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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Carcharoth (talk | contribs) at 13:54, 10 January 2020 (→Brian Boulton has passed away: follow up with some suggestions). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

• WT:FAC

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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/Beverly White/archive2 is in need of an image review and a source review.

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.

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 wikipedia 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)

I'm sad to hear this - I didn't work closely with Brian, but he reviewed a number of my articles at FAC over the years and he was always pleasant to work with. Parsecboy (talk) 17:18, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

• Sadness has conquered my heart after I got this news. I hope he had a happy life and it's sad to hear another great editor has to go away from us. I've never known him or worked with him but I hope his soul will rest in peace amen. Cheers. CPA-5 (talk) 12:03, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Holy crap! How did I miss this?! Terribly sad about this. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:26, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Like Casliber, I missed this last month as well (I left my condolences on Brian's user talk page). A couple of suggestions: (1) the tributes and condolences being expressed here (at WT:FAC) will at some point disappear into the archives. Maybe at that point (or before?) they should be copied over to Brian's talk page where others have also left condolences (I am not sure if the family will necessarily find their way here even though there are links from there to here and pings made here). (2) While reading condolences left at another recently deceased Wikipedian's talk page (see here) I was reminded that sometimes the Misplaced Pages community create more lasting memorials (e.g. naming an award or process after someone - see 'The McLellan Quaich' at the aforementioned talk page). I suspect the best tribute to Brian would be to ensure that FAC and other reviewing areas remain healthy (see discussions further down the page) and to do some reviews! But am making the suggestion here in case there is any desire to do something along those lines (there is also a memorial userbox mentioned on Brian's talk page that some people have started using). (3) Could someone put something fitting at Misplaced Pages:Deceased Wikipedians/2019 (the main 'deceased' page has this)? (4) Along similar lines, maybe something could be written up for The Signpost (I left a note here). Carcharoth (talk) 13:54, 10 January 2020 (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)

A general comment on disallowing substandard reviews: if you deem a review to be substandard, consider taking the time to mentor the reviewer. I have done that from time-to-time at GA and it resulted in more GA reviewers. Have not really had the opportunity at FAC because we have less participants in general. I would be willing to help some substandard reviewers increase their standards. But we have to get them here first :). Kees08 (Talk) 15:47, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

While I strongly support Brian's Misplaced Pages:Mentoring for FAC, I historically found that not all WikiCup participants are motivated to become better FA reviewers. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:15, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

This claim surprises me. Since FA reviews have not been part of the scoring system before, I'm curious how many you've encountered and how you knew why they were there. Argento Surfer (talk) 17:39, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

FA nominations have long been part of Wikicup. I knew they were there because when I was the FAC delegate, I regularly monitored WikiCup to be on the lookout for quid pro quo, etc. and to be certain that nominators and reviewers from WikiCup noticed their participation on the FAC page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:47, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

We will not have a 100% conversion rate, but it will likely be better than 0%. Hopefully is a good venue to get editors who have been too afraid to participate because they are not ready to cross over, then we can make them ready. We will see, if this is added as points for the wikicup, which I support. Kees08 (Talk) 16:09, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

This discussion is somewhat inconclusive, but with the 2020 WikiCup due to start in the new year, I am proposing to allow scoring for FAC reviews in the Cup, with the requirement that all WikiCup participants declare their WikiCup participation in their FAC declarations or reviews. If you find that substandard reviews are being done, the decision can be reversed next year. Oftentimes, the article creators and expanders who take part in the WikiCup are motivated by the contest to work to a higher standard and may venture into featured territory for the first time. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 11:40, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

@Cwmhiraeth: This thread might have become a bit buried since there's been a lot of activity on this page in the last two weeks. I'd like to ensure that Ealdgyth and Ian Rose have an opportunity to review and chime in as they see fit. I feel like we'll be able to work together on a case-by-case basis if someone comes in and starts posting farcical or unhelpful reviews to get WikiCup points. --Laser brain (talk) 16:11, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, Ealdgyth and Ian Rose's views would indeed be welcome. Actually, I am surprised at how good many (but not all) of the GA reviews are in the WikiCup, and many of the editors who have commented in this thread and on this page have been WikiCup contestants. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:34, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

My concern is with Misplaced Pages:WikiCup/Scoring#What's changed from last year? - "There is no longer a requirement that you state your WikiCup participation when reviewing a FAC." Ealdgyth - Talk 20:52, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

That has been there for three years and can be changed. It was introduced by me with this edit, there previously having been a rule "You must declare your WikiCup participation if you review another WikiCup participant's FAC", which was widely disregarded and the purpose of which was unclear. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 21:07, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

A better rule would be "If you perform a FAC review for WikiCup, you must declare in the review that you are doing it for WikiCup, and the review needs to address the Featured Article criteria", perhaps? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 21:16, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Overall FA process discussion

I have been anxiously pondering if and how Brianboulton's shoes can be filled in the FA process. Reviewing Mike Christie's monthly stats does not fill me with hope that FA has the editors to fill his gynormous shoes. And reviewing WP:WBFAN reminds me that we now have way too many FAs with no main editor still watching over them, yet no plan to process older or unwatched FAs through FAR.

With those concerns as the backdrop, I have also been following a discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:Today's featured article, where several esteemed FA writers are expressing some considerable frustrations, and feeling like "lambs to the slaughter". They express those frustrations as an aspect of how TFA is working, but I see it not as a TFA issue, rather how all three pages (FAC, FAR, TFA) should/could/once did work together. Multiple editors in that discussion expressed the idea that TFA is supposed to make sure that "articles are ready for mainpage". Where does this idea come from? That is FAC and FAR's job. And while resources are combing through every TFA to make sure they are "perfect" and "ready" for mainpage day, resources to assure we are promoting worthy FAs, and demoting the unworthy, are lacking. Many expressed the idea that there are now "too many cooks in the kitchen" at TFA. How can we get some of those cooks more involved at FAC and FAR? Are we shooting ourselves in the foot by putting up blurbs a month in advance and trying to "fix" every FA at TFA?

WT:FAC is by far the most watched page in the FA process, so I am starting a new thread here. A broader conversation, including all @FAC coordinators: @FAR coordinators: @TFA coordinators may help us all generate the questions we need to ask ourselves, particularly as we go forward without the stalwart of the FA reviewing process, our beloved Brian. As Victoriaearle said, "My sense is that the either the TFA coords, or the community, need to have a discussion in terms of workflow to make things easier, not more difficult for the editors who research, write, and bring to FA-standard any article ..." Let's do it. Starting by looking at some stats. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:44, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Monthly reviewing stats

• November
• October
• September
• August

Well ... as long as we have Nikkimaria, we have image reviews at least. Source reviews will suffer. Content reviews are already suffering, and have been for some time; one can read through the entire FAC page at any sitting, and find unqualified Supports for ill-prepared articles all over the place-- why aren't other reviewers calling those out? Who is doing/will do copyvio checks and MOS reviews? Not only is Brian gone, but many of Misplaced Pages's best copyeditors have not been present at FAC for years, and that shows in the level of prose that routinely passes FAC now. Brian was a leader: what is being done to promote his much needed Misplaced Pages:Mentoring for FAC?

The GOCE coordinator said, "I will remind folks that the FAC process is not infallible and things have slipped through. I've seen recent FAs with typos, double negatives, and overly complicated sentence structure. These are not world-ending issues, but neither would I call these examples of 'the best writing on Misplaced Pages'. Spelling errors shouldn't pass a B-class review, but nobody wants to call an FAR over a typo." Well, yes, I've seen this too (in FACs right under six or seven supports, or in FAs promoted only two weeks ago, or in FA writers who have multiple stars but no FAs); the solution is not to have GOCE going through TFAs of even our accomplished and diligent writers; it is to strengthen FAC and FAR so that they will promote only the worthy and demote the deficient.

I am also concerned about the complete lack of Opposes shown in Mike's stats; we now see as many opposes in a month as I routinely entered in one sitting, each day. The fastest way to an FA is through vigorous use of the Oppose; we can see by the stats below that the environment had a vibrant participation level even in the days of the heavy oppose to move the ill-prepared off the page, so we could better focus on the more likely to succeed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:44, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

FACs and FARs by year

How is the overall process doing?

• Through 2007, Raul654 handled FAC and TFA alone, but had two FAR delegates (processing 500+ uncited FAs when the inline citation requirement was added)
• Jan 2008, SandyGeorgia to FAC, Raul654 only at TFA; four director/delegates in total processing 1,328 FACs and about 300 FARs (143 demoted)
• Mar 2009, Karanacs added as FAC delegate, SG and Karanacs handled all of FAC except rare recusals, Raul handled all of TFA
• June 2011, Dabomb87 is added as first TFA delegate, later replaced by Bencherlite
• Sep 2013, FA director position is eliminated by RFC
• Dec 2014, change to three TFA coordinators
• In 2018 there were 382 FACs, and less than 50 FARs (29 demoted).

As of the date of this writing, 2019, there are eleven people handling about 1/4 of the overall FA activity relative to 2008, when one person handled FAC, one person handled TFA, and two people handled FAR. The current 365 daily blurbs and considerably reduced activity at FAC and FAR are handled by three FAC coordinators, three FAR coordinators, four TFA coordinators, with Johnboddie also helping write blurbs.

We know one number has stayed the same throughout the years: 365 mainpage blurbs have to be written every year. Raul654, DaBomb87, and Bencherlite did that alone. FAC then was expected to produce a LEAD that could easily be used to generate the mainpage blurb; that was a main concern in reviews. Karanacs and I alone processed around or more than 1,000 FACs per year; Raul, DaBomb and Benherlite rarely complained that the leads weren't adequate for them to quickly generate a blurb. Seeing that we now have four to five people working on every TFA blurb, we might ask if FAC is doing an adequate job of turning out appropriate leads. Seeing that we now have GOCE combing through TFAs, we might ask if the demise of FAR has not come home to hit every TFA, even when it is not deserved.

When FAC processed annually between almost 1,000 to almost 1,500 articles (2005 to 2010), about half of those FACs were promoted, while FAR was also a vibrant page, reviewing deficient FAs and saving the star on a good number of them. Many FAC reviewers and FA writers participated at both pages. As the number of FACs has dropped (to around one-fourth of its high point), the promotion percentage has increased, FAC pages have grown impossibly long, articles are being pulllllllllled up to standard with excruciatingly long commentary, while FAR has gone moribund, and both pages are lacking reviewers. What can be done to address this? Are resources being allocated correctly? Would it be worthwhile to focus more on getting the less prepared noms off the FAC page faster, as we once did? Why is TFA being used to get FAs "mainpage ready", while FAR is moribund? While I understand the frustration of some of our finest writers at having their work criticized unjustly, if the overall pool of FAs is declining (because FAC is turning out less quality, and FAR is not removing the truly deficient), all FAs are judged to that standard (lowest common denominator).

When the FAC and FAR pages were more vibrant, TFA did not expect FAs to be perfect for mainpage day. Running a TFA that needed some fixing was a good way to incentivize editors to join in at FAC and FAR. Now we are dedicating a large portion of our talent pool to writing blurbs and cleaning up FAs to make them "ready" for mainpage day-- but FAC should be producing good leads, FAR should be processing the deficient FAs. FAR has a rule disallowing nomination of an article there within three days of mainpage day, because exposure to the mainpage often results in FAs being improved, and issues being addressed. By putting up TFA blurbs a full month (or more) in advance, are we extending the time that FA writers must devote to dealing with uninformed commentary from people who don't have the sources? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:44, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Discussion

I posed a lot of questions: I don't have the answers. But it does concern me that, yes, the coordinators need to take leadership of this issue. Coords need to keep stats, observe trends, start discussions, and call out problems in the process, so writers and reviewers aren't "lambs to the slaughter". We have several frustrated FA writers, and the stats above tell an alarming story of the FA process. FA is only as strong as the worst FA out there, and over half of them are deficient. Where to start? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:44, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Comments vs. opposes

Reducing the number of pages folks have to keep track of is a start. Just not sure how that can be streamlined. I think there has been a pickup in activity at FAR from 2018, which is a Good Thing (could still use more eyes though). When did we transclude the FAR page to the bottom of the FAC page. Also Sandy you have to be mindful that many comments at FAC can be read as polite/diplomatic/temporary opposes. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:59, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I understand that (about the new politeness trend-- I didn't have a hard time making FA friends even though I was the highest opposer). This new "method" is obscuring to new nominators just how much work their FACs require, and leaving the impression that FAC is a place for pulling quite deficient articles up to standard. Put two opposes on the page and see the coords archive right now, so that more resources can be devoted to the more prepared nominations. And start calling out the deficient reviewers, so that the coords are empowered to ignore them (Mike Christie's work reveals that some of our top content reviewers are reviewers who consistently fail to engage the criteria appropriately.) Even with all of this "pulling articles up to standard at FAC", some pretty serious garbage is getting through, and that effort is a misuse of a considerable number of resources, which FAC no longer has sans Brian, Tony, Ealdgyth source reviews, Laser content reviews, Malleus, etc. So now GOCE considers it their remit to copyedit FAs ?? We see over and over at FAC, long lists of prose issues, replacing one short list from Tony1 that would have led to archival and off-FAC copyediting. THAT is how the GOCE should be used-- the nominators can go ask GOCE to copyedit after their FACs are archived. FA writers are clearly giving up, as the stats show; leadership is needed to shine a light on the critical issues. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:46, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

We've had several (now archived) discussions about the trend towards not opposing, and it's never come to any conclusion. I could explicate my views on why it is so, but it'd make some serious issues for me as a FAC (and TFA coord). I do wonder if my time might be better spent doing source reviews but the last few times I've started back up, I got a lot of flack and not much support from other reviewers. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:04, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Ealdgyth, one of the reasons for having multiple coords is that each of you can recuse when necessary. Do it! If you see a remiss source review, show how it should be done! I did it all the time. Remember that I once went over a Karanacs support ((IIRC?) on our dearest Elcobbola's first FAC (Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates/Oliver Typewriter Company), took off my FAC delegate hat, recused, and lodged a serious oppose even after Karanacs supported. It was quite an awkward thing to do, and yet we are all still friends, and Elcobbola turned into our most knowledgeable and trusted image reviewer.

The other thing that must be highlighted is that the coords continually and always need support from reviewers to be able to do their "job". We should never lose an Ealdgyth source review. I can understand how you feel, because I feel pressure not to lodge Opposes now even when I see disastrous FACs having multiple supports just above my review demonstrating significant deficiencies that should have led to immediate withdrawal. This trend is not a good thing; if the FA process had booming stats, I would say "great, keep doing what you're doing". But the process continues to do what does not appear to be working. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:28, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

With regards to the oppose question, perhaps it might help if people were to put down "preliminary oppose" or "hold" for each time they see problems which must be resolved before promotion but can be resolved during the course of FAC - say, a problem with the sourcing of an image - and a plain "oppose" for all instances where the problems can't/shouldn't be fixed during the course of the FAC - as a signal to coordinators that archiving should be considered? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 15:55, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

No. Oppose early, oppose often. It can be struck if issues are quickly addressed. It is not reviewers job to pull ill-prepared articles up to standard, and this weasly polite approach has had a disastrous effect. It is reviewers job to give nominators feedback for improvement, and coords feedback for promote/archive decisions. If we are here to make friends and avoid plain speech, maybe we would be more useful elsewhere. The endless re-discussion of what is clearly not working is divisive. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:02, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

A good example of what Ealdgyth mentions above is at Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates/Ghostbusters II/archive1 (and, the earlier Misplaced Pages:Featured article candidates/Ghostbusters/archive1, both from Darkwarriorblake). If you oppose over legitimate concerns, you're often met with snarky harangues and demands that you do the work to address the issues you noticed, until eventually you want to walk away. I'll post more thoughts later on but I believe poor nominator–reviewer relations are part of the systemic issues the FA process has faced as a whole. --Laser brain (talk) 14:05, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Along similar lines, I opposed a FAC, it was archived. It was renominated with few changes. I attempted to be helpful and pointed out some areas of deficiency and how they may have arisen. A thread was started on the FAC talk page suggesting that I was being condescending. Despite an experienced editor rebutting this I have not commented on the FAC since. Laser brain has a point. Gog the Mild (talk) 15:04, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

IMO, the poor nominator-reviewer relations are an obvious given at this stage (and have been for quite some time). Without quality reviewers, the star is meaningless. And so we end up with GOCE combing through even the most worthy of FAs, with the resulting risk of losing even more FA writers.

Laser, you are not only a coord here; you are historically one of FACs finest content reviewers. Yet, many of the finest have either left, or moved into coord positions, so are no longer available to review. Now we've lost Brian, who at least was trying to get a mentoring scheme launched to help new reviewers. I don't see that being promoted, or working at all-- many of the newer reviewers simply don't engage standards.

I am really hoping participants here can-- rather than re-hashing history of how we got here-- begin to come up with a list of questions we might ask ourselves about how the overall process is functioning, how we can improve on the stats above, and how Brian's shoes will be filled. One question is, what has happened to the Oppose button? Another is, are we shooting ourselves in the foot by preparing blurbs over a month in advance? There are many more. Could we focus on those and think of some things we can put forward for discussion, without having those devolve into personalizations as below?

Another issue that is coming to fore as I read through past discussions here is that the coordinators are also being disrespected by FA writers. Why is that being allowed to happen? (Read judicial notice btw; if editors are routinely objecting when the judges are clearly saying "the sky is blue here", there is a problem.) One reviewer actually suggested that a former coordinator (Graham Beards) entered a comment that did not engage the criteria and was not actionable? Threads are being closed by non-coordinators? Seriously? The coords cannot do their job if the community does not support them. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:30, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

A lack of some university employee's interpretation of ghosts as immigrants is not a legitimate concern. I legitimately tried to take on NikkiMarias comments on Ghostbusters 1 and they continuously either didn't answer the question asked or didn't answer at all, so I never had the information I needed to do what they were asking. Then I nominate the second one and you want analysis, of which only essays exist, by people who can't even get character names write who talk about ghosts representing climate change. Interesting and informative analysis is like what is already on Ghostbusters 1, talking about the obvious political ideologies, or at Shawshank Redemption, which I also worked on, talking about the obvious religious implications. The rest is just purely made up abstract nonsense. Each article being brought to FA, at least for me, also takes months of investment of time, so making a high-competence article over MONTHS and being told "Well where is the discussion on how the red bricks making up the buildings represent whether or not there is a God?" is asking me to waste my time on fluff information that adds nothing. There seems to be a distinct lack of respect for the amount of effort a nominator must put in to actually get something to FA level, and a huge lack of inconsistency in how personal perspectives are applied when reviewing. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 00:40, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

"Now we've lost Brian, who at least was trying to get a mentoring scheme launched to help new reviewers". No he wasn't. At least not directly; as is clear from the thread still at the top of the page, Brian's mentoring was aimed at new FA nominators, not reviewers. - SchroCat (talk) 18:34, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Coordinator role

(←) I would suggest (and have previously suggested) that in addition to reviewers who Oppose FACs, what we also need is coords who Oppose reviewers... or rather, who take the time to actually weigh the merits of reviewers arguments. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 15:49, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

As SlimVirgin pointed out in earlier discussions, the coords need data (even more so with the disrespect aimed the direction of coords these days, where apparently judicial discretion no longer applies). Maralia and I used to generate exactly that data, but it was an extremely time consuming effort; it meant going through every single FAC every single month and assigning a value to each reviewer comment, and then tallying and averaging the values. I rated reviewers not only by number of reviews, but by quality-- more points assigned for reviews that actually contributed to the eventual promote/archive, zero points for negligible effect, and negative points for those that did not engage criteria or supported a FAC that was eventually archived. In other words, I had data to state that editor X was a great content reviewer" in terms of quality, editor Y was a busy reviewer in terms of quantity, and when a quantity reviewer did not show up in the quality category, you can do the math without me having to single out any individual reviewer. It was possible for me to do this when I was (alone) reading 1,300 FACs per year. With the delegation split three ways, I am not sure it is now possible to apply such a metric. (Part of the bigger problem is that we have split the process so many ways that the buck no longer stops anywhere, diluting the authority of the coords,and leading perhaps to the disrespect noted.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:12, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

No need for such statistics. Just... you know... read the FAC. And shut down spurious Opposes. 'Nuff said. ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 16:16, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Well, I fully agree with you. But if the coords are not getting support, they are not empowered to do this. The question to be asked here is, why are the coords not getting the community support they need? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:20, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

"Community support" and "coord empowerment" are apples and doorknobs. Coords should explicitly say whose arguments are horseshit. Was I plain enough that time? ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 16:24, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

As you can see in previous discussions, that is no longer working here. IMO, a sense of entitlement has settled in. How can we restore some authority to coords? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:37, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

