Wikipedia:Featured article review/Edward Teller/archive1

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

The article was kept 11:42, 6 December 2007.

Edward Teller[edit]

Review commentary[edit]

NB:No Wikiprojects appear to have been informed of this nomination.
Notifications left at WP Chicago, WP Physics, WP Eastern Europe and WP BIO. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:11, 28 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Notifications left at Fastfission SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:14, 28 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I found this article to lack sources on big pieces of text. Since this person is a controversial figure, I consider sources in this article paramount. Daimanta 18:54, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Example:

From: "He spent two years at the University of Göttingen[...]" to "[...]valuable to scientists who were studying missile re-entry."

18 lines of text and no source. I consider this unacceptable. Daimanta 18:57, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, something controversial:

"During the Manhattan Project, Teller also advocated the development of a bomb using uranium hydride, which many of his fellow theorists said would be unlikely to work. At Livermore, Teller continued work on the hydride bomb, and the result was a dud. Ulam once wrote to a colleague about an idea he had shared with Teller: "Edward is full of enthusiasm about these possibilities; this is perhaps an indication they will not work." Fermi once said that Teller was the only monomaniac he knew who had several manias." (No sources)

The part about the working on the hydride is not the most important but the mania part can be damaging to the persona of Mr. Teller. I consider that part very controversial without the proper sources. Regards, Daimanta 20:16, 25 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Both quotes, I find, are from Herken; Fermi on p. 25, Ulam on 137. In fact, this entire article is probably largely drawn from Herken, the only biography in the sources; there's a searchable copy on Google Books. Enjoy. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:58, 25 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Another pita I have with this article is the diversity of the citation forms. Sometimes there are mixed with the text, sometimes they point to a footnote. This article looks chaotic in that aspect. Regards, Daimanta 23:38, 25 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Then do amend and improve the article; it's not mine, I just found a couple of easy sources. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:00, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Why should I fix something that is not mine and broken? It pains me that good articles get rejected for FA-status because of small imperfections, while this article is pretty much given an easy treatment. If WP wants to keep the standards high, it should keep it high. This policy is simply unfair and confusing for people who want to know what a proper article is. Regards, Daimanta 00:08, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Because it's a service to the encyclopedia. At least put {{cn}} tags. Campaigning to deprive an article of its little gold star, when no one is defending it, is a waste of typing.
  • The other problem with FA is that it accepts many articles worse than this one; so far, even with flaws, this is better than many we now promote. Certainly, the FA list is not, and is never likely to be, the model of a perfect article.
  • I agree that FA is a broken and irresponsible system; its standards vary randomly, and it is failing. What article was wrongly rejected? Perhaps I can help. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:23, 26 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Daimanta, will you please follow the instructions at the top of WP:FAR and notify involved editors and relevant WikiProjects? Thanks, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:17, 27 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I notified the people in the Talk Page of the article. I don't think it's possible to notify the people in the relevant wikiprojects. Regards, Daimanta 14:46, 27 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Why? Wikipedia:WikiProject Physics is quite active, and has a talk page; I suspect Eastern Europe is in the same condition. (WP Chicago places its tag by bot, and may have limited real interest in this article.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:22, 27 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, it's done. I didn't quite know where to put the notification of the FAR. Regards, Daimanta 20:30, 27 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I re-did them using the correct message per the instructions, and notified the main editor. You can click on the links above to see. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:15, 28 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment What does the phrase In 1946, Teller left Los Alamos to return to the University of Chicago. mean since Chicago and the University of Chicago had not been previously mentioned in the article?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 14:11, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Bad faith nomination. The nominator has explicitly said that they only picked this article out of spite because of another article not getting FA. Articles need to be judged on their own terms, not whether or not you think they are better or worse than a different article. In any case, if there is anything that needs being cited in here, let me know and I'll add citations. Everything that looked reasonably contentious was cited when it was originally written. Much of the citations do come from Herken though there are other books as well (Teller's Memoirs, Goodchild's The Real Dr. Strangelove, etc.). Everything in here is pretty uncontroversial if you have read those biographies and the article as a whole is, in my of course biased opinion, very well balanced in comparison to the way Teller is usually portrayed in popular media. --Fastfission 15:34, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Not true, I stumbled on this article and I simply could not believe that this was FA-class. This is not maliciously nominated, I simply though that this article should have never become FA in the first place and seeing that the article has not been improved to FA-status after the nomination, I though that the only logical course of action was to do a peer-review. If you measure up the current FA criteria to the standards in this article, it's simply not worthy. I am not here to waste my time on some sort of quest(namely proving a point about FA articles or something), I am simply trying to improve Wikipedia to the best of my knowledge. Regards, Daimanta 16:23, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The article as nominated would fail at WP:GAR, IMO. Please WP:AGF.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 20:27, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly my point, this article is maybe not even GA worthy and that's pretty sad. Regards, Daimanta 22:07, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Not actionable. Examples, please. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:45, 2 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also note: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Edward_Teller_Washington_Post_Ad.jpg has no fair use rationale. This is a serious offence considering that the article has FA-status. Regards, Daimanta 22:47, 31 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

