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

The article was promoted 17:40, 30 September 2007.

Israel

(Self-nomination) This article has undergone a heck of a lot of changes since the beginning of July and I am now confident the article is ready for its close-up. It meets every criteria for featured article status (I know this sounds self-promoting, but I have to say it), detailing the State of Israel and its history, government, economy, demographics, and culture (and more). The simages complement the written content of the article as they depict a variety of aspects of Israel. Israel evokes a few hot-button issues in some parts of the world today, but this article has been able to settle down and largely remain quiet (albeit not without tribulation along the way). The prose is great compelling astronomically superb and deserves to be among the ranks of such iconic articles as exploding whale. -- tariqabjotu 21:25, 6 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I have wasted hours – and most certainly days – of my life over the past few months attempting to bring this article up to featured status. I have endured frivolous attacks of POV, claims of ownership, and repetitive insults on my writing abilities – all while I myself have graciously undid the mistakes of others and otherwise did my best to contribute to the article. But I'm sick and tired of this now. I'm no Israeli, no Palestinian, no Arab, and no Jew. I'm not here for anybody or anything, no cause expect to prove that some of the most controversial articles on Wikipedia can also become some of the best. But alas, this is all a pipe dream. Indeed, this article has improved as a result of many good-faith comments here, but I can no longer support an article that has been, and I'm sure will continually be, assaulted by those whose idea of a good article amounts only to one that promotes their agenda. I have better things to do with my life than wrangle with people who think everyone but them is biased. Shalom. -- tariqabjotu 05:05, 24 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Fewer people than you imagine think everyone other than themselves is biased, Tariq. But apparently more people than I imagine consider all of their actions in undoing the efforts of others to have been done graciously. Tegwarrior 15:00, 24 September 2007 (UTC) reply

You don't even know what I'm talking about, Teg. I was not talking about reverting other people; I was talking about fixing grammar and citation errors. You're beginning to cross the line between a mere POV warrior and a troll; at this point, the prospect of anyone taking you seriously is infinitesimally small. -- tariqabjotu 15:08, 24 September 2007 (UTC) reply

So you want to be credited for graciously correcting grammar and citation errors, with no mind paid to concurrent instances of your revert-happy episodes? I must admit that I tend to be the hero of all the stories I tell, too. ;-) Tegwarrior 17:33, 24 September 2007 (UTC) reply

It looks good. Comments on what I've read so far:

• The numerous links in the lead following the mention of "overall human development" are unecessary. Two of those links actually talk about economic freedom.
• Jews living in the Diaspora have aspired over the ages to return to the Land of Israel and Zion. The link to Zion seems to indicate that it refers to the Land of Israel. Is it uncessary to include both, or am I missing some subtle distinction?
• Arab opposition to the plan culminated in the 1920 Palestine riots and the formation of the Jewish defense organization known as the Haganah, from which the Irgun and Lehi split off. It reads as if Arab opposition culminated in the formation of Jewish defense groups; consider rewording.
• In 1982, Israel intervened in the Lebanese Civil War to destroy the bases from which the Palestine Liberation Organization launched terror attacks against the northern part of Israel. The wikilink to the intervention doesn't match up with this statement, neither about the cause of intervention nor the actions of the Israelis. Consider clarification.
• The caption under the picture of Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat shaking hands seems to indicate they signed the Oslo accords, while the text indicates otherwise. Need to clarify.
• Not entirely sure about this issue, but I will raise it. This website [1] is an Israeli government website. If the material supported uncontroversial facts such as economic statistics, that would generally be ok. But historical information? I would be a little uncomfortable. Suggest finding alternate sources. Recurring dreams 02:08, 7 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I'll respond to your points in order:

• I removed the two superfluous links.
• As far as I know, they're basically the same place. In my opinion, Zion needs to be mentioned somewhere to provide the context of the concept of Zionism. Would an or instead of an and between the two places make it clearer that these are talking about the same place?
• I've reworded this in an attempt to clarify the meaning of the sentence.
• The link seems appropriate to me; it links to an article about both the actions of the Israelis and the cause of the intervention.
• I have altered the caption to remove the incorrect statement.
• I disagree. The website is used to refer to the history of the region well prior to the State of Israel. I honestly do not believe the conflict of interest extends that far back. -- tariqabjotu 03:41, 7 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• I'm happy with your reasoning on the website (you would know more about the reliability of the sources than I do). Bu with the link to the 1982 Lebanon War: the statement in Israel article reads as if it was small scale retaliation at Palestinian forces, while the main page says it was a full scale occupation that involved fighting against numerous countries. I'm not trying to introduce any bias, but as a first time reader of the history of Israel the discrepancy between the two pages was jarring. Otherwise, I offer my support. Recurring dreams 03:58, 7 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Alright; I've taken care of that as well. -- tariqabjotu 04:47, 7 September 2007 (UTC) reply

"Zion" usually means Jerusalem. It's one of the city's many names. okedem 21:52, 10 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Conditional Support - Overall, great article! Seems comprehensive, well-written, properly sourced, and is of an appropriate length. However, I'd suggest getting rid of some of the wikilinks as the sea of blue makes the article unreadable at times. See Only make links that are relevant to the context. This article definitely has more significant items to link than many articles due to its broad nature. Having said this, it is still over wikilinked. Here are some examples of wikilinks that should be eliminated: judge, jury, civil rights, freedom (political), square mile, square kilometer, fruit, vegetables, drug, software, etc. And that was me quickly going through two sections. Take a look at the rest and get rid of everyday words that are linked. Also, don't over wikilink the same items multiple times in the article. Traditionally, the first time is sufficient although there may be cases where it may be appropriate to do it more than once. For example, Egypt is linked about 6 times. It is notoriously difficult to get controversial articles to FA status; so, if you do it, consider it a great accomplishment! I'm sure there will be somebody who thinks the article doesn't meet NPOV standards (that is, it doesn't meet his or her personal POV), but I personally couldn't find much bias in it. - Bluedog423 ^Talk 02:14, 7 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• I'm in the midst of addressing this. I don't agree it's overlinked, "a sea of blue", or "unreadable at times" though; there just may be a few unnecessary links. -- tariqabjotu 03:53, 7 September 2007 (UTC) reply
• Alright; complete, perhaps? -- tariqabjotu 04:24, 7 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• "I don't agree it's overlinked [...] there just may be a few unnecessary links." Ummm, that seems like a contradiction. Anyways, thanks for addressing my concern.- Bluedog423 ^Talk 19:11, 8 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• "Ummm, that seems like a contradiction." No, it's not... there were a few extra links that we could do without, but, in my opinion, there weren't so many that they hurt the article or qualified as a "sea of blue" or "[made] the article unreadable at times". The distinction was the degree to which it was a problem, but ultimately it's not a big deal to me whether you believe that's a contradiction. -- tariqabjotu 20:14, 8 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Ha, we're mostly arguing semantics and it doesn't really matter in the large scheme of things, but...I understand the fact that, in your opinion, the extra links did not contribute to a sea of blue, etc. The contradiction comes from the independent statement, "I don't agree it's overlinked" since you don't qualify it. If it read, "I don't agree that it's overlinked such that it is a sea of blue..." then I'd agree there's no contradiction since it'd be a degree issue as you stated. The comma (as well as the "or") makes it an independent item in a list such that it should stand on its own (if the conjunction was "and," it'd make sense). "I don't agree it's overlinked" = there are an appropriate number of links. "There may just be a few unnecessary links" = there are too many links => contradiction. Anyways, doesn't matter. Please don't respond, and we'll just agree to disagree. ;) Good luck with FAC! Cheers! - Bluedog423 ^Talk 21:44, 8 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Comment There are some stand alone years linked in the "History" section and some that are not. There are several instances of this in the rest of the article also. Is it really necessary to have those links? They don't seem to provide relevant info on the article subject. The same goes for wikilinked centuries. -- Victor12 23:27, 9 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Support - I would take care of what User:Victor12 has said above, and look over the MOS when it comes to images (mainly about captions), but the article reads very well and is definetly neutral. Best, Happyme22 00:49, 10 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Oppose - Although well written, I have a few concerns with this article being FA.
  • First off all, the article is far from stable (for obvious political reasons, unfortunately), as is exemplified by its full protection at the moment (reason given: edit warring) [2].
  • Also, in its current form, I feel the article is avoiding and simplifying the current problems in Israel too much. I understand that statements about the problems can give rise to edit warring, but leaving it out is not an option for an FA article. Ofcourse you want examples of this. One of those "simplifications" is the statement that "After the collapse of the talks, Palestinians began the al-Aqsa Intifada." Full stop. Nothing more about it. I know there is a dedicated article, but given the impact of the second intifada on both Israel and the palestines, more information should be provided (e.g. what triggered the Intifada). Another examples is that the article completely avoids explaining that many Israel settlements are controversial and also does not discuss the palestine attacks on israel. In summary, this article cannot do without a summary of Israeli-Palestinian conflict to become comprehensive (which is a requirement for FA).
  • A disclaimer because of the controversial article/POV/NPOV statement above: Yes the article has a neutral point of view at the moment, but this is largely accomplished by completely avoiding any heated issue. Another approach for neutrality is to include both points of view, rather than no-ones. Given good arguments that the current approach is more appropriate, I might change my view here, though. -- Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 09:49, 10 September 2007 (UTC) reply

In response to your first point, the article is no longer protected. Even still, I don't think it breaks the metric of stability (especially not to the point of being "far from stable"). Prior to today, the article had been largely stable for weeks, with minor or otherwise basic improvements being the only edits to the article. The recent events, in my opinion, were merely a scuffle and although they meet the technical definition of an edit war, edit warring is not a persistent problem. The FA criteria refer to the article changing from day to day as one sign of instability; that has not really happened on this article. As was mentioned during the Jerusalem FAC, the provocative nature of the article's subject cannot be used as a reason for claiming instability. If that forms part of your rationale for instability (I can't really tell), the objection is inactionable.

As for the rest of your point, I disagree to adding much more about the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Arab-Israeli conflict is mentioned, but the conflict is far too complex to go into the why (or, more appropriately, the numerous whys and theories of why) here; the Israel article is long enough as it is. Pieces of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are mentioned throughout the article – the Palestinian exodus, several peace treaties, multiple wars, riots and insurgencies prior to the establishment, objection to the Jerusalem Law, and the two intifadas are all, for example, mentioned in the article. However, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not all there is to Israel. It is important, of course, and that's why events related to it are mentioned in the article, but "comprehensive" does not mean everything there is to know about the subject needs to be included in this one article. For those who are truly interested, the article directs readers several times to other articles where they can find more information about specific aspects of the conflict and Israel. Those articles, not the Israel article, are where the intricacies of the conflict belong. -- tariqabjotu 21:44, 10 September 2007 (UTC) reply

On the first point we agree. I have no objections to a provocative subject becoming FA. I just noted that, at the time I looked at the article, it was fully protected. If it was incidental, and the article is normally stable, than that is fine with me. One the second point I am not convinced. Obviously, there is more to Israel then the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But for many people outside Israel it is the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about Israel. Referring to article size is not a convincing argument. The article for example contains a large section about culture, where also six specialized articles are mentioned for further reading. A similar thing could be done for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, explaining the main issues that are the cause for the dispute between the parties. At the moment, the article (except for the infobox) does not even link to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict article. Also, stating that summarizing would be impossible is hard for me to understand. The article I just mentioned also contains an introduction that summarizes the conflict. As many things in that introduction are already present throughout this article, it could be trimmed down significantly to leave a short summary of the conflict. -- Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 06:24, 11 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Also, stating that summarizing would be impossible is hard for me to understand. I did not say that was impossible to do; I was saying it would be difficult to summarize the causes of particular events such as the Second Intifada (which you used as your example) because there's far too much to discuss for this one article. That, as I understood, was your concern – that the article did not contain enough information about the causes of particular events, as evidenced by your suggestion that we "include both points of view". On the other hand, I'm quite certain summarizing the conflict itself, sans the nuances, is possible because it has already been done. The History section (except for the "Early roots" part) is talking about the conflict perhaps 75% of the time. We may not say "oh, by the way, this is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict" but it is definitely discussed extensively; I noted examples of these mentions in my previous comment. In fact, at one point two people voiced their concern that we were talking about the conflict too much. As for your complaint that Israeli-Palestinian conflict is only linked from the templates, from where do you believe the item can be appropriately linked? (Actually I think I know a good location and will proceed to add that now). -- tariqabjotu 21:22, 11 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Fair enough, it is clear that you have given this issue a great deal of thought and have chosen to deal with the issues in this particular way for good reasons. Although I personally would have done it differently, that should not stop others from getting credit for excellent articles the've written in the way they see fit. Therefore (and because I like the short statement about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict you've added), I've struck my oppose. -- Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 06:37, 12 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Formatting comment. The article has a side scroll bar (using Firefox). Any idea how to fix this? Wafulz 03:56, 12 September 2007 (UTC) reply

This has been fixed. I have a feeling it had something to do with a reference written with the entire URL spelled out. -- tariqabjotu 17:17, 15 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Support -- While by no means a regular contributor to this article, or someone who is well-learned on the subject of Israel, I stopped by the talk page on several occasions and contributed to the article on different occasions. My major concerns, and my major objections at the time, were the continued insertion of POV-slanting language into the article. Most of this revolved around the Arab-Israeli conflict, and I would say that on either end of that debate there were repeated attempts to slant the article in a way that better promoted a particular POV.

As someone who viewed the article as objectively as possible, I am pleased to say that most of these problems have been alleviated. I would like to commend, in particular, the work of User:Tariqabjotu for his efforts in creating the current article, and in preserving the status quo. This is not an easy issue to navigate, and Tariqabjotu has been on the receiving end of much criticism. Yet on the whole, I believe he has taken the reigns in navigating both sides effectively, and in presenting an article that touches on sensitive issues without placing too much emphasis on them (there is, as has been pointed out repeatedly, to myself in particular, more to Israel than the conflict) and without letting any one particular POV dominate.

I believe that this article deserves to be featured. I do, however, have one reservation. If featured on the main page, it will become unprotected, is that correct? In that event, I expect that we can see major and multiple attempts to disrupt the current status of the article. I don't expect this to be too much of a problem (Jerusalem, after all, survived its time as an FA intact) but I do worry that an front page feature might disrupt what I see as an article currently deserving of FA status. I would appreciate if this concern was addressed. SpiderMMB 05:30, 12 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I doubt the article will be unprotected if it reaches the Main Page; Islam, for example, wasn't unprotected when it was featured July 1. Jerusalem is not an analogous example because it was not under indefinite semi-protection when it hit the Main Page and it is not under that state now. -- tariqabjotu 21:33, 15 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Support - The article was heavily edited in the past few months to bring it up to FAC standards, and the result speaks for itself. (I've been a minor contributer to the article, mainly just reverting vandalism, and engaging in discussions on the talk page). okedem 10:39, 14 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Provisional oppose Several fixes needed

• Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings), articles should be omitted from the beginning of headings. Thus, "The first fifty years, 1950s–1990s" and "The 21st century" should be corrected.
• BTW it might be a good idea to merge this two sections as the on the 21st century has only one paragraph.

I have some issues with content also, but I'll post them later. -- Victor12 14:18, 14 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Ignore invocation of WP:DASH unless a case can be made that this is the difference between a good and a great article. Similarly, while The first fifty years, 1950s–1990s is clumsy, First fifty years, 1950s–1990s is unidiomatic; better to recast. Twentieth century Israel, perhaps. I look forward to substantive comments. (I would be reluctant to oppose for spelling inconsistencies; this article will always have them, if only because Israelis write both dialects. But do clean them up this once.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:59, 14 September 2007 (UTC) reply

And I though compliance with WP:MOS was a requirement for FA status. Anyway, here are some in-depth observations which need to be fixed in my humble opinion:

• The following sentences smell like POV to me: During the course of the hostilities, 711,000 Arabs, according to UN estimates, fled from Israel. Arab persecution of Jewish communities precipitated a similar Jewish exodus from Arab lands. It implies Arabs fled (for unknown reasons) while Jews were persecuted. Reading the 1948 Palestinian exodus article one could make a compelling case that Arabs were also persecuted by Jews. The text needs to be better balanced to comply with NPOV.
  • I am not going to address this. If one wants to see bias in that, they can, but we can't be addressing things that kinda sorta look like bias if you look at them from a certain angle on Tuesdays. For example, one might say mentioning the number of Arabs that fled Israel without mentioning the number of Jews that fled Arab lands is biased against Jews. No, that's not bias; that's sentence variation. The definition of the word fled does not exclude the possibility that Arabs in Israel were persecuted. -- tariqabjotu 19:33, 15 September 2007 (UTC) reply
    • Yes, it does not exclude but it also does not imply persecution. So while stating that Jews fled persecution it does not say whether Arabs were also persecuted or not. We need more opinions on this. Maybe a RfC? -- Victor12 22:54, 15 September 2007 (UTC) reply
      • I still disagree and I'm not ready to make the change myself. I get the impression (not from the article; I mean in general, from outside sources, as well as wiki pages written on the relevant subjects) the Jewish exodus was more directly and unarguably the result of persecution and antisemitism (which still persists to this day) whereas the cause of Palestinian exodus is disputed, with the theories of persecution being more muted. I don't think we should say the two events were caused by the same type of thing when that is not the case. -- tariqabjotu 02:00, 16 September 2007 (UTC) reply
• In the sentence These exoduses became a vital component of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as the fate of Palestinian refugees today remains a major point of contention, "today" is redundant.
  • Not necessarily. Without it, it could mean "remains a point of contention [for some period of time we're not saying]". For instance, if it had remained a point of contention for twenty years, a long time, it would still be reasonable to say it "remains a point of contention" (although that's unclear). Whereas the tense we want here is present tense, it could equally mean relative present tense (not sure if that's the right tense). Anyway, I believe "today" removes the ambiguity and clarifies that it remains a point of contention even until today, sixty years later. -- tariqabjotu 19:33, 15 September 2007 (UTC) reply
    • How can you reasonably use "remains" for something that has ended in the past? That's a flagrant contradiction. Something that was a point of contention for several years is said to have "remained" as such, not that it "remains" so. -- Victor12 22:54, 15 September 2007 (UTC) reply
      • Perhaps, but either way one word should not make or break a featured article. The word today seems perfectly fine, for clarity. -- tariqabjotu 02:27, 16 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Well, that's the History section for now, I'll try to continue with the rest of the article tomorrow. -- Victor12 02:27, 15 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Following MOS, as a guideline should be followed, is a criterion; but worrying over dots and dashes is putting the means before the end. Is the millimeter difference between an endash and a hyphen going to make this into our best work, or if left alone, prevent the article from being our best work? Probably not; but if the difference is that important, fix it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:08, 15 September 2007 (UTC) reply