I started a thread once to suggest giving coords the authority to evaluate Opposes and call "Bullshit!" on bullshit. The responses ranged between "Meh" to shudders of horror. I have no idea why. Reviewers – especially the old hands – are currently empowered to abuse nominators... You want a concrete suggestion? I suggest a "Howzat Rule", where reviewers are allowed to call on a coord to strike a spurious argument (one or more specific Oppose reason(s), but not the Oppose itself). You'll say, "Chaos will ensue!" But the sore redness of my anal region after the previous FAC that shall remain unwikilinked testifies for the necessity of such a rule ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 00:46, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm sorry Ling, but this is incredibly outrageous and out of bounds. You're insulting one of our female editors, you've been doing it for years, ceaselessly, and it's unacceptable in my view. Please strike or apologize.This thread was started because one of our colleagues died, during the holiday season no less, and this is what we get? In his memory let's try to be the gentleman he always was and as collegial. That will get us a long way on this road we're all traveling. Victoria (tk) 00:50, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

'Read the FAC'. Don't stake out positions without all facts in hand. I am not being un-collegial. I am protecting others from similar gross abuse. And apologies should flow from others to me, sorry, as you would know if you actually took the time to... read the FAC. Which you haven't.... I see Appeal to emotion, Appeal to consequences, and possibly other kinds of appeals (is there an Appeal to solidarity?). What I don't see is "the facts have shown that you are wrong". ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 05:31, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

GOCE involvement and prose

Regarding the GOCE. My concern with them regularly copyediting upcoming TFAs is in the potential for conflict (as we have seen already) and greater reluctance by FA writers to have their work run at TFA. And of course their work would be more eagerly accepted at FAC. But I understand that the main page is still an attraction to many, though it is faded from what it once was. My initial thought was to wait and see.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:56, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

If mainpage day continues to be as frustrating as some have expressed on TFA talk, we are going to lose more FA writers and reviewers. I was hoping the TFA coords could answer Victoria's concern about the new month of mainpage hell, and this new idea that TFAs must be "ready" to "perfect". I was hoping for a discussion about how mainpage day used to be used as a way to find competent editors and reviewers and invite them to FAC and FAR, and where the nitpicky perfection was accomplished (or not :) Is "mainpage readiness" a good use of limited resources, or is it leading to a decline in resources that could be employed at FAC and FAR? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:51, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Wearing my TFA coord hat - I don't consider nitpicky stuff as an issue before deciding what goes on TFA. I do make sure anything isn't into obvious FAR territory, but I don't expect ANY article to be perfect. I suspect a lot of the "TFA must be perfect" stems from WP:ERRORS and it's culture of ... well, I can't really say how I regard some of the stuff that gets reported as errors at ERRORS, but that area needs to be looked at as a huge chunk of what is driving the issues with expecting TFAs to be perfect. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:02, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Trying to be careful not to enable some of the behaviors seen at ERRORS, we should never stifle criticism. A lot of what I've read as criticism of FA prose could have been written by me. I don't think the problem is ERRORS; I think the problem started with the WP:QAI drive that diverted resources from FAC and FAR and promoted the idea that articles should be "ready" to "perfect" for mainpage, and having a TFA coord dedicated to copyediting mainpage blurbs (rather than focusing on making sure leads are ready when they leave FAC) is exacerbating the trend. TFA should do what you do (schedule articles that are above FAR level), not attempt to make them "perfect". We should be careful not to live in a bubble and ignore external critics (although some of them may be quacks) when there are demonstrable issues that could be addressed within the FA process. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:35, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

There is a lot to unpack and discuss here (that I hope to get to later this week), but I want to second Ealdgyth's suggestion that much of the 'TFA and the associated FA must be perfect' stems from ERRORS. Not taking a stance on whether they should be or not, but I think that's where the idea stems from. Kees08 (Talk) 16:20, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

No, the idea that FACs must approximate to perfection stems very directly from the earlier (but, thank goodness, now deprecated/erased/expunged) Brilliant Prose™ requirement. Which ironically is harked back too, IIRC, by some of those people in this room. Plus ça change. ——SN54129 16:35, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

"Some of the people in this room" could show you multiple recently promoted FAs that not only do not have "brilliant" prose; they are full of pure gibberish that doesn't even rise to the level of GA. It is little wonder we have GOCE people crawling through the wrong articles by the wrong writers. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:34, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

1a is still a criterion. (well-written: its prose is engaging and of a professional standard;) --Izno (talk) 17:38, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Correct. "Brilliant prose" is not being argued; adequate writing is. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:40, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

If this discussion is going to have legs, we need diffs for some of the more—florid?—assertions. ——SN54129 17:42, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

No we don't need diffs for opinions that are not targeting any individual. I have no intention of pointing fingers at specific articles or writers at this juncture. The problems are more appropriately identified at the FAC stage, going forward. Since this is an opinion shared and expressed by many editors in many places, it is better dealt with openly than denying it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:46, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

"we don't need diffs for opinions that are not targeting any individual" If you're challenged to back up your assertions, and refuse to do so, then don't be surprised if people are disinclined to believe you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:41, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

You are welcome to disbelieve me, as I have no intention at this stage to have this topic devolve into a personalized discussion of the work of individual editors or reviewers, when there are broader issues at hand. Do either you or Serial Number 54129 have any feedback regarding the two sections of data I have posted above, in relation to how FAC, FAR and TFA are to continue forward, particularly in the absence of Brian, who was doing a considerable share of the work, along with Nikkimaria? Are you unable or unwilling to address the data above without personalizing a discussion in a way that will put both writers and reviewers in an uncomfortable position? Do either of you have any suggestions of questions we might be asking here that will improve those stats and help fill Brian's shoes? If you want a current example of reviewers who rank high in Mike Christie's stats, but whose Supports do not appear to engage the criteria, anyone can see my most recent review, backed by another experienced FA writer, after two supports were entered, but focusing on that one specific example will not be helpful, as there are many just like it every time I look at FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:55, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Agreeing with PotW and SN here: adding a third voice here as someone who wants to see examples of recent "failures" that have passed. Without examples then we're picking at straws in the wind without anything useful to add and not knowing what is reality and what is perceived. Stats can show and mislead a lot without anything more concrete that people can examine. - SchroCat (talk) 18:42, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

I answered your question at 14:55. Here is a diff in case you are unable to find which recent review I referenced in that post.

If you have an example of the stats misleading, please expound. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:22, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Obviously it wasn't an answer, as my post came afterwards saying there were no examples that we could examine. At least you have provided something we can look at now. Yes, two people supported this before Gog spotted problems and suggested a withdrawal; but isn't this a case of FAC working? It's not like GA reviewing when one slack review gets an article through, but more of a 'team sport' where it only takes one (possibly two) opposes to sink the nomination. In this case I suspect Gog would have opposed to ensure the article was withdrawn (he will be able to confirm/deny), and this wouldn't have passed the process. You opened this thread to talk about "deficient" articles being passed, but where's the evidence of this please? Not from articles that are still going through thre process and can still be opposed, but the ones you claim are being promoted in a deficient state. - SchroCat (talk) 16:11, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

I answered your question at 14:55.

The sample is an example of opposes (not worded as such) being provided only after I weighed in. I have little doubt this FAC would have been promoted had I not; it is not atypical of many recent FACs.

Are you able to discuss the problem when reviewers who lodge premature supports figure prominently in Mike Christie's content review data, and yet no one addresses those issues at FAC talk? Are you able to discuss the issue that FAC nominations are being prolonged unnecessarily because of samples like this? Are you able to discuss whether this trend clogs the page and impedes indepth review of more prepared FACs? Those are broader questions, yet you insist on personalizing and at this stage, I think you are evading discussion of broader issues.

Serial Number, Do not edit other person's posts.

Are you willing to offer any of your reviews for third-party (F&F) analysis? If not, please don't expect me to start pointing fingers. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:29, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) 1. You obviously did not answer the question I posted after 14:55.

2. I am glad you have a crystal ball and can predict which articles will be promoted. It had only received TWO reviews before you joined in – and you have absolutely no idea what other reviewers would have said.

3. No, I'm not able to discuss them, because you haven't provided any evidence of any problems. I'm not being obtuse, or awkward, or trying to claim all is right with the world, but without hard examples all the complaints are just walls of talk bemoaning the passing of the glory days. I don't have those rose-tinted spectacles, but I do want to discuss things when we have identified the problems properly, and that hasn't happened yet in 7,833 words of prose. I am not talking about personalising things and I'm not evading anything: waffling around generalisations without agreeing on what are actual problem rather than people perceived ones, ends up with over 7,500 words of piss and wind and nothing concrete to work on.

4. I apologise profusely for correcting "Johnbod" to "Johnboddie"; I thought that was being helpful.

4. Just like everyone else's, my reviews and FACs are, obviously, all a matter of public record. It is not for me to select which should or should not be reviewed by anyone for whatever purpose. – SchroCat (talk) 16:42, 18 December 2019 (UTC) (Post EC edit at SchroCat (talk) 16:50, 18 December 2019 (UTC))

SG, Bold claims needs strong sources, as they say: and that does not just apply in article space. So: {{cn}} to your claim that there are multiple recently promoted FAs that...are full of pure gibberish that doesn't even rise to the level of GA. I do not undertsand why you feel the need to insut the FAC coords like this. ——SN54129 17:20, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

@ Cat, Sorry for the edit conflict; I am unfamiliar with SN or the numbers after their name, so was not specific enough.

The FAC I gave as an example was nominated on 7 October. When I engaged on 18 Nov (over a month after it should have been a quick Suggest withdrawal) it had two supports. Gog engaged on 13 Dec … almost a month after I did, and more than two months after nomination. If you believe this is not an indication that there are problems in the FA process overall, then we will have to disagree.

Meanwhile, complex, interrelated and long-standing issues often require lengthy discussion to generate consensus as to whether there are questions we should/could put forward to the community to help improve the stats I gave above, and fill Brian's shoes. If you disagree, at least please stop filling the page with posts and bytes that basically demand that I personalize the discussion, and impede discussion of broader questions, when I have explained why I will not do that now. (I interpret your response as, no, you are not willing to volunteer for F&F; please correct if I am wrong.)

@SN, I am beginning to wish I were still unfamiliar with your name and tactics. You are welcome to disagree, but I am not going to continue to answer questions already answered.

I have no intention of insulting the FAC coords; rather, this discussion is intended to ask if we are giving them what they need to keep the page moving optimally. The example I give in this post suggests reviewers are not. Do you have any helpful suggestions regarding the length of time ill-prepared noms are staying on the page because of lack of review? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:29, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

I am not demanding you personalise anything. As SN has pointed out above, I'm just asking for examples of "multiple recently promoted FAs that ... are full of pure gibberish that even rise to the level of GA". This isn't about the individuals involved per se, but the review process. I am sorry that we appear to be talking past each other on this point, but the sweeping generalisations don't help identify if there is actually a problem. If we don't identify if there is actually a problem, there is no way we can act to overcome that problem.

"I interpret your response as, no, you are not willing to volunteer for F&F": I have not said that. I have said that all my reviews—like every single other review undertaken at FAC—are available for access by anyone. If anyone wants to revisit them for whatever purpose, there is nothing I can do to stop them. My words have been released under the CC BY-SA 3.0 License and the GFDL. - SchroCat (talk) 17:40, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

I encourage both of you to substitute my "gibberish" with F&F's better defined "content-specific usage, coherence, and encyclopedic accessibility". That a competent prose reviewer raises the same issue might suggest something (beyond my poor use of an ill-defined colloquialism)?

OK, I take your response as a "yes"; I encourage both you and SN to lead the way on this, as suggested in the section below, so that my personalization concerns are resolved should we do an in-depth analysis at some point (Which Is Not Now) after the broader issues are addressed.

You did not answer my query as to whether in your view the time the FAC that Gog and I reviewed was on the page is indicative of ways we could begin to generate suggestions of questions to put to the community. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:47, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

I think we're still going round in circles here. Do you have any examples of "multiple recently promoted FAs" which have "content-specific usage, coherence, and encyclopedic accessibility" problems "that even rise to the level of GA"? Again we're back to needing evidence of what the perceptions of the problem are. I will quote Andy Mabbett, (which isn't something I do often): "If you're challenged to back up your assertions, and refuse to do so, then don't be surprised if people are disinclined to believe you". I'm going to disengage from all of this now because getting turned down over and over again with a fairly simple request is not helping anyone, least of all the FAC process. Let me know when you've redesigned the process and how it has changed. Until than, I'll keep buggering on with whatever else I'm doing. - SchroCat (talk) 17:55, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Content-specific usage, coherence, and encyclopedic accessibility

In my experience, which lately has been limited, the bigger "prose" problems at FAC are those of content-specific usage, -coherence, and encyclopedic accessibility. In other words, they are not always of syntax, where GOCE can clearly help. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:33, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Yes. How is your time in the New Year? If I were to subpage for you some samples of recently promoted FAs with specifically those issues (with some basic GOCE stuff as well), would you have time and would you be willing to take an indepth look at these samples? There is a problem in how this might be done in a way that avoids personalizing the matter, but we have to start somewhere. With an absence of the type of prose scrutiny FAC once had, and your participation being limited, I am hoping that your voice might be heard. With the types of FACs they are having to read through now, the current coords have my sympathy, and are doing the best they can, but some examples might help reviewers and writers alike. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:44, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

@Fowler&fowler:. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:46, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: Sure. PS I do have some time over the holidays. I could try reviewing a few FACs. I won't oppose or support, just comment. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:21, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

@Fowler&fowler: Thanks, but it is a different question that I am asking-- one that you might not be willing to do. If I were to provide sample recently promoted FAs that have (IMO) the very problems you mention, but are slipping through FAC, would you be willing to engage those? I will understand if you say, "not a chance" :) :) Just above your post to this thread, you will see an insistence that examples be provided, and it's hard to see how to do that without the risk of personalizing the matter. As your prose is quite competent, perhaps your voice will be heard. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:34, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: Sorry, I should have said something more than just, "Sure."  :) Yes, that was in response to your question: I'll be happy to critique those samples. As for the personalizing bit, you could ask people to volunteer their FAs, and then look for samples in them, or I could. Such people might feel less defensive about being under scrutiny. The PS was something related, but not the same. I could, in addition, critique some current FACs for similar issues. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:00, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

@Fowler&fowler: Great! I am hoping we could work towards something like the writing tutorials that Tony1 created years ago, but looking specifically at the problem areas you mention. It would be grand if FA writers here generally volunteered (as in, "sure, take any of mine"), but we need specific examples, and I know where to find them if no one volunteers. I am thinking of a subpage format.

But, I would like to first see this general discussion of overall FA process issues cover better ground, as I am concerned that as soon as examples of one issue only (declining prose) are provided, the discussion will degenerate to the specific without having addressed the general ... so I am in no hurry. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:09, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Main page blurbs

A lead is not the same as a blurb. MOS:LEAD: The lead section should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article in such a way that it can stand on its own as a concise version of the article. Whereas a blurb has to be between 925 and 1,025 characters. A blurb normally has to be a condensation of the lead, covering only some of the most important points. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:43, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Yes, presumably everyone posting on this page is aware of that. I have seen leads get through FAC that are so poorly written that it is no wonder that the TFA coords are having to work so hard to extract a blurb. I don't recall that Raul or DaBomb or Bencherlite had that problem to that extent.

What questions do we need to be asking on the topic of leads coming out of FAC relative to what the TFA coords need to write a blurb? Is it really necessary to write blurbs over a month in advance? Is this trend helping or hurting the process? Raul chose articles on average three to seven days in advance (my impression, I have no stats to back that up), and "mainpage day hell" began at that point, sometimes leading to article improvement; regardless of the other problems (the times when TFA was scheduled at the very last minute), is "mainpage day hell" overly prolonged now as a result of greater lead time?

Is the drive to improve articles at the TFA stage helping or hurting the overall process (relative to what the role of FAR is supposed to be)?

Are the rules at FAR now too strict, considering we have finished processing the 500+ uncited articles, but now have thousands more FAs that are likely out of compliance, many unwatched by their original writers? When an article is scheduled a month in advance at TFA, it can't be brought to FAR in that interim (if one accepts the spirit of the FAR rules, which is that TFA results in article improvement). So, for example, I am now watching a November promotion that is an extremely deficient FA. That can't be brought to FAR for six months. But it is already being proposed for the mainpage. Yikes. And yet, if I bring forward the problems now, that creates a different problem: GOCE editors combing through a TFA, making things even harder. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:39, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

(ec) I'm going to be fucking blunt here - if folks expect me to do TFA selection like Raul did, I'll be stepping down. I find it's much easier to do a whole month in one fell swoop and it lets me balance the month in regards to topics being more evenly spread out. It also was something that a lot of folks wanted - more lead time and notice that an article of theirs was going to be on the main page. With regard to articles I've shepherded through FAC that end up as TFA, I haven't noticed any difference in how hellish the whole time is compared to the old system. It's not the experienced editors that are usually teh trouble with TFAs, it's the well-meaning idiots who know nothing about the subject and who show up only while the article is actually on the main page. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:43, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Hear, hear. Эlcobbola _talk 16:03, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

To both of my esteemed colleagues, I don't believe I (or anyone) is suggesting that. An analysis of what is currently not working would be more helpful. Is a month really needed? The article that is currently being combed through by GOCE is nowhere near the poor quality of the problematic FAs that could warrant that kind of scrutiny. It appears that having attention brought to that article for weeks has made the situation more difficult and extended. Suggestions for making this process work better? Or questions we can put to the broader community? If FA writers and reviewers are leaving the process, what can we propose that may help? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:28, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

I think a month is useful as it allows for certain fixes that don't happen on TFA day - updating the article with new sources that were published in the interim for example. We need much better behavioural expectations; for example, nominators need to be aware that reviewers are under no obligation to fix any issue by themselves; reviewers need to consider commenting on earlier comments by others, such as on issues pointed out by earlier reviewers. Drawing more people to review FACses might allow us to find someone that can replace Brianboulton and could also resolve the FAC-is-slow issue that is sometimes complained about. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 16:38, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

• Response to "Now we are dedicating a large portion of our talent pool to writing blurbs ... but FAC should be producing good leads" Regardless of its origins, it isn't stated anywhere that a lead should also act as a blurb, which has separate criteria for acceptance. So a new blurb would have to be written in any case for each TFA, as few leads are as short as what's required, not because they aren't well-written. And that's why they are written months in advance and worked on by various editors, because they have to be re-purposed from the leads in any case. If we don't want that extra work, we need to consolidate the lead and blurb criteria. At present, that seems impossible, since lead-length logically depends on article-length, whereas blurb length is maximum 1,025 characters, which requires heavy cutting (and compromise, hence discussion) once an article hits TFA. FunkMonk (talk) 18:04, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

• If the reasoning for past practices is no longer clear, then we really do need to consolidate as you say. But I suspect that WIAFA already says what it needs to say. While they aren't around to confirm, I am more than fairly certain that earlier mainpage blurb writers took the blurbs from the LEAD. In fact, I am fairly certain that Raul stated once that the reason that WP:WIAFA emphasizes the lead is to facilitate mainpage blurb writing. Was this not helpful? Is FAC focusing enough on leads? If TFA coords are having to go beyond the lead to write a condensed blurb, then I can see why we have issues occurring, and perhaps we need to discuss this specific aspect in depth. @TFA coordinators , are you currently taking blurb content from more than the lead? If so, does that practice acknowledge that the FA writer already put (in theory) the most significant summary info in the lead? Or are you finding that the leads don't give you enough to work with and you are having to make significant changes or additions? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:14, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

I can't say why the two have diverged over time, but Dank has worked extensively on the blurbs, so might have some thoughts. I also remember pretty much copying leads to the TFA requests rather than re-writing them like today, so I think the main issue is that blurb length range has become much shorter relatively recently. FunkMonk (talk) 18:20, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Well, for the last 2.5 years maybe. (I could look it up). The aim was to make blurb length more consistent, to reduce the number of times we got an earful from the Main Page people (and just generally to avoid jerking people around). Since a fair number of blurbs were short-ish, the only way to be consistent was to make all of them short-ish. Trial and error eventually got us to blurbs of 925 to 1025 characters, and people seem to be remarkably happy with that. To Sandy's question: for everyone here who's ever compared a blurb with a FAC you nommed or worked on (which is probably everyone): has there been anything substantive that showed up in a blurb that wasn't in the lead that didn't seem right to you? If so, did you raise the issue then (or would you like to raise it now)? I'm not saying it never happens, but it's rare, and generally the reason is transparent, I hope. - Dank (push to talk) 18:35, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

I don't know of a case where we're included material that wasn't in the lead (although I would like to be able to do so) but there is frequently a lot of to-and-fro over what should be omitted to bring the word count down. The blurb is usually written from scratch. Misplaced Pages talk:Featured article candidates/Buzz Aldrin/archive1 contains a good series of blurb candidates that illustrate the process. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:54, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, all, for the input. So it sounds like you are saying there is not a general problem with the leads coming out of FAC, insofar as having what you need to write blurbs. Is that the case? Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:07, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

No complaints here. The leads almost always give me enough to work with. - Dank (push to talk) 20:18, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

As I have a FA coming up onto the mainpage in a couple of days, and as I have already expressed my uncertainties about the added value of the GOCE in the other discussion, I'll take this opportunity to say that I have no issues with Misplaced Pages talk:Featured article candidates/Brothers Poem/archive1 – it looks fine to me. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 20:27, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Not sure where exactly to put this, but as a new FACer, I think the way Dank has been writing blurbs is more transparent and allows for nominator feedback while they are still around and fresh on the topic. I also have not had problems with GOCE copyedits changing the meaning of articles I have asked them to work on, though I am sure the experience varies based on the topic and the copy editor. Kees08 (Talk) 16:10, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Nominations page

