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Image check, please

Could someone do an image check for Heidi Game? There are only two.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:19, 20 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Done, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 19:41, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:54, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

FAC: Stephen, King of England

I don't want to be a grouch, but I am a little concerned about the form this FAC has taken. While I have no quarrel at all with the care and attention that reviewers are giving to this article, what is taking place is very clearly a peer review. It has been repeatedly emphasised, by delegates and other reviewers (including me) that FAC is not peer review; that articles requiring such a level of attention are almost certainly not ready for FAC, and should not be nominated. There is a danger that, by letting this case pass without comment, a precedent will be established whereby other articles will be nominated in the expectation that they can be brought up to FAC standard within the process. If there is a reason for treating this article as a special case, can we be told what the argument is? Otherwise, the general case for the rapid closure of underprepared articles—an issue raised earlier on this discussion page—already looks harder to justify. Brianboulton (talk) 19:09, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I regard what I'm doing as a content review primarily... should I NOT be checking the actual content of the article against the sources? I'm pretty much dammed if I do and dammed if I don't... if I do not check the article for its actual content when we obviously have someone qualified to do so, what happens when someone challenges the factual accuracy of something later? We say peer review isn't required, but then you seem to be requiring peer review. If I didn't think the article was close, I would indeed quick fail the article - I've never been noted for shyness about that. However, I am actually spot checking the sources for plagarism here .. which is bringing up some stuff that needs to be straightened out. Whatever. I can close the whole review out and just not bother content reviewing again at FAC if that's the consensus, but lately, we've had plenty of reviews just as in depth, but nothing has been brought up about them ... sorry if I'm seeming touchy, but I finally get something I can actually spot check and content review and now it's an issue... (sighs). I am seriously beginning to think that Wikipedia is a hobby I've outgrown sometimes... Ealdgyth - Talk 19:20, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't remember ever seeing an article where the reviewers simply posted "supported" and that's it. Since there is a long established tradition that some reviewers believe that an article should be turned into what they prefer, instead of being actually improved, I can't believe that we shall see simpler reviewers in the near future. P.S.: Nowhere I'm talking about Stephen, King of England's article or the editors involved in it. This a comment regarding the FAC in general. --Lecen (talk) 19:32, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So you're looking for "simpler" reviewers? As the competent ones get chased away you may have your wish in the future. Malleus Fatuorum 19:57, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Brian, I'm not challenging your judgment about general standards, but I think general standards have to step aside here. We happen to have a reviewer who has in-depth knowledge. If she says she wants to keep going, and if the delegates choose to overrule her, then fine; but I don't think it's the place of uninvolved reviewers to overrule her. She's the one with the passion and the knowledge and the desire to make the article the best it can be, in this case, and (just my position) she's welcome to whatever tools she wants to use to make that happen. FWIW, I'm also reviewing. - Dank (push to talk) 19:34, 23 September 2011 (UTC) (P.S. I just realized I'm probably trying to defend my own right to fiddle with articles after they get to FAC as much as Ealdgyth's right, because I'd prefer to have the option, in some cases, of waiting until an article hits FAC before I finish up the copyediting ... that's not ideal, but it's sometimes more convenient than trying to guess when the article is just about to hit FAC, or trying to badger people into following my timetable.) - Dank (push to talk) 19:51, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hear, hear. I often don't bother to copyedit articles until they hit FAC. After all, who knows if they ever will? Malleus Fatuorum 20:00, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It seems that articles often attract detailed scrutiny only at FAC. I cannot agree that the article in question was not ready for FAC. At a glance you can see that it looks like a featured article. It is detailed, comprehensive and well-sourced. It has been through GA and A-class reviews. Peer Review is nearly useless, as there are not enough reviewers. Ealdgyth is doing the right thing, and is to be commended. We need more reviewers like that. The article should stay at FAC as long as the reviewers have something to say, and the nominator wants to keep it there. The delegates can manage arbitrarily long FAC queues; the only problem is the onerous restriction of one article per nominator at a time. Hawkeye7 (talk) 20:51, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Onerous it is, and I wish we could consistently get the page size below or around 30 noms so we could discuss removing that restriction. In the meantime, 1) review more to help reduce the backlog, and 2) if you have a FAC up that is close to maturing with no outstanding issues, then ask one of the delegates for an exception. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:14, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A question: At first glance it seems that 30 noms is a backlog of 30 days' worth of FACs. But of the 3,382 FAs at last glance, some 1,351 have not appeared on the front page, so you actually have three years' supply of FAs? Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:10, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I should make it clear that the question I raised is not Ealdgyth's or anybody else's right to review any article, merely whether FAC is the most appropriate forum for this kind of in-depth review. Personally I would have preferred to see this detailed scrutiny take place at peer review, or on the article's talk page. The danger is that editors may misunderstand this precedent and nominate underprepared and unreviewed articles believing that the FAC reviewers will do their work for them. However, if the argument here is that we have a willing expert prepared to comb through an already well-prepared article to make it even better, then I can accept that as a special case, though not as a general precedent.

I must take issue with the remark, above: "Peer Review is nearly useless, as there are not enough reviewers". This is an ignorant view, not to mention disparaging to the work of others. A high proportion – at least half – of the current FACs underwent detailed peer reviews. Take a look. There may not be enough reviewers, but the regulars at PR are dedicated, and spend many thankless hours going through often deeply unpromising material, and almost every article that looks a viable candidate for FA will get a thorough peer review. It's an important part of the review process that should be supported, not dismissed. Brianboulton (talk) 00:03, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed: this was a special case, and the few dedicated peer reviewers are amazing. - Dank (push to talk) 00:47, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Peer review obviously isn't always "nearly useless"; I have an article currently going through FAC that benefited greatly from its peer review. But I've also done several peer reviews where there's been no feedback at all from the nominator, not even a word of thanks for the time it takes to read through the article. FAC, for me, is where it starts to get serious, and I see nothing at all untoward in Ealdgyth getting serious. Malleus Fatuorum 01:19, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

While sometimes peer review can be effective, but in my wikiproject, about 60% of articles that go to peer review (they are not that many) get one or zero reviews. However, I do think it should be required for article to go for GAN first, then FAC. BTW, as of this writing, we have 33 FAC's up at this time, three of which have at least three supports and zero opposes. Y E ^Pacific ^Hurricane 16:02, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Are you saying there are thirty-three hurricanes at FAC?--Wehwalt (talk) 16:19, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, I mean total articles not just hurricane ones. Sorry for the confusion. Y E ^Pacific ^Hurricane 20:52, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It was not my intention to disparage the work of others, ignorant though I may be, and I apologise for any offence given. I was thinking of this article which was peer reviewed only to be quick-failed at FAC, then peer reviewed again, only to be quick-failed a second time at FAC. Hawkeye7 (talk) 21:05, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Template preload

Would someone here familiar with template-speak please look at Template:Featured article review/Template:FAR/Wikipedia:Featured article review preload and figure out why the preload doesn't work? I mentioned it at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review#Preload. As far as I can make out, reviews up to February preloaded the article tools and links, and reviews after March did not. DrKiernan (talk) 14:50, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed, I think. Ucucha (talk) 14:56, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure if that edit will fix it, although I haven't thoroughly checked anything. I'm saying this because the template hasn't been edited since April 2010; are you saying March 2010 or March 2011? Gary King (talk · scripts) 19:37, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

2011. It does look better after that edit: if I do a mock FAR, the tools seem to have come back. DrKiernan (talk) 19:56, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I actually stole the change I made from WP:Featured article preload, used at FAC, which does work. Perhaps MediaWiki 1.17, which was introduced in March, made some changes to the way noinclude is handled in preloads. Ucucha (talk) 20:20, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Image check ...

On Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Fairfax Harrison/archive1 please? Ealdgyth - Talk 13:31, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Doing...Nikkimaria (talk) 14:55, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone please do an image check on [Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Turban Head eagle/archive1 Turban Head eagle] ?--Wehwalt (talk) 16:02, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Doing...Nikkimaria (talk) 16:06, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:07, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Are the images okay with Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Willamette River/archive2? Jsayre64 (talk) 02:44, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WP:WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Battle of Vukovar

A little help ... please see my oppose and let me know if I'm off base. I'm asking here because this one is headed back to FAC soonish. - Dank (push to talk) 20:09, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to give in on this one; it's not urgent. - Dank (push to talk) 21:02, 29 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Close under one day?

Is it now customary to close nominations in under a day (example? Even before the nom had the chance to reply, or others with interest in the article could have a chance to look at the nom and add their opinions? I think closing the noms so quickly is very unhelpful. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 16:54, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

3 detailed opposes, clearly requiring a lot of work, in less than 5 hours. Yes it is usual. The nominator has plenty to work on now. Johnbod (talk) 17:01, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- I replied at the FAC. Not really seeing how the nominator has been abused here. - Dank (push to talk) 17:37, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"gross overcitation"

While looking at this review, I was struck by several puzzling remarks: "gross overcitation" (Wehwalt), "The citation saturation was an immediate concern" (Graham Colm). Now, I agree with Nikkimaria's "Overabundance of citations in the lead - per WP:LEAD, much of this material should appear and be cited in the article proper". But I'd like to ask of Wehwalt and of Grahalm if this is what they meant, or is it something else? Looking at the body, while I may not favor this particular citation style, I certainly DO NOT see any overabundance of cites, in fact I still see some unreferenced sentences, and given that the article uses over 200 sources, and many paragraphs contain sentences from multiple sources. For example, consider the very first para, with the following structure: Sentence 1 - Reference 8, S2R8, S3R42, S4R8, S5R8a (different page), S6R43, S9R44, S10R45. In this example, one could argue that this para has one ref too many (S3 and S4), but frankly, I think that if it wasn't there one could be cautious of what reference backs it up (just like for all the sentences that do not have a references, I'd wonder if it is the following sentence ref, or was it moved from somewhere else, or inserted unreferenced)? This is in fact the problem with the second para (S1R46, S2R47, S3-unreferenced, S4R48, S5R44). Here there is most certainly not too many references, but a sentence making an important claim goes unreferenced and without checking the source (a book, without a Google Book link, making the verification that much more cumbersome), I, as a reader, cannot trust this sentence - it may be backed by the following R48, but it might also have been moved there from somewhere else, or added plainly unreferenced. Thus while I agree with the reviewers that the lead has overcitation problems, my primary comment would be inadequate citations in the rest of the article. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 16:54, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I saw strings of six and eight citations following a sentence. That's over the top. We have footnotes for purposes of verification. If you have eight footnotes following a sentence, is that stated to give support to the proposition by showing that eight authors stand behind it? Or that facts in that sentence are drawn from eight different sources? It makes it very difficult for verification to have to deal with a plethora of footnotes. What I would suggest is that you source individual sentences or groups of sentences with no more than three footnotes, and three should be the maximum and rare.--Wehwalt (talk) 17:01, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And yes, it was especially bad because it was in a lede, which need not be cited so long as the material is reflected in the article body. However, I don't hold the fact that a lede is cited against an article, some people do cite their ledes. I personally don't think it is the best practice, but it's OK in my book--Wehwalt (talk) 17:03, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WP:CITEBUNDLE recommends bundling citations to prevent them becoming a distraction from the text and interrupting the flow. DrKiernan (talk) 17:07, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I object to more than 3 references appearing like taxis in a row - it's ugly, and following Johnbod's law actually makes the reader more, not less, suspicious of the statements, as this is normally found only in the worst battleground articles. If you want to cite multiple sources, put them all in the same note. Johnbod (talk) 17:11, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That clarifies things to me. I can understand the benefits of the bundle, I was afraid some people were annoyed at the fact that too many sentences had cites. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk to me} 23:35, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WP:Featured article candidates/Background of the Spanish Civil War/archive2‎

Hoping some kind person will do some copyediting on this one. It's not bad, and it sailed through the A-class review ... it's just in a dense, historical style that I'm not good with. - Dank (push to talk) 21:30, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Source review needed

Would someone mind doing a source review for Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Shapley–Folkman_lemma/archive1? Nikkimaria (talk) 03:12, 4 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Request for two scripts

Links are a constant problem at FAC. Two tools would save a lot of time:

a script that removes (bringing up a "changes" screen, so that the removal happens when you "save") the second and third link to the same term in an article (counting or not counting links in the lead).
a script that brings up a "changes" screen that will add links from a user-definable list.

