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Wikipedia:Peer review/April 2005

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This page contains the Peer review requests that are older than one month, are not signed, or did not follow the "How to use this page" principles in some way. If one of your requests has been moved here by mistake, please accept our apologies and copy it back to the main Peer review page with your signature (~~~~).

California mission

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This revised article has been extensively reworked and reviewed prior to posting (reviewers include a PhD in Construction Science who teaches Building Technology and a PhD in History who teaches California Studies). Preparation prior to posting included enhancement of 21 existing sub-articles and the creation of 6 new sub-articles.

I'm mostly looking for comments regarding readability at this point (I'm 99% sure there are no typos) and suggestions for additional Wiki links, if any (not red ones, though!). The article is 32 kilobytes long at this point but much of that is the result of the photos and the two lists at the end of the article.

--Lordkinbote 17:11, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

All the methods, materials and construction info is great, but what about the history and use of the missions (this is only briefly covered in the lead section)? As a top level article I'd expect those aspects to dominate and for the present content to be summarized here and dealt with in detail in a daughter article. Images are also too wide - 300px is the max allowed for images with text flowing around them. --mav 02:00, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Guns N' Roses

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Previous reviews:
1

Myself and alot of other users have been working hard to improve the article from its previous state, mostly adding sources and rewording already written material. However, I am confused; what can be done now to the article? Any comments and constructive criticism are welcome. Kind regards, Sebi [talk] 09:47, 28 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Automated Peer Review

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The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question.

You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, Davnel03 13:32, 29 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

LuciferMorgan

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I think it's overall a thorough, well done article, but strangely there seems to not be a specific description of musical style, tonality, composition and production techniques, etc. For comparison, look at the descriptions of musical techniques in the articles on Pink Floyd and Nine Inch Nails. I also wonder if you'd like to include some comments about the band's role in the "Sunset Strip scene/hair band genre" trends. VisitorTalk 06:11, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Chicago, Illinois

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This article has gone through a previous round of peer review and several failed FACs. After attempting to address several issues relating to the previous FACs, I am wondering if there is anything that has to be done with this article so that it will succeed FAC if it were nominated again. PentawingTalk 01:55, 11 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program. They may or may not be accurate for the article in question.
  • This article may need to undergo summary style, where a series of appropriate subpages are used. For example, if the article is United States, than an appropriate subpage would be History of the United States, such that a summary of the subpage exists on the mother article, while the subpage goes into more detail.

Nicely done, a bit long though, some sections like sports can be made a bit shorter. Thanks Jaranda wat's sup 22:59, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  • Nice work- this has come a long way since the last four times I objected on its FACs. (The time before that, I nominated it.) I think the only remaining issue is that the use of inline citations starts to wane by the end of the article. I think it's sufficient, but some people might think that a near 60kb article should have more than 36 inlines. Overall, though, excellent work. RyanGerbil10 (Drop on in!) 03:37, 16 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Review
  1. Mos has to be followed (hyphens used as dashes)
  2. The climate table can be moved to the climate subarticle.
  3. text needs a copyedit to tighten the sentences
  4. during the younger Daley's administration have made world headlines – what sort of "world" headlines?
  5. =history= is choppy. Sentences needs to flow
  6. Beyond local elections, Chicago.. – entire para can be summarised into one sentence. Infact most of the section glosses over the fact that Chicago is a Democratic bastion. Can be summarised.
  7. In sites of interest, context needed for Navy Pier
  8. most respected -- according to who? (weasel word)

=Nichalp «Talk»= 13:06, 18 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Quatermass Experiment

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I am considering self-nominating this piece for featured article status - I know there is already a Quatermass serial in featured articles, but there are many other examples of lots featured articles on similar subjects, so I didn't see the harm in giving this one a go. Therefore here it is on peer review so I can get some feedback on improving it before I submit it to the FAC page. Angmering 23:03, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Many of the sentences in this article just seem too long to me: they are proken up by punctuation, but the overall length is longer than is conventional for enjoyable reading. Perhaps they could be sub-divided a little at appropriate locations? The "Quatermass" category at the end needs to be established. Otherwise the article looks good. (Quatermass and the Pit is one of my all-time favorite sci-fi movies. :) — RJH 17:08, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I think you must have posted this while I was right in the middle of establishing the category! :-) As for the sentences, you may well have a point - I'll try and give it a good going-over to cut down on the lengths and split them up a bit for easier reading. Angmering 21:46, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Stonehenge

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There haven't been many archaeology Featured articles and I think Stonehenge could make it. I'd especially appreciate feedback on the modern significance of the monument as things like the Poltantric Circle are beyond me. adamsan 17:48, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • Great article. A few things that I think need attention:
  1. The lead and the overview section should probably be put together and made into the lead. For articles of this length, the lead should probably be longer, and the overview section contains alot of the material that should be in there (see Wikipedia:Lead section). Adding info to the lead like the world heritage status, where the name comes from, and a quick overview of the construction phases would be perfectly fine in my mind – three paragraphs in the lead (that are about the size of the current one) would work great. That way you can start right away with the history after the lead.
  2. For the pre-history section, Stonehenge 3iii (and 3v and 3vi) is really short – isn't there anything that could be added? Different theories, anything? I know you weren't looking for this type of request, but I think it's important for the article.
  3. Third paragraph of "early interpretations" - "The first serious effort" suggests that the previous guys weren't serious. How do you know? Was it because they thought it was used religiously? If so, that's POV in my mind, especially because Stukeley made some wrong conclusions too.
  4. Penultimate paragraph of Recent history – looks POV to me. Who said that? How can everyone agree? Surely some want to see the place remain untouched? Perhaps more tourism would be damaging?
  5. I'm not sure about this one, but perhaps there shouldn't be a list of everything named/related to stonehenge at the end of the article. Maybe just a few of the most notable replicas should be considered and elaborated on, beyond a few lines.
  6. More variety in the pictures would be great – is it possible to get a photo that's looking down on it (not from directly above, but from the side a bit).
  • Edgerton's "Stonehenge at Night" is a truly striking photograph, and is probably worth a mention. I'm guessing it can't be included because of copyright issues, but if it can it would make an excellent addition. Evand 16:04, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  1. One more thing - I had some trouble finding the height of the rocks. Maybe I'm missing something, but that should be in the lead. Probably so should the diameter of the circle. --Spangineer ∞ 04:52, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)
Thanks Spangineer, that's given me lots of useful stuff to work on. adamsan 13:01, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • The last time I had the opportunity to visit this monument, tourists were only allowed to walk along a circular path set some distance from the stones. We were provided with a headset and a device that provided lectures at selected points. This was in stark contrast with my first view as a kid when I could walk through and around the rocks, but I understand the need to keep people out. Anyway the new arrangements might be worth a mention. — RJH 20:29, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • In fact, there are still tours that allow visitors to walk close to the stones, even to touch them, but only on special occassions arranged by (and with the supervision of) English Heritage. I'd also mention Stonehenge's impression throughout later times, like the Roman era and Middle Ages. -- Shauri 23:10, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Lead needs expantion. Merge short 1-2 sentence paragraphs or expand them for example 'Stonehenge 3iii' section is just one sentence. There are elinks in the text, move them to the external link section and link with Wikipedia:Footnotes. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 12:32, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
This should probably go on the Talk page, but as the article currently reads, there is a major error in it. In the second "Early Interpretations" the following sentence appears:
Stonehenge was first described by Nennius in the 9th century, who wrote that it was built as a memorial to 400 nobles who were treacherously slain nearby by Hengist in 472.
A quick search of an online copy of the Historia Brittonum shows that Nennius (traditionally credited with writting this work) never stated that. The claim originates with Geoffrey of Monmouth, as is explained further down in the article in the section "Myths and Legends". Gerald Hawkins' book (which should be included in the Bibliography) which does a decent job of documenting the traditions associated with Stonehenge (& mentions its place in popular literature), verifies this, as would checking the index to any translation of Geoffrey's work. -- llywrch 18:19, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Good point, it seems Nennius' connection with Stonehenge is tenuous at best. I will take it out immediately. adamsan 19:58, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The second image, Image:Stonehenge20040724_CopyrightKaihsuTai.jpg is mostly grass and not very helpful. —Wahoofive | Talk 23:58, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

US military budget

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There's a lot in the line of biased jargon in the, *ahem*, attempt at a justifcation for American military spending. For example, the need to "project power globally". What does that entail, other than alliteration and presumably machismo? It's the sort of meaningless buzzword employed at certain recent press conferences. My own political biases aside, it reads like a PoV-heavy, not-well-written defense from the statistics presented in the top section of the article, a section which used to appear in another article (full disclosure: I wrote that section) but was apparently moved to its current location for the purposes of the ensuing screed. Aratuk 11:10, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There's a brief article on power projection. But in short in means the ability to assert national interests anywhere in the world through non-diplomatic means. Basically its the sort of role Aircraft Carriers are intended to provide, as opposed to, say, coastal defense vessels. — RJH 20:34, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Oh good, hah! I have to eat my words. It is an appropriately phallic expression, I have to say. And there is still plenty in the article that could use a helping hand. Apparently that was a poor example. Aratuk 17:56, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I added an introduction and a slightly redundant paragraph about relative expenditures vs. absolute expenditures. The introductory section could also use a paragraph or two on how this particular budgeting process actually works. — RJH
  • For starters, this needs references and a proper lead. Second, it is way to short for such an important subject. And more ilinks - working - are needed. For example, how can the term military budget be redlinked? Last but not least, the external link should be moved out of the body via footnotes. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 00:06, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Chinese language

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A good and comprehensive article on a very important subject (yes, I am a tad biased by my interests). It seems like most of the information is both factual and comprehensive. In my opinion, the article does a very good job of describing the complexity involved in classifying Chinese as a single languge and still thoroughly explaining why Chinese still is perceived as being just one language.

The pictures are good even though I'm sure a few more might fit in. I'm still hesitant if any pronunciation files should be added. but I'm hoping for comments on that one. Peter Isotalo 01:19, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

  • If it's at all possible, sound bits of someone speaking Chinese or even a few prononciation files are very welcome. I'm sure it would help the article getting through FAC. Just don't overdo it. A few files is enough. - Mgm|(talk) 11:38, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)
    • Ok, there are three samples available at the talk page right now. Comments are appreciated. Peter Isotalo 23:20, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)
  • I don't understand a word of those speech files, but they sound fine to me. Mgm|(talk) 12:29, Apr 2, 2005 (UTC)
Hi, Peter, impressive article! I like the lead especially, because, like everybody else, I knew Chinese regional variation is as diverse and mutually unintelligible as the European language family, while Chinese has a joint written language, but I never knew why the situations are so different, and the lead explains it succinctly. This is the one thing I've always wondered, so it's nice and inviting to get it up front. ( As is proper, there's a fuller explanation further down.)
OTOH, I don't understand the logic of this bit in the Lead:
The terms and concepts used by Chinese to think about language are different from those used in the West, partly because of the unifying effects of the Chinese characters used in writing,
Why would the unifying effects of the characters make the terms and concepts different from in the West?
Picking some more nits. "Spoken Chinese": "There is more on this debate below." Not elegantly put, not very useful, because "below" is big. Put something like "For this debate, see section X"; I'd change it myself if I knew where the "more" is. This short graph is altogether harder to follow that the rest of the text. ("On the other hand"? What was the first hand?)
There are some local incoherences in the text--occasionally I get the impression that sentences have been inserted without regard for existing connections. I've tried to straighten these out, but I doubt I've caught them all, as I probably sometimes miss what connection is intended to be made. Also, somebody editing there seems to have a bit of a "however" issue, using the word very loosely (I've removed it a few times, but there are more).
Very small nit: do you want "Chinese culture and politics" or "Chinese" in "Influence on other languages", first sentence? (Can't have both.) --Bishonen|Talk 07:24, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)


Very nice article. But I'm here to be critical of it, so here you go:

  • General — some sections are really extensive, others are only one paragraph. Try sectioning some longer parts of the article.
  • Related to Bishonen's point on "The terms and concept used by Chinese to separate spoken language from written language are different from those used in the West" — this is a very obscure sentence and only at the end of the paragraph it becomes clear what it is about. Additionally, I have the feeling that the comparison of Europe's and China's history muddles the (important) point and is a little too far-fetched for the lead section. I suggest cutting this paragraph down to (1) simply noting the discrepancy between spoken and written language in Chinese, (2) giving some reasons for it (only briefly — the lead section should only summarize what is to be found later on in the article); (3) drawing the conclusion that "[t]he concept of a distinct and unified combination of both written and spoken forms of language is therefore much stronger in the West than in China."
    • I think it's best if people with a more general knowledge of Chinese edited the introduction. China-nerds like myself will probably just get it all confused by assuming that people simply know more about the suject than they actually do. There's not really that much that much editing to be done, so I'd appreciate if you or bishonen could do it. Peter Isotalo 14:41, Apr 3, 2005 (UTC)
  • Spoken Chinese — it would be more intuitive if the text followed the order of the dialects on the map, or vice versa.
  • Spoken Chinese — The map is released under a non-free license; it would preferable to have it under GFDL or CC-BY. Maybe you could ask one of the Wikipedians listed at Wikipedia:Wikipedians/Cartographers to redraw the map (I'm listed there, but currently I only take requests for African subjects).
  • Phonology — strictly speaking, talk about syllables belongs to morphology rather than phonology. (I suspect you don't feel like writing a 'Morphology' section — it might be better to place this bit into 'Grammar' then, but I'm not sure).
  • Regardless of the placement, if I read that "Chinese phonology is strictly bound to a set number of syllables with a fairly rigid construction", I wonder why that 'set number of syllables' isn't disclosed and why that 'fairly rigid construction' is not outlined; in other words, I would expect a little something about canonical word and syllable structure (I believe Chinese lects have a preference for open syllables).
    • I agree. A short summary of how syllables are constructed is appropriate. We don't want to get too specific, though, because there is just too much to get specific about. Peter Isotalo 14:41, Apr 3, 2005 (UTC)
  • Grammar — the first sentence is incomplete; they 'depend on syntax' -> to accomplish what? Incidentally, I believe that this is not a very clear description of 'isolating language'. In general, in isolating languages many semantic features are expressed by (separate) lexical items, as opposed to agglutinating language who tend to use morphology or inflection/conjugation to accomplish the same. I'm not sure that's that's the best way of saying it but it might be better at least.
  • Grammar — I think it's worth mentioning that Chinese is known for its in situ question formation strategy as opposed to the relatively common wh-fronting. See Wh-movement.
  • Grammar — I think it would be nice to have some simple example sentences here. On the Talk page I saw some recordings — are these going to be used in the article?
    • Absolutely. Maybe not those specific recordings, but something like them. We need input from native speakers and people with more experience of Chinese, though. Peter Isotalo 14:41, Apr 3, 2005 (UTC)
  • External links — that's a load of links that we have there. Maybe this section needs to be pruned; if not, then it is probably a good idea to categorize them into, for example, 'Tutorials', 'Dictionaries', etc.

That'll be it for now. I've learned a lot of new things by reading this! — mark ✎ 14:11, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)


Recently, Umofomia expanded the phonology section and graced the article with an extensive morphology section. I have a few comments.

Chinese morphology is strictly bound to a set number of syllables with a fairly rigid construction which are the morphemes, the smallest building blocks, of the language.
  • I have still several problems with this sentence. First, what does the first part of it really mean? Does it mean that, given the finiteness of the phoneme inventory and given the constraints on syllable structure, the number of possible syllables is finite? Probably not :) — in any case, that quite trivial and has nothing to do with Chinese. Does it mean that words tend to be bisyllabic or monosyllabic or trisyllabic or whatever? Then I'd say just that. Second, I wouldn't say that morphemes are the smallest building blocks of languages; speech sounds are, I think. A popular definition of morpheme is 'smallest meaning-conveying unit'. Third, I wouldn't equate morphemes with syllables — I'm sure there are multi-syllabic morphemes and there might also be morphemes that don't constitute a well-formed syllable on their own.
    • I'm pretty sure that the comment is valid for Chinese. As far as I know the smallest morphemes in Chinese are the individual syllables, and the number of syllables is quite fixed. Since the whole language is bound to the Chinese writing system, there's no possibility of coming up with a system like for example English, where morphemes are much smaller than just syllable. Just try a minimal pair excercise and you'll see what I mean. Peter Isotalo 22:48, Apr 7, 2005 (UTC)
      • It could well be (Chinese being an isolating language). My main problem is that the sentence as it is now makes it look like a general statement. — mark ✎ 23:22, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
        • You're right about it being too general. I again assume that everyone has the same konwledge as wikinerds fascinated with Chinese. :-) The thing with Chinese is that the set of sounds is restricted to syllables with a very rigid construction. The only valid syllable is one that is based on the initial-medial-final(+tone) construction. While all languages naturally have a lot of restrictions on how individual phonemes can be used and the number of reasonable syllables, Chinese has literally no room for change as it is now. To use English as an example, the word */dʒi θma/ is ficticious, but there's nothing to stop us from inventing an appropriate spelling for it (*<jeethma>, for example) and using it to name some exotic form of beetle, a new type of food product or a Klingon captain in Star Trek XVIII. In Chinese this is not possible. The number of syllables does vary from one dialect to another, but the system is fairly consistent (as far as I know). For example, the word */kɕam/ doesn't exist in Chinese and there is simply no way of writing it except in grossly non-standard pinyin. The rendering would be something like *<kxam>, but since this has no support in either colloquial speech or Chinese written language, it would require extraordinary changes to facilitate it. Peter Isotalo 14:07, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)
  • I changed the order of the sections, because it seems more intuitive to start with the basic building blocks and then proceed to sentence/grammar level.
  • The comprehensiveness of the morphology section may merit a separate article. I don't have a real problem with long articles myself, but many people do. Other than that, I must say that this section is really great. Good and to-the-point explanantions; nice way of getting common misunderstandings out of the way; beautiful examples. Great work, Umofomia! — mark ✎ 10:25, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for taking the time to review my changes Mark.
Does it mean that, given the finiteness of the phoneme inventory and given the constraints on syllable structure, the number of possible syllables is finite? Probably not :)
Actually that is indeed the case. Essentially all syllables are of the forms V, CV, VC, or CVC, and the C's and V's are constrained to certain possible values. Anyway, I see what you mean, though I'll have to think a bit to see how to reword this. If you have better suggestions, don't hesitate to respond.
Well the problem with that would be that it is trivial. It holds for every language. Every language is "bound to a set number of syllables with a fairly rigid construction" given the finiteness of the phoneme inventory and the constraints on syllable structure. — mark ✎ 23:22, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Third, I wouldn't equate morphemes with syllables
Agreed. Although almost all Chinese morphemes are one syllable, there are some that aren't (though many of them are foreign loans) and I shouldn't confuse the two. I'll fix that soon.
Thanks! --Umofomia 11:04, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Oakland Cemetery

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Resubmitting this for peer review since it has undergone some cleanup and now contains several nice images. I'm hoping to get this up to FAC quality. The archive of my last request can be found at Wikipedia:Peer review/Oakland Cemetery/archive1. -- uberpenguin 19:09, 2005 Apr 20 (UTC)

  • The article looks great. A few little questions, how long unitl the space runs out, who is responsible for caretaking and how much does it cost the city, does this cemetary have problems with vandalism? --nixie 08:23, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Responses to these questions:
  • "How long until the space runs out"
  • "An estimated 70,000 people are interred at Oakland and while the last plots were sold in 1884, there are still regular burials today." (second paragraph of intro, emphasis added) -- The cemetery has long been fully allocated and there is no more room to expand its borders. Do you think this is significant enough to add more information on it, or do you think the short mention in the intro paragraphs is suficient?
  • "Who is responsible for caretaking," "does the cemetery have problems with vandalism"
  • See the short section Historic Oakland Foundation -- There is some damage that is the direct result of vandalism (notably an incident in the mid 1980s that is alluded to at the end of the paragraph about the Jewish section), but most damage in Oakland is due to the passing of time or isn't easily attributed to any thing.
  • "how much does it cost the city"
  • "Since Oakland is not and was never a perpetual care cemetery, (...)" (first sentence of Historic Oakland Foundation section) -- This should imply that the City isn't really responsible for Oakland.
All of your questions are already briefly covered. I can go into more detail on any of them if you think that would be of benefit to the article (tell me if you think so). Thanks for your suggestions! -- uberpenguin 17:11, 2005 Apr 21 (UTC)
How is the historic society funded, and one more thing, where are people from Atlanta being buried now since most of them won't get burried here?--nixie 13:11, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Oakland is funded mostly by donation, I'll include that in the article. As for your second question, remember that Atlanta is very large city with a huge metro area. There are literally hundreds of cemeteries in and around it, and trying to comment on this wouldn't be very condusive to clarity or brevity. -- uberpenguin 16:45, 2005 Apr 22 (UTC)
  • Looks great. I'd say off to WP:FAC with you soon. I couldn't really find any issues with it. - Taxman 16:18, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

Gustav Stickley

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This was the first article I ever wrote on Wikipedia, and coming back to it I think I'd quite like to shape it up into a featured article. I volunteer at Craftsman Farms on the weekends, so this makes it easy for me to find extra info but might also be skewing the focus of the article unfairly. If anyone has any ideas about what directions I should be going in, that would be great. Thanks! Philthecow 21:11, Mar 27, 2005 (UTC)

It looks good overall. I always like to see some background information on the person, such as where he was born, whom he married, where he was educated or apprenticed, &c. — RJH 17:07, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

International cricket in South Africa (1971 to 1981)

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I don't really know where to go with this article, but I'd like to boost it up to featured status. Any advice would be welcome, jguk 20:50, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I believe that India was the first to deny its cricket team any sort of interaction with South Africa due to its apartheid policies. Can you verify?  =Nichalp (talk · contribs)= 18:57, Apr 3, 2005 (UTC)
I can't. England, Australia and New Zealand were the only countries to play South Africa before isolation. Certainly India was strongly against apartheid - and Indira Gandhi's government was hostile towards those with any connections to South Africa. But so were the West Indies - some governments more than others. Lester Bird's government, and the Guyanese government were probably as strong in their condemnation as India (of course, the other West Indian nations were also anti-apartheid - but, as far as I am aware, were not as forceful, particularly where it comes to cricketing issues - as these two). So whether India was the first to go against interaction with South African cricketers or not - I do not know.
Incidentally, a blind eye seems to have been taken to the English county championship, where South Africans, Indians, Windians and Pakistanis all played. But any time there was any hint of a representative match, or a match in South Africa itself, the politicians came out again. Finally, I'm not aware of any particular issues the PCB had, and Sri Lanka only came to the fore in the 1980s when they gained Test status, and the rebel Arosa Sri Lanka team toured SA, jguk 17:45, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • you use numbered external links, which are bad style. You could add a link title, but even better would be to convert them to proper footnotes
  • there is no photograph of cricket actually being played and/or cricket players.
  • recent agreement is that footnotes should not be used for digressions.
  • I'm not sure that the lead image is really the best for this article, since a flag isn't really cricket specific.
  • possibly too much on individual matches ; might be better to cover the effect on the careers of SA cricketers.
Mozzerati 20:51, 2005 Apr 3 (UTC)
Many thanks for your comments.
  • I've modified the way the external links are presented so they no longer appear as a numbered link. I've left the link in-text as I think it looks better this way - and is consistent with how the rest of games are presented.
  • I'll look for what photos I can find that are fair use. I'm doubtful of finding any action shots of the games referred to though - as I've never seen one. There should be some piccis of some of the key players though.
  • I haven't seen that recent agreement - may I ask where it is? I've changed the presentation of the info that was in the footnotes so there are now no footnotes.
  • If I can find some fair use piccis of players (or better still a match - if there's one I can find) I'll replace it. I'll keep the "whites only" notice though, as it helps illustrate why South Africa was isolated.
  • I've recently got a number of new sources - Ali Bacher's autobiography and Mike Procter's book on Cricket in isolation-era South Africa and Mike Procter on Cricket. I'll add info from here about the players soon, jguk 18:03, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sesame Street

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Wikipedia:Peer review/Sesame Street/archive2
Wikipedia:Peer review/Sesame Street/archive3

What's the article need now? I think I've addressed the concerns from the previous PRs. -- Zanimum 17:50, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program. They may or may not be accurate for the article in question (due to possible errors/uniqueness of articles). If the following suggestions are completely incorrect about the article, please drop a note on my talk page.
Per WP:CONTEXT and WP:MOSDATE, months and days of the week generally should not be linked (Don't link September or Tuesday unless there is really good reason to). Years, decades, and centuries can be linked if they provide context for the article.
See below. -- Zanimum 18:55, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Per WP:WIAFA, Images should have concise captions.
While I agree, concise captions don't allow me to prove enough supporting information to claim fair use. Ideas? -- Zanimum 18:55, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Per WP:MOSNUM, there should be a no-break space - &nbsp; between a number and the unit of measurement. For example, instead of 18mm, use 18 mm, which when you are editing the page, should look like: 18&nbsp;mm.
I don't see any measurements. -- Zanimum 18:54, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Per WP:MOS#Headings, headings generally do not start with the word "The". For example, ==The Biography== would be changed to ==Biography==.
Would look to odd with just "Humans" as a category. -- Zanimum 18:54, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Generally, trivia sections are looked down upon; please either remove the trivia section or incorporate any important facts into the rest of the article.
Done, painfully. -- Zanimum 18:52, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Per WP:WIAFA, this article's table of contents (ToC) maybe too long- consider shrinking it down by merging short sections or using a proper system of daughter pages as per WP:SS.
This is already a summarised version. -- Zanimum 18:52, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There are a few occurrences of weasel words in this article- please observe WP:AWT. Certain phrases should specify exactly who supports, considers, believes, etc., such a view.
Fixed any that weren't cited. -- Zanimum 18:52, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
This article can use copyediting to ensure that the it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work.
You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions (and the javascript checklist; see the last paragraph in the lead) for further ideas.
Thanks, Andy t 22:26, 12 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
As said above, this article needs attention to dates. This can be done quickly, simply copy the entire contents of User:Bobblewik/monobook.js to your own monobook. Then follow the instructions in your monobook to clear the cache (i.e. press Ctrl-Shift-R in Firefox, or Ctrl-F5 in IE) before it will work. This will give you a 'Dates' tab. Hope that helps. bobblewik 17:54, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
What exactly about dates? I'm not at a computer right now where I can modify my Monobook. The date links all seem fine. I don't link to any months or days of the week. -- Zanimum 19:21, 13 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There are unnecessary links to solitary years. If you update your monobook as described and press the 'Dates' tab, you will see the proposed edit. Feel free to try it and accept or reject the edit. bobblewik 18:01, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Technetium

