Reviewing featured articles
This page is for the review and improvement of featured articles that may no longer meet the featured article criteria. FAs are held to the current standards regardless of when they were promoted. There are three requisite stages in the process, to which all users are welcome to contribute. Raise issues at article Talk:
Featured article review (FAR)
Featured article removal candidate (FARC)
Each stage typically lasts two to three weeks, or longer where changes are ongoing and it seems useful to continue the process. Nominations are moved from the review period to the removal list, unless it is very clear that editors feel the article is within criteria. Given that extensions are always granted on request, as long as the article is receiving attention, editors should not be alarmed by an article moving from review to the removal candidates' list. To contact the FAR coordinators, please leave a message on the FAR talk page, or use the {{@FAR}} notification template elsewhere. Older reviews are stored in the archive. Table of Contents – This page: , Checklinks, Check redirects, Dablinks |
Today's featured article (TFA):
Featured article tools:
|
Nominating an article for FAR The number of FARs that can be placed on the page is limited as follows:
Nominators are strongly encouraged to assist in the process of improvement; they should not nominate articles that are featured on the main page (or have been featured there in the previous three days) and should avoid segmenting review pages. Three to six months is regarded as the minimum time between promotion and nomination here, unless there are extenuating circumstances such as a radical change in article content.
|
Featured article reviews
Actuary
- Notified: FAC nominator, Avraham, aware; WP Math, WP Business, WP Statistics, WP Finance
- URFA nom
This is a 2006 promotion from the Unreviewed Featured Articles list that had fallen below standard, but whose FAC nominator Avraham engaged on talk to address issues raised with a substantial rewrite. After significant improvements and updates, I am bringing it to FAR for more eyes; it is my expectation that the article will likely be Kept without FARC, but more feedback is welcome. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:57, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
- Didn't we improve on the quality of references since then? I find the current type of refs be rather distracting, and making the reading o the text awkward. {{relnote}} or something like that should be used instead. Nergaal (talk) 03:26, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
- See WP:WIAFA, inline citation is fine. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:33, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
- As a matter of opinion, you are more than welcome to prefer one style over the other. There are others who find this style more aesthetically pleasing and engaging than footnotes. De gustibus non est disputandum. However, as a matter of the criteria for FA, both methods are equally acceptable per Wikipedia standards. I would hope that the article's review would not suffer due to aesthetic opinions that are unrelated to our featured article criteria. Thank you. -- Avi (talk) 15:23, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
- Moreover, I believe the prose should be considered as separate and distinct from the citation method; the two are separate criteria. Conflating the two and then deciding based on a personal opinion that is not supported by WP:WIAFA is something I would hope would not occur. -- Avi (talk) 15:26, 18 May 2015 (UTC)
Comment - I feel like the quality of citations and possibly comprehensiveness should be scrutinized further. For example, I looked at the "Need for insurance" heading and the lone citation is to p. 3 of a presentation by Lewin. There isn't a whole lot of text on p. 3 of that PDF, and not everything in that heading is supported. This indicates the need for further spot-checks to ensure everything is sourced. The "Credentialing and exams" heading seems rather light on information, alluding to different systems of requirements in different countries but not providing much detail. Many other sections seem too brief. I'll do another read-through and make a tentative list of suggested expansions, but I'd like to here Avraham's thoughts on the comprehensiveness. --Laser brain (talk) 13:32, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
- I'll review Lewin, but credentialing and exams was split off into its own article, and per summary style should be light. -- Avi (talk) 08:17, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks. I visited the original FAC nomination and read your rationale for covering those topics more lightly. --Laser brain (talk) 13:35, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
Gas tungsten arc welding
- Notified: Spangineer, WP Metalworking, WP Engineering
- URFA nom
This is a 2005 promotion that has maintenance tags, as described on talk in March 2015. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:49, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
- I believe I've taken care of the issues. --Spangineerws (háblame) 12:20, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
- Hi Spangineer. This is looking much better. I have given it a quick copyedit and tweaked a couple of citations for formatting. A few minor issues:
- I added one citation needed tag.
- The first two paragraphs of the Shielding gas section are uncited at the moment.
- There seem to be some sources in the References that are not cited. If you think they're worth retaining, they would probably be better located in a Further reading section.
- Thanks for your work! Maralia (talk) 05:23, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
- Done. --Spangineerws (háblame) 00:04, 12 June 2015 (UTC)
- Hi Spangineer. This is looking much better. I have given it a quick copyedit and tweaked a couple of citations for formatting. A few minor issues:
Keep without FARC - concerns look to have been addressed. I spent a bit of time checking over the new citations and don't see anything problematic. --Laser brain (talk) 12:58, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
@Maralia: thoughts? Nikkimaria (talk) 13:04, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
Equipartition theorem
- Notified: WillowW, WikiProject Physics
I am nominating this featured article for review because there's a lot uncited text, Promoted more than 8 years ago, talk page noticed 17 days ago. FAC nominator inactive for almost a year, notified.Jarodalien (talk) 03:13, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
- Comment: The nomination is problematic for at least a couple of reasons:
- According to Wikipedia:Featured article review, the nominator should raise issues and attempt to resolve them on the talk page first. But the nom did not do this. There is only a section with the cryptic title "possible FAR". Who knows what a FAR is? "FAR" is FA geek jargon that ordinary editors aren't expected to be familiar with. There should have been an explanation of the {{refimprove}} tag being a possible prelude to a featured article review, a list of concrete issues to be solved, and a notice that there may be a time limit to this, after which a formal review may be invoked. None of this was stated, nor even a link provided.
- No policy-based reason was given for either the {{refimprove}} tag on the article or this nomination. The assertion "a lot uncited text" (sic) is not a valid issue. On the Wikipedia:Featured article criteria admin page, inline citation guidance is given by the essay Wikipedia:When to cite. In that essay, there are no thresholds for citation count or percentage of cited text. Instead there are particular classes of assertions that should always be cited (e.g., BLP stuff, quoted text, etc.) and other assertions that may be cited, if the assertions are non-frivolously challenged as being controversial or wrong. There are also classes of assertions, such as common knowledge in the field, that should not be cited.
- Hence, I think it would be best to close this nomination, go back to the article and engage the editors on the talk page with concrete, policy-based issues to help improve the article. --Mark viking (talk) 22:43, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
- Yes, the nominator did follow instructions. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:35, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
As always, I warmly welcome constructive feedback on my articles. I left a message on the Talk page offering my assistance in bringing Equipartition theorem up to current standards in FAs and asking for concrete points that need to be referenced. I may need some help from the Physics Wikiproject, my present whereabouts being in Germany and my personal physics library not being with me. Nevertheless, I'm optimistic that we can bring the article up to respectability. P.S. Hi, Sandy! So lovely to see you here. :) Willow (talk) 13:04, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
- Hi, WillowW ... the FAR process has the built-in ability to be flexible on timing, so please keep the page posted on your progress. Will you be able to access your library any time in the next month? Best, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:07, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
Alas, no, because I moved permanently to Germany and 100 boxes of sundry textbooks were too much to send by post. I sent my favorites, but my Stat Mech books didn't make the first cut. So they're resting serenely in a storage unit. Still, I have a pretty good memory of where to find what and I daresay I can find many English sources online. Worst case scenario, I'll just *have* to buy the latest editions, like Br'er Rabbit thrown into the briar patch. ;) I intend to resolve this to Jarodalien's satisfaction, however, within the month. Willow (talk) 18:26, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell
- Notified: PumpkinSky, Wimvandorst, WikiProject Military history, WikiProject Peerage and Baronetage, WikiProject Scouting
I am nominating this featured article for review because it has been tagged for citation and fringe theories for over 18 months. Section called "Significant family members" is essentially unsourced; prose problems include even sub-headings such as "Related readings" and sentence fragments such as "2l's instructions.". DrKiernan (talk) 18:09, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
- The sentence fragment was the result of a partial reversion of some vandalism; I fixed it. I agree about the uncited sections, though, and the writing in the first part, about his family, is a bit confusing.--Coemgenus (talk) 19:04, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
So, we've been promoting someone's hobby site all these years as a reliable source? When I see a case like this, I so wish we had a speedy delist option. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:51, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
- Is it worth comparing the diff of the FA- passed version in 2007 and the current version? Perhaps that comparison can remove the cruft and keep what's still in good shape? Montanabw(talk) 23:51, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
-
- The promoted version was also based on hobby sites:[1] not only is this article far from FA standard; it doesn't even meet WP:V (and never did). Ealdgyth did not start doing routine sourcing checks at FAC until March 2008. (Sourcing requirements were tightened in March 2009, and copyvio checks started in Nov 2010.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:45, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
-
- Meh. Well, I guess if people who take care of the article now want to improve it, I guess it's best that I don't find myself caring more about the article than they do. There was some kind of automatic post at the article's talk page, yes? Montanabw(talk) 03:23, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
- Sigh. Sad to see that years old grudges die so hard. Sandy, "scouting" is not a "hobby". It's a very honorable tradition which instills values to young men and women. But hey, you made your point. I suppose that's all that counts. WP:RS has become much more stringent over the years. Sure - "speedy" do whatever - good on you. — Ched : ? 03:44, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
-
-
-
- Montanabw, see the instructions at FAR (I responded to more of your concerns on talk, unfortunately under a sub-heading that applies to Ched). Please see personalization of issues on talk. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:18, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
-
-
Bringing this article to FA standard is going to require some serious time in a library. There is a long list of books that aren't used (in Further reading); the books that were used are often missing page numbers; all of the inferior sources and hobby sites have to be replaced; and there will now be the problem of making sure info that might come from Wikipedia mirrors (since this bio has been in this state for about 10 years) is not cited. Again, this would be a case for a speedy delete if we had such a thing, because the article was never based on adequate scholarship or reliable sources; fixing it at this point would require an effort larger than anything typical for FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:08, 13 May 2015 (UTC)
Although I would be very pleased to see the B-P article listed as FA, and surely the subject does warrant such status, I quite agree with SandyGeorgia about the current state of the article, and the sheer amount of work it will require to have it up to spec. So, no support for FA promotion now, but a (small) promise to work on it and improve it to a better state than it has become over all those years. Wim van Dorst (talk) 10:30, 14 May 2015 (UTC).
