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User talk:Yamanbaiia
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "User_talk:Yamanbaiia".
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This user has only seen 14/17 Bab films :(
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This user is VILE!!!
(and likes hugs and senseless userboxes!)
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/Archive 2007
Cite news: {{cite news |first= |last= |publisher= |title= |page= |date= |accessdate=2008-10-06|url= }}
This is the official myspace profile of Jonathan Pryce. I added it as he doesn't currently have an official .com, etc. website that I am aware of. If so, then that one can be used as the link then. 69.133.89.131 (talk) 02:09, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
CSI episode pages
Just wanted to make sure you saw I said this:
- Fair enough. I was really feeling after I made the nomination like I should have posted something first, hence why I posted on Wikiproject. Give me a few minutes and I'll withdraw the nomination.
-- Redfarmer (talk) 01:10, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Reverted edit on LOTR page
Hi Yamanbaiia, I appreciate your desire to prevent censorship when you reverted my change to the LOTR page. I didn't mean it in the spirit of censorship and I meant in good faith to improve the encyclopedic style of the article in accordance with the profanity policy. I have put a discussion of this onTalk:Lord of the Rings. I'd be grateful if you could take a look and then let me know what you think. best regards, Sanddune777 (talk) 23:29, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
Happy New Year! Here is the latest edition of the WikiProject GA Newsletter! Dr. Cash (talk) 04:11, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
| The Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles Newsletter |
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- Project News
- There are now 3,301 Good Articles listed at WP:GA. With 1,789 current featured articles, that brings the total of good and featured articles to 5,090!
- The most recently promoted articles are: Hurricane Daniel (2006), Tarbosaurus, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, Wicca, Seth MacFarlane, Stanley Internment Camp, Hurricane Karen (2007), Interstate 155 (Illinois), Tropical Storm Ingrid (2007), Brian Sings and Swings, Winston Churchill, Mzoli's, John Kefalas, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
- The backlog at Good Article Nominations has recently exploded to 236 unreviewed articles! Out of 264 total nominations, 17 are on hold, 10 are under review, and one is seeking a second opinion. Please go to WP:GAN and review an article or three as soon as you have a chance!
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- The oldest unreviewed articles are: Attachment disorder, Byzantium under the Palaiologoi, Byzantium under the Angeloi, Wowowee, Tyrone Wheatley, Mina (singer), Jon Burge, Mercury Hayes, William Lowndes Yancey, and Toni Preckwinkle.
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- The top five categories with the largest backlogs are: Sports and recreation (47 articles), Film and cinema (25 articles), Television and journalism (16 articles), Art and architecture (15 articles), and Politics and government (14 articles).
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- The backlog at Good Article Reassessment currently stands at 17 articles up for re-review.
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- If every participant of WikiProject Good Articles could review just one article in the next week, the backlog would be almost eliminated!
- Reviewer of the Month
Dihydrogen Monoxide is the GAN Reviewer of the Month of December, based on the assessments made by Epbr123 of the number and thoroughness of the reviews made by individual reviewers each week. Dihydrogen Monoxide hails from Brisbane (which, incidentally, is almost a GA, kids ;)) and has been editing Wikipedia since August 2006. He mostly likes to review articles relating to music, Australia, or anything else that takes his fancy! He also has two articles waiting, and notes that there's still a huge backlog,... so get cracking!
Other outstanding reviewers recognized during the month of December include:
- Member News
There are now 166 members of WikiProject Good Articles! Welcome to the 7 new members that joined during the month of December:
This WikiProject, and the Good Article program as a whole, would not be where it is today without each and every one of its members! Thank you to all!
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- GAReview Template
Lots of you that frequent WP:GAN have undoubtedly seen the articles under review, marked with "Review - I am reviewing this article. ...". The articles have been marked as being under review by an editor using the {{GAReview}} template. The purpose of this template is essentially to prevent two editors from reviewing the same article at the same time, so it's essentially a common courtesy notice to other editors so that they don't pass or fail an article while you're in the midst of collecting and writing comments. However, just because an article is marked, shouldn't preclude another editor from contributing to the review. If you'd like to review it, go ahead; simply collect your comments and write them down on the article's talk page – but don't pass or fail the article – leave that to the other reviewer.