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Not exactly the most important element there is, nor is there much to say about it. But I think my recent expansion has moved it significantly toward FA quality. So, what else needs to be done to get it there? --mav 00:25, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Note to reviewers: look at the recent discussion on the talk page. Jan van Male 15:39, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Looks like most everything has been fixed now. --mav 02:03, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)
It looks pretty good to me. There's a minor formatting problem down toward the end of the references section, but otherwise it's an interesting article. At least to me. — RJH 17:49, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Looks really good, so the biggest issue I see is the lack of context for some more technical terms. Anything that would require following the wikilink for someone who has had high school chemistry should be explained at least somewhat in context. To me, that means the intro is almost fine, though of anything in the article, that should be even easier to understand. Examples include oxidizing, pertechnetate, paramagnetic, magnetic penetration depth, monoclonal antibody, meta states, etc. Another is that it is noted twice that "Its chemical properties are intermediate between rhenium and manganese", and we never exactly find out how that is, or what properties that refers too. All of the chemical properties listed? What about them is in between? Overall it is great, I learned a lot that never got covered in science classes, and every question I could think of going in was answered. - Taxman 15:54, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)
Good points! I'll take a stab at fixing them, but only for the most important items as they relate to the subject since adding too much peripheral context will upset the flow. But I agree that the current balance is skewed a bit much toward those people with college level chemistry experience. --mav 17:12, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I went through to quickly explain many of the items you mentioned, but most were already explained in context. I tried my best to explain other items, but many of the concepts can't be explained in-line without including an entire paragraph (which as I said would upset the flow). Also, things like 'magnetic penetration depth' are self-explanatory on the most basic level (the depth a magnetic field can penetrate into a substance). I was not able to fix the properties issue since my sources do not compare and contrast ; they just explain technetium's properties. Such a comparison would be boring anyway since most properties really are going to be somewhere inbetween rhenium and manganese (would be mind-numbing to keep saying pretty much the same thing over and over again). --mav 01:52, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Mummy

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I've recently done an extensive rewrite, moving sections around, rephrasing the lead and making a clearer distinction between artifical and natural mummies, adding pics, refs and ext. links and most of all a description of the Egyptian mummification process. I know it's not finished or feature-able yet, but I'd like some opionions on what still needs to be included. I'd specifically like opinions on whether I should include a short section on a few of the listed mummies linking to their main article above it. -- Mgm|(talk) 15:19, Mar 26, 2005 (UTC)

I think it should talk about what happened to mummies after they were buried. In various regions, mummies were considered to have magical and medical properties, and were used for medicine. It had been widely used in China as a part of Traditional Chinese medicine. I'm also going to add the mummification practice in Japan. Revth 03:15, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Magical and medicinal purposes should indeed be mentioned and I welcome the addition of the Chinese mummification process. 131.211.210.15 07:37, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Basically, it is too short. 'Mummies in Ancient Egypt' should be at least 30kb by itself, and in this article I see it as much larger with a subarticle. 'Mummies in modern times' should go after 'Mummies in other civilizations', and the latter, together with 'Famous mummies' need expantion from a list into large sections. Finally, the 'Famous mummies' should be cleary divided into real mummies and those popularised by books/films/etc. Which reminds me, there needs to be a Mummy (disambigation) (for the film, at the very least). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 12:36, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
(Copied from my talk page). --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 12:02, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  1. "Mummies in Ancient Egypt" probably should be expanded as you said, but what do you think needs to be included?
  2. "Mummies in modern times' should go after "Mummies in other civilizations". That's a good idea. I'm not really sure about expanding the list yet. After all, they do have articles on their own, and the article may end up being too large if I do. I'm hoping to keep the mummy article as general as possible.
  3. Finally, the 'Famous mummies' should be cleary divided into real mummies and those popularised by books/films/etc. If there are any fictional mummies listed, please point them out.
  4. I'll see what I can do about a disambiguation. Wikiwax showed me there's a lot of mummy topics floating around.

Cheers! Mgm|(talk) 11:25, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

Re1. I am not a mummy specialist, but it is just way to short. I suggest some research and reading. After all, when people think mummy, they most of the time think 'mummy from AE'. For now we have 2 screens worth of info - good for an introduction, but I am sure a detailed article could have several times that info. Re2. Well, atm the article is too short, so I suggest expanding anything. We can worry about it being too long when it is no longer too short :) Re3. Hmmm, I thought that they would be added. As long as there are none, well, ignore this comment :) Re4. What is wikiwax? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 12:02, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Wikiwax is a helpful search engine that indexes Wikipedia article, making a it very easy to search for a certain text in the title. Mgm|(talk) 17:41, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

Jeb Bush

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I have already submitted this matter for arbitration. Thank you for your message here. SummerFR 18:04, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but this article obviously has a heated content dispute problem first, and a need for advice on how to reach Featured standard only a distant second. I ask the poster or the other contributor involved to move it to Wikipedia:Requests for comment, compare instructions at the top of this page. If you don't do it yourselves, one of the housekeepers here soon will. Welcome back with the article when its content has something approaching consensus! --Bishonen | talk 13:37, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This article has had many recent updates by a new user, and has potential for featured article status, but is in need of some NPOV editing by someone familiar with Jeb Bush. In addition, there are disputes over many of the pictures used in the article, which appear to have been lifted from the state of Florida's website and do not have copyright tags on them. I have tried to address my concerns on the talk page and through contacting other users individually, but it has started to descend into an open dispute between myself and SummerFR in spite of all of my efforts to work together. I hope that by listing it on peer review some other users could help get this article to be both accurate and neutral, as well as helping with the photo issues.--BaronLarf 01:43, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

I have been harassed nonstop for the one week I have been here because of my attempt -- repeat: ATTEMPT -- to make my contributions to this article. The person above has repeatedly made false accusations against me as discussed on the discussion page for this article. He or she is apparently so concerned that Jeb Bush might get credit for one of his many achievements that the above USER is driving me crazy -- following me around, counting my edits and announcing the number when he posts on the article, constantly deleting photos and reverting my work, failing to answer my questions, and ignoring my responses to his questions, and ignoring an email from myflorida.com that he pestered me for under threat of action against me. This is not a "neutral" concern as he claims for "peer review." What he or she has done is called blantant harassment, and it is continuous and persistant against me.

I have never been as harassed as badly anywhere online as I have been on this site and I am familiar with many web site forums from all sides of the political aisle. The liberals at this site who hate Jeb Bush are really ruining this site for the people who want to learn about him. I am not doing any more work on this article for a week at least since my contributions are constantly destroyed for no reason. I am hoping to get rid of a migraine headache brought on by the above poster and others including a poster named JEZ. I appreciate the one wiki administrator who restored text to this article, MATINI2005, however no administrator is any match for the nonstop harassment by the above poster, BaronLarf. SummerFR 03:14, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I really do not believe that this is the place to air grievances, so I won't respond to them here. I am only trying to get others to look the article over. Cheers. --BaronLarf 03:23, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

"Peer Review" is for completed articles being nominated for an award and honor as "feature article." Since the JEB article is not finished, and since you are certainly not trying to honor it, this matter of your harassment against me really belongs in the forum I said, called arbitration. As you know so much about wikipedia, feel free to start the correct process. It is not "peer review." SummerFR 03:26, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

By the way, still waiting for your acknowledgement of Alia Farej, Gov Bush's spokesperson, and her email re the photo copyrights, and I posted that email and pointed it out to you repeatedly on the article discussion page. Yet, here, again, you are pretending no such email exists when it does, and it is posted. SummerFR 03:29, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC

From: "Faraj, Alia" [her myflorida.com email address deleted] To: [SummerFR] CC: [myflorida.com and Gov Bush] Subject: FW: Permission request to use myflorida.com phhotos on wiki entry about you Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2005 12:49:34 -0400


Hello [SummerFR],


I am checking with the appropriate people at MyFlorida and will get back in touch with you as soon as I get a response. Thank you very much for checking with us.


Sincerely,


Alia


________________________________


Original Message-----


From: [SummerFR] Sent: Friday, April 22, 2005 9:12 PM To: Jeb Bush Subject: Permission request to use myflorida.com photos on wiki entry about you


Dear Gov Bush,


Is it OK with you that I post photos from myflorida.com in a wikipedia entry I am writing about you?


If there is someone else I need to contact, kindly let me know.


Below is a request I received from wiki, and my reply. I will be sharing


your reply here with wiki.


Thanks for your help.


Sincerely, [my real name deleted here in post on wiki page for Jeb discussion] aka SummerFR on wikipedia.com)

Nice of you to NOW mention "FEATURE ARTICLE STATUS" in YOUR NEW EDIT of your message, after I MENTIONED IT FIRST AND HAD TO EXPLAIN IT TO YOU JUST NOW ON THIS PAGE. SummerFR 03:47, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

LinuxQuestions.org

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The consensus on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/LinuxQuestions.org is currently for a Keep and Expand, so I'd like someone knowledgeable on the subject to do so. Master Thief Garrett 22:20, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Archived, poster has been advised to put it on Wikipedia:Requests for expansion instead.--Bishonen | talk 12:56, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

History of music

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It is a pretty good article but was rejected from being a featured article. -- Tony Jin | (talk) 00:39, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

Julian Eltinge

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This was the first article I wrote for Wikipedia when I first got on last year. I've just rewritten most of it and expanded the information as well as adding links and references. I'm considering nominating this for FA, but having spent time on the FAC board, I know they are sharks. What should be improved? Thanks! Ganymead 07:05, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • Great article – it looks like you've done your research. I a little concerned about a couple things, namely, slightly POV language ("he gracefully broke through the strictures" in the lead) and rather short paragraphs. Preferably the 2-3 line paragraphs should be lengthened, because this article is on the short side, but if it's comprehensive (I wouldn't know, since I've never heard of the guy), then probably they should just be joined. From the external link that you say is "incredible" (that should probably be changed to "comprehensive" or something along those lines), there is a biography section that talks about his life alot more. It looks like there is alot of discrepancy over what really happened when he was young – why not talk about that more? And it has alot more about his career as well; could more of that be incorporated? What about the other sources? Is there more to say? Right now, the article is not anywhere close to being too long, so make sure it's comprehensive. Oh, one more thing – some of the red links (especially the ones linking to people and the theater named after him) should probably be linked to stubs; that is, it might be good to create articles like Eltinge Theater and Bert Savoy. --Spangineer ∞ 13:39, Mar 26, 2005 (UTC)
Hi, Ganymead, I see many excellent points have already been made by Spangineer. Here are a few more to be going on with, on the path to WP:FAC:
The lead section is too short. It needs to summarize the article (not the subject, but the article) in a comprehensive way, see Wikipedia:Lead section. The 2nd sentence seems to have had a copyedit accident, it's syntactically screwed-up.
Very nice pic, but it needs more information on copyright and provenance on the image description page. I know it wasn't you that uploaded it, but you're still the one that'll get blamed on FAC :-/. Perhaps you know how old it is and where it comes from? I fixed the broken PD template myself, but a less general tag would be better, {{PD-old}} or {{PD-art}}.
I would say you quite urgently need more pics, also. Checking...wow, the internet has a wealth of 'em! Why ever haven't you filled your article with these babies? For instance from this photo gallery, that you've got listed under External links: http://silentgents.com/PEltinge.html.
You might want to think about using an ordinary portrait at the top, something like http://silentgents.com/Eltinge/Eltinge03.jpg. Sure, the one you've got is more interesting visually, but it might be considered more professional and encyclopedic to show just a regular head portrait at that point. (The "What would the Encyclopedia Britannica do?" principle.)
For the whole image copyright nightmare :-(, please see Wikipedia:Image copyright tags, which either has or links to everything you need to know about it, and, basically, start praying that the pics you want to use are demonstrably pre-1923. Maybe the books you list have illustrations with years for some of the relevant images? That would be a big help. Writing to the user who uploaded the image you're using now, (Nunh-huh) and seeing what he knows about provenance and age might be another in.
The reference section looks good, but I'd say you need a bit more attribution in the text, to connect the claims made and the appropriate reference. E. g., "some scholars" is a weasel word, say which scholars think the circumstances of Eltinge's death mysterious (one scholar will do fine). I absolutely don't mean for you to distract the reader with footnotes (yech): just mention the person in a way that makes it clear which reference is being invoked. Say where Dorothy Parker wrote the passage you quote, etc.
The text is well written, but my sense is that a bit of a copyedit for occasional syntax trouble wouldn't hurt (I'll do it if you like). Thanks for writing a cool article! Bischånen|Tåk 15:15, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • I've re-written the introduction and I've filled in a few of the red links. The other tasks are coming along and now having a copy of Eltinge's New York Times obit., I can clear up some facts. Thanks for the wonderful suggestions! They have and will help immensely! Ganymead 02:46, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Terri Schiavo

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Previous peer review request: Wikipedia:Peer review/Terri Schiavo/archive1 (March 2005)
Previous peer review request: Wikipedia:Peer review/Terri Schiavo/archive2 (May 2005)

Well, we've had two peer reviews, a couple of major blowouts, mediation, some RFC's, and a massive rewrite. Personally, I think this version is pretty good, but I've been working on it for some time now. Please note that the article is still listed as in mediation, as a controversial topic, and that this has been a problematic article. Comments and suggestions are appreciated. FuelWagon 23:33, 11 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that this version is pretty good. The main problem is that it does not follow standard Wikipedia style. Why is the TOC right aligned and placed after the second paragraph? Why is the series box placed where the TOC should be, rather than in the upper right as is standard. The lead, if it is the top paragraph, is much too short. If it is the first two paragraphs then it is much too long. - SimonP 15:33, August 12, 2005 (UTC)
I used to contribute to the article, but not for a good 2 months or so now (I gave up as it was too much bother), and it looks utterly different now, so I think I can get away with commenting. It's still twice as long as it should be - I remember a few sections were split off as it had grown to 70k, and it's now 80k + ! It needs a serious, determined effort to prune it massively. It should not be a cover-all-bases, report every fact, in-depth masterpiece. It should be an encyclopedia article. Report the main (the MAIN) facts, leave out all the opinion stuff about which doctor said this and which said that (just say the PVS decision was disputed), halve (preferably three quarter) the length of that huge intro.
If people want to know every facet of the story, they can follow the external links at the bottom and find this information elsewhere. It reads like an article that has been written by comittee (which it has), with every possible point of view on every possible point covered. And editors (who have, admittedly, worked on it ceaselessly) are far too protective of the article. Here is all the article needs to say:
"Terri Schiavo (blah blah 19?? - foo foo 2005) was an American woman who was in a persistent vegetative state. (no discussion of PVS should be in this article whatsoever - just link to the PVS article) Although this diagnosis was disputed by a minority of doctors who diagnosed her (refs), it was upheld a number of times by the courts (refs). Her husband, Michael Schiavo, took the decision to have her feeding tube withdrawn, a decision which was hotly contested and challenged by her parents (refs). The case garnered widespread national and international media attention, splitting the American public. A number of attempts weremade by various individuals, churchleaders and politicians (refs) to overturn the decision to withdraw the feeding tube, but at each stage courts upheld the original decision (refs). Eventually, Terri Schiavo passed away x days after the removal of her feeding tube on foo foo, 2005."
There, that's basically it. There's no justification for that sogging up 80k. The story is really quite straightforward, but it's been overanalysed and overwritten for an encyclopaedia article. Proto t c 23:31, 12 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I kinda agree with Proto, though I would put it in milder wording. 80k is completely over the top for even the broadest of subjects and is hardly reasonable for this rather narrow subject. More consideration needs to be taken to the average reader than to please every minor detail of every imaginable POV of our own editors. If this is to stand a chance as a FAC, it needs to be hacked and slashed quite mercilessly.
Peter Isotalo 00:05, 14 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I kinda agree in the opposite direction; meaning I appreciate and concur with the issues raised; but I'm thinking bigger picture beyond (what I think should be a fluid) FA criteria. Wikipedia is a unique source and by my standards this article is a FA of the highest caliber; which simply entails people interested in the subject can come here and find important information collected and collated on the subject.
The subject is straightforward, but the story and its implications aren't; and the size and detail of this article is a barometer (reflection) of it being overanalyzed and overwritten in pop-culture. Maybe over time as this story fades into the past it would be appropriate to shrink the article; but if that were to occur (and nothing says to me it has to), I'd prefer it to be an organic process in step with its notability... rather than a scorched earth policy in pursuit of rules in a place where there are no rules.
Simply put Wikipedia puts other sources to shame. - RoyBoy 800 04:08, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the feedback so far. I would just say in response to the idea of cutting the article: sure. except as soon as you cut out one accusation of witchcraft, someone will cry bias. Motions and affidavits of the most absurd accusations and assertions were filed and the court found most of them to be utterly without basis. But if you cut one affidavit, someone will howl that we left out so-and-so's accusations that Michael practiced statanic rituals on Terri, drank her blood, and danced on her grave, and therefore say the article is biased. They'll put the accusation back in, and it will get reverted, an edit war will flare up, and the only stable solution we've managed to reach is to describe so-and-so's accusations and then give a full account of how the court viewed them, what the guardian ad litems said contrary to them, and so on. The end result, of course, being an 80k article. If there's a way to shorten the article, that won't get reverted by those who wish to list every accusation of witchcraft against Michael, the only idea I canthink of is to break the 80k article into some sub articles. I'm not sure how, but I think if you just delete something, you'll see someone eventually put it back in, only they'll put in one POV versus all the different POV's. suggestions for how to cut it into subarticles would be appreciated. FuelWagon 06:29, 15 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have a problem with a comprehensive article, but this entry desperately needs a concise and useful lead similar to the draft proto has sketched above. Having said that, and assuming it happens, is this representative of "Wikipedia's best work"? I'd say no: on the contrary, it's a good example of the things that the Wiki approach has typically not been able to do well. As FuelWagon intimates above, when things get contentious, sound editorial judgement (in the true sense of the word) becomes difficult or impossible, resulting in unending churn, or, in this case, an admittedly bloated, almost formless article. (This both despite and due to the obvious levels of time and passion various editors have invested). We have tons of seemingly-random trivia high in the article (e.g. which saint she was named for), while many of the really notable aspects of this subject (media reaction, use of the case for political purposes, and public response) -- the very things that should make up the bulk of the article -- are mentioned in passing or relegated to sub-articles. Jgm 13:22, 18 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This is way too long and way beyond the scope of Wikipedia. I think just the first 2 paragrphs, plus a little summing up statement of its significance should suffice. There is no need to list EVERY doctor, EVERY diagnosis, EVERY school she attended, etc. While this topic is obviously important to those close to the person, it gets a disproportionate amount of attention relative to other articles, and there is really very little in it that would interest a general public. What is needed here is some perspective. For example, the article on George Washington is less than half the size of this article. Is there really twice as much to say about Terri Schiavo than about George Washington that would actually interest a general public? This is not the forum to dispute issues, rather it is the place to put things into their proper perspective and to show how they fit with other aspects of knowledge. What is the historical significance of this case? Why should we remember it in 20 years? What does it tell us about the United States in 2005? Nrets 17:38, 19 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • For a bio, it's too big. But for the crisis in America, it's fine. I mean, she's the Florida State Vegitable, right? ;)

Reults from automated tool:

The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and may or may not be accurate for the article in question.

  • Per WP:MOS, avoid using words/phrases that indicate time periods relative to the current day. For example, recently might be terms that should be replaced with specific dates/times.
  • Per WP:MOSNUM, there should be a non-breaking space - &nbsp; between a number and the unit of measurement. For example, instead of 18mm, use 18 mm, which when you are editing the page, should look like: 18&nbsp;mm.
  • Per WP:CONTEXT and WP:BTW, years with full dates should be linked; for example, link January 15, 2006, but do not link January 2006.
  • Per WP:MOS#Headings, headings generally do not start with the word "The". For example, ==The Biography== would be changed to ==Biography==.
  • Please alphabetize the interlanguage links.
  • Per WP:WIAFA, this article's table of contents (ToC) maybe too long- consider shrinking it down by merging short sections or using a proper system of daughter pages as per WP:SS.
  • This article may need to undergo summary style, where a series of appropriate subpages are used. For example, if the article is United States, than an appropriate subpage would be History of the United States, such that a summary of the subpage exists on the mother article, while the subpage goes into more detail.
  • There are a few occurrences of weasel words in this article- please observe WP:AWT. Certain phrases should specify exactly who supports, considers, believes, etc., such a view. For example,
    • allege
    • apparently
    • might be weasel words, and should be provided with proper citations (if they already do, or are not weasel terms, please strike this comment).
  • Watch for redundancies that make the article too wordy instead of being crisp and concise. (You may wish to try Tony1's redundancy exercises.)
    • Vague terms of size often are unnecessary and redundant - “some”, “a variety/number/majority of”, “several”, “a few”, “many”, “any”, and “all”. For example, “All pigs are pink, so we thought of a number of ways to turn them green.”
    • Temporal terms like “over the years”, “currently”, “now”, and “from time to time” often are too vague to be useful, but occasionally may be helpful. “I am now using a semi-bot to generate your peer review.”
  • Please ensure that the article has gone through a thorough copyediting so that the it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work. See also User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 2a.

You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions (and the javascript checklist; see the last paragraph in the lead) for further ideas. Thanks, Andy t 08:28, 3 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thomas Crapper

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It's good as it is now, but it's really a bit short. However, I've pretty much run out of stuff from the listed references (and Reyburn's book is, as stated in the text, more of an anti-reference). Ideas or further references I failed to trip over would be most welcome. I suppose I should go out and take a pic of a Thomas Crapper manhole cover ... - David Gerard 10:27, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Family? Some sources mention a wife Maria who died in 1902, and their only child who died in infancy. They also mention an elder brother, also named George, who was a drinking buddy, although I'm unclear whether this is a confusion with his like-named nephew. — RJH 19:02, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Got those sources to hand? Or are they in listed ones? I may email the present Thomas Crapper company for help too - David Gerard 12:01, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Maria is mentioned here: [1], but a Bertha Maria Crapper is mentioned here: [2], and the dates seems to contradict about her death. Elder brother mentioned here: [3]. — RJH 19:07, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Adamawa Province

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There is so much in this article that you'll want to read it just to quench your thirst for knowledge (you're working on an encyclopedia after all). If you're done reading, take five minutes to report your findings here and tell what it needs to become a Featured Article! — mark ✎ 01:50, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Whoa.. thats a lof text in there. How bout adding a few pictures illustrating some of the features? I would suggest maybe:
  • a picture to illustrate the section Relief
  • a picture to illustrate the section Plant and animal life
  • if possible, a map to illustrate the section Settlement patterns
  • a picture to illustrate the section People, if suitable images of natives can be found.
  • a picture to illustrate the section Tourism
  • a picture to illustrate the Menang mentioned in the section Cultural life
  • if possible, a few pictures to illustrate the section on History, if suitable pictues can be found
While not critical, I feel that adding pictures to an article helps to bring it to life. WegianWarrior 07:48, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Very interesting stuff, and I'm impressed at the amount of information about an obscure corner of West Africa. Pictures would definitely help, and also, it would make sense to me if the history section came first. The article contains a lot of redlinks, which harm the overall look of the article. Some of them look like an appropriate existing article could be found to link to, others look like a link is not really necessary. A few stubs could be created, perhaps, for the rest. But apart from that I really think it's an excellent article, pretty close to ready for an FA nomination already. Worldtraveller 13:28, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
This article is the work of User:BrianSmithson, who seems to be away these days. Regrettably, I won't be able to adress the point about pictures. However, I'll try to turn a few redlinks to blue in the near future. Thanks to both of you for reviewing! — mark ✎ 14:45, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I'm still around! Sort of. The problem is that I'm still in Cameroon, so I have internet access very infrequently. To address a few of the concerns brought up here:
  • Pictures. Yes, they'd be nice. Unfortunately, I am posted to the East Province, and can't just go and take them myself. I do have one or two floating around on my USB key that I can try to upload soon. Another option might be that I can convince some Adamawa volunteers to let me use their digital photos. I can try to find out.
  • Red links. It's my opinion that they're a good thing, not bad. It's a debatable point of all those red links are really potential articles, but I think most of them could be.
  • Gas-belching lakes. As far as I know, all such activity has been in the Northwest Province.BrianSmithson 15:10, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Turning red links to blue whould be a valuable contribution (albeit an indirect one) to this article, Mark, & FWIW my opinion is that this article is on the track to becoming a FAC. One detail, though, that has stuck in my mind from my omnivorous reading leads me to this question: does this province include the lakes that are alleged to occasionally release poisonous gases that kill their nearby inhabitants? I saw this story/factoid in a copy of Smithsonian Magazine at my brother's house about a year ago, but adding this information would improve either this -- or the article on the relevant Cameroonian province. -- llywrch 02:56, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)
That must be Lake Nyos you're referring to, which belched out a cloud of carbon dioxide in 1986 and killed 1600 people. That's in Northwest Province, Cameroon, and is mentioned in that article. Don't know if there might be other gas-saturated lakes in this province though. Worldtraveller 00:10, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)
You're right. Digging a bit further in Wikipedia reveals a link to the pdf file of the article I had remembered, [4] which mentions a second lake in Northwest Province. From the article, it leads me to suspect that there are other such lakes in this province -- but until this is proven by a reputable authority, there is no point including this phenomena in this article, for it would clearly be original research. -- llywrch 06:26, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Some suggestions: images should be there if your goal is to make it a FA. I don't like the misuse of the TOC with the use of excess sections. I can point you to Sikkim which is also a state/province of FA status. Your infobox has no margins and the text almost wraps into the box. The article should be shortened and the detail moved to main articles -- rationale: since it is a geographic article which contains discrete topics, a summary of the salient points should be highlighted instead of long narrative topics.  =Nichalp (talk · contribs)= 19:53, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

Washington gubernatorial election, 2004

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This article deals with a tumultuous electoral fiasco which has caused serious reverberations throughout the political structure of the state of Washington. While the final resolution to the entire topic is not completed, currently in litigation, the political situation in Washington is otherwise quite stable, with Gov. Christine Gregoire having actively served as governor for two months as of tomorrow.

