Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Archived nominations/Index/August 2004

This is an archive of discussions about contested featured article candidates that were nominated in August 2004. Warning: not in perfect chronological order.

Vaporware

Looks good - probably needs a bit of work - suggestions? ··gracefool |☺ 03:50, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• The statement about the Hurd is wrong, for one. Just for starters, it was not started in 1984. Suggest time on Wikipedia:Peer Review. Dan Gardner 04:22, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• It's awfully short. →Raul654 05:13, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)
• Objection/Comment. Not sure if this can ever be much of an article to feature. I mean you've got what vapourware is (two lines enough?) and then it's just examples. If there is a way to expand it, I suppose it is an interesting topic to feature - non-techies may not be familiar with it. But it should be moved to vapourware (just kidding). Zoney 14:51, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Object, it's not even in standard article formatting (header, subsections, etc). - DropDeadGorgias (talk) 15:38, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)

Moved to Wikipedia:Peer Review. ··gracefool |☺ 22:32, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Photography

With the recent addition of a picture of the first photograph, I think this article is at, or at least very near, feature status. -- Solipsist 13:13, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• It lacks unity. Some text to clarify the relationships between the parts would be helpful. Fg2 23:31, Aug 1, 2004 (UTC)
• It doesn't go into enough technical detail. I'd expect better explanations of exposure, lenses, aperture, depth of field, developing process. I'm sure this is explained elsewhere and it just needs to be summarized for this article. Rhobite 17:35, Aug 2, 2004 (UTC)

Erich von Manstein

Partial self-nomination, but it really is probably one the best articles about a World War II personality. GeneralPatton 12:27, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Support. Well-written and highly informative article. Angmering 13:24, 2 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Some objections. His military honors and his war crimes conviction could stand to be noted in the introduction. Also I have fixed many grammatical errors, so many that I am worried there are more I am missing. Mostly things like definite articles missing. A few additional specific things:

• Is the "General Staff" a proper noun, or just a group of generals? If just a group of generals, it should not be capitalized. Similar for the "War Academy", does that academy have a name?
• A quick notation for what the OKW is would help when it is first used, along with a "The" to set it off as an entity. I leave it to you whether you want to use something like "the Armed Forces High Command" since this is an article in English
• While the pictures are fantastic, I am worried if fair use is good enough for using them. Fair use can only be claimed if they are a small portion of a larger work, and they are one of the few pictures used in Wikipedia from that work. Even then there are the problems with using fair use images at all.
• Great material though overall. - Taxman 23:28, Aug 3, 2004 (UTC)

Norse mythology

I have extensively rewritten the page, and its looking pretty good. I suppose this is a self nomination, but I didn't create the page or write most of the content. Sam [Spade] 04:09, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• I like the article, but I have several objections. 1) I would like to see an early interlinked list of all Gods and smaller entities (like Fenrir, etc.) with a short decription on who is who. ATM, the first mention to Heimdall is in the ending 'The story of the Worlds and the end' section, while Odin is at the very begining ('Centres of faith'). This makes it difficult if one wants to see the complete pantheon and the relations between them, not to mention looking for the (not always) first interlink of a given name. 2) There is a inlink to 'Norse mythological influences on later literature' in the header, but not a mention of it in the latter section 'Modern influence', which I think should go to the end, not in the beginning of the article, and be divided into sections for art&literature and non-art influence . --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 11:00, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Have these concerns been addressed to your satisfaction? Sam

The list from 1) is mentioned only in the 'see also' section. I'd like to see it mentioned earlier in italic - perhaps under 'Clans of gods' you can add For detailed list see List of Norse mythological people, items and places. On that list I'd like to see a short description of every object like Loki, a god of trickery. The link to 2) is also not repeated in the influence section. The influence section is now restructured nicely, so I'll cross that one out. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 15:38, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

[Spade] 05:13, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Further mention of the pervasiveness of norse mythology in western culture today might also be appropriate. For instance, many people I know grew up on stories of the Norse (and also the Greek and Roman) gods, as much as on pictures of dinosaurs and stories from the Testaments. +sj+ 20:13, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Oppose: sections need to be reorganized for better context. (Hel is described as "another of Loki's monstrous children" before either Loki or his other children are even mentioned. Was the "cosmology" section moved to the front from a later point in the article?) The article on Norse mythological influences on later literature is short enough that it could be merged into the section on "modern influence", or parts of that section merged into the other article. -Sean Curtin 06:05, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Transhumanism

An interesting and comprehensive article (not a self nom). Chubtoad 06:03, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Neutral. I would appreciate if someone went over it for NPOV--probably someone who's not sympathetic to the claims. I spent some time looking for a picture (on robot, cyborg, Lobot, The Terminator, etc.), but wasn't able to find any. This needs something science-fictiony. [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 14:37, 2004 Aug 3 (UTC)
• Object, overall quality low, attempts to NPOV met w reverts. Sam [Spade] 04:33, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Compromise reached, I am now neutral. Needs an image. Sam [Spade] 00:16, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Edit war in progress. Should wait for that to settle. VV 04:41, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Immortality

Partial self-nomination. A fine article on immortality from a variety of perspectives. It is comprehensive and includes several pictures and links. Chubtoad 06:35, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Support. Broad and well written overview of a very challenging topic. Encompasses a variety of aspects including historical, religious, cultural and scientific. prometheus1 11:04, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Support. 195.167.169.36 12:13, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Object. No mention of the rhizomal plants (some are forests) that are 1 huge organism, obviously immortal (but they can be killed). No mention of the Internet or the corporation either. Ancheta Wis 20:16, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Object, huge POV issues. Sam [Spade] 20:21, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Being a bit more specific would be helpful prometheus1 21:03, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Object. What Sam said. Ambi 04:29, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Support. From a non-Christian viewpoint, the article is very much NPOV. However, can sections 6 and 8 be cleared up? "Thought experments" are great, yet I think these are not quite in the right place. Revth 02:38, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Mumbai

I have contributed to it but can hardly be called a self-nomination. Covers most topics you'd expect it to cover. --Hemanshu 01:23, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Object. One liner sections such as Mumbai#Demographics, Mumbai#Early_history, and Mumbai#Religion should not exist. Either expand them to be at least couple paragraphs long or remove the heading. "Also see" and "See Also" do not adhere to the MoS - the proper form is "See also". The table on the top is hideous. I'm not sure what the "Significance" entry is doing there - that's already explained in the lead section - and what differentiates this listing from the trivia section. Is this part of some template? Otherwise, it is imo uncessary. --Jiang 01:46, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Implimented chages as suggested by Jiang [[User:Nichalp|¶ nichalp | Talk]] 19:49, Aug 15, 2004 (UTC)
• Object. Table is 1980s-esqe. Religion section is incomplete and POV.--Neutrality 05:36, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • What do you mean by 1980s-esq ? [[User:Nichalp|¶ nichalp | Talk]]
  • Religion section dealt with [[User:Nichalp|¶ nichalp | Talk]] 19:49, Aug 15, 2004 (UTC)
• Object. Numerous hyphens used as dashes. — Chameleon Main/Talk/Images 11:51, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • The whole topic of hyphens vs double hyphens vs emdashes vs endashes is pretty touchy. I think the manual of style says to ignore the issue until the mediawiki software supports auto-emdashing. →Raul654 19:42, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)
    • Nah. We could die of old age while we wait for the revolution. Punctuation needs to be correct now. I do have another objection though: the article isn't sure whether Mumbai or Tokyo is the most populous city. Chameleon 23:16, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Object - still premature to add this page. [[User:Nichalp|¶ nichalp | Talk]] 19:38, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)

Japanese name

Originally written by me but went under heavily copyedit. -- Taku 00:14, Aug 7, 2004 (UTC)

• Object: please follow Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Japanese) and use the ō and ū characters for long vowels. Currently many of the long vowels are not marked at all; this is confusing. When this is fixed, Support. --Shibboleth 03:01, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Object. I think all featured articles should have at least one tiny illustration. Can't we get some calligraphy of a Japanese name? — Chameleon Main/Talk/Images 12:12, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

How about a hanko or an impression of one?

Fg2 12:49, Aug 7, 2004 (UTC)

Or a photo of a nameplate on a house. Fg2 12:54, Aug 7, 2004 (UTC)

There's now an illustration thanks to User:TakuyaMurata. Fg2 06:36, Aug 12, 2004 (UTC)

• More on historical names; more references & outside sources... +sj+

It has some more on historical names. I also added stage names, sumo names etc.Fg2 11:56, Aug 15, 2004 (UTC)

• Object. Needs a copyedit by a native English speaker. I've made a start, but there's more to be done. Markalexander100 07:40, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Some additional copyediting has been done.Fg2 11:56, Aug 15, 2004 (UTC)

American Pie (song)

It's a topic many people have wondered about; the article is comprehensive, informative, and well-organized in separating the mainstream theory on the song's meaning from the list of more creative theories. I don't think I contributed more than 1 sentence. Fishal 00:39, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Strong support. Can we get an album cover and/or a picture of Dylan (and or Dean) in the red windbreaker, and other iconic imagery? [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 17:17, 2004 Aug 7 (UTC)
• Support. 81.168.80.170 20:57, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Support if those long paragraphs are broken up. Lukobe 21:27, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Object; needs proper lead section and some subheadings under 'The "Standard Interpretation"'. Fredrik | talk 21:59, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Object. Rather rambling, and a large portion of it seems to be clutching at vague straws in order to make a longer article. IMO, it's not in the same league as Yesterday (song), which recently failed to gain FA status. In addition, if the massive analysis section wasn't there, it wouldn't be much more than a stub. Ambi 04:24, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Object - No lead section which is a basic requirement for FA. --mav 06:28, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Object for same reasons as Ambi and mav. Johnleemk | Talk 12:01, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Philip K. Dick

