Wikipedia:Featured article review/archive/July 2014

Review commentary

Notified: Ryan Norton, WikiProject Microsoft, WikiProject Computing, WikiProject Technology, WikiProject Companies, WikiProject Video games

This article was promoted back in 2005 when standards for FA were much different than they are today. The article has so many problems, I am not even sure where to begin, but I will bullet out a few issues below:

• Criteria 1c, Well-Researched: There are several well-regarded books devoted either in whole or in part to Microsoft's early years from the 1970s to the early 1990s. These include Gates: How Microsoft's Mogul Reinvented an Industry -- and Made Himself the Richest Man in America by Stephen Manes and Paul Andrews, Hard Drive: Bill Gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire by James Wallace and Jim Erickson, Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer by Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine, and Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date by Robert Cringely. None of this secondary literature is represented in this article. Indeed, it appears there are virtually no monographs from the secondary literature on Microsoft and the personal computer industry represented at all.

• Criteria 1b, Comprehensive: While there is a daughter history article for providing greater detail, the history section fails to provide anything approaching a big picture overview of the company's development. From reading the article, you would never know that Microsoft was the dominant high-level language company of the late 1970s and early 1980s or that nearly every important personal computer of that period shipped with Microsoft BASIC. There is barely any mention of the company's OEM strategy with PC-compatible computer makers. The Macintosh is not mentioned once in the article despite the key role Microsoft's partnership with Apple played in both the company's applications and OS businesses. The landmark "look and feel" court case between Apple and Microsoft is not even mentioned. There is no discussion of the Wintel alliance or IBM's attempts to break its influence through the PS/2 PC and OS/2 operating system. There is no discussion of how and why Windows 1.0 and 2.0 were failed systems and why 3.0 and 3.1 ultimately proved successful. Steve Ballmer's name does not appear in the article until he is named CEO despite his two decades of importance before that point. Charles Simonyi, Nathan Myrvold, and other key figures in the company's rise and success are not mentioned in the article at all. Neither is DirectX. XBox gets a sentence, and you would never know that it was an important product line from the article. I could go on, but suffice it to say that the entire section needs to be practically rewritten from scratch.

• Criteria 1a, Well-Written: One line paragraphs abound in multiple sections. Little attempt is made to provide appropriate transitions between paragraphs in a section. Many paragraphs are just strings of unconnected ideas.

• Recentism: The "Corporate Affairs" section is mostly a series of random announcements and initiatives from the last three years. The "marketing" subsection is just three random marketing campaigns with no context or indication of importance. The "environment" section appears entirely superfluous.

This article is nowhere near GA quality, let alone FA quality. It basically needs to be rewritten from the ground up. Indrian (talk) 04:50, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

• Comment: In addition, Criticism needs a few more sources, especially as it covers a contentious topic. Tezero (talk) 05:18, 3 April 2014 (UTC)
• Comment: I noticed that issues weren't raised in the talk page for the article, which is a requisite before taking an article to FAR. GamerPro64 15:29, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

Delegate note - As there was no talk page notification prior to the start of the review, I am placing the review on hold. I will make the required talk page notification, and if there is no response from editors after a reasonable period of time (at least a week), the review can be relisted. Dana boomer (talk) 11:59, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

The review has been relisted, as no work was completed on the article during the hold period. Any editors interested in working on the article should also check the comments made on the talk page regarding the article's quality and needed improvements. Dana boomer (talk) 14:24, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

• Delist per momentous problems with organization, completeness, and referencing, as well as more minor issues like unformatted citations. I would place this article as upper C-class. Tezero (talk) 04:38, 14 April 2014 (UTC)
• @Tezero: This isn't the point in the proceedings where you vote on delisting just yet. It has to be moved to the bottom half of the FAR list first, after people have gathered consensus on whether or not to put it up for delisting. Right now is more of the fix-up or point out problems stage. Ten Pound Hammer • ^{(What did I screw up now?)} 17:45, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

FARC commentary

Featured article criteria mentioned in the review section include comprehensiveness, referencing, prose and MOS compliance. Dana boomer (talk) 20:54, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

