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Perhaps an RFC, as suggested above to change the "mission" of FAC. Quoted from
Mike Christie above: "The current consensus at FAC seems to me to be not "the best work on Wikipedia", nor "the best article that can be written", but "the best work of Wikipedians". I don't think it would hurt FA to change to one of the other definitions, but if there is a consensus that it's the work of Wikipedians then FAs with free content should be excluded. If the definition is "the best work that can be written" then I think it would be consistent to allow free content." (quoted from above by
Mike Christie)
Perhaps the FAC "star" should be considered an award to individual wikipedians, per WP:WBFAN. <remove unnecessary comment> — mattisse ( Talk) 03:51, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
People tend to take things to the extreme on Wikipedia, disrupting to make a point. I have in mind inserting subtle inaccuracies and vandalism and such into BLPs just to see how long it takes folks to notice and overturn it, then going to Wikipedia Review and publishing their findings. Keeping this in mind, and admitting that we cannot anticipate everything that will come from redefining what a featured article is, potential outcomes of this could be:
One of the conceptual problems I have with articles taken largely from PD sources is that those parts that have been lifted from a PD source are, essentially, unsourced, because the article and its purported source are one and the same. Anyone who challenges the sourcing of all or part of the article, per WP:V, will be referred to itself as the source. SlimVirgin TALK contribs 14:09, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
The ODNB can be a reliable source for various points in a WP article. It can't be a reliable source for itself. As soon as it says, "I am the article, not just one of the article's sources," it ceases to be a source in the interests of avoiding self-reference. You have changed what it is conceptually by changing its use. The whole point of a source is to say, "Someone other than me says this."
So according to WP:V, if someone challenges any part of it, it needs to find a source other than itself. According to V, that must be done for anything challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations. SlimVirgin TALK contribs 15:00, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Going way back to "If a source is reliable then it is reliable even if we use most or all of its text in an article," I've got to stop right there with a medical example. One would think the NIH is a reliable source, and we could lift their entire fact sheet on Tourette syndrome and have an accurate, updated article. Not so, at least when I was writing TS. Pieces of it were accurate, pieces of it were blatantly wrong, and pieces of it were outdated. More recent and accurate reliable sources, in peer-reviewed journals, were needed to write an accurate article. So, a reliable source PD may not be reliable enough, and we may still be presenting inaccuracies if we quote them. Good scholarship requires more than copy-paste. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 15:23, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Just an update....since the discussion here seems to have petered out without reaching any consensus, I've gone ahead and started an FAR on the article that started the whole thing. Regardless of the more meta questions (on what FA should be about, yada yada yada), I think it is appropriate to have a separate, more practical discussion for the specific article, which can focus on that particular article's merits rather than all the abstract stuff discussed above. The FAR is here if anyone wants to comment. rʨanaɢ talk/ contribs 23:32, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
I have a question about criteria 1(c): "Claims are ... supported with citations; this requires a "References" section that lists these sources, complemented by inline citations where appropriate ..."
I understand this to mean that, whichever citation style you use, whether long or short refs as inline citations, you must also have a References section (or whatever you want to call it) that lists in alphabetical order full citations for all the sources used. However, I'm seeing FACs that have been through the usual reviews that don't have that, or they list some sources in a References section but not all.
Is my understanding of what's required correct? SlimVirgin TALK contribs 14:26, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
That section currently says:
Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by citations; this requires a "References" section that lists these sources, complemented by inline citations where appropriate;
If we really only require one section, I suggest we change it to something like:
Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by inline citations, which are listed in a "Notes" or "References" section. A separate section that lists full citations in alphabetical order is optional.
SlimVirgin TALK contribs 15:32, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
{{
reflist}}
with footnotes, and no one at
its FAC has complained. In this case that makes perfect sense since the vast majority of sources are news articles, most of them cited on a one-off basis, and who wants a pointless bibliography hundreds of entries long that does nothing but add an extra click people need to make to find a resource? I think everyone can probably agree that there's no need to introduce an arbitrary rule (à la "every article needs both an alphabetical bibliography and a list of footnotes) when things can be handled on a case-by-case basis like this.
rʨanaɢ
talk/
contribs 16:31, 29 January 2010 (UTC)Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by inline citations. At least one separate "Reference" or "Notes" section is included to list out full citations for all sources used.
Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources, listed in the article, and are supported with citations, including inline citations where appropriate
I haven't actually seen a formal proposal, but I am uncertain what problem this is trying to solve.-- Wehwalt ( talk) 17:30, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
<ref></ref>
and nothing else. I don't know if that's a problem here at FAC, but I know at DYK and sometimes CSD it has come up, with someone saying "X article has no inline citations" when actually it just has no cite.php footnotes.
rʨanaɢ
talk/
contribs 00:39, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
Hello? Two days have passed, and the RfC has calmed down somewhat. Looking at the above discussion, I would prefer us to implement SlimVirgin's proposal:
Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by inline citations, which are listed in a "Notes" or "References" section. A separate section that lists full citations in alphabetical order is optional.
If we consider it important to point out here that not everything has to be sourced, I'd propose we model our wording on that used in WP:V, which requires that a reliable source in the form of an inline citation be supplied for any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations, rather than inserting an ambiguous "as appropriate". -- JN 466 19:37, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by a clear and consistent citation system, including either parenthetical citations or footnotes where necessary.
Is that better or not? Awadewit ( talk) 03:55, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
My apologies for losing the plot with five or six different RFCs and proposed changes at FAC plus a backlog. Which is the current proposal? Could someone put the current WIAFA wording and the new proposal side by side here, so we can get on with it? As soon as I can review whichever version y'all want, I can put it in. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 15:27, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
The current wording at WP:WIAFA is:
Per the above discussion, proposed change is:
(Too much to read; if I got that wrong, someone please edit my post to fix it, busy. It looks good to me-- unless anyone objects, we can add it in in a few days. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 15:45, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Quick suggestion for an additional criterion or a tweak to criterion 4 on length. I think the articles listed as "see also" or "main article" should be in a decent state (reasonably referenced, reasonably well-written, categorized, etc.). Oftentimes the summary provided in the FA is actually better than the sub-article. Latest example: Manitoba vs. Climate of Manitoba. Thoughts? Pichpich ( talk) 14:38, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
Gee, what's with all the aggression? I make a little suggestion and you'd think I just advocated in favour of burning the wiki. We worry about FAs not using mdash when they should be using ndash but somehow I find subarticles more of a concern. I'm not suggesting that every article linked in the article be decent, just those which are supposedly summarized by the main one. I'm fine with people not liking the idea but can we all discuss this without dismissing it as ridiculous or implying that only FAC regulars are qualified to suggest things in FA nominations? Pichpich ( talk) 20:36, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
If people made the subarticle a criterion I think people would just go and delete the subarticle or not link to it so they can get their FA. Some people choose to leave redlinks unlinked because they see it as a stigma, even though it is no barrier to FAC. I think this would stifle content creation as some people would then just do article with no extensions and stop at 30k prose and not go for extra growth. And featured topics and good topics also provide an outlet for this YellowMonkey ( vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 02:20, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
There is a proposal to promote wp:quote.
I do not know why candidates was notified, but they were so you should be notified as well. 174.3.107.176 ( talk) 09:53, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
There's a discussion about the above at Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates#Proposal_to_remove_alt_text_requirement. SlimVirgin TALK contribs 18:25, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
Please, can someone link to the German Wikipedia equivalent of this page so that it is listed in the links on the project page for "Deutsch"? I don't know how to do it.-- 162.83.176.193 ( talk) 00:10, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Just a question, how long does it typically take you guys to get an article to FA? (as in how many tries). I'm not sure if I'm a fluke or not :L Res Mar 15:52, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
As featured articles are the best of what wp does, should we be looking at making WP:OTRS compulsory for all free media (with unlinked source) in FA criteria, as OTRS in my opinion is best practice? Fasach Nua ( talk) 20:51, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
I distinctly remember seeing a Dutch and a French FAC process. They're not listed. Have they folded? Tony (talk) 08:59, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
At Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_criteria/Archive_10#Question about references section there is discussion leading to the present wording of 2c. By my reading of that discussion, it is not intended to address the detailled choice of citation style, but rather the major types. Can we clarify whether intermixing {{ citation}} and {{ cite xxx}} in a single article is acceptable? This has become an annoying ongoing issue for User:Citation bot that really needs to be sorted out one way or the other. LeadSongDog come howl! 19:33, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
|separator=
is used, the resultant text rendered should be consistent. Does the wikitext matter, or just the rendered result?
LeadSongDog
come howl! 01:40, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
Has anyone ever put together a concise overview of how the FA process and standards have changed over time? ElKevbo ( talk) 22:11, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources for which any input would be appreciated. I hope you don't mind me asking here, but I am hoping that this guideline is something that regular FAC reviewers will have a grasp of, and can shed some light. Relevant discussion here. Thanks, -- Beloved Freak 11:09, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
In 1c, I think we can get rid of either "relevant" or "on the topic" of "it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature on the topic". After all, literature that is not on the topic can hardly be relevant. Ucucha 16:39, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
As someone who has worked on many articles, I know what it is like when a source for important info is lost and there is no other source to replace it with. Generally, these are pointed out by readers who visit the pages and later fixed if possible, but featured articles shouldn't have this problem, IMO. Thus, I wanted to suggest a further criteria for featured articles. Right now, references have to be properly formatted for an article to pass. The Cite Web tag has options to include Archived links in case the original source is lost on the web. I was thinking it would be a good idea to require that all links be archived using the Wayback Machine. The advanced search will match the best criteria for the archiving, and will create a new archived version of a URL if it has not already done so (the Wayback Machine appears to automatically archive some sites, but not all unless requested like this). Anyways, feedback for my suggestion is welcome. :) Ω pho is 05:03, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
My understanding is that these are highly discouraged per WP:ACCESS at FA, though WP:COLLAPSE does not warn against their use. Is this correct? We're having a discussion at the Video Games project about changing the infobox and some want to include collapsed sections that I though we should avoid at FAC, and wanted to check. -- MASEM ( t) 01:01, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
While this is still going, I'd also like to ask if collapsible text and tooltips are forbidden for templates mixed with prose text. There is a long discussion going on here about including or excluding certain romanizations, and some of the compromises brought up suggest tooltips and collapsible text as "semi-includes". See for example this instead of this. Is this considered part of the prose text and an absolute no-no for featured articles? Prime Blue ( talk) 18:23, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
I've noticed that nominators don't always have their offline sources available during nominations, usually because they've had to take them back to the library. This has happened to me too because of the problems of juggling interlibrary loans. I'd like to add to 1(c) that nominators must have offline sources to hand, because it's otherwise impossible to check things: "Nominators should have their sources to hand during the nomination for reviewers' questions". Any objections? SlimVirgin talk| contribs 10:19, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
FWIW, when I get a book from a library for Wikipedia-related research I photocopy the relevant pages for future reference. It is an expense (except for those with free access to copiers) but it's worthwhile in the long run. This might be better as a suggestion than a rule. Will Beback talk 21:04, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
FACs evaluate articles, not nominators. The nominator is only a person that helps to demonstrate that the article has reached a standard during a peer review process, and if it has not helps the article to reach that standard. If this rule was set we would be judging nominators (does he/she have all sources?) and not the article by itself. The nominator only should try to provide sources as a way of demonstrating that the article is well referenced in cases of doubts, and as already said in even the case that he had no access to them within a reasonable time frame he would have different action courses to succesfully continue with the FAC such as searching for a different source. I believe that we should think of the nominator not as responsible of an article (specially since Wikipedia is a collaborative effort) , but as an intermediary between the article itself and the people at the FAC proccess.-- Garrondo ( talk) 12:02, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
I'm finding it very hard to believe that Featured Articles are now expected to use {{ Citation}} only and avoid mixing cite templates.
This seems to be based on a previous discussion Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_criteria/Archive_10#Clarification_on_2c which aimed to making things more consistent and simpler for a bot because it was too difficult to have {{ Citation}} and other templates like {{ cite news}} formatted consistently, despite claims in the {{ Citation}} documentation that "If invoked with the right parameters, this template produces output identical to that of the Cite templates".
I've used templates as a way to avoid getting dragged into style details so it is very disappointing to have to deal with style inconsistencies like this. It seems like a very confusing policy to happily allow a mix of citation templates but to later have special rules for "Featured Articles". Personally I prefer to use a citation template where the semantic meaning is clearer but if templates other than {{ Citation}} are going to be discouraged like this the policy should be made more generic and consistent: the other templates should be deprecated. It seems very odd that the guidelines say "the use of templates is not required" (without even saying they are encouraged) but if they are used then editors are forced to be extremely consistent and only use one type? At the very least this new policy of for featured articles be documented more clearly. -- Horkana ( talk) 13:05, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
We discussed this proposed addition to WP:WIAFA in February thru March 2010; perhaps it's time to expand and re-examine this:
Add 1(f) to the featured article criteria:
SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 21:33, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
<syntaxhighlight lang=html inline>According to the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica:
— … entire body of the article …References
public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the{{ cite encyclopedia}}
: Missing or empty|title=
( help)</syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext">
wikitext for an even worse article than it was before
Right problem. Wrong method for correction.
The problem is, quite rightly, that if an article is largely based upon EB1911, Federal Standard 1037C, or the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, and so forth, it's not our best work. It's someone else's work, that we used as a quick shortcut to getting an encyclopaedia article. And we have long-standing cleanup projects ( Wikipedia:EB1911 Wikipedia:Federal Standard 1037C terms Wikipedia:Status of FOLDOC import) that quite explicitly note the problems that result: out-of-date information, information not systematized in the way that we systematize things, excessively colloquial prose with folkloric definitions, and so forth. (Notice that Ousterhout's dichotomy ( AfD discussion) has in part been nominated for deletion because the original FOLDOC prose isn't up to our standards.)
The right answer is not to put things into blockquotes and quotations. That makes for even worse encyclopaedia articles. (See ⇒.) The right answer is to use the sources as we would use any sources. Witness Online and offline ( AfD discussion). It started as a straight copy of FS1037C. In fact, it used to be off-line and we used to have a separate on-line article, also a straight copy of FS1037C. (We also used to have Online ( AfD discussion).) It still contains the FS1037C definitions, with a {{ FS1037C MS188}} in the References section. (Unfortunately, the templates that we have for EB1911, FOLDOC, and FS1037C don't make for very good citations, and the general-purpose citation templates don't note the public domain status of the prose copied.) But FS1937C is used as a source, one of several, for the standard industry definitions that are then expanded upon with encyclopaedic discussion of the concepts so defined.
So public domain prose (purporting to be actual explicatory content) in an FA-worthy article must be at minimum, I would suggest, (a) attributed to its source (possibly using one of the many templates that we have), (b) not the majority of the article (so that the majority is "our (best) work"), (c) used just as any other source would be used, and (d) placed into context if the information is outdated or biased. In other words: All of the things that the various cleanup projects have been warning about for years as cleanup issues for such imported content before it can be said to meet our standards must be addressed.
In other other words: An article that isn't by an overwhelming margin our best work, and which we haven't done our cleanup work on, is not featurable ours.
Uncle G ( talk) 21:54, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
That said, all articles using PD text need to follow whatever ground rules are set up for appropriate attribution. These rules belong at the apply-to-all articles level, not just the apply-to-FA level. Christopher Parham (talk) 02:12, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
The generation of original prose very much is part of our mission. Go and read foundation:Mission statement for the reason that the Foundation provides the wikis to us in the first place and what we're supposed to be doing with them. We're here to "develop" free content as well as just collect it. As it does to Wiktionary, Wikibooks, and Wikinews, that notion applies to Wikipedia. We're here to be a source of free content for others to re-use. Ironically, all of the people who are copying and pasting non-free content into Wikipedia all of the time — because they think that the goal is building an encyclopaedia by any means, even wholesale ganking of things that they aren't permitted to copy, modify, and republish — are the antithesis of working towards our goal. We're here to create free content, that the rest of the world can take from us, not to take non-free content from the rest of the world. We're here to be a source, not a sink.
After all, if people want the 1911 Britannica (or FOLDOC, or FS1037C, or the others for that matter), they don't need the Wikipedia project to regurgitate it verbatim for them. It's right there already, and has been for quite some time.
Uncle G ( talk) 03:51, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
I would think that our general article criteria (not just FAC) would disallow wholesale inclusion of PD works, period, even if attributed or marked up. WP:NPS is what covers this for all articles. -- MASEM ( t) 14:33, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
Meanwhile, toward the end of this activity, eruptions of a different kind took place on an unprecedented scale in eastern Oregon and Washington. From innumerable cracks, floods of highly fluid basaltic lava spread to cover an area of over 200,000 square miles. Known as the Columbian Plateau, this great lava bed covers much of Oregon, Washington and even parts of Idaho. California's Modoc Plateau is a thinner basaltic flow which some associate with the Columbia Plateau, but there are technical objections to this. This activity also continued until 11 or 12 million years ago when the High Cascades took shape as a distinct mountain belt as a result of the upheaval and bending of the thick blanket of volcanic rocks. As a result of this upheaval, many features opened near the crust, and during the next 10 million years, a series of new basaltic volcanic cones similar to those now found in Hawaii were built.
WP is a collaborative effort: we mix the contributions of many editors in different articles, but it is also true that many articles come from mainly a single editor: when we use PD texts we are only including one further editor in our collaborative effort. It makes no difference if he/she actually has a WP account or not, is dead or alive. The important thing is to create high quality content, and if PD allows that then even better: we are always lacking editors so if we "finish" easy with an article thanks to the effort previously done by somebody in a PD text then we can move on to improve other articles.
By this exact discussion we should forbid to copy text from one WP article into another: what is the difference between copying (and attributting) text from another WP article and a PD source?: I believe only the number of editors-authors. Similarly if the proposal being discussed here is finally approved we should also forbid any Featured Pictures which are not "own work" by WP editors with an account, since content comes from an outside source and it is not "our work". That should also include all historical images even if they have been copy-edited by WP, since attributtion to original source seems not enough per discussion above. Maybe we should simply change the description of FAs to state that FA are "the best work in WP" instead "of our best work".
