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Bulbasaur

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As the first completed drive of the Pokémon Collaborative Project, this article meets all of the standards here, as generally accepted by both Pokémon WikiProjects. It recently underwent a peer review (see Wikipedia:Peer review/Bulbasaur/archive2) and all actionable critisism was resolved. It is still slightly on the short side but I feel it covers the subject well and as it meets all of the standards on the FAC criteria page, I have decided to nominate this article for Featured article status (hopefully without sparking up another Pokémon debate. --Celestianpower háblame 12:13, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Object. Provide a fair use rationale for the Image:Bulbasaur_TCG.jpg image, and include additional references. —Hollow Wilerding . . . (talk) 17:02, 29 December 2005 (UTC) Support. It's a Pokémon article, yet it is excellent! I am amazed, and it certainly deserves featured article status. However, I must note that one might want to include some additional references as to avoid the whiners on Wikipedia. —Hollow Wilerding . . . (talk) 15:35, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I'm now supporting this article since my concerns have been addressed. — Wackymacs 18:38, 29 December 2005 (UTC)Object. Sorry but this doesn't fit the FA criteria - it is not well referenced, the in-line citations need to be converted into footnotes (see Wikipedia:Footnotes). The lead is too short. 'In other properties' section needs cleaning up (subsections removing and list converting into prose). 'Websites' subsection should be a section of its own named 'External links' per WP:MOS. 'In popular culture' section is very short, including a one sentence paragraph. — Wackymacs 16:20, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    I'll reply one by one:
    1. Not well referenced - what on earth do you mean? It has plenty of references. Please clarify.
    2. Inline citations - okay, I'm onto that now.
    3. Short lead - What do you think needs adding?
    4. 'In other properties' - okay - I'm onto that one too.
    5. 'Websites' section - no, they're references (IE, they were used as source/reference material in writing the article). I can add some external links if that's what you want.
    6. 'In popular culture' - Okay, what should I do about it? Merge it into the lead perhaps? That'd fix point 3 aswell.
    Thank you. --Celestianpower háblame 16:38, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. By not well referenced I mean there are not many references, only two book references and websites as a whole should not be listed as references as they are - they should be listed in footnote form to specific pages rather than website homepages. Subsections should not be used in the 'References' section, its already obvious which are websites and which refs are not. I'd like to see the addition of an 'External links' section if possible at all. For tips on writing a good lead, see WP:Lead, the lead should summarize the entire article and at the moment I don't think it does this. I would merge the 'popular culture' section into the lead. I also have the concern that maybe this article cannot become featured because it is very short - It's only 10K. Are you sure there isn't lots of information missing, or is this just a difficult topic?— Wackymacs 16:57, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oh, yes, I did not catch the image missing a copyright rationale. Therefore, I have to object to this article's nomination as of present time. Also, as I've noted above, one will absolutely, positively want to include additional references, as I figured someone would point it out (and not necessarily whine, sorry if I offended you, Wackymacs). —Hollow Wilerding . . . (talk) 17:02, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Conditional Weak Support Much improved Object Does any information exist about how the character was designed, who designed it, ect? Does the biology section use information from the show or the video game or both? Also the writing needs to be copyeditied, the writing does not flow well sometimes. I think you need to put in more background about the game and show. For example,

I can't support this anymore, unless what the huge gap between the intro and the Content list is fixed. I just wish it had more information outside the Pokemon game and cartoon. MechBrowman 06:01, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  1. "Several Bulbasaur have appeared in the animé, although only two of them are major characters. One of them is one of the first Pokémon Ash Ketchum acquires, and the other one is one of May's Pokémon." Can be changed into: </s
  2. "Several Bulbasaur have appeared throughout the animé, only two as a major characters. Pokemon's main character, Ash Ketchum, owned a Bulbasaur through much of the series. Another main character, May, had also aquired a Bulbasaur."

