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American presidents
[edit]Hi Gog the Mild; I'm just noticing that American presidents appear to be divided in the list of FA articles here to be either in the History biographies, or, alternatively in the Politics and government biographies; shouldn't they all be in under the same heading rather than putting half of them in one place and half of them in the other place. For example, James Madison is in History biographies, whereas George Washington is in the Politics and government biographies. It seems that one section or the other should be used, though not both of them. Any thoughts? ErnestKrause (talk) 15:32, 16 November 2025 (UTC)
- IMO they should usually be in politics, but I can imagine a case where a person is so notable outside of their term(s) as president that it is more appropriate to put them in history. (Oddly, Washington springs to mind here.) Feel free to boldly move all of them to political bios. Gog the Mild (talk) 15:56, 16 November 2025 (UTC)
- I've also added Jefferson Davis and Samuel Adams to the ones moved there. It looks better now. ErnestKrause (talk) 16:10, 16 November 2025 (UTC)
Grammar
[edit]I don't want to discuss about this but @SchroCat here claims that the comma in this sentence is redundant. He says that it's redundant because it's in British English but even if, to me, the comma is still needed there for grammar purpose. Can someone determine if a comma is needed there or no, because SchroCat is refusing to revert back. Hacked (Talk|Contribs) 20:05, 13 December 2025 (UTC)
- You need to take on board that there are different rules for commas in different varieties of English, as well as within varieties of English. I'm sorry that this seems to be something you're struggling to take on board. - SchroCat (talk) 20:08, 13 December 2025 (UTC)
- Yet you haven't presented that "rule". You're just stating that it's redundant and saying that I'm struggling. Come up with a better reasoning. Hacked (Talk|Contribs) 20:14, 13 December 2025 (UTC)
- I'm British (living in the US); I haven't looked for a rule to cite, but I can assure you that not having a comma there is perfectly acceptable in British English. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:17, 13 December 2025 (UTC)
- I'll step down and apologise once that "rule" has been cited. Hacked (Talk|Contribs) 20:23, 13 December 2025 (UTC)
- I think you'll be disappointed -- the "rules" for commas are notoriously anarchic. There's an excellent chapter called "That'll Do, Comma" in Lynn Truss's Eats, Shoots & Leaves that discusses the history and usage of the comma. A quote: "Aren't there rules for the comma, just as there are rules for the apostrophe? Well, yes; but you will be entertained to discover there is a significant complication in the case of the comma." Reading what follows makes it hard to argue for absolute rules in marginal cases. There are certainly occasions where everyone agrees a comma must (or must not) be used, but there's a grey area, and the comma being discussed here is in it. More quotes from Truss: "No wonder feelings run high about the comma. When it comes to improving the clarity of a sentence, you can nearly always argue that one should go in; you can nearly always argue that one should come out." She quotes Ernest Gowers: "The use of commas cannot be learned by rule", which perhaps would settle things if you agreed with Gowers, but she does go on to give some rules. In this case, though, I think you're going to have to rely on the opinion of native British English speakers who as far as you can tell are not illiterate to tell you what is normal in our version of English. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:43, 13 December 2025 (UTC)
- Thank you @Mike Christie for explaining it to me. I'm just sorry for causing this conflict and trouble. I've lived in countries which were former British colonies so I do have advanced experience with British English. But because of the amount of time living in the United States, I think it's changing. Once again, I'm sorry for causing this trouble over a measly comma. Hacked (Talk|Contribs) 20:49, 13 December 2025 (UTC)
- English and its random rules, amirite? HUMANXANTHRO (What you say about his company is what you say about society) 20:18, 22 February 2026 (UTC)
- No worries. I do recommend reading Truss's book if you can get hold of it; aside from anything else, it's hilarious. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:50, 13 December 2025 (UTC)
- I'll definitely try to get a hold of it for sure. Thank you for recommending it. Sorry everyone for my actions. Hacked (Talk|Contribs) 20:56, 13 December 2025 (UTC)
- No worries. I do recommend reading Truss's book if you can get hold of it; aside from anything else, it's hilarious. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:50, 13 December 2025 (UTC)
- I think you'll be disappointed -- the "rules" for commas are notoriously anarchic. There's an excellent chapter called "That'll Do, Comma" in Lynn Truss's Eats, Shoots & Leaves that discusses the history and usage of the comma. A quote: "Aren't there rules for the comma, just as there are rules for the apostrophe? Well, yes; but you will be entertained to discover there is a significant complication in the case of the comma." Reading what follows makes it hard to argue for absolute rules in marginal cases. There are certainly occasions where everyone agrees a comma must (or must not) be used, but there's a grey area, and the comma being discussed here is in it. More quotes from Truss: "No wonder feelings run high about the comma. When it comes to improving the clarity of a sentence, you can nearly always argue that one should go in; you can nearly always argue that one should come out." She quotes Ernest Gowers: "The use of commas cannot be learned by rule", which perhaps would settle things if you agreed with Gowers, but she does go on to give some rules. In this case, though, I think you're going to have to rely on the opinion of native British English speakers who as far as you can tell are not illiterate to tell you what is normal in our version of English. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:43, 13 December 2025 (UTC)