And I though that Nominators are expected to make an effort to address objections. Anyway, please let's stop here, as you said this is a minor point and I think I have looked at several issues besides MOS while reviewing this article including content, POV and sources. Besides the article now complies with WP:DASH, and I didn't do a thing :-) -- Victor12 22:54, 15 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Oppose—1a. Copy-edit needed throughout. It has promise if fixed up.
  • Remove "located" in the first sentence.
    • This is a matter of opinion. In my opinion, for instance, the word located separates two similar phrases Southwest Asia and southeastern edge nicely. -- tariqabjotu 14:29, 16 September 2007 (UTC) reply
      • Everything is "a matter of opinion". If I see that removing a word leaves the meaning unchanged, I advise the writer to remove it. Please state why it's useful to separate those phrases: I can't see why it would be so. Tony 08:44, 17 September 2007 (UTC) reply
  • "Also adjacent are the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which are partially administrated by the Palestinian National Authority." Please don't start a sentence like this with "Also". Every sentence, in any case, is an also (although I see a good use of the word in "also home" lower down). And mixing geography (the pre-existing theme) with politics/administration so closely is awkward; at least use a semicolon: "The West Bank and Gaza Strip are adjacent; they are partially administrated by the Palestinian National Authority." Seems to need a little content added to make it smoother (partly by the PNA, and partly by Israel? It's stubby as is. And I see that the West Bank is excluded from the red bit on the map, yet it says that Israel's borders were "expanded" in the sdw—seems inconsistent).
    • I have removed also from the beginning of the sentence, per your request, but "mixing geography... with politics/administration" here is almost unavoidable. If we omit that Israel is adjacent to the West Bank and Gaza, someone's going to say the article is just establishing that those areas are part of Israel. If we were to say those two areas are adjacent, but omit that they are partially administered by the PNA, someone will say the article is (wrongly) implying that those two regions are autonomous countries and/or neglecting that Israel has something to do with them. This wording may be imperfect, but we may not be able to do much better for an introduction. The introduction was among the most-discussed portions of the article, so I think it's safe to say this generally works fine. As for your last sentence... the intro (the only time "expanded" is used in the article) discusses the borders being expanded during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, not the Six-Day War. That fact is indisputable. -- tariqabjotu 14:29, 16 September 2007 (UTC) reply
  • When is a national capital not its seat of government?
    • The Netherlands are an (only?) example - Amsterdam is the capital, though the seat of government is The Hague. okedem 10:32, 16 September 2007 (UTC) reply
      • Then it's normally assumed if there's only one exception in the world. Remove "seat of government" as redundant. The opening should have as little clutter as possible. This is clutter. Tony 08:44, 17 September 2007 (UTC) reply
  • "many of the neighboring Arab countries"—no, "its".
    • What difference does it make? -- tariqabjotu 15:07, 18 September 2007 (UTC) reply
  • "Israel has signed peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, and efforts are being made to reach a permanent accord with the Palestinians." I hope that's going to be referenced further down.
    • The peace treaties are linked, so I suppose you're talking about the Palestinians. There have been talks since 1991 (Madrid conference), leading to the Oslo Accords, and many, many negotiations since, with withdrawals, agreements, etc. It's all detailed in the article itself and in the linked articles. okedem 10:32, 16 September 2007 (UTC) reply
      • OK Tony 08:44, 17 September 2007 (UTC) reply
  • MOS: no period unless caption is a proper sentence—Check through them; the "David BG" one is at issue, at least. And there's another I see.
    • This has been done. -- tariqabjotu 15:07, 18 September 2007 (UTC) reply
  • "The first fifty years, 1950s–1990s"—See MOS on initial "The" in titles. Uncomfortable use of comma rather than parentheses.
    • The use of "the" is just about unavoidable as "First fifty years, 1950s-1990s" sounds very odd. If you have another name for the section that removes the year system altogether, I'd love to hear it. -- tariqabjotu 15:07, 18 September 2007 (UTC) reply
  • "These years were marked by mass immigration of Holocaust survivors"—Check through for missing "the"s.
    • I don't see where a the is necessary. -- tariqabjotu 15:07, 18 September 2007 (UTC) reply
  • Are you really insisting on spelling out all numbers? Even the huge ones? Easier to read as numerals.
    • No, and not all numbers are spelled out. -- tariqabjotu 15:07, 18 September 2007 (UTC) reply
  • Grammar: "and agreed to enter negotiations over an autonomy to Palestinians".
    • Changed to "autonomy for Palestinians". Is that okay? okedem 10:32, 16 September 2007 (UTC) reply
  • For such a highly militarised state, I find the section on "Military" laughably short. Tony 02:59, 16 September 2007 (UTC) reply
    • I have added some things to the Military section. -- tariqabjotu 05:11, 18 September 2007 (UTC) reply
  • "Israel is considered one of the most advanced countries in"—Just get rid of the "considered", which adds nothing. A reference is provided, anyway.
    • "Considered" was placed there (after complaints) to avoid siding with that opinion, since it's not really a fact, but depends on how you measure development. okedem 10:32, 16 September 2007 (UTC) reply
    • Um ... who's doing the considering, then? It raises that question and doesn't solve the original issue. If you can't bring yourselves to make the bald statement, it shouldn't be made at all, or its status should be explicated properly. This fuzzy "considered" just weakens the authority of the text. Tony 08:44, 17 September 2007 (UTC) reply
  • 53rd-highest GNP per capity at PPP sounds way low on the food chain. I guess you've checked it.
    • It's 53rd on total GDP, 37th per capita. Anyway, that's no longer true. I'll update according to the IMF data ( List of countries by GDP (PPP) per capita). okedem 10:32, 16 September 2007 (UTC) reply
    • Actually, I won't update it, since I don't know which set of data to choose - World Bank? CIA? IMF? They're not even close... ( List of countries by GDP (PPP)). okedem 10:35, 16 September 2007 (UTC) reply
      • Much of the problem is how to define purchasing power, some is whether Hong Kong is a country; I would suggest "around fiftieth, between Chile and Morocco," and the details in a note; check with external sources, of course. For a country which does not have eitha an enormous or miniscule populartion, per capita is probably a more useful comparator anyway. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:44, 16 September 2007 (UTC) reply
        • I agree that GNP per capita (both PPP and non-PPP) are much more useful. Tony 08:44, 17 September 2007 (UTC) reply
  • Why is a common word such as "pharmaceuticals" linked? Delink please, so as not to dilute the important links. Tony 02:59, 16 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• You can take the invitation above to "igore" MOS as you like, but the fact remains that FAs need to follow it (Criterion 2). Please note that Anderson is conducting her very own war against MOS, and coming up against quite a deal of resistance in the process. Dashes are important to good writing. Tony 08:44, 17 September 2007 (UTC) reply
  • That is Tony's take on MOS, which he has been attempting to use to revise the English language on such matters as Socrates's. He has severe ownership problems. The comment above, however, was to opposition over endashes, which has been deprecated here and elsewhere. I am pleased to observe that the present discussion appears to be over the substance of the article. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:44, 17 September 2007 (UTC) reply

This article is rather incomplete. It ignores some of the most important issues that have shaped the state and its conflict, and it oversimplifies the things that it doesn't ignore. Where is UN Security Council Resolution 242 in this? What about the significant concession made relatively recently that the Munich retaliations were not executed only against those directly responsible? There are a hundred omissions and distortions like this. Who wrote this? Any actual scholars around here? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.121.109.39 ( talk) 21:10, 17 September 2007 (UTC) reply

You can't condense all information about a country into a single article. This article is just the basis for further reading, in the many linked articles. okedem 21:48, 17 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Break 1

• More comments Most of the comments I've made above have already been resolved, though some remain. More comments follow:

• What's up with the two templates in the History section? Shouldn't they be placed on the History of the State of Israel article? You can replace them with pictures.

If you do have some pictures in mind that could be useful in place of the templates, please present them. -- tariqabjotu 07:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Upon closer examination, it seems to me the Aliyah template is quite useful and it links to this article. However, I'm not sure about the second one, as it is not about Israel but about the region as a whole. It should link to History of the State of Israel IMHO. In its place it would be useful to have a pic of one of the Arab-Israeli wars. There should be several of those available. -- Victor12 14:11, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• In the "Geography" section the distinction between the "sovereign territory of Israel", the "area under Israeli law" and the "total area under Israeli control" is not clear. Some rewriting might be useful
• Why is the section named "Geography and climate"? Geography includes climate so just "Geography" would be better.

Okay; that's your opinion. You are aware of Wikipedia:Featured article criteria, right? Trivial arguments over the preferences of certain editors distract from the real items that need to be address (which, as of now, a few and far between). -- tariqabjotu 07:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Yeah, I'm aware. Just making an opinion. No need to get angry. -- Victor12 14:11, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• The statement The Israeli Coastal Plain on the shores of the Mediterranean is home to seventy percent of the nation's population seems to belong under "Demographics" not under "Geography".

Again, a simple preference. I'm not going to act upon this. -- tariqabjotu 07:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Demographic info under "Demographics" seems pretty logical to me. -- Victor12 14:11, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• The sentence East of the central highlands lies the Jordan Rift Valley, which forms a small part of the 6,500-kilometer (4,040-mi.) Great Rift Valley, through which the Jordan River runs from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea, the lowest point on the surface of the Earth has too many subordinate clauses which make it confusing. It currently seems to imply that the Jordan River runs through the Great Rift Valley. It would be better to split this long sentence.

I've rephrased for clarity and accuracy (the river doesn't originate in the Sea of Galilee). okedem 10:14, 20 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• About the makhteshim, the article claims they're unique to Israel and the Sinai, however, that's in contradiction to the Makhtesh article. Also it says they're similar to craters, that is, they're not craters, but then they are called craters, one of them being the world's largest natural crater. If they're indeed craters, the word "similar" should be deleted. What's a natural crater anyway? Also are they important enough t deserve two sentences? This seems like WP:Undue weight.

Makhteshim are a very interesting natural phenomenon. They're "erosion craters", as opposed to most craters, which are "impact craters". That sentence should probably be tweaked. okedem 06:13, 20 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• In the sentence From May to September, rain in Israel is rare it would be useful to add that those months correspond to the summer season.

Oh c'mon. -- tariqabjotu 07:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Well, not everybody lives in the northern hemisphere. -- Victor12 14:11, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Yes, but even those who don't can see that Israel is, and can understand when summer is. Let's not insult our readers. okedem 15:37, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• In the "Government and politics" section why are there so many see also links? They are quite specific so they should be linked in the text and not in this prominent position at the start of the section.

Okay; that's your opinion. You are aware of Wikipedia:Featured article criteria, right? I like the X arrangement better than the Y arrangement is not a good reason. -- tariqabjotu 07:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Fair enough. -- Victor12 14:11, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• The statement the government can dissolve itself at any time by a no-confidence vote seems contradictory. Is the no-confidence vote made by the government itself? If not, it can't "dissolve itself".

The parliament members that make up the government (or the coalition) can vote against the government, thus dissolving it. Maybe "The Knesset can dissolve the government at any time..." would be better. okedem 06:13, 20 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I've implemented my suggestion. okedem 10:27, 20 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• In The third and highest court in Israel is the Supreme Court, the word "third" is problematic as it implies there are only three courts in Israel. Maybe reword as "the third type of court" or something like that.

How about something using "third tier"? okedem 06:13, 20 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I've implemented my suggestion. okedem 10:27, 20 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Is this sentence necessary? Israel's civil liberties also allow for self-criticism, from groups such as B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization. Self-criticism seems implied in the preceding text by mentioning Israel as a free country. Also, is B'Tselem important enough to be mentioned in this article?

B'Tselem is a very well known human rights organization, so I do think it's important enough. okedem 06:13, 20 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I concur with Okedem. -- tariqabjotu 07:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Is the see also link for "List of cities in Israel" necessary? It should be moved to the text below or removed.

Okay; that's your opinion. -- tariqabjotu 07:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Fair enough. -- Victor12 14:11, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• The sentence about metropolitan areas might confuse some readers with the distinction between metropolitan areas and cities. Is it really important or can it be removed.

So what if it might confuse some readers? There's a distinct difference between a metropolitan area and a city, and it is not our fault if some don't know that. -- tariqabjotu 07:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Well, apparently, the city article suggests this clear distinction is primarily limited to the United States. I'm not sure how this can be avoided. -- tariqabjotu 08:33, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Maybe this article should only mention info on cities and leave metropolitan areas to the main Demographics of Israel article. -- Victor12 14:11, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• In the "Foreign relations" subsection the bit on the United States, Germany, Turkey and Iran is confusing as it is written in past tense and does not specify to what period it refers. The whole subsections speaks about Israeli foreign relations in the present so why mention Iran as an ally in the past? Also the role of the United States as an ally should be adequately emphasized. It still provides major military and financial aid to Israel as well as an important "diplomatic aid" at the UN and other international forums. This subsection needs some rework.

• I'll try to work on this soon. Stay tuned. -- tariqabjotu 08:28, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• I have expanded this, but note that the U.S.'s contributions to Israel are covered in other sections. -- tariqabjotu 18:41, 24 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• The bit about "enemy countries" should be moved up, right after the mention of the Arab League, so as to keep all Arab countries together. Also, isn't Iran considered an "enemy country"?

No, Iran is not considered an enemy country, as it was never at war with Israel, and never declared war. okedem 06:13, 20 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Sentence has been moved. okedem 10:27, 20 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• In the "Military" section, the see also links should moved to the text or removed in my opinion.

Okay; that's your opinion. -- tariqabjotu 07:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Yes. -- Victor12 14:11, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• The statement The Israeli- and U.S.-designed Arrow missile is one of the world's only operational ballistic missile systems is a mistake, the Arrow is not a ballistic missile, but an anti-ballistic missile system

Fixed. okedem 10:29, 20 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Why is 1984 given as an example for high defense expenditures? It is just one year so it does not prove anything. It would be better to have an average for a decade or so. SIPRI might be a good source for this, check its database at www.sipri.org

Okay, that's your opinion. -- tariqabjotu 07:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Here I do see a problem because one year doesn't prove much and it is not very useful as an example either because the reader doesn't know how representative of a trend it is. It would be better to have an average for a decade or so. -- Victor12 14:11, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• US military aid definitely needs to be mentioned here.

And it is... -- tariqabjotu 07:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Currently the section only mentions arms imports from the US and American cooperation in the development of the Arrow missile. US aid is much more important than that. Israel receives lots of money and weapons paid for by the American government. That seems pretty important. -- Victor12 14:11, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Economic aid from the U.S. is also mentioned in the Economy section. Also, I'm going to attempt to fulfill your request to expand the foreign relations section (not by a whole lot; probably just a paragraph). I'll wait to see your response after that is completed. -- tariqabjotu 14:47, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I meant military aid, lots of info about that on this article: Israel-United States military relations. It can even be argued that US military aid saved Israel existence during the Yom Kippur war, check Operation Nickel Grass. As for foreign relations, drop me a note when you're finished and I'll check it again. -- Victor12 15:06, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• The paragraph on nuclear weapons is quite small, it should be expanded or merged with the preceding one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Victor12 ( talk • contribs) 02:53, 20 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Strong oppose. An article on Israel in which no mention is made of the charges of ethnic cleansing in the foundation of the state is not encyclopedic. This is not an article on Switzerland, but rather on a country that has a lot of issues. Wikipedia should not take a position on any of these issues (another matter that needs work); but it is just silly and uninformative to pretend that they don't exist. Tegwarrior 05:34, 22 September 2007 (UTC) reply
  • There was much discussion about this on the talk page. I, as I'm sure many, have opinions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but I don't refute the arguments of others on account of whether they agree with my views or now. Tegwarrior, on the other hand, has reduced responses to his requests to include "ethnic cleansing" (and other disputed language) in the article as certain editors, including myself, being "blinded by pro-Israeli bias". You can read talk page yourself, but I'm not going to give into Tegwarrior's bullying. -- tariqabjotu 12:50, 22 September 2007 (UTC) reply
    • "Bullying," Tariq??! I think I've made a lot of effort to address the concerns of people who disagree with my changes, but in response I mainly get a lot of uncommented reverts, including some in violation of the three revert rule. I'm sorry if you and okedem and Jossi and now Squash Racket feel like you're surrounded by me! I can't even get a POV flag kept on the page! Tegwarrior 16:32, 22 September 2007 (UTC) reply
      • Tegwarrior, you seem to misunderstand the way Wikipedia works. When you make a controversial change to a stable article, and it's disputed, you don't just re-insert it (in fact, you probably shouldn't even make such changes without discussion). The stable version remains (without POV tags), and we discuss the issue on the talk page. That's what we've been doing for a very long time, and the phrasing you now see is usually (especially in the case of the intro) a result of careful, months long deliberations, designed as a middle-of-the-road compromise between the engaged editors, in an attempt to reach NPOV. I can't say that attempt is always 100% successful, but it represents a lot of work, and is probably better than what any one person can reach, despite what they may think. Coming in and changing it to a version you think is better, and complaining when the consensual version is restored, is not the way it's done. okedem 16:40, 22 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Comment When I last time tried to use Britannica in an article, I got this answer: 'encyclopedias are not secondary but tertiary sources and as such may not be cited as a reference'. Britannica is cited in this article a few times. Is that OK or not? Squash Racket 08:03, 22 September 2007 (UTC) reply
  • I think I know what you're talking about. I thought that was the case as well, but I believe the secondary/tertiary source piece was deprecated during the Wikipedia:Attribution shakeup earlier this year. Regardless, the Britannica sources could probably be avoided (in fact, the three uses of the Encyclopedia are citing different parts of the same sentence). I still have to attend to the request farther up to add more to the Foreign relations section and I plan to get to that first, once I find the time. -- tariqabjotu 12:50, 22 September 2007 (UTC) reply
• Comment. I'm afraid that it is the case that Israel is the sort of article that the wiki format will never do a good job on. I had thought that maybe with some minor work, the article might at least be more neutral, but I now doubt very much that that can ever happen. Israel probably should never be a featured article. Tegwarrior 16:36, 22 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Oppose I've been watching the article's progress during this FA period so as to see if major gaps in coverage of important issues in the name of WP:NPOV have been addressed and filled in. They have not. Even simple suggestions made to link to articles that have more detail have not been implemented (See for example this archived talk section. The link to Martial law#Israel was never made.) I don't think an article can be featured when it fails to cover significant domestic legislation like martial law or the Defense (Emergency) Regulations or provide information or links to articles on significant populations among its citizenry like Internally Displaced Palestinians. I also don't think the wording is NPOV in many of the brief summaries that are in place. I've watched good-faith editors get slapped down trying to introduce balance and can offer that the article has enjoyed some stability largely because people get triple-teamed when they try to make changes that introduce nuance, subtlety or multiple points of view and lose the stomach for the battle. As a result, we are left with a robotic, and rather pedantic and misleading account of a country with an incredibly unique and fascinating history which does no one any justice, least of all our readers. I think it would be an incredible shame if this article was featured in its current form. It certainly would indicate how low Wikipedia's standards can fall. Superficiality is no substitute for substance. Tiamut 20:50, 22 September 2007 (UTC) reply

The Israel article is not expected to have all there is to know about Israel. That being said, I can't speak to the "major gaps in coverage" of which you speak. I have seen no indication of what you could have in mind, except for the items you mention in your comment here. But essentially, you're argument has whittled down to "the article is not talking about X, Y, and Z, so it's a bad article". Well, I have news for you: it's also not talking about A, B, and C. There is a significant amount of stuff that paints Palestinians in a positive light and Israelis in a negative light that is not included, but there is also a significant amount of information that paints Palestinians in a negative light and Israelis in a positive light that is not included. Sadly, we have some here, on both sides of the spectrum that are disoriented by tunnel vision and only see that their perspective is not adequately covered.

Your assertion saying, "I've watched good-faith editors get slapped down trying to introduce balance and can offer that the article has enjoyed some stability largely because people get triple-teamed when they try to make changes that introduce nuance, subtlety or multiple points of view and lose the stomach for the battle" is completely unfounded. As any outside observer ought to be able to tell, complaints from certain editors have resulted in extensive discussions on the talk page. However, while they start off being discussions regarding the merits of certain content, they have, at times, ended with the minority position making claims that the majority position is biased. People who resort to baseless attacks like those should be ignored. That's not to say every person complaining about point-of-view is making baseless attacks, but when they do, it hurts their position greatly.

As you obviously have not noticed, the article has taken into consideration the comments of quite a few people here. That some of yours have not been addressed based on their merit is not an indication of a poorly-written article. Unfortunately, some here have taken the fact that their items have not been addressed (or what you for some reason term "triple-teaming") to mean that some biased cabal is out to get them instead of the more probable explanation – that they are wrong. -- tariqabjotu 18:40, 24 September 2007 (UTC) reply

The points I've raised have very little to do with Palestinian actually. I've asked for coverage of Israels' domestic situation in the years following independece. Specifically, I've asked for there to be mention of and a link to Martial law#Israel which discusses how there was martial law in effect for Israel's Arab citizens from 1948 to 1966 and for their to be mention of and links to the Defense (Emergency) Regulations and Land and property laws in Israel. That you keep dismissing my specific suggestions with generalities about how this article is not about Palestinians shows how little you are paying attention to what is actually being said. These are domestic laws affecting citizens of Israel. How is this not relevant to an article on Israel? I've also asked that Internally Displaced Palestinians (i.e. Arab citizens of Israel who were made interal refugees as a result of wars) also be mentioned in the article. I've also pointed out that the article is very Ashkenazi-Jewish centered in its perspective and could use more on minority groups in Israel. If you want to keep pretending that my interest in these improvements comes from some kind of axe I like grinding with Israel, you can. But you'd miss the point and the opportunity to collaborate to actually improve an article that still falls far short of being a feature. Again, the superciality and evasion of the issues in the text leave it lacking in substance and complexity/nuance. Tiamut 21:13, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

The military administration - Adding that would entail adding the details of why it was enacted. It would take a lot of space, which we don't really have, the article being long as it is. I've already said if you could come up with an succinct NPOV phrasing, doing justice to both sides, I'd support it.

Internally Displaced Palestinians - Same problem (lots of Jews lost their homes too, by the way).

Defense (Emergency) Regulations and Land and property laws in Israel - not important enough.