I unfortunately do not have time to fully flesh out my thoughts on this due to being busy IRL, but I want to get the discussion going. I was doing a decent number of image reviews, but I found I was searching for image reviews to do more than actually performing them. If there was a way to see on the nomination page if an image or source review had been started or completed, that could facilitate others to join those areas. I imagined a template that would be updated on each nomination page, and not transcluding the entire nomination on the FAC page as we do now, but form it more similar to the WP:GAN page. I have trouble getting the FAC page to load as it is. My main point of these rambling thoughts is a way to determine if source/image reviews have been performed while on the nominations page would help people like me who want to do it occasionally but not consistently enough to keep a subpage like Boulton did. Kees08 (Talk) 16:19, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

This could potentially be integrated into WP:NOMV, though I wouldn't mind seeing a bot-updated summary table on the main FAC page that highlights nominations in need of specific reviews. SounderBruce 03:06, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Would a bot updated FAC page, with reviews occurring on subpages of the article talk pages, which is how it is done at GA, be an appropriate direction to take? @Hawkeye7:, do you have any thoughts or ideas on this subject? Mostly concerned about overall page size of FAC (I have decent internet and a decent computer, and have trouble loading it), and denoting whether source/image reviews have been performed. Easiest path is probably updating the nominations viewer as SounderBruce suggested, but making it so all reviewers have to install a JavaScript extension to review brings the barrier to review up, and hurts our efforts to increase the number of reviewers here. Seeing what we can do to increase reviewer participation from a UX perspective. Kees08 (Talk) 16:07, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria and Jo-Jo Eumerus: Do you have issues finding which nominations need image reviews? I stopped doing them because I would have to click on half a dozen before I could find one that was still needed (and even then I usually just missed it and duplicated work..). I am thinking if the nomination has a template at the topic of it that has {{FAC|imagereview=yes|sourcereview=no|supports=3|opposes=1|neutral=2}} then a bot could create a page like the WP:GAN page. The bot could even pull the size of the review page to give people an idea of how much discussion is occurring. This would help loading times and make it so the nominations reviewer script is not required (it is not even working properly for me). Thoughts on that? I am trying to make image and source review more accessible, and make the user experience better for reviewers to attract participants. Kees08 (Talk) 16:07, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I do have some problems. Normally I only review images on topics that interest me or on these which are posted at the top of the FAC talkpage because of this. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 16:30, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Occasionally. Are you anticipating that everyone would be updating that template by hand? Nikkimaria (talk) 03:17, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Nikkimaria That was my anticipation, folks tend to support/oppose in different formats which can be tough for automated scripts to pick up. The reviewer would update it, and if the nominator noticed the reviewer forgot they could, and if a coord noticed that the reviewer and nominator forgot they could (or anyone could update it, really). Potential fields for imagereview would be no, onreview, and yes, to show when the reviewer has signed off on that part of it. This does not seem to be a very popular idea but maybe it just got buried. It certainly would increase how often I review and would help me focus on articles in need of reviews (if we include things like byte size of reviews, which can be an indicator of where more review is needed). The FAC urgents list could also be another useful parameter. But the focus of the proposal is to make it easier to find items that need reviewed. Kees08 (Talk) 16:33, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

I foresee a problem if there are different settings for review done vs review passed. On the one hand I wouldn't want to see anyone other than the reviewer making that determination (excluding exceptional cases like the reviewer going completely inactive); on the other I wonder about what the appropriate setting might be if the reviewer and nominator disagreed about a particular point, or if another reviewer got involved. Would you have multiple fields for different source reviews with potentially different outcomes? Also, would any comment that's not a source or image review be counted as a neutral? Would any support be a +1 in the support column, even if explicitly limited to particular criteria? What if other reviewers or coordinators believe a particular review should be discounted - would they -1 in the template?

The idea is not a bad one, I just have some concerns with how it might be applied. What about a yes/no switch for source/image reviews posted? That would eliminate many potential issues. If you're determined to move forward with your original concept it might need some more fleshing out and discussion. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:04, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria: I have the same concerns. I had not thought about the supports that are only for a specific criteria, and I do not know a good way to address that, besides having a partial support field or similar. Perhaps someone else would have a more elegant solution. Yes/no works fine for image/source reviews, I was trying to incorporate the issue I have when nominating where I can never tell if the source/image reviewer is happy with my changes and I always feel bad repinging. I thought an explicit way to pass that part of the review may be helpful. (rambling, but so I do not forget, a field for first time nominators that would then somehow indicate a spot check is needed could be useful) Not sure how to deal with multiple source/image reviews, perhaps an imagereview1, imagereview2 style of fields would work on the off chance there are more. We could code it up for three and deal with the situation for if there were ever four, though that is an edge case we are unlikely to see. I imagined the comments field would simply be for those that have started their reviews but not come to a determination yet. I imagined the opposes, whether they are agreed with are not, could be counted in the template and then discounted by the coords as needed. I agree it needs fleshed out more before it is proposed, this seems to be helping. Do you have any additional ideas for it? Kees08 (Talk) 16:10, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Not done/doing/done for source/image reviews works perfectly in two cases: first, where the article is perfect; second, where there is a sequence of reviewer notes issues, nominator makes changes, reviewer signs off on changes. Anything more complicated - whether a reviewer/nom disagreement, a reviewer/reviewer disagreement, or what have you - makes it less easy for a templated solution to accurately reflect what's going on. I don't see a strong need to number comments that are neither supports nor opposes; perhaps as you suggested earlier a byte size measure would be more useful, although this would raise the issue Sandy had pointed out earlier with long lists of prose nitpicks that don't address more fundamental problems with neutrality etc. What about incorporating a flag for noms that are on the Urgents list / that a coord has said will need to be closed soon if they don't receive more review? Nikkimaria (talk) 16:22, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

@Hawkeye7: In regards to the 'older nominations' section, perhaps six weeks would be a good place for that marker? Do you have any thoughts to my ideas above? Kees08 (Talk) 20:09, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

My suggestion is that it shouldn't be set by bot at all; I used to set it myself, depending on how the page was doing and at what point noms were really in trouble (which varied ... for example, the page is at a manageable size now). It should be an indication of the cutoff showing where nominations have drug on too long and need feedback to keep from being closed, and only the coords know that. I do not see how an arbitrary cutoff set by bot is useful. I see some noms in the "older category" now that are merely lacking review, not necessarily in trouble. It varies with time. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:12, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

FAR and FARC participation

I do not participate in these areas. The last time I tried, I looked at discussion in both places and was confused at how they worked. I did not spend the time to get familiar enough with how they worked to participate. While the obvious answer is 'spend more time figuring it out so you can participate', is there any way for us to make it more obvious? Would there be any benefit to combining the two processes? Kees08 (Talk) 16:14, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for looking in there, Kees08; it is my opinion that the moribund FAR is the single, biggest problem affecting the overall process.

On the matter of combining the two processes, I believe the summary of old (and in my case, current) thinking is that FAR must be a very deliberative, methodical process in ways that significantly differ from FAC. While FAC is more, "is there consensus that this is article is ready", FAR must allow for the possibility that even quite deficient bronze stars can be saved, and about half the time, they are. Do we want to open up to a process that encourages the loss of a star in the timeframe and consensus manner that we confer a star, rather than repair of a deteriorated article, which can take months? Hence, a very different process. Because of limited participation, FAR is seeing the same issue as FAC, which is reviews dragging on much too long. But for coordinators to be empowered to boldly close FACs or FARs, they need community support, which they aren't getting now IMNSHO.

I am glad you raised something I have been concerned about: is it time to change the FAR process instructions. But before attempting that, it is important to understand the historical reasons the instructions are what they are, and the typical problems that led to the instructions. Before 2006, FAs were not required to have inline citations. When that requirement was added, a strict application of WIAFA would have meant that half of the FAs lost status. And, it would be unfair to bring ten articles written by one editor to FAR at one time, as adding inline citations is so time-consuming. And, it is unhelpful for FAR nominators to bring an article to FAR without having attempted discussion to address issues on talk. And, it is unwise to bring a FAR around mainpage day because much improvement happens during mainpage exposure. Many considerations in a process that was set up initially to try to save stars when the FA requirements changed. So, while it may be time to change the instructions, it will be of little use to tweak instructions on a page that right now no one is paying attention to. If we can re-invigorate the process, then figuring out what instructions are needed would help.

The key problem now is that, because there has been no attempt (since Maralia and I gave up in 2015, see Misplaced Pages:Unreviewed featured articles/sandbox and Misplaced Pages talk:Unreviewed featured articles/sandbox/Archive 1) to systematically look at which older FAs need to be evaluated, we don't know what kind of process might best facilitate review of older FAs. One thing we had started to do was figure out which original writers were no longer active or no longer updating their articles, and we got pretty well into that before we quit, and that only scratches the surface. We took three years to get inline citations added to 523 FA identified in 2006; now I estimate that there are at least 2,000 FAs that need to be looked at.

Contrasted with the 2006 to 2011 period, when so many of the active FA writers and reviewers were also active at FAR, there seems to be no motivation to clean up the older FAs; the best I can tell, that is because most of them have already run on the mainpage, so no one cares, while we are overly focused these days on cleaning up only that which is going mainpage. That trend, in and of itself, means FAR isn't being used as it should be/could be ... let the deficient FAs run, so that the broader community will start to use FAR. By running articles only after we have combed through them, we deceive ourselves and the community about the overall state of the FA pool. The latest star is no better than the worst star, and the entire process loses credibility and prestige when we allow a huge percentage of our FAs to stay on the books when they are not up to standard. And we constantly see editors pointing to an older FA as an example, even when that FA is deficient (so have to go through the usual WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS argument). Aslo, having spent the better part now of six to eight years working outside of our "FA bubble", I am realizing that FAs are just no longer held in high regard, because so many are deficient. In my area (medicine) it is quite clear that editors are no longer interested in producing top content, and for a project that historically saw considerable growth in its annual FA production (see some of the stats I kept at the talk page of WP:FAS, which by the way no one concerns themselves with anymore), has not had an FA for almost five years-- several over there scoff at the very notion of working an article to FA standard. This is a problem affecting all of us, as well as overall quality-- FAs are supposed to be an example of Misplaced Pages's best work, and to many of them no longer are. Unless we recognize the impact and extent of the problem, it seems premature to start tweaking the instructions, although they are certainly too cumbersome for the number of deficient FAs we are facing today.

Appreciate that you asked, hope this helps, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:00, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Wasn't sure where to factor this comment, but I use the cleanup listing of good articles to find what needs work in that project. We could have a listing created for featured articles if desired. I discussed with Aircorn at some point creating a custom cleanup listing that would only list articles that do not meet the good article criteria, but we did not get anywhere with it (even if such a listing was created, it did not seem like there was an appetite to work on it). Kees08 (Talk) 21:45, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

One already exists for Featured Articles . I would still be keen to create a better designed one for Good Articles, but lack the technical expertise. AIRcorn (talk) 21:50, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Holy, crap; 20% of FAs have cleanup tags? But many of those are in minor categories, so I'm not sure if that will lead us to the most problematic FAs. It's a start, but no list will do us any good if we don't find a way to incentivize the FA community to participate at FAR. Saving a star was once a source of great pride among the old FA community. That no longer seems to be the case. So how can we get people to realize that an effort to review the older and unwatched FAs is needed? As the FA pool ages and deteriorates, the lack of quality associated with FA affects us all. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:45, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

It is usually a good start; I clicked on one and was led to Comet Hyakutake which has a lot of citation needed tags. Could be due to inline citations not being required at the time of promotion. The next I clicked was Titan (moon), also missing a lot of citations. Not sure what to do with it, but it is a good starting point. Kees08 (Talk) 03:03, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

I looked at Comet Hyakutake; it is very old and probably unwatched; none of those editors are around anymore. There are indications on talk that some text is inaccurate, and there are citation needed tags. FAR requires that you give notice on article talk, in case someone will work on it. I have done that: . The process is, you wait a few weeks, and if no one engages, you nominate it at FAR. Then you notice all Wikiprojects and involved editors. Someone may engage to save the star. If improvements are made, the FAR (featured article review) can be closed without a FARC (featured article removal candidate), which is the phase where editors !vote to Keep or Delist. So, that's the process; when you see a deficient FA, the first step is to leave a talk page notice.

My broader concern is that with thousands of FAs needing review, we need to discuss how to engage people and speed up the process. Maybe some clever person can make a bot notice all the talk pages of FAs on the cleanup list. A few weeks after notification, anyone can nominate them to FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:54, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

The cleanup list looks worst than it is. I know for example that the {{asof}} template triggers it. At the good article one I ignore most categories with over 100 entries as they are usually too minor to worry about (although the standards will be higher here so they may be more of a concern). BTW I instigated the Misplaced Pages:Good articles/mismatches page. I remember manually checking the FA mismatches but after not finding very many mistakes didn't bother persueing it. Given some of the converstaion here it might be a useful addition. You could probably get it transcluded at the top of the talk page like the wikiprojects do with article alerts as I would imagine there would only be the odd one every now and again. AIRcorn (talk) 23:26, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

PS, I left of another helpful piece of history. (If you read some of the old {{FCDW}} you can find lots of FA process history-- so disappointed we have no such initiative today as the Dispatches, which kept the community informed about content review processes via the Signpost.) There was a period (I think 2005?) when "Refreshing Brilliant Prose" was launched to look at every FA, but there were less than 1,000 then. In the "Refreshing" phrase, there was a straight-up consensus !voting process to simply remove the deficient stars. Whether we are at a point of needing to go to something like that, as opposed to trying to "save bronze stars" could be discussed. Apologies for very fast typing, I am hosting a big holiday party tomorrow ... if anyone wants to fix my obvious typos, go ahead. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:08, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

I suspect one reason why FA is no longer looked up to is because there isn't much focus on the content. The impression many outside the FA-bubble get is that FA is only concerned with prose styling and MOS nitpicking. Even many of the source reviews spend more time worrying about whether or not the formatting of the citations is okay without worrying about whether or not the citations support the text. And there is considerable push-back when reviewers try to point out missing sources. Frankly, I'd prefer it if we dropped the worries about the prose style (and the endless laundry lists of prose tweaks that many times are not actually improving readablity but rather are pure style) and actually tried to engage a bit with the content. But I've been bleating about this for years and for years my concerns are ... well, I can't say brushed aside but at least not taken up. Ealdgyth - Talk 20:34, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Aye, when one looks at FACses today one often seems much more commentary on text rather than content; laundry list of style issues are much more common than laundry lists of source issues. Perhaps that's coloured by me writing in a off-the-beaten-path area of Misplaced Pages, but it's easy to get the impression that it's all a prose matter. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 20:41, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

The problem is finding subject-matter experts to do those content reviews. I'm willing to tackle most historical articles, but my fragmentary memories of college biology and astrophysics don't qualify me to evaluate those kinds of articles, so I can only really evaluate prose on them if I'm not doing a source review. And I expect that most, if not all, reviewers are in a similar boat.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 21:18, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

I would be interested in hearing from the current cords how they handle content area experts. My process was to make sure there were many different kinds of reviews. We needed a topic area expert on, for example, physics before I would pass an FA. We also needed non-topic-area reviews to make sure the articles were digestible to those not familiar with that content areas. And, whenever there were groups of similarly-focused editors who always supported each others' work, I tried not to promote until someone from outside that group had looked in. When a topic-area expert had not showed up on a FAC, I kept a list in my back pocket, and openly requested on their talk pages a review from them. That is, I had go-to reviewers in physics, chemistry, film, and so on. Is this still done? If content area experts are reviewing FACs, other reviewers can focus on other things-- like, is the article coherent and accessible (the Fowler&Fowler list above, which I agree is missing). I didn't care that I had to ping reviewers to a FAC: I did not want to promote without a topic expert reviews. Example: Venezuelan film, hello! Old-timers all know I speak Spanish, and edit Venezuelan topics, but neither Steve (a very competent film editor who authored The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (film)) nor I were pinged or emailed. For a coord to neutrally ask for a content area knowledgeable FA reviewer or writer to look into a nom is not canvassing, and we should be doing that. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:34, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Back in 2016, there was a lot of pushback from the FAC writers over the increasing complexity of the MOS. There was a perception that some people were attempting to control the Featured Articles through changing the MOS. In fact, I thought we had agreed to no longer require full MOS conformance. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:12, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

@ Ealdgyth, hear hear. Personal preference for , "oppose, prose is not up to snuff, here are a few samples, get an independent copyedit, come back and we will examine other significant matters," but no I am not going to pull your article through line by line when we have thousands of FAs that need review, but that kind of oppose is rarely seen today. So, at least by the time I get to a FAC these days, a ton of that has already happened, but no one has looked yet at the issues that should have been looked at before the prose was nitpicked. FAC is not peer review (yes, I realize peer review is dead; by doing that work at FAC, are we exacerbating the problem?)

@Jo-Jo, considering what we just saw the GOCE do to one TFA, I am going to focus on reminding frequent nominators of the MOS things they need to do before approaching FAC, with the idea that we shouldn't have to focus on those things among the knowledgeable, and we shouldn't have GOCE editors of the opinion that FAs need significant MOS and copyediting. Ugh.

Another thing to keep in mind is that we still want feedback from reviewers who are not topic-area experts or knowledgeable, and may not feel qualified to examine issues of substance, but can offer a MOS or citation formatting review. We don't need to discourage those; we need to mentor and encourage the correct type of content, sourcing and prose reviews.

@Hawkeye7, I did a ton of MOS-y stuff to make sure articles were OK before promotion ... but … I also ignored a lot of MOS stuff, which I thought ridiculous. but don't tell anyone I said that :) I think we need to be practical wrt MOS, and I believe we once were. IF some nit-pickers want to comb through every TFA and fix every item, let 'em do it! But we can't openly ignore MOS: we are supposed to be Misplaced Pages's best work.

But we are getting off-topic on how to re-purpose FAR to deal with the many older FAs, who may no longer be watched or updated. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:17, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

I can have the FACBot go through all the Featured Articles and identify the worst ones, but we have no process for correcting them. FAR is different from FAC. Consensus that an article meets the standard is good enough at FAC but not at FAR. No amount of good faith efforts can save an article at FAR, so it is pointless to even try. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:12, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Really? I am pretty certain I've seen FARs closing as "keeps FA" status. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 21:15, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

I understand that you have a painful experience with an article, there, Hawkeye, and I sympathize. But my response at WT:FAR stands. I believe there are still issues identified in the FAR that you could correct, and re-submit the article to FAC. I know that was a most unpleasant experience for you, and I'm sorry. Best regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:20, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

PS, I just had a look at Albert Kesselring, and it is still showing as a GA and an A-class article. The bot used to strip all assessments, and new assessments were needed. Is that still done? I don't see a new GA or A-class review on talk... what has changed in the bot processing? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:08, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia:They were readded by Hawkeye7 in this edit, which I don't think is correct - my impression is that passing FAC removes something's GA status and losing FA status does not restore GA status. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 22:15, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

Losing FA does not involve losing A-class status. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:08, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks … that reminds me of another maintenance issue I regularly did and am not sure is still being done … check the category for FAs and see if the tally there matches the tally at WP:FA, that is, did someone add or remove a star. Also, check the category for FACs to find untranscluded FACs (that is, the number of FACs on the page does not match the number in the category). Is someone doing these tasks, to help out the coords, these days? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:18, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

The FACBot checks for untranscluded FACs and reports them to me. I normally chase them up. There is one or two every week. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:13, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks; is anyone routinely checking that the number of FAs at WP:FA matches the number that carry the star?

Back on the FACbot issue; it is not historically trued that losing FA status did not involve losing A-class status; GimmeBot stripped all assessments, and it was up to Projects or GA to reassess.

Are you going to remove the GA you reinstated at Albert Kesselring or should someone else do that?

@WP:MILHIST coordinators: , if the MilHist coordinators have decided A-class can be reinstated on demoted FAs, that is one thing, but what about the other WikiProjects, eg Bio, Germany, Aviation? You restored A-class to several assessments, and you can't assess an article you wrote. When FACBot removed the star at Heinrich Bar, it did not reinstate A-class. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:51, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

We have sharing agreements with WP:AVIATION, WP:SHIPS and WP:AUSTRALIA. Starting in the New Year, the FACBot will automatically restore A-class to FAR articles that been delisted, and qualify for them. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 07:56, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Re: is anyone routinely checking...

