Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/Failed log/August 2005

List of countries with mains power plugs, voltages and frequencies

This list is comprehensive, and was useful to me in countless occasions. It includes all the information a traveller needs to know before going abroad with electical appliances, in a simple and intutive fomat. --epsalon 10:57, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

• Excellent in many ways, but I have to oppose due to lack of references. OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 11:11, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
  • I'm guessing the references are the same as for Domestic AC power plugs and sockets, but I'd rather someone involved with creating the article added them, rather than my just assuming that. OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 11:53, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
    • it seems the original source was http://users.pandora.be/worldstandards/electricity.htm via mains power plug with most corrections since based on personal knowlage of editors. The big problem would be that authoritive sources are likely to be country specific and quite possiblly only availible in a language noone here speaks. not to mention the issue of reality differing from official standards. Plugwash 20:46, 23 August 2005 (UTC)
• Support - finding references would probably create huge amounts of work, and I don't really see them as that important. And, it's a useful, interesting and thoroughly researched list. - ulayiti (talk) 11:21, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Weak object for now, until the references are in place. - ulayiti (talk) 15:48, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
• Object - references are a requirement of the featured list criteria. Some additional minor comments: the ISO country code templates could be used to add some extra visual interest (compare United Nations member states); perhaps the diagrams of plugs/sockets would look better as a <gallery> below the table rather than a gutter to the right; should the title be something like List of mains power plugs, voltages and frequencies by country? -- ALoan (Talk) 16:37, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

• Yes, I agree re the title. OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 15:35, August 22, 2005 (UTC)

• Oppose -- references needed. I do remember being invited to add info on the plugs used in India, exactly a year back. I added them based on visual matching. I hope this has been cross verified. =Nichalp «Talk»= 19:54, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose, per above. References are needed. Phoenix2 20:34, August 17, 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose. Needs at least some cross references - Ian ≡ talk 00:29, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
• Comment. It is a well researched and thoroughly exhaustive list, but it needs more refs as per above. Will lend my support once these are provided for.--May the Force be with you! Shreshth91($ |-| r 3 $ |-| t |-|) 15:35, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

List of XML and HTML character entity references

Another good list just lying around. -- ALoan (Talk) 10:06, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

• Hmm. I would prefer to see the SGML entity and character entity reference articles fully fleshed out before this list is featured. People looking at the list are going to be going there looking for a better understanding of what these things are, and the current stub articles are not very good. The SGML entity article is especially in need of a more accurate definition and more info about how entities manifest in SGML, HTML and XML. — mjb 10:22, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
  • I understand what you are saying, but I think this list speaks for itself (thanks to you and Tokek for creating this list over the past few weeks, by the way: I hope you don't think I am stealing your thunder). -- ALoan (Talk) 11:11, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
• Support Comment: 1) The table looks a little bland. Why don't you add some colour to it? In the second column, there are five blank[? borders are not present] cells, it needs to be corrected. It looks a little odd. =Nichalp «Talk»= 07:36, August 12, 2005 (UTC)
  • I have added {{prettytable}}. Which cells do you see as blank without a border? I can't see any (although there are cells, e.g. &nbsp; which don't display, or ones where the character is not defined in my screen font). -- ALoan (Talk) 11:00, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
    • Better. The zwnj to rlm and shy were the ones at fault. =Nichalp «Talk»= 12:52, August 12, 2005 (UTC)
      • Do I take it that the problem has gone away? Other than adding the {{prettytable}}, I didn't change anyhthing in the table. -- ALoan (Talk) 13:19, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
        • Its not gone, but at least it looks neat. I take it that my font can't represent those characters. =Nichalp «Talk»= 13:47, August 12, 2005 (UTC)
          • Pass! As I said above, I see some blank boxes, because the character displays in an invisible way, and other ones where there is the "no character" little box; I don't see any problem at all (before or after) with the borders, though. YMMV. -- ALoan (Talk) 13:58, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
            • I use Opera 8.01 on Win. The spaces (nbsp) were ok; it was rendered with the cell border in the old version. The five mentioned had no borders unfortunately. =Nichalp «Talk»= 14:07, August 12, 2005 (UTC)
            • I added the SpecialChars template to the bottom of the article, as should be done whenever there's a significant risk of characters in the article not rendering. — mjb 18:19, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
• Support - minor criticism though: would prefer the description column to be in normal case rather than all caps. -- Ian ≡ talk 03:19, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Ah I had thought that was how it was done in the standard, but apparently not. -- ALoan (Talk) 16:50, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
    • The character descriptions originate from the UCS/Unicode, where they are given in all caps. However, they're intended to be used case-insensitively, so it is OK to write them any way you want. — mjb 18:14, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
• NOTE: The normal 10 day nomination period has expired, but this nomination has not gained the required 4 supports (counting the nominator, it has 3 supports and 0 opposes). I suggest the nomination stays open for 4 more days (to 10:06 UTC on 25 August) to allow time for more comments/votes, jguk 11:55, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

