Wikipedia:Featured article review/The Relapse/archive1

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article review. Please do not modify it. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page or at Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was kept by Dana boomer 15:41, 28 February 2012 [1].

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The Relapse

Review commentary

The Relapse (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

• Featured article candidates/The Relapse

• Featured article review/The Relapse/archive1

Notified: Bishonen (no other editors have over 13 edits to article since 2006) Projects: Theatre and Books.

Article was promoted in 2005. Notices about the lack of citations were given in 2008 and 2009 but little has been accomplished. The first page of the article history goes back to 2006, for example.

• 1a The article reads like a review of The Relapse and it has many peacock terms and weasel words. Some examples:

• This unusual document is signed by nine men and six women, all established professional actors, and details a disreputable jumble of secret investments and "farmed" shares, making the case that owner chicanery rather than any failure of audience interest was at the root of the company's financial problems.
• Following the surprising success of this young cast, Vanbrugh and Rich had even greater difficulty in retaining the actors needed for The Relapse.
• John Verbruggen was one of the original rebels and had been offered a share in the actors' company, but became disgruntled when his wife Susanna, a popular comedienne, was not. For Rich, it was a stroke of luck to get Susanna and John back into his depleted and unskilled troupe.

• 1c Overall lack of citations throughout the article. I'm not familiar enough with the article subject but of the sources that are listed, they appear to be acceptable. I'm aware that "plot" sections are not normally cited therefore that section would be exempt.
• 2c The citations that are in place make little sense to me. Page numbers are missing and several of them only point to a "see also" type of reference.
• The above three issues are the most important. If serious work begins then further review will be warranted. Brad (talk) 16:42, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Regarding 1a: I think you misunderstand the purpose of WP:PEACOCK. When talking about the subject of an article, terms like "unusual", "established professional", "surprising success", "popular comedienne" are often inappropriate. That is not because such expressions are bad per se but because when applied to the subject, they are either relevant and should be explained in greater detail using the principle Show, don't tell, or they are not relevant or even false and should be omitted. That's why {{peacock}}, which you have put on the article, says the following: "This article may contain wording that merely promotes the subject without imparting verifiable information. Please remove or replace such wording, unless you can cite independent sources that support the characterization." (The italics are mine.) Moreover, many of the "peacock" terms can be accurate description rather than puffery, depending on context. Let's look at your three examples in detail. I will make my best effort to guess which words you are actually objecting to.

• There is no harm in pointing out that a document is "unusual" if that is the case. For all I know, many documents similar to the one described in the article may have survived from the era. This is a question of verifiability, not style.
• That the signatories are "established professional actors" is a verifiable or falsifiable (or borderline) claim, and relevant in this context.
• That Vanbrugh's previous play, Love's Last Shift was a "surprising success has a precise meaning that is obvious from context: He lost all his experienced actors, had to write something for the unexperienced troupe that remained, and to his surprise it became a success anyway. This created even greater problems for the cast of the play that this article is about.
• Whether Verbruggen's wife was a "popular comedienne" herself, rather than an insignificant one, is absolutely relevant for understanding why he was pissed when she wasn't offered a share. There is no problem with pointing this out unless it's false. Describing her career in great detail ("Within 5 years, the Times printed 12 letters to the editor that praised her for her breeches roles." -- completely made up example) would be totally inappropriate here. This kind of information must be summarised, and sometimes an accurate summary looks like a peacock description.
• You also included the "stroke of luck" sentence. Unless you are also including negative descriptions under "peacock", I just can't see how anything in this sentence could fit. Hans Adler 18:17, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, Hans, very good points. None of the "peacock" (?) terms which Brad exemplifies represent my own opinion; nothing in the article does. To start with Susanna Verbruggen, that Brad quotes me as promoting (? is that it?) and via her, start with the actor information generally: when I FAC'd the article way back in the dawn of time, I first wrote more-or-less short articles on all the actors involved, I think. (Well, Thomas Betterton already existed.) Even though these actors were mostly established and highly regarded at the time, actors were barely respectable as a class, and therefore little verifiable information about them has survived. What we do know about them is summarised, and of course fully cited, in the standard work Highfill, Philip Jr, Burnim, Kalman A., and Langhans, Edward (1973–93), Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660–1800, see my "References" section. Thus, I based the article Susanna Verbruggen on the entry "Susanna Verbruggen" in the Biographical Dictionary, and linked to it from "The Relapse", and so with the other actors. (Btw, per MLA, and per common sense, I haven't given page references to entries in an alphabetical dictionary.) I couldn't very well repeat all about her, about John Verbruggen, George Powell, and so on, here; The Relapse is long enough as it is. It's supposed to be in summary style, per FA criterion 4. If you click on the link to Susanna's own article, you'll get the details of how and why she was a "popular comedienne". Though to know I wasn't making stuff up in that article, I guess you'd have to go to a library, probably a first-class academic library, and check the Biographical Dictionary. I'm well aware that that's not realistic for most people, but you just can't get this stuff from webpages. (If you're affiliated with "NC State Unity Users" or "NC State Library Patrons" you can supposedly access the dictionary via prox.lib.ncsu.edu as an online library resource, in case anybody out there is in this fortunate position.[2])