It was nominated for FAC in early Feb, but was closely rejected for a variety of vague reasons. I would say that all of the actionable objections to the article's candidacy have been addressed, with the exception of some people's objections that an article can not be high quality if the world has not yet been polite enough to finish turning and bring its topic to complete closure. </rant>

Anyway, before proposing a renom, I am looking for more outside input.

TIA, Keith D. Tyler [AMA] 03:28, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)

What I don't see on this page is any information about the platforms on which the two key candidates ran. I didn't see any mention of the issue concerning the missed filing deadline that cost the state $19 million, and which Rossi played up in his radio ads. Rossi also had a, IMO, fairly effective, family-friendly TV campaign in which his daughter played a notable role. Christine, meanwhile, suffered a bit from a paucity of charisma, &c. Otherwise the page does look pretty decent. It is a little close to the election still, however, so history may judge things differently.
My 2-bits worth. — RJH 17:27, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Lansdowne portrait

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I wrote the article, and I'd like to put it on FAC soon. The description section is nearly done; the history section I plan to expand later. Questions? Comments? Neutralitytalk 02:43, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)

  • It looks good to me; I enjoyed the read. — RJH 02:59, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Looking good, though I don't think it's to FA level yet. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 05:13, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • I think it is POV in asserting as fact what such-and-such component of the portrait symbolises. Such opinions must be attributed to their author. 119 06:02, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Rock carvings at Alta

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I recently did a complete rewrite of the article after the original article was marked as a copyvio; I think my rewrite approaches Featured Article quality, but I'd like some other people to look over it. I'm a bit unsure about the large proportion of possible interpretations (which are necessarily conjectural) as opposed to the relatively small amount of hard facts, but that seems to be necessitated by the article's topic. There are also some points that might need fact-checking by someone really well informed about early Norwegian history (my main reference work dates from 1996, and there seems to be an ongoing debate on the dating of lots of the carvings - different online sources date the most recent carvings as far apart as 500 BC and 500 AD). There's also an ugly redlink to Komsa I would like ot get rid of - I could probably create a good stub about the Komsa culture, but I'm not an expert in that field, so I'd really appreciate some input there -- Ferkelparade π 10:07, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Looking good, interesting article. I'd make the following suggestions and comments: 1. an expanded lead section summarising more of the article content; 2. I think it needs a paragraph or two about the Komsa culture - who were their ancestors, and what is the relation between Komsa, Sami and Norse culture? 3. If possible it would be good to cite a reference for the suggestion that the land was rising rapidly immediately post-glaciation. 4. Are the carvings unique to the Alta region or are there other carvings in northern Norway? Any theories on why Alta has so many carvings? Worldtraveller 10:55, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for your input. I expanded the intro section a bit, is it better now? I'm also trying to dig up a reference for the rapid rise of land, but that proves to be difficult...all history and archaeology books i have consulted just state the rise as a well-known fact, and I have not found anything in geological papers so far (I have little specific knowledge of geology and no access to any special books, so if anyone else could find a reference, I'd be very grateful). Points 2 and 4 are a bit more difficult to address because so little is known definitely about that period and there's so much conjecture involved. I tried to elaborate a bit in the Komsa article (which I just created to get rid of the redlink, although it's very stubby at the moment) - do you think that's sufficient? -- Ferkelparade π 14:07, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The intro is looking better, content-wise - I'm a bit of a traditionalist on that though and I do like to see three nicely sized paras. Up to you though. Good to see the stub for Komsa, that's a help, but the article might want to be a bit clearer on what the relationship is thought to be between Sami and Komsa culture. Sorry if this is something that's just not possible at the current level of understanding, but the article seems to blur the lines a bit by mentioning that the period over which the carvings were created saw the emergence of Sami culture, but without saying whether or not they were the descendents of the people who began the carvings.
Regarding the post-glacial uplift rates, I found a paper that quotes the original research, which doesn't itself seem to be online. I think you can probably trust this paper to have quoted the original research accurately, it's not controversial, so quote a paper that he quotes. Worldtraveller 14:47, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Ah, thanks, I just added another paper as a reference...I'll have a look at the paper you found and see if it makes more sense to change the reference.
The origins of the Sami people and theri relation to their predecessors is unfortunately a bit of a controversial subject, but I agree that the article at the moment is a bit blurry...I'll dig around for some more references and try to think of a way of more accurately reflecting th ecurren tresearch situation in the article. -- Ferkelparade π 14:51, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Worldtraveller, very respectfully, I think it might be overkill to put in a source specifically for the rapid post-glacial land rise, I do believe it's a well-known and uncontroversial fact. (An academic paper would reference it, no doubt.) --Bishonen|Talk 18:49, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I thought that myself, as it's really quite tangential to the article - it's just that although post-glacial uplift is certainly uncontroversial, I was very surprised by the suggestion that it might have at one time been large enough to be noticeable over a human lifetime, so I thought that might be worth referencing. Perhaps a link to an appropriate Wikipedia article would be appropriate, although I've just checked and post-glacial rebound doesn't talk about the rate of rebound. Worldtraveller 19:26, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Right, post-glacial rebound now mentions uplift rates :) Worldtraveller 11:46, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Great, nice to see how work on one article leads to expansion in lots of only marginally related areas :) I added a link to post-glacial rebound and elaborated a bit on the possible connections to Sami and Komsa culture; maybe someone wants to look over my phrasing in that paragraph, I'm not too sure it's really brilliant prose -- Ferkelparade π 12:57, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Well, you've listed three webpages as sources for the possible copyvio. Why not use them properly as references if they are good sites? The article currently only has 2 references which seems pretty meager. Any other quality references would work too. Also, the lead section still feels pretty short for an article this size. It would be better if it were two or three paragraphs that size summarizing more of the most important aspects of the topic. It is ok to be redundant, think of it as the executive summary before the details. All the information should be there for someone that only wants to read that. I don't know if there is significant other material that needs to be covered, as I know nearly nothing about the topic, but overall the article looks very good. Just wait out the copyvio issue and get some other good sources and you'll have a great FAC I'd think. - Taxman 00:52, Apr 13, 2005 (UTC)
    • The copyvio sources are from a commercial website that sells photographs of the carvings and includes small info blurbs on the carvings on every page - not exactly an academic resource, and I don't think we should link to commercial sites as references. Finding reputable online references for Alta turned out to be more difficult than I expected - Google gives hundreds of results, but almost all of the sites are of the type "Hi, I'm uncle Jimmy, and I've been on holiday in Norway". Unless I find one with a really good photo gallery, I don't really want to link to any of these pages :P I found a handful more sources, though...I'll add them and work on the intro a bit more -- Ferkelparade π 08:56, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I finally resolved the copyvio situation, the article now resides at its proper title. If nobody has any more suggestions for improvement of the article, I'll move on to FAC...thanks to everyone for your input! -- Ferkelparade π 08:27, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

List of movies that have been considered the greatest ever

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Do not worry too much about the title of this one; it is slowly outgrowing its original status as a lacklustre list. However I would be really grateful of where to go next - where to get more information from etc. Resources for non-English language films would be particularly useful. Comments on structure too please! It would be especially pleasing if this could be rounded out enough to become a FA. It would be the first FA to my knowledge to have survived VfD in its earliest days. Pcb21| Pete 15:16, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I guess I'd actually like to see an article on just what makes a movie great, then a set of drill-downs into separate lists for each criterion. But that's just me. — RJH 00:39, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
That would be a good addition, I'll see if anybody famous has written on "what makes a great movie". Pcb21| Pete 10:18, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I like it, but it couldn't be a FA, as lists aren't eligible. I don't agree with that, but that's the way it is. Maybe somebody should make a Featured Lists project. Tuf-Kat 02:32, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)
The list actually has quite a bit of prose. Maybe if we changed the article name we could get away with it... Pcb21| Pete 10:18, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Yes! I've been thinking for a while that we should move this article to Movies that have been considered the greatest ever or Greatest movies of all time. -- Samuel Wantman 18:58, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The "In particular countries" section is missing Germany! :-) According to IMDb's user votes, the top three German films are Das Boot (1981), Der Untergang (2004) and Lola rennt (1998). Maybe you can find out more by googling for these. :-) — Timwi 13:35, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hank Aaron

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Recently this article saw a major improvement, and its starting to get close to what I think is FAC-able. Figured i'd run it through PR to get some critiquing.  ALKIVAR™  16:20, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • I did a bit of copyediting, and I agree, this article is getting close. The article is quite complete, as far as I can tell. My concerns are:
  1. No refernces – where did all this info come from?
    • I didnt start this article so I have no idea what the original references are. I merely tablified data and added photographs.
  2. Redundant links everywhere – some of those ball clubs have to be linked half a dozen times.
    • I completely agree, I'll put some effort into this when I get a chance.
  3. Dating – the Wiki software doesn't support dates that have a "year in sports" instead of "year". That is, 10 February 1957 and February 10, 1957 show up differently. If the year links were to the actual year and not to the year in sports, all users would see the date according to their preferences. Thus, I think all those links need to be changed.
    • I was not aware of this, I'll do what I can.
  4. This is a very big article. Could we put the League Leadership Rankings on a separate page? --Spangineer ∞ 00:41, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)
    • I get the feeling if they were spun off they'd be deleted as "Wikipedia is not a Baseball Statistics guide" as they are now they are relevant, I'd like to hear a few more opinions before I do anything about this issue. You should have seen the article BEFORE I put those in tables... it was a straight text dump that went on for like 40 pages.  ALKIVAR™  00:52, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • I did the major revision a few days ago by adding the template, pictures and flushing out the article. What do I need to do to help finish it? GorristerGorrister 13:26, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • I personally don't like the stats. I think a link to a stats site would be better but I hesitated deleting it because somebody took a lot of time to do them.

Geology of the Grand Canyon area

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I've wrote pretty much the whole thing and am now working on History of the Grand Canyon area offline. I'd like to put this through FAC. So far I plan to expand the lead section a bit and add photos. What else can be done to make this article a good FAC? --mav 02:51, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • It looks pretty good to me overall, although I'm not versed in the Geology. There are, perhaps, a few too many dead links in the text. Perhaps the important ones can be added to the requests for pages, or redirected to existing content? — RJH 17:05, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • I'll see about creating some stubs for those. (I remember a time when it was common for over half the links in an article to be dead...) --mav 22:56, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • Many of the red links now taken care of. --mav 04:33, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • A lot of interesting information here. Minor suggestions for improvement - the image at the top does not look very good as currently presented, it doesn't really invite the reader to scroll past it for the rest of the article. I think it would look better right-justified and smaller. The intro is currently a big chunk of text, it might look better split into some paragraphs. I'm also curious as to why each stratum was named as it was, and I think the explanation of what unconformities and noncomformities are and the distinction between them could be made clearer. Are they in fact distinct concepts? Worldtraveller 11:16, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • Image fixed lead now 3 paras. There are parenthetical explanations of the different kinds of unconformities along with links to unconformity. I don't have a source that gives the origin of the different names. --mav 04:33, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Kalimpong

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This is another of my geographic articles. I've closely followed all conventions including the footnotes as suggested earlier. Its comprehensive, has some nice images, but I need a copyedit (as usual) and some critique.  =Nichalp (talk · contribs)= 19:36, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

  • Actually it looks good to me. I was curious if they had a library, but I didn't see one listed on the external links. — RJH 16:14, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the comments. There's one private library [5]. User:Anujkp is a resident of Kalimpong. He would probably have a better idea on libraries in the town.  =Nichalp (talk · contribs)= 19:37, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)

Dream Theater

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This failed as a GA article, so let's see how we can improve it. One thing was it mentioned citations. The problem is many of the places where citations are needed are not listed on the web, a lot are in liner notes of Ytse Jam albums, since that's where MUCH of the history of DT has been listed. I also edited all the one sentance paragraphs and combined them into others.Splent 01:28, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • The DTFAQ.com links are dead, you should find an archived version of these links, I've found this DT FAQ it might be helpful too.
  • I don't think that the The Awards and certificates section's "(Source: search for "Dream Theater".)" part is an acceptable reference, you should do the search and place the result page as a reference.
The problem with this is the riaa website is not set up where you can accurately link a search page. The site comes up as http://www.riaa.com/goldandplatinumdata.php?table=SEARCH_RESULTS. I ended up just linking to the RIAA main page.Splent 01:14, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • The references are really needed, there are looong parts, numerous paragraphs without any reference, and because of this the article is far from GA, you should Google those liner notes, maybe they're on a fan site or something. If you can't find them or wouldn't like to spend time with finding them you can refer to the liner notes, read how to reference liner notes. Gocsa 09:43, 17 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the suggestions, I'm currently adding some more citations in regards to some of the facts in the article.Splent 01:12, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question.

  • Per Wikipedia:Context and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates), months and days of the week generally should not be linked. Years, decades, and centuries can be linked if they provide context for the article.[?]
  • Per Wikipedia:Context and Wikipedia:Build the web, years with full dates should be linked; for example, link January 15, 2006.[?]
  • As per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates), dates shouldn't use th; for example, instead of using January 30th was a great day, use January 30 was a great day.[?]
  • Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings), headings generally should not repeat the title of the article. For example, if the article was Ferdinand Magellan, instead of using the heading ==Magellan's journey==, use ==Journey==.[?]
  • Per WP:WIAFA, this article's table of contents (ToC) may be too long- consider shrinking it down by merging short sections.[?]
  • There are a few occurrences of weasel words in this article- please observe WP:AWT. Certain phrases should specify exactly who supports, considers, believes, etc., such a view.
    • some people sa
    • might be weasel words, and should be provided with proper citations (if they already do, or are not weasel terms, please strike this comment).[?]
  • Watch for redundancies that make the article too wordy instead of being crisp and concise. (You may wish to try Tony1's redundancy exercises.)
    • Vague terms of size often are unnecessary and redundant - “some”, “a variety/number/majority of”, “several”, “a few”, “many”, “any”, and “all”. For example, “All pigs are pink, so we thought of a number of ways to turn them green.”
  • The script has spotted the following contractions: didn't, if these are outside of quotations, they should be expanded.
  • As done in WP:FOOTNOTE, footnotes usually are located right after a punctuation mark (as recommended by the CMS, but not mandatory), such that there is no space in between. For example, the sun is larger than the moon [2]. is usually written as the sun is larger than the moon.[2][?]
  • Please ensure that the article has gone through a thorough copyediting so that it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work. See also User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a.[?]

You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, DrKiernan 14:12, 26 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Helen Gandy

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Helen Gandy was J. Edgar Hoover's secretary for 54 years. This article, proposed for deletion in February, has been completely overhauled. It is now longer than Hoover's entry and includes a thorough bibliography. PedanticallySpeaking 18:30, Apr 1, 2005 (UTC)

Is it possible to get a picture somewhere? I think that's pretty important. More background info is necessary too, in my opinion. Anything about her parent's occupations? I realize there probably isn't too much info out there on this, but more would certainly be helpful. The latter parts look very well researched and are quite informative. The lead could be lengthened to include more info on the files and her role in their destruction, and perhaps a phrase or two about her background (birth, education, etc.). Finally, to me it looks a bit clumsy to talk about her death and then jump back to the section on the files, but I'm not sure how it could be improved. I may be wrong, but does anyone have suggestions for that part? Spangineer ∞ 22:15, Apr 2, 2005 (UTC)
  • Thanks for your favorable comments. I put a bit of background and more about the files in the lead. Theoharis's FBI Companion gave her parents' names but nothing more. I'd like to have a photo, but I don't have one.
    I'm out of chronological sequence by putting the files last, but putting her death last would mean there was an orphaned graf by itself at the end and the way it is now the last bit of the files section has a nice bit of finality to the article. PedanticallySpeaking 16:12, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Autostereogram

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This is a self-nomination. I am requesting a peer review to prepare this document for Featured Article nomination. I was surprised to find little information on autostereograms in wikipedia when I was writing a program to produce Magic Eye pictures. So I promised myself to come back and significantly expand the existing Autostereogram article. As you probably know, wikipedia editing can be addictive. Before I knew, I had turned this article into a (hopefully) comprehensive review of autostereogram theories and a user-guide on techniques in 'seeing' these pictures. Fred Hsu 03:27, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)

RJH

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The page has a lot of images. Unfortunately, on my browser at least, some of the images come out squashed or overlapping down near the "Random dot autostereogram" section. (I'm using IE 5 at the moment). — RJH 04:22, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I see what you mean. I worked on this article with full-sized window at 1024x768 screen resolution. I made the window smaller in width and observed that you described. I fixed a few places where this could happen by shrinking/moving images and by adding more text. Fred Hsu 02:48, Mar 16, 2005 (UTC)

Jan van Male

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I liked reading the article. Although I appear to be unlucky in seeing these (I've tried before), I found your explanation of the phenomenon clear. So now I know exactly what I am missing. Some questions that may be addressed in future revisions:
  • These images are purely made for recreational purposes?
  • Are there any limits on the size of the depicted objects?
  • The first image of the page 'Stereogram_Tut_Shark.png' does not appear to be a random dot autostereogram as is written in the caption. Or have I not understood the article?
  • I think the formatting of the article in sections/paragraphs can be done better. Try to make them smaller. There's plenty of discussion of how the eyes see `normal' 3D throughout the article. Does this warrant a separate section (or even article)?
Regarding your intention to make this a Featured Article: I believe that it may be too technical for that. Compared to other featured articles, this article focuses very much on the `how' instead of the `what'. Since I'm rather new here take this for what it's worth. Whatever happens: I enjoyed reading it!
Jan van Male 23:36, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Thank you! Your suggestions make a lot of sense. I'll try to address these problems this weekend.
  • Recreational: some people claim autostereograms actually help correct eye problems (assuming that you are using wall-eyed viewing). I think this may be true, but I haven't yet come across real evidence/literature on this. The two-image version (those viewed under stereoscope) actually helped the military discover camouflaged ground vehicles. But... err... yeah, they are mainly for recreation.
  • Size: I am not sure what you mean by size. Is it the overal size of the hidden 3D image (that is, the physical dimension of the stereogram - A4, legal, poster size, etc.)? Do you mean the physical distance between the repeating patterns? These all depend on the viewing distance. I was able to see the autostereograms in this article projected on a 12-foot screen, but it required extreme eye divergence. It took me quite a while to master that. Another reviewer in the article discussion page also asked about this. I think I'll add a subsection on this.
  • First image: I'll replace it with the one with colored random dots. It is quite unfortunate that no one (to my limited knowledge) has come up with a different name to describe autostereograms where highly packed patterns are used instead of random-dots. As far as I know, they are all called random-dot autostereogram. I'll try to clarify this some more in the article and in the Terminology section. (done - 3/21/2005)
  • Formating: this issue has been bothering me since day one. The problem is the sheer number of images in this article compared to the amount of text. Either I need to make thumb images even smaller, or write some more. I left a few autostereograms at 600-pixels wide, so people don't need to click on each one to see them. But worst comes to worst, I can make them all 150-pixels wide. (I did my best to format them - 3/21/2005)
  • How The Brain Sees 3D: yeah, maybe this can be an article of its own. Let me think...
OK. I moved some stuff out to Eye#Convergence and Binocular vision. Fred Hsu 04:34, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)
  • Featured Article: I don't like the way phrases such as "the following image shows" keep coming up throughout the article. It's a bit hard to talk about 'What' without talking about 'How'. I have cooled down a little in the past few days. Featured Article or not, I still would like to improved it to make it more readable to the average reader.
Fred Hsu 02:43, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

Mgm

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I'd like to see a bit more wikification and shortening of section titles, but over all it looks great. Mgm|(talk) 12:11, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)
I've shortened one section title. I'll probably move how-the-eye-sees and convergence sections out as suggested by Jan van Male, at which point I'll fix the section titles. As for wikification, I don't know how to properly arrange a table of images using wiki syntax :( Fred Hsu 04:37, Mar 22, 2005 (UTC)

Ponder

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Great work, Freddie. I love what you've done with the article. Some of those images look very familiar somehow; perhaps a source image or two could be used in another article... :) Your proposed article "How The Brain Sees 3D" already exists at Binocular vision, so you don't have to write it from scratch, just add your improvements. -- Ponder 16:23, 2005 Mar 23 (UTC)
Thanks, Ponder! I moved some stuff out to Eye#Convergence and Binocular vision. Fred Hsu 04:35, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)

SAT

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I am renominating this article because it has been totally rewritten since its last pear review and has almost no resemblance to the earlier version. It appears to be well written and of good quality. Zginder (talk) 14:10, 18 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Peer review/SAT/archive1

  • The main flaws of the article is its unbalance and very narrow geographical scope. As far as I know, SAT is taken all over the world, and is accepted by a large number of universities outside US. This fact should be taken into account in the article, and at least mentioned in the lead. Also should be mentioned how SAT dates might differ in Muslim countries, how the results compare internationally... CG (talk) 14:46, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hydrochloric acid

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Note to housecleaners: This entry has been listed for a month, but please consider leaving it for a while longer, as the discussion is quite active! Bishonen | Talk 01:45, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • Yes, please, I second Bishonen recommendation Wim van Dorst 21:54, 2005 Mar 18 (UTC)
  • It it time now. I moved it myself. Wim van Dorst 21:16, 2005 Apr 3 (UTC)
  • What the is this?? Why hasn't Wikipedia removed this already.... what a waste of time........

Textual improvement discussion

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This article about hydrochloric acid is fairly complete, and covering the important aspects of the chemical. Before nominating it for Featured Article, I start out humbly by asking for a peer review first. Wim van Dorst 17:37, 2005 Feb 18 (UTC)

This article has some interesting information in it, but at the moment it leaves the reader wanting more. Here's my thoughts: I'm curious as to what it was used for when discovered, what Jabir Ibn Hayyam was expecting when he distilled salt and sulphuric, and whether his discovery was generally known in the middle ages, or independently rediscovered. The history section does not reach up to the present day - that would be useful. The 'applications' section could be considerably expanded, perhaps a paragraph on each item listed there. And the 'trivia' section could probably be named something else, and I'm sure there's more interesting facts that could go there. Worldtraveller 17:52, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the recommendations. The History chapter was elaborated on Jabir, better connect the several historical periods, and link to today. Trivia section renamed (good suggestion!), and I'll up the applications a bit. I don't want to overdo that chapter as that is what the referred-to pages are for. Wim van Dorst 21:04, 2005 Feb 18 (UTC)
  • Now also the applications section is elaborated Wim van Dorst 21:55, 2005 Feb 18 (UTC)
Good work! I think the article's much improved now. Some more thoughts - maybe the intro could be a bit longer, and summarise more of the information from the rest of the article? The sections about applications are interesting but I still feel a few of them could be expanded more - regeneration of ion exchangers is a little bit confusing at the moment I think. And in other applications bits, maybe one or two chemical equations showing the reactions that are used? Finally, perhaps more could be said about HCl in nature? Presumably it occurs in other digestive systems than ours? What protects our insides from the corrosiveness of the acid? Worldtraveller 22:59, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree the intro needs expanding. It should be full paragraphs and summarize all important facts about the topic. The rest of the article the writing could use improvement, mostly by making the paragraphs flow better. Eliminating one sentence paragraphs would go a long way towards that. Either expand ideas to stand on their own or merge them together. That is a little hard for this type of topic, but perhaps even more important to make it flow as well as possible. 2) The mention of aqua regia and the alchemists enthusiasm now seems way too broad and even incorrect. Can you find some source to clarify that bit? 3) The production section could use expanding. Those processes cover the obvious simple reactions, but what industrial processes are actually used? Where does the chlorine and hydrogen actually come from? Do they really buy the pure gases and mix them? 4) The facts should probably be named something like other characteristics, and expanded if there are any. In any case the sentence about digestive fluids should be fixed. Do digestive fluids and enzymes really only work on the proteins? - Taxman 22:32, Feb 23, 2005 (UTC)
  • Very useful comments, Worldtraveller and Taxman. And thanks for your help in the text (yes, that sentence was indeed as I intented it). After Worldtraveller's recommendation, I already improved the intro-text a great deal, and upon re-affirmation, I further elaborated it. Now I'll be working on the next chapters. PS Sorry that I didn't react sooner, but Wikipedia hasn't allowed me to to editing for the last couple of days, due to 'server recovery'? Wim van Dorst 21:21, 2005 Feb 24 (UTC)
  • So, that's an improved intro, improved the applications text, including information chemical reactions (good suggestion!). I also did text flow improvements: have a look whether what you think now. 2) I toned down the aqua regia reference, and removed it from the former 'Facts' paragraph. 3) Yes, you're right, and I did add such information. Remaining problem area, as you correctly point out both: the 'Hydrochloric acid in nature' paragraph. Anybody with additional information? I'm not a biologist. If no addition is forthcoming. what about an 'eradicative text improvement'? Wim van Dorst 22:16, 2005 Feb 24 (UTC)
Apologies for a slow response to your work on this. Good work on the article, it's definitely much improved. The history section is an interesting read. I have a few more suggestions:
  • The 'in nature' section definitely could do with expansion - if you're not able to research it, then I'd leave it there, I am sure someone with the relevant expertise will see it at some point, it would be a shame to delete it even if it is a stub-section at the moment. If you mark it as a bio-stub section (if that's possible) it might help biologists to find it.
  • I still feel that more could be said about the applications. That section is a little dry at the moment, it could do with some more lively prose (if such a thing is possible when discussing chemical reactions).
  • In industrial applications, the article says solutions of up to 38% by weight are produced. Why that particular percentage?
  • Safety section - have there been any notable industrial accidents involving HCl? Some kind of incident illustrating the possible dangers could really add to this section.
  • There are quite a lot of redlinks - some of them look as if an appropriate article might exist but be incorrectly linked to.Worldtraveller 15:34, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • OK: I did a biosci-stub, which was improved to sect-stub. I hope to even improve that to interest some biologist, and will do more research myself.
    • OK: What red links? ;-). Pfew, that was more work than I anticipated: I had to do some stub articles, but only after extensive searches to alternatives for linking to
    • OK: elaborated the 38% limit: good leading question!
    • DOUBT: applications text. It lists the applications, and with some detail. Should it be elaborated in this hydrochloric acid article? Would not more details be better placed in the applications it references to?
    • TODO: more safety information
    • TODO: perhaps some illustrations? I have some nice pictures in mind, but I'll have to work on getting them in the public domain first.
    • Wim van Dorst 20:44, 2005 Mar 3 (UTC)
Excellent work on the red links! And the explanation of the 38% limit is great as well. The article's looking very good now. Illustrations would definitely be good, hope you can find some appropriately licensed ones.
Thinking about the application section, you're right that subsidiary articles could be appropriate for detailed discussion, but I think just a little bit extra might help here, e.g. how much HCl is used in each of these processes? What companies are involved? Who uses the products?
Congrats again on great work on this article, I've enjoyed learning about HCl from it! Worldtraveller 11:53, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Additional research made it possible to replace the biology stub text with some serious information. And I again elaborated that applications piece (do I seem reluctant ;-). The safety data is forthcoming, and give me a week or so for pictures Wim van Dorst 21:36, 2005 Mar 4 (UTC)
  • Very good work, and this is really improving. 1) After that research you've done and the rest to resolve the other above suggestions, why not cite those sources directly to those facts? You've just researched them so it should be easy. Ideally use the automatic method at Wikipedia:Footnotes. That method is still in a bit of development, but it does work now and if anything is changed in the future, it will get fixed, so have no fear of using it. 2) Should probably just call the 'in nature' section 'in digestion', since that is all it covers. 3) The only picture I can think of is maybe a standard molecular model representation or diagram of the acid effects. Or I guess a picture of strong HCL acting on something. - Taxman 23:37, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)