- Hi, Wimvandorst-- how nice to "see" you again! In reviewing the significant amount of problem we have on Wikipedia with pinetreeweb.com
- This list doesn't include all of them, since it misses those that link to archive.org
- I see we also have a problem at Baden-Powell House (which I explicitly supported at FAC, saying "The article appears to be well referenced... Sandy 02:24, 16 July 2006", so we had a problem back then, which I was part of :) The issues at Baden-Powell House don't look nearly as extensive or hard to clean up, so it would be grand if you could be enticed to work on that one ! It would be hard to fix this article, but that one seems doable. Best regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:48, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
- In processing through some of the list above of pinetreeweb.com I have found:
- Most scouting articles that use it also use multiple non-reliable sources (listservs and other personal websites)
- There are some (possibly) reliable uses of pinetreeweb.com (this one for example seems OK, and the site alleges permission to host the page)
- And some pinetreeweb.com pages are taken from Wikipedia, which Wikipedia then cites (the mirror problem, using Wikipedia to cite Wikipedia). [2]
- SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:08, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
- In processing through some of the list above of pinetreeweb.com I have found:
- Move to FARC. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:20, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
-
- I'd work on this if it weren't for all the looney birds and grudge holders. It's not worth the stress. PumpkinSky talk 21:21, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
- Move to FARC. --Laser brain (talk) 11:55, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
Georg Forster
- Notified: Kusma, WP Libraries, WP Germany, WP Plants, WP Journalism, WP Birds
- URFA nom.
This is a 2006 promotion that has not been maintained to standard; it has uncited text and some MOS issues, as mentioned on talk in April 2015. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:47, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
- Maybe in the future you could ping the appropriate projects, rather than just putting a comment on the talk page and hoping someone might notice? We didn't know there was a problem until you pinged us today with news of the review. :P Will see what I can do. MeegsC (talk) 15:10, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
- I'm thrilled to see people descending on the article for improvements, even though the talk page notice was ignored for more than two weeks, indicating that we had another older unwatched FA. Meegs, your suggestion is impractical for many reasons, which we could take up at WT:FAR (so as not to muck up this page) if you are interested. Please keep in mind that one of the main objectives of FAR is to improve articles, and being here is not a "punishment". Also, I hope you've noted from the FAR instructions that we can KEEP without FARC, which is an outcome that delights most of us here ;) Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:12, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
- I am a bit busy IRL these days, and do not have much wikitime to dedicate to this right now, especially not without a bit more detail on what is wrong. As I haven't kept track of everything that happened at MOS: could you point me to the major issues that you see? Also, not every sentence is followed by an inline citation, but if you could tell me where you would expect additional citations I am happy to go hunting through my Forster biographies. Sadly, my current university library doesn't seem to have a copy of Saine's biography, but I'll see what I can do. —Kusma (t·c) 13:03, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
- Yes-- happy to see people willing to work here! I will start a list, not yet comprehensive, and add to it as issues are addressed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:55, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
- Thank you for your list. I'll try to improve the messiness. Fortunately, there actually are page numbers in most citations to Saine's biography, but they are visible only in the wikitext, not in the displayed result. I do not recall why this is the case and whether they used to be displayed when the article passed FA. On the whole, the article has been quite stable since it became a FA, but I certainly agree it no longer looks like the best we can do. —Kusma (t·c) 14:31, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
- Yes-- happy to see people willing to work here! I will start a list, not yet comprehensive, and add to it as issues are addressed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:55, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
- spaced WP:EMDASHes ... the article should use either unspaced WP:EMDASHes or spaced WP:ENDASHes.
- What is the order of the Works section? Alpha, chrono?
- Book sources need page nos.
- Citations do not have a consistent style (as but one example, look at the many different ways author names are rendered)
- Citations are incomplete or incorrently written. All sources need a publisher, all websources need an accessdate, and author and date should be supplied whenever available, also ...
- [2], English translation at australiaonthemap.org.au (archived link, 19 July 2008) needs to be cleaned up to a correct citation.
- Check image captions (for example, The Pinnacle of liberty, A satire by James Gillray)
- Italics should not be used here, and I'm wondering if this can be reversed (that is, put the English version, with a footnote to the original ???) ("The freedom of the press finally reigns within these walls where the printing press was invented.) See WP:NONENG. That is one sentence: I don't think it needs a pull quote, but Maralia may know better.
- There's sort of a mess everywhere in terms of WP:ITALICS in relation to words as words, translations, quotes, etc:
- called "Freunde der Freiheit und Gleichheit" ("Friends of Freedom and Equality")
- Avoid WP:OVERLINK on common terms known to most English speakers and not needed for understanding of this article (samples, Latin, England, philosophy, there is more) and link on first occurrence.
This is not a complete list, but is enough to get started. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:12, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
Comment
- Fixed all dead links, captions and a few overlinks.
- Improved dash-usage (opted for spaced en-dash), but this will need another look (especially in refs).
- WP:ITALICS, "page numbers and other ref details", and "sorting of works" in a meaningful way is above my paygrade.
- I could try to transform references into cite-templates - if nobody is objecting against that citation style. Only a minority of references use cite-templates currently. GermanJoe (talk) 06:51, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
- Move to FARC to keep on progress. Is anyone willing/able to finish this up? There are still inconsistent citations, minor amounts of united text, italics issues (e.g. quotes), and Overlinking, at least. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:25, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
- I am still giving this 100% of my wikitime, but that hasn't been much at all (travelling, work, sick kids). I hope I'll get through the citations next week. —Kusma (t·c) 06:35, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks, Kusma; I will be traveling for a few weeks if you don't hear back from me. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:39, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
- I am still giving this 100% of my wikitime, but that hasn't been much at all (travelling, work, sick kids). I hope I'll get through the citations next week. —Kusma (t·c) 06:35, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
Featured article removal candidates
- Place the most recent review at the top. If the nomination is just beginning, place under Featured Article Review, not here.
Tenebrae (film)
- Notified: Zzzzz, Hal Raglan, WP Horror, WP Film
- URFA nom
Review section
This is a 2006 promotion that has fallen below standard. Although Dr. Blofeld and others have put significant work into attempting to restore it to standard, there are still unaddressed concerns raised on talk. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:52, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
Move to FARC - unresolved concerns. --Laser brain (talk) 12:51, 13 June 2015 (UTC)
FARC section
- Issues raised in the review mostly concern referencing. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:05, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
Cochineal
- Notified: WP Textile Arts, WP Mexico, WP Food and Drink, WP Insects
URFA nom
Review section
This is a 2006 promotion that has not been maintained to standards; see talk page notice from 16 April. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:20, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
- 3 citation needed tags (now down to
21), each of the facts they source seem obviously true. I have a hard time seeing what would be gained by this review.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 22:35, 6 May 2015 (UTC)- Thanks for doing that, but there are plenty of issues beyond the few citation needed tags. There is a good deal of dated info, WP:OVERLINKing, bare URLs, incomplete citations, and I find it hard to believe the article is comprehensive since it only cites Greenfield (2005-- published as this FA was largely being written) twice (I have the book on order).
And then there's the matter of the very first source cited in the article: [3]
And there is a lot of new research since this article was written, as well as controversy on cochineal in food: have a look at google scholar (search on cochineal food) and see articles in Washington Post, Smithsonian magazine and many more on controversies over its use in food.
Next, at PubMed, at minimum: PMID 25691985 PMID 25398168 PMID 25213214 and many more (we say 32 cases documented "to date" --REALTIME issue-- based on a 2009 source, when we have more recent sources).
The article seems to be not only outdated and based on low quality sources, but lacking in comprehensiveness as well. If we had such a thing as a speedy FA delist, this would be a good example of where we might apply it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:52, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
- I am not sure. If an FA is supposed to be kept meticulously up to date with new research every couple of years, then there is little point for anyone to dedicate the time to write them - since that is then simply signing up for a never-ending job. I think it would make more sense to have maintenance process instead of a de-listing process. The low quality source you linked to by the way want used for anything - someone just inserted it into the lead probably as a form of advertisement.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 22:02, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks for doing that, but there are plenty of issues beyond the few citation needed tags. There is a good deal of dated info, WP:OVERLINKing, bare URLs, incomplete citations, and I find it hard to believe the article is comprehensive since it only cites Greenfield (2005-- published as this FA was largely being written) twice (I have the book on order).