More general detail like this throughout the entire article would help the article flow better, especifally for people not familiar with Pokemon. Also try to avoid starting a sentence with "it", and don't say "interestingly", thats POV. Also Website references need to be written in a proper form, similar to the book references. Recent edits: McDonalds and Burger King does not belong in the intro, please put in In other properties.MechBrowman 17:20, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Right, okay, addressing the concerns of the above:
    1. References - now got a few more - all properly formatted. I'm searching out some more as we speak.
    2. Image copyright - a new image is being sorted. Give it a day.
    3. Lead - what more does it need? It explains why it's notable, how the name came into being and what it is.
    4. Missing information? No, at least I don't think so. Consise? Yes.
    5. MechBrowman: I don't think it does. I would assume it'd be Satoshi but that'd be a guess.
    6. Copyedit - okay - going through now.
    7. Paragraph moved.
  • Anything else? --Celestianpower háblame 18:29, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Too bad you can't find anything about the conception of the character, if you ever do I encourage you to put it in. Copyediting is my only serious issue left, after your effort and other eyes I imagine this being fixed. One more thing is that you don't need repeat your reference listing if its been placed in Notes. Keep up the effort. MechBrowman 18:49, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Do I not? I was advised by User:Nichalp that I should do. --Celestianpower háblame 18:55, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I can't imagine why you would repeat the reference like that, doesn't make sense to me. Its already cited in notes. I still think they should be removed, buts its not a serious issue. MechBrowman 19:30, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I've done my best to now expand a bit on anything I think that a lay reader may find hard to understand. Please tell me if there's anything else that needs rewording (no need to actually reword - I'll do that - but as I'm an "expert" as it were, I find it hard to pinpoint where lay readers may be confused). --Celestianpower háblame 20:38, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, =notes= should contain only the raw link. The reference should be formatted acording to standard references citation styles. See Geography of India and the discussion here on the =Notes= section. =Nichalp «Talk»= 04:40, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support This is the most rounded and encylopedic article on any of the pokemon characters I have seen. --Alf melmac 18:57, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Minor object; the article looks good, but I don't think there's any reason to mix footnotes and inotes here. The two should be converted into a single format (of your choice). —Kirill Lokshin 22:09, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Right, okay. Is there any reason not to use both? I asked another user about it and he told me that that was what I should do. I mean, the inotes are for general paragraphs worth of stuff, losely based upon information found at the relevant sites and the footnotes are referencing specific facts. --Celestianpower háblame 23:45, 29 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    There's no reason why footnotes can't be used for paragraphs as well, of course. More generally, inotes are utterly useless both on printed versions and on most mirrors, so I think their use should be limited to cases where there are too many to convert to footnotes; but this may just be a stylistic preference on my part. —Kirill Lokshin 01:30, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    There's no "correct reference style, but we shouldn't fall prey to using footnotes in every paragraph. W. Mark Felt is a bad example where footnotes have been used in almost every paragraph, making it awfully cluttered. Please note: inotes are citations, while refs are actually footnotes. None of the encylopedias or encyclopedic articles go overboard with footnotes. A mix of both is perfectly acceptable. See Economy of India =Nichalp «Talk»= 04:40, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Economy of India only uses footnotes for extended explanation, not citation; and it has rather more of them in any case. But as I wrote above, this may be a stylistic preference, so I'll withdraw my objection and leave the issue of which style to use to your discretion. —Kirill Lokshin 04:56, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object. Very poorly written; almost every sentence needs surgery. Here are some examples, all but the first from the short lead:
    • 'commonly-appearing' (no hypen after -ly words)
    • 'is notable as one of the first Pokémon a player can have in the first Pokémon games' (plural for first Pokemon, please; 'have' is a bit vague; 'earliest' better than 'first')
    • 'one of the most commonly-appearing Pokémon' (see above two points, plus 'one of the' for the second time in two sentences)
    • 'one of the "lead critters" on the series' ('in', not 'on'; 'one of the' yet again)
    • 'can be construed as a portmanteau of "bulb" (regarding the large bulb on its back)'. ('regarding' is plain wrong—perhaps 'reflecting'? 'can be construed as' should be just 'is')
    • 'can be construed as a portmanteau of bulbe meaning bulb, and bizarre' (repetition—see previous point; and just look at the punctuation ...)