On the other hand we forbid single editors to "own" an article, and in the same way WP as a collective does not "own" articles per its copyright license (since anybody can do whatever they want with them). How can we then decide when an article is "our" or not?. We do not own any articles independently of whether they include PD text or not. -- Garrondo ( talk) 07:43, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
During the FAC for Salanoia durrelli, a recently-discovered mongoose, User:J Milburn brought up the concern that not enough is known about the subject for it to be an FA. His concern stemmed from the fact that only a handful of articles have been published about the critter since its discovery, and several aspects of its behavior are left to speculation. After a brief discussion on the matter, it was quickly realized that this issue would be better addressed somewhere other than one individual FAC. Here is the aformentioned discussion:
Transcribed discussion
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It's well written and researched, but I worry that not enough is known about this species yet. There is a fair amount of speculation in the article; guesses about what it eats, for instance. Futher, there is limited research on the species at this time; the descriptions come from only two specimens. There is a mention of the fact the locals knew about the species; perhaps there's a story to tell there? Precisely where is it found? Reproduction is not mentioned- presumably because nothing is known. I guess I'm not criticising the article, I'm saying that perhaps there has not yet been enough research on the topic to justify a FA. Sorry. J Milburn ( talk) 21:15, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
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Here are some of the key points and questions brought up in the discussion:
Any thoughts? -- Cryptic C62 · Talk 16:47, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
IMO any article can be a FA at a time point: if it covers everything we know on something then that is a FA now... A featured article is no more no less than the best we can do on a notable topic, if the best we can do is short because the topic is not fully known that is as good as the biggest article (Which does not mean that one is not easier to take to FA than other). At most if the knowledge on a topic changes and the articles does not then it should be demoted. Philosophically speaking: how can we decide if "we know enough now" or "not enough yet" about something?... Going to the extreme we could end in not featuring anything in scientific topics in which there is some ongoing research since knowledge is transient and we do not know enough yet as we do not know everything...-- Garrondo ( talk) 18:37, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
In the introduction to the criteria, we already stress that FAs must adhere to WP policies; "NPOV" is a policy. Are we keeping the "neutral" sub criteria as emphasis? If not, we can probably trim it out. — Deckiller ( t- c- l) 15:25, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
How "bad" is it to have red-links in an FAC? I am not asking just what the per se "rule" is, but "how things really go down" or "what the majority of reviewers/readers prefer"? The MOS guidance is (reasonably) permissive of redlinks on things that are likely, or could reasonably become articles. Some of the "how to FA essays" floating around say not to redlink as it raises eyebrows. I am really cool either way, no bigge, just want to know, I guess how much hair it raises to have some redlinks?
I actually keep a little list of all the articles I intend to start in my sandbox, so I could totally just do away with the redlinks. Of course, then you all lose the possibility someone else might build the article. And of course, someone might never build it too!
P.s. what is the most active talk page to ask FA questions like this? I been hanging at MOS forum a lot, but some of my questions are more FA related than MOS.
TCO ( talk) 22:11, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
Talk to me, mighty ones, por favor. I have read some of the stuff at "how to FA" articles, but it can be dated or wrong. Want to know what the reviewers say. And I'm not asking "what's easier to write to FA standar", but at what point people think the article needs to have subpages because you "just don't like it from being long". Also do those have to be FA standard themselves if an article has them?) Gracias! TCO ( talk) 17:27, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
* File size: 272 kB * Prose size (including all HTML code): 49 kB * References (including all HTML code): 13 kB * Wiki text: 72 kB * Prose size (text only): 30 kB (4962 words) "readable prose size" * References (text only): 839 B
Hi, I've had a chance to have a look at my script. Re the increase in word count observed by SlimVirgin, the above diffs show that that number of words was actually added to the main text in addition to things being moved to the footnotes. Re the footnote text, the prose size script does not count the footnotes in the readable prose; this change to the References extension broke the part of the script which calculates the reference text size, which is why it did not appear to change for SlimVirgin's tests. I have fixed this issue, and also modified the script so it now counts blockquotes too. Bulleted lists are non-trivial to implement, so I haven't done that yet. I have also not yet investigated the alleged undercounting of prose size. Dr pda ( talk) 08:34, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
In the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources#On_citing_every_sentence I make a claim that modern day FAs require that all sentences (barring obvious case) require an inline citation. Some editors disagree. Perhaps some FA writers and reviewers would like to chip in there? -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:14, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
Criterion (1e) explicitly talks only of actual edit wars, but often enough, especially in articles subject to WP:Discretionary sanctions, editors will not edit war but just agree to disagree on the talk page. Do such disagreements, if stretching back for years, constitute a (1e) failure? I realize that asking for a clarification on this may be superfluous because often enough such articles read like crap (everyone gets their lick in various parts of the article), so usually fail criterion (1a) to an outside observer. Of course, those deeply involved will always argue that this or that part of the article fails (1d), neutrality, as well. Tijfo098 ( talk) 16:21, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
An issue came up while reviewing German cruiser Admiral Hipper for GA status. Although a good article need not give good perspective as to how the topic under discussion relates to similar topics, the FA criteria require "(b) comprehensive: it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context". Sometimes the ideal way to do that would be to refer to another Wikipedia article. For example, all the warships in a given class are usually quite similar, so the most efficient way to give perspective about that group of warships is to refer to the class article. For example, the featured article USS New Jersey (BB-62) refers to the good article Iowa class battleship, which gives considerable information about the design constraints and objectives.
But what if the article that one would like to refer to for context has not been written yet, or is of poor quality. Does that mean the information must be incorporated into the article that is being offered as an FA candidate? Or should we evaluate the candidate as if the articles it refers to are of good quality themselves. Jc3s5h ( talk) 16:42, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
We have a featured article today, Don Valley Parkway, about a geographic feature, which mentions several specific places, and yet includes no coordinates. The inclusion of coordinates, using {{ Coord}} (currently over 708,000 instances and growing, so indubitably popular throughout most of Wikipedia), allows users to locate the feature, and or points mentioned on a map or similar service of their choosing. While the issue of coordinates for articles about roads is hotly debated, and optional, it's certainly allowable, and done, with an example in WP:RJL. It's my contention that we shouldn't be featuring such articles without any coordinates. Criterion 1(b) "it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context" seems to support this. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 12:14, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
This topic is currently being debated at WT:RJL. In my mind, it would be a very bad idea to mandate something at FAC that is currently being contested. -- Rs chen 7754 20:03, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
The FAC instructions are not going to micromanage which content is and is not included (and if that ever changes I'm targeting infoboxen, not coordinates, first). You are welcome to put forth your argument in individual FAC nominations where you think coordinates ought to be applied, and the nominator can then respond. As a delegate, I am not going to fail any article that does not include it. And yes, this strikes me very much as forumshopping. Karanacs ( talk) 21:51, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
Two related issues:
I've just opposed a FAC on the grounds that included non-English place- and company-names, that weren't marked up with {{ Lang}}.
This touches on the wider issue on checking that FACs uses the proper mark-up in other cases, such as quotations, lists and headings, rather than kludges.
If there is general agreement that such things should be checked, I'd be willing to help draft guidelines (or a checklist), based on existing MoS criteria, and suggest that we add a new criterion 2(d), to the effect that "Markup: is consistent, accessible and semantically meaningful".
Thoughts? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 12:01, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
The easiest answer, Andy, would be to review articles for compliance with the minutiae of the MOS that aren't normally reviewed, and enter declarations on those points in the reviews. Compliance with the MOS is already required by the FA Criteria, so an additional point isn't really needed. Imzadi 1979 → 02:14, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
Hello - I'm hoping for some guidance on a point of discussion over at South African Airways Flight 295. There are a number of external links that various editors wish to keep in the external links section on account of their "importance". These links are already used in the article as references, and my understanding is that this would preclude them from being listed in the external links section too. I think WP:LINKFARM might apply, as the discussion seems to be centered around the prominence given to these links in the article. What does the FAC criteria have to say about this, as point #1 of WP:ELNO defers to here. Thanks in advance. Socrates2008 ( Talk) 08:22, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
I didn't bring it to FAC but someone did try to renominate My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic again for FA, but it was closed, quickly and quite appropriately.
But the comments from that and the first FAC attempt have highlighted a problem that I see us having with criteria 1c. As a (the?) primary author of most of the article, and continued vestiment in it, I wholeheartedly believe we have exhausted the available sourcing for the show from reliable sources, and yet we are running into comments in the FAC that more reliable sourcing is needed.
That is: this is a kids show on Saturday mornings on a second-tier cable channel. It is not going to be attracting a lot of media attention (barring future changes, but I can't CRYSTAL what might happen to do that). The only reason we have so much is because of the internet following which has highlighted this specific show from the Saturday morning block there. To flesh out parts of the article that would be normally required for a TV show (like origin and production) we are forced to turn to the presently most notable fanblog and specifically interviews with the show runners that the blog performed. (I do note there are other sources in the article presently there that probably can be removed or the like).
So basically, in terms of 1C, we have exhausted what sources are available to us, and thus I can confidently state that the article does reflect what the sources say. But if we're demanded to use more reliable sources, we're stuck there, and/or we have to cut out information that is generally part of FAs for TV that otherwise we can't back by more reliable sources than the leading fanblog.
The case that we're in should not prevent the article from becoming FA - as long as we have used every possible RS to us, and assuming all the other criteria is met, that can't be considered a barrier, otherwise there are likely numerous articles out there on topics that can never get to FA. So, the question in general here is: when considering a topic that has limited (but otherwise sufficient) coverage in reliable sources, do we weigh in favor of using the most reliable sources knowing that this will remove or curtail key sections of an article that are backed by weakly reliable sources, or do we favor having a more complete article and incorporate the weaker reliable sources (as long as we are assured they are reliable) to support all appropriate sections for an article? Or is it some place in between? -- MASEM ( t) 16:33, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
In Talk:Electrical engineering#Unsourced material one editor claims that all material in every article must be supported by a citation, including well-known easy-to-verify material. Another editor does not claim this is required for all articles, but that it is required by FA criterion 1c. Jc3s5h ( talk) 01:28, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
The FA criteria currently do not take into account the popularity or the importance (there is a difference) of an article. We have ended up with a situation where featured articles are not representative of popular or important topics. As an example, which has prompted this comment, Birth control movement in the United States was given featured article status yet there was no Birth control in the United States article. The latter article is more important and should have existed prior to the granting FA status to Birth control movement in the United States.
The FA criteria can be used to shape the workload of editors and we should use the criteria to do what is important or popular rather than what the editor wants to do. I realise that the vast majority of editors are volunteers and therefore do whatever they want to do. Most of them abide by guidelines so we should tweak the guidelines to improve WP.
My preference is to improve the important topics before we move on to the popular ones. The FA criteria can be used to do this and so I want the addition of a new rule:
Once the level four vital article are done we could move on to popular articles. We might need an RFC for this? -- Alan Liefting ( talk - contribs) 02:00, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
Not to put too fine a point on this, but no, we are not going to require that an article is "vital" in order promote it to FA. This proposal is a non-starter, for the reasons Ealdgyth described above. Raul654 ( talk) 02:48, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
It's not an accident that importance/notability are not part of the FA criteria. I've said for a long time that any article can survive AFD can become a featured article, at least theoretically. The reasons are both philosophical (in that FA is an evaluation of the quality of article and not of the merits of the subject) and practical (saying that something can't become an FA tends to dissuade people from putting in the effort to improve it. However, Alan, you are wrong in assuming that they'll instead put in the effort to get something else up to FA standards).
Nothing makes me happier than when someone does all the heavy lifting to get an important article up to FA standards, because it's much harder taking an important article up to FA status than it is to get a niche article there. I want to do all I can to support these editors and make their jobs easier. And I do use importance/notability for deciding which stuff should go on the main page.
But with all that said, other than main page featurability and AFD survivability, the FA designation and importance are totally orthogonal. Raul654 ( talk) 04:11, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
Passing FAC is so tortuously hard that virtually no-one will undertake it for a topic they have no passion for. Ruling (say) 95% of topics out of consideration is a bad start. Next, bear in mind that the tiny proportion of articles designated as "vital" is a result of runaway POV. Sheesh, Alan, it's one of the <ahem> weaker proposals I've seen on Wikipedia ;-) If you're trying to increase the number of FAs on important topics, there are lots of ways to do it, but find a positive way, rather than a negative one. -- Dweller ( talk) 20:49, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
I would oppose a Featured Article having to meet a certain level of popularity or importance. If an editor can write a dozen featured articles, to the same standard, why exclude those that certain editors don't considered popular, or important? I interpret "FA status" as being, Features Articles that are good enough to feature on the home page. I don't necessarily find them important, or popular myself, and I'm sure that whoever chooses them, doesn't personally find them all popular and important. But if they're written well, they might well be of interest, and that's good enough for me. -- Iantresman ( talk) 14:26, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
I'd like to see a more extensive checklist summarisiing FA Criteria. compared to GA Criteria. At the moment, it seems rather vague. Of course FA articles must be "well-written", but then so should all articles, so what differentiates a well written FA article from, for example, Good Articles. I'd like to throw in some examples, which I think would help editors like myself:
Good Article criteria | Featured Article criteria (In additional to WP:GA) |
Well written per WP:GA | Engaging, interesting style, appropriate tense |
Images per WP:GA |
|
May follow policies | Must follow policies |
May use templates | Must use templates, eg. {{convert|5|mi|km|0}} whenever specifying distances |
Good citations | Citations must use <cite>, template, ISBN, page number, online link where available |
-- Iantresman ( talk) 14:54, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
Content area | GAs | FAs | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Citations | No requirements on formatting | Must be consistently presented in terms of formatting | Neither set of criteria require any specific citation styles (APA, MLA, citation templates, etc.) |
Coverage | "Main aspects" of the topic area | Comprehensive | |
Images and Media | Where possible, with proper copyright status/licenses and captions | Where appropriate, with proper copyright status/licenses and captions | FAC tends to require images and media in articles, while GAN tends to overlook missing media |
Manual of Style compliance | Five specific areas | Entire MoS | |
Neutality | Follows WP:NPOV | Follows WP:NPOV | |
Prose | Well-written prose | Well-written prose, "engaging, even brilliant, and of a professional standard" | |
References | Required for six types of information; science articles follow scientific citation guidelines; citations must be reliable sources | Required " where appropriate"; citations must be to "high-quality reliable sources" | FAs as a practical matter typically have no uncited claims beyond fairly obvious general knowledge |
Stability | No on-going edit wars | No on-going edit wars, makes specific allowance for changes in response to the review process |
Imzadi 1979 → 15:20, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
I am preparing to advance a disagreement with editors of featured articles about at least one such article. It appears that one possible counterargument is that editors of numerous featured articles are exempt from some policies and guidelines. I will respect any such exemption. The only one I know of, if there is any, is that stated or implied in Wikipedia:Ownership of articles, in the Featured Articles subsection. Is there any other exemption for an editor of numerous featured articles? Thank you. Nick Levinson ( talk) 16:27, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
Who knows where this discussion goes, anyone has my permission to move to correct location and leave link here.
In many FAs on species, the original Linneaus is cited, either from the Latin, which I suspect the editor does not read, or from an English translation, and is used as the reliable source for the taxonomic authority about a species known today, one originally named by Linneaus. We are not, however, writing about the species as described by Linneaus, but about the species as defined today. Taxonomic descriptions also should not be tied to Linneaus, if they are the same, that species description is used in the modern, peer-reviewed literature. The only citation to the original Linneaus for plants or animals goes in the taxobox after his name as the authority, but this is not sufficient, the article text must cite a modern taxonomic usage of the name with Linneaus as the authority and a description correctly cited to the modern literature and Linneaus if correct.
I will be changing this, or adding fact tags as needed, to all current FAs on species and genera named by Linneaus. Eau ( talk) 19:39, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
I feel there should be a mention about alt text, or even accessibility in the images section. I know it shouldn't be too wordy, but since featured articles represent the best of Wikipedia I believe they should be accessible for the blind/etc. I randomly sampled featured articles and found that about half of them had no alt text, specifically: Pierre Rossier, National emblem of Belarus, Banksia canei, and William Barley.
I believe a line should be added to the criteria that states to the effect that articles should conform to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility, which includes other considerations as well. OakRunner ( talk) 00:46, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
I think that there are two problems with the clause "Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources":
I can show you an FA articles where the sentence "neglect[] no major facts or details and place[] the subject in context" does not apply. The justification for this is that the sources to make it comprehensive are not of "high quality". Given that these bullet points are trade-offs, they need defining. What does the word "claims" mean (over and above the policy statement that "All the material ... must be verifiable.")? I have had a look at the archives and the word claim was introduced with this edit on 19 August 2006. However looking at the talk page archives around this time ( Archive 5) I can not see the that the word was discussed let alone defined. There is section in ( Archive 6) called "Factually accurate" but the word claim is not discussed. There is a long debate in Archive 9 about "Factually accurate" but as far as I can tell "claim" was not discussed. -- PBS ( talk) 13:03, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
@MathewTownsend, if claims are different from "facts" or "factually accurate" is it only "claims" that need "high-quality reliable sources", or should "facts" also require "high-quality reliable sources"? -- PBS ( talk) 10:51, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
I'm not quite sure what the point of this discussion is, quite honestly. Unless you insist on being torturously legalistic, it's pretty clear what the criteria is aiming for... it's setting a higher standard for sourcing at FAC than is required by basic wikipedia policy. This is the same as is required for prose and layout and meeting the MOS that is required for other aspects of articles. The FA criteria require a high quality of prose, a high quality of photos, and that any article considered an FA meet the MOS in all aspects. Wikipedia doesn't require any of those things either for an article to exist - so why the questioning of the sourcing standards and not the other standards? It's pretty clear that in all aspects an FA article should not just barely meet Wikipedia policies such as WP:V but greatly exceed them and set an example of best practices. I do have to question PBS's motives for bringing this up when he's not questioning the other parts of the criteria that exceed policy... Ealdgyth - Talk 13:30, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
Ealdgyth, I had already read the previous discussion that you mentioned and I do not see the clear consensus in that section for the retention of "high quality" mainly because there was no agreement on what it means. -- PBS ( talk) 21:04, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Ealdgyth I am questioning the whole sentence and specifically both "claims" and "high quality" it seems to me that the first sentence well-researched: it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature. makes a point to a similar depth that the other list points do. The additional sentence seem to me to be unnecessary and can be interpreted in such a way as to contradict policy. The point that PoD is making is already true for all articles: we always use the best sources available to editors (and replace those which do not meet the criteria in WP:V with those that do). As an example of how "high quality" can be misapplied, take the case of an article on a British regiment that is currently serving in Afghanistan. While most of the regimental history of service in previous wars in Afghanistan can be based on "a[n] historian who specialises in the relevant subject", the most recent information (awards of medals, KIAs etc.) will be based on other types of reliable sources. There is a problem with people wishing to exclude information because although it is based on a verifiable reliable source, it is not from an historian who specialises in the relevant subject. This clearly contradicts the intent of the first sentence, but is an interpretation of "high quality" which has been used for some FA articles. If someone suggests removing text because the reliable source that supports it is not "high quality" then this can be a contradiction of WP:PRESERVE. -- PBS ( talk) 21:04, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
What is this here for? Is it meant as an example citation? If so, it's in violation of WP:CITE because there is no specific style required. — Crisco 1492 ( talk) 02:24, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
User:Giano/A fool's guide to writing a featured article is supposed to be outdated. Should we remove the link to it here? Toccata quarta ( talk) 10:03, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
There is wikitext leaking into the content at the top of this page. I was confused as to how to fix it. Can someone take a look and please take care of this? • Jesse V. (talk) 20:42, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
Regarding general domain website names, like "foo.com", I'm still confused by the inconsistencies between the {{ cite web}} documentation and what FAs do for citing websites—{{ cite web}} says to put websites in the work parameter (auto-italicizing); FAs put websites in the publisher parameter (non-italicized, though italics may be added if desired). Is non-italicizing a website part of the Harvard citation format? The reason I ask is because I would like to update some articles I've worked on, both GA and regular standard-fare stuff, to follow FA procedure, but other editors may come along and follow the promptings of {{ cite web}}, especially when using the form template. Thanks. – Kerαunoςcopia◁ gala xies 06:55, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
Recently, Maya Angelou was a featured article, but on the day it was on the front page, it was missing several important categories per our categorization guidelines. See this diff, for what was missing: for example, Category:20th-century writers, Category:American poets, Category:African-American poets and Category:Writers from Arkansas -- all resulted in a form of ghettoization. I'm not familiar with the FA process and this is not intended as an affront to the great work done on the Maya Angelou article, but due to the recent brouhaha, the specific categories she was in (or wasn't in, rather) was the subject of accusations of sexism in the press: [5].