- I'll step down and apologise once that "rule" has been cited. Hacked (Talk|Contribs) 20:23, 13 December 2025 (UTC)
- I'm British (living in the US); I haven't looked for a rule to cite, but I can assure you that not having a comma there is perfectly acceptable in British English. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:17, 13 December 2025 (UTC)
- @Ivebeenhacked: Orthographical idiosyncratic inflexions such as
I don't want to discuss about this
andbut even if, to me, the comma is still needed there for grammar purpose
do not instil confidence in your ability to discern between varieties of English and/or comma-commonality dissonance therein. I hope this helps. Happy editing. —Fortuna, imperatrix 21:26, 13 December 2025 (UTC)- @Fortuna imperatrix mundi: Yes, it helps. If you don't trust in my comma usage, that's fine. Thank you for being honest with me. Hacked (Talk|Contribs) 21:34, 13 December 2025 (UTC)
- Yet you haven't presented that "rule". You're just stating that it's redundant and saying that I'm struggling. Come up with a better reasoning. Hacked (Talk|Contribs) 20:14, 13 December 2025 (UTC)
Discussion on the future of this talk page
[edit]There is a discussion on the future of this talk page here. All comments are welcome. - SchroCat (talk) 07:17, 25 January 2026 (UTC)
Check your articles for links that are archived at Archive.today
[edit]An RfC closed about 48 hours ago with the decision to stop allowing new links to Archive.today and its mirrors, and to deprecate existing links with the intention of blacklisting the domains in the near future. Many editors are currently working on updating and/or modifying these links, and FA writers are encouraged to review their work to verify that there are no related links in those articles. It is easier to fix these things *before* the domains get blacklisted. Further information and a how-to on fixing links is here: Wikipedia:Archive.today guidance. During this transition period, it may be worthwhile for all articles at FAC to be reviewed specifically for this issue. Risker (talk) 02:57, 22 February 2026 (UTC)
High quality sources list?
[edit]Given the requirement for "high-quality sources" per 1c of the criteria, I think having a list of sources considered high-quality, from discourses about whether they should be considered that or not, would be very useful, similar to how we have WP:RSP for whether publications meet the bare minimum standard of reliability. Because nominators ask a lot in reviews what makes X a high-quality source, this would simplify the process so that FA writers would know for sure what to limit their sourced material to. Given the claimed goal of writing 100,000 FA, this would for sure quicken our path on getting to that goal.
My list of sources that I would imagine for sure being on the list include:
- The New York Times
- Washington Post
- Los Angeles Times
- Publishers Weekly
- NME
- Pitchfork
- Rolling Stone
- IGN
- GameSpot
- Hyper
- Edge
- Computer and Video Games
- Polygon
HUMANXANTHRO (What you say about his company is what you say about society) 20:34, 22 February 2026 (UTC)
This is obviously far from an exhaustive list, but it's the ones that easily and confidently came to my head, as they are so mainstream so their high-quality probably already had a consensus with a good selection of editors beforehand, so this would be a good start. HUMANXANTHRO (What you say about his company is what you say about society) 20:34, 22 February 2026 (UTC)
- Probably should distinguish between Polygon before & after its sale to Valnet in April 2025. The last video games discussion on it didn't drop it to situational but put it on watch in case the quality drops. Sariel Xilo (talk) 21:23, 22 February 2026 (UTC)
- A concern with this is that whether a source is high-quality or not is very context-dependent. A source can be high-quality for one topic but not for another - for instance, a Polygon review about a computer wargame could be a high-quality source for claims about the computer wargame, but not for claims about the historical events depicted therein. And even sources which generally produce high-quality writings can still have something slip up - the University of North Carolina Press published a book about the American Civil War a few years ago which was so poorly edited they had to issue a revised edition. Hog Farm Talk 23:18, 22 February 2026 (UTC)
- Good point. The WP:RSP already got around this sort of problem by having separate entries for sources covering topics, for example Fox News being in the red for politics and their talk show commentary but a better color for entertainment and sports. I'd agree it would be a pretty nuanced list once we'd factor in the necessary context. HUMANXANTHRO (What you say about his company is what you say about society) 03:40, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
- I keep this list of reliable source guides on my user page to help me when I review, and there are sure to be more. The first one is the most generally useful, and I don't think we can do better than that approach.
