Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Academy/Writing Featured Articles

Decided to shoot for Featured Article class? Congrats! Featured Article class, or FA-class for short, are the most decorated articles on Wikipedia. Writing a Featured Article can be the most demanding and most rewarding experience on Wikipedia. Because of the high demands for quality during a Featured Article Candidacy it often takes a contributor several months to get an article up to Featured status, and those who have worked the hardest on the article often grow more knowledgeable in the article's subject area during the process due to the amount of research that goes into bringing the article up to acceptable standards.

By assessment standards, Featured Articles are the finest group of articles on Wikipedia; this helps make them prized articles on Wikipedia, and because of this they are held to the highest standards for excellence in writing and are entitled to two unique privileges: firstly, all Featured Articles display a bronze star in the article space, which denotes to our readers and visitors that the article holds Featured status; secondly, Featured Articles are the only articles permitted to appear on the main page as Today's Featured Article.

As well as these two distinctions, the user/s most responsible for bringing an article to Featured Status gain/s a position on a list of users with FA-class articles under their belts. Writing an FA-class article also demonstrates your contributing ability to the community, which in turn can earn an FA-class writer additional support if the user decides to run for adminship or coordinatorship.

The path to Featured Article class

The path to Featured Article class starts when a user decides to make the commitment to bring an article up to the current required standards. If the article is at Stub or Start-class, they can begin the push for Featured status by looking to get the article up to B-class. B-class is the gate through which those who endeavor to bring an article up to Featured class should first pass; most articles that hold GA-class, A-class, and FA-class rankings started out as B-class articles that adequately fulfilled all requirements placed on them by the B-class assessment criteria. These criteria can be found on the {{WPMILHIST}} template on the article's talk page, or in the assessment department run by Milhist. Essentially, a B-class article must meet the following criteria:

Citation and referencing

The first of these five points relates to citation and referencing. All points of the article in question must be adequately cited and referenced before the article will be permitted to move up to B-class. By project standards, this means that there is at least one citation per paragraph in all paragraphs in the article, and that all citation in the reference/notes sections are cited to reliable sources as defined at Wikipedia:Reliable Sources. Additional citations may be required for information if the information appears questionable or if it is likely to be challenged. More information in citations and referencing as it related to the Military history Project can be found in the sourcing and citation section of the Military history Project Manual of Style.

Coverage

The second of these five points related to the coverage of the material in question. The coverage in the article must touch on all aspects on the material covered in a way which gives no undue weight to the material and must be presented in a way consistent with a neutral point of view. This point can be obtuse to interpret, so be prepared to answer questions concerning coverage if they happen to arise.

Structure

The third point relates to the structure of the article. An encyclopedia article should have a lead section comprising two or three paragraphs minimum that adequately summarizes the information in the article, and subsequent section should be broken down in such away as to make reading the article more manageable. How the article should be broken down depends on subject matter, but in general every time a major point shift occurs you should have a new header for that, and any time notable events occur within the major point a subsection header should be considered.

Spelling and grammar

Arguably the easiest point to adequately address, this requirement demands that the article be free or nearly free of grammatical errors and spelling mistakes.

Supporting materials

The last points the use of visual aids, and demands that some amount of images, pictures, diagrams, graphs, or tables be present in the article. By project standards, all visual aid material should be pulled from public domain or copyleft sources whenever possible, therefore you are strongly encouraged to refrain from using copyrighted images unless the article's subject matter compels the use of copyrighted images.

Higher assessments

Once the article reaches B-class you are presented with a couple of options on how to proceed to Featured Article status. The recommended route is to request an internal peer review so that other Milhist editors can read through what you have and recommend additions to the article or suggest areas of improvement. Once you're satisfied that the peer review suggestions have been implemented you should consider filing either for a GA-class review or an A-class review to allow for a more precise evaluation of the article's status in relation to the Featured Article criteria. Note that regardless of which path you choose, you are responsible for addressing any concerns that arise pertaining to your article from here on.

Do not for any reason whatsoever have an A-class review and a GA-class review run simultaneously; although both of these assessments are means to achieve a higher assessment rank previous editors that have had both reviews run at the same time have encountered situations in which the GA-class reviewer and the A-class reviews have recommended different courses of action for the same problem, and resolving this conflict usually forces the editor who asked for the reviews to choose between to equally unattractive options: fail the GA-class review to obtain A-class or attempt to convince the A-class reviewers that the change is necessary in the article, which can lead an article to fail an A-class review.

During both process your article will be checked against reduced version of the featured article criteria to ensure that for its current stage it meets all applicable standards for an assessment promotion. Once your article clears A-class, it is ready for the last leg of its journey: the Featured Article Candidate page.