• Delist per momentous problems with organization, completeness, and referencing, as well as more minor issues like unformatted citations. I would place this article as upper C-class. Tezero (talk) 06:57, 22 June 2014 (UTC)
• Delist. I saw little improvements to article in the past two months but not enough to address the issues. JJ98 (Talk) 20:17, 22 June 2014 (UTC)
• Delist. Per above. I also left a more detailed explanation on the talk page a while ago when notified about the FAR. FWIW I'm also the user who nominated the article for FAC in the first place. Ryan Norton 10:35, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

• Closing note: This removal candidate has been delisted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please leave the {{featured article review}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:00, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

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

Review section

Notified: WikiProject Electrical engineering, WikiProject Electronics, WikiProject Engineering

I've never nominated an article here before, but I was really shocked to come across this page and see that it is FA. The article has major problems with a lack of citations - only one in the entire second half of the article - which means it is currently failing criterion 1C. I'm not sure whether or not the article meets the other criteria, I haven't looked closely at the prose and don't know enough about the subject to say if it's comprehensive, but I believe the citations problem is serious enough on its own. As I said at the talk page, if this was taken to FAC in it's present state today it would be closed within 24 hours. I raised my concerns on the talk page more than 3 weeks ago but no more citations have been added. Note that the original nominator (article was promoted eight years ago in Jan '06) appears to have left Wikipedia. Loeba (talk) 20:13, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

At the time of promotion in early 2006 I think it was probably of the expected standard at the time, and with sourcing too. If you look back through some of the older FAs, particularly pre 2008, you'll notice that a lot are pretty sparse on the citations and often not that comprehensive in relation to the material today and what passed then wouldn't even come close to passing today. Surprising though is that in 2006-7 the FA process itself was already fairly tough, I had a first-hand account of that back then, and at the time it didn't seem as if the standards expected for sourcing were low. Looking back now though it does seem pretty shocking in comparison to the standard of today though. Remember too at one point we had a 32kb recommended limit for articles on here and generally shorter articles were preferred. Yes, at glance this looks quite a bit off FA, the lower sections have entire unsourced paragraphs. But by no means is this exclusive to this article. Most of the earlier FAs are in need of a re-review and improvement. I think the most constructive thing would be to alert the project and state that it's clearly no longer of the expected standard and ask them to significantly improve it to a standard which is. Then say in 6 weeks come back and review progress and if it hasn't improved then delist. I think it would be more constructive than to delist without giving a chance to make it FA worthy.♦ Dr. Blofeld 23:10, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Well like I said - I left a comment on the talk page a while ago, so this isn't without warning...I believe the idea of FAR is to give each nomination some time to try and improve before anyone can decide whether to delist it or not. I've left comments on the relevant project pages (although only the automated template, something more encouraging and specific would have been better, I admit) so hopefully someone will come along and make improvements. I really couldn't help but nominate this one though - it just doesn't seem right that it should have the FA label as it currently is! --Loeba (talk) 23:37, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

Note: I've now altered the comment I left at each talk page to more actively try and encourage improvement to the article. I don't think the current template given at the FAR page is ideal in this sense, maybe something for the delegates to think about..? --Loeba (talk) 23:47, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

It's definitely not even close to FA quality at the moment. Hopefully it will be greatly improved but if it isn't then yeah there's no alternative but to delist it. As it stands I endorse de-listing but will be happy to change my mind if this is signifcantly improved in the meantime.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:02, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Support delisting. Looking back at the 2006 FA process for this article, it seems it was a simpler, happier time when folks didn't worry much about citations for uncontroversial knowledge. Looking at the diff between the 2006 FA article and today, the article has undergone substantial improvement and improved referencing of the upper sections, but not the Subdisciplines and Related disciplines sections. Those sections are like summaries of their associated main articles (i.e., like leads) and reflect the current practice in comparable articles like Mechanical engineering. Looking at comparable broad-scope articles, none are FA or GA: Mechanical engineering (B), Civil engineering (B), Electronic engineering (C), and Chemical engineering (B). Perhaps this reflects that position the current FA criteria are not really compatible with broad scope articles. Having participated as a technical reviewer in a couple of FA runs, even proving comprehensiveness in a broad and ill-defined field like EE would be hopeless. I'd support delisting and regrading as B class. The efforts of our precious few active EE editors are best spent elsewhere. --Mark viking (talk) 23:11, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

