Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/archive94

FAC reviewing statistics and nominator reviewing table for March 2024

Here are the FAC reviewing statistics for March 2024. The tables below include all reviews for FACS that were either archived or promoted last month, so the reviews included are spread over the last two or three months. A review posted last month is not included if the FAC was still open at the end of the month. The facstats tool has been updated with this data. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:56, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Reviewers for March 2024

# reviews Type of review Reviewer Content Source Image Accessibility Jo-Jo Eumerus 1 10 7 Nikkimaria 15 RoySmith 9 1 SchroCat 8 1 UndercoverClassicist 8 1 Gog the Mild 7 Kusma 6 Mike Christie 5 1 TompaDompa 5 ChrisTheDude 4 Epicgenius 3 1 Jens Lallensack 4 Premeditated Chaos 3 1 TechnoSquirrel69 1 1 2 Vami IV 1 2 1 ZooBlazer 1 3 Eddie891 3 Grungaloo 2 1 Heartfox 3 JennyOz 3 Johnbod 3 SusunW 2 1 Tim riley 3 Volcanoguy 3 AryKun 1 1 Draken Bowser 2 Dudley Miles 2 Esculenta 2 FunkMonk 2 Guerillero 2 HJ Mitchell 2 J Milburn 2 JimKillock 2 MyCatIsAChonk 2 Shapeyness 2 Vanamonde93 2 Voorts 1 1 Your Power 2 ZKang123 1 1 Adam Cuerden 1 AirshipJungleman29 1 Aoba47 1 Brachy0008 1 Buidhe 1 Caeciliusinhorto 1 Casliber 1 Ceoil 1 Chipmunkdavis 1 Choliamb 1 Czar 1 Daniel Case 1 Edge3 1 Eem dik doun in toene 1 Eewilson 1 Elli 1 Femke 1 FrB.TG 1 GeoWriter 1 Gerald Waldo Luis 1 Graham Beards 1 HAL333 1 Hawkeye7 1 Hdog1996 1 Hog Farm 1 Hydrangeans 1 Ian Rose 1 KN2731 1 Lankyant 1 Miniapolis 1 NightWolf1223 1 PatrickJWelsh 1 PCN02WPS 1 Peacemaker67 1 Pendright 1 Phlsph7 1 Pickersgill-Cunliffe 1 Pseud 14 1 Rodney Baggins 1 Sammi Brie 1 Sandbh 1 Serial Number 54129 1 SnowFire 1 SNUGGUMS 1 Sohom Datta 1 Steelkamp 1 Sturmvogel 66 1 Teratix 1 The Night Watch 1 Tomisti 1 Trainsandotherthings 1 Umimmak 1 Vaughan J. 1 Wehwalt 1 WhatamIdoing 1 Ykraps 1 Totals 166 25 32

Supports and opposes for March 2024

# declarations Declaration Editor Support Oppose converted to support Struck oppose Struck support Oppose None Total Jo-Jo Eumerus 1 17 18 Nikkimaria 15 15 RoySmith 4 6 10 UndercoverClassicist 3 2 4 9 SchroCat 6 3 9 Gog the Mild 6 1 7 Mike Christie 3 1 2 6 Kusma 6 6 TompaDompa 1 3 1 5 Premeditated Chaos 2 2 4 ZooBlazer 1 3 4 Epicgenius 2 1 1 4 Jens Lallensack 1 1 2 4 Vami IV 4 4 ChrisTheDude 4 4 TechnoSquirrel69 4 4 SusunW 1 2 3 Grungaloo 2 1 3 Eddie891 1 2 3 Johnbod 2 1 3 JennyOz 3 3 Volcanoguy 1 2 3 Tim riley 2 1 3 Heartfox 1 1 1 3 ZKang123 1 1 2 Vanamonde93 2 2 AryKun 1 1 2 HJ Mitchell 2 2 MyCatIsAChonk 2 2 Shapeyness 2 2 Your Power 1 1 2 Esculenta 1 1 2 Voorts 2 2 J Milburn 2 2 Dudley Miles 2 2 Guerillero 2 2 Draken Bowser 1 1 2 JimKillock 1 1 2 FunkMonk 2 2 Phlsph7 1 1 Czar 1 1 PCN02WPS 1 1 Chipmunkdavis 1 1 SNUGGUMS 1 1 Tomisti 1 1 SnowFire 1 1 Eem dik doun in toene 1 1 Hawkeye7 1 1 Choliamb 1 1 Pseud 14 1 1 Hog Farm 1 1 Vaughan J. 1 1 Ceoil 1 1 Ian Rose 1 1 Miniapolis 1 1 Steelkamp 1 1 Lankyant 1 1 Pendright 1 1 Elli 1 1 Sammi Brie 1 1 PatrickJWelsh 1 1 Femke 1 1 Edge3 1 1 Buidhe 1 1 Ykraps 1 1 FrB.TG 1 1 Peacemaker67 1 1 Teratix 1 1 Gerald Waldo Luis 1 1 Sohom Datta 1 1 Rodney Baggins 1 1 Eewilson 1 1 Trainsandotherthings 1 1 Umimmak 1 1 Serial Number 54129 1 1 Sandbh 1 1 Caeciliusinhorto 1 1 The Night Watch 1 1 Brachy0008 1 1 Sturmvogel 66 1 1 Aoba47 1 1 Adam Cuerden 1 1 Wehwalt 1 1 Casliber 1 1 KN2731 1 1 Pickersgill-Cunliffe 1 1 Graham Beards 1 1 HAL333 1 1 GeoWriter 1 1 Hydrangeans 1 1 Daniel Case 1 1 WhatamIdoing 1 1 NightWolf1223 1 1 AirshipJungleman29 1 1 Hdog1996 1 1 Totals 96 1 16 110 223

The following table shows the 12-month review-to-nominations ratio for everyone who nominated an article that was promoted or archived in the last three months who has nominated more than one article in the last 12 months. The average promoted FAC receives between 6 and 7 reviews. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:56, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Nominators for January 2024 to March 2024 with more than one nomination in the last 12 months

Nominations (12 mos) Reviews (12 mos) Ratio (12 mos) AirshipJungleman29 7.0 33.0 4.7 Aoba47 4.0 63.0 15.8 ChrisTheDude 10.0 104.0 10.4 Darkwarriorblake 5.0 3.0 0.6 David notMD 2.0 None 0.0 Dudley Miles 2.0 29.0 14.5 Edge3 2.0 4.0 2.0 Elias Ziade 1.5 1.0 0.7 Epicgenius 7.5 21.0 2.8 FrB.TG 4.0 24.0 6.0 FunkMonk 3.3 27.0 8.1 Generalissima 3.0 4.0 1.3 Hawkeye7 6.0 39.0 6.5 Heartfox 8.0 33.0 4.1 Hog Farm 4.0 19.0 4.8 Ippantekina 6.0 9.0 1.5 Jens Lallensack 3.3 22.0 6.6 Jo-Jo Eumerus 5.0 152.0 30.4 Kusma 2.0 23.0 11.5 Lankyant 2.0 1.0 0.5 Lee Vilenski 6.0 9.0 1.5 LittleJerry 3.0 1.0 0.3 MaranoFan 11.0 46.0 4.2 Matarisvan 2.0 None 0.0 Mattximus 2.0 None 0.0 Mike Christie 6.0 66.0 11.0 Nick-D 2.0 11.0 5.5 Peacemaker67 7.0 4.0 0.6 Phlsph7 4.0 8.0 2.0 Pickersgill-Cunliffe 2.0 2.0 1.0 Premeditated Chaos 9.3 23.0 2.5 Pseud 14 5.0 44.0 8.8 RoySmith 3.0 25.0 8.3 SchroCat 14.5 110.0 7.6 SounderBruce 2.0 4.0 2.0 Sportzeditz 2.0 None 0.0 The Night Watch 3.0 9.0 3.0 Thebiguglyalien 4.0 12.0 3.0 Therapyisgood 1.3 3.0 2.2 Tim O'Doherty 1.5 13.0 8.7 TompaDompa 3.5 18.0 5.1 UndercoverClassicist 4.0 64.0 16.0 Usernameunique 3.0 2.0 0.7 Vami IV 2.8 14.0 4.9 Voorts 4.5 22.0 4.9 Wehwalt 7.5 33.0 4.4 Wolverine XI 2.0 1.0 0.5 ZKang123 6.0 14.0 2.3

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:56, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, is the underlying data compiled by hand? Edge3 (talk) 03:55, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Partly. A bot creates its best guess and puts it in User:Mike Christie/sandbox. I then go through with the FAC archive on a second screen and edit it to correct things the bot wasn't able to spot -- e.g. I remove edits that are not reviews, such as formatting fixes. Then the bot returns and generates the text posted above. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:53, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

What is a FAC review's purpose?

What is to be done if a GA which is a FAC does not meet basic GA criteria? It contains original research, copyright violations and close paraphrasing, does not address the main aspects of the topic, its sourcing is also problematic. Borsoka (talk) 03:33, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

• That's what the oppose is for. (t · c) buidhe 04:05, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
• If I had to guess, you'd probably not want an article in that state becoming an FA, so definitely oppose the candidacy. If you feel like its good article status should be stripped, the next course of action would be a good article reassessment. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 05:51, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
• I have come across this situation. I opposed the nomination, noted that I would have closed it as a WP:QUICKFAIL if it were a WP:Good article nomination, and suggested that the nomination be archived so the article could be brought to WP:Good article reassessment. TompaDompa (talk) 05:53, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

This discussion has now escalated to WP:ANI#Crusading movement. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:12, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

Dinosaur colouration image review

One of the images in question, captioned as: Three ceratopsids from the Kaiparowits Formation: Utahceratops, Nasutoceratops, and Kosmoceratops

Not sure if this is the right venue, but it is relevant to a lot of articles, so I thought it was best to discuss it in a more general place than a specific FAC. At the Nasutoceratops FAC[1], Gog the Mild asked for citations supporting the specific colour patterns shown in the life restorations of dinosaurs used in the article (some of which are depicted with eye spots and other bold patterns), or if it could be stated in the captions that the colours shown are conjectural. I replied that while we have sources that say that dinosaurs generally could have been boldly patterned for display as in modern animals, we don't have sources that mention eye spots or these animals in particular (we do know partial colouration of a few other dinosaurs), though we do have artwork by palaeontologists that show such patterns in related dinosaurs (though without the captions of these images pointing out the patterns). Note that the used images do have citations on Commons that support their general anatomy, and have been reviewed at WP:dinoart.

I objected to stating directly in the image captions that colours are conjectural, as this isn't how relevant sources caption their images (as it is assumed to be a given that their colours are generally unknown, and colouration is only mentioned in captions when actually known), and we should follow how the literature covers it instead of in an original way. It would also set a precedent whereby we have to mention this in thousands of image captions across Wikipedia where we use life restorations of prehistoric animals whose colours are unknown (which is also why I don't think a single FAC should be testing ground for such a proposal, it should be discussed widely first). I instead suggested it could be mentioned in the alt text that the images show conjectural colours, or that reliably published images which show similar colouration could be referenced in the Commons description, to keep it out of the already very long captions. Gog failed the review because he thinks we should solidly source anything we say or portray in the article itself I presume, but I disagree in this case for the reasons mentioned above, as well as per WP:OI and WP:PERTINENCE (policies which have been brought up in previous discussions of paleoart[2][3][4][5]), hence I would like to hear some more opinions. FunkMonk (talk) 14:23, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Gog. "it is assumed to be a given that their colours are generally unknown" what is a simple assumption for you is likely not for a general reader. Adding "colouring conjectural" or similar is not that big of a deal, and keeps readers firmly aware of what we know and don't know. I'm reminded of that story where a scientist from a future where spiders are extinct time-travels back to now, and is absolutely flabbergasted when he learns that they have webs. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 14:37, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

I think the difference between Wikipedia's presentation and in reliable sources is that, despite being based on sources and reviewed by other contributors, Wikipedia's reconstructions are fundamentally amateur work, and especially when dealing with content one cannot verify (besides they're gone, or extinct, or whatever) it's fair to explain the limits of what can be assumed versus evidenced. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 15:01, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

If it's a historic image I absolutely oppose colorization because the colors are not known to us. This image being entirely original, I don't see the issue because if you can draw the dinosaur you can also add color, even if it's consistent with what we know there must be quite a bit of originality. (t · c) buidhe 15:24, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

As Gog's request seems to just add the two words "colouring conjectural" to the caption, I'm not sure what the problem is. The colouring is conjectural, after all. If scientists crack some genome that shows they were really purple and green, then new images can come and the two words removed, but I don't think the request is a problematic one. - SchroCat (talk) 15:29, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree that captioning it "Three ceratopsids...." seems misleading. Would folks be satisfied with a caption along the lines of "Paleoartist's representation of three ceratopsids..."? Just clicking through some arbitrarily selected dinosaur FAs I see a lot of "Restoration of...", "Hypothetical feathered model...", "Artist's impression of...", "Life restoration of...", "Reconstruction of...". In fact, I don't really see other FAs (though I haven't looked very hard) where artist's renderings are referred to as fact. I don't love "colouring conjectural" as I assume(?) much more than the colouring is left to conjecture. Ajpolino (talk) 15:31, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

It is a novel suggestion, yes, I've never seen it before. But if we assume this is the road we want to go, we should clarify how exactly we want to do this, and what the wider implications are. So for the proponents, how would the article in question look? It has three such palaeoartistic reconstructions, should they all have a note saying the colouration is conjectural, or is it enough in the caption of the first restoration? And should every single usage of such palaeoart anywhere on Wikipedia have such a caption? Either way, I think it would be good to have a note on use of palaeoart in the general WP:manual of style for images, as issues relating to their creation and use are recurring themes, and the WP:palaeoproject's internal WP:palaeoart guidelines probably won't be accepted as "official", Wikipedia-wide guidelines by non-members. FunkMonk (talk) 22:09, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Ajpolino—each artist's rendition image should be clearly labeled as such so that it cannot be confused with an actual photograph. Once it is labeled clearly (in each caption), it's obvious to the reader that some aspects (such as the coloring) are creative rather than documentation of information. (t · c) buidhe 22:14, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Usually we mark them like that by stating it is a life restoration/life reconstruction, which links to the article on palaeoart. FunkMonk (talk) 22:29, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

@FunkMonk: It is a novel suggestion... I've never seen it before I assume you mean specifically "Paleoartist's representation"? To be clear, I'm fine with the other examples I quoted from dinosaur FAs (e.g. "Life restoration of...", "Artist's impression of...). I suspect that would be fine with many others, though I'm extrapolating a bit from their actual comments. Clicking at random through some of your other FAs, I see you typically use versions of that when captioning artists' renderings. I'm not sure why you chose not to do that at Nasutoceratops. But I think if you caption File:Kaiparowits fauna.jpg in the typical way (by explicitly calling it out as a life restoration), most people will be happy. Ajpolino (talk) 16:55, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

No, I've never seen "colouring conjectural" in a caption of a paleoartistic work, as this is usually a given. Writing "restoration/reconstruction" and similar is already the norm for such captions. In this case, "restoration of" could be added to the other captions as well, but the issue at hand was whether the captions should specifically mention colouration. FunkMonk (talk) 18:51, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

@FunkMonk: Below, Gog stated that he would be happy if the captions would just start with "hypothetical life restoration", without specifically mention the colouration. If you agree too, and nobody else objects, this would solve the issue. Jens Lallensack (talk) 19:23, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, so I wonder if I should make a vote of options, or if Gog the Mild and others would agree that the above caption would be fine if it said "Hypothetical life restoration of three ceratopsids from the Kaiparowits Formation: Utahceratops, Nasutoceratops, and Kosmoceratops". And this should be done with every restoration in a single article, just to be clear? FunkMonk (talk) 19:28, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

So far as the image review that started this is concerned, if you were to do that I can't see why I wouldn't pass it. And it seems an acceptable way of handling any future similar cases, although I am sure there are other broadly acceptable turns of phrase. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:34, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Alright, consider it done (in a few moments), and yes, that could be implemented in future nominations. And I think this and related issues should be formulated into a guideline somewhere, at least somewhere at the palaeontology and dinosaur project pages. FunkMonk (talk) 19:40, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

I had also hoped that marking all those images as "life restorations" or "artist's impressions" in the captions would be clear enough (still missing in the example caption btw). While I do see some merit in explicitly pointing out that the colours are created by the artist, I fear that this statement – added under all such images – very quickly feels repetitive. If we decide that such a statement is required, I would suggest to be pragmatic and limit this requirement to the first such image in an article, and to FAs only (since these are much more exposed to readers without any background knowledge). However, I do not particularly like the wording "conjectural" or "hypothetical", because this could imply that scientists have some vague hypothesis about the colors, which is not the case – the colors are merely an invention of the artist. Therefore, we would need a statement such as "colours in ceratopsids are unknown", if we decide to include such a statement. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 00:44, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Hmm. I think one issue here is that folks may interpret the lack of colouration as evidence that dinosaurs were colourless. Certainly that's how white statues from antiquity were interpreted before we found evidence that they were coloured. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 06:48, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Jo-Jo, I don't think that any one is suggesting that - if they have, I have missed it. By all means let us have a best guess as to how the creatures were coloured and patterned in reconstructions. My view is that in such cases we should clearly tell a reader that they are just that - a guess. Gog the Mild (talk) 13:48, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