Featured Article Candidates

The last leg of the article's journey to Featured Article status is review by the Wikipedia community on the Featured Article Candidates (FAC) page. This is by far the most demanding aspect of the quest for Featured status. For several weeks, your article can be subject to a microscopic analysis of every point you've have added up to now. Questions will be asked on your choice of wording, your reasons for using certain pictures, your omission of certain aspects that some feel should be in an article, the sources you have used, adherence to to the manual of style, image licensing, and so forth. For first-time users, this can be a very stressful time, especially since some of the people who will comment will have little if any affiliation with the Milhist project.

To initiate the FAC process, add the template {{subst:FAC}} to the top of the talk page of the article you wish to nominate for Featured status and save the page. After the page reloads from saving you will see a beige-colored box with an incomplete bronze star to the left and the following text to the right:

This article is a current featured article candidate. A featured article should exemplify Wikipedia's very best work, and is therefore expected to meet the criteria. Please feel free to initiate the nomination. Also edit here and add Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/ARTICLE NAME HERE/archive1 to the top of the list. After the FAC director or one of his two delegates promotes the article or archives the nomination, a bot will update the nomination page and article talk page. Do not manually update the {{ArticleHistory}} template when the FAC closes.

You should see a redlink and a light blue link, these are the two links you need to get the FAC nomination going. Begin by clicking the redlink; this will take you to preloaded page for the FAC nom. The top part of the page will display a notice concerning the FAC page, giving out recommendations and other advise that should be observed during the FAC process; this advice includes ensuring that all other assessments are closed and archived before the FAC is filed and that you are one of the main contributors to the article you are about to nominate. This is important because the main contributors are likely to be more familiar with the sources and other material on the page and as such are held to be the people most suited to address any concerns that arise during the FAC.

Below this message you should see a section with a lot of coding -- page name, archiving, main nominator, and so forth. Ignore this and head to the last line of the nomination, it should say "This article is about... ~~~~". Place your mouse between the three dots and the four tildes and tell the community a bit about the subject of the article. Try to be concise but interesting; there are usually 40 or more nominations at FAC and you want to stand out if possible – this is an opportunity to sell the article to potential reviewers as something worthy of their time. It's not a competition, but a good nomination statement could prove the difference between your article getting promoted and it not generating sufficient commentary for that to occur. Those reviewing are not going to care too much why you think the article should be featured, they will judge for themselves and leave comments to that effect on the page.

When you are done typing your nomination statement, hit save and the page will load up with the proper header, the nominator, the FA toolbox, and your statement. Once the page finishes loading, copy the title of the page (Wikipedia:Featured Article Candidates/YOUR ARTICLE/archive 1) and go to Wikipedia:Featured Article Candidates. When the page loads, hit the edit tab at the top and scroll down to the list of current candidates. Paste your article nom name at the top of the list, and add "{{" and "}}" to start and the end of the name, this will allow your nomination to be trancluded to the list. Once you finish this hit save, then return to the talk page of the article you nominated. The red link that stated "please feel free to initiate the nom" should now read "please feel free to leave comments", and the light blue link should no longer appear.

From this point your job is to monitor the nominations page and address any and all concerns that arise during the FAC. Try your best not to argue with the reviewers; if you disagree on a point of suggestion for improvement then explain clearly and concisely why you think the suggestion should not be implemented. The rule at FAC is that anyone who opposes should leave comments that can be addressed, so if the complaint can not be realistically be addressed the FAC coordinators reserve the right to ignore it. This is not a license to ignore every suggestion given during the FAC, you should ALWAYS treat EVERY comment added as a good faith attempt to improve the article.

The FAC will likely stay open for some weeks, at the end of which the nom will be reviewed and closed by the FAC coordinators. After the nom is closed a bot will run through the list of recently closed noms and update their status accordingly. If the article is promoted, the article history template will display a full bronze star, and a bronze star should also be visible in the upper right-hand corner of the article.

Unwritten rules

Wikipedia has a long history of telling its editors that any article can become featured, and an equally long history of telling editors that this particular article (whatever it may be) can never be featured. Therefore, a few pointers are offered as a advise to those pushing for FAC status.

Beware of relying too much on one source

Reliable sources are reliable sources, but FAC reviewers have a tendency to frown on editors that rely almost exclusively on one source for all citations or to those who cite almost entirely to internet sources. Be prepared to confront these editors with evidence that the information is accurate, reliable, and in compliance with WP:RS standards.

Watch your length

FAC editors have it in their heads that for an article to be featured it must be long. On more than one occasion this hubris has caused spectacular confrontations over article size as it relates to FA standards. Know that there is no size requirement for a featured article, so be prepared to duel with those who oppose due to a short article's size.