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Archives

Archives for former FARC process

Archive 1: May 2004 – Feb 2005; Archive 2: Mar 2005 – Sep 2005; Archive 3: Oct 2005 – Feb 2006; Poll: Mar 2006 poll on policy; Archive 4: Feb 2006 – Jun 2006

Archives for current FAR process

archive 1: to July 2006; archive 2: to Sep 2006
archive 3: to Dec 2006; archive 4: to Feb 2007;
archive 5: to mid Jun 2007; archive 6: to Jul 2007
archive 7: to Jan 2008; archive 8: to Feb 2009
archive 9: to Mar 2010; archive 10: Apr 2010 to 2011
archive 11: 2012; archive 12: 2013–2018
archive 13: 2019–2021; archive 14: 2021–2022
archive 15: 2023–

To the coords

		The Patience Barnstar
		To the FAR coordinators. For showing skill and patience during the sudden uptick in FAR processing - looking at the archives, FAR hasn't been this busy in years. I have to imagine it's a thankless job, but it keeps the process going, and y'all have been doing a good job at balancing allowing time for article improvements and not letting the page get unmanageable due to length. And looking at WP:FARGIVEN, the higher throughput may be coming for awhile yet. Thanks for being patient with a process that's probably a lot busier than anticipated. Hog Farm _Talk 06:16, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes—second this 100%! (t · c) buidhe 06:17, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
They are all awesome! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:38, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Unreviewed Featured articles: year-end summary

Restoring older Featured articles to standard:
year-end 2022 summary

Unreviewed featured articles/2020 (URFA/2020) is a systematic approach to reviewing older Featured articles (FAs) to ensure they still meet the FA standards. A January 2022 Signpost article called "Forgotten Featured" explored the effort.

Progress is recorded at the monthly stats page. Through 2022, with 4,526 very old (from the 2004–2009 period) and old (2010–2015) FAs initially needing review:

357 FAs were delisted at Featured article review (FAR).
222 FAs were kept at FAR or deemed "satisfactory" by three URFA reviewers, with hundreds more being marked as "satisfactory", but awaiting three reviews.
FAs needing review were reduced from 77% of total FAs at the end of 2020 to 64% at the end of 2022.

Of the FAs kept, deemed satisfactory by three reviewers, or delisted, about 60% had prior review between 2004 and 2007; another 20% dated to the period from 2008–2009; and another 20% to 2010–2015. Roughly two-thirds of the old FAs reviewed have retained FA status or been marked "satisfactory", while two-thirds of the very old FAs have been defeatured.

Entering its third year, URFA is working to help maintain FA standards; FAs are being restored not only via FAR, but also via improvements initiated after articles are reviewed and talk pages are noticed. Since the Featured Article Save Award (FASA) was added to the FAR process a year ago, 38 FAs were restored to FA status by editors other than the original FAC nominator. Ten FAs restored to status have been listed at WP:MILLION, recognizing articles with annual readership over a million pageviews, and many have been rerun as Today's featured article, helping increase mainpage diversity.

**Examples of 2022 "FAR saves" of very old featured articles**
Solar System 2007 FA J. K. Rowling 2007 FA June 26, 2022 TFA Antarctica 2006 FA Joan of Arc 2006 FA Speed of light 2010 FA
All received a Million Award

But there remain almost 4,000 old and very old FAs to be reviewed. Some topic areas and WikiProjects have been more proactive than others in restoring or maintaining their old FAs. As seen in the chart below, the following have very high ratios of FAs kept to those delisted (ordered from highest ratio):

Biology
Physics and astronomy
Warfare
Video gaming

and others have a good ratio of kept to delisted FAs:

Literature and theatre
Engineering and technology
Religion, mysticism and mythology
Media
Geology and geophysics

... so kudos to those editors who pitched in to help maintain older FAs !

FAs reviewed at URFA/2020 through 2022 by content area

FAs reviewed at URFA/2020 from November 21, 2020 to December 31, 2022 (VO, O)
Topic area	Delisted	Kept	Total Reviewed	Ratio Kept to Delisted (overall 0.62)	Remaining to review for 2004–7 promotions
Art, architecture and archaeology	10	6	16	0.60	19
Biology	13	41	54	3.15	67
Business, economics and finance	6	1	7	0.17	2
Chemistry and mineralogy	2	1	3	0.50	7
Computing	4	1	5	0.25	0
Culture and society	9	1	10	0.11	8
Education	22	1	23	0.05	3
Engineering and technology	3	3	6	1.00	5
Food and drink	2	0	2	0.00	3
Geography and places	40	6	46	0.15	22
Geology and geophysics	3	2	5	0.67	1
Health and medicine	8	3	11	0.38	5
Heraldry, honors, and vexillology	11	1	12	0.09	6
History	27	14	41	0.52	38
Language and linguistics	3	0	3	0.00	3
Law	11	1	12	0.09	3
Literature and theatre	13	14	27	1.08	24
Mathematics	1	2	3	2.00	3
Media	14	10	24	0.71	40
Meteorology	15	6	21	0.40	31
Music	27	8	35	0.30	55
Philosophy and psychology	0	1	1	–	2
Physics and astronomy	3	7	10	2.33	24
Politics and government	19	4	23	0.21	9
Religion, mysticism and mythology	14	14	28	1.00	8
Royalty and nobility	10	6	16	0.60	44
Sport and recreation	32	12	44	0.38	39
Transport	8	2	10	0.25	11
Video gaming	3	5	8	1.67	23
Warfare	26	49	75	1.88	31
Total	359 ^{Note A}	222 ^{Note B}	581	0.62	536