Without opining on the correctness of that article, I would nonetheless propose that a more complete review of categorization guidelines per WP:EGRS (which itself needs help) become part of the FA process, and that we *always* ensure that we don't ghettoize - especially our featured articles. -- Obi-Wan Kenobi ( talk) 20:21, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
A criterion that should be added to the list of criteria is that the article should specify the variety of regional English in which the article is written. Sometimes it should be obvious, but sometimes it is not. An article that is put on the Main Page is seen by very many people, and some editors like to impose their own variety of English. The criteria for a Featured Article should include that it should specify its variety of English. (Once that consensus has been agreed on, changing the spelling is disruptive editing, and we have policies about disruptive editing.) In cases where the variety of regional English is not obvious, the peer review should obtain consensus that applies to that particular article. Robert McClenon ( talk) 16:30, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
I changed criteria 1b) which was misleading. If there are no sources which cover the major facts or contexts, it is not possible to include such according to WP:NOR and WP:SYNTH. However, the consensus seems to be, as in the case of articles on video games, for example, that in spite of this articles can still be featured. They just need to do fulfill the criteria up to the level that they are covered in reliable sources. So I added the clause to avoid future misunderstanding. jps ( talk) 14:27, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
Wikipedia now has its own inertia. It's not fair to those of us who remember when featured articles were the examples of how Wikipedia rivaled other reference sources. I understand that times change, but adding a few words to the end of criteria 1b) would seal it all up with a nice little bow rather than remaining ambiguous. jps ( talk) 19:35, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
The Featured article criteria page should be among the highest quality pages on Wikipedia. First, it is arguably the most important page in the entire discussion of featured articles because it is the measurement instrument for featured articles and the standard to which all editors should aspire for every article. Second, the page is, and always should be, remarkably short because of its narrow scope. The importance of the page combined with the relative ease with which editors can maintain the quality of the page strongly suggest the page should be beyond reproach.
Consider the alternative. If the Featured article criteria page purports to well explain the criteria of a high-quality Wikipedia page, but the page itself is low-quality, then I would argue that the Featured article criteria page should be added to the See also section of irony. hunterhogan ( talk) 09:57, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
It has been suggested in this FAC that it is possible to have an article on a notable subject both written and sourced as well as possible without meeting the featured article criteria. If such is the case, it would be well worth making this fact explicit in the featured article criteria page. At present, we are sending the impression to editors that any valid Wikipedia article can eventually become featured (like any American can grow up to be president), when such is not the case. Neelix ( talk) 03:51, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
My personal opinion is that folks seeking FA status on very short articles are probably reward seekers who have WBFANitis; I'm not in favor of relaxing standards. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 19:07, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
I don't think every article can be featured. If the article has noticeable holes that simply can't be fixed, then it can't be featured. For instance, Robert Cogniaux could never be a featured article, because it would not be able to be comprehensive enough due to a lack of sources. If the reader is left scratching their head after finishing the article, then it's not a good sign. Taylor Trescott - my talk + my edits 19:35, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
Something like Gagak Item makes sense for a FA, it is a lost film, so obviously there will not be much info, but the info is sufficiently comprehensive to not have a reader wondering after reading 'Gee, that felt like incomplete article'. But, if the information would be super lacking and the source does not say why it lacking, then its not a FA. Take Sweigert for example. The current article exhausts all source imaginable, but what we have only tells us how Sweigert did at baseball. This is because there is no source on him. He is notable according to a guideline, but he cant be a FA. Beerest 2 talk 22:47, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
I don't think the criteria suggests that an article should be able to pass FA just because it has used all of the sources available. It asks for "comprehensiveness", and if all of the sources available don't answer all the important questions then the article can't be comprehensive. So it can't be an FA. I don't really think the criteria need amending - this has always seemed obvious to me. Short articles can be FA if you can read through them and don't have any questions left - for instance I supported How a Mosquito Operates because, although short, it touched on all of the important elements (using good quality sources). -- Loeba (talk) 14:11, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
A featured article exemplifies our very best work and is distinguished by professional standards of writing, presentation, and sourcing.
A featured article should not contain a disambiguation Wikilink, such as civil parish in Wormshill, today's FA. Do other editors agree?-- DThomsen8 ( talk) 19:21, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
Could someone tell me the (possible) difference between inline citation and the common " <ref> source </ref> style " ? Answers would be appriciated. Boeing720 ( talk) 00:45, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
As I understand it, the <ref>...</ref> style, when used properly, is what is meant by inline citations, as opposed to just giving a list of references at the end of the article. By used properly, I mean there is a <ref>...</ref> citation attached to each fact in the article that needs a reference.-- agr ( talk) 17:34, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
I recently spotted a defect in an equation in an article on the front page, and I'm thinking the criteria ought to advise editors to look into math more closely. I'm thinking it is desirable for FA that:
There ought to be some math folks here who could suggest much more. But the gist is there ought to be a criterion for it so that it doesn't get missed. Wnt ( talk) 16:33, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
Is alt-text for images a must or a recommendation? -- NickGibson3900 Talk 08:40, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
How do you withdraw it before it either fails or pass. should i just delete the nomination from the top page? ( Monkelese ( talk) 13:21, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
2012 tour of She Has a Name, Featured Article promoted in 2013, has been nominated for deletion.
Please see discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2012 tour of She Has a Name.
Thank you,
— Cirt ( talk) 23:23, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
I suggested some talk page review as part of the GA review, but because there is currently no talk page criteria for Featured Articles, it seems we couldn't currently change anything. As such, I'm now suggesting some sort of minimal review of the talk page as part of the FA review. Mark Hurd ( talk) 04:17, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
"where appropriate" links to an essay " Wikipedia:When to cite". I think this is a mistake it should like to policy ( WP:UNSOURCED) Wikipedia:Verifiability#Responsibility for providing citations. The links in the criteria ought to link to policy not to how to pages and essays. -- PBS ( talk) 09:23, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
Perhaps I am being overly critical- but what does that mean. Shouldn't it be deleted?
Discuss. -- Clem Rutter ( talk) 11:24, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
... and not challenging the work of legacy editors who only put it there to demonstrate they had read around the topic ...
This is the oddest comment, and it looks so far like there is little understanding in that statement about why that clause was added. In particular, well before the page it links to generated to gobbledy-gook. I suggest that people seeking to remove something might want to review archives to understand why it's there. The bottom line, in spite of all that, is that GermanJoe gets it pretty much right.
SandyGeorgia (
Talk) 20:40, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
Too paraphrase Humpty Dumpty in Through the Looking Glass
"I don't know what you mean by 'high-quality' " Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't—till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!' "
"But 'high-quality' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument'," Alice objected.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all."
Unlike the "Reliable sources" the phrase "high-quality" does not appear in Verifiability policy and (as far as I am aware) it not defined in the guideline Wikipedia:Reliable sources. Leaving it in this project page, allows it to be used as a bludgeon without needing to define what it means, because after all "Aunty knows best" and "it means just what Aunty choose it to mean—neither more nor less". If there is a disagreement over the suitability of the inclusion of a source and "high-quality" is invoked then its evocation tends to be non-consensual.
So I have been bold and removed the phrase. -- PBS ( talk) 09:23, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
@SandyGeorgia I did a search on high-quality prefix:Wikipedia:Featured article candidates the second on in the list gives an example of the phrase being used by you without you defining what you mean: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/German Type UB I submarine/archive1 "Highest quality sources are required for Featured articles ... We need independent review of ship articles, but we get ship editors consistently supporting ship articles, with little independent review-- sourcing still needs to be resolved." If that was to be written as "Reliable sources are required for Featured articles ..." then people would have something defined to discuss. That "editors here have yet to establish that the authors of this website are published experts", is a question of reliable sources not "Highest quality sources". The whole push of your argument is from an intangible start and you continue it further down the same page where you write "Are high-quality reliable sources consulted?" why not ask the question "Are all the sources cited reliable ones?". That is something covered by policy your question is not. Ealdgyth make the point on that page "about a year ago, sourcing requirements for FAs went from 'reliable' to 'high quality reliable'." -- PBS ( talk) 10:08, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
@ Imzadi1979 Two points first of all I personally do not think that featured articles necessarily represent "our finest work", I think that comes from the breadth and not necessarily depth. For example I have been writing articles on the movement of armies in the Napoleonic Wars. The big advantage of such articles today over similar articles written 10 years ago, is the breadth of other articles that have now been written allows for hyper linking to give a far better overview. The breadth of topics automatically increases the depth of an individual article thorough hyperlinks to articles that only use reliable sources and meet policy requirements, which in my opinion is "our finest work". A Featured Article, as a representative of "our finest work" should be using the highest-quailty sources, for that topic, as we can muster. The wording is not "highest-quailty sources" but "high-quality reliable sources". Can you name an article where editors have gone "I am going to remove a source that meets the requirements of WP:SOURCES and replace it with a less reliable source" and other editors have gone "well OK then as this is not a featured article it does not matter if unreliable sources are used". Of course not! The point being that if one follows the advise in WP:SOURCE and WP:RS the one uses the most suitable sources available in any article not just featured articles so the phrase high-quality is unnecessary and just clutter. -- PBS ( talk) 20:34, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
The truth is that most objective editors strive to use reliable sources to meet the policy requirement: to "Attribute all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged to a reliable, published source using an inline citation" ( WP:CHALLENGE) That is a totally different requirement from "Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by inline citations where appropriate;". What does "claims" mean what does "high-quality" I think that this clause would be far better phrased in such a way that it unambiguously met the requirements of WP:CHALLENGE -- something that a featured article editor should find easy to pen. -- PBS ( talk) 20:34, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
@ ·maunus when asked above "Where do we find a definition for "high-quality" sources as distinct from "reliable sources"?" you replied Through consensus at the relevant talkpage and in the context of the relevant topic. This contradicts your more recent statement While the phrase "high quality" is in the criteria it is possible for a reviewer to challenge sources on quality, and not just reliability. because you have said that "high quality" means in the words of Humpty Dumpty "just what [a random local consensus among a few editors] choose it to mean—neither more nor less." — This is contary to WP:Local consensus "participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope", in this case the wording in WP:V.
It is much clearer and within the framework of WP:Local consensus to meet your objectives by using the wording in WP:CHALLENGE and and the definition in sources WP:SOURCES. "Base articles on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. ... If available, academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources, such as in history, medicine, and science", rather than using an undefined phrase "high quality". -- PBS ( talk) 14:10, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
What does "claims" mean in the sentence "Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources ..."? -- PBS ( talk) 14:10, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
OK I have laid out my wears and I am disappointed that at the moment there is not a consensus for change. So I see little point in continuing this discussion at the moment. However consensus can change and I hope that in the future this can be revised with an outcome that favours wording more in harmony with WP:V. -- PBS ( talk) 12:11, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
I agree with PBS that the phrase is in need of further definition, and I dislike the tone of this discussion. It seems to me to be a rather simple matter of putting some of the points raised here into a footnote or separate document, if they are not already covered by WP:RS or WP:V. If they are covered by WP:RS, then there is indeed no need for the additional phrase, "high quality" in that sentence. Samsara 06:16, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
OPINION: "High-quality" is fine and necessary as a check and balance in the Featured Article criteria, a phrase that is easily understood and at the same time open to interpretation on a per case basis. Attempting to codify overly restrictive interpretations of Wikipedia's broad principles, policies and guidelines only leads to more forms of wikilawyering, and less reliance on actual discussion to resolve issues. One of the critical Five Pillars remains: "Wikipedia has no firm rules." -- Tsavage ( talk) 08:08, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
There is a proposal to set up a new classification level, Good List. Please add your comments there. -- Redrose64 ( talk) 10:19, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
I'm surprised this hasn't been created before. I've got one experienced user to answer it. Please feel free to add your own questions/answers to it. ‑ Ugog Nizdast ( talk) 14:06, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
This word in the featured article criteria seems out of place. Shouldn't encyclopedia text instead be clear, concise and factual? Not only is the word open to wide interpretation, but it brings to mind elements of writing which aren't appropriate in an encyclopedic setting, such as colourful adjectives, metaphor, thought provoking phrases, witticisms, etc. I would like to see the words "even brilliant" removed from the criteria. — Anne Delong ( talk) 09:26, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
Instructions need to have clear performance metrics. "Readable, concise, organized..." are all concepts a writer can assess their work on. Brilliant is completely in the eye of the beholder, and impossible to measure. If you must use the word, say "we aspire to "brilliant" articles. We define brilliant as "concise, readable, quotation based, etc..." Billyshiverstick ( talk) 16:08, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
I totally support the rewarding of diligent article writers with featured status, however, somebody in Wikipedia needs to take reponsibility for some leadership. The featured article is what draws new readers in. It is the foundational service that Wikipedia exists on.
With all due respect to the subjects of recent featured articles, we can't keep prioritizing endless articles on Australian army veterans, cricketers, dreadnought class battleships, and video games.
Human experience is much wider than those four categories, yet they each get 10 featured articles a year or more. Somebody in Wikipedia needs to set a format for topics to keep Wikipedia a fresh resource. Let's rotate through 24 basic subjects like People, Nature, Art, Science, Biology, Sports, Culture, etc. Then when sports comes up, the latest article on cricketers can be compared to the latest article on ping pong players, or pole vaulters.
We are throwing the baby out with the bathwater by our method of featured article selection. The principle is good, the practice needs leadership.
thanks all Billyshiverstick ( talk) 16:04, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
Are there templates for the FA criteria, like they have over at GAN? I can't seem to find any if they are there. I am specifically looking for something to streamline the process as I go through articles. I know that FAs have a more involved process with many people putting their feet in the water, whereas only one editor approves a GAN, but I thought for organizational purposes, a criteria template would be helpful. That is if it's here... If not, maybe I will make one. Creating templates can't be too difficult, right? But I also don't want to reinvent the wheel... Thank you for any help you can provide! - Pax Verbum 23:55, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
A question for the FAQ, perhaps: How does one submit a nomination for an article to review for consideration as an FA? Is there a hierarchal chain for this process, e.g. does one submit an article to a senior editor first? I ask because I collaborated with another Wiki editor on making a poorly sourced article more up to snuff, by deleting irrelevant examples, providing context and definitions for the topic in question, adding information from scholarly sources, etc. Dano67 ( talk) 17:00, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
Got it, thank you! Instructions were there all along. Nominated 2 articles that were in review limbo ... Dano67 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:41, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
-- Redrose64 ( talk) 23:00, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
I am not sure, wheter this is the right place to ask this question, if not please appologize and tell me where to go. I am doing a university project about online colaboration. For this reason I would like to analyse the writing process of featured articles. To me it seems like that the criteria for featured articles became much stricter over time (most of the early featured articles have lost this status) and I found that the nomination procedure changed. Is there some place in the Wiki, where I can find out when these things changed? Or do I have to go through the revision history of the respective pages? Thank you! -- Mac C. Million ( talk) 14:29, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
There must be a stronger way to word this; TOCs are a given when proper section hierarchies are used. — Deckiller ( t- c- l) 04:19, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
Alright, made the tweak on the criteria. Might want to tackle with the wording a bit. If anything, this might spur discussion on appropriate structure as articles seem to get more and more bloated. — Deckiller ( t- c- l) 05:44, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
It seems like an article can become featured while still failing WP:N and WP:Not, is that correct? Siuenti ( 씨유엔티) 21:54, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
![]() | This
edit request to
Wikipedia:Featured article criteria has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Remove cross-wiki links at the bottom, already listed in the Wikidata. 219.79.180.60 ( talk) 04:49, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
Can an article not contain images? Some topics simply dont have free images available yet satisfy all other criteria. So, are images a reason for an article to fail?.-- Attar-Aram syria ( talk) 00:04, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
Thank you all.-- Attar-Aram syria ( talk) 07:03, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
I wish to help with. RCNesland ( talk) 17:19, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
I am developing an article about a Vietnamese movie and considering to use at least 5 sources from its Facebook page for Marketing section because none of VNese publication mentioned the information that I need (I used to concern about the use of Facebook a few weeks ago). Although I've not finished yet but I estimate this article will have about 50 sources. Base on WP:SELFPUB, self-published sources such as Facebook can be used as sources of information about themselves. However, after reading this candidate, a reviewer said that Facebook is not a high-quality source while WP:FACR require this criteria (1c-well-researched). Can anyone give me advice? Phamthuathienvan ( talk) 11:32, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
Nikkimaria, RL0919, Iridescent. Thank you for your advice. The film's facebook page is managed by the film's producer. I only use Facebook as source for a few information in the Marketing section. Basically, the film producer organize a lot of activities to promote it and unfortunately the film does not have its own website. About 5-7 sources from Facebook so I don't know the article rely heavily on self-publish sources or not. Phamthuathienvan ( talk) 06:18, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
When citing books, is adding the location necessary? It seems tedious and adds nothing of value to the article. I've got an article where one citation includes location and about 40 other sources to manually look up and add location as a result. Seems easier to just remove the one location that to add the other approx. 40. SpartaN ( talk) 17:37, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
Does a Featured Article have to be previously designated as a Good Article? Are there cases when an article was directly given the "featured" status without first being given the "good" status? huji— TALK 00:36, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
Criterion 1c requires featured articles to be based on "a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature". But can a survey be both "thorough" and "representative" at the same time? The two terms seem to be mutually exclusive; "thorough" means complete in every detail, "representative" means a sample. The point has arisen from a current FAC review, but to my mind the wording presents a general problem, and perhaps requires reconsideration. Does anyone agree? Brianboulton ( talk) 17:44, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
Given the comments above timed at 19:53, 26 March 2018 (UTC) and 22:16, 26 March 2018 (UTC), also the somewhat lengthy threads beginning at Help talk:Citation Style 1#Purpose of Cite web, perhaps we should define exactly what criterion 2c means by "consistent". We could provide some extra examples.
