Wikipedia:Featured article review

Reviewing featured articles This page is for the review and improvement of featured articles (FAs) 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. 1. Raise issues at the article's talk page In this step, concerned editors attempt to directly resolve issues with the existing community of article editors, and to informally improve the article. Concerned editors should give article watchers two to three weeks to respond to concerns before nominating the article for Featured article review. During this step, articles are not yet listed on this page (but they can be added to Wikipedia:Featured article review/notices given, and removed from there once posted here). 2. Featured article review (FAR) In this step, possible improvements are discussed without declarations of "keep" or "delist". The aim is to improve articles rather than to demote them. Nominators must specify the featured article criteria that are at issue and should propose remedies. The ideal review would address the issues raised and close with no change in status. Reviews can improve articles in various ways: articles may need updating, formatting, and general copyediting. More complex issues, such as a failure to meet current standards of prose, comprehensiveness, factual accuracy, and neutrality, may also be addressed. The featured article review coordinators—Nikkimaria, Casliber, and DrKay—determine either that there is consensus to close during this second stage, or that there is insufficient consensus to do so and so therefore the nomination should be moved to the third stage. 3. Featured article removal candidate (FARC) An article is never listed as a removal candidate without first undergoing a review. In this third stage, participants may declare "keep" or "delist", supported by substantive comments, and further time is provided to overcome deficiencies. Reviewers who declare "delist" should be prepared to return towards the end of the process to strike out their objections if they have been addressed. The featured article review coordinators determine whether there is consensus for a change in the status of a nomination, and close the listing accordingly. The FAR and FARC stages typically last 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. Urgent reviews are listed here. Older reviews are stored in the archive. Table of Contents – This page: , Checklinks, Check redirects, Dablinks

Featured content: Featured articles ← Featured lists Featured pictures Featured topics Featured article candidates (FAC): Featured article criteria Featured article log Featured article statistics Featured article review (FAR): Archived FARs Former featured articles Unreviewed featured articles/2020 Today's featured article (TFA): This month's queue About Today's featured article Recent TFAs and statistics Current TFA requests Potential TFA requests TFA oddities Most viewed TFAs Featured articles yet to appear as TFA Script to track TFA recent changes Featured article tools: Mentoring for FAC Nominators of featured articles promoted Recent changes to featured articles Random featured article

Nominating an article for FAR The number of FARs that can be placed on the page is limited as follows: No more than one nomination per week by the same nominator. No more than five nominations by the same nominator on the page at one time, unless permission for more is given by a FAR coordinator. 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. Before nomination, raise issues at talk page of the article. Attempt to directly resolve issues with the existing community of article editors, and to informally improve the article over at least a two-week period. Articles in this step are not listed on this page. Place {{subst:FAR}} at the top of the talk page of the nominated article. Write "FAR listing" in the edit summary box. Click on "Publish changes". From the FAR template, click on the red "initiate the review" link. You will see pre-loaded information; please leave that text. Below the preloaded title, write which users and projects you'll notify (see step 6 below), and your reason(s) for nominating the article, specifying the FA criterion/criteria that are at issue, then click on "Publish changes". Click here, and place your nomination at the top of the list of nominated articles, {{Wikipedia:Featured article review/name of nominated article/archiveN}}, filling in the exact name of the nominated article and the archive number N. Click on "Publish changes". Notify relevant parties by adding {{subst:FARMessage|ArticleName|alt=FAR subpage}} ~~~~ (for example, {{subst:FARMessage|Superman|alt=Superman/archive1}} ~~~~) to relevant talk pages (insert article name); note that the template does not automatically create the talkpage section header. Relevant parties include main contributors to the article (identifiable through XTools), the editor who originally nominated the article for Featured Article status (identifiable through the Featured Article Candidate link in the Article Milestones), and any relevant WikiProjects (identifiable through the talk page banners, but there may be other Projects that should be notified). The Notified:message at the top of the FAR should indicate who you have notified and include a link with the date of the pre-notification given on article talk.

Featured article reviews

Space Invaders

Notified: Guyinblack25, WikiProject Video games, WikiProject Science Fiction, WikiProject Japan Noticed: 2021-04-07 2025-05-17

I am nominating this featured article for review because the later parts of the article have small, one-or-two sentence paragraphs that should be reformatted better, and the "Remakes and sequels" section is quite long and should either be summarised more effectively or broken up with headings. The game's reception and rankings sections suffer from the "X says Y" pattern. There are unreliable sources like "Discogs" used in the article and some uncited statements. An orange "irrelevant references to pop culture" banner is at the top of "In popular culture" Z1720 (talk) 02:19, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

• Comment The article seriously needs a split to Space Invaders (series), where information on the (quite large) series of Space Invaders games can be shown. The original game is probably still famous enough to be primary topic though. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 02:26, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

The article has become quite crufty over the years, but I think it's salvageable. It will take time though, as my free time has been drying up. As always, any help (especially with copy editing) would be appreciated.

Regarding a series article, I don't think there's enough content in reliable sources to warrant one; I think it would be too derivative of the original game article. Maybe there have been new developments during my retirement, but except for a few special reimaginings/crossovers, the basic premise and gameplay of all the sequels are very similar; the later versions mainly just add a new twist or gimmick. So much so that the list of games will tell you the relevant information. Happy to be proven wrong if the reliable sources are there though. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 04:49, 16 June 2025 (UTC))

There's SIGCOV of the entire series here, the article goes indepth about the entire series and not just the first game. Some more here, albeit the same publication. However, there is also SIGCOV of the series here as well. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 05:43, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for those; they are new to me and will help with the clean up. However, they are quite similar in scope/breadth to the other coverage I saw when I first researched the game for its GAN and FAC back in 2008. The coverage—about development, reception, impact, and legacy—always leans heavy towards the original game. Occasionally there's full coverage that focuses on a specific port or remake (e.g., Space Invaders (Atari 2600 video game), Space Invaders DX, and Space Invaders Infinity Gene), but the sequels and remakes are mostly just mentioned that they exist with a brief description of how they were slightly different from the original. There's a reason why of the dozens of releases, very few have Wikipedia articles. While the original was certainly groundbreaking, the series as a whole isn't very deep compared to most other series. That's why List of Space Invaders video games was created, to give the many non-notable sequels and remakes a home. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 22:22, 16 June 2025 (UTC))

I continue to believe the series is independently notable of the first game, and not just as a list. I wouldn't be surprised if many of the series' games were notable and just don't have articles due to a lack of interest from editors. One example? Super Space Invaders, which got many, many reviews yet somehow still lacks an article. Space Invaders Evolution is also notable, but apparently ignored probably because most of the reviews are in print. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 05:53, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

I agree that a few more articles about the individual games could likely be created. However, a few observations about the coverage I've seen:

• Reception content likely exists for more of the games, but development information is rarely there or at best sparse. (Not a reason to not create individual articles, but this is a hindrance for a comprehensive series article.)
• Among the reliable sources, the focus is typically on the original game rather than discussing the series as a whole, which is understandable because the gameplay is very basic (albeit timeless), so the games in the series lacks the depth of other video games that came later. And Taito has leaned into the basic gameplay design very successfully over the decades, but aside from a few exceptions, it did not deviate far from the basic design.
• Similar to the above point, coverage of the impact and legacy focuses almost exclusively on the original's impact. Maybe the authors used the title of original interchangeably with the series title, but so many examples (Invader's graffiti art, media parodies, inspired music, etc.) very clearly draw from the original.
• In short, a series article would read too much like an article about the original, but with the information reordered differently in a series format. I.e., it would not add much new information.

Again, happy to be proven wrong if the reliable sources are there for the series as a whole, but as of now, I don't see the coverage being there. Maybe I'll change my tune if I come across sufficient sourcing while cleaning up this article. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 13:29, 17 June 2025 (UTC))

• Question - does anyone have strong feelings about the timeline in the Remakes and sequels section? While it helps convey the number of releases over time, it is super long and seems excessive when we already have a list article. (Guyinblack25 ^talk 13:32, 17 June 2025 (UTC))

  Personally I'd remove it. Duplicates what List of Space Invaders video games does, but without sources and kind of its a bit of a space hog on the article that makes it a bit hard to read in desktop mode. Andrzejbanas (talk) 18:59, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

Effects of Hurricane Ivan in the Lesser Antilles and South America

Notified: Hurricanehink, WikiProject Weather, WikiProject Venezuela

As noted in December 2021 by Hurricane Noah, this 2008 FA is not fully comprehensive. Most significantly, coverage of the titular effects is not comprehensive enough, with material ending in 2007; a quick internet search shows many aspects not considered, such as economy/unemployment statistics and health programs/facilities in Grenada; the Agency for Reconstruction and Development, established in September 2004 in direct response to the hurricane, is not even mentioned.

HN additionally noted that there is scholarly literature not being cited, at odds with WP:FACR 1b) and c), and numerous formatting errors. I personally would also ask whether this needs to be a separate article from Hurricane Ivan itself, or whether the two could be merged. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:31, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

J. K. Rowling

Notified: Talk page of article, will do individuals in the morning — Adam Cuerden 22:32, 11 June 2025 (UTC) — continues after insertion below

No diff for prior talk page notification.

Notifications not done, so I have completed the notifications for Adam Cuerden of WPs listed on talk, and the ping list established on FAR 1. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:39, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

And Simonm223. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:51, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

I am nominating this featured article for review because I don't think that it comes near, or is capable of coming near, the basic standards of neutrality for a featured article, and the complete breakdown of any sort of consensus editing.

Every change, no matter how minor, takes months of debate. A skim of the talk page will show just how ridiculous just getting the smallest edit through is.

However, I think the rot goes incredibly deep. This article has issues in almost every section, even outwith the controversial ones. It's also excessively long, often because of an indiscriminate level of detail that quotes every little incident in her life that sources connect with Harry Potter.

J. K. Rowling#Early life and family

An astounding level of detail, with no real editorial hand. Consider this passage:

Her parents Anne (née Volant) and Peter ("Pete") James Rowling had met the previous year on a train, sharing a trip from King's Cross station, London, to their naval postings at Arbroath, Scotland. Rowling's mother was with the Wrens and her father with the Royal Navy.[14] Pete Rowling was the son of a machine-tool setter who later opened a grocery shop.[15] They left the navy life and sought a country home to raise the baby they were expecting,[15] and married on 14 March 1965[10] when both were 19.[16] The Rowlings settled in Yate,[17] where Pete started work as an assembly-line production worker at the Bristol Siddeley factory.[15] The company became part of Rolls-Royce,[18] and he worked his way into management as a chartered engineer.[19] Anne Rowling later worked as a science technician.[20] Neither of Rowling's parents attended university.[21]

That is an astounding level of detail about her parents (and even paternal grandparent's) careers. I'm not going to quote every example of this, but it's a good example of the bloated, rather disorganised prose that makes up this article. The general feel of this section is choppy and vaguely organised, a largely indiscriminate collection of facts. There's a lot of mythologising; lots of attempts to connect her life to Harry Potter which I'm sure sources do, but which feels a little unencyclopedic. This continues. — Adam Cuerden 22:32, 11 June 2025 (UTC) — continues after insertion below

Yes, sources do connect her early and family life to her work, and they also work to address the "rags to riches" misperception by establishing that she had a middle-class background. I have trimmed a bit. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:16, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

J. K. Rowling#Secondary school and university

In the first paragraph, the phrase 'Smith writes that Rowling "craved to play heavy electric guitar"' comes out of nowhere and goes nowhere. In the second paragraph, there's a discussion that begins "She began to smoke, took an interest in alternative rock..." that seems to be where that tidbit - if it's worth including at all - should have connected to. — Adam Cuerden 22:32, 11 June 2025 (UTC) — continues after insertion below

Not there now. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:16, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

Yes, because I am trying to fix this, so I removed it. The trouble is that I can give examples of problems, but they repeat over the whole article, and smaller-scale ones being fixed won't fix large-scale structural issues. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.9% of all FPs.} 20:26, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

Presenting the issues you have on talk would likely see them addressed quicker, and avoid us having to clutter this page on smaller items. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:16, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

The level of detail continues excessively high.

J. K. Rowling#Marriage, divorce and single parenthood

I think the discussion of her father is a violation of WP:BLP. You can argue this section feels like hagiography, but I think that reflects a lot of the sources, at least. — Adam Cuerden 22:32, 11 June 2025 (UTC) — continues after insertion below

Calling something that well sourced a BLP vio is a stretch, nontheless, trimmed, while leaving enough detail to explain how she ended up living in poverty rather than with her father. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:16, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

J. K. Rowling#Publishing Harry Potter

"Inspiration and mother's death", several sections above presumes familiarity with Harry, Hermione, Ron, and the Mirror of Erised and does not explain what any of them are, so why are we summarising Harry Potter now? This is either pre-exiting knowledge, or it's too late to explain it.

A lot of monetary figures. The end of this section seems to exist solely to link to all the books under their full titles, which is clunky and better done in a bibliography (like the one at the end). It makes the paragraph near-unreadable. — Adam Cuerden 22:32, 11 June 2025 (UTC) — continues after insertion below

Responses from this section on at article talk, to preserve space on this page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:06, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

J. K. Rowling#Religion, wealth and remarriage

Quite disorganised. Why does a sentence about the claims that Harry Potter was occult appear in the first paragraph only to be instantly dismissed? (The material is covered much, much later in #Religious reactions). The whole section lacks any real structure.

J. K. Rowling#Adult fiction and Robert Galbraith

It's odd not to mention the Ink Black Heart controversies. This repeats the issue from #Publishing Harry Potter where it seems to need to link to every single book and list the year it came out in prose.

J. K. Rowling#Later Harry Potter works

It's odd to give so much space to a defunct website when the article is already so excessively long, without even mentioning it's defunct. A sentence on Pottermore existing (and ceasing to) would probably be enough.

A lot of speculation about the Harry Potter television series presented as fact. Like, "planned to span 10 years" is better than saying it "will span". Maybe it's clear it's speculative.

J. K. Rowling#Children's stories

Dubious as to whether these are notable enough to fit summary style. The "throw it all in" approach is not used for other authors.

J. K. Rowling#Influences

The Mitford material was covered already. A lot of this should be in Harry Potter (series), not here.

J. K. Rowling#Style and themes

Summary style is utterly violated here. Why, at this point, are we suddenly doing a five-paragraph deep dive into Harry Potter, with one sentence on her other novels. This is ripe for culling from an excessively long article.

J. K. Rowling#Reception

SOME of this may deserve to be here, but it should go into the discussions of the books. We're basically making a second pass through her literary oeuvre at this point, starting over from the beginning. Most of this is on Harry Potter (series), and should be in that article, not here. #Gender and social division is particularly bloated for what's supposed to be an article on the author. #Religious reactions probably has some relevance, but is excessively bloated; the relevant material is in #Religion, wealth and remarriage.

J. K. Rowling#Legacy

Another section that's mostly on Harry Potter (series). Some of this is probably relevant, but at this point reading through a bloated, disorganised biography, it's hard to say what. I have no idea what "spawned a textual afterlife among fans and forgers" is meant to mean.

J. K. Rowling#Philanthropy

The description of Beira's Place is oddly (and very NPOV-problematically) written to hide its anti-trans intent, made explicit in the articles about its launch.

Fails to put things in chronological order, which is both disorganised, and hides that all non-anti-trans donations mentioned come before the anti-trans ones, in other words, her "charitable" giving appears to be largely entirely for anti-trans causes since 2022.

Rest of the article

We're in the sections that start to try and hide her transphobic views, so let's cover the NPOV issues now:

1. Politics: Fails to mention her rejection of Keir Starmer was explicitly because he said that someone shouldn't state transphobic things. This despite this being the main point of the source linked. Like, it doesn't have to be mentioned (and the source is a mess), but if it is, and the source is going to be used, it should be mentioned accurately.

The section on her transgender views is fine-ish, albeit hard fought for. It's not particularly well-written, but I'm not surprised; the process for the current version was One of the worst processes on Wikipedia - That entire archive is part of the process, it continues for most of Talk:J._K._Rowling/Archive_20, the entirety of Talk:J._K._Rowling/Archive_21 is a continuance, and then in Talk:J._K._Rowling/Archive_22#Citation errors and CITEVAR SandyGeorgia writes 'I don't think the version was ready to be installed, people lost patience when we were almost over the finish line (so we don't have a strong consensus version), but I was too busy to say so then ... [...] Slower and steadier was doing the job; I hope we can resume that mode of editing.' - this after two exhausting months and something like a dozen drafts. Generally, there seems to be WP:OWN issues.

Problems continue. The article lead currently states, in Wikivoice, "...Her remarks have been described as transphobic, resulting in condemnation from various sectors and fueling debates on freedom of speech. Rowling denies being transphobic, stating that her views stem from her experience of domestic abuse and sexual assault. Her expression of these views has impacted her public image and relationship with readers and colleagues, altering the way they engage with her works."

The bit about "her views stem from her experience of domestic abuse and sexual assault" is insidious. It basically implies that transgender people either did the domestic abuse and sexual assault Rowling experienced (which is not true), or that transgender people are highly prone to such actions (also untrue), and the substance of Rowling's fringe views is only gone into late article. We should not have actual attacks on transgender people in the lead. A featured article should have basic respect for facts, and a featured article should not be a WP:COATRACK to promote fringe theories that promote hate.

It's a problem, and that article's relation to Rowling's views on transgender people has been problematic for years, edits generally attempting diminishing non-fringe views in favour of giving Rowling's attacks on trans people more space. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.9% of all FPs.} 22:32, 11 June 2025 (UTC)

The transgender section is being actively worked on at Talk:J. K. Rowling#Re-writing the main; re-working the lead should follow, but the portion you most object to in the lead was removed some time ago. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:06, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Commentary moved to talk - Nikkimaria (talk) 15:19, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

• Out of process - procedural close - step 1 not completed - Adam Cuerden has not engaged with any of the issues above except the transgender issues (see article talk page). Their stated view is that we should be calling her views transphobic without rebuttal from her because WP:FRINGE requires us to treat Rowling's fringe hate speech as fringe hate speech, not worthy of equal coverage with its rebuttals.[1] This is a single issue content dispute, consuming a lot of editor attention. If there are issues with any other content (which was all fully workshopped and reviewed in the last FAR in 2022) then this should have been discussed first on the talk page. But a plain reading of that talk page shows thousands of words expended just to remove Rowling's rebuttal of the accusation she is transphobic, and this is an abuse of process and will be a huge waste of editor time for no reason - and yes, that is forum shopping. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 07:18, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

  Talk:J._K._Rowling/Archive_22#Style,_and_a_lack_thereof_in_the_current_version.. I raised issues with the full article. This is a microcosm of the talk page: Ignore substantive complaints about the aarticle, call for more procedure, make personal attacks against the person stating there's issues with the article. WP:NPOVN is full of comments on how bad the article is. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.9% of all FPs.} 12:09, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

  Maybe best not to mention personal attacks. [2] Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 12:24, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

  (Personal attack removed) Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.9% of all FPs.} 13:37, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

• Close per procedure - Since procedure evidently wasn't followed and, at minimum, the vast majority of issues raised do not require a FAR to fix, I too propose closure. TBicks (talk) 12:37, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

  Talk:J._K._Rowling/Archive_22#Style,_and_a_lack_thereof_in_the_current_version. Procedure was followed. These issues with the article were raised months ago. You can't just say proceure wasn't followed. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.9% of all FPs.} 12:09, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

  I feel like i'm being gaslit now. You have just linked a talk post from a year ago in which you bring up 4 specific concerns about 1 section of the article. In this FAR, you have expressed issues with 13 specific sections plus "the rest of the article". TBicks (talk) 12:32, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

  I have been engaging with the article's issues for over a year, and no progress has been made. I've said repeatedly there are issues with writing throughout the article, and have gotten no responses when I have, no attempts to change it. You're basically asking editors to repeatedly raise points on an incredibly hostile talk page over and over, when it's clear no-one cares about the article's problems. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.9% of all FPs.} 13:27, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

  Procedure is to "attempt to directly resolve issues with the existing community of article editors, and to informally improve the article over at least a two-week period".