Noting some minor differences in tallies:

A URFA/2020 archives show 357, which does not include those delisted which were featured after 2015; FAR archives show 358, so tally is off by at least one, not worth looking for.
B FAR archives show 63 kept at FAR since URFA started at end of Nov 2020. URFA/2020 shows 61 Kept at FAR, meaning two kept were outside of scope of URFA/2020. Total URFA/2020 Keeps (Kept at FAR plus those with three Satisfactory marks) is 150 + 72 = 222.

But looking only at the oldest FAs (from the 2004–2007 period), there are 12 content areas with more than 20 FAs still needing review: Biology, Music, Royalty and nobility, Media, Sport and recreation, History, Warfare, Meteorology, Physics and astronomy, Literature and theatre, Video gaming, and Geography and places. In the coming weeks, URFA/2020 editors will be posting lists to individual WikiProjects with the goal of getting these oldest-of-the-old FAs reviewed during 2023.

Ideas for how you can help are listed below and at the Signpost article.

Review a 2004 to 2007 FA. With three "Satisfactory" marks, article can be moved to the FAR not needed section.
Review "your" articles: Did you nominate a featured article between 2004 and 2015 that you have continuously maintained? Check these articles, update as needed, and mark them as 'Satisfactory' at URFA/2020. A continuously maintained FA is a good predictor that standards are still met, and with two more "Satisfactory" marks, "your" articles can be listed as "FAR not needed". If they no longer meet the FA standards, please begin the FAR process by posting your concerns on the article's talk page.
Review articles that already have one "Satisfactory" mark: more FAs can be indicated as "FAR not needed" if other reviewers will have a look at those already indicated as maintained by the original nominator. If you find issues, you can enter them at the talk page.
Fix an existing featured article: Choose an article at URFA/2020 or FAR and bring it back to FA standards. Enlist the help of the original nominator, frequent FA reviewers, WikiProjects listed on the talk page, or editors that have written similar topics. When the article returns to FA standards, please mark it as 'Satisfactory' at URFA/2020 or note your progress in the article's FAR.
Review and nominate an article to FAR that has been 'noticed' of a FAR needed but issues raised on talk have not been addressed. Sometimes nominating at FAR draws additional editors to help improve the article that would otherwise not look at it.

More regular URFA and FAR reviewers will help assure that FAs continue to represent examples of Wikipedia's best work. If you have any questions or feedback, please visit Wikipedia talk:Unreviewed featured articles/2020/4Q2022. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:59, 16 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Guy Fawkes Night / Bonfire Night (UK)

I reviewed an article earlier today and found what I considered to be a bizarre situation. The major celebration that we in the UK call Bonfire Night was being described as Guy Fawkes Night. The article was plainly describing the UK celebration and no other dedicated article for this topic exists - also bizarre, so I moved the page to what I consider its correct name Bonfire Night (UK). I'd expected the FAC discussion to be minimal but instead there had been a discussion but the dissenting editors had been canvassed and their comments discounted. Anyway as there are editors from the FAC discussion still around I thought I should leave a note. Desertarun (talk) 23:05, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Nikkimaria has reverted this change because there was a failed move request in the archived talk page. The move request was rightly denied because it was requested that the page Bonfire Night be overwritten or merged. I'd moved the page to Bonfire Night (UK) so this wasn't going to be the problem. The move request was from 2015 and the suggestion was to rerun this. This will need sorting out for it to remain at FA. Desertarun (talk) 23:14, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

WP:PCM has information about starting a full-length move discussion if you want to go down that route. I'm not really sure what this has to do with the article's FA status, though: titling isn't something that's part of the FA criteria, so these sorts of disputes aren't well suited for FAR. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 23:49, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it is a contentious page move discussion, that would only the case if the page Bonfire Night was to be merged/overwritten. I don't see why we can't have separate pages for Bonfire Night (UK), Bonfire Night (Canada) etc. Desertarun (talk) 23:59, 13 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have a firm opinion on the move itself, but since Nikkimaria has reverted it, it's considered contentious and needs to be discussed. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 00:07, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I was hoping to get this reconsidered but that seems unlikely. Anyway, there's no rush. Desertarun (talk) 00:14, 14 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thylacine