@Gog the Mild: I wonder if you would find stronger wording like "hypothetical life restoration" in the image captions sufficient? I fear that, if we are specifically stating that the colors are guesswork, the reader might assume that all other aspects are not guesswork, but that is only partly true (for example, we don't know how fleshy these animals were, how the skin folds looked like, and how long the horns were exactly because only the horn cores are preserved but not the keratin cover). Jens Lallensack (talk) 14:55, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Jens, you won't get an argument from me over any of that. I think that this discussion is an attempt to establish a consensus on the principle, using my comments as a concrete example. As FunkMonk points out, a local consensus for a different approach has developed. There seems to me - I am more than open to correction - to be a consensus among the FAC community that reconstructions should labelled as conjectural, and that this should be in each and every case. I would (further?) propose that every such image has its caption start with "A hypothetical life restoration of ..." or something similar in meaning. Gog the Mild (talk) 15:08, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

Gog the Mild, sorry if I misunderstood. My question was just if you would personally be satisfied if the image captions in Nasutoceratops would start with "A hypothetical life restoration" (a change with witch I would fully agree), or whether you think that an additional note explicitly stating that the colors are unknown is also necessary. Jens Lallensack (talk) 16:14, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

I personally would be happy with that. Barring further more convincing arguments from others. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:39, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

This seems very reasonable and in line with existing practice for palaeontology FAs. Any further and the text written to justify the restoration could very well become more OR than the restoration itself. Lythronaxargestes (talk | contribs) 19:10, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

This would work best, I think. The Morrison Man (talk) 18:22, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

The Columbian mammoth article has a few art examples, which have captions including "1909 life restoration by Charles R. Knight based on the same specimen", "life restoration (right) based on same; the extent of the fur is hypothetical", "by Robert Bruce Horsfall, 1911", "Fanciful restoration of a Columbian mammoth hunt, J. Steeple Davis, 1885", and one piece of art which has no explanation in the caption. I would agree with Ajpolino and Jens Lallensack that if some indication of restoration/impression is clear then there isn't a need to also explicitly point out colours in the article caption. CMD (talk) 11:29, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

FYI: Nominate / support TWL partners

Only just found this out, but here's the Magic Cave's suggestion box for future Wikipedia Library resouce partners. Lots of solid potential vis à vis both newspaper and academic texts. Scroll down the list and upvote at your leisure. (Note that some of them have been partnered already some time—I have no idea why there're still there.) ——Serial Number 54129 15:47, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

They even added one of my suggestions! (t · c) buidhe 16:01, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Goldfinger! Wot one was that Buidhe? :) ——Serial Number 54129 19:31, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Central and Eastern European Online Library (t · c) buidhe 19:33, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Voted a few up. Shame that few people use Lyell or GeoScienceWorld. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 06:42, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Also, there seem to be a fair number of duplicates in the list. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 06:42, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Requesting a mentor for first time nominator

Hello, I'm Pbritti! I primarily create content related to Christian liturgical and American architectural subjects, with six GAs in those areas. I've been interested in the FAC process for a long time but have never felt comfortable participating when I still sometimes feel like a novice regarding the higher-level considerations. After much work, consultation, and further self-assessment, I finally feel ready to nominate an article: Free and Candid Disquisitions, on a mid-18th-century religious pamphlet by John Jones that had a substantial impact on Anglican and Unitarian worship practices. The article passed as a GA earlier this year and underwent a low-turnout PR more recently. Given my inexperience, I am extending a request for a mentor.

Some considerations for a possible mentor:

• I live in the Eastern Time Zone of the United States (presently UTC−04:00)
• My work schedule causes peaks and valleys in activity on-Wiki but I edit daily. For the next couple months, I'll be fairly available with four-day weekends
• I have access to the Wikipedia Discord but would prefer to communicate either on-Wiki or via email
• I'm more than willing to offer my help in any tedious project on-Wiki as compensation for mentorship (maybe you need someone who can swap umlauts for diaereses across a couple hundred articles?)

If you're interested or wish for me to offer further details regarding myself and my proposed FAC, please reply here or on my talk page. Best, ~ Pbritti (talk) 02:00, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

New statistics tool to get information about an editor's GA history

I mentioned this at WT:GAN, but there may be editors here who would be interested who don't watch that page: I've created a GA statistics page that takes an editor's name as input and returns some summary information about their interactions with GA. It shows all their nominations and reviews, and gives a summary of their statistics -- number promoted, number that are still GAs, and the review-to-GA ratio. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:49, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

A useful summary! Thank you. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 11:55, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

Very handy. Thanks Mike. Although "Promoted GA nominations: 108; Promoted GA nominations that are still GAs: 50" caused me to panic before I realised that it was because 58 GANs had been promoted to FA, and so - technically - they ceased to be GAs. Gog the Mild (talk) 12:34, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm trying to work out my Promoted GA nominations: 17 but Promoted GA nominations that are still GAs: 37 ... followed by a lit of 19! - SchroCat (talk) 08:08, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

It was a combination of two things. One was a bug -- if a nominator put spaces around their username, as happened here for example, the tool was not removing them, so that nomination was credited to ' Schrodinger's cat is alive' with a leading space. That's now fixed, so asking the tool for GAs for that old user name will now correctly report those old GAs. The "still GAs" number is maintained by SDZeroBot, which automatically tracks username changes -- that's why it shows 37 for "SchroCat". I decided not to automatically connect old usernames to new ones because not everyone wants their old usernames advertised, but I can do so on request. I'm going to assume in your case you do want to connect them since the signature was "SchroCat" even back then, so I've added your names to the name-change list. You should now see the correct results -- let me know if anything still looks wrong. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:50, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Ah - that looks much more like it. Thanks Mike! - SchroCat (talk) 11:25, 16 April 2024 (UTC)

Nice work, and thanks to Mike for fixing the GAN bot's count of successful nominations for those of us with apostrophes. Cheers — Tim O'Doherty (talk) 17:00, 15 April 2024 (UTC)

This GA statistics page sounds very useful! By consolidating the interactive summary information of editors on one page, it provides a convenient way to understand the contribution and level of participation of each editor. This not only helps to improve transparency, but also encourages more participation and interaction. Hhhlx (talk) 04:39, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for this, Mike! I've been hoping for something that would track my articles promoted past GA. That said, there a few oddities that might cause issues for somebody else. My own tally of my GAs is 924, including the one promoted today, while your bot says 941, not including the one promoted today. Obviously I haven't tried to reconcile them yet, but it's entirely possible that I might have missed a few over the years. And I'm very suspicious that my ratio of reviews to noms shows as exactly 1:1. The reviews and noms for this year seem to be complete, for what it's worth. The first two noms on my list, Stalingrad-class battlecruiser and Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship, don't show as promoted because the articles were renamed after the review. Not sure exactly what needs to be done to fix that.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 06:34, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

The problem with those two was that the GA subpages hadn't been moved to follow the parent page move. I've now done that and updated the database so those two should be OK now; there are probably some others like that around. There's now a bot that cleans up after incomplete moves of subpages so those issues should gradually go away. I'm going to make a change to the tool to see if I can speed it up by checking the GA and FA pages for the name of the article, rather than checking each article page for the GA or FA template; that might run into a different problem in that it won't detect that an article is a GA if those pages still list it under the old name. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:46, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

I just tried that change and reverted it; it was unreliable because so many GAs are still in the GA pages under names that are now redirects. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:23, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, Mike. I will note that the bot has now caught my one failed nom.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 13:46, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Spent a couple of minutes trying to figure out why my tally doesn't match the bot's and noticed that it's not counting at least some of my noms on which I collaborated with other people. Talk:HMS Ramillies (07)/GA1 is one; maybe it matters who's listed first, I dunno.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 14:05, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Currently GA stats don't allow conomination credits -- it could probably be done but for now the nominator is assumed to be either the editor who adds the nomination or the editor whose name appears in the nomination template. This is the relevant edit, so Parsecboy is listed as the nominator. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:47, 29 April 2024 (UTC)=

I was wondering if that was the reason, but now I'm even more perplexed about the difference between the tallies as I've done a lot of collaboration, although I was often the nominator.--Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 15:28, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

I'll follow up on your talk page. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:04, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

Template usage

Is it ok to use {{cot}}/{{cob}} in FAC discussions for reasons other than to hide offtopic discussions? I’d like to use them to hide lengthy threads that have been resolved. YBG (talk) 14:41, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

PS, is it really true that there are only four FAC coordinators? My hats off to y'all for performing this important service!!!! YBG (talk) 14:41, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Speaking just for myself, I would rather you didn't. It would make life slightly more difficult for me every time I look at the nom to consider if it is ready for closure.

It is, an all-time high I think, and thank you. Gog the Mild (talk) 15:28, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

@Gog the Mild: My idea would be to put cot/cob only around those things I consider resolved, and clearly mark them as so. I thought this would make it easier, not harder, for you to tell if it is ready for closure. YBG (talk) 04:21, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

The role of the cords isn’t vote-counting the number of supports, but weighing the strength of the review. Capping means they have to uncap everything to be able to read it through and make a judgement. - SchroCat (talk) 04:30, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Ok, @Gog the Mild/@SchroCat so if I understand correctly, the coordinators still want to read the full discussion about areas in which I at one time found fault but have now been modified to the point that I no longer find fault. YBG (talk) 12:19, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

They may wish to, and having to open cots to decide adds marginally to their workload. They are not in any way forbidden and you are free to use them if you wish. If a week or two later you feel your ears burning, it is probably a coordinator closing the nomination. Gog the Mild (talk) 19:49, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

• Per the instructions, many templates are deprecated from use at FAC, but For technical reasons, templates that are acceptable are {{collapse top}} and {{collapse bottom}}. Perhaps somewhere else where community expectations have out stripped our decades-old instructions. ——Serial Number 54129 10:23, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

  The instructions are there partly to keep the page size of WP:FAC under control but also for the archives because the reviews (for reasons I've never really understood) are all transcluded in the archives. So it's not just an arbitrary rule from years ago that doesn't reflect current practice. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 12:58, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

  @HJ Mitchell: Don't even try and fucking patronise me HJM. I know perfectly well why the limits are there, and either you deliberately misunderstand me in order to make a different point, or you just do not understand. You will at least apologise for insinuating that I have not read the instructions I have just cited: slow down the page load time, and complex templates can lead to errors in the FAC archives. This a distinct point to that made by the OP. Firstly is the fact that, per the instructions, templates are avoided because speed, etc. Secondly—the ease with which a co-ord should be able to read a candidature—is obviously a different reason. My point, at the end of the day, is that as it stands, the OP would be within his rights to use {{cob}} etc because it is one of the few explicitly exempted from the disallowed templates (i.e., cot and cob are allowed). All I am saying is that if we want to forbid closing/hatting any sections, then go ahead, but ensure that the rule allows it. Which it does not at the moment. This would not be a new codification. It would be expanding upon an extant codification. And, incidentally, I seem to remember moving discussions to the talk page is deemed acceptable, but I fail to see why having to click the [show] is more onerous on a co-ord than opening a new page. Cheers, ——Serial Number 54129 13:31, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

  I agree that WP:PEIS is probably a good rationale to keep the rule around. Sohom (talk) 14:18, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

  {{cob}} and {{cot}} have no noticeable effect on the PEIS; that's why they are exempted. They are alternatives to {{collapse}} which requires all the collapsed text to be within the template, which can have a very significant effect on the PEIS. That's not to comment on whether they should be used to collapse anything other than offtopic comments, just to say that PEIS is not a reason to disallow it. SN, I didn't think Harry was being patronizing; I might well have posted the same comment that he did and I wouldn't have intended to patronize you if I had done so. I don't think he deserved the response you gave him. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:41, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

  Yell, fucking fuck it then, since you vouch him. Struck, with apologies to HJM for my unnecessary brusqueness. For the record, replying to a point that hasn't been made while appearing to ignore one that has, can certainly lead—albeit mistakenly—to a sense of being gaslit. And gas is very good at lighting blue touch paper. Cheers! ——Serial Number 54129 17:39, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

  Wasn't expecting such a hostile response! Not the swearing, swear all you fucking like. But I'm not the template cabal telling you what you can or can't do with your templates! ;) HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 22:19, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

  I don't think {{cot}} and {{cot}} should be disallowed for PEIS. But having the general "keep template use to a minimum" rule in it's current form makes sense since PEIS exists. Sohom (talk) 15:06, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

The selected article candidate page on Wikipedia is a very interesting place to showcase potential selected articles nominated by editors. Browsing this page provides readers with an opportunity to discover high-quality knowledge. Hhhlx (talk) 04:13, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

• As a reviewer, I prefer everything to be easy to see. For one thing it stops the same points being re-raised. Johnbod (talk) 14:07, 29 April 2024 (UTC)

FAC reviewing statistics and nominator reviewing table for April 2024

Here are the FAC reviewing statistics for April 2024. The tables below include all reviews for FACS that were either archived or promoted last month, so the reviews included are spread over the last two or three months. A review posted last month is not included if the FAC was still open at the end of the month. The facstats tool has been updated with this data.

Reviewers for April 2024

# reviews Type of review Reviewer Content Source Image Accessibility Jo-Jo Eumerus 2 12 5 Nikkimaria 9 SchroCat 5 FunkMonk 5 Mike Christie 4 1 Jens Lallensack 5 Buidhe 3 1 ChrisTheDude 4 Hog Farm 3 UndercoverClassicist 3 Kusma 3 Wehwalt 3 AirshipJungleman29 2 1 Draken Bowser 2 1 Gog the Mild 2 1 Dudley Miles 2 David Fuchs 1 1 Eem dik doun in toene 2 PSA 2 Tim riley 2 AryKun 1 1 PCN02WPS 2 Shapeyness 1 1 Serial Number 54129 2 Pseud 14 2 Chompy Ace 1 SafariScribe 1 Magiciandude 1 Premeditated Chaos 1 Patrick Welsh 1 750h+ 1 The Knight Watch 1 Amakuru 1 Jenhawk777 1 Grungaloo 1 TompaDompa 1 Cukie Gherkin 1 MaranoFan 1 Mujinga 1 CactiStaccingCrane 1 Daniel Case 1 Sammi Brie 1 The Morrison Man 1 Femke 1 Sohom Datta 1 Aa77zz 1 Heartfox 1 SnowFire 1 Dylan620 1 Biogeographist 1 SporkBot 1 SusunW 1 Wolverine XI 1 Kablammo 1 MyCatIsAChonk 1 Volcanoguy 1 HurricaneHiggins 1 Borsoka 1 Matarisvan 1 RecycledPixels 1 Remsense 1 Nick-D 1 100cellsman 1 SandyGeorgia 1 ZooBlazer 1 Elli 1 Kerbyki 1 Rodney Baggins 1 Aza24 1 Srnec 1 Graham Beards 1 Totals 104 20 19 0

Supports and opposes for April 2024

# declarations Declaration Editor Support Oppose converted to support Struck oppose Struck support Oppose None Total Jo-Jo Eumerus 19 19 Nikkimaria 9 9 SchroCat 4 1 5 Jens Lallensack 4 1 5 FunkMonk 2 3 5 Mike Christie 3 1 1 5 Buidhe 1 3 4 ChrisTheDude 4 4 AirshipJungleman29 1 1 1 3 UndercoverClassicist 1 2 3 Kusma 2 1 3 Draken Bowser 1 1 1 3 Hog Farm 2 1 3 Wehwalt 2 1 3 Gog the Mild 1 1 1 3 Dudley Miles 2 2 PSA 1 1 2 Pseud 14 2 2 David Fuchs 1 1 2 Tim riley 2 2 Eem dik doun in toene 2 2 AryKun 1 1 2 PCN02WPS 2 2 Serial Number 54129 2 2 Shapeyness 2 2 Grungaloo 1 1 Jenhawk777 1 1 MyCatIsAChonk 1 1 SnowFire 1 1 Chompy Ace 1 1 SandyGeorgia 1 1 Sammi Brie 1 1 ZooBlazer 1 1 Daniel Case 1 1 HurricaneHiggins 1 1 Volcanoguy 1 1 Dylan620 1 1 Magiciandude 1 1 Biogeographist 1 1 SafariScribe 1 1 Elli 1 1 The Morrison Man 1 1 Matarisvan 1 1 Borsoka 1 1 TompaDompa 1 1 Premeditated Chaos 1 1 SporkBot 1 1 Femke 1 1 Kerbyki 1 1 Rodney Baggins 1 1 RecycledPixels 1 1 Cukie Gherkin 1 1 MaranoFan 1 1 Wolverine XI 1 1 Patrick Welsh 1 1 SusunW 1 1 Srnec 1 1 Sohom Datta 1 1 Aza24 1 1 Mujinga 1 1 Remsense 1 1 Kablammo 1 1 The Knight Watch 1 1 Amakuru 1 1 750h+ 1 1 Graham Beards 1 1 Heartfox 1 1 Aa77zz 1 1 CactiStaccingCrane 1 1 100cellsman 1 1 Nick-D 1 1 Totals 58 1 1 0 13 70 143

Due to some temporary technical issues I have not generated the rolling 12-month summary I normally add to these reports. I doubt if anyone is too upset by the omission, but it should be back next month. -- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:00, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

FACs needing feedback

If anyone is looking for a nomination to review, there are (currently) four in "FACs needing feedback" - at the top of this page, on the right - which would all benefit from another review. Thanks. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:49, 14 May 2024 (UTC)

Capitalization of source titles

Question about how to apply the consistent citation format requirements came up here. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:55, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Time limits?

