what that is? --RobertGtalk 16:49, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I am not that sure myself, I rewrote it into 'a peculiar nationalist-communistic ideology' which I think is what this was supposed to mean. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:15, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Colonel Light Gardens, South Australia[edit]

I think this article looks complete. Can't think of anything to add. Zzymurgy 12:52, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • I think you'd better find a way to get rid of one sentence paragraphs. And while I'm not knowledgeable on the subject, it seems incredibly short for a featured article.
Do any celebrities live there? Have there been any important events? Can you expand on the politics and the number of people who live there and their demographics?

- 131.211.210.14 11:36, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Imageboard[edit]

I've been sort of watching this article for a while and feel that I could use some input on what needs to be made better about it. Just start bashing away, though I don't think it's too bad. humblefool® 04:17, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It's not clear from this article how this differs from the various community art gallery web sites I've seen around the web? For example elfwood has a huge collection of amateur art, some of it quite good. — RJH 03:09, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Science & Environmental Policy Project[edit]

If you look at the article on SEPP (which I just attempted to neutralize), you'll see that the critics of the organization's views cite the Wikipedia articles Attribution of recent climate change and Satellite temperature measurements. Indeed, these articles flatly contradict SEPP's view of what the facts are on these issues. The former does so without acknowledging or describing the dissenting view; the latter one discusses disagreement, but says that has been resolved in favor of SEPP's opponents. I'm not in a position to dispute the scientific findings in the detail articles, but SEPP would not seem to agree with them. Do any of these articles have NPOV problems? -- Beland 03:42, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Nonhuman animals ethics[edit]

This I think is borderline nonsense. It is I think an explanation of altruism in organisms, and it does go into reciprocity and kin selection okay. But it misses the immense level of competition there is between organisms; nature is red in tooth and claw. I also think it commits the naturalistic fallacy when implying that because something happens in nature, it is therefore right and/or is some personal speculation on whether animals have ethics. I'm good on the biology, but not so good on the ethics. Oh and its images are probably copyvios. Dunc| 00:42, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hi, sorry, but that is not what peer review is for. For that kind of thing, please list it on cleanup. Peer review is for getting advice from others on what you can implement in the article, perhaps also with some help from people making the suggestions. - Taxman Talk 02:37, Jun 18, 2005 (UTC)
Well what is it for then? I want other people to look at this article, preferably ones with backgrounds in ethics and comment on it in order to improve it. This is not WP:FAC. Dunc| 11:46, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
At the top of this page it reads "This page is for nearly Featured-standard articles that need the final checking by peers before being nominated as Featured article candidates." Please try Wikipedia:Pages needing attention. Thanks. :) — RJH 15:17, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hubble Space Telescope[edit]

I've just completed a reworking of this article, having previously nominated it for removal from featured status. I'd like to make it an FAC but it's grown into a huge beast of a thing at 48K and I thought I'd better check here first for any suggested improvement (like trimming massively perhaps :)) before exposing it to the harsh scrutiny of FAC. Worldtraveller 14:46, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yep - looks like it is at the director's cut stage. :) Time to make some painful choices. Here are my suggestions:

  1. Since this article is very heavy on history, I suggest the creation of a history of the Hubble Space Telescope article. Everything in the ==Conception, design and aims== section except for the ===Instruments=== subsection would be moved along with the ==Flawed mirror== and ==Servicing missions and new instruments== sections. A long summary of all that would be placed in a ==History== section in this article. If you decide you want to do that, then I volunteer to create the abridged summary and a lead section for the resulting 'history of' article. See Yosemite National Park#History and history of the Yosemite area to get an idea of what I'm talking about.
  2. This will allow for expansion of the other parts of the article, such as the newly promoted ==Instruments== and other sections that talk about HST itself and what it has done.
  3. Quickly Explain jargon like angular resolution and spherical aberration.
  4. Inline cites are needed in the article (per FAC criteria). The Inote system is easiest to use, IMO. See history of the Grand Canyon area for an example in action.

It will be difficult to gage what is missing until the detailed history gets put into its own article and an adequately large summary of that is left here. My first impression is that more detail is needed on the instruments and data results. A section devoted to the impact HST has had on astronomy and the resulting impact on the public also seems to be in order, IMO (==Outreach activities== would likely be a subsection of that). --mav 16:22, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • There is the possibility of moving some of the information to a History of space telescopes page or alternatively a space telescopes section on the History of telescopes page. Some of the information comparing and contrasting Hubble with proposed future space telescopes could be moved here too... or is it silly to mention future proposals into a "history" page? :o/ CheekyMonkey 19:17, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • A very good article. I see no reason to shorten it, I like my FAs long :> I'd support it on FA today. One note: it was missing a category. When working on any article, make sure it is categorised. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 15:58, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Thanks very much for the comments, all - I have to say I am rather torn about whether to split it, even more so with contrasting points of view given here. I think for the moment I'll work on addressing the other comments, and consider the splitting issue after that. I'm edging towards splitting it, but am easily swayed by comments against :)
I've tried to explain the jargon briefly, hope that looks OK now. Will now see about expanding the results bit, I agree that needs work. I have briefly discussed the impact on astronomy but could probably expand that as well. In terms of the impact on the public, as an 'insider' I may not be best placed to write about it, so any input from the bona-fide general public would be great there! Worldtraveller 10:48, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm not really in favor of splitting it, but on the other hand it is monumental in size :) Print out a copy and do a good copy edit to cut out any extraneous text, for example I think the sections on the quest for funding and the flawed mirror could be pruned. The future space telescopes section could be more a summary since there is a decent article on the replacement James Webb Space Telescope and a comparison of the two could potentially be moved there.--nixie 00:45, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Right, sorry to have not been active on this article for a week or so, I burned myself out with the initial draft and needed a few days off to recover :) I have just been through and trimmed the future section quite a lot, but also expanded the impact and discoveries sections, and the article is 50K at the moment. I am not sure I can see what other extraneous text could be cut, but am more than happy for others to get stuck in and carve bits off. It may be long, but my own view is that it's in lots of bite-sized chunks and is all quite easily digestible. Any other thoughts on the length issue? Thanks! Worldtraveller 16:09, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Southern literature[edit]

I have done a lot of research and rewriting to attempt to bring this article up to featured article standards. Unfortunately, I have become so involved in the article that I am no longer able to see if it is missing any pertinent information or makes any logical leaps. Constructive criticism is welcome. --Alabamaboy 23:34, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • Isn't "Southern literature" a bit US-centric? would Literature of the Southern Unted Sataes be better? Dunc| 01:16, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The problem would be that no one--from lay people to academics--refer to southern literature by this term. When I typed the phrase into Google, only two links came up, whereas Southern Literature brings up 75,000 plus. I'd be hesitant to try instituting a name change to a term that is in common use. That would be like changing African-American literature to African United States Literature.
Thanks for the info on the image. I'll see what I can do to get a better one.