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Greetings! I recall that you did a thorough proof-read of the LSWR N15 class article during its FA nomination some time back, and am wondering whether you would like to have a look at this article, which is currently under Peer Review? Thanks, --Bulleid Pacific (talk) 00:07, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

No need to apologise for correcting my mistakes or when I've worsened the prose! Revert and correct at will. Colin°^Talk 22:53, 26 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• Colin, I'm so grateful for your help with this difficult article. :-) Graham. Graham Colm ^Talk 23:05, 26 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Graham, many thanks for the unique barnstar. I'm really very touched. I've identified rotavirus and Hep C, but what's the orange coral-like image? BTW: I found the "No higher resolution available." statement below the image-page amusing and apt. Colin°^Talk 21:30, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Colin, it's an anaerobic bacterium called actinomyces. I know we haven't worked on this one, but I wanted to include a bacterium in the barnstar but I did not want to give you gonorrhoea :-) Graham Colm ^Talk 21:46, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I should hope not! Now let's keep this clean or Sandy will be along to tell us off like a couple of naughty schoolboys. Colin°^Talk 22:00, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If we are lucky, she is not watching :-) Graham. Graham Colm ^Talk 22:22, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I steel myself to begin reading over 50 FACs, and the first words I encounter on the page are about green pus ??? Trust you to start me off laughing ... SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:52, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Green pus is good. It is a sign of a life. I'm sorry to have added to the (too) long a list— but duty calls. Content, and especially FA level content, is why we spend so long working here. All I have to offer in my defence is that my contributions may be pus and pooh to you, but they are intellectual bread and butter to me. Affection, Graham. Graham Colm ^Talk 20:18, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for submitting Phagocyte for FA. I apologize for not doing this sooner. My excuse is, well, I did not have access to internet over the weekend, but I probably would have waited until the very last second to submit (regardless of if I had connection or not because of my constant worrying). Thanks for pushing me forward. --Eulemur2008 (talk) 22:41, 29 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Eulemur, it had be nominated this week because I have taken leave from the lab to look after you and the article. Don't be too quick to respond to any advice at the FAC; it might not be good advice and (though I am sure you will not) don't take any negative comments personally. Be polite to the reviewers for without their comments we will not succeed. Most important of all - don't worry, all the hardest work has been done. Best wishes, Graham. Graham Colm ^Talk 12:24, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I respect not trying to list all of the problems with prose, but it's generally unhelpful to get vague notions of poor prose without at least a couple of examples. If I have no idea what you are looking at then I cannot possibly fix it. Most of the prose hasn't been touched in awhile, so I'm sure it could use some assistance. Nevertheless, some people say there are prose issues when there is actually just confusion over events (i.e. someone close to the project doesn't realize that a particular point was not explained well for those who know nothing about it), while other times there are real issues with grammer, sentence structure, or just basic flow of text. Without some form of example I cannot fix the problem, and "find a third-party editor" doesn't always fix the issue either (especially if it takes half a year to get a copy editor to the article). So, I respectfully request that you come back to the FAC and provide me with some form of assistance so that I can better understand your qualms with the prose.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 19:31, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

• I understand your frustration. The FAC is on my Watchlist, let's see what other reviewers have to say. I am not going to be drawn into listing all the faults, it would take too much of my time, and it is unfair of you to ask. Graham Colm ^Talk 20:07, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't want "all", I don't even want "a lot". I was merely requesting a couple of examples (maybe from broad sides of the spectrum), so that I have an idea of what the overall problem is. If I see an example of what you're saying, then I know what to look through the rest of the article for.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 20:46, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • I see another reviewer has provided some examples, and these a just from the Lead. Graham Colm ^Talk 21:09, 30 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
    • Don't know if you've been busy, but I've made my (first) full sweep of the article. I wonder if you'd mind taking a gander at the edits (I provided a full diff at the FAC) to see if I'm at least hitting the mark with most of your concerns.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 21:25, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Bignole, I have been very busy, but both your article and its FAC are on my watchlist. I saw your copy edits, and you are getting close to the mark. I did, however, notice earlier this evening, that another reviewer questioned the standard of the prose in a section of the article. I keep all FACs that I have commented on (and the article) on my watchlist until Sandy, Raul, or Karranas promotes or archives (and often much longer). Best wishes, Graham. Graham Colm ^Talk 21:39, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If there are "so many" problem with the prose, maybe you could just start a thread on the talk page and start listing issues. I'm sorry, and this is not personal, but these vague notions are not helpful at all. The FAC process is clear that all concerns must be detailed and I had to wrestle just a few issues out of you (which only came after another editor pointed out some issues). All I see is you picking up a couple of issues from one section and applying it to the entire article. I'm sorry, but that is not productive for me or the article.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 13:59, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The FAC instructions say "a specific rationale that can be addressed" they do not say "all concerns must be detailed". My objection was based on Criterion 1a, in that the prose was not up to FA standard and required copy-editing by a third party and this is a specific rationale that can be addressed. There has been a discussion on this [1]. My comment about "so many" problems, was in an edit summary after the FAC was closed, where I corrected a few more mistakes in an effort to help demonstrate the issues.Graham Colm ^Talk 15:02, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