I just nominated Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Heptamegacanthus/archive1 and it was closed because there was no significant movement. But two hours before it was closed there was a long and excellent list of recommendations. I don't think it's reasonable to be able to make all the changes within 2 hours. Did I cross some time limit that I was not aware of? Mattximus (talk) 17:02, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

It's up to coordinator discretion, but FACs are not intended to be indefinite peer reviews. Even if you had quickly addressed those comments and the user had supported, you still wouldn't have had a consensus to promote, hence it was archived. You can work on the edits and engage with the commenter on the talk page or another venue to prep it if you intend to renom in the future. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 18:24, 15 May 2024 (UTC)

Second nom?

@FAC coordinators: , would it be okay for me to put up a second nom? My current nom has been open a fortnight and has several (six) supports and passes on images and sources, so the heavy lifting seems to have been done there. No probs if you want me to wait a bit further, but I’d be grateful for a second too. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 04:53, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

SchroCat go ahead. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 13:32, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Many thanks David: you're a star. Cheers- SchroCat (talk) 13:53, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

Idea

What does everybody think about a process chart at Featured Article candidates? It'll essentially be a board that includes how many supports/opposes the nomination has, as well as including if a source/image check have been done. Thoughts? 750h+ 12:31, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

This has been suggested a couple of times, and has never gained traction. One reason is that not all supports are created equal -- a drive by support from a new editor with no comments is not as helpful to the coords as a support that makes it clear exactly what has been reviewed and what the basis of a support is. A support on prose is not the same as a support from a content expert. I don't think it's a good idea to reinforce the idea that the coords are just vote-counting. One could make the same argument against the support/oppose summaries in the FAC viewer, but I think those are useful since they help reviewers quickly spot FACs that are short of reviews. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:51, 17 May 2024 (UTC)

2nd nom time?

Yo @FAC coordinators: apologies if this is premature, but my FAC finished up its prose reviews, and seems to just be sitting around until promotion. Would it be okay to begin a second FAC nom now? Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 19:06, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Go right ahead. FrB.TG (talk) 19:09, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Thank you! :) Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 19:10, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

next nomination

hi @FAC coordinators: may i nominate another article? my current FAC (Aston Martin Rapide) has four supports, and the source review and image review have been done. 750h+ 11:20, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

As soon as Gog's comments are fully resolved and he has no further concerns, you may. FrB.TG (talk) 12:18, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

okay. 750h+ 12:32, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

I have finished. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:42, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Go ahead, 750. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 10:08, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks Ian. @FAC coordinators: per the comment left by Gog, i believe the nomination can be closed? 750h+ 13:31, 27 May 2024 (UTC)

I will look at it the next time (soon) I go through the FACs list unless one of my fellow coords beats me to it. FrB.TG (talk) 11:51, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Gog the Mild already left his comments. Gog stated "I have ended up contributing more to it than I had anticipated, to the edge of being involved. From an abundance of caution I shall recuse, support promotion and ask one of my colleagues to close." 750h+ 11:53, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

I can see that, but the closing coordinator still needs to thoroughly check the FAC and article to ensure everything is in order. Considering the number of FACs that need attention, this process takes time. So please be patient. FrB.TG (talk) 12:01, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Oh okay. 750h+ 12:01, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

Changes to FAC and GAN statistics tools

I have combined the two statistics tools that I maintain into one location. The GAN tool will continue to be at the same URL, but that site now hosts the FAC statistics tool as well. The FAC statistics will no longer update at the old location, here; they will only be updated at the new location. I will add a banner to that page making it clear that the data is no longer being updated.

The only FAC statistics tool I've moved is the editor query, since I think it was the one most often used. If anyone is in the habit of using any of the other queries available from the current FAC statistics tool, let me know, and I'll add it to the new location. Please let me know of any problems with the new tool. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 22:45, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

A small thing, but on the new FAC tool if I enter the name of an editor with no FAC history I get "500 Internal Server Error" rather than a page showing no FAC noms/reviews. On the old tool, I get what I assume is the intended behavior. Ajpolino (talk) 15:51, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Mike Christie A gentle ping to make sure you saw this. Not that it's an emergency or even needs to be fixed; just thought you'd like to know. Thanks. Ajpolino (talk) 03:10, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping; I'd missed this. I won't be able to work on this till next week but I'll take a look then -- as you say, it's a minor issue, but I'd like to tidy it up. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 03:27, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

Ajpolino, this has been fixed. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 12:33, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

@Mike Christie:The old toolforge has a page that shows the review ratios of all editors with nominations at FAC. I use this chart to decide which articles I want to review (as I like reviewing articles from editors who are actively helping other FACs become promoted). Can this feature be returned to the new toolforge? Even a simpler chart that only showed reviews-to-nominations would be helpful, as I ignored most of the other stats and it takes a long time to pull up those stats. Z1720 (talk) 18:25, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

That's the "Current FACs" query? Yes -- might take me a week or two. Will post here when it's done. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:29, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

@Mike Christie: Yes, on the old one the link is labelled "Current FACs". However, it returned so much information that it took a long time to load. If possible (and if less work for you) this query can return less information for me, as I only used the reviews-to-FAC ratio stat. Z1720 (talk) 18:39, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

I'll look into abbreviating it, but if I recall correctly the slowness was caused by having to access each of the active FAC pages to find the nominators. If so it will be hard to speed up, but I'll take a look. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:53, 24 May 2024 (UTC)

What is the difference between FA and GA again?

I have been thinking for a long time about the difference between FA and GA, and it feels like they both somewhat look the same. WP:GVF describes "featured articles must be our very best work; good articles meet a more basic set of core editorial standards and are decent." In this case, does this mean that FA must comprehensive—meaning that the article contains a lot of perspectives, research, and many other facts globally—whereas GA means that the article is broad in its coverage (GACR3) but needs some further expansion? Speaking of comprehensiveness, as one of the criteria in FA, I have seen a discussion where a user asked about it based on the reviewer's perspectives, but I would like to understand it more strongly. Regards. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 12:05, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

The distinction between FAs and GAs is indeed nuanced, but it essentially comes down to the level of quality and comprehensiveness expected for each category. I'll try to compare them in regards to a few criteria that set them apart.

• FAs must be thorough and cover the topic in depth. This means that the article should include a wide range of perspectives, extensive research, and all relevant facts to provide a complete understanding of the subject. It should leave no significant aspect unexplored or inadequately covered. GAs, on the other hand, should cover the topic broadly, addressing the main aspects sufficiently. However, they do not need to delve as deeply into every nuance as FA articles do.
• The prose of an FA must be of the highest quality—clear, engaging, and free from errors. The article should be well-structured, with coherent flow and readability. For GAs, the prose should be clear and readable, but the standards are not as stringent as those for FA. It should be free of major errors but can tolerate minor issues that do not significantly detract from the reading experience.
• For FAs, sources should be of the highest quality, comprehensive, and fully verifiable. The article should follow Wikipedia's citation guidelines rigorously. GAs require reliable sources and appropriate citations, but the sourcing does not need to be as exhaustive as for FAs. The key is that the sources must support the article's content sufficiently.

In essence, while GAs are solid articles that meet core editorial standards and are well-written and informative, FAs represent the pinnacle of quality on Wikipedia, requiring meticulous attention to detail, balance, and thoroughness. The distinction lies in the extent of coverage and the rigor of the quality standards applied. I hope this helps. FrB.TG (talk) 12:35, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

It is worth saying that the gap between GA and FA has narrowed over time, as reviewing standards at GA have got tighter—simply copy-pasting a tickbox template is no longer considered an acceptable review there. However, there is still a large gap. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:15, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks to the multiple-reviewer-plus-coordinators approach at FAC, the overall review quality is more consistent than with the single-reviewer approach for GANs, where there are no mechanisms to guard against particularly sloppy or overly picky reviews. —Kusma (talk) 14:58, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Good assessments above. Another major (actually, pace above, I would say possibly the most important, as the process rests on one of Wikip[edia's core principles) difference is that one is peer-reviewed, and a consensus on quality and standard is formed; the other is not. ——Serial Number 54129 13:19, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

@Serial Number 54129 TIL a new definition of pace ("an expression of deference to someone's contrary opinion"). Thank you. RoySmith (talk) 13:25, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Oh, thanks Roy  :) for what it's worth, I had to look up TIL as well!  :) ——Serial Number 54129 13:28, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

And one more point: some MoS related issues are not required for GA but are required for FA. Similarly, GA citations can be inconsistent and badly formatted -- all that is required at GA is that the source can be reached via the citation. FAC requires consistency in source formatting. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:25, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

I would also say that the image review and use of visuals is far more scrutinized in a FA as well. Alt text for the visually impaired or those without access to images is required on FA, as is the substantiation of an image if the information is not cited in the body. Licensing requires analysis, i.e. beyond checking that the licensing is appropriate, does it meet other requirements, licensed in both the US and country of origin, does it comply with "freedom of panorama" rules, if applicable, etc. Tables should be used sparingly in FA with thoughtfulness as to whether they are necessary or would be better presented as prose. FA also requires mindfulness on use of colors, if one must use a colored visual, is it in a spectrum that will be helpful and not cause confusion for the reader. SusunW (talk) 14:44, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Alt text for the visually impaired or those without access to images is NOT required on FA, though reviewers often ask for it. Johnbod (talk) 14:49, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Yep, rightly so. Any editor unwilling to spend a couple of providing ALTTEXT is basically fucking over our visually-imparired readers... who are often listeners, of course. Just tie it closer to MOS:ACCESS and be done with it. ——Serial Number 54129 14:59, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

The main issue with alt text is that we only ask for the presence of some alt text, ignoring the question whether that alt text is of any use for a visually impaired reader. Opinion on what constitutes good alt text seems to vary widely (and depend on the image and context), so it is difficult to improve the situation without some dedicated alt text experts helping with reviews. —Kusma (talk) 15:10, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Indeed - and the "dedicated alt text experts" don't seem to agree either, as we found out many years ago, when there was a big push on this, which then collapsed in the absence of agreement as to what was actually useful. Johnbod (talk) 15:15, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

"Many years ago", when accessibility was not deemed as important as it is now. Have the same discussion today, and you'll likely see very different results. I think there's a lot more resonance between access (a lack of) and in/direct discrimination. These are very serious issues for the WP community of 2024, even if they may not have been, or, gently, of such importance a decade earlier. ——Serial Number 54129 15:37, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

My take away from diversity training I have had is that alt text should describe the image to someone who cannot see it and not repeat the caption information, as both are read by a screen reader. For example on a wall mural with multiple images, I would use alt=painting on a wall caption=Mural depicting X, Y, Z on the fence outside the stadium in Timbucktoo, 2013. I literally just reviewed an article that had a map with alt=see caption and the caption=X's childhood home in Timbucktoo. To my eyes the alt is not remotely helpful. Doesn't say it is a map rather than a photograph of either the town or the actual house. And yes, totally in agreement, SN 54129. SusunW (talk) 15:39, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Definitely. I think there's some confusion about what alt text is actually supposed to be and I've seen people trying to conform it to the caption when in reality they serve very different and complementary purposes. I do think it's reasonable to suggest adding it back in as a featured article criteria but we should probably get some much clearer guidance and examples for editors to use as a guide before that. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 15:52, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Some alt text is easy. A text-based poster? Say what the text is. The difficult bit in my opinion is alt text for portraits, where I am unsure what information is needed. At Ulf Merbold (one of my FAs), the infobox image alt text is "Ulf Merbold wearing an orange spacesuit". Do we need to point out also that he is not wearing the helmet, that we can see his hair going grey, or that there is a model of a Space Shuttle in the background? Probably not all of them, but I would really like to have some guidance to follow. In particular, are there cases where "refer to caption" is a good alt text? —Kusma (talk) 16:01, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Most of this is covered at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility/Alternative text for images, both in terms of general guidelines and specific examples. - SchroCat (talk) 16:20, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

I find it hard to believe that the examples there are the best we can do (the very first example is alt "Painting of Napoleon Bonaparte in His Study at the Tuileries" for an image with caption "The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries by Jacques-Louis David" which seems fairly redundant, and later there is alt "Refer to caption" for "Comparison of three different types of toothbrush", which at least could mention that they differ in bristle arrangement while all three are made of plastic). The examples in the table seem better. —Kusma (talk) 16:51, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

I agree with you Kusma. A lot of what is in that essay is directly contradicted by training I have received. Its examples seem contrary and create redundancies, IMO. Barring better instruction, I use my best judgment on how would I describe an image to someone who cannot see it. (Who knew my observation on differences between GA and FA would generate so much discussion?) SusunW (talk) 17:01, 20 May 2024 (UTC)

Suggestion: as a first step take this discussion to that page so that it can be improved, and then when that's felt to be in a good state bring the conversation back here to discuss whether it should be considered part of the criteria. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:43, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation to all users here. I can understand the difference between FA's and GA's criteria, including the comprehensiveness, prose, and sources. Speaking of the images and alternative texts, maybe this can be discussed later. Dedhert.Jr (talk) 02:30, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

I'm of the camp that pushes for more and better ALT texts. But, I've slowly come to think this may be the wrong direction. I recently bought a new car. Correction: I bought a new computer that happened to come with 4 tires and a steering wheel as peripherals. It's not quite a self-driving car, but it does come with enough sensors to "semi-automatically" execute parallel parking itself. It warns me about things I'm about to run into. It warns me about approaching cars when I go to open a door. It notices that I'm wandering over the painted lane stripes on the road . It reads street signs and tells me I'm speeding if I'm going faster than the last sign is saw said I could.

@Kusma suggests above that the ALT text should include a transcription of text that's visible in the image. At one level, I agree, and I do that, but we're long past the point where OCR software is capable of doing that for us (not to mention providing automatic translations to other languages). It can be doing full-on image recognition. This should be happening automatically for every image uploaded to commons. Maybe it's not quite at the point where it can write good ALT texts for us, but it's certainly at the point where it can do a reasonable approximation and then the article author can fix it up. RoySmith (talk) 13:56, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Um. I'm really not sure we're at that point right now, particularly given Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Accessibility/Alternative_text_for_images#Importance_of_context. (And particularly given peoples' tendency to assume that automation can get you 100% of the way there rather than only 80%). Nikkimaria (talk) 03:44, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Looking for a mentor for first FAC

Hello, I am looking for a mentor as I am approaching the FA nomination for Hogwarts Legacy. In case someone is willing to do it, let me know, thanks! Vestigium Leonis (talk) 18:38, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

FAC reviewing statistics and nominator reviewing table for May 2024

Here are the FAC reviewing statistics for May 2024. The tables below include all reviews for FACS that were either archived or promoted last month, so the reviews included are spread over the last two or three months. A review posted last month is not included if the FAC was still open at the end of the month. The new facstats tool has been updated with this data, but the old facstats tool has not. The queries used to generate this summary have been updated to point to the new tool location, and I've checked the output for consistency, but please let me know if anything looks wrong. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:49, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Reviewers for May 2024

# reviews Type of review Reviewer Content Source Image Accessibility Jo-Jo Eumerus 17 5 Nikkimaria 2 1 17 SchroCat 15 1 Gog the Mild 12 1 Serial Number 54129 8 3 750h+ 8 1 1 Ajpolino 7 3 UndercoverClassicist 10 Draken Bowser 7 1 Tim riley 8 ChrisTheDude 7 Hog Farm 6 PCN02WPS 6 AirshipJungleman29 4 Aoba47 4 Generalissima 3 1 HJ Mitchell 4 Matarisvan 4 Pseud 14 4 Buidhe 3 Elli 3 Femke 2 1 HAL333 3 JennyOz 3 Kusma 2 1 LunaEclipse 1 2 Premeditated Chaos 3 TompaDompa 3 ZooBlazer 1 2 AryKun 2 Averageuntitleduser 2 Ceoil 2 Choliamb 2 Dylan620 1 1 FunkMonk 2 Igordebraga 2 Jens Lallensack 2 Llewee 2 Mike Christie 2 RoySmith 2 Sawyer777 2 Skyshifter 2 Ssilvers 2 TechnoSquirrel69 1 1 Z1720 2 <none> 1 4meter4 1 A455bcd9 1 Aza24 1 Borsoka 1 BOZ 1 Carlinal 1 Cplakidas 1 David Fuchs 1 DecafPotato 1 Dudley Miles 1 Dugan Murphy 1 Eem dik doun in toene 1 Epicgenius 1 Esculenta 1 Gerda Arendt 1 Ghosts of Europa 1 Graham Beards 1 Hahnchen 1 Heartfox 1 Ippantekina 1 KJP1 1 Lajmmoore 1 Mirokado 1 Mujinga 1 MyCatIsAChonk 1 NegativeMP1 1 PanagiotisZois 1 Parsecboy 1 Plantdrew 1 Princessa Unicorn 1 Redrose64 1 Sammi Brie 1 Smokefoot 1 Stepho-wrs 1 The Morrison Man 1 Therapyisgood 1 Triphora 1 User-duck 1 Volcanoguy 1 Wehwalt 1 Wolverine XI 1 YBG 1 Zinnober9 1 ZKang123 1 Totals 214 31 33 '

