Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Wikipedia/archive2

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by GrahamColm 21:55, 7 November 2012 [1].

Wikipedia[edit]

Nominator(s): Cbrittain10 (talk|contribs) 13:40, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because I feel that this article has risen to become an FA article.

A few months ago, I started on a quest to get "Wikipedia" back to FA article status. I got it a Peer Review, which it hasn't gotten since 2009, and I implemented all of the suggestions that were made in the review, and more. Other editors also got into it and added some stuff. Since I feel it has changed for the better since July, I feel that this article is an FA article. So, I, Cbrittain10, officially put Wikipedia into FA-nomination and review. Cbrittain10 (talk|contribs) 13:40, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. Lots of good material here BUT...

This article will need some serious work on its citations. "How I started Wikipedia, presentation by Larry Sanger" (footnote 14) says nothing about where he presented, when he presented, any indication of publication, why it is reliable. There are several footnotes that are simply one or two word internally-linked documents. These should be treated the same as other references. The fact that they happen to be part of the 'pedia isn't relevant in this context. Footnote 217 also a WM page, but not even accurately named. Footnote 159. What is this? Etc.
There are all sorts of MoS issues, and text quality issues. I skimmed a couple of paras and found a "(cf. above)" in the text, single sentence paragraphs, a para with no citations, a para using "percent" but another using "%". The history is set out to be chronological, but there's a para on 2007 after ones set around 2009.
Would question why something as fundamental as "operation" comes after "analysis of content".
These issues are only from the most cursory read. Don't think this is ready yet. hamiltonstone (talk) 14:14, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment And yet the peer reviewers didn't notice those things.. gah. I am going to put those things into the article. Cbrittain10 (talk|contribs) 14:26, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose, sorry. The article has a lot of stuff cobbled together, of widely varying importance and reliability. The section on "Cultural significance" is a good example. The first paragraph is good, but then there's a very choppy series of unrelated factoids in the paragraph below. It's not at all clear, for example, why the Franco Grillini factoid is of any significance. Also, the citing falls short of FA standards. For example there are no cites for:

"only Commons has had success comparable to that of Wikipedia."
"One of the most successful early online encyclopedias incorporating entries by the public was h2g2, which was created by Douglas Adams. The h2g2 encyclopedia is relatively light-hearted, focusing on articles which are both witty and informative..."
"Scholarpedia also focuses on ensuring high quality."

Then there's the puffery. "For instance, Meta-Wiki provides important statistics on all language editions of Wikipedia," is sourced to Meta-Wiki itself. Another example is "Although poorly written articles are flagged for improvement", which is a rather uncritical statement cited to WP itself. --Mkativerata (talk) 21:11, 3 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose per above and suggest withdrawal for now. Please get the article copy-edited (WP:GOCE). TBr and ley 03:03, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comment The subsection on vandalism doesn't seem to follow what I would consider to be the best source on vandalism, namely WP:Vandalism. That source lists crude humor as the most common kind of vandalism (which certainly matches my experience). Instead the sub section emphasizes SPAM, which the source does consider a form of vandalism, but it also calls out "highly partisan or opinionated language" as vandalism which would seem to include extreme POV edits, something the source explicitly excludes from its definition of vandalism. I would suggest reworking the first paragraph of the "vanadalism" subsection to match the source, and adding a separate subsection for the POV/bias issue. If no one beats me to it, I will undertake this later tonight. I would also suggest that this nomination NOT be withdrawn immediately. I agree that it probably isn't going to make it through this time, but having it up here for a few days may attract the attention of some good editors who can help improve this exceptionally important article. --Rusty Cashman (talk) 18:34, 4 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I took a shot at fixing the paragraph. --Rusty Cashman (talk) 10:10, 6 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose many issues as stated above. Peer review would be a good option. Also not sure if there should be an article about the encyclopedia if an About page and other pages already exist. It simply duplicates all the information. Regards.--Tomcat (7) 11:03, 7 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.