Discussion about images for the article

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HCl molecule scheme

--- The research that I did for the biological section was mainly on Wikipedia, and all those sources are linked within the section. Many sources that I used for the rest of the article are documents that I retain from my previous job. As business internal documents, I cannot use them as reference. Where possible I referred to external links on website, and several relevant public sources. --- I renamed the 'in nature' to 'in biology', but I don't like that name either. I would like to have some more references to animal digestive stuff. Further recommendations? Renaming is a good recommendation, but into what? --- For a technical product brochure, I had my hands on some superb non-public domain, copyrighted picture material. Unfortunately it isn't combinable with wikipage publication. Now I'll have to find some other pictures. Sofar I put the Corrosive sign up, and a parchment picture of first discoverer Jabir. I had a dab at drawing a HCl molecule, but that did not turn out well enough for the wikipage. Anybody else better at doing this kind of thing (H white ball, r=1, and Cl green ball, r=4)? I'll be looking for a splash picture for the opening paragraph in the direction of one of the applications. Wim van Dorst 20:11, 2005 Mar 11 (UTC)

      • Okay, people, choose:

Leather shoes Leather swimsuit Dessert made with gelatin Sorbets made with gelatin

  • The pictures focus on the small applications, (from left to right Leather Shoes, Leather Swimsuit, Gelatin Dessert, and the last Sorbets (with Gelatin). IMHO these are the most funny and appealing. I guess that a PVC building pipe is very boring :-) Wim van Dorst 21:02, 2005 Mar 11 (UTC)
Great set of images! I like the gelatin dessert one the best I think - illustrative, without being too esoteric I reckon.
On the point about references, surely if the company document has a title and named authors, quoting it as a reference would not be a problem? Certainly, it might be the case that no-one else can actually look up the reference, but at least the source is listed, for the record.
I tried making a quick drawing of the molecule, but it didn't look very good. Could be worth putting a note on WP:RP? I'm sure there's dab hands at this kind of thing out there. Worldtraveller 00:07, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I like that one best too, so that settles it: it is up! And I'll add some more elsewhere in the article. Note that I added the HCl schematic drawing (poor as it is) to the hydrogen chloride page, which tickled the next question: scope (see below). PS. Added an (unpublic) reference in the list too. Thanks for re-affirming the need for it. Wim van Dorst 16:57, 2005 Mar 13 (UTC)

These pictures don't have beautiful models or desserts in them, but they may be helpful anyway. Are either of them useful for the page? I kept them small to save bandwidth but can make them bigger if needed. Sorry I couldn't line up the captions. We might need to add a little to the text if the ammonia one is used, by way of explanation- but this is a classic experiment, worth including. I agree that a titration would be nice, but I really don't have time to set that up right now (new baby any day now!). Also a lorry with a one tonne valic of HCl would be nice! Please let me know if there are other simple pix I could do in less than half an hour that might work better. I could do zinc or Al dissolving in HCl or something like that. Meanwhile I will try my hand at editing the chemistry section- I think it's all good stuff but it should be more concise. Walkerma 05:11, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 
Hydrochloric acid fumes turning pH paper red
 
Hydrochloric acid fuming in the presence of ammonia

I'm using the HCl-NH3 picture for the article Ammonium, since that article already specifically mentions that reaction forming NH4Cl. I also would like to use the "HCl fumes on pH paper" picture for the Hydrogen chloride article since it effectively shows hydrogen chloride is acidic.
H Padleckas 07:55, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I have put up a couple more pictures here and here, these show a BOTTLE of hydrochloric acid (with the old-style etched glass label)- one without and one with the pH paper in the fumes. Perhaps the bottle looks more effective than the beaker. Walkerma 17:32, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • See "titration with acid" picture below on the right side. This image can be added next to the Chemistry section of the Hydrochloric acid article. H Padleckas 19:41, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hi H, the buret acid titration is excellent for the chemistry section. So much so that I already put it up. How's that for support. And Hi Martin, I like the first 'here' (03) best. The glass jar is photogenic. Could you make a picture like this, with a dark background, from a lower viewpoint, i.e., more level to the label? Such a thing could perhaps be worthwhile for the opening paragraph. Wim van Dorst 22:24, 2005 Mar 18 (UTC)

 
Hydrochloric acid
Thanks, H, for the titration image. I will get a "straight on" view of an HCl bottle some time soon. By the way, are solutions of HCl above about 38% actually stable, or do they slowly lose HCl into the air down till they reach 37-38%? Walkerma 04:57, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Regarding stability of concentrated HCl, I think it's all a matter of degree. If concentrated HCl is exposed to the air and allowed to evaporate away, of course it eventually will evaporate away, like even pure water would eventually evaporate away. HCl, being the more volatile component, would preferentially evaporate away more quickly, leaving behind a more watery solution. This preferential evaporation would continue until an azeotrope is reached (or at least approached); then both components evaporate away in the same ratio as the liquid, keeping the solution "stable".
H Padleckas 16:01, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

As requested, I have taken a picture "straight on" of a bottle of HCl (Hydrochloric_acid_05.jpg, on the right). Can this be used? If not, please feel free to edit the picture, or give me advice on what picture you would like. One problem we have is- let's face it- HCl isn't that photogenic! While I've been away the page has started to look really good, everyone...! Walkerma 23:06, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hi, Martin, welcome back. I do like your picture, that is for sure! What if we move the yellow Corrosive sign down to the Safety section, and put this in the top op the table? Anybody comments? Wim van Dorst 22:06, 2005 Mar 23 (UTC)

Scope of the article discussion: hydrochloric acid and hydrogen chloride

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Should the hydrogen chloride page be included in the hydrochloric acid page, or should it be kept as a separate page? Wim van Dorst 16:35, 2005 Mar 13 (UTC) (Note that the other way around is certainly wrong! WvD)

While I don't have strong feelings on the matter and defer to your judgement, I'd prefer keeping the articles separate and expanding the hydrogen chloride page with physical data, application and history information, all of which would be quite different from the information in the hydrochloric acid article. As long as each of the two articles links to the other one in the opening paragraph, I don't think readers will have a problem locating the information they are after; if all the information were combined in one article, it might become a bit overwhelming. Cheers, AxelBoldt 21:43, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I have improved hydrogen chloride from a stub to a reasonable article. On a side note: this hydrochloric acid article really needs a cleanup! There are several weasel terms, multiple wikilinks for the same article, and images that do not really have something to do with the topic. I am strongly against Gelatindessert.png at such a prominent place. The format of the data table is outdated. Maybe I will find the time to fix some of these. (Sig added later: Cacycle 22:26, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC))

Hi Cacycle, using strong words, I think it would be nice if you also sign the comment. And as this is the Peer Review request page, your improvement suggestions are appreciated, as is your work on the hydrogen chloride page.

  • Please be so kind as to point out where you consider weasel terms to be used, so that the article can be further improved.
  • The images are about the applications (read the captions), so that's not too bad.
  • It is also interesting to learn that apparently there is a data table format. Perhaps you would be so kind as to point out where the current version is to be found?
  • What is wrong with multiple wikilinks for the same article? I presume you mean that in more than one paragraph, some word is linked to the same page? Wim van Dorst 22:13, 2005 Mar 13 (UTC)

Sorry, forgot to sign. I will take care of the points from above tomorrow. Sorry when my comment sounded a bit harsh. The facts are great, but before nominating it for featured article the text needs some polishing and we need more appropriate pictures or illustrations. Cacycle 22:26, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

From the Talk page of Hydrochloric acid, I moved the following Questions to here:

  • In this formula, R.H + HF → R.F + HCl , where does the Cl atom come from?
  • What household products use HCl?

--jag123 22:10, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The fluoridation reaction is a chlorine replacing reaction. Typo in the formula, now corrected. And the household application that comes to mind is builders cleaner, to take care of mortar stains or so? I'm not detailed familiar with it. It is also bottled under the name of muriatic acid (fortunately low concentration) for unnamed household purposes. Please don't let them throw a dollop in the toilet after they cleaned it with bleach (sodium hypochlorite)... Wim van Dorst 22:42, 2005 Mar 13 (UTC)

At least one household toilet bowl cleaning formulation has mainly semi-strong hydrochloric acid in it, Sno-bowl??. H Padleckas 05:57, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The images currently don't have captions; you only get to see the text if you "mouse over". I think it would be good to have the captions visible, and to move the gelatin picture further down to the applications section. As main picture, maybe a photo of a bottle with hydrochloric acid, carrying the common warning label? AxelBoldt 18:31, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • I think some of these pictures can be removed. I read the article and don't really remember how HCl is related to jello. The bottle label is a good suggestion and should definitely be used. Maybe a diagram of the reaction of mustard gas producing HCl or a diagram of parietal cells producing HCl. Not the best, I know, but a tad more relevant than a pic of shoes :) --jag123 18:45, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • I disagree about removing images, I think the images used brighten up the article, the dessert one particularly. What could be done though, is for their relation to HCl to be made clearer in the text. Another image that could be interesting, if available, might be a photo of an industrial HCl processing plant. Worldtraveller 23:49, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)
      • We must have two separate pages for hydrogen chloride and hydrochloric acid, these are both very important commercially and they have different properties. I would argue that hydrochloric acid is in fact hydronium chloride, since there is very little actual undissociated HCl present in a bottle of hydrochloric acid! That means for example that hydrogen chloride is in fact a much stronger acid than hydrochloric acid. BTW, I have taken a few pictures of hydrochloric acid itself, I apologise they are really boring, they don't have any models in fancy shoes in them! I'll upload them ASAP. Walkerma 17:23, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Chemistry section is good idea for Hydrochloric Acid article

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My opinion is that a Chemistry section is needed for this Hydrochloric acid article. I'm writing it now. I will add it when I'm finished. H Padleckas 21:33, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

ok, I finished my first crack at the "Chemistry" section in the Hydrochloric acid article. Check it out. I noticed very recent significant improvements in the data table in this article, some of which I wanted to make myself. H Padleckas 01:12, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm essentially finished with the "Chemistry" section of this article. In case any reviewers think this Chemistry section is lengthy technical overkill for the average Wikipedia reader, I volunteer that the two sentences starting and ending with

"This is supported by the fact that ...... completely dissociates in water."

are expendable. Deleting them would not likely cause a great loss to the overall understanding of the article. Also, some of the length comes from short explanations I put in trying to make this a once read-through section (to a practical extent) so the average Wikipedia reader would not have to constantly use links for an understanding of some fundamental terms. If I was writing this for professional chemists, some of those explanations would be omitted.

The data table for hydrochloric acid is significantly improved now after the last two or so edits.
I was planning to take some of the information on synthesis and/or production of hydrogen chloride for insertion into the Hydrogen chloride article. As far as I'm concerned, that information can stay in both articles. I plan to put a data table in the Hydrogen chloride article which in many instances contains different data than the Hydrochloric acid article. That project is still in progress. H Padleckas 16:21, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • Hi, H, I fully second your proposal of a Chemistry section. And as you worked it out it sure is an asset to the article. It is rather a big chunk of text, so I would think further editing would ??imho?? in my humble opinion be directed at making it more concise. Perhaps a picture to lighten it up? And is the Wikipedia idea that all text ought to be understandable by everybody? I would like it to make various in-depth sections for experts only. And to all who contributed to the new data table: kudos! Wim van Dorst 21:57, 2005 Mar 15 (UTC)
 
My idea is that a picture of a titration with a burette and an Erlenmeyer flask might be appropriate or picturesque near the Chemistry section of Hydrochloric acid if you want to "liven up" the "dry" Chemistry section of this article. I found one such diagram in the titration article and an identical diagram in acid-base titration. It is a somewhat tall and thin image. The color inside the Erlemeyer flask shows a newly added droplet turning pink, which would be expected if the titrant was a base, not an acid like HCl. This color effect should be reversed when HCl is the titrant. Should I or somebody try to work on this? There are probably other pics of titrations on the web, but they are likely to be copyrighted, so I did not explore the web. I looked in Wikimedia Commons, but I did not find a titration picture.
  • I completed the acid titrant picture and placed it here for your viewing. This image can be added next to the Chemistry section of the Hydrochloric acid article. H Padleckas 19:41, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
My lengthy, philosophical, and not particularly relevant answer to Wim van Dorst's question "Is the Wikipedia idea that all text ought to be understandable by everybody?" has been moved from here to my User page as a philosophical statement, so that this lengthy page may be shortened. H Padleckas 19:00, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • The datatable is now about 37% hydrochloric acid, which is not the major concentration worldwide: that is 30%, which has some different numbers and which I used for putting the data in the datatable in the first place. Should we cater for more than one concentration? If so, how, if not which one to use?
    • In my book the R/S statements for hydrochloric acid are R34-27 and S26-45, no S36. Where did that come from? And where is it to go?

Wim van Dorst 22:10, 2005 Mar 15 (UTC)

S36 is from my Aldrich catalog. Data for more than one concentration seems a bit overkill. Anyway, it would only affect density, melting point, and boiling point. The CAS number is probably for plain HCl. I have chosen 37% because this is the highest possible concentration and is kind of a 'chemical standard'. Cacycle 23:00, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hi Padleckas, I like the titration picture proposal. Give the huge range of pH indicator and very nice colour changes they can give, this is a nice idea. It is a pity that it emphasizes the laboratory use which for the commercial market is negligible. And also for Cacycle, the 37% is a chemical standard only in the laboratory, and even then it is not THE standard: 36% and 38% are just as common for concentrated hydrochloric acid. And in the industrial 30% is the real big thing, hence my choice for that as the reference material for the table. So if you would insist on only one concentration, I would recommend 30% instead of 37%. But the important conclusion that I drew is not either/or: I think it not overkill but necessary to have more than one concentration. Apart from the properties that you mention, also vapour pressure, pH, and viscosity are highly dependent on the concentration. I therefore propose to add a table with chemical and physical properties for various concentrations: 5% 10% 20% 30% 32% 34% 36% and 38% seem reasonable. Perhaps also a 0% for reference? I'll work on this tomorrow or so. Wim van Dorst 00:17, 2005 Mar 18 (UTC)

If you do a table, one important concentration to put in is that of constant boiling HCl, i.e. what you get if you distil conc. hydrochloric acid. I think it's about 20% from memory- but I'm sure you know, Wim! I hope you approve of my rewrite of the chemistry section, I tried to make it clearer without taking away any real content. Walkerma 06:30, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
The table is a good idea, but I would either make a diagram with curves or concentrate on a few important values (10, 20%, 30%, 37%) and put also the molarity in there. The constant boiling one is 20.2%, bp 109 / 110 °C. The maximum seems to be 72% at 20°C. It seems that there is nothing special about the 37% as I always thought. Or is it?
Given the question about which solution is stable (actually only the 0% is :-), and the reference to only one of hydrochloric acid's several eutectica* I really should get my hands on a usable phase diagram. The one I have is copyrighted, but I hope I can draw one myself for the public domain (perhaps based on that same data). I wish there would be a possibility to use copyrighted material, as the one I had made for my commercial brochure is imho very insightful. Work on the table has started (off-line editing first) Wim van Dorst 11:14, 2005 Mar 19 (UTC)
 *eutectic or azeotrope? An azeotrope is a constant-boiling liquid mixture (to vapor at a certain temp.) at a certain % for each component. A eutectic is something similar for solids melting. I have added a sentence at the end of the Chemistry section and in the table on the 20.2% HCl-H2O azeotrope. The azeotrope should also be stable as far as evaporation is concerned, as well as the individual components when they are separate, of course. Any eutectics of HCl-H2O would be of less interest for practical purposes and may be omitted for a general information article such as this. H Padleckas 16:01, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
There is a table of data on HCl in the it:Acido cloridrico article in the Italian Wikipedia, to which I already added a link to in the English Hydrochloric acid article. The Italian table includes %HCl, g HCl/100 ml water, molarity, and density. There is also a fairly simple equation there correlating a couple of properties. H Padleckas 18:00, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • The reference data for the Italian pages gives quite some remarkable info, e.g., Toxic; All these R and S statements (they not a free choice, you know); rather arkane production method. As my Italian is below-par, I cannot judge the rest of the text, but overall I'd rather not use the data as-is. My table is based on solid references, so that's reliable. I like the molarity/molality info. I'll try to put my hands on reliable data.
  • The cristallization information is highly relevant for people who want to store hydrochloric acid in a tank outside. If it freezes over at -10°C, the acid supply to the production plant stops, and something unpleasant could happen to the whole site. So, knowing that there is a deep eutecticum between 20 and 30 wt% is very important. You could leave this out of lab chemical description, but not out of the description of a major industrial chemical description as hydrochloric acid. Wim van Dorst 21:03, 2005 Mar 19 (UTC)

Is the specific heat capacity important for the table? If so we should elaborate on it. Boiling and melting points would be interesting values to add to the table. I also like the orange symbols on the italian article. Cacycle 13:30, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • I added the mp and the bp to the table, but you deleted them again. WHY??? I didn't make a typo. Did you? Wim van Dorst 18:33, 2005 Mar 20 (UTC)
  • Oops, that was not intentionally. Strangely, I can't remember any edit conflict page!? Anyway, I have put your changes back in. I will try to make the table smaller. I'll also check if it looks better to move °C into the value cells. Cacycle 21:54, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Your table work is outstanding: content is very good of course (imHo), but the presentation is giving it the best result. Compliments. Where do you get the information about these parameters that you used? PS. You (probably unintentionally?) undid my reshuffling of the MSDS references. Would you mind clarifying if you did it intentionally, and if not put it back? PPS. Where you the one too to re-insert the categories on the bottom, which I had removed to prevent double listing? Note that I don't mind at all if my changes are undone, just as long as there is a good reason (which I can challenge if I disagree). Wim van Dorst 09:30, 2005 Mar 21 (UTC)
  • Which parameters? I have simply calculated the molarity from molecular weight, concentration, and density. I'm not sure what you mean with "reshuffling of the MSDS references", so it was probably unintentionally :-) As for the categories: [[:Category:Chlorides]] doesn't put a page into a category but merely generates a link (simple link, not a category: Category:Chlorides). Cacycle 14:21, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Oh, you are refering to CSS and HTML? You can find some tricks by following the Editing help pages, e.g. in Wikipedia:Picture tutorial. The rest is trial and error using css and html code. Cacycle 14:21, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

HF is not weak

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Saying HF is weak is not really accurate. It may not dissociate easily in water, but unlike the others HX, it's the only one that can etch glass. It's only weak in terms of dissociating in water, which doesn't really mean much.

This discussion should really be moved to the article's talk page, where it should have started to begin with. The peer review subpage is not the place to discuss everything but to alert people what needs to be looked at. --jag123 14:52, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

You're right in pointing out that the strong/weak acid text needed improvement: I changed it to better indicate which monoprotic acid is what. That HF can etch glass is true, but has nothing to do with its acid strength. I disagree that this discussion should be elsewhere: the directive on top of the Peer Review page clearly states that any comments are to be added to the specific section. You'd better be happy that there is this lively discussion about a page under Peer Review. Wim van Dorst 17:07, 2005 Mar 20 (UTC)

I know etching of glass isn't a gauge of acid strength, but I still think characterizing HF as weak is misleading. The chemistry re: HF is pretty much unique, because of the high electronegativity and especially the entropy / ordering of water molecules around HF (which is really something like FHFHFH..., unlike the other HX). Weak/strong acids is purely a chemistry qualification. HF may not dissociate fully in water, but it'll dissociate if it comes into contact with other elements. People shouldn't assume that HF is weak, like vinegar (which many people do). HCl, on the other hand, is a strong acid, both in the chemistry and "practical" sense. Anyway, I've removed the last sentence, and I don't think it changes the article. On top of it, I had/have a problem with "common halogens". Astatine isn't common partly because it's useless; half-life of longest living isotope is 8 hours.

And yes, I am happy that there is peer reviewing on these types of articles. There needs to be more FA regarding science. --jag123 13:22, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hi Jag123 (couldn't find your normal name), your final change to the text first took me by surprise, but after all I actually like it: the paragraph is more hydrochloric acid focussed as a result, and therefore I think also better. Good change. Perhaps you can do a little editing to pages such as strong acid and weak acid, where the arguments you bring forward will have a better acceptance. And at the rate of change the hydrochloric acid page is still being improved, it looks like it may never be stable enough for FA status :-). Wim van Dorst 16:43, 2005 Mar 21 (UTC)

I'm glad you like my changes. I'm not trying to convert the world regarding weak/strong acids, but I just didn't think that sentence was important enough to the article to leave it in. I guess I keep thinking this will be eventually an FA and want to keep the average person in mind. Hopefully I don't pass off as being too anal, but this "HF is weak" thing is somewhat of a pet peeve of mine :) --jag123 19:19, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I admit I reinserted the sentence on halogen acids stating HF is weak, then modified it to say that the other 3 are strong acids and HF is an acid that does not fully dissociate. I think this is probably my last shot at it and you guys can keep it, change it, or take it out. H Padleckas 21:18, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I still don't see why this is important to mention, but whatever. --jag123 22:49, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Sorry, Padleckas, but I agree with Jag123 here: the wordiness of the paragraph doesn't add to the article about hydrochloric acid. I recommend that this information be moved to a dedicated page about monoprotic acids. Wim van Dorst 23:17, 2005 Mar 21 (UTC)
I expanded the "Chemical characteristics" section of the Acid article to discuss monoprotic, diprotic, triprotic, etc. acids. H Padleckas 05:57, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Cool images

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Here is a German page with cool images: http://www.seilnacht.com/Chemie/ch_hcl.htm Unfortunately the images are copyrighted and it doesn't look as if we could convince the guy to put some of them under GPL or into PD. BTW, I have uploaded all orange hazard symbols to the Wikimedia Commons. Cacycle 20 Mar 2005

Yes, there are plenty of very nice pictures around, but then nearly always copyrighted. I saw that you uploaded the correct one to the approporiate place already: good idea. I was thinking about doing the same. Wim van Dorst 18:33, 2005 Mar 20 (UTC)

Anyone know what the color of a common indicator that is used with HCl? It's really easy to change the color in titration picture, but I don't know which color is best. --jag123 13:26, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps the most common indicator used in acid-base titrations is phenolphthalein, which is colorless in acidic solution and magenta in basic, as shown in the above picture. The titration shown here with an acidic titrant, such as HCl, is the reverse of the original picture in titration, in which apparently a basic titrant is used with phenolphthalein. However, many different acid-base indicators can be used in an HCl titration, at least a couple dozen kinds. This variety of indicators covers most of the pH range. These indicators have a variety of different colors at both acidic and basic pH. About a dozen have been listed in the Wikipedia article on indicators.
Also, I didn't see any good reason for removing the sentence on the 4 common halogen acids of the form HX from the Hydrochloric acid article, so I reverted your edit. H Padleckas 19:36, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
See end of section "HF is not weak" above. H Padleckas 21:18, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Thansk for your answer. It didn't really click that the analyte was changing from pink to colorless. --jag123 01:11, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Are we converging towards FAC status yet?

