Wikipedia:Good article reassessment/Line Mode Browser/1

Line Mode Browser

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Result: No action. A GA review took place in November during which several issues were noted and the article was failed. The nominator felt more time should have been given; however, over a month later and the article still does not meet GA criteria - which is a clear indicator that the fail was appropriate. The nominator has been advised to attend to the issues raised during the review and then renominate. This appears to be an appropriate course of action, and is the one advised on the GAR page: "It is rarely helpful to request a community reassessment for an article which has not had a proper review: simply renominate it." SilkTork *^YES! 13:34, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I nominated a few weeks ago the Line Mode Browser article for GA. Malleus Fatuorum failed the article immediately a few days ago (in Gyrobo and my mind) with only smaller issues. The article should have been set on hold and everything can/could be corrected. On the other hand there was a small discussion about a technical part that couldn't be solved (portability of the browser). mabdul 01:33, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment You would probably be better off fixing everything noted in the GAN and then re-nominate. I agree that in this case it may have been ideal to give you a 7-day hold, but that is not a requirement. If this was an article that was good but for one minor incorrectly-interpreted criteria that would be one thing, but there were several little issues that you were not given an opportunity to fix, so you are basically looking for another complete review from the ground up. Unless someone here has the time and expertise to do that, you may be better off going back to GAN. Aaron north (T/C) 04:58, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- I fixed everything! On the links he criticized of verifiability he didn't give any comments if he didn't looked correctly.
- And the second part is if the browser should "the Line Mode Browser" or "a Line Mode Browser" or only "Line Mode Browser" or whatever.
- and last but not least a technical with regards to content difference. (portability) mabdul 05:15, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - We didn't immediately fix all of the issues identified because we contend that some of those issues (like the correct way to describe the name of the browser) are not problems at all, but valid prose.
    --Gyrobo (talk) 21:25, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I had, and still do have, several serious concerns about this article, sufficient to have persuaded me that the work required could not reasonably be undertaken within the seven-day holding period; I note that it has not yet been done. In particular, the article makes several claims that are not backed up by the sources cited, and the extrapolation is sometimes quite subtle. I gave some examples in the review, but here is another I've just spotted:
- The article says "The Line Mode Browser has many problems recognizing many character entities (like  ). It does not properly collapse excess whitespace in the HTML code, and has no support for tables or frames."
- The source says "The version I tried at a library recently was pretty backward; it didn't recognize many character entities (like  ), didn't properly collapse excess whitespace in the HTML code, and had no support for tables or frames".
- I have two problems with that. The first is that the wording is really too close to the original, verging on plagiarism IMO. The second is that the original author was describing a version he had encountered in a public library, with no indication as to when or which version that was. It may be that the problems he encountered were fixed in a later version, who knows, but the extrapolation of that experience with one unspecified version to the line mode browser in general cannot be justified. I'd say that there's also a question mark over the reliability of that source in any event.
  Fatuorum 19:09, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply
  ]
  - I've changed the wording in response to your concern.
    --Gyrobo (talk) 21:25, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    - But you appeared to have ignored my concern over the reliability of the source. And I have similar concerns about several of the other sources.
      Fatuorum 21:37, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply
      ]
      - The source is written by Dan Tobias, who I believe meets the qualifications of being a valid
        self-published source.
        --Gyrobo (talk) 21:47, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply
        ]
        It's clear that we are not going to agree, but other reviewers may be more sympathetic to your position than I have been. Time will tell.
        Fatuorum 22:03, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply
        ]
    - FWIW I don't consider your change to be much of an improvement, although it has avoided the apparent plagiarism. To say "The Line Mode Browser has had problems recognizing character entities, properly collapsing whitespace, and supporting tables and frames" is of no more value than saying that Internet Explorer has had problems with cascading style sheets, and still does.
      Fatuorum 21:40, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply
      ]
      I still don't see what the problem is, then. Claiming Internet Explorer has historically had problems with CSS is helpful, because anyone who reads it and tries to find problems with IE will know which areas to look at first. It would be more helpful to point specifically to a particular CSS property or module, and I think the claims made about whitespace, entities and tables/frames is very specific and encyclopedic.
      --Gyrobo (talk) 21:47, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      Not unless you can be specific. Which version(s) of LMB have had problems with collapsing whitespace, for instance. All of them? Does the present offering still have that problem?
      Fatuorum 22:07, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply
      ]
      The changelog mentions a bug fix for collapsing whitespace in version 1.2a, but I don't think it's possible to get more information than that. On topics like this, there aren't going to be very many secondary and tertiary sources, and the level of detail you're looking for may never be possible. Comprehensiveness is a quality of featured articles, while good articles
      only have to be broad.
      --Gyrobo (talk) 22:36, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply
      ]
      As the author of this reference Daniel R. Tobias posted that he created the page initially on 24 September 1998 - the library he tested the LMB version had to be on of the first from 1992 (I do think this is very unlikely). So there is the possibility that the up-to-date LMB has this bug (since the changelog doesn't say it other) - I could test it but that would go against
      WP:OR. Alternatively the whole sentence could be striked although I don't think that would be good. mabdul 22:52, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply
      ]
      
      Good articles have to be accurate in their coverage, and cover their subject's main topics. This article does neither.
      Fatuorum 02:00, 16 November 2010 (UTC)[reply
      ]

I found a reference that shows that the LMB was popular and that it had no chance against Mosaic. Maybe this reference changed on of your (Malleus_Fatuorum) main concerns. mabdul 09:27, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's certainly a step in the right direction, but not one large enough to alter my judgement. Here's another example for you: the lead says "The browser is very portable and could be ported to any operating system." What the first of the two citations says is that "Technical student Nicola Pellow wrote a simple browser which could be used on many different computers", quite a different kettle of fish; "many" is not a synonym for "any". The browser clearly couldn't be ported to an OS lacking a (ANSI?) C compiler, for instance.

Fatuorum 21:54, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply

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