- Move to FARC, issues with comprehensiveness, datedness, and uncited text. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:57, 12 May 2015 (UTC)
FARC section
- Issues raised in the review section include datedness, referencing, and comprehensiveness. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:29, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
- Delist. Tagged for citation needed and dated info. Seems short for a featured article; unresolved comprehensiveness concerns. DrKiernan (talk) 09:27, 7 June 2015 (UTC)
- Delist. Doesn't seem like a complete re-do is needed, but no one has taken up the cause. --Laser brain (talk) 11:45, 10 June 2015 (UTC)
- Pinging Cwmhiraeth and Chiswick Chap, as they have worked a lot on insects lately, just in case they find it interesting to save. FunkMonk (talk) 18:29, 16 June 2015 (UTC)
Peterborough
- Notified: Chrisieboy, David Underdown, Nortonius, WikiProject UK geography, WikiProject East Anglia, WikiProject England
Review section
I am nominating this featured article for review because it has not been regularly updated in the past few years, which means it no longer meets the FA criteria that it did back in 2007, when it was promoted. As noted on the article talk page, demographic statistics in the article were vandalised and not reverted until I spotted this more than a year later, which indicated to me that editors haven't been keeping a close enough watch on the article to ensure the FA standard is maintained (and there may well be other vandalism that has crept in). There are now quite a lot of unsourced or dated claims in the article, and as a result it no longer qualifies as comprehensive or well-researched. Cordless Larry (talk) 09:55, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
- Please see the instructions at FAR ... eight days between talk page notice and FAR listing is cutting it close. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:05, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
- Sorry, SandyGeorgia, I didn't see that there was a guideline of two to three weeks for each stage. I'm happy for this to be put on hold, although I also note that not a single editor has posted a response in those eight days (which has reinforced my sense that no one has been actively editing or monitoring the article of late). Cordless Larry (talk) 15:15, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
- Whether to put it on hold is a decision the @WP:FAR coordinators: will make, regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:25, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
- Sorry, SandyGeorgia, I didn't see that there was a guideline of two to three weeks for each stage. I'm happy for this to be put on hold, although I also note that not a single editor has posted a response in those eight days (which has reinforced my sense that no one has been actively editing or monitoring the article of late). Cordless Larry (talk) 15:15, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
Look, this first part of FAR is preliminary to the FARC proper below, so I don't think we need to stick strictly to pre-preliminary discussion on the talk page. I will ping some other near-locals (Hey @Dweller: and @The Rambling Man:!) as this is their neck of the woods (geographically). A brief perusal show uncited sentences and some prose that could be tightened, so let's leave it here and get more eyes now. cheers, Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:56, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
- Directed here from WT:UKGEO, I was ready to make some points about the article, but the above comments aren't encouraging. Should editors post here, at the article talk page, or in "FARC proper below" (which doesn't seem to exist yet)? PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 06:48, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
- Sorry for the confusion, PaleCloudedWhite, and thanks for coming here to participate. The three steps (talk page, featured article review (FAR) and featured article removal candidate (FARC)) are explained at WP:FAR. At this stage, we're supposed to identify problems with the article and discuss how to improve it. In a few weeks, we'll move on to the FARC stage where people will vote to either keep or remove the FA status. So you don't need to wait until the FARC stage to comment - the only issue as far as I know is that I started the FAR a bit early. Cordless Larry (talk) 07:42, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
- PaleCloudedWhite just put comments here, where we can see, judge and improve.... Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 08:45, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
- OK. Well, the most immediate impression is that the article structure doesn't follow the guideline at WP:UKTOWNS. I don't know if that has any bearing on FA status, though even if it doesn't, it still seems odd that the geography section is at the bottom of the page, and makes no mention of geology but does cover linguistics. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 16:33, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
- Chrisieboy has now started to address some of the problems with the article and I will try to help out. Given this, and that I was a bit trigger-happy with moving this to FAR, I hope we can agree to give it a fair bit of time for improvements to be made before moving to the FARC stage. Cordless Larry (talk) 17:10, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
@Chrisieboy: @Cordless Larry:, at ten days now, how is progress? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:14, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
- Some incremental progress is being made, SandyGeorgia, although it's almost all thanks to Chrisieboy so far and help from more editors would no doubt be welcome and also speed up the improvements. Cordless Larry (talk) 06:33, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
I left just a few sample edits, but the amount of work needed here is quite substantial.
- There is dated text throughout, complicated by a lack of "as of" dates. Pls see WP:REALTIME.
- Serious WP:OVERLINKing everywhere. We don't need to link common terms that everyone knows and that readers won't click on from this article.
- WP:ITALICS, quotes are not italicized.
- MOS:LQ, logical quotation.
- Citations-- missing information. Every citation needs a publisher, and an author and date when those are available. Websites need access dates.
- Bibliography, are all of those used in the article?
- Image captions which are full sentences should have final punctuation; sentence fragments should not.
- There are WP:REALTIME issues everywhere ... sample:
- In 1994 Peterborough was designated one of four environment cities in the UK and it is now working to become the UK's acknowledged environment capital.
-
- Now means ... when ?
-
- In 1994 Peterborough was designated one of four environment cities in the UK and it is now working to become the UK's acknowledged environment capital.
There is a quite substantial amount of work needed here just to update the text and clean up the citations. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:36, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
- Move to FARC to keep on track. There has been no substantial work this week, and there is an extreme amount of work still needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:25, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
FARC section
- Concerns raised in the review section include referencing, MOS, and datedness. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:35, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
- Keep. I have tried to address the concerns raised above. Chrisieboy (talk) 14:25, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
-
- Chrisieboy, thank you for the effort, but there is work to be done, and it is early in the game to be declaring a keep. The article will be at FARC for at least two weeks, and there is still time for the many issues to be addressed.
Starting with the things that are relatively easy:
The article does not have complete or consistent citations. All sources need a publisher, websources need an accessdate, and author and date should be provided if available. And then all of that information should be rendered in a consistent format. ALso, see WP:REALTIME ("Today, bus services in the city are operated ..."). "Peterborough is a major stop" ... the world major is frequently overused on Wikipedia ... what does it mean? More WP:REALTIME, "To help cope with this influx the council has put forward plans to construct an average of 1,300 homes each year until 2021" ... The council put forward in year x plans ... so it won't be dated when we read it 10 years from now. And there are still maintenance tags on the article. Also, when sentences start with a number, they should be recast to avoid doing that. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:41, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
- Chrisieboy, thank you for the effort, but there is work to be done, and it is early in the game to be declaring a keep. The article will be at FARC for at least two weeks, and there is still time for the many issues to be addressed.
-
- No improvements since my last comment-- article still has maintenance tags. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:40, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
- Delist, there is still considerable uncited text and data. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:34, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
- Delist. Unsourced statements include (but are not limited to) "Peterborough was an important area of ceramic production" and "Carnegie was made first freeman of the city". Tagged for citation and dead links. DrKiernan (talk) 12:24, 29 May 2015 (UTC)
-
- These examples have now been fixed. Chrisieboy (talk) 11:41, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
- Thank you, Chrisieboy. Will you be able to address the concerns SandyGeorgia raised in this section? For example, I still see 6 deadlinks, many missing accessdates, and inconsistent style in citations. From looking back at the article's FAC nomination, I see that your chosen citation style was a matter of some debate. I'm not challenging the style itself, but the lack of consistency within the article's cites makes them difficult to understand. Especially problematic for me are the titles (many titles have neither italics nor quotation marks) and punctuation (for example, some cites have commas after titles, while others use a period instead; some lack punctuation altogether). Maralia (talk) 16:47, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
- These examples have now been fixed. Chrisieboy (talk) 11:41, 8 June 2015 (UTC)
Flag of Australia
- Notified: WP Heraldry and vexillology, WP Australian noticeboard, original nominator and most active editors long gone
- URFA nom
Review section
This is a 2006 promotion that has not been maintained to standards; see talk page notice from Feb 2015. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:45, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
- Move to FARC, some edits, but little improvements in issues of uncited text and MOS breaches. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:23, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
FARC section
- Concerns raised in the review section centre on MOS, prose, and referencing. Nikkimaria (talk) 22:59, 30 April 2015 (UTC)
I've done some work, but am surprised that no one from the Australia project can be enticed to clean up the article. There are problems with hyphens, citations needed, the citations need to be cleaned up for consistency, lists need consistent format and punctuation, image layout needs to be improved so flags don't scroll off the screen, external jumps in text corrected, etc. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:29, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
- Delist. Unsourced statements include "despite the counter argument that this isn't uncommon", "have been used only", and "Although common RGB approximations of Pantone colours may make the flag appear more natural on screen, the officially specified RGB colours should be used." Listy prose; single sentence paragraphs; off-topic digressions, such as Toowoomba, Queensland. DrKiernan (talk) 20:08, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
- Relunctant delist, this should not be hard to fix up, but no one seems to care. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:42, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
- It clearly needs some work. How much time do we have? Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:01, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
- Hawkeye7 If someone will work on it, the coords always wait. (I will be traveling in case you fix it up and I'm not here to strike my !vote.) Just be sure to keep this page posted, so the Coords now you're on it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:42, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
- Hawkeye7 are you planning on working on this? Nikkimaria (talk) 03:32, 23 May 2015 (UTC)
- Hawkeye7 If someone will work on it, the coords always wait. (I will be traveling in case you fix it up and I'm not here to strike my !vote.) Just be sure to keep this page posted, so the Coords now you're on it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:42, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
- It clearly needs some work. How much time do we have? Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:01, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
Delist- The prose is very choppy and lacking in flow thanks to numerous 1- and 2- sentence paragraphs; there are grammar problems, MOS issues, and out of date statements (2004) and conversions (2009). Most concerning is that the citations need major work. Even the most heavily used sources are insufficiently identified. Australian Flags is cited 30 times but never given an author, publisher, or year. Likewise there are 15 cites to 'Kwan' before a Kwan work is ever identified—and then a few cites later a Kwan work of a different year is (inadequately) cited, so the nearly 30 cites to Kwan are all unclear: is it two different works entirely, or a book and a revised edition? And how are we to determine which work is cited from cites that simply say "Kwan p.xxx"? This needs a ton of work to meet the FAC criteria. Maralia (talk) 20:41, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
O-Bahn Busway
- Notified: Michael (original nominator, retired), Jj98, WP Buses, Australia noticeboard
- URFA nom
- Talk page notice Jan 2015
Review section
This is a 2006 promotion that has been tagged for a year as outdated. There are other issues, which I will list if someone engages to improve the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:16, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
- Move to FARC, insufficient progress. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:55, 20 March 2015 (UTC)
FARC section
- The review section concerned the article's datedness. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:52, 27 March 2015 (UTC)
Delist. Needs updating and copy-editing. Unaddressed concerns with sourcing and comprehensiveness on the talk page: Talk:O-Bahn Busway#FA Concerns. DrKiernan (talk) 09:15, 3 April 2015 (UTC)Delist- This needs a fair amount of work. In addition to other text previously tagged as outdated, the fares are out of date. The claim "The O-bahn design is unique among public transport systems..." seems to have been invalidated by the 2011 debut of the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway. Some attention is needed to representations of money: Australian dollar is not linked until the sixth section of the article; some figures are given as A$ while others are simply $; and no conversions are given at all. The See also and External links sections need pruning. The citations need work: there's a bare url, a dead link, missing accessdates, and an undefined source (UBD Adelaide?). Maralia (talk) 22:16, 3 April 2015 (UTC)Delist. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:38, 8 April 2015 (UTC)- Hold, improving. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:48, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
- I am going to be traveling and may not have internet access (don't know yet); once Maralia is satisfied, I'm satisfied. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:58, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
- Hold, improving. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:48, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
- Comment A couple of us have put some work in to returning it to standard, but none of us are FA experts, so are really only responding to specific concerns, not the general principles. Any additional advice and assistance would be welcome, although it may be too late now. --Scott Davis Talk 09:29, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
- I will be out all day, but will look in this weekend. Thanks for the effort! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 10:46, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
- Review
- Too much happening in this image caption, it took me a long time to figure out what it was trying to say: "Pressed Metal Corporation South Australia bodied Mercedes-Benz O305 on the O-Bahn guide-way".
