Talk:Brabham BT19/Road to FA

This page is to help the article Brabham BT19. It intends to check the article against FA criteria. Ways to improve the article can be listed in the improvement section. Thank you.

Criteria made by Jengod

• You must have inline citations that link to a references section that are derived from the documents listed in the sources section. (Cite/Cite.php is currently in vogue, but any recognized citation method, such as the older note_label, ref_label model, would do.) Further reading references are not enough; unanchored sources are not enough. Go on, roll around in Category:Citation templates, and don't come back until you're covered in bibliographic soot!
• An article based on the knowledge in your head, even if you are the world's leading expert on your obscure Internet subculture, doesn't make it good reference document. The text has to be verifiable, and we can't fact-check your personal experience. Avoid weasel words, which are frequently used in an attempt to mask the lack of genuine scholarship in the article.
  • Engine and transmission first paragraph unsourced. Racing history and the following section mostly unsourced.
    • There you go. I've been staring at the blasted thing for days and completely didn't see that. I'll fix that tomorrow, I have the sources to cover it. The racing history is partly because results should be covered by a blanket reference, but that doesn't excuse all of it. 4u1e 20:56, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
• If it was written, reviewed and edited exclusively by fans/residents/users/owners/opponents of the topic in question, chances are, it's not neutral. Run it by peer review to get a fresh set of "disinterested" eyes.
  • Yes, it's on PR as I write this!
• If it hasn't been copy edited from top to bottom and if it isn't internally consistent—using the same style and notation method throughout—it's probably not ready to be featured. Style, grammar, punctuation and spelling count. Prepare to be confronted by rabid word-nerds who'll nit-pick your prose to shreds.
  • Copy-edited? No! We could take it to LOCE or maybe ask one of our fellow WP:F1 people to help copy-edit it.
    • It actually has been copyedited - I asked Awadewit to have a go at it, in return for my peer review of her article Thoughts on the Education of Daughters. Having said that, she says she knows nothing about cars, so another review from some of WPF1 would probably be a good idea. Are there any editors you think have the right skills and you would be happy to approach? 4u1e 21:03, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
      • I wouldn't mind approaching Diniz or AlexJ to copy-edit it. Or, even still, leave a note on the WP:F1 talkpage. Davnel03 09:19, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
• Just because you want an image or sound to be fair use doesn't make it so. Wikipedia has to protect itself and preserve intellectual property rights by only using free images and sounds. Check the copyright status of the images and media in your article before submitting it for featured status and make sure all of the images are correctly tagged.
  • The image of Jack Brabham is OK, but the car image probably is not - even though it was uploaded my me - possibly falls under wrong category. Flickr? Yeah, I think there isn't any on there, unfortunately.
    • There are some on Flickr, but they've currently got the wrong copyright tags. I had an abortive attempt to persuade FarleyKG to change the licensing on his/her pictures, which are the clearest. While s/he seemed willing to let them be used, they didn't seem to grasp that the license on Flickr needed to be changed. I should really follow up on that. 4u1e 21:07, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Sadly you are right about the BT19 picture, it will have to go, I think. 4u1e 21:21, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
• Remember, the lead section is your first and best chance to grab readers' attention and respect.
  • It grabs my attention, but meh, that's probably because I'm a fan! :)
• Any given reader of Wikipedia, an international resource of dizzying diversity, may not be familiar with your topic or its importance. Make sure you put your topic in context and explain why it's encyclopedic, only, just to complicate matters, you have to do so without retelling the history of the world and crowding the article with indirectly related information. It's a difficult balancing act.
  • I can't see anything that's unrelated.

*If your article is mostly lists or mostly pictures, it should probably be nominated elsewhere. Featured articles used to be called "brilliant prose" and that's just what voters expect, not lists or images, although those can certainly enhance an article.