Supports and opposes for May 2024

# declarations Declaration Editor Support Oppose converted to support Struck oppose Struck support Oppose None Total Jo-Jo Eumerus 22 22 Nikkimaria 1 2 17 20 SchroCat 11 2 3 16 Gog the Mild 11 1 1 13 Serial Number 54129 4 1 6 11 Ajpolino 6 4 10 750h+ 7 1 2 10 UndercoverClassicist 7 2 1 10 Draken Bowser 6 1 1 8 Tim riley 8 8 ChrisTheDude 6 1 7 Hog Farm 5 1 6 PCN02WPS 6 6 Matarisvan 4 4 Generalissima 2 1 1 4 Pseud 14 4 4 AirshipJungleman29 3 1 4 HJ Mitchell 4 4 Aoba47 3 1 4 HAL333 3 3 Premeditated Chaos 3 3 Kusma 2 1 3 Femke 2 1 3 TompaDompa 1 2 3 Buidhe 3 3 LunaEclipse 3 3 ZooBlazer 1 2 3 JennyOz 3 3 Elli 3 3 RoySmith 1 1 2 Averageuntitleduser 2 2 AryKun 1 1 2 Dylan620 1 1 2 Ssilvers 1 1 2 FunkMonk 1 1 2 Mike Christie 2 2 Skyshifter 1 1 2 Jens Lallensack 1 1 2 Llewee 2 2 Ceoil 1 1 2 Choliamb 1 1 2 TechnoSquirrel69 1 1 2 Z1720 2 2 Sawyer777 2 2 Igordebraga 2 2 Wehwalt 1 1 Plantdrew 1 1 Stepho-wrs 1 1 Ippantekina 1 1 Graham Beards 1 1 Lajmmoore 1 1 PanagiotisZois 1 1 Cplakidas 1 1 DecafPotato 1 1 BOZ 1 1 Therapyisgood 1 1 The Morrison Man 1 1 Redrose64 1 1 Eem dik doun in toene 1 1 YBG 1 1 KJP1 1 1 Epicgenius 1 1 <none> 1 1 Mujinga 1 1 A455bcd9 1 1 Gerda Arendt 1 1 Carlinal 1 1 Dugan Murphy 1 1 ZKang123 1 1 MyCatIsAChonk 1 1 Heartfox 1 1 Hahnchen 1 1 4meter4 1 1 Wolverine XI 1 1 Mirokado 1 1 Volcanoguy 1 1 Parsecboy 1 1 Esculenta 1 1 Borsoka 1 1 Aza24 1 1 Sammi Brie 1 1 Ghosts of Europa 1 1 Zinnober9 1 1 David Fuchs 1 1 Triphora 1 1 NegativeMP1 1 1 Princessa Unicorn 1 1 Dudley Miles 1 1 User-duck 1 1 Smokefoot 1 1 Totals 154 ' 5 ' 12 107 278

The following table shows the 12-month review-to-nominations ratio for everyone who nominated an article that was promoted or archived in the last three months who has nominated more than one article in the last 12 months. The average promoted FAC receives between 6 and 7 reviews. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:49, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Nominators for March 2024 to May 2024 with more than one nomination in the last 12 months

Nominations (12 mos) Reviews (12 mos) Ratio (12 mos) 750h+ 2.0 11.0 5.5 Ajpolino 2.0 14.0 7.0 AryKun 3.0 11.0 3.7 BennyOnTheLoose 5.5 14.0 2.5 Borsoka 3.0 7.0 2.3 CactiStaccingCrane 2.0 1.0 0.5 ChrisTheDude 11.0 91.0 8.3 Darkwarriorblake 4.0 2.0 0.5 David notMD 2.0 None 0.0 Dudley Miles 3.0 29.0 9.7 Edge3 3.0 4.0 1.3 Epicgenius 8.5 17.0 2.0 FunkMonk 3.3 30.0 9.0 Generalissima 4.0 8.0 2.0 Hawkeye7 5.0 31.0 6.2 Heartfox 7.0 24.0 3.4 HJ Mitchell 2.0 9.0 4.5 Hog Farm 5.0 22.0 4.4 Ippantekina 4.0 9.0 2.2 Jens Lallensack 3.3 27.0 8.1 Jo-Jo Eumerus 6.0 180.0 30.0 Kyle Peake 2.0 None 0.0 Lankyant 2.0 1.0 0.5 Matarisvan 2.0 5.0 2.5 Mattximus 3.0 None 0.0 Mike Christie 7.0 69.0 9.9 Olmagon 2.0 None 0.0 Paleface Jack 2.0 None 0.0 PCN02WPS 3.0 25.0 8.3 Peacemaker67 6.0 4.0 0.7 Phlsph7 5.0 8.0 1.6 Pickersgill-Cunliffe 2.0 2.0 1.0 Premeditated Chaos 9.3 26.0 2.8 Pseud 14 5.0 43.0 8.6 RecycledPixels 3.0 1.0 0.3 RoySmith 3.0 27.0 9.0 Sandbh 3.0 5.0 1.7 SchroCat 13.5 111.0 8.2 TechnoSquirrel69 2.0 9.0 4.5 The Night Watch 3.0 7.0 2.3 Thebiguglyalien 5.0 12.0 2.4 TheLonelyPather 2.0 None 0.0 Tim O'Doherty 1.5 13.0 8.7 Tim riley 1.5 51.0 34.0 UndercoverClassicist 6.0 76.0 12.7 Vami IV 2.8 14.0 4.9 Volcanoguy 2.0 6.0 3.0 Voorts 5.5 22.0 4.0 Wehwalt 7.5 32.0 4.3 Wolverine XI 2.0 3.0 1.5 ZKang123 5.0 15.0 3.0

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 21:49, 2 June 2024 (UTC)

Mentor request for Chinese characters FAC

I feel like I'm asking an awful lot from the community all of a sudden, given I've received an enormous amount of help—especially in Kusma's GAN review—plus the pending peer review, but I hope another line cast here couldn't hurt. It seems that articles like this one are comparatively distant from the areas of interest and comfort of FAC regulars, in aggregate.

I think I am well on my way to potentially diversifying the crew as such but even if one doesn't have area expertise here, I think that would be perfect: a highly perceptive and thoughtful person without particular area expertise is most certainly someone I'd most like to hear a review of this article from the most. Of course, that is also true for a highly perceptive and thoughtful person with area expertise, but that would be for distinct reasons! Ultimately, I want this to be better than any other collection of 8–10k words in existence to educate people on the subject. Remsense诉 12:15, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

MSincccc

They have been told already not to post a source review check (here) without, per rule, have[ing] attracted several reviews and declarations of support. Yet earlier today they did so again, this time with the summary Article has had multiple reviews and image review has also been conducted. This is not the case. Their article has picked up one tentative-leaning-support, and at least one other review refuses to give a verdict for their own reasons, while others have likewise not stated either way. So either MSincccc deliberately misunderstands the instructions for their own ends, or they do not understand basic instructions in English. If the former, then it is disruptive behaviour and if the latter then they should be reminded that competence is required to edit. ——Serial Number 54129 14:54, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Users Sohom Datta and Ssilvers have confirmed that further comments will be posted tomorrow. User Tim riley has not opposed the nomination, and I have received support from user 750h+. Additionally, the request for a source review has been addressed. My intentions were never disruptive. Co-nominator @Keivan.f: can confirm these facts. Furthermore, user @Serial Number 54129 has been leaving comments like Good to see the royals getting the same respect at FAC as they get from the rest of the country! on other users' talk pages, where I did not expect a response from him. Regards. MSincccc (talk) 15:32, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

I understand your interpretation and fully accept that you were acting in good faith, but the nomination has not "attracted several ... declarations of support". You will save other editors and the coordinators, of whom I am one, time and effort if you do not list it for a source review until it has. Once it has, someone else - possibly me - is likely to list it reasonably promptly anyway. Thanks. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:14, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your response @Gog the Mild. Would you mind leaving your suggestions at Catherine's FAC then? It would be greatly appreciated. Regards. MSincccc (talk) 16:33, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

MSincccc, there are currently 52 nominations going through the process, of which yours is only one, and yet yours is a name I see popping up on my watchlist on a great number of talk pages begging for reviews. Please stop doing this. It's annoying for people to be badgered constantly for review requests, particularly when everyone here has limited time available. We certainly don't need 52 people going round harassing for reviews if people want theirs to be driven through faster. Have patience, stop the badgering, review other people's articles (without asking for any reciprocation) and just wait for the reviews to come to you. You need to take on board that your review may take up to two months to go through the process. - SchroCat (talk) 16:40, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

@SchroCat Apologies if my frequent requests have inconvenienced you at FAC. As a young user, I acknowledge that I may sometimes feel vulnerable. I will make an effort to be more patient in the future. I won't trouble any of you with further review requests for my FAC. Thank you for your valuable advice. I will remember it as I continue to grow both in age and in my understanding of English Wikipedia. Regards. MSincccc (talk) 16:47, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

MSincccc, In my experience, I find that it is only really appropriate to ask for reviews if the person has specific knowledge in the field and thus would be able to give a more in-depth and accurate review. This... does not seem to be the case when you request this sort of thing. A few months ago you asked on my talk page to review your Mark Zuckerberg GAN because I had written a number of GAs in the Economics and business category. This would be understandable if I focused on, I don't know, tech executives? But these GAs were on coins. A few days ago you asked again for a source review on your Catherine article, emphasizing our "past collaboration on a DYK review". This behavior really comes off as desperate, and I would suggest not asking people for reviews in the future. I know you're young, you mention this a lot, but I know some pretty young editors, and they don't need to beg for reviews. They just write good content and know that with enough time, reviews will come. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 16:59, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

@Generalissima Thanks for your suggestion. I will refrain from endlessly requesting other users for reviews in future. Regards. MSincccc (talk) 17:20, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Can Iemphasise SchroCat's advice "review other people's articles (without asking for any reciprocation) and just wait for the reviews to come to you"? Nothing is more likely to attract reviewers than their seeing you selflessly engaging in detailed, courteous and well-reasoned reviews of other FACs. It is also likely to improve the quality of your own articles. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:27, 3 June 2024 (UTC)

Second nom?

FA Co-ords, Would I be OK in putting up a second nom? My current one is a couple of weeks old, has a few supports and the image and source reviews are complete. No probs if you'd rather I waited a while though. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 09:43, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Go right ahead. FrB.TG (talk) 10:27, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Many thanks FrB.TG - that's great. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 10:29, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Statistics for current FACs added to the new tool

Pinging Z1720, who asked for this; posting here in case others are interested. The FAC & GAN statistics tool now has the "current FACs" statistics feature, taken from the old tool. Current FACs shows the review and nomination stats for all nominators of active FACs. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:27, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

FYI—when I go to https://ganfilter.toolforge.org/current_facs I get

Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error and was unable to complete your request. Either the server is overloaded or there is an error in the application. (t · c) buidhe 06:21, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Should be fixed now -- I had done something careless which meant it was intermittently failing. Let me know if you see the error again. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:59, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Great, thanks Mike. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:55, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Proportion of articles that are featured

One for fellow geeks, nerds and anoraks. The proportion of Wikipedia main space articles that are featured has just hit a 20-year high. As of the end of May there were approximately 6,830,000 articles on Wikipedia, of which 6,504 were featured. That's 0.0952% or about 1 in 1,050. This is the highest proportion since the end of January 2004 when, apparently, there were about 201,000 articles on Wikipedia, of which 194 were featured; that's 0.0965%. The end of last month was the best in this respect since then. Gog the Mild (talk) 18:52, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Nominations aren't collapsed anymore

For me at least, the nomination page is endlessly long, making it very hard to get an overview of articles to review. Is something broken? FunkMonk (talk) 17:49, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes!! Nominations viewer randomly stopped working for me a few days ago. Heartfox (talk) 18:27, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Me too. ——Serial Number 54129 18:49, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Stopped working for me at the end of may. Works again after i reintroduced the script to my /vector-2022.js but maybe you're having another issue? Draken Bowser (talk) 18:51, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

↑ Ditto. - SchroCat (talk) 18:59, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

So the script should be re-added? FunkMonk (talk) 19:08, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

I have the script in my common.js and it's working fine for me. I use A455bcd9's version, which has a couple of extra features, and I also tried reverting to the original version. Both work for me. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:13, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Is there any reason why the list isn't collapsed by default without every editor having to install a script? Could be a way to centralise solutions, as it isn't the first time it breaks. FunkMonk (talk) 19:17, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Changing from Vector (legacy) to Vector (2022) in Preferences, Appearance, worked to solve the problem for me. Dudley Miles (talk) 16:15, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

I've been using Vector 2022 since not long after it came out. I know there was a lot of fuss about it from people who hated it, so I thought I'd add a short plug for it. I changed a bit reluctantly, but once I got used to it I found it much preferable. The ability to choose where the ToC should be, and the fact that some top buttons such as history are accessible even when scrolled down, are features I now could not do without. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:21, 10 June 2024 (UTC)

The script has also stopped working for me, but uninstalling and reinstalling didn't work. SilverTiger12 (talk) 01:04, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

To everyone in this discussion, this issue is most likely because of the recent changes to the underlying HTML of talk pages, which has been breaking a bunch of scripts lately. All skins apart from Vector 2022 are affected. Since Gary hasn't edited in a while — A455bcd9, would you be able to take a look at this? —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 01:58, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Hi,

I'm using the default Vector 2022 so everything works for me. Making sure the appearance is the same across skins might prove difficult. Pinging @PresN who is way better than I am at this and who recently fixed a similar issue (Wikipedia_talk:Featured_article_review/archive_15#FARC_header_not_showing_on_WP:FAR). (And I'm busy getting married in a few days...)

@FunkMonk: we could probably collapse by default using {{Collapse top}} in the discussion page of each article, but I think we would still need a script to compute the last activity, number of participants and supports. Unless we could do it with a Lua module? a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 07:43, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Mike mentions the option to choose where the ToC is. That may be a good option for people who are more technical, but I found that the ToC disappeared and I did not know how to get it back. I find keeping Vector Legacy with a button to switch to the Vector 2022 look when needed better. See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Collapsing FAC page. Dudley Miles (talk) 08:27, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

You see everyone, it was WP:THURSDAY... ——Serial Number 54129 13:03, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't have time to try to fix it today, but I'll list the issue out in case anyone else wants to take a swing at it: the issue is that the way the script works is that it decides what a "nomination" is by starting at the header (the h3 element), taking all of the sibling nodes that come after it until it hits another header, and clumping them together into a 'nomination'. What broke last January is that the 'Older nominations' h2 element was being wrapped in a div tag, so it didn't know to stop there. There's a similar issue here- in skins that aren't vector2022 are now wrapping the h3 headers in a <div class="mw-heading mw-heading3">, so when the script starts at the first h3, it never sees another as a sibling so it never collapses anything. Pretty sure what needs to happen is that in the hideNomination function on line 343, it needs to, instead of doing h3+siblings, jump up to the parent div if that div has class=mw-heading3 and then do that+siblings. If all of that didn't read as gibberish, feel free to take a crack at it. --PresN 14:28, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Okay, noodled on it during some meetings, and I think I've gotten it working; it looks right (barring display variations) for vector2022/vector2010/monobook. Was a little more complicated to fix than I expected, and it's not the prettiest javascript I've ever written, but I guess it's okay. @A455bcd9: My version is at User:PresN/nominations viewer.js; the change is this if you want to add it to your version. --PresN 16:37, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks a lot @PresN! I've just replicated the modifications in "my" script. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 14:46, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks PresN, that works fine now for me. Appreciate all the effort you put in there! The only thing I'll add to anyone still having problems is to remember to uninstall/disable previous viewer scripts—it won't work in parallel with another. ——Serial Number 54129 15:16, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

I didn't change my scripts, but now it works like before for some reason. FunkMonk (talk) 22:38, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

• Not sure if it's related, but the "highlight duplicate links" script has also recently broken, perhaps at the same time, so that it counts linked words repeated from the lead in the article body as duplicates, which makes the tool basically useless, since the same words can/should be linked in both the intro and article body. FunkMonk (talk) 19:01, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Grouping sources by type?