I contributed a bit to it, but it's not really a self-nomination. Covers a great deal of ground; I learned some interesting stuff from it. grendel|khan 15:25, 2004 Aug 6 (UTC)

• The lead says that he was hailed by Stanislaw Lem, but the Lem article itself seems to say the opposite (I think). Could this be clarified? [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 17:31, 2004 Aug 6 (UTC)
• Are there no pictures that could be used? At the very least, if there is no photo of him in the public domain, you could add some book cover scans under fair use. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 18:25, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • I actually emailed the academic department of a deceased writer whose book on PKD contained the only picture of him I could find... but it's been more than a week, and the department hasn't mailed me back. Anyone who finds any other pictures of him is welcome to ask for permission to include them in wikipedia... grendel|khan 02:52, 2004 Aug 7 (UTC)
    • Using Google Image Search yelded several images. I am pretty sure we could get a permission to use from one of those sites - not that most of them have any permission notes of their own. What is the Wiki policy when an image exists on the web and there is no copyright info anywhere? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 10:36, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
      • Ideally, every image we have would be explicitly in the public domain or licensed under the GFDL or another, compatible licence. Most people here support fair use images; some do not (see Wikipedia:Fair use). [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 21:00, 2004 Aug 7 (UTC)

Sorting algorithm

I have contributed a bit. -- Taku 00:14, Aug 7, 2004 (UTC)

• Neutral. I would really like to see diagrams for this topic; sorting is so much easier to understand visually than verbally. --Shibboleth 03:09, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Object - needs basic expansion all around and longer lead section. --mav 03:43, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Object. Needs a bit of filling-out, and proper dashes. — Chameleon Main/Talk/Images 12:15, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Object. - No mention of the limitations. See Kernighan and Ritchie's dissection of the algorithms; they just don't work for some cases, and cannot be applied blindly. Ancheta Wis 20:00, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

DNA repair

Self-nomination. Need to build awareness on this fundamental biological process which is pivotal to aging and disease.

• Support. Wow nice article good pictures too. Chubtoad 01:26, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Object on two counts:

1. Poorly written. Redundant and over-verbose phrasing. Sentences are long and clumsy, and should be cut into more easily comprehensible pieces. Full of technical jargon that is never explained in layman's terms (and often not even hyperlinked to the relevant article) and nearly impenetrable to a non-biologist like me. Even a few grammatical errors. Sorry, the information looks good but as far as clarity goes this needs a complete rewrite IMHO. Edit after discussion with User:Prometheus1: this text resembles the writing in many scientific journals and would probably be adequately comprehensible for expert biologists, but my objection is that I feel the article is not clear for laymen. The quality of the information is not in question.
2. Dubious copyright situation with the images. Although they were submitted by their creator, they have a copyright tag on them. --Shibboleth 01:53, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• • Objection challenged. "Poorly written"? You will have to be more specific than that. Point to the relevant section associated with your claims, otherwise your criticism is deemed as non-constructive. Also explain what you mean by "dubious" in respect to copyright when I created the images and own the copyright. prometheus1 03:21, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • I didn't point to a specific section because I feel the problem affects the entire article. Take e.g. "The common functional motif across most lifespan influencing genes is in their downstream effect of altering the rate of DNA damage." This sentence expresses a simple idea, but I had to reread it 3 times to grasp what it meant. "functional motif", "downstream effect"? Why use such big words? I would propose instead something like: "Most genes which influence lifespan have been found to affect the rate of DNA damage." Or this: "The rate of DNA damage must be counterbalanced by the rate DNA repair lest an accumulation of errors overwhelm the cell and result in senescence, apoptosis or cancer.". Why not: "The rate of DNA repair should be as fast as the rate of damage, otherwise an accumulation of errors may overwhelm the cell." (and move the "senescence, apoptosis or cancer" bit to the "DNA damage" section, where it is more relevant). Or this: "It is apparent that the mechanism of mutation that allows a genome to retain its ability to adapt is also responsible for destabilizing it and rendering it vulnerable to disease and aging." This says nothing that is not said elsewhere, and should be cut IMHO. Someone else needs to look at this article and rewrite it for clarity, but I'm not a biologist so I don't feel I'd be the best one to do it. As for the images, I suppose it's okay for you to retain the copyright but it would be nice for the terms of use to be spelled out on the image page. Generally GFDL or public-domain images are preferred. --Shibboleth 05:11, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Objection challenged. You have claimed that the sentences are long and clumsy yet you have provided no specific example of that. You are criticizing a literary style which obviously in not meant for 6th graders, but then neither is the topic of DNA repair! It goes without saying that to someone who does not have sufficient biological grounding, terms such as DNA, genes, proteins, enzymes, mutagens, mutation, evolution, etc will make no sense.
• "There is absolutely nothing grammatically wrong or otherwise ambiguous with this statement: "The common functional motif across most lifespan influencing genes is in their downstream effect of altering the rate of DNA damage." How can you possibly refer to "functional" and "motif" as big words? (and since when are certain words prohibited from being used?) Is it their arrangement in a phrase that makes them difficult to comprehend? How can "functional motif" be so difficult to comprehend? It is an elegant and concise phrase designed to illustrate the concept of physiological modularity. Again I repeat that these concepts require a certain grounding in science in order for them to be properly understood and contextualized. Otherwise one must include an entire tome on the necessary background with every specialist article. Presumably the reader is in the possession of the requisite competence to cognitively assemble the various new informational layers of a pre-existing knowledge framework. "This is now potentially controversial as it demarcates the quality of information to be provided as well as the competence of the readership. Remember, that a mathematical treatise on quantum physics can never be so deconstructed that one with no mathematical competence will ever be able to fully comprehend it. If however, it is the policy of Wikipedia that you are representing, and this policy is to exclude topics of a certain density or requirement of prerequisite background then it should be noted that such articles are not welcome. prometheus1 10:28, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Hypocrisy of Objector. Note the following sentence from one of the objectors articles Legitimacy (political science) 'This form of legitimacy is related to democracy in that the justification of those constitutional procedures are agreed to be popular consent, but it may result in different results, in that constitutional procedure often require supermajorities or are intended to protect minority groups.' Now one can employ similar deconstructionist techniques that the objector applied on the statements in the article DNA repair that result in similar issues of "over-verbosity", "long and clumsy" sentences, etc.
    • Prometheus, I apologize for the over-harsh tone of my criticisms. I don't want to bloat WP:FAC with this discussion so I've responded on your talk page. --Shibboleth 18:18, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)
      • An apology for "over-harsh tones" offers no remedy. Your unfounded critique could cast an aspersion on the quality of the article and undermine its message. Considering it is probably the only such broad based introductory review on the topic existent on the searchable internet then you are also implicated in undermining the educational needs of potential readers! Your retraction of derogatory statements such as "poorly written", "Redundant and over-verbose phrasing", would be a good starting point towards reconciling this situation. prometheus1 07:46, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Object. An article which requires a "Some background in biology and genetics may be useful for the remainder of the article" warning" clearly needs work before making featured status. Until it's more readable by the ordinary person, I'll have to object. Ambi 04:29, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Question to Objector: if an article becomes automatically excluded from the featured list on the basis that it is by nature technical, how is it that Wikipedia can demonstrate that it carries material for the more academically sophisticated user? Just how important is it to lobotomize this article? Would my 10 year old daughter have to be able to understand every single word? (she understands most of it ;) ) I think it may be time to incorporate a featured articles subsection for the reader who may be needing a more technical view. Or else you may find that due to the present process of peer review the inevitable side effect of lobotomizing good articles and discouraging more sophisticated authorship will manifest! prometheus1 08:20, 8 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • As others have said, the technical content is good, but - and this is particularly so if it is to become a featured article - it needs to be understandable to the ordinary person. If a reader wants a more technical view, then they can read technical work on the subject. This, on the other hand, is for all people. Just a note, prometheus: personal attacks will not help your case. Ambi 10:46, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Object: The technical content is good, but its writing does not allow it to be marked as "one of the best examples of the Wikipedia community's work." (Sorry to digress, but it can't be avoided: You know, the form of argumentation that's being used in defense of the article does no good, or less than none. The purpose of this process is to reach a consensus; and that's unlikely to be advanced by, for instance, claiming that an objection should be ignored because the objector has in the past contributed prose that doesn't deserve to be featured. That sort of thing serves mainly to annoy other people; they ought to be smart enough to ignore that and proceed only on the merits, but why make it harder by setting a bad example?) It's true that (for instance) "functional motif" is not long words; it's just in this context pretentions jargon. Nothing would be lost by having a sentence assert that genes that affect lifespan show a common pattern, that all (or nearly all, or whatever) act by altering the rate of DNA damage. We've heard enough by now about 6th-graders; just what is the intended audence? Apparently, people who regularly read scientific journals. And yet, if you look at the front matter in Science or Nature, you find stuff that's not written in that style. Its audience is readers of those journals, looking at matter outside their specialties, and yet some (not all) is really clear writing for non-specialists, which would be quite understandable to a person who had never contributed to a refereed journal. The essential point, though, is that most of the material in the DNA repair article can be made accssible to people without a serious background in the latest biological work. If it doesn't try to do that, it's not among our best work. If it does, and it also goes beyond that level, wonderful. Dandrake 21:04, Aug 8, 2004 (UTC)
  • "PRETENTIOUS JARGON"? Deal Lord, what depths of inane absurdity and small-minded, insult-laced petty critique must one face in order to see an article featured! And this is from one who says, ...if you look at the front matter in Science or Nature, you find stuff... - since when is the front matter of the two most prestigious scientific journals been described by the word stuff! Had I known that the phrase 'functional motif' would cause such controversy and be representative of the general attitude of the wikipedia Style Guardians I would not have bothered in the first place! Have any of you grand intelligences even bothered to read the article and raise constructive comment on specific sections in order that the article may become congruent with the lobotomizing style which you seek? prometheus1 10:38, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • I regret to say that your closely reasoned argument has failed to persuade me to join a consensus that that the article qualifies. Sorry you're offended by the casual language in a discussion group; sorrier that it seems to show a complete lack of sensitivity to context, which is at the base of this objection. If you'd like me to get off that one phrase and list all the things wrong with the article—well, would that not be a waste of time? Still Object. Dandrake 19:26, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)
      • Why am I not surprised? All objections, no specifics - somewhat lacking in credibility I think ...prometheus1 08:53, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • Since this goes on, I need to correct an error, a lazy one for which I have not even the quasi-excuse of ignorance. The phrase I mentioned is not really pretentious jargon; it is technical jargon, or shop-talk language, which inevitably seems pretentious to the outsider. Any literate person can, of course, work out what's intended by the phrase and by most of the rest of the article. To those who regularly read papers in genomics the language is normal and natural, and "functional motif" no doubt conveys immediately a comparison to dozens of other cases that the reader knows of; that's what technical language is for (just like poetic allusion). But is the target audience even more restricted than I said?—not just readers of scientific papers, but readers of genomics papers? One wonders if that audience would get much new information from the article. The problem, anyway, is that an article written entirely in such language involves—for most people capable of learning from it—working out in place of reading. Where the subject matter does not make it unavoidable (and this article does not; it could be a very good article for non-specialists if it tried), this is not typical of our best material. Dandrake 23:00, Aug 10, 2004 (UTC)
• Support. Yes, there is some work to be done in the phrasing etc. as the previous discussion has detailed, but this article is already far better than most and most of the concerns here are in the process of being addressed. So let's all chill for a bit (sorry for the colloquialism). --Lexor|Talk 11:16, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Observation. Wikipedia is an extraordinary concept being implemented in the most ordinary of ways because the banal behavior of a few of its denizens stand to systematically erode its credibility. Until new contributors are given sincere encouragement rather than the sort of meaningless and often offensive drivel that is meant to pass for critique that I have encountered the state of affairs I am sad to say will remain the same.