Can I bribe someone (with free copyediting) to work on either or both of these? - Dank (push to talk) 13:31, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The first one gives me pause. I will sometimes have a second link in the body to the same term if I feel the reader needs reminding, if it was only briefly mentioned earlier and we've had a lot go on since then.--Wehwalt (talk) 13:57, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, it won't always be correct, but it's useful to be able to identify repeat links easily. I'll see what I can do. Ucucha (talk) 14:22, 7 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I wrote a little piece of JavaScript at User:Ucucha/duplinks.js (documentation at User:Ucucha/duplinks) that hightlights links that occur more than once in an article. It's prone to false positives (legitimate repeat links), though; I'll probably add some code excluding anything in an infobox or navbox. Ucucha (talk) 18:59, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Very nice. Excluding any infoboxes or navboxes would help a lot; I tried it on HMS Eagle (1918), and it's highlighting a lot of links duplicated in the infobox. How hard would it be to make it configurable to ignore the lead section? Many writers link things once in the lead and once below the lead. - Dank (push to talk) 19:22, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Ucucha, this will be useful (especially after you enhance the code as you suggest). Now how about a script that tells me what to write when I'm having trouble creating decent prose? Sasata (talk) 19:29, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I changed the script to exclude any links in infoboxes and navboxes; I'll think about how to separate off the lead. I'll want it to also check the lead separately for duplicate links; Eagle, for example, has aircraft carrier linked twice in the first few sentences.

Sasata, something like:

$( function() { if(article.isBadlyWritten() { alert("Your prose is terrible. Go back to school."); } });

perhaps? Ucucha (talk) 19:34, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

LOL, Ucucha, if you write that tool for Sasata I'm going to need to steal it :) As for the link checker, I've installed it and like it. Agree with the above though that it would be nice if something could be done to separate out the lead, as I often re-link something in the body that was linked previously in the lead (especially if there are six sections and 3,000 words between the two!). Dana boomer (talk) 20:08, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to do the same. I've now rewritten the script to first create a separate container element for the lead, and then search for duplicate links in the lead and the rest of the article separately. Ucucha (talk) 20:56, 9 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Could you (maybe optional) exclude file captions, templates, tables and references (named and unnamed) aswell please? Additional links in those "special areas" seem to be generally accepted. Many thanks for that nice tool. GermanJoe (talk) 12:11, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed that would help. I'll encourage people to make some judgment calls on when (not) to follow the recommendations of the tool. After we've got some confidence that the tool won't be misused, then it would be really helpful if the tool pulled up an edit-changes screen that would actually remove the extraneous links when you hit Save. - Dank (push to talk) 14:54, 10 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am working on a little homemade script for the first function, that analyzes a complete article and creates 3 lists: a list with all found links per section, a list of all duplicate links (including pipes) with total and lead count, and a listing of possibly problematic link situations. There are only 2 slight problems, it's written in Open Object Rexx (a common public license REXX variant) and it is coded as a simple tool without much regard to structure or professional coding guidelines. If any competent programmer wants to check it or expand it for Wiki-usage, i'll be glad to mail it. GermanJoe (talk) 19:06, 8 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Image review needed

WP:Featured article candidates/Stephen, King of England/archive1. Nothing but the image check is missing. - Dank (push to talk) 13:57, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Done. One image I suspect you'll have to delete or replace, a few others need mild tweaking. Interesting article.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:18, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks much. - Dank (push to talk) 15:31, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Statistical analysis of how FAC handles articles on important topics

The experience of bringing brain here has revived concerns I have long felt about how FAC works, and finally motivated me to do some statistical analysis. My findings are reported in User:Looie496/Analysis of FAC. I would be interested in comments, and would especially like to know if I have made any incorrect assumptions. Looie496 (talk) 15:16, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Congrats on the article though I don't consider medical articles within my sphere of expertise, and pleased that I managed to sneak on the list by proxy of Mr. Nixon. My personal opinion that any FA from before about 2007 had an excellent chance of being crap and therefore what you are seeing is a rise in FA standards. Possibly the fact that by 2009 almost no important articles were being written from scratch and so a subject had to attract someone's attention both to write it, and to improve it.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:24, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think that the vastly increasing standards (I have a half-drafted essay here) means what you're seeing is the result of a similar amount of effort throughout this time period. Hastily (by modern standards) promoted articles have continued to improve to merit their FA status; many articles that could have been FA then are GA now. So overall there is no doubt that fewer important topics are making it to FA, but this is not indicative of a fall in general improvement in these areas. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs) 15:38, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting essay, thanks for pointing me to it. Although I agree with much of what you say, my conclusions are not as sanguine as yours. I see no evidence that the rate of FA promotion of important articles will increase in the future -- my personal experiences tell me it will very likely not happen unless policies are changed. Looie496 (talk) 16:08, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I see a problem. Of the 3+ million articles on Wikipedia, how many of those would you consider "important"? If we use the core and vital lists as a rough indicator of "importance" then perhaps 3,000 articles? Is the ratio of 3000:3 million much different than the ratio of lesser:important articles being promoted at FAC? In general, "important" articles require a lot more work than those on minor topics, and those who wish to undertake this worthy task should try to make their FAC experience as smooth as possible by soliciting opinions of as many other experienced editors as they can before bringing the article to FAC. A collaborative strategy should be the norm for articles on important/core/vital topics. Sasata (talk) 16:22, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I certainly think there is a problem, of which FA is just a symptom. Typically, certainly in the humanities, the more important the subject, the weaker our article is likely to be (at all levels), and we are just missing any article on many important topical subjects (eg Italian Renaissance sculpture - almost any general sculpture topic). We have done very well for nearly 11 years without any significant concerted editorial focus or direction directing our coverage, but that has now ceased to work. Coverage of narrower topics continues to expand, but few articles on large topical subjects get significantly improved, in my experience. Johnbod (talk) 16:46, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Johnbod, especially for humanities and social science topics. The higher level articles are terrible such as Language, Ethnicity, Anthropology, Culture, Kinship. etc. I work on some of them but I have dropped the idea of doing FA's long ago - the process is too taxing on one's nerves and selfesteem. It simply isn't fun to write FAs.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 11:58, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the concern - my own thoughts on it are in the written-up version of my talk to the UK Chapter conference in April. I could quibble with the selection basis of the stats - to my mind the weakness is best expressed as affecting all broad/large topical subjects, especially if abstract, rather than merely "important" ones. I'm happy the Statue of Liberty is "important", but at the end of the day, like the vast majority of FAs, it is a single discrete subject with a fairly limited literature. The bibliography lists 6 works, the earliest from the 1980s, though other sources are also used. Some ones you missed that are certainly broad, and I would say important, are my own Funerary art - for which the total literature is perhaps larger than any other FA except maybe Shakespeare, Mayan stelae, and Ancient Egyptian temple. In Funerary art, whose theoretical scope covered the whole world since the Stone Age, I think reviewers were happy to accept that an FA-size piece could only skim the surface, and had to skip large parts of that surface. Johnbod (talk) 16:31, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well put. Most of us work alone or in small groups and articles about subjects limited in scope and requiring only consultation of a limited literature are within our abilities. Articles on large amorphous subjects or with large literatures are harder, that is why I am impressed by your efforts on brain (and Johnbod's on the Funerary art article). There's a reason few core topics are FA.--Wehwalt (talk) 16:38, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There's a limit on how much can be accomplished by focusing on what happens at FAC, because resources will always be limited at FAC. The key is finding a critical mass of interested reviewers at some step before FAC. Milhist started participating in a big way just a few months ago at WP:PRH, which is the regular peer review for history-related articles. I'll try to spend more time on all the PRH reviews, and more time discussing how those articles might fare at FAC. - Dank (push to talk) 20:12, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oops, workload has gone up, I probably won't have time to cover the peer reviews. I'll put some thought into recruiting. - Dank (push to talk) 12:37, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see this as an FAC problem, but as an article-writing problem. It's hard to write those big articles. My pet project is the Texas Revolution, which I've approached in a bottom-up manner because there is so much written about it. The main article has improved (with LOTS of room to go), but I've now added two dozen articles that didn't exist before I started reading (not counting the dozens on topics just outside this scope). I've brought a dozen of these subtopics to FA status. Eventually, I will make that main article be up to FA standard, but it will take a while.