I was green in some respects when I wrote the piece. I guess I must have thought that even without noticing the links to the individual actor bios, it would be sort of obvious to anybody who read the "References" section that the Biographical Dictionary was the origin of all the individual actor information. (My listing for it does say "All details about individual actors are taken from this standard work unless otherwise indicated".) But with more wiki-experience I realise that looking at that section might be a too roundabout, or unfamiliar, procedure for the average reader. What do you think, Brad, would it help if I put a main article template on top of the "Casting" section, which referred to all the relevant actor bios?

As for your other two examples, "This unusual document is signed by nine men and six women, all established professional actors, and details a disreputable jumble of secret investments and "farmed" shares, making the case that owner chicanery rather than any failure of audience interest was at the root of the company's financial problems, and Following the surprising success of this young cast, Vanbrugh and Rich had even greater difficulty in retaining the actors needed for The Relapse, as well as all the other specifics of the breakaway of the established actors from Rich's "Patent Company", come from Milhous, Judith (1979), Thomas Betterton and the Management of Lincoln's Inn Fields 1695–1708, as detailed in the current footnote 4. That rather elaborate note is supposed to be a citation for the entire five-line paragraph it's placed after, which includes the "Following the surprising success" sentence you use as an example above. Perhaps that wasn't clear. I should probably put in specific page references to Milhous here and there, as is current practice, and I will if I can face it; but I don't think I'll ever literally footnote every sentence.

You know, if anything, I've downplayed the colourfulness of my sources at every opportunity. The unusual document mentioned was not only unusual but bloody unique, and there are very interesting reasons why the actors, for once, and against all the normal social odds of the period, dared sign such a frank... but never mind, I digress. It's all in Milhous, but it can't all go in this article. It's only about The Relapse, with a summary bit of background to how it came to be written the way it was. Perhaps not summary enough, is my own feeling.

More later. Bishonen | talk 23:36, 4 December 2011 (UTC).

This is a lot of tl;dr and arguing the meaning of terms. The prose in this article is not encyclopedic style and I did my best to describe why. A related independent observation at Talk:Restoration_spectacular#Featured_article_concerns points out the same problem even though I made no mention of prose. I'd welcome the same independent observation here as well. Read words to watch per MoS. Brad (talk) 22:41, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

That the prose here is "not encyclopedic style" is your personal opinion. It is not typical Wikipedia style, but that's simply because the vast majority of editors cannot write half as well as Bishonen and would create a huge, unreadable mess if they tried to, and because many articles were written peacemeal by a large number of editors plagiarising from who knows where, adding ungrammatical sentences, and then trying to somehow turn the result into something that makes sense without properly rewriting anything. Wikipedia does not and should not have rules against good style. The "independent observation" you are relying on is from an account that was blocked as a sock after 4 edits, together with 3 other accounts. [3] Hans Adler 23:32, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

My first time at FAR, but the above asks for independent observations. I defer to those more experienced regarding citations, etc., but I think the fact that the prose of the article is engaging and colourful is to be celebrated. Our concept of encyclopaedic style is pretty broad and I hope that doesn't mean all of our articles need to be dry as dust. While the tolerance levels for authorial colour may necessarily be restricted for BLP's and the like, surely there is no harm in it in this context. So I'm left a bit scratching my head at the claim that this FA suffers from "peacock words" or "reads like a review" - seems to me it gets into the spirit of things and therefore makes a subject that might otherwise be dull for the random reader quite engaging. (An extreme case of this is Eats, Shoots & Leaves). Let's encourage and celebrate articles written like this one rather than pushing them to "conform". Martinp (talk) 14:43, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Glad to hear it, Martin, thank you. I only just saw your comment; I'll proceed to do what I came here for; post a reply to Brad101. Bishonen | talk 20:00, 6 December 2011 (UTC).