  • Now please find someone to go through this whole text intensively, to make it 'compelling, even brilliant' prose. As it stands, we're kidding ourselves. Tony 04:19, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Hmmm, well, if it's a gramatical check you want then I can definately do that - one of my friends is a complete grammar nazi so I'll ask him tio go over it later today. As to a couple of specific points, "have" is the best word for it in my opinion. I can't use catch (as it isn't caught). The player is given the opportunity to be given the Pokémon but that's horribly wordy. As to "one of the", it is. There are 3 Pokémon that the player could choose - Bulbasaur is just one. --Celestianpower háblame 11:17, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I addressed some of Tony's concerns. However, I feel that he may be overreacting, given his almost malicious rejection of the article's quality, which I find sufficient. Nevertheless, he does make some valid points. I'm not willing nor am I able to do a full copy-edit of the article, but one should be done. The article's content is Featured Status, regardless if it has a misplaced hyphen or apostrophe. Given the amount of editing any given article experiences, if we were to deny Featured Status due to a few punctuation errors, we should abandon Featured Articles altogether as impossible. Basic Summary: support, but someone needs to finish a copy-edit. RyanGerbil10 04:44, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Response. No, it must pass all of the Criteria. If thorough critiqueing is going to be regarded as 'amost malicious', I'm afraid that WP is a spent force. In any case, you say that you find my rejection 'sufficient'. So be it. Please note that I confined my criticisms to the quality of the prose, and that at issue is more than 'a misplaced hyphen or apostrophe'. I don't doubt that in some respects the article might pass muster. Please don't be upset; I'm sorry that I've offended you, but I don't step back from anything I wrote above. Tony 05:15, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it is a lot better than it was a few days ago; I'm not entirely satisfied with the article, but at least at the clause level it's no longer an embarrassment. Tony 12:06, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Object. I wish this article had been on peer review more than 2 days. Why did you remove it? This article is maybe the best pokemon article, but it stills short and could be improved to be a more detailed and comprehensive article. CG 07:04, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes - being "too short" isnt an FA criteria. I feel it's the right length - there may be a couple of things I can add but not that much really.
  • Comment Whilst it is true that criteria have been met for inclusion in the wikipedia project, and indeed, certain referencing quibbles aside, they seem to be met for being worthy of a featured article, the heavy commercial bias of this subject matter remains. We may well be validating more than popular ephemera with this article, as it could be construed as advertising. I feel it is necessary for this point to be made, if not directly addressed. --HasBeen 08:56, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Bias? Advertising? What points of view have I missed? Granted, there is no criticism of Bulbasaur but there's no "bigging up" (I can't think of a better word right now) of him either. Any criticism of him is criticism of Pokémon in general. --Celestianpower háblame 11:17, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It's the commercial nature of the subject matter that I am highlighting. Your NPOV is very good in as much as I learn much about this "character" without having an opinion about it thrust at me. Again, this article does indeed meet with wikip's current criteria for inclusion, I am pointing out where I see potential for the project to be criticised. --HasBeen 08:34, 3 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I essentially agree with HasBeen's comment. There is recurring concern over the current close and rather arbitrary connection between FA and TFA that has everything to do with how FAC functions. And when it comes to articles where there is a clear commercial component, supporting a FAC nomination has to be considered an equally strong vote for main page exposure. As it is, we are regularly putting up what essentially amounts to choice Web advertising. The recently (and, IMO, entirely wrongly) promoted Apple Macintosh comes to mind; discussion is now going on whether or not to feature it on the "birthday of the Mac", or if that coincides to closely with a Mac convention... It may be hard to get to the fine points, but some "commercial" categories are no-brainers: working entertainers and their products (actors, musicians, movies, and so forth) and current brand-name products (electronic gadgets, software) are not "traditional" encyclopedia topics and don't have reasonable references by WP standards (mostly media reports and publicity material). While I believe we should DEFINITELY have topics in abundance on WP, sticking them in with the current rest of all knowledge on FAC, and then fast-tracking them to hundreds of thousands (or millions or whatever the daily traffic is) of public impressions, is...bizarre. We ought to be able to come up with some sort of provisional policy dealing with at least the obvious categories of commercial topic: WP won't die or even feel a thing if we don't put a few FAs