Ashkenazi-Jewish - I've asked you what the basis for this claim was. It is Jewish-centered, as it should be, Jews being the majority, and Israel being a Jewish state, but perhaps too much - why don't you suggest something for the Culture section, for instance? But Ashkenazi-centered? How? okedem 22:24, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Break 2

• Indictment. I'm guessing that "indictment" is an unusual header for this sort of project page, but what I have to say here goes beyond commentary and into accusation. Normally, I would make such complaints on the article talk page, and indeed I have discussed a couple of these items there. However, a few editors there are, in my opinion, too pig-headed to take seriously any suggestion that there are serious bias issues with the article. So here, unless someone decides he can censor and obfuscate this page as well as the Israel article and its talk page, are some glaring bias issues with the article:

1. The introduction is almost eerily silent about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This complaint was raised but then summarily dismissed prior to my involvement in the matter on September 13: [3]. The intro mentions adjacent territories administered by the Palestinian National Authority, with a link for the PNA but no further explanation of what it is; without knowing the background already, I would be tempted to think this was an organization that managed mass transit or sewerage, which is what most of the "Authorities" in my part of the world do. Later, the bizarre comment, "... efforts are being made to reach a permanent accord with the Palestinians," is made. Now, hopefully to everyone reading this text, this does not seem like such a bizarre thing to appear in an article on Israel; the problem is, "the Palestinians" have not been mentioned heretofore in the article, nor has any matter over which there could be a need for a permanent accord between Israel and them been mentioned. Anyone who might get any real use out of this article - that is, anyone who doesn't already know probably more of Israel's facts and history than are presented in the article - will likely view this as a sort of contract violation by the article: you do not write of geography and foundation history of a country before glibly mentioning the ongoing, existential war any more than you put the renter's obligation to dispose of the body in the trunk at the end of a car rental agreement. I may speculate that the glossing over of "those whom we do not name if we can help it" follows informal Israeli government policy, but in any case the result is simply crap.

2. The "History" section of the article has several subsections, including "Independence" and "The first fifty years, 1950s–1990s." (Maybe the numbers, which at best really indicate the second through the fiftieth year rather than the first fifty years, should be eliminated, but never mind that.) The "Independence" section includes the passage, "During the course of the hostilities, 711,000 Arabs, according to UN estimates, fled from Israel. Arab persecution of Jewish communities precipitated a similar Jewish exodus from Arab lands." While I will comment further on these sentences later, for now I will concentrate on the second of them. A comment on the Jewish exodus from Arab lands, the earliest major portion of which began in May 1949, a year after independence, [4] simply does not belong in the "Independence" section. The exodus of Jews from Arab lands was quite simply a phenomenon of the 1950s and later more than of Israel's independence. [5] Iraqi Jews began migration in 1951, [6] Egypt's Jews mostly fled after the Sinai War in 1956, Algeria's Jews mostly fled after Algerian independence in 1961 (ditto Tunisian Jews), etc. There are exceptions, but they are just that: exceptions. So, big deal, right? The sentence could be in a better place; why not just move it? Well, because every time it has been moved it has quickly and summarily been moved right back to where it was, with "but this one goes up to eleven"-style arguments (if any are even given) for why that is where it belongs. It might seem odd and a bit stupid, without just a little piece of outside information: there is another informal Zionist policy that whenever the Palestinian refugees are mentioned, the Jewish refugees from Arab lands should also be mentioned, with the implicit (and sometimes explicit) suggestion that these two atrocities cancel each other out. [7], [8], [9] Now, with just a little thought, this is a stupid position: that Jones steals Smith's car is not made okay by Jones giving the car to Black, who has had his car stolen by Brown. But I suppose it makes even less sense if Black hadn't even lost his car at the time that Jones steals Smith's car, so I may speculate that this marginal little bit of "less stupidness" is intended to be preserved by pretending that the exodus of Jews from Arab lands was an important matter in Israel's independence.

3. Back to the two sentences, "During the course of the hostilities, 711,000 Arabs, according to UN estimates, fled from Israel. Arab persecution of Jewish communities precipitated a similar Jewish exodus from Arab lands." Even while these are, whether coincidentally or by design, describing somewhat parallel events, the sentences are not particularly parallel: the Arabs simply "fled," but "Arab persecution ... precipitated" the Jewish exodus. Part of this complaint was raised but then summarily dismissed prior to my involvement in the matter on September 10: [10]. Efforts at both adding a cause for the Arab "flight" and for not stating as fact a single and disputed cause for the exodus of Arab Jews have been met with strong recalcitrance at the article, and no real change has resulted. Now, it is bad enough that the appearance is given that these excitable Arabs just left for no apparent reason while it was only Arab wickedness that forced the Jews to leave, but it is really worse than that: the causes of the flight of the Palestinians, which are not mentioned in the passage (and probably only barely if at all in the entire article) are directly part of the history of Israel (remember Israel? there's an article about Israel ...), while the causes of the flight of the Arab Jews are at most indirectly part of the history of Israel. And yet, which gets into the article?

4. The "first fifty years" subsection mentions nothing of the Palestinians, in spite that Israel was in a constant state of international condemnation over them after its independence, until (following a pattern similar to the introduction) a paragraph that begins, "In the early 1970s, Palestinian groups launched a wave of attacks against Israeli targets around the world, including a massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Summer Olympics." Huh! Again those excitable Palestinians going all crazy for no reason! A similar complaint was raised but then summarily dismissed prior to my involvement in the matter on September 9: [11]. It's a bit like the bible, explaining how the Canaanites are all going to be destroyed and then they keep showing up through the next seven books, and, as with the introduction, this effort at (I speculate) avoiding any mention of any wrongs that may have been committed against the Palestinians by the Israelis, but capturing a full sense of the opposite, results in a broken, inconsistent narrative: crap.

5. There is no mention in the article of the matter of land confiscations by Israel; approximately 18% of the territory of Israel was confiscated by the government through means of dubious legality, and this is a matter over which Israel has faced constant criticism and demands that at least compensation should be paid. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tegwarrior ( talk • contribs) 13:23, 27 September 2007 (UTC) reply

What land are you referring to? -- tariqabjotu 15:22, 27 September 2007 (UTC) reply

The 18% of the land that became Israel that was confiscated from private Arab owners after the 1948 War. [12] Tegwarrior 17:30, 27 September 2007 (UTC) reply

This results from the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and the Palestinian exodus, which are both mentioned already. You forgot to mention that the land Israel "confiscated" came from people who left during the events I just noted. -- tariqabjotu 18:51, 27 September 2007 (UTC) reply

See, Tariq, while you apparently do not even recognize it, your understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is informed almost exclusively by the Israeli position. You really are not qualified to impose neutrality on the article. Tegwarrior 20:48, 27 September 2007 (UTC) reply

No... I'm merely looking at the source you presented me. -- tariqabjotu 22:12, 27 September 2007 (UTC) reply

And yet, you see some significance in the fact that they "left." I left my home this morning; would that make some sort of difference, morally or legally, if I found myself barred from my own house when I returned? Why do you focus on the word? Tegwarrior 22:58, 27 September 2007 (UTC) reply

You seem determined to find bias in everything I say; I'm not falling for it. I'm merely pointing out what the source said and what you neglected to mention. You leaving your house to go to work or on vacation or something similar is not at all like leaving or fleeing in the midst of a war (please don't be silly). I can tell you for sure that if I see what I believe is an imminent threat from another country, I'm not going to first make sure I sell my home to the enemy government; I'm going to get the hell out of there and move on. As I mentioned previously, this exodus (and the ceasefire with the Green Line) is already mentioned. I see no reason to rub it in with "yeah, they took the land vacated during the war". Uh... yeah... thanks Captain Obvious; that goes without saying... hence, the Green Line. -- tariqabjotu 17:52, 28 September 2007 (UTC) reply

You seem determined not to find bias in anything you say; maybe you've fallen for something. What is not obvious is how much land was taken; if, in the US, area equal in size to Washington State, Oregon, California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Nevada combined had been confiscated from private owners, would that not merit some prominent mention in an article about the US? If 100,000,000 Americans were displaced today by some conflict, do you not think that that would be a very significant thing to mention about the US even a hundred years from now? These are, if my back-of-the-envelope calculations are correct (and I'm pretty sure they're not too far off), representative of the scale of the issues of the Palestinians at the time of the founding of Israel. And now you'll probably make some clever comment to rationalize your position that they still should not be mentioned in the introduction, nor emphasized anywhere in the article. Knock yourself out. Tegwarrior 13:31, 29 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I may add more to this later, but hopefully this is sufficient to demonstrate that the article is very badly broken, it resists improvement of even its most glaring bias problems, and it has no business at this point in time becoming a featured article. So ... J'accuse!

Tegwarrior 05:34, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Let me just give a few brief responses. I can't understand what your point is in your first paragraph, so I'm going to have to skip over it. Each of your points, however, appears to be supplemented by a claim that other's points are "summarily dismissed". No one has dismissed anything. People may have disagreed with proposals for changing such things, but they were never summarily dismissed. This follows the string of seeing only what you want to see. I can't speak for others, but the only time I will slam the door in someone's face is when they are being blatantly troll-like, incivil, and unproductive.

In #2, you appear to complain about the presentation of the exoduses, but then proceed to explain why it's not necessary to rearrange the sentences. No one is saying that one exodus justifies the other. However, readers are free to come to their own conclusions. I'm sure that many, like yourself, will say that two wrongs don't make a right and just take the items at face value – that one exodus occurred first and another occurred in part due to persecution that arose due to the establishment of Israel. On the other hand, others will look at the pair of sentences and say that two wrongs do make a right. This is still left up to reader. Just as you have prevented viewing one tragedy as justifying the other, others will be able to make their own conscious decisions based on information available.

Your point in #3 was discussed at great length on the talk page, where you failed to present a quality source to back up your alternative explanation. Meanwhile, you advocated terming the idea that Jews were persecuted in Arab lands as just a "claim". It does not matter if you think you know better; Wikipedia relies on verifiability, based on reliable sources. Regardless, Okedem ( talk · contribs) even proposed a rewrite of the sentence, which you didn't seem to care much about.

In #4, the link is not related to what you are talking about. You are suggesting that the article is mentioning Palestinian attacks too often, while Tiamut (in the link) is advocating that we mention the institution of martial law. Perhaps the mentions of Palestinian attacks could be cut down or balanced out with something else. Okedem ( talk · contribs) noted (in Talk:Israel/Archive_22#Controversy) that he thought it might be a good idea to talk about the territories (although not necessarily the whole conflict); I'm curious if he's going to continue to act on that. But you can't come in guns-ablazing about that; you have not brought this up before. -- tariqabjotu 06:31, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I'll just address one clear misstatement of fact: I did not advocate "terming the idea that Jews were persecuted in Arab lands as just a 'claim'." I advocated making clear that it was not an undisputed fact that Arab persecution precipitated the exodus of Jews from Arab lands, which is how it is presented in the article. If you want to discuss anything further with me, restore the POV tag that I and now Tiamut have been unsuccessfully trying to put on the article until complaints are actually read for comprehension and addressed. Tegwarrior 13:52, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

If you think a discussion can only take place when a POV tag is in place, you are sorely mistaken, and understand nothing of Wikipedia. okedem 14:49, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I think that if I cannot even get it recognized that there is an ongoing dispute about bias in the article, there is little reason for me to imagine that I can get any of the matters of bias that I see addressed. I won't waste my time trying to polish a turd. Tegwarrior 15:12, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

There is always a dispute in some matter in such controversial topics. That doesn't mean we need tags. There have been plenty of discussions in the talk page, and they didn't need any tags. When you insist on tagging things, I understand your interest is probably more in causing a riot, than fixing any actual issues.

If dealing with this article is a waste of time for you, please - leave. okedem 15:25, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Thanks for your thoughts. You might want to think about making more comments on the talk pages of articles before you revert people's changes, just as a matter of simple civility and of assuming good faith. Tegwarrior 15:33, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

In reply to TegWarrior's comments about the lead section - it is 2140 characters as I write this, of which 714 characters - 33.3% (In 1947 ... accord with the Palestinians.) are about the Arab-Israeli conflict. So TegWarrior's claim that it doesn't adaquently cover this are without merit. Raul654 14:19, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Well, first of all, my claim was that the introduction does not adequately cover the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which is related to but distinctly not the same as the Arab-Israeli conflict, mostly because the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is between a state and a mostly unorganized indigenous population from the territory controlled by that state while the Arab-Israeli conflict is mostly between states. The conflict between the state of Israel and the mostly unorganized indigenous population has been an ongoing matter with repercussions basically every day in Israel and the Occupied Territories, repercussions that have profoundly affected the history of Israel. The inter-state conflict gets played out mostly through diplomatic scheming and the occasional border dispute and infrequent war, and probably has had a much less pronounced effect on Israel. Secondly, I question your method of deciding to count particular characters as being about even the Arab-Israeli conflict: that "the United Nations approved the partition of the Mandate of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and one Arab" is about the Arab-Israeli conflict is a bit of a stretch - how does this, on its face, indicate a cause for conflict? Are you certain, Raul654, that you are knowledgeable enough about Israel to dismiss with any authority my comments as being "without merit?" Tegwarrior 15:09, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

The introduction spends a third of its length covering the larger Arab-Israeli conflict, which includes the Palastinians. Claiming it doesn't adaquently address the Palastinians (who, in point of fact, played a more-or-less negligible role in the conflict prior to the Yom Kippur War) is hair splitting. As far as the UN partition - yes, I am counting that sentence as being part of the Arab-Israeli conflict, because it's impossible to talk about the causes of the Arab-Israeli conflict without mentioning it. Raul654 19:52, 27 September 2007 (UTC) reply

So the accusations of ethnic cleansings, the property confiscations, these things that are particular to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as opposed to the Arab-Israeli conflict, and that are not mentioned at all in the introduction nor much at all in the entire article, these things that are central to the founding of Israel as a Jewish State and that have been the subject of dozens of international condemnations are not worth a separate mention in the introduction? It is likely that without the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and the confiscation of their property by Israel, Israel would have been unable to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants that it welcomed in the couple of years after the 1948 War; how do these events play only a "negligible role in the conflict?" Tegwarrior 20:48, 27 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Comment—Improving. There are still little things to clear up, such as the following, which are only random samples: "comprised primarily of Zionist volunteers" is wrong ("composed"); no hyphen after "-ly". "administered by the UN to avoid conflict over its status"—over the status of the UN? Apparently Americans don't like superscript 2 on their units (it's inconsistently applied here). "4,040-mi."—MOS says no dots for abbreviations, nor hyphens. "40 km (25 mi) by 8 km (5 mi)" --> "40 × 8 km (25 × 5 mi)"? "Membership in the Knesset"—wrong preposition. "and the two countries have had a long history of economic and military cooperation despite Arab pressure. [126]" Errant space and vague statement: pressure on whom? For what?

And more. Tony (talk) 04:18, 28 September 2007 (UTC) reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

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

The article was promoted 17:40, 30 September 2007.

Rachel Carson

previous FAC

This article has been improved considerably since its first ill-fated FAC a few months ago. The lack of illustrations is regrettable, but all the images of Carson I know of except the government photo at the top are unfree.-- ragesoss 00:34, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Support nowObject the big quote in the lead is distracting and as the lead is a summary the quote is not a summary, the ref format-especially in web refs is inconsistent (ex; retrieval dates are there/not there, are linked, not linked, etc), section titles start with The/A, and section titles unnecessarily have her name in it. Overall, while Silent Spring is indeed her biggest work, it seems rather little attention is paid to the rest of her life. Rlevse 02:19, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply
  • Regarding the quote in the lead, I'll remove it if most others agree, but I, along with the other main contributors to the article and a handful of others who've commented, think it's appropriate. Obviously, quotes in leads are rare, but that doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't be done.
  • Regarding the balance between Silent Spring and the rest: it roughly parallels the balance of coverage in the main scholarly biography (Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature), shifted somewhat because of the large amount of other writing specifically about Silent Spring. If you think a particular aspect of pre-Silent Spring work needs to be fleshed out, I can try to address that, but overall I've tried to make the text reflect the sources.
  • I've fixed the reference formatting and access dates.
  • I removed the one "The" in a section title, and trimmed "Writings by Rachel Carson" to "Writings by Carson". The other uses of the name in section titles are essential parts of the titles: "Rachel Carson Papers" (the title of her manuscript collection at the archive) and "Rachel Carson Centennial" (the title of the celebration).-- ragesoss 03:33, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply

What makes "Rachel Carson Papers" and "Rachel Carson Centennial" look like you simply made the terms up is that they are upper cased and you don't use the terms in their sections. It's akin to having a section on Silent Spring and never using that name in the section, just alluding to it. Standard practice is to wikilink full dates, including refs, as in May 11, 2007. I'll look over the rest later. I still think the quote needs to go, but we'll wait on that one.

Standard practice on linking access dates is just silly. The date a website was accessed has nothing to do with the content of the article. I changed the section titles to "Collected papers and posthumous publications" and "Centennial events".-- ragesoss 13:03, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Interesting comment on standard practice and wiki policy from an admin. See Wikipedia:Citing_sources#Footnotes, esp the 3 lines near the end beginning "*Plunkett, John..." Rlevse 13:56, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Let's not confuse standard practice with policy. The citation guideline doesn't even mention anything explicitly about linking access dates, it's just in the example. That aspect seems to me like simply a case of overzealously applying the guideline on linking full dates (which is a good thing within an article's prose) rather than a fully-thought-out recommendation for citations. I've brought this up at the guideline page. If someone can explain to me, here or there, why linking access dates is a good thing, then I'll change it. In any case, we use a wide variety of citation formats; it's consistent within the article, which is the main thing. (And being admin is no guarantee of knowing, much less agreeing with, every aspect of the style guidelines. Many admins know little of the evolving style guidelines, since they don't do much writing.)-- ragesoss 14:14, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Leaning towards support This article is an enjoyable introduction to Carson and Silent Spring. I learned quite a bit from reading it. However, I feel some slight reorganization and rewording are needed at points:

• I am uncomfortable with the quotation in the lead as well. None of the biographies of major or minor writers that I have seen so far on wikipedia use quotations in this fashion. Because there is no analysis of the quotation, it is unclear what the reader is supposed to glean from the quotation. Is this quotation frequently cited, for example? In other words, I think the reader needs to be given a reason to pay attention to this quotation. (See A Vindication of the Rights of Men for one way to do this.)

• The quote is quoted frequently, but I don't know of any particular significance except as a clear statement of Carson's own conservation ethic. I see it basically as a summary of Carson's worldview (which is why I think it's appropriate for the lead). Regarding JayHenry's related comment below: it was published in her lifetime (perhaps more than once in similar form, I'm not sure), just not in her books. It was republished in the source that was given in the footnote (Lost Woods: The Discovered Writings of Rachel Carson). It has been used frequently by the environmental movement, from well before its recent republication, both as a tribute to Carson and a clear statement of the sentiments of other environmentalists. But I don't know how to convey that concisely (and most of the above explanation is technically original research, anyhow; I don't know of any explicit analysis of the quote). So since it doesn't stand on its own (which I and some others I've asked think it does, but you three—Rlevse, Awadewit and JayHenry—along with the Good Article reviewer think it doesn't) I've removed it.-- ragesoss 04:15, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• If it's used that frequently, certain someone reputable has said "this quotation encapsulates Carson's worldview" or somesuch? That way the quote could be included with that explanation, which I would fully endorse. Awadewit | talk 04:41, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• The lead feels a little repetitive at the moment. The emphasis on SS in the first and third paragraphs was what led to this impression, I think.

• I rearranged it so that Silent Spring isn't mentioned until the third paragraph. Normally I would expect it to appear in the first sentence, but it's a pretty concise lead so I think it works out.-- ragesoss 02:28, 27 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• was an American marine biologist and nature writer whose work is often credited with having launched the global environmental movement. - This sentence implies that her work as both a marine biologist and as a nature writer helped launch the environmental movement. I don't think that is quite correct, is it? Perhaps "whose books are often credited.."? Awadewit | talk 05:07, 27 September 2007 (UTC) reply
• What do you think about adding a few phrases describing her other books in the second paragraph? Awadewit | talk 05:07, 27 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• I added a bit, and clarified the first sentence.-- ragesoss 17:12, 28 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• She especially enjoyed the St. Nicholas Magazine (which carried her first published stories), the work of Beatrix Potter, and the novels of Gene Stratton Porter, and in her teen years, Herman Melville, Joseph Conrad and Robert Louis Stevenson. - Do any of your sources say why she enjoyed these authors in particular? I see a thread of authors interested in nature, which would of course be relevant for her later writings.

• Yes, Lear talks about the connections: basically everything she liked had to do with the natural world, and by her teens years, particularly "the ocean and seafaring". I've made the connection explicit now.-- ragesoss 05:17, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• At the urging of her undergraduate biology mentor Mary Scott Skinker, she settled for a temporary position with the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries writing radio copy for a series of educational broadcasts entitled "Romance Under the Waters". Based on the research for the series, she also began submitting articles to newspapers and magazines. - Could you say anything more about these radio shows and articles? It is not entirely clear what they were about.