• @Brad101. I was sure your nomination was made in good faith, and I responded in the same spirit, Brad, trying to address what I though your major concern: the shortage of inline citation, which I agree about. And I undertook to return to the other concerns later. You have given your opinion of my response — "a lot of tl;dr and arguing the meaning of terms" — but haven't addressed any of it. If you'd got a bit farther than you did in reading it, you'd have seen me acknowledging that inline cites are needed, and proposing to add them for Milhous, the source for most of the longer sections. And you might have seen me ask a direct question, namely if you thought adding "Main article" templates would help some concerns. None of that worth a glance, let alone imparting advice on?

You don't often see tl;dr in civil wiki society. Not unless somebody has been wearing out your patience with a lot of irrelevant ramblings. Why do you speak to me like that, Brad? Am I personally offensive to you in some way? Do we have some disagreeble history (I can't remember any) or did I talk too academically above, and it sounded conceited? I don't think I come off as the uni professor in most of my wikipedia communication, but "The Relapse" is a sort of academic article, so there's bound to be a touch of that when I discuss concerns over it, especially in matters of referencing and verifiability. Those are also matters that inevitably do run long, see all over FAC. Or was it the "if I can face it"? That was a personal confession that I hate returning to old articles. I do understand that that can be necessary, and was prepared to do it to keep a FA in trim for the sake of the encyclopedia, but it's just.. it's boring. I have a threshold of reluctance to climb. :-( Don't know if that's universal, or just me.

I can't see where I argued the meaning of any terms, perhaps you'd like to specify. My response to your nomination took me a long time to write, and of course I'm now sorry I wasted that time. If it needs saying, I won't actually be returning to this page to address any more of your points. (But I will probably post on Talk:The Relapse about the driveby tags you have added to the article.) As for editing the article to bring it in line with current FA standards, well.. I'll try to gird myself for it, but frankly, it's probably not going to happen. This is a lazy time for me for personal reasons (see the top of my talkpage if you're intolerably curious about them), plus my threshold of reluctance just got higher. Bishonen | talk 20:00, 6 December 2011 (UTC).

• P.S. Anybody who's genuinely interested in this FAR might like to take a look at Talk:The Relapse, where Rex and I have now posted about Brad's tags to warn readers how bad the article is, so they don't risk taking it seriously. Bishonen | talk 00:35, 7 December 2011 (UTC).

• The article reads, in my humble opinion, as a well researched and equally well written piece. I believe that Featured article criterion number 1(a) requires it to be "well-written: its prose is engaging, even brilliant, and of a professional standard." I'm in no position to judge how much has to be paid to make writing 'professional', but I fancy that I am able to spot engaging prose – and this is undoubtedly so.

Without anything more specific to substantiate the {{review}} and {{peacock}} templates, I am at a loss to address those concerns. Since Template:Review#Usage requires "Add a new item to the talk page explaining the problem so editors will know what to address, and when to remove this tag" and nothing related has appeared on the talk page, I've removed the misused {{review}} template. I'd suggest that Talk:The Relapse#Cleanup templates is the correct place to seek consensus on the removal of the {{peacock}} template, should no further explanation of its placement be forthcoming.

I would make one small suggestion to assuage the concerns expressed by Brad. At the end of the ante-penultimate paragraph of The Relapse cast section (or penultimate if you treat the quotation as part of the last paragraph), Cibber is described as having a "squeaky personality". Now, that may be the phrase employed in the source, but modern English is dynamic and current usage associates "squeaky" too strongly with "voice" or with the idiomatic compound adjective "squeaky clean" for the phrase to ring true now. It jars slightly in my reading because of the immediate mental association with "clean" - which is a doubtful epithet for Cibber, even more so in the context of the imprinting of his personality onto Lord Foppington. Consequently, I'd recommend removing "squeaky", or perhaps searching for a new mot juste to convey what the source intended. Hope that helps. --RexxS (talk) 22:14, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Cibber's "squeaky voice" in the first line of the same paragraph is from the Cibber entry in the Highfill etc,Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660–1800. I probably did go too far (as in, did editorialise) in applying it to his entire (acting) personality when I rounded off the paragraph in the last sentence. I'll try to think of another way of putting it. Bishonen | talk 00:35, 7 December 2011 (UTC).