<ref>...</ref>
tags<ref>...</ref>
tags for others{{
citation}}
We might even note that inconsistency does not mean that {{
cite web}}
, {{
cite journal}}
and {{
cite news}}
cannot be used in the same article - they can, and they must be if one source is found only on the internet, and the other two are found only in the form of printed matter.
At
WP:WIAGA, several of the criteria are annotated with <ref>...</ref>
, perhaps we could do the same. --
Redrose64 🌹 (
talk) 20:50, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
It is useful and well written. The issue seems to be that FA advice notes should not be in userspace- well the answer is to move them. They are excellent Help notes- possibility there. It is almost a subpage this page, it is used in that way, so Wikipedia:Featured article criteria/User essay may be the right space-- lets not build a 'wall'! -- ClemRutter ( talk) 21:30, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
Current wording of the criteria:
It follows the style guidelines, including the provision of:
- a lead: a concise lead section that summarizes the topic and prepares the reader for the detail in the subsequent sections;
- appropriate structure: a substantial but not overwhelming system of hierarchical section headings; and
- consistent citations: where required by criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations using either footnotes (<ref>Smith 2007, p. 1</ref>) or Harvard referencing (Smith 2007, p. 1)—see citing sources for suggestions on formatting references. Citation templates are not required.
Suggested change:
consistent citations: where required by criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations using footnotes (<ref>Smith 2007, p. 1</ref>)—see citing sources for suggestions on formatting references. Citation templates are not required.
Rationale: Harvard citations used as parenthetical citations are a distinct minority of citation styles on Wikipedia in general. They're a relic of paper research papers without the benefit of hyperlinks, and clutter up prose (where that's a necessary evil, it's better served by the footnotes that are vastly more preferred.) I'd argue we should be deprecating parenthetical citation styles such as Harvard and MLA Wikipedia-wide (in terms of cutting down on the infinite number of citation styles, this seems like lower-hanging fruit,) but I'd first float the idea here for FAs. Any FAs that do use them can be easily converted to footnotes. Thoughts? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 16:43, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
There have been repeated discussions on the climate change article about what constitutes a high quality reliable source. The issue resolves around the public websites of organisations like NASA and WHO, which are not dated and don't have an author. To me it seems that not knowing how recent information is, when scientific thinking is still developing, is a strong mark against using these reliable sources, and that peer-reviewed secondary sources would be better. On the other hand, NASA and WHO are the ultimate authorities on their respective topics. Would you guys consider those sources high quality? Femke Nijsse ( talk) 07:52, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
2.c. consistent citations: where required by criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations using either footnotes (<ref>Smith 2007, p. 1.</ref>) or Harvard referencing (Smith 2007, p. 1)—see
citing sources for suggestions on formatting references. The use of citation templates is not required.
Is this requirement for consistent formatting intended to imply that all citations in an article must either display full first names only, or all must display first name initials only, and that a combination of initials where provided by the source, and full first names where provided by the source is not acceptable?
I have just finished reading through the archives of this talk page, and cannot find anything definitive. · · · Peter (Southwood) (talk): 16:05, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
|first=John
|last=Smith
for both of them. --
Redrose64 🌹 (
talk) 10:11, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
I have a different question about this requirement. Is it a requirement to use Harvard-style or shortened footnotes? I've seen a number of FAs with regular citation templates--is that allowed? Rachel Helps (BYU) ( talk) 19:53, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
Obviously, a featured article that cites A. A. Milne, C. S. Lewis, or J. R. R. Tolkien has to be very short because it can’t cite anyone else. And you’re not allowed to cite Dr. Suess at all.
Kidding. The requirement in WP:FACR is “consistently formatted inline citations” and refers to WP:CITE for suggestions, which spells it out in the section WP:CITESTYLE. That entire long guideline says nothing about full names or initials, and makes it clear that citations’ content is variable, listing what we try to include in a “typical” citation, and details that may be added “as necessary.”
Written content, including references, is distinct from citation format. An author’s name is their own, and we should use it as they did their published works to 1. make them easy for our readers to find and WP:VERIFY, and 2. to respect their self-identification (see also WP:NCBIO and WP:LIVE).
To compare a professional style guide’s advice, the CMoS says “Authors’ names are normally given as they appear with the source itself,” but “certain adjustments, however, may be made to assist correct identification” (14.73), and “For authors who always use initials, full names should not be supplied” (14.74).
If article and reference content starts being modified or removed to serve format, then we are failing the encyclopedia’s readers. — Michael Z. 20:34, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
I find it a little odd that the FA criteria doesn't mention anything about categorization. At a number of GA reviews I've done, I've noted where categorization was incorrect, lacking, or failed WP:CATV. I was surprised when one of the nominators remarked that they hadn't really looked at the categories, as they weren't part of the FA or GA criteria. In fact, neither WP:FACR nor WP:GACR mentions anything about categories. And frankly, as much as everything associated with FAC is nitpicky in some ways, it seems weird not to explicitly mention quality of categorization in the criteria. It's obviously WP:Instruction creep to include a new letter-level statement for categories, but maybe add in some wording somewhere in one of the other line-items that categorization should be of high-quality, too? Hog Farm Bacon 16:13, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
I hope to resolve an editing disagreement. It’s about FA criterion 2.c., which says that a featured article:
follows the style guidelines, including . . . consistent citations: where required by criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations using footnotes (<ref>Smith 2007, p. 1</ref>)—see citing sources for suggestions on formatting references. Citation templates are not required.
Does this mean that every citation in an FA must either include the place of publication, or else every one must omit it? — Michael Z. 21:03, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Article size mentions 10,000 words, but I looked at Barack Obama (via [6]) and it's more than 15,000 words. I am asking, since we are discussing article length on Climate Change. I think for a big issue such as climate change, 15k should still be acceptable for FA status, similar to Obama's article? Bogazicili ( talk) 14:43, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
I agree that 10k words isn't a bad rule of thumb, but more for load times and browser issues than for readability reasons. As per one of my regular hobby-horses, as editors we sometimes lose sight of the fact that more than half of Wikipedia pageviews (and steadily rising) are in Minerva (the format non-logged-in readers see when reading Wikipedia on Android or iOS), which is totally different in both appearance and usage patterns than the Vector or Monobook displays we see as logged-in editors. (Follow the instructions here, if you want to see what a given article will look like to the majority of readers.) In Minerva, all the sections other than the lead are collapsed by default and there's no table of contents, meaning that the internal headers themselves serve as de facto links to show any given section.
To stick with HJ Mitchell's example of World War I, a reader using Minerva—which to labor the point again is already the majority of readers and the proportion is rising steadily—is very unlikely to read the whole thing top-to-bottom whether the article is 1000 words, 10,000 words, or 100,000 words. Instead, they'll read the lead section, and following that will see a list of links (see right) which correspond to the sections of the article in desktop view. As such, the majority of readers will only even see, let alone read, the lead section and those sections of the body text which either look like they contain the specific information that they're looking for, or which have interesting-looking titles that encourage readers to click on them, and this is the case whatever the length of the article—to most readers it quite literally doesn't matter what the length is as they're still only going to read a few sections of the article.
I make no secret of the fact that I hate Minerva and think it's one of the WMF's most costly errors in terms of driving readers away, but it's what we have and they show no signs of changing it. In the Minerva context, the traditional arguments about summary style and article length go out the window—the most important thing is to have sufficient information within the parent article (since the links to subpages are themselves buried within already-collapsed sections so readers are unlikely even to know that they exist), and to ensure that every section header is an accurately descriptive summary of the information it contains so readers know what to click. In this new world we should probably really have "is comprehensible and correctly-formatted to a reader using a mobile device" as a specific FA criterion—there's no point something being brilliantly informative and beautifully formatted on desktop view if it looks like a garbled incoherent mess to the majority of readers—but I suspect that would cut as big a swathe through the FA list as did the mass delisting when we abandoned "brilliant prose". ‑ Iridescent 08:09, 25 December 2020 (UTC)
There is a trade-off between including detail and keeping the article neutral and well-researched (=up to date). For science articles, I'd strive for 8k, fail to reach that for comprehensiveness reasons, but get a better article for trying to reach 8k. Femke Nijsse ( talk) 10:25, 25 December 2020 (UTC)
The prose is quite good, in the whole gigantic article there was a single unparseable sentence. It's direct, clear, no-nonsense. I couldn't find any WP:OR, neutrality is almost automatic given the subject, and the article is very comprehensive. It has everything one might want to know about Galileo and more. That's a problem, though. Not only the article becomes too large, but it's also full of unnecessary detail.I didn't consider details unnecessary, and the article does not run afoul of WP:SIZE, although I was willing to split it into two articles. I maintain that an article should be as long as it needs to be. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:03, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
The featured article of today is Buruli ulcer, and the welcome page of wikipedia shows images of open wounds. I understand that it's an illustration for this topic, but I found this image disturbing specially because it's the HOME page of wikipedia, an encyclopedia that we recommend for children. I would propose to amend the criterias to avoid if possible the use of the kind of image. Formidableinc ( talk) 09:05, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
That It follows the style guidelines, including the provision of:
be changed to It follows the style guidelines, regarding the provision of:
This represents the actual situation, makes sense given the specifics that follow, and precludes articles being stricken for trivial non-compliance with a volatile and overreaching style guide.
Hawkeye7
(discuss) 05:39, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
I propose that this phrase be removed from the Featured Article Criteria on the grounds that it lacks meaning, has been subject to abuse, and creates an impossible burden on the nominator. Normally we can point to a verdict on WP:RSN that a source is reliable, or its widespread use, particularly in other Featured Articles. The key problems with the phrase are:
This creates an impossible burden on the nominator. The issue was discussed back in 2009 ( Wikipedia talk:Featured article criteria/Archive 9#"High-quality" vs. "Highest-quality") where there was clear consensus to remove the term, but this was not done, and again in 2012 ( Wikipedia talk:Featured article criteria/Archive 10#Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources), where it was roundly criticised, but still no action was taken. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:02, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
FYI the subject resurfaced here, which is what led me to this talk page thread. I read through the 2009 archive and do not agree with Hawkeye7's characterization that there "was clear consensus to remove the term". That said, I agree that we should either drop it, or provide criteria to evaluate sources against that standard, whatever it is. NewsAndEventsGuy ( talk) 17:16, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
Disagree with dropping “high quality”; in al most every area where I write or evaluate FAs, it is abundantly apparent what the term means and how it is used. This should be flagged as a PERENNIAL non-starter. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 09:05, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
Per discussion of the WT:FAC page, should the general guideline of an article requiring three supports and a pass in image/source reviews be put into the criteria here, or else into the instructional/informational portion of the WP:FAC page? The requirement is codified in Milhist's A-Class review instructions. I don't think doing so would change much beyond making people more aware of it, as it's already a used minimum. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 05:22, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
Criterion 2.c states:
2. It follows the style guidelines, including the provision of:
c. consistent citations: where required by criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations using footnotes—see citing sources for suggestions on formatting references. Citation templates are not required.
My query relates to the interpretation of consistently formatted, in the context of FA and MoS.
At Wikipedia:Citing sources#Types of citation it is stated:
A full citation fully identifies a reliable source and, where applicable, the place in that source (such as a page number) where the information in question can be found. For example: Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Harvard University Press, 1971, p. 1. This type of citation is usually given as a footnote, and is the most commonly used citation method in Wikipedia articles.
A short citation is an inline citation that identifies the place in a source where specific information can be found, but without giving full details of the source – these will have been provided in a full bibliographic citation either in an earlier footnote, or in a separate section. For example: Rawls 1971, p. 1. This system is used in some articles.
The usual place to display the text of a full citation is in a references section, which is commonly titled "References". The usual place to display the short form text of a short citation is also in a references section, with the full bibliographic text in a separate section with a different section title, such as "Sources".
My question, in this context, is:
Is the current consensus interpretation of FA criterion 2.c that consistently formatted implies that the display of full citations and short citations in the same references section, with a separate "Sources" section for the bibliographic text relating to short citations is no longer acceptable in a featured article?
I refer to a short sample list of FAs where this was clearly not the case, but accept that consensus can change, and previously accepted styles can be deprecated:
At the time of sampling this style appeared to be used by roughly 1 in 5 to 1 in 10 of the selected examples, which were arbitrarily selected to represent a fairly broad range of topics. I do not know what the current distribution would be.
Other relevant guidance includes Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Layout#Notes and references, which states:
Contents: This section, or series of sections, may contain any or all of the following:
1. Explanatory footnotes that give information which is too detailed or awkward to be in the body of the article
2. Citation footnotes (either short citations or full citations) that connect specific material in the article with specific sources
3. Full citations to sources, if short citations are used in the footnotes or in parenthetical references in the body
4. General references (full bibliographic citations to sources that were consulted in writing the article but that are not explicitly connected to any specific material in the article)
Editors may use any citation method they choose, but it should be consistent within an article.
If there are both citation footnotes and explanatory footnotes, then they may be combined in a single section, or separated using the grouped footnotes function. General references and other full citations may similarly be either combined or separated (e.g. "References" and "General references"). There may therefore be one, two, three or four sections in all.
Regards, · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 08:27, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
I concur with Ealdgyth, Johnbod, Caeciliusinhorto, and Mike Christie, and thank Ealdgth for linking to an explanation of what this was about. I suspect Nikkimaria would have an opinion on this topic.
I'd add two things on a different topic about that discussion:
For the citations, the FAC/FAR process has changed their expectations for citations, where all citations should be at the end of the information that they are verifying instead of the middle of the sentence.. I may be misunderstanding, but I don't know of this to be the case. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 14:23, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
citation markers are normally placed after adjacent punctuation such as periods (full stops) and commas. For exceptions, see the WP:Manual of Style § Punctuation and footnotes. Note also that no space is added before the citation marker... The citation should be added close to the material it supports, offering text–source integrity. If a word or phrase is particularly contentious, an inline citation may be added next to that word or phrase within the sentence, but it is usually sufficient to add the citation to the end of the clause, sentence, or paragraph, so long as it's clear which source supports which part of the text.Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:32, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
While doing research related to an ongoing discussion about WP:AS I've come across offhand talkpage references to FAC processes (and perhaps also GAN) effectively setting a much stricter standard for article size than what might be evident from how the guideline is worded.
Is there a de facto 60 kB prose size limit applied to most FACs? Or a tacit understanding that anything above 60 kB might have difficulty getting promoted? Peter Isotalo 19:37, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
The wrong question is being asked; I'm not aware of any size-knowledgeable editor at FAC or FAR who looks at KB rather than readable prose size. The requirement at WP:WIAFA is clearly stated:
I have never supported a FAC or FAR that is of an excessive length because I have never seen one that does not have unnecessary detail, excess verbosity, or failure to use summary style. And on every FAC or FAR where I oppose on that basis, I provide an abundance of examples. This problem, though, can occur equally at 10000 words as it can at 8000, 6000, etc. The requirement is to avoid unnecessary detail and use summary style; it's pretty hard to build up a 15,000-word encyclopedic article if those requirements have been met. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 20:53, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
I'm grooming American Bank Note Company Printing Plant for FAC. I'm not sure File:Faile Mansion.jpg will pass the image review for licensing. I found an even better image of the same scene ( https://www.wikiart.org/en/david-johnson/west-farms-the-t-h-faile-esq-estate-1873), but the same question applies.
I've read Wikipedia:Public domain but still can't quite get my head around all the details. In the later case, the painter (David Johnson) is known to have died in 1908, so it's provably "70 years after death", but still the sticky question of what it means to be published. On top of all that, I gather that enwiki and commons have different interpretations of this. Can anybody provide clarity if these two images would pass muster at FAC? RoySmith (talk) 14:34, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
exhibition counts as publicationseems at odds with WP:PD#Publication. RoySmith (talk) 18:16, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
Additionally, exhibiting, displaying, or releasing the work in a public place where anyone can make unrestricted copies of the work could publish the work- this is exactly what I was remembering so thanks to Nikkimaria for proving that I'm not going mad Caeciliusinhorto ( talk) 21:59, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 5 | ← | Archive 8 | Archive 9 | Archive 10 |
Perhaps an RFC, as suggested above to change the "mission" of FAC. Quoted from
Mike Christie above: "The current consensus at FAC seems to me to be not "the best work on Wikipedia", nor "the best article that can be written", but "the best work of Wikipedians". I don't think it would hurt FA to change to one of the other definitions, but if there is a consensus that it's the work of Wikipedians then FAs with free content should be excluded. If the definition is "the best work that can be written" then I think it would be consistent to allow free content." (quoted from above by
Mike Christie)
Perhaps the FAC "star" should be considered an award to individual wikipedians, per WP:WBFAN. <remove unnecessary comment> — mattisse ( Talk) 03:51, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
People tend to take things to the extreme on Wikipedia, disrupting to make a point. I have in mind inserting subtle inaccuracies and vandalism and such into BLPs just to see how long it takes folks to notice and overturn it, then going to Wikipedia Review and publishing their findings. Keeping this in mind, and admitting that we cannot anticipate everything that will come from redefining what a featured article is, potential outcomes of this could be:
One of the conceptual problems I have with articles taken largely from PD sources is that those parts that have been lifted from a PD source are, essentially, unsourced, because the article and its purported source are one and the same. Anyone who challenges the sourcing of all or part of the article, per WP:V, will be referred to itself as the source. SlimVirgin TALK contribs 14:09, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
The ODNB can be a reliable source for various points in a WP article. It can't be a reliable source for itself. As soon as it says, "I am the article, not just one of the article's sources," it ceases to be a source in the interests of avoiding self-reference. You have changed what it is conceptually by changing its use. The whole point of a source is to say, "Someone other than me says this."