  Not only did the talk page you linked not raise the vast majority of concerns you raise here, but you seem to have made only 6 posts there (including the initial post) over the course of 9 days. TBicks (talk) 12:37, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

  I have made posts there for over a year trying to improve it. No substanstive progress has happened. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.9% of all FPs.} 13:27, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

Commentary moved to talk - Nikkimaria (talk) 15:19, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

• Procedural close, and sanction Cuerden for their complete WP:BLUDGEONing of this page (40% of the edits, 60% of the added text—and that less than 24 hours in). —Fortuna, imperatrix 15:21, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

  Noting that by the time I clicked, he and SandyGeorgia each had a quarter of the page’s edits. Innisfree987 (talk) 14:31, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

• Procedural close this is absolutely ridiculous bludgeoning and forum-shopping by Cuerden and should not be encouraged. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 19:45, 12 June 2025 (UTC)

• Move to FARC There are numerous issues with the article that clearly showcase it doesn't belong as an FA in its current state. With several of those issues being outlined well by Adam Cuerden. In short, the prose is incredibly poor and bloated, focusing on minutia, trivia, and content that really has no purpose in being in this biography (and with the parents and grandparents info, really anywhere unless they're independently notable). It was certainly good enough to pass the quality standards of FA a decade and a half ago, but standards have risen since then and this article's quality has minimally improved. Really degraded in several ways. Add to that the intractability of getting anything meaningful changed through the talk page and it seems therefore doubtful that improvements will be made in any reasonable amount of time for the vast number of problems. So, I suppose I also preemptively support delisting when it comes to the FARC discussion, unless the large amount of needed changes somehow manage to occur. Which I am doubtful about happening. Silverseren^C 21:21, 12 June 2025 (UTC)
• Demote/Move to FARC Fails WP:FACRIT criterion 1e. stable: it is not subject to ongoing edit wars and its content does not change significantly from day to day, except in response to the featured article process the subject of the article is too contentious due to her views on transgender issues for the article to be stable long-term and thus fails the criterion to be considered a featured article. Just demoting it and moving on seems to be the best use of everyone's time. Hemiauchenia (talk) 15:18, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

  I'm not familiar enough with the article to comment on whether it specifically should be an FA, but overall contentious topics can absolutely still be FAs. Our (highly aspirational) goal is ultimately to make every article an FA, which will necessarily include them. The reason for the stability criterion is just that it's impossible to judge a rapidly evolving topic against the FA criteria, but I see no reason why Rowling's article would need to change so quickly as to make that a problem. Sdkb ^talk 04:29, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

  Hemiauchenia Barack Obama remained featured throughout an 8-year term; the criterion was never meant to preclude any article from being featured, and Obama surely was as controversial and changed more day to day than JKR. I've not seen editwarring; if I had, I would have sought remedy. I have seen WP:BRD sometimes result in non-consensual text stick longer than optimal. Nor have I seen content changing significantly day to day except to reflect normal and expected updates; it was well acknowledged this article would need updating as better sources on the transgender issues became available, but editors seeking change rarely provided sources supporting desired changes. Ping also SMcCandlish, who mentioned 1e edit warring. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:54, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

• Move to FARC. Obviously fails the stability criterion, and no amount of additional notice is likely to change that. Yes, there was no formal notice, but if this was closed as out of process, it would be the third FAR request in a row we've done that with. At a certain point the repeated FAR requests and constant concerns raised about the article have to become a form of notice; the notice criterion is intended to avoid out-of-the-blue requests with no basis, not to waste time on reviews for articles where long-running disputes and concerns are glaringly obvious. Numerous concerns have been raised on talk for a long, long time and no real progress has been made at settling them. And beyond that, the purpose of the process is not to punish individual people - the suggestion above that we should close it to avoid encouraging Cuerden is silly; take him to AE if you think he's behaving inappropriately, but here, our goal is to do right by the article. Given the extreme, protracted instability on the article (coupled with the fact that its FA status gets cited in discussions as an implicit rationale for the slow motion on changes, eg. here or here), it is clear that there are obviously legitimate concerns and that (further) notice isn't going to lead to those concerns being assuaged. Past a certain point we need to address the actual root issue rather than getting derailed into procedure, and the root issue is that 1. this isn't at featured article quality and isn't likely to regain it in the near future, and 2. the false perception that it is at featured article quality is an impediment to actually improving it. --Aquillion (talk) 16:02, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

  I want to just add that my own, failed, attempt at a FA review was engendered specifically because I saw the FA status as an impediment to handling the neutrality problems in the article. Simonm223 (talk) 13:46, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

  Simonm223 several (mostly uninvolved) editors declared in FAR3 there was not a POV problem. Why did you not then follow Nikkimaria's advice to next use NPOVN?[3] I ask because there are allegations of "stonewalling" on this page that I believe unfounded, as appropriate DR venues were bypassed (along with the problem of discussions not based on sources). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:59, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

• Speedy delist or at least move to FARC. I feel the nomination has become way too heated to warrant a speedy closure, and even if the nominator was out of process, they unintentionally revealed just how unstable the article is in its current form. Aquillion and Hemiauchenia bring up good points as to how the article fails WP:WIAFA, and I don't think the nominator repeatedly acting out of process should outweigh the actual status of the article and discourse surrounding it. This seems like a textbook case of WP:IAR. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 04:42, 14 June 2025 (UTC)
• In case what I said above wasn't clear, I also support a Move to FARC. It's hard to satisfy both stable and comprehensive when an increasing part of the subject's notability is due to ongoing current events. Right now I don't believe either is well-satisfied, or at least I can say a large part of what I've spent the last week doing is arguing with another editor who has been attempting to wholesale rewrite a large section of the article that went through an extensive drafting process not even a full year ago, and before that my main participation on the talk page has been begging other editors to include more recent sources. I also don't believe the neutrality criterion is satisfied either, since the more recent sources tend to be increasingly clear about the fact that she's an anti-trans activist. Loki (talk) 04:53, 14 June 2025 (UTC)
• Move to FARC or delist. I’m pretty doubtful this will get to a stable enough point to retain FA status. Innisfree987 (talk) 14:28, 14 June 2025 (UTC)
• As a uninvolved editor, move to FARC. Calls for a procedural close are nonsense, as the instructions at WP:FAR were quite obviously followed. Unlike WP:GAR, stability is a reason for an article to be delisted at FAR, which is for FAs that may no longer meet any of the WP:FACR. It seems to me quite obvious that in light of current events, to remain fully comprehensive the article must necessarily use referencing that does not meet WP:BESTSOURCES, and that to remain fully cited to WP:BESTSOURCES the article will not be fully comprehensive. If an article is unable to meet both of two of the FA criteria because meeting one violates the other, that is unfortunate, but the best thing to do is to move it towards no-longer-being-an-FA. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:05, 14 June 2025 (UTC)
• Move to FARC The writing is obviously not up to Featured standard. When a Featured Article isn't good enough to merit the status anymore, we should either fix it or remove the star. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 15:06, 14 June 2025 (UTC)
• Move to FARC Talk page discussion is useful as long as it leads to article improvement. It is not useful when it's used to Stonewall against beneficial changes. (Redacted) The featured status of the article is no longer merited and actively standing in the way of improvements. (t · c) buidhe 15:25, 14 June 2025 (UTC)
• Procedural issues aside, in terms of fixing the issues raised, I think that the vast majority of sections can be fixed via the subject's talk page if they are raised there. Although i've not been active on the Rowling page as long as some others, i'm yet to see an issue unrelated to trans/politics get stalled, so for most sections raised here, I think rewrites/fixes could be fairly speedily achieved. It's very possible (i'd even say likely) that a FAR/FARC will be needed for the trans related stuff discussed in the "Rest of the article" subsection, as that area has certainly become somewhat of a battleground, but at least if we can get the other stuff sorted first, we can avoid a needlessly convoluted FAR where we attempt to rework 13 sections on top of the contentious trans related stuff (which by this point really needs a dedicated process of its own to disentangle). I think talk would be the best place to start for the moment, if only to clear out the noise and home in on the issues that really need to be addressed in an FAR. Otherwise I can see this process becoming extremely convoluted extremely fast.TBicks (talk) 17:15, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

Coordinator note. Given the comments so far, I'd like to highlight for participants what FAR is not:

1. A vote. Keep and delist declarations are not made at the FAR stage, which is intended to focus on potential improvements. Only if and when this is moved to the FARC stage will such declarations be appropriate.
2. Dispute resolution. Such issues should be addressed via the usual DR processes as needed.
3. A venue for personal comments. Comments addressing other editors should be taken to user talk, or if necessary ANI.

Please keep these points in mind and keep comments here focused on the FA criteria and how the article does or could meet them. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:19, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

Those above, and myself, seem aware of that, hence why I and others above are instead saying Move to FARC, which is specifically the kind of statement that is meant to happen in these reviews if decided upon. Unless you were referring to the initial responders prior to comments like mine? Silverseren^C 17:35, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

If you are responding to #1, I would guess they are referring to the fact that

a) 5 of the 9 people who have indicated a wish to move to FARC, have also indicated a preference to demote/delist (fwiw this includes yourself)

b) There was someone trying to illicit a keep/delist declaration from me TBicks (talk) 17:53, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

• elicit (never could spell!)

TBicks (talk) 18:03, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

@Silver seren I fundamentally take issue with that line of reasoning. It's one thing to vote to move to FARC because the article has sufficiently been commented on and edited in response to comments at FAR to the point that it is ready for a FARC consideration. It's another thing to rush something out of FAR prematurely with the clear intention of rapidly submarining at FARC. This is clearly what voters are wanting, and given the controversy on Rowling, its seems clearly biased towards the subject matter and an abuse of process. We do what's best for the article and our encyclopedic coverage always. What is best here? To take our time at FAR, and give the feedback and attention it should get in terms of tightening prose and making better editorial decision on article development and improvement. Even if the instability problem is an issue later at FARC which causes the article to fail at FA review, we can still make a better article through FA process by giving it a proper look over here at FAR.4meter4 (talk) 18:28, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

In regards to this, and your comment below, please don't forget to assume good faith. It’s not bias to think it’s bad for the encyclopedia to have a protracted process around an article that has no chance of meeting the FA criteria. As some have noted, those who want to improve what can be have the talk page at their disposal, but we don’t need to belabor the FA question when its outcome is pretty clear. Innisfree987 (talk) 19:16, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

@Innisfree987 I understand that to some the outcome is clear, but I think it is possible that FAR review might lead to a more stable article. It also might not. We won't know until we actually try to tackle the problem in FAR review. Not trying though is a rejection of the article itself through a defeatist attitude. That could be perceived as a bias given the controversial subject matter. There is no way around escaping the optics, no matter how much we quote WP:AGF. Railroading controversial topics through FAR so they can be rejected rapidly at FARC is a bad look. Letting the process proceed normally and succeed or fail in a natural way at the normal FA procedural pace is the way to go.4meter4 (talk) 20:00, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

I don’t think it helps to be the person who keeps introducing the allegations of bad faith; there are plenty of legitimate arguments here, like WP:NOTBURO. Innisfree987 (talk) 20:18, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

Please do not make a bolded !vote twice. Sdkb ^talk 04:23, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

• Move to FARC. I think I have now seen ample evidence that there are intractable disputes going back to well before this review was started. I agree that some issues could likely be fixed through simple edits, but the biggest issue is that the article is unstable in the sense that there is a decided lack of consensus on how to handle Rowling's current profile vis-a-vis a history that had quite a different one. Emphasis which may have been reasonable in past iterations of this piece now looks unevenly made and unduly emphasized in light of content that is being soft pedaled or kept out entirely. I think we need to move this discussion to a venue where we can decide to delist the article, even if only temporarily, so as not to mislead readers into thinking that this is an example of the best articles on Wikipedia. jps (talk) 17:55, 14 June 2025 (UTC)
• Oppose move to FARC. Support following FA review procedure as articulated by Nikkimaria. We have editors rushing the FA process with an attempt to prematurely move it out of FA review to FARC where they can rapidly submarine the nomination. Given the controversy surrounding Rowling, moving this prematurely to FARC could be perceived as a bad faith decision made from bias rather than a measured neutral course of action. It's important with all nominations, but particularly controversial ones, that we strictly follow FA review process/procedure; even if some see this as not likely to be fruitful in later steps along the FA chain of approval. Ultimately, a proper review here could do things to improve the article, such as tighten prose and improve editorial decisions throughout the article. It would not be a fruitless exercise in terms of improving article quality, even if it never gets the FA stamp of approval. For that reason alone its worth taking our time at this stage, even if ultimately it may fail to pass a later stage in the FA process.4meter4 (talk) 18:04, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

  I mean, a lot of these would be highly difficult to fix. Summary style is pretty much ignored for much of the article, leading to it being incredibly bloated with trivia; it doesn't make proper use of other articles, hence repeating a whole lot of material better covered at Harry Potter (seriew), the talk page has gotten so broken that constructive editing is nearly impossible, with its status as FA being used to block needed changes (and pretty much any change not discussed on the talk page will be instantly reverted).

  I think it's the deeper issues that are most insidious, though. The article bears artifacts of previous versions throughout it, little non sequiturs, bits where the topic just randomly jumps for a few sentences. This raises serious questions about sourcing attribution and WP:SYNTH issues, as sloppy editing can easily create both, which are difficult to check given most of the sources are paywalled. I suspect a lot of work - and collecting most of the sources used - would be necessary to even begin a rewrite, which would need to throw out large chunks of the article. I don't think anyone even has an idea what the structure of a fixed article would look like, and actually getting agreement on such work would be incredibly difficult. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.9% of all FPs.} 21:03, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

Hmm... I think it would be helpful at the very least to make specific remarks as to specific passages of text as regards to SYNTH rather than vaguely making claims about the overall state of the article. If there are places where you suspect SYNTH is an issue for example, then those specific places should be identified. If we are going to delist this, we should at very least take the time to do a proper diagnostic analysis of the current state of the article so those wanting to bring it back to FA at a future date have some sort of framework to work from, and those working at FAR have something to work from. Best.4meter4 (talk) 23:49, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

I've said this on the talk page, but the end of the Legacy section has a "According to scholars this shows..." where what "this" is has some major questions: It looks like a statement by Pugh was inserted into the middle of a passage cited to Thomas and Tosenberger; the "this" probably actually refers back a sentence earlier, to "...her statements about characters – for instance, that Harry and Hermione could have been a couple, and that Dumbledore was gay – have complicated her relationship with readers;"

It's subtle, but it probably changes the context of the conclusion in a way likely misleading. It'd need checking all three sources to be sure, though. Anyway, check Talk:J. K. Rowling, I explain it better there because I'm not trying to explain quickly. I also know for a fact there used to be one or two blatant SYNTH issues, though we've fixed those. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.9% of all FPs.} 02:51, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

Given the controversy surrounding Rowling, not bringing the article to FARC could be perceived as a bad-faith decision. It would be very easy to read that as saying that the article can't have its gold star called into question, and that the Wikipedia community will appeal to arcane procedural concerns in order to keep that gold star there.

Well, plenty of people wouldn't care at all (did you know that the average person only knows the meaning of two acronyms for Wikipedia back-channel forums?). But among the fraction who would, many would see not taking it to FARC as a bad sign for Wikipedia's standards. Stepwise Continuous Dysfunction (talk) 04:09, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

Nice try to flip the script, but nobody is advocating avoiding a FARC if it is necessary. We can't determine that until a proper FAR is done, and editors are given an opportunity to fix identified problems. There is a reason we require articles to go to FAR before they are taken to FARC, and that calls to delist at FAR are banned. I note that the calls to move this directly to FARC under claims of instability are ignoring the spirit of the guidelines given for step 2 at WP:FAR. If you are going to comment here you must engage with the process as articulated in the guidelines, which basically state that the goal of FAR is to identify problems and give editors who want to work on the article time to address/ fix them. If editors aren't willing to engage in that process in compliance with the guidelines then they shouldn't be commenting at all. 4meter4 (talk) 05:55, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

• FARC it, per criterion 1e: "stable: it is not subject to ongoing edit wars and its content does not change significantly from day to day". This article has been an editorial shitshow for several years. PS: While I do not agree with Rowling's TERF crap, whether or not I agree with it or anyone else in here does is arguably irrelevant, since this is not POVpedia. I cannot get behind the idea that our article should represent only one viewpoint on Rowling's socio-political positions and especially not that her own statements on the matter should be entirely suppressed. FRINGE really doesn't apply to socio-political stances with very broad (if unreasonable) support even if most of us wish that support did not exist. This is not similar to "the Earth is flat", or "space aliens built the Egyptian pyramids", etc. Resist the urge to try to use WP as an advocacy platform no matter how important you think that advocacy is.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:28, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

• Claims on FAR about length, focus, excess detail, BLP vio, etc) do not reflect sources, and Adam Cuerden acknowledges not having accessed one of our most comprehensive sources. That information should inform comments on focus, excess detail, BLP vio, and the like; discussion of weight and focus should be based on best sources, and until/unless AC has gathered and read those sources, his commentary might be considered as not yet fully informed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:23, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

  FWIW I do have access to Pugh and I second criticisms 2, 3, and sort-of 4 (I'm more concerned that "religion" and "wealth" are mixed in one section with poor focus than that we have a section on those things at all). For 1, I don't agree with that specific example but could be convinced there is too much trivia in the article elsewhere.