I remember a FAC within the past month or so where somebody had grouped the sources by type (i.e. book, article, news, etc) and a reviewer objected to that. Does anybody remember which FAC that was? This came up at PR and I want to make sure I'm giving @Joeyquism the right advice. RoySmith (talk) 17:27, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

@RoySmith: Our SchroCat is avocado of that style—Hannah Glasse for example—is that what you were thinking of? Wooh! "Morphius is fighting Neo!" time  ;) ——Serial Number 54129 18:03, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

While it is in the "Further reading" rather than "References" section, Mars in fiction has that kind of division as a result of feedback during its FAC. Seemed uncontroversial at the time. TompaDompa (talk) 18:16, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

There are no strict rules for source formatting, except that it remains consistent and includes the bare minimum of necessary items (author, date, title, publisher, and generally some kind of identifier like an isbn/oclc/issn/doi etc). The other main exception is inline parenthetical citations, which have been deprecated. Everything else is essentially preference based (as long as it is consistent). Aza24 (talk) 18:26, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Joeyquism, RoySmith, There is absolutely nothing wrong in dividing by type (there are enough FAs—both mine and others—that use it to show it's completely acceptable). Consistency is key, and as long as you are consistent in the way you do this, then you'll be okay. There are some tweaks I would suggest about the labelling of the source types, but as I have a few of the albums you've discussed, I'll be along to the PR shortly and add some comments there. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 22:13, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for your input on this matter and the indication of your willingness to comment on the PR. Hoping to hear from you re:labeling soon! joeyquism (talk page) 01:34, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

I do sometimes question why a given source is in one section and not in another, mostly for consistency reasons. But at least for me, grouping sources by type in general is OK. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 05:59, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

It makes it easier read, review, and see where sources are coming from - depending a lot on what you are citing. But certainly not required (t · c) buidhe 20:20, 13 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes. I did something similar at The Cenotaph because of the number of sources. I only put the books and journals in the bibliography and used inline citations for things like newspaper articles but that's just personal preference. The important thing is that the reader can tell where you got your information. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 09:42, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

New TitleCaseConverter userscript

Hello guys! So I decided to promote a new userscript TitleCaseConverter, which converts all reference titles to title case. Recently I've seen comments by FAC coordinators here suggesting that all reference titles "should be either in sentence case or title case" regardless of "how they appear in their originals". As it would be cumbersome for one to go over 50+ references in an article and use other tools to convert each reference title (such as Capitalizemytitle or Title Case Converter), I decided to write up this userscript so that the process would be much quicker. Thanks to Novem Linguae (talk · contribs), the userscript is further refined before I shall share this for all to use. Obviously, it's still best to check over manually what has been changed before submitting. All feedback is welcome.--ZKang123 (talk) 11:08, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

Cool, but I thought we have to use title case for book titles and sentence case for journal article titles? Also, how is the script dealing with names (such as country names, person names, genus names …), which obviously should remain capitalised? Jens Lallensack (talk) 11:47, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

@Jens Lallensack: The script basically looks into the title part of the ref and edits accordingly. All other parameters in the references are retained.--ZKang123 (talk) 14:46, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

I was referring to names in the title part. For example, if the title is "A New Hummingbird from Brazil", and we ask the script to use sentence case, does it turn "Brazil" into lower case as well (which would be incorrect)? Jens Lallensack (talk) 15:23, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

Unless I’ve missed it, the script only supports title case (at the moment) and doesn’t change to sentence case. FrB.TG (talk) 19:59, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

Yes, at the moment it only supports title case. But if there's demand to also incorporate an option for sentence case, I will think over it.--ZKang123 (talk) 01:46, 9 June 2024 (UTC)

Re: book and journal titles, there's nothing in WP:CITE or Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters that insists on any specific form, just that it needs to be consistent. - SchroCat (talk) 11:53, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

MOS:CT says Wikipedia normally follows these conventions when referring to such works, which, I think, makes it clear that we should use title case (except for, in some cases, article titles and chapter titles). Jens Lallensack (talk) 12:40, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

yeah. That was added by, you guessed it, MOShead-in-chief SMcCandlish after no discussion, so the extent to which it actually reflects a community manual of style is arguable. ——Serial Number 54129 18:21, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for writing this script. I got it to work when Wikipedia:Syntax highlighting in the editor is disabled but it seems to do nothing if it is enabled. Phlsph7 (talk) 07:12, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Switching to something like this goToShowChangesScreen() function would probably fix this. –Novem Linguae (talk) 16:28, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Mentor for first FA nomination

I am planning to nominate an article soon. It's currently a GA. Am I meant to post here for a mentor, or just nominate it? Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 02:58, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

I recall doing the GA review and thinking it was in pretty good shape then. I am about to start a week long trip but if you don't mind me having uncertain response times I'd be glad to give it a pre-FAC review. I have no particular expertise in either basketball or racial segregation topics, though. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 03:15, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! And that time frame is fine with me. Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 04:42, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Does FAC needs to be GA

Does an article needs to be a Good Article, for it to be nominated as a Featured Article Candidate? Vestrian24Bio (TALK) 13:08, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

No. See John FitzWalter, 2nd Baron FitzWalter, which went from nothing in October 2018 to Featured Article, one year later. ——Serial Number 54129 13:14, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

No. Many of the articles that go through FAC are not GA, and some have not even been through PR, but the more eyes on an article pre FAC (and that includes a GA review), the better, particularly for those who are new or inexperienced in the process. - SchroCat (talk) 13:15, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

• No, but I'd recommend it for all beginners, at least before their first few FACs. Though I've nominate 60+ FACs, I still always take them through GAN first for the extra eyes. FunkMonk (talk) 13:32, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

  Okay, Thanks. Vestrian24Bio (TALK) 15:57, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Fourth

@FAC coordinators: can I begin another nom? hope this isn't annoying 750h+ 07:00, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Go ahead. FrB.TG (talk) 07:30, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Should you have to read the lead to understand the article?

I've been looking at I'm God by @Skyshifter:. One thought I had is that the main body of the article doesn't actually start by explaining what the subject is, i.e. "I'm God is a ...". The lead does start that way, but that means you need to read the lead to have the right context. MOS:LEAD says The lead should stand on its own and I've always taken that to mean that the main body should also stand on it's own.

But maybe I've been reading more into that than I should, since the next sentence says the lead should establish context. I also see that my American Bank Note Company Printing Plant follows the same pattern; if you skip the lead and jump right into reading the main body at "Previous land use", it won't make any sense. I'm not looking to pick on I'm God, but I am interested in what other people think about this. Should you be able to skip the lead, start reading at the beginning of the main body, and understand what's going on? RoySmith (talk) 13:55, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

My view is that it should be possible to read the body without reading the lead first and still understand everything. Then again, I tend to write the lead (apart from the very first sentence or so) after I have written the entirety of the body, so maybe my perspective is just a consequence of that habit of mine. TompaDompa (talk) 14:38, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

I tend to think of the lead and the body as more or less separate articles. Ideally, the body should make sense if you have only read the very first sentence of the lead (or the short description). Like TompaDompa, this reflects the way I write articles: write one defining sentence ("John Doe was a Scottish astronaut"), then write the body, then summarise the body and condense it into a lead section. A reader of my articles should be able to decide whether they want to read the lead (micropaedia) or skip to the body (macropaedia), but the body does not need to start by defining again what the article is about. —Kusma (talk) 14:58, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

This is all a little outside the scope of FAC, where we should reflect the spirit and practice of the main guidelines. Ideally the body should be readable without the lead, although I suspect nearly no-one actually reads like that. Having said that, articles which have a Background section tend to start slightly further away from the main subject but provide necessary context which allows the subject to be understood more completely. - SchroCat (talk) 15:41, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

I don't see why it's outside the scope of FAC. Reviewers need to decide whether or not to raise objections if this particular practice isn't being followed, and that's a matter that could be decided here.  — Amakuru (talk) 16:03, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Because this isn’t an FAC point: it concerns all articles but isn’t covered by the MOS. The same question could/should be asked more centrally rather than here. SchroCat (talk) 22:13, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

I think we're overthinking this. The lead should stand on its own because a reader could plausibly read just the lead; it's at the top of the article. From there a reader could click/scroll to any section. We should strive to make the article as accessible as possible to those who pick-and-choose their sections but neither the first section, nor any other section, needs to reintroduce the context that would allow it to stand on its own. That would make for a jarringly repetitive read for the top-to-bottom readers. Ajpolino (talk) 23:12, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

I struggle to imagine a situation where there is information in the lead which is not in the main article and a nomination meets criterion 2a. Similarly the lead and the main article not each independently covering the topic. And 2a is explicitly within the scope of FAC. Perhaps it could be done, but I am sceptical. Gog the Mild (talk) 15:30, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

In the two cases I mentioned above, it's more a matter of order. In my case, the main body starts with "Until the late 19th century, the land where the plant stands was part of the village of West Farms in Westchester County", but unless you've read the lead, I haven't yet told you what "the plant" is. RoySmith (talk) 16:41, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

That's why I tend to make sure the first sentence of the background section, if it mentions the article subject, includes the subject's original name. In this case you might be able to use the address of the plant. (t · c) buidhe 17:28, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

In biographies at least, it's conventional for the first words of the body to be the subject's full name, which certainly gives the impression that the body, like the lead, forms a coherent sub-article in its own right. On a separate note, as a matter of style, I'd normally avoid using a phrase like "the plant", "it", etc which has an antecedent found higher up than the paragraph it is in. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 10:48, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

By definition, the lead is the summary of an article. IMO the lead should not contain any new information that isn't present in the main body to maintain consistency, ensuring all content is well-supported and verifiable. Introducing unique information in the lead without elaboration in the main body disrupts the logical flow and can confuse readers. The lead's primary function as a summary necessitates that it only encapsulates details that are fully explored within the main article so it makes sense for the main body to stand on its own without the lead. FrB.TG (talk) 16:39, 23 June 2024 (UTC)

Stalled source review

Could I get a second opinion on the source review at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Iron Man/archive2? It seems the reviewer and I have a disagreement about whether primary sources are required when writing about fiction, and they've now gone quiet. Courtesy ping to Jo-Jo Eumerus. Thebiguglyalien (talk) 04:38, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

I have responded there. Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 05:55, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

FAC reviewing statistics and nominator reviewing table for June 2024

Here are the FAC reviewing statistics for June 2024; the analysis was done by Hog Farm (thank you) this month. The tables below include all reviews for FACS that were either archived or promoted last month, so the reviews included are spread over the last two or three months. A review posted last month is not included if the FAC was still open at the end of the month. The new facstats tool has been updated with this data, but the old facstats tool has not. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:05, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Reviewers for June 2024

# reviews Type of review Reviewer Content Source Image Accessibility Jo-Jo Eumerus 18 9 Nikkimaria 1 18 Generalissima 5 2 3 SchroCat 9 UndercoverClassicist 8 1 750h+ 8 Draken Bowser 7 1 Matarisvan 8 Aoba47 6 ChrisTheDude 6 MSincccc 6 Pseud 14 5 1 Gerda Arendt 5 Premeditated Chaos 5 Tim riley 5 AirshipJungleman29 4 Dudley Miles 4 Epicgenius 3 1 Gog the Mild 4 Heartfox 2 2 Hog Farm 4 JennyOz 4 MyCatIsAChonk 3 1 Nick-D 4 RoySmith 4 Serial Number 54129 2 2 ZKang123 3 1 Kusma 3 NegativeMP1 3 Tim O'Doherty 3 Wehwalt 3 Ajpolino 2 Aza24 2 Borsoka 2 Buidhe 2 David Fuchs 1 1 Dylan620 1 1 Esculenta 2 FrB.TG 1 1 Graham Beards 2 Jenhawk777 1 1 Joeyquism 2 Ligaturama 1 1 Pbritti 2 Phlsph7 1 1 Sawyer777 2 Skyshifter 2 Ssilvers 2 Vanamonde93 2 Voorts 2 Z1720 2 Artem.G 1 Cplakidas 1 Darkwarriorblake 1 DisillusionedBitterAndKnackered 1 Double sharp 1 Dugan Murphy 1 Ealdgyth 1 FunkMonk 1 Ham II 1 Hameltion 1 HistoryofIran 1 Hurricanehink 1 Iadmc 1 Ian Rose 1 Igordebraga 1 Imzadi1979 1 Ippantekina 1 Jaguar 1 JimKillock 1 Johnbod 1 Johnjbarton 1 Keivan.f 1 Lee Vilenski 1 LegalSmeagolian 1 Mike Christie 1 Mr.choppers 1 Patrick Welsh 1 PCN02WPS 1 PerfectSoundWhatever 1 PresN 1 Queen of Hearts 1 Rosbif73 1 SafariScribe 1 Sandbh 1 Shapeyness 1 Smokefoot 1 SnowFire 1 Sohom Datta 1 Stepho-wrs 1 TechnoSquirrel69 1 Tercer 1 Therapyisgood 1 Therealscorp1an 1 TompaDompa 1 WereSpielChequers 1 XOR'easter 1 YBG 1 Totals 215 35 34

Supports and opposes for June 2024

# declarations Declaration Editor Support Oppose converted to support Struck oppose Struck support Oppose None Total Jo-Jo Eumerus 27 27 Nikkimaria 19 19 Generalissima 2 2 6 10 SchroCat 6 3 9 UndercoverClassicist 4 5 9 750h+ 7 1 8 Draken Bowser 6 2 8 Matarisvan 5 3 8 Pseud 14 4 2 6 MSincccc 6 6 Aoba47 3 1 2 6 ChrisTheDude 6 6 Premeditated Chaos 4 1 5 Tim riley 4 1 5 Gerda Arendt 5 5 Epicgenius 2 1 1 4 Heartfox 1 1 1 1 4 RoySmith 2 1 1 4 Nick-D 2 1 1 4 AirshipJungleman29 1 1 1 1 4 MyCatIsAChonk 3 1 4 ZKang123 3 1 4 Serial Number 54129 1 3 4 Gog the Mild 3 1 4 Dudley Miles 4 4 Hog Farm 2 2 4 JennyOz 3 1 4 Kusma 2 1 3 NegativeMP1 3 3 Tim O'Doherty 2 1 3 Wehwalt 2 1 3 Dylan620 1 1 2 Voorts 2 2 Phlsph7 2 2 Buidhe 2 2 Jenhawk777 1 1 2 FrB.TG 1 1 2 Esculenta 2 2 Ssilvers 2 2 Ligaturama 1 1 2 Pbritti 2 2 Joeyquism 2 2 David Fuchs 1 1 2 Aza24 2 2 Borsoka 1 1 2 Skyshifter 1 1 2 Sawyer777 2 2 Graham Beards 2 2 Vanamonde93 1 1 2 Z1720 2 2 Ajpolino 1 1 2 Cplakidas 1 1 Hameltion 1 1 Therapyisgood 1 1 SafariScribe 1 1 SnowFire 1 1 Iadmc 1 1 HistoryofIran 1 1 Johnbod 1 1 TompaDompa 1 1 Ian Rose 1 1 Stepho-wrs 1 1 Smokefoot 1 1 Artem.G 1 1 Ham II 1 1 DisillusionedBitterAndKnackered 1 1 Keivan.f 1 1 Hurricanehink 1 1 Jaguar 1 1 Sandbh 1 1 FunkMonk 1 1 Queen of Hearts 1 1 Igordebraga 1 1 Lee Vilenski 1 1 Mr.choppers 1 1 Johnjbarton 1 1 Therealscorp1an 1 1 Mike Christie 1 1 Tercer 1 1 Double sharp 1 1 Shapeyness 1 1 Ealdgyth 1 1 Rosbif73 1 1 Darkwarriorblake 1 1 XOR'easter 1 1 PresN 1 1 Imzadi1979 1 1 JimKillock 1 1 LegalSmeagolian 1 1 WereSpielChequers 1 1 PCN02WPS 1 1 YBG 1 1 Patrick Welsh 1 1 Ippantekina 1 1 Sohom Datta 1 1 TechnoSquirrel69 1 1 PerfectSoundWhatever 1 1 Dugan Murphy 1 1 Totals 135 1 2 19 127 284

The following table shows the 12-month review-to-nominations ratio for everyone who nominated an article that was promoted or archived in the last three months who has nominated more than one article in the last 12 months. The average promoted FAC receives between 6 and 7 reviews. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:05, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Nominators for April 2024 to June 2024 with more than one nomination in the last 12 months

Nominations (12 mos) Reviews (12 mos) Ratio (12 mos) 750h+ 3.0 19.0 6.3 AirshipJungleman29 7.0 38.0 5.4 Ajpolino 2.0 16.0 8.0 Aoba47 4.0 54.0 13.5 AryKun 3.0 11.0 3.7 BennyOnTheLoose 5.5 11.0 2.0 Borsoka 3.0 9.0 3.0 CactiStaccingCrane 2.0 1.0 0.5 ChrisTheDude 10.0 89.0 8.9 Darkwarriorblake 5.0 3.0 0.6 Dudley Miles 3.0 31.0 10.3 Dugan Murphy 2.0 5.0 2.5 Edge3 3.0 4.0 1.3 Epicgenius 8.5 20.0 2.4 FunkMonk 3.3 30.0 9.0 Generalissima 4.5 18.0 4.0 Hawkeye7 6.0 31.0 5.2 Heartfox 7.0 26.0 3.7 HJ Mitchell 2.0 7.0 3.5 Hog Farm 5.0 25.0 5.0 Iazyges 1.5 3.0 2.0 Ippantekina 5.0 7.0 1.4 Jo-Jo Eumerus 6.0 198.0 33.0 Kyle Peake 2.0 None 0.0 Matarisvan 3.0 13.0 4.3 Mattximus 3.0 None 0.0 Mike Christie 7.0 70.0 10.0 MyCatIsAChonk 5.0 51.0 10.2 Olmagon 2.0 None 0.0 Paleface Jack 2.0 None 0.0 PCN02WPS 3.0 25.0 8.3 Peacemaker67 7.0 4.0 0.6 Phlsph7 6.0 10.0 1.7 Premeditated Chaos 9.3 29.0 3.1 PresN 2.0 1.0 0.5 PSA 1.5 2.0 1.3 Pseud 14 6.0 46.0 7.7 RecycledPixels 2.0 1.0 0.5 Sammi Brie 3.5 13.0 3.7 Sandbh 3.0 6.0 2.0 SchroCat 14.5 115.0 7.9 Serial Number 54129 3.0 47.0 15.7 Skyshifter 2.0 4.0 2.0 SounderBruce 3.0 4.0 1.3 TechnoSquirrel69 2.0 10.0 5.0 The Night Watch 3.0 6.0 2.0 Thebiguglyalien 4.0 12.0 3.0 TheLonelyPather 2.0 None 0.0 Tim riley 1.5 51.0 34.0 UndercoverClassicist 6.0 82.0 13.7 Volcanoguy 2.0 6.0 3.0 Voorts 6.5 24.0 3.7 Wehwalt 7.5 33.0 4.4 Wolverine XI 3.0 3.0 1.0 ZKang123 6.0 19.0 3.2

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:05, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Nomination

Hi coords (if you see this), without pinging, Mike Christie asked if the source review on my current nomination would be a pass or a fail. Could one of you comment on it? Thanks. 750h+ 13:41, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

J. K. Rowling

Discussion regarding the FA status of the article moved from here to WT:FAR#J. K. Rowling. See diff.

Spotcheck

Anyone mind doing a third spot check for Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Aston Martin Vanquish (2012)/archive1? Thanks and best 750h+ 23:48, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do. Phlsph7 (talk) 17:14, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Multiple source reviews?

Quick question if that's OK - for the first time in my time at FAC, my current nom is/has been having two source reviews. One has resulted in a pass but the other is still ongoing. What happens if the second one doesn't pass? Does it then need a third to break the deadlock? -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:35, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

A failed source review means a failed nomination, regardless of how many other reviews have taken place (as long as the failing is made on reasonable grounds that are covered by the criteria/MOS etc). - SchroCat (talk) 07:53, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Fair enough. I was just a little perplexed by the multiple source reviews, as this has never happened in any of my previous noms. Normally it's a "one and done"..... -- ChrisTheDude (talk) 07:59, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Multiple source (or image) reviews are not standard, but any reviewer is free to carry one out if they wish to, and they are far from unknown. As SC notes, any issues raised will be viewed as seriously as any others. Gog the Mild (talk) 08:48, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Question

Hi @FAC coordinators: i'm just wondering if Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Aston Martin Vanquish (2012)/archive1 would require a source quality check? It's already underwent a spot check (passed) so i'm just wondering if it will need a source quality check 750h+ 01:55, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

A spot-check is checking for source-text integrity and plagiarism issues, it's not necessarily evaluating the quality of the sourcing used per WP:FAC?#1c, so yes it should have a source quality check. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 12:08, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Another one

Hi @FAC coordinators: this nomination has four supports, and completed source review (i think) and spot check, and a completed image review, so i believe this is closer to promotion than archiving. But there is a reviewer (AirshipJungleman) who left a weak oppose BUT struck it out, so i'm guessing it wouldn't be considered a vote anymore. 750h+ 12:28, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

@750h+ Trust we're following the progress of nominations unless there's something exceptional going on. We don't need to be pinged about every little thing on your nominations. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 16:31, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

New nomination

Hi @FAC coordinators: coords, Is there any chance I could post a second nom? My current nom has six supports and has passed image and source reviews. I want to bring in a nom for the Brighton bomb that needs to be finished by October so it can go onto the main page for its 40th anniversary. Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 14:42, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

Go right ahead. FrB.TG (talk) 15:00, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

You're a star - thanks very much FrB.TG! Cheers - SchroCat (talk) 15:07, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

New FGTC Coordinator Proposal

Hi all, please check out the new New FGTC Coordinator Proposal if you have a moment! Aza24 (talk) 20:55, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Poverty in ancient Rome

The article poverty in ancient Rome has been nominated for GA, by a user with a couple of years experience and a few thousand edits (i.e. not a newbie). I've been doing some GA reviews recently, focusing on editors with no GAs who have been altruistic enough to go ahead and do a GA review already, and this editor is one of those. I'm hesitant to review it, though, because it looks pretty good and I'm not a subject matter expert. I know we have some editors at FAC who are knowledgeable about that time period, so I thought I'd post here in case someone is interested in picking up the review. I hate to see a potentially very good editor get discouraged by having to wait six months for their first GA review, after having done a review themselves already. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:05, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Fairly sure that editor has already had had a GA review from one such time-period & FAC regular, unless I'm missing something. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 02:08, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Then I've got a problem in the GA stats, damn it, which I'll look into. That does weaken my suggestion but I'll leave it up in case anyone is interested. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:26, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

I have taken on the review; thanks for pointing it out! Iazyges Consermonor Opus meum 06:43, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Sudden archival of Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Virtual Self (EP)/archive1

I'd like to request opinions regarding the archival of Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Virtual Self (EP)/archive1. After a passed source review and an oppose (which has been addressed), the FAC was suddenly archived without prior warning. As I've explained here and the next comment, I don't think this was fair, as I'm at a loss just because the opposer didn't see my response in time (and they're not forced to). Had I been warned, as I was in another FAC, I'd have pinged the opposer again and tried to gather more opinions. I was also completely committed to the FAC and responded to all inquiries within the same day they were posted, so this wasn't an issue. As such, I'd like to know if is possible to reconsider the archival or, at very least, ask permission to renominate right away, as the oppose's issues have already been resolved and the two-week wait period is not needed. Skyshiftertalk 23:34, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Although it was a bit abrupt, yes, I don’t see anything to be concerned about. Something I learned last year at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Daytona USA/archive1 is that the coordinators expect to see supports in the first three weeks, at least one. Just because concerns were addressed doesn’t mean it should stay open if it’s not progressing toward being promoted, and I agree that three weeks seems like a short period to evaluate this, but I understand the premise that it has to be making measurable progress towards promotion in a reasonable amount of time so they don’t all sit for months on end awaiting more feedback. Red Phoenix ^talk 01:33, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

See, I completely agree with everything you said, but at least you got a warning in your FAC before it was archived. I just wish this had also happened to my FAC. Skyshiftertalk 03:20, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Side note addendum: usually a “support” on images or sources isn’t generally a “support” in that those reviews are required in all FACs and if it’s specifically on one of the two it’s usually taken as checking off that that review is complete and issues addressed, not a support of the whole article unless specified or if that reviewer discussed the article and not just images or sources. Red Phoenix ^talk 01:37, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Coordinators leaving a warning note is not required but I do it in cases where there has been little to no activity - that wasn't the case here. It had been open for three weeks with no support and one valid oppose and given your knowledge of the FAC process, I don't think you should wait for a coordinator to leave a warning note for you to get active in terms of pinging reviewers and getting more participants. In any case, I don't think the prose issues have been fully resolved which is actually why I archived the nomination. The reception section, for example, is rather repetitive with opinions being lined up like a list without any coherent theme. FrB.TG (talk) 12:25, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

• Think I have to agree with the closure here. No supports after three weeks isn't a good sign of progress. My suggestion is to take the next couple of weeks going back over the comments and make sure they're all sorted, then bring it back again. In the mean time, I suggest you review other people's article. Not only will it help you understand the general concerns and levels of FAC, it will also act as an encouragement for others to review yours when you return; there is no quid pro quo at FAC, but people do tend to review those who the see being active on reviews. - SchroCat (talk) 12:37, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

  Not only that but if you review articles on similar subjects to the ones you nominate, you might pick up ideas for improving your own articles. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 17:22, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

  I also agree with the close and reading through find it unsurprising: anybody who even half follows FAC knows the co-ords open/transparent approach wrt archiving. Skyshifter, in addition to Harry's advice on reviewing and goodwill, its not a sin to reach out and ask for help from potential reviewers. Ceoil (talk) 12:07, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

FFAC Talk Page Template

I have just noticed that the boilerplate template for a not-promoted FA candidate reads as follows:

[Competitive turnip eating] is a former featured article candidate. Please view the links under Article milestones below to see why the nomination failed. For older candidates, please check the archive. [emphasis mine]

As I remember, we generally avoid the term "failed" around here, for reasons that the co-ords will be better able to articulate: I've heard it said that an FAC judges whether promotion, or non-promotion, is the best thing for the article, so if the judgement is "not promote", that shouldn't be seen as a failure.

Should this text be amended -- perhaps to something like "Please view the links under Article milestones below to view the nomination"? This might also be a more honest reflection of what the nomination page would show, given that they rarely set out in any authoritative terms (other than "consensus has not been achieved/is not likely to be achieved) what it was about the article that led to its non-promotion. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 10:46, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps replace '... failed' with '... was archived' as nominations that don't proceed are closed as archived that'd be consistent with the term used on the FAC. Mr rnddude (talk) 11:04, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree -- "was archived" seems the right way to say it. I'd go ahead and make the change myself but the code for {{Article history}} lives in Module:Article history and I wouldn't know what to change there. Do we have a Lua coder in the house? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:16, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Personally I don't think that "former featured article candidate" or "former good article candidate" are good statuses for an article. Instead it could be noted that the article has never been recognized as good or featured. (t · c) buidhe 23:54, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Those notes have a practical purpose, similar to how a second FAC nom states that it is a 2nd nom. And anyway 99.999% of articles have "never been recognized as good or featured". As usual, I'm not sure what your point is. Ceoil (talk) 16:57, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I think these are fairly well entrenched terms, although of course that doesn't make them ideal. As a coord I find it useful to know this without checking article history. In any case I fully agree the 'failed' term should go -- either UC's or Mr rnd's alternate wording works for me. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 17:10, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

'failed' should certainly go; it would take a lot of the bite out of noms that have lasped due to having timed out or need to run through a PR. i notice a lot of first time nominators who have articles on the verge but not quite there, see archiving as 'failed', and are thus hurt and often abandon the process. This change wont fix but might soften the blow. From a selfish pov, I see these people as badly needed future reviewers.Ceoil (talk) 17:19, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

For anyone who's interested, I've just requested the same changes for the module that affects {{Icon}} and {{Icon link}} — see § Template-protected edit request, August 1, 2024. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 03:02, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

And just made this request as no one seems to have implemented the consensus for changes to {{Article history}}. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 02:45, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Source suitability

Hi all,

At my most recent attempt at FAC closed a month and a half ago, I dug up a potentially valuable resource for Eternal Blue (album) (by Spiritbox). The source by itself would normally be reliable, but it has a unique accessibility problem which nobody at the FAC knew for sure was permissible. The source in question is an interview with frontwoman Courtney LaPlante conducted by Apple Music.

Here's the issue. Quoting myself on May 7, 2024: For whatever reason, the album ID on Apple Music for [this album] was changed at some point and didn't keep the interview. I found a cached version of the old ID interview on Google, but clicking the link gives me a [dead link]. I took said link to Wayback Machine, but the place I should find it is under a dropdown menu where the collapse button doesn't function. If I hit F12 to examine the page elements, however...it's there. I know this is a really far reach asking if this is admissible at FAC, but I think it would be invaluable coverage if it were permitted with the caveat that I include instructions on how to verify the information.

If this isn't granted, I'll pretty much be left to the commentary of critics for anything that isn't a single. What instructions should I put in the ref tag so someone can read this? mftp dan ^oops 17:01, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I've seen unpaginated ebooks referenced with e.g. search "John Smith". That link doesn't display anything for me, but I can see in principle something like search "Courtney LaPlante" in source code as a reasonable thing to do: Wikipedia doesn't mandate any reference style, only that the references should give enough information for readers to verify the information. However, there would be broader concerns -- if the information is on the page but the publishers haven't made it visible, how do we know that they stand by it -- and it's not, for example, remnants of a previous version that was deleted because it was found to be incorrect, or fraudulent, or otherwise somehow unsuitable for us to use? WP:RS, which is critical for FA sourcing, sets a great deal in store by the fact that reliable publishers with content-checking processes vouch for the information they publish, and that principle might be in question if the information has somehow been placed out of public view. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 19:56, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

There's at least two songs noted in this interview ("Hurt You" and "Constance") which are discussed with the same themes I have already done on the Wikipedia article, but with different reliable accounts. Because of this, I have little reason to doubt this is authentic, if that's what you're questioning. I hadn't thought of that angle, and it's a good first guess, but after reading it, I do not find it likely that's the reason. mftp dan ^oops 22:31, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Ultimately, you'll have to convince the FAC reviewers of the source's reliability. If the information is conveyed in other reliable sources, I'd suggest citing those: if you have something that only exists deep in the source code of an Apple Music page, that's probably going to need a bit more explanation and justification as to why we should consider it reliable. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 22:35, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm up to it. I've made FAC buy sketchier-looking (but obviously acceptable) sources. Thank you for the suggestion on formatting though, that's what I was looking for. mftp dan ^oops 22:45, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

To me, if it's normally reliable, and you can verify what it says, I feel like it should be fair game. Sergecross73 msg me 23:33, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

• When you say “it's there”, what information from that page is “there” that you are you trying to use? - SchroCat (talk) 06:27, 22 July 2024‎ (UTC)

SchroCat, if you inspect the page elements of the link in question (default for me is F12), search in the source code for "Courtney LaPlante". You should be directed to the beginning of the interview which should be displayed under the drop-down button which doesn't work. mftp dan ^oops 11:59, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

It looks like this is the full text of the notes at the top -- you'd normally be able to click "show more" or similar, but can't on an archived version of the page for some reason? UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 13:47, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Yea, the archiving process doesn't always work on every aspect of a page, particularly on those that use things like Java. Annotating the location of the information is not a problem - it can be flagged up for anyone who wants to see it (this falls within WP:VERIFIABILITY. My concern is why the information is no longer available on the site and why they no longer show it on the current page. - SchroCat (talk) 14:24, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Should we behave any differently when any other link rots for whatever reason? I was asking if this was acceptable for accessibility reasons and how to note that, not any other reason. I think this is nothing to really worry about in terms of reliability; it's not like I'm going to source an entire section with it. mftp dan ^oops 15:16, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

It seems that the current version of the page doesn't have any "notes" at all -- if there was some suggestion that it had been retracted or consciously disavowed, that would be concerning, but I can't see any reason to believe that's the case here. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 16:27, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Agreed, that would change my whole stance on its inclusion, but I'm not seeing anything that indicates that. mftp dan ^oops 17:39, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

A request for additional reviewers for 2022 Tour de France Femmes?

Where (if not here) would I place a request for additional reviewers of 2022 Tour de France Femmes? I've made changes as requested by nominators, and I believe the article to be in an excellent position, especially now the major sticking issue has been resolved – the length of the lead. Even if there is not a consensus to promote, comments would be welcomed for the future! Turini2 (talk) 07:45, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Looking for reviewers is not a problem. "Scouting out declarations of support" is the very definition of WP:CANVASsing and you would be sanctioned for it. SerialNumber54129 09:19, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying that - that's obviously not my intention, for which I blame 7:45am! I'll rephrase my title, if that's okay. Turini2 (talk) 10:59, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

I apologise, Turini2; it was also a bit early to be mentioning sanctions. Sorry about that, but I hadn't been awke for too long... not at my best! SerialNumber54129 12:29, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

No offence taken - I hope you have a great day! :D Turini2 (talk) 13:48, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Cite Q

Is anyone writing Featured or Good articles with {{Cite Q}}? I've only recently become aware of it, and the issues, and missed the Deletion discussion when Mike Christie brought it forward here in 2017. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:47, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

I've never seen it before so it's safe to say it's not commonly used. (t · c) buidhe 15:52, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

That has been my impression as well (since I had never seen it either). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:53, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Don't recall ever seeing it. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 16:58, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. It's Qompletely Qretinous and should be deleted. It relies by the skin of its teeth on an absolutely Houdini-esque piece of self-justification: While Wikipedia does not regard Wikidata as a reliable source, citations using Cite Q are not citing Wikidata. Yeah, of course. The fact that it's the same individuals who wouldn't know an RS if it kicked them up the arse filing the bloody information in the first place is completely irrelevant, of course. Until Jehosophat Jumps once again and the day dawns when we are warming our toes on Cite Q, we must obey the TfD closure and ensure that usage of this template should be extremely vetted. I think, translated to FACness, that means... never. SerialNumber54129 17:00, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

According to this tool it is currently used 52,403 times. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:56, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Maybe someone who knows how to tweak such info out of a Petscan can figure out if it has ever been used on an FA (in which case there will probably be inconsistent citations). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:54, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

29, although that includes secondary uses like {{Academic peer reviewed}}. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:03, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, Nikki. I spotchecked only, and found a boatload of them were the Academic peer reviewed template. (That's a whole 'nother can of worms.) But ...

• Solar System passed FAR in 2022, and a Cite Q was added post-FAR ... inconsistent citation formatting.
• Planet, same -- passed FAR in 2022, Cite Q added post-FAR ... inconsistent citation formatting.
• Samuel Johnson (which Ottava and Malleus stuck my name on only because I wrote the TS portions) has a Cite Q in Further reading, inconsistent formatting (and all of that Further reading should be cleaned up by someone who knows Johnson-- I only know his health).