• I added a bit more about these projects.-- ragesoss 05:17, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Carson's supervisor, pleased with the success of the radio programs, asked her to produce an introductory brochure on fisheries bureau - This sentence needs to be fixed, but I wasn't sure what it was supposed to say.

• "...the fisheries bureau" was what it was supposed to say, but I've clarified it a bit further.-- ragesoss 05:17, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• I feel like the last two paragraphs of "Early career and publications" need to be reworked; they are rather stubby and don't flow. The last sentence of the paragraph third from the end is "Instead, her interests were turning to conservation" so the reader expects the next paragraph to be about conservation. However, it begins "Family tragedy struck a third time.."

• How is it now?-- ragesoss 04:57, 26 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Better. Awadewit | talk 05:07, 27 September 2007 (UTC) reply
• She was extremely with the final version of the script by writer, director and producer Irwin Allen; she found it untrue to the atmosphere of the booank and scientifically embarrassing, describing it as "a cross between a believe-it-or-not and a breezy travelogue." - This sentence needs to be fixed and the quote needs a citation. Awadewit | talk 05:07, 27 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Done.-- ragesoss 17:12, 28 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• The information on Carson's relationship with Freeman belongs in the "Life and work" section somewhere; it is not really part of her "Legacy" (current location).

• I had it within "Life and work" originally, as the final subsection, but it's as much or more about interpretations of the relationship (i.e., her legacy) as about the relationship itself, and everything else within "Life and work" is chronological while that section doesn't really work chronologically. I'll move it back to the end of Life and work; let me know if you can think of anything better.-- ragesoss 05:17, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• I think it works well where you have placed it. Awadewit | talk 05:07, 27 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Carson and Freeman knew that their letters could be interpreted as such, though they would not have described it that way - Pronouns need to be clarified.
• Shortly before Carson's death, they destroyed hundreds of letters. - Not terribly clear in context who "they" is. Awadewit | talk 05:07, 27 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Done.-- ragesoss 17:12, 28 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• "Posthumous honors" feels like a list - perhaps best to make it one?

• I've tried to make this feel less like a list, though I'm not sure how well it works. You really think a list would be better? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ragesoss ( talk • contribs) 01:33, 27 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Much better - no need for the list now! Awadewit | talk 05:07, 27 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• "Posthumous criticism" should be worked into the "Legacy" section where topically appropriate. "Criticism" sections in general do not help readers easily see all sides of the issue as they separate the sides. See also WP:NPOV#Article structure.

• I moved that section wholesale to immediate follow the environmentalism section (since it basically picks up from there) and retitled it "Reactions to environmentalism and DDT restrictions".

• I would urge you to include the criticisms when the relevant topics are discussed or to structure the "Reactions" section chronologically, charting the legacy of the book more clearly. Right now, the section feels a bit like a list of reactions. X group says A, Y says B, and Z says C; the section doesn't have any real narrative or analysis for the reader to grab hold of.

• Why are all of these differing opinions included? Why, for example, is Human Events, used as the representative example for the conservative viewpoint in the opening paragraph?
• I'm also not sure how the third paragraph is a "furthermore" - it seems like part of it might be a contrast to the previous paragraph.
• "Recently" is not that precise - does it mean the 1990s? the oughts?
• You cite Monica Moore from PANNA, but that is an organization dedicated to fighting pesticide use - does she have any other credentials?
• Perhaps you could find the original for the Bate quote? Seeing it out of context like this is not very enlightening. Awadewit | talk 05:07, 27 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• This section is tough to deal with in terms of balancing topicality with long-term significance (and I mostly rearranged what had already been worked out before I started in on this article, since much of it is too recent to be discussed at length in the books I used for the rest). In terms of chronology, this does pick up where the previous section leaves off; it's about the wave of anti-environmentalism that began in the 1980s and stretches tot the present, and it basically consists of discourse about Carson's more direct legacy (environmentalism and the EPA) in the 1960s and 1970s—the legacy of Carson's legacy, if you will. On the specifics: I tried to make the whole section into a better narrative, and fixed the specific style issues you point out. I also removed the Monica Moore paragraph, as I don't really a good answer to why that is significant and it somewhat redundant because of the initial framing in terms of attacks on Carson as a means to broader anti-environmentalism goals. I don't have a great explanation for why the specific opinions are included, except that it fleshes out what would otherwise be weasely generalities, and that's what the previous rounds of intense editing (before I got involved) had come up with.-- ragesoss 05:26, 29 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• This version is an improvement. Awadewit | talk 07:48, 29 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Could the "References" use a more standard style such as Chicago or MLA? They are hard to read right now.

• Better?-- ragesoss 01:13, 27 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Except the Lear book lists two publishers and dates - list the one used for the page numbers in the article - it's easier for the reader! Awadewit | talk 05:07, 27 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Done.-- ragesoss 17:12, 28 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I have placed my minor comments regarding prose on the article's talk page as they do not affect my support for the article. Nice work. Awadewit | talk 04:35, 24 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Much closer to support. You might have someone read over the article - I keep seeing little typos as I read. Or read it aloud - that is the easiest way to catch the kinds of typos I am seeing: extra words, dropped words, extraneous letters, missing possessives, etc. Awadewit | talk 05:07, 27 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Just waiting on the small improvements to the "Posthumous criticism" section before I fully support. Awadewit | talk 21:32, 28 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Support - a pleasure, as always, to support good work. Awadewit | talk 07:48, 29 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Support my little concerns were addressed. I gave it a careful read through and made some minor changes. Some of it was nitpicky stuff and feel free to revert if I got anything wrong. -- JayHenry 15:35, 27 September 2007 (UTC) reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

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

The article was promoted 17:40, 30 September 2007.

Dartmouth College

• Previous FAC

A renomination. The FAC listed above was, for some reason, closed after only two comments. The only unaddressed suggestion was citing the sections more thoroughly, which I have done. I've also expanded the "Campus" section and improved the writing. I definitely think this is a great article, and deserves to be promoted.

However, I'm sure there is room for improvement, so feel free to suggest things. A note to admins -- please don't close this discussion prematurely, as was done last time. I intend to address all objections until it is promotion-worthy. Kane5187 00:11, 17 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Comment Though s/he didn't list them here, User:SandyGeorgia brought up a number of style issues through edit summaries, including WP:MOSBOLD, WP:ITALICS, WP:HYPHEN, a danging <ref> tag, {{cite}} tags lacking "publisher" fields, and style in section headings. I've addressed them all. Regarding the reliability of Jonathan Good's pamphlet as a source, I submit that as a professor of history who has written professionally on this very subject (see the other cited pieces from the Dartmouth College Library Bulletin), a pamphlet by him (which one can clearly see from the scans was published and distributed) can be considered reliable. If anyone has objections to this, let's discuss it. Kane5187 02:22, 17 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Goodness, I didn't even raise objections; that'll teach me to just edit. Anyway, the issue about Jonathan Good was that there were two different last names I didn't understand. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 02:41, 17 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• No, I know what you mean, but I figured you had gotten to the page through this FAC, so I kind of interpreted them as necessary steps for the FAC. Sorry -- I didn't mean to put words in your mouth. Kane5187 02:43, 17 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Well, I didn't want to register a comment here and then have to followup when the fixes were easy; it looks good, and I certainly like the new TOC better. Does Core Values need to be capitalized per WP:MSH (proper noun)? SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 02:48, 17 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• I initially thought Dartmouth capitalizes the term, but it turns out they don't: [13]. I'll change it in the article. Kane5187 03:28, 17 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Support This is a fantastic improvement to a GA-class article. All the gaps have been tightened and it's been reinforced with a load of new sources. I had a qualm before about the Athletics section, but I see it has been addressed. I've made many contributions to this article, but nowhere near the number Kane5187 has made. In my opinion, it qualifies for FA status; nice job. - DMCer 04:09, 17 September 2007 (UTC) reply
• Oppose - a lot of work to be done. Here is a non-exhaustive list of issues:

• 1.) Infobox - Campus, it states: "Rural town, 269 acres (1.1 km²) — almost 50,000 acres (200 km²) total." What does this mean? As I reader, I shouldn't have to decipher a meaning. Is the campus 269 acres in Hanover, but 50,000 acres somewhere else?

• Addressed: [14]. Kane5187 10:41, 18 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• 2.) Infobox - NCAA Division I-AA? I-AA doesn't exist anymore - it's the FCS or Football Championship Series. I shouldn't be catching things like this at this stage.

• Addressed by DMCer: [15]. Kane5187 03:04, 20 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• 3.) Lead - If you had only 7 sentences to describe the most important things about Dartmouth, would one of them include a quote of what Booz Allen Hamilton thinks of Dartmouth? If you answer "yes" to this, clearly the focus of the article is out of whack. Even if you do believe this (which would be kinda crazy, in my opinion), the lead is supposed to summarize the article (i.e. eveything in the lead should be included somewhere else in the article). The lead is not supposed to add any new information.

• Comment I think that is an important lead-in to the history section. It puts Dartmouth's past in perspective and that's part of how the college defines itself today.- DMCer 06:44, 18 September 2007 (UTC) reply
• Comment: I agree with DMCer -- it's a good, general setup that establishes both Dartmouth's importance as a whole and the tone of its history. Its inclusion where it is may not follow the letter of the law, but I believe that in this context it is best for the article. Kane5187 13:28, 19 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Comment (something else occurred to me) -- also, the thrust of that sentence is the challenges in Dartmouth's history and the devotion of the alumni, which are discussed later on. I think that introducing a particular fact that illustrates that point is/should be acceptable, even if the fact itself is not repeated later. Kane5187 15:42, 19 September 2007 (UTC) reply
• I still strongly disagree with you guys. You suggest it is an "important lead-in" and "general setup" - well, that is not the point of the lead. A lead is supposed to summarize an article. See WP:LEAD. At the very least, it should be moved to the history section if want want to mention Booz Allen that badly. - Bluedog423 ^Talk 00:10, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Reply: It might fit better under "Academic reputation." I think I'll move it there. Kane5187 10:21, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Reply: I still think that being named among the "world's ten most enduring institutions" is notable enough to be in the introduction. Other FA university articles have the US News ranking numbers in their intros and that's only a US POV. I think many other sections also speak to Dartmouth's adherence to its founding principles, so I view that sentence as a helpful summation.- DMCer 23:41, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• I didn't realize until looking at the source, that this is a list for institutions in general, and not just academic institutions. Being one of only two academic institutions in the list, is, indeed, more notable. - Bluedog423 ^Talk 14:37, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• 4.) Lead is too short for an article of this length and the focus is odd. There are 7 content oriented sections. Only three (history, academics, alumni) are mentioned in the lead.
• 5.) History - has only one sub-section. What are you dividing if there's only one sub-section? Either should include 2 or more, or none.

• Addressed: [16]. Kane5187 17:14, 19 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• 6.) History - lists are bad. Convert list of presidents to prose or eliminate all together.

• Addressed: [17]. Kane5187 17:14, 19 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• 7.) Academics - Avoid academic boosterism. Phrases like "[it] is one of the most selective educational institutions in the world" tells us absolutely nothing. You could say, "Princeton Review ranked Dartmouth as the Xth most selective school in the nation in 2007" or "Darthmouth's 15.3% acceptance rate was the Xth lowest in the country." Stick to facts and let people interpret it themselves.

• Addressed: [18] [19]. Kane5187 12:23, 19 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Much better. However, I still think the second sentence in the Academic reputation section contributes next to nothing - it's just somebody's opinion and 11th is pretty damn good anyways. I'd eliminate the Academic reputation sub-heading and just move the two remaining sentences to the intro portion of Academics. - Bluedog423 ^Talk 00:10, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Addressed: [20]. Now that you mention it, you're absolutely right -- "Academic reputation" is a pretty unnecessary categorization. I've rolled it into "Academics" and rephrased the sentence in question. Kane5187 02:35, 22 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• 8.) Academics - give exact numbers. Don't give vague values when you should be able to get more precise figures. e.g. "little over 1,000 places" (I'm sure admissions says they target a certain small range), "within the low 700s," "about 90%."

• Reply: I've done this when possible, but all the vague numbers you cite are direct reflections of the sources: [21] [22] The SAT scores are given as the range of the median 50%. I removed "about" from 90%, but I gather from the site that it is not an exact 90.00% we're talking about. As for the class size, it varies every year due to the yield on the ~2,000 accepted students, anywhere from 1,050 - 1,100; there is no hard-and-fast slot count, so it's impossible to be more precise than it is already. Kane5187 12:23, 19 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• 9.) Don't start sentences with numbers (e.g. "30%" should be "Thirty percent"). Follow other standard writing rules.

• Addressed: [23]. Kane5187 13:19, 19 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• 10.) Errant commas - "30% of the members of the Class of 2011 graduated as valedictorian, and 10% as salutatorian." Why a comma? This suggests the entire article needs to by copyedited.

• Addressed: [24]. After rewriting the necessary sections (per your suggestions), I'll follow through with an intensive copyedit of the entire article. (I did so before nominating it, too, but I guess a few things slipped by). Kane5187 13:18, 19 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• 11.) Other incorrect punctuation - "Integral to the undergraduate college are three graduate schools, Dartmouth Medical School..." Comma the proper punctuation mark? Again, suggests this entire article needs to by copyedited.

• Addressed: [25]. Kane5187 13:18, 19 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• 12.) More grammar problems - You need to take a close look at every sentence before nominating. "In 2007, Dartmouth was ranked eleventh among undergraduate programs at national universities by U.S. News and World Report" At?

• Reply: Doesn't seem like a grammatical problem to me. Yes, "undergraduate programs at national universities." They're "at" the university -- they're a type of college located at a larger institution. Kane5187 13:18, 19 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• I guess I misinterpreted "national universities" in the sentence. Sorry! I was thinking it should be "among undergraduate programs classified as national universities," but that doesn't make much sense in hindsight. My mistake. - Bluedog423 ^Talk 00:10, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• 13.) Image:Dartmouth College campus 2007-06-23 Sherman Fairchild Physical Sciences Center.JPG is not appearing on my monitor, for some reason after continually refreshing it. A problem with my computer? Probably. Maybe a problem with the size of my monitor. It's not large enough and the unnecessary quote box in the next sentence makes it so it doesn't appear? I could be wrong about this, though, as to the reason it isn't rendering properly. But the quote box is unnecessary.

• Reply: Regarding the image, see my response to #19 -- I think that's a Wikipedia issue. As for the quote box, why is it unnecessary? The sentence inside it is the mission statement, and since that's the title of the section, I would think it should be set off and given its own little part of the page. It seems like if it were to be embedded or something that both its impact would be lost and the flow would be disrupted. (How would one introduce that in prose? "Dartmouth's mission statment is:" ?). Kane5187 17:19, 19 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• That particular image is still is not appearing on my screen several days later. Is it on yours? I'm thinking it's more than a wikipedia server issue and might have something to do with the layout, but I'm not sure. Speaking of the layout, it'd be nice to rotate the placement of the images more often. Most are right-aligned. Regarding the quote box, I was just going off that I was expecting some amazing statement, and instead it's just a generic statement that every other university in the entire world also has something similar to, in my opinion. "Dartmouth College educates the most promising students and prepares them for a lifetime of learning and of responsible leadership, through a faculty dedicated to teaching and the creation of knowledge." Wow.....This doesn't set it apart from other universities. Why mention it? - Bluedog423 ^Talk 00:10, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• The images are working for me now. I don't think anyone changed the layout, but I might have missed it. Working for you? Kane5187 01:42, 22 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Yep, finally working for me now. Thanks. - Bluedog423 ^Talk 05:02, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• 14.) Mission statement and core values and Honor Code sections should be combined and shortened. Don't have bulleted lists! Is it really necessary to mention every single Dartmouth core value? Most schools have codes like this, so I don't find it particularly interesting.

• Reply: I'm sure you know as well as I do that whether something is "interesting" has no bearing on its inclusion on Wikipedia. We're talking about the guiding, fundamental principles of the institution at hand; how could this not be materially important to understanding the school? The fact that other schools also have mission statements and core values doesn't seem relevant to me. Other schools also have campuses and alumni and presidents, but we discuss them all anyway. Kane5187 12:29, 19 September 2007 (UTC) reply
• Reply: Also, the core values as an original document is a bulleted list ( [26]). It doesn't seem wise or helpful to convert it to prose. Kane5187 13:12, 19 September 2007 (UTC) reply
• Reply: I don't have a particularly strong opinion on this, but I lean towards its removal as well - not because it's "uninteresting", but because the article should be what's important to Dartmouth and about Dartmouth. Does the mission statement, and particularly the core values, actually affect Dartmouth? My response would be "no". It's true - every school has a mission statement and core values, and they all say pretty much the same things (so it's not a unique thing at Dartmouth). They're just part of the propaganda machine. Yes, propaganda can be important to report, but perhaps the question is whether that propaganda has actually affected anyone either outside of Dartmouth or anything major that Dartmouth has done (and wouldn't have been done without those guiding ideas). --_└ ^Smith120bh/ _TALK ^┐ 16:30, 20 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• I still think they should be shortened because, as Smith120bh states, these things are not unique to Dartmouth. But, I guess, people could have differing opinions on this matter. - Bluedog423 ^Talk 00:10, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• 15.) Board of Trustees - "Dartmouth is governed by a Board of Trustees. The board includes the College president" -> "Dartmouth is governed by a Board of Trustees that includes the..." Topic sentences like that don't give me confidence in the professional standard of the prose.

• Addressed: [27]. Kane5187 17:07, 19 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• 16.) Campus and landholdings - waaay too many short stubby sections. Do we really need an entire section about the Dickey Center for International Understanding? Scientific research facilities is only 3 sentences long.

• Addressed: [28]. You're right, this was sort of a mish-mash of only certain campus facilities (and the Dickey Center isn't even a physical building, it's an institution). I've revised this into a review of all of Dartmouth's physical spaces, which makes it both more comprehensive and more accurate. Kane5187 04:51, 20 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Much better, but, to be honest, still not my favorite section. I guess I am just not a fan of having 7 consecutive sections with one or two short paragraphs (except athletic facilities which has 3). But combining just to combine is not wise either...- Bluedog423 ^Talk 00:10, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• I can appreciate your concerns. Is it that the coverage is too thin, or is it the way it's divided? If you think it would help, I'm sure I can add a few sentences to each section and flesh them out a little more. Kane5187 01:41, 22 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• I wouldn't add unimportant sentences just for the sake of filling out sections. The sections should just be consolidated. In my opinion, the subsections under Academic facilities should be eliminated entirely. Just have 1 paragraph for each subsection, so 3 paragraphs total. A new paragraph serves as enough separation - the reader doesn't need a heading for each paragraph they are going to read. Topic sentences are sufficient. However, you may need to add some better transitional phrases, but this is not too difficult and would improve the organization of the article. Combine Housing facilities and Student areas and dining facilities too. Could rename to "Housing and student life facilities" or something like that. Also, I noticed that in housing facilities a sentence begins with "3,300 students." I said to correct this above. Please check throughout the article to see if everything has been addressed. To be perfectly honest, I haven't even read the vast majority of the sentences in the article. The majority of my comments are organizational items and noticed on a cursory look at the article. - Bluedog423 ^Talk 05:02, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Addressed: [29]. Good points. I also condensed some other sections in a similar manner. How is that looking? Kane5187 13:12, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Wow, the organization of this article looks 110% better than it did at the beginning of its FA candidacy. - Bluedog423 ^Talk 13:22, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• 17.) Athletic facilities - too many details and again a bulleted list! Convert to prose.

• Addressed: [30]. Kane5187 01:55, 20 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• 18.) Athletics - don't wikilink common words (e.g tennis). See Only make links that are relevant to the context. Nickname, symbol, and mascot needs more citations.

• Addressed: [31]. Kane5187 23:21, 19 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• 19.) Image:Dartmouth College campus 2007-06-23 Robinson Hall.JPG doesn't appear on my computer again. Now I'm thinking there's something wrong with my computer or the server or something. When I click the link it does open it up, though.

• Reply: Yeah, I think it's a server thing. Wikipedia was running a banner a few days ago about how some images aren't showing up. "Robinson Hall" has been spotty for me as well, as with "Flag icon of the United States." It's not particular to this article. Kane5187 12:32, 19 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• 20.) Traditions - bulleted list again.

• Addressed: [32]. Kane5187 03:00, 20 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• 21.) Alumni - This is nowhere near an FA-quality section. Short list of alumni. Please expand majorly. See current FAs for how to do it.

• Addressed: [33]. Kane5187 01:30, 20 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Great improvements! - Bluedog423 ^Talk 00:10, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• 22.) Seal - waaay too many details. Quotes? Unnecessary.

