Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Featured articles

Beginnings

We're just starting, and I'm not quite sure how to organize this. We need a place where people can put their nominations, and we need to have guidelines for what is an acceptable nomination so no one wastes their time. Wrad (talk) 02:51, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

When i initiated this Wikiproject, i had a complete different idea for initiating this WikiProject. My idea was to improve all the Featured Articles (already passed FAC), fight vandalism of the Featured Article. Help the articles during FAR from getting defeatured and also to help the editors during FAC. I think u can understand my objectives. Amartyabag ^TALK2ME 16:28, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

A comment and a tentative idea

I'm not sure where general comments are to go now, so please forgive me if I have the wrong place here. I've been reading the discussions, and think this project would be a great help to people. In this respect, I'd like to offer an idea I have that has its origins in my professional work as a research scientist in which I had to publish research as well as being on call from various publishers of journals and academic book publishers for my services as a referee or reviewer, and sometimes as a copy editor for submitted material to the publishers for possible publication. Some of the publishers or journal editors/editorial boards had simple checklists that enabled people submitting material and the reviewers determine whether they had satisfied some basic conditions that all material had to satisfy in order to be seriously considered for publication. Now, this situation is a little different, but might I suggest that the development of a simple checklist, or even a progession chart (in the form of a checklist) outlining progress through the FAC process would assist people to see (a) what had to be done, (b) when it had to be done, and (c) what still had to be done. We could formalize it so that we required a visible progression through a number of stages in order to arrive at the right outcome for a given article submitted to FAC (pass, fail, or perhaps some halfway house, like an academic thesis being referred for further work) We could also make it less like an oversimplified box-ticking exercise by careful thought and addition of stages that require interaction and discussion about specific issues in an article (breadth of coverage, and similar matters.)

If there is some kind of one already in existence, then the fact that I felt it useful to make the suggestion perhaps indicates that any existing one is not visible enough at the moment, or perhaps it shows that an existing one it is swamped with excessive detail at the moment. I think that having something tangible and visible, with publically-viewable progress in progression charts would lessen the idea that there is something arbitrary at times in the ways different articles are treated, or that there are different standards being applied to articles from time to time.

What do people think about this? Is it at all feasible? Would it be at all helpful? Have I got a completely misleading cognitive model of what happens when an article is put through the FAC process?  DDStretch  (talk) 19:15, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I think it's an excellent idea. What sort of things would be on this checklist, specifically? I have no idea if there already is one. I think there used to be one, but it was very simplified. Basically: pass GA status, get a peer review, get it copy-edited, go for FA. Wrad (talk) 19:22, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I think it would be best if one could get a friendly editor (possibly more than one) with more direct experience of assessing or commenting on FACs to work with others to develop a checklist, as otherwise we might just be floundering around with a lack of easy to obtain help. It would be useful if more people could be drawn into the discussion here, and possible pitfalls as well as advantages could be exploreed. That way, we may have a good chance of minimizing any flaws in whatever might come out of this (if anything does.) From my own point of view, I'm just approaching it as one would approach some research design or some practical reasoning, which means I don't have as good a degree of hands-on experience as others would have of the actual issues involved in the FAC process.  DDStretch  (talk) 19:59, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

There are existing guidelines, manuals and other guides which must be followed for becoming a FA. The simple step is already mentioned by Wrad. Amartyabag ^TALK2ME 16:32, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Kicking around some ideas about copyediting

We'd get more Featured Articles produced with less stress at FAC if more professional copyeditors (and wannabes) volunteered more of their time. That's not news, it's been discussed before, but I'm starting to get optimistic that we can make that happen. Can we brainstorm some ideas? - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 17:02, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

I recommend all copyeditors read The Reader Over Your Shoulder by Robert Graves. You'll be given some invaluable guidelines for what to do. Do not take this advice lightly.Gr2d (talk) 18:38, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

There's a discussion going on at User talk:Secret/Attract More Editors which is relevant to this. ϢereSpielChequers 19:34, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

That's a good discussion, I'll keep an eye on the subject of general recruiting. But I'm interested in something more targeted. Copied from WT:MOS:

Many GAN reviewers have pushed back against the style guidelines, feeling that they distract from more important things. I believe we'd see less resistance if we had 20 well-trained copyeditors volunteering at GAN and FAC, and that would increase throughput, too. Ideally, we'd want copyeditors with 20 years of experience who are either retired or are bored with what they're copyediting in their day jobs. For anyone who's interested in volunteering, or in recruiting and training copyeditors, see WT:WikiProject_Featured_articles#Kicking around some ideas about copyediting. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 14:46, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

• I wished there was a working copyediting clinic. My content contributions (and my local Wikiproject's) have slowed to a trickle because there is a backlog of articles that few or no editors (that can meet de-facto brilliant prose standards) are willing to copyedit. And it's not fun exhausting every avenue of copyediting assistance, only to get no response or be told it's "the wrong department". - Mailer Diablo 12:56, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