  I don't think any of those criticisms relies on access to any source. They're all directly about the current text of the article. Loki (talk) 23:48, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

  For the record, the numbered points are the ones at Talk:J._K._Rowling#Summary_style, which are specifically ways I feel this article violates WP:Summary style. To make the FAR easier to follow, I'll briefly state what the points are here:

  1. The article contains a lot of trivial facts. I used as an example the first paragraph in Early life, which, honestly, isn't that bad, just very detailed compared to other FA biographies.
  2. About one-third of the article is focused entirely on Harry Potter, going into stylistic discussion and literary analysis, when WP:Summary style would put this into the many subarticles, like Harry Potter (series), and give a fairly brief synopsis in J. K. Rowling.
  3. It lists off every book in the two series in order at J. K. Rowling#Publishing Harry Potter and J. K. Rowling#Adult fiction and Robert Galbraith just to link to them, when we have a bibliography for that.
  4. It sometimes sets up concepts, but then drops them until much later. Example: the lengthy discussion of her religion in J. K. Rowling#Religion, wealth and remarriage when that depth of coverage presumably only exists at all because we later have J. K. Rowling#Religious reactions

  Just, if people are going to refer to points by number, it's probably easier if they're here. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.9% of all FPs.} 00:23, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

• Close without FARC, because the issues raised here do not warrant delisting. This article has been the subject of a gargantuan effort to summarize the best sources on the subject, and it is an excellent summary of those. No, really, it is. The problem is that, like every good compromise, the current version has left everyone unhappy: and there are a good many editors who simply cannot accept that a version they dislike is considered FA quality (I dislike some wording currently used. I would change it if I could. Consensus is against me, and I've accepted that: I'm not starting an FAR over those few words). Unlike the 2022 FAR, the issues raised here simply do not merit changing status. There have been kilobytes of discussion about Rowling's transgender views and how to present them, but the most extreme change that could come about as a result of those discussion is of a few dozen words - that is not, in my view, "instability" with respect to the FA criteria. The summary-style issues are all stylistic nitpicks (sorry!). I do not believe a single extant FA will do any better than this page when subject to similar scrutiny. If we delist this it will be purely because our editor body lacks the ability to compromise over a contentious topic, and that would be a crying shame, not to mention a serious indictment of our model. Vanamonde93 (talk) 00:38, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

  it will be purely because our editor body lacks the ability to compromise over a contentious topic, and that would be a crying shame, not to mention a serious indictment of our model -- Fascinatingly, I agree with your diagnosis but not with your moral conclusion. Crowdsourcing cannot and should not handle controversy well precisely because it is a controversy. It isn't an indictment of the model nor is it a crying shame that NPOV disputes disqualify articles from being FA because I am of the opinion that not every article can become featured. I am fine with Wikipedia saying, for the time being, "It may not be possible to write an article on this subject that rises to our highest standards." That is so much more mature and honest than the hyperbolic "sum total of human knowledge" hubris that gets bandied about sometimes. jps (talk) 01:56, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

  +1 (t · c) buidhe 03:27, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

  There are varieties of controversy. We cannot write FAs when the body of high-quality sources is changing rapidly. In this case there's no rapid change, only a slow drip of provocative tweeting. What Rowling's views are, and what the desired effect of her advocacy is, are matters of settled fact. WP:DUE, WP:BLP, and WP:LABEL place sharp limits on how we can present those facts. An editor body committed to collaboration should be capable of handling this: this isn't Racial views of Winston Churchill, or Origin of SARS-CoV-2, or anything else where what Wikipedia considers the best sources are actually at odds over the substance of the matter. Vanamonde93 (talk) 16:58, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

  Hmm... I think that this article matches my controversy meter for to the radical views of Churchill or the origin of COVID-19 somewhat similarly. The problem isn't so much that there is controversy over precisely what Rowling's views are (to be fair, there isn't much controversy over the origin of COVID-19 or what radical views Churchill had either -- in spite of certain contrarian sneerers arguing otherwise). The problem is that there is controversy as to how WP:WEIGHTy this presentation of self and advocacy is given the outsized impact her career as an author was. I do not see consensus in the sources I perused over these matters for how the framing is best handled. Do you? jps (talk) 23:20, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

  There are serious scholars saying that Churchill's views were simply a defense of empire, or that Covid came from a lab/from a market. I know of no serious scholars stating that Rowling hasn't advocated against trans rights. So I do see consensus here, actually. Even with the caveat that I have not gone deep into the source material in the last year, the general patterns are quite clear. We have sources covering the evolution of Rowling's public expressions. We have sources discussing what causes Rowling has put her money toward. There is no no ambiguity that she has advocated against support in the law for gender self-recognition. There are a couple of sources discussing how this has affected her relationship with fans - this material is thin, but not a matter of contention. And we have a few pithy quotes summing this up: the Variety quote comes to mind (I suggested putting that in the lead, to dodge the difficulties of summarizing Rowling's tweeting, but other solutions can be devised). None of this is substantively contentious. What causes controversy is Rowling's steady stream of tweeting, but we shouldn't be covering that in blow-by-blow fashion anyway, because of DUE, NOTNEWS, etc. (this is not Rowling-specific. I have consistently argued against including sound-bytes from public figures in BLPs). If she says something significant, it is covered by retrospective sources with a little delay - at that point we can work them in.

  Fundamentally, any piece of text can be written in several different ways that are policy-compatible. In this instance I don't see substantive disagreement that merits NPOV tags, edit-warring, or failure of the FA criteria. Vanamonde93 (talk) 16:24, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

Extended content

There are no serious scholars advocated for lab leak theory. This is a WP:PROFRINGE point you are advocating for now, and it is very disconfirming for me to continue a conversation with you since you are advocating such. jps (talk) 17:15, 18 June 2025 (UTC) Nonsense. My personal understanding is that the evidence for a lab leak is weak to non-existent and I am in no way advocating for it: nor do I have the slightest interest in editing the topic. I am pointing out that the literature has taken the possibility seriously in a way that has not happened with Rowling as a means of illustrating a point relevant to this article. You are exhibiting a remarkable degree of WP:ABF: you need to recalibrate. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:48, 18 June 2025 (UTC) I think you're the one that needs to recalibrate as you're acting the part of the officious, power-hungry, know-it-all. Never mind. I said it wasn't worth having the conversation, and your response convinces me that it is not. jps (talk) 17:55, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

• I basically agree with jps here, in that I think it may not be possible for an article that is significantly impacted by current events to ever be a featured article, because in that case "stable" and "comprehensive" conflict, and that's fine. Similarly articles with significant controversy related to them have a much more difficult time remaining at featured quality because of disagreements about what is neutral and what is comprehensive. That's also fine. It's not a problem that (for instance) our articles about historical world leaders like George Washington or Neville Chamberlain are often featured but articles about current world leaders like Donald Trump or Keir Starmer rarely are. Featured status implies a level of source stability that is hard to come by for articles about political controversies happening right now.

  I also don't agree that it's just "a few dozen words" at issue. The problem is that an increasingly large part of the subject's notability is not reflected in the article. We're at the point where nearly every source, news or scholarly, spends at least some time on Rowling's views on trans people, so if we did change the article to reflect the sources properly it would be very clearly unstable. But if we keep it the way it is right now, it's not comprehensive. You can't say "we haven't changed it that much so it's not unstable" because there are two prongs to this fork. Loki (talk) 03:13, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

  Wikipedia:Today's featured article/November 4, 2008. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:55, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

• This falls under WP:NOTREPUTATION. If we've failed to write a featured article, then we've failed to write a featured article; we need to admit that fact. Most of our articles (even most of our high-traffic articles) are not featured. It's a high hill to climb and sometimes reaching it is going to be a slog. I do think that it is possible to get the article to a stable state eventually but it'll require a lot of work. Saying that we have to treat the current version as FA despite its instability because to do otherwise would be to admit defeat is putting the cart before the horse. But also, and this is crucial - you say that the problem is that the editor body lacks the ability to compromise. But part of the problem is that FA status, by its very nature, can discourage reaching such compromises by encouraging people eg. to cite WP:FAOWN and generally argue that the article represents accepted compromises already. And that's not helping here - part of the reason stability is a criterion for maintaining FA status is because from a big-picture viewpoint instability means that whatever compromises previous version had are clearly not holding; we need to reach new compromises for things that have changed, and FA status is getting in the way of that. --Aquillion (talk) 12:31, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

• @Aquillion: NOTREPUTATION is a well-articulated argument for ignoring what social media says about us: I'm making the basic point that our ability to work together on contentious content is central to our success. And my contention with respect to this article is that we have written an FA here, or at least written something that has stood up to far more scrutiny than the vast majority of our FAs. No proposed changes from either Rowling's most trenchant critics or her staunchest defenders contains anything near the level of new material for us to remove FA status on the grounds of instability. What we have right now is nitpicking, and edit-warring, and that's an indictment of the editor body, not the content. Vanamonde93 (talk) 20:09, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

  I haven't seen any indications of editwarring, and those who are arguing 1e, instable, are either misinterpreting WP:WIAFA or failing to present any evidence of editwarring. If I saw edit warring, I'd take it to AE, and I haven't (I have seen some BRD); we can't penalize an FA because of a few behavioral issues. And 1e was never intended to prevent us from the routine maintenance of keeping articles up to date (Barack Obama was an FA throughout eight years of his presidency, and it's difficult to imagine that being less controversial than JKR); that we have people editing who hadn't read or discussed sources is a behavioral issue, not a stability problem. I'd like for anyone who is arguing the article is unstable to present the evidence of editwarring or major changes other than normal editing to update an article (which would be easier if those arguing on talk would actually consult sources and then confine discussion to sources, sans venting and rants and off-topic tangents that don't advance article improvement). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:12, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

• The article went through a long and comprehensive FAR in 2022, I would need to see strong evidence that the article has degraded since that consensus. --Guerillero ^{Parlez Moi} 11:28, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

  The person who nominated the 2022last FAR was @Simonm223: Perhaps they would be equipped to opine on whether they think framing the 2022 review as comprehensive enough to warrant only considering whether the article had "degraded" since that time is well-motivated. I gathered from their comments on the WP:NPOVN thread that they think there may be ongoing concerns in terms of whether enough wide-enough community input was had with respect to seemingly intractable NPOV and OWN controversies, and my investigation of the talkpage discussions and matching with the complaints registered here seems to me to indicate that we might have an instance of either WP:CCC or WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. jps (talk) 12:42, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

  I do not believe the Rowling article to presently be neutral. I respect WP:LABEL concerns with regard to a BLP but I think the local consensus has skewed too far in the opposite direction and has come to under-represent the extent to which her anti-trans political activism has come to define responses to her and her work. I agree that there is a local consensus that is quite protective of the page although I believe at least the majority of those people who form the consensus are doing so in good faith. Simonm223 (talk) 13:00, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

Side conversation re Simonm223 did not nominate the 2022 FAR. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:06, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

User:ජපස, incorrect. Simonm223 nominated the 2025 FAR3, in which the FAR Coord stated upon closing on 7 May (barely a month before this FAR4) that (diff) "Prior to starting an FAR, there should be discussion about it at the talk page; what is there presently is primarily a content dispute, and FAR is not dispute resolution. That dispute would be better suited to another venue, such as WP:NPOVN." The NPOV noticeboard thread was not allowed to run before this FAR4 was launched. Your point about local consensus is taken, and I've urged on talk that RFCs using updated sources are in order (I agree that NPOVN was also a useful next step); it's unfortunate that the FAR Coord's advice was ignored, as article improvement efforts are delayed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:31, 15 June 2025 (UTC) It is frustrating that after your accusations about me going to NPOVN after being directed there from FTN caused me to be attacked that you now say it was useful. Anyway, letting the point slide, I'm curious as to what you consider sufficient notice. Comments about article structure, NPOV issues, and WP:OWN issues have been discussed on the talk page for at least a year. Is the problem that the exact text of this FAR didn't appear? Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.9% of all FPs. 14:35, 15 June 2025 (UTC) That the "exact text" of this FAR didn't appear? No, thats a bit of a silly straw man. That most of the issues raised in this FAR didn't appear. Big difference. A lot of the issues you've raised here simply weren't brought up on the talk page. TBicks (talk) 16:37, 15 June 2025 (UTC) This conversation is heading down an unproductive path again; I only intended to point out that the statement that Simonm223 nominated the 2022 FAR was incorrect, to indicate the conclusion of the 2025 FAR that Simon did nominate, and not to reignite a side topic, so I won't be commenting further here on this portion. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:06, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

• I'd honestly say that the 2022 FAR is responsible for many of the article's problems. It closed with a promise of more work going forwards. A comparison to today shows that little further work actually happened. It added what appeards to be huge copy-pastes from Harry Potter, ruining the article's focus. If this was raised at FAC today, it'd be torn apart. Quite frankly, I think the FAR resulted in an article just good enough to take the focus off of it, under the assumption further work would polish it. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.9% of all FPs.} 19:06, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

  "It added what appeards to be huge copy-pastes from Harry Potter" can be viewed as an allegation that @Vanamonde93, Olivaw-Daneel, and AleatoryPonderings: (who did most of that writing) breached WP:CWW, or I did when copying text developed on talk in to the article (my high content contribs are because I did most of the WP:CWW from talk to the article, even when I didn't write the text, and I'm fairly sure I never breached attribution). This is a very serious charge, implicating specific editors. Please provide evidence via diffs for this copy-paste on talk so content can be attributed correctly via CWW templates. This kind of mistake makes it appear you are moving too fast; FAR is a deliberative process, and there's no need for hurry or undiffed charges of copyright breaches. (Also, please thread your posts chronologically.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:59, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

  Adam, if you had exercised the least bit of due diligence you'd know content was copied from J. K. Rowling to Harry Potter to comply with summary style, and to address a glaring lack of analysis at the series article [4]. You would also know that the literary analyses were added to Rowling's article because at least seven editors - with more than 50 FAs between them - noted that literary analysis was necessary [5]. You are making it hard to take your concerns seriously. Vanamonde93 (talk) 20:14, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

  And this; always first at JKR, and properly attributed when copying. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:23, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

  You're kind of trying very hard to be offended, especially as the actual 2022 FAR has been gutted and stripped off to many subpages, making it near impossible to coherently review it. The actual point was that the article excessively duplicates a more appropriate article for that content, the direction of content flow was the opposite of my assumption, but copying content into an FA from an appropriate subarticle with appropriate credit is not actually something that is at all problematic behaviour. Merging content into an article is part of normal editing; I don't see why you think that'd be an "allegation". That it went the other direction does go some way to explaining why, in 2022, the FAR went the way it did, and the result was considered a good version. However, now that Harry Potter contains all the content, it's time to take a hatchet to (not all, but a good chunk) of the remaining content in J. K. Rowling. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.9% of all FPs.} 20:43, 15 June 2025 (UTC)

• Move to FARC or delist - Featured Article Review just isn't an appropriate venue at this point. That is an implication of a collaborative effort to improve the state of the article back to an acceptable quality. However, with the situation around this article that's just not realistic. Despite years of divisiveness and constantly churning debate on a talk page, and an enormous effort at a previous FAR, the article has only grown more controversial. Currently the same voices have been battling over the same points for section after section with absolutely no sign consensus will ever be reached. As others have indicated above, the editing process for this article has simply broken down. If that same article has significant issues, and I'm convinced it does, it's not in a place where it can reasonably use the FAR process at the moment. That's just redirecting the entire mess from the talk page to another venue where it will continue to go nowhere. If I ask myself whether this would stand a chance in hell at passing FAC in its current state the answer is no. Enough opposes would be generated from the transgender topic alone—the part so bogged in procedure we can't even change small wordings anymore—and everyone without a strong opinion on that matter would oppose on the grounds the page is an active battleground with no sign of stopping and it's clearly inappropriate for a prospective Featured Article. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 16:52, 16 June 2025 (UTC)
• Comment to coordinators. @ Nikkimaria, Casliber, and DrKay. Having "move to FARC/delist interjections" throughout this FAR is making it difficult to have a focused and centralized discussion on issues/needed improvements for the J. K. Rowling article. As the featured article review coordinators, I think it is time for you all to decide whether it is worth continuing this WP:FAR further. Adam Cuerden has made a good effort at trying to engage with the step 2 process productively, but otherwise very little engagement has been done to address specific issues in the article. Most editors are not actively providing constructive criticisms but simply want to skip the step 2 process and move directly to the delisting stage. The overall consensus appears to be that step 2 is unlikely to be fruitful and should therefore be abandoned under a WP:NOTBUREAU rationale. Concerns over article instability and protracted arguments impeding the editorial process over a long period of time have informed that opinion. While I personally would like to see a proper FAR done, the current environment here does not seem conducive to that happening. For that reason, I suggest the coordinators make a firm decision about moving to FARC now or indicate outright that that option is a non starter. If it's moved now so be it. If it's not, a new discussion thread should probably be created that is targeted at productive engagement at this FAR, and a clear warning that all premature move to FARC/delisting comments at this stage will be redacted/hidden per the step 2 guideline forbidding that kind of commenting during the FAR process. Otherwise I don't think a productive FAR would be possible. I could live with either decision, given the lengthy history of contentious talk page disputes at the Rowling article, but others, such as SandyGeorgia, might take issue. Regardless, the coordinators need to say something and provide some leadership because the current environment isn't productive. Best.4meter4 (talk) 21:15, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

  What lengthy history of editwarring? Please present evidence; I've not seen it and if there is some, I'd like to see those editors sanctioned. I'm unsure why this claim is made throughout this FAR; I have seen instances where editors inserted changes that did not have consensus, and those have stood precisely because other editors won't edit war.

  And I disagree that improvements aren't happening; the process is working just as it should, except that those entering Delist don't seem to have read the instructions. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:22, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia The comment I made was talk page directed. You could be right on the history of contentious editing. I am not well versed enough on the article history to make a well-informed assessment. My impression from the talk page archives is that there have been contentious disputes between editors, but whether that has spilled over into edit warring on the page itself I cannot say. Regardless, you make a good point that we need specific evidence of edit warring (such as behavioral blocks of editors). This would be something the coordinators could make explicit, that any vague accusations of article instability or edit warring will not be tolerated. We need evidence of such behavior through article differences. For me personally, I am finding it difficult to stay focused on this page because so much of the conversation is off-task when compared to the instructions at WP:FAR. So again, something needs to be done to put things back on track, and keep comments on-task.4meter4 (talk) 21:44, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

4meter4: Because FAR notifications weren't done on time, editors coming here might not have understood the two phases, as that is part of the instructions in the notification template; once faulty declarations start, others continue. The FAR Coordinators are patient and experienced, and able to deal with this.

The talk page issue is partly because, over a year in, we still had editors who demanded certain changes without consulting sources. Now that this FAR is going to run, we should see curtailment of that problem. I am starting down the list presented at the top of the FAR, but some of it isn't actionable, or would be better dealt with on article talk; I can't recall ever seeing a FAR presented in the fashion this one was, which makes responding to points a bit unwieldy. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:07, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

The problem being that people refuse to sufficiently utilize sources is certainly your opinion, but if that was something everyone could agree upon we wouldn't be this far into this mess to begin with. Several other people feel like the issue is that the page is being stonewalled. As far as delisting the article is concerned, it doesn't actually matter who is right: the page is deadlocked. You can't just present your opinion on the matter and suggest that because your opinion is right there isn't actually anything in the way of resolving the problem at FAR. What would be needed to counter concerns with the page being put through the review process is any sort of indication why this would manage to fix everything when nothing until now has managed to do so for any extended period of time. I'm open to hearing it, but "we just follow my existing suggestion of what needs to happen" isn't that. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 00:08, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Editors felt there was stonewalling because there was a lack of consensus for a change. Lack of consensus is not stonewalling, and the issue could have been resolved by taking the matter to an RfC. If there was any actual stonewalling behaviour, that would be a matter for AE. It is not, in any case, a matter for FAR. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 07:39, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Lack of consensus is uncomfortably disconfirming according to my reading of WP:FACR. I understand that there is concern that people might game the system by pretending that there is a lack of consensus or a controversy where there is none just to, I don't know, stick it to a FA writer or something, but I don't think that is what is happening here. I think there is a genuine dispute over whether the subject is being handled properly. WP:RfC can help with dispute resolution, for sure, but the existence of the dispute is something I think calls into question the FA-status itself. jps (talk) 15:18, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

The stonewalling has been the refusal for over a year to consult or provide sources when entering opinions or long rants on talk, and consensus can't (or shouldn't, although I see it does, irresponsibly) form around personal opinions and rants unsupported by sources. Opinions that don't reflect sources do not indicate a WP:FACR breach; they are a behavioral matter. Similar is beginning to happen on this page, which is rife with misstatements, inaccuracies and misrepresentations sans diffs (eg the mention of a BLP vio in the opening statement, gratuitous mention of copy-paste, the idea that sources used in FAR version didn't support text, or the article is unstable because of editwarring with no evidence of same, although I did see a new editor edit war today). The existence of disputes, when those disputes have not been backed by sources does not call into question the FA status; it calls into question the functioning of dispute resolution to curb disruption on a featured article that is doubly-WP:CTOP and where best editing practices are supposed to be used. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:41, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

Oh, come. We have the Variety source, which states a retrospective analysis very, very clearly. We have other sources. The problem is that they're always dismissed as "not good enough", even though sources defending her of much more dubiosity are in the article. Compare:

Sources for "J.K. Rowling denies her views are transphobic", which is shoved into the lead:

• https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reasons-for-speaking-out-on-sex-and-gender-issues/ - Self-published.
• https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-64729304 - Very short BBC article.

Sources for transphobia taking over her life:

• https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/harry-potter-hbo-series-jk-rowling-transphobia-1236215642/ - This had widespread agreement to be in the article. Why was it deleted out of the article? "Rowling, meanwhile, has made her campaign against trans identity the central focus of her online persona." was quoted, and is now gone. There was talk page agreement for this. It was removed in this edit by being commented out. That might be a mistake, but it does feel like there's no consequences for removing things that make Rowling look bad, and it's very difficult to include anything new.
• Whited, Lana A., ed. (2024). The Ivory Tower, Harry Potter, and Beyond. University of Missouri Press. ISBN 978-0-8262-2300-5. (Introduction): Text (in article): 'Whited asserted in 2024 that Rowling's sometimes "flippant" and "simplistic understanding of gender identity" had left some transgender people feeling betrayed and permanently changed her "relationship not only with fans, readers, and scholars ... but also with her works themselves"'

...Etc, etc. The point is that there's some scholarly works, there's a few excellent clear, detailed sources, and on the other side, we have basically nothing of note. A very brief BBC article and a self-published article. And yet the sourcing requirements for her anti-transgender stuff are not held to the standard of the ones saying she says she isn't. And the lead makes sure to quote the badly sourced denial, without summarising the better quality sources. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.9% of all FPs.} 18:22, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.9% of all FPs.} 18:13, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

I will say that although the talk page has been particularly feisty, and there have certainly been edits made without consensus which have had to be reverted on occasion, the editing behavior has actually been pretty good on all sides, particularly when it comes to stuff like edit warring.