To use this template yourself, simply write "#:{{GAReview}} ~~~~" on the line immediately following the article's nomination at WP:GAN. You can even leave additional comments as well (e.g. "#:{{GAReview}} I will finish my review in the next 24 hours. ~~~~"). Reviewers marking articles with this template should also observe some common etiquette; please don't mark more than 1-3 articles as being under review at a time, and please try and finish your review within 3-5 days of marking the article.
- GA Sweeps
After openly requesting the community for more participants into the Sweeps, we have 3 more members on the board. They are (in no particular order) Canadian Paul, VanTucky, and Masem. Canadian Paul will be sweeping "Middle East and the World" articles. VanTucky will be sweeping "Religion, mysticism, and mythology" and "Literature" articles. Masem will be sweeping "Television episodes". We're still looking for more reviewers. Interested individuals should contact OhanaUnited for details.
At this moment, participation in the sweeps project is by invitation only, as we desire experienced reviewers who have a thorough and extensive knowledge of the criteria. This is to ensure that articles that have "fallen through the cracks" would be found and removed, and that additional articles don't fall through the cracks during the sweep.
Currently, there are 16 members working on the project, and we have reviewed 74 articles in December 2007. Of those that are swept, 275 articles are kept as GA, 126 articles are delisted, and 5 promoted to FA.
- Did You Know,...
- ... that the total number of good and featured articles is now over 5000?
- ... that GA was formed on October 11, 2005 and was formerly called "Half-decent articles"?
- ... that there is a bot (StatisticianBot) that gives a daily report on GAN?
- ... that many discussions were made over the years on whether GA should have a symbol placed on the main article space, yet at the end always removed?
- ... that there was a proposal to change the GA symbol to a green featured star?
- From the Editors
Happy New Year, everyone! I'm just filling in for Dr. Cash as he's busy (or away) in real life. This explains why I wasn't prepared for a full-length article on GA process, and instead I resort to a tiny DYK for GA.
Happy New Year as well! I'm still here, and haven't totally disappeared. I had to cut back on editing and reviewing during the month of December as I made the transition from Flagstaff, Arizona to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. But I should be about settled in the Keystone State, so I'll be contributing more to Wikipedia again in the new year. Thanks to OhanaUnited for putting together much of the content for this newsletter! He's been working hard with the Sweeps, and the 'Did You Know' section is also a great idea, so I think that will become a regular feature now! I also figured out how to have a collapsible newsletter, so that will change our delivery options a bit. Cheers!
- Contributors to this Issue
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Improving Wikipedia one article at a time since 2005!
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WikiProject Good Articles: Open Tasks
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Wicked
Please see Talk:Wicked_(musical)#Chicago_Template.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 00:13, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Thank you for your support in my RfA. It was definitely a dramatic debate, that landed on WP:100! I paid close attention to everything that was said, and, where possible, I will try to incorporate the (constructive) criticism towards being a better administrator. I'm taking things slowly for now, partially because of the holiday season and all the off-wiki distractions. :) I'm also working my way through the Wikipedia:New admin school and double-checking the relevant policies, and will gradually phase into the use of the new tools. My main goals are to help out with various backlogs, but I also fully intend to keep on writing articles, as there are several more that I definitely want to get to WP:FA status! Thanks again, and have a great new year, --Elonka 07:33, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Hi there- as you may remember from the Good Article review, we have both contacted Talbot's official site in an attempt to find images. You seem to be more experienced in this than me- I have never really requested images before. I got the following email back from Claire Freeman, which implies she has already uploaded the image, though I do not know where and whether it was done properly, and so I was wondering if you could shed any light on it-
I was sent instructions by [name removed] and told that to get the photos into the public domain i was to pick one of the four licences from the link she sent me see below: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Choosing_a_license#Common_free_licenses ]. Which I did! If it needs to be the GNU free license then fine - she didn't specify which one - just asked me to choose one. If it needs to be the GNU free documentationlicense thats absolutely fine. Can you amend rather than have me go through the lengthy process of submitting the photos again?