• Addressed: [34]. I've felt similarly for a long time -- this was merged in as the decision from an AfD of Dartmouth College Seal. I've deleted it entirely as not having any bearing on the subject -- preserved at User:Kane5187/Dartmouth College. Kane5187 16:58, 19 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Reply: I don't think it should be removed entirely. I agree, and have felt for a long time, that it should be cut down significantly, but I think it is important enough to have something about it in there. Also, perhaps a small section on this would be the place to mention the debate over the translation of "vox clamantis in deserto", and some things like that. Anyways, I think it's an important part of the Dartmouth propaganda, and does have a lot of history attached to it - certainly, it's at least as important as the mission statement and core values. --_└ ^Smith120bh/ _TALK ^┐ 16:30, 20 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Reply: Agreed; it had some important historical facts in it. I think parts of the seal section should be included, or perhaps summarize it and give the seal its own separate article (which might not be necessary, this one sure isn't [35]).- DMCer 23:25, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Reply: I still feel like it was given very undue weight. How about creating a section about the symbol, the seal, the mascot, the nickname, the alma mater? I can't think of a good title, but I think all those things are tied together by the same element -- official and unofficial representations of the College. Kane5187 10:20, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Reply: Dylan - yep, that's basically what I was trying to suggest. I wish there were something good we could do with all the information in that Dartmouth Seal section - it's really well-written, well-cited, and great research - but it is just too much detail to really do much with a lot of it. DMCer - the section was a result of AfD on the standalone article that it used to be - I don't think it can be made into its own article again. But yes, I think summarize it down, and make a section for perhaps "Insignia and other representations" or "Hallmarks of Dartmouth" or something like that. I can't think of a good title either... --_└ ^Smith120bh/ _TALK^┐ 22:08, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Reply: Here's a first draft: [36]. I basically just assembled it from other already-existing sections. Kane5187 02:35, 22 September 2007 (UTC) reply

This article is good, I'm not saying it's not, but it has a long way to go to be FA quality. You have to ask yourself, if I had only 2,000 words to describe everything there is to know about Dartmouth, what would I say? If something is slightly unnecessary, delete it. Too many details about random things. Organizational problems, in general. The TOC looks very messy and there are many short stubby sections, particularly under Campus and landholdings. This was a review without really reading the article and its prose. I'm sure there are many prose issues and other content issues. These problems are just noted from a cursory glance at the article. Good luck! - Bluedog423 ^Talk 02:17, 18 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Holy cow! That's a lot of work to be done. Thanks for the suggestions, I will begin addressing them. Kane5187 10:38, 18 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Addendum:

• 1.) History - "founded the nearby Noyes Academy 1835" - please copyedit the whole article

• Addressed: [37]. DMCer 01:39, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• 2.) In Popular Culture - "alma mater for a number of fictional characters, including [...] two leading characters of the 2007 film Superbad." Can you consider a school somebody's alma mater if they haven't even attended it yet? They're high school seniors in the movie. Minor quibble, but was just curious.

• Addressed: [38]. DMCer 07:20, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• 3.) It would be nice to create a Template: Dartmouth College for all the Dartmouth-associated articles.

• Addressed: Template:Dartmouth College. Kane5187 20:06, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• 4.) Dead links. Go through all the references and make sure they're all active links. 25 is a dead link and I have only clicked 3 of the links. - Bluedog423 ^Talk

• That's... gonna be a problem. The Dartmouth is a heavily-used source in this and other Dartmouth-related articles, but when they redid their website this year, they quit providing an archive beyond 2006. Wayback Machine doesn't have anything on it. ...what can be done about that? Kane5187 18:58, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Probably the only thing that can be done is just kill the links. It's great if we can find some replacement, still active online sources for some of the things, but those that we can't, then we can just cite them like books - there are physical archives in the library, and the article already cites some of the Dartmouth College history books that I'm sure aren't very available outside of the Dartmouth libraries. --_└ ^Smith120bh/ _TALK ^┐ 22:15, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Oh, good -- I was afraid they would somehow become inadmissible as references. Great. I did what you suggested ( [39]), maintaining the old URLs in the markup (invisible to the reader) on the off-chance that The Dartmouth puts them back online. Kane5187 02:57, 22 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Another thing to do that I've noticed -- the intro to "Student life" really ought to be a proper overview, rather than a a few random facts about rankings. Kane5187 01:47, 22 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Yep, Smith's suggested method is perfectly acceptable. Please still check all the links. - Bluedog423 ^Talk 05:02, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Addressed -- they're all good. Kane5187 20:06, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Support I've been watching and doing mostly organizational edits of all the Dartmouth College-related articles for a couple years now, and have seen this article improve dramatically to what I believe to be a first-rate article. Now that the suggestions by BlueDog423 have been [mostly] addressed, I see no more real specific things that need addressing. My biggest problem is more on the general level (and I know I'm being a bit of a hypocrite here by writing this here and not just editing the article myself - I apologize) - the comprehensiveness of the article. I think we need to take a step back from the article now, thinking about what is really important to Dartmouth and what is not. Especially, what things are not included in here that really should be (or are only briefly mentioned and should be elaborated)? A lot of information has been merged in to this article over time (especially from small AfD'ed articles), but not many major additions have been made focusing on this main Dartmouth College article itself. As an example of what I'm referring to as problematic -

The only reference to Dartmouth being a liberal arts college is in one sentence in the second intro paragraph. Why is this kind of thing not even mentioned in, say, the "Academics" section? The academics section seems disproportionately short and very not comprehensive to me - perhaps it should include some information on, for example, how many departments Dartmouth has, how many classes are offered, what specific departments may be known for major accomplishments, how much faculty publish and in what kinds of journals, etc. Also, the D-Plan - it's only mentioned briefly in the "History" section, and it's one of the defining things about Dartmouth's academic system! Surely it's more important than the Honor Principle and Mission Statement? --_└ ^Smith120bh/ _TALK ^┐ 05:24, 22 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Addendum One minor thing - since the list of presidents of Dartmouth were deleted from the article, I think we do still need some reference to them in there somehow. Ideally, that might be to a devoted "History of Dartmouth College" article (which I think would be valuable in the long-run, especially given the huge history of this place, but it's not holding back from any FA status), but it should be maybe a link to a list, or at least mentioning some of the more important ones in the main history prose. --_└ ^Smith120bh/ _TALK ^┐ 05:28, 22 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Reply I'm really glad you've brought this up, because I never would have noticed it (having my eyes so close to this article for so long now). We don't have anything on degrees granted, academic departments, requirements for graduation, popular majors, etc. -- really, the fundamentals of any college. I'm working on adding this stuff in now. Thanks for mentioning it!
• I've been thinking about History of Dartmouth College, too, and I'd like to see it emerge at some point -- the material is definitely there. As far as the presidents go, their names are noticably absent from the History section. The Office of the President website gives a good overview of what each president did during his time in office, so hopefully that can be used both to expand the History section and incorporate their names. Kane5187 05:46, 22 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Current tasks Just consolidating the remaining tasks so it's easier to follow:

• Revise lead, turn into a more even summary
• Deal with Honor Principle / Mission Statement sections as discussed above
• Template:Dartmouth College
• Verify that all external links are live -- they are, now. Kane5187 13:17, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply
• Incorporate presidents into History section
• Improve organization of Campus and landholdings section

Kane5187 05:49, 22 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Looks good to me. I'd add "improve organization of Campus and landholdings section." I'd also like someone who hasn't looked at the article so frequently (always good to have fresh eyes!) to perform a thorough copyedit, if possible. Rather than just tell you to find somebody else (which many people do), I'll try to do it (hopefully) tomorrow. If there are some issues I cannot address, I will post them here. - Bluedog423 ^Talk 05:08, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply
• Comment - More issues to resolve just from the lead and history section. I have copyedited the lead and (most of the) history section. Although I'd still like the lead to be expanded by a few setences - I just didn't want to be responsible for those chosen. I'll try to get to the rest of the article later today...But we'll see. I have made some comments within the article using <!-- --> so you can see those comments if you click edit, but I have also outlined them here:

• 1.) Seventh-wealthiest in terms of funds per student? Neither of the two references provided support this claim (or the ninth-oldest college claim, but I’ve heard that other places). According to a wikipedia article, List_of_U.S._colleges_and_universities_by_endowment#List_of_university_endowment_amount_per_student, Dartmouth is 15th in that category. Try to find a source for this. The Chronicle of Higher Education would be good ( http://chronicle.com/weekly/almanac/2007/nation/0103301.htm), but I don't personally have a subscription.

• Addressed (omitted): [40]. I don't know where the 7th figure came from, although someone possibly got it from here: [41], which states that Dartmouth's endowment is increasing at the seventh-highest rate. At any rate, it's probably best to remove this statement, cited or otherwise. The calculation depends entirely on who you include in the list; the Chronicle of Higher Education includes institutions and conservatories with relatively small endowments but student enrollment only in the hundreds, which spikes their calculation. Depending on criteria, Dartmouth could be anywhere from tenth to thirtieth, so why bother? Kane5187 18:43, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• 2.) So, did Eleazar Wheelock establish Dartmouth on his own (as stated in the lead) or with major help from John Wentworth (as stated in History)? Please be consistent.

• After reading the cited article, I have since discovered that Wentworth actually established the royal charter (not King George III). Wheelock approached him for it. So, what was written in the History section was factually inaccurate. I have majorly revamped the History section, which had many misleading statements and contained several factual errors (at least, errors according to the History lesson article you had cited).

• Reply I haven't extensively compared your revisions to the original version, but I think there's some level of nuance here in language that isn't necessarily misleading or factually inaccurate. Wheelock is considered the out-and-out "founder" of the College [42] (as originally stated in the lead), but I hardly think that precludes the participation of others in its establishment. The original ( [43]) never said he did it alone. The original version also stated that King George III "granted" the charter, which is indeed true, even though it was signed by Wentworth -- Wentworth executed the charter on the King's authority, as royal governor (and as was normal practice for the time). I'm pretty sure that in normal parlance, decisions made by or documents signed on the authority of a reigning monarch do not need to be specified as having been executed by an intermediary.
• Also, a couple of your revisions and rephrasings have led to factually incorrect statements. For example, I worded the sentence thusly: "During the 1990s, the College saw a major academic overhaul under President James O. Freedman and a controversial 1999 initiative to abolish single-sex Greek houses" because Freedman only presided over the academic overhaul, not the Greek initiative. Kane5187 19:01, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Oops, sorry about that. I wasn't aware that was the case, and I'm not immune to errors obviously. Please feel free to improve my prose in the history section as well and check for grammatical errors. - Bluedog423 ^Talk 21:22, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• No problem -- it's obviously something you wouldn't have known without checking the sources, and if it read that way to begin with, it should be rephrased anyway. Kane5187 22:47, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• 3.) If Nathaniel Whitaker and Samson Occom both raise funds for its establishment, why is Whitaker ommitted in the lead? Also, when doing quotes please use brackets if anything is changed, even capitalization (e.g. "[Y]outh of Indian").

• Reply: Occom is always portrayed as kind of the leader, in the things I've read (particularly [44]). Dartmouth.edu only has one passing mention of Whittaker, whereas Occom is noted numerous times ( [45] [46] [47] [48]). I don't have any articulated reasons why Occom was more important, other than the emphasis in the sources used. Kane5187 23:24, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• 4.) Why was Occom dejected and betrayed? Not explained at all...and I don't see it in the linked article.

• Addressed: [49]. I actually don't know, either -- I wasn't the one who composed any of that section, so I didn't know off-hand. As it turns out, Wheelock never really intended to Christianize anybody, and Occom was "dejected and betrayed" by the trajectory of the new school. Kane5187 22:47, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• 5.) "Dartmouth's governance structure and membership in the Board of Trustees has been the subject of significant controversy. " What is the controversy?

• Addressed: [50]. Is that clearer? I want to keep it succinct -- in the 250-year history of the College, this really doesn't merit more than a sentence, so I figure it's not necessary to explain the full history of the conflict. Kane5187 20:06, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Yep, much better. I agree it's not necessary to explain it in more than a sentence, but stating that is has been controversial without stating what that controversy is would be confusing to the reader. Anyways, thanks for the clarification. - Bluedog423 ^Talk 21:25, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply

- Bluedog423 ^Talk 17:31, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Some responses to your edits:

• According to WP:HYPHEN, the hyphen in things like "five-acre field" is correct as long as "acre" is spelled out.
• I'm pretty sure phrases like "Class of 2010" don't need capitalization. Could just be a style preference, but it strikes me personally as odd and out-of-place.
• I noticed you inserted some "&nbsp;"s in places that already had a keystroke space ( ) present. Is there some reason for that? Does it render differently on some systems? Because on mine, it would render the same. Just curious.

• Kane5187 23:09, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Oops -- I didn't realize you had already left me a message acknowledging those things. My bad. For the numbers, I'm fine with whatever you prefer. Kane5187 23:10, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• For the sports/clubs thing, that's a good point that 150 additional sports is unlikely. That count might include PE sports (spinning, aerobics, kickboxing, mountain biking), of which there really are a lot, and definitely includes club sports. So 35ish varsity sports plus maybe fifty of the each of the others, I could see it. The other thing is that student organizations come in and out of existence so frequently that the two counts were probably taken at different times. Both are strongly reliable (i.e. official) sources, but even despite that, would you recommend sticking to one number/calculation simply for clarity's sake? It wouldn't hurt the article to simply omit the one or the other. Kane5187 23:15, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Eh, doesn't really matter about the number that much. I'd just leave it how it is. I, too, didn't think "Class of 2010" etc. was capitalized, but I was just going off of the Dartmouth Admissions site statistics page ( http://www.dartmouth.edu/apply/generalinfo/quickfacts/quickfacts-admissions.html), which capitalized it. In regards to the rendering of having a space or a "&nbsp;", it usually wouldn't make a difference, but it depends on your monitor size. If the two words are at the very right end and a "&nbsp;" is used, the two words will appear on the left side on the next line. This is often used with measurements so as to not separate the number from the unit. However, most of the time, there's no difference just because of the low likelihood that it appears on the very edge. - Bluedog423 ^Talk 23:21, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• What do you think of the lead now? I've been working on it bit by bit, and I feel it's a bit more even and summary-like. The only thing it excludes in major body sections is "Insignia," because it seems hard to summarize that in a sentence or two (what can you say about the seal, motto, song, mascot, etc. in that short a section? That Dartmouth has them?). Kane5187 01:14, 24 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Definitely much better and more representative of the entire article. Good job! The article has improved greatly overall, and I'll withdraw my objection and perhaps even support it shortly. ;) I didn't look at the Insignia and other representations and Alumni sections closely, but they look fine to me. It might be nice to add a picture or two (free ones of course) of alumni. - Bluedog423 ^Talk 02:13, 24 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Great! I added two pictures [51]. Kane5187 13:26, 24 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Support - Ya, I think it's ready. - Bluedog423 ^Talk 22:09, 24 September 2007 (UTC) reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

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

The article was promoted 01:38, 29 September 2007.

Isle of Portland

Nomination restarted ( Old nom) Raul654 21:24, 30 August 2007 (UTC) reply

• Support A well written article with a fair amount of references and images. - Lemonflash _{(do something)} 23:04, 7 September 2007 (UTC) reply
• Support good article, worthy of FA status. DSachan 16:43, 24 September 2007 (UTC) reply
• Support -- Miwanya 19:58, 26 September 2007 (UTC) reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

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

The article was promoted 01:38, 29 September 2007.

Religious debates over the Harry Potter series

This article's last FA nom was something of a train wreck, but I can't think of any more ways to improve it. A subsequent peer review went nowhere, so I'm nominating it again, because even if it doesn't win I'll have some idea of where to go from here. Serendi^pod ous 10:00, 9 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I'm seeing a lot of little mistakes - two mispellings, an ambiguous they, two names should have been linked that weren't, the &^%#$ing Microsoft Word punctuation - ‘’“” instead of standard 8-bit ASCII ones. I debates over the Harry Potter series&diff=156675272&oldid=156639302 fixed them, but I'm sure there are more. Raul654 11:13, 9 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Comment The intro does not adequately capture the content of the article and needs to be rewritten.-- Nydas ^(Talk) 06:49, 15 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Could you be more specific? Serendi^pod ous 07:17, 15 September 2007 (UTC) reply

It's not got a worldwide point of view. There's a full paragraph about US schools and nothing about the rest of the world. The wicca thing doesn't warrant mentioning at all in the intro.-- Nydas ^(Talk) 08:28, 15 September 2007 (UTC) reply

OK, I've edited it. Serendi^pod ous 09:11, 15 September 2007 (UTC) reply

The US paragraph is still too long and detailed. The book challenges warrant no more than a sentence. Anyone reading just the intro would get the feeling that Harry Potter is some hot-button political issue in the US.-- Nydas ^(Talk) 10:47, 15 September 2007 (UTC) reply

It is. Most "moral panics" become hot-button political issues in the US, at least for a while. Regardless, reduced US to one sentence and combined it with following paragraph. Serendi^pod ous 10:52, 15 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Are presidential candidates taking sides on this issue?-- Nydas ^(Talk) 15:40, 20 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I don't think any of them would dare it. Wrad 15:56, 20 September 2007 (UTC) reply

plays harry potter card.html Obama said he liked em. And he got burned for it. Serendi^pod ous 16:04, 20 September 2007 (UTC) reply

He didn't get burned by anyone important, just a YouTuber dedicated to slagging him off.-- Nydas ^(Talk) 16:13, 20 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I don't see what this has to do with anything. The lead has been adjusted. Is there anything else that you want to say about the article, given the changes? Wrad 16:23, 20 September 2007 (UTC) reply

The lead says there have been calls to ban the books in American schools, but doesn't adequately express the miniscule impact that these calls have had in a country with 75 million schoolkids.-- Nydas ^(Talk) 17:29, 20 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Can you source that statement? We can source ours. It's all about the sources. If they make a big deal out of it, then we can try to tone it down, which we have, but we can't say what you just said without a source. That is OR. I fail to see how merely saying that "there have been calls to ban books" is misleading in the way you seem to see it. The fact is, there have been. It's 100% true. If someone stuck the word "widespread" in there, then maybe I'd have a problem. Wrad 17:42, 20 September 2007 (UTC) reply

It's sourced in the article. Only 7% of Americans have a negative view of Harry Potter. The article should be built around this fundamental fact, rather than treating it as an afterthought.-- Nydas ^(Talk) 11:36, 22 September 2007 (UTC) reply

What percentage of Muslims worldwide are members of Al-Qaeda? What percentage of Catholics are members of the IRA? What percentage of those against abortion murder abortion doctors? Yes, a small minority of people are against the books, but that small minority has had a notable impact on the books' history and how they are perceived (I can back this up: 17 percent of Harry Potter related Google hits also refer to religion or Christianity, compared with just 14 percent for Lord of the Rings and 21 percent for Narnia, both Christian allegories). The real issue here is that you do not consider this topic notable, and that's your perogative. But if you feel that this topic fails on notability grounds, nominate it for deletion. I doubt you'd get far. Serendi^pod ous 12:08, 22 September 2007 (UTC) reply

It seems as though you are saying that you feel the article highlights anti-Potter religious sentiment too much, and needs to make it clearer that it is only a small group. I would support adding the 7% fact to the lead, and possibly highlighting it more in the beginning of the Evangelist section. Wrad 22:13, 22 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I've edited the lead to reflect religious conservative rather than merely Christian conservative opposition, since the lead, and the article, is not only about US Christian opposition. Since that statistic refers only to US Biblical literalists, it should not be in the lead. Serendi^pod ous 14:09, 28 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Support Seems to address the major problems pointed out in the last FAC. Doesn't blush to report what the sources say about what is a notable cultural phenomenon and a notable theme of the Harry Potter series. Doesn't have POV issues. Unless there are minor things I'm missing, this is an FA. Wrad 23:48, 16 September 2007 (UTC) reply
• Support. I don't think mention of the US views unbalances the article. The thing is, most of these religious debates (at least the verifiable ones) have their roots in the US. - Mgm| ^(talk) 09:56, 18 September 2007 (UTC) reply
• Oppose. This is what I found just by reading the lead:
  • "Religious debates over the Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling stem largely from a number of Christian conservatives who assert that the Harry Potter stories contain occult or even Satanic subtexts." "a number of" is completely redundant.
  • "The most obvious opposition to the series has come from the United States, where calls for the books to be banned from schools have led occasionally to widely publicised legal challenges, usually on the grounds that witchcraft is a government-recognised religion and that to allow the books to be held in public schools violates the separation of church and state mandated by the United States Constitution." "most obvious"? What do you mean by that?
  • "Even Christians have claimed that the magic in Harry Potter bears little resemblance to the magic of "real life" witchcraft or occultism, and more to the mechanical, fairy-tale magic of Cinderella, Snow White and other fairy tales, and also to the works of CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien, both authors frequently endorsed by Christians." The word "Even" seems to suggest a POV.-- Carabinieri 13:22, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Lead edited. Serendi^pod ous 14:50, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Comment. Overall, the article actually looks quite good. These issues still need to be taken care of, but I think it's close to FA:

"Accordingly, Harry Potter has been the subject of at least three local book burnings" Accordingly to what? The sentence immediately preceding this one is about someone who defended Harry Potter, so I think the "accordingly" sounds kind of odd, but I can't think of a better way of putting it.[done]

""It is good that you enlighten people about Harry Potter, because those are subtle seductions, which act unnoticed and by this deeply distort Christianity in the soul, before it can grow properly." (translated from German)" I don't think the part in parentheses is necessary. Wikipedia often uses translations without identifiying them as such, especially if the they come from reputable sources.