- Is this hyphen an Austrlian or English thing? "city's rapidly expanding north-eastern suburbs".
- Per WP:V, how would one go about verifying sources like these ?
- Items of Interest for Planning of Luton Dunstable Translink, Appendix A: Report on Adelaide O-Bahn by Tom Wilson
- Busway Information, Paper Three: Operational Strategy, South Australian Department of Transport (1983)
- Are these published documents or some sort of in-house thing?
- Where is this information from the lead cited in the article?
- The Adelaide O-bahn was the first bus rapid transit system in Australia and among the first to operate in the world.
- Is there any problem with the simpler language of:
- The population of Adelaide more than doubled from 313,000 in 1933 to 728,000 in 1966.
- instead of:
- Adelaide has had significant population growth since the industrial expansion following World War II, with the population having more than doubled from 313,000 in 1933 to 728,000 in 1966.
- In addition to the growing population, there was an explosion in the number of new motor vehicle registrations, a 43-fold increase in the period from 1944–65. This was fuelled by nation-wide full employment, annual economic growth close to 10%, and the discontinuation of government fuel rationing after World War II.
- More unnecessary verbiage which sounds like a political promotion.
- There have been a number of proposals to extend ...
- is sourced to 1983, suggesting the article still needs updating (what happened with that)?
- On a quick skim, I didn't find current usage/ridership/whatever data.
- Sentences should not start with numbers.
- Convoluted bodied bodied bodies ... I don't know what it's saying:
- Pressed Metal Corporation South Australia bodied 41 rigid and 51 articulated bodied buses, their cost included in the original $98 million budget.
- These along with a single Mercedes-Benz O405NH make up today's fleet.
- No as of date, no idea what "today" refers to, and an incomplete citation, with no date as a clue.
- Biodiesel fuel was trialled between July 2005 and May 2006.
- And ???
In summary, there are prose issues, but more significantly, I am still concerned about needed updates, and quite a few of the citations are incomplete. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:29, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
- @ScottDavis: are you still following? More than a week has passed ... I am still at Delist. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:11, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
- That ping will not work as you did not sign again when you changed the name. Rcsprinter123 (parlez) @ 16:12, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
- thanks, sorry, I thought I had! @ScottDavis: SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:14, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
- Sorry @SandyGeorgia: - I had seen your more detailed notes but not had time to look at them and the article properly since you posted them. Thank you, I'll try to address some in the next few days. I hope that @BarossaV: might drop back in to help too, but he/she might be away as they haven't edited for over a week. --Scott Davis Talk 11:25, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
- thanks, sorry, I thought I had! @ScottDavis: SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:14, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
- That ping will not work as you did not sign again when you changed the name. Rcsprinter123 (parlez) @ 16:12, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
- Review response
Thank you for the detailed review. I have attempted to address most of your points, and perhaps a few others I saw for myself.
- I think I have trimmed and simplified the captions
- Yes. north-east is spelled with a hyphen in Australian English (ref: Macquarie Dictionary online)
- I have not found those documents online, not sure if that shows I didn't look hard enough, or if they are only available in hard copy somewhere due to their age. a comment on the Railpage forum confirms that one of them exists and can be found from that reference.
- I deleted the sentence about first BRT - I think it is probably true, but I have never heard it called that, so unlikely to find a reference that it was first, other than a complete list with start dates, if such exists.
- Thank you for the suggested simpler language. I think I went further in a few other places too.
- No extensions have eventuated, so references are simply to a selection of proposals. Something might come of the current proposal to add a tunnel or lanes closer to the city, but the consultation is not complete yet, so it probably won't look exactly like the concept drawings. If anything, I'd like to shorten that section to avoid undue weight, but I think it needs to remain in some form.
Thank you for the help on this article. I don't know if I've done enough to save its FA status, but I'm certain it has improved through the review process from where it was when it was nominated for review. --Scott Davis Talk 12:51, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
-
- Thanks for continuing, ScottDavis, and for the improvements; I can give it another pass to see where we stand, if you indicate that you are committed to restoring it to standard. If not, I'm unsure if I should invest the time, so please let me know of your availability to continue work. Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:09, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
-
- Yes @SandyGeorgia:, I am prepared to continue working on it. Thank you for helping. I don't have easy access to resources that are not online though, so I can't verify or expand the citations for things that are cited to documents without URLs from the 1980s. --Scott Davis Talk 05:58, 25 April 2015 (UTC)
- Update
- The WP:LEAD is short and doesn't adequately summarize the article, but the work of finishing the lead is usually best left to last, after content in the body is nailed down.
- In the "See also" section, I suspect that Bus rapid transit could be linked somewhere in the article and removed from See also, but I'm unsure where to link it.
- Citation consistency, some have author first, some have author at end, some have author last name first, some have author first name first ... pick on :)
- (author is last here). Items of Interest for Planning of Luton Dunstable Translink, Appendix A: Report on Adelaide O-Bahn by Tom Wilson ... and this is missing publisher ... where does one locate this document?
- First name last name. Susan Marsden. "Hindmarsh – a short history". Professional Historians Association (SA). p. 23. Retrieved 10 April 2015.
- Last name, first name. Donovan, Peter (1991). Highways: A History of the South Australian Highways Department. Griffin Press Limited. ISBN 0-7308-1930-2. (Books need page numbers)
- tom name ? Pengelley, Jill; Zed, tom (16 October 2009). "South Road Superway to connect Regency Rd, Port River Expressway". The Advertiser. Retrieved 16 July 2010.
- More citation consistency, some of the citations are rendered by manual (rather than template), and there is no consistent punctuation ... for example,
- Hunt for O-Bahn fleet Adelaide Advertiser 29 September 2007
- has no punctuation whatsoever, while other citations have periods after title and publisher. All of the citations should use the same format ... preferably with punctuation :)
- Hunt for O-Bahn fleet Adelaide Advertiser 29 September 2007
- Missing accessdates ... these things change ... Route 500 timetable Adelaide Metro ... and again, no punctuation ... you all might discuss whether you would rather use citation templates for consistency.
- It is not clear that all of the External links are necessary ...
- Prose (this is not a comprehensive list ... skipping around for samples)
- "developed with American assistance" ... US ? Venezuelan? Argentine? All are America ... unclear what is meant here, government, private enterprise ? Vague.
- The same as problem as before ... excess wordiness ... why not instead of:
- A transport blueprint, developed with American assistance, was presented to the government in 1968: the Metropolitan Adelaide Transport Study (MATS).
- A transport blueprint, the Metropolitan Adelaide Transport Study (MATS), was developed with assistance from (??) in 1968.
- Isn't "abandonment" kind of a one-time thing? How do successive governments abandon something? The plan was abandoned by successive governments, ...
- alluvial soil could probably be wikilinked ...
- comma ? On some sections 115 km/h (71 mph) was achieved in tests.