on the front page... --Tsavage 00:28, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm sympathetic to Tsavage's argument; I think that commercial articles can be FA-worthy, but we want to make sure articles don't become advertising mechanisms... we don't want Microsoft to hire someone to work on Windows-related articles full-time and put Windows XP and Word 2003 on the front page every few days. Dave (talk) 00:44, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object--there is very little information in this article which does not come from sources pertaining to the company which makes the cards/games/etc. If we approve this, we will have to have hundreds of featured articles about individual pokemon as this template is filled into. This really isnt the best wikipedia can do. Although its not a bad overview of bulbasaur within the video game, there is little assertion of his importance outside of the video game. 69.22.42.35 09:53, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Are IPs allowed to vote? I'll respond anyway. Very little of it comes from Nintendo, the inventors of the game. Outaside the video game? See the 'in the anime' section and 'in other properties' please. And anyway, what's wrong with hundreds of Pokémon FAs in a year or 2s time? We ideally want all articles to ba FAs, surely? --Celestianpower háblame 11:17, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    In theory, yes. But why on earth would we want an article on Pokécruft to become an FA before something of the magnitude of Simone de Beauvoir or sewing? It's not like we have a lack of punters to write articles about minor details of pop culture and hyper-commercial products... / Peter Isotalo 14:07, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    I was waiting for the word "pokecruft" to rear its ugly head. "It's not on a subject I'm interested in" isn't an FA criteria. It gets 170,000 Google hits - it's definately notable. So that's a non-argument really. You can't say that "this isn't one of the best article on Wikipedia because it's about a Pokemon, can you?". --Celestianpower háblame 14:55, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    IP and other disqualified votes are not counted by the admin who finally wades through the debate to decide whether to promote this article to FA. There exists no Wikipedia guideline about what to do with them - leave them, strike them, remove them, etc. - but people tend to be touchy about altering other people's comments, so I'd leave it be. Regardless, that argument is bunk, per Celestianpower. I'd never touch a Pokémon article myself - but that's just my opinion and I have no right to strike down others just because I'm not interested. -Rebelguys2 17:46, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    I think the answer to Peter's criticisms would be to put effort into developing articles such as Simone de Beauvoir and sewing towards featured quality rather than complaining about "Pokécruft" making it to the Main Page. Extraordinary Machine 18:35, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Why should I? I already work on serious articles. And guess what? I find sewing pretty damned boring, and yet I don't call it cruft, because it isn't. Pokémon isn't cruft either, but writing about each inidiviudal character is. You know that as well as I do. But the one who gets the last laugh in all this is, of course, Pokémon Co. What toy maker wouldn't want this kind of coverage in a freee, non-profit encyclopedia? Peter Isotalo 11:57, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree that Wikipedia's coverage on some topics (such as Pokemon) is rather excessive and needs to be improved, but from my Pokemon experience, Bulbasaur is certainly one of the more significant characters in the Pokemon canon, if not one of the most important Pokemon after Pikachu. Extraordinary Machine 13:34, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Minor object.Bulbasaur appeared as a main character in Housoukyoku...., could you clarify that please, i.e. what on Earth is Housoykyoku? «LordViD» 13:57, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Okay - thatwas about the manga so I've removed it. --Celestianpower háblame 14:56, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Another thing, the ability listed, Overgrow, is taken from which Pokemon game? Or has bulbasaur's ability always been Overgrow? «LordViD» 15:07, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Ever since Abilities were introduced in Pokemon Gold and Silver it has been overgorw - now clarified in the article. --Celestianpower háblame 17:57, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Great, thanks. Support. «LordViD» 21:15, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Weak object. The images (apart from Image:Bulbasaur TCG.jpg) need fair use rationale, and the trading card image Image:Bulbasaur TCG.jpg appears to be bigger than the actual physical real-life trading cards (I used to collect them, I'm ashamed to say :)). Also, while this isn't part of the objection, I'd like to see some coverage of the real world impact of Bulbasaur. For example, has the character rank highly in surveys of Pokemon fans? Has there been anybody suggesting that Bulbasaur represents or characterises certain values/themes/etc., or possibly reflects events or people associated with the creator(s) of the character? Extraordinary Machine 18:35, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    No, the image is the same size (it was scanned).