But again, it's vague. You corrected 3 things, one of this was merely a word I left out when I rewrote the sentence and another being slightly subjective. You then proceeded to label the whole page a problem based on that. Getting you to acknowledge problem areas is like pulling teeth. You say the prose is bad for the whole article, so I c/e the whole article (incidentally creating a couple of new problems when I leave out a word). You've never gone back to the FAC to respond directly to the changes. You haven't acknowledged anything that was constructively done to address your concerns (i.e. You finally pointed to the plot section after requests for examples, and never bothered to say if that has been fixed to your liking). To me, it feels like you haven't read the entire page since the first time (not sure if you read it all then, or just stopped after the plot section). I say this because your edits today were to the Merchandise section, which was the section someone brought up before I finished c/eing the article. I acknowledged that I needed to go through it again (it's not perfect the first time, and I had to even correct one of your edits that changed the meaning of the sentence in the lead paragraphs). But seems more like I'm fighting an uphill battle with you, instead of a natural cooperative relationship that Wikipedia is supposed to be about. But, if that's how you prefer to operate, fine. I'll do it on my own then.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 15:18, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For goodness sake calm down, the FAC was was closed because the article was not ready to be promoted. I didn't close the nomination. I know it is a big disappointment for you but it is not my fault and FA reviewers are not obliged nor encouraged to fix articles. Graham Colm ^Talk 15:26, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think you misunderstand both my tone and my "disappointment". I don't care that it was closed beyond the "I guess I'll have to do it again later" feeling. My disappointment is just over your actions, or lack there of. Everyone else, for the most part, tried to identify their concerns at least in a "generalized specificity" (i.e. They didn't list everything, but they did provide examples of problems in sections they read and followed up with those concerns when addressed). They pointed to things that were unclear, poorly worded, etc. You, on the other hand, chose to say the whole article was a mess but not provide any actual evidence to support it. You pointed to a couple of things in one section, that was it. In the world of statistics, you just attempted to take a sample of one town and generalize to an entire state with nothing to back it up. I did not ask you to fix anything, so that is neither here nor there. You are required to read the whole article if you are going to make a claim about the entire article, and I do not feel that you did that. I came to you respectfully multiple times to either assist me in understanding your concerns or review the changes made to the article to see if they addressed those concerns you never detailed. The first time I came was to request some examples of your concerns, which you basically took as me saying "Please list every minute thing you see wrong". Then you point to another editor's lead concerns (which were not that horrible) as justification that the whole article has problems. Finally you provide a couple of plot confusion problems (not really a grammatical issue). Once I've c/e'd the whole article (which, you apparently watchlist but never returned to acknowledge the changes) I asked if you've take a look at it again (which is actually the correct thing to do when reviewers have not been on the page in awhile). Your responses were, "I have it on my watchlist" or "someone else brought up concerns". Not only did you deflect the responsibilities of seeing if I address any issues you saw, but you apparently did not even recognize that the other reviewers concerns were before I had even finished the first c/e. This is my last statement, because I don't want to continue to bother you with this any further, but I felt like you disrespected this FAC with half-hearted efforts to acknowledge anything that actually happened with the article by deflecting everything onto someone else (e.g., Another editor left some comments, or let's see what others say) instead of just answering the questions I asked you personally. Maybe this is all because you have your own FAC that opened on the same day and you were/are busy with that. I don't know, and probably won't know. I merely wanted to inform you of my concerns over your specific actions with the FAC. Cheers, and have a good weekend.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 15:51, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Accepted! I apologize for berating you about your review as well. As frustrated as I felt, it wasn't my place to criticize your reviewing efforts. I would love additional feedback, because I find that many things can still be clarified (just check the article's talk page and you'll see there was an issue with "counselor", as it's not a term really recognized in the UK beyond someone who is a psychiatrist or therapist).  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 17:10, 5 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding your comment in opposition to date autoformatting, I'd like to point out that date autoformatting and date autolinking are two different things. It's possible to autoformat dates without having them be linked, and vice versa. The syntax for doing so is more complicated than it otherwise needs to be, and some developers would like to simplify things so it's easier to have autoformatting without autolinking (or both, or neither.) --Sapphic (talk) 00:40, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sapphic, thanks for this clarification, but I still think it's a waste of editors' time given that the vast majority of readers do not have accounts and no-one knows how many that have tick their no preference box. Graham Colm ^Talk 11:17, 1 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I can understand the "putting markup around dates is too much effort" argument (though I don't agree with it) and if you still feel that way in light of the fact that the proposed replacement software (which is what the poll is actually asking about, if you can decipher the jargon) would allow unregistered readers to see a consistent date format (site-wide or specified per-article) then I'd ask that you clarify your reasoning on the poll page, so that people won't end up arguing over whether you were "fully informed" or not. Cheers, --Sapphic (talk) 06:46, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You