User:Ramkarlo82/What does it take for an FA?

What does it take for an article to become a featured article? As we Wikipedians know, featured articles (the ones that reflect Wikipedia's best work) must be comprehensive. Such articles must mention all major facts about the subject, with every single vital detail included. This criterion, along with some others, is needed for an article to be featured, to be part of the 1 in 1,040 (as of November 2024) club, and to be eligible for appearing on the Main Page as Today's featured article. This essay deals with the path to featured articles (as I have observed by checking through reading past nominations and viewing the article's histories) and also lays down my personal experiences as an editor (joined September 2024) who aims to have an article become a featured article.

The way to FA

But how does an article get there? It needs the collective effort of editors with featured article status as the goal. (It will help if you ask for a peer review or consult the correct WikiProject, but read below for my personal experience.) Let's say you're one of those editors. Sure, some tasks are easy to do and could take just minutes up to a few hours. This may include copyediting or aligning the article with the manual of style. Or perhaps adding citations to reliable sources for unsourced statements marked with . Done with the little tasks? Good. Now, your next task is to actually expand it to ensure no facts are missing.

Finding all the factual details requires you to do extensive research. It is easy to compile all the relevant literature that contains these details. It just takes using the "double quotes" search parameter to force only web pages that mention the subject. On Google, you can filter it further by News or Books (and even Google Scholar, though on a separate URL). Afterwards, once you know the common sources discussing a subject, you can compare them with a list of reliable sources like this or check their reliability yourself. After that, you reach the next phase, perhaps the most time-consuming: reading every piece of reliable literature you have found, listing every detail fit for the encyclopedia. This may sometimes be in the hundreds but may also reach the thousands.

Seriously, this will take a lot of time! Soon, you may notice that you have become so invested in writing down all the details of the subject. You may notice that your featured article goal is becoming the primary focus of your life. This can disproportionately affect other aspects of your life that are more important, such as work, school, or family. And even your own health! You might lose focus on what is more important, and others may even see you as obsessed with the subject. More so if, at the moment, you happen to be improving an article by yourself.

Personal experience

In fact, I am experiencing such a situation right now. I initially joined Wikipedia to edit grammatical errors in articles and give them a more encyclopedic tone. As time passed, I gave myself my first project: improving an entire article about a topic I am interested in. That article is Glaiza de Castro, a Filipino actress and singer. I aim to nominate it for a good article first before going for a featured article nomination. After doing the copyediting and fixing the formatting, since no one else has attempted this as a project before (per a search for what links to the article on the user namespace), I have been taking this by myself so far.

As of my writing, I have only read through 10 of the roughly 2,000 news articles (I have found almost no books or academic papers) about de Castro that exist from reliable sources in the Philippines. Unthankfully, as I continue my journey, I have noticed that I am losing my focus on academics and other extracurricular activities. I have devoted less time to studying and more time to improving the article. It has come to the point that some of my friends have questioned whether I am obsessed with the subject.

I could have just requested a peer review, but to do so, the article must be "free of major cleanup banners". The article I am working on does indeed have the {{Update}} template (in the Acting career section), which is a cleanup banner, making the article ineligible for a peer review. Being honest about the article's state is better than not adding the template. Honesty is the best policy! I could have also shared it with participants of relevant WikiProjects, but then the burden would just be transferred to the receiving editor(s), and then this essay would also begin to be relevant to them.

Conclusion

So what is the best thing to do? Take a Wikibreak! As long as the article you're working on does not meet the criteria for deletion, there is no need to worry about it going away. Take your time, be disciplined, prioritise what is more important, and remember that anyone can help with your goal while busy.