Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates

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Main page: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates

FAC mentoring: first-time nominators

A voluntary mentoring scheme, designed to help first-time FAC nominators through the process and to improve their chances of a successful outcome, is now in action. Click here for further details. Experienced FAC editors, with five or more "stars" behind them, are invited to consider adding their names to the list of possible mentors, also found in the link. Brianboulton (talk) 10:17, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

FAC source reviews

For advice on conducting source reviews, see Wikipedia:Guidance on source reviewing at FAC.

The WMF would like to buy you books

There's a new pilot program open at Wikipedia:Resource support pilot, where editors can submit requests for the WMF to buy sources for them. I encourage folks to check it out, and notify any WikiProjects and editors that may be interested. Apologies if you've seen this elsewhere already. Toadspike [Talk] 07:25, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

Apropos to this, the WMF also runs WP:The Wikipedia Library, and has done so for a number of years (possibly the single most awesome thing the WMF has done in memory). I'm mentioning this here because I was just perusing an old FAC where, when questioned about some sourcing, the nom responded, "I don't have access to <resource which is available in TWL>". The reviewer was inordinately generous and offered to do the research themselves. I would have been grumpier and told the nom to go set up TWL access and come back when they've done that. RoySmith (talk) 14:33, 22 June 2025 (UTC)

I find myself less willing as time goes by to pay out of pocket for resources to improve the sixth-most viewed website in the world, which I have quite a bit in the past. I'm glad that they're offering to pay for resources for serious editors and I hope we see more of it.--15:11, 22 June 2025 (UTC)

FAC reviewing statistics and nominator reviewing table for June 2025

Here are the FAC reviewing statistics for June 2025; thanks to Hog Farm for doing the analysis on these. The tables below include all reviews for FACS that were either archived or promoted last month, so the reviews included are spread over the last two or three months. A review posted last month is not included if the FAC was still open at the end of the month. The new facstats tool has been updated with this data, but the old facstats tool has not. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:17, 6 July 2025 (UTC)

Reviewers for June 2025

# reviews Type of review Reviewer Content Source Image Accessibility Jo-Jo Eumerus 1 14 5 MSincccc 9 2 Nikkimaria 2 1 8 Dracophyllum 1 2 5 RoySmith 6 1 SchroCat 7 Gog the Mild 6 750h+ 5 Aoba47 5 AirshipJungleman29 4 Noleander 4 UndercoverClassicist 4 Arconning 2 1 Borsoka 3 Epicgenius 3 HAL333 3 History6042 3 Jens Lallensack 3 PCN02WPS 3 Tim riley 3 ChrisTheDude 2 Dudley Miles 2 Eddie891 1 1 FunkMonk 2 Hog Farm 2 Ippantekina 2 Jenhawk777 2 Medxvo 2 Premeditated Chaos 2 Rollinginhisgrave 2 Vacant0 2 ZKang123 1 1 Arcticocean 1 Averageuntitleduser 1 Bagumba 1 BarntToust 1 Brachy0008 1 Casliber 1 Choliamb 1 Crisco 1492 1 Crystal Drawers 1 Cukie Gherkin 1 Departure– 1 Fortuna imperatrix mundi 1 Fowler&fowler 1 FrB.TG 1 Gatoclass 1 Gerda Arendt 1 Gonzo fan2007 1 Graham Beards 1 Guerillero 1 Hahnchen 1 Hurricane Noah 1 Igordebraga 1 ImaginesTigers 1 IntentionallyDense 1 Joeyquism 1 Johnsoniensis 1 Jon698 1 Kusma 1 LastJabberwocky 1 Left guide 1 Lieutcoluseng 1 Matarisvan 1 NegativeMP1 1 Nub098765 1 PARAKANYAA 1 Parsecboy 1 Phlsph7 1 Rjjiii 1 Shapeyness 1 SounderBruce 1 Star Manatee 1 T8612 1 TenPoundHammer 1 TenthAvenueFreezeOut 1 The Rambling Man 1 Thebiguglyalien 1 Toadspike 1 TompaDompa 1 Unlimitedlead 1 UpTheOctave! 1 Vanamonde93 1 Vestrian24Bio 1 Wehwalt 1 WikiOriginal-9 1 Z1720 1 Totals 149 22 24

Supports and opposes for June 2025

# declarations Declaration Editor Support Oppose converted to support Struck oppose Struck support Oppose None Total Jo-Jo Eumerus 20 20 MSincccc 8 1 2 11 Nikkimaria 2 9 11 Dracophyllum 8 8 SchroCat 4 3 7 RoySmith 2 1 4 7 Gog the Mild 4 1 1 6 750h+ 4 1 5 Aoba47 1 1 3 5 AirshipJungleman29 2 2 4 UndercoverClassicist 2 2 4 Noleander 3 1 4 Jens Lallensack 2 1 3 PCN02WPS 2 1 3 HAL333 1 1 1 3 Borsoka 3 3 Arconning 2 1 3 Tim riley 3 3 History6042 2 1 3 Epicgenius 1 1 1 3 Medxvo 2 2 Jenhawk777 1 1 2 ChrisTheDude 2 2 Eddie891 1 1 2 Dudley Miles 1 1 2 FunkMonk 2 2 Rollinginhisgrave 1 1 2 Vacant0 2 2 ZKang123 2 2 Ippantekina 1 1 2 Premeditated Chaos 2 2 Hog Farm 2 2 Shapeyness 1 1 TompaDompa 1 1 Gerda Arendt 1 1 Guerillero 1 1 Igordebraga 1 1 Joeyquism 1 1 T8612 1 1 Toadspike 1 1 Kusma 1 1 UpTheOctave! 1 1 Thebiguglyalien 1 1 IntentionallyDense 1 1 TenPoundHammer 1 1 Z1720 1 1 Bagumba 1 1 Gatoclass 1 1 Jon698 1 1 Left guide 1 1 Lieutcoluseng 1 1 Departure– 1 1 Fortuna imperatrix mundi 1 1 Rjjiii 1 1 Parsecboy 1 1 Johnsoniensis 1 1 Crystal Drawers 1 1 TenthAvenueFreezeOut 1 1 Wehwalt 1 1 Matarisvan 1 1 Nub098765 1 1 Unlimitedlead 1 1 Vestrian24Bio 1 1 Hahnchen 1 1 Casliber 1 1 Star Manatee 1 1 Gonzo fan2007 1 1 Phlsph7 1 1 The Rambling Man 1 1 BarntToust 1 1 Vanamonde93 1 1 PARAKANYAA 1 1 FrB.TG 1 1 LastJabberwocky 1 1 Choliamb 1 1 Graham Beards 1 1 Brachy0008 1 1 Cukie Gherkin 1 1 Arcticocean 1 1 SounderBruce 1 1 NegativeMP1 1 1 WikiOriginal-9 1 1 Hurricane Noah 1 1 Crisco 1492 1 1 Averageuntitleduser 1 1 Fowler&fowler 1 1 ImaginesTigers 1 1 Totals 87 1 1 16 90 195

The following table shows the 12-month review-to-nominations ratio for everyone who nominated an article that was promoted or archived in the last three months who has nominated more than one article in the last 12 months. The average promoted FAC receives between 6 and 7 reviews. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:17, 6 July 2025 (UTC)

Nominators for April 2025 to June 2025 with more than one nomination in the last 12 months

Nominations (12 mos) Reviews (12 mos) Ratio (12 mos) 750h+ 9.0 60.0 6.7 AirshipJungleman29 7.5 41.0 5.5 Amir Ghandi 4.0 None 0.0 Aoba47 3.0 52.0 17.3 AssociateAffiliate 4.0 None 0.0 Borsoka 2.0 32.0 16.0 Brachy0008 2.0 8.0 4.0 ChrisTheDude 9.0 57.0 6.3 Curlymanjaro 2.0 None 0.0 EF5 5.0 4.0 0.8 Epicgenius 8.0 18.0 2.2 FunkMonk 1.8 20.0 11.4 GamerPro64 2.0 1.0 0.5 Generalissima 12.0 76.0 6.3 Gog the Mild 11.0 86.0 7.8 HAL333 2.0 7.0 3.5 Hammersfan 2.0 None 0.0 Hawkeye7 7.0 15.0 2.1 Hog Farm 8.0 63.0 7.9 Ippantekina 6.0 12.0 2.0 Jenhawk777 2.5 2.0 0.8 Jo-Jo Eumerus 6.0 218.0 36.3 Jolielover 2.0 None 0.0 Jon698 2.0 8.0 4.0 Lazman321 2.0 4.0 2.0 Lililolol 2.0 None 0.0 LittleJerry 2.5 2.0 0.8 MaranoFan 9.0 19.0 2.1 Medxvo 3.0 22.0 7.3 MFTP Dan 2.0 None 0.0 Min968 2.0 None 0.0 Noleander 3.0 31.0 10.3 Phlsph7 6.5 23.0 3.5 Pickersgill-Cunliffe 2.0 8.0 4.0 Pollosito 2.0 None 0.0 Premeditated Chaos 6.0 41.0 6.8 PSA 2.5 4.0 1.6 Royiswariii 4.0 1.0 0.2 RoySmith 3.0 49.0 16.3 SchroCat 18.5 161.0 8.7 Skyshifter 6.0 2.0 0.3 TenPoundHammer 2.0 1.0 0.5 TenthAvenueFreezeOut 2.0 1.0 0.5 The Green Star Collector 5.0 None 0.0 Thebiguglyalien 5.0 5.0 1.0 TheJoebro64 2.0 3.0 1.5 UndercoverClassicist 7.0 84.0 12.0 Vestrian24Bio 2.0 2.0 1.0 Voorts 2.0 5.0 2.5 WeatherWriter 3.0 None 0.0 Z1720 5.0 22.0 4.4 ZKang123 4.0 9.0 2.2

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:17, 6 July 2025 (UTC)

An increasing scrutiny on the quality of sources used in FACs

I note as of late, on recent FAC nominations, there is increasing scrutiny on the quality of sources used. Now, I understand based on criteria 1c: that an article must be well researched, and that it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature; claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources.