Agree on the FAR instructions point. I can't say I think it's going to get any easier, with stage 1 having being bypassed. We are having to address 10 or 15 concerns which are entirely new to us, lol. Can't imagine it's going to be a quick (or particularly smooth) process. TBicks (talk) 23:09, 16 June 2025 (UTC)

While I agree it may not be smooth, I think proceeding with FAR at this point is the appropriate next step. I will reiterate to all participants that FAR is not a vote; comments at this point should specifically be about how this article does or could meet the FA criteria. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:02, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

On the WP:WIAFA front, I think it has severe issues with writing quality (1a), the neutrality and comprehensiveness are in question given we have sources stating that the focus of her online persona has become attacks on trans people (1b, 1d), I think that it has certain WP:PARITY issues when combined with a certain amount of WP:OWN issues: Newspapers and online sources seem to be fine for giving her statements when she's defending herself, but the talk page archives are riddled with people bringing up news sources for outrageous things she's done to attack trans women, e.g. Imane Khelif, and being told that there's insufficiently good sources for them, even when the sources are the same level as others. While we probably shouldn't cover every incident, it definitely appears that there are issues with suppressing one side of her behaviour, leading to POV issues. Rewrites of the transgender section generally attempt to frame things in ways more positive to Rowling, even when this goes against sources. Point 2b, requiring appropriate structure, and 4, requiring summary style seem to be quite comprehensively violated; as I've said repeatedly, the structure is very poorly handled, with a lot of bloat.

I have found citation issues in the past in the article numerous enough that I'm worried as to whether the article would pass a close check of sourcing. (1c), but, despite the weird difficulties getting a couple of those fixed, there isn't anything current I'm aware of. (To give some exaples of citation issues, not all identified by me, Talk:J._K._Rowling/Archive_14#“Death_threats”_claim_cites_biased_article_of_extremely_questionable_reliability, Talk:J._K._Rowling/Archive_17#The_POV-pushing_last_paragraph (Suissa and Sullivan) - actually, that last is rather a key example with problems with this article. Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard/Archive_440#Suissa_and_Sullivan is one of the most shocking things I've dealt with on Wikipedia: The source A. Failed verification to cite text it was meant to. B. showed every sign of appalling scholarship - the citations include blog posts, and they weren't even reported accurately - and C. was an incredibly biased, anti-transgender source, and it took an appalling amount of effort to get it to not be used to fail to support the text attached to it. It's a microcosm of how Talk:J. K. Rowling breaks two or three of the five pillars, which - I know it's not exactly a WP:WIAFA requirmement that the talk page not be toxic sludge, but I think that's more because no-one ever thought it needed said. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.9% of all FPs.} 03:41, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

I hear your frustration. Talk page behavior isn’t something that falls under FA purview though. I do think we can use FAR to push through any content changes that are needed. It might be helpful to rework any controversial spots such as the transgender related section of the article in your user space Adam to the place where you think it meets FA standard. You could then share that with us here. That would help those of us not already invested in the article to understand A. What the problems are and B. What a solution might look like. The advantage of doing that during a FAR review is that a different pool of editors are likely to be engaged in reviewing article content, and that could help break through any stonewalling tactics. Best.4meter4 (talk) 06:20, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Extended content

(Quick note: while Rowling claimed Imane Khelif was trans, part of the issue is that that's not true in the slightest. There's not even good evidence that she's intersex. She's just a cis woman.) Loki (talk) 06:53, 17 June 2025 (UTC) I did phrase that badly, yes. I should have said Willoughby. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.9% of all FPs. 14:16, 17 June 2025 (UTC) Whilst none of this seems particularly relevant to the discussion on this page, I would like to point out this is still a BLP, and you are claiming Rowling said something she never said [[6]] 2A00:23C8:2CA3:A401:DBF:4079:FA64:12B9 (talk) 14:30, 17 June 2025 (UTC) "I never said and never believed Khelif was trans. I knew* [sic] he was a man" Oh, that makes it better, then. LightNightLights (talk • contribs) 14:48, 17 June 2025 (UTC) I don't think that source helps Rowling's case in the least. That's Rowling claiming Khelif wasn't trans, but was pretending to be. Accusing Khelif of fraud at an Olympic level. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.9% of all FPs. 14:48, 17 June 2025 (UTC) That is still misrepresenting what she is saying. It is certainly not a very edifying tweet, and one can make all kinds of points about the optics of someone calling someone who was assigned female at birth a man, but it is, in fact, wholly in line with her view of biology (that someone with at least one Y chromosome is biologically male) and I'm aware that there has been no public confirmation of the genetic testing here, but the point is that Rowling seems pretty sure on that matter and has repeatedly called for the test results to be published. I don't defend that view, and I think this all raises some very fundamental questions about the nature of sport itself; but look: we cannot write her biography accurately until we understand what her view is. Loki is incorrect: Rowling never claimed that Imane Khelif is trans. You, Adam, are also incorrect - she never claimed that Imane Khelif pretended to be trans. The trans issue is not where this is at. The issue is how Rowling defines a woman. What Rowling is claiming is that Imane Khelif, despite being assigned female at birth, and having been raised female, is, in fact, biologically male (with her definition of male apparently predicated on the existence of a Y chromosome). Put your distaste for that view (and how she made her point) aside for a moment and just consider that point. This unlocks an understanding of Rowling's thinking - essential for anyone wanting to describe her views in an encyclopaedic article. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 15:59, 17 June 2025 (UTC) But I wasn't writing an encyclopedic article, I was noting that a lot of points of bad behavioure, with equal sourcing to things that are used to praise her, have been excluded. The details weren't the point. We could debate which things should be in the page, but it's weird that pretty much all of them have been excluded. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.9% of all FPs. 16:11, 17 June 2025 (UTC) There's this tendency to ignore the thrust of a point, and focus on tiny details to the detriment of the issue in question. I'm aware of Rowling's views. Simplified, she wants to define women in a very narrow way, and anyone outside of that very narrow definition she sees as a man. I don't think she really has any definition for intersex or transness; though the small amount of commentary on the matter has had her publicly state that transmen are within her definition of women (I'm not sure if this would hold up in practice or under prodding). It's a sort of definition-by-exclusion. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 8.9% of all FPs. 16:16, 17 June 2025 (UTC) There's this tendency to ignore the thrust of a point, and focus on tiny details. Indeed. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 16:30, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

In general, I think we need to be careful about placing too much WP:WEIGHT on social media behavior unless there has been significant WP:SECONDARY source coverage of said behavior that takes a long view of said behavior (which I believe there are sources that do this in Rowling's case). There's a lot of WP:TABLOID type press on Rowling's posts that are little better than click bait. We have to be careful here to follow WP:BLP guidelines, and selecting sources that place Rowling's comments into a broader context. I'd be much more in favor in emphasizing sources that have looked at Rowling's social media posts across time, rather than say reacting to one individual tweet or comment. Articles focusing largely on a single twitter dispute in general (but not always) are on the low end of quality scale for sources. I'd also like to point out the danger in taking disparate comments on social media and stringing them together in some sort of unified narrative (particularly if this was not done for us in RS). This is bordering on WP:SYNTH/WP:OR. I'm also somewhat concerned over the issues raised at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard#Promotion of anti-trans fringe theories on J. K. Rowling. The unwillingness to incorporate peer reviewed materials is not good. Some of the sources Adam wants to bring in should be allowed. On the other hand, to me the NPOV thread reveals an attempt by Adam to censor Rowling's POV. If Rowling is stating certain life experiences shaped her viewpoints on trans related issues than those are pertinent to the topic area and should not be WP:CENSORED from the article no matter how much it may offend. The article is about Rowling, and her perspective. Removing her point of view is a non starter. I would strongly object to removal of the words "her views stem from her experience of domestic abuse and sexual assault". This isn't a FRINGE opinion in this context as the main topic is Rowling and her opinions. That sentence is at the heart of Rowling's POV, so no it can't be altered or removed in my opinion because without it we lose Rowling's POV and would misrepresent her. In short, we shouldn't censor Rowling, nor should we censor the use of RS.4meter4 (talk) 21:51, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Regarding that particular sentence (seeing as it's relevant for FAR, if it goes through), I don't think it's reasonable to remove it (even as someone who absolutely thinks the article is too soft on Rowling). From her own mouth, it is a critical aspect of the nature of her views, even if it's based on complete nonsense. Should it be in the lead? Maybe, maybe not. But what I don't think is okay is including it with the wording that was being presented at that NPOV discussion (and in the live version of the transgender section), which leaves abundant room for the reader to assume implication she was has a history of assault by trans woman that objectively doesn't exist. The first source used in the transgender section explicit points out that a cis male individual was responsible for her assault, so we can absolutely add that detail and address WikiVoice concerns without excluding her point of view. LittleLazyLass (Talk | Contributions) 22:34, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

It could definitely be tweaked to avoid confusion/misinterpretation. I do think the connective thread of her thinking on safe spaces for women in relation to her experience of sexual assault should in someway be made. It does color/inform her opinion on policies/laws relating to public restroom access for trans people; which has understandably caused controversy.4meter4 (talk) 00:00, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

I think that stating her views is important, but we need to be far more careful than the attempt to quote a snippet of her views in the lead was. We also need to be a little careful about.... hm, how to say this?

There's certain ways of phrasing a distasteful opinion that uses rhetoric alone to make them sound more reasonable, and Rowling's views have also gotten more extreme over time. I think there's a danger in only quoting carefully phrased arguments from early in her transgender controversy and ignoring that she's said much more extreme things. For example - and this is on a different topic, but it elucidates it: This tweet from 2020 was quoted a lot in early reports on her. Compare this tweet from yesterday, which - while we probably shouldn't use it - does make it clear that she has an entirely men-have-penises-women-have-vaginas view of gender.

One could quote the first tweet to make her seem more reasonable ('Rowling stated that, while she respected trans peoples ability to live their lives, "my life has been shaped by being female. I do not believe it’s hateful to say so."), but that is definitely outdated. One could quote the second tweet to possibly get a better idea of her views ('Rowling wrote, "I'm a woman because I belong to the sex class whose bodies are provably organised around production of large gametes."') However, BOTH of these basically cover the same thought: Rowling apparently sees womanhood as assigned at birth based on genitals.

Please don't take that as a suggestion for the article: The point is that when choosing quotes, some of them, especially in the circa 2020 era, seem to be (by comparison to more recent quotes) more her using rhetoric to make her position seem more reasonable than the simple statement of her views she has now, or her views have gotten more extreme on those subjects. If our goal is to explain what Rowling's views are - and in a section summarising her views, what they are is probably more important than what they were - then there are some quotes we shouldn't use in favour of others. We don't need to quote any of the awful things she said, but I feel like readers shouldn't be all that surprised she could say such things after reading our article, given we have plenty of sources to say her online behaviour is notable. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.9% of all FPs.} 01:52, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

Meh. It's good to be up to date on an evolving topic, but we should also avoid being overly beholden to WP:RECENTISM, or indulge in original comparative analysis. We don't need to reflect her latest tweets; nor do we need to balance the material with things she has said that have not received attention in secondary RS. The problem with taking her current social media posts and comparing them to old ones is that requires us to do original thinking about how we perceive Rowling's opinions have evolved. If we have secondary sources doing this for us, that is one thing, but if we are putting statements up side by side and on our own saying she said this here but now she said this here so this indicates this... That's clearly WP:OR thinking, and that isn't our job here at FA or anywhere on wikipedia for that matter. Our job is to do a literature review of secondary and tertiary materials in this area and accurately represent that material. This is why I think it is essential to not use PRIMARY materials at all in this section/ and ignore PRIMARY materials as irrelevant. Otherwise the section will be constantly unstable as people tend to tweet frequently. It is also too easy to POVPUSH otherwise. Any quotes we use should be from SECONDARY coverage and any analysis of the quotes should be from SECONDARY sources as well. Putting that general understanding of sourcing into place should bring balance to achieve NPOV and stabilize that section of the article. I would also strongly urge not using SECONDARY materials about only a single tweet. That brings in WP:UNDUEWEIGHT issues. The best secondary sources are the ones that look at Rowling's views from a big picture/ long term view across time.4meter4 (talk) 03:18, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

It's more of an example. There's plenty of secondary coverage. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.9% of all FPs.} 03:54, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

• Close without FARC basically per Vanamonde and Guerillero. For those who are interested in how the article was rewritten, discussions and formation of consensus is documented in Wikipedia:Featured article review/J. K. Rowling/archive1 and the associated talk page archives: Wikipedia talk:Featured article review/J. K. Rowling/archive1, Wikipedia talk:Featured article review/J. K. Rowling/archive1/Archive 2, Wikipedia talk:Featured article review/J. K. Rowling/archive1/Archive 3, Wikipedia talk:Featured article review/J. K. Rowling/archive1/Archive 4, and Wikipedia talk:Featured article review/J. K. Rowling/archive1/Archive 5. Victoria (tk) 19:06, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Summary style

I've said this on the talk page, but for convenience:

The sections primarily on Harry Potter are: Publishing Harry Potter, Films, Later Harry Potter works, Influences, Style and allusions, Themes, Reception (Intro), Reception (Gender and social division), Reception (Religious reactions), Legacy, Legal disputes, and Bibliography.

While there might be some minor cuts to discuss (do we need to mention who made the films' screenplays?), I think we can agree that Publishing Harry Potter, Films, Reception (Intro) and Bibliography have absolutely no controversy to be included (tweaks aside), and Later Harry Potter Works can be discussed seperately.

This leaves us with two groupings: Influences, Style and allusions, Themes, and Reception (Gender and social division), are Harry Potter literary analysis, as is about half of Legacy, and the second paragraph of Reception (Religious reactions). We'll call this "HP Literary analysis" The other halves of Legacy and Reception (Religious reactions), and all of Legal disputes is... let's call it "Effects of publishing Harry Potter (but not on J. K. Rowling)", or "Effects" for short.

The question is, if we take each of these groupings together, are they excessively long? 14 paragraphs on Harry Potter literary analysis is a lot, and I'd argue ridiculously long. There is a spinoff article (Harry Potter) which already contains most, if not all of this content. For the record, the main biographical section (Early life to Adult fiction and Robert Galbraith) is 28 paragraphs, including the six on Harry Potter.

The second grouping is about 6 or 7 paragraphs, some on the shorter side. It's probably more off-topic than the literary analysis, though not entirely; as such I'd say it's a little long. For example, the third paragraph of "Legal disputes" has very little relevance to Rowling herself, and my inclination is to cut it.

One can talk about how there's "Only three paragraphs" in a particular section, but we need to look at the groupings to see if WP:UNDUE is violated. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.9% of all FPs.} 01:02, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

• There are thousands of scholarly publications about Rowling. The vast majority of those are literary analyses. During the 2022 FAR we attempted to boil down these thousands into 14 paragraphs. By my count the article has about 70 paragraphs outside the lead, even discounting some short ones at the end. 20% of an article about an author being devoted to literary analyses is entirely reasonable. Vanamonde93 (talk) 17:04, 19 June 2025 (UTC)
• I just re-read the introductory chapter of Pugh -- still one of our most comprehensive scholarly sources -- which begins with a biographical summary. It is 19 pages; the first 8 pages cover JKR's early life and how it relates to her writing, along with fame, wealth, philanthropy, awards, politics ... and the last 10 pages cover Themes and Influences. That is, slightly more than half of this scholarly article is devoted to tying the information about her life to her writing, and exploring themes and influences in that writing. I don't think it can be said we've given UNDUE weight to this aspect; we have yet to see a work as comprehensive as Pugh's, that's without considering all the other work referenced by Vanamonde93, and we've given considerably less weight to literary analysis in an overview of her life than Pugh does. Considering weight given in Pugh, I don't see a source-based or actionable reason for this issue to be affecting discussion of FA status. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:18, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

  The fundamental thing you're failing to engage with is that Pugh had one book to cover everything, we have two main articles. Look at this as an introduction, that's going to prepare readers to jump to a chapter entitled Harry Potter, but whose main focus is the things not covered in that chapter. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.9% of all FPs.} 22:01, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

  Also, I love that you keep asking me to move to the talk page, and then come on here, to announce that no changes should be made. The article is in violation of WP:WIAFA point 4, "It stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail and uses summary style where appropriate." The article doesn't use summary style, and does not stay focused on the main topic. If there's no chance of this actually being improved, then staying at FAR is a waste of time. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.9% of all FPs.} 00:06, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

  Same for Pugh. It is a 168-page book; our article is the equivalent of his introductory chapter, which is a 19-page summary overview (that includes the biographical detail and overview of her works). His remaining chapters are the equivalent of Wikipedia sub-articles. His introductory bio chapter is a summary, and our article is patterned similarly. We stay focused instead of going in to, for example, the remaining 150 pages of Pugh's book. Influences and Themes are not unnecessary detail in an author bio of this nature.

  I am sympathetic to concerns that the transgender content warranted updating, have trimmed biographical detail where you asked for it, am worried that some items raised on talk were archived by bot before they were addressed, and have urged on talk that others help with some of the TODO list, but I am not seeing a reason for cutting literary analysis or how doing so will benefit the reader. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:26, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

• The Harry Potter series is notable for shattering publishing and sales records, spawning films, plays, amusement parks, video games, etc. What about this particular series brought children and parents to bookstores for midnight releases? What's the magic sauce that worked for these stories? Critical analyses, whether of themes & motifs, style, and so on are always included in author bios (or at least should be) and are no less important for Rowling than for anyone else. I'm opposed to trimming the themes because it would be undue and introduce neutrality issues. If Adam is interested in how it got to how it is in the article he's free to peruse my sandbox and the other one dedicated to JKR here, with the understanding that once material was moved from sandbox to mainspace it was then worked over, smoothed, improved, etc. But casting aspersions is not the way to go, no more than expecting editors who are living with difficult circumstances to fix everything per my input, right now, today. Victoria (tk) 18:01, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

  It doesn't need to be fixed by others, Victoria. I am entirely capable of editing the article. But there's no point doing so if I'm going to be reverted. Sandy, Victoria, how do you respond to my point that Pugh was covering things in one book, but we have literal dozens of articles? We should talk about Harry Potter's high sales, we should talk about how it affects her notability. But we have a "Chapter 2", the article Harry Potter. We're not balancing for this single article, we're balancing for the two articles together. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.9% of all FPs.} 22:12, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

• I'm also opposed to cutting the literary analysis. For an author bio, and particularly for this author bio, it would be a nonsense not to have this analysis in her author bio. Gutting the article of all its content is not going to make it better. The case has not been made that what we have on literary analysis is undue. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 18:12, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

  I'm not saying to cut all of it, just to reduce it to summary style. It's pretty bloated, and, I'd argue, rambly. Adam Cuerden ^(talk)_{Has about 8.9% of all FPs.} 23:29, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Indigenous people of the Everglades region

Notified: WikiProject United States, WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America, WikiProject Florida, WikiProject Ethnic groups, Donald Albury, Moni3

I am nominating this featured article for review because...this article has been noticed by Buidhe since 2022 [7] that there were several unsourced statements and a lack of expansion by using scholarly sources (which is true). As of now, there are still visible several unsourced statements. 🍕BP!🍕 (🔔) 08:36, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

I saw the message on the talk page left by Buidhe in 2022. I replied asking which statements were unsourced. And got no reply for like three years until this.

