Wikipedia talk:Featured articles/Archive 13

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Proposal on splitting philosophy and psychology

  • Philosophy and psychology to be split - each has more in common with other areas - the former with Religion, mysticism and mythology, the latter with Health and medicine.
  • Rename Religion, mysticism and mythology to Religion and Philosophy, and the other to Health, medicine and psychology

Support

  1. Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:32, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
  2. Tom Cloyd (talk) 00:33, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Oppose

  1. Colin°Talk 09:39, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

Sorry, the more I think about it, the more I do think combining psychology and philosophy is artificial...and will cause more headaches when we do other articles - eg personality disorders, drug abuse - there are a stack of articles we could squabble about whether med or psychol. Ditto some religion and philosophy. There are very few I think where one would ponder an article fitting into psychology or philosophy. Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:32, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

Cas, in principle, I am not opposed to your proposed split, except ... you do understand that Psychology and philosophy came about because of a lengthy discussion over the article Parapsychology (since defeatured)? If it were to become featured again, some opposed it no matter where we placed it, so the compromise was to go with a library classification scheme that grouped Philosophy and pyschology: it wasn't arbitrary, it was based on an existing scheme and solved the parapsychology problem. If it were to become featured again, where would you put it under your proposed scheme? If it were to become featured again, your scheme puts us right back to the dilemma over that article, which was bitter-- it's not "Health, medicine or psychology", but others rejected putting it into "Religion and philosophy": how would your scheme solve this? Likewise, we can't just leave out mysticism and mythology. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:07, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
Psychology is no closer to medicine and health than the food or biology categories. The article metabolism belongs in Biology but a specific metabolic disorder that causes illness would belong in Medicine. Similarly, articles on moods like depression might belong in Psychology but the clinical diagnosis of the illness defined in medicine as Major depressive disorder belongs in Medicine. I don't see the case for moving Psychology any more than the case for moving aspects of Biology. Colin°Talk 09:39, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm fine with splitting philosophy and psychology, which are unrelated, but not with combining philosophy with religion or mysticism, which are similarly unrelated. I wouldn't mind seeing philosophy with another academic discipline such as history, but placing it with religion and mysticism gives a very false impression of it. SlimVirgin talk contribs 10:00, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
See? I feel a repeat a of a bitter years-old discussion coming on :) This is why we used a library classification system to combine Philosophy and psychology ... any other scheme results in other problems, other opposition. I hope editors weighing in here will read all of Wikipedia talk:Featured articles/Archive 8 and be aware of the issues we already covered, and the arguments advanced there, to understand why we combined Psychology and philosophy, so we don't have to repeat the discussion and end up back at the same place; maybe someone will come up with a novel solution. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:29, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
Philosophy and psychology at one time had much in common - both addressed the question of human nature (with philosophy going far beyond that). The library classification system was assembled during that time - before the emergence and florescence of scientific psychology. B. Russell commented somewhere that psychology was increasingly usurping philosophy, because of its empiricism, and he was and is right. Today, the epistemology of psychology is inductive, while that of philosophy is deductive, and this is a very large difference. I support separating the two, given their present nature. The divorce is permanent. Philosophy, religion, and mysticism clearly are non-empirical, speculative, and when logical at all essentially deductive. They belong together far more than do psychology and philosophy.
Because psychology addresses not only the hardware of the mind (the brain), but more importantly the software (learning of all sorts), it cannot be placed with medicine, which is at its core about the use of substances to heal by altering the body's biochemical dynamics (along with surgery, which is altogether different, of course).
Psychology is a huge and growing field and deserves its own group, unless we put it with sociology and anthropology, which I would strongly support (having graduate degrees in 2 of these 3 fields). All deal with aspects of human nature. All are strongly and increasingly empirical in their method. They differ mainly by focusing on different levels of organization relative to human systems. There is a great deal of cross-fertilization, however. They make good conceptual buddies.
Psychology belongs with medicine about as much as anthropology, which also has a strong interest the organic human being. Neither, however, are at all "medical". I support pooling those three, and leaving medicine with the biological sciences. One could make a case for placing psychotherapy with medicine, but that would require splitting it off from psychology, which makes no sense.
If we have to do one or the other, I say put psychology with medicine. But...that leaves sociology and anthropology out in the cold, and ignores the fact that MOST psychology is about function, not health per se. That's a critical point.
I say this proposal is heading the right direction, but is not yet well formed. I cannot really support either option, as psychology no longer belongs with philosophy, and most of it cannot be seen as belonging either with health or medicine. I would be happy to frame different proposal, building on this one, if this one goes nowhere. Tom Cloyd (talk) 22:09, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
Update - support now. I hadn't realized: there ARE no anthropology or sociology FA. Yikes. I'll predict that non-psychotherapy psychologists, should any show up, will NOT be happy with the Health/Med./Psych. grouping, but until we have enough FA in Psych.+Soc.+Anthro., Cas's grouping is better idea than the present grouping, because all these fields are about human beings, share a concern with the organic, and use inductive empiricism. That logic is substantive. Also OK with merging philosophy, religion, etc., for reasons already stated. It seems reasonable to take account not only of common features, but also of number of articles in a group. Philosophy needs buddies, right now. Tom Cloyd (talk) 00:44, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Sandy is right, and I shouldn't have even bothered giving a reasoned argument for my choice of category combination/split. There as many ways of categorising FAs as there are editors, and nearly as many arguments with at least some merit. We currently have a system (I believe) where the FA director or his delegates decide the categories and which articles go in which. In the past, where there's been a dispute, an official external category system has been used to arbitrate. But this is an aspect of WP that pure democracy isn't helpful: it wastes too much time discussing the petty when we could be writing articles. We have three bright and wise people in charge, and for as long as they maintain the respect of Wikipedians, we should respect their decisions. Colin°Talk 08:33, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Just a note - although I haven't read the above discussion too deeply, I agree with proposals to put psych into health and medicine. I am so-so on putting philosophy with religion and mysticism - it's not a perfect fit, but it's not terrible either. There aren't enough for Philosophy to stand as its own category, IMO. Raul654 (talk) 08:38, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I hope our choices aren't complete consensus OR autocracy. That leaves out a rather obvious functional alternative. Pure consensus can easily slow, arduous, and an idealistic failure. Avoidance of those problems is why people vote. But usually there is a hearing of argument pro and con, which I thought was what we were doing. Tom Cloyd (talk) 08:50, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Tom, as it seems this has been discussed many times, I won't try to go through it again, but I must object to your point that "philosophy, religion, and mysticism ... belong together far more than do psychology and philosophy." Philosophy is a rigorous debunker, a meta-activity: philosophy of knowledge, philosophy of mind, philosophy of law, philosophy of science, philosophy of religion. It has no more in common nowadays with any one of these fields than with any other—but to compare it to the less rigorous ones is particularly unfortunate, given that it seeks to be more rigorous than any of them.
Raul, yes, it would be terrible. It's one of the quick ways to tell a bad book store from a good one: the bad ones put philosophy (on the rare occasions they have any) next to religion and anything vaguely mystical, so that Immanuel Kant, arguably one of the world's greatest thinkers, ends up next to Betty Shine, the Brighton soothsayer. :) SlimVirgin talk contribs 08:51, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
As Colin says, there are as many ways of categorizing FAs as there are editors, and the problem in this discussion is the same as it's always been: none of the opinions expressed are similar! Tom Cloyd, for example, signs on to the proposal as a Support when his discussion specifically disagrees with what he's supporting! And no one yet who has opined has answered the query that led to the current categorization: under whatever scheme you propose, where would you put parapsychology? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 08:54, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
I wouldn't mind an Ideas category, which could include issues such as parapsychology—though that could also go into psychology. An Ideas category could also include philosophy and religion, but so long as it was focused on ideas and it included lots of others too, there would be no close comparison of philosophy and religion or mysticism. It was the comparison I wasn't keen on. SlimVirgin talk contribs 09:21, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure everyone would be happy with "Ideas" (more discussion will tell), but at least this is the kind of novel proposal that deals with parapsychology, which certainly can't be grouped with health and medicine, and the broader issues of categorization. I feel another long discussion coming on, which happens every time an editor appears here and wants to change the page :) So be it ... putting on my seatbelt. :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:27, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
(Likely my final thoughts...) SandyGeorgia, you once have again not read me carefully or correctly. I offered a final compromise position - perhaps you missed it - and a rationale for the change, which I thought entirely pragmatic and reasonable. It's the paragraph beginning Update - support now. You may simply have missed it.
Putting philosophy by itself is fine by me. That just wasn't the proposal. Parapsychology, no longer taken seriously anywhere in academic psychology (that I know of), has always been housed in the psych. department. But that's all history, now. It was empirical, which is why is is no more, among serious psychologists. Insufficient supporting data. But, it belongs in psychology, by virtue of its history.
Tom Cloyd (talk) 09:35, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Proposal for quick resolution (updated final thoughts) I agree with Colin - we spend our time better by working on article content. Arguments about the "structure of knowledge" are clearly not easily resolved without agreeing to a number of presuppositions, and we haven't. So, I propose, instead:

  • that we accept the present use of the structure drawn from a (unnamed - US Library of Congress? Dewey?) Library categorization system, BUT state that this is what is being done, and why, at the head of the FA main page, so that people are appreciate what is being done and why. This will likely shut down the articulation of many disagreements based on people's not liking the categorization.
  • to make this really work we must ALSO put at the head of the FA page the simple advice that people use their browser's search function to locate what they're looking for, if the categorization doesn't locate it for them. (This may seem like needless advice, but my work with designing web pages and web sites has taught me that many people do not know the basic functions of their browser, IF they even know they're actually using one. Trust me on this. Sad news, but true.) Instructions for specific browsers can be put in a page note.

RATIONALE: The core issue here should not be "how to categorize". All categorizations done prior to a knowledge search will fail early and often (something well known by those with training in Library Science). The solution in classic categorization systems is to cross-classify, so that one can look lots of places and find the same information. This is an improvement, but still has serious failures, and is time costly (not a real solution for the FA page, Sandy tells us.) In more modern times, we have been using keyword search systems, then full text search. Those do about as well as we can hope, and can obviously be used on the FA page as well (the full-text search solution).

The real issue is usability, not proper classification. If what is being looked for cannot be found, the page fails - it's not usable by ordinary readers. If we seek to maximize usability, we'll solve the problem more quickly and with less effort. For that, I think using full-text search is a pretty good solution. BUT WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TO TELL PEOPLE TO DO IT.

Offer. I don't want to tread on anyone's turf, but if there is no overt objection to my idea, I would be happy to make the first effort to adjust the FA main page as I have suggested. But I do need sense that this is wanted before I invest the time/effort. Now...back to working on my pet article. Tom Cloyd (talk)

Edit request from 173.24.230.108, 5 April 2010

{{editsemiprotected}} remove the extra vertical bar character in the |Bayern class battleship link 173.24.230.108 (talk) 17:02, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing this out. It's been fixed now. Karanacs (talk) 17:05, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

New academic article on FAs

David Lindsey, Evaluating quality control of Wikipedia's feature articles, First Monday, Volume 15, Number 4 - 5 April 2010.

Somewhat critical, but valid enough to discuss. I don't think that the argument about people supporting because of lenght holds merit (although frankly I haven't been active around FACs much in the past year or two... but I hope the process has not deteriorated that much). On the other hand, the argument about the need to include more experts is certainly indisputable. But the problem is the same as in the past - how to convince experts to write/review content for us? The article's author, while suggesting it should be "easy" to overcome, unfortunately, does not offer any practical suggestions. If one reads between the lines, he may be suggesting that we submit articles to review just like journals do, but I have a feeling that despite some changes, and more favorable attitude towards Wikipedia in academia, our rejection rate (academics not caring to review articles for Wikipedia) would be very high, much higher then for any journal. Still... liked the Wikipedia:Academic peer review, but it never got off. Maybe we could revitalize it? Any other suggestions?

PS. On another note, it would be interesting if the author would post the reviews publicly, so we could improve the articles based on them. Will anybody contact him? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk 05:39, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

This article is being discussed over at WT:FAC. The author has indicated he is willing to provide the reviews semi-privately (i.e. via email, not posted on a wikipedia page). Dr pda (talk) 08:42, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
Parially copied to Wikipedia talk:FAC#Journal article labels FAC a failure; please continue dicsussion there. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:04, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Breaking out the archaeology

That archaeology articles have been bundled with art and architecture has bothered me for some time, but until now there's not been nearly enough to create a separate category. By now, however, we're up to at least seven clear-cut archaeology articles (only two less than "Food and drink"):

There are a further six that could also possibly go into the same category.

The strongest argument, though, is that archaeology as a reasonably well-defined topic of its own that is quite far removed from both art and architecture. It's far, far closer related to both "Culture and society" and "History" and it seems to have stuck with the arts on account of some historically distant administrative fluke. There's naturally always room for a broad range of articles within a single FA category, but cramming in Mary Rose together with Triptych, May–June 1973 and IG Farben Building seems overly contrived to me.