That source is lifesite.org. They were the first to translate that letter into English, and it seems all other sites just took that translation from them. But a native German speaker on Wikipedia complained that that translation wasn't accurate, and inserted that line as a qualification. I've removed it, but I would prefer a source that gave a better translation. Serendi^pod ous 07:24, 28 September 2007 (UTC) reply

"According to a spokesperson from the education ministry of the UAE government, the books' fantasy/magic elements were contrary to Islamic values." The Manual of Style discourages use of slashes as it "suggests that the two are related, but does not specify how". Wouldn't a simple "and" do in this case? [done]

I'm assuming the "KidSPEAK!" section is included in this article, because this superintendent removed the books on religious grounds. This should be stated explicitly to justify the section's inclusion.

The earliest citation I can find does not really specify the reasons the books were restricted. zeeland.html Later responses, however mention witchcraft as the reason. It's all a bit vague, and the only way I could solve it permanently would be to find the December 10, 1999 edition of the Holland Sentinel, which, seeing as I live in London England, is not likely. Serendi^pod ous 07:37, 28 September 2007 (UTC) reply

"On her website, she states, "Harry Potter is being used to teach and promote witchcraft, Wicca, a U.S. Gov't recognized religion, in our schools, classrooms, and to this entire generation."" I would replace "Gov't" with "[government]", since abbreviations like that seem kind of odd in encyclopedic writing. [done]

"Schoeffer has cited the books' treatment of divination as an example of what she considers their innate sexism, for in the Harry Potter universe, "the entire intuitive tradition of fortune-telling, a female domain, is discredited."" I don't know if that's really important for the religious debates.-- Carabinieri 00:44, 28 September 2007 (UTC) [done] reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

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

The article was promoted 01:38, 29 September 2007.

Eadbald of Kent

Another Anglo-Saxon king. Best comparison FA is his father, Æthelberht of Kent. Thanks for all comments. Mike Christie (talk) 19:42, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Support I'm nearly done copy-editing this; most of the prose flows in an acceptable manner, and I think it's on par with Mike's other FA's. HansHermans 23:06, 25 September 2007 (UTC) Comment I started to copyedit this, but I probably won't be done for a few days. Here's one sentence that didn't quite make sense to me: reply

Support It may be the lateness of the hour, but I can't actually find a single issue to comment on. J.Winklethorpe ^talk 23:56, 26 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Support I made a few minor copyedits, but overall this is an excellent article. Karanacs 14:01, 27 September 2007 (UTC) reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

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

The article was promoted 01:38, 29 September 2007.

Biman Bangladesh Airlines

(self-nom) This is the national airline of Bangladesh and I have dedicated considerable time over the past 6 months to take it from a stub to GA status and now believe it meets the FA criteria. It has had an A-Class review and, more recently, a peer review which was much more fruitful with invaluable help from User:Aditya Kabir and the League of Copyeditors. Hoping any final niggly bits can be ironed out during the FAC. → AA ^{( talk)} — 08:31, 24 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Support The article has gone through tremendous review while going for GA. It was later reviewed by quite a number of editors, and most issues discussed were resolved. Finally an extensive peer review led to the addressing of most possible issues. The bright sides of the article include - (1) elaborate wikification per MoS; (2) extensive coverage of the subject from multiple angles; (3) meticulous neutrality; (4) reliable and verifiable references sources cited for almost every little bit on information; (5) and wonderful organization. Very stable, and prose flows appreciably too. Aditya^{( talk • contribs)} 12:04, 24 September 2007 (UTC) reply
• Comment Fantastic work on the article! Here are some comments on what I've read so far:
• Since no page on "Troll Air" exists, can we have a short phrase describing where the carrier is from?

 Done

• However, with the rise of private domestic carriers in Bangladesh, Biman's domestic passenger count in 2005–06 was just over 162,000, a 35% drop over the previous ten years. Doesn't quite follow. The count in one year should be a 35% drop compared specifically to another year, not ten years. Each of those ten years had different passenger numbers I presume?

Does it make any more sense now (copyedit is not my strong point)? → AA ^{( talk)} — 13:31, 24 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• The previous Managing Director, M. A. Momen, was appointed the CEO as well as MD in the new organisation. Could you possibly find his full name somewhere?

 Done

Recurring dreams 12:27, 24 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Just a final couple:
• Although Boeing proposed to arrange finances to buy the aircraft seeking a guarantee from the Bangladesh government; After bureaucratic delays and a perceived lack of commitment from the government, Boeing lost interest and the plans were cancelled.[91] Needs fixing.

How about now? → AA ^{( talk)} — 13:31, 24 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• This was the first incident of bird flu in Bangladesh. Ideally should be sourced.

 Done

• The restaurant was opened by the Bangladesh national cricket team and earned its owner, an expatriate Bangladeshi from the United Kingdom, a meeting with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The former Prime Minister? (I think the source itself makes this error)

 Done. I guess she was Prime Minister at the time but not anymore.

• The strike, lasting 9 hours, stranded more than 1,000 passengers at Zia International Airport, which was maintained by Biman.[112] Is that sentence saying that Biman maintains the Airport? If so does it still do, in which case it would be "is" rather than "was".

 Done

Cheers. Recurring dreams 12:56, 24 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Many thanks for the feedback. I've addressed the "easy" ones. → AA ^{( talk)} — 13:18, 24 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• I now Support. Great work. Recurring dreams 22:50, 24 September 2007 (UTC) reply
• Support Interesting and informative Nickhk 13:09, 24 September 2007 (UTC) reply
• Support Great stuff. Peer review and constant editing has brought it into this place. -- Tarif from Bangladesh 16:38, 24 September 2007 (UTC) reply
• Support: Well written and comprehensive. Arman ^{( Talk)} 02:10, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply
• Question What is CAAB? I doubt if the present wikilink to Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases is correct.-- Dwaipayan ( talk) 14:25, 27 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Ok, it's Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh. I got it later down the article. Have corrected the link.-- Dwaipayan ( talk) 14:28, 27 September 2007 (UTC) reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

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

The article was promoted 01:38, 29 September 2007.

Peterborough

previous FAC

I believe this article has improved significantly since the last nomination. Many of the comments made in that discussion have now been taken on board. Chrisieboy 11:59, 18 August 2007 (UTC) reply

• A good article, but I do have some comments:

1. Coat of arms image is non-free
2. The article has very short paragraphs (for example the Modern History section), making it difficult to read. Try combining paragraphs and generate a more natural flow of text.  Done
3. Quite a few paragraphs actually are or contain lists (Places of interest, Geography, Affiliations). Most of them would be better off in normal text.
4. Given its size, some more images could be nice, perhaps a map (or satellite image) of the city or of the city with its surroundings  Done
5. The geography section also discusses the accent spoken by the people (which would be more suitable under demographics)
6. References 8,9,11,12,100 and 103 are obscure. What are they referring to?  Done
7. The style of the references is very random, which could be avoided by moving them all to the Category:Citation templates system

-- Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 14:35, 22 August 2007 (UTC) reply

Thankyou very much for taking the time to read the article and comment. In response to the above:

• 1. I'm not really sure what can be done about this. A common feature (rightly) of the infobox for all UK cities/ local government districts (aswell as counties) are their armorial bearings. In the UK, arms are granted to the city/district or county council as body corporate, rather than to the city/district or county in itself and are therefore protected under Crown copyright. These interpretations have been obtained with permission and, to illustrate the subject in question for encyclopedic purposes, constitutes fair use here. I have added a rationale to this effect.
• 2. The last two paragraphs in particular are brief (both two sentences), but they are self-contained units each dealing with a distinct point.
• 3. Places of interest is written wholly in prose, maybe the symbols are misleading but I think they contribute significantly to the readability aswell as the asthetics of the article; Geography includes a list of areas/ villages, but is otherwise in prose. I think it's important to include this list of wikilinks collectively; and similarly Affiliations is in the common format insofar as it lists twin towns with national flagicon, but is otherwise written in prose.
• 4. Another picture or two would be good. As it stands at least the majority of printed pages have an image.
• 5. This could be moved, although it does refer heavily to local geography. See geographical accent at Accent (linguistics)#General discussion.
• 6. These citations refer to opus citatum (the work cited) and ibidem (the same place), page numbers are given where different. They comprise only six of the 106 references given.
• 7. The references are consistent and presented according to established academic practice. The use of citation templates is contentious and therefore optional. ( A seperate alphabetical list of sources might be helpful though.  Done )

Chrisieboy 19:27, 22 August 2007 (UTC) reply

Some explanation then:

1. I understand the difficulty, apparently its used similar in other FAs dealing with cities, so this is not a real problem I suppose.

2. Yes they are self-contained units, but many self-contained units after each other do not automatically make a good flowing text. An article reads much better if there is a logical flow of reasoning and text, rather than a lot of seperate self-contained units.

3. Same reasoning as for 2.

5. Yes its related to geography, but not it is not geographical information

6. Make them full references then, or use references more then one time, which is common on Wikipedia

7. No they are not consistent: sometimes the pages numbers are between brackets, sometimes at the end; books are missing ISBN numbers; some websites have accessdates, others do not. The use of cite timeplates might be contentious, it helps getting concistency.

-- Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 20:28, 22 August 2007 (UTC) reply

I have reverted the London Gazette edit for consistency, all page numbers appear in brackets. Each source gives a date, either of original publication, in which case any link is complimentary, or of retrieval in the case of internet sources. ( I can add ISBNs, although these are not required.  Done ) Cheers, Chrisieboy 20:49, 22 August 2007 (UTC) reply

I'm sure I read in the manual of style somewhere (but can't immediately find it) that op cit and ibid were generally deprecated on Wikipedia. Look at this way, most people are unlikely to read through the whole reference list, they may check for one or two specific points, and since the footnotes are (basically) ordered as they apepar, cites from the same work can be widely separated, the user then has to work their way through the list until they can find what the op cit actaully refers to. Even if ibid is used for two references which are initially adjacent to each other, the order of paragraphs may be chagned, or an additional citiation introduced, which breaks this up. Better to fully cite each entry. I did previously spend some time converting all the references to use the "cite" series of templates, for the very reason of consistency. However, User:163.167.129.134 seems dead-set against them for some reason. If you look at template talk:LondonGazette you will also see that I've been slowly trying to get DavidCane ( talk · contribs) to bring it line with the cite templates. David Underdown 09:04, 23 August 2007 (UTC) reply

I am happy to change the six ibid. /op.cit. refs. In terms of templates, at the very least I think we have to change all 100 other refs. (a major task) or none. Chrisieboy 10:29, 23 August 2007 (UTC) reply

Personally, I have no vested interest in the use of citation templates but the list as it stands does seem a bit ragged. You seem to be resisting the use of cite templates for references on the grounds of the work involved but are claiming that they are contentious. The citation templates of WP:CITE states "citation templates should not be added against consensus" but a consensus does not yet appear to have been reached - the discussion with David Underdown at Talk:Peterborough#Citation templates back in March does not seem to have reached an agreement one way or another and the comments of Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) above also promote the use of citation templates. Also, by reverting the use of the {{ LondonGazette}} template you have reduced the information available - the page numbers are no longer given.-- DavidCane 12:19, 23 August 2007 (UTC) reply

Indeed, there is no consensus to use them. If the two Davids want to help perhaps we could look at 1/3 each. I personally don't think that this stands in the way of FA status though. The information is all there and Wikipedia:Citing sources#Citation templates clearly states that the use of templates is contentious and therefore optional. This issue aside, would the two David's like to express support or opposition for the nomination overall. Chrisieboy 12:55, 23 August 2007 (UTC) reply

Not using the cite templates indeed does not stand in the way of FA, but a ragged, inconsistent reference list does. FA is not only about making sure the information is there, but also about presenting it well. Apart from that, I am afraid this FAC does have more chance of passing if you are a bit more willing to make changes that are suggested by others. For example, issues like the use of ibid and op. cit. also were brought up in the earlier FAC discussion but not dealt with. -- Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 13:04, 23 August 2007 (UTC) reply

As a past contributor to the article, I don't think I should do more than comment. As I say, I did put at least some references into "cite" form earlier in the year, going back through the history would posibly save a bit of time in putting these together. The issue should be raised on the article talk page again, and on User talk:163.167.129.134. David Underdown 13:24, 23 August 2007 (UTC) reply

Looking over the edit history, you put two into cite. That leaves the other 104! 84.64.199.128 16:10, 23 August 2007 (UTC) reply

Just for the record, I am not asking for the references to go into the cite templates, I am asking for a decent, consistent references list (and several other things as detailed above). -- Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 16:15, 23 August 2007 (UTC) reply

(Reset indent) you'll find a few more than that if you go back to march, plus I found a number of actual articles on the ET website where previously the reference just said "Peterborough Evening Telegraph". If I hadn't been over-ruled in my previous attempt to standardise on the use of templates, then the majority of references would either have been added in that form, or immediately converted. But that's all water under the bridge now. David Underdown 08:17, 24 August 2007 (UTC) reply

• Oppose, until the issues brought up are addressed. -- Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 18:20, 27 August 2007 (UTC) reply
• Support This article meets the engaging standard required of a featured article. 194.202.133.240 09:06, 29 August 2007 (UTC) — User:194.202.133.240 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic. reply

Although it has not received much attention lately, the issues raised have been addressed, either in edits to the article (where marked  Done) or in the above discussion. Additional material has also been introduced since nomination. In addition to meeting the requirements for all Wikipedia articles, this article has the following attributes:

• 1a. It is well written, the prose is engaging and of a professional standard.
• b. It is comprehensive, the article does not neglect any major facts or details.
• c. It is factually accurate, claims are verifiable against reliable sources and accurately represent the relevant body of published knowledge. They are supported with specific evidence and external citations; this involves the provision of a section in which sources are set out.
• d. It is neutral, the article presents views fairly and without bias.
• e. It is stable, the article is not the subject of ongoing edit wars and its content does not change significantly from day to day.
• 2a. It contains a concise lead section that summarises the topic and prepares the reader for the greater detail in the subsequent sections.
• b. It contains a system of hierarchical headings that is not overwhelming.
• c. It contains consistently formatted citations using footnotes where they are appropriate.
• 3. It contains images where they are appropriate to the subject, with succinct captions and acceptable copyright status. Non-free images (ie. armorial bearings) meet the criteria for the inclusion of non-free content and are labeled accordingly.
• 4. It is of appropriate length (72 kb), staying focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail.

I continue to believe therefore, that it meets the criteria for a featured article and strongly support its promotion. Chrisieboy 19:29, 16 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Comment on the issues raised have been addressed, as I disagree. -- Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 20:34, 16 September 2007 (UTC) reply
  • One image was added ( Image:Cecilsr.JPG) with the vague caption "Lord Paramount of Peterborough". The term "lord of paramount" is not explained in the article, nor does the article or the caption explain who exactly the person in the image is.
  • References are still quite random and still contain "ibid" and "op. cit."
  • The section "Media" is hardly referenced"
  • The section "Places of interest" still reads almost like a list (Burghley House is...; Longthorpe Tower is...;Flag Fen is..; etc...)
  • Dialect is still discussed under Geography

Response Two commons images have been added to the article and two have been enlarged. I take exception (see above) to your claim that the references are "still quite random." You did not previously mention inadequate references and I do not accept that this is the case (the article contains 111 in total). The (fairly short) section you mention contains two, the remainder is not contentious and does not require referencing. You state "The section Places of interest still reads almost like a list", but it is not a list? Although they may not be to your preference, icons are provided on Wikipedia presumably for use in articles. Accent (not dialect) is still discussed under Geography for the reasons given above, I have not moved it because I do not believe Demographics is a more appropriate place for it, however, I would be more than happy for you or another editor to make a RfC. The dynamic nature of Wikipedia and the subject-matter means that the article will evolve even with FA status, I do not believe that any of the objections you raise stand in the way of promotion. Which of the criteria specifically do you feel is not met? Cheers, Chrisieboy 21:25, 16 September 2007 (UTC) reply

1. (a) "Well written": Although certainly not horrible, the prose is far from professional. Examples include the very short paragraphs and list-like description of the places of interest (I have no objections to the icons, but there are other, better, ways to start sentences than with "XXX is...")  Done

1. (c) Claims are supported with specific evidence: Many statements (sometimes almost complete paragraphs as explained above) lack citations. Those statements might not be contentious, but are certainly also not general knowledge.  Done

2. (c) consistently formatted inline citations: Web citations lack last accessdates and still use of "op. cit." and "ibid"  Done

3. It has images ... with succinct captions: The "lord paramount" image has a caption that hardly explains who and in what function he is seen in the image.

-- Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 06:51, 17 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Thank you for taking the time to comment, but I do disagree. Please review the above discussion, so we do not keep going over the same ground. As I have previously stated, each source gives a date, either of original publication, in which case any link is complimentary, or of retrieval in the case of internet sources. All claims are supported with specific references (111 of them), please see Wikipedia:When to cite. You state "Although certainly not horrible, the prose is far from professional," which is a little unfair and (again) something you had not previously mentioned. Wikipedia is a collaborative effort and if you can improve the standard of English, please do so. I would be interested to hear what other editors feel as this discussion is not moving forward. As it is, I stand by my comments — the dynamic nature of Wikipedia and the subject-matter means that the article will evolve even with FA status, I do not believe that any of the objections you raise seriously stand in the way of promotion. Chrisieboy 09:19, 17 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I agree that the opinion of more people would be wanted here, but I disagree that I brought a new aspect regarding prose. Please see point 2 and 3 of the first comments I made on August 22 (and no, I do not agree point 2 has been fully fixed yet), these are the exact same points I gave now as rationale for criterium 1a (you asked me for pointing to specific criteria, which I didn't do in my original comment). With regard to the references, the links are in most cases not complimentary. Lets take some examples: ref 69: exclusive on-web reference, but no accessdate; ref 55: either this is an exclusive on-web reference, in which case the accessdate is missing, or it has been published elsewhere (paper? tv?) and the reference is lacking the details of that. Anyway, I'll refrain from commenting hereafter as we are waiting for input from other people. -- Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 09:56, 17 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Possibly there is a problem with your browser. Ref. 69. gives a published date of 22 February 2006; Ref. 55 a published/ broadcast date of 20 May 2004 20:01 BST. Cheers, Chrisieboy 10:05, 17 September 2007 (UTC) reply

You are right about nr 55, I struck it above. But ref 69 does not state any other publication then online, only gives the publisher (the university), hence, it is an online only reference. -- Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 10:21, 17 September 2007 (UTC) reply

No, it is a press release, not an "online only reference," so you may want to strike that out too. Cheers, Chrisieboy 10:32, 17 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I have removed the offending ibid. and op. cit. as per Wikipedia:Footnotes, multiple refs. are now used in cases where page nos. are not different. You learn something new every day! Chrisieboy 23:46, 17 September 2007 (UTC) reply

(Reset indent) For information (taken from Wikipedia, six refs. cited) language geography is the branch of human geography that studies the geographic distribution of language or its constituent elements. There are two principal fields of study within the geography of language: the geography of languages, which deals with the distribution through history and space of languages and linguistic geography, which deals with regional linguistic variations within languages. Demographics, on the other hand, refers to selected population characteristics as used in government, marketing or opinion research, or the demographic profiles used in such research.