• Can't see any problems with the writing style, perhaps the person who thought it had peacock problems is using the term in a different way to how I normally see it used ("The Scrotums" are the greatest band to come out of Camden Town since Madness...yeah, right!). There have been some changes in custom and practice to do with references - quotations now always have an inline citation for example, and there's no reference or footnote for Sheridan's version of the play, even though it is quoted. These would be easily fixed by any editor, as would adding ISBN's (indeed, whoever tagged it could have done that job). The general style of separate footnotes and references with fewer inline citations is still in use by WP:MILHIST - who generally prefer not to overcite articles (except for claims of numbers killed in battles, and the performance of the fly-by-wire english longbow). Indeed, 5 citations per 10 words is usually a sign of very contentious content, got out between clenched teeth or under mortar fire. Unless one actually takes exception to any of an article such as this (or wants to pirate it for homework) there is no reason to cite every sentence. Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:17, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, Elen. I was going to improve the sourcing but, as I say above, I lost momentum when my proposals for doing that were rudely dismissed by the nominator. Maybe later. The FAR delegates should feel free to de-feature it in the meantime, I don't really care. (That's the upside of being less than interested in my old work.) But for the ISBNs, Elen, on principle, I wish you wouldn't encourage people to add them. Some people seem to think ISBNs are compulsory, or recommended for FAs or something, but that's not the case. Please see my talkpage post where I argue the case against including them. Bishonen | talk 00:35, 7 December 2011 (UTC).

Indeed. The ISBN can be helpful when one is citing specific pages and the book has appeared in a variety of formats, but even then a full citation is usually sufficient to establish one has a copy of the same edition, size and shape, unless we are talking about something like Mrs Beeton, which exists in hundreds of versions. Elen of the Roads (talk) 00:52, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

As somebody who has added very many ISBNs in his time, and who continues to add them, let me third this. ISBNs can be very helpful indeed (and we needn't be discouraged by the fact that no dead-tree style guide that's taken seriously recommends, let alone prescribes, their inclusion). They're for when one really does have a single edition in mind. Often, however, more than one edition fits the bill, and then the ISBN for one of these editions is a mere distraction and can mislead the reader. (Incidentally, even for their purpose of specifying a particular edition of a particular book, they're not always helpful: see a conspicuously long footnote to this article.) -- Hoary (talk) 00:59, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

• Comment - There hasn't been much talk here since the initial flurry, so I'm hoping to get some additional input... Do the editors commenting here feel that the article in its current state can be kept as a featured article, or does it not meet the WP:Featured article criteria? Please consider that there are still two cleanup tags on the article, which should be dealt with regardless of any other issues that may be present. Bishonen, I know that you had been considering reworking the article - if you would still like to and/or need more time to consider, please let me know. Dana boomer (talk) 00:19, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Other than Bishonen's drones removing the tags I placed, no further effort has been made to address the problems. 1a, 1c, and 2c. Time for FARC. Brad (talk) 13:04, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Like I've said, I don't much mind if the article is FARCd or defeatured. It's Wikipedia's, not "mine", so presumably I don't have to feel responsible for it. Especially as my attempt to take responsibility on December 5 only got me a pie in the face from Brad (see above). Please move it to FARC if you like.

But my "drones"? That's infamous. It presumably refers to the sex life of bees, casting me as Queen bee and User:RexxS as one of my drones. (As for the plural droneS that Brad says removed the tags, they're in his head; nobody other than myself and Rex has removed any tags.) That's not something I need to put up with for the crime of writing a FA back in the dawn of time, and even less something to be flung at Rex for posting civil disagreement with Brad on this page and at Talk:The Relapse. Brad, I hereby request you to strike through your infamous slur and to post no further attacks. Struck through my own stupid request instead. Who cares? B, 00:48, 2 January 2012 (UTC).] WP:FAR isn't AFAIK a free zone for any and all attacks, or an overseas territory of Wikipedia Review in our midst.