Peter Isotalo 10:59, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

FYI

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Main Page featured article protection might be of interest to the folks here. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 23:47, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

RfC on merging Words to avoid into Words to watch

Wikipedia talk:Words to watch#RFC. As people here tend to have an interest in the MoS, there's a proposal to merge several pages as part of a streamlining project. One part of the proposal is to merge Words to avoid, Avoid peacock terms, Avoid weasel words, and Avoid neologisms into a new page, Words to watch (W2W). Fresh input would be appreciated at the RfC. SlimVirgin talk contribs 01:03, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Featured articles being move-protected

Just in case your watchlist seems hyperactive today: the featured articles are all being move-protected. This means that they cannot be moved to another title except by administrators. The main purpose is to ensure that they are not moved to an inappropriate title whilst they enjoy their day in the sun on the main page; however, move vandalism comes in waves and has affected FAs in the past, so this is also preventative in that way too. I don't think there's much question that the overwhelming majority of featured articles are at the correct title; they wouldn't have survived the FAC process with such an elementary problem. Nonetheless, should it be appropriate to move any FA to a new title, it can be done by any administrator who believes that a case has been put forward to do so. It will also prevent good-faith but misguided attempts to move a FA to another title.

The move protection does not in any way affect the editing protection status of the articles; those few that are fully- or semi-protected remain so, while the vast majority remain open for anyone to edit. Full disclosure: I am leaving this message because I made some inquiries when my own watchlist suddenly had a whole pile of excellent articles at the top. Risker (talk) 19:12, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

The move protection most certainly is "affecting the editing protection status of the articles" – the log summaries are "Move-protecting all featured articles. Requests for (re)-semi-protection should be brought to WP:RFPP" (my emphasis), so this removal of all protection is explicitly a deliberate act, not an accidental byproduct of changing the move-protection status. This looks to me like yet another example of an admin inventing a non-existent policy and demanding everyone follow it; I've certainly seen no discussion whatsoever. – iridescent 19:52, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
While I have much less of a problem with move protection then edit protection (less of a problem to normal users) and these articles are unlikely to be moved often if at all the "necessity" of it all (and the consensus to do so) is definitely arguable. If people want it then I'm fine with it but protection for protections sake is a little meh :/. James (T C) 20:18, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
Interesting point, Iridescent; doing a spot check of NuclearWarfare's logs, I didn't see any articles that had been semi-protected at the time of adding move protection, so I can't honestly say. Personally, I'm on the fence about this one; if there was some assurance that the appropriate move protection would happen when articles/files were on the main page, it would probably be a non-issue. The bot that used to add move protection to the articles on the Main Page, however, has not been functioning for some time, and there have been multiple issues with lack of protection of those articles and images, as I understand; however, I don't profess to be an expert here, and I know nothing of the cascade protection that had been used for a long time but apparently is not being done consistently now. On the other hand, I can speak fairly well on the subject of moves of articles to completely inappropriate titles, and the vandals who enjoy doing this. Let's just say when they're working as a team or have a bunch of socks fired up, my suppression button can get quite a workout, and FAs have been affected in the past. I understand NuclearWarfare and Scott MacDonald were going to discuss this at WT:PPOL, but I'm probably out of synch now. Risker (talk) 20:34, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
I don't have a problem with the move-protection (to be honest, I don't see why any pages shouldn't be move-protected); where I have an issue is with the unilateral removal of edit-protection which appears to be NW's intent here. If you think 4channers "on wheels"-ing pages is annoying, you're welcome to add Israel and Islam to your watchlist and see what happens when NW's run through the alphabet reaches "i". – iridescent 20:53, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
Platypus was semi-protected and now no longer is. I'll re-protect it when vandalism remains at a high level. Ucucha 20:55, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
Quite a few articles had long-term semi-protection removed in this process. Just to name a few others: Bald Eagle, Velociraptor, and Evolution. I noticed Israel and Islam were not hit by the run - were articles that were already sysop-only move-protected excluded? Gimmetrow 21:01, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
To answer my own question, No. Lion. Gimmetrow 21:06, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
This was most definitely something I should have thought through further and not done while jet-lagged. It was not my intention to remove semi-protection from a large number of articles. I understood that it would be removed from some if I used Twinkle to move-protect FAs, and I planned to check them afterward to see which semi-protection had to be readded to. I shall do a detailed check of the articles I have already protected, and will not protect any more until I open a thread on WT:PPOL. NW (Talk) 21:32, 26 April 2010 (UTC) Update: I have performed that check, and all of the articles that I changed the edit-protection of should be back to normal. NW (Talk) 21:41, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
From what I can tell, [1] was missed. How did you perform that check? Gimmetrow 22:42, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
I did a "Ctrl + F" for "changed protection" in my logs, and opened in tabs all that it matched. You are right that I missed that one though, and several more that appear to have been on a third page that I had not seen. Within a few minutes, they should actually be done. NW (Talk) 22:46, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

International Space Station

I'd like to request that International Space Station be moved from its current category, Physics and Astronomy, and be moved into Engineering and Technology. The article deals with the spacecraft itself, a feat of engineering, and the station crews carry out experiments in a wide variety of areas, not just physics and astronomy. Colds7ream (talk) 15:44, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

No dissenters? Right - I'll execute the change. :-) Colds7ream (talk) 11:12, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
I'm not convinced-- moving it back pending more feedback. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:38, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Also in the Engineering and technology category - Shuttle-Mir Program, Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. Both of these articles also deal with manned spacecraft, and the Shuttle-Mir programme article even concerns a space station. I'd also suggest Apollo 8 be moved into the Engineering and technology category too. Colds7ream (talk) 11:41, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Incidentally: " The primary fields of research include human research, space medicine, life sciences, physical sciences, astronomy and meteorology." Colds7ream (talk) 11:43, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Some of those don't make sense to me either-- let's wait to hear from others (including Raul and Karanacs). This page needs to remain as stable as possible, and it doesn't hurt to wait for feedback. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:48, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
I would rather not see it move while it is an announced TFA candidate. While Colds7ream's reasons are no doubt entirely proper, I'm concerned about setting undesirable precedents.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:49, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Sandy: Fair enough. Wehwalt: I had the article reclassified as an Engineering and technology category article back when it was GA, and only just noticed it got misclassified again upon reaching FA when I began reviewing things for the TFA candidacy later this year. Colds7ream (talk) 11:51, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Incidentally, its been an announced candidate since February: [2]. Colds7ream (talk) 11:55, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Let's not worry about that factor; Raul has a better sense of where to classify things than I do, having been at this much longer. I'm sure we'll get this sorted. You might want to ping Raul and Karanacs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:57, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
That's fine. I have nothing against the article, it is just that the situation is new and the community needs to look at it. And when I said "candidate", I guess I meant that it was stated at one of the TFA pages that there's an intent to nominate it. Putting it on the article talk page does not inform those involved in the TFA process.--Wehwalt (talk) 12:00, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Pinged Raul and Karanacs. Colds7ream (talk) 12:02, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Good- we'll get it sorted. Thanks for bringing that factor to attention, Wehwalt, because I hadn't noticed (if I had, I would have responded here sooner), but we'll get it right regardless. That is one of the reasons, though, that we don't want this page changing willy-nilly without broad feedback. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:11, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