Here is an example of the sort of drivel I refer to, which seems to be acceptable critique by wikipedians:

Well it might be a featured article candidate, but it's sure not "brilliant prose". The intro looks like it was hacked together hastily. I'd like to rewrite it, so it explains: *what "damage" is getting repaired *why it's important to do the repairs (like what would happen if they didn't fix it) *explanations of the repair process

I mean, what's up? Does a UV photon enter the gene or chromosome and knock a strand of DNA out of whack? How is this a problem? Can't the cell keep running with a broken strand? Will it turn cancerous? The 500,000 figure sounds scary, but what's the upshot for human health? Is it like a stuck zipper?

Sorry, but the intro raises so many questions that I didn't even want to read the rest of the article. Featured or not, it still needs LOTS of work. --Uncle Ed 20:10, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I am flabbergasted. What is the purpose of the toxic attitude? The intro is a gentle yet concise summary of the article. Obviously Ed cannot confirm this because he did not bother reading the article - instead he proposes rewriting an introduction for something he has not even read!. Check it out for yourselves! prometheus1 12:50, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Warning. Users such "Uncle Ed" will only serve to drive genuine contributors away. They should be closely monitored as they are antagonistic to the vision of wikipedia. prometheus1 12:50, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Warning: here is Dandrake appealing to Uncle Ed for help (to achieve what I am unclear):

You've probably noticed that over there on WP:FAC we have a potentially valuable contributor who is about to walk away (one conscientiously suppresses the "I hope") because he can't stand the stupid people who think his work on DNA repair is not instantly worthy of Featured status. I wonder if anything could be done about it. My own inability to do anything about it, which I'm afraid is no surprise, is apparent in the discussion. I suppose any improvement in the situation would be little short of miraculous, though that shouldn't bother you :-) Dandrake 19:49, Aug 9, 2004 (UTC)

• • (Well, first off, I don't understand where where the above quote from Uncle Ed comes from. I haven't seen it on this page; hence either it's not an objection that he has formally raised here, or you've hacked his contribution to this thread. Is there some reason that you, an author of papers for refereed scholarly journals, omit a clear attribution?) As for figuring out what I wanted to achieve, it might be clear to anyone who tried the hypothesis that I meant what I said: here is someone who can make useful contributions, who is getting started as a major flamer and will either go away (pity) or stay as a long-time nuisance (pity; I will not rank the two pities). Wondering whether anyone could change this course of events, I asked a person whom I perceive as a peacemaker who yet has knowledge of the limits. His opinion, which I requested, you've kindly reproduced below. Dandrake 23:21, Aug 10, 2004 (UTC)

here is the response from Uncle Ed (can you believe the conceit!)

Anyone who writes phrases like "any of you grand intelligences" is asking for trouble. (It's not enought to be brilliant: a little courtesy and humility are needed, as people CONSTANTLY are reminding ME. "Ed, you're always bragging out how NPOVier than thou you are...") If he's gonna be that much of a pain, I say let him walk. For every prima donna who leaves in wrath, we'll get ten better writers who have no patience for jerks like him. --Uncle Ed 19:59, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Now we are clear as to his intentions - and the basis for his drivel - I mean critique - no, it is just drivel. ;) prometheus1 13:10, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

This article is hardly technical at all when compared with some other feature articles like Ackermann function Quantum computer. I have no biology experience and this article was clear and easy to understand. Chubtoad 13:39, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Hear, hear prometheus1 15:39, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Not voting here, but it seems to me that intentional or not, you're pushing a people a bit over the top, prometheus. I understand your devotion to articles you nominate (I do quite a bit of nominating and self-nominating myself), but don't you think you'd be better off improving the article instead of nitpicking over *every* little piece of a person's objection? Whether or not Ed's comment was in poor taste, the fact remains that I'm not sure I'd feel very appreciative of your efforts considering your belligerent tone of voice. By the way, for an example of a complex article which is featured, see Enigma machine, which I nominated and some cryptology experts politely fixed up. It's okay if parts of an article are a bit confusing for the ordinary reader, but if half the article is scientific jargon, something needs to be done. An article in a professional scientific journal is different from, say, an article in Time magazine about the same topic. Oh, and I repeat, this is not an objection nor a vote of support – just my own comments. Johnleemk | Talk 13:42, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • The article has been "improved" considerably, if you look at the history. Also take note at the flavor of some of the critique you will see that in some cases it is hardly in the spirit of improvement - more like undisguised contempt - and they should not be permitted to get away with it! An environment counterproductive to encouraging new contributors by blatant rudeness should not be tolerated.

prometheus1 15:39, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Sadly, I think you began the contempt with your abrasive wording. This situation could have been averted if you hadn't used such sharp words at the beginning, tainting later voters' opinions and comments. I have read the whole argument, and although I think there are one or two cases where things could have gone better, I think you started it by strawmanning, ignoring a user's arguments simply because they are flawed, or worse still, basing your acceptance of a user's vote based on their past performance in article editing. Just because, say, an insane murderer thinks it's wrong to murder yet does it anyway, now it must be right to murder? That seems to be what's happening here. Johnleemk | Talk 15:53, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• People that wish to provide criticisms must be held accountable for those criticisms. One cannot just use statements such as: 'pretentious jargon, poorly written, long and clumsy and incomprehensible', without offering adequate and justifiable explanation. Of course I will pull them up on this sort of nonsense. This is not an arena where people should be allowed to humiliate or allow themselves to be humiliated. This should be a forum of positive interaction, learning and mentoring. prometheus1 16:38, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Obviously, but your rebuttals often were too abrasive. Your tone is extremely authoritative and abrasive, as if you're trying to challenge somebody. Relax. Rejecting an apology and using an article someone else worked on as an excuse to disregard their objection aren't exactly the best ways to win friends, and not only cast a negative aspersion on you, but on the article, because people won't feel like supporting if they see your behaviour. I know that it's not fair, but that's how human pyschology works, though hopefully most people here try to keep it in check. Johnleemk | Talk 09:56, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• If you wish to be viewed as impartial you should consider incorporating into your discussion the causative factors that manifest this abrasion. This article has been exposed to considerable resistance which in the final analysis largely remains unqualified. Consequently the defense of the article transcends the question of the article's validity in the FAC context but is a statement on the politics and culture of the FAC process - which is evidently not conducive towards fostering an atmosphere of knowledge and intelligent discourse. The majority of criticisms have been laced with derogatory tones which is unacceptable. prometheus1 00:24, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Um...from the very start you were abrasive and judgemental in your wording. Perhaps it was unintentional, but it may have clouded other voters' view of the article, by proxy, and certainly doesn't bode well for your own image. The politics and culture of FAC are not intended to create better articles. We're supposed to be judgemental and nitpicky, because "featured articles represent the best of Wikipedia's work". If you want people's constructive criticism for building an excellent article, go to peer review. I don't see any criticism laced with derogatory tones until after you responded to the first criticism, constantly challenging it, not even willing to accept that the objector might have a grain of truth somewhere. Johnleemk | Talk 12:18, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• If you're too busy carrying the firebrand of your predecessors there's lots you won't see. Look, if you have something to say related to the article - read it - then voice your opinion on it specifically citing the section that you think needs improvement - otherwise - this is getting tedious. prometheus1 21:01, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• I've read the discussion in full. I'm not denying that the later objectors were harsh, but your challenging manner of talking hurts your own stance. You effectively closed your ears and ignored objections, based on nitpicked points. Both sides are wrong here. Two wrongs don't make a right. Stop viewing this as a black and white situation. I do have something related to the article to say, as you can see below, so that's a moot point. It may be better if we discussed this on WP:RFC or something, or just drop the issue entirely, because both sides are quite wrong anyway. Johnleemk | Talk 05:15, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Ok, voting having read the article in full. Object, because the images are not freely usable – images in an ideal article must be usable by anybody, not just for non-commercial uses. Some of the images also have a copyright notice directly in them, which isn't exactly common practice and could mislead people into thinking they cannot use them for anything at all. Other than that, the article seems fine to me now, though in a few places the terminology is a bit confusing. Johnleemk | Talk 13:57, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Where is it stipulated that images must be made available for commercial use? prometheus1 15:39, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • The guidelines on what is a featured article are intentionally vague on this, but I don't mind the not free for commercial use part too much (although generally most users contribute images under the GFDL – if I was really paranoid, I'd make crediting the author mandatory, but I don't really think we should restrict commercial use), but this may cause problems occasionally if people want the article to be featured on the front page. It's not too major a problem, but I'm honestly worried about the copyright mention being directly in the image. It's bad style, and besides that, can discourage people from reusing the images. Johnleemk | Talk 15:53, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)
      • I hate to burst your bubble, but the GFDL requires author attribution. →Raul654 21:28, Aug 11, 2004 (UTC)
        • Are you talking to me or him? If it's me, I already knew that. By the way, apparently Anthony and I aren't alone in our opinion. See the village pump. In short, all material on Wikipedia must be free for all uses. End of story. Fair use (if following my possibly wrong definition of it on the pump) falls under this too. Non-commercial use images don't. Johnleemk | Talk 10:58, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• I also object to the license on the images. Dan Gardner 21:25, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Support.--Fenice 20:39, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Support, after my recent attempt to reorganize the article's sentences. Autrijus 14:06, 2004 Aug 14 (UTC)