However, up till that point, our understanding have been that the FA criteria doesn't require that the article use citations from non-local publications if such citations don't exist, or if they are necessarily superior to the coverage provided by local publications. Many topics only receive in-depth news coverage from a relatively small geographical area because that topic is only relevant to that particular area.

For example, a local radio station or a former installation in any small settlement would be covered predominantly by the area's newspapers or other sources. Or that local news sources on a major incident, like a wildfire, would have more comprehensive details than national or state newspapers. The source could be not only the most reliable source available, but the most reliable source possible on a certain subject.

I felt such attitudes are rather gatekeepy as it implies that from here onwards, only articles that receive sufficient, non-local, independent commentary would have a chance of standing at FAC. It's especially problematic for articles from places where there would be greater difficulties to find independent and third party sources, and it would be impossible to create a comprehensive, or even broad, article without using the local sources available at hand.

I personally don't think a rigid adherence to the 1c criteria would be helpful for articles which are more niche in nature and only mainly covered by local sources. I just hope for further clarification on the interpretation of criteria 1c and advice on how to proceed when reviewing or working on articles to FAC from here on out.--ZKang123 (talk · contribs) 13:05, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

I think I agree with your general point, but it might be helpful if you could cite an example of a FAC where you disagree with the source review? I haven’t really seen the gatekeepy attitude you describe. The examples you link did, after all, all pass FAC at the end of the day. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 13:20, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

An example I will raise is the recent FAC nomination for Sounder commuter rail. While it has received three supports, an image and source review, someone stepped in to question the use of local-based sources, and that discussion (despite not being a formal oppose) resulted in its archival.--ZKang123 (talk · contribs) 13:48, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

I don't think RoySmith was necessarily questioning the reliability of those local sources, but that it might be worth looking for other, non-local sourcing. And his main concern was with the reliance on self-publishd sources, a different discussion. I would say that is a valid point to raise, but one that is different from the point that you're trying to make here. Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 14:14, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

My gut feeling is that there is another FAC that is the source of this thread with unique equities at play -- Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 14:23, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

I used two local sources in 2016 Irkutsk mass methanol poisoning to source statements that were explicitly about local press reports, and that was questioned/passed in the FAC. That's all covered by WP:RSCONTEXT. But given the apparent persistent use of primary sources in the FAC links above, I'm not sure that this answers the OP's overarching question. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 14:36, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

I get the frustration here. There's two parts to it. The first is that Generalissima is right that some more advanced notice of Sounder being at archival risk would've been nice, but that's a question for the archiving coordinator.

The second is whether it's a good review practice to question primary source without demonstrating harm—e.g., that other sources have been neglected or that they're supporting exceptional claims. I feel there is a bit missing from Roy Smith's review at the Sengkang LRT line nomination. Should we remove those primary sources (and the dry commentary they contain) to maintain an appearance of neutrality? I must be missing something there. Primary sources are not "bad sources", as WP:PRIMARY very clearly explains.

Broadly gesturing to primary sources and saying "these are bad" without referring to the article content is – with respect Roy – an incredibly low level of engagement with a nomination, and obviously frustrating from a a nominator's perspective. If the nominator removes them, someone else could quite reasonably say, "Well it's not comprehensive if you aren't including X info". — ImaginesTigers (talk) 14:37, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

UndercoverClassicist's review of the very same content is much more reasonable because it includes reference to the actual claims. (link). — ImaginesTigers (talk) 14:43, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

Generally, more scrutiny of source quality is a good thing. What sources are appropriate for an article does depend on the article, to some extent. Local sources may be fine in some circumstances (and better than random newspapers from far away that happen to reprint the same agency story), but if there are not enough independent sources, we need to be careful whether statements will require in-text attribution. That can only be determined by ... more scrutiny. —Kusma (talk) 14:38, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

In the case of Sengkang LRT, I think the use of primary sources for explaining the station names is perfectly appropriate. The question is not how many times primary sources are being cited, but what type of claims they are used for. —Kusma (talk) 14:46, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

@Kusma: I am quite sympathetic to fears about DUE, but in my view it does not make much sense to argue that something is UNDUE because of sources they can't find. There is a fairly strong subtext across both of these responses, including UC's, that some articles can't be featured articles. I'd be interested in that conversation developing rather than litigating one archived and one ongoing nomination. It's a fair prompt, but a higher level view from Roy and UC rather (over what "can" be an FA) will be more productive than a defence of particular reviews. I don't work on these sorts of niche topics, so it isn't something I've considered myself. — ImaginesTigers (talk)

I'm not really sure that it's possible or helpful to have discussions like this beyond looking closely at specific examples, because niche topics differ so wildly from each other in the sort of coverage they get. Even in the two examples above, there's a clear difference in, for example, the depth of Roy's comments on the Sounder commuter rail nomination and the Senkang LRT line, and I don't think they are particularly comparable. In the former case, I agree that it would have been helpful for the co-ords to leave at least some sort of heads-up before archiving Eddie891 ^Talk _Work 15:52, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

Yeah, that's a fair point. I suppose the particular class of articles being discussed are Singaporean railways using significant primary sourcing. ZKang123 has 13 of them. I won't list them all but they are on the editor's Talk page. I've picked a few at random.

• Dhoby Ghaut MRT station (FAC Review 2021)

• In this one, Nikkimaria expresses a very similar position to Roy's on Sounder commuter rail, down to not opposing but not supporting: IMO there is still an overemphasis of non-independent sources, but I'm not opposing over that issue. See below replies — ImaginesTigers (talk) 18:21, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

• Toa Payoh MRT station (FAC Review 2022)
• City Hall MRT station (FAC Review 2023)

We can actually see that this encourages our noms to directly ask editors they know to give feedback. That isn't bad, necessarily – but it does mean in practice some editors require more friends to get a nomination through, which is a sort of uneven enforcement / practice. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 16:12, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

Just a note about Nikkimaria’s review: you say that she was “down to not opposing but not supporting”. Nikkimaria (along with most source reviewers) doesn’t support based on source reviews. A source review will be passed if successful, or opposed if unsuccessful. I’m not sure you can read anything into non-support, but you can probably read something into her passing the source review. - SchroCat (talk) 18:08, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure this demonstrates anything about 'friends' reviewing? There is a difference in what different reviewers pick up on or emphasize - or even what the same reviewer says in different reviews, per Eddie - but to a certain extent that's the nature of having humans review things. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:34, 10 July 2025 (UTC)

Got you. I'll strike that to avoid misleading. — ImaginesTigers (talk)

It is quite possible that some articles can't be Featured Articles ... yet. If the only source for half of a biography is the subject's autobiography, we should wait for other sources to appear that put the primary material into context and vouch for or dispute its veracity. —Kusma (talk) 16:07, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

I strongly believe that there are many, many, articles which could not get FA with the current levels of sourcing, and articles where the sourcing is skewed very heavily towards lower-quality or non-independent sources are a lot of those. The solutions to FAC candidates with unavoidable inherent source quality issues is generally going to be to not have the article at FA, not to lower the standards because there's nothing better. As an example, I worked on Battle of Clark's Mill awhile back. The current sourcing on the article is very thin on details, but several decades ago the landowner of the property where the battle was fought put out a longer-ish book about the battle. I don't have a copy of that book to confirm, but I suspect it has more detail than the current article does. I don't think the answer is to push the article through FAC that bare, but I also don't think the rationale is to ask for the FA standards to be lowered to allow for the former landowner's book (and possibly even Ingenthron) to be shoved through a source review because there's nothing else present either. The answer to that article is to not have it go through FAC unless a high-quality detailed work on it is ever published. I think Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Uranium mining in the Bancroft area/archive1 from 2023 is a relavent FAC here. Hog Farm _Talk 23:21, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

I just felt an implication of that means articles on subjects where independent press is non existent (e.g. authoritarian nations like PRC or Singapore) would be unlikely to be brought to FA. I'm not arguing for the lowering of FA standards, but as Epicgenius below said: If no better sourcing exists for a certain article, then (at least in my view) it would qualify for FAC. This is consistent with WP:FACR criterion 1(c), which says that an FA must be 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.--ZKang123 (talk · contribs) 07:15, 10 July 2025 (UTC)

I agree... I am disappointed that a nomination would be closed/archived without discussion or even a rationale given. I don't know how the FA project works, but at FL, the coordinators post requests for further input on nominations that have gone beyond the normal time without consensus, and in the event that they close it, they don't just close it, they identify it as "not promoted" and give a rationale, which was not done in this case. Bgsu98 (Talk) 18:46, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

I admit, I am always sceptical of using newspaper sources because I think they aren't very good sources in many cases (not always subject matter experts, too narrow focus to gauge DUE with them) but as far as I know mine's a minority viewpoint, so I don't generally question on that basis. However, it's worth noting that "high quality reliable sources" does not by default exclude local sources, and certainly not primary sources. Using primary sources for analysis, evaluation, interpretation, or synthesis is a problem and using unreliable source is a problem, but primary sources on their own aren't unreliable and independent and reliable aren't interchangeable concepts. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 18:05, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

I believe that excluding local sourcing solely on the basis of being local and "too close" is an absurd overreach that would not be tolerated in most academic settings. By the letter of FACR 1(c), an article would not be a "thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature" if these local sources are excluded, as local coverage meets this definition with flying colors. In the specific case of the Sounder FAC, the majority of local sources are from a collection of four daily newspapers that have strong editorial standards. A daily with regional significance such as The Seattle Times will have coverage of a far higher quality and more accurate than an Associated Press reprint or travel guide-like article from a paper thousands of miles away.