 Done (by FastFission). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:45, 2 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, what are you talking about, a "serious offence"? It has had a paragraph rationale about its copyright status as the description since it was uploaded over two years ago. Are you reading things or just looking for template icons? If you've got a problem with the rationale as given, feel free to challenge it, but I wouldn't be surprised if I knew more about U.S. fair use law than you do. A newspaper ad of that sort, being used in an article about the subject of the ad and in reference to the publication of the ad, is a pretty solid fair use claim. --16:12, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

As a general and actionable guideline, (which is pretty much a standard at WP:FAC), I would like to see at least one citation per paragraph.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/tcfkaWCDbwincowtchatlotpsoplrttaDCLaM) 21:18, 3 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Paragraphs which have matter which is challenged or likely to be challenged should have references. Paragraphs which do not, need not; and paragraphs which are trivially verifiable in Herken should be cut some slack. (After all, it is, by hypothesis, as easy to verify them as with a page number in Herken.)
  • Footnote counters should be ignored, like other efforts to substitute an easy and irrelevant standard for the hard work of actually reviewing an article, which Diamanta has begun, and no-one else has attempted. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:02, 4 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Unless someone has anything specific wrong with this, can we close this down already? Either take the time to come up with legitimate gripes, or don't piss on other people's work. The only things which are not cited are purely CV or otherwise things that nobody is going to challenge who knows a thing about the subject matter. Simply saying "this would not pass X or Y" is not an argument, is not in the spirit of these things, and is not respectful at all of the time that other people have put into an article like this. It passed FA once, it should have some benefit of the doubt unless you have a real, actionable problem with it. Mere citation counting is ridiculous and a parody of academic standards. Legitimate issues and questions I can deal with just fine, but this kind of petty nonsense is just devalues everyone's time and is corroding to the entire Wiki system of production (people's time, people's emotions). --Fastfission 16:12, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment, lots of cleanup needed here. In addition to concerns already expressed, please correct the WP:MOS breaches. Overlinking of solo years (see WP:MOSDATE), WP:OVERLINKing in general of common terms known to English speakers, see WP:MOS#Captions regarding punctuation of sentence fragments, see WP:MSH regarding section headings, correct mixed reference style per WP:WIAFA consistent citation style (some are cite.php some are Harvard type), inconsistent use of WP:DASHes (some are spaced, some not), incorrect use of WP:MOSBOLD in citations, incorrect use of WP:ITALICs (newspaper, not the article), and incorrectly formatted citations including bluelinked URLs (please see WP:CITE/ES). Also, stubby, one-sentence paragraph: "In 1946, Teller left Los Alamos to go to the University of Chicago." I haven't checked in detail yet, but I suspect there may be definitions and technical terms that are underlinked; this should be checked once everything else is complete. Also, please review the external links to make sure that all comply with WP:EL, WP:RS. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:15, 6 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Gawd, so the biggest problems now are minor MOS ones (dates, dashes, linking), in an article where much of the editing was done before the MOS had become a rigid system of laws? Fine—I'll convert the dashes! But this is ridiculous, insulting, irritating. Why even bother WRITING a featured article if someday people are going to complain that the dashes are inconsistent! --Fastfission 05:52, 12 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

FARC commentary[edit]