    As to the others, I thought that screenshots, if low resolution and tagged correctly didn't need rationale - it was in the template.
    Okay - fair use rationale is on all the images. --Celestianpower háblame 12:42, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks. It's just that I've previously been instructed to add fair use rationale for every image, even if it repeats something in the image tag, as it makes a stronger claim of fair use that way. Anyway, I now withdraw my object vote. Good work! Extraordinary Machine 13:34, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Ken Livingstone, then United Kingdom Transport secretary, at the start of a meeting about the future of the London Circle line, says that he would trade a Geodude and Diglett for a Bulbasaur and a Charmander." This requires verification. ' 19:36, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Done - I forgot to add the link - it was in references. --Celestianpower háblame 20:44, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Support There are a number of objections to this article that all seem to be tiny, irrelevant factors. While many people may simply be opposed to having a Pokemon article featured, that's no grounds to come up with obscure reasons to object. - Cuivienen 23:03, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support I don't see too much wrong with this. Let alone all the bazillions of pokemon articles, this one has lots more to say about it, and there is definately more in this article than most of the others, is an interesting read, and is long enough (for me, at least) to be considered a featured. Well done! Toastypk 19:03, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, while short, I don't think it can be expanded without being really, really crufty, and it's bad enough as it is now. Still, a well-done article on a subject that deserves coverage. Tuf-Kat 08:09, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reluctant object—I really want to support, because I love WP's coverage of topics like this, but it's just too short for me. I know it's just one Pokemon out of many, but it seems to be a famous Pokemon, relatively speaking. It's one of the few Pokemon that I, as a non-fan, could recognize. I don't want to set a ridiculously high standard for length and have people being verbose and including every insignificant bit of detail to add on some length, but I think there is room for expansion here. If someone can convince me otherwise, I'll withdraw my vote. But even a few more paragraphs would probably suffice for me. Everyking 08:27, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I noticed a link here to an article about Bulbasaur on a Pokemon wiki. Could some info be derived from this source, or at least to develop some ideas about expansion? Everyking 08:39, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      Well, I'll try ;). That link that you said about Bulbapedia has a little bit of prose at the beginning but the rest is movesets, statistics tables and other fan-orientated information. I can however add some information from here perhaps as the information about May's Bulbasaur is limitted to 2 sentences. That'll add a paragraph or so.
      This isn't at all relevant but the reason I particularly get excited about this sort of article is because we're making the best information resource to be found anywhere on Bulbasaur, unlike topics like Quark which have had a myriad of essays and reports and investigations written on them. --Celestianpower háblame 10:57, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      I think that's the best I can do without delving into the subtrivial. --Celestianpower háblame 21:26, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. This is a pretty full article, very encyclopaedic, and definitely well-done. Also, it's good to see that even Pokémon have their place on Wikipedia. - CorbinSimpson 20:50, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Knowing a little bit about Pokémon, I can say that the major areas are covered in appropriate detail, without getting into Pokétrivia territory. Also, the Pokécruft objections don't satisfy me, as the topic is certainly notable, and the article is of excellent quality—systemic bias can be countered by making good articles of other more "global" subjects, not by shooting down great specialized articles. Just one request: can you make the text in the References section smaller (as done with Hurricane Dennis, for example)? Titoxd(?!? - help us) 04:11, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Very well done. Just a query: Why do you use external links in footnotes, when you already use inotes? For instance, you can move the external links to references and refer to it using inotes. --Pamri • Talk 17:54, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object:This article is far too short compared to every other fa. It only includes references to bulbasaur in the US games and other media. And even then it couldnt be considered NPOV by someone who had played ALL the games. Also the general quality of the writing is poor which is probably endemic of the fact that people under the age of 14 probably wrote most of this article. 64.134.168.123 15:28, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Again, IP votes?
    Too short has come up before. If you can think of anything to add then please tell me otherwise, it is comprehensive (which is the real FA criteria).
    Only in the US games? Well, we have mentioned all of the games available and all of the other media, I can't see any games thatI've missed. I live in the UK and there aren't any other games out here.