So according to WP:V, if someone challenges any part of it, it needs to find a source other than itself. According to V, that must be done for anything challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations. SlimVirgin TALK contribs 15:00, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Going way back to "If a source is reliable then it is reliable even if we use most or all of its text in an article," I've got to stop right there with a medical example. One would think the NIH is a reliable source, and we could lift their entire fact sheet on Tourette syndrome and have an accurate, updated article. Not so, at least when I was writing TS. Pieces of it were accurate, pieces of it were blatantly wrong, and pieces of it were outdated. More recent and accurate reliable sources, in peer-reviewed journals, were needed to write an accurate article. So, a reliable source PD may not be reliable enough, and we may still be presenting inaccuracies if we quote them. Good scholarship requires more than copy-paste. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 15:23, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Just an update....since the discussion here seems to have petered out without reaching any consensus, I've gone ahead and started an FAR on the article that started the whole thing. Regardless of the more meta questions (on what FA should be about, yada yada yada), I think it is appropriate to have a separate, more practical discussion for the specific article, which can focus on that particular article's merits rather than all the abstract stuff discussed above. The FAR is here if anyone wants to comment. rʨanaɢ talk/ contribs 23:32, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
I have a question about criteria 1(c): "Claims are ... supported with citations; this requires a "References" section that lists these sources, complemented by inline citations where appropriate ..."
I understand this to mean that, whichever citation style you use, whether long or short refs as inline citations, you must also have a References section (or whatever you want to call it) that lists in alphabetical order full citations for all the sources used. However, I'm seeing FACs that have been through the usual reviews that don't have that, or they list some sources in a References section but not all.
Is my understanding of what's required correct? SlimVirgin TALK contribs 14:26, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
That section currently says:
Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by citations; this requires a "References" section that lists these sources, complemented by inline citations where appropriate;
If we really only require one section, I suggest we change it to something like:
Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by inline citations, which are listed in a "Notes" or "References" section. A separate section that lists full citations in alphabetical order is optional.
SlimVirgin TALK contribs 15:32, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
{{
reflist}}
with footnotes, and no one at
its FAC has complained. In this case that makes perfect sense since the vast majority of sources are news articles, most of them cited on a one-off basis, and who wants a pointless bibliography hundreds of entries long that does nothing but add an extra click people need to make to find a resource? I think everyone can probably agree that there's no need to introduce an arbitrary rule (à la "every article needs both an alphabetical bibliography and a list of footnotes) when things can be handled on a case-by-case basis like this.
rʨanaɢ
talk/
contribs 16:31, 29 January 2010 (UTC)Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by inline citations. At least one separate "Reference" or "Notes" section is included to list out full citations for all sources used.
Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources, listed in the article, and are supported with citations, including inline citations where appropriate
I haven't actually seen a formal proposal, but I am uncertain what problem this is trying to solve.-- Wehwalt ( talk) 17:30, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
<ref></ref>
and nothing else. I don't know if that's a problem here at FAC, but I know at DYK and sometimes CSD it has come up, with someone saying "X article has no inline citations" when actually it just has no cite.php footnotes.
rʨanaɢ
talk/
contribs 00:39, 30 January 2010 (UTC)
Hello? Two days have passed, and the RfC has calmed down somewhat. Looking at the above discussion, I would prefer us to implement SlimVirgin's proposal:
Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by inline citations, which are listed in a "Notes" or "References" section. A separate section that lists full citations in alphabetical order is optional.
If we consider it important to point out here that not everything has to be sourced, I'd propose we model our wording on that used in WP:V, which requires that a reliable source in the form of an inline citation be supplied for any material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, and for all quotations, rather than inserting an ambiguous "as appropriate". -- JN 466 19:37, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by a clear and consistent citation system, including either parenthetical citations or footnotes where necessary.
Is that better or not? Awadewit ( talk) 03:55, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
My apologies for losing the plot with five or six different RFCs and proposed changes at FAC plus a backlog. Which is the current proposal? Could someone put the current WIAFA wording and the new proposal side by side here, so we can get on with it? As soon as I can review whichever version y'all want, I can put it in. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 15:27, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
The current wording at WP:WIAFA is:
Per the above discussion, proposed change is:
(Too much to read; if I got that wrong, someone please edit my post to fix it, busy. It looks good to me-- unless anyone objects, we can add it in in a few days. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 15:45, 7 February 2010 (UTC)
Quick suggestion for an additional criterion or a tweak to criterion 4 on length. I think the articles listed as "see also" or "main article" should be in a decent state (reasonably referenced, reasonably well-written, categorized, etc.). Oftentimes the summary provided in the FA is actually better than the sub-article. Latest example: Manitoba vs. Climate of Manitoba. Thoughts? Pichpich ( talk) 14:38, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
Gee, what's with all the aggression? I make a little suggestion and you'd think I just advocated in favour of burning the wiki. We worry about FAs not using mdash when they should be using ndash but somehow I find subarticles more of a concern. I'm not suggesting that every article linked in the article be decent, just those which are supposedly summarized by the main one. I'm fine with people not liking the idea but can we all discuss this without dismissing it as ridiculous or implying that only FAC regulars are qualified to suggest things in FA nominations? Pichpich ( talk) 20:36, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
If people made the subarticle a criterion I think people would just go and delete the subarticle or not link to it so they can get their FA. Some people choose to leave redlinks unlinked because they see it as a stigma, even though it is no barrier to FAC. I think this would stifle content creation as some people would then just do article with no extensions and stop at 30k prose and not go for extra growth. And featured topics and good topics also provide an outlet for this YellowMonkey ( vote in the Southern Stars and White Ferns supermodel photo poll) 02:20, 23 February 2010 (UTC)
There is a proposal to promote wp:quote.
I do not know why candidates was notified, but they were so you should be notified as well. 174.3.107.176 ( talk) 09:53, 16 March 2010 (UTC)
There's a discussion about the above at Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_candidates#Proposal_to_remove_alt_text_requirement. SlimVirgin TALK contribs 18:25, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
Please, can someone link to the German Wikipedia equivalent of this page so that it is listed in the links on the project page for "Deutsch"? I don't know how to do it.-- 162.83.176.193 ( talk) 00:10, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Just a question, how long does it typically take you guys to get an article to FA? (as in how many tries). I'm not sure if I'm a fluke or not :L Res Mar 15:52, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
As featured articles are the best of what wp does, should we be looking at making WP:OTRS compulsory for all free media (with unlinked source) in FA criteria, as OTRS in my opinion is best practice? Fasach Nua ( talk) 20:51, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
I distinctly remember seeing a Dutch and a French FAC process. They're not listed. Have they folded? Tony (talk) 08:59, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
At Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_criteria/Archive_10#Question about references section there is discussion leading to the present wording of 2c. By my reading of that discussion, it is not intended to address the detailled choice of citation style, but rather the major types. Can we clarify whether intermixing {{ citation}} and {{ cite xxx}} in a single article is acceptable? This has become an annoying ongoing issue for User:Citation bot that really needs to be sorted out one way or the other. LeadSongDog come howl! 19:33, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
|separator=
is used, the resultant text rendered should be consistent. Does the wikitext matter, or just the rendered result?
LeadSongDog
come howl! 01:40, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
Has anyone ever put together a concise overview of how the FA process and standards have changed over time? ElKevbo ( talk) 22:11, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources for which any input would be appreciated. I hope you don't mind me asking here, but I am hoping that this guideline is something that regular FAC reviewers will have a grasp of, and can shed some light. Relevant discussion here. Thanks, -- Beloved Freak 11:09, 31 May 2010 (UTC)
In 1c, I think we can get rid of either "relevant" or "on the topic" of "it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature on the topic". After all, literature that is not on the topic can hardly be relevant. Ucucha 16:39, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
As someone who has worked on many articles, I know what it is like when a source for important info is lost and there is no other source to replace it with. Generally, these are pointed out by readers who visit the pages and later fixed if possible, but featured articles shouldn't have this problem, IMO. Thus, I wanted to suggest a further criteria for featured articles. Right now, references have to be properly formatted for an article to pass. The Cite Web tag has options to include Archived links in case the original source is lost on the web. I was thinking it would be a good idea to require that all links be archived using the Wayback Machine. The advanced search will match the best criteria for the archiving, and will create a new archived version of a URL if it has not already done so (the Wayback Machine appears to automatically archive some sites, but not all unless requested like this). Anyways, feedback for my suggestion is welcome. :) Ω pho is 05:03, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
My understanding is that these are highly discouraged per WP:ACCESS at FA, though WP:COLLAPSE does not warn against their use. Is this correct? We're having a discussion at the Video Games project about changing the infobox and some want to include collapsed sections that I though we should avoid at FAC, and wanted to check. -- MASEM ( t) 01:01, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
While this is still going, I'd also like to ask if collapsible text and tooltips are forbidden for templates mixed with prose text. There is a long discussion going on here about including or excluding certain romanizations, and some of the compromises brought up suggest tooltips and collapsible text as "semi-includes". See for example this instead of this. Is this considered part of the prose text and an absolute no-no for featured articles? Prime Blue ( talk) 18:23, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
I've noticed that nominators don't always have their offline sources available during nominations, usually because they've had to take them back to the library. This has happened to me too because of the problems of juggling interlibrary loans. I'd like to add to 1(c) that nominators must have offline sources to hand, because it's otherwise impossible to check things: "Nominators should have their sources to hand during the nomination for reviewers' questions". Any objections? SlimVirgin talk| contribs 10:19, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
FWIW, when I get a book from a library for Wikipedia-related research I photocopy the relevant pages for future reference. It is an expense (except for those with free access to copiers) but it's worthwhile in the long run. This might be better as a suggestion than a rule. Will Beback talk 21:04, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
FACs evaluate articles, not nominators. The nominator is only a person that helps to demonstrate that the article has reached a standard during a peer review process, and if it has not helps the article to reach that standard. If this rule was set we would be judging nominators (does he/she have all sources?) and not the article by itself. The nominator only should try to provide sources as a way of demonstrating that the article is well referenced in cases of doubts, and as already said in even the case that he had no access to them within a reasonable time frame he would have different action courses to succesfully continue with the FAC such as searching for a different source. I believe that we should think of the nominator not as responsible of an article (specially since Wikipedia is a collaborative effort) , but as an intermediary between the article itself and the people at the FAC proccess.-- Garrondo ( talk) 12:02, 5 October 2010 (UTC)
I'm finding it very hard to believe that Featured Articles are now expected to use {{ Citation}} only and avoid mixing cite templates.
This seems to be based on a previous discussion Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_criteria/Archive_10#Clarification_on_2c which aimed to making things more consistent and simpler for a bot because it was too difficult to have {{ Citation}} and other templates like {{ cite news}} formatted consistently, despite claims in the {{ Citation}} documentation that "If invoked with the right parameters, this template produces output identical to that of the Cite templates".
I've used templates as a way to avoid getting dragged into style details so it is very disappointing to have to deal with style inconsistencies like this. It seems like a very confusing policy to happily allow a mix of citation templates but to later have special rules for "Featured Articles". Personally I prefer to use a citation template where the semantic meaning is clearer but if templates other than {{ Citation}} are going to be discouraged like this the policy should be made more generic and consistent: the other templates should be deprecated. It seems very odd that the guidelines say "the use of templates is not required" (without even saying they are encouraged) but if they are used then editors are forced to be extremely consistent and only use one type? At the very least this new policy of for featured articles be documented more clearly. -- Horkana ( talk) 13:05, 29 October 2010 (UTC)
We discussed this proposed addition to WP:WIAFA in February thru March 2010; perhaps it's time to expand and re-examine this:
Add 1(f) to the featured article criteria:
SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 21:33, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
<syntaxhighlight lang=html inline>According to the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica:
— … entire body of the article …References
public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the{{ cite encyclopedia}}
: Missing or empty|title=
( help)</syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext">
wikitext for an even worse article than it was before
Right problem. Wrong method for correction.
The problem is, quite rightly, that if an article is largely based upon EB1911, Federal Standard 1037C, or the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, and so forth, it's not our best work. It's someone else's work, that we used as a quick shortcut to getting an encyclopaedia article. And we have long-standing cleanup projects ( Wikipedia:EB1911 Wikipedia:Federal Standard 1037C terms Wikipedia:Status of FOLDOC import) that quite explicitly note the problems that result: out-of-date information, information not systematized in the way that we systematize things, excessively colloquial prose with folkloric definitions, and so forth. (Notice that Ousterhout's dichotomy ( AfD discussion) has in part been nominated for deletion because the original FOLDOC prose isn't up to our standards.)
The right answer is not to put things into blockquotes and quotations. That makes for even worse encyclopaedia articles. (See ⇒.) The right answer is to use the sources as we would use any sources. Witness Online and offline ( AfD discussion). It started as a straight copy of FS1037C. In fact, it used to be off-line and we used to have a separate on-line article, also a straight copy of FS1037C. (We also used to have Online ( AfD discussion).) It still contains the FS1037C definitions, with a {{ FS1037C MS188}} in the References section. (Unfortunately, the templates that we have for EB1911, FOLDOC, and FS1037C don't make for very good citations, and the general-purpose citation templates don't note the public domain status of the prose copied.) But FS1937C is used as a source, one of several, for the standard industry definitions that are then expanded upon with encyclopaedic discussion of the concepts so defined.
So public domain prose (purporting to be actual explicatory content) in an FA-worthy article must be at minimum, I would suggest, (a) attributed to its source (possibly using one of the many templates that we have), (b) not the majority of the article (so that the majority is "our (best) work"), (c) used just as any other source would be used, and (d) placed into context if the information is outdated or biased. In other words: All of the things that the various cleanup projects have been warning about for years as cleanup issues for such imported content before it can be said to meet our standards must be addressed.
In other other words: An article that isn't by an overwhelming margin our best work, and which we haven't done our cleanup work on, is not featurable ours.
Uncle G ( talk) 21:54, 9 November 2010 (UTC)
That said, all articles using PD text need to follow whatever ground rules are set up for appropriate attribution. These rules belong at the apply-to-all articles level, not just the apply-to-FA level. Christopher Parham (talk) 02:12, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
The generation of original prose very much is part of our mission. Go and read foundation:Mission statement for the reason that the Foundation provides the wikis to us in the first place and what we're supposed to be doing with them. We're here to "develop" free content as well as just collect it. As it does to Wiktionary, Wikibooks, and Wikinews, that notion applies to Wikipedia. We're here to be a source of free content for others to re-use. Ironically, all of the people who are copying and pasting non-free content into Wikipedia all of the time — because they think that the goal is building an encyclopaedia by any means, even wholesale ganking of things that they aren't permitted to copy, modify, and republish — are the antithesis of working towards our goal. We're here to create free content, that the rest of the world can take from us, not to take non-free content from the rest of the world. We're here to be a source, not a sink.
After all, if people want the 1911 Britannica (or FOLDOC, or FS1037C, or the others for that matter), they don't need the Wikipedia project to regurgitate it verbatim for them. It's right there already, and has been for quite some time.
Uncle G ( talk) 03:51, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
I would think that our general article criteria (not just FAC) would disallow wholesale inclusion of PD works, period, even if attributed or marked up. WP:NPS is what covers this for all articles. -- MASEM ( t) 14:33, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
Meanwhile, toward the end of this activity, eruptions of a different kind took place on an unprecedented scale in eastern Oregon and Washington. From innumerable cracks, floods of highly fluid basaltic lava spread to cover an area of over 200,000 square miles. Known as the Columbian Plateau, this great lava bed covers much of Oregon, Washington and even parts of Idaho. California's Modoc Plateau is a thinner basaltic flow which some associate with the Columbia Plateau, but there are technical objections to this. This activity also continued until 11 or 12 million years ago when the High Cascades took shape as a distinct mountain belt as a result of the upheaval and bending of the thick blanket of volcanic rocks. As a result of this upheaval, many features opened near the crust, and during the next 10 million years, a series of new basaltic volcanic cones similar to those now found in Hawaii were built.
WP is a collaborative effort: we mix the contributions of many editors in different articles, but it is also true that many articles come from mainly a single editor: when we use PD texts we are only including one further editor in our collaborative effort. It makes no difference if he/she actually has a WP account or not, is dead or alive. The important thing is to create high quality content, and if PD allows that then even better: we are always lacking editors so if we "finish" easy with an article thanks to the effort previously done by somebody in a PD text then we can move on to improve other articles.
By this exact discussion we should forbid to copy text from one WP article into another: what is the difference between copying (and attributting) text from another WP article and a PD source?: I believe only the number of editors-authors. Similarly if the proposal being discussed here is finally approved we should also forbid any Featured Pictures which are not "own work" by WP editors with an account, since content comes from an outside source and it is not "our work". That should also include all historical images even if they have been copy-edited by WP, since attributtion to original source seems not enough per discussion above. Maybe we should simply change the description of FAs to state that FA are "the best work in WP" instead "of our best work".
