Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Diamond/archive1

Diamond

A great and well written overview of a fascinating subject including in one place information I could not find collected together elsewhere. Particularly strong on physical properties including the popular gem cuts. History, some commercial issues, trivia such as famous cutters and stones. In my opinion this featured article candidate, for once, truly shows off Wikipedia at its best. Paul Beardsell 21:18, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Oppose - This article is off to a good start, but it has some formatting issues to deal with first.
  1. In some sections, the text is written is a format that suggests it had been written one sentence at a time (the Cut section in particular).
  2. There are tons of external links, but no real references.
  3. I would like to see a mention of so-called "blood diamonds".

– ClockworkSoul 22:34, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Object. 1) It does not cite its sources, a basic featured article requirement. Please check the criteria before nominating. 2) Multiple one and two sentence paragraphs break up the flow of the text too much. Either expand those into fully developed ideas or merge them in with related material. 3) The lead section is too short. Typically it is 2-3 paragraphs twice the size of that one. It should summarize all important facets of the topic. It should also try to avoid overly technical terms at first, and gently work them in and explain them in context. 4) Given the value and size of the world diamond market (Which is? This article doesn't say.), the issue of high quality, large synthetic diamonds should be covered much more thoroughly. They have the potential to undermine a very valuable market. 5) No mention of round brillian cut with even more facets than the standard as is increasingly popular. Many jewelry stores in the US market these as their own signature cuts. 6) The organization is a bit odd. Why are the cut color and clarity listed in the industry section. And no mention of carat almost at all by the way. Carat increase exponentially increases price. That could be noted. Clarity enhancements are covered, but aren't there some color enhancements too? Color is covered in two places, they should be combined, I'd think. I suppose that's enough for now. - Taxman 23:02, Mar 3, 2005 (UTC)
• Object, ditto above comments. --Oldak Quill 23:37, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)
• Object. The disorganization of this article, and resulting lack of flow, is epic. It reads poorly and contains many grammatical, structural, and spelling errors. It leaves out large topics (ex. production and supply chain information) and treats others poorly (ex. jumps into describing type Ia, Ib, II diamonds without really explaining what distinguishes the types). Could be a great article, and is more likely to be one by summarizing briefly separate articles on the large number of relevant topics. There are also many (probably unintentional) POV statements, which are likely the result of various marketing campaigns' influences on peoples' understanding, but nonetheless need to be rooted out ruthlessly. In short, I must disagree with the nominator and suggest instead that this article shows off the worst of what can happen in the collaborative editing environment of Wikipedia that we all know and love — lots of unsourced facts with no unification into a readable article. Let's see if we can fix it, shall we? Bantman 00:15, Mar 4, 2005 (UTC)

• All right, I've worn myself out organizing the first half of the article (now split into material vs. gemological properties). I've exiled lots of the really detailed info to separate articles, and tried to write text for the main article that provides a comprehensive overview, but avoids minute detail (interested readers can see the specific articles) and is an easy and interesting read. The articles I've split off just contain the original text, which is obviously a problem -- fixing them is another boatload of work on my to-do list. The rest of the diamond article needs another type of work entirely -- rewriting, plus a lot of new information pulled in. That task I have to defer on, at this point. Nonetheless, I think that the first half is looking much better. Bantman 02:28, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

• Great work. That is much, much better. See if you can't find the time to do the rest. I still don't think this article can make it to featured soon because it does not cite its sources except for the one price listing, but it is substantially better. - Taxman 16:36, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

• All right, twist my arm... :) I totally agree re: imminent featuredness; I think it will take another few weeks (at least) of hard work (hopefully not by me alone!) to whip this into shape. I've been meaning to take this article to FA-ship for some time; I guess I needed this dramatic (and utterly predictable) failure on FAC to kick myself into gear on the project. - Bantman 18:01, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

• Object, for the reasons stated above. Jeronimo 14:32, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• Support (although as proposer my vote should not be counted twice) on the basis that although the article does not meet all the FAC guidelines it seems to do so at least as well as several other recently featured articles. E.g. Johannesburg. Paul Beardsell 21:07, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• So your argument is that your article is as good as an article that you strenuously objected to as being of too poor quality to be a FA? Interesting. How about instead focus on handling the objections for this article, and make it a great one. - Taxman 22:06, Mar 7, 2005 (UTC)

No, the article is not "as good as" but is better than Johannesburg was at the time of its promotion, for which you voted despite its obvious flaws, several of which I had pointed out and which were not being addressed. Essentially my argument is for a higher level of consistency and for better quality control. There seems to be no objectively followed standard against which "featured" status is measured. To see this for yourself just look at the articles which are being promoted and those which are being rejected. And who votes consistently with who. Paul Beardsell 19:51, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

No one said the process is perfect. I was clearly in an overly generous mood on that article you refer to. But consensus is that this article does not meet the criteria, and for two of them, references and lead section, that should have been obvious to you before nomination that they were deficient. - Taxman 16:36, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)

The documented process seems pretty good to me, although that is not the same as saying there is no room for improvement. And I like the featured article criteria. It's a pity the documented process is not followed and that articles are not judged against the criteria. I have no problem with this article being rejected as long as I am not shouted down for pointing out the inconsistencies. Paul Beardsell 22:23, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

But Johannesburg does cite sources. Sadly this otherwise good article, has to be rejected, until that is restored. (Also longer (or even more information) does not mean better)--ZayZayEM 04:10, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Examine the Johannesburg change log, its talk page and the FAC proposal for that article, all in chronological order. At the time of Johannesburg's promotion to Featured Article (i) it contained factual errors which had been recently noted on the Talk page, (ii) it did not cite its sources, (iii) it did not meet other FAC documented criteria. That that article is better now is creditable but beside the point but Johannesburg still does not meet the documented criteria fully. That this article, Diamond, does not meet all those criteria is true. But, in certain respects at least, it meets them better than several recently promoted articles. If, by rejecting this article (in its current form) for "featured" status, we improve the quality required and/or the articles are judged more consistently (perhaps by breaking the voting cabal) then I will be happy with that. Paul Beardsell 22:06, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)