    Poor writing? I've had many very experienced editors copyedit this. Plus, saying the 14-year-olds write really badly is bordering on a personal attack. I'm 16 but many editors are youngere: and they're all very valuable members of the community. --Celestianpower háblame 17:35, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: The writing is quite excellent expository prose, and sounds no different from the Encyclopedia Britannica in most regards. When you say that 14-year-olds write badly, you clearly are generalizing based on your experiences with instant messanger programs and the "omfg can you believe she said that well i cant" crowd. I've been contributing for roughly a year now, and I can safely say that the kind of person that cares enough to write to Wikipedia is the kind of person who tends towards impressive grammar and brilliant prose. - CorbinSimpson 21:16, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: Well written, has sources, doesn't have any unnessicary filler, and is from a video game that, along with Mario and Zelda, is one of Nintendo's most popular series. The first game of that series, no less.Dr. B 00:59, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object Not confident in factual accuracy and proper use of cited sources. After two months in FAC, I find the process is not very rigorous, and the quality of articles being promoted is uneven and often not good at all. Nobody seems to want to seriously hold these things against the FA criteria... A too-obvious case in point, the final, crowning sentence of this article: "Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, said at the start of a meeting about the future of the London Circle line that he would trade a Geodude and Diglett for a Bulbasaur and a Charmander."4" is from a satirical take-off of a city council session. It's just a joke. With a mistake like that, every other single fact ought to be checked against its source before this goes near FA. No?
  • Also, referencing media as authorities in the lead in this way, According to CNN and Time magazine, Bulbasaur is considered one of the "lead critters" in the series.[1] is extremely dubious, and particularly considering that CNN cites its own sources in its article ("As any good "Pokédex" on the Web can tell you")... --Tsavage 05:09, 7 January 2006 (UTC) (addition by Tsavage 05:26, 7 January 2006 (UTC)) This has been on too long, I don't know if it applies any more as I've stopped following this FAC. --Tsavage 07:00, 21 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Well, firstly, I apologise for that Ken Livingstone bit, I should have read more of the article, not just do a google search and then in browser search for "Bulbasaur". The reference is still valid but needs its wording changed "The Guardian Newspaper referenced Bulbasaur in its satirical...".
  • As to CNN, the Pokedex says "A strange seed was planted on its back at birth. The plant sprouts and grows with this Pokémon." so that "reference" is moot. They were probably talking about some other site and mistaking it for a Pokedex (this for example).
  • As to a fact check, I have done that on everything else, before I added that citation so everything else should be kosher. --Celestianpower háblame 09:40, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • My basic points relevant to FAC have been missed in these replies. In the first instance, that even one bit of "fact" was added from a hastily done keyword search (which can be guessed, but then is confirmed here in Talk) casts doubt on the quality of all the material by that author. If a science paper in university was found to contain a piece of Star Trek science represented as real science, even if the paper got a passing grade, I doubt it would get an honors mark, which is what FA is (or claims to be). This isn't a personal attack on the author, it is a point of procedure. We're trying to vet articles to a high standard. Having every contribution by an author found to have made egregious mistakes should be explicitly checked and each citation explained in the article's Talk would be a reasonable academic vetting remedy. Accepting an, "Everything else is OK" for FA is weak, it's really a "whatever, you happy now" response to the original error.
In the second instance, use of popular news media as authorities is extremely questionable. If WP were a journalistic venture (which it acts more like, and perhaps should be styled towards), then citing other media as general reference would be OK. But media are really not reasonable, stable sources for anything but specific first hand reportage, like eyewitness descriptions, dates, times. Everything else is questionable. There are thousands of newspapers which have to publish every day, i.e. they have to fill up with something, word count can be as much a consideration as..."importance". Prominence of a paper is not enough, else the National Enquirer is just as valid a citable source as the New York Times (and WP does say the Enquirer is "well-regarded for its very thorough research", it must have something on Bulbasaur). "Trust" in the papers' standards is not enough: Didn't the NY Times publish a public apology for getting all of the US involvement in the Iraq war wrong? If the quote is meant to show that "Bulbasaur" is extremely popular, citing routine CNN.com and Time Asia articles (also, Time Asia is not the same as Time), and then quoting them as well, is wrong. And, my mention of CNN "citing" its source is not about whether that source is valid, "As any good "Pokédex" on the Web can tell you" indicates in ambiguous newspeak shorthand that this is a trivial fact that can be (and quite probably was) verified by a quick Google; IOW, the reporter didn't interview a cultural anthropologist who spent the last years studying Pokemon for this fact, he probably just googled for it himself. So here we'd be basing "verifiabilty" on sources simply because they have a big brandname in information products.