If the image has been uploaded and procedure has been followed then that's fantastic- could you link me to the image or just stick it in the article yourself? Does this email mean more to you than it does to me? J Milburn (talk) 18:50, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
- Yeah, I suppose I could upload, but all I was thinking was that she implies she has already uploaded the image. If you don't know anything about that, then I will just upload it and be done with it. J Milburn (talk) 19:15, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
- Yeah- if you could ask an OTRS person on IRC, that would be great. I'm currently indefinately off IRC, annoyingly. J Milburn (talk) 19:16, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
- That's fantastic, thanks very much. Presumably the OTRS volunteer will add a message to the article's talk page when the image is up? J Milburn (talk) 20:27, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
- Sorry, I see you have added a link to the commons. Thanks very much for dealing with this, I owe you a favour! J Milburn (talk) 20:29, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Sorry to bug you again so quickly, but you have been loosely involved in the article, so I wondered if you could check the comments on the talk page about the external link to the German language fansite and offer a third opinion on the matter. J Milburn (talk) 12:15, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks. J Milburn (talk) 13:25, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Rudget!

Dear Yamanbaiia, my sincere thanks for your support in my second request for adminship, which ended with 113 supports, 11 opposes, and 4 neutral. I would especially like to thank my admin coach and nominator, Rlevse and Ryan Postlethwaite who in addition to Ioeth all inspired me to run for a second candidacy. I would also like to make a special mention to Phoenix-wiki, Dihyrdogen Monoxide and OhanaUnited who all offered to do co-nominations, but I unfortunately had to decline. I had all these funny ideas that it would fail again, and I was prepared for the worst, but at least it showed that the community really does have something other places don't. Who would have though Gmail would have been so effective? 32 emails in one week! (Even if it does classify some as junk :P) I'm glad that I've been appointed after a nail biting and some might call, decision changing RFA, but if you ever need anything, just get in touch. The very best of luck for 2008 and beyond, Rudget. 15:25, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
Television infoboxes
Per consensus reached last year [1] as television is fiction and fiction is in present tense, all actors are to be listed unless the list is excessive. The CSI list is not and, by previous decision, Jorja Fox remains on the list. Thank you. IrishLass (talk) 19:26, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
- I replied on my page. I find it bothersome to have a discussion on two different pages. IrishLass (talk) 19:42, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
- I've removed my comments from the CSI talk page. I find it truly bothersome that someone would do such a thing without warning, or even a simple courtesy of "could we move this here." IrishLass (talk) 20:15, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Discussion about your edits
There's a thread on my talk page regarding your edits to a CSI article. Best regards, Rudget. 21:02, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
- Thank you. I think it probably gave the wrong impression, but since you've apologised hopefully it should be over now. Regards, Rudget. 21:12, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
Centralized TV Episode Discussion
Over the past months, TV episodes have been redirected by (to name a couple) TTN, Eusebeus and others. No centralized discussion has taken place, so I'm asking everyone who has been involved in this issue to voice their opinions here in this centralized spot, be they pro or anti. Discussion is here [2]. --Maniwar (talk) 01:23, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Hello
As there are no animosities toward you, I'll smile and let you know, the discussion on DJS24's page has nothing to do with CSI, it's about Las Vegas (TV series). IrishLass (talk) 13:57, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
RE: CSI Infobox
Do you know what the vandalism the user was being accused of on the Las Vegas page was? Redfarmer (talk) 14:05, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
- The animosity they just sprung on me regarding my comment on the talk page indicates they probably don't want to listen. I don't know what kind of false accusations they think my post about agreeing that current cast should only be in an infobox was supposed to express. LOL. If they insist they want Fox in the infobox, we might as them why they're fighting so hard for Fox and not for Louise Lombard. Redfarmer (talk) 14:14, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
