Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Lowercase sigmabot III (talk | contribs) at 00:55, 16 December 2019 (Archiving 2 discussion(s) to Misplaced Pages talk:Featured article candidates/archive77) (bot). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

• WT:FAC

Archives

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 (April Fools 2005) 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 (2007) 22 23 24 25 26 (2008) 27 28 29 30 31 (Short FAs) 32 (Short FAs cont) 33 34 (Context and notability) 35 (2009) 36 (new FAC/FAR delegates) 37 38 39 (alt text) 40 41 42 (2010) 43 (RFC) 44 45 46 47 48 (Plagiarism, new FAC delegate) 49 (2011) 50 51 52 53 54 (2012) 55 (RFC) 56 57 58 59 60 (2013) 61 62 63 (proposals) (2014) 64 (2015) 65 66 (2016) 67 68 69 (2017) 70 71 72 73 74 75 (2018) 76 77 (2019) Archives by topic: Alt text, Citation templates (load times)

This page has archives. Sections older than 14 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III.

Image/source check requests

Requests should only be posted here for FAC nominations that have attracted several reviews and declarations of support. Premature requests can be removed by any editor.

• Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates/Tennena Cone/archive1 needs a source review. Volcanoguy 19:22, 14 January 2025 (UTC)

FAC mentoring: first-time nominators

A voluntary mentoring scheme, designed to help first-time FAC nominators through the process and to improve their chances of a successful outcome, is now in action. Click here for further details. Experienced FAC editors, with five or more "stars" behind them, are invited to consider adding their names to the list of possible mentors, also found in the link. Brianboulton (talk) 10:17, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Another example of Brian's excellence and leadership. How is this page intended to gain traction in the absence of something like the old {{FCDW}} which produced content relating to the FA process for the Signpost ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:34, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

FAC source reviews

For advice on conducting source reviews, see Misplaced Pages:Guidance on source reviewing at FAC.

FAC reviewing statistics for November

Here are the FAC reviewing statistics for November. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:11, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Brian Boulton has passed away

I received an email notice from his daughter. I assume others have as well. He was definitely one of the nice guys. I remember Ceoil once referred to him as an angel. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 22:02, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

I winced when I read this. A colleague in every sense of the word. - Dank (push to talk) 22:06, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

This is a gut punch; I so dearly loved our Brainy Brian. May he rest in eternal peace and his family know how much he was loved and appreciated. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:10, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

I owe him a great deal. And much like Browning's Grammarian, he kept at it to the end. A deeply felt loss.--Wehwalt (talk) 22:24, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

I greatly appreciated his kindness and courtesy.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 22:32, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

He touched all of our lives and his articles touch the lives of so many. Still, this is devastating news. Condolences to his family and so many belated thanks to Brian for the help he offered me and apologies for the many times I was grouchy and cranky, peace be with you. Thanks Ling for posting this. Victoria (tk) 22:49, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Oy. This is sad news. And to think that this was only a month ago... Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 00:03, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Devastating. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:52, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Wow, Brian is one of the many people around here whom I have never actually met, but has helped me become a better writer, and frankly a better person. He will be missed.Dave (talk) 02:35, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Definitely a fixture here, and definitely a great positive. He will be missed, condolences to his family and friends. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs 03:39, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm deeply grateful to have worked with Brian at FAC and peer review and elsewhere. He was incredibly erudite, incredibly productive, incredibly steady: a great editor. Finetooth (talk) 03:54, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

This is very sad news. His contributions here were enormous. I really appreciated his help. Moisejp (talk) 04:16, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

I am so sad. Brian was so giving of his time and talent - it was such a pleasure to have worked with him. Ruhrfisch _><>° 04:25, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks Brian for all the source reviews you conducted to keep the FAC process moving. Unfortunately, those were my sole interactions with BB. Mr rnddude (talk) 05:16, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Brian was unstinting in his help to other editors, a great guy Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:15, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm sorry to hear this. I didn't know him well, but he was extremely conscientious and helpful in any review of his that I saw. Vanamonde (Talk) 07:13, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

I was shocked when I learned of it, and left a message on his talk page. Should we perhaps move the above to there, where his relatives will be more likely to look? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:40, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Very sad, FAC will not be the same. FunkMonk (talk) 08:58, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Very sorry to hear this. Brian was a thorough and knowledgeable editor who helped me out at FAC on more than one occasion. Kosack (talk) 10:59, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

I am very sorry to hear about this. It is a very sad loss. Dudley Miles (talk) 11:28, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

There ought to be a fitting epitaph borrowed from some Antarctic explorer but (to quote Brian instead), most of them are "Zzzzzzz" when not exploring. Yomangani

Dear colleagues; please know that Brian’s family have posted a message of appreciation at his user talk page, yesterday at 13:03, also informing us of the creation of a new account: Brianboulton's Family. With kind regards;
Patrick. Pdebee. 13:53, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

All of us who interacted with him can testify that he had a positive impact on this community and[REDACTED] at large. His legacy lives on here.Iry-Hor (talk) 21:10, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

This is just heartbreaking. There are very few editors (if any) who have done more for the FAC process, or Misplaced Pages in general, than Brian. I'd go even farther than FunkMonk and say the site won't be the same without him. Giants2008 (Talk) 22:38, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Johnson

I am socked in IRL for a few days and editing from an iPad hotspot. I do not know who is watching Samuel Johnson these days. Could someone have a look ... recent red-linked activity suggests student editing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:29, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: The editor in question has made two contributions, both edits to Samuel Johnson. I have added the article to my watchlist and shall hold the fort until RL relents for you. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:14, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

@Gog the Mild:, thanks so much! I am momentarily on a real computer. (There were two of them, and following their contribs indicated all the classic hallmarks of student editing from an unregistered course, so I posted to the Ed board.) I don't have the time to do the usual niceties, and am disinclined to worry about C-class Ann Radcliffe, but hope the Ed Board will make contact, identify the professor, and remind them that student editors are discouraged from editing FAs.