Also, the new version of the Ken Livingstone quote, In a Guardian Newspaper satire about Ken Livingstone Mayor of London, the writer references Bulbasaur as one of the Pokémon Ken wants to trade.[4] is even more meaningless now (is the Guardian a notable source of contemporary satire?). Might as well quote Bulbasaur haiku and limericks from the The Big Bulbasaur Book of Haiku and Limericks. --Tsavage 16:28, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Okay, let me see if I understand. You don't like the citation of the article in news sources. Few Pokemon do in fact appear on CNN and Time etc so I thought a mention would be good. When I was talking to someone about putting it in (a person with 4 FAs), he said it's good. But if I took these out, you still wouldn't support. You think that because I put in one of those references, you think that the whole article is tarnished and all of the facts are now ultimately very questionable. I can tell you that they aren't. I consider myself the most active editor of Pokemon articles here at Wikipedia so have picked up an awful lot of knowledge on the subject and everything in there is correct. I can even get someone else to come and say the same if you like. The fact that things get put into Wiki articles that are not true, misguided or misleading is all a part of the cause. Just because this happened here doesn't mean that the whole article is now worthless. --Celestianpower háblame 16:50, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • No, one error of course doesn't make the article useless. And it's an interesting and readable piece. And I wasn't even going to vote on Bulbasaur until I found that big error (the kind of thing that would go down great on the front page), because I don't find FAC to be very effective as is, and I figured this would make FA so why bother even delving deeper, the superficial "real criteria" of passable writing and citations and lots of voting support seem to've been met -- any "deeper" problems would likely be ignored unless others happened to chime in... But, I did vote. And if you're worried about my vote, don't, it probably won't matter in the arbitration of consensus, because it will likely be found to deal with "minor", "easily remedied" things. But no, one error doesn't make the article worthless. In this case, however, the Livingstone error should disqualify this FAC nomination, because it puts the article's stability in question. FAC is supposed to be a review, not an intense peer-assisted rewrite session. "Rewrite anything and everything" shouldn't fit under "addressing actionable objections", the interpretation of that is far too loose. The shortening of the candidacy to one week from two seems to indicate this intention. Yet here, we have over 80 edits logged since the nom date. Even if they're one-word edits, that's still a lot of adjustment to something that was supposed to be ready to go on nom. In fact, (I find now) the source of my objections weren't even in the original nominated version. The Livingstone quote wasn't there, and the CNN quote was MUCH better presented at that time as well, less vague, given a plausible context that seems suitable for this type of current, pop topic: " On 5 October 1999, CNN cites Bulbasaur as a one of the "lead critters" of the series [1], in their article about the banning of Pokémon cards in schools.". So you must see my point: with lots of changes going on, big errors creeping in, and the like, it's not stable, it should be out of this FAC nom. And this, IMHO, is a result of the way FAC is being handled, where it is perceived that you can get a good peer-review from editors who may not have wanted to participate in an actual peer review for a particular article... In fact, mass changes under pressure almost inevitably lead to shoddy writing and worse. Bulbasaur may've been better when it came into FAC, but that's certainly not a reason for promotion, and as one reviewer, I have to question everything based on Livingstone and CNN. I'm not acting as some sort of academic detective, I just read what's there... (A reasonable limit to the number of changes before an article is considered "changed from nom" is perhaps a good FAC guideline.) Another interesting stat: about 50% of the Support votes were made on Dec-29 (the nom date), after which, over 50 edits were made...do those original votes apply to the new and improved version...