• • Probably doesn't apply for article.
• If your dates are not wikified and your category headings are not in sentence case, someone will complain. Fix them ahead of time or you're just handing someone a gun and asking them to shoot you down.
  • There ain't no full dates.
• Web references are fine and dandy (although they're usually at their best when used in conjuction with material from dead trees, etc.). That said, the links should work (no error messages), and the reference should record the date the page was visited and/or verified. That way, if the page goes away or moves, folks can track down the referenced version at the Wayback Machine or elsewhere.
  • There's one web reference. It needs when it was written, and which website published it.
    • OK, will do.
• When you lean too heavily on one source, it makes people suspicious. We're just sayin'.
  • Wide range of sources, but I would prefer one or two more web sources. We need to rename Notes to References. And possibly the current references section to external links.
    • I know what you mean about web refs. I had a discussion with Bobbacon about this (see here). There are a few suggested web sources there, but they're a bit feeble. If you can google up something better, that would be great. 4u1e 21:21, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Ah, but - notes and references are two different things. Notes are footnotes to the text, often, but not always giving the name of the source and the page number. The 'References' section gives the full info on the sources used - using the templates. I personally find this a much neater way to work than embedding the templates in the text, and I believe it is compatible with the guidelines. Brabham passed FA with the same approach. 4u1e 21:15, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
      • I've found a few web references. Some are OK, but some are not. Nethertheless, here's what I've found: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]. Hope they are OK. Davnel03 09:19, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
• Keep in mind that the bigger your subject, the bigger the target for nitpicking. It's easier to present naysayers with proof of your comprehensivity when your topic is wasps of the Serengeti than it is when your topic is, say, the Bible.
  • I wouldn't call it a big subject.
• "It's too short! It's too long!" These objections are hard to combat, because they're vague and don't specify the best way to remedy the problem (adding filler or removing important details won't cut it), but most featured articles are 30k-50k, so just keep that in mind.
  • 30 to 50? Ours in 24!! Ouch! One or two sources and info might bump that up a bit.
    • Possibly, but there's not much else to say. I have (I think!) all the significant print sources on the car, contemporary magazines aside. Is 24 with or without the tables and pictures? It's only the size of the text which counts, so the situation might even be worse than you think. I can't really think of anything else on the car that could be added, possibly the car's history between 1967 and the present could be fleshed out a little more. Any ideas? 4u1e 21:15, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
      • Hopefully the sources above can bump that up a bit. To get 24, I just clicked the history button on the article page, and it tells you how large it is.Davnel03 09:19, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
        • OK, but that will include the infobox and the result tables, which are not part of the text size criterion. That doesn't make too much difference in this one (although you can imaging how much space the tables etc in Michael Schumacher take up! I make the actual text size around 16kb in this article. I can probably bump that up a little, but only a little, with some other material. However, note that these guidelines say 'most FA are between 30 and 50 kb', not that they have to be. There is certainly a strong preference for an upper size limit, largely supported by the WP:MoS, but I dont' believe there is a hard lower limit. The guidlines are instead written in terms of comprehensivity - and I reckon this article is pretty comprehensive! I've had a couple of thoughts on other things we could mention, but we're not going to get up to 30kb of text. I reckon I can fight my corner on that one at FAC, though! 4u1e 09:40, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
• "There are too few pictures! There are too many pictures! The graphics suck! The borders on that table are too fat!" There's no catch-all remedy to this kind of objection. Just try to make it look attractive, and avoid both excessive clusters of pictures and overlong stretches of unillustrated text wherever possible.
  • Try not to overwhelm the text with "too many" pictures—one image or infographic every 250 words is a good guideline. Try to space images out throughout the article and keep pictures from bumping into each other.
    • Images look spaces out, not squashed.
  • Images aren't a requirement for any Featured Article, but asking for specific parts of articles which would benefit from having an image to be more illustrated is a valid objection. Having at least a few images for any FA is a good idea, and having about one image per screen is also valuable from an aesthetic perspective, drawing more readers into taking the time to read the article.
    • Yep, has images.
  • Look at the page on different platforms and browsers to catch things other users might see that you aren't picking up.
    • It looks OK on mine. Any problems on yours, 4u1e?
      • No, fine here. Firefox and Safari on Windows XP at 1280 x 1024. What are your settings? 4u1e 21:21, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
        • 1024 x 768 on my computer, and I think on my laptop it's the same as yours. Davnel03 09:19, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
• Check other related articles and see what they do, or investigate the standards of an umbrella WikiProject for other ideas on how to visually present the material.
  • Are there any car articles as good as this, most of 'em are stubs!
    • There aren't any others purely on a racing car - however you could try looking at Mini and Maserati MC12, which are both featured articles on road cars which also have a competition pedigree. Other automotive FAs can be found here. 4u1e 08:11, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
      • Going back to the size issue, Mini is 45k and Maserati MC12 is 32k, so hopefully with the references above, that can get bumped up to at least 27k. Davnel03 09:19, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
• The generality, specificity or narrow viewpoint of any given topic is another frequent target. In general, featured articles are expected to provide a 360° view of a subject.
  • Consider retargeting your article on a broad topic so it aims at (and hits) a specific subtopic.
  • Conversely, try to make your article more substantial by identifying other dimensions of the topic.

**What happens in other countries?

• • How do different disciplines treat the same subject?
  • If it's about a person, is there more to him or her than holding a title or winning a prize or committing a crime?
• The last two points are not relevent in my view. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Davnel03 (talk • contribs) 20:29, August 30, 2007 (UTC)
  • While the article is OK in most areas, my primary concern is that there's a gap between 1986 and 2004, but hopefully the references above can sort that out. Hope this can help the article. Davnel03 09:19, 31 August 2007 (UTC)