In my opinion larger articles truly need a collaboration. Truthkeeper and I tried fixing up Catholic Church and it was just too much for the two of us. If we can get enough people interested in a big topic, then hopefully it will be ready for FAC. But I do not think that watering down FAC standards is the answer. I also question the methodology of how articles were chosen as important. Karanacs (talk) 21:23, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's exactly right. I was surprised to see at least a couple of articles I've worked on in Looie's list, but not surprised to see none that I'd worked on pretty much alone. To take one example, just look at the number of supporting articles around Gunpowder Plot for instance. I'd also question this idea of "importance". One article not on Looie's list that I certainly consider to be important is Peterloo Massacre, a great example of a bunch of like-minded editors coming together and making it work. The key to "big" topics is effective collaboration, nothing to do with the FA criteria. Malleus Fatuorum 21:33, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm reminded of the Donner Party as well, another article I'd consider to be important by any objective criteria and another good example of effective collaboration. Malleus Fatuorum 21:35, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

[edit conflict] My experience has been similar to Karanacs's. I once wished to bring every U.S. President's article to FA standards. Lately, I've begun to doubt it's possible. Look at this list. The most obscure articles have the best ratings. It's not because I'm a big Chester Arthur fan (I'm not, he was a terrible President). The reason should surprize no one here: big articles atrract more good editors, but they also attract hacks, noobs, gadflies, trouble-makers, vandals, and POV-pushers. It's not a problem with FAC, it's just a by-product of our open editing process (and the profusion of sources for popular topics, some of which contradict each other). --Coemgenus (talk) 21:37, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ten out of forty-three is not that bad, really. I'm planning to do some work on Teddy Roosevelt, expect it at FAC sometime in late 2013 (I am perfectly serious).--Wehwalt (talk) 14:36, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely spot on: "The key to "big" topics is effective collaboration, nothing to do with the FA criteria." Graham Colm (talk)

Catholic Church is a good example of the problem I see, Gunpowder Plot and Peterloo Massacre not so much. The main problem arises where a lot of the information comes from textbooks. In an article like Brain, over half of the content is stuff that everybody who teaches an Intro Neuroscience class knows, and referencing it is a matter of paging through textbooks looking for something that comes close enough to be used as a source. That's excruciatingly boring and really a complete waste of time. The result is that writing an article like this for Wikipedia is about ten times as much work as writing the article for a real encyclopedia would be. That's not the only problem, but it's the killer in my opinion. Looie496 (talk) 22:44, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you were collaborating with someone else who had access to suitable textbooks, and who didn't find that kind of work excruciatingly boring, then there wouldn't really be a problem, as you'd be combining your strengths to make a better article :) Sasata (talk) 23:02, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Added to which, as Karanacs says, when the supporting articles are in place the lead article becomes somewhat easier to write.

In German there is a saying: Wenn das Wörtchen "wenn" nicht wär, wär mein Vater Millionär. Which means: If it weren't for the word "if", my father would be a millionaire. Looie496 (talk) 23:17, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We have a similar saying in English, but was your father aware of the need to recruit collaborators if you want to progress any article you might consider important to FA status? It's a Wikipedia problem, not an FAC problem. Finding productive collaborators is difficult; finding brainless trolls is all too easy. Malleus Fatuorum 23:25, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@Looie496: you make a good point about the need to trawl textbooks for facts that seem elementary to a subject matter expert. Perhaps one way to think about this sort of referencing is that it helps future editors defend the article against decay. I don't know if this is ever likely to happen to "brain", but I've seen plenty of cases where passing editors want to add their opinions to FAs without sourcing, and the ability to revert unsourced material simply because it is unsourced (or poorly sourced) is a big timesaver. (I rarely see this approach used when the added material is possibly useful -- most watchers of FAs seem very fair minded to me.) So the two things go together: the open nature of the wiki requires that expertise, when injected, should be identifiably expertise and not opinionation. References are about the only way to achieve that. Having said that, I agree with others above that a collaboration can take much of the sting out of this sort of work -- I haven't collaborated on many articles myself but I have watched the process, and tedious work shared among five or six is much pleasanter. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:54, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I wound up having to do much of the later work on Nixon on my own, though Happyme22's did a huge amount of work earlier on and the article could not have made it without him. A companion later on would have made life easier. As for maintaining FAs, I maintain those I contributed to politely but firmly. If not, well, what you did to improve it will slowly be blurred away. As it is, I wonder if I am not shouting at the tide to turn back and not destroy my little sand castles.--Wehwalt (talk) 01:11, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Here's what I think is one of the most important ideas in 20th-century linguistics: Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. But it's basically no more than a start. Why don't some of these "important article" warriors help out? No article is more important than any other. Malleus Fatuorum 01:20, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, any definition of "importantance" is extremely subjective. Jezhotwells (talk) 01:24, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps Looie could have worked from the existing article importance structure. While it is also subjective, and in my view very flawed, it has the advantage of community acceptance. (I am being somewhat tongue in cheek here)--Wehwalt (talk) 01:26, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Reponding to Malleus; most recently I've been creating humanities stubs. Perhaps the most important ones were Australian settlement and settler society, both theoretical concepts in history. The latter very important to the history of Imperialism, US, Canadian, NZ, Australian, South African (and by exception and extension) Caribbean, Liberian, South American societies. The former of vital importance to the debate on Fordism. I think that our problem with the humanities articles (apart from the general problem of cranks, collaboration, and source requirements) is that the humanities' discursive model of evidence and theory generation is in conflict with the positivist mission of the encyclopaedist. The fact that I did a double take when there was no Australian settlement when I tried to refer to it off hand when talking about racism in Fordism indicates that humanities people don't realise the depths of theoretical construct they use. Fifelfoo (talk) 01:35, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- You're responding to me in what way? I have no interest in Loooie's idea of important topics. Malleus Fatuorum 01:46, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  - You were discussing an article in the humanities and social sciences. I was responding because your mentioning Colorless green ideas sleep furiously prompted my thoughts. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:27, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary break

Two comments: As you disclaim yourself, "important" is a very POV concept. As a Canadian, people like Terry Fox, Wayne Gretzky and John A. Macdonald are infinitely more important to me than Gerald Ford, as one example. So while your list might be complete from an American perspective, the numbers would change depending on the nationality of the individual. IIRC, there are several English Kings that are FAs that would be considered of greater importance in Great Britain than any US President. Second, I think there is a danger in using the gold star as a validation of a topic's completeness. It is a convenient benchmark, and certainly shows that such articles have received many reviews. But, an article such as Potato is very well done, and aside from a couple citation needed tags, looks to be a pretty good article. Not perfect, but for a project that itself is not perfect, remains a solid example of the community. That is just a general rambling though, and I am doubtful that it actually challenges most of your argument. I think your point about the 2009 change is valid. Bluntly, my first FAs, from 2007 and 2008, were pretty mediocre. I think the emphasis on form and the "nitpicking" was actually a general benefit to the project, as for myself at least, it has vastly improved my writing. I am not certain though that the broader number of sources is a real issue for generic topics, however. When push comes to shove, 100 books on cats will ultimately say the same things. I would be willing to bet that on such topics, you could write a FA quality article with just a couple books - so long as their scope is broad enough to match that of our article. Reso lute 03:52, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If an article is derived entirely from a couple of books, it is basically a disguised (usually not very well disguised) form of plagiarism. Looie496 (talk) 15:39, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What definition of "plagiarism" are you using that leads you to that absurd conclusion? Malleus Fatuorum 01:12, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Plagiarism is not the right term, but there can be a problem if a Wikipedia article, rather than summarising a source, acts like a vampire bat and sucks all the information out of a source, leaving the reader no reason to consult the source (which is by this point a dessicated husk, tossed to one side by the Wikipedia editor). That is using the work of others to drive traffic to us rather than them. This might not, however, be what Looie meant. There is also the concept of 'reverse engineering' a Wikipedia article by consulting the original sources used by a later source. It comes down to whether Wikipedia articles should be comprehensive, leaving readers no reason to engage in further reading of the sources used, or whether Wikipedia articles should summarise sources and be willing to stop short of excessive detail and say "for more, see this source". Striking that balance is not always easy. For broad topics, this is never a problem, though. It is usually only a problem for narrow topics, where less sources exist. Carcharoth (talk) 02:10, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think they had some pithy term over at y'all's forum (Wiki Review) calling it "masticating sources and spitting out FAs". I think live in a yes/no Aristotlean logic world. So I think it is too simple to say that FAs have zero value. Some of them certainly have very additive value. That said...there is a grain of truth in this churning/transformation criticism. At least for some articles. At least something to consider as a concept.24.131.1.132 (talk) 23:34, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Importance" is not entirely subjective. Whatever their perspective, few would argue that, say, John F. Kennedy or Mao Zedong are historically more important than Tom Driberg or Richard Cordray, or that The Marriage of Figaro is a more important opera than, say, L'ange de Nisida or Trial by Jury. But to me, that illustrates one of the main functions of Wikipedia's featured articles: to provide well-researched and comprehensive articles on less exalted topics which don't get this level of attention in conventional reference books. I could give lots of examples, but the one that comes first to mind is Ealdgyth's delvings into the lives of obscure English medieval bishops—what a resource that will prove to be one day, and where else in one place is such information to be found, readily available? Even those occasionally tiresome articles on ephemeral pop songs/singers and nondescript lengths of road might in time be a goldmine for social researchers. So we should not worry too much if there is an apparent emphasis at FA on less important subjects. In a sense, that reflects Wikipedia performing its unique function. Brianboulton (talk) 11:45, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What really matters from a practical point of view is the size of the relevant literature. Lots of Wikipedia's current FAs involve a literature of well under 100 publications. For topics like electron or brain, the number of relevant publications is literally in the millions. Looie496 (talk) 15:39, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but good editors, as you are to get brain as far as it has gotten, know how to pick and choose from that buffet.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:43, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To make sure my basic point comes through, let me give three examples: (1) Venus is the second planet from the Sun; (2) The electron has a negative charge; (3) Richard Nixon's vice president was Spiro Agnew, until he resigned and was replaced by Gerald Ford. Finding sources for facts like that is a lot of work -- you might not realize how much if you haven't had to do it -- and it is a complete waste of time. Looie496 (talk) 16:20, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Those things you mentioned probably could get by without citations, as they are well known, or unlikely to be challenged. Something like "He postulated that nerves activate muscles mechanically by carrying a mysterious substance he called pneumata psychikon, usually translated as "animal spirits"" is not. Sasata (talk) 17:23, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's what the policy says, in practice it's always interpreted at FAC as "reference everything, no matter how obvious or trivial". Jimfbleak - talk to me? 18:40, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Jimbleak is correct, in my view. And so is Looie. It is why I keep a small stock of reference books on various subjects.--Wehwalt (talk) 18:51, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't get how Yellowstone and Yosemite NPs are on the list but Everglades NP is not. No great mountains in it? Must be. Damn the Everglades for not having mountains. --Moni3 (talk) 20:58, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it used to, but darn that global warming!--Wehwalt (talk) 20:59, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

O_o That's a whole lot of warming. --Moni3 (talk) 21:00, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Too lazy to check if you just added it but ENP is in the VA level 4 ("expanded", "10000 thing") list. I actually think it would be better to list the Everglades under geographic features and delete it as a park. I think the park aspect is less notable than the swamp (or slow moving river or whatever the fuck the proper term is) itself. that whole thing is very ungainly though. Should be a pivot table in Excel. Very laborious too look for duplicates or for entries that cover a concept (e.g. probably adequate to have a VA for History of the Pelleponesian War and skip having one on Thucydedes as a person.)