On the other hand we forbid single editors to "own" an article, and in the same way WP as a collective does not "own" articles per its copyright license (since anybody can do whatever they want with them). How can we then decide when an article is "our" or not?. We do not own any articles independently of whether they include PD text or not. -- Garrondo ( talk) 07:43, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
During the FAC for Salanoia durrelli, a recently-discovered mongoose, User:J Milburn brought up the concern that not enough is known about the subject for it to be an FA. His concern stemmed from the fact that only a handful of articles have been published about the critter since its discovery, and several aspects of its behavior are left to speculation. After a brief discussion on the matter, it was quickly realized that this issue would be better addressed somewhere other than one individual FAC. Here is the aformentioned discussion:
Transcribed discussion
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It's well written and researched, but I worry that not enough is known about this species yet. There is a fair amount of speculation in the article; guesses about what it eats, for instance. Futher, there is limited research on the species at this time; the descriptions come from only two specimens. There is a mention of the fact the locals knew about the species; perhaps there's a story to tell there? Precisely where is it found? Reproduction is not mentioned- presumably because nothing is known. I guess I'm not criticising the article, I'm saying that perhaps there has not yet been enough research on the topic to justify a FA. Sorry. J Milburn ( talk) 21:15, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
|
Here are some of the key points and questions brought up in the discussion:
Any thoughts? -- Cryptic C62 · Talk 16:47, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
IMO any article can be a FA at a time point: if it covers everything we know on something then that is a FA now... A featured article is no more no less than the best we can do on a notable topic, if the best we can do is short because the topic is not fully known that is as good as the biggest article (Which does not mean that one is not easier to take to FA than other). At most if the knowledge on a topic changes and the articles does not then it should be demoted. Philosophically speaking: how can we decide if "we know enough now" or "not enough yet" about something?... Going to the extreme we could end in not featuring anything in scientific topics in which there is some ongoing research since knowledge is transient and we do not know enough yet as we do not know everything...-- Garrondo ( talk) 18:37, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
In the introduction to the criteria, we already stress that FAs must adhere to WP policies; "NPOV" is a policy. Are we keeping the "neutral" sub criteria as emphasis? If not, we can probably trim it out. — Deckiller ( t- c- l) 15:25, 25 November 2010 (UTC)
How "bad" is it to have red-links in an FAC? I am not asking just what the per se "rule" is, but "how things really go down" or "what the majority of reviewers/readers prefer"? The MOS guidance is (reasonably) permissive of redlinks on things that are likely, or could reasonably become articles. Some of the "how to FA essays" floating around say not to redlink as it raises eyebrows. I am really cool either way, no bigge, just want to know, I guess how much hair it raises to have some redlinks?
I actually keep a little list of all the articles I intend to start in my sandbox, so I could totally just do away with the redlinks. Of course, then you all lose the possibility someone else might build the article. And of course, someone might never build it too!
P.s. what is the most active talk page to ask FA questions like this? I been hanging at MOS forum a lot, but some of my questions are more FA related than MOS.
TCO ( talk) 22:11, 18 December 2010 (UTC)
Talk to me, mighty ones, por favor. I have read some of the stuff at "how to FA" articles, but it can be dated or wrong. Want to know what the reviewers say. And I'm not asking "what's easier to write to FA standar", but at what point people think the article needs to have subpages because you "just don't like it from being long". Also do those have to be FA standard themselves if an article has them?) Gracias! TCO ( talk) 17:27, 21 December 2010 (UTC)
* File size: 272 kB * Prose size (including all HTML code): 49 kB * References (including all HTML code): 13 kB * Wiki text: 72 kB * Prose size (text only): 30 kB (4962 words) "readable prose size" * References (text only): 839 B
Hi, I've had a chance to have a look at my script. Re the increase in word count observed by SlimVirgin, the above diffs show that that number of words was actually added to the main text in addition to things being moved to the footnotes. Re the footnote text, the prose size script does not count the footnotes in the readable prose; this change to the References extension broke the part of the script which calculates the reference text size, which is why it did not appear to change for SlimVirgin's tests. I have fixed this issue, and also modified the script so it now counts blockquotes too. Bulleted lists are non-trivial to implement, so I haven't done that yet. I have also not yet investigated the alleged undercounting of prose size. Dr pda ( talk) 08:34, 9 February 2011 (UTC)
In the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Citing_sources#On_citing_every_sentence I make a claim that modern day FAs require that all sentences (barring obvious case) require an inline citation. Some editors disagree. Perhaps some FA writers and reviewers would like to chip in there? -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 18:14, 18 February 2011 (UTC)
Criterion (1e) explicitly talks only of actual edit wars, but often enough, especially in articles subject to WP:Discretionary sanctions, editors will not edit war but just agree to disagree on the talk page. Do such disagreements, if stretching back for years, constitute a (1e) failure? I realize that asking for a clarification on this may be superfluous because often enough such articles read like crap (everyone gets their lick in various parts of the article), so usually fail criterion (1a) to an outside observer. Of course, those deeply involved will always argue that this or that part of the article fails (1d), neutrality, as well. Tijfo098 ( talk) 16:21, 10 April 2011 (UTC)
An issue came up while reviewing German cruiser Admiral Hipper for GA status. Although a good article need not give good perspective as to how the topic under discussion relates to similar topics, the FA criteria require "(b) comprehensive: it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context". Sometimes the ideal way to do that would be to refer to another Wikipedia article. For example, all the warships in a given class are usually quite similar, so the most efficient way to give perspective about that group of warships is to refer to the class article. For example, the featured article USS New Jersey (BB-62) refers to the good article Iowa class battleship, which gives considerable information about the design constraints and objectives.
But what if the article that one would like to refer to for context has not been written yet, or is of poor quality. Does that mean the information must be incorporated into the article that is being offered as an FA candidate? Or should we evaluate the candidate as if the articles it refers to are of good quality themselves. Jc3s5h ( talk) 16:42, 31 July 2011 (UTC)
We have a featured article today, Don Valley Parkway, about a geographic feature, which mentions several specific places, and yet includes no coordinates. The inclusion of coordinates, using {{ Coord}} (currently over 708,000 instances and growing, so indubitably popular throughout most of Wikipedia), allows users to locate the feature, and or points mentioned on a map or similar service of their choosing. While the issue of coordinates for articles about roads is hotly debated, and optional, it's certainly allowable, and done, with an example in WP:RJL. It's my contention that we shouldn't be featuring such articles without any coordinates. Criterion 1(b) "it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context" seems to support this. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 12:14, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
This topic is currently being debated at WT:RJL. In my mind, it would be a very bad idea to mandate something at FAC that is currently being contested. -- Rs chen 7754 20:03, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
The FAC instructions are not going to micromanage which content is and is not included (and if that ever changes I'm targeting infoboxen, not coordinates, first). You are welcome to put forth your argument in individual FAC nominations where you think coordinates ought to be applied, and the nominator can then respond. As a delegate, I am not going to fail any article that does not include it. And yes, this strikes me very much as forumshopping. Karanacs ( talk) 21:51, 31 August 2011 (UTC)
Two related issues:
I've just opposed a FAC on the grounds that included non-English place- and company-names, that weren't marked up with {{ Lang}}.
This touches on the wider issue on checking that FACs uses the proper mark-up in other cases, such as quotations, lists and headings, rather than kludges.
If there is general agreement that such things should be checked, I'd be willing to help draft guidelines (or a checklist), based on existing MoS criteria, and suggest that we add a new criterion 2(d), to the effect that "Markup: is consistent, accessible and semantically meaningful".
Thoughts? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 12:01, 5 September 2011 (UTC)
The easiest answer, Andy, would be to review articles for compliance with the minutiae of the MOS that aren't normally reviewed, and enter declarations on those points in the reviews. Compliance with the MOS is already required by the FA Criteria, so an additional point isn't really needed. Imzadi 1979 → 02:14, 7 September 2011 (UTC)
Hello - I'm hoping for some guidance on a point of discussion over at South African Airways Flight 295. There are a number of external links that various editors wish to keep in the external links section on account of their "importance". These links are already used in the article as references, and my understanding is that this would preclude them from being listed in the external links section too. I think WP:LINKFARM might apply, as the discussion seems to be centered around the prominence given to these links in the article. What does the FAC criteria have to say about this, as point #1 of WP:ELNO defers to here. Thanks in advance. Socrates2008 ( Talk) 08:22, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
I didn't bring it to FAC but someone did try to renominate My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic again for FA, but it was closed, quickly and quite appropriately.
But the comments from that and the first FAC attempt have highlighted a problem that I see us having with criteria 1c. As a (the?) primary author of most of the article, and continued vestiment in it, I wholeheartedly believe we have exhausted the available sourcing for the show from reliable sources, and yet we are running into comments in the FAC that more reliable sourcing is needed.
That is: this is a kids show on Saturday mornings on a second-tier cable channel. It is not going to be attracting a lot of media attention (barring future changes, but I can't CRYSTAL what might happen to do that). The only reason we have so much is because of the internet following which has highlighted this specific show from the Saturday morning block there. To flesh out parts of the article that would be normally required for a TV show (like origin and production) we are forced to turn to the presently most notable fanblog and specifically interviews with the show runners that the blog performed. (I do note there are other sources in the article presently there that probably can be removed or the like).
So basically, in terms of 1C, we have exhausted what sources are available to us, and thus I can confidently state that the article does reflect what the sources say. But if we're demanded to use more reliable sources, we're stuck there, and/or we have to cut out information that is generally part of FAs for TV that otherwise we can't back by more reliable sources than the leading fanblog.
The case that we're in should not prevent the article from becoming FA - as long as we have used every possible RS to us, and assuming all the other criteria is met, that can't be considered a barrier, otherwise there are likely numerous articles out there on topics that can never get to FA. So, the question in general here is: when considering a topic that has limited (but otherwise sufficient) coverage in reliable sources, do we weigh in favor of using the most reliable sources knowing that this will remove or curtail key sections of an article that are backed by weakly reliable sources, or do we favor having a more complete article and incorporate the weaker reliable sources (as long as we are assured they are reliable) to support all appropriate sections for an article? Or is it some place in between? -- MASEM ( t) 16:33, 2 November 2011 (UTC)
In Talk:Electrical engineering#Unsourced material one editor claims that all material in every article must be supported by a citation, including well-known easy-to-verify material. Another editor does not claim this is required for all articles, but that it is required by FA criterion 1c. Jc3s5h ( talk) 01:28, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
The FA criteria currently do not take into account the popularity or the importance (there is a difference) of an article. We have ended up with a situation where featured articles are not representative of popular or important topics. As an example, which has prompted this comment, Birth control movement in the United States was given featured article status yet there was no Birth control in the United States article. The latter article is more important and should have existed prior to the granting FA status to Birth control movement in the United States.
The FA criteria can be used to shape the workload of editors and we should use the criteria to do what is important or popular rather than what the editor wants to do. I realise that the vast majority of editors are volunteers and therefore do whatever they want to do. Most of them abide by guidelines so we should tweak the guidelines to improve WP.
My preference is to improve the important topics before we move on to the popular ones. The FA criteria can be used to do this and so I want the addition of a new rule:
Once the level four vital article are done we could move on to popular articles. We might need an RFC for this? -- Alan Liefting ( talk - contribs) 02:00, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
Not to put too fine a point on this, but no, we are not going to require that an article is "vital" in order promote it to FA. This proposal is a non-starter, for the reasons Ealdgyth described above. Raul654 ( talk) 02:48, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
It's not an accident that importance/notability are not part of the FA criteria. I've said for a long time that any article can survive AFD can become a featured article, at least theoretically. The reasons are both philosophical (in that FA is an evaluation of the quality of article and not of the merits of the subject) and practical (saying that something can't become an FA tends to dissuade people from putting in the effort to improve it. However, Alan, you are wrong in assuming that they'll instead put in the effort to get something else up to FA standards).
Nothing makes me happier than when someone does all the heavy lifting to get an important article up to FA standards, because it's much harder taking an important article up to FA status than it is to get a niche article there. I want to do all I can to support these editors and make their jobs easier. And I do use importance/notability for deciding which stuff should go on the main page.
But with all that said, other than main page featurability and AFD survivability, the FA designation and importance are totally orthogonal. Raul654 ( talk) 04:11, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
Passing FAC is so tortuously hard that virtually no-one will undertake it for a topic they have no passion for. Ruling (say) 95% of topics out of consideration is a bad start. Next, bear in mind that the tiny proportion of articles designated as "vital" is a result of runaway POV. Sheesh, Alan, it's one of the <ahem> weaker proposals I've seen on Wikipedia ;-) If you're trying to increase the number of FAs on important topics, there are lots of ways to do it, but find a positive way, rather than a negative one. -- Dweller ( talk) 20:49, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
I would oppose a Featured Article having to meet a certain level of popularity or importance. If an editor can write a dozen featured articles, to the same standard, why exclude those that certain editors don't considered popular, or important? I interpret "FA status" as being, Features Articles that are good enough to feature on the home page. I don't necessarily find them important, or popular myself, and I'm sure that whoever chooses them, doesn't personally find them all popular and important. But if they're written well, they might well be of interest, and that's good enough for me. -- Iantresman ( talk) 14:26, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
I'd like to see a more extensive checklist summarisiing FA Criteria. compared to GA Criteria. At the moment, it seems rather vague. Of course FA articles must be "well-written", but then so should all articles, so what differentiates a well written FA article from, for example, Good Articles. I'd like to throw in some examples, which I think would help editors like myself:
Good Article criteria | Featured Article criteria (In additional to WP:GA) |
Well written per WP:GA | Engaging, interesting style, appropriate tense |
Images per WP:GA |
|
May follow policies | Must follow policies |
May use templates | Must use templates, eg. {{convert|5|mi|km|0}} whenever specifying distances |
Good citations | Citations must use <cite>, template, ISBN, page number, online link where available |
-- Iantresman ( talk) 14:54, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
Content area | GAs | FAs | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Citations | No requirements on formatting | Must be consistently presented in terms of formatting | Neither set of criteria require any specific citation styles (APA, MLA, citation templates, etc.) |
Coverage | "Main aspects" of the topic area | Comprehensive | |
Images and Media | Where possible, with proper copyright status/licenses and captions | Where appropriate, with proper copyright status/licenses and captions | FAC tends to require images and media in articles, while GAN tends to overlook missing media |
Manual of Style compliance | Five specific areas | Entire MoS | |
Neutality | Follows WP:NPOV | Follows WP:NPOV | |
Prose | Well-written prose | Well-written prose, "engaging, even brilliant, and of a professional standard" | |
References | Required for six types of information; science articles follow scientific citation guidelines; citations must be reliable sources | Required " where appropriate"; citations must be to "high-quality reliable sources" | FAs as a practical matter typically have no uncited claims beyond fairly obvious general knowledge |
Stability | No on-going edit wars | No on-going edit wars, makes specific allowance for changes in response to the review process |
Imzadi 1979 → 15:20, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
I am preparing to advance a disagreement with editors of featured articles about at least one such article. It appears that one possible counterargument is that editors of numerous featured articles are exempt from some policies and guidelines. I will respect any such exemption. The only one I know of, if there is any, is that stated or implied in Wikipedia:Ownership of articles, in the Featured Articles subsection. Is there any other exemption for an editor of numerous featured articles? Thank you. Nick Levinson ( talk) 16:27, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
Who knows where this discussion goes, anyone has my permission to move to correct location and leave link here.
In many FAs on species, the original Linneaus is cited, either from the Latin, which I suspect the editor does not read, or from an English translation, and is used as the reliable source for the taxonomic authority about a species known today, one originally named by Linneaus. We are not, however, writing about the species as described by Linneaus, but about the species as defined today. Taxonomic descriptions also should not be tied to Linneaus, if they are the same, that species description is used in the modern, peer-reviewed literature. The only citation to the original Linneaus for plants or animals goes in the taxobox after his name as the authority, but this is not sufficient, the article text must cite a modern taxonomic usage of the name with Linneaus as the authority and a description correctly cited to the modern literature and Linneaus if correct.
I will be changing this, or adding fact tags as needed, to all current FAs on species and genera named by Linneaus. Eau ( talk) 19:39, 8 September 2012 (UTC)
I feel there should be a mention about alt text, or even accessibility in the images section. I know it shouldn't be too wordy, but since featured articles represent the best of Wikipedia I believe they should be accessible for the blind/etc. I randomly sampled featured articles and found that about half of them had no alt text, specifically: Pierre Rossier, National emblem of Belarus, Banksia canei, and William Barley.
I believe a line should be added to the criteria that states to the effect that articles should conform to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility, which includes other considerations as well. OakRunner ( talk) 00:46, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
I think that there are two problems with the clause "Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources":
I can show you an FA articles where the sentence "neglect[] no major facts or details and place[] the subject in context" does not apply. The justification for this is that the sources to make it comprehensive are not of "high quality". Given that these bullet points are trade-offs, they need defining. What does the word "claims" mean (over and above the policy statement that "All the material ... must be verifiable.")? I have had a look at the archives and the word claim was introduced with this edit on 19 August 2006. However looking at the talk page archives around this time ( Archive 5) I can not see the that the word was discussed let alone defined. There is section in ( Archive 6) called "Factually accurate" but the word claim is not discussed. There is a long debate in Archive 9 about "Factually accurate" but as far as I can tell "claim" was not discussed. -- PBS ( talk) 13:03, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
@MathewTownsend, if claims are different from "facts" or "factually accurate" is it only "claims" that need "high-quality reliable sources", or should "facts" also require "high-quality reliable sources"? -- PBS ( talk) 10:51, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
I'm not quite sure what the point of this discussion is, quite honestly. Unless you insist on being torturously legalistic, it's pretty clear what the criteria is aiming for... it's setting a higher standard for sourcing at FAC than is required by basic wikipedia policy. This is the same as is required for prose and layout and meeting the MOS that is required for other aspects of articles. The FA criteria require a high quality of prose, a high quality of photos, and that any article considered an FA meet the MOS in all aspects. Wikipedia doesn't require any of those things either for an article to exist - so why the questioning of the sourcing standards and not the other standards? It's pretty clear that in all aspects an FA article should not just barely meet Wikipedia policies such as WP:V but greatly exceed them and set an example of best practices. I do have to question PBS's motives for bringing this up when he's not questioning the other parts of the criteria that exceed policy... Ealdgyth - Talk 13:30, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
Ealdgyth, I had already read the previous discussion that you mentioned and I do not see the clear consensus in that section for the retention of "high quality" mainly because there was no agreement on what it means. -- PBS ( talk) 21:04, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Ealdgyth I am questioning the whole sentence and specifically both "claims" and "high quality" it seems to me that the first sentence well-researched: it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature. makes a point to a similar depth that the other list points do. The additional sentence seem to me to be unnecessary and can be interpreted in such a way as to contradict policy. The point that PoD is making is already true for all articles: we always use the best sources available to editors (and replace those which do not meet the criteria in WP:V with those that do). As an example of how "high quality" can be misapplied, take the case of an article on a British regiment that is currently serving in Afghanistan. While most of the regimental history of service in previous wars in Afghanistan can be based on "a[n] historian who specialises in the relevant subject", the most recent information (awards of medals, KIAs etc.) will be based on other types of reliable sources. There is a problem with people wishing to exclude information because although it is based on a verifiable reliable source, it is not from an historian who specialises in the relevant subject. This clearly contradicts the intent of the first sentence, but is an interpretation of "high quality" which has been used for some FA articles. If someone suggests removing text because the reliable source that supports it is not "high quality" then this can be a contradiction of WP:PRESERVE. -- PBS ( talk) 21:04, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
What is this here for? Is it meant as an example citation? If so, it's in violation of WP:CITE because there is no specific style required. — Crisco 1492 ( talk) 02:24, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
User:Giano/A fool's guide to writing a featured article is supposed to be outdated. Should we remove the link to it here? Toccata quarta ( talk) 10:03, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
There is wikitext leaking into the content at the top of this page. I was confused as to how to fix it. Can someone take a look and please take care of this? • Jesse V. (talk) 20:42, 20 March 2013 (UTC)
Regarding general domain website names, like "foo.com", I'm still confused by the inconsistencies between the {{ cite web}} documentation and what FAs do for citing websites—{{ cite web}} says to put websites in the work parameter (auto-italicizing); FAs put websites in the publisher parameter (non-italicized, though italics may be added if desired). Is non-italicizing a website part of the Harvard citation format? The reason I ask is because I would like to update some articles I've worked on, both GA and regular standard-fare stuff, to follow FA procedure, but other editors may come along and follow the promptings of {{ cite web}}, especially when using the form template. Thanks. – Kerαunoςcopia◁ gala xies 06:55, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
Recently, Maya Angelou was a featured article, but on the day it was on the front page, it was missing several important categories per our categorization guidelines. See this diff, for what was missing: for example, Category:20th-century writers, Category:American poets, Category:African-American poets and Category:Writers from Arkansas -- all resulted in a form of ghettoization. I'm not familiar with the FA process and this is not intended as an affront to the great work done on the Maya Angelou article, but due to the recent brouhaha, the specific categories she was in (or wasn't in, rather) was the subject of accusations of sexism in the press: [5].