Could somebody drop this onto FAR? I'm going to work on it and would like the feedback of a FAR. Desertarun (talk) 11:19, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm most happy to hear you are saving a Yomangani article, but I'm at my FAR limit (and it looks like I will be for some time). I will watchlist to keep an eye on your work. You might want to bring in FunkMonk and LittleJerry. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:38, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Why not a regular WP:peer review? FunkMonk (talk) 15:38, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Passing on this one. I've got other things on my table. LittleJerry (talk) 15:53, 23 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Featured Article Save Award for lung cancer

There is a Featured Article Save Award nomination at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review/Lung cancer/archive1. Please join the discussion to recognize and celebrate editors who helped assure this article would retain its featured status. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:53, 6 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Merge proposal for Early life of Keith Miller

On April 30, I proposed a merge of Early life of Keith Miller into Keith Miller. Early life is a featured article, which is why I posting a message here. There has been no response, and normally I would initiate the merge after seven days but since it is a featured article I want to ensure that the process is done correctly. Should I nominate Early life to FAR to get more discussion about this? Should I complete the merge now, or wait until the FAR is concluded? Thanks, Z1720 (talk) 13:32, 10 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Since there is not yet consensus to merge, it would not be a procedural FAR with a quick close. I recommend, in the absence of consensus to merge, opening a regular FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:40, 10 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Z1720 since this looks stalled, I'll initiate the procedural FAR (momentarily- iPad editing so slow going). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:32, 15 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Featured article review/Early life of Keith Miller/archive1. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:43, 15 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for this. I think this might be a discussion that will require many perspectives before wiki-consensus is determined. I encourage anyone reading this to give their thoughts on this merge/FAR proposal. Z1720 (talk) 14:16, 15 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

FA process discussion

Content copied from Wikipedia:Featured article review/Edward III of England/archive1

I'm unclear what Gog the Mild is getting at in these discussions, so am copying it to here for clarification of the meta issues. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:29, 14 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Copied content

This is probably the worst FA I have ever looked at in detail. Among the numerous other issues, one which stands out for me is the high proportion of the small number of sources I checked which did not, even remotely, support the text. I ended up not trusting any of them and unsurprised that it never formally passed FAC. Among the many other things needed, if this were to be saved, every cite would need confirming, and given that most are to aging sources I am unsure why anyone would bother. It could be rewritten from scratch in less time. Gog the Mild (talk) 15:52, 14 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Just to keep the record straight, I'm unsure what is meant by "never formally passed FAC", as it did (Giano's oppose was ignored most likely because of the infobox wars aspect). This article did pass FAC according to the standards of almost 17 years ago (back then, FAC pages were not formally archived/closed by a bot, and an article was an FA when listed at WP:FA by the FA director or a delegate). More rigorous sourcing checks were initiated in 2008, and the tendency towards ignoring Tony1's accurate prose concerns was not unique to 2006-- indeed, Tony1's prose concerns were discounted as recently as 2018. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:18, 14 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
To keep the record even straighter, while it was promoted to FA, it never formally passed FAC. Fell free to read the FAC to confirm this. Truly the past is another country. Gog the Mild (talk) 16:23, 14 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Gog, seriously, I have no idea what you mean; the article passed FAC according to the procedures and standards of the time (perhaps Dweller then was unaware of the process). We could discuss further on talk here to clarify. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:33, 14 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for this, Sandy. I've access to the most recent scholarship—we shouldn't need to go back much further than 30 or 40 years, I imagine—so can get involved here. I'd also recommend shortened footnotes for an article this size, which I agree, per the TP, certainly needs trimming. SN54129 15:34, 14 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If you are planning to rewrite, I would support a citation style change to sfns. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:07, 14 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I think a rewrite's probably in order; Gog's list of problems is too severe just to be resolved by tinkering. SN54129 16:49, 14 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Are you planning to undertake a rewrite then? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:53, 14 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think I could; as Gog says below, it would probably be quicker! Or does that cause problems for FAR? SN54129 16:56, 14 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Nope, works fine; just keep the page posted on your timing and progress. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:58, 14 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wearing my FAC coordinator hat, if the article were rewritten we would want the new version to go through FAC again. It may be neater to demote it here, rewrite it and then renominate; or was that what you had in mind? Gog the Mild (talk) 17:02, 14 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Gog, that's not how the FA process works. Yes, your suggestion is one way to restore an article, but not the only way and not the required way. @WP:FAR coordinators: SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:13, 14 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Is this a ship of Theseus situation? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:21, 14 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

We need to get this meta-discussion off of this page, so as not to derail the FAR, and on to a process page. I will start moving the pieces, but I am on vacation and iPad editing, so not thrilled about the timing. Will link to discussion once I get everything moved to the appropriate place. If FAR cannot FAR, then neither can GAR GAR, by the way. There is some rather serious misunderstanding going on here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:46, 14 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion of FA process

Gog the Mild could we get some clarification? Why do you think the article did not pass FAC, and why do you seem to be saying that the FAR process is not used for determining FA status? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:28, 14 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I honestly think that in cases where the entire article needs to be rewritten it's probably best to delist, rewrite, and renominate. But it's not wrong to do it all at FAR although usually the result is a FAR that lasts a long time, which is not ideal imo. (t · c) buidhe 04:29, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt the work at J. K. Rowling (or the many similar others) would have gotten done at all if the article had simply been delisted. And how long do you think it would have taken via the delist and relist process, if anyone had cared to do it (getting an article through FAC now routinely takes up to two months)? We already have editors' attention when an article is at FAR; the improvements are more likely to happen here, and may even be done more expeditiously.