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Hi all, since February 12 the hydrochloric acid page has seen on average between five and ten smaller and (mostly) bigger changes on a daily basis. It is my humble opinion that most significant suggestions from the beginning (read up higher here) have either been implemented or else discussed out of the article. Some things have been found to be unachievable within this short timeframe such as eloquent pictures, but worthwhile other things have been added unexpectedly (at least for me) such as the Chemistry and the Chem Phys properties table. Obviously, the page won't ever be finished. Could we then suggest that we close the Peer Review and put the page up for Featured Article Candidate? Or are important things still missing, pictures still forthcoming RSN, battling discussions to be finalized? Wim van Dorst 19:59, 2005 Mar 21 (UTC)

I still have a significant suggestion for a change to make in the HCl acid article. A couple of days ago, a new table with physical properties was added with the first column containing the Conc. (w/w) apparently being the independent variable on which all the other values in the table are based. Of the properties given in the table, Conc. (w/v), Density, Molarity, and Specific Heat depend on temperature and Viscosity and Vapor Pressure depend quite strongly on temperature. I can't find any reference temperature listed in or near the table at which these values are true. There should be a reference temperature given for this data. Such a temperature should be listed wherever the data was originally obtained from. It might be something simple like 25°C or 0°C, but it should be provided for the properties I just mentioned. No reference temperature is applicable to the Boiling and Melting points, but the reference pressure is probably 1 atmosphere (101.325 kPa). You could probably nominate the article for FAC, then look for the reference temperature, but for correctness, it should be added sooner or later.
Also, the first sentence in the Physical properties section refers to the table at right. On my computer screen, this table does not appear to the right of the sentence, but far above it. Of course, you may decide to refer to the table below it instead. H Padleckas 20:48, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Hi H, this was an easy addition, both already done (it was 20 °C and 1 atm) . I take it you support the move to FAC, then? Wim van Dorst 21:17, 2005 Mar 21 (UTC)
Someday, I plan to take some information directly related to the history, synthesis, and production of hydrogen chloride from Hydrochloric acid and add it to Hydrogen chloride. I might start a new section in Hydrogen chloride article called "History, Synthesis, and Production". This does not mean that this information has to be deleted in the HCl acid article; the information can stay in both articles as far as I'm concerned, although somebody may say that's a duplication of text in 2 articles. Other than this final observation, I think Hydrochloric acid is ready for FAC nomination. H Padleckas 22:35, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I have essentially finished doing the above, i. e. I've taken info from Hydrochloric acid and placed it into Hydrogen chloride. For more details, see the hydrogen chloride article and Talk:Hydrogen chloride. Now you can decide how this info should be distrubuted between the 2 articles. Also see my hopefully final comments on Hydrochloric acid below. H Padleckas 05:57, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the support, Padleckas. Nonetheless, your long text in the footnote doesn't add information. I recommend the intentionally short sentence. Wim van Dorst
  • Before this goes to FAC, I'd like to clean up the biology section a bit. I think there's a bit more info that can be added here. (Iirc, there's a beetle that uses HCl [or a mixture of acids including HCl] as a defense mechanism.) I want to double check academic journals to see if there's been changes/developments in the HCl synth mechanisms in parietal cells, and if there's no difference, at least find a journal that I can use as reference for what's there. I'd like to find something that can be complemented with a picture, which would ideally replace the shoes (which I think are not really relevant). --jag123 01:07, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Considering the current pace of changes I would wait with FC nomination until contributions slow down. There are a still a few facts I would like to add (e.g. use to make hydrochlorides) or would like to see improved (e.g. biology section, images, the confusing uses section). Before nomination, when all facts are in place, we should proofread and polish the article in a concerted action (e.g. remove unimportant or redundant facts, words, and sentences, improve sentence-to-sentence flow, make the final layout). Cacycle 09:38, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Indeed I now see the convergence stepping in over the whole article: good housekeeping has been done on biology, references and other sections; final (as if they are ever) text improvements are added; and the good toothcombing work is also being done now by Cacycle and Padleckas (thanks, others invited to participate of course). Overall, the additions are slowing down (or is it just Easter?), so I propose to move to FAC in a week from now. And remember that future additions, elaborations and other improvements remain possible, even as a FA. Wim van Dorst 10:25, 2005 Mar 28 (UTC)

Different layout

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Different layout I've moved the history section above the chemistry section because the tables were one on top of the other on my end (1024x768, IE6). I also think it flows better, since the chemistry, production & application sections follow each other. If this looks worse than before for anyone, revert. --jag123 01:24, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • Good idea to change the sequence. I also had the tables clashing. And the text indeed flows better.
  • Why to explicitly add the section for other languages? Isn't that extra: they are already listed in the left Wikipedia-column. Considering that the Categories are also listed at the bottom, I was actually considering to take these extra things out too. Please comment?
  • Which Uses do you mean to be unclear: the last paragraph of the Chemistry section or the Applications section?
  • As already pointed out, I am no biologist. Any improvement (with images) to the Biology section is worthwhile!
  • I won't put it up for FAC yet, with this update rate. But I wondered whether we are converging... Wim van Dorst 20:50, 2005 Mar 22 (UTC)
The idea was to have the names in other languages in the article, the links to the other wikipedias are just a gimmick (some languages (like Latin) where I have found the name do not yet have an article on hydrochloric acid). I have not yet found such a list on the web, but I will try to figure out the names in some missing more important languages. Cacycle 23:18, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Perhaps the names in other languages should be moved to the first paragraph, or given a separate paragraph in the intro section? Regardless, I think it somewhat pointless to include links to other Wikipedias, mainly due to redundancy. →Iñgōlemo← talk 23:26, 2005 Mar 22 (UTC)
More upwards it would be too confusing and crowding. I like it there, close to the safety section (it is somehow safety-relevat to know the name of a chemical in other languages) and some other bulleted list. I see no reason not to link the names. Sometimes it just makes sense to have more than one link to another article, especially in tables and lists and if the link words are different. Cacycle 00:39, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I've been mostly peripheral to this review, but I wanted to say that the article does look very nice to me, and pretty close to being ready. My only suggestion might be to try making the other languages section more compact (perhaps a table, with one column per group of languages?)- currently that section fills one whole screen on my PC. This is a minor point, though and I think overall it looks pretty finished. Great job, everyone! Walkerma 06:12, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hopefully my final comments

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I'm sorry it took me (H Padleckas) several days to finish writing these explanatory comments up. My hopefully final review of the Hydrochloric acid article results in these comments:

I've decided to strike out those comments for which satifactory (in my opinion, of course) changes in the article have already been made, like this: comment.
H Padleckas 17:38, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Is the phrase "sizing nowadays" in the introductory section good style?

It took me three read-throughs to catch the style error: you're eagle-eyed, Padleckas. Obviously, it is reworded now.Wim van Dorst 18:02, 2005 Apr 1 (UTC)

  • The last sentence in the introductory section is clumsy ; i. e. gelatin production is not a food ingredient; gelatin is a food ingredient. Reword how you want to.

Yes, it certainly was clumsily worded. Wim van Dorst 18:02, 2005 Apr 1 (UTC)

  • I changed the neutralizing reaction in the section "pH control and neutralization" to:
OH- + HCl → H2O + Cl-
to show that it's HCl acid that does the neutralizing and that after neutralizing Cl- is present. The previous reaction was just the reverse of the water ionization reaction.
  • There is practically nothing about "metal surface treatment" in the link to Metallurgy in the "Pickling of steel" section. I suggest removing the link.

Yes, indeed, there is very little information about the topic. I searched some more and did find some better references to the detailed techniques, although not to the generic term. I reworded the paragraph, removing the offending link, and inserted a few better ones. Wim van Dorst 18:23, 2005 Apr 1 (UTC)

  • In the "Pickling of steel" section, the previous link to scale gave a disambiguation page with no applicable article written. The chem. reaction shows Fe2O3 + Fe reacting with HCl. According to the Wikipedia, rust is Fe2O3. Fe is definitely not scale but metal. When I think of "scale", I think of deposits on surfaces (such as inner surfaces of pipes), typically coming from hard water and possibly soaps/detergents, which usually consist of calcium/magnesium carbonates, phosphates, or soap scum. Hydrochloric acid can help dissolve carbonates, the most likely form of scale. Therefore, I changed "scale" to "rust or scale".

Actually, as I understood it from extruders, whereas it chemically is rust, it is also named 'scale'. Your text change was therefore very good. Wim van Dorst 21:06, 2005 Apr 1 (UTC)

  • MDI and TDI for polyurethane are not defined/explained in this article, although they are mentioned twice. The link to polyurethane doesn't explain them either. MDI is methylene diphenyl 4,4'-diisocyanate and TDI is toluene diisocyanate. They are both isocyanate monomers for the production of polyurethane polymers. I made links for TDI and MDI redirected to Isocyanate where I am currently in the process of writing about these compounds.

Excellent!!! I tried to find MDI/TDI information at the beginning of this editing spell, but didn't find any. Your change is spot-on! Wim van Dorst 21:06, 2005 Apr 1 (UTC)

  • The Hydrochloric acid article has become quite long (30 kilobytes) and could stand to be somewhat shortened. This can be done by taking out unnecessary detail in the "Hydrochloric acid and living organisms" section and transferring it to shorter articles. The discussion on parietal cells in "Digestion" can be shortened by moving the details to parietal cells, a much shorter article. The discussion on osteoclasts in "Bone resorption" can be shortened by moving the details to osteoclasts, which is presently just a stub. The same applies to the phosgene discussion in "Chemical weapons". Also, most Wikipedia articles simply include the links to corresponding articles in other languages on the left side margin, instead of at the end of the article proper like here. The article can be shortened by deleting the foreign language links section and using the side links only.
  • I always thought using the term HCl in regards to biology, especially digestion and bone resorption was somewhat innacurate, compared to the industrial uses. It's only HCl because Cl- is a common negative ion that gets included to offset the positive charges. Without getting into lengthy discussions on evolution, the fact that it's HCl is somewhat arbitrary. I won't touch anything until Wim gives his input, but I agree with the above. --jag123 20:48, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • Actually the biology section is more written by Cacycle and others. I do support Padleckas' recommendations, though, for reducing that section. Anyone knowledgeable in biology to do it? And notably I support the recommendation that we delete the language section: I liked quite a bit seeking for those outrageous languages, and re-organizing the section itself, but it is a bit of an odd one out. Wim van Dorst 21:56, 2005 Apr 1 (UTC)
      • I've went ahead and shifted the information to other appropriate articles, and written an extremely short summary of what used to be here. I've left the chem weapons section intact because it looks like it can't easily be copied into their respective articles, and I don't want to remove info without copying it elsewhere first. I also went ahead and removed the language pages, and added greek in the interwiki language section. --jag123 22:42, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • In the discussion about chlorine and phosgene in the "Chemical weapons" section, "carbon monoxide" was previously changed to "carbon dioxide" for consistency with the phosgene article. In that article, CO and Cl2 are used to produce phosgene, but the reaction with water gives CO2 and 2 HCl. This is also consistent with the "Chemical Warfare_v2.pdf" webpage of this external reference |Chemical warfare, and my understanding of organic chemistry. The reaction with chlorine gas also cannot produce any carbon oxides, and the mention of chlorine was also suspect in this paragraph. So I technically agree with the edit made by Cacycle on this topic. However, my suggestion is to shorten this article by shortening the phosgene discussion to be similar to the mention I originally made. Also, a mustard gas molecule has only 2 Cl atoms and cannot give 3 HCl, as the first external reference in the mustard gas, [6], states. I believe that reference is incorrect about reacting with water to give 3 HCl molecules. I made a correction to fix this in Hydrochloric acid.
  • Also, one may want to see my remarks in Talk:Hydrogen chloride to coordinate any information common to both articles, if you haven't seen them already. As time permits, I plan to add a little more info not mentioned in Hydrochloric acid to the Hydrogen chloride article.
    H Padleckas 05:57, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

That's it then

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Ok, guys (I believe no female participation sofar? Women invited, though): Changes have been structural to the discussion, there are no open issues at present, the article has been updated, enlarged, comprised, reduced, enhanced, elaborated, augmented, illustrated, completed, and improved. Thanks to you all! I'll now move it to the FAC page, to see what others think of it. Wim van Dorst 20:54, 2005 Apr 3 (UTC)

yay!!!  :-)   I wonder how you knew I'm male. H Padleckas 21:47, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

High five!! It's now a highly rated FEATURE ARTICLE! Congratulations to Wim van Dorst and all other contributors and reviewers. H Padleckas 08:35, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Goa

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I would like to have this page copyedited. I've added all the info, I hope a trained eye can catch any quirks in the grammar before I upgrade it as an FAC.  =Nichalp (talk · contribs)= 20:25, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)

  • I've done a quick copyedit - hope it helps. No doubt there are points I've missed, though, jguk 21:18, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • I did some too. Things I noticed are needed: 1) Demographics section needs a bit of info on the approximate breakdown of how much of the population follows the various religions. I gather that is one thing that makes Goa distinct from other areas. 2) more referencing of facts and better and more sources. For example, where is the population data in the demographics section from? A footnote in the Wikipedia:Footnote3 style there and many other places would really help in the goals of Wikipedia:Verifiability, something FA's should strive for. 3) The history section is very hard to read and follow if you don't already now what is going on. Something that would help is some more context for places/terms such as Gulbarga, Bijapur, Vijayanagar, etc. Just some quick inline explanation would do a long way. Also the part about the Portuguese is unlcear. Where did they land? In Goa? why was Goa important to them? When it says "By mid-16th century the area under occupation had expanded to most of present day limits", does that mean Goa's limits? and is that the only area the Portuguese occupied? - Taxman 21:49, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for the critique and suggestions. The demographics part figures I've obtained from the Manorama Yearbook. I've used the footnote style as you asked for (though I am unhappy with the rendering as a note.). I've also included a few more inline references.Thanks Mozzerati for the style I'll get to work on the History section as you suggested (hopefully complete it by sunday). I've also broken down the religions statistics. (Contrary to popular belief, Christianity is not the largest religion.)  =Nichalp (talk · contribs)= 20:25, Mar 31, 2005 (UTC)

The Financial Underpinnings Of The Goa Language Controversy On Wiki En

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I have certainly detected some flame-like controversy regarding the status of the Portuguese language in Goa. Some sanguinity is called for. As an involved lifetime resident of Portuguese-speaking Southeast New England, in America, I can safely say that Goa is rich as a city because of its role as the base of trade between South Asia, Portugal, Portuguese-speaking America, Macao and most importantly, Brasil. In other words, Portuguese is in no danger of being replaced by English in Goa. It has a massive economic role. It is almost as if this language controversy is a Fata Morgana insofar as nothing could possibly change the popularity of Portuguese in the Goa area. There is a lot of money involved. Wouldn't you, the average Wiki reader, make a serious attempt to learn Portuguese in order to become an import-export millionaire, working trading Indian goods to Europe and Brazil, if you were a citizen of India? Wouldn't you learn Portuguese to become an employee of such a company? At this point, Brazil has a population of almost 200 million people. To take a facetious tone, that's a lot of curry to sell and a lot of money to be made doing it. It would behoove one not to appear as if one is somehow blocking 'the road to riches,' as it were, here on the Goa pages. Wouldn't the average Anglo become irritated if their access to working in the computer industry, or working in New York City or London, were desubstantiated in the pages of an encylopedia? It really adds up to the same thing. To maintain neutrality one needs to look at the role of the English language in post-colonial Hong Kong to find a parallel to this situation. In particular, one should consider the role of the PRC goverment in its attempts to partially outlaw the use of English in business and in high schools when trying to write articles about Goa. There are obvious similarities between the two situations. There is a huge amount of money to be made in speaking Portuguese in Goa and Macao. Goa in effect functions as a 'funnel' for Indian-made export goods. Its function as 'funnel' extends not only to Brasil, et al, but also to the PRC through its sister city, Macao. The use of Portuguese is of course encouraged by the financial arms of the Indian goverment for this reason. People's jobs depend on it. As India, China, Brazil and the EU are involved in this trade, one could say that half the world's population is affected by Goans. I hope this Talk article can help solve the language controversy currently active in the Goa pages of Wikipedia. To take an obvious neutral perspective, it hurts to see people's livelihoods being effectively callously dismissed by seemingly ignorant Anglocentrics on the pages of the Wiki. I think this perceived callousness and ignorance is the reason for the emotion involved in the extant discussion. 'Portuguese Pride' is central to Portuguese culture and as such it should be a guiding light for anyone attempting to write about the Greater Portuguese community, much as one would normally respect America and the U.K. in writing about those places in places like Dallas Cowboys and The Prince's Trust. If anyone still has a question at this point, just consider the 2005 Per Capita Income of the city. At this level, it just can't be too difficult to understand. Thank you for reading.--McDogm 21:13, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

Science fiction film

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This article was a former candidate for Wikipedia:Collaboration of the week and just barely missed getting the required vote. Since that time, however, it has gradually evolved into a fairly meaty article, and hopefully somewhat interesting. Is there anything that needs to be added, enhanced or cleaned up to turn it into a solid page? Thank you! RJH 20:30, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

A few points that occur to me:
  • The intro is a bit too long I think - it could do with being a more concise and accessible introduction to the subject.
  • I think it would make more sense and improve the flow of the article if the 'history' section came first.
  • Could be useful to discuss the evolution of different subgenres and how they reflect the concerns of society at the time. Some sci-fi is pure escapism, some is designed to point out flaws in society or fears for the future, etc.
  • I think the whole 'Sci fi as social commentary' could be expanded a great deal, some very very interesting stuff to be said I am sure. For an example, Heinlein's book of Starship Troopers seems to be thought of as betraying a very right wing point of view, whereas Verhoeven's film is a great satire from a left wing point of view on modern attitudes to nationalism and war. Heinlein was writing in the 50s, McCarthy was rampant, there was a red under every bed. The film was made in the 1990s after the cold war was over, and attitudes were radically different. There must be plenty to say about this.
  • There are some POV problems, I think, and weasel words - eg Solaris is better than 2001, and thought by many to be the greatest sci-fi film of all time? Who thinks that? Citations are needed.
  • A general proofreading would be good, there are a few capitalised words mid-sentence and other minor errors that I noticed. Worldtraveller 16:59, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Thank you for your comments. I have edited the page and done some reformatting and expansion. It could still do with some editorial polish in a number of places, but it looks fairly decent I think. I'm sure time will take care of the rest. — RJH 01:59, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Okay I added a paragraph to the history section about the emergence of Sci-Fi movie animation. Not sure what else to say there that isn't already covered on the anime page. This page is only about sci-fi films, so I didn't think that TV series would be an appropriate sub-topic. The subject of sci-fi on television probably deserves its own page. Thanks. — RJH 19:03, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Ah, here it is: Science fiction on television — RJH 19:04, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Ok, but I think that since sf on tv evolved from sf on film, this process should be described as an influence/evolution of films, with the above article linked in appoproate section, not in see also. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 12:29, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I'm not really clear about why that could not be covered on the Science fiction on television page. It would seem more appropriate to demonstrate the influence of Sci-Fi television on the film industry on the Science fiction film page, with a one-line sentence to cover the above case. Sorry. — RJH 20:19, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Not bad, though I have one complaint: the pictures appear to be a random collection of science fiction films' movie posters with no rhyme or reason for their selection or placement. No explanation is provided for why they are there, nor how they correspond to the theme of the section or subsection that picture is in. "When Worlds Collide" has an apocolyptic theme to it, which fits with the other films mentioned right along side the picture, but the caption just repeats the title of the movie.
    • Each of the posters (except the first) is also mentioned nearby in the text. Other than that, they were primarily placed for color; to break up the monotony of the text. Feel free to add a more meaningful caption, if you wish.
      • Done.  :^)
        • Drat. I keep forgetting to type in the four tildes. -- Zalasur 09:52, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)

I appreciate the comments of the peer review, and have made a number of changes following those suggestions --209.247.222.103 21:04, 13 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

New Hampshire Grants

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I'm working on getting a map of the grants or at least of the general area, but I would love comments on what needs polishing or expanding, what's not clear, and so on. It's a history of illegal land grants in colonial America which resulted in the creation of the state of Vermont. Thanks for looking at it! jengod 21:21, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)

  • Interesting stuff. A couple of things I would recommend:
  1. Cite your sources, i.e. for the quote in the "Real Estate" section.
  2. Cite the court cases involved (i.e., when you say "In 1770, the New York Supreme Court advanced New York's case by declaring all of Wentworth's grants invalid," etc.). If you can find them on findlaw.com or similar web sites, I may be able to write them up, at least briefly. Cheers, RidG (talk) 06:24, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)
  • Thanks for the comments. I'll dig around the law databases and see what I can find, as well as pull out my refs and cite specifics! jengod 23:28, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)

Coptic Christianity

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Apart from a lot small points and the question of style, all discussed on the talk page, the most problematic point at the moment is the section, which is sometimes titled "The Arab liberation of Egypt" and at other times "The Arab Invasion and Occupation of Egypt". --Pjacobi 10:13, 2005 Mar 3 (UTC)

This article is a shame at the moment: I'm glad you brought to review. The lead section needs a rewrite. It needs to be a straightforward, factual introduction to Coptic Christianity. There is no need for any controversial claims (e.g. original church in Egypt stuff) in the lead section. The power change in Egypt from the Byzantine Empire to the Islamic Caliphate has to be put in its broad context: many Egyptians were unhappy with Byzantine administration and welcomed the change. Coptic Christians, who were often considered as heretics, or at least not fully Orthodox, by the Byzantine administration, had good reason to oppose Constantinople. There seems to be the gloss of modern Egyptian politics on this at the moment. It looks like the careful application of neutrality throughout the article would be beneficial. I'll see if can help. Gareth Hughes 13:11, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Sydney

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I am going to put this article for nomination. Can you mention where to improve? --202.40.210.174 02:57, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It looks pretty good overall, but could use a section on the local business economy. — RJH 17:41, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Lack of refs, especially for the history will cause you grief if you go for FAC. Fawcett5 20:53, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)
it looks good but 1) an infobox would be informative 2) Overuse of subheadings -- See (Mumbai) 3) Timeline, tourist attractions and list of suburbs should be moved to another page as it looks ugly here. 4) Sports needs a rewrite. Nichalp 19:23, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)

Brutalism

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I am fairly proud of this article after having done a lot of research, expansion, and copyediting to make it not only look good, but explain its topic well within appropriate contexts.

I'd like to see it be a suitable nominee for FAC. I am sure that my involvement in it limits my ability to assess its fitness with those requirements.

Should something be expanded? Reworded? Separated? Is more detail or information needed somewhere? Is there a glaringly omitted section? Is the list OK or does it need to be moved off?

Regards, Keith D. Tyler [AMA] 23:59, Mar 2, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the very informative article. I'm not an expert in this field by any means, so I don't know if these remarks are relevant, but maybe something could be said about:
  • The article is focusing primarily on the exterior of Brutalist structures. Is there anything noteworthy to say about the buildings' interiors?
  • How does Brutalism relate to other art forms in the 50s, 60s and 70s? Was its influence restricted to architecture alone, or did it cross over into other fields as well?
Some other remarks about the article:
  • Try to find and include some references: they are required for a FAC. Obviously tons of books have been written about Le Corbusier and his contemporaries, so finding some good sources shouldn't be too difficult.
  • About the images: they are good, but the number might be a bit excessive. IMO, they should be there to illustrate various aspects of the style and not be a redundant gallery. Also, some of them do not have a proper tag or are not free. I'd suggest to remove Trellick Tower (is somewhat similar to Unité Marseille), Tricorn Centre (not a very clear picture) and the Indiana Art Museum (ditto). Maybe others as well. Incidentally, these are also the images without the right tags.
  • You might want to think about not using both right- and left-aligned images at the same time. The column of text next to the Boston City Hall is quite narrow on 800x600. Also, the "illustration left" text is actually below the image, so that's not very helpful
  • Change double hyphens into em-dashes.
  • The list: I don't know. It's longer than the article itself. Turn it into a "List of notable Brutalist buildings", maybe?
  • One other thought: I think the "Figures" section is a bit short. Maybe you could take some of the buildings from the list and discuss them in prose here?
  • Use of Wikilinks in the list: you don't need all the redundant wikilinks here. Wikify a term only once (London, UK, United States, etc.)
That's all I can think of for now. Good luck. --Plek 01:26, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for that. Some of your comments made me go "duh, of course!", so I needed the kick. :) - Keith D. Tyler [AMA] 20:42, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)
I love it: it's a good article with a good set of images. I'm wondering whether the text can be expanded a little. The Figures section is tucked away at the bottom, and I would have liked to meet the major players nearer the top. I'm sure that there's more that can be said about them. Is it possible to involve more context here? Where did brutalism come from, and where did go? How do those buildings fit into the built landscape? What were the great furores about concrete carbuncles? I'm sure there's plenty more fuel for this one. Gareth Hughes 01:41, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Good ideas; I am a bit reluctant to go into too much discussion of major players whose influence on Brutalism are already discussed on their own pages (like Peter Smithson). The extent to which they and the style are tied presents the risk of being redundant with those articles. It and the rest are good angles, though. - Keith D. Tyler [AMA] 20:42, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)
Don't go into horrid detail, but the most important people in the movement should be covered in some manner at a summary level with their most important contributions mentioned. That bit of redundancy is fine and helps the understanding and presentation of the topic. In this article their relative contributions can also be discussed cohesively, instead of fractured into different articles. - Taxman 22:20, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)
  • Some general comments. 1) It needs references. Where did all of this material come from? Cite that. :) 2) The list of structures should really be moved to a separate article that is linked to from this one. 3) Man, that top picture is incredibly unnatractive. If that is the goal fine, but perhaps one of the other, more attractive pictures can be made the lead one. - Taxman 22:20, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)

CF-101 Voodoo

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I'm nominating this article because I think it fills a void in Canadian aviation history. (Also, because I wrote it...). Although I feel that the subject is pretty well covered, I would appreciate feedback on any changes/additions/subtractions that people feel would improve the article.

Voodude 22:17, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm not huge on Canadian Air Force history (RAF is more my area), but I can certainly say that it's a well-written article. Good work! Dan100 17:01, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

HM Prison Geelong

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Whilst this small prison isn't as famous as many others around the world, it still has a short but interesting history. Where should such an article like this go from here for improvement? -- Longhair | Talk 16:10, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

You could use a very simple timeline (see m:Help:EasyTimeline syntax) instead of the list. It would be nice to get a bit of context: what was the situation that led to the prison being built, was there parliamentary/local debate about it, how does the prison relate to its surroundings... Gareth Hughes 17:48, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)
A picci of the gaol would be good. A brief description of what "panopticon" means would be useful. A brief history of the key inmates would be useful. Were there any notable events (eg breakouts/riots) in the gaol's history? For much of its period it was a hospital gaol, although that wasn't the original intention of building it, why? jguk 00:10, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Christina Aguilera

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This is the second time this article has been submitted to Peer Review. The first peer review request is located at Wikipedia:Peer review/Christina Aguilera/archive1. Since the previous request, the article has improved signifigantly, and I'm planning on seeing whether or not this is prime time forWP:FAC. --LBMixPro(Speak on it!)