Without opining on the correctness of that article, I would nonetheless propose that a more complete review of categorization guidelines per WP:EGRS (which itself needs help) become part of the FA process, and that we *always* ensure that we don't ghettoize - especially our featured articles. -- Obi-Wan Kenobi ( talk) 20:21, 2 May 2013 (UTC)
A criterion that should be added to the list of criteria is that the article should specify the variety of regional English in which the article is written. Sometimes it should be obvious, but sometimes it is not. An article that is put on the Main Page is seen by very many people, and some editors like to impose their own variety of English. The criteria for a Featured Article should include that it should specify its variety of English. (Once that consensus has been agreed on, changing the spelling is disruptive editing, and we have policies about disruptive editing.) In cases where the variety of regional English is not obvious, the peer review should obtain consensus that applies to that particular article. Robert McClenon ( talk) 16:30, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
I changed criteria 1b) which was misleading. If there are no sources which cover the major facts or contexts, it is not possible to include such according to WP:NOR and WP:SYNTH. However, the consensus seems to be, as in the case of articles on video games, for example, that in spite of this articles can still be featured. They just need to do fulfill the criteria up to the level that they are covered in reliable sources. So I added the clause to avoid future misunderstanding. jps ( talk) 14:27, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
Wikipedia now has its own inertia. It's not fair to those of us who remember when featured articles were the examples of how Wikipedia rivaled other reference sources. I understand that times change, but adding a few words to the end of criteria 1b) would seal it all up with a nice little bow rather than remaining ambiguous. jps ( talk) 19:35, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
The Featured article criteria page should be among the highest quality pages on Wikipedia. First, it is arguably the most important page in the entire discussion of featured articles because it is the measurement instrument for featured articles and the standard to which all editors should aspire for every article. Second, the page is, and always should be, remarkably short because of its narrow scope. The importance of the page combined with the relative ease with which editors can maintain the quality of the page strongly suggest the page should be beyond reproach.
Consider the alternative. If the Featured article criteria page purports to well explain the criteria of a high-quality Wikipedia page, but the page itself is low-quality, then I would argue that the Featured article criteria page should be added to the See also section of irony. hunterhogan ( talk) 09:57, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
It has been suggested in this FAC that it is possible to have an article on a notable subject both written and sourced as well as possible without meeting the featured article criteria. If such is the case, it would be well worth making this fact explicit in the featured article criteria page. At present, we are sending the impression to editors that any valid Wikipedia article can eventually become featured (like any American can grow up to be president), when such is not the case. Neelix ( talk) 03:51, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
My personal opinion is that folks seeking FA status on very short articles are probably reward seekers who have WBFANitis; I'm not in favor of relaxing standards. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 19:07, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
I don't think every article can be featured. If the article has noticeable holes that simply can't be fixed, then it can't be featured. For instance, Robert Cogniaux could never be a featured article, because it would not be able to be comprehensive enough due to a lack of sources. If the reader is left scratching their head after finishing the article, then it's not a good sign. Taylor Trescott - my talk + my edits 19:35, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
Something like Gagak Item makes sense for a FA, it is a lost film, so obviously there will not be much info, but the info is sufficiently comprehensive to not have a reader wondering after reading 'Gee, that felt like incomplete article'. But, if the information would be super lacking and the source does not say why it lacking, then its not a FA. Take Sweigert for example. The current article exhausts all source imaginable, but what we have only tells us how Sweigert did at baseball. This is because there is no source on him. He is notable according to a guideline, but he cant be a FA. Beerest 2 talk 22:47, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
I don't think the criteria suggests that an article should be able to pass FA just because it has used all of the sources available. It asks for "comprehensiveness", and if all of the sources available don't answer all the important questions then the article can't be comprehensive. So it can't be an FA. I don't really think the criteria need amending - this has always seemed obvious to me. Short articles can be FA if you can read through them and don't have any questions left - for instance I supported How a Mosquito Operates because, although short, it touched on all of the important elements (using good quality sources). -- Loeba (talk) 14:11, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
A featured article exemplifies our very best work and is distinguished by professional standards of writing, presentation, and sourcing.
A featured article should not contain a disambiguation Wikilink, such as civil parish in Wormshill, today's FA. Do other editors agree?-- DThomsen8 ( talk) 19:21, 30 March 2014 (UTC)
Could someone tell me the (possible) difference between inline citation and the common " <ref> source </ref> style " ? Answers would be appriciated. Boeing720 ( talk) 00:45, 28 March 2014 (UTC)
As I understand it, the <ref>...</ref> style, when used properly, is what is meant by inline citations, as opposed to just giving a list of references at the end of the article. By used properly, I mean there is a <ref>...</ref> citation attached to each fact in the article that needs a reference.-- agr ( talk) 17:34, 15 June 2014 (UTC)
I recently spotted a defect in an equation in an article on the front page, and I'm thinking the criteria ought to advise editors to look into math more closely. I'm thinking it is desirable for FA that:
There ought to be some math folks here who could suggest much more. But the gist is there ought to be a criterion for it so that it doesn't get missed. Wnt ( talk) 16:33, 5 September 2014 (UTC)
Is alt-text for images a must or a recommendation? -- NickGibson3900 Talk 08:40, 17 September 2014 (UTC)
How do you withdraw it before it either fails or pass. should i just delete the nomination from the top page? ( Monkelese ( talk) 13:21, 26 September 2014 (UTC)
2012 tour of She Has a Name, Featured Article promoted in 2013, has been nominated for deletion.
Please see discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/2012 tour of She Has a Name.
Thank you,
— Cirt ( talk) 23:23, 13 January 2015 (UTC)
I suggested some talk page review as part of the GA review, but because there is currently no talk page criteria for Featured Articles, it seems we couldn't currently change anything. As such, I'm now suggesting some sort of minimal review of the talk page as part of the FA review. Mark Hurd ( talk) 04:17, 22 February 2015 (UTC)
"where appropriate" links to an essay " Wikipedia:When to cite". I think this is a mistake it should like to policy ( WP:UNSOURCED) Wikipedia:Verifiability#Responsibility for providing citations. The links in the criteria ought to link to policy not to how to pages and essays. -- PBS ( talk) 09:23, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
Perhaps I am being overly critical- but what does that mean. Shouldn't it be deleted?
Discuss. -- Clem Rutter ( talk) 11:24, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
... and not challenging the work of legacy editors who only put it there to demonstrate they had read around the topic ...
This is the oddest comment, and it looks so far like there is little understanding in that statement about why that clause was added. In particular, well before the page it links to generated to gobbledy-gook. I suggest that people seeking to remove something might want to review archives to understand why it's there. The bottom line, in spite of all that, is that GermanJoe gets it pretty much right.
SandyGeorgia (
Talk) 20:40, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
Too paraphrase Humpty Dumpty in Through the Looking Glass
"I don't know what you mean by 'high-quality' " Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't—till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!' "
"But 'high-quality' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument'," Alice objected.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all."
Unlike the "Reliable sources" the phrase "high-quality" does not appear in Verifiability policy and (as far as I am aware) it not defined in the guideline Wikipedia:Reliable sources. Leaving it in this project page, allows it to be used as a bludgeon without needing to define what it means, because after all "Aunty knows best" and "it means just what Aunty choose it to mean—neither more nor less". If there is a disagreement over the suitability of the inclusion of a source and "high-quality" is invoked then its evocation tends to be non-consensual.
So I have been bold and removed the phrase. -- PBS ( talk) 09:23, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
@SandyGeorgia I did a search on high-quality prefix:Wikipedia:Featured article candidates the second on in the list gives an example of the phrase being used by you without you defining what you mean: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/German Type UB I submarine/archive1 "Highest quality sources are required for Featured articles ... We need independent review of ship articles, but we get ship editors consistently supporting ship articles, with little independent review-- sourcing still needs to be resolved." If that was to be written as "Reliable sources are required for Featured articles ..." then people would have something defined to discuss. That "editors here have yet to establish that the authors of this website are published experts", is a question of reliable sources not "Highest quality sources". The whole push of your argument is from an intangible start and you continue it further down the same page where you write "Are high-quality reliable sources consulted?" why not ask the question "Are all the sources cited reliable ones?". That is something covered by policy your question is not. Ealdgyth make the point on that page "about a year ago, sourcing requirements for FAs went from 'reliable' to 'high quality reliable'." -- PBS ( talk) 10:08, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
@ Imzadi1979 Two points first of all I personally do not think that featured articles necessarily represent "our finest work", I think that comes from the breadth and not necessarily depth. For example I have been writing articles on the movement of armies in the Napoleonic Wars. The big advantage of such articles today over similar articles written 10 years ago, is the breadth of other articles that have now been written allows for hyper linking to give a far better overview. The breadth of topics automatically increases the depth of an individual article thorough hyperlinks to articles that only use reliable sources and meet policy requirements, which in my opinion is "our finest work". A Featured Article, as a representative of "our finest work" should be using the highest-quailty sources, for that topic, as we can muster. The wording is not "highest-quailty sources" but "high-quality reliable sources". Can you name an article where editors have gone "I am going to remove a source that meets the requirements of WP:SOURCES and replace it with a less reliable source" and other editors have gone "well OK then as this is not a featured article it does not matter if unreliable sources are used". Of course not! The point being that if one follows the advise in WP:SOURCE and WP:RS the one uses the most suitable sources available in any article not just featured articles so the phrase high-quality is unnecessary and just clutter. -- PBS ( talk) 20:34, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
The truth is that most objective editors strive to use reliable sources to meet the policy requirement: to "Attribute all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged to a reliable, published source using an inline citation" ( WP:CHALLENGE) That is a totally different requirement from "Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by inline citations where appropriate;". What does "claims" mean what does "high-quality" I think that this clause would be far better phrased in such a way that it unambiguously met the requirements of WP:CHALLENGE -- something that a featured article editor should find easy to pen. -- PBS ( talk) 20:34, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
@ ·maunus when asked above "Where do we find a definition for "high-quality" sources as distinct from "reliable sources"?" you replied Through consensus at the relevant talkpage and in the context of the relevant topic. This contradicts your more recent statement While the phrase "high quality" is in the criteria it is possible for a reviewer to challenge sources on quality, and not just reliability. because you have said that "high quality" means in the words of Humpty Dumpty "just what [a random local consensus among a few editors] choose it to mean—neither more nor less." — This is contary to WP:Local consensus "participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope", in this case the wording in WP:V.
It is much clearer and within the framework of WP:Local consensus to meet your objectives by using the wording in WP:CHALLENGE and and the definition in sources WP:SOURCES. "Base articles on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. ... If available, academic and peer-reviewed publications are usually the most reliable sources, such as in history, medicine, and science", rather than using an undefined phrase "high quality". -- PBS ( talk) 14:10, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
What does "claims" mean in the sentence "Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources ..."? -- PBS ( talk) 14:10, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
OK I have laid out my wears and I am disappointed that at the moment there is not a consensus for change. So I see little point in continuing this discussion at the moment. However consensus can change and I hope that in the future this can be revised with an outcome that favours wording more in harmony with WP:V. -- PBS ( talk) 12:11, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
I agree with PBS that the phrase is in need of further definition, and I dislike the tone of this discussion. It seems to me to be a rather simple matter of putting some of the points raised here into a footnote or separate document, if they are not already covered by WP:RS or WP:V. If they are covered by WP:RS, then there is indeed no need for the additional phrase, "high quality" in that sentence. Samsara 06:16, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
OPINION: "High-quality" is fine and necessary as a check and balance in the Featured Article criteria, a phrase that is easily understood and at the same time open to interpretation on a per case basis. Attempting to codify overly restrictive interpretations of Wikipedia's broad principles, policies and guidelines only leads to more forms of wikilawyering, and less reliance on actual discussion to resolve issues. One of the critical Five Pillars remains: "Wikipedia has no firm rules." -- Tsavage ( talk) 08:08, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
There is a proposal to set up a new classification level, Good List. Please add your comments there. -- Redrose64 ( talk) 10:19, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
I'm surprised this hasn't been created before. I've got one experienced user to answer it. Please feel free to add your own questions/answers to it. ‑ Ugog Nizdast ( talk) 14:06, 28 October 2015 (UTC)
This word in the featured article criteria seems out of place. Shouldn't encyclopedia text instead be clear, concise and factual? Not only is the word open to wide interpretation, but it brings to mind elements of writing which aren't appropriate in an encyclopedic setting, such as colourful adjectives, metaphor, thought provoking phrases, witticisms, etc. I would like to see the words "even brilliant" removed from the criteria. — Anne Delong ( talk) 09:26, 9 May 2016 (UTC)
Instructions need to have clear performance metrics. "Readable, concise, organized..." are all concepts a writer can assess their work on. Brilliant is completely in the eye of the beholder, and impossible to measure. If you must use the word, say "we aspire to "brilliant" articles. We define brilliant as "concise, readable, quotation based, etc..." Billyshiverstick ( talk) 16:08, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
I totally support the rewarding of diligent article writers with featured status, however, somebody in Wikipedia needs to take reponsibility for some leadership. The featured article is what draws new readers in. It is the foundational service that Wikipedia exists on.
With all due respect to the subjects of recent featured articles, we can't keep prioritizing endless articles on Australian army veterans, cricketers, dreadnought class battleships, and video games.
Human experience is much wider than those four categories, yet they each get 10 featured articles a year or more. Somebody in Wikipedia needs to set a format for topics to keep Wikipedia a fresh resource. Let's rotate through 24 basic subjects like People, Nature, Art, Science, Biology, Sports, Culture, etc. Then when sports comes up, the latest article on cricketers can be compared to the latest article on ping pong players, or pole vaulters.
We are throwing the baby out with the bathwater by our method of featured article selection. The principle is good, the practice needs leadership.
thanks all Billyshiverstick ( talk) 16:04, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
Are there templates for the FA criteria, like they have over at GAN? I can't seem to find any if they are there. I am specifically looking for something to streamline the process as I go through articles. I know that FAs have a more involved process with many people putting their feet in the water, whereas only one editor approves a GAN, but I thought for organizational purposes, a criteria template would be helpful. That is if it's here... If not, maybe I will make one. Creating templates can't be too difficult, right? But I also don't want to reinvent the wheel... Thank you for any help you can provide! - Pax Verbum 23:55, 9 August 2016 (UTC)
A question for the FAQ, perhaps: How does one submit a nomination for an article to review for consideration as an FA? Is there a hierarchal chain for this process, e.g. does one submit an article to a senior editor first? I ask because I collaborated with another Wiki editor on making a poorly sourced article more up to snuff, by deleting irrelevant examples, providing context and definitions for the topic in question, adding information from scholarly sources, etc. Dano67 ( talk) 17:00, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
Got it, thank you! Instructions were there all along. Nominated 2 articles that were in review limbo ... Dano67 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:41, 25 August 2016 (UTC)
-- Redrose64 ( talk) 23:00, 1 December 2016 (UTC)
I am not sure, wheter this is the right place to ask this question, if not please appologize and tell me where to go. I am doing a university project about online colaboration. For this reason I would like to analyse the writing process of featured articles. To me it seems like that the criteria for featured articles became much stricter over time (most of the early featured articles have lost this status) and I found that the nomination procedure changed. Is there some place in the Wiki, where I can find out when these things changed? Or do I have to go through the revision history of the respective pages? Thank you! -- Mac C. Million ( talk) 14:29, 26 January 2017 (UTC)
There must be a stronger way to word this; TOCs are a given when proper section hierarchies are used. — Deckiller ( t- c- l) 04:19, 18 February 2017 (UTC)
Alright, made the tweak on the criteria. Might want to tackle with the wording a bit. If anything, this might spur discussion on appropriate structure as articles seem to get more and more bloated. — Deckiller ( t- c- l) 05:44, 19 February 2017 (UTC)
It seems like an article can become featured while still failing WP:N and WP:Not, is that correct? Siuenti ( 씨유엔티) 21:54, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
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Remove cross-wiki links at the bottom, already listed in the Wikidata. 219.79.180.60 ( talk) 04:49, 20 July 2017 (UTC)
Can an article not contain images? Some topics simply dont have free images available yet satisfy all other criteria. So, are images a reason for an article to fail?.-- Attar-Aram syria ( talk) 00:04, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
Thank you all.-- Attar-Aram syria ( talk) 07:03, 20 September 2017 (UTC)
I wish to help with. RCNesland ( talk) 17:19, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
I am developing an article about a Vietnamese movie and considering to use at least 5 sources from its Facebook page for Marketing section because none of VNese publication mentioned the information that I need (I used to concern about the use of Facebook a few weeks ago). Although I've not finished yet but I estimate this article will have about 50 sources. Base on WP:SELFPUB, self-published sources such as Facebook can be used as sources of information about themselves. However, after reading this candidate, a reviewer said that Facebook is not a high-quality source while WP:FACR require this criteria (1c-well-researched). Can anyone give me advice? Phamthuathienvan ( talk) 11:32, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
Nikkimaria, RL0919, Iridescent. Thank you for your advice. The film's facebook page is managed by the film's producer. I only use Facebook as source for a few information in the Marketing section. Basically, the film producer organize a lot of activities to promote it and unfortunately the film does not have its own website. About 5-7 sources from Facebook so I don't know the article rely heavily on self-publish sources or not. Phamthuathienvan ( talk) 06:18, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
When citing books, is adding the location necessary? It seems tedious and adds nothing of value to the article. I've got an article where one citation includes location and about 40 other sources to manually look up and add location as a result. Seems easier to just remove the one location that to add the other approx. 40. SpartaN ( talk) 17:37, 26 July 2017 (UTC)
Does a Featured Article have to be previously designated as a Good Article? Are there cases when an article was directly given the "featured" status without first being given the "good" status? huji— TALK 00:36, 9 January 2018 (UTC)
Criterion 1c requires featured articles to be based on "a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature". But can a survey be both "thorough" and "representative" at the same time? The two terms seem to be mutually exclusive; "thorough" means complete in every detail, "representative" means a sample. The point has arisen from a current FAC review, but to my mind the wording presents a general problem, and perhaps requires reconsideration. Does anyone agree? Brianboulton ( talk) 17:44, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
Given the comments above timed at 19:53, 26 March 2018 (UTC) and 22:16, 26 March 2018 (UTC), also the somewhat lengthy threads beginning at Help talk:Citation Style 1#Purpose of Cite web, perhaps we should define exactly what criterion 2c means by "consistent". We could provide some extra examples.