More to the point of this page, without Mally and Ottava, I don't know what literary types are still following Samuel Johnson; I was involved mostly in the health aspects of that article, and would appreciate having others follow the article. Thanks again for your help, Gog! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:02, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

The WikiCup

It has been suggested that a contestant in the WikiCup who makes a significant review contribution to an FAC should be able to claim points in the WikiCup, a similar number of points to those available for performing a GA review. On the whole I would say having contestants perform GA reviews has been of benefit to the project, most of the reviews are of high standard, and the WikiCup judges (theoretically) reject poor quality reviews. A featured article scores highly in the WikiCup, and it is disappointing for the contestants if their FAC fails because of insufficient reviewers. Having some extra editors performing reviews would mitigate against this happening. Would the FAC community object to WikiCup contestants scoring points in this way? Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:59, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

I don't think it's much of FAC's business what the WikiCup people want to do; after all, anyone is welcome to make a review and we don't enquire as to their motivation. In any case, FAC is hardly in a position to be choosy, overwhelmed with the number of participating reviewers as we are not.* ——SN54129 19:10, 12 December 2019 (UTC) *Including, of course, yours truly. ——SN54129 19:10, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

I second my learnéd friend's observations in toto. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:18, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Me, I am a little concerned that it'll lead to quantity-over-quality issues with the comments. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 19:48, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

I think it needs to be well defined, but any extra FAC contributions would be more than welcomed. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski 20:08, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

I don't see why; FACs that currently only receive cursory reviews are still held over for promotion until they recieve some of depth. So no, any reviews that are determined to be lacklustre ("done for the sake of doing them") will be treated as non-reviews by @FAC coordinators: -coords; and, note that the Wikicup would also, from their point of view, also reject those FAC reviews they determined to be of low grade (well, "theoretically", anyway!). So the reviewer would not win, nor the FA candidate get an easy pass. ——SN54129 20:18, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

While FAC could surely benefit from more reviews and reviewers, one thing it doesn't need is more sub-par reviews (of the type we got from many WikiCup participants in the past); those can be tremendously frustrating to nominators (and particularly off-putting to new nominators, who don't always know which reviewers are experienced at the FA level). While the coords are fully empowered to completely ignore reviewers who don't engage WP:WIAFA appropriately or correctly, it is nonetheless a chore for the coords to have to sort through poor review commentary and to remember every year to go over to WIKICUP and see who is participating so they can be on the lookout for unexperienced nominators, reviewers, or quid pro quo.

At any rate, as mentioned above, FAC is not empowered to tell WikiCup what to do. What FAC can do and did do in the past was to make it a requirement for all WikiCup participants to declare their WikiCup participation in their FAC declarations or reviews. So, while FAC may not be able to prevent WikiCup participation, it should be noticed on each FAC, so that nominators and coordinators can then decide if the reviews are up to snuff. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:10, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

That seems a sound suggestion. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:31, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

I intended my post to reflect the reality of the WikiCup culture; I am not optimistic, based on experience, about the effect this will have on FAC, which already suffers a lack of quality reviews-- something that will become much more noticeable without our beloved Brian. The coords are likely to be stuck with lengthy noms full of sub-par reviews. But I don't see that there is much that can be done besides requiring that WikiCup reviews be noticed, and reminding the coords they are empowered to archive a FAC even with dozens of supports, if they deem them to be invalid reviews ... as I once did. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:55, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

I have indicated in the past that I am willing to disallow reviews that were not substantive enough. This is a little harder at FAC, because reviews don't have to cover all aspects of the article as they do at GAN, but if anyone is concerned about the quality of a specific review, I encourage them to bring that to the judges' attention. Vanamonde (Talk) 05:25, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Gamification as a motivator of interest in a process is a well-studied academic discipline at this point. There is a risk, of course, of substandard reviews but I for one welcome some fresh participation in this process. I'm interested in hearing the thoughts of the other coords, but I think we have enough checks in place that there shouldn't be any issues. --Laser brain (talk) 14:19, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

I take that WikiCup keeps a record of all actions taken as part of it? Because if we have a list of FAC reviews carried out as part of WikiCup we could check if the reviews tend to be substandard. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 14:33, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

I am unsure how we would define "substandard" in that case, since so many of the reviews are substandard now, even if not coming from Wikicup. In the work Mike Christie now does (posting stats), I used to do those stats from the FAC delegate point of view, where I rated each review as helpful, neutral, or unhelpful in my promote/archive decision. This gave me data regarding who was helping and hindering the process, but that info is known only to the person doing the promoting and archiving. I think the coords will know if a review is substandard, but the community must continually empower them to ignore those reviews, by pointing out when they occur at the FAC, and begin to again more consistently enter on substandard FACs a declaration of Unprepared, suggest withdrawal, so that the coords can get the sizeable number of unprepared nominations off the page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:59, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

I like the idea that reviewers coming from the Cup should declare their interest. It does mean more subjective judgements as to a review's quality by the Cup judges, but I think that we can handle that. Would it speed things up for the delegates if we were to post any judgement of ours as substandard on the review page?--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:19, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Wording like "does not adequately engage the WIAFA criteria" might be less off-putting to novice (and some experienced) reviewers-- the idea being to begin to grow back a cadre of expert reviewers the likes we once had in Tony1, Malleus, Karanacs, Laserbrain, and too many others to name. Goodness, Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages Signpost/2008-04-07/Dispatches is over a decade old; what is FAC doing today to address the reviewer problem? How much of {{FCDW}} Might be updated and used? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:29, 13 December 2019 (UTC)