This article is definitely improving, and you're on the right track, but I suggest that @Tony1: might help on the prose matters. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:47, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
@Maralia:, @DrKiernan:, fresh eyes needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:21, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
- Yes, getting better. I removed three external links (one was about transport in Adelaide generally; another was a personal website that had only 3 images; and the last literally did not mention the O-Bahn). I also took care of the rest of the citation formatting. Agree that some prose work is still needed, but this is getting close. I've struck my delist comment above. Thanks for your work, ScottDavis; just a little more tightening for clarity, along the lines of SG's "Prose" list immediately above. Maralia (talk) 04:26, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
@ScottDavis: Thanks for taking care of the specific issues mentioned above. This is getting close to ready, but the prose isn't quite there yet. I undertook a major rewrite of the Planning section in an attempt to demonstrate a more logical flow. I still think this article would benefit from a full copyedit. Maralia (talk) 05:49, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
- Thank you @Maralia: I have read through and tweaked a few phrases, but I suspect I've reached the limit of my ability. The "Expansion proposals" section feels very long and somewhat incidental. It also seems to assume a fair bit of knowledge of Adelaide landmarks and geography. To someone reading from further away, does the article lose anything significant by deleting the heading and first three paragraphs of that section? --Scott Davis Talk 13:52, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
This seems to have stalled, but while the issues with the original article at the time of its writing seem to generally have been fixed, I think it's out of date. There is no mention of the extension in the lede, and gets all of two sentences in the article, which seems drastically short since it's both politically controversial and probably the signature public transport policy of this term of the Weatherill government. The Drover's Wife (talk) 11:32, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
- My reason for not putting any more about the current proposal to extend is that it is currently still only a proposal. I agree there could be an update that there are now four versions of the proposal in 2015, but it doesn't belong in the lead until it is actually happening; there have been many other proposals that have not eventuated. The political controversy probably belongs just as much in Rymill Park or Weatherill government. I need help from someone else to polish the text further, as FA-standard text is not what I usually practice. --Scott Davis Talk 13:28, 11 June 2015 (UTC)
- I can understand it not going in the lede on that basis, but there still needs to be more details in the relevant section of the article since it is a significant political issue. The Drover's Wife (talk) 12:07, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
Marian Rejewski
- Notified: WP BIO, WP Cryptography, WP Poland, Nihil novi
- WP:URFA nom
A 2006 promotion lacking in citations and needing review; FAC nominator gone since 2011. Talk page notifed Dec 20; no progress. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 10:32, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
Review section
Comment: It would be a shame to lose this, because at a casual glance it doesn't look like it's missing a lot of citations. @Nihil novi: I noted that you have been editing the article and that you asked about citations on the article talk page. Generally, for an article to be FA-quality, all text needs to be cited. There are some uncited statements and paragraphs in this article. How much work do you think it would be, and do you have the requisite knowledge to add citations as needed? --Laser brain (talk) 15:27, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
-
- Thank you. I think that most if not all the unsourced text has been added since the article achieved FA status. Much of it appears to be drawn from Polish-language publications of recent years and to be of negligible importance, e.g., that Rejewski's father was a tobacco merchant. One solution would be to just delete such unsourced trivia. Perhaps someone else would like to try his hand? Nihil novi (talk) 08:49, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
- @Nihil novi: I'm willing to give it a try. If there are any disagreements about removing the information, I'll start a discussion. --Laser brain (talk) 12:57, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
- Sounds good to me. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 09:25, 25 January 2015 (UTC)
- @Nihil novi: I'm willing to give it a try. If there are any disagreements about removing the information, I'll start a discussion. --Laser brain (talk) 12:57, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
- Thank you. I think that most if not all the unsourced text has been added since the article achieved FA status. Much of it appears to be drawn from Polish-language publications of recent years and to be of negligible importance, e.g., that Rejewski's father was a tobacco merchant. One solution would be to just delete such unsourced trivia. Perhaps someone else would like to try his hand? Nihil novi (talk) 08:49, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
Move to FARC, only to keep process on track, and because although some work has been done, there is still quite a bit of uncited text. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:17, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
Move to FARC. Apart from the uncited text, I would also argue that the prose is formatted too much like a list. Many of the paragraphs are very short -- one or two sentences only. DrKiernan (talk) 13:31, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
FARC section
- Concerns raised above include missing citations (please tag these) and choppy prose/short paragraphs. Maralia (talk) 15:45, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
I just took a look through the end sections and noted the following:
- References: I see two bare urls, other incomplete citations, and an extremely long piecemeal quotation that needs better handling. Ref formatting needs some work: I see two different page number styles (234–235 vs 205–6) and punctuation inconsistency (some end with full stops).
- Bibliography: There are at least eight listed works (Budiansky, Christensen, Gannon, Hinsley, Kahn 1991, Kubiatowski, Miller, Wrixon) that are not actually cited. "Lawrence, 2005" is cited once, but two 2005 Lawrence works are listed; the cite may be intended to refer to both, but it's unclear. There is a lengthy exposition on the Jakóbczyk book for no apparent reason.
- External links: This needs cleanup. The St. Andrews biography doesn't really offer anything additional, and all three of the linked photographs are dead links.
It is also rather difficult to associate the citations with the Bibliography because the citations are in "lastname, year" format but the Bibliography is "firstname lastname title location publisher year". Maralia (talk) 15:54, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
-
- I'm working on it, albeit slowly. Reference formatting and the Bib will probably be the last things I hit. --Laser brain (talk) 16:13, 3 February 2015 (UTC)
Thank you to Glrx and Laser brain for cleaning up the references, bibliography, and external links—the article is looking much better. I still see a few wonky cites ( {{harvnb|Lawrence|2005}} and {{harvnb|Kozaczuk|Straszak|2004|p=74}}) that need work, and a couple of quotes (Piskor, Woytak) and other exposition (sequence of rotors; French radio intelligence) that would be better off in the Notes section rather than citations. Maralia (talk) 16:00, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
- There are several footnotes that need to be resolved and/or cleaned up; the wonky cites are there for that reason. I haven't seen an actual copy of A Conversation with M R recently (the university library's copy is missing), but I think its author is Woytak rather M. R. & Woytak; however, some outside-of-WP citations use both as authors; I'm tempted to just make it Woytak1984b; that applies to a half-dozen citations.
- There are still five references that have not been templated because I'm not sure how I should reference a comment/commenter to a journal article: it's a subcontribution by a different author that is part of the same journal article/digital object.
- I revamped the hard-numbered Notes to use an automated mechanism, so moving a footnote to a note is just changing
<ref></ref>
to a {{refn}} withgroup=Note
. - Glrx (talk) 17:18, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
-
-
- Which "A Conversation with Marian Rejewski" are you referring to? The same extracts from Richard Woytak's conversation with Rejewski, plus citations from letters by Rejewski to Woytak, together under that joint title, appear first in Cryptologia, vol. 6, no. 1 (January 1982), pp. 50–60, then (as Appendix B) in Władysław Kozaczuk, Enigma: How the German Machine Cipher Was Broken, and How It Was Read by the Allies in World War Two, edited and translated by Christopher Kasparek, Frederick, Maryland, University Publications of America, 1984, pp. 229–39. The two versions are identical and, except for 8 brief questions posed by Woytak, consist entirely of Rejewski's words. Nihil novi (talk) 04:57, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
-
Nice progress, but lots to be done still. There are red harv ref errors all over the place, and in this version, the first two citations ... are not citations or reliable sources. I didn't check further. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:14, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
-
- Thanks. I've provided references to Rejewski's awards cited in the infobox. Regretably, the U.K. Ministry of Defence page "cannot be found" any longer; maybe someone can locate an active reference for Rejewski's War Medal 1939–1945. Nihil novi (talk) 22:54, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
At FARC for three weeks now, and no one has finished restoring the article. There are numerous sources in the References that are no longer used: how do we know the article is comprehensive, and represents a thorough survey of the literature? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:05, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
Delist. Sorry, but despite the extensive bibliography there are still uncited parts. I'm also concerned that one third of his life is summed up in two sentences, indicating a lack of comprehensiveness. There's been alot of work around formatting, but the fundamental issues remain unaddressed. DrKiernan (talk) 17:39, 28 February 2015 (UTC)Delist. There are layers upon layers of issues here. Cleaning up the references was a step in the right direction, but it served only to reveal other problems. I don't have the subject matter knowledge to think about addressing the comprehensiveness and source problems. --Laser brain (talk) 12:26, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
-
- Temporarily striking my declaration until I can review the latest progress. Seems like there are enough interested parties for a potential save. --Laser brain (talk) 18:00, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
- Delist. Thanks so much for the effort, Laser brain-- at least the article was left in better shape! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:15, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
Abstain. A lot of work has been done, and only three paragraphs are unreferenced. I am still somewhat concerned on whether end-of-para citations are always covering all the info in a given para. I found the dead link in the IA, will fix it now. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 04:23, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
-
- fact claims can be resolved with
-
- Rejewski, Marian (July 1981), "How Polish Mathematicians Deciphered the Enigma" (PDF), Annals of the History of Computing (IEEE) 3 (3): 213–234, doi:10.1109/MAHC.1981.10033
-
- Glrx (talk) 05:12, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks, I see they've been fixed. I am changing my vote to Keep; references seem to be satisfactory now. Also, I've checked his bio entry in Polish online encyclopedias ([4], [5]), first one has a similar focus on his later life, and while the second one is more balanced, we do mention all of the facts from it as well. I don't have his PSB bio (if it exists), but I think the entry is reasonably comprehensive; most sources about his life focus on his Enigma-solving period, not what happened before or after. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 07:31, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
- fact claims can be resolved with
- Still not there. Notes are still all over the map, with a mix of inline citation, cite ref citation, and no citation. I'm not convinced all of the External links belong, and they are poorly described (Bauer??). Are the unused sources listed in Further reading useful, if so, why are they not used, if not, why are we retaining them? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:30, 3 March 2015 (UTC)
-
- Regarding "Further reading": It seems to me that that why-retain-it argument could be made in respect to any article's "Further reading" section. And yet these sections do exist—for the same reasons as here. Nihil novi (talk) 04:50, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
-
- My question was, are they useful (in terms of comprehensiveness), and if not, why are they there (that is, what are they adding)? Also, they are now used with the template citation, which is causing a big red ref error, since they aren't sources.