This level of scrutiny certainly is needed in some cases, such as those for broad topics that will have high-quality materials that could fill a modest library. An inherently local topic is not going to have more than a passing mention in a national-level publication or journal, and no one should expect that an article be limited to just using those few sources. These local topics should be evaluated on the baseline FA criteria, which should be sufficient for all FAs, rather than the extra requirements needed for a broad or vital topic.

On the use of primary sources, there seems to be a misinterpretation of WP:PRIMARY. There is no outright restriction on the use of primary sources from reliable publications or institutions (such as a normal government agency) to state basic facts, specifications, or statistics related to their purpose. Much of this information may be picked up verbatim for reporting by secondary sources, but the leftovers may be potentially useful to avoid any ambiguity; one example is the use of non-rounded ridership figures for Sounder, which are also reported to federal databases and checked for quality control. I see it as similar to citing United States Census Bureau data for demographics; very few people will dispute the accuracy and quality of their work, even if there are political influences from time to time. SounderBruce 20:04, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

Just gonna leave my two cents. It is true that some articles can't get to FAC with the sourcing they have now. If a higher quality source exists for a certain topic, an article without that source shouldn't be put through FAC and expect to pass. It's also true that primary sources shouldn't be the basis for an FAC, but this is true of all articles - they shouldn't derive their notability mainly from primary sources. However, I should point to WP:PRIMARYNOTBAD, which says Primary sources can be reliable, and they can be used. Sometimes, a primary source is even the best possible source, such as when you are supporting a direct quotation. "Primary" is often used to mean "bad", when in fact it merely means that it's just one step closer to the topic than a secondary source would be,

If no better sourcing exists for a certain article, then (at least in my view) it would qualify for FAC. This is consistent with WP:FACR criterion 1(c), which says that an FA must be 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. This holds true even if someone knows some details that aren't published and, thus, can't be in the article per WP:OR. However, such pages would be on the lower end of FA quality, since even though there's no source for that info, somebody somewhere has details that Wikipedia editors don't. Ideally, we want to be able to summarize all key details in a Wikipedia article on a certain topic, which necessarily means that the topic would be covered in a greater number of high-quality sources. For some niche topics, it may be hard to obtain such sources, but if a decent number of high-quality reliable sources exist, we don't want to shut these articles out of the FAC process just because some details have to be backed up by primary sources. – Epicgenius (talk) 02:53, 10 July 2025 (UTC)

The issue arises more when a certain topic isn't covered in sources that are agreed to be high-quality - "there is no better source" doesn't necessarily mean "this is a good source". Nikkimaria (talk) 03:38, 10 July 2025 (UTC)

So, to raise an example for clarity of the matter, if a rail line in Singapore is only mainly covered by the local press (The Straits Times) which reliability is questioned, but is the only source regarding the rail line commissioned by the government, is the source still insufficient to be considered reliable in this comtext?--ZKang123 (talk · contribs) 07:19, 10 July 2025 (UTC)

If a topic is only covered by a random anonymous comment on Reddit, should we consider it reliable? Wherever our bar is for reliability - and I don't think this is the right venue to discuss the reliability of a specific source - it shouldn't drop because alternate sources are hard to come by. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:49, 10 July 2025 (UTC)

I agree with that. I'm just saying that if an article relies on news sources that are deemed reliable (e.g. Fleetwood Park Racetrack, where this issue was brought up), it shouldn't be a disqualifier for FAC. I'm also saying that articles that use a large number of primary sources shouldn't be disqualified from FAC, either, if these sources' reliability isn't questioned (so long as the entire page doesn't rely mainly on these primary sources). – Epicgenius (talk) 12:58, 10 July 2025 (UTC)

As a broad comment, since it feels like there's a couple issues being discussed above... I would say as a general recommendation that people actually opposing rather than leaving "can't support" comments on core elements of a candidacy would help FAC run better. I can work on giving more guidance and notifications in nominations, but at a practical level given the number of nominations and the number of reviewers, getting firm declarations means FAC will run smoother. No one likes to feel like they're shitting on someone else's work, and I don't think any of the coords want to archive nominations that have had a lot of work put into them, but right now the status quo is basically a lot of stuff that was going to fail is still failing, just much more slowly than if people just opposed early and often and allowed more dialogue between reviewers and more expectations on what can be done in the process. If FACs are only getting promoted or failed based on random samples of who shows up rather than clear expectations for what meets criteria, that likewise is just going to be more frustrating for everyone. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 18:08, 10 July 2025 (UTC)

Exception to the two-week wait period

@FAC coordinators: Does the exception to the two-week wait period apply to this nomination per WP:FAC (A coordinator may exempt from this restriction an archived nomination that attracted no (or minimal) feedback.) since it did not receive any reviews? Phlsph7 (talk) 09:50, 10 July 2025 (UTC)

@Phlsph7 I would say you can renominate at your leisure, yes. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 18:10, 10 July 2025 (UTC)

Proposal to remove spot checks at GAN

A discussion about removing the spot check requirement at Good article assessment has been made at WT:GAN. I am alerting this page because the GAN and FAC processes are connected and not everyone here will regularly visit WT:GAN. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 21:16, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

I'm unsure what is meant by "the GAN and FAC processes are connected". SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:21, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

In the wise words of (parallel universe) Nog: "The Continuum is real. You see, there are millions upon million of articles in the wiki, each one filled with too much of one kind of source and not enough of another. And the Great Continuum flows through them like a mighty river, from FAC to GAN and back again. And if we navigate the Continuum with skill and grace, our encyclopedia will be filled with all the verifiable sources our hearts desire" RoySmith (talk) 22:42, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Right now I'd settle for Earwig 2.0 (for offline sources) and a comfy chair. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:59, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

It's unusual (although I don't believe impossible) for a non-good article to become featured; in manufacturing, the term is downstream process. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 23:02, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

I'm still unsure why you say that; many FAs bypass the GA step. And there is no connection between the processes that I'm aware of, other than both being assessments -- very different ones -- one involves consensus between multiple reviewers, and the other is one person's opinion (see WP:DCGAR). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:16, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

If you mean for non-GA articles to be nominated at FAC and be promoted, it happens all the time. But only after the effness of the article has been removed from its ineffability. Gog the Mild (talk) 23:09, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

Pretty interesting to hear that Gog. I like the stepping stone, I think – gives me an opportunity to peace out if I get bored. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 23:13, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

FAC spot checks

Pure curiosity Gog (or anyone), any chance you know where it was decided to do spotchecks only for first-time reviewers? I've had a look but I'm useless at navigating archives. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 11:12, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Is it really only for first-timers? At Featured List, a source review is required for every nomination. Bgsu98 (Talk) 11:16, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Yes. There are some reviewers who perform spot checks for every or nearly every review (like Epicgenius, myself), but my understanding is that consistent reference style and bibliography is the explicit, enforced rule component. I'm guessing it's a reviewer labour shortage but that's why I'm a bit nosey to look back at the discussion. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 11:24, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Many FLCs pass without spotchecks, see e.g. Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of World Heritage Sites in Côte d'Ivoire/archive1, promoted a couple of weeks ago. They are more common at FLC, probably because there are are a higher proportion of online sources than at FAC, and so spotchecks are easier. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:28, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

I just assumed the closing administrator did the spot check before closing in those cases, as was done with Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/European Figure Skating Championships/archive1. Bgsu98 (Talk) 11:39, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

...did anyone notice that the nominated article is not in any way a list?!? ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:33, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Nah, that’s a list. I think some of the lists I took through FLC had more text and less table than that one. If it was nominated at FAC I think I’d oppose on the basis it’s a list. - SchroCat (talk) 15:44, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

...Are you kidding? It's 6 short paragraphs of context followed by a mile of tables. It would never get a single support at FAC. --PresN 00:01, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