Trivia sections make many editors cringe when seen in articles up for FAC. Please try to incorporate the points into the article, or consider deleting them. It would be easy to add in the fact about her schooling to Early History, and the same goes for her first gig, whereas the fact about "Beautiful" could easily be deleted. Harro5 09:49, July 28, 2005 (UTC)
I've gone ahead and taken your advice with the Trivia points. The section is now gone. But I realized parts of the article need more attention than others, especially the Early Years section, where it talks about Aguilera musically, not not about her personal life (her abuse isn't mentioned until the passage about "I'm OK"), so that the schooling fact can actually fit in.--LBMixPro(Speak on it!) 08:41, August 11, 2005 (UTC)
  • The main image seems to be marked to be deleted, in which case it should be changed. This could do with references e.g. using Wikipedia:Footnote3 or invisible notes Mozzerati 21:28, August 11, 2005 (UTC)
Marked to be deleted? What do you mean? --LBMixPro(Speak on it!) 03:55, August 12, 2005 (UTC)
This image has no source information. This means that it has an unknown copyright status. Unless the copyright status is provided and a source is given, the image will be deleted. from the image page Mozzerati 18:45, August 22, 2005 (UTC)
Oh, that's what you mean. Well, I wasn't the one who added the photo. But I know that is from a press kit. I would like to add a {{promophoto}} template, but I'm not sure where to find a precice source, other than Christina's official website, or even if it can be used here. If not, then I'm cool with the DVD cover, which is further down the page, to be the main pic. --LBMixPro(Speak on it!) 19:04, 22 August, 2005 (UTC)

Adams motor

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People knowledgeable in physics and engineering—particularly those familiar with the design of electric motors and the terminology used to describe them—please have a look at this article. This is a description of a claimed perpetual motion or "overunity" or "free energy" device. There is a slow-simmering discussion between two contributors on how it is described, and, in particular, whether it is appropriate to describe it as a form of "switched reluctance motor". One of the contributors is likely (I haven't actually asked him) the person whose 2001 design for a version of this motor has been disseminated on the Net. Dpbsmith (talk) 13:56, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to see a little more skepticism expressed about the existence of the Aether, a centuries old hypothesis that was essentially disproved with the Michelson-Morley experiment. Otherwise the article seems to express sufficient doubt about the entire principle to be reasonably neutral. It should definitely have a link to Ohm's law in the appropriate location in the text, as heat from resistance is what should cause the motor to grind to a halt IMO. RJH 18:36, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
If this is ever going to be a featured article, references will be needed. WegianWarrior 10:34, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Banjo-Kazooie

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Haven't worked on this in a while, it's fairly complete but needs some reading over. —Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 11:38, 2005 Mar 1 (UTC)

Johan Petter Johansson

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This is far too short for featured status, but I believe it is worthy of "1.0" status (it is sufficiently well-written, complete, etc to go into a stable release of Wikipedia). To be sure, I'd like it checked for typos and grammar by a native English speaker. Also, if there are any other Swedish speakers around, it would be great if someone could compare it against the primary source to make sure I didn't get anything wrong. Fredrik | talk 23:54, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This is a good short article. To improve it, why don't you tie Johansson more into his times, ie, what was his role in Sweden's industrialization? Also, surely this guy got really rich. What did he spend his money on? Was he a philanthropist? DId he have a family?Dinopup 01:50, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I would if I could find sources with information about those things. Fredrik | talk 03:33, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Well, there's a book from 1992 by Lars-Åke Kempe, Fredrik, don't know if you're already aware of it—well, in libraryspeak it's a book, it's 56 pages. Here's a link to library holdings. There's also a J. P. Johansson Society! Possibly not a very lively one, as they have no web presence. This is the LIBRIS reference for them. Googling for them is frustrating, you get a runaround with defunct links. The other LIBRIS hits for Johansson are to articles of a mere couple of pages in (to me) obscure venues, which are probably pointless in relation to what you already have. If you're in Stockholm, you can read Kempe's book, though not take it out, at KB (register in advance and place an order over the web).
I hope those LIBRIS links work—they do now, but the "session" may have expired or whatever—if so, just go here, which is a nice permanent link, and do a search for your guy, you'll easily find the book from there. Bishonen | Talk 11:42, 2 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Thanks, I didn't know about that one. I might see if I can get hold of it. Fredrik | talk 03:29, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Iranian Revolution

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This was the COTW in June 2004. I put it up on WP:FAC in December 2004 (here is its sub-page) but objections were raised about:

  • lack of information on the number of people killed or who fled the country under the new regime
  • references - it has "further reading"
  • section on post-revolutionary impact is too short
  • POV was said to be anti-shah and/or cleric (apparently a lot of people welcomed the Shah's modernization and westernization, and, for example, women lost a lot of their rights after the revolution)

This is still one of the best ex-COTWs and I'd like to get it up to featured status: I don't think it is far off. -- ALoan (Talk) 13:25, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yes it looks pretty good overall. One sentence did catch my eye though: it began, "During this three-day..." and concerned the 2500yr celebration of the founding of the Persian Empire. But the sentence did not include a conclusion. — RJH 18:47, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

It's looking quite good. I tightened up the intro paragraphs a bit, but they could still use a little more tweaking. They provide a good overview of events, but would benefit by being more concise. Also:

  • The first section, "Precursors", begins a little too abruptly. The beginning of Pahlavi's rule in 1941, rather than its resumption in 1953, would be a better starting point. The rest of this section looks good, but would be better if the writing were made more precise. Sentences "The dominant theology..." and "These included..." could be merged, the "Inflation accelerated..." sentence is kind of hard to parse and the rest of the paragraph could use some polishing, etc.
  • "Pre-revolutionary conditions" could be more neutral. It comes across being strongly anti-Shah; by focusing on all the negative things the Shah did, it gives the impression he was universally hated. Certainly the Shah maintained some support during this time; why did they support him? And the same for later sections. I think in order to understand why so many revolted against the Shah, it would help to know why so many others remained loyal.
  • "Overthrow of the Shah", same issue. Perhaps it's because I'm reading this from a U.S. perspective, but I can't understand how anyone could support a Shah who continues to kill hundreds of protesters. Obviously, by this point most of the population is saying "we can't let this guy do whatever the f. he wants", yet some remain loyal; why?
  • During the period leading up to the Shah's overthrow, it'd be good to see more development on how Khomeini, among the opposition leaders, came to be chosen. He is leading a "small faction" in 1977, the press attacks him in 1978, and he has majority support in 1979. That's about all we get. I'd like to know more about why he became the people's choice.
  • The "Consolidation of power" section is organized rather differently from the rest; making this consistent with the rest would help, I think.

Aside from that, I'd say it's mostly a matter of polishing the style a bit and tightening up the narrative flow, and it'd be near-featured status. Nice work! -- Wapcaplet 20:02, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

_____________________

If I may add about the last point (excuse me if this is not the right place to add), revolutions do not require a majority of the people's support. A majority of American people weren't beholden to Washington in 1776. A majority of the Russian people did not support Lenin's Bolsheviks in 1917. A majority of Ukrainians did not support Yukashenko in 2004. I seriously doubt a majority of the Iranian people supported Khomeini in 1979. All you need for a revolution is a sufficient mass number, which needs be nowhere near a majority. That part of the article almost certainly needs correction.

Tangshan earthquake

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This was the COTW in January 2005. I think it is pretty good on its topic, although any expansion would be great, but it particularly needs some proper references. -- ALoan (Talk) 13:27, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Curtis Sittenfeld

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I wrote this biography of an Ohio writer whose first novel has gotten glowing reviews everywhere. It has links and photos, has been catagorized, and has a bibliography. Any comments? PedanticallySpeaking 17:40, Mar 24, 2005 (UTC)

It looks okay, although it's difficult to write a long article about somebody who's career is just starting out. So the name at the start of the second paragraph is her full name, and also that of her mother? I just wanted to clarify that. The second paragraph is perhaps a tad long. The first sentence of the fourth paragraph could be split in two. IMO of course. :) — RJH 17:04, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Right, her mom is also Elizabeth says the Enquirer article. The NY Times article said she was the fifth "Elizabeth Curtis" in the family. You were right about that clunky sentence. I fixed it up and divided up the second graf. PedanticallySpeaking 17:28, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC)

New York City Subway nomenclature

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Self-nomination. I've recently done a major expansion on this, and I feel it pretty solidly covers all the important stuff. --SPUI (talk) 14:14, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Automatic number plate recognition

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Created on 28 March, 2005 (and was just on DYK), I've written this article and included some images I made for it. I'm now at the point of not being able to think of anything else that could expand the information there. I might place this on WP:FAC (I know it's not the longest of articles) but would like some wider input first. Cheers. violet/riga (t) 21:05, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • This technology may be subject to improvements, so when you say "existing systems" you should probably also mention the year. Also the page could use a reference to RFID technology, which can be used for identifying vehicles on toll roads. Otherwise it looks good. Thanks. — RJH 17:05, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • Your great comments have helped me reorganise and expand some of the article. I've nearly addressed all the issues you mentioned, so thanks for that. violet/riga (t) 18:48, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

After further expansions I'm now going to place this on WP:FAC – thanks to those that looked at the article. violet/riga (t) 18:23, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

History of science

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This was a former collaboration of the week article, during which it improved markedly. Still, lots of errors remained, and I've been working on it for the past two weeks to get it to an improved state (revising text parts, adding references and so on). I still think the article is a bit long and that there's room for improvement. I would like comments on where to shorten the article and on general ways of improving the thing and get it to the featured article status. -- Cugel 08:36, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

I disagree with shortening the article. Our recent FAC, History of Russia, was close to 100kb. I doubt that historyu of science is a less deserving subject. The old '32kb rule' is no more. This article has good lead, ok references (it could use more) and pics. What it needs is more info - for example, history of physics is several times larget then that of other sciences. I'd recommend expanding all sections to similar lenght. The history section is nice, although one may consider merging the tiny one-two sentence sectons, like Maya with Inca (although I'd prefer their expansion). The double sections (like Sociology and Anthropology) should be split into separate ones, some are completly missing (mathematics, ecology, political science, economics, linguistics and communication to name a few). Majority of see also should be incorportated into the article, and I would say that history of mathematic and philosophy deserve their own subsections in this article (technology can be left out, but I wouldn't mind seeing it mentioned as well). Nonetheless, a great article, I will try to help with the development and eagerly anticipate it reaching FAC in a few weeks. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 11:43, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Thanks Piotr, I have to say History of Russia turned out great. I've been combining a few of the sections that you're suggesting should be separated :-) -- but I agree with you that the article does deserve expansion because some areas (recent ones especially) are missing (economy, anyone?). I'll try and get this one in better shape, it took me some time to get rid of excess fluff. -- 130.89.201.68 19:01, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I think it's too list-like (i.e. "A discovered X in 1650. B discovered Y in 1660. C discovered Z in 1670"). Needs to do a better job at capturing developments. Fredrik | talk 14:40, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Oh my. Much of this article looks more like history of science by discipline. I'd expect an article on this subject to concentrate on the history of the development of science and scientific thought. I'd also expect to see info about the relationship between science and religion and why the current schism between those two happened. --mav 02:47, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Moorgate

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I am looking at WP:FAC in a week's time, but I am hoping to get a second pair of eyes (or more) to see if the article can be improved. --JuntungWu 14:46, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • You seem to have a few too many words capitalized, especially 'City', where it doesn't seem appropriate to me. Otherwise the article looks decent. — RJH 17:56, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • City of London is always capitalised, I think. But I'll make clear that this is what I am referring to. JuntungWu 03:45, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
  • Has anyone gone through Pevsner's Buildings of England volume for information on Moorgate for this article? You want London 1:City of London, which I don't have. Also see if the Survey of London has done anything in the area and check the VCH. Dbiv 21:29, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • I've checked Pevsner's and on Survey of London. I'll check the VCH later. JuntungWu 03:45, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Futurama (TV series)

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I was impressed by this article and nominated it as a featured candidate, but it clearly it is not to that standard yet. On the recommendation I received there, I am referring this article to peer review. It's pretty good, but it needs improvement. I'd love to see this reach featured standard. --L33tminion | (talk) 17:02, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)

  • I have removed the article from FAC, since it's not meant to be in both places. I hope you don't mind, please just re-nominate it on FAC whenever you're ready to! Peer reviewers can see the FAC commentary already gathered here, there's quite a lot of it. Bishonen | Talk 17:54, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • I read it, found it funny and entertaining (just like the show). Nice work! -- Zalasur 18:31, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)
  • I'd suggest to resolve FAC objections first - especially the lack of references and merging short paragraphs etc. Lead should be expanded, it misses basic info like the series lenght and its status (cancelled). Remember, unless they are resolved, this article will be put down at FAc again and again. This should be fairly easy to fix, the article needs no expantion, just some rewriting. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 12:01, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • I'm a bit confused by the complaint that the article is "mostly lists" as it reads fairly well for me, and I'm not sure how to make it prose-like without removing a lot of interesting information. At any rate, I really appreciate your help. --L33tminion | (talk) 15:58, Mar 11, 2005 (UTC)
    • I'm confused about most of what they said. Seems the main objections are
1. The article has lists
I argue we have more prose then lists. If this is the reason for FAC rejection, this can be argued. Maybe if we have more then 7-10 items in the list, we can defer it to an external list. The smaller ones do not need a lone article because that's all they will be. 5 points or so with little information. A merge candidate.
2. The article lacks references
The only references we can provide is the series itself. Either we need to indicate which episode it came from at each point, or simply list the series as the reference. Is only one reference enough to argue FAC? I doubt it, I'd back it up.
3. Merge smaller paragraphs and some tweaking
This I agree with. We'll just need someone to go through the entire article and remove redundancy wherever possible
We could definately use some information on the show's cancellation. Besides that, I think we're ready to resubmit for FAC.
--Will2k 13:33, May 4, 2005 (UTC)

El Lissitzky

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I'm not interested in this becoming a FAC or anything, I'm just curious what areas need improvement so that I can both improve this article and achieve a higher standard for future articles. As of now I'm kind of in the dark with what I'm doing right or wrong and have never really got any guidance. I read a lot of the guides and everything but I think some real criticism would be of much value. I'm particularly insecure about the prose and the flow of it all; I think it might be boring or maybe a bit convoluted. I definitely cant see the forest for the trees on this one. --Clngre 22:45, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

It looks very good overall, though I lack the knowledge of the subject to help too much. One question, did you use the subjects listed in the bibliography section for facts in this article or just to list sources for an interested reader? Unfortunately the word bibliography means both. Better citation always helps, especially for specific, potentially contentious facts. Oh wait, I do see some external links that do that. Why not collect them at the end to make it easier for someone to know they are there. Consider the Wikipedia:Footnotes way of doing it. Any reliable source you use can be formatted as a reference as at the first link I gave. I'll have to defer to others to comment on the prose, but my assumption is that if you are worried about it and focusing on trying to make it flow well, it probably does better than you think. - Taxman 23:50, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)
Ok thanks a lot, I appreciate it. Almost all of the information came from those 3 books, so I'll rename bibliography to sources. I added external links at specific points just to kind of corroborate facts or quotes who's authenticity people might be skeptical of, but they weren't the primary source. Oh dear.I'm not sure if thats appropriate practice. In any case, I'll definitely do that footnote method. I noticed it on another page and I thought it looked quite sharp. Thanks for your input. --Clngre 00:51, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)
I also don't know much about the subject, which may be a good thing in commenting on the prose, because as someone who is not familiar with the subject, I found it informative, interesting and well written. I think it flows well. The only suggestions I can think of are firstly the headings - there is a combination of descriptive headings and dates, and this creates a disjointed look to the article. I would dispense with the dates completely. "Early years" and "Later years" don't need to be broken into smaller sections. That leaves "The Avant Garde". Rather than use dates I think a descriptive heading would be better as you've done with "Suprematism" and "Proun". For example in the section "1919-1921" the concept of suprematism is introduced and forms about half of this section, before leading into a section headed "Suprematism". Why not just remove the first heading "1919-1921" completely and put it all under "Suprematism"? The first sentence, even before discussing the topic of "Suprematism", is not out of place as it leads smoothly into it. I don't have a suggestion for the "1921-1924" section but there must be a way of making a similar adjustment.
I think the article ends a little suddenly. I think it would be worthwhile to include some kind of comment about how his work has been regarded in the years since his death. Have any artists cited him as an influence? How has his work contributed to the evolution of the genre? It's great to mention where his work is displayed but I think it could be expanded a bit to explain his relevance today. One suggestion - you've included some quotes about his works, which I really like, perhaps one or two more recent comments might help illustrate his continuing importance. It doesn't have to be in great detail, just a paragraph to wrap everything up. I'm no expert, but I think the flow and style of the article is appealing and engaging. We are often our own worst critics. Rossrs 14:08, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Wow, thanks a lot, thats some solid advice. You're right about commenting on his relevance and improving the end, I'll go get on that for sure. I'm going to fix the headers now. Good headers do a lot for an article I think, they're definitely worth the effort. Thanks --Clngre 15:58, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)
Well I do know a little about this subject (Russian emigre artist/architects), although not this particular individual. I would say the article looks pretty good indeed. I haven't been hanging around FAC recently, but I would be surprised if this isn't feature worthy. -- Solipsist 21:48, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I you say so. I don't really know if it is or it isn't. Even if it isn't, the level of criticism I've seen offered at the FAC page is usually very stringent and productive, so that might be a good idea. In any case I added some more info, namely on his legacy and influence, and some more images, so I should remove the peer review thing now. --Clngre 01:59, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)
The article looks good to me. There are a couple of minor areas where I'd like to expand a little - it'd be good to be more specific about his influence, with some examples of works or quotes by artists. It'd also be good to expand on his children's book illustration, which I always saw as one of the boldest constructivist experiments. But these are minor things - the article looks ready for FAC to me. Warofdreams 15:36, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I've been thinking about that - how individual pieces should be discussed and placed in context. The article is all very broad, I know, some specifics would really help. You seem to have a good understanding of his work on this level, if you'd care to add a few lines I'd greatly appreciate it. I'm kind of cautious about talking about individual pieces. I'm not particularily confident that I can do it in a way that is both accurate and neutral. It really isn't my realm, although I realize its importance. I'll see what I can muster, but if you'd like to help out that'd be great. Thanks foor the advice. --Clngre 17:40, Mar 22, 2005 (UTC)
Ok I've made some improvements I think. I significantly expanded the information on his childrens' book illustration, Jewish themes in his art, meaning of some of his pieces, architecture, and a bunch of other things. New images too and whatnot. I also made a stub article at the Russian avant garde page because I thought it looked kinda bad having a red link in the first paragraph. If someone can tell me if the article holds up now, maybe it should be submitted to FAC. I don't know, you tell me. To be honest, FAC and the people that hang out there scare me. Really, they're intimidating.--Clngre 04:48, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)

Oyama v. California

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This is (in my humble opinion, anyway) a rather interesting and important Supreme Court case that typically gets little notice. While most people are familiar with big name race-related rulings such as Brown v. Board, or Korematsu v. United States, smaller cases such as Oyama nonetheless serve as important precedents. I have tried to make the article as complete as I can, including details of the opinions as well as some historical information, but I am certain that I have inadvartently omitted some information. For example, California history is not my strong suit, so the section about California Alien Land Laws could probably be significantly expanded. Any takers? RidG (talk) 23:45, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)

Take a look at the format on The Supreme Court Wikiproject the article should meet the standardized formatting set down by the wikiproject. I'd fact check it if I knew anything about the subject.BrokenSegue 01:59, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • I've followed the SCOTUS Project's guidelines inasmuch as they are applicable in this case. There is not much in the way of previous history that I was able to locate, for example, so I omitted that section. Instead, I've included the prior appellate history (brief as it is) as part of the "Case" section. I appreciate the comments, though. RidG (talk) 02:52, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)
You say that prior history isn't applicable to the article but then you have a section in the article titled "Historical background" and "2.3 Prior appellate history". Sounds like those two things should fit under the prior history heading. BrokenSegue 11:48, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
        • "Prior History" is applicable, in this context, only to the appellate decisions. Since I only have about two sentences, it didn't seem like that amount of information warranted a fully separate section. Historical background is a bit too general and broad to include in "Prior History." RidG (talk) 16:32, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)

World Cricket Tsunami Appeal

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I'd like to see if we could get this article up to featured article status. It started out of Did You Know, and has had contributions by a large number of Wikipedians. Any help would be appreciated, jguk 08:00, 5 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Oakland Cemetery

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Resubmitting this for peer review since it has undergone some cleanup and now contains several nice images. I'm hoping to get this up to FAC quality. The archive of my last request can be found at Wikipedia:Peer review/Oakland Cemetery/archive1. -- uberpenguin 19:09, 2005 Apr 20 (UTC)

  • The article looks great. A few little questions, how long unitl the space runs out, who is responsible for caretaking and how much does it cost the city, does this cemetary have problems with vandalism? --nixie 08:23, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Responses to these questions:
  • "How long until the space runs out"
  • "An estimated 70,000 people are interred at Oakland and while the last plots were sold in 1884, there are still regular burials today." (second paragraph of intro, emphasis added) -- The cemetery has long been fully allocated and there is no more room to expand its borders. Do you think this is significant enough to add more information on it, or do you think the short mention in the intro paragraphs is suficient?
  • "Who is responsible for caretaking," "does the cemetery have problems with vandalism"
  • See the short section Historic Oakland Foundation -- There is some damage that is the direct result of vandalism (notably an incident in the mid 1980s that is alluded to at the end of the paragraph about the Jewish section), but most damage in Oakland is due to the passing of time or isn't easily attributed to any thing.
  • "how much does it cost the city"
  • "Since Oakland is not and was never a perpetual care cemetery, (...)" (first sentence of Historic Oakland Foundation section) -- This should imply that the City isn't really responsible for Oakland.
All of your questions are already briefly covered. I can go into more detail on any of them if you think that would be of benefit to the article (tell me if you think so). Thanks for your suggestions! -- uberpenguin 17:11, 2005 Apr 21 (UTC)
How is the historic society funded, and one more thing, where are people from Atlanta being buried now since most of them won't get burried here?--nixie 13:11, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Oakland is funded mostly by donation, I'll include that in the article. As for your second question, remember that Atlanta is very large city with a huge metro area. There are literally hundreds of cemeteries in and around it, and trying to comment on this wouldn't be very condusive to clarity or brevity. -- uberpenguin 16:45, 2005 Apr 22 (UTC)
  • Looks great. I'd say off to WP:FAC with you soon. I couldn't really find any issues with it. - Taxman 16:18, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

Surreal humour

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I've created Surreal humour, and I'm rather proud of it, but the style is a little different to the usual article. Hence I'm submitting it to peer review to check I haven't gone completely nuts. Maybe the herring is too much? Rls 02:56, 2005 Mar 11 (UTC)

Very nice, overall. I would break it up slightly into parts (for example, famous users of surreal humour), examples of surreal humour (put your joke there to refer to it) and add a caption purporting that cow image to be a possible example of surreal humour. (And yes, while the herring looks very nice, it doesn't add much content. The cow photo is good enough, in my opinion.) Good luck! CryptoStorm 06:41, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well I've added a bit more about Monty Python, but I can't bring myself to delete the herring. It's an demonstration of how unreferenced moments of surrealness are significantly funnier than ones which are. Rls 02:39, 2005 Mar 24 (UTC)

It strikes me as a good start. You might want to add some references (Monty Python spring s to mind), and wikilinks to other forms of humour. WegianWarrior 08:46, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I've done my best! I couldn't think of any other users of surreal humour nearly as famous or influential as the Pythons however. Rls 02:39, 2005 Mar 24 (UTC)
I believe both The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams and Discworld by Terry Pratchett are good examples. --Klhuillier 15:26, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Douglas Adams does often use themes of surrealism in his work (more frequently in his Dirk Gently books I would argue), but I don't agree that Terry Pratchett generally does. I've added Adams, and the Simpsons and Futurama. Rls 20:50, 2005 Mar 25 (UTC)
After looking back at Pratchett I agree. His world is a very strange parody of ours, but lacking in surrealism. I haven't been able to think of others that might be good as examples. --Klhuillier 20:59, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Oliver Plunkett

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Just trying to see what others want to say, see what happens. --User:Boothy443 | comhrÚ 09:00, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It looks good overall, but a few parts could use editorial refinement. College is capitalized in one sentence but not the next, yet they refer to the same college. A few of the sentences seem unfinished, and there is a comma where there should be a period. Additional content could be linked, such as the city of Rome. All IMO, of course. :) — RJH 05:09, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Space Colony (Gundam)

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  • Someone familar with the Future Century timeline (in Gundam)needs to explain colonial development.
  • Someone familar with the After War timeline (in Gundam) needs to explain colonial development.
  • The spelling and grammar need to be checked.
  • A picture of the colonies for each of the seperate timelines is needed, preferably a screenshot.
Universal Century Done TomStar81
Future Century
After Colony
After War
Correct Century
Cosmic Era
  • A list with the names of specific colonies from each timeline and their location in space.