An absolutely fascinating thread. Not that it hasn't been discussed before, but this thread is one of the clearest articulations of this issue that I've seen, and the 3 or 4 userspace essays linked at various points are well worth reading. It is blindingly obvious, of course, that the breadth of a broad topic is what can make it difficult to write about, but broad topics are traditionally what general encyclopedias deal with, and specialised encyclopedias with more specific topics. Wikipedia is a mix of the two (and everything else as well). One of Wikipedia's strengths, though, is that the broad and narrow topics are all lumped together and it is easy to click around until you find the level of detail you want. The question tends to be whether the bottom up approach or top down approach to editing works best for a particular topic. The general answer seems to be to contribute and write at the level at which you are comfortable, and according to the range of source you have access to (or may need to have access to). I tend to agree that focusing on challenging articles (while not taking on a challenge that defeats you as an editor) is the way to go. Learn the ropes in an area you know well, and then try and contribute in other areas as well - even if not to the same degree, it will still help improve things. I guess what I'm saying is that if specialists gradually become generalists, that will help. Carcharoth (talk) 22:59, 13 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree in principle but in practice I doubt that this happens. My own FA work is in highly specialized areas; in theory I could eventually progress to the summary articles but I don't have the breadth of learning in Anglo-Saxon topics to do that without a more knowledgeable collaborator, and there's just too much to do in the science fiction project for me to have a hope of getting to the top of that pyramid. I mentioned above that I believe the answer to Looie496's concern is collaboration; I think targeted collaboration is a possible way to go. The FA team, for example, had some successes, and I think a group of editors like that, if motivated by a significant article, could help push an "important" article to a higher standard without requiring a subject matter expert to put in the mind-numbing labour Looie496 describes. Not every topic is suitable for a given editor to help with, but good copyeditors and well-educated lay readers are useful for almost every article; and even I could go and find reliable sources for the kind of well-known facts that Looie496 gives as examples. The FA team ceased to cohere for a couple of different reasons, one of which was, I think, that there was no good way of picking the right articles for it to help with. However, if it's true some form of structured collaboration is necessary to get the more important articles to FA standard, then some venue for forming those collaborations would be helpful. I don't believe Wikiprojects can be the answer in most cases because so few of them have sufficiently many editors to provide enough active collaborators. How about a new version of the FA team focused strictly on the core topics? Or even just on the elite nine? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:29, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's maybe not such a bad idea; an article like science ought not to be too tough a nut to crack. I do question the importance of some of these so-called important articles though. Who on Earth is going to come to Wikipedia to look up house, or toy, as opposed to opening a dictionary? Malleus Fatuorum 01:09, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If anybody wants to organize a group to work on science or mathematics, count me in. Looie496 (talk) 18:20, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, house gets over a million page views a year. (Toy only a couple of hundred thousand.) Looie496 (talk) 01:38, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Probably people looking for House (TV series). Carcharoth (talk) 02:00, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Which is an FA that gets about 6 million views per year - more per day than most FAs per decade. I'm also happy with popularity as one measure of "importance". Johnbod (talk) 18:07, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is it possible to calculate what percentage (zero point something) of clicks to articles are to featured content? In a way, that is what I am getting that a number of editors are saying is the stat that they say we need to improve.--Wehwalt (talk) 21:29, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

FA could do more to be relevant

1. If one argues that DYK should be deprecated "because we need to concentrate on quality, rather than quantity", then the vast amount of work on low view, low importance FAs, kind of says FA is really not the solution either. (And the "four award" is the enemy, not the ally, of driving what our readers (our READERZ!!!) need.

2. Today, we have an FA running on an African game park that gets 30 views per day. At least, it is a decent article and covers its subject. A few days ago, we had an FA on an obscure, demolished rural train station. That article, should arguably NOT even be an article. Certainly, the writing does not mostly cover the topic of the train station, but instead is padded out about the obscure, expired railroad. And no one noticed this during the review! And this is an article from 2009. And that ran on TFA in 2011.

3. If we really care about our readers, we would CARE about how poorly we are covering topics that are either high view or high importance (almost all "vital articles" are also high view. If you don't believe me, wander over there and click on 5 at random.

4. The very highest level articles are somewhat difficult as they are really categories or entire subjects of human knowledge (e.g. history). However, obviously it is possible for someone to summarize a field, people do it all the time in the real world. And for that matter, the vast majority of "level 3" or "level 4" vital articles are on discrete subjects (a person, a species, an element). So, you don't feel up to an FA on religion, fine. That is no excuse, not to go after Erasmus, or Calvin, or St. Paul.

5. FAC has the stench of death and decline. I read a remark a while ago from someone saying she wanted the page to be "down" to 30 articles only. (And at that point, she would have multiple articles from specific people). Huh!? Why not want to grow? Imagine this thing 5 times the size. Then you could start to drive real improvement of the product for the reader. And the place is already dangerously in-bred (Sasata, Ucachaca, and Visionholder are some of our best, no doubt, but they are doing a huge amount of reviewing each others articles). Why not want to grow? In size, diversity, and RELEVANCE! Imagine if this were a project in the business world (or even an ambitious nonprofit). Where is the plan, the effort, the HEART to get better?

6. I can random brainstorm several ideas for overcoming the problem of low production of important content:

A. Fund some studies and bots (the vital article project is not really maintainable as is, we need an Excel pivot table, and automatic updating).

B. Shinier or new or different attagurl symbol for getting a more important topic to FA (or GA). You can say, no one responds to that, but I bet a lot of people do "care" about the stickers they get now (it drives work). And if we hear a lot of screams from the mushroom/coin/synagogue/busstop/hurrican writers, then maybe we know it does have an impact and they just want to keep getting rewards for irrelevant work.

C. A "ladder board" that accomplishes the same as alternate symbols. A simple thing would be to factor by pageviews. So Wehwalt, you probably need 50 towelhead coins to equal one tricky dick. Or use the vital article list (1 point for off the list, 5 points for level 4, 10 points for level 3, 20 points for level 2, 50 points for level 1).

D. Prioritized attention of reviewers and directors on the more important articles. Put them at the top, hector for reviews for them (I'm still remembering the request that I review a battleship article that the directoress said was dishwater dull (why not use psychic capital to drive the more important articles?))

E. Come up with a better method of doing reviews (the all on one page serves neither the writer nor the reviewers). It's not how reviews are done in the real world, not how done at open review journals, not how GA does it, etc. It is a way pain in the ass to go after any in depth topic, without the ability to do section breaks and the like. To really grapple with difficult and important topics (not check ref formatting on a sock drawer article), we need more space than the RFA-like process of these "old style" FAs.

F. For that matter, I really don't think directors should be "scanning down the page" and doing promote/archive. I have caught some where it was pretty obvious Karanac was not really engaging with the article and reading it well, but just doing sort of a clerical "wiki admin" close type process. Instead, divide up the articles by "editor". this means the specific director can immediately decide if an article should be cut without review and to watch the process and see if the thing is meeting needs or not. (The efficiency gain allows deeper engagement, than if it is just ad hoc "do you have time this weekend, to swing through").

G. Allocate TFA space prioritized by importance of the topic (page views or spot on vital list or what have you). But the train station? That thing is a sin. Just think what a normal "non wiki" person thinks when that is what you highlight? That is what you drive and reward? That is what you want? Jimbo's little kid in Africa needs more of that?

H. I wonder if GA is a part of the solution. I still see a lot of great important topics going through GA, but very few in FA. For that matter, while FAers say "we're not just a nitpick review", I can find several articles (like that damned train station) where it looks like no one really questioned the content, just went after sentence level prose issues and ref formatting.

I. A project to drive outreach to retired faculty.

J. More Jimmy Butler shit.

L. Prizes similar to the Declaration of Independence thing, that reward important articles. (And don't underestimate the nature of notoriety here. I can drive more competition in a salesforce by having a watch or a Harley (that is visible, that they show off) than just a cash reward.)

M. Some Jimbo/Sue editorials or the like.

N. Throw it out to the public (give talks on the PROBLEM) and see if it gets people to come. And not talks to UK wikimedia, but talks at nonwiki places.

O. A contest (project versus project) on how many Level 4 VAs, they can get to FA (or GA) in a specific time.

P. Require reviewing for FA submitters (I think it would actually drive LESS tit for tat reviewing, drive more diversity). Anyone capable of doing an FA is capable of doing a review. And

Q. Fill in more ideas...brainstorm, brainstorm.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.238.184.111 (talk • contribs)

You're not signed in. I THINK I know who this is. Couldn't stay away? :)--Wehwalt (talk) 20:33, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You think you know who this is? The edit summary names someone, so no need to guess. FWIW, I agree with much of what the IP posted above, but trying to change too much at once is a recipe for failure. Which of the proposed changes, if any, should be prioritised for further discussion and rapid implementation if everyone agrees on them? The reference to coins and Nixon was very funny. but I didn't get the Jimmy Butler bit. Carcharoth (talk) 01:58, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Carcharoth, TCO added his comments day before yesterday, Karanacs and I commented then. He then deleted them. A few minutes ago, he restored them with the edit summary you mention. When he first put it up, he didn't say who he was.--Wehwalt (talk) 02:02, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

D'oh! I completely failed to see the date history there. Sorry about that. Carcharoth (talk) 02:12, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Np.--Wehwalt (talk) 02:14, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Vanished users don't get to come back to their same haunts. If you want to reengage, let's go through proper channels to get your history restored. Karanacs (talk) 21:31, 12 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Priorities

For Carchy:

(1) Why not tell me what YOU would prioritize? It's not even just about getting the right answer, but about forcing yourself to think.

(2) My quick priorities:

A. A set of four thermomometers (for VA levels 1, 2, 3, 4) that show quality composition. Displayed prominently at Sue Gardner's blog (like at the top). I think just putting it front and center will drive work by the community, and even people off line. I think that will work better than trying to "convince people" (especially holdouts or people with a big investment in the old priorities).

B. Some self-made, without authorization or discussion, system of new stars or a laddar board for people that get VAs to GA/FA. I think FA writers like to have more stars because it makes their dicks look longer. Just set up some new game for them to play and some of them will follow (and the ones who rebel against it, so what...but if they whine hard it is likely cause they hate the new priorities that diminish their old advantage from killing boars in the forest like Cartman.) Something like what Tony does with 4 award, but the inverse. And that old Tony discussion pretty much showed all these issues. And Sasata even admitted he could be incented with stickers.