Illuminated manuscript

Kind of a self-nom, as I've just done a load of work tidying it up, but I didn't write any of the original content; just thought it was a good article. — OwenBlacker 12:10, Aug 14, 2004 (UTC)

• Object. I quite simply don't think this article is ready the big time. Specifically, it needs a history section. It needs a discussion of specific types of manuscripts that were illuminated. There needs to be some reference to non-Christian manuscripts (e.g. Islamic). It would be nice to see a discussion of marginalia vs. "main" illuminations in Christian manuscripts. The techniques section is quite sketchy. The list (which I am largely responsible for) has a distressing number of red links. Dsmdgold 13:11, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Object. Its a good start and I'd like to support, but there really is a lot more to be said on this subject - the development of ornate capitals, no link to calligraphy, why are the manuscripts illuminated at all (literacy?) and we don't have anything to say about most of the important manuscripts listed. Also the image as no attribution or copyright tags. The article for the Book of Kells, would be a better freatures candidate in this area. -- Solipsist 13:57, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

MathCounts

This is a really, really well-written article that covers a lot of information. The information is accurate, since I have been on the MathCounts team before. --Lst27 00:22, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• There are a few things I'd like: 1) Example problems. 2) Are there any states/schools that perennially do well? 3) What about the contestants--who are they (for instance, are they more boys than girls? More older than younger kids? etc.) This article might need Wikipedia:Peer review. [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 15:04, 2004 Aug 12 (UTC)
  • 1) I put some examples on that page before, and later I removed them, as User:Mike Church asked, because it could be copyrighted. For 2 and 3, I will add them onto the article. Thanks for the suggestions. --Lst27 22:55, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• I was also a MathCounts participant (went to nationals in 2001). The article is a good start, but needs more before it can be featured (I may try to fix it up some myself). I second the suggestion of Wikipedia:Peer review. Dan Gardner 20:51, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Is a picture possible? -- Emsworth 17:03, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Probably not. --Lst27 21:35, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • What kind of a picture are you thinking of? Dan Gardner 19:11, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • A picture of one of the triangular trophies could be used. 259 21:44, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Agree with Dan Gardner, not comprehensive enough. Also too many red links. anthony (see warning) 14:04, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Basically just a procedural description of how MathCounts works. Needs more information to put it into context - history and significance of the competition, any famous alumni, things like that. The current history section is nowhere near being worth featuring. --Michael Snow 22:12, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

René Lévesque

This article is, I believe, an excellent example of thorough, exhaustive information on a public figure. It also features many great, useful images, and also even soundbytes and videos. Furthermore, on the subject of Quebec matters, this politician and his article are some of the most central, making its featuring even more pertinent. This is an article I worked on quite a lot, so I should mark it a self-nomination. --Liberlogos 14:01, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• I'd like someone who knows the material better to look over this for NPOV; there was little mention of criticism, of which I assume there was some. [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 14:58, 2004 Aug 12 (UTC)
  • The man was even quite appreciated by his opponents, and consequently recieved less criticism. However, I added some more to make it even more NPOV. ;) --Liberlogos 17:36, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• I personally don't think the article is even close from being ready. It currently only contains a superficial overview of the man's political thought and actions, and its career as a reporter. I definitely would like to see this article featured eventually though. -- Mathieugp 03:34, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Object: The lead section is too short; the sections "Elections as party leader" and "Portrayal" need expansion. -- Emsworth 17:01, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Support. Though I agree with some of the objections, they'll be pretty easy to resolve. The article tackles the task of explaining his role in the Silent Revolution, a multifarious phenomenon that's tough to address in a brief article. 172 13:06, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Object - needs a longer lead section and a ==Reference== section. See Wikipedia:Cite your sources. ---mav 06:28, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Support. Acegikmo1 08:00, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Pantheon, Rome

A well written article about the Pantheon of Rome, has good information in it and some decent pictures. - Ta bu shi da yu 13:16, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• The article too short, and it has no sections. It could use History, Construction, Influences sections and more info in each of those. The images need to be tagged with source and license information. It would also be nice if we had a higher resolution picture of the interior of the dome [[User:Sverdrup|❝Sverdrup❞]] 14:35, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Object. Agree with Sverdrup's remarks. Also, the photo's do not have any license information. They need to be explicitly released under GDFL or similar. Jeronimo 16:13, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Pedro Montanez

Self nomination. I think its good and informative. Besides'Id love to see my photo on wikipedia's cover!!. --Antonio Tyson Martin"

• Object. The article is far too short. Furthermore, I have qualms about the picture. I beg the nominator's pardon, but unless he is somehow relevant to the article, his picture should not appear. -- Emsworth 15:25, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Well, the image might be usable if it illustrated that Montanez were in any way famous for his meetings, dealings or treatment of his fans (if this is the case, that is). Of course the caption should then be changed – the fan's name and the fact that he's a Wikipedian are highly irrelevant. -- Jao 18:01, Aug 13, 2004 (UTC)
• Object. As Emsworth says, far too short. This is not more substantial than articles on other sportspeople like, say, Ivan Lendl or Ralf Schumann. That's not to say that they couldn't become featured (Ivan Lendl probably should at some time). Certainly there must be more to say about this guy? -- Jao 18:01, Aug 13, 2004 (UTC)

Susan B. Anthony

Excellent article and photo. Well written, informative. -- "Antonio Susan B. Antonio Martin"

• Object. What's there is just dandy but there just isn't much there at all. Sarge Baldy 05:07, Aug 13, 2004 (UTC)
  • Ditto. →Raul654 16:58, Aug 13, 2004 (UTC)
• Object. Not formatted properly, and just not enough content to chew on. - DropDeadGorgias (talk) 16:25, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)
• Object. No juice in it. Gradgrind: facts, facts, facts. Perfectly suitable for the World Book (that's a denigration, folks). Here we have a troublemaker, speechifier, civil disobeyer, and hellraiser of the first order; a woman who, was a girl, when her schoolteacher refused to teach her long division because women didn't need to know it, figured it out for herself out of sheer cussed orneriness. She had to have had a personality, unlike the gray abstraction documented in the present article. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith (talk)]] 16:41, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Etiquette

This is a remarkable article: concise, well-written, elegant, with a marvelous image. Not mine. - Hydrotaphia 17:01, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Object. I think it's deficient in a lot of ways. First it needs to be sectioned up. This'll suggest other ways we can flesh it out, such as adding some of the "rules" of netiquette. I'd also like to see far more cross-cultural comparisons of etiquette, which could be very facinating. Maybe some historical examples of how clashing expectations of etiquette have caused diplomatic crises, etc. All in all, I just don't see it as being long enough compared to what could be done. --Gregb 17:41, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Fair objections. I'll see what I myself can add. Perhaps—if you're interested, Gregb—you could pitch in as well. I still maintain it's promising. – Hydrotaphia 16:16, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• It is promising. I added a bunch of see also's that may suggest tacks for expanding the article. Some of these point to stubs that want expansion in themselves; the discussion of diplomatic protocol is pretty inadequate; order of precedence tells little about when it is considered; we don't have a general article on formal dress yet. I also added see also's to a bunch of language articles that relate at least marginally to etiquette. Smerdis of Tlön 04:19, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

CSS Hunley

Not a very long article, but an interesting one, combining naval warfare and a new section on forensic anthropology, bringing the story of the Hunley up to date, 140 years after it first made history as the first submarine to sink a ship. Nice illustrations to complement the article too. Danny 11:08, 4 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Object for now. The writing and images are fine, but if the thing sank in 1863, killing its creator and 7 crew, how could it attack a Union ship in 1864? [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 22:33, 2004 Aug 4 (UTC)
  • It killed more than one crew and was raised at least once to re-enter service, IIRC. --mav 04:15, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • It sank 3 seperate times and killed 3 seperate crews (Knowitall ->) →Raul654 04:21, Aug 5, 2004 (UTC)
  • Objection challenged. The below is quoted from the article.