That's not true Mark about FAC being a happier time back in 2006. In my experience it was actually a much meaner-spirited place back then although I'll agree that certain aspects like sourcing and comprehension (given 32kb limit) were considered far less important back then and sometimes input in FACs could be very limited.♦ Dr. Blofeld 18:18, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

I also disagree that current FA criteria are incompatible with broad-scope articles. I mean, Sea, Japan, Hydrogen, Atheism, and Cabbage are all FAs. Tezero (talk) 13:43, 26 February 2014 (UTC)

Comment. This is the kind of nomination that gets right up my nose: it is another example of the little blue number disease. Having lots of little blue numbers does not make a bad article good, nor does the lack of them make a good article bad. WP:V does not require all text to be referenced, nor was it ever intended to, but the community seems to have lost sight of that big time. There is not a single substantive actionable complaint in this nomination. Not one question of possible inaccuracy. No criticism of style or clarity. I do not intend to spend time on this just so the article has the requisite allocation of little blue numbers. That would be a lot of effort for little actual benefit to the reader of the article. Some of the more general statements, while quite uncontroversial will probably absorb an unwarranted amount of effort to source.

Having said that, I do think the article has some problems (but none of them concerning referencing) and would not be too unhappy if it got delisted. As I said, I am not intending at the moment to try and save this article, I find it quite soul-destroying to spend time finding refs just to please little-blue-number complainants and that whole business has taken a lot of the enjoyment out of writing articles for me. However, if other editors take up the challenge then I will give substantial help. There is probably no one in the EE Wikiproject who has more experience than me at writing featured content. SpinningSpark 09:01, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

If you think the referencing is satisfactory you really need to refresh yourself in sourcing on wikipedia and what constitutes a featured article in 2014. Nobody's disputing that you've put a lot of good work and effort into wikipeda and FA. Loeba stated that the article had problems but she simply mentioned the biggest and most obvious one. Articles do need to be fully sourced and it's not as if Loeba didn't alert the project and give plenty of time to improve it. I'm not a fan of over sourcing either but certainly you need at least one citation in a paragraph purely for verification purposes. It's not down to blue number, it's down to readers being able to trust exactly what they read by verification. That's extremely important on wikipedia that readers can verify that what they're reading is accurate. That's the whole point and I'm sure Loeba and most other active editors here would fully agree with me. I can see why this has upset you but it is perfectly valid based on sourcing and other issues which you admit to. Half the article is entirely unsourced. If you can take care of the issues which are obvious to you I'd be willing to help you retain it as FA by improving the sourcing.♦ Dr. Blofeld 15:23, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

OK I've improved the sourcing for the article. There's enough sources on this topic to sink a battleship! What it needs now I think is strengthening of its practical application as a science and impact in the workplace and society. Tools could use significant expansion too. It would be great Spinning if you could begin to re-research this in google books and retain this as an FA.I'm willing to support you in doing as it's the sort of topic having an FA on is rather important.What I'll do over the next for days is create you a bibliography for further reading on the topic which should make researching it easier. Aside from the obvious issues I see potential in retaining it as an FA but it really needs quite a bit of reinforcement work.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:02, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

@Spinningspark: I'm very sorry that I annoyed you with this nomination, although I'm a bit surprised you didn't raise more objection when you spoke with me on the talk page...you gave no indication then that you thought an FAR would be unreasonable. Anyway, as it happens I completely agree with you that the sourcing requirements have been taken too far (way beyond the requirements of WP:V, as you say) but ever since I've been here - 2 and a half years - FAC has been so strict over sourcing. I've seen people object when the smallest fact is not covered by a source, so I've always assumed this is the standard for FA and have made a real effort to have everything sourced in my 3 FA nominations (even so, during one of my source reviews the user noticed that a statement that Julianne Moore appeared in a particular film was unsourced and I was told to source it - something as plainly factual as that). Because I make such an effort with this, I can't help but want other FAs to adhere to these strict standards. I've got it in my head that it's how FAs must be, even though I agree that it's really over the top! Even so, I wouldn't have bothered bringing the article here unless it was as seriously under-referenced as it is (or was) - it really was poor, even for someone who isn't picky about verifiability. As for @Dr. Blofeld: I'm amazed at your proactive attitude here and making the effort to bring the article (which isn't even your area of interest) up to scratch. You're an absolute blessing on wikipedia. --Loeba (talk) 17:49, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Loeba! Feel free anybody to add bullet pointers below and add to what I've started anybody. I'll add a further reading section now for some solid books on the subject which are accessible online.♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:54, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Some pointers for improvement