C. Some money for someone to overhaul tracking and display of VAs. Really just a grant for one person could drive the stuff. And a re-energized program like this would give the gnomey assessors like Suncreator something to do that he enjoys and that is more a benefit than making Blofield stubs from translation. Even much bigger benefit than ranking turlte articles (a project that died). [I am trying to think of ways to work together...not just have everyone magically become a TCO/Carch.) 71.246.147.40 (talk) 02:27, 14 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, as I said, I'm perfectly happy to acknowledge that you have some good ideas here, but it's difficult to engage with them at the moment. And please don't call me Carchy. It's the only time I've ever been called that and I hope it doesn't catch on. And I should ignore the "not just have everyone magically become a TCO/Carch" comment, but I'll just say that I agree that everyone being like me would be horrendous. Everyone being like you/TCO, I really don't want to comment on (and I mean that in the nicest possible way). And for someone who says that people should engage with the comments, not the name, you have a knack for naming people in what you say. Most people realise the need to strike a balance - you can't avoiding name-checking people at times, but some restraint and generalisation is also good. Carcharoth (talk) 04:38, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'll try to remember what to call you. Is it just the Carchy that bugs you or the truncation to Carch? I don't know about toning down the names/examples. I think it gives a little flavor. Besides, if you accept that the ball is what matters not the man, than it's irrelevent how much crap I mix in. It might be AN ISSUE OF ITS OWN, but it doesn't change basic points. Just like if I'm "abusing RTV", it doesn't change relevance of a point I made (could still be crap or good).

ISAYAGAIN give me YOUR three priorities. Just pick three. Force yourself to try. Then we can discuss.71.246.147.40 (talk) 05:34, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

quality of average pageview, first thoughts

Of course, there's probably a way to answer Wehwalt's question about the average pageview quality experience either by surveying or by sampling.

1. Random article viewing I tried hitting random article at first and copying down both quality and pageview. I got through 33 of them, but it was pretty laborious with all the stubs. Would need to do a huge amount of those to get a reasonable sampling of the higher pageview articles and the higher quality ones (it is such a tailed distribution).

That said, even plowing through 33 articles, you start to see patterns. Within that group there were 23 stubs, 6 starts, 2 C, 0 B, 1 GA, 0 A, 0 FA. (Interestingly, no lists.) Of course, with more sampling, you would start to see FAs in the right proportions and the like. But still...can see that on a per article basis, most are stubs. Also, stubs had very low individual views (avg 300 views in 30 days). But the starts averaged 2000 views, while the Cs averaged 1633 and the one GA was 1261. Seems like the real differentiation in viewing is stub versus non-stub. Looking at totals (average article times number in category), starts had the most views (12,000), but stubs were close at 8,000. I think the average page view "experience" is probably on the stub side of start, but closer to start than stub.

BTW, even just looking at 33 articles gives an interesting look at the 'pedia. Saw a couple Indian village stubs. Lot of BLPs. Bands and songs. Molecules. Stuff tagged for years as lacking refs. I saved notes into Excel, but kind of aborted the random article approach for now.

Here is the data dump (using bullets to get around the tabs, is there a way to just cut and paste into a wikitable)? I sorted by high quality to low, and within categories by hitcount.

random articles

name last 30 days grade comments

The Problem Solvers 1261 GA individual episode of a TV show
Battle of Smolensk (1943) 2003 C several projects have it as a C. Milhist has it at start. This is a former FA.
Undiscovered (Brooke Hogan album) 1263 C Was unranked, but I gave a C as similar to other album C's. Probably a *bit less external reffed prose than a normal C article, but for an album having a nice table of the songs is most important.
Saab 9000 6545 start sketchy sourcing, tagged since 2008
Almaty International Airport 2327 start main airport of Kazakstan
Nag (missile) 2250 start no comments
Kyle Craig 753 start Fictional character of a popular thriller writer. Unranked and judgment call on the quality. Is unreffed, but has several paras of writing. (could be a stub, not a C)
Joe Paopao 439 start unreffed BLP, CFL football coach (would pass an AFD, not like Pamela Sneed)
North Carolina Highway 181 170 start WasA C, but I lowered it. Lot of writing, but refs were very sketchy (google maps and the like) and only 5 and not inline. Looks like a lot of OR description of the road.
Molar conductivity 2311 stub no comments
Succinic anhydride 1825 stub a molecule
García Álvarez de Toledo, 1st Duke of Alba 1124 stub previous months more like 300 (this one had one big spike, not sure why, not conntect to content) Almost a start article in that there are some sections and writing. But all the content is just geneology and not specific to the person (a 1400s nobleman). Nothing on his life.
Luny Tunes production discography 426 stub Unreffed (marked since 2008). Looks like a non notable band.
Zhaotong 323 stub unreffed
Alexis LeVan 289 stub beauty pageant contestant (no hot photo either). Unreffed, but has an EL to her website.
Steven Oliver (footballer) 283 stub BLP football player, reffed.
Static discipline 236 stub unreffed single sentence (was ranked start, but I demoted)
Larri Passos 234 stub tennis coach BLP. tagged for 2 years for notability and refs. Unranked, so I ranked. Had one (wrong) ref, that I cut. Now unreffed.
Equalizer (k-os song) 168 stub unreffed single sentence. Tagged for lack of notability since 2010. Was start, but I lowered.
Jean-Louis de Cordemoy 154 stub orphaned since 2008
Xinhua District, Tainan 140 stub no comments
Water polo at the 1965 Summer Universiade 134 stub Unreffed, was unranked (I ranked it). Almost no content and ought to be merged into the 1965 Universiade article (which needs building up).
AppleWorks User Group 130 stub Unreffed, has EL to website for the group. Not sure why need an article (google would take them to that website. we add nothing).
Grasplatz 129 stub A small defunct rail station on a defunct rail line. Malice-idescent should take this to FA!
NRSN2 127 stub Orphaned since 2009. Two sentences. Is a human protein (function not described). Was start, but I lowered it. Possibly promoting some individual scientists paper, but I could not tell
Tawapuku River 96 stub 2 sentences. Only ref is a "place names database"
Ted Ranken 86 stub 1908 Olympian, unreffed DLP, non notable person
Chelamala, Malappuram 78 stub unranked, but I call it stub. Village in India, couple sentence article
Archibald George Campbell 75 stub I tagged it as an orphan
Mykhailo Tyshko 65 stub another 1908 Olympian
Pamela Sneed 62 stub unranked, but I rated as a stub. Is a promotional BLP for a normal person (should not be an article)
Motakondur 25 stub village in India. Unreffed. Has been previously deleted. Orphaned.

2. Looking at the FA, GA categories. Should be possible to either survey or sample FAs and GAs and see what sort of pageviews they have. Then if we know the total site pageviews, you could at least see what the fraction of user experience is in GA or higher (ignore A for convenience).

GA has a random article tool. (misbehaving now.) FA does not. Still, for either, could just do something arbitrary, like pick a few manually from the lists. Or look at most recent promotions (or for FA, most recent TFAs).

FA does have a random tool, it's here. Malleus Fatuorum 20:39, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

2.1 FAC queue: went through the 15OCT11 FAC queue and just looked at each article's "last 30 days" pageview count. The highest was brain at over 100,000. The lowest was that Somerset Cricket club at 93. More than 55% of the articles had less than 3000 views in 30 days (i.e. less than 100 looks per day). the median number was 2,192. The average was 11,435. Will try cutting and pasting my spreadsheet data (tabs did not hold, so I used bullets:

FAC queue

name pageviews, last 30 days comments

Brain 112,825
Fluorine 63,234
Australian Cattle Dog 50,521
Conan the Barbarian (1982 film) 32,532
Middlesex (novel) 16,480 region is 20,00 views
Stephen, King of England 14,301
McDonnell Douglas AV-8B Harrier II 14196
King Charles Spaniel 10,689
Battle of Vukovar 7,910
Roger Hornsby 6,758
Willamette River 6,593
Tintin in the Land of the Soviets 5,265
Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes 3,682 has an 800 "spike"
HMS Eagle (1918) 3,068 has a 400 spike
Standing Liberty quarter 3,003
Faryl Smith 2,723
Turning Point (2008) 1,661
Mothers of the Disappeared 1,474
Ernie Fletcher 1,296
Jovan Vladimir 1,269
1689 Boston revolt 1,030
Exchequer of Pleas 878
Background of the Spanish Civil War 791
Russian battleship Sevastopol (1895) 723 has a 100 spike
Arado E.381 589 3 days recent spike to 100
1860 Atlantic hurricane season 516 almost half is from last 3 days spike
Knowle West, Bristol 506
Chaplain-Medic massacre 489 name changed recently, so I used the dashed version from month before
Hudson Valley Rail Trail 365
Battle of Kaiapit 247 was a 24,000 spike from On this day, so used previous month
Peter Jeffrey (RAAF officer) 223 50 spike
Somerset County Cricket Club in 2009 93

Some other comments. obviously FACs are not the same as FAs. Would be interesting to know if high hit count articles fail FA more (could examine last 30 non promotes). Or just look directly at the FA list itself. Also, even if more important articles have the same chance of making it through, they may need more time in queue, so that could skew the numbers.

If anything, the "low count" articles get a little bit overcounted since there are some strange spikes at times that help them and I left in for all but one which was on the main page. (I think when new content is added to articles, the robots come and look at the article more...and for low count articles this is significant. I have seen this with my own editing. And articles going up for FA, tend to have a lot of recent bursts of activity.)71.246.147.40 (talk) 08:08, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

2.2 OCT TFAs: Not trying to make any point on main page usage, but just wanted a way to select some passed FAs randomly. Grabbed the 01-16OC TFAs and looked at their page views. Granted, this is probably a little skewed to recent passes. I did look at June hit count to get 30 days and avoid issues with the spike given when they ron on MP.

Similar story as with the FACs. Top was "Film noir" at over 100,000. Bottom was that train station I hate at 291. Median FA was 2,305 views in a month. Average was verage FA was 9,664. More than 56% were under 3000 hits per month. Raw data:

OCT TFAs

Name JUN pv

film noir 107,163
Triton (moon) 12,640
Just Like Heaven (song) 8,224
Fridtjof Nansen 6,065
Indian Camp 5989
Mother and Child Reunion (Degrassi: The Next Generation) 3,179
Hermann Detzner 3012
Free State of Galveston 2,356
Battle of Valcour Island 2,254
Telopea speciosissima 860
2010 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Final 762
Marojejy National Park 659
1964 Brinks Hotel bombing 529
1941 Florida hurricane 345
The Author's Farce 303
Waddesdon Road railway station 291

71.246.147.40 (talk) 10:39, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

2.3 Recent GAs: Looked at the 15 GAs listed as recent promotes as of 15OCT11. Way more freaking depressing than I hoped (hoping to see important topics hit, without the footnote fetish of FA). But top 3 articles were recent events (a 2011 movie, a 2011 TV episode, and a 2011 news event). After that a lot of very low notability items (did not recognize them). Probably out of the whole set of 16, the only one I cared about was a bird species article with moderate (just over 3000) hit count. Many of the GAs were new articles (created after JUN11). Two-thirds (67%) of the GAs had less than 3000 hits per month. The median article had only 647 views/month! The average though was 29,000 (bouyed by the very high hits of the 3 recent event articles). Raw data below, again bulleted, as this buggered user interface...sigh.