- I was never fighting for Fox, just another false accusation I can add to the list. IrishLass (talk) 14:33, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
- I didn't know you all were on IRC. What server and channel? Redfarmer (talk) 14:42, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Las Vegas Infobox Dispute
There has been a disscussion opened on the Las Vegas TV Series site on infoboxes. I would like for you to leave some comments. Thank You DJS24 --DJS24 (talk) 02:22, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Jonathan Pryce
Good job with the ref cleanup so far. It's looking better. I know it's a pain, but it's one of the most common criticisms brought up at FAC, so I wanted to prod you into circumventing it ;). BuddingJournalist 02:22, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
CSI:NY Characters
Thanks for your feedback on the character discussion. I've been playing around in my own sandbox before putting up anything live and wanted your feedback if you had a moment. It's my idea that this will be a page at CSI:NY Characters and the current Minor characters in CSI:_NY could redirect there. I'm curious on a number of issues, mainly if you had any info on Hammerback's character and also how many appearances a character should have to warrant a mention outside List of CSI: NY characters. Any input you have is greatly appreciated. Thanks! Travellingcari (talk) 23:18, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks! Point definitely taken re: the page naming. I don't follow much of the TV discussion because it has a tendency to degenerate into cruft. I may end up leaving the pages as are just replace some of the unsourceable text. Need to do some more thinking on this, especially the blatant copyright violations and, as my boss calls it, Department of Redundancy Department. You're right that Mac is a lead, however the issues surrounding information are such that it's a lot of the same information repeated and more actor-focused. I just did a re-write on Gary Sinise earlier this month and am really trying to keep the character/actor separate, if that makes sense. I see so much potential that I want do everything at once, but I'm sure you know how that is ;) Travellingcari (talk) 00:18, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, on behalf of Walt
Thanks for reverting vandalism on Walt Whitman's page. I was actually in the middle of a legitimate edit while it happened and obliviously editing away while someone kept adding "faggot" this and "faggotry" that. That's why it's such a pain to work on poor Walt's article! --Midnightdreary (talk) 23:55, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
- Ha ha! Thanks for the warning! :) -Midnightdreary (talk) 00:30, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
My User Page
Do you mean I can'y use pictures that already exist on the wiki? I took the V picture from the movie article and 4chan logo from the 4chan article; I didn't upload them.--Piepie (talk) 00:10, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
- KK. Thanks for the PROTIP. I'll fix after I'm done trying to fix my bungled ref on the Project Chanology paeg.
--Piepie (talk) 00:23, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
Just wanted to give you a heads up I nominated Michael Keppler for deletion here. I thought you may want to comment as the only person who has made any comments thus far is insisting the page should be merged and redirected to CSI:_Crime_Scene_Investigation#Past main characters. Cheers! Redfarmer (talk) 00:40, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
The February 2008 issue of the WikiProject Good Articles Newsletter is ready! Dr. Cash (talk) 05:14, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
| The Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles Newsletter |
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- Project News
- There are now 3,485 Good Articles listed at WP:GA.
- The backlog at Good Article Nominations is 206 unreviewed articles. Out of 251 total nominations, 37 are on hold, 7 are under review, and 1 is seeking a second opinion. Please go to WP:GAN and review an article or three as soon as you have a chance!
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- The oldest unreviewed articles are: Johan Derksen, Trafford, J. Michael Bailey, Greg Skrepenak, Paleolithic-style diet, Alan Dershowitz, Natalee Holloway, Slovenian presidential election, 2007, San Francisco Municipal Railway, and Marcela Agoncillo.
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- The top five categories with the largest backlogs are: Sports and recreation (57 articles), Theatre film and drama (34 articles), Music (19 articles), Transport (17 articles), Politics and government (16 articles), World history (13 articles), and Meteorology and atmospheric sciences (13 articles).
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- The backlog at Good Article Reassessment currently stands at 8 articles up for re-review.