• Add citations to unsourced paragraphs  Done
• Strengthen the lead to effectively summarize whole article
• Strengthen content related to actual application of electrical engineering in the work place and use of tools and equipment. How does it impact on science, how does it function in practice etc?
• Add a further reading section  Done
• Replace some of the poorer quality older sources with modern books

♦ Dr. Blofeld 17:58, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Ok, I admit it, I'm impressed. SpinningSpark 22:15, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Hehe I cheat, I actually use this ref maker, which I have programmed into my browser which is how I'm able to generate so many references so quickly! Can you try to find some new material in google books? I'll replace most of the remaining sources tomorrow so you don't have to worry about that now! If you follow the current book system with sfn|author surname|year|page number this will be great. ♦ Dr. Blofeld 22:51, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

If Spinning you and anybody else is up for this then I suggest we keep this open a month or so or however long is needed. It depends on how quickly it's improved. So Spinning hopefully you can improve it in the meantime without too much pressure on you.♦ Dr. Blofeld 22:59, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

I've reworked the lede. I'm not at all sure what you are getting at in point #3 but I have added some material on instruments used by engineers. I am especially unclear what you were expecting for "impact on science". Did you mean how engineers use or drive scientific discoveries, or were you thinking of major scientific engineering projects like CERN, or perhaps something else altogether?

Sorry, I have not got my head around the citation system you have started using. You may want to template the citations I put in. SpinningSpark 23:45, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

You're using author surname and page name right like Leitgeb, p. 122? All you have to do is e.g {{sfn|Leitgeb|2010|p=122}} surname, year of publication, page number, encase it with {{sfn| }} Yes, how engineers use or drive scientific discoveries, major scientific engineering projects like CERN, how they've been received in the scientific community etc. Also an assessment of how it impacts upon society and how it has impacted upon the development of society and business through the ages would be good if you can find material on it. What changes and new opportunities have significant developments in electrical engineering brought about? Judging by the sub fields already covered I'd say it is very important. Good work on tools yesterday, that's what I meant. ♦ Dr. Blofeld

@Dr. Blofeld: sorry for taking so long to address this: I was kind of hoping that other editors would take an interest, budt it doesn't look like that is going to happen. I have added a paragraph on EE and science which hopefully addresses your commnents.

I am not really willing to start learning to use complex templates in this article. The citation system was changed arbitrarily without discussion so someone else can deal with that. SpinningSpark 18:33, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

@Loeba: Do you still want to delist this? It looks at least technically sound now aside from some minor ref formatting issues introduced by Spinning which I'll sort out tomorrow, even if it's not brilliant.♦ Dr. Blofeld 22:34, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't think I have the singular power to decide if the FAR can close or not? You've both done a good job - I think it's probably at an acceptable standard now, but I'd be interested to know what other people think. --Loeba (talk) 20:14, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

The response overall has been a little disappointing, I'd hoped to see more of an effort from the project on it.♦ Dr. Blofeld 22:29, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

• Comment from Eric Corbett

I think this is still some way from meeting the FA criteria. A few points just from the lead:

• "Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. This field first became an identifiable occupation ...". Fields aren't occupations. The repetition in "Electrical engineering is a field of engineering" is also rather jarring. What else would it be, a field of ballroom dancing?
• "The personal computer and information technology are the most complex electronics yet to be used in everyday life." IT isn't complex electronics.
• "... the management skills required of project manager." Could be either "required of project management" or "of project managers", but not this.
• "... a top end analyzer ...". A top end analyzer of what? Should of course be "top-end analyzer" anyway.

FARC section

There was quite a bit of good work done in the review section, but the last round of comments has not been acted upon. I'm hoping that a move to FARC can spur the additional work needed to bring the article back up to featured quality. Original comments focused mainly on references, more recent comments have looked more at the prose. Dana boomer (talk) 15:59, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

I ignored those comments because they were trivial and petty. If you want to delist the article for something so petty go ahead, I'm not going to fix them. I was happy to help improve the article, especially with technical information, while there was a degree of collaboration to work on it and I thought I was dealing with people trying to save it rather than rip it to shreds but I am not going to behave like I wrote it or submitted it to FA and jump around fixing grammar and syntax issues that the complainer could easily fix themselves. FWIW though, here are my comments on the comments;

• "Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. This field first became an identifiable occupation ...". Fields aren't occupations. The repetition in "Electrical engineering is a field of engineering" is also rather jarring. What else would it be, a field of ballroom dancing?