Recent GAs

Name JUN11 hits Comments

Fast Five 252,604 A 2011 movie
Death of Osama bin Laden 142,362 Some big spikes, but still a multipe thousands per day topic in recent months. Recent news event. 200+ references. Guess the SEALS did something right for once.
I Am Unicorn 43,249 A TV series episode aired on 27SEP11. No article before SEP. I used the OCT views. Really strange pattern of spikes and the like. Think it will be popular, but smaller a year from now. Not sure how to handle. Wonder if GA's should be covering such recent events. Even info on critical reception and commercial results would seem to be limited less than a month after the show played.
American White Ibis 3,476 A decent animal article
Reportedly haunted locations in Washington, D.C. 3,000 Pretty synth-y, OR-y article but lots of sources and content and decently done.
Architecture of the Song Dynasty 1,297 Little bit OR-ey. Could justify that, but just wish better pulled off.
Love Is Blindness 671 A pop song
Canberra Roller Derby League 647 Would be zero if I used June numbers as a recent article creation.
Litorrio class battleship 461 (no comments)
1975 Pacific hurricane season 312 A very "listy" article
Battle of Machias (1777) 304 An obscure battle (landing at a town). 7 references. Very short article.
St Nicholas, Blakeney 300 A pretty obscure church. Not Notre Dame. Did not exist as an article until mid sep. Almost all the recent traffic seems like new content crawling. If using last 30 days instead of June, would get 962 views, but low days are single digits, so I suspect long term views will be under 300/month
Hurricane Norbert (1984) 300 Another God-dee-ed hurricane article. Article was created in August. Some recent spikes, probably related to content addition. Seems like long term viewage will be single digits/day (less than 300/month).
Vitold Belevitch 191 Used July as June had a big spike. Pretty short article.
Exit (song) 91 A U2 song that never tracked top 40.

2.4 Random FAs: Used Malleus's random FA tool and selected 30 FAs and looked at their hits for June. The highest was Peru at over 150,000. The lowest was an individual hurricane at 413. The median was 3,372. 43% were less than 3000 hits per month. The average was 18,986. Intestingly, all the numbers seemed a bit higher than the TFA or recent queue sampling. Probably need more numbers to be sure, but it does seem to indicate that more recent FAs are more obcure than older ones. Even of the whole set though, probably more than half are "never heard of it"s. Raw data, below:

random FAs

name JUN hits c omments

Peru 156,578 Article seems short given the topic.
Alzheimer's disease 138,992 Great topic to cover. Good article. Like the pics a little bigger/better, but still quite good.
The Mummy (1999 film) 76,767 couple strange spikes (also in other months)
Ico 30,529 video game
Columbia River 28,368 Pretty good FA
Trump International Hotel and Tower (Chicago) 24,652 One of the tallest buildings in the world. Still, Sears Tower and Empire State Building, both more tip of the tongue are B class.)
Death Valley National Park 15,397 Good topic for an FA. Death Valley itself (as opposed to the park) is only a C.
Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp 15,355 (no comments)
John Knox 11,575 notable Protestant
Mana (series) 11,411 A video game
Javan Rhinoceros 10,642 (no comments)
Geography of Ireland 7,230 Ireland is GA. Wonder if an article like this would get more traction if titled X's geography, vice "Geography of X"
Introduction to general relativity 6,745 Interesting approach to covering hard topic
Construction of the World Trade Center 4,020 WTC is GA
July 2009 Ürümqi riots 3,398 (no comments)
Amchitka 3,345 An island in Alaska
Quatermass and the Pit 3,345 1950s BBC TV show. Poorly illustrated (Wiki has a hard time well illustrating topics where it is hard to get free photos).
Gyromitra esculenta 2,994 A mushroom article that has some interest (edible species, that is poisonous when raw)
Aylesbury duck 2,785 A domesticated duck of the 1800s, not commercially significant now. Article lacks a graphic showing the decline in numbers
Hasekura Tsunenaga 2,772 1600s Japanese ambassador. Kind of a cool topic. Matthew Perry is only a B, but has 15,000 views per month
Felice Beato 2,739 A photographer. Used July numbers as June had a huge one day spike.
Melodifestivalen 2,108 Swedish music competition
No Depression (album) 1,383 pretty low hit counts for a pop music article. I listen to 90s indy music, but had not heard the one clip included in article. Album was not a commercial success.
Bruce Castle 1,305 (no comments)
Western Chalukya Empire 1,280 An Indian kingdom of the Middle Ages
Brockway Mountain Drive 1,114 9 mile road. Short article
SMS Bayern (1915) 994 I used July as there was a huge one day spike in June
Geology of the Bryce Canyon area 838 Bryce Canyon National Park also FA, but this is not an FT. (decent article)
Honório Carneiro Leão, Marquis of Paraná 491 1800s Brazillian. "Empire of Brazil" is already an FA also. Brazil itself (probably of most interst) is only B, though.
Hurricane Guillermo (1997) 413 Is anyone surprised by how little this article is ever looked at?

2.5 Random GAs: Lacking a working random GA tool, I did manual random selection. What I did was go to the page that has the whole list and just toggle down a screen at a time on the monitor, picking the article at the center of my screen. Probably slightly overcounts articles with long names (maybe more crufty). Probably slightly overcountes articles in categories with low coverage as there is white space between categories (maybe less crufty).

Didn't really look at the articles much other than pageviews. Even with the scrolling method that undercounts popular categories, there still seemed like a way inordinate amount of articles on television, sports, roads, and hurricanes. Several screens for each. Very low coverage of physics, chemistry, philosophy.

Pretty depressing pageview results. Worse than the FAs. I had 85 articles. The highest was "New Zealand" at over 300,000. The lowest was Tropical Storm Wukong (2006) at 59. 71% of the articles had less than 3000 views per month. The median was 906. The average was 12877. I was amazed that about 20% of the articles had less than 300 views per month. for reference the average stub (and we have a lot of awful one liner place name stubs) is 300 views per month. IOW, a sizeable fraction of GAs are irrelevant to the readers. Raw data below:

Random GAs

name Jun hits comments

New Zealand 336,745
Bill Clinton 235,974
Muhammad 182,493
Ashley Massaro 37,714
Mario Balotelli 34,597
Croatia national football team 31,274
Cadmium 25,638
Parks and Recreation (season 3) 23,619
The Living Daylights 23,108
Covenant (Halo) 18,198
Battle of Chosin Reservoir 12,426
Star Wars: Dark Forces 11,178
Video Phone (song) 9,540
The Gathering Storm (novel) 8,565
Dornier Do 17 7,207
Return of Saturn 6,651
Mount Adams (Washington) 6,353
Climate of North Carolina 4,850
Final Fantasy Mystic Quest 4,742
Dr. Octagonecologyst 4,695
Elite Ice Hockey League 4,657 used July (JUN had spike)
Robert Benchley 3,834
Minehead 3,601
Tom's Rhinoplasty 3,570
Italian battleship Roma (1940) 3,158
Eliminative materialism 2,968
Avery–MacLeod–McCarty experiment 2,876
Dartmouth Medical School 2,610
Abergil crime family 2,589
Flag of Kosovo 2,430
English Water Spaniel 2,405
Battle of Oriskany 2,350
Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems 2,231
Dangerously in Love 2 2,027
Lisa vs. Malibu Stacy 1,965
Bart the Lover 1,864
2008 Pittsburgh Steelers season 1,745
Drug Testing (The Office) 1,512
Sunny Lee 1,341
Janet Jackson as gay icon 1,318
Lujan-Fryns syndrome 1,314
William Robinson (gardener) 1,070
Stellar rotation 906
McLaren M2B 849
2008 Chinese Grand Prix 829
Flight deck cruiser 787
2010–11 Michigan Wolverines men's basketball team 596
Portland City Hall (Oregon) 564
Charles R. Forbes 557
Symphony in White, No. 2: The Little White Girl 552
February 2009 tornado outbreak 550
William Claiborne 499
Madhouse on Castle Street 488
Cambridge Water Co Ltd v Eastern Counties Leather plc 487
89th Military Police Brigade (United States) 465
Sir John Fowler, 1st Baronet 462
Maman a tort 459
Hugo Danner 450
Donegal fiddle tradition 435
Alyssa Healy 392
Braathens SAFE Flight 139 384
Three Mile Island: A Nuclear Crisis in Historical Perspective 381
History of the Oslo Tramway and Metro 334
Guardians of the Free Republics 323
Navajo Nation Zoological and Botanical Park 311
Ontario Highway 35 307
Brian Moore presidential campaign, 2008 292
Maiden Castle, Cheshire 272
Marasmius rotula 250
Chittenango ovate amber snail 242
Lake Burton, Antarctica 242
Cornwallis in Ireland 230
German submarine U-40 (1938) 190
Harold L. George 182
Jacob Svetoslav 171
Council of Keewatan 169
Church of St John the Baptist, Asenovgrad 156
Guto Puw 156
Maryland Route 12 128
M-107 (Michigan highway) 119
Effects of Hurricane Charley in South Carolina 101
Hurricane Madeline (1976) 97
New York State Route 31E 62
Hurricane Roslyn (1986) 61
Tropical Storm Wukong (2006) 59

P.s. Could one of you admins take off the anti-cursing filter on my IP. Feel inhibited.24.131.1.132 (talk) 01:07, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Vanished User 01123581321 (five brownie points, anyone?)(I'm having a little fun with you, TCO), can you hide the lists? I think the flaw in your methodology is that you are clicking randomly. My question is what percentage of clicks are to featured content. The world does not click randomly.--Wehwalt (talk) 10:58, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(1) Collapsed lists. (2) Wehwalt, if you know the average views of an FA and the number of FAs, you know the total viewing of FAs. If you go find out the total pageviews for the site, you can just divide the numbers to get your fraction. They must have that total somewhere? If not, we could try to estimate it by sampling the population (I worry a little about sampling a tailed distribution, though, need to check requirements on that). (3) I would really not rule out GAs. From a user experience, GAs are pretty darned good and it seems like more high view articles go through there (at least in total).71.246.147.40 (talk) 20:10, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

TCO, this is all very interesting but thought you might want to know that the page view tool isn't working. So before you continue your analysis you have to realize that you're using faulty data. We don't really know what the Oct page view statistics are - I'd be interested to see your list of TFAs with the actual views, but we can't. Truthkeeper (talk) 11:25, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's never worked perfectly, missing odd days, but does seem more erratic than usual at the moment. I think myself the time has come to professionalize it. Would it raise howls of protest to require FACs to give indicative viewing figures in the nom? It is a criterion I sometimes use in deciding what to review, though not of course how to review it. Its not a figure that features much in FAC thought, & just increasing awareness might affect the issue we are discussing beneficially. Johnbod (talk) 12:12, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I do agree that it needs to professionalized because a lot of people rely on it to some extent - particularly at DYK. I'm becoming conflicted about page view statistics for FACs. In general I like to work on pages I think we should showcase but realize that with Ernest Hemingway (about 10k daily) I was lucky - a new editor who jumped in and somehow managed to bring a big biography through FAC. Since that time, I've either failed or given up on other "big" biographies. I do think Murasaki Shikibu is important, but she only gets about 200 hits a day. At the moment I'm interested in the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, which in my view is "important", but the page views hover around 200. So I'm no longer convinced it's a good indicator - or at least leaning in that direction. Truthkeeper (talk) 12:41, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