If I close a nomination with "source review passed", it can be assumed that I did a full source check, including spotchecks. I don't bother writing it all down, but I don't think a source check that doesn't verify that the sources back up the cited information really counts. Because lists are more "fact[source]", it's less complicated than an article where the fact is turned into a sentence/paragraph that needs deep checking, so it's more valid to say "yes the sources that purport to list the competitors+scores at an event actually do that" than that they verify the subjective phrasing of a sentence. --PresN 23:58, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Formatting isn't the only enforced rule. The range of sources used and a judgement on whether they are be best and most reliable is key. - SchroCat (talk) 11:32, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

My bad – I phrased that wrong. When I reviews, I tend to spot check as I go out of curiosity. If I have no knowledge on the subject, I use the references provided by sources to inform comprehensiveness as best I can, but avoid making a support on that basis. If I have some knowledge, I can do self-directed research into comprehensiveness. Again my bad for oversimplifying. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 11:35, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

I don't know offhand (and my searching back through the archives doesn't immediately bring it up), but this thread from 2010 suggests that the spot check for first-time nominators had not yet been formalised. It certainly existed by this discussion in December 2013: Related to the source review is a spotcheck, which is only needed on a first nomination and then periodically after that. In a spotcheck, a reviewer is making sure that the sources do back the information being cited, and that the prose isn't paraphrasing too closely. The earliest discussion I can find proposing spot-checking sources is this one from 2006. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 11:41, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Thanks so much for finding those. Sandy is in that 2006 thread, so she might have some institutional memory here. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 11:45, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

We formalized spotchecks after and because of the Halloween 2010 plagiarism scandal: see Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents/Plagiarism and copyright concerns on the main page. That would give you some dates and ideas of where to find other FAC talk discussion threads, but the original notion of spotchecking first-time nominators was based on needing early detection of plagiarism. Because the first concern was plagiarism, we weren't worried about spotchecking every nomination for, as an example, experienced FA writers like Brianboulton. We were initially looking to pick up sooner those who had poor source-to-text integrity (ala WP:DCGAR, where one editor wracked up over 200 GAs that had to be delisted (or even deleted) with issues that dozens of reviewers failed to detect). Also, the institutional memory on source checking resides more with Ealdgyth, who pretty much ran that side of the process for years. As Ealdgyth rightfully wearied of the amount of work, Nikkimaria took on more. In 2021, I suggested a two-stage reviewing model in which nominations would not advance to the second stage until/unless they had been source checked, so that reviewers wouldn't spend so much time on ill-prepared nominations. That proposal went nowhere. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:14, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

I forgot to mention that Ealdgyth begin reliability checks in about 2008. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:19, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

I would support normalizing spot checks for more than just first-time nominations. Everyone makes mistakes now and then, close paraphrasing can happen accidentally (I'm always a little paranoid of accidentally creating close paraphrasing when I action prose rewriting suggestions without looking back at the underlying source), and something things can just go very badly wrong with an experienced nominator. See Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Benjamin F. McAdoo/archive1, where an experienced nominator had requested permission to open a second nomination and the nomination had passed a source review, but I found numerous issues with source-text integrity including several direct factual errors. (courtesy ping to Generalissima whose nomination is being discussed). The current process is not ideal - we've basically got a situation where if a nominator gets their first one or two FACs through with a lax spot-check and their stuff might not get spot-checked again for months. Hog Farm _Talk 15:43, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Unfortunately a fundamental issue with any kind of article review on Wikipedia is that the importance of any aspect is inversely correlated with how easy it is to do. Anyone can pick a particular MOS issue to have a bee in their bonnet about and easily point out articles that violate it (MOS:LQ and MOS:BOLDLINK come to mind as ones I frequently notice), but fundamentally this impacts readers not at all. Fixing infelicitous prose (e.g. WP:INTOTHEWOULDS; overuse of "however"; tautology and repetition; typos) is the next easiest thing to do and has some small benefit to readers. Checking text-source integrity and for plagiarism and copyvio is much more time consuming but finds much more major issues. And establishing whether an article truly is neutral and comprehensive requires some level of actual familiarity with the scholarship – you can't just trust that the sources cited in the article are indeed a fair reflection of the scholarly mainstream – but systematic POV issues or the omission of major details are the biggest flaws in an article to most readers. I try to spotcheck at least some sources whenever I review at FAC, and I'd love to see reviewers encouraged to do so – but fundamentally prose and MOS reviewing is relatively easy and rewarding (you'll almost always be able to find something to suggest fixing which makes your review worthwhile) whereas source spotchecking is time-consuming and (at least for experienced FAC nominators with well-prepared articles) you're going to find a lot fewer issues even if you are incredibly thorough. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 16:55, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

I'd still like to see my 2021 proposal given consideration; it makes no sense to perform prose or MOS nitpicks on an article with sourcing issues. Sourcing should be number 1; just like FAR works as a two-stage process, a nomination only progresses if sourcing passes. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:20, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

I'm all for that. I never understood why FAC seems to be more worried about proper punctuation in citations than in whether the citations actually support the claims in the article. "I looked something up in Wikipedia and was horrified to discover a citation that capitalized a title the wrong way", said no researcher ever. RoySmith (talk) 22:26, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

When Ealdgyth was doing source checks (2008 to around ... 2012 ??), it was more about reliability. Other MOS-y people did citation checking. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:41, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Here's another bit of institutional memory about source checking. In 2008, I processed almost every FAC solo; it was extremely rare for me to recuse to review -- only if there was a real conflict did I ask the FA process director Raul654 to step in. So, when I saw Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Oliver Typewriter Company happening (click on the "old nom" -- it was a restart), I was mortified. I saw an article passing without reliable sources, with reviews by serious reviewers, the nominator was an absolute gem (who basically defined -- along with Jappalang -- image reviewing at FAC), and I was just undone for days about what the effect would be of me recusing to oppose, but equally mortified about passing the article because it had consensus and no one had noticed the sources weren't reliable, much less high quality. Fortunately <whew>, Elcobbola the gem responded quite well, and sourcing was fixed. But that was, I believe, the turning point when we got more serious about reliability checks. I don't believe anyone has ever taken over the same work Ealdgyth did for years on source checking. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:48, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Could someone link to that proposal please? cheers, Dracophyllum 22:28, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

@Dracophyllum: User:SandyGeorgia/sandbox4

Had a look at the proposal earlier. I think it's really good conceptually. Huge changes are hard to get through but it's grounded in actual problems. I like the two-prong approach – sort of like a checkpoint system. Initially I thought the shortage of image/source reviewers would push us to breaking point very fast but, the more I've reflected on it today, it might encourage people to approach their reviews differently.

For sourcing, some basic tweaks to the template could potentially assign spot checks? If we expect folks to review sources at GAN, it's pretty reasonable to split the load between a bunch of reviewers (similar to what me and EG did at Beyonce). Broadly I'm really receptive towards it and think it's a good starting point for discussion/refinement. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 22:30, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

I agree, I quite like this proposal. Actually I thought all FAs had to be spotchecked, for my first GA review iirc I checked every source I could access! in my view, image reviews are not as critical as source reviews, but it makes sense to lump them together in that "first half" of the FAC. cheers, Dracophyllum 22:38, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

It may feel like image reviews aren't as critical as source reviews, only because of past success -- that is, the kinds of issues that used to pop up no longer do so frequently, and those were serious problems. (Or maybe they do still pop up, and we're missing them since we no longer have Elcobbola reviewing -- I don't know -- I never spoke images as I left them to Elc.) But then Elcobbola did this: Reviewing free images and Reviewing non-free images, and the whole Wikipedia upped its game. How nice it would be to see {{FCDW}} (the featured content Dispatches published in the Signpost weekly) reinstated! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:54, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

It's intuitive that the highest form of content assessment should involve source checking. How intense it must be is a different question. For FAC, maybe a fixed % measured against some kind of new criterion ("Not substantively misrepresented"?). This stays true to the spirit of Sandy's proposal – i.e., retaining FAC's current working practices. The review mentioned by HF above, for example, passed. Sandy provides another example of a troublesome source review that, ultimately, passed. Important to leave room for good-faith mistakes.

Mashing together "make spot checks mandatory" and "new FAC process" might be a tall order at once, though. That's my main concern right now. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 22:54, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

If there is sufficient pre-discussion, and you want to bring it forward, I think the sandbox is still good to go. I suspect it would be better received today than it was in 2021. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:00, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

PS, I know quite a few reviewers who left FAC over the years from concern that nominations were turning into long prose nitpicks without serious review of sourcing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:02, 19 July 2025 (UTC)

Sandy, could you link to the discussion about the proposal? I remember it happening, but can’t seem to find it. Thanks - SchroCat (talk) 04:57, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

I'll try ... from my sandbox, it looks like February 2021 is the place to look. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:03, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Found it by using "What links here" from my sandbox ... appears that it started with the Transclusion limits issue ... Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/archive87#Additional solutions to page limitations. Bedtime here, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:08, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

And honed in at ... Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates/archive87#Move to a completely new reviewing model ... it appears that I started working on the idea in February, but didn't advance it until many months later. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:12, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Thank you. Memory is such a fickle thing - I thought I had commented on the idea, but see I didn't. - SchroCat (talk) 06:44, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

There's more at User talk:SandyGeorgia/sandbox4. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 11:15, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Is it true that spot checks are required for a first-time noms? My understanding was that all refs were checked for first time noms (that's what happened for me). I realise that would be harder to enforce the more ambitious the first nomination, though. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 19:55, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

It is.