- -- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:55, 22 February 2026 (UTC)
- But this isn't a potential list of "reliable sources" we're talking about. This is a list of "high-quality" sources, a distinction which confused me at first when I even dipped my toes into this at all. From what I've seen, the lists rarely noted the quality of each source listed, if at all. The only mention of quality for a source on the VG source list is for VentureBeat. HUMANXANTHRO (What you say about his company is what you say about society) 03:40, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
- What I meant when I said I don't think we can do better than these lists was that I agree with Hog Farm -- an HQ RS has to be identified specifically in the context of an article, or group of articles. I don't think it would be possible to provide a list that would be more informative than these, which give you information to feed into that article-based consideration. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 07:26, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
- What about publications that are reliable but aren't high-quality even when they cover the topic they are primarily themed around, which is the main aspect to this discourse? Hog Farm's examples seem more like extreme exceptions to the general state of the sources mentioned. Plus, who would even think about using a computer game review for info on a highly-academically documented historical subject. HUMANXANTHRO (What you say about his company is what you say about society) 12:52, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
- So it seems like, generally, if a reliable source stays in their lane and there's no evidence that they screwed up with a particular source cited, it's high-quality? HUMANXANTHRO (What you say about his company is what you say about society) 12:56, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
- But this isn't a potential list of "reliable sources" we're talking about. This is a list of "high-quality" sources, a distinction which confused me at first when I even dipped my toes into this at all. From what I've seen, the lists rarely noted the quality of each source listed, if at all. The only mention of quality for a source on the VG source list is for VentureBeat. HUMANXANTHRO (What you say about his company is what you say about society) 03:40, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
- I have to agree with Hog Farm and Mike Christie. Context matters. (Isn't that like the whole mantra of RSP?) IGN may be a high quality source for a video game, but that doesn't mean they're high quality sources for complex social/political issues. And it goes both ways - I've seen high quality general sources goof on little details like release dates/years of video games too. I don't think we can conceptually do much better than the current set up, where we've got RSP for general guidance, and complimentary specialized sourcing guidance at pages like WP:VG/S and WP:RSMUSIC. Anything else would have to be resolved through discussion in the FA process. Sergecross73 msg me 16:50, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
- Once again, you guys are not addressing my major comments. You guys keep bringing up these source lists when I've already established that they're only for the bare minimum standard of reliability, and you keeping bringing up hypotheticals that are not the norm and are not usually the reasons the quality of the source is questioned. On a side note, the example of release date typos is an aspect of catalog/list sources like AFI and BFI, not proper articles written by authors. HUMANXANTHRO (What you say about his company is what you say about society) 18:45, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
- I'm not addressing your every comment because they don't change the conceptual implausibility of your proposal. I understand a universal list would be nice, but its impossible because context matters. I very much so understand the roles of the WikiProject source lists, I've actively built and maintain a few of them. And I volunteer at RSN. I'd recommend you do the same, maybe it would help you understand that these concerns are not "rare hypotheticals" but rather, common concerns that frequently arise. Sergecross73 msg me 19:08, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
- I'm not ignorant on this. I've constantly read the RSP and other source lists as well as their associated linked discourses over and over again to keep up to date. I've also read several FA reviews to know that nominators ask for the quality of reliable sources even when the source is primarily an expert on the topic. I. for example, saw one FA candidate where one reviewer asked about the quality of various fashion magazines published by major publishers of other reputable, known-high-quality fashion magazines, each of which had an editorial board, in an article on a fashion topic. Even when the nominator brought up this evidence, it still wasn't enough for the reviewer. I don't know which article was nominated, but I saw it recently and I know that it was for a fashion model. So clearly this "context" is not still enough for some reviewers on here, and there's something else missing, which is absolutely frustrating for first-time FA nominators and reviewers to figure out. That's the problem here. HUMANXANTHRO (What you say about his company is what you say about society) 20:21, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
- I'm not addressing your every comment because they don't change the conceptual implausibility of your proposal. I understand a universal list would be nice, but its impossible because context matters. I very much so understand the roles of the WikiProject source lists, I've actively built and maintain a few of them. And I volunteer at RSN. I'd recommend you do the same, maybe it would help you understand that these concerns are not "rare hypotheticals" but rather, common concerns that frequently arise. Sergecross73 msg me 19:08, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
- Once again, you guys are not addressing my major comments. You guys keep bringing up these source lists when I've already established that they're only for the bare minimum standard of reliability, and you keeping bringing up hypotheticals that are not the norm and are not usually the reasons the quality of the source is questioned. On a side note, the example of release date typos is an aspect of catalog/list sources like AFI and BFI, not proper articles written by authors. HUMANXANTHRO (What you say about his company is what you say about society) 18:45, 23 February 2026 (UTC)
- I think not. This whole WP:RSP thing misses that reliability is a function of the claim being made, too. For example, many of these sources would not be fine for scientific or medical claims (->WP:MEDRS). Vice versa, a random blogger might be an expert on their specific subfield but not on any other topic. With rare exceptions, even the most unreliable source is reliable for its own claims. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 17:41, 24 February 2026 (UTC)