There are currently no citation needed tags in the article.

Please identify which statements need sourcing in the article. Please indicate which issues in the article require more scholarly sources. Thank you. Moni3 (talk) 13:55, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

I've added some content at the beginning of the Seminole/Miccosukee section based on research I've done for other articles in the last few years. The prior content was sourced, but I've learned details I wasn't aware of a few years ago. I also know of some material about the early origins of the Seminole (see Ahaya#Seminole) which I'll try to incorporate. - Donald Albury 14:58, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

This isn't something pointed out above, but the lead should be pared down, IMO. Feel free to argue with me about it. If you agree though and want me to do it I will. Just let me know. Moni3 (talk) 15:14, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

As a quick and dirty method for finding unsourced statements, every fact should be cited no later than the end of the paragraph. Accordingly, if a paragraph doesn't end with a blue number, it ends with an unsourced statement. See for instance the end of "Prehistoric peoples" and the first paragraph of "Calusa". UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 16:47, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

The end sentence you are referring to: "From the Glades III culture developed two distinct tribes that lived in and near the Everglades: the Calusa and the Tequesta." is a linking sentence. It links to the next section where this statement is sourced multiple times.

General question to anyone: Must all paragraphs end with a citation? It was not so when I edited regularly. Moni3 (talk) 16:54, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

@Moni3: What a blast from the past to see your username. To your question: these days, yes. Basically, citations are now assumed to cover all the info prior to them until 1) there's another citation or 2) there's a paragraph break. Ed ^{[talk] [OMT]} 05:57, 11 June 2025 (UTC)

Hello, Ed. Good to see you again. I'm a blast from the past, like Atari and the first plow. I like the first part of your reply. Thankful for the second but don't like it. Hope you're doing well. Moni3 (talk) 14:39, 11 June 2025 (UTC)

@Donald Albury: Donald, there are currently no unsourced statements in the article. I restored parts of the article and combined changes made to the Seminole/Miccosukee and Modern Times sections. If I removed something you or another editor added it was unintentional, and I apologize. If you think more work should be done on the article, let me know.

Also I have no idea how to fix that borked citation. If you or someone else does, please fix it. Wiki coding was the first thing I forgot about participating here. Moni3 (talk) 16:51, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

Fixed it, that was a bit odd- the journal issue has a title and obviously the article has a title, but the cite template was setting the issue title to the "title" of the article, and the article title to the "contribution", which isn't a parameter for journal cites. Should be good now. --PresN 19:08, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

Thank you, PresN. Moni3 (talk) 22:01, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

Moe Berg

Notified: Indrian, WikiProject Biography, WikiProject Baseball, WikiProject United States, WikiProject Politics, WikiProject New York City, WikiProject New Jersey, WikiProject Chicago, WikiProject Illinois, WikiProject Jewish history, WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia, WikiProject New York 2023-03-10

I am nominating this featured article for review because the article seems to rely upon one source: a quick search found additional sources. The "Legacy" and "Media" sections are in bullet points and should be in prose. There are some uncited statements. Z1720 (talk) 14:08, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

Hmm. A 2005 FAC that got a light review and included support terms such as "adequate". Agree that overuse of a single source is a major issue. Ceoil (talk) 15:47, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

Holy shit, this one's out of whack. Huge list of trivia at the bottom, almost entirely one source, dubious and/or 404 sources for days (I doubt "retrosheet.org" is reliable)... Is this far gone enough to meet the "speedy delist" criteria of Wikipedia:Featured article review/ROT13/archive2? Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 20:46, 9 June 2025 (UTC)

I don't think this is in speedy territory. Most of the trivia can be easily removed with no loss to the article. Retrosheet is a historical box score project that is affiliated with SABR somehow I think; what is sourced to that shouldn't be overly hard to replace or remove if necessary. The Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) would likely be considered to be reliable enough; the main concern here is the overuse of a single source which doesn't need a speedy delisting for. Hog Farm _Talk 22:31, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

• Move to FARC per the above, concerns remain and no one has indicated yet that they will edit the article to address concerns. Z1720 (talk) 20:04, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Bæddel and bædling

Notified: JnpoJuwan, Queen of Hearts , UndercoverClassicist, Ælfgar, Asarlaí, WikiProject Linguistics, WikiProject LGBTQ+ studies

A number of editors have raised various concerns with this article and suggested that its FA status is inappropriate. This has led to repeated back and forth debates on the talk page over a variety of elements (hinging on whether the article is overrepresenting queer sociological sources, underrepresenting linguistic sources, and if it accurately summarizes the positions of some linguists and the OED), with the page itself in a sort of stalemate due to a lack of consensus either way. As the original creator of the article, I'd rather this get reevaluated for FA status in light of these concerns rather than contribute to a whole lot of wasted editor time on the prolonged debate. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 23:50, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

• I'm not very comfortable with "voting" to deslist something, but I have to say that I do not at all understand why Bloodofox's additions to the article were removed. I also agree with several editors on the talk page that some of this seems like an attempt by a few writers to reinterpet what was probably just insults (slurs) towards effeminate males ("not real men") into something resembling modern gender identities.★Trekker (talk) 22:48, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

Hey, StarTrekker. Historical linguist Anthony Liberman says the terms meant hermaphrodite (which is apparently offensive now and people use "intersex"), which I would say supports the "sex" aspect. The article prominently includes this view (as the first definition in the lead and main body). The hypothesis about the connection to gender are supported by 5 scholars. Would you support escalating the dispute—e.g., an RFC regarding whether the 5 sources stating this are biased activist sources to excise them; or a DRN case? I hope you understand my perspective, which is essentially that there are strong opinions on both sides causing a stalemate, and that escalating could be the best (or only?) way to get consensus. (If the concern is that a cabal of editors is blocking an editor from making improvements, I believe this belongs at ANI, but as this is FAR I want to focus on content here.) — ImaginesTigers (talk) 08:14, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

I'm not familiar enough with this subject, so I'm going to refrain from trying to get too involved in trying to change the article, I was more so making a comment about current state of modern research on LGBTQ topics. I'm not accusing anyone of being part of a cabal, certainly, I think all editors here are acting in good faith.★Trekker (talk) 23:41, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

:::I'd suggest that any escalating should be done by an editor who feels that there is a problem with the current composition of the article, as the first step would be to make the case that this is so. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 08:29, 6 June 2025 (UTC) (In light of edits to the above, this is no longer relevant) UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 09:03, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

I understand that. If StarTrekker agrees that the sources are biased, for example, then I wanted to suggest what remedies I believe can move that discussion forward (RFC, DRN). StarTrekker said they don't like voting for de-listing, and (to further that) I don't feel de-listing resolves the dispute. People will still disagree even if there is no star on the article. RFC, DRN, RSN or ANI offer some movement forward (in my view, FAR doesn't—you can't discuss fixing a problem if editors don't agree that there is one). I'm hoping to understand StarTrekker's concerns to inform what venue might be appropriate. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 08:48, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

• Delist but a vote shouldn't be necessary: the fact that at least one core source was falsified should be enought for a delisting and thorough review. I have demonstrated that nobody did a proper source check before passing this. That alone is reason to delist it: that is simply unacceptable. Consider that both the editor who primarily wrote the article and the FA reviews who passed it along admitted they didn't have access to a crucial source for this article (contemporary OED of all things!) and yet, incredibly, went ahead and invented statements attributed to that source. (As an aside, although I've experienced significant and remarkable hostility associated with this page, I would have happily helped and provided any sources needed and gladly worked with these editors on what should be a pretty straightforward article even to get the article to FA.)

Additionally, as many have highlighted, right now the article intensely emphasizes a remarkable 'third gender' theory, including from at least one explicitly activist source (which promotes and embraces the theories of activist Leslie Feinberg and even berates scholars for not doing the same), over the works and comments of historical linguists, the actual experts on this historical linguistics topic. Look, the article doesn't even even touch on toponymy or any number of other core elements on this discussion — even from that perspective this just ain't an FA article.

In reality, historical linguists typically simply consider these words to be pejorative terms for cultural violations of conceptions of masculinity. In linguistics, the vast majority of discussion around these words has been around its likely etymological relation to the extremely common contemporary English word bad, which the article barely even touches on and when it does so, it does so in a blurry and seemingly confused manner. Most notably, many linguists consider these words to likely evidence an unattested precursor to modern English bad going back to at least West Germanic, as Liberman makes clear, but which you'd have a difficult time deducting from the article as it exists. :bloodofox: (talk) 23:58, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

• Delist in order to allow the necessary rewrite. Mistakes happen, although the lack of scrutiny in this instance was a serious failure of process. But once the issues were raised and referenced improvements were offered, and especially after several of us weighed in on the talk page bringing the problems to the authors' attention, the article should have been fixed promptly. It shouldn't have required this formal step, pending which readers are still being underinformed as well as misled by the balance issues. Yngvadottir (talk) 00:22, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

  @Yngvadottir: FAR is not a discussion on delisting; that is for FARC. This is the stage where issues with the article are addressed so it hopefully can avoid being sent to FARC to be potentially delisted. Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 01:17, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

• To me, this discussion seems very premature. I'll do my best to break down the concerns raised as I understand them, though I would like to be clear here that I'm transmitting them rather than endorsing them:
  • The article should include discussion of toponymy For context, during the recent edits, the following paragraph was added on the subject:

In addition to the Old English textual record, the word bæddel may occur in English place names. However, these place name elements may derive from an unattested personal name, *Bæddel, a pet form of the name Badda. The word bad is first attested in English surnames (compare Asketinus Baddecheese, 1203) [citation to the OED]

If that paragraph were proposed at FAC, I would advocate for its removal -- it doesn't seem to have the material to give the topic a real hearing. There are no examples, a vague "may" without attribution, and a "compare" statement in the editorial voice, against WP:EDITORIALISING. It's also cited to a single source, which is a dictionary, so hasn't really shown WP:DUEWEIGHT -- the OED is a tertiary source, and Wikipedia articles are expected to rely on secondary sources. However, as was pointed out in the edit summary that removed it, this would be a perfectly legitimate thing to discuss on the Talk page, or even to open an RFC for. I cannot however see how this paragraph could be considered make-or-break for the article's FA status.

• The article did not receive a full spot-check at FAC: this is not required or usual for articles beyond a nominator's first. It would be perfectly legitimate to say that it should be, but that's a discussion about the FAC process -- which would therefore be appropriate on the FAC talk page. As receiving a thorough spot-check isn't a requirement for promotion to FA, not having received one isn't grounds to delist. The "obvious" solution here would be for one of the editors asking for such a spot-check to do it themselves, and report back -- if concerns then arise, we can act on them.
• The article uses an "explicitly activist source". Bloodofox has used this description on the Talk page for Wade 2024 as cited, in the Routledge Handbook of Trans Literature. On the face of it, I would need a lot of persuading that an academic handbook in one of the Anglophone world's major academic publishers does not pass WP:HQRS. I cannot access the text myself, but if we're going to say that the source is "explicitly" activist rather than academic, what's the basis from within the work itself to say so? (EDIT: the source has been posted below and, assuming that this is the whole text, I at least can see none: it's perfectly normal for academics to endorse perspectives and paradigms from people outside their field, or outside academia, but I don't even see that Wade is doing so here.) Alternatively, are there reviews in sources of similar or higher quality which call it such? Even then, stepping several moves ahead, even if there were consensus that it is a biased source, WP:RS reminds us that reliable sources are not required to be neutral, unbiased, or objective. We would then be in a discussion as to whether the claims should be presented in Wikivoice or with attribution. We also have a whole noticeboard precisely for this kind of discussion.
• There are concerns about whether the sources cited support the claims to which they are matched. I really don't think moving to FAR based on the fact that there was a concern, that concern was fixed, and so there might be more is a sensible thing. For context, the concern was here, and the sentence The philologist Julius Zupitza theorised that the English word bad is derived from bæddel ... The OED Online and the 1989 second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary continue to support Zupitza's theory, with the latter dismissing alternative etymologies from Celtic words as "out of the question", while also suggesting a possible origin from bædan. The mistake was that these editions no longer mention Zupitza (though the first did, as correctly stated immediately above): the fix was The philologist Julius Zupitza theorised that the English word bad is derived from bæddel ... The OED Online and the 1989 second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary continue to state that bæddel is "perhaps related to" bad, with the latter dismissing alternative etymologies from Celtic words as "out of the question", while also suggesting a possible origin from bædan. The correction is welcome, of course, but I think we need to keep in perspective that this was a pretty small difference.

I may have missed a few, but it seems clear enough that all of these have straightforward, established procedures to address them -- by my count, an RFC, a post on RSN and a spot-check by an editor. I don't see that any evidence has been put forward that the article does not meet the FA standards, or good reason to believe that FARC is the right place to resolve any of these editors' concerns. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 07:01, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

This is just such a weird take. First, as anyone with even a drop of a background in English etymology knows, the OED is a core WP:RS for English language etymology. This is article is clearly an historical linguistics topic. Attempts at dismissing the OED's etymologie as off topic is a sign of an individual that really needs to become familiar with historical linguistics topics before editing on these topics.

This editor's "concern" was an explicitly falsified claim attributed to a source. There's no sugar coating it. And not just any source but one of the most important sources in the article, the etymologies of the OED. Meanwhile, the activist source—it is quite openly that—is focused on promoting, well, the works of an activist, Leslie Feinberg. Wade's article discusses the topic through a pro-Feinbergian lens while making a major claim that the words may refer to a 'third gender'.

Honestly, it is a real shame that what could be a quality article is being so fiercely blockaded by editors who a.) did not check the sources or work to fully cover the topic and especially b.) attack or dismiss those editors that bother to.

It's just not appropriate to treat an article as a battleground to defend rather than a resource for all that we all benefit from improving. :bloodofox: (talk) 09:05, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

FYI: I have a relevant academic background, although I don't think this matters much and I wouldn't brandish it like a dubious flag. Such things have been abused in the past (see Essjay controversy). I have some follow-up comments, queries, and suggestions for resolving this issue.

• Regarding the omission of toponymy (which UndercoverClassicist covers in their first bullet point above), you previously wrote on the Talk that Anyone with the slightest familiarity with this topic will encounter discussion of this important matter. Can you how demonstrate its importance to the topic with another source, or is the dictionary listing itself the case for inclusion?

• I can see a similar argument by SchroCat that several of your changes breached WP:INDISCRIMINATE, a description you rejected because "secondary sources do it" (Wikipedia is not a 2nd-party source) and suggested SchroCat wasn't appropriately qualified to provide a response to you (in my view, this is not an argument likely to generate consensus). SchroCat's objection is very similar to UndercoverClassicist's here—i.e., the justification for inclusion hasn't really been made.

• I was actually drawn to this topic by your statement that Wade 2024 was an activist source. I posted the full source for Carcharoth, and any others, to review.
• Rich Farmbrough responded that it's interesting that four glosses is seen as a paucity of evidence let alone suppression, considering the ubiquity of hapax legomena. Would you respond to that? Wade hasn't made up medieval translations—these glosses are by individuals from hundreds of years ago, approximating terms from language to language (in this case Old English to Latin). When it comes to scholars interpretations, they are attributed as such (i.e., the first sentence). What do you propose as an alternate first line?
• If you believe the Routledge Handbook entry in question is activist scholarship, would you consider making a neutral posting for WP:RSN about it? The last time you visited RSN for this article, you inquired about whether Liberman was allowed. The consensus was, of course, yes. We could do the same for Wade.
• If the problem is that these sources are framing the "order" of the article (including the first sentence), we could—as AirshipJungleman29 suggests—make an RFC arguing if this source and the other 6 making similar claims are appropriate to structure the article around?
• Wade provides the views of multiple other scholars who concur with him. Do you have any sources contradicting Wade's suggestion? Do you have any that outright reject the terms as relating to gender/sex/sexuality? While I adore the work of Dr Liberman, and have been in contact with him a few times over the past few weeks (for which I am grateful), nothing in Dr Liberman's posts on the origin of "bad" contradicts Wade's writing.

I hate BATTLEGROUNDING behaviour (e.g., I am fed up dealing with people removing basic sales information from Veilguard), but UndercoverClassicist has provided, in my view, a fairly persuasive counter-argument, not an entrenched battleground position. If you believe UC, Generalissima, or any others, are biased activist editors, would you consider going to WP:ANI? You could seek a topic ban from GA/FAC for misconduct. Or, personally speaking, if I shared your position, I wouldn't waste any time trying to convince them: I'd make my case at the WP:Dispute resolution noticeboard, where a third-party can mediate. Or, as another option—as this appears to be a GENSEX contentious topic—you could even post a CTOP warning on their page and take them to WP:AE for editorial misconduct and negligence.

There are so many ways this dispute can be resolved, but I agree with AirshipJungleman29 that your current approach isn't working. — ImaginesTigers (talk) 13:40, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

As a follow-up thought. DRN really could work great here, but you could also make a series of edit requests for others to discuss? (I am not likely to weigh in, personally.) But others have suggested making proposals via the Talk page instead of insisting that you personally get to rewrite the article (when others disagree). It's not an unreasonable compromise. If the inevitable rejections come through, you'll have a stronger case to escalate than "I made 12 Talk threads". — ImaginesTigers (talk) 14:28, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

First, you've written this response aimed at critiquing me personally. I find the comparison to the Essjay controversy outrageous, insulting, and beyond the pale. Please strike that and refactor your text: Seriously, are you here to improve the article or to attack an individual editor? A reminder: this is a linguistics topic. If editors are uncomfortable or ungrounded in linguistics, they're going to have a hard time.

Second, the paper you've provided an excerpt from explicitly demands that scholars embrace the theories of activist Leslie Feinberg, a non-medievalist, non-linguist, etc. Let's not get it twisted: it is without a doubt activist material. There is no question about that. The question is why it is so intensely emphasized over the works of historical linguists.

Third, your claims of an exchange with Liberman are completely irrelevant and unverifiable. And if you did talk with Liberman, it seems unethical to post claims he has made about other scholars here. Uncool.

Fourth, the "edit requests" (a reminder that nobody needs to request to edit an article, including featured articles) either get ignored or mass reverted by the approvers or primary editor. And I am really not interested anymore in going back and forth with the hostile approvers who decided it was OK to just rubber stamp the article without even checking the sources, yet make it a priority to defend the article from any additions, improvements, or adjustments.

Fifth, you're making the classic 'the approver committee must approve all edits here (so that they can be lawyered out existence)' argument. At this point I say: Let others discuss the matter. In my view, and in the view of several other editors on the talk page, the article clearly downplays linguistics (which should be the focus of the article) while intensely emphasizing a notion of a 'third gender' in the article. That's obvious. The article can and should be improved, not blockaded.

Sixth, seeing editors make excuses for not checking sources before passing something on to FA and then attacking those that come along, dig up, and actually check sources has been an eye-opening experience for me and causes me to question why I bother in the first place. I am sure plenty would feel the same. It's a toxic environment fostered by the primary contributor and approvers and leads to a negative impact on the project. It is not helping the article.