This is a tricky one. It makes sense to me to put it with the Shuttle-Mir Program, but, as something that is orbiting the earth, it also makes sense to keep it in the Physics-Astronomy bucket with Hubble Telescope. Karanacs (talk) 12:41, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Same for me :) Raul will decide-- that's why he gets the big bucks! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:44, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Colds7ream - it belongs in engineering. Raul654 (talk) 17:15, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Then I guess Apollo 8 should be moved, too?--Wehwalt (talk) 17:22, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Hrm... I don't know about that one. I think that all devices and inventions (be it a microchip or a space station) should go in engineering, except maybe transport-related ones since there's a transportation category. Apollo 8, an action, is harder to categorize that way. That one could reasonably go either way. Raul654 (talk) 17:52, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
I'd leave it, but if someone wrote an article on the Saturn V rocket, or the lunar module, an actual object, put that in engineering. Most of the later Apollo missions used effectively the same devices.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:04, 6 May 2010 (UTC)
Do we have any featured articles on astronauts or cosmonauts? There are a chunk of 50th anniversary events coming up next year and over the next few years, starting with Yuri Gagarin's orbit on 12 April 1961. I'm looking into getting Gagarin to featured status. Over the next nine years, leading up to the 50th anniversary of the Moon landings in 2019, we would hopefully see a lot more work done on articles relating to the Space Race, both from the US and Soviet side of things. Spaceflight is both engineering and exploration of space. I'd say change one or other of the section titles to read "Engineering, technology and spaceflight" or "Physics, astronomy and spaceflight". Actual events or missions are harder to classify, and are more in the spirit of "exploration". But regardless, my original question still stands - where would astronaut and cosmonaut articles such as John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, Yuri Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova be classified if they were featured articles? Carcharoth (talk) 15:21, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
It's a good question (and there was discussion of getting Apollo 11 to FA last year for the 40th, but there was no time). No matter what the answer is, space travel-related articles should be consolidated at one, and only one topic. Including astronauts (though Glenn is a special case due to his long political career, and I would argue is better known today as senator rather than astronaut).--Wehwalt (talk) 15:55, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
It makes sense for this article to be placed under Engineering and Technology. Other than it being an orbiting body, the ISS seems to have little to do with Physics and Astronomy. As I understand it, the onboard experiments are mainly related to technology, material science and the life sciences. (I seem to recall that at one point it was proposed that a student telescope be mounted on the station, but I don't know that much came of it. :-) —RJH (talk) 20:20, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

New proposal on promoting reader understanding of assessment processes

I have made a proposal at WT:ASSESS that is somewhat related to the issue of the FA star (and the desire for a GA icon). It looks at a broader issue by focusing more on helping readers understand our assessment system, rather than just focusing on recognizing quality content. Feedback, positive or negative, is strongly encouraged. – VisionHolder « talk » 01:35, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Random featured article

Please make this work again. It's broken and it would be the best browser homepage. Regular random article is a little too random to be useful. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.223.222.56 (talk) 19:11, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Still working fine for me. – iridescent 20:38, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

IP edit turning GA to FA

Hi

I just had this come up on my watchlist [3]

Its by an anon IP so thought it best to check with yourselves before changing it back :¬)

thanks...Chaosdruid (talk) 21:44, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the notice: I reverted. However, that edit doesn't convert the article to FA status: an article is only featured if it is listed on this page by Raul654, Karanacs, or me. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:20, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
As a matter of interest what does that link do? (plus reverted the next one lol by User_talk:ЮОЧ
Chaosdruid (talk) 23:13, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
Hmmm ... we may have a problem. That link may be indicating it's an FA on another (language) Wiki. If so, my revert may have been incorrect. The {{featured article}} template is the one we use. I'll go check now, and may need to revert myself. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:16, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
Another editor has already reverted my error: it's an FA on the UKrainian Wiki. I was confused as there is no UK wiki. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:23, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Error

I don't know why, but there seems to be an error in the math that is being done. When it says that there are currently x amount of articles and x amount of featured articles. Therefore 1 in 1130 are featured. The math doesn't add up. Doing simple division, it's 1 in 1140. --Iankap99 (talk) 01:49, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

The apparent discrepancy is the result of a rounding error. The calculation is performed using a floor function that truncates to multiples of 10. At the time of this writing, the actual value is approximately 1 in 1139.96. As this value is slightly smaller than 1140, the displayed value after truncation is correct based upon the current system. I will let others debate the benefits of alternate methods of rounding and whether a change in the manner of calculation is appropriate. --Allen3 talk 03:21, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
What are the chances of the right people coming here to discuss it?--Iankap99 (talk) 03:54, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

St. Michael's Cathedral: goes in Religion, or Architecture?

St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery and Stanford Memorial Church are both actively functioning religious structures that are listed under Architecture. St. Michael's Cathedral, Qingdao was put in Religion. When I moved it to Architecture, it was reverted. Can I get some consensus here? The article is about a neo-Romanesque cathedral. Either St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery and Stanford Memorial Church need to be moved, or St. Michael's Cathedral, Qingdao does. ɳorɑfʈ Talk! 12:04, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I also need some discussion here to generate more clarity, since we have some active congregations in Religion. (On the other hand, I may forget the conclusion and goof next time :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:07, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
I'd argue that a congregation and a building are two different things. Further, in St. Michael's Cathedral, Qingdao the congregation is mentioned in just a single sentence. The article is about a structure. I think it belongs in Art and Architecture. ɳorɑfʈ Talk! 12:25, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
Yes, but that raises another issue: when a building has an active congregation, is the article comprehensive if it doesn't adequately address the congregation? Stanford Memorial Church did both, so I'm still unclear how we divide these articles. More feedback needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:38, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
That in itself raises more questions: What is considered "adequate"? Standford Memorial Church spent maybe a fifth of its prose on the congregation, and two thirds on the building. That says to me that the structure is more correctly considered the "subject" of the article than the congregation. In fact, that's not a bad rule of thumb: if the article dedicates more prose to the congregation, file it under Religion. If it dedicates more prose to the architecture, file it under Art and Architecture. ɳorɑfʈ Talk! 13:48, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
I think you're mixing up the chicken and the egg: the correct question (which should be evaluated at FAC) is whether the article devotes sufficient space to each, according to reliable sources. I happen to be intimately acquainted with MemChu, but not your building. MemChu is clearly more relevant as an architectural structure than a congregation, since it's a student (transitional) congregation. In your case, I'm not sure, but the question is, did you adequately cover the congregation? — SandyGeorgia — continues after insertion below
I think you're mixing up what we're here to discuss. The purpose of this discussion is to determine whether churches and other religious buildings belong under religion or architecture. So asking whether a particular article adequately covers one thing or another has no bearing on the topic at hand. If the article has been passed at FA, then community consensus has determined that it adequately covers its topic, and if editors disagree, that's a subject for said article's talk page. So I think my proposed rule of thumb still stands as a good guideline: If an article dedicates more prose to the congregation, file it under Religion. If an article dedicates more prose to the architecture, file it under Art and Architecture. Every article should be filed under the category that best categorizes its subject matter. ɳorɑfʈ Talk! 14:17, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
I believe MemChu is in the right place, since its architectural importance is more than that of the congregation, and the article covers them in the right proportion. Have a look at some of Jayjg's Jewish congregation/building articles; from my perspective, unless the architectural significance of a building with an active congregation is established by sources and the article, it goes in Religion (I don't want to be constrained by what reviewers happened to address). — SandyGeorgia — continues after insertion below
I think that falls in line with what I said above. ɳorɑfʈ Talk! 14:17, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
Another issue is that MemChu is non-demoninational, while your building is clearly Catholic-- affiliated with a specific religion. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:04, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
I don't see why that's an issue. Religious art gets placed under Art. If the Pietà makes FA, it will rightly go under Art. I'm going to invite some folks from Architecture and Religion over here for their opinions. ɳorɑfʈ Talk! 14:17, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
Please don't chop up other editors' posts: thank you. No, nothing is set in stone because it was or wasn't reviewed at FAC. Karanacs and Raul will sort this. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:22, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