@Dana Boomer: You're an admin, Dana. Do you intend to block Brad, for being this far out of line? Or to warn him, a proper stern warning on his talkpage? I merely ask, because if not, I will post this business on WP:ANI. I'd rather not, because I think it's feeble for admins to complain on ANI about PA's against themselves, and I never have before. But since the most direct slur was directed against Rex, I would feel justified this time. On another note, Dana, how do you mean, there are still cleanup tags on the article? I removed the last of Brad's drive-by tags on December 9, after first explaining my objections to them on the talkpage and giving Brad plenty of time to respond. Nobody has put them back, and nobody has responded on the talkpage either. In fact Brad has never addressed anybody's arguments or answered anybody's questions in connection with this nomination. I'm nonplussed and frustrated by the way he'll only weigh in when he has a pie to throw. Is all of WP:FAR this kind of sham? Bishonen | talk 17:45, 1 January 2012 (UTC).

I've warned him; I would much prefer he engage here and this issue be resolved rather than anyone be blocked. Bishonen, there's a {{refimprove}} and a {{deadlink}} in the Notes section; that's likely what Dana was referring to. By the way, I don't think the bee definition for "drone" is the one being used here, but that's not really important. Nikkimaria (talk) 19:01, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

• I rather think that "drones" was an unfortunate turn of phrase and was clearly meant to be belittling or insulting. Furthermore, the tone of the post was clearly meant to be threatening and intimidating. Does Brad have some extra power here? Are he and Dana Boomer in some form of business union? or is he her heir apparent? Because if not, then he is way out of line. I think we should be told Giacomo Returned 19:16, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

• Really? The kerfuffle over Malleus' block along proves that a block for something as minor as this will not stick. Give him a chance to respond, redact, etc. before condemning. No one has extra power here, but this isn't anywhere near the level we block at. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 19:31, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

• As fun as the debate over prose is, the article clearly fails 1c—much like John Vanbrugh—and a FARC will delist the article unless it is given citations to meet current standards. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 19:31, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

(after two edit conflicts) If I were personally attacking you, you would most certainly know it. Given that I've been attacked several times now for just the act of making a FAR nomination let alone any comments I've made, I've become shell-shocked in the process. You can look at Francis Petre below here for a good example of that. When I get mobbed either by one or many I don't engage because sooner or later the conversation becomes unproductive. I would rather have seen all of the effort put into debating the prose, put into article improvement. Your comment about "drive by tagging" seems to imply that I just go around to articles and slap tags on things for the fun of it. If I had considered the prose "not so bad" rather than "not meeting criteria 1a", I wouldn't have tagged it. Brad (talk) 19:36, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Oh I see, you felt you were being ignored. Oh that's so sad - can we help you in any way? The problem is that the article looks just fine from here. Giacomo Returned 20:33, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

It looks fine to me as well, but that isn't the same as whether I think it meets the FA criteria. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 20:37, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Do you have a comment on the FA in question or are you here for decorative purposes? Giacomo Returned 20:40, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm believe that you are writing that at me (hard to tell with your indent?), but I made a comment about the article above at 19:31. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 20:44, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I saw that you were expressing your opinion there. Is that it? Are you going to specify exactly what it is that offends you so? Or just jump on the bandwagon? Between ourselves, the problem is that Wikipedia's best editors on these subjects don't really care about FAs anymore. They laugh and are amused by the criteria set up by those who know nothing of these matters and their low literary styles and the prose they demand. These serious editors earn their worldly money from being experts, if a bunch of Wikipedia type people don't feel it's up to much; quite frankly they are not that concerned. I hope that answers any further problems that you, Brad and Dana Boomer may have. No one serious is that bothered by the page. Giacomo Returned 20:52, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not jumping on anyone's bandwagon, it's just that the article doesn't have enough citations to meet FA's current standards. I have no beef with the FA system, but I'm also far from earning my "worldly money by being [an] expert". I'd like to think I know more about South American dreadnoughts than 99% of the world, but that assumption is probably wrong, and I'm at peace with it. What I do know is that putting articles through FAC has improved my writing and taught me how to cite things I write – a few tweaks was all I needed to translate it to academic writing. But all that is going off topic. If you don't feel the need to engage with the FA system as-is, you don't have to, but without improvement the article will lose its star. If you and the editors monitoring this page don't mind that, then we should all disengage to prevent further bad blood from developing. Internet fights always seemed ridiculous to me anyway. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 21:04, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Oh dear, this is getting rather hard to make clear. No one other than you, Dana Boomer and Brad is much bothered by the star. Some work was done to try and help you all, but the editors who tried to help were insulted and accused of being "drones." so I'm afraid, it rather looks as though the three of you must remain here in isolation surounded by decaying articles. Giacomo Returned 21:11, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't really care about the star either. I have no interest in the article, its subject, or its rating on a website. Essentially no work has been done aside from adding and removing templates, unless you're seeing something I'm not. [4] Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 21:24, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I couldn't care less about some child throwing meaningless insults at me, but it would help if folks followed at least the barest minimum of guidance given to them when tagging articles. Would you be kind enough Ed, to review the comments I made at Talk:The Relapse#Cleanup templates on 6 December 2011 please? The {{review}} template was misused and no explanation was made of the {{peacock}} template. Failing to engage in process is the very definition of drive-by tagging, and demonstrates Brad's contempt for good-faith editors who attempt to take these issues seriously. The article talk page is the place where tags are discussed, and I am still awaiting Brad's first post there.