List of Dragonfly species recorded in Britain

I recognize that there are a very large proportion of red links here, but this so clearly in all other ways, such a well done list, that I thought I would nominate it anyway. Very clear and comprehinsive lead section, well organized and complete list, and outstanding references. Dsmdgold 22:22, August 13, 2005 (UTC)

• Comment: No lead, or is the "Introduction" section supposed to be the lead? Yes there are a substantial number of red links, as well as some species that aren't even wikified, hiding the fact that they too would be red links. On List of snakes of Trinidad and Tobago, there were initially a lot of red links, but they were eliminated, and it is now featured. Also, perhaps the main table could be a {{Prettytable}}? Lastly, for a list of this nature, it should have an image. Phoenix2 02:25, August 14, 2005 (UTC)
  • Oppose, unfortunately. The red links are indeed too much, but this list could be promoted in the future as most if not all of the other issues have been addressed. Phoenix2 16:10, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
    • I feared that this would be the case. I tied to hunt up information on a few of the species without articles via Google, but there is very little informationonthe web, so unless I wanted to create stubs that read "The XYZ is a European dragonfly" plus a taxobox, then filling in these redlinks will require finding some other information source. I might even have to look in a book! Dsmdgold 22:15, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose – 1) simply too much of dragonfly blood (red links :) ) on this page. 2) There's also a lot of bold text which makes the page look ugly. Also, instead of typing Eng/Scot/Wal, E, S, W, NI abbrs. should suffice and make the table look much neater. Just explain the abbrs. before its use. =Nichalp «Talk»= 09:38, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose, I'm afraid. The criteria state that "A useful list must be composed of a large majority of links to existing articles" - I'd want to see articles for at least 35 of the 56 species before I could support. --OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 08:37, August 16, 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose. Redlinks and too much bolding, which I find distracting - references should be in italics rather than bold and I don't see why the last 3 columns need to be bolded either. Very comprehensive though -- Ian ≡ talk 03:12, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose I think this list has a lot of potential. However, the redlinks are a concern and the entire layout and formatting seems a bit confused. I'd love to see this renominated later when it has more blue links and is a bit more polished. Still, it's a very good start. --Sophitus 04:31, August 17, 2005 (UTC)

List of major commercial failures in computer and video gaming

I think this list shows how wikipedia can be quite unique. We worked on this list a while ago as the W:Gaming collaboration of the week. If you object, please give feedback on where you feel this list could be improved. Jacoplane 17:11, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

• Comment, maybe an image or two. Phoenix2 17:20, August 2, 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose. Too subjective. No sources. There's no way this is complete, as I bet most games are commercial failures. Dave (talk) 19:21, August 3, 2005 (UTC)
• Oppose. Too subjective and simplistic. This article should maybe even be deleted, The Xbox is a commercial failure (circa $1 billion lost) but it doesnt belong on the list, while the Sega Game Gear was commerically successful and returned a profit but still wasnt successful enough for Sega to create a successor so is considered by many a failure despite being a Commercial success. Most games produced dont return a profit, this list is going to turn into "A List of what the general public perceives as a commercial success". What complicates this even more is almost all Consoles are sold at a loss and are made up through software sales so almost all hardware could be considered a comerical failure, plus peripherals released often never return a profit on their own but are designed to make one platform more attractive and thus help return a profit. - UnlimitedAccess 23:48, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

List of state leaders

Not a self-nom. Seems like it was just sitting there, waiting to be added to the FL list. Support, jguk 20:23, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