Accent should therefore stay where it is; at the very most Geography could be renamed Geography and linguistics. Cheers, Chrisieboy 15:14, 18 September 2007 (UTC) reply

On reflection, you are right, there are other, better, ways to start sentences than with "XXX is...". I have now reworked Places of interest to avoid this. I have also added further media refs. on ownership of the press (these have retrieved dates as they are online only) and history of Emap. Cheers, Chrisieboy 20:44, 18 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Object Sorry, because a lot of work's clearly gone in, but I chose to start with the History section and had so many problems with just the first few parags ( [52]) that I have concerns that this FA is premature. I recommend going back to PR and getting these sorts of things ironed out before returning here. Sorry again. -- Dweller 14:01, 19 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Concerning the points you have raised, Wikipedia:When to cite clearly states If you write a multi-sentence paragraph that draws on material from one source, the source need not be cited after every single sentence, unless the material is particularly contentious. This is not contentious. I have however added a ref. for the Antonine Itinerary, although I was not logged-in. Chrisieboy 16:51, 19 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Have also added ref. for the Peterborough Chronicle. I hope this, and comments at Talk:Peterborough#Recent citation requests, negate your concerns. Chrisieboy 23:45, 19 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I feel all reasonable suggestions have now been actioned (incl. those outstanding from the previous FAC) and that, in the absence of any further objections, this article meets the criteria set out for a featured article and should be promoted. In its current form I do not see how this article can be improved further. It is consistent, both within itself and WP, and uses the available resources (templates, categories, wikilinks etc.), integrating well into the encyclopaedia.

• 1a. It is well written, the prose is engaging and of a professional standard. Short paras. have been consolidated where possible.
• b. It is comprehensive, the article does not neglect any major facts or details. It contains a disambiguation link and a see also section linking to articles giving further, more detailed information on politics, local government etc. and wikilinks to many other Peterborough-related articles eg. the Cathedral, college.
• c. It is factually accurate, claims are verifiable against reliable sources and accurately represent the relevant body of published knowledge. They are supported with specific evidence and external (dated) citations; this involves the provision of a section in which printed sources are set out alphabetically complemented by inline citations where appropriate.
• d. It is neutral, the article presents views fairly and without bias.
• e. It is stable, the article is not the subject of ongoing edit wars and its content does not change significantly from day to day.
• 2a. It contains a concise lead section that summarises the topic and prepares the reader for the greater detail in the subsequent sections.
• b. It contains a system of hierarchical headings that is not overwhelming.
• c. It contains consistently formatted citations using footnotes (currently 118) where they are appropriate. Instances of ibid. and op. cit. have been replaced with multiple refs. in keeping with Wikipedia:footnotes#Citing a footnote more than once.
• 3. It contains images where they are appropriate to the subject, with succinct captions and acceptable copyright status (commons, public domain). Non-free images (ie. armorial bearings) meet the criteria for the inclusion of non-free content and are labeled accordingly as fair use.
• 4. It is of appropriate length (81 kb — exactly 10 pages of readable prose, excl. footnotes and bibliography, when printed), staying focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail. This is the max. recommended, but appropriate for an historic and growing UK city.

Can User:Dweller and User:Reinoutr please specify precisely which of these criteria they continue to feel is not met or withdraw their opposition. I am, of course, willing to address the concerns of other editors aswell. Chrisieboy 14:45, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply

23rd September issues

Much improved and pretty close to FA standard - a credit to all concerned. I do have some marginal niggles - I get the feeling some of the text has been lifted wholesale from the out of copyright source. Maybe that's why the "Soke" is mentioned 6 times before any Wikilink is used (and an implied defintion is given) and the anachronistic term "gaol" used.

The OED states In British official use the forms with G are still current.

Fine, if idiosyncratic. Please though explain the Soke the first time it's used.

First occurance now wikilinked.

Thanks. Struck.

Other minor problems:

• "The local topography is notoriously flat and low-lying, and in some places lies below sea-level." exact same phrase in Lead and main body. Not so concerned with that, but if it's so notorious, at least one source should be found.

See Ref. 116 Brown, Chris State of the Environment Report 1998 Chapter 11: Physical Background (pp.301-306) Cambridgeshire County Council (retrieved 19 July 2007).

Great. Please cite.

It is, see above (ref. 116). As we have already been over, Wikipedia:When to cite clearly states If you write a multi-sentence paragraph that draws on material from one source, the source need not be cited after every single sentence, unless the material is particularly contentious.

Need not. But When to cite also says "Not every statement in an article needs a citation, but if in doubt, provide one." And this is FAC. For Featured Articles. The cream of our work. It should aspire to the highest possible standards. I'm not picking on you - this is what every FA I've worked on has had to produce. And it's hardly difficult. I don't know why you object to it. -- Dweller 10:10, 24 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I object, because it is not required and I honestly believe that rather than improve, it will diminish the article.

• "The city council's master plan running to 2012 draws focus on the £1 billion regeneration of the city centre and immediately surrounding areas" Ugh. Is this lifted from a political website? It's horrid. "Master plan" is tremendously POV. An opponent of it could use a different adjective. If it's an official title (eg "The Peterborough Master Plan") it should be capitalised and in quotes or italics

The OED defines master plan as a large-scale or comprehensive plan of action.

Comprehensive is POV. Unsure about "large-scale". Either way, it would be better in quotes or cited.

Disagree. That is your POV.

Also, the language is tortuous - is this ( [53]) someone ripping off your copy? Please change it - it actually doesn't make any sense - the master plan "draws focus" on the £1bn regeneration - isn't the master plan a plan for the regeneration, rather than something entirely separate?

I will have a look at this.  Done

• "Prayers for the opening of the fair were said" - the text says the Fair still exists, so why not present tense?

Prayers are no longer said.

Super. Please clarify.

It is clarified by the use of the word were.

If it was clear, I wouldn't raise it. When you say something exists and then imply it doesn't it's confusing. Why so resistant to suggestion? If you're not interested in improving the article to the highest possible standards, don't bring it to FAC.

I am interested in improving the article (see above discussion), but this does not mean blindly implementing everything you say. I have given an explanation for not implementing your changes in every case where I have not implemented them. You can be wrong sometimes!

Lordy... I'm frequently wrong. And happy to admit to it when it's pointed out, as in the occurrence you point to. -- Dweller 12:22, 24 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Sorted anyway. Chrisieboy 19:35, 24 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• "it was the Great Northern Railway's main line from London to York, which opened in 1850, that transformed Peterborough from a market town to an industrial centre." is a claim that requires citing

See Ref. 11 Davies (pp.26-27).

Great. Please cite.

It is, see above (ref. 11).  Done

• "The area was the UK's leading producer of bricks for much of the twentieth century." cite

See Ref. 11 Davies (pp.26-27).

Great. Please cite.

It is, see above (ref. 11).

• "From 2006 to 2012 a £1 billion re-development of the city centre and surrounding areas will take place." presumably this is under way, so the future tense makes it seem out of date

Started in 2006, will last until 2012. Most major developments are yet to happen.

Please amend the sentence, because saying "from 2006... will take place" doesn't work.

I will have a look at this.  Done Chrisieboy 10:06, 24 September 2007 (UTC) reply

*The two "2005"s in relation to Mawhinney are a little clumsy.

Sorted. Chrisieboy 00:16, 24 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Cheers

Thanks. Struck.

will continue here. -- Dweller 23:06, 23 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Can you please state precisely and specifically which of the criteria (listed above) are not met. As these are only "marginal niggles," I do not feel that they stand in the way of promotion. Would you like to withdraw your opposition at least, if not actually lend your support to the nomination..? Chrisieboy 11:57, 24 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Look, let's clear the air here.

1. I look forward to lending my support, once all the marginal niggles (and I've not even finished going through the article) are settled. What's the rush? The point is to deliver a FA quality article.
2. Every good faith contributor to FAC wants the same thing.
3. Don't perceive detailed constructive criticism as someone stubbornly blocking the progress of the article to FA for no good reason. You were incorrect and in breach of AGF to characterise me on Raul's talk page ( [54]) that I won't review my oppose.
4. I have a major and well-founded concern over the use of citation throughout the article. I understand that you believe you are within the terms of WP:CITE that you, erm, cite, but cannot understand why you won't do something that would be easy for you to address and would bring the article to the highest standards. In a case where the source materials you are citing are not easily accessible, it is very hard for anyone to verify what is and isn't presented as sourced within any paragraph. Furthermore, interpolations of new material by future editors will make it impossible to see that anything is cited, other than the sentence immediately preceding the reference. However, it could be I'm being too harsh. I've already asked one FA regular to review my comments here. I'll ask a couple more. If they disagree with me, I'll happily admit I'm wrong (as I always do).
5. I have found multiple trivial copy issues wherever I've looked (I repeat, I've not even finished reviewing the article). Each individually would not stop me supporting any article for FA, but combined, make a fail on WP:WIAFA 1a. I contribute here in hope we can address all of them and I can knock this on the head.

I know FAC is stressful. I've been here before ( six times). Contributors make you jump hoops. But all in the name of making the article truly excellent. You may find some of the advice I (and others) wrote here User:The Transhumanist/Virtual classroom/Dweller, on Featured Article Candidates useful. Yours, in a spirit of good faith co-operation -- Dweller 12:40, 24 September 2007 (UTC) reply

User:Dweller is apparently taking a short wikibreak.

I agree with Dweller that the article improved significantly, but although I would gladly see this article up to FA standards, I unfortunately also do not understand the reluctance of the nominator to change some issues that are really minor to change, yet important (in at least my opinion) for the article to meet FA criteria. I've mentioned these (multiple times) before, but as the nominator asked, here we go:

• It fails 1a, as the prose, although not bad, is not yet up to professional standard. Its getting better all the time, but at this time still fails to provide a good flowing text in significant parts of the article.
• It fails 2c, as large parts of the text are still unreferenced (yes the information might be non-contentious, but it certainly is not obvious information). Examples of completely unreferenced sections are: 2nd paragraph of "Media", 1st paragraphs of "Geography", 2nd and 3rd paragraph of "politics" and 1st and 2nd paragraph of "Public utilities".
• It fails 3, as the captions to images (most notably the "lord paramount" image) are insufficient or even not explained or discussed in the text itself.

Please see Early history, which states In 1576 Bishop Scamble sold the lordship of the hundred of Nassaburgh, which is coextensive with the Soke, to Queen Elizabeth I, who gave it to Lord Burghley.... Chrisieboy 20:00, 24 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Again, if a serious effort is made to address the issues with the article, I'd be happy to support it. Also again, I am not gonna argue about these issues anymore. I am only replying because the nominator specifically asked me to do so above. What we need is the opinion of independent editors. Regards, -- Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 15:18, 24 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Fixes needed- I think the prose still needs work, and there are still some choppy paras. Some fixes are straightforward but I'll list controversial ones here. More to come. cheers, Casliber ( talk · contribs) 03:40, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Choppy paras. now consolidated wherever possible.

"notoriously" sticks out as a bit of an odd word in the lead. I'm presuming it's there becasue the area is notoriously flood-prone? If so this should be explained. cheers, Casliber ( talk · contribs) 03:43, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I've left it in the lead but removed the second occurrence and expanded under Geography. Chrisieboy 23:08, 26 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Given there is no history of ... subarticle, I'd put a few extra sentences on bronze age and roman stuff, what artifacts were found, what's at the site etc. This bit looks sketchy.cheers, Casliber ( talk · contribs) 03:47, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

This is elaborated under Places of interest. There are (linked) articles on Flag Fen etc. Chrisieboy 20:54, 27 September 2007 (UTC) reply

By putting the Flag Fen stuff in the Bronze Age section, that stubby bit is bolstered, a bit of repetitious text removed and a long listy things to see section is shortened a bit.cheers, Casliber ( talk · contribs) 03:02, 28 September 2007 (UTC) reply

, which is coextensive with the Soke, - is ungainly, why not "which adjoins/is adjacent to/adjoining." or some similarly clear clause —Preceding unsigned comment added by Casliber ( talk • contribs) 03:54, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

It is coextensive or conterminous with, not adjoining or adjacent to. Chrisieboy 08:53, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

"lies alongside" or "shares a boundary with" then? cheers, Casliber ( talk · contribs) 09:18, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

In other words it is coextensive. I am not going to change this, it does not "lie alongside" and I do not understand how this clarifies rather than confuses the statement. Please see the OED. Chrisieboy 17:10, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I know it is in the OED, it's just a highly unusual word - clear prose is about not using unusual words when commoner plain ones will suffice. However I'll concede this is not a deal-breaker.cheers, Casliber ( talk · contribs) 23:39, 26 September 2007 (UTC) reply

The master plan outlines a new vision for the city centre, identifies investment priorities and provides guidelines on shaping the physical form of the city centre over the next 15–20 years. - this sounds like advertorial, is vague and doesn't mean anything but that there's an overriding long term plan. This needs to be more specific about how the town centre is planned to evolve or otherwise remove.cheers, Casliber ( talk · contribs) 04:03, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I disagree. It outlines the plan, without going into too much detail. Chrisieboy 17:14, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

To me it doesn't outline anything except come across like advertorial statement basically stating there's a plan. (what plan does it outline exactly ??) I really feel this bit is unencyclopedic and needs to be reworded or excluded. However, to be fair I'll see what others think.cheers, Casliber ( talk · contribs) 23:39, 26 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Switched to Oppose on the basis of this sentence The Plan outlines a new vision for the city centre,identifies investment priorities and provides guidelines on shaping the physical form of the city centre over the next 15-20 years. - being lifted out of the city's glossy advertorial plan here. Please rewrite in non-advertorial format or remove. I'll happily support once this section addressed cheers, Casliber ( talk · contribs) 06:28, 28 September 2007 (UTC) reply

You are opposing promotion to FA on the basis of ONE sentence in an 82kb article, although you previously said you would see what others think! How would you re-word it..? Chrisieboy 09:28, 28 September 2007 (UTC) reply

OK - replace "Between 2006 and 2012 a £1 billion re-development of the city centre and surrounding areas will take place. The master plan outlines a new vision for the city centre, identifies investment priorities and provides guidelines on shaping the physical form of the city centre over the next 15–20 years. Proposals are already progressing for the north of Westgate, the south bank and the station quarter, where Network Rail is preparing a major mixed use development." with "The resulting £1 billion re-development of the city centre and surrounds is scheduled to take place between 2006 and 2012; currently focussing on the north of Westgate, the south bank and the station quarter. - and thus rid the advertorial fluff and mixed development waffle.cheers, Casliber ( talk · contribs) 09:41, 28 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I am going to indulge you (although I do not agree with you) in order to get you to support this nomination. However, what you have written does not make sense. You want to replace:

• Between 2006 and 2012 a £1 billion re-development of the city centre and surrounding areas will take place. The master plan outlines a new vision for the city centre, identifies investment priorities and provides guidelines on shaping the physical form of the city centre over the next 15–20 years. Proposals are already progressing for the north of Westgate, the south bank and the station quarter, where Network Rail is preparing a major mixed use development with
• The resulting £1 billion re-development of the city centre and surrounds is scheduled to take place between 2006 and 2012; currently focussing on the north of Westgate, the south bank and the station quarter. Chrisieboy 10:19, 28 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I have toned down the contentious sentence, taking out the waffle about a new vision for the city centre (although I was not logged-in at the time). Chrisieboy 12:18, 28 September 2007 (UTC) reply

You (a) missed the other contentious sentence and (b) didn't address the fact that the section came word-for-word from advertorial council fluff-piece. I am now happy to support as is. I am not sure how to continue discussion but right this second you now have consensus to promote, ok? cheers, Casliber ( talk · contribs) 00:03, 29 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Support - ta-daa.cheers, Casliber ( talk · contribs) 00:03, 29 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I was adding some criticism before the second ref., but had an edit conflict. Will you consider a compromise..? I think:

• Between 2006 and 2012 a £1 billion re-development of the city centre and surrounding areas will take place. The master plan identifies investment priorities and provides guidelines on shaping the physical form of the city centre over the next 15–20 years. Proposals are already progressing for the north of Westgate, the south bank and the station quarter, where Network Rail is preparing a major mixed use development. (ref.) Whilst recognising the reconfiguration of the relationship between the city and station is critical, English Heritage found the current plans for Westgate unconvincing and felt more thought should be given to the vitality of the historic core. (ref.)

reads better. Chrisieboy 01:32, 29 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Erm, you have linguistics in the Geography section (?) - may need a subheading?cheers, Casliber ( talk · contribs) 09:20, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

We've been through this, please see the above discussion. Chrisieboy 09:37, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

User:Dweller has changed Geography to Geography and linguistics. Chrisieboy 17:01, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

This is getting ridiculous. Chrisieboy just indiscriminately reverted my good intentions to improve the captions of the images in the article [55] to help him get this up to FA. The captions he reverted to do NOT explain the images shown. What is the "butter cross"? What is a lord paramount? (I even started a stub article on that topic for explanation, the link to which he also removed.) I continue to fail to understand why he is so resistant to any good faith help and suggestions with article and I am starting to have WP:OWN issues here. My oppose stands. -- Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 19:19, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

See diffs. These captions are way over the top. Good captions should be succinct; the images are all referenced in the text (where I moved your link to lord paramount) Some of yours were largely lifted from the text, all were badly written, eg. "Peterborough Cathedral, seen from the west side" rather than the (correct) The West Front, Peterborough Cathedral; "Minster Precincts of the Peterborough Cathedral" (tautologous). Full stops should not be used, unless the caption is a complete sentence. Sorry, Chrisieboy 19:59, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I think that in general the expanded captions were good - we should remember that people may well glance at the images before reading the article, so it is helpful to give a bit more context, rather than expecting them to read the article right away. The exception is the change made to the image of the West Front of the Cathedral. West Front is a specific architectural term, simply saying "seen from the western side" is not (in my view), nearly so descriptive. David Underdown 20:09, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Further (sorry about the deletion - I wasn't warned about an edit conflict as usually happens). Specifying that the Minster Precincts are around the Cathedral is only tautologous if you understand that the Minster and the cathedral are the same thng - the Minster precincts are the only time that that equivalence is made in Peterborough, unlike e.g. York where the cathedral is universally referred to as "the Minster". Yes there were things to pickon, and they could have used some tidying, but reverting them out of hand was unhelpful. Putting people's backs up is not a good way to get the article to featured status. David Underdown 20:31, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Thanks for the comment David. I agree that some captions needed a bit of tidying and I was not aware of the West Front naming, so sorry about that. But indeed the very short captions are not helpfull for readers inexperienced with some of these subjects, which is exactly why I added some more information. -- Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 20:47, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Thanks also Chrisieboy, for having now changed the captions to be much more descriptive [56]. You certainly did a better job than I did myself, but please remember I was just trying to help you with the article. Image concerns are dealt with and have been struck in my comment above. -- Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 06:05, 26 September 2007 (UTC) reply

SupportКруто -- Miwanya 20:00, 26 September 2007 (UTC) reply

After having another look at the current version of the article, I think that the prose has significantly increased since I first commented here (the paragraphs now form real paragraphs instead of seperate sentences) and at least part of the unsourced statements have been addressed. Also, the air appears to have cleared as far as I am concerned. If enough other editors agree that this should become FA, my previous objections should not stand in that way. My comments above and my oppose have been struck. -- Cpt. Morgan (Reinoutr) 21:14, 26 September 2007 (UTC) reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

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

The article was promoted 01:38, 29 September 2007.

Lung cancer

Self-nomination. I have been working on this article for about six months. It is accurate, comprehensive and well-referenced. It may still need a little work on criteria 1a and 2a. Thanks. Axl 17:10, 4 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Fixes needed - I agree, a quick glance shows it needs a copyedit. I feel there'd be too many examples for me to list out here. I am happy if you'll permit me to go through and massage teh text a bit. As well, there needs to be more prominent mention of the fact that just about all primary lung cancers are carcinomas (i.e. arise from epithelial tissue), also the incidence of Ca lung is much higher with contact with asbestos. On the plus side, it does look comprehensive on a quick view. cheers, Casliber ( talk · contribs) 06:34, 5 September 2007 (UTC) reply

All help appreciated. :-) Thanks, Casliber. Axl 14:02, 5 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Comment—the article is very comprehensive and well-referenced. However, on a quick glance, many sections seem...a bit too concise :) Summary style is a good thing, and I know the article is already at 60 kB, but—I can't believe I'm saying this—most paragraphs seems strangely short!

Anyway, some more actionable comments:

• "Signs and symptoms" could use more references, particularly for the third paragraph; it's uncontroversial information, but it would still be nice to attribute it to a source.

I have added three extra references. Axl 17:37, 7 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Pardon my asking, but is there a strong enough link between viral infection and lung ca for it to be mentioned along with the "main" causes?