commented against someone who wrote "oppose has same initials as WP:OR which is prohibited here. Carlossuarez46 (talk) 20:56, 1 April 2009 (UTC)". I find it utterly hilarious, by the way. Don't worry about me. I know exactly where people would stand on me, who to expect to appear, and I have a strong belief that these voting columns are going to pass over 100. Hell, the campaigning by various members of Wikipedia Review against me will be sure to bring out a crowd. Just enjoy the show. As I stated, I won't badger people who oppose. If they have some legitimate concerns, I will contact them about it. As you can see, I don't have any life or death need for the tools, and I am perfectly content with the power I have in other projects. Could I benefit from them? Sure. By enough to make it utterly important? Nah. But to be honest, no one could really benefit that much from them. :) Ottava Rima (talk) 00:43, 2 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there, I've been messing with your lead diff. Please see these changes as suggestions and revert any you disagree with. All the best Tim Vickers (talk) 16:46, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Tim, your edits are very helpful and the lead is better. Someone might ask for reference for the "oxidative burst", but his will be a doddle. The FAC is going slowly but well. Thanks again. Graham. Graham Colm ^Talk 17:22, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Added a review, just on the off-chance. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:06, 3 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well done! Colin°^Talk 18:42, 7 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh my, after all these months, books, photocopied papers and drawing diagrams. I didn't spot this. So many thanks to you, Colin, for all your indispensable help; it is your FA star as much as Eulemur's and mine. Graham. Graham Colm ^Talk 18:51, 7 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well thanks for putting up with me! Your generous attribution is too much, though. You guys supplied the content. Anyway, my bronze star is bigger than yours :-) Colin°^Talk 19:46, 7 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for "butting in" at my talk; it's helpful when others respond to those queries. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:47, 4 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I responded to your comment at the FAC page for History of the Han Dynasty. I truly understand the concern; I'm still making efforts to reduce the article's prose size. However, it's very tricky, because in a lot of cases it entails rewording sentences rather than removing them altogether. It's hard to judge at this point what can be regarded as extraneous, since much of the "extra fat" in the prose has already been cut by User:Nlu and I in a wave of copy-edits last month. Perhaps you could suggest something that needs to be either reworded or cut? I ask this because I honestly don't know what else to cut without hurting the flow and clarity of the article. Thanks.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 21:17, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is a difficult because this interesting subject is completely new to me. My gut reaction is to suggest simply dividing it into two articles straight down the middle; "History of the Western Han Dynasty" and "History of the Eastern Han Dynasty". I know that this would probably mean sacrificing this FAC, but who knows, two FAs might result! As I say, this not something I know anything about and you might think this is a ridiculous idea, if so please forgive my ignorance. Bye the way, the article is beautifully written on the whole. Graham. Graham Colm ^Talk 22:52, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it is an ignorant idea at all; it does make logical sense to make such a split considering the interruption of the Han Dynasty by Wang Mang's brief regime. However, in addition to what you've already mentioned about this article's current featured candidate status, another reason it would bad to split the article is the fact that it is already a branch article of Han Dynasty. I think it would be a bit excessive to make branch articles of branch articles. That might make it a bit too confusing for the readers who want to know where they can locate everything.--Pericles of Athens^Talk 23:13, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK, you are the expert, but the second half of the article would only be one mouse click away. Graham. Graham Colm ^Talk 23:23, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

		Civility Award
		Your responses at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Phagocyte have set the new standard for civility among FAC nominators. Thank you for providing such a wonderful example to new and experienced editors at FAC. Karanacs (talk) 16:10, 7 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, thanks Karanacs - I'm lost for words :-) Graham Colm ^Talk 16:14, 7 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Graham No offense taken but shouldn't one at least get a week or two to clear up the issues? Over a hundred edits have been make in the last 24 hours.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 21:12, 7 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi James, I only gave my opinion and advice, I don't archive or promote FACS—in fact I don't know how to. There is no shame in withdrawing and re-nominating later. To be blunt, I also think the med project has really let you down. Is this your first FAC? I don't know, but my first one was a bloody disaster, and entirely my fault. My the rush to improve the article, and dare I say impress others, made matters worse. It took me a year to finally get the coveted star. Having said this, an Oppose is not always permanent. But, I think Obesity does not fulfill the FA criteria. If you can address all the issues— I suspect there will be more—within a week or two or three, (there is no time limit on FACS), then I will so happilly change my mind and support. Sincerely, my best wishes, Graham. Graham Colm ^Talk 21:37, 7 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Understand. To tell you the truth I do not think it is up to FA right now either. I was mainly looking for advice and this is the best way to get it. Have tried peer review but that doesn't get much interest. I do not think many of the current medicine FA are up to FA status, but that is another issue. Thanks for the comments. Cheers --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:44, 7 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Graham, Thank you very much for all of the help; "Phagocyte" could not have made FA without it. This project was at first intimidating, but with the help of kind people on wikipedia (such as you) I was able to make it through alive. It was a pleasure working with you. This is an experience that I definitely will not forget. Noah. --Eulemur2008 (talk) 23:14, 7 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]