• Object for the moment. I would like to see the article have an explanation similar to the footnote for Switzerland that explains why Elizabeth II is the head of state reppresented by someone else in so many countries. Also the sitation in several countries that have multiple heads of state (Andorra, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iran, North Korea, Libya, and Liechtenstein) need to be clarified. The same for the Vatican with two heads of government. The situation in Switzerland could be explained better. It would also be nice to the titles of all these people, especially heads of state, since some of these are herditary monarchs and some are elected. Support now. I like the addition of the type of government column. Dsmdgold 02:43, August 2, 2005 (UTC)
• Comments: I like it, but there needs to be an explanation of why some states don't have a head of government: is the head of state the head of the goverment too, or is there a gap due to a resignation or election or some other reason? It would also be useful to show terms of office (start and expected end dates). Can we think of a relevant image? And there are no reference. Finally, isn't his going to be a pain to keep up to date? (I know, WP:FLRC could deal with that but even so, why create a rod for our own backs?). -- ALoan (Talk) 12:59, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Object - it is coming along, but my points above (particularly references) really do need to be addressed. -- ALoan (Talk) 14:42, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
• Object – 1) I don't think a note for Switz. is enough. You'd also have to add notes on other states such as Malaysia and dominions too. 2) The PM equivalent of the Vatican is the governor. The SoS does not have the PM functions. 3) Titles such as Sir and Prince should not be present. 4) Also agree with ALoan. =Nichalp «Talk»= 19:58, August 2, 2005 (UTC)
• Support and totally disagree with Nichalp about the use of titles such as 'Sir' and 'Prince'. They must be present. David | Talk 20:04, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Its not necessary. Titles such as Queen, General, Dr., King are not mentioned in any county infobox. =Nichalp «Talk»= 20:23, August 3, 2005 (UTC)

MPs elected in the UK general election, 2005

Complete and comprehensive list. I liked the graphical representation of the parliament. CG 10:32, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

• Comment - pretty good, but (i) the image has some nasty artefacts around the edges of the blocks; (ii) it would be nice to standardise the widths of the columns in the tables (width=n%, for each one, for example); (iii) party colours could be added to the cells on the table (perhaps just for the cell containing the party, or a little blob, like the summary table, to avoid colour overload - this should be relatively easy with a wordprocessor and global search-replace); (iv) the article needs some references. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:18, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
• Comment I know there are probably copyright difficulties, but some images of the most notable MPs might be nice if at all possible. --Sophitus 14:52, August 1, 2005 (UTC)
• Comment. The article should not give previous MPs for any of the Scottish constituencies with boundary changes. It's speculation. David | Talk 20:01, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
• My comments above have not been addressed, so object for now. -- ALoan (Talk) 14:27, 9 August 2005 (UTC)
• Comment 2) It looks untidy in 800x600. Instead of spelling out Labour, Conservative etc, a C or L should be sufficient. 2) No references. =Nichalp «Talk»= 18:32, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

Hilbert's problems

Noone has taken the hint on the talk page: I think this is good enough. -- ALoan (Talk) 14:12, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

• It's an appealing idea to have this page as a featured list. I'm not sure, though, that it's ever really going to meet the criterion of non-controversiality, especially if people start looking at it closely again. My position on Problem 1 is stark: The continuum problem is still open. Many disagree; I recently changed the entry to "No consensus". --Trovatore 15:13, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Complicating matters is the fact that Hilbert spoke for some time about some of the problems; boiling each of them down to a phrase is sure to lose some information. In particular, the discussion of Problem 2 would have to include a close reading trying to figure out just what he meant. --Trovatore 15:13, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Still, I like the idea--provided the finished product does not claim agreement among mathematicians that does not in fact exist. --Trovatore 15:13, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

• Object Can't understand it, and that's with a first-class degree in mathematics from 10 years ago. Needs to be simplified so a layman can understand what it's all about, jguk 18:02, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

Sorry - please could you explain in more detail which parts of the list do you not understand. I am not a mathematician at all, but I can see that this is a list of 23 (or 24) "important" maths problems selected in 1900 by a leading mathemetician, with an indication of the status of the problem ("solved" or not), a brief description of the problem, and the link to the relevant "main" article, such as Hilbert's first problem. This page page is not meant to give more than a brief description of the problem: each problem is discussed in further detail in its own page (although 8 out of 23 are still unfortunately red). Would it help to add more wikilinks to the brief descriptions? (I have tweaked a bit)-- ALoan (Talk) 18:48, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

