Wikipedia:Featured article review/Mini

Review commentary

Notified: WP Automobiles, SteveBaker.

• Fails to meet criterion 1c, article not adequately referenced.
• Fails to meet criterion 1d, there is a "Minis in the United States" section, but not for other countries. What is particularly notable about the U.S.?
• Fails to meet criterion 2b, article very poorly structured, most sections should be sub-sections of their respective generation. OSX (talk • contributions) 03:36, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Author's opinion:

When this article passed FA, several reviewers said it was the perfect FA. The article has been messed about with quite a bit since then and I agree that it could be said to have fallen a little below that standard. I'm inclined to simply revert it to where it was when it passed FA - then go carefully through the subsequent changes and add back only those things that were corrections to clear factual errors or tweaks to things like the way we represent dimensions and such. One or two of the image changes (removing a fair-use image and replacing it with a free-use equivelent) are very much worth keeping - but a lot of the other changes seem ill-considered. I would appeal for time to fix these problems - if the article is de-listed I will certainly not have the time and energy to go through all of the FA approval processes again - and if that happens, the article will surely deteriorate again. SteveBaker (talk) 04:59, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Many of my comments made at Wikipedia:Featured article review/Mini Moke apply here, so I am not going to re-list what has been said. I don't know how an article with only 27 references at the time could be considered "perfect", but maybe I am being anachronistic. Nor do I believe a very lengthy article today with 62 refs is FA material today either.

Three references in the "Design and development" section? You must have got this information from somewhere; again it will need to be cited. The Holden VE Commodore article is almost 100% referenced, except for a couple of statements that I know are true, but need the sources for (e.g. I need a copy of the original sales brochure). In saying that, only one book has been published on the VE, although admittedly the web has been an invaluable tool as well. The problem with what you have done is to write an article without citing the source when doing so. This has got to be one of the biggest mistakes an editor could make. Unless you are adding some small changes from the top of your head to an already crap article, this is a really bad move.

Stylistically, avoid bolding of names outside the lead. “Timeline” sections written in point form are not really acceptable in most cases either.

Sadly, I believe that there is very little chance in getting this article fixed in less than two weeks. There is unfortunately, too much that needs doing. I would think that the other FAR candidate, Mini Moke would pass the current standards with the changes needed implemented. So good luck. OSX (talk • contributions) 05:28, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Suggested FA criteria concerns are citations, undue weight, structure/TOC. YellowMonkey (click here to vote for world cycling's #1 model!) 02:31, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

• Delist, referencing issues throughout. Cirt (talk) 13:35, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
• Delist (sadly) As it stands it doesn't meet the referencing criteria, and as far as I know we have no Grandfather clause. Specifically, WP:REF says "If you are quoting from, paraphrasing, or referring to a specific passage of a book or article, you should if possible also cite the page number(s) of that passage." Most of the citations unfortunately don't have page numbers. More citations are also needed, not for the sake of having more, but because I can see some perhaps surprising or contentious statements (the stuff on '9X', the derivation of the Mini name, original Mini fan's dislike of the new MINI etc.) I could mark these up if that would be useful. 4u1e (talk) 08:38, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.