  There used to be a league of copyeditors but it was (I believe) overwhelmed. There is now a guild of copyeditors WikiProject. I think the idea to focus on FAC and GAN may make a copyediting project more viable, as it limits the number of articles concerned, and increases the chance of active nominator and reviewer involvement with the copyeditor. Geometry guy 19:31, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I've talked with some professional copyeditors at WP:GOCE and a few who have left Wikipedia, and I think the first order of business is to solve the mystery of why we have virtually no professional copyeditors helping out at FAC and GAN. My sample size is too small to know for sure, but I know it's not what you think: most copyeditors enjoy their work, and some of them aren't copyediting much now and want to do more, and some are bored silly by copyediting classified ads all day. They'd love to apply their skills and be valued for that, and chat with colleagues about articles that interest them. And it's not that they wouldn't be welcome either; many Wikipedians don't think much of job descriptions and diplomas, but we generally love experience and competence. When people think of copyeditors as "fussy", they're really thinking more of young copyeditors who don't know what they're doing yet; the more you know, the more you know how little you know, and the more sympathetic you are to a wide variety of writers, and you learn when you can get away with letting them do what they want to do. My experience is that Wikipedians are almost always happy to have their articles copyedited in a helpful and professional way. So, where are they? - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 20:17, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

Here's my idea, and if anyone sees a problem, tell me now. Per WP:BEANS, rather than suggest a long list of things that might possibly go wrong, I'm simply going to create a subdirectory over at the Guild of copyeditors called Copydesk where copyeditors can get feedback from other copyeditors. Anyone who answers a lot of questions will be encouraged to create their own subdirectory, mostly for the purpose of giving people a chance to point out their deficiencies; this is only fair for people who spend a lot of time criticizing other people's edits, and copyeditors who are getting advice need to know the reputations of the people giving the advice. But the main copyediting page will stay focused on the business of copyediting, not on discussions over what FAC and GAN or the style guidelines ought to be; these misplaced comments will be moved to a subpage. We've never seriously tried to nurture a copyediting community on Wikipedia; I suspect it will pay off nicely, for everyone, including and especially the copyeditors. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 16:49, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

Nurturing a community of copyeditors is the way to go for the long-term in solving the current situation. How we go about doing it, promote it, and getting the momentum going is the hard part, and will require a good amount of effort on our part. - Mailer Diablo 11:13, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

[Idea]

Not sure this is the good place for explain my idea, but try : I never have noticed that there were Featured articles on Wikipedia, imagine my surprise when I discovered that those articles are marked by a so tiny star ! I think good articles must be noticed with a large image and/or note at the top, this could refer to featured articles like "premium articles" on Wikipédia and inform people coming on Wikipédia that they are reading a well-writted article. What do you think about it ? (Sorry, my mother tonge isn't english but french)--79.81.247.96 (talk) 23:28, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Featured articles/Science FAC symposium

• See Wikipedia:WikiProject Featured articles/Science FAC symposium Ling.Nut ^{(talk—WP:3IAR)} 12:59, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

WikiProject Coordinators' working group

Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. -Drilnoth (talk) 00:29, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

WT:V discussion regarding sources

There is a discussion regarding a proposed modification of WP:V in relation to free online sources vs off-line/non-free online sources, see WT:V#WP:PAYWALL and freely accessible sources. Since featured articles are supposed to represent Wikipedia's "gold standard", I'd like to request extra input in that discussion from the participants of this wikiproject. Nsk92 (talk) 07:59, 28 August 2010 (UTC)

A-class expansion

B-class, Good, and Featured articles are common on Wikipedia, from what I can tell, and (at least the higher two) have very structured review processes. Here are my comments from the A-class talk page:

"I feel that an A-class review is useful, sorting out articles that (while perhaps not quite good enough, or well known enough, for whatever reason, to make it to FA), in terms of quality, equal those of a professional encyclopedia. I am a little surprised that only a few WikiProjects have very active A-class review sections, and am wondering if it would be possible to make this category as prominent as either FA or GA. Any ideas?"

Thanks for your comments. DCItalk 17:39, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Comment on the WikiProject X proposal

Hello there! As you may already know, most WikiProjects here on Wikipedia struggle to stay active after they've been founded. I believe there is a lot of potential for WikiProjects to facilitate collaboration across subject areas, so I have submitted a grant proposal with the Wikimedia Foundation for the "WikiProject X" project. WikiProject X will study what makes WikiProjects succeed in retaining editors and then design a prototype WikiProject system that will recruit contributors to WikiProjects and help them run effectively. Please review the proposal here and leave feedback. If you have any questions, you can ask on the proposal page or leave a message on my talk page. Thank you for your time! (Also, sorry about the posting mistake earlier. If someone already moved my message to the talk page, feel free to remove this posting.) Harej (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

WikiProject X is live!

