Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/KFC/archive3

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was not promoted by GrahamColm 10:03, 5 July 2013 (UTC) [1].[reply]

KFC[edit]

Nominator(s): Farrtj (talk) 15:13, 4 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have worked on the KFC page for over a year now, getting it from this [2] to this [3]. The article failed its last nomination due in part to a lack of support. The only real criticism of the article was that it did not utilise the book related sources that were available. As these sources were not available freely on Google Books, I applied for a small wikigrant from Wikimedia UK in order to purchase the relevant books. Quick disclaimer: I have never been affiliated with KFC or its parent company in any way, other than as a customer! Nor have any of my family or friends. Lets see if we can make KFC the first fast food featured article. Farrtj (talk) 15:13, 4 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comments: It is a pity, and disheartening, when a nomination has to wait for 16 days for its first comments. The article attracted quite a lot of comment at its last FAC, and I'm not sure why it should be disregarded now. It's an interesting enough subject. To try to get things moving I have looked through the early sections and have a few suggestions concerning the prose:

It should be made clearer in the lead when the name "Kentucky Fried Chicken" was first employed. The sentence "KFC was founded by Harland Sanders, who began selling fried chicken from his roadside restaurant in Corbin, Kentucky during the Great Depression" gives the impression that KFC began in the 1930s, but the article makes it clear that the name was coined in the 1950s.

I'd rather have a concise introduction than one that is overly detailed and weighed down with minutia. Plus, "Kentucky Fried Chicken" refers to two things: a product devised by Colonel Sanders and a company. The product itself began when Sanders began selling it. Technically the concept began in the 1930s. The 1950s saw the first independent franchise. Farrtj (talk) 20:47, 20 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"...as it went through a series of corporate owners" – I think a more correct wording would be "as it went through a series of changes of corporate ownership"

I disagree.Farrtj (talk) 10:53, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Then I suggest you reconsider. Your phrasing is loose; businesses do not go through owners, they go through changes in ownership. FAC requires prose of a professional standard. Brianboulton (talk) 08:19, 23 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Changed.Farrtj (talk) 15:57, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"...a signature of the chain since being introduced by franchisee Pete Harman" – a date should be given here

Done.Farrtj (talk) 10:54, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"across the street" twice in quick succession in the first "Origins" paragraph

Sorted.Farrtj (talk) 10:56, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Made-up composite words such as "production-time-reducing" do your prose no favours. What's wrong with: "As well as reducing production time to be comparable with deep frying..."

Done.Farrtj (talk) 11:44, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Something wrong with the punctuation and construction here: "The take-out concept grew as Americans became more prosperous: choosing to buy meals outside the home more frequently, and was complimented by the growing television culture." A possible reconfiguration: "As Americans became more prosperous and chose to eat out more frequently the take-out concept grew, complemented [note spelling] by the growing television culture".

sorted.Farrtj (talk) 12:18, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

After first mention, Pete Harman should remain just "Harman" – you have him several times as "Pete Harman" again.

Sorted.Farrtj (talk) 10:39, 28 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Brown later claimed that Sanders had lost interest in the business operations of KFC, and persuaded him to buy the company". This needs better explanation, and the word "claimed" is misused. Something like this: "According to Brown, Sanders had lost interest in the business operations of KFC, and suggested that Brown should buy the company". You then need to say how and by whom it was decided that Massey should acquire a 60% share, otherwise it all looks very ad hoc.

Done.Farrtj (talk) 13:14, 28 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I hope these comments are helpful. I may not have time to continue this review, but hopefully someone else will. I will, however, do the sources review. Brianboulton (talk) 19:11, 20 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sources review

I have only done the first column so far. A couple of general points:

Where you have multiple references to a book, it would help considerably if the book details were given once, in a bibliography, and short citations used. Your references list is dreadfully cluttered with information repeated over and over again.
If you cite a newspaper or journal without an online link, you should provide a page number.

I believe this to discouraged on Wikipedia (at least in some quarters), as different editions of a daily newspaper might put the same article on a different page.Farrtj (talk) 20:49, 20 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Farrtj is right - WP:CITEHOW#Newspaper articles states that page numbers are optional. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 10:53, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The MOS guidelines says that page numbers are optional, but the practice at FAC has long been to include them. They greatly assist newspaper searches, especially when the papers or journals run to dozens of pages. The off-chance that a later edition might shift the article to a different location isn't a good enough reason for not including them at all. Brianboulton (talk) 08:33, 23 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

A large number of my newspaper article sources come from the database LexisNexis, which never gives page numbers for its newspaper sources. So rather than have most of my newspaper references not have page numbers, and some that do, which is inconsistent, which is certainly something that ought to be avoided as per Wikipedia:CONSISTENCY, I have provided no page numbers for newspapers.Farrtj (talk) 10:35, 28 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Individual issues:

Ref 5: links to an unrelated page

The link has been removed.Farrtj (talk) 18:15, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ref 6: page numbers required

Sorted.Farrtj (talk) 16:07, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ref 8: Worldcat gives the ISBN for this book as 978-08841-9053-0. Page numbers should be given for each of the references to this book

Sorted.Farrtj (talk) 16:02, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ref 10: page number?
Ref 19: page numbers?
Ref 30: Is "People" a print source? If not, it should not be italicized

Yes it is.Farrtj (talk) 12:23, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ref 34 needs better formatting so that the nature and origin of the source is clear

Sorted.Farrtj (talk) 16:12, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ref 35: page number?
Ref 40: This source requires a subscription

done.Farrtj (talk) 12:43, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ref 44: page number?
Ref 47: This source requires article purchase

sortedFarrtj (talk) 12:43, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ref 52: page number?
Ref 55: publisher information missing

Sorted.Farrtj (talk) 12:44, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ref 57: requires isssue number and date

sorted.Farrtj (talk) 12:25, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ref 59: title of Daily Mirror article?