And, we still have a mixed citation style. The Notes are using inline citations, while everything else uses cite ref. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:56, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
- My question was, are they useful (in terms of comprehensiveness), and if not, why are they there (that is, what are they adding)? Also, they are now used with the template citation, which is causing a big red ref error, since they aren't sources.
-
- Re the "External links": Jan Bury's (is that your "Bauer"?) "The Enigma Code Breach" provides photos of French, Polish and Spanish personnel, drawn from various publications, which regrettably appear nowhere on Wikipedia. Tony Sale's "The Breaking of Enigma by the Polish Mathematicians" shows a diagram of the Polish cryptological bomb that was needlessly purged from Wikipedia a few years ago by an over-zealous copyright cop. "How Mathematicians Helped Win WWII", by the National Security Agency", includes a photo of "Adolf Hitler receiving the salute of German troops in Warsaw following their conquest of Poland", which actually shows him riding in his 6-wheel Mercedes before the Polish General Staff Building where the German Enigma had first been broken nearly 7 years earlier (!!); this poignant photo (taken from Kozaczuk, Enigma, 1984), too, was purged—from the Wikipedia "Biuro Szyfrów" (Polish Cipher Bureau) article. "Enigma documents" provides reproductions of many source documents, including ones by Marian Rejewski. "Marian Rejewski and the First Break into Enigma", published this year (2015) by the American Mathematical Society, gives another view of Rejewski's mathematics, for those willing to challenge themselves. Nihil novi (talk) 06:05, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
-
- Bauer was already fixed in External links, and my other question was about "Further reading", not "External links" (you answered a different question-- please re-read the discussion above). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:41, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
-
- I quote you from the discussion above: "I'm not convinced all of the External links belong..." What am I misunderstanding? Nihil novi (talk) 06:47, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
-
- After that :) I asked: "Are the unused sources listed in Further reading useful, if so, why are they not used, if not, why are we retaining them?" Please see your post from 04:50 4 March and my response to that from 14:56 4 March. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:02, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
-
- I quote you from the discussion above: "I'm not convinced all of the External links belong..." What am I misunderstanding? Nihil novi (talk) 06:47, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
-
- Bauer was already fixed in External links, and my other question was about "Further reading", not "External links" (you answered a different question-- please re-read the discussion above). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:41, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
-
- Regarding "Further reading": It seems to me that that why-retain-it argument could be made in respect to any article's "Further reading" section. And yet these sections do exist—for the same reasons as here. Nihil novi (talk) 04:50, 4 March 2015 (UTC)
As indicated in Laserbrain's Delist above, there are layers of problems with both prose and comprehensiveness everyone one looks in this article, and there are other concerns intimated by Piotr. The three Delists stand, and it doesn't appear that, after almost a month at FAR, this will be salvageable. The prose is rough, and one is left with questions in numerous places (indicated in two examples below with unaddressed inline comments). These are samples only:
- Convoluted prose sample. On 21 November 1946, Rejewski, having been on 15 November discharged from the Polish Army in Britain, returned to Poland to be reunited with his wife, Irena Maria Rejewska (née Lewandowska, whom Rejewski had married on 20 June 1934) and their son Andrzej (Andrew, born 1936) and daughter Janina (Jeanne, born 1939, who would later follow in her father's footsteps to become a mathematician).
- That is followed by an overlong quote, and ...
- Prose and comprehensive issue combined ... in 1950 they demanded that he be fired from his employment !--why? please expand-- as an inline comment ... fired from his employment?
- Repetitive and unclear prose. What little was published attracted little attention.
- Would follow after 1974? Still, this was closer to the truth than many British and American accounts that would follow after 1974.
- Another unaddressed inline comment: On 9 January 1942, Różycki, the youngest of the three mathematicians, died in the sinking of a French passenger ship as he was returning from a stint in Algeria to Cadix in southern France.< --why did the ship sink? how did it affect Rejewski? >
There are short choppy paragraphs throughout. The three Delists stand; the article has been improved, but it is not close to FA quality and it seems unlikely to make it there without a significant rewrite. I remain at Delist. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 07:02, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
-
- About Różycki's death (from Kozaczuk, Enigma, 1984, p. 128):
- "For security and personal safety, the Poles seldom participated in courier missions or the like. An exception was departures [from Cadix] for two- to three-month stints at the Château Couba [on the outskirts of Algiers]. One such expedition across the Mediterranean ended tragically. In circumstances that remain unclear to this day, the French ship Lamoricière, on which four Poles were returning from Algiers, suffered catastrophe on 9 January 1942, near the Balearic Islands. It is not clear whether, amid a raging storm, the ship struck a reef or one of the thousands of mines that the belligerents were laying. Killed in the Lamoricière catastrophe were Capt. Jan Graliński, Jerzy Różycki, and Piotr Smoleński.[...] Also lost was a French officer accompanying the Poles, Capt. François Lane."
- How did Rejewski feel about the loss of Różycki? Nearly 38 years later, on 25 November 1979, he wrote Richard Woytak in a letter quoted in Cryptologia, vol. 6, no. 1 (January 1982), p. 59, and in Kozaczuk, Enigma, 1984, pp. 238–39:
- "As a person, he was a very good friend, cheerful, sociable. He died on 9.I.1942 [9 January 1942] when, while returning from Algiers to France, the ship on which he was sailing, the Lamoricière, sank after hitting submerged reefs or perhaps [a] mine. He had married shortly before the war in Poland, and when he left Poland [in September 1939] he left behind his wife and a child of several months. His son is presently living in England...."
- Nihil novi (talk) 09:43, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks for the comments on the "Marian Rejewski" "Back in Poland" section. I've re-edited it. Does anything there remain unclear?
- Are there any other specific passages in the article that still require editing or sourcing?
- Nihil novi (talk) 20:52, 6 March 2015 (UTC)
I've added the information about Różycki (above) in a note, I've done further editing, and I have added some information. Others have also contributed. Any further suggestions to improve the article would be appreciated. Nihil novi (talk) 05:32, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
- My Delist stands; unfortunately, I don't think this article can be salvaged in the lifespan of a Featured article review, and an independent copyedit by an editor fluent in the topic would be needed to make the text comprehensible.
Your dedication to the topic is commendable, and your work has improved the article, but everywhere one's eyes falls, there are glaring prose and MOS issues. On the trivials, there are WP:PUNC, WP:ENDASH, and WP:EMDASH issues. There are wikilinking issues everywhere.
More significant is the need for a thorough rewrite and copyedit. The section "Enigma machine" is a convoluted and at times ungrammatical description of the machine even for those who understand what it is. Here is a sample sentence, found by simply scanning to the end of the article and reading the first sentence in a random paragraph:
- Rejewski took satisfaction from his accomplishments in breaking the German Enigma cipher for nearly seven years (beginning in December 1932) prior to the outbreak of World War II and then into the war, in personal and teleprinter collaboration with Bletchley Park, at least until the 1940 fall of France.
Here's another:
- As it became clear that war was imminent and that Polish resources were insufficient to keep pace with the evolution of Enigma encryption (e.g., due to the prohibitive expense of an additional 54 bombs and due to the Poles' difficulty in producing in time the required 60 series of 26 "Zygalski sheets" each), the Polish General Staff and government decided to let their Western allies in on the secret.
Another issue:
- ... that one mathematics professor describes as "the theorem that won World War II."
The reader should be told who that prof is ... and why does his/her opinion matter, anyway?
These are only samples, not intended to be a comprehensive list. I do not believe this article can be salvaged without an independent copyedit by someone who is also a knowledgeable in the content area.
SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:19, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
-
-
- The identity of the mathematics professor, Cipher A. Deavours (one of the editors of the quarterly Cryptologia, on this occasion writing in the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing), was already in the attached note; but I've put the information into the text itself, for those disinclined to read notes. Nihil novi (talk) 21:23, 8 March 2015 (UTC)
- I've added information about the Poles' Enigma-breaking techniques, especially to the section on "Rejewski's bomba and Zygalski's sheets", which should make the procedures and financial challenges clearer. Thanks for pointing out areas that can benefit from more attention. Nihil novi (talk) 04:23, 9 March 2015 (UTC)
-
- Rejewski took satisfaction from his accomplishments in breaking the German Enigma cipher for nearly seven years (beginning in December 1932) prior to the outbreak of World War II and then into the war, in personal and teleprinter collaboration with Bletchley Park, at least until the 1940 fall of France.
- You have been very helpful in inspiring efforts to make the text clearer and more communicative.
- If you could now point out a few instances of "ungrammatical" writing, I (or others) could try to improve the grammar—or demonstrate why the text in question is not ungrammatical.
- Thanks again.
- Nihil novi (talk) 08:14, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
Could the @WP:FAR coordinators: please give some indication of what they are waiting for or expecting from this FAR, which has multiple Delist declarations more than a month old? As a random sample, can someone explain what "Naval code" refers to here, and examine the prose ... why is "by later report" there? An independent copyedit by a topic expert is still needed. Delist stands. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:17, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
- "In late October or early November 1932, while work on the Naval code was still underway, Rejewski was set to work, alone and in secret, on the output of the new standard German cipher machine, the Enigma I, which was coming into widespread use. While the Cipher Bureau had, by later report, succeeded in solving an earlier, plugboard-less Enigma, it had had no success with the Enigma I."
-
- The "Naval code" was, of course, the German naval code referred to in the previous paragraph. In case this was unclear to any other reader, I have added the word "German" to the term "naval code".