That's a very reasonable comment. Currently, the article contains two (well-referenced) sentences at the bottom of the "Causes" section. I am happy to take consensus on this; it's certainly not essential to the article. Axl 18:10, 5 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• There are a few inconsistencies in the references; e.g., reference 94 doesn't use the {{ cite journal}} format, one or two references may still have hyphens where en dashes would be appropriate (quick fix :)

That reference ("Adler") was inserted by SandyGeorgia. It is unusual because the reference quotes a different paper, hence the odd format style. I'm not sure how best to resolve this, but would be grateful for suggestions. Axl 17:42, 5 September 2007 (UTC) reply

A couple of months ago, SandyGeorgia advised to me to ask someone to run a dash-fixing script. Unfortunately I forget who runs that script. :-( If someone can remind me, I'll ask the script owner to run it again. Axl 18:13, 5 September 2007 (UTC) reply

That would be Brighterorange ( talk · contribs) ;) I don't think there are many, though; probably just a couple. Fvasconcellos ( t· c) 18:23, 5 September 2007 (UTC) reply

OK, now I get it. I've formatted it for consistency with the others and added the OCLC ID number for the Adler book. Fvasconcellos ( t· c) 18:00, 5 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• could you find the ISBN for The Nazi War on Cancer?

I've fixed it. I had the "isbn" in capitals in the reference. Axl 17:39, 5 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Thanks! Fvasconcellos ( t· c) 18:00, 5 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I'll read more thoroughly later, but I'm really pressed for time—sorry. Fvasconcellos ( t· c) 16:47, 5 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Comments:

• "People with these polymorphisms are more likely to develop lung cancer after exposure to carcinogens." (reference?)

There are three references in the previous sentence ("Engels", "Wenzlaff" and "Yin"). Axl 18:15, 7 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• "The Asian state of Bhutan has a complete smoking ban since 2005" (reference?)

I have added one. Axl 18:09, 7 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• More external links? Like: lungcancer.org; National Cancer Insitute; Lung Cancer Online?

Okay, I have added them. Axl 22:07, 7 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Oops, and I deleted some of them again. They don't rise to the level of highly reliable sources, and they should be in the DMOZ link anyway. We don't need to expand External links for the sake of expansion. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 18:28, 13 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Anyway, it's a comprehensive, well-written article. When it doesn't contain any citation needed template and these references are added to the article, I'll support it! Well done, Axl! NCurse _work 06:16, 7 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• The article needs a better chest x-ray. Surely we can find a better CXR of lung cancer? -- Samir 06:18, 7 September 2007 (UTC) reply

There isn't another one on Wikimedia Commons. I don't actually have an account on Wikimedia Commons, but I could possibly upload one directly to Wikipedia. Axl 21:49, 7 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I'll see if I can get one -- Samir 19:34, 8 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• • Also, it's very well written. Good job -- Samir 06:19, 7 September 2007 (UTC) reply

The most significant risk factor for developing lung cancer is long-term exposure to inhaled carcinogens, especially tobacco smoke. - while strictly true, this seems to be a case of soft-peddaling. A risk factor is, by definition, a corrolation; whereas it has been proven beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt that cigarette smoke (including passive smoke) is an active cause of lung cancer. This sentence should be reworded to make it clear that cigarette smoke isn't just correlated with higher lung cancer rates, but actively causes it. Raul654 05:32, 10 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Hmm. How about "The most important cause of lung cancer is exposure to tobacco smoke." Axl 07:00, 10 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Sounds good to me, although you may need to change the reference at the end of the sentence too. Raul654 07:41, 10 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Okay, I've done it. Axl 19:20, 10 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Support Raul654 16:44, 24 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Support: Thank you, Axl, for the changes! Comprehensive, well-referenced article! NCurse _work 14:56, 10 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Comment comprehensive article, but I think it could benefit from splitting it up in two articles: small cell and non small cell lung cancer (with perhaps a shorter general lung cancer article). -- WS 20:17, 10 September 2007 (UTC) reply
  • I strongly disagree with this suggestion. The article is not overly long, and I think such an arbitrary split would be detrimental. Raul654 20:35, 10 September 2007 (UTC) reply
    • It is not as arbitrary as you might think. Pathogenesis, staging and treatment differ considerably between the two types. It is hard to cover both in one article and not generalize from one type to the other. Medical resources such as emedicine and uptodate also have separate articles. Most of the studies found on pubmed focus on one type. -- WS 22:17, 10 September 2007 (UTC) reply

My take is on how the public perceives it, which is that lung cancer in common parlance = Ca lung, with some comments on secondary tumours and quick mention of the very rare ones, so I think the main article has the subject and organization right. Nothing to stop subarticles later..cheers, Casliber ( talk · contribs) 23:02, 10 September 2007 (UTC) reply

The sections "Signs and symptoms", "Causes", "Diagnosis", "Prevention", "Epidemiology", and "History" are the same for both NSCLC and SCLC. Differences arise in the sections "Classification", "Pathophysiology", "Treatment", and "Prognosis". In my opinion, the similarity of sections outweighs the differences. More importantly, most people who read this article do not have detailed medical knowledge beforehand; they are unlikely to appreciate the difference between NSCLC and SCLC. I have informed many patients that they have lung cancer, yet very few have subsequently asked me what type. Hence it is preferable to keep most of the information in a single article. Axl 06:47, 12 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Fixes needed, sorry to be late to this, Axl, been traveling. Some random things I noticed that need attention; I don't think the article is quite ready yet:

• Undefined acronym, IARC, pls check all acronyms throughout.

Okay, done. Axl 15:08, 13 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• I think you can do better on the awkward formatting of this sentence: Studies from the U.S. (1986,[34][35] 1992,[36] 1997,[37] 2001,[38] 2003[39]), Europe (1998[40]), the UK (1998[41][42]), and Australia (1994[43]) have consistently shown a significant increase in relative risk among those exposed to passive smoke. Perhaps eliminate the years and use a combined ref format like on Tourette syndrome?

Done; I have removed the years. Axl 15:20, 13 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I furthed edited to change the unsightly string of ref tags to one ref tag. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 16:54, 13 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Two-sentence sections (like Viruses, Emerging treatments and Non-small cell lung cancer prognosis, as examples only) are not ideal; can short sections be expanded, or merged?

"Viruses" expanded. Other sections merged. Axl 15:43, 13 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• See WP:MOS, avoid the use of e.g. and i.e. (use prose instead).

Abbreviations removed. Axl 15:58, 13 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Please reveiw all of your wikilinking to help out layreaders; for example, I noticed no link to differential diagnosis. I also encountered lobectomy and wedge excision. Laypersons don't know these terms; stubs should be created and wikilinked, or the terms need definition.

Links & stubs added. Axl 21:59, 14 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Per WP:MEDMOS suggested sections, not sure why Screening is under Prevention rather than separate (MEDMOS accepts variation, but is there a reason?)

There is a reason: MEDMOS recommends "Prevention" or "Screening". There is no guideline on the use of both headings in an article. In any case, I have separated "Screening" into its own section. Axl 22:03, 14 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• There is a lot of redundant prose: have a look at Tony1 ( talk · contribs)'s exercises to reduce prose redundancy, needed throughout. One sample: Randomized controlled trials are underway in this area to see if decreased long-term mortality can be directly observed from CT screening. There are also some throw-away sentences that need tightening up, example: The treatment of lung cancer continues to evolve. Furhter prose tightening needed throughout, for example: About 10% of people with lung cancer do not have symptoms of it at the time of diagnosis; these cancers are usually found on routine chest x-rays. How about, About 10% of individuals with lung cancer are asymptomatic at diagnosis ...

I'm not sure that "asymptomatic" is appropriate for lay readers. In any case, I have trimmed that sentence. I have tried to ensure that the grammar is technically correct and the spelling is accurate. I accept that more work is required to achieve criterion 1a. I have read Tony1's essay. However I am reaching the limit of what I can achieve. Perhaps I should hand this over to someone else? Axl 22:30, 14 September 2007 (UTC) reply

No, Axl, please keep at it and don't be discouraged. Articles make it to FA usually because of the commitment of one passionate editor. You can eventually fix everything here, but sometimes you need distance from the text to see the prose issues. Take a few days off and then read a printout, maybe, and work on developing your own resources on Wiki; unfortunately, I've not found that posts to the Medicine project about FACs or FARs are often likely to result in direct help, so you've got to seek out the people who will help and who are strong in prose. You're very close, so you shouldn't give up now. (I haven't yet had a chance to review your wikilinking, but would rather do that after you've made another pass at the prose.) SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 15:06, 15 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• See WP:DASH, no unspaced emdashes on Wiki, and endashes on date and number ranges.

• There were a few stragglers which I fixed. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 16:54, 13 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• See WP:MOSNUM, ... with 1,35 million new cases per year and 1,18 million deaths, ...

Numbers fixed. Axl 08:39, 15 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• There are uncited statements, for example: Primary lung tumors themselves most commonly metastatize to the adrenal glands, liver, brain, and bone.

• SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 23:34, 12 September 2007 (UTC) reply
  • No unspaced em dashes? Are you sure? :) Fvasconcellos ( t· c) 23:36, 12 September 2007 (UTC) reply
    • oops, fixed. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 00:34, 13 September 2007 (UTC) reply
      • As long as you're fixing things, you might bother to read what WP:DASH actually says: emdashes are normally unspaced on Wikipedia. If there is consensus to join the majority, fine; but this is not the prohibition Sandy would make it. Most of the rest of Sandy's "fixes" are equally trivial. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:30, 13 September 2007 (UTC) reply
        • ho, hum, standard PMAnderson disclaimer; Raul654 is the person who decides if my commentary is trivial. Axl, pls review WP:MOSBOLD and WP:LEAD; there's a problem with the bold linking in the article lead. Struck some, good work so far. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 16:54, 13 September 2007 (UTC) reply
          • I trust he will. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:39, 13 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Followup on size: I noted Fvasconcellos' comment above about the use of summary style. At 22KB prose, this is perhaps the shortest medical FA, and you have much room to expand some of the content if needed (for example, see Tuberculosis). It does seem a bit over-summarized in some places; I won't object on this because others say it's comprehensive, but in the event you want to expand some of the stubbier sections, the article could double in size and still be within WP:SIZE guidelines. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 18:28, 13 September 2007 (UTC) reply

It's still rough going.

• I'm not sure why this sentence is stuck in where it is: When NSCLC cannot be subtyped, it is assigned SNOMED code 8046/3. There's no mention of any other codes, and the SNOMED throws a layreader. Why do we need a code here and not in other cases?
• Here's a sample of the kind of linking still needed. I linked bronchus and cavitation, but it still seems the passage could be made more layreader-friendly, so they don't have to click on cavitation: Accounting for 31.1% of lung cancers, squamous cell lung carcinoma usually starts near a central bronchus. Cavitation and necrosis within the center of the cancer is a common finding.
• I don't know what to do with the word neurosecretory, no link. These are the kinds of medical terms that need to be linked or defined.
• I don't know what this sentence means, it's not layreader friendly and none of the terms are linked: The "oat" cell contains dense neurosecretory granules which give this an endocrine/paraneoplastic syndrome association. I think this is defined later in the text (Depending on the type of tumor, so-called paraneoplastic phenomena may initially attract attention to the disease), so I'm not sure why it can't be explained on the first occurrence.
• I shouldn't still be finding unlinked terms like carcinogen and comorbidity (they should be linked on first occurrence).
• British or American throughout, not sure? Radon is a colorless and odourless gas ...
• I only got as far as pathophysiology. This series seems choppy, and that it could be merged into sentences that flow better:
  • Mutations in the K-ras proto-oncogene are responsible for 20–30% of non-small cell lung cancers.[52] Chromosomal damage can lead to loss of heterozygosity. This can cause inactivation of tumor suppressor genes. Damage to chromosomes 3p, 5q, 13q and 17p are particularly common in small cell lung carcinoma. The TP53 tumor suppressor gene, located on chromosome 17p, is often affected.[53]
• Looking over the edit history and talk page, I see two edits from WS, some input from Casliber a few weeks ago, and no other indication that the Medicine Projects have given you a hand here. That's frustrating. I feel the prose still needs attention, but if the Projects aren't going to lend a hand with all your hard work, Raul may as well promote it as is. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 22:49, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Oppose --> mild oppose; surely someone can lend a hand to smooth out the choppiness and fill out the history and developing-world sections?—1a, not comprehensive.
  • "This distinction is important because non-small cell lung cancer is sometimes treated with surgery, while small cell cancer is not. Also, small cell lung cancer usually responds better to chemotherapy." Please do not start a sentence with "also". Integrate the ideas smoothly and logically into the sentences.

Text changed. Axl 17:36, 17 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• • "The most important cause of lung cancer is exposure to tobacco smoke." Wouldn't it be more direct to say "The most common cause ..."?

Okay, I have changed it. Axl 17:38, 17 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• • "less than 10% of cases"—ungrammatical: "fewer".

Done. Axl 17:41, 17 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• • Why is "surgery" linked on second occurrence, not first? I'm unsure a link is necessary, since it's not to what I'd hoped: an article on a particular type of surgery; too general to bother the readers with this common dictionary word.

I have changed the link: now the first entry links to lung cancer surgery. Axl 17:44, 17 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• • Insert "only" before "14%; that is the point you're making, isn't it? What does "overal" mean here?

I have removed "overall". I haven't included "only" because that is value-laden (in my opinion). If reviewers consider it appropriate, I'll add "only". Axl

• • In the first caption, the white area is "cancer"? Can't it be more precise? Cancerous tumour? "Cancer" is the disease.

I have changed the captions. Axl 19:34, 17 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• • "non-small cell (80%) and small-cell (roughly 20%) lung cancer"—One is exact and one is rough?

Different sources quote slightly different rates. Most sources quote NSCLC at about 80%, while SCLC quoted rates vary from 15% to 21%. I have looked through the seminal epidemiological study (SEER, summarized by Travis) from 1995 and I added a couple of tables indicating rates of lung cancer types. Axl 07:07, 19 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• • "Very" is usually very redundant. Use "critical" or "major" is you have to.

I have removed "very". Axl 07:09, 19 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• • Do we find out whether those rarer forms are non-small or small cell, since you've just categorised all into an 80/20 division? Good way to fill out the stubby para. And what about the rates per 100,000 annually for those rarer ones?

I have included that info in the tables. Axl 07:10, 19 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• • It's first-world centric. Why just US figures for smoking? China and India are the time-bombs, and the locations of the greatest human suffering from smoking. Not a mention.
  • Not comprehensive; too short. The History section is a joke far too short. The are certainly enough footnotes, but not enough meat hanging off them. Tony 14:41, 15 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Nice work, Axl. Still concerned at the lack of information on the developing world (hasn't the WHO got some stuff there?). And history could be fascinating if three times the length. The tables do now look intrusive—they're very large and early in the piece; see what other reviewers think. BTW, there's a "3" that probably should be "3.0". Generally a choppy read. Tony (talk) 02:11, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

SandyGeorgia has adjusted the tables and improved the layout; thanks Sandy. Axl 19:04, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Please feel free to revert it if you don't like it; if you do like it, you can see more color/features that can be added at Diagnosis of Asperger syndrome. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 19:09, 21 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Axl, my sincere apologies for neglecting this FAC; I have been distracted on the Asperger syndrome FAR and didn't have time for FAC. I promise to review tomorrow or the next day. On a quick glance, I just saw another undefined, unlinked term (Stage IB cancer—as a layperson, I have no idea what Stage IB is and I don't find it defined in the article, but I may need to review more closely). I'll place any further review on the article talk page later today or tomorrow, as I don't like to fill up the FAC page with such items. I appreciate your patience. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 19:59, 24 September 2007 (UTC) reply

The staging system is seen at non-small cell lung carcinoma staging. Perhaps I should move this information to lung cancer? Axl 07:30, 25 September 2007 (UTC) reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

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

The article was promoted 01:38, 29 September 2007.

Audioslave

I've worked on improving the article in my free time during summer; I've completely rewritten it, added more useful sections, reliable references to everything dat can be challenged, added images with fair use rationale, and sound samples with fair use rationale. I think it is comprehensive, accurate, and - I hope - neutral. The biggest problem is grammar, I guess, as English is not my first language. It is also currently undergoing a peer review. Gocsa 11:01, 5 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Looking pretty good. I just gave it a copy edit, per WP:WIAFA here are some thoughts: I'd say it easily complies with 1b-e. If it's not already at 1a it's very close. Probably some awkward sentences I missed. I'm still learning the mammoth MOS, but the lead section is good. The article is quite well-cited. I was a bit wary of some of the citations to the Audioslave Fan Forum, and it appears that some of those are repostings of articles from other magazines (ZeroMag or Guitar World). From what I understand, Wikipedia has no policy on convenience links (just this essay Wikipedia:Convenience links), but we definitely can't use those links if the forum is posting copyrighted material without permission. I haven't look at images yet. The article is probably a bit long. Perhaps a lot of the information on each album could be moved to the page on that respective album? -- JayHenry 00:26, 6 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Well, the Audioslave Fan Forum links are OK, I think, one of them is an article written by a member of the Audioslave Fan Forum itself, with her permission (the 'Audioslave: Pushing Forward Back'), the other is just a short news article, and there is a concert review written by another member. The only copyrighted material was the 2003 Total Guitar magazine interview with Tom Morello, and I've changed that reference. Gocsa 10:27, 6 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Okay, thanks for addressing that. All the images are freely-licensed or have detail fair use rationales. I'm not convinced, however, by the rationale at Image:AudioslaveMorelloAxisofJustice.jpg — an image of Morello and some volunteers at an information tent. This image is easily replaceable, as Morello still actively does this. I would suggest just removing this image, the article will not suffer. My biggest concern is now the length. Would it be possible to move some of the recording information about each album into the article for that respective album? I'd be happy to help with this, if you'd like. I think following the suggestions at Wikipedia:Summary style, we can get this to a more manageable length. -- JayHenry 18:06, 7 September 2007 (UTC) reply

You're right about the image, but still, it'd be nice to use it in the article, so I've sent an e-mail to a webmaster, requesting the use of the image, I hope I'll get an answer, and the right one. I kinda knew that the article turned out to be long in the end, but I really didn't know, and still don't know what to delete, so I'd be glad if you could do that. Just weed out every irrelevant information, you can move them to the album pages, if you will, and you can delete/move other things too. Thank you for your help in advance. I really appreciate it. Gocsa 18:35, 7 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I'm sorry, I haven't forgotten, but I ended up spending more time than expected at RFA this week, and haven't had a chance to make these edits! I promise I will finish shortening this tomorrow. After shortening a bit, I think I'll be prepared to support this FAC. If we could leave this open just a few more days, I think we can address whatever needs to be addressed. Apologies again for the delay on my end! -- JayHenry 05:14, 12 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Support I've been pretty worthless trying to shorten. Not as much to merge as I thought. I ran it through a word counter and the body text is actually only about 15% bigger than Smashing Pumpkins now, so I'm comfortable that the length isn't out of control, and that was my only significant concern to begin with. -- JayHenry 06:11, 13 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• The infobox logo isn't permitted under fair use, as it's not criticised in the article. Also, it makes sense to make the band's name in the infobox as easy to read as possible. Otherwise, I'll give it a copyedit as part of prose review. CloudNine 09:21, 8 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Ok, I got rid of the logo. Gocsa 09:58, 8 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Comment I'm not sure if [57] is a reliable source. Although, the statement it verifies doesn't seem too controversial. Epbr123 19:41, 10 September 2007 (UTC) reply

I don't think it's that bad, it certanly does the job. Gocsa 21:02, 10 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Support Good job KoMuNeRo MaG 16:02, 13 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Issues

• Some very long sentences. Take this one at the top, which I had to read three times to disentangle:

"Although during the early stages of their career the band was often described as an amalgamation of two bands, Rage Against the Machine and Soundgarden,[1] or Rage Against the Machine's fractured parts fronted by a different vocalist,[2][3] by the time of the release of the second album, Out of Exile, most critics agreed that Audioslave was more than just the sum of its parts[4][5] and members were getting closer to finding their identity as a cohesive band.[6][7][8]". Search through for others that would be easier split by a period or a semicolon.

• •  Done I've created two sentences out of this, I'm currently searching for other sentences that are too long. Gocsa 10:42, 16 September 2007 (UTC) I guess I haven't found more. Gocsa 14:51, 16 September 2007 (UTC) reply
• Use "with" as a clause connection only in desperation. Here's an example of two "withs" that perform different functions, causing a hiccup for the reader:

"As the three were busy with reunion performances and with Morello and Cornell both releasing solo albums in 2007, Audioslave was officially disbanded."

• •  Done I've corrected it, hope it's OK now. Gocsa 09:49, 16 September 2007 (UTC) reply
• MOS breach: Captions for the first and last images are not proper sentences, so remove the final period.
  • I don't really understand, which ones are not proper sentences? Gocsa 09:35, 16 September 2007 (UTC) reply
• MOS breach: use logical punctuation ("... recording."); there are other examples, too.
  •  Done I changed all to logical punctuation. Gocsa 09:35, 16 September 2007 (UTC) reply

Tony 02:20, 16 September 2007 (UTC) reply

• Comment. I've taken a second look at the article (actually, printed it out and looked through it), and I've come across several issues: