Wikipedia:Peer review/May 2005

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Auburn University[edit]

Submitting for peer review as suggested by Ttownfeen. The article is pretty comprehensive, but might could use another modern photo or too. Other comments or suggestions for this becoming a FAC? Autiger 19:03, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • The article looks fairly comprehensive, however its missing some thing discussed in other college articles. Most other colleges have a section on arcitecture, see Yale. The statistics section at the end of the article really should be merged into the text, for example if you had a section on the library the library stats could go in there, the British colleges also have sections on admissions like University of Cambridge, that would be a nice neat way to incorporate the admissions stats, some of the recent data included in the history section could also go in this section (the history section is pretty long as is). There also no list of chancellors, most other college article include it in the academics section. --nixie 23:14, 2 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • The institution was founded 1856 and in 1960 it had been known as AU for a century. Does this mean that it was always known as "Auburn University" or is this loose phrasing? --Theo (Talk) 11:56, 28 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It would be hard to substantiate how long API was colloquially called "Auburn University" before 1960. I'm changing the article to soften the claim. -- Fingers-of-Pyrex 13:41, 2005 Jun 2 (UTC)

Space manufacturing[edit]

This page is an attempted overview of space manufacturing, at least as it is conceived at the current time (prior to actually starting up some space-based factories). I didn't have a whole lot of success trying to fill out the references section with books — the article's mainly based on material on the web and some procedings I had. I also didn't include some of the more specific material-processing techniques (such as acid leeching) that seemed too detail-oriented. What else do you think needs to be added? Thank you. — RJH 19:42, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'd recommend linking the stuff like acid leeching at least as a 'see also'. If you used external links as references, move them to references and add 'last accessed on...'. Try to rewrite 'Environment' to eliminate bullet points (common complain in FAC). I'd like to see 'History' section expanded, short paras merged and a section of future prospects (trends, space elevator possibility, etc.) added near the end. Looks good, I expect to see it in FAC soon after those improvements. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:10, 6 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Interlingua[edit]

I've been expanding this page, trying to collect information so far not published in English and translating it to add to this page. I've added more information on the grammer, history, and phonology; tried to clean up some awkward phrases and codes; and tried to NPOV-ize it (neither being pejorative of it, nor exalting it, but just calling it what it is). I'd appreciate it if I could get some stronger scrutiny than the page normally gets, to try to get this up to featured article quality. Almafeta 18:00, 19 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • It looks like a clear, well-written article, although I can't say I know much about linguistics. The "Other uses" paragraphs in the top section should probably be moved to a disambiguation page, with a link at the top of this page. The "French, Italian, Spanish/Portuguese, and English" sentence could contain links to the various French language, Italian language, &c. pages. (They are linked much further down, but in this case I think a double-reference won't hurt.) It is always suggested here that you include references. — RJH 19:49, 24 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Internet Explorer[edit]

After much rewritting and reorganization, the article is much less biased than before. But before submissing for featured article, I'd like to have more people to take a brief look of the article and give comments, if any. --minghong 09:50, 19 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Wow! That's amazing work Minghong. I came back to the article and I agree - this is SO much better than it was before! The history section is pretty amazing. However... it still needs references. Even though I know that many of the sections are summarised from bigger pages (good work on those, btw) at least the main sources from those articles should be noted in the references section. Speaking of the subpages, may I suggest that a modicum or work be done on the lead sections? Remember that each article should be able to stand as an article in it's own right, and this means that the title should be in bold and the lead section should be at the very least one paragraph of more than three sentences, preferably two paragraphs and no more than three paragraphs. Otherwise: well done! - Ta bu shi da yu 13:40, 20 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Maybe we can take the references back from the main articles. That's a simple task. And for the main articles, they can be fixed later. ;-) --minghong 17:41, 20 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I added some references and footnotes. But maybe that's not enough. --minghong 18:56, 20 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • FYI, I nominate the article as feature article candidate again. Please vote for it! ;-) --minghong 06:21, 28 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Privacy[edit]

I've just rewritten this article to include more information about each area of privacy, such as medical, political and privacy from government. I'd like to get this to become a featured article - what do people think of this article? Talrias (t | e | c) 11:23, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • Looks good overall. What about financial privacy though? A desire to keep financial dealings and status private is important in some cultures. It also keeps you from being targeted by thieves. Also there's the type of privacy needed just to avoid annoying phone calls (private line) or spam mail (closely-held e-mail addresses). — RJH 15:06, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    Thanks! I've added in information about privacy from corporations (including email spam and telemarketing). I need to do some research about financial dealings/status in other cultures before adding this - I'll hopefully be able to do it in the next few days. Talrias (t | e | c) 19:13, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Good work. The info about 9/11's effect on privacy is good, but it underrepresents a larger phenomena: the effect of war on privacy. Every major war has a chilling effect on civil liberties and privacy, and this deserves mention. Certainly, 9/11 and the War on Terror are significant, but not so significant that only they should be mentioned, and every other war left unmentioned. The 9/11 info should be a subset of a larger section on War and Privacy. —thames 20:53, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    I've added some on this. Is this what you had in mind? Talrias (t | e | c) 14:20, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah, that'll do. —thames 00:24, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This is already on WP:FAC so I'm commenting there, but I think that war is not the only security concern. More coverage is also needed of terrorism etc. I've added links to security theatre for example since many privacy breaches seem to be quite bad ideas. Mozzerati 22:21, 2005 May 9 (UTC)

  • This is a page of examples without actually addressing in any meaningful detail what "privacy" is in adjusting the relationship between "public" and "private". Some defend privacy as a means of control over information about oneself (Parent, W., 1983, ‘Privacy, Morality and the Law’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 12: 269-88), while others see it as underpinning human dignity (Bloustein, E., 1964, ‘Privacy as an Aspect of Human Dignity: An Answer to Dean Prosser’, New York University Law Review 39:962-1007), or as crucial for intimacy (Inness, J., 1992, Privacy, Intimacy and Isolation, Oxford: Oxford University Press). Others define it a set of norms against which to judge whether controlling access can enhance personal expression and choice (Schoeman, F., 1992, Privacy and Social Freedom, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). But the concept is complicated because while, in terms of egoism, we value it so we can be free from interference by others, the teleological problem is that the outcome can be a cloak behind which we hide domination, degradation, or physical harm to women and others. The utilitarian view is that an act or action is right insofar as it maximises good outcomes (utility). Hence, I have waived privacy to contribute to this page and I would consider laws to limit anonymity on the web as the greater good because harms such as hacking, drug dealing and child pornography can be difficult to eliminate if we cannot trace and identify the users. But the Kantian deontological (non-consequentialist) view would consider privacy without regard to the existence of outcomes in terms of the private/public dichotomy. Rather Kant would impose duties to respect the freedom of others so that privacy becomes compatible with the greatest possible freedom of all. That this might have unfortunate concequences is not considered relevant — a consistent problem with moral or political absolutism. Hence, expanding the text to include material on terrorism-related intrusions into our private lives is only giving one more example of a continuing debate on the nature of freedom and responsibility in an increasingly relativist world. David91 10:43, 24 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Swedish language[edit]

I've been working on this one on and off for over two months now, though I have mostly concentrated on the aspects of Swedish phonology and Standard Swedish. There's been som good groundwork for the article, though it's been lacking in academic material somewhat. I intend to correct this as best I can, and I have good reference literature at my disposal and quite a passion for linguistics. I'm setting my sights very high; I want to top or at least equal the Holy Grail of language articles, Portuguese language in quality, and I intend to keep up my editing until that goal is reached! I know the article still has a lot that needs to be done, but it would really help if others could assist in defining the objectives more specifically.

While I don't expect that many expert comments on specific Swedish issues, I know there are many quite competent linguists here at English Wikipedia, and I hope to hear from as many of them as possible.

Peter Isotalo 13:21, May 10, 2005 (UTC)

Nice article, and quite complete. My overall impression is most favorable, although I'm missing a few things and have to point out a few others things that could be clarified. Here you go...

  • Lead section. Try to summarize the article here. Things that are found here raise the reader's expectation that he will read more about it further down. At present, most of the lead section talks about the classification, which is not discussed later on. Along similar lines, the pluricentric thing is handled most extensively in the lead, and is only alluded to in the rest of the article.
    • There has been some (quite heated) discussions of the pluricentricity, and I somewhat question the validity of the claim, since almost almost all Swedes speak varieties that have evolved from the Central Swedish dialects in during the last century-and-a-half. This is supported by all linguistic literature and Nationalencyklopedin. / Peter Isotalo 10:02, May 11, 2005 (UTC)
  • Geographic distribution. A map would be cool, especially since the Old Westrogothic Law is the only picture in the article at present. Additionally, I was a little confused by the fact that Swedish is so important in Finland, and I couldn't find the historical background of it being taught in schools along with Finnish. Similarly, the fact that schools in Finland seem to try to avoid Finlandization puzzled me. Upon re-reading, I saw that this is briefly explained in the section on 'Official status' — I'm not sure if that's the best place for it.
    • No I agree. The Finland-Swedish issue seems to have been described a bit too thoroughly. I will try to summarize it. Peter Isotalo 10:02, May 11, 2005 (UTC)
  • Official status. How come it's not an official language in Sweden?
    • Eep! You got me there. To some extent it can be generalized as being consistent with the Swedish national character, I suppose. Consensus-making instead of legislation and all. But largely I think it's simply because there has been no need for legislation, since Sweden has been fairly homogenious (and the various minority languages have been so small and and hence successfully supressed). But I don't really have a simple, supportable answer to that one yet. / Peter Isotalo 10:02, May 11, 2005 (UTC)
  • Dialects. Again, a map would be illuminating (maybe it could be combined with the other map).
    • A first draft of the dialect map is now up, courtesy of IceKarma. / Peter Isotalo 21:29, May 17, 2005 (UTC)
  • Sounds. A little more detail in the main article would be nice. The 17 different vowels seem like an alarming amount until one clicks through to Swedish phonology to learn that vowel length is contrastive. I note furthermore that consonants aren't dealt with at all (except in some talk about variation). Additionally, I have often come across Swedish as an example of a tonal language; I would expect to find a short discussion of that as well. I guess that's related to the discussion of lexical stress in the Prosody section; I would at least note that some linguists, on the grounds of those minimal pairs, consider Swedish a tonal language.
    • Vowels Well, one could argue that the realization of the short vowels is actually different, you're right. I'm not that used to describing phonologies.
    • Tones The Swedish linguist Olle Engstrand writes that the tonal element is quite insignificant. It is contrastive to some extent, but the tones are predictable through morphology and not even remotly like that of Chinese or Thai. One can live an entire life in Sweden and speaking perfectly acceptable Swedish without ever mastering the acute and grave accents. There is a somewhat confusing terminology used on Wikipedia right now, as seen at melodic accent, which to me seems to be a very general layman's term for (Scandinavian) prosody in general. I would appreciate your input on that one (at the article talkpage).
  • Morphology. I'm missing a treatment of syllable structure and word structure here. Do words tend to be disyllabic or monosyllabic? Preference for open or closed syllables? And how about some phonotactics ;)?
    • Oh, shush! I was gonna do that. Really... Peter Isotalo 10:02, May 11, 2005 (UTC)
  • Grammar.
    • What does it mean that "[t]he standard language's grammar is uniform"?
    • Do nouns occur without the "suffix which varies according to gender"? If they don't, what does it mean that definiteness is expressed by use of this suffix? If they do, how should I relate this to the fact that "[a]ll Swedish nouns belong to one of two genders"? A few examples of nouns of different genders, definite nouns, nouns plus declensed adjectives etc. would help clarify this.
    • What does it mean that "participles are used either in perfect or present tense"? Also, I note that participle is a problematic notion cross-linguistically. I've seen it being used for substantivized verbs (i.e. verbal nouns) by some linguists, for verbs in relative clauses by others, and finally for adjectives derived from verbs as stated in our own (not too helpful) article 'participle'. In which sense is it used here? Here, too, some example sentences would be cool.
      • Plenty more text added as well as a table and some examples. It's somewhat difficult for me to tell if it's comprehensible to others since I'm a native speaker. Have a look and see what you think. / Peter Isotalo 22:49, May 13, 2005 (UTC)
  • Vocabulary. "A significant number of French words were imported into Sweden around the 18th century" — what's the historical background for this?
    • Like, duh... French political and cultural hegemony in Europe, of course. :-) I should definetly state the obivous, though. Good call. / Peter Isotalo 10:02, May 11, 2005 (UTC)
  • History. Some more words on the 1526 Bible translation would be cool — who initiated the project, who was the main translator, was it the very first translation, if not, why was it more influential than earlier ones?
    • I've added information on the translators as well as some of the impacts the new bible had on the language. / Peter Isotalo 22:49, May 13, 2005 (UTC)
  • General. Try to avoid one-sentence paragraphs, they make the article look messy (several can be fixed by joining them to adjacent ones; for others, consider expanding them).

That's all for now. — mark ✎ 21:47, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The objections I have not commented I consider to be just as valid, but not really needing any further explanation. I'll let you know when I've taken care of it.
Peter Isotalo 10:02, May 11, 2005 (UTC)

Looking good. But I do like the organization of Portuguese language better. Most odd is that the history section in this article is near the bottom. IMO, it really needs to be at the top or at least near the top. Several of the 'main article' links are misleading since the section covering that material in this article is longer than the main article. Consider either making these links inline or better yet move the more detail text to the main articles and leave a more compact summary here. Oh and main article links are usually reserved for second level sections, not sub sections. -- mav 00:47, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thanks for commenting, mav! The History section being last is because it's been placed last in the language template, and because I'm actually kinda favorable to that. Do you think that History should go before all the linguistic features-sections?
  • The seperate article section links is somewhat of an artifact because I created those articles before I really started working on the article. Do you think the History subsections are too long right now, or should they be even more thorough?
  • I was also wondering about the examples. To me it seems like a slight violation of Wikipedia not being an idiom guide. Do you think it's necessary to have common phrases or not? / Peter Isotalo 07:50, May 18, 2005 (UTC)

Blitzkrieg[edit]

A failed FAC, which has been improved and I think is ready for reFACing. There may still be some issues, but I think they would be mostly minor. Your comments, as always, are very welcome. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 15:55, 6 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • various comments
    • I've fixed the ordering of the footnotes. Right now they are using numbers rather than named references. Changing them to have some kind of name would probably be better.
    • The Spanish Civil War section is probably too limited.
    • There is no mention of the need for cryptography and effective communication. My understanding is that Blitzkrieg requires radio communication for coordination and effective radio communciation required effective cryptography. If I'm right then this should be covered in detail. In any case, communication during a blitzkrieg action should be covered.
    • The introduction treats Blitzkrieg as a general tactic used in multiple wars whilst the article seems to just treat it as the German tactic of the WWII which later inspired other similar ideas. Some decision is needed.
    • some copy editing needed. I've already begun.
    Mozzerati 21:23, 2005 May 7 (UTC)

Polish September Campaign[edit]

The begining of the Second World War. On a road to FA. I have added section about German army tactics and equipment, which I think was the last missing piece for the comprehensivness requirement. Your comments, please? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 15:50, 6 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • It's a nice article overall, but the section on "Details of the campaign" seems far too sparse on the actual details on the German invasion. Some mention of the general direction of attack of the German army groups would help clear that up, I think. Also in the opening section, second paragraph, I think the first sentence should be moved down past the second, so that the reason for the government evacuation is immediately clear. The references are lacking in German works, such as possibly "Achtung-Panzer!" by Guderian. — RJH 16:52, 6 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Tnx. I have made most of the fixes you recommended, except references. IIRC Guderian AP was written before '39 so it can hardly be a reference for that article. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 15:16, 7 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Wlcm. I was probably thinking of "Panzer Leader" then, also by Guderian, which I think covers the northern part of the Poland campaign and others. (XIV Pz. Corps?) Sorry. — RJH 20:00, 7 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • From 119 (02:22, 8 May 2005 (UTC)):[reply]
    • I suggest a "Prelude" section to cover, at the least, why the campaign was fought and diplomacy prior to it.
    • I think it may be better to split off the plans sections of "Polish/German army equipment and tactics" under a single "Plans" section.
      • Well, it could be done, but it would further increse the discrepancy between Polish and German sections. I think the current side vs side description is sufficient. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 15:40, 8 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Myths may be better suited to incorporation into the main text. Perhaps they are common misconceptions that stand out together, I do not know nor do I think that can be measured, but I think it would be a more comprehensive and readable narrative if its points were split up to the relevant sections in the campaign.
    • I think the long list of battles in the infobox is not useful, as a person who does not already know the names of the battles will really not use it yet it is very prominent.
      • Lots of red, but then it gives some useful names of battles for future reference and article writing. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 15:40, 8 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • I, personally, consider such infoboxes helpful and informative. They provide a useful reference, providing a wider context at the same time. Lysy 07:24, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • The current "Names of the campaign" section is, I think, more suitable to the first sentence of the article. Unless it will be expanded to include some historiography of the names, I think it should be removed after merging above.
    • I think this deserves clarification/expansion: "Following a number of German-staged incidents (Operation Himmler),"
    • Strength and casualty figures always have a degree of uncertainty and controversy, and I think they would be more appropriate in a separate section that is referenced and explained, rather than an infobox which requires simplification.
    • I think there is bias in having photos of Germans shelling Poles, Germans bombing Poles, Polish civilians who have been bombed, and the graves of Polish soldiers with nothing corresponding from the German/Soviet perspective. Similarly, the newspaper map should, I think, have its historical importance explained (also, "The Time" needs disambiguation), because it is a period document which we should not appear to endorse in use as a normal, interchangeable and neutral map.
      • Well, the Poles were invaded, weren't they? So there are no photoes of Polish bombing German civies, for example, beacuese it never happened. I think the photos illustrate the campaign for what it was - German invasion - but feel free to add more if you think they can improve the POV or sth like this. I added a German parade photo for balance. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 15:40, 8 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Attribution of opinion needed in places, e.g., "The plan to defend the borders contributed vastly to the Polish defeat,"
      • I will think what I can attrubute directly, but I don't want to read through the references again...it is all there, though.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 15:40, 8 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • You might also make a brief mention of how the earlier German possession of Czechoslovakia contributed to the defeat of Poland by significantly extending the amount of border they had to defend with their available forces. — RJH 19:34, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Impressive. My only recommendation is to have a more condensed lead section (3 paras are the max allowed if you want this to be FAd) and for the somewhat peripheral equipment and tactics sections to be summarized into a single section here and the current text moved to equipment and tactics used in the Polish September Campaign. Also, where are the inline cites? The inote system is by far the easiest to use for that. See the edit page of helium to see that system in action. --mav 17:05, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Condensed lead into 3 paras. As this article is rather short (47kb), I think there is no need to create subarticles, and the equipment and tactics section are important for the article. I am not sure what do you mean by 'inline cites'? Inote template is an interesting tool, I will try using it - tnx for showing it to me. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 20:14, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Since when has 47KB been considered rather short? Most college term papers are 50% smaller and the recommended max page size is that size as well. That is why I suggested that the somewhat peripherally important sub topic be summarized here and expanded upon in another article. Inline cites are places where you say exactly where the information in the preceding sentence/paragraph was taken from. --mav 20:23, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I have finished expanding :> as per your requests (i.e. plan section before the battle). The article is 54kb now, I will think what can be moved to a subarticle, but the lenght is not bad - many FAs are around 50kb (Polish-Soviet War, for example). Any other suggestons before I submit it to FAC? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 21:04, 14 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The Brothers Karamazov[edit]

I'm nominating this article for peer review because there are not many articles about novels that have reached featured article status. I believe this novel deserves consideration because it is a world classic. Most of the content is from my own research so I would appreciate any objections or suggestions to get this article ready to become featured. Thanks. Jonesboy1983 16:41, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  1. The introduction should better summarise the article.
  2. Lists don't seem to be widely liked on FA, could the character list be written as prose?
  3. The setting for the book could also use some expansion in the main text.
  4. There are hardly any wikilinks.
  5. It seems like there should be some discussion of the literary techniques used by Dostoevsky in the book, like multiple narrators.
  6. A section on the influence of the work on Russian and other Western literature, and within popular culture would be good too. --nixie 01:40, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • The bones of a fine article, however The Reading the novel section is a misleading title (seems to be about translations) and is far too short. Sections on the literary context and style of the novel is needed, as is a legacy section, detailing any influence the book had on later literature (Henry Miller springs to mind imediately). <ad> I have listed this here BTW </ad>. Filiocht | Blarneyman 08:33, May 5, 2005 (UTC)


  • Thanks for the input. I created a section on Structure in the novel and moved the reading the novel section into a smaller heading of translation. I also put in a section on the novel's influence detailing Freud and Kafka's high regard for the novel. Jonesboy1983 19:37, 6 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • If this article goes to WP:FAC, I just know that someone will say, 'Can you provide a source for the statement "Although it was written in the 19th century, The Brothers Karamazov is a surprisingly modern novel."'. Can this be changed to "Although it was written in the 19th century, The Brothers Karamazov has bee described by XXX as a surprisingly modern novel.", with XXX being a reputable literary critic or author? Filiocht | Blarneyman 08:37, May 9, 2005 (UTC)

Rondo Hatton[edit]

This is my first wiki entry and I'd welcome any constructive criticism. Johnny Beggs 18:31, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Welcome to wikipedia! I think the article is a nice start. I should point out that peer review is meant for nearly Featured-standard articles. But since the article is listed here now anyway, here are some suggestions for expansions or clarifications:
  • Is there any reason why his acromegaly was incorrectly attributed to his exposure to mustard gas? (i.e. is this a common mistake or a people simply blindly assuming)
  • "Universal Studios attempted to exploit Hatton's acromegalic features" Is it possible to explain why it was an attempted exploitation instead of a normal business agreement?
  • The article really needs a picture (but be aware of copyright issues)
Happy editing! Jan van Male 22:42, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
References are always nice... Apart from that, how bout some pictures (as allready mentioned)? A filmography (or whatever it's called - a list of the films he played in)? A short overview of his service in WWI? In short.. anything that can bring this guy to life in the readers mind ;) WegianWarrior 06:25, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the great advice... I've added a picture and as complete a filmography as I can muster. As far as Hatton's WWI service goes, not much is really known. His acromegaly was attributed to his exposure to mustard gas because shortly thereafter symptoms of the disease became apparent. Today, however, we know that acromegaly is a hormonal disorder which Hatton probably developed prior to his service. I didn't really know how to include this in the article without straying. As for the "exploitation" comment: Hatton was reluctant to act and was never really happy with the studios for cashing in on his disfigurement. Again, I couldn't really think of a concise way of conveying this... but... maybe someone else could word it better? ...thanks again... (Johnny Beggs 10:05, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC))
  • Might I suggest putting his filmography into a chronological order to make it read better? Harro5 07:52, May 23, 2005 (UTC)

Gbe languages[edit]

Nukaé nyé Gbe languages? If that's your question, go read this article and find it out. Don't forget to come back here to put in some words of advice. I wrote all of it, so it would be nice if someone else looked into it. I'm aiming for FAC eventually and I wonder how much remains to be done. As I'm not a native speaker of English, you might want to check the article for EAL-related issues. Babíá kaé le asíwó? (Any questions?) Please ask them below! — mark ✎ 17:35, 7 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Earlier request at Wikipedia:Peer review/Gbe languages/archive1. Either no-one looked at it that time, or it was so good that no-one dared to comment. In any case, it's still a tabula rasa.

  • Well that certainly warrants a comment. I know nothing about the subject, but the article looks great. The only thing I could think of that would make it better would be some form of footnoting. There appear to be a lot of inline citations, but they are hard to find. Something like Wikipedia:Footnote3 or Template_talk:Inote makes them much easier to find. If you do that each time you discuss a text and or put a (Foo 1989) in there it really helps the verifiers. :) I know those systems are not perfect, but they do help. I guess the other thing is the lead notes Reduplication, which makes me think it is a pretty important facet of the language. But it's coverage looks pretty short, and I had a hard time understanding it. A clear explanation before the example would be great. Maybe something else about how common, pervasive, or important it is would be good too. With those fixes, I'd say this is a FAC for sure. - Taxman 04:36, May 8, 2005 (UTC)
    • Thanks for commenting. Re Reduplication: on second thought I've removed the sentence in the lead; the phenomenon is pervasive, but it should be treated in Kwa languages (of which Gbe is a branch) instead since it's found wider than the Gbe languages alone.
      • Actually I disagree with that. It is good to cover topics at their most logical spot, but if this language group displays that as an important characteristic, it should be covered in this article too. Briefly if needed though. That is part of being comprehensive--covering all important facets of a topic. - Taxman 22:55, May 8, 2005 (UTC)
        • I agree with you there (I wasn't clear); that's why I didn't remove it from the article altogether. I only removed it from the lead section to avoid creating the impression that there would be a whole section on it. Regardless, I'll see if I can prepare another paragraph and some examples, because I agree with you that it's coverage is pretty short anyway. — mark ✎ 23:27, 8 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • As for the citation system, I have to think about that. I suppose I would have to knock over the References section and convert citations to footnotes or something? I can think of a few inline citations that would better be converted to footnotes, but I don't think it would work to make all of them footnotes. The way I think about footnotes versus inline citations is shown in my use of both at Logba language (in short, notes are for just that, 'notes', while inline citations refer to a work in the References). Would it work to do it the same way for Gbe languages? — mark ✎ 11:43, 8 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • There is no consensus for how it is done, its just better as long as it is done to some degree. I think having a bit of both is fine, especially if a source is a general source good for nearly all the information on the page, then it is good to note it as a general reference. The more specific citations the better though, since that makes verification easier. So just leave the references section where it is and convert the inline cites to some form like the two I gave above and it should be great. Someone else may prefer another system, but like I said, something is better than nothing. - Taxman 22:55, May 8, 2005 (UTC)
        • I'll give it a shot! (done) Thanks again for commenting! — mark ✎ 00:21, 9 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ok that was all great so I looked for a few more things. As it is I think it will be ready for FAC soon if not now, up to your judgement. 1) Were the external links really all used as references too? If so they should be formatted as such according to the rules for webpages at Wikipedia:Cite sources. If not, the should be their own ==Heading== so they aren't a part of the references section. 2) The lead section is very short for the length and level of detail of the article. Aim for one more paragraph, and make sure the lead summarizes all of the most important facets of the topic. 3) The map has the word "lects" on it. I assume that is dialects, but its not totally clear. Can you spell out the full word or add some explanation of why that is the usual way or whatever. - Taxman 23:17, May 10, 2005 (UTC)
    • 1). Fixed now, by adding retrieval dates (I rechecked them just now). 2) I'm not sure about that one; I think it summarizes the important things nicely. I'll look if something's missing though. 3). I'm going to remove that word from the map, it's redundant — thanks for bringing it to my attention. (Lect is just a politically correct term used by linguists who don't want to choose between 'language' and 'dialect'). — mark ✎ 00:16, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Map updated. I've removed the superfluous 'lects' and I've added Ketu, which was missing. It's the first map I ever made for Wikipedia so I'm not sure if the layout is all that perfect, but it's clear anyway, I guess. — mark ✎ 16:50, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Ok, but I think a lot of people on FAC will say the lead is too short. Most people expect a 2-3 paragraph lead section for a FA of reasonable detail. Think of it as what the article would say if that was the only part printed in a paper format. - Taxman 19:17, May 11, 2005 (UTC)
      • I expanded the lead, and I agree it looks better this way. — mark ✎ 19:19, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]


Comprehensive, Mark! It looks almost daunting due to size, but when actually reading it's very good. Sincere complements. But as this is the place to test the patience of even the most competent and busy Wikipedians, here's my beef:

  • I am firm believer that references should be kept to a minimum. Unless there are some very serious and heated debates among scholars as well as protesting Wikipedians, I don't think we should have a single footnote. I have no problems with footnotes myself, but it makes the article look less like encyclopedic and too academic. A reader of an encyclopedia (even wiki) wants the facts served on a platter, not academic hum-'n'-haws (unless professors are giving each other black eyes over it ^_^). I think you should consider moving most references to the talk page. It might sound drastic, but every in-text reference and footnote that isn't deemed absolutely necessary should in my opinion be moved to the talkpage. Your research seems so thorough that the average reader shouldn't be burdened with notes. Those with special interest can (and will) look for sources if they feel that it's necessary.

Peter Isotalo 18:09, May 10, 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your review and your tweaks and copyediting! I hope you don't mind I changed the structure back; I found the four-way division into Languages, History, Linguistics features and References more intuitive and more esthetically pleasing. I think the references don't hurt, and function as a nice bibliographical overview. I agree however that some of the footnotes are not absolute necessary, so I have converted some notes that were merely for attribution (e.g. the example sentences from Aboh 2003/4), to invisible ones using Template talk:Inote. I will take another look at the 'References' section; maybe some of the 'other sources' could be pruned. — mark ✎ 22:11, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Peter, your opinion is very contrary to the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy. Though if your biggest beef is with footnotes breaking up the page, invisible notes solves that problem. The references section needs to stay (check the featured article criteria) and it should list as many sources as possible that were used to add material for the article. Referencing is the only way to combat the critics most substantive claim that Wikipedia cannot be trusted because anyone can edit it. I for one look at a Wikipedia article and think why should I trust any of the facts in this article to be correct? If I see references my confidence is increased that it is not a complete fabrication at least. Anyway, like I said, the inotes keeps them out of the way. - Taxman 23:17, May 10, 2005 (UTC)
Mark
You're welcome, and I promise that there will be more scrutiny and tweaking soon enough. I noticed there was a slight tendency for technical jargon like "phylum". I consider myself quite the lingonerd, but I had to look that one up. Same goes for generally advanced vocabulary like "subsumed". It can usually be replaced with more common words.
I'll let you have the final call on section structure, but I've never liked empty section headers when the actual sub-sections aren't identical to one another. E.i. there's only one "Sounds", "Classification", etc. Consider having text instead of just empty dividers.
If possible, consider reducing the amount of "linguist X says A, and linguist Y claims B". With the exception of SIL (which seem to be consistently rebellious to most scholarly consensus), I think you'll do fine with just saying "A is B" without mentioning names. Your text is good enough to stand on its own.
  • As for structure, I'm fine with empty section headers if they help structure the information. I think I'll ask a non-linguist to look the article over for needless linguistic jargon. I've got a few other ideas that I might be able to carry out this evening. — mark ✎ 16:50, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Taxman
Footnotes are as far as I know unheard of in encyclopedias, and if some bitter critic complains about us not having them, then I say to Hell with them. I'm quite convinced that the average reader will be put off by the academic aura that surrounds extensive use of footnotes and scholarly namedropping (even when justified). The occasional footnote is okay, but only when absolutely necessary, such as concerning notoriously controversial issues.
I'm not against listing references, but I think the amount of individual works of literature listed as references in one article should never be more than 10. If anything it should stay around the magic number 5 unless absolutely necessary. After all, too many references can make it so much harder to actually know which sources to check...
Peter Isotalo 23:55, May 10, 2005 (UTC)
There are a lot of important reasons why you are wrong, including that Wikipedia is different from other encyclopedias, but you'll eventually see them all and agree with me :). In any case this is not the place to discuss it. The two links I gave you would be better. The simplest pragmatical answer is that the featured article criteria calls for references and inline citations, so to qualify, articles need them. - Taxman 19:17, May 11, 2005 (UTC)
But I'm not questioning the merits of any of the policies; I'm just saying we shouldn't overdo it, and I certainly don't want to propose rigid limits (instruction creep!) to Wikipedia:Verifiability. If you look at most of the linguistic FAs, most of them have about 5-10 referenced works and even fewer, if any, footnotes, and the same seems to be true for most of the other FAs as well.
I'm absolutely not going to object to an eventual FAC just because I feel there are a few too many footnotes, but I'm trying to encourage Mark and others to go easy on the academia, since I can see for myself that the article is very well researched. It's important to balance the need for proper verifiability with availability to the average reader, no matter how obscure the topic may seem.
Peter Isotalo 08:18, May 12, 2005 (UTC)
Ok so we mostly agree. But I'll say the importance of the policies is enough that it would be difficult to overdo. A longer list of references at the bottom is something that doesn't get in the way in the least for someone that doesn't care about them. They are easy to ignore. In fact if anyone was picky it would be easy to have an option in the preferences to not even display that section for that user, just like for tables of contents. The same is possible to be done with footnotes, which I agree can be off-putting to someone that just wants the gist of the material. But luckily that is solved with something like the invisible notes tool. You say you notice the article is well researched, but that is apparent only because it is well researched, and a lot of sources were consulted. All of those should be listed and important facts should be cited. Yes, most articles on Wikipedia completely fail to meet the verifiability policy but that has no bearing on whether it should be pursued going forward or not. Be careful not to discourage something so important as good research and citing just because you think too many superscripted footnotes is distracting. That is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Especially when that only drawback can be easily avoided. - Taxman 15:48, May 12, 2005 (UTC)

Mark, I'm sorry I'm being slow and getting distracted. A little pedantry to start with: I trip over the statement that the Gbe languages are a dialect continuum, defined as a range of dialects spoken across a large geographical area. Qué? So are they languages or dialects?
I'm bemused by the discussion of old Kwa and new Kwa under "Classification", I think you need to say either more or less about it to get me to understand it.
I don't think you can have those italicized placenames in the History section, they strike me as non-standard. If they mean "notice these names a lot", bold is probably more the wiki thing. But I would be sparing of that formatting, too.
References: "Gbe in general" and "Other sources" is not a good pair. Is it important to subdivide the sources into two categories at all? I don't understand what distinction you're making.
If something's both a reference and an external link, it goes in the References section. You've used the Ethnologue, and even refer to it, so it's a reference. The "External links" section is for online further reading.--Bishonen | talk 01:01, 14 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome to the middle of the film--my remaining nit is that I agree with Taxman about the Lead being short. The prose in it is also slightly The Cat Sat on the Mat--the sentences need more interlinking for more flow.

Btw, on my screen, many (though strangely not all) of the characters in the vowel and consonant tables show up as question marks. Also something scary happens near the end of "The vowels i ĩ u ũ e o ɛ̃ ɔ ɔ̃ a ã are attested". That's in Mozilla 1.6 for Mac OSX 10.2. I'm done copyediting (=dumbing down), great article, it'll be an ornament to the Main Page! --Bishonen | talk 22:55, 14 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Bishonen, for your work! As for smoothing the reading experience by joining sentences, that's a lesson I'll sure try to put in practice in the next article. I have a few other remarks: (1) The Gbe language can be viewed upon as five related dialect clusters, and since they do not make up your garden variety dialect continuum anyway, I've done away with the 'dialect continuum' thing. (2) The same holds for the Kwa/New Kwa thing — that's something that belongs to the Kwa languages article and the reader should not be troubled by that in this article; in fact, I don't know why I added it here. (3) I've de-italicized the place names except for Amedzofe and Mawufe, which are more than just place names. (4) Good point about the References. The idea behind distinguishing between general and other sources was that the 'Gbe in general' would be a sort annotated bibliography of general sources on Gbe; 'Other sources' would list sources that were also consulted in writing the article but which I deemed to be not relevant to someone specifically interested in the Gbe languages. I still would like to distinguish between those general, introductory ones and the more specialized linguistic ones, but I don't know how exactly — any thoughts? (5) I labelled the external 'Online sources'. Is that better, or should I just put them between the other references? (6) Special characters — I wrote the bulk of this article in my first weeks here, when I didn't know of things like Template:IPA yet. I'll add it and see if that helps. (7) In the next few edits I'll try to respond to the commented out questions you left. Thanks again! — mark ✎ 11:19, 15 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately, the IPA-template does not solve the problem with the tonal accent diacritics. I have the same problem with Firefox for OS 10.3.9, and I frankly don't know why. It works fine on my PC running XP and Firefox, though. I think this is something that needs to be adressed in the template talk or perhaps at the talkpage of the phonetics project. It has to be some sort of incompatibility with certain fonts. Mind you, this doesn't seem to work on OS X when adding accent marks to Cyrillic characters either.
Peter Isotalo 11:48, May 15, 2005 (UTC)

Grammar layout In the explanations of syntax, examples such as this one are used:

  • àxwé yé Kòfí tù   (house FOC Kofi build:PERF)   Kofi built A HOUSE   (Gengbe, focus)

Is it possible to make the linguistic notations that use <small></small> a different color to make them stand out a bit? It would make them a lot easier to discern from the plain text.

Peter Isotalo 14:22, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

In general I don't think those linguistic notations should stand out from the plain text. Or do you mean the gloss corresponding to the highlighted morpheme (in the example above, yé and FOC? In other articles I have sometimes highlighted those by underlining instead of bolding the text. Let me try:
  • àxwé yé Kòfí tù   (house FOC Kofi build:PERF)   Kofi built A HOUSE   (Gengbe, focus)
  • àxwé yé Kòfí tù   (house FOC Kofi build:PERF)   Kofi built A HOUSE   (Gengbe, focus)
What's better? I don't know. I have the feeling that changing the color makes them stand out just too much from the other text in the article, but that could be a matter of choosing the right color. — mark ✎ 16:28, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, the color looks good — don't like the cluttered code though; do we have wikisyntax for colors? Or don't we have that for a reason? — mark ✎ 19:19, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
No, I just meant the FOC and the other grammar abbreviations. Even if you're looking for them they can be somewhat hard to discern. The colored one looks very good to me. Blue (or perhaps green) doesn't seem as it would steal too much attention.
Peter Isotalo 21:17, May 16, 2005 (UTC)


Oh, no, not more about references

1.OK, the one essential distinction to make is between a) references/sources, that have been used for the article, and b) "further reading", that has not. So please bear with me: you are saying there is no further reading there? All the items listed are references/sources?

2.For anything else, once you've taken care of 1), the organization of references can be varied according to circumstances and preference, there are no rules. I see that the distinction you wanted is gone now, but I say you should just go ahead and have the section divisions bring out any kind of classification of references that you consider of value for the reader.
Mind you, I still don't understand quite what it was, though. How can there be more general sources on Gbe, versus more specialized linguistic sources not relevant to someone specifically interested in the Gbe languages. I'm sorry, I'm just experiencing static, could you please try again? (Is there a "not" too many..?)

3. The reader needs the lists to be complete. Anything footnoted should also be listed under References (it isn't now). OK, the list will take an inch more of scrolling that way, but think how much more convenient it'll be. It's the universal principle in academe, actually not for pedantry but for reader convenience.

4. Dividing refs into printed and online, as you do now, is purely a matter of taste. It's unnecessary, as the reader can see at a glance which refs are links. So just do it if you like it. (For myself, I don't like it.)

On another note, I think the Lead is absolutely great now! --Bishonen | talk 23:15, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

(1) All are sources. I always use the label 'Bibliography' for sources I did not consult; 'References' are sources I actually did consult.
(2) Take Ansre (1961) — that's a source of no special interest to someone looking for general info on the Gbe languages as a whole, since it's only about the tonal system of Ewe. Or take the inverse situation, Stewart (1989), which is an overview of the Kwa languages, the branch in which Gbe is situated. Even broader: the article refers to Greenberg (1966), which is a general classification of African languages. Such sources differ from things like Capo's output, which is often on Gbe and Gbe alone. Currently wondering if it's important enough to re-introduce the distinction.
(3) Good point, I've fixed this.
(4) I think I agree with you here — there are only two 'online sources' anyway.
Thanks for reviewing! — mark ✎ 15:56, 19 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks again for the detailed reviews! I'm bringing it to FAC. — mark ✎ 21:18, 25 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Joh Bjelke-Petersen[edit]

Having recently died, he is currently receiving a lot of press attention and I'm trying to make his article as good as possible. I'm aware that there are some flaws, most notably the lack of references, but I do plan to remedy that over the coming months by consulting various biographies. With that in mind, would people mind giving it the once-over? I'm particularly concerned that the article correctly presents both sides in the myriad controversies associated with his rule. Slac speak up! 23:38, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

A few things that come to mind, information on his marrige to Flo, and his role in the SEQEB strike in 1985 and opposition to the state funeral. Try and work the quotes into to the text, or move them to Wikiquote--nixie 00:42, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I didn't put them in. I was planning to shift them there myself. Slac speak up! 01:53, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
a) For most of the early sections there are no references given. This needs to be improved (as you've already said). The references in the later sections are made as direct links, which means that if the target page is moved or modified it will be impossible to tell the intention. If you converted to footnotes or another system of inline references and stored full reference information (author, publication, date, date of retrieval for use as a reference, a one sentence summary), this would be much better. b) "fobbing off journalists with irrelevant non-answers" (for example) is questionably phrased and needs to be backed up with quotes. c) quotes might be mirrored in wikiquote and possibly only specific ones selected. probably better to spread them through the article to illustrate specific points, than to group them (which can be done in wikiquote). Mozzerati 20:59, 2005 May 10 (UTC)

Edgar Allan Poe[edit]

I am reopening this peer review in the hope of more new comments. After a failed FAC nomination, this article obviously needs further review and editing to improve it to a level whereby it is worthy of featured status. I will now be actively looking to improve the wording of this article, and would like some feedback about where to focus my attention. Harro5 11:16, May 23, 2005 (UTC)

  • Copied from FAC: This article needs a lead section and some de-POVing. It is currently rather too sympathic to Poe, especially in three last sections. For example, there's no doubt (and the article needs to mention it) that Grisworld's work was defamation, but the general tone of the section shows the author(s) is rather partial. The Legacy section struck me as pretty good overall, however. Phils 11:17, 14 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • It seems these concerns have been addressed. Phils, please have another look. Harro5 02:31, May 24, 2005 (UTC)
  • The lead is too short, a lead should summarise the key points of the article, three decent sized paragraphs usually covers it. The overall struture is quite poor, there are two sentence paragraphs all over the place. The life section seems throughly un-developed given that the death + memoir section is twice as long. There is no real description of any of his works, just some big lists, some of the big works should be described in more detail or there should be a discussion of his literay themes. How was his writing percieved by his contemporaries? Referncing could be improved. --nixie 06:56, 24 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Myxobolus cerebralis[edit]

This is a really important parasite of fish. I just uploaded a paper I wrote, and I'd like to make it featurable. Any suggestions? Am I missing anything important, are my facts right, etc? Thanks, Dave (talk) 18:49, May 6, 2005 (UTC)

The Morphology section contains the phrase "170 and 180 ?m" which will need clarification. Perhaps it's a μ that didn't copy correctly? Fg2 02:04, May 7, 2005 (UTC)
yeah. I did this in Word originally. Thanks for the heads-up. Dave (talk) 03:35, May 7, 2005 (UTC)
  • Comments: 1) The first question I had when reading it is what type of organism is it. That seems like the first thing the article should say, but it was left to the end of the lead section. Perhaps that is appropriate in this case because it is not clear what it is. 2) Some of the redlinks seem like they have related articles, but you'll need to search for them. Specifically, I don't know that intermediate host needs to be linked given how short parasitism is. You should probably create at least a stub for myxozoan since that is the type here. 3) It's short for a featured article. Is there more to say about the topic? Overall it looks very good and the writing seems clean, so if it was expanded in similar quality I think if would be a great FAC. - Taxman 04:49, May 8, 2005 (UTC)
    • Thanks a lot for reading through this. 1) I put myxozoan in the first sentence. I think you're right that it's better this way. 2) It turns out the myxozoan article is at myxozoa, so I just fixed the links. I removed "intermediate host" entirely because it's not worth discussing here (the fish is actually the intermediate host, but it's called the definitive host for historical reasons). 3) I agree it should be expanded. Unfortunately, now that I'm home from college, I don't have access to the books I used to write it originally. I'll see what I can do. Dave (talk) 17:38, May 8, 2005 (UTC)
      • Are you going back to visit those textboooks or are they sold backa nd gone? In any case the article is better than when I read it yesterday, so keep up the good work. Just be careful what links you make, and follow the naming conventions if you create them so that other people can find them too. - Taxman 22:47, May 8, 2005 (UTC)
        • The books are actually at the university library, and I'm home now (~100 miles away). I'll have to use online sources from here on, I guess. Thanks for your advice. Dave (talk) 01:20, May 9, 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree with the points raised, I also have some suggestions. I'd change the name of the biology section to life cycle, and add a section describing where the parasite is a problem (mabye with a map) and some estimate of losses caused by infection, in aquaculture and wild populations, that kind of data shouldn't be too hard to get your hands on. Also make sure the text describes all the technical stuff since there are so many red links for the technical terms.--nixie 09:38, 8 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Good suggestions. The section was labeled "biology" because that's what my teacher wanted. It's now "life cycle." I'll see if I can get my hands on maps and impact assessments. And I'll do my best to make the text explain what things are (like I did with the worm) but I have no idea what some of the words (like merogony) mean myself. Thanks. Dave (talk) 17:38, May 8, 2005 (UTC)
      • I did merogony. Let me know if your stuck on any of the others--nixie 01:45, 9 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • I think the only other one that isn't explained is sporogony. If we find anything interesting out about pansporocysts or sporoplasms of this organism, we should put it in, too. Thanks again for your help. Dave (talk) 03:50, May 9, 2005 (UTC)

Ludwig van Beethoven[edit]

This could become a featured article, but it needs work and peer review. -- Tony Jin | (talk) 18:11, Apr 24, 2005 (UTC)

It also needs larger lead, references, expantion of section 'Beethoven's musical style and innovations' from subarticle, expantion or merge of one sentence section 'Beethoven as fictional character' - and this is just for starters. It needs much work. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 00:16, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I'd suggest splitting the "Life and work" section into two; one covering his life and the other covering his work. More information is needed on his life – some easy things might be better explanations of his health problems and his financial problems. Right now the article says "He often had financial troubles", but fails to address the reasons why. After all, this guy was writing tons of music; why wasn't he rich? Also, "Beethoven was often in poor health" needs elaboration. Childhood sicknesses? I seem to recall seeing some sort of listing of his infirmities; he had alot of them. How did they affect his work? Additionally, the paragraphs on Beethoven's early, middle and late work are all incredibly short. These should be developed and made into the work section mentioned above. In general, more information needs to be pulled from Beethoven: life and work, Beethoven's musical style and innovations, Beethoven's religious beliefs and Beethoven as fictional character and placed in this article. --Spangineer ∞ 18:57, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)
Consensus on the talk page was *not* to infest the main Beethoven page with trivia by placing accounts of the fictional Beethovens into it. At best that article ought to be a "see also". (Actually, I have been bold and made it so.) Otherwise I think like most of the broad topics in music it needs work; the topic is so sprawling that no one wants to tackle improving the cohesiveness of the article. (Note: I am a musician, but by no means a Beethoven scholar.) I also agree with the "life and work" section split. Particularly if it meant an expansion of the discussion of his musical development through the various periods of his output; actually, each period should get its own section.Mindspillage (spill yours?) 15:52, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Tyrannosaurus rex[edit]

non-self nomination This article is brilliantly written and has had a peer review before. Tons of information at a very high standard. I believe the article is now ready to be FA! Comments? Banana04131 01:04, 20 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • I would remove the many red links that are in the article. Ramallite (talk) 17:06, 21 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Done! I guess this no longer makes it a complete non-self nomination. Anyway, any more comments? Suggestions? Banana04131 01:53, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • A lot of the text looks too teleological, and some may be original research, but I don't think this really mars the article.
  • Some statements may be outdated (I'm not too sure). For example, is it the most recent evidence that suggests that T.Rex wasn't a fast runner? I though that was older opinion, while modern opinion states that it may indeed have been faster than previously thought.
  • What does "although probably not as warm blooded as modern mammals" mean? Are there different degrees of warm-bloodedness? Similarly, what does "the creature's homeothermic strategy might have changed at times in its life cycle" mean?
  • Comments like "temporarily supporting the front body like the struts of a detatched truck trailer" might be a bit en-encyclopedic, it just comes out at you from nowhere.
  • The second half of the article seems much better written scientifically, while the first half has a more 'general public' feel.
  • I've done a few minor changes here and there but welcome any comments or complaints. I think it's great and almost there, just needs a bit more tweaking.
Ramallite (talk) 02:47, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Specifically, is their any thing that struck you as sounding like original reasearch? Banana04131 04:31, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Keep in mind these are just my thoughts, and you don't necessarily have to agree with them. Examples of original research may include:
  • "T. rex will very likely remain a subject of ongoing scientific research and popular culture."
  • "It should be remembered that most modern day carnivores are not exclusively scavengers or active predators. This was probably true of T. rex as well." (This one may or may not be OR)
  • "Powerful forelimbs are not necessary for all living predators, crocodiles and birds of prey like the Secretary Bird being prime examples. "
There are many other examples where it's difficult to say whether these statements are sourced information or are coming from an editor who him/herself has a good knowledge of the material (which would be considered original research). Like I said before, these are not things that mar the article and should probably stay as they make it more interesting, but it would be something to keep in mind in case anybody else objects here on this page. I'll continue tweaking it as time permits.Ramallite (talk) 22:57, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for your comments! I traced the warm-or-cold blooded paragraph back to the editor who wrote it over a year ago. I have left a note on their talk page but if they don't get back to me in a bit, I'll ask the Reference Desk. Banana04131 00:24, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm going to move this FAC. Banana04131 17:51, 24 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

What is this page actually intended to be about? Engineers, engineering, education of engineers, history of elcrtricity etc?. Until someone agrees on this it will remain a complete oversize mess mish mash as it is now--Light current 02:19, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Electrical engineering[edit]

One key thing is this article is missing references. Other than references, I'm looking to see what else can be done with this article. Cburnett 07:57, Apr 24, 2005 (UTC)

It could be deleted! and redirected to a better one--Light current 02:16, 9 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly also needs a history and development (Tesla, Maxwell, Farady, Gauss; Benjamin Franklin's kite experiments) as well as a brief overview of various notable contributions (ties into history & development). Cburnett 08:35, Apr 24, 2005 (UTC)
I have to disagree somewhat. I don't think this page needs a history on the discovery of the properties of electricity. That's already covered on the electricity page. — RJH 18:50, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Good point, but surely there's room for a history of the profession or, in other words, the history of the engineering of electricity. A lot of the people in the Electricity#History section were, for the lack of a better word, tinkerers of electricity: experimenting with electricity for its own sake instead of harnessing it for practical usage (aka engineering). I guess maybe a survey is a more apt name instead. Stuff like Wardenclyffe Tower. I guess I don't know enough about my own profession to write this section though. :) Cburnett 20:16, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)
I have a few relevant books that discuss the history of electrical engineering as a discipline, as opposed to the inventors and discoverers. Now I have another thing to do on my list...here's hoping its a rainy weekend. --Wtshymanski 22:33, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
You say in the lead that the field "encompasses many subfields" – some of those ought to be mentioned in the lead. I agree that a history of the profession is essential. Electronics engineering redirects to Electrical engineering, so perhaps better explanation of those terms would be necessary. Similarly, instead of/in addition to talking about which universities combine the discipline with other related disciplines, perhaps more information could be given regarding the traditional distinctions between the fields, and why those universities chose to combine them. More info is needed on broadcast engineering, and short paragraphs throughout the article should probably be further developed (see paragraphs in the sections "Instrumentation engineering", "Digital signal processing", and "Control systems" especially). --Spangineer ∞ 18:45, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)

Windows 2000[edit]

I need some help with the todo list. Also help with the "Architecture" section. There is a LOT more info that we need to get this to featured article status! - Ta bu shi da yu 03:46, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I've dealt with the architecture section now. What do people think? Should be properly referenced. - Ta bu shi da yu 08:18, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Comment. I'm a sucker for sub-section structure simplicity. It is possible to combine some of the subsections under "Architecture"? - Peter Isotalo 13:40, May 16, 2005 (UTC)
The subsections are all quite massive and quite discrete. I was going to make each of the executive systems a seperate subsection, but realised this was not the right way of doing things. However, the object manager is a core part of the system that all executive subsystems must go through to create objects so have kept this. However, I'm quite open to suggestions. How do you suggest we modify the structure? - Ta bu shi da yu 02:52, 17 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Image:Windows 2000 architecture.PNG really dominates the article and, IMO, is rather distracting as is. There are also a great many stub sections that should be combined into larger sub sections. This will reduce the size of the TOC (which is a bit overwhelming by itself; esp given the size of this article). Getting close otherwise. --mav 00:34, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Will look into reducing the size of that image. Which stub sections should be coalesced? - Ta bu shi da yu 00:38, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Any section that contains one paragraph or less (3 sentences are needed to make a real paragraph :) should be given a real critical look as to whether or not it really does need its own section. If that is the case, then the section may need to be expanded. --mav 00:57, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • OK, fair enough. I've coalesced the User mode section to one section, however I'm not prepared to coalesce the microkernel and hardware abstraction layer into one section. The kernel mode needs a structure that breaks up the various components - this is the only real way of giving the structure some sort of sense to the reader. - Ta bu shi da yu 01:12, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • OK, maybe this structure might be better. Have a look and tell me what you think! The article is still a long way from being finished. - Ta bu shi da yu 02:27, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          • Much better. :) A little bit of fleshing out, esp in the ==Core functionality== section should do it. --mav 11:48, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
            • I concur with mav. Looks a lot better now. / Peter Isotalo 11:57, May 18, 2005 (UTC)
              • Cool. I have started to flesh out core functionality. Perhaps this should be called "Common functionality"? I say this because there is still stuff that must be written about Windows 2000 Server, like a very brief description of Active Directory, DFS and RRAS must be written about. - Ta bu shi da yu 16:29, 21 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Regarding the image; could it be a little bit more exciting, with some open windows, or some of the helper applications running (notepad, calculator and so forth)? I understand that it can't be too distracting, but it looks awfully bland. Compare it with the image for Windows XP or Windows_3.1, for example, although this latter image is perhaps a little too busy. At the moment, the picture for Windows 2000 is just a blank desktop with the start menu, very similar to the image for Windows 98 (perhaps this is intentional). I'm still running '98, so I can't really help.-Ashley Pomeroy 21:13, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Erg... I don't have a copy of Windows 2000 myself! I run Windows XP at work... Ta bu shi da yu 23:32, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Update: have now almost done all the NTFS5 section. Needs to have something on sparse files, if someone wants to fill this in - with footnotes, if you please :-) - then I wouldn't object. Note that I've edited in the sections I think we need. - Ta bu shi da yu 19:04, 21 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Update 2: OK, I have almost (almost!) completed this article. There are several more things to do:

  • Fill in "Disability support"
  • Add info about the recovery console to the "Utilities" section
  • Fill in the "DFS" section
  • Fill in the "Volume Fault Tolerance" section
  • Double check the "Versions" section - the Datacenter bit doesn't seem quite right to me...
  • Research the TCO section
  • Add a very brief history section in front of the "Architecture" section

Yep, the article is pretty massive. Not much I can about this though... Windows 2000 is a pretty vast system! I'm not even sure I'm going to add in the networking bits. - Ta bu shi da yu 12:25, 22 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Now the article is getting too big to handle. Once you are done expanding it will be time to look at the article and see what can be spun off into daughter articles and be replaced by a summary here. Getting real close to the director's cut stage. :) --mav 12:38, 22 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Ya :-) I don't know how good at spinning off to the daughter articles though... - Ta bu shi da yu 23:40, 22 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Update 3: so close now! However, I need to know what people think about adding info on networking support and terminal services. These are pretty integral to Windows 2000... but the article is now almost twice the recommended size (it's now about 58-59KB!) Not sure what to do about that... also, the article is in desperate need of a thorough copyedit for grammar and spelling mistakes. Also, the lead section also needs to be totally rewritten. - Ta bu shi da yu 08:23, 23 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Portugal[edit]

I need constructive ideas for this article, keep it informative, and what should be changed. Plus, you can also help on making the English of the article more comprehensive. thanks to the one who is willing to help. -Pedro 22:08, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • I saw this go through FAC, and I though many of the critisicms were unfair. I think the best option is to take a look at other countires that have been featured, like South Africa and Cambodia (I think this article is better than the featured article on Belgium) and make sure that this article covers the same set of topics with similar depth, this may involve making some sections more summarised and increasing the length of others. I'd get rid of the bolded internal links in text, and get a native english speaker to do a good copy edit to make sure flow, punctuation and spelling etc are all good.--nixie 01:11, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'll try to merge the best of both. -Pedro 09:03, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've changed it. See it please. -Pedro 11:51, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Much, much more summarizing is needed. See South Africa and Cambodia for examples. --mav 14:02, 12 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I consider the removal of information a bad thing, but i'll try to make them more consistent and reduced. But I'll also try to maintain the info. That articles have also serious problems. An encyclopedia article aim is to give information and it not to have summaries, bad structure of information and nice pics.-Pedro 12:01, 13 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Not removal, but moving detail to daughter articles. The longer an article is, the less likely the average reader will read it all. We must summarize the main points and provide a way for the reader to choose to zoom into the level of detail they need. An article in the 35 to 45 KB range can do that in this case (as shown by the two FA example country articles). --mav 15:00, 13 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Imagism[edit]

I've been working on this on-and-off for a while, as an offshoot of Modernist poetry in English and The Cantos. Now I need your suggestions for further improvements. Filiocht | Blarneyman 13:20, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)

It could probably use a summary sketch of the Imagist poetic program in the lead section (probably just a condensed version of the manifesto's three points), so readers don't have to wait till the middle of the article to see what made Imagism distinctive as poetry rather than as history. Apart from that the article looks really good, and I hope you'll list it as a featured article candidate so I can support it. -- Rbellin|Talk 20:47, 2 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
You may want to consider including a list of key pulications with ISBNs at the end of the article so that readers can easily refer to it for subsequent reading, otherwise it looks really good. --nixie 01:44, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Picky little things: Romantic, not "romantic" in the lead; "'less rhetorical'" rather than "'les rhetorical'" in the Pound quote.
Approach and content: No problems at all. However, in the history of Pound's view of Imagism, I had read and believe (from Donald Hall, I think) that Pound was deeply inspired by the Armory Show of 1913 to create an avant-garde movement that was a print Armory Show. In addition to the idea of a single volume that would shock and dissect bourgeoise expectations of narrative verse and moralizing verse the way the Armory Show exploded narrative, moral, and mimetic art, there was the idea of each volume being a portable exhibition -- a salon between covers. Additionally, Pound got the emphasis on the thing as thing from Cubism's opening up of objects in space and time. While this article isn't on Pound (admirably so, as I had no idea that Imagism existed before him, much less after him), perhaps some indication of the importance of the Armory Show would be called for?
I'm a bit nervous about including this until I get more documentation; after all, Pound was in London at the time. Similarly, I'm tempted to add more on the importance of Pound's relationship with Yeats nad his wish to emulate the Rhymer's club, but much of what I could write would constitute "original research". Can you give me a source in Hall's writings? Filiocht | Blarneyman 13:29, May 4, 2005 (UTC)
The song I always sing: context! What we today simply don't understand about poetry in 1913 is how monstrously moralizing, pedantic, demotic, and heavy-footed it was. That was the age that valued Longfellow above all, Tennyson next. It's the age that had a thousand poetasters in the newspapers writing wretchedly about local train wrecks. Coincidentally, it is also the time when poetry possibly had its widest audience. We have internalized the metaphysical-revivalist Eliot and the Cubist-inspired Pound (and Stephens) and the Futurist-inspired Pound and the Zen-rummaging Williams so much that we can't see what's so thoroughly shocking and radical about emphasizing faces in the crowd petals on a wet, black bough (or a red wheelbarrow glazed with rain water). It would be good to have a sentence or two that establishes the Greatest Hits of 1912 to show the contrast the Imagists made. Other than that, I've got nothing to suggest to make the article any better, because it's already fantastic and precious. Geogre 02:51, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
There is only the briefest mention of tanka and haiku without any indication of why the Imagists were interested in these Japanese poetry forms, or how they were influenced by them, or how they even knew about them (since the earliest English translations of Japanese haiku were in the 1980s). I think that I read that Ezra Pound found out about haiku from a French book of haiku translation. Would it be worth mentioning the influence of haiku on Pound's "In a Station of the Metro"? BlankVerse ∅ 09:34, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have tried to address these suggestions; thanks everyone. nixie, I'm not sure what you mean by "key publications"; the works of individual poets are usually listed on their own article pages. For anyone wanting a general overview, the Jones anthology in the References section is the place to start. Filiocht | Blarneyman 08:04, May 4, 2005 (UTC)

History of the Grand Canyon area[edit]

I've already used a few different references for this and think it is getting close to FA quality. But I'd like to see what others think still needs to be done. --mav 22:33, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • Very good overall. The huge number of redlinks leads me to believe an awful lot of those are not really worth their own article. Is every person, business, and land survey associated with this really notable? The only other problem I saw at all was the large number of fragmented, short paragraphs which makes the flow poor. Judging by your other articles' narrative arc, you know how to do that well, so please do. - Taxman 18:58, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)
I'll work on the prose and admit this article has not gone through a final copyedit. See below about the red links. --mav 12:06, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I agree with the above comments regarding the high # of redlinks (fixing typos and wikilinks corrected some of this) and fragmented paragraphs. I'd suggest considering removing links for items such as the Powell Expeditions or making some sort of reasonable tie to an existing article, unless you plan on writing new articles for these! There's also a bit of overlap with info on the existing Grand Canyon page, you might want to link or combine this...-Pkuchinski 04:05, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The history section at Grand Canyon will be replaced by a summary of the history of... article once that article reaches a more or less finished state. The Powell Expeditions and many of the people associated with the Grand Canyon's history are very much so important enough to have articles on Wikipedia; the current lack of such articles is a reflection of our poor coverage in this area of history, not due to the encyclopedic merit of the topics. I'd therefore prefer for most of those terms to remain linked. Not advertising our lack of coverage in those areas will not encourage those areas to be filled. For example, almost every link in the element boxes, such as the one at hydrogen, were red links when I first created the standard WikiProject Elements table in 2002. It took about 6 months for most of those red links to be filled. --mav 12:06, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Copyedit done. For now I've reduced the red link load - at least until the more important items (like the Powell Expeditions and the Fred Harvey Company) get filled. --mav 01:35, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The article looks really great, two small things, a picture of the Grand Canyon in the lead would be good (something like the William H. Holmes lithograph or something else from the Library of Congress), it'd make it easier on the eye, and you really should include a link to your other excellent article Geology of the Grand Canyon area somwhere in the lead. --nixie 05:38, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Great ideas! I'll do that. :) --mav 17:15, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Done. --mav 02:11, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Welding[edit]

I've been working on this article periodically for more than a month, and it's definitely come a long way. I've got a few more ideas on things to cover, such as joint design and weldability of different materials (steel, iron, stainless steel, aluminum, etc.), but I thought it would be helpful to get some other suggestions. Any ideas? --Spangineer ∞ 01:18, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)

  • Your article looks good. The only ideas that spring to mind are welding under unusual conditions (underwater, in a vacuum, outer space, &c.) and perhaps the future of welding with regard to the expanding use of composite materials and nanotechnology manufacturing techniques. — RJH 16:56, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • Thanks for the good ideas. I added a short section on welding under unusual conditions, and created an article on underwater welding to complement it. I'll add some more to that section as I get more info on it and find more sources on open-air welding. Also, did you know of any welding applications that are done in a vacuum that is not outer space? I lumped the two together, since I couldn't think of anything (except what is normally done for electron beam welding). I'll also look into the future of welding thing – that one might be a bit more difficult, but I'll see what my university's library has. --Spangineer ∞ 19:55, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)
      • No, I'm not aware of any other non-space vacuum welding applications. Perhaps inert gas welding then, for materials that are prone to ignite in oxygen? (If you haven't already covered that.) Thanks again. — RJH 17:35, 4 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Rebecca Clarke[edit]

This isn't a novel-length article, but I think it's a good size relative to her importance. I'd like general suggestions for improvement and an idea of what the general reader would want to know that isn't covered. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 01:42, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It really needs a photo, preferably more than one. Since http://www.rebeccaclarke.org/ is licenced under Creative Commons, they'd probably be happy to provide us with photos if we asked them.-gadfium 05:18, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Duly noted; I'll make a request. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 17:31, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
You could probably peruse the text and find a few more words to link, such as sonata. Also is there anything about the Rebecca Clarke Society that would be worth adding to this page in a separate section? But overall it looks good. Thanks. — RJH 16:01, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Ah, good idea; I hadn't thought of giving the Society a section but without it I'd've had a hard time finding material for the article! Mindspillage (spill yours?) 17:31, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography has a decent entry for her, you might find it useful to flesh out the life setion a little bit more, if you don't have access leave a msg on my talk page. --nixie 11:35, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Thank you for the tip; I don't have electronic access but I'm across the street from a library, so I've no excuse. :-) Mindspillage (spill yours?) 18:20, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've also since corresponded with Liane Curtis of the Rebecca Clarke Society (thank you, RJH; she appreciated the coverage), who has suggested several helpful updates and corrections and asserted that the images now included are free to use. I am pulling this PR request and listing the article on FAC; thank you for your comments! Mindspillage (spill yours?) 18:20, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Archibald Maule Ramsay[edit]

I have it in mind to nominate for Featured Article status but I wanted to put it here first as it is a bit of a linear story. Ramsay (1894-1955) was a British Conservative MP who became anti-semitic in the late 1930s and was interned during World War II. Does anyone have any info about the periods for which little is known? Dbiv 21:21, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • You have only three sources listed, which is a little less than ideal. Also, it would be nice to know which facts in the article came from which source. You could do this, for example, using footnotes.
  • His final work seems to be an anti-semitic raving yet you just metion that it's his "autobiography". Perhaps the whole article needs a little bit more clear on such issues.
  • It would be nice to have detailed references from Hansard on e.g. his parlimentary questions
Mozzerati 19:58, 2005 Apr 3 (UTC)

The passage which makes reference to the 'controllers of parliament' suggests a possible element of bias.

Mitch Hedberg[edit]

"In 2005, Hedberg's drug use seemed to spiral out of control. At a performance in Phoenix, Arizona in February, Hedberg nearly collapsed on stage and asked the audience for drugs, which he then ingested onstage."

I think a statement of this nature needs to have attribution if it's going to be on this page. I can't find any mention of such an anecdote in any stories about Hedberg's death. Out of respect for the deceased, I don't want it to remain on the page without attribution just because it seems to fit with what we know about Hedberg's problems with drug abuse. Savetheclocktower 21:44, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • The "performance" link on the Mitch Hedberg page points to an external site that appears to confirm the statement. — RJH 17:20, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • There are two sites on the talk page in fact which confirm this, as well as several others I've run across in the meantime. I don't see why it necessarily needs to be linked on the page itself.--TheGrza 17:57, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)....(later) Also, Edits should never be made "out of respect for the deceased", but with truth, accuracy, meaningfulness, and possibly "The American Way".--TheGrza 18:01, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)

Golden Gate Bridge[edit]

See Disputed section on talk page re: Most Photographed mjlodge 18:20, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • please provide more references
  • please don't use bare numbered links, at least give link titles and preferably:
  • please consider using footnotes to connect your references to the text they back up.
  • there is some repetition in the article (we are told it was the longest in two different places)
  • please provide more structure. Most of the article is basically a long introduction.

I think the comment from Frommers is appropriate. I don't think it's right, but one of the points of interest is the level of local pride in the bridge. Mozzerati 20:18, 2005 Apr 3 (UTC)

  • Only one reference? There are many books about the bridge, starting with Strauss's official work on the bridge published by the bridge district. Second, there's nothing here about the financing for the bridge (only the WPA's role), the bridge district that operates it, or the ferries subsidized by its tolls. Third, there's no mention of the bridge in connection to earthquakes or the work done in recent years to improve its stability in an earthquake. Fourth, there should be mention of its height vis-a-vis the Navy and the shipping lanes. What is there is good, however. PedanticallySpeaking 17:46, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)

Nineteen Eighty-Four[edit]

There's some great info in here, as well as a lot of interpretation of the novel which is interesting. I just feel the article does not flow enough for it to be featured. --Alexs letterbox 06:07, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I don't have the time right now to do a detailed read through, but two things stick out. First, the lead section is probably too short for an article of this length. Maybe add more synopsis, more interpretation, or both. I suggest shortening the first little paragraph on the title and moving that into the lead. Try to keep the spoiler warning where it is (that is, don't delve into plot in the lead). Also, the repeated mention to "the original working title" and the like is rather annoying. Also, nothing needs to be bolded outside the first sentence of the lead. I'll try to take a more in-depth look later. --Spangineer ∞ 04:28, Apr 1, 2005 (UTC)
Agree with Spangineer. Lead is several times to short. I wouldn't shorten the other paragrahps, lead is supposed to be a summary, not a place for new info. There are few elinks in the main body, move them to elink or note section and link with Wikipedia:Footnotes if necessary. Finally I believe there is an important section amiss - on books, films, etc. that where inspired by 1984. While I am happy Newspeak has its own section, Big Brother deserves one as well, being perhaps even more famous term coined in this book. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 12:31, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Goldsteinism is obviously a metaphor for Trostkyism, with Big Brother for Stalin. Why no mention of this?Ogg 17:46, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I would say that is POV. Those were common interpretations, but I believe Orwell did not have them specifically in mind. In fact, it is often argued that he simply took what was happening in many other countries to the logical extreme in the novel. Is there any surviving material on Orwell's intent and motivations that addresses this? - Taxman 21:22, Apr 7, 2005 (UTC)
If those are common interpretations (and they certainly are), they're worthy of mention. If you have evidence to the contrary, that's also worthy of inclusion. —Wahoofive | Talk 23:53, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Now that I think of it either the Cliff notes, or Sparks notes had something in their intro about Well's own notes about his writings. I don't have access to either now, but the right one could clear up this point. - Taxman 23:24, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

Armenian Genocide[edit]

I am having difficulty convincing people I am dealing with me to discuss things.

  • They claim lots of baseless things.
  • Personal attacks directed towards me (hidden agenda, being a revisionsist(whatever that is) being a troll (whatever that is as well, vandalist, and others).
  • I have no success in editing the article. I had no success adding, modifying anything in the article, at a point even spelling corrections were reverted (claimed was vandalising)
  • I had no success making them talk. They opose anything that puts a level of uncertainty to their version of the article.
  • Article is currently not neutral enough.

Cool Cat My Talk 01:26, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Coolcat want the article to present the two sides as equaly valid, he want the article to suggest this, and claims that this is what neutrality is. Coolcat introduce himself iv every articles involving turkey, directly or indiractly and inject his POV in them claiming that he is actualy neutralising them. Coolcat has never proposed to discuss the issue, but rather requested the article to present two views 50-50. He'd want to delete who says what, he want to delete the fact that most academics support one position against the others etc. Coolcat has even deleted an entry that is recognised by both parties under the pretext of neutralising the article, while he himself admitted not knowing much about the topic. Coolcat has even started a war in two other genocide related entries because they include the Armenian cases. I have proposed to present two views, one under the turkish government banner, it did not satify him and he actualy was the one deleting it, because he don't want to present who believes what, but rather want to present to views as equaly valid, which in fact is a suggestion of equality and is POV.
I have asked him countless numbers of times, if he was ready to drop his request to present to different but equaly valid propositions, he refused to answer, diverting and diverting. The only reason why the article is still stuck in non-progress is because of Coolcat. Fadix 01:43, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I was the one who added the banner, I was the one who removed it. I was the one constantly trying to start a discussin, you were the one who declared I had a hidden agenda and you will ignore me. Cat chi? 01:55, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
That's untrue. You've been the one allerting over 10 members, lying about me, because you were not interested in the discussion. When people were hijacking the article, and even deleting Armenian genocide links, you had no problem with it. But when the article quality has augmented, it was not pro Turkish government as you would like it to be. You started editing the article without discussing. You did that over and over again and you've gone as far as posting in peoples talk pages, one after the other, countless numbers of people lying about me. I requested you to discuss about the issue in the talk page, but you did not want to hear about it. You wanted 50-50, a presentation of two positions as equaly valid, and deleting any indications regarding the fact that most academics support one position against the other. Now that others became involved and have seen your clear biases. You've started again lying an even as going as far as suggesting that we are all the same person. You are a troll, sorry, you don't help your cases here. You have admitted not knowing the subject, you have even admitted denying the Holocaust, you got involved in every entries indirectly or directly involving Turkey, you have even participated in editing references regarding the Armenian genocide in other Wikipedia enteries. You are a troll, nothing more Coolcat. Wait till other members see into your games. And now exposed you try fooling other members into believing that you've been trying to discuss about the issue, and that the other party is just one person behind multiple aliases. But by believing that others might believe this, you are actualy underestimating the readers intelligence, and those readers might just not like that. Fadix 02:10, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps you want Wikipedia:Requests for comment? 119 01:39, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I am working on it. Cat chi? 01:55, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
User:Coolcat is not the only one considering Wikipedia:Requests for comment; I welcome review of the article by a wider audience and comments on User:Coolcat's conduct on the talk page. — Davenbelle 02:16, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)


I would like to say that I am relatively new to this discussion (and to Wikipedia) and other then scanning some of the history to see what has been going on I have had no vested interest or involvement. Upon review of the article and the related discussions -what immediatly became obvious - was the insistance of this (admitedly ignorant on the subject matter) Coolcat person to present questionable material and spurious claims that are not generally supported or believed - as equal to the material that reflects the common understanding of events and which also represents the accepted positions and beliefs that are overwhelmingly held by recognized academics and historians. Is this the proper apprach for an Encyclopedia whose mission it is to present facts and a clear summary of the issue? When Coolcat has been confronted in great detail by several parties - including myself - that there is a grave problem with his suggested approach - he immediatly claims that we are attempting to curtail free speech and now is (falsely) claiming that we are all the same person. This seems to me to be utter paranoia and fanatical commitment to presenting only ones own agenda. He refuses to accept the viewpoints of any others on this issue. And what he is attempting to do in regards to the Armenian Genocide presentation is equivilant to Holocaust deniers being given equal time in presenting material that attempts to disparage the Jews to either deny or justify the Holocaust. How - I ask - is such an approach legitimate in regards to the Armenian Genocide? - where it would be considered practically criminal - and certainly not at all accurate or acceptable in any other like presentation? --THOTH 21:03, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • please have a look at how Bombing of Dresden in World War II has been improved by providing full and detailed references for facts down to the page level (you could even consider paragraph). It's very valuable to be totally clear about who are the sources for pieces of information. IMHO the best system currently available for this is Wikipedia:Footnote3. It makes things clearer when we have a comparision between "the UN commission for genocide in it's document of 20th Jan 1973 stated that" and "a guy called Jeff I met in a bar last night" for different facts which contradict each other. See also Wikipedia:Cite your sourcesMozzerati 20:32, 2005 Apr 3 (UTC)
True, and this is what I did here Ottoman_Armenian_Population. But the same can not be done in the Armenian genocide entry, until people stop with their vandalism. Do you expect me to spent hours and hours of footnoting and documentations, when I know nationalists will vandalize the article? I want you to honestly answer this. Fadix 21:50, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

In response to Cool Cat's original post on this page - I just want to say he has no room to say that article is not neutral enough! He has a "feeling" it isn't, but he admits he has read very little on the topic, he has not even bothered to educate himself before going on a massive crusade to "neutralize" the article. But, in the case of genocide, there is no "two sides" to the story. There are reasons why they take place - usually nationalism, religious fanaticism (many Armenians were given the option to convert to Islam rather than die), fear, jealousy... but that doesn't excuse it or make it two sided. I think Cool Cat needs to do a lot more reading before he can decide what is and isn't a neutral, factual article. Certainly he can contribute in the meantime, but he seems to be on a massive mission to monitor all Armenia - Turkey articles and make sure Turkey looks good no matter what, at least that's how it appears on the surface. I find it incredible that he feels justified in asking that we prove the entire genocide to him, when he hasn't bothered to read up on it himself. Imagine him doing that on the Holocaust article! --RaffiKojian 05:37, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I think RaffiKojian is clearly right: genocide is not a topic where are "two sides with two opinions". This is reason why Holocaust revisionism is prosecuted in several European countries. When genocide occurs there are organisers of terror and their victims. And genocide always finishes with total denial that genocide was performed (see genocide watch). Look at some neonazis who denies Holocaust now. I think it is reason why standard Wikipedia rules can not be used here, because of POVing of history here looks like POVing of murder (One POV: murder of kids is bad. Other POV: murder of kids is good. What do you think? Both sides should be presented equally?). (Sorry, I have not registered yet) --213.197.128.150 16:59, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Like I said, people want to push their views. There is me alone oposing them as people who think it wasnt genocide were scared away. I admit I knew less before I made some reserch, my original ideal was making fadix reword things, but he instead reverted parts I commented out for his review. And was down hill from there. The very clasification of genocide is disputed. Turks claim it was a consequence of war, I believe. Armenians declare it as state-sponsored exterimination plan. Users so far failed to properly discuss anything. This is a request for peer review. Meaning I want a neutral aproach. If you cant prove your case how do I know you arent making it up? Cat chi? 10:50, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Please imagine that you know almost nothing about Holocaust. And you read article about Holocaust and try to POVize it by questioning Holocaust at all. So, what kind of reaction will you have? And what will you say about users who will resist to your POVizations? Will you say that those users "want to push their views"? And will you try saying that irvingianists proved that holocaust may be hoax, so there should be different opinions presented? I think you are not right in this case, because all the thing seems to be clearly provided by Fadix, who is citing not only armenian, but turkish side too. Genocide is the thing where POVization should not be easily wellcomed, simply because of victims allways lack power to rise the truth. For example, compare Turkian possibilities to deny genocide to Armenian possibilities to rise this question? They even are not comparable. And please, let me give you peace of advice: such moderations in such sensitive questions as genocide are really insulting to people who are somehow related to victims, and even when you simply do not know some facts and simply want to get proof of them, it can be insulting. This does not mean that there is no need to have facts, but please try to understand others and try to search for information by yourself, instead of simply denying. --Gvorl 12:56, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
You claimed recently that you knew more about the event that you wanted to picture it up, make your mind please. So you recently researched about it. OK then, please provide me the books you have read, I can provide here over a hundred book, and countless numbers of essays I did read about genocides. This is not about “proving” as you've said before(you were never consistent with your own words in the first place.), it is about writing a neutral article, nothing more, nothing less.
As you wanting a neutral approach, why do you still claim this up, when you know that there is hardly anyone that believes this anymore, and when you know they don't? Fadix 03:18, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Fadix your fanatic aproach does not help. You created an aurora of a domminant unquestionable fact. Its not as widely accepted as you think it is. You constantly talk about me. Tell me what was the motive of Turks while "massacring" Armenians? What? you never answered. SUCH a fundemental question. Cat chi? 12:04, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"Fanatic approach" is what you have displayed Coolcat, don't mistake your behavour with those of others. As for my answers, there has been countless answers, you've archived one of those hours after I've posted it to hide it under the carpet. Fadix 01:49, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I have not yet got involved in this discussion. However there is no reason why we have to have a 50/50 view. Most wiki articles that deal with massacres, atrocities, etc DO actually go down one side. Do you think we should have a 50/50 view of the Holocaust? Absolutely not. We can discuss the Turkish arguments, but it is insane to insist that the Turkish view be given just as much room as the Armenian one. Do we let the neo-Nazis and anti-Semites have their 50% say over the Holocaust? Look, just accept that Turkey did bad things. Did the ENTIRE Armenian people rise up? No, only some were involved with the Allies. Greedy and intolerant people used that as an excuse to rob and hurt Armenians who didn't do anything wrong. John Smith's 12:26, 23 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]


John your points are well taken. In fact however you might be suprised at the degree to which the Armenians were not a threat - were not taking any seditious action and in fact did very little or nothing to warrent any type of violent acts against them. Let me leave you with this exeprt from a report made by the German Ambasador during this period back to his government - it is quite enlightening concerning the situation that existed at this time and I think completely disarms any of the current Turkish claims (which mirror the propoganda at the time being used to justify and obscure the barbaric actions being taken against the Armenain people at the time...and the parallels with the jewish situation in WW2 are really overwhelming):

exerpts from German Ambassador Von Wangenheim's April 15 1915 report back to Germany:

German archives # DE/PA-AA/R14085

"Pera, 15 April 1915 From the news from East Anatolia it is obvious that the relations between the Turkish Muslim population and the Armenians, which were already tense beforehand, have worsened even more in the course of the past few months. The mutual mistrust is growing and dominating the people and official circles, both in the interior as well as in the capital.

The complaints about the alleged and actual persecution which the Armenians are suffering as a result of the war are increasing in number and volume; on the other hand, they are being accused of sympathising with the Empire's enemies...

Each side is revoking the accusations of the other party as unfounded, or the blame for such events is being put on the others. There only seems to be agreement on one point: that the Armenians have given up their ideas of a revolution since the introduction of the Constitution and that there is no organisation for such a revolt.

Without doubt, excesses and acts of terror have taken place against the Armenians in eastern Anatolia and, in general, the events have probably been related correctly by the Armenian side, even if they were somewhat exaggerated.

For the events in these areas, the following are being made responsible by the Armenian side:

1. The irregulars and bands of marauders organised in military fashion and bearing the title Militia; these are being blamed for numerous plunders, murders, for robbery and other acts committed against the Armenian population of the country.

2. The clubs affiliated with the Comité Union et Progrès, in which many dishonest elements are said to be present. It is said that these clubs, in particular the one in Erzerum, have set up formal proscription lists, and a series of political murders which were committed on various respected Armenians since December of last year are attributed to their activities. It is added that the Ministry of the Interior is said to have been warned some time ago by the Armenians about the activities of these clubs which have already played a disastrous role during the events at Adana in 1909.

3. Various civil servants, in particular the governor of Musch (Vilayet Bitlis) and the Vali of Van. It is stated amongst other things that some 2000 Muslim families from the Russian occupied district of Alaschgerd, who are hardly in a position to pay for their own keep, have been accommodated in the Armenian villages of Musch; the Armenian farmers were being used like draft animals to transport ammunition and provisions and many of them died from this inhumane treatment; the least of them, it is said hardly a quarter, returned to their villages. [B]'In two districts of Van formal butcheries took place under the connivance of the Kaymakams'[/B].

it is emphasised that the Armenians – a fact which, one might note, is contested by the Turks - despite all the suffering they have been subjected to, are behaving loyally and correctly, but at least passively. However, under a continued, systematic persecution it can be feared that this peaceful attitude may take a turn to the contrary; the parties loyal to the government, such as the Daschnakzutiun, would no longer be able to hold back the masses and there would be a danger that, if the Russians advanced, not only the Armenians in the invaded area would go over to the side of the enemy, but also possible insurrections would be aroused behind the backs of the Turkish Army.

The appeal to the nobile officium of the German representation in Turkey is understandable following the development of the Armenian question, but especially now when, as a result of the war, the Triple Entente is eliminated as protectors. But an attempt at complying with this appeal and taking on the role that England after the Berlin Congress, and most recently Russia, have played as protector of the Armenians, would be regarded by the Porte as an unjustified and annoying intervention in their internal political affairs. The moment is even less suitable since the Porte has just made the effort to eliminate the protective rights, which other foreign powers have exercised over Turkish subjects. The Porte must also have respect for the national awareness of the Turkish elements, which has drastically increased over the past few years.

As far as the considerations otherwise presented by the Armenian side are concerned, they deserve serious attention.


I also believe that the increase in the number of German consulates in the so-called Armenian provinces, initiated in this connection, would not fulfil its purpose. It is probable that the Porte would see in this the attempt on our part to have their own authorities supervised...a procedure of this kind would have the consequence of setting the authorities against the Armenians even worse than ever and, therefore, of achieving results of just the opposite kind."

So from the above one can see that violent actions are already occuring against the Armenians (as we know by centrally directed Special Organization irregular units as part of a grand plan) with no mention of the reverse (Armenians are amazingly docile and quite considering - with individuals fleeing and deserting to the other side only) - which surely would have been mentioned by Turkey's ally it would seem. Also there is concern that the Turkish population and leadership is increasingly anti-Armenian and prone to take violent anti-Armenian action - because of the perception of foreign Armenians fighting with the Russians and the potential that Ottoman Armenians would show sympathy to the Russians if Russia were to acheive victory. And as an added note I will say that we do later see this in addition to Armenian, Cossak and Russian units commiting atrocites against Muslim civilians in areas that come under there control - however - prior to the decision of deportation and genocide and prior to the CUP organizing the special organization to sen dout irregulars (released from jails, and from the Muslim refugee and Kurdish populations) - we see no appreciable Armenian violence against Turks and certainly no armed rebellion of any kind. --THOTH 00:45, 10 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]


Why 50-50 Does Not Work[edit]

I can understand why a 50-50 unbiased approach makes sense. But, the concept is inherently flawed. Many things cannot be proven as undisputable fact, yet there is usually a more probable case. For instance, the THEORY of evolution. It is only a theory. It has not been proven. But, there is significant evidence supporting it. So much, in fact, that for academics to suggest that other possibilities should be equally weighted is absurd. The same may be said of any number of things. Einstein's theory of relativity, for instance, would never be discussed as equally likely as some other solution. Technology such as satellites that use the equations he derived do not have two programs, one which uses Einsteinian theories and a second that does not.

A neutral perspective is always needed, however one cannot believe that the term "neutral" is interchangable with 50-50. This is because presenting a concept such as this with both beliefs weighted equally suggests that they are equally valid. However, it is absolutely clear and indisputable that most members of academia believe these events to be considered genocide. Therefore, for an article to present each idea as equally valid is actually misleading readers because it causes them to believe that equal numbers of people believe that the events were/were not genocide.

It is for this reason that I argue that a 50-50 explanation would actually be deceiving and therefore NOT neutral.

Dear Sir,
It is the first time I intrude in Wikipedia's article editing. Instead of editing I will addmy comments. 50-50 isjust here. Why ?
1) Because there is an Armenian Deportation not Armenian Genocide. Even the terminology can not be decided on.
2) For a "genocide" to happen it should conform to a current "genocide" definition. There is none whatsoever for the so called Armenian Genocide.
3) Armenians constantly escape from examining the Ottoman Archives open to all. So they are biased.
4) In the article, The atrocities commiitted by Armenians , and their collaboration with the Allied Powers in WW1 are conspicousby their absence.
5) Hundreds of thosusands of Tuks were murdered by Armenians and there is no mention of them. And there is no mention of Turkish Genocide. Only 10 years before Azeri Turks were butchered by Armenians and there is no mention of Azeri Genocide.
Still you are talking there is no need for 50-50.
Halim Sibay Tugsavul

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.215.16.198 (talk • contribs)

Civil Air Patrol[edit]

The Civil Air Patrol is one of the lesser-known federal/military organizations in the United States, yet they have contributed a great deal of time, energy, and volunteer manpower in emergency services (such as search and rescue) and other associated activities. This article, once completely refined, may very well be one of the best Wikipedia featured article candidates around, for it would be very educational on a lesser-known subject as well as exemplify a great Wiki. Linuxbeak 01:49, Apr 28, 2005 (UTC)

  • A few style suggestions, expand the introduction, there are lots of bullet point lists, like the organization section and the cadet program - where possible turn them into paragraphs. --nixie 11:23, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • Hi nixie; thanks a lot for the review. Sorry for not putting my reply to you right away; I got carried away with editing the history section. I have taken what you said and will correct what needs to be corrected. Linuxbeak 16:27, May 1, 2005 (UTC)
  • Hey, Linuxbeak, awesome History section, now you've expanded it! But when I copyedited it a little, I'm afraid I must have misunderstood the chronology and the chain of events with the sandbag bombing guy, and changed it all wrong—I didn't realize December 7, 1941, was Pearl Harbor day—I just noticed it in one of your references, forget which one—surely THAT was the cause of the grounding of civil aircraft on the 8, not Johnson's "bombing" (which was when, exactly?). Uh, you don't in fact mention Pearl Harbor at all in the article, do you...? How come? It looks kind of important in that reference. --Bishonen | talk 16:14, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Hi Bishonen; well, it is true I didn't mention Pearl Harbor; I suppose I should do that :P. However, civilian aviation actually got grounded twice; once after Pearl Harbor, and the second after the sandbag bombs. I will make a clarification of that. Linuxbeak 16:27, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

Vision mixer[edit]

I wrote this article some time ago, and think it's okay (clearly not FA material, though, it's pretty short but I can't think of more stuff to add). Very few people seem to have stopped by to edit it since then however, and I would like to see some comments on whether the topic is handled in an understandable way and if the article can be called comprehensive. Thanks for your input in advantage! -- grm_wnr Esc 23:57, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • It'd be helpful if some of the terminology/buzz words were linked to an explanatory page so that somebody coming in cold with no knowledge of the subject could make sense of it. For example: 'hard cuts', 'dissolves', and 'pattern wipes'. — RJH 15:53, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • Well, I linked some more terms to existing pages. But I already tried to explain the jargon in the normal flow of the article, because the topic of video editing techniques is somewhat lacking on Wikipedia, most of the terms simply are disambiguation pages with as much or less info as this article or would be redlinks. Maybe I should add a "glossary" section? You mean we could really need a Glossary of film and video terms page? That seems useful, but not the standard way to do it. Or is it? -- grm_wnr Esc 19:44, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • The term “Vision Mixer” is uniquely European. In the United States it is almost universally called a “video switcher”. While I see that the American term is referenced I believe that most professionals in the US would be stumped if you asked them about their “vision mixer”. I realize that Wikipedia is an international effort, and rather than change the title of the article perhaps you could put a reference something like: “… A vision mixer (also called video switcher or production switcher in the United States ) is a device…”. BTW I am a video editor and have worked in broadcasting for over 20 years. Since the article caught my attention I did make a few changes to the introductory paragraphs, just for clarity.
    • I'm also a video editor (not for 20 years though), and I think your edits are great. I think, since the naming is so different between the US an Europe, it might even be important enough for its own section of the article? -- grm_wnr Esc 18:18, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Seabird[edit]

Wikipedia:Peer review/Seabird/archive1

This is the second peer review for this article. The first one went quite well but I was never quite happy enough with the article to nominate it for FA. Since then I have continued to work on and off on it, and have most importantly widened the references and cited a lot of facts. It was close to FA, and still is, but needs that extra little bit of effort and some more eyes. The subject is huge, so this is an overview of the important aspects of seabird biology. One of the most fustrating things about seabirds is that for every statement you make you seem to need to qualify with of course, not all seabirds do this! Anyways, please help by pointing out what still seems weak, what statements that need cites still haven't got them, all that stuff. Thanks! Sabine's Sunbird talk 23:10, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • I've only glanced at this yet, but it looks brilliant. I did notice that in some places you have spaces between periods and references that should be removed. I'll try and go through this more thoroughly as soon as I can. darkliight[πalk] 08:55, 19 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Very interesting and well balanced, but could do with some more citations for facts (even though it has a lot of references they aren't necesarily all cited in the appropriate places). There a lot of generalizations, but I guess that is hard to avoid in such a wide subject. I gave it a copyedit to remove some repetition and redundancy. Some more specific comments (more or less in order):
    • The qualification in the opening sentence is a little awkward. They spend much of their lives at sea - I don't think you need the rider.
    • The lead has a few fuzzy statements about species that would read better if sharpened up. At the moment it has a feeling of trying to cover all possible variations by species rather than just providing an introduction to seabirds.
    • Albatross or albatrosses? Swaps between the two throughout the article.
    • "unlike terrestrial birds" - is that the correct name for non-seabirds? Terrestrial birds make me think of flightless birds.
    • "In spite of their reputation as pirates" doesn't really add anything to the sentence (apart from a second use of pirate).
    • "Overall many hundreds of thousands or possibly millions of birds" - make a decision.
    • "even well meaning tourists, can flush a colony" - flush a colony? What does that mean? Drive off the parent birds?
    • "The removal of these introduced species has led to increases in surviving species " - an increase in populations of surviving species or an increase in the number of species surviving (i.e. a decrease in the rate of species going extinct)?
    • The Lord of the Rings reference could do with being trimmed - details of where it is used isn't necessary
    • The species list could do with some punctuation to separate the latin from the common names (just being picky now).
Hope this helps. - Yomanganitalk 01:00, 21 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your review. On the matter of references, that is the majority of the work I am doing now, I hunt them down and add them. I originally wrote this before inline citation was important on WP and while I know that it's accurate tracking down the papers needed is taking time. But I know that a lot more needs to be done. As for generalisations, yep, it's the nature of the beast. Getting this far has taken me 18 months cause its so fustrating to write. You can never write "seabirds do X" cause there are always some that don't!. All your other points are good and I will deal with them. Ta! Sabine's Sunbird talk 01:33, 21 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I have dealt with each of the comments, please unstrike them if you feel it isn't there yet. I have cleaned up the intro (a great deal of which was hand me down from the original article I started with), but I may do more so I haven't striked it. On reconsideration I have decided to leave the LOTR bit as is. Having an explanation of how birds fit into popular culture, rather than simply stating they do with an example, is more rewarding, and it leaves less room for every fanboy to come and list how their fad has a seabird in it. I'd rather have one example, explained well, than a list namechecking every reference. Sabine's Sunbird talk 03:49, 21 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry for the delay in reviewing the changes - everything looks good now (I don't think the intro needs any more work), and you are probably right in trying to fend off fanboy additions by keeping the LOTR explanation. Yomanganitalk 00:36, 31 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

History of the British Army[edit]

I'd like to see it reach featured article status and I'm certain it does need improving -- I'm not quite certain what needs to be done, though (prob' alot of grammatical improvement, knowing my writing skills). It also needs a few more images, especially one of the British Army fighting in formation around 18th/19th Centuries. SoLando 21:43, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The article is a good start, but I think the article would have to be larger to make it as a FA. Ideas for improvement . . . 1) most featured articles have photos that alternate left, right. 2) could you define how large a regiment, company, brigade, etc. is?Dinopup 01:29, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
You're going to need references and external links, without a doubt. Where did all this info come from? If you don't know, then find sources that confirm the page's content and include those. To me, the article looks acceptably comprehensive, but I'm no history expert. --Spangineer ∞ 04:01, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)
Ok, I added a (brief) Terminology, Further Reading and External Links sections. Thanks to both of you for the advice :-)SoLando 06:49, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The Further Reading section is probably going to get shot down over concerns that the information of the page didn't come from those sources. If it all does, then you will probably want to change the title of the section to references. --Spangineer ∞ 13:28, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)
Ah, ok. I've changed the title of External Links to References. SoLando 06:17, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Take a look at Wikipedia:References and format this accordingly. See military history of the Soviet Union for a very similar article which already is a FA and see how can you make yours similar to that one. And certainly, IIWW deserves a section of its own?? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 12:24, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Overall the article looks good, and it covers most of the key topics. The text could use a little cleanup and editing. For example the very first sentence has a period instead of a comma. It also needs running through a spelling checker: "estabsliment", "icnreased", "artcillery", &c. Other possible topics include the British Regimental system, traditions, recruiting methods, and disciple, if those aren't already covered elsewhere. You might want to link in History of England in a "See also" section at the bottom, as this page is missing a huge swath of English military history. — RJH 15:31, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

A few points derived from a mispent youth:

  • Britain was not the dominant military power from 1692. Most historians would say it achieved that status as a consequence of the Napoleonic War.
  • You also need to introduce the British strategic policy that has been in place up till World War 1 of a small professional army, super powerful navy and keeping a balance of power on the continent. Comment about the special factors of being an island nation etc. It is an article on the British army; but you need to mention its relationship with the Royal Navy along the way. Also the fact that we could have a small army often because we funded other countries to have big armies to do our fighting for us.
  • In history books I have always found tables of the army size to particularly interesting. The British army size has waxed and waned with the military situation. Might be useful to have a table for each particular period, with army size at significant times.
  • I think you need to go through the article and make sure you have mention of significant battles and generals throughout its history. A quick look through reveals gaps. Wellington in the Napoleonic War, Montgommery and El Alamain etc. Consider how your article links to other material on Wikipedia.
  • The WW2 section should probably mention that the British army was far behind the Germans at the start of World War 2. We had lost our technological edge which had served the British army well through most of its history.
  • In recent times you probably should mention our comparitive excellence at peacekeeping and anti-terrorism duties. :ChrisG 18:34, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I had to cut and miss much out (most prominently in the WWI and WWII articles, where there is just a summary, especially in the theatre of operations) as I originally thought it would get too large. I'll try to expand it as soon as I get some time. Could do with some help. Not sure where I go for that, though. I'll also add a few "See Also" links for English, Scottish, Welsh, Irish histories and some other things. Thanks to everyone for all the advice :-) SoLando 20:08, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

If it gets two long, split into subarticle. But too short is never too good. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 10:27, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Leonardo da Vinci[edit]

Comprehensive article covering an interesting subject written by a range of editors. Looking to nominate for FAC and am just looking for further opinions on it... Anything that seems particularly missing? - Estel (talk) 05:49, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)

  • I think the article could use a biography infobox next to the lead section. 131.211.210.13 11:13, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • To start with, this is a Former Featured Article. See why it was removed in the first place and adress those objections. And one more: lead is too short. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 12:12, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • There are only three two lists remaining, which are relatively important information. But they are not 'most' of the article. The majority of the article consists of good prose information. I just took one more of the lists out. - Estel (talk) 16:42, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)
      • In fiction list read like trivia and needs to be converted into paragraph. List of paintings is useful, but I'd rather move it to the bottom of the article and perhaos even expanded with a list of his other famous works. And the lead is still inadequate. And the article can use expantion, as ChrisG suggests. It looks rather brief, compared to many other FAs. If it gets too long, split into subarticles. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 10:26, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Feels too short for someone of his stature. Probably needs more on his works - art, science, engineering. Also something with regard to his status and influence.:ChrisG 18:04, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • I would have to agree with Chris. The influence particularly is missing. But it seems like there is a lot else that should be said about him that is not. I guess you would need to do some good research to find out what else about him is important and needs to be covered. - Taxman 17:38, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)

Jello Biafra[edit]

I've tried to get this one chosen as a featured article before, and it hasn't managed to earn that status yet. I believe I've expended all the knowledge I have on the subject, so I'm going to just leave it to peer reviewers to finish the job. -- LGagnon 02:49, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)

LGagnon, it looks from the Talk:Jello Biafra History as if there's been a bit of a revert war between you and violet/riga about having the {{fac}} and/or the {{facfailed}} templates on the page. I don't understand what that's about, maybe you could explain (assuming it's relevant to getting the article to FA status)? And could you put the {{facfailed}} tag back, please, unless there's some special point in not having it? The purpose of it is to prominently display a link to the earlier FAC discussion, which is surely a useful thing for people who want to improve the article. To make the job you're asking the peer reviewers to do easier, we might as well have the old FAC vote link right here, too, here it is. Bishonen|Talk 19:07, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The previous revert was because the candidate status was removed prematurely the first time. I later let that go and instead resubmitted it after doing some revision work. After that, it failed again, but this time with a proper amount of time given. As for the {{facfailed}} tag, I'll put that back; that was deleted somewhat accidentally. -- LGagnon 22:52, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)
I'd say what this needs first is a good copy edit: tighten up the prose. (I made one change myself. Let me know if you want me to take a shot at the whole article this way.) -- Jmabel | Talk 00:19, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)
Ya, that edit is ok. Go ahead and make more changes and we'll see where it goes. -- LGagnon 01:32, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering[edit]

I've been working on this article for some time, but it needs some NPOV work and it still has a long way to go. Specific suggestions are most appreciated. --L33tminion | (talk) 15:26, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

Some comments from someone who had never heard of this college before reading the article. I've tried to be as specific as possible but really, you are right in saying it has a long way to go. It seems as if large portions of the text are written by the institution itself or some very happy students that try to uphold a view of very hardworking, responsible and generally almost perfect students. I'd say: surreal.

  • The lead deals too much with the accreditation issue. This could be summarized to make room for a summary of the overall article.
  • From the history section: "The class of 2006 also included". It seems incorrect to speak about 2006 in the past tense.
  • The section "The Olin Experiment" reads like advertising. I agree with the suggestion on the talk page: get rid of the mishmash of bullets. The college has some noteable unique policies but it shouldn't be hard to rip out about half of the points that are not really that unique. I'll detail for a bit here.
  • "Excellent opportunities for undergraduate research." What are the opportunities?
  • "An active relationship with the corporate engineering world." Advertising. How is this unique?
  • "Emphasis on business and entrepreneurship". idem
  • "42 clubs (not including..." idem
  • "Approximately equal enrollment of men and women" Is this an enforced policy?
Yes, the admissions office specifically tries to maintain an equal ratio. (They can't make it perfectly equal because you can't predict exactly who will choose to go to the college once accepted.) --L33tminion | (talk) 20:39, Apr 7, 2005 (UTC)
  • "An honor code" At this point in the article it is not clear what this means.
  • The honor code itself reads as a summary of common sense to me. I suggest to delete it since it is not interesting.
It's rather essential to the college itself, though. The code is signed by every student. But I can tone down that section a bit... --L33tminion | (talk) 20:39, Apr 7, 2005 (UTC)
  • "Admission policy and ..." This section is advertising. "Olin College's believes..." is not a factual sentence. "In addition, Olin admissions..." Try to reverse its meaning and find one college that would state as a policy: "we try to limit admissions to a few select groups"
  • Just delete the quote from the website in the section "Academics". I was unable to read more than two lines of it since it made my stomach turn. The fourth paragraph of this section is highly problematic. Tone down "Even the upper administration is very...". "This is viewed as especially important..." viewed by who? The sentence seems redundant.
  • The section "Residential life" again reads as an advertisement. "The dorms at Olin have a strong sense of community." is redundant, should follow from the facts. "Many Olin students prefer a busy schedule." Many? "In addition to their hectic academic schedules," tone it down.
  • The section "Culture" contains some interesting facts. However "Although Olin students care about academics, they try to keep a sense of perspective..." too obvious, we all try that: delete. "Because of this hectic pace, the stress level at Olin is occasionally very high." does not read as factual.
  • The "Architecture" section contains the following problems: " with the impressive steel, ..." "a more natural seeming place ..." " giving the space an ordered but informal feel."
I have to tone down my brilliant overenthusiastic prose? Awww...  :-P --L33tminion | (talk) 21:50, Apr 7, 2005 (UTC)

Good luck! Jan van Male 18:59, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I made some major edits to the article. Not sure it's there yet, but it's much improved, IMO. I appreciate any further suggestions or edits you can make. Thanks for all your help. --L33tminion | (talk) 21:50, Apr 7, 2005 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartly, the article is much improved. I tried some edits myself, please do check the accuracy. I've sometimes guessed, assumed and probably also misunderstood in the process of rephrasing.

  • From the lead "Olin College is a selective, private college", what does selective mean in this context?
We're the 17th most selective college in the US according to the Princeton Review. (Actually, I thought that was no longer in the article. It might need to be removed due to POV problems.) [1] --L33tminion | (talk) 01:30, Apr 17, 2005 (UTC)
Olin is now the 5th Toughest School to get in to according to the Princeton Review.
  • Does the project-based learning indeed start immediately? Is the entire curriculum designed around this or are there also traditional classes? First I got the impression of the former (and edited accordingly), now I'm not too sure.
The project based and interdisciplinary learning starts immediately, with the "Integrated Course Blocks" Freshman year (three interconnected classes each semester; calculus, physics, and engineering). It's one of the major focuses of the college's approach, although there are some more traditional classes. --L33tminion | (talk) 01:30, Apr 17, 2005 (UTC)
  • How did the Olin foundation acquire the money to found the college?
I've been meaning to write the article on the foundation, but I've been having a hard time finding information. The foundation was founded by Franklin W. Olin, an entrepreneur and "self-made man". He was a farmer, got into Cornell, studied chemical engineering, and started a munitions business just in time for WWI. The guy also played baseball in college, and was a professional baseball player (major league, I think) before he founded his business. At any rate, he made a fortune and left his money to found the foundation, which supports business and engineering education (of course, the foundation has also gotten donations since then). The foundation has created colleges at a lot of universities (I need to track down the full list, but I believe there are over 40 buildings named after Olin that the foundation has funded, including Olin College of Business at Babson College and Olin School of Buisness at Washington University in St. Louis.) The foundation no longer exists. It has poured all its resources into the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, the first independent college funded by the foundation. --L33tminion | (talk) 01:30, Apr 17, 2005 (UTC)
  • In the section on the honor code what is meant by "governing policies set up by the Office of Student Life"?
Disciplinary policies for the school. One oddity of our honor code is that each vote to ammend leads to a vote to abolish. Under the honor code, the honor board (part of the student government), handles discipline (the dean of student life can veto decisions, but, as far as I know that's an emergency power that's never been used). If the honor code was abolished, that job would fall back to the Office of Student Life, and they already have policies written that would deal with that. (I hope that's an adequate explanation.) --L33tminion | (talk) 01:30, Apr 17, 2005 (UTC)
  • This probably marks me as a non-US citizen but I didn't immediately understand the term "Greek life" in the culture section. Searching on WP did turn up some usefull clues but no satisfying definition to link to.
Means fraternities and sororities. I thought that was generally known, but feel free to change it to something more clear. --L33tminion | (talk) 01:30, Apr 17, 2005 (UTC)

Jan van Male 17:58, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

227 (TV series)[edit]

I have recently gained a newfound interest in this sitcom, and I have edited information with all I've been able to gather from television interviews (such as I Love the 80s, thus the lack of written sources). I would love for this to become a more well-rounded article (I am not sure if it has enough potential to be an FA), so opinions are welcomed. Mike H 22:54, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

It seems pretty decent, if a bit on the short side. You might consider adding would be some humorous quotations and/or running jokes from the show, as well as individual character descriptions. — RJH 05:38, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Democratic Republic of Georgia[edit]

It is article about the 1st Republic of Georgia (1918-1921) and has potential for being a peer reviewed article. -- Levzur May 6, 2005

Grunge music[edit]

After weeks of work, I think I have this one ready to be a featured article. Still, I'd like to make sure beforehand that we've got everything covered and that there's no issues in the way. -- LGagnon 21:37, Apr 7, 2005 (UTC)

  • Any chance of a sound bite? Mgm|(talk) 09:00, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)
    • I think some of the band articles have some. I'll look around and see what I can dig up. -- LGagnon 13:33, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)
  • Make sure copyright is cleared and all. Mgm|(talk) 09:38, Apr 10, 2005 (UTC)
    • What do you mean by that? -- LGagnon 18:07, Apr 10, 2005 (UTC)
      • I assume he means with any sound bite you may use. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 19:54, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • This is just a suggestion, but you could turn the prominent bands list into a table, listing band (mabye band members too), where they're from, whether they are sill a band (many grunge bands aren't together anymore) and breakthrough album (bad name but I think you'll understand that I mean). There could also be a bit more about grunge and Riot grrrl, they are quite closely linked (at least in my mind)--nixie 04:37, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Scouting[edit]

I would like some objective input into this article, to help to get it up to WP:FAC standard. Lan3y - Talk 16:12, Apr 7, 2005 (UTC)

  • The lead section definitely needs expansion and I think you should break out Scouting around the world. It's too large to remain here as a section and it will become more of a problem once these sections are expanded and other countries are added. Don't forget to leave a link and a summary. Mgm|(talk) 08:57, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)
    • But if you do decide to split off the Satw section, a summary table of nations and founding dates (male/female) would be of interest on the main page, at least to me. — RJH 15:57, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hotline Communications[edit]

I was surprised good ol' wiki didn't have an article about this one, so I created a new one, and now I need your help. Long story short, Hotline is the grand daddy of file sharing. That egregious piece of software went through many ups and downs but was ultimately doomed to commercial failure due to mismanagement, internal legal battles, and competition from modern p2p software. Now it has vanished into oblivion it seems. I'm sure some of you know about it out there, so come lend a hand or at least make some suggestions. Phils 14:34, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It seems decent to me. About the only things I can think to suggest are to add appropriate categories (File sharing, Peer to peer, &c.); link "peer-to-peer" in the top section and, if possible, add in a screen shot of the Mac client. — RJH 17:01, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)


!One could argue Hotline is not a true P2P app but as some client-server software suite. One that can be used by any average user.!

Acorn Computers Ltd[edit]

This may be approaching feature article status in terms of article depth/quality. Particularly interested in comments on the structure. Should the number of sub-headings be consolidated or not? TreveX 17:52, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sub-headings[edit]

Since I'm the one guilty of the current structure, I'll state my reasons. The article has become quite long and probably must be broken up by headings. Since Wikipedia allows multi-levels sections, I don't think we should be afraid of using them. The best demonstration of the thinking behind the heading structure is the section on Acorn's financial troubles. One of the reasons for these troubles was Acorn's heavy outlay on R&D projects. So having the R&D Expenditure as a sub-section of financial problems makese sense to me - and then having the various things this expenditure was going on as further sub-sections actually makes the table of contents itself a mini-history of Acorn. Otherwise, the "Supplying the Electron" section goes to the same depth as "Financial problems" and the structure disappears and you just get a list of headings. In the article the subsections don't make all THAT much difference, but they make the table of contents actually DO something in itself rather than be just a list of links to various titles, which is what it would be if the headings and sub-headings went. lmno 23:51, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It is nice to see the history of one of the major players in computers documented. I have the impression that a lot of effort was put in this article to make it factually correct. Discussion on the talk page indicates that some authors even communicated with the people involved to verify the history of Acorn. Some problems that I came across are:
  • The lead section doesn't invite me to read on. Expand it a bit. Why was Acorn special, why do I want to know everything about it? Mention ARM for example.
  • I liked this gem: "And when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth!" but it is not really neutral. Grep for exclamation marks to find more
  • The use of era is too dramatic in the section titles.
  • Overall, the acticle could do with a copy-edit to make the text flow better before nominating it at FAC. The prehistory section for example is a bit dense in information.
The peer review request itself more or less suggests that there are too much sub-headings. I agree with lmno that the article needs sub-headings (almost all articles of this size do) but the amount of them in this article is at first glance excessive. Indeed, the table of contents serves as a mini-history. However, only after you have read the article and understand what all the headings refer to. I don't think that it is very helpful when first reading the article. Instead, the size of the table of contents may discourage readers. An unfortunate additional problem is that the rendering of sub-headings at level 2, 3 and 4 are not very clearly distinct in the main body of the text (at least not with my konqueror browser). Of course, this is more a problem of the wikimedia software than of the article. Nevertheless, I think these are reasons enough to reduce the number of headings. Some suggestions:
  • the first heading "Company history: from CPU to CPUs" can go, so that all sub-headings below go up one level. Almost the entire article falls under this heading and as such it is more like an alternative article title instead of a heading. A nice side effect is that the article then uses heading levels 1,2 and 3 which are more clearly distinguishable.
  • Merge "Prehistory" and "CPU Ltd". They both deal with the history of Acorn. A separation in paragraphs is sufficient, no need for sub-headings.
  • The section "1983: Flotation" is small, can it be merged?
Generally, I would try to avoid sections that are one (small) paragraph in length. Paragraph delimeters are sufficient to indicate structure. If you feel it is necessary to use these headings to make the subject clear then this is an indication that the flow of the main text itself is not in good shape. For example: the headings "Proton" and "Tube" that fall under "Research and development" can be deleted. Rename "Research and development" to something like "Development of the Proton and Tube".
Jan van Male 13:41, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
It is nice to see so many comments addressed (within 24 hours!). I'd say the first half of the article is now `ready' (as if that is ever the case on wiki). The second half of the article could use copy-editting to reduce some POV and add some clarifications. I'd like to invite others to add their comments. Jan van Male 14:32, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Papal conclave, 1800[edit]

I have been working on this article since yesterday and am rather pleased with its progress, I certainly have learnt alot. Now, I am stuck; I am not sure what else to do with the article to make it perfect, perhaps people could provide suggestions. --Oldak Quill 13:49, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

You could compare it to the other conclaves listed in the Category:Papal conclaves and see what it is lacking. For example, the Papal conclave, 1878 page has a pretty nice summary table at the end. You might also fix the category so that it sorts under '1800' instead of 'P'. — RJH 05:33, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I have corrected the category. The contents of the table in 1878 is more than replicated in the table at the top of the article. Further, the conclave is acutely compared with others throughout the course of the article - last not in Rome, etc. Do you mean a section discussing its uniqueness and difference? --Oldak Quill 10:37, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Nope. I'm not sure I agree, but I don't want to debate the matter. Good luck. — RJH 19:04, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I have amended this now, adding an entire section comparing it to other conclaves. --Oldak Quill 23:47, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The intro paragraph attributes the occupation of Rome and the "kidnapping" of Pius VI to "Napoléon I". A couple of points: (1) Napoleon did not become Emperor of the French until 1804; before that, he was known as "Napoleon Bonaparte." (2) Napoleon did not occupy Rome; that was done by Berthier in 1798, at a time when France was still ruled by the Directory, and Bonaparte was engaged in the invasion of Egypt. (In fact, in 1796, after Bonaparte did defeat the Papal army, he defied the Directory's order to occupy Rome and dethrone the Pope, correctly anticipating that this would provoke opposition among both the French and Italian populations.) There are some other references in the "Historical Context" section that also attribute things to Bonaparte that he didn't do. (Also, you could stand some spell-checking.) RussBlau 17:22, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)
I have corrected all of the factual inaccuracies you have kindly pointed out, and also all mistakes. Perhaps you could tell me which factual inaccuracies remain in the Historical Context secion. Thanks, Oldak Quill 19:29, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I've made a few more minor edits to the historical section, and think it is now in very good shape. RussBlau 15:24, Apr 17, 2005 (UTC)

Very will researched article - I learned a let. However, IMHO the prose is a little stodgy and unclear in places - it could do with rephrasing. Sorry I can't help - but I know nothing about the subject matter, so I'd only get it wrong. --Doc Glasgow 09:44, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Nondimensionalization[edit]

I'd like some suggestions for improving this article, and would also like to get some help with expanding the references section! HappyCamper 22:21, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

First list of suggestions[edit]

Disclaimer: I am not a mathematician. Nevertheless, I have read the article with pleasure. It is an article on a subject that is of general use in mathematics and physics. Some points to consider:

  1. The section that introduces substitutions uses χ (chi) as a substition for x. Later on, q is silently used. This may be confusing readers.
  2. Unfortunately, wikipedia does not seem to provide good definitions of a force function, transient and steady state solutions to link to
  3. I would present the example of nondimensionalization of a first order differential equation even earlier in the article, where the 5 steps are explained. I suggest to move the more general case of linear differential equations to after the discussion of the second order equations.
  4. In this more general case of linear differential equations, I did not understand why this system behaves as a mixture of first and second order systems. Following some links did not help: the page on characteristic polynomial talks about matrices and the contents at superposition were also not very helpful.
  5. The section on the universal second order linear oscillator presents the transient solution and derives the steady-state solutions. This does not seem very relevant to the topic of nondimensionalization. Instead, it seems more relevant to the harmonic oscillator article. Should it be moved there?
  6. The discussion on RC and RL circuits would be clearer if it concentrated on one instead of two circuits.
  7. All examples in the text deal with differential equations and the introduction suggest that this is the main application. Are there other applications?

Jan van Male 21:04, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

First list of suggestions feedback[edit]

Thanks for your feedback - I really appreciate it! Here are my responses...
  1. When I wrote the article, I couldn't decide whether I should use q consistently or not. I realize that the switchover from using the Greek χ to q might be confusing. However, I wanted to emphasize that it doesn't really matter what letter is picked for the substitution. I'll add something to the article that recommends, for example, something that might sound like this: "To nondimensionalize a variable, usually a convenient symbol is used to represent the new dimensionless quantity. For example, if the original problem involves length represented with the letter x, it would be judicious to represent the new nondimensionalized variable with l (for length), or χ (reminds us that it is related to "x"), or some other appropriate place holder. The choice should be made so that it is easy to keep track of the variables, although it is largely a personal choice of the person performing the nondimensionalization." --> I'll try to keep this comment short though, as I feel that this is something that applies to all mathematical problems in general - Choose variable names that make intuitive sense to make thinking through the problem easier!
  2. Actually, come to think of it, forcing function, transient state and steady state really don't need to be mentioned in nondimensionalization at all. They are only there because of the particular examples I picked to show how nondimensionalization can be applied for problems involving those things. I might try to phase these terms out somehow. What do you think?
  3. I did not put an example of nondimensionalization involving the first order system near the numbered steps because nondimensionalization applies to other things as well, in addition to differential equations. However, differential equations are probably the most illustrative example of applying the technique, so maybe it would be best to change this section as you suggest. It would be nice to keep the continuity of the 5 points though, as its intention was to give someone reading this article an idea of the thought process that is involved. As for the more general case, I think it would be best if I relegated this to another article. Jump to last point too...
  4. I'm very glad you pointed this out...this is in fact a critical error I overlooked! I was implicitly assuming certain things which I didn't mention, in particular, that all the coefficients are assumed to be real. This section will definitely need a rewrite. I might decide to relegate this section to the characteristic polynomial page instead. I only mentioned this in the article to demonstrate the importance of understanding nondimensionalization of first and second order systems. Understanding the behaviour of these these two is sufficient to help understand all linear DEs with constant coefficients because of the superposition principle.
  5. Hmm...I wasn't aware of the harmonic oscillator article. I'm glad you pointed this out! I'll move these derivations over to that page - I feel that they're more appropriate there too. What's really important is just to keep the nondimensionalized second order differential equations here, and also the "characteristic units" derived based on the differential equation. They show how the resonant frequency and linewidth come about naturally in the equation.
  6. I might even move these over to an appropriate circuits page, as what I really wanted to show was that nondimensionalization can recover the time constant of these circuits, and that the time constant does not come out of thin air as an aribtrary definition.
  7. Nondimensionalization is not restricted to differential equations, but they are probably the most illustrative of the examples. This is because many physics problems (especially those involving movement) can be formulated in terms of differential equations. Maybe I should mention this at the beginning of the article? What do you think? The other cases where nondimensionalization could be used is probably too trivial to illustrate here. The complexities introduced by nondimensionalization for these cases would be hardly necessary. I guess it's safe to say right at the top of the article that this technique is very well suited for simplifying differential equations. I think this a fair statement given the material that is covered in the article.
So, in summary, here are the changes that I think would make the article better:
  1. Mention that the choice of variable name substitution is arbitrary, but should be chosen so they make intuitive sense in the context of the problem being solved;
  2. Expand on related topics on other pages so that the article does not lose its continuity when a user clicks on a wikified link;
  3. Perhaps phase out terminology which does not directly apply to nondimensionalization;
  4. Rewrite or move the section about how the general linear DE can be understood by a superposition of smaller systems. The information presented there is not completely correct and needs to be fixed;
  5. Move derivations of the nondimensionalized transient and steady state to harmonic oscillator;
  6. Illustrate one circuit example at a time instead of all at once;
  7. Put the first order example right by the 5 points so it becomes more illustrative.

These were great recommendations. Thanks again for going through the article. I'm glad you enjoyed it! As for the others reading through this, please add your comments to this page, and feel free to help improve the article! HappyCamper 01:16, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Consistent use of variables is good[edit]

Thank you for your kind words. I agree with all of your responses, except for one: I think it is a bad idea to use different symbols for the same concept in a single article. Yes, the choice is arbitrary and mentioning this won't hurt at all. However, once the choice is made, stick to it within a single article. My guess is that people who do not realize that the actual choice of variable names is arbitrary, will probably not understand much of the article anyway. I think that this class of readers will not be enlightened by a change in variable names in this article. In contrast, there is the possibility of a reader being temporarely confused because of different symbols and I think we should try to avoid that. Jan van Male 01:07, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
What if we replaced all the variables not representing time (like position, charge, voltage, and magnetic flux) with χ when nondimensionalized, but also mention right at the substitution what χ is meant to represent? That way, the notation is consistent, and also the meaning would be clear in the context where it's being used. Would this be a good choice for clarity? Well, I'll give the change a try and see how it turns out... :) HappyCamper 02:59, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Update on changes[edit]

More of the changes have been put in place. I added a note about mechanical, electrical, torsional (twisting systems), caloric (heat systems) and fluidic systems in the article somewhere. Is it necessary to show that all characteristic units of these systems can be derived from nondimensionalization? Maybe it would be nice to make a table that shows the equivalence between these sytems, but I think this is work for another article.

I changed the electrical oscillations section. It seems to be a bit dominant in the article, and perhaps introducing a "biased point of view" to the article :) --> What to do about this? Or is it okay?

Also, if someone could find a nice nonlinear differential equation to nondimensionalize, that would be a great addition to this article! HappyCamper 00:57, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think it would be a mistake to show all characteristic units of the various systems you mention. These characteristics belong in the articles that deal with these systems in more detail. I'd say that these articles can simply list the result of nondimensionalization and link to the nondimensionalization page for an explanation. I agree that showing the equivalence between different systems belongs to a different article. I'd say this can easily become a huge list: the list of phenomena that can be described with first order DEs alone is huge or would there be some way to make this a finite list?
Regarding the electrical oscillations, I think that the variants of these systems belong to the corresponding parent articles. I'd say that the nondimensionalization article is best served with a few (say two or three) examples that are explained in detail. Ideally, these examples are as different as possible in mathematical complexity and physical meaning but I realize it may be hard to come up with suitable examples. Jan van Male 13:26, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Well, I started another article called system equivalence. If you're up for it, maybe we can work on it together...But for now, it'll be nice to get this article into a state where the content is pretty stable. For linear DEs, only 2 examples are sufficient to illustrate all the possibilities -> one 1st order, and 2nd order. I'd like to keep the 2nd order mechanical one, since that's one of the few systems I can think of where we could actually have an animated picture for in the article (I put up a request for a mass-spring-damper system somewhere). I'll move some of the electrical examples to another article. HappyCamper 16:13, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Egbert B. Gebstadter[edit]

I don't have copies of Douglas R. Hofstadter's books The Mind's I, Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies and Le Ton Beau de Marot handy, so I can't copy the bibliography entries for the Gebstadter counterparts into Egbert B. Gebstadter. Anyone who does have them, please do so.

Original peer review request submitted 14:15, Apr 11, 2005 by Johnwcowan --Allen3 talk 14:23, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)

Bash.org[edit]

START OLD REVIEW

We've done a major rewrite. IMO it's much better sourced now. Can we have suggestions on further ways of fixing this? - Ta bu shi da yu 01:32, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

END OLD REVIEW

This talk page sounds more like a couple of children bickering than it does civilized discussion. It doesn't matter who the active parties are; this sounds more like a fight than a debate.

Something needs to be done about the discussion that's going on, perhaps in a more civilized manner? Linuxbeak 03:51, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, this is a request to moderate the talk page? I'm unclear how this is related to peer review. Perhaps you could just try posting periodic reminders about wikipedia policies. Or try posting a request for help to the Village Pump. — RJH 16:45, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Battle of Chalons[edit]

I wrote the original draft of this article a couple of years ago with more of an intent to avoid copyright problems. While it's been a solid article (if not FAC material), there were some points that bothered me because they needed verification. A recent dispute with an anon editor who insisted on putting some implausible & unverifiable statistics finally forced me to do the necessary research to address my concerns -- & led me to correct some parts that I didn't realize were wrong. Is the article now strong enough to consider nominating for FAC? -- llywrch 02:41, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Not bad. I like the use of footnotes. The lead could use some expantion, 5 lines with a battlebox is rather small. It could definetly do with a picture - or a pictures - if not of a battle itself, then of involved personalities. Plus a map of the battle. Please compare with Battle of Alesia - another Roman battle which is FA now and try to adapat anything you can from that article. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 11:29, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I expected that someone would bring up the issue of pictures for this article. My experience in looking for relevant illustrations has been that there are surprisingly few -- if any -- for this famous engagement. I have one of Aetius (I believe it's covered by Fair Use) that I could upload to EN, but I haven't come across any for Theodorid, nor any for the battle itself -- Fair Use, PD or GPL. Am I looking in the wrong places? (Consider this a general request for help!) -- llywrch 18:05, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The older the topic, the less graphical sources there are (you did try Google Images, right?). One thing to do is to follow all ilinks from the main body and see if any subarticles have useful pictures. Sometimes, a general picture - like that of typical Roman legionnare or German barbarian, for example - may be used to a good effect. And do try to obtain or create a map. For a battle, it is almost a 'must'. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 10:28, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sanquhar[edit]

This is the first article I have submitted to the Wikipedia. Originally I wrote this as a chapter for a book about my family history. I found some large tombs written about the town, but nothing concise. I also had some pamphlets and websites, but their focus was too narrow. In the end I just had to develop my own work. At the time (1999) I had several other genealogists who were interested in the area review my work and they approved of it.

I would like to include more photographs, but I’m not sure of the copy write status of the images I have.

The article did already exist, which surprised me. I included most of the original article mixed in with my contribution. Please consider comparing the original to my version.

It seems like this page might be for those who are seeking "Featured Status". I doubt this article would ever qualify for such a lofty goal. I just want to call enough attention to it so that someone will find any mistakes and fix them. Otherwise it might go un-noticed for months. I would also be grateful for any comments that might help me write and research articles in the future.

DWR 01:16, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

A very nice article on a small town. It could use a section on the modern town, and also an external link or two. [2] — RJH 18:57, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Its ok for now, but if you have plans to try for FA, it would fail immediately. There a lot more you can add. For instance, the map is awful. It does a good job of the location, but I'm sure there are better UK maps on wikipedia that can be edited. Since it is a small town, I understand that it may be difficult to make it as comprehensive as a city article. I've worked on Kalimpong, a small town, maybe you could get some ideas on the sections to add and some more content and images. IMO the history needs a dedicated page.  =Nichalp (talk · contribs)= 19:56, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)

David Helvarg[edit]

I put this up on FAC prematurely. How should I expand the article to give it enough meat ... or is the subject inherently too slight for FAC? --Theo (Talk) 10:45, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This what Meelar said when I posted this to FAC:

This seems awfully short for a featured article. It also reads a bit like a CV. The section on his books, for example, could conceivably be expanded--was there any political reaction to them, did they bring new questions to light, etc. In short, there's just not enough meat here. Meelar (talk) 23:58, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)
  • Still too short for a FA. His life section is pretty good, but the section on his works needs more info. I pretty much concur with Meelar, sorry I can't give you anymore help. Bratschetalk random 21:30, Apr 17, 2005 (UTC)
I have now expanded the material on his books. Is it appropriate to go into details of the subjects that he covered as a journalist and describe his broadcasting in more detail? --Theo (Talk) 11:44, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I still seek comments on the breadth and depth of this article now that I have addressed all previous comments. --Theo (Talk) 15:54, 6 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Millau Viaduct[edit]

This page expanded greatly in December 2004, with a flurry of activity when the bridge was completed, but is quite stable now and short but sweet. Is there anything that should be added before I nominate it at WP:FAC? -- ALoan (Talk) 16:32, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • The statistics section seems a bit cheesy. --SPUI (talk) 16:58, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • I said added ;) Would you prefer an infobox? -- ALoan (Talk) 17:46, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
      • There's {{bridge}} if you have all that info; otherwise it could probably be prose. --SPUI (talk) 17:58, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Here are my thoughts:
  1. The article could use a bit more information on why it was built, there must be figures for congestion etc, for example where did the highway used to pass through?.
  2. The article is also in need of a map showing the highway system and the location of the bridge. You could ask on requested images, there are alot of keen mapmakers on Wikipedia.
  3. More about the design process and the architect could also be added.
  4. The ordering of the sections seems kind of weird, I think I would have location, planning, design construction then description.
  5. I think incuding the bridge template is a much neater way to present those statistics.
  6. The article also has no references, if you have used the listed external links to get content for the article they should be cited as references --nixie 01:10, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Colonization of the Moon[edit]

This page discusses the possibilities and issues for putting a human colony on the Moon. What else do you think needs to be included or improved in order to turn this into a feature-quality article? Thank you. — RJH 22:09, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

History section reads more like a timeline. It would be better if a paragraph or two is written there linking to a timeline article. -- Sundar (talk · contribs) 06:07, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)
Move external links from main body, preferably by Wikipedia:Footnotes use. Transform bulleted sections into normal text paragraphs. Go over and ilink terms - many are not connected with their articles (for example, habitat). Since this is still a theory, and popular in fiction, the fiction section should be expanded. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 10:28, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Okay, question: Are the advantages and disadvantages listed in any articles? Because it would be nice if the source article(s) were listed either before the two lists or after. --Jb-adder 01:15, 13 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Kłodzko[edit]

I wrote virtually all the text myself, thus input from others is particularly important. I think it is factually accurate and fairly complete. I think it would make a great featured article. I appreciate any comments and/or corrections. Halibutt 09:34, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)

Good history, but has several problems. 1) While history is extensive, there is almost nothing aboout the city today - its economy, municipal government, etc. Tourist attraction are a good start, but could surely use expantion. 2) no references. If external links were used as referecnes, format them accordingly - see Wikipedia:References. 3) try to avoid external links in the text, in cases of sources and such I recommend using Wikipedia:Footnotes. Do take a look at current cities FAs and see what do they have that Klodzko doesn't: Johannesburg, Marshall, Texas, Marshall, Texas, Sarajevo, Seattle, Washington. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 10:06, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  1. Agreed. I'm starting right away
  2. You mean Wikipedia:Cite sources, right? Wikipedia:References doesn't say much.
Yes, my mistake.
  1. Will do (I guess you mean the source for the pop table, right?)
Yes.
  1. As to other FArticles, the basic difference I see is the length (which is a big disatvantage, since AFAICT the FA is often visited by the dividers club) and the number of pics. Any other major differences?

--Halibutt 12:57, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)

We will worry abour length when we have to. The article is not too short (for History of Klodzko :>). With economy etc. I'd expect it to double in size, but I doubt it would became a target for dividers even then. Pics, of course, will always be useful - the more the better. Say, Halibutt - I wonder - why Klodzko? :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 09:48, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The history section should be shortened and detail moved to a main article. As pointed above, there isn't much to say on the city. Since this is a small town of 30k inhabitants, I would put you on to Kalimpong, a town which is currently on FAC for some ideas. More references are also needed.  =Nichalp (talk · contribs)= 20:40, Apr 17, 2005 (UTC)

These are some things that I think could be included to make the article more about the city now:

  1. Administration (government), what the important political issued in the town;
  2. Ecomomy, the article says its an important commerce centre but that's about all;
  3. Transport (highways and railways passing through here), perhaps a more detailed map of the location with respect to highways and other local towns;
  4. Demographics, the historical population chart is a good start, I'd consider turning it into a graph, add any other statistical information that you can get your hands on that helps describe the town;
  5. Tourist attractions, add some more pictures here if you have some, and are there any local festivals that you could add here?

--nixie 00:31, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Kowloon Motor Bus[edit]

Well, This article had grown into some length. However, there are certainly a lot of information that could be added, or rearranged. Ideas? --XF95．邪 03:02, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • It seems fine, apart for the presence of a Cleanup template and this comment down in the history section: "could anyone give an exact year for that Victory and Jubilant? Is that 1982"... The later should probably go on the Talk page. With this level of detail, though, I expect the page will become outdated at some point and I'm not sure it will always be promptly maintained. So you may want to take that into consideration. — RJH 02:42, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

University of Wales, Lampeter[edit]

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

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

Edward II of England infobox[edit]

I have created a template for infoboxes on monarchs, because I think there’s a need for these, like the ones we already have on presidents or popes. So far it seems Sweden is the only country where they exists (and here there is no template in use).

The problem is that English monarchs (and those of many other countries) already have infoboxes on the royal families (example). With another infobox, the right margin of the article would be way too cluttered, and in many cases far outrun the length of the article text. This is why I created this infobox as a seperate namespace, and the plan was to include a prominent link to the infobox at the top of the article.

This, of course, is not quite in accordance with Wikipedia standards, so the article now risks being deleted. This is fine with me, but I still believe the infobox should be implemented. I would suggest instead that the royal family infobox be relegated to its corresponding namespace; I believe this information is of secondary importance to that regarding the monarch him/herself.

So, I would like your oppinion on this. Should we include the monarch infobox, the one on the royal family, or both? My vote would have to be:

  • Monarch, simply because the article is on the monarch, not the royal family. Eixo 13:38, 7 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, they do kind of serve the same function, except that several kingdoms don't follow family lines. England is an obvious choice with Lancaster/York/Stuart/Orange/Hanover. Thus, if you had a royal family box and were looking at James II, the family wouldn't really tell you much. At the same time, there is a need for family overviews. My suggestion would be Monarch if the monarch box linked internally to a royal family article. Then, no information is lost. (Arguably, the family box could be linking to Kings of England or something like that, too, but I think that monarch is the fundamental call for the look-up.) Geogre 11:23, 9 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

A better idea would be a separate article such as Edward II of England (relatives) or Edward II of England (facts and figures). If it's in the main article space then you should treat it as an article. Your infobox could even usefully be added into such an article. Have a look at Warsaw uprising for some ways of splitting up articles. Mozzerati 18:28, 2005 May 9 (UTC)

  • Monarch. The "royal family" infoboxes are too cumbersome and clutter up the article. They should be moved to the specific articles on the various royal houses (e.g. House of Tudor.) --JW1805 20:18, 6 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Blunsdon United[edit]

Not sure about this article. It has survived a VFD put some of the content seems to be unencyclopedic, and conatins at least one joke (or at least I assume that what the "fine" comment is). Any thoughts on how it can be improved? TigerShark 23:16, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • Yes, ruthless deleting. (Of content, that is, not the article.) I was the staunchest supporter of this article when it was on VfD, so I guess I also have the responsibility to show I wasn't wrong. A lot of this simply doesn't belong in an encyclopedia: the quotes section needs to go in its entirety, the "infamous moment" section needs to be drastically trimmed, and many other loose facts need to be coalesced and rewritten. We're an encyclopedia, not a homepage provider. That said, it's not beyond saving. This article is primarily the work of one user, KeithV; I think collaborating with him is the way to go. JRM 23:31, 2005 Apr 16 (UTC)
  • Massive trimming of article and perhaps some expansion. JuntungWu 08:03, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Internet forum[edit]

I've just rewritten this article and I'm sure there's some things I have missed out. I'm grateful for any suggestions anyone has! Talrias (t | e | c) 17:09, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Needs References Peb1991 18:19, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
What I didn't see mentioned is the e-mail mechanism that is commonly used by some internet forums to notify subscribers when a thread they started or joined has been updated. (The message also often includes a link that can be used to remove yourself from being notified about changes to that thread.) There are also some forums that send you periodic reminder messages when you don't go and check their forum for some period. — RJH 16:34, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I've included this under the "other notes" section. Talrias (t | e | c) 14:02, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The Way of the World[edit]

Considered one of the most important restoration comedies, but nobody has done any work on it other than me. I'd appreciate some suggestions. Robinoke 20:50, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

There are some apparently incorrect spellings in the introduction: sparodicly & renound. Or are these the Queen's English versions? The page could use a category or two. Try using the gutenberg template for the link to the PG e-text. There are some interesting points mentioned on the Daily Info review. — RJH 16:31, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Try and turn the character list into a paragraph describing the characters--nixie 08:26, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
What nixie said, it's a bit boring to start with a list. How about starting with a short background section? The "Historical influence" section has some material for that, but it should come higher up, IMO. The article Restoration comedy has a section on the comedy in the 1690s that might be useful, and some material specifically on the Lincoln's Inn Fields' company and actors. If you'd like to do a section on the original cast, there are, ahem, pretty up-to-date and reliable articles on Mirabell and Millamant, John Verbruggen and Anne Bracegirdle (in fact I created the Verbruggen article only yesterday). That's a little recondite and not at all a requirement, but it can be a cool way of adding concrete detail and color, something articles on literary works can often do with. A section on the play's stage history from 1700 would be good, you could cannibalize any modern edition of the play for the lowdown there. A section on the play's critical reputation, also from 1700 on? And, well, I'm trying not to say this, since I wrote it myself, but you could see a few further possible angles if you take a look at recently featured article The Country Wife. I'm delighted to see somebody taking on The Way of the World! --Bishonen | talk 08:50, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the input guys. I've tried to implement some of the suggestions and will tackle some of the larger things Bishonen recommended when I get some time. Robinoke 22:22, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I'm coming to the party late, as I just saw that the article exists, but I'm pretty much of a context man, myself, and one of the things I'd like to see much more of is a context of Congreve's career and, if you can find it, the history of the writing. Congreve was notorious for being a slow writer, and Way of the World, arguably the perfect Restoration Comedy, didn't premiere until after Restoration Comedy was over. (I've always regarded Way of the World as being like Aristotle's Poetics: it can be the perfect play because it is written after the fact and has learned the rules others established.) I know that you're not writing the William Congreve article, but placing this work in his life helps somewhat. Also, by all means, kill the spoiler template. I know there are people who insert it everywhere as a meaningful edit, but folks ought not be reading Wikipedia to learn the plot or worrying that they won't enjoy the play for knowing the plot. This isn't a detective story, and a plot summary only helps folks enjoy the humor by allowing them to duck some of the confusion audiences usually have. Geogre 19:17, 1 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I've changed the heading from "Historical influence" to "Historical context," and I've contextualized the play with other Restoration comedies. In particular, I try to explicate the tensions between City and Court and how they reversed between 1670 and 1700 with the change from Charles II to William III. However, I would very much like to know where the idea of Fainall as old rake and Millamant as new comes from. It may be the case, although I've never read the play that way, but I think that's a singular enough interpretive point to need a reference. Geogre 02:26, 2 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Anschluss[edit]

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

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

a. inline citations

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

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

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

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

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

Hero of Belarus[edit]

Alright, this was a former featured article, mainly removed because I lacked giving it the TLC it needed. I am going to take a stab at this again. I first added the refereces using the <ref></ref> format, which wasn't available at the time I wrote this. Second, the first time around had a picture overload. Now, this only has one photo (which is in the public domain). I took out a lot of the direct quotes, since Babelfish is failing me (and my reading of Russian has gotten a bit better). Is there anything I should expand on before I send this to FAC? User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 23:15, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Definitely needs a copyedit. I picked at random "Recepients" (float over the underlined words to see my comments, amazing template, isn't it?):

Since the title was created, it has been bestowed upon ten Belarusian citizens. Out of the ten awards, one was for heroism during military service and two awards were presented posthumously. The first award was given to Uładzimir Karvat (posthumous) in 1996, the second awarding were performed on June 30, 2001 to Pavieł Maryjaŭ, Michaił Karčmit, Vital Kramko and Alaksandar Dubko (posthumous). [7] The last awardings were to Filaret, Mikhail Savicki, Mikhail Vysotsky, Piotr Prokopovich & Vasily Revyako on March 1, 2006. [8]

Karvat, a military pilot, was flying his training aircraft Sukhoi Su-27p on May 23 1996. The plane caught fire and was ordered to eject to safety. Unknowing to the ground crew, the plane was going to crash in a area full of civilians. Keeping in mind of the civilians, Karvat steered the plane away until it crashed one kilometer from the area of Hacišča, killing him instantly. President Alexander Lukashenko issued Decree Number 484 on November 21 1996, which posthuously awarded Karvat the title Hero of Belarus. [9] The crash site has been converted to a memorial for Karvat, on which a copy of his decree is placed on the tail fin of the Sukhoi Su-27p. [10] AZ t 17:09, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Made corrections you mentioned and did a spell checking. Question, what is "nbsp"? User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 18:40, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I also added the article in the "needs copyediting" category. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 18:48, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
My bad, the nbsp is already there. Next time I should copy the source code. ;) AZ t 01:31, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
No problem, I got the question answered by the good folks at #wikipedia. As for the grammar itself, I triend some external programs that gives me ideas on what I can do. I tried some of those out, and I will see what M$ Word can do for me tomorrow at college. Now, ignoring the issue of grammar, is there anything else I can do. FYI, this was already on the main page before and my goal is not to get it back there, I just want the shiny brown star at the top of the article. User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 01:48, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • A few thoughts.
    • Have you put much thought into combining some of the smaller headers? The "Criteria" and "Recommendation process" sections look like they could be grouped together.
    • I don't know how to fix it, but the recipients section feels a little stilted.
    • Any more images? Maybe some free government ones?
  • Otherwise, looks good. --badlydrawnjeff talk 23:59, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I added another section to the article about it's use on Belarusian stamps. Would this be useful or no? I also saw a television commercial on TB (Television Belarus) on the day of the 2006 elections. I wish I knew what it said word for word, but it mentioned about the great deeds of the heroes and showed a graphic of the medal. I do not have a screen shot of that and if I did, it is not my intent to upload it. I know there was a stamp shown in one of the souces I provided, but it was on WP before and I was asked to take it down by others admins. Other than the grammar, is this article set for FAC? User:Zscout370 (Return Fire) 09:10, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Supermarine Spitfire[edit]

Resubmission - would like this to be Featured soon, I'll admit I'm not too knowledgeable on the technicalities myself but its the sort of thing I'd like to read about. --PopUpPirate 00:07, August 31, 2005 (UTC)

You really need to do something about the image copyrights. In particular, the GFDL claims for Image:Spitfire.JPG, Image:Supermarinespitfire.JPG are almost certainly wrong, and I'm not certain that Canadian Crown Copyright is an appropriate license for Wikipedia -- it appears to have a "no commercial use" clause. --Carnildo 07:37, 31 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
These were some of my comments from the last review of this same article[3]:
"The first thing I noticed is that there is no mention of Lady Lucy Houston's important contribution to the early project. The page could do with sections about the plane's contribution to the air war over Europe, N. Africa, and elsewhere. (Weren't they withheld from France in 1940?)"
Most of these issues still appear to need addressing. Thanks. :) — RJH 17:30, 10 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Royal Air Force[edit]

I have made a number of changes to this article over the past few months, as have a small number of others. I believe it is making progress towards a FAC, but feel a wider critical audience will help. What do you feel the article needs? Sc147 21:02, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

A very good start. However, there are several lists that could be separated out to other main articles (list of ranks, lists of aircraft, lists of famous RAF personnel). The history section is a bit short and quite choppy in places, and there are few images - how about adding some images of aircraft, RAF bases, war memorials, uniforms. -- ALoan (Talk) 10:59, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Yep. The list are way to long - it is a policy that FA should not have long lists. Either transform those sections into paragraps or move the list to another supporting article. There is too much short - one, two sentence - paragraphs all over the article. Merge every second paragraph or expand. Remove external links from the main body, use Wikipedia:Footnotes. Format references according to Wikipedia:Cite Sources. See also is fairly large, consider incorportaing into text (and of course remove anything already mentioned in the main body). And 'see also' in main body should be somehow incorporated into the normal text flow or into {{main|Article name}} template. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:59, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I've made an effort with the lists to try to incorporate them as text; the famous members section has been exported to it's own article. Just started looking through the history - really needs some attention. Sc147 00:25, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation[edit]

I would like to one day see this article featured, so I would like your input on how to get it to that stage. What should I add, and what do you want improved? Denelson83 07:17, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • You're going to have to cite your sources, an unreferrenced article hasn't made it to featured status for a while now. Also toward the end of the article there are a number of sections that are single sentences, try and turn them into paragraphs--nixie 08:11, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • The lead needs to be longer too--nixie 00:44, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
      • As in just a summary of what is in the rest of the article? Denelson83 06:13, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
        • Yep--nixie 11:51, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Now, when the sources are cited, does that mean that almost every single piece of information in the article has to have an external reference? Denelson83 00:28, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • My personal rule is site the general material you used to write the article as references, for anything contentious or specific like statistics I use a footnote showing the exact source, see Military history of the Soviet Union for a good example--nixie 13:52, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Caulfield Grammar School[edit]

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

Twenty Years[edit]

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

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

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

Fitz Hugh Ludlow[edit]

GFDL release by the author of an article previously published elsewhere. Interesting, well written page. --Duk 18:26, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

To be featured the lead will need to be expanded to better summarise the content of the article. Many of the descriptions of the New York stories are just a sentence, they should be expaneded where possible. What was the reaction to his work at the time of publication and what do critics say about his work now? Which contemporary writers have been influenced by Ludlow's writing? You may also want to have a list at the end of the article that summarises the publications, with ISBNs--nixie 11:50, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have added to the lead. I am reluctant to expand much on the "New York Stories" section because the article is so large already. I have added some information on the critical reaction to his work (contempory and current) to The Hasheesh Eater page. A complete summary of his publications would be too large, I think. -Moorlock 00:40, 24 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Stone City[edit]

I created this article, but I simply don't know enough Chinese history to know much about the topic, or even if my few facts are all correct. I'd appreciate any feedback. -- Dcfleck 12:41, 2005 Apr 23 (UTC)

A short article. There appear to be a few references in google. [4], [5] &c. You might try checking through profesional travel guides on the city of Nanjing: they're usually more descriptive on tourist destinations. — RJH 17:49, 4 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

James Callaghan[edit]

PR with a view to WP:FAC in the near future. I will fix the references and see also sections in the near future. JuntungWu 05:42, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

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