I guess I'm not watching that FA closely enough. And it looks like astronomy articles could develop citation issues down the road if the trend continues. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:49, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

• Shackleton–Rowett Expedition, Brianboulton, can't find the Cite Q or Academic peer review. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:55, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
• Japanese battleship Yamato, two Cite Q templates added that look messed up; The ed17, are you still watching this one? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:01, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

• Sure, that's an easy fix. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 17:42, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

And, I checked a bunch more, and all have inconsistent citation formatting ... and noticed that the use of Cite Q could be a tipoff to poorly watched FAs. And most of those coming from Academic peer review also introduce inconsistent citation formatting. For example, Hippocampus is no longer maintained, but it uses vancouver authors. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:09, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Hm. I can't find the use in Shackleton either - anyone else? Nikkimaria (talk) 05:03, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Blitzed - SchroCat (talk) 05:22, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

<grrrr ... silly me > I think I was searching on uppercase C only. I would be eternally grateful if some literary type would review the Further reading at Samuel Johnson. Well, eternally as long as my aging memory endures that is ... with Mally and Ottava gone, I can't pretend to know what is needed there in Further reading. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:27, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

No one has questioned the number of times it is used? And you don't need toolforge; the number of uses is estimated at the top of its page. Anyway, that could just be a testament to certain parties being obsessive. I really don't know. SerialNumber54129 20:07, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

It's quite horrible to work around when trying to build content, but I've got bigger fish to fry at the moment and can't worry about it now and don't want to create a side distraction. Sorry I missed the deletion discussion. In case it comes up again, a workaround is to put the Wikidata code thingie in the cite template id= parameter, rather than use the Cite Q. That should help satisfy those pushing for this fixed citation style, although I'd be quite surprised to see it show up at FAC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:30, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

I've always used the sfn template. How did you come across this one? Unlimitedlead (talk) 01:59, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Working on a current event article, where there are no editors who have ever engaged content at the FA-level (best I can tell), or even GA level. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:15, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

I have used it once (not in a GA), and it worked fine for me. Cremastra (talk) 22:50, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

I modified Nikki's petscan to run on GAs, and found only 72 (one of those being the article with a faulty "academic peer review" that brought that can of worms to my attention, but I digress). So with 40,000 GAs, this citation template (fortunately) doesn't seem to have caught on even after seven years. And now having to edit an article with it, I'd say that's not surprising, for all the reasons given in the deletion discussion and the problems listed at the template talk page. Editing around it is difficult, and I can't often figure out how to correct the errors it introduces. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:37, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

• GA Rapaza is a short article (less than 2,000 words) written by one editor (other content editing only by the GA reviewer) in less than a week that uses only Cite Q, so has consistent citations. So perhaps on obscure topics written by one editor, the idea works; that situation doesn't describe most of Wikipedia. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:24, 6 August 2024 (UTC)
• GA Chrompodellid, same author as Rapaza, almost no one else has touched the article, similar situation, uses cite Q but mixed with other cite templates, and has inconsistent citations. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:29, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

The problem here appears to be more about formatting issues and less about the use of Wikidata, as it's just a middle man here providing citation details like a publication date. (I also don't know why the citations link to the Wikidata item.) Theoretically/as I understand it, there are benefits to having a central database of citations to draw from. Wikimedia proposals about that go back years—see d:WikiCite/Shared Citations, although those efforts may be stalled. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 17:42, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

There were also concerns (e.g. see the deletion discussion Sandy linked to) about vandalism in Wikidata, which would would not show up on the watchlists of editors on enwiki; and about ease of use. I don't think article space should be dependent on Wikidata anywhere. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:12, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

In the rendered citations, I agree the problems appear on the surface to be only minor formatting issues, but trying to edit around invisible citation data on a fast-moving topic involving many editors is an impediment to content building. I've wasted too much time trying to sort invisible citations from an edit window. And if I can't decipher how to address some of the issues, I'm not sure how a random or new editor will be able to. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:33, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

• The template feels like a solution in search of a problem --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 20:47, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Hmm. Formatting citations is a nuisance and roughly 1/4 of why I haven't written any articles recently. The other 1/4 is exhaustion of topics to write about. 1/2 is the fact that this list of articles to maintain has become overly burdensome. Difficulties in fixing formatting issues are something I run in frequently even if the citation is hosted on Wikipedia, and I've heard of concerns about subtle spamming during e.g archiving too. While using cite q and other cite templates together is an inconsistency and this XKCD should always be kept in mind when making new citation styles, most of the problems referenced above with cite q are non-unique to cite q. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 07:44, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree, Jo-Jo; a unique problem with Cite Q is that the citation data is not hosted within the article, so that when you are in edit mode, adding or modifying content, you can't see information about citations (is the citation already in use so you don't readd an already used, who is the publisher vis-a-vis reliability, how old is the citation re datedness) You have to have two windows open to be cross-checking. On a fast-moving topic with many editors, it's a supreme pain, and none of those real concerns relate to minor formatting. Those problems are less of an issue if the article has only one editor and they know what sources they are using and have already added, but that's not the usual case on Wikipedia. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 10:26, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Thing is, I've encountered this problem with on-wiki citations too where one has to read separate sections of an article to evaluate a reference. Sometimes it's easy to get lost during scrolling. JoJo Eumerus mobile (main talk) 06:15, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

• Unless I'm missing something, a change made to the data that Cite Q is pulling wouldn't be visible to the average en.wiki editor, who presumably doesn't have the associated wikidata item watchlisted? Surely this creates a bit of a maintenance issue? Vanamonde93 (talk) 16:26, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

  Vanamonde93, correct; that is one of the issues brought forward during (I think) the deletion discussion. There are other complaints on the template talk page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:29, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

So, this may be premature, but if some GAs are using them, they could show up at FAC. This discussion raises the question of whether WP:WIAFA should be modified from:

• consistent citations: where required by criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations using footnotes—see citing sources for suggestions on formatting references. Citation templates are not required.

... to:

• consistent citations: where required by criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations using footnotes—see citing sources for suggestions on formatting references. Citation templates are not required, but citation template data must be hosted on en.Wikipedia.

Or some such ... to ensure the citations can't be easily vandalized and remain consistent. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:37, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

I think the vandalism issue would apply to any imported content (not just this template), but with regards to consistency, would an article using cite q exclusively also be problematic? The issue in most of the examples from the search above is that usage is mixed. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:27, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Using Cite Q exclusively can result in inconsistent citations; in the article I'm working on now (which will never approach GA much less FA), some Cite Qs are used that have news and journal source titles italicized rather than in quotes, and since those errors reside somehow in WikiData, I can't figure out how to fix them. And some are missing publishers. And some have alternate date formats. The citation formatting is externally controlled, and there are consistency breaches over there that can't be fixed in here. I can override some of the parameters to fix, for example, author name formatting, but not all of them. Just go to the current event I'm working on now and ctrl-f on Wikidata; you'll see faulty italics, missing publishers, and mixed author name formatting; I can override only the author name by adding that parameter to the Cite Q template, but can't fix the rest. So the editor of an article that uses only Cite Q doesn't have control over citation consistency on en.Wikipedia. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:51, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Found another problem: besides the messed up formatting here, this source is also a Wordpress, and Cite Q using WikiData meant that the reliability flagging scripts weren't red-flagging it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:32, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

And in this one, the main title is stored in WikiData in English rather than Spanish (and is translated wrong in English). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:55, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

High-quality reliability question at WP:RSN

See here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:34, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

I think your reply resolved my question. Thanks. Anybody else is welcome to weigh in, though.--NØ 01:44, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

I was concerned you'd only get a lot of "yes, reliable" at that noticeboard, when your question was targeted specifically to WIAFA.

As an example that will be better understood on this page, FA J. K. Rowling rarely cites the sources you mention -- even though newsy-focused editors want to add certain terms or current topics every time JKR hits her keyboard and clickbait or niche news sources report on it -- because of the abundance of much higher quality and scholarly sources such that a survey of best sources can help assign weight. For JKR, those high-quality and scholarly sources are available to provide an idea of how to weight content: YMMV. So, it depends on what you're citing, and what a thorough survey of the relevant high-quality sources shows; there well may be content for which those sources are the highest-quality sources-- in the case of JKR, they aren't, and the same content is covered by scholarly and other top sources. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:59, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

And JKR doesn't cite People (magazine) either. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:02, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Tool for facilitating source spot-checks

Doing spot-checks in a pain in the posterior for so many reasons. Being a software guy, I'm working on a tool to at least simplify some of it. I've got a POC intermittently running at https://wikirefs.toolforge.org. My initial goal is to be able to tell it something like "pick a random N (or N percent) of the statements in the article and show them to me along with the references that support each one". I'm reasonably close to that now. A stretch goal would be to make this more like a code review tool where you can enter comments and the system will keep track of progress, but that's way, way, more complicated and will probably never happen.

For those not familar with with software POCs, that's code for "This is fresh out of the oven, so expect things to break all over the place. It's just intended to give you an idea of where things are going". Feedback is appreciated. You can drop it here, or on my talk page, or if you have a github account, feel free to file a bug report. RoySmith (talk) 00:37, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for developing this! My opinion is that it's better to spot-check based on the text, rather than randomly. For instance, a common mistake people make is overgeneralisation / extrapolating from primary sourcing. Spot checking sentences that seem at risk from this gives a higher chance of finding errors. Similarly, highly technical sentences are another source of potential error, as it's easy to misunderstand a difficult source. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 16:54, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree about starting from the text, which is one of the reasons I dove into this. I think what most people do is to sample some references and then work backwards to find the text they support. Starting from the text and then working forward seems to make more sense to me. The long term plan is to offer both options and let the reviewer pick which they want. RoySmith (talk) 17:24, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, Roy. I agree doing source-integrity/verification reviews are a time-consuming process, so it's nice to have some tool assistance. It seems like it'll be easiest to help out with web citations. I ran it on iMac G4 and it can't handle {{sfn}} well because the links can't be followed anywhere (maybe if it prints a list of references at the bottom?) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 16:54, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. I've added sfn support to my to-do list. RoySmith (talk) 17:24, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

This is a really cool idea. As David notes, it doesn't yet play well with SFNs, but I can see it being really useful for articles that use "normal" citation methods. In an ideal world, it would be able to "read" the SFN and extract the reference (like the Wikipedia software does?), but I'm sure that's far more complicated than it sounds. Can I suggest some sort of feedback once you click the "Do it!" button to confirm that the wheels are turning: it takes a little while on some pages to do anything for me. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 20:03, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

This is amazing and is basically what I have been doing manually with a PRNG -- Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 07:15, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

FAC reviewing statistics and nominator reviewing table for July 2024

Here are the FAC reviewing statistics for July 2024. The tables below include all reviews for FACS that were either archived or promoted last month, so the reviews included are spread over the last two or three months. A review posted last month is not included if the FAC was still open at the end of the month. The new facstats tool has been updated with this data, but the old facstats tool has not. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:25, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Reviewers for July 2024

# reviews Type of review Reviewer Content Source Image Accessibility Generalissima 1 3 12 Nikkimaria 1 13 SchroCat 12 2 Jo-Jo Eumerus 11 2 Tim riley 9 750h+ 7 1 UndercoverClassicist 7 1 Aoba47 6 1 Gog the Mild 7 Joeyquism 6 1 ChrisTheDude 6 Heartfox 5 1 Matarisvan 5 1 RoySmith 6 Draken Bowser 5 Z1720 4 1 AirshipJungleman29 3 1 Hog Farm 4 Hurricanehink 3 1 Kusma 2 2 LunaEclipse 4 Pseud 14 3 1 Wolverine XI 4 Ajpolino 3 BennyOnTheLoose 2 1 Buidhe 3 Dugan Murphy 2 1 Dylan620 3 Jens Lallensack 3 MaranoFan 3 MyCatIsAChonk 2 1 Premeditated Chaos 3 Sawyer777 2 1 Vacant0 3 AryKun 2 Aza24 1 1 Boneless Pizza! 1 1 Borsoka 2 David Fuchs 2 Dudley Miles 2 Esculenta 2 FunkMonk 2 Graham Beards 2 Hameltion 2 Harper J. Cole 2 PerfectSoundWhatever 2 Phlsph7 2 PSA 2 Sammi Brie 2 Serial Number 54129 1 1 SusunW 2 Therapyisgood 1 1 TompaDompa 2 Vaughan J. 2 Voorts 1 1 100cellsman 1 12george1 1 Artem.G 1 BOZ 1 Ceoil 1 Choliamb 1 CosXZ 1 Cukie Gherkin 1 Darkwarriorblake 1 Elmidae 1 Felix QW 1 FrB.TG 1 Gerda Arendt 1 GRuban 1 HAL333 1 Hawkeye7 1 Iadmc 1 IanTEB 1 Iazyges 1 Igordebraga 1 J Milburn 1 Jmabel 1 KN2731 1 Lee Vilenski 1 LEvalyn 1 LittleJerry 1 Mike Christie 1 MSincccc 1 NegativeMP1 1 PanagiotisZois 1 Panini! 1 PCN02WPS 1 Penitentes 1 Pickersgill-Cunliffe 1 SafariScribe 1 Shooterwalker 1 Skyshifter 1 SnowFire 1 Sohom Datta 1 Ssilvers 1 The Morrison Man 1 Tim O'Doherty 1 TrademarkedTWOrantula 1 Trainsandotherthings 1 Vanamonde93 1 Worldbruce 1 ZKang123 1 Totals 208 43 36 '

Supports and opposes for July 2024

# declarations Declaration Editor Support Oppose converted to support Struck oppose Struck support Oppose None Total Generalissima 2 14 16 Nikkimaria 1 13 14 SchroCat 10 1 1 2 14 Jo-Jo Eumerus 13 13 Tim riley 7 2 9 750h+ 3 1 4 8 UndercoverClassicist 3 3 2 8 Gog the Mild 6 1 7 Joeyquism 5 2 7 Aoba47 5 1 1 7 RoySmith 2 4 6 Heartfox 2 2 2 6 Matarisvan 5 1 6 ChrisTheDude 6 6 Draken Bowser 5 5 Z1720 4 1 5 Kusma 2 2 4 LunaEclipse 4 4 Hog Farm 2 1 1 4 Wolverine XI 4 4 Pseud 14 3 1 4 AirshipJungleman29 2 1 1 4 Hurricanehink 2 2 4 Dylan620 3 3 Jens Lallensack 2 1 3 Vacant0 2 1 3 Premeditated Chaos 3 3 Dugan Murphy 1 2 3 MyCatIsAChonk 2 1 3 Buidhe 3 3 BennyOnTheLoose 2 1 3 Sawyer777 2 1 3 Ajpolino 2 1 3 MaranoFan 2 1 3 AryKun 2 2 Sammi Brie 2 2 Dudley Miles 1 1 2 Vaughan J. 2 2 Voorts 1 1 2 PSA 2 2 Boneless Pizza! 1 1 2 Serial Number 54129 1 1 2 Aza24 2 2 Graham Beards 1 1 2 David Fuchs 2 2 FunkMonk 2 2 PerfectSoundWhatever 1 1 2 Phlsph7 2 2 TompaDompa 1 1 2 SusunW 2 2 Hameltion 2 2 Therapyisgood 2 2 Harper J. Cole 2 2 Esculenta 1 1 2 Borsoka 1 1 2 Choliamb 1 1 Hawkeye7 1 1 Ssilvers 1 1 SafariScribe 1 1 PanagiotisZois 1 1 Pickersgill-Cunliffe 1 1 12george1 1 1 Jmabel 1 1 Trainsandotherthings 1 1 Worldbruce 1 1 TrademarkedTWOrantula 1 1 J Milburn 1 1 100cellsman 1 1 Panini! 1 1 The Morrison Man 1 1 Tim O'Doherty 1 1 LEvalyn 1 1 Felix QW 1 1 NegativeMP1 1 1 Vanamonde93 1 1 Cukie Gherkin 1 1 ZKang123 1 1 LittleJerry 1 1 HAL333 1 1 CosXZ 1 1 IanTEB 1 1 Iazyges 1 1 SnowFire 1 1 GRuban 1 1 Skyshifter 1 1 Penitentes 1 1 Artem.G 1 1 BOZ 1 1 Iadmc 1 1 PCN02WPS 1 1 Shooterwalker 1 1 Mike Christie 1 1 KN2731 1 1 FrB.TG 1 1 Sohom Datta 1 1 Elmidae 1 1 Lee Vilenski 1 1 Ceoil 1 1 Gerda Arendt 1 1 MSincccc 1 1 Igordebraga 1 1 Darkwarriorblake 1 1 Totals 140 2 1 ' 20 124 287

The following table shows the 12-month review-to-nominations ratio for everyone who nominated an article that was promoted or archived in the last three months who has nominated more than one article in the last 12 months. The average promoted FAC receives between 6 and 7 reviews. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:25, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Nominators for May 2024 to July 2024 with more than one nomination in the last 12 months

Nominations (12 mos) Reviews (12 mos) Ratio (12 mos) 750h+ 3.0 27.0 9.0 AirshipJungleman29 7.0 36.0 5.1 Ajpolino 2.0 18.0 9.0 Aoba47 4.0 49.0 12.2 AryKun 3.0 13.0 4.3 Borsoka 3.0 11.0 3.7 CactiStaccingCrane 2.0 1.0 0.5 ChrisTheDude 11.0 76.0 6.9 Darkwarriorblake 4.0 3.0 0.8 David Fuchs 2.0 12.0 6.0 Dudley Miles 3.0 32.0 10.7 Dugan Murphy 2.0 8.0 4.0 Epicgenius 8.5 18.0 2.1 FunkMonk 4.3 31.0 7.2 Ganesha811 2.0 None 0.0 Generalissima 5.5 34.0 6.2 HAL333 2.5 20.0 8.0 Hawkeye7 5.0 27.0 5.4 Heartfox 7.0 29.0 4.1 Hog Farm 6.0 28.0 4.7 HurricaneHiggins 1.5 4.0 2.7 Iazyges 1.5 4.0 2.7 Ippantekina 5.0 6.0 1.2 Jo-Jo Eumerus 6.0 205.0 34.2 Kyle Peake 3.0 None 0.0 Lee Vilenski 4.5 6.0 1.3 LittleJerry 2.5 2.0 0.8 Matarisvan 4.0 19.0 4.8 Mattximus 3.0 None 0.0 MyCatIsAChonk 5.0 53.0 10.6 NegativeMP1 2.0 9.0 4.5 Noorullah21 3.0 None 0.0 Paleface Jack 2.0 None 0.0 PCN02WPS 4.0 25.0 6.2 Peacemaker67 7.0 3.0 0.4 Phlsph7 6.0 10.0 1.7 Premeditated Chaos 9.3 28.0 3.0 PresN 2.0 1.0 0.5 PSA 1.5 4.0 2.7 Pseud 14 5.0 46.0 9.2 RecycledPixels 2.0 1.0 0.5 RoySmith 4.0 37.0 9.2 SafariScribe 2.0 3.0 1.5 Sammi Brie 3.5 13.0 3.7 Sandbh 3.0 6.0 2.0 SchroCat 14.5 118.0 8.1 Serial Number 54129 2.0 44.0 22.0 Skyshifter 3.0 5.0 1.7 SounderBruce 3.0 4.0 1.3 TechnoSquirrel69 2.0 10.0 5.0 The Night Watch 3.0 6.0 2.0 Thebiguglyalien 5.0 11.0 2.2 Therapyisgood 2.3 7.0 3.0 Tim riley 2.5 54.0 21.6 UndercoverClassicist 6.0 87.0 14.5 V.B.Speranza 2.0 None 0.0 Voorts 6.5 24.0 3.7 Wehwalt 8.0 30.0 3.8 Wolverine XI 4.0 7.0 1.8 ZKang123 5.0 16.0 3.2

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:25, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

fucking Go Me Mr Ratioman, second only to J-J 'The Rock Reviewer'. In your face, Gore Vidal 😀 honk honk! SerialNumber54129 13:12, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Sub-referencing

Just a heads up that sub-referencing is apparently making some progress towards implementation. It sounds like it's intended to be a replacement for {{rp}}. RoySmith (talk) 13:05, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

I've read and reread that page several times now, and I'm still unsure what the problem is/was or how/why it's been solved.