Sheikh Abdullah

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The Kashmir Problem is an important international problem.However in discussions about Kashmir the view of Kashmiris which is in the Kashmiri language gets ignored.This article discusses a poem regarding the Kashmir Problem by the great Kashmiri Poet Mehjoor(1888-1952) which is a versification of a very important speech by the great Kashmiri leader Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah made in 1949 at the shrine of Hazratbal.An understanding of the character and views of Sheikh Abdullah is essential for any person who wants to understand the Kashmir problem in its proper perspective and this article is an attempt in that direction

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sheikh_Abdullah" Categories: Requests for peer review

Psychologist for How to Heal Traumas /Waking the Tiger

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I originally wrote this article but would like to ask for help from professionals. I would appreciate any psycologist/psychiatrist, etc. to edit or improve or even totally rewrite the article( with insights , phsycological comments, etc). I feel that this article and the book( Waking the Tiger) is very relevant. Thanks. --Jondel 01:12, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This book is on VFD. The book is very notable and has helped many people. I rewrote some portions. --Jondel 02:53, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Resubmitting (Step no. 3) The book Waking the Tiger by Peter Levine (1997) has a respectable Amazon sales rank of 1409. Google has 179,000 hits when the key word 'book' was added. This book has dramatically helped others and I hope the article will eventually help those recovering from trauma as a book review.The article is now under Vfd. Any help would be highly appreciated.--Jondel 05:13, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • This article is currently on VfD as Jondel says, where it seems in danger of getting speedied as a recreation of the previously deleted How to Heal Traumas. I'm sorry, Jondel, I understand that this is very important to you, but there's really not much point in an article being on peer review and VfD at the same time. I'll leave it on the list for now (can't speak for anyone else), but please see the peer review instructions: This page is for nearly Featured-standard articles that need the final checking by peers before being nominated as Featured article candidates. Since Waking the Tiger doesn't fit that description, and also seems quite likely to get deleted soon, I doubt that you'll get any useful input here. Anybody who sees this listing and wants to help Jontel keep the article, IMO you'd probably do more good by chipping in at its VfD discussion. --Bishonen | Talk 17:24, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for looking into this anyway.--Jondel 08:11, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I just want improvement on the quality. As a featured article that would be great however.As Jgm suggests I should focus on the book itself not the contents. --Jondel 09:40, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)


  • Here's my recommendation on this. There is little doubt in my mind that a NPOV article about a well-known book would be a welcome addition to Wikipedia. The problem seems to be that rather than an article on a book (see something like Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus or Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them for examples) this is an attempt at a how-to or self-help guide based on the contents of the book. If the book is based on a particular and documented theory, then an appropriately-titled article on that theory would also be appropriate; again, though, such an article should be a neutral description of the theory rather than a wholesale regurgitation or promotion of it. So my suggestion would be to reduce the description of the contents of the book to a couple of sentences in the form of "In the book, Levine promotes the ideas that . . .", include details on the publishing history, reviews, criticisms, and popular reaction to the book, and then figure out whether a seperate neutral article on the underlying theories can be written. Jgm 18:59, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for looking into this. I'll work on this while it is still here. --Jondel 08:11, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
trimmed down. Added on Author. Probably need to advertise the book more.--Jondel 02:15, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Stuttering

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Like a lot of contributors, I came across a topic that I knew well, was underimpressed with the quality, and felt something of a duty to improve it. I put a lot of time into this, but I still do feel kind of uncertain of its quality. Just in general, I'd like somebody to go over it and tell me what I did wrong. I have the feeling that it maybe should cover certain topics more and others less, or that I didn't place enough importance on specific things. I was thinking about trying to add some audio clips of stuttering, although I'm not sure if that's appropriate. Any ideas or criticisms will be noted and appreciated. --Clngre 02:46, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)

  • As far as I can tell, the article looks fine, but I'd like to see evidence to support Moses as a stutterer. Mgm|(talk) 12:08, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)
The majority of those names on the list were added by other people, but I did check out some of them. As far as I can tell it is just a jump to conclusions. Apparently the Bible says something about Moses being very uneloquent in speech and that he was "of a slow tongue", or something to that effect. People jump to conclusions and say he stutterered, but for obvious reasons its hard to prove or disprove it. Should it be removed? I think it should but I want to hear what another person has to say about it. On another note I've noticed how almost none of the articles on the people in that list actually mention their stutter, so I'll go to each and add a line or two. --Clngre 13:22, Mar 21, 2005 (UTC)
FYI, the passage this idea is based on is Book of Exodus 4:10:
Moses said to the LORD, "O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue."
I removed Moses from the listing since it's clear that neither this particular text nor its context provides conclusive evidence for Moses being a stutterer. — mark ✎ 00:22, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I like the article a lot. I changed some minor things, and I found a few points that could be improved:

  • It says: "Some stutterers have even changed their own given name because it contains a difficult to pronounce sound. A cruel irony is that, once the name has been legally changed, some stutterers develop severe blocks on their new name while only now being able to fluently speak their former name." Now this last part really sounds too much like irrelevant trivia to me. Every reader can easily imagine a great lot of 'cruel ironic' scenarios for stutterers; to mention one such scenario doesn't add anything of value to an encyclopedic article.
  • I'm not sure about the 'Practical advice' section. I think Wikibooks would be a better place for this, as it is not Wikipedia's job to give advice to the reader.
  • References. A good article cites its sources. See also Wikipedia:Verifiability.
  • It would be great to have some example sound files. — mark ✎ 00:22, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I fully agree with everything you've brought up and I'll make the changes as soon as possible. I'll try and remember the names of the books I used and include them as sources too, I know thats very important. Thanks a lot --Clngre 02:18, Mar 22, 2005 (UTC)
Ok if somebody could please check it out now, I'd greatly appreciate. I made a major addition/reorganization and added some video clips. I'm also sick to death of the article so this is the last time I'll ask for advice, I promise.--Clngre 00:56, Mar 24, 2005 (UTC)

List of masts

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This needs SO much work it makes my eyes hurt to look at it. It should probably be split into several different lists due to its currently unwieldy size, not to mention that separate lists of "masts" and "towers" may be pointless anyway due to the overlap and question as to whether the term "mast" is even widespread. Also, the whole middle section of text should probably be in a separate article and needs major overhaul (cleanup, organization, wikification) in and of itself. I don't know where to start, somebody help! This is way out of my league. Junkyardprince | Tark 02:42, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • You must have mistaken this page for Wikipedia:Pages needing attention. This is intended for near-feature-ready pages. Sorry. — RJH 20:39, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • Ack! You're right. Um...can you delete this? o.o Junkyardprince | Tark 03:21, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
      • Nope, sorry mate you're stuck here for all eternity. ;-) — RJH 19:17, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Dorset

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I think this article is pretty complete and well organised and I'm considering FACing it (compare with Buckinghamshire which is already FA), just requesting the community's input re: anything missing, layout etc first. Joe D (t) 13:39, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • This is a good looking article. To get to FA status though, I think it needs a bit of work. As for completeness, I can't comment, since I don't know much about the area, but here are some suggestions:
    • Spell out the (w) and (e) stuff in the lead - it might not make sense to some, and in any case it's not particularly clear.
    • The lead is a bit short - can't you add some things like a basic description of the place, and perhaps anything about districts? (like the Buckinghamshire article)
    • The history section could probably be expanded. In general, the article on Buckinghamshire is much more detailed. For an example of where you might expand the section, you mention "A number of military events" that took place in the 12th century - like what?
    • You mention alot of people in the Dorset people section - could that be turned into a list? Perhaps you could categorize that list, even though Buckinghamshire isn't done that way.
    • I like the Geography and Settlements sections - they're both well done. I'm wondering however if they could at least be put next to each other (probably move geography down) or possibly merged.

--Spangineer ∞ 03:23, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

Timeline of the Universe

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The article in question has since been merged into Timeline of the Big Bang.

Pre-electroweak epoch

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Just a minor point, somewhere I think it should be made clear that the electroweak transition represents the current limit of the physics we can experimentally verify using particle accelerators. Our ideas of what happens before that are at best educated guesses.

Tjopau 13:28, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)
You're right
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I'll get it updated soon. I've been sick (danged flu) lately. Ah I love spring. -- Zalasur 03:54, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

New Update

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I kinda like new updates to discussion pages to be at the top. I have no idea why Wiki likes them at the bottom. Just my preference.  :)

Anyways I'm fixing up the article by including new references. I merged Timeline of cosmological eras to Timeline of the Universe on request. I copied over as much data as possible and padded it out a bit. Then, I uncerimoniously redicted the whole page over. C'est la vie. No one updated it in a while so I'll just, um, move it over. ahem.

More references are a'coming. Going to merge from other articles on similar subjects and coordinate with more detailed subjects like Timeline of the Big Bang. Taking a look at the article shows me that the two have a lot of overlapping data. Oh well, moore research is required...

Anyways I'm now going to mop up formatting issues. It's getting more readable now. When I get the initial comments on peer review I'll see about getting a fresh review and then pushing for featured article status. It might take a month.

-- Zalasur 00:31, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC) (I hate forgetting the four tildes)

Original request

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There are several reasons for nominating this one for peer review. I'd like this article to get "Featured Article" status (mostly to help blow my ego to unimaginable proportions). But, it needs work:

  1. The dates and timeline should be verified for scientific accuracy
  2. Though I'm not particularly religious myself, I'd like to include some references to "Biblical Timeline" and related stuff, or at least a link to an article that talks specificly about that stuff
  3. More pictures...? I'm hunting around. Fortunately NASA's archive of awesome insterstallar and intergalactic pictures is quite extensive, and in the public domain. But I need to find relavent pictures related to the TImeline of the Universe, not just "pictures". For example the picture of the whirlpool galaxy was chosen because it's undergoing massively visible star formation right now (even highlighted in the convenient subset), and star formation is a key feature of the Stelliferous Era.
  4. Critique on the style of the article. For some reason relying on a purely bulleted style of writing, though convenent and logical for timeline documenting purposes, annoys me for some reason. Readability could be improved there...

The article has been dead for a while and needed some desperate overhauling, and no one's raised any objections yet. But also, no one's made any comments either. Come on, help a guy out! :)

Send me your thoughts, whatever they are.

-- Zalasur 17:38, Mar 8, 2005 (UTC)

  • For starters, this needs proper references. Lead is too short and should be at least doubled. I can see the reason for bullets, but no you can remove one level of bulleting (i.e. the first major point does not have to be bulleted). Some headings are empty (they containt just more subheadings), this looks bad. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 11:19, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • I tend to agree here, and I thank you for the detailed critique. Since I'm working this week I'll won't be able to make corrections to the layout except for very slowly. I have online references that I've been using (I'll start putting those in this week too), but I'd like the hard-cover variety of references as well. It's too bad all my books are still packed up from my last move.  ;) -- Zalasur 19:53, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

Eldfell

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I've been working for the last couple of days on expanding this article, and would like to see what anyone else thinks of it. Does it flow well? Is there anything else that could be mentioned? Any comments much appreciated. Worldtraveller 14:42, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

A Scanner Darkly

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I am in something of a discpute with users User:Viriditas and User:Jayjg over the use of the terms 'drug use' and 'drug abuse'. I maintain that 'drug use' is a statement of fact that someone used a drug, and that 'drug abuse' is the opinion of someone that that use was 'abusive' (whatever they define that to be). Can anyone weigh in on this please? Thank you - Guttlekraw 00:17, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Why is this on peer review? As a content dispute, it should be moved to Requests for comment. --Viriditas | Talk 09:16, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Francis Ford Coppola

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I am in something of a discpute with users User:Viriditas and User:Jayjg over the use of the terms 'drug use' and 'drug abuse'. I maintain that 'drug use' is a statement of fact that someone used a drug, and that 'drug abuse' is the opinion of someone that that use was 'abusive' (whatever they define that to be). Can anyone weigh in on this please? Thank you - Guttlekraw 00:18, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This is somewhat of a political issue, and even when confining the terms of this discussion to the Wiki "universe" there is not a consensus as we currently have a debate circulating around the Recreational drug use article. Perhaps the context of these articles should be a determining factor: A Scanner Darkly specifically deals with "drug use / drug abuse" while the other two only treat the subject as a lower-tier issue. Therefore, this should be expressed as "drug use / drug abuse" in the latter two articles, and the POV expressed in "Darkly" should be the deciding factor there. Interestingly, when I looked up Apocalypse Now and The Vietnam War I noticed there were no real references to drug use or abuse in either article, even though the topic is relevant to both.
All that being said, I agree with the stated position regarding the meaning of the two terms.--Lordkinbote 05:55, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Why is this on peer review? As a content dispute, it should be moved to Requests for comment. --Viriditas | Talk 09:11, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Peer review/Sex education

Libertarianism

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It's an important subject, but the style needs work, the facts need checking, and sources need to be added. It just emerged from a nasty edit war, and it needs your help. I'd like to get this to featured article status ASAP. Thanks, Dave 15:15, Mar 14, 2005 (UTC)

Alas, having to drill down through three paragraphs of what appear to be disclaimer messages at the start did put me off a tad. Could the italicized text be kept to a minimum? Are there any notable individuals who have been elected to office within the US under the Libertarian ticket? I didn't see any listed. "perceived" was spelled incorrectly. Otherwise it looks fairly solid; although I'm somewhat unfamiliar with this political philosophy. — RJH 00:51, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I agree, but we have some people (most of whom are named Kev) who insist that "libertarianism" is actually a kind of socialism.... even though there isn't a single site on the top 100 hits in google that uses "libertarianism" consistently to mean socialism without qualifying it.... When I say that the people who use the word to mean "socialism" are few in number, he calls it "more needless attempts to minimize meaning that some people don't like," so we have to walk on eggshells around him.... it sucks. Dave 01:49, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)
I guess I don't really care all that much about the political nuances. By convention that type of disambiguation is normally handled on a separate page, or after the meat of the article. The current format is too distracting; it's like watching a medical advert on TV... such and such a drug may cause x, y, z, a, b, c, d, e, f, ... side effects, &c. But no matter. :) My suggestion would be just to use a "controversial" template at the top of the article, or something comparable. — RJH 02:43, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

:::The problem is that it's not controversial to anyone but him. Is this better? Libertarianism Dave 03:18, Mar 20, 2005 (UTC)

Disclaimer is now two lines instead of three paragraphs. Done.

This article is getting there. Does anyone have any advice?Dave 04:19, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC)

*The disambiguation grafs at the beginning are indeed off-putting. But short of moving this to a new title, something like Libertarianism (American political philosophy) and making Libertarianism a redirect page, they're a necessary evil. I'm going to print this out and make a closer study, but from what I've seen I applaud the contributors to this article. It appears from my cursory examination to be thorough and complete. It includes both supporters' and critics' views, bristles with links to additional articles, and even has pictures. Good work. One serious omission, one which will be raised should it go to WP:FAC, is the absence of a bibliography. Yes, you do cite on-line material, but it really does need citations to printed sources as well. But on the substance: bravo. PedanticallySpeaking 20:35, Mar 26, 2005 (UTC)

Yay. Thanks for the good advice. I'll start on the bibliography when I have time. Anyone else have any ideas?Dave 21:55, Mar 26, 2005 (UTC)

I've added a bibliography, shortened the article, spun off sections, shortened the disambiguation at the beginning... Any more advice? Please? Dave (talk)

  • For the record, I didn't strike out any part of my comment above. PedanticallySpeaking 17:50, Apr 11, 2005 (UTC)
    • Oh, should I not have done that? I can undo it if you feel that there's anything left unaddressed. Sorry if I caused a problem Dave (talk) 19:06, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)

New York City Subway

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Self-nomination, sort of. I recently split off a lot of the information into other articles, with the intent being that this is a general summary of the system. As such, I'm not sure that it needs references - it summarizes the other articles, which themselves have (or should have) references. --SPUI (talk) 09:09, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It looks pretty good. I'm not sure why "consolidated" is a link. Some of the other links you have on the page could do with filling in. I sometimes hear about the cultural aspects of the subway system: the street entertainers, the odor, noise, graffiti, homeless, etc. Could anything of that nature be added? Perhaps also a list of movies that included scenes from the NY subway? — RJH 04:51, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Unfortunately I've only been on the system twice, and know almost nothing about that. Maybe someone else could write a section about "The Subway in popular culture" or something. --SPUI (talk) 19:45, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I think it's pretty great. I could write a popular culture section, would that be on the main page, or would it be split off into a seperate page like the other topics? Off the top of my head, notable movies featuring the NYC subway include "The French Connection", "The Warriors", and "Spider-man 2". --Poorpete 18:05, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
There's probably not enough to go on its own page, but I may be wrong. --SPUI (talk) 19:12, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Science fiction on television

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Looks fairly good to me. I expanded lead, added a few references and photos, balanced sections and I would like to hear your opinions if this is FAC ready. One thing bothers me though: isn't this article really about the History of science fiction on television? There is almost nothing regarding the technology, the economy, etc. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 14:38, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

"definiton" is missing an "i". I see at least one format issue where an entire section has been italicized. Might I suggest that where there is a linked year, it could instead be linked to year in television. For example: [[1962 in television|1962]]. The history format works for me, unless there are some specifics that are universally true across the entire time period. The page is getting quite enormous though, so I suspect it will need to be broken into separate pages at some point. — RJH 17:49, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Regarding the year, that's a good suggestion, but don't do dates like [[April 4]], [[1962 in television|1962]] – it doesn't allow the user's date settings to appear normally. I would suggest just doing "year in television" when the year alone is mentioned. Spangineer ∞ 21:54, Apr 2, 2005 (UTC)
FI don't see an italicized section nor the mispelled word, could you fix such minor things them when you see them? The year in tv is a good idea, I will see to it when I have some time. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 11:56, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)
What? No mention of Red Dwarf? Granted, it was funny - but it was also Science Fiction on the television... WegianWarrior 10:02, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Added Red Dwarf, tnx. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 11:56, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

A good article overall, I corrected a few typos and gramamtical errors but nothing major. Some aspects to your treatment I would give further consideration:

Humor is often an integral part to even the most solidly-grounded science fiction work. Look at Star Trek and The X Files as just two examples of this concept. Shows like Futurama (and even The Simpsons at times) function as more of an homage to sci-fi than to merely use it as a "vehicle for laughs."
Good point, fixed.
I wouldn't consider SeaQuest DSV as being "intelligently written," nor does it exemplify your point that a show can make an impact even if it only runs for one season when DSV ran for three. This show (imho) is an example of the "lowest common denominator" form of sci-fi.
Deleted most of the praise, it was self repeating anyway.
I don't recall seeing the Dune miniseries mentioned at all. This is a an area your article might want to delve into a bit, i.e. "What can television accomplish that a novel or even theatrical release of a particular story can't?"
Hmmm. I will have to think about it. If you have an idea where to put it, go right ahead.
I'm not familiar with the term "po-faced" as appears at the end of the paragraph dealing with Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Neither am I, deleted.
You may want to consider breaking your analysis into sub-sections, i.e. Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror as these are generally-recognized differentiators within the overall genre.

--Lordkinbote 17:58, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It was divided by countries when I found it. It would require a major rewrite to change it, although it might be beneficial. Let's see what others have to say about it. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 10:48, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Iron Maiden (band)

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The article has been through Peer Review previously, and was subsequently a failed FAC. All points have been addressed now, POV removed, heavily copyedited. Comments please! --PopUpPirate 17:54, May 7, 2005 (UTC)

Archive from previous Peer Review :

This page has been edited and re-edited so many times, it's refining itself into a great page, maybe it needs someone to Be Bold, maybe it's almost there. There's so much more that could be added, review would be so helpful at the moment to apply for FA. Thanks. --PopUpPirate 23:41, Mar 25, 2005 (UTC)

As a big Maiden fan, I could lend a hand on the task, but I may try to do so by writing an article on my own and only after careful review, merge it with the current contents, for I fear my love for the band will make me fall in tons of POV's, like the ones that currently plague it. I'll just try and see what happens :) -- Shauri 20:15, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Joan of Arc

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This recently received "good article" designation with a comment that it was close to FA quality. The December peer review stressed a need for citations. The article now has 50 footnotes, which is more than most biography FAs. What would take it to the next level? Durova 02:53, 10 February 2006 (UTC) 67 footnotes - I've been busy. Durova 06:06, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The intro is too long. See the guidelines at WP:Lead. I'd suggest summarizing the details of her biography a little more. — jdorje (talk) 05:50, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Watch out for dangling prepositions. The historical background section for instance starts out with "This was..." but you have to go look elsewhere (back up to the intro?) to find out what "This" means (what period of history was this anyway?). — jdorje (talk) 05:52, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Try to use a more complicated sentence structure in some places to tie related sentences together. The current writing is very "basic" in that all sentences are very simple. For instance: "By the beginning of 1429 nearly all of the north and some parts of the southwest were under foreign control. The English ruled Paris and the Burgundians ruled Rheims. The latter was important as the traditional site of French coronations." could have a little more "flow" if it were condensed into two or even one sentence. Also this is another "dangler" since "north and some parts of the southwest" is used as a noun but these are really adjectives (does this mean "north and some parts of the southwest of France"?). — jdorje (talk) 05:56, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the input. A fresh set of eyes helps. I'll implement your changes soon. Durova 06:14, 10 February 2006 (UTC) ...changes made. Durova 06:47, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think in terms of facts, sequence, references and illustrations - it has everything. I think all it needs is to be edited so that it acquires a "more complicated sentence structure" as Jdorje commented. I find a good technique for detecting whether the flow is right or not, is to read it out loud. If that's not possible, at the very least read it paragraph by paragraph rather than sentence by sentence, in the same way you would if reading it aloud, rather than skimming through it. Whatever does not flow will become more prominent and easy to spot. I think the whole article would benefit from this approach because the short sentences occur throughout and give it a stilted style, but I don't think the "fix" is big. I think everything is there and just needs to be sewn together. I'm not sure how much time I'll have over the next few days but I'll try to help when I can. cheers. Rossrs 09:39, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I see you've made some of those changes. I find this particular feedback somewhat surprising, but if two editors agree with it I'll yield to the majority. 208.54.14.9 16:38, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to suggest, simply for the sake of being more precise, that the reference to her home village being at Domrémy be modified to read, Domrémy-la-Pucelle. There are actually several other villages in NE France which begin with the name of Domrémy (Domrémy-Landéville, Domrémy-aux-Bois and Domrémy-la-Canne, to name three), though perhaps back in the year 1421, there may have only been one village called Domrémy. Jeanne d'Arc's home can be found in Domrémy-la-Pucelle at 48°26'31.88"N 5°40'28.27"E, using Google Earth's GPS coordinates. Canuck55 (talk) 03:12, 9 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

British Empire

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This is really a request for references: this article look pretty good to me, and I would send it to WP:FAC, but it needs references. Any peer review comments are also welcome, of course. -- ALoan (Talk) 17:35, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

How about...
  • The Rise and Fall of British Empire, Lawrence James
  • Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power, Niall Ferguson
  • The Oxford History of the British Empire, Robin W. Winks, Wm. Roger Louis, and Alaine Low.
— RJH 19:15, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Excellent - do they support the contents of the article? -- ALoan (Talk) 20:05, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)
You might take a look in your local library. That's what I usually end up doing. — RJH 21:44, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Having just read through the article, I think it's an excellently concise treatment of a pretty enormous subject. A few points occur to me:

  • The intro section is a bit huge - could be reduced a bit, and some of the info worked into the main text.
  • The bottom third of the article is all lists. Perhaps the lists could be spun off into sub-articles, or some other way of presenting them worked out?
  • I really like the anachronous map, it really illustrates the article excellently. I wonder if it could be placed more prominently?
  • There's no mention of Harold McMillan's 'winds of change' speech - quite an important landmarking indicating that rapid decolonisation was to be pursued.
  • Ethnic tensions created by the empire are alluded to in the intro but not really mentioned elsewhere. Perhaps it's outside the scope of the article, but the Fijian situation and the various African repressions of Asian populations are both results of imperial policy.
  • No mention of the effect the Empire has had on the UK, in terms of mass immigration after the war. Some sort of 'Legacy of the Empire' section could cover the last two points.