Hi Sandy, it's me, Outriggr. You might remember me from FAs such as <cough>. You inspired me to compare the FA list with Category:Featured articles and Category:Misplaced Pages featured articles (!), and all it took to reconcile all three to the 5,686 total was one correction to an ArticleHistory template. (Never mind the numbers given in the category(s); apparently they are permanently stale and wrong.) I was surprised at how consistent it all was. This was a one-time deal. Enjoy the party. Outriggr (talk) 05:25, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Whatdya mean, one-time deal, Outriggr? You bum, how is FAR to get re-invigorated without you? Seeing you and Yo-man show up in the same week rocks. Thank you for doing that, dear Riggrs; a big (dead) tree attached to a hammock knocked whatever sense I had left out of me a while back, and I forget how I used to do such things :) :) Wonderful to know you and the family are still following here, and thanks for the reminder of how much help we all gave each other in keeping the shop running. I imagine it took you a while to find that error, and the work is appreciated. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:59, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

I found an error on Guy Burgess: it was on the list but not in the category. I run this check if I notice that the number of articles at https://bambots.brucemyers.com/cwb/bycat/Featured_articles.html mismatches the number on the list. (Burgess had been removed from the category by mistake on 10 December.) DrKay (talk) 08:26, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

(←) So in all seriousness, why don't we just skip all the discussion, nominate you to be an additional coord, and get it over with? ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 00:00, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

You would not like to know how I would answer that fully, so I’ll keep it brief. No.

And it is not my impression that there is a problem with coords. The stats above indicate to me that there is a problem with process. If noms are staying on the page for months, those nominators cannot bring forward other noms, and there is a lot of misuse of resources, and output declines. This will only get addressed if everyone cares enough to take an impersonalized look at the issues, and productive discussion leads us to items we should put forward to each other as an RFC ... ways to change FAR rules, initiatives for mentoring, better support for coords to move ill-prepared noms off the page, re-launch the Dispatches, whatever ... but these things come out of active discussion among engaged participants. This community needs to work for itself rather than thinking eight, ten, eleven or tweleve coords can invigorate a page that has process issues. Four coords processed over 1,500 FACs and FARs in 2008; eleven coords are processing less than 500 today. More chiefs are not needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:24, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Good answer!  ♦ Lingzhi2 (talk) 01:04, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

I'll note that standards back in 2008 were considerably lower than they are now.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 23:57, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Past discussions on subject matter experts: Misplaced Pages novice subject matter experts as reviewers, A proposal for WikiJournals to become a New Sister Project. More may exist, trying to add what I can to facilitate discussion. Kees08 (Talk) 21:34, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

One nom at a time

We already went through this. The coords were not willing to drop the one-at-a-time rule. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 01:13, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Those who were around at the time know that the one-at-a-time-and-a-penalty-if-it-doesn't-pass rule was introduced for good reason. Certain people—and one Wikiproject in particular—were taking a "fling everything that's over a certain length at FAC and see if anything sticks" approach, which led to a lot of reviewers wasting a lot of time reviewing huge stacks of articles that weren't ready. (This was the RFC that led to it.) I wouldn't have an objection to removing the requirement provided we kept the "if it fails you have to wait" part to discourage inappropriate nominations. ‑ Iridescent 20:36, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Some 'one-at-a-time' discussions RfC - Proposal to relax the "one at a time" rule, Query re: one-at-a-time rule, and many more. Kees08 (Talk) 21:34, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

"One nom at a time" is not what is holding up to the page, or at least, should not be if the Coords are using their discretion. As Iri explained, it was quite necessary when it was instated to curb the abuse of some nominators. It has always been possible for the Coords to grant exceptions for nominators who are helping keep the process moving forward. Prime and top examples are/were Cas liber and Brain boulton. Cas invariably digs in to the tough reviews that fall to the bottom of the page, and is often the only experienced reviewer to dig in. Brian was doing the lion's share of source review work, and doing content review as well. Both of them brought prepared nominations to the page: either of them could likely have gotten permission any time they want to nominate five FACs at a time, because a) they could handle it, b) they didn't put up work that had to be pulled through, and c) they did more than their share in reviewing to help the lesser prepared noms.

I would go the opposite direction Iri mentions and ask the coords to use their discretion to help solve the backlog; do not grant an exception to any nominator who wants to put up a second or third unless those experienced nominators agree to review the bottom five (and call bullshit on 'em if they don't do a solid review, or give enough info to either promote or archive). It may be fun to dig in to the well-prepared, well-written articles and nitpick prose, but the backlog is in the problematic FACs that no one is engaging soon enough. When a FAC sits at the bottom of the page for two months with no feedback, that is six weeks of lost work. Archive soon, archive often, give the nominator some direction as to what to work on before they come back, so those people can get to work and bring back a better prepared article. Empower the coords to use their discretion as to who can put up multiple noms: we all know Cas can handle it, and we all know who is doing reviews to help the backlog. Keep the rule-- empower the coords to use it even more strongly and more effectively. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:04, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Sounds like an interesting idea; get a second nom if you content review minimum three articles, ten image reviews, or such. FunkMonk (talk) 22:49, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

And not the easy ones at the top-- the tough ones at the bottom that require real engagement, not changing a few words here and there. This requires no change in instructions: the coords have the discretion to do this now. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:18, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

A compromise position would be to allow an additional nomination once an existing nomination has three supports, and has passed image and source reviews, and has no outstanding issues. I would be surprised if the coordinators would refuse permission under such circumstances anyway. This at least helps with part of the problem noted above that articles sometimes hang around the FAC page for weeks, by all appearances ripe for promotion, without a coordinator looking at them. This has been a long term problem--I have in my email archives correspondence with Ian Rose from 2013 about this very subject--but it seems to have gotten worse this past year. Having "old" nominations that are ripe for promotion hang around often leads to reviews that would be more helpful with the next nomination. Sandy, to her credit, was very prompt about promoting (as well as archiving, as she noted) and I will join in the fulsome praise she lavishes upon the coordinators when they meet her standards for a good period of time. I don't recall a lot of requests for second nominations under Sandy, though no doubt there were some. Better prompt promotions (or the compromise I mention above) than either scrapping the rule or handing out blanket exceptions.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:01, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

But, if we codify it, we may just reinforce this bogus notion that three supports is adequate for promotion. I've seen many noms with three supports and yet, one can read the article and know it's not there. Yes, I did try to go through every day, except when I traveled, and I tried to always get to withdrawals immediately, but I understand not all editors have the free time I had, or the energy, before the tree fell on me and sidelined my activity. I am so sorry I cannot ask Brian today if he was just too humble to ask for an exception, but he would have been granted as many as he wanted :( :( I fear we hamstring the coords if we codify the requirement in any form (eg three supports); we just need to respect and empower the coords and let them decide. Speaking as someone who walked in those shoes, I can guess that sometimes when a multiple-support FAC is sitting there, unpromoted, it's because the coords can see the problems that no one has identified. Perhaps I was less shy to ping people in for a look ? But again, I think the backlog is at the bottom of the page, with those two- to three-month long FACs, and I wish we could motivate people to take on the tough ones. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:26, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Easy enough, just put in the instructions that "this does not mean that coordinators are bound to promote the article; they may ask for additional reviews" or some such.--Wehwalt (talk) 07:30, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Question for coordinators

Looking over this discussion, one of the recurrent points I see is the slow pace of promotion and archiving. Wehwalt talks about the FACs that have received the necessary support but aren't promoted, Sandy is pushing for more decisive opposes and more prompt archiving, and one of the conclusions from the Black Friday post-mortem last year was that earlier archiving could have avoided a good part of the acrimony in that FAC. I'm not accusing the coordinators of anything—you all work very, very hard—but I'm curious to know why promotion and archiving is slow. Is it because the FAC page is just too big and dense to wade through, because nominators get angry when they think their articles are archived prematurely, or for some other reason? And whatever it is, is there anything we nominators and reviewers can do to reduce the problem? A. Parrot (talk) 02:06, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Speaking only for myself, but the process of going through list to assess whether either promotion or archiving is warranted, or whether one of the many other actions needs to happen ("warning" the nominator that the nom is in danger, which is a relatively new thing; pinging the nominator or reviewers to pay attention to something; etc.) is quite time-consuming. Going through even part of the list can take several hours. If I do decide that consensus exists on a nomination for promotion, I still have to read the whole article looking for problems. If I find problems, I have to suggest that more review is needed, or decide if I should recuse and get involved as a reviewer. So, even nominations you might look at and think, "This has several supports and completed image and source reviews" still needs the work done. As for what nominators and reviewers can do: Nominators can action feedback with a sense of urgency and keep things moving. Reviewers can make definitive statements of opposition and support as warranted. The single biggest problem that makes such a quagmire out of this page is that deficient nominations aren't opposed and archived. I refuse to "supervote" and do this myself... in fact, any time we've asked the community over the last few years for feedback, we've heard that there is no appetite for coords acting in an authoritarian manner. We're empowered to assess consensus, that's it. --Laser brain (talk) 05:30, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Now that a pre-Christmas rush of work commitments is over, I can afford to wade in to this mega-thread, and it will have to be last things first I think.

I echo Andy's comments immediately above. Speaking for myself, there's no pleasure in archiving noms, but at the same time I've made use of all the options in the guidelines to do it: early calls by reviewers for withdrawal, requests for withdrawal by the nominator, little substantial commentary after weeks, clear consensus against promotion by well-reasoned/actionable opposes. One solid oppose can still trump a bunch of supporting reviews, because that oppose means there's no consensus to promote, but as we know there are many fewer opposes than supports around -- change that!

Cas mentioned early in this thread open comments without a definitive "oppose" delaying promotion, and that's also true -- the FAC instructions state that what matters is resolving critical commentary, so I try to make a point of checking all open comments to determine if there's anything there that should delay promotion. Three supports plus source and image reviews is the bare minimum to promote, it doesn't guarantee it.

I take no pleasure either in noms going on for extended periods, but they're all different and there are times when I would rather see the nom run to what I think will be a successful conclusion this time round instead of closing and seeing it back again for another round in a couple of weeks.

Finally, and I've said this often in threads like this, those who feel hamstrung by the one-nom-at-a-time rule, or who feel that their noms are genuinely close to promotion (say having reached the minimum of three supports plus image and source reviews) should ping the coords for leave to open a second nom. Unless the current nom is still very new, I pretty well always agree.

Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 07:56, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

@Hawkeye7, Wehwalt, Sturmvogel 66, and Parsecboy: Anyone interested in multiple noms right now? Just listing off the people that I believe have a backlog awaiting nomination. Would you nominate more under the current structure or is there anything in particular holding you back? Kees08 (Talk) 13:09, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

In theory, I'd like the ability to run more than one FAC at a time (and actually, Sturmvogel and I have worked at maintaining the ability to have an individual article and a joint project to run at the same time), but I frequently find that trying to manage one (or two) FAC, along with several A-class reviews, GANs, and frequently an FLC while I'm still writing new articles to be tough to do at times, so I'm not all that worried about the pacing. Yes, I do have a backlog of A-class articles waiting their turn at FAC, but I'm not in any particular hurry. Parsecboy (talk) 13:17, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm content enough with the current rule, as long as FAC is managed efficiently. Agree with Parsecboy, and we are short on reviewers. I think quality would suffer, not talking about me in particular but just generally.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:43, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm behind on responding to the comments in my one current FAC and have yet to fill my available co-nom slot so I'm obviously not too worried about not being able to nominate more. More seriously, if there were more reviewers around, I wouldn't mind being able to nominate more articles, but... Generally I'm content with the current limits on nominations. I could wish for other projects to organize an A-class system before a FAC nomination to review their own articles with subject-matter expert reviewers, which I think would improve the quality of nominations in general and reduce any necessity for the delegates to reach out to SMEs.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:51, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

I have several articles ready to go, but have been unable to fill the co-nom slot. I was thinking I might be able to persuade SkoreKeep into co-nomming British nuclear tests at Maralinga after it is finished at A-class in a month or so. For Project Rover, the article could not be nominated for A class, so it went straight to FAC. It took seven weeks to pass, which is about the same as the ones that went through A class. I have suggested in the past that the Bot set the "older nominations" mark at a more realistic six weeks instead of three. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:44, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Looks like you may be able to request to have more than one run at once, based on the above discussion. Kees08 (Talk) 20:00, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

I think Ian means "and who feel that their noms are genuinely close to promotion" rather than or. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:51, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

@Ian Rose: Can you clarify what you meant here? I believe Hawkeye is the one that could use multiple nominations at once the most, I am not sure who else to ping that would be interested. Perhaps you can clarify the situation to his specific case (he mentioned the Next Nine article later on this page as an example). Kees08 (Talk) 15:50, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, Hawkeye (bless him for all he does!) tends to complain loudest about one-nom-at-a-time yet, unlike several editors such as those mentioned above, rarely if ever in my experience seems to ask for leave to open a second solo nom when one of his is close to promotion... Granted, at this stage I'd expect to see one more decent (and reasonably positive) review of his current solo nom before he opened another, but that's about all it'd take. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 20:57, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Belated two cents: Explicitly weaken FAC prose standards

I'm not a FAC regular, take my opinion with a large grain of salt, I reserve the right to be wrong. But I feel that the FAC process has let the perfect become the enemy of the good. This is especially an issue for "pure style" / prose issues; as Ealdgyth's comment above notes, people outside the FA-bubble perceive FAC as excessively concerned with criterion 1a. One of the smartest policies Misplaced Pages ever adopted was WP:RETAIN for varieties of English, as well as allowing several different citation formats with only a requirement that an article be internally consistent with whatever style it picks. Well, what applies for national varieties of English should apply for all sorts of article styles as well. If you trapped Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson, Strunk & White, and e.e. cummings in a room and forced them to write by committee and review each other's work, you're not going to get anything better than a certain level of baseline competence before the changes just start becoming "let's move it to my preferred style." There's lots of styles that can work; pick one and run with it, even if sometimes it is a dry and referential one for certain scholarly or controversial topics, or a more casual and flowing one for articles structured like "stories". I've seen a lot of prose comments at FAC that I feel don't change anything and don't matter, and even worse, other comments that I feel actively would make an article worse if implemented. When such advice is offered as a "Support, but a few optional suggestions...", that's fine. But when offered as "oppose on prose grounds", I feel that in many cases is asking more than what Misplaced Pages can offer. The crazy collection of writers mentioned above were probably better than what we have on Misplaced Pages, but we have the same "problem" of wildly disparate expectations and styles. Hoping for something more than we can deliver isn't productive. Additionally, even to the extent that there is a One True Improvement to a passage, there's no guarantee this will remain stable over time in more heavily trafficked articles. It's possible to hold the line on factual changes, updates, and vandalism over 5 or 10 years; keeping truly excellent writing in a popular article is much more difficult short of aggressive reversion of any new editor attempting to modify a FA.

I should add that this doesn't mean that aggressive, harsh, and searing prose reviews aren't needed or valid. Prose reviewers have caught major problems with articles before, and I'm not saying to abandon criterion 1a or criticize the excellent and necessary work many prose reviews do. I just think Misplaced Pages should be realistic with expectations here about what level to expect as worthy of a "support" vote. We aren't going to have novel-quality writing. If we can aim for classy-magazine level writing, or popular-audience nonfiction book level, that's still a success worth celebrating with a star, if the actual content is up to snuff. SnowFire (talk) 03:34, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

I have definitely seen prose suggestions which I feel don't improve an article – and I am sure made prose suggestions where the authors couldn't see the difference! I don't think the solution is to weaken prose standards, though; it's to convince noms that they can say "not an improvement; won't fix" with the expectation that if it's truly a matter of personal preference rather than a reasoned objection, the co-ords will not consider it a reason not to promote. (Which is my understanding of how it works in theory, but when your article is actually at FAC, it does sometimes feel like it's easier to just make the damn change, even if you don't see the benefit, unless it clearly and obviously makes the article worse.) Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 09:57, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

I completely agree with this. Often, FAC seems to overfocus on prose to the exclusion of content and sourcing issues. buidhe 10:32, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

• I am not sure that lowering any standard is the best way to go. Raising source and content reviews: great, I’m all for that, but not at the expense of weakening something else. That’s a backward step. - SchroCat (talk) 13:44, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

• Snowfire, it's possible that I agree with you in principle (on the stylistic prose nit-picking that is passing as review these days), but I would position the problem differently. FAC needs stronger and more 1a opposes on poor grammar and poor writing and the Fowler&fowler list. Lowering the writing standard would be going the wrong direction. Ending the endless nit-picking on stylistic prose changes, yes, but there are many FACs getting support when the prose is not even functional, much less of a professional standard. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:44, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
• Having watched most of this from afar, I'm still forming an opinion on a lot of this discussion, but I agree entirely with Buidhe's point that we often spend too much of our energies on prose and not enough on verifiability, neutrality, and other core content concerns. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:23, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

• Fully agree, but would expand your list to include 1b, comprehensive. I don't see many reviews looking at this. Vanamonde93, your argument lines up with mine, which is that FAC needs to focus more on all of the other areas, and prose reviews should be restricted to "not good enough, here are a few samples, I am not going to pull the article through line-by-line, get an independent copyedit and come back" or "I have left a few nitpicks on the talk page, I can support if you address them", and FAC pages should stop being taken over by endless lists of prose issues, followed by "Support", with no reviewer looking at other substantial matters. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:48, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

• Totally agree with both points here - this has always been FAC's weak point. In most areas we lack reviewers with subject-specific expertise, while we have always had ones who know about prose and the MOS (or think they do). But I think the number of nominators who insist on being led by the hand to every example of a prose issue has increased considerably in recent years, and they are now allowed to do this, which they would not have been in the past. Johnbod (talk) 19:44, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

• This is just me speculating, but might nominators who insist on being led by the hand to every example of a prose issue be a consequence of the demise of many WikiProjects and the inactivity of Peer Review? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 20:00, 28 December 2019 (UTC)
  • The reviews at PR and A-class tend to concentrate on content rather than MOS and prose issues. The recent wide-ranging PR of Apollo 13 prior to bringing it to FAC is a good example; it concentrated on structure and identifying what content was missing rather than on MOS or prose. Look at what we got from 40 edits from 32 users on Frank Borman's recent TFA run: : one typo corrected, one prose style change, one category change, and someone changed the colonel's icon in the infobox. That's 10% valid edits, the remaining 90% being split between vandalism by IPs and newly created accounts, neither of which would have occurred if the page had been semi-protected, and reverts. DYK produces a much better hit rate. Looking at its A-class and FAC reviews, both noted prose issues, although some were ENGVAR issues, such as my reference to "sitting" exams rather than "taking" them, but mainly concentrated on content. Sometimes the two overlap though. Should "acres" be linked? (MOS:UNITNAMES: Units unfamiliar to general readers should be presented as a name–symbol pair on first use, linking the unit name.) Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:30, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

• I'm not sure I agree 100% about PR on subjects outside MILHIST. That is a project that is fairly strong on subject expertise and knowledge and that spills over into both PR and A class reviews. PR is not so hot outside that sphere, and it's a bit more hit-and-miss as to the standard of review. - SchroCat (talk) 22:55, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

• I had my wrist slapped (gently) by the beloved and much-missed Brianboulton for suggesting that one might be more lenient at FAC about the quality of the prose in an article about soccer (I think it was) than about that of articles on "loftier" subjects. He was right, of course, and since then I have sought to apply a consistent standard of excellence to all articles I review. As to the sourcing, mentioned above, without BB's patient and sharp-eyed source reviews FAC will have a very big hole in it. If any editors, above, who don't review currently would be good enough to take the plunge it could help FAC considerably. Tim riley talk 19:21, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

• Some very old advice from the master of source reviews can be found here (although it may need updating). Another possibly dated Dispatch here; it would be grand to see an effort to get all of the old {{FCDW}} articles re-written to modern information. Here's another at User:Ealdgyth/FAC, Sources, and You. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:44, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

• And back to Brainy Brian (who often noted that I frequently mistyped his name as "Brain", because, well TYPO is my middle name), all of the information Brian & Co. gave here is still good, and the interview was a pleasure: Featured article writers—the 2008 leaders. We could do well to spread around that kind of information! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:19, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

• BB's essay on source reviewing is here: Misplaced Pages:Guidance on source reviewing at FAC. Wise and pithy as one would expect. Tim riley talk 20:25, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Proposal at TFAR to run non-FAs at TFA

• See here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:30, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

PS, please keep responses there so the discussion is not diluted. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:31, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

FAC reviewing statistics for December

Here are the FAC reviewing statistics for December. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:46, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

FAC archive sizes by month from April 2004 to December 2019

I posted some notes about FAC sizes last January; here's an update.

On the right is a stacked area graph showing the size in kB of the monthly en-wiki FAC archives for both archived and promoted FACs. Data is drawn from the pages listed at the featured log and the archived log. The green is the size of the archived (not promoted) pages, and the purple is the size of the promoted pages, determined by using Dr. pda's script.

Two caveats:

• Any restarted FAC will only include the most recent iteration of the FAC
• Talk pages of the individual FACs are excluded. Most FAC talk pages are empty, but there have been periods when some material was occasionally moved to the talk page.

I don't think either of these materially affects the results.

I argued last year that this graph shows "that the decline in reviewer activity is real but less than would be implied by the raw promotion/archive numbers. Fewer reviewers are active now, working on fewer articles, but they are putting more effort into each review." I think the new graph continues to support that conclusion; in fact, if anything, the slope is slightly upwards since a low point in 2015.

The second graph shows the average size in kB of the individual FAC pages for both archived and promoted FACs -- the number is calculated by dividing the archive size for that month by the number of FACs that month.