Three of the Hunley's night missions failed against the Union ironclads blockading the harbor. On August 29, 1863 five of a crew of nine were killed during an attempted attack when the skipper accidentally dived with the hatches still open. On October 15, 1863 the Hunley failed to surface during a trial dive, killing its inventor Horace Lawson Hunley and seven other crewmen. In both cases, the Confederate Navy salvaged the vessel and returned it to service.

--John Moser 05:51, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• • Brain fart. Objection withdrawn. Support, good writing. [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 13:06, 2004 Aug 5 (UTC)
• Support. And an interesting story too. There is a colour version of the illustration here. But I wonder about the scale suggested by the painting. It doesn't look credible that those sailors could fit inside and drive a crank. -- Solipsist 14:17, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• There are two questions on the talk page -what are its dimensions? and What is the name of the fifth body identifed by DNA? Also I wonder why the above section says "Three of Hunley's night mission against the Union ironclads" but then describes the second sinking as a "test dive". Was it a test or a attack mission? Rmhermen 13:49, Aug 6, 2004 (UTC)
• Object - the article is tiny. There must be more info on this topic (such as more info on construction, crews, and battles fought). In short I don't think this represents one of Wikipedia's best articles. --mav 04:00, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • I agree with Mav on this one - this article is pretty small, and I suspect there's a lot more than could be said. →Raul654 20:16, Aug 15, 2004 (UTC)
  • Not sure how much more can be added on the crews -they all died on their first combat mission. And battle fought -it was only in one -it sank a ship and then disappeared. Rmhermen 19:23, Aug 10, 2004 (UTC)
• Support. Acegikmo1 20:38, 10 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Bricker Amendment

Self-nomination. I noticed this on a list of requested articles and have posted it. This was a huge controversy in the 1950's and comes up still--Google the phrase and see that some people still favor it. PedanticallySpeaking 17:41, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)

• Object. No lead section, and I think the remainder could potentially do with some expansion. Ambi 20:56, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Linux

This article is very well written. --Masterhomer 00:25, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Object. I've been an active editor of this page and protested some of its content, but mostly I think the article is simply not appropriate for being a featured article. It is not sufficiently self-consistent or encyclopedically crisp, but more importantly it is more like a disambiguation or overview page than a traditional article in the encyclopedia. It covers the bases for this general "Linux" topic, but properly refers to the comprehensive articles on the specific subject. - Centrx 01:50, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Please note that the "more like an overview" objection hasn't historically been accepted here (see United States Constitution, for instance). [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 02:41, 2004 Aug 16 (UTC)
    • In fact, I have said many times that it would be great to be able to feature a series of articles complete with overview article. However I've always encountered resistance to this idea, even amongst those who've pushed overviews + detailed articles (aka summary style) as a way to write the 'pedia.. Maybe one day I will understand why! Pcb21| Pete 17:08, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • At the very least, for such overview articles, each of the subordinate articles should be at or near featured article status. - Centrx 02:50, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• I object as well. I mean, it's not even a basic overview. The prose is nothing special (it's not horridly wrong, but doesn't say "featured" to me), and the facts...they barely cover the bases. There's a lot more that could be said. Johnleemk | Talk 06:58, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• A RfC: I have a feeling that F/OSS is one area where Wikipedia has a collective NPOV blindspot. Although there are too many editors in these popular articles for there to be sensational POV, it is my feeling that Linux articles generally have a sympathetic attitude to the subject - e.g. the "Usability, market share and moving from Windows" section in this article. Further Microsoft articles such as Internet Explorer are generally quite hostile to their subjects in tone. As a particular example, the IE article lists all competing web browsers in an "alternatives" section - the Mozilla article(s) do not. The usual response is to "fix it yourself". With so many contributors coming here from slashdot, and believing what they have read there, that can be quite a difficult task. It would be fabulous to promote Linux series of articles and Microsoft Windows series to featured series on the same day, but at the moment I am not sure they have the maturity. Pcb21| Pete 08:21, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• So noted that Mozilla doesn't have anything on competing browsers. I've added a section to the main Mozilla article. - Ta bu shi da yu 11:53, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Object, agree with Pete, its pretty POV overall, not entirely from overtly POV statements but from organization, coverage and focus. The "moving from Windows" section is especially egregious considering the data shows most migrations to Linux come from propietary Unices, not Windows. It doesn't feel very well structured overall. Certainly not something I'd like to promote as Wikipedia's best writing. - Taxman 16:56, Aug 16, 2004 (UTC)
• As a contributor to the article, I fear I must object on the grounds that it's victim to too much edit warring and really badly-written advocacy. Geek POV pushers are as persistent and clueless as nationalist POV pushers, even just looking at Linux. It's been reasonably stable lately, but if anyone tries remedying the above objections I predict another round will start. (Not that that's a reason not to remedy them.) - David Gerard 23:12, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• As far as I can tell from the article's discussion page, you mainly had a problem with one particularly pedantic user, Centrx. Everyone else, while they may have disagreed, weren't really giving too much grief. Who else was giving problems? - Ta bu shi da yu 12:47, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Is that a "let's you and him fight"? I'm talking about the article's long, long edit history. Also check previous talk archives. You'll see what I mean - the article is a magnet for stupid advocacy - David Gerard 17:01, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Refer to peer review. Initially I though that this was just sour grapes by the Windows crowd, but on looking through the article with a critical eye I see several areas that need to be improved. There are several POV statements I could find.

• Linux users traditionally tend to be more technically advanced that Windows user - facts not in evidence and this is a stereotype in any case
• Frequently compares Linux to Microsoft's Windows, even when this is not necessary (sounds like advocacy, or just some very defensive people!)
• Not enough information on valid criticism of Linux, especially on the desktop. Yes, I know that Linux has improved heaps in the past few years, but it's certainly not there yet!
• Seems to be missing a criticism section. For instance, it doesn't even talk about the criticisms levelled at it by AdTI and Ken Brown, which while stupid (see my article about Ken Brown on Kuro5hin) should still be detailed. IMHO if this was included then it would go a long way to giving the article a more rounded viewpoint.

I'm sure there are more things that could be altered. Please note I'm a Linux fan (I don't run Windows unless I can help it, and I think Linux is the best thing since sliced bread!) but even a Linux fan can wish for a more NPOV article. Besides which, remember the Mindcraft study? This was a positive boon to the Linux community because it showed where Linux was weak, and the kernel developers worked on those areas harder than ever! I think that valid criticism can only but be a good thing for Linux. Anyway, this last bit is just my $0.02. Ta bu shi da yu 12:17, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Exploding whale

This is a self-nomination, but I figure that the whole exploding whale incident was bizarre enough to at least cop a mention on Wikipedia. - Ta bu shi da yu 14:41, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• I'm going to object--this article is simply too short to be featured. However, a great home for this would be Wikipedia:Unusual articles. Best wishes, [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 14:51, 2004 Aug 12 (UTC)
• I fear there might not quite be enough meat to this article. Pcb21| Pete 15:57, 12 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• That one stinks. [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 15:59, 2004 Aug 12 (UTC)

• Yow! I see everyone is having a whale of a time making bad jokes about this story. It makes me so sad I want to blubber. - Ta bu shi da yu 10:00, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Well as long as you don't blow your top about it.... Pcb21| Pete 10:13, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• You're a shocker! - Ta bu shi da yu 12:24, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Support Surely this article needs a reference to Douglas Adams.

And the Sperm Gray Whale thought, as it lay there;

And wow! Hey! What's this mighty round barrel they are bringing towards me? They are putting it in my stomach so it must be dinner. It needs a big mighty dinnery sounding word like... din... diner... dyna... dynamite! That's it! That's a good name - dynamite! I wonder if it will be friends with me?

(I think this article has trouble being taken seriously) -- Solipsist 16:53, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Why? It's a factual account of the exploding whale, and is encyclodedic. It really did happen, and it's a quite famous event! - Ta bu shi da yu 04:40, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Sorry, not an objection. As to why the article has trouble being taken seriously... who can say, but it is sefl-evident from the comments here. -- Solipsist 18:04, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Double sorry, I should have made clear this was a parody of the actual Adams quote which involves a whale falling from space. See for example half way down this page -- Solipsist 14:32, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Never mind, I should have checked this fact before I entered it in the first place anyway! No harm done. - Ta bu shi da yu 14:38, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• I love it! The Hitchhiker's Guide to Exploding Whales must be written! Has anyone downloaded the video of the original explosion? Boo-yaa! I laughed so hard my Moby Dick about fell off. Support. If "heavy metal umlaut" can make the cut, this should as well. - Lucky 6.9 22:49, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Support. More length would be nice, but I'm not sure that counts as an 'actionable' objection - David Gerard 00:38, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Ideas for extensions: The Tainan City incident was widely reported - we could probably extend it. We should talk about what beach managers do instead of blowing up the dead bodies these days - they tow them out to sea. More on this at Sperm Whale#In the news and the links therein. Pcb21| Pete 00:57, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Done! - Ta bu shi da yu 13:48, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Support. I'm afraid my sense of humor leaves me no choice but to do all I can to make the front page of a gigantic, wildly-growing encyclopedia display info about gigantic exploding mammals. -- Kizor 15:58, 14 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Support - it is short but comprehensive. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:33, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Object. As whales are only noted to explode when immobile and subsequent to the attention of the public, beaching this article on the main page may well cause Wikipedia to explode. Leave it in the water. --Eequor 18:28, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• It's very amusing but I think it needs a bit more but before is should be featured. But can someone confirm the HHGG stuff? I remember that a whale materialises, because of use of the infinite improbability drive etc.. but I don't recall anything about a whlae been blown up by dynamite. Was this in one of the later books? Mintguy (T)