- The phrase "by later report" referred to A.P. Mahon's secret report, written a dozen years later in 1945 and cited in note 4, on The History of Hut Eight: 1939–1945. The expression "by later report" is obviously not indispensable, so I have deleted it.
- Thank you. Are there any other passages which strike you as unclear or perhaps inelegant?
- Nihil novi (talk) 06:14, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
- Can you locate a copyeditor knowledgeable in the content area to go through the entire article? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:34, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
-
- I doubt that there is anything substantial that is incorrect in the text.
- I suggest that you continue raising your concerns, which can then be clarified as above.
- Another possible approach: Put a notice on cryptology-related pages, inviting reviews.
- Nihil novi (talk) 05:07, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
-
- Can you locate a copyeditor knowledgeable in the content area to go through the entire article? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:34, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
-
This article's prose is quite dense, fairly technical, relies heavily on extremely long footnotes, and definitely tends toward the verbose, so I understand why Sandy asked for a full copyedit. She's certainly not the only person who has pointed out prose issues during this FAR, so I think it's rather uncharitable to frame them as her concerns. There is a breaking point somewhere between "these 5 things need to be fixed" and "there are so many things that need to be fixed that a copyedit is needed", and on earlier read-throughs of the article I have to say I too felt the latter was necessary. However, given the many prose issues already pointed out and addressed, I've just re-read the article (for the umpteenth time) and I now feel that it is nearly there. Here are the issues I see at this point:
- Tortured prose - This sentence is incomprehensibly long: "Rejewski used a mathematical theorem—that two permutations are conjugate if and only if they have the same cycle structure—that mathematics professor Cipher A. Deavours, co-editor of the quarterly Cryptologia—in a commentary to Rejewski's posthumously published 1981 paper, "How the Polish Mathematicians Deciphered the Enigma", in the Annals of the history of Computing—describes as "the theorem that won World War II."" I understand that the Deavours/Cryptologia details were added in response to a request above, but the sentence still needs some refining; we only need enough info about Deavours to understand why his comment is notable.
- Italics and scare quotes - Usage needs to follow WP:MOS. Foreign language terms (bomba) should be in italics throughout. Code names (Ultra, Cadix, PC Bruno, Bolek, Pierre Ranaud) can be given in plain text, or italics, or scare quotes—but pick only one. Proper names, even foreign names, should be given in plain text, not in italics as has been done with Andrzej and Janina.
- Endashes - "French-Polish-Spanish radio-intelligence unit" and "Polish-French-Spanish Cadix center"should use endashes between the nationalities per WP:ENDASH.
- Emdashes - There are both unspaced emdashes and spaced emdashes; per WP:EMDASH one convention should be used consistently throughout.
- Copyediting - Need to fix typos such as "cryptologiic" and [[Marian Rejewski#Recognistion)|posthumously]] (this is also a bit of an easter egg); repeated words such as "should have told him told him better"; repetition such as "Cipher Bureau (Biuro Szyfrów)" and "Biuro Szyfrów (Cipher Bureau)" inside the same section as well as the Grand Cross mentioned in the Back in Poland section and again in Recognition; confusing lack of chronological order such as in Back in Poland where we have 1946 1934 1946 1947–1958 1967 1969 1939 1944 1942 etc, and also "a few years before his death" and "a year and a half before his death" and "posthumously" before his death itself is even mentioned.
- Citations - A couple of citations are missing accessdates; another is missing both author and publisher information.
- Quotation - I have a couple of issues with the Woytak quotation in the Notes section. First, I honestly cannot parse it through the italics, single and double quotes, ellipses, brackets, etc. Second, the quote is something like 350 words long, which (per WP:COPYQUOTE) puts it within the realm of a possible copyright infringement. Summarizing it in our own words would avoid that issue and hopefully make it easier to understand.
I really appreciate when editors pitch in to save an article at FAR. It's clear that this article is vastly improved, but there is a bit more to be done. Maralia (talk) 06:45, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
- Thanks, Maralia, for pitching in ; perhaps you have the energy to continue, but my feeling was that the article was desperately in need of new eyes to fix the numerous issues. Bst, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:27, 9 April 2015 (UTC)
-
- Indeed, Maralia, thanks for your insightful fresh look at the text.
- I've revised several of the bigger items cited.
- Perhaps someone could address punctuation errors and typos that I may not spot.
- Are there any other passages that would benefit from further attention?
- Thanks for the very constructive critique!
- Nihil novi (talk) 10:50, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
-
- I agree that the chronology of the Rejewski family vicissitudes, recounted in the "Back in Poland" section, is a little chaotic, but partly that reflects the chaos of wartime events in their lives.
- I'm not sure how to re-chronologize the respective events without disrupting the flow of narrative in the article's other sections. Nihil novi (talk) 11:04, 10 April 2015 (UTC)
I'll give this another pass after Laser has been through. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:12, 24 April 2015 (UTC)
- So, I spent about 2 hours last night reading through this again and making edits. I ended up discarding everything I did before saving. I've never been quite so uncomfortable editing an article, and I can't put my finger on why. It may be because I don't really understand the narrative, and the subject matter is so far outside my wheelhouse as to be comical. --Laser brain (talk) 13:56, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
- Ditto. I can think of several editors who could help, but they are all departed. We need to find someone who can help. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:04, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
- @David Eppstein: Can you maybe look through it? We need a once-over from someone who is in at least a similar domain so we have less of a chance of inadvertently making incorrect changes. --Laser brain (talk) 14:14, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
- I did a read through this evening, more for the general sense of the article than copyediting, but I'm not really sure what you're looking for. It made sense both as a narrative and in its more technical details to me, and seemed generally well written, but I got the feeling that big chunks of the article were really a story of the Polish war cryptography effort in general, and not particularly about Rejewski. For instance, he is not even mentioned from the second half of the "Rejewski's bomba" section until "In France and Britain", two section headings down. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:01, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
-
- David, thank you for your thoughtful reading of the article.
- A slight correction: Rejewski does appear in the intervening "Allies informed" section, if not by name: At the Warsaw Polish–British–French intelligence meeting on 25 July 1939, 5 weeks before the outbreak of World War II, "The Polish hosts included Stefan Mayer, Gwido Langer, Maksymilian Ciężki, and the three cryptologists [ Marian Rejewski, Henryk Zygalski, and Jerzy Różycki]."
- Nihil novi (talk) 07:20, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
-
- I did a read through this evening, more for the general sense of the article than copyediting, but I'm not really sure what you're looking for. It made sense both as a narrative and in its more technical details to me, and seemed generally well written, but I got the feeling that big chunks of the article were really a story of the Polish war cryptography effort in general, and not particularly about Rejewski. For instance, he is not even mentioned from the second half of the "Rejewski's bomba" section until "In France and Britain", two section headings down. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:01, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
- @David Eppstein: Can you maybe look through it? We need a once-over from someone who is in at least a similar domain so we have less of a chance of inadvertently making incorrect changes. --Laser brain (talk) 14:14, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
- Ditto. I can think of several editors who could help, but they are all departed. We need to find someone who can help. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:04, 1 May 2015 (UTC)
-
-
-
-
-
- As a math undergrad, engineering grad, the math doesn't trouble me; it's the prose. I was hoping Laser could address the prose, but he was troubled by the math. In going to have a look at where things stand, I find this as the second sentence in the article:
-
- The cryptologic successes of Rejewski and his colleagues Jerzy Różycki and Henryk Zygalski, over six and a half years later, jump-started British reading of Enigma in the Second World War; the intelligence so gained, code-named Ultra, contributed, perhaps decisively, to the defeat of Germany.
- This sort of overly convoluted prose is everywhere. What is wrong with, for example:
- More than six years later, the cryptologic successes of Rejewski and colleagues Jerzy Różycki and Henryk Zygalski jump-started British reading of Enigma in the Second World War. The intelligence gained was code-named Ultra and contributed, perhaps decisively, to the defeat of Germany.
- or something like that. I can see why it was hard for Laser to work on the prose, not only because it is technical, but because it is now so convoluted, and that is why I keep saying we need a copyeditor who is familiar with the content area. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:27, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
-
- I've revised the lead, incorporating your suggestions and making some additional changes. I think it does read better now. Nihil novi (talk) 19:35, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
-
-
- As a math undergrad, engineering grad, the math doesn't trouble me; it's the prose. I was hoping Laser could address the prose, but he was troubled by the math. In going to have a look at where things stand, I find this as the second sentence in the article:
-
-
-
-
Copyedit
Well, heck. This has been dragging on too long, and no one has appeared to help copyedit. I am not the most elegant copyeditor; in fact I don't think I'm even a good copyeditor, but someone has to try. I am busy today, but later this evening or tomorrow I will put the article in use and do what I can. Once I'm finished, I won't be offended it the whole shebang is reverted, since I'm not that good at ceing, and I hope others will carefully check my edits for unintended changes in meaning. Just please don't start editing until I've removed the inuse, 'cuz I hate edit conflicts ! Later, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:15, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
- Tough going-- it is often difficult to tell what is intended by the content that is there, and there is often extraneous detail. I am stopping here for feedack on how I'm doing, so I don't get too far in and found out I made a mess. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:48, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
I have no idea what this sentence means:
- In late October or early November 1932, while work on the German naval code was still underway, ...
Work on deciphering the German naval code? by whom? etc ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:11, 3 May 2015 (UTC)
-
- Do you mind if I interpolate some comments? That will keep my comments next to your comments and questions.
- The first job given to the 3 mathematician-cryptologists after they were hired as civilian employees of the Polish General Staff's Cipher Bureau was to unmask a German naval code.