It is not.

(I guess you were just lucky.) Gog the Mild (talk) 20:13, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Pre-proposal workshop

There seems to be some general agreement in this thread and the one below that compulsory spot checks for all nominations (not just for first timers) would be a beneficial step. How should that work in practice should be looked at before a formal proposal, and I’d be interested in hearing other people’s thoughts. I’ve put down three main points that came to my mind, but others may have other points to include.

• Should we enshrine this with additional wording within the instructions or elsewhere)?
• Should there be a minimum number or percentage of checks done (is, say, five sufficient, or does it need to be more in line with 25 per cent of all citations - or is that something to be left to the reviewer)? - SchroCat (talk) 05:06, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
• Should this be part of the prose review, or a separate review entirely that can be done independently of any other review?

1% or 10, whichever is higher --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 16:18, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Make source reviews come first

Back in 2021, User:SandyGeorgia proposed a new structure for FAC.

Sandy's aims are outlined in her sandbox. I won't go into too much detail, but some of the problems she described first:

• A flood of prose reviews – long, hard to navigate, and more time-intensive for coordinators to gauge consensus to promote.
• Last-minute source reviews becoming contentious, particularly after multiple prose-based supports.
• A long tail on the Oldest nominations pile.

The gist is to split the FAC process into 2 stages:

• A first stage for sourcing and images.
• A second and final stage for prose, style, comprehensiveness, and length.

Sandy moved the FA criteria around a bit to show this. I believe it could be refined further – e.g., "Criteria 1 and 2 apply to stage 1; criteria 3 and 4 apply to stage 2". This does not change any of the criteria. It changes when they are assessed and makes reviews shorter and more focused.

Current Featured article criteria

Proposed criteria (re-arrangement to reflect two stages)

A featured article exemplifies Wikipedia's very best work and is distinguished by professional standards of writing, presentation, and sourcing. In addition to meeting the policies regarding content for all Wikipedia articles, it has the following attributes. It is: well-written: its prose is engaging and of a professional standard; comprehensive: it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context; 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; neutral: it presents views fairly and without bias; stable: it is not subject to ongoing edit wars and its content does not change significantly from day to day, except in response to the featured article process; and compliant with Wikipedia's copyright policy and free of plagiarism or too-close paraphrasing. It follows the style guidelines, including the provision of: a lead: a concise lead section that summarizes the topic and prepares the reader for the detail in the subsequent sections; appropriate structure: a substantial but not overwhelming system of hierarchical section headings; and consistent citations: where required by criterion 1c, consistently formatted inline citations using footnotes—see citing sources for suggestions on formatting references. Citation templates are not required. Media. It has images and other media, where appropriate, with succinct captions and acceptable copyright status. Images follow the image use policy. Non-free images or media must satisfy the criteria for inclusion of non-free content and be labeled accordingly. Length. It stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail and uses summary style.

A featured article exemplifies Wikipedia's very best work and is distinguished by professional standards of writing, presentation, and sourcing. In addition to meeting the policies regarding content for all Wikipedia articles, it has the following attributes. Content is summarized from high-quality sources, and compliant with Wikipedia copyright and image use policy. The article: is 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. contains content that complies with Wikipedia's copyright policy, and is free of plagiarism and too-close paraphrasing. Content has images and other media, where appropriate, with succinct captions and acceptable copyright status. Images follow the image use policy. Non-free images or media must satisfy the criteria for inclusion of non-free content and be labeled accordingly. It is: well-written: its prose is engaging and of a professional standard; comprehensive: it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context; neutral: it presents views fairly and without bias; and stable: it is not subject to ongoing edit wars and its content does not change significantly from day to day, except in response to the featured article process. It follows the style guidelines, including the provision of: a lead: a concise lead section that summarizes the topic and prepares the reader for the detail in the subsequent sections; appropriate structure: a substantial but not overwhelming system of hierarchical section headings. has consistent citations: where required by criterion 1, inline citations are consistently formatted using footnotes—see citing sources for suggestions on formatting references. Citation templates are not required. appropriate length. It stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail and uses summary style.

This is a starting point for discussion, not a formal proposal – but I think there's clear gains:

• Crucially, we acknowledge that source reviews are already a prerequisite step for promotion.
• We acknowledge the pain of a last-minute source review utterly derailing a nomination.
• We make it easier to understand reviewer expectations.
• We encourage reviewers to source review early, and nominators to solicit those reviews early.
  • We reduce pain caused by long prose reviews becoming invalid because of extensive changes.

In the first draft of the restructure under discussion, the "Older nominations" pile would disappear. There would be a stage one bucket and a stage two bucket. There's still room for languishing nominations to be promoted – and with this, it's easier, because it can tell you specifically what's missing. Prose reviews know they're reviewing something with solid sourcing.

This conversation grew out of a discussion about spot checking – the above doesn't actually represent any changes to the as-is system. The criteria aren't changed; they are moved around.

Please share any thoughts, feedback, or concerns. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 11:22, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Discussion

• Conceptually, I'm a huge fan – big benefits to putting source reviews first. As an additional thought: I think comprehensiveness reviews should take place alongside source reviews instead of what is shown above (where they're part of the prose review). Distributing the criteria makes it easier to give a short, focused review. A shorter, focuses review makes it more likely reviewers will reply to each other in the place where it matters—i.e., I'm not going to reply to someone who's given 40 lines of prose feedback, but I would reply to a paragraph or two about comprehensiveness.

This would increase my overall number of reviews. "Consensus to promote" is not just votes: it's a bit of chat, it's agreeing or disagreeing with other editors. I should be able to provide support my support to someone else's review. With the current model, when I don't know what's going on, I'm not likely to do that. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 11:22, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

• I would move "has consistent citations" down to the style section. If somebody is citing unsuitable sources (or mis-citing them), that's a fundamental problem that needs to be found quickly and may well lead to the nomination being rejected outright if the problem can't be resolved. If they've got the citation formatting wrong, that's something that can get fixed up whenever. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RoySmith (talk • contribs) 11:36, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for that Roy; makes sense. I'll make some tweaks to show how I think it should be (criteria 1 and 2 for Stage 1; criteria 3 and 4 for Stage 2) with that change. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 11:45, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

RoySmith I can recall seeing citations that were so incomplete that reliability was hard to gauge -- eg missing publishers, missing authors, wrong article titles or dates, and similar. But then, it has always been my view that a nomination presented in that state should get declarations to Withdraw so that the Coords can archive it right away, as FAC is not the place for cleanup of basics, and those kinds of problems should be more quickly cleaned up off FAC and brought back in two weeks. Anyway, that's why that is mentioned in the first phase. I still see very little use of Withdraw allowing for early archiving of ill-prepared nominations ... maybe these kinds of issues are becoming more rare, but ...

... even after my 2021 proposal, and discussion that reviews were incomplete, Socrates Nelson with considerable source-to-text integrity issues happened, and passed a source check (HogFarm, others and I cleaned up the article). Just adding to the institutional memory here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:36, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

• I think would likely oppose this; it seems to be a solution in search of a problem. Some of the reasons I would oppose are the same as were raised in 2021, others differ slightly. Firstly there are three problems that were identified in 2021. I don't think these are necessarily still an issue now, or if they are, they are either not as much of a problem as they may have been then, or this measure will not help. Looking at the problems: "A flood of prose reviews – long, hard to navigate, and more time-intensive for coordinators to gauge consensus to promote": that will continue whenever the source review takes place. "Last-minute source reviews becoming contentious, particularly after multiple prose-based supports": I have not seen any such contentious source reviews for some time, and not after multiple prose supports. Maybe the @FAC coordinators: can say if this is an issue they have seen recently or regularly. The third problem listed is "A long tail on the Oldest nominations pile": I'm not sure this measure is going to solve that tail.
  A real problem is that we have a very small number of people who can do proper source review, whereas most people can comment about prose matters. If prose reviews are forced into the earliest steps, then we're putting too much pressure on the very small pool of people who regularly conduct such reviews. And once the source review is passed and a prose reviewer asks for additional information is added, this could require new sources which means a re-visit from an already-stretched prose reviewer. I'm not sure the 'gains' listed are as promised either: we already acknowledge a source review is a prerequisite; there is no evidence of the "pain" of a last-ditch fails, nor that "reviewer expectations" are not understood.
  The reorganising of the criteria seems rather odd to me - it doesn't seem to have any benefit that I can see. - SchroCat (talk) 12:21, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

  Hey SchroCat. Thanks for giving some thoughts. I won't do the back-and-forth detail if you don't like the underlying idea, but look up a few threads for some contentious source reviews (we lost some contributors over uneven enforcement in source reviews). David mentioned there that reviewers won't oppose/support in a comment there, too – IMO, distinct stages makes this clearer – sharper focus, shorter commentary, easier to gauge negative or positive sentiment. RE: Reorganising the criteria – I did that to show what comprised each stage (C1 and C2 in Stage 1; C3 and C4 in Stage 2). There aren't meant to be any benefits beyond illustrating a system that doesn't exist. Best 12:54, 20 July 2025 (UTC) — ImaginesTigers (talk) 12:54, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

  I think that review would have been contentious whether it was the first review or the tenth. The issue was nothing to do with when the review was conducted: the nominator was upset at the seeming different standards between his previous nominations and the ones that failed. This proposal would make zero difference in that particular example. It's a waste of a scant resource (good prose reviewers) if time is spent reviewing for an article to then fail on prose. - SchroCat (talk) 13:11, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

  Sorry, SC, I don't understand.