Finally, while you've so far fully embraced ('been persuaded by') UndercoverClassicist's endlessly wordy wall-of-text blockade (another way to keep people from touching the article), I say if you're actually interested in trying to improve the article and not just here to attack me personally for this or that, maybe go for it. Again, we're here to work on articles, not endlessly lawyer on talk pages to keep people from actually contributing to the project. :bloodofox: (talk) 21:32, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

With the fifth point, the fundamental thesis here seems to be that consensus against these changes doesn't count, since it consists in part of the editors who nominated it and reviewed it at FAC? Am I misunderstanding your point? Generalissima (talk) (it/she) 22:40, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

The "consensus" you refer to is the FA approver-approved version. The article needs new eyes and ears beyond the FA approvers who revert just about any change to the FA version. It certainly benefits from a thorough review. :bloodofox: (talk) 00:50, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

The article needs new eyes and ears beyond the FA approvers: as I count it, at least three people in this process have told you that this is a great idea, and pointed you towards the the processes to get those eyes and ears on it (propose edits for discussion before making them/after reversion, open an RFC, start a discussion at RSN, go to DRN). Why not try some of those? UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 07:21, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

The irony of you calling UC's response an "endlessly wordy wall-of-text blockade" is quite something, considering that both UC and IT are responding to your...how can I say this nicely... endlessly wordy wall-of-text blockades. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 00:43, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

I'm allowed to respond to them. I haven't "blockaded" anything (all my edits to the article get immediateley reverted by the FA reviewers with a demand for their approval) and would have immediately caught the issues with this article were I part of the FA (like I did when I saw it). :bloodofox: (talk) 00:50, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

"I'm allowed to respond to them." Yes, and they're allowed to respond to your especially lengthy posts in equal amounts of detail. I'm sure if they didn't respond to one of your important points, you'd be upset that they were ignoring what you have to say. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 01:10, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

I am sorry you feel my response was critiquing you personally; I bear gratitude and respect for your contributions on Norse mythology content—and strive to focus on the case and not contributors. As I said in my response, my goal was to provide follow-up comments, queries, and suggestions for resolving this dispute. If you feel I have failed, and attacked you, I encourage you to outline this at ANI or AE where I would defend myself—I won't waste precious space doing this at FAR. It is never reasonable for anyone to [go] back and forth with the hostile approvers, so I recommend dispute resolution as a structured venue for resolving issues of that nature. A single, well-written argument can completely shift the prevailing view of editors in those forums.

Regarding the paper, I suggested these be outlined at an RFC—this would move the dispute forward, not blockade. I simply disagree with your analysis. Erik Wade (who wrote the piece, not Leslie Feinberg) is an English Renaissance scholar. The Wade piece does not mention Feinberg: it mentions 6 medieval glosses for the 2 terms and 5 scholars' views. I requested any sources contradicting Wade's suggestion or any that outright reject the terms as relating to gender/sex/sexuality. Demonstrating that in your response to an RFC would be devastating to the case of other editors, change my mind on the article's balance, and make me support changes.

Regarding the article clearly downplays linguistics [...] while intensely emphasizing a notion of a 'third gender' in the article: The viewpoint regarding "third gender" takes up 1 sentence in the lead (36/257 words). It comprises 15% of the "Analysis" subheading. In my view this does not constitute "intense emphasis"—it is simply a represented viewpoint from a HQRS, located at the very end of the lead and the second of two Analysis paragraphs. As a resolution, might I suggest DRN or an RFC? Likewise, aspects concerning sexual characteristics are supported by the historical linguist Liberman's Chapter 2 blog, which describes both as synonyms for "hermaphrodites"—if that isn't a non-normative sexual or gender category, I'm not sure what is.

Regarding your view that I am making the classic 'the approver committee must approve all edits here, I simply disagree. When others do not share your views (and there is essentially a stalemate), there are processes for escalation and acquiring new consensus. All articles are open for editing and all changes are subject to reversion if others disagree. If the dispute persists, there are many avenues for escalation. If your response doesn't consider whether ANI, DRN, AE, RSN or an RFC might be appropriate, I have little further to add but I thank you for reading — ImaginesTigers (talk) 07:24, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

I'll ignore the attacks on my character because they're pointless: But know that I get enough death threats and attempts at offline stalking, and I don't appreciate you adding comparisons to Essjay to the mix.

The Wade piece does not mention Feinberg is false. Wade outright says: "In this chapter, I use Feinberg's historical research as a guide to religion in the European Middle Ages." The excerpt you provided does not mention Feinberg but the full the piece by Wade is indeed focused on Feinberg to a degree that the author takes the unusual step of attacking other scholars for not embracing Feinberg's theories. Again, Wade aggressively promotes the work of Feinberg—just not in the exerpt you've quoted from.

As for the rest: I've made my points. This linguistic article needs more linguistics from linguists and less emphasis on theory from Feinbergian sources. :bloodofox: (talk) 08:58, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

Hey bloodofox – while you note that you'll ignore alleged attacks on your character, you keep raising them. My last reply does not mention Essjay and highlights ANI as an appropriate venue for you to raise concerns and for me to defend myself. I won't discuss conduct at FAR, as requested by a coordinator.

• As an aside: Due to the indenting, I can't tell if you are replying here to my first comment (which references my qualifications and Essjay) or my response to your response (which you directly quoted).

About the Wade source: I said in my last reply: If your response doesn't consider whether ANI, DRN, AE, RSN or an RFC might be appropriate, I have little further to add. I provided the full relevant extract (a section on the words); provided commentary on the extract's analysis; discussed the author's qualifications; mentioned its widely respected publisher; analysed the source's use proportional to others; and requested the work of any scholars who contradict the viewpoint you find problematic. Your response reiterates Wade "aggressively promotes the work of Feinberg"—has Feinberg written on bæddel and bædling? I believe our differences and the resulting discussion indicate we can't resolve our differences through discussion. Consequently, I'll reiterate that dispute resolution seems more appropriate, inviting wide community input. Thank you — ImaginesTigers (talk) 14:17, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

And yet you've repeatedly left out the focus of the paper: Promotion of Feinberg (once more, as the author makes no bones about: "In this chapter, I use Feinberg's historical research as a guide to religion in the European Middle Ages"). I've shown that you are for reasons unknown to me downplaying the central focus of the paper and that it clearly promotes the works of Feinberg, a non-academic and an activist. I don't know why you're going to lengths to imply that this is not the case when it is right there in the paper, as I've quoted. It's an activist piece focused on an activist. :bloodofox: (talk) 14:49, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

Happy to talk about the source itself, just not what I've done or haven't done.

What I'm not understanding is how Feinberg's work has influenced Wade's interpretation of bæddel and bædling—has Feiberg written about these terms? Wade does mention Feinberg elsewhere in the paper, but specifically cites her research. If Wade was using Feinberg's historical research here, I'd agree it's a problem. But Wade, himself an English Reinaissance scholar, doesn't mention her—he cites other scholars' conclusions about the terms being related to sex. Wouldn't those scholars' credentials, whose conclusions Wade cites, be the ones to interrogate instead of the mention of Feinberg in the abstract? — ImaginesTigers (talk) 15:06, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

The entire paper is focused on promoting Feinberg and Feinberg's theories. :bloodofox: (talk) 15:11, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

Even if Wade's article were about endorsing Feinberg's ideas (and I remain very unconvinced that this is true, certainly for the parts used in the article), I'm struggling to see it as a problem. Reliable sources need not be unbiased -- WP:RS is categoric on that point -- but plenty of the most respected authorities in history, archaeology, and so on are or have openly been communists or Marxists of various flavours, and approached their work from a Marxist perspective -- to say nothing of others with well-documented political leanings with obvious implications for their scholarship. It would be a very bold and uncommon argument to say that (say) the works of Eric Hobsbawm could not be cited in a Wikipedia article because their author was an activist, still less (as here) that any source endorsing his scholarship must also be purged. That doesn't mean that we accept the authors' views uncritically: like anything else, we look for points of consensus between reliable sources and attribute subjective or controversial material.

At any rate, if a piece has been published in an academic work (and The Routledge Handbook of Trans Literature is about as cut-and-dried academic as they get), that by definition means that it has been accepted by the gatekeepers of the scholarly world, and so must be considered under WP:DUEWEIGHT. If a Wikipedian is saying that, contrary to the judgements of the reviewers and editors at the academic press, the work is unreliable because of their own opinion of the arguments of the authors cited, that is simply WP:OR. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 15:21, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

Perhaps read the article beyond the excerpts that have been chosen to cut out all the Feinberg-worship. Although you've, in my opinion bafflingly, previously argued that we shouldn't be citing famed linguist Liberman's work in the article, I'm not arguing we should not include references to Wade's activist piece. What I am saying is that a.) there's no denying Wade's piece is activism focused on promoting the works of activist Feinberg (who Wade calls an "activist scholar"—although Feinberg never went to college or, as far as I can ascertain, even published anything peer-reviewed) and b.) we should be centering the works of linguists on this linguistics article. And there is much to add from linguists about it. :bloodofox: (talk) 15:31, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

If being unbiased isn't a request for reliable sources how does Wikipedia avoid bias then, or does Wikipedia openly admit to being biased itslef?★Trekker (talk) 13:57, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

WP:RS (and others) give the guidance here -- where sources present ideas which are clearly matters of judgement, we attribute.

This happens all the time in historical articles -- you might, for example, have a historian saying that the Battle of Stalingrad was the turning point of the Second World War, that life in medieval Europe was nasty, brutish and short, or that George Washington was the greatest American president. All of those may be important historical judgements, but none of them are verifiable or falsifiable in nature. In that case, we would write e.g. "The historian Clare Voyant has described life in medieval Europe as 'nasty, brutish and short'" -- the statement then becomes absolutely verifiable, since it is trivial to verify or falsify that Voyant actually did write that.

As to whether we should include Voyant's perspective, that's a matter of the prominence of Voyant's work in the relevant scholarship. There are plenty of FAs which deal with very controversial topics in this way -- BAE Systems is a good example where the issues are extremely emotive and the stakes relatively high. On another note, though: Wikipedia does admit to being unreliable! UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 14:11, 5 June 2025 (UTC)

• Abstained. I am not particularly knowledgeable in the subject topic and do not have any strong opinions on the course to take. Juwan (talk) 12:06, 5 June 2025 (UTC)
• The article seems to be unbalanced. There is enough information in primary sources to confirm that these words existed and had some meaning in Anglo-Saxon that could be associated at different times and in different places with (closely?) related concepts around "non-traditional male sexuality". I don't think much more can be adduced than that. So while it's OK to say that scholars of sexuality have concluded this or that, we can't really allow this to be the focus of the article. If we did the article would be better named something like "Middle English evidence for non-traditional sexualities". The question then arises if we only provide WP:DUE coverage of the sexuality, is there enough article left? All the best: Rich Farmbrough 16:38, 6 June 2025 (UTC).
  

  There's a ton that can be added here from discussion from philologists. Right now it's shoved in at the end and presented in a very odd and misleading manner. For example, just surveying a few sources, there looks to be widespread agreement from linguists that these two words likely developed from the unattested precursor to contemporary English bad, which seems to also occur in personal names and place names. This is ignored in the article. Generally, anything to do with linguistics seems to be really downplayed in favor of the notion of sexuality topics and the remarkable 'third gender' theory. :bloodofox: (talk) 08:31, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

  We presently have the following on this topic:

  Sayers proposes a shared etymology of bad, bæddel, and bædling from linguist Xavier Delamarre's reconstructed Gaulish word *baitos 'foolish, mad, immoral'; this adjective could have been carried into Old English by the hypothetical form *baed, which would connote physical and moral deficiency (characteristics perhaps associated by Old English speakers with the native British populations of the rest of the British Isles). Writing in 1988, the linguist Richard Coates also describes bæddel and bædling as descended from a common ancestor with bad, in the form of a hypothetical Old English *badde possibly meaning 'worthless' or 'of ill omen'. Liberman, concurring with Coates on the etymological link to *badde, states that bæddel was formed from bad.

  I'm sure more could be added, and that would be a fruitful discussion if the sources go further, but I would also be mindful that this is not an article about the etymology of "bad", so detailed discussion on that outside these two words is probably undue in this particular article. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 08:56, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

This is an article on two obscure words that almost never come up anywhere beyond the etymology of the word bad. In turn, the vast amount of discussion on this topic comes from linguists discussing this word in connection with the word bad.

This really should have been a simple and straight-forward article but at this point no doubt more effort has been expended on this and the article's talk page than in creating the article itself. :bloodofox: (talk) 09:07, 10 June 2025 (UTC)

• this has already been noted, but FAR is not for "delist" or "keep" !votes. ... sawyer * any/all * talk 16:40, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

  So struck. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 16:44, 6 June 2025 (UTC).
  

• Note Wikipedia does not forbid tertiary sources, far from it. See WP:TERTIARY. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 16:44, 6 June 2025 (UTC).
  
  • @Rich Farmbrough:: WP:DUE, which you cite, leads with Neutrality requires that mainspace articles and pages fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in those sources. Your statement that while it's OK to say that scholars of sexuality have concluded this or that, we can't really allow this to be the focus of the article. seems to be at odds with that. Do I read you correctly that you're saying we should apply a different inclusion standard here (namely, that the prominence of material in the article should be determined by what can be read in primary sources?) UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 19:47, 6 June 2025 (UTC)

    AIUI, Rich @Rich Farmbrough was explaining that the focus of the article currently, with its emphasis on the "third gender" hypothesis and deemphasis on philological scholarship, is at odds with its presentation as an article on a philological topic. If most of the academic treatment on the topic is from modern exegeses of OE words to support sociological arguments about sexuality, then that should be reflected in the title and the article should not present itself as if it is an overview of a linguistic topic. However, if the article is going to be structured through the lens of historical linguistics (as the title implies) then it needs to be centered around linguistic concepts, with non-linguistic scholarship being much less prominent because it is less DUE. JoelleJay (talk) 00:55, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

    I think that's an interesting argument, and I have some degree of sympathy with it, but I'm not convinced that Wikipedia articles really have a "genre" -- at least not explicitly, though obviously articles about medical topics tend to be written in the "dialect" of medical studies, articles about classical literature tend to sound like they're written by classicists, and so on. I'm also not sure which of the FA criteria it would relate to, as long as balance of views in the article is the same as the balance of views in good scholarship. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 07:49, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

Coordinator note. Given the comments so far, I'd like to highlight for participants what FAR is not:

1. A vote. Keep and delist declarations are not made at the FAR stage, which is intended to focus on potential improvements. Only if and when this is moved to the FARC stage will such declarations be appropriate.
2. Dispute resolution. Such issues should be addressed via the usual DR processes as needed.
3. A venue for personal comments. Comments addressing other editors should be taken to user talk, or if necessary ANI.

Please keep these points in mind and keep comments here focused on the FA criteria and how the article does or could meet them. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:52, 7 June 2025 (UTC)

If this review is still open, I would like to try and (from my perspective) clarify a point that is being discussed above, but is still causing some confusion, both here and elsewhere. People are saying that Wade "cites" Feinberg, as if this is just a reference he includes to Feinberg's works. While convenient to use, the phrasing "cites" is misleading here. It would be more accurate to say that Wade frames his entire chapter around Feinberg's works, and this necessarily needs to inform our (Wikipedia's) use of part of Wade's work (this is the element of about a page relating to 'Bæddel and bædling'). The key points can be seen in the abstract for the 11-page chapter (I posted this abstract in full here). When you see phrases like "It takes the historical scholarship of the activist and novelist Leslie Feinberg seriously in order to explore Feinberg’s claims about the history of Christianity and trans life in the early Middle Ages." and "I test Feinberg’s historical hypotheses" and "My chapter thus suggests that scholars have misjudged Feinberg’s work as without historical value. I build on hir work by making two further points" - what you are seeing there is Wade explicitly saying (unsurprisingly, as it is his job and career to do this) that he is rehabilitating the status of Feinberg's work and saying that they have value as historical scholarship, and that he is building on Feinberg's work. This is my understanding of what User:Bloodofox means when he has been (clumsily, IMO) referring to Wade as an "activist scholar". It is possible that the only way to properly include Wade in this article is to explicitly tie what Wade says about 'Bæddel and bædling' to the fact that he is saying it in terms of rehabilitating Feinberg as a source of historical scholarship. Except we might need to find someone who says that to justify saying it ourselves. The main point is that you need the context of the entire chapter to understand what is going on here. A number of people (me included) do not have access to that entire chapter. Just the abstract and the extract that User:ImaginesTigers posted here. This ends with the sentence "Feinberg (1996, 68–69) argued these pre-Christian categories of non-normative gender survived in the Christian stories of trans saints. Do they?" That this assertion from Wade is not currently in the article suggests either that the Wade-Feinberg connection is being omitted as a deliberate editorial choice (which might need justification), or that it needs saying more explicitly. This is probably best placed under assessment of FA criteria 1b, 1c and 1d (comprehensive, well-researched and neutral). Carcharoth (talk) 13:10, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

If we were citing a view of Feinberg's that Wade endorses, and using Wade's name to do that (e.g., where Wade writes "as Feinberg says, pineapple belongs on pizza", we were writing "Wade writes that pineapple belongs on pizza"), the analysis here would be correct -- Feinberg should be properly credited as the source of the idea. However, I can't see that this is the case. Wade is cited for statements that do not seem to be directly taken from Feinberg -- to wit:

• The number of glosses known for the term.
• The association in early medieval English thought between "the east" and effeminacy.
• The possibility that Bædling denoted a third gender, or intersex people.

If any of those can be shown to be Feinberg's opinion, rather than Wade's, then Feinberg's name should be attached to them (alongside Wade's), if it would be appropriate to attribute (i.e., if we're considering them a matter of opinion rather than fact, which at least the first two do not seem to be). However, absent that, it would be deeply misleading to imply that e.g. Feinberg believed there to be two known glosses for these terms, when Feinberg probably never gave the question any thought. It would certainly be undue and WP:OR/WP:SYNTH to say something like "the queer scholar Eric Wade, who cites Leslie Feinberg in his work, believes that Bædling may have referred to intersex people" -- we cannot put those facts alongside each other, or imply a connection between them, unless a reliable secondary source does so. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 13:40, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

What does "Feinberg (1996, 68–69)" say? I assume from the year that this is Transgender Warriors (the bibliographic section of Wade 2024 would confirm this)? Am I misreading what Wade is saying about his three case studies and how he is connecting them? Despite it 'only' being a page that explicitly talks about 'Bæddel and bædling', it seems to me from the abstract that Wade is weaving the concepts throughout his chapter, i.e. more than the two pages (p.55 and p.56) cited in our article. It is very difficult for a reader to know that this has happened, that there is 'further reading' in the Wade article that has been silently omitted here. I really think that in order to integrate Wade 2024 properly into this article, access to the whole chapter is needed. Carcharoth (talk) 14:29, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

In which case, you're welcome to request it at WP:RX, or some other means. However, it seems odd to suggest that an article doesn't meet the FA criteria based on its treatment of a source you haven't seen. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 14:34, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

Thank you. I may have fallen for the classic fallacy of thinking you can read a single (or a few) pages from a source and not the whole thing (this is more common with very big books). In this case, as an 11-page chapter, there is no excuse. BTW, I don't think I have ever said anywhere that I think this article does not meet the FA criteria. It is a very readable article, and a lot of scholarly effort has gone into it. I do think the concerns raised justified a review. Carcharoth (talk) 14:40, 17 June 2025 (UTC)

I would like to question whether the article's topic really is linguistic. We do not make articles solely on etymologies, as Wiktionary is the site for that. Instead, the main topic of the article seems to me to be the referent of these terms. For that, only sources in queer studies make sense to cite. Like most Wikipedia articles, an etymology section seems to creep in anyway, but it really shouldn't occupy too much space. Besides, see the Wiktionary entry on bad, there isn't consensus anyway on its origin. Aspets (talk) 13:22, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Dwarf planet

Notified: Kwamikagami, Double sharp, Real4jyy, Serendipodous, WP Astronomy, noticed in August 2021

This 2008 promotion is one of the oldest notices remaining at WP:FARGIVEN. There are substantial amounts of uncited text an unresolved debate from April regarding the accuracy of a statement. This should be saveable, but as the concerns were originally raised nearly four years ago, here we go to FAR. Hog Farm _Talk 02:48, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Comment Just a note -- this shouldn't influence the outcome of the FAR, but what needs to happen if the article is demoted: Dwarf planet is a featured topic, and WP:NCASTRO explicitly relies on that fact (the guideline for whether or not an object should be considered a dwarf planet on Wikipedia depends on whether it is included in the featured topic). Compare the discussion here and here. Renerpho (talk) 03:10, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Comment #2 The notice in August 2021 resulted in a discussion with responses from 2021-2023, Talk:Dwarf planet/Archive 8#Featured article status. Quote from there (CMD, 21 December 2023): Significant work was put into this article following my comment above, much by Kwami. Better to raise/tag any individual issues with a fresh look, rather than going into FAR.