I have no intention of playing games was if this were a MMORPG, and I have little time for editors who seem to think that it is acceptable to ignore the prompt requests for clarification for almost a month, and then to attack the very editors who would be willing to respond to genuine concerns. No wonder Bishonen is discouraged from putting in further work on the article.

Let me make this as clear as I can:

• 1a concerns are complete garbage. The OP has no idea of what peacock and weasel terms are, and there is no such concern to address in the article, with the possible exception of the "squeaky personality" issue which should be easily addressable.
• 2c concerns are equally ill-founded. Every single one of the 14 Notes makes perfect sense to me. Page numbers are given for the longer works with the exception of Biographical Dictionary of Actors, which is arranged in alphabetical order. If the OP is having difficulty in finding "Verbruggen, John" in an alphabetical dictionary, he has greater problems than even I can solve for him.
• 1c concerns: I accept that the style of providing a set of sources at the end of an article – rather than an inline citation for every sentence – has fallen out of favour in Wikipedia since this article was promoted. I have little doubt that anyone who read the 10 works cited in the References section would be able to verify the text presented, but I do understand that such faith is unfashionable nowadays. More's the pity then that this entire process has been conducted in a manner almost calculated to ensure that the person with access to all those sources is unlikely to see the value in putting further effort into refining the citations. Frankly, I'd be sorry to see another fine article lose its FA status, but the article will remain among Wikipedia's finest works with or without a star in the corner. --RexxS (talk) 00:22, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

• (e/c with Rex) Thanks for that, Ed. I guess you don't have any interest in reading the first part of this thread either — can't really blame you — where my good-faith attempt to get input on some proposals for improving the referencing came to grief. I no longer care, either. I quite agree it shouldn't be an FA as is, I've said so repeatedly. Perhaps in fact it should be on WP:AFD rather than here, per Brad's {{review}} template.

@Brad: As well as putting forward and asking for input on suggestions for how I could improve the referencing — suggestions which you dismissed out of hand as "tl;dr" — I've put a number of direct questions to you on this FAR. You have never replied to any of them, it's ridiculous. I was going to repeat the questions here, but meh. They're still above, in the unlikely eventuality that anybody cares. About your latest post: You've been attacked several times now? As in, you've been attacked by me? Please specify where I have "shell-shocked" you, as that seems to be your excuse for the rebarbative and dismissive way you speak to and of me. If you're burned out and tired of FAR, shooting the nearest harmless bystander is hardly the remedy. And no, by drive-by tagging I don't mean to "imply that [you] just go around to articles and slap tags on things for the fun of it". I explained exactly what I do mean by drive-by tags on Talk:The Relapse on December 7: "Drive-by" is the term used for tags posted without any talkpage justification. You haven't posted once on Talk:The Relapse, beyond the addition of the {{featured article review}} template which is a technical part of this FAR nomination. This in defiance of the explicit requirement at the top of the FAR page for raising issues on the article's talkpage first, before nominating on FAR, and in nonchalance towards my repeated invitations to discussion, here and on article talk. And now you speak of what I "seem to imply", after I've defined exactly what I did mean? Haven't you even looked at Talk:The Relapse, despite my links and recommendations above? OK, it's official: I give up.

@Nikkimaria, thank you for saving me a pointless ANI brawl, I'm sure that wouldn't have done much for the state of the FAR process. Pity you troubled to say anything to Brad about striking his comment, I don't actually give a shit any longer what he thinks or how he acts. I've struck out my own mealy-mouthed request for comity. Yes, there's a {{refimprove}} template still on the article, I'm well aware of it. (Hardly a cleanup matter.) I haven't challenged or removed that one, in fact it seems to me that I've already said many times that I agree with it: the article would need more detailed referencing to meet today's FA standards. There's a deadlink? Guess what, I don't give a shit about that either. Happy editing, all.