I trust the WMF sufficiently to know they would not 100% fuck something right up while chasing anything even mildly chimaeric. SerialNumber54129 16:53, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

I dunno if that second sentence is serious, and I can't decipher what they're up to either, but if they're up to what I hope they are, I can see a use for it. And I'm on board for anything that gets rid of those horrid {{rp}}s. If I'm citing a very long source in Spanish, and need to provide quotes and translations per WP:NONENG, then if I have to stick, say, three or four quoted sentences and translations into one quote= parameter on a cite news template, I end up with a gynormous unreadable citation. If I can append the one sentence that applies to the one instance being cited (as in 1.1 and 1.2 and so on in their sample for each little bit that needs to be translated), it would be very useful. As an example, to see how I worked around a mess like that, scroll down here to Non-english news articles, which is what I did to get that mess of translations of individual sentences out of the way. If the WMF is fixing that, good -- I'm not sure what they are saying they are doing though. Maybe WhatamIdoing can explain. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:26, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

That's one of WMDE's projects, not the WMF. I think Johanna Strodt (WMDE) follows it.

The general idea is to replace the current <ref name="Miller" />{{rp=2}} with a built-in wikitext code for the page number: <ref name="Miller" page="page 2"/>.

Obviously – or it should be obvious, but I remember an editor struggling with this concept when it was first discussed some years ago – if you don't want to use it in a given article, then you just don't use it. (Simple, right? But that doesn't stop people from going on about "the WMF [who isn't doing this] cramming things down our throats that nobody ever asked for" [except in multiple rounds of the Community Wishlist]) That said, I believe that @SMcCandlish mentioned once years ago that, if it were ever implemented, and after a suitable delay to get used to the new system, he would eventually like to send {{rp}} off for deletion. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:30, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

I attended a session on it at Wikimania 2024. It is just a proposal. I personally prefer our {{sfn}} form. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 10:29, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing and Hawkeye7: There's another potential/draft/alpha approach to something this, buried somewhere (I think perhaps at the MediaWikia site). But we've been wating years for it, to no avail. See my separate post below about my (presently stalled) steps toward an interim solution. I put it on my own plate, since I'm actually the one to blame for {{Rp}}'s existence. Way back in the day, we did not have a simple means like {{sfnp}}, {{harvp}} (and their variants) to cite the same source a whole bunch of times without either a whole lot of citation-detail repetition, or single citations with a useless number of pages cited all at once. I introduced this template to solve the single problem of "I need to cite this source 100+ times in the same long article" (specifically a glossary), and did not expect it to catch on in regular usage. But it has turned into a @#$*ing cancer, and needs to be excised. "The best of plans mislaid", AKA "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions". We have such better tools now, already, even if neither of the "build this into the <ref> tag" ideas ever pans out.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:48, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia: Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying, but {{rp}} currently supports what you seem to be asking for—you can cite the same source different times and add different |quote= text in different instances of {{rp}}. TompaDompa (talk) 08:40, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

I think rp sticks the page numbers next to the superscripted ref number in the body of the article, rather than in the footnote, creating clutter within the article, so I don't use it. Hate it, hope it is submitted for deletion if the proposal goes through. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:15, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

@TompaDompa, the use of |quote= in {{rp}} violates MOS:NOHOVER, so it should certainly not be used anywhere near FA. —Kusma (talk) 18:33, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Genuine question: is MOS:NOHOVER meant to apply to references (rather than only article content)? TompaDompa (talk) 02:37, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

I mean... I think the quote "do not use techniques that require interaction to provide information" in a broader policy on accessibility makes clear that it would apply to references. :-) Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 03:22, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't think it makes it entirely clear, which is why I asked. For one thing, a straightforward reading of that quote in isolation would seem to preclude using e.g. tables that are collapsed by default, which I'm guessing is not the intention (or is it)? For another thing, it's in the "Text" section (I'm guessing that's text in the sense of "the text on the page" as opposed to e.g. images, not "the text of the article" as opposed to e.g. headers and references, then?). Furthermore, as I understand it the reason for this is screen readers, and I don't really have a firm grasp on how screen readers treat references (or other things, for that matter), so I'm not sure how different the use of the {{rp}} template is in this instance compared to, say, a quote in a reference template that is in turn referred to by a {{sfn}} template. And finally, it's not obvious to me that quotes in references are "information" in the sense that is meant here (they are in my experience typically there for verification purposes, not really for the benefit of readers of the article text). TompaDompa (talk) 04:12, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

I have occasionally made use of the |quote= in {{rp}} before (though have stripped it out for FAC), primarily out of inexperience with other templates. I agree with you in that my understanding has always been that |quote= isn't intended to provide information for a general reader—that information is, of course, in the sentence that the citation is appended to. The quote is to make corroboration easier (via ctrl-f, etc.) than just providing a bare page number. — Penitentes (talk) 16:13, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Awww... I've always had a quiet affection for {{rp}}. Cremastra (talk) 22:49, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

SN, here's another sample of what I think they're up to. I wrote Tourette syndrome before sfn templates, and I hate rp templates. So over a decade ago, that forced me to manually writing short footnotes to indicate page numbers from book sources. Later, when I learned the sfnp template, I switched over the books only, while the rest of the sources use cite templates. Search the page for "Sukhodolsky" as an example; I think under the new system, I could just use my normal cite book for Sukhodolsky, and then each of the pages cited would be grouped together under the main Sukhodolsky citation, making it easier to see how often and where I use that book source. And I wouldn't even need the separate listing of book sources in the references. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:46, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

As I understand it, it will essentially be a new footnoting style, see the mockups in "How it works". I'm not convinced it is superior to {{sfn}} and similar templates popular on the English Wikipedia, but it should be great for places like German Wikipedia that typically do not use citation templates. If Visual Editor offers it, we will see it used quite a bit. —Kusma (talk) 18:41, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Hello, thanks for the ping and the discussion. I'm replying below the thread, hope that's okay.

• Yes, sub-referencing is a project by Wikimedia Deutschland’s Technical Wishes team. And as WhatamIdoing already pointed out, it has also been wished for internationally quite a lot over the years.
• Some reasons why sub-referencing was requested have already been described in this thread. More can be found at "The problem we are solving".
• Yes, the feature will be optional. You won't have to use it, but you will most likely encounter it in articles.
• How the feature works specifically is laid out in the section "How it works" on our project page. It's still a work in progress for the Visual Editor part. I would really appreciate any pointers on what’s unclear or missing.
• Please note that the wikitext syntax is different from the example brought up in this conversation; the page numbers will go in between the ref tags. Here's why.
• We're planning to announce our plans for this feature broadly on all wikis this week.
• To make sure we build the right things, everyone, regardless of experience level, is invited to test the feature in its current state.

Have a good start into the new week, -- Johanna Strodt (WMDE) (talk) 07:46, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, that is exactly what I have been waiting for, and will be much easier to use than the sfn templates. However, I wonder why this cannot be even simpler; e.g., why not just <ref name="Miller" page="page 2"/> as suggested above? And why cannot duplicate page numbers be detected and grouped automatically? Jens Lallensack (talk) 10:32, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Hello Jens Lallensack. Other syntax options have been discussed, and we have laid out why we are moving forward with this option in our FAQ: m:WMDE Technical Wishes/Sub-referencing#Why did you choose this wikitext syntax?.

Detecting duplicate page numbers and grouping them automatically is an interesting idea, not only for sub-references but for references in general. It is, however, currently out of scope for us, as we are focusing on the essentials first. But for now, you will be able to group manually, by re-using a sub-reference. Hope that helps, Johanna Strodt (WMDE) (talk) 13:09, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. I am just worried that the new approach is still way too complicated – I need several steps in order to add a simple page number. Our {{rp}} templates are much easier to use, and, in my opinion, still superior for this reason. A much simpler syntax could be <ref name="Miller" page="page 2"/>, i.e., just include the extension within the ref, which would work if duplicates would be grouped automatically. This would be as simple as adding a {{rp}} template. But if I am not mistaken, such basic design decisions would have to be made now, not later? Jens Lallensack (talk) 13:48, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

{{rp}} is simpler, but that doesn't mean this doesn't have its place; I can think of a few articles where this will be useful in articles I've worked on extensively; Myst heavily relies on a recording of a conference talk that is hours long, and so the various quotes/timecodes could be made subrefs (putting them in rp would have been an unacceptable breakup of text). Likewise Art Deco architecture of New York City uses {{rp}} for the books as it's primarily mixed references, and using subrefs would be a cleaner presentation that's easier for readers.) rp and {{sfn}} will still have their places, but I think especially for articles primarily cited to websites and magazines rather than longform materials, it'll be a nicer way of integrating the latter. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 14:07, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Of course, {{rp}} is just for page numbers, and the new feature will certainly have its uses. But I thought the idea was to have a solid upstream solution that can, in the long run, replace our various existing workaround solutions like rp and sfn templates, which are really not great. I just fear that this will not happen, because the new feature is too complicated in terms of syntax and usability, especially compared to rp templates. I do believe that it is not impossible to arrive at such a unified approach that is as simple as an rp-template. Jens Lallensack (talk) 15:04, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

@Jens Lallensack: Your question and suggested syntax was specifically answered at the link Johanna gave: "The main issue with this approach is, however, that it causes problems with templates and is very likely to cause errors. Another problem with this syntax is that it does not allow to re-use a sub-reference, because the name attribute has already been used to refer to the main reference and cannot be used a second time." Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 16:10, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes I know; the second issue would be solved with the automatic grouping of duplicate sub-references as suggested. As for the issue with the broken templates: I do personally think that it would be worth the effort to fix the templates to make that work, because the long-term benefits of a much simpler syntax would be immense. Jens Lallensack (talk) 16:24, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

The first version doesn't do everything we want, but perhaps if this small improvement proves useful, we might see another small improvement in the future. We don't want to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:56, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it's definitely an improvement either way, and I am going to use it. Hope that the Visual Editor implementation will be good and easy to use. Jens Lallensack (talk) 19:23, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Hello @Jens, most of your questions have already been answered by others (thanks!).

Regarding the issue with the broken templates: This is not so much about individual templates that need to be fixed. What we mean is: Communities can (and probably will) decide to use templates for sub-references. And with a syntax where details are inside the reference tag, you would have to add the template there, between the quotation marks, like <ref detail=”{{…|p=”…”}}/>. However, that would put conflicting syntax characters like quotation marks and angle brackets inside the ref tag, making it hard for the parser to process. And if you decided to escape those characters, the wikitext would become much harder to read. Another thing to consider is consistency with the current way references are working: Right now, the content of the reference (including details like pages) is between the ref tags, and anything else goes inside the ref tag.

I can see why the rp template would be a better option for some cases, and to my understanding, WP:CITEVAR would give the flexibility to keep using it. It might be easier to use for wikitext; on Visual Editor, however, it does not work properly (you can’t insert or edit the rp template via the citation button). Which might be even more significant because our user tests have shown that a surprisingly large number of wikitext users like to switch to Visual Editor for working with citations in general. – Wishing you a good weekend and again, thanks for taking the time to test and comment, Johanna Strodt (WMDE) (talk) 12:54, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Hello Johanna, and thanks for the explanation. I didn't thought about the issue of using templates within the references tag. Yes, that makes sense. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 14:31, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

@Jens Lallensack. Thanks for your reply. -- Johanna Strodt (WMDE) (talk) 14:48, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm excited about it. In it's current iteration, it seems like the syntax will be slightly more complex than sfn, but the benefit to the reader is, I think, worth it. As an editor and reviewer, it's helpful to have a sense of which source are being cited the most, which this simplifies. I join with the rp haters. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 16:04, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't 100% adore the implementation in the RefList, but it is a move forward -- Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 07:12, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

In the interim, I've been incrementally working on some script-assistance tools for replacing {{Rp}} with {{sfnp}}, {{harvp}}, and related templates. It's been rather gruelling work (the most complex regex stuff I've ever done, and it's not finished yet). I put it aside for a while, but if there's demand for it I can see about getting back into it soon-ish.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:41, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

This is also being discussed on the wikitech mailing list. RoySmith (talk) 10:37, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

FAC-level copy editor needed

See Wikipedia:Featured article review/Thomas C. Hindman/archive1 for some background. There were prose concerns raised in 2022 after the initial rewrite. I've been referred to GOCE, but I don't trust the average GOCE copyeditor to do FA-level work. Hog Farm _Talk 16:06, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

All of my GOCE nominations wait in the queue for months and then a very competent copyeditor picks them up. (t · c) buidhe 04:13, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

RFC on citing leads

... here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:43, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Script to abbreviate author names?

Here at FAC, we are required to be consistent with author name formatting in citation templates. In science articles, this usually means that we need to abbreviate all names since it is often impossible to find out the first names in every single case. (I personally think that we are doing readers a disservice when removing the full names; we gain a consistent look, but at a price!) This rule has been a major nuisance for me when writing articles, as doing this manually can be very tedious. Therefore, does anybody know about a script that can abbreviate the given names of authors in citation templates (for example: "first=John dos H." should become "first=J.d.H.")? Thanks! Jens Lallensack (talk) 00:34, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

In a source review, if I noticed variation between initials and first names, I'd ask why, but I'd accept "initials only when I can't find the first name" as a consistent rule. And "use whatever appears on the article published" also seems consistent enough to pass. Converting them all to initials is fine, of course, but I don't think it's necessary for FAC. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:19, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

So much ease of use is lost when first names are all abbreviated! We need to form a mutual support group so that we're not tempted to ever do this to another bibliography ever again. Remsense ‥ 论 02:22, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Mike -- it's rule 0 that we ignore any "rule" that would make the article worse, and I would always advocate for usefulness over uniformity. I've always gone for full names where possible, and as close to that as possible where not, and never (yet) had an issue. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 08:23, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks all, I will follow that approach in the future, then! Jens Lallensack (talk) 08:48, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

See as an example PMID 9651407. For decades, that was the author format on PubMed, hence that's the author style used on most medical content. Looking at more recent articles on PubMed, I see they've gone to including full names (I don't know when that switch occurred). I'll continue to write and maintain medical content with that (consistent) format, using the Diberri citation filler. It's nice that PubMed now includes full names, but I don't want to edit around that much clutter in a citation template, or go to the effort now to switch over all old articles, which in the medical suite, are consistent. @Ajpolino, Colin, Graham Beards, and Spicy: SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:40, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

MOS change

We've updated (shortened) WP:LEADLENGTH. It will no longer be possible to "comply" with LEADLENGTH merely by removing a line break between paragraphs. We are hoping that this will encourage better and more thoughtful writing.

If you find that this is confusing FAC nominees, please post on the guideline's talk page. In particular, if people start telling you stupid things like "It says that 'most' FAs have a lead of 250 to 400 words, and that's a secret code phrase for saying that anything outside that range is banned", then I would like to hear about it. Other editors would probably be more interested in the opposite (e.g., "That's only 'most' FAs, and my extra-special FA needs a 750-word-long lead"). Whatever the problem is, if the change is really causing confusion, please let us know so we can try to do better. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:32, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Where "we" = six (and, really four) other editors  :) 2.28.124.91 (talk) 13:56, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Just to confirm what the IP says, the thread discussing the change can be found here. - SchroCat (talk) 14:35, 2 September 2024 (UTC)