As for the recent unresolved accuracy debate, which was largely the work of Nrco0e and myself, I agree it's an issue, but that's not something we can solve on Wikipedia. What we can do is decide how to handle the unclear situation, and I'd be grateful for additional input on that. Renerpho (talk) 03:27, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't think we can resolve it without violating WP:SYNTH. Serendi^podous 06:53, 4 June 2025 (UTC)

New Super Mario Bros.

Notified: Video Games WikiProject

While the 2009 FA New Super Mario Bros. has structure and sourcing, it does not yet meet 1b. It lacks a dedicated "Legacy" or "Impact" section (crucial given the game’s role in revitalizing the 2D platforming genre). The development section works but is shallow compared to those in other featured articles. The prose in the plot section isn't the most encyclopedic tone, and the critical reception section could benefit from more synthesis and retrospective perspective. FARC? 𝚈𝚘𝚟𝚝 (𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚔𝚟𝚝) 00:05, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

Do you know of any sources that claim it revitalized 2D platforming, or of any sources missing on the development history? While more info is nice on either, it may not be possible. - Cukie Gherkin (talk) 06:08, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

I would agree that this claim it "revitalized 2D platforming" is fairly unclear. Furthermore this is also a driveby nom that failed to raise issues on the talk page for discussion and possible fixing first as per policy. A user noted "FAR concerns" 5 years ago, but there wasn't an attempt by the nom. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 11:10, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

On reading through the book Run and Jump: The Meaning of the 2D Platformer (2024) from The MIT Press, its not 100% accurate that this game "revitalized it". While I'm not sure what the current article on the genre says and I'm sure we can find articles that suggest the opposite, its not like the style went away. Its always existed in less commercial game terms through rom hacks, fan games, and independent work like Cave Story (2004). Andrzejbanas (talk) 19:46, 18 June 2025 (UTC)

Baltimore Steam Packet Company

Notified: JGHowes, WikiProject United States, WikiProject Maryland, WikiProject Ships, WikiProject Transport, WikiProject Companies

As noted in April 2025 by RetiredDuke, this 2008 FA has many issues:

• Significant material is completely unsourced.
• Some paragraphs are sourced by only one citation, which sometimes does not verify the content. For example, very little of the first paragraph of the "1860s–1910s" section is verified by the cited source, Brown (1961), pp. 48–50.
• On the subject of Brown, it is a sixty-plus year-old source that is the primary source for the article. Another source used, the Carolina Work Boats Project is very likely unreliable by FA standards. RetiredDuke points out a number of other sources which could be used to diversify the sourcing and meet FA criterion 1c):
  • Prince, Richard E. - Seaboard Air Line Railway: Steam Boats, Locomotives, and History
  • Prince, Richard E. - Steam Locomotives and Boats: Southern Railway System
  • Keith, Robert C. - Baltimore Harbor: A Pictorial History
  • Dickon, Chris - Chesapeake Bay Steamers
  • Jones, Cary W. - Norfolk as a Business Centre. Its Principal Industries and Trades
  • Blume, Kenneth J. - Historical Dictionary of the U.S. Maritime Industry

Sadly, the original FA nominator has passed away; hopefully, other knowledgeable editors will step forward to improve it in his wake. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:06, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

• Move to FARC. No edits to address concerns. Z1720 (talk) 19:58, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

BioShock

Notified: WP:VG, User:Masem, User:AI83tito

Pre-FAR comments here and here. The article definitely needs a rewrite given the 10+ years since its promotion and the legacy of the game in the landscape. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 22:08, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Not saying I'm going to try to save this article, just gonna poke around, do some cleanup, and maybe I'll give it a serious go. Side note, I could have sworn the video game project advised only including 10 reviews in the review table. Not a rule per say but just advice for editors. As it stands there are 12 reviews in the table (although the TouchArcade review should really go in it's own section regarding the iOS release). Famous Hobo (talk) 05:29, 27 May 2025 (UTC)

Edward Low

Notified: Fish and karate, TheLastBrunnenG, Maralia, WP Bio, WP MILHIST, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Piracy, noticed 2025-04-17

As I noted on the article's talk page, I do not believe that a lot of the sourcing in this early (2007) FA promotion meets the current standards. Hog Farm _Talk 01:50, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

Having made Stede Bonnet a little healthier a while back, I'd like to have a swing here as well, but I do note that the sourcing here appears to be far worse. Pickersgill-Cunliffe (talk) 02:50, 19 May 2025 (UTC)

Just cleaned up some of the Further Reading entries. As far as the References, many of them are appropriate and reliable, generally historically accurate. But there are plenty that need to be sourced elsewhere, mainly the older websites: Chronofus, PortCities, ThePirateKing, PiratesInfo, etc. Some of the references to Ellms, Pyle, etc. also need to go, as they're just repeating text from Johnson's General History of the Pirates, which is itself historically important but not entirely reliable. TheLastBrunnenG (talk) 01:50, 21 May 2025 (UTC)

• Could we get an update on status here? Nikkimaria (talk) 15:23, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

Augustus

Notified: PericlesofAthens, WikiProject Biography, WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome, WikiProject Royalty and Nobility, WikiProject Military history, WikiProject Ancient Near East, WikiProject Politics, WikiProject Religion, WikiProject Rome, Vital articles/Level/3

As noted in August 2023 by UndercoverClassicist, this 2007 FA contains significant sourcing issues:

• Heavy overuse of one source (Eck & Takács 2003)
• Use of dated secondary sources, some of which are nearing a century old
• Uncritical use of ancient primary sources as citations.
• Underuse of high-quality modern sources, some of which lie unused in the "Further reading" section
• Not enough detail on legacy and assessment in post-classical politics.

These problems call into question the article's adherence to FA criteria 1b), 1c), and 1d). ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 10:39, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

Pinging Ifly6, who was in that conversation (and will probably have a valuable view on the sourcing), but I'm probably not going to have the time to take them up on their offer a proper collaboration at the moment, if indeed it still stands. Scanning back over the article quickly, I think what I wrote in 2023 is still true. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 10:45, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

Also pinging @Carlstak and T8612:, who were in the discussion as well. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 10:46, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

@UndercoverClassicist Hello! As the editor who initially wrote and submitted this article as a FAC back in 2007, it behooves me 18 years later to now safeguard my little legacy here at Wikipedia. This review comes as no surprise, of course, considering how the article was never that stellar to begin with and further edits over time have diminished its quality even further (for the record I was not the one to add the smattering of primary sources cited in the article). I wrote this article when I was a 21-year-old in college with nothing better to do. I am now a middle aged man with a demanding full time job and an absurd amount of social commitments this spring. Please allow me a proper amount of time to address all of these concerns (at least a couple months). I have begun an earnest effort to address them by using up my break time at work (when I could be exercising instead, LOL) to cite Roller (2010) as a buttressing source for Eck & Takacs (2003). The latter is admittedly overused, but I don't see a need to remove any citations from that source if we can simply buttress it instead with multiple layers of verification via other cited secondary sources. Roller is certainly useful as an academic source for the bits about Cleopatra and Antony; I plan on adding other sources in the coming weeks. Unfortunately I do not have time tonight or even tomorrow night to continue work on this given my social commitments, but hopefully I can continue working on this by Thursday night and maybe, if I'm very lucky to have any free time and not utterly exhausted, on Sunday afternoon as well. I simply do not have ample time to do all of the work that is truly needed. I'm going to have to call on you and others to please aid me in my efforts to research secondary sources and add citations where they are most needed. Also, @AirshipJungleman29, if you could clarify exactly what you mean by "not enough detail on legacy and assessment in post-classical politics," I could begin to address that, but I'm not sure which details are missing in your estimation. Kind regards, Pericles of Athens^Talk 15:05, 22 April 2025 (UTC)

Just noting here that I will be busy all day today, but will make a concerted effort tomorrow (Sunday, April 26th) to read through Bringmann (2007), which I own, and continue citing that source in the article. I will also continue consulting Roller (2010) and adding citations from that source. If anyone has suggestions for easily accessible sources found online (via Google Books, for instance), that would be highly appreciated. I don't have a lot of time to drive down to the nearest university library and spend a day there finding suitable sources, reading them, taking notes, and then citing them here in the article. I'd rather avoid all of that just to salvage my old Featured article, but I will do what is necessary. Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:03, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

UPDATE: I've made some small but noteworthy improvements already by using Bringmann (2007), but it's a real headache to clean up the sloppiness of other editors, especially in the "Name" section of the article that was created after my successful Featured Article candidacy of 2007. Too many cooks spoil the broth, so to speak! For instance, someone cited Goldsworthy (2014) without bothering to let us know which page number they consulted, and this particular citation was used to buttress a primary source citation for Suetonius. Ugh! There are a lot of weeds to untangle here, but I hope everyone will please be patient as I try to use what little spare time I have in the coming two months to address these problems. I have asked another Wiki editor who I've collaborated with in the past for help on this, but unfortunately this is out of their depth. @UndercoverClassicist Do you happen to have direct access to high quality recently published reliable sources on Augustus? I have a few books about ancient Rome lying around at home (like the aforementioned one by Bringmann), but I cannot use them for verifying everything. Any help would be greatly appreciated! I could use a helping hand right about now, because this whole thing is starting to give me a migraine, I'm sleep deprived as it is, and it's really starting to stress me out. I'm not looking forward to seeing one of my FAs lose its status only because I no longer have the adequate spare time in my busy life to work on articles here. Thanks for any help in advance and any life preservers thrown my way! Also pinging User:Johnbod for help on this, out of sheer desperation (sorry to drag you into this mess, old friend, not sure who else to contact at this point since I rarely frequent Wikipedia anymore). Cheers. Pericles of Athens^Talk 03:18, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

Got to make this one brief, I'm afraid:

• As a first step, I'd look to promote Zanker and the two Galinsky books from the Further Reading.
• The Cambridge Companion gets a couple of cites: have we used that fully?
• Wallace-Hadrill's Augustan Rome isn't that recent, but has a recent-ish 2nd edition (2018).
• This one from 2010 is brief, but I suspect will have good bibliography.
• This one (Hekster) is specifically about image, but I had it presented to me at a recent-ish conference as the "next word" from Galinsky, Zanker et al.

I might be able to track down stuff that isn't available on IA and TWL if it would help. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 06:51, 28 April 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for highlighting these as important sources, but do you have access to these books? I have access like anyone else to resources made available on Google Books, but I'm not buying things on Amazon simply to improve a Wikipedia article (I'll see if Google Books contains snippets of these, but I'll need full access on a database like Internet Archive if I'm not driving down to my local university library). I don't work in academia, so I no longer have access to databases like JSTOR. I was at least able to use Fratantuono (2016) to untangle weeds and clean up the mess made by other editors in the "Names" section, deemphasizing Suetonius given @AirshipJungleman29's concerns about primary sources being used uncritically (though I don't mind retaining them in certain spots simply to buttress secondary sources and as a useful reference for readers). This article is going to take so much work, but unfortunately my workday has already begun, and I barely have a single free evening this entire week to sit down and give this article the attention it deserves. If you do not have the adequate spare time in your own busy life to help with edits to this article, do you by any chance know other editors here who would be willing to lend a helping hand? It's a daunting task simply because I don't have the time for it (not like I did when I was 21-years-old and editing here in between going to college classes, rock/metal concerts, and weekend keg parties, LOL). Would you have any spare time to help with cleaning up citations and shortening them? That alone is time consuming work. Any help on that alone would be hugely appreciated, and I'd give you a shiny reward on your talk page for it! Cheers. Pericles of Athens^Talk 13:12, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

You can get a lot of these via WP:TWL, if you meet the criteria? The Cambridge Companion, for instance, can be read in full via Cambridge Core, which is part of that. I'm happy to send over individual chapters and articles, if you let me know what you're looking for -- otherwise, the good people at WP:RX always amaze me with their skills in tracking down obscure sources. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 13:59, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

@UndercoverClassicist Cool! Thanks for suggesting the Wiki Library. Oddly enough I knew nothing about it, probably because it was founded when I was overseas in the Peace Corps, and then shortly after that I moved to yet another country for my graduate degree and was not editing Wikipedia during that time either. How do I access this Cambridge Core, exactly? I don't see a link for it via the library. The resource request page looks promising, though. I will definitely utilize that and make a request or two there. Much appreciated! If the Cambridge Companion has a chapter or two on the early life and family upbringing of Octavian then it would be very helpful if you could share that. That's perhaps the part of the article that relies the most on primary source citations (I've started to reverse that already, but there is still much to be done there). Pericles of Athens^Talk 17:22, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

Feel free to email me any chapter as such from the Companion, if that's how you intend to share it (that's usually how I've shared things in the past, aside from using personal sandboxes). Pericles of Athens^Talk 17:34, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

Cambridge Core is under Cambridge University Press -- the TWL link is here; you'll have to be logged into TWL for it to work, or you might need to access it directly from the TWL page. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 18:36, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

@UndercoverClassicist Cool! Thanks! I have access to the Companion now, virtually every chapter. I don't see anything in particular about the early life of Augustus, though, just various things about his reign after he became emperor. Still very useful for the later part of our article here on Wikipedia, but I'll need additional sources about his childhood and family life. Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:52, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

Have you come across this fairly new biography (2023)? It has a slightly unusual focus (each chapter is based on an astronomical event), but a quick flick through suggests it's probably got as much on his birth and childhood as we're likely to get -- I imagine Goldsworthy and Everitt are probably similarly close to what's possible there? UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 20:30, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

@UndercoverClassicist Nice find! Thanks for sharing. Although it contains a bunch of other tangential information, the first chapter of that book by Anne-Marie Lewis actually confirms a lot of material for the "Early life" section of our Wikipedia article. Bravo! When I have a chance tonight I will be adding this source to our bibliography and citing it generously in that section. Pericles of Athens^Talk 21:32, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm extremely happy to announce that Lewis (2023) has been added to "Sources" and cited in the article to confirm the birthplace as Ox Head on the Palatine Hill. I also relied on Lewis to create an endnote about Octavian's date of birth following the citation by Bringmann (2007). This article is starting to shape up! I have run out of time tonight, but I'll tackle it again later this week. I'm starting to feel much more optimistic about it! Cheers. Pericles of Athens^Talk 01:54, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

@UndercoverClassicist Hello again! Just letting you know that apparently only the introduction chapter of The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Augustus is available via PDF at www-cambridge-org. For whatever reason, the PDFs of other chapters only contain two pages: the cover page for the chapter followed by a blank page, and then nothing else. A shame! However, there are other sources to consult. The Cambridge Companion also doesn't help much with biographical details on Octavian's life, as we have discussed. Pericles of Athens^Talk 17:28, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

Are you sure you're downloading the right bits? If, for example, you download the PDF for "Part II: Intellectual and Social Developments", you get the two pages, but if you download any of its sub-parts (which are the "real" chapters, like "3 - Mutatas Formas: The Augustan Transformation of Roman Knowledge"), I at least get the full PDF. If that doesn't work for you, shoot me an email via Wikipedia with what you need: I should be able to get it. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 17:37, 4 May 2025 (UTC)

The problem was I was not able to see the sub-parts in the URL I was looking at, but I searched the book again in Cambridge Core, and now the sub-parts/chapters are listed. I'm reading Eder's chapter right now, so it appears that all is well. Thanks! As I suspected, though, it provides great information on the reign of Augustus, but not exactly the details of his early life as Gaius Octavius (and then Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus). It will at least be somewhat useful here and there, and I plan on citing Eder (2005) in the "Name" section at least once for backing up Bringmann (2007) on translating Augustus as "the revered". Pericles of Athens^Talk 13:18, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

Yes -- honestly, I think you might end up being disappointed if you want to write a biography of the "real" Augustus that cuts through the myth-making and ideology -- I'm not convinced such a thing is possible! We have to be led by the sources: if they don't give a huge amount of detail about what Augustus did between the ages of four and ten, or what they do say is clearly just variations on traditional and implication-heavy stories, there's not a lot we can do. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 15:34, 5 May 2025 (UTC)

@UndercoverClassicist I think you'll be pleased to know that I have moved Galinsky (2012) out of the "Further Reading" section and into the "Sources" section, so that I could cite his work in both the "Early life" section and "Legacy" sections of the article. Hurray! Serious progress is being made, especially since the "Legacy" section needs a serious cleanup. That first paragraph will need many more citations, but paragraphs have been rearranged more logically per subject matter, and Galinsky provides excellent input and a nuanced perspective about the Pax Augusta that was sorely missing from the article. Hopefully within a couple months all primary source citations will be diminished or relegated to support status or endnotes, and recently-published reliable sources like Roller, Lewis, Bringmann, and Galinsky will buttress, clarify, and expand on points made by Eck & Takacs. Pericles of Athens^Talk 12:50, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

A suggestion rather than an instruction -- it might be a good idea to try to get one (fairly short) section "done" -- that would mean that reviewers here can get a sense of what the final product will look like, and give a steer if needed. UndercoverClassicist ^T·C 13:35, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

@UndercoverClassicist Not a bad suggestion! In that case the "Name" section at the very beginning should be a top of the list priority. It still needs a bit of work, and I'll make sure everything there has a proper secondary source citation. After that I'll continue work on the "Early life" section. I'm happy to have cited Galinsky where he was truly needed, though. Pericles of Athens^Talk 14:58, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

@UndercoverClassicist It's only one small step, but I'm happy to announce that the "Name" section has at least been cleaned up, reworded a bit, filled with new citations from secondary sources, and all primary source citations have been moved into endnotes for now. Let me know if this looks suitable, or if further changes must be made to elevate the quality of that section (to meet our rigorous FA standards). Cheers! Pericles of Athens^Talk 15:55, 7 May 2025 (UTC)

What are the high-quality sources in the Further Reading section for me to try and add into the paragraph? Thelifeofan413 (talk) 18:16, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

@Thelifeofan413 Most of those sources seem useful, but which "paragraph" are you referring to here? The first one in the "Legacy" section that I mentioned? That one simply lacks enough citations from reliable sources, with several sentences failing to have inline citations. Most of these statements are obviously factually correct (on the same sort of level as the claim that "George Washington was the first president of the United States"). However, they still require citations per the strict standards of a Featured status article. I'm unfortunately too busy today and perhaps all weekend to delve back into this project, but I will have time next week to provide more citations. If you're able to add even one citation (using the "sfn" shorthand method), that alone would be a serious contribution and a really big help! Thank you. Pericles of Athens^Talk 20:28, 2 May 2025 (UTC)

I will try to do this as when my schedule permits. Thelifeofan413 (talk) 07:00, 3 May 2025 (UTC)

@AirshipJungleman29 Thanks for letting me know about the review! It was quite a long time ago when I wrote the article and submitted it for Featured status, back when I was in college! I'll have a look at it over the weekend when I have a chance. Hopefully I will have some time next week to work on improving things here. Pericles of Athens^Talk 11:01, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

• Could we get an update on status here? Nikkimaria (talk) 15:10, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

  @Nikkimaria Hello! Just letting you know that I'm still working hard to improve the article and made significant edits just today on the "Early life" section, after completing the initial "Name" section. Unfortunately I have a very busy weekend, but I am still fully committed to improving the article and will tackle it more next week when time permits. So far I have made a concerted effort to replace primary source citations with secondary source ones, shifting the former to endnotes where they can still be useful as further references. I plan on finishing the "Early life" section by the end of next week, and will comb through the rest of the article after that. I've been using a variety of sources for that job, and lately I've been relying a lot on Galinsky (2012) for the childhood and upbringing of Octavian. I plan on using a variety of secondary sources, of course, and have beefed up the article here and there with ones that were previously delegated to the "Further reading" section (Galinsky included). Please give me a couple months to make further improvements before final judgments are made. I'm doing all of this in my very limited spare time, so if you know anyone else who could help, please let me know! Regards, Pericles of Athens^Talk 18:53, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