Last year I said "the big jump happened in mid-2008, and FACs have been getting gradually bigger since then. The later data is a bit more erratic, probably because there are fewer FACs, which magnifies the normal statistical variation." Again, that still seems to be true. The "archived" line on the graph is particularly erratic because there are fewer archived FACs than promoted ones.

I haven't commented on the process thread above, and doubt I'll have time to, but to me these graphs are reassuring. FAC is not dying, as Brian and others have feared was the case; the level of effort the community is putting in here is stable, and has been for some years. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:07, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your ever hard word, Mike.Other data at WP:FAS shows that, in fact, FAC and FAR are in serious decline. These graphs show overall volume; they cannot show that there are far fewer, but much larger (excruciatingly so) FACs filling that volume, as prose is being pulled through at FAC. It has been six years since enough annual FAs to fill the 365 TFA slots have been produced.That FAR is moribund cannot be disputed, and since there are still plenty of FAs for TFA, that is a bigger concern. In the last two days, I have been engaged in two discussions of very poor, older FAs, that were used in a WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS argument for content. Older FAs need to be cleaned up, but it's pretty clear from the long discussions above that no one cares. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:16, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

How about fixed life-spans for FAs? Something along the lines of all FAs are automatically demoted after XX years (10?) unless they are taken through a confirmation FAC. It would ensure nothing runs too out of date. This wouldn't stop articles being listed for FAR if they degraded at a faster rate. - SchroCat (talk) 20:41, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

I have some other ideas, but was hoping to see if we got more feedback after the holidays pass before putting them forward. (Even if we went to fixed life-span now, we would still need to deal with the very old FAs whose editors/watchers are gone :( And I wonder aloud ... if we institute a fixed life-span, does that just further the kicking of the can down the road? The FAR rules are outdated, because they were based on a time when we were processing the addition of the inline citation requirement. Now we have a whole 'nother problem, and may need a whole 'nother process. I'd like to hear others' ideas before I spread mine. I am much less worried about FAC, as it seems to be doing fine of late. The page/number of nominations is now manageable, and reviewers seem to be taking some of these discussions on board, without too many hurt feelings. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:46, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Automatically demoting old FAs will be disastrous for Misplaced Pages. There is simply not the expertise for reworking them. Almost anything vital on Misplaced Pages that is an FA will be demoted and tinkered to death by drive-bys. We'll be left with short articles on encyclopedically trivial topics—for which there are well-worn templates and for which it is easy to claim that the article is comprehensive. These currently constitute an overwhelming proportion of the submissions. The vital articles off the top of my head include: Evolution, Bacteria, Charles Darwin, Group Theory, Angkor Wat, El Greco, Lion, A Christmas Carol, William Shakespeare, indeed most of Awadewit's articles, ... Attachment theory. Even the ones that are being maintained such as Major depressive disorder or Schizophrenia, Australia or India are better off without being demoted. Whatever state the old FAs are in, at least they are somewhat immunized from tinkering. Major disaster, in my view. Why can't people simply update old FAs themselves, rather than flooding us with new-fangled trivia that no one reads? Is the dubious bronze star such a big deal? Perhaps there should be a bronze start for significantly improving old FAs, even a gold star, a diamond star, ... if the bling is what is driving people. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:25, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Because most people edit in areas that interest them. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 22:33, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

(The above comment made by Jo-Jo Eumerus was in answer to a post that has subsequently been edited to remove the point he may have been responding to). - SchroCat (talk) 22:38, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

It is not just a matter of lack of expertise. If articles I had written were demoted, I would never be able to renominate them, no matter how good they are. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:48, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) As I already said in my comment, if an article is taken through a confirmatory FAC process then it doesn't have to be delisted. I'm not sure that removing articles that have fallen out of date would be "disastrous" at all: it would show that we have standards that we constantly update and evolve, and that we ensure that articles keep pace with those changes. The vital articles you list, btw, include A Christmas Carol, which is in excellent shape at the moment as I only took it through FAC in September 2018, and it is still up with the current standards. I do not know if it will remain in an up-to-date state in another eight years, particularly if I have left the project before then when the last vestiges of enjoyment have evaporated. I know of at least one of "my" FAs that I do not think would pass now, although I may be wrong. What would be "disastrous" about removing out-of-date work that has not gone through a confirmation process? At least if FAs have an automatic shelf-life, it would ensure constant standards being applied. If you don't like the idea of a straight delisting, perhaps an automatic "confirmation FAC" process is opened on older articles. – SchroCat (talk) 22:36, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

F&f, there are too many old FAs for people to pick them up and fix them. (By the way, who has taken over Brian's articles on their watchlists?) I think we need a systematic process to figure out which old FAs are really in trouble. I regularly pitch a fit over at schizophrenia, and it gradually gets cleaned up, so I, for instance, can say it's OK. Who's watching Lion? Cas? Germany is a mess again, I hear. We don't know until we get a systematic way to look at each FA, say, more than five years old. Schro, on those "do not think would pass now", generally in a review process of the type I'm thinking to propose, people are pretty lenient. We only want to weed out the truly bad. I have a pretty good idea of where we will find most of the older, no-longer-watched deterioration, but we need a systematic process. If there is interest, I'll post my ideas when I have time ... Worried, Schro, that what you are proposing could be demoralizing, and cause the opposite effect of what we seek, which is to re-invigorate the process. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:47, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Tim riley and I have taken Brian's old solo efforts onto our watchlists. We can't guarantee to have caught them all, but we think we may have. - SchroCat (talk) 22:50, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

SandyG Yes, I agree there are very poor ones. Will look forward to hearing your proposals in due course. My own view is that a system of credits that gives more credit for vital articles should be instituted. There is no reason that Evolution should offer the same reward as an article on a trivial fly by night topic. SchroCat, please pick up an honorary gold star from me on A Christmas Carol. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:59, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for the thought but—and this may surprise you (and a few others)—I don't actually care that much about the gold stars. I don't watchlist most of the FAs I've been involved in, and don't even have a record of them all. I don't do it for the purported 'glory' of getting anything to FA, much less seeing it on the front page, but simply because I enjoy the research and writing involved; once that enjoyment has evaporated I'll be gone. - SchroCat (talk) 23:08, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Credits for what? Multiplying by zero is still zero... there are no rewards for an FA except for a shiny star and the feeling of accomplishment. So .. there's not much incentive to take on "vital" articles... and much disincentive (I say this as someone involved in improving a small pile of "vital" articles, some to FA, some to GA, some just plain improved without the stars/circles) because a "vital" article attracts insanity .. usually at the worst possible moments. Ealdgyth - Talk 23:19, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Can we swap credits for cash? That may work! - SchroCat (talk) 23:21, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Don't get me started ... are you too young to remember when that was happening? Who can remember the name of that program ... ? <barf> SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:17, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It's possible that it could be demoralising, but the flip side is that we keep our store of high-quality articles fresh and that the stock is "pure" (for want of a better term). Why would people be demoralised about keeping articles up to standard? For most of the regular (and current) FA writers, we probably have "our" FAs watchlisted (I don't: I only have a small number of "mine" watchlisted to avoid accusations of OWNership), but for the current FA editors, we're probably fairly sure that the ones we took through FAC are decent(ish) enough. If our number of FAs was cut by a third tomorrow because out-dated articles were removed in an agreed manner, having been through some due process and given a chance to clean up but are still short of current standards, I'm not sure that would be disastrous or demoralising: it would focus everyones attention not just on creating more content, but on ensuring that standards are maintained. Everyone's mileage differs, obviously, but I think most FA writers would be happier with "their" work in a smaller but better pool, than in a large mass with disparate stadnards. - SchroCat (talk) 23:04, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Schro, why ever on earth are you worried about ownership? You have a policy page backing you up; WP:OWN#Featured articles. Unwatched FAs deteriorate. OK, to address the impasse between what you are saying and what F&f is saying, we need examples. It's never good for me to be the one to offer examples. Let's see a sample really bad, really old FA that might fit the bill for demotion, compared to a "wouldn't pass today, but no reason to demote" example, so we can all get a gauge of what our standards are. The idea is a sorta/kinda sweeps, where we wouldn't be looking at the tough standards of a full FAC, rather a process to locate the truly bad and evaluate them per an abbreviated FA standard. I could snoop around tomorrow for samples if no one offers one. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:25, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

There are certainly decayed FAs; anyone who's tried to schedule for TFA knows that. I suspect examples won't get people fired up to work at FAR or to improve old FAs, though. Like SchroCat I don't do it for the star: I enjoy the research, and the learning that comes with it. That makes me much less interested in FAR than FAC, and I think many others feel the same way. I think we have more or less enough editors at FAC to keep going with FAC generation, but we have nothing like enough active editors to keep old FAs in shape, and I don't think exhortations are going to fix that. I suspect there is no answer to the problem -- that is, we will never have enough willing resources to keep old FAs up to snuff. I would be sceptical of any plan that doesn't acknowledge that. That might mean accepting the status quo, or automatically demoting FAs after ten years, or putting a little year date inside the bronze star as an indication to the reader of the freshness of the evaluation, or something else I haven't thought of. It won't mean actually cleaning up any significant fraction of the old FAs, unfortunately. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:52, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Mike, working up the number of old FAs we have requires a severely abbreviated process, that would involve !voting, subject to consensus. Those that don't have clear consensus in the !vote/sweep --> FAR for further deliberation at a slower pace. I'll work a sample on Schro's below. This will give us ideas to start. I'll be back. Oh, and we would need bot writers to extract the stuff we need. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:26, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia, SchroCat Perhaps there is a way to use ORES automatic assessments to flag FA's that are below a certain threshold? Qono (talk) 18:24, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Are there any metrics to show how flexible it is? I mean in terms of different styles of English (language variants, commas, etc are a particular are where AI can trip up badly - I've seen some absolutely terrible things pop up when using Word's grammar checker or Grammarly - both are best avoided for good writing). - SchroCat (talk) 19:20, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

@SchroCat: When it comes to gauging article quality, ORES "bases its predictions on structural characteristics of the article. E.g. How many sections are there? Is there an infobox? How many references? And do the references use a {{cite}} template? The articlequality model doesn't evaluate the quality of the writing or whether or not there's a tone problem (e.g. a point of view being pushed). However, many of the structural characteristics of articles seem to correlate strongly with good writing and tone, so the models work very well in practice." With that in mind, while it is a useful tool for a range of purposes I'm not sure it would pick up on FAs that fall below FA standards because the issues aren't likely to be structural. Though perhaps it might be a useful litmus test to see if it finds major issues. Richard Nevell (talk) 19:49, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

”Is there an Infobox?” There’s a red flag right there! Given what you’ve said, I think you’re right in saying it may not be much use. The articles I have seen demoted (and it’s not an area I go into much) seem to be because the text has become bloated or second rate, not because multiple additional sections have been added. Some functions may be partly useful, but I think we may have to keep it to a human level to determine it. Thanks for the info tho - most interesting. - SchroCat (talk) 20:02, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Without meaning disrespect, I'm not persuaded by the protestations of abnegation. If people really don't care, then please institute a system of credits, which rewards differentially for one year. The credits will have to be thought through, but off the top of my head say, a diamond star for Evolution, Galaxy, Restoration Literature, Feudalism, Roman Empire, Plate Tectonics, a Gold for Charles Darwin, John Bunyan, .... a bronze for ... and see the results. My guess is that you won't have to work on fixing anything. Please will fix it themselves. It will take me time to dig out those old decrepit FAs though. It is best that people do not offer their own. Better to pick those whose major authors have retired. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 00:36, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

But this misses the point that both I and Mike Christie have said (and I know there are several others who feel the same way): the stars and titles means less than nothing to us. We enjoy researching and writing articles. If an article doesn't go through FAC because of one unfavourable review, it's not the end of the world, and we'll move on to the next one because the review has almost passed us by already (hint hint) and WP is left with an FA-level article that "only" has a green cross, not gold star – but many of us simply don't care about the star, just that something we've worked on has been reviewed to be final point it can be, and that the article has been taken as far as it can by us. And yes, that's part of the reason why FAR is in a parlous state: too many of us are happy to work in our own silos without looking at other areas, but creating little false stars or names to work towards is not going to float many people's boats. - SchroCat (talk) 01:09, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Well, if you profess such noble instincts, then there's no reason for you to oppose my proposal. I'm suggesting rather that the system of rewards is such that the best articles are not being written, in part because the best people are not contributing. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:22, 2 January 2020 (UTC) Updated Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:29, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Noble? No, more selfish (speaking for myself, at least). And I'm not opposing anything: I just think it'll be a waste of time that most FAC regulars wouldn't care about. But who knows, I may be entirely wrong about it, and they may all think it's brilliant. Time will tell. (And "the best people are not contributing" at FAC? There's a lovely kick in the teeth to cheer people into the new year) - SchroCat (talk) 01:33, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

I am always mindful that an overwhelmingly large proportion of the work on Misplaced Pages, especially in technical topics, has been done anonymously. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:37, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Entirely possible, but not really germane to creating FAs, or keeping them at that level for any extended period. - SchroCat (talk) 09:12, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

While it is true that we work on improving articles on subjects that interest us, the one-at-a-time and two-week rules preclude us from doing that at FAC. Given that I am allowed only five, maybe six articles a year, I can only nominate the ones that I feel are most likely to pass. This, and the increasingly demanding requirements are what is inexorably driving FACs to favour larger articles. I would like to be able to nominate Next Nine to help out the people improving the astronaut articles with an aim to creating a featured topic, but FLC has rejected it and it is simply too big a risk to nominate it at FAC. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:45, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Hawkeye, the backlog is down. If we can re-invigorate the process, get more reviewers, you can run through more FACs than five a year. I don't know why FAs are getting longer, but maybe I need to start Opposing more often. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:47, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: Although this isn't the cause of the increasing length of articles, the 10,000-word limit was removed from the guidelines last year, which will make opposes based on length more difficult. A. Parrot (talk) 00:57, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

A. Parrot, thanks. Although those specific words were removed, that guideline page still has recommendations for when to split based on size, and we still have 4. length at Misplaced Pages:Featured article criteria. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:44, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

(Caveat that I strongly prefer longer articles) However, I would not necessarily consider Length. It stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail and uses summary style. as a criterion that justifies length-based opposes. Summary style-based opposes, yes, but I can certainly imagine lots of room for debate about when a topic should be covered in the main article vs. when in a sub-article (see some discussions at Talk:Donald Trump for an example) and as even WP:SUMMARY alludes to it creates certain maintenance problems. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 20:53, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

I thought the automatic demotion idea was bad at first, but I thought about it more and started to like it. For those that like to keep status, you could have Neil Armstrong (x2). If you brought an article back up to FA that you didn't do at first, you could give yourself the star there too (if that is important to you). This mitigates the problem of FAs that have been sitting for 10 years and then not being at an FA standard for TFA and encourages users to upkeep the article. If the article is truly still a FA, then a renomination at FAC should require little to no discussion and a re-promotion. With all that said I think the idea might be opposed on ideological grounds, but on a process basis it seems like a good way to retire (or at least not depend on as heavily) FAR/FARC, maintain a high standard for articles over a long period of time (think like a hundred year plan), and reinvigorate subject matter experts to research newly published material to update articles. I think I would support a five or ten year auto-demotion, unless there are factors I missed. Kees08 (Talk) 15:48, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

I would never be able to nominate another article at FAC ever again. I had five articles promoted in 2010: James Whiteside McCay, Admiralty Islands campaign, Harry Chauvel, Battle of Bardia and Thomas C. Kinkaid. There's nothing wrong with any of them, but that would be my five articles for 2020. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:04, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

I had eight promoted in 2010 and I'd protest automatic demotion as I've been pretty good about defending them from "stylistic tweaks" and additions of cruft over the years. Looking a couple of them over, all I really see needful is tweaking the prose somewhat (I'd like to think that I'm a better writer now) and updating them to reflect changes in the MOS.

In this scenario, I do not think renominations of featured articles would count towards the one-at-a-time nomination limit. If there are truly not any issues, then the review would be really short and painless. Kees08 (Talk) 20:47, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't care about the FA star per se, I like having other people outside MilHist review and help me improve the articles. And I do really like the prospect of capping a decade+ of work with a 500+-article Featured Topic in a couple of years.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 20:07, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

The featured topic issue is the biggest one I could think of, and I am not sure there would be a good way to handle it. May make the idea a non-starter, though I like the idea of some way to actively verify articles are at FAC standard. Kees08 (Talk) 20:47, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Samples to evaluate for new review process

I'll put my money where my mouth is and stick "my" first two FAs in the mix: Peter Sellers and Ian Fleming. I am not sure either would pass FAC now, and I think Sellers may fail an FAR (or, at least, not without a lot of very heavy spade work during the reviews), but I will leave it to your eye to judge where they may fall. (If these did ever end up in a formal review, I'd be prepared to work on Fleming, not so much on Sellers, but there may be others who were prepared to take my slack there). - SchroCat (talk) 00:12, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Working up a sample review, I'll be back. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:23, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

• Peter Sellers (Media biographies)
  • Nominator(s): Cassianto, SchroCat
  • BLP: No.
  • Promoted August 19, 2012
  • Size at promotion: Prose size (text only): 57 kB (9537 words) "readable prose size"
  • Size now: Prose size (text only): 59 kB (9967 words) "readable prose size" (no significant change)
  • Diff since promotion
  • Maintenance tags: None
  • Lead: Pass
  • Last edit by nominator(s): November 9, 2019

Vote

• Retain: No dramatic increase in article size, which would warrant a closer look. No maintenance tags, no obvious issues in the lead, active nominator recently involved. Not a BLP, no need for a closer look. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:45, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

• Germany (Geography and places)
  • Nominator(s): Jboyle4eva (inactive)
  • BLP: No.
  • FAC Promoted/FAR reviewed: June 13, 2011 (FAR)
  • Size when reviewed: Prose size (text only): 50 kB (7864 words) "readable prose size"
  • Size now: Prose size (text only): 83 kB (12993 words) "readable prose size" (almost doubled in size)
  • Diff since promotion
  • Maintenance tags: Considerable
  • Lead: Sea of blue, WP:OVERLINK, overly long
  • Last edit by nominator(s): No active nominator, none of the top editors recently active at the article

Vote

• Demote: No one actively watching its FA status, multiple maintenance tags, evidence of deterioration in the lead, almost half of the current content was not vetted at FAC or FAR, summary style that was put in place at FAR has been lost to sprawling content that could be better summarized. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:36, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

• Tourette syndrome (Health and medicine)
  • Nominator(s): SandyGeorgia
  • BLP/Health: Yes
  • Promoted November 2, 2006
  • Size at promotion: Prose size (text only): 38 kB (6071 words) "readable prose size"
  • Size now: Prose size (text only): 38 kB (5860 words) "readable prose size" (no significant change)
  • Diff since promotion
  • Maintenance tags: None
  • Lead: Fiddled about by WPMED project, shortening sentence length, re-ordering the order of Tony1's beautiful narrative and forcing citations into the lead. Sandy from Georgia mostly reverted the damage.
  • Last edit by nominator(s): December 29, 2019

Vote

• Have at it! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:15, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Discussion of samples

@FAR coordinators: samples above. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:36, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

This is something akin to what I have in mind. We aren't looking to FAC review them; we're looking for obvious fails. We need a bot to extract data, and then we have a !vote. We appoint coords to determine consensus, we need Hawkeye7 to add bot processing or something to articlehistory to accommodate the new process, and an archive for the records. Different editors may examine the diff since promotion and find issues, which are discussed during the sweep. BLPs get a closer look. If anyone sees anything awful, they mention it, but we will define standards to be not as strict as full FAC. When consensus is not clear, the article goes to FAR, which is a much slower, more deliberative process, and stars can be saved. We announce, by bot, on FA talk pages, that we will be doing this several months before we start, which will be a motivator to get people/WProjects to clean up their FAs. If we are successful, we even end up with very few demotions! It's all in the prep work. We look at only articles promoted more than five years ago, and we count a FAR as a review, so exclude anything that passed FAR in five years. We define the category of each article, so we can take care with BLPs and direct different reviewers to area of interest. Declarations would be Retain, Demote or Send to FAR, with no consensus going to FAR. Any other ideas ?? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:45, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

On second thought, we don't need to define a new process. A bot can extract each old FA directly to a FAR page (Misplaced Pages:Featured article review/Germany/archive2), and then if there is no consensus, that file gets transcluded to FAR for further reviews. If they pass, we put them in the FAR keep archive for regular bot processing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:04, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Oh, and medical articles get flagged as BLPs do, because medical content should have a BLP-style policy governing them. So there :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:52, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Oh, and graduate the number to be dumped in to the process daily, by taking one category of WP:FA per day, so that we don't have to suddenly review thousands of FAs at once. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:19, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

• There are some other articles listed in this thread if you look at the table that shows those articles that have grown most since promotion. - SchroCat (talk) 01:44, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

• Do you think it's a doable plan? If so, lots of tweaks are needed, and we need bot operators. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:49, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
• What do you think the chances are that Bob Dylan and Elvis Presley are still at FA standard? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:20, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

I worry we have too many processes. We still have Misplaced Pages:Unreviewed featured articles (if this is historical can it be marked as such?) and User:Dweller/Featured Articles that haven't been on Main Page. I'd much rather more eyes on the latter somehow and then 'sink' or 'swim' determined and sent to FAR at that point... Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:43, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

A simple solution would be to ask TFA coordinators to look out for articles in poor condition when we schedule and refer enough to FAR to keep the process busy. After all, we're constantly looking at the latter page when we're scheduling. That way, FAR is acting on fresh information rather than trying to work through a long backlog, which won't necessarily be up to date.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:27, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Problem with that would be that it only would take in articles that haven't been on the main page (usually). So we'd be missing the whole "appeared on the main page" subcategory. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:01, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Oh sure, clearly. But the idea would be to get something going that doesn't require a lot of structural change and doesn't flood FAR.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:33, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

@Cas URFA (Unreviewed featured articles) is not a process-- it is a page where I tracked data, and since I stopped, is pretty worthless. Yes, mark it historical. The Dweller page has long been a well-intended problem, diverting resources from FAR in the same way that WP:QAI did. It has nothing to do with promoting or demoting FAs. IMO it has nothing to do with what we're dealing with here, and when TFA coords avoid running "bad" TFAs, the broader community is deceived about the overall quality of the FA pool, and is disinclined to engage FAR to help solve the problem. The Dweller page is a problem. I edit conflicted with Ealdgyth making the same point. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:06, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @SandyGeorgia: how about we do away with the two weeks' courtesy period between making a comment on the talk page of an FA and nominating it at FAR in cases of clear article degradation. I sometimes find some, make comments and then forget about it. I am sure this happens to others as well. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:38, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Well, the broader question is do we need an overall update to the FAR instructions and process? I don't think tinkering with one minor aspect at this point will help. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:08, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

NB: I like Wehwalt's idea as one presumes their experience is enough to identify articles with gross failings that really should go to FAR. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:38, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

The TFA Coords are not encountering the worst of the worst: FAs that ran TFA years ago and are no longer watched by any editor with FA experience. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:09, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

The reason I talk about removing the two week grace period is so that when someone comes across an FA that they feel significantly fails, they can nominate it. As I said, the two-week waiting period is preventing some of these obvious-fail referrals being made. Yes I will have come to a select bunch of FAs that have not been on the main page, but I reckon others aren't. I just reckon this is the biggest barrier to a more aggressive reviwe of bad FAs. The reason I am cool on a bot is that it would swamp FAR. And I am not thrilled about the idea of bypassing FAR. Actually I am not that worried about the bot - we could have 100 articles there :) Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 15:10, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Cas, we wouldn't be "bypassing FAR". We would create, explicitly, a FAR page for each old FA. For the majority which will pass, they will get handled just as a FAR keep. For those that clearly fail, with consensus judging no valid objection from anyone, they would get handled as a FAR demote. Anything in between gets transcluded at FAR, for regular FAR processing. Only the in-between would end up at FAR, and we could put extra coords in place to help if needed. We can also graduate the process to introduce different segments of FAs over time. I originally suggested by FA category, but that would swamp, for example MILHIST all at the same time, so we would probably do better to go by date of last review, starting with the oldest. If we feel it worthwhile to separate these "sweep" FARs from regular FARs, then we would have to add a new parameter to the articlehistory template. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:20, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

I can see an obvious issue in that by FAR-ing every article, we'd be generating a vast amount of work and frustration. Even if we limited it by focusing on a single category at a time, that would still mean that (e.g.) when we came to do the coins, horses, plants then Wehwalt, Ealdgyth and Casliber would respectively suddenly have 50+ FARs appear on their watchlist. There would also be an obvious issue in that there are quite a few ultra-niche topics where the author(s) are no longer active, like Yellowmonkey's 1950s Vietnamese politicians, Awadewit's 18th-century literature or Brianboulton's 19th-century sailors, which would be at risk of being delisted through no fault of their own just because there's nobody about who's in a position to review the sources. It would probably make more sense to create an ad hoc FAR-lite process where the articles are listed for a set time (a month?) and if nobody raises any objection, it defaults to "keep".

Stating the obvious maybe, but any bulk FAR is going to be a honeypot for Mattisse, Rlevse and ILT socks, and will need robust clerking with checkusers on permanent standby if it's not to get really messy. ‑ Iridescent 15:45, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Mattisse has behaved fairly well for years; we should leave her out of it. Socks and quid pro quos at FAC and FAR have always been a problem. The single largest problem I faced during my tenure was an undeclared COI from one of our most prolific FA writers. I had to write the arbs. We can handle these issues. We avoid the Wehwalt coin example by bringing old FAs to the process by date promoted, gradually, rather than all at once. Default to keep is a given in my proposal. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:50, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

My votes are 'retain for all three, with some kind of warning on the Germany talk page about page size. I worry that the FAs on vital topics, with an expansive scope, for which you will find an article with similar size and scope on Britannica, are slowly disappearing from Misplaced Pages, replaced by those on specialized topics or hobby topics. It is all well and good to say that the FAs represent the best work on Misplaced Pages, but my worry is: on what? Someone like me has very little interest in reviewing articles on specialized- or hobby topics, barring ones written in exceptional prose. When I look at the FAC offerings, there is very little that is not. Neither topic heft (scope and article length) nor exceptional prose matter. I will stick around this time for a little while, but eventually, if nothing changes, my interest will flag. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:34, 2 January 2020 (UTC) PS Physics and astronomy are some of few areas that seem to have retained their vital articles. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:42, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Then in this case, F&f, Germany would go to FAR because of a strong difference between voters and no consensus. In other words, Germany would end up where it should be now anyway. I can't abide by an FA that is being used an example of geography FAs that has no FA writer watchlisting and tending it, and half of its content unvetted. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:53, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

As for Bob Dylan and Elvis Pressley, I have read the leads of both, twice. I have also read the leads of four TFAs in similar categories from exactly one year ago: Bradley Cooper, Talk That Talk (Rihanna song), Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, and San Junipero. Let's say we demote Dylan and Elvis. A year ago, or thereabouts, we promoted the latter four. By reading only the leads, which is what most viewers read first, can someone tell me what will have been lost and what gained? I'm asking because I'm attempting to understand. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:19, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Elvis has been dead for 43 years - that is a lot of time for a legacy to develop and for there to be examinations of his effect on culture and music. None of that is in the lead and it should be. If I were reviewing it at FAC today, that would be a red flag for me straight away. For Dylan, there is non-standard (non-MoS compliant) use of quote marks and (again) little in the way of legacy. This was from a very quick look, so there may be more that comes up, but seeing those flaws in the lead would make me question the remainder of the article. (Skimming down the Dylan article, I see some major flaws. The section Bob Dylan#Tempest comprises 13 paragraphs; all except one start "On November 4, 2014", "In 2013 and 2014" or similar - a pattern that is repeated in the next section too.) - SchroCat (talk) 17:48, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

OK so something will be gained by demoting Elvis and Dylan. What do you think will have been the net loss, if any, to the state of FA articles, if we consider the latter four articles to have replaced them? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:10, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand your question. The latter four haven't "replaced" anything. They have been promoted because people have worked on them. If people work on Dylan and Presley they can be re-promoted - but if that's not what you mean, please clarify. - SchroCat (talk) 18:16, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm trying to understand the aggregate change over time. Let me simplify it: if E. and D. were the only two music/media-related FAs. If we had demoted them and promoted the other four at the same time, how do you think the overall representation of music/media in Misplaced Pages FA articles will have changed? In other words, don't answer that my telling they were promoted because they worked hard, etc., but by reading the leads, and if needed skimming the rest of the articles. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:29, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

"how do you think the overall representation of music/media in Misplaced Pages FA articles will have changed?": it will have risen by two. (And I haven't said they were promoted because people "worked hard, etc": someone, or a small number of people, made a dedicated push to get the article into shape to go through the various processes) - SchroCat (talk) 19:10, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

OK. Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 22:44, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Anyone else willing to compare the leads of Bob Dylan (a candidate for demotion) with those of Bradley Cooper, Talk That Talk (Rihanna song), Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, and San Junipero—all in the media/music category, all promoted in the last year or two—anyone willing to say how they are different as samples of text @Tim riley:, @SandyGeorgia:, @Casliber:, @Iridescent:? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:06, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Why are you focussing on the lead only? An FA is determined by the whole article, not only the brief summary at the top of the page. - SchroCat (talk) 23:24, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

I have understood your answer. I'm asking the others for theirs. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:57, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

• What, the 4-2=2 answer? You may have understood that, but you didn't answer my question of why focus only on the lead? That's the bit you have to try and explain to me - I'm obviously dense and write on shitty "hobby" subjects* in a style that displeases you, but if you could explain why the lead and not the rest of the article, I'd be grateful. - SchroCat (talk) 00:02, 3 January 2020 (UTC) (* Adding: on checking it seems that “only” a quarter of the FAs I’ve been involved in writing are vital articles. My profuse apologies to you, F&f for cluttering up the FA lists with inappropriate “hobby” topics. - SchroCat (talk) 11:46, 3 January 2020 (UTC))

Because the lead is one of the few places in any article where in theory you can find a few paragraphs of pure descriptive or narrative prose, no tables, no etymologies, no statistics, ... It is the essence, the ultimate expression of precis writing, of WP:Summary Style, in that article. It gives me a clue into how the sources themselves might be being condensed and integrated into the article. I'm trying to understand where WP:Summary Style, which is supposed to be the WP House style, stands with respect to what is going out and what is coming in. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 02:31, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for the explanation. I'm unconvinced by it, but at least I can see what angle you are looking at it now. - SchroCat (talk) 07:38, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

@Fowler&fowler:, yea, how's that working out over at WP:MEDLEAD? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:12, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

It would be more accurate to call it a summary style of a summary style. ——SN54129 13:14, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

FWIW, I tend to agree with @Fowler&fowler:'s view of looking at leads to get a quick idea of an article. It won't always be an accurate gage but I suspect it will be mroe often than not. I also agree about the importance of a good lead. Concern about a high proportion of narrow vs broad featured articles is why I have run the Core Contest several times - to promote improvement of broad articles. However, one thing I find is that to buff an article to FA standard requires a high degree of enthusiasm..and it is very hard to make people this enthusiastic about something they are not enthusiastic about. I really don't like holding up broad and narrow articles as competing with one another as people write about what they want to write about. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:40, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Aye, people won't write on topics that they don't care about. I don't think it's realistic to expect this to change in the future. Incidentally, part of the reason why I write on narrow topics is because writing about the broader ones (->taking in all the sources needed) takes up more time than I can afford. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 20:53, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

As an example that the screening method I suggested above was only intended to pick out the truly bad, it won't pick up everything: to wit, I would not have expected anyone to notice this, even though I hinted at a problem in these discussions. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:20, 8 January 2020 (UTC)

We have a winner !

heading added by me. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:11, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Hi everyone. I'm afraid in this long thread I got a little lost about the exact workflow that is being proposed to possibly replace/change FAR, and how deep in the hole the Bob Dylan article is thought to be. But I just want to say I'd be very happy to do some work to clean the article up. Thanks, Moisejp (talk) 07:27, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

I have worked on Bob Dylan over the years, trying to maintain it at FA quality. Like Moisejp, I would be interested to learn about the concerns regarding this article and would be willing to work on it. Thanks, Mick gold (talk) 09:16, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

@Moisejp and Mick gold: good to see you are here! And I am resting my case on your participation here, although curious about how you noticed the discussion.

In discussions that gave examples about how to launch a new process to review older FAs, Dylan came up; I hope you don't feel singled out, as that is always a problem when samples are given. But, as both of you have been long involved at that article, and were involved in the FAR, it is encouraging to notice that, if we start pointing out older FAs that need attention, we are likely to see improvement in articles rather than mass demotions. So, thanks for showing up, because that is my main point :)

Perhaps others will engage at Talk:Bob Dylan to give some suggestions, as it was not our intent to single Dylan out for a FAR. Dylan turned up because of its size, and whenever a lot of content has been added since the last review, the question is how well that content has been vetted and conforms with prose quality, reliable sourcing, etc.

The discussion above got a bit sidetracked into focusing only on leads, possibly because that was one aspect I listed on my samples of things where we can get a quick indication of problems. It was intended to be a sample, to show some of the quickest things to look at to be able to identify the FAs most in trouble. Others might suggest other things to add to my sample, but we should keep it short and simple.

But first and foremost, by launching a process like this (with whatever screening criteria we decide to use), and giving notice months in advance on talk pages of FAs, we will re-invigorate FAC and FAR, get more people in here (hello Mick and Moisejp), and see the added benefit of article improvement. If we notice every old FA talkpage, we invigorate the FA process overall! And I don't believe we will get a huge backlog, because a number of our reviews will turn up (to use the Wehwalt coin example), "no change in article size, no problem in the lead, nominator still actively involved". Quick Retains, done in three days, only looking for the real problems. And we will have provided the possibility for articles to be cleaned up before the process with our talk page notice (which would have to be carefully worded to avoid panic).

My concern about the new TFA trend of scheduling only "perfect" TFAs months in advance is that we never drop a doozie on the mainpage; Raul did, and on no notice, and then he let the process work. We have lost our greatest recruiting tool; when people see an FA that they can improve, that sparks involvement. I joined Misplaced Pages in Dec 2005 as an IP, and by May 2006, got involved at FAC and FAR after discovering two dreadful FAs (Asperger syndrome and Hugo Chavez). It was the dreadful part that encouraged me to become a reviewer. Reviewers don't join FAC if they think everything is perfect and above their level of accomplishment; they join because they see something they could do better. Shining a light on bad FAs (via mainpage exposure) and getting more people involved at FAR actually builds our pool of reviewers and increases interest in the process, and gives it more credibility. Showing that we are doing something to address the older, deteriorated FAs also increases credibility. IMNSHO.

So, if there is any support for this idea, do the samples of what we would quickly look at above work? Should we launch a formal discussion of whether we should proceed? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:11, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Sandy, can you sketch out in a couple of sentences a summary of what you're proposing? It sounds like (a) a lightweight FAR nomination process, plus (b) a lightweight FAR !voting process, and perhaps (c) encouraging TFA coords to let lower-quality FAs go on the main page, though that last should probably be a separate proposal, if that's indeed your suggestion. For (a) and (b), I think a specific proposal, even if only a draft, would focus discussion. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:16, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Mike, yes the TFA thing is a whole different matter. On sketching out a proposal, I learned from the master (you :) to first let discussion run to generate more ideas. I am trying to grow up and be like Mike Christie :) Think of it more like a GA sweep. I know what I want it to look like, but I don't want to put that out until others have time to digest and put forward other ideas. And <ahem> I have my hands pretty full elsewhere just now, and am likely to retire once-and-for-all at any moment; I'd really like to see a leader emerge in this effort, that won't be me. If I am the only one who cares, there is no point in outlining a process. Since it will be a subset of FAR, I don't think Cas should be the leader (he was just elected arb and he does a lot of FAC reviewing), and I don't think Nikkimaria should be a leader (for the same reason, she is doing a ton of work at FAC), and I don't know if DrKay would take it on. We need for a leader to emerge, who feels strongly about this as I do, and is willing to see it through for about a year. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:33, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

I think any broad review creating a new process and thowing up potentially several hundred articles as once is highly risky, and risks driving off more editors. I really think that a first step of waiving the two week grace period at FAR is a start and ask if we could try this first for three months before judging what we need to do next. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 14:42, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

If we put up "no waiting period", we are equally likely to flood FAR. I've got scores. And you've got pretty much no FAR reviewers to look at them (I recuse from anything I promoted). Let's ask our sample @Moisejp and Mick gold: what their reaction would be to a carefully worded bot post on talk letting them know that an FA sweep would happen in, say, three months? We don't have to throw up hundreds at once; we can decide how to graduate the process by date. If we had, right now, a bot-generated list of all FAs whose last FAC or FAR review was before 2015, organized by date, we could look at how we might organize the flow. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:47, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: @Casliber: SandyG: I couldn't agree more with you about featuring adequate but not perfect articles as TFAs. I'd like to step back a little first. Much of what I will say will be well-known to you and many regulars. Like you, I joined Misplaced Pages in 2006. When I became aware of Featured Articles, which was a little later, I was paying attention mainly to Geography-related articles. I was vaguely aware that vital Geography-related articles were being routinely submitted to FAC and fairly routinely promoted. Peru is one example. I remember a couple on Bangladesh that Tony1 and I helped improve to adequate, but not perfect state, and their being promoted. At that time, it was not uncommon for entire WikiProjects to be working on these Geography-related FACs. Sometime after I joined, the FAC process was more or less hijacked whereby it was not enough to use tertiary sources, whether well-worn textbooks, encyclopedias or topic-area-companions (e.g. Oxford Companion to ). Instead, the FAC submissions were using sources that were not easily available to the lay contributor: journal articles, research monographs, even primary sources. Concurrently, an increasing trend began for highly focused submissions, lying somewhere in the broad spectrum between highly-specialized- and quirky/hobby ones. One reason why well-worn textbooks became useless as sources is that they made no mention of these new highly focused topics. With that, vital articles began a slow march out, betokening also a slant toward Anglo-American topics, sub-topics, and sub-sub-topics.

In other words, today, Tuberculosis, Tourette's Syndrome, Major depressive disorder, Bacteria, Apollo 11, if unwatched, will be in trouble a lot sooner than short articles on hurricanes, subspecies, coins, battleships, American city neighborhoods, ... As long as the current FA criteria are in place, I don't see anything changing. The only solution in my view is to do away with the single Featured Article Criteria—for the new submissions, that is; and instead, create two classes (a) Featured vital article and (b) Featured focused article (sorry, I can't come up with anything better at this time). The current FA criteria could be transferred verbatim to (b), but with a page-size upper limit of 5,000 words. For (a), the sourcing would require the use of only tertiary sources, i.e. well-worn undergraduate or entry-graduate level textbooks, other encyclopedias or companions on the broad topic area, rounded out by reviews or surveys of the literature in journals, and occasional necessary references to newspapers, but not to journal articles. There would be a page size requirement for a minimum of 5,000 and a maximum of 9,000. I understand that people write about what they want to write about, but people did want to write about broad topics in 2006, before they began to be intimidated by the increasingly exacting criteria. Without this change, I fear FAs will become the knowledge-equivalent of little constellations of faint stars, known only to the aficionados or specialists. )( No slight meant to Casliber to whose contributions we are all indebted.) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:52, 3 January 2020 (UTC) Updated Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:53, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

@Fowler&fowler: What do you mean, the sourcing would require the use of only tertiary sources? It has been a requirement since at least 2007 that Misplaced Pages articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources wherever possible, and that, conversely, Tertiary sources...generally lack adequate coverage of the topic to be considered comprehensive. Now, that's no reason not to use them (and even at the time, OED, EB, for example, were specifically mentioned as generally equal to secondary sources in most cases), but since that's what the guideline said in 2007, what were people doing at that point in time relying predominantly on tertiary sources? (I doubt they actually were, but it's an interesting claim.)As for the increase in specialist articles being the result of narrower sourcing, journal articles et alia: . The reason for the shift towards more focused topics is clearly that, at some point, the low-hanging fruit had been plucked and editors who wanted to create (rather than polish) articles had to search deeper. For example, who would write an article on the Battle of Wakefield if there was no Wars of the Roses to be written? But by that token, once has been written, so the other gets written, and subsequent generations of editors are literally (reduced to, if like!) wring articles on, effectively, one—single—day of the entire topic. When the fruit hung not so low is when that change started. ——SN54129 15:56, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

I think one of the strengths of WP that all articles subjects are treated equally, and that doesn't matter whether it is a broad topic like philosophy or the earth or life, or whether it is a niche area like a tree frog or a US highway or a even the biography or a minor criminal. To somehow give extra weight to one type or article over anither (particularly with only rudimentary criteria) would be to weaked WP immeasurably. (And I say that as someone who would like to see our article stock of popular culture and memes etc to be decimated). - SchroCat (talk) 09:35, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

@SchroCat: Well put. I take back the extra weight bit, and the shinier stars bit. I'm suggesting merely that for the broader topics, it should be enough to restrict to the tertiary sources (undergraduate textbooks, encyclopedias and companions, reviews or surveys in journal articles) but avoid entirely the journal articles and research monographs. In other words, not having the latter should not constitute an objection. Otherwise, it will become impossible to both write or judge such articles for most people at FAC. Witness the Big Bang article at FAR. There's not a snowball's chance in hell that anyone at FAC can reasonably review that article: it has a strange combination of quirky speculation (by Hawkings, Dalai Lama, and whatnot) and the latest journal articles in Cosmology, but not enough in between. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:25, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Hence, my continued support for the crit 4, length. Five years down the road, when original writers are gone, we need well-managed size on big topics, using summary style. The classic example during the (dreadful five) Catholic Church FACs was the counter-example of Islam, which had taken a very deliberate, aggressive summary style. But it was not a featured article, and the example we had then is gone now-- Islam turned into another sprawling mess. Does no one have any further feedback on the idea of an FA sweep (or even a suggested name for it)? SIZE came up not as an issue of opposing FACs, rather as an indicator pointing to a large amount of new/added text not vetted in an FAC/FAR review process. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:39, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

I understand your points, and agree with the progression you mention. But I disagree that people don't want to write on broad topics, or that TS would be in trouble any sooner than other articles if unwatched. For example, I wrote a broad medical article last year that I won't bring to FAC because of problems in the Medicine project that forced me to write a lead that I would be embarrassed to present here. Besides the problem is those older FAs that already are unwatched. You are giving us apples and doorknobs by mixing what FAC can be going forward with what FAR needs to be right now. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:59, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

:) Yes, I am addressing only the FAC going forward. The mechanics of FAR I'm not too knowledgeable about. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:05, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Notice that the lack of a star on that article I wrote has not caused it to deteriorate (beyond what was done to the lead as I was writing it) since I gave up on perfecting it to FA status. The idea that taking away the star means we will see a quality decline does not hold up, IMO. Per the Dylan Winner! example here, we are more likely to see improvements if we do ... something. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:14, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Here's the lead of bacteria when it was promoted in 2008. Look at the bloat now. With User:TimVickers gone, I doubt that the article is up to snuff. Maybe Graham Beards would have a look. We probably have a similar situation at tuberculosis (I have a memory of working on it with TimVickers, but don't quote me, could be wrong.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:34, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

My speculation is based on the greater likelihood of tinkering of a vital article. For example, India unwatched, and especially demoted, and without resort to WP:OWN#Featured_articles will go downhill in a New York minute. A sleepy, more specialized, FA, such as Political history of Mysore and Coorg (1565–1760), on the other hand, doesn't get any visitors. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:53, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Bacteria has been on my "to do" list for some time (too long). I encourage my students to use Misplaced Pages, and this is the main reason why I am concerned with the deterioration of some of the articles to which I refer them. Incidentally, and I am sure this is true of many of our readers, I have never had a student who knows what a Featured Article is, or that we have a FAC procedure! (Until I told them). I will work on Bacteria out of a great respect for Tim and for my students first and foremost. Graham Beards (talk) 16:06, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

To keep focus on a few articles, WP:GAR has a list of articles that possibly need reassessed at the top, which are then reassessed once there is room. It helps keep a list of articles, can provide advanced notice to those interested, but still allows for focused discussion on a few articles at a time. Kees08 (Talk) 16:19, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

That is good. I've never referred students to Misplaced Pages (in part because the students have been graduate students and my field of specialization is a little different from that in which I contribute on WP), and I'm not sure that a Featured Article on a vital topic such as Evolution, Bacteria, or Charles Darwin needs to be pitched at the level of a college student, let alone a graduate student. I'm thinking more of the informed lay reader, the high school senior perhaps. I agree that the FA star may have no meaning for the vast proportion of such readers. However, a reasonably well-written article on a vital topic will attract more viewers and readers. And therefore more tinkerers. That's a given. Bacteria and Evolution attract 2K viewers a day, but my sleepy little FA, which is vital only to my eyes, probably one or two every other week, I've never checked. (India gets 30K to 40K viewers a day, but the reasons have more to do than its just being a vital article.) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:46, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Please do not patronise me. Graham Beards (talk) 17:08, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Hmm. It was meant in the sense of "That is good" not "That's good." At any rate, if I've caused offense, I apologize I like what Casliber has said above. I think I've said all I wanted to. Have other things to attend to, in particular Tim riley's PR. Good bye Graham Beards. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:39, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

My thinking was that the increased thoroughness of reviewing was what has led to narrower rather than broader articles predominating FA stock - it is much much easier to write the former, as balancing broad topics in articles can be challenging. I hadn't thougjt about it source-wise before Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 06:05, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

On a narrow-field FA, you've probably been down that narrow field before, know the sources, how to organize the article, you're basically familiar with the sources and have them at hand. A broad field one is possibly harder on each of those counts.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:30, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

I've already said this, but to put it under the rubric of "broad field," if broad field FAs were restricted to sources (which I called "tertiary") such as undergraduate textbooks, Encyclopedias, and Companions, Reviews and Survey articles of the secondary literature, the occasional first-year graduate textbook, and the better-known newspapers, it would be entirely possible to writ excellent FAs. The tertiaries have been vetted for balance and even organization. However, once you allow the use of what I call "secondaries," (scholarly articles from journals and research monographs, espousing scholarly and therefore very reliable POVs by WP tenets) the article becomes very difficult, if not impossible, to write, or rewrite. For there's a scholarly article for every UNDUE assertion. The task of balancing now has to be done by you, using ... what else, tertiary sources. An endless progression-regression begins. But using only the tertiary sources whether or not you are an expert in the broad field, not only protects the article somewhat, but if the original creator retires, the article can be more easily picked up by other editors. A secondary-literature-rich FA, such as Big Bang, currently at FAR is beyond the pale of most editors. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:35, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't agree with any of this. Have you read WP:MEDRS? Graham Beards (talk) 22:06, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for that statement of excruciatingly good intentions. I hadn't read it. It explains why 25 of the 30 FAs in medicine were written more than ten years ago, when it was a statement of only bearably good intentions. Then, instead of "academic and professional books written by experts in the relevant fields and from respected publishers," it had merely "widely recognised standard textbooks written by experts in a field," the modest ambition I had stumbled upon above. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:54, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Ummm, the reason there have not been any medical FAs in the last five years was provided already in this thread, and that's all I am liberty to say in this phase of dispute resolution. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:25, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

From the perspective of the last promotion on January 15, 2015 all but five of the 30 FAs were written before this notable edit of 21 November 2010, when my modest ambition, and other modest ones that attract ordinary people, were discarded. I'm pointing out an interesting fact that supports my general thesis. The edit itself wouldn't have done it, but I'm speculating that it betokened a changing climate of opinion. (It is not a mathematical proof. I'm not that invested in this thesis.  :) ) Fowler&fowler«Talk» 01:32, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Your thesis is not completely informed; FA writers have generally left the medicine wikiproject beginning around 2015. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:50, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Very quickly: I have a hypothesis about FAs that are "broad field" (in Wehwalt's felicitous formulation). It's more of an intuition really. Anyway, since you countered with another explanation, here are some more details: on January 15, 2015 (the date Pancreatic cancer was promoted), there were 36 FAs on medical conditions/major-body-organs out of 4,448 FAs overall. Per your explanation, nothing has been promoted since 2015 for a reason that has nothing to do with my hypothesis. So, I thought, I'd examine the period between 21 November 2010 (the date of that fateful edit I have chosen as a symbolic transformational event above) to 15 January 2015 . On January 15, 2015, all but six of the 36 medicine FAs had been promoted before 21 November 2010. On that latter date, there had been 3093 FAs. This means that between 21 November 2010 and 15 January 2015, the total number of FAs increased by 1,400, i.e. by 45%, but the medicine FAs (which are mostly all broad field) by 6 (from 30 to 36) i.e. by 20%. Assume now that other subject areas were also showing the same rates of growth for broad field FAs: 20% in those five years.

It is entirely possible that another hypothesis also explains the data: e.g. a handful of very knowledgeable people were writing these FAs and for whatever reason most left after 21 November 2010. But FA writers are thrown up by the milieu. What the second hypothesis does not explain is: why the milieu was able to throw up enough FA writers for an 45% overall increase, but for only a 20% increase in the broad fields. The medicine data is too small. I should increase the sample size. But everyone in the household has gone to bed, even the animals. So, I'm not about to burn the midnight oil for this. But it is a tantalizing thought that a change in the climate of opinion about what standards should be, what sources should be—exemplified by that edit of 21 November 2010, has caused this change. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:56, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

There are only so many ways that I can tell you that I cannot talk about this now, per dispute resolution, but your hypothesis does not explain what has happened to all the medical FA writers. I am not sure you are advancing anything here by continuing this discussion. Yes, there is another hypothesis ... errr ... situation. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:34, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

(belatedly) @Fowler&fowler: alot of tertiary sources are dated, or not very good, or both. Writing medical articles, much as like writing broad articles, I find a much much harder slog than narrow biological articles. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 06:01, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Amen to MUCH harder, and requiring constant updating-- never ends. None of those before 2010 medical FAs F&f notes are static, most have been to FAR, some more than once, and in many cases, are more up to date than medical textbooks. (And, as if our medical content is not bad enough, I cannot even imagine if we wrote it to tertiary sources that are dated by the time they come to print. MEDRS is the really thin line making some of our medical content not woefully dangerous.) And I can't even imagine what it would be like to write an FA, then unwatch it ... a medical FA becomes a project for life. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:01, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Does anyone have any feedback on an abbreviated review proposal for older FAs

.... given above, and lost in other discussion? Is this idea worth pursuing? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:38, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't know too much about the bots and the transclusion, but I'm leaning more to greater demotion. Germany and Big Bang, upon reconsideration, should both be demoted. I'll leave you to extrapolate it to a process. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:26, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, F&f, but for those with short attention spans or just coming to this discussion, I don't want to leave the impression that demotion is automatic. We will give notice well in advance on article talk pages that an abbreviated review is pending, and demotion could result if FAs aren't at standard. I suspect we'll see lots of efforts to bring them to standard. For the process to work, we need someone to lead/shepherd it. If there is no interest, I reiterate that the bronze star no longer has any value, due to the many deficient FAs out there. Why is anyone motivated to review FACs when they are promoting something to a dubious status? FAC is re-invigorated by assuring the overall pool is worthy. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:37, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Hi Sandy, sorry I didn't have a chance to answer your questions above until now. About whether a notice on the article's talk page—in this case, the Bob Dylan talk page—would be useful, for me personally I likely wouldn't see it, because I haven't been active enough on the page recently, and I don't really watchlist stuff, but maybe that's just me. Would it be possible to notify the main active users on their talk pages? I don't know if bots would be doing this work and if it'd be too complicated for bots to identify these editors. And about your other question of how I found this particular discussion, it's easy: I regularly read FAC:Talk, and I alerted Mick about this thread. Thanks, Moisejp (talk) 19:41, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, Moisejp! If there is support for the proposal, and a leader emerges, we might discover if a bot can extract not only the FAC nominator names-- which wouldn't be useful in this case because of the subsequent FAR-- but also the top five here, which would pick up both Mick gold and you. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:44, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Either is doable by bot, I think. I'd think though that rather than Top Five, we'd want to notify all editors who have contributed more than N percent of edits/text of an article. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 19:48, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, Jo-Jo, that is much better. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:53, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

I was thinking that I could have the FACBot select the most deficient featured articles. By the same token, in the recent sweep of unassessed MilHist articles, the MilHistBot identified several articles that it believed were FAC-worthy. But there is no way to nominate them. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:00, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm not convinced we can identify "most deficient" by bot. But it would be grand if a bot would extract a list by date of all FAs that were promoted before (or have not had a FAR in the interim) 2015. It would be amazing if it could also pull the diff of the promoted version, the prose size (per Dr pda) of the promoted version, the date of the promoted version, the prose size of the current version, and maybe even the nominator name from the FAC, and the top editors (with more than say 20% of content added). Oh, and then a list of the maintenance categories the article is in :) I don't ask much do I? But not worth doing the work if no one comes forward to shepherd this process. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:42, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

• While I agree with the concept of an abbreviated review process to quickly examine older FAs, I'm still not sold on the idea of basing it on the lead only. Quite often the lead isn't the place where bloating or unsourced material takes place - it's lower down the article. Dylan is a case in point: the lead is more or less OK (non-MoS compliant quote marks, which some will ignore, and little in the way of legacy, which is easy to miss out), but it's lower down the page that the problems with the prose crop up (although I see clean up work is already underway there). Quite often the bloating lower down articles is unsourced (doesn't look to be a problem with Dylan, but may be with Presley), and the first thing I do whenever I see a new FAC is to skim down the article to check that, at a very minimum, each paragraph ends with a citation. Skimming down Presley shows 4 or 5 paragraphs without a closing citation, as well as the Discography/Filmography sections that have none at all.
  

Long story short: Lead review may be a start, but I don't think it's enough to be able to rubber stamp a 'retain' status for the 10-year + articles. - SchroCat (talk) 20:05, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

I put up sample criteria; looking at the lead was only one. Expand it to include others, but keep it short and simple. The idea is, what can we look at that will give us a quick idea of whether we should look deeper. On most articles, someone will look deeper if an active involved FA nominator is not still on board. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:38, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

I support a faster-moving review process for old FAs, and this might be an area where I feel better able to pitch in than with FAC. A. Parrot (talk) 01:21, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Is it possible to get a bot-generated report of FAs with maintenance tags? Not that the old FA report isn't helpful but this report would highlight the worst problems. --Rschen7754 01:48, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

There is one linked somewhere at the long discussion higher up on the page, but it's not very useful, because many of the tags are for minor things. Good luck finding it up there! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:51, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Found it! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:52, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Maybe we could devise some criteria leading immediately to review or demotion, along the lines of what would completely sink a new FAC for such articles? Some issues on that list are definitely greater than others (e.g. CS1 errors can be fixed with minimal work or even by bot), and concerns about referencing and prose without corresponding tags are not included. Those require human eyes, but how? ComplexRational (talk) 02:10, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I outlined a whole process in the Samples section above. It has been done before, for 500+ articles, but this time, we would have double or quadruple that ... because we have let this go for too many years. Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:14, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

• Regardless of the merits of cleaning the pool of FAs, I can't say that I'm that excited about this proposal. From the perspective of someone who has renovated several articles at FAR in the past, I find myself of two minds. On one hand, I'd feel obligated to clean up some of the articles, or all of the work I did for all these years to push FAs to higher standards (through both reviews of candidates and article edits) will have basically been for nothing in the end if the promoted ones wind up B-class anyway. On the other hand, I would feel used to a certain degree, as I'd be called upon to do a bunch of work that I frankly have neither the free time nor the required sourcing for, under the impression that there are a bunch of us ready and waiting for this task. Such a base might have existed 10 years ago, but not now. If the lesser FAs are as bad as the claims above (can't say that I track all of the FAs that closely), the thought that the current editor base can save most of them from delisting is off-base. According to this, from 2017 to 2019 the delist rate was 75% (54 of 72). My hunch is that an FA sweeps program would have similar results and not do that much to stimulate interest from those whose FAs aren't on the chopping block. For me, I would probably end up working on a few FAs that I really care about and let the rest go, as sad as that sounds. That's all I have the ability to do, and I suspect most will act similarly. Also, I have to say that this sounds like process for process' sake. If there's an article or group of articles that fail the FA criteria, nothing is stopping interested editors from getting the FAR process started right now, which doesn't require any sweeps. Giants2008 (Talk) 02:45, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

• As someone who put in his fair share of time at FAR, your opinions are well considered, and yes, it would be a shame to lose your FAR saves or have to go fix them yourself. On the other hand, I don't believe the 2017 to 2019 delist rate is representative. FAR has been underutilized for about (?) five years now, and I'm not sure we're seeing a representative sample of articles appearing there. More interesting is the period when FAR was very actively reviewing WP:URFA, and we had about a 50% save rate. In the current case, we won't know even how many FAs are abandoned (FA writer no longer watching them) until we see data. And we would certainly end up processing a lot of them, whose writers are still actively watching, as Speedy Keeps. Re, process for process sake, at minimum, we need some way to identify those FAs that people might bring to FAR, as we did when we generated WP:URFA (Unreviewed featured articles) back in 2006 (or 7?). As I've said several times, if the FA community doesn't care that the star has lost value, I have little interest in FAC reviewing, because we are working to promote articles to a meaningless class, devalued by the older, unwatched FAs. To motivate people to review at FAC, there has to be value beyond one day on the main page. That value should be a star that is worthy on every article of representing our best work. And I continue to believe we need a recruiting tool to re-invigorate FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:52, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I have been writing a longer comment for this page which I likely won't post. I will instead post this excerpt from it, in an attempt to be brief(er!). It bears on this "quick review" topic, so I'll place it here, but is not limited to it. I am likely a minority view and expect to be treated as one. (Thus, as always, I lean toward shutting up and disappearing, which I likely will after posting this.)

Here's the TL;DR: I don't try to maintain FAs because I don't understand what this place wants (and sometimes, to be honest, I find myself groaning at what I perceive it wants).

Three articles were given above for the quick-FAR idea. I would vote to Keep them all (based on what we all admit is a cursory review for the purpose of this discussion). Once again I'm at odds—this time with a former coordinator, and my wikifriend, SandyGeorgia—argh! Obviously I'm out of sync, horribly so! And it's really hard to understand where I've gone wrong. I think that the Germany candidate needs a small amount of tightening (four hours' work?), esp. in "Culture". I'd expect it to be a long article, with a five- or six-paragraph lead. Returning to the purely factual plane, for the life of me I can't see maintenance tags on Germany, as is claimed above (Maintenance tags: Considerable)—except for the hidden categories about potentially dated statements. (It hasn't been edited since we started; rev).

Featured Article Reviews often appear arbitrary in their selection and in their criticism, and almost always feel like faits accomplis. (By which I mean, "it's here; demote it".) I can't imagine what FAC and FAR look like to someone without 13 years of experience. To give a fresh example, an article with 400 footnotes has been nominated for FAR because it "lacks inline citations". Is my perception faulty? What is even happening? What can a reasonable person say—a person who thinks they might be a good FAC/FAR participant—when these sorts of claims about FA(R/C)s are made—claims which I think in various guises are fairly common? If they are not meant to function as only rhetoric, I must say that they do function as rhetoric to me, and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth about these processes. I start to think that the FAC criteria are not real in any useful way, but only "understood by a community". In a deeper sense, this is obviously true, but I'm referring to the parts that aren't spelled out—the rituals that are understood by a few dozen people, perhaps. I argue that FAC has slipped into ritual, into "always be skeptical of the article", into seeing what it wants to see, almost.

Above I've shown two claims made about current Featured Articles, and why they ought to be removed, that I'm going to say are not opinions, or analyses, but are just false. The point is that I've had this same sensation, of being at odds with FAC and FAR claims about articles, many other times. And so I stay away. And I have this conundrum where I would go ahead and dedicate four hours to Germany, or whatever other FA, in a way that I thought would help it maintain its FA status. But see above: I don't do so because I truly don't think I understand what y'all want, why y'all are here, if Hubbard doesn't have "enough citations" and Germany ought to be removed.

I really hope nothing in this message comes across as personal because I appreciate you all as Wikipedians. I typed this up not knowing if I'd ever submit it. It has no purpose, other than to represent a point of view that other people, who do not speak on this subject, might also hold. (FAC-Talk is, in truth, limited to a few dozen people most of the time, at best.) If I'm alone, erase all of this. Not even joking. Outriggr (talk) 07:29, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

OK, I wouldn't "Keep" Germany after working with it. The largest concern is the lack of a coherent sourcing strategy, even in the "history" section (Fowler&Fowler's "broad sources" approach is what's needed here), and the sheer amount of the article that refers to ~2011. Some items can age without a problem (e.g. "land use" data from 2008), but, this type of article can't be an FA without updates every few years, in truth. You win this one, @SandyGeorgia:!! Outriggr (talk) 05:52, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

@Outriggr: just don't take on the Irish, wee laddie! The problem with Germany is the classic lack of an FA watcher. A solid indicator of articles that deteriorate. If we noticed talk pages, and no one cleaned it up before the "sweep", this is an example where I would strongly vote for speedy demotion-- rather than sending it to FAR-- because the community has already cleaned it up once. Without an FA writer watching them, articles deteriorate. Even after all the work that went into its last FAR, no one kept even the basics up to date there. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:28, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

No no, it's a valid post. I often muse on this when different issues get highlighted in a series of articles I've posted at FAC. And can see the rationale for the POV too. I am too tired to muse futher on it as it is late here in Oz and I need to sleep, but don't erase it. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:03, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

That's been my experience as well. I think it's in part because many of the FA criteria are subjective; for example, different people will consider different styles of text as "well-written: its prose is engaging and of a professional standard;" and what for one person is "major facts or details " might be "unnecessary detail" for another. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 13:12, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Oh, Riggr dear, thanks for the post and don't you dare disappear on us! In the vein of refining the idea, your post is very helpful. In the vein of contemplating how both FAC and FAR work, your post is also very helpful. I know you think outside the box, and expect no less of you :) :) The maintenance tags are picked up from the maintenance categories (as a bot would do). Yes, they are mostly "as of" dates. But "as of" dates are highly significant in place articles like Germany, and some of those statements are dated to 2008 (recalling from memory of many days ago when I looked). That gives us an indication that we need to look deeper. It also gives anyone working on the article a quick idea of things to work on.

The other thing is that, shortly after we bot notify every old FA talk page, and explain our criteria, those issues are likely to be cleaned up prontisssssimo. So that by the time that article appeared in the <whatever we are calling the review process>, it would likely no longer be the Remove vote that I indicated above. If it appeared as it does right now, no improvement, I would vote to Remove. If it is cleaned up, win-win. Please take my examples as examples.