- The word "code" has in recent years been bandied about so loosely that, in the public arena, it has become little more than a buzzword. One needs to have a clear grasp of the difference between a cipher and a code. A cipher scrambles the original letters of the plaintext, substituting other letters for the original ones; depending on the cipher system, the same original letter may be represented at various points by many another letter. A code, by contrast, replaces the original word by an artificially made-up word; Kozaczuk, Enigma, 1984, p. 11, gives an example: "Even half a century later, Marian Rejewski remembered that [in the German naval code] YOPY meant 'when,' YWIN—'where,' BAUG—'and,' and KEZL—'cancel the final letter.'"
- Codes come in codebooks. Since such books would be inconvenient to lug around a battlefield, they are generally reserved for use in embassies and on naval vessels, which provide a steady platform. Hence the German naval code.
- One does not "decipher" a code; one decodes it, if one is the encoded message's intended recipient. If one is an interloper, one decrypts it (the same holds for enciphered messages: the legitimate recipient deciphers them; an interloper decrypts them).
- As Rejewski says (Kozaczuk, Enigma, 1984, p. 232), "[A] characteristic feature of a code is that it is never really completely solved. You just... keep manipulating the material... and make guesses... you have to figure out what this [code] group could mean.... But when the greater part [of the German naval code] had been solved... it was somewhere around the end of October, maybe the beginning of November [1932]—my boss [Maksymilian] Ciężki [asked me to work separately, two hours a day, on the German Enigma cipher, without telling Róžycki or Zygalski]."
- Nihil novi (talk) 04:56, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
- Ok, all of that helps explain, at least, why this article is so confusing to the average person. So, there is way too much text in explanatory footnotes, and we didn't have a link to cipher in the text, so I added one. At any rate, many iterations ago, I deleted the clause "while work on the German naval code was still underway" because it was only going to confuse average readers like me, and didn't really add anything to the story. Is that OK? Still working through these. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:46, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
Is this supposed to be solvable ?
- He would later comment in 1980 that it was still not known whether such a set of six equations was soluble without further data.
SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:11, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
-
- The two words are used interchangeably. My Webster's dictionary defines "soluble": "1. that can be dissolved... 2. capable of being solved or explained"; and "solvable": "1. that can be solved, as a problem. 2. that can be dissolved."
- Nihil novi (talk) 05:03, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
- But why should we use a word less familiar to our readers, when we already have a densely technical article? Do you care if I switch it to "solvable"? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:47, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
- Either word is all right, so long as we're not altering a direct quotation. Nihil novi (talk) 06:31, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
- But why should we use a word less familiar to our readers, when we already have a densely technical article? Do you care if I switch it to "solvable"? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:47, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
We need to know who says, in what source, that he pioneered this ...
- First Rejewski tackled the problem of understanding the wiring of the rotors. To do this, he pioneered[citation needed][who?] the use of pure mathematics in cryptanalysis.
SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:13, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
-
- David Kahn writes, in his book Seizing the Enigma: The Race to Break the German U-Boat Codes, 1939–1943, 1991, p. 64: "At this point, Rejewski's analysis branched into a path that differed fundamentally from all methods hitherto used in cryptanalytic attacks. In the past, cryptanalysts had depended upon statistics. Which letter was the most frequent? Which of several possible plaintexts was the most likely? Even the only known previous solution of a rotor machine, the dazzling 1924 success of American William F. Friedman in reconstructing the wiring of Edward Hebern's five-rotor machine, used a probabilistic and lower-algebraic approach. But Rejewski, for the first time in the history of cryptanalysis, utilized a higher-algebraic attack. He applied one of the first theorems taught in the theory of groups. [...] Group theory thus told Rejewski that his cycles depended only on the rotor setting and not on the plugboard encipherment. It told him, in other words, that the plugboard, in which the Germans placed great trust as enhancing the machine's security, could be ignored in at least part of the cryptanalysis." Kahn describes as well the earlier and later phases of Rejewski's work on Enigma, relying on Rejewski's writings on the subject.
- Nihil novi (talk) 05:34, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
- Ok, that's good stuff. So, I attributed the opinion to Kahn, and added a placeholder citation,[6] but I don't know how to deal with this referencing sytem, so could you please fix that citation ... I find that there is too much use of footnotes, but I think that entire quote could be effective here, as a means of keeping the higher-level math out of the text, but making it available for those who appreciate it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:57, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
Resolved. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:03, 5 May 2015 (UTC) |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
The article Cryptanalysis of the Enigma says this:
Why can't we just say something this simply? That Rejewski reverse engineered the thing? That article also says:
Why aren't we making more use of Winterbotham? Or better stated, why aren't we making any use of Winterbotham? We refer to it in passing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:20, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
Cryptanalysis of the Enigma also says:
but we don't say anything as simple as that. I am troubled that I am finding an article currently assessed as start class more instructive than this article, and that this article is trying to retell that story, and not doing it as well. We can work on this article for another three months, but we do not have a featured article here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:41, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
|
This sentence leaves us hanging; what happened?
- Between 1949 and 1958 Rejewski was repeatedly investigated by the Polish Office of Public Security, who suspected he was a former member of the Polish Armed Forces in the West.[8]
SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:44, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
In the lead we say he first broke his silence in 1967. But in the Back in Poland section, we don't make that clear at all. We say he retired in 67, had done some writing earlier, got curious, and then we jump forward to 73 and 74. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:56, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
-
- No mystery here at all. Rejewski wrote his first paper on Enigma in Uzès, France, in 1942 (certainly not for publication). Over the years, he could hardly help wondering what Alastair Denniston, Alfred Dillwyn Knox, and Alan Turing—all of whom he had known—had done with his Enigma work. Rejewski disclosed his secret work, in Warsaw, in 1967, selling his Memoirs of My Work in the Cipher Bureau of Section II of the [Polish] General Staff, 1932–1945 to the Military Historical Institute. Władysław Kozaczuk, associated with the Institute, published the secret in a 1967 book, several years before French General Gustave Bertrand published his Enigma in 1973 and Winterbotham published The Ultra Secret in 1974.
- Nihil novi (talk) 06:24, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
-
-
- Excellent, but that was not in the article. I made an attempt at clarification here, and in the lead, but you may need to correct it, and it needs citation. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:28, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
-
Still, incomplete citations ... publisher? Author?
- Untold Story of Enigma Code-Breaker, 5 July 2005, archived from the original on 18 November 2005, retrieved 9 January 2006
SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:10, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
References
- ^ Reuvers, Paul; Simons, Marc (2010), Enigma Cipher Machine, retrieved 22 July 2010
- ^ Welchman 1997, p. 3
- ^ Calvocoressi 2001, p. 66
- ^ Winterbotham 2000, pp. 16–17
- ^ Kahn 1991, p. 974
- ^ Wilcox 2001, p. 5
- ^ Hodges 1983, p. 170
- ^ Polak 2005, p. 78
Nihil, if you are satisfied with my work so far, I will keep going once you've resolved everything above. Regards, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:31, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
There is a need to either understand or remove a lot of extraneous information. As an example here:
- The course was conducted off-campus at a military facility[10] and, as Rejewski would discover in France in 1939 during World War II, "was entirely and literally based" on French General Marcel Givièrge's 1925 book, Cours de cryptographie (Crytography Course).
Why do we care that the course was conducted off-campus? And why do we care that he later discovered what it was based on? There is no further mention of this in the article (that I've found so far), so the reader has no idea why this information is given. There is stuff like this everywhere. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:39, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
Again:
- In September 1939, after the Invasion of Poland, Rejewski and his fellow Cipher Bureau workers were evacuated from Poland, crossing the border into Romania on 17 September. Rejewski, Zygalski and Różycki avoided internment in a refugee camp and made their way to Bucharest, where they contacted the British embassy.
"Were evacuated" implies someone helped (as opposed to "escaped"); reader is left clueless why we use "were evacuated". What's the back story? And how did they avoid internment, when so many others didn't? There seems to be a missing story here, otherwise, why are we mentioning this? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:34, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
-
- On 5 September 1939 the Cipher Bureau began preparations to evacuate key personnel and equipment. Soon a special evacuation train, the Echelon F, transported them eastward, then south. By the time the Cipher Bureau was ordered to cross the border into allied Romania on 17 September, they were down to a single truck. It was confiscated at the border by a Romanian officer, who separated the military from the civilian personnel. Taking advantage of the confusion, the three mathematicians ignored the Romanian's instructions. They anticipated that in an internment camp they might be identified by the Romanian security police, in which the German Abwehr and S.D. had informers. The mathematicians went to the nearest railroad station, exchanged money, bought tickets, and boarded the first train headed south. After a dozen or so hours, they reached Bucharest, at the other end of Romania. There they went to the British embassy. (The story continues in the article's text.) Kozaczuk, Enigma, 1984, pp. 70–72. Nihil novi (talk) 09:00, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
Nihil, with this series of edits, you altered the article citation style and introduced citation formatting errors and red harv ref errors (endash, and the other book citations use short form with links). I cannot address those: I do not use this citation system (and detest it because it is so hard to work with). There are still multiple issues in the citations, with some books using short form, others not.[7] I'll try to resume copyediting this weekend. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:07, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
Comment - So, this has been open for six months. What are we doing here? I can't and won't keep up with the changes. Nihil novi has been editing this article prolifically. His edits are all in good faith, but not all of them are improvements and without edit summaries on his part or subject matter knowledge on my part, I can't expend the energy to parse all the work. --Laser brain (talk) 13:03, 12 June 2015 (UTC)