• Are you claiming that electrical engineering is not a field or it is not an occupation? Reverse engineering and computer-aided engineering are not fields of engineering. Social engineering is not a field of engineering.

• "The personal computer and information technology are the most complex electronics yet to be used in everyday life." IT isn't complex electronics.

• IT implementation consists almost entirely of electronics. True I could in principle implement it with babbage engines or steam and elastic bands, but that is not how it is actually done.

• "... the management skills required of project manager." Could be either "required of project management" or "of project managers", but not this.

• Good grief, do you really need a reply to that?

• "... a top end analyzer ...". A top end analyzer of what? Should of course be "top-end analyzer" anyway.

• Spectrum analyzer, network analyzer, cable analyzer, data analyzer. Take your pick. The body of the article mentions several kinds of analyzer and they are all arbitrarily more expensive than a voltmeter. Would you have raised the same objection if I has written in a mechanics article "from a spanner to top-end garage equipment" SpinningSpark 22:48, 2 April 2014 (UTC)

@Spinningspark: The thing is at FAC/FAR a lot of comments may seem trivial but they're usually treated as legitimate concerns and improved. User:Eric Corbett has some very valid points IMO and his overall assessment of the article is correct. It's a pity that a lot of your group are no longer active to further improve this, Still, it's better than it was.♦ Dr. Blofeld 05:04, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

My point is, there is no good reason that I should be making corrections other people have found (and I don't even agree with a lot of the points raised). Who volunteered me for that? You are talking to me as if I wrote the article and/or took it FA. Neither is the case, the only investment I have in the article is what I have done during the course of this review—and I now truly wish I hadn't bothered. I am certainly familiar with FA requirements and how it works, most electrical engineering FAs are down to me, but I am not responsible for defending this article. This is making me angry so I am going to unwatch this page. Ping me if you want my professional assistance, but otherwise I am really no longer interested. SpinningSpark 12:08, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

@Spinningspark: I said "It's a pity that a lot of your group are no longer active to further improve this". What part of that did you take as an attack on yourself implying that you were entirely responsible?♦ Dr. Blofeld 08:43, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

Loeba, Dr. Blofeld, Mark viking, Eric, further thoughts? Keep or delist? Nikkimaria (talk) 12:09, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

• Delist. The article has not been significantly improved since this review was opened, and the lead is still erroneously claiming that IT is "complex electronics". Added to which Spinningspark clearly isn't listening to the valid criticism that's been offered, so obviously no further improvements to meet the FA criteria are likely to be made. Eric Corbett 12:25, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

• Delist Although I think it has a fair overview at least of the types of engineering I'm not happy with the breadth of overall coverage and practical application in the workplace etc. I was happy to overhaul the sourcing but this sort of subject is far from being one I'm interested in or knowledgeable in and wouldn't do it justice. It needs a lot more research and improvement to really be FA standard.♦ Dr. Blofeld 12:30, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

• Delist First of all, thanks go to Dr. Blofeld and Spinningspark for all their work on the article over the past months; while some are not satisfied, the article has undoubtedly been improved. As far as I can tell, the original complaint of not enough little blue numbers has been nicely addressed. To my relatively FAC-untrained eyes, this article looks wonderful . But new broad criticisms of the scope of the topic ("breadth of overall coverage") and narrow criticisms of details ("Should of course be "top-end analyzer") mean a good bit of negotiation, content editing, and copy-editing would be needed from any would-be article champion. I still stand by my original recommendation--it's best to delist broad articles like this that are ill-suited to current FA standards and allow limited EE editor time to be spent on more productive tasks. --Mark viking (talk) 19:33, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

  You're obviously more tolerant of rubbish such as "Likewise information technology have their own test sets ..." than I am. Eric Corbett 19:48, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Loeba's inactive at the moment Nikki, so I think the outcome is clear..♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:14, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

• Closing note: This removal candidate has been delisted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please leave the {{featured article review}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:59, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

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