200 per day is about as good as it gets for an individual medieval work of art - it's still 50K pa. The article is tiny and long-term views would increase a bit, probably not massively, if it were better. The Turin-Milan Hours, possibly even more important to specialists but much less well-known (partly because most of it got burnt before colour photography), averages about 14 a day, for what is by a long way the fullest online description. That something gets low views doesn't mean its unimportant, but things that get very high views over a long period are clearly important to our readers. Johnbod (talk) 15:20, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is an advantage to being a rookie FA nominator who has bitten more a bit more than he can chew, people admire that a bit and will help if they can. I would suggest adding page views to the toolbox that is automatically added to the individual article FAC pages. If you require people to state the number of views, you will get angry contention here. Simply adding it to the toobox is better.--Wehwalt (talk) 15:42, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This has been bothering me. Please correct me if I'm wrong but the implications seems to be that a "rookie" who has "bitten off more than they can chew" might get an easier time - a pass that maybe shouldn't have been a pass, that isn't sitting well with me. On the flip-side, why don't we treat everyone equally? Rookie or not, biting off more than is possible, should garner equal admiration. I don't think it does. I think we become jaded and that turns off editors when the rookie status is over. Anyway, not sure I've articulated this well - but the paradigm seems off somehow. Rookie + big page = admiration & pass. Experienced editor + big page = scrutiny, more scrutiny, unrealistic expectations and failure. Truthkeeper (talk) 04:34, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think adding it to the tool box is an excellent idea. This is a long needed discussion. Ceoil (talk) 17:47, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's settled then excellent. Johnbod (talk) 23:18, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Truthkeeper: (1) What is the nature of the tool flaw? Where written up? Is it biased overall low or high? Or against low view or high view articles? The numbers I get back seem to make sense in terms of observed patterns (articles you expect high are high and even day of the week effects and summer lull hold well). (2)Ideally, I would like to download yearly pageview data as some topics (e.g. "Silent Night") have seasonality. I do see spikes (which affect low view topics much more) from DYKs, OTDs, TFA etc. If I could just get data dumped, I would probably eliminate the 4 highest and 4 lowest days from each article. That eliminates most of the problem. There is still some higher traffic when new content is added into low view articles (I think it is the content extraction robots, I wonder how they know to come?), which benefits low view articles, but I wouldn't begrudge them that and it doesn't make that much difference over a year..71.246.147.40 (talk) 20:10, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's broken. The numbers are wrong. It's been broken for a week or more. It's been discussed on the toolowner's page (he's traveling at the time), it's been reported at Village Pump technical and I think maybe a Bugzilla report has been generated but can't remember. Truthkeeper (talk) 21:07, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks TK. It seems like the major issue is that it has not given views for the last week. For my analysis of the OCT TFAs, this would have no impact as I looked at JUN stats anyway. For the other two, I assume it would affect all the articles so that they are about 80% of what they should be in views. (On a proportional basis, equal impact. But on a relative basis, it just understates the advantage that the high view articles have.) I'm not going to bother re-running those, cause it only makes my case stronger. Will try running future stuff using June. (has 30 days)

Doesn't this sort of change the October TFA data though. Has 31 days. Truthkeeper (talk) 22:17, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Babe, I explained that. I used JUNE for the OCT TFAs. I wanted to keep out the "push" from main page viewing. And I wanted 30 days. For the others, like for example the current FACs, it only makes my case stronger. I mean "Brain" goes from 100,000 to 120,000 and "Somerset Cricket" goes from 100 to 120. so that means the differenc in the two would go from 99,900 to 118,180! I already have stuck a Dick Francis bolt gun to the horse's head, do I need to play Tarantino games with the carcass? (Are u mathy?) 24.131.1.132 (talk) 22:28, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No I'm not at all mathy. And to be honest long posts make my eyes spin if you know what I mean, so I've reading bits and pieces. I get what you mean now - clever of you to look at June (with 30 days) for the stats. Truthkeeper (talk) 22:45, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am surprised too. I use that tool regularly, when I see an unexplained spike, it's a big clue that something has happened and the article may need updating. I have noticed nothing unusual. Murray Chotiner chugs along in the low double digits as expected.--Wehwalt (talk) 20:51, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It often catches itself up later, but compare the edit history with the page views for my new Royal manuscripts, British Library - still zero page views for sept 29 - oct 6, when it was being intensively edited. This tool used to give long-term edits, but is now "being upgraded" & not working. Johnbod (talk) 23:18, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Random sampling tool

The random GA sampling tool is not working. I put in a request to the toolbuilder to fix it and to also build one for random FA sampling. Should be fixed rapidly. I'm assuming this place is like an American company where you show up the first day and your business cards are printed and on your desk and IT has already configured your laptop and you are crunching content in the afternoon. Not a European one where you spend 3 weeks in the hall waiting for an office and then the phone is still not switched on. ;) (btw, could someone make the smiley code work?) 24.131.1.132 (talk) 22:13, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary and capricious break

What relevance does the number of page views have to whether an article meets the GA criteria? Jezhotwells (talk) 20:54, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Or the FA criteria, and I've wondering that as well. So far as FAs are concerned I find myself at both ends of the spectrum: William Cragh apparently got only 388 views in September, although I suspect that would increase significantly if the TV progamme about him was repeated; similarly with Moors murders, which gets a little more than an average of 1000 views a day, but when Brady dies that will inevitably rocket. Which brings me to my point. Many articles, like the the example of House mentioned earlier, are only of transient importance if judged by article traffic alone. Malleus Fatuorum 21:03, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks TK, will check it out. Importance and "meeting the criteria" are two different aspects, peeps. Like fucking duh. Like 3rd semester calculus when the z's and w's come floating in. There is more than just y as a function of x. Pageviews is not a perfect metric for "importance". But it's a lot better than nothing. Look...in current FACs, "Brain" and "Fluorine" come out on top. "Somerfuckingset Cricket Club in 2009" came out on bottom. Aristotle would be happy! :) You can use the VA list. It really doesn't matter that much. Yeah...I see that list and doubt we need good articles on each individual day of the week. And maybe Mallman has heard of some great books I haven't or visa versa. But that's a detail that does not change the gestalt. For that matter, Mallman has advocated having paid editing to write out the core articles (so which are they...they sure as Hell aren't that train station TFA). Getting too arsed around kvetching about these sorts of things is just missing the forest for the trees.24.131.1.132 (talk) 21:34, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

TCO, your shifting IPs are going to confuse students who study the early days of The Database. Can you please unretire?--Wehwalt (talk) 21:36, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I second that. You bring up stuff I've wrestled with. I seem to be drifting toward less important, low page view pages because to be honest the noise is low, the stress is low, it's less of a hassle, blah blah, but your points are important. So log in please. Truthkeeper (talk) 21:43, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If by "Mallman" you mean me than I don't doubt that I've heard of some great books you haven't and vice versa, but I still fail to see what any of that has to do with importance as judged by page views. Malleus Fatuorum 22:14, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, we would come out with very similar lists of Great Books. We could probably even mathematically characterize it (t-test or something). I bet the number is fricking astronimical in terms of showing that views are actually very similar. As for the latter, my point (and I think John backed it above) is that getting distracted over Great Books VERSUS page views is silly. Even if you are an advocate of some Stanfordian list or the like...you STILL do better over the damned train stations/mushrooms, if you just ACCEPT Star Wars and the rock albums and go off of page views. I mean "John Steinbeck" will hold "Somerset Cricket Club of 2009" down on the playground and just rub its face into the rocky pavement.24.131.1.132 (talk) 22:21, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

TCO, at some point after I've probably long spaced out this conversation, please stop by my page and remind me. I wouldn't mind working on Steinbeck - and would be very interested in East of Eden. But I'm seriously busy with work at the moment so those are projects that need more off time than I've got. Truthkeeper (talk) 01:17, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's a date, wild woman. Expect me when you don't expect me. ;-) 24.131.1.132 (talk) 01:29, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know why you keep coming back to Somerset Cricket Club and trains stations, as I have zero interest in either. Malleus Fatuorum 22:33, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Neither do I dude. I'm interested in the Wiki articles, the FA articles, etc. I'm discussing examples from the set.24.131.1.132 (talk) 22:39, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I would argue that page views is a dramatically awful way to measure importance, and as such is actually worse than nothing. Consider the top five most viewed articles tagged under the Canada Wikiproject for September: Justin Bieber, Drake (entertainer), Canada, Take Care and Avril Lavigne. Only one of those articles is remotely "important" (and fortunately that one is an FA). Pop culture and current news tends to dominate such lists in my experience, and consistently so. That your look at FAC at a single moment in time yielded results you like only reveals a lacking sample size. Reso lute 06:06, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yawn...

(1) If you think a resample would give a different result, run the experiment with a bigger sample. You could even just run it at the same size. If sample size is giving a bad answer, you would expect to see something different just by a rerun. I've played with sampling a few different ways now. So there is an imperfect repetition even in that.

(2) Since there are a few articles with large views, they CAN have a dramatic effect on the AVERAGE. But if you want to look at median views or percent above/below a threshold, the nunbers won't vary appreciably.