It's the brief descriptions I don't understand - they need to be expanded at least to give an idea to the layman as to what the problem is, jguk 19:28, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

In the light of the comments below, can I invite you to reconsider, or at least explain what you would like the description column to say. For example, what should Problem 6 ("Axiomatize all of physics.") say? -- ALoan (Talk) 18:46, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Well let's take Problem 12, for example: Extend Kronecker's theorem on abelian extensions of the rational numbers to any base number field. What does this mean? Or problem 21: Proof of the existence of linear differential equations having a prescribed monodromic group. I can't even begin to form a view as to what the problem really is. Surely there must be some way of explaining the concepts briefly to a layman? jguk 19:10, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, you are the mathematician, but:

• 12th - can I assume you have read Hilbert's twelfth problem, Kronecker's theorem, abelian extension, rational number and number field?
• 21st - ditto Hilbert's twenty-first problemlinear differential equation and monodromic group?

However, I have just found this excellent site which may help massively on an attempt to describe many of the other problems, since I am already well out of my depth, but is not much use on the 12th and 21st problems. -- ALoan (Talk)

• Comment I have to admit that I have no idea what some of the terms used in the list mean, but I expect that's what the list is for - a bunch of links to more comprehensive articles that (hopefully, if I cared about math at all) would explain them. As such, I'd like to support, but first I want to see a few less redlinks for the problems. Eight out of 23 isn't a lot, but even a few less would be much better. If this changes, I will support. --Sophitus 21:01, July 26, 2005 (UTC)
  • Right, I've added some stubs to deal with the redlink issue. I've also tweaked the descriptions in a few cases, but I'm not entirely sure how to turn the Riemann hypothesis (and others) into layman's language. -- ALoan (Talk) 19:46, 30 July 2005 (UTC)
    • Thanks, I now Support --Sophitus 03:20, July 31, 2005 (UTC)
    • I'm not sure that Riemann hypothesis can be turned into "layman's language" without calling to severa other article. There is a limit to how much simplification can be brought on advanced mathematics. Circeus 11:32, July 31, 2005 (UTC)
• Support.  Grue  11:52, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
• Support now that I have added percentage widths to each column of the table. --Spangineer (háblame) 17:59, August 2, 2005 (UTC)
  • Thanks, but I'm not sure that explicitly setting widths is really needed where there is only one table (where there is more than one table, it helps to make them consistent). I've tweaked to make "Problem" and the number appear on the same line on narrower displays. -- ALoan (Talk) 18:46, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
    • That was my concern. I'm using 1024x768 and before I made the change I saw them on two lines. I guess I didn't make the column big enough for 800x600. If it's possible to define the first column to be a set number of pixels and let the others do what they please, that would be great, but I'm not sure it's possible. --Spangineer (háblame) 19:27, August 2, 2005 (UTC)
      • Ah - when the columns get small enough to be shorter than the longest word, the % width is ignored anyway. Perhaps the best way to achieve this would be to add a &nbsp; between them? -- ALoan (Talk) 11:29, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
        • I thought about that last night; I guess great minds think alike =). Looks great now. --Spangineer (háblame) 14:16, August 3, 2005 (UTC)
• NOTE: Another borderline one. ALoan doesn't appear to have used his "find" to alter the article (though if I'm wrong I'm sure I'll be corrected). Leave listed to 14:12 on 9 August to allow for more comments/improvements, jguk 08:57, 6 August 2005 (UTC)
  • Sorry, just not had time in the last few days. I also need to tweak United Nations member states, as it happens. -- ALoan (Talk) 21:33, 7 August 2005 (UTC)
• (I'm afraid I don't have time to do these myself; I've just moved and don't have a permanent place to stay yet, so apartment hunting comes first.) Two big problems with 1 and 2: Prob 1 is still a redirect to Continuum hypothesis, which is not quite accurate; the first problem also involved finding a wellordering of the reals. Just what "finding" means here is not entirely clear. It could be argued that this part of the first problem was solved by Zermelo in the proof of the Well-ordering theorem from the axiom of choice, but it depends upon the reading. There are several interesting things that could be said about finding a particular wellordering, depending again on what "particular" means. --Trovatore 23:20, 7 August 2005 (UTC)
• I don't disagree with the "resolved" label for prob 2, because we now know rather precisely under just what assumptions the consistency of PA may be proved, but this should be explained explicitly somewhere. --Trovatore 23:24, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