• I see this has now been removed from thet article. Please, can whoever added it, please be more careful. Mintguy (T) 15:53, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Yes, I added it. Apologies for that (as I've already said on this page). At least no harm was done. - Ta bu shi da yu 21:21, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• You mean, at least no whales were harmed in the writing of this aricle? Sorry couldn't help myself. - Taxman 14:33, Aug 20, 2004 (UTC)

• Ha! - Ta bu shi da yu 14:21, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Collapse of the World Trade Center

Partial self-nomination. A clear presentation of the issues, I think. JDG 20:10, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It looks good, but (speaking as a engineer) I'm having trouble visualizing it without diagrams. →Raul654 20:53, Aug 25, 2004 (UTC)

Object. Certainly agree with Raul. Begs for several diagrams. Also the article has some dodgy language, such as "World Trade Center 5 suffered a large fire and a partial collapse of its steel structure. This is also an unprecedented event." As almost an entire paragraph. That needs to be fleshed out, especially explaining what was unprecedented about it. A lot of good information though. - Taxman 21:16, Aug 25, 2004 (UTC)

It might be difficult to find fair use diagrams, but I'll try. JDG

I added a link to the FEMA/ASCE collapse study. It appears to be an official US Gov. publication, and thus public domain. I haven't sifted through the whole thing yet, but the first chapter has a decent diagram of where the debris fell. -- Cyrius|✎ 14:34, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Thanks Cyrius. I'll check out images from FEMA. I'll withdraw this nomination for now as it will take me some time to adapt the text to whatever diagrams I come up with. JDG 15:55, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Oscar Niemeyer

Duck and Cover (film)

• Shameless self-nom, but what the heck. It's a crucial part of American history. Admittedly, it's the part where we all hid under rocks, but crucial nevertheless. -Litefantastic 02:12, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • It's a fun article but it's nowhere near ready yet.
    1. Needs more of an intro, why does the film have a "distinctly paranoid flavour" A brief mention of the cold war is needed.
    2. Who were the people involved in making it? - I know this might not be possible to find out, but you should attempt to find out who thought of the turtle, who directed it, who decided on the overall tone etc.
    3. What were the opinions about the film at the time it was shown. Was it riduculed then? Did parent's like it? Did children? Did teachers?
    4. When was it last shown? Why?
    5. The tone of the article needs addressing. it's not neutral, but slightly ridicules the film. Admittedly the idea of telling schoolkids that ducking under a table would save them from the bomb is a bit silly, but presuambly, at the time, at least some people thought it was a good idea.
  • Don't get me wrong, it's a fun article, but it's far too short to be ready for the front page yet. A spell under Wikipedia:Peer review might be in order. Theresa Knott 04:05, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Object in the current state. The movie is a facinating cultural artifact, but the article still needs work, both in style and wikification. -- Infrogmation 04:18, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Object. Interesting topic, but too short (I agree also with comments by Theresa Knott). I also wonder why is it rather more futile to cover? Last, I don't like suicide bombing is a valid modern terrorist tactic. That is very loosely related, and a highly questionable statement. -- Chris 73 Talk 04:56, Aug 22, 2004 (UTC)
• I'll look into all of these things. And I didn't put the 'suicide bombing' thing there. -Litefantastic 16:39, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Needs a lot of fleshing-out. A reader already intensely familiar with specific effects of nuclear weapons and the historical bachground of the early cold war and its zeitgeist will find the information in the article sufficient to comprehend the "quality" and impact of the film. But a reader who doesn't already know these things gets too little info out of this article to really understand the film's issues and the matter of its widespread publication. There are bits and pieces of info to that effect in the article, but it isn't anywhere near comprehensive enough, IMHO. Ropers 19:23, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Slavoj Zizek

-This article is very well written. A complex theme, but you get the idea, what it is about--Nerd 10:59, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Comment: It looks like a detailed treatment of the subject, but could use some stylistic work to get to featured status; perhaps try listing on Wikipedia:Peer review. A featured article should also have a less blury photograph -- Infrogmation 15:03, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

It's all about his philosphy, with very little about the guy. Maybe the material should be moved to philosohy of Slavoj Zizek or some such. Otherwise seems like good material. - Taxman 15:11, Aug 21, 2004 (UTC)

C-Train

I've been grooming this article for FA status. Please nitpick it so that I know what needs fixing before that point. ;) -- Grunt (talk) 00:08, 2004 Aug 19 (UTC)

• Object. (For now). It's just not very interesting. Perhaps it could be presented differently. It seems well enough put together, but there's not a lot to read (unless one wants to read about the routes). Even for that, it should be possible to just plain list the stops, but give a sort of "tour", describe the areas the trams pass through. Sorry, but I do find this article very kind of "bones" and no substance. The history isn't. It's a timeline. No details on debates over starting the service, who made sure it happened (whose money?). No details on construction disruption/what it was like. There's not a good overview either. Why is the system there? Who does it serve/who uses it? Definitely a skeleton of bare facts at present. zoney ███ talk 00:48, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Object - almost the only thing it covers is the routes. Coverage of things like impact, importance, design, controversy, etc. would go a long way. Check other good articles like London Underground to see what articles about similar topics cover. - Taxman 18:21, Aug 19, 2004 (UTC)

Martin Guerre

Self-nomination. I don't know what else to say about this guy, so am hoping for constructive objections. AxelBoldt 11:54, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Object. No lead section. Some sections probably could be merged. Other than that, article's fine. Johnleemk | Talk 12:03, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Object. I agree with above user and add that a ==Reference== section is needed. See Wikipedia:Cite your sources. --mav 05:40, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Support when above are resolved. Not an objection: is there any stretch by which we could put a picture to this article? - David Gerard 14:44, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • Definitely needs sources, see the talk page. Mintguy (T)
• I feel the lead section should be rewritten in a way that makes it clear spot on that this is about a case of imposturing. As it stands, my first thought was: Oookay, peasant, yes, and "you are thinkink this important why?" (Been reading UF too much, I know. ;-) I can't really do the rewrite myself, as I know too little about the incident/person(s). Regard this as an objection but also regard it as withdrawn when fixed as I might not check back soon enough. Ropers 01:25, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Support. In the hope of meeting some objections, the imposture has been moved to the lead sentence. Dandrake 20:54, Aug 27, 2004 (UTC)

Heliocentrism

A partial self-nomination, as I've contributed to the article for some time. This treats a fairly controversial subject (as to history, not astronomy!) and has settled down for some time and been through Wikipedia:Peer review. Dandrake 20:39, Aug 27, 2004 (UTC)

• Support. [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (talk)]] 00:25, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Support, very thorough! --Alxt 06:22, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Provisionally support. It's an interesting article and I learnt some things from it. However, see my question in this article's talk page; I think it's something that should ideally be addressed. Zashaw 22:51, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Object - Needs a ==References== section. See Wikipedia:Cite your sources. The article also seems to be way on the short side for featured. -- mav 03:33, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Object. Though it contains quite a bit of information - it is far too short to convey everything. The history of the idea could be more substantial, the effect it had on religion, culture and individuals when it began to be support. More on the scientific aspects. Finally, more diagrams - I am sure there are some beautiful NASA PD shots to complete it. --[[User:OldakQuill|Oldak Quill]] 10:37, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Object. This is a little short. Specifically, I'd like to see a description of the basic assumptions assumptions about the universe about which geocentrism and heliocentrism agreed (a small spherical universe with concentric spheres about which heavenly bodies move, etc). Also, it should probably be mentioned how planets were distinguished from other stars in the first place. anthony (see warning) 15:09, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Object. too short. Needs more info and a better pic (Copernicus' draws arent they public domain?). Plz note that heliocentrism considers the sun has the "centre of the universe", do not confuse with "centre of the solar system". Cheers. -Pedro 01:55, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Lee Lawrie

I nominate this page, because it seems to be an extremely thorough and comprehensive biography of the subject, without being too long, in addition it is well illustrated. Giano 11:32, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

In Mozilla Firefox, the picture layout is very strange... Neither objection nor support, just comment This has been fixed now. GWO 12:02, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Object, a better lead section and a better picture to text ratio. images needs better captions Support. [[User:Krik|User:Krik/norm]] 10:09, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Object, pending page layout review. Pictures need more careful placement. Support. Denni☯ 16:47, 2004 Aug 27 (UTC)

The work that Lawrie is best known for is that on the Capitol Building in Lincoln, Nebraska, Bertram Goodhue, architect. I am about to add a few pictures of it to the article, thus further complicating the picture layout issues. Please withhold judgemnet until that is delt with. Carptrash 22:53, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC) :

Pedro IV of Portugal, I of Brazil

Clear presentation--Gameiro Pais 02:14, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• neutral tending to objection. Needs more information about his life and reing has an Emperor and King. BTW there's no real info because he declared the independence of Brazil. Has far has I know he and his father were friends and his father already knew that the independence of Brazil would come. He told his son to make it! This is true, and a different thing is said in the article. -Pedro 12:11, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Empire of Atlantium