--Tsavage 17:49, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Question I'm not quite clear as to the editorial meaning of subtrivial. Shouldn't articles stop at or about the simply trivial (as in, of little significance)? --Tsavage 17:21, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know - that's just the word that we tend to use on-wiki. --Celestianpower háblame 17:28, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ambi, I noticed that too, and I'm going th ave a little fiddle with it, try and fix it up. It appears to meet all the featured article criteria (to my untrained eye), and has my Support. As an aside, this, in my personal opinion, is the best Pokemon article I've seen on Wikipedia. -- Saberwyn - 05:40, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strenuously object: Clearly the best pokemon character article on wikipedia but no where near among the best wikipedia has to offer. There is just an inherent limitation on the article's quality when all of the information comes from Nintendo publications. If we approve this article, in one month half of the featured articles will be about pokemon. I do not mean this is offence to people who wrote the article, but this exact template of the article could be mapped onto the articles of each of the hundreds of pokemon and then they would be "featured article quality". Having a complete run down of a subject does not necessarily qualify an article to be featured. There's just nothing special here. Savidan 08:36, 16 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, to be honest, a lot of Pokémon articles could never become featured as there is much less to write about them. They can all become good, but not all featured. Plus, it's taken a lot of work to get this article from WP:PAC/S standard to Featured standard and I don't think I could do it for many more. I'm thinking Charizard would be next on my list but that won't be for a while. I doubt that in a month, there would be any more Pokémon featured articles at all, even if this goes through. --Celestianpower háblame 23:05, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, however, more should be said about Bulbasaur's evolution ritual, called the mysterious garden. Otherwise, I don't see anything really warranting editing. Also, you should say more about Bulbasaur's role in other video games besides red, blue, and yellow.

Bibliomaniac15 22:37, 18 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ObjectComment (Oh, well...) I withdrew my initial objection, but reread this article just now for different reasons, and I'd feel hypocritical if I didn't point out:

  • A central problem here is that the Pokemon game which is the context for Bulbasaur is neither established nor explained - It is apparently assumed that "everyone knows about Pokemon". This is not the reality. Scrutiny of the article, first of the summary, and then, the rest, reveals no contextual explanation of Pokemon. IOW, what the hell is Bulbasaur? A character in a game? What type of game, what's that about? I'm not suggesting that what Pokemon is ought to be explained in depth in Bulbasaur, simply that it should be...included. (Yes, perhaps this ISN'T necessary, a link to Pokemon is enough. But, barring convincing arguments otherwise, I'd tend to think that a self-contained Pokemon character article must contain a basic explantion of what Pokemon is (this could take all of one or two sentences).--Tsavage 06:51, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Opening paragraph explains it enough to me. A fictional character/appears in games/anime..wikilinks to relevent articles are there for anyone who wishes to read further. Forever young 13:22, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I have to agree with Tsavage. There needs to be more contextual background on Pokemon, preferably in the introductory paragraph. I added 'video game' but I'm not sure that's appropriate since Pokemon is also an anime. Gflores Talk 18:02, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Follow this "no context" view further, and a fair percentage of the article starts to sound quite bizarre. Because it is generally well-written, and loosely establishes that this is game/fantasy topic, it's easy to lose critical focus on what it's actually saying. In fact, what do statements like this mean, in the absence of explicit context:
If the player chooses Bulbasaur, the player's rival will invariably choose Charmander, since Charmander has a type advantage over Bulbasaur. This seems an entirely unsupported conclusion. Invariably? Is this based on "commonly known" information? Is "type advantage" something like, say, natural selection (in fact, it turns out to be "the foundation of a complex yet mostly logical rock, paper, scissors-system that applies to every Pokémon and their respective moves")?
As Bulbasaur is a grass/poison type, his attacks are particularly effective against ground, rock and water Pokémon, but psychic, fire and flying attacks are particularly effective against it Really? Is this self-explanatory? What is a rock Pokemon...?
To relate this to the "FA rules", this is an issue of comprehensiveness, but even more with "staying tightly focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail". For example, it is one thing to say that a game character "can beat many other characters", even with some additional detail, but it's quite a jump to, out of the blue, "psychic, fire and flying attacks"... In a gamers' encyclopedia, the rules and reader expectation would be somewhat different, but here, IMO, there is a problem with control of relevant detail... Especially when other seemingly basic questions, like if it's a "lead critter" in the series, Why is Bulbasaur so popular? and How many Pokemon characters are there, anyhow? are encouraged but not answered... --Tsavage 21:27, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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