List of U.S. state capitals

Maybe someone that knows more about the United States can create brief articles for the capitol buildings that are missing? Phoenix2 18:29, July 22, 2005 (UTC)

• Nominate and support. Phoenix2 18:29, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
• objectI think there needs to be some clarification as to wether the article is refering to the city or the buildings. --The_stuart 18:55, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
  • Is the list not obviously referring to the state capitals, and the information about the capitol buildings ist just extra information? Phoenix2 18:58, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
• Comment This article needs some work, but I will withhold vote until later. There is conflict between the pictures and the text in the right-hand column, with a lot of overlap (this may just be my bad browser, please tell me if it is). The intro could also be a little more extensive. --Sophitus 19:01, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
  • There seems to be a lot of problems with pictures when I try to put them down the side of the page. Again, I am using 1024 by 768, and on this page there is no more room to shrink the pictures, really. I'll see what I can do about the lead. If there are any Americans here who can add some more valuable information to the lead and elsewehre, that would be good. Phoenix2 19:11, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
  • I've decided to overhaul this list and remove the information about the capitol buildings, which will be in a list that I will do later. The list with the capital information will be at User:Phoenix2/Sandbox1. Phoenix2 19:16, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
• Comment: The info is limited. It should have more info such as the year it became the capital. You can also add former capitals of a state if any. Some countries like South Africa have a separate judicial, legislative and administrative capital. Any state having such a split? =Nichalp «Talk»= 13:20, July 30, 2005 (UTC)

List of U.S. states by population

First nomination a while ago didn't end up going anywhere, looks alright now. -Phoenix 22:05, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

• Comment Everything on the list looks great. The only area of improvement needed is that the map should be updated to reflect 2006 data to go along with the information in the table. RyguyMN 16:37, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

 Done -Phoenix 15:54, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

*OpposeThe table lists electoral votes and HoR seats as well; yet the lead mentions nothing of this. Seems to beg that a paragraph be included in the lead that explains how these are apportioned, since the table includes them. If this is fixed, I will change my vote to support.--Jayron32|talk|contribs 05:29, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

 Done, I added a paragraph on the two items, and also merged the little bit of trivia onto the first paragraph. -Phoenix 17:11, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Mmm.. I don't think I got my point accross. Plus, the lead was too self-referential ("these figures" and "this list", etc.) I cleaned it up some myeself and put in what I was looking for. Hope you don't mind my boldness. Check it out and see if it sounds better. However, I still oppose this nomination on the grounds of the unreferenced "trivia" section at the bottom. It's cute, but unneccessary. --Jayron32|talk|contribs 00:28, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

No, I certainly don't mind the boldness; I nominate these lists with the hope that others will step in and make some edits. I added the little trivia section with the hope that it would increase the value of the list. You claim it's unreferenced, but the source of the WY, TX, and MT tidbits come from simply sorting the list by population, electoral votes, and population per house seat, respectively. For the California bit, I simply glanced at the list of countries by population. Nevertheless, I can remove it if it's your sole reason for objecting. -Phoenix 01:41, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I would disagree that they add anything. The list is great just being what it tells you it is going to be. The extra trivia doesn't seem to add anything really. See WP:AVTRIV. Fix that and the article should be great.--Jayron32|talk|contribs 01:57, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

And away it goes. -Phoenix 02:12, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

• Support All fixes made. Looks great now! --Jayron32|talk|contribs 02:16, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support A fine looking list! Just make sure not to expand anymore on your summary or it could become too overwhelming. RyguyMN 02:22, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Cough, cough, Jayron might have something to say about that -Phoenix 02:31, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
    • no, not really after all, anyone should fix anything they think needs it. :) --Jayron32|talk|contribs 03:26, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
• Support Complete, as far as its topic goes. —Lowellian (reply) 15:53, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
  • The nomination is over, it's already featured. -Phoenix 18:03, 14 April 2007 (UTC)