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- If every participant of WikiProject Good Articles could review just one article in the next week, the backlog would be almost eliminated!
- GA Sweeps Update
During January, 57 Good Articles were reviewed. Including those articles that were under GAR or on hold, 35 were kept as GA, 20 delisted, 9 currently on hold or at GAR, and 3 were exempted as they are now Featured Articles.
- Reviewer of the Month
Ealdgyth is the GAN Reviewer of the Month for January, based on the assessments made by Epbr123 on the number and thoroughness of the reviews made by individual reviewers each week. Ealdgyth, known in real life as Victoria Short, hails from Central Illinois, and has been editing Wikipedia since May 26, 2007. In this short time, she has made significant contributions to 9 Good Articles, including Baldwin of Exeter and Hubert Walter. Her interests in editing are in the areas of the Middle Ages, History, and horses. Outside of Wikipedia, she is starting her own photography business, and owns three horses. She likes to read science fiction, history, and geneology books. Congratulations to our GAN Reviewer of the Month for January!
Other outstanding reviewers recognized during the month of January include:
- Member News
There are now 176 members of WikiProject Good Articles! Welcome to the 15 new members that joined during the month of January:
This WikiProject, and the Good Article program as a whole, would not be where it is today without each and every one of its members! Thank you to all!
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- On Hold versus Failing an Article
This month, I thought I'd focus on a less technical and more of a procedural issue at WP:GAN – determining what the appropriate course of action to take when reviewing an article. Currently, there are four options to decide what to do with an article:
- Passing – it meets all six of the good article criteria; add it to WP:GA and add {{ArticleHistory}} or {{GA}} to the article's talk page.
- Failing it – it does not meet the criteria; remove the article's listing from WP:GAN and add {{ArticleHistory}} or {{failedGA}} to the article's talk page.
- On Hold – The article meets most of the criteria, but might fall short in a few areas; keep it listed at WP:GAN, add #: {{GAOnHold|ArticleName}} ~~~~ below the listing and add {{GAonhold}} to the article's talk page.
- Second Opinion – Similar to the on hold option, except an editor is either inexperienced or not knowledgeable enough about a given topic and asks another reviewer to offer another opinion before passing or failing; add #: {{GA2ndopinion|ArticleName}} ~~~~ to WP:GAN below the article's listing and add {{GA2ndoptalk}} to the article's talk page.
So how to you know when an article fails outright, or fails initially, but meets "enough" of the criteria to be placed on hold? The answer to this question probably varies by about the same amount as there are reviewers of Good Articles! Everybody treats this slightly differently. The most important thing to consider is that articles should not be on hold for longer than about one week. Although there is no hard and fast time limit for this, most editors would probably agree that five to seven days is enough time to address any GA-related issues with the article to get it to pass. Some editors have extended this a few days in the past, due to other extenuating circumstances, such as an article's primary editor being very busy with school or work, so they have asked for extra time. But as a general rule, a GA nominee that is placed on hold should meet enough of the criteria to be able to be passed within five to seven days. Some examples of articles that might be placed on hold would be:
- the article is mostly complete, but might be missing one topic (subcategory).
- minor copyediting is required (needs a few minor manual of style, spelling, or grammatical fixes.
- mostly well sourced, but missing maybe a handful of references.
- a couple of images need to be tagged with appropriate copyright tags.
On the other hand, an article should be failed if it:
- is missing several topic categories, or there are several sections which are very short (1-3 sentences per section).
- contains numerous sections which are just lists of information, as opposed to written out as prose.
- there's entire sections of text that have no references, or there are a lot of {{cn}} or {{unreferenced}} tags.
- has evidence of an active edit war in the article history.
- has major neutrality issues.
- has any {{cleanup}} or other warning tags in various places.
- Did You Know...
- ... that on July 19, 2007, 1,548 good articles that have not been categorized at all were categorized in 15 days?
- ... that in Chinese Wikipedia, articles need to have at least six net support votes before they are promoted to GA?