At any rate, these aren't the questions asked of a FAC Coordinator, who weighed in at FAR specifically speaking as a FAC Coord, and who has not yet answered to explain what their understanding of the FA process is. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:55, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This discussion might highlight a perception about the FAC & FAR processes that an article is more likely to remain an FA through FAR than it is to be demoted and re-promoted through FAC. Should the FAC standards be higher than FAR? Are FAC standards higher because there are more reviewers at FAC? Or maybe it's because there are nominators at FAC ready to fix articles when concerns are raised, but less motivation to fix things at FAR? Z1720 (talk) 13:35, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

My impressions are just the opposite of those (FAC standards are not higher than FAR); the default these days at FAC is that three supports = promotion, QPQ is no longer discounted in supports, there is no longer any attempt to recognize and reward quality (complete and comprehensive) reviews, the page doesn't seem to be closely monitored or discussions intiatiated to encourage quality reviews and discourage incomplete ones, and more and more often we are seeing promotion based on sub-optimal prose reviews, zero review of leads, zero review of MOS, incomplete copyvio checks, and little concern for more than cursory checking of sources. There is no such default position at FAR, and reviews stay open until all issues are addressed. I'm unclear why you say there is "less motivation to fix things at FAR"? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:45, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

And I'm still hoping Gog will explain why he said this article did not pass FAC, or that it must go back to FAC now, as unless there is a misunderstanding, that comes across as a dramatic misstatement of the FA process from someone who serves as a Coordinator in that process. This statement is another mystery; perhaps this 2021 debacle was overlooked? [2]. For a 2021 promotion to be that deficient is quite different from a 2006 FA needing some work to bring it to current standards. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:56, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Gog's on vacation at the moment, not sure when he might be available to weigh in.

Philosophically speaking, both FAC and FAR aim for adherence to WIAFA for articles rated as FA-level, and both can support bringing articles to standard during the process. Practically speaking, FAR often gives more leeway when work is underway to allow time for improvements to happen, whereas at FAC nominators are often encouraged to work outside the process and bring it back when ready. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:54, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I might add that there is some "hysteresis" is inherent in things like this. Which means that it takes a little extra to make a decision to change the state of something. And the current state of a FA candidate is "not FA", the current state of an FAR article is "FA". North8000 (talk) 17:34, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Standing offer: Inconsistent refs, change to {{sfn}} and {{sfnm}}

Hey. This is a standing offer: If there's a prob with inconsistent refs, I offer to change them to {{sfn}} and {{sfnm}}, to the extent possible ... § Lingzhi (talk|check refs) 02:12, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

FA at AfD

I have nominated Keith Miller in the 1946–47 Australian cricket season, a 2010 FA, for deletion (link). What's the protocol here again? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:52, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure if there is an official procedure (maybe @SandyGeorgia: can provide insights?) But I would post an FAR as if you were nominating any other article for delisting and put the AfD discussion as the reason. Informing the relevant article contributors and Wikiprojects of the AfD discussion on the talk pages (per FAR step 6) would also be important. Z1720 (talk) 14:00, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
AirshipJungleman29 Yes to what Z1720 said ... a FAR should be started to keep the bookkeeping right. Link the AFD as the reason for the FAR, and do all relevant notifications. I will be driving all day, so can't do it for you, else I would ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:50, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ironically I don't think that there is a conflict because FA criteria presumes meeting WP:Notability criteria rather than specifying it. Maybe you could tidy it up by adding "Meets all Wikipedia requirements for existence of an article" to the FA requirements. North8000 (talk) 15:53, 7 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I have opened an FAR for Keith Miller in the 1946–47 Australian cricket season. Z1720 (talk) 02:11, 10 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Z1720 and AirshipJungleman29: and anyone else. Processing a FAR on a deleted article is tricky; I had to do it manually. Should this happen again, it would be easier to first submit the FAR, and then submit the AFD. And remember to add {{G8-exempt}} on article talk for recordkeeping. But I understand that's not the most logical course of things, and it's OK if it happens backwards (AFD first)-- then they just have to be either processed by an admin (which involves undeleting the article, running the bot, then redeleting the article), or doing the FACbot processing manually, as I did in this case. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:52, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@SandyGeorgia: After some thought, I think the easiest solution in the future is to encourage AfDs that are FAs as redirects. This will allow the FAR bot to run with less concerns. Z1720 (talk) 13:10, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's rare enough to not worry about .... I just put this here so others would know where to look for the future. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:25, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Featured Article Save Award for His Majesty's Theatre, London