Suggested FA criteria concerns are citations (1c), and MoS issues (2). Marskell 07:31, 15 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Retain. Meets the criteria to me. In the future, please try to retain the good faith of the original FA contributors by avoiding commentary like "not worthy" and "simply could not believe that this was FA-class". This should be go without saying in the FAR process. –Outriggr § 01:26, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep featured: without knowing much about the subject other than having read Richard Rhodes, all the questionable claims seem to be cited satisfactorily. I didn't see any formatting issues that materially affected the quality of the piece. My only qualm was that the sections about Operation Plowshare, 3MI, and SDI are a surprisingly heavy focus of the article. Not having read a biography of Teller it's difficult to know how his life is usually addressed but my sense was that most of what he is really known for occurred before 1955. Christopher Parham (talk) 02:18, 19 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutralweak delist: I still think each paragraph should have at least one citation. It is not because I am counting citations. It is also not because I think there are significant questionable claims lacking citations. I just feel that by definition, WP is a tertiary resource, meaning everything we include is something said by a reliable secondary source. It almost impossible for an article to have a feel that everything it claims has been said by a reliable secondary source if at least one citation does not appear in each paragraph.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:LOTD) 23:10, 20 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • In brief, our actual citation policies don't matter; neither do the actual standards of FA; it doesn't have the right feel, according to a standard a hanfful of Wikipedians have made up and none of our readers know about. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 07:06, 21 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Comment If you want to push, I could cite WP:ATT, WP:V and WP:RS, but I think the article is pretty good. I would just like to see a few more citations.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:LOTD) 21:02, 21 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Comment Let me just state that I have tremendous respect for the caliber of the research and its level of detail as well as for the general organization and content of the article. I also respect your zeal and concern for the status of the article. However, in cases where I do not believe that every notable fact is cited, I generally draw the line for sufficiency at whether every paragraph has at least one citations. Special consideration may be given for an article that has one or two uncited paragraphs. However, a general pattern of paragraphs will consistently draw a negative review at WP:FAR and WP:GAR. I personally, feel this article should be delisted, but its overall quality makes me hesitate to give stronger opposition.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:LOTD) 13:23, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • Citations for what in particular? There may well be some point that is challenged or likely to be challenged, and is neither cited nor obvious. If so, it would be a service to point it out. But footnotes are not a matter where ladling more in at random serves any purpose. (Actually, it serves one: many of our worst articles have the most footnotes, because some editor has collected quotations out of context which appear to support his POV. We just delisted one of those.) I could, probably justifiably, add in Herken passim at the end of every paragraph, but why? (This would indeed be sufficient information for a competent reader to find the reference; Herken has a voluminous index. Since the index is online, I could even crib the numbers; but again, would this be a contribution to Wikipedia?) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:38, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • My zeal and concern is for FA itself; I didn't write this article. It could be a meaningful evaluation; passing through FAC and FAR could be genuine chances to improve the articles that suffer them. But reviews which do not actually involve reading and understanding the article are disruptive to both purposes. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:36, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • Again I just have to express my opinion that if an article has 4 consecutive paragraphs without a citation the article has a problem. Either it is poorly organized with several choppy paragraphs that should be merged, or it has paragraphs with independent ideas that should express important claims or ideas. On principle without reviewing the consecutive uncited sections again, I will just affirm a weak delist. This is nothing against the article which I have contributed cited claims to. I like the article a lot. It probably the first WP:CHICAGO WP:FAR article that I have gone through the effort to add cited claims to. However, I still think it is below par for FA. That is my opinion. It is a great article, but not WP's best.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:LOTD) 22:57, 23 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong retain. If Sandy wants to add and remove periods in the captions, she should do so; but none of that jargon makes a difference between this article and the current standard of promotion (which should be the test here); it has even less to do with "our best work". (Most of it is not even actionable, with no examples given.) If anything can be found which needs citation, that would be actionable; but numbers of footnotes are not. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:36, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong remove. Pity—I'd like to see this survive, but there are MOS breaches aplenty, poor writing style, and unencyclopedic tone in places. Here are just a few examples:
    • "Avid advocate" our readers will trip over (Fowler called this type of thing a jingle.)
    • "Perhaps", in the lead, too, is attitudinal and doesn't belong in an objective article.
    • "Theoretical Physics division at the then-secret Los Alamos laboratory"—Capitalisation?
    • "Apparently, Teller also managed to irk his neighbors by playing the piano late in the night. However, Teller also made some valuable contributions to bomb research, especially in the elucidation of the implosion mechanism." Both "alsos" and "some" are redundant. "Apparently" makes it a target for a reference citation. "Bomb research" could be improved.