@Giacomo: For god's sake stop posting here. Bishonen | talk 00:48, 2 January 2012 (UTC).

Hey Bishonen. A more accurate statement would have been "little direct work". Sorry about that. The templates were a bit off, and I do question why the ISBN template has not been deleted when they are certainly not required... Anyway, I don't agree with Brad that 1a is necessarily a problem. I do believe that there is not enough citations for this to remain featured, which is apparently a point on which we agree. I'm sorry that you think the FAR process is flawed, and I'm not entirely happy with it either, but in this case it is working, albeit in haphazard fashion – issues have been raised, one has been defended against, and two remain. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 02:17, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Let's see if it is actually working as claimed then:

1(c) well-researched: it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature. Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by inline citations where appropriate.

The English Wikipedia's Verifiability policy requires inline citations for quotations, whether using direct or indirect speech, and for material that is challenged or likely to be challenged. Editors are also advised to add in-text attribution whenever a source's words are copied or closely paraphrased.

Nobody has indicated which parts of the article are uncited quotations, closely paraphrased, challenged, or likely to be challenged.

2(c) consistent citations: where required by criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations using either footnotes or Harvard referencing.

The article has 14 citations. Nobody has indicated which ones fail 2(c) and in what way.

It appears that anybody can make vague claims about issues without any requirement for specificity. They can indeed ignore the established protocols for raising such issues (e.g. talk page first). Surely any thinking editor can see that this is bound to set up the "defenders" for failure – the principal author is being given the same treatment that was handed out to Josef K. No matter what improvements may be made to the article, the "prosecutors" can always claim that that their unspecified concerns have not been met. Fix your flawed process; look for ways of encouraging principal authors, not alienate them from the process; ensure that initiators of FAR have at least followed the very basic instructions at WP:FAR.

Do you still maintain, Ed, that the Raise issues at article Talk and the Nominators must specify the featured article criteria that are at issue and should propose remedies steps have been observed? I'm sorry to be so blunt, but I am having difficulty in understanding why a respected editor such as yourself is prepared to excuse such a badly-executed process as this particular review. --RexxS (talk) 04:51, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I apologize for not being more direct. Would you rather I come out and state that I wish to challenge all of the paragraphs that are currently lacking citations? I assumed that was implied, as that's why FAC today has an unwritten rule of at least one citation to cover every paragraph. As for 2c, it's readily apparent that "See Faller" is not consistent with "The London Stage I, 470.", which isn't consistent with "Unless otherwise indicated, the information in this paragraph comes from Harris xxvi.", which isn't consistent with "Dobrée."

The lack of a talk page notification is unusual for Brad, ex. Talk:USS Kentucky (BB-66)#Featured article quality has deteriorated. I do disagree that he did not specify the "criteria that are at issue", as he certainly specified that the article was lacking citations. In my mind, that statement implicitly challenges the unsourced statements in the article, but I'm relatively sure my view is not shared by everyone here. ;-) Perhaps in the future Brad could state that directly. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 08:08, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

... that's why FAC today has an unwritten rule of at least one citation to cover every paragraph. It does? I sure wish someone had told me !!! It's shameful what's going on in here; are we here to improve articles or to exercise our muscles? I have yet to see a nomination from Brad that addresses WP:WIAFA, I've raised that at WT:FAR,[5] and I hope we will see some collaborative effort to improve articles take hold in here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:38, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I found one: Wikipedia:Featured article review/Katie Holmes/archive1. Improvement noted. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 10:20, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

FARC commentary

There was a good deal of ill feeling around this nomination, with some poorly-chosen words on the part of the nominator. However, there were also some valid points made as to spots where the article failed to comply with the featured article criteria. Because of that, and the lack of movement on the article over the past few weeks, I am moving this review to the FARC section. I would ask that the participants refrain from attacking or being uncivil to each other and instead focus on the article and whether or not it meets the featured article criteria. Dana boomer (talk) 23:15, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Additional closing note: At this point, with the article having been in the FARC section for over a month with no additional comments, I am closing the review as "keep". The discussion above pointed out some valid issues with the article, but also deteriorated into ill feeling in several spots. Editors who believe the article no longer meets featured standards should feel free to bring the article back to FAR in a few months if they can still identify significant issues with the quality of the article. Dana boomer (talk) 15:44, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.