There is a Featured Article Save Award nomination at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review/His Majesty's Theatre, London/archive1. Please join the discussion to recognize and celebrate editors who helped assure this article would retain its featured status. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:58, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Tropical Cyclone FAs

I am bringing this here since WeatherWriter has brought this up in at least two articles while the issue is much larger than that. Tropical cyclone meteorological histories are inherently based upon government sources from the various World Meteorological Organization appointed Regional Specialized Meteorological Centres as well as the Joint Typhoon Warning Center outside the Eastern/Central Pacific and Atlantic. WeatherWriter has claimed that these sources are WP:PRIMARY and that large portions of these articles rely on such sources, which in their opinion makes them fail the featured article criteria. In most cases, there is not a substitute, detailed reliable secondary source out there and those that do exist, at least in the western hemisphere, are oftentimes written by the same people who wrote the tropical cyclone discussions and reports and would be redundant to include. The question here is is this acceptable or does there need to be a mass-FAR? Noah^Talk 14:44, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I wanted to provide two examples of featured articles for this discussion, which, from what Hurricane Noah says, is common: Hurricane Walaka and Meteorological history of Hurricane Dean. For Hurricane Walaka, the meteorological history section is roughly 17.6k bytes and the whole article is 29k bytes. The section only contains information from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Discussions in the past (not related to tropical cyclones, but tornadoes and damage totals) have said NOAA is a primary source for meteorological information. I don’t think anyone can disagree with that, since NOAA is the one who (1) writes the forecasts, (2) writes the tropical cyclones category ratings and (3) writes the official summary/review in the form of a Tropical Cyclones Report. With that said, Hurricane Walaka’s section is fully sources by NOAA and is just over 60% of the article’s content in terms of byte size.

For Meteorological history of Hurricane Dean, it is even worse. The article is 30k bytes with a total of 51 sources. 49 of those sources are NOAA. Just interpreting Wikipedia’s policy on not basing large amounts of the article on primary sources (point five on WP:PRIMARY), the featured article should actually have Template:Primary sources on it, given that it only has 2 reliable secondary sources. Hurricane Noah’s question is, is this acceptable for featured article or not? If it is, then the fifth point on WP:PRIMARY, needs to be either reworded or re-assessed, since it seems to directly contradict these FA tropical cyclone articles. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 16:27, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There is a large amount of encyclopedic information (especially the arcane and technical types) which really isn't covered in secondary sources and so needs to come from primary sources. IMO any rule that conflicts with the should be changed. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:18, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm in agreement with North8000, and I'll add that I don't think any such rule exists. The most relevant criterion is 1c:

well-researched: it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature; claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by inline citations where appropriate

If the primary sources are otherwise high-quality, their primary nature is not a disqualifier. I think it's slightly but meaningfully incorrect to say that PRIMARY advises "not basing large amounts of the article on primary sources". It says not to base "entire articles" on such sources and to "be cautious about basing large passages on them". Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:21, 26 July 2023 (UTC) inserted text 17:25, 26 July 2023[reply]

@Firefangledfeathers: Just a head’s up, WP:PRIMARY is policy and point five says “Do not base an entire article on primary sources, and be cautious about basing large passages on them.” Just making sure you know that, since there is a rule about it. I’m guessing the rule needs to be reworded in some fashion though. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 17:27, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I added the underlined text to my comment just a minute or so before your reply. I think we have a differing interpretation of the policy. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 17:30, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Why must all information published by a certain organisation fall into one, and only one, of primary and secondary? Citations such as this NOAA source for Walaka identify, to my understanding, primary sources that have been drawn upon to produce analysis, evaluation, and assessment. Simply because this information comes from the same organisation that also collects primary sources, does not mean that everything from that organisation needs to be uncritically bundled into one basket? It makes as much sense to dismiss the above source as "primary" as it does to dismiss this random article, found in today's FA, as "primary". ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 17:31, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I am less concerned about if sources are primary, and I am more concerned about if better sources can be found. Government sources are usually fine unless there is a better source that can be used in the inline citation instead (such as an academic paper from a university). "Meteorological history of Hurricane Dean" is missing a bunch of sources as HurricaneNoah outlined on the article's talk page. I left a note at Hurricane Walaka asking about additional sources. I would do a hunt myself but anything to do with science is outside my specialty. Z1720 (talk) 17:46, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Jo-Jo Eumerus might have ideas. Another idea is that this could be run through a merge proposal; that is, if you think the articles shouldn't exist based on primary, see how that flies with a merger proposal. I don't think it will. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:47, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think there is a misunderstanding of WP:PRIMARY going on here. Primary sources are things like pressure readings, satellite images, computer model outputs, reports from weather stations or from stormchasers. The government reports are analyses and summarizations based on such information, they are "thought and reflection" and "analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis of the facts, evidence, concepts, and ideas taken from primary sources" per WP:SECONDARY. People often confuse secondary with secondhand and primary with firsthand, not helped by the policy assuming that the historiographic definition can be uncritically applied to other fields. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 18:10, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