Is anyone working on it? Tony (talk) 14:34, 24 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

    • Let's see.
      • "Avid advocate" may be too clever for its own good; but it doesn't trip all readers (I hadn't noticed it). It can certainly be replaced, but since both words are right separately, I don't see how to at the moment.
        •  Done Replaced with "vigorous advocate", which is at least no worse; this still fails to impress me as a sample of bad writing. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:11, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • "Perhaps" in leads is the sign of ä noteworthy, but disputed, assertion, which this is. This is a summary of a sourced, and accurate, paragraph below.
      • "division" and "laboratory" are probably right; they're descriptions, not names. Had these organizations been named in 1943? It would have been a security breach.
      • The second also is indeed redundant; there may be a case that the first is misplaced, but Teller managed to irk his neighbors also... is not much of an improvement.
        • I suppose splitting the infinitive (managed to also irk) is best here; but really this is not a difference worth demoting either. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:46, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      One half out of four. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 07:17, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
What's a pity is that none of those things constitute a "strong remove". The edit history, incidentally, is what shows if someone is working on an article. I had been rather noncommittally combining refs, trying to add a few inline citations, changing some style items, and attempting to offset the unfortunate tone of this nom with a few comments addressed toward the main contributor, whatever that was worth. Some rhetoric, sure, but scarcely so in comparison to the accepted Statler & Waldorfian FAR style. ¶ What I can tell you is that I certainly wouldn't continue now. Did you mean to be a de-motivator? It's very easy to read you that way. The difficulty here is the vanishingly small number of editors who are willing to put a significant effort into referencing, copyediting, or in any way improving a FAR nomination just so that maybe "the work" is sufficient to get the self-selecting balcony to change their "strong remove"s—especially when "the work" often has little to do with the article qua article. ¶ It's time to un-watchlist this page, as it is usually a downer. Let's pick one example: Anne Frank has 18 inline citations. That's "not enough", and in FAR-speak, this translates to "not referenced from a fact to fact basis" (whatever that means) and "This reason alone brings the validity of the article into question"—wow! Legitimate arguments or not, it doesn't matter—the train has now left the station: each reviewer who looks for the one thing they don't like will find it, and say "remove". So, relatively accomplished, encyclopedic FAs must perform arbitrary labors determined by a group even thinner in numbers than in FAC review, or have their merit badge removed—with the largely unrecognized consequence that "our best work" continues to skew toward the margin. Agitated but in earnest, –Outriggr § 23:26, 24 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
First, this doesn't seem to me to be either a strong retain or a strong remove at the moment. A citation should cover everything behind it until the previous citation. Two citations might be a sentence apart or two paragraphs apart. (Certainly any solely numeric rule, such as "one per paragraph," doesn't make sense.) If Outriggr or others can confidently say that's the case here, it's in keep territory.
The "unfortunate tone" is being repeated across multiple reviews because (at least from where I'm sitting) PMA's desire to put Tony through the Wikipedia equivalent of water torture has become pathological. Apparently, everything that comes to FAC these days is terrible but everthing that comes to FAR should be retained even where the original nominator is gone and even where there isn't a single inline citation. Whatever.
Outrigger, don't be glum. You're among the best we have and any further work on this one will not be wasted. I don't think Tony meant to offend. Marskell (talk) 15:03, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Marskell, hello. Thanks for the note: I will leave a brief reply here as I know we are getting into talk-page stuff, yet I don't want to restart the debates. Two points I want to make in follow-up: a) When it comes to envisioning "wikipedia's best work", philosophies can differ drastically. Editors who don't share the dominant approach to FAR have shown up periodically, make perfectly valid points, but don't stick around. I can't pretend I really understand or like the dominant approach to FA reviews, and if this lumps me in with grumps, trolls, or people who want exceptions made, well, that's beyond my control. The skew here, as I see it, is to pick old articles (and "pick" is really a key word here, I think) based on formalisms, when a close review of more "current" articles might show them lacking as much or more in the same, or other, areas; it might show them lacking in ways that aren't amenable to one-sentence drive-by nominations that are made, I'm not sure why, by users who don't really understand the inherently uncomfortable process they're putting in motion, with sometimes real effects on editors, just because they don't see inline citations. b) Hopefully I don't need to add that I'm not equating any one editor, most especially you, with "what I don't like about FAR". c) Since there is a wiki tendency to imagine off-wiki