(1)See WP:TPO. (2) I never said anything was set in stone. I did say that you're confusing the issue (which you did not respond to). (3) I note that you chose not to answer most of the points I made in my response. (4) Respectfully, it isn't up to Raul or Karanacs. Its up to the Wikipedia community, which is why we're talking here on a community talk page, and inviting comment from all comers. ɳorɑfʈ Talk! 14:32, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Let me be more clear; if I again write an entire paragraph, and you split it to suit your whim, I will revert. It's rude; please stop. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:19, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
Why did you think it was unclear? I answered you; I cited WP:TPO as evidence that it isn't rude, and a mechanism has been provided to do it. If you don't like it, I won't do it to your posts anymore. You still haven't answered my other points. ɳorɑfʈ Talk! 00:18, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
  • I don't think all religious buildings would need to be in the same category: cleary some might be more notable as religious buildings others as architecture. If an article is promoted as FP it means there should be clarity about its notability. I see the difficulty of categorizing St. Michael's Cathedral, Qingdao, as is notable for both while the article is mostly about history..., but if it has to be chosen between architecture vs religion clearly the article has a stronger emphasis on the building so it would fit under architecture. --Elekhh (talk) 02:03, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
If if absolutely can't be both, then I guess I would vote for "architecture." The congregation would be in a separate article. Note that there are a lot of congregations. In the past, a congregation was "kindda" considered notable IFF it had a building. Without a building, we are opening up Wikipedia to thousands of non-building congregations. That is an unwanted side affect IMO. The side affect may well be worse that choosing "religion" for the building/congregation. Student7 (talk) 18:16, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
While my gut instinct was for "architecture", on reflection I think "religion" is more appropriate. Otherwise, it opens up too much of a grey area for Architecture to become a catch-all group for buildings—White House under Architecture instead of Politics, St Pancras railway station under Architecture instead of Transport, and so on—which will ultimately lead to confusion as related articles aren't kept together. IIRC there was a similar discussion about whether BP Pedestrian Bridge was filed under Architecture or Transport. – iridescent 12:40, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Little star?

I've been editing here for less than a year and when I first started I had no idea how to identify a featured article. In my opinion, a featured article should have more than a little star on the top right it. I don't think Wikipedia is a bad source but a a portion of people, including academics, do because of the editing liberty. I think a different label with the star would seperate the article better. Is there a reason for current star? My apologies if this was covered in a past discussion but I was reluctant to look through 7 years of posts. Thanks. --NortyNort (talk) 13:13, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

If anything, I think the current star is too prominent (I'd happily see it vanish altogether). "Featured article" means it complies to a particular set of standards, not that it's perfect in any way; we don't want to be encouraging a "featured articles good, other articles bad" attitude among readers. – iridescent 14:09, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

FFA

Hi, I only have a question. An user an me have a little edit war on the article Manos: The Hands of Fate. The thing is that it is a former featured article, but before its nomination to FA, it was listed as a good article. Then it was demoted from its FA status. As far as I can understand the article still being a Good Article, because it never was nominated for a reassessement and I am wondering if the article is or not a GA. Thank you. TbhotchTalk C. 16:43, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

When articles are promoted to FA, they automatically loses its GA status; therefore, when an article loses its FA status after an FAR it is not a GA either. Dabomb87 (talk) 16:52, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
Oh, thank you alot Dabomb. TbhotchTalk C. 17:01, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured articles should be a Featured article

Shouldn't Wikipedia:Featured Articles be a Featured Article since it lists every single Featured Article on Wikipedia. It just seems weird that it's not a featured article I'm just saying.--Nascarking (talk) 01:28, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Please see WP:WIAFA (this page is not an article). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:59, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
Not the talk page, the project page listing all the Featured Articles. It just seems weird that it's not a Featured Article of some kind.--Nascarking (talk) 19:23, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
That's the point. It is a project page, not an article. Dabomb87 (talk) 20:46, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

The Volcano and Cerro Azul

Not that it really matters, but should The Volcano (British Columbia) and Cerro Azul (Chile volcano) be listed in the section Geography and places insted of Geology, geophysices and meteorology? These two volcanoes are mountains, and mountains are a geographical feature. Just wanted to point this out because I see other featured volcanoes like Loihi, Loa, del Ruiz, St. Helens and Tambora are listed in the Geography and places section insted of the geology, geophysics and meteorology one. BT (talk) 20:37, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Crackdown featured article image

I thought someone forgot to protect the main page when I saw the picture for today's featured article. --mboverload@ 01:38, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

(del/undel) 00:01, 24 July 2010 MPUploadBot (talk | contribs | block) protected File:David Jones - 2003.jpg [edit=sysop] (indefinite) [move=sysop] (indefinite) ‎ (Image is on the mainpage.) (hist | change). Looks fine to me. NW (Talk) 02:00, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

FA of small towns

I'm looking for a featured article of a town with less than 5000 inhabitants, to use as a model. Could anyone help me find some? Cheers, Randomblue (talk) 14:27, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, presently at FAC and with two supports and no opposes is Stephens City, Virginia.--Wehwalt (talk) 14:29, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
Wormshill is an FA; the town has a population of 200. Mike Christie (talk) 14:45, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Hidden list of victim names in featured aviation accident article