  • On the Sengoku line FAC, Roy and UC left sourcing objections, then 3 people left prose reviews after those concerns were raised. That was absolutely a waste of time for them – prose wasn't being disputed. Archived.
  • On the Sounder rail line FAC, there were 3 supports, then Roy highlighted his issues; this resulted in archival, annoying the nominator and a bystander. There's a big disconnect there. The coord was confident in their decision, but it wasn't understood – because there was a disconnect on what mattered there.

  — ImaginesTigers (talk) 13:45, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

  What's not to understand? The nomination would not have been automatically archived the moment an oppose is posted. It would have been left open to see if the nominator could have worked on it further to change the opposes to supports. That's not going to be affected by the change and is entirely right and proper. I'm not sure you can say the reviewers wasted their time: the article was improved by their comments.

  Again, the annoyance seems to be less about the archiving per se, and more about the perceived changes in standards between that review and earlier ones. If there is "disconnect", then maybe we need to sharpen the instructions to make it clearer that image and source reviews are the only reviews that can lead to a failed nomination. That has been the de facto standard for years, so there should be no problem in highlighting it. - SchroCat (talk) 14:04, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

  Image and source reviews are the only reviews that can lead to a failed nomination: is that the case? As I understand it, the coords archive nominations where consensus to promote is not likely to develop in a reasonable timespan, or without changes that would be unreasonable to make in the course of a fundamentally summative process. I don't think it's necessarily true that the words "source review -- fail" automatically lead to archiving, though obviously most of the things that would cause an article to fail a well-conducted source review would also make it very unlikely to generate consensus to promote in a reasonable time. At the same time, even if the image and source reviews are fine, we archive plenty of nominations on the basis of dissatisfied prose reviews, even without concerns raised on images or sourcing -- see Yoshi's New Island, which had a passed source review and no image review (but would certainly have passed the latter). UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 20:24, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

  Articles can be promoted with prose opposes in place (although that’s not to say that valid prose opposes, such as at Yoshi, will let an article proceed far - it depends on how problematic the prose is). But no review will be promoted unless both image and source reviews have been passed, and a valid oppose on either of those will lead to archiving. - SchroCat (talk) 20:43, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

  Looking through, I don't think the FAC instructions actually mention image or source reviews explicitly. It might not be a bad thing to clue nominators in that all articles are expected to pass specific reviews for both, as you say. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 20:48, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

• I do think that the current practice emphasises non-expert prose reviews too much and does too little to address accuracy and due weight. When my articles are reviewed, I always hope for some critical comments on scope and emphasis but these are comparatively rare. (Then again, I certainly need the help of the prose reviewers, so I should not complain). I do not know whether reordering the criteria would help to fix the emphasis issue but we could try. I would strongly suggest to change the numbering scheme, though, to make the "new" criteria something like "A.1" and "B.3" etc., so a comment like "fails 1c" stays unambiguous. —Kusma (talk) 12:32, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

  I think the criteria could remain exactly the same, so long as instructions were updated to which criteria specify to which stage. Rearranging is convenient, but if there's no support for the basic proposal – frontloading source/comprehensiveness/images – then refining numbering on the criteria, I think, matters less. Does that make sense? — ImaginesTigers (talk) 12:42, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

• I'm inclined to share SchroCat's impression of "solution in search of a problem", though could certainly be persuaded that there is indeed a problem here. A few fairly disconnected thoughts:

• I think the proposed approach would probably work well for first-time nominations -- in essence, encourage reviewers to check for ship-sinking problems (like plagiarism, copyvio, TSI or bad sourcing) before spending hours fussing over commas, dashes and semicolons -- but I'm not sure it would help to mandate it.
• I sympathise with and largely share Kusma's perspective above that the best reviews are the really detailed ones that are able to pick out gaps in the research, misconceptions of the scholarly consensus, and areas where the narrative ought to be tied together in different ways -- however, FAs are specialised things, and in (almost) any given topic area we only have a handful of real experts -- and the chances are that one of those is going to be disqualified because they're the nominator! Honestly, in most cases where source reviewers attempt to check comprehensiveness, all we're practically able to do is Google around and make sure that the obvious hits are indeed cited, which sets a pretty low bar -- robustly vouching that the work fits the scholarship requires quite serious domain expertise, and it's a rare but happy coincidence to find a reviewer and a topic matching up such that they can do it.
• I do think spotchecking should be more normal, even for experienced nominators, and not necessarily limited to source reviews -- I'm not sure I'd go so far as to make it a requirement (though I note that all GA nominators are expected to pass spotchecks on all nominations), but I don't think it would be a bad thing if, culturally, more reviews included "I've checked the following citations and all checks out/there seem to be a few points not fully supported/the source seems to put a different spin on it than we do".
• As for A flood of prose reviews – long, hard to navigate, and more time-intensive for coordinators -- yup, I'll hold my hands up -- guilty as charged! UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 12:54, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Doing a handful of spotchecks each time seems reasonable -- Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 13:15, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Hi, @UndercoverClassicist: Thanks for chiming in. I've been thinking about reaching out to you.

My interest in Sandy's proposal is partly motivated by some recent FACs. At Sounder rail, the archival caused consternation because of a disconnect between a nominator/reviewer's perception (multiple prose supports) and what the coordinator saw (unaddressed sourcing concerns).

At Sengkang LRT line, we lost a contributor. We had multiple editors – after you and Roy opposed – performing what are (IMO) rescue-attempt reviews... but are focusing on entirely the wrong thing (prose).

In the first stage, we acknowledge how critical sourcing is and that nothing else matters if there are concerns. It vastly increases the chances editors will engage directly with each other on what matters. Editors are right to be frustrated if they have spent accumulative hours reviewing and actioning feedback, and it all falls apart for reasons they cannot fully see. As I see it, it is an improvement to user experience. Possibly coordinator experience – I'm hopeful they will weigh in.

This may overall reduce the full time required for a review cycle – consensus can develop quickly if it is focused. Regarding comprehensiveness – this isn't intended to reduce the quality of comprehensiveness reviews (we can't meaningfully change that), but the focus of the discussion. If the review itself is insufficient, that's true in the current process. Thank you — ImaginesTigers (talk) 13:38, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

It sounds like you're suggesting "promoting" sourcing to a higher tier -- essentially making clear that, if the sourcing isn't right (that is, there are worries about reliability, representativeness or integrity), no amount of tinkering with the prose will lead to a promotion. I'm not sure that's the way to do it: after all, articles need to pass all the FA criteria, so the same is true if (for example) an article is impeccably sourced and beautifully written but fails NPOV, or has a wonderful body but an inadequate lead. As you say, sourcing is [critical] and nothing else matters if there are concerns, but that's equally true of all of the other criteria.

Now, you might fairly say that it's easier to fix prose, leads, NPOV etc than to overhaul the sourcing, but I think reviewers probably look at other reviews before they kick off -- I certainly do, and probably wouldn't launch into a detailed nit-pick of an article that is clearly going to see major content changes before it passes. However, if others think that would be a good use of their time, I'm not sure it would be right to create a rule to stop them.

I hadn't seen the conclusion of the Sengkang nomination -- I think it's unfortunate, but I don't get the impression that having fewer prose reviews on that page would have helped -- nor would requiring source reviews to be done first, since the very first review on the page is Roy's, raising the source issues, and the second is mine. If we had a rule that the prose reviewers had to wait until the source concerns were addressed, it seems likely that the nomination would have been archived or withdrawn before any came in, and I don't think that would have been any less frustrating for the nominator -- the crux of the issue there seems to have been that previous FAs were promoted without the same concerns being raised. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 13:59, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Thanks UC. I don't think perfect should be the enemy of good, but I'm grateful for your substantive engagement. Ultimately my goal here is to generate some friendly chat, and this is very thoughtful and others should definitely pay attention to what you've raised. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 14:32, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

• I certainly agree that we should prioritise issues with sourcing, neutrality, and comprehensiveness over prose issues, let alone the minutiae of MOS compliance and citation formatting – but like Schro and UC I'm not entirely convinced that this is the solution. As I said above, the fundamental problem is that reviewing the issues I consider priorities require a level of time, access to potentially hard-to-obtain sources, and expertise which prose and MOS reviewing do not – and as UC points out above, the nominator is usually by far and away the most expert editor on the topic they are nominating. My worry would be that having a two stage review with the former reviewed first means that, unless someone interested and knowledgeable in the topic happens to see a nomination, nominees will just language at stage one waiting for someone to pick them up, and then once they've gone through that they'll still get the same laundry list of prose and MOS nitpicking. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 13:59, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

  Appreciate the response Caeciliushorto. Do you think the problem you describe are largely unmitigable (or, even, not worth fixing), or have any thoughts on what might be done? Thank you — ImaginesTigers (talk) 14:40, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

  I do think to some extent the problem is inherently unfixable: if a sufficiently knowledgeable nominator writes an article on a sufficiently obscure topic, they can skew the POV in a way which is just unnoticeable to anyone who isn't themselves fairly expert on the topic – if the subject is obscure enough, there might only be a handful of people in the world for whom that's true.

