Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 22:46, 10 September 2010

• WT:FA?

Template:Archive box collapsible

Historical evolution of FA?

Has anyone ever put together a concise overview of how the FA process and standards have changed over time? ElKevbo (talk) 22:11, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

The last history I'm aware of was at Misplaced Pages:Misplaced Pages Signpost/2008-07-21/Dispatches. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:15, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Citations following quotations

There is a discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:Citing sources for which any input would be appreciated. I hope you don't mind me asking here, but I am hoping that this guideline is something that regular FAC reviewers will have a grasp of, and can shed some light. Relevant discussion here. Thanks, --BelovedFreak 11:09, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Minor redundancy

In 1c, I think we can get rid of either "relevant" or "on the topic" of "it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature on the topic". After all, literature that is not on the topic can hardly be relevant. Ucucha 16:39, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Ucucha, could you ping Awadewit on that? That addition was the result of a much-too lengthy debate, long ago; I never understood the wording, but it had consensus. I'll be traveling, so I'll leave it to y'all to sort out. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 10:32, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

I'd say both are needed. Literature not on the topic can hardly be relevant, but not all literature on the topic may be relevant. An encyclopedia article's job is to summarize the topic, rather than provide an indiscriminate collection of information on the topic. PL290 (talk) 12:36, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Doesn't "relevant literature" cover both? LeadSongDog come howl! 14:37, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

True, actually. In fact I think I prefer it, having thought more about it. (Didn't it once say that? Perhaps we may be enlightened by someone familiar with the debate Sandy refers to above.) PL290 (talk) 14:52, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

As noted above, literature on the topic might not be relevant. It is also true that literature on related topics might be relevant to an article, even if it is not on the topic of the article. It would be undesirable to cover all such literature in a thorough and representative way. An alternative to "relevant" might be "pertinent", but I'm not convinced it is any better. Geometry guy 21:19, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

That's also true; however, I take "relevant" to mean relevant for inclusion in a Misplaced Pages article, as opposed to merely relevant to such topics. I suspect it doesn't need stating—but if we conclude it does, then we should make it explicit, not just find a word that happens to allow that interpretation. I still think the scope is expressed comprehensively by the now-trimmed phrase "relevant literature". PL290 (talk) 07:29, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

"Relevant for inclusion in a Misplaced Pages article" is a tautological guideline, no? Geometry guy 09:37, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Suggestion for reference criteria

As someone who has worked on many articles, I know what it is like when a source for important info is lost and there is no other source to replace it with. Generally, these are pointed out by readers who visit the pages and later fixed if possible, but featured articles shouldn't have this problem, IMO. Thus, I wanted to suggest a further criteria for featured articles. Right now, references have to be properly formatted for an article to pass. The Cite Web tag has options to include Archived links in case the original source is lost on the web. I was thinking it would be a good idea to require that all links be archived using the Wayback Machine. The advanced search will match the best criteria for the archiving, and will create a new archived version of a URL if it has not already done so (the Wayback Machine appears to automatically archive some sites, but not all unless requested like this). Anyways, feedback for my suggestion is welcome. :) Ωphois 05:03, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Interesting idea. I've seen that used, though I haven't looked closely at whether there are potential issues with it. My immediate reaction is that the FA criteria shouldn't require it, but (assuming it's relatively issue-free) we should encourage greater awareness of it as something editors may well want to add to their aresenal. I see both it and www.archive.org are already mentioned by the content guideline WP:CITE, but the topic has no prominence, and I didn't notice any recommendation to actually use such a facility; it's just incidental info tacked on at the end of the guideline. PL290 (talk) 07:39, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

There are other archives mentioned there also, such as WebCite. I think WP goes into a little more detail at Misplaced Pages:Linkrot. It's not difficult to do an archive, and it would guarantee the quality of the articles. Ωphois 14:52, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Actually, surely a bot could do it. Either trawling all articles continuously, or as something initiated for a specific article (whether or not during the FAC process). PL290 (talk) 15:49, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

There currently is a bot for continuous archiving, but it has a huge backlog and would not be effective, IMO. I think it would be easiest to apply it to the FAC process. Ωphois 16:08, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Ideally, we'd have a bot that does it just for FAs, since they could be the most vulnerable and critical is sources go dark. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs 16:45, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Is there anyone who has experience with bots that can create one for FA's? Ωphois 17:11, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

I can't say for sure as I haven't written bots on WP, but it's probably just a matter of running the existing bot against a nom when it gets promoted, along with the ArticleHistory update. The bot owner can probably configure it to handle that. PL290 (talk) 17:40, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the User:WebCiteBOT does not yet have the functionality to do so for specific pages. Ωphois 17:53, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

There is no requirement that sources be available online, for FAs or any articles. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:45, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

That's why I said all links. Ωphois 12:39, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

IMO there's no point in looking in the Wayback Machine immediately as it can take 6 months for the first archive. If someone has mistakenly removed the url, I suggest looking through the article's history until it can be found, then try the Wayback Machine. --Philcha (talk) 14:36, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

What does accidentally deleting the URL have to do with it? Anyways, it takes six months for the automatic archive. As I pointed out, you can force it to archive by using the advanced search. You don't have to wait. WebCite can also be used. Ωphois 02:39, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Collapsible sections?

My understanding is that these are highly discouraged per WP:ACCESS at FA, though WP:COLLAPSE does not warn against their use. Is this correct? We're having a discussion at the Video Games project about changing the infobox and some want to include collapsed sections that I though we should avoid at FAC, and wanted to check. --MASEM (t) 01:01, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't believe they're discouraged in general; almost every footer navigation template has an automatic collapse feature, as do a number of sidebar navigation templates. I'm not sure I've ever seen collapsing sections used in infoboxes; but that might be an aesthetic consideration more so than one of pure accessibility. Kirill  02:02, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

{{infobox writer}} and its ilk are used in many an FA without an objection I'm sure. Skomorokh 02:04, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Kirill, their use is discouraged in article text, not in navigational footers etc. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:38, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

While this is still going, I'd also like to ask if collapsible text and tooltips are forbidden for templates mixed with prose text. There is a long discussion going on here about including or excluding certain romanizations, and some of the compromises brought up suggest tooltips and collapsible text as "semi-includes". See for example this instead of this. Is this considered part of the prose text and an absolute no-no for featured articles? Prime Blue (talk) 18:23, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Per a talk page request, apparently because of my being a delegate, I never have a strong opinion on MOS; I generally don't care as long as the format is consistent YellowMonkey (new photo poll) 04:00, 18 August 2010 (UTC)