communications that sway editor groups and such, I should add that I have never shared a word off-wiki (or on-wiki, in most cases) with the writer of the article under review, PMA, or others whose opinions I may appear to be sharing. –Outriggr § 05:35, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Belated followup. Reviewing this FAR for the first time in several weeks, perhaps the tone got off to a bad start when the nomination was called a "bad faith nomination". WP:AGF and all that. Whether a "bad" or good faith nomination, the point of a featured article review is to review and restore status, not to "punish" or demote articles. To that aim, it is unfortunate that PMA continues to mislead nominators about the process, the criteria, and the goals. WP:WIAFA includes item 2, compliance with the manual of style, no matter how much PMA objects and disrupts. The only question is will others do this work, or will some of the FAR regulars (like Outriggr) have to do it so that the FAR can close, if all else is attended to. FastFission, regarding your comment, "Gawd, so the biggest problems now are minor MOS ones ...", no, I didn't say that. I listed the MOS issues that needed to be attended to during the review "in addition to the other concerns" already expressed. I list them early on, hoping they may get tended to, because if they don't, I'll end up having to do it myself if the article progresses during FAR to the point of being close to saving. Unfortunately, PMA's hobby horse against WP:WIAFA 1c and 2 is now affecting FARs as well as apparently wearing down Tony1, and it really needs to stop. PMA, if you disagree with WP:WIAFA, you should take it up there. Raul has said several times that anything that can be fixed should be fixed, and MOS fixes are easy albeit time-consuming, and worth doing if the prose and citations concerns have progressed enough that the article is worth saving. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:09, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If Sandy believes that the purpose of the process is to fix articles, she should at least list such flaws so they can be fixed. (It would be less total work for everybody if she would simply fix them; but that is not required.) Vague references to whole pages of the MOS are useful only for the glorious purpose of taking the little gold star away. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:46, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Can the article consistently use either hydrogen bomb or H-bomb, or stick with H-bomb after defining and linking the acronym on the first occurrence? It uses them interchangeably, and later introduces Teller-Ulam design. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:59, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are a lot of statements similar to:
  • After the Oppenheimer controversy, Teller became ostracized by much of the scientific community, but for obvious reasons was still quite welcome in the government and military science circles.
  • which should be cited. The article frequently discusses issues among the various scientists, and we need to know who is saying what about whom; attribution is needed. Also:
  • The political climate and revolutions in Hungary during his youth instilled a deep hatred for both Communism and Fascism in Teller.
  • Further citation needs (samples only):
  • Strategic Defense Initiative section is undercited and underattributed
  • Example: Many scientists opposed strategic defense on moral or political rather than purely technical grounds.
  • He was also rumored to be the inspiration for the character of Dr. Strangelove in Stanley Kubrick's 1964 satirical film of the same name (other inspirations have been speculated to be RAND theorist Herman Kahn, rocket scientist Wernher von Braun, and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara).
  • The piano playing in the night statement also stands out as strangely unattributed.
  • Teller died in Stanford; considering his work was associated with Berkeley/Livermore, we are given no idea why he was at Stanford. Did he happen to be hospitalized at Stanford University Hospital, was he living in Palo Alto or Menlo Park, or was he faculty? A jump from the UC system to Stanford stands out and needs explanation. Found, cited[1], resolved. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:36, 27 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • After minor cleanup, I think the article would benefit from stronger citation (it's not that hard to cite things like Time magazine People of the Year, is it?), but it's not worth shouting over. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:31, 25 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Outriggr, I gave examples, not a full review. They alone probably don't constitute a case for removal, but what they represent throughout the text does. Tony (talk) 04:56, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral, when I nominated this article for a FAR I had some strong objections against the lack of citations and mixture of ways of signing this article. Since I nominated this article it has improved and I am no longer opposed to it remaining FA. However, Tony1 has pointed out some gaps in the article and untill they are resolved I will remain neutral on the assessment of this article. Regards, Daimanta (talk) 11:26, 26 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Conditional retain. I'm a card-carrying member of the pro-inline cites club. But I have to say... the general trend toward bitterness and animosity on this subject is an outlook which I no longer share and instead actively fear. I'm weary of the factions that spring up over issues such as these. I'm soapboxing