  @PericlesofAthens is there any "grunt work" i can help you with? Remsense 🌈 论 11:27, 7 June 2025 (UTC)

  @Remsense Thank you so much for offering help, my friend! Citations are the biggest problem, with primary sources that must be shifted to endnotes in particular, replaced by secondary source citations. I've unfortunately been extremely busy this week, will be busy most of next week too. Only have time tomorrow afternoon/evening to work on the article, plus Monday & Tuesday next week (no time for it after that, not until mid-late June). My plan is to try and finish "Early life" section ("Name" section is done). I'm primarily using Galinsky (2012), Cambridge Core via Wikipedia Library, but there are a lot of weeds to untangle. My plan involves creating a better explanation of the First Triumvirate, at least mentioning it in the "Early life" section. Current article version does a somewhat poor job of contextualizing it (First Triumvirate not even explicitly mentioned until the "Second Triumvirate" sub-section), Caesar's Civil War, and explaining Julius Caesar's relationship with young Octavian. If you could simply find secondary source citations for replacing already existing statements that only rely on primary sources (like Suetonius and Nicolaus of Damascus), that alone would be a huge help! Cheers. Pericles of Athens^Talk 19:27, 7 June 2025 (UTC)

Kylie Minogue

Notified: User talk:Hotwiki, Notified: User talk:TarnishedPath, Notified: User talk:Rhodes00, Notified: Wikipedia:WikiProject Music, 1, 2, 3, 4,

This 2005 FA BLP has some glaring prose and quality of writing issues; with several of the very long paragraphs having some fancruft issues and too-close paraphrasing from journalists and music critics. And generally the article, like Ms. Minogue, is in a very different state than it was when it was listed as a FA. PHShanghai | they/them (talk) 10:57, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

PHShanghai, did you discuss these issues on the article's talk page before nominating here? Nikkimaria (talk) 05:05, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

Yes, I've discussed all of these issues on the talk page for the last year or so. This is the most recent discussion, but the talk page discussions have been going since late 2023. PHShanghai | they/them (talk) 11:09, 18 April 2025 (UTC)

this shouldn't be too hard. I'm working on Beyonce at the moment but i'll start this soon. 750h+ 12:55, 30 April 2025 (UTC)

750h+, are you still intending to work on this? Nikkimaria (talk) 15:08, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

hmm. i'll see. the article doesn't currently look that bad and i think some paragraph-size reduction and quote/close-paraphrasing-removal could make this better. i'll see what i can do within the next month. 750h+ 06:30, 18 May 2025 (UTC)

Take your time. It's quite a long career and there's still a lot of bloat to unload. I feel that the lead and the prose about her career post-2010 (when it was last reassessed for FA) can be improved the most; there is much lacking in the writing quality there, not very encyclopedic. The lead is very bloated but fails to mention important parts of her career (like her hit single which revitalized her career; Padam Padam.) PHShanghai | they/them (talk) 01:49, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

Anne Frank

Notified: Wikiproject Jewish Women, Wikiproject Jewish history, [8]

@Ali Beary: please also notify major contributors. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:44, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

I am nominating this featured article for review because there have been issues with cleanup tags for over a year, and there appears to have been no attempt to resolve these issues. This is an issue with criterions 1c and 2c. The issues are as follows:

In the paragraphs beginning with In May 1940 and In 2015, Flemish journalist Jeroen De Bruyn, there are unreliable source tags in the last sentence.

There is a "who?" cleanup tag after In January 2022, some investigators.

In the middle of the paragraph beginning with Witnesses later testified, there is a tag requesting a better source.

Near the end of the paragraph starting with On 19 August 2022, there is a clarification needed tag.

There's not many, but I believe that an article isn't good enough for FA if there's cleanup tags. Thank you! Ali Beary _(talk!) 18:13, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

I've looked into the points you listed:

• In May 1940: source replaced
• In 2015, Flemish journalist Jeroen De Bruyn: can you elaborate on the problem with the source?
• In January 2022, some investigators: clarified
• Witnesses later testified: can you elaborate on the problem with the source?
• On 19 August 2022: clarified

– Editør (talk) 00:29, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

@Ali Beary, could you explain the issues with the two remaining tagged sources so it is clear what needs to be done to remove the tags? – Editør (talk) 08:01, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

I have removed the two remaining cleanup templates and explained why in the first and second edit summary. I believe all issues in this review have now been resolved. – Editør (talk) 15:31, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

@Editør, what do you mean in the first edit summary by "with Wikipedia pages as sources"? Ali Beary _(talk!) 12:03, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

The publications are notable and have a Wikipedia page to establish this. – Editør (talk) 12:10, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

Note that notability and reliability are different things; a source can be notable but not reliable, or reliable but not notable. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:20, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

The edit summary was also meant to refer the reader to these Wikipedia pages that don't indicate any problems with reliability of the referenced publications.

@Nikkimaria, I think you are just explaining terms that could have been confused here. Or did you also mean to imply that you believe there is an issue with the reliability of these two sources? – Editør (talk) 13:32, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

I haven't looked at the specifics of the two sources, just noting that whether a Wikipedia page exists about them doesn't really matter. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:49, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

Alright, noted.

@Ali Beary, have all issues now been resolved? – Editør (talk) 17:29, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

I suppose all the issues are solved. The article may stay as a FA. Thank you for your work on fixing this! If something happens and the article is nominated for FAR once more, would you like to be pinged to fix it? Ali Beary _(talk!) 12:31, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

Great! You may ping me, although I am not really a frequent contributor of this article. – Editør (talk) 16:09, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria: could this review be closed? – 17:37, 30 May 2025 (UTC)

I'd like to see another review or two before closure. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:57, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

The issues raised in this review, that surely was rather limited, seem to have been resolved two months ago and there has not been any activity here since early April. I think this review should be closed instead of kept open until someone raises more issues at some point in the future. – Editør (talk) 18:02, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

Flag of Hong Kong

Notified: WikiProject Heraldry and vexillology, WikiProject Hong Kong, WikiProject China, Deryck Chan

I am nominating this featured article for review because there seems to be missing information throughout this article. The "Colour specifications" section says that it is the same colour as China's flag, but then doesn't specify what that is. It also doesn't specify what other colour(s) are used in the flag. The flag has also been used as a symbol in recent events concerning Hong Kong, but this has not been outlined in the article. There are some unreliable and lower-quality sources used as inline citations, which should be replaced by higher-quality sources. Z1720 (talk) 14:00, 24 February 2025 (UTC)

@Z1720, I added other colors and the protest use of the Black Bauhinia variant. History6042😊 (Contact me) 13:38, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

@History6042: There is still a citation needed tag, and missing information about more recent events. Are you interested in addressing these concerns? Z1720 (talk) 16:52, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

What more recent events are you referring to. History6042😊 (Contact me) 20:51, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

Maybe they are referring to the use of the last colonial flag of Hong Kong, particularly during and after the 2014 protests, as a symbol of Hong Kong independence or autonomy. I moved the details to Flag of Hong Kong (1871–1997) to keep this article concise.

I doubt this is the case, but if they are referring to the current flag of Hong Kong being used alongside the PRC flag by pro-Beijing demonstrators, well, that's not really a recent development (or rather a significant change since its introduction). Yue🌙 02:13, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't see the previous question. Yes, I am referring to the flag's use in post-1997 protests. While it is not a significant change, its continued used by pro-Beijing protesters is worth mentioning and the intended symbolism. Is the flag also used by protesters for other causes? Z1720 (talk) 13:54, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

Do sources distinguish that from the general waving of one's flag as a show of patriotism/nationalism? It seems reasonably run-of-the-mill symbolism. CMD (talk) 15:08, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

I've seen Chinese-language sources, and can probably find English-language sources, that specifically note the use of the HKSAR flag by counter-protesters during the 2014, 2019, and 2020 anti-government protests. That's just a sentence or two missing at most though. Yue🌙 21:45, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

Similar but not exactly what I was talking about: CNN article on the HKSAR flag being targetted by protesters as a symbol of the PRC / HKSAR governments. Yue🌙 21:49, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

That report does not suggest there is anything particularly notable about the flag being a symbol of the PRC/HKSAR governments. The symbolism is already explained in the article: Chinese flag red, Chinese flag stars, one country two-systems. Perhaps something could be added about how the flag has not gained acceptance by those who disagree with this political situation, but that pro-government protesters use a government flag is to be expected. Flag defacement/variation might also be worth some words, but it is also not unusual. CMD (talk) 08:07, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for your research. Considering the above, it looks like the flag's use in protests was not as widespread as I thought, so it seems fine as-is and more information can be added later. I'll take another look at the article when the citation needed tags are addressed. Z1720 (talk) 12:48, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

• Could we get an update on status here? Nikkimaria (talk) 14:17, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

  I removed or adjusted material that was unsourced. I don't think the flag's use by pro-government protesters is particularly notable. The article should be okay now, in my opinion. Yue🌙 19:07, 29 April 2025 (UTC)

• @Yue: I think all is to add to the lead information about its use, both as a government symbol and in recent events. Are you willing to add that? Z1720 (talk) 00:16, 9 May 2025 (UTC)

   Done. Yue🌙 23:43, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

• Keep. My concerns have been resolved. Z1720 (talk) 21:17, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

• "A discrepancy in this rule was observed during the opening ceremonies of the 2009 East Asian Games. Normally, the organization's flag and the host's flag are raised to equal prominence and the organization's flag cannot be smaller than any other flag.[18] However, when Hong Kong hosted the 2009 East Asian games, three flags (the Hong Kong flag, the Chinese flag, and the East Asian Games Association flag) were raised, with the Hong Kong flag on the left, the EAGA flag the same size on the right, and the Chinese flag larger and higher than both flags in the centre, thus making the EAGA flag smaller than another opening ceremony flag.[19][20]" - this is sourced to an olympic manual, a youtube video of the occurrence, and then a website of unclear reliability - is any of this due weight?
• This article relies heavily on websites that are part of the Flags of the World umbrella, which is not considered to be reliable - see WP:FOTW. crwflags is part of this, as well as the flagspot reference (""Colonial Hong Kong". Flags of the World. 18 August 2007.")
• The RSP entry for The Economist states "Its pseudonymous commentary columns and other opinion pieces should also be handled according to this guideline." "A.T. (4 July 2012). "Free speech in Hong Kong: Show of strength". Analects. Hong Kong. Archived from the original on 23 July 2012. Retrieved 24 July 2012." is a blog post under the Economist blog grouping which is pseudonymous - is this a high-quality RS?

I don't think this article is ready to be kept yet. Hog Farm _Talk 00:20, 20 May 2025 (UTC)

@Yue and History6042: Could you have a look at these comments? Nikkimaria (talk) 14:57, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria: I can look for replacement sources later this week. A bit busy with other projects and real life commitments, but I can get to it. Yue🌙 17:55, 1 June 2025 (UTC)

• I removed the Economist blog as the other source verifies the sentence as well (I added the other source in an earlier edit).
• I am of the opinion that the second and third paragraphs in the Display section should be removed.
  • The second paragraph about the Olympics display is true, but it's technically WP:SYNTHESIS and the importance of the discrepancy was evidently made by the editor(s) themselves, because the Chinese-language article given does not speak about the flags in particular at all.
  • Similarly, the third paragraph is sourced by one article that cites the opinions of random netizens. Not exactly high quality journalism.
• The FOTW issue seems to be limited to just the section about the final colonial flag. I will replace those sources with better ones shortly.

Yue🌙 23:23, 9 June 2025 (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.

Jack Sheppard

Notified: ALoan, WikiProject Biography, WikiProject Crime and Criminal Biography, WikiProject London, WikiProject United Kingdom 2023-02-02

Review section

I am nominating this featured article for review because there are uncited statements, including entire paragraphs, and unaddressed concerns about prose clarity raised on the talk page. Z1720 (talk) 15:43, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

• Move to FARC: No significant edits to address concerns. Z1720 (talk) 19:57, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

FARC section

Issues raised in the review section include sourcing and prose. DrKay (talk) 13:11, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

• Comments by Jenhawk777

  I have copied comments I left on the article's Talkpage;

::: Hi, I am just showing up to this article which is new to me. In a quick read-through on 19 June 2025 I found the same problems Desertarun did.

* According to [9] the repeated use of the term "notorious" is problematic.

I agree that the lead lacks clarity and good organization. It jumps around enough it is slightly confusing. It doesn't seem to reflect body content.

The problems with referencing and copyediting and grammar remain.

If this article was submitted to FAC today, it would not be supported. It can always be returned to FA if these issues get addressed, but as things stand right now, it should not be one of our featured articles - imo. Jenhawk777 (talk) 19:43, 19 June 2025 (UTC)

Edward Teller

Notified: Fastfission [10], WikiProject Biography/Science and academia, [11]

Review section

I am nominating this 2006 featured article for review due to the issues that I raised over three weeks ago on the talk page, which have remained wholly unanswered. These include:

• A lead that is unbalanced and gives undue weight to certain aspects of his work, like the "Alarm Clock model bomb", and has potential NPOV issues like the messianic complex claim.
• A sometime excessive reliance on quotes, as in the 'Decision to drop the bombs' subsection (i.e. not summary style).
• Sources that simply aren't FA quality, like Collider or DailyTech, and other content remains unsourced.
• The sequence and division subsections seems sporadic, and not as well-organized as fellow physicist Leo Szilard's article for contrast.
• For instance, his "volatile personality" is highlighted in the lead. There could be a 'Personality' section (like on John Ford's article) that might more cohesively integrate material like the Fonda heart attack allegation in the "Three Mile Island" section. Further, all nuclear research could be integrated under a single section? And so on. There are obvious undue weight issues when elevating something to its own section as well.
• The prose is simply lacking in many places.

Teller is an interesting subject, and I would like to polish this subject but simply do not have the time to do him justice. ~ HAL333 22:06, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

• Move to FARC Concerns remain. Z1720 (talk) 14:00, 8 June 2025 (UTC)

FARC section

Issues raised in the review section include lead, over-quoting, sourcing, layout, and prose. DrKay (talk) 13:10, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

Meteorological history of Hurricane Jeanne

Notified: Hurricanehink, WikiProject Weather

Review section

As noted in December 2021 by Hurricane Noah, this 2008 FA does not use a significant amount of coverage in scholarly literature. This is especially a problem in an article overwhelmingly reliant on articles from one agency. Noah also noted several instances of inconsistent reference formatting. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 22:08, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

• Move to FARC. No edits to respond to concerns. Z1720 (talk) 13:59, 8 June 2025 (UTC)
• Move to FARC and endorse delist. There really isn't much in the way of scholarly literature about Hurricane Jeanne's met history. Since the main Hurricane Jeanne article is on the short side, I believe this entire article could be merged, and thus it should not be a featured article. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 04:00, 9 June 2025 (UTC)
• Move to FARC per HurricaneHink Hog Farm _Talk 17:56, 13 June 2025 (UTC)

FARC section

Issues raised in the review section include sourcing and style. DrKay (talk) 13:09, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

• Delist per Hurricanehink. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 15:06, 14 June 2025 (UTC)
• Delist per above, the article is largely a content fork and should not exist. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 23:20, 16 June 2025 (UTC)
• Delist per HH. Hog Farm _Talk 14:08, 20 June 2025 (UTC)

West Wycombe Park

Notified: Giano, WikiProject Architecture, WikiProject Museums, WikiProject Buckinghamshire, WikiProject Historic sites

Review section

I am nominating this featured article for review because of concerns brought up on the article's talk page in January 2023, which I feel haven't been addressed. These include (copied from the talk page):

• The article extensively uses a source called "Dashwood" who is a relative and not wp:independent of the subject
• The History is split into three different parts, some in the Ethos section, then the Dashwoods section, then post 1943. This is highly confusing.
• The history isn't adequately summarising the article, too much info is lacking about National Trust, the Dashwoods and there is nothing about the slave trade
• There is an unencyclopedic tone in the Dashwoods of Wycombe section
• Dozens of high profile films have been shot at the house, the article doesn't mention any of them, instead it gives a link List of films shot at West Wycombe Park: these need discussing
• There are nine historic garden structures at the house that have been left out of the article and instead put in a list at List of garden structures at West Wycombe Park - these need including.
• Small article size ~ 35kb for a house with a lot of history.

In addition, I am concerned with too much detail in the "Dashwoods of West Wycombe" section, and just a general disorganization of the history of the house, with information scattered in many different sections and not presented chronologically. Z1720 (talk) 02:14, 14 May 2025 (UTC)

• Move to FARC: No edits to address concerns. Z1720 (talk) 02:20, 29 May 2025 (UTC)

FARC section

Issues raised in the review section include sourcing, layout, comprehensiveness and tone. DrKay (talk) 13:09, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

• Delist Most importantly, the issue of source quality has neither been approached nor resolved. The florid prose also requires a rewrite.—Fortuna, imperatrix 13:15, 14 June 2025 (UTC)

Redshift

Notified: ජපස, Praemonitus, Marisauna, Iantresman, Art LaPella, Vsmith, AP Astronomy, WP Physics, WP Color, WP Measurement, original notice in January 2023

Review section

Since the original notice in 2023, there have been periodic comments on the article's talk page regarding sourcing and other issues, including one from January raising possible OR concerns. There are 9 CN tags in the article. This is one of the last 48 remaining pre-2007s to be at the WP:URFA/2020 listing. Hog Farm _talk 04:09, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

I worked over the History section using secondary sources and removed my OR concern. Johnjbarton (talk) 20:14, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

I have provided citations for all the remaining CN tags. jps (talk) 22:02, 6 March 2025 (UTC)

Fixed and removed "broken anchors" template. PianoDan (talk) 00:20, 7 March 2025 (UTC)

I just added a note to the talk page, encouraging a review of Tong's textbook "Cosmology" which points out that even Hubble and Silpher, credited with discovering that redshift correlated with distance, did not understand that this implied an expanding universe. Apparently, they called it the "de Sitter effect" for a while; it took a while to figure out that galaxies are receding because the universe is expanding (and they were not the ones to figure this out). Science is non-linear. The obvious, canonically-accepted answer today is usually confused and muddled when first stated. 67.198.37.16 (talk) 00:43, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

I suggest that this interesting aside is probably best left explained at the expansion of the universe article. Redshift is an empirical phenomenon, and the interpretation that it is due to metric expansion deserves some economy on a page dedicated to the observable shifts of light rather than the history of how such shifts were interpreted. jps (talk) 23:29, 24 March 2025 (UTC)

Johnjbarton - Do you have any further thoughts on this? Hog Farm _talk 21:36, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

I replied on Talk:Redshift#Redshift_as_the_"de_Sitter_Effect" as in my opinion this suggestion is for a minor addition to Redshift which is not well connected to the topic based on the sources we have. It's more about Hubble's Law and in any case not a showstopper for FAR. Johnjbarton (talk) 00:30, 7 April 2025 (UTC)

• Could we get an update on status here? Nikkimaria (talk) 14:17, 19 April 2025 (UTC)

FARC section

Stalled. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:49, 10 May 2025 (UTC)

• " although the word does not appear unhyphenated until about 1934, when Willem de Sitter used it." - I'm concerned that this bit, which is only sourced to the '34 de Sitter paper, is original research
• "There are several websites for calculating various times and distances from redshift, as the precise calculations require numerical integrals for most values of the parameters" - of the four examples provided: are the UCLA ones the same webpage or am I missing something? And is the Kempner personal website a major player in this, or is this some sort of spammy link?
• "As a diagnostic tool, redshift measurements are one of the most important spectroscopic measurements made in astronomy." - claim of something as "most important" should have a source
• There is a page needed tag that should be addressed
• "at a redshift of z = 8.6, corresponding to 600 million years after the Big Bang." - are these detailed numbers supported by the immediately preceding source?
• "The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), is ongoing as of 2013 and aims to measure the redshifts of around 3 million objects" - is this still ongoing? I checked the cited source and it refers to 2014 in the future tense

This is in better shape than it was. Hog Farm _Talk 20:12, 10 May 2025 (UTC)