A lot of info for a nation that is only an apartment. --Galena 04:11, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Oppose, as this article has been a source of ongoing edit wars in the past, which will likely continue into the future. Plus, the conflicts have really detracted from the quality of the article. It just doesn't seem as fleshed out in the other aspects as it could be because of the sticky points of the edit wars. Gregb 04:20, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Oppose. Agree with Gregb. External references and possibly a relevant photograph would also be beneficial to rounding out the article.--Gene_poole 04:32, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Oppose. Firstly, what Gregb said. Secondly, it's a little ridiculous to be nominating this for FAC after it narrowly escaped VFD less than a month ago. Ambi 07:52, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • It would be a great coup to get an article featured having survived vfd. I don't think this one cuts it unfortunately. I wonder if List of movies that have been considered the greatest ever might make it with some more improvements - it is more prose than list these days and moving towards being comprehensive. Pcb21| Pete 11:17, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Oppose. This would be too controversial. Average Earthman 15:07, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Oppose. child play. I'd vote "delete" on VfD. -Pedro 16:35, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Oppose. Mediocre article on a fairly non-notable thing. I'd vote "keep" on VfD, but this nomination on FAC is taking the piss. GWO 16:47, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Support as a protest. It was ridiculous that this article was submitted to VfD three times and disgusting when it was deleted without concensus. Dmn / Դմն 14:09, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • It was deleted with 60% support. It was undeleted without even a bare majority (67% said keep deleted). Gzornenplatz 23:26, Aug 27, 2004 (UTC)
  • I'm pretty gobsmacked that you could say such a thing. I count 11 votes to keep deleted v 16 votes to undelete. [1] As for Dmn are your really saying that the reason you support this as a featured article is because you feel it has been treated unfairly in the past? Because if you do than I propose that your vote be ignored. Theresa Knott (The token star) 23:37, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • At the time maveric undeleted it, the vote was 8 for keep deleted to 4 for undelete. Thereafter, the vote was obsolete. People could see that their vote to keep deleted is being ignored anyway. Gzornenplatz 23:43, Aug 27, 2004 (UTC)
      • That argument goes both ways. It could just as easily be argued that since it had already been undeleted there was no point in voting to undelete. Theresa Knott (The token star) 23:55, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
        • • Maybe, but I still think the vote was biased by maveric's undeletion. From a simple statistical view, it seems unlikely to be a coincidence that the votes before maveric's action were 8-4 for "keep deleted", and the votes after his action were 12-3 for "undelete". Gzornenplatz 09:58, Aug 28, 2004 (UTC)
          • And perhaps that simply reflected the sum total of those with axes to grind concerning the article jumping in early. All the expected names are there, after all. --Gene_poole 23:50, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
        • I'm protesting the repeated listing of this page on VfD and I'm protesting when an administrator decided 29-19 constituted a consensus. Dmn / Դմն 00:01, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
          • I know why you are protesting :-) My point is that you should not protest in this way. I protested by arguing the case on votes for undeletion - as did several others. Other sutable places are the village pump, or on the talk page of votes for deletion on or vamp willow's talk page. But protesting by voting for a page to be featured is not on (of course if you actually think it is up to featured article standards that's a different matter). Theresa Knott (The token star) 00:13, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
      • Articles which are deleted inappropriately can be undeleted without any vote at all. If it really makes a difference, this protest vote should be ignored. But it won't. So who cares? anthony (see warning) 01:00, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Oppose, for reasons that others have stated -- Cabalamat 20:20, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Object - While I don't think it should be deleted, I don't think it should be featured either. --mav 03:18, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Oppose. Unless we want to make Wiki look like a joke. Samboy 01:08, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • This really isn't an actionable objection, unless you're referring to the state of the article instead of its subject matter. Johnleemk | Talk 10:38, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

East Timor

Very concise and informative article. 212.113.164.98 04:40, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• object. no culture section --Jiang 05:41, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• No vote as of yet, but the fairly prominent article Timor-Leste Scorched Earth, which appears to be split from this, needs a lot of work. Ambi 07:54, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Support. Timor-Leste Scorched Earth is an incomplete article. But I think that it as nothing to do with the East Timor's nomination. If the Hundred Year's War article is incomplete it doesn't mean that France or England should not be featured. Gameiro Pais 14:13, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Object. I don't like this use of animated gifs. Is there any precedent for this? Gzornenplatz 15:07, Aug 25, 2004 (UTC)
  • I don't know if there is a precident, but my personal opinion is that the animated gifs look great. What havee you got against them? Theresa Knott (Hot net streak!) 21:22, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • It looks out of place; you don't expect changing pictures in an encyclopedia. You can't look at any one picture as long as you want to. The constant flipping of the pictures can also be an annoying distraction when you're reading the text. Gzornenplatz 21:36, Aug 25, 2004 (UTC)
    • Object. Exact same reasons as Gzornenplatz. GWO 15:47, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • I'll chip in to say I don't like them either. They prevent meaningful captions and they distract while you're trying to read the text. The only precedent I know of is sidewinding, but that article has a good reason for needing animation, whereas this one does not (except a surplus of images --- but they could just be spread out across relevant East Timor-related articles). Another perhaps more serious objection with the images: they have no copyright or origin information at all, and they don't look like they were all photographed by the submitter. --Shibboleth 21:45, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
      • Animated GIFs have their place (for an example, see Computer animation), but the slide show thing the article has going on isn't appropriate. Either break up the slides into invidual pictures or omit them. — Frecklefoot | Talk 21:46, Aug 25, 2004 (UTC)
• I've transferred the gifs to the bottom of the article. Now they should not interfere with reading. The culture section has been added. Please continue to state your opinions.
• The images still need copyright information. Markalexander100 09:28, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Object. Even at the bottom the images are still distracting. The dithering looks horrible, and the slide-show effect just isn't necessary. Plus there's no copywright infomation or whatnot. Gregb 20:02, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Object. Nothing that makes this spectacular. History of East Timor is all right, but missing pre-colonial information. --Tothebarricades.tk 01:38, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Object for now. Needs work. Very few information about the country. No pictures of the lovely island. Few information on cultural aspects, history etc. -Pedro 12:14, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Egyptian pyramids

Self nomination. It's an important hitherto-overlooked subject, and now that we have permission to use spectacular photos it's a much more widely interesting one too. Even if I do say so myself! --Gene_poole 06:57, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Object. Its nice and I love the photos, but there are several problems I can quickly see:

1. First, all the photos need source information and copyright tags (its good that we have permission, but we need to know what it is).
2. There is a lot more to be said about the Egyptian pyramids. E.g. how were they built.
3. Much of this additional information is at Great Pyramid of Giza, which isn't linked from this article (but could definately use the better photos here) - Great Pyramid of Giza article is actually linked via a redirect from Pyramid of Khufu.
4. If the article is supposed to be about Egyptian pyramids in general (and I may have got that wrong), it would be better to move many of the lesser pyramids in separate articles and include a list to them at the end of this one (although it would also loose the overview of visual comparisons, so I'm split on this point)
5. Some will say there are too many pictures on the page, and moving to individual articles would solve this
6. Wouldn't a better title be 'Egyptian pyramids'.

It might be better to place this article on Wikipedia:Peer review for a while first. Alternatively this could be moved to 'List of Egyptian pryamids', with various bits of merging with Great Pyramid of Giza and maybe rename that article too. This subject will be popular as and when it reaches the front page, so we need to do a bang up job. -- Solipsist 10:47, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'm still confused as to what this article is trying to be. At the moment it isn't close to describing Egyptian pyramids in general. If it is meant to be a survey/description of the collection of largest pyramids, it should probably skip the 'what are they' section and link to a more complete article on this. Then open with more of a description about the general distribution of pyramids around Egypt (near the Nile? Next to or deliberately separated from towns?)

If it is to be a complete description of pyramids, the 'Pyramid Symbolism' section seems like a poor start. At that point we still don't have much of an idea of what an Egyptian pyramid is - are they mostly solid, where is the burial chamber, a sarchophagus, how many internal passages, what about grave good, is there a front door. The opening phrase on 'descending rays' is misleading - the reason pyramids are the shape they are, is that if you want to build big, it is about the only structure you can build without any knowledge of architecture. -- Solipsist 21:39, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The article intent is fairly clear - to provide an overview of the pyramid building phenomenon in Egypt, and a general description of the major pyramid sites that demonstate the various manifestrations of the phenomenon. Additional detail concerning the siting of pyramids and their interior architecture is certainly a good idea. The solar symbolism of the pyramid shape and "descending rays" is widely accepted. The suggestion that the Egyptians had "no knowledge of architecture", is patent nonsense. Pyramids are extremely sophisticated engineering achievements and they were built by people who knew what they were doing. And what they were doing was dictated primarily by cultural and religious concerns - not engineering limitations. --Gene_poole 13:17, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'll move discussions of a pyramid's shape over to Talk:Egyptian_pyramids, but you may want to check the etymology of 'architecture' and see when the Greeks invented the arch. The more important problem is the article's structure. If it is trying to both explain what a pyramid is and survey the major Egyptian pyramids, it is not doing either very well at the moment. If the article were expanded to do both justice, it would be too large. Great Pyramid of Giza is closer to giving a good explanation of the 'what' and 'how', and this article is closer to being a good explanation of the 'where' and possibly 'when'. I would suggest, ditching the first three sections (or merge & rename with Great Pyramid of Giza), and expanding a geographical introduction. There is also scope for articles on the individual pyramids (at the moment, this article, Dashur and Bent Pyramid repeat much of the same material). On the whole I would again suggest moving to Wikipedia:Peer review -- Solipsist 08:58, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Solipsist. [[User:Neutrality|Neutrality (talk)]] 03:45, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Support. disagree with above (especially the list thing). Very Nice Pics! -Pedro 23:25, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Oppose. The article itself is excellent, and the pictures are super - some of featured picture quality. However, with no copyright attributions, I cannot vote to support. Comment: I don't believe the individual pyramids should be broken out into articles of their own, though it might be a good idea to create some title shells which would redirect here. Denni☯ 17:41, 2004 Aug 27 (UTC)