There is an RfC for an FA which contains a list of victim names in hide/show format (hidden by default). Comments welcome. Crum375 (talk) 02:03, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Stray nomination

The Smashing Pumpkins is listed as a featured article, but it's articlehistory doesn't show where it was promoted. After a little digging, I found it at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/The Smashing Pumpkins, with an earlier failed nomination at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/The Smashing Pumpkins/archive1. Not sure if the successful nomination ought to be moved to /archive2 or if the articlehistory ought to be updated manually, please advise. Skomorokh 16:21, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Fixed. Dabomb87 (talk) 16:34, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
Ah, should've known it would be something simple. Thanks DB. Skomorokh 16:40, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

OK, one more 1 April suggestion

Charles Domery

Per this, does anyone have any opinion where Charles Domery ought to be listed? My gut instinct is either History (where Tarrare is currently listed) or Health & Medicine—to me, it's primarily an article about a sufferer from an eating disorder/digestive disorder. I can see cases for Culture & Society (where it's currently listed), Food & Drink, and even MILHIST, as well. – iridescent 18:52, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I prefer "History" or "Culture and society". "Health and medicine" would not be as good a fit IMO; the article's focus is on an individual with an affliction, and not a health-related topic or about a medical pioneer. Dabomb87 (talk) 00:55, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Subsections

This may have been discussed in the past, but why aren't there subsections (along the lines of those at WP:GA)? For example the Media section is incredibly long, and if one might be interested in searching for an article in that section, it will be incredibly difficult to do that. Is there an disadvantage of having subsections at WP:FA? Nergaal (talk) 23:19, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Check the archives. The directors dislike subdividing WP:FA any more than necessary due to maintainence issues. Dabomb87 (talk) 00:51, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

WP:FTC candidates

The page at WT:FTC seemed dead, hence just commenting here. Is there any reason why nominations at WP:FTC are lying there for so long? Is any one promoting them? — Legolas (talk2me) 12:38, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

rst20xx, who has been running FTC, has been gone for some time. Wizardman has closed a few FTCs lately, though. Ucucha 12:46, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
OK. Thanks for the info Ucucha. — Legolas (talk2me) 10:45, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Why are FAs 'undated?

I know one can look at particular dates (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Today%27s_featured_article) to find the associated feature date of an article one is interested in, but when coming across an article bearing a gold star in its corner, it's a shame that it doesn't also inform the reader of the exact date is was featured. (I assume that's been discussed before?)

16:06, 22 August 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.16.251.43 (talk)

The date on which an article was featured is usually visible at the top of the talk page; see Talk:Benjamin Morrell for example. (I assume you mean "displayed on the main page"; if you mean "designated as a featured article" then that's visible too, in the "Article milestones" list.) I don't know if this is universal but it is true for the more recent articles at least. I wouldn't like to see the date on the article page itself; I think there should be as little as possible to distract the reader from the content. Mike Christie (talk) 14:14, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Hard spaces and middle dots

Forgive me if this has been brought up before, but is there any specific reason why hard spaces are not used in the Featured articles list? I find it rather odd that middle dots should appear at the beginning of lines, and it seems to me that the dots ought to always appear right after the last word of an article title/link, so that one can easily tell whether such a title at the end of a line appears whole or is divided between lines. At Good articles, as well as in navboxes all around Wikipedia, the lack of a bullet or dash at a line's end suggests such division, and I find that readability on this page suffers from the lack of this distinction. Waltham, The Duke of 17:51, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree; hard spaces would be preferable. Ucucha 19:01, 20 August 2010 (UTC)
I see that the page is updated manually, and that Zorglbot just marks the articles that have appeared on the Main Page. I don't know if switching to hard spaces would affect the bot, but I have left a message on its operator's talk page just in case. Other than that, all that would need to be done would be for the page to be updated to the new style—an easy job, if a tedious one. Waltham, The Duke of 12:31, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
It's not too difficult with wikEd find and replace, I reckon. I'll do that if the bot doesn't have a problem with it. Ucucha 15:28, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
I don't know what the question is; can someone translate? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:07, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
Currently, the symbols that are placed between the links to the FAs listed on WP:FA are joined to the link following them using a non-breaking space, so that they may appear at the start but not at the end of a line. His Grace would like to move the non-breaking spaces, so that the symbols can no longer appear at the start of a line. This is similar to the current situation at WP:GA. Ucucha 16:10, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
Actually, the current situation is worse: there are no non-breaking spaces in the list, so the aforementioned symbols simply hover between the two links, as it were, and may appear either at the end of a line or at the beginning of the next. There is no consistency at all. Here's an example:
Blah 1 · Blah 5 ·

Blah 8 · Blah 11

· Blah 16

See what I mean? Waltham, The Duke of 19:05, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Move protection for FAs

Back in April, User:NuclearWarfare began using Twinkle to apply move protection to all featured articles. I'm not sure how far he got, but the process was stopped after a few objections were raised, largely (as I recall) because the use of Twinkle meant that existing protection settings (for example, pre-existing semi-protection) were overridden. I'm not starting an RfC or anything like that, but I'd just like to seek some input on whether FAs should be move protected (only move protected) by default.

Pros
  1. FAs will be move protected when they appear on the Main Page
  2. Prevents page-move vandalism and misguided moves
  3. Very little reason for an FA to be moved, given that it wouldn't be an FA if there were substantial disagreement over the title
  4. If there were consensus for a move, it could easily be performed by an admin
Cons
  1. Use of Twinkle for mass protection removes pre-existing semi-protection or pending changes (perhaps a bot could solve this problem)
  2. Possible "flooding" of recent changes and protection log
  3. Possible ideological issues—"if it ain't broke, don't fix it"/"rule creep"
  4. Some may not like having to seek admin assistance for an uncontroversial or consensual move

Feel free to add to the list of pros and cons. All comments are welcome. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 00:58, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Why single out FAs for move-protection? The only relevant "Pro" is the Main Page bit, which ought to come as MP standard like image-protection. It's generally a poor design choice to apply restrictions on a general class without regards to the attributes of the individual components. This proposal is very lacking. Skomorokh 01:02, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
I think move protection shouldn't be too big a deal for established articles—most moves will require consensus in an RM anyway—but I also see very little in its favor. As far as I am aware, there has never been any particular problem with FAs being moved. TFAs should of course be move-protected, though. Ucucha 06:31, 22 August 2010 (UTC)
I think the rationale of "it's not a big deal, so protect" is exactly backwards; protection should only be used when disruption is likely, or if a disruptive edit would have serious consequences, which is absolutely not the case for the majority of FAs. Open editing is the lifeblood of the project, and should only be curtailed when there is significant need. Skomorokh 19:20, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Alphabetical

I hit a snag when alphabeticizing Art, Literature, Media, Video gaming, and a few others. Copying this from User talk:DGG. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:39, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Aphabetical questions

DGG, could you help me understand how libraries alphabeticize book titles? Over time, WP:FA gets out of alpha order due to article name changes; in trying to correct that, I'm discovering my ignorance.