  For Corinna, I would not be surprised if every single living person who has read more of the relevant sources than me is literally cited in the bibliography. Have I given appropriate weight to the various views about her date? I hope so, but the only people really qualified to judge are the authors of those views – and even if we could get them to give an opinion, do we trust them to be neutral on this? I have an opinion about which side is correct which I hope is not detectable in the article, and which I hope has not skewed my presentation of the various arguments – but I could have written the article to give slightly more weight to my preferred side than I in fact did and if I had done so I think it's vanishingly unlikely that it would have been picked up at FAC.

  On a more optimistic note, I think things are already better than they were when Wikipedia was founded (or FAC was established) for reasons external to FAC itself. Academic sources are enormously more accessible to editors: between WP:TWL and WP:RX, the increasing number of academic journals indexed on online repositories like JSTOR, and the increasing number of articles which authors make freely available on places like academia.edu, it's much easier both for editors to use high-quality sources when writing articles, and to spot-check those sources when reviewing.

  As for what we can do as FAC reviewers: on an individual level, spot check sources! And explicitly say that you have done it in the review, even if you don't find anything to question the nominator about. Normalise spot checking as a standard part of a review; that way when new reviewers look to see what the expectation is, they will internalise that source checking is part of it. On a more systemic level, I would love to see it as a requirement for all FACs that at least one reviewer has to say that they have done at least some spot-checking before promotion, though I don't know whether there'd be appetite for that. Getting more reviewers would also help – the more eyes on an article, the more likely it is that issues will be picked up. I don't have any brilliant ideas for solving that one, though! Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 18:57, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

  The question of spot checking is outside the scope of this proposal and belongs in the thread above, but I think I would support the introduction of spot checking for all nominations, with a need for more to take place for first time nominators to help instil the requirements in them from an early stage. - SchroCat (talk) 19:12, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

  I don't think separating the criteria for new users vs regulars is a good idea, if we choose a criteria, we should expect all articles to be treated equally and subjected to extensive or atleast (greater than) a statistically significant amount of spotchecks. Sohom (talk) 20:11, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

  But we have separated the criteria for first timers for eons. We currently insist on spot checks for first timers, but not for anyone else. By having a heavier requirement on the first timers, it both shows them the levels required and gives reassurance to reviewers and coords that the nominator (and article) are hitting the right spot. - SchroCat (talk) 20:24, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

  A total nitpick but I don't think "criteria" is the word – it seems to have arisen in practice as a bit of oral culture, gaining consensus through practice rather than policy. This essay, linked at the top of this page, says coordinators will "usually" require spot checks for a first time nom, but is of course an essay, and I didn't have spot checks done so much as all refs — ImaginesTigers (talk) 20:54, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

  I'm aware of this "first-timer-only" requirements, but I don't understand why it exists in the first place and I would oppose putting more criteria into the "first-timer only" category when in actuality all nominations should be held to the same high standard. Sohom (talk) 01:33, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

  Search the page for 13:14, 19 July; it is explained in the section above this one (spot checks on first-time nominators originally were related to a concern about plagiarism, where we sought to make sure first-time nominators knew how to correctly represent sources while paraphrasing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:16, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

  Fair enough! But I still don't see the argument for special casing newcomers in a concern that affects all FAs alike. Perfectness in terms of source-to-text-integrity and reliability of sourcing should be the baseline that we should aim to reach with FAs, the rest is the criteria (the fact that the article is well written and uses consistent citations) is the icing on the cake that makes it presentable. In our current system, we are caring more about the ingredients in our icing and less about the ingredients going into the innards (to make a analogy). Sohom (talk) 06:26, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

  Just to clarify slightly, there are no "extra criteria" for newcomers. All FAs are held to the same criteria. What there is is an extra step in ensuring newbies understand one of those criteria from the beginning and the best way to do that is through checking the first nomination. If you're wanting all nominations to be spot-checked, then the thread above is the place to discuss that further. - SchroCat (talk) 06:37, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

  It may also be worth saying here that spotchecks are explicitly welcomed for all nominations, and all nominators are expected to cooperate with them if asked by any reviewer to do so. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 09:41, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

• I think the outcomes of Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Uranium mining in the Bancroft area/archive1 (over a month into the FAC and after engagement from several prose reviewers, source review identified major sourcing issues which led to archival) and Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Strom Thurmond filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1957/archive1 (multiple supports, passed source review w/o spot-checking, archived after source-text integrity issues came up) speak to the need for something like this. Sourcing is foundationally more important (and harder to fix) than prose issues, and while there are articles that arguably could never (or not easily) be made into FA due to inherent issues in the potential sourcing, this isn't a thing that would exist with prose. From what I've seen of roughly 5 years at FAC, sourcing is usually much more of a non-starter for noms with problems that prose is, and it makes sense to check for sourcing issues before much effort is put into prose. The trick will be to get editor engagement to an extent that nominations will get a source check quickly; I know I should be doing more source reviews but as someone who is also just plumb wore out mentally most days I understand why this seems daunting to reviewers. I think the requirement for some sort of spot-checking on any nomination should be considered separately from the more radical proposal and should be adopted; this doesn't have to be done by the primary source review (I try to work spot-checks into my prose reviews where possible). At a minimum, everyone entering into a support declaration at a FAC should really have at least taken a cursory look to see if there are any obvious source quality issues; a pure MOS/prose support is of lesser value that something that attempts to look at the whole article comprehensively. Hog Farm _Talk 21:10, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

  Thanks for the thoughts Hog Farm. To draw out your views a little: do you see the radical component here working better when enforced by a social measure (i.e., boldface instructions that say do not provide a source review) or a technical measure (e.g., the reviews are technically separated—as in a dedicated stage one page like Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Famous movie/Stage 1). One of the bigger parts of Sandy's concept, for example, is retiring the "Older nominations" bucket and using those groups for stage 1 and 2, while still preserving how they are chronologised (stage 2, the older reviews, still go at the bottom). For future participants (including the coords, who haven't weighed in yet), I'm interested if you'd be keen to eloquently ramble about implementation a little. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 21:39, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

  Well, I guess what I meant to say was that I think the proposition of spot checks for all noms should be considered as a fully separate proposal by the community, so that it could pass even if the restructuring proposal does not. As to the restructuring program - I agree with the idea of scrapping the idea of the "older nominations" bucket if this is implemented, and then having the Stage 1 and Stage 2 groups. With the Stage 1 nominations sorted from top to bottom with the oldest-added at the bottom; for Stage 2 (post-source review) the nominations would be added to the top of the Stage 2 stack as they pass Stage 1, with the lowest part of the page being those which have been in Stage 2 the longest. I think a social measure would in the long run be the most effective for keeping non-source or image reviews until Stage 2; my concern is that fragmenting the FAC into multiple subpages might make it difficult to later reviewers to see what sort of stuff came up in Stage 1 unless we're really careful of how we structure the FACs under the new proposal. What to do with out-of-process prose reviews in Stage 1 - I really haven't come up with a good idea for that. (Move to talk and then move back over to the main FAC page when Stage 2 is reached?) Hog Farm _Talk 22:10, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

  IT, re stage 2, the older reviews, still go at the bottom, except note that prose and MOS review can still be occurring during stage 1, while waiting for source work (but hopefully done on article talk to reduce the length/template limits/prose-and-MOS nitpick problem at FAC, while major concerns are being addressed), so that older reviews don't necessarily fall to the bottom or take longer than now. That nominations wouldn't move to the second phase without sourcing work doesn't mean the other work can't be going on concurrently. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:45, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

  That makes much more sense than how I was conceptualizing it. Hog Farm _Talk 22:47, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

  Think of it like FAR; you enter issues in the first (FAR) phase, while you only enter Keep or Delist in the second (FARC) phase. But work is still going on regardless of phase. In this case, reviewers aren't prevented from entering anything in phase one, but we don't move to declarations of Support until a nomination has passed on sourcing and moves to phase 2. Hopefully then the endless lists of minor prose issues and MOS nitpicks would be occurring elsewhere, like article talk, which would result in a more streamlined page overall. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:12, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

  Thanks for this clarification Sandy. I was overcomplicating it in my head too. IMO, this could really accelerate overall timelines. Provides high visibility to where source reviews are needed. Allows reuse the existing infrastructure with some slight tweaks. Means the FA criteria could remain identical, too, if there's preference for that – and minimal (to no) benefit if we still allow prose reviews. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 23:03, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