- ... that the English Wikipedia has the most Good Articles, the German Wikipedia has the second most (at over 2000), followed by the Spanish Wikipedia (at over 800), the Chinese Wikipedia (at over 400), and the French Wikipedia (at over 200)?
- ... that Simple English Wikipedia has zero Good Articles?
- ... that "Sport and games people" category has the most Good Articles?
- ... that Virginia Tech massacre (which is now a featured article) was promoted to GA just only about one month after the shooting incident, but took more than seven months to reach FA status?
- From the Editors
Originally, I wasn't planning to do "Did you know" other than as a fill-in for Dr. Cash. However, I decided to continue writing this section until I ran out of ideas.
Please leave any comments or feedback regarding this issue here.
- Contributors to this Issue
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Improving Wikipedia one article at a time since 2005!
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WikiProject Good Articles: Open Tasks
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Ipod to Itunes
Hi there. In case you weren't going to check back at the Computing reference desk now that you've gotten an answer and the question is getting closer to archival, I'd just like to point out that there's a program called Senuti that does what you want, and is much easier to use than copying the files from the Ipod directly (it even gives the files names based on their ID3 tags, instead of that automatic Ipod naming format). Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 02:52, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Ben
I was sandboxing a version in my userspace. I was going to get some interviews and the such to add on. Will (talk) 19:00, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
- Those section breaks are just for a break in reading, as I don't particularly like nine paragraphs of verbiage at once. We can't do pre/post crash like with the survivors, and the discharge seems like a good place to do an equivalent break. Will (talk) 20:33, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Rollback?
Hey Yamanbaiia, seems to me that you oughta have rollback. I know you use a few scripts for your reverting needs, but rollback is better. :) Interested? faithless (speak) 10:51, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
- Yeah sure, but only if rollback doesn't take Twinkle or Popups away. Thanks for suggesting it.--Yamanbaiia(free hugs!) 12:34, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
- You should be good to go. :) faithless (speak) 12:44, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks again!--Yamanbaiia(free hugs!) 13:01, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
- You're very welcome. Use it wisely. ;) faithless (speak) 13:17, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
The March 2008 issue of the WikiProject Good Articles Newsletter is ready! Dr. Cash (talk) 06:15, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
| The Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles Newsletter |
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- Project News
- There are currently 3,647 Good Articles listed at WP:GA.
- The backlog at Good Article Nominations is 185 unreviewed articles. Out of 237 total nominations, 42 are on hold, and 10 are under review. Please go to WP:GAN and review an article or three as soon as you have a chance!
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- The oldest unreviewed articles are: Ian Browne (cyclist), Tony Marchant, Reginald fitz Jocelin, Annie Russell, Brodie Croyle, and Jimmy Moore.
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- The top five categories with the largest backlogs are: Sports and recreation (39 articles), Theatre, film, and drama (34 articles), Transport (23 articles), Music (21 articles), Politics and government (18 articles), Culture and society (13 articles), Places (13 articles), and World history (12 articles).
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- The backlog at Good Article Reassessment currently stands at 13 articles up for re-review.
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- If every participant of WikiProject Good Articles could review just one article in the next week, the backlog would be almost eliminated!
- GA Sweeps Update
Two members joined the sweeps team this month. They are Jwanders and jackyd101. Jwanders swept Physics sub-category quickly and is now sweeping "Astronomy and astrophysics". Meanwhile, jackyd101 is sweeping "Armies, military units and legal issues".
During February, 66 Good Articles were reviewed. Including those articles that were under GAR or on hold, 33 were kept as GA, 21 delisted, 17 currently on hold or at GAR, and 1 was exempted as they are now Featured Articles.
- Reviewer of the Month
Blnguyen is the GAN Reviewer of the Month for February, based on the assessments made by Epbr123 on the number and thoroughness of the reviews made by individual reviewers each week. Blnguyen is from South Australia and has been editing Wikipedia since 2005. He was also the reviewer for the month of December 2007, so this marks the second time that he has been GAN's Top Reviewer for the Month. Congratulations to our GAN Reviewer of the Month for February!