  1. When "The" or "An" is part of a book title or work of art, how should it be alphabeticized?
  2. We have a discrepancy with foreign language articles, when "El", "La", "Los" etc. is part of the title.
  3. Are books and works of art handled differently than regular alpha rules?

See in particular the Art and Literature sections at WP:FA. Since WP:MSH has us avoid "The" or "An" in article titles, my confusion mostly occurs in books and works of art. The two issues combine iin El Señor Presidente, which is a book with "The" as part of the title; do I put that under "El" (as in "The") or Señor?. What about the Artwork An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump, and all of the others beginning with "The"? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:05, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Also, Video gaming, when the title includes "The". SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:14, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that many titles sound really weird in English (and even more so in other languages) without the initial articles. However, it helps find things to have a uniform rule, even if it does sound weird sometimes. The traditional library rules in American libraries are:

  1. Initial articles in English are not included in the alphabetization for book and journal titles, though they are included in the title itself, as found on the title page.
  2. For other languages, Initial articles in the nominative case are not included. It requires knowing the language to get this right in all cases.
  3. If what looks like the initial articles is actually a number, it does not apply.
  4. It does not apply to personal names that have an article as the prefix--these always go under the article.
  5. There are multiple special cases and exceptions, which were of much greater importance in card catalog days.
  6. I would also make exceptions on the basis of common sense, e.g.Las Meninas would go under L because i would imagine everyone thinks of it with the article. I do not think "An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump" is in that category--myself, I think of it without the article.
  7. FWIW, the only place where I think this matters is in categories. Lists can have cross-references. For categories, redirects can now be included in categories, and this is the solution here also. I think this should be done rarely, only when there is some real reason to think it is best known with the article. Copy this if needed at a discussion, & tell me where. DGG ( talk ) 22:14, 22 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Since this is English wikipedia can't we just deal with the English cases (i.e. ignore "The", "An" and "A") and for the sake of simplicity just leave everything else in the exactly as the title states it? Nergaal (talk) 22:19, 24 September 2010 (UTC)


Bottom of project page

Should the strange religious spiel be there? It has been there for a while, it seems, and I hesitate to blitz it, but it looks to me like the contribution of someone who doesn't understand. Tim riley (talk) 17:16, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Later - this seems to have vanished. (I don't think I was hallucinating). Pray ignore the above. Tim riley (talk) 17:30, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
Template vandalism by this guy, who claims to be a "surrealist artist". Now fixed. – iridescent 17:31, 12 October 2010 (UTC)
Phew! I thought briefly that it was I who was bonkers, not the mad vandal. Most grateful for your explanation. Tim riley (talk) 18:38, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Subsections for the very long sections?

It is essentially impossible to find an article in the warfare section. I am estimating there are about 350 entries in there. Of all the sections, it is probably the easiest one to split: either per millennia, or perhaps say before and after the industrial revolution? A few more sections have similar problems. Nergaal (talk) 03:03, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Yes, see Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates#Stats. It's probably time to make a change, but deciding how to do it is not going to be easy or fast. There will be as many opinions as editors over how to split the larger categories, but FA has gotten big enough that we need to take a measured approach to the whole page. Let's see what Raul and Karanacs and others think. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:09, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
The easiest and quickest fix I can think of (that would address most of the larger categories) is to add a "Biography" subcat to all categories larger than <pick a number, I suggest 100>. That would address all of them except Biology, which might have "Flora" and "Fauna" sub-categories added. I am opposed to any scheme that will create a large number of different subcats in each category, such as at WP:GA. Adding a Biography subcat would make BLP tracking easier. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:44, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
I don't think we can divide the organisms in two subsections that easily; we have Archaea, Bacteria, and a host of fungi, none of which can be easily placed in "Flora" or "Fauna". Ucucha 11:45, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
I was afraid you'd say that; remember, I'm not suggesting we completely divide these cats-- only add subcats. Some articles will not be in a subcat, rather in the main grouping. Also, the only category with a lot of biographies that doesn't reach the 100 threshhold is Politics, but it will be there soon enough. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:48, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
We could easily do subcats for "Animals", "Plants", and "Fungi", though, which are less vague terms than "flora" and "fauna". (I think we may well have more FAs on fungi than on plants.) Ucucha 11:53, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Biology could probably split neatly between "animals" and "other". An animal/plant/fungi split would break down as soon as someone decided to write an FA on a virus. – iridescent 11:56, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
We already have Archaea and Bacteria as FAs. However, as Sandy said, not every article would need to be in a subsection. Ucucha 12:22, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm going to be busy today. If anyone has time to put up a mockup of my suggestion in their userspace, it might help (unless Raul weighs in here and disagrees with my idea). Remember, not all articles will need to go in a subcat-- they will stay in the main category listing. We only separate out biographies on the large cats, and Biology according to something else. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:57, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
PS, unless Raul and Karanacs disagree, and if anyone decides to take on this work, could they:
  1. Go ahead and divide Politics, because it will soon pass the 100 mark;
  2. Re-alphabetize the page (probably best done here before starting the userspace mockup);
    Done through Law. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:32, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
    I suppose you've finally noticed that alphabetization is not my strong suit? 20:58, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
  3. Keep up with any interim additions/deletions?
SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:05, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Looking again at the stats, there may be a more logical break at 75 (rather than 100), but Royalty is almost all biographies, so I'm not sure dividing it will be helpful. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:19, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Mebbe divide into "Royalty of Great Britain" and "Royalty-Rest of the World"?--Wehwalt (talk) 19:02, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure we want to go down the path of creating too many specific sub-cats like that-- trying to keep this as general as possible. Also, that category doesn't strictly need dividing yet, so sticking to Biography and other might work. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:07, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
Oopsie, adding biographies won't help Geography. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:52, 20 September 2010 (UTC)
Doesn't solve Geology and meteorology either; I think my idea just went down the tube. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:19, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

My thoughts:

  • Geology, geophysics and meteorology: should simply be split into two: Geology and geophysics, and then separately Meteorology; here is how it should look
  • for biology: choice 1) living and extinct; choice 2) vertebrates and everything else; choice 3) organisms and everything else
  • geography: choice 1) Americas, Afro-Eurasia, and everything else; choice 2 (in line with biography)) natural and man-made (but then is the question where should Everglades be situated) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nergaal (talk • contribs)
I like the idea of splitting out meteorology. For biology I like the suggestion above of "Animals vs Other" as that seems easiest for the non-science minded people to follow. I'm torn on the other ideas. Karanacs (talk) 20:58, 21 September 2010 (UTC)
Why isn't geography and places split into geography and separately places? Nergaal (talk) 18:11, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
Where would we put Grand Canyon if it ever gets featured? Karanacs (talk) 19:13, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
GAN splits them and provides these instructions:
  1. Includes: Bodies of water and water formations; Geographers and explorers; General and human geography; Islands; Landforms; Nature reserves, conservation areas and countryside routes; Urban and historical sites; Earthquakes. Note that this includes National and State parks, but not urban public parks, which should be listed under 'Sports and recreation'
  2. Includes: Countries; Africa; Asia; Australia and the Pacific; Europe; North America; South America. "Places" covers countries, states, counties, cities, neighbourhoods, and other political designations.
So geography? Nergaal (talk) 20:38, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
I don't understand why islands aren't part of the second (one of the reasons I'm cautious of strictly adopting GA schemes). And I don't understand at all why they have earthquakes in there. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:37, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Restart

Stats

Some of the larger categories are becoming hard to browse. To make some of them more readable, I propose creating a Biography sub-category within the larger categories, but that won't aid readability in a couple of the Categories that have few Biographies. I'm hoping to keep the sub-cats as general as possible, and avoid over-segregating the page; hence the Biography sub-cat proposal. We should only propose a different scheme for very large categories that can't be made more readable by separating Biographies. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:32, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

FA Category as of Sep 16,
2010 		Proposed sub-sections
Art, architecture and archaeology 117 Biographies
Biology 261 Biology proposal
Geography and places 181 Geography proposal
Geology, geophysics and meteorology 129 No Biographies. Separate meteorology into a separate category, see User:Nergaal/sandboxFA;
at 129, possibly doesn't need division into separate categories. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:44, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
History 189 Biographies
Literature and theatre 161 Biographies
Media 221 Biographies
Music 232 Biographies
Physics and astronomy 98 Biographies
Politics and government 98 Biographies
Royalty, nobility and heraldry 94 Biographies
Sport and recreation 268 Biographies
Transport 107 I only see one Biography; since it is only 107 articles,
suggest not dividing for now. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:14, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
Video gaming 127 Only 127 articles, not helped with Biography sub-cat
suggest not dividing for now. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:14, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
Warfare 318 Biographies

Please list other proposals for the Categories that aren't easily separated by Biographies below, including a Sandbox link if possible, so Raul can easily evaluate these when he weighs in. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:20, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Biology proposal

  1. Per Ucucha: Animals, Plants, Fungi sub-categories
  2. Per Iridescent: Animals subcategory (all else is Other, or general)
  3. Per Nergaal: choice 1) living and extinct; choice 2) vertebrates and everything else; choice 3) organisms and everything else
  • Are we supposed to post here? I'd also be fine with Iridescent's proposal; Nergaal's seem less intuitive and/or use less generally understood categories. Ucucha 23:34, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Geography proposal

  1. Nergaal: 1) Northern and southern hemispheres; 2) Americas & Europa-Asia-Africa & Everything else
  2. Separate category for United States
  • I don't see much point in dividing by hemisphere, since we have very few Southern Hemisphere articles. Americas vs. Africa-Eurasia doesn't seem very natural either, but we have enough U.S. geography articles that just separating them would work fine. Ucucha 23:36, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Discussion

If we decide to separate Biographies, should we do so for all Categories (even the smaller ones)? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:30, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

Maybe, as long as it is at least say 5 entries long (the biography). Nergaal (talk) 18:03, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Sandy, for taking the lead on this!! One question - would it make sense to change the contents area to have a link to the bios for each section. For example: · Sport and recreation (bios) · Transport · Video gaming · Warfare (bios) That would make it a little easier to identify which categories have this subcat. Karanacs (talk) 20:38, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd rather not grow the TOC-- what do others think? My current plan is to separate bios only on cats greater than 100. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:45, 16 October 2010 (UTC)
I'm working slowly to see what others think first; can make refinements as we go. I'm still planning to sort Media bios, and then we'll see what we think about continuing. Warfare was still above 200, so I refined it further. Need those biology guys to come up with a scheme and put it in userspace!! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:53, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

It's been over a week since I started sorting bios; since no one has objected, I'm going to continue that work for the larger categories. I still don't know how to handle Biology; some sandbox proposals would help. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:52, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I think I'm done for now: comments? We still need a sub-cat scheme for Biology. I suggest Flora, Fauna, and Fungi, with anything else not falling into those sub-cats left out at the top of the Biology category. Doing that work is hard for me, as I'm not familiar with the scientific names and would have to check each article to see where they fall. If someone could put that in a user sub-page so I could move it in, I'd be grateful. Also, I may forget the sub-cats when adding new FAs, so I hope others will keep an eye out and move anything I place incorrectly (also, please doublecheck my work-- I may have missed some). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:21, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd prefer to use "Animals", "Plants", "Fungi", which are less ambiguous (the gut flora doesn't consist of plants, after all). Animals will be by far the largest category; we could perhaps do with only that category (as Iridescent suggests above). I'll make a draft subdivision. Ucucha 14:38, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
See here. There are a few I wasn't quite certain about; see my comments. Ucucha 14:56, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for doing that, Ucucha! Looking at the result, and wanting to keep sub-cats as minimal as possible, I don't think we have enough plants and fungi to warrant separating them (yet). (Compare it to my division of "Warfare", where each of the sub-cats is still larger than many cats.) Pending feedback from others, I suggest only separating Animals for now. Feedback? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:14, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
Looks like we need moar fungi! I will submit an FAC soon to help satisfy the obvious demand :) Sasata (talk) 15:22, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
You'll notice I said "yet" :) A few years ago, we had a rash of Dinosaurs, and suggestions that they should have their own sub-cat-- I like to see enough already there before we sub-divide based on anticipation :) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:24, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
Can we have a separate category for rice rats? :) I agree that separating the animals only will suffice for now. Should flight feather and chromatophore be in the "Animals" category? Ucucha 16:11, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
I think so, but I defer to the biologists. Also wonder if anyone sees a different way to sub-cat before we do this? The idea is to make the page more browsable, without making it even more of a chore for sorting in new FAs or too difficult for Raul to pick TFAs. Geography is also approaching 200, so we'll eventually need to solve it, but I don't feel any urgency just yet. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:29, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
A US/everywhere else or North America/everywhere else split would, I think, split Geography quite neatly 50:50, as it stands. Other countries/continents could then be be split off as and when it got unmanageable. – iridescent 16:27, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
That might help Raul sort mainpage bias. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:29, 19 October 2010 (UTC)
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