Object - No ==References== section. See Wikipedia:Cite your sources. --mav 03:12, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Mav, it's not 100% necessary to have a references section on every page. - Ta bu shi da yu 12:53, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I must respectfully disagree. If you don't have one, at least cite sources in a footnote-like manner, as with Yesterday (song). It's impossible to write a featured-size article without having at least one or two references — perhaps a book, or a website, or something like that. Johnleemk | Talk 13:23, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The more I think about it, the more I agree with mav's position. A references section should become a requirement for featured articles. It is highly useful, nearly always possible to write up, and increases the credibility of Wikipedia. --Shibboleth 14:40, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Government of France

Self-nomination. I think it's quite complete. David.Monniaux 09:15, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Not sure if the article is correctly named and/or whether it mightn't be better if it were split. I would probably make the biggest part into an article named "The French political system" or something along these lines. The section "Recent French politics" then is (IMHO) sufficiently different to warrant a seperate article which could indeed be titled "Politics of France". The section "Political groups" could be a part of that latter article or be yet another article or list.
  I don't however think that the (as far as I saw by skimming it) very thorough and encyclopedia-worthy text about the political system should be mixed with the trailing stuff about French politics and parties. A political system is not quite the same thing as actual politics or, for that matter, the political scene of a country. The political system sets the framework, sets the stage and politics is the actual play that's then performed by various players. Ropers 19:57, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • PS: Let me add why I think keeping these things in one article is not a good idea: I would agree with just having one article if it was a minor country with little to say about both its politics and its political system. However, for a country as big and important as France, I think it's not appropriate to merge these essentially seperate, albeit related, subjects. Link them, but seperate them. Ropers 23:10, 22 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • I think you're right, and I was wondering about the same. I think of splitting the article into Government of France and Politics of France, and expanding the politics analysis (which only covers recent periods). David.Monniaux 06:51, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
      • Split done. David.Monniaux 10:17, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • I like it! Just one thing: Seeing that you have different "Related links" sections for the legislative and the judicary in the "Government of France" article, wouldn't it be a good idea to include such sections for the constitution, executive and local government as well? Also, which article are you nominating now, Government of France, Politics of France or both?
      • Government of France only. There's still considerable work to be done on Politics of France – the positions of the parties, their historical positions, the policies they apply, who votes for them... David.Monniaux 10:15, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • Ropers 01:05, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Object. I like the split too. Its a good article, with what appears to be great, detailed information. Specifc comments:
  • It begs for an intro seection, one or two paragraphs with a solid summary to draw the reader in and make a very large, possibly dry topic a bit more accessible. I like the new intro, btw.
  • Is the phrase 'checks and balances' really generally used in discussion of French Government? There was a vivid debate recently that that is only really discussed in terms of the American political system. - Taxman 20:09, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)
    • Obviously, the exact phrase checks and balances is not used when French legal scholars discuss the French government, if only because they discuss it in French. :-) The topic of independent administrative authorities, administrative law and the limits of the concept of act of government is already fairly dry, I thought that it would be appropriate to spice it with a catchy phrase that appeals at least to the American public. David.Monniaux 10:15, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • What is there is very good, but seems to be all procedural. A general article on a nation's government would seem to require some fiscal information too, such as taxation, budget summaries and approximately how much money goes where, etc. - Taxman 15:29, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

Agreed. Note though that this has high potential for POV. David.Monniaux 21:43, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I don't see how, and I'd prefer you didn't show me! Just the facts would be good, and can't be POV. - Taxman 22:59, Aug 30, 2004 (UTC)

Object - No ==References== section. See Wikipedia:Cite your sources. --mav 03:10, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The references are to be found on the official sites of the various cited official bodies. :-) David.Monniaux 21:43, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

That is not helpful. --mav

Portugal

Semi-self-nomination. Gameiro Pais 03:44, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Object. A few things:
  • Certainly hope not to offend, but there is a fair amount of language in there that appears to be from a non native English speaker. Nothing wrong with that, but it does need to be tightened up. There appears to be some text missing in the 'Lusitania Romana' section, one of the sentences is incomplete
    • Many, many good fixes by Pedro, but there is still more todo. One I see right away is the last sentence in the history section. It seems out of place and has bad grammar. I'm not sure what it is going for or I would fix it myself.
      • Not only me. Some guy did it also. I'm not a native English speaker. Fix Plz. -Pedro 17:31, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • The intro needs to be reorganized to discuss the most important info about Portugal, and about half of what is in the intro now does not qualify for that.
    • This one's not fixed. Specifically the last three paragraphs cover what a citizen is called, and the origin of the name with some seeminly out of place history mixed in. Neither of those seem like the most important things about Portugal. A on paragraph summary mentioning Portugal's long history and rise and fall of the empire would seem better. - Taxman 16:52, Aug 27, 2004 (UTC)
      • Ok. But where do I put the info about the naming? I think it is important, it shows the various civilizations that rulled the area in the past. -Pedro 17:31, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
  • The multiple main article links seem out of place. Those can all be linked in the history of Portugal or be put in a Portugal category.
  • Is Portugal really only an independent entity because one, unnamed guy decided he wanted to be and it was an opportune time while the other Iberian power groups were fighting?
  • - Taxman 13:03, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)
• If there is a " fair amount of language in there that appears to be from a non native English speaker" then correct it. I've added info on the "Missing History of Lusitania". Also corrected the history on the "declaration" of the Portuguese indepdence. That unnamed guy, didnt "make" Portugal independent, he couldnt (some say, he was weak); his son made it. I have also corrected the "main articles" has you suggested. Cheers. -Pedro 16:34, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• support. Taxman proposals were fullfilled. -Pedro 00:29, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• tks Pedro. Please state more of your objections/support.--Gameiro Pais 05:21, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Object. the history and culture section is too long and need to merged with History of Portugal and Culture of Portugal. Support. [[User:Krik|User:Krik/norm]] 11:59, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Disagree with Krik. I think "long" is not a valid objection in an Encyclopedia article! Belgium is also long in History and culture - and it is a featured article! at least Portugal is devided by areas, wich makes the reading fluent. An article are not a mere listings or links to other articles. Some parts (few) in History can be reduced and putted in History of Portugal. -Pedro 12:20, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• I solved the Problem of History of Portugal. I also reduced the size of the History section. -Pedro 12:50, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• I've also reduced Culture of Portugal section. -Pedro 14:15, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• week support as it still does need to improve it´s writing. I'm trying to help but I'm also portuguese... I am also doing some fact checking and reducing the number of red - or ? - links --Nabla 01:04, 2004 Aug 28 (UTC)
• Object - the history section could use some more summarizing with that text added to History of Portugal. The length of the history section at Belgium should be an upper limit for country pages. --mav 03:07, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Although largelly disagreeing. And I think the matters of size should be excluded has an objection. I've summarized and tryed to make it similar to Belgium; but stating that it should be like Belgium denotes lack of culture. How can you compare a country that was created in 1830 (Belgium) to another that was created in 1128? You cannot make a standard uppon something like that. -Pedro
  • Matters of size are very important for an encyclopedia and the fact that the history section is nearly as large as the article devoted to this country's history is very odd indeed. Your comparison is also erroneous: The history of Belgium does not start when it gained independence. --mav 07:18, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Hasso von Manteuffel

Self-nomination, von Manteuffel was one of the most important and talented German Generals of the World War II era. GeneralPatton 21:39, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

• Support. Danny 03:59, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• I don't like the navigation box for recipients of the medal. A list of recipients is encyclopedic, certainly, and the von Manteuffel article should link to the list. But having a navigation box seems a waste of space. Why would I want to navigate from one recipient of this medal to another? Gdr 10:19, 2004 Aug 24 (UTC)
  • There were only 27 recipients of the Knight’s Cross with Oakleaves, Swords, and Diamonds. They were considered the elite of the elite. This is a major perk for World War II buffs. The box provides quick access to this group of individuals. GeneralPatton 16:33, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
    • The same could be had with a category or link to a list of ... - Taxman 16:48, Aug 24, 2004 (UTC)
    • I understand that some people are interested in the recipients of this medal. That's what makes a list of recipients encyclopedic and that's why the Manteuffel article should link to that list. But for the general reader, why devote this big chunk of space to 26 people who have no real connection to Manteuffel? Gdr 17:17, 2004 Aug 24 (UTC)
      • It's not that big at all. I would rather have if we focused on the content, not the box. GeneralPatton 19:06, 24 Aug 2004 (UTC)
• Support with reservations. I think this is a reasonable article, given that it's not Rommel or umm Gen. Patton, and it seems to have the facts there, written fairly well. My reservation is this. The nomination says he's "one of the most important and talented German Generals of the WW II era", and this suggests that there's more to write, which'd make the article better. For example, is he known for any particular tactics or strategy? What factors were evident in his great performance, like his defence in Tunisia? What was his contribution to the battles he led (unless it was just because he happened to lead them)? Where did his talents most shine? Moving to the more general history, how did the public perceive him as a general, e.g., was he famous in Nazi Germany? I think it perhaps obligatory (perhaps unreasonably): how did he feel about the Nazis? And, how did his war service during the Nazi regime play into his political career? I don't know the answers, and maybe there's nothing more to write, but I wanted to raise the issue. If there are answers, perhaps the article could start with a few paragraphs focussed on why he should be considered one of the most important & talented WW II German Generals, and then the remainder of the article being focussed on the more fact-oriented biography. Zashaw 00:24, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Object - it is not sectioned (nor should an article this small be), which is a specific requirement set-forth in Wikipedia:What is a featured article. The article itself seems to be way too short for featured status. --mav 03:15, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)