<ref>...</ref>
tags<ref>...</ref>
tags for others{{
citation}}
We might even note that inconsistency does not mean that {{
cite web}}
, {{
cite journal}}
and {{
cite news}}
cannot be used in the same article - they can, and they must be if one source is found only on the internet, and the other two are found only in the form of printed matter.
At
WP:WIAGA, several of the criteria are annotated with <ref>...</ref>
, perhaps we could do the same. --
Redrose64 🌹 (
talk) 20:50, 27 March 2018 (UTC)
It is useful and well written. The issue seems to be that FA advice notes should not be in userspace- well the answer is to move them. They are excellent Help notes- possibility there. It is almost a subpage this page, it is used in that way, so Wikipedia:Featured article criteria/User essay may be the right space-- lets not build a 'wall'! -- ClemRutter ( talk) 21:30, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
Current wording of the criteria:
It follows the style guidelines, including the provision of:
- a lead: a concise lead section that summarizes the topic and prepares the reader for the detail in the subsequent sections;
- appropriate structure: a substantial but not overwhelming system of hierarchical section headings; and
- consistent citations: where required by criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations using either footnotes (<ref>Smith 2007, p. 1</ref>) or Harvard referencing (Smith 2007, p. 1)—see citing sources for suggestions on formatting references. Citation templates are not required.
Suggested change:
consistent citations: where required by criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations using footnotes (<ref>Smith 2007, p. 1</ref>)—see citing sources for suggestions on formatting references. Citation templates are not required.
Rationale: Harvard citations used as parenthetical citations are a distinct minority of citation styles on Wikipedia in general. They're a relic of paper research papers without the benefit of hyperlinks, and clutter up prose (where that's a necessary evil, it's better served by the footnotes that are vastly more preferred.) I'd argue we should be deprecating parenthetical citation styles such as Harvard and MLA Wikipedia-wide (in terms of cutting down on the infinite number of citation styles, this seems like lower-hanging fruit,) but I'd first float the idea here for FAs. Any FAs that do use them can be easily converted to footnotes. Thoughts? Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs talk 16:43, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
There have been repeated discussions on the climate change article about what constitutes a high quality reliable source. The issue resolves around the public websites of organisations like NASA and WHO, which are not dated and don't have an author. To me it seems that not knowing how recent information is, when scientific thinking is still developing, is a strong mark against using these reliable sources, and that peer-reviewed secondary sources would be better. On the other hand, NASA and WHO are the ultimate authorities on their respective topics. Would you guys consider those sources high quality? Femke Nijsse ( talk) 07:52, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
2.c. consistent citations: where required by criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations using either footnotes (<ref>Smith 2007, p. 1.</ref>) or Harvard referencing (Smith 2007, p. 1)—see
citing sources for suggestions on formatting references. The use of citation templates is not required.
Is this requirement for consistent formatting intended to imply that all citations in an article must either display full first names only, or all must display first name initials only, and that a combination of initials where provided by the source, and full first names where provided by the source is not acceptable?
I have just finished reading through the archives of this talk page, and cannot find anything definitive. · · · Peter (Southwood) (talk): 16:05, 15 December 2017 (UTC)
|first=John
|last=Smith
for both of them. --
Redrose64 🌹 (
talk) 10:11, 16 December 2017 (UTC)
I have a different question about this requirement. Is it a requirement to use Harvard-style or shortened footnotes? I've seen a number of FAs with regular citation templates--is that allowed? Rachel Helps (BYU) ( talk) 19:53, 26 March 2018 (UTC)
Obviously, a featured article that cites A. A. Milne, C. S. Lewis, or J. R. R. Tolkien has to be very short because it can’t cite anyone else. And you’re not allowed to cite Dr. Suess at all.
Kidding. The requirement in WP:FACR is “consistently formatted inline citations” and refers to WP:CITE for suggestions, which spells it out in the section WP:CITESTYLE. That entire long guideline says nothing about full names or initials, and makes it clear that citations’ content is variable, listing what we try to include in a “typical” citation, and details that may be added “as necessary.”
Written content, including references, is distinct from citation format. An author’s name is their own, and we should use it as they did their published works to 1. make them easy for our readers to find and WP:VERIFY, and 2. to respect their self-identification (see also WP:NCBIO and WP:LIVE).
To compare a professional style guide’s advice, the CMoS says “Authors’ names are normally given as they appear with the source itself,” but “certain adjustments, however, may be made to assist correct identification” (14.73), and “For authors who always use initials, full names should not be supplied” (14.74).
If article and reference content starts being modified or removed to serve format, then we are failing the encyclopedia’s readers. — Michael Z. 20:34, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
I find it a little odd that the FA criteria doesn't mention anything about categorization. At a number of GA reviews I've done, I've noted where categorization was incorrect, lacking, or failed WP:CATV. I was surprised when one of the nominators remarked that they hadn't really looked at the categories, as they weren't part of the FA or GA criteria. In fact, neither WP:FACR nor WP:GACR mentions anything about categories. And frankly, as much as everything associated with FAC is nitpicky in some ways, it seems weird not to explicitly mention quality of categorization in the criteria. It's obviously WP:Instruction creep to include a new letter-level statement for categories, but maybe add in some wording somewhere in one of the other line-items that categorization should be of high-quality, too? Hog Farm Bacon 16:13, 11 October 2020 (UTC)
I hope to resolve an editing disagreement. It’s about FA criterion 2.c., which says that a featured article:
follows the style guidelines, including . . . consistent citations: where required by criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations using footnotes (<ref>Smith 2007, p. 1</ref>)—see citing sources for suggestions on formatting references. Citation templates are not required.
Does this mean that every citation in an FA must either include the place of publication, or else every one must omit it? — Michael Z. 21:03, 3 December 2020 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Article size mentions 10,000 words, but I looked at Barack Obama (via [6]) and it's more than 15,000 words. I am asking, since we are discussing article length on Climate Change. I think for a big issue such as climate change, 15k should still be acceptable for FA status, similar to Obama's article? Bogazicili ( talk) 14:43, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
I agree that 10k words isn't a bad rule of thumb, but more for load times and browser issues than for readability reasons. As per one of my regular hobby-horses, as editors we sometimes lose sight of the fact that more than half of Wikipedia pageviews (and steadily rising) are in Minerva (the format non-logged-in readers see when reading Wikipedia on Android or iOS), which is totally different in both appearance and usage patterns than the Vector or Monobook displays we see as logged-in editors. (Follow the instructions here, if you want to see what a given article will look like to the majority of readers.) In Minerva, all the sections other than the lead are collapsed by default and there's no table of contents, meaning that the internal headers themselves serve as de facto links to show any given section.
To stick with HJ Mitchell's example of World War I, a reader using Minerva—which to labor the point again is already the majority of readers and the proportion is rising steadily—is very unlikely to read the whole thing top-to-bottom whether the article is 1000 words, 10,000 words, or 100,000 words. Instead, they'll read the lead section, and following that will see a list of links (see right) which correspond to the sections of the article in desktop view. As such, the majority of readers will only even see, let alone read, the lead section and those sections of the body text which either look like they contain the specific information that they're looking for, or which have interesting-looking titles that encourage readers to click on them, and this is the case whatever the length of the article—to most readers it quite literally doesn't matter what the length is as they're still only going to read a few sections of the article.
I make no secret of the fact that I hate Minerva and think it's one of the WMF's most costly errors in terms of driving readers away, but it's what we have and they show no signs of changing it. In the Minerva context, the traditional arguments about summary style and article length go out the window—the most important thing is to have sufficient information within the parent article (since the links to subpages are themselves buried within already-collapsed sections so readers are unlikely even to know that they exist), and to ensure that every section header is an accurately descriptive summary of the information it contains so readers know what to click. In this new world we should probably really have "is comprehensible and correctly-formatted to a reader using a mobile device" as a specific FA criterion—there's no point something being brilliantly informative and beautifully formatted on desktop view if it looks like a garbled incoherent mess to the majority of readers—but I suspect that would cut as big a swathe through the FA list as did the mass delisting when we abandoned "brilliant prose". ‑ Iridescent 08:09, 25 December 2020 (UTC)
There is a trade-off between including detail and keeping the article neutral and well-researched (=up to date). For science articles, I'd strive for 8k, fail to reach that for comprehensiveness reasons, but get a better article for trying to reach 8k. Femke Nijsse ( talk) 10:25, 25 December 2020 (UTC)
The prose is quite good, in the whole gigantic article there was a single unparseable sentence. It's direct, clear, no-nonsense. I couldn't find any WP:OR, neutrality is almost automatic given the subject, and the article is very comprehensive. It has everything one might want to know about Galileo and more. That's a problem, though. Not only the article becomes too large, but it's also full of unnecessary detail.I didn't consider details unnecessary, and the article does not run afoul of WP:SIZE, although I was willing to split it into two articles. I maintain that an article should be as long as it needs to be. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:03, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
The featured article of today is Buruli ulcer, and the welcome page of wikipedia shows images of open wounds. I understand that it's an illustration for this topic, but I found this image disturbing specially because it's the HOME page of wikipedia, an encyclopedia that we recommend for children. I would propose to amend the criterias to avoid if possible the use of the kind of image. Formidableinc ( talk) 09:05, 24 March 2021 (UTC)
That It follows the style guidelines, including the provision of:
be changed to It follows the style guidelines, regarding the provision of:
This represents the actual situation, makes sense given the specifics that follow, and precludes articles being stricken for trivial non-compliance with a volatile and overreaching style guide.
Hawkeye7
(discuss) 05:39, 30 January 2021 (UTC)
I propose that this phrase be removed from the Featured Article Criteria on the grounds that it lacks meaning, has been subject to abuse, and creates an impossible burden on the nominator. Normally we can point to a verdict on WP:RSN that a source is reliable, or its widespread use, particularly in other Featured Articles. The key problems with the phrase are:
This creates an impossible burden on the nominator. The issue was discussed back in 2009 ( Wikipedia talk:Featured article criteria/Archive 9#"High-quality" vs. "Highest-quality") where there was clear consensus to remove the term, but this was not done, and again in 2012 ( Wikipedia talk:Featured article criteria/Archive 10#Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources), where it was roundly criticised, but still no action was taken. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:02, 21 April 2021 (UTC)
FYI the subject resurfaced here, which is what led me to this talk page thread. I read through the 2009 archive and do not agree with Hawkeye7's characterization that there "was clear consensus to remove the term". That said, I agree that we should either drop it, or provide criteria to evaluate sources against that standard, whatever it is. NewsAndEventsGuy ( talk) 17:16, 20 July 2021 (UTC)
Disagree with dropping “high quality”; in al most every area where I write or evaluate FAs, it is abundantly apparent what the term means and how it is used. This should be flagged as a PERENNIAL non-starter. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 09:05, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
Per discussion of the WT:FAC page, should the general guideline of an article requiring three supports and a pass in image/source reviews be put into the criteria here, or else into the instructional/informational portion of the WP:FAC page? The requirement is codified in Milhist's A-Class review instructions. I don't think doing so would change much beyond making people more aware of it, as it's already a used minimum. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 05:22, 22 October 2021 (UTC)
Criterion 2.c states:
2. It follows the style guidelines, including the provision of:
c. consistent citations: where required by criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations using footnotes—see citing sources for suggestions on formatting references. Citation templates are not required.
My query relates to the interpretation of consistently formatted, in the context of FA and MoS.
At Wikipedia:Citing sources#Types of citation it is stated:
A full citation fully identifies a reliable source and, where applicable, the place in that source (such as a page number) where the information in question can be found. For example: Rawls, John. A Theory of Justice. Harvard University Press, 1971, p. 1. This type of citation is usually given as a footnote, and is the most commonly used citation method in Wikipedia articles.
A short citation is an inline citation that identifies the place in a source where specific information can be found, but without giving full details of the source – these will have been provided in a full bibliographic citation either in an earlier footnote, or in a separate section. For example: Rawls 1971, p. 1. This system is used in some articles.
The usual place to display the text of a full citation is in a references section, which is commonly titled "References". The usual place to display the short form text of a short citation is also in a references section, with the full bibliographic text in a separate section with a different section title, such as "Sources".
My question, in this context, is:
Is the current consensus interpretation of FA criterion 2.c that consistently formatted implies that the display of full citations and short citations in the same references section, with a separate "Sources" section for the bibliographic text relating to short citations is no longer acceptable in a featured article?
I refer to a short sample list of FAs where this was clearly not the case, but accept that consensus can change, and previously accepted styles can be deprecated:
At the time of sampling this style appeared to be used by roughly 1 in 5 to 1 in 10 of the selected examples, which were arbitrarily selected to represent a fairly broad range of topics. I do not know what the current distribution would be.
Other relevant guidance includes Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Layout#Notes and references, which states:
Contents: This section, or series of sections, may contain any or all of the following:
1. Explanatory footnotes that give information which is too detailed or awkward to be in the body of the article
2. Citation footnotes (either short citations or full citations) that connect specific material in the article with specific sources
3. Full citations to sources, if short citations are used in the footnotes or in parenthetical references in the body
4. General references (full bibliographic citations to sources that were consulted in writing the article but that are not explicitly connected to any specific material in the article)
Editors may use any citation method they choose, but it should be consistent within an article.
If there are both citation footnotes and explanatory footnotes, then they may be combined in a single section, or separated using the grouped footnotes function. General references and other full citations may similarly be either combined or separated (e.g. "References" and "General references"). There may therefore be one, two, three or four sections in all.
Regards, · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 08:27, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
I concur with Ealdgyth, Johnbod, Caeciliusinhorto, and Mike Christie, and thank Ealdgth for linking to an explanation of what this was about. I suspect Nikkimaria would have an opinion on this topic.
I'd add two things on a different topic about that discussion:
For the citations, the FAC/FAR process has changed their expectations for citations, where all citations should be at the end of the information that they are verifying instead of the middle of the sentence.. I may be misunderstanding, but I don't know of this to be the case. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 14:23, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
citation markers are normally placed after adjacent punctuation such as periods (full stops) and commas. For exceptions, see the WP:Manual of Style § Punctuation and footnotes. Note also that no space is added before the citation marker... The citation should be added close to the material it supports, offering text–source integrity. If a word or phrase is particularly contentious, an inline citation may be added next to that word or phrase within the sentence, but it is usually sufficient to add the citation to the end of the clause, sentence, or paragraph, so long as it's clear which source supports which part of the text.Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:32, 2 April 2022 (UTC)
While doing research related to an ongoing discussion about WP:AS I've come across offhand talkpage references to FAC processes (and perhaps also GAN) effectively setting a much stricter standard for article size than what might be evident from how the guideline is worded.
Is there a de facto 60 kB prose size limit applied to most FACs? Or a tacit understanding that anything above 60 kB might have difficulty getting promoted? Peter Isotalo 19:37, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
The wrong question is being asked; I'm not aware of any size-knowledgeable editor at FAC or FAR who looks at KB rather than readable prose size. The requirement at WP:WIAFA is clearly stated:
I have never supported a FAC or FAR that is of an excessive length because I have never seen one that does not have unnecessary detail, excess verbosity, or failure to use summary style. And on every FAC or FAR where I oppose on that basis, I provide an abundance of examples. This problem, though, can occur equally at 10000 words as it can at 8000, 6000, etc. The requirement is to avoid unnecessary detail and use summary style; it's pretty hard to build up a 15,000-word encyclopedic article if those requirements have been met. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 20:53, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
I'm grooming American Bank Note Company Printing Plant for FAC. I'm not sure File:Faile Mansion.jpg will pass the image review for licensing. I found an even better image of the same scene ( https://www.wikiart.org/en/david-johnson/west-farms-the-t-h-faile-esq-estate-1873), but the same question applies.
I've read Wikipedia:Public domain but still can't quite get my head around all the details. In the later case, the painter (David Johnson) is known to have died in 1908, so it's provably "70 years after death", but still the sticky question of what it means to be published. On top of all that, I gather that enwiki and commons have different interpretations of this. Can anybody provide clarity if these two images would pass muster at FAC? RoySmith (talk) 14:34, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
exhibition counts as publicationseems at odds with WP:PD#Publication. RoySmith (talk) 18:16, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
Additionally, exhibiting, displaying, or releasing the work in a public place where anyone can make unrestricted copies of the work could publish the work- this is exactly what I was remembering so thanks to Nikkimaria for proving that I'm not going mad Caeciliusinhorto ( talk) 21:59, 27 September 2023 (UTC)