Other outstanding reviewers recognized during the month of January include:
- Member News
There are now 185 members of WikiProject Good Articles! Welcome to the 9 new members that joined during the month of February:
- Did You Know...
- ...that the shortest timespan for a GA to be listed and subsequently delisted is 8 minutes? (The article is Project Chanology and currently listed on WP:GAR)
- ...that the current nominations system started on March 10, 2006?
- ...that in May 2006, number of GA surpassed number of FA? This WikiProject, and the Good Article program as a whole, would not be where it is today without each and every one of its members! Thank you to all!
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- One GA Requirement - The Lead Section
In this issue, we will focus on one of the requirements for good articles: a good article article should follow Wikipedia's guideline on lead sections. So what does this guideline say, why does it say what it does, and how can good article reviewers help?
The lead section is particularly important, because for many readers, it is the only part of the article which they will read. For instance, they may have come to the article by following a wikilink in another article simply to obtain a quick overview before they continue reading the original article. They may only read the first paragraph, or even the first sentence. On the other hand, one of the joys of Wikipedia is the way that it embodies the endlessly branching tree of knowledge; if a lead is well written, it may encourage even such a reader to read on and learn something new.
This is reflected in the terminology: "lead" is a word taken from journalism, where it recognized that many readers will only read the beginning of a newspaper article, and so it is important to convey the key points first, before going into detail. Note that "lead", in this sense, is pronounced as in "leading question" and is sometimes spelled as "lede" by journalists to distinguish it from lead, the metal, which was once very important in typesetting. Wikipedia supports both spellings.
Wikipedia:Lead section is written with all this in mind, and describes two different roles for the lead: first, it should introduce the topic; second it should summarize the article. This is not always as easy as it seems; indeed, it is almost impossible to write a good lead if the article itself does not cover the topic well. It has a side benefit that an article which satisfies this guideline is probably also broad: if the lead is both a good introduction and a summary, then the article probably covers the main points.
The good article process is often the first place in which an article is judged against this criterion, yet many current good articles may not meet it. A common fault is that the lead is purely an introduction, while the rest of the article contains other information, which should be summarized in the lead, but isn't.
So, how can reviewers help to improve this? One approach is to read the rest of the article, and not the lead, first. Make a note of the significant points discussed in the article. There is usually at least one important issue in each section. Then, go back to the lead and ask the following questions:
- Does the first sentence of the lead define the topic, as described in the article?
- Is the most important information mentioned in the first paragraph?
- Is the lead a suitable length for the article? The lead guideline recommends 2–4 paragraphs depending on the article length, but judgment is more important than counting.
- Are each of the significant topics that you noted mentioned in the lead?
If the answer to each of these questions is "yes", then the article probably meets the guideline. If not, you may be able to fix it yourself by summarizing the article. If you can't, then it suggests that there are not only problems with the lead, but also the rest of the article. That is the beauty of Wikipedia:Lead section.
Finally, there isn't universal agreement on whether the lead should contain inline citations. As long as the material in the lead is developed and cited elsewhere in the article, then inline citation is not required. There are exceptions, the most significant being quotations and controversial material about living persons.
Good luck helping more articles meet this important criterion!
- From the Editors
Well, this is somewhat GA-related but at the same time not totally GA-related. However, I think this is important. Thanks to everyone who supported me at my 2nd RfA. It passed unanimously at 79 support, 0 oppose, 0 neutral. As many are impressed by my work in Good Articles processes, I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone giving me a very enjoyable time at GA. There are 2 people that I want to explicitly say thank you to. They are Nehrams2020 and Epbr123. They patiently taught me how to do GA reviews properly in summer 2007. I couldn't achieve better without them. Now that I have the mop and the bucket, some of my time will be working on reducing Commons image backlog. Nevertheless, you will still see me once in a while in matters related to GA.
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- Contributors to this Issue
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WikiProject Good Articles: Open Tasks
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