• I definitely think "stage 1/stage 2" makes a lot more sense than "nominations/older nominations", but comments on nomination pages should probably still occur naturally regardless of which stage they belong to. Heartfox (talk) 23:02, 20 July 2025 (UTC)
• In theory I'm in support of this. In practice I fear this will cause FACs to stall/get archived in the first phase because there are few editors with the self-confidence and desire to conduct source checks. If this is implemented, I would like Ealdgyth's excellent guide to be emphasised more prominently (maybe under the Phase 1 banner?) I would also like an easy way (that is not the big scary WT:FAC) for new source reviewers to ask a more experienced editor to mentor them, so they feel more confident in the process and want to do more (similar to WP:FAM?) Z1720 (talk) 02:16, 21 July 2025 (UTC)
• Yes, I think FAC would be improved with a greater focus on reviewing sources rather than just "prose comments". But my conviction is that this needs to be a matter of institutional change (i.e. across all reviews). Prose and sourcing are intimately connected, and it makes no sense to disconnect them entirely—how is a hypothetical "prose reviewer" in the second stage above supposed to assess comprehensivity, neutrality, appropriate length, or summary style without looking at the sources. On the topic of stages, I am fundamentally opposed to any such proposal which comes perilously close to replicating the inane bureaucracy of WP:FAR. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 10:06, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

  Valuable feedback. As Sandy describes it above, I don't think it functionally works like FAR because there's discrete, fully separate compartments there. With this, comments on other criteria are acceptable during the first stage, but source reviews are strongly preferred / what are visibly needed. I think this does, in practice, achieve what you want while not being absolutist bureaucracy. Is there a way we can tweak it to alleviate your concerns? What do you think? — ImaginesTigers (talk) 10:24, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

  "comments on other criteria are acceptable during the first stage, but source reviews are strongly preferred / what are visibly needed" So what's the difference between the current process and this? Right now, source reviews are strongly preferred and visibly needed, but comments on other criteria are also acceptable; however, it is only when a nomination receives a source review that it can be promoted. In stage 1 of the proposal, source reviews would be strongly preferred and visibly needed, but comments on other criteria are also acceptable; however, it is only when a nomination receives a source review that it can be promoted to the promoting zone, from where it can be promoted. Exact same process, just with one unnecessary step. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 11:32, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

  I suppose my concern here is the diagnosis of the problem. It sounds like this proposal comes from a feeling that reviewers are choosing to do prose reviews when it would be better for them to choose to do source reviews, and so that we should encourage them towards the latter. Honestly, I don't think that's what's going on -- I think source reviews and prose reviews are very different animals. In most cases, the person who would have dropped in to give a fairly light-touch prose review (looking at dashes, grammar, source formatting and so on) isn't going to be equipped, either in time, inclination, skills, subject-matter knowledge, resources and so on, to offer a proper source review.

  We do already have the box on FAC talk which highlights articles that need a source review, so I'm not sure that the implicit diagnosis in Provides high visibility to where source reviews are needed (that it's not yet sufficiently visible where a source review is needed) is the right one. I'd be more in favour of some of the suggestions above to make it easier for prospective reviewers to learn the ropes of how to conduct a good source review -- I think Roy's essay is a great start, and that expanding the mentoring programme would be another good move. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 11:53, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

  What is "a proper source review"? Does it cover just the three factors at WP:FARS: verifiability, source quality, and formatting, and if so why do we need a separate section just to assess that? On the other hand, does it make judgements on comprehensiveness? Neutrality? Excessive detail? As Caecilius has said above, there are articles nominated where the only people in the world who can make judgements on the latter three aspects are the authors cited and the nominator. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 12:42, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

• Two editors, above, have already described the proposal as a solution in search of a problem and I echo their use of that phrase. I fear the adoption of the proposed two-stage process would further gum up what is already a long and often, for nominators, wearisome process. Unless I've missed it in the sea of text, above, we have not heard from any of the FAC coordinators. It would not seem to me inappropriate to ask Ian Rose, Gog the Mild, David Fuchs and FrB.TG what they think, either jointly or severally. – Tim riley talk 12:46, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

  I would join others in wondering at the need for this at a time when we barely have enough reviewers to get the job done. A spot-check is a lot of work. And since many FAC candidates are based on offline resources, it's going to be considerable coordination with the nominator, who will either have to type in the text (which may be quite a bit) on which a statement relies, or send scans etc to the reviewer. After the burst of initial enthusiasm, finding people to do the job is going to be an issue. Wehwalt (talk) 13:12, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

• I am not sure that the coordinators do much "jointly", other than by accident. Personally I am always a little wary of joining these sorts of discussions, at least at their initial stages, as it is, I feel, more for the community to tell the coordinators what they want than the coordinators to tell the community what they are going to get. In this particular debate, when SchroCat, Wehwalt and UndercoverClassicist are so eloquently, succinctly, relevantly and compellingly hitting the nail on the head I have found nothing so far which I wish to add. Gog the Mild (talk) 13:06, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

  Away for a few days but I think this one is a killer. A big part of my motivation was narrowing discrepancies in how people are reading consensus. I disagree with some of the analyses but, ultimately, if the core idea isn’t registering, that’s all that matters. “Solution in search of a solution” is classically brutal. If the cords don’t see any value, I don’t object to a SNOW close, but it’s hard for me on mobile.

  A few folks have possibly misunderstood this thread as being about mandatory spot checks? For example, Gog cites Wehwalt’s analysis as eloquent but it seems (to me at least) like he’s replied in the wrong thread. I’ll reflect on what I messed up in the proposal when I get back to my main device. Thanks to everyone for sharing their thoughts — ImaginesTigers (talk) 13:49, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

  I don't think you've messed up in your proposal, Tiger, just people have different estimations of practical considerations. Having caught up on the conversation, I think part of the difficulty of a two-stage process is that it's difficult to disentangle source and prose criteria so completely—even if you passed a source review there can still be issues with how that is reflected in the actual text, for instance. Having a focused distributed scope, however, could definitely alleviate the complaints I've seen that "this has gotten the magic number of reviews, so why isn't this being promoted" that right now seems to treat absolute numbers as the most important thing instead of meaningfully engaging with critiques and building a better article out of the discussion. I can see the concerns about stretching source reviewers thin; on the other hand, forcing that process by necessity could prompt more engagement with that part of the criteria reviewing. It's absolutely a vital part of reviewing, and if the goal is quality and not quantity, it makes sense to keep encouraging that. In the absence of format changes it could perhaps be useful to be more explicit in our instructions and explanation of the review process what coords are expecting and will action, alongside giving more prompting on status so it's less of a surprise (I had assumed a lot of repeat nominators understood the 'squishiness' of the process, but that seems to be in error.) Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 19:56, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

  Spot checks are available to reviewers who deem them necessary without regard to first time status. That's always understood, and I've asked for them and been asked. If there is confusion somewhere it is because this has become an incredible wall of text and it might be easy for points to get lost. Wehwalt (talk) 20:15, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

  Like Gog, I tend to feel discussions like this are primarily for the community to guide the coords, but since I've been specifically invited... I've always advocated the greatest preparation for FAC noms, going so far as to propose on one or two occasions that PR (or A-class review for articles from relevant projects) be mandatory beforehand. Not unreasonably that got pushback from older hands, and were I to try it again I'd probably suggest if just for the newbies (perhaps the same people qualifying for the mentoring program). I've always welcomed more spotchecks of sources but have generally found the community satisfied with it being required only for first-timers, or those returning to FAC after extended absence. As to the 2-stage solution, I think it's difficult to disconnect source reviewing from questions of neutrality, comprehensiveness and expression (yes, prose). It's true we often see different reviewers taking on source checks as opposed to neutrality, comprehensiveness and prose commentary, but at least in the current method they're all in the one comprehensive review. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 15:29, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

  To be honest, I've always found PR kind of frustrating. My current example is Louis Abramson. I know there were some issues, which I think I've fixed, but I'm not sure so I've brought it to PR (twice) hoping to get some useful feedback. That doesn't seem to be happening, which is unfortunate because eventually I'll end up bringing it to FAC and I'd much rather get beaten up at PR than beaten up at FAC :-)

  The real issue (as others have pointed out) is that there's not enough reviewers doing enough reviews. On the one hand, I'm all for stricter standards, but if we're already in a deficit for reviewing resources, piling on more work isn't going to be practical. I pushed for mandatory source checks at GA because I think in general the quality of sourcing there demands greater scrutiny. But at FA, the quality is generally better (and certainly better from some regulars) so I think mandatory source spot-checks of all FACs would difficult to justify as an effective use of limited resources. RoySmith (talk) 15:49, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

Note to the coords

@FAC coordinators: with no archiving/promotions in the past six days and 58 currently-open nominations, WP:FAC is the longest it has been in several years at around 1.85 million transcluded bytes; not only is this really annoying if you want to view the page as a Wikipedia page should be, but it is steadily getting nearer to the WP:PEIS limit, at which point the nominations will begin to not transclude properly. Could we please get some movement on the front lines? Thanks, ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 13:31, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

@FAC coordinators: : Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/To Zion/archive1 has been moved to the archive page but no {{FACClosed}} was added, so the nomination cannot be processed by the bot. Could one of you add the required template? Hawkeye7 (discuss) 03:08, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

I’ve done it on Gog‘s behalf. Thanks for keeping an eye, Hawkeye. FrB.TG (talk) 03:53, 25 July 2025 (UTC)