(3) If you don't like pageviews for importance, than use VAs. I mentioned above that of the current crop of FACs, there is only one within the VA top 1000 and one in the VA top 10,000. The other 28 are on more obscure topics. BTW, almost all VAs have high views compared to the train stations and hurricanes and the like. For instance the two VA articles ("Brain" and "Fluorine") were also the highest page views! So page view importance and VAs should really be allies of convenience at least. Emphasizing the difference is not as important as the bigger issue, which is sheer triviality and churn. (I'm still sort of recovering from all the hurricane GAs I saw when sampling that population and their incredibly low readership. Read above under "2.5 Random GAs".)71.246.147.40 (talk) 07:19, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

While I agree that some measure of page views could be used to guide work flows, I want to take issue with this comment (from way above): "IOW, a sizeable fraction of GAs are irrelevant to the readers". This misses the point that most of Wikipedia is irrelevant to its readers. Readers only read a small fraction of Wikipedia. Indeed, Wikipedia is so large that no single person can read the entire thing, and even if they did, it would have changed before they finished. So you need to combine different metrics and not use any single metric too much. I would go with some standard encyclopedia publication for basic standards here - indeed, I think this is how the initial core and VA lists were generated. Carcharoth (talk) 08:00, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The thing is, TCO, if we abolished all the hurricane articles, or if they never were, if at some point early in Wiki, there was consensus say, storms that didn't kill large numbers of people weren't notable, that does not mean people who would have written our storm articles would have happily chugged along improving our coverage of the Italian Renaissance.--Wehwalt (talk) 08:43, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(1) I'm not advocating banning certain types of articles. I'm just trying to highlight what we are lacking (many important articles either by pageview or VA, doesn't matter) are not high quality. And then large amounts of work is going on that is producing highly refined work on subjects of triviality. This is not about any one person, but about stepping back and looking at the overall program. (2) GA is actually worse off than FA. Looking at the last few articles in that sample of 85. Ai-yi-yi! (3) You made me smile with the comment abour redirecting the crufters to Guiotto. (Reminds me of my farmer grandfather saying, I'll show you how to plow with the goat.) I do think you could motivate some changes in behavior though (and it is not about specific individuals, but about populations). I wonder how many of those 'cane and street articles are Cup creations (I understand now why Sandy makes the Cup people brand themselves). I bet if you changed the rules of the Cup (like made points directly relative to page views) you would drive big changes in behavior that could have very NOTICEABLE and FAVORABLE impacts on the quality of this entire enterprise.71.246.147.40 (talk) 09:44, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I wondered how long it would be until it was the Cup's fault. Still looking for a scapegoat? We have introduced rules like that; any article which was covered on 20 or more Wikipedias at the start of the year, or any vital article (level 3) scores double points. And yes, we have seen a slight increase in the number of articles of this sort being worked on. While I recognise the importance of what you are saying, it is not my job to force people to work on articles that they do not want to. J Milburn (talk) 09:48, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Make science a featured article

I (and others) suggested above that collaboration was a way around some of the problems that can arise with very broad articles; and I also suggested working on the elite nine articles. Looie496 responded that they would be willing to work on science. I'd like to try it; I would love to be part of getting a "top of the pyramid" article to featured status.

I don't believe this is achievable without a group of several editors experienced at FA, and a further group of editors very knowledgeable about the topic. Are any FA regulars interested? If so, I would like to post a notice of intent at Talk:Science, and start canvassing editors with a background in the practice, history or philosophy of science to see if they would like to participate. It would be a significant test of Wikipedians' ability to collaborate on a large topic, and I think it would also be helpful to have participants who have successfully collaborated on a large scale on articles in the past. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:55, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I do not have any competence in the field, but I will be happy to help out with the grunt work of copyediting and so forth.--Wehwalt (talk) 11:57, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have much background in the field, either, but would also be happy to help with "grunt work". Dana boomer (talk) 12:38, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've got a couple of vanilla history of science books (and thick ones, at that :) Barring that, I'd be fine with grunt work. Buggie111 (talk) 17:53, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be up for that. The history of science has long been an interest of mine. But as to whether I can do the collaboration thingie I'll leave for others to judge. :-) Malleus Fatuorum 20:35, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I totally heart (RESPECT!) what y'all are doing here. I am such a troll, so not sure if it is better if I stay away and stay gadfly or jump in. In any case, I did bookmark the article to read it. I think the major challenge is content. Deciding what should be in/out. Which is GOOD actually. Now of course different people will make different decisions. And it is not a deterministic problem to solve. All that said...looking at that article, I can see obvious issues (like lacking some description of the major subfields, emphasis on neoliberal points (and leave them, keep the peeps happy, but just tone it down in amount and add an occasional small alternative). Omitted areas like "big science". Heck...go get ORLady and Carch in there to help a bit...those are some smart dude/ttes.). Anyway...congrats. Be smart...work hard. Good luck!!!!24.131.1.132 (talk) 23:52, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The best thing about a mix of science folks and laypeople is we should be able to balance jargon vs accessibility. M'kay?

NB: The biggies that I've gotten to FAC have been interesting in their epicness - quite a different experience to the more esoteric ones. Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:56, 15 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Cas, without wanting to flatter, you'd be a good guy to drive this and make it happen. What is needed here is someone to bring people together. I hate to put you on the spot, but know you are an idle bastard on wiki with feck all else to do. But for some reason people seem to respect you. So.... Ceoil (talk) 01:22, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, but I'm not one to be herded, so I'm afraid it'll be down to you Ceoil. Malleus Fatuorum

Wouldn't it make sense to wait for Cas to say something? I'm not one to be herded either, but I'm not too worried about it. Looie496 (talk) 03:19, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It was meant more as a quip, but as large a project as Mike proposes (and I really welcome his proposal, its very exciting) needs a center to my mind. Wheather that is an individaul or a group I dont care, I was just hoping that the idea does not die out. Malleus your about the last person I would ascribe the word "herd" to, fair play to you, and as somebody who grew up on a farm dealing with very cranky cows and sheep indeed, I know what I'm talking about. I dont want to put pressure on Cas either, though. Ceoil (talk) 03:40, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(sticks fingers in mouth and whistles) hey, I figured some folks would check the talk page while gasbagging over here....say something Rents... Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:23, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Avoiding possible doubts about impartiality

A possible conflict of interest arises in any case in which a delegate directly supports or opposes a nomination at FAC. The question arises because a delegate may be seen by reviewers, nominators, and other delegates as more powerful than other editors involved in the FAC process. To please a delegate or to avoid irritating a delegate, nominators, reviewers, and other delegates may give undue weight to a delegate’s declaration of support or opposition. To prevent hard feelings that might arise from any possibility of such a conflict, I suggest that paragraph 4 of the FAC instructions be altered to say: "The FA director, Raul654—or one of his delegates, SandyGeorgia, Karanacs, and Ucucha—determines the timing of the process for each nomination. For a nomination to be promoted to FA status, consensus must be reached that it meets the criteria. Consensus is built among reviewers and nominators; the director or his delegate determines whether there is consensus. Although the director and the delegates may comment during the process, they will not directly oppose or support promotion. A nomination will be removed... " The suggested change is italicized here only to make more clear what change I'm proposing. If the change is adopted, it should not appear in italics. Finetooth (talk) 00:05, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is there an occurrence that this is in response to?--Wehwalt (talk) 00:32, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No. Finetooth (talk) 01:55, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The delagates, in fairness to them, seem to be scrupulous aware of this and tend to recluse if there is even a chance of a COI, precieved or otherwise. Ceoil (talk) 01:31, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

They might like my idea. It's not an anti-delegate proposal. Finetooth (talk) 01:55, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

They're not awful, granted. That said, the older I get the more Balkan cynical I get. Watching Sandy pass that Iri-leaker train station, while discounting A330 because she hates the kids at that aviation project...;-) 24.131.1.132 (talk) 01:34, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So get a user name and start bitching on nom pages (again). And by the way leaker is way off base. Tut tut. Ceoil (talk) 01:40, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Gotta agree with Ceoil re leaker. Also the train station was well-written - I read it at FAC; I also read A330 and the prose was dodgy. Prose is a problem for us and it's a reality that well-written pages will have an easier time at FAC. Truthkeeper (talk) 01:51, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

80% of that short article was covering the railroad, not the station. It was padded out star-cruft. Only a single reviewer engaged with the thing and he critted minor refs and prose issues, vice content. The other couple supports were one liners. That was a directoress failure (so was Carabane). And Sandy is actually better than Karan or rhodocene-Andy, so it's not an issue of an individual.71.246.147.40 (talk) 02:17, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I for one am getting tired of this. Either reclaim your previous identity or fuck off. Malleus Fatuorum 02:19, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would say the same things, regardless the signature, Malleus. If all this place wants to be is a steadily shrinking and more inbred pond, then it makes me want to be there even less. And want to leave you to your old ways and avoid disturbing your social dynamics.71.246.147.40 (talk) 02:28, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that you don't have a page so this discussion is taking up a lot of space on a project page when maybe some of it should go on a user page. FWIW. I hadn't realized you'd vanished until about 30 minutes. Shows you how hooked in I am! Truthkeeper (talk) 02:34, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

TCO, per your block log, you invoked WP:RTV, which states "Vanished users have no right to return under a new identity or as an IP.". Please log in and re-claim your old account, as has been requested multiple times earlier on this page. Dana boomer (talk) 01:53, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, but we dont need to be rule-nicks here, most of what TCO is saying is bang on the money. We all know him, and his, eh, ways; I just meant he should actively participate. Ceoil (talk) 02:05, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

An agreement is an agreement, fuck the rules. It's about honesty. TCO is accusing others of dishonesty while behaving dishonestly himself. That's unacceptable. Malleus Fatuorum 02:40, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is more like "flouting the rules" than "being dishonest".71.246.147.40 (talk) 04:17, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No to be fair I think he let his tounge slip, on two counts and was slapped for it, twice. End of story. These things happen, no reason to derail a thread or halt what has been a constructive discussion. This should prob be hatted and is a good example why thread discussions never build and why any insight fails to get traction and just gets lost in noise. Ceoil (talk) 02:56, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Erwin has hugged you! Hugs promote WikiLove and hopefully this one has made your day better (and hopefully wasn't meant as an invasion of personal space). Spread the WikiLove by hugging at someone else, whether it be someone you have had disagreements with in the past or a good friend. Happy editing!
Hug others by adding {{subst:Hug}} to their talk page with a friendly message.71.246.147.40 (talk) 02:17, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Random articles

Someone asked me at my Meta talk page to make a tool for a random featured article. I've already got two tools that can be used for that: random article and random article - simple. They both redirect to a random article in a category. So both may be of interest for you. In most cases the simple tool will suffice as it uses less resources and is therefore more likely to work for categories with many pages. I explained the differences at Template_talk:Random_page_in_category#New_tool. In any case:

Random featured article
Random good article
Random vital article
Any other category: random article or random article - simple

Perhaps you'll find them useful. --Erwin (talk) 10:41, 16 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 695: / Line 695: @@
 ::::::::No to be fair I think he let his tounge slip, on two counts and was slapped for it, twice. End of story. These things happen, no reason to derail a thread or halt what has been a constructive discussion. This should prob be hatted and is a good example why thread discussions never build and why any insight fails to get traction and just gets lost in noise. [[User:Ceoil|Ceoil]] ([[User talk:Ceoil|talk]]) 02:56, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 ::::::{{hug}}[[Special:Contributions/71.246.147.40|71.246.147.40]] ([[User talk:71.246.147.40|talk]]) 02:17, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
-{{hat}}
+{{hab}}
 == Random articles ==
@@ Line 705: / Line 705: @@
 * Any other category: [[tools:~erwin85/randomarticle.php|random article]] or [[tools:~erwin85/randomarticle.simple.php|random article - simple]]
-Perhaps you'll find them useful. --[[Special:Contributions/195.241.161.121|195.241.161.121]] ([[User talk:195.241.161.121|talk]]) 10:40, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
+Perhaps you'll find them useful. --[[User:Erwin|Erwin]] ([[User talk:Erwin|talk]]) 10:41, 16 October 2011 (UTC)