Hello everyone!

You may have received a message from me earlier asking you to comment on my WikiProject X proposal. The good news is that WikiProject X is now live! In our first phase, we are focusing on research. At this time, we are looking for people to share their experiences with WikiProjects: good, bad, or neutral. We are also looking for WikiProjects that may be interested in trying out new tools and layouts that will make participating easier and projects easier to maintain. If you or your WikiProject are interested, check us out! Note that this is an opt-in program; no WikiProject will be required to change anything against its wishes. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thank you!

Note: To receive additional notifications about WikiProject X on this talk page, please add this page to Wikipedia:WikiProject X/Newsletter. Otherwise, this will be the last notification sent about WikiProject X.

Harej (talk) 16:57, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Good Lists

There is a proposal to set up a new classification level, Good List. Please add your comments there. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:17, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Wiki Loves Pride!

You are invited to participate in Wiki Loves Pride!

• What? Wiki Loves Pride, a campaign to document and photograph LGBT culture and history, including pride events
• When? June 2015
• How can you help?

  1.) Create or improve LGBT-related articles and showcase the results of your work here

  2.) Upload photographs or other media related to LGBT culture and history, including pride events, and add images to relevant Wikipedia articles; feel free to create a subpage with a gallery of your images (see examples from last year)

  3.) Contribute to an LGBT-related task force at another Wikimedia project (Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons, Wikivoyage, etc.)

Or, view or update the current list of Tasks. This campaign is supported by the Wikimedia LGBT+ User Group, an officially recognized affiliate of the Wikimedia Foundation. Visit the group's page at Meta-Wiki for more information, or follow Wikimedia LGBT+ on Facebook. Remember, Wiki Loves Pride is about creating and improving LGBT-related content at Wikimedia projects, and content should have a neutral point of view. One does not need to identify as LGBT or any other gender or sexual minority to participate. This campaign is about adding accurate, reliable information to Wikipedia, plain and simple, and all are welcome!

If you have any questions, please leave a message on the campaign's main talk page.

Thanks, and happy editing!

User:Another Believer and User:OR drohowa

(timestamp may not be accurate) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Another Believer (talk • contribs) 15:13, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Stand-alone lists being nominated as Good Articles

FYI

 – Wikipedia talk:Good article nominations#Request for comment on stand-alone lists being nominated as Good Articles

--Redrose64 (talk) 23:00, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Note that one of the three proposals in this RfC involves creating a separate "Good Lists" rating and process independent of the GA process. BlueMoonset (talk) 18:21, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

WikiProject collaboration notice from the Portals WikiProject

The reason I am contacting you is because there are one or more portals that fall under this subject, and the Portals WikiProject is currently undertaking a major drive to automate portals that may affect them.

Portals are being redesigned.

The new design features are being applied to existing portals.

At present, we are gearing up for a maintenance pass of portals in which the introduction section will be upgraded to no longer need a subpage. In place of static copied and pasted excerpts will be self-updating excerpts displayed through selective transclusion, using the template {{Transclude lead excerpt}}.

The discussion about this can be found here.

Maintainers of specific portals are encouraged to sign up as project members here, noting the portals they maintain, so that those portals are skipped by the maintenance pass. Currently, we are interested in upgrading neglected and abandoned portals. There will be opportunity for maintained portals to opt-in later, or the portal maintainers can handle upgrading (the portals they maintain) personally at any time.

Background

On April 8th, 2018, an RfC ("Request for comment") proposal was made to eliminate all portals and the portal namespace. On April 17th, the Portals WikiProject was rebooted to handle the revitalization of the portal system. On May 12th, the RfC was closed with the result to keep portals, by a margin of about 2 to 1 in favor of keeping portals.

There's an article in the current edition of the Signpost interviewing project members about the RfC and the Portals WikiProject.

Since the reboot, the Portals WikiProject has been busy building tools and components to upgrade portals.

So far, 84 editors have joined.

If you would like to keep abreast of what is happening with portals, see the newsletter archive.

If you have any questions about what is happening with portals or the Portals WikiProject, please post them on the WikiProject's talk page.

Thank you.    — The Transhumanist   10:56, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

Email list subscribe page design

I just noticed the "by email" button on the today's featured article box on the Main Page, and clicking on it led me to mail:daily-article-l. I think a mailing list of TFA is a good idea, but the design of the subscribe page is...bad, to say the least. It's way too complicated for what should be a very simple task. Is there any way we could update it? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:40, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab) § A tool to help find a good/featured article companion for non-featured articles

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (idea lab) § A tool to help find a good/featured article companion for non-featured articles. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:50, 26 September 2020 (UTC)