It doesn't have one.Farrtj (talk) 12:25, 22 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ref 64: page number?
Ref 70: page number?
Ref 72: page number?

I'll continue with the sources review as soon as I can.

Comment : I GA reviewed this article, and it passed, so I don't feel it's right for me to decide whether or not to list this as a FA, but I'm happy to run through the article again, and my previous comments at the GA review, to see if anything is relevant. One quick comment I do want to make is I'm still not really comfortable with "$4.5 billion ($6,435,634,328 in 2013 dollars)" - I recall we decided it wasn't a deal-breaker to pass GA, but I feel different for FA. When large financial figures are given, such as the public company evaluation figure presented here, they are highly unlikely to be accurate to the nearest penny, and doing an exact conversion is misleading. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 10:53, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have removed the 6.5 billion dollar guesstimate.Farrtj (talk) 11:03, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ah no, that's not quite what I was getting at. The idea is that it's useful to know roughly how much $4.5bn is in today's money so the casual reader has an understanding of how much money's involved. WP:MOSNUM#Large numbers doesn't directly say anything about converted figures, but it does state that they're assumed to be approximations - so how about "$4.5 billion ($6.4 billion in 2013 dollars)"? Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 12:39, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Just one comment from me. This is a very minor nitpick, but I have an issue with the logo caption in the infobox. "The 2006-present logo" doesn't read that well to me or sound very good coming off the tongue. May I suggest something else, like "The logo used since 2006" or something, or is there a certain guideline for such captions? T C N7JM 11:47, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Looking further down in the article, there's another image caption that does the same type of thing. It just doesn't look or sound right. T C N7JM 11:51, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've changed the first caption, but I think the second caption is fine as it is.Farrtj (talk) 12:04, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - Another nitpick from yours truly. The lead says that the chain expanded internationally to England, Mexico and Puerto Rico. How is Puerto Rico considered international? It is a commonwealth of the United States. T C N7JM 10:40, 28 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I'll change the wording from "internationally" to "overseas".Farrtj (talk) 13:12, 28 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Leaning to oppose: I do not wish to oppose this article, but there are several points raised by me earlier in the review that are answered unsatisfactorily or not at all:

Prose: I pointed out a prose error in the lead - "it went through a series of corporate owners". Businesses do not go through owners. A simple change of "owners" to "ownerships" would suffice, but the nominator's dogmatic refusal to recognise this and effect the change makes we dubious about the standards of prose likely to be found in the rest of the article.

I would be dissapointed if you were to write off an entire article due to its introduction. I have changed the intro wording now.Farrtj (talk) 10:24, 28 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ref 8 has 14 unpaged references to a book. This is not acceptable at FAC. No effort appears to have been made to address this.

I will need time to do this, as obviously I will have to re-read the source material in order to find out the page numbers.Farrtj (talk) 10:24, 28 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Ok I've sorted this one out with page numbers now.Farrtj (talk) 14:18, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Page numbers in newspaper/journal references: It has long been the practice at FAC to require page numbers for cited newspaper and magazine articles. This is of assistance to anyone searching for the sources, and there is no valid reason why they should not be given. The fact that MOS says that they are optional is not a reason for omitting them.

This will take an inordinate amount of time to do.Farrtj (talk) 10:24, 28 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I will complete the sources review when these points have been addressed. Brianboulton (talk) 14:41, 27 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Leaning to oppose :Okay, so it seems that page numbers are a point of contention. I agree that book sources have to have page numbers - I managed to talk my way round a GA review failing once because I only provided chapter numbers, and if it was contentious at GA, it's sure as hell going to be for FA. I'm a little more ambivalent about the newspaper references. On the one hand, MOS explicitly says they are optional. On the other, the point has been given that many other FAC reviews use them since we need to be able verify everything here, which suggests they should be mandatory in the MOS requirements.

It would be a shame to have to come back to FA review #4 just because physically accessing the source to get the page numbers is a ball-ache, but FA is supposed to represent the crème de la crème of Wikipedia after all. There's also the unfinished issue regarding financial estimates as mentioned upthread. Ritchie333 ^(talk) ^(cont) 13:11, 28 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose The 'operations' section remains unbalanced. For instance, the 840 stores in the UK and Ireland still get three paragraphs, while the 700 stores in South Africa (also an English-speaking country) receive half a sentence. Nick-D (talk) 03:42, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have now expanded the South African section, but bear in mind that the UK and South African markets are not directly comparable. KFC only returned to SA in 1994, whereas it has operated continuously in the UK since 1965. That means there is a lot more to say about the history of KFC in the UK than in SA.Farrtj (talk) 10:54, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Given that the material you just added states that KFC attempted to dodge the sanctions against doing business in apartheid South Africa, I imagine that there's lots more to say on the topic. This seems a rather larger scandal than the short-lived and trivial legal disputes with a couple of British restaurants which gets a para. Nick-D (talk) 11:15, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Actually you're wrong. What KFC did was standard practice among American companies, and isn't particularly notable. PepsiCo did the same thing for example.Farrtj (talk) 19:18, 30 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

More comments - I have gone through the article and made a couple of minor corrections. For future reference, in full location names, commas are supposed to come after state names, and "east of the Mississippi" was accidentally linked to the state of Mississippi. Somebody else may want to go through the rest of the article and see if there are any more links directing the reader to the incorrect page. T C N7JM 16:29, 29 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Closing note: This candidate has been archived, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Graham Colm (talk) 19:30, 4 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.