+1 to that. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 18:19, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I think this is the heart of the problem -- Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 20:19, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I will note, I’m not concerned with notability for any of the articles. It is more of, to me at least, how articles can be FA, but be mostly sources by one or two government organizations. In early May, there was an RFC which came to a determination that Wikipedia users cannot use NOAA information (which goes through the National Weather Service and National Centers for Environmental Information) to say tornadoes are Xth costliest. In that discussion, JoelleJay said, “Why would it not be ok to just use the NOAA data, rather than wait for a source to use it? Because primary data must be contextualized by a secondary source for us to extrapolate meaning from it, because content must be not only verifiable but also comply with NOT, and because we cannot imply a conclusion not directly and explicitly supported by the source.” (Italics where JoelleJay had done the turquoise template.) Earlier, AirshipJungleman29 sort of asked what I think is probably the most important question which solves this mystery. What exactly from NOAA is primary vs secondary sources? Entering this, I had the belief that everything from NOAA is a primary source for meteorological information, given that NOAA is the first to mention everything meteorologically speaking for the US. But, AirshipJungleman29 is saying that because a NOAA meteorologist is looking at the raw data themselves, and then publishing the officially forecast based on that raw data analysis, it isn’t a primary source, but a secondary source. So, I think that is the more appropriate question: What is a primary source from NOAA vs secondary source from NOAA? The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 18:16, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Well, one problem I see right away is that a meteorologist probably isn't a good source for the financial damage of a storm. NOAA is a good source for many things, but newspapers, insurance companies or government reports by recovery agencies probably are better for this info. Another thing that often gets confused is primary/secondary with reliability. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 18:38, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The best sources for a given topic depend on ... the topic. We shouldn't prevent cyclones from being featured just because the best sources aren't medical journals, as we would expect for a medical topic. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:27, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I would say primary sources from NOAA are the public domain satellite imagery. It’s not true that NOAA is the first one to mention everything meteorologically speaking for the US, as WeatherWriter (talk · contribs) said. Weather agencies use a wide variety of data to issue their forecasts, warnings, whatnot. A storm can be a hurricane whether someone calls it one or not, but we can’t use the satellite imagery to say a storm off New England in September 1992 was a hurricane. This isn’t merely a hypothetical - satellite imagery suggests there was at least a tropical storm in September 1992 that was not classified. Using the satellite as a primary source would be the same as using a thermometer to establish climatology. It wouldn’t be appropriate for Wikipedia purposes of establishing reliability. The vast majority of weather sources don’t fall into that category, and I believe hurricane, tornado, and other severe weather writers have done a good job balancing out the sources. Hurricanehink mobile (talk) 19:03, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I personally strongly oppose the idea that NOAA is always to be treated as a primary source of information like @WeatherWriter: seems to want, for example, I look at IBTRACS which takes its information from agencies inside and outside of NOAA and reproduces it in various formats on behalf of the WMO and the international community. As a result, I do not believe that there needs to be a mass FAR, but I hope that members of WP:Weather and WP:Tropical Cyclones can combine to help to the current URFA process.Jason Rees (talk) 21:02, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I actually agree with Jason Rees here. Some NOAA products aren’t primary sources (examples: IBTRACS, NCEI Storm Event Database, NHC Tropical Cyclones Reports, NWS Webpages, ect…) since they involve information not always gathered by NOAA or detailed analysis similar to a small academic paper. That said, things like this NOAA product for Hurricane Walaka, which was mentioned earlier in this discussion, I believe are primary sources, since the official update/updated forecast (which is what that is), comes from NOAA as part of their day-to-day style jobs. No super detailed analysis takes place, like you would see in a post-storm survey/analysis. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 22:28, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The point you are missing is that it doesn’t matter how detailed the analysis is. The satellite imagery or recon data is the primary source and the NHC products are secondary since those are interpretations of the primary data. Note the primary ones I listed are not exhaustive and include any kind of raw data. Noah^Talk 00:19, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Specifically in regards to forecasts, they are based upon models and other data. They are secondary sources as well. Noah^Talk 00:21, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think I will have to respectfully disagree with you. I do believe NHC forecast discussions and advisories are primary sources, along with models and other data. SJSU said that a primary source is, “(1) documents the results of original research, (2) is written by those who have conducted the research, (3) includes firsthand information about their methodologies, data, results, or conclusions, which, to me, describes NHC forecasts and advisories. I think tropical cyclone reports and NWS webpages are secondary sources, but I do disagree with you on what type of source NHC forecasts/advisories are. The Weather Event Writer (Talk Page) 00:28, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Just on the subject of "can these be FAs", my thinking is no. I appreciate the hairsplitting people are doing above distinguishing between the raw data and analysis/synthesis, but if this stuff isn't being covered in secondary sources such as books, newspapers, etc. that indicates a niche topic that cannot be exhaustively covered by Wikipedia and meet featured article criteria. (I'd also say Meteorological history of Hurricane Dean is an improper split from Hurricane Dean, where the information could easily be covered in summary style in a single article.) At a fundamental level, the use of these sources creates the same issue primary sources do in a ton of areas on Wikipedia: it's a bunch of dense, excessively detailed trivia that makes for bad articles to anyone who isn't an extreme fan of the topic, whether weather, trains, or video games. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 21:16, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

”Easily” be covered? I’m not so sure. Category 5 hurricanes that impact land have a lot to cover. Even the very act of the eyewall of a hurricane interacting with land can be a significant talking point. Dean made several landfalls and passages close to land. Now if it did that without causing much damage, then a separate meteorological history article would be unnecessary. For example, there is an article for Hurricane Kyle (2002), which for a time had a separate article for the storm history. That was eventually merged. Now, if you believe any of the tropical cyclone articles should be merged, that could be a point of discussion on a given talk page. TC FA’s have been merged before and the project continued to function. But as someone who straddles the line between an amateur and a fan (I have no meteorological background other than my writing), I can say that there is enormous interest and need in having detailed information for some of the most significant, long lasting weather events. Hurricanehink mobile (talk) 22:16, 26 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. There's no rule that mandates or blesses it but editing can take into account whether something is enclyclopedic / suitable for an article vs. trivia. And in some areas, slam-dunk-secondary sources do not cover many types of encyclopedic info that should be in the article. Since there is no wiki-rule that says "be a good editor" I can appreciate that, per your post, the primary/secondary distinction can help keep out trivia and cruft but can also keep out needed enclyclopedic information. North8000 (talk) 14:16, 27 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There does need to be some degree of care that available non-NHC sources are incorporated, even if NHC is judged to be secondary. For instance, compare what Meteorological history of Hurricane Katrina looks like now vs the state of the article when it was delisted as FAR. The issue is less using NHC, and more using the easily accessible NHC as a crutch to the avoidance of all other sources. Hog Farm _Talk 13:13, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Aye, sources in academic papers seem to be underused in this topic area at times. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 16:20, 28 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I am concerned about Pedro II of Brazil's article

I've moved this section to Talk:Pedro II of Brazil, please centralize discussion there. Nikkimaria (talk) 05:06, 1 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I would request additional assistance, as I have indicated in my original post examples of the many problematic sentences in the article, and the discussion in that forum clearly did not yield any results.

I can't help but feel a strange bias in the Brazilian history being taught here in Wikipedia, given that pages actually call current members of the former royal family Princes (see page Prince Bertrand of Orléans-Braganza), adding them as "[disputed] master" of military orders in the quick facts sidebar (see Order of Christ (Brazil). I can't see how that is not equivalent to adding Donald Trump as the "disputed" president of the United States. But at least in that situation the "disputed" is clearly marked. Indeed, I have no problem whatsoever with the relevance of the claims that are made in the Pedro II of Brazil page—they are relevant claims made by people and should be in Wikipedia—they simply should not be offered naively and uncritically as facts. This is a critical part of Wikipedia policy. However, this fact has led to the editors simply responding any bias accusation with "but it is sourced". Again, bias in sources is not a problem per se. The claims should simply be clearly attributed and not presented as facts.

But the page editors, instead of also taking this view and accepting the addition of the absolutely non-fringe negative opinions about Pedro II, started processing that information editorially and attempting to gatekeep what should and shouldn't be in the page. "Well, I know historian x said y, but Pedro couldn't possibly be responsible for that".

I apologize for reissuing this request assistance, but I simply do not have the time to do this by myself and I feel at least part of the article has sentences (such as those I quote in the moved post) that should not be in any Wikipedia page.

Best regards, ~Dr Victor Vasconcelos de Souza (talk) 12:42, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Victorvscn, that discussion did not yield any results because you have not WP:ENGAGEd collaboratively. The last message in that section requests you to provide the reliable sources which support the "absolutely non-fringe negative opinions" you feel are absent from the article. I echo that here—you have invoked WP:ATTRIBUTEPOV; please provide evidence of the competing viewpoints. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:27, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Victorvscn, you might consult with Rjensen, who is a historian (see Richard J. Jensen) about the list he supplied of missing issues; he has excellent access to sources, and might be able to supply them if you post an inquiry to his talk page. He's quite busy, so it will probably be up to you to follow up. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:01, 7 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

94 potential candidates for featured article review

The following is a list of FAs that could have sourcing problems. I compiled it using this script by going through all 6322 featured articles (state: 25.08.23). For each article on the list, the script detected 6 or more paragraphs without references. The script ignores some paragraphs that do not require references, such as lead paragraphs and paragraphs in some plot sections (see MOS:CITELEAD and MOS:PLOTSOURCE). However, it has various shortcomings since it does not detect all plot sections and since it is not able to detect all references in the deprecated parenthetical style. This means that some of the paragraphs are falsly flagged as unreferenced. Because of this, it is necessary to confirm the problem manually in each case. I wrote the script in response to a change to the GA criteria which increased the requirements to have inline citations.

I'm not sure how to best make use of this list. Editors active in the FAR process could use it to find new FAR candidates. It could be combined with WP:URFA/2020 to make it easier to find problematic articles. For a similar effort in relation to GAs, see Wikipedia_talk:Good_article_nominations/Archive_29#998_potential_candidates_for_Good_article_reassessment and Wikipedia:Good_article_reassessment/Sweeps_2023. Phlsph7 (talk) 11:47, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

featured articles with unreferenced paragraphs

Article	Possibly unreferenced paragraphs	Maintenance tags
0.999...	28
1 − 2 + 3 − 4 + ⋯	11
1896 Summer Olympics	11
1999 FIFA Women's World Cup	8
1999–2000 Gillingham F.C. season	6
A Voyage Round the World	21
Acetic acid	15	1x citation needed
Andrée's Arctic balloon expedition	11	1x citation needed
Archimedes	13
Aston Villa F.C.	16	2x citation needed
Bath, Somerset	8	1x vague, 1x citation needed, 1x needs update
Battleship	12	1x Unreferenced section, 13x citation needed, 2x vague, 7x page needed
Beagle	6	1x further explanation needed, 1x better source needed
Binary search algorithm	17
Borobudur	8
Borscht	7	1x citation needed
Bristol	6	1x citation needed, 1x when?, 1x needs update
Brunette Coleman	9
Bryce Canyon National Park	7
Byzantine Empire	7	1x Very long, 2x More citations needed, 1x citation needed
Caesar cipher	6
Calgary Flames	9	1x dead link, 1x permanent dead link
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare	12	1x dead link, 1x permanent dead link
Cannon	6	1x page needed, 13x permanent dead link
Carolina Panthers	6
Cold Feet	9	3x dead link
Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve	6	1x page needed
Decipherment of rongorongo	13	5x page needed, 1x who?, 1x how?, 1x vague, 31x citation needed, 1x full citation needed, 1x citation not found
DNA	6
Dwarf planet	9	1x Notice
Earth	6	1x better source needed
Eastern Suburbs & Illawarra Line	6
Ediacaran biota	7	1x full citation needed, 8x citation needed
Emmy Noether	37	1x More citations needed section
Enzyme kinetics	30
Euclidean algorithm	54	3x clarification needed
Falaise pocket	6	1x image reference needed
Felice Beato	7
Final Fantasy XI	6	1x citation needed
Flight feather	10
Flower Drum Song	10
Galaxy	11	1x Expand section, 1x image reference needed, 1x dead link
General relativity	9	1x citation needed, 1x permanent dead link
Georg Cantor	6
Greece runestones	58
Group (mathematics)	42
Hamlet	6	1x citation needed, 1x clarification needed
Helium	7	1x Globalize, 1x More citations needed section
HMS New Zealand (1911)	6
Huldrych Zwingli	10	1x image reference needed, 5x citation needed
Hydrochloric acid	6
Hydrogen	16	2x image reference needed, 1x full citation needed
Introduction to general relativity	16
Isaac Brock	9
Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo	6
Johannes Kepler	6
Kevin O'Halloran	7
Laplace–Runge–Lenz vector	59
Logarithm	38
Luton Town F.C.	6
Malagasy cuisine	6
Manchester	6
Manchester City F.C.	16
Moon	19	1x example needed
Nahuatl	6
Oxidative phosphorylation	7	1x image reference needed
Oxygen toxicity	6	1x clarification needed
Palace of Queluz	10	2x Unreferenced section, 2x One source, 3x citation needed
Parallel computing	29	1x citation needed, 1x dead link
Pi	30	1x needs update
PNC Park	7
Pre-dreadnought battleship	9
Premier League	10	1x permanent dead link
Problem of Apollonius	36
Redshift	18	7x citation needed, 1x page needed
Russell family (Passions)	6
Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough	10	1x More citations needed, 1x Story
Scotland national football team	6
Shale oil extraction	6
Somerset County Cricket Club in 2009	7
Stanley Cup	7
Star	7	1x citation needed
Surrender of Japan	9
Symphony No. 3 (Górecki)	7	1x permanent dead link
The Relapse	13
The Smashing Pumpkins	6
Thomas Blamey	8	1x citation needed
Toa Payoh ritual murders	8	2x page needed, 16x dead link
Trafford	6
Venus	12
Washington, D.C.	14	1x Notice, 28x citation needed, 1x unreliable source?, 1x obsolete source
Welding	9	1x Expand section, 1x failed verification
White dwarf	11	2x citation needed
Wood Badge	10	1x citation needed

Phlsph7 (talk) 11:47, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]