As far as references go I've only read the James book. I think it broadly supports the contents of the article, although he makes a stronger distinction between the American-based 'first' empire and later 'second' empire. Worldtraveller 15:19, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • I usually use Amazon to expand the list of references. You may also message ppl who did major edits and ask what sources did they use. PR comments 1) too many short (1 sentence/line ) paragraphs, merge them 2) the extensive lists near the end are, well, extensive - consider moving them to separate articles 3) see also is very large, consider deleting terms linked from body and/or writing paragraphs about relevant see alsos 4) add references, although you have this covered, I think. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 15:23, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
    • Erm - shouldn't "References" be used as sources from which an article is written, or to confirm the existing content of an article? I would not add a reference taken from Amazon without reading it first, although I would have less compunction about adding an unread book as bibilography or further reading. -- ALoan (Talk) 16:24, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
      • Well, one can always differentiate between references and further reading, but unless we link references directly from the relevant part of the sentence, as is done in the scientific publications, I find the entire matter rahter pointless. Adding as many sources as possible gives the reader a bigger choice and availabilty of material. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 14:03, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Some suggestions: There's little information on India which was supposed to be the crown of the BE. Robert Clive can be added, British-French wars in India (and Canada), fight for supremacy in the seas between UK and Portugal. I would prefer if the article was a summary and detail moved to other pages. Nichalp 20:19, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)

I did not see this discussion thread back in March. I wrote the bulk of the text in this article a couple of years ago (though there have been many changes since then, especially the images), so I can draft a list of references and reading materials, if people are still interested. 172 | Talk 00:49, 24 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Red Arrows

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I wrote virtually all the text myself, thus input from others is particularly important. I think it is factually accurate and complete, and been supplied with some very nice photos. I think it would make a great featured article. thanks for your criticisms Bluemoose 14:49, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • Nice work. A more deatiled references section following Wikipedia:Cite sources will be needed to get the article featured, also if you used offline sources they should be added too.--nixie 23:17, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

E. E. Cummings

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I've done a lot of work on this article recently, and I'd like comments on the progress and what it needs to get closer to FA level. Thanks. BLANKFAZE | (что??) 01:17, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • A lot more is needed here. It needs descriptions of some of his famous works, and reaction from the public and art authorities to his style of writing/painting. The section on his life looks well-done, but there has to be more stuff on the impact of his work - maybe other poets/artists that were influenced by him, etc. --Spangineer ∞ 05:16, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)
  • One more thing - the lead needs to be expanded somewhat to include broader summary of the article - perhaps include a few of his more famous works, keep the stuff on his style, talk about his impact on the art, etc. --Spangineer ∞ 05:18, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)

Warren County Canal

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Started this article today. Complete account, full bibliography. But needs more eyes to look it over. PedanticallySpeaking 18:06, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)

  • Very comprehensive! Is there are possibility of photos? Are there any good PD image sources for Ohio? And, do we have any source for extermal links? Mark in Richmond Vaoverland 18:31, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)
Doubtful for photos. Started in 1830's and closed by 1852. I didn't list external links separately, but put the sources I used, e.g. Bogen, in the regular bibliography. I Googled the canal and what came up is in the bibliography. PedanticallySpeaking 18:48, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)
  • It's probably a good idea to change the section titles to something shorter and more concise. Mgm|(talk) 21:36, 16 Apr, 2005 (UTC)

Normal distribution

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This is an old and very comprehensive article on an important topic that could benefit from the input of the larger community. For example, does it become clear quickly what the normal distribution is and why it is important? How interesting is it for a general audience? Would it be better with more examples? Or with less discussion of its applications to IQ testing? Does it need illustrations of definite integrals familiar from textbooks, showing e.g. the area under a standard normal pdf between −2 and +2? Thanks, everyone. --MarkSweep 05:55, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Things I don't like/think needs improvement/comments/whatever/etc.:

  • I did some copyeditting work to squelch some concerns I had and to save me from putting them here.
  • The Normal distribution#Occurence section could be trimmed down.
  • No mention of complex normal distribution
  • No mention of AWGN
  • No mention/comparison to it's common role in white noise (combine with bit about AWGN)
  • Perhaps chi-squared derivation
  • Seems as though a few more graphs could be useful

That's all I got at the moment. Cburnett 08:47, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

First thing that occurs to me reading the article is that the section about photon counting seems a little bit unclear. 'Light intensity from a single source varies with time' - why? Is a Bose-Einstein distribution the same as a Poisson distribution? Why does thermal emission behave differently to laser emission? I think an expansion and clarification of this section would be helpful. Worldtraveller 12:32, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Light intensity varies because of theremal fluctuations, at the very least.
The Bose-Einstein distribution is not Poisson, it is exponential.
Laser light is a coherent phenomenon, and lasers are far away from thermal equilibrium.
Those are good questions, I just don't know that a discussion of these details would not be distracting. — Miguel 08:31, 2005 Apr 18 (UTC)
There's a pair of series approximations for the distribution on the mathworld.wolfram.com page. Unless I'm mistaken I don't see them listed. — RJH 18:49, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It becomes clear that the norm dist is a prob dist, but chances are if you know what a prob dist is, you'll know what a norm dist is. Perhaps there is no interest in explaining it to a less-informed general audience (I don't always do it), but as it is now, I'll be surprised if anyone who hasn't taken at least an intro to stats course will understand anything, even the most basic sections. There is no explanation about the shape of the curve, or how the scores are distributed around the mean, or anything along those lines that could help someone understand. What are the axes in your graphs, especially the probability? For instance, if the IQ standard curve has a mean of 100 and a stddev of 15, does that mean a newborn has a 50% chance of having (or developing, when he becomes adult) an IQ between 90 and 110, or does it just mean that 50% of people who've had their IQ tested scored between 90 and 110? Considering that Bell curve redirects to here, there should be something more simple, because it's not uncommon to hear that term in early high school. I think the IQ section is long, but it explains the topic very well. Unless someone wants to spin-off a new article, I wouldn't touch it. Re: the length of appendages in biological organisms, what is the sample? Is it from the same individual or across a population? The lengths of my fingernails or my 5 o'clock shadow doesn't seem like it would fit a normal distribution. The blood pressure example is a bit weird. The previous paragraph describes a lognormal distribution, then the BP is normal, and back again to lognormal. If I didn't know any better, I'd assume there was a misprint and that the BP was lognormal. The figures should be named and referred to by their number (ie: Fig. 3). Things like "plot to the right/left/above/below" is really bad. Abbreviations used should be defined somewhere, such as 'pdf' and 'cdf'. It doesn't take a Harvard education to figure out what they are but it should still be done. Hope this helps. --jag123 10:45, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

We are not talking about the distribution of the naillengths of your 10 fingers, but the lengths of the nails of the same finger across a population. — Miguel 08:31, 2005 Apr 18 (UTC)
Thanks, jag123. Good points. If you feel strongly about the IQ discussion, could you visit Talk:Normal distribution#IQ discussion and comment on it? --MarkSweep 18:36, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There is a common but nevertheless serious error in the estimate of the variance. When the variance of a population needs to be estimated using only a sample of the entire population then one should not estimate the variance as

 

since this equation underestimates the true variance. An unbiased estimate for the variance is

 

The proof that is given of the former equation is wrong. You cannot set   in the derivation since it is only an estimate. I haven't been able to find a alternative proof on the web and my statistics book is at a different location. See http://www.mathpages.com/home/kmath497.htm http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Variance.html http://www.pitt.edu/~wpilib/statfaq/95varqn.html for additional info. Jan van Male 17:50, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

There is a common but nevertheless serious error in the estimate of the variance. When the variance of a population needs to be estimated using only a sample of the entire population then one should not estimate the variance as
 
since this equation underestimates the true variance.
That is nonsense. It is true that on average it underestimates the population variance, but to call it a serious error is nonsense: sometimes biased estimators perform better -- indeed in some cases far better -- than unbiased ones. This one in particular has a smaller mean square error than the unbiased estimator has. Your statement quoted above is the "common but serious error". Michael Hardy 22:50, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's not really an error, because the discussion is clearly about maximum likelihood estimation, and the first estimate is the maximum likelihood estimate. However, the connection to sample variance and unbiased estimates could be made clearer. --MarkSweep 18:36, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Although unbiased, the maximum-likelyhood estimator is consistent and it has smaller variance than the unbiased version, so it is sometimes preferred. — Miguel 08:31, 2005 Apr 18 (UTC)
I did not know of the branch of statistics called maximum likelihood. Now that I have read about it, I can see my mistake. Presenting a biased estimate rather than an unbiased one does seem counterintuitive to me. Jan van Male 19:49, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The article does not presently answer one key question: Why do so many phenonena result in normal distributions? Why this particular equation? The closest that the article appears to come to addressing this is, "While the underlying causes of these phenomena are often unknown, the use of the normal distribution can be theoretically justified in situations where many small effects are added together into a score or variable that can be observed." Does anyone know?--J-Wiki 13:14, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It's the part about "many ... effects are added together" that sometimes justifies the normal distribution. If there is reason to believe that many factors contribute to a complex phenomenon and those factors are mostly independent and their cumulative effect is the sum of the individual effects (as opposed to their product, or some other relationship), then we would expect to see an empirical distribution that resembles a normal distribution. You're absolutely right that there should be a better and more detailed explanation in the article. --MarkSweep 19:13, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Body size distributions

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I looked for an article on this topic for a quick review of applicability to body size distributions (ht, wt, bmi, etc)-- see the CDC growth curves and found this article disappointing as an overview of the issue. For example, I was looking for the rough conversions of SD to percentiles and found no info on this fairly widespread and common practical application of this concept. Second, there is an unclear suggestion that biological measurements usually do not follow a normal distribution, but many aspects of medical practice use this concept. An explanation of the discrepancy should be included in that section, or perhaps this part of the article is simply wrong-- is this an example of the distribution not meeting the Platonic ideal of a statistician yet being so close that it is useful for clinical work? I found much better and clearer examples of what I wanted with a quick google search elsewhere. alteripse 01:18, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

About biologival specimens, the classic reference is
Huxley, Julian: Problems of Relative Growth (1932)
The overwhelming biological evidence support supports the hypothesis that growth processes proceed by multiplicative increments, and that therefore body size should follow a lognormal rather than normal distribution. The size of plants and animals is approximately lognormal.
Also, if you assume height is normally distributed, then weight will not be (normality is not preserved by powers) and conversely. They can both be lognormally distributed, though. — Miguel 08:31, 2005 Apr 18 (UTC)

Sorry I am dense (or statistically naive) but I don't understand your explanation at all, even enough to argue about it. Is it possible to provide a clearer explanation for the article? I suspect something is wrong with your argument but don't have the statistical knowledge to recognize the problem. alteripse 14:40, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Honestly, if you can't state your question I can't answer it, but somehow I don't think statistics is the problem - I think the problem is geometrical. All I have to say is, check out the book I mention from a library, read the introduction and look at the diagrams. You might also want to google the title and/or author: there are lots of references to it. There is also a wealth of modern paleontological work in which the logarithm of sizes of bones is taken before any further analysis. That is, the working assumption is lognormality. — Miguel 17:44, 2005 Apr 18 (UTC)

All right, my question could be made clearer, but don't be condescending-- if you don't understand what I am describing it may be your lacuna, not mine. Here are some examples.

  • First, this [7] is a copy of a growth chart that shows ht expressed in standard deviations and percentiles, impying that hts at a given age approximate a normal distribution. If you look at the wt distribution it is clearly skewed and it would not seem to be valid to interconvert percentiles and SDs. Do SDs have any validity if the distribution is not "normal"?
Percentile ranks are always more meaningful than number of standard deviations from the mean (i.e. z values), which is just a change of measurement scale. The standard deviation itself is always meaningful.
The height data are normal, but not so the weight data. Even if a series of data is lognormal, it will be very close to normal if the SD is sufficiently small relative to the mean. Notice that the 97th percentile for weight is twice the 3rd percentile, but that in the case of height the 97th percentile is just about 16% larger than the 3rd. That is a huge difference as far as the lognormal is concerned.
I'll do a goodness-of-fit analysis for a lognormal distribution on both sets of data and report back. — Miguel 14:44, 2005 Apr 19 (UTC)
The endpoint of the height data fits a lognormal with log-standard-deviation between 0.0389 and 0.0408. What I did was 1) visually estimate the values from the graph to within 0.5 cm; 2) divide all values by the median height so the result has by construction log-mean equal to 1; 3) compare the resulting ratios (with errors) with the quantiles of the lognormal using R. When I figure out how to wiki-code tables I'll post the details. — Miguel 19:11, 2005 Apr 21 (UTC)
The weight distribution does not seem to fit a lognormal, though. — Miguel 19:43, 2005 Apr 21 (UTC)
The Cauchy distribution is an important distribution without a mean or standard deviation. There is a whole theory of large deviations for so-called fat-tailed distributions. Note that when a Cauchy distribution is involved, it is wrong to estimate a standard deviation from a sample and then discard any outliers. It is even wrong to estimate a sample mean, for that matter. — Miguel 08:39, 2005 Apr 21 (UTC)
  • Second, this statistics website [8] provides several examples of biological variables in a normal distribution, including ht, suggesting at least some statisticians think many measurement variables do follow a normal distribution.
Yes, many people who use statistics (who are, by the way, mostly not statisticians) think so. On the other hand, if you look at the article's talk page you'll see that we tried and failed to find a single statistics textbook where the statement that biological variables are normal is backed by a reference that we could check. Most people contributing to the article actually have training in probability and statistics, too, but also know full well that sometimes statistical methods based on normality are used because of mathematical convenience (or because they are available off-the-shelf) more than anything else. — Miguel 14:44, 2005 Apr 19 (UTC)
  • That is more or less an excercise and is basically making an incorrect assumption for the simplicity of the assignment and getting across a point about normal distributions. - Taxman 14:05, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)
  • Third, this [9] is the first example I could quickly find to illustrate common use of the assumption that hts can be expressed as z-scores. Look at the methods section.
I am not disputing common use of the assumption that hts can be expressed as z-scores, I am disputing the soundness of the assumption. The article you reference uses z scores for all of height, weight, and BMI. We know from the growth chart data you reference that weight data cannot be expressed as z scores without loss of information. That is a flaw (quite likely unconsequential, I would admit) in their method. — Miguel 14:44, 2005 Apr 19 (UTC)
  • Fourth, this website [10] is an example of explaining the relationship of percentiles, z-scores, and SDs that is quite useful in many disciplines but is missing from our article.
the website says
It can be shown that many characteristics of interest, such as IQ, height and weight of people, etc., have a normal population distribution.
well, the data you provided actually show that weight is not normally distributed, and IQ hardly counts as evidence because it is normally distributed by construction (see the discussion in the article where it is made clear that the normality of IQ is the result of taking raw test data which are not normally distributed, calculating percentiles, then z values, then translating the z values into a normal with mean 100 and SD 15). The website does not bother to give a reference where this has been shown, and it is exactly that kind of unsubstantiated statement that is often found in statistics textbooks. — Miguel 14:44, 2005 Apr 19 (UTC)

So, most of the world uses SDs, z-scores, and percentiles to express height distribution and I am having difficulty reconciling this with your assertion that ht and many other biological variables do not follow a normal distribution. Again, are you simply claiming that the distribution is close but not exactly normal, (like an astronomer arguing that the earth is not spherical, just really close)? If so, I think you are nitpicking or being deliberately obtuse. I usually assume if I can't explain something to someone it is likely because I don't understand it thoroughly enough myself. Can you explain your assertions to me? Do you still not understand this issue? To me, this is an enormous hole in this article, which I suspect is largely unintelligible to 99.9% of college-educated adults. I think it should be explicitly addressed in our article. alteripse 12:53, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't think he was being condescending at all, just simply saying he can't answer a question if he doesn't know what you are asking. In any case, you can use all of those tools you refer to without the distribution being normal. Just because the normal distribution is common and simple, doesn't mean everything has to follow it. SD's, percentiles, all apply to lognormal and other distributions, and z-score's can too to an extent. Read the article on the lognormal distribution or poisson, and you'll see those have very different shapes, but still have many of the same attributes such as SD's and percentiles. This article is about the normal distibution, it should not cover everything about those topics which are general to all probability distribution functions. You see below I agree this article is too technical, but this specifically is not a problem with the article, but your understanding of statistics. - Taxman 13:52, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)
Most of the world also uses linear aproximations to nonlinear phenomena, often for no better reason that we have no idea how to solve nonlinear equations in general.
The earth is not spherical for many practical purposes nowadays, given the accuracy of modern navigation systems. GPS even uses general relativity corrections. As far as my daily life is concerned, the Earth might as well be flat. That has nothing to do with what I know to be the case, and I would be nuts to demand that a manufacturer of street maps use a method that allows for sphericity. But that is not the point.
I may be nitpicking in the case of the height of girls. However, I am not in the case of many other biological variables usually claimed to be normal. On the other hand, there is a substantial difference between the normal and lognormal models of height, and that is the treatment of growth rates. On the second page of the growth charts there is a chart of growth rate in cm per year. If the height is lognormal, the appropriate measure of growth is the relative rate: cm of growth per year, per cm of height. Now, this is exactly what the book by Huxley is all about: growth rates. And he takes logarithms. On page 11, he says
In passing, it is worth noting that the logarithmic method of plotting brings into true relief an important point that is entirely obscured by the usual method of of plotting on the absolute scale—namely that growth is concerned essentially with the multiplication of living substance
Replace "logarithmic method of plotting" with "a lognormal model" and "plotting on the absolute scale" with "a normal model" and that is basically what our article is trying to say. As usual, the original says it much better even if (or probably because) it is over 70 years old.
Now, if the height of girls is the result of a long and slow process of growth, and if the growth rate is affected by a multitude of genetic and environmental factors which we model as random, and if the growth is assumed to be multiplicative as biologists know it should be and Huxley supports with data, then we must expect height to be lognormal and the depault method of analysis should not be mean-standard deviation. The mean would be replaced by the geometric mean and the standard deviation... well, that's the problem, that there is no simpler way to describe what needs to be done to the data in that case other than to say "the exponential of the standard deviation of the logarithm of height", and I would forgive doctors for not wanting to do that when they measure the height of girls. — Miguel 14:44, 2005 Apr 19 (UTC)

Thanks for the above. I won't argue that my statistical expertise is rudimentary on a good day although I took an intro course many years ago and wrote a spreadsheet program to do SD and SEM computations for lab data in the days before VisiCalc and Lotus. The problem with these articles is that they appear to be concise aides de memoire for people who already understand the subject matter, so that they are better suited to a Handbook of Statistics than an encyclopedia. For example, it would nice if the lognormal article had an illustration of the difference between a normal and a lognormal distribution. It might have saved all these words. I didn't know we had a lognormal article until you pointed it out, but sadly I am still little more knowledgeable after reading it. These articles do serve the purpose of making me wonder if some of the articles I have contributed suffer from the same flaw of being a nice synopsis for those who already know the material but insufficiently clear and explanatory for a reader who doesn't. We might all learn from this example of what an encyclopedia isn't.alteripse 14:39, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well sure, it is much tougher to write an article that is accessible to someone that doesn't already know the subject. Because of that many articles simply state the facts and features about the subject in a technical way. The issue of course is that people that know the subject well, will write it in terms they are used to and work with every day. But we'll get to a great article eventually. Being aware of the issue and having people that can point out where the article is not helpful is very important toward reaching the goal of an effective article that is useful both to someone who does not know the subject and to someone that does. All of the subject will never be fully accessible to someone that does not know the subject because some facets of the topic simply require background knowledge that cannot fit in one article. Example kurtosis. But I do believe the negative effect of that can be minimized by the method I've outlined below. I will see what I can do. - Taxman 15:38, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

Too technical

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  • Well there is great material in this article, but it also has a long way to go before it can be a FA. Overview comments: 1) The lead is too short and still too technical. It should ease a reader in that doesn't already know the subject. It is the one part of the article that really needs to focus on that, while the rest of the article can go into more specifics and require a bit more knowledge. One way to get there is to minimize unfamiliar terms and leave details that aren't the most important parts of the subject for later. 2) Part of 1) is that overview sections are deprecated. Anything an overview section would do is what a great lead section should already have done. 3) The whole article would be very difficult for anyone that does not already know the subject. That is a problem given that this topic is not all that hard and any student of the social and physical sciences will have to encounter it. The problem is that way too much technical and difficult material is way too early in the article. I propose progressing the material from simple and apparent to steadily more difficult later in the article. That way the readability is dramitcally improved and everybody gets what they need out of it. Specifically, the table under the graphs at the top is way too much and not terribly helpful for many people. That could me moved into the Specifications and/or properties section (which themselves are too technical) and moved down in the page. Now don't get me wrong, detail is good, and we want to be accurate, but that can be done while still giving all (or most of) the needed context and explaning all necessary concepts inline. Following my proposed progression would make that easier. I don't recall the original provinance of the quote, but I believe Hawking references the idea that a single equation in a book would cut out half the readers. We don't need to be that extreme, but keeping it in mind would help a lot. 4) Is that exp() notation really the standard? I've never seen any books that haven't used the   type notation. Is it possible to link to exponential function directly in the equation instead of making someone have to see the explanation under it to understand? For example unexplained functions are used in the table at the top of the article, including exp, erf. That's all for now, other detailed things I'll try just to work on myself. - Taxman 21:37, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)

Colosseum

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This article is on an important, encyclopedic topic; it's very nicely illustrated; I think it could easily become a main-page featured article ... but it does need some references and a little more recent history of the structure. --FOo 01:18, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm surprised it doesn't reference the film Gladiator. Here's a good external site on the topic: http://www.the-colosseum.net/ . — RJH 18:44, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Interesting stuff, but certainly needs some development I think. For a start, it needs a lead section, and should have sections as well. Would suggest breaking it down into, say, design and construction, history, disrepair and restoration, the colosseum today, or something like that. Generally, I get the impression it could be expanded and made more detailed in each of these subsection. Also, there are quite a few very short paragraphs at the moment, particularly towards the end. Worldtraveller 13:24, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Needs more content yeah, perhaps a bit regarding the Tombraider level (only a token line of course) plus a pic from the game. A bit more work about construction wouldnt go amiss imho (edit - sorry, unsigned >) --PopUpPirate 00:12, Mar 26, 2005 (UTC)
How about adding informations on things like where these people went for bathroom, places they went to eat, and snacks they had while watching? Anyone who had gone out to watch a sporting event or a concert would surely want to know how Romans did these things. --Revth 03:32, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
A good start on an article about one of my favorite architectural subjects. Here are my suggestions for a more complete, better-organized treatment:
Consider the use of section headings that outline (at minimum) 1) WHY the Colosseum was built (i.e., delve a little bit into the concepts of "Bread and Circuses" and "Pax Romana" which would explain the venue's popularity; 2) design and construction info; 3)The Colosseum as a symbol (i.e., Mussolini used it as a symbol of the glory days of Rome [Italy] and built the Via de Fori Imperial so he could essentially use the Colosseum as a backdrop for his efforts to motivate Italy to enter WWII); 4) modern rebuilding and conservation efforts; and 5) more detail regarding subsequent uses (religious, entertainment, etc.) up through today.
I'd also like to see some references listed (for example, I consulted 3 sources that all gave Titus as Vespasian's successor and not Domitian). There's a lot of good information out there, the web site listed up top is just one you may want to visit; also see if you can find a copy of Ancient Rome: History of a Civilization that Ruled the World by A.M. Lberati and F. Bourbon.--Lordkinbote 08:19, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Polish Constitution of May 3, 1791

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It has been suggested on the article's talk page that it is ready for FAC. I still want to expand it with a few more historical details, but I think that the structure/references/lead and such are good enough for FAC. Still, I'd appreciate your comments first - would you change anything? Or like to see more details on something? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 10:41, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

  • The quotes section is not very attractive, could you pick the most relevant quotes and inlcude them in the text, mabye in a section called praise for the constitution. Was there any opposition to the adoption of the constituion, or later criticisms of the constitution?--nixie 08:18, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
    • The quotes will be moved to Wikiquote soon, but for now it is easier to have them here. As for the opposition, I guess the aftermath section is too short - I will expand on it. There was significant opposition to it, this is why it was adopted in the mentioned quasi coup d'etat and later overthrown in the war. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:51, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Louis Riel

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This article is ready for FA status. Please make any changes you deem important so that it can go to this vote. Denni☯ 22:08, 2005 Mar 21 (UTC)

  • OK Denni, I will start working on it in ernest now, give me a few days at least. For now, we need to elaborate on the passage in "Early life" that says "...who helped organize the group that supported Guillaume Sayer." Since Sayer is a red wiki, it is all too mysterious. Cheers, Fawcett5 23:43, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Denni, I noticed that the article is not appearing properly on the main Wikipedia:Peer review page, did something get messed up, or was it archived? Could explain why there haven't been any other comments. I could really use some help to flesh out the trial section. I am still working on the North-West Rebellion section, but I'm running out of steam. Fawcett5 20:55, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • I have put it on the Peer review page. -- JamesTeterenko 02:17, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Looks good to me, probably ready for Feature. -- Glen Finney 16:46, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)
  • Personally, I think we're getting close, but have three major areas left that need improvement:
  1. The lead section needs to be expanded to 2-3 paragraphs. Could still use refinement, but is looking better now.
  2. The trial section needs to be fleshed out a bit.
  3. The legacy section needs to be reworked a bit to make it more stylistically consistent with the rest of the article.
hopefully, these will all get addressed within the next week or so, I don't want to rush it back to FAC prematurely. Fawcett5 17:48, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Decapolis

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I am resubmitting this for review; see the Wikipedia:Peer review/Decapolis/archive1. I have been the main contributor, but I believe that it may be ready to be a FAC. Any thoughts or suggestions? Fishal 03:40, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It's really cool that there is a map now (that was one of my comments in the previous PR request). However, what I don't like about that map is that it (1) is released under a non-free license and (2) contains an url and a site name. Especially (1) is something that doesn't fare so well on FAC. — mark ✎ 07:57, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Even though we have permission to use it? (The URL has to stay because we don't have permission to alter it). Fishal 19:17, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The map maybe copyrighted, but the locations sure aren't. I could trace out the image outline and locations and upload it under GFDL. Anybody interested? Let me know on my talk page.  =Nichalp (talk · contribs)= 20:38, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)
Cool! That's the best solution of course; and I think you can do a better job than they did (the present map is very grainy and low in resolution).
Re:Fishal — yes, it's a problem even though we have permission to use it because this permission is incompatible with our GFDL license (hence 'non-free'). There is an ongoing debate whether Wikipedia should allow this kind of limited permission images at all; they make it more difficult to distribute Wikipedia as a whole under the GFDL. — mark ✎ 20:54, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I've made a new map based on the old one. I hope you'll didn't have any high expectations on my map skills. (I'm a novice at cartography). I've also deleted the old map since it was non free. (It can always be restored).  =Nichalp (talk · contribs)= 18:00, Apr 1, 2005 (UTC)

Now that the image is fixed, are there any other problems with the article that should be addressed? Fishal 03:22, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The mention to the decapolis in the bible could use some changes, in my opinion. Matthew also mentions it ([11]), and some might not understand the importance of the herd of pigs comment. That either could be expanded to talk about why that means they were in "gentile" areas, or it just could be removed and more general information about Jesus' ministry be given. The biblical accounts, granted, don't give much, so while it's important to mention, it's ok if it's short, just as long as it's clear. --Spangineer ∞ 06:45, Apr 3, 2005 (UTC)
    • The article is shorter than most other Featured Articles, perhaps you could expand it by talking more about the culture of the Decapolis cities? (specifically, could you talk more about the religious life of the region?) Perhaps you could talk about the history of the archeological digs in the area too?Dinopup 01:40, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Funeral of Pope John Paul II

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The article is very clear, with lots of pictures and text. All of the requirements for a FA are there, and I think that Gerald Farinas and others have done a great job. It covers the entire ceremony, which is probably going to be a real important historical event. Bratschetalk random 21:07, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)

I am astonished at the breadth and depth of this article, written so quickly after the actual event. Only the internet community and the Wikipedia editing process could create something, as beautifully composed as this article, in so short a time. Thank you all of you.

Having the whole homily here is likely a bad idea. That is what Wikisource is for. An abridged summary along with background would be better. Also, where are the inline citations? An FA requirement is to use them appropriately. None is not appropriate, IMO. They should be used after every quote and after every fact that will likely be disputable. Not having any makes confirming the information in an article this size needlessly difficult. --mav 16:21, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

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