(I looked at L. Ron Hubbard and those citation needed tags look valid; if there's no problem, they should be quickly cleaned up, but with such a controversial figure, one would expect citation.) Even with several expeditions off topic in sections above (eg MEDRS), the idea is to flesh this out before formulating a proposal (the Mike Christie effect); your musing helps flesh this out. Now, my musing goes a different way. I like reviewing FACs (well, we know that from history :) :) But, we are all volunteers, and can all be doing different things. I am not seeing the value in spending my time helping articles get a star that will be meaningless in five years. I've been at FAC and FAR since 2006; on some of these articles that have no main FA writer watching them, we will be on our third FAR in my lifetime. Articles that we clean up, but there is no one to keep in shape. Is that a good use of our time? I sometimes wonder if 50% of my total edit count is not from when Gimmetrow, Maralia and I manually added articlehistory templates to Every Single FA on the project, and from adding and cleaning up citations at FAR !!!! And, how can we re-invigorate FAC and FAR? By finding a way to clean up the older messes. How can we attract and retain reviewers? By giving meaning to their work. Why would I keep reviewing FACs if I come back in five years and find scores of articles we all worked on at FAR deteriorated once again? I do wish people would continue to think outside the box of ways to do that: mine is but one, quickly formed proposal, and clearly, if no one comes forward to shepherd the process, or if reviewers don't want it, it won't happen. (A. Parrot ???) But please don't take my examples as the only way to proceed. Best to you, my friend, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:22, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

@Outriggr: I couldn't agree more with you. I had originally voted to keep all three, just as you have, for pretty much the reasons you advance. I then changed my vote because I happened upon the Big Bang FAR, a hyper-secondary-source-infested article, which no mortal other than some advanced graduate students in cosmology and their advisors will be able to decipher. In fact, the FAR nominator has emailed the author of a textbook "Space time and geometry" to vet the article! I mean is this what WP FAC has arrived at? Make a set of excruciatingly good intentions, which form the rules known in its nitty-gritty only to a small Pythagorean cult, the sages of last resort, who reply in oracular haikus, every now and then. Make them outlandishly stringent by making the model example, Medicine, whose FAs constitute 0.67% of the total, and arguing that our FAs have to reflect the latest information hyper-real-time, otherwise, Lord knows, a dying patient will go to the podiatry instead of oncology. Make your last stand there. On the other hand, a statement of bearably good intentions, which says, it should be possible to write FAs on broad field topics using "undergraduate textbooks, Encyclopedias and Companions (in the broad fields), Reviews and Survey articles of the secondary literature, the occasional first-year graduate textbook, and the better-known newspaper and largely eschewing the latest journal articles and research monographs," which applies reasonably to broad field articles Geography (and Germany), History, Art, Architecture, Literature, Mathematics, ... has no hope of consideration. Meanwhile, while the focus is on FARs etc, articles two to the penny are appearing at FAC on battleships, back to back, one Italian, the other French, one using "she," the other "it," both 1,500 words long. We all have dozens of such pages written for fun that we wouldn't dream of importuning FAC with. Thus, while the Professor at Caltech, who has been emailed for a final judgment on Big Bang, is considering drafting a reply, actually drafting it, or ignoring said email, battleships galore are passing in the night unwatched except by a small coterie. Go figure. I have advanced degrees. I have taught graduate students, undergraduates, mentored high school summer students interns, and what else have you. If I don't understand this, who will? Whom is this FA enterprise for? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:44, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

So, I guess you are saying that if we don't even know what FAC is, we sure can't FAR. (I believe we use different kinds of sources for different kinds of topics, and we don't want to discourage those who write on less-broad topics.) Should I give up yet? (If "once an FA, always an FA, no further review" is our end result, why review FACs?) F&f, do you agree that there is a shortage of reviewers? Do you agree that what we should be discussing is a way to generate proposals to renew these processes? Or do you just want to eliminate the FA process as invalid? If that's where you're headed, WP:FAS seems to agree; I am hoping we will find ways to change that. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:06, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Of course not. I certainly don't want you of all people (the mainstay and I mean it sincerely) to give up. I guess I'm a little frustrated. I don't know all the rules, and I have not read many of the links. I'm saying that the FAC criteria have the effect of discouraging broad field submissions. The broad field articles that remain await judgments at FAR that are in turn influenced by the FAC criteria, (even though I'm sure technically FAC and FAR criteria are ostensibly different): a likely fail for Germany and a pass for Big Bang. I agree that we need more reviewers. But I think the lack of reviewers is tied to the impression out there that broad field topics, that an average Wikipedian is more likely to contribute to, topics for which there are entire WikiProjects, are out of bounds at FAC. You are right, a proposal is needed. I don't have that kind of time though, and as is painfully obvious, I don't know all the fine details of the rules. I certainly don't want FAs to go. I just want them to be less lopsided, to cut the broad field articles some slack. I will certainly be reviewing at FAC, in as NPOV fashion as I can muster, but you have to understand that I get progressively frustrated, and eventually irritated, when submission after submission seems caters to the conceits of a few. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:20, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Both FAC and FAR review according to WP:WIAFA. Is it your suggestion that we can't fix the older, deteriorated FAs, until we fix something that you perceive as ailing at WIAFA? Then, are you saying that we leave the older, deteriorated and unwatched FAs out there regardless? Or do you see a way to allow for a discussion of what to do about the older unwatched FAs independently of the matter of WIAFA? We have hundreds to potentially thousands of unwatched-by-FA-writer FAs. What do you suggest? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:29, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Let me mull this over. Thanks for the clarity. I have to run now, but let me throw this out for discussion. There are a limited number of reviewers. The more time they spend on current FACs the less they will have for the old FAs you describe. How about putting a freeze on FAC submissions and decisions for a month (say, or whatever time is appropriate), and let the reviewers focus on the old FAs and review them in an accelerated or abbreviated method to be decided by you? That will be much more satisfying for me. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:43, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Looking around for the strongest possible oppose button :) No, we do not devalue the work of current FA writers in favor of FA writers who have left the project. And if we decide to do some sort of review, it will be a slow marathon, graduated, rather than a sprint. And if we decide to do this, I believe many more reviewers will engage. How would you expect an editor like Hawkeye7, waiting to submit FACs on work already done, to feel if FAC is stopped so we could go review articles for departed editors? Would that motivate you to help? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:54, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

(With reference to Fowler&fowler's argument) Do we have any data on why people don't review FACses? Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 15:24, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

@Jo-Jo Eumerus:, since no one else has opined, I'll offer my six cents. First, we have me as an N=1 example. I am motivated to review because the overall pool reflects excellence. If the overall pool is crap, I don't feel motivated to review. Unless we respect the overall value of an FA, then I believe I am only supporting individual editors in achieving mainpage recognition. I am interested in what happens beyond mainpage day. I do not know if I am representative of a typical FAC/FAR participant, but I loved the work at FAR more than FAC, because it was selfless. It was good editors coming together to preserve the work of a departed editor. Think Brianboulton ten years from now. Second, I believe that the length of current FACs is extremely offputting, and they should be shut down sooner, particularly if they appear ill-prepared. But the coords can't shut them down sooner unless reviewers are pointing out the ill-prepared. Who wants to engage a FAC review that is longer than the article ?? Third, I believe we did not know how good we had it in the day when we had highly specialized reviewers covering different aspects of review (images, sources, prose, etc). It looks to me like now we've got Nikkimaria trying to do a whole lot of everything. And I believe reviewers are afraid to take on the technical aspects. We have been pinging for days trying to get a topic-expert source reviwer to User:ComplexRational's Island of stability FAC, to no avail. I fear that part of the problem is that the entire FA process has lost prestige, and people who would once be glad to show will no longer. Hence, my concern about the overall pool. We need to rebuild the prestige of the bronze star, and focus on ways to "train up" new and better reviewers. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:40, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

• "articles two to the penny are appearing at FAC on battleships". What is the problem with that, exactly? (Amd I speak as someone who hasn't written any articles about battleships, or any other ship of war). - SchroCat (talk) 15:39, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

To both: I have a hunch that awaits verification or refutation, but it is the spirit, not the letter that should be considered. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 15:58, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

? That certainly goes nowhere near answering my question, and I'm not sure it covers Jo-Jo Eumerus's either... - SchroCat (talk) 16:08, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I really don't see any good outcome to going down the old road visited by TCO, when they criticized what they called "cookie cutter FAs" that follow a set pattern and, according to him, were easy to write (dubious). @Ealdgyth: for another opinion, but we have visited that topic ad nauseum, and the conclusion is always that we support and value all kinds of work; ships, video games, etc. If we want to encourage broader topics, that can be done separately from discouraging narrow topics. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:18, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Please recall that I was not originally discouraging narrow topics, only encouraging broad ones (in my post to you and Casliber. But that got buried under an avalanche of exacting red herrings. The ad nauseam discussion probably reflects the ad nauseam reality that broad field FAs are a critically endangered species. Everyone quotes this rule or that. But there is no willingness to address the looming extinction. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:11, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't think that the FAC rules discourage broad-scope FAs, their very nature does. Mastering the sources for a narrow-scope FA isn't too hard, or involve too much time, but broad-scope articles could magnify that burden by an order of magnitude or more. Having taken a few art and music history classes over the years, my mind boggles over the commitment in time it would take to bring something like History of Western Art to FA-level quality. Just the sheer amount of reading involved, much less mastering all of the academic debates and then deciding which ones are important to cover in the main body vs footnotes vs ignore as too technical, etc. A collaboration might work, but much depends on how the collaborators divide up the responsibilities.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 16:23, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm kinda with Riggr on this: I haven't a clue what's expected. During the early to mid-2010s I took a fair number of articles through FAC; a handful are vital articles; some need more clean up than others. I've spent the past few nights trying to locate sources (back in the day I'd go to the library and bring home books, but the local library emptied 90% of deadwood sources from the stacks a few years ago), which in itself is time-consuming and potentially expensive. So, no, I'm not personally excited about looking at all older FAs, but understand the need for it.

But what are we looking for beyond the obvious? Like Riggr, I'd keep the three examples mentioned above, for lots of reasons that are maybe not germane here. Being a little self-indulgent but to go way back to very original issue, what exactly do the TFA coords want to see for the main page, what's the GOCE role (apparently being discussed/hashed out off-wiki), and what are we supposed to "fix" when sprucing up old FAs?

The answers to these questions are important, because "we" (and that in itself is very big can of worms because there aren't enough of us), need to know what needs fixing. Before I begin plowing through the 3000+ pages of reading that's required to keep as FA one of the articles I've meant to clean up for a long time, am I looking for more modern sourcing? (I would say yes). MoS issues, i.e whether or not ellipses in quotations use brackets? Template issues, i.e inboxes & cite templates, circa templates & so on (!!!)?

The nominators, reviewers & coords involved with the Beaune Altarpiece in 2014 achieved consensus to promote, yet by the end of 2019 the goalposts had moved.

So we need to know what our criteria are across the board, impose them across the board, and somehow find enough people to review.

All of that is difficult these days. I have no solutions, but wanted to tip my hat at Riggr and ended up saying too much, again. P.s feel free to move this post if it landed in the wrong section. Victoria (tk) 16:59, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I hope we would explicitly define the criteria to exclude the kind of GOCE nitpicking that occurred at Beaune Altarpiece; again, we are not looking to review FAs that still have an active nominator watching them. I am proposing a way to identify the truly deteriorated FAs, where typically no FA writer is involved, and once identified, either a) quickly demote them, or b) send them to FAR if there is consensus they can be repaired in a slower-paced process. We would, I hope, have Coords empowered to explicitly disregard MOS nitpicking and maybe even prose nitpicking such as occurred at the alterpiece. The intent is not to do a new FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:05, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

My answer to the question Sandy poses is that Cas's proposal -- make it quicker to go to FAR by eliminating the waiting period -- is probably the right first step. It doesn't introduce a new process or roles, and it's actually a simplification of an existing process.

However, I don't think it will fix the problem Sandy is pointing to. I'd like to see all FAs kept at a high quality level, or demoted if they can be shown to no longer meet standards, but I believe this is absolutely impossible for resource reasons, and things are going to get worse, not better. Imagine that we have half a million FAs. We will have no (or, to be optimistic, a few) additional editors capable of assessing/writing/fixing those FAs. Those FAs will all decay over time, and the efforts of everyone who is reading this discussion will be only a tiny fraction of what would be needed to keep them at FA standard. We're at that point now, with only a few thousand FAs. Every edit to an article either improves or degrades that article, and the combined efforts of all well-intentioned editors currently lead to an overall improvement in the quality of the encyclopaedia, because there is still so much to do. But to quote my favourite economics aphorism, if something can't go on forever, it won't. There's a point at which Misplaced Pages will, on average, no longer be improving. We all work on what we care about; Sandy cares about the quality of past FAs, and so do many others, but it's not a fully solvable problem even now. Making FAR easier will help, but the effort needed to clean or fix old FAs is not available and is not going to be available. I'd have more faith in an approach that takes that into account, rather than just tweaking FAR, which is already under-resourced.

I don't mean this to sound pessimistic. On the contrary, I love Misplaced Pages and think it represents one of the finest collaborative achievements of the human race, and will get better and better for decades to come. But we don't have infinite resources, and shouldn't worry too much if some particular task can't be taken on with the limited tools we have. We should figure out what we can do with those limited tools. If Sandy's exhortations lead to a temporary improvement in the quality of old FAs, that's a good thing, of course, but it's not a long term answer, because nothing is. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:46, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Another idea over at TFA

• https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Wikipedia_talk:Today%27s_featured_article&oldid=934342035#Alternate_idea SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:34, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Is there a WP rule against an article having a WP:GAC and a WP:FAC in-process at the same time?

Before I wade into discussing all this at the nominating editor's talkpage, I'd like to know if there is a specific guideline about this, stating an article can't or shouldn't be nominated for both possibilities at the same time (or whatever). Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 16:48, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, per the instructions at the top of the FAC page, "An article should not be on Featured article candidates and Peer review or Good article nominations at the same time". Nikkimaria (talk) 16:52, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, I knew it had to be around here somewhere. Shearonink (talk) 17:16, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

@Shearonink: you could explain to the editor that there just are not enough reviewer resources for an article to occupy three different review processes, and that first-time FAC nominators are well advised to first engage PR or GA. Many experienced FA writers bypass GA and PR, but doing so can make for a very hard FAC for a first-time nominator, who may not know the ropes and expectations. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:24, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

SandyGeorgia - I was going to comment on the article's FAC page and also ping the FAC coordinators. Shearonink (talk) 17:39, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Ah, sorry, Shearonink, I did not realize you were discussing an article already at FAC. Yes, ping the Coords, or alternately point the nominator to this discussion, and suggest they either withdraw the FAC, or withdraw from the other process. If first-time nominator, highly recommend withdrawing from FAC. When I was FAC delegate, I had several helpers who were empowered to remove the nom (if not resolved) in the absence of a Coord; do we have that now? You should not have to take your time on this; it is a clear requirement. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:46, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I would have tried talking to the editor on their talkpage first but they don't always respond to talk messages so yeah, will notify the coordinators now. Thanks, Shearonink (talk) 17:49, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I discovered this FAC from the GAN side of things, and posted a note to the nominator's page at around the same time as the note was posted to the FAC in question, pointing out the FAC rule about an article at GAN or PR not being eligible for FAC. They'll clearly need to withdraw the GAN or the FAC, assuming the FAC isn't rejected before they can decide between the two. BlueMoonset (talk) 20:29, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Follow-up: the template for the FAC has been removed from the article's talk page; the GAN remains. BlueMoonset (talk) 22:40, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks BlueMoonset - I noticed that as well. Muchly appreciated - Shearonink (talk) 22:53, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

• If it were left up to me, I'd make PRs compulsory if you wanted to take your work to FAC. Cassianto 17:34, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

That would be fine if PRs worked better than they mostly do. Johnbod (talk) 17:40, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I suspect thorough PRs would be highly conducive to successful FACs, especially for first-time nominators. I found it very helpful, but it really ended up as a WikiProject collaboration under the guise of PR for the most part – reviewing each other's articles about similar topics, which is helpful to assess content but does not include feedback from an outside reviewer. PRs would still need dedicated reviewers, especially when asking for help within a WikiProject isn't possible. ComplexRational (talk) 17:53, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree with you John. Most WP editors, in my opinion, seem to have forgotten why we are here. If only as much time was invested in actual article writing than it is partaking in the somewhat more inane activities on here, like talk page discussions surrounding infoboxes, how pretty a desired image is over what is already there, barnstar awarding to admins making "difficult decisions" (it's their job), pointless userbox designs (who cares what your favourite political party is or how well-done you like your steak), the processes of hat collecting and ANI point scoring. If it was, we'd have ourselves a hell of an encyclopaedia. Cassianto 18:10, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

My experience of PRs is a complete lack of interest. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski 18:17, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I find your comment ambiguous. Is it that owing to your experience of them, you find peer reviews to be uninteresting, or have you experienced a lack of interest in your peer reviews? Cassianto 19:20, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

The second one. I've started PRs before with the plan for taking the article to FA, to have not a single comment after a month. I'm sure that isn't the regular experience, but it's hard enough to get comments on FACs, if I also had bugged them to comment on a PR. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski 19:43, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

And do you participate on other people's peer reviews? If you don't, I'd suggest you do, as you may find you'd have more people willing to return the favour. Cassianto 20:15, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Cassianto, would you feel the same about participating in those discussions if one WikiProject's guidelines was preventing your from writing articles that could be successfully submitted to FAC? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:20, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't much care for Wikiprojects, SandyGeorgia, and if I wanted to write an FA, I would, regardless of what they said. Cassianto 19:20, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

ANd then what would you do when they threatened to vigorously oppose your work? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:42, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Fuck 'em, is what I'd say. If the article fits the FAC criteria, and the coords are happy that they are only opposing as a result of sour grapes, their opposes would be struck. Cassianto 20:17, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

@Cassianto: not that simple, so some are forced to engage dispute resolution, or quit. I quit for four years. I am back to try to improve things so that medical FAs can be written according to Misplaced Pages policy and guideline and WIAFA, not WProject guideline. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:53, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with how these little cliques work, but they sound horrendously pompous. Why wouldn't any Wikiproject want someone to take forward and make the best of any article that fits their area of interest? Unless it's written down and rubber stamped by a fairly hefty consensus that they have any kind of authority over someone not in their gang, I'd say their article is fair game for improvement by anyone wishing to take it on. Cassianto 21:12, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

@Cassianto: see WP:LOCALCONSENSUS—WikProjects can bike it, basically. ——SN54129 21:15, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks SN, although you really must learn to assume good faith. Cassianto 21:38, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

Proposal to reduce restrictions on FAR submissions

There seems to be some traction in the discussions above for reducing the restrictions on submissions at Featured article reviews. I sandboxed a proposal, and ran it by the @FAR coordinators: , and am putting this forward for consideration. One question is, do we reduce the two-week wait period between notification on talk and submission to FAR to nothing, five days, seven days? Please remember that Polling is not a substitute for discussion, and let's hear opinions.

My thought is that, if this doesn't help address the concerns I raise above about older, outdated FAs, then we could later examine some of my other proposals above. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:28, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

Discussion of proposed FAR changes

• Generally support changes, it would make it easier to delist FAs that are clearly deficient. I support lowering the waiting period to 5–7 days. But I do think that in most cases it's helpful to discuss first before going to FAR even if the page is not maintained or the nominator is no longer active. buidhe 09:11, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
• Generally support much per Buidhe, and joining in their suggestion to keep a 5-7 day waiting period.. I would tighten the language in "The number of FARs that can be placed on the page by any nominator is determined by the FAR coordinators, but is typically: No more than one nomination every two weeks. No more than four active nominations on the page at one time, unless permission for more is given by a FAR coordinator." To make it clear that there is a limit in the absence of permission granted, I would change "but is typically" to "but is by default".--Wehwalt (talk) 09:39, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
• Generally support, but will this actually encourage 1. more people to nominate articles for review; and 2. more people to aid in re-working nominated articles back to a higher standard. On its own, this is a positive step, but I'm not sure this addresses the core problems (insofar as I think I've read what the problems are perceived to be). – SchroCat (talk) 09:59, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

• My own view is that this will have little effect, but there were plenty of people above asking to try it, so for that reason, I brought it forward as a formal proposal. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 10:16, 7 January 2020 (UTC)

• Support as an improvement over the current and to see if we get more movement in a manageable way. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:26, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support worth a try. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs 12:27, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support, though with the same reservations that SchroCat gives above. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:42, 7 January 2020 (UTC)
• Query is it intended that the FAR and FARC processes taken together will only last two to three weeks, or each will take that amount of time? The former seems rushed to me. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 00:16, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

  @Peacemaker67: it is theoretically two to three weeks in each phase (FAR then FARC), but the Coords have discretion, and articles are not moved to FARC if work is actively progressing. The reason for the two-week move to FARC is really for those cases where no one engages the article to improve it, so the Coords can keep things moving. In reality, articles have been months in each phase. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:46, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

  In that case, I'm a weak support (largely have the same concerns as SchroCat) as long as the waiting period is seven days. There is no need to rush it at that point. Peacemaker67 (click to talk to me) 02:01, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

• Support A step in the right direction. --Rschen7754 01:32, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
• Generally support, with the same hesitations as SchroCat. I think it's a good idea to make it easier to review the status of FAs, but I don't know how far this will go towards addressing the problems discussed above. Vanamonde (Talk) 16:57, 9 January 2020 (UTC)