because I think that FA-related forums are the backbone of Wikipedia, and should be the place where an attempt is made to set a tone of congenial disagreement... having said all that... Wikipedia is not an expert; it's a tertiary source. It is not qualified to look into the hearts and minds of people and explain the contents therein. I put a few {{cn}} tags in spots that seemed to be examples of mind-reading, or where words were being put in peoples' mouths, or where imputations/accusations were being made. I put the tags there...not because I'm a tag-zealot, but because Wikipedia accidentally misrepresents itself as something other than a tertiary source when such statements remain uncited... I didn't see the poor writing that Tony saw, but he is far better at that than I am (or perhaps the text has been improved). I'm reasonably well-educated and an avid reader, and only the one-sentence paragraph ("In 1946, Teller left Los Alamos to go to the University of Chicago") threw me for a loop. So I'd like to humbly ask that the dedicated edtors of this article address the {{cn}} tags, and aside from that, I see no reason not to Retain. Ling.Nut (talk) 15:10, 27 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Weary is the word. The persistent attack on and disruption of FAR, and questioning of good faith motives here, needs to be addressed. After I left a list of citation needs and issues I'd like to see addressed (above) and after I went in and did the MOS cleanup, PMA left these remarks to me,[2] and this sarcastic remark to Tony.[3] I chuckle at being continually told by PMA to fix things myself at FAR, when I've deen doing just that for well over a year. But the sarcasm is wearing thin and affecting FAR overall. This article is just about over the hump, but we can get there faster without the sarcasm. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:36, 27 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • By the way, I was able to cite part of the list of accolades and awards to the Stanford obit, but not all. I'll work on it later unless someone else gets to it first. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:42, 27 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Struck a few more above, tagged a couple of things that need clarification because the Stanford news obit slightly disagrees, will try to do more later unless someone else gets to them first. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:03, 28 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you, Ling.Nut.; these {{cn}}s are reasonable, actionable, and constructive. I will consult Herken tomorrow. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:54, 28 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Two steps forward, one backward. Citations are being added, but they are to book sources without page numbers. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:41, 1 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    Sandy appears to be astray in Time. There were book references without page numbers before this article was nominated for review; I believe all the recent notes have included page numbers.
  • More importantly, this is a venial matter; like most of this review, it's about appearance, rather than any real question of verifiability, or of reader service. Any reader who finds a footnote saying "Herken 2002", for example, must find a copy and check the index. Of these two, finding the copy is the hard part; Herken has a voluminous index. Citing a page will not help if he has a different edition; and I believe Herken is out in paperback.
  • Perhaps we can, and should, resolve this, by renaming this entire process WP:Decorative articles or WP:Pretty articles, and dropping the pretense that it has more than a tangential relation with article quality. I will agree that footnotes to every paragraph, even those dealing with Teller's CV before 1941 (on which all sources agree) would be prettier. They are no service to the encyclopedia, but editors need hobbies, and this is no worse than Esperanza. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:52, 3 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    STRONG DELIST It seems you enjoy arguing by convenience. this is inappropriate. I found interesting points in the article that I would like to see sourced in a way that makes them attributable to a reliable source as opposed to a matter of opinion of the author. You can keep propounding your new word of the day as if it makes the interesting point any more verifyable without the citation. There are two or three other points I would like to see sourced. It is not an attempt to make the article pretty. These are interesting facts (I presume) that I would like to learn more about. A well written article would tell me where I can do this with a proper inline cite. From the sounds of things you are espousing support for general references for such claims. On WP I have had to track down facts for several articles. Haystacks (Monet) took four turns at WP:GAC before getting promoted for this very reason. It is no longer proper on WP just to name some books and say "Go FISH". All the requested citations were actionable. Since you removed the three I requested in good faith I am going to request them again and may look more closely and at least one more.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 20:25, 3 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    Um, TonyTheTiger, try not to take out your frustrations with PMA on the article, particularly when others may be willing to work on the sourcing. I've been able to verify a good deal of the text by reading online sources; you might be able to add some yourself. It's a shame if someone has the book in front of them and is in a position to add a correct citation but doesn't just add the page number while it can be done to save other editors from having to look it up, but I don't see the logic in reacting to PMA's editing by voting against the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:55, 3 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    Keep in mind my frustration is not with him as an individual or in any way related to other dealings with him on WP. My frustration is with the idiocy of believing the proper way to clean up {{fact}} tags on WP is to remove them. I have since the beginning said I am in favor of the article for its quality and encyclopedic value, but have problems with its verifyability. I then said I could overlook an occaisional uncited paragraph, but that long sequences of consecutive uncited paragraphs that present distinct facts is objectionable. Then, I mentioned more specifically that four in a row was objectionable. In general, I would say consecutive paragraphs with distinct facts that need to be attributed so that they do not constitute apparent WP:OR is objectionable. Like I said before, I have had to fold up the tent on GACs in the past because I just had books for people to fish in for refs. We don't want fishing book refs at the end of the article and that is why I now object. I had hoped for a good faith effort to eliminate sequences of unsourced paragraphs. Now, I am dealing with flaunting of the fact that there is not going to be removal of such citations. I am not requesting that PMA add them, but that anyone who is willing add them. If you are that is fine. I continue to object to an article with sequences of unsourced paragraphs being described as among WPs best as we enter 2008. I will go back to weak delist with one or two more of the consecutive paragraphs being cited properly.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 16:14, 4 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I really don't care whether this edit is in good faith; I do care that it disrupts Wikipedia by demanding pointless citations for matters which can be found in any of the works cited, which are in full consensus on Teller's career before 1941; I'm looking through them all to answer Lingnut's much better founded requests. (Most of them can be found in Teller's Britannica entry, for Heaven's sake.) For more information on the subject, Tony need only read any one of them; it is evident he has not bothered to look at them. (Goodchild attempts to explain the actual physics Teller was doing, but all of them mention Gamow, for example.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:16, 4 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      •  Done Added two books (of opposite tendency) which have the same account of Teller between 1926 and 1941, an on-line source, and the relevant section of Teller's memoirs. At this point, it comes down to Fastfission's question: does FA have anything to do with the article as article? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:22, 4 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Furthermore, it makes little sense to say I know where the citations can be found so I will remove the {{fact}} tags and assume the reader does too. If the reader knew he could find everything he wanted elsewhere he would not be reading WP. I am not registered a Britannica and should not have to be to understand the claims are not WP:OR. Wouldn't it be better for the project to properly cite the article than to for people to say it is cited as can be found in the 42nd paragraph of the FAR discussion.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 21:26, 4 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • If the reader finds anything on Wikipedia that he cannot find elsewhere, that's Original Research. If FA has nothing to do with our core policies, it should be closed down — or at best left as an irrelevant hobby to keep bad editors out of article space. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:46, 4 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
          • You continue to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what WP:OR is. Reread the third and especially the fourth bulletpoint at WP:OR and maybe you will understand why it is no longer appropriate to leave fishing book references.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 14:59, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
            • This would be the Appeal to Irrelevant Authority. The paragraphs in question are:
              • Our verifiability policy (V) demands that information and notable views presented in articles be drawn from appropriate, reliable sources.
              • Compliance with our Verifiability Policy and our cite sources guideline is the best way to ensure that you do not violate our NOR policy. In short, the only way to demonstrate that you are not presenting original research is to cite reliable sources that provide information directly related to the topic of the article; the only way to demonstrate that you are not inserting your own POV is to represent these sources and the views they reflect accurately.
              I fully agree with these sentiments. Edward Teller, however, is drawn from reliable authorities, as listed - in fact, most, and of those the most reliable, of the books written on Teller; it does report them accurately; and they are cited. None of this supports the one-footnote-per